Saturday May 18:
What a farce. City beat Watford 6-0 in the cup final. 6-0!! In a cup final. The FA will be fuming but this is partly on them. And UEFA. And the PL. And the media members who have said nothing about the shit being pulled by City and their hideous owners.
I didn’t watch it but when I heard the score I just laughed. I said in the Wolves match report I hoped City put ten past Watford because it might finally dawn on people just how they’re ruining English football. Because we were so incredible this year it deflected away from what they’ve done.
City complained incessantly about the good press we got but they should have been on their knees kissing our feet because if we hadn’t ran them so close they’d have won the league by January and all the talk would have been of how they’ve ruined the competition in this country with their illegal spending.
All the knobs who cheered for them because it stopped us winning the league, were they cheering for them today too? Evertonians were, obviously, but what about the rest? This affects you too, arsewipes. City have won five of the last six domestic trophies. You should be upset about this too. This isn’t Liverpool’s fight, it’s everyone’s (not you Everton).
What was great about today was that they did the treble and nobody gave a fuck. They expected people to be lauding them for their achievement, but aside from some fawning from journalists who should know better, they didn’t get it. In fact, what they got was snark.
I saw some belting tweets from Nick Harris, Rob Harris and Miguel Delaney, and Rob Harris even opened up the press conference by grilling Guardiola on whether he’d been paid ‘off the books’ the same way Mancini had. Well done that man.
Of course Guardiola saw his arse and was giving it the “we’ve just won the treble and you’re asking me this? Now? Really?” routine. No denial though, tellingly. Thing is, when was he supposed to ask the question? The story has been in the news this week and if it wasn’t asked now, then it would have to wait until August when he does his next press conference. And if that press conference was at City then the question would have been shot down anyway. He first asked it last November and still hasn’t had an answer.
So this was the perfect time to do it and Guardiola’s reaction said it all. He’s rattled. He knows that the easy ride he’s had about City’s business practices is coming to an end. UEFA are after them, and if and when they actually do something then the PL will surely follow suit at the urging of the other clubs (not you, Everton).
So well played to the national journalists who have gone after them today, and shame on those who haven’t. Hopefully today is a turning point.
Sunday May 19:
Real Madrid lost 2-0 at home to Betis today and Bale was left on the bench. They must have some team if they don’t need to bring him on. They finished third though, so how good must Barca and Atletico be? Wait, we smashed Barca so how good must we be??
It’s mad though, I just don’t get the way he’s treated over there. They really hate him don’t they? It makes no sense. I mean yeah, he’s injured a fair bit and probably isn’t worth the salary they pay him, but it’s the hostility that I just don’t get. The fans never want to give him any credit and now Zidane is desperate to force him out. Probably hair envy.
At any other club in the world, with the possible exception of the equally odious Barcelona, he’d be idolised for life after what he did in the CL Final last year. Yet he barely even got any credit for it from them.
He didn’t do the lap of appreciation with his team-mates after the game today and instead just went straight down the tunnel. He shouldn’t have done that. It was the wrong thing to do and I think he should have handled things a lot better.
The correct thing to do would have been to go out there and walk around the field… waving a white hankie at all those ungrateful, spoilt, entitled fucking dickheads.
My guess is he ends up back at Spurs now. What other choice is there? He’d be an idiot to go to United and I doubt any of the other top clubs over here would be interested, given his age, salary and fitness record. If he were a couple of years older he’d be nailed on for West Ham.
Meanwhile, Gerrard has made an offer to loan Ryan Kent for another year. Liverpool have played a blinder with this kid. He’s always had talent but his loan spells haven’t generally worked out too well, which meant his value wasn’t particularly high. This loan at Rangers though has done the trick and he’s now valued at around £15m (or £30m if we can get Eddie Howe interested).
If anyone offers that kind of money then I suspect he’ll be sold this summer, but if not then let him have another year at Rangers to increase his value further. They’ve apparently lined up Sheyi Ojo as an alternative if they can’t get Kent, so maybe he’ll be worth millions this time next year too, unless Nice Guy Eddie wants to bung a few quid our way for him now.
We’re doing a great job buying players these days but we might be even better at selling them. Look at how much the value of Kent, Wilson, Grujic and Herbie Kane has increased this year. You can’t win them all of course, and Ojo and Ejaria haven’t done themselves much good this year, but overall the club is doing a top job increasing the value of players who might not have a future here.
