Football: What goes up, must come down.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

54 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

If I were a neutral I'd probably watch Dormund-City, but sadly I'm going to have to watch Liverpool.

Why would you want to watch the lop-sided draw over the more evenly matched one?

For all the fun and potential that Dortmund team has, it lacks character/a spine/resilience to make the tie interesting. Whenever they've met resistance or have had to fight back, this season, they just faltered. That's the key weakness of that team. Now they are up against superior footballing side. This isn't gonna end well. Ofc, you can hope for one of those Guardiola CL QF screw ups, but this is just not gonna happen.

I could make a few comment prediction for the Liverpool game, mostly built around the supposed uselessness of Firmino.

[Soylent Brown]

No Firmino tonight, though we've started poorly anyway. Someone needs to remind Robertson that he's not very good on the ball and to keep it simple.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

And 1-0 City already.

[Soylent Brown]

Keita looks massively off the pace, and Wijnaldum doesn't want the ball, so we're struggling to do anything in midfield. As good as Fabinho is, he can't so everything on his own.

[Consigliere]

Klopp needs to sub out one of Keita or Wijnaldum for Thiago.

Vinicius is pretty good right up until he gets to the final third. His decision making is almost as atrocious as his crossing/shooting.

 

ETA. of fucking course, as soon as I type that out Vinicius goes and scores. I stand by my statement though.

[Soylent Brown]

Klopp should really take them both off. If we don't change things soon the tie will be beyond us before half time.

Really nice chest control from Vinicius for the goal.

[Consigliere]

That should've been a penalty. Liverpool get lucky there.

 

ETA. Just flipped over to the City game and Ederson got so fucking lucky. That was not a foul on him whatsoever. If anything, he kicked Bellingham. Dortmund denied a perfectly legitimate goal and Ederson saved from embarrassment.

[Soylent Brown]

A clear foul on Mane before the second goal, but he needs to let it go and not lose his head.

Klopp will watch dumbly until we're 5-0 down before making any changes so I can't see us salvaging anything from this.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I see, now that Chelsea unexpectedly took a hammering by West Brom and reduced the deficits to mere points, Arnold has decided Liverpool should rather focus its efforts on the league.

[Soylent Brown]

Keita off for Thiago, which is a nice surprise. Can we just fuck him off in the summer please, he's one of the worst signings in the club's history.

[Mark Antony]

Wijnaldum and Trent have been so bad

[Soylent Brown]

The whole defence have been poor because the midfield have offered no protection, as well as not being able to keep the ball, or wanting it for that matter. TAA has no one to pass to and is under constant pressure, so mistakes.

It's worse too as we have Phillips and Kabak at the back - they have very little quality on the ball, so there's not much chance of one of the playing Salah or Mane through on the break.

As much as Milner is past it, he'd do a much better job than Wijnaldum tonight because he'd show for the ball.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

TAA was in for both goals.

First goal was him and Philips not being able to cut out Kroos pass or stopping Vinicius Junior.

Second goal was entirely on him. The underpowered header back to Alisson was just one big howler.

[Soylent Brown]

He fucked up with the second goal, but it's ridiculous to suggest he could do anything about the first. Vinicius's touch took it well away from him.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Kabak got lucky that his howler (really poor pass back to Alisson) was not punished by Asensio. He owes Alisson for bailing him out there.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

So Liverpool's very much back in the tie. Ah second leg's at Anfield. NVM.

[Soylent Brown]

Haha, a ridiculously lucky goal - Jota scuffed that so badly Firmino would blush, and it just about made it to Salah, who was just about onside.

[Soylent Brown]

1 minute ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So Liverpool's very much back in the tie. Ah second leg's at Anfield. NVM.

Hopefully we can persuade UEFA to let us play it in Hungary.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Thought you'd prefer somewhere in London.

[Soylent Brown]

I really don't understand why Robertson takes so many set pieces, he's really fucking bad at them. Has he just pestered Klopp until he's given in? We're worse for it.