99 Ways To Die: Man City 2 - Liverpool 2

And Liverpool seem intent on finding every single one of them. But they're all starting to look familiar now.

So different, and yet it felt the same. A lead against a big boy of the league, tossed away through a defensive mistake. Happened Wednesday. Outplaying the champions by a pretty large margin, mere minutes from a signature win. And a moment of defensive madness from a player we're supposed to count on to not make them tosses it away. Saw it in August, did we not.

I hate pinning a loss on one player. There are usually more reasons than that. The defending on the first goal was not exactly pretty. Though even if Agger had been in line with his other three defenders, Aguero was still onside. Johnson probably shouldn't have let him through, but Agger shouldn't have appealed for the call either. But worse yet, it appeared he hesitated on the cross, when if he'd just kept his stride me might have cut it out. But that happens I guess.

Two goals at the Etihad with as much control as Liverpool were exerting should be enough. It was enough. It was more than enough. And then....welll, Pepe gonna Pepe.

At this point it's not even a question of whether Reina should go in the summer, but whether he may have destroyed any value he might have had. Eight times his cockups hav e led to a goal against. There have been other saves that should have been made that weren't. It's cost Liverpool points. Obviously, it's such a harder scale for keepers, because their mistakes have no cover. The net is right behind them. But how long can this go on?

Aguero was going nowhere. Skrtel was even waving him off. What was it he thought he would accomplish? And a good day's work thrown away.

I want to be encouraged by the performance, or the charge of seeing yet another Stevie G corker. But the four points that lie in burned ruins from this week that should be glistening in the cabinet, it's just too hard to ignore right now.

Bullets:

-It's so painful because there were immaculate performances everywhere. Sturridge was brilliant, holding up the ball in ways I didn't think he could. Picking passes, continuing attacks with dogged work and turns. And that finish. Goodness. Carragher was immense again. Henderson made being out on the left work. Lucas was yippy at times, but the fact that City didn't create all that much from between the lines as they normally do has something to do with him. It's a shame.

-Is there anything more satisfying or causes you to lose control of your senses than Gerrard going that? It could have been 2001 or 2006 or today, the scream I involuntarily let out still sounded the same.What sucks about this draw is that moment felt so definitive. A strike so powerful and damaging, so poignant it would have been so easy to label it as defining and where progress became evident. Not now.

-There should be no controversy about Liverpool's first. Dzeko was not hurt and the ref didn't think he was. There's no obligation. Everyone knows players stay down to get the opposition merely to stop an attack. Dzeko was just pissed his antics didn't work. He should have carried it out all the way instead of springing up to swear at the linesman, which caused the curtain to fall around his rouse. Yes it was a foul on him, but aren't Pool due something like that?

-Gerrard and Lucas had to be deeper because of the formation to match City's, and they lacked an outlet at times with Henderson out wider. But the two of them plugged the main danger area for City, I guess that's enough. Good on Rodgers for spotting it.

-It's clear Mancini has lost his mind, because I was waiting for the Tevez suckerpunch that never came.

Two draws at the Emirates and Eastlands, in a vacuum, is a good turnout. But it doesn't feel that way right now. Maybe it will depending on how the rest of the year goes.