Saturday Sep 19:
Jota is unveiled. You’d think that there was nothing left for our fans to moan about but I actually saw some whopper complaining about how our social media team sucks because the signing videos for Thiago and Jota were too similar. At least it’s original I suppose.
Also seen a lot of complaining about the fee and that if we can pay £43m for Jota why couldn't we pay £50m for Werner. *sigh*. Ok, here we go, I'm off again...
Right, first of all the financial implications of both deals are completely different. Most of the Werner fee (maybe all of it?) was due up front. We're paying £4m this year for Jota. So there's no comparison. Also, Werner's wages will be double what Jota is getting.
Secondly, Jota is a much, much better fit for how we play. I'm not telling you he's better than Werner and will score more goals. But he's a more natural fit for the wide attacking positions in our team than arl no finesse Timo.
Werner is much more similar to Danny Ings than he is Jota, and you can't sell Ings for £20m and then pay two and half times that much for someone who is a marginal upgrade at best. I'd back Ings to outscore Werner this season but there probably won't be much in it. They'll both get more than Jota because they'll play more games and they'll be playing centre forward rather than left wing.
Give me Jota over Werner all fucking day though, and I reckon anyone who is still crying over Werner will be signing a different tune by the end of the season.
We're meant to be signing some kid from Motherwell too. A 16 year old defender. Totally on board with this because you always want a Scot in your side. He might not make it but it's worth the risk. I'd probably sign one Scottish kid every year just in the hope that one of them comes through.
The current Scotland captain meanwhile, says that a Manchester United player will get a standing ovation at Anfield when fans are eventually allowed back in. I hope so, I'll certainly be applauding Rashford the first chance I get and I genuinely couldn't give a fuck who he plays for. I hate United but not to the point where it stop me from applauding one of their players if he deserved it.
It's like the goalkeeper thing. The Kop will applaud the United keeper when he takes his place in goal. I'm not sure Schmeichel got it (he may have, my memory isn't that good) but all the ones in recent seasons have been applauded. United fans would NEVER do that for our keepers and that's the difference between us and them.
Rashford is a top lad and he seems to be more popular with our fans than he is with his own at the moment, although judging by the replies to him on social media I'd say that United fans who are actually from Manchester are a lot more proud of him than those who aren't.
It's fucking mad. Just look at the responses any time he tweets about how kids shouldn't be starving in this country. It's a mix of overseas United fans telling him "concentrate on your football because you've been crap for a year", Liverpool fans telling him "well in lad" and random Tories from other clubs complaining that they don't want their taxes used to feed kids "whose dads have done a bunk" or "whose mums are smackheads".
Sunday Sep 20:
Chelsea 0 L 2 Any time you win away at Chelsea it’s a good day. We’ve almost reached a point now whereby we’re so fucking good, even when we win games like this you find yourself over-analysing and thinking “well we probably should have been better at X and I don’t think we did Y very well” and if you wanted to you could probably do it here too.
It wasn’t a perfect performance but it was pretty damn good and we were miles better than Chelsea even before the sending off.
We don’t need to be at full throttle with everyone playing out of their skin to win games anymore, but on those occasions when we are there is literally nobody that can live with us. Maybe that’s why even teams like Arsenal and Chelsea are scared stiff when they face us? Chelsea were ultra defensive today. It might just be that we penned them back and they couldn’t get out, but it was probably a case of them not really wanting to come out either.
We didn’t create too many chances in the first half but it always felt like we were well in control and that eventually we’d make it count. Without the ball we were brilliant and Chelsea couldn't really do anything. Their only outlet was Werner on the counter attack, but his bull in a china shop approach didn't faze Fabinho who just kept taking it off him like a bully nicking a little kid's lunch money.
Still, at 0-0 its always up for grabs regardless of how much you're on top. The sending off right before half time though ended any hope Chelsea had of holding out for anything. Brilliant vision and technique by Hendo and Sadio was clever in the way he got himself in front of the defender to force the foul.
Hilarious that Lampard tried to say it wasn’t a definite red. Tit. With VAR that is a red card 100% of the time. He was clutching at all kinds of straws though. “If the sending off doesn’t happen, and if Kepa didn’t gift them a goal and if we had scored the penalty then it’s 1-1”. Yeah, and if you didn’t have a big moonface I wouldn’t be able to call you moonface, would I, moonface?
He seems like a man who feels under pressure already. But then Roman has always had a notoriously quick trigger finger with under-performing managers, and ‘Lamps’ doesn’t have the ready made excuse of a transfer ban hampering him and forcing him to bring through youngsters this season does he? Spending £200m brings a whole different level of expectation. I actually think he’ll get the push before Solskjaer does.
Something I didn’t pick up on initially so it’s not in the match report, but I saw it on Twitter today. On the penalty save, Milner comes from waaaaay back to get there first to help Virg make the clearance. The desire is the first thing that stands out, but it’s also the professionalism. He had no idea if Alisson would save the penalty but he acted as though he would and that the rebound would need to be cleared. It’s little things like that which make him a fucking superstar in my eyes. What a man.
