YES Huge win

Happy new year chaps.

Well that was a Chelsea type win. Wasn't pretty but done just enough

Yes! Get in! Never would have thought we'd win 1-0 when we scored the opening goal. Great end to the year

Guardiola was definitely smiling when he heard YNWA from the Kop late on there

A great win, this team has real character. 3 points in our match on Monday against Sunderland,and keep this form going. A similar result to today at home to Chelsea in January could really have us as serious contenders.

There's the small matter of a trip to old Trafford in January to and they would love to mess us up but it's looking good

Cracking win, 4 points clear of em

Bring on Sunderland!

Happy New Year for 2017 to all.

Could it be our time?????

Hopefully Sunderland will be at least as knackered as us with a 2 day turnaround.
We'll go into that one on a high but fair play our lads put in a right shift this evening.

Needed to win that, got a bit nervy when it started to swing their way a bit, but we dug in and turned it back

I'd say Wijnaldum just shaded Milner and Firminho as our MOTM. Georgie W's best game for us so far.

Our old boss Mr Rodgers needs to watch a recording of this game to see what Character really is

He injured himself today, done his ankle

Hopefully Hendos not serious.

I'll take that! A good 1-0 win at home against Man City. Nice goal from Wijnaldum, who played well throughout the game, right to the end. My MOTM.

I hope Hendo isn't out for too long. He can sit out Sunderland on the 2nd, then Plymouth and Southampton in the cups. We'd get by if that's the case. Could do with him when we come up against Man United.

But Can, Lallana and Wijnaldum will do fine.

What delighted me was that Klopp didn't panic when City were running at 80%+ possession and change out players, he knew the team was doing the right things for defending. It was so dammed good to see our defence stand strong, proud of the boys - they done well!

Oh and a very happy 2017 to all of you, hope it brings all you wish for - especially more wins for our amazing club.

A very un Liverpool type performance in that our defence was the main reason why we won - for me Klavan was motm as he played 80 minutes on a booking and did not put a foot wrong but really as usual it was a team effort, there was no weak link. All 11 of them ran around largely not allowing MCFC time and space, doing their jobs well and their concentration was brilliant. Maybe as Klopp said we did not keep the ball as well as we could have which put us under pressure, but we did not concede and frankly even tho MCFC had a lot of possession they did not have any really good chances so well did we defend.

Sunderland will be a completely different game and Sturridge and Origi will be key people i am sure and the good thing is that both should be fairly fresh to help us to get the job done - any kind of win will do.

Once again a team equaled Chelsea for large parts of the game but once again CFC won so we are not gaining any points. Maybe TH can stall them a bit next week and if we beat them we gain 3 - but yeah of course CFC are favourites but there is a long way to go yet and we are definitely in it.

That was really quite a painful game to watch. With two excellent attacking sides I was expecting goals galore but instead both sides were really poor in possession. I lost count of the amount of counter attacking opportunities we wasted with bad decisions.

So happy for Wijnaldum to get the winning goal and a MOTM award to boot though. He gets through so much work in the midfield and is integral to the way we play, but it's largely gone unnoticed due to his lack of contributions in the final third.

One interesting stat I saw after the game was that Aguero didn't have a single touch inside our box, so huge credit to the defence who kept him quiet. Klavan in particular looked very good again. Milner had a good game too, keeping Sterling comfortably in his pocket.

To be 6 points behind Chelsea after the insane run they've had is really impressive to me. They've got some tough games coming up (including a visit to Anfield) so it's still all to play for. I want to say we look good for a top 4 place but it's going to be so tight with Spurs and United continuing to pick up wins. To think we play Sunderland in less than 48 hours is mad.

That was such a big, big win, and it was all thanks to a tactical masterclass from Klopp. I did kind of miss the blood and thunder that we'd gotten used to under his management, but his game management was spot on. We made the game super boring, but it's what was needed to starve City of any opportunities to score.

I feel like we may just have the best manager in the league (perhaps tied with Conte), I really do.

The reason Aguero never got a kick was done to Clyne, Milner, Hendo and Can totally dominating Toure, De Bryune, Silva and Sterling thus extinguishing City's abilty to develop meaningful opportunities. The CB's did well, but they were also well protected.

