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    A bit more difficult to grade this lad because he hasn’t played too many games. When he did play he was extremely dependable though. Klopp described him as the “best back up keeper in world football”, something which clearly seemed to get under the skin of Pep Guardiola who sarcastically referenced it a couple of months later. I’m fairly sure he isn’t the best back up keeper in world football but nevertheless he’s very good.
     
    So much so that any time I see a team sheet without Alisson, as long as it’s Kelleher there in his place I’m very relaxed about it. Is he as good as Alisson? Of course not, but he’s done well enough to earn the trust of Klopp, his team-mates and the fans. His finest hour came at Wembley when he was given the nod to start as Jurgen kept his word having told him in the summer that he would be the League Cup goalkeeper.
     
    Many fans would have gone with Alisson but a manager needs to have the trust of his players, and if you tell a goalkeeper he will play in a certain competition, it isn’t a good look if you go back on that just because you reach the final. Guardiola did the same thing in the FA Cup only for it to backfire as we made his back up keeper look very stupid. It was the right call picking him though if assurances had been given.
     
    Klopp on the other hand, was rewarded for his loyalty to Kelleher who was the Wembley hero in the penalty shoot out. Not for his goalkeeping (he didn’t save any of Chelsea’s eleven penalties), but his ability with his feet. He converted the winning penalty in some style, but it’s also worth remembering that he played very well during that game and made some important saves, including a fabulous close range block from a Lukaku effort.
     
    He'd played well all the way through the competition and was unfortunate to be left out of the semi final first leg at home to Arsenal. Alisson was given the nod in that, not because Klopp wanted to go with his best line up due to the importance of the game, but because Alisson needed a game for his rhythm. The second leg was even more important as the tie was in the balance. Klopp went with Kelleher for that one and then kept him in for the final.
     
    It's a compromise that you need to make if you want a high quality second choice keeper, but there is risk involved if it doesn't go well. Guardiola found that out to his cost in the FA Cup semi final when his back up gifted us one goal and could have done better one at least one, if not both of the others. He was right to pick him though, even though it backfired. Without the incentive of at least some playing time, it's tough to keep hold of any good back up.  
     
    In Kelleher's case there's also good reason to get him games because he's still a kid and needs the experience of playing matches. While his development benefits from training every day with Alisson and our brilliant coaching team, he also needs to play so it's a tough needle to thread. 
     
    Not so long ago I didn't think he was anything special. I wasn't alone. Klopp himself said it was John Achteburg who saw the potential in Kelleher and this is "his project". Now we can can all see it. Kelleher is brilliant with his feet (definitely better than Alisson in that regard) but his all around game seems to be improving year on year and that means it's going to be difficult for us to keep him for much longer.
     
    The lad himself says he doesn't know what will happen this summer. He's too good not to play, but still young enough where he could bide his time and learn from the best. We'll see what happens, but have we ever had a better second choice keeper than this kid?
     
    Previous Season Ratings:
     
    N/A
     
    This Season’s Rating: 8/10
     
    Very good performances any time he was called upon and he gives off an air of assurance and confidence that I don’t remember in many of our back up keepers. I don’t worry when he has to play.
     
    Best Moment: 
     
    Scoring the winning pen in the League Cup Final shoot out.
     
    Worst Moment:
     
    Not saving any pens in the same shoot out.
     
    The Future?
     
    Giving him ALL of the domestic cup games might persuade him to stick around for another year, maybe two, but eventually he’s going to move on because he’s far too good to be sat on the bench but he’s not going to be good enough to displace the best keeper in the world who still has many years left.
  • Darwin Nunez is a Red as Jurgen landed his top target to start the summer off with a bang. An initial fee of £64m potentially rising to £85m could see the Uruguayan become the club's most expensive signing and his arrival understandably has the fans hugely excited.
     
    Chris Smith is joined by Julian Richards, Paul Natton and TLW Editor Dave Usher as the lads talk all things Darwin.
     
     
  • Jurgen Klopp often says that he should have played Origi far more than he has, and that’s definitely true. He should have started more games but you can see how difficult that is with the players he has ahead of him. Why he hasn’t been brought off the bench more is the question I would ask.
     
    When he plays, he scores. He might not do much else and that’s why he’s always behind the other forwards we have, but I know one thing; if we go into the last ten minutes of a game needing a goal there is nobody - literally nobody - I’d rather have on the pitch in those closing stages.
     
    When we drew with Spurs at Anfield Origi was left kicking his heels on the bench. It annoyed me at the time, it annoys me even more having seen how crucial those two dropped points proved to be. Why the hell would you not throw him on? 
     
    Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking back at individual games and saying “if only” even though I said for months that if we miss out I’d be doing exactly that about that Leicester game. I’m not though, I don’t think it’s fair to the lads to look at the handful of bad results they had when they’ve been so incredible over the course of the entire season. 
     
    All I’m saying is that I can’t get my head around why you would not be sending on Origi in that Spurs game. That’s the exact situation that Divock was born for. It's what he does. He’s a superhero, he shows up to save the day when things look bleak and he turns one point into three. He’s done it time and time again, even this season. Look at that Wolves game. We never looked like winning that day until he came off the bench and scored with the last kick of the game. It’s what he does. He turned the derby at Anfield too.
     
     
     
    He played a big part in the early rounds of the cup competitions too and him not being available in Paris was a big blow to us. Never has a player done so much while featuring so little. He's the ultimate 'break glass in case of emergency' option and I wish he was staying. There was a time when this wasn't the case and that reflects far more badly on him than it does Divock, but I'll say it now - I’ll miss him terribly.
     
    I miss him already in fact. Farewell my king.
     

     
    Previous Season Ratings:
     
    2020/21:   Season doesn’t count
    2019/20:   6/10
    2018/19:   7/10
    2017/18:   N/A 
    2016/17:   4/10
     
    This Season’s Rating: 7/10
     
    You know, this is probably low if I’m judging it solely on his contributions per minutes on the pitch. He hardly played though so it’s hard to justify going any higher.
     
    Best Moment: 
     
    Had we won the title then it would have been the dramatic last gasp winner at Wolves. We didn’t though, so it’s him scoring against Everton at Anfield yet again. Honourable mention to the most under-rated goal of the season - the weird scorpion kick thing he did at Preston.
     
