Your team v Man City

[fagin]

What's the craic with Matip, is he fit, training, recovering ?

Klopp says he will be playing Sunday

[justme]

Big game today, if Firmino starts he needs to have a good game and try and control the ball better.He doesnt want to get lost in midfield.If Man-city defend deep then the whole team needs to be patient and not rush forward. And keep possession well. I emphasize Ball control all the time when we play the likes of City. Otherwise they will just run us around the pitch.

[fagin]

Although only week 8 of the Prem after todays games and depending the results the top of the table could change dramatically
Absolute worst case scenario we could possibly be sitting in 4th place ...still not bad position at this time

[shminkyred]

I don't know what you said or did but that's a first for this forum

Nice one!

Hear Hear

[Kev0909]

Big game today, if Firmino starts he needs to have a good game and try and control the ball better.He doesnt want to get lost in midfield.If Man-city defend deep then the whole team needs to be patient and not rush forward. And keep possession well. I emphasize Ball control all the time when we play the likes of City. Otherwise they will just run us around the pitch.

This

Probably biggest league game of the season, and at least the pressure is on man city to beat us as we've got the early lead over them.

[Balinkay]

I think it's a much smaller game than in the previous two seasons, as both teams will drop significantly more points this year against lesser opposition.

[Insidious]

I think it's a much smaller game than in the previous two seasons, as both teams will drop significantly more points this year against lesser opposition.

I do think the latter aspect of what you're saying is certainly true - there will be more "odd" results than normal.

However, with City not looking up to speed or at all rampant in the goal-scoring side, with Pep looking visibly disinterested and with City seemingly not being terribly mentally strong as an entity, I think a win in our favour has the potential to be a huge psychological leg-up on our side of things should we get it.

With our superior mental strength I think a loss (for us) today is a blow, but a blow we'd bounce back from. I back our powers of cognitive recovery much moreso than theirs. They have a capacity to wilt.

[Kev0909]

I think it's a much smaller game than in the previous two seasons, as both teams will drop significantly more points this year against lesser opposition.

I get that, but it's still important look what happened last time we had a big lead over them, they never looked like catching us, if we win today the gap will start being quite big even though they have a game in hand.

I do believe things are starting to settle down a little, also.

[Balinkay]

@Kev @Sid

I see both you guys' points. However, while I agree that they're prone to... simply giving up, I'd argue that the fact they couldn't catch us last time was more down to our alien form than any psychological hit to them.

And in any case - any hit either team takes will be largely repaired (or at least well enough repaired to allow them to win enough points to fight for the title) by beating two or three decent teams on the bounce. Something both we and they will inevitably end up doing at some point, as we just have enough quality up top.

[justme]

Its a big game in the sense its a 6 pointer.The more we win early in the season the better.. Means we can have alittle dip in form and hopefully still remain ahead.