Ultimate Revenge By The Reds Againts Man City In League Cup Semi-Final 1st Leg

• The 3-0 impressive victory that the blues enjoyed over the reds eight days ago was overshadowed in the league cup semi-final 1st leg, on thursday, where the reds won 0-1 at the Etihad stadium with Steven Gerrard scoring the only goal of the game with an early penalty on the 12Th minute. It was Stevie's first full 90 minutes played on the field since he got injured back in the October last year, and didn't he just pull out an outstanding performance for the reds again. It is such a big lift for Kenny Dalglish and the reds as they welcome back the skipper to the squad and hoping for the best in him to be unleashed again in all the remaining games till the end of the season because it is very likely that there is already 2-3 teams competing for the fourth spot, so it is extremely crucial to have the skipper back in time to make an immediate impact. Teams that are competing would be Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal, so it is really going to be a close ending between the top teams as the points at the moment is super near and doesn't differ much though. Well, back to the Man City-Liverpool match, overall speaking, the game was really outstanding as Liverpool took control of the first half and Man City came out quite sustained in their fighting spirit in the second half and responded quite well but couldn't just find the finishing touch and failed to even score a goal. Liverpool started the game brightly, as they hope for a revenge and won an early penalty, when Man City's youngster, who had to to replace the suspended Vincent Kompany for his unlikely red-card for a fairly won tackle againt's Manchester United's Nani in the FA cup Fourth Round brought down Martin Skrtel in the edge of the penalty corner and referee Robert Webb gave a straight penalty without any hesitation, and unsurprisingly none of the Man City players denied that decision even the tackler himself, but it is understood that was a very harsh tackle by the youngster. Steven undoubtedly converted it right to the bottom left corner and Joe Hart almost made an outstanding stop but failed. Besides that penalty, Liverpool did had some decent chances and it was all on-target but with the on-form Joe Hart, the reds find it hard to get past him as he made a lot of terrific saves and on top of that, he might have given City the slightest of hopes in the second-leg at Anfield end of this month, but every team knows that Anfield is one place where you'll have to really be serious and not lack out, because it's Liverpool's homeground and they will nail the second-leg well to bed if City don't give a big fight till the end. Steven Gerrard then had a clash with Mancini, in the tunnel during half time, with Gerrard annoyed with Mancini's complaints about Johnson's two-footed challenge on Joleon Lescott, in which Gerrard thinks it's a clean tackle and he don't see anything wrong with that. Mancini denied and said, ''this was even worse that happened in the FA Cup fourth round, when Kompany tackled Nani'', so i really feel Johnson should have been sent off''. City, with this loss against Liverpool, already their fourth of the season, really are looking very shaky at the moment with some players away on National duties, like the Toure brother's and the current loss, is David Silva suffering an ankle injury and will be out for at least 3 weeks. So, it is going to be quite a tough season from now for City as tough ones againts the top teams awaits them. Liverpool will be at home againts Stoke City this weekend with Kenny Dalglish likely to field his strong squad as they look to close the gap with the teams ahead like, Chelsea and Arsenal.