Leaderboard

It’s not nice losing any game but it’s especially galling losing to Chelsea. It stings a little right now, but my head tells me this was probably the perfect outcome. Good performance, some positive contributions from fringe players, but ultimately we’ll have some free weeks to help prepare for league games. I know beggars can’t be choosers and that we need to start winning trophies again, but the team has developed to such an extent now that winning the title and / or the Champions League is a realistic hope. We might not do it, but we’ve got as good as a chance as anybody. So while I wouldn’t have turned my nose up at winning the League Cup, I’m much more upset about losing to Chelsea than I am about being knocked out of the cup. I’m not arsed we’re out, I just don’t like losing and I like it even less when it’s Chelsea. I’m sick of them coming to Anfield and turning us over. I don’t remember the last time we beat them here, but I’d be willing to bet I still had dark hair. Sick of it, and Hazard can fuck off too, the little prick. Fed up of him reserving his best performances for when he comes to Anfield. Still, Eden Hazard didn’t win this game for Chelsea, Kevin Friend did. Call it sour grapes if you like, but I lay the blame for this loss squarely at his door. I hate the bastard. Always have. Some think he’s got it in for us, but that’s not how I see it. It’s not an anti-Liverpool thing; it’s a pro-Chelsea thing. I’ve been commenting on his Chelsea bias for years and it was on full show in this game. Foul by Liverpool player = yellow card. Foul by Chelsea player = play on, or if it’s really obvious, a free kick. And only Kevin Friend could incorrectly award a goal even after seeing it on VAR. I’ll get to that in due course. Within the first ten minutes or so I was already pissed off with him. I hate his stupid fucking face, the Chelsea loving twat. He should have just done away with the entire pretence of impartiality and just put on a blue shirt and waved a plastic flag while singing some fucking shit song by Madness (there’s plenty to choose from, those bums were the worst thing about 80s music). We didn’t start the game too well and Chelsea looked very slick in the opening stages. Moreno was being given the runaround by Victor Moses, which puts him in an exclusive club of… erm…one. I mean seriously? Moses hasn’t been an effective winger since he first left Palace. Yet Moreno made him look like Luis Figo. I don’t want to rag on him too much because it’s difficult coming in from the cold having not played. Some players handle it better than others but Moreno seems to suffer more than most. This time last year he was doing quite well. One or two trademark madcap moments aside, his performances were adequate and he looked like he had improved. He eventually lost his place through injury and then hardly played because of how great Andy Robbo was. When he did play it was usually after an absence of several weeks and he struggled due to not having any rhythm. He needs longer to shake off the cobwebs, but when you’re not that great to begin with that’s even more of an issue. He didn’t contribute in an attacking sense and defensively he always looked like he was in recovery mode, desperately making last ditch tackles to get himself out of a mess he’d put himself in by diving in. I think his poor performance has somewhat unfairly dragged Clyne into a conversation too. Lots of people are pointing out the big drop off in quality at the full back positions, but was Clyne really that bad? Personally I thought he played quite well. I’m not suggesting he performed at Trent’s level, but he didn’t do much wrong, did he? He’s hardly played a first team game for 18 months. All things told, I thought he stood up to the challenge quite well. We know he’s not the greatest attacking full back in the world but defensively he’s steady. Aside from Moreno I thought the rest all played ok after a slow start. Fabregas was pulling the strings early and Barkley was finding was too much room between our midfield and back four. I put that down to Fabinho not really knowing exactly what is required of him yet. He played ok overall. He used the ball well, put himself about and looked comfortable in possession, but positionally it’s going to take time. We knew that though. Chelsea wouldn’t have found that kind of space with Hendo or Gini playing there, but that’s hardly Fabinho’s fault. He looks like he can play, and the rest will come in time so there’s nothing to be concerned about. It took us a while to get into the game and we needed two smart saves from Mignolet to keep Chelsea out. Nothing spectacular, they were saves you’d expect him to make, but at least he made them. We didn’t lose because of Simon Mignolet, put it that way. So why did we lose? The popular narrative will be because Eden Hazard is the best player in the league. That may well be true (if we’re not counting Van Dijk and Robbo) but it isn’t why we lost the game. We lost the game because Kevin Friend is the biggest Chelsea enabling twat since Leo Messi (© my mate Chris). We were in complete and total control until Friend intervened. We had the lead and we were comfortably the better side in the second half. Mignolet hadn’t been asked to do anything since the opening 20 minutes while we created several chances at the other end. We were in no danger at all until Friend decided to give his boys a helping hand. That was never a foul in a million fucking years. The linesman was right on the spot and gave a throw in. Friend then sees Moses rolling around on the floor (as he was all night, the shithouse) and not only gives a foul, he books Naby. Dodgy as fuck that, but it was nothing compared to what followed. From the free-kick we held a great line and caught two of their players clearly offside. Neither of them touched the ball but they were right in the middle of the goal and caused a distraction for our defenders and Mignolet. Morally it’s offside. Legally I have no idea, as they seem to make it up as they go along. When we saw the replay though it turns out that Barkley was also a fraction offside and he was the one who won the initial header. It was only a fraction, but whether it was an inch or ten yards is irrelevant. You can excuse a linesman not seeing that in real time but when a referee is looking at a still shot of it, with fucking lines drawn on it to show who is on and who is off, and he STILL gives the goal, how do you explain that? How is this any different to goal-line technology? It’s either over the line or it isn’t. He’s either offside or he isn’t. We can argue all day about whether the other two should have been given offside or not, but neither of them played the ball so it is at least something of a grey area. Barkley won the header and he was offside. There is no debate here, it’s just a simple matter of fact, the same as is a ball over