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Saturday Dec 7: Bournemouth 0 L 3 Three more points closer to our objective. Just keep racking them up boys. Few games will be easier than this one though. The thing with Bournemouth is if they think they have a chance, they’re a difficult team to play. If they know they’ve got no chance, they just meekly accept it and curl up into a ball begging not to be hit too hard. They played this game like they usually play against Man City. The outcome was never in doubt. The great thing about this team is they can can score all sorts of goals and hurt teams in a variety of ways. They can score on a quick break from a corner, they can score from set-pieces, they can score after a patient build up or they can just hit a ball over the top and score that way. We don’t get many from outside the box, so maybe that’s one area where improvement is possible. Look at today though. First goal is a long ball over the top from Hendo to Ox. Usually it’s Mane making that run, but he was rested today and his replacement just stepped in and, well, replaced him. Second goal is a lovely one two between Naby and Mo that went right through the heart of their defence. Third goal is winning it high up the pitch and then Naby playing a perfect through ball for Mo. We’ve got so many strings to our bow that we’re virtually impossible to stop unless we have a bad day and the opposition plays to their absolute maximum. 14 points ahead of City now, who will be six points behind Leicester if the Foxes beat Villa tomorrow. This is just mental. It’s so much more than we could have even dreamed of when the season started. Those two play each other in a couple of weeks and we might actually be rooting for City. How mad is that? Meanwhile, the u18s had a good win today as well, bouncing back from their Youth Cup loss last week with a 5-1 win at last year’s league winners Derby County. They were 1-0 down at half time and then ran riot in the second half. It was the Cain and Clarkson show again. If you haven’t watched the 18s this season, it’s worth checking them out on LFCTV even just to see these two. They’re great to watch. The Manc derby made headlines for all the wrong reasons as a City fan made monkey gestures at Fred, who was also pelted with coins. I take the same view with this as I did with the Chelsea fan who abused Sterling on this very weekend a year ago. It’s not a Chelsea problem, or a Man City problem. It’s not even a football problem. It’s society. Loads of people are cunts, and some of those attend football matches. This doesn’t mean City have a problem with racism or that their fans are all scumbags, but it’s ironic really given how they’ve spent the last 18 months creasing about the behaviour of our fans because one lad threw a bottle. Now it will just be “it was one dickhead”. It was actually more than one, but he was clearly the most obvious offender to everyone except the two stewards who were stood a yard away from him. Sterling is taking a lot of stick over this, which is wrong but almost inevitable given the way he put himself up as some kind of figurehead for the fight against racism. He defended Bernardo’s tweet and today he stood there and did fuck all while two of his team-mates pleaded with the fans to behave themselves. Wasn’t a good look for him at all, but it doesn’t sit right with me seeing all the people lining up to have a go at him. He has left himself open to accusations of hypocrisy though by saying things like clubs whose fans are guilty of racial abuse should be docked nine points. He’ll no doubt be asked about that now but what can he say? That’s a no win situation for him, but seeing fans of other clubs (mostly ours actually) tweeting him gleefully about that feels like it’s making light of a bad situation. Let’s not forget the story here people. Some twat was making monkey gestures, everything else is just background noise. Sunday Dec 8: Oh man, that picture of John Barnes with Boris Johnson was just a massive kick in the balls. It’s genuinely upset me if I’m honest. I wouldn’t have been shocked to discover he voted Tory and it is what it is. I’d imagine plenty of our former and current players do too, as is their right. Actually going out there and being seen campaigning with arguably the biggest cunt in the country (and make no mistake, Johnson is certainly in the running for that title, the Poundland Trump, chuntering piece of shit) is pretty heartbreaking to me. John Barnes was one of those people who when he spoke I’d listen and usually feel more enlightened afterwards. If he had an opposing view to mine, generally I’d just assume I must be wrong. That’s all gone out of the window now though. What a mental couple of days though. Last night Gary Neville called out Johnson on racism as Roy Keane sat there nodding his approval. Today we have John Barnes, JOHN BARNES!!!!, hanging around him him. Right now I like Gary Neville more than I like John Barnes and that’s something I never thought I’d say. Can a giant meteor not just hit us and wipe us out and put an end to all this shit. The human race doesn’t deserve this planet, it’s like the earth has chickenpox. Monday Dec 9: Ok, so Barnes kind of, sort of, partially explains what happened by saying he was promoting England’s world cup bid and that he didn’t know Johnson was going to be there, as he just turned up out of the blue. Wasn’t really enough of an explanation to make me feel ok about it though. Still doesn’t sit well, does it? Meanwhile, the absolute fucking state of this ‘woe is me’ shite from Guardiola: "We have to improve and accept it and move forward," said Guardiola."