    Worst Moment:
     
    Leaving.
     
    The Future?
     
    Will be a lot less fun without the legend, especially on derby day.
  • I think he was probably our best player this season you know. He hasn’t been making countless camera saves every game, but as I've said before Alisson so good that he’s made me completely reassess how I view goalkeepers.
     
    It's not about making brilliant saves all the time. It's kind of like defenders with last ditch sliding tackles. The truly special ones don't need to do that too often because their anticipation, positional play and fundamentals are so sound they rarely have to. Hansen and Van Dijk would very rarely ever have to make a slide tackle, and Alisson doesn't often have to show off his acrobatic skills.
     
    I’ll give you an example. Look at Jordan Pickford (not literally, I know he’s got one of the least palatable faces in football). Over the last few weeks of the season, Pickford performed heroics in some of those games that Everton somehow managed to win. I'm taking nothing away from him, he made some genuinely brilliant saves and probably kept Everton up. Those were the kind of saves you rarely see Alisson making though.
     
    Now the old me would have seen that as proof that Pickford must be a great goalkeeper, but Alisson has changed how I see it. He doesn’t often make all those acrobatic, full stretch, spectacular saves. Not because he can’t, but because he rarely needs to. His anticipation and positional play are just so great that he makes most things look easy and straightforward.
     
    So nowadays I mostly judge keepers as much on the number of mistakes they make as anything else. Or goals they concede where you look at it and think “he should be saving that”. This season Alisson has barely made any mistakes. West Ham away is the one genuine off day he had. Aside from that, he was an absolute rock for us.
     
     
    West Ham aside, the only mistakes that really spring to mind are the occasional sloppy pass that could have been punished. If I'm nit-picking then those are more frequent than I’d like, and I don’t think he’s as amazing with his feet as others seem to believe. He’s well above average though.
     
    The thing that sets Alisson apart though is he rarely makes any handling errors and he’s just so damned good at everything. Especially one v ones. Wow, is he great at those. He’s so dominant in those situations that when Hwang ran clear at the Kop end on the final day of the season, I wasn’t even concerned. I wasn’t even watching him as my eyes were on Alisson in anticipation of him doing what he does. 
     
    Because of our high defensive line he seems to face at least one of those situations every week (even though half of them are then immediately given offside) and they rarely result in a goal. I'd even suggest that we play so high up the pitch because although we know that there will be one, two, maybe even three occasions when the opponent stays onside and gets in behind, chances are Alisson is going to save it anyway.
     
    He made shitloads of those saves this season and although half of them were later given as offside, Alisson didn't know that at the time and neither did the forward. He's just unreal in those situations and the only opponent I would back to score more then he misses against Alisson in one v ones is Son. 
     
    For me, in one v ones Alisson saves more than he concedes against everyone else in the league. I imagine it's the same in training. I bet Mo struggles to beat him more often than not.
     
    He's just all around world class though. I'd urge you to watch the video posted above as there's all different kinds of great saves in there. A lot of them look easy because that's how he makes it look, but he's just a complete monster. 
     
    Highlights from that video that I'd forgotten about would be the triple save against Norwich, the full length stretch to keep out the Darwin Nunez volley (at a vital point in the game as Benfica had just got within touching distance of overturning out big lead) and the save from Saka at the Emirates.
     
    So Alisson gets a perfect ten because he’s basically gone through an entire season barely doing anything wrong and it’s also worth remembering that this season’s Champions League run doesn’t happen without his header at the Hawthorns last season. What a man.
     
     
    Previous Season Ratings:
     
    2020/21:   Season doesn’t count
    2019/20:   9/10
    2018/19:   9/10
     
    This Season’s Rating: 10/10
     
    The easiest of all the grades I’ve had to do. As close to perfect over the course of a full season as you’ll probably ever get from a goalkeeper. The best we've ever had and currently the best that anyone has.
     
    Best Moment: 
     
    Taking the piss out of Pickford at Anfield. It shows you just how much of a little scrote Pickford is that even Alisson, the world’s nicest man and a devout Christian, was unable to turn the other cheek.
     
    Worst Moment:
     
    West Ham away.
     
    The Future?
     
    Continued excellence and handsomeness.
     
  • What a signing. He might be my favourite player already as I am a sucker for a South American named Luis. He reminds me of Suarez actually, even though he’s a very different type of player. Their styles are not alike but the way they play the game is.
     
    With some players you’d say they play with hunger. Suarez and Diaz don’t seem hungry, they seem absolutely starving.
     
    Diaz is a fighter without actually, literally fighting, if that makes sense. He isn’t aggressive and I can’t recall seeing him squaring up to anyone. We’ve seen none of the shenanigans we saw from Suarez so far either, but he’s definitely scrappy and has that ‘street player’ attitude. Look how desperately he wants to win the ball back when we don’t have it. Look at the freedom he plays with when he does have the ball. He just plays with joy in his soul and for a newcomer to arrive and break into that front three straight away almost beggars belief.
     
    I knew he’d be brilliant even though I barely remembered him from when he played against us. I didn’t need to see him to know he’d be brilliant. Klopp and the staff knew he was going to be great, and they haven’t been wrong about any of the other forwards they’ve bought. So yeah, I was all in on this despite knowing virtually nothing about him.
     
    The fact we bought him mid-season rather than stick to the initial plan and wait until the summer told me all I needed to know. We can thank Spurs for a lot of the success we had this season because if they hadn't forced our hand we'd never have done that deal.
     
     
     
    I don’t think anyone expected him to slot in as seamlessly and as quickly as he did though. From his first game he looked like he was born to play in this team. He had a Suarez-esque assist in his first appearance and also gave millions of Reds around the world a heart attack when he fell awkwardly and looked like he’d blown his knee out.
     
    Everyone shit themselves when that happened and I felt genuinely sick. I can still remember that feeling as clear as day even now as I write this. Then the replay showed he hadn’t twisted anything on landing and he’d ‘just’ been trod on by a 15 stone hairy arsed League Two centre back. Him getting up from that might be the most relieved I’ve been since Gudjohnsen’s shot somehow didn’t find the bottom corner all those years ago.
     
