Saturday Jan 16:
Reports today that Gini has turned down our contract offer. Seems pretty certain he’s going now. I’m not happy about it and I can’t understand the logic at all. Why are we allowing him to walk away for nothing rather than give him the kind of salary that he’s earned?
Maybe I’m over simplifying it but giving him a four year contract and then selling him in two years still has to be better financially than allowing him to walk away for fuck all now? Especially as we’ll need to buy a replacement. Unless they’re under the illusion that Naby fucking Keita is finally going to come good? Please God don’t let them be under that illusion.
I hear the arguments as to why we shouldn’t give him what he wants, but look at it this way. Imagine the state we’d have been in this season if he’d left last summer, which he would have done if Barca had any money. We’re in a bad enough state as it is, but without Gini? *shudders*
So we don’t pay him because he’s 30 soon and we let him leave for nothing. Then what? We’ve got fuck all money to go out and buy a replacement because whatever cash we do have will be needed on another centre half and probably another forward. How are we replacing him?
Klopp and Edwards have earned our trust with how they’ve handled things over the last few years, but this feels different, not least because I suspect if Klopp had the choice he’d want Gini to stay. I don’t like this at all, it concerns me greatly but we have no choice but to just hope they know what they’re doing.
Sunday Jan 17:
L 0 Man United 0. Shite. At least part of it was. A lot of it was fine, good even. But when there’s nothing at the end of it then it doesn’t really count for much. We had all of the ball and they had the clearest chances. It shouldn’t be that way but this is us at the moment.
West Brom, Newcastle, Southampton, they all had hardly any of the ball but they all hd good chances. And it’s not the chances we’ve given up that concerns me as it’s not easy to go through a game against PL opposition and restrict them to no clear chances, unless you’re playing us, so I’m not concerned that Pogba and Fernandez had clear chances. I’m just completely dispirited that we didn’t have any of our own.
Actually that’s not strictly true. We had chances but they didn’t look like clear ones because the finishing was fucking risible. What was Firmino doing? He was all over the place today. Usually you have to put a gun to his head to get him to take a shot as he always wants to pass. Today he had a glorious situation where he could have rolled Robbo in and instead he shot. Badly.
His choice of pass was abysmal too. It’s like he’s lost the capacity to make any right decisions. Then you’ve got Sadio, who looks great until he gets in the box. And Mo, who’s just been fucking woeful since his angry two goal cameo at Palace after he’d been dropped for that interview with AS.
I’m depressed. There’s fuck all to do except watch the footy and that’s just too stressful now. There’s no enjoyment in this at all. Just a helplessness that the lads are struggling and need us and there’s nothing we can do for them.
Today brought that home more than anything. This should have been our moment to lord it over United. We’ve waited years for this. Decades in fact. All the shit they’ve thrown our way and now that we’re finally back on our perch we can’t stick it to them because the stadiums are empty. I know there are more important things going on in the world and people are dying. That doesn’t really make this any less distressing though.
By the time we’re back in the ground the moment to celebrate and revel in it will have long gone and there’s now the possibility that it might be United taking the title from us. What kind of sick fucking joke is this?
If we have to relinquish the title then it better be to City, because if it’s to anyone else that’s going to be the bitterest of pills to swallow.
And the officiating today was a fucking disgrace. Blowing up six seconds early because Mané was clean through? You’re never going to convince me that wasn’t a deliberate act to ensure we didn’t score. I don’t know why Tierney didn’t want us to score, I just know he clearly didn’t because that was just not a normal thing to do.
Not that we’ll say anything about it. We’re the biggest pushovers in football. You can do what you like to LFC because the only people who’ll say anything are the fans. Look at the lack of free-kicks Salah gets. He isn’t in the top 100 most fouled players this season and I saw something today saying that last season he wasn’t in the top 300 and actually ranked 16th on his own team!! 15 of our players were fouled more than Salah? Fuck off.
Why has no-one mentioned this? I don’t understand. I don’t know why Klopp has never had those stats quoted to him and asked for his thoughts about it. I don’t understand why it hasn’t been written about. I mean Christ, the Athletic can churn out 10,000 words on a new security guard farting at Melwood but they haven’t done an in depth piece on this? What am I missing here?
Monday Jan 18:
Speaking of Mo, he’s angling for a new contract. Any time a player uses the expression “I want to stay but its in the club’s hands” you know it’s about money. He wants a new contract. That’s why he pulled that shit with the Spanish press the other week. He’s got two and a half years left on his contract hasn’t he? And he’s the highest paid player at the club (along with Virg and presumably Thiago).
You know, I think I’d rather burn down Anfield than give him a new contract with a pay rise, especially when Gini is on fucking buttons and they won’t pay him. I’m not saying I wouldn’t give Mo a new deal at some point in the future (actually I probably am saying that) but why the hell would we do it now? And why is he saying this shit now, after the shit performances he’s been putting in.
Here’s a thought Mo, how about next time you face Luke Shaw you actually go past him at least once, or maybe even try and get a shot on target. Then maybe you can talk about wanting a pay rise. Until then, fuck off. Score some goals, stop bitching, start linking up with your team-mates again instead of obsessing about personal milestones, and maybe then you might be worth a new deal. You’re already overpaid though, so you can forget about getting any more dough.
Honestly, I’m getting fucking sick of his antics. The covid thing, the bitching about Trent being captain, the weird interview with the Spanish press and now this. He’s been shite for weeks and we’ve gone from first to fourth and he’s talking about wanting a new deal? The fucking balls on him. We never get anything like this from Sadio, or Bobby for that matter. It’s always Mo. The little diva.
Tuesday Jan 19:
Guess what, West Ham are two points behind us now. Can you believe that shit? It’s just hard to comprehend what’s happened here. We’ve only lost two games all season but we’re on the verge of being overtaken by Everton and we’ve got Moyes breathing his cheesy dog breath down our neck.
