Saturday Jan 25:
Charlie Adam says Hendo should be player of the year. Now it’s fair to say that what Charlie Adam says about the Reds doesn’t carry much weight, but I thought this was interesting just because there really seems to be momentum building towards this now.
Half the reason players end up being put up for these awards is because the voters are often swayed by public and media opinion. The more people in the media discussing it, the more likely it is to happen. Adrian Durham has been banging the drum on Talksport and I’ve seen a few journalists also suggesting it.
The maddest part for me is that the first person I heard putting Hendo’s name forward was my Dad during one of our home games several weeks ago. He said Hendo should be player of the year but he’s got no chance because it always goes to the goalscorers or fair players.
Thing is, Virg got it last year so maybe the tide is turning on that. Hendo is a really popular figure with his peers and also with most of the national media. He might win it you know. And if he did, I don’t think there’d ever have been a more worthy individual to get it, as he’s such a fucking great lad.
Layton Stewart bags a hat-trick for the u18s today. He’s a big talent who is apparently really highly thought of within the club, but it;s interesting that unlike some of his team-mates he isn’t being fast tracked into the 23s. In fact, rather than rush him they went out and signed Joe Hardy to replace Brewster. Stewart is class though, defo one to keep an eye on.
Sunday Jan 26:
Shrewsbury 2 L 2 That was everything the Everton game wasn’t. The senior players didn’t lead the way today, they let the kids down. The kids were hit and miss. Jones was good, Williams was alright, Elliott very quiet, Pedro had a great first half and a quiet second, while Larouci struggled.
Still we were 2-0 up and that should have been game over. Then Matip, Lovren and Fabinho took it upon themselves to continually invite pressure by arsing about by their own box and giving Shrewsbury hope. I put this result 100% on those three. Origi was shite too but he’s not the reason we blew a 2-0 lead.
Klopp must have been so pissed off that he had to throw Bobby and Mo on there to try and win it late. They should have been given the day off completely, but you can maybe see now why they weren’t.
Now Klopp is insisting that he and the squad will take no part in the replay and it’s going to be an Aston Villa type situation with Critchley and the kids taking on Shrewsbury. I get that he’s trying to make a point, but it doesn’t really sit right. I’m not especially arsed either way, but I think he’s got this wrong.
I’m all for Hendo, Virg, Bobby, Mo and the rest getting a week off, but Klopp should be here and so should some of the squad players who need playing time, not least those who were so fucking shite today.
He’s going to get shit from the usual talking heads but for once it’s difficult to argue his corner. Anyone trying to suggest an FA Cup replay should take priority over the players getting a break can fuck off. That’s just a stupid take and I’ll fight our corner all the way on that.
If someone wants to say that Klopp should be taking charge of the game and that the likes of Keita, Shaqiri, Lovren, Matip, Lallana etc should all be playing, then that’s at least worthy of a discussion. I can see why Klopp wants to honour the break and why he doesn’t want to operate the squad and have some stay behind.
I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I can see the logic in his thinking. I’d rather he was there for the game but only if he’s going to be picking some senior players. If it’s a team like the one that faced Villa then there’s no point him being there as they aren’t his players. They’re Neil Critchley’s players. He works with them every day so if that’s the team that faces Shrewsbury then Critchley may as well be in charge and Jurgen can go and sit on a beach somewhere with a few beers.
Monday Jan 27:
Fucks sake, if we beat Shrewsbury we have to go to Chelsea. Other than City that’s the last game I wanted, because it makes it difficult to play the kids. Klopp is probably on the phone to Neil Critchley now to inform him that Barry Lewtas and the under 18s will now be taking on Shrewsbury. I already suspected that Klopp doesn’t want to go through because he doesn’t want the headache of the extra games, but now that we’ve got a draw where we’d have to go stronger than he’d like I’m absolutely positive he wants to lose that replay.
Meanwhile, and who could have predicted this shocking turn of events, Fiorentina have had enough of Bobby Duncan and want him out. He refused to play for the u19s because he thinks he should be playing for their first team. Are we still blaming the agent for this? Because he was sent packing a couple of months ago.
Maybe now people will come to realise that although the agent was obviously a right piece of work, Bobby Duncan is indeed a fucking helmet with ideas way above his standing. He wasn’t good enough to be playing for our first team and he isn’t good enough to play in the top flight in Italy either. That’s not to say that one day he wouldn’t be, but that day is not today yet this fucking jumped up little gobshite seems to think he’s the second coming of Robbie Fowler.
I called this when he left us. He’s got ‘Jerome Sincair’ written all over him. A career as a lower league journeyman who’ll do a stint in a few random European Leagues awaits, and in 10 years time he’ll be doing an interview with the Athletic on where it all went wrong.
Tuesday Jan 28:
The fallout continues. The Reds set ticket prices at a sensible level but understandably lower league clubs don’t like the precedent being set because less gate receipts means a smaller share for Shrewsbury. Interestingly, it isn’t Shrewsbury who are complaining.
In fact, their boss said he fully understands Klopp’s actions (and having watched him explain his position in today's press conference, so I do now and I'm fine with it). Of course, the prospect of a money spinning tie at Chelsea should they beat our team of kids may well be a contributing factor in Sam Ricketts' support, but the point is, Shrewsbury aren’t being dicks about this even if others are.
The Accrington chairman was running his mouth throwing words like “disgrace” about. Take one look at him and you can see he’s got ‘Gammon’ written all over him. Bet his actual day job is a professional audience member on Question Time. The thing is, he kind of has a legitimate point but when you start shouting and balling like he is it undermines it.
It’s mostly fans of other teams who are up in arms though, which just makes me want to do an about face from what I actually feel about this. I even saw a Tranmere fan weighing in and demanding a ten point deduction. Pipe down son, your team just conceded goals to Phil Jones and Jesse Lingard. You therefore don’t get to have an opinion on anything.
Why are Tranmere fans such fucking weirdos? Liverpool (and Everton) fans always root for them to do well and many go along to watch them when possible. Not as many as back in the day when they played on Friday nights and had Aldo managing them. but still, most Liverpool fans wish Tranmere nothing but success. Yet loads of them fucking hate us.
I understand why loads of other teams hate us, but the hostility from Tranmere has always just seemed fucking weird to me.
Also tonight, Villa beat Leicester to reach the League Cup final. Not ideal because Villa zero chance of beating Man City, but on the plus side when they get webbed everywhere it will allow us all to go on social media and post that photo of their fans on the train to Wembley celebrating Stevie’s birthday.
Wednesday Jan 29:
West Ham 0 L 2. West Ham didn’t stand a chance tonight. For one thing, Moyes had no interest in anything other than avoiding a hiding, but the truth is that no matter how they approached this game they didn’t have a hope. We’re so good now that the only chance most opponents have is if they play out of their skins and we have a huge off day.
Not just a regular off day, as we’ll still win against most teams. It has to be a real stinker where half the team are awful, and even then there would also have be elements of luck involved. This was second gear stuff but it was comfortable. West Ham were in way over their heads but somehow still ended up with three or four really good chances. That’s where Alisson comes in. Even if you create something against us you still have to beat him, which is almost impossible at times.
There are some teams who can give us problems. Teams who are hard working, well organised and pose a threat on the break. Wolves spring to mind, and Southampton who we have this weekend. Most of the league don’t stand a chance now though, which is really hard to get my head around considering all the years we spent dropping points to some of the worst teams in the league.
We don’t do that anymore, but United, Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea are doing it on a regular basis. They are all what we used to be, but look at us now, the best team in the world and on the way to being the best team in the history of the world. Not even kidding, there’s every chance that by the end of this season these lads will have staked a massive claim for that honour.
Also tonight, United beat City again but it wasn’t enough for them to reach the final. City just aren’t at it at all though are they? I reckon they’ll lose at Spurs this weekend as they just aren’t that good anymore. They’re still the only long term threat to us because none of the other ’top’ teams have a hope in hell of challenging any time soon, but they need to spend on that squad and I’m not sure they can just keep blatantly taking the piss out of FFP so it won’t be as easy for them as it has been.
Especially if Pep keeps spunking it all up the wall on dosgshit full backs signed at £50m a piece.
Thursday Jan 30:
What’s this nonsense? Barca having a €100m bid for Richarlison turned down? Fuck off. Not having it. Firstly, they don’t have €100m. Secondly, if they did have €100m they wouldn’t spunk it on that deadbeat. Thirdly, if you completely disregard points one and two and pretend for a moment it’s true, there’s no way Everton are turning that down given the shit they’re in with FFP.
None of the press in Spain reported this by the way. So what’s all this about then? Either it’s Sky doing one of those ‘create a transfer rumour and then post odds on skybox’ things, or it’s Everton swinging their dicks trying to convince their fans they mean business even though they’ve done fuck all this window and are stuck with the same shit squad that has been so bad this season. Funny thing is, so many of those deluded fuckwits will swallow it.
Meanwhile, when I said Bobby Duncan’s career was going to go down the same path as Jerome Sinclair, I didn’t think it would be this quick. He’s just joined Sunderland on loan. Sinclair was there on loan last season.
Every time I think about this kid I just hear Del Boy’s voice saying “what a plonker”.
Also today, the club unveiled a Paisley statue at Anfield and it’s brilliant. Not before time either. We need more of these things based on iconic photos. Kenny’s celebration at Stamford Bridge…. Stevie and Carra holding number five… Billy Liddell emerging from the tunnel… Robbie sniffing the goal-line…. Divock nodding past Pickford. Get them statues built!
Friday Jan 31:
Ok, so Duncan isn’t going to Sunderland because they pulled the plug on it. When that news came out one of the lads on the whatsapp chat dryly quipped “Probably wanted to be manager”. That might be a tad strong, but who would be shocked if he was making some kind of outlandish demands? Maybe he wanted a stand named after him?
Quiet deadline day for us, but there was a complete clown show going on at Old Trafford where Solskjaer tried and failed in bids for Josh King, Teemo Pukki and ended up with that Ighalo lad who was at Watford and fucked off for a boatload of dough in China.
Reminded me of when we failed with bids for Mario Gomez and then Carlton Cole when Hodgson was in charge. Grim times. And United are living through that now. Brilliant isn’t it?
Meanwhile, Ings says that Klopp wanted him to stay and offered him a new contract, but he knew that he had to leave in order to get his career going again. Loved him before we signed him, loved him when he was here, still love him now.
But him leaving when he did was perfect for both parties. His departure opened the door again for Divovk, who would probably have gone out on loan had Ings stayed. And if that had happened, no Derby winner, no Barca goals and no final goal. Strange the way things turn out sometimes.
Danny Ings is a top fella though and I hope he scores every week from now until May. Except this week. And even then, as long as we’re scoring three or four then I don’t even mind if he slots tomorrow because I’d be made up if he won’t he Golden Boot.
...and that was the week that was.
Recommended Comments