Saturday Oct 17:
Everton 2 L 2. I’m too angry to say anything really coherent about this. It will all be in the match report so I’m not going to even comment on the controversial issues from this. If I start I doubt I’ll be able to stop so instead I’m just going to focus on the football side of it. We played well. It was the perfect response to what happened at Villa as you could see the determination the lads had to immediately stamp their authority on this one.
From the first whistle they were right at Everton. The two early fouls by Virg showed how pissed off he was with the Villa result and he set the tone as we were on the front foot. It looked like we would blow them away but then you know what happened and the momentum was taken away from us. The reaction was good though and we bossed the first half.
The second half was scrappy to begin with but eventually we took control and we were by far the better team. We should be better as we’re the Champions and they’re Everton, but they went into this in the best shape they’ve been in for decades. And we were coming off that Villa game. Then we lost our most important player (we were already without Alisson) but despite all this we’ve completely schooled them.
Forget the result, that doesn’t tell the story. This was dominance. Everton know they’re still not even remotely close to being at our level. Maybe that’s why they act like thugs every time we play them?
I have always put that down to the crowd and the effect that 30,000 baying bitter bastards has on players, but it turns out that’s got fuck all to do with it. It’s not the fans that make them act like that, it’s the fucking badge. Dirty cunts.
Sunday Oct 18:
So he’s done for the season then. Grade 3 ACL tear, which basically means his whole knee needs re-attaching. We’re looking at probably 12 months until he’s back at full speed so this is an absolute fucking nightmare. I’m unspeakably angry about it all as the whole situation was a fucking disgrace, and I don’t just mean the tackle.
I’m probably in the minority here but I’m angrier about Oliver and Coote not punishing Pickford than I am at Pickford for actually doing it. I’m not defending him at all, but these things do occasionally happen as it’s always been part of the game. What should never happen is for a referee to see it and do nothing. That’s the thing that’s getting to me.
David Coote should no longer be in a job this morning, but fuck all will happen to him despite him being guilty of quite literally the worst bit of officiating I’ve ever seen. An on field ref not getting a decision right is one thing, but when you have access to replays and still get it as wrong as Coote did that’s negligence of the highest order. Sack the cunt.
Naturally there’s a lot of defeatism around after this. Our title prospects have taken a severe hit and it might be too much to overcome. I don’t think it’s as clear cut as a lot of people are making out though, mainly because everyone else is flawed. Look at Spurs today, 3-0 up and looking great. Looking like title contenders even. Then they conceded three to West Ham and drew. That’s what I’m saying. All the other top teams have their faults and it’s not going to take 99 points to win it this year.
Actually it wouldn’t have taken 99 last year. That’s what we got, but 82 would have been enough. Somewhere around that will do it this year too probably (I expect maybe 86/87ish might be enough) and we can get that even without Virgil. His injury means we aren’t going to run away with it again but it shouldn’t mean we can’t be right in the thick of it. We need to pray that Matip doesn’t break down again and that Alisson is back soon. If that happens and we can get to January still in the shake up, we can bring someone in and finish the season strongly.
Clean sheets are going to be hard to come by now (they were anyway) and we might see a lot more of those crazy 5-4 type games again, but we were a good side before Virgil and we’re still a good side now. We’re better now than we were before we signed him and although we’ll obviously miss him big time, we have enough strength in other areas of the pitch to keep the rig on the road.
I feel worse for Virgil himself than I do for our prospects this season, because I think we’ll be alright.
Monday Oct 19:
As expected, no retrospective punishment for Pickford. Let’s face it, how could they do anything to him when two referees seen it and did fuck all? They couldn’t charge him without undermining the refs and they were never going to do that. I’m not arsed about Pickford being banned to be honest. It doesn’t help us in any way, if anything it would help Everton as they could bring in the Swedish lad who can’t be any worse than that useless cunt.
So yeah, not arsed about what happens to Pickford because that’s no longer the issue anyway. He was the issue at the time when he should have been sent off, but he wasn’t sent off and therefore the situation has moved on from that and the real issue now is that Coote piece of shit and to a lesser extent Michael Oliver. We can’t let this slide. PGMOL are sweeping it under the carpet knowing eventually it will just go away.
Well it shouldn’t go away. We should be demanding an apology and an acknowledgement from Oliver and Coote that they completely fucked up. It’s negligent beyond belief. I can’t really stress this strongly enough. I genuinely can’t get my head around it all if I’m honest. That is the worst challenge we’ll probably ever see and it caused serious damage to one of the world’s top players, and yet it went completely unpunished. Honestly, I can’t get my head around how they’ve gotten away with this.
As bad as what Pickford did was, the bigger issue here is that the authorities are supposed to be acting to stamp this kind of thing out. They have a duty of care to the players to take action, and despite TWO of their referees seeing it (and one of them having the benefit of numerous replays), THEY DID FUCK ALL ABOUT IT. And now they aren’t even admitting they fucked up.
Their story has changed more times than Patrice Evra’s did. First they said there had been no review of it. Then they said there had and the officials decided there was no action needed to be taken (no-one believes that because there is literally not a person on this planet who would see that and not say it was a red card offence) and the latest one is that Coote forgot the rules and thought the offside negated anything that happened after.