It was funny listening to Klopp afterwards when he said that they didn’t tell Thiago anything about what to do. He just went out and figured it out for himself and controlled the game. Imagine what he’ll do when they do give him instructions on what they want from him.
Even without really doing anything exceptional, Thiago just has that presence and swagger about him. He carries himself like a superstar and everyone around him seems to view him as one, even other world class players seem to look at him like he’s a level above.
Monday Sep 21:
Odd goings on today concerning Brewster’s future. The likes of Pearce & co reported that Palace were the front runners and were close to a £25m deal that also involved a buy back clause for us. Then Sky reporters that a formal bid had been made and a deal was close. Then Palace’s chairman took to Twitter to say that no bid, formal or informal, had been made and they had demanded Sky remove the tweet.
Who knows what the fuck is going on there but it seems unlikely that they’ll sign him now after the chairman went so strong to deny it. Who tells Sky to retract transfer stories like that? Most clubs don’t give a fuck about speculation and just ignore it, but something about this has pissed Palace right off.
On a similar note today, L’Equippe claim that Mbappe is in continued talks with us and Real Madrid about a move next summer. Liverpool didn’t demand they withdraw the claim so I’m drawing my own conclusions from that and assuming that IT”S ON BABY!!
Meanwhile, fuck off Wolves. I had high hopes for you tonight and you let me down. Mind you, this Traore at wing back thing seems pretty bizarre to me, especially against better teams when Wolves are on the back foot a lot. He needs to be in the attacking third as much as possible. Nuno Holy Spirit being too clever for his own good there.
Tuesday Sep 22:
So last week it looked like Suarez was signing for Juve, but something about them having too many overseas players meant he had to take a test to become an Italian national. And it turns out, he cheated! Is that the most Luis Suarez thing ever?
In fairness, it wasn’t just a case of him sneaking into the school office and stealing the test paper beforehand or just copying from whoever was set next to him. I expect he had a lot of help from his agent, Juventus and whatever other parties had a vested financial interest in the deal. As it’s Italy, I doubt it would have been too difficult to bribe whoever needed to be bribed.
I was going to say we’ve reached peak Suarez but I think that might be premature considering he’s about to form a strike partnership with Diego Costa and his manager is going to be Diego Simeone. I feel like he’s just getting started. Atletico Madrid games are going to be must watch this year.
Also tonight, the u21s got beat 6-1 at Wigan. I think it was Wigan’s first team rather than their kids, but still… ouch. You don’t expect that.
Wednesday Sep 23:
Ljinders is on press conference duty for the League Cup again this year. Some nice little soundbites from him today as usual. I liked what he said about why we signed Thiago. "This team deserves a player like Thiago, he will help us evolve. It's important that we stay unpredictable. We didn't buy a problem, we bought a solution." Sums it up nicely really. We signed him because to evolve we need to adapt and avoid becoming predictable.
Something he said about Billy Kemetio got my attention too as it confirmed something I was thinking about why we allowed Hoever to leave. Hoever is class and could become a genuine star, but he isn’t tall enough to play centre back for us and he was third in line at right back.
Why is his height such an issue? Because as Ljinders said today, teams hit a lot of long balls against us to avoid the press, so it’s really important for our centre backs to not only be good at winning the ball, but to also be able to head it to team-mates. Virgil is great at that, as is Matip. Gomez is probably a little too short for what Klopp would ideally want but because he’s quick and has a good spring he just about fits the bill. Hoever just didn’t have the physical tools to be a centre back in our set up.
I liked what he said about Jota too. “A pressing machine with the technical ability of the rest of the front three”. That’s high fucking praise that. I do think he’s going to be boss though. I’m expecting him to elevate his game in the way Sadio and Mo did, virtually from the moment they stepped through the door. Can’t wait to see him play. On telly of course. It’s going to be a long fucking time before we get to see any of the new lads playing live in the flesh.
It’s getting me down now. I miss going the match. I miss meeting up with the lads before the game. I miss walking up the steps in the concourse and seeing the green of the pitch. I miss YNWA. And I miss watching this team play. It’s just shit not being able to go to Anfield. Fuck this virus and fuck the government who basically wasted three months of lockdown.
We should be preparing for life to be getting back to normal, but instead we’ve got another six months of this shit because these corrupt cunts handed out all the contracts to their mates instead of to companies who would actually get the job done. I don't think we'll get back into Anfield at all this season, which makes the club's attitude to transfers look extremely prescient now. Some of these other big spenders might be sweating in a few months.
Meanwhile, this Wolves thing is just weird. I’m not sure if they’re breaking any rules, but ethically what’s happening there just seems fucked up. How is there not a conflict of interest in what Jorge Mendes is doing? For example, he represents Matt Doherty, who was sold to Spurs for a relative pittance (£15m). Spurs are managed by Mourinho, who he also represents. And guess what? He also represents Samedo, who is about to join Wolves from Barca for £37m as a replacement for Doherty.
