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Tuesday Jun 9: Harvey Elliott is signing a pro deal. Only three years, which seems a little odd, but probably nothing to be alarmed about as the kid is a fanatical Red and won’t want to play anywhere else, and judging by the way Pep Ljinders talks about him (our ‘little diamond’) it’s clear how much the staff love him. For him to get games though something needs to give. Shaq will go (assuming he ever gets over this fucking calf injury), but Harry Wilson might be lined up to take his place in the squad, which would leave Elliott’s position unchanged really. The games that remain in this season might be a useful exercise for him if Klopp can get him some minutes, because if he lights it up then you’d think we’ll probably sell Wilson and fast-track Harvey. Personally I want to see Wilson have at least one year with us to see what he can do, as he deserves that opportunity. Andy Lonergan is signing a short term extension too, similar to the one Lallana penned. He’s not going to play but this is only right I think. He’s been a part of the squad, training every day and building a rapport with the other keepers. Not sure whether he’ll get a medal without playing any games, but I suspect he will because that’s how Klopp operates. He’ll probably get a shitload of medals made for everyone, I reckon Carol and Caroline will get them too. A far cry from the farce after Istanbul when the likes of Mellor and Sinama-Pongolle didn’t get medals (even though it would never have happened without their contributions against Olympiakos) and Rick Parry said nothing could be done about it. I never understood that. If UEFA won’t give extra then just pay someone to make them replicas that look exactly like the real thing. Pisses me off that those lads had to make do with runners up medals that Pellegrini cultured from the Milan dressing room for them. Meanwhile, it’s reported that some progress has been made in talks with Gini over an extension. Hope so, but recent history has shown us that nobody really has a clue where contracts are concerned. The first we usually know is when they’re signed, and everything is dealt with in house and on the down low. I remember being more than a little concerned that Sadio hadn’t signed anything, and then just like that out of nowhere the club are announcing it on social media. On the face of it there’s no reason for Gini to want to leave, but after this season he’ll have won the Premier League title and the Champions League and might feel like he’s done everything he needs to here and that he fancies a change. He could easily play for either of the big two in Spain if he wanted and for his contract to have run down to this point you have to wonder if that’s in his mind. Real and Barca are on the decline though (Barca will be screwed when Messi's legs eventually go). Worth keeping that in mind, Gini. I hope he stays as he’s a good player and a sound fella but if he doesn’t I’m not at all concerned about how we will replace him, because other than Alisson and Van Dijk I reckon Klopp would be able to go out and replace anyone else if he needed to. Oh, and Robbo, obviously. No-one can replace him. Not in my heart anyway. Wednesday Jun 10: Having agreed a deal for Werner, Chelsea are now favourites to land another one of our reported targets. Kai Havertz seems to be the bright young hope of German footy and every top club in Europe is looking at him. Not sure we’ll pay the £75m asking price if money really was the reason we didn’t go for Werner though. The more I think about that, I don’t think that was the case. I mean, obviously it IS about money, but I don’t think it’s that we don’t have £50m to spend. I reckon there’s money there and Klopp decided he didn’t want to spend the bulk of it on Werner. Maybe he’s got someone else lined up and knew he couldn’t get both? Who that someone might be I don’t know. Could be Havertz I suppose, but maybe it’s Sancho? I’ve seen hardly anything of Sancho so I’m not going to bang the drum for us signing him, but what I would say is that I’d much rather we sign a player like him (skilful, creative, goalscoring wide player) than a player who doesn’t really fit with how we play (Werner). Maybe we don’t have anyone lined up and won’t be spending any money because of the corona effect. I’m not ruling that out, but we’ve got a number of players that we could sell to raise cash (Lovren, Shaq, Wilson, Grujic etc) so I have a hard time dealing with the notion that the well has run completely dry. After some initial reports that the derby was going to be played at Southampton it has now been confirmed it will be at Goodison. I’m glad, even though it would have been hilarious if we’d won the title at St Mary’s after buying half their team. While there’s a chance we could win it at Goodison (come on, Arsenal!) I’m all in on that just because the sad bitter bastards have been trying to claim that we ‘lost’ the title at the Pit last season when we drew with them. So yeah, here’s to an Arsenal win at the Etihad and then our lads winning the title at the Pit, thus ensuring Goodison lives up to it’s name as “the home of the Blues”. Make it so. Thursday Jun 11: Lovren makes a light hearted tweet about Mo being a mingebag and never paying for coffee. Wasn’t hilarious but it did raise a little smile from me. Harmless bit of fun between two mates. Then I looked at the replies (I know, I know, I must be a sadist). First reply I saw said “Get out of this club!! #LovrenOUT” I couldn’t let it slide and just replied with ‘Virgin’ but what I really wanted to say was “you fucking horrible shithouse cunt, I hope you die in the most agonising, gruesome way imaginable”. That’s not really the kind of thing you can say on twitter without recourse (unless you’re Donald Trump of course) and given it’s a ‘company twitter’ account I