Monday Feb 14:
Souness’ punditry yesterday when talking about the Zouma incident was…. interesting. I agreed with most of what he was saying but the bit that really jumped out was “for me, looking at that video the cat hasn’t done anything wrong”. Hahahaha fucking hell he’s talking like he’s been asked about a penalty incident!
He was proper fucking angry about it though and wasn’t having any of Carra or Micah Richards pointing out that everyone makes mistakes and you have to accept your punishment and then hopefully be allowed to move on from it. Souey was having none of that. Carra says “we don’t know what he’s been through since it happened” and Souness goes “not as much as what the cat went though”.
He also said if he was his manager he wouldn’t pick him again and if he was his team-mate he wouldn’t want to play with him. Souness is big into animal rights and became a vegan because of how animals are treated, so this stance isn’t surprising at all really. Just imagine if it had been Pogba instead of Zouma though!
As for Zouma, he turned up for the game yesterday and then suddenly felt ill and couldn’t play. Maybe they had Souness on in the dressing room? I’ve just read all this back and how surreal is it that this is an actual conversation that took place on Sky’s Super Sunday show. The world has gone fucking mad.
Saw something today and I’m fucking raging about it. I’ll post it below so it can ruin your day as well, because it’s completely fucked up my mood. I shouldn’t let it bother me but I can’t help it. I despise everything about City but of all the things I hate about them, this fucking bald weirdo is way out there on top. I hate that he isn’t universally seen for what he is and reviled for it. Instead he has everyone kissing his arse because he’s a great coach.
And he is a great coach. But Lance Armstrong was a great cyclist. Guardiola is fucking unhinged. Just look at him in that clip below. Ranting and rambling like a fucking madman. The fucking nerve of the cunt comparing City with us, United and Arsenal. Clubs that achieved their success through fucking decades of building things the right way and no short cuts.
City’s success means absolutely fucking nothing and shouldn’t be given any kind of credence when talking about the great club sides. There’s a massive asterisk next to everything they’ve done, but the media are terrified to point it out for reasons known only to themselves. No pundits ever even mention the financial doping, fake sponsorships, off the books payments etc
It’s actually really strange how little it’s mentioned. Manchester City exists as a sport washing tool for Abu Dhabi, yet it feels like the football media are sports washing for Man City and covering up their cheating.
As an example, Guardiola says in the below clip that they can’t be guilty of anything because if they were guilty of something they’d be banned, but they aren’t banned so therefore they can’t be guilty. They were literally found guilty and banned. They got off because their team of high powered layers found a loophole. They didn’t even appeal the guilty verdict, they just said “you had five years to find us guilty and it’s past five years now so you can’t enforce this”.
Manchester City being bought by those cunts is undoubtedly the worst thing to ever happen to football in this country. And hardly anyone is arsed about it. Genuinely makes me fucking sick.
“I know it’s uncomfortable for elite clubs like Liverpool, Arsenal... but we deserve to be here.” pic.twitter.com/h8QETR1f9y
— The Manchester is BLUE show (@manchesterisB) February 14, 2022
Tuesday Feb 15:
Klopp didn’t take too kindly to a question about Hendo today in his presser. It wasn’t the question itself, but he felt there was some hidden implication in there which there probably was. It was Vinny O’Connor from Sky and in fairness I don’t think he was out of line as plenty of people are discussing this. He was asking about Hendo’s fitness and wondered is there was maybe some ongoing issue that needed to be managed. It will have been related to his recent form which hasn’t been bad but hasn’t quite been to his usual high standard either.
Klopp sniffed it out and made sure he got his little jibe in, before then saying Hendo is fine but got a big gash on his knee at the weekend that was really sore. That explains why he started the game brilliantly and then just tailed right off before being subbed. I feel more relaxed about it now because with him missing training with a back problem last week it wasn’t exactly a huge leap to wonder if there was something going on.
I wouldn’t want to be one of those journos asking Klopp questions because he so often has that look on his face as if to say “what the fuck kind of question is that?”. To be fair, loads of the questions he gets asked are fucking ridiculous, but sometimes even the reasonable ones have him pulling quizzical faces and it must be quite intimidating asking him questions. Then you watch him with the club TV channel and it’s the polar opposite, he’s sound with them, which is understandable as he knows them well and they tend to not ask him stupid stuff like he gets in pressers.
Trent was up in front of the media today as well as he was really good. I especially liked his answer when asked if he thinks we should have won more trophies given how great the team is. He basically said they aren’t disappointed with what they have won so far but they do have high expectations for what they should win in future, and then he said “It’s not easy winning the big prizes. Man City have a great team but haven’t been able to win the Champions League”. It wasn’t even a dig at them but you know that’s how it will be spun.
I long for the day when one of our players calls them out on their cheating. It’ll never happen, but imagine if it did. Who is most likely to say something? Robbo is the one that springs to mind, but I feel like Jota has it in him to do something like that to needle them.
In other news today, I saw Suarez was trending on Twitter so I had a look to see what that was about. I’m not even sure why it was, but I think it was because Aguero had done an interview about his health problems and retiring, and a Twitter debate emerged about who was better - Aguero or Suarez. I’m amazed that’s even a question because there is no comparison. Aguero was a fucking incredible goalscorer, but Suarez was sooooooo much more than that.
I spent about half an hour scrolling through different videos people posted about Suarez career highlights and statistics, and other than Messi and Ronaldo I don’t think anyone in the last 10 years has any kind of claim for being better than him. Absolute fucking genius. *wipes tear* I need to go and listen to some Adele now….
Wednesday Feb 16:
Inter 0 L 2. Probably the best way to describe how good we’ve been these last three or four years is that this doesn’t feel like a big deal in any way. In fact, we probably expected this to be easier than it was. That speaks volumes about the level this team has reached. It’s Inter Milan in the San Siro. They’re the best team in Italy. And no-one gave them a chance because we’re levels above.
We didn’t even play well tonight, while Inter looked to me like they were at their absolute maximum. I don’t think they have another gear, but we had another couple at least. They punched themselves out and then we brought subs on and knocked them out. Not literally, there’s still the second leg of course. We have to avoid complacency but it’s nice to have a second leg in which we aren’t going to have to nip into the phonebook and throw on the cape. At least I hope not. Here’s where we concede twice in the first ten minutes and end up needing Divock off the bench to win it.
The best part about tonight though was definitely the Matip / Henderson situation after the first goal. I keep watching it and it gets funnier every time. Everything Joel does is funny anyway, but this was next level. A couple of those slaps on the head were glancing blows but the one on Hendo was a full on “splat”. Hendo was livid and Joel is just giving it that big mischievous grin. I bet Virgil spent the entire flight back home watching that on a loop and roaring. The best bit is when Hendo glares at him and then goes “for fucks sake Joel”. I’m creasing up here, it’s the best thing ever.
Interesting that after all that in the press conference yesterday Klopp left Hendo out for Harvey Elliott. Of course Hendo came on and was brilliant, but Vinny O’Connor was probably feeling a bit miffed when he saw that team sheet given the frosty nature of Klopp’s reply yesterday. If he’d been on top of his form would he really have been left out of this game? Hendo’s response was exactly what you’d want, and expect given the nature of the man, but the original question was probably validated by that selection.
Thursday Feb 17:
Ok, what the fuck is wrong with Dortmund? When did they get so shit that they’d lose 4-2 at home to Rangers? Am I missing something here, because otherwise this is one of the most shocking European results I can remember in a long time. It’s not that Rangers are better than I’m giving them credit for. I know what their level is, and that level shouldn’t be enough to go to Dortmund and score four. Not unless Dortmund have some major problems.
I’ve just checked the table and they’re comfortably in 2nd place, which is where you’d expect, so I’m really struggling to know what the fuck happened here. Haaland didn’t play but even so, they had a strong team out there including Reus, Bellingham, Brandt and Malen as the front four. If Rangers see this one out and go through then that’s a fucking incredible achievement for them. I hope they do it. I don’t have any allegiance to either Celtic or Rangers, I couldn’t care less about either of them, but I hope Rangers see this one out in the second leg. They won’t, because Haaland will probably come back in and score four on his own, but I hope Rangers do it.
