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Saturday Apr 27: Carra is talking up Burnley’s chances tomorrow. I’ve been doing the same for weeks, but now that the moment is almost upon us I’m no longer expecting anything other than a City win. It’s just wishful thinking. We look at these teams and think “if they do this this and that they could really cause City problems”. And you know what? Fucking none of them ever do it. They just curl into a ball and hope they don’t get smashed in the face. Over in Spain, Barca rest Messi ahead of our game but still have enough to get the result they needed too clinch the title. Apparently, according to a couple of ‘news’ items I saw on LFC’s news now page, Liverpool fans are fuming about Messi being rested. What the fuck? Why would anyone be upset about that, it’s just common sense and if Man City didn’t exist then I might have even got a game for us against Huddersfield last night, as Klopp would have rested everyone. I’m so sick of this lowest common denominator bullshit. Websites and papers trawling social media looking for the stupidest comments from randomers who might not even actually support the team they claim they do, and then turning them into ‘news’ items. It just depresses me. Sports journalism is completely fucked. Social media has killed it stone dead. Just have a look at the headlines on newsnow. 75% of it is this kind of shit, and the rest is made up of whatever random shite the likes of Robbie Savage, Paul Merson etc has come out with. Example? How about this from today “Martin Keown and Paul Ince in heated debate over Player of Year award”. Honestly, we’re one step away from articles based on whatever shite Alan Brazil is spouting in his local boozer. The bottom of the barrel was scraped away a long time ago and they’re halfway to the earth’s core. You know what else was deemed worthy of reporting? Tony Bellew, a boxer, picking his team of the year on Twitter. It had no Liverpool players in it and apparently that makes this a story? He’s one of the bitterest blues on the planet, of course he didn’t pick any Liverpool players. More to the point though, why does anybody give a flying fuck what Tony Bellew thinks about this? Do boxing fans have to be subjected to the views retired footballers have on who the top five heavyweights of all time are? No. So why is that Tony Bellew tit showing up on LFC’s newsnow page? I should just stay off there, but I need it for this diary as it’s still the best place to go to find out what’s happening on any particular day. It’s just a pain in the arse sifting through all the tonnes of sloppy dog shite to find it. Most of these papers and websites will literally publish anything these days if it brings in a click or two. Sunday Apr 28: Thanks for nothing Burnley. At least they didn’t roll over I suppose. They actually defended heroically (Mee and Tarkowski were sensational), but they were so focussed on keeping City out they never even bothered trying to do anything at the other end. It was soul destroying. At the very least I expected an aerial bombardment, some roughing up and for Wood and Barnes to really cause problems. We got none of that, it was shit. City won thanks to the shittest of goals, as the football Gods chose to rub our noses it a bit more. “Hey Kopites, remember when you were 11mm away from scoring against City? Well how do like these apples. Three points thanks to a ball that was 23mm over the line”. If we end up on 97 points and don’t win the league, we may as well forget about ever winning it. City lost four games this season. They won’t lose that many next year. So we’re pretty much going to have to win every fucking game more or less. Why? Because neither UEFA or the FA are prepared to do anything about the cunts thumbing their noses at them. Still, no-one is arsed because it stops us from winning the league. Exhibit A: United fans at Old Trafford actually cheered when Aguero scored today. The irony is that United have been as badly hit by City’s rule breaches as anyone, and will continue to be. They aren’t even top dogs in their own city now because their neighbours are cheating like fuck, but they’re happy to accept it if it means we don’t win the title. It’s beyond fucking embarrassing that. Look at what you’ve become, United fans. Just look at it. You’re truly pathetic. So that’s pretty much it now as far as the title is concerned. There is a 0% chance of Brighton taking points off City on the final day, so that only leaves Leicester and Brendan Rodgers. I'd give them a 5% chance of getting anything at the Etihad. The league title went on the day that our destiny was no longer in our own hands and we became reliant on others to stand up to City. Virtually no-one does. They’ve won every game since that defeat at Newcastle. Every fucking game. This is unprecedented shit we’re up against here. There’s no shame in finishing second to them, but there’s plenty of injustice and bitterness. Meanwhile, the u23s had a game at Anfield today and served up an absolute shit sandwich. I’ve been saying all season how I generally can’t be arsed watching them and today showed why. They’re not usually this bad but even when they’re doing well there’s very little to get excited about. I had hoped that Brewster coming back would make them a bit more interesting but it hasn’t. I used to love watching Curtis Jones when he was with the u18s, but now I generally just find it infuriating seeing him hold onto the ball for too long and run down blind alleys. Loads of ability but I’ve officialy gone from being hopeful about him to being worried. Camacho is bang average too. This is probably the least fun reserve side I can ever remember. It should be better next year when some of the u18s move up, but the modern game is all about creative wide players and we no longer have any of those at reserve or youth level. We’ve had Ibe, Wilson, Kent and Ojo but now there aren’t any, which is weird considering how important those type of players are in our first team. Monday Apr 29: Gary Neville - “Rafa Benitez, I think, will want to do a job on Liverpool, on Jurgen Klopp. A resilient, stubborn 0-0, 1-0 victory. Also Gary Neville - "I think Brendan Rodgers will want to go to City and make sure that tactically he matches Pep Guardiola , and show that he can compete at that level. 100% agree on both counts. Any Red thinking that “Rafa will help us out” is living in cloud cuckoo land. Rafa will want to win this game as much as he’s wanted to win any game this season, probably more in fact. “But he loves us!”