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Saturday Nov 9: Klopp pours cold water on the Mbappe rumours, or at least he tries to. “I don’t think there is a club in the world that can buy Kylian Mbappe from PSG, that is how it is. We cannot do it, it is as easy as that. OK, from a sporting point of view, there are not a lot of reasons to not sign him, what a player he is. But it is about the money of course. No chance. Absolutely no chance, sorry for killing that story!” No chance right now, and possibly no chance next summer either. PSG don’t need the money so they don’t ned to see. But Mbappe is not spending his whole career in France and at some point in the next couple of years he will move, and it might be as a free agent. Ordinarily we wouldn’t be able to compete for a player like that, but Spain’s big two have issues and England is now the place to be. And what is the most attractive club in England right now? Us. Mbappe would want to come here, of that I’m pretty certain. So as Klopp says, it comes down to the money. And for me, that’s where Nike come in. They give him a massive sponsorship deal, we give him the same wages as our top players or even a bit more, and maybe a deal can be done. Nike are going to pushing our ‘brand’ all over the world, with LeBron and Serena Williams and all their other stars helping to promote it. Messi and Ronaldo aren’t going on forever and Mbappe looks like the heir apparent. If you’re Nike, why wouldn’t you want to get your big star at your flagship club? It’d be a license for them to print money, and to sweeten the deal for them maybe we hand over all image rights for him. Look, I don’t know exactly how these things work, but I do know that if Nike think they can make more money from having Mbappe at Anfield then between all parties they could work something out. So in short, Jurgen can say whatever the hell he likes but he’s not killing my buzz on this. Meanwhile, the u18s were 6-0 down after 40 minutes to West Brom today. It ended 6-3 after they rallied, but fucking hell, Aston Villa’s first team must be licking their lips about that quarter final now. Some of these kids (Kometio, Cain, Clarkson, Norris I’d guess) will be involved in that because there is no other real alternative. The u18s seem to concede a shitload of goals but they score loads too. Their games are wildly entertaining, they’re like the first team pre-Virg. In fairness they’re usually a fair bit younger than their opposition as there are loads of 16 year olds in the squad. Conceding six in one half though, that’s not good. West Brom’s 16 year old centre forward was dynamite though. He scored four and really looked the business. There has been some talk that we’ve got an interest in him and want to nab him before he signs pro terms with them. Makes sense from our point of view. The last time we did that was Bobby Duncan, and while that ended badly we actually made money on the deal. It might not be the smartest thing of the lad though. Jerome Sinclair came from West Brom too, and in hindsight his career might have turned out very differently if he’d where he was and broke into their first team instead of coming here and letting money influence his career path. Sunday Nov 10: L 3 City 1 Fair to say we’ve had worse days than this one! Great result, great performance, great atmosphere. This team just delivers relentlessly. I didn’t want to make any predictions prior to the game because it usually blows up in my face, but honestly, I’d have been genuinely amazed if we’d lost. I thought it was possibly that we might smash them everywhere and we almost did. We could have been up by four at half time, even though City played well. That’s the thing though. They’ll always play well because it’s impossible to restrict their possession and stop them creating chances. It just can’t be done because they’re so good with the ball. It’s a combination of great players and Guardiola’s unique style, but for all their lovely football they have weaknesses, and nobody can exploit those weaknesses better than us. I thought this was a tactical masterclass by Klopp. We genuinely looked like scoring every single time we attacked them. Klopp knew where the spaces would be and he ensured we were able to exploit those spaces every time we won the ball back. It’s funny how Guardiola is seen as the tactical genius while Klopp is labelled as Mr Motivator. The truth is Klopp is just as good tactically as any manager out there. We’ve been saying for a while now how we’re in Man City’s heads. From top to bottom they seem obsessed with us (Kevin De Bruyne being the obvious exception, as he’s never got involved in any of that shit and is always complimentary). Guardiola seems to spend every waking moment worrying about us and to his credit he doesn’t pretend otherwise. He’s openly admitted it multiple times. It’s one of the few things I like about him actually. When he describes us as the best team in the world at the moment, he’s not lying. We’ve outperformed City over the last 12 months and when he says Anfield is the toughest place int he world to get a result, he’s not just blowing smoke up our arses, it’s the truth. So while a lot of people mocked him for saying this was one of the best performances he’s seen from his team, I get where he’s coming from. City played well today. Their finishing could have been better, but generally I’d assume they did everything their manager wanted. Here’s the thing though. We’re really, REALLY, fucking good. And our strengths match up beautifully with City’s weaknesses, which is why we looked like scoring every time we crossed the halfway line today. If City play like that against virtually anybody else in the world, they win the game. Against us, it’s not enough. That’s why I think Guardiola was so complimentary of his team. All that being said, he’s a terrible loser and is the first one in football to point at the officials any time he doesn’t get his own way. His “TWIIIIICE” meltdown on the touchline was hilarious, but the way he make a tit out of Michael Oliver on the field at full time was not. I’m annoyed by that. Few people have a lower opinion of referees than me and there were a few things Oliver did today I didn’t like. But it’s fucking hard. The pressure in these games is massive and sometimes there are decisions that aren’t black and white. You can give a decision that will split opinion, but unless it’s an obvious mistake a ref shouldn’t be hammered for it. Oliver was probably an 8.5 out of 10 today. Maybe even a 9. Yet instead of receiving praise for his display all we’re hearing is this bullshit talk about City being screwed by the ref and VAR. Why? Because Egghead Pep threw a strop. His actions dictated the storyline. It should have been about Klopp’s tactical masterclass and an excellent refereeing display. Instead it’s all about Guardiola feeling like he’s been shafted by the officials. Still, never mind eh. Nine points clear of them even though our fixtures have been much harder then theirs. Happy days. Monday Nov 11: Hahahahaha fucking hell, Sterling has been dropped from the England squad after he went for Joe in the canteen. This is so funny. As I said, we’ve got that entire club rattled to fuck. Sterling was an angry little bastard all day yesterday (and he had his best game against us, so maybe he needs that aggression?) but he had all night to sleep on it and calm down, yet his head was still kettled when he joined the squad nearly 24 hours later and now the whole world knows it. He’s 100% in the wrong here and that’s obvious. Southgate suspended him from their next game and said it was a decision the entire squad were behind. He didn’t punish Gomez though, which is telling. Sterling is arguably England’s star player and he’s certainly the most high profile. The easiest thing to do for Southgate would have been to let it go, or to punish both players. For him to take the action he did just shows how out of order Sterling