Report by
Dave Usher
In the build up to this one Jurgen was bullish about two consecutive clean sheets and when it was put to him that perhaps his team haven’t been getting enough credit for their recent defensive improvement, he scoffed; “It’ll never happen” as though him and his players are being unfairly picked on. I hate to say this, but it reeked of Brendan and his “must be the new defensive coach!” bravado.
Such hubris always seems to blow up in our faces, so we shouldn’t be too surprised by what happened at Wembley. This team always has this kind of day in them, it’s just that it doesn’t usually happen against the better teams in the league. It’s usually a Watford or Bournemouth.
The one thing we’ve been able to cling to in the face of so many disappointments against the lesser sides is that we were the kings of the top six games. We don’t even have that anymore. Who are we? What’s our identity? A mate said to me after this that we’ve turned into 1980s Tottenham. Known for playing lovely football but having a soft centre. Difficult to argue.
“It’ll never happen”. Maybe ask yourself why it’ll never happen, eh Jurgen? People don’t trust this team and for good reason. Why the fuck should we trust them when they continually let us down? A couple of clean sheets is not enough justification to puff your chest out and start giving it the “who said we can’t defend, eh?” routine.
The fans don’t believe in these players, while the media narrative is that they’re too defensively suspect to be successful. Both of these things piss Klopp off massively, but sometimes the truth hurts.
This was a fucking disgrace. Klopp even admitted afterwards that whatever negative things people want to say about the performance is completely justified, and he’s right. It’s difficult to think of any negative thing we can throw at them that isn’t fair right now.
Klopp’s probably fuming that they’ve made him look a tit after he was getting all chesty about this defensive ‘improvement’. He should have known better though, I mean how many fucking times does he have to see these same players have days like this before he accepts that this is who they are and it’s not going to change?
There aren’t even any words to sum up Lovren’s ineptitude here. Harry Kane is so good that even if you play a perfect game against him he might still bang in a hat-trick. If you do what Lovren did though, fucking hell, you may as well not even show up. Just forfeit the game and spare us the embarrassment.
The first goal was a joke. He’s playing offside when he has no idea where the rest of his defenders are. Gomez played Kane onside but in fairness to the kid he’s only about half a yard deeper than anyone else. Lovren just needs to stay goalside, the soft cunt. He’s 28, not 18. This is basic shit.
Then after being beaten he’s half arsing it back, and only when it looked like Kane might be struggling to get his feet right for the finish did Lovren then move his arse to try and challenge him. Mignolet didn’t help either, coming out when he should have stayed put. Stay back and make Kane beat you with a great finish, don’t give him an open fucking goal. Kinell.
The second was even worse because having let Kane get in behind once, to allow it to happen a second time was unforgivable. Lovren tried to nip in front and win a header but missed it completely and allowed Kane to run clear. Son got ahead of Milner in the middle and finished well after Kane picked him out.
Can’t blame Milner too much for that because he saw the run and tried to stay with it. It’s not like he neglected his duties, it’s just that Son was just too quick for him. Maybe he could have taken him out before he got near the box and took a yellow card, but that’s nit picking.
That goal was completely on Lovren who should have been dragged off there and then. I don’t know why he wasn’t actually, all I can think of was Klopp needed to figure out who to bring on and how to reshuffle things. He did bring him off after half an hour and it’s significant that he refused to play the ‘back injury’ card to help Lovren out. He didn’t completely throw him under the bus though and said that he was no worse than Matip, which is clearly untrue but not actually too far off as Matip was shite as well.
Over the years I’ve been kinder to Lovren than most. I’ve stuck up for him numerous times in the past and for me there have been spells when he’s played very well and not really gotten enough credit for it, mainly because he was so bad previously that people couldn’t forget that.
Klopp no doubt felt the same, which partly explains his “it’ll never happen” comment. Mud sticks, as they say. I’m done with Lovren now. He’s been mostly shite this season, and while this back injury might have been a contributing factor, it doesn’t explain the complete fucking meltdown he had in this game.
Perhaps no-one typifies what is wrong with this team more than Lovren, although you could make a strong case for Mignolet too. He’ll have spells when he plays well and you think “he’s not that bad” and it’s true, he isn’t that bad. Until he is. Even when he’s doing ok, the arse is always going to fall out of them eventually. I feel the same about Moreno too. For all the people talking about how well he’s done this season and how he’s rehabilitated himself, I can’t shake the feeling that the dynamite is going to go off soon.
He’ll revert to type, it’s almost inevitable. And when he does, we’ll all be screaming again about how it’s complete negligence that he is still first choice after all this time. Don’t get me wrong, he was good against Spurs. He’s been surprisingly good all season actually, but you know it’s coming. It might not be next week, it might not even be the week after. It’s only a matter of time though.
Klopp judges these bums on their good games and thinks he can eradicate the bad ones with coaching. He can’t. He should already know this as there’s a huge body of evidence to tell us exactly who these players are. Maybe this will be the watershed moment where it finally dawns on him that he’s been flogging a dead horse, but I’m not holding my breath though.
We’ve been here before. He’ll demand a response and he’ll get it. They’ll have a good week of training and they might even play well next week and spank Huddersfield. And the cycle will begin again. Klopp will be snarky with anyone who questions the team’s defending, he’ll be bullish after a couple of clean sheets and we’ll have Lovren and Mignolet talking about what has changed and why we’ve improved, we’ll have Moreno telling his critics to “shut up” and then BOOM. The dynamite will go off and the walls come crashing down around us.
This team is no different to the one that shit the bed in Basel against Sevilla. You still can’t trust the fuckers because they’re just so weak and fragile. They should have those ‘fragile’ labels you get from the Post Office on their shirt sleeves instead of that Western Union logo.
But you know what? This is on Klopp. Blame Lovren all you like. Blame Mignolet too if it makes you feel better. Hell, let’s blame Henderson for being a weak, uninspiring captain. Or Firmino for not being Harry Kane. Ultimately, wherever you want to apportion blame all roads lead back to the manager because he is the one enabling this.
He’s still picking the vast majority of players that got his predecessor the sack and they’re still doing the same things they were back then. It beggars belief when you actually sit and think about it.
It’s catch 22 though, because for all his mistakes and shortcomings, Klopp is our only hope of getting better. I mean who else would we get? If we’re not going to win anything then at the very least I want to be entertained and see us play good attacking football, and more often than not we get that. There are more than enough good things about Klopp to suggest if he ever opens his fucking eyes and realises how misplaced his faith in these players has been we might have a chance at being really good. They just can’t get out of their own way at times though.
I mean fucking hell, we managed to lose this game twice. Lovren threw it away initially but we clawed our way back with a goal from Salah and for the rest of the first half we had taken control of the game. I could certainly have seen us getting an equaliser had it stayed at 2-1 until half time as that was the way the game looked to be trending. Lovren going off had settled us down and it looked like we’d got back on track. Then out of nowhere we spewed up all over ourselves again.
The following is not a defence of Lovren. Repeat; not a defence of Lovren. As I said, I’m done with him now and if I had my way I’d rather he never played for us again as there’s no coming back from this one. Stick a fork in him, he’s done. However, anyone thinking that he’s our problem is kidding themselves. He wasn’t even on the field when we lost this game for the second time. He wasn’t on the field when City put five past us either. Pinning this on Lovren lets others off the hook.
I’m actually far more pissed off about the third goal than I am with anything else that happened in this game. We were back in it, there was a chance we’d go on to get something from the game and if we’d got back to 2-2 then we might have even won it as Salah was causing a lot of problems and Coutinho was getting into it. Then, just like that, game over. Fucking losers.
Firstly, what the fuck is Klopp doing putting Can to right back. The lad is an abomination in that position. The last time I remember him playing there we conceded six at Stoke. Bringing Oxlade-Chamberlain on was a good move. Moving Coutinho back into midfield was a good move. Switching Gomez to centre back - good move. Putting Can to right back as opposed to Milner? Fucking stupid. That’s not hindsight either, I hated it straight away.
What I would say is that Klopp isn’t stupid and the longer this goes where Milner is never being used at full back, the more I’m convinced that something has gone on behind the scenes. I can’t see Milner flat out refusing to play full back, but I wonder if he’s had a conversation and let it be known he’d rather be considered as a midfielder only. Nothing else makes sense at this point.
