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Is it safe to come out yet? - by John Brennan

Is it safe to come out? Not in the Elton John way, mind. I needed a break from the madness of the transfer window. I’m just delighted that we can get back to the footy now. None of those close season highs in anticipation of a big signing and lows when we didn’t land our man. No, Klopp’s Reds are the very model of sanity, in no way intent on playing with our emotions and blood pressure. Snarky enough?

Anyway, the transfer window? Or “That’s the transfer window!” as Klopp will probably shout to the Main Stand if AOC – or whatever we’re calling him (and frankly, who cares?) – scores. Forgive me for using the conjunction “if”, rather than “when”, but NINE goals in 129 League games over SIX seasons will tend to make you sceptical. Another injury-prone player? For £35m? To add to competition for places with Hendo, Milner (our “new midfielder”, remember), Can, Wijnaldum, Lallana, Mané, Salah and Coutinho. Just what we needed!

 

Apologies for the cynicism. No, really. When Can is moved back to centre-half and when our “new midfielder” goes back to left-back due to the inadequacies of our defence, Chamberlain may well come in handy. I can’t wait to hear Klopp justifying this signing! There are those who’ll say it wasn’t a last-minute thing as he’s been linked with us all summer. But who hasn’t been linked with us since FSG got here? Nobody, that’s who.

 

It smacks of an “appeasement” signing to keep us in line. You got Salah. You got Chamberlain. We KEPT Coutinho, fending off the might of Barça. Hell, we even got you Robertson from Hull. Now, do please shut up!

 

I wrote the above on the first weekend of the international break, got side-tracked (think Moreno) and have just found the time now to come back to things. I could talk about us whacking Arsenal, but where’s the fun in that? We were good; they made us look great. Which goes to show that even Arsenal are capable of pulling the wool over Reds’ eyes. Klopp managed to keep his mouth shut for most of the ten days, which in itself is a miracle. Thing is, with him, you know that his next outpouring of verbiage is never far away.

 

Citeh? I’ve said in previous pieces that this team would sometimes need to score four to win. I thought that was reasonable enough! But never five. As for six… There were mitigating circumstances, of course. It’s hard enough playing City with 11 on the park. Try doing it with six. Oh sorry, you thought I was going to count our back four?! There’s no shame in losing to City; the shame is the way we packed it in. so the players obviously have to take responsibility. As does the “Boss”.

 

When anyone dares criticize him, of course, Kloppites trot out the same old “arguments”: “Would you prefer to go back to the 6-1 hammerings at Stoke?” (well, at least we scored that day); “I’d prefer this to those drab days under GH and Rafa.” (yeah, winning all those troffies and trophies, pffff, much over-rated). The reason we are in this mess and that we won’t win anything this season is the fault of the Board and Klopp.

 

In seventy-two League games, his teams have conceded 90 goals. NINETY!!! Seventy-two games is surely enough to realize there’s a problem and more importantly to try to fix it! Up front, this guy has a Plan A, B, C, D and E. There is literally a dozen combinations he has at his disposal and he deserves credit for that.

 

But at the back his Plan A is, at the very best, Clyne, Matip, Lovren and Milner. One of those is injured, the other is average at best, the other is a liability – literally, he’ll cost us 10 goals this season – and the other is our “new midfielder”. If Lovren or Matip get injured, Klavan can slot in! This is negligence on Klopp’s and the Club’s part. But woe betide you if you dare criticize him.

 

That’s the thing with the Cheerleader-in-Chief. Nothing sticks. Get beaten 5-0 at City? He has a built-in excuse with Mané’s sending-off. It would be cynical to suggest that was why he made such a big deal out of it, of course. Concede three at Watford? It wasn’t “that bad” and “too much was made of our defending”. Score on the counter-attack? Shout “That’s football!” at the crowd in a self-congratulatory manner. He’s above us all, isn’t he? The defence is just the on-field manifestation of this guy’s arrogance.

 

We can score at will and we’ll probably score over 100 goals this season. It’s the 14th of September and we’ve already got 16! Thing is, we’ve conceded 13. In seven games, we’ve conceded two or more in four of them (1 W, 2 D and 1 L). Even with our front men, we can’t continue taking on water. How can we expect them to score THREE or FOUR week-in, week-out and still not be guaranteed the win?

 

Lack of signings and an obvious inability to find answers to our numerous defensive problems are compromising any chance of success this season. We’ve got to get to January with these defenders: 23 more games in all, 17 in the League. By which stage we will have conceded another 30-35 goals. And put paid to another season.

 

But we have Oxlade-Chamberlain!

 

John Brennan

@JohnAPBrennan


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Disagree with the sentiment all you want, but that's as well written as you'll find anywhere on the net, from an LFC writer.

Ouch

 

Seems a long time ago since the article was posted... hasn't aged well

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The season could still go truly tits up and then... then there will be a triumphant return. That's football.

Like by selling one of your best players in the transfer window and not replacing them,maybe?

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Maybe, but Klopp knows more than me so I'm not allowed to comment on that anymore.

