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That was the week that was (May 19-25 2020)

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Tuesday May 19:


Last week I mentioned how my Boy Troy was against footy coming back. Initially I lumped him in with the rest of the relegation threatened clubs just out for their own self interest. That disappointed me as he’s better than that. There’s a lot to like about Deeney I think. It was only today when I read about his reasons for not wanting to play that I think he’s probably right. His kid is in a high risk group and he isn’t prepared to put him in danger. I wouldn’t either if I were him. 

 

He also said that he doesn’t care if he doesn’t get paid, his only concern is his son. What are his options here? Just going back and playing would be crazy, unless he is prepared to then completely stay away from his son. Training is fine, he can stay completely safe at the training ground where precautions are being taken, but when it comes to being a contact sport again, how can he be completely sure he won’t be infected. Short of being tested before and after every session / game I don’t think he can. 

 

Even then I’m not sure how effective it is because how does this even work? I mean, if you pick up the virus and get tested five minutes later, does it even register that quick? If Deeney doesn’t want to play then unlike most he’s actually got a valid reason for it and I respect that.

 

There will be others in this position too, but it’s only really valid if they live with the at risk person, otherwise they need to just do what the rest of us have been doing and stay away from parents, grandparents, the vulnerable etc until it’s safe to see them.

 

Well, most of us have been doing that. Callum Hudson-Odoi was pictured going to his brother’s house last week, which is against the rules as we all know. I sort of understand where he’s coming from though, because he’s had the virus and is now clear of it, so he feels like he doesn’t need to lockdown. I’m in the same position but I’m still following all the guidelines anyway.

 

Still, going to his brother’s wasn’t the worst crime in the world. Inviting a bird he met online round to his gaff on the other hand, well that’s not good is it? Especially when she ended up phoning the police at 4am claiming he raped her. Fucking hell. Some of these footy players have really lived up to the stereotype in this lockdown haven’t they? Grealish, Walker, Keane, now this. 


Wednesday May 20:

 

The boys are back! How heartwarming was it seeing those pictures from Melwood today. Bobby showed up as Jules from Pulp Fiction while Lallana looks like a fucking monk, with his Dumb and Dumber barnet.

 

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Then there’s Sadio, who looked like he had left his hairline in lockdown. Either that or he showed up pretending to be his Dad. He looks 20 years older. Like in the Nutty Professor when Eddie Murphy plays all of his different family members. I’m half expecting Sadio to turn up tomorrow as Nana Mané dressed in a fat suit and wearing a grey wig.

 

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The photo I really wanted to see was Hendo. Someone who takes so much pride in his hair, hows he going to look having not been the barbers for 9 weeks? He’s gone back to his Sunderland haircut by the looks of it. Bet he’s missing his barber more than anyone else is. Robbo probably cuts his own hair, he's the least vain footballer of all time I think.

 

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Meanwhile, scanning through newsnow to see if anything else interesting is happening today. Clearly there’s not, because the Echo actually ran a story about the results from when they ‘signed’ some Brazilian wonderkid for the Reds on Footy Manager. They simulated two seasons and posted up screenshots of his stats, including how many dribbles he had and how it compared to Salah and Mane. 

 

This is completely mad. I love a game of Footy Manager as much as the next man (only this morning my Pompey side beat Arsenal on pens to bring the Champions League trophy home to Fratton Park) but it seems bizarre to me that a newspaper would waste their time on shit like this. Still, it could be worse, they could have used FIFA stats instead I suppose.

 

Thursday May 21:

 

Lovren tweeted about how happy he was to be back at Melwood in the sunshine with all the lads and the staff and said how much he appreciates it. In reply he had a load of knobheads telling him to hand in a transfer request, to leave, or to tell him that Klopp is going to get rid of him. For what feels like the millionth time in 2020 I find myself asking “what the fuck is wrong with people?”.

 

It’s fine if you think he’s shit. It’s fine if you don’t like him because of things he says and does. We’re all entitled to feel however we feel about whoever, but who you respond to a harmless tweet by saying stupid or nasty things, then you’re just a fucking cunt.

 

Meanwhile, remember last week (may have the week before actually) when I mentioned about that coach who said Turkish keeper Ugurcan Cakir was signing for us? Well a journalist over there is now reporting that we’ve bid €25m for him. Smells like bullshit to me. 

 

I believe what the coach said, but I expect that was before all this madness ensued. Let’s be realistic here, there’s no way we’re spending that kind of money on a keeper to sit on the bench.


Friday May 22:

 

Great quote from Andy Lonergan today about Alisson. “However great you might think he is. He’s better than that”. Alisson has completely redefined how I judge goalkeepers. I used to be swayed by great saves and incredible reflexes. While you get both of those from Alisson, you don’t get them very often because he rarely needs to. It was only when I asked myself why he rarely has to extend himself when other keepers are flying all over the gaff, that I realised what makes him so great. 

 

Unlike outfield positions where it’s easy to form an informed opinion on a player, I think with goalkeepers it’s only really other goalkeepers who know how to judge them properly. Ok actually that’s not strictly true, as we can all see when a keeper is shite and making gaffes all the time. It’s more difficult judging the best ones though. 

