Sunday Jan 31:
West Ham 1 L 3. Great stuff. Amazing goals, outstanding team performance and three points. Mo was on fire, Thiago is becoming more influential and what can you say about Hendo? What a man. What a captain. What a centre back.
Milner joked afterwards that Hendo needs to be careful because if he keeps playing like that he’ll stay at the back. I could see that happening when he gets older but I can also see it happening in the next month or two because he’s at least as good as Fabinho and he might be better. He’s certainly more vocal and that’s going to be important if Phillips or Williams are playing. It would also allow us to get Fabinho back as the six.
On the transfer front it looks like we’re actually getting a centre half. Finally. Not someone that many would have expected but beggars can’t be choosers as they say, and bringing in one of the top defenders in the Championship whose playing style suits our game is about as good as we could have hoped for considering FSG are adamant they aren’t spending anything.
Irrespective of who that player is (most of us wouldn’t have a clue who the best defenders in the Championship are), we’d all have taken that at this stage, right? Except the loons still demanding we pay £80m for Koulibaly or Upamecano.
This doesn’t come close to compensating for losing Van Dijk, Gomez and Matip (I doubt we’ll see him for a couple of months at best), but it does make us stronger because it’s another competent option and it’s a bit of depth. I say competent because I’m pretty sure that Ben Davies won’t be shit. He might not prove to be good enough in the long run, we’ll see, but he won’t be shit because if he was they wouldn’t have signed him. His name wasn’t plucked out of a hat, it was picked off a spreadsheet and signed off by Klopp.
He’s got 250 games under his belt in the football league. It’s not the Premier League but you learn an awful lot as a centre back playing 250 games at football league level. The fact he’s in the Championship doesn’t bother me as half the players he’ll come up against have played in the Championship. The gap isn’t as big as people make out. Leeds were in the Championship last year but their players don’t look out of their depth do they?
Players develop at different ages, especially centre backs. Ben White was playing in the Championship last year but no-one would have bat an eyelid if we’d signed him as he’s seen as a great prospect. We don’t need a great prospect though, we need someone who can do a job now. Other players will have a higher ceiling than Davies but our priority needed to be who can help us the most immediately.
The fact Davies is 25 and not 22 is seen by some as a negative but to me it’s the opposite. You can ask “if he was that good why is he still playing at that level” but it’s not that simple. If he was 22 he probably wouldn’t have the experience or maturity to handle being thrown in at the deep end, unless he’d been playing every week from the age of 17. Davies has maturity which should help him adapt quicker.
He will have been way down the list of options and we’re only signing him because the price is right and we couldn’t get any of the preferred targets. Let’s not pretend otherwise. That doesn’t mean he can’t be a success here though.
This feels old school. I’m not talking about Clemence and Keegan from Scunthorpe, or Phil Neal from Northampton. For some reason the one that came to mind for me was David Burrows from West Brom. I had no idea who he was when we signed up but from his very first game I loved him. I’m not expecting Davies to be Alan Hansen but I’m confident he’ll be solid and will do what we need him to do because he’s got the skins on his wall.
If Rhys Williams had 250 professional games under his belt we wouldn’t need to sign anyone. Well, we probably still would because ideally we need to be bringing in two, but you get my point. I keep saying how experience is more important at centre back than anywhere else but ideally you also need someone with the skillset to play in your specific style (which by all accounts this lad has), so the signing of Ben Davies is fine by me.
Monday Feb 1:
You wait all month for one and then two arrive at the same time. Davies is joined by Ozan Kabak, who we were linked with for much of last summer. The price wasn’t right then but fuck me it is now. £1m loan fee with an option - but no obligation - to buy for £18m in the summer? If there are any flies on Michael Edwards they’re paying fucking rent. With FSG being the mingebags they are it's a good job we've got someone like Edwards doing deals.
Weirdly, I don’t actually have especially high hopes for Kazak THIS season and I expect Davies will play more (no idea why, just a hunch) but this is just a great deal. If Upamecano is the one they really want and they are prepared to pay his £40m buyout in the summer, these deals don’t impact that at all. We could loan out Davies next season and/or we could decline the option on Kabak if he doesn’t cut the mustard. And if Kabak turns out to be boss (which he might, as he was a target even before we were desperate) then we’ve got a steal.