must have been. I’ll tell you exactly what will happen now though. Man City’s press office will be holding emergency meetings right about now trying to figure out a way to limit the damage to Sterling and find a way to pin this on Liverpool. I’m 100% sure of that because that’s how they operate. I’ve spoken to a few people who’ve had dealings with them and honestly, they’re fucking loons over there. Manchester City operate in the same way Abu Dhabi the state does. They see everything as a PR war and don’t like anyone standing up to them. They’re obsessed with what they see as favourable media coverage we get, so this Sterling stuff will be causing ructions over there, especially as it was an LFC player involved. Meanwhile there was a mad rumour today that we have done a deal to sign my boy Ryan Fraser in January. I actually know where it started because I was listening to Talksport in the car when they broke their ‘exclusive’. It was a bookie who ‘broke’ the story’. He rang in to talk about odds on different stuff and then said he had an exclusive transfer story. Adrian Durham then rolled with it as though it was fact and was encouraging people to call in and discuss whether it’s a good signing or not. I knew instantly it was bollocks because transfer exclusives are not broken by bookies ringing up radio stations. It was quickly shot down by Bascombe and from what I hear the club were not impressed at all. It was clearly fabricated to get clicks and callers for Talksport, but there’s another element to this kind of shite too. Bookies take bets on these things. It stinks to high heaven. Speaking of Durham though, he’s outdone himself today by claiming that not only can Tom Davies be Everton’s answer to Stevie Gerrard, but that he can actually be better than him. I mean just fuck off. Clickbait in radio form at it’s absolute worst. I understand the ploy of saying something controversial to get people to call in, but Durham annoys the fuck out of me because when he isn’t being a massive troll he’s a good listen and he makes some great points (and he was one of the best out there when it came to fighting the fight for Hillsborough). I’ll always have time for him for that but unfortunately he’ll come out with this shite and is happy for people to think he’s a massive bellend as long as it gets people talking. Not even the most blinkered of Evertonians would claim that Davies could be better than Gerrard. Where’s your professional pride man? You’re better than that, stop being a tit. Tuesday Nov 12: Sterling issues a statement (not an apology) saying it was heat of the moment stuff that lasted 5-10 seconds and that him and Joe have now put it behind them. No-one seems to be picking up on this, but that shit he put out there today is a fucking disgrace. He committed an unprovoked assault on a team-mate. That team-mate did not react, did not call for him to be punished, accepted his apology and has actually done him a big favour. The statement should have read “I apologise unreservedly to Joe, my team-mates and to Gareth for my actions, which were inexcusable. Joe did nothing wrong and I am 100% responsible for what happened. We have talked it over and me and Joe are fine now and want to put it behind us.” Anything less than that is unacceptable, but what he actually said is far worse. Honestly, it’s fucking appalling. Let’s break it down bit by bit: “First and foremost everyone knows what that game means to me!” - Bigging himself up. “Everyone knows that I am not that way inclined” - Again, self praise and a refusal to accept responsibility. “And more to the point. Both Joe and I have had words and figured things out and moved on”. - This makes it look like it was a two way thing rather than one person attacking another without cause or provocation. “We are in a sport where emotions run high and I am man enough to admit when emotions got the better of me.” - Look at me, I’m a big man. I can admit that I got too emotional, but remember, it’s only because I care so much. “We move on this is why we play this sport because of our love for it” - You play this sport so you can attack a team-mate almost 24 hours after a game just for saying hello to you? “Me and @joegomez5 are good we both understand it was a 5-10 second thing” You and Joe are good because he is a sound lad who hasn’t made things worse for you. And which 5-10 seconds do you mean, Raheem? The 5-10 second thing on the pitch, which was perfectly ok as it’s heat of the moment, or the 5-10 second thing that occurred the next day, without provocation, in the cold light of day when “the heat of the moment” was in no way a factor? “It’s done we move forward and not make this bigger than it is.” - Thats not for you to decide you arrogant, unrepentant little cunt. Seriously, how is he not being fucking panned for that shambolic excuse of an.. I was going to say apology but there is no hint of him being sorry in that…. so I don’t even know what to call it. They were both in training today, and Gomez has a massive scratch on his face and neck. Not surprising, those little dinosaur talons are sharp as fuck. Wednesday Nov 13: And right on cue, from today’s Telegraph: ”How years of vilification after Anfield exit may be at root of Raheem Sterling meltdown”. Bit disappointed to be honest, I thought City’s press office would be a bit more creative than that but it was obvious they’d somehow find a way to put a “this is Liverpool’s fault” spin on it. If Sterling had kicked off immediately after the game then I could buy into the whole “the crowd made him do it” explanation. Where that all falls down is that they sorted out the problem at full time and reportedly spoke afterwards. It was all fine. Then almost 24 hours later, Joe walks into the canteen, says ‘hello’ and Sterling goes for him. And that’s because of the crowd booing? Sure. The shit fed to the Telegraph wasn’t just portraying the fans as the cause though. The real purpose of this became clear with the insinuations that LFC are responsible for all the bad press Sterling gets because they portrayed him as the villain when he left. He WAS the fucking villain when he left and I’m getting sick of history being rewritten. Yes, he’s booed because he left us to go to City, and yes he gets called a greedy bastard because he more than doubled what we were offering. Personally I’d like to see “one greedy bastard” put into the retired chants home, and while we’re at it, stick the Chelsea “you ain’t got no history” one in there to keep it company. While the money was a big factor in him leaving, it makes us look like dickheads considering he’s won two Premier Leagues and a load of cups since he went there. The only reason for keeping it going is that it seems to rattle him. But I digress. The point I wanted to make was that it seems to have been forgotten by those who rush to condemn Liverpool and the fans for the reception Sterling gets when he comes to Anfield, but the main reason his departure was so acrimonious was because of how he and his slimeball agent went about getting it. He did an unsanctioned interview with BBC where he spoke about why he wanted to leave. He did this on the eve of an important game away at Arsenal. So yeah, a lot of people think he’s a twat and they let him know about it whenever he comes back. Mostly though, I just think the booing has carried on because it’s clearly put him off his game. As long as that’s the case, it will continue. It’s pretty far fetched to claim that’s the reason he attacked Joe though. Sterling was pissed off with everyone during the game (even leaving a snide one on Big Virg late on), but by all accounts it was sorted at the full time whistle. I reckon he’d put it to bed until he saw how much he was being mocked on social media for being manhandled by Gomez and his macho pride was hurt. His mates were probably telling him he’d been ‘disrespected’, hence him attacking Joe and saying “still think you’re the big man?”