VMC's Some Might Say: Atkinson Anfield Angst

You were *****en lucky.

Yep, unbelievably lucky. Their keeper should have walked, we scored for them, had a striker sent off for a nothing second yellow and our keeper was brilliant.

It's strange - here is an Everton fan offering the same opinions on the bungling referee as us. I have also seen comments from United, Chelsea and Tottenham fans that support our opinions that the referee was completely incompetent. Now none of these fans offering their opinions have any vested interest in seeing Manchester City pull even further away from the chasing pack, Manure Tottenham and Chelsea fans in particular - so all I can conclude is that it's not sour grapes on the part of my fellow Blues bemoaning the loss of two points - any semi-informed observer can see that Martin Atkinson was at best completely incompetent and at worst totally biased towards the home side at Anfield. Pity most Liverpool fans still mysteriously think they were spomehwo the better side!

Good point, Rob. I know a lot of fans are wondering how Liverpool can get their opponents reduced to 10 men in three separate games this season 1/3 of the way in. I know we've had sour grapes before and no real gripe about the ref, but when the rest of the league is agreeing with you then it must be something.

FCB,I think you are a bit gracious to Martin Atkinson.3 red cards(all undeserved)against teams playing Liverpool this season.The word that springs to mind about Atkinson is "bent".

Frimbong and Balotelli red cards were deserved, Arsenal fans agree, and you can tell from Mancini's reaction to Balotelli that even he thought it was deserved.

We'll see you at the Etihad Johndoe, and although we're not the sort of team to resort to the despicable tactics that Diverpool used, one would hope that the ref is a homer for that one - and then I'll listen eagerly to your opinions. And the Everton fans have every right to comment, seeing as the Rodwell sending off was ludicrous. Atkinson must have LFC tatoooed on his arse.

Liverpool were better than Man City,said a scouser,so it must be true.And Suarez does not dive,and Reina does not handle the ball outside the area,and Agger does not elbow Aguero.In the famous words of the only truthful scouser,Jim Royal,"My arse"

I'm sorry JohnDoe.Imust have dreamt the match that i thought i saw,because if the media and newspapers stated what you said,you must have been right.Obviously Reina,Agger and Suarez did not do what I thought that they did.And yes,we probably are like Chelsea fans,they also had to put up with a lot of crap from the red tinted media.

I did not say City played better than Liverpool.Please show me where i have said this.Can you actually answer a question,JohnDoe.Would you agree with me that Reina handled the ball outside the penalty area and if so,then Liverpool would have been down to ten men in the first half?Also,can you tell me what you think about the antics of Suarez in virtually every match he has played.I'm sure you probably used to have a go at Ronaldo and Drogba for exactly the same behaviour.

JD, I will try my best to be as objective as possible. The Reina incident - at the time I wasn't sure, having seen the replays I'm convinced that if Hart had done the same thing at the other end with the home crowd baying for blood he would have been sent off. If a player gets booked for repeated fouling which Mario was initially ( Atkinson made a gesture pointing out 3 incidents ) then why are players like Suarez not booked for repeated diving? I can't recall the Milner dive you're referring to, the Micah one Downing catches his ankle and he goes down rather theatrically, but their was a foul. Despite Suarez being the most guilty of play acting, the most obvious dive of the game came from Charlie Adam in the first half when Barry was a good foot away from any contact, that was right under Atkinson's nose and no card. Onto Mario's red card which really swung the balance of play in Liverpool's favour, a high ball comes in, Mario attempts to put his body across Skrtel's to try turn him as the ball comes down, in doing so he leads with his arm, there is no deliberate swing of the arm toward Skrtel and there is no way he catches him in the face either, there is no way this challenge is worthy of a yellow card. The reason the ref gave the red is because of Skrtel's playacting and the jumping up and down of the Liverpool players in the ref's face, as well as the crowd reaction. In short Atkinson's decisions on the day were being influenced by the home crowd, he is a homer of a ref, so no great surprise. Right now onto the game itself, for the first half hour of this game there was a clear gulf in class between the two sets of teams, City were controlled in possession and were stroking the ball around comfortably despite good closing down from the Pool players, on the occasions that Liverpool did win the ball in them opening exchanges they were too hurried in possession and didn't really look too much of a threat. Then City got the goal their play deserved, but unfortunately from a City point of view immediately after Liverpool scored an extremely fortuitous goal when Lescott turned a nothing shot into his own net. The result of this was City's heads dropping and the momentum swinging in Liverpool's favour. With this momentum Liverpool forced one chance of note when Hart reacted brilliantly to save with his foot. Second half, the first 15 mins saw both teams going toe to toe with both trying to establish that foothold in the game again, nothing really doing, maybe a half chance to either side. On the hour mark City began to visibly tire and the momentum started to swing back in Pool's favour, from that point on Liverpool looked the more likely to score but despite that they didn't create anything really clear cut. The game then took a massive swing in Liverpool's favour with the unjust sending off of Mario, it was only after this that Liverpool really dominated the play and thanks to Hart City hung on for a point. All told I believe the draw wasthe right result, Liverpool could have and perhaps should have won it after the unjust sending off but there is no way they were deserving of a victory in that game imo. as for your argument about stats, I'm sorry but it doesn't wash, we played Napoli last week and had 70% possession and twice as many shots as them, yet they were the better side, they looked like a threat througout and were deserving of their victory. If we were to take stats as an indicator of who deserves to win then it was City hands down in Naples, but we all know that's horse***** because Napoli created the better clear cut chances and played a better tactical game. Over and out.