the line or not. There is nothing to interpret. Yet Kevin Friend still awarded the goal. Why would that be, I wonder? That decision indirectly fucked us over on the second goal too. Aside from the obvious lift the goal gave to Chelsea’s spirits, the yellow card fro Naby prevented him from making a proper challenge on Hazard and the Belgian wriggled away from him too easily (he still should have done better, mind). Of course Moreno could have stopped him, but it’s Moreno, so *shrugs* Put it this way, there’s no way that goal happens if it’s Gini/Milner and Robbo dealing with it. I feel as though the collective fawning over Hazard’s goal isn’t taking that into account enough. It’s like a 7ft tall basketball player dunking over Shaqiri and then standing over him yelling. Yeah it’s a nice dunk, but y’know, you’re seven foot tall and you’ve just dunked over a lad who’s knee high to a grasshopper. Hazard was giving it the beans like he’d scored goal of the season. You went past Albert the Moron, big fucking deal. Victor Moses was doing that all night and he’s fucking shit. Reign it in you tit. Klopp then brought on Mo to try to salvage something but that was too little too late. Personally I thought he should have done it as soon as they put Hazard on. Sturridge’s influence was fading and when you’re defending a lead and getting opportunities to counter, Sturridge isn’t the best to exploit that. It’s right in Mo’s wheelhouse though so I thought Klopp missed a trick in not getting him on. He won’t lose any sleep over it and I’m sure deep down he may almost even be relieved to be out of this competition. It certainly makes his job a little less complicated. I look at it this way. Let’s say we got to the latter stages of this cup and ended up playing, let’s say, Man City or Spurs in the semi and then maybe the final. We’d have to go strong for those games, which might mean one or two players having to sit out a league game immediately before or after. Additionally, even when you’re resting most of the team it still impacts the training schedule and preparation for the week. You’re training with the midweek game in mind, not the league game the following Saturday. As a result of this we might draw or lose a game that we’d ordinarily expect to win. I don’t think that’s being overly dramatic. It’s a very realistic scenario I’d say. And that’s before we even start talking about the possibility of someone getting injured in a cup game. Mané and Milner both started this game, while Hendo and Bobby both came on. That’s four of the regular starting line up. No doubt it would be similar all the way through if we’d progressed. And you can probably increase that number of starters to seven or eight by the time you get to the semis and final. Ordinarily none of this really matters because we’ve not been that good and the best we could hope for was to get into the top four. It’s different now though. If being in this cup were to cost us even one Premier League point, that could be the difference between winning the title and missing out. It really could. We’ve got a genuine chance of winning the league this year but to even come close we’re going to need more points than we’ve ever managed before. That still might not be enough because City are almost guaranteed to get a minimum of 90 points and will likely be closer to 100. Every point is going to be vital as there is virtually no margin for error if we’re going to stay with the pace they will set. So yeah, not being in the League Cup helps with that. It might help in some small way, or it might be massive. There’s no way of knowing though. There will be some of you reading this who will say “but Klopp needs to win a trophy” or “this club exists to win trophies”. I agree, but I’ll throw this soundbite back at you. “The league is our bread and butter”. This is the case this season more than any other since we last won it. We’re better equipped to win the title this year than we have been at any point since 1990 and I don’t want anything getting in the way of that or jeopardising it. That doesn’t mean I wanted us to lose. Fuck no. Of course I didn’t. I badly wanted us to win because we’ve got great momentum and I wanted to keep that going. I also wanted us to put one over on Chelsea so I’m not happy that we lost and I’m not ‘happy’ that we’ve been knocked out of the cup. I do think in the long term we’ll be better off because off it though. Star man is Shaqiri. Very good on the ball, worked hard, lovely distribution and weight of passing. Based on all of his attributes I think he’s more suited to playing in midfield than in the front three and as the season progresses I hope that’s how it plays out, as he could be dynamite supplying passes to the front three. Not sure why Klopp was ripping into him on the pitch at full time though. All I can think is that he maybe wanted him to take the free-kick right at the end. If that’s the case then he should have been ripping Henderson for pulling rank and then delivering a piss poor floated ball over Lovren’s head. Hendo’s head had long gone by that point. He was constantly snarling at the diving Hazard and the incompetent Friend, and had completely lost his rag. I totally get it as I was the same, but he can’t afford to be reacting like that and needs to keep his composure as that frustration didn’t help him or the team. As for the rest, Sturridge was a positive. His touch and ability on the ball caught the eye but he wasted a great opportunity in the first half with a poor touch from a brilliant Shaqiri pass, and then produced the miss of the season just after the break when he missed the target with an empty net gaping, He just didn’t get his feet right and had more time than he seemed to realise. That’s not like him that as he’s usually like a little Fonzie in front of goal. He made up for it with a great finish to put us ahead soon after, and he later hit the bar with another brilliant effort. Overall much more good than bad from him, but he needs to clean up those errors as they cost us. Three goals from only two starts though, so it’s difficult to be too critical. For me anyway, others may feel differently. Naby showed flashes too. He did some really good things but he’s still easing his way in and hasn’t really exploded yet in the way a lot of us expected him to. This was his best performance so far I’d say, although he did fade towards the end. So in summation, the loss hurts mostly because it’s them, but when we win at their place on Saturday it will quickly be forgotten and in the long run we may look at this as a good thing. Come on Redmen, let’s fucking have these pricks on Saturday. The second string almost got the job done, now it’s the turn of the big hitters to show what they can do. We owe these bastards. Team: Mignolet; Clyne, Mate, Lovren, Moreno; Fabinho (Salah), Milner (Henderson), Keita; Shaqiri, Sturridge, Mané (Firmino):