. There is actually no defence for this, no explanation that can be put out there to justify what he did. He just lost his head and made a tit of himself. It’s not even really a big deal. Football is a testosterone filled environment and this kind of thing happens all the time. The thing that bothers me about it isn’t so much what Sterling did, it’s how he’s not taken responsibility and apologised for it, and how his club are desperately trying to pin it on Liverpool’s (by that I mean fans and club) treatment of him. It’s actually amusing how City are looking to make us out to be the bad guys when the irony is that but for our captain, Sterling would be at home now and not with the squad preparing for next week’s game. Hendo went above and beyond to sort this mess out, because he’s a top lad and England’s unofficial captain. Kane has the armband, but Henderson is the captain, make no mistake about that. Oh hey, guess what? The FA have finally announced that Bernardo will serve a one match ban. Well that’s one part entirely predictable, and another part what the actual fuck? Announcing it this week was so obvious, I’ve been calling that for weeks. He was never getting banned before Anfield. It’s not about helping out City though, it’s purely about not having one of the biggest stars in the league missing the biggest showpiece game of the season. That’s why they delayed the ban. As for why it was only one game though, I can’t give an explanation for that. I honestly thought he’d get six games, maybe reduced to three of them suspended. He got a lesser punishment than Harvey Elliot got for calling Kane a mong when he was only 15 years old. Embarrassing. Thursday Nov 14: City have lodged an official complaint about Michael Oliver’s handling of the game at Anfield. Fucking hell, this is just a whole heap of cringe. There have been so many hideous refereeing performances but it’s rare for any club to do this. Whatsmore, City have done it after the referee actually had a really good game. Refs are human and if I were in Oliver’s shoes now, I’d be thinking “next time I get you cunts I’ll really give you something to fucking complain about”. If he doesn’t think that way then he’s a far bigger man than most. They’re so consumed by this ‘rivalry’ with us that it’s impacting on everything they say and do. They’re having a collective mental breakdown because we beat them. I genuinely wish we were playing them again next week as it might tip them completely over the edge. There was more fire fighting on Sterling’s behalf in the press today. Of course no-one is stupid enough to defend his actions, but some are at great pains to try and give us reasons for them. Reasons like social media provocation. Well firstly, don’t fucking go on social media if you know you’re going to get abuse and you don’t react well to it. But more importantly, unless Joe Gomez was trolling him on there, what the fuck has that got to do with anything? “Some Liverpool fans are calling me names so I’m gonna go and scratch Joe Gomez”. Sorry, I don’t know how you join those dots. Social media abuse is a serious issue and well worthy of discussion. It has fuck all to do with this particular incident though and it’s embarrassing to see some sections of the media enabling Sterling’s behaviour. Part of the problem here is other sections of the media have been horrible racist cunts towards him, so now you have people going the other way to try and compensate for that. Plus you have City briefing to try and limit the damage to his (and by association, their) reputation. Manchester City are not a football club. They’re an oil state, used to having things their own way and completely intolerant of anyone standing up to them. It shows in everything they do and the way they attempt to manipulate the media coverage. What they aren’t realising is that despite their wealth and recent success, Man City are small potatoes in England and nobody really gives a fuck about them. They’re so insignificant that their neighbours and so called biggest rivals would rather they won the league than us because they’re just not that important in the grand scheme of things, and never will be. The funny thing is that if they fall off the pace and / or Guardiola leaves, Sterling will want to be on the first plane out of there to Spain. If they think he has any loyalty to them they’re kidding themselves. He left QPR because we were a better proposition. He left us because City were. He’ll drop them like a fucking stone if he thinks he can do better, and all their fans fighting his corner now will be giving him the Milner treatment when he returns to the Etihad playing for Real Madrid. On a more positive note, Hendo is the guest on Carra’s new podcast and it’s absolutely fantastic. If you haven’t listened to it yet, you have to. Hendo’s such a great lad and so humble. There’s some great stuff in this that I hadn’t heard before. Like 21 year old Hendo having a row with Suarez in training and “wanting to fucking kill him”. The next game, Suarez says to Lucas that Hendo will set him up for a goal because he’d lit a fire under him. And he did. After that they got on great and are still mates now. And then there was Carra revealing that back in the summer of 2012 when he was doing TV work with Roy Keane, they were having a chat about different stuff and they got to talking about Hendo, who hadn’t made the best of starts at Anfield. Keane said “don’t ever bet against that lad”. I reckon that’s a huge deal, as Keane generally thinks everyone who isn’t him is shit. Praise from Caesar, and it tells you all you need to know about Henderson’s determination and ability. Finally, Gomez was booed when he came on as a sub for England tonight. Not by everyone. Not even by a majority. But by enough that it was audible and caused embarrassment for the non-neanderthal element of the crowd and anger within the squad. Players were angry and Southgate was seething. Gomez is said to be very upset about it as he had family in the stands. See, this probably came as a shock to him, because no normal, rationally thinking, decent individual would boo a player who did nothing wrong and actually behaved admirably under severe provocation. Normal rules don’t apply to “Little England” though, and someone should have tipped Joe off that this was going to happen, because it was never in doubt. Friday Nov 15: Sterling’s tweet last night defending Gomez looked like a nice gesture, on the face of it. He took full responsibility and said Joe did nothing wrong and the booing was unfair and wrong. You won’t be surprised to know that I have a big problem with this. It smacks of him trying to reclaim some high ground and have people praising him. And it’s worked. Now it’s all “very classy from Raheem” and “fair play to him”. No, fuck that. If he’d have put something like this out earlier in the week (I’m completely to blame, not Joe, there is no excuse) instead of the arrogant, non-apology he sent out, then even I would accept it at face value and say well done. This just fucking reeks of spin though. He wanted people to think he’s the good guy and it will work, because most won’t see it for the opportunist, insincere shite that it is. If he’d said this instead of that self praising shite he posted the other day, maybe Gomez wouldn’t have been booed tonight. I hope someone points this out to Joe and he isn’t taken in by this phoney shite he put out after the game. Staying with City (seems like the entire week has been about them, but there’s fuck all else happening so what can I do?), looks like FFP is dead in the water because City are getting away with a fine according to the Athletic. I guess the threats to tie UEFA up in court for the next ten years did the trick, because the breaches of FFP are as blatant and as serious as you’re ever going to get. If that isn’t enough to get them a ban, literally nothing will. They might as well just carry on cheating if the consequences are only financial. If UEFA aren’t doing anything then you sure as hell know that the Premier League / FA won’t, as they’ve got no fucking balls at all. Let’s just end the pretence and acknowledge that teams can spend whatever the fuck they like from now on. At least everyone knows where they stand and won’t be clinging to the faint hope that cheats will be punished. I’ll end with Roy Keane talking about the Sterling / Gomez fight…. “The manager said we were a disgrace. To be fair to Peter, HE apologised” Hahahaha! …..and that was the week that was