held myself in check. It’s fine if you think Lovren or whoever is shit. It’s fine if you express that opinion on forums, social media, wherever. If the player goes looking to see what people are saying about him then that’s on him. Don’t fucking ram your dislike down his throat by sending it directly to him, because that just makes you a cunt. So yeah, I’m thinking “I hope you die in the most agonising, gruesome way imaginable”. Is that too much? I suppose it is on reflection. The ‘most agonising, gruesome way imaginable’ part is excessive and I don’t actually mean that. But the bit about hoping these fuckers who do this kind of shit die is pretty much how I feel. I don’t feel good about that but I’m thinking it more and more lately. I’m getting far less tolerant as I get older. Is this normal? I expected it'd go the other way as I get more worldly wise. I feel like I was more laid back when I was younger, but I find myself hoping all kinds of people die these days. My tolerance levels have just plummeted. The cops over in the US beating the shit out of protestors. I see those videos and think “hope they die”, and I mean it. Nigel Farage spouting his vile rhetoric. “Hope he dies”. I defo mean that. Trump every time he opens his fucking bloated orange gob. “Hope he dies, the cunt”. I think we all feel like that though, don’t we? Harry Kane every time I see his stupid face. No I’m kidding with that one, I genuinely don’t wish any ill on Sir Harold of Hotspur other than hoping he misses a few pens so I can take the piss. All those other fuckers though. Yeah, hope they die. On a lighter note. The lads had a friendly at Anfield today against Blackburn and won 6-0. Minamino, Matip, Hoever and Clarkson were among the scorers, which begs the question “just how shit are Blackburn?”. Seriously though, one thing that struck me after seeing Clarkson’s goal was that I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t have scored that in a full stadium. By that I mean if you look at how nonchalantly he took it, it had ‘training session’ written all over it. That got me thinking, when footy starts up again with no fans, the games will surely have a training session vibe about them and we may well see players doing all kinds of speculative, fancy dan shit. I for one say “is fucking right”. Predictions for when we start playing again: Mané to be completely unstoppable. Keita to look like a world beater until one of his hamstrings goes pop. Minamino to look like the Salzburg lad who tore us a new one. Firmino to do something completely outrageous, like score a back heel from 30 yards while waving at the camera. Sky/BT/BBC forced to apologise after their microphones picked up Hendo swearing repeatedly at team-mates during a routine 5-0 win. Friday Jun 12: The Shrewsbury chairman is still having a pop at us. Fuckin’ weirdo. Turns out they had put in an official complaint about us to the FA (did anyone know about that? I must have missed it as this was news to me) and this week it was thrown out. Their owner, Roland someone or other, is bitching about Klopp’s team selection (a team selection that was good enough to win the game, let’s not forget). "This without doubt resulted in a much lesser occasion for our players and fans as well as the financial reward that would have been expected from LFC playing their strongest team and abiding by the FA Cup rules." Stop talking about the ‘occasion’ and how the players and fans felt when none of that its even remotely relevant to why you put a complaint in. It was about money, you greedy little fuck. More fans made the trip than show up to your home games, and they seemed to enjoy themselves from where I was sat. At least until VAR chalked off a goal. The fucking balls on this prick though. He’s kicking off about lost revenue but really Shrewsbury were in a great position when you think about it. They had a replay in front of a full house at Anfield. Yes, there were reduced ticket prices, but let’s be honest here, no way were we going to pay full price to watch that game so a full house at half price or half a stadium at full price, there’s very little difference. Unless he was under the illusion that 50,000 of us were paying full whack to watch Lovren, Origi, Minamino etc take on a struggling lower league side? So us letting Critchley take charge of a team of kids gave them a great chance to go through. And if they had gone through they’d have had another money spinning tie at Chelsea. So if ol’ Roland is pissed at missing out on a big windfall, he should look a little closer to home. At his manager who parked the bus against a load of teenagers. Or at his players who froze on the big stage. He should be grateful, as at least the travelling fans saw a close, competitive game that their team were in right until the end. Had we fielded Firmino, Salah, Van Dijk, Mané, Trent etc it might have been 6-0 by half time. They had their chance to beat us at their place when we were fucking terrible. They couldn’t do it, and Klopp did what the Premier League instructed all clubs to do and he respected the winter break. Hopefully we draw them again next year and can give him what he wants. A full strength side and a fucking 10-0 whalloping. Tit. Saturday Jun 13: More Coutinho rumours flying around, but none of them coming from any kind of credible source. In other words, it’s almost certainly bullshit. It makes for an easy story though. He’s available, struggling to find a new club, probably would love to come back here, why wouldn’t you write that story if you’re looking for clicks? One man who is all in on the idea is Stevie Nicol, which is probably enough to put a lot of people off the idea. Stevie says it’s a ‘no brainer’, which is ironic as that’s what a lot of people say about him. Not me, I love arl Chico. Anyway, here's your weekly Chico: “Why wouldn't you? I can't think