Saturday August 24:
L 3 Arsenal 1 Did any of you expect anything else today? Seriously, did any of you think we might not win this game? I couldn’t have been any less worried. I knew we’d beat them and I knew if we played anywhere near our best level it wouldn’t even be close.
It wasn’t that long ago that Arsenal were better than us. Now the gap is as big as it’s been since… I don’t know, maybe since they were ‘the Invincibles’. Arsenal should be made up to com away with just a 3-1 defeat as they were utterly dominated.
These are special times. The football we play is sensational and Anfield is an impregnable fortress now. Arsenal didn’t help themselves with how they approached the game, but it didn’t really matter what they did, they were always going to get smashed because we’re miles better than them.
All over the pitch we’re great. The midfield still has it’s doubters and some of the concerns are legit, but in games like this they’re great. They swarmed all over Arsenal and the energy and relentless pressure was just too much.
The front three were right on it and the defence was superb too. They deserved a clean sheet, although Arsenal did miss two sitters in the first half so we can’t feel too hard done by.
What’s all the shite about Virgil being dribbled past by Pepe though? It’s not really important, but it’s still irrationally annoyed me. If someone dribbles past him then good luck to them, the statistic doesn’t really mean much other than it’s a funny little thing to throw at rivals fans, but I’m to having that his record went today because it fucking didn’t.
Pepe didn’t dribble past him. He knocked the ball past him and legged it. Virgil went back with him, stayed goal side at all times and then nicked the ball off him. In what world is that classed as a successful dribble? Load of old bollocks that.
Sunday August 25:
Bobby Duncan is being linked with Fiorentina now. Something is amiss here. Last week he was the subject of a failed bid by a Scandinavian club. When players keep being linked with other clubs it’s either because the club wants rid and is trying to generate interest, or because the agent is hawking them around.
Pretty sure LFC don’t want shut of him, so that leaves the agent. It’s weird though because if you look at Bobby’s twitter he’s the biggest ‘dream come true’ ‘I love the Reds I do’ fanboy since Adam Morgan. Why on earth would he want to leave, especially when the deals being mooted are not just season long loans, they’re permanent.
Meanwhile, Lovren is now being linked with a move to Germany. Sick of this now. The sooner this window is closed the better. As much as I like the idea of the window closing before the season starts, it’s been rendered completely pointless by the fact that it’s open for everyone else. It needs to be the same for everyone in future.
Monday August 26:
The u23s got their first win of the season, beating Southampton 4-2 away. Brewster, Jones, Chirivella and Longstaff got the goals, but the goals against tally is something they need to be concerned about. I hope Chirivella gets himself a decent move before the window shuts, as he's such a good player. Not good enough to make it here, but he's a lovely player to watch. Great technician as Brendan would say.
No Bobby Duncan in the squad tonight though. Hmmm.
Well would you look at that, Roma are supposed to be back in for Lovren now. What are they going to offer this time? A free tour of the Coliseum, a slice of cold pizza and some ice cream? Stop wasting our time, you mingebags.
Tuesday August 27:
Roma sign Chris Smalling on loan. See, that’s why they didn’t go for Big Dejan, because they didn’t want to pay any money. He’s not the only United player off to Serie A on loan, as Sanchez is going to Inter. This is hilarious really. Sanchez is swapping the Europa League for the Champions League, while United are still paying him £6m a year for him to take a step up. Be dead funny if him and Lukaku tear it up over there.
I don’t think the Mancs realise it yet, but they're where we’ve been for most of the last 30 years. Miles away, floundering, kidding themselves that with the right couple of signings they’d be right back up there. It’s a long way back for them. A long way.
Meanwhile, Harry Kane says it’s still early days and Spurs can keep pace with us and City. Nope, not a hope in hell. We’ll both be at least 20 points ahead of Spurs and the rest, just like last year. The standard being set by the top two is just unrelentingly high. Any dropped point feels like it’s the end of the world. Spurs lost at home to Newcastle last week. If that happens to us in a couple of weeks, it will almost feel like the season is over.