[Manchester] United have the quality to defend and the quality to attack on the counter-attack and you have to accept that. That is the level we face against Liverpool, Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus. They are the teams we have to face and the reality is maybe we are not able now to compete with them. "Maybe we need to live that as a club to improve, to accept the reality now and improve. The reality is we are 14 points behind for the mistakes we have done, for the quality of our opponents and especially, as well, the things we cannot control. That is the reality but we have to continue." Firstly, just what the fuck is he doing putting United in such esteemed company? Just because United spanked his team doesn’t mean they’re any good. A week earlier they were being held at home by Villa. Unless he’s maybe talking about not being able to compete ‘financially’, which is even more hilarious given we didn’t spend anything last summer and most of what we have spent under Klopp has come via sales anyway. So I don’t actually know what the fuck he’s on about at all. As for ‘especially the things we cannot control’, he means VAR doesn’t he? The fucking weirdo. He should just fuck off to PSG where he’ll have everything his own way (domestically at least) and won’t have to worry about any of this. He’s defo talking like a fella who wants out, but maybe he’s just getting his justification in for the almighty fucking spending spree the corrupt cunts are about to go on? Rafa was on Monday night footy tonight. I didn’t see all of it but I watched his analysis of the Reds. It was good, very interesting stuff with the jist of it being that the only way you can hurt us is by attacking the space behind the full backs, but when he tried to do it with Newcastle he couldn’t because our defenders were faster than his attackers, so *shrugs* whaddayagonnado! Tell you what, these Champions League pre-match press conferences are an absolute fucking joke. So amateurish. These foreign reporters ask the shittest, most inane, pointless questions and I don’t know if it’s because of the language barrier or if it’s just the awful standard of journalism. Every time I watch one of these though I’m squirming with embarrassment. Today Jurgen got really shirty about it and it’s been a long time coming. Every time he has to sit there and listen to stupid questions and try to be polite and give an answer, when you can tell he’s thinking “I’d get more relevant questions in the local nursery school”. It’s just so fucking bad. Tuesday Dec 10: Salzburg 0 L 2 I honestly believe that Salzburg would have beaten any other English side tonight. They’re so much better than people realise and we had to be right on our game to get through tonight. Klopp tried to make that point afterwards and he was gushing in his praise for Salzburg, but I think a lot of people are just dismissing that as him just being nice about a beaten opponent. In the end it was comfortable, but only because we’re the best team in Europe and we showed it. They went toe to toe with us in that first half and could easily have scored a couple of goals. So could we, and it was clear that as dangerous as they were going forward, the trade off for that was they were wide open for us to counter on them. Had Mo not been doing his best Stuart Barlow impersonation it would have been over before half time. It’s utterly ridiculous that he scored the goal he did while missing so many far easier chances. He had no right to score from that angle on his right foot. Incredible goal that was. Good to see Naby on the scoresheet again too. He’s been brilliant in the last two games. Not just good, but brilliant. He’s played like the player I saw in all those youtube videos before he arrived. He’s had a few false dawns so some caution is needed, but to me it looks like he’s finally turned the corner now and this is what we can expect from him most of the time from now on. If he can stay fit, of course. The injuries are starting to kick in now, as we thought they would at this busy time of the year. We lost Lovren tonight, but that was negligence on Klopp’s part. He went off with cramp in his hamstring (in the first half!) at the weekend, which tells you there’s a vulnerability there. He’s got a track record of struggling when he has to play too many games in a short space of time, so why the fuck was he sent out there tonight? Honestly, I’d have been more surprised if he hadn’t had to come injured. We’re down to Van Dijk and Gomez now, plus the two 17 year old Dutch kids, neither of whom are likely to be thrown in for any meaningful game. Fabinho can’t fill in as he’s injured too, so that leaves Gini and Hendo as emergency options, but then we’re light in midfield. Can we get Ragnar back on loan until the end of the season? Wednesday Dec 11: With the group stages now complete, we know who we can and can’t get in the knock outs. I’d rather avoid Atletico Madrid if possible, as they know how to spoil a game and turn it into a borefest. We can do without that. I don’t want Dortmund because we’ve been there and done that. Lyon would be fine, and I don’t really know what I think about Atalanta. I watched them against City and there’s nothing to fear, but I don’t know what their fans are like. Are we looking at a potential Roma or Napoli type running the gauntlet of gobshites? Or are they more like Milan? Real Madrid is the ideal tie for me because we’d twat them everywhere and it would be nice to get