One thing that today�s match against City told me is that against the better teams with fast wingers we have a problem at Left Back. TAA is not good enough defensively and Milner is too slow.

Will Gomez be able to fill the gap or does another solution need to be found?

I take it you mean RB? Robertson and Kostas are very good at LB, so we have decent cover there at last.

I think TAA is very good at RB, but because he is so creative and pushes on, he can be caught of position, Milner is not good enough cover, City targeted him today and he was caught out running back quite a few times, though I though Henderson did not give him much cover either, the whole MF didn't look right and felt second best.

We need better RB cover, Neco Williams was on the bench, so not sure why he was not tried? especially in the Porto game as when we went 3-0 up he could have been given a run out to see how he does.

Sorry yes Right Back.

That young lad that played vs Norwich looked defensively solid too despite giving away a penalty. He could end up being better than Neco. I also don't want to see Gomez at RB, he seems to get injured whenever he gets a run there.

milner got roasted but he is ancient.

bigger worry for me is midfield ...fabino was dreadful , really soft , we miss gini. debryne was free all day long

Yes Fabinho was below his usual standard and didn�t command the midfield.
Silva ran rings around him.

Midfield is our problem and the reason for our defensive lapses

Agree, Curtis was invisible, the game looked too fast for him and Fab couldn't step his authority neither, however, the biggest issue was Right Back and problem is that I am not sure TAA could have done the job, but he would have been better than Milner. Anyway, we cannot compete with Chelsea and City squads.

Second game in EPL we can�t keep a lead and we also conceded against Porto. Seems a problem controlling games now a days. Curtis is not good enough yet when we play against great opposition.

Just noticed this comment and it stood out at me. I thought we did OK in general, we are playing City after all, lucky to get a draw though.

However our midfield off the ball seemed really poor. The amount of times Silva just ran through 4-5 players without a proper challenge was really bad, I don't mean take him out but when they were putting in a challenge it looked like it was going through the motions rather than believing they were going to win the ball, annoyed me no end.

fabino is not getting stuck in like he used to, he has very lazy tendencies especially around our own box which doesn't make sense.

also i really hate what matip did , that arms behind the back thing really really annoys me, defend the ball like a normal person if it hits ur hand its not suppose to be a peno anyhow and if it is so what.. if he defended like a defender no way he deflects that in

I agree with emps comments on matip I also think Allison could have stopped fodens goal by closing down the space better

City did an excellent job keeping the ball away from Fabinho pretty much and targeting Milner perfectly. At the same time they were not really able to utilise Grealish and I would have been far more worried seeing Mahrez playing against us.

Jones was poor but you cannot expect the lad to play brilliantly every game.

well glad we agree on something .. seriously tho wtf, its like matip put on a straight jacket , its so dumb he can't even move his hips, looks like a fool. if he just defended that he would have headed that out comfortable.

Really?

yes really.. he handcuffed himself a good 4 seconds before debryne shot and it was a bad shot .. if he was moving normal his head would have been in front of that

Yes he did handcuff himself but if you look at the replay VVD also had his hands behind his back. It must be something they have been trained to do.

well if that is true then its awful training , i seriously doubt a coach would want to turn the centre halves into hopping deflection pillars .

You watched the action in slow motion and it's very easy to say he could have headed the ball out. They all keep their hands 'handcuffed' behind their backs so that they do not deflect the ball with their hands so as not to give away a penalty and Matip just tried to come in the path of the ball without knowing where it would go exactly. I am sure you wouldn't have noticed anything without the slow motion replay.

Yeah agree, I think you can just be ultra critical of the goal but it's a deflection, sh*t happens.

i noticed it as it happened. U don't understand the centre back position , john terry would have nutted that out no problem. a defender defends, what matip did was stupid and could cost a title ..u think john terry would do what matip did?

What *WILL* cost us the title are team performances which are not good enough a la not beating a 10 man Chelsea at home and not being able to see out a win at Brentford.

Little tit for tat mistakes here and there happen, I'd be more concerned at the bigger picture.

Jim, u concerned there are more fundamental problems with the team that will prevent us from winning title?

beating city with matip throwing his head at that shot would be a title defining win . its just a terrible feeble sort of defensive position to handcuff urself . u wanna win titles then u defend like john terry and u get stuck in like roy keane,like fabino used to do but now seems happy to stick out a leg

A defender defends...wth is that supposed to mean? What exactly is your problem, the position of his hands, he was off position and running back not to head the ball, as he didn't know where the ball would be, but to come in to block the ball getting in it's way. As for not winning the title, drawing at Brentford after scoring 3 goals was a bigger flop than drawing against City where we were 2nd best and were lucky we didn't lose. You are mad to put everything on Matip sholders who was arguably one of the best players in the game, if anybody, you should blame Milner.

Kick and run football is over, who stuck in like Roy Keane in City in the game?

if you don't know what it means go watch some clips of terry,bonnucci ,chellini etc.. i am not putting everything on matip just that goal which he should have been 3 or 4 seconds ahead of .

who said anything about kick and run footy? and nobody got stuck in which is why city ripped us a new one.

Well, Milner tried to stuck in and he was lucky to stay on the pitch. Just get over it, City is the better team and we are the 3rd best team at best, we can win the EPL, but probably not and it's not Matip's missed header that will make the difference

Agreed. Is there anything we can do to catch up other than spend zillions?

Getting very lucky with injuries, all our players performing to their max potential all the time and City missing chances

well lets just be glad ur not the manager lol.. get over it boys ur just not good enough and don't defend or get stuck in lol

Seems like we are getting into the habit of giving away easy goals again. Couple that with us usually needing 10 1v1's to finally score and it feels like we may just fall short.

It's difficult to use City as a yardstick because they runs rings around anyone but I felt their goals coming during the attacks in which they scored because we just looked a bit all over defensively. Just felt it in the waters.

Well, looks like you are not happy with Klopp neither as his player/s didn't stuck in...I don't know what's that supposed to mean. As for defending, yes we had a problem on our RB as both goals came from that side

I will tell u what it means.. If fabino played like he did against city when we played barca we would not be talking about 6 baby..

Fabino was a monster for us, now he is like bambi.. getting stuck in means beating barca 4-0 not letting city walk all over us

Fab looked off the pace to me, just did not look right and dominate the MF like he usually does.

I also thought we were abit naive against City, when we went 2-1 up with just over 10 minutes left, we should have stalled/disrupted the game, go down for a few injuries/fouls etc, imagine what Athletico Madrid would have done against us going 2-1 up, we let City play and they are one of the best teams in the world at doing that.

So suddenly a monster will turn into Bambi, maybe Pep came with a magic wand.

or maybe his new contract has took him down a gear, or his recent bereavement or his injury record.. whatever it is , he needs to get back to old fabino quick.

I rather think it was a high intensity quick game where you have little time to decide, Curtis and Milli really struggled with that, especially in the first half

I am more in the he has eased off/ lazy camp.