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Not the result we hoped for but it’s fine. Considering there were no goals, it was a cracking game. A classic European tie. We played well for a while but couldn’t capitalise on it and eventually we ran out of ideas. Bayern seemed happy to take a goalless draw and showed little interest in trying to nick an away goal. Hopefully they will live to regret that. Our defence played well, the midfielders were all impressive and Bobby was outstanding for someone who should have been tucked up in bed with a lemsip or a pack of immodium (depending on what type of virus he had). Had we been able to get one maybe we’d have gotten more, as some of the football we played was great (in the first half especially). Sadly we couldn’t finish it off and it allowed Bayern to become more and more comfortable. The finishing was poor but the final ball was often even worse. I’d say that was the only thing wrong with what was otherwise a good performance. If Sadio had been able to finish or if Mo had not continually ran into cul de sac’s we’d have been fine. I don’t think there’s any need for people to feel disappointed and there’s certainly no cause to be disheartened. Disappointing is drawing at home with Leicester or away to West Ham. This is Bayern Munich, serial winners, and a team who a couple of years ago would have been seen as being light years ahead of us. Now we’re facing them on an equal footing. In fact, we’re facing them as slight favourites. You could see the respect they have for us in how they approached the game. They were much more defensive than anyone expected and to be fair I thought they were very good, very composed and they passed it around nicely. That might have changed if we’d scored, but we’ll never know because we didn’t. They defended well, rode their luck at times and eventually they looked largely untroubled. I felt as though they had a goal in them too after how they played in that first half, but after the break they didn’t do much and seemed content to just sit in and keep what they had. It’s a first leg away from home against a very good side, so it's long been a tried and trusted approach. In their shoes though I’d be thinking this might just be a missed opportunity. No Van Dijk. No Gomez. No Lovren. No away goals. That's the biggest positive we can take from the night, the makeshift pairing of Matip and Fabinho stood strong and the clean sheet could prove to be the most decisive aspect of the tie. We'll see. The first half was a cracker. Chances galore and lots of nice football from both sides. Salah had a good chance that he couldn’t convert when Hendo picked him out with a glorious ball over the top. Not an easy one, and I’d have probably tried to head that in if it was me. But then I don’t have a left peg like Mo so that would be why. A diving header would have been easier than attempting what he did though I reckon. Bayern hit back straight away and almost took the lead with a freak own goal. Gnabry did brilliantly to skin Robbo and drill a low cross into the box. Lewandowski missed it under pressure from Matip, but the defender didn’t have time to react and side footed it straight into the chest of Alisson, who knew nothing about it. Bad moment there for 'Big Bird', and he had another one not long after. In fairness, it was more on Alisson than him, as the keeper dawdled on the ball (as he tends to do far too much) before just about smuggling it away to Matip, who was not expecting it and was caught completely on his heels. His feeble flicked attempt at clearing the ball was seized upon by Coman who struck the side netting. Mané then shot wide following the best move of the game. The way the lads worked that opportunity out of some tight spaces on the right was outstanding. Shame Sadio couldn’t finish it off. He’d have been better cutting inside and then releasing the overlapping Robertson, but instead he moved to his left and dragged his shot wide of the near post. He then wasted an even better chance when he didn’t realise how much time he had when a loose ball fell to him after Keita’s shot had been partially blocked. He could have taken a touch and picked his spot but he rushed it, tried to hit it on the turn and scuffed it wide from 8 yards. It felt like all our chances were falling to Mané, and he missed another opportunity from another blocked Keita shot, as this time his overhead kick went well over. Difficult one that though in fairness. Salah missed a great chance too when he headed wide at the back post after a gorgeously flighted ball in by Trent, while Matip put one wide after lovely interplay between Mo and Bobby had created the chance. So we had our chances, we just didn’t take any of them. The second half wasn’t anywhere near as good, mainly because the final ball kept screwing things up for us and because Bayern became more defensive. The longer it went, the more frustrating it was and the more inevitable the goalless draw became. Part of the problem was that Bobby eventually ran out of steam and had to go off to be replaced by Origi. With him went the link between the midfield and attack and it all became a bit too much about individuals rather than the collective. Not Divock’s fault by any means - it was others who were guilty of not passing - but the understanding isn’t there between him and the others and the dynamic understandably doesn’t function as well. There was one situation late on when he made a great run in behind and Mané just refused to pass it and instead went himself and lost it. That pissed me off because had he slipped him in we may have seen a repeat of Origi’s goal against Dortmund, as it was in the same area of the field. He could just as easily have fucked it up of course, but we'll never know because fucking Sadio didn't pass it to him. There was no excuse for not playing that pass and had it been Firmino or Salah making the run I expect he would have done. The closest we came to a second half breakthrough was a diving header from Mané that the keeper tipped around at his near post. Other than that it was just a lot of set-pieces that never really threatened to come to anything. The delivery wasn’t the best (Salah in particular is terrible on corners), but the real issue was the massive height difference between the sides. I looked at our lads in the box any time there was a corner and it was obvious that unless Big Bird somehow got his 50p head on the end of something we weren’t going to win any headers against them. We didn’t miss Virgil at the back, but we missed him on our attacking set-pieces. 0-0 isn’t a scoreline anyone expected but this is big boy football. It’s the European Cup; it’s not supposed to be easy. Just because we made it look easy last year doesn’t mean that’s now the norm. It isn’t. This is hard fucking work. It’s Bayern Munich, one of the giants of the game, and they’re not going to just come here and shit the bed. The ‘power of Anfield’ can work in two ways. It can intimidate the opposition and it can inspire our lads. Sometimes it does both. Bayern are too long in the tooth to allow themselves to be unduly affected by the crowd though. Mats Hummels was on the wrong end of it a few years ago so he knew what to expect (same with Arjen Robben) and he will have briefed the rest of them. The crowd were up for it but this wasn’t an all or nothing, high stakes, everything on the line game. It was a first leg, and we’re not big underdogs. That makes a difference and the intensity was perhaps not quite what it has been on other occasions. Maybe if it had been at fever pitch it might have unsettled Bayern, but probably not. The crowd were right into it in the first half and YNWA before kick off was great. I don’t know if George intentionally played it when he did but I’m not sure that turning it off after the opening chorus will be enough to stop UEFA from handing out a charge as the fans totally drowned out their anthem, and we know how they don’t take kindly to that. In the second half when the game began to drift, the crowd seemed to become increasingly resigned to the fact that we weren’t going to score but because this wasn’t a do or die type situation that’s almost to be expected. There wasn’t the frantic, manic atmosphere to drive the players on in the closing stages because this is essentially only the first half. The last thing we needed was to over commit and give away an away goal, which could decide the entire tie. I'd say there has been an over-reaction to the performance in some quarters. Watch the first half again and then tell me we didn’t play well. Yes it dropped off after the break and the second half wasn’t a good performance from an attacking perspective, but the defensive side of it was fucking boss. Almost flawless in fact. Alisson had nothing to do because the defending (and by that I don't just mean the defence) was great. Goal number one is to win the game. Goal number two is to keep a clean sheet. We achieved one of those so all in all it’s not a bad night’s work. I mean come on, we can’t win every tie in the first leg. We did last season but it’s not always going to be that way. The important thing is to not lose it in the first leg *cough* Man United *cough* , which we haven’t. The general consensus seems to be that this is a better result for Bayern than it is for us. Not for me, Clive. At worst it’s 50-50 but it might even be slightly in our favour thanks to the clean sheet. We don’t need to win in Munich. We just need to score and to not lose. Easier said than done of course, but it’s difficult for Bayern as well. They need to win (or hold out for pens and cross their fingers). They’re clearly a good side and there’s an aura of calmness and professionalism about them. They’re vastly experienced, been there and seen it all. You could tell. They never panicked and stuck to their gameplan well. It’s worth pointing out though that they didn’t muster a single shot on target. They had their threatening moments of course (mainly