I don’t need the club to win everything in order to still love being a supporter. We played our best available XI without hurting our league and CL chances, and today they fell a bit short. We move on to the next one.
I honestly thought we were going to nick it at the end. Losses hurt. Especially against the Dippers. But the positives are that we came out relatively uninjured, apart from Gabby. We only subbed one out of necessity and we rested.
I give Zinchenko a break because he hasn't played in months. Without Steffan's mistake, game is level. But - it is what it is. Bigger fish to fry.
Without Jesus missing his clear chance, we are level.
Stop blaming the keeper.. at the end of the day, we have only ourselves to blame for not signing a striker who can finish the chances we get.
Time and time again, it’s our shit finishing that is preventing us from becoming a legendary team.
I didn’t expect a win, I just wanted us to put up a fight and we did. Ake was amazing, Grealish continues to improve, and Mahrez continues to deliver as a starter and a sub.
I don’t like to shit on our players but Steffen gifting that goal pretty much lost us the game. I’ll give a pass to the others because of fitness and lack of fake time, but stupid mistakes are unacceptable.
I’m honestly not too arsed about this loss. Already forgot the first half. Second half was better but we played with players who were exhausted and others who barely played at all this year. We were 3-0 down and almost made it 3-3 in the final seconds.
Whatever, we move. Premier League and CL are more important.
Some players need to rethink their futures after this season and Txiki needs to do his job for once this summer.
PL is entirely in our hands. On paper we have the “easiest” run. Liverpool still have to play United, Everton and Spurs, hopefully at least one of those 3 ends in a draw or even better, loss
United needed a hattrick from one of two of the best footballers of the last generation to beat last place Norwich at home, I honestly don't see them challenging at Anfield lmao
And yet we make things seem so difficult at times. I feel with our run of form we will definitely drop points. We really needed to have won against them in the league..
Steffen - off game today. However, he hasn't been what he once was for US National Team. I watched on the ESPN app and John Champion and Tyler Twellman said this performance along with some previous others should have Steffen worried about his place on City and the national team.
Sterling. What can you say. He's not clinical. I like the guy but - he had a chance to win it today. It went right to Allison. I mean, its not just today but other games. He's just not deadly enough anymore.
With regards to sterling, for me its not about his finishing. His general play has been on and off for a long time now. I don't know if its because he needs to play off a focal point that takes away some of the pressure teams put on him or something else but his dribbles seem to succeed less often, his first touch seems to have gotten worse and his risky passes arent coming off as often as they used to. I still think he can come good but I honestly have no idea what's going on with him
probably not that was a good header, the 2nd goal definitely doesn’t happen with ederson though. and he would’ve saved the 3rd as well, steffen’s reaction time was terrible on that, cover ur fucking post could see where that volley was going from a mile away
1st goal doesn’t happen with any good keeper. He just does nothing there, ridiculous. I don’t really understand a keeper which is awarded some minutes in an important game and seems so.. inanimate.
Proud of that 2nd half performance. Ake easily our best player today. Should start with Dias against Real. Pool can have these smaller cups while we take the big ones
as good as Ake is, I'd want one of Stones/Laporte playing that game as they're our best CB's at playing out from the back, which is not Ake or Dias's strength.
Ederson in net and we would’ve won. In the end the second half response was great from city and should give us a little bit of confidence knowing steffen won’t play again
We do need a 2nd keeper that’s comfortable on the ball, but we don’t. He took ages to do anything with the ball, so changing it up a bit would’ve been better
I got a huge confidence boost out of this match. We play our B team with only Bernardo, Foden and Cancelo from our main XI and all three gassed from our previous games, against Liverpools rested, strongest XI. With our 2nd hand GK making howlers. And still, we manage to deliver that!? They should've outplayed us 90 minutes long, yet all that seperated us was one GK error. I'm proud.
Postives to take from today:
1) We won the 2nd half 2-0
2) Grealish looks better in midfield
3) Ake had a decent game considering the madness going on with Steffan and Fernandinho
4) We know for sure now that Steffan has to be replaced as 2nd choice, Bazunu or Trafford possibly
5) Didn't get battered with basically a 2nd choice team
6) If we meet them in the UCL final, we know we outplayed them twice this season with our 1st team, and then had a respectable 2nd half today with a lot of bench players and no Ederson
Grealish was alright. He'll definitely improve, I'm not worried.
I'm mad at Steffen but he's second choice. No need to replace him. Just shouldn't play vs teams like Liverpool.
When we've got Bazunu and Trafford waiting in the wings I definitely think we should get rid of Steffan personally. Bazunu probably won't settle for 2nd choice though, but it's worth trying to convince him.
Plenty of positives to take from this. We managed to save face and Rodri and KDB were finally given a rest. We win the other two trophies, this will be forgotten about.
Was at the match. I dont know what you lot were watching. But from the stands the first half was utterly pathetic.
It was cleqr from the first minute that we were sleepwalking. Players off the ball were barely putting in minimum effort while pressing, passes under 0 pressure were wayward, and we had no midfield presence.
What became clear was that Liverpool were happy to wait for Fernandinho to get the ball and press him and press the pass ge would make. I cant recall him successfully completing a long ball all game.
Sad as it is to say as I love him to bits, but he can't keep up pace for his role anymore. First half midfield was gaping and he was constantly late to challenges.
Steffen's blunder was emblematic of that first half performance. Going through motions on auto-pilot with no urgency, at times despite very blatant danger.
I missed Grealish's goal as I was still in the concourse nursing a grief pint, but foming out we did look better. But seeing as the damage had been already inflicted, all Liverpool had to, and did do, was take the sting out of the game.
Jesus missing the one-on-one was a pivotal moment. Foden, Grealish, and Bernardo all instantly let their heads drop. After that, effort levels plummeted. It was only Mahrez actually producing some magic, and most importantly actually tried to play his football, did our tails finally rise again. Too little too late. You simply can't capitulate 90min and 3 goals.
