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What is it with us and the Champions League Group Stages? Why do we make it so difficult for ourselves? This was ridiculous. We were 3-0 up and playing some spectacular football, and then suddenly in the blink of an eye it’s 3-3 and we’re having to go out and win the game all over again. Thankfully this team doesn’t panic and they know how to win tight games, but there are some things that need cleaning up because we’re not putting together 90 minute performances so far. We play in spells and those spells are usually enough because we’re so good. But in virtually every game we’re giving up clear chances. We’ve gotten away with it for the most part as until now no-one had been as clinical as Salzburg, but we don’t look as secure as we did this time last year. Salzburg are better than people realise though. They’re lively, they’ve got a positive way of playing and they’ve clearly got some good players. I thought we’d roll them over easily and for a while we did. At our best no-one can live with us and even when our level drops most still can’t compete. Salzburg did though. As soon as we took our foot off their throats, they came up swinging. I was really impressed with them but it’s beginning to feel like a recurring thing now. I've found myself praising our opponents quite a bit this season. Norwich, Chelsea, Sheffield United, Salzburg…. I’ve spoken about how well all of these played against us but now I’m wondering if it says more about us than them? I liked it better when we made good teams look bad. Now we’re making average teams look good. I do suspect that Salzburg are actually quite handy though, and I fancy them to turn Napoli over. Maybe they'll even qualify from the group. They certainly gave us all we could handle in that second half and they had their moments in the first half too. For half an hour though we were fucking brilliant. Some of the football was ridiculously good and two of the goals we scored were sublime. Salzburg got it wrong tactically and we made them pay. There was just so much space in wide areas that Mané, Trent and Robbo just ran riot in the opening half hour or so. Sadio looked in great nick. They couldn’t get near him early on. The opening goal looked so easy but it was brilliantly executed. The ease with which he went past two players, the timing of the run, the weight of return pass from Bobby, the finish… all just perfect. Goal number two was even better. Robbo started and finished a sweeping move from one end of the field to the other. One full back crossing for the other to score is the stuff Pep Ljinders dreams of. I remember him saying how that’s his ideal goal. Well now he has it. It’s one of my favourite goals in a long time too. Robbo scoring just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. He had a great game I thought, although Klopp seemed to be on his case throughout the first half, constantly shouting at him to get forward. I mean fucking hell, it’s not like Robbo needs telling! Mo shot disappointingly wide after Fabinho’s ball over the top sent him clear, but he did got his goal when he converted a rebound. The keeper should have done better with Bobby’s header really, but Salah was in the right place at the right time. We were dominating and playing some lovely football, but Salzburg had carried a threat and the lad Hwang up front was very lively. Their movement and speed in attacking areas gave us some problems and we never looked completely comfortable. In the opening weeks of the season we were holding a high line, but I noticed a few times that Virgil went back in with runners rather than trying to play offside. On one occasion when he did hold the line Hwang got in behind because Trent was fractionally deeper. Adrian had to make a save as Hwang went on the outside and hit a shot with his left foot. That was significant because the next time he got in Virgil anticipated him doing the same and was made to look foolish, as he ended up on his arse, helpless as Hwang cut inside and lashed a shot past Adrian. Really good goal that, but it was avoidable from our point of view as it all came from Hendo losing the ball cheaply. They play in a similar style to us, pressing high and then hitting fast when they win it. Most of the problems we had were of our own making, losing the ball in the wrong areas and never really recovering our shape. Still, when it went 3-1 it felt like it was merely a consolation and we’d just roll them over in the second half and score another three or four. The funny thing was the scoreboard briefly showed 3-3 rather than 3-1. My first thought was that maybe that goal should have counted treble just for the way the lad beat Virg. Then I thought “I hope that’s not a sign of what’s to come”. Then I immediately brushed that off as nonsense. We weren’t giving up a 3-0 lead against these. The days of us doing crazy shit like that are over. Virgil is here now, we don’t throw away leads anymore. And then that’s exactly what we did. It was mad, we just lost all control of the game and when they got their second it wasn’t a shock. They’d changed their system after half an hour or so and it completely changed the game. They started to win the ball in midfield and grow in confidence. They caught us on the hop with the second goal. Gomez committed a foul but they took the free-kick so quickly we were completely on the back foot and out of position. Hwang showed good vision to pick out Minamino at the back of the box and he volleyed past Adrian to send the away end wild. Suddenly they believed. 