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Is there no limit to the resolve of this team? While the rest of the traditional "Big Six" are finding new and more amusing ways to lose games, our lads are just digging deep and pulling wins out of the fire and overcoming whatever setbacks they face. The scoreline might have been close but the game really wasn't. We won't face many better teams than Leicester this season but in terms of how difficult the game was we had far more trouble with Sheffield United last week. That's a measure of how well we played in this one. The first half was really good but we didn’t have the goals to show for what was a dominant effort. Defensively it was almost a flawless display in the opening 45. Leicester didn’t have a sniff. They like to play more of a possession game these days but that’s difficult to do when you don’t have the ball! They still have it in them to play on the break using Maddison’s vision and Vardy’s pace, but we snuffed out any of those opportunities too. Our two centre backs were outstanding. We expect that from Van Dijk of course, but Lovren was a surprise inclusion and had the more difficult task because Vardy was always going to try and pull onto him rather than Virgil. Klopp said afterwards that he’s never seen a team defend Vardy as well as this. The key to defending Vardy is to not have to defend him. Don’t let them get the ball into the spaces he exploits. For the most part we did that brilliantly, but on the couple of occasions he did get something to run onto Lovren was up to the challenge. I thought Leicester defended really well too though, especially Soyuncu. He didn’t do anything spectacular but he just always seemed to be in the right place to snuff out potential danger. He read the game well and any time we tried to get in down the right he was across on the cover. Selling Maguire for £80m without weakening the side is a great bit of business. Maybe United should have bought this lad instead. He will have been expecting to come up against Salah but for some reason Klopp switched his front three around and none of them were in their usual positions. Mané started on the right, Firmino left and Salah through the middle. Initially I thought maybe Klopp wanted Mo’s speed through the middle. On reflection I think he wanted to restrict the threat of their full backs by using Bobby wide. It worked a treat defensively, typified by Sadio frequently getting back and stopping Chilwell getting crosses in on several occasions. It did take a little away from us in attack though and for me it’s not a co-incidence that when we finally made the breakthrough it came in a brief spell when they all went back to their usual positions. That’s not to say we didn’t create anything prior to that, because we did. Milner missed the target with a couple of very presentable chances (one following some brilliant play by Trent) and Bobby just couldn’t get enough on another top drawer delivery by Trent. We also had a good penalty shout I thought when Van Dijk looked like he was shoved in the back while in mid-air attacking a corner. There was a big shout but the ref gave nothing, and VAR doesn’t over-rule refs. I haven’t even seen a replay of it, it’s just what I thought at the time and I might be wrong. Our goal was a work of art though. It started with keeper and as Leicester tried to press we just played our way through it. Milner’s movement was great, moving into space and making angles for the pass. The whole thing looked like a rehearsed move that they’ve worked on time and again in training. Milner knew where Mané was but finding him wasn’t going to be easy. The window to make that pass was tiny and not only did it need to be inch perfect, it needed to played at the right pace too. I don’t actually think there is anything that Johnny Evans can do to prevent that. He was in a good position but the pass was too good and once it was past him it was game over. Sadio never looked like he was missing that did he? He was in total control of that situation at all times and took it in stride before rolling it into the corner. Brilliant goal but from Leicester’s point of view I don’t think there’s a thing they could have done to prevent that, other than not try and press us to begin with. Mané went close to another soon after when Bobby picked him out in the box but his his first time shot was saved by Schmeichel. A one goal half time lead was the very least we deserved on the balance of play, but you always need that second goal no matter who you’re playing. Leicester had done nothing at all but with Vardy on the pitch you can never relax, and they’ve got other dangerous players too, like Tielemans and Maddison. We’d kept them all quiet but they were always going to have a spell so it was vital we got the second goal to give us that cushion. We had our chances but it didn’t come. Salah had an effort saved by Schmeichel (although VAR would have given him offside) and Mané hit the side netting after showing incredible speed over a few yards to reach a mis-hit pass by Salah. Bobby