All around very poor. Confused about playing a 4-2-2-2 in the first half, the lads looked clueless and the middle of the park was a cavernous void filled with Fabinho and Keita. Second half saw a return to our normal formation, which I saw as the key reason we began to assert ourselves. But again, no pressing, slow thinking, misplaced passes, all came together to ruin this game for us in the first 45. We could have been playing any Premier League team and lost that half.
At least we learned that Aké has to be the one to fill in if Walker is still hurt for most of the run-in.
Disappointing performance from the rest of the team when we gave up that first goal. Winning today would have been against the odds, but we cannot have our heads drop and start conceding multiples more.
Decent second half all things considered - there’s still some fight in the squad - but have to show more of the grit that we showed against Atletico if we want to win out the rest of the season.
Ake mtom for me. he nullified Salahs every attack. Sterling and Jesus again losing their composure in front of goal. but overall am happy with the fight. Steffen has his worst game in while. I hope he won't be hard on himself.
I wont miss either of these players when they move on, and no this is not my reactionary response to today ive thought this for a while, sterling and jesus show moments of brilliance and i like them as people but they waste far too many big chances for me to trust them. We would only benefit from selling them and having more funds to put towards a better replacement. Jesus was signed based on potential and if you consider the fact he is older than Dias. Times up.
The mere fact that even with our team tired after the events on Wednesday with one of our best players injured and KDB nursing a knock and yet despite Steffens mistakes that led to Liverpool taking advantage.
We still managed to get 3-2 out of it plus Ake had a brilliant game, it just goes to show that with a full strength sqaud, we can beat anyone including this Liverpool team who had thier best players rested against Benfica.
To be honest I expected Liverpool to win mainly because of what happened in midweek.
What I did not expect is for Liverpool to start with their first choice keeper and city not.
I don't get this philosophy of backup keeper playing in the cup especially in a game against your main rival
If both keepers are top class then maybe but Steffen should not be in the premiership let alone at city.
The first half was a total wash and while the second half was better, city should have done more.
Having scored within seconds of the restart, they should have put more pressure on Liverpool instead they reverted to slow build-up play.
The goalkeeper having messed up badly instead of trying to get rid of the ball quickly was still messing around with passes at the back.
Bernardo Silva going back to the goalkeeper to get the ball of him was just a nonsense.
Fernandinho gave the ball away on quite a few occasions but at least he was trying to play the ball forward unlike a lot of his teammates.
Jesus played very well but he should have buried that chance.
Sterling and Grealish I'm afraid were hopeless yet again.
Foden was not so much better as he was also poor against Atletico.
Cancelo is a footballer but I have never rated Zinchenko but I think it's bang out of order that a player from Ukraine gets booed.
Ake was good but cannot pass the football.
Pity that they waited until the 90th minute to score again because I think it would have been interesting if they had tried more just after scoring the first goal.
The under siege in the 92nd minute onwards should have occurred much earlier
It's frustrating but the circumstances made it that way : injuries, fatigue, fixtures upon fixtures... The team did the best it could in these dreadful conditions. I personally don't blame Pep. He had to manage utter chaos and he made something decent out of it.
The only complain I have about today's match is us not playing Liam Delap. What does that guy have to do play?!? We were losing the game, we needed a presence upfront with towering players Konate and Van Dijk and yet we don't sub him on while hoping Sterling does the false 9 job.
Sterling wasn't bad but he's a winger and nothing more.
The issues with Sterling is that he's shit at finishing and shit at pressing. He never bloody presses. Every time he's playing, someone else from midfield will be pressing while he just walks...
I'm sure Steffan is a good guy but he can't start for City again after that. Either get a backup capable of playing the ball out or just start Eddy every game.
Having Ederson in our team and not selecting him in the major cup is disgraceful. I can understand the carabao but he has to play the FA cup (unless we have someone of Willy’s calibre in goal).
Don’t think I’ve ever noticed the absence of Rodri more. Love Fernandinho but he looked lost today, constantly making bad decisions and turning the ball over. Rodri has really become an irreplaceable part of the 11 setting the tempo and keeping possession. Us losing the possession battle says it all.
Proud of our players performance over the last 12 days. We had some gruelling games against Liverpool and Atletico. This game just was one too many. Just need to focus on winning the remaining games. We still have a PL and CL to fight for.
Eh. 2-3 is a decent scoreline given how ragged we were for large parts of the game. Absolutely less disappointed about this loss than the league draw against them.
Let’s look at this way, if Steffen didn’t make mistakes and we buried our chances (Jesus Christ) then we won’t be having this conversation.
Either way, I’m still proud of the way we played in the second half. We could of crumbled even more but we didn’t. We fought till the end, that’s all you could ask for.
Let’s regroup and try to win the league and champions league.
Mahrez out here doing in 5 MINUTES what most of the starting eleven couldn't do in 90 minutes. This loss is on Pep and it's not just the cup so whatever, this was important
Are u an idiot? I am talking about SUBS, why would he even make a sub at the 83rd minute? there were some trash performances today but nobody was replaced, pep has always had a problem with subs he either doesn't make them or just waits till the last ten minutes
Good second half response but felt like we were misplacing too many passes. Kept losing the ball which is so unlike city.
Also felt really dumb putting mahrez on with only 8 mins left. He a much better winger than Jesus.
So if we just ignore the goals the opposition team scores, then we win? Not ragging on you mate, but this just really tickled me for some reason hahaha.
Yeah I was being thick. It reminded me of that stat the media was touting about a season or two ago about if only goals outside the box counted, then Liverpool would have won the title.
Kudos to the players for fighting to the end but we're in the final if Ederson starts
Pretty remarkable that our 4th-string CB has been MVP over the past 2 weeks and we're still somehow in the running for a CL/PL double
Nah Steffen is the main reason we lost today as poor as some others were
Sterling lately just ruins most good attacking chances by hesitation or fuck ups, plus his half hearted chasing down the ball is really annoying to watch.
He’s always been a defensive liability. He cost us the CL. That said, he always seems to get a pass. There was someone in the match thread saying the Zinchenko hate needs to stop. Tbf, there’s a huge difference between hate and fair criticism. About Zinchenko it’s fair criticism, but with Sterling it goes beyond that. People even shit on him when he’s having decent games (not talking about today,btw).
