Liverpool Stay Cold

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0:34Hello, everyone, and welcome to the latest edition of ESPN FC. I'm Alexis Younis, alongside Stevie Nicholl and Craig Burley. We're going to kick things off in the Premier League as Manchester City hosted Liverpool. All right, well, here are the match stats for this game as Manchester City definitely take three valuable points. Let's have a look at the standings. Arsenal still in front heading into the international break, but Manchester City breathing down their backs. And that's a story we have seen play out before. Let's get some reaction from this game. Here's Arnaz Slott. Of course, everyone is disappointed.

1:14So it was a very good start of the week, winning Villa, winning Real Madrid. But if you thought you already faced two strong opponents, then Man City comes to crush you. away also at the Etihad. That is for every team difficult, including us. And they were by far the parts better side in the first half. All right, Stevie. Where to even start with this? I think you've got to start with Manchester City totally and utterly outplayed Liverpool. And did that surprise you a little bit? It surprised me, the dominance that they had. And And other than maybe five minutes after halftime, where Liverpool looked as though they were trying to get back in it, that was it from Liverpool.

2:00I mean, we laughed at Spurs yesterday, how it took them so long to get a shot. Well, Liverpool were the same today. 73 minutes, Donnarumma made his first save from Sobber's leg. I mean, that just tells you how this game went. And there's only one thing that really annoyed me about the game, was Anna Slott sat on his hands in the first half and changed nothing. Liverpool were getting completely and utterly overrun in the middle of the park and he did nothing. You know, you've got Mo Salah standing wide on the left-hand side. He might as well have been sat in a deck chair watching what's going on.

2:38You know, Flanning Verts doesn't know how to defend properly and they were getting completely outnumbered in the middle because Doku was using his brains and he was either wide or sometimes he'd come in. I mean, he was all over the place. And he did nothing. I mean, at least affect the game. You know, tell people he'd come in, get more bodies in the middle of the park, and so they have to go at least on the outside. But do something. You can't just sit there and let the thing happen. Because all he did was sit and let the game pan out in the first half the way it had from the first whistle. You can't do that.

3:14That annoyed me more than anything else. Listen, Liverpool, at the end of the day, got what they deserved, nothing. They couldn't string three, four passes together at any stage. And when you're doing that against a City team that, at the very least, keep the ball well, then you're never going to get a hold of it yourself. So, yeah, this was absolutely... 3-0 is absolutely what it should have been. He seems to be getting the decisions the wrong way around, doesn't he? We sat and talked here. Stevie thought Gakpo would play. We didn't know if Vils was going to play. But he's the type of player, and certainly at this moment in time, because he's not playing as we know he can from his Leverkusen days, that you should be getting more of a tune-out on, like they did against Real Madrid, at home.

3:58But away from home, when you need a bit more physicality against one of the better teams who have got a lot of possession, you have to say that's another managerial error, and playing Vils in this game and not Gakpo. And Stevie mentioned changing things. He did change it, but not until half-time, when he put Iketiki a bit further wider and he put Virts in that false nine and he got a little bit of joy, but it was short-lived. It was short-lived. And I was just surprised in the first 20 minutes how standoffish they were and basically allowed City to do what they wanted with the ball. And yeah, the decision probably went against them with the Robertson ducking and the offside from the Virgil van Dijk header.

4:38But I think if you're putting that up as an argument, which I don't think many people are, as to that was a game changer, it really wasn't. It really wasn't a game changer because Liverpool were second best for 80 to 85 minutes of this game and that's a worry. But on the other side of it, City were good. Yeah. You know, there's no Rodri. Nico Gonzalez did a great job. Phil Foden picked up some good spaces. Doku was excellent. Bernardo Silva playing in the right and floating about was excellent. Ellen Haaland was his usual self. Nico O 'Reilly he's not even a fullback the young lad and Mo Salah never got a kick Mateus Nunez he's a midfielder he's playing it right back never got under any pressure all these things in the City side you said well they've got two non-fullbacks playing in the fullback positions and we're supposed to be one of the best teams in Europe surely we can get at them they never got at them and so City had it easy they played well they passed it well they looked dangerous they looked pacey they were excellent and Liverpool, I'm afraid, what is it?