    Diaz has been sensational and he gave our season the energy boost we needed at a crucial time. We would never have been chasing a quadruple as long as we did without the arrival of Diaz. Everyone was given a lift when he came in and the buzz he created carried us through the entire season.
     
    The buzz has actually grown with every performance he’s put in and he was man of the match in both Wembley Cup Final wins. He excites the crowd and he’s only just getting started. Imagine how amazing he’ll be with a full pre-season behind him and more time with his team-mates. 
     
    The only thing not quite there yet are goals. He’s done alright and has a decent goal return, but it’s another similarity with Suarez I think. Remember when he first came he’d have chances in every game but didn’t take enough of them? Then when he figured that out he absolutely exploded. Diaz is going to do the same, I can feel it.
     
     
    Previous Season Ratings:
     
    N/A
     
    This Season’s Rating: 9/10
     
    He was probably four or five goals short of a perfect 10, although he may have got that regardless if he’d performed in Paris and we'd won. 
     
    Best Moment: 
     
    The ridiculous rabona trap he did against Everton is up there, but it's probably his performance against Chelsea in the FA Cup Final. The only thing missing that day was a goal but on another day he’d have bagged a hat-trick and we’d be talking in hushed tones about ‘the Diaz final’ as we do with Gerrard and Owen.
     
    Worst Moment:
     
    Not turning up in Paris, or failing to convert the generational through ball Trent gave him in the FA Cup Final .
     
    The Future?
     
    He looks like he’s ready to go up another gear and become one of the leading players in Europe. Can’t wait to see what he does next season.
  • Monday Jun 6:
     
    New deal for Milner. He’s taken a pay cut and agreed a one year deal. He says the parade influenced his decision to stay and you know that’s not bullshit either. There’s that clip on Hendo’s insta where Milner says to him “mate, what am I fucking seeing? Wow!”. Just a shame Sadio and Mo weren’t suitably moved. Milner is the last of a dying breed though. Well, maybe Hendo too. He’s like Milner-Lite.
     
    On the subject of our Egyptian King though, not great developments this past weekend regarding him. Apparently he played for Egypt despite being injured and having refused LFC’s request for him to have a scan. Now he’s missing their next game because of it. Lots of Reds are unhappy about it and I get that. I’m not particularly arsed because Mo’s international situation isn’t the same as, say, Virgil’s or Fabinho’s. He carries the weight of an entire nation and there’s huge pressure on him to play. 
     
    If the injury wasn’t that bad and he though he could play through it, whatever. He’s done it enough times for us over the years. This is only really an issue because of the contract. I agree it isn’t a good look and it appears that his relationship with the club is becoming strained, but I don’t think this is a big deal and I’ve got more important things to be mad at him for than this.
     
    Meanwhile, Trent is getting ‘slammed’ (© every click bait website in the land) for not singing the National Anthem. This is a bit unfair because when you watch the video his lips are moving a little. He’s not giving it the full chest out Captain Brexit Stuart Pearce routine, but there is movement of the lips. Granted, he’s probably booing or singing YNWA, but they can’t prove that so this criticism seems harsh.
     
    Funny thing is, someone on Twitter dug out an old clip from years ago of Gary Neville standing there, lips firmly closed, defiantly not singing. There have been loads of players down the years that haven’t sung, but flag shagging has become a national obsession in recent years (taken to whole new levels this past weekend with the jubilee and people waving at a fucking hologram of the queen). I hope Trent sticks to his guns and doesn’t sing next time too. 
     
    The highlight of the last few days though was an Everton fan site running a news piece on Sigurdsson being allowed to leave on a free and somehow managing to completely avoid the David Unsworth sized elephant in the room…. 
     

     
     
    I mean that’s some serious North Korean style shit right there. Staying with the Blues though and that despicable piece of shit Richarlison got in a bit of a disagreement with Vinicius Jr in training with Brazil. This shocked me to be honest. The biggest Liverpool hater in football not seeing eye to eye with the lad who just scored the goal to beat us in a European Cup Final? What the hell could have brought that on? Maybe Vinicius Jr didn’t appreciate him trying to suck him off for an instagram post to impress the Blues.
     
    Tuesday Jun 7:
     
    Somehow missed this yesterday, but Bayern offered £21m for Sadio. I’m sure they knew that wouldn’t be accepted and this is just a bargaining position, but fuck me that’s low. I don’t see us selling for anything less than double that so this could drag on a long time. 
     
    Keita is said to be close to agreeing a new deal. Not gonna lie, I’m on a downer about this. It’s not so much that I really want him out as I’m fairly indifferent towards him really. It’s more that him being here probably restricts what we will do when it comes to restructuring the midfield. Here’s the thing. We have three midfielders over 30, and Fabinho who isn’t far behind. Then we have the talented kids; Jones, Elliott and Carvalho. You can include Tyler Morton too if you like, he looked promising. 
     
    The problem is the ones in between. Ox and Keita. We need them to be really pushing the first choice three and giving Klopp a tough decision to make, but they aren’t. We all know who the three starters are when all things are equal. Klopp has occasionally chosen Keita over Henderson but he has NEVER delivered a “wow” performance that makes you think ‘this lad needs to play all the time’.
     
    I want someone that will do that, but we won’t buy that player if we have Keita here on his 120k a week salary or whatever it is. Ox will leave, but Keita should too. That way we can go out and sign one absolute fucking star who will give Klopp a headache as to who he leaves out. We got that up front with Diaz, we now need it midfield. But if Keita signs a new deal then that becomes less likely. 
     
    I felt the same way about Origi last summer actually. I didn’t want him to stay because while he was here I knew we wouldn’t sign the top drawer forward we needed to shake things up and give us real competition for places. I love Div and I’m glad he stayed, but I wasn’t wrong about that. We signed Diaz only because our hand was forced by Spurs. Origi’s presence (and salary) meant that we wouldn’t go out and sign another forward, and Keita staying is the same thing. We might still get someone because Ox will go, but ideally we let them both leave and one boss player in.
     