through the lively Gnabry), but they never seriously troubled a defence missing it’s top three central defenders. That’s being overlooked by many I think. They got to face a Liverpool defence missing Virgil and they couldn’t score. We had our number four and five centre backs out there against Lewandowski and he barely got a kick. It’s probably not going to be any easier for them in the return leg either, although the big difference there I suspect will be in their attacking ambition. At Anfield they seemed happy to keep everyone back and keep it tight. That’s not an option in the second leg and that will leave us more space to play in. Their right back is suspended now, which might unsettle their defence a little. He seems like a tit, and I don’t just mean because that jarg muzzy he was sporting. Did you see him shouting like a fucking loon in Sadio’s face after he made a tackle? Mané just laughed at him. It’s almost a shame he’s not playing in three weeks because I’m sure Sadio would be looking forward to having another crack at him, especially as he knows if he had his shooting boots on he’d have been going home with the match ball. Yet this prick tackles him once and is giving it the arl Marco Tardelli? We could easily go over there and lose. Only a fool would suggest otherwise. We could turn in a performance like we did in Paris or Naples and if we do then we’ll lose convincingly. It all depends on how we perform on the night and also whether we get the bounce of the ball. I’m not telling you we’ll definitely go through, I’m saying is that 0-0 is fine and that I saw nothing at all in this game to make me any less confident of progression than I was going into the tie. Star man is Hendo. A stonking performance from the skipper which I’d like to think will silence his doubters for a while, but I’m not that naive. Maybe if he follows it up with an equally impressive display on Sunday that will help. He’s got great performances in him but he just struggles to produce them consistently, partly because he seems to pick up injuries at the worst possible times. We need this Hendo for the rest of the season. Both centre backs were very good too (once Matip got over a couple of initial wobbles) and Naby looked lively again. The full backs weren’t at their best though. Trent was wasteful in possession while Robbo really had his hands full with Gnabry, who probably beat him more times than every other opponent he’s faced over the last year combined. Hopefully Mo and Sadio will be sharper in the second leg too, and more importantly (to me anyway) on Sunday. As big as these Champions League games are, they don’t even come close to what is at stake this weekend. I’m nervous already, whereas if I’m being completely honest I’d barely even given the Bayern game a second thought until kick off approached. I’ve had this United game on my mind for months though. I just want it out of the way so we’ll know exactly where we stand for the run in. By that I mean, every time we look at the table and see City above us, the consolation is always “we’ve got a game in hand”. It makes us feel better. It’s a comfort blanket. Until you actually stop and think about it and realise that the game in hand is THEM, and it’s THERE. It’s the least enjoyable fixture on the calendar at the best of times, but the stress factor is cranked up like never before this year. So come on Reds, let’s have you looking sharp in the final third, play to your best and let’s fucking do these bastards. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Fabinho, Robertson; Henderson, Keita (Milner), Wijnaldum; Mané, Firmino (Origi), Salah:

Saturday Feb 2: L 3 Bournemouth 0. Yes! There you go. The Reds are back. 4-3-3, Bobby and Mo back where they should be and just like that we’re back to the 17/18 team that scared the shit out of everybody. Results wise we’ve been incredible this season, but the performances have generally taken a bit of a dip. If we’re going to stay ahead of City then we need the fire and brimstone, tear your a new arsehole attacking football from last season. This performance was a big step on the road to where we need to be. The opposition has to be taken into account, as Bournemouth aren’t the most difficult side to play football against, but on this form anybody would struggle to deal with us. The front three were dazzling, the full backs were great and the midfield was probably as good as we’ve seen it all season. This was Naby’s best game, Fabinho was terrific and Wijnaldum was the best player on the park. Gini actually had the wildshites in the build up to the game and said he was worried he might shit his shorts during the game. Imagine being able to play as well as that under those circumstances. I won’t even leave the house when I’ve got the shits. When he plays with this freedom to get forward and make runs he’s a brilliant player. His problem is because he’s so good at everything and can adapt his game to do whatever Klopp needs him to, sometimes we don’t see him