That was the week that was (Sep 6-13 2019)

Saturday Sep 7:

Gini was the star of the show as Holland beat Germany 4-2. He scored and had a stonking game by all accounts. He’s got a bit more licence to attack in their system than he does in ours, although he does have those occasional games for us where it seems like he’s been given free reign to get in the box, and when he does he usually makes it count.

Funny how quickly things can turn around though. It was only a couple of years ago the Dutch seemed to have been slumping. They had their worst team in years, while the Germans were flying high and winning tournaments. Now, the Dutch are suddenly resurgent and have beaten the old enemy a couple of times of late. It helps when you’ve got the best defender in the world too, obviously.

Meanwhile, on Instagram…. Remember I said the other week how any time Paddy Berger posts a picture I get stressed if Vladi isn’t there? Well it’s been happening a lot lately, he’s popping up all over the place doing various fun things, and all I can think is “Where’s Vladi?” Well I saw this today and initially I was wigging out, but then it hit me…

…Vladi is taking the photos! I feel so much better now having convinced myself of that.

Sunday Sep 8:

Yerrrssss, Virg has agreed to a new deal and contract extension. Wait, no he hasn’t. Fuck knows where that story came from but the Grim Reaper James Pearce has shot it down as being bollocks. His contract still has four or five years left anyway, so there’s no need to be doing anything about it. 

Might not hurt to offer him a payrise though, just to let him know his efforts are appreciated. Sometimes it’s hard to believe we actually managed to get him. I mean, he would walk into any team in the world, and even back when we signed him he had offers from teams that we’re in a better situation than us. He could have gone to any of the top teams in this country, but he only had eyes for us. I’d love to know what Klopp said to him when they met in Blackpool.

Also today, Fowler comes to the defence of Salah and says “Everyone commenting and talking nonsense about being “greedy” or destroying team spirit, have they never watched football before?,” said Fowler. “Because you can’t be a ­top-class goalscorer without total belief you will score.”

That’s true, but Salah is no Robbie Fowler. By that I mean he’s not as clinical a finisher. Robbie could do it with both feet or his head, and he could do it from two yards or forty yards. There’s a difference between wanting to score goals and being greedy. I never saw Fowler as greedy, and I don’t see Salah as being greedy all the time. Most of the time he isn’t. He just has these days though, where it’s as though he gets it in his head that he has to score no matter what and he becomes selfish. 

You can’t defend what he did at Burnley and Mané had every right to be pissed off. Bobby had even more right, but he’s just not as arsed about how many goals he scores as Sadio and Mo. Healthy competition is fine, but it can easily cross a line if it’s let unchecked. Salah and Mané will be fine I reckon though. Klopp will make sure of it.

Monday Sep 9:

People are kicking off about some of our players being under-rated in their FIFA ratings. Fucking international breaks. This is the shit people are being reduced to arguing about? Maybe it’s an age thing, but this kind of thing winds me right up. Why does anyone give a shit? Absolute virgins.

Even Rhian Brewster has had something to say about his own rating. He should just be grateful he’s even on the fucking thing. Nothing against the lad personally, but he hasn’t played even one second of first team football yet and already I’m sick of hearing about him. 

Seriously has there ever been a player who has done so little yet had so many column inches devoted to him? It’s fucking weird. He tweets and there’s ten articles on newsnow. Why? What’s he done? Fuck all. Curtis Jones doesn’t get that kind of attention even though he’s actually played a first team game. As I say, it’s nothing against Brewster himself, I just find the whole thing weird and annoying. 

Speaking of weird and annoying…. Michael Owen has upset people again. (disclaimer: I don’t find him weird or annoying, but I’m in a minority). This time he’s got our fans going after him because he said “Are Manchester United players far inferior to Liverpool’s? I don’t necessarily think so”. 

Fucking hell Michael. I like him as a pundit, I often feel like he makes points that others might not have and he’s good at providing insight from a striker’s perspective. He’s had a ‘mare here though.

There is not one Manchester United player that would get in our starting eleven, and not too many that would make our bench. De Gea, Martial and Rashford might make the bench. Maybe Wan-Bissaka too, but that’s it. So are they inferior to Liverpool players? Hell yeah they are. Have a word with yourself, Michael.

Tuesday Sep 10:

Emile H*sk*y says he was so homesick in his first six months at Anfield that sometimes he’d lie on the floor crying. Yeah, I know he feels. That’s how I was in those six months too as I had to listen to my dad constantly moaning about him. Funny thing was, I had Emile’s back at the point. A couple of years later I hated him even more than my dad did.

Meanwhile, Nabil Fakir says Liverpool lied about the reason for not signing him. Basically he reckons his knee is sound and he was baffled as to why we pulled the plug. His former agent then responded by saying that he’s talking bollocks and that there were two reasons the deal didn’t happen. One, his knee. And two, another agent appeared mid-negotiation and wanted to start the talks over from scratch. 

I hadn’t heard that before, but it would explain a lot. It’s always seemed a bit weird this one. There were obvious concerns about his knee, but it doesn’t seem to have bothered him since. If there was something dodgy going on with an agent though that makes it more plausible as to why we wanted no part of it. And now he’s ended up at Real Betis, playing alongside 56 year old Joaquin. 

