Saturday May 4:
Newcastle 2 L 3 Bloody hell, it’s a good job there’s only one more week of this as I can’t handle it. The roller coaster of emotions just leaves you shattered. I started this game confidently, thinking we’d smash them. We went one up and I thought “yep, that’ll open the floodgates”. Then we conceded and I knew it was going to be one of those wild ones.
You can tell, can’t you? There’s just something about how the game starts to go where you know it’s one of those Palace 3-3 or Norwich 5-4 type games. This one didn’t quite turn out like that but it could have done as chances came at both ends. When it went to 2-2 and Mo got carried off, I won’t lie to you, I was utterly despondent. At that moment I’d given up. The brave run coming an end here of all places, against these fucking deluded, annoying fucking morons? Honestly, I felt like crying.
And then up pops Big Div again to save the day. Ultimately it’s almost certainly not going to count for anything, but if City win it then let them win it, don’t give any of these other fucking dickheads the opportunity to gloat over ending our title hopes. Let’s just win our games and fuck everybody else and what they think.
I love these lads, they’ve done us proud and it breaks my heart that they’re going to end the season with nothing. I feel worse for them than I do for myself (and I feel pretty fucking bad for myself!). They shouldn’t have to face that disappointment after everything they’ve given us this year, it’s completely unjust. Football is an absolute twat, just a proper cruel bastard.
Meanwhile, shots fired by some tool at the Guinea FA. "The adductors [injury] is two to three weeks of unavailability. The Liverpool coach has to pull himself together, let the doctors do their job. Naby Keita belongs to a state before belonging to Liverpool. I remind the Liverpool coach a little bit of the rules if he does not know it. So it's hasty and pretentious to make statements like this. What we do know is that Naby Keita will play at the African Cup of Nations 2019."
Belongs to a state before he belongs to Liverpool. Err no, he doesn’t ‘being’ to anybody but we pay his wages so that gives us more say than you, soft lad. If it was a 2-3 week injury then Naby would still have a chance of being fit for the final, should we get there, but no-one has mentioned that so clearly it’s a long term thing. International football needs to fuck off. Bet they call him up and make him play injured.
Sunday May 5:
Mad how the top four race turned out. Spurs did all they could to blow it but Arsenal somehow managed to out-Spurs them, while United have just remained in their sixth placed comfort zone all season. They couldn’t even beat Huddersfield. What a bunch of useless lazy overpaid bastards. Great isn’t it?
Meanwhile, not good news on Mo. He’s almost certainly out for Barca because of the concussion rules that don’t allow you to play for seven days (I think it’s seven, not sure). Why does this shit keep happening to us at the worst possible times? Mo is never injured but he goes off against Madrid in the final and now he’s ruled out of a semi against Barca. Not to mention Bobby has also been ruled out. When does he ever get injured? Never, that’s when.
I mean fucking hell, I’ve ran my mouth about what we’d do and had to wait two years for us to get this chance to play Barca, and when it comes around we lose Bobby for both games and Mo for the second leg. With a full team I maintain what I’ve always said - we’d take them apart as they just wouldn’t be able to cope with our speed and intensity. It wasn’t a full team last week and it will be even less of one tomorrow. We just can’t catch a break in these big games. There’s always something. That said, I still give us a 20% chance because it’s Anfield and because our style is like Kryptonite to Barca. Can’t see them not scoring though, that’s the problem.
Klopp and his players have been as close to perfection this season as it’s humanly possible to be and it almost certainly still isn’t going to be enough to win something. Not unless Leicester can do something for us tomorrow.
Monday May 6:
Nope. No favours from Leicester, although I’ve got no complaints with them as unlike most they gave it a decent go. But what can you do when the most red card happy ref in the league decides he’s suddenly going to be lenient and not send off Kompany and Silva? Fuck you Mike Dean, you bad shithouse. What a time for you to go all conservative all of a sudden. Twat.
Then City get a one in a million goal from a player who can’t normally hit Lukaku’s arse with a cricket bat. A player who shouldn’t have even been on the pitch. To top it off we then see a recently departed ex Man City player come on as a sub and deliberately miss a glorious chance to equalise just because he doesn’t want his mates to miss out on the title. It fucking stinks, like everything else surrounding Man City.
Yeah I said it. Iheanacho deliberately missed that chance. It’s not sour grapes, I just know what I saw and you’ll not convince me otherwise. “Oh no, he’s just shit, that’s all.” That may be the case, but ‘shit’ is blasting over the bar, scuffing a shot wide or hitting it straight at the keeper. And ‘shit’ is a relative term anyway. He’s a professional footballer. I’ll tell you exactly what happened. He missed the goal by eight yards because he put the ball EXACTLY where he was aiming.
