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It turned out ok in the end but for a while this was turgid, pedestrian, uninspired shite. Understandable to a degree and we might see a fair bit more of this before the season is out, but in the end they found a way to get it done and it’s three points closer to a potential points record. It’s easy to over-analyse these behind closed doors games and put any below par performances down to the lack of fans, or blame it on the fact we’ve already won the title and our intensity has understandably dropped. There’s almost certainly an element of that, but how do we really know? Let’s not forget what happened last time we played Villa. It wasn’t exactly vintage was it? We needed two goals at the death to win it. At least this time we didn’t leave it that late. We probably played slightly better at Villa Park than here but until the triple substitution around the hour mark this was poor. The thing is, we’ve had a number of games like this one this season and most of them took place in front of full houses (not many at Anfield though to be fair) so maybe we can’t just put it down to ‘lockdown footy’. It sure feels like it is though, doesn’t it? The first half was largely a non-event. To be completely honest I was bored stiff watching it. Have we had a half that bad at Anfield this season? I’m struggling to remember one. We’ve had loads away from home, I know that, so this performance wasn’t actually THAT unusual. Villa were resolute and did their jobs well but it was too easy for them. I can only think of one shot we had in the first half, and that was a tame volley from Mo that didn’t trouble Reina at all. We had a couple of penalty shouts too, both when Salah went down after being grabbed. The first one was never a pen, it was more of a coming together than anything else. I thought the second one was a pen though. The defender reaches out and grabs Mo’s shoulder, pulling him back. He’s got no need to be putting his hands on him there. It would have been soft, but I’ve seen them given for less. I was more upset with our lack of creativity than any refereeing decision though. We offered virtually nothing. You could even argue that Villa posed more of a threat. Not much more, but it was more than us. I can only remember them having one first half chance when Alisson made an easy save to deny Luiz, but if they had a bit more quality up front there were some counter attacking opportunities to be had. They just weren’t good enough to make anything of them. Big difference to facing a fired up De Bruyne and Sterling, that’s for sure. Klopp had freshened things up a little by resting Firmino, Henderson and Wijnaldum. That made for a more attacking looking midfield which in theory should have been ideal against a deep defending side like Villa. Having Origi up front should have helped too, giving us that penalty box presence and aerial threat. It wasn’t ideal though. In fact, it was only when two of those players were replaced that we actually started to look like ourselves. The last half an hour was pretty good actually. Not great, we can obviously play a lot better, but it was night and day compared to the first hour. The tempo immediately lifted with Hendo getting on the ball and injecting some urgency into our passing, while Bobby linked more with his fellow forwards in five minutes than Div had done in an hour. I thought Keita was incredibly fortunate to have survived the hook because if anything he’d been even less effective than Ox. If I was Ox I’d have been annoyed that I’d been the one to make way, but Keita repaid Klopp’s show of faith by supplying the pass from which Mané finally broke the deadlock. It was a nicely worked goal that and the pass from Naby is brilliant actually because it’s not even on at the moment he plays it. Great vision, great anticipation and great execution. Definitely enough for his army of social media acolytes to use in their “Fabinho / Keita / Thiago” wet dream fantasies, but not enough to convince anybody else. Not yet. He needs to do more. I’m not even exaggerating about the fanboys either. Search for “Keita Thiago” on twitter and see what comes up. One loon even posted a picture of Jordan, Pippen and Rodman and said “Fabinho, Keita and Thiago next season”. Jesus. Keita was eventually brought off and his replacement scored. Don’t expect to see young Curtis being compared with…. well I’m assuming Keita was meant to be Michael Jordan in that imagery, with Fabinho as Rodman and Thiago as Pippen. Yeah, that’s where we’re at right now. Keita being compared to arguably the greatest sportsman of all time. The Naby groupies are the “LFC Family” equivalent of those deluded United fans with their little green and gold twitter badges bigging up Wan Bissaka and Martial. I was made up for Curtis getting his goal but I wasn’t surprised. That’s what he does. He got a bit lucky with the deflection but the instinctive movement that got him in space is something you can’t really teach, it’s just natural football smarts. The cross goes over his head but as soon as he sees Mo is going to get it he just drifts back a couple of yards to allow Mo to find him with a knockdown. I like the options we have in most positions now but without labouring the point it is a concern seeing the drop off whenever one of the front three doesn’t play. Sometimes things don’t look great even when they do play, but take one of them away and it gets really bad. I’m not scapegoating here because Salah