F a cup team selection

What is it with Pep and his team selections in important cup games.

Stefen thinks he is Ederson. Stones is clueless without Ederson behind him

There is not one player on the city team that would score more than 1 out of 10 for that performance.

 And it’s only half time

Pep trying to be clever again.

i honestly believe he doesn't rate the fa cup as that important given that he is chasing the champions league and premier league. he wouldn't have dare pick that team v Real Madrid.

Totally agree, but he doesn’t have to put up with gloating scousers like we do

I feel sorry for all the poor mugs that paid a fortune and struggled to get down to Wembley

Same as last year v Chelsea. Pep threw away the FA Cup with that line up. Zinchenko Steffen & Ake can play against the likes of Burnley but not against the very top teams. I know his hand was altered by the Athletico animals & by the bigger prizes of PL & Europe but as soon as we saw that line up we knew we weren’t beating the dippers.

Yes we have to look at mitigating factors and other priorities, but that defence was way to weak against that Liverpool front line, and to me the biggest worry is what that’s done to Steffen’s confidence.
Heaven forbid I should question Pep’s reasoning, but I think that was a bad call on his part.

Thought Ake played well. He in my mind is seriously underrated. 
Id have no qualms at playing him at left back and cancelo right back whilst walker is out. Sorry if that is harsh on Zinky but id say his mind is elsewhere and also has had an acute lack of game time. its about time sterling was benched too. i really would not be too bothered if we sold him in the summer. i would literally throw everything into an assault on the league and champions league. We really need to be as ruthless as Liverpool especially in front of goal. Even though we didn't play well yesterday  had we taken our chances we could well have stolen a win.

My take.
Pep was fully justified in his selection, the PL/CL are far more a priority than the FA Cup - remember we'd just had a gruelling game 3 days earlier away in Madrid, rotation was required.

Grealish had a great chance at 0-0 but fannied about, may well have been a completelydifferentgame if he'd have scored. The whole team were lethargic throughout the 1st half, with misplaced passes, bottling out of 1 on 1 tackles, no tracking back, free header for their 1st goal, slow build up play...the list goes on.
Yes, Steffan made a colossal mistake for the 2nd goal but it was no more than we deserved - and imo, he shouldn't be made the scapegoat,as they ALL underperformed.
The 2nd half was better and we made the scoreline respectable in the end but I don't think we deserved to get anything from it.
Now the must win games start and we have to be at full strength from here on in (injuries apart) - no excuses.

I agree with a lot of that Den, but unfortunately Steffen has already been made the scapegoat for the result. That, for me, is the biggest disappointment.
Would I swap an FA cup final appearance for a strong end to the league season or a CL final? Absolutely

He certainly has Ian and youre right, its disappointing.

Foden was utter shite.
Fernandinho just kept fouling everyone.
Bernado offers nothing as a DMer.
Sterling and Jesus kept mis-controlling/losing the ball.
The back 4 did nothing but fuck about in the 1st half.
Grealish never touched the ball.

Yet the keeper makes 1 mistake and gets hounded like nothing else....but everyone forgets the 2 or 3 great saves he made in the 2nd half.

And the ridiculous Zinchenko attempted header back to the keeper is forgotten! It was like having Phil Jones in the team.
That’s what Steffen had in front of him!

titbumwilly wrote:And the ridiculous Zinchenko attempted header back to the keeper is forgotten! It was like having Phil Jones in the team.
That’s what Steffen had in front of him!

Oh yeah, forgot about that.lol

I think rightly Steffan is getting stick for his performance, the first goal could have been saved I believe Ederson would have. All through that first half he dithered on the ball and was nearly caught out on a number of occasions, you could see the effect it had upon the rest of the back 4. 

Sterling was every bit as bad but has not been given the same level of scrutiny, he needs to go. Perhaps we could use him as a makeweight in any attempt to buy a decent centre forward in the summer.

As we all know that was not a typical city performance but with a little luck and or decent finishing we could have got something out of that game. Which is a positive to take away from that shambles.

Nijinsky wrote:I think rightly Steffan is getting stick for his performance, the first goal could have been saved I believe Ederson would have.

Maybe....but what about the outfield players giving Konate a free header to begin with?

shakencity wrote:

Nijinsky wrote:I think rightly Steffan is getting stick for his performance, the first goal could have been saved I believe Ederson would have.

Maybe....but what about the outfield players giving Konate a free header to begin with?

Your right awful defending but that corner dropped into the 6 yard box should have been a keepers ball

The trouble is we had a completely different back 5 bar stones. also the midfield shaped differently.  With that i mean cancelo swapping sides zinky coming in,  steffen and also to a certain degree Ake. Ferna does look his years now and really didnt offer a great deal. yes he broke up attacks but ran with the ball and all too often delayed the pass and so got overrun and swamped out by covering Liverpool players. injuries permitting as you quite rightly said den the strongest needs to play from here on in. steffen had time to put his boot through the ball long before mane's press. im not blaming him as such but in certain instances you have to take responsibility no matter what the coach may say and just clear your lines. the amount of rolling the ball out instead of an ederson esque long pass from time to time may just have made the opposition think twice about pushing up too far.