Match Report: Manchester City 0 - 0 LiverpooL

Even the return from injury of Craig Bellamy and Fernando Torres could not inspire either Manchester City or Liverpool to win the game neither team could afford to lose.

Bellamy featured for half an hour just days after a reported spat with manager Roberto Mancini, while Rafael Benítez allowed Torres, who has not played since the FA Cup defeat to Reading on January 13, a 15-minute run-out. Neither talisman, though, could break the deadlock as two under-performing teams cancelled each other out.

While both managers had been at pains to point out that, with three months of the season remaining, this was far from a straight shoot-out for the fourth place, from Peter Walton’s first whistle, there was no doubt both sides were well aware of the implications of losing ground to direct rivals.

Though Liverpool started the more efficiently, it was a cagey, tense affair, lacking any sort of rhythm and with chances conspicuous by their absence.

Steven Gerrard almost picked out Maxi Rodríguez with a curling, dipping cross, before sending a left-foot shot just wide. Adam Johnson, without question the hosts’ most effective outlet, cut inside from the right to send a cross-cum-shot whistling past Pepe Reina’s post.

Indeed, there was little evidence to suggest either side warrant the Champions League status both crave. Liverpool dallied in possession on several occasions on the edge of their own box, dicing with fate. City, at times, appeared disjointed, disorganised, unable to take advantage of their guests’ increasing nervousness.

The most damning statistic for both Mancini and Benítez, though, is that neither Reina nor his opposite number, Shay Given, were forced into action until the 61st minute, when the Liverpool goalkeeper produced a sprawling save low to his right to keep out an Emmanuel Adebayor volley.

Given, indeed, remained chronically underemployed for another quarter of an hour, when Gerrard fired a left-footed shot straight at the Irishman.

City, by that stage, were very much on the front foot, Liverpool - six players booked and Javier Mascherano lucky not to be dismissed - doing all they could to staunch the flow, despite the introduction of Torres after six weeks on the sidelines after knee surgery.

The Spaniard scarcely had chance to touch the ball as City twice went close, first Martin Skrtel producing a last-ditch tackle to rob Adebayor as he scampered through on Reina, before the Togolese striker headed the resulting corner just over.

Rafa's Verdict On City Stalemate

Rafael Benitez admitted he had mixed emotions following Liverpool's goalless draw with Manchester City at Eastlands on Sunday.

While the boss was frustrated his side couldn't get a winning goal, the return to action of Fernando Torres and Yossi Benayoun has given the squad a major boost.

"It was frustrating we couldn't get the winning goal and it was a match where both sides didn't create any clear chances," Benitez told his post-match press conference.

"I thought we had more possession than City but we were let down by the final pass in the final third of the field. That could have been the difference.

"It was a difficult game, as we thought it would be, and we have to keep going now until the end of the season.

"We could have had a penalty when Yossi felt he was tripped in the area but it wasn't to be.

"I was really pleased to have Fernando and Yossi back and that is a big positive to take from today.

"They have been really important players for us in the past and hopefully they can be really important in the future too. Both of them can make a difference in games."

Benitez made the decision to bring Torres back into his squad after Friday's training session at Melwood.

The boss added: "Fernando trained on Friday and he was really good. We also had a problem with David Ngog who twisted his ankle, so we decided to put Fernando on the bench as he is a player that can make a difference.

"Watching him in the training session he was really good and sharp, and that is a positive for me to take from today."

Asked whether he felt the Eastlands draw was a result that suited Liverpool more than City, Benitez responded: "You also have to think about Tottenham and Aston Villa so the race for fourth place is between four teams. It's important we try and get three points from every game we play now and then we'll see what happens.

"I have to think about the positives to take from today. We were strong and we had players coming back that will improve the squad."

Meanwhile, City boss Roberto Mancini said: "I think the draw was the correct result. Liverpool are a very good side. We didn't create many chances, and they didn't either."

Liverpool Suffer Ngog Injury Blow

Benitez has revealed that the decision to include Fernando Torres in the Liverpool squad that drew with Manchester City was prompted by an injury suffered by David Ngog in training.

The Reds' number nine played the remaining 15 minutes of the stalemate at the City of Manchester Stadium after Ngog twisted his ankle on Friday and Benitez insisted that Torres' inclusion, after a month on the sidelines, on the substitute’s bench underlined his status as an impact player.

He said: "Fernando trained on Friday and he was really good. We also had a problem with David Ngog who twisted his ankle, so we decided to put Fernando on the bench as he is a player that can make a difference.

"Watching him in the training session he was really good and sharp, and that is a positive for me to take from today."

Despite the inclusion of Torres and Yossi Benayoun, Benitez expressed his frustration at his side's failure to make their chances count in the goalless draw at Eastlands.