5:45John Champion said on NBC, seven defeats in ten in all comps, five in six in the Premier League. So the Villa and the Real Madrid games have sort of gone already. All that good work. I mean, Liverpool are lucky that this wasn't the City of three years ago. Otherwise, it would have been double. Yeah. Because quite frankly, Hallam wasn't in the game that much. You know, considering the amount of ball that City had, they didn't do as much with it as they should have done. And you're talking about Doku. That's what Verts is supposed to be doing. They're both playing in the same position, and they're both asked to do the same thing.

6:21Sometimes you can go away. Sometimes come inside and do it. And that's what Doku did. He came inside. I mean, in the first half, I didn't think he had this in his locker. He played the best pass of the game to Phil Foden, who'd run right through the middle of the Liverpool's back line. And only because Foden had a bad touch on his right foot, they got away with it. But that was the best passer of the game. He gets the penalty. He scores the goal, sticks it in the top corner. All of the things that he did in this game, the other guy on the other side was supposed to be doing that. Not Doku. Liverpool have broken the British transfer record twice in the summer.

6:58And they're worse. Because the manager doesn't know what his best team is. From an away game, can I play Vils away from home? Or maybe play him at home because it's a bit easier. We've got a bit more ball, but away from home. what would you change? I mean, I'm sitting watching it and I'm going, Salah's a passenger again. I find it difficult to... I have a difficulty seeing Gakpo as the man that misses out. Yeah. He's a guy who, even when he's not playing well, he's a danger at the back post. He'll come inside and he'll create something there. He'll score a goal. And he's always making those runs.

7:36And I just find that... The fact that he's been left out the side and Mo Salah, who, let's be honest about it, has done nothing all season. Literally nothing, right? Barely got a kick today. And we talked about this a couple of weeks ago after the Chelsea defeat. When he's not scoring, creating and being a nuisance, he's offering no defensive help. Nothing. I mean, he did not come back once of any note and help Conor Bradley out. Not once. And that, you know, he couldn't see that the young man was up against it with Docker, who was on fire. So what happens then is midfielders have to start coming out because he ain't coming back.

8:15Which people say, well, he's never came back. But yeah, he's scoring 30 plus goals a year. He ain't doing that now and he ain't defending. So when he doesn't come back, Gravenberg or McAllister have to shuffle out here and guess what? Then you're overrunning the middle of Park away. So when you don't have everybody pulling in the right direction, when the proverbial is hitting the fan and it is for Liverpool at the moment, then you start to see the weak points in the rest of the team. And I'm sorry, I don't care if they're paying him 500 grand a week or not, whatever it is. His place in the team has to be up for grabs.

8:48Right, and that's the next question, because how do you change it? Because you look at the bench, I mean, the obvious change would be Frimpong, but he's injured, and he's been injured all season. So what do you do? Do you stick... I mean, who do you put out there? You're not putting Kays out there. I mean, you're not. He's not good enough. So after Fring Pong, there's nobody else. Unless you're going to fling Akpo on the right-hand side, which takes away his best attribute, which is coming inside and whipping balls in or coming into the far post for crosses, play the cross. Do you switch vets over there?

9:27You've just paid a record transfer fee, but you're going to put him somewhere where he's never played. I mean, so there's not a lot of choice. But at the end of the day, I absolutely think you have to wake Salah up by sitting on his backside and try and get on with it because he needs a wake-up call because he clearly doesn't realise he's not contributing enough because if he did realise that he would try and get back. Whether he can defend or not isn't the point. At least show willing and get yourself back in a position where you're going to try but he's not. As I said before he's standing on the line waiting on somebody getting them the ball.

10:07And that's it. That's all he's doing. And then, unfortunately, right now, giving it back to the opposition. If things continue like this for Liverpool, of course, Arnestad now has international break to ponder a few things. But Stevie, as you said, I mean, we've been talking about this for weeks and weeks now. Is the title race over for them? Oh, God. Have you seen it? I wouldn't throw it in yet. Oh, come on. Not yet. Come on. The way they're playing, yes. The way they're playing. Because it's not looking like an easy fix that we're going to see in the next two, four weeks. They've had ten league games.