. Yeah, but he’ll also want to stop Klopp doing what he could never do. It’s only natural, it’s a matter of professional pride and I expect virtually every other top manager would be the same. He should be trying his best to win the game. And ‘win’ is the key word there. If he sends out his team to have a go at us and they beat us by attacking and playing on the front foot, fair play to him. I’d have no issue with that. I don’t expect him to do anything less. Newcastle pay his wages. He owes it to the club and the fans to try to win the game. If he goes out with ten men behind the ball and tries to shithouse his way to a 0-0 that helps nobody, then he can fuck right off. As for Brendan. We know how he thinks. His ego will not allow him to try and shithouse a result. He’ll see himself as every bit Guardiola’s equal and he’ll send his team out to out-Pep Man City. They’ll take the game to them and they’ll try to pass it around. And they’ll probably score a goal or two. And concede four, at least one from one of their defenders getting caught playing around in his own box. Tuesday Apr 30: Spurs have it all to do after losing 1-0 at home to Ajax. It’s easy to mock them but they went into a European semi final without Kane and Son. How would we cope without two of our front three? A full strength Spurs would probably just edge out Ajax in my opinion, but without their two best players that was never going to happen, especially with Pochettino fucking up his tactics so badly. Three at the back against a team who play like Ajax? The only surprising thing to me is Ajax only won 1-0, as the way they started the game it looked like they’d score four or five. Hopefully they finish the job now and reach the final. If we get there, I’d rather play Ajax than Spurs because fuck playing other English teams, and if we don’t get there I’d rather Spurs didn’t because fuck other English teams doing well in our competition. As for us, well it’s not been a good day for our travelling fans. Clashes with police and videos circulating of some tit pushing locals into a fountain. We can go all over Europe and have no incidents at all, but you get a tie like this and it brings out all the big game beauts. Loads of fans over there won’t even be going the game, but because it’s Barcelona people just flock there anyway, including loads of helmets who you wouldn’t normally see. Wednesday May 1: Oh for fucks sake. Barca 3 L 0. Genuinely can’t believe how this played out. We outplayed them in the Nou Camp. Out-passed them, out worked them, had more shots, just generally outplayed them. And lost by three fucking goals. It’s hard to take but I don’t blame anybody for it. Nobody from our side anyway. The ref was shite and Barca’s players took some right liberties (the tackle on Naby, the constant fouling of Salah and Mané, Messi being a cunt, Suarez being an even bigger cunt), but it just wasn’t our night. Maybe next week will be, but I can’t see it. We just can’t seem to catch a break any time we’re within touching distance of a trophy. I know we’re in great shape overall and the big picture looks exciting, but I just can’t bring myself to look to what should be a bright future because I’m just so gutted about the heartbreaking present. Not going to elaborate further on this, as it's all in the match report. Thursday May 2: Yeah don’t feel any better today. In fact I probably feel worse if anything. Going to take a little while to get over this one. Bit of a surreal moment this morning too while watching the ESPN FC show from last night. Stevie Nicol, Craig Burnley & co were discussing the game and a graphic of my player ratings flashed up on the screen. Some fella called Alejandro Moreno started ripping me for giving Robbo 9/10. His ‘logic’ being we lost 3-0 so how can a defender get a 9? Thankfully 'Chico' had my back. Here's the exchange: Moreno: I don’t know how a team loses 3-0 and your left-back gets a nine on the player ratings. Thomas: Stevie you said he was excellent as well, Robertson. Nicol: Absolutely, absolutely, he played some great balls forward. Moreno: A nine? You lost 3-0. Nicol: He made two tackles that were goal-saving tackles and every other thing came down the other side. Moreno: So a nine? A nine? Nicol: Absolutely. Moreno: Losing 3-0. Nicol: Absolutely. Moreno: Semi-final of the Champions League. Nicol: Yep. Moreno: Okay, excellent. Nicol: Never put a foot wrong all night and saved two goals. I don’t know what else you want from him. Moreno: Well not allow three goals. Nicol: By the way he put a couple of fantastic balls in the box as well. Moreno: I’m not going to get caught up on whether Robertson has a nine or not. I can tell you that, or anybody, you can’t get a nine when you lose 3-0. I’m just saying. Nicol: So if the goalkeeper makes 20 saves and you lose 3-0, are you going to give him a five? Moreno: He doesn’t get a nine, but whatever. It’s neither here nor there. It was a weird feeling watching it as I had no way to fight my corner against such drivel, but even if I had I’d have struggled to do it better than Nicol did. He can talk some right bollocks himself at times but he was on the right side of the argument tonight and it was boss having a Liverpool legend sticking up for me. When it comes to assessing LFC full backs, I’ll go with the opinion of one of the greatest we ever had over that of a fella who’s name sounds like one of the worst. I often joke that Moreno must be Spanish for ‘moron’, but now I’m beginning to wonder if it actually is. The funny thing is I had seriously considered giving Robbo a 10 as I thought his performance was incredible. I mean fucking hell, the Barca coach even brought on a second right back just to try and slow him down a bit. And what about that at the end when he had Messi, Suarez and (I think) Rakitic bearing down on him and he managed to stop them? That was amazing. He slowed them down, forced Messi to pass to Suarez (who would have been on his weaker foot) and then turned on the after burners to eat up the ground and make the block. Everyone raved about Virgil against Sissoko, but this was next level. It was Messi, Suarez and Rakitic against Robbo on his own, and Robbo won. Meanwhile, the Spanish press plumb new depths in their ‘get Salah to Spain’ campaign. Today’s bullshit story is that Salah told Messi after the game he wants to join him at Camp Nou. Yeah, ok, sure. I'd be surprised if he even spoke to anyone as he looked devastated at the end. Final word on this, I saw a clip today of the Barca celebrations after Messi’s free kick and Suarez runs right out of his way to go to Robbo and rub his nose in it. He’s dead to me now, if we can’t go through next week then the one thing I’m hoping for is that someone twats him or manages to get him sent off so he misses the final. Goofy cunt. Friday May 3: Naby is out for two months. Such a shame as he’d just clicked into gear and was looking smooth. I thought he had a big of swag about him the other night before he got injured. His first season has been a disappointment overall but he’s settled now and next year he should be great for us. His injury opens the door for Ox now. If there is such a thing as the 'Football Gods', given the way they’ve repeatedly shit on us (and Ox) they owe us something in the next couple of weeks. An Ox winner against Barca, or maybe the goal that clinches the title against Wolves? Just give us something. Anything. Come on, football gods, for fucks sake give us a little help here. Meanwhile, the absolute state of this. “What I loved about Raheem was that, for a young boy, he knew what he wanted to be. He wanted to be one of the best players in the world. For Raheem, it was never about money. If it was about money he could have stayed at Liverpool. It was about being the best he could be.” Fucking hell, if we didn’t need a favour from him on Monday night I’d be fucking annihilating Brendan for that nonsense. It’s utter bollocks from start to finish. What 17 year old footballer doesn’t want to be the best in the world? And it may never have been JUST about money, but he repeatedly turned down contract offers because the salary wasn’t what he wanted, and eventually he joined City for 200k a week, which was at least double what we’d offered, so not sure how that ties in with ‘if it was just about money he could have stayed at Liverpool’. Brendan, get us a result on Monday and we’ll pretend this embarrassing shit never happened. Deal? That was the week that was….

Thanks for nothing, Burnley. Ok, that’s a little harsh as they did all they could to keep City out, and did a pretty damn good job of it truth be told. 2cm away from a clean sheet is a pretty decent effort. Problem is they completely forgot about attacking. Look, I know it was always a long shot, but this was the game that should have been most problematic to City. In some ways it was, but I saw none of the things I thought Burnley might be able to do to unsettle City in defence. It’s pretty demoralising when so many teams fail to exploit the weakness in Man City. They’ve got no defensive midfielders and a highly questionable back four. Yet hardly anyone is able to lay a glove on them because they’re terrified of getting caught at the other end. City were shite against Burnley but it didn’t matter because they didn't have to worry about anything defensively. Nothing at all. Did Burnley even have a shot? A corner? No, it was just shite. My boy Ashley Barnes didn't get a kick. I blame all the desperate Reds using him as their twitter avatars. They'll jinx Jamie Vardy too no doubt. Here's a thought, how about changing to Aguero instead? The ol' classic reverse jinx. It was really hard watching this. Far more stressful than watching our games because this is completely out of our hands. Having to rely on limited teams like is tough and massively frustrating to watch. I’m not going to watch their game with Leicester as there doesn’t seem to be any point. If they drop points I’ll be overjoyed regardless of whether I watch it or not, but if they win I don’t want to be sitting through that shit. It’s the arrogance of the cheating fucks that’s the hardest thing to take. Guardiola has already said they’ll beat Leicester, and there was that goal-line technology screenshot thing their official account tweeted out. They’re just horrible bastards, thumbing their noses at everyone while getting away with rampant cheating. I hate everything about them. From Guardiola’s stupid bald head to the cynical counter attack stopping fouls that never earn them bookings (Sterling produced a textbook on elf those on Barnes early on. No yellow card). From Kompany’s big horrible ‘Ken Griffey Jr in the Simpsons’ bulb head to their shitty fans and their stupid “Invisible man” chant. You aren’t invisible, those are just empty seats. From Aguero and his pigeon shit hairstyle (you’re in your 30s, grow up) to Sterling and little dinosaur run. From Emerson and his hideous face and shit tattoos, to Bernardo Silva the snide little oldest youngster in town cunt. Fuck all of them. I keep hearing Reds talking about how ‘wouldn’t it be great if they got their comeuppance and dropped points’ but how often does life work out like that? ‘Cheats never prosper’ is the most ridiculous expression in the history of mankind. They do prosper. They always have. They always will. For every Ben Johnson there are a thousand Diego Maradonas. PSG have cheated they away to dominance in France and City have done it over here. And no-one is prepared to do anything about it. Cheats always prosper except on the rare occasions they don’t, when people trot out that lame statement. Teams should be going out there wanting to kick fuck out of City and fighting tooth and nail to get a result. Not to help us, but because City’s cheating affects everyone. From Burnley to Man United, everyone is impacted by it. No-one's arsed though, because y'know, scousers not winning the league bantz, lol. Aaaaaanyway, moving on. Spurs had a 100% record at their new home going into the weekend. Then they lost twice in four days. The loss to Ajax in midweek wasn’t the biggest of upsets given that Kane and Son were both out, but West Ham turning them over was a bit of a shocker. It wasn’t a fluke though. Both teams had their chances but West Ham were the only side to take one. Great goal too. Arnautovic crossed for Antonio to bring it down on his chest and lash one in. He’s been useless for most of the season but he’s tearing shit up now is Antonio. He also gave the happiest post match interview I’ve ever seen. He laughed the whole way through it. Seems like a good lad him. Spurs almost levelled in stoppage time but Janssen’s header was cleared off the line. “Who’s this Janssen then?” I said to myself. After looking it up, it’s only fucking Vincent Jansson!!! Remember that bum? Didn't they buy him with the Bale money? How on earth is he still a Spurs player? I thought he’d left two or three years ago. Can’t wait until next week when they bring that Soldado bum off the bench. Spurs have lost 13 games this season but remain in third because the chasing pack are all shitting the bed. I'll get to those shortly though. There was a belter of a game at St Mary’s as Southampton secured their survival with a 3-3 draw with Bournemouth. Shane Long opened the scoring with his fourth goal in five games. I haven’t checked, so I’m not 100% certain on this stat but I believe he’s scored more goals this last month than he had in the whole of his career. Bournemouth equalised through that Dan Gosling jabroni. Glorious goal it was too, a classic counter attack that started in their own box. Lovely football that. They're such a good counter attacking side, except when they're refusing to cross the halfway line against Man City of course. Twats. Long then missed an open goal by hitting the post. Normal service