He added: "It was frustrating we couldn't get the winning goal and it was a match where both sides didn't create any clear chances.

"I thought we had more possession than City but we were let down by the final pass in the final third of the field. That could have been the difference.

"It was a difficult game, as we thought it would be, and we have to keep going now until the end of the season.

"We could have had a penalty when Yossi felt he was tripped in the area but it wasn't to be. I was really pleased to have Fernando and Yossi back and that is a big positive to take from today.

"They have been really important players for us in the past and hopefully they can be really important in the future too. Both of them can make a difference in games."

The result leaves Liverpool in sixth place in the Barclays Premier League, with City above them and Aston Villa below on goal difference, with all three sides a point behind Tottenham Hotspur in fourth and the Kop boss has emphasized the importance of building a winning run between now and the end of the current campaign.

"You also have to think about Tottenham and Aston Villa so the race for fourth place is between four teams. It's important we try and get three points from every game we play now and then we'll see what happens," he said.

"I have to think about the positives to take from today. We were strong and we had players coming back that will improve the squad."

Carra Eyes Anfield Exit

Jamie Carragher has admitted he is considering what the future holds when he becomes surplus to requirements with Liverpool.

The defender has been with the Anfield outfit for his entire career, having come through the ranks of the club's youth team to make his mark as a Kop hero.

But the 32-year-old accepts that there will come a time when he is no longer assured of a first-team place and knows that could well be the point when he brings the curtain down on his Merseyside career.

"The idea of being described as a 'squad player' doesn't appeal to me," he told the News of the World.

"I dread to think the time might come to play somewhere other than Liverpool. For as long as I'm good enough to be in the team here, I'm playing and I feel physically I can do myself justice, there's nowhere else I'd want to be.

"But like anyone at this stage of their career, I have no choice but to think about the possibilities beyond that.

"I've only ever known one club, but I'm interested in how other clubs operate. There's more to football than The Liverpool Way and I'd like to hear different ideas."

Former team-mate Robbie Fowler is currently playing in Australia, while following in the footsteps of former England captain David Beckham and heading to America is another option Carragher could consider.

"An experience like that appeals to me," he admitted. "The only thing that might put me off is whether the kids and family would want to move.

"But I like the idea that when I've gone as far as I can at Liverpool I could enjoy that kind of vastly different experience.

"Sometimes you feel something new is exciting. If I did play anywhere else I think that's the route I'd look at.

"It wouldn't be for football reasons, but to get a sense of a different way of life.

"I'm not sure I'd get anything out of playing for a Premier League team struggling in mid-table or fighting relegation. I'd get no satisfaction and wouldn't see the point of putting myself through it. I'd just be giving my body a battering, really."

Liverpool's current campaign has been a major disappointment, with early exits from the UEFA Champions League, FA Cup and Carling Cup.

Rafa Benitez's men are also well off the pace in the Premier League and face a tough battle just to ensure they are dining at Europe's top table again next term.

Carragher knows that simply fighting for fourth is not acceptable for a club of Liverpool's standing and believes their squad will have to be strengthened in the summer if they are to challenge for the title next term.

"You have to be realistic and recognise over the course of the season you're not going to get that first 11 on the pitch every week so the back-up has to be strong," he said.

"I'm sure there will be changes in the summer, and the main thing for us is keeping the top players here.

"There are times you feel you're a long way off, but it may only need some top-class additions for us to get back up there.

"I'd say we need two or three good buys and we wouldn't be as far away as many think.

"We just need beefing up. I know next year we don't want to be fighting for fourth again. To do that we'll have to strengthen the squad."

Carragher Eyes Top Summer Signings To Close Gap

Jamie Carragher feels Liverpool need two or three "top-class additions" if they are to avoid another season battling for fourth.

Many had expected Liverpool to challenge for the title this season after finishing second last year, but they got off to a poor start with a defeat at Tottenham and have yet to get back to their best.

Rafael Benitez has had to contend with a limited transfer budget and, with Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard both struggling with injury this season, Liverpool have not looked capable of matching the league's top sides, but Carragher feels the gap may not be as significant as it has appeared.

"I'm sure there will be changes in the summer, and the main thing for us is keeping the top players here," he told the News of the World. "There are times you feel you're a long way off, but it may only need some top-class additions for us to get back up there.

"I'd say we need two or three good buys and we wouldn't be as far away as many think. We just need beefing up. I know next year we don't want to be fighting for fourth again."

José Mourinho Will Watch The Battle For Fourth Place With Interest

There is a sub-plot to the battle for fourth place taking place at Eastlands on Sunday, if that is not too grandiose a billing for the meeting of two tired teams, and its denouement may depend on whether Manchester City or Liverpool win the race to achieve Champions League qualification. Should it turn out to be Aston Villa or Tottenham who finish fourth then all bets are off, but as things stand, if José Mourinho intends to return to England any time soon, and he keeps hinting that he does, then Liverpool and Manchester City appear his most likely destinations.

