Well that was brilliant for 45 minutes. Poor for s minute. Solid for 40 minutes. Then poor for a final 4 mins! But oversll got to be happy with that. First half was sensational. Thisgo what a player, incredible. thought Mane was back to his best and Diaz was good again. Salah, not sure what’s going on there. Actual performance was better today than previous. His touch seemed better but his finishing again letting him down. The chip with his right foot should have been a goal and then a couple shots with his left we’re tame. Bobby had another chance to just lob the keeper today same as benfica midweek and faffed around with it again. Really we should have killed that game off in second half but hey, into the final and for 90% of the game we were pretty comfortable. Def helped by City's defence being weaker plus the keepers **** up. But when your have a 50m and 30m cb pairing, can’t really moan about injuries. Think Cancelo is a very good full back, but he’s a much better LB when can cut inside onto his right foot in middle of park rather than going down line at RB so he was anonymous today.
True but he will be fit. What I dont understand is why gundogan has been benched against us. He is also important. Imo the myth of city squad was exposed today. Thats not a real reserve keeper Zinchenko looks awful. Just left to atrophy this season. Very odd. No rb reserve so over goes cancelo who was playing lb cos well... they refuse to sign a lb for some reason. Fernandinho looked every bit of his age today. Clown of a ref let him away with murder. Grealish at 100mil is the biggest joke since that Brazilian lad, denilson? Rodri isn't a fantastic no 6. I think gundogan has helped him hugely this season
The thing that annoyed me most , and both teams were guilty of it was this obsession with playing out from the back. It’s great when you’re playing teams not to the level of Man City (who are just as good at pressing as we are) but when we do, we **** it up, just like their keeper did today and we did last week when we conceded within the first 5 minutes.
Yeah. We actually had very good success with salah v zinchenko in terms of playing it up there but refused to do so very much. For me there should be a plan here and not just dicking with it at times. I rarely see a genuine channel run option or a ball really down the line for the full back. Esp left wing. Eg. Konate to alisson to vvd. Back to alisson. Ball into middle to fabinho. Does it go wide to robertson? No back to alisson. Plays it out to konate. Konate plays it to trent who's back is to play cos the ball is not great. He only can play it back to konate. Konate closed down Back to alisson Alisson has to chip it at robertson. And out it goes. If the idea is to draw out midfielders or whatever then the intent must be to move it quick. And be facing the right way. Far too many times we see cbs or full backs facing goal when getting ball and it just spirals from there Alisson likes a ball to the cms feet. A bit too much imo. The ball needs to go wide and down the channel or vvd needs to play it over the top a bit more.
Just want to put this here. Klopp had been in 10 semi finals before today. His record's only blemish was Southampton league cup semi. 9-1 It's now 10-1 with another to come. >90% success rate. Guardian by contrast has been in the most dominant club in each country he managed in. Bayern and barca were automatically in cup semis and city have been doping the league and cups in England for years. He has 25 semi finals lost 9 of them. So 10/26 failures now. So again not amazing from guardiola is it. Over 1 in 3 failures. Klopp might have had heart breaks in finals from not being the dominant side but he's got there.
Meh. People moan when playing out gives away a goal. But no one says anything when keeper whacks it long and gives away possession and the other team go up to the other end and score. All about %. Risk and reward. Klopp and Pep see the reward from that as benefitting them over the course of the season. Same way we play this high line knowing that majority of the season we’ll catch people offside more then they get through with the added benefit that being pushed up more will allow us to win the ball back in more dangerous areas.
This is true. Though I doubt robertson aimlessly tossing ball into the centre of midfield is part of that risk/reward quotient The fact is our record v anyone who's decend has been littered with goals conceded. The league games v city and chelsea were drawn from winning positions due to just seemingly being incapable of stopping ourselves give the ball away poorly in bad spots.
So does everyone want palace to win right? Or do we not care. I personally don't really want to play Chelsea or City again this season.
The issue isn’t the fact that we play out from the back against the crap/average teams where we have the space to be able to do that but against the top teams like city, we constantly put ourselves under pressure, make numerous mistakes and concede goals. We pressurised city causing their keeper to mess up and concede to Mane, and last week we constantly messed up allowing De Bruyne to score.
But at the same time, go long against city and lose the 50/50 battle (the defenders should beat our forwards in the air) and suddenly your back under pressure constantly. City are best when they can dominate the ball inside your own half and wear teams down. Giving the ball back to them from goal kicks isn’t right tactic. Let’s be honest, klopps drawn with them twice 2-2 and beaten them 3-2 so has a better record than most so can’t really question the tactics that much.
Hmmm Frankly there's been quite a few but lfc 19/20 comes to mind. We are talking 2 goals a game conceded here. Not what we want against the teams in our run in like utd, wolves or spurs. Every games is a cup final now.
I don't see how this is a bad thing - it's only to be expected that we'd drop more points against better teams. I'd be more worried if it was against the weaker teams. Only City have conceded fewer in the league, and the deeper we get into the cups the better the teams we face are going to be.
Even with a misfiring Salah, we’re scoring nearly 3 a game. (11 in last 4). I’ll take that, even it if means we concede the occasional goal or two.
My wet dream is finally coming true - seeing a midfield of Fab, Thiago and Naby. And boy is it cooking! We’ve seen some liquid football vs city and Benfica. some context is required and this city team was far from their strongest but still had some very good players. Another cup final and another chance for silverware. Winning breeds winning. I want it all
I want to win. Chelsea and City are the two most dangerous clubs we could play (in any competition). Yes. Defo Palace. And Real Madrid (if we make it to CL final). City is always an entertaining game, and I feel like we're usually the slightly better team. Chelsea we just cancel each other out and it comes partially down to who gets lucky on the day. Palace and Real we should beat.
What's going to occur when Salah gets his scoring head on again? He's going to start again sooner or later. It could be perfect timing. I just know we're all very lucky to be witnessing what I believe is the most complete team in the World at the moment. All the parts are functioning as close to perfection as I think is possible. Experience tells me that the quadruple is a pipe dream. My heart is telling me something different. "Enjoy every sandwich" as the great Warren Zevon once said. Just enjoy it boys. We're a wonderful team and club
