Game 2: Manchester City 3 Liverpool 0

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Manchester City 3 Liverpool 0 Monday 22nd August 2010

This is a game that we won’t forget in a hurry, where we were simply outplayed by Man City over the course of the game. City kept possession for the majority of the match (which we weren’t able to do) and they made their chances count (which we didn’t) and passed the ball really well. The penalty that gave City their third goal shouldn’t have been given, as there wasn’t much contact made between Skrtel and Adam Johnson, but Johnson made the most of what little contact there was count.

The funny thing is that we started quite brightly but from the moment that City got their first goal we basically switched off for the rest of the first half and couldn’t get hold of the ball. Then when we did manage to get hold of the ball we gave it away cheaply (even the normally reliable Steven Gerrard was guilty of that in this match). In the second half we played a lot better and had a few chances to reduce the deficit, but I am not sure that we were ever going to get back in this game.

Fernando Torres had a couple of decent attempts on goal and, I am sure, that if he were a bit sharper then he may well have put them away, but you can tell that he isn’t quite right at the moment, but is getting there and only more games will bring back the Torres we know and love. Afterwards the stats showed that we actually had more shots on goal, and more shots on target than Man City did. Not that these stats mean very much when you consider that Man City were the better team in the match and fully deserved the three points.

I am not going to say that we were bad, because I don’t believe we were that terrible; it is just that Man City stopped us playing and scored two good goals and a rather contentious penalty, which won them the game. We now lie in 17th position in the Premier League just above the relegation places, but as there have only been 2 games played then I don’t really think that we have much to worry about.

Yes, we could have done with winning this match, but we didn’t so we have to make sure that we play better in our next match and come away with three points rather than none.