That was the Week that Was (Apr 24 - 30 2021)

Saturday Apr 24:

L 1 Newcastle 1. What the fuck are they doing? If this game was a one off you’d look at it and wonder just how on earth that happened. I’d be feeling sorry for the players and saying just how unlucky it was. It’s not unlucky though is it? The same shit has been happening for months. Not so much the bottling it when defending a lead (that’s a new thing as we haven’t often had leads to defend) but this fucking woeful play in the final third has been killing us all season. Terrible finishing and generally just making bad decisions in good situations.

I don’t know what the answer is but there’s no way we can come back next season with the same front three (plus Jota). I’m like a broken record here but someone has to go as it needs breaking up. In an ideal world we’d keep all of them, bring in someone boss and let them all fight it out, but this is an FSG world and that’s obviously not an option. Someone has to go to free up the wages / fee to get someone else in. 

I know one thing though. Watching them isn’t fun anymore. They don’t even look like they enjoy playing with each other and haven’t done for some time. Even last year the drop off from them was obvious. They either no longer trust each other or they’re sick of each other. 

Mo is the only one playing with any freedom and confidence. I would have said Jota too but he was fucking horrendous today. Like really, really bad. He didn’t train on Thursday but Klopp said yesterday “No, Diogo is fine”, so maybe there’s something personal going on there we don’t know about. The point is, he gets a free pass for being mostly ace this season. Sadio and Bobby though, fucking hell.

We should have been out of sight long before the closing stages but even so, there’s no excuse for the way they shit down their own legs there. They were let off the hook by VAR (for once) but didn’t take advantage of that let off and fucked it up anyway. This is one of the many reasons I could never be a manager as if I was Klopp I’d have just gone postal on them after that. In fact, I’d have gone the full Phil Brown and just locked the dressing room and not even let them in. Get changed in the fucking corridor, knobheads. 

Sunday Apr 25:

Ok so it now looks like the ESL had consulted with Boris Johnson a few days before the announcement and been given his support. He is alleged to have met with Ed Woodward and given the green light to it, only to then give it the old “we won’t stand for this, football belongs to the people” spiel when he saw the reaction to it.

So now people are up in arms about it, but why? If you are surprised by this then you haven’t been paying attention. This is how rich people operate. And to Johnson everything is all just a game anyway. He lies through his teeth, he cheats, he takes whatever shortcuts are necessary to achieve what he wants. The outrage about this baffles me. There is not a single person who voted for him that didn’t know he was a colossal cunt. So don’t be getting all upset about his antics now. *points at Leicester fans*.

This Konate talk is rumbling on, to the point now where it feels like we’re almost entering ‘formality’ territory. I’m underwhelmed because Leipzig are the only defence in the last three months to make our forwards look dangerous, and because his injury record is right up there with Matip and Gomez. Imagine signing another defender who has missed 45 games in the last two seasons. The fuck are we doing here? He may well be an upgrade on Kabak but not when he’s in the fucking treatment room listening to Big Bird and his fun facts.

Monday Apr 26:

Crazy old Perez over at Real is issuing threats. "I don't need to explain what a binding contract is, but effectively the clubs cannot leave," he told Spanish newspaper AS. "Some of them, due to pressure, have said they're leaving. But this project, or one very similar, will move forward and I hope very soon." He’s fucking mental. The only backing he has now is from Barca and Juve.

He also said this "What you have to do is recover the fans, the young people. And for that you have to change. If UEFA wants to do it with the project he said the other day, well, honestly, I neither understood it nor do I think it is a good solution. In addition, they want to start in 2024, and we will see what teams resist.”

He’s right with that. You know how to get young people back into the game though? Firstly, fuck VAR off. Secondly, cheaper ticket prices. Do that and there’s no reason why today’s kids won’t grow up to love footy in the way we did. It’s not going to happen though, and if he thinks a “Super League” will capture their attention he’s even more crazy than we all think. It might grab their attention for a few weeks, but they’ll be back on their xboxes in no time when their parents tell them “sorry kid, tickets are just too expensive”.

Former Echo reporter Phil McNulty has upset the LFC Twitter fam today by pointing out the lack of assists from Thiago. It was a bit of an uneducated criticism as he isn’t the player who plays the pass to make the goal. It’s much like Xabi back in the day. You don't judge those players on assists just like you don't judge full backs on how many goals they score. Thiago (like Alonso before him) is meant to be the one playing the pass that leads to the assist. He hasn’t done that either though has he?