Meanwhile, Barca send Suarez to do the pre-match press conference and we got all the predictable shite about his fond memories, gratitude, love for the fans and blah blah blah. I learned some time ago not to believe anything that comes out of his mouth. It was around the time of him signing a new contract and professing his love for the club, only to be looking to move to Arsenal a few months later.
We were a stepping stone to him and he even inadvertently admitted it today when he said “without Liverpool I’d have never reached the elite level with Barcelona”. Cheeky bastard. He then said he expects to get more applause than whistles and that he thinks he’s remembered fondly here. He is remembered fondly by most, but anyone who applauds him tomorrow needs throwing out. He’s the enemy now, he showed that last week.
Saying he won’t celebrate if he scores at Anfield means fuck all because he celebrated enough last week for both legs. And that’s fine, he was entitled to do it as he’s a Barcelona player. Just as we’re entitled to give him hell tomorrow night, because he’s a Barcelona player. A Barcelona player who spent the entire first leg trying to get our players booked and sent off.
Just because Carol and Caroline in the canteen made a cake for his kids he thinks he’s still loved. Soft goofy cunt, he’ll find out tomorrow.
Tuesday May 7:
L 4 Barca 0 Holy fuck! Incredible. Just incredible. That’s the greatest performance ever from a Liverpool team. It was as close to perfection as you can get. A 90 minute performance where the entire team were just phenomenal and hit levels never seen before, both in terms of their quality and their will. Barcelona didn’t know what had hit them and they couldn’t get off the field quick enough at full time. Suarez was on his towards the tunnel before the whistle even went.
What a miserable night that was for him. He produced the full repertoire of antics and it got him nowhere. All he managed to do was turn the crowd against him completely. What started as booing ended up with chants of “Fuck off Suarez” and he only has himself to blame for it. He got no change out of Matip and Virg, but he did manage to kick Robbo out of the game with an outrageous bit of shithousery. Robbo had the last laugh though.
The match report covers pretty much everything so I won’t repeat myself here. One thing I will say though is that after that City game last night I felt like the season was over. I hadn’t written this one off completely as I don’t think there’s any situation that I’d see as being impossible when it comes to a second leg at Anfield, but I didn’t allow myself to get too hopeful because I didn’t want the disappointment.
It really is the hope that kills you. Hoping that Spurs would take points off City. Hoping Burnley might. Then hoping Leicester might. After Monday night I wasn’t going to allow myself to hope Brighton would do anything and I wasn’t going to get too excited about this game (even though I was confident we’d put a few goals past them).
Now though? After this, everything has changed. We’ve got something to play for now even if City win 10-0 on Sunday. And because we won tonight, it puts a different slant on the weekend. I don’t feel more confident that Brighton will do anything, it’s just that if they don’t it won’t be as devastating now. In fact, I’ve made my peace with it. Anything we get in the league is a bonus now. It’s almost like a free hit this weekend. If City win then we’ve still got a European Cup Final to look forward to. And if they don’t…. fucking hell. Imagine. Just make sure we beat Wolves and after that what will be will be.
I’ll be spending the next two or three weeks bathing in the afterglow of tonight anyway. Up the fucking never say die Reds!
Wednesday May 8:
Oh fuck off. Not only are we now having to share the ‘amazing comeback’ spotlight with Spurs, but we’ve got to play the fuckers in the final. On the one hand, it could be a lot worse as we’re better than Spurs and should win as long as we play well. On the other hand, I was watching Ajax in this game and I knew they couldn’t live with us. We’d have taken care of them easily. I was desperately hoping they’d hang on but it never felt like they would as they were a shambles at the back.
I have no sympathy for them whatsoever either. This was entirely their own fault for the unprofessional, naive way they failed to see the game out. They kept trying to score instead of keeping the ball or just taking it to the corners and winning a set-piece. They asked for trouble and they got it. Maybe it’s because they’re a young team, but players like Tadic and Ziyech aren’t exactly kids are they? And what the fuck was Daley Blind doing out there? Surely he should be calming them down?
Spurs have been massively fortunate all the way through this competition and that makes me nervous. Our games with them are always tight anyway but with the stakes so high this time it’s going to be stressful as fuck, especially as that slobbering goon will be back for the final, diving all over the shop as usual.
Ultimately though, if we’d been told back in August we’d be in the CL Final again only this time we’d be playing Spurs, we’d have all been made up.
You know, one of the best things about a big win like last night is the days of meme’s and videos we get afterwards. Like all the Divock / Pickford stuff following the derby. This one is off the charts, there’s just so much to take in. All the different angles of things we didn’t see last night. The Hendo at the final whistle stuff was incredible. I love that lad so much that I want the Champions League for him more than I do for myself.