and Mané were no great shakes either, but Origi did absolutely nothing. If Sadio and Mo don’t have great games they won’t be judged as harshly as they have nothing to prove. Divock on the other hand, has everything to prove. I’ve made excuses for him who he’s been used wide left but this was his chance to do something at centre forward and I honestly can’t remember a single thing he did in the game. He didn’t win any headers, he didn’t try to take anybody on, he didn’t have any goal attempts. He was just there, standing out for his hair rather than his performance. Klopp has a decision to make next season. Is Origi really the answer as the fourth forward? Would Brewster be a better option? Do we need to buy? To me it’s clearly option three, but Klopp better than I do, so we’ll see what he decides. Going back to Keita for a second, I can see ability and occasionally he’ll do something that makes you go “yeah that was nice”, but it’s not enough really is it? He’s been here two years now, he should be showing more. In fairness, so should Ox. We’ve seen flashes from him but he’s another who often flatters to deceive. Ox, Keita and Origi were all given a chance to shine in this game and none of them took it. Keita at least did something worthwhile but none of them did anything to seriously threaten any of the first choice lads places. I think a big part of it is that none of them play week in week out and it’s difficult to show your best form when you don’t play regularly. When Ox has had a little extended run he’s usually got into some good form. When Naby has an extended run he’s always gotten injured. Origi hasn’t had an extended run for about four years. We’ve got our first choice midfield three, then we have Keita and Ox, so that is making it difficult for Jones to get the minutes he deserves. Personally I’m at the stage now where I’d happily give him the minutes Keita is getting. I think he deserves it because he’s done more with far less playing time. It won’t happen though because Klopp loves Keita and seems convinced that he’ll come good. Maybe he will, let’s hope so. I have a lot more confidence in Jones establishing himself in the team than I do Keita. I love the swagger Jones has. He has a lot of improvement to make defensively, but he makes things happen when he’s on the pitch. He’s positive, he tries things and he scores goals. He needs more minutes and hopefully a start or two before the end of this season. I hope to see more of him over the next few weeks because he’s fun to watch. Not necessarily starting all the time, but he needs more minutes than he’s been getting. Same with Williams. He should start the next game, probably at right back but you could even try him on the left, even if it’s just for 45 minutes before switching him over. That way Trent and Robbo are only playing a half each. It’s a difficult balance though, I get that. Klopp won’t talk about points records and I genuinely believe him when he says it’s not something he thinks about. He does, however, want to win every game, which in turn will lead the record. And because he want to win every game you’re not going to get him making six or seven changes from his usual line up. He also has too much respect for the competition to fuck about with his team selections when we’re playing teams at the bottom. I don’t expect him to go close to full strength against one relegation struggler and then rest everyone against another. So we’ll probably see three, maybe four changes each game. I’m good with that as I want the record but I also want to see the kids getting some meaningful minutes. Not necessarily all at the same time, in fact I’d prefer it if it were one at a time in an otherwise strong line up. I want to see Jones playing with Firmino, Salah and Mane. Not with Elliott, Origi and Shaqiri. All in all this was a decent enough win. It was shite for an hour but in the end we wore them down and it’s a win and clean sheet. I’ll take this every game between now and the end of the season, although obviously I’d much prefer performances to be like what we produced against Palace. I just don’t think it’s realistic though. Maybe occasionally but I don’t believe it’s sustainable week in week out with no crowds and nothing really to play for other than pride and the points record. Villa deserve some credit too though I think. We were shite but that’s partly because of how organised and resolute they were. All season I’ve been banging on in the round ups about how much I want Villa to go down. Well I’ve had one of my trademark changes of heart. I hope they stay up now. Why? Couple of reasons really. The first is Dean Smith. I really like the guy and I feel like a bad arlarse wanting him relegated just because Villa’s fans are generally knobheads and some of them threw a party on a train to Wembley when it was Stevie’s birthday. I am a petty man and I’ll hold a grudge with the best of them but I’ll admit I’m struggling to hold onto this one. Especially after the guard of honour they gave us. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they didn’t have to do that, did they? If City had refused last week that would have been frowned upon as it was our first game after clinching the title. I don’t think everyone we face has to do it though, do they? It’s been that long since we won it that I genuinely have no idea. I dunno, maybe they do. Doesn’t matter anyway, the thing that stood out to me was that Villa did it properly. They showed proper respect in the way they lined up and the way they applauded. They didn’t have to but they did. Fair play. Last week the body language of most of the City players was fucking terrible, and that little rat fuck Bernardo didn’t applaud at all. Some of them fucked off before all of our players had even reached the pitch. Petty gobshites. You see how Villa did it and it shows City up for what they are. So, if Villa manage to get out of this mess then good for them, I won’t begrudge them it at all. And if they don’t, I’ll just focus on those train nonces in their party hats and I’ll take great comfort in them having to watch Championship football again while their hero Grealish moves on to pastures new. Star man is… *exhales* I don’t know. I don’t think anyone was at their best or even close to it. Alisson did what he had to and made a class save late on from Grealish, but the game changed when the three subs came on, and of the three subs Hendo probably had the most impact so fuck it, I’ll give it to him even though I don’t feel good about it. I’m tempted to give it to Jones, but that really would be taking the piss seeing as how he was only on five minutes. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson (Williams); Fabinho (Henderson), Oxlade-Chamberlain (Wijnaldum), Keita (Jones); Salah, Origi (Firmino), Mané:

After the Lord Mayor’s Show as they say, and as far as results go this was a dung cart and a half. The performance didn’t really reflect the scoreline but against City you only have to be a little bit off and this is what can happen. I’m just glad our Etihad nemesis Aguero was missing otherwise this could have been really embarrassing. Ordinarily 4-0 would be embarrassing enough but with the title already won and this result cutting our lead to a mere 20 points, embarrassment isn’t really the right word. Neither is humbling, or chastening or whatever. We’re the Champions and we’re 20 points ahead of City regardless of what happened in this game, so I don’t actually know how to best describe this loss. I know I hated it though. I had a proper cob on for the rest of the night and I’m still irked about it this morning. Maybe that’s unreasonable and if you’re not arsed about what happened at the Etihad then more power to you. I just hated seeing us lose like THAT. And to lose like that to THEM. Judging by how tetchy Klopp was afterwards on Sky you could be forgiven for thinking he felt the same. It’s only when you watch the interview he did with LFCTV straight afterwards that you understand how he really felt about it. He was more philosophical than angry, but that’s almost certainly because of the line of questioning. When assessing Klopp’s post match mood you have to take into account just what a monumental dick bag Geoff Shreeves is. He’s probably the worst one out there as his questions are just fucking moronic half of the time. Lowest common denominator, basic, shitty redtop style questions. He’s the Jim White of TV. Usually Klopp shows more patience with him but I completely understood why he got so arsey this time. There’s a reason every top manager has had run ins with this tool. After a bad result the last thing you need is Shreeves pushing his own little narrative and trying to get you to take a stroll down “Whopper Avenue” with him. He asks a stupid question based on his own agenda and when he doesn’t get the answer he wants he asks the same stupid question in a slightly different way hoping he’ll get what he’s looking for. Instead of asking Klopp “so, how did that happen?” and just letting him talk (Jurgen is great analysing how the game went) he wanted to peddle the story he’d tried to get going pre-match about our players not being prepared or focused because they’ve been celebrating all week. Like I say, it’s lowest common denominator, redtop shite and it clearly got Klopp's back up. The players had one night on the ale, a week ago, and have been training hard ever since. There was no lack of effort from them and they took the game seriously. They didn’t lose because some of them got bevvied a week ago. They lost because they were wasteful with the countless opportunities they created and they made far too many stupid mistakes in defence. The effort was there in spades, it’s insulting to infer that it wasn’t. If you want to put the result down to partying or them not being arsed about the rest of the season then that just tells me that you haven’t been paying attention. It’s not who these players are and it’s definitely not who Klopp is. That was why he was pissed off in his Sky interview, not because we lost. The LFCTV interview was much more informative simply because Peter McDowall basically just says “disappointing result there, Jurgen. What went wrong?” Klopp then tells him what went wrong. Not clinical enough, too many mistakes, can’t do that against such a strong opponent etc. And that’s exactly what it was. The easiest and laziest thing in the world is to put this down to the players not being up for it, but it’s nonsense. They were still running and trying to score even in stoppage time at 4-0 down. Effort wasn’t the problem. Intensity wasn’t the problem. Sloppiness at both ends of the pitch was the problem and yes maybe that’s in some tiny part due to them not playing for the highest stakes possible, and therefore not quite being fully switched on mentally. Rather than it being a lack of effort, I think it was more a lack of fear. By that I mean usually when we play City everyone has to be completely focused on not making any