FM16 #5 (LFC)

Bye bye FA, hello Champions League?? #5

Now it's time for another update. I've been playing lots of matches in different tournaments. We started in the FA Cup against Manchester United which I was about to meet a couple of times in the following weeks. In this match we had a 1-1 result in our bag from the first leg. We knew at this time that we would face Blackburn in the next round with a victory. Lallana was in great in shape at this point and showed it again after only 29 minutes. 1-0!
From this point we controlled the game and created lot's of chances - but none of them gave us a goal. Suddenly Man Utd began to fight back. They took Dempay, Lingaard and Martial onto the pitch which gave them lot's of pace up front. This gave them lot's of opportunities and out of nowhere Martial was sent behind my defenders and he outran them easily. With just Migonlet to beat he didn't have a had time scoring. 1-1 after 79 minutes. Looked like the first leg.
But then in the 91 minute Daniel Sturridge showed up in the box after some fumbling between their defender and he scored! We won!


With this win we was put up against Blackburn in the 6th round. The first leg was pretty boring. We showed up with a couple of reserves. Not many chances was created. In the second half the only "highlight" was done - and this was by Rossiter who managed to get sent off after 91 minutes.

In the second leg we saw the same pattern. 0-0 after 90 minutes and therefore we needed extra time. After 118 minutes Blackburn finally did it. They scored with Elliott Bennett. We lost. We wouldn't win this cup this year, sadly.

Premier League

In the Premier League we started out with Bournemouth in this month which we defeated 2-1 with a late goal (94 minute) by Christian Benteke. At this point Danny Ings was injured so he didn't play much so the striker position was between Benteke and Sturridge - by now Sturridge was ahead of Ben.

Manchester United and Tottenham was next up in the League. Two though opponents but none the less two matches that would bring us in a great position in the league if we got some points. 

First of we met Man Utd at Anfield. After only 26 minutes we have scored 4 goals with Lallana, Lovren and Benteke times two as the goalscorers. Shortly after Martial reduced this. Mata with a late goal which made the final result 4-2. Very pleasing although the two Manchester goals should have been avoided. 

The next match against Tottenham gave us another 3 points after winning 2-0 with goals by Hendo and Firmino.

In the following four matches we met Everton, Newcastle, Aston Villa and last but not least Watford who I fought with about the fourth place in the league at this point - therefore I would do anything for the players to be ready against them.

The first three matches gave us five points - winning against Everton, and two draws against Newcastle and Aston Villa. 

With those played we were about to meet Watford.

EURO Cup

After defeating Lokomotiv Moscow we were put up against Athletic which in my opinion was an affordable opponent. We started with a match at Anfield. I played Benteke in front because of Sturridge being out with an injury. This should actually show itself being a great choice because after only 4 minutes Benteke scored! Only 21 minutes later he was at the right place again! 2-0. Emre Can scored after 79 minutes making this match really great for us! Now we only had to keep Athletic away from our goal. But in the last minute Athletic scored an, for them, important away goal making it a 3-1.

In the return we scored after 2 minutes with a goal by Jordon Ibe who was playing a lot of matches at this point.  Markel Susaeta equalized after 39 minutes. 1-1 then became the final result and we qualified for the next round. 

We now was about to draw our next opponent. I really hoped for some pretty "easy" matches even though I knew there was no such things at this point in the tournament but I must admit I was expecting or hoping for a clash with Chelsea... But so it was and we met them at Anfield in the first leg.

Cesc Fabregas scored the first goal giving them an away goal. A really bad start for us. But Ibe scored the equalizing goal after 55 minutes which became the final result. Not the greatest but I was sure that we would be able to score at the Bridge - and I was right! Diego Costa scored the first goal in the second leg but then Firmino equalized making this very interesting! 

Daniel Sturridge then scored making it 2-1 and giving us a great advantage! After 90 minutes it was still 2-1 and we was going on into the semi finals where we was about to meet Manchester United... yea again.

Again we were starting at Anfield. The main subject for me was too keep them away from scoring and then hopefully score ourself.

After 56 minutes Sakho was sent off after making an dangerous tackle on Wayne Rooney. I needed to make some serious changes now to keep United away. We was successful in keeping them away but we didn't get to score ourself - making this a 0-0 and very interesting for the next match.