Barcelona fans can’t believe their luck getting so much money for a player they think is shite. How much of that fee is going to Mendes? How much of the Jota fee is he getting? How much did Spurs give him for orting the Doherty deal so cheply? All agents get boxed off with pay offs from transfers but in this case it’s the agent who is sanctioning the deals between the clubs too. Wolves paid huge money from that kid from Porto this summer (represented by you know who). It just seems shady as fuck.
His influence is so great that it can’t be healthy for anyone other than him. I mean fucking hell, Wolves' third kit now is basically the Portugal shirt and the way it’s going their first team is going to be Conor Coady, Raul Jiminez plus nine Portuguese lads, all represented by Mendes.
Thursday Sep 24:
Lincoln 2 L 7 How much fun was that? Lovely goals, some terrific football and a completely stress free night. Don’t take this for granted because it wasn’t that long ago that fixtures like this would have given us the potential for all sorts of embarrassment. I actually like the policy of playing the kids and squad men. I realise that it’s necessary, but even if it wasn’t I’d do it anyway.
If we had no games a week before or a week after a fixture like this, I’d still want the second string to play because they always play like they want to impress. Shrewsbury away last year was the only real exception to that but it was senior players who were the big problem that day. Matip and Lovren in particular from what I remember.
Usually though, since Klopp arrived our cup games hve been really enjoyable and this was no different. Curtis and Taki were great, Tsimikas had a good debut, Shaq looked really good and my boy Grujic was quality. If we needed him to play in the first team he’d be up to the job as he’s a fucking good player. I like him a lot, always have.
We don’t need him to play though as he’s got about nine players ahead of him in the pecking order. That’s how strong we are right now. Grujic would walk into at least half of the teams in the Premier League. So would Origi, Shaq, Wilson etc
Next week's tie will be interesting. I think we need to go a little stronger against Arsenal because I reckon Arteta will put most of his first team out as he’ll be desperate to win that game. I wouldn’t make too many changes though, but Harvey might find himself on the bench and I doubt we’ll see Rhys Williams in the first team again. He did fine but I wouldn’t have him anywhere near next week’s team and his future opportunities might be limited too. Injuries gave him his chance tonight and whatever happens he’ll always have that. Good for him.
Arsenal next week though is a different proposition. Wouldn’t surprise me if we saw something like that mad one we had last year. With the likes of Shaq, Jota, Origi, Jones and Taki on the pitch we’ll score goals. We might concede loads too though. Unless big Virg plays again of course, but I can’t see that happening.
I’d like to see us win this cup but I’m not one of those miserable old timers who bang on about “we should take every competition seriously because we exist to win trophies”. Nah, you can’t be risking the bigger prizes by taking this little thing too seriously.
I’ll never side with anyone complaining about fielding ‘weaker teams’ in the cups because it's just clearly the smart thing to do on every level. The importance of the cups is nowhere near as great as it once was and I only really want us to win it because I want to see the ‘weaker team’ get their hands on a trophy.
If we got to the final with the kids and squad men, I’d want them to play in the final ahead of the big boys as they\d deserve it.
I doubt that would happen, and if we were playing Man City I’d take a different view. In general though, if these players were to get us there then they should stay in the team. Imagine seeing Milner lifting the trophy and doing the Hendo shuffle!
Friday Sep 25:
Suggestions today that Origi and Shaqiri are both staying. I wouldn’t put money on it because I still think if a good enough offer comes in we’d sell either of them in a heartbeat, but this probably means that we won’t sell for the sake of it. Whereas with Wilson and Grujic it’s probably a case of getting as much as we can and letting them go, but Shaq is more than happy to stay and it would appear that, based on his inclusion and his efforts let night, Origi might be too.
His chances of playing in anything other than the cups seem fairly slim but maybe he’d rather be playing a handful of games here than a full season at Villa or somewhere? He’s such a weird one is Div. Last night is a good example. Most people would say he was one of our worst performers on the night. For most of the game he just wasn’t really involved and he flattered to deceive, but when it’s all said and done he’d scored one and made one.
That’s often the way. He rarely makes you think “Origi was boss today wasn’t he?” but when he has significant playing time he nearly always seems to score. I feel as though his time here should be up now but maybe there’s still another chapter to be written? I’d feel a lot happier if he grew his dreads back though. Dreadlocked Divock was a legend.
Finally, the 23s had a mad one tonight away at United. They were 5-1 up and cruising but then it all got a bit nasty. Leighton Clarkson got sent off for an outrageously bad tackle where it looked like he was trying to chop the lad in half. Then one of their players was sent off for shoving Clarkson to the ground. It ended up 5-3 but that’s a good win for the boys.
Jack Bearne scored two and he’s a nice little player to watch. Small and skilful with a great left foot. I like him.
and that was the week that was….
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