Johnson deserves the criticism at the moment. He does the same thing every time - and that makes it easy for defenders. He never goes to the byline and hardly ever crosses - you just know he's going to cut in and then lose the ball. He also gets caught out of position more than any of our other defenders. Conversely, I thought Enrique did quite well, although he doesn't seem to get forward as much lately.
It is worrisome how our midfield gets overrun by so many teams these days. With Gerrard sitting so deep there is just not enough dynamism between him, Lucas and Hendo going forward. It's all too pedestrian much of the game. I thought Coutinho did ok - although not always the greatest at tracking back - but Downing was absolutely awful for his 20 minutes. He gave the ball away or stumbled over his feet to the point that I was glad to see the back of him. So many attacks break down when the ball gets to Downing.
Up front I thought Suarez and Sturridge were off the pace. While Suarez keeps trying and you have to admire that - he often goes into desperation mode early in the game, trying to do everything himself. It's frustrating to watch but you can sort of understand why when none of our three midfielders hardly ever get into the box from open play. Sturridge was maddening and his form has been poor for the last 3-4 games. Not once did he hold the ball up and bring people into play - but tried a series of fancy flicks that just lost us the ball and set up a counter attack for the opposition. By comparison, I watched the much smaller Tevez give a master class in holding the ball up against ManU - and this is what Sturridge should be bringing to our game. He's big and quick and needs to learn how to use these attributes - instead of the cute Messi flicks.
Good observation however have a few comments as follows:
Crossing: I feel that Johnson is not supposed to cross as we do not have the right players to head the ball. It's the same even on corners, this is our system of play, our tallest player (bar centre backs) is Gerrard who is playing deep so who will he heading crosses?
Downing: He was apparently sick so not fair to judge on this game which he tried only for 20mins
Suarez: He looked tired, is he too stretched?
Sturridge: He played more like a winger, not sure it is his best position and not sure if he is match fit neither.
Midfield: we have 3 persons playing there and both Sturridge and Coutinho prefer to stay high, and a team defending will have a crowded midfield, thus we struggled.
WH parked the bus and we usually find it hard to score in such situation, nothing new, our game looks very complicated in those situation, while United in such cases plays it simple and nick it on set pieces very often or deviated crosses.