3-2 and all the momentum was with them. Minamino was brilliant and Hwang's pace and movement also caught the eye. They then brought on Alfie Haaland’s lad and he scored with his first touch, tapping in at the back post. We were at sixes and sevens and he was left all alone. Trent was nowhere to be seen but it wasn’t just on him. The problems we had defensively were collective rather than individual. It’s easy to say we missed Matip but personally I don’t think it would have made a great deal of difference. Gomez wasn’t to blame for what happened and had Matip been in there he wouldn’t have prevented all the space they had in midfield. Klopp mentioned their change of formation, and if that truly was the catalyst for what happened then I’d have to wonder why he didn’t change things himself. At 3-3 he did. He got Milner on to shore things up and then soon after he sent on Big Div for Gini and went 4-2-3-1. After that we were fine, which again leads me to think that the midfield was more culpable than the back four. Hendo started the game brilliantly but he had a wobble early in the second half. Fabinho too. He was all over the place after half time. The question is what caused it? Were we complacent? Was it tactical? Or was it simply a case of us dropping the tempo and allowing them to get back into it? Maybe a little of all of it. I don’t know. If it was complacency then that’s the easiest thing to fix. I’m not sure it’s that though. I suppose it depends on how you define complacency. I don’t think the players just stopped working because they thought the job was done. Maybe they under-estimated Salzburg a bit but I doubt it. I think what can sometimes happen when you’re playing so well and are a few goals up is you start to try things you maybe shouldn’t. You get a little over-confident and sloppy. And if you give the ball away cheaply against good attacking sides, they can hurt you. I know Salzburg aren’t playing against top opposition every week, but they score a shitload of goals and that breeds confidence. So when we’re giving the ball away and we’ve got so many players in forward areas, teams like that can hurt you. Most of our problems were self inflicted and probably a result of a lack of concentration. It might do us the world of good actually. Klopp made the point afterwards that it’s better that we learned the lesson in winning a game than have to learn it after we’d dropped points. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter what happened here. We won the game and the only thing that really counts is getting out of the group. This result helps with that, and if we learn a lesson along the way and the next time we’re 3-0 up we make sure we control the game then this was well worth it. It’s also a positive that having been pegged back to 3-3 we were able to shrug that off and just go and get the goal we needed to win the game. It wasn’t pretty but it was fitting the way we scored it, as it came from force of will as much as anything. Not giving up, keeping the ball alive and just forcing the issue. Firmino was foiled, Salah’s cross was cleared but Fabinho lobbed the ball back into the box and Bobby produced a lovely little header down to set Mo free. This time he made no mistake with the finish. There was a delay while they checked VAR, and for some reason Bobby didn’t go back into his own half and was waiting in the penalty, almost like he expected it to be disallowed. I wasn’t worried at all as I sit right in line with it and knew there was no offside. After we got in front again we didn’t really have too many scares and it looked to me like Salzburg just kind of accepted their fate. They’d given it a go, caused us a big scare, but they seemed happy enough with a heroic defeat. Why do I say that? Mostly because of how they reacted when Adrian had the ball at his feet, taking his time over clearances. You’d think a team desperate to score with time running out would have been closing him down and making him get on with the game, but they didn’t. As I say, it looked like they were happy with a heroic defeat and ultimately we should be happy with a narrow victory. I say that because it doesn’t matter how you get out of the group just that you do get out of it. We’re on track to do that and if we get to the knockouts we won’t think twice about the scare Salzburg gave us. We won the thing last year and honestly, off the top of my head I don’t even remember what the score was when we played Red Star at home in the group stages, let alone anything about the game. There is work to do though, because we’re giving up an awful lot of chances this season. We’ve gotten away with it for the most part but defensively we don’t look as secure as we did last season. To me it’s more of a team issue that just being about the defence, but whatever it is it needs tightening up because we’ve got some tough games coming up, not least this weekend when we face in form Leicester. Jurgen joked afterwards that Brendan will have looked at this game and thought that Vardy would score five if we play like that. He’s not wrong either. Leicester are dangerous because Vardy is an expert at taking advantage of any space in behind and they’ve got players in midfield who can find him if we lose the ball in dangerous areas. At least the front three bounced back after ropey performances against Napoli and Sheffield United. When they’re sharp no-one can beat us, even when we make errors at the back. They weren’t at their absolute best in this one but they were sharp enough. Star man is Bobby, just ahead of Robertson. Team: Adrian; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Milner), Wijnaldum (Origi); Salah (Keita), Firmino, Mané:

So I said last week that Everton would get something against City. Most of you thought I was mad but the truth is they almost did. At 1-1 they were giving as good as they got and Mina missed a couple of really good chances with free headers from corners. Then what happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Jordan fucking Pickford happened. One of the biggest mysteries in football is that no-one ever seems to talk about how shit this fella is. I feel like I’m on an island all by myself here. Every week I see the goals Everton are conceding, and every week I’m saying “Pickford was shite there”. Yet somehow he’s still got a good reputation and isn’t viewed as the absolute calamity that he is. Why is that? I can only assume it’s because in between the fuck ups he does make some brilliant saves and he’s got a sledgehammer left foot. He's like an Aldi version of Ederson only without the vomit inducing face and neck tattoos. The main reason he escapes scrutiny is because he plays for a team that literally nobody other their own fans gives a shit about. You can make mistake after mistake when playing for a non-entity like Everton, as it barely gets noticed, probably because they’re usually on last on MOTD when most people have gone to bed. He’s shit though, and City won this game because he let in a soft free-kick from Mahrez. If Everton had a half decent keeper then we’d have extended our lead at the top, but more importantly I’d have been able to lord it over all of you this week. Thanks ‘neighbours’. Thanks for nothing. Walcott started the game but went off after a few minutes when the ball hit him on the head and he went off on a stretcher. Bit a fanny isn’t he? Big Virg took one full in the face the other week and barely flinched, but Walcott gets one on the head from Sterling (who isn’t exactly known for power) and he ends up in fucking hospital. Most pointless player in the world. The Blues fell behind when they gave De Bruyne the freedom of Goodison to pick a cross. That only ever ends up in one outcome. Have they never seen hm play before? When he crosses it there’s virtually nothing you can do, so it’s probably not a good idea to give him ten yards of space on the right hand side to whip it across. Some things you can see even without a UEFA coaching licence. I almost switched off at that point as I thought Everton would collapse, but then Calvert-Lewin equalised when he stole a goal from Coleman. He headed it in from on the line and Coleman wasn’t amused. He was either pissed off at him nicking the goal, or (more likely) because he thought it was going to be ruled out by VAR. Calvert-Lewin did look offside initially and Coleman didn’t celebrate the goal because of that. Instead he said something to the young striker, probably along the lines of “if that gets disallowed coz of you being a greedy twat, I’ll fucking kill you”. At 1-1 it could have gone either way but Pickford’s failure to deal with a routine free-kick proved decisive. Even at 1-2 the Blues had their chances but they couldn’t take any of them and Sterling finished them off late on (again, look at the state of Pickford on that though). The two take aways i have from this are that Everton actually gave it a go against City and looked like they wanted to win. Even the crowd were up for it for once and I have no complaints on that front. I knew they’d have a go this time though, that’s why I tipped them to get something. They badly needed a result and on the balance of play they deserved one. They didn’t get it because their finishing wasn’t up to scratch and their keeper has arms like a toddler. The second take away is that City gave up eight shots on target, which is the most anyone had against them in four years. They’re vulnerable right now and I just hope someone can take advantage of that before they rectify the issues they’re having and go on one of those mad winning runs in the second half of the season. Sadly they’ve got Wolves this weekend, and they’ve been pure Zlatan so far this season so I’m not holding out any hope there. You never know though, I guess. Next up, Spurs. Fucking hell. What’s going on there? They did win at the weekend but given the other results they’ve had of late I’d say that reflects really badly on Southampton. If you can’t beat Spurs at the moment, especially when they’re playing with ten men, then you need to have a long hard look at yourself. Either side of this one Spurs lost to Colchester and were humiliated by Bayern. All things considered, this was a terrible result for Southampton. Ndombele broke the deadlock and Aurier did a piss take ‘VAR check’ celebration. The smile was soon wiped off his face when he was sent off for two quick yellow cards. What a train wreck he is. Terrible full back. He’s on the wrong side so often he may as well be Boris Johnson. Spurs sold Trippier because they thought this clown could replace him. Madness. Lloris then gifted Southampton an equaliser when he tried a Cruyff turn on his own goal-line and Ings caught him out. You know how I’m always going nuts about keepers who take more than touch when Vardy is within twenty yards of them, because to me it shows that they mustn’t ever pay attention to what opposition players are doing? Well it applies almost as much with Ings. He’s not as dangerous at closing people down as Vardy but he’s up there with anyone else and Lloris has to know he can't take liberties with him. Lloris is prone to this kind of thing though. He makes half a dozen massive blunders every season. In between those he is a sensational keeper and he pulled off some great saves in this one to sort of redeem himself. I’m not sure there’s anything you can do to fully redeem an error like that though. To Spurs’ credit, or to Southampton’s shame, they retook the lead when Kane finished off a counter attack. The Saints pushed hard for an equaliser but Lloris kept them at bay and Spurs held on. There’s something not right there though, they seem to have lost whatever it was that made them so difficult to play against and half the team seem to want out. Still, they’ve won the “best stadium” title so at least they have that. Elsewhere, Chelsea just about took care of Brighton at Stamford Bridge. They had to wait until five minutes into the second half to make the breakthrough when Mount nicked the ball off a dawdling defender and was brought down. Jorginho converted the pen and Willian added a second via a deflection. Brighton had hit the bar when it was