I know I'm in a minority who can, on occasion, enjoy a 1-0 win. Yesterdays game was one such instance. What was impressive was the manager adapted to what he was going to be up against, and he slightly altered our approach. The fullbacks were noticeably more conservative yesterday and held their positions slightly deeper than normal. This wasn't defensive football, it was a controlling tactic and it worked. Unusually for Liverpool we were trumped in every stat going ( passes, shots, corners...) but apart for 10-15mins at the start of the second half we never looked troubled by them at all. With better decision making and sharpness in front of goal, it could have been two or three easily ( surprised he didn't use Sturridge for the last 30mins as we weren't really in the high tempo pressing mode ).

Hope we have the legs left to go back to our more exciting, swashbuckling style at Sunderland. It's another big game with another very important three points ( no matter what Chelsea do at Spurs ).

Happy, healthy, peaceful and successful New Year to you all.

At one point people would have called that 'anti-football', which is ridiculous. Setting out to stiffle the opposition, doing so and getting 3 points as a result is tactical genius. At times I think some people want football to be played with all the tactical awareness of a school league match. Never understood criticism when managers set out their side to do a specific job against a specific opponent. It's what managers are paid for.

Long time, no see!

(Agree with your point so this post isn't off-topic )

I see in the alternative premier league (calendar year) we ended up 2nd to Chelsea and 6 points behind them.

Spurs winning at Watford has them up to third and if Arsenal beat Palace, City will join Utd in being out of the top 4 places.

What odds on that being the case in May and neither Guardiola or Mourinho coaching in next seasons CL

Looking at the fixtures for the rest of the season, some interesting points to note.

Due to a couple of cup games, Mane will only miss at most the games against Manchester United and Chelsea in the premier league.

We play all the remaining games against the top six sides by the 18th March, with only the 2 Manchester clubs away.

Which means our run in will be void of any of the top six sides, while they will be taking points of eachother.

So if we can hang in there until the spring and avoid too many slip ups, we should be well placed for the run in.

I hesitate to reply as I am not that keen on a disagreement and I do agree to a degree but would have to qualify what I think.

I think teams wanting to win the title rarely play the way we did yesterday as a matter of course but at times yes it can be the best way to win a match and in those instances no problem. Yesterdays team selection leaving Origi out to play both Wijnaldum and Can raised a few eyebrows but with the benefit of hindsight it was a master stroke. That's why we should trust Klopp on team selections!! However I cannot think of a single title winning team who has played that way all the time - I don't think you would win the title that way - yesterday we were lucky (if that is the right word) to get a goal in the 8th minute which made life a lot easier.

For me the worst 'anti football' display was CFCs in the SG slip game with them wasting time from minute 1 and Mourinho refusing to return the ball for throw ins ...etc but I suppose if I am fair that was their best hope of winning the game which they did so perhaps the end justifies the means (and the win was not through luck cos both their goals were valid and we had no wrongly disallowed ones or pen claims denied). I guess with LFC going for the league with Suarez on fire that was the best way to stop us - and Brendan was maybe naive in his approach to the game.

Another anti football beef of mine was Stoke under Pulis - their tactics were based on having man mountain physical defenders who stopped talented players in whatever way they could (often not within the rules) with the main attacking tactics being to use long throws and apply a bit of creative wrestling in the box to get the odd goal. Most football fans prob remember Wenger's attitude to them with the famous pic of him with his arms outspread and the Stoke fans behind giving him stick!! - so it is not just a LFC thing. But it worked and established Stoke as a PL team so in a way the means can justify the ends. I am sure Stoke fans were not that bothered about how their team became a mid table PL team, all they are worried about is getting to that level which they did - and in fairness now under Hughes they do try to play a bit more football. Pulis still sets his teams up a bit like that and I am not his biggest fan but I guess he does not have the funds to buy better players so he gets the best results he can with the resources he has - altho give me an Eddie Howe over a Tony Pulis any time.

In conclusion I hope it will not be a way we play very often but at times if that is the best way to win a particular match then no problem with doing it occasionally. Its interesting actually that we have not always done it V City (see last season when we beat them at Anfield with a far more attacking display) but Klopp chose to play that way yesterday - maybe it was a bit due to the players available to him and who was playing for City - you'd have to ask him as he is a far better soccer tactician than me

Again, the Chelsea game at Anfield will be massive. Bring it on!

Watching post-match coverage of the City game, and it turns out Klopp lives in Gerrard's house. Gerrard says he hasn't been there yet to see if Klopp's been looking after it.

I love that Klopp lives in Stevie's house. I also like his tendency to refer to Gerrard as "Stevie".