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Saturday Jan 4: Ancelotti talked about how close he came to joining us in 2015 but says we made the right choice in Klopp. He’s a good egg is Carlo, and at the time I wanted him rather than Jurgen. I know, what a fucking goon. It looks utterly insane now, but I think my main reasoning was that footy hipsters all loved Klopp and Dortmund and I just rebelled against that. I also thought there was a boom or bust element about Klopp whereas Ancelotti was more of a what you see is what you get. I was half right on that as things have definitely gone BOOM in a big way under Jurgen. Mad that Ancelotti has ended up on Merseyside four years later though, on the other side of the park. It won’t work out for him but that’s not a reflection on him as a manager. He’s won everything there is to win and his credentials are impeccable. But this is Everton we’re talking about here. Failure is what they do and not even he will be able to change that. The other thing that counts against him is he’s a nice fella who has a soft spot for the Reds. Ask Big Red Ron and Marco Silva how that worked out for them. In other news, hey he broke his Cherry!! Dom Solanke finally scored! He’s been there a year and it’s taken him until now to break his duck. Made up for him though, I always thought he was a really good player and although he wasn’t a fit for us I assumed he’d have a good career elsewhere. He still might, but 12 months without a goal is fucking grim. It must be doing his head in seeing Calvert-Lewin scoring freely even though he’s only half the player Solanke is, but it’s up to him to prove it now. Bournemouth are in real trouble as their squad has been ravaged by injury, so he needs to step up and score the goals that keep them up. Nice little win for the u18s today. 3-0 at home to Blackburn. The team is so young now it’s hard to keep track of who’s who. Most of the regulars have moved up to the 23s but the 18s still seem to keep getting results no matter who they pick. Sunday Jan 5: L 1 Everton 0 That was just one of the most enjoyable derby games ever and it’s one of my favourite games of the season so far. I loved the Arsenal game but this was even better. For all the praise that our lads deserve, you have to take into account how fucking woeful Everton were. I’d like to say that was because of how well we played, but it was mostly just them being massive cowards who bottled it because of Anfield. Poor Carlo is maybe now getting an idea of just what a hopeless task he has on his hands. Still, he’s being well compensated for the hit his reputation is going to take. They actually started well and had obviously taken encouragement by the team we’d sent out, but when they missed those three chances they lost all hope and spent the rest of the game just expecting to lose. It’s what they do. Don’t forget, they’ve had games when they’ve come here on an equal footing in the table (sometimes they’ve been above us) but without fail they’ve shit the bed. Any time there is any expectation on them to do anything they just can’t handle it. You know the one thing that summed Everton up today? They won the toss and chose to change ends, even though they had 8,000 fans in the Anny Road. We could have played the under 9s today and Everton would still have had an inferiority complex. To put this in perspective, this wasn’t our second team, it was more like our third. Several players in this line up would not make a second XI and there are one or two who might not make the third. Richarlison cost more than our entire line up. So did Sigurdsson. This was a derby win for the ages, one we can gloat about for generations. We beat Everton even though we didn’t pick Alisson, Trent, Robbo, Matip, Van Dijk, Lovren, Fabinho, Hendo, Keita, Wijnaldum, Salah, Mane, Firmino and Shaqiri. In addition, Milner only played six minutes and Ox only came on for the last 20. I wasn’t even surprised. Origi plus any ten was always going to be enough. What a goal by Curtis though. Doesn’t get any better for a young Red that. Monday Jan 6: Brewster is going to Swansea on loan but plans to let Jones go may be shelved after his heroics yesterday. I’d defo keep him around as he’s been on the bench lately which shows he’s needed. Besides, he’s 18 so it’s not THAT important that he goes out and gets experience. Some kids don’t need to do that (Trent for example) and Jones has developed massively this season just through training with the senior lads every day. I reckon Jones and Elliott (and probably Williams) will be the type of kids who don’t need to go out because they’ll force their way into the squad and do their developing that way. By all accounts the intensity in our training sessions is basically like a proper game, so the kids are learning more than they would by playing in League One or even the Championship. They’re having to pit themselves against some of the best players in the world, which is why when they then have to play against an Everton or someone it must feel like a relief. Some reports today that the club want Chirivella to sign a new contract. Bit