There’s all the Robbo / Messi stuff too. That’s just funny as fuck. Robbo cares not for reputations does he? Love the way Hendo got involved when he saw Messi getting a little bit too physical with him as well. Obviously Robbo can handle himself but you don’t want him having to, as in th yes of the officials there’s only ever going to be one bad guy in that situation, and it won’t be Messi. I just love all these lads, they’re fucking boss. The ballboys are great too. The one whose quick thinking led to the fourth goal, and the one who ran on and gave Messi the v’s.
We’re just boss aren’t we? This is why everyone else hates us, as all of this memorable stuff couldn’t happen anywhere else.
Thursday May 9:
Some talk of a contract extension for Klopp. Not sure there’s anything in it (Di Marzio on Twitter is as trustworthy as a Pro Brexit politician on campaign) but obviously it would be great news if it was true. There are also reports of a new deal for Origi. This one is trickier. I’m not sure on this at all. I feel bad for even saying that, as the lad has been fucking huge for us when needed this season and I’ll always love him for that.
I’m ok with him staying, it’s not that I want him out. The reason I’m conflicted is because if he’s given a new deal, and Brewster is fast tracked into the squad, I don’t think we’ll be signing another forward, and that would be a mistake. Klopp doesn’t want to block Brewster’s path, but clearly we need more up top so the most logical solution would be to let Big Div move on and buy someone shit hot to replace him. A new deal for him would seemingly put paid to that.
I hate myself for even thinking that, let alone writing it. I’m really sorry, Div, I know I don’t deserve you as I’m such an ungrateful fucking turd.
On the field tonight, Arsenal beat Napoli to book their spot in the Europa Final, and Chelsea win join them after needing penalties to see off Frankfurt. Euro Finals all around then, unless you’re a manc.
Friday May 10:
So Chelsea and Arsenal get 6k tickets each for the Europa Final. Where’s it being played, Bournemouth? Actually it’s being played on the outermost edge of Europe. It’s virtually in the middle east but that isn’t even the worst part. The stadium holds 68k. So the two finalists get 10% of the allocation each, which leaves 80% going to… actually I don’t even know who. I mean, who the fuck wants to go all that way anyway?
It’s bad enough how Spurs and us have been shafted, but this really takes the piss. These finals just aren’t about the fans anymore. We’ll probably still have 40k in Madrid but I dread to think how much people are gonna have to pay to get those corporate tickets that will be touted off.
I’ll be watching it in town, like last year. It was a great night until Mo got taken out. Hopefully this time the football gods don’t take a massive shit on us again.
Before that though there’s the small matter of the league title being decided. Brighton’s players are saying all the right things and seem genuinely up for the game, which probably won’t matter but is far better than them not being arsed. Pascal Gross wants us to win the league, while former Everton player Shane Duffy just wants to win the game for Brighton. We’ll see. I gave us a 20% chance of going through the other night, but I’d put this one at no more than 5%.
I’d like City to concede the first goal for once though. They don’t respond well to adversity but the cunts hardly ever face any. A couple of early goals for us and then Brighton scoring first would set the cat amongst the pigeons, but the more likely scenario is a Sterling back post tap in after two minutes and then Brighton not getting a kick for the rest of the game. We’ll see.
In other news today, Suarez undergoes knee surgery and is done for the season. Hope he did it while kicking Robbo, or with his knee slide celebration last week. Realistically though, knowing him, he did it in pre-season but just carried on playing anyway because he’s fucking nails. They’ve won the league and we just dumped them out of Europe, so he may as well get it done now. Bet Barca had to force him too get it done now though as it’s hard enough getting him to miss a training session let alone games.
You might be able to tell from my tone that I’ve softened my stance towards him a little. Looking back on it, what happened over those two games was inevitable. It couldn’t have gone any other way. No quarter was going to be asked or given by him as he only knows one way to play. If he hadn’t acted the cunt against us he’d have been short changing Barcelona. So it is what it is. He did what he had to do, we did what we had to do. There are no hard feelings on my part (only because we won!) and I hope he feels the same, but if he is put out by the crowd telling him to fuck off then so be it. You reap what you sew.
Finally, you didn’t think I’d managed to get through one of these without ripping on the current state of football journalism did you? Not likely. I did my best, but then I just saw this and saw my arse.
ECHO Headline: Peter Crouch ‘felt sick’ watching Liverpool ‘tear Barcelona to shreds’ in Champions League.
Actual story: Crouchie was gutted he wasn’t at Anfield for the game because it was an all timer.
Slanting it like he was gutted we won though will get a few extra clicks. Fucking snide that. If the ECHO was a footy player it’d be Ander Herrera.
and that was the week that was…..
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