10:40Is it ten? And we're talking about one of those ten games where they've actually played from the start to the finish, which was Villa. I mean, I'm not... Just because they've won games before, in terms of performance, they've been absolutely buying average and gotten away with... They've gotten away with being in eighth right now. I mean, they're eight points off. so look I'm glass half full here wow no you know shoot at some point you've got to look to the manager yeah to get this team on a run now we kept saying that last year about Man City this will end this will end this will end next week they'll put it all behind them and they'll go on some incredible run because that's what City do and it never happened right it didn't happen they couldn't they couldn't stop the free fall but they arguably had more injuries to key players than Liverpool have had.

11:38This manager just can't figure it out at this moment. He can thank his lucky stars. They had Villa at home last week and beat them. Never mind the Real Madrid game. Look, if they keep playing the way they are, it goes without saying. They'll be lucky to make the top four. That's how bad it has been. But from the other side of it, I think if you're Arsenal, who had a little slip up, obviously, at Sunderland. Props to them. Props to them. and they're in the top four. They are physical. They've had a great run. They don't mind getting it forward quickly. They don't mind a bit of a scrap. They can play a little bit as well.

12:13So Arsenal didn't get it all their own way. And then you look over your shoulder and say, maybe City are just not going to go away. Yeah, they've got their little cracks here and there with their defence and whatnot. But boy, it wasn't just relying on Erling Haaland today. There was performances from other players, quite a few of them, particularly Doc Ousso I think that was a little marker from City that potentially potentially they could push Arsenal this season and put last year behind them because at the moment it looks like they're the only team that are capable of doing so I was going to say because the other day on the show when we were trying to preview this game and we asked of course Nadem and yourself if you felt like City were at least closer to the City of all that we know now that we saw this dominance no but Stevie said earlier if that had been the City of all Liverpool would have been licking the chops for six or seven goals today.

13:04But do you see them getting there, at least halfway there now? No, because, you know, Nico O 'Reilly did a great job and Matthias Nunes, they weren't under any pressure, but they're never going to be, you know, Kyle Walker and whoever it was at left-backs, never going to, you know, Diaz and Stones and Akanji and the Pomp. That's kind of not there anymore. So they're getting by with what they have. I mean, they signed Ert Nouri from Wolves to play left-back and, you know, we said it all along, he's not a very good defender. You know, to be honest, he's decent on the bogs, not a good defender. So there are still areas of this city side that could come back and bite them on the bum.

13:42Yeah. There's no doubt about that. They've got a consistency about them now, right? Yeah. But there's still holes and luckily for them, unlucky for Liverpool. I just don't think Liverpool did enough today. No, they never even got close to taking advantage of those holes that we're talking about. Yeah. But that's not going to happen every week. There are going to be games and teams that will question City's back line. It just so happened today. They weren't questioned at all. And so you kind of forget about it. But the truth is, you can get at Man City. Unfortunately for Man City, they're not going to play Liverpool every week.

14:16Well, I said that Jeremy Doku looks pretty lively in there, Craig. You said that was an understatement. He was excellent. Is he a droppable now, do you think? What, you want a droppable? No, I would never. Well, he's playing the next game. But in terms of he's becoming that player. If seven or eight games down the line his form falls away, there's plenty of players who will come in and replace you. I think one of the things, and I'm sure the city managers talked to Dorku about it. He's a young lad, young-ish. And what you find with the younger players is consistency. And he's a player that will do and has done special stuff and then has just faded away, even within a game.

14:54And what we've seen lately from him is a little bit more consistency, particularly in his end product Docky will beat people, they'll go in these runs but then the end product has to be there and we're starting to see that from him and at the end of the day that's what makes the better players is what they do in the final third with the final pass the final ball, the cross and he was excellent at that today and when you've got that kind of pace as well it frightens defenders to him He's only 23 He's only 23 years old I was taken aback when I thought he was 25 26 but you know at 23 years old doing what he did in this game with the size of this game just shows that he's actually matured I mean this is a guy that we all thought is he's a left winger he's going to go to his defender he's going to use his pace and he's going to have that little tricky and then today we saw a different player we saw a guy in the middle of the park picking balls up playing the type of pass that I was talking about that he put Foden through and then he's going wide and then he's He's skinning the defender.