That is the most plausible explanation I reckon, but it’s not the official word. Not yet. They haven’t responded to LFC’s complaint yet, but I doubt we’ll ever get to know what they say about it anyway
If I’m Klopp I’m mentioning this in every press conference and demanding they admit they fucked up. And I’m not stopping until they do admit it, because you can’t just let them hide behind bullshit protocols and refuse to admit the gross negligence involved. Honestly, that Coote should be out of a job.
I’m not saying that because it’s one of our players either. I’d be saying this no matter who was involved because it was such a horrendous failure of his responsibility and it was quite literally the easiest decision for any official to make. It was a gross dereliction of duty and it sickens me that he’s still in a job. In fact, he refereed Leeds tonight. Genuinely incredible this. An absolute scandal.
In other depressing news today there’s something about a European Super League being mooted by the big clubs, including us and United. I can’t really say anything more about it because I refused to read any of it.
Same thing happened last week with that Project Big Picture bollocks. I genuinely have no idea what it is, whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing, and I have no interest in finding out because it just seems to me like grandstanding and posturing by the big clubs to ensure they get a deal they want.
Can’t be arsed with any of it.
Tuesday Oct 20:
Wow, even the mild mannered Gini is fuming. “We were upset. The way Pickford went it on the challenge, in my opinion, was stupid and I believe he didn’t want to injure Virgil but the way he took the tackle he didn’t care what happened after.
“We had it a lot in games against Everton, in my opinion, they take it way too far. We know it’s a derby and everyone wants to win but sometimes you go over the top, but it was too much. If you talk about the tackle of Richarlison on Thiago it was also a nasty one, that’s what bothers me the most and most of the other players.
“Accidents can always happen in football, you can be unlucky and injure someone but the way they were doing it was completely unacceptable. It makes it harder that they don’t get punished. In this case Pickford after seeing the videos.”
Well said that man. Interesting how he referenced previous derbies too. Obviously the lads feel that Everton are out of control whenever they play against us. We know they are, but there’s something comforting to me that the lads have clearly discussed it too.
The way to overcome that isn’t to fight fire with fire. It’s to fucking humiliate them every time we face them from now on. Just go out and beat the cunts at Goodison in the same manner we usually do at Anfield.
Speaking of cunts…. “I think the process was followed in some ways and it was flawed," Dermot Gallagher told Ref Watch. “When you see this, they have to check for a penalty. There are three steps, is it onside, is it a penalty and is there any further sanction? What they have done, is it a penalty? It is a penalty so they check and it's offside which negates the penalty.
"They've gone from step two to step one, step two eliminates step one and it got overlooked to go to step three, which it shouldn't have done, we all know it should have been a red card. It was human error and that's all we can do is apologise for it. There's nothing more that can be said, the process was that they went backwards to go forwards and then stopped at step two and it's as simple as that."
So Coote forgot the rules. I’m still not buying it though. Let me put it this way. What if Pickford had seen it was offside and decided to punch Van Dijk in the face. What would Coote have done then? Would he have ignored that because he forgot to do ‘step three’ or would he have said “it’s offside, Michael, but he’s punched him in the face”?
Irrespective of steps and processes and offsides, this cunt saw one of the worst tackles in living memory and he didn’t think it was worthy of any further action. Fucking sack him, because he’s either beyond useless or he’s bent as fuck. I’ll be honest, at this point I’m not sure which it is.
In brighter news today, a leading French journo says that Mbappe will leave PSG next summer and that there are only two names in the frame. Real Madrid and us. It’s common knowledge that it’s Mbappe’s dream to play for Madrid one day, but he isn’t necessarily in a hurry to do it and maybe a few years playing for Klopp would appeal to him more?
The big stumbling block is I don’t know how we could afford it, but I don’t see how anyone else can either unless he takes a significant pay cut. Mind you, by the end of this season Jota might have elevated his game to Salah / Mané levels and there’ll be no room for arl Kylian. What? It could happen.
Maybe PSG will take Bobby in part ex to keep Neymar company. Jeez, did I really just write that? Not so long ago it would have been unthinkable and I’d have hated anyone who even mooted the possibility. Mind you, not so long ago I thought Bobby was the best number nine we could be possibly have. Yet now I’d be picking both Jota and Minamino ahead of him. I hate saying that but it’s how I feel.
Wednesday Oct 21:
Ajax 0 L 1 I’m made up with this. For years we’ve generally been shite in away group games and it’s meant that qualification has often gone down to the last game. This was potentially the toughest fixture in the group (not much between this and Atalanta away in fairness) so to come away with a win and clean sheet is sound. We had some ropey moments but by and large I thought the defence did really well.
Fabinho is boss at centre back isn’t he? When I think about the games he’s played there, including tonight, the image that comes into my head is him backing off slowly while a forward runs at him, and then just timing his challenge perfectly to take the ball off them as they try and go round him. He did it repeatedly to ol’ No Finesse Timo at Chelsea and tonight he had one where he robbed two players in the space of about three seconds. Boss.