JohnDoe: In what world isn't this a dive and cheating? To make things worse it's actually a bad tackle by Suarez. This was the incident where Liverpool fans are telling us Kompany should have been off - http://twitpic.com/7kst4r

JD, I said Mario deserved his first yellow, I agree that challenge was a yellow in itself, I was merely pointing out that Atkinson signalled persistent fouling by holding up 3 fingers to Mario and then pointing to where the offences took place. There is absolutely no contact whatsoever with Skrtel's face, I can't understand how you can say there is when there is replays and photo stills available online proving their was no contact. If that challenge is deserving of a yellow we'd have cards being flashed almost every time there is an aerial challenge. Gary Gillespie described the incident perfectly mate, go look up his quote. I didn't say the game was even, I said the momentum swung in Liverpool's favour, meaning Liverpool were on top, they looked more likely to score but they didn't dominate City until the sending off. Just one last point mate, this was a City side performing well below their best whereas Liverpool played a brilliant game by their standards, it finished level, what dies that tell you?

I tells me we can't finish off clubs at Anfield. We didn't finish off Sunderland, Manu, Norwich, and Man City when our performances merited all three points.

So where exactly did Suarez's agony come from? Pray tell since Kompany's foot and shin were BELOW his foot and studs, or are you going to deny that too???

I give up, the stereotype I had doubted is true - Liverpool have the most deluded fans imaginable and will defend the undefendable.

You get kicked in the foot, you fall over, how is that a dive?????? You can argue that Suarez exaggerated the fall, you can argue that he was acting to get Kompany sent off, you can argue that his kick on Kompany was worse that the one he recieved, but what you can't argue is that he dived. As any sane and sensible person knows, pay attention StuMCFC and fifthcolumnblue, a dive is when you fall over without being touched. You have to be blind to say that Suarez wasn't touched by Kompany, therefore it wasn't a dive. By the way, the most deluded set of fans are the ones who want a goalkeeper to be sent off for an accidental hand ball outside the area, who think they played better when every newspaper report of the game and most neutrals say otherwise, who think they should've gotten all three points when they were lucky to get one.

I guess you haven't read your fellow supporters comments Bluedub. In this article alone you have fifthcolumnblue saying "so all I can conclude is that it's not sour grapes on the part of my fellow Blues bemoaning the loss of two points" PhillyBlueMoon saying "Glad we got a point against 12 men tonight. Atkinson is a disgrace, plain and simple. If I were Mancini I'd get in touch with the two other teams who had players sent off for nothing and file a complaint immediately" Johnny Baguette saying "Yep, unbelievably lucky. Their keeper should have walked, we scored for them, had a striker sent off for a nothing second yellow and our keeper was brilliant" etc...