then shot inches wide after a great turn. At this stage we were still well in control. The game then began to open up a bit and we were looking leggy. This tends to happen to us quite a bit. I wouldn’t say we burn ourselves out exactly, because we always finish strong, but there often seems to be a natural lull in our tempo and when it happens the opposition seem to be able to find space in midfield. I don’t specifically blame the midfielders for it, I think it’s just a natural result of how we play and the great demands placed on them. Milner and Wijnaldum (or whoever happens to be playing there) are almost playing two positions, as they have to play centre mid as well as shuffling across to help out in wide areas. We saw it the other night when Salzburg started to get space and were able to take advantage of it, and it happened again here with Leicester. Several of our players looked leggy, tired passes began to creep in and we were giving Leicester the kind of possession they hadn’t had all game. Trent, Gini, Fabinho and Bobby all looked tired to me and Leicester began to claw their way back into the game. Vardy went clean through but Adrian did well to deny him. I thought he was well offside at the time but having seen the replays it was close. I still think he may have been fractionally off but thankfully it wasn’t put to the VAR test because Adrian denied him. Robbo then went haring through onto a pass by Salah and hammered a shot that was beaten away by Schmeichel. Mo was pissed off that he didn’t get a return pass but Robbo had little choice but to go on his own there as everyone else was behind him and he couldn’t see them. Praett lashed a shot inches wide from 25 yards before he was replaced by that loser Ayoze Perez. Long time readers know how much disdain I have for that giraffe necked fuck, and every time we face him I fear that all my jibes against him are going to come back to haunt me. I was convinced that if Leicester were going to score it would be that fucking bum who got it. He didn’t score but he did play the pass from which Maddison equalised. I’ve seen people blaming Lovren for that goal, saying he dropped deep and played Maddison onside. He was deeper than everyone else but Maddison would have been onside regardless as he ran off the back of Virgil. It looked to me that Adrian should have saved it but there’s a good chance that ball nicked off Lovren. I’ve watched it over and over and it’s difficult to tell, but Adrian has his hand stretched to his right and the ball ends up going closer to his body, which is where it would have gone if it had hit Lovren. So I’m not blaming Adrian for that one as I suspect the deflection was the reason it beat him. It was a sickener though with only ten minutes left. When Leicester equalised my first thought was “we’ve got ten minutes to win it”. Then it hit me. “Shit, what if they score again?”. A draw wouldn’t have been the end of the world because at this moment in time Leicester are either the third or (probably) fourth best team in the league. But because they’re Leicester and not Tottenham, Chelsea, Man United etc it doesn’t really feel like that does it? In reality dropping points to them wouldn’t have been as bad as it would have felt. I was almost talking myself into that and thinking I’d take the draw rather than risk losing. Thankfully the players don’t think like that. Just like the other night against Salzburg, they went out and won the game for a second time. People can talk about the lucky late penalty all they like, but in that last ten minutes there was only one team pushing for a winner. Lovren should have done better with a header from a corner and Virgil then missed an even better chance from another one. We were piling forward and putting pressure on, and eventually it paid off. I'd say justice was served, because some of Leicester's cynical fouling to prevent us getting in behind deserved heavy punishment. Salah was forced off the field after a shocking tackle by Choudhery. That lunge ended what looked like it could have been a dangerous attack as Mo was racing towards the box with players up in support. He’d been cynically held back right on the edge of the box not long before that too (by Soyuncu I think). Both potential goalscoring opportunities, but not clear enough for red cards. The Choudhery one may have been worthy of a red just for the severity of the challenge. I thought so at the time and Klopp was legitimately fucking fuming about it afterwards. Having seen the replay I don’t think it was as malicious as it looked on first viewing. He wanted to foul him to stop the attack but he didn’t get him with his studs like I initially thought. It was actually his thigh that crashed into Mo’s ankle. If it had been a red he could have had no complaints but it’s one of those that are worse than a standard yellow but maybe not quite bad enough for a red. Morally it probably deserved one because there was no intent to play the ball, I’m just saying it wasn’t as wild a challenge as I first thought. So Mo limped off in stoppage time, replaced