    Wednesday Jun 8:
     
    Just having a read back of what I said about Darwin Nunez after the Benfica games. Not overly flattering like. After the first leg I wrote:
     
    He’s really highly rated but I wasn’t overly impressed. He took the goal well but I think my judgement of him is clouded by the constant diving and the dreadful fucking haircut. His record is impressive and we’ve apparently been scouting him, so watch this space I suppose. I do love a good Uruguayan striker so if he sorts the hair out then maybe I could get on board with it, but as of now it’s a hard pass from me.
     
    I’d softened my stance a little after the return leg, but not by much.
     
    “Benfica had another goal disallowed late on when Nunez finished well again but was clearly offside. Good player him, despite the appalling haircut.”
     
    He was annoying as fuck over those two legs but he was a constant threat and his finishing was great, even if most of them were offside. As for the haircut, that’s only a minor issue that could easily be fixed. His hair game is actually really impressive on the whole, but the look he was sporting against us was appalling as it looked like he was wearing a hairnet. A pony tail or - preferably - an Alice band sorts that problem out in a heartbeat.
     
    He’ll be great for us because every forward we’ve signed under Klopp has been. To be spending this much on Nunez tells me that Klopp and the scouting team must be absolutely convinced he’s what we need and that’s good enough for me. I see nothing to suggest that he won’t be amazing for us, because other than Keita who hasn’t been great? Ox I suppose, but he looked like he would be until he was derailed by one of the worst injuries a player could get. Even Keita hasn’t been terrible, just a massive let down based on the hype prior to his arrival. We just get signings right these days though, it’s almost a 100% hit rate.
     
    I saw a headline today about how the England U21 coach wants Jones to not play within himself and be the best player in every game and every training session. He’s been listening to me and Paul on the TLW pod, I thought. Then I realised the U21 coach is Lee Carsley so that’s pretty unlikely. He’s spot on about Curtis though.
     
    ''It's important to me that Curtis doesn't play within himself. He's got to be the best player every day, every game. I think he can score more, I think he can assist more. When he gets in front of goal, he's got that quality. He needs to show it on a regular basis, consistently, for us. You'd like to have this conversation at the end of the camp where you're swooning about him, saying "what a player". I still think he's building his reputation with the Under 21s in that respect.' 
     
    Couldn’t agree more. Curtis doesn’t even have a ceiling, he’s got so much talent he could (and I still think will) be a superstar. He needs to start showing it more consistently though. If Keita gets a new deal that’s good for Curtis (and Harvey) because it wouldn’t take much for him to leapfrog Naby in the pecking order. If Keita left and we signed someone boss to replace him, that makes it more difficult for Jones and Elliott.
     
    Thursday Jun 9:
     
    The Nunez deal is edging ever closer despite “last ditch” attempts by Man United to “hijack” the deal. This was over as soon as we made contact with Nunez and told him we wanted him. There’s only one reason anyone would spurn us for United and that’s money, and if a player is motivated mainly by that he isn’t someone we’d be going for anyway. We wouldn’t be this far down the line if he was asking for crazy money so United are not a factor here.
     
    You’d have to be mental to turn down Klopp’s Reds to sign for them. How good is that by the way? Remember when we could never land anyone we really wanted if United or Chelsea or Arsenal were in for them. Shit, we were losing players to Spurs not so long ago. Now look, we’re the number one destination for any player not just looking for a massive wage.
     
    Off topic this but worth mentioning as it’s so fucking depressing and mirrors what is happening in footy. The Saudis are basically trying to fucking ruin golf, the sportswashing twats. Similar to what PSG and (to a slightly lesser extent) City are doing by completely distorting the market by paying stupid fees and wages to raise the bar to a level that non-oil states can’t compete with. In football, they’re trying to fuck over the likes of us, Bayern, the Spanish giants, United etc
     
    In golf, they just need to sabotage the PGA Tour and they’ll have the whole sport to themselves. The money the PGA makes is mainly given back to players in prize money and filtered down to grass roots golf. It has its faults for sure, but the key element here is that they have to operate within a structure that ensures they don’t lose money. The Saudis have no such restraints.
     
    So they have set up this utter shitfest of a ‘league’ where everything they do is just pure cringe. Golfers are selected to teams each week, those teams have the lamest names and logos, and the whole thing is just dogshit. No-one is buying tickets but that doesn't matter because they just give them away for free and then lie about how many people have turned up (bit like City). But it doesn’t matter if nobody watches it or cares about it, because eventually they’ll throw so much money at players that the PGA Tour will be ruined and they’ll be the only show in town. 
     
    They gave 52 year old Phil Mickelson $200m just to join. That doesn’t include any potential winnings. That’s just money in his pocket for him to leave the PGA Tour and sign with them. Dustin Johnson got $150m, apparently. Bryson DeChambeau got $100m to jump ship. They have a bottomless pit of cash and unlike in footy there is no pretence of FFP so they can just lash eye watering sums at players to attract them, and the more who join, the easier (and cheaper) it gets to get the rest because the PGA Tour will take a hit from sponsors, meaning less prize money. Plus, the best golfers will play where the competition is the most challenging.
     
    It fucking stinks, these oil cunts are just ruining sports. They've got their hooks into F1 too I believe, but I don't know anything about that as other than horse racing it's the most boring thing in the world. Of course some of you will say the same about golf, but that's ok. Some of you don't think that Livin' on a Prayer is the greatest song of all time. People are wrong about lots of things. 
     
    Seriously though, some of you won’t have a clue about this and won’t know most of the golfers involved, so allow me to sum it up quickly. Basically, all of the golfers who people already knew were absolute fucking wankers, well all those are on board. In fact, I can’t think of any of the established knobheads who haven’t joined. The whole thing is fronted by the biggest knobhead of all - Greg Norman - who I’ve known was an arrogant cunt since I saw in person how he acted at Birkdale in 1999. Actually Tom Watson was worse, but that's another story.
     
    None of the names who took the cash are a surprise to anyone. It's mostly washed up 40 somethings looking for one last payday before driving their golf carts off into the sun. Any time one of them was announced my reaction was “yeah, I knew he was a dick, not surprised at all”. As I say, there isn’t one of the established dicks that hasn’t taken the cash.
     
