Leaderboard

Saturday May 25: Happy Istanbul day. Usually this day depresses me a bit as for many of the years that followed we were a million miles away from that kind of glory. I can enjoy this one though, especially when the world’s greatest player is telling everyone that nothing he’s achieved this season really means much to him because he can’t stop thinking about getting battered at Anfield. These are great days, they shouldn’t be taken for granted. Up the Reds! Tranmere got promoted today. Pleased for them, although I’m not sure why because Tranmere fans seem to hate us, the big weirdos. Nevertheless, I’m happy for them and would love to see them get back to the level they once were, when Aldo was getting them on the fringes of the top flight. It’s mad when you look back on that. They were in the playoff final and were one game away from the Premier League. I didn’t realise at the time just how incredible that was. Would they be the smallest club to play in the Premier League? Maybe Bournemouth is a good comparison, which again shows just what an incredible job Eddie Howe has done there. Especially as he keeps blowing money on our u23 players. Meanwhile, Barca lost the Copa Del Rey. We’ve completely broken them. It isn't just Messi talking about how he can’t think about anything else other than what happened at Anfield, as Pique has said something similar. Glorious. Give us Real next season please. Sunday May 26: Milner reveals that Messi called him a donkey at half time of the first leg. He didn’t say what he called him after the second leg, so I’ll just go ahead and assume it was ‘sir’ or ‘master’. Seriously though, this is just dead funny and makes me love Milner even more than I already did, which I didn’t think was possible. Messi apparently said to him (in Spanish) “that foul was because I nutmegged you”. No shit, Sherlock. That fancy dan bollocks doesn’t fly with Milner. Just ask Neymar. Milner replied to him in Spanish too, which just adds to the hilarity of it as you know Messi wouldn't have expected that. That's how you beat them James, they keep under-estimating you. The beautiful irony about all this is that for all Messi’s snobbery, if Barca had a few 'el burro' types like Milner they wouldn’t have been so easily steamrollered by Roma and us in consecutive years. Meanwhile, Man City’s head honcho says the recent shade that has been thrown their way is based on ethnicity. Get the fuck outta here. Classic case of horrible cunt acts like horrible cunt, and when he’s called on being a horrible cunt he pulls out the race card to deflect away from being a horrible cunt. Depressingly though, his brother is reportedly trying to buy Newcastle, and the owners of PSG are trying to get their hands on Leeds. Why can’t they just fuck off and leave footy alone? Edit: It's not his brother. They have the same name but apparently this Newcastle guy has a whiff of 'fake Sheikh' about him. Imagine if he turned out to be the 'George Weah's cousin' of owners and Newcastle got saddled with him after all the years of trying to get rid of Ashley. I might actually die laughing if it turned out like that. Staying in the North East, what about Sunderland today? Fucking hell that was cruel. It was literally the last kick of the game. Just how many kicks to the balls does one fanbase have to take? My brother in law has been to Wembley seven times now, and they've lost every one. This was probably the worst though. The poor bastards. Monday May 27: Saw a tweet from an Everton account today posting pictures of our lads crying in Kiev and the message was “A year ago today. Happy Anniversary”. It’s bizarre really. I completely get why they’d be happy when we lost. I’ve been in that situation before when United were on the brink of winning something. I was desperate for them to lose and when they did I enjoyed it massively, but it was mostly due to relief that they hadn’t won rather than glee that they lost. A day later it was forgotten about. These are actually celebrating anniversaries of games we lost. It’s beyond obsessive. They went to Spurs and sang about ‘we’re gonna have a party when Tottenham win the cup’. They were also flying Man City flags that day. I spoke to a Blue today who is going to a pub full of Blues to watch the final next week. See, I don’t get this at all. In their situation I’d be praying that Liverpool lost. What I wouldn’t be doing is going out to watch the game and cheer the other team on (while wearing their shirt in some cases). I’d either not watch it at all, or I’d watch it at home just desperately hoping the result turned out favourably. Evertonians are almost acting like they are in the final themselves, only someone else’s players are representing them. Last year they were all buying Madrid shirts. There’ll be Spurs flags flying around the city this week. It’s cringeworthy. Also today, some sad news. Villa are back. Pricks. Glad I never watched it now. I almost did, just because of Harry Wilson, but apparently he had a proper stinker. I saw he was trending on Twitter so I had a little look, and it wasn’t good. He was getting absolutely savaged on there. Who knows if it affects his transfer value or not, but I think it’s safe to say that him staying here next season is definitely not an option as the lad still needs games to continue developing. Sitting in the stands watching our forwards isn’t going to do him any good. Tuesday May 28: As expected, Naby won’t play on Saturday but the good news is Bobby should be fine. It's a little concerning that he hasn't played for six weeks though. I expect he'll start but you can make a case for going with Origi and then bringing Bobby on after an hour. All comes down to how sharp he looks in training I suppose. Meanwhile, trouble at Chelsea. Higuain and Luiz got into it in training, while Sarri lost his shit and threw a strop because the players weren’t listening to him. A lot was made of it, but there’s really nothing out of the ordinary happening here. A Brazilian and Argentinian getting into a scrap and an Italian losing his rag and making extravagant arm gestures is just a normal day for all of them. Nothing to see here, move along. Move along. Wednesday May 29: Loads of great content knocking around this week looking ahead to the final, but nothing will top the Andy Robbo piece with the Players Tribune. Fucking hell, it was spine tingling. He’s the best left back in the world but he’s an even better lad. He’s already right up there with my favourite ever Reds. What a fucking star. There’s loads of good stuff with Klopp too. He just says all the right things all of the time. It’s a cliché, and an overused one at that, but ‘he gets us’. He really does. I wasn’t around in the 60s but I expect this is what it must have been like with Shankly. Everything I’ve ever read about Shanks and all the interviews I’ve seen with him, you can apply most of that to Jurgen now. He’s the catalyst for it all. The leader who inspires everyone to follow him and believe that anything is possible. Shankly built the club into what it is today, but we lost our way there for a while and Jurgen is the one who came in and put it back on the right path. Where we are now is the strongest position we’ve been in since the glory days of the 80s. It’s unfortunate that we’re playing in an era where one financial doping club is proving virtually impossible to pass, but two European finals in 12 months, 97 points in one season and the bond between team and fans is as strong as it’s ever been. And that’s because of one man. He deserves that trophy just to put the exclamation point on it. Meanwhile, on the field tonight Arsenal embarrassed themselves in Baku as Chelsea ran out comfortable winners. I started watching it but couldn’t be arsed as it had the feel of a pre-season game and not a European final. No atmosphere and a weird camera angle, it just didn’t feel like a proper game so I fucked it off. Hazard was asked about his future afterwards and was honest enough to say “I think this might be goodbye”. It’s not really in his hands though, which is no doubt why he wasn’t more emphatic. Will Chelsea sell him when they can’t buy a replacement? Can Madrid afford what the asking price would be? Would he go anywhere else other than Madrid? It’s not a straightforward situation. I wonder if Jurgen has tested the water to see if he’d be open to coming here? I can’t see it, because Hazard seems like a good lad and I doubt he’d disrespect Chelsea by joining another English club, but you never know until you try. It’s really tough signing players from the other top English clubs because we all hate each other. I mean, Sane is stalling on a new deal at City and reportedly wants out. Imagine him in our side, playing for Klopp. He’d be one of the top five players in the world for me, but it won’t happen because City would rather sell him to Bayern for a fiver then accept any offer from us. I heard a journalist on the radio the other day saying they might sell him for around £70m to help them comply with FFP. Hahaha ok mate. They’d need to sell half of their squad, and probably the stadium as well to even get close to complying with FFP. They aren’t interested in complying though so it’s a moot point. Thursday May 30: Danny Murphy says Liverpool or Man United would have filled that stadium last night. He’s probably right, but I feel uneasy about taking the piss out of Arsenal and Chelsea for not selling all their tickets. Criticism should be of UEFA, not the fans of teams who decided “fuck that, we’re not going there”. That being said, if UEFA hosted a European final on the moon and we were in it, the stadium would be full and there’d still be thousands of Reds floating around there hoping to get their hands on a ticket. Speaking of the final, as I said, some of the coverage this week has just been sensational. Everything with Klopp has just been spine tingling (he must have done a dozen interviews and every one of them has been statesmanlike), but there’s been other stuff, with the likes of Robbo, Trent, Virgil... hell even Joel Matip has been talking this week and he was brilliant too. I love this team like no other that's gone before. I’ve said before they’re the best Liverpool team of my lifetime but they’re also, to a man, a great set of lads. Meanwhile, some interesting stuff from Bruno Fernandez today. He’s one of the hottest properties in Europe and there were reports last week that City had agreed a deal for him, but that doesn’t seem likely based on this. Having spoken glowingly about Guardiola and City’s style of play, he then added: "I like Liverpool a lot more, it’s a more direct (style of play), more offensive, maybe less organized, but more intense football, when you do not have the ball possession, you are more intense. In Liverpool they are more individual players, especially in the midfield, usually playing three very aggressive players and recovering the ball, then they have three players at the front who are lethal” He’s an attacking midfielder who had 32 goals and 18 assists this season. He’d cost around £60m, but that’s not even that much these days is it? We have never replaced Coutinho, so unless we can get Coutinho then why not this lad? Friday May 31: Brilliant interview with Sadio in the Mirror today. Fowler was the one speaking to him and it’s just great stuff. Sadio usually doesn’t have too much to say and it’s like getting blood out of a stone, but God worked his magic on this one. Here are some of the highlights: On Klopp: "I never thought it could be like this. It is incredible. Everybody in the team loves Klopp! Usually you go a club and the players are complaining, like, ‘ah the coach…’ but here it is the opposite. Everybody is happy and we do everything together". On the Barcelona game and his future: “Yes, incredible. So incredible. I think after these kind of things, you won’t go anywhere else, because we are the best club and the best fans, so I think this is something incredible…” “This is what makes Liverpool so special, because since I came here it is like, wow. The first time the boss called me, I said: ‘Oh!’ Because before, I have one brother in Senegal, he was saying even when I was still at Salzburg, ‘I want to see you at Liverpool’. “I still remember, he was always saying: “You don’t know about Liverpool, it is a sexy club!’ He was telling me all the time, ‘in Europe, it is the only club, the sexy club…’ “He used to tell me that, and now, he’s telling me, ‘I told you, I told you’. And I never believed that I could play for Liverpool, and even now, I can’t believe it.” Meanwhile, most of my mates are obsessing about tomorrow and some of them can’t sleep. Honestly, I’m completely chilled about the whole thing, mainly because I just haven’t allowed myself to dwell on it. I mean it’s always there, in the back of my head, but I’m not sitting thinking about what might happen and getting myself into a flap over it, as what’s the point? There’ll be plenty of time for that tomorrow, when I’ll be a complete fucking mess. Now though, as I type this, I’m doing what I’ve been doing most of this week. Sitting in my office listening to the Proclaimers on full blast. I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow. Most things seem to point towards us winning but I’m taking nothing for granted because luck always plays a big part in finals and therefore anything can happen. All I know is these lads deserve a trophy and they deserve our trust. I’m not worried about them, but I am worried for them. No team has ever deserved a trophy more than this team do. Let’s hope they get it. See you all on the other side. That was the week that was….