In an eagerly anticipated game at Anfield the early Saturday kick-off saw Liverpool face Manchester United. Quite why these games are so eagerly anticipated is beyond the ken of simple folk such as ourselves.
They are often dour affairs with both teams more scared of losing than they are motivated by winning.
At least Liverpool did try to win the game but Manchester United, who had ONE shot on target throughout the ninety minutes, should be kicking themselves for not taking a more attacking approach.
This Liverpool defence is very dodgy and yet United didn’t once try and exploit their vulnerability.
Romelu Lukaku could have watched the game from the stands as his team mates failed to produce more than one chance for him.
The team from Old Trafford also need to spend a lot more time in training on the art of ball retention. The amount of times possession was won then immediately given straight back to the opposition was bordering on criminal.
Many people will say that a draw was a fair result and, as we always say, if neither team was good enough to win the game then a draw must be a fair result! Having said that, Liverpool looked the most likely winners, which was disappointing because this is not a particularly good Liverpool team.
José Mourinho, no doubt, will see things differently and will claim that his game-plan worked to perfection. It only worked to perfection because Liverpool weren’t good enough to score, not because his team were good enough to stop them.
Over at The Etihad Manchester City were playing Stoke City. Mark Hughes’s managerial stats against City before the game were; won seven, drawn seven, lost seven. So it was a question of which column was going to change after this match.
As it turned out it was the expected one and Hughes has now lost more than he has either drawn or won in this fixture!
The only surprise was that it took Manchester City more than fifteen minutes to score the first but Gabriel Jésus did put them ahead just after the quarter-hour mark. Then normal service was resumed and Raheem Sterling put them two up before the clock had reached twenty minutes!
Shortly afterwards and before the half-hour mark, David Silva scored City’s third and the game was effectively over. Now it was just a question of how many they fancied scoring.
But wait a minute! Just before half-time a combination of poor defending and a large deflection allowed Mame Biram Diouf to pull a goal back for Stoke.
Just after half-time a combination of poor defending and Kyle Walker’s leg allowed Stoke to pull another goal back.
It proved to be a short-lived comeback though as further goals from Jésus, Sané, a screamer from Fernandinho and another from Bernardo silva confirmed City’s position as title favourites.
Hughes did get one thing spot on however. He said before the game that there was no way his team would lose 5-0!
Elsewhere, Chelsea made the short trip to Selhurst Park where they lost to Crystal Palace.
Azpilicueta with an own goal and Zaha did the damage for Palace with goals either side of an equaliser by Bakayoko.
2-1 was both the half-time score and the final score. And remember this you blues fans, you were warned. We did say that we expected Chelsea to drop points in this game, even if we did think a draw was going to be the outcome.
Mauricio Pochettino’s men played Bournemouth at White Hart Wembley and, thanks to a Christian Eriksen strike, managed to scrape through and take the three points in their first win at their temporary digs. They are, however, still far from convincing when playing at “home”.
In the late kick-off stubborn old man took his team up the road to Watford.
In an attempt to avoid an obvious colour clash between the YELLOW & BLACK of Watford and the RED & WHITE of Arsenal, the away team wore a fetching number featuring an aesthetically pleasing mix of light and dark blue. (It looked awful).
To take our minds off this nonsense Per Mertesacker gave Arsenal a first half lead with a free header, (unless you consider being marked by Tom Cleverley a deterrent for a man of his size). Watford were generally woeful and changes were expected at the break.
The eventual changes did bring about an equaliser when Richarlison wasn’t tripped in the area but Neil Swarbrick said that he was. Step up Troy Deeney and the score was 1-1.
In the 93rd minute Tom Cleverley scored the winner which took Watford to fourth place and made sure that it was a decent weekend for Manchester.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 