only 1-0 but overall they didn’t do much and Chelsea were well worth the win. Should have been four or five really, and you have to wonder why the fuck Brighton are trying to play out from the back when their defence is full of cart horses. Like trying to make an omelette when all you have are potatoes. Bournemouth and West Ham was a good game. Yarmolenko’s impressive turn and shot put the Hammers ahead but King equalised in contentious circumstances when his goal was initially ruled out for offside but was then overturned by VAR. Morally he was offside as the only point he was ever onside is the split second before the ball was played to him, and even then he was only on by millimetres. Callum Wilson fired the home side in front and Ake thought he’d made it 3-1 but Solanke was adjudged to have been offside and interfering with play. Probably was the right call but I’d be pissed off if I was a Bournemouth fan because we’ll definitely see goals like that given between now and May. Cresswell fired home to get West Ham a point and a draw was probably fair overall. Final note from this one. Pellegrini looked like he’d borrowed his blue suit from Trigger off Only Fools and Horses. Fair play. I like to think he kept calling Mark Noble 'Dave' all day. Villa thought they’d taken the lead when McGinn fired home but VAR had other ideas. They did score soon after when El Ghazi finished well from a right wing cross, but substitute Jay Rodriguez headed Burnley level. McGinn then volleyed Villa ahead once more. I like him, tidy player, if he didn’t play for Villa he might even be in contention for a ‘my boy’ title, but he does play for Villa so that ain't happening. Wood headed in from close range to deny Villa again. Don’t ever let those fuckers walk your dog, because they just can’t hold onto a lead. Every week they score first but they never win. Good. Finally on this one, the absolute fucking state of Jack Grealish. With his sunbed tan, waxed legs and soft cunt’s haircut. I ahe him, but not as much as my mum does. She REALLY hates him, for mostly the same sort of reasons she hates Lallana. Staying in the Midlands, and Wolves scored a lovely team goal to take the lead against hapless Watford. Doherty finished it off but it was great football and Wolves looked much more like last season’s team. It’s easy to look good playing Watford though. They might be the worst team in the league currently. They’re so bad they’re even resorting to picking Danny Welbeck. Talk about desperate. Janmaat’s own goal finally ended Watford’s faint resistance and gave Wolves their first win of the season. The one plus for them so far this season has been Traore, who is finally starting to add a bit of quality to the pace he’s always had. He's a handful. Norwich’s away day woes continued as they were beaten at Palace. They started the game with their second choice keeper and ended it with their their third. How spawny are Palace? If they aren’t playing against ten men they’re faced with a 30 something keeper who looks like he’s been dragged out of the local pub. The opener came from a penalty (of course it did) and was converted by Milavojevic (of course it was) before Townsend wrapped it up in stoppage time after great work by Zaha. Can’t believe how many points Palace have got considering how shit they’ve been. It’ll catch up with them soon. As for Norwich, they need to shape up away from home as they did virtually nothing in this one. They do have a shitload of players out at the moment though to be fair. Sunday now, and Leicester won again to remain third in the table. Ricardo’s brilliant solo effort broke the deadlock and Newcastle’s already futile looking task was made even harder when Hayden was sent off. He won the ball but caught the man with his follow through. Great tackle back in the day, obvious red card under the current rules. Vardy made it 2-0 with a trademark Vardy goal, running onto a ball in behind and lashing in a low shot. Keeper should have had it though. Dummett then deflected a cross past his own keeper to make it 3-0. Unfortunate, but fuck him. He was diving all over the place at Anfield the other week. He's one of those players I have a beef with and don't really know why. Vardy headed in from close range to make it four and Ndidi made it five in stoppage time. Leicester were great, Newcastle were terrible. Steve Bruce accused his players of a lack of fight. They're in the bottom three and will be there or thereabouts all season by the looks of it. Other than Man City, Leicester is the toughest game we could have at the moment so this Saturday will be a test. If it was away I’d be very concerned, but as it’s at Anfield I’m only mildly concerned. They’re good though, unlike the two fucking bums who were involved in a stinker of a game on Monday Night Football. I was quite looking forward to that United / Arsenal game as neither of them are relevant to us at the moment so I could watch it without any stress and it didn’t matter who won. I actually turned it off at half time though because it was pretty much unwatchable. I was offended by how bad it was. It was weird because them both being so bad should have made me want to watch just for the comedy value, yet for some reason I was getting angry and frustrated about the ineptness of it all. The standard of play was like League Two and it was doing my head in. Genuinely fucking dreadful and it was just mistake after mistake, shit pass after shit pass. Like two drunks having a scrap outside the Rubber Soul at 3am. These two teams are fucking shite. Really shite. Arsenal were less shite, but they couldn’t make that count because they’re Arsenal. United could have fielded their u18 side and Arsenal still wouldn’t have won, because they’re Arsenal and they can't win away against any of the big six, even when they're as piss poor as United. If we don't win at Old Trafford in a couple of weeks, we probably never will.