McNulty picked the wrong battle there. He should have just said Thiago has been a massive flop and left it at that, because he has been. And chances are most of those who would rail against that suggestion are the same ones who told everyone how amazing he was going to be when we were linked with him. I don't even blame Thiago for him being a flop. He's doing his thing, but his thing doesn't blend with our thing. Not yet anyway. I haven't completely given up.

You know who else took a lot of heat for criticising Thiago? Didi Hamann. Granted, his credibility is virtually non-existent these days after him defending Thatcher and coming out with various other hot takes that made him look daft, but he said this about Thiago back in January...

‘He slows things down and doesn’t really play the way Liverpool play’, he said. "Liverpool in the past have had hard-working midfielders, they were not as skilful as Thiago, but they have the ball to Mane and Salah early. 

‘If you get the ball early on the wing, and theses guys can run at players they are very hard to stop. I just feel with Thiago, everyone was raving about him coming to Liverpool, he’s hardly played. He came on against Chelsea and had the most passes in the second half, against a Chelsea team that was down to 10 men. He came on against Newcastle in the last 25 minutes, Newcastle were dead on their feet, everyone was raving about how good he is.

‘I can tell you, he’s a good player, a skilful player. But there was never a time in Munich where people said, ‘oh he’s the first on the teamsheet’. So I’d be very cautious when it comes to Thiago. And the other thing is, as other people alluded to earlier, he plays a different style of football. He likes to be in possession. Liverpool were always good when they weren’t in possession, won it and played quickly forward. 

‘He’s not that type of player, so it will be very interesting when he does play more often now how it’s going to change the dynamics of the team.’

Of course, back in August when we signed him he had said…. "Jurgen Klopp has more workhorses in his midfield with Jordan Henderson, Fabinho and Naby Keita. He could use an intricate technical player like Thiago well. You could still get a very good three or four years out of him. Thiago isn’t someone who relies on his pace. He’s smart. He uses the ball well. Teams come to Anfield and just try to frustrate them and that’s likely to get worse next season.

"Thiago has huge quality in terms of unlocking defences. He could be very useful. I think if there’s one area of this team that Liverpool can improve, it’s probably the midfield."

So there is that.

Tuesday Apr 27: 

Little discussion in the WhatsApp group today about transfers and what we’re likely to spend. It was interesting because one of the lads mentioned something that I’d been thinking too. It’s probably fanciful nonsense and won’t happen, but I’ve got a sneaky little feeling that FSG might hand Jurgen a load more cash this summer than people are expecting. 

They recently sold a stake in the club for £500m or so wasn’t it? That’s not all going in the transfer kitty of course, but there is money they can dip into and given the amount of making up they need to do (to the fans, but also to Jurgen) is it possible that they’ll loosen the purse strings for once and let him go a bit wild? It was something we discussed and I half jokingly threw in the name of Mbappe just to get Paul going really as he’s been banging that drum for years. 

It was in danger of actually proving to be a positive chat for the first time in about six months until one of the lads brought it all back down to the depths of misery by saying “Mbappe is too full of himself to sign for a team not in the Champions League”. I’m not completely sure that is the case but it still snapped me out of my delusion instantly. I’m still in the midst that anyone would want to sign for Kloppo’s Reds, but maybe that’s not true now because we won’t be in the CL. 

It depends how it’s perceived. Is this just a Covid caused blip that can be dismissed, or are we back where we were three or four years ago, not in a situation where the absolute best players would join us? I’d like to think it’s the former but hypothetically if I were Mbappe or Haaland and I was choosing between Bayern, Real, City, Chelsea, United, Barca and us, I’m probably not coming to Anfield, whereas a year ago it was a no brainer.

So I’d be amazed if we signed a massive name ahead of any of our rivals but I do think John Henry is going to allow Klopp to go out and get who he feels he needs and money is not going to be the restricting factor it has been. I'm probably being naive so you can save this and then mock me when we sign Romain Seiss on a free, hail fit again Joel Matip as ‘like a new signing’ and do a deal for Pedro Neto that sees us paying Wolves £5m now and then the rest of the fee in £1m instalments for the next 25 years.

Wednesday Apr 28:

The club accounts are out. None of this makes any sense to me, even when it’s explained by people who know what they’re talking about. We posted a loss of £46m which is apparently not too bad as 11 PL teams posted losses of over £50m for the year. Man City lost £125m, but if they were posting their proper accounts they’d be losing at least that much every season and then some. So if they’re declaring a loss of £125m imagine how much they actually are losing, the cheating cunts. Lower wage bill than us, apparently.