15:58Then he's getting brought down. I mean, if he keeps maturing the way he has this season, then you're talking about a different quality completely. Erling Haaland, I mean, missed the penalty today, but we can't judge him on that. I mean, what more can we say about him? We got lucky. Did he? Did he? I mean... You can't fault he put himself in a position where he got a break. Have we seen it just hit him? Yes. You think so? Yes. You don't think he was waiting for it? I think he's done what good centre forwards do. They expect it to be missed, but actually don't really. So he's kind of gone through the motions of making up.

16:35As he's in the air, I'm 100 % sure he's saying, well, Canati's getting this. But he's done what he should do. You just never know. So he's got himself in the right place. But yeah, it's hit him. It's hit him in a great spot right in the middle of the forehead. But it's hit him. He's got a good forehead. What I didn't like about some of the Liverpool today, and I think it was when the third goal went in, is that everybody just turned around with their shoulders. There was an acceptance, wasn't there? At the end, there was no going around like... Riling everyone back up. Whether right or wrong, playing the blame game.

17:13You know, there was nobody going around, saying, you never tried. They just all turned around. And you seen all the red jerseys, hunched shoulders. That was the right word, the acceptance. and there was all the one guy I think and I'm not suggesting they were not putting the effort in because they were but the one guy again who maybe didn't have his best game but still was was just working and grafting and running never got much change to be fair but just at least had a bit of aggression and at least he had a kick he had a kick yeah he did he had a kick or two he ruffled a few he was working hard he chased back he continued this theme of it it cared I just got a feeling the day with Liverpool it was, not that they didn't care but as it sort of went against them it was a little bit feeling sorry for themselves You can't argue that every great team never mind good team need a base and a platform that can be relied upon and there is absolutely no doubt that this season that platform at the back with Kanati and Van Dijk is not doing what it's supposed to and unfortunately for them the platform in midfield of Gravenberg and McAllister, they are not producing what they produced last year either.

18:26So right up the middle of your team, the base, the spine, whatever you want to call it, is just not at the races whatsoever. And so you shouldn't really be surprised when the team's struggling. Because they got, and it is a little surprise as well, because they didn't have to go to this Club World Cup. I always struggle to say that. Because you erased it from your mind. Even getting it out, it just hurts. But lots of teams did and we discussed how it would affect the players. Liverpool didn't, so I don't know how they never gave the players as long as they used to get off. But they would have had a pretty clean summer to go away.

19:06Premier League champions. Did some good business, at least we thought. Did a lot of good, but now, look, obviously there was the tragedy that hit the club and the players and everybody surrounding it. You can never measure how that affects anybody. You just can't quantify it. It's just such a terrible incident. So you don't know how much that took out the dressing room. But in terms of the rest and recuperation they got, it was pretty perfect from that perspective. Then all the new signings coming in. Yes, you lost Alexander-Arnold and Diaz goes to Bayern Munich. Big players for him. He's a player, Diaz, that could have fitted in for Mo Salah because he's struggling, but he hasn't sort of got him anymore.

19:48But in terms of being fresh and sharp, I know McAllister's had a few little niggles, but he just doesn't look like the player that we know he is. And Gravenberg looks a little lost in there. So straight down the spine of the team, they've been having their problems. All right. Well, we're going to finish this discussion here because Stevie, I don't want to stress you out too much. No, let's keep it going. I'm enjoying that. But look at this. For more on this game, more match reaction, our Shaka Hidup and Mark Ogden are joined by, you guessed it, Was he working? Dan Thomas, this is his second day back at work.

20:18Well, he must be bored. He's very bored. So he's working remotely over on our YouTube channel.

20:55Well, it was quite an entertaining game in La Liga today between Celta Vigo and Barcelona. Robert Lewandowski opened the scoring for Barca through a penalty, but that highline haunted them again as Celta were able to equalize just about a minute later. Lewandowski put Barca back in front, but Celta fought back again to level through Borja Iglesias. However, Laminya Mal gave Barca the lead again before the break, and Robert Lewandowski managed to complete his hat-trick in the second half as Barca won this one. Four goals to two. There was one bad point for Barca as Frankie de Jong received a second yellow card.