This week’s round up will be like the semi-final stages of the Champions League - a Man City free-zone. We played them on Sunday so that was covered in the match report. All the fall out from it - and there's a lot - will be in “the week that was” due to be posted up at the weekend, so this will cover all the other games. May as well kick things off with the two sides who are now the closest of the chasing pack. First up, Chelsea beat Palace in the early game to temporarily go second. Kevin Abraham broke the deadlock in the second half with a composed finish and Pulisic wrapped it up late on to give Chelsea six league wins on the spin. They haven’t played anyone decent in those six games, but you still have to win and they have. Pulisic is looking really good now and Lampard has introduced another youngster into the side, Reece James, who was terrific and completely shut down Wilf Zaha. He probably shouldn’t be allowed to play again until he’s been the barbers though. Dreadful state of affairs that. It looks like a tarantula orgy. James’ hairstyle apart, Chelsea are looking good and next up they’ve got a certain side who I’m not talking about, which could be a cracker of a game. Defensively they’re suspect but they’re great going forward and their style is attractive to watch. If they get it right tactically and that’s going to be interesting. Palace were shite, because Palace are shite. Been saying it all season, but it’s only a matter of time until they’re in the bottom six. Chelsea’s stint in second spot was short lived as Leicester rolled over Arsenal to leapfrog them. Arsenal losing again was no surprise though. It was away and they travel about as well as BA Baracus, plus Leicester are much better than them. Throw in the fact they were up against Jamie Vardy, a man who has embarrassed the Gunners in recent years almost as frequently as Arsenal Fan TV, and there was nothing down for them really. Leicester smacked them around and it was far easier than the 2-0 score suggested. Arsenal only had one shot I think. They were pitiful. They were lucky not to concede an early pen when Guendouzi grabbed Soyuncu by the shoulder as he attacked a set-piece. VAR didn’t over-rule the ref on that, which again just makes you wonder what’s going on. It’s 100% a penalty and it deserved to be punished for sheer stupidity alone. How are they not giving that? Maybe they were influence by the likelihood that Soyuncu wasn’t even going to reach the ball, but that makes what Guendouzi did even worse. How thick do you need to be to do that? That incident was Arsenal in a fucking nutshell though. They do shit like this every week. If it’s not Xhaka it’s David Luiz. If it’s not David Luiz it’s Guendouzi. Next week it will be Torreira or Bellerin or Kolasinic or Mustafi. They must have the thickest squad of players in the league. Absolutely no discipline whatsoever. Vardy eventually broke the deadlock after the break and Maddison quickly added a second. Maddison is having a great season but the more I watch him the more I can’t stand him. He reminds me of Jack Grealish as he just looks like a massive twat who you’d love to slap. Maddison is a class player though. Grealish might be too but he’s playing for Villa so it’s more difficult to judge. Maddison has the England spot while Grealish keeps getting overlooked. It would be interesting to see them do a job swap to see who is actually the better player. Bit disappointed in Vardy’s celebration though. After last week’s “Flapping Eagle” impression after scoring against Palace, I thought he might have fired an imaginary cannon to wind up the Arsenal fans. Maybe he only trolls when he’s away from home though. And am I imagining it, or is it always absolutely fucking pissing down when Leicester play? It's like they have a permanent dark rain cloud accompanying them everywhere. A Claude Puel if you like. Southampton appeared to have hit rock bottom when they conceded nine at home to Leicester a couple of weeks back. After all, it can’t get any worse than that, can it? Well yeah, you could lose at home to Everton. Fucking hell Southampton, just what is it going to take before you ditch that manager and give yourself a chance at survival? With the players they have they just shouldn’t be this shit. There’s talent in that squad and they have a goalscorer in Ings, who has six goals in his last seven games. But if you can’t beat Everton at home then you may as well just fold the club and send everybody home. The St Mary’s crowd weren’t happy and let the players know it. And just like that, it made sense. Everton never win away but with all that booing their players will have felt like it was a home game. Tom Davies headed them in front before Ings tapped in an equaliser. Richarlison got the winner and went to kiss the badge before changing his mind and biting it instead. Wise move, not even Evertonians would be buying that shit and they’d be using that photo against him for the rest of his life, depending who he moved to. Staying with the Blues for a sec, I was in my Mum’s the other day when they were showing the Davies goal on Sky Sports News. “He’s a funny looking little thing” she said, before adding “he looks like he should be sat in the garden holding a fishing rod”. Nailed it. Again. Newcastle had a good win on Saturday, coming from behind to beat Bournemouth at St James’ Park. Our boy Harry put Bournemouth ahead with an accomplished finish to round off a wonderful training ground set-piece. Great goal that, so clever. Newcastle kept going though. Saint-Maximin and Almiron are lively and cause problems, but they just can’t score. It’s funny as fuck to watch though. Saint-Maximin looks the more likely of the two, although that’s not saying much as Alan Shearer looks more likely to score for Newcastle now than poor Almiron. He must have thought he was finally about to pop his cherry when he latched onto a loose ball after the keeper had dived at the feet of Saint-Maximin, but his goal bound shot was blocked on the line by….. Saint-Maximin! He's never going to score, he's the Rob Jones of strikers. Despite the lack of goals from the forwards (Joelinton isn’t scoring either), Newcastle found a way to get the job done. Yedlin’s flying header got them back on level terms and then Clark somehow bundled in the winner despite barely making any contact on the ball. Huge win for the Geordies and for Steve Bruce. Lascielles has been ruled out for the season now though, which is a big blow for their survival hopes. Tell you what though, there were loads of empty seats there. You never see that at St James’, but there were more gaps in that crowd than in Guardiola’s defence the next day. Ah fuck, so much for being a Man City free-zone. Sorry, just couldn’t help myself. Moving on, Spurs’ woes continued as they were held - and outplayed by - Sheffield United at home. “Poor Sonny” gave them the lead and was all smiles again. Three goals in four days for him since “the incident”. Trauma? What trauma? He’s the type of heartless fuck who’d get remarried before his dead wife was even cold. The Blades thought they’d equalised almost immediately through McGoldrick, but VAR had other ideas. This one looked dodgy as fuck. It was a worse decision than the one we had at Villa Park, because it wasn’t even the goalscorer that was given offside. Shit, it wasn’t even the guy who crossed it for him. It was a player involved in the build up, and that