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Saturday Jul 13: Can’t believe I forgot to mention this yesterday, but Crouchy announced his retirement. I love him. He’s top ten in my all time favourite Reds list. He’s one of the most under-rated players we’ve had, and also one of England’s most under-appreciated. He was technically brilliant. Great feet, great balance and a superb finisher. His height was an advantage in some ways as it helped him score a shitload of headers, but it held him back in others because if he was a foot shorter and had blistering pace he’d probably have been an even better player than he was because of the ability I mentioned. In addition to all that though, he’s just a fucking great lad and one of the easiest players to root for. The kind of lad you’d love to be mates with. Enjoy your retirement Crouchy lad. Crouchamania will always run wild in my household. Meanwhile, Lucas Moura seems to be a little unclear about what constitutes a dribble, as he cast doubt on the claim that nobody had dribbled past Big Virg last season. “They say he hasn’t been dribbled past since… whatever. If the guy is past him, it’s already a dribble. I don’t know, but the guys must have gone past him now. I know I scored a goal against Liverpool, we lost, but I scored against Liverpool and he was left behind. But he’s great. He is.” Ok lad, let me explain this in simple terms for you. There are two types of dribble. For an example of the first, look at the liquid rolling down the chin of the man who kept you out of the starting line up in the final. That's not relevant to this conversation though, we're talking about the other type of dribble. The definition of it is this: "(in soccer, hockey, and basketball) an act of taking the ball forward with repeated slight touches or bounces." It is not running in behind someone onto a pass, which was what you referred to, presumably as it seems to be the only thing you are actually capable of. Hope this helps. You're right about Virg being great though. Sunday Jul 14: Bradford 1 L 3. Nice to see such a good turnout for Ste Darby. It’s just heartbreaking what’s happening to him and I don’t even know what to say. It’s just awful and my heart goes out to him as well as to his family and friends. Hopefully a lot of money was raised today and will help towards the research that may eventually find a cure. As for the game itself, performance wise it wasn’t as good as the other night at Tranmere. There were some decent performances and another goal for Brewster, who seems razor sharp when anything is loose in the box. The first half team did much better than the second, but that’s not really important at this point as it’s just as likely to go the other way in the next game. I thought Larouci did quite well again and Kent is looking bright so far. Some interesting comments from Klopp afterwards as he more or less said that Mignolet is staying. He didn’t say that the Mig was happy about it but it does seem like they’ve come to an understanding. By that I mean, Klopp has said “yeah, we need you so you’re not being sold”. Kloppo caused a bit of a stir with what he said about Lallana too. He’s been used as a number six in the first two games, largely through necessity as Hendo and Gini haven’t been available. He seems to have enjoyed himself as he’s had loads of time on the ball to Cruyff turn his little heart out, but the thought of him playing that role in a high tempo, high stakes game does nothing for me. This isn’t a ‘new role’ for him in the way we’ve seen other players like Hendo, Milner and Trent switch positions. It is a smart thing to put him in a role where he isn’t having to exert himself too much until he’s got his full fitness back though. Lallana’s problem is he’s such a willing worker that he presses and plays harder than his body will allow. Still, Klopp was surely having a laugh at our expense with this…. “Adam is the kind of player who can play that and he enjoys this 'Jorginho' role – I hope Maurizio Sarri doesn't see the games or he will make an offer”. The reaction those quotes got on twitter though was fucking brutal. Lallana seems to have replaced Hendo as the “LFC Family” whipping boy now though. Most of the replies to Klopp’s quote just made me sad. If Klopp wants to keep Lallana this season then why the fuck do you care? All this “SELL HIM!!!!” and people getting riled up about it, I don’t get it. We all have opinions on who we should sell and keep but how can people feel so strongly about it that they’ll be kicking off on social media demanding Klopp get rid? It’s fucking mental. So what if he’s on 100k a week. That’s the club’s problem, not yours. You aren’t paying his wages. This isn’t 1980. If Klopp thinks he needs Lallana in the squad this season then sound, it’s his decision and he knows far more about what he needs than any of us do. I think what bothers me the most though is I just don’t like seeing hostility towards players who have been nothing but good pros and have carried themselves well as Liverpool players. Monday Jul 15: Kia Joorabchian (Coutinho’s agent) had some interesting things to say about his client’s situation with Barca. He reckons Barca’s sporting director told him that Coutinho was going nowhere, but then another Barca exec has been offering him to PSG in part ex for Neymar. Who’s have thought that Barca would act in such a sneaky, underhanded manner? Poor Kia, poor Phil. The most interesting thing he had to say involved the Reds though. “"I think Liverpool lies very, very deeply in his heart," he said. "He was a big fan of them throughout the campaign [last season]. He was wishing for them to win the title and he has a very strong affinity