    The journalists are giving them a hard time about it and some of the press conferences this week have been horrific. Graeme McDowell saying he’s “proud” to help the Saudis get to where they want to get was a particular low point. Westwood and Poulter (two badknob heads except other than when its a Ryder Cup) were given a proper grilling today and just refused to answer the questions, which included “If Vladimir Putin held a tournament would you play in it?” and “would you have played in an event in South Africa during apartheid?”. The obvious answer to both of those questions is “fuck yeah, they would”.
     
    Loads of people say “you can’t expect them to turn down that kind of money” and I do understand that viewpoint. They are entitled to take the cash, but we’re entitled to call them cunts for doing it. The real villains here are the Saudis but that doesn’t mean those taking the blood money should get a free pass. Fuck that. Multi millionaires selling out the Tour that provided them with the lifestyles they have just so they can line their pockets further do not get a free pass. They’re greedy cunts with no moral compass.
     
    Speaking of greedy cunts, Mo was named PFA Player of the Year tonight. That's right, I went there. Congrats to him. We had six players in the team of the season too, which sounds about right. Could have been even more because Matip and Robbo were overlooked, although the players chosen ahead of them were both outstanding so it’s fair enough. Ronaldo getting in ahead of Son was funny, but his inclusion is not as outrageous as a lot seem to think. He scored a load of goals in a fucking awful, dysfunctional team, and without his input they’d have been in the bottom half. 
     
    Of course he is a part of the problem there too because his lack of work rate hampers what they can do without the ball, but he’s always been the same and you know what you’re getting with him. He’s there to score goals and he did it. Take away the name, reputation and the fact most of us think he’s a twat, and you have a 37 year old who scored 24 goals this season, including two hat-tricks. That’s impressive whether people want to admit it or not. That being said, I hope he stays at United because they’ll never get better while he’s playing every week. 
     
    Also today, the club announced the list of players who will be leaving at the end of their contracts. Divock is the most notable, but Karius was on there too. I have mixed feelings towards him. I have sympathy for what happened to him in Kyiv because he WAS concussed and that did cause the fuck ups that gifted them two goals and cost us the game. The real villain of that night isn't Karius, it's Ramos.
     
    That said, he didn't help himself by how he acted that summer, and he also chose to sit out his contract and collect the money instead of going to play somewhere else. So I don't wish him well, but I don't not wish him well either. I'm just glad he's finally gone.
     
    Friday June 10:
     
    Speaking of United, they have apparently dropped their interest in Nunez because they don’t want to get into a bidding war. This is like back when I decided not to pursue Jennifer Aniston when Brad Pitt started sniffing around her.  
     
    The about face from United fans on this has been hilarious though. Last week I saw Darwin Nunez trending on twitter so I clicked on it in case it was about us bidding for him. We’d been linked with him for ages so it would have made sense. It wasn’t us though, it was United and their fans were going big on it. The virgins were posting their little team graphics with him playing just off Ronaldo, with De Jong bossing the midfield with Bruno, and the general consensus was that Ten Hag means business and United will be buying whoever they want this summer.
     
    Fast forward to the last couple of days and suddenly Nunez isn’t that good, he’s not worth the money and United are right to walk away. Yep, just like I was right to walk away from Jennifer all those years back. Newsflash knobheads, you were never getting him from the second Klopp made a move. I had more chance with Jen.
     
    I'm really having to fight hard not to respond to the dickheads but sometimes I just can't help myself. Look at this from today...
     


     
    I know I shouldn't get involved, but sometimes it's just so hard not to.
     
    The amount of shit I’ve seen from knobheads on twitter though regarding our spending is just weird though. They clearly aren’t teaching maths well enough in this country as people have no grasp of it. Apparently we can’t complain about City because we broke the record for most expensive defender and goalkeeper and now we’re spending big on striker. I mean, we just made £100m by reaching the CL Final and we’ll have also picked up a shitload of money for 2nd place in the league. Are we not allowed to spend the fruit of those labours? Not to mention we’ll more than cover the Nunez fee with the sale of Phillips, Williams, Sadio, Taki and Ox.
     
    It’s the very definition of how to successfully run a football club, yet somehow it’s being labelled the same as vastly inflating the value of our sponsorship and having our owners pay it. I mean fucking hell, stupidity on the internet knows no bounds, especially in football and particularly when it’s Manchester City and Everton fans involved. In fairness, half of them are bots paid for by Abu Dhabi. I’m not even saying that as a joke, it’s absolutely true. You can spot them a mile off too. They usually have about 3 followers and a username with more digits than one of those “clubcall” lines back in the day.
     
    The other thing they’re pushing is that Nunez is more expensive than Haaland apparently. Sure, Benfica are receiving more than Dortmund did, but then we aren’t paying €40m to a dead agent and another €30m to the player’s dad are we? We’re also paying a quarter of the wages that Haaland is getting, and that’s only if we count what he’s getting through the books. Fuck knows how much they’re paying him off the books. Because they will be.
     
    They’re paying Guardiola a shitload off the books too (just like they did Mancini before him), and probably half the team. You only have to look at the money the Saudis are throwing at greedy cunt golfers to know that the only thing stopping Abu Dhabi paying £1m a week is the pretence of FFP. They will be paying it, just not through the books. It will all come out in years to come, but by then it will be too late for anyone to do anything about it and we’ll have several fewer titles than we should have.
     
    The sense of entitlement those cunts have is staggering though. It’s not enough that they win the league pretty much every year, they need to have people kissing their feet and telling them how great they are. They’re always complaining about a lack of recognition but that’s because their accomplishments are hollow as fuck because no-one cares about them as a club and everyone knows they’re ignoring the rules that everyone else (other than Everton) are following. Today you had Laporte crysarsing on social media because he wasn’t in the team of the year. 
     
    A team that was voted for by HIS FUCKING PEERS remember. It’s not like it was picked by the “LFC loving media”. And he had no business being anywhere near it anyway. Van Dijk is a shoe in and although I’d have made Matip the next best, I’m clearly biased. Take Joel of the equation and Rudiger is the obvious next one. He’s top quality. Laporte isn’t even the best centre back at his own club, the arrogant, entitled little fucking tit.
     
    Meanwhile, in France. The government has done something of a walk back from their outrageous claims and now admit that they made mistakes. They’re still peddling the fake tickets bullshit though and using that as the root cause for everything else that went wrong. The police did the same thing the other day. “No we shouldn’t have tear gassed you, but there were too many fans there because of the fake tickets”. 
     
    They’re no longer claiming 30-40 thousand fakes but even the number they have given is bollocks because it obviously includes load of real tickets that were incorrectly flagged as fakes. The CCTV footage from the stadium and metro has also been deleted. Footage which they claim showed fans being violent and causing problems. The explanation given is that it’s automatically wiped after seven days unless the authorities ask to see it. A few things here. 
     
    Why would the authorities NOT have asked to see it? 
     
    Why are UEFA and the police not using the footage to back up their claims about poor fan behaviour?
     
    Do they really expect us to believe that in 2022 there is no way of retrieving deleted footage?
     
    It’s scandalous really. All of the video evidence collected by fans, journalists, TV news reporters etc shows the fans behaving impeccably and the police and locals being bad fucking scumbags. All of it. There’s nothing out there backing up any of the false claims. Yet they claim they had footage backing up those claims but they didn’t use it and allowed it to be deleted? As if. 
     
    UEFA finally took down the article they posted two weeks ago blaming the fans for the delay in kick off. Spirit of Shankly have been on to them about that, but why did it take so long to remove it? It should have been taken down immediately, but it was left up there. Why? Just to water the seed that had been planted in people’s minds. Those who know, know. But the casual football fan around Europe who can’t be arsed looking into what happened will just hear what UEFA and the French are saying and believe it. That’s why they leave shit like that on the website. That’s why there is no full climbdown by the French ministers, just a gradual walking back of what they’ve said just so there is still blame attached to the fans.
     
    Their plan here is to just try and ride out the storm until people get bored of asking questions. It will happen too. The British (and French) sporting press have been great but it’s only natural that other events will take over and this will become less “newsworthy”. What you’ll get is our fans, the club, the local press and MPs etc continuing to fight and then being subjected to a lot of shite from outsiders about being victims and that we should move on.
     
    Thing is, we’ve got experience of this kind of thing so we know how it works. Compared to the fight for Hillsborough justice this is a walk in the park. There’s no hiding place for UEFA and the French Authorities.
     
    The club have been great so far too and Billy Hogan (my new favourite Hogan, sorry Hulkster) has kept fans updated with video updates outlining what action they’ve been taking. They’ve met with the so-called “independent” inquirer and they’ve already let it be known they are concerned about just how “independent” this is going to be. They’re fighting our corner and while it’s easy to say that this is exactly what they should be doing and it requires no praise, I just think about what would be happening now if Parry and Moores were still in charge. Or Hicks, Gillett and Ayre. It makes me shudder. 
     
    Werner and Hogan have stood up for us and I’m grateful. I hope they continue to fight for us in the way the likes of Spirit of Shankly will. If we all stand together we can make mincemeat of the French authorities and UEFA.
     
    ....and that was the week that was
  • Spoiler alert: I'm giving Virgil maximum marks. This probably needs some explaining as his performances over the course of the entire season are more like a nine than a perfect ten.   His form in the first four or five months wasn’t at the same level as it was in the final four or five months. There is of course a very good reason for that. He wasn’t even really supposed to be in the team for opening day but he returned from that horrific injury ahead of schedule.   So he wasn’t Virgil Van Dijk to begin with, but he was still better than 99% of the other centre backs in the league. Only his partner performed at a higher level, although if I take off my red tinted spectacles I could also bring Thiago Silva (and maybe Antonio Rudiger) into that discussion. The point is, Virgil at 80% is still great.   So why am I giving him a perfect ten when his performances didn’t always merit that? Context, that’s why. Imagine coming back from that injury and playing as well as he did and as often as he did. He barely missed a game and perhaps because of all of those minutes he had in the opening months of the season, by the time we got to the turn of the year he looked back to his absolute best.   So I’m giving him maximum marks on the basis that he got himself back for the start of the season and that he did as well as anyone possibly could in the situation he was in. Even after the lengthy lay off he was still brilliant and then once he got his legs under him fully around the turn of the year he was back to being the most dominant player in the league. The best centre back we’ve ever had.   Previous Season Ratings:
     
    2020/21:   Season doesn’t count
    2019/20:   9.5/10
    2018/19:   10/10
    2017/18:   9/10
     
    This Season’s Rating: 10/10
     
    All things considered I don't think it was possible for him to have been any better than he was. Another point worth making is that often when players come back from a serious injury they will pick up minor injuries that set them back. Virg was available for every game. 
     
    Best Moment: 
     
    Just lining up in the middle of defence on opening day. That was such a boost for everyone. 
     
    Worst Moment:
     
    That weird moment against West Ham when he ran in a straight line instead of closing off the angle when Antonio was running in on goal. Completely freaked me out that did. 
     
    The Future?
     
    More of the same. He'll probably win either the Players of the Writers award for Player of the Year this season, unless Mo beats him to both.
  • He’s a weird one isn’t he? He scores goals and when he’s on his game his performances are top quality too. But those top performances aren’t that frequent even if the goals are. His form in the second part of the season wasn’t great at all and eventually the goals dried up too. 
     
    It could be that he just never regained his top form after an injury he picked up, but I think it may have more to do with the arrival of Luis Diaz and the successful adaption to the false nine role by Sadio Mané. He had time to get his sharpness back after the injury but he was never able to get a run of games to do it because others were in better form.
     
    Jota just found it hard to break back into the team because Diaz made such an impact and Sadio was scoring goals seemingly every week. It’s been tough for Jota since then but over his time here he has shown just how good he is and he should only get better too. 
     
    Let’s look back at the first half of the season when he was absolutely on fire. He’d enjoyed a good first season here even though that campaign doesn’t really count. We did get a good look at what he could do and it was good preparation for when the real thing started again.
     
     
     
    He flew out of the traps and scored in both of our first two fixtures. He scored the opener in the rout at Old Trafford and bagged a vital goal against Atletico Madrid. His goal at Goodison was brilliant, as was the Baby Shark celebration to accompany it. He scored a sensational header at Spurs and sent both Ben White and Aaron Ramsdale for the Echo with a pair of exquisite drops of the shoulder to score at the Kop end. His highlight reel was shaping up to be something special until injury slowed his progress.
     