technology didn’t prove anything. The picture was so blurred the lad looked like he had Sideshow Bob feet. They took one line from the end of his blurred, clown shoe-like boots, but the other line was from the middle of the knee of the defender. Nobody wants to see this shit. The technology isn’t a perfect science on these things, and therefore goals shouldn’t be ruled out like this. When it’s that close and you can’t prove it either way, give the fucking goal. They didn’t let their heads drop though and they got their reward when a cross by Baldock eluded everyone and snuck in at the back post. No-one saw Sheffield United being this impressive. I certainly didn’t and there’s no way it’s going to last. They look like they’ve got enough to survive, but currently they’re in fifth place. FIFTH PLACE!! It’s mad. I didn’t foresee that, but the two biggest errors of judgement I’ve had so far this season is over-rating Norwich and Arsenal. In the early weeks of the season I thought Norwich would survive comfortably, especially after they knocked off City (ah shit, I did it again. That's twice now. TWICE.... TWIIIIICCCEEE), mainly because of their home form. I don’t think they’ve won since, and on Friday night they lost 2-0 to the bottom club, Watford. Deulefeu scored one and made one, and you have to say he’s far too good for Watford. He is to them what Zaha is to Palace. He'll be in the same boat as Zaha too at the end of the season if Watford stay up. He'll fancy a move to one of the big boys, but which of us would pay what it takes to get him? Maybe Arsenal, they love a diminutive attacking player who doesn't offer anything defensively. Norwich are fucked though. Nailed on to go back to the Championship. Watford may join them but it wouldn’t shock me if they started to pick up a little now they’ve finally won a game. My boy Troy will be back soon too, which will obviously help. They’re keeping a bottom three spot warm for West Ham, who were thumped by Burnley at Turf Moor and are in a massive slump. That wiseguy goalie who is standing in for Fabianski needs to be sleeping with the fishes soon or West Ham are going to find themselves in a whole world of trouble. He’s horrendous and he’s killing them every week by letting in soft goals. I just don’t know what they were thinking when they signed him as one look at him should have been enough to know he was dodgy as fuck. Roberto doesn’t even look like a keeper. I could definitely see him hanging around the Bada Bing wearing a white vest and a big gold chain, always wanting to impress the bosses but constantly fucking up and having to take a beating. Maybe he took one beating too many and turned rat? Maybe he’s in witness protection and they set him up as West Ham’s back up goalie, thinking he’d never be needed because they had Fabianski? What? That’s more plausible than the idea that this guy is actually a professional goalkeeper that West Ham scouted and signed to replace Adrian. He’s an absolute train wreck and was directly to blame for two of the three goals conceded. You can probably argue he should have done more on the other one too. Ashley Barnes ended his barren spell by prodding in the opener from a corner. Chris Wood then thumped in a header to make it 2-0, or so he thought. VAR had other ideas. Close, but it looked like they got that one right. I hate all this bullshit though with the lines being drawn between one player’s toe and another player’s bollock. It’s just shit. Said it before and I’ll say it again. Scrap that rule and just use each player’s standing foot as the marker. Much more simple and fair if it’s done that way. Wood was unlucky with that one but he did get his goal not long after when he took advantage of a ridiculous throw out by the Hammers’ hapless keeper. His attempt at stopping the shot was pathetic too, but as bad as that was he outdid himself soon after when he punched a corner kick into his own net. Mama mia! Declan Rice said afterwards that they were bullied all over the pitch and they need to be honest with themselves. They’ve had a really easy start to the season but their upcoming run is brutal and by the time we get to Christmas they might be bumming around near the drop zone. Fabianski isn’t back any time soon, and Lanzini just busted his collar bone. Pellegrini might be on the hot seat by the New Year. Onto Sunday now and the Mancs had a much needed win at home to Brighton. I’ve got nothing else to say about it as I didn’t watch. I actually forwarded through the highlights so I could get to the Midlands derby. Me not watching United games was a common thing a couple of years ago but that was because it just wasn’t good for my blood pressure watching Mourinho’s side churning out ugly, undeserved wins to stay ahead of us in the table. That’s not the case anymore and I didn’t watch them just because I couldn’t really be arsed. They’re just not on my radar anymore. So finally, Wolves just edged out Villa in the “Smalltime bellend fans Derby” game at Molyneux. Imagine being in that stadium listening to those two sets of fans trying to ‘outbantz’ each other. *shudders* Villa left Neves all alone on the edge of the box for the opener. Why? Why would you do that? Of all the players in the league you might leave alone on the edge of the box, he’s the absolute last one you should leave. They deserved to lose the game on that alone. Jiminez made it 2-0 late on before Trezeguet gave Wolves a very late scare with a stoppage time goal. Wolves battered them really and should have been out of sight before that last ditch consolation. They have definitely recovered from that bad start and are looking like a top six contender now. My boy Adama Traore is having a great season so far. He’s added end product to the ridiculous pace he has and now he’s a right fucking handful. Wolves are actually better than Arsenal and United. I don’t just mean they are currently playing better, I mean they’ve got better players. They might actually finish fifth if Spurs don’t get their act together. Guess there’s a lot to be said for player trafficking.

Last year we missed out on the title in large part due to only taking one point against City, so this win was huge. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but what needed to happen happened, and while the rest of the nation bleats about phantom penalties and pro-Liverpool conspiracies, we can just laugh it off and celebrate another great win that puts us eight points clear at the top, and nine clear of City. While Pep Guardiola desperately tried to ensure the narrative was City being screwed by the officials again (he did the same thing when we spanked them in Europe too), the real story of this game was the tactical masterclass by Klopp that allowed us to keep them at arms length for most of the day while completely ripping them to shreds at the other end. Apparently XG showed that City had more ‘expected goals’. Whatever. My eyes told me that every single time we attacked we looked like we’d score. It might not have always led to a clear chance, but it always looked like it could do. City were dangerous and played some lovely football around the box, but we defended them as well as it’s possible to do while also ensuring we never got pinned back by them and were always able to spring counter attacks. Klopp’s assessment was that you can’t beat City by playing like they do, because they’re the best at playing that way. He’s dead right. They’re sensational at what they do, but what they do at one end does leave them wide open at the other, and we took full advantage of that. It was a strange start to the game as for the first few minutes we just couldn’t get the ball. City got on top of us immediately and forced some early corners. Everything seemed to be going through Bernardo on the right in the early stages, but we were doubling up nicely on both him and Sterling on the opposite side. City had a lot of the ball but our shape was good, and it soon became clear that any time City didn’t have the ball they were in big trouble. It genuinely felt as though we’d score every single time we attacked. They were wide open and I’m surprised we only scored three to be honest, especially as two of them came so early. And how good were those goals? Just beautiful. City can bleat all they want about the first one, I don’t care. Irrespective of what happened in the box, the way we worked it from back to front so quickly was ruthlessly efficient and a sign of things to come. Sadio had stayed forward in “the half space” as Klopp likes to say, and Robbo sent him clear with a pass out of defence. Mané drove at the defence, waited for support to arrive in the middle and then tried to pick out Bobby. City were scrambling back and managed to intercept it, but Mo closed down so quickly that Gundogan’s clearance went only to Fabinho, who just fucking leathered it in from 25 yards. The keeper had no chance of saving that as it was such a sweet strike. It went like an arrow and when you look at the still photo of it you can see the perfect form of Fabinho. Head down, just striking right through the ball. Glorious. He should do that more often really, shouldn’t he? Although if he added goals to what he already does then that’s genuinely not fair on the rest of the league and maybe some sort of handicap would need to be introduced. I don’t know, maybe have him carry a dead weight around the field with him or something. After all, that’s what Gerrard had to do for half of the time he played with us. Fab’s goal was a lot like the one Ox got against them in the Champions League, only it wasn’t at the Kop end, which was a shame as that would have been amazing. Most of us went mental celebrating it but Klopp was quite reserved because he knew there would be a VAR review over what happened in the box. That never even entered my head, I had no idea what was happening or why the City players were surrounding the ref. It was only afterwards I discovered what their complaint was, and frankly it’s all I’ve heard since. You’d think this was one of the worst decisions of all time the way some people are going on. It’s genuinely baffling to me. Tell you what was great about all that nonsense though. The way Gini was right in the middle telling the City players to pipe down and explaining what had happened. You can see him telling Fernandinho and (I think) Aguero that their player handled first and to shut their pieholes. Gotta love Gini and his game intelligence. He’s always one or two moves ahead of everyone else. I don’t even want to waste time talking about the so called handball. I’ve heard so much shit about it that it’s actually quite funny. Shearer and Crouch both said penalty on MOTD, while this morning I heard Mario Melchiot and Trevor Sinclair on the radio both saying the same. It’s not just them either. Logic would tell you that it can’t be a penalty because the ball hits Bernardo’s arm first and therefore City would have gained an advantage from it. MOTD claimed that the referees spokesman told them that Bernardo’s handball wouldn’t have counted because it didn’t directly lead to a goal. So a penalty isn’t a goalscoring opportunity now then? Just fuck off with that hypocritical nonsense. I'm not buying that at all and I don't think that's what the rule says. If the game were to be stopped it could only be for a free-kick to us. Oliver didn’t give that and he didn’t penalise Trent, because he either didn’t see them or he felt that both handballs were unintentional. We then went up the other end and scored, so what do people want the VAR ref to do? He can’t give a penalty, so he can only pull it back to give us a free-kick, and why would he do that when we scored? Really, it’s no different to a ref seeing a foul but playing the advantage. There’s nothing to see here, people should move along but for whatever reason they can’t. I don’t remember this level of debate and outrage when that bulb headed cunt Kompany took out Mo with a wild two footed lunge when he was clean through on goal at the Etihad last season. Never forget that City players were singing about that incident when they won the league, and Kompany has been a right fucking smug, smart arse twat about it ever since. So hearing him complaining about decisions that went against them in this game is just music to my ears. Vincent Kompany is a twat, I’ve been telling you that for ages. If you haven’t realised it yourself yet, don’t worry, you will. I’m never wrong on shit like this. I can spot them a mile off. Still, he’s a former City captain and only left a few months ago so he’s entitled to be biased. Some of the shit I’ve heard from other ex players though just boggles the mind. I’ve already said more than I wanted to do about it, so for the other handball shout they had in the second half I’ll just say this; fuck off. I genuinely think the only reason these decisions are being talked about so much is because that fucking egghead threw a hissy fit on the touchline. If those decisions are against Brendan Rodgers or Eddie Howe for example no-one bats an eyelid because they wouldn’t have caused an embarrassing scene. Anyway, enough of that for now. It’s 1-0 and then within no time we scored again. This is what I was hoping for prior to the game. I’d said to a few people that it would either be a stalemate or we’d absolutely smash them. And for us to smash them, the most likely scenario would be to score one and then blow them away in a short space of time afterwards. We’ve done that before; one goal quickly leads to another and then another as the players ride the wave of emotion from the crowd and the opposition are just overwhelmed. We’ve done it City twice and that’s how I hoped it would go this time. So when we got the second so quickly I was thinking we might add one or two more and win the game there and then. That didn’t happen, but oh boy, what a goal that second one was. I’ll never tire of watching that, it was like the lads were doing one of those “recreate a famous goal from the past” videos and they’d been told to copy the Terry Mac header against Spurs. So similar. It was just incredible and only we could have scored a goal like that. We’re unique in world football right now because nobody else has full backs doing the kind of amazing shit we’re seeing from Trent and Robbo virtually every week. Freeze the shot and look at where we are when Trent picks up the ball. It’s almost impossible to imagine that within a few seconds and with only four touches of the ball we’d have scored. It’s genuinely amazing to see. Savour this, because what we’re being treated to currently is as good as anything that any Liverpool fan has ever been privileged enough to witness. It won’t always be like this, so enjoy it. Trent’s switch of play with his left foot is world class. Robbo takes one touch to get it out of his feet and into the space, and then he delivers an inch perfect cross into the box that Mo meets with a brilliantly controlled header. I don’t think the finish is getting the credit it deserves because we’re all talking about the brilliance of Trent and Robbo, but that was a great header on the run. Some are trying to claim it’s offside and I even saw some crank claiming that VAR wasn’t working but that they’re trying to keep that quiet. Hilarious. Even better was a tweet I saw from some virgin who had used his iPhone camera app to prove it was offside. Should have seen how many retweets it got too. People are so desperate to think we’re cheating and being favoured by officials. It’s utterly batshit mental, but at the same time it’s great that there are so many knobheads having their lives ruined by the Reds being top of the league. So anyway, City had all of the ball but just like that, they trail 2-0. You actually can’t stop that second goal unless you’re playing ultra defensively and haven’t committed players forward. That’s not City’s style though so they were always going to leave spaces. Most teams aren’t good enough to take advantage of that but we obviously are and we did. Guardiola said afterwards how proud he was of his team and that their performance was brilliant. Some have laughed at that but I agree with him up to a point. With the ball they’re terrific and we had to be fully committed and switched on to keep them at bay. Yes, they were wide open for counter attacks but that’s a result of how he demands they play, it’s not really down to his players performing badly so he can’t be too critical of that. What it comes down to for me is that he brought his team here to take the game to us and with an attitude of “may the best team win”. And the best team did win. His team played well, our team played well, but we won because we put the ball in the net more times than they did, but mostly because we defend better than they do. It’s that simple really. They had chances to score in the first half but the closest they came was when Angelino’s effort was deflected onto the outside of the post by Van Dijk. They always looked dangerous but it’s not as though Alisson was over-worked. We were often at full stretch to stop them and for that you have to give great credit to our defence and midfield. So disciplined, so switched on, so hard working. For all of City’s possession, Bravo was the busier of the keepers. He needed to make a save to deny Firmino and then another to keep out Mo’s curling 20 yarder. Both of those chances came after some sexy as fuck attacking play. Bobby’s effort was the result of an incredible driving run from Trent. The way he plucked the ball out of the air and then carried it 40 yards was Gerrard-like. Mind you, a lot of what he does is Gerrard-like. As I say, I thought we looked like we were going to score every single time we attacked in that first half, and it continued after the break. It wasn’t long before it was 3-0. Hendo picked the ball up on the touchline, and with everyone expecting him to pass the ball inside he just put his head down and drove to the byline before delivering a worldy cross to the back post where Sadio had stolen a yard on Walker to head the ball in. It was as good a cross as you’ll see, just absolutely inch perfect from the skipper. And there was a glorious irony about the way Mané scored. “Sometimes he’s diving” indeed, eh Pep? Bravo is being blamed for that but that’s a little harsh to me. He had no chance of dealing with the cross and although he got his hands to Sadio’s header, it’s from close range and he could only push it into the net. Still, I don’t really care if he could have saved it or not. The only thing that matters is he didn’t, and we were three goals up. At this point I genuinely thought we’d score a couple more and really send a message to them, but a fourth didn’t come and the longer the game went the more City began to get on top. A big contributing factor in that for me was Hendo being subbed. I don’t have a problem with the decision because he’d been ill earlier in the week and Klopp obviously didn’t think he could last the full game. There’s no way he’d have been taken off for any other reason as he was fucking brilliant. The last twenty minutes were stressful. City began to get on top and we couldn’t really get out. The counter attacks dried up and we became less and less of a threat, which allowed them to really turn the screw on us. They only scored one but they had chances to get more. Aguero missed an absolute sitter. He was eventually subbed for Jesus and his record at Anfield is so bad he should change his name to Everton. It was Sterling causing all the problems though. All of a sudden he came into the game and we were really struggling to contain him. Virtually every attack they had came down that side of the field and we were really hanging on. Bernardo pulled one back with a powerful low shot that went in off the post and all of a sudden I’m having flashbacks to that game two years ago when we ended up hanging on for grim death despite having led 4-0. This team is more resilient than that one, and it’s not just because we’ve got Van Dijk. Alisson and Fabinho obviously help, but it’s more a collective mentality now. There’s a maturity and composure about them now and they can see games out. Klopp was doing his nut at the City goal because he’d been trying to make a sub for a couple of minutes but Oliver ignored the signal from his linesman and allowed City to restart the game from a throw in. The lino clearly had the flag raised above his head to signal a substitution and Oliver should have stopped the game. We needed to make a change because we were really under the cosh, so Klopp had every right to be angry about that. I’m not sure what happened because I thought that any time a linesman raises his flag there’s a signal that goes straight to the ref, so I don’t know why he didn’t let us make that change. It was the right move to get Ox on there in place of Bobby, as we couldn’t get out of our own half and clearly a lot of players were beginning to tire. That definitely contributed to City getting on top, but as I say, I felt as though Henderson going off was a real turning point. It might not show up on the stat sheet (I saw some stat nerd on Twitter mocking his defensive contribution on the basis that he only had one tackle) but Henderson’s influence on this game was massive, and it was all the more noticeable when he went off. Sterling had looked lively all day but he hadn’t been able to have much of an influence until Hendo went off. After that he was running wild. Part of that if because as a team we became tired and City were allowed to get on top of us, but the absence of Henderson was huge because all of a sudden Sterling was picking the ball up and he was isolated one v one with Trent. That did not happen when Henderson was on the field. Klopp alluded to it afterwards without directly mentioning his skipper. He said something along the lines of what a great player Sterling is and how much trouble he gave us in the final 20 minutes, but he also said it shows just what a great job we’d done to keep him quiet until then. You don’t need to make tackles or interceptions to be effective defensively. You can be influential in all sorts of ways that there are no stats for. Shutting down space, closing off angles, doubling up to help the full back and forcing the winger to go backwards. That’s what Hendo did. The social media haters won’t see that, but everyone in the ground did and his name was echoing around Anfield as the players left at full time. The midfielders were all sensational and it was nice seeing them get some recognition from Shearer on MOTD. The midfield is the least heralded part of our side (understandably so) but it’s their unselfish play and incredible work ethic that allows the full backs and forwards to do what they do. Fabinho rightly gets a lot of plaudits but the “workhorses” seem to be the first to get stick when we aren’t at our best and the last to get credit when we are. Henderson was brilliant but Wijnaldum was even better. What a performance that was from him. He’s always at his best in the big games though so this was no surprise. His ability on the ball in tight spaces is just something else. It’s almost impossible to take the ball off him. He was pinging long passes around too in this game, which you rarely see from him normally. One of the best games I’ve seen him have. You know who else was ace? Big Dejan. He dealt with Aguero very well, he won loads of important headers and he made a fantastic block to deny Sterling that he celebrated like he’d scored himself. Fucking good for him. In the summer I seemed to be writing every week in the diary about why we’d be stupid to sell Lovren. This is why. He’s fucking good and he was always going to be needed because we have so many games. I’m not telling you he’s better than Gomez or Matip, but a lot of it is based on form and opportunity. He lost his place through injury, but prior to that he’d been great for six months and was man of the match in Kiev. Gomez, and then Matip both came in and played well enough to keep their place until they too lost it through injury. Now it’s come full circle and Lovren is back in and will take some shifting now. Matip has been brilliant and had made the position his own but if Lovren continues to perform as he has been then ‘Big Bird’ will need to wait his turn, just as Dejan did. We’ve got four top centre backs when most teams, even the good ones, are lucky if they have one. This is just a huge win for multiple reasons. Every win is important because every three points we pick up takes us closer to the title. Psychologically this is huge though. City could have narrowed the gap to three points, but instead it’s nine and all the pressure is on them now because having lost three games already they really can’t afford many more slip ups. It’s perhaps significant that they’ve dropped to fourth too. That has to be a jolt to them as they will have spent all season looking up at us and not behind at Chelsea and Leicester. Now it’s not just us they need to reel in, it’s those two as well. How will they react having had things their own way for so long? They’ve got Chelsea next so well see. There is no love lost between the two sets of players and there was a bit of needle in the game. Unsurprisingly Robbo was involved in some of it when he gave Walker a naughty little shove as he chased a ball into touch. Walker understandably took exception to it and had words, but Robbo just walked away grinning at him. I love that little bit of edge he has to him in these big games. It wasn’t just him though. Trent had a little nibble at Sterling in a similar manner, giving him a nudge as he ran towards the Kop. That prompted an angry little exchange between the pair and that was a fiercely contested battle throughout. Trent bossed it for most of the game but in the closing stages Sterling was getting on top and Klopp sensibly brought on Gomez (I’d have done it at least five minutes earlier though), who also ended up getting into it with his England team-mate. That was smart from Joe as it broke up the play and wasted valuable seconds. It was just handbags, but it was funny the way Gomez just picked him up and moved him out of his space. Loved that. At full time it continued as Sterling went over to say his piece and Gomez looked like he was just giving it the “whatever bro, I don’t really care, just shake my hand and fuck off while I celebrate”. Another boss bit of gamesmanship was late in the first half when a miles offside Sadio gave himself up by lashing the ball into the Anny Road rather than just allowing it to run through to the keeper as you normally would. That was so clever. Only a little thing, but it stopped Bravo from just collecting the ball and starting an attack. For so long I have felt that we were a little bit too nice, but we’ve learned and while we’re not exactly kick off merchants, there’s definitely a more streetwise approach in evidence these days and I fucking love it. You know what else I love? Baldiola losing his shit whenever we beat him. He was pathetic. Embarrassing. What a bad whiny bastard he is any time he doesn’t get his own way. With his bald head and crying face, he looks like a giant fucking baby with stubble. In fairness I thought he was fine in his post match interviews once he’d calmed down, but during the game his antics were ridiculous. The screaming to the heavens of “TWIIIICE!!!” is something we’ll be seeing memes of for years. He was even having arguments with random fans in the Main Stand at one point when there was a stoppage in play while Jesus got treatment. It was brilliant and I’d love to know what was being said. At times like that I wish I sat closer to the benches as you know I’d have been pulling out the full repertoire of slaphead put downs. Then he goes onto the field at full time, shakes the hands of the officials and yells at Oliver “THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU SO MUCH”. All that was missing was for him to turn back and say “In case you didn’t know, Marge, I was being sarcastic”. He actually looks like a slim Homer Simpson when I think about it. He then says afterwards that he wasn’t being sarcastic. Ok mate, sure you weren’t. Should be charged for that, although we’d probably have to wait until after the reverse fixture for his ban to be enforced. Still no word on Bernardo’s punishment, but I bet it’s announced this week. Farce. It was annoying to see Guardiola on the pitch mocking the ref because Oliver does not deserve to be the focus of any attention. People should not be talking about the ref after a game like this as he did his job well. There were one or two things I didn’t like but refereeing a game of this magnitude is really difficult and all things considered he was excellent. That’s what people should be saying, but because of Guardiola’s tantrums all I’m hearing is people discussing Oliver and VAR’s decisions. He stood there stony faced while Guardiola yelled at him, but he must have been thinking “get out of my face you fucking spoilt, self entitled, whiny, sore loser, baldy twat”. I actually dread to think what would have happened if a lesser referee had taken charge of the game. Oliver really needs to be put in charge of every big game now because who else would you trust? All of the others are terrible, whether it’s with a whistle or a computer. I actually said to my Dad before the game that we wouldn’t have to worry about VAR because there’s no way Paul Tierney was going to be over-ruling Oliver, and so it proved. It’s ironic really, one of the few games where VAR was not actually a problem and yet it’s still got everyone complaining just because we won. Still, let them all stew in their own boiled piss. We’ve got a 50 game sample size now and in those 50 games we’ve picked up eight more points than City and we’ve lost just once compared to their seven. So the logical conclusion has to be that we’re now better than them. That might change, but as things stand they should be more worried about us than the other way around, and I think they probably are given the unhealthy obsession they have from top to bottom of that club. Nine points is a big gap to close, especially given how few games we lose these days, but I’m taking nothing for granted as we were in a similar (although not quite as healthy) situation last year and the big swing came when we lost at the Etihad. That could happen again and if you throw in a few draws suddenly that nine point lead could be gone. City can reel off 15 wins on the bounce; we know that because they’ve done it in each of the last two years. I expect them to be really strong and to go on a run in the new year, especially when Laporte is back, so it’s a case of making hay while the sun shines. They have a tough stretch of six games coming up and there are more points to be dropped there. If we can keep churning out wins we can extend that lead to a point where they might almost throw in the towel. Ideally they’ll have to become more pre-occupied about holding off Chelsea and Leicester and allow us to ride off into the sunset, but it’s us, we never have it easy so I’m expecting us to have a little spell when things don’t go our way, possibly around the holiday period when we have so many games to play. Hopefully we can build a big enough lead before then that any tricky spell won’t be too damaging. Star man is virtually impossible. It could be virtually anyone. Virg was Virg, the front three worked their socks off and City couldn’t cope with them. Lovren was great, the two full backs were exceptional and the midfield three were magnificent. If you put a gun to my head and make me choose I’d probably go for Wijnaldum though, just over Fabinho. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Milner), Wijnaldum; Salah (Gomez), Firmino (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Mané: