After the thriller between Manchester City and Liverpool on Sunday, the consensus was that we had seen one of the all-time great Premier League clashes.
They were two sides stacked full of quality players, led by a couple of managers who approached the contest in an attacking manner that made for an incredible standard. It was certainly a standard of football that has rarely been seen in that division before, with the pulsating 2-2 draw a game that was befitting of the teams on show.
Many felt that this game was an example of why these were two of the best teams in Premier League history, with even Roy Keane admitting that it was a joy to behold at times.
What impressed me with all these top quality players was their desire to keep going and try and win the game at the end...
We're getting a great reminder of what this game is all about, that's why we love the game. I really enjoyed the game, I thought it was fantastic. Credit to all the players, I thought they were fantastic.
However, not all believed that this was a top quality contest.
The old RTÉ trio of Eamon Dunphy, Liam Brady, John Giles felt the two teams actually performed quite poorly on the day and the game was short on quality from both sides throughout.
No, seriously.
Speaking on The Stand, Liam Brady couldn't believe that Roy Keane said that this had been a high quality affair.
It was a compelling game, the intensity of it, how competitive it was, and what was at stake made that happen. But I couldn't help but thinking that it wasn't the quality game that the people were making it out to be.
You know Micah Richards, Gary Neville, and Jamie Carragher are going to always push the Sky business, 'what a great product we have' and things like that. It's not like Roy Keane to buy into it, but he did [on Sunday].
If you analyse the game, it was littered with mistakes. The goals were all avoidable...
That's why I would have disagreed with what the people on Sky were saying that it was one of the all-time great games. It wasn't, it was lacking quality and full of mistakes.
🎙️ "Alexander-Arnold... Salah... IN FOR SADIO MANEEE!"
It's level AGAIN at the Etihad!! What a game 🤯 pic.twitter.com/os2x3jEB6X— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) April 10, 2022
To say that each of the goals were completely avoidable is a bit of a push, with a lot of credit having to go to those attacking players for creating such opportunities.
Eamon Dunphy agreed with Brady's statement, saying that he felt the game was poor despite featuring the two best teams in European football.
I thought it was a poor game actually. I thought City killed [Liverpool] to be honest...
It was at halftime [Keane] said it, after 45 minutes that it was a quality game. After 45 minutes I thought 'this isn't great stuff' from two teams I think are the best in Europe and certainly the best in the Premier League. That was at halftime and then again afterwards.
You'd expect certain pundits or analysts to bum it up, after all it was a coup for Sky that they had it.
This is certainly a more old school attitude when to comes to analysing such fixtures.
In the past, the emphasis was put on defending deep and seeing off pressure, while moments of attacking brilliance were often put down to mistakes at the back. John Giles said that this was an example of that, claiming that both teams were very poor at the back throughout.
It was an exciting game because of the goals, but not a quality game if you look at the manner in which they were given away...
I didn't listen to the post-match because it gets on my nerve at times, but I was surprised to learn that Roy Keane thought it was a great game...
If you look at it as a game where you want quality and quality goals, that didn't happen. You got goals so that made it exciting, there is no doubt about it. But if you're looking at the quality of it, I couldn't say it was a great quality game...
For Roy Keane and the panel, they're entitled to their opinion. Us three all agree that it wasn't a great quality game.
Throughout the podcast, it was said that both City and Liverpool should have dropped deeper in order to contain the opposition, something that goes completely against the philosophy under which both teams operate.
Dunphy at one stage called Liverpool's high line 'crazy', with that being a consistent subject on the show over the last few weeks. In fact Giles recently said that Klopp's defensive setup was actually costing his team to ship goals at the back, despite the fact that Liverpool had conceded only two goals in the ten Premier League fixtures prior to their meeting with City.
This certainly seems like a very old school attitude to two of the great teams in the modern game.
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