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Who’s disrespecting the cup now, eh? I really hope we win thing now, not just because it would be part of an historic double or hopefully even treble (or quadruple if we’re counting the World Club Cup), but because it will be a big ‘fuck you’ to all those who threw shade our way for fielding such a young side. Disrespecting the cup? No, you disrespected our kids, because they’re fucking boss. All this overly nostalgic bullshit we hear about the ‘magic of the cup’ does my head in. The FA Cup has changed. Football changes. Shit, everything changes. THIS is the new magic of the cup. Not Ronnie fucking Radford scoring a screamer on a ploughed field in the 70s, and not Shrewsbury fans invading the pitch after drawing with a Liverpool side minus all of its regular starters. What is more magical than a group of talented teenagers being given the chance to play for the biggest club in the country, in front of a sell out crowd, and playing like THAT??? Nothing, that’s what. This is the new magic of the cup, embrace it. I’m made up I went to this game. I wasn’t going to bother but a mate couldn’t make it and offered me his ticket so I thought why not. So glad I did, because it was so much fun. I walked out of Anfield with a massive grin on my face and it’s still there now as I write this. What a fun season this has been so far and it’s not just because of the senior lads running away with the league. Some of the most enjoyable moments of the season have been in the cups where the kids have just been sensational. I don’t think the club has every been in a healthier state than it is right now. Everything is running exactly how you’d want it to. It’s mad really when you think about what we’ve done in these cups. Up until now, the impressive cup wins were achieved with a sprinkling of experienced players mixed in with the most talented youngsters. The one time the kids had been left to fend for themselves they lost 5-0 at Villa, but even that game was enjoyable in a lot of ways. The boys were the better side that night but Villa just had more experience and physically at both ends of the pitch. Not to mention we were without some of our best youngsters that night, as Jones, Brewster, Williams, Lewis and Larouci were all unavailable. This was different. Larouci and Brewster weren’t there but it as an altogether stronger looking side than the one that lost at Villa. Besides, Shrewsbury didn’t have the quality that Villa had. Even so, they had given us all we could handle at their place so on paper it looked like a tough game. Not that anyone wanted to talk about football in the build up to this. It was all about Klopp staying away, disrespecting the cup, screwing Shrewsbury out of money and all sorts of other nonsense. Lost in all of it was that Neil Critchley genuinely thought his lads could win the game. You could see it in his press conference. The little glint in his eye when he was told that people had been writing his boys off. “Have they?” he said. He never said it but it was obvious he was thinking “ok well we’ll fucking show them”. I wasn’t bothered that Klopp left Critchley in charge. It made sense as these are his boys, not Klopp’s. He coaches them, he knows them and what makes them tick, so let him take charge. One of Klopp’s greatest strengths is he surrounds himself with the right people and he’s happy to delegate responsibility. I was on board with him leaving Critch to run the show, but I would have liked Klopp to be there even if it was just to offer a word of encouragement here and there and to give the boys a lift. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t feel strongly about it and I can’t say it bothered me that he didn’t show up, but personally I felt it would have been nice for the lads if he had been there supporting them. He wasn’t, but James Milner was. What a guy. If he’d had a few more days training under his belt I bet he’d have been begging to play. I love the togetherness of everyone at the club right now. Loads of the senior lads were watching the game on dodgy streams and posting their support for the kids on social media, but Milner wanting to be involved as much as he could, being in the dressing room giving pep talks like he does with the first team, I just fucking love that. “The message was simple. Just go out there and play like a Liverpool team”, said Critchley afterwards. Message received loud and clear. This was exactly like watching the first team. It was uncanny. Obviously the quality of the individuals isn’t the same, but in terms of the set up, patterns of play, movement with and without the ball, bravery in possession, work rate out of possession and everything else you want to mention, it was the same. I can’t get over it to be honest. A team full of teenagers just went out and played a League One side packed with seasoned pros off the park. The scoreline doesn’t tell the story of this game at all. It wasn’t a