by Lallana, and it felt like we’d missed our opportunity when Virgil missed the target with that header. Klopp had also brought on Origi and Henderson for Firmino and Wijnaldum, and it was Origi who initially contributed to the winning penalty by lobbing the ball over a defender’s head and then driving towards the box. It was all looking so promising for him but then he froze when he got there and didn’t seem to know what to do. Clearly he didn’t want to shoot from 18 yards with his left foot so he hesitated, allowing a defender to get back and nick it off him. Mané is so alert and so fast though that he arrived not he scene in a flash and caused confusion between Schmeichel and the defenders. He nicked the ball, Albrighton kicked his standing foot and he went down. The ref (who’d given us fuck all prior to that) pointed to the spot and although I had no clue from where I was sat whether it was a foul or not, I was confident it wouldn’t be overturned because they never are. If the ref hadn’t given it, there’s not a chance in hell VAR would have told him he was wrong. There was an element of fortune about it as it was a soft penalty and it was virtually the last kick of the game. A soft penalty is still a penalty though. Mané definitely milked it for all it was worth, but is there a striker out there who wouldn’t have done that in the same situation? He was kicked on the ankle, in the box, deep into stoppage time in a game of massive importance (let’s face it, they all are these days). Of course he’s going to go down, I’d have been livid with him if he hadn’t. Of course it caused uproar around the country, but fuck everyone who isn’t us. We see incidents like this every single week and fuck all gets said. As soon as it’s one of our players we never hear the end of it. Last season City had several pens as soft as, or softer than this one, and nobody other than us gave a fuck about it. Any time Salah gets one though it’s the sole topic of conversation on Talksport and Sky Sports News for the next week. I fully expect Adrian Durham’s afternoon show today to be all about whether Mané dived or not. Albrighton kicked him on the ankle. If he doesn’t do that, Mané can’t go down without it being a dive and a yellow card. The kick wasn’t enough to put Mané on the ground but it may have been enough to put him off his stride for a second and impede what he wanted to do with the ball. If you don’t go down you don’t get pens, so while it’s not something any of us really like to us, it’s a necessary evil. Besides, anyone crying over this shit needs to realise that we lost the league by one point last year, and the blatant penalty we weren’t given against these same opponents could have made all the difference. So if this decision helps us win the title this season then it’s karma restoring balance. Milner did what Milner does, keeping a cool head while everyone else was shitting their pants. He’s a fucking giant of a man and when it’s all said and done he’ll be remembered as a Liverpool great. I honestly don’t know why he hasn’t been rewarded with a new contract as that should have been forthcoming as soon as last season ended. Just fucking get it done, no-one has ever been more deserving of a contract extension than this fella. It’s not just his performances, it’s everything about him. He’s just a huge asset to the club in every conceivable way. Look at what happened at full time when that Ayoze Perez loser went for Robbo. Who was first there with his hand around that big giraffe neck? Milner, of course. Not that Robbo needs looking after, not against Perez anyway. I’m not sure exactly what caused it but I saw how it unfolded on the final whistle as I was looking right at it. You’ll have seen the video anyway so nothing I’m saying here is new, but Robbo just brushed past him and gave him the faintest of nudges in the ribs. Perez then lost his head and shoved Robbo in the back. After that loads of other players got involved, mainly just trying to operate Robbo and Perez rather than kicking off themselves, and it looked like Perez was telling Robbo he’d see him in the tunnel. We’ll never get to see what happened there, but LFCTV do have cameras back there and it will be interesting to see what footage they do show when “Inside Anfield” comes out this week. There has been some suggestion that Perez taunted Robbo when Leicester equalised and that’s why Robbo gave him that little nudge and maybe said something as he walked past. I don’t know, but I do know that if Robbo is prepared to give it out to Suarez and Messi then he’s not going to take any shit from a bum like Perez. It was funny seeing Lallana bouncing around like he was in a pinball machine after the pen too. He was just following in for a possible rebound and the ball came out of the net and just landed in his midriff. He wasn’t trying to delay the restart but Leicester’s players all started shoving him and he was just getting knocked from one to another. The relief we all felt at the final whistle was massive. It feels like we’re on an unstoppable roll right now and