weird like. Why would he do that? He’s 22 and he’s far too good to be playing reserve team football, yet he doesn’t have a hope in hell of forcing his way into the first team. And I say that as probably one of his biggest fans. He’s a lovely little footballer and will be a good signing for someone (but only if they play a possession based game), but he’s not getting past Fabinho, Hendo or Gini for that number six role. I get why the club might want to tie him down because the way he’s played in these last two cup games has probably generated a fair bit of interest and they might think they can cash in on him, but if you’re Pedro why would you do that? Unless the money is too good to turn down, but I can’t see that being the case. I really hope he gets a good move though, he’s a top lad and a lovely player to watch. Meanwhile, we’ve signed a 21 year old striker from ‘Brentford B’ for the u23s. Presumably he has v very little chance of making it, but we needed a striker because Brewster is heading out, Glatzel is injured and Bobby Duncan was a bellend. Anyway, the lad’s name is Joe Hardy and he’s originally from the Wirral. He played for City when he was younger before moving to Brentford. Tuesday Jan 7: City bummed United at Old Trafford and they might just be getting their mojo back now. Tactically they’re doing some things differently and they look a bit less vulnerable to counter attacks, which is a bit of a concern I suppose. Thankfully the gap we have is huge which gives us a cushion in case they go on one of their mad fucking runs. They looked good tonight but you have to factor in the opposition. United beat City a few weeks ago but they have it in them to do that now and again. If they played City ten times, they’d probably lose six or maybe even seven. They’re a badly coached side with some talented players who when they raise their game can look useful, but City should have beaten them by six tonight. Solksjaer though, God love him. His positivity / delusion is great. He was always going to come out and say something about how “we won the second half”. It’s true, they did, but only because City sometimes let that complacency creep in when they get ahead like that. Guardiola was fucking steaming about that afterwards and I would be too. When you have a chance to smash your neighbours in a derby, you need to take it. Wednesday Jan 8: Fucking hell, it’s kicking off at Everton. Fans turned up at Finch Farm demanding to be given an audience with the players so they could tell them how shit they are. That was denied them, but Marcel Brands did let them in and listened to their grievances. The word on the street is they told him that unless things improve soon they’ll be down with 300 lads and will trash the player’s cars. This is just too funny. The soft cunts have been watching too much Gazzetta Football Italia. Thinking they can show up at the training ground and threaten to “burn their Ferraris”. I mean, they’ve got every right to be pissed off, but threatening to bring 300 lads down to smash the players cars in is just too far fetched, even by Everton standards. I don’t believe that happened, but it’s still hilarious seeing the reaction to it all on social media. If they didn’t exist, we’d have to invent them. Staying with the Blues, it’s not just the fans who are revolting. The players are too, and they are also in revolt (never gets old!). It seems that Big Dunc gave them some home truths after Sunday’s game and some of them back chatted him. As far as we know there haven’t been any Everton players admitted to A&E, which tells me that the big man must be going soft. They've got more balls than I thought, because I defo wouldn't back chat him. Most rumours seem to have Delph as the ring leader, which is no surprise as he’d have been number one on my list of suspects. I watched that Man City documentary on Amazon and he’s a mouthy fucker who thinks he’s much better than he is. The suggestion is that he (and other senior pros) took exception to accusations they downed tools and they’re complaining about Ancelotti’s tactics already. After FOUR games. A man who has won every major honour in the game is being questioned by a bunch of losers who three days ago made Pedro Chirivella look like Xavi. Ancelotti has played with and managed some of the greatest players in the history of football. Now look at who he’s having to work with. When he took the job I compared it to De Niro taking a part on Coronation Street. That was really unfair on the cast of Corrie. A better comparison would be Tom Hanks joining ‘Made in Chelsea’. Meanwhile, another player left on loan today, as Isaac Christie-Davies went to Holland. I’ve never really thought anything of him when I watched him for the 23s. It’s not that I thought he was bad, I just had no opinion on him as I barely noticed him. When he played in the cup game at Villa though I thought he was really good, especially in the first half. Good luck to him. As he departs, another one returns. Liam Miller has been at Kilmarnock but he’s been recalled, probably because we have no strikers for the 23s now other than the kid we