making those runs. I want to see him given license to do that every game because when we have midfielders breaking beyond the forwards (Ox does this brilliantly and we’ve missed him) it gives us an added dimension and makes the front three even more difficult to handle. If we play like this at Old Trafford then I’ve been worrying over nothing. Sunday Feb 10: Mo has shaved off his beard. Not sure I’m a fan of this as I tend to not like change, and I’m also superstitious. Why risk it now, with so much at stake? I don’t want him turning into ‘Chelsea Mo’ and never scoring any goals. The pictures did make me laugh, as although he’s clean shaven he’s still got a 5 o’clock shadow. Like when Homer gets a shave and within a second or two it grows back. That was the only thing that made me smile today, as Spurs won again and those Chelsea losers let in six at Man City. How the fuck does one of the big teams let in six goals when they have all eleven players on the field? It shouldn’t happen. Ever. It’s Arsenal behaviour that. Chelsea started the season well and Sarri’s methods were being lauded. Seemingly all it took was for opposing teams to stick someone on Jorginho and stop him getting on the ball, and the whole thing fell apart. Doesn’t take much for that squad of players to become disillusioned with a manager’s tactics though does it? And when it happens, they just stop playing. That was a disgrace today and it’s not all Sarri’s fault. He’ll be the one to carry the can though, and those players will all live to kill off another manager in the next year or two. I just hope Reds don’t get disheartened by this result today. Other than goal difference, it doesn’t matter if they won 1-0 or 6-0 as its three points either way. Psychologically it might have an impact as it fuels the whole “oh look how scary Man City are” narrative. To me it changes nothing though. This doesn’t make them any better or worse than we thought. They’re the same team that lost to Newcastle two weeks ago. It says a lot more about Chelsea than it does City. I don’t feel any differently about our title chances today than I did yesterday. City will win most of their games, we knew this. Hopefully they slip up once or twice and then the rest is up to us. Monday Feb 11: Ramsay is getting 400k a week to join Juve. This is a joke. This kind of shit is not doing football any good. Players getting stupid money as a reward for running down contracts doesn’t help anyone except the players. Juve pulled this exact same shit with Emre Can and while I’ve barely even given him a second thought this season and I don’t think we’ve missed him one jot, that’s not the point. Other players will see the eye watering salaries Can and Ramsay are getting and it will encourage more of them to let their contracts run down. Not just that, you’ll always get the dickhead copycat clubs that will see Juve doing this and think that’s what they need to do to compete. When you have good but not great players like Can and Ramsay making that kind of dough, it only makes the great ones think “what the fuck? How’s he getting more than me?”. And that’s not going to end well for the clubs. The rest of Europe’s big clubs need to get together and beat the shit out of Juve and steal their lunch money, the absolute weapons. Meanwhile, the squad fly to Spain for their warm weather training. Gomez is left behind but everyone else based at Melwood has travelled, meaning there are places for some lads who some of you won’t really know anything about. Hell, I’ve always made it a point of pride to keep abreast of what’s going on with the reserves and youth teams, but even I couldn’t tell you anything about what type of player Isaac Christie-Davies is. It’s a good chance for some of the lads to stake a claim for next season though. My boy Adam Lewis in particular really needs to catch the eye, because Moreno is off and there’s a vacancy there for the back up job to Robbo. The main thing is they don’t come back with the fucking ebola virus or whatever it was that swept through there camp after their last little jaunt to warmer climes. Tuesday Feb 12: Ok, so those reports were wrong yesterday. Gomez isn’t the only one to miss out, as Lovren was not in the travelling party either. This makes him a big doubt for Bayern next week. Even if he recovers in time it’s not Klopp’s way to throw players in when they haven’t had at least a few days of high intensity training. So it’s going to be Matip and Fabinho playing in that game. Not ideal, but it’s the home leg and hopefully we’ll be more on the front foot anyway and won’t have to defend too much. The bigger problem is that means no Fabinho in midfield, and he’s becoming more important by the week in there. By the time we play the away leg Virgil and Lovren should both be back in the mix so fingers crossed we’ll have a good result to take over there. Unlike the Mancs, who have to travel to Pais chasing a 2-0 deficit after being taken to school by the oil cheats tonight. The Goblin’s unbeaten