there so I think it will be very difficult for him to go to a direct competitor of Liverpool from a personal standpoint." I tell you how this looks to me. Phil wants to come back. This has been obvious for a while and is nothing new. However, for it to happen he’s going to have to force Barca to do a cut price deal with us (maybe even a loan) because other clubs will pay more than we are willing to. This looks like part of the plan. He’s already reportedly told Barca he won’t go to PSG, and now his agent is saying that Chelsea and United can forget it too. So who does that leave? Not Juve, they’ll be waiting in the wings until his contract runs out in four years. Bayern maybe? You know by now how I feel about this. If Coutinho came back I’d be fucking buzzing. I’d say it’s obvious he’s desperate to make it happen but what we don’t know is whether Klopp is even interested. My suspicion is he would be but only on our terms. Meanwhile, AC Milan seem to have dropped their interest in Lovren now and have turned to Newcastle’s Fabian Schar instead. Good. Said it before, but Lovren is important, both as part of the centre back rotation and also for his role in the dressing room. Fabinho recently described Salah as “reserved but talkative. He’s the happiest guy in the world when around Lovren.” Not reason enough on it’s own to keep him, but it’s something that should be taken into consideration. We’ve got something great going on at the moment and we should keep everyone together for another season at least. One possible outgoing though is Taiwo Ayoniwi. One of the Moscow clubs want him and we’re asking for £15m. We’ll probably get it too, as footy is fucking mental now. Eddie Howe might even gazump them with a bit of luck.. Tuesday Jul 16: Kieran Trippier is signing for Atletico. On a list of things I expected to see this summer, that’s got to be right near the bottom. It’s the kind of deal that happens on Footy Manager and you go “behave, as if that would happen”. Fair play to Trippier for wanting to give it a go abroad though. Not many English lads do that. Probably smart too, as if he’s playing every week in the same league as Trent then he’s got no chance of holding onto his England spot. Now he might have bought himself a little more time. He’s nothing special but it’s a gradual decline at Spurs, who went from Kyle Walker to Trippier and now it looks like being Serge Aurier, who is fucking shite. Danny Rose might be leaving too. The gap between the top two and the rest might get even bigger this year, as none of them look like being any kind of a threat. Meanwhile, the Firmino's hosted a party and Coutinho and his wife showed up. Videos later emerged of Bobby and Phil absolutely fucking hammered and having a whale of a time. I just can't imagine a situation where they aren't plotting a way of him getting back here. That doesn't mean it will happen, but you know they must be talking about it as the families are so close and there's a vacancy in the Latino click now that Moreno has gone. Wednesday Jul 17: Look at the state off Mesut Ozil. He looks like the Shelbyville Megan Rapinoe. At first I thought he’d faceapped himself like every other fucker seems to be doing this week. What’s that all about by the way? That’s been around for years, I was using it two summers ago to make jokes about Markovic and Sakho, but for some reason the entire world seems to have gone mad for it this week. Anyway, Ozil, what a dick. Maybe he’s done this to make himself less invisible in the 90% of games where you never fucking see him? Steve Bruce is officially Newcastle’s new manager. This is just gold. They haven’t been able to agree a compensation package with Sheff Wed so they might get in trouble for that. Seems like a lot of bother to go to for Steve fucking Bruce. I mean, he’s alright, he knows what he’s doing and there are far worse options out there, but to go from Rafa to him has to make Newcastle favourites to finish bottom. Especially as Rafa is taking Rondon to China with him. My Mackem brother in law is like a pig in shit with all these. He hates Bruce, who he dubbed “parsnip nose nans hair”. He messaged me today saying the Geordies organised a protest outside their local Sports Direct. The evening news reported it, and he said there were SIX fans outside. He counted them, and it wasn’t hard. SIX!!! You know, fair play to those six, and fucking shame on all the other losers who cry about Ashley but do absolutely fucking nothing about it. He knows he can do what he likes because they’ll just keep showing up no matter what, because they pride themselves on being the “loyalest supporters the world has ever had”. They’re also the stupidest. I know some of you are feeling sorry for them, but let’s see if you feel the same when they come to Anfield and start with the tedious “Sign on” chants. Thursday Jul 18: Interviewed Carra today for the summer issue of the fanzine. I went to meet him at the gym he goes to, and honestly, it was the scousest place on earth. The Rotunda in Kirkdale, where all the top scouse boxers have trained down the years. It’s just the perfect environment for Carra, he’s not treated differently to anyone else there, he’s just one of the lads. Anyway, I was waiting for him in the car park, and what followed was like a scene from the Sopranos, only scouse. He was with a few mates, and he comes over to my car and opens the door and goes “heeeeyyyy ‘ere he is, Milan Baros. Look at his hair, lads, it’s Baros!” One mate goes “fucking hell, that is a nice head of hair” and another one goes “nah he’s not Baros, he’s more like that other fella… the scouse comedian… whatshisname?” and then the third one chimes in “yeah it’s John Bishop!”