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All a bit touchy about Gerrard, who said he wasn't a great player?

I don't rate him as highly a central midfielder as Keane, Scholes or Vieira but hr produced moments of brilliance in the final 3rd that neither of those 3 did on a consistent basis. He was a world class attacking player.

He had flaws in his game, not the most tactically disciplined!  But the guy's moved on a few years now and yet opposing fans seem to bring up his name more than Liverpool supporters.

Surely its obvious why that is, a scouser who played for Liverpool for over 15 years and who's slip played a part in Liverpool not winning the league. Until Liverpool win the league United will always sing about him and the slip.

He was a world star something which Liverpool lack currently.

All a bit touchy about Gerrard, who said he wasn't a great player?

I don't rate him as highly a central midfielder as Keane, Scholes or Vieira but hr produced moments of brilliance in the final 3rd that neither of those 3 did on a consistent basis. He was a world class attacking player.

They're not difficult MM cause you have seen them multiple times and at various speeds....

I think technology has worked well with the goal decisions and could work  with offsides but anything else I'd be against. The natural breaks in the game aren't there that exist in other game that use video technology like rugby, cricket and American football.

Disagree Boycey, both Rojo's tackles, Luiz tackle on Fellaini and Barkley's challenge on Henderson all looked like red cards straight off and all seen by the refs. They were all given yellow cards, no excuse for not sending any of those players off.

Agree on technology, think it will eventually come in for offsides but happy for it to stop there. If linesman don't have to worry about offside decisions that will surely help the referee's in their decision making.

First post on here and you're questioning my post on referee's, too right you've been accused of being an abu.

That's harsh. I think it was a reasonable enough question. You're right about the officiating though, it's shite. I think most teams have been affected at this stage.

Is it any more shite than it ever was though, or is it just Sky/Bt or whoever pushing their own agenda? BT even have Howard fecking Webb as part of their matchday commentary team giving real time analysis of the decisions. Then at the interval they'll play the incident at super duper slow motion making the referee or linesman look a right berk and all the experts in the studio will line up to slaughter the officials who got one chance to make a call on it.

Its a lot worse this season, its a really difficult job though and they will always accept mistakes but there's been far too many mistakes this season. Look at United's game against Palace for example; How could he not send Rojo off for that tackle? Then missed the Palace defender with a very blatant hand ball, think he ended up punching it and then there was Mata's goal which was ruled out for offside when he it wasn't even close. United's first goal was offside and a handall although that was difficult to see. There's no way the officials should be getting that number of decisions wrong, 3 of them were very straight forward and not difficult at all.

First post on here and you're questioning my post on referee's, too right you've been accused of being an abu.

Liverpool won 11 games in a row in 2013/14, its tough keeping that going; Always going to be a slip up at some point 

The problem with the ABU's is they only see things one way.


Off the top of my head the tackle on Mata v Stoke, nailed on pen.  The challenge by Bravo on Rooney when he could easily have broken his leg, nailed on pen and red card. The challenge by Monreal against Valencia which was a nailed on pen. The foul by the Burnley full back on Darmian and Herrera's red card when he slipped. We took 3 points from those 4 games.

There was Luiz's terrible tackle on Fellaini although given we were 2-0 down at the time and how poor we were its unlikely we'd have gotten anything but you never know. There's a few more too which I can't think off.

That was a very poor 1st half performance but probably picked the right game to play like that. The ref has been slaughtered by Keith Hackett & Graham Poll the last few weeks in the media about been too soft, clearly that was playing on his mind when he gave that pen; That was another dreadful decision, never seen a season like it and it keeps continuing. There's been poor decisions in nearly every match this season, we've certainly benefitted from a few namely the times Rojo should have seen red of when the West Ham player was sent off although I still think we'd have beaten West Ham that day. Overall the bad decisions have likely cost us more points than we've gained. We've had one pen in the last 39 league games, thats a very weird stat.