of one reason why you wouldn't. The only place he's excelled at is Liverpool. The place loves him, he loves the place. Can you imagine adding Coutinho to a squad that, right now are still champions of Europe even though they're out of this year's competition, and are going to win the Premier League? "If it's cut-price, yeah. Listen, this guy's making over £13m clear a year. He's going to have to take a hit. The price to buy him is going to have to take a hit but if the money's right, [it's an] absolute no-brainer.” Here here, Stevie lad. Meanwhile, as expected Pedro Chirivella has turned down a five year deal and will join Nantes in a few weeks. Good for him. It’s the right thing to do even though I’ll be sad to see him leave. He seems like a top lad and he’s a really nice little player to watch. He said he’ll tell his grandkids that he played for the best club in the world and for the best coach in the world, and he’s asked Nantes if they’ll play YNWA before games because it means so much to him now. As I said, top lad is Pedro. Good luck to him. In non-football news today, we saw the ‘football lads’ in London completely embarrassing themselves and the nation they claim to be so proud to ‘represent’. Absolute fucking cunts. Hope they all die. In fact, you can apply the 'most agonising, gruesome way imaginable' tag to it. Fucking vermin. Sunday Jun 14: Another hack is linking us with Li’l Phil, probably based on what Nicol said actually. The ‘angle’ this time is that Kia Joorabchian has told us that his client desperately wants to come back and would take a pay cut. Hahahaha fucking hell, of course he’ll take a pay cut because there isn’t a club out there that will match the salary Barca gave him. He’s taking a pay cut wherever he goes, so he’s not doing anyone any favours by doing so. You all know where I stand on this. I’d have him back in a heartbeat if the price was right. I was thinking about this earlier. Who is out there that we could sign, who would make me happier than if we brought Coutinho back? There’s not many you know. Mbappe, obviously. Sancho as well (just because everyone seems to think he’s going to be the next big thing and I don’t want United or Chelsea getting him) and maybe my boy Adama Traore. Other than those three, no-one would put a bigger smile on face than if we re-signed Coutinho. What can I say, I love a good redemption story. I do have my limits though. For instance, Karius wants to stay here as number two. Sorry son, not having that. The number two generally plays in the cups and I’d like to have a shot at maybe winning one of them. Also, as we’ve seen this year, the number two occasionally has to play in ‘proper’ games too. Adrian’s inadequacies got us knocked out of the FA Cup and then the Champions League in the space of a few days, but at least he held down the fort earlier in the season when we needed him. He played his part in the Super Cup too. Would Karius have been able to do that? Highly unlikely. The main reason this just isn’t possible is because he’s damaged goods. No matter how well he might play, as soon as he made a mistake (and he would, as even Alisson does from time to time) the spotlight on him would be unbearable. Adrian fucked up and got us knocked out of two competitions in a few days and virtually nothing was said in the media. Could you imagine if poor old Karius had done that? No, he’s gotta go I’m afraid. Monday Jun 15: We’ve been linked with Dembele from Barca again. This is one of those weird links that surface all the time when in all likelihood there’s probably zero truth in it all. It won’t go away though for some reason. Good video on LFCTV today. It was one of those Nivea promotional vids where they get players to speak to fans. This one was Ox, Lallana and Hendo speaking to the staff and some old folks in local care homes. It’s easy for us to assume that the players aren’t having the same problems as the rest of us because they’re so well sheltered and have the best of everything, but Ox was saying how his nan is in a care home and his grandad hasn’t been able to see her, while Lallana revealed that his grandad died in a care home a couple of months back. The same shit is affecting us all really. It’s interesting to see how the perception of players has changed over the last few months. From having cunt Tory MPs asking them to ‘do their bit’ it’s gone full circle and we’ve now got the magnificent Marcus Rashford feeding tens of thousands of hungry kids and putting pressure on the government to pull their fucking fingers out and do the same. He’s being vocally supported by other players and fans from all over the country and it’s putting incredible pressure on the government to reverse their decision. He’ll win because they won’t like the spotlight of exposure that he’s shining on them. Can’t deflect this one by bringing up the spirit of Churchill and referencing non-existent threats to his statue. Good for you, Mr Rashford. I’ll applaud you when we’re eventually allowed back into stadiums for games. Other players have really stood up too. Hendo has been great since lockdown hit, while Sterling has spoken brilliantly again about racism and by and large footballers have done their clubs and communities proud. Of course the bigger headlines will always be made when one of them does something daft, like Grealish or Walker, but our footballers have done far more for the people of this country than those voted into power have, that’s for damn sure. Meanwhile, Bobby liked an instagram post about that story from yesterday about Coutinho pleading with Klopp to bring him back. I feel like too much is being made of this. He probably just saw a picture of his mate and clicked like. I doubt he had any clue what the post was referring to. But then again…. He's coming home, isn't he? *puts on crash helmet* …..and that was the week that was