some revenge on Ramos. If we get through them it opens up more and we can get anyone. I’d be more than happy to get Barca again and inflict more misery on them, and I’d be ok with getting City too because I think they’re now scared stiff of us. I’d rather not get PSG because I don’t fancy watching Neymar rolling around on the floor for 180 minutes trying to get our lads sent off, and besides, it wouldn’t be fair on Mbappe to have to go up against his future team-mates. Basically I’m happy to play anyone except Napoli, the arse stabbing, playacting, kryptonite twats. Meanwhile, Paul Merson thinks it’s disrespectful how people are dismissing Leicester as title contenders and insists they’ll push us all the way. Great news. Bet everything you have on them dropping points this weekend because if Merse says something, then the opposite is true. Seriously, Leicester have been brilliant so far and they have more points now than they had at this stage when they won it. There’s absolutely nothing to suggest that they can keep up this pace though, and they’re already eight points behind us. I’m not counting them out because I’m a red and you never want to tempt fate, but if I were neutral I’d be telling everyone that this title race is over. Put it this way, if Man City were 14 points ahead of us and eight ahead of Leicester, would ANYONE out there be saying there’s still a chance of them getting caught? No, they wouldn’t. Not even Paul Merson. Thursday Dec 12: Minamino!!! I love these stealth signings that catch everyone by surprise. This is like the Fabinho one. No speculation beforehand, just a report out of nowhere that we’d signed him. Same with this lad. Of course it’s not actually done because it’s not January yet, but it’s all been agreed and will go through when the window opens. I was raving about him (and his mate Hwang) after the Anfield game and they were both dangerous on Tuesday too. Apparently some of our lads were telling Klopp he should sign him and he kept it quiet that he was way ahead of them, the canny bastard. It's funny now looking back at Klopp's reaction to Salzburg's goals at Anfield. He almost looks pleased, he's got a 'that's my boy!' look on his face when Minamino scores and assists. The lad looks tailor made for how we play; he’s skilful, clever, versatile and runs his arse off. I reckon he’ll see a fair bit of action as Bobby’s understudy, playing in that false nine role. He can play wide too, as well as in the ten spot in a 4-2-3-1. Can’t wait to see him play. The price we’re getting him for is almost too good to be true. We sold Ryan Kent for more than that. I had some serious issues with Michael Edwards for a while (fully justified at the time), but the work he’s done over the last couple of years is exemplary, both in terms of getting players in and cashing in on those who go out. This is a fucking steal. We’ll make that transfer fee back in a week with shirt sales in Japan. Not going to comment on the other big event today and it’s just too depressing to dwell on. Friday Dec 13: Feeling pretty shitty today for obvious reasons, and then out of the blue we get Jurgen telling us he’s just signed a new deal. Doesn’t make everything ok, but it definitely took the edge off it a little. Then, in the afternoon, we got the news that Milner has extended his contract for another two years as well. The Reds, doing their bet to cheer us up. I did spare a sympathetic thought for the Blues today. They were just as down as us about the election, but where’s their pick me up? This just made things worse for them. I’m probably less surprised by Klopp signing an extension, simply because it was really looking like they didn’t want to extend Milner. It’s been bothering me for some time that it looked like we were going to let him leave, as he’s still a very important player and that’s before you even factor in everything else he brings. I’d love him to join the coaching staff at the end of this deal, but he looks like someone who will play on until he’s 40 so I expect he’ll drop down a level and continue playing after he leaves us. As for Klopp, my gut feeling was he was going to see out his contract and then return to Germany, especially if we won a league or two in the meantime. He could say “and now my work here is done” like Josemi and leave with our eternal gratitude, but he’s probably weighed everything up and realised that theres nowhere better to be. He’s put the work in to get us in this position, so why not reap the rewards of it? He could go anywhere and be a success, but why go through the two or three years to get everything just right when he’s already done it here? He’s never had this before, because despite Dortmund being hugely successful they were always up against it because they couldn’t stop Bayern nicking their players. He doesn’t have to worry about that here, he can build a team exactly how he wants and he can actually go out and sign any player he fancies because they all want to come here now. He hinted at this when he said part of the reason he extended was because potential signings wanted assurances he’d still be here. It’s obvious to me who he meant. Only a superstar talent would have the gravitas to be bringing something like up. Put it this way, Minamino isn’t going to be saying “I’ll only sign for Liverpool if I know Klopp will still be there in four years”. Most players are just thrilled to be signing for the Reds and wouldn’t have the balls to ‘seek assurances’ about the manager. So yeah, he means Mbappe, doesn’t he? It’s on baby. ….and that was the week that was