Lo and behold though, Can loses the ball needlessly and then gives away a free kick and gets himself booked by trying to make amends. Fucking idiot. That does not happen with Milner at full back. When have you ever seen him do that? Never.
Still, it was a free-kick miles from goal. It shouldn’t have been catastrophic. Yet it was, because this team are fucking losers and do loser things. Like conceding from a set-piece with the last kick of the half even though Spurs only sent two players forward because they were settling for what they had and just wanted to get to half time.
For us to let them score in that situation is just… I don’t know, there’s no word that does it justice. Criminal, unforgivable… they just don’t seem strong enough words for this. The bottom line is that good teams don’t do that. Losers do. It’s loser behaviour. They’re fucking losers. Matip’s shit header was every bit as inexcusable as Lovren’s blunders, and if he didn’t get a shout from Mignolet then he’s at fault too.
That was the game gone right there in that one single, unforgivable weak as piss moment. Forget what Lovren did, we might have actually overcome that, but as soon as you do something like this, at a moment like that, forget it. You’re just begging to lose the game. Useless cunts.
While everyone has been focusing on the hapless Lovren, Matip has been getting away with it. “Not as bad as Lovren” should be on his fucking headstone. He’s not a bad player, but like so many of his team-mates he’s a fair weather shithouse. Looks good when the game is going well (and his partner isn’t having a meltdown), but when things around him are unravelling he turns into a calamitous mound of dung too. Just like the Mig, who got in on the act by flapping at a cross and gifting Spurs a fourth goal.
Yet while all this was happening, little Mo continued to look dangerous every time he got the ball. That’s the worst part of this. We can play football and we are threatening going forward, but it doesn’t matter because these defensive shit the bed moments are all too frequent, especially away from home. 16 goals conceded away, but just one conceded at Anfield. Unbelievable.
Another take I had from this game was about Coutinho. He didn’t have his best game but he was still a danger and only a stunning save from Lloris kept him off the scoresheet. I’ve now done a complete u-turn on him. I was pissed off at how he behaved over the summer, with the transfer request and ‘back injury’ shite.
Now? I looked at him here, still demanding the ball late in the game and trying to make something happen even though we were down 4-1, and I actually felt sorry for him. We denied him his dream move to Barca and made him stay for this?? FOR THIS???
I’d be fucking fuming if I was him now. He looks back there and he’s seeing the same players that were there when Rodgers got the sack. What must he be thinking?
It’s bad enough that we couldn’t even sustain a title challenge into October, but we’re currently ninth. Fucking NINTH!! This is more or less where we were when Klopp came in exactly two years ago (we were 10th, behind Southampton on goal difference). Ironically, his first game was at Spurs and we drew and kept a clean sheet. Now look at us.
I’d say we’ve made progress since then and we’ve had some amazing performances and wins, but in some ways we may have actually regressed on something that wasn’t very good to begin with. We’re on pace to concede 67 goals this season at the current rate. Of course it won’t be that many as the numbers are a little skewed based on the hammerings we’ve had at Spurs and City, but even best case scenario it’s going to be over 50 isn’t it? Hard to believe we could be so leaky, especially considering there aren’t five better defenders out there than what we have.
When it clicks we look great, when it doesn’t we’re a fucking joke. I don’t know how this can even be fixed because the solutions aren’t in the current squad and neither the manager or owners have thus far shown any kind of desire or ambition to address it. The same things that were killing us prior to Klopp’s arrival are still killing us now, and it’s mostly the same players doing it (honourable mention to Matip who has come in and done his best to fit right in with the rest of the Keystone Cops back there).
We’ll have some games where we play well and look like the real deal, and then other games where we’re a fucking shambles. And at the end of it, the very best we can hope for is that some of our rivals are as flawed as we are and we somehow sneak into the top four.
The more I think about it though, I don't give a shiny shite about the top four. I just want us to stop being such a fucking embarrassment and show signs that we're actually on the right track and not just wandering along aimlessly on a road to nowhere.
Team: Mignolet; Gomez, Matip, Lovren (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Moreno; Henderson, Can (Grujic), Milner; Salah, Firmino (Sturridge), Coutinho:
Recommended Comments