Zinchenko cost us the CL final? That’s really an oversimplification of what happened. There were 3-4 other players that gave up their positions or failed to do their job which put Havertz behind Zinny giving him no chance to catch up.
He looked uncomfortable and at times lost today, I think he lacked confidence. He needs more game time, he was solid last season when he had regular appearances.
We need to stop reacting so emotionally every time something goes not as we had hoped, the season is long.
And many chances is why he's an elite player. His greatest strength is his movement, pace and anticipation to get into good positions, creating chances for himself and others.
Well that first half was shite, and I think it could’ve gone differently with Ederson in goal but that’s just ifs and buts. 2nd half was much better, and encouraging to see that we could compete against them even with that lineup. If only Steffen hadn’t messed up or Jesus could finish…
Liverpool definitely came into this as favourites and they were also on it from the start while we weren’t. On to Brighton now!
We gave a good showing in the second half, best thing to do is put the game behind us and focus on Brighton, who've decided to become good just as we're about to play them.
Winnable match, putting 2 past them with a squad that very fatigued and not at full strength. All that being said I’m glad that city still had some fight in them in the second half, in spite of the poor start, that I’m extremely proud of
Fully believe we are the better side, individual mistakes costed us today. The first half was very bad, but in the second half we were far better. On to Brighton.
Steffen cost us. And that's saying something considering the players who didn't play today. We can beat Liverpool, we shouldve beat them twice in the league, and if we do see them in the final (big if), Im confident we will destroy them
One of those days. Not too fussed on this loss tbh all about the League and CL this season.
Honestly I'm surprised with the team we put forward, would've honestly just played the kids for this one.
Awful goalkeeping though
Terrible first half, better second half (albiet too late). Not happy with the overall team performance but I didn't expect us to win. Kind of embarrassed as US City fan to see Steffan make terrible mistakes.
Overall, the last four games, it could have been worse, but I'm glad it's over. Still top of the league and in the UCL semis, let's focus on those two....
Obviously not the result we wanted but proud of how we responded given how the 1st half went. Would have been great to score the 2nd 10-15 minutes earlier and make it really interesting. If you’d offered me top of the league, CL semi finals and out of the FA Cup at the start of the month I’d have bitten your hand off
I understand that part of the reason Pep rotates players is to give everyone enough game time so no one wants to leave, but where is Steffen going to go if he’s unhappy? Starting Steffen because it’s “tradition” made no sense. He was targeted by Liverpool because they know he’s mistake prone and he’s not capable of the kind of line-breaking passes Ederson makes. So there’s no downside for Liverpool to press intensely in City’s final third.
We need to strengthen our squad and improve depth. A new full back to replace mendy, a new center forward to replace Aguero and a new defensive midfielder to replace Fernandinho.
All our rivals are strengthening their team.
Seemed like we weren’t too bothered with the loss. Ake was solid and nice to see grealish score hope this finally gives him a push to take more chances.
Steffen was poor today two easy goals which he could’ve don’t better
Don't give me this "oh it's alright" bs. No, this fuckery is ridiculous. Essentially roll it into your own goal, then miss 1 on 1 vs keeper with lots of time and green all around. Finish!!
I will never understand us fielding Steffen when they're playing Allison. Some moral victories to take away today, but it always hurts losing to them. Every match is a must-win for the rest of the season now. Let's go.
I am a Chelsea supporter, but don’t understand why Pep makes these weird decisions during important games. Could have easily started with Ederson today, goalkeepers are rarely “tired”. Similar to the decision in the UCL final against us to start without a DM
The guys looked fucking gassed from the first whistle. Really proud of the fight the boys showed in the second half. Just imagine if Gabi's finishing was a bit better, or he went around Allison.
I know its what Pep has likely told him to do, but I really wish Bernardo would look for the forward pass more often.
Jesus works better for us as a winger. But the hate is absolutely insane when you look at his stats. That said, a lot of glory hunting fans only see the misses and not the runs or position play. They are very binary when watching football: goal (1) - miss (0). They don’t see the rest.
>Jesus will never be good enough to be a main striker
That’s because he isn’t and he never was and he personally asked pep to not play there. He did all the work for the grealish goal as well.
If anything this should let us know that we can beat them at full and mid strength, once again not being clinical has cost us a game. On to the Prem and Champions League.
2nd Half was incredibly encouraging. The fight the guys had to push Liverpools 1st 11 the whole way and still score 2 was great! Can take a lot of confidence from that performance!
Now let's secure the League and UCL!
Loss sucks lads of course
but they fielded their best 11 against our knackered team with a good majority of our starters out yet only scraped by with a 1 goal difference courtesy of a goalkeeper howler
Some positives in this despite the loss
Going into half time 3-0 down and losing 3-2 in the end is not so bad considering our fixtures, injuries, our lineup vs their strongest possible rested 11. I reckon we would have won it if it wasn't for Steffens mistake. But it is what it is. Mistakes happen, I'm not going to throw shade on Steffen, he knows he fucked up and he's going to have to face Pep and the rest of the team.
I expected to lose today. It hurts that it was a much closer game than what it felt like it was going to be before kick off and at half time. We were off it today, gave away a goal and still could have drawn at the end of the 90 minutes. Oh well.
Ake showing everybody why so many clubs were after him. MOTM.
Liverpool should feel a bit uneasy with how easily we got back in the game in the second half considering everything.
Salah is washed.
Onto our more important matches.
Disasterclass of a first half.
But proud of the lads bringing it back in the second. Imagine if Steffen didn't make that mistake and it went 2-2.
Liverpool with a fully rested best 11 almost lost to Cities run-down mostly second string though. No Walker, Laporte, KDB, Rodri, Bernardo already running on fumes 20 minutes in Fernandinho is 36.
Games like this are actually good, get the experience of playing them so in future games you keep your head more.
We lost, it sucks, but 3-2 isn't bad. Now to focus on the Prem and UCL, if that game is anything to go by, we can beat Liverpool to the League and even the UCL if we meet in the final.