it’s clearly pissing people off. The reaction to what we’re doing is great. So much fume out there, not just from City but from all over the place. When a team gets a pen like that so late in the game you can’t blame people for calling them lucky though, so I do get it. I mean fucking hell, for years I was clutching that straw with Ferguson’s United and all of their late winners. It was even coined “Fergie time” because they did it that often. There is some luck, but it’s mostly just belief and sheer force of will, combined with the opposition having a feeling of the inevitable. We’re getting that now. Based purely on the penalty incident and the last gasp nature of it we were lucky, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. It was a well deserved win, because not only did the players pick themselves up after conceding a late equaliser, they had completely dominated the game. Leicester had two chances and as I said I suspect one of those wouldn’t have passed the VAR test anyway. The other one they scored from. Other than that we shut them down completely, while still creating loads of chances at the other end. This was a really good performance and when you win 17 games on the bounce any calls about being lucky can be laughed off. It’s impossible to win that many games on the spin without getting a bit of fortune along the way but most of the time we’ve made our own luck. These lads just won’t accept anything other than winning and they never give up, no matter what the circumstances are. Our league record since the beginning of last season almost defies belief. It’s fucking incredible. Klopp was gushing in his praise for the performance yet I don’t think most people seem to see it that way. All the talk is about being ‘lucky’ rather than how much we dominated the game. It’s probably because Klopp rates Leicester a lot more highly than everyone else does. We’ll see at the end of the season if he’s right or not, but regardless of how good Leicester are or aren’t this is still a massive result, especially in light of what happened at the Etihad the next day. Eight points ahead now. Eight fucking points. In the past that was nothing, especially at this stage of the season. Hell, it wasn’t even that much at Easter. Chasing teams overhauled leads like that all the time but that was when Champions could lose five or six games a season. The bar has been raised by City and now us. If, and it’s still a big IF, we continue at the pace we’ve been on then City are probably going to have to win 28 of their last 30 if they’re going to catch us. That’s a tall order, even for them, but it all depends on whether we can keep it going. There’s a lot of things that can happen between now and May so despite some of the shit I keep reading about “Liverpool fans think they’ve won the title already”, I’m taking nothing for granted and I can honestly say I’ve yet to see any Red who is. It’s a myth, just like that “Liverpool fans always think this is their year”. Without getting carried away, it’s clear that we’re in a great position and that the next month or so could be pivotal as there is an opportunity to completely leave City behind. We’ve got tough games on paper with a trip to Old Trafford and home games against Spurs and City. It’s possible that eight point gap could shrink, but if we keep winning it will grow to at least 11 with a home win over City. They look vulnerable at the moment and might drop more points, but that won’t last and we have to be prepared for them to go on one of their customary winning runs. If we keep doing what we’re doing then we’ll be fine, but one game at a time and all that. Star man is Sadio. He’s relentless and seems to be involved in everything we do at the moment. Scoring goals, making them, winning penalties… hell he’s even back defending and making crunching tackles. He’s been our best player so far this season. As for the rest, Milner was great too while big Dejan deserves massive credit for how he played. It’s not easy coming in without any rhythm, we saw that with Gomez the other night, and Vardy is the last striker you want to face when you’ve got a bit of ring rust to shake off. No doubt there were a lot of fans fearing the worst and sharpening the knives, but Lovren was outstanding and I’m made up for him. The international break comes at a bad time for us as we’re flying have all the momentum with us. On the plus side though the week off gives Mo some more time to heal after his injury and it gives Alisson more time to get ready for a return. Presumably he’ll go straight back in at Old Trafford, but who plays centre back though? If Matip is fully fit then he should play but if there’s any doubt about him then Klopp has a decision to make. It won’t be a popular shout but based on performance it should probably be Lovren. Hopefully Joel is back though because other than Virgil he might be the best centre back in the league right now. It’s a nice problem when you’re worrying about who you have to leave out rather than who you have to pick though. Up the table topping, 100% record Reds! Team: Adrian; Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Wijnaldum (Henderson), Milner; Mané, Salah (Lallana), Firmino (Origi):

Saturday Sep 28: Sheff Utd 0 L 1 Jeez that was hard going. If we’d taken our chances it would have been comfortable, but that was a really tough game and they’re a much better side than I thought they were. They shut down a lot of the space we like to play in and we never got going at all. We’ve got so much talent that we’ll create chances even when we’re not playing well and Mo and Sadio both missed sitters, but I’m willing to bet that at the end of the season when we look back at the toughest games we had, this will be top five. There might be games where we have worse results, but few will give us a more difficult game than these. Not that Chris Wilder was taking any comfort in that. I like him so far. I like how he doesn’t like being patted on the head and told how plucky his team are. He says he expects maximum effort and doesn’t give credit for it. He rightly said this was a missed opportunity as we had an off day and they could have taken advantage of it but didn’t because they missed chances and the keeper fucked up. In other news today, a complaint has been made about Hillsborough chants from Man United fans - at a women’s match. I’m not even surprised as for years I heard them doing it in reserve games. They’d turn up in their thousands just to sing about scouser, the fucking obsessed weirdos. Looks like this Nike thing is going to happen and we’ll be taking a lower up front payment because we get a share of the sales. Nike are going to use their big stars like LeBron James and Serena Williams to help promote us. Interesting. You know who else is a “Nike Athlete”? Mbappe. And you must have seen the video of Klopp with him and his Dad at the FIFA Awards last week. There was a familiarity there between Klopp and Mbappe’s Dad that immediately jumped out at me. You don’t greet someone you hardly know in that manner. Those two know each other, which points to talks having taken place at some point. I’ve already convinced myself he’ll be playing for us next season and Nike will be helping to finance it. Sunday Sep 29: We might be thrown out of the League Cup after fielding an ineligible player. Apparently Chirivela didn’t have international clearance. Not sure why he’d even need it seeing as how he’s been here forever, but the club reckon it’s the FA’s fault. Worst case scenario we get kicked out, best case we get away scot free and middle ground is a significant fine. I could be wrong, but I don’t see any way we get kicked out because who the hell wants to watch MK Dons v Arsenal in the next round? Money talks and the TV companies and sponsors will want us playing Arsenal. There is a precedent for this too, Sunderland were fined for doing something similar, so I’m not worried about this at all. Actually, if they did kick is out I wouldn’t be arsed, so that probably explains why I’m not worried. Meanwhile, last week I said I wondered what Sterling made of all this Bernardo stuff. Well now we know. Or at least we know what he has said publicly about it. I find it hard to believe he thinks this way privately: "It's a situation between two friends, Bernardo and Mendy, as everyone knows. I can see exactly the point where some people can get touchy-feely on it but I feel in that situation Bernardo made a joke to his friend". The whole ‘joke to his friend’ thing just doesn’t wash because he did it on social media for the world to see. Send him it via text and its a joke between two friends and the only thing that matters is what Mendy thinks of it. Posting it on twitter takes it into a whole different realm and it’s no longer just about Mendy. "I feel it's really sad to see someone like Bernardo, the whole week, be kind of down about it because he's not that way inclined. I keep going on about it, they're really good friends, it's really sad to see. He's not in the wrong for me but at the same time I can see where people think it's wrong and we just need to be smarter on social media. "We understand in this day and age anything you say and anything you do can quickly be judged and it's really just a sad situation in this moment in time. There's not one moment he uses a negative term to speak about his skin colour so that's the most important thing. He tried to make a joke and that joke wasn't the best, but we've got to move on and understand it was not intentional." All of that is spot on, but this part seems fucking mental to me: "He's not referred to his skin colour, he's not referred to his lips. In both the pictures they've both got small heads, you know. The most important thing for me is he didn't refer to a colour." He didn't refer to a colour!!! He didn't need to, the fucking cartoon did that for him. Jesus Christ. I wonder how Sterling would have felt if some randomer on twiiter had sent him a message making a similar comparison? I get that he’s in a difficult spot here as it’s his team-mate who by all accounts is a nice fella liked by everyone. But fucking hell, ‘he’s not referred to skin colour or his lips’ is weak as fuck. Monday Sep 30: We’re bringing in some hot shot youth coach from Porto to take over the ‘bridging’ role that Ljinders had before he became assistant manager. I love this. It’s right out the Footy Manager handbook, I used to do this shit all the time when I played it. Bring in different coaches for different roles. Michael Edwards defo used the filter and this guy is nailed on to have 20 for ‘working with youngsters’. More of this type of thing I say. Interesting story today about Taribo West, who claims he would have joined us but for GH getting ill. I remember this and at the time I was all in on us signing him as I was convinced he’d be great. Mind you, back then I was convinced everyone would be great. You know the player I wanted the most back in the day? Karol Poborski. I was made up we signed Paddy, but I wanted Poborski as well. I was sure he’d be a superstar for us. The funny thing is that at the time we were playing 3-4-1-2 so fuck knows where he’d even have played. I had him pencilled in for the right wing back role and was gutted when the Mancs got him. As it turned out, they had no idea how to use him either and he was shite for them. I still wonder what might have been if we’d got him though. Him, Paddy and Vladi running riot, like a Czech version of the three Dutchmen at Milan in the 80s. I’m also glad I didn’t have a fanzine back then as some of my takes were excruciatingly shit and not something I’d want a written record of. Speaking of Milan though, that brings me back to Taribo West. I remember him playing for Inter but when he was linked with us he was actually playing for AC. I had no idea he played for them. Probably because he basically didn’t. He wasn’t getting a game and he reckons it was because of the mafia. No really. According to West, they didn’t want an African taking the place of the ageing Italian legends Baresi, Maldini and Costacurta, so they pressured the club not to play him and bribed the doctor to say West was injured when there was fuck all wrong with him. Still, that was 20 years ago, thankfully we’ve moved on from all that vile racist shit now.... Tuesday Oct 1: Jesus Christ what the fuck is wrong with Spurs? Well, Twitter reckons it’s Vertonghen banging Eriksen’s wife, players taking sides and now everyone hates each other. I didn’t believe it, then I watched them meekly surrender tonight against Bayern and now I’m not so sure. I mean, I’m not saying the Vertonghen / Eriksen thing is true (although this type of thing does occasionally happen), but there’s something fucking wrong there isn’t there? Maybe it’s just the hangover from losing the final last year or maybe they’re just stale, but it looks like they’re completely fucked. They had a good run but they won nothing, and now it’s over. Poch will leave and most of their best players will follow, and Harry Kane will be left on his own like Trigger in the Jolly Boys Outing when everyone fucks off to try and find somewhere to stay for the night. That reminds me actually, I have to tell you this. My daughter Adrianna had a footy match with the school yesterday away in North Wales somewhere. She was downloading stuff off Netflix to watch on the bus journey because she said her mates were doing the same. I can guarantee that none of her mates downloaded what she did though - a shitload of Only Fools episodes. She can’t get enough of it. She’s so like me it’s scary sometimes. The other day a lad in her class asked her who her favourite singer was. She likes loads of different stuff and has much more varied taste than me, but without hesitation she said “Bon Jovi”. The lad didn’t know who they were and said his favourite was Shaun Mendes. “Yeah I like him, but Bon Jovi are better”. That’s my girl. I’m so proud. Funny seeing Bayern run riot like that tonight though. I thought they were a spent force… not what they once were… over the hill…. in transition. That’s what we heard when we knocked them out last year. Guess maybe the stories of their demise have been greatly exaggerated and maybe it’s just that we’re fucking ace? Sadio did the pre-match press conference today and was asked about the thing with Mo. He didn’t shy away from it or try and downplay it, which was refreshing. Basically he said that he was frustrated because goal difference is important due to City scoring so many and he wants us to score as many as possible. He’s fucking right too and I’m glad he said it. He was laughing about it and then said ‘Yesterday I said ‘Gini, tell Mo why Sadio wanted to beat you in the Burnley game’. Gini is so funny, I always say these kind of things”. Sadio is really hard to understand as his English isn't great (at least he tries though *glares at Bobby*) but unless I've misunderstood, Salah didn't pass to Wijnaldum in training and Sadio told Gini to remind Mo why he wanted to snot him at Burnley, which is pretty fucking funny. I love Sadio, he's ace. Wednesday Oct 2: L 4 Salzburg 3 Ok so that’s not really how we envisaged this going down, but there are some positives to come