Saturday Feb 2:
L 3 Bournemouth 0. Yes! There you go. The Reds are back. 4-3-3, Bobby and Mo back where they should be and just like that we’re back to the 17/18 team that scared the shit out of everybody. Results wise we’ve been incredible this season, but the performances have generally taken a bit of a dip. If we’re going to stay ahead of City then we need the fire and brimstone, tear your a new arsehole attacking football from last season.
This performance was a big step on the road to where we need to be. The opposition has to be taken into account, as Bournemouth aren’t the most difficult side to play football against, but on this form anybody would struggle to deal with us. The front three were dazzling, the full backs were great and the midfield was probably as good as we’ve seen it all season. This was Naby’s best game, Fabinho was terrific and Wijnaldum was the best player on the park.
Gini actually had the wildshites in the build up to the game and said he was worried he might shit his shorts during the game. Imagine being able to play as well as that under those circumstances. I won’t even leave the house when I’ve got the shits. When he plays with this freedom to get forward and make runs he’s a brilliant player. His problem is because he’s so good at everything and can adapt his game to do whatever Klopp needs him to, sometimes we don’t see him making those runs.
I want to see him given license to do that every game because when we have midfielders breaking beyond the forwards (Ox does this brilliantly and we’ve missed him) it gives us an added dimension and makes the front three even more difficult to handle. If we play like this at Old Trafford then I’ve been worrying over nothing.
Sunday Feb 10:
Mo has shaved off his beard. Not sure I’m a fan of this as I tend to not like change, and I’m also superstitious. Why risk it now, with so much at stake? I don’t want him turning into ‘Chelsea Mo’ and never scoring any goals. The pictures did make me laugh, as although he’s clean shaven he’s still got a 5 o’clock shadow. Like when Homer gets a shave and within a second or two it grows back.
That was the only thing that made me smile today, as Spurs won again and those Chelsea losers let in six at Man City. How the fuck does one of the big teams let in six goals when they have all eleven players on the field? It shouldn’t happen. Ever. It’s Arsenal behaviour that. Chelsea started the season well and Sarri’s methods were being lauded. Seemingly all it took was for opposing teams to stick someone on Jorginho and stop him getting on the ball, and the whole thing fell apart.
Doesn’t take much for that squad of players to become disillusioned with a manager’s tactics though does it? And when it happens, they just stop playing. That was a disgrace today and it’s not all Sarri’s fault. He’ll be the one to carry the can though, and those players will all live to kill off another manager in the next year or two.
I just hope Reds don’t get disheartened by this result today. Other than goal difference, it doesn’t matter if they won 1-0 or 6-0 as its three points either way. Psychologically it might have an impact as it fuels the whole “oh look how scary Man City are” narrative. To me it changes nothing though. This doesn’t make them any better or worse than we thought. They’re the same team that lost to Newcastle two weeks ago.
It says a lot more about Chelsea than it does City. I don’t feel any differently about our title chances today than I did yesterday. City will win most of their games, we knew this. Hopefully they slip up once or twice and then the rest is up to us.
Monday Feb 11:
Ramsay is getting 400k a week to join Juve. This is a joke. This kind of shit is not doing football any good. Players getting stupid money as a reward for running down contracts doesn’t help anyone except the players. Juve pulled this exact same shit with Emre Can and while I’ve barely even given him a second thought this season and I don’t think we’ve missed him one jot, that’s not the point.
Other players will see the eye watering salaries Can and Ramsay are getting and it will encourage more of them to let their contracts run down. Not just that, you’ll always get the dickhead copycat clubs that will see Juve doing this and think that’s what they need to do to compete. When you have good but not great players like Can and Ramsay making that kind of dough, it only makes the great ones think “what the fuck? How’s he getting more than me?”. And that’s not going to end well for the clubs.
The rest of Europe’s big clubs need to get together and beat the shit out of Juve and steal their lunch money, the absolute weapons.
Meanwhile, the squad fly to Spain for their warm weather training. Gomez is left behind but everyone else based at Melwood has travelled, meaning there are places for some lads who some of you won’t really know anything about. Hell, I’ve always made it a point of pride to keep abreast of what’s going on with the reserves and youth teams, but even I couldn’t tell you anything about what type of player Isaac Christie-Davies is.
It’s a good chance for some of the lads to stake a claim for next season though. My boy Adam Lewis in particular really needs to catch the eye, because Moreno is off and there’s a vacancy there for the back up job to Robbo. The main thing is they don’t come back with the fucking ebola virus or whatever it was that swept through there camp after their last little jaunt to warmer climes.
Tuesday Feb 12:
Ok, so those reports were wrong yesterday. Gomez isn’t the only one to miss out, as Lovren was not in the travelling party either. This makes him a big doubt for Bayern next week. Even if he recovers in time it’s not Klopp’s way to throw players in when they haven’t had at least a few days of high intensity training. So it’s going to be Matip and Fabinho playing in that game.
Not ideal, but it’s the home leg and hopefully we’ll be more on the front foot anyway and won’t have to defend too much. The bigger problem is that means no Fabinho in midfield, and he’s becoming more important by the week in there. By the time we play the away leg Virgil and Lovren should both be back in the mix so fingers crossed we’ll have a good result to take over there.
Unlike the Mancs, who have to travel to Pais chasing a 2-0 deficit after being taken to school by the oil cheats tonight. The Goblin’s unbeaten record went up in smoke as PSG thoroughly outclassed them. This is interesting to me because they did it without Neymar and Cavani. They exposed United for what they are; a flawed team with a shite defence. They’re dangerous in attack and because of that Solskjaer has been able to get them punching their weight in a way that Mourinho never could.