As for Hull they've certainly improved since Silva took over, we'll have to play a lot better at OT next week to beat them.

Galway beaten by Clare last night, doesn't sound great although I'd imagine that side will be totally different come championship given the amount of lads playing for NUIG yesterday and GMIT today.

Liverpool obviously miss Mane but the depth of squad doesn't help, they don't have the quality on the bench that United, City, Arsenal & Chelsea have. Spurs have the same problem. In fairness to Klopp he just doesn't have the money to spend that the 4 clubs I've mentioned have.

Chelsea is a huge match, win it and the title talk starts again in the media although I do realise there's no expectancy on here but lose it and you have a fight on your hands for top 4.

Don't see United signing anyone this month. Lots of talk about Griezmann this summer, can see that happening given Atletico's money problem and he has a buyout clause.

Mourinho will probably spend more than he did last summer, a replacement for Carrick is needed and he'll buy a centre half who's good in the air. Blind, Darmian & Shaw are all fighting to save their careers whilst I think he'll sell Januzaj and he'll probably look to move Rooney on.

Prior to last weekends fixtures Liverpool had played more long balls through the season than United.

United have played the fourth fewest - 1,346 in total, during their 21 Premier League fixtures. Liverpool are 12th in the table, having launched 1,417

United used a tactics because Mourinho saw a weakness in the Liverpool defence and had 2 players who could execute it. I'm sure if Klopp had inherited a player like Fellaini he would have used him in a similar manner throughout the season.

As for the match we did enough to win the game but we certainly didn't create as many clear cut chances as we did against Stoke, West Ham & Burnley at home. In our last 3 draws against Stoke, Liverpool & Everton the goals we've conceded have been an own goal and 2 ridiuculous pens, teams aren't creating many chances against us and De Gea isn't having to pull of that many great saves. We're far too reliant on Zlatan though and others need to start scoring more regularly.

I've not seen it mentioned but Mata should have won a pen, the commentators were on about a handball but totally ignored that he was cleaned out by a sliding tackle and if that had happened anywhere on the pitch it would have been a free kick.

We were lucky enough that Liverpool lost and we've closed the gap on them, we have to go on another run and win the next 5 or 6 games and on paper we're capable of winning them. If we do then I'd be surprised if we're not in the top 4 or only missing out on goal difference. We've 16 games left, still think we need to win at least 12 and draw 3 and that would leave us on 80 points; I think that would just be enough to finish 4th.

I don't like Rooney but I'm not really bothered as long as he's performing on the pitch which he hasn't done since the end of the 2011/12 season. This is now the 5th season where he hasn't been top player, he's only broken the record because Fergie retired because if he hadn't Rooney was out the door; Fergie knew he was well past his best and his performances since that have done nothing to prove otherwise. He got injured against Bayern in 2010 and never been the same since, he still had a brilliant season in front of goal in 11/12 but that pace he possessed had started to disappear. I dread seeing him coming on these days, he's relying on producing a good cross or scoring a goal as his all round play is very poor. He can't beat a man, lacks awareness of whats around him and his touch is brutal.

I doubt we'll ever see a statue of him at OT, he's very unpopular amongst my mates. We've had a lot of great players the last 25 years who are ahead of him in terms of deserving a statue.

But gallsman, were they not protesting BECAUSE the Glazers were using United to leverage their debt, instead of investing big time in the club. Now that they have changed tack a little bit (or quite a lot if Maroon Manc's figures are correct) then the protests have tapered off. That's fairly predictable I'd have thought.

The question, I suppose, is did the Glazers loosen up because they got tired of the fans being on their backs, or did they loosen up because somebody finally told them that you have to spend massive money to quickly compete with the other big spenders?

It may be a moot point, because the end result is the same, but perhaps the fans protests did at least bring the Glazers attention to the fact they were unhappy.

More money has been spent because there was actually money to spend, interest payments had been reduced and the turnover was increasing and secondly it needed to be spent given the state of the team.