Jeckyl and Hyde

Well a mixed  bag in our opening 3 games. I have to admit I was expecting to right a wholly negative piece but today's performance against the Champions has give me heart. 

The fact that we are disappointed with a draw shows that we are moving in the right direction. Yes we have historically generally performed well against the big teams so its maybe premature to be judging anything at this stage. However the quality of what we showed today was impressive. More so considering that 6 of the team are under 22. (Sterling,Allen,Kelly,Coates,Borini and Shelvey).

I was really worried about today after last week's result at West Brom but having finally watched the game yesterday, I have to agree with the manager's assessment it was 'bad day at the office' and if we played that game a thousand times we couldn't have had a worse outcome. Again our lack of precision in the final 3rd after creating a plethora of chances was our downfall. Suarez had 6 or 7 chances, 3 of his own creating  the other 3 more clear cut. It has resulted in a outpouring of views on his scoring ability. Sure he does miss a lot and he probably needs to work o his heading!

A good article in Saturday's Independent where he speaks quite frankly in the interview about his general attitude and behaviour on the pitch. A quite refreshing and honest view. I think we do still need to strengthen in that department. Suarez, Borini and Carroll aren't enough for challenging in 4 competitions. Rodgers said as much in his post match comments today that would still be looking for a few players this week.

The Dempsey thing is still lingering and with Sahin in, it looks more likely that Adam will be used as a sweetener for Fulham. With regard to striker to a lot out there but in the spirit of the current policy of signing young British talent why not spend the £6mill and go for Jordan Rhodes? Or probably more controversially re-sign Micheal Owen on a pay as you play deal..... 

We certainly showed that we lack depth on Thursday night against Hearts when the 2nd string was totally outclassed by a a bunch of youngsters with Templeton in particular tearing us to pieces. We were fortunate to come away with a win and indeed to still even be in the tie. If Hearts had won 3-0 it wouldn't have flattered them.

Thankfully the tempo and commitment today was a far higher quality and you can see what Rodgers is trying to do. Man City knew they were in a game today and they looked more tired than us at the end of the match. They created very little and both their goals came from our mistakes. Reina and Kelly getting caught out for the 1st one and Skrtel was fast asleep with his blind backpass. He dawdled on the ball last week against West Brom.So he really needs to think about what he is doing in possesion and realise that sometimes hoofing it up the field is still an option. Other than that he was a candidate for man of the match.

On that subject Niall Quinn picked Joe Allen which I couldn't really disagree with. Thnik it was the 81st minute before one of his passes went astray! Young Sterling was majestic and had Milner and Kolo Toure in particular at sixes ad sevens.He got a few hefty challenges but simply got up and got on with it.

So although we still appear to be commiting the same transgressions that have plagued us over the last 18 months. I see a lot of positive signs. Think we are all realistic enough to see that Top 4 fiish is probably just a bit beyond us this season but certainly we can get another 15 to 20 points this season and get 5th or 6th. We have to be rational, almost all the teams above us have strengthened ad we have a shallow squad in comparison. So we ae going to struggle to compete.

Let hope we have a good performance on Thursday against Hearts and follow that up with a similar level we saw today and I reckon we can get our 1st league win ubder our new manager and really move the season forward.

  YNWA