Wilson reportedly has nine teams chasing him, most of them top flight sides, and is rated at £25m (or £50m if we can get Bournemouth involved). He’s the one (along with Grujic) who I feel it might be a mistake to sell. All of those PL sides who want him, let one of them have him on loan and let’s see how he does.
Meanwhile, more talk of us being in for De Ligt. As I keep saying, there’s no way on earth we are spending that kind of cash on another centre back when we already had the best defensive record in Europe and are well stocked at the position with four senior centre backs, Fabinho as cover and the prodigiously talented Ki-Jana Hoever pushing hard for a first team squad place too. De Ligt would be ace, but it’s not happening.
Speaking of centre backs, Kompany has announced he is leaving City to become player/manager of Anderlecht. Good riddance. Fuck off bulb head.
Monday May 20:
A list is published of the quickest players in the Premier League. Number one was Luke Shaw, who was clocked at a top speed of 48.19 km/h after hearing the dinner bell at United’s training ground.
Ok, I made that up. First place was a United player though, albeit one who was out on loan. Timothy Fosu-Mensah led the way, presumably that top speed of 35.27 km/h was clocked running up the M1 back to Manchester following Fulham’s relegation.
Second on the list was Kyle Walker, although it’s unclear whether he was chasing after one of his own mistakes or if he was racing to his phone to post some unfunny ‘bantz’ on social media. Cunt.
Third was Ruben Vinagre of Wolves. I know very little about him other than he’s been linked with us recently. Being fast will obviously help with that as you need to be able to run if you want to play for this team.
Weirdly, Fulham keeper Spider Rico was 9th on the list. I can’t even imagine how that happened, unless he was being chased by Evertonians still angry at him gifting us that winner at Craven Cottage.
The fastest LFC player was Big Div, which was somewhat surprising. Mo was just outside the top ten. The fastest player at the club is defo Big Virg, it’s just that he’s so good he never has to run at full speed. I remember him outpacing Sadio twice in one game when he was playing against us for Southampton though, so I’ll back the big man over anyone on the list.
Meanwhile, there’s some talk that Mbappe is unsettled at PSG. My gut feeling is that he might be the one player out there that LFC would genuinely go nuts for and pay whatever it took. I don’t see us spending stupid money on anybody, but if Mbappe came on the market I’d be surprised if we weren’t right at the front of the line because not only does Klopp love him, but the stat nerds are massive fans too and the club were prepared to pay big money when he moved from Monaco.
If he ever did come here though he’d need to knock that ‘not tracking back’ shit right off. That game at Anfield was embarrassing. Him and Neymar just standing around expecting poor old Rabiot to do all their running for them. Almost as bad as Messi the other week.
Great player or not, if you’re playing for Klopp you need to put a shift in. Someone like Neymar would obviously feel he’s above doing all that grunt work, but I could see Mbappe embracing that if he was asked to do it. Shame we’ll never find out really. Unless Qatar pulls out of course, which would definitely make things interesting. Then again, they’d probably sell him to City for a fiver, the pair of FFP evading twats.
Tuesday May 21:
Lallana is said to be hoping for a move back to Southampton. Only one problem with that; they play a similar high intensity style to us and we’ve seen that Lallana’s body can’t cope with it. Would they really sign a £100k a week player who is never fit? No, the Hammers are calling for Lallana I think.
Maybe Sturridge too, although I can see him ending up at LA Galaxy as he loves it out there. Mad the way he hasn’t missed any time through injury all season though. Couldn’t he have stayed fit for one of those seasons when he was actually important for us?
Elsewhere today, as if the decision to play the Europa League Final in such a far flung remote place wasn’t bad enough, we now find out today that Mkhitaryan isn’t allowed to play in it because he’s Armenian and not welcome in Azerbaijan. What a fucking farce. Arsenal should just boycott the game now.
They won’t, because there’s a CL spot and a trophy at stake, but if they’d secured a top four spot I wonder if they’d have been tempted to tell UEFA to stick it? The fans of both Arsenal and Chelsea aren’t buying tickets either, as it’s so difficult to get to.
The best thing they could have done is arranged a boycott, hired out Wembley for the day, got some big screens up and allocated the tickets with a 50/50 split for fans of both teams. Stick it to UEFA and let them play the game in a half empty stadium full of corporate wankers. Well it works for Man City.
Meanwhile, the president of La Liga says City and PSG should be thrown out of Europe because they are playthings of a state. Yep, man’s got a point.
There’s a real momentum building now, whereas before the last week or so it felt like nobody wanted to address the big fat elephant in the room. Now people aren’t just addressing it, they’re calling it a financial doping twat. It’s great.
I especially love it when people point out what fucking cunts Man City’s owners are, and their fans all rush in to defend them with all manner of whataboutery. Defending the indefensible just because it’s delivered trophies.
I’d be ok with it if City fans were saying “yeah, they’re twats like, and I’ve got no time for them, but we’re winning so I’m just going to enjoy that as there’s not really anything I can do about all the other shit”. They aren’t doing that though, they’re actually defending the policies of Abu Dhabi just because their footy team is good. Massive weapons.
Wednesday May 22:
Five season ticket holders have been banned from Anfield for selling final tickets above face value. I have no sympathy for them, but is what they’re doing any worse than the club supplying Thomas Cook with tickets to do the exact same thing? It depends on the circumstances of the individuals, as LFC and Thomas Cook don’t need the extra cash but maybe some of these fans do? I’m not condoning it and I couldn’t care less that they’ve been banned, I’m just highlighting the rank hypocrisy of it all.
Meanwhile, after leaking a video the other day of the PL trophy being ‘accidentally’ dropped and smashed, City now reveal the whole thing was a hoax. Yeah dead funny. At least it was when it was first done, by Real Madrid. Have these cunts ever had an original thought in their lives? They’re just such fucking try hards aren’t they? Desperately wanting to fit in and be liked, but failing miserably because they just don’t get it.
They might not have wrecked the actual trophy itself, but it was symbolic because they’ve ruined the league with their dirty money and disregard of the rules. Pricks.
Transfer news, as Rafa Camacho is leaving after he turned down a new deal. As I’ve said before, I don’t see what the fuss is with this kid at all. He’s not better than Wilson or Kent, or even Ojo. He’s younger, and maybe he’ll go on to be better then them, but he’ll never make it here and seems like he’s got a bit of a big head, so just get what we can for him and move on.
Strangest rumour of the day is Barca wanting to sign Origi as back up to Suarez. Remember when we used to do shit like that? Someone had a good game against us and we’d go out and buy him? I don’t know how much Divock would fetch on the open market but he won’t be going to Barca because it’d cost them £100m over his value after Michael Edwards stiffed them on the Coutinho deal.
Thursday May 23:
So the Guardian ran a piece today on the wage bills of Premier League clubs, and we had the second highest, behind United. City were third. I mean fucking hell, how do they even have the nerve? In all seriousness, I’d be surprised it City’s wage bill wasn’t actually double ours. Think about it, most of their first eleven players are on double what their equivalent at LFC are on, and their bench players are defo on more. How could ours possibly be higher?
So yeah, it’s closer to double I’d say, and yet their official accounts have them coming in third. Even without seeing all the leaked emails and without looking into their bullshit sponsorship deals, you know they’re fiddling the FFP by their wage bill alone. Probably a third of the wages are declared and the rest is ‘off the book’ payments like Mancini was getting.
Friday May 24:
Arsenal are reportedly ready to offer £30m to sign my boy Ryan Fraser. Leaving aside the obvious question as to whether he’s a top six level player or not (he might be, but I wouldn’t want to pay £30m to find out), this is crazy as most sources claim the Gunners only have around £40m to spend this summer, so for them to spunk most of it on a player they don’t need would be very Arsenal-like. They should be signing defenders and literally not worrying about anything else.
This deal would be great for us though as it would leave Eddie Howe in desperate need of a winger and with £30m burning a hole in his pocket. Ryan Kent, come on down!
There was a really good piece in the NY Times this week about the stattos working behind the scenes at Melwood. I’m not the biggest believer in all that stuff and I think the role they are playing is being massively overstated as Klopp is just so fucking great he’s making everyone else look better at their jobs.
That being said, it was an informative article and made me appreciate a bit more what these fellas actually do and the work that goes into it. But I read this bit, about the stats fella who ‘discovered’ Naby….
“Soon after, Keita was removed for a substitute. Graham clapped enthusiastically as Keita left the field, but when I asked if he thought Keita had played well, he wouldn’t give me a definitive answer. He would tell me tomorrow, he said, after he looked at the data”
…and I just couldn’t help it. The only thing I could think was…..
and that was the week that was…
Recommended Comments