resumed there then. I shouldn’t take the piss out of Long as I actually really like him as a player. He doesn’t score many but I always feel that he’s a handful and causes problems. He’s like a Poundland Jamie Vardy only without the goals. Wilson then put Bournemouth ahead before Ward-Prowse fired in an equaliser from 20 yards. Seven goals for him now, and you can add him to the list of Premier League midfielders more deserving than Paul Pogba of a spot in the PFA Team of the Season. Substitute Matt Targett headed the Saints in front again but with four minutes remaining my boy Ryan Fraser crossed for Wilson to score his second of the game. If Cardiff had won at Craven Cottage that goal would have been devastating for Southampton, but as it turns out it didn’t really matter because…. Fulham won for the third game in a row, which has all but sent Cardiff down. There’s still a chance for them if they beat Palace and United, but if you can’t beat Fulham then why would anyone think they can win their last two, even if one of them is against the hopeless Mancs? In fairness, they could have beaten Fulham. They had loads of chances but they didn’t take any of them and they lost to a Ryan Babel worldy. He’s been really good for them and has done enough to get himself a decent move in the summer. Despite his age he’s a better player now than when he played for us, and he doesn’t look to have lost any speed either. Weird how he bummed around for most of his 20s and then all of a sudden he became good when he should be getting worse. He was never one to conform to normal trends though. Cardiff threw everything at them in the last ten minutes. They hit the bar and also brought six saves out of Spider Rico in the Fulham goal. They had more chances in the last ten minutes than they’d had in the previous half a dozen games. Seven good chances in ten minutes is some going like, but it makes you wonder just what the fuck they were doing for the previous 80. Sitting back being happy with a point, it would seem. Cardiff were denied a stonewall pen early doors too. That almost goes without saying these days though. So much so that even Warnock never bothered moaning about it on MOTD. He even said the ref had a good game. He's up to something. The main beneficiaries of the Cardiff loss were Brighton, who draw at home with Newcastle. Ayoze Perez went off injured after giving the Geordies the lead. Great news that, as it means he’s unlikely to play against us, and therefore won’t be able to make me eat my words for all the years I called him ‘that loser Ayoze Perez’. The ‘worm with eyebrows’, Almiron, won’t be playing either as he’s done for the season. Again, big win for me that. Now I only have to worry about Paul Dummett. Brighton must have been thinking they were never going to score again. It had been six games or something, the longest barren spell in club history. They should have had a penalty when Ritchie shoved Murray in the back. Mike Dean was unimpressed and made sure everyone knew it. He’s in charge of City’s next game and he might be our best (only?) hope of them dropping points. Imagine if an official from Merseyside screwed them over. The fume would be off the charts, yet fuck all was said when Manchester’s Anthony Taylor didn’t send Kompany off against us. No, I'm not going to stop going on about that. It's going to burn inside me forever. Gross finally ended Brighton’s drought to get them a point, which could be crucial considering their next two games are against Arsenal and City. They’re relying on Cardiff not picking up points now as Brighton aren’t getting another one (although it's Arsenal so...). This draw, coupled with their superior goal difference, means that Cardiff have to win both games as a win and a draw wouldn’t be enough now. Ideally Cardiff will win this weekend and at least take it to the final day. Not that Brighton have a hope in hell against City, but I’d prefer them to at least have something to play for. If they’re safe, they won’t even try. Wolves and Watford met in the rematch from the FA Cup semi the other week and Wolves got their revenge courtesy of goals from Jimenez and Jota, either side of an Andre Gray strike. I like both of them, they're like Bobby and Sadio lite. Ben Foster did hell of a job of exonerating himself from any blame for the Wolves winner. He went running out trying to catch a fine deep cross from Neves but he got nowhere near it and Jota had an open goal. You and I might look at that and say “that’s a howler from the keeper” but you and I would be wrong, apparently. Here’s what Foster said on MOTD “It’s a very windy day and he’s just lumped the ball to be honest with you. I was humming and harring as to whether I could get it, but the wind’s pushed it to the back post. But we can’t let players run in unmarked and get on the end of things like that”. So in summary, shit hopeful cross that got caught on the wind and none of the defenders picked up Jota. Not my fault, guv, honest. Wonder what he blamed Aubamayeng’s goal on a couple of weeks ago? My guess is sunshine, moonlight and the boogie. Finally on Saturday, bringing up the rear, taking up their rightful place in the graveyard slot on MOTD, it’s the Blues. They were all cock-ahoop- after spanking United, but they followed it up with a 0-0 at Palace. Disappointing that, as I was sure they’d lose. No matter. The MOTD analysts focused on that Calvert-Lewin turd and his lack of goals. Shearer and Wright spoke of things that he can be taught about movement and positioning in the box, and then Shearer said, with a straight face, “Big Duncan Ferguson is there so I’m sure he’ll be teaching him these things”. Hahahahahahahahahaha. To think there are people out there who say Shearer is a boring unfunny twat. Belter. Good one Big Al. Finally, Sunday’s games. I’ve already spoke about City’s win at Burnley so that just leaves Arsenal’s loss at Leicester and then Chelsea and United playing out a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford. Solksjaer selected a much stronger team against Chelsea than he had against City, which jut confirms what we already knew about where their priorities lay. Mata scored early to give them a dream start but a howler from the Werewolf allowed Chelsea to level through Alonso. Proper shite that De Gea now. That was so, so bad. All those years when he was like Superman, and now he's Massimo Taibi. Still, never mind, eh? The second half was dreadful. Nothing really happened, although Rojo somehow escaped a red card for a scandalous lunge on Willian that could easily have broken the Chelsea man’s leg. I say ‘somehow’ but it’s simple really; Martin Atkinson was the ref. Higuain should have won it with the last kick of the game but he’s a fraud and frauded it up, the big fat fraud. Arsenal were shite but they were hampered by an early red card for Maitland-Niles. The first booking was clear, the second one was a little bit more contentious in that he barely touched Maddison. From Michael Oliver’s view though it will have looked a bad one, and it’s hard to blame the ref for that. Maddison loves a dive, as I’ve been saying all season. He explained it away as “it was a bad tackle and I had to jump out of the way”. That’s fair enough, but he didn’t just jump out of the way. He went down hard and stayed down, rolling about and making it look like he was hurt. It was a stupid tackle and he probably deserved to go just for diving in when already on a yellow, but Maddison’s done him there. Maitland-Niles obviously knows him from England u21s too and you could see him saying “that’s poor Madds, I didn’t touch you”. It was poor. Very poor. But let’s have more of the same this Monday night, Madds. He’s defo up for it like, he said afterwards “let’s go to the Etihad on Monday and keep it interesting”. Go ‘ed lad. Leicester were really good. Vardy looked sharp as fuck (he always does, to be fair) and Maddison and Tielemans behind him were bright and creative. They combined for the opener when Maddison picked Tielemans out with a whipped cross and the Belgian headed in. Vardy doubled the lead with a goal only he could have scored and only Arsenal could have conceded. Schmeichel’s long goal kick beat both Arsenal centre backs and Vardy raced through and got there before the keeper before playing a one two with the crossbar and heading in. He’s great. Definitely my favourite non-LFC player. After all the nice things I’ve said about him this season it would be nice if he paid me back on Monday. He made it 3-0 deep into stoppage time with a tap in after brilliant work by Ricardo. He’s boss him. He might be the least talked about boss player in the league. Trent deserved a spot in the PFA Team but this lad ran him really close and probably would have got in if he played for a ‘big six’ team. Leicester may well be in the top six next season as since Brendan has come in they’ve looked better than Arsenal and United, and with Chelsea’s transfer ban there’s a real chance for someone to break the big six monopoly. Leicester did it before when they finished above all of us. Hell, if they take points off City on Monday I’d be more than happy for them to win the title again next year. Seems like a fair trade off to me. Come on Brendan, Madds, Vardy and Mike Dean. You’re our last hope now.

This has really hit me hard. We went there and played great, but somehow we've come away with the same scoreline that United did after their pitiful showing here a few weeks back. Football is a right bastard at times. For two years I’ve been desperate to play these and despite the result, in a weird kind of way the game proved why. I was convinced we could get at them and we did. But if you don’t take your opportunities then you have absolutely no chance of beating anybody, let alone a team with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez in it. Klopp described it as “our best away performance in the Champions League” and I agree with him. We were much the better side for most of the game, yet the tie is all but over now and I’m just fucking gutted. Be careful what you wish for I guess. Some people are asking “how did we lose that game at all, let alone 3-0?” but there’s no mystery here. It’s pretty simple. We missed too many chances (some of them sitters) and we were made to pay for that by the greatest player in the world. Lady Luck pulled down her knickers and shit all over us again too. It’s really hard to take because they were there for the taking. We had them right where we wanted them but in the end it could have been much worse than 3-0 because the last 15 minutes were a complete, disorganised, desperate shambles. It really shouldn’t have been that way though. Not given how we played. Did anyone expect us to go there and play as progressively as that? We treated that game like we were playing away at Bournemouth. We pushed high up, pressed them in their own half and actually had more possession than them. At times they were just hoofing it to clear the danger and they had everyone bar Messi and Suarez back behind the ball. That’s not how I expected it to go. I knew we could hurt them but I thought it would be from quick counter attacks and exploiting the space behind their full backs. I expected us to play more defensively than usual but to use our speed and skill on the break. Instead, like I say, we just went out there and played like we were up against a mid-table Premier League side. And that’s what the game looked like, barring one minor detail. Mid-table Premier League sides don’t have Messi. We were clearly the better team but it didn’t matter in the end because that one great player made all the difference. I’m still finding it hard to process it all. Nobody goes to the Nou Camp and plays like we did. It just doesn’t happen, it was commendable. We went there and stood toe to toe with them. There was no thought about keeping it tight and getting a result to take back to Anfield. We just went out there and attacked them. We dominated that game and were the better side for most of it. Yet we lost by three and they could have scored another three on the break late on. Klopp sprung a few surprises in his team selection with no Trent, Bobby or Hendo in the starting line up. I don’t think it was a great surprise that Gomez got the nod at right back, as Barca rampage forward down that side through Alba so it made sense to shore things up with the more defensive minded Gomez. In hindsight though, it was a weird one, and I’ll explain why. Selecting Gomez makes perfect sense if you’re going to play a tight, counter attacking game with the emphasis on defending. I’m sure we all thought that’s how we’d approach the game, but that’s not what we did at all. We tried to win the tie in this leg, which isn’t how it’s usually done. Now we can argue to and fro about whether that’s the approach we should be taking (personally I loved it), but one thing I’m sure we can all agree on is that if we are going to blitz them and play on the front foot for the entire game while sending the full backs on overlaps and generally looking to attack them at every opportunity, then Trent is far more suited to that than Joe is. That was a mistake. Gomez offered nothing in the final third and I don’t even think what he gave us defensively was that significant an upgrade on what Trent would have. Playing Gini as a false nine, in Bobby’s role, was a weird one too. That being said, if Salah and Mané had taken their chances we’d be hailing that move as a stroke of genius. Wijnaldum did a good job in terms of occupying space and helping to stop Barca dominating possession