close game. It was complete domination. Our goalkeeper did not have to make a single save of any note. Think about that for a second. Not one save. The two things that I take from this game are that the kids were absolutely phenomenal, and that the performance in the first leg from the more experienced players was actually far worse than I originally thought. They let this team score two goals against them and but for Adrian it would have been double that. Matip, Lovren and Fabinho should be throughly embarrassed because they made Shrewsbury look good when in reality they’re actually pretty terrible. We saw that in this game as they were throughly outplayed by what was almost a youth team. I keep seeing references to the “under 23 team” which is technically correct, but it’s an u23 team in name only. Half of the side could still play in the u18s and most of the others are only a year too old for that. Pedro Chirivella was the only player over 20. I don’t think enough is being made of what an achievement this actually was, because they went up against a team of grown men who play a more physical style than most of these kids are used to facing, and they played them off the park. It was 36 minutes before Shrewsbury even managed any kind of spell of possession. I know because when it happened I actually checked the time and made a note of it. It was staggering. Up until then I don’t think they were able to put more than three or four passes together before we took the ball off them. I don’t know if they were overawed by the occasion or what, but Shrewsbury’s performance baffled me. They parked the bus. They had five strung across the width of their box and everyone else behind the ball. Did they think they were facing our first team? It was weird. And they were just fouling constantly too. Foul after foul after foul. As great as our kids were, I thought Shrewsbury were embarrassingly bad and their manager is clearly a massive shithouse if he sent them out to be that defensive. What was he thinking? They had a great chance to go through and instead they looked like they were playing for penalties right from the start. Beforehand I thought we’d win the game but I definitely didn’t think it would go the way it did. I thought it would maybe end up 3-2 with us riding our luck and the crowd giving the kids that little push they needed to get over the line. It was nothing like that though. It should have been 3-0 on the balance of play. Right from the first whistle the boys took charge. They passed it around comfortably, the full backs were flying forward, the midfielders kept things moving and picked up all the second balls. As I say, just like the first team. It was perfect right up until we reached the box and then it stuttered. The lack of a recognised centre forward didn’t help. Liam Miller is a decent player but when I’ve watched him most of his best work has been coming from the left. He isn’t the most natural centre forward but in his defence he was up against three centre halves so there was no space to play in. He ran himself ragged all night but offered no goal threat. Not that too many others did either. As well as the lads played, they found it tough to create clear chances. The biggest goal threat by far was Neco Williams. What a fucking player he is. He had four or five attempts at goal and had a similar impact on the game that Trent has so often had. “Running the game from right back” is something we’ve heard said about Trent, and it more or less applied to Neco in this game I thought. He went close to a goal a couple of times in the first half and again after the break. Jones looked a threat too and at times Shrewsbury couldn’t get near him. He played the game at his pace and made the Shrewsbury defenders follow. They couldn’t get the ball off him and often resorted to just crude fouls to stop him. He’s going to be a great player and probably very soon. The first half couldn’t have gone much better other than if we’d scored. It was complete dominance of the ball so I was staggered when I saw that the possession was only something like 65% in our favour. It felt like it should have been nearer to 90%. Shrewsbury were a little more positive after the break and I can only assume that they felt embarrassed by their pitiful first half display. At least now they looked like they might venture out of their own half a bit. They definitely wanted to be more attacking but they weren’t really allowed to. The organisation and pressing, the fighting for second balls, it was just top drawer all night and Critchley must have been the proudest man inside Anfield seeing all the hard work he’s done on the coaching field pay off so spectacularly. The most surprising aspect for me was how well the defence played. Other than the disallowed goal (which I’ll get to shortly) they didn’t allow Shrewsbury anything and the two Dutch kids in the middle were Van Dijk and Gomez like. Sepp Van den Berg hasn’t really convinced in his previous appearances and hasn’t even really looked that good for the u23s. That didn’t concern me in terms of his overall prospects because this is his first season here, he’s still very young and playing centre back is probably the toughest position on the pitch for a youngster. That said, I did wonder how he’d be able to cope against League One strikers that would be looking to bully him. He couldn’t have looked more assured though. I honestly don’t think he put a foot wrong all night. I couldn’t have been more impressed with him. Obviously Hoever was top class too but I expect that as he’s a special talent and he has much more experience. Van den Berg deserves massive credit for how he played. Both full backs were brilliant too. I really like Adam Lewis, always have. He’s had to wait a long time for this but he took his chance with both hands. He’s competitive, energetic and he’s got a magic wand of a left foot. I’d love to see him develop into Robbo’s understudy in the same way Neco has with Trent. Even the disallowed Shrewsbury goal reflects well on the back four because look at how disciplined they were pushing out and holding the line to catch the lad offside. And he was offside. I could see it at the time as I was sat in line with it, but I wasn’t sure VAR would save us because of how far back it was in the build up. You know what the problem was with that whole situation? The linesman didn’t want to make any decisions all night. He gave an offside just after that, but then he went back to doing nothing and relying on VAR to sort it if needed. That’s all well and good when it leads directly to a goal, but what about when it ends up being a corner, or it’s the third passage of play and the defence has reset. VAR can’t do anything about that, so just do your fucking job and put the flag up. In these situations the longer the delay the better the chances of the goal being ruled out, especially with offside. If it’s onside then they can spot that quickly. When they have to start getting the lines out then there’s a decent chance it’s not going to count, and so it proved. A massive kick in the balls for the Shrewsbury fans, especially the one who threw the yellow flare onto the pitch! We were maybe a little lucky with that as the lad who was offside didn’t out the final cross in. I get why some feel that it was harsh, but if we’d had VAR in the first game they’d never have been given a penalty so it’s swings and roundabouts. It was no more than we deserved for the way we played anyway. That was the first meaningful attack they’d had and if they’d scored from it then it would have been one of the biggest smash and grab acts of all time. Some of the football our kids played in the second half was sensational. The little give and goes with Elliott and Jones were a particular highlight, while Chirivella was just a joy to watch all night. Such a lovely footballer him, and he was ably assisted by Clarkson and Cain, two kids I’ve loved watching in the 18s as they dovetail so well together in midfield. We must have forced a dozen corners in that second half. The problem was other than Van den Berg we didn’t have any height to threaten from them. That was the one real disadvantage we had and it was the only thing I was worried about. If Shrewsbury had been able to force a few set plays it might have cost us, but they had so little of the ball they were rarely able to put us under any pressure The weird thing is that from the first corner they got they took it short and ended up going backwards. What the fuck is that all about? I couldn’t believe they did that. It defied all common sense as they should have been putting it right on top of Kelleher and attacking it at every opportunity. Staggeringly inept and you’d have to point the finger at Sam Ricketts again for that. Despite all the nice approach play the ball just wouldn’t go in for us. Jones went close and Williams was denied by he keeper after a spectacular move that the first team would have been proud of. Then we finally broke the deadlock in the most comical of circumstances. Williams did brilliantly in defence and then fired a diagonal ball looking for the run of Elliott. The defender covered the run but at full stretch could only head the ball past his own keeper into the net. We benefitted from an own goal in the first game too, and once again it was a former Man United player. Might be a lesson there. Stop signing shite mancs. We should have wrapped it up late on when they had thrown everyone forward for a set-piece and we broke on them. It looked all set up for a ‘red arrows’ goal as we charged out, but Elliott badly overhit his pass when all he needed to do was just knock it into the ptah of two unmarked players. It may have hit his hand when he won the initial challenge though so I don’t know if it would have counted anyway. The way the boys saw the game out was hugely impressive. It felt like they kept the ball in the right hand corner for about five minutes. Such maturity and composure. They never really looked in any danger and Shrewsbury didn’t seem like a side who had any belief that they could force an equaliser. I’ve got nothing against Shrewsbury at all and hopefully the money they earned from this helps them. It was becoming irritating though hearing about how they lost out on half a million because of Klopp fielding the kids (it should be pointed out though that Shrewsbury did not blame him for that) and because the club lowered the admission price accordingly. I understand why that’s a big deal and why lower league clubs wouldn’t be happy about the situation, but this isn’t a black and white issue. Firstly, it was the FA who scheduled the replay in the middle of a winter break, so any grievance should be taken up with them, not us. Secondly, the club’s sensible ticket pricing ensured a full house and allowed loads of parents to take kids to a game, in many cases for the first time. Had we fielded a stronger side and increased the ticket prices, it might not have been a sell out. It may, however, have persuaded one of the TV companies to pick up the game, which would have meant more revenue for both clubs I expect. The TV companies missed a trick not picking the game up, because this was the most intriguing game of the night. A side packed with promising teenagers taking on a team of hardened, hairy arsed League One cloggers in front of 50odd thousand fans? Why the fuck wouldn’t you want to televise that, especially considering that the viewing figures would have been massive due to the number of fans we have. The FA and the TV companies cost Shrewsbury money. Not us. And without being too insensitive, I’d also have to say if you wanted that money so badly then show some fucking ambition in your performance and tactics. There was a huge money spinning tie at Chelsea on the line and all they had to do was beat a team full of kids. Yet they came here and parked the bus. So no, under the circumstances I don’t really have any sympathy for their ‘lost revenue’, especially as they brought 8,500 to Anfield when usually they get a couple of thousand less for their home games. I have to say though that in general I’d like something to be done to help ensure the lower league clubs get more cash as football is definitely weighted too heavily in favour of the top flight. It’s basically a reflection of modern society. The rich get richer and fuck everyone else. It is not the responsibility of Liverpool FANS to be financing it though, which would have been the case if ticket prices had been higher. It’s like how fans are helping to feed the hungry by donating to food banks, when really this situation should not be happening if the fat cats in power were looking after those less fortunate. But anyway, enough of that, back to the celebrations at the end. Critchley was loving it and rightly so. What a night for him. He was asked if it was the highlight of his coaching career and he paused before the realisation of what he’d done hit him. “Yeah I suppose it is”. Made up for him as he comes across as a really nice fella. The lads were loving it too, doing a lap of honour and milking every second of it. So they should. Some of these boys may never play for the first team again, but then again they might. So many of them look like they might actually. They’ve renewed my enthusiasm for the cups this year because frankly I haven’t been arsed about them for years. Picking a star man wasn’t easy as so many of them stood out. Pedro was class, as usual, while Jones was a class above once again. I could easily have given it to Van den Berg and part of me wants to because he was so much improved on previous outings, but the best player on the pitch was my boy Neco and I can’t overlook him. I’d have no hesitation in starting him any time Trent needs a rest because he’s already good enough to start for half the teams in the Premier League. The only negative I can see in all of this is that we got Chelsea away in the next round. They will make changes but not too many, meaning that Klopp will have to go ‘relatively’ strong too. The perfect scenario would have been to draw someone shit so we could give a lot of these kids another run out, but I expect Williams and Jones to probably start regardless of who we were playing as they’ve been that good. One final point. I was thinking afterwards that the first team lads have an awful lot to be grateful to these kids for. They’re off sunning themselves on beaches while the kids are holding down the fort and ensuring there’s still an FA Cup to be won when they get back. They should all throw in a week’s wages and split it between the kids. In fact, Matip, Lovren, Fabinho and Origi should throw in two weeks, as a thank you for tidying up the mess they made. Up the mini mentality monster Reds! Team: Kelleher; Williams, Hoever, Van den Berg, Lewis; Chirivella, Cain, Clarkson (Boyes); Elliott (Dixon-Bonner), Miller (Hardy), Jones: