Saturday Jan 23:
Danny Ings is stalling on a new contract because he wants to play for a CL club. I'd love him back here but it won't happen because we don't have luxury of spending that kind of money on another forward when we have other holes to fill more pressingly. I don't really see where he could go though other than Spurs, and they aren't a Champions League club. Maybe Leicester could use him to play alongside and to rotate with Vardy? I think he'll stay put though.
There’s still talk that Sepp Van den Berg will leave on loan. Jesus, how shit must he be for this to even be a consideration right now? I know he’s behind Phillips and Williams, but we might still need him. Billy Koumetio is also ahead of him although I can’t fathom that one. That kid looked in waaaaaaay over his head in that CL dead rubber he played in.
Long term Koumetio is a better prospect but VDB wasn’t THAT bad when he played in the cups last season. Ok, he kind of was to begin with but he did get better and he at least has a little bit of experience of first team footy in Holland plus the cup games last year. I don’t want to see him playing at any point before the season is out but I wouldn’t be allowing him to go anywhere as we might need him at some point.
Christ, it’s depressing that it’s come that. And so needless too. Just fucking sign someone as a temporary fix. It can’t be that hard finding someone who is a better option right now than Williams, Koumetio and Van den Berg. Make no mistake, we’re one more injury away from needing to call upon them in games, because even if we have two or three from Hendo, Matip, Fabinho and Phillips to choose from they can’t play every game so we’re going to need to rotate.
Sunday Jan 24:
Man Utd 3 L 2. See, look at that. Williams had to play today in a game he’s not ready for and look what happened. This is the risk we’re running. No Hendo and no Matip, so Klopp has to pick Williams. There’ll be other games when we’re missing Matip and in some of those we might also be without Hendo or Fabinho. What happens then? How long before Phillips and Williams are playing together and Koumetio is on the bench? Fucking sign someone, you pricks.
Result aside there was at least some things to be encouraged about. We scored goals, so that’s a big improvement. We had spells in this game when we looked like our old selves and we definitely didn’t deserve to lose the game. Doesn’t matter though, we didn’t deserve to lose against Burnley or Southampton either. Shit happens, especially when you defend like this and you’re also playing against the officials as well as the opponent. The amount of soft free-kicks given to United today was galling, as was the time wasting they were allowed to get away with. Par for the course this season though.
Losing to these is never nice and I wanted the win today to knock them down a peg or two and to get ourselves back on track. Staying in the cup wasn’t even a secondary consideration because I’m honestly not arsed. I have no interest in it whatsoever. It no longer has any worth or value to me and given how stretched our squad is I can spin this as a positive because it means less games and less chance of players getting injured.
I know some of the more traditionalist among you will see that as heresy and that a trophy is a trophy, but what can I say, it’s how I feel. Under different circumstances maybe I’d want to see us have a right good go at the FA Cup, but currently it can fuck off because I don’t want to lose any more defenders.
Meanwhile, Everton won their cup tie and at full time they played that song about “singing the Blues, when Everton win and Liverpool lose”. Imagine being that sad and obsessed. Shit like this doesn’t upset me anymore though. I couldn’t give a fuck what they do as they just aren’t important enough to get wound up by. I do think it’s proper cringeworthy though.
It’s like when you’d get some fans on the Kop singing about the mancs when we weren’t playing them, and they’d just get shouted down by everyone else. Only with Everton there’s never anyone shouting it down because they’re all the same. Their entire lives seem to be measured against what we are doing.
Concentrate on yourselves and enjoy when you’re doing well because you are doing well, it doesn’t matter what we’re doing you bitter, obsessed, fucking losers.
Monday Jan 25:
Interesting to see the reactions of a lot of the LFC patch reporters today about how FSG need to be backing Klopp. You don’t tend to get this when the manager is entirely happy with how things are. I’m not saying Klopp has given them the green light to go after the owners, he’d never do that, but maybe word is filtering out from other sources that he’s frustrated with things. How can he not be?
You know he doesn’t want to pick Williams because he’s been playing Hendo there when he could. Phillips and Williams are last resorts at this point, although I feel that Phillips can serve a purpose against specific types of opponents. I’d have played him against Burnley for example, but it’s obvious Klopp would rather not pick either of them and the journos have seized on that now.
We’ve known them to back down before when pressure is applied but I’m not holding my breath this time, especially a there are no fans in the ground to make themselves heard. It’s pissing me right off though because it’s really not difficult to find somebody who can help us right now. If there was a guarantee that we’d have Fabinho, Matip and Henderson all fit and available for the rest of the season we could muddle through with that, but we know that won’t happen. Matip plays one game in two (at best) and Hendo has had problems too.
We’re playing twice a week every week until May now, which is why bringing in Sokratis should have been a no brainer. I wouldn’t be bringing him in to start every week, I’d be bringing him in for depth so that when we do need to look to the backs ups, it’s not going to be inexperienced lads being thrown in at the deep end.
I mean fucking hell, lets say we get past Leipzig (and I’m taking nothing for granted) and end up getting City or Bayern Munich in the next round. Would you really want to see Rhys Williams having to go out there, because that might happen. After all, we needed to start him on Sunday so why wouldn't that happen again. Maybe next time it will be when we're playing City. *shudders*
Tuesday Jan 26:
Hey we’re signing someone! That’s the good news. The bad news is that he’s not long turned 16 and he’s a forward. So he’s not going to help us now but I do like this as these are always smart deals to be doing. He’s left footed, quick and a great dribbler. He’s been in Derby’s first team squad under Rooney and he basically sounds a lot like Elliott, who continues to tear up the Championship for Blackburn.
He’s only costing us an initial £1m because he hasn’t signed a pro deal. I like the thinking behind it because we’ve all spoken about the issue of one day replacing the front three and how difficult it will be because they’re all the same age and - unless we sell one of them soon - they’ll all need replacing at the same time, which won’t be cheap. If either or both of Elliott or this kid can step up it’ll potentially save us a fortune.
But it’s not doing us any good now though is it? We’re down to the bare bones at the back and it genuinely baffles me that we haven’t brought anyone in. At this point, any semi-competent defender is going to help. There has to be a Ragnar Klavan type out there, surely?
We’re paying the price for what we did last summer. This time last year our cover behind the three main centre backs was Lovren, Fabinho, Hoever and then Henderson as a last resort. We sold two of those and didn’t buy anyone, so we now have Fabinho, Henderson, Williams and Phillips.
We sold Lovren because he wanted to go. We sold Hoever to cover the first instalments of Jota and Thiago. If he was still here he’d be getting more games for us than he’s getting for Wolves. Maybe we could get him on loan? He knows how we play and Wolves would benefit from him playing regularly. Jesus, just read that back. It’s mad that we’ve ended up in this position.
Meanwhile, the offside rule has been changed because of that farce at Man City last week. We knew it would be because the entire world knew that decision was fucking bullshit. The only people who tried to justify it were the cunts who made the decision and ref enabling bootlickers like Walton and Gallagher. Everyone else knew it was a scandal, and this today proves it.
The game is bent. There’s no way those officials watched that and thought it was a legit goal. No-one is that stupid. They gave the goal because - for whatever reason - they wanted to.
So although it’s a good thing that from now on goals like that won’t be allowed, it’s not good that City have three points because of it and that Villa got screwed. Today’s news won’t pacify Dean Smith, if anything hell be more pissed off about it. I know I am.
It’s like the nonsense with the handballs. They went from giving pens any time it hit a defender’s hand to going back to the old way a few weeks later. You can’t be changing mid-season though as it isn’t fair to the teams that were punished by it. God I hate Premier League football right now. Between the lawmakers and the officials they’ve fucking ruined it.
Wednesday Jan 27:
Ok so finally, FINALLY, some results have gone our way. I did not see the Old Trafford result coming in a million years. Not because the Mancs are great, but they’re pretty good and you’d expect them to see off the Blades without too much trouble. So that was a nice pleasant surprise.
The reaction from United fans on Twitter was funny. “This is why we’ve got no chance of winning the league” and lots of ripping of players like Martial. A week ago they were all full of themselves after picking up a point at Anfield. This is what they were doing early in the season and then somehow, out of nowhere, they appeared at the top and no-one knew how they got there.
Hopefully a couple more results like this are in the post and they’ll go back where they belong, in fifth. United being above us is a major irritation but recent concerns notwithstanding I’d be pretty shocked if we didn’t catch them by the end of the season. City are the ones I’m genuinely worried about.
In fact, I’m probably more worried about Leicester than I am the Mancs, because they’ve got a better manager and there’s not much difference in the quality of their first elevens (I actually think Leicester have much better players but I’m factoring in my bias by saying there’s ‘not much difference’).
They battered Everton at Goodison tonight but could only draw 1-1 and needed a standard Pickford error to even get that. Great result for us as we didn’t want either of them winning. I’m not the least bit worried about Everton finishing above us as they’re shite and over 38 games that will be reflected. It’s the present that concerns me and I don’t want them going above us even for 24 hours. Fuck that.
Leicester are a good side but I can’t get past how comfortably we brushed them aside at Anfield. They looked like a team that knew they weren’t in our class, yet since then they’ve been winning every game and we’ve dropped points all over the fucking gaff. Again, it’s annoying being behind them. It’s annoying being behind anyone other than City really, as they’re the only ones who should even be close to us under normal circumstances.
Thursday Jan 28:
Spurs 1 L 3. Get. The. Fuck. In. Great performance and just what we needed. The points are welcome but the return to looking like us was even more so. A scabby win wouldn’t have really done much for morale even if the points would have been helpful, but seeing the lads play like this was big for the weeks ahead. When we play like this no-one can live with us. No-one.
Playing like this every game isn’t going to be possible but even getting close to it will be enough to win most weeks. And when we play like this, it doesn’t matter who we have playing centre back because the rest of the team can carry them through. A lot of what we did tonight was similar to what we saw on Sunday. The difference was we did a much better job tonight of restricting counter attacks. Spurs hardly had any.
That’s the key. We looked great with Matip back there but even after he went off it’s not like we got exposed. Nat Phillips is a limited but competent lad who plays to his strengths. The more he plays the more likely he is to get found out, but he’s probably a Championship level centre half and while that’s not going to be enough in the long term, for now it’s not the worst option in the world.
Put it this way, if it was reported tomorrow that we were signing a defender from the Championship as cover, there wouldn’t be a big uproar would there? We’d mostly see it as desperate times needing desperate measures, beggars can’t be choosers etc.
Big Nat will be fine against half the teams in this league, especially in games when he has Hendo talking him through (he didn’t shut up tonight, you could hear him all game). You just wouldn’t want him playing against the likes of City, Leicester, United or anyone with pace and skill up front though.
So many players came back to form tonight. The front three were a menace and for the first time in weeks (months?) they were linking up together and playing each other in. Mo set up Sadio twice in the first half with passes he just wouldn’t have played a few weeks ago. Great to see. Bobby was linking things like it was 2018 and Trent was back to his brilliant best too.
One of the keys to the improvement over the last two games has been Milner though. He’s brought what we needed just when we needed it. His intensity, knowledge of how we play and just general know how has been massive. He was brilliant tonight. Him and Gini. Top class.
It’s amazing how much one performance can change a mood. I feel so much lighter tonight. Like a huge burden has been lifted. I said last week I just want to see us playing well and looking like us again. If that leads to us retaining the title then all the better, but it’s not the main thing right now. Let’s start playing well and then see where it eventually leads us.
Friday Jan 29:
Lots of talk about how we ‘must’ get a centre back now because Matip is injured. Fuck off. Matip getting injured last night hasn’t changed anything. Unless anyone actually believed he was going to stay fit until May? No-one thought that, surely? I’m actually glad it happened last night and not next week, because now they have no excuse for not doing anything.
If he got injured next week you’d have apologists for the club arguing that “how could they have known?” and talking about how ‘unfortunate’ the timing was, and that ‘if it had happened a week ago they could have done something’. Well they could have known because he’s had about half a dozen different injuries in the last 12 months.
It’s not unfortunate either, it’s predictable. Matip just has loads of minor ones which is far more of an issue as that’s not bad luck. Some players just can’t cope with the physical demands of Klopp’s football. Sturridge, Lallana, Matip, Keita. Makes it all the more fucking galling that Gini hasn’t been extended.
So Matip’s injury changes nothing. There should have been a new defender in the door on Jan 1 and the question we would be asking now is whether we should bring a second one in. And the answer to that would also be yes. We need two but chances are we won’t even get one. We’ll look to muddle through with a combination of Hendo, Fab, Nat and Rhys, with Gini likely to end up having to play there at some point as well when one or more of them gets injured and needs a rest.
But the fact that many seem to be overlooking is if we do that then the midfield is going to be stretched to fuck for the next few months. We’d need Thiago and Gini to play virtually every game, and then Milner, Ox and Jones would have to do their bit too because we’re playing twice a week (if we stay in Europe). It’s nowhere near as strong without Hendo and Fabinho in the mix though. A new centre half or two would make a massive difference to the depth and general contentment of the squad.
Not gonna happen though is it? If we don’t sign anyone then the owners have not only let Klopp down, but they’ve let the players down too. It must be demoralising for them too, knowing there’s no help coming. Bet Fabinho is sick to death of playing at the back now as well. Filling in is one thing, but the club’s inaction in the market has turned him into a full time centre back. If I’m him I’m proper pissed off.
He’s trying to establish himself in Brazil’s midfield and this isn’t going to help. Hendo won’t like it either. Of course he’ll do whatever it takes for the team, but when the big games come around and he can’t influence them from midfield it’ll do his head in.
…. and that was the week that was
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