record went up in smoke as PSG thoroughly outclassed them. This is interesting to me because they did it without Neymar and Cavani. They exposed United for what they are; a flawed team with a shite defence. They’re dangerous in attack and because of that Solskjaer has been able to get them punching their weight in a way that Mourinho never could. They have too much quality for the shit teams but tonight showed what can happen when they face genuine quality. There’s a blueprint there for us when we go there the weekend after next. I feel a little less dread about that game now, especially as Martial and Lingard both look like they’ll be out for a while. Losing to them would be a horrendous feeling regardless, but it would definitely be worse if Lingard and his cunt face was out there celebrating. Wednesday Feb 13: I see Keita and Mane both tapping up Werner through the press. Don’t like this at all. We’ve been on the receiving end of this shit from Barcelona and it’s annoying as fuck, so it’s not cool having our lads do it. Especially as I’m not sold on Werner. If they were tapping up Mbappe then I’d be right on board with that, which makes me a stinking hypocrite but that’s ok, most football fans are and I’m no different. Keita says Werner is one of his best mates. That’s fine then, WhatsApp the shit out of him every day telling him how boss it is here. Get Sadio in the group too seeing as how he seems to love Werner so much. Just don’t be saying shit to the press about it. On the field tonight, Spurs beat Dortmund 3-0 at Wembley. Mad how they’re just grinding on relentlessly even without Kane and Alli. I’m putting it out there now though. Dortmund are still going to knock them out. 5-1 over there. You heard it here first. As for us, well the kids are through to the next round of the Youth Cup after a 2-0 win over Wigan. No surprise that Glatzel and Duncan got the goals. I switched it on at half time but I could only take 20 minutes of the second half before I switched it off, as it was awful. They’ll need to play much better than this if they’re going to go any further. Don’t know why Hoever and Jones aren’t playing in this either. I know they’re in the 23s now, but they’re still eligible and at one time the Youth Cup was seen as such a big deal that clubs would always put their strongest teams out. Sometimes you’d even get lads who’d played first team football moving down to play. I guess it’s suffering in the same way as it’s big brother, the FA Cup. No-one's arsed anymore. Thursday Feb 14: Really interesting stuff from Ljinders today in an interview with Neil Jones on goal.com in which he revealed the reasoning for the formation change we’ve seen this season. It was about getting Fabinho in the side, as he wasn’t ready to play 4-3-3. “For Fabinho, to play in a midfield three as we did at the start of the season, we knew it would take time. His impulse of defending forward is absolutely of the highest level, elite. The question as a No.6, though, is that you are moving more side-to-side than forwards. “Then, of course, you have to adapt to the league and the team. We found a good solution to change to 4-4-2 (4-2-3-1). And from that moment it helped so much, and then you saw the real Fabinho.” We did, but it came at a cost. Not in terms of results, but it really hasn’t helped Bobby. Or Salah either, although it hasn’t hurt him as much as it has Firmino. Mo’s done well and is still scoring, but sometimes he just gets marked out of the game when playing through the middle, and Bobby as a 10 has just not worked in the way many thought it would. He’s played there before and at one time it was seen as his best position, but in that ‘false nine’ role he’s as good as anybody. Now that Fabinho looks to have fully adjusted to 4-3-3, I’m excited to see whether we can go on the kind of tear that we did this time last year. Also today, there’s some discussion about our wage bill and how it is now apparently higher than Man City’s. The Echo ran an article on it outlining how the Reds have double the amount of staff working in various admin roles and maybe that has played a part. Really? That annual amount probably accounts for a week’s wage for Aguero. It’s irrelevant. This is simple really. The reason our wage bill is higher is because our wages go through the books. Arsenal lost to BATE in the Danny Welbeck Cup tonight. This is great, not because they’ll get knocked out as no doubt they’ll win the home leg and go through, but it’s still dead funny seeing them losing. I saw on Twitter that BATE have only ever beaten English clubs twice (the other one was Everton 10 years ago) and that Mustafi was playing in both games. He should have that on his headstone, the absolute bum. Friday Feb 15: Allan moves on loan to Fluminense after Eintracht Frankfurt terminated his spell with them (he played four games). What’s the point in this then? He’s been loaned all around Europe since we signed him in a bid to help him qualify for a work permit for next year, but