as they normally do. But he's not Bobby, so it weakened us considerably. It’s hard to criticise the tactics and selection though when we’ve gone to the Nou Camp and dominated. We had them on the ropes for a lot of this game so the tactical set up clearly worked, even if it did look a little unorthodox. When it’s all said and done though, it comes down to putting the ball in the net and we didn’t do it. I’m torn on how to feel about this. A long term view would be to say that this performance showed just how good this team is and what it can become. The short term view (which is dominating my feelings right now) is that we lost and we’re almost certainly going to win nothing again. It hurts like fuck because these lads have done so well and given us so much this season, and for what? Yet more heartbreak by the looks of it. Leaving the emotion out of it and looking at it from a purely logical point of view, we’re in a really strong situation with this manager and group of players. They’re special and despite the result here they showed it. It’s very rare you see anyone go to Camp Nou and play like this. Sure, teams will go there and maybe pull off a smash and grab, but who goes there and has more possession and creates more chances (last few minutes of madness apart) than them? It’s almost unheard of, but we did it. Unfortunately we didn’t take any of them and they’ve got Messi. That’s why we’re virtually out of the competition and hanging on only by the faintest of threads. You never know of course, and strange things happen at Anfield on European nights, but our goose was probably cooked the moment Mo missed that late sitter. If we’d nicked that late away goal it would have changed everything. We would have only needed to win 2-0 next week, but just as importantly it would have completely changed the mood in both camps. We’d have had something to cling to and they’d be kicking themselves for leaving the door a little ajar. We didn’t get that crucial goal though because Salah’s right foot is - and let me be brutally honest here because someone has to - fucking garbage. It’s been hindering him all season as loads of times he’s failed to take chances because he’s so desperate to get onto his left foot. This was the worst yet though. It’s an open goal. Net gaping. Six yards. And he hits the fucking post. At the risk of going all ‘yer da’ here, how can a player as good as he is be so completely fucking rancid on his weaker foot? Does he even bother working to improve it or is he happy to just do everything with his left peg? Seriously, he should be embarrassed and ashamed at that miss. Whatsmore, he should be staying behind after training every day and shooting with his right peg until he’s as two footed as Mané is. He’d played well prior to that too, but what does it matter when he’s missing a chance like that? I’d rather he played like dogshit and taken the one opportunity that came his way. It’s not just him, mind. Milner missed a sitter as well and Mané could have done better with a presentable chance he had in the first half. It’s so frustrating because it’s the small details that have turned what would have been arguably our most impressive European performance ever into a fucking 3-0 defeat. 95% of this game was outstanding, but that 5% has fucked us. Big time. We started the game brilliantly and were right in their faces. We were pushed right up into their box pressing them and we tried to play the game in their half. I doubt they were expecting that and they never looked comfortable at all other than when the ball was at Messi’s feet. Every time he picks the ball up your heart is in your mouth. Even when he’s on the halfway line it’s still terrifying because he just turns and runs, and attracts three or four defenders to him. That leaves so much space for everyone else and he can usually find them. I said prior to the game that he’s the only thing that scares me about them and I stand by it. Suarez scored and was a pain in the arse, while Alba is always a threat too, but Messi is the problem, not them. He's almost impossible to stop, certainly if you play as adventurously as we do. Chelsea had some success against him but that was with eleven men behind the ball. We don’t play like that so stopping him is really hard. All things considered, the lads did a pretty good job on him. What can you do though when your luck is out? Messi’s first was a tap in after three or four lucky bounces went their way, and the second was a 35 yard free-kick into the top corner. It took the slightest of nicks of Gomez on the way through and that tiny deflection helped put it just out of the reach of Alisson into the top corner. Of course no-one is mentioning that because it doesn’t fit in with the mass sucking of Messi’s little micro cock (I’m assuming it’s tiny, like Maradona’s. There has to be some trade off for being blessed with all that talent, surely?). There was not really anything the likes of Alisson, Fabinho and the back four could do about it, especially when Messi won the free-kick by jumping in the air and landing a left hook to Fabinho’s head. I mean fucking hell, it’s hard enough playing against him but when the ref is allowing shit like that to go on, what hope do you have? If that was some little nomark doing that and not Messi, UEFA would be looking at video evidence and suspending him. Can’t be banning the world’s greatest player from such a showpiece event though, can they? I’d also like to know what the fuck went on with the Mané penalty incident in the first half. Was that not referred to VAR, or did the video ref look at it and think it was fine? Maybe Mané was a fraction offside and that’s why it wasn’t looked at? The whole thing is confusing to me, as in our game with Porto it felt like the video was involved in every decision. To me it’s a penalty (unless he was offside), but if the ref watches a replay and is happy with his initial take, then ok. But the technology is there, why are they not using it? Maybe the VAR called in sick, because for once there was no involvement from him at all. Mané was tormenting them in the first half and clearly had the beating of his man (who often resorted to blatantly fouling him and getting away with it). Him and Robbo were terrorising them down that flank while Mo was frequently getting the better of Alba and that shite left sided centre half (who again, just resorted to shirt pulling). He’s a huge weak link, we should have exploited that more really, especially after he was finally given a yellow card. It was all going so well. The only negative was the loss of Naby to a groin injury. Not sure what caused it, but the fucking awful challenge on him by Rakitic wouldn’t have helped. Scissor tackle from behind? In what world is that not a booking? Barca world, apparently. The