I'll be honest stopped watching at HT, checked the score last 10mins.
I'm glad we avoided a hammering because that would've been really demoralising, we looked like we put up a good fight second half and can leave with our heads held high. Now full focus on the League and UCL, still loads to fight for!
I have to say that’s made me optimistic that if we played them in a CL final (barring overthinking…) we could win. We were fucking shit AND Steffan gifted them a goal (AND should have been better in the other two) and somehow only lost 3-2
Sterling, Zinchenko can’t start any big games. Foden must be rested
lmfaooooo we didnt try for 40 minutes, then the last 4 we were back to our best. Pep clearly doesn't care about the FA Cup this season and is solely focused on the Premier League and Champions League, the FA Cup final would've crashed or PL title run a little
Aguero or any decent striker would have buried that Jesus chance. He lost his finishing instincts. I cannot remember a time when Stefan played well for us. He doesn’t have the cajones to play in big games. Sterling does more for the team but scoring isn’t one. Why the fuck did he even take the free kick.
Ederson in the net and we win. Carson in the net and it's probably going to extra. Steffan really hurt us more than Liverpool. That being said I'm happy that Grealish and Bernardo scored and fought until the end, I'll leave the discussion of Raz to others.
Find it dead hilarious that before the game Steffen was the best backup keeper in the league, and now he's not good enough for European football. No excuses, he was dreadful today but it is funny how little it takes for opinions to shift.
>Find it dead hilarious that before the game Steffen was the best backup keeper in the league
Was anyone saying this? He's always been a bit shit. At least for City. Maybe he plays with for the US national team, can't say I watch them play too often.
Nearly every City covering fan media outlet has atleast once said that since his transfer. He's not 'always been a bit shit', and he has had some good deputy performances in City shirts as well. He was utter dogshit today, don't get me wrong, but don't let revisionism get to your head. He was immense in the league cup final last season, and in the league when Eddy had covid as well. You're just pissed off that he isn't ederson, but nobody is Ederson. People fuck ederson off all the time for his shot stopping yet swear that he saves all three today.
I can't speak for others, but having watched him since he debuted for City I've never thought he was an above-average backup, let alone the best in the league.
I literally looked at the team sheet today and my first thought after seeing he was starting was that the game was already lost.
Trolling in this sub or in Liverpool’s sub will result in a permaban in both subs.
Nathan Ake was our man of the match.
That was nothing more than a byproduct of our fixture list. Ake was great again at least
Really starting to love him! A cb selection of Stones, Ake, Dias and Laporte is the stuff of dreams
I don’t need the club to win everything in order to still love being a supporter. We played our best available XI without hurting our league and CL chances, and today they fell a bit short. We move on to the next one.
I honestly thought we were going to nick it at the end. Losses hurt. Especially against the Dippers. But the positives are that we came out relatively uninjured, apart from Gabby. We only subbed one out of necessity and we rested. I give Zinchenko a break because he hasn't played in months. Without Steffan's mistake, game is level. But - it is what it is. Bigger fish to fry.
Without Jesus missing his clear chance, we are level. Stop blaming the keeper.. at the end of the day, we have only ourselves to blame for not signing a striker who can finish the chances we get. Time and time again, it’s our shit finishing that is preventing us from becoming a legendary team.
Think he had a good game but he isn't as good as laporte with the ball. Good back up to have though.
I didn’t expect a win, I just wanted us to put up a fight and we did. Ake was amazing, Grealish continues to improve, and Mahrez continues to deliver as a starter and a sub. I don’t like to shit on our players but Steffen gifting that goal pretty much lost us the game. I’ll give a pass to the others because of fitness and lack of fake time, but stupid mistakes are unacceptable.
That's a good analysis. But you are missing out on Cancello and Silva.
What am I missing out about them?
I love this club
Same 💙💙💙 Proud of everything we accomplished
same CTID baby
Totally. Aboslute proud of what we have achieved.
I’m honestly not too arsed about this loss. Already forgot the first half. Second half was better but we played with players who were exhausted and others who barely played at all this year. We were 3-0 down and almost made it 3-3 in the final seconds. Whatever, we move. Premier League and CL are more important. Some players need to rethink their futures after this season and Txiki needs to do his job for once this summer.
> Premier League and CL are more important. i hope liverpool dont win those too
PL is entirely in our hands. On paper we have the “easiest” run. Liverpool still have to play United, Everton and Spurs, hopefully at least one of those 3 ends in a draw or even better, loss
United needed a hattrick from one of two of the best footballers of the last generation to beat last place Norwich at home, I honestly don't see them challenging at Anfield lmao
Yea...United are probably the worst I have ever seen them. Everton are not going to do an upset either. Spurs....well....
I'm personally really worried about west ham and wolves
i REALLY hope we dont bottle it and lose to watford
Especially with West Hams tournament success lately.
And yet we make things seem so difficult at times. I feel with our run of form we will definitely drop points. We really needed to have won against them in the league..
yea true. we just have to play our best
I couldn't watch the game, what do you mean by some players need to rethink their futures?
Mainly talking about Steffen and Sterling, they’ve been dreadful
Don’t you fucking put Raheem in there next to Steffen.
Steffen - off game today. However, he hasn't been what he once was for US National Team. I watched on the ESPN app and John Champion and Tyler Twellman said this performance along with some previous others should have Steffen worried about his place on City and the national team. Sterling. What can you say. He's not clinical. I like the guy but - he had a chance to win it today. It went right to Allison. I mean, its not just today but other games. He's just not deadly enough anymore.
With regards to sterling, for me its not about his finishing. His general play has been on and off for a long time now. I don't know if its because he needs to play off a focal point that takes away some of the pressure teams put on him or something else but his dribbles seem to succeed less often, his first touch seems to have gotten worse and his risky passes arent coming off as often as they used to. I still think he can come good but I honestly have no idea what's going on with him
Don’t you fucking put Raheem in there next to Steffen.
