Featured: That was the week that was (Dec 26 - Jan 1 2020)

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Saturday Dec 26:

 

It seems like every press conference lately Klopp is being bombarded with questions about Salah. He doesn’t seem perturbed at all by anything that was said in the interview Mo gave but he’s probably irked that he keeps having to answer questions about it. Rightly so too, as it was all completely unnecessary. 

 

The more I think about that interview he did the more annoyed I am by it. It’s not that he said anything especially contentious, it’s just you have to ask why is he even doing that interview at all? He rarely does interviews at all yet here he is speaking to the Spanish press. 

 

Why the Spanish press? Speak to the English press, Mo. By that I mean the local lads who cover the Reds. He never speaks to them, yet he’ll do an interview with Marca or AS or whoever the fuck it was? Honestly, it’s proper bizarre when you think about it but his agent isn’t going to set that up without some kind of ulterior motive.

 

Coming so soon off the back of his Covid shenanigans, I’d say there’s a good chance Mo is very much in Klopp’s doghouse at the moment. If I was having to answer questions about him all the time, and then having to walk on eggshells in case I said anything that would add more fuel to the fire, it would annoy the fuck out of me.

 

Meanwhile, Lampard is moaning about the fixtures because Chelsea have it much worse than we do. He’s got a point but it’s swings and roundabouts isn’t it? We’ve had brutal runs of fixtures before (usually at this time of year) and no-one cares when Klopp complains. “This is how English football is, if you don’t like it, fuck off back to the Bundesliga” etc.

 

I can remember us having to go up to play away at Sunderland 48 hours after playing on Boxing Day. Shit happens, especially in the Christmas period. Lampard loves an excuse though. Anything to deflect away from his own deficiencies. 

 

It did highlight something to me though. We’ve got it really, really fucking good here for once. We’ve got West Brom tomorrow, then we don’t play until Wednesday. And then our next game isn’t until next Monday. Seriously, this is almost unheard of. Klopp is always complaining about the timing of fixtures and the stress it puts on the players, but we’ve been helped out massively here.

 

Anyone heard of Folarin Bolagun? I haven’t, but we’re interested in signing him from Arsenal according to reports. He’s a striker who will be out of contract this summer. Surely if he’s good enough for us to be interested then he’d be getting games at Arsenal? It has the whiff of Dom Solanke about it. Sign him for peanuts and then sell for good money.

 

Either than or his agent is flirting with us to get Arsenal to panic into giving him the deal he wants, like they did with Saka.

 

I read a report on this in the Express and it just highlighted how daft modern football / society has now become. Just have a read of this nonsense…

 

“The 19-year-old, who was born in New York, commented on Curtis Jones' latest post yesterday with a handshake emoji. Jones then replied with a prayer emoji, which would suggest he was referring to the prospect of a link up at Anfield.”

 

Honestly, it’s ridiculous. This is what we’ve become? It’s like a conversation between teenage girls - “He sent a handshake emoji and then OMG he replied with a prayer emoji”. This is modern football journalism though and it’s pathetic.

 

I’m not even singling out whoever wrote that article either as I’ve done myself. I’ll see a player message another player and immediately start thinking ‘aye aye, whats going on here?’. What’s going on is probably just two players having a laugh at our expense.

 

Anyway, I’ll go out on a limb and say it right now, we won’t be signing this kid.

 

Sunday Dec 27:

 

L 1 WBA 1 Ah fuck off. The only thing worse than dropping points to relegation fodder is dropping points to relegation fodder managed by Sam Allardyce. The sight of his big smug mashed potato face on the touchline, chewing on his gum and being all self satisfied just makes me sick. As much as I hate him though, this result is on us. 

 

It’s our fault, not his. He did what he always does. There was nothing surprising about it even though Klopp made a comment about “who could have expected them to play a 6-4 formation?”. Yeah, only everyone in the entire football world. Kinell. 

 

You know the only thing that surprised me about West Brom today? That they actually had a bit of a go in the second half. What they did before half time is what I expected. And I didn’t think they’d change even at 1-0 down. Not until the last 10 minutes anyway. But the second half they did try to counter attack when possible.

 

The first half they left Grant all on his own and made zero attempt to support him. After half time they were considerably more willing to get more men up in support of him and they at least gave us something to think about. We were fucking terrible though. They lulled us to sleep and we didn’t wake up until they scored.

 

Matip going off didn’t help. It unsettled us a bit but there’s no excuse really. This was a strong side we put out and we started the game well. Then we just went shit for a long spell. It’s hard to explain, especially as Hendo was out there and usually he is able to prevent this kind of thing happening.

 

We had eight days between our last game and this one and we’ve seen this before. Lots of times actually. Whenever we have any sort of a break we’re flat as fuck when we come back. The only thing different about this is we actually started well and got worse. usually it would be the other way around.

 

I do think that for all the complaining about no rest and heavy fixture load and all that stuff, we’re actually much better when we’re playing all the time. 

 

 

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[Mikhail]

Happy New Year to you and the family Dave you've honestly been amazing this year getting through COVID and continuing to give us these weekly reviews even when we had no football for the longest time.

 

I have no respect for United's achievements this season they remind me a lot about Chelsea, Leicester and Everton when they were flying high and then they eventually came undone usually after playing against us, the only problem with United is Rodgers, Lampard and Ancelotti can only wish the referees would bail them out with penalties as much as OGS is getting bailed out.

 

Last night I saw Fernandes scored and called it as a penalty before I even checked it's the same reason I can't rate him. Gilfy Fernandes is an apt description for him.

 

If Liverpool beat the teams they were supposed to United and City who's consistently picking up wins now would not have had a sniff now.

 

Lets hope 2021 goes better in terms of football and life

 

[Whelan5]

Wary of paranoia but there is definitely something going on with their own count, this season & last too. As you say every claim seems to be given, lots of them can be argued as ligit pens but no team gets every pen they should apart from them so something is going on. Of course if we were weren't dropping points to shit it wouldn't matter as much.

[alles ist gut]

Top, top Aquilani analysis there, Dave.

[suzy]

Totally agree on the shit journalism of basically just making an article out of a Twitter post! So annoying.

[Gav]

Did Mo speak to the Scorchio press?? I was under the impression that he spoke to some crowd in Africa that syndicated or sold the story to AS

[Arnaud]

As Mikhaïl said, you had a very good year Dave, I mean providing us with good stuff. Just keep writing on, please !

[shouter]

That interview by Mo was pure snide IMHO. Probably in response to the probable bollocking he’s had over the wedding fiasco. It’s also no surprise he’s been utter shite in the two games since it’s been aired.

[dave u]

12 hours ago, Gav said:

Did Mo speak to the Scorchio press?? I was under the impression that he spoke to some crowd in Africa that syndicated or sold the story to AS

Don't know who conducted the interview but it makes no difference really. Whatever the specifics of it there's no way his agent agrees to it or allows it to happen if he's not ok with it.

[dockers_strike]

I think there's an unconscious bias by refs to giving united pens. We see this all the time. Look a Mo as an example. He gets tugged back or bundled to the ground during a tackle in the box, first ref goes, nah, not giving that, play on.

 

same happens a game or so later. Ref goes nah, he didnt get a pen for that in that other game so Im not giving it. And so on. The opposite is happening for united except the ref is giving these soft pens. So the next ref who sees it in the next game feels obliged to give it and so on again.

 

These refs talk to each other. Im sure they say watch salah, he goes down to easily. Even the pundits on tv say it. But the same refs for whatever reason arent pulling united up the same way.

 

Good summation, Dave. Happy New Year!