You know who else is losing money hand over fist? High Horse FC. Those bastions of moral integrity are spending all kinds of money they don’t have. £140m losses in one year? They lost a fuckload the year before as well, and their wages are 89% of their turnover, which is really bad. They’ll carry on spending though because they’ve got Moshiri acting as a front for a dodgy Russian. One day they’ll go under, hopefully. I absolutely mean that too. Fuck them.

Seen some stuff put out by the club’s social media today that I just didn’t react well to. Let me first say that there was nothing wrong with it and the social media team are just doing their job. The problem isn’t what they put out, it’s how I reacted to it. And my reaction is purely because we’ve been so fucking shit. 

So what am I on about? Just the standard ‘inside training’ content they put out. Completely harmless, inoffensive stuff that loads of people probably love. Hell, I love it too, when we’re winning.

But today I saw a clip of Sadio sidestepping Robbo and smashing a shot in with his left foot. I also saw another clip of Thiago doing a lovely little flick in the rondos. You know it made me feel? The same way I feel when I see stuff like that begging up Arsenal players. Like when their fans were creaming themselves over that Pepe jabroni almost running past Virgil. 

Thiago doing that little flick just made me annoyed that he’s done absolutely fuck all on the pitch for us get that excited about. Sadio scoring that goal just made me annoyed that it’s about six fucking months since he did it in a meaningful situation. The club social media team buzzing off it just irks the shit out of me.

As I say, it’s not their fault and this is my problem, not theirs. I just hate shit like this when the team is fucking crap. Just reeks of Arsenal to me. Any time I see Arsenal players even celebrating a goal I just fill up with resentment and think “what the fuck have you got to celebrate, you fucking losers”. 

It’s getting that way with our lads now, which isn’t fair as they have actually won the biggest prizes out there. They’ve turned into Arsenal this season though and it’s galling.

Meanwhile, it was Ewing Oil v WestStar tonight. Barnes-Wentworth were in the other semi last night facing Real Madrid. It’s so fucked up when Real Madrid are… I can’t say the good guys as that would stick in the throat too much… the lesser of four evils.

Thursday Apr 29:

United warmed up for the weekend by putting six past Roma in the Europa League. Sunday is going to be shit, isn't it? You can just feel it coming.

Sander Berge is linked with us today. I like him, good player. Not good enough for what we need though, and any chance of Sheffield United maybe doing us a good deal have surely been scuppered by us pulling their pants down on Brewster. There's no way we're shelling out for him as well as Bissouma, so maybe he's a fallback option if Brighton's demands are too high? I'm dead set against us signing Berge though, simply because the Kop will just bust out the old Paddy Berger song for him because they're lazy bastards these days. That's Paddy's song though. It's bad enough they used it for Sturridge.

Just catching up with the 18s game last weekend. They scored six again and it could have been 12. The firepower in that side is as good as anything we’ve had at this level in recent years. Woltman, Musialowski, Gordon and Balagizi is a right handful for any team in this age group. Woltman has nine in his four or something mad like that. They aren’t even missing Layton Stewart. 

They’ve got Arsenal in the Youth Cup tomorrow night. Such a shame Gordon can’t play in that competition. I might start doing match reports from these lads instead of the first team you know. They’re much more fun to watch as the forwards can actually finish. 

Friday Apr 30:

See? They beat Arsenal 3-1 at Anfield. There was no Gordon but the other three ran riot. Woltman scored the opener, Norris got the second from the spot and the latest solo effort from Musialowski put them 3-0 up before Koumetio gave away a penalty for an Arsenal consolation. They’re great to watch and must have a great chance of winning it now, especially as City are out. 

We’ve got Ipswich next, while in the other semi final it’s Villa v West Brom. Villa’s results so far in this competition have been 4-3, 3-0, 9-0 and 6-1 so if we get them it could end up looking like a rugby score. Can't wait actually. It's the only game of football left this season that I'm actually looking forward to watching.

Seriously thinking about swerving Sunday you know. I can't think of any good reason to watch that live. If we win I'll be happy and I can watch the replay of it the next day. Not watching it 'live' won't take the shine off it, as there's not going to be much 'shine' regardless of what happens as this whole season has just been so fucking miserable that a win at Old Trafford changes very little.

A defeat would just make it all the more depressing though so hopefully the lads will put in a performance there for once. I'm not expecting it though.

…and that was the week that was…..