We’re four points behind Leicester now too. You remember Leicester, right? That team we fucking spanked everywhere not so long ago. Yeah, well that team that we’re clearly better than are now four points ahead of us after beating Chelsea. I’m fuming that we’ve somehow allowed this to happen. To go from where we were the other week after scoring seven at Palace to being where we are now is incomprehensible.
Wednesday Jan 20:
Still fuck all happening with regards to a new centre back. It’s a difficult one in some regards, I get that. The obvious thing to say is “bring forward whatever deal you had planned for the summer and pay a bit extra if need be” but it’s not that simple. Firstly, how do we know they actually plan to buy anyone next summer? By the time the next window comes around we’ll be £200m down in match day revenue.
Other teams are spending due to borrowing against future earnings. We could do that too. I’d go as far as to say that we should do. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say it’s negligent not to. But they aren’t going to do that. If we don’t sign a centre back it will be because they don’t want to spend any money right now but it could also be that the player we want isn’t available and we know Klopp is prepared to wait.
I just think that desperate times call for desperate measures as I’d be amazed if Klopp wasn’t willing to think short term for once. Sitting back and waiting for Van Dijk when you had Lovren, Gomez, Matip and Klavan was a risk, but it was a calculated one. You still had four experienced international centre backs to choose from while you waited.
Waiting for the ‘right’ target when you’re using your two best midfield players at the back because you quite literally have nobody else is not a calculated risk. You know what it is? It’s writing off a title defence that’s what.
Not making a defensive signing this month is tantamount to giving up. I’m not expecting us to go and break the bank for Koulibaly or the Ajax lad. But honestly, how difficult is it to find someone (even on loan) who is a better option for us than Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams (bless the pair of them)?
They’ve had since October to figure this out. We knew Virg and Joe weren’t coming back and we all knew Matip would miss more games than he plays (and that’s exactly how it turned out). Yet here we are, more than halfway through the month and nothing has happened. As I say, negligent.
I mean fucking hell, I know it’s not ideal but Arsenal have released Sokratis. The second he left their training ground there should have been a taxi waiting to bring him up here. Sure, he’s slow, but are you honestly telling me he wouldn’t be a significant upgrade on Williams and Phillips and give us more flexibility between now and the end of the season? Fucking get him in if you can’t find anyone else.
All those soundbites about “ we won’t defend the title, we’ll attack it” look pretty fucking hollow now. I suppose they were half right, because we’re defo not defending it at this moment are we?
Thursday Jan 21:
See? L 0 Burnley 1. The title is gone and so has the player’s confidence. It’s so tough to watch right now. Everything is so laboured when we reach the box. Up until then it’s all good. But we get in the final third and it’s like they’ve forgotten how to play football. That said, we did not fucking deserve that late kick in the balls with the penalty.
We played well enough to win this game but nothing is falling for us and we’re not capable of forcing a change of luck. The finishing isn’t good but we’ve had about 80 shots in the last five games and have only one goal to show for it. Against Palace we scored seven goals from not too many more attempts than that.
What’s happening to us now is a statistical anomaly and three points from the last 15 is a total freak occurrence based on the balance of play in those games. Unfortunately it has sapped all the confidence from the lads and they look pretty dejected right now. Klopp does too, although he’s been through this before in his last season at Dortmund (freak results when they were playing well enough to win games) and he eventually turned it around.
He’ll do it again but by the time we’re back on track it will be too late. We’ll always look back on these five games (possibly more if it continues) as being catastrophic and the spell that cost us the title. It’s pretty devastating how quickly it’s turned to shit. We were top a few weeks ago and everyone thought we would run away with it. I just feel throughly dejected about it all as it wasn’t meant to be like this.
Friday Jan 22:
Klopp’s press conference sees him re-iterate that he doesn’t have the final say on buying players. He never has done. He can say what he wants, he can make recommendations, but he can’t write the cheques. We knew that anyway so this isn’t new. It is the closest to expressing dissent that we’re ever likely to see him get though.
He must be fed up of constantly being asked why he isn’t signing anyone when he wants it as much as we do. If not bringing anyone in was his call then fine (as it often has been in the past), but it isn’t and he therefore doesn’t want to take the heat on that. We now know that he wants to bring someone in and that he’s made recommendations as to who it should be. We also know he’s fully understanding of the situation and won’t be demanding we splash out £50m on someone who will be on the bench when the other three are available. So he’s not going to be making unreasonable requests as it’s not his way.
He’s given so much to FSG and he’s raised the value and the profile of their investment massively without them having to bankroll it. He’s done it on a shoestring, so now they need to fucking help him out by doing whatever it takes. FFP rules have been relaxed due to Covid so there is flexibility to do something. Time is running out, and to be honest even if we brought someone in now I’d still be seething about it not happening sooner.
I’m not someone who constantly bashes FSG over signings, in fact I hardly ever do it, but this is unacceptable. What other club in the league would do nothing after losing every senior centre back they had on the books and had to dismantle their midfield to plug the gaps? Honestly, I don’t think there is any other club in the league who would act like this. None.
FSG have form for it though with the Red Sox. They won a World Series recently but did nothing to strengthen the team and the season after they were shite. We’ve got more problems right now than the lack of centre backs, but at least by addressing that one is shows they give a fuck. They don’t though, not really. They might give a fuck if it costs us a top four spot, which is a distinct possibility right now.
Meanwhile, Rafa has agreed a severance package and is leaving China after a distinctly underwhelming spell over there. I’m sure it wasn’t his fault though. It never is. It’ll be the board. Promising him a wok but bringing him chop sticks.
…. and that was the week that was
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