. Dunno where he’s getting the Baros thing from, I haven’t sported that look for about 15 years. Bit disappointed to be honest, I much preferred it when Carra thought I looked like Gigi Buffon. Now that’s a fucking compliment right there. Anyway, the interview was fucking class, loads of great insight in there, especially about Trent and Hendo. You can read it in the summer issue of the fanzine anyway. Also today, there’s a lot of hoo har about this Sturridge thing. Can’t say I’m the slightest bothered about that little exchange between him and his agent about him not playing against Man City because it looked like a move to Inter was on the cards. He wasn’t going to start, it’s not like we were counting on him as he was only going to be on the bench. From his point of view, why would he risk picking up an injury and scupper a potential move? I get the argument that we pay his wages, but he was never a Klopp player and if Inter had offered us decent money we’d have happily fucked him off. So none of this makes me think any less of him, and the ban he’s been given for breaching betting rules is a fucking farce. Said it before, and I’ll say it again, but bookies are happy enough to take bets on literally anything, so why the fuck should a player not tell any of his mates if he might be moving clubs? Some boss quotes from Robbo today. “That’s what we’ve got to use as motivation now – the winning feeling we had. Last season was completely different, we used the disappointment and heartbreak of losing as motivation to not be in that position again. That’s probably why we had so many last-minute winners, big comebacks and things like that. “This season we need to use that feeling of being on that bus and lifting that trophy to drive us forward. We want more of that feeling. That’ll be in all our minds for the season ahead.” Fucking love him. By the time he finishes he might end up being my favourite player ever. Friday Jul 19: The first game of the US tour ends in a 3-2 defeat to Dortmund. I didn’t watch it live, which is unlike me. I stayed up to watch these games last year but I have zero interest in them at all right now. I just want the proper stuff to start. I might be a bit more into it if there were any new signings to watch, but the only real interest in watching these games is seeing how Brewster is progressing. He scored tonight, with a confidently taken penalty. Harry Wilson got the other one, which is nice for him. Sadio is finally on his holidays now after Senegal lost in the final of AFCON. A real shame for him, it would have meant the world to him to win that and to be able to come back and compare notes with the Brazilian lads. Hopefully he’ll come back refreshed after a short break and he can put that behind him and fire us to the title. Twitter was awash today with people buzzing off Zlatan’s latest self praise. He’s a dick and one of the most over-rated players of all time. That being said, the stuff he’s been coming out with this week has been funny as fuck. The US media have been trying to create a debate about who is the best in the MLS and they’ve been comparing him with Carlos Vela, and Zlatan seems proper put out by it. Not only has he ripped Vela (“don’t compare a Ferrari with a Fiat”), he’s completely savaged the MLS itself and the lack of quality over there. “He’s 29 and he’s playing in MLS. Where was I playing when I was 29?” I’ve seen people suggest this is all an act and he’s not really like that. This isn’t the WWE folks, he’s not playing some character, this is who he is. He's 37 and he's been like this since day one. It's no act. To be fair, I’m almost warming to him as he gets older. I think my opinion of him began to change when he laid into Guardiola. Any enemy of that slap head can’t be that bad. Except Samuel Eto’o, he can fuck off. Finally today, I saw Peter Moore got involved in something on twitter about the kit. Someone was selling knock off kits and he got on his high horse about “intellectual property” and how this kind of thing is “taking money out of the club’s transfer budget”. Do fuck off. How out of touch can you possibly be? Rich people generally have absolutely no idea about the real life struggles of your average family. The real issue here is not that some Del Boy character is making money off jarg kits (to be clear, I'm not defending him and if he was thrown in jail I wouldn't be arsed), it’s that kit manufacturers are charging over £100 for a kit and they’re bringing out three kits a season. The kit manufacturers pay up front for the rights to make those kits so the clubs get the money regardless of whether some nomark in China is selling knock offs, so no-one is taking out of the transfer kitty. Not that it would matter anyway as Jurgen doesn’t seem to be arsed about buying anyone this summer anyway. I haven’t bought any knock off kits because I stopped wearing the shirts about twenty years ago. Adrianna has the new home shirt but only because my mum bought it for her. No way am I forking out £60 for a shirt, but I’m lucky in that she’d never ask me to anyway as she knows it’s a rip off. Some parents will have two or three kids who all want the kits though. The cost of it is obscene. Of course you can tell them no, but what parent likes denying their kids things that many of their mates have? So if people are buying knock off shirts for a fraction of the cost, good luck to them. Liverpool are still getting their money regardless, and let's be honest here, who gives a fuck if New Balance, Nike, Adidas or whoever are getting stiffed out of a few quid? You know what, I've actually talked myself into buying some jarg kits now. Anyone got a link? .....and that was the week that was