 

So here’s a question for you. How good is De Gea? Or let’s put it another way. Before he went shit and started throwing goals in regularly, how great was De Gea, or was he actually great at all? I thought he was amazing and I hated him for it. He’d make save after save, some of them miraculous. Now I’m thinking, if he was actually as good as people thought then would he have to be making such spectacular saves all the time? Would a better goalie just be making a routine stop and not getting any recognition for it?

 

It also made me wonder about David Seaman. I always thought he was massively over-rated. I never saw it with him at all. Everyone said how great he was but I rarely remembered seeing him doing anything especially impressive. Now I think that’s probably because he was so fundamentally sound he made everything look routine. 

 

So it’s also possible I have a rose tinted view of Big Nev, who I’d say is the best I’ve ever seen because some of the saves he made (usually from Rushy) were unbelievable. He’s such a top fella though that I’m not going to revise my opinion on him. He’s still the man in my eyes.

 

Also today, Klopp says that no player will be forced to come in and train if they don’t feel safe, and that anyone who refuses to do so will not be thought any less of. I wouldn’t expect anything else from him, he’s just a top bloke. If Deeney was his player I’m sure he’d completely back any decision he made and there’d be no consequences for it.

 

None of our lads are going to not go in though. The only reason you wouldn’t is if you had a wife or kid who would be in an at risk category, otherwise I reckon they’ll all be desperate to get back. These lads are used to routine. They’re used to be surrounded by team-mates all the time. It must have been really hard for them to be cooped up at home all this time. For some of us it’s easy. 

 

Things haven’t been that different for me as I work from home anyway. The only difference in my life is my wife and daughter are here 24/7 now so I don’t have the house to myself, meaning I can’t nap in the afternoon or spend hours on the X-Box. For a footballer though this must be really hard and I imagine they can’t wait to get back in to Melwood. 

 

Besides, those training grounds are going to be the safest places in the entire country, as there’ll be staff there spraying everything with disinfectant and social distancing will be enforced. You know what’s mad though? Thinking back to a few weeks ago when Mourinho decided to get some of his players together to train in the park! I defo feel like not enough was made of that craziness.

 

It was stupid and irresponsible, but I do grudgingly respect the desperation he had to get things going again. Mind you, the players he had training were the ones he didn’t like, so maybe he was hoping they’d catch it? 


Saturday May 23:

 

Adrian says the Atletico defeat still eats away at him. So it fucking should. Worst goalkeeping display since Karius in the final, but Adrian didn’t even have a concussion to blame it on. Wait, I’ve just read the quotes and it wasn’t his own performance that eats away at him, it was the fact we lost a game in which we battered the opponent.

 

“The first days you eat away at yourself," Adrian said. "You don't accept that was the last game, you get that bad taste in your mouth, quite sour from having lost a tie. When it seems that we have it pretty well on track at home, a game where we had thirty-plus shots on goal, but we lose. The man of the match was definitely Oblak.”

 

Mate, why do you think we lost a game in which we had thirty plus shots (scoring twice)? Need a clue? Ok, do you have any mirrors in your house?

 

This kind of thing winds me up. It’s fine for his team-mates to talk like that and not single anyone out, but when you’re the one who fucked up you should be saying “it eats away at me because I was shite that night and cost us a couple of goals. I feel like I let everyone down.”

 

Not gonna lie, I’m annoyed.

 

The Bundesliga was on again today and I didn’t watch even one second of it. That novelty wore of pretty quickly. I’m glad it’s back but I’ll be damned if I’m sitting and watching any of it, especially when it’s sunny outside. For the record, Werner scored a hat-trick. Of course he did. He’s great when I’m not watching. If I tune in to his next game though he’ll be running around like a bull in a china shop like he has every other time I’ve seen him.

 

My complete lack of interest in the Bundesliga tells me that I’m not missing footy, I’m just missing the Reds. La Liga is back soon too but I won’t be watching that either. I did spend half an hour today watching LFCTV’s ‘inside training’ video over and over. Why? Because after I’d watched it once I realised I hadn’t seen Pedro Chirivella. 

 

So I watched again to check. Still no Pedro. So to be sure, I watched it a third time, with a notepad and pen, and I wrote down all of the individual training groups. Pedro wasn’t in any of them, which would suggest he’s made up his mind to leave when his contract runs out and is therefore unlikely to be getting any playing time when it all starts again. Or he’s injured or stranded in Spain or there’s some other explanation. 

That’s not really important. The biggest take away from this is that I’m clearly a proper sad cunt with too much time on his hands.


Sunday May 24:

 

Pochettino is asked to name the three best PL players he came up against while at Spurs. Aguero and De Bruyne were his first two picks, then he went for Bobby. Bet he’s one of those who’ll tell you that Scholes was one of the all time greats. Nothing against Bobby, but that kind of pick screams out ‘look at me, I’ve got a far more sophisticated football brain than you peasants’. Although in fairness, Poch does have a far more sophisticated brain than us peasants, so if he says Bobby rather than Sadio or Mo or any of the other great players he coached against, then fair play to him I guess.