It doesn’t really matter much to Spurs because when you’re just competing for top four you can lose ten games and still achieve your goals. The levels reached by Klopp and Guardiola has changed football as we know it. All the old conventional wisdom no longer applies.
Also today, some talk that we’re trying to get Matip tied down to a new deal. Well deserved, he’s been fucking terrific since he got back in the team. Joe Gomez is brilliant, but Matip is in the team ahead of him on merit. There aren’t many players out there that could keep Gomez on the sidelines. Matip is top class and the partnership with Virg is as good as there is anywhere.
This talk about Klopp leaving at the end of his deal just won’t go away, and today Dudek has come out and said that if and when Klopp leaves, there’s only one man for the job - Steven Gerrard. I really hope not. I love Stevie and I hope he has a great managerial career. Whoever replaces Klopp though will be on a hiding to nothing. Gerrard might be the absolute last person I’d want to take over, even if he proves himself as a manager (which he hasn’t yet).
Wednesday August 28:
Jesus Christ, this Bobby Duncan thing is mad. It was obvious that something was going on, but no-one could have envisaged what happened today. The agent is clearly a massive twat but what people need to remember here is that agents work for players, not the other way around. All this ‘poor Bobby being given bad advice’ is a load of old Zlatan.
Make excuses for him all you like, but I don’t care how ‘young’ he is, he has to know that putting out a statement accusing Inglethorpe and Edwards of bullying is not going to end well for him. Apparently he’s not been in training all week and refused to play for the 23s on Monday. Just who the fuck does this kid think he is? Seriously? We’ve had so many better players come through the system than him, and not one of them has ever carried on like this.
I suppose it’s possible he didn’t see the statement before it was put out there, but it’s highly unlikely. And even if he hadn’t, he retweeted the fucking thing before removing it soon after (no doubt when the club got onto him about it).
Few things in football shock me these days, but this has. The agent played the mental health card, which is a fucking disgrace really and an insult to those who genuinely suffer from it. Don’t tell me Duncan is suffering from it, because I’m not having it. If he’s ‘not left his house in four days’ and is depressed it’s because the agent has filled his head with all sorts of bollocks about the direction his career needs to be going.
The truth is it’s going at exactly the rate of progression it should. If he wanted to be playing first team football by 18, I fully respect that but he should have signed for someone else when he walked out on City. He came here to play in the 18s and he had a great season, winning the Youth Cup. He was then moved up to the 23s, and he’s had a taste of the first team in pre-season. Apparently that’s not good enough. What a self entitled tit.
I’m more annoyed with him than I am the agent to be totally honest. Agents tend to be cunts so I expect it. The agent has now links to Liverpool and all he’s interested in is lining his own pockets. If Duncan was an overseas youngster I’d still be pissed off, but I’d be a little more understanding. He’s not though, he’s always giving it the “boyhood red living the dream” stuff, while behind the scenes he’s been trying to get a move since the end of last season? And now he’s allowing his agent to accuse Inglethorpe (by all accounts a top fella) and Edwards (no idea what he’s like, to be honest) of bullying.
He hired that agent and the agent speaks for him. The same agent who encouraged Saido Berahino to completely sabotage his own once promising career. No-one forced Bobby to hire this guy, and in fact he got rid of the agent he had previously so he could hire this cunt. Why would you do that? Especially when your cousin is Steven Gerrard and there’s no way on earth he’d have advised that.
In fact, why do Academy kids even need agents? The answer is they don’t. They could just use the PFA agents and then when they’ve made it, and actually need an agent to negotiate endorsements and stuff, then they can hire one. Bottom line here, Duncan is way too big for his boots and has been indulged far too much.
Agents often do more harm than good with young players. You know who Duncan should be looking at as a warning for what could be in store for him? Jerome Sinclair. Look at him now. His career went down the toilet because he wanted more money than we were willing to pay him. And he was better at 18 than Duncan.
Personally I’d have torn up Duncan’s contract the second he removed all the LFC references from his social media today. I’d have written the £1.5m he’s currently worth and told him to go wherever the fuck he wants.