Gomez was good too and he needed this. It’s interesting that he’s been switched into Virgil’s spot and is no longer playing the right sids spot. It might just be that he’s the most adaptable to play there and Klopp would rather Matip and Fabinho play right side rather than left. Or maybe it’s about splitting up Gomez and Trent because that just hasn’t been working. Teams have exploited that quite well of late.
I was thinking today though, Virgil’s injury might be the making of Gomez. Putting him in Virgil’s spot might be symbolic. There’s a much greater responsibility on him now Virgil isn’t there and we need him to step out of the shadow of his ‘big brother’. Maybe he’ll emerge as the leader of the defence now that he doesn’t have Virgil to lean on.
Thursday Oct 22:
Reports today say we’ll move for Ozan Kabak in January. This is the centre back we were rumoured to have bid for a few weeks ago. He’s the one who was buzzing about a signed Van Dijk shirt. This seems pretty nailed on I reckon, We were probably going to do it next summer but that needs bringing forward now and £27m doesn’t seem that excessive given how pressing our need is.
Also today, Johnny Giles says Everton could be closest to Liverpool this season. Presumably he means geographically because otherwise he’s talking bollocks.
Staying with the Blues, Ancelotti comes out swinging in defence of Pickford. I wouldn’t expect anything else. A manager is always going to say his player had no malice and didn’t mean to hurt an opponent. I wasn’t arsed about anything he said in defence of Pickford, but there was something else that has pissed me right off because I don’t believe it for a fucking second and it smacks of playing up to the bitter gallery.
Apparently that Rodriguez cunt is doubtful for the weekend and Carlo says it’s because of a foul made by Virgil in the first couple of minutes of the derby. I remember it. It was a nothing tackle but he stayed down for ages trying to get Virgil booked. When that didn’t happen, he got up and played the rest of the game without any problem.
Now he’s injured though and Virgil was the culprit. How convenient. If that little cheating cry baby cunt is injured it’s probably a separated shoulder from all that imaginary card waving. But he’s not injured, he’ll play at the weekend and this is just prime Everton behaviour. Disappointed in Carlo though, I thought he was above all that, like Koeman was. Still, as they say, when Everton touches you…
Friday Oct 23:
Brace yourselves for this, you’ll be shocked. Are you ready? Ok, so it seems that Rodriguez trained today and should be fine for the weekend. I know, I was stunned too. Who’d have thunk it eh? Honestly, Everton are so fucking smalltime it almost beggars belief. I wonder who it was who talked Ancelotti into saying that shit yesterday. Someone in the press office maybe, or that fucking lunatic Ferguson maybe.
Meanwhile, Klopp says he isn’t sure who will be available tomorrow but Thiago, Matip, Keita and even Alisson haven’t been ruled out yet and it depends on whether they can train today. My guess is none of them play, but I hope I’m wrong, especially in Alisson’s case.
Klopp also revealed that he and Robbo had a bust up the other night because Robbo got sick of being shouted at and basically must have told Klopp to fuck off. He was laughing his head off about it but the way he was describing it I don't think he was at the time! One of the journos asked him “do you like that it when your players react passionately like that?” and he went “No” but then explained that Robbo was “feeling sorry for himself” because he’d been kicked in the chest and was having trouble breathing.
You can just imagine it. Robbo in agony and unable to get his breath, Klopp yelling at him for not overlapping and Robbo completely losing his shit! We might have actually heard it if BT hadn’t funnelled in that shitty fake crowd noise.
Meanwhile, Marcus Rashford is still going toe to toe with the government and he’s gaining more and more support by the day now. He’s been on social media most of today co-ordinating a campaign where pubs and restaurants all over the country are volunteering to donate meals. This is actually quite incredible really. I can’t remember any player going to these lengths and putting himself out there like this, let alone one as young as Rashford.
It’s a good thing for United fans that the grounds are empty. They better hope that’s still the case when they play at Anfield because imagine how bad they’re going to look when they’re singing “Feed the Scousers” while the Kop applauds one of their own.
Finally, Steve Howey says we should make a move for Coady in January and that Coady would be an idiot to turn us down. Fuck you, Steve Howey. Stick to talking shite about Newcastle and keep your nose out of our business.
Wait, one last thing. I know some of you are more interested in my mum's take on things than mine, so to keep ll of you ungrateful fuckers happy I'll share a conversation I had with her today. Actually I'll preface it with a conversation I had with her last week, because it relates to todays. It's about Naby. She doesn't like him. He came up in conversation last week and she said "That Keita (pronounced the same way Carra does, "Kiter") is pathetic. He's too small and weak. Mané and Mo are small but they're strong. This fella is always getting knocked over. He's got the right name - "Kiter" - because a gust of wind sends him flying".
So onto today, I thought I'd rile her up about by bringing up Naby.
Me: "He's meant to be back this weekend."
Her: "Where was he last week?"
Me: "He had Covid didn't he. He's back now though"
Her: "It's a good job he didn't play last week because he'd be DEAD. He's so fragile they'd have killed him the way they were tackling".
and that was the week that was....
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