Liverpool and Manchester United have played out a 0-0 stalemate at Anfield on the first game after the second international break. On a day meant to eulogize Liverpool great, Kenny Dalglish, who got a stand named after him, a game like this was the ideal one to play. This was the perfect opportunity for Liverpool to rise from their poor form and make a statement by beating their bitter rivals.
But the game was very mellow and barely lived up to the hype of being called one of the fiercest rivalries in football. For instance, the first yellow card was brandished in the 74th minute. There were no fights or bust ups either. Growing up watching Gary Neville’s antics at Anfield and even Rafael, this seemed like such a disappointment.
Anyway, we held Liverpool to a draw, like last season, De Gea was our man of the match, like last season, and we were dreadful going forward, like last season. Considering Liverpool’s current run of form, we should have taken the game to them and smashed them like we did to the other clubs. But instead, we gave them the space and respect.
I knew we reached the abyss of the game when Chelsea reject, Mohammed Salah, started running rings around our defence. However, we did keep Coutinho relatively silent.
Anyway, while this game was strewn with disappointments, De Gea stood out and stepped up, making God-like saves to keep us in the game. Seriously, do not sell this man Ed, no matter what. We have the best goalkeeper in the world playing for us and I couldn’t be happier. He has been our man of the match today and has been, on a consistent basis since Moyes.
All the other players were either half decent or pretty bad. Our attacking midfield was all over the place and did not seem to get a single pass right. We let Jordan Henderson and Winjaldum(I could not be bothered to look his spelling up), boss our midfield through the game. Martial and Rashford got dominated by Joe Gomez. I don’t even know who he is!
I don’t understand why we need to sit back when we’re away to teams in the top 6. If we don’t exploit our good form now, when are we going to? I wouldn’t have a problem if we gave our everything and then drew, but we didn’t even leave first gear.
Anyway, despite my rants and disappointment, this did not have any major impact on the league table and we are still very much in the running. At the time of writing this, City lead Stoke by 2 goals after only 26mins which send us second in the table, two points ahead. Nevertheless, that’s my rant done. Now we travel to Benfica and hopefully we can close the deal in the group as soon as possible so that we can spend rest of 2017 on our league performances. Either way, on to Benfica!