same world where punching an opponent in the head gets you a free-kick and him a booking. Naby was looking good too, but his replacement was Hendo who probably should have started anyway. Klopp wanted fresh legs, which is fair enough, but Hendo’s a fit lad and he’d had four days rest. Leaving the captain out of a game like this when he was in such great form was baffling to me, and I imagine he’ll have been seething. He made a bright start when he came on and produced a peach of a ball to Mané who couldn’t keep his shot down. Barca were clearly worried as they kept surrounding the ref over every little decision. Messi was fouled by Milner and rolled and rolled and rolled like Neymar in the World Cup while his outraged team-mates (led by Suarez, of course) demanded a booking for Milner. Even worse was Messi’s ludicrous reaction to the ball deflecting up off Matip’s foot and brushing his hand after he made a challenge in the box. There isn’t an official in the world who would have given a penalty for that yet Messi spent the next five minutes following the ref all over the field complaining about it. All of this told me they were rattled. They knew how good we were and that they had their hands full. All good. Then we conceded out of nothing. Fucks sake. It was bad defending all round. Gomez didn’t deal well with the switch of play, Henderson didn’t get close enough to Alba to prevent the cross, Van Dijk inexplicably didn’t go with the run of Suarez and Alisson gambled which way the ball was going and guessed wrong. If he’d stayed on his feet he’d have saved it. Really poor from several players. Suarez predictably went nuts with his celebration and I’ll say my piece on this later. The reaction to going behind was ok but it understandably unsettled us a little. More significantly, it lifted them and their crowd. I don’t get all the talk about the Nou Camp atmosphere. 98,000 people in there whistling when any decision doesn’t go their way doesn’t make it a good atmosphere. I’ve been there twice and it was awful. Shit fans full of a sense of entitlement. They’re loud when they score but when the chips are down that crowd is shite. Coutinho was booed off when he was subbed too. Maybe he’s not enough of a snide cunt to fit in? Klopp was right. He could have been a legend here, but he’s just another player there, an afterthought even. A lot of you are thinking “He made his bed, let him lie in it”. I get it, but personally I’d go and drag him out of that bed and tuck him back into the one he left here. That’s a conversation for another time though. We had them reeling but the goal woke the crowd up and the remainder of the first half was difficult. Suarez was acting the cunt and him and Robbo got into it and had to be kept apart in the tunnel. I didn’t think I could love Robbo more than I already do, but I was wrong. Messi apart, he was the best player on the pitch. Phenomenal performance at both ends. So the second half starts and it’s almost complete Liverpool dominance. The only reaction from their crowd is to howl for free kicks and whistle if they don’t get them, or whistle their own players any time they gave away possession, which was a lot. The first 20 minutes or so of that second half was surreal. We had them pinned back, they couldn’t get the ball and when they did they couldn’t keep it. We had chances and looked really threatening. Their coach even took the unusual step of removing one of their forwards (the ineffective Coutinho) and sent on a second full back to try and stop Robbo. And then, just like that they got a fucking spawny second goal out of absolutely nothing. The only scant consolation I can take from that was at least it wasn’t Suarez who scored. Such a massive kick in the balls though. The weird thing is I saw it coming. You’ll never guess what game I was thinking of about five minutes before we conceded. I swear, I was having flashbacks from Hull City away a couple of seasons back when we lost 2-0. Yes, that’s right, I was watching us playing Barcelona away and thinking “this is like when we played Hull, we’re gonna concede one out of absolutely nowhere here”. I suppose that’s a sign of how far this team has come that we're in the Nou Camp and I'm thinking it was like playing Hull. The second goal was just a killer because at this point we have a choice. Keep the 2-0 and make sure it doesn’t get worse, or go all out to try and get the away goal. Obviously we went with the latter option, which was definitely the best way to go as that’s our natural game. That’s what got us here, so why go away from that? Klopp wanted to score, and it made sense. Bobby belatedly came on and we were still playing quite well. It wasn’t until they got the third goal that things really went south. After that it was a hot mess and Klopp lost his head as far as I’m concerned. We should have pulled one back immediately from the kick off when Mané caused confusion, Bobby had a shot cleared off the line and Mo hit the post with the goal gaping. After that we were lucky not to concede a bagful. Origi was sent on and the message was clear; try and score at all costs. We were throwing everyone forward and in stoppage time Klopp was even telling Alisson to go up for a corner. Thankfully the keeper had more sense than that and stayed home, but what the fuck, Jurgen? It’s half time, that kind of shit is just stupid. What made it even more insane was that every time we had a corner they managed to break on us. Why would you risk not having your keeper back there? On one occasion Robbo was back on his own against three of the cunts. They didn’t score, because Robbo is boss and some of the other lads raced back to help. We were living so dangerously though, and it’s lucky that Dembele’s finishing was as bad as ours. He missed two late sitters that would have completely taken the tie away from us. Now? It’s going to be extremely tough and the odds are against us, but there’s still a slim chance. Had Dembele taken either of those there’d be no way back. If our finishing is sharp next week then who knows. We’ll create chances because their defence is shite and their midfield is massively over-rated too. Roma beat them 3-0 last season and we’re better than Roma. I’m not giving up completely but in all probability we’re fucked now. Still, we needed three goals in twenty minutes against Dortmund and got them, so there is still a tiny chance we could turn it around, but to be honest I’m dreading next week now because they’re going to crank up the shithousery several notches. It’s going to be unbearable watching the cheating and play-acting and constant breaking up of play. I still feel like we’re a better team than Barcelona but they’ve got Messi and I can’t see us keeping a clean sheet next week with him around. He’s a little twat like, and his playacting to try and get Milner in trouble was unbecoming of someone with his talent and reputation. I expect that shit from Neymar, Suarez or Ronaldo. Messi is usually above that because he rarely needs to do it. In a way it’s a compliment that he felt threatened enough by us to delve into his bag of dark arts. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given the company he keeps. Which brings me to you know who. Let me first state that there are people within his own family that don’t love Luis Suarez as much as I did. Even now, I’d not completely been able to rid myself of it. I probably needed this game to finally sever that emotional tie. He's officially dead to me now. He celebrated his goal like it was the winner in the final. Fair enough, I don’t have any real issue with that really, as it’s who he is. He also continually left his foot in on people, picked a fight with Robbo, picked another one with Alisson and generally just acted the twat all night, rolling around and trying to get our lads booked. Again, fair enough. That’s how he plays and we loved him for it when he was doing it for us. He’s not doing it for us anymore though. He’s doing it against us. This is the point. He doesn’t owe us a thing and we knew this is exactly how he’d act. Shit, I’m willing to bet he pulls the same kind of shit when he’s having a kick around with Delfina in his back garden. It’s who he is. It’s what makes him great. But it goes both ways. He's entitled to do all that, and we're entitled to think he's a twat for doing it. Usually with former players we're warm and welcoming (with one or two notable exceptions), but we don’t owe Luis Suarez a fucking thing. His loyalties are 100% with Barcelona now and no amount of patronising little soundbites about how he loved his time here changes any of that. I hope he doesn’t come out with any of that fucking nonsense next week. He played for us. He was great. We loved him. He fucked off. We were just a stepping stone for him to get where he wanted to. He loves us about as much as Lukaku loves Everton. When he comes here next week, I want our lads to boot fuck out of him and I want Anfield to be like a fucking bear pit. No room for sentiment, fuck him. And don’t ever fucking bring him back for any of those charity matches either. Fuck that shit. Let him play for Barca’s legends side, not ours. Don’t applaud him next week, don’t sing his name, give him absolute fucking hell, because what he did for us counts for nothing anymore. He’s just a rival player pulling any little trick he can to give himself an edge over our team, and he should be treated as such. I only hope that Klopp is telling the lads to do everything they can to rile him up and get him sent off. Stand on his foot at set-plays, pinch him, insult his mother, just do whatever it takes to get him to react and then hit the deck like a sack of shit. You have to play these cunts at their own game. Along with Madrid, there are no bigger shithouses in European football. They have it down to a fine art and because of who they are, referees are to scared to do anything about it. Next week, do whatever it fucking takes to get at them, legal or not. Especially Suarez. And Busquets. And Alba. Fuck Messi too. He’ll probably be applauded off after he’s knocked us out as people will want to show how ‘sporting’ they are and to recognise his greatness. To quote the great Steve Buscemi in Reservoir Dogs: “Fuck all that”. He rolled for about 20 yards to try and get Milner and booking and then laughed about it. He went mad wanting a penalty for the clearest ball to hand incident you’ll ever see. He punched Fabinho in the head before falling over to win the free-kick he scored from, and the little cunt was in the ref’s ear from minute one complaining about everything. Fuck him, the tax dodging, choking in World Cups, Chelsea enabling little shithouse. No wonder Ronaldo hates him. He pulls all the same shit Ronaldo does (ok, maybe not the rape) but gets none of the heat for it because he’s St Lionel of Catalunya. Well fuck him, I hope Fabinho snaps him in half next week. As you can tell, I’m not handling all this at all well. I’m now pretty much resigned to this team ending the season with nothing and it’s really hard to take. It feels as though we’re destined to never fucking win anything again. There’s always something gets in the way, and often it seems to be things that aren’t in our control. I have no blame or recriminations, and people looking to certain individual players or dissecting every decision Klopp has made really ought to stop. Klopp and the lads have been incredible this season. Hell, they were incredible in this game. Like I said at the beginning, you just don’t see teams play like this in the Nou Camp. It doesn’t happen. The result was a complete anomaly that didn’t reflect the game itself, but it’s typical of the kind of shit that happens to us when we get within touching distance of a trophy. If I have one criticism it would relate to the failure to bring in another high quality front three option last summer. I’m not talking about signing cover, I think we needed to sign competition for them. We have competition everywhere else, but we have three forwards and whenever any of them are missing it’s been Origi, Sturridge and now Wijnaldum. In Kiev, when Mo went off, it was Lallana. That’s a problem and it needs to be addressed this summer, because the drop off from any of the front three to their replacements is just too big. We’re well set everywhere else, so I’d be all in favour of spending basically the whole budget on someone on the same level as Salah and Mané. It concerns me that the reports coming out from journalists closest to the club are that the plan is to bring Brewster into the squad and give Origi a new contract. No no no no no no. We’ve seen what happens whenever one of the front three is missing. We can cope against Watford or Brighton or whoever, but against the very best teams we need quality. Having to play Wijnaldum in Bobby’s place because none of the back up forwards can be trusted says it all. We’ve been fortunate that the front three have stayed fit for almost the entire season. We can’t always rely on that though, and hopefully if Klopp didn’t know that already, he does now. The biggest problem we have though, and one which I’m not sure how we can solve, is that in the decisive moments when trophies are on the line we just don’t have any fucking luck whatsoever. We just can’t catch a break when it really matters. I’m just fucking sick of being bridesmaids all the time. Star man is Robbo with an honourable mention to ol’ Big Bird who was terrific too. Team: Alisson; Gomez, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Milner (Origi), Keita (Henderson), Wijnaldum (Firmino); Salah, Mané: