Manchester City vs. Liverpool: *Bumper* Post-Match Analysis

Paul Tomkins, Andrew Beasley, Daniel Rhodes and other TTT regulars will give their thoughts on the match for 24 hours after the game, so the article received via email is unlikely to be the final version. There's statistics from the match and videos too.

Post-Match Thoughts

Paul Tomkins

It’s hard to score goals and win games if a key tactic involves the central link striker, Cody Gakpo, turning quickly and running directly, and is tactically fouled repeatedly by the same player – who gets a yellow, and then, at 1-1, does it again, and gets nothing.

Refs in big games these days just bottle things. Protect the spectacle, and fuck fairness, seems to be the directive. We can’t have an early sending off, for a sending-off offence.

But then you’re dealing with institutional cheats on a day like this.

With the number of charges facing City, accrued over a decade and more, then if that was a person they’d be put on suspension; an individual with 100+ charges against their name would be unable to continue as normal.

Every bit of their "alleged" financial cheating, if true (and what do people think?), allows them to stock up on even more quality players, beyond everyone else who plays fairly, and who have more limited options on the bench.

Any money spent by cheating FFP then brings in more money, via prizes. It's like buying a house with stolen money and then watching its value rise – then thinking you're a genius because you just made a killing when you sold it. You can then buy the next house "clean", but it all started with the stolen money.

City had two injuries, but the Reds had five important players out, and some younger ones unfit, too.

Goals change games. But so do referees – and there's no accusation here of the ref cheating. Just bottling the big, obvious, clear-cut decision at the crucial time. And of course, not allowing Liverpool to even go near Jack Grealish, or Jack Squealish if no one has coined that term yet. Strong as an ox with calves like Giant Haystacks, he flops if you dare to even look at him.

Fabinho should have been booked early on, even if Grealish was playing the ref the whole match. The way rules are applied some weeks and not others is part of the loosening of integrity in our game, which is of course now swimming with the money of murderous regimes.

Fabinho should have been booked, and Rodri sent off. It's that simple.

There’s nothing good to say about Liverpool’s rotten second half, other than it would likely be a different story against 10 men, and at that point in the game, the Reds were well in the match; but Liverpool shot themselves in the foot straight after the break.

Three of the defence played two games for their country in the past week or so, and Virgil van Dijk and Andy Robertson have to decide where their priorities lie. Robertson turns 30 next season. He is becoming a problem, no longer a solution.

And by his standards, van Dijk’s season has largely been terrible, after a return to form last season; and it seems he’s getting slower, and looks painfully heavy-footed now. He can't move his feet quickly enough anymore. In full-stride he might be fast but he's got nothing off-the-mark.

He’s moaning at others, and not getting to attackers, or the ball. For a leader to become a moaner, when his own game is suffering, spells trouble. He came out to Riyad Mahrez for the vital equaliser and just didn't do anything.

His excellent aerial dominance aside, he’s melting fast on the face of things, and is nearly 32. He's not even passing the ball that well anymore.

Big decisions lie ahead, as he had been Liverpool’s colossus for years – at his peak the best centre-back I've ever seen in English football – but now he’s merely mortal.

He can't play every minute of every game for Liverpool and every minute of every game for Holland. Not when this sluggish kind of display is becoming too commonplace. He's living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks this is sustainable.

And unless he gets his first-time cross right (which can prove fruitful), Robertson is almost a waste of a player in possession. He has no other tricks, skills or ideas in his armoury.

He’d normally get top marks for out-of-possession, every single week – he's a dervish – but even that today was awful.

Captain Scotland by all means, but Liverpool need to look at a speedier new left-back with proper wing-play skills to play progressive football. Or it’ll just be possession breaking down too much. A weak link breaks the chain, and too often Robertson – with such a poor general footballing technique – is that man.

(The only other positive of Robertson's play is how he linked instinctively with Luis Díaz, but Díaz hasn't played for six months. He's been badly missed. Robertson seemed to read where Díaz wanted the ball, and that helped Robertson exceed the limited sum of his parts. But Díaz, who may be on the bench soon, may not be fully match-fit for a month, and we're in April already.)

If a squad-wise fatigue from last season has been part of the problem, then ageing players really have to prioritise Liverpool, or be pushed into squad-men.

I wouldn't fully write-off Robertson or van Dijk, given the team is not functioning properly (Fabinho, who also turns 30 next season, was very poor again today), but time is not going to get kinder. The midfield clearly needs, and will get, an overhaul.

And yet, while that should help both the defence and the attack (with more energy, pace, skill and domination in midfield, to both link and protect), these two individuals at the back have to do better than this.

If you go to Man City and your left-back just keeps giving them the ball with aimless punts, miskicks and blind crosses, and your leader at the back is just watching the game pass him by as if in lead boots, you're likely to get stuffed.

Indeed, one of the issues of fading greats is how they go from hero to hindrance, and there's that awkward middle period when they're still in the team on reputation, or hope. Too big to drop, but not doing what they used to.

For years, Van Dijk had no flaws. None. Now he has flaws.

He's lost the pace that meant no one could get past him. With it has gone his composure. And as I stated, his feet just aren't moving, as if he's rooted to the spot for too long – an issue I've seen all season.

And as he's someone who doesn't like to work too hard in games, because he could just scare forwards into submission (but then be sublime in the brief moments he had to go into top gear), Liverpool currently need someone who can work harder, especially with the recovery runs needed from a high line.

He plays so many games because he always played at 70%, but van Dijk at 70% is now looking more like Dejan Lovren.

Either van Dijk learns to play at 100% every game (which won't be easy as he turns 32, and will be impossible if he is not rested/rotated and retired for the Dutch), or there's a big decision to be made. He needs to start spending international breaks recovering, not playing.

This defeat won't define the season, but the second-half collapse won't help set up possibly the toughest three league games in eight days that the club has ever had. The second half was bereft of all quality, from the moment Robertson ruined an attack and then let them get in behind, and with van Dijk not able to catch an ageing Kevin de Bruyne.

I saw some positives, that I'll go onto, albeit only in the first half.

The second half of my comments and those of the others follow for subscribers only.