It could happen as early as this summer, since both clubs could be in the market for a new manager by then. Liverpool and Benítez no longer look at each other with adoring eyes and the Europa League is unlikely to change anything one way or the other. Benítez has admirers elsewhere, and if an honourable exit can be agreed to suit all parties then this summer may be the time to do it.

City appears in less immediate need of a new manager, having only just appointed one. It seems doubtful, though, that Roberto Mancini is really the long-term answer to the club's quest for world domination. The Italian has a reasonable reputation and was available, so until he proves otherwise it is easier to see him as a necessary part of Mark Hughes's removal than the manager City have identified to take them to the next level.

Everything about the Eastlands revolution so far has been brash, strident and attention-grabbing, even if much of the attention has been grabbed for the wrong reasons. Mourinho would make a perfect fit as City manager, much more so than a quietly spoken, undemonstrative type who struggles to make himself understood and has not so far managed to put a personal mark on the team he inherited from Hughes 13 games ago.

From Mourinho's point of view, too, once he realizes Manchester United are not going to be beating a path to his door in the foreseeable future, City may provide the best option – unless Real Madrid come calling. City will not need to build a new ground in the near future, unlike Liverpool, and their ownership appears benign and unproblematic. And they have all that money.

Even from Italy Mourinho must have heard of the difficulties Benítez has been having with the Liverpool hierarchy and few leading candidates would walk willingly into the situation in which the Spaniard has found himself this season, that of restricting transfer activity in order to make inroads into the enormous debt. Liverpool is in need of a major overhaul and money is tight. City have a core of decent players and the wherewithal to attract more, and have plenty of scope – one might say almost 30 years of scope – for a good manager to make an immediate improvement.

Would Mourinho consider City? He would certainly be flattered by an approach. For a start he feels isolated and underappreciated in Italy – "I am the only foreign coach in Serie A. Life is difficult here" – and having first-hand knowledge of the power balance in England the idea of doing in Manchester what he previously achieved in London, would probably appeal to his sense of mischief.

Mourinho was loved and hated in almost equal measure while at Chelsea; either way he enjoyed being the centre of attention. "There was negative criticism of my time in England, but I also read that I was a breath of fresh air," he proudly told a Portuguese newspaper last year. Despite winning the league in his first season with Inter, thus continuing the domestic success established under Mancini without managing to make the desired improvement in the Champions League, Mourinho has a shrewd idea he will never be the centre of attention in Italy.

"When they vote for the coach of the year, voted for by the coaches who are all Italian, I don't win. I have to vote for myself to get a vote. I see also in Italy how they celebrate the victories of Ancelotti's Chelsea, or Capello's England, and deeply regret Mr. Trapattoni's misfortune [with Ireland] in missing a World Cup in such an incredible way in Paris. I've seen the privilege, passion and affection with which Ancelotti, Trapattoni and Capello are treated, but for the only foreign coach in Serie A, life is difficult. How can they ask me if my love for Italy is different when I've never loved it?"

Short of pinning a "Come and get me" note to the roof of his dug-out Mourinho could hardly offer English clubs a clearer invitation and now that Guus Hiddink has tied himself to Turkey for the next two years he is the pre-eminent target for an English club wishing to make a statement of intent. An English club with ambitions to match his own, that is, and money to back up those ambitions. If we are to remove Chelsea from the equation, as we surely must, that leaves only City and Liverpool as likely suitors. One has all the money, another has all the tradition, but as Benítez has been discovering it is hard to buy top players with tradition.

Is City really in need of a new manager, so soon after replacing Hughes? On the face of it, no. Mancini has been doing a respectable, if unspectacular job, even if critics are beginning to look at the end product and wonder whether the same could not have been achieved under Hughes.

The Italian has just had his first ­falling-out with Craig Bellamy, though not too much need necessarily be read into that. All managers fall out with Bellamy and Mancini is probably to be congratulated for lasting two months. Apparently Mancini's policy of chopping and changing training sessions, making some long, some short, holding some early in the morning and some in the afternoon, is not going down well either, though his new signing Adam Johnson sees nothing wrong with it.

"Some days you get a lie-in, some days you are finished by lunchtime with the rest of the day to yourself," he says. ­"Personally I like that, no two days are the same. I didn't know a lot about the manager as a person when I came here, just about his career and honours, but now I've met him and he's been first class from day one. He's quite cool and has good man-management, he'll pull players to one side and tell them if he wants something different. I'm sure he can help me improve."