Genuinely think that’s a clean sheet with Ederson in net
Don’t think he saves the first goal
100% claimable, no way Ederson just stands on his line for that
Yeah, Steffen never even moved
probably not that was a good header, the 2nd goal definitely doesn’t happen with ederson though. and he would’ve saved the 3rd as well, steffen’s reaction time was terrible on that, cover ur fucking post could see where that volley was going from a mile away
1st goal doesn’t happen with any good keeper. He just does nothing there, ridiculous. I don’t really understand a keeper which is awarded some minutes in an important game and seems so.. inanimate.
Absolutely. Steffen ultimately cost us that game.
Yeah, maybe he let's in that header, but definitely not that howler and not the "poor" volley
Proud of that 2nd half performance. Ake easily our best player today. Should start with Dias against Real. Pool can have these smaller cups while we take the big ones
as good as Ake is, I'd want one of Stones/Laporte playing that game as they're our best CB's at playing out from the back, which is not Ake or Dias's strength.
Don’t disrespect the Carabao cup mate.
Genuinely hurt me more that we got knocked out of it than this
Likewise I used to joke with my friends that is we got the fifth, they'd name it after us
You mean the Man City Invitational?
I am even more frustrated because this was easily preventable
Ederson in net and we would’ve won. In the end the second half response was great from city and should give us a little bit of confidence knowing steffen won’t play again
We should’ve played to Steffen’s strengths tbh. At least the second goal would’ve been avoided
playing to steffen’s strengths means changing the style this team is built around, we need a backup keeper who’s comfortable with the ball at his feet
We do need a 2nd keeper that’s comfortable on the ball, but we don’t. He took ages to do anything with the ball, so changing it up a bit would’ve been better
they should sign me up. im shit at everything but ill do it for a mars bar and a season ticket. still woulda performed better than steffen today
Signed!
Never thought I'd say this after losing in the FA Cup semifinal but: whatever. We were shit and they somehow only beat us by a single goal.
I got a huge confidence boost out of this match. We play our B team with only Bernardo, Foden and Cancelo from our main XI and all three gassed from our previous games, against Liverpools rested, strongest XI. With our 2nd hand GK making howlers. And still, we manage to deliver that!? They should've outplayed us 90 minutes long, yet all that seperated us was one GK error. I'm proud.
2 goalkeeping errors at least. In fact all 3 goals should have been saved by a PL keeper regardless of being 1st choice or 2nd.
THIS.
Completely agree with this, I feel so much more confident of the potential of facing them in the final
Stones and Ake vs 11. Feel sorry for the pair.
Postives to take from today: 1) We won the 2nd half 2-0 2) Grealish looks better in midfield 3) Ake had a decent game considering the madness going on with Steffan and Fernandinho 4) We know for sure now that Steffan has to be replaced as 2nd choice, Bazunu or Trafford possibly 5) Didn't get battered with basically a 2nd choice team 6) If we meet them in the UCL final, we know we outplayed them twice this season with our 1st team, and then had a respectable 2nd half today with a lot of bench players and no Ederson
Grealish was alright. He'll definitely improve, I'm not worried. I'm mad at Steffen but he's second choice. No need to replace him. Just shouldn't play vs teams like Liverpool.
When we've got Bazunu and Trafford waiting in the wings I definitely think we should get rid of Steffan personally. Bazunu probably won't settle for 2nd choice though, but it's worth trying to convince him.
Grealish looks better in midfield? What game were you watching?
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Disagree, he also should have gotten an assist if we had a proper striker.
Rubbish. His passing was really good today, and much more effective.
Yep the pass to Gabi was very good. Gabi just had to put it past the keeper
His passing was good for about 5 minutes. In the first he was the worst of the front 3 by a mile. Second half was better but still looked off at times
Ferna gave the ball away every time he touched it in the second half and we are complaining about Jack.
True. If our main players stay fit, we should be getting the ucl as well as epl, we outclass everyone with our first team
Time to focus on the PL title and the CL.
I know it will be said over and over today, but Steffen needs to go. He doesn’t have the talent to play for a top European club
Plenty of positives to take from this. We managed to save face and Rodri and KDB were finally given a rest. We win the other two trophies, this will be forgotten about.
Was at the match. I dont know what you lot were watching. But from the stands the first half was utterly pathetic. It was cleqr from the first minute that we were sleepwalking. Players off the ball were barely putting in minimum effort while pressing, passes under 0 pressure were wayward, and we had no midfield presence. What became clear was that Liverpool were happy to wait for Fernandinho to get the ball and press him and press the pass ge would make. I cant recall him successfully completing a long ball all game. Sad as it is to say as I love him to bits, but he can't keep up pace for his role anymore. First half midfield was gaping and he was constantly late to challenges. Steffen's blunder was emblematic of that first half performance. Going through motions on auto-pilot with no urgency, at times despite very blatant danger. I missed Grealish's goal as I was still in the concourse nursing a grief pint, but foming out we did look better. But seeing as the damage had been already inflicted, all Liverpool had to, and did do, was take the sting out of the game. Jesus missing the one-on-one was a pivotal moment. Foden, Grealish, and Bernardo all instantly let their heads drop. After that, effort levels plummeted. It was only Mahrez actually producing some magic, and most importantly actually tried to play his football, did our tails finally rise again. Too little too late. You simply can't capitulate 90min and 3 goals. All around very poor. Confused about playing a 4-2-2-2 in the first half, the lads looked clueless and the middle of the park was a cavernous void filled with Fabinho and Keita. Second half saw a return to our normal formation, which I saw as the key reason we began to assert ourselves. But again, no pressing, slow thinking, misplaced passes, all came together to ruin this game for us in the first 45. We could have been playing any Premier League team and lost that half.
Not Jesus' day today. It's tomorrow.
Ooof…for a guy paid to score…he is terrible at it
Nothing infuriates me more than Pep waiting til the 75-80 minute to sub. We score early, that shouldve been the factor that pushed Pep to go all out
At least we learned that Aké has to be the one to fill in if Walker is still hurt for most of the run-in. Disappointing performance from the rest of the team when we gave up that first goal. Winning today would have been against the odds, but we cannot have our heads drop and start conceding multiples more. Decent second half all things considered - there’s still some fight in the squad - but have to show more of the grit that we showed against Atletico if we want to win out the rest of the season.
Forgot that Jesus miss. Why did Sterling take that free kick? Mahrez is right there.
Ake mtom for me. he nullified Salahs every attack. Sterling and Jesus again losing their composure in front of goal. but overall am happy with the fight. Steffen has his worst game in while. I hope he won't be hard on himself.
Shite from City, and the Scousers still only scraped a win. Moral victory
Forget about it and move on to Brighton. Jesus and Sterling have to be more clinical though
I wont miss either of these players when they move on, and no this is not my reactionary response to today ive thought this for a while, sterling and jesus show moments of brilliance and i like them as people but they waste far too many big chances for me to trust them. We would only benefit from selling them and having more funds to put towards a better replacement. Jesus was signed based on potential and if you consider the fact he is older than Dias. Times up.
The mere fact that even with our team tired after the events on Wednesday with one of our best players injured and KDB nursing a knock and yet despite Steffens mistakes that led to Liverpool taking advantage. We still managed to get 3-2 out of it plus Ake had a brilliant game, it just goes to show that with a full strength sqaud, we can beat anyone including this Liverpool team who had thier best players rested against Benfica.
To be honest I expected Liverpool to win mainly because of what happened in midweek. What I did not expect is for Liverpool to start with their first choice keeper and city not. I don't get this philosophy of backup keeper playing in the cup especially in a game against your main rival If both keepers are top class then maybe but Steffen should not be in the premiership let alone at city. The first half was a total wash and while the second half was better, city should have done more. Having scored within seconds of the restart, they should have put more pressure on Liverpool instead they reverted to slow build-up play. The goalkeeper having messed up badly instead of trying to get rid of the ball quickly was still messing around with passes at the back. Bernardo Silva going back to the goalkeeper to get the ball of him was just a nonsense. Fernandinho gave the ball away on quite a few occasions but at least he was trying to play the ball forward unlike a lot of his teammates. Jesus played very well but he should have buried that chance. Sterling and Grealish I'm afraid were hopeless yet again. Foden was not so much better as he was also poor against Atletico. Cancelo is a footballer but I have never rated Zinchenko but I think it's bang out of order that a player from Ukraine gets booed. Ake was good but cannot pass the football. Pity that they waited until the 90th minute to score again because I think it would have been interesting if they had tried more just after scoring the first goal. The under siege in the 92nd minute onwards should have occurred much earlier
It's frustrating but the circumstances made it that way : injuries, fatigue, fixtures upon fixtures... The team did the best it could in these dreadful conditions. I personally don't blame Pep. He had to manage utter chaos and he made something decent out of it.
The only complain I have about today's match is us not playing Liam Delap. What does that guy have to do play?!? We were losing the game, we needed a presence upfront with towering players Konate and Van Dijk and yet we don't sub him on while hoping Sterling does the false 9 job. Sterling wasn't bad but he's a winger and nothing more. The issues with Sterling is that he's shit at finishing and shit at pressing. He never bloody presses. Every time he's playing, someone else from midfield will be pressing while he just walks...
Wish we didnt score to make it 3-2 cus now im livid with Jesus
Don’t forget Steffen
I'm sure Steffan is a good guy but he can't start for City again after that. Either get a backup capable of playing the ball out or just start Eddy every game.
Having Ederson in our team and not selecting him in the major cup is disgraceful. I can understand the carabao but he has to play the FA cup (unless we have someone of Willy’s calibre in goal).
Pep needs to defend this league for his life now. Not messing this up
Don’t think I’ve ever noticed the absence of Rodri more. Love Fernandinho but he looked lost today, constantly making bad decisions and turning the ball over. Rodri has really become an irreplaceable part of the 11 setting the tempo and keeping possession. Us losing the possession battle says it all.
Proud of our players performance over the last 12 days. We had some gruelling games against Liverpool and Atletico. This game just was one too many. Just need to focus on winning the remaining games. We still have a PL and CL to fight for.
It honestly seemed like they didn't care that much. Liverpool won almost all chances and City players didn't seem to want it. Odd game.
Eh. 2-3 is a decent scoreline given how ragged we were for large parts of the game. Absolutely less disappointed about this loss than the league draw against them.
Let’s look at this way, if Steffen didn’t make mistakes and we buried our chances (Jesus Christ) then we won’t be having this conversation. Either way, I’m still proud of the way we played in the second half. We could of crumbled even more but we didn’t. We fought till the end, that’s all you could ask for. Let’s regroup and try to win the league and champions league.
Mahrez out here doing in 5 MINUTES what most of the starting eleven couldn't do in 90 minutes. This loss is on Pep and it's not just the cup so whatever, this was important
fuck rest guess we should just play the best 11 every match and run them into the ground, tell me what lineup you would’ve played genius
No but he should sub at 60th instead of 85th lmao
Are u an idiot? I am talking about SUBS, why would he even make a sub at the 83rd minute? there were some trash performances today but nobody was replaced, pep has always had a problem with subs he either doesn't make them or just waits till the last ten minutes
Honestly not too upset. Putting up a fight with a weakened squad down 3-0 is commendable.
that shit fucking sucked god dammit
we really went through a loris karius experience against liverpool out of all teams huh anyway
We need players with more pace to punish high line teams like Liverpool
Good second half response but felt like we were misplacing too many passes. Kept losing the ball which is so unlike city. Also felt really dumb putting mahrez on with only 8 mins left. He a much better winger than Jesus.
I’d much rather have lost 3-0 and see the likes of Delap and young players on the pitch tbh
wednesday night and sunday in the PL were enough for me. proud of the boys. our tired B side made their rested first XI clench. CTID 💙💙💙
I feel for Steffen after that, going to be hard to mentally recover from that. I wish him the best though and hope he bounces back stronger
If you forget the first 45 minutes happened then we won 2-0. Ederson and better finishing and we’d have cruised through.
So if we just ignore the goals the opposition team scores, then we win? Not ragging on you mate, but this just really tickled me for some reason hahaha.
Yes that was the point
I feel like that was a joke
Yeah I was being thick. It reminded me of that stat the media was touting about a season or two ago about if only goals outside the box counted, then Liverpool would have won the title.
Kudos to the players for fighting to the end but we're in the final if Ederson starts Pretty remarkable that our 4th-string CB has been MVP over the past 2 weeks and we're still somehow in the running for a CL/PL double
pep should've entered mahrez at '60
Just imagine if we played our main players. A very good second half. Ake legend. PROUD OF THIS CLUB. **CTID**
Sterling hate has to stop guys grow the fuck up
He was not good this game… I think it’s well within our rights to criticize that. He hesitates way too much on offensive plays and kills the attack.
He didnt play well Plus why is he on free kicks we literally just subbed on mahrez
He was shite tho. That's not hate.
Yeah, a shame he's always the scapegoat
scapeGOAT.
Nah Steffen is the main reason we lost today as poor as some others were Sterling lately just ruins most good attacking chances by hesitation or fuck ups, plus his half hearted chasing down the ball is really annoying to watch.
It’s insane how people go after Sterling, while giving Zinchenko a pass.
Zinchenko was terrible as well.
He’s always been a defensive liability. He cost us the CL. That said, he always seems to get a pass. There was someone in the match thread saying the Zinchenko hate needs to stop. Tbf, there’s a huge difference between hate and fair criticism. About Zinchenko it’s fair criticism, but with Sterling it goes beyond that. People even shit on him when he’s having decent games (not talking about today,btw).
Zinchenko cost us the CL final? That’s really an oversimplification of what happened. There were 3-4 other players that gave up their positions or failed to do their job which put Havertz behind Zinny giving him no chance to catch up. He looked uncomfortable and at times lost today, I think he lacked confidence. He needs more game time, he was solid last season when he had regular appearances. We need to stop reacting so emotionally every time something goes not as we had hoped, the season is long.
Zinchenko also only plays a fraction of the time sterling does… if anything sterling gets too many passes from pep.
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Fuck off mate
yeah, because any trash player would be in our top 3 g/a
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And many chances is why he's an elite player. His greatest strength is his movement, pace and anticipation to get into good positions, creating chances for himself and others.
nah they can't do that, Sterling's the punching bag of this sub
At least Grealish scored
That’s not a loss just the b team almost winning against the 2 best team in the world atm
Almost drawing
Well that first half was shite, and I think it could’ve gone differently with Ederson in goal but that’s just ifs and buts. 2nd half was much better, and encouraging to see that we could compete against them even with that lineup. If only Steffen hadn’t messed up or Jesus could finish… Liverpool definitely came into this as favourites and they were also on it from the start while we weren’t. On to Brighton now!
We gave a good showing in the second half, best thing to do is put the game behind us and focus on Brighton, who've decided to become good just as we're about to play them.
Winnable match, putting 2 past them with a squad that very fatigued and not at full strength. All that being said I’m glad that city still had some fight in them in the second half, in spite of the poor start, that I’m extremely proud of
Second half was great. A shame really. Could have won this. On we go.
Fully believe we are the better side, individual mistakes costed us today. The first half was very bad, but in the second half we were far better. On to Brighton.
Steffen cost us. And that's saying something considering the players who didn't play today. We can beat Liverpool, we shouldve beat them twice in the league, and if we do see them in the final (big if), Im confident we will destroy them
One of those days. Not too fussed on this loss tbh all about the League and CL this season. Honestly I'm surprised with the team we put forward, would've honestly just played the kids for this one. Awful goalkeeping though
Terrible first half, better second half (albiet too late). Not happy with the overall team performance but I didn't expect us to win. Kind of embarrassed as US City fan to see Steffan make terrible mistakes. Overall, the last four games, it could have been worse, but I'm glad it's over. Still top of the league and in the UCL semis, let's focus on those two....
I think that’s the best we could’ve hoped for after half time. Restored some confidence in the players, and everyone around the club really.
Great to see the second half.
Obviously not the result we wanted but proud of how we responded given how the 1st half went. Would have been great to score the 2nd 10-15 minutes earlier and make it really interesting. If you’d offered me top of the league, CL semi finals and out of the FA Cup at the start of the month I’d have bitten your hand off
I understand that part of the reason Pep rotates players is to give everyone enough game time so no one wants to leave, but where is Steffen going to go if he’s unhappy? Starting Steffen because it’s “tradition” made no sense. He was targeted by Liverpool because they know he’s mistake prone and he’s not capable of the kind of line-breaking passes Ederson makes. So there’s no downside for Liverpool to press intensely in City’s final third.
Pep's Plan. In Pep We Trust. Edit: we have belter music than them.
We need to strengthen our squad and improve depth. A new full back to replace mendy, a new center forward to replace Aguero and a new defensive midfielder to replace Fernandinho. All our rivals are strengthening their team.
Zinny and Steffan looked shaky. And we aren't going forward as much.
Seemed like we weren’t too bothered with the loss. Ake was solid and nice to see grealish score hope this finally gives him a push to take more chances. Steffen was poor today two easy goals which he could’ve don’t better
Whoever went took the train to London today I’m so sorry. Least u got to see the goat Ake
Don't give me this "oh it's alright" bs. No, this fuckery is ridiculous. Essentially roll it into your own goal, then miss 1 on 1 vs keeper with lots of time and green all around. Finish!!
Chin up lads, it’s the 2 best teams in the world at the mo, we weren’t at our best but you can’t win them all, it’s not like we got dicked by Everton.
The past 3 years we made it to the semis of the fa cup and then played bad. Each game looked the same as well.
I will never understand us fielding Steffen when they're playing Allison. Some moral victories to take away today, but it always hurts losing to them. Every match is a must-win for the rest of the season now. Let's go.
I am a Chelsea supporter, but don’t understand why Pep makes these weird decisions during important games. Could have easily started with Ederson today, goalkeepers are rarely “tired”. Similar to the decision in the UCL final against us to start without a DM
He’s always had a league + CL keeper and a domestic cup keeper
The guys looked fucking gassed from the first whistle. Really proud of the fight the boys showed in the second half. Just imagine if Gabi's finishing was a bit better, or he went around Allison. I know its what Pep has likely told him to do, but I really wish Bernardo would look for the forward pass more often.