Fuckin’ agents. Greedy, horrible, leechy bastards.

England played tonight. Don't know the score or who they played, but I know Henderson played. How do I know? Because I had a look at newsnow and saw the usual barrel scraping articles where some sad fuck trawls through twitter to find the worst takes they can from random thick as fuck fans who have no clue. Then you have an article entitled something like "What does he do?" "Useless" "Embarrassing" - England fans unimpressed with Liverpool man".

I'd like to shut down every fucking website that resorts to this kind of lowest common denominator shit. How did we get to this point, where the opinions of random goons on the internet are deemed important enough to make a news article from? Fucking hell.

Wednesday Sep 11:

Milner plays in Kompany’s testimonial tonight. Actually not sure whether he played or not. He was there, but I didn’t see any of the game so not sure whether he was involved. The sad bastards actually had a hashtag this week saying #MilnersNotWelcome. Hilarious seeing as it’s got fuck all to do with them who Kompany invites to play in HIS testimonial.

Really though, how much of a twat do you need to be to have any kind of negative opinion of James Milner. If there's one player that should be universally liked by everyone, it's him. And he generally is universally liked, the only cunts who don't like him are the cunts who he helped win two league titles. Man City fans are the absolute fucking worst aren't they?

Paul Glatzel signed a new contract today. Good for him, the poor lad has had so many injuries and we probably won’t see him this season after he did his ACL, but the staff absolutely love this kid. That’s why he got the captain’s armband while Bobby Duncan was getting all the publicity.

Some interesting comments from Lallana. He genuinely sees himself as an option in the number six role and is studying other players in the position to familiarise himself with it. I don’t see this happening at all. If Fabinho doesn’t play, it’ll be Gini. If he’s not playing either, it’ll be Hendo. Honestly, other than in the domestic cups I’ll be amazed if Lallana plays that role.

I liked his attitude though and this quote in particular jumped out at me. “If I want to be part of this team, the best team in Europe, I need to keep improving and developing and that is what I have found difficult over the last two years because I have not been able to show that. I can’t be the same player, I need to be better because the team is better.”

Good stuff that. A 30 year old experienced international player saying he needs to be better because the team is better now than it was when he was playing regularly. I couldn’t help but compare that attitude with Bobby Duncan, the cheeky fucking upstart. 

Thursday Sep 12:

Oh for fucks sake. Scholes played last night and social media was full of fawning about him today. He played a disguised pass with the outside of his foot and footy hipster twitter has had it’s cock out all day.

Paul Scholes is an urban myth. He got better with every year he didn’t play. When he was playing nobody, absolutely nobody, spoke of him as being the best midfielder in the league. Hell, when he was playing, he was hardly ever described as the best midfielder at his own fucking club. The he retires, that little crab Xavi made a comment about Scholes being his best opponent and suddenly his reputation sky rocketed. This whole bizarre narrative has only come about in recent years as history has been rewritten.

Anyone who says Scholes was the best midfielder of his generation is just trying to make themselves sound more knowledgeable than your average Joe, who would say Gerrard, Vieira, Keane or even Lampard. Really, talking up Scholes just makes you sound like a cunt who is trying too hard. The people spouting this shite about Scholes will almost certainly be the same gobshites who tried to tell everyone that Michael Carrick was the most important player in United’s title winning sides.

Friday Sep 13:

Klopp says Alisson is progressing well but that the week after the second international break was always the realistic target for his return. Didn’t tell us that at the time though did he? This is what I was saying, when it comes to injuries Kloppo is a right lying bastard. It’s all about the morale. 

If he’d said straight away Alisson was out for 2-3 months it would have put us all on a massive downer. So instead, he let’s us think it’s a few weeks, then a few weeks pass and he lets us think its a few more weeks. Before you know it, it’s 2-3 months but we haven’t stressed out over it. 

Meanwhile, what about this free kick competition video today?

Absolutely mad that. Nobody will have seen that coming. Joe Gomez bagging five out of five and absolutely destroying Trent, Shaq and Bobby. Fair play to him, that took some doing that and I’d never have believed he could have done that. 

Trent had a face like a smacked arse. He wasn’t happy at all that Gomez beat him at his own game. Dead funny it was. Trent is a terrible loser and an obnoxious winner. Don’t take that as a criticism of him though, as it’s not. I’m exactly the same. Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser, that’s what I always say.

Seen an advert on BT today for something called ‘thursday night swagger’. It was all ‘street’ and they had graphics like something from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I’m thinking ‘what the fuck is this shite’ and then it became clear. It was glorious. It was an ad for the Europa League, and they had a load of dancing fools promoting their games. 

Of course Pogba and Lingard were front and centre, as well as Gibbs-White from Wolves and Aubameyeng and Bellerin from Arsenal. No hint of embarrassment from any of them either. Imagine being United or Arsenal in the Europa League and not being embarrassed by it. Fucking losers.

…. and that was the week that was