Richarlison is asked (for some odd reason) which team would he most want to not win the Champions League. Shock horror, he said…. ”Liverpool. There is banter, total banter, Liverpool fans go on social media to make fun of us. So, if I had to choose, I would choose Liverpool not to win.”
Now I have absolutely no problem with that and I’d be disappointed if he said anything else. He should want us to fail because Everton pay his wages. What else is he supposed to say? So no problem there. I do resent the whole “they make fun of us” thing though.
Of course we do, we’re only human. There’s such a fucking deluge of things to take the piss out of them for that even Mother Theresa wouldn’t be able to help herself. But the thing is, it’s not like it’s one way and Richarlison himself has tried to stir the pot on his social media a few times, so he can take all that “poor us, they’re always making fun of us” shite and get to fuck. I think the main take away from his comments though is that, it turns out they do care what the redshite say after all.
He also said that Rafa getting rid of James Rodriguez, Lucas Digne and Bernard “weighed heavily” on the squad. This would be the same James Rodriguez who nobody wanted and who ended up p[laying in Qatar. Absolute luxury player him and had he stayed Everton would be no better off than they are now. In fact, they might be worse off because Demarai Gray might not have been signed. Without Gray's contributions this season they'd be in the bottom three.
You know what’s hilarious though? Everton signed a player that they consider to be a genuine world class star. He was there for one season and in fairness did do some really memorable things for them. And their fans didn’t actually get to witness any of it in person because of COVID. Could that be any more Everton?
Friday Feb 18:
Jota might not make the final next week. He hasn’t been ruled out, but I dunno, the vibe I was getting from Klopp in his presser today is that he probably won’t have recovered in time. I guess we’ll just have to make do with Salah, Mané, Diaz, Bobby, Divock and Taki then. A little bit threadbare like but let’s hope we can muddle through.
On the subject of Diogo though, he’s been getting a lot of love this week from ex-Arsenal players. Merson said this ““I think Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota and Sadio Mane are Jurgen Klopp’s preferred front three. Roberto Firmino knits them together, but Jota has been unbelievable since joining the club and is ahead of the Brazilian in the pecking order, in my opinion.”
Ray Parlour went way beyond that though, saying he’s the best number nine in the world! “What he’s done since Salah and Mane have been away has been unbelievable. I think he’s the best No.9 at the moment. He’s been absolutely sensational since they lost Mane and Salah. I like his work rate, the way he conducts himself every game, the goals he scores and I think he’s going to get better.” He was asked if he’d take Jota over Salah, Lewandowski and Haaland and he said “possibly yeah”.
He’s talking bollocks of course but I really like Parlour. I listen to him of a morning quite a lot when I’m doing the school run and he’s sound. This is a wild take though, I don’t even think you’d find any Reds going as far as that. You know what I think it is though? It’s because Jota has fucking ruined Arsenal twice this season so that’s why Merson and Parlour are buying off how good he is. Probably like how most of us thought Eden Hazard was way better than he actually was because of how good he always played against us.
Meanwhile, on the subject of number nines who aren’t fit to lace Diogo’s boots, I see there are some random rumours that Mbappe is stalling on signing for Madrid because he fancies a move here. I could see that being the case. Why wouldn’t he like the idea of coming and playing in this side? I’m sure it appeals to him and maybe it’s even more appealing than signing for Real. The more likely reason he’s stalling on announcing a move to Madrid though is that they are currently in the middle of a two legged knockout tie with them. He’s hardly going to announce it now is he?
The other potential stumbling block is that PSG are reportedly offering him £1m a week to stay there. That’s going to give him pause for thought. Bottom line here, he might want to sign for us and Klopp might want to sign him, but if PSG are indeed offering that then we can’t compete because we couldn’t even go as high as half that amount. We’d have to give him the combined wages of Salah, Mane and Firmino, and that’s not happening. The Mbappe to Liverpool ship sailed when he joined PSG. Unless he’s willing to take a big pay cut in which case it…. I can’t even finish that sentence. A top young footballer taking pay cut is about as realistic as Everton winning a trophy.
….and that was the week that was.
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