    It wasn’t a serious injury but it forced him off against Inter Milan and he was rushed back into the squad for the League Cup Final 10 days later. His record over the next few weeks was decent enough as he scored goals against Arsenal 9of course), Forest and Watford, but he didn’t look as sharp and he never really got that top form back.
     
    His last goal came at the Etihad in the 2-2 draw but then he failed to score in our final 13 games of the season. He didn’t feature heavily in a lot of those games but that hadn’t stopped him from making his mark previously. His form definitely fell off a cliff during the run in but hopefully a good rest over the summer will see him firing again come August.
     
    I’ve said several times how he reminds me of Robbie Fowler and when I first said it I was a little hesitant because when you make those comparisons you often look daft. 
     
    I wasn’t saying he was as good as Robbie, the point I was making is that he resembles him in looks, style of play and the variety of goals he scores. I don’t think the comparison looks daft at all now and it’s something I’ve since seen others pointing out. At times it’s quite uncanny. Especially as Robbie had loads of games where he was dreadful in the build up and looked like he couldn’t trap a bag of cement. He always came alive around the box though and so does Jota.
     
    The most impressive thing about Jota (and Robbie had this too) is that his goals are all different and he spreads them out between right foot, left foot and headers. By God the headers. He’s genuinely brilliant with his head.
     
    I’d describe Jota as “Fowler minus the genius but with added snide”. He loves a bit of niggle with the opposition does Diogo.
     
     
    Previous Season Ratings:
     
    N/A as 2020/21 doesn’t count 
     
    This Season’s Rating: 8
     
    I almost feel like it should be higher given that he scored over 20 goals despite not always being an automatic selection. That’s a commendable number of goals and most of them tend to be important ones too. He isn’t one for padding his stats by grabbing the fifth goal in a 5-0, Jota usually pops up when we really need him to. But the all around game was often lacking and he did very little in the closing months of the season.
     
    Best Moment: 
     
    Tormenting Arsenal and dumping them out of the League Cup when they were getting chesty. Taunting the Leicester fans and repeatedly yelling “fuck off!” at them after scoring the winner in a shoot out was another highlight, while an honourable mention has to go when he opted not to score at Wolves and instead smashed his shot as hard as he could into that tit Conor Coady’s balls.
     
    Worst Moment:
     
    Opting not to score and instead smashing his shot as hard as he could into that tit Conor Coady’s balls. We needed Divock to come to the rescue after that. I'm all in on doing that, but next time wait until we're winning first, eh Diogo?
     
    The Future?
     
    More of the same. He’ll get plenty of games, score plenty of goals but he won’t be an automatic choice unless he can produce his best stuff a lot more consistently than he has so far.
  • As the dust begins to settle on Liverpool’s outstanding 2021/22 campaign in which they went so close to a historic and unprecedented quadruple, talk has already started to look at the Ballon d'Or favourites..
     
    Liverpool winger Mohamed Salah has enjoyed another tremendous season, with both club and country strengthening talk that he could become the first Liverpool player to win the prestigious award since Michael Owen’s 2001 success.
    Trophies and Near-Misses
    Salah enjoyed a tremendous season with Liverpool, who enjoyed two trophy wins at home and went perilously close to a clean-sweep home and abroad.
     
    Double success in the League Cup and FA Cup finals, both times against Chelsea, would have constituted a highly successful campaign in any case. However, missing out on a historic quadruple by wafer-thin margins as Manchester City pipped them to the Premier League title and Real Madrid’s heroic rearguard in Paris edging The Reds in the Champions League has only strengthened Salah’s credentials.
     
    In the African Cup of Nations at the start of the year, Salah was the catalyst for Egypt’s run to the final. They were edged out on penalties after taking Liverpool team-mate Sadio Mane’s Senegal into extra-time. Salah’s attacking thrust was crucial for the Pharoah’s near-success in a side set-up to defend.
     

    Salah’s Numbers
    The 2021/22 season has seen Salah achieve numbers of staggering consistency for Liverpool. In the Premier League, he averaged better than one goal contribution every match with 23 goals and 13 assists in 35 games, while eight goals in just 13 Champions League matches were instrumental in taking the Reds to another continental final.
     
    His goal haul in the Premier League was enough to give him a third Premier League Golden Boot, an award shared with Tottenham’s Heung-min Son, while his number of assists was a league-high, bringing him the Playmaker of the Year award.
     
    His record of 31 goals in 51 Liverpool appearances in all competitions matched his record in the 2020/21 season, taking him beyond the 30-goal mark in a Liverpool shirt for the third time in his five seasons with the club.
     
    Indeed, such was Salah’s impact on Liverpool this season, he was awarded the Men’s Player of the Season, just ahead of Alison Becker.
    Voting Changes
    Something that could benefit Salah, given the season he has enjoyed during 2021/22, both with Egypt and Liverpool, are changes to the way voting for the Ballon d’Or takes place.
     
    In previous years, voters have considered a full calendar year when casting their vote. So, for example, the 2021 award was awarded to the player deemed to have had the most successful calendar year. This year, the voting is based on an entire season instead so that the panel will consider an individual’s impact across the 2021/22 season.
     
    In addition, previous awards have been voted for by jurors from every FIFA-member nation. This year, France Football has announced that they will be limiting the panel to jurors from the top 100 FIFA-ranked countries to increase the level of expertise reflected in the vote.
     
    Finally, a three-point criterion has been introduced. Firstly individual performance and how decisive they have been to their team; secondly, the collective performance of the player’s team and thirdly, the player’s class and fair play.
     
    These changes could play into Salah’s hands come October, with him becoming only the second African winner of Football’s most prestigious individual prize, backing up Andy Robertson’s recent assertion that Mo Salah is currently the best player in World Football.
  • I know I often remark that "last season doesn't count" and I firmly believe that. It should be ignored as being completely irrelevant to any kind of judgement making and nothing proves that more than Sadio Mané.
     
    Actually that's not true. Our home record is a more compelling case s to why last season should be disregarded. No defeats at Anfield in five years with fans in the stadium, but we lost six on the spin when it was empty. Shit, even Everton won at Anfield when there were no fans there.
     
    The form of Sadio Mané last year is another good example of why football without fans really isn't like proper football and therefore we just make any judgements based on it.
     