21:33This now means he will miss the next game against Athletic Club de Bilbao. Let's see what this means for the top half of the La Liga standings. It means that Barcelona now move within three points of league leaders Real Madrid, who drew with Rayo Vallecano. Let's welcome in our Luis Garcia for this one. Luis, thoughts on the victory, of course. It left a little bit of a bitter taste in our mouth seeing Frankie de Jong sent off there. But in the end, we knew it was going to be difficult. We knew it was going to be entertaining, but Barca got the job done. Yeah, exactly. It was about getting those three points to get closer to Real Madrid on the top of the league.

22:12started well. I think that Barcelona did what they had to do in the first 45, but we knew that that high line was going to cause them something. I think that too much, too many mistakes, and only on the pressy and the wide areas, they were struggling so much, arriving to the player on the ball, and then that was causing them that they could have time to place the ball where they have to on the fantastic runs from the midfielders of Celta Ebigo, doing Borja Iglesias a great job holding the ball, laying off, and allowing Celta Ebigo's runners. and in the second half, I don't know what happened with Celta Vigo because when you play against Barcelona, you need to understand that for 90 minutes, you have to do 100 % everything that you need to do.

22:49And the moment that you give them 10 minutes, you're going to give away everything that you've done, all the work that you have done. So they decided to drop down, sit deep. I know there was a massive effort in the first 45, all those runs, long runs from the back to the front to try to get those goals. But in the end, that was given to the dominance to Barcelona. that they felt the control. They started making the possession longer and longer. And in the end, Inna Cepisis arrived at that last goal. So I think that great job from Barcelona. And note that we were expecting, we've been trying to see this Barcelona a little bit more solid at the back.

23:24But in the end, it was, again, about keeping the momentum, getting another three points. And that big blow of Frankie Allon, that is not going to be available for Atletico de Vibas, one of the toughest teams of the season. Well, I just wanted to touch on that, because when we're coming on the air, said to the producer, I don't like this referee. And he said, just tell me a referee you like. That's going to be a shorter list. And it is difficult because... Well, that is a big call because Pedri's already out. Casado picked up an injury in the warm-up. And now Frankie Dion is going to be suspended.

23:57And it's consistency. Now, you could argue, till the cows come home, he stood on him and should have had a yellow car. Not every challenge is a yellow car. I'll give you an example. I don't know if Luis remembers this. The first half of this game, Borja Iglesias had a hold of Frankie de Jong like a rugby game for about 10 seconds. Just held him back and stopped him on his tracks. He did not book him. That's what yellow cards are for. They're for clear and obvious fouls like that that are just not even attempting to play the ball and challenges that are rash and really, really late. It's not for just a little stand on the toe when you're trying to poke the ball away.

24:37So it's the inconsistencies within the referees. This referee in particular, we see him a lot. And I think he is very inconsistent in his decision-making. That being said, what we saw from Barcelona today again is not going to fill you full of confidence in terms of their defence. Although they did take the sting out of the game in the second half and Celta Vigo, as Luis said, stopped doing all the things that were productive for them in the first half. and that was getting forward with pace and playing it in behind quickly with those little one-twos. Barcelona did a better job of flaunting that.

25:13Obviously, the Lewandowski hat-trick is a great boost for him because he's not getting any younger, but it never sort of leaves you. But I think as we go along in this season, we're not going to stop talking about what they were doing. As Stevie said, after the Club Brugge game, to come out, take the lead and then do that on the halfway line again as quickly as they did, it's just quite scary. But it's three points and they move on. Because of that line, it's what's going to cost them either the league title or the Champions League title because you can't step on the field and have to score three, four goals every time you want to win again when you're given two away.

26:02I mean, you can't consistently do that because you'll come up against sides who, if you give clear chances and you give goals away too easy, they're not going to be cannon fodder like teams like Celta Vigo were today when you can just go away and score four goals. And so it's one thing to say, well, we won. But the truth of the matter is, when you come up against better opposition, better organised teams, you ain't getting away with that. And that's what's going to hold them back. Well, Luis, one of the bright sides for Barcelona today was seeing Lewandowski back on the score sheet, not once, not twice, but three times as well.