out of how we won this. First, we had a big kick up the arse which will probably ensure we’re a lot more careful from now on, and secondly we didn’t panic after blowing a 3-0 lead and we just went out and won the game all over again. I don’t think we take these games all that seriously if I’m honest. The stakes aren’t that high because there’s always another chance, it’s not knockout football at this point and we thrive on knockout football. Absolutely no way do we blow a 3-0 lead if this was the knockout stages, but credit to Salzburg for how they played. They’re a good side with some really talented players. Hwang and Minamino were terrific. In the end it all worked out well for us and to be honest in a perverse way I’d rather have a game like this than if we’d just shut up shop at 3-0 and it ended that way. We won so the comeback didn’t matter, and if we learn from it then it’s a good lesson. The u19s were also involved in a ding dong battle with Salzburg and won 4-2. They were second best for much of the game but came from behind to get a great win. Curtis Jones was brilliant again and my boy Neco Williams scored a great header. Thursday Oct 3: The Mancs went to AZ Alkmaar tonight and didn’t manage a single shot on target. It’s amazing how shit they are. Where they are now is where we’ve been for much of the last 30 years but I’m not sure they realise it yet. They probably still think they’re close and just need a couple of signings to kick start it. They aren’t. They’re a fucking long way off and unless they get lucky with a genius manager they won’t be challenging any time soon. The one advantage they have though is money, but even they don’t have a bottomless pit of cash. When I look at their starting line up each week I’m always shocked at how awful it is. It crept up on them, like it did with us. One minute you’re thinking “we’re not that bad, got some good players here and just need to add to them” and then all of a sudden you wake up one day, see the line up and it hits home “oh my god, we’re fucking garbage”. Not only will they not make the top six, I’d say there’s a chance they might end up behind the likes of West Ham or Bournemouth. There’ll be one or two of those sides who have a good season, and that might be enough to leapfrog United. We never finished lower than 8th, no matter how big our problems were. United might though. In fact at this moment I’d say it’s likely. We go there in a couple of weeks and if we don’t beat them this time we might as well give up. The gap between the two sides has never been greater than it is right now. Alisson might be fit for the weekend apparently. I wouldn’t play him, there’s no point. There’s an international break after this so let him have the extra two weeks to recover and then if he looks sharp in training bring him back for Old Trafford. Personally I might not even bring him back for that one, as I’d prefer him to have less high profile one for his first game back. Adrian has been fine so there’s no panic, but as good as he’s been the fact remains that Alisson is regarded by many as the world’s best keeper, so having him back will be big for us. Friday Oct 4: Brendan comes back to Anfield tomorrow. I don’t think he’ll get any kind of reception, good or bad. Those around the dugout will probably give him polite applause, but otherwise I imagine it will be no different to any other manager coming here. He doesn’t really deserve stick or praise I’d say. I couldn’t handle it if he got a result though. He wouldn’t be smug or giving it the big ‘un, he’d be horrendously condescending which is even worse. Fuck that. We’ve got our hands full with Leicester though. They’re third in the table and that’s probably accurate as other than us and City it’s between them and Chelsea for who is next in line. Klopp loves Vardy almost as much as I do and he was gushing in his praise for him today, as Chilwell was for Andy Robbo. “Best full back in the world” he said. Knows his onions that lad. Meanwhile, Barcelona are releasing a behind the scenes documentary that will show the scenes in the dressing room after we spanked them. Can’t fucking wait for that if the still photos we saw today are an indication of what it will be like. Really want to see the grid on Suarez. Be ace if they’ve got footage of his dust up with Robbo in the first leg too. Speaking of behind the scenes footage, everyone seems to be buzzing off that video of the Salzburg coach and his half time speech. Just me who didn’t think it wasn’t all that then? I reckon 90% of the coaches that have been to Anfield said something similar at half time. All he did was tell them they were giving us too much respect and to fucking get stuck in. No difference in that and the fella who gave the famous “bring yer facking dinner” team talk, but I don’t see people describing that as ‘spine tingling’ and ‘inspirational’. Meanwhile, we’re still in the league cup after getting away with a fine. I’d probably start Chirivella in the next game just to add to the collective fume around the country. and that was the week that was….