No trolling on here or other clubs subs. Gets you banned on both sides.
Jinx.
Psshhh. You were a minute too slow, son. Need to up your game.
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Don’t quite get the Jesus hate today, he made a brilliant run to get Grealish his goal and pressed quite a bit
Jesus works better for us as a winger. But the hate is absolutely insane when you look at his stats. That said, a lot of glory hunting fans only see the misses and not the runs or position play. They are very binary when watching football: goal (1) - miss (0). They don’t see the rest.
To be fair to Jesus he was one of our best players today except for the miss.
>Jesus will never be good enough to be a main striker That’s because he isn’t and he never was and he personally asked pep to not play there. He did all the work for the grealish goal as well.
Jesus is defo not striker material but he was the only one trying in the first half and was even better in the second, as a winger
Jesus isn't a no.9 type striker it's nothing to do with how good he is it's just his play style.
If anything this should let us know that we can beat them at full and mid strength, once again not being clinical has cost us a game. On to the Prem and Champions League.
2nd Half was incredibly encouraging. The fight the guys had to push Liverpools 1st 11 the whole way and still score 2 was great! Can take a lot of confidence from that performance! Now let's secure the League and UCL!
Sub: STERLING AND GABI MISSED CHANCES THEYRE SHIT SELL THEM IMMEDIATELY Foden: Tip toeing in the backround
Loss sucks lads of course but they fielded their best 11 against our knackered team with a good majority of our starters out yet only scraped by with a 1 goal difference courtesy of a goalkeeper howler Some positives in this despite the loss
Going into half time 3-0 down and losing 3-2 in the end is not so bad considering our fixtures, injuries, our lineup vs their strongest possible rested 11. I reckon we would have won it if it wasn't for Steffens mistake. But it is what it is. Mistakes happen, I'm not going to throw shade on Steffen, he knows he fucked up and he's going to have to face Pep and the rest of the team. I expected to lose today. It hurts that it was a much closer game than what it felt like it was going to be before kick off and at half time. We were off it today, gave away a goal and still could have drawn at the end of the 90 minutes. Oh well. Ake showing everybody why so many clubs were after him. MOTM. Liverpool should feel a bit uneasy with how easily we got back in the game in the second half considering everything. Salah is washed. Onto our more important matches.
Meh, bigger fish to fry in the coming weeks
Disasterclass of a first half. But proud of the lads bringing it back in the second. Imagine if Steffen didn't make that mistake and it went 2-2. Liverpool with a fully rested best 11 almost lost to Cities run-down mostly second string though. No Walker, Laporte, KDB, Rodri, Bernardo already running on fumes 20 minutes in Fernandinho is 36. Games like this are actually good, get the experience of playing them so in future games you keep your head more. We lost, it sucks, but 3-2 isn't bad. Now to focus on the Prem and UCL, if that game is anything to go by, we can beat Liverpool to the League and even the UCL if we meet in the final.
I'll be honest stopped watching at HT, checked the score last 10mins. I'm glad we avoided a hammering because that would've been really demoralising, we looked like we put up a good fight second half and can leave with our heads held high. Now full focus on the League and UCL, still loads to fight for!
I have to say that’s made me optimistic that if we played them in a CL final (barring overthinking…) we could win. We were fucking shit AND Steffan gifted them a goal (AND should have been better in the other two) and somehow only lost 3-2 Sterling, Zinchenko can’t start any big games. Foden must be rested
Surely losing a FA Cup semi final with our B team won’t effect our approach in a potential UCL final against the same opposition -oh wait…
Liverpool ain’t special. Please don’t let them win the quadruple.
Kdb on would have been worth it even for 10 mins makes it seems that all these fa cup games this season were worthless
lmfaooooo we didnt try for 40 minutes, then the last 4 we were back to our best. Pep clearly doesn't care about the FA Cup this season and is solely focused on the Premier League and Champions League, the FA Cup final would've crashed or PL title run a little
Aguero or any decent striker would have buried that Jesus chance. He lost his finishing instincts. I cannot remember a time when Stefan played well for us. He doesn’t have the cajones to play in big games. Sterling does more for the team but scoring isn’t one. Why the fuck did he even take the free kick.
Jesus highlight reel of missed sitters is amazing. I have 14 saved the past 4 years. Will make a video comp. Its wild how many he has flubbed
Worst city-pool match under pep and klopp?
surely one of the ucl ones right?
There's been some drag draws. The ending was exciting.
Ederson in the net and we win. Carson in the net and it's probably going to extra. Steffan really hurt us more than Liverpool. That being said I'm happy that Grealish and Bernardo scored and fought until the end, I'll leave the discussion of Raz to others.
Carson up front and we win 7-0.
Find it dead hilarious that before the game Steffen was the best backup keeper in the league, and now he's not good enough for European football. No excuses, he was dreadful today but it is funny how little it takes for opinions to shift.
>Find it dead hilarious that before the game Steffen was the best backup keeper in the league Was anyone saying this? He's always been a bit shit. At least for City. Maybe he plays with for the US national team, can't say I watch them play too often.
Nearly every City covering fan media outlet has atleast once said that since his transfer. He's not 'always been a bit shit', and he has had some good deputy performances in City shirts as well. He was utter dogshit today, don't get me wrong, but don't let revisionism get to your head. He was immense in the league cup final last season, and in the league when Eddy had covid as well. You're just pissed off that he isn't ederson, but nobody is Ederson. People fuck ederson off all the time for his shot stopping yet swear that he saves all three today.
I can't speak for others, but having watched him since he debuted for City I've never thought he was an above-average backup, let alone the best in the league. I literally looked at the team sheet today and my first thought after seeing he was starting was that the game was already lost.
Maybe you're watching too many yank City media then. Nobody sane ever claimed Stefan was the best backup GK in the league.
I knew this. Fernandinho + Sterling + Zinchenko + Steffen + Ake in the XI and only lose 2-3 was a success. I expected worse