It won’t happen because the club see these players as assets and they won’t just give him away. Maybe they think they can rehabilitate him but as far as I’m concerned what we’ve seen today tells me all I need to know about his mentality. He won’t make it here, you can quote me on that.
Speaking of dickhead strikers with LFC connections, Dean Saunders has been jailed for refusing to take a breath test. Was this before or after he advocated us signing Wayne Rooney the other week? Was probably the same day. The copper was probably listening to the show and hung around outside the studio to see if he got into his car. What a dickhead though.
Thursday August 29:
Decent draw that. Getting Napoli again is shit though, especially for the fans who travel to these games, but Salzburg and Genk are sound on that front, and also for the footy side of things. We should get through that without even breaking sweat.
Virgil and Alisson were both over there for the draw and to pick up awards. Alison got UEFA keeper of the year, while the big man was Defender of the Year and also Player of the Year. Well deserved too. How satisfying was it seeing one of our lads sat next to Messi and Ronaldo, and beating both of them to an award?
I keep saying it in the match reports, but we’ve got it so good right now that we need to take time out to smell the flowers. In the voting for UEFA Player of the Year, we had four of the top six, as Salah and Mane were in there too. Just think about that for a second. Think about where we were when Klopp arrived, and look at it now. Fuck me, it’s incredible.
Also today, Duncan tweeted "I just want to play football!" before later deleting the tweet. Presumably that doesn't apply to u23 games?
At least he only had to delete a tweet. His agent deleted his entire account after the LFC family went for him. Don’t these dickheads ever learn? You don’t take on Liverpool fans as it always ends in tears. This clown was doomed from the moment Carragher attacked him and brought what he’d said to everyone’s attention.
Within a few hours what was left of his reputation lay in tatters after old tweets of his had been dug up showing him to be a racist, homophobic, nonce supporting sleaze who had sent creepy audio messages to Babestation girls. It’s hilarious, this prick thought he could take on LFC and win, and he’s been completely ruined.
Instead, his name is now mud and if Duncan hasn’t sacked him already then it’s only a matter of time. At least he’s still got Berahino.
Friday August 30:
Allison isn’t close to a comeback yet says Klopp. It’s going to be interesting to see when he actually does return given the way Jurgen downplayed it initially. Adrian has been a bit wobbly of late but the good thing about him is he doesn’t seem the type to lose any confidence because of a mistake or two. He’s quite cocky, which isn’t a bad thing in a ‘keeper I guess.
Meanwhile, Duncan re-instates his social media profile pictures and pins a tweet showing Klopp patting him on the head in pre-season. Presumably the message is that he’s a Red again now. Well I still say “fuck him”.
No doubt what we’ll see now is a lot of finger pointing at the agent for corrupting poor little Bobby, but he’s a big boy, he knew what he was doing. The only way he gets a pass on this is if it turns out that the agent did all of this on his own and Bobby knew nothing about it.
That’s not going to be the case though, because he not only knew about it, he endorsed it by RT’ing and then throwing a strop and removing all the LFC stuff from his profiles.
Yes, he’s only 18 and that has to be taken into account, but 18 is not 8. Footballers need to grow up quicker than normal kids because they’re in the public eye and they get media training from the club. He’s old enough to know better and what in the holy fuck were his family doing allowing this situation to develop like that? It’s mad.
I’d still be looking to get rid of him asap, regardless of how many goals he might score this year. Not because I don’t believe in second chances (generally I do) but because a second chance isn’t going to change anything. Why? Because to make it at the top level you need much more than talent. You need to have a strong mentality and a team first attitude. This week has shown he has neither. If he makes it here I’ll be genuinely staggered.
You know who I really feel sorry for in all this? Paul Glatzel, a fantastic lad who matched Duncan goal for goal and assist for assist, but didn’t feel the need to post weekly updates on social media about how many he had. Glatzel won’t play this season because he blew his knee out in pre-season. I’d love to know what he thinks about all this.
….and that was the week that was
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