    Sadio was pretty awful last season and seemed to suffer more than most from the lack of intensity a full stadium inspires in players. His form should have been disregarded but human nature isn't like that and Mané therefore went into this campaign with some question marks lingering over him. Would he bounce back or was he in decline?
     
    We got our answer. He was consistently very good throughout and had spells where he looked better than ever. In my opinion these last few months he’s been as good as he’s ever been, arguably even better considering the lack of familiarity he had in the position he was playing in. 23 goals he scored in total, including two in a Wembley semi final win over Man City, while he also found the net against them in both league games. We'll miss that.
     

     
    What makes form even more impressive is that he really should have had a hangover after his heroics at AFCON. Mo came back and struggled, but Sadio came back and stepped it up even further. It helped that he won the bloody thing whereas Mo was beaten in the final, but still. How can you play that amount of games and never look fatigued? Sadio is a freak. 
     
    Since switching to a central role he’s been lights out. It felt like he scored in most games he played there, while his link up play has been brilliant at times. He was doing things that Bobby was known for doing, while still being able to do his usual Sadio things too. On the odd occasion he'd played through the middle before he'd had mixed results, but he really took to it this time and he linked the play surprisingly well.
     
    Over the course of the season he scored some brilliant goals and he’s set some up too. His link up with Mo this year was better than it had been at any point since their first season together and it was a relief to see that those epic clashes between Senegal and Egypt didn’t put too much of a strain on their relationship. I admit I did worry how that might turn out but it seemed fine. Not that it matters now anyway.
     
    Previous Season Ratings:
     
    2020/21:   Season doesn’t count
    2019/21:   9.5/10
    2018/19:   9/10
    2017/18:   8/10
    2016/17:   8.5/10
       
    This Season’s Rating: 9
     
    The first half of the season would be an eight and the second half would be a ten, so I’m meeting in the middle and going with nine. His form after being switched into the middle when Diaz arrived was as commendable as it was impressive. He's just a great team player.
     
    Sadio was brilliant on the right in his first season here but got moved to the left after Salah joined. Mané shrugged, got on with it and produced even better form the next season.
     
    Then Diaz comes in this year and Sadio is moved to the middle. Again, he just got on with it and upped his game again. He's a complete forward and he's a fucking warrior. I love him.
     
    Best Moment: 
     
    The reverse pass to set up Mo's goal against the Mancs at Anfield. We know Sadio can score goals and is explosive, but seeing him do THAT was something else.
     
    Honourable mention to his constant desire to close down goalkeepers that resulted in a goal at Wembley against City and also saw another one disallowed for an inadvertent handball.
     
    Worst Moment:
     
    The bizarre comments he made in the build up to the final. What was it, "I have great news, what you've all been wanting to hear" and then it turns out he was telling us he's off. Read the room Sadio, that isn't great news. Unless he was talking to the "60-70%" of Senagalese dickheads who want him to leave. On reflection, he was, wasn't he? That's the only thing that makes sense.
     
    His pen in the FA Cup Final shoot out was bad too, but we got away with that so it has to be the weirdness from him pre-Paris.
     
    The Future?
     
    He's gone isn't he? I don't blame him and will wish him well but at no point did it ever truly feel like we were pushing the boat out to keep him. I just think that's a by product of the Salah situation. The club weren't going to lose both on a free so if Sadio is willing to leave now rather than sit out waiting on a Bosman then they were always going to go down that route because it would provide funds that could go towards the reshaping of the front line.
     
    I don't like the idea of him leaving and I'll miss him, but given the shenanigans from Mo I don't really see much of an alternative here. Besides, it was time to break up the legendary front three anyway as it needs freshening up. Just a shame that Sadio is the one to leave when he's probably the one I'd personally have most liked to have kept.
  • Luis Diaz may have arrived at Liverpool during the January transfer window as something of an unknown quantity, but it did not take the Colombian winger long to make his presence felt at Anfield. Within a matter of weeks, the talented South American felt like part of the furniture.
     
    A clearly confident character wasted little time in adjusting to the demands of life in English football, with six goals and four assists recorded across 26 appearances in all competitions. He collected major silverware within weeks of his arrival, in a League Cup triumph over Chelsea, and would go on to start FA Cup and Champions League finals before his debut campaign on Merseyside was done.
     
    The expectation is that there is more to come from Diaz heading forward, with Liverpool priced at 2/1 in football odds for Premier League title glory in 2022-23 and 5/1 to capture another European crown – having fallen agonisingly short in those quests last season.
     
     
     
     
    The potential is clearly there for Diaz to take on ever-greater responsibility in the final third of the field, with his direct running and creative qualities marking him out as a perfect fit for a system under Jurgen Klopp that requires everybody to offer a bit of everything.
     
    It is, however, worth noting that more may soon be demanded of him, rather than being merely longed for. Expectations were exceeded during the second half of the 2021-22 season, but a bar has now been set that he cannot afford to dip below after being given time in which to find his feet.
     
    More to come?
     
    Klopp said of Diaz after seeing him burst onto the scene at Liverpool: “You don’t expect miracles immediately from these kinds of players, but he is not far away from doing exactly that.”
     
    It was impossible to ignore the fact that a winter addition was looking every bit the miracle worker, with transfer logic defied as a man with no prior experience of life in the Premier League proceeded to make a task that many before him have struggled to get to grips with look remarkably easy to master.
     
    Diaz’s cause was, however, being aided considerably by those around him. He was able to earn plenty of plaudits for registering a handful of goals as the likes of Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane were posting over 50 between them.
     
     
     
     
    It remains to be seen how long either of those talismanic figures will be sticking around at Anfield, with there plenty of speculation to be found regarding summer moves elsewhere for either or both. If they were to depart, then obvious voids would need to be filled quickly in Klopp’s plans.
     
    Diaz has, like Diogo Jota before him, offered enough to suggest that he is capable of filling the boots of illustrious team-mates and becoming a superstar in his own right. He may soon be left with little choice but to pick up that baton.
     
    With talk of more incomings gathering pace, as the exit rumours rage on, Liverpool need those already in the building to step up to the plate. Diaz has been doing that in some style, but a learning curve may become a lot steeper before it starts to flatten out.
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