mistakes because the stakes are so high. You have to play almost the perfect game because if you don’t the consequences can be catastrophic. That wasn’t the case this time though as we already had the title sewn up. Maybe players were taking too many risks? Being a little too casual? Some of the decision making was terrible so I'm just saying, maybe the ‘nothing to lose’ thing comes into it, even at a subconscious level. We might have gotten away with it against most opponents but Sterling and De Bruyne were bang up for this game and they made us pay. It hurts. I don’t like it. I’m still sore about it but it can happen. If anything, it highlights even more just how incredible it is that we’re 20 points ahead of these fuckers. This game really came down to who scored first. We started the game well and I felt we were well on top for the most part until we gave away the penalty. That changed the momentum of the game but it was the second goal that really killed us I think. After that I thought we looked wide open and ripe for City’s counter attacks. We never really got close enough to De Bruyne (even though funnily enough I thought Fabinho actually had a good first half) and Trent and Joe had too many problems with Sterling. I can sort of understand that. You come up against De Bruyne and Sterling when they’re at their best and it’s tough. The most disappointing thing for me was how Robbo made that little fucking manc ballbag Phil Foden look like Messi. That was hard to take as I just hate Foden. I have no rational explanation for it other than it’s just his fucking face. He’s right up there with the most annoying faces out there. He’s my new Jon Dahl Tomasson I think. I see his face and just want to slap it. This was such a strange game. The score makes it look like we got battered, especially as City could easily have scored more, but it didn’t really feel like a battering and it definitely didn’t start out that way. We began the game really brightly. Mo should have done better when Van Dijk’s ball over the top sent him clear. He brought it down on his chest and then went for power with his shot, forcing Ederson into a decent save. Thing is, Ederson was stood 14 yards out and the ball was bouncing so Mo should have lobbed him. It would have been more difficult to miss than score in that situation. All you have to do is get it over his head and you’ve got the whole goal to aim for. To make it even more frustrating, Bobby completely fluffed the rebound, which summed up his night really. Mo then went through again and struck the post with a well placed shot. That was just unlucky. To make it even more frustrating, Sadio completely fluffed the rebound, which summed up his night really. It felt like the goal was coming but then City went ahead completely against the run of play. I don’t have any complaints about the penalty. Yes, Sterling grabs Gomez first, but that’s just two players grappling and it’s fine. It’s also fine when Joe has a grab back at him too. The problem is he keeps hold of him and then has two bites at trying to tackle him while doing so. Sterling went down easily in the end but when a defender has been pulling you for two or three seconds, preventing you from getting away, at that point you’re entitled to go down. Clear penalty for me. Not great from Gomez, but Henderson and Wijnaldum are both just stood there looking at him and neither moved to help him out. I do wonder if Joe defends that way against another City player though? Was he trying to outmuscle Sterling rather than just defend him properly, or am I overthinking that? Anyway, absolutely no complaints for me on that decision by Anthony Taylor other than why exactly was Gomez booked? If that’s outside the box there’s no way that’s given as a yellow card. A penalty is more than sufficient punishment and I thought Taylor was completely out of order putting Gomez into the book too. Maybe that’s the law now, it’s hard to keep track of the bullshit changes that they’re making every year. Joe was actually hooked at half time and the booking was probably a big factor in that. Fabinho moved to centre back for the second half and did ok. At this point it feels like it makes more sense using him if needed than bringing in Lovren, but we’ll see what happens whenever Gomez is rested. I feel like we haven’t seen the last of Big Dejan yet. I wasn’t overly concerned at going a goal down but the second one really was a killer. Suddenly it felt like we had a mountain to climb. Just a really shitty goal to give away too. When we’ve played City in recent years the thing we’ve done really well is not give the ball away cheaply. Because when you give it away cheaply and De Bruyne picks it up in space, you’re fucked really. They get runners going wide to spread you out and De Bruyne always picks the right ball. This time Gini gave it away needlessly and before you know it they’ve bypassed our midfield and are running at our back-pedalling defenders. It was happening all night. De Bruyne found Foden and he picked out Sterling. Gomez has no chance at this point as he’s caught on his heels when Sterling immediately cuts back inside with this first touch. 2-0 and it’s the player we’d least want to make an impact who’s done all the damage. Turns out he can play well against us after all, but only when there’s no fans in the stadium. The third goal was probably the worst. Oh Robbo, just what the fuck was that? Actually I forgot to mention that on the second goal when Gini gave it away, Robbo inexplicably went chasing a ball he had no business going for and he ended up taking himself out of the play completely. Well he did it again on the third goal. It was embarrassing actually. So rash it was worthy of a Sunday League player. He just charged at Foden, completely out of control, and he made it easy for the City youngster to just pop the ball off and then spin off him into space. I don’t think Alisson covered himself in glory either as Foden was on his right foot and had Alisson dropped back and made him beat him with a well placed shot then you could accept that. Instead he just charged out and was beaten by a shot that ended up in the middle of the goal. Not good. Sterling almost bagged a second when he ran half the length of the field before his shot was deflected inches wide by Fabinho. Look at Robbo on that one again though. Chasing the ball like a dog in the park. The fourth goal was self inflicted too. Trent was just so fucking casual and weak there. He presented the ball to City and once again they had us turned around and De Bruyne was running at our retreating defence. Again, look at Robbo though. He’s with Sterling but leaves him to track another runner who is already being picked up by Ox. The ball goes to Sterling in space, he turns inside a desperately trying to recover Robbo, and although his shot was going wide Ox didn’t know that and put it in his own net as he tried to block it. It summed up the whole night. Just a comedy of errors. In between all those goals we had loads of opportunities but wasted them all. The high press worked well at times and we won the ball back frequently only to do nothing with it. If there was one moment that summed up the attacking performance it was when Sadio found himself in front of goal with only Ederson to beat and he literally did nothing. Didn’t even touch the ball. Just allowed it to roll past him. In the end City could have scored more than four. Actually they did but they had one laughably ruled out for ‘handball’ in stoppage time when Mahrez beat Alisson on his near post. Alisson had also gotten away with murder earlier when he came out for a cross he had no chance of getting and had to watch gratefully as De Bruyne put his header wide of an open goal. I’m not actually sure this was Alisson you know. Are we sure it wasn’t Adrian in an Alisson mask? For all the calamities at the back though, on another day we’d have scored four or more too. You need to be clinical against City and we weren’t. It feels like this happens quite a lot in general and games are often a lot closer than they should be because of it. It’s funny really because De Bruyne said before the game that we played better last season when we finished second. In some respects I think he’s right but I’d go one step further and say that in attacking terms we played even better the year before. Of course we’re a vastly superior all around team now and we know how to get results in different ways, but as a unit I thought the front three dropped off a level last season from the year before, and I think they’ve dropped off even more this year. Not to the extent that it’s hurt us, obviously, but can you honestly tell me that Firmino or Salah are playing as well as they did two years ago? Mané has actually gotten progressively better every year, but the front three as a whole have dropped off this year in terms of their goal output. It seems daft pointing that out when we’re twenty points clear at the top and don’t get me wrong, I’m not making too big a thing of it. It’s just interesting I think. The amount of games they’ve played over three years might even be the explanation for it. Bobby in particular has looked goosed for much of this season and seems to get subbed a lot. Could the lack of quality cover / competition for the front three be causing the drop off? Not only does it mean they don’t have to fight for their place but it also means they are hardly ever rested. Over the last three seasons they've gone from being unstoppable to brilliant to very good. Bobby was really poor against City and it was no surprise when he was replaced by Origi, who unfortunately was equally ineffective. He's not the answer, although in fairness it's really difficult for bit part players who hardly play to ever show their best level. Look at Danny Ings now, for example. He wouldn't be playing like that if he was getting 15 minutes from our bench every other week. You know what, I’m going to crunch some numbers here just to see how much of a drop off there has been. I’ll disregard the domestic cups and just go with Europe and the Premier League…. hold on. Ok, so two years ago, the season when we reached the CL final and finished fourth. We scored 131 goals. An incredible 89 came from the three main forwards (we also got 12 in half a season from Coutinho). Last year when we won the CL and got 97 points, we scored 113 in total and got 69 from the front three, twenty less than the previous year. This year, we’ve romped away with the league and so far have 87 goals. The front three are on just 51 though (which includes the World Club Cup when Bobby scored a couple). At best it looks like they’ll finish on mid 60s, which continues the downward trend. My eyes tell me the same thing. When they’re on it the front lads are sensational (last week against Palace for example) but whereas the team as a whole is much better now, the front line has dropped off two years in a row now. Maybe it’s nothing to worry about and next year they’ll bounce back and score shitloads. But maybe they won’t? And if they don’t, what viable alternatives do we have to mix it up? The answer to that is none, unless you think Minamino is going to be able to provide the same kind of impact we’ve had from Mo, Sadio or Bobby over the last few years?. Don’t mistake this for moaning. I love all three of those lads and they’ll all be remembered as legends when they eventually move on. This is a great team that has achieved great things and hopefully this is just the start. I’m not actually even criticising them as individuals and I’m certainly not calling for any of them to be replaced. If anything I’d like us to get them some help as I fear we might be asking too much of them. A fourth player who can share the load and help to keep everyone fresh and fighting for their place would be just lovely, but I won't hold my breath. I just think it has to be at least a little bit of a concern to Klopp that the goal output from the forwards is decreasing year on year. It’s not like they don’t get enough chances. It feels like we get loads of great situations in almost every game, yet so often we’ve been winning 1-0 or 2-1. It just makes life more difficult when you aren’t clinical. That’s what this came down to in the end. City were just much sharper in the final third and they were marginally less error prone at the back. I say marginally because they made shitloads of errors too. How many times did we catch them playing out from the back, nick the ball from them and then waste the opportunity? Half a dozen at least. Do you remember who it was who gave the ball away though? I don’t but that’s only because we didn’t score from any of them. If we had made them pay for those mistakes then I expect people’s view of the performances of Laporte, Garcia, Rodri, Ederson or whoever would be entirely different. City would be discussing them the way we’re talking about Trent and Robbo today. Games like this are often decided on little things. Yeah, in the end it got away from us and if you make the mistakes we did then you deserve whatever punishment you get. For a while though this game was in the balance. If Mo’s shot goes in instead of hitting the post then we’re talking about a different game. If Anthony Taylor and VAR did their job and gave handball against Ederson and sent the cunt off, then we’re talking about a different game. If the title had still been in the balance then I’d probably be talking about that decision forever, much like I still obsess about the same manc ref not sending off Kompany in this same fixture last season. This time VAR also comes into it, but it still falls on Taylor because if he’d given handball it wouldn’t have been overturned. And it was handball. And it prevented a certain goal. That reckless, ugly, neck tattooed cunt came flying out of his goal as he tends to do, and he completely fucked up his clearance. The ball hits his foot but then goes underneath him and if it doesn’t hit his elbow then Salah is clean through on goal. With the title already wrapped up it’s not a big deal and will soon be forgotten but decisions like that change games. I don’t want that twat anywhere near our games with the Manchester clubs in future, but then I said that last year and here we are talking about him again. I’m not blaming him for the result but equally there’s no denying that we’re talking about a completely different game if he sends Ederson off. He didn’t though and we lost 4-0. It’s not nice but it was self inflicted and it might be a lesson that the lads can learn from. The margin for error you have in most games is just hugely smaller when Kevin De Bruyne is on the pitch. What happens next is the most important thing. The points record is still on but we need to play much more like we did against Palace and a lot less like we did at Goodison and the Etihad. I expect to see some changes for the weekend. Trent needs a kick up the arse and Neco is pushing hard for a spot so let him play against Villa. You could also make a case for starting Minamino in Bobby’s spot to see if he’s a viable option there. Keita will probably come back too. I thought he was fairly lively when he came on in this game, whereas Ox didn’t really do anything to justify getting a start. I honestly have no idea what to expect over the next few weeks now because football without fans is fucking weird and we’re seeing all kinds of mad results. With the title sewn up and so many games in a short space of time there’s naturally going to be a lot of rotation and we don’t know what that will mean for results. One thing I’m not expecting is for us to win all six games as that almost seems impossible now under the circumstances. I know it doesn’t ultimately mean anything as winning the league was all that mattered, but I don’t want the season to fizzle out with a spattering of draws or even defeats. Let’s finish strong and lay down a marker for next season too, and yeah, that points record would be great while we're at it. Chances to make history don't come along that often so let's not waste it. Star man isn’t easy as hardly anyone played well. Fabinho was fine, Hendo did alright and Salah looked lively (especially in the first half). I’ll probably go with Van Dijk as he did his job well enough and couldn’t really be held responsible for the clown show going on around him. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Van Dijk, Roberton; Fabinho, Henderson, Wijnaldum (Keita); Salah, Firmino (Origi), Mané (Minamino):