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Featured: That was the week that was (Aug 3-9 2019)


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Saturday Aug 3:

 

Klopp makes a completely innocuous comment about our spending capability in relation to other clubs (“we don’t live in a transfer fantasia” or something), and City got their knickers in a knot. I’ve said before about how their press office are utterly obsessed with us and what they see as the unbalanced reporting in our favour, so it’s no surprise they saw their arses over this. 

 

I expect that of them, because they’re a mixture of small time dickheads who have no idea how big clubs are supposed to be have, and Abu Dhabi trained zealots who think they can control everything said or written about them (see the leaked emails from that chief exec fella).

 

It’s a bit much when old Baldiola weighs in talking absolute bollocks as well though. “We don’t get enough credit wah wah wah” “Kevin De Bruyne should have been player of the year but you gave it to Salah wah wah wah”. “We won five trophies wah wah wah”. How does he not get this? When you spend what they spend, it’s expected that you’ll win everything. It’s only a story when you don’t.

 

Spending what they’ve spent isn’t a guarantee of anything of course, but it does make it easier. Still, not even I would try to suggest he hasn’t done a great job. He really has. His squad is full of £50m players but he’s taken the sum of those parts and built a team that’s greater than it, which is far from easy. He’s a great coach, but Klopp finished one point behind him on a fraction of the budget and he also won the Champions League. So pipe down, baldy, you’re getting the credit you deserve, it’s just that we deserve more.

 

Tell you what winds me up though. City keep using the wage bill thing to show that they aren’t spending more than us and United. Firstly, the figures they are putting on their accounts are obviously complete horseshit and I’d estimate there’s at least £100m a year they aren’t declaring. 

 

Secondly, even by their own cooked books the difference is still only £4m a year between us and them, but they’re spending quadruple what we are on transfer fees. 

 

Thirdly, Man City are fucking minuscule in comparison to us and United, so how is it possible they can spend more without breaking the rules? The answer is that it isn’t possible.

 

I’m not arsed about the Charity Shield itself one tiny bit but I desperately want to fucking smash them everywhere tomorrow.

 

Sunday Aug 4:

 

Aaaaaargh fuck off. We should have won that, we were better than them and they got out of jail. We didn’t start well and the organisation at the back wasn’t quite there, but we had no problems creating chances and the longer the game went on the more we just got a stranglehold on it. It was impressive stuff and in time I’m sure I’ll be able to focus on that. Right now though I’m just so pissed off we didn’t beat them.

 

They celebrated a little too exuberantly I’m told. I wouldn’t know as my toys went out the pram as soon as the whistle went and I turned the TV off, but it probably tells you a lot that they reacted like that.

 

City know they were second best but it doesn’t really matter when they also know they’ll have very little trouble with the rest of the league. From their point of view, they need to avoid defeat in the games against us and they’ll probably be ok. So we need to fucking beat them, preferably twice. To do that we need to be much more clinical than we have the last few times we’ve played them.

 

Did we learn anything about Klopp’s plans for this season? I think we did. There were some interesting selection decisions. Gomez starting over Matip for example. That tells me that Joe will start the season and has regained his spot as Virgil’s main partner. It’s hard to argue with that but it’s not what I’d have done. 

 

Maybe Gomez is better than Matip, but for me Matip was in possession of the shirt and did nothing to deserve losing his place. The only thing that happened was the season ended. Right now I think he’d my first choice and Joe would have to wait for his opportunity. It’s not something I feel especially strongly about and I’m not moaning about it, but that’s just how I see things. 

 

Divock on the left was significant too. Not because he’s likely to play there often, but because he’s clearly the next in line when ANY of the front three are missing. He’ll play left when Sadio isn’t there, central when Bobby isn’t and I’d guess that he’d also get the nod when Mo isn’t playing, albeit he might be on the left with Sadio switching over.

 

For all the whining from some about us needing to sign someone, I don’t see too many players out there that would even make our bench. Ideally I’d have wanted a fourth match winner that we could rotate in and out with the rest of the front three, but that ship sailed when Klopp decided to give Divock a new deal.

 

He’s put his faith in Origi and although I still feel he has plenty to prove (he’s played well in spurts but we need to see him do it consistently) but if Klopp believes in him then who am I to doubt that? He knows what he’s doing, so instead of cryarsing about us not buying new players, how about putting faith in the ones we actually have, because let’s face it, after 97 points and a European Cup they deserve it.

 

 

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  • dave u pinned this topic

The fault wasn’t actually anything to do with VAR, it was the assistants pack not being able to speak/listen to anyone else and that’s tech that’s been in the game for ages, just something that happens from time to time. I don’t particularly like VAR but it sounds like the prem have taken steps to make it less disruptive and I’m optimistic it might not be terrible 

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7 hours ago, Mark M said:

Love these diary’s. Loving the hatred still coming through over the kompany tackle I expect I’ll still be reading about that Ref in articles 5 years from now

Exactly what I was going to say Dave’s hatred leaps of the page!

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  • dave u unpinned this topic

"It’s a bit much when old Baldiola weighs in talking absolute bollocks as well though. “We don’t get enough credit wah wah wah” “Kevin De Bruyne should have been player of the year but you gave it to Salah wah wah wah”. “We won five trophies wah wah wah”. How does he not get this? When you spend what they spend, it’s expected that you’ll win everything. It’s only a story when you don’t."

 

But it was significant that Baldiola didn't mention $terling in his argument - who was actually the football writer's Player of the Year. As we all know that he didn't get that 100% for footballing reasons. Which is why UEFA didn't even mention him in passing.....

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