he’s not pulled up any trees and now it seems the only option was for him to go back to Brazil? Not that I’m arsed. Klopp has said plenty about how talented this lad is, but his performances on loan clearly haven’t backed that up. There's as much chance of him playing for us as there is of the other loan ranger, Taiwo Adeyemi, ever coming back and forcing his way in. Conor Coady signs a new deal at Wolves to apparently ‘end speculation of a return to Anfield’. Who was speculating that then? He’s a good lad, a massive Red and he’s done well at Wolves, but he’s nowhere near the level of player we’ll be looking at this summer if we're in the market for a partner for a Matip (or maybe Lovren) replacement. He plays in a back three for one thing, and how do you even scout a centre back who plays in an entirely different system and style to your own? It’s virtually impossible. Good luck to him though, I hope he’s been given a good wedge there as its nice to see Academy lads doing well for themselves. Case in point, we’re being linked with Ajax wondered De Ligt again. £75m apparently. Juve are said to be interested to, so presumably nobody has told them he’s still under contract. Speaking of everyone's least favourite scabby bastards, according to Tuttosport, they want Mo and are prepared to send Dybala (who they value at £135m despite him scoring only two goals all season) here in part ex. Gee, that’s nice of them, eh? Fucking hell. I know nothing about ‘Tuttosport’ other than when I hear the name I’ve always thought it sounded like the Italian version of the Sunday Sport, and stories like this do nothing to change my mind. I bet their front page was “Genoa man turns into frog after sucking off man in Kermit costume”. Have to admire the delusion of it though. The only reason way leave top PL clubs to go to Juve is when they’re available on freebies and Juve can completely distort the market with insane wages. File this one away with Genoa man / Kermit the frog. and that was the week that was...

Saturday Feb 2: Gomez is having an op. There’s no timescale on his return but he is expected to play again this season. Yeah, heard that before so I’ll take it with a pinch of salt. What the fuck has gone on here? History repeating itself, that’s what. Last season he got injured, it was mis-diagnosed and it caused him to miss the run to the Champions League Final and also robbed him of a place at the World Cup. Same thing has happened here. He was meant to be back already, but someone got it wrong and now he’s having a fucking operation and we’re stuck with Big Bird from Sesame Street playing alongside Van Dijk because of course Lovren is injured again too. We’ll be playing against Bayern Munich with Big Bird and Fabinho in the middle of the back four. Can’t wait. Sunday Feb 3: City cruise to a 3-1 win against Arsenal. Can’t say I’m shocked by the scoreline but I didn’t expect Arsenal to be as bad as they were. I thought they’d have a go but that their awful defending would prove their undoing. I was half right. Their defending was staggeringly shit but they didn’t even have a go. No shots in the second half. Fucking shitbags. Don’t expect Chelsea to do anything next week either, or Spurs when they go there. If City drop points it will be to someone you least expect it to be. They’ll be zoned in against Chelsea and Spurs. Chelsea got beat 4-0 at Bournemouth last week and the players have quit on Sarri. On paper Spurs could give City a game, but on grass they never do. Bad day all around really as United won as well. Nine wins from ten for the Goblin now, but one man isn’t impressed as Paul Ince says “I could have done what Solskjaer has done”. Yeah, course you could. Fucking hell. Solskjaer might’t be the greatest tactical manager in the world and what he’s done there might just be as straightforward as simply playing the best players in their best positions and allowing them to express themselves, but you know what Solskjaer is not doing? He’s not stood on the touchline with a little notepad, writing the word “SHOOT!” on it. So pipe down, guv’nor. Over the pond tonight we saw the worst Superbowl in living memory as the hated Patriots won again. Their opponents were the Stan Kroenke owned LA Rams, who thoroughly embarrassed themselves with a pitiful showing. Kroenke should be used to such gutless displays though as he also owns Arsenal. Worse than the Patriots winning was having to see Harry Kane’s slobbering gob on TV. He was over there watching the game, and of course he’s a Patriots fan. I’d have been staggered if he wasn’t, the front running, glory hunting twat. The only surprise is he din’t somehow end up on the field claiming the MVP award. Southgate was there too, as was… wait for it…. David Moyes. Ok, time out here. The Superbowl is always referred to as ‘the greatest show on earth’ and tickets for it are like gold dust. You generally have to be a somebody to go to a Superbowl. At least that’s how it used to be. Letting that deadbeat Moyes in there changes everything. It’s lost all credibility. Monday Feb 4: West Ham 1 L 1. That was so demoralising. I can live with the two dropped points but how we look right now is really terrifying me. The thought of not winning this title fills me with dread, and performances like this are making the possibility seem all too real. I hate that I’m being such a shithouse, but I can’t help it. I had no confidence about tonight at all. I’ve been dreading the game all day. Against a fucking West Ham team who’ve just been spanked by Wimbledon and Wolves. How am I not confident about playing them? We’re top of the league and have lost one game all season. And I’m shitting myself about playing these losers? The worst part is I was right to be worried. We should have lost. They had better chances than we did and the one goal we scored was a mile offside. What’s happened to our form? Can we not just go back to what worked, with Mo on the right and Bobby at number nine? Mo has been hit and miss at centre forward but Bobby has been mostly shite in that number ten role. Half the time he doesn’t look like he knows what he’s supposed to be doing and he was shambolic tonight. Get back to basics. 4-3-3, counter pressing, running all over teams. I know sometimes that’s not possible depending on how the opposition play, but it’s all but disappeared since the Arsenal game. This season we’re doing great, so how come I enjoyed last year more? I dunno, it’s weird. I should be loving this as it’s what we’ve always wanted, but instead I’m just stressed out and miserable. Could have done without Jurgen kicking off about the ref on a night when the two linesmen did their best to hand us three points too. There have been times when he'd have been justified in letting the ref have it with both barrels, but tonight wasn't one of them and this just plays up to the shitty "they're bottling it" narrative. Tuesday Feb 5: Carra is stirring things up ahead of tomorrow night’s game at Goodison and is doing his best to light a fire under the Blues by suggesting they always roll over for the Manc teams whenever one of them is going for the title. He’s right, but it’s not going to make a scrap of difference. At least half the crowd will be wanting to lose, and if history tells us anything then half the players will look disinterested too. Some of them will give it a go but it won’t matter because they’re shite anyway and have zero chance of beating City. That might sound a little OTT given that Newcastle beat City last week and Everton are better than Newcastle, but there are some key differences. The Geordie crowd were bang up for it and gave their team everything to help them over the line. Everton won’t have that. The biggest difference though is Newcastle have Rafa and Everton have Silva. One knows how to an organise a defence, and one has conceded six goals in a game with all three PL clubs he’s managed. Rafa could get eleven lads from the crowd, spend a week training them up and still not concede six goals. Meanwhile, Fabinho had this to say about our tactical approach: “Often, we want to go through the middle and it is difficult against physically strong and defensive teams. We need to find solutions and in these past few games we haven’t.” Yeah no shit Sherlock, I’ve been writing that week in week out all season. John Barnes is in the news today after his defence of Liam Neeson and attack on Winston Churchill. Wise words from Digger, as always, but he’s never issued a truer statement than when he rapped “there’s only one way to beat them, get round the back”. Wednesday Feb 6: Jesse Lingard is asked who he’d rather win the title, us or City. He replied “My voice is a bit sore, I can’t answer that”. How can your voice be sore you thick manc twat? We all know he’d rather City win it and that’s fine, I get it. At least he didn’t say it though (and in doing so pledge support for City), so I’ll give him credit for that. If the situation was reversed and it was United and Everton (don’t laugh) going for the league, I’d probably want United to win. My reasoning is purely because Everton haven’t won anything for so long whereas United have won plenty. I wouldn’t want the Blues ending that drought. If both had won something in recent years then I’d want Everton to win. So I get why United fans want City to win, but what I don’t get is how they can revel in it like they did after 2014. It's the least shitty outcome, but it's still a shitty outcome. Them singing about Gerrard slipping is glorifying their neighbours winning the title. Sad, thick cunts probably don’t see that though. Not sure where I’m going with this other than pointing out United fans are thick knobheads and I hate Lingard. On the field tonight, City had a stroll to three points against an Everton side without it’s three best players, who Marco Silva rested because he’s so desperate to beat Watford at the weekend. Imagine being a Blue. What an utterly horrific, joyless existence it is. Meanwhile, Tim Sherwood knows where we are going wrong. “Allowing Coutinho to leave” and the “incredible” decision to loan out Clyne, which was “a massive error”. It’s not just Sherwood either. That other oracle of knowledge Chris Sutton is in agreement. “Letting Clyne leave on loan – with no ability to recall him – is the biggest mistake Klopp has made at Liverpool. It could cost them the title.” I’m also of the opinion we shouldn’t have loaned out Clyne but it’s being overstated there. We didn’t draw with Leicester and West Ham because of who we had playing at right back and that wasn’t the reason Salah and Firmino did fuck all at West Ham. There are a number of things I’m worried about right now, and the right back position is not at the top of that list. Thursday Feb 7: Ox is in the CL squad. He won’t play against Bayern but should be available for the semis if we get through. If the football Gods didn’t hate us so much I’d be tipping him to score the goal that either wins the title or lands us the European Cup. Given how things usually go for us he’ll probably put through his own net or miss a pen in a shoot out. Glen Johnson was on Talksport today and the Suarez / Evra stuff was all brought up again. I’d forgotten how great Johnson was through all of that. He was one of the few who had the balls to call out Evra over the whole handshake fiasco. Jeez, those were some stressful times weren’t they? The amount of time and energy I spent on all that stuff was ridiculous looking back. It was the injustice of it all though. I hate injustice and there was so much shit went on there to stitch Suarez up. It still bothers me even now, even after he fucked us off and then acted as an estate agent for Coutinho to get him over there too. As horrible a time as it was, there is one incident from that period that cracks me up every time I think of it. After Evra stitched him up over the handshake, United’s players were fucking steaming at Luis and Ferdinand had completely lost his head. In the first minute he went charging over with bad intentions, but Suarez ducked out of the way and Ferdinand took Evra out instead. If we’d have won that game it would have been one of the all time great moments. But we lost, because it’s United at Old Trafford and that’s what always seems to happen. As rabid as they were that day, it will be nothing to how worked up they’ll be in a couple of weeks. Twats. Speaking of United, they gave a new contract to Phil Jones today. Great stuff. Hopefully Smalling gets one too. Friday Feb 8: Ok I’m drawing a line in the sand now over this rampant shithousery I’ve been displaying in recent weeks. It stops here. Now. It’s completely understandable that I and others have been stressing out about the possibility of not winning the title after getting ourselves into such a strong position, but I had an epiphany tonight and from this moment forward I’m going to focus on the positive and just try to enjoy the race we’re in. What happened? I’ll tell you. Tonight I was at my daughter’s footy training and I was talking to one of the other dads. Lovely fella, possibly the nicest Evertonian I’ve ever met. So the conversation starts with me saying how shite the Blues are and it can’t be much fun for him going to the games. He was quite philosophical about it, and the subject comes around to us and the title race. He didn’t really say anything other than “it’s interesting” and “we’ll see what happens”. As for me? I was crying it in like a good ‘un. Telling him how I’m not handling it very well, I’m shitting myself about going to Old Trafford and then, finally, the coup de grace. I said to him “I know this is where we all want to be, but honestly, being top of the league isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”. Yes, I actually said that. To an EVERTONIAN! He’s too nice a fella to say to me “cry me a river you ungrateful, spoiled redshite twat” but that’s surely what he was thinking. Hell, a few minutes afterwards when I got back to the car that’s what I was thinking. I told my daughter what I’d said and she was pissing herself. I may as well have gone up to a homeless person and complained about my bedroom being too warm at night time. What an absolute fucking weapon I am. It took that low point for me to realise the ludicrousness of the entire situation. It means too much to us and that is bringing a pressure that wouldn’t be there if we had a recent title or two under our belts, but we’re in mid February, top of the table (technically we’re second but that’s merely a result of the PL bringing forward City’s easiest game of the season) and have only lost one game. Statistically this is the best season in the club’s entire history, and I’m crying to an Evertonian about how “being top isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”. Fucking hell. What an absolute shithouse. That stops now. We have to enjoy these times and what will be will be. If there's heartbreak at the end of it then I'll worry about it then, not now. Up the Reds! and that was the week that was