Who said that? You can comment until you’re coughing up blood. I was just giving my view, and what informs it. Klopp was in a position to know how Coutinho was acting. To know how to deal with the situation. If he decided that it was the best thing, I’m not going to sit here spewed our nonsense about how negligent he is, like some have; both now and in the summer. If he doesn’t want to panic buy, like he didn’t on a defender, and prefers to wait, then I’m with him. I’ve been saying we should do that for the best part of 10 years. Had somebody done it with the Torres money... anyway, you’re of course free to do whatever you want. So is Klopp, and I trust the cunt.

 

You know, that sort of thinking used to be way less controversial.

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Who said that? You can comment until you’re coughing up blood. I was just giving my view, and what informs it. Klopp was in a position to know how Coutinho was acting. To know how to deal with the situation. If he decided that it was the best thing, I’m not going to sit here spewed our nonsense about how negligent he is, like some have; both now and in the summer. If he doesn’t want to panic buy, like he didn’t on a defender, and prefers to wait, then I’m with him. I’ve been saying we should do that for the best part of 10 years. Had somebody done it with the Torres money... anyway, you’re of course free to do whatever you want. So is Klopp, and I trust the cunt.

 

You know, that sort of thinking used to be way less controversial.

 

Relax, bro.   It was more of a cheeky wink in Hand Shandy's direction.

 

I was actually trying to shut down that line of conversation because I'm bored of wasting my typing power on Philippe Coutinho.

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At least John was brave enough to be honest and share his views at the time. It’s really easy to keep quiet when you think that your views won’t resonate with everyone.

 

Since he wrote the article we’ve had a really good run of results, which i’m sure he’s as happy about as anyone else.

 

The more people willing to be honest with their views the better, whether everyone agrees with them or not.

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At least John was brave enough to be honest and share his views at the time. It’s really easy to keep quiet when you think that your views won’t resonate with everyone.

 

Since he wrote the article we’ve had a really good run of results, which i’m sure he’s as happy about as anyone else.

 

The more people willing to be honest with their views the better, whether everyone agrees with them or not.

Is it bravery to be an hysterical cunt?

I suppose so.

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At least John was brave enough to be honest and share his views at the time. It’s really easy to keep quiet when you think that your views won’t resonate with everyone.

 

Since he wrote the article we’ve had a really good run of results, which i’m sure he’s as happy about as anyone else.

 

The more people willing to be honest with their views the better, whether everyone agrees with them or not.

I think it was the timing of the article. If it had been written now it would have been a much better idea. By now I mean this stage of the season regardless of how our form was after only about a dozen matches. An overreaction back then that looks silly now. Bravery would be writing that article now or standing by those views at this moment in time. After all,it could still go tits up until the end of the season so come out and say that now and he may still be proved correct.

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At least John was brave enough to be honest and share his views at the time. It’s really easy to keep quiet when you think that your views won’t resonate with everyone.

 

Since he wrote the article we’ve had a really good run of results, which i’m sure he’s as happy about as anyone else.

 

The more people willing to be honest with their views the better, whether everyone agrees with them or not.

 

Nonsense. It takes zero courage to spew hot takes online, as proven by the incredible amount of shitty opinions you find all over social media. 

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I think it was the timing of the article. If it had been written now it would have been a much better idea. By now I mean this stage of the season regardless of how our form was after only about a dozen matches. An overreaction back then that looks silly now. Bravery would be writing that article now or standing by those views at this moment in time. After all,it could still go tits up until the end of the season so come out and say that now and he may still be proved correct.

To be fair to John, he wasn’t judging just a handful of games he was looking at Klopp’s full tenure for patterns, trends etc. I didn’t agree with some of the stuff at all but I also didn’t find any of it overly offensive like a few obviously did.

 

As I said at the time, I have read a lot of Johns pieces over the years so maybe i’m just used to the style.

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Nonsense. It takes zero courage to spew hot takes online, as proven by the incredible amount of shitty opinions you find all over social media.

Social media is absolutely horrendous at times I agree. I thought John’s piece wasn’t even in the same ball-park as that personally.

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Criticism is fair game, but I thought it was a bit snide, and said so earlier in the thread. Also, while I agree he was looking for a trend and so on, he took arbitrary 25 game blocks when that’s not how seasons are measured. You can make a case that we dropped a lot of points in Klopp’s first season once top four was gone and we concentrated on the cups.

 

Anyway, I’ve no beef with him at all, but I thought the tone and disrespect to the Liverpool manager was a bit snide.

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Brownie, I’m not sure I agree it was brave. It was honest, but I think brave would have been not to stop writing the minute that we picked up. But even then, none of what he posted in regards to results irked me. I thought the arbitrary nature was daft, but I’ve no issue with that. I do have a big issue with him referring to our manager as a cheerleader-in-chief. Some of the shit he said in this thread and the other has made him look quite small.

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John has written lots of good stuff for the site in the past. Maybe this wasn't his best piece and (as is fairly usual) I don't agree with what he's saying but it's generated a decent debate which is the whole point of opinion pieces, isn't it?

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John has written lots of good stuff for the site in the past. Maybe this wasn't his best piece and (as is fairly usual) I don't agree with what he's saying but it's generated a decent debate which is the whole point of opinion pieces, isn't it?

 

 

I really don't see what all the fuss is about.

 

Nor why it's been specifically re-visited this week.

 

John could be right, he could be wrong, he could be being selective in his "facts", it might not have been especially well-written, it might be snide, it might be cynical, so what?

 

We respond, we agree/disagree.

 

It's only an opinion.

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