They have too much quality for the shit teams but tonight showed what can happen when they face genuine quality. There’s a blueprint there for us when we go there the weekend after next. I feel a little less dread about that game now, especially as Martial and Lingard both look like they’ll be out for a while.
Losing to them would be a horrendous feeling regardless, but it would definitely be worse if Lingard and his cunt face was out there celebrating.
Wednesday Feb 13:
I see Keita and Mane both tapping up Werner through the press. Don’t like this at all. We’ve been on the receiving end of this shit from Barcelona and it’s annoying as fuck, so it’s not cool having our lads do it. Especially as I’m not sold on Werner. If they were tapping up Mbappe then I’d be right on board with that, which makes me a stinking hypocrite but that’s ok, most football fans are and I’m no different.
Keita says Werner is one of his best mates. That’s fine then, WhatsApp the shit out of him every day telling him how boss it is here. Get Sadio in the group too seeing as how he seems to love Werner so much. Just don’t be saying shit to the press about it.
On the field tonight, Spurs beat Dortmund 3-0 at Wembley. Mad how they’re just grinding on relentlessly even without Kane and Alli. I’m putting it out there now though. Dortmund are still going to knock them out. 5-1 over there. You heard it here first.
As for us, well the kids are through to the next round of the Youth Cup after a 2-0 win over Wigan. No surprise that Glatzel and Duncan got the goals. I switched it on at half time but I could only take 20 minutes of the second half before I switched it off, as it was awful. They’ll need to play much better than this if they’re going to go any further.
Don’t know why Hoever and Jones aren’t playing in this either. I know they’re in the 23s now, but they’re still eligible and at one time the Youth Cup was seen as such a big deal that clubs would always put their strongest teams out. Sometimes you’d even get lads who’d played first team football moving down to play. I guess it’s suffering in the same way as it’s big brother, the FA Cup. No-one's arsed anymore.
Thursday Feb 14:
Really interesting stuff from Ljinders today in an interview with Neil Jones on goal.com in which he revealed the reasoning for the formation change we’ve seen this season. It was about getting Fabinho in the side, as he wasn’t ready to play 4-3-3.
“For Fabinho, to play in a midfield three as we did at the start of the season, we knew it would take time. His impulse of defending forward is absolutely of the highest level, elite. The question as a No.6, though, is that you are moving more side-to-side than forwards.
“Then, of course, you have to adapt to the league and the team. We found a good solution to change to 4-4-2 (4-2-3-1). And from that moment it helped so much, and then you saw the real Fabinho.”
We did, but it came at a cost. Not in terms of results, but it really hasn’t helped Bobby. Or Salah either, although it hasn’t hurt him as much as it has Firmino. Mo’s done well and is still scoring, but sometimes he just gets marked out of the game when playing through the middle, and Bobby as a 10 has just not worked in the way many thought it would. He’s played there before and at one time it was seen as his best position, but in that ‘false nine’ role he’s as good as anybody.
Now that Fabinho looks to have fully adjusted to 4-3-3, I’m excited to see whether we can go on the kind of tear that we did this time last year.
Also today, there’s some discussion about our wage bill and how it is now apparently higher than Man City’s. The Echo ran an article on it outlining how the Reds have double the amount of staff working in various admin roles and maybe that has played a part. Really? That annual amount probably accounts for a week’s wage for Aguero. It’s irrelevant.
This is simple really. The reason our wage bill is higher is because our wages go through the books.
Arsenal lost to BATE in the Danny Welbeck Cup tonight. This is great, not because they’ll get knocked out as no doubt they’ll win the home leg and go through, but it’s still dead funny seeing them losing. I saw on Twitter that BATE have only ever beaten English clubs twice (the other one was Everton 10 years ago) and that Mustafi was playing in both games. He should have that on his headstone, the absolute bum.
Friday Feb 15:
Allan moves on loan to Fluminense after Eintracht Frankfurt terminated his spell with them (he played four games). What’s the point in this then? He’s been loaned all around Europe since we signed him in a bid to help him qualify for a work permit for next year, but he’s not pulled up any trees and now it seems the only option was for him to go back to Brazil?
Not that I’m arsed. Klopp has said plenty about how talented this lad is, but his performances on loan clearly haven’t backed that up. There's as much chance of him playing for us as there is of the other loan ranger, Taiwo Adeyemi, ever coming back and forcing his way in.
Conor Coady signs a new deal at Wolves to apparently ‘end speculation of a return to Anfield’. Who was speculating that then? He’s a good lad, a massive Red and he’s done well at Wolves, but he’s nowhere near the level of player we’ll be looking at this summer if we're in the market for a partner for a Matip (or maybe Lovren) replacement.
He plays in a back three for one thing, and how do you even scout a centre back who plays in an entirely different system and style to your own? It’s virtually impossible. Good luck to him though, I hope he’s been given a good wedge there as its nice to see Academy lads doing well for themselves.
Case in point, we’re being linked with Ajax wondered De Ligt again. £75m apparently. Juve are said to be interested to, so presumably nobody has told them he’s still under contract.
Speaking of everyone's least favourite scabby bastards, according to Tuttosport, they want Mo and are prepared to send Dybala (who they value at £135m despite him scoring only two goals all season) here in part ex. Gee, that’s nice of them, eh? Fucking hell. I know nothing about ‘Tuttosport’ other than when I hear the name I’ve always thought it sounded like the Italian version of the Sunday Sport, and stories like this do nothing to change my mind.
I bet their front page was “Genoa man turns into frog after sucking off man in Kermit costume”. Have to admire the delusion of it though. The only reason way leave top PL clubs to go to Juve is when they’re available on freebies and Juve can completely distort the market with insane wages. File this one away with Genoa man / Kermit the frog.
and that was the week that was...
Recommended Comments