Perhaps Johnson would say that, having only been at the club less than a month, but the real question is whether Mancini can help City improve. His other January signing was harder to understand, and not just because Patrick Vieira will have to sit out three games for his rash retaliation in the 1-1 draw at Stoke last week.

With Gareth Barry, Nigel de Jong and Vincent Kompany already at the club and Stephen Ireland occasionally deployed in a deeper role City did not appear to have an urgent need for another defensive midfielder, yet Mancini's preference seems to be for not two but three such players in the same team.

Vieira played fractionally behind Barry and De Jong at Stoke, leaving Johnson the only out-and-out attacking player in the midfield quartet and Emmanuel Adebayor and Roque Santa Cruz somewhat isolated up front. Even with Bellamy and Carlos Tevez unavailable Mancini could find no room in the starting line-up for creative talents such as Ireland, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Martin Petrov, and while some might say it is about time someone introduced City to the concepts of organization and defensive discipline, others reckon the manager is far too cautious to be given control of such an adventurous and attack-minded squad.

While the arguments on either side will doubtless rage for a while yet, what spectators at the Britannia stadium saw on Tuesday was unquestionably a poor City performance, with Vieira a mile off the pace and even further from looking anything like his old self. Even with 10 men Stoke would have won and made Mancini's position even more uncomfortable, had not the referee, Alan Wiley, spared City by denying Ryan Shawcross what looked a perfectly good last-minute goal.

When Mancini was asked whether he thought there had been a foul on Shay Given he said, reasonably enough, that he had not seen the incident. "You're learning fast, Roberto," a reporter replied drily. "Thank you," Mancini said, believing he had just been complimented on his improving English. "I have been ­watching ­Coronation Street."

A small and insignificant detail, if you like, but possibly a revealing one. As a communicator Mancini is not in the class of Mourinho, Hiddink or Capello, who all came to this country without direct experience and with varying levels of English but made their wishes clear from day one. Mancini may be a first-rate manager, if slightly out of his element in England, yet after two months it is clear he is even quieter than his predecessor. Maybe there is nothing wrong with that. Not everyone can be a special one.

But this is the club that sacked Hughes because everything was too quiet. City is in a hurry to be noticed. If a special one happens to be available, you can bet they will be interested.

Manchester City To Bid £140M For Liverpool Pair Steven Gerrard & Fernando Torres

Ambitious Manchester City aim to beat Liverpool in the race for fourth-place in the Premier League, and then raid the Anfield outfit for their two greatest assets - captain Steven Gerrard and Spain international Fernando Torres - according to a report in News of the World.

The two sides face each other at City of Manchester Stadium today, Sunday, yet the Reds could leapfrog City should they leave Eastlands with maximum points. However, Roberto Mancini's side would still have a game in hand advantage.

Media reports have this week indicated that Liverpool's finances remain in an unhealthy state, and in the event that Rafael Benitez fails to deliver Champions League football next season, a £140 million bid could be tempting for the club in order to solve their fiscal deficiencies.

Gerrard has almost been wooed in the past. In 2005 he was allegedly close to signing for Chelsea. Torres, meanwhile, may look to the wages available at Manchester City, and be lured by the prospect of being offered a wage in excess of the £140,000 per week that Emmanuel Adebayor receives.

Torres currently pockets £95,000 per week at Liverpool.

Liverpool Must Stop Blaming Xabi Alonso Sale For Poor Season – Jamie Carragher

Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher has stated the Reds must forget about Xabi Alonso and stop blaming the Spaniard’s sale for their failure to push for the title this season.

After finishing runners-up to Manchester United during 2008-09 many expected Rafael Benitez’s men to challenge strongly for the title this time around.

However, the Anfield outfit have suffered a disappointing campaign and face a fight to finish fourth in the Premier League and qualify for next season’s Champions League competition.

Many have pointed to Alonso's summer departure to Real Madrid as a huge factor in the club’s apparent demise, yet Carragher insisted this argument was unfounded.

"I've heard the arguments about what would have happened had we kept Xabi Alonso this season," he told the News of the World.

"Xabi is a good mate of mine and a great player. I was disappointed when he left.

"He was here for five years and he was great for us, but we didn't win the league during that time, did we?

"There's no way you can say if he was here we'd win the league. There's more to it than that.

"You can't keep looking back like that. I wish Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush were still in the team too so you might as well be arguing we'd win the league if we still had them."

Carragher also revealed he believed there would be changes at Anfield in the summer, but was confident the club could keep their star names as well as adding further quality to the squad.

"I'm sure there will be changes in the summer," added the defender.

"And the main thing for us is keeping the top players here. There are times you feel you're a long way off, but it may only need some top-class additions for us to get back up there.

"I'd say we need two or three good buys and we wouldn't be as far away as many think.

"We just need beefing up. I know next year we don't want to be fighting for fourth again."