No sooner was it announced that we’d signed Kabak, Klopp was having to inform us that Matip is done for the season. Not a shock but it is sad. I feel bad for Joel. He’s such a great player and although we already knew he was injury prone, Klopp added some context to that by explaining how he’d been rushed back at the first available opportunity every time because our need was so great, and that hasn’t helped.
It’s just a massive shame. Matip must be fucking devastated at this latest injury, which it turns out he picked up when he made that quality tackle on Son. He played on with damaged ankle ligaments but as soon as you stop moving and take the weight off it then it hits you, and at half time it ballooned up.
Klopp suggested that the lay off with the ankle will be used as a chance to heal everything else and come up with a training regime to strengthen him and sort this once and for all. They did something similar with Sturridge, and it kind of worked as I don’t think he picked up a single injury in his final season here. That horse had already bolted though. Lallana’s final year with us wasn’t as bad either but he’s still picking up knocks every other week at Brighton.
If Matip was dependable with his fitness he’d be an £80m player as he’s that good. But he isn’t dependable and I don’t see the club wanting to pay him 100k a week to play a dozen games a season.
Other transfer activity saw Van den Berg go to Preston on loan to replace Davies and Minamino went to Southampton on loan after they were rebuffed in a bid to take Neco there.
Good move all around that. Taki needs games and for whatever reason he wasn’t getting them here. Southampton’s high press, high energy style makes them a desirable club for him to go to and if he does well there then he either comes back to play a part here or he increases his value and we can move him on.
So a surprisingly productive 24 hours then. I had said recently that if we brought someone in on deadline day I’d be annoyed because we should have done it sooner. I take it back. I’m not especially annoyed and I can see exactly why things played out the way they did and given the restrictions he was operating under Edwards has done a great job.
We could have signed Davies on Jan 1 but it’s obvious he wasn’t the first choice and only became a primary target when deals for other players proved impossible. It’s also possible (likely) that FSG weren’t prepared to sanction ANY deal on Jan 1 and things only changed because Matip got seriously injured at Spurs.
Singing Kabak at the beginning of the window was clearly not possible. That was obviously one of those deals where its who blinks first. Schalke wouldn’t have agreed to this deal earlier in the window but Edwards held his nerve and got us a great deal. By bringing Davies in that strengthened our hand with Schalke, who at one point probably thought they had us over a barrel. When Edwards threatened to walk away when they insisted on an ‘obligation’ clause, they knew he wasn’t buffing.
So yeah, I’m satisfied with how it played out in the end in terms of what Klopp and Edwards did. The only problem I have with it is that had Matip not been injured when he was (especially with Fabinho out too) I’m not sure whether they’d have been given the free light to sign anyone, let alone two.
Tuesday Feb 2:
am: Klopp says Taki wasn’t playing much partly because he’s short and we don’t have much height since we lost our defenders. I expect a lot of people will see that as him just making excuses and being kind, but it makes a lot of sense really. After the Palace game Taki mysteriously fell behind Origi. The general opinion among fans was that this didn’t make much sense, but now it does.
It’s a straight choice between Shaq and Minamino because Klopp isn’t going to pick both when we have no centre backs and very little height in the rest of the side. I’m looking forward to seeing how he links up with Ings now as this move could be the making of him.
pm: Ok fucking bring him home. Southampton are a disgrace. Losing 9-0 once in your history is bad enough but doing it twice in as many seasons is enough reason to be fucking shut down. Cancel Southampton, the embarrassing cunts.
Wednesday Feb 3:
L 0 Brighton 1. Well that was grim. Worse than Burnley. We started both halves brightly but fizzled out when we didn’t score and lost of this game was just awful. Brighton weren’t troubled. They had a plan, they stuck to it and they deserved to win because they were more dangerous.
Right now we’re just one of those teams that will win some and lose some and draw loads. The kind of team that finishes somewhere between 3rd and 6th. It won’t take too much for us to be better than that and secure second spot, but we’re not going to be anywhere near City as we’re dealing with too much right now and for them everything is just ticking over nicely.
