PODCAST: Everton 2 Liverpool 0 - Match Reaction

19 minutes ago, dave u said:

 

That's why @Paul backed out last minute! 

Can fully understand that but would have loved to hear him completely let loose and have a Falling Down moment on the pod. 

Finally listened to this and nominating it for TLW podcast episode of the season. The boys perfectly captured the frustration, fury and outright hurt of Wednesday’s loss, as well as perfectly capturing the confusion we all feel about this squad now and the future of the club as a whole. And a big reason for all of that is the return of Browny. He’s always great on the pod. Welcome back chief. 

Onto the team itself - 100% they’ve bottled it under the pressure of having to do it for Klopp. I wrote on here a little while back that I was in the away end at Old Trafford for the 2-2 there earlier this month and was struck by how devastated the players looked at the final whistle. They recognised it was a huge opportunity lost, and while in other seasons they probably would’ve got over that quickly, in this season they couldn’t, leading to an already pressurised situation become even more pressurised, which in turn led to a breakdown in performances, seen vs Atalanta, Palace and Everton. The stress of a title race is hard enough, especially for a largely inexperienced group of players, but when you add into that the stress of having to deliver the perfect send-off for a legends manager, well … no wonder they’ve cracked. 

Saying that, the crazy number of injuries we’ve had to cope with this season hasn’t helped either. Overall, we’re physically and mental wrecked. 

It’s been a collective collapse but as said on the pod, and by many other Reds I’ve spoken to since Wednesday, it’s the strikers who have let us down the most, and so yes, we need to talk about Darwin again. These are the teams he has scored against this season: Newcastle, LASK, West Ham, Toulouse, Forest, Bournemouth, Burnley, Norwich, Brentford, Sparta, Sheff Utd. No goals against the Mancs, City, Arsenal or Everton, despite playing a decent number of minutes against them all - for our main No 9 and most expensive player in our history that is simply not good enough. I love him, we all do, but after THAT miss on Wednesday and the manner in which he’s let us down in the big games and the big moments I’ve now reached a point where I too think he’ll never reach the level required for a club with our ambitions. We thought we had the new Gabriel Batistuta; turns out we have the new Emile Heskey - a good Liverpool striker but simply not good enough. 

Onto Salah - yep, he’s done, and sorry lads on the pod but I’m not having this ‘don’t treat him like a commodity’ thing. He’s a footballer, they come and they go, and ultimately the most important thing is what’s best for the club, and for me that means cashing in on Mo this summer before his value totally drops of a cliff. Don’t get me wrong, I love what he’s done for Liverpool; he’s a club legend, but he’s also been paid very well for his services and will himself recognise that, as well as the fact that his time is up. Also, if we had been shit the past few years and, say, Real Madrid came calling, do you think Mo would’ve stuck around through loyalty to us? No, he would’ve left, as so many others have done. It’s how football works - love and respect the players but don’t treat them like they’re family members, because they’re not. 

I’ll stop rambling now. But before I do - the manager. The best of the many decades I’ve been following Liverpool and I’ll forever be grateful for what he’s given us, but like Chris previously said on the pod, everything changed for the worse the moment he made his announcement that he was leaving and it’s clear he’s well and truly checked out. That’s a huge shame and it’s incredibly sad how his reign is ending. Let’s just try and see him off as best we can - win the last four games and shower him with thunderous applause at the end of one vs Wolves. It’s the least he deserves. 
 

I fuckin love the pod but I can’t listen to it this week sorry bros. I can hardly engage in football right now I’m too depressed about it. 
 

1 hour ago, JeanMichelFerriacrosstheMersey said:

Onto Salah - yep, he’s done, and sorry lads on the pod but I’m not having this ‘don’t treat him like a commodity’ thing. He’s a footballer, they come and they go, and ultimately the most important thing is what’s best for the club, and for me that means cashing in on Mo this summer before his value totally drops of a cliff.

Great post mate, just to clarify on this bit though. I agree with what you're saying, the club absolutely has to treat him like a commodity. My point was that I don't like it when fans are ringing up national radio stations and saying "sell him and get the money to invest in a replacement" like he's a second hand car. It just seems distasteful and he deserves better than to be treated like a commodity by fans.

If a good offer came in and the club accepted it, I wouldn't be kicking off about it but equally I'm not going to be calling for us to "get rid". It's not my decision thankfully, so what will be will be. 

21 hours ago, dave u said:

Even if that is the case then what the fuck does that say about the "mentality monsters" that they've allowed that to happen? 

How many of the mentality monsters are still there though?

26 minutes ago, dave u said:

 

Great post mate, just to clarify on this bit though. I agree with what you're saying, the club absolutely has to treat him like a commodity. My point was that I don't like it when fans are ringing up national radio stations and saying "sell him and get the money to invest in a replacement" like he's a second hand car. It just seems distasteful and he deserves better than to be treated like a commodity by fans.

 

If a good offer came in and the club accepted it, I wouldn't be kicking off about it but equally I'm not going to be calling for us to "get rid". It's not my decision thankfully, so what will be will be. 

That’s fair enough, Dave. I for one would never call a radio station calling for a player to be sold, even a crap one, let alone a club legend. As you say - it’s distasteful. 

Fair play for putting that out, the composure 20 minutes after the final whistle was remarkable. 

While the lads were generally shit, I thought you let the ref off way too easy. He was their man of the match in the period where they set the tone and created their only chances. He gave them literally everything so it's hypocritical to say treat it as a Derby but also not fall into the trap of allowing them fall to the ground. On my count it was 9 frees to 1 at one stage so John's point about just fall down doesn't stack up, we gave us nothing, some of the tackles would have been VAR reviews in a normal match.

I'm well pissed off with the lads but I have sympathy, it's 3 or 4 years of this death by a thousand cuts shit. We weren't playing badly, we created multiple situations but its hard to keep battling against the world. Particularly against that type of team, fall to the ground, load the box, launch it into the box, our team isn't built for that. Then they fouled Virgil on every free in the first half bar the one they scored from, he didn't get a single free. We only had 2 big lads, they had 5 or 6 and an obliging referee, most defences will eventually crack in that scenario, on reflection Gomez or Endo should have started. All avoided though if any of the forwards could kick a ball straight. 

I’d love to hear all your views on VAR