 

Time for your weekly ‘Chico’ now. Today my man Stevie has hit back at Michael Ballack for throwing shade at Big Virg. “Virgil van Dijk is very lucky to play in an era where there is no Drogba, [Frank] Lampard, Alan Shearer, Henry, [Wayne] Rooney, [Robin] Van Persie, [Carlos] Tevez, [Emmanuel] Adebayor and Diego Costa in the Premier League. No wonder they think he is the best defender in the League.”

 

Michael Ballack? More like Michael Bollocks, am I right? Eh? Am I right?

 

Anyway, Nicol set him straight. "Well I'm interested to know which part of his game he's not happy with because if you're looking for a physical battle, are you telling me that Van Dijk couldn't beat anybody up physically? Even Drogba? It would be great to watch but don't tell me that Drogba would walk all over him physically.

 

"Pace-wise I don't remember seeing anybody, whether it's the Premier League or the Champions League, running past this guy. So that's not a problem. Can he pass the ball? Yes he can pass the ball. I'd love to know which part of Van Dijk's game he thinks would be susceptible to any of these strikers that he was talking about."

 

Pretty funny though really, because Ballack is basically doing what the likes of Stevie and a lot of other legends do and giving it the “it was better in my era” spiel. Unlike tens of thousands of Arsenal fans, however, Nicol has clearly forgotten about the time when Virg was ‘left for dead’ by Pepe. I think that was the highlight of their entire season so far, even though it never actually happened.

 

Speaking of Arsenal, Lallana has been strongly linked with Leicester for months but today the Gunners' name was thrown into the ring. This is funny because he’s exactly the kind of player Arsenal would sign. They love a silky-skilled, injury prone, ball playing midfielder don’t they?

 

If they ever remember what made them good and go back to it (powerful, fast, skilful, physically dominant players like Vieira, Petit, Gilberto, Henry, Campbell, Lauren, Kolo etc) then we might have to worry about them. Until then, we can just continue to laugh at the lightweight fannies.

 

Monday May 25:

 

Happy Istanbul day. Have to be honest, I’m fairly bored with it now. I’ve heard all the stories so many times that I have no appetite for any content that is churned out on the anniversary. Maybe that’s just me and I certainly don’t begrudge anyone who still laps it all up, more power to them I say.

 

 

At least now when it’s brought up we don’t look like sad, desperate fucks clinging to past glories. The fact we’re now successful again at least makes this kind of nostalgia more acceptable and less embarrassing. It was beginning to get extremely cringey when we were dining out on that while bumming around in 6th place.

 

Also today, I was watching the ‘inside training’ videos from yesterday with my notepad and pen again and it was nice to see Robbo and Milner re-united. I didn’t like how they’d been kept separate so far. Didn't seem right that. I also feel like Sadio should always be there keeping Naby company, seeing as how Naby hasn't been arsed to learn English and can only speak to the French and German speakers.

 

If you could be in one of those groups of four, whuch three players would you want with you? For me it's defo Robbo and Milner, and then after that I'd be struggling. I'd probably go for Bobby as we're similar types of players and he always seems to be laughing and joking so I reckon he'd be great company. Not easy overlooking Big Virg or Hendo though.   

 

My eagle eye spotted also Yasser Larouci out there. I’d completely forgotten about him, but now I’m wondering why he wasn’t with the group until now. Did someone have to drop out to make room for him, because adding one extra would mess up the numbers, surely? And where’s Pedro? Yeah, I’m going to have to watch it again now to try and figure this shit out.

 

Ok so I’ve rewatched (twice) and there were 22 outfield players. Four groups of four and two groups of three. Previously there were 21 (four groups of four and one group of five) so Yasser is the extra one. Still don’t know where Pedro is though, or Hoever and Van den Berg for that matter, who were training at Melwood prior to all this.

 

They must be at the Academy or maybe they’re coming in to Melwood later than everyone else, because when footy comes back we might need them. And what of Brewster? He was on loan at Swansea but could we not cancel that and give him some playing time?

 

It’s going to be weird I think, because let’s say we pick up those two wins pretty quickly and have the title sewn up. Then what? We owe it to the rest of the league to continue to take it seriously but there’s just no way the intensity is going to be the same with nothing to really play for. With crowds there it would be different, and there’s also the small matter of trying to break the points record, but I just don’t think that’s going to be on anyone’s minds now because of all this shit. 

 

Maybe I will be proved wrong, but the feeling I’m getting now is most teams just want to get it over with. The teams at the bottom have it all to fight for, and the CL spots are still up for grabs, but everyone else will kind of see this as just an inconvenience and just want the games completed.

 

I’m going to be fascinated to see just how much (or little) intensity our lads play with, especially when they’ve picked up the six points they need. It’d be great if they went out and won every game and shattered the record, but I can’t see it somehow. Not without crowds in the stadiums. Can’t wait to find out though. These games can’t come back quickly enough now.

 


…..and that was the week that was


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13 hours ago, Paul said:

“I'd probably go for Bobby as we're similar types of players”!!! Ha, ha, ha!!! Good one, stroller lad. 

I was going to say that!!

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