The lads having to fill in at the back have done great and even tonight I thought Phillips and Hendo were good, as was Kelleher who came in for the unwell Alisson. They weren’t the reason we lost. Other than Villa (and United in the cup) the defence has rarely been the reason we’ve dropped points. It’s the forwards most of the time.
Mo had been great in the last few games and his fanboys were in full on “he’s so under-appreciated” “he’s an all time great” “if anyone else had his record they’d be getting far more pros than Mo gets” and that type of thing. It’s all fair, but then you see him tonight and this is why he doesn’t get that credit. These kind of performances are just as frequent as the great ones.
It’s not just on him but when Firmino is stinking it up like he did tonight and Sadio isn’t there, the onus is on Mo to deliver. At West Ham he did, tonight he didn’t. I’m not singling him out, if anything I’m just trying to highlight how over-reliant on him we’ve become since Jota went down.
We just have too many things going against us right now to be able to get on a consistent run. Too many injuries, too many players out of form, too many games, no fans. Just all kinds of shit being piled high on us.
All I’m hoping for now is that we can get ourselves into some kind of shape for the CL because playing the way we are now there’s every chance we’ll lose to Leipzig. I’m not even thinking any further ahead than that. I’m just sick of footy without fans now. I’m really struggling to even care. I didn’t even get angry or upset tonight. I just felt sad and resigned to the fact that this season is just one massive shitfest.
Thursday Feb 4:
Southampton appealed against the red card Bednarek got the other night. Now, considering two referees had already watched the incident on video and decided it was a pen and a sending off, you have to wonder how any appeals could possibly be successful. But it was successful because both of those referees got it appallingly wrong.
Even with the benefit of slow motion replays from various angles, they still got it wrong. How can that happen? Just how shit are these fuckers? Or is there something else going on here? I’m honestly struggling to comprehend how some of these decisions are being made. The David Luiz one too. That was a fucking disgrace but Arsenal’s appeal wasn’t successful because there was contact so they were able to hide behind the ‘letter of the law’ excuse.
In the last two games Southampton have been on the wrong end of some of the worst decisions you’ll ever see. No-one cares because in one of those they lost 9-0 but that isn’t the point really. Usually it’s us getting screwed like that, but the Saints are probably being punished due to the unofficial ‘feeder club’ arrangement we have.
Also today, we’ve completed the signing of the kid from Derby. Kaide Gordon. Looking forward to seeing him play. I haven’t watched a single u23s game all season as there’s just not really anyone in that side I have any real hope for. Most of the best prospects are still in the u18 side but I’ll defo watch when the new lad plays.
Friday Feb 5:
I fucking hate Guardiola, the little bald weirdo. Honestly, he’s a fucking oddball. Proper strange little cunt. His reaction today when told about something Klopp said in complete innocence was just ridiculous. Klopp mentioned that City had a kind of winter break because of Covid and they had two weeks off.
I watched him say it and there was nothing snide or provocative in it, he just casually mentioned it and there was no implied criticism or cynicism in it at all. He was just pointing out something that happened. Yet that bald cunt is giving it the “I didn’t think Jurgen was that type of manager” and saying he will be having words as he wants an explanation.
And all the while he’s saying this fidgeting and shifting around and just being a hyperactive fucking, can’t sit still cunt. The only words Klopp should be giving him are "fuck" and "off".
Now maybe Guardiola didn’t see it and was just responding to someone reading him the quote out of context but he’s got form for this. Like I say, he’s a fucking weirdo.
I wish I could say “I can’t wait for Sunday” but that’s just not how I’m feeling. Not because I expect us to lose, but because even if we win it won’t feel significant. In the last few years every game against them (other than the dead rubber at the end of last season) has had loads riding on it. Now, this one feels a bit like when United would be winning the league and all we had to console ourselves was maybe taking points off them at Anfield.
Of course I hope we win on Sunday and I won’t be surprised if we do. It’s not going to have me buzzing for the rest of the week though because in the long run it’s not going to mean much and none of us are going to be there to even enjoy it. These games are always fucking electric and Anfield is buzzing for them. Fuck this season. Fuck Man City. Fuck Covid. Fuck Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock and fuck whoever the dirty little bastard is who ate that bat.
…. and that was the week that was
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