bought yesterday, Joe Hardy. He actually played tonight as the u23s lost 2-1 at home to Bilbao. The scoreline was harsh but we didn’t create much. Hardy didn’t do a great deal but does look like he’s got talent. Our goal was scored by Jack Bearne, who's a tidy little player with a great left foot. None of the lads who played against Everton in the cup were involved tonight, and it’s things like this that must make Neil Critchley’s job so difficult as there is no continuity to his team selections at all. Not that he’ll care, he must be proud as fuck after what his boys did last Sunday. Thursday Jan 9: Still more fallout from Sunday’s derby, as some Blue wrote a piece on Grand Old Team that might be the most pitiful, cringeworthy thing I’ve ever seen. You probably seen it as it went viral, so I won’t dissect it too much here, especially as I’d be here all day. There was a lot that I could pick apart, but I’ll just stick with the one takeaway I had from it. He compared Liverpool and Everton to a married couple and said that essentially an ‘uncoupling’ is needed because they aren’t getting anything out of it. Sorry sunshine, that’s not how it works. We didn’t CHOOSE to be with you and you didn't choose to be with us. We aren't a couple, we're siblings who don't like eachother. We're like the Gallagher brothers if one of them wasn't a dick and was far more successful than the other. How pathetic was it though? They're sick of us being better than them so they no longer want to be seen as rivals. Newsflash, the only reason you are 'rivals' is because we share a city, otherwise you'd be just as much of an irrelevance as Villa or West Ham. We keep you relevant, the only reason anyone knows who you are is because of the link to us. Be grateful, know your role and shut your mouth. If it's not one thing it's another though. In the week in which our new kit deal was finalised, the Blues look like they’ve got themselves a new kit deal too. And some of their fans aren’t happy. I saw a tweet from one of them that read: "Didn’t even know it was possible to downgrade from Umbro. And now it looks like we are... Liverpool just announced Nike. We’re going to Hummel, I hadn’t even heard of it until today. Fucking Hummel." Not sure I’m buying the ‘hadn’t heard of it until today’ part as Hummel made some class kits in the 80s. They’ve done nothing since, which makes them a good fit for Everton. I get why some Blues see it as another backward step and another sign of how far behind us they are, and I suppose it is. We’re getting £100m a season from Nike, they’ll be getting peanuts. One thing I’d put money on though is they’ll have a nicer kit than we will. Scant consolation like, but they need to cling to any little win they can get. Friday Jan 10: According to reports, Emre Can has turned down a move to United out of respect to the Reds. I still really like Can. I don’t miss him, not one little bit, but I still have time for him because he always put a shift in, even when we were shit. I don’t care that he left on a Bosman because we got Milner and Matip that way. You win some you lose some. I wonder if he ever regrets leaving though? Probably not, because the money he got was mental and he wanted to experience playing in Italy, but the likes of him and Coutinho must surely see what we’re doing and think “I could have been part of that”. If he has turned down United because he doesn’t want to ruin the relationship he has with us, then good for him. He’s misguided, because most Reds don’t give a fuck about him one way or another, but I for one applaud him. Nice one, Big Sexy. The mancs are said to be close to signing that Portuguese midfielder they were chasing last summer though. He was linked with us as well and he’s pretty good. Their fans are all excited about it but I look at it and just see how we were for so many years. We’ve been there so many times. You always think that one player can make all the difference, when the reality of it is that the only thing that really matters is having a great manager. The mancs didn’t win all those titles because of Cantona or Giggs or Keane. Obviously you need great players, but without a top manager you’ve generally got no chance unless you a) spend so much that it’s harder not to win it (Man City before Pep) or b) you get lucky by catching lightning in a bottle in a season when all the top clubs under-achieve (Leicester). The latter almost never happens, and the former is much more difficult now (even for Man United) with FFP. So, it comes down to your manager. And they don’t have one. We do, which is why we are where we are right now. It won’t last forever as these things go in cycles, so I’m just enjoying every minute of this. Finally, Pepe Reina has joined Villa on loan. Fucking hell, why on earth would he do that? Honestly can’t get my head around why he’d swap the bench in Milan for one in Birmingham. Or maybe he’s going to start for them? Even so, at his age and after the career he’s had, I’d rather be sat on Milan’s bench than be playing for Villa. At least he’ll get to play at Anfield again I suppose. that was the week that was….