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Wednesday Aug 26: I knew it!!! I said didn’t I? I said I’d bet everything I owned that Maguire used the words “do you know who I am?” during the incident with the Greek coppers, and lo and behold, it’s being reported that he did (doesn’t mean it’s true of course, but I’m still claiming this small victory). He also allegedly said “I’m the captain of Manchester United. I’m very rich. I can pay you. Please let us go”. This whole story gets funnier each day though. His defence is that he thought he was being kidnapped by the plain clothes coppers. Jesus, that’s his worst bit of defending since the Sevilla game a couple of weeks back. Not as bad as old Hank Winter though. Mr England had this to say: “‘Those with any familiarity with Greek tragedy will recall the story of Achilles, who avoided the fighting until a loved one was injured and his subsequent actions ultimately caused his own downfall. Few will wish to paint Maguire in a heroic light, although his desire to protect Daisy, whom his legal team claimed was attacked by Albanian gangsters, is admirable and typical of the man.’ Jesus Christ. Few would want to paint him in a heroic light, yet you compare him to fucking Achilles and call him admirable!!!! He wasn’t done there though; ‘at the very least, and pending any new evidence provided during the resumption of the legal process, Maguire is guilty of folly’. “Folly” hahaha I don’t even know where to start, other than to say I think Winter might just be the only man connected with football to ever use that word. Posh cunt. Fucking hell. For the record, he was also found guilty of assault, four counts of bribery and resisting arrest. Does all that come under “folly” then? Winter is almost as out of touch with reality as Maguire’s lawyers, who actually claimed he was in Mykonos because he is “keen on the ancient Greek culture”. He ran up a bar bill of 63 grand!! He’s hardly Michael Palin is he? This whole story is fucking hilarious, but the funniest part of all is the big hitters from the English press all falling over themselves to defend him and write articles that are little more than character references for Maguire while hammering the Greek police. You have to wonder what they’ve been promised. Probably guaranteed exclusive interviews with him and any other United players they choose. United’s PR advisor is Neil Ashton, formerly of the Mail and no doubt good buddies with all these bootlickers expressing their outrage at how Saint Harry has been treated. Also today, reports that Gini isn’t being offered a new deal and may well be ‘sacrificed’ this summer so we can get Thiago in. It makes sense in some ways but not in others. Firstly, why is he not being offered a new deal? Milner got one and much as that made me happy, I can’t say that it made more sense to extend him and not Gini. Secondly, how come Gini seems completely relaxed about the whole thing and is still doing interviews talking about the upcoming season as though everything is normal? Until today though all the Thiago talk had been coming from the German end and seemingly out of the Bayern dressing room. This is the first time one of the LFC beat writers has given it any real credence and because of that I’m going to have to finally start taking this seriously I guess. Thiago is nothing like Gini as a player, so if Klopp is planing on swapping one for the other it surely means a tweaking - or an evolving - of our style. It’s going to be interesting to see how all this plays out, but I’ll be honest, I really don’t want to see Gini go. More on this Messi thing. Yesterday he told Barca he wants to quit and apparently it’s because Koeman told him “no more privileges”. I assume he means no more walking around and not bothering to close anyone down, as well as no more picking which players they buy and sell. Messi and Suarez were instrumental in tapping up Coutinho don’t forget. From reading up on all this a bit more today I now think he’s staying put and this whole thing is a political move to force the president out. And if the president goes, Koeman will too. He’s only been there a couple of days and he’s under fire by the press already for alienating Suarez and Messi. Nothing he can’t handle though, it’s not like when he had that red Crimbo tree for example. Thursday Aug 27: Operation ‘Clear Harry’ is in full force. He did a sit down interview with BBC today talking about his ‘ordeal’ and how he thought he was being kidnapped. He’s nailed on for a knighthood next year. It’s incredible how this has now been spun around to make him look like a hero who was merely protecting his sister. Are we really expected to believe that some bent Greek copper kicked him in the knees and said “I’ll end your career” (or words to that effect) but he wasn’t bent enough to take the massive bribe that was offered? I don’t believe Maguire and I don’t believe the Greek police. They’ll both be twisting things to make themselves look less guilty but the truth will be somewhere in the middle. Still, don’t let that get in the way of all this jingoism about an English hero sticking it to nasty old Johnny Foreigner. So it seems the reason Gini isn’t getting a new deal is because when talks started he wanted a big pay rise and the club wouldn’t agree to it. Assuming this is correct, then I’d side with the player here because everyone else got new deals when they outperformed their existing one, and considering he’s never injured, he’s Mr Reliable and he’s played a fucking massive part in the success we’ve had these last three years, I’d say he’s earned a big pay rise. Of course it depends what he’s asking, but can you really see Gini being completely unreasonable and asking to be the top paid player or something like that? I expect he wants parity with the likes of Henderson and Milner, which is fair enough, surely? If Thiago comes in he’s going to be on top dollar and I can’t say the notion of giving him the money they won’t give Gini sits especially well with me to be honest, not after the big contribution he has made. Still, this will all be driven by what Klopp wants and I’m not going to question his judgement. Well not too much anyway. Also today, Sky Sports have cleaned house and got rid of all of the Soccer Saturday panel except Merson. Firstly, I’m glad Merson has kept his job as he’s a troubled fella and he needs this. I also think he’s by far the most likeable fella on that show. Yeah he’s thick, but there’s nothing snide about him. Obviously I love Thommo but if I supported anyone else I’d hate him almost as much as I do Nicholas and (especially) that cunt Le Tissier. The reaction to it has been mad though. It’s the same kind of nonsensical outrage being spouted about Last Night of the Proms. They haven’t been replaced by “women and blacks” (or, God forbid, black women) and poor old Micah Richards had to make a statement that it’s nothing to do with him because he was trending on Twitter. That was the first reaction a lot of people had. “Oh they’re being moved out of the way to give that token black Micah Richards a job”. It is a complex issue and people do need to be given these jobs on merit and not just to fill quotas. Times change though and the demographic of viewers changes too. There’ll be loads of under 35s who aren’t going to relate to Thommo or Nicholas so these kind of shows often need to freshen things up every ten years or so anyway, regardless of the other reasons they need to do it. But the bottom line is that there’s no way Sky could just continue on with a panel made up exclusively of old white guys, especially in light of the steps being taken elsewhere to level the playing field. And if you look at the BT equivalent they’ve got a much more diverse group, which will have shone a spotlight on Soccer Saturday even more. I didn’t watch it much before and I doubt I’ll watch it much from now on either, regardless of who they bring in. Friday Aug 28: It’s the Charity Shield tomorrow and we’ve got a few injuries. Virg should be ok but Trent won’t play and Ox, Matip, Hendo, Shaqiri and Wilson are all still out. Can’t believe Shaq is injured again. Might as well just sell him if he’s never going to be available. And Wilson couldn’t have picked a worse time to be out. A good pre-season might just have earned him one season to try and prove himself, but instead he’s on the treatment table at Melwood. Whether he stays or not will probably depend on who we get the best offer for - him or Shaq. Meanwhile, Klopp says he’d be interested in Messi but the ‘numbers’ mean there’s no chance. Interesting he didn’t just say the money or the price. The numbers could mean anything. Like his lack of sprints or the total distance he covers (probably less than Alisson). Or the amount of times he’s stood still in a strop as his team is getting embarrassed. Probably is just the money though. 900k a week is beyond any football club really and even if he takes a 50% cut it’s way beyond us. It’s beyond City too, if they were playing by the rules anyway. Don’t be surprised to see him announced as an ambassador for the Abu Dhabi tourism board with a salary of 800k a week, while the other 100k goes through City’s books. I think I actually want him to go to Juve as it would be fascinating to see if him and Ronaldo could co-exist. The latest speculation is he wants to join City but Barca are saying he only way he leaves is if someone matches his buyout clause of €700m. I think I hate everyone involved in this. Barca can fuck off, City are the absolute worst and Messi is a scheming little tax avoiding tit. I dislike him the least, but reserve the right to change that if he joins City. I still think the most likely outcome is that he stays put and the President is ousted instead though. Oh yeah, I almost forgot but there was something else today. An interview with Robbo and Klopp where Klopp put Robbo right on the spot about something none of us had any idea about. Robbo was being a little bit chesty about his goal at Villa and Klopp goes “no-one expected that. Are you going to tell them what happened at half time with you and Sadio?”. Turns out they had a bust up over something, but then they both went out and scored in a 2-1 win. We’ve seen that movie before, only this time there was no golf club involved. And Villa aren’t exactly Barcelona. Saturday Aug 29: Arsenal 1 L 1. Shite that, but we’re in the middle of a shortened pre-season so there was never any chance we’d be at full steam and as Ljinders likes to say “our identity is our intensity”. Take that away and we’re not really anything special, but when it’s there we’re pretty much unstoppable. We dominated the game, created some chances (not enough though) but only had the one goal to show for it. Happy for Minamino to score as that should boost his confidence. He played quite well, as did Keita when he came on. Brewster was on a hiding to nothing being sent on solely to take a pen. At least give him five minutes to get a couple of touches and a feel for the game before putting him in that spot. Arsenal though. Absolute fucking bums. Carrying on like they’d won the world cup. Bellerin actually tweeted that he’s going to need a bigger trophy cabinet. This loser probably counts the Emirates Trophy and all their other pre-season pots as legit silverware as well. Their keeper acted like a right twat in the shoot out too. He didn’t save one but was trash talking like he was Michael Jordan. Mind you, better that than what we saw from Alisson. He’s shite on pens and he made no attempt to unsettle their takers either. Probably because it’s not what Jesus would do. Should have brought Adrian on, he’s a right cunt and would have been up to all sorts to get in their heads. The only manager I can ever remember who did that kind of thing though was Van Goal when he’d bring Tim Krul on any time the Dutch were in a shoot out. Most managers shy away from it as it’s seen as being a bit demeaning for the number one keeper. Actually, wait. Didn’t Sarri try and do it for Chelsea only Kepa told him to fuck off and wouldn’t leave the pitch? I remember that happening but can’t recall whether it was for a shoot out or not. I think it was because pens is the only thing that Caballero is any good at. Don’t know where I’m even going with any of this as I’ve been completely sidetracked. It’s because the game was shit and I don’t have much to say about it. It shouldn’t have even been played, as what’s the point? Fair enough if there was going to be a crowd there, but playing this game in an empty Wembley, slap bang in the middle of a shortened pre-season, it’s just stupid really. Sunday Aug 30: Messi doesn’t show up for Barca’s compulsory Covid testing ahead of pre-season. This is great. For years these cunts have unsettled players at other clubs by telling them to pull shit like this, and now they’re finally on the receiving end. Suarez is digging his heels in too and saying he won’t leave unless they pay up his contract. I love this. It’s been a long time coming but it’s just fucking ace seeing them suffer in the way they’ve made others suffer for decades. La Liga is backing them and saying the only way Messi can go is if someone meets his buy out clause value, but then they would do wouldn’t they, as Ronaldo has gone and if they lose Messi too the Spanish league is going to lose a lot of it’s global appeal. Hopefully their case is water tight because otherwise City will have their team of lawyers swooping in there faster than you can say “CAS”. They’ve apparently decided they want Messi and are prepared to pay him £450m as part of a five-year plan that would eventually see him join New York City FC. Translation, Man City will pay Messi £10m over three years and then New York City will give him £440m for the other two. It’s dodgy as fuck and so transparent but it’s galling how most of the media ignore it. Instead it’s all “hey wouldn’t it be great for the Premier League to have Messi over here”. Nah, it wouldn’t. Fuck Messi and fuck City. And fuck Barcelona. In fact, just fuck everyone who isn’t us. Monday Aug 31: Everyone talking about that BBC show on the 30 year wait. Haven’t seen it yet but it sounds good so I’ll get around to it eventually. What made me laugh was all the kicking off on twitter about it from fans of other clubs (specifically City, and of course their new BFFs Everton). “Why was there no programme when City ended their long wait?”. “How come Leicester didn’t get one when they won it?” “Where was Chelsea’s tribute show?” They’re so fucking thick aren’t they? Completely missing the point. It isn’t about favouritism to Liverpool. It’s about the bottom line. If they’re spending money to put a programme together, it has to be something that will get a lot of viewers. A show about Leicester winning the title is generally only going to be watched by Leicester fans. And there aren’t THAT many of them to make it worthwhile. A show about City winning it is only going to be watched by Evertonians. City fans can’t even be arsed to show up for a parade when they win the trophy, so what makes people think they’ll watch a documentary about it? It’s really simple. The BBC don’t favour Liverpool over other clubs, they just know that we’re fucking massive and any show made about us is going to get a shitload of viewers. All these conspiracy theorist City and Everton fans are just showing a lack of basic intelligence. I saw some Spurs fans complaining too, but if Spurs were to ever win it (don’t laugh) I reckon they’d get a documentary made about it too. They’re probably just about big enough to justify it, but it’s a coin toss really. They do have their own show on Amazon though, which is available from today. From the clips I’ve seen it looks fairly standard stuff, except whenever Mourinho is on and then it immediately goes into ‘must see’ mode. I definitely wouldn’t go as far as to say I’ve grown to like him, as it will only take one comment or touchline tantrum against us to make me remember why I hated so much for so long, but I’ve got to say that he’s become quite entertaining since he stopped winning things. I’ll probably watch this and just skip the parts he isn’t in. More Thiago rumours today. This time some overseas journo who is meant to be very reliable (don’t they say that about all of them? Except those two Italian clowns Romano and Palmeri) says United have made a move for him but his wage demands are too high. I smell bullshit. If his wages are too rich for United’s blood then he’d be well out of our reach. Of course, he might have a “United price” and a “Liverpool price”. The United price being excessively high on the basis that he doesn’t want to go there but if they are stupid enough to pay the excessively high demand then he might consider it. To be honest I’m sick of this one already, but I suspect it’s got weeks and weeks to run yet. And if it doesn’t happen, I’m staying off twitter for at least a month. and that was the week that was….

I didn’t particularly want to write a report on this. Partly because it was shite, but mainly because it’s not like a regular Charity Shield game which in itself is only a glorified friendly. This wasn't even that. It didn’t come at the end of a full pre-season when players are finely tuned and ready to go. It’s in the middle of a shortened pre-season and we’ve only had two friendlies to prepare. It’s the same for Arsenal and I’m not using that as an excuse, but I feel it has taken away what little prestige and value this game has in a normal season, especially as it was played in an empty stadium. I don’t think it should have even been played this year under the circumstances. All that probably sounds like sour grapes because we didn’t win. I’d be saying it even if we had won though. This game was an inconvenience and we could certainly have done without it, but because it’s relatively high profile it’s hard not to draw conclusions from the performance and judge it like a proper game, when really it’s just a friendly between two teams who are nowhere near peak sharpness. I don’t think the result or performance means anything. We didn’t even lose, we drew. What happens after that with the pens determines the outcome but it doesn’t change what happened in the actual game. It was a draw and it was probably fair as neither team deserved to win. So we drew with Arsenal. Not the end of the world and if this game had been labelled “The California Cup” or “The Sydney Shield” and had been played overseas no-one would give a fuck. Because it’s the Charity Shield it has a little bit more prestige, but this year especially it’s no different to any of those pre-season tournaments big clubs play in every summer. It means nothing. We didn’t win a pre-season friendly. That’s the upshot of all this, and it’s therefore not worth reading too much into it. That’s why I didn’t want to write a report but I assumed you’d be expecting one so here it is. Despite everything I’ve just said, I am still a little pissed off because it genuinely offends me that once again we didn’t beat Arsenal. They’re fucking shite and this is the second time in as many months that we’ve allowed them to think they can hang with us. Friendly or not, that bothers me a little and I can’t pretend it doesn’t. I have nothing but contempt for modern day Arsenal and everything they represent. Anything other than a convincing spanking of them is just unacceptable in my eyes, and friendly or not, our players should be pissed off with themselves for allowing this to happen. Arsenal are fucking shit. They’ve only got one player who is on the same level as our team. ONE!! The rest wouldn’t get anywhere near our first eleven and most wouldn’t get a sniff of the bench either. Not that this was our first eleven. We were missing Trent and Hendo and their importance can’t be over-stated. We’re not the same team without either of them. Neco is a great kid and full of promise. He’s good enough to play if he has to, but Trent is the best attacking right back in the world and the most creative player in our team. Take him out and we lose something. Any team would. Hendo too. The sample size is big enough now to be able to say that we’re nowhere near as good a team when he’s not in it. We should still be good enough to take care of Arsenal without either of them though. I thought the starting line up was a little odd if I’m honest. Ten of the side picks itself but we knew exactly what Arsenal were going to do and against that kind of deep lying, defensive opponent, I don’t understand why you’d go with Milner and Wijnaldum rather than just one of them alongside Keita. Keita has been in great form since lockdown and he brings the kind of drive, creativity and penetration from midfield that you need against park the bus teams. So yeah, I don’t understand the thinking behind leaving him on the bench. Still, we started quite well and Virgil had a goal correctly ruled out for offside. Milner missed a great chance too when he put a header over the bar. Seconds later we fell behind completely against the run of play. Yeah, great goal from Aubameyeng but we need to deal with that better than we did. We let them play through us too easily and Neco has to know that the only thing on Aubameyeng’s mind was to cut in and shoot on his right foot. In fairness, stopping him doing it is easier said than done and as Klopp said afterwards, one v one against a player like that you don’t really have much of a chance of stopping him getting a shot in. Generally you have to just hope he doesn’t find the corner, but unfortunately this time he did. What made Williams’ job even more difficult was Tierney overlapping outside him. You could see Neco backing off as he tried to process it all and decide what to do. It was only a brief moment’s hesitation but that’s all the top forwards need. Neco should know that as he faces Mané all the time in training. Arsenal worked that very well as it started from their keeper and they just played through us without about three passes. They are capable of that and generally I don’t have any complaint when Arsenal score against us because they can score against anyone. What pisses me off is when we don’t put a bagful past their shitty defence. Making Holding and Luiz look competent again, that’s the real crime there. For a good while after that this was a terrible watch. Just massively frustrating and it felt like we’d never score. Alisson needed to make a smart save to deny Nketia after we’d given it away cheaply and it was beginning to feel exactly like that horrible 2-1 defeat at the Emirates. The gameplan seemed to just be get it to Robbo and et him cross it. That was pretty much all we did for the entire first half. Not that it’s a bad policy, but not having Trent on the opposite flank really seemed to restrict us. The second half was better but it was still massively frustrating. Sadio went clean through but was denied by the keeper. Fine save but he should score. Just before the hour mark Klopp sent on Keita and Minamino for Williams and Milner. No arguments about that decision, especially as Milner had just been booked. Gomez went to right back with Fabinho dropping in at centre half but I’m not sure what was happening in front of them. It looked loosely like 4-2-3-1 with Salah up front and Minamino on the left, but it was so fluid it was difficult to tell. Keita was in the middle with Wijaldum though, that much I can say. We looked a bit less predictable and pedestrian after the changes. Keita was always looking to pick the ball up and carry it forward while Minamino takes up some good positions and seems to be able to find space easily. He had a decent shot from distance comfortably saved by the keeper and was involved in most things after he came on and he got us level with 20 minutes to go with a clam finish after the ball broke to him in the box. Arsenal wanted handball but it was their player who handled. Not that a little thing like that would stop David Luiz from complaining. Crying cunt. Made up for Minamino as he needed that. Let’s hope it’s the first of many, as we really need him to be contributing. This should do him the world of good as he’s been steadily improving and all that was really lacking was a goal. We looked to have Arsenal on the ropes after the goal and they were often at full stretch to keep us at bay. Our whole team other than Alisson were camped wet inside their half and Arsenal couldn’t get out. As I said, it was like that game at the Emirates all over again. Sadio missed another one v one with the keeper. His first touch on the chest was brilliant. His second off the thigh wasn’t. By the time he got his shot away the keeper was right on him and smothered it. Curtis was brought on for the ineffective Firmino for the final ten minutes, and possibly with the shoot out in mind too. So then it goes to pens and I fully expected us to lose. Why? Because honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Alisson save one. Best keeper in the world but he’s shite on pens. Of the five he faced, he only got near one of them. As for ours, they were all great apart from one. It was sod’s law that Brewster would miss as he was only brought on to take a pen. I agreed with the decision as he’s probably the best penalty taker we have. It’s not like it was a high pressure situation either as the stadium was empty. If he’d been on the pitch for half an hour or so I reckon he’d have scored, but when you are sent on cold just to take a pen it brings a different sort of pressure. His pen wasn’t even that bad but it was risky going for the roof of the net. He was a bit too high and hit the bar. That was decisive because Alisson was never going to be bailing him out. The only hope we had was an Arsenal player missing the target, but sadly they didn’t. The highlight of the shoot out was Jones once again insisting on taking the fifth pen and once again slotting it superbly. He then had a few words for their keeper who was being a right mouthy twat during the shoot out. I love this lad’s confidence. His efforts were all in vain as Aubameyeng converted Arsenal’s final pen to win it. I switched off immediately because no way was I was watching those fucking bums celebrating like they’d won a World Cup. Until they went completely shite, these cunts were taking victory photos for finishing fourth so I dread to think how much they were smelling themselves after this. Fuck Arsenal. Fuck Arteta. And fuck us for not being able to beat the massive shitbirds. Again. We play them again soon and if we don’t win that I don’t know how I’m going to react to it, but it’s not going to be rational or pleasant, I know that much. Not winning the Charity Shield is no big deal. I remember last year I couldn’t less about the trophy but I badly wanted to beat City and I was gutted we didn’t. This wasn’t the same. Again, the trophy means nothing but I’m not gutted about failing to win the game. I’m mildly pissed off and disappointed that once again we didn’t beat these fucking losers, but it will quickly be forgotten. There wasn’t really too much to take positives from though was there? I suppose Minamino was bright when he came on and he deserved his goal, so there is that. He’s probably as close to a new signing as we’re likely to get so we need him to hit the ground running this season. I still don’t know exactly where he fits in to our starting formation but he’s a nice little footballer. Maybe we need to change that ‘tried and trusted’ formation? Not specifically to accommodate Minamino (he’d need to do a hell of a lot more before that was justified), I just mean maybe we need to do something to mix it up a bit? Generally I’m an advocate of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. We’re not broke (unless you’re talking financially but that’s another story) but maybe we are becoming, dare I say, predictable? We’re still a hell of a team, but it feels as though it’s becoming harder and harder for us to win games. After that incredible run we had to start last season, it hasn’t been all puppy dogs and ice cream. In fact, let me check…. Ok, so up until Atletico away everything was historically good. We’d never seen results like that before. From that point onwards though this our record (not counting the FA Cup or Charity Shield): Won 7, Lost 5, Drawn 2. There are mitigating circumstances for some of that, but however you want to dress it up there has been a big drop off since February. Whether it means anything moving forward or not I have no idea, but there is surely some cause for a little concern that maybe teams are finally figuring out how to play against us? If you don’t freshen the team up it eventually gets stale. History has shown that countless times. Another way of putting it is that if you stand still you go backwards, because others around you are moving forward. It’s completely fair and reasonable for fans to be a little concerned that we may be going into this season with the same squad as the last two seasons. In fact, it’s actually weaker because Lovren and Lallana have gone and Shaq serves little purpose these days other than as a training doll for the medical staff to hone their skills on. We’ll still compete and we might still end up on top again. I’m not writing these lads off because they’re an incredible group of players with an unmatched mental capacity to get the job done. They’ll be right up there again, I’m sure of that. I’ll tell you what else I’m sure of though. We won’t get 97 or 99 points this season and we won’t shoot out of the blocks by winning basically every game up until February. That was never going to happen anyway, but without freshening up the team with at least one more top class player there’s no chance of it happening again. Zero. Hell, we might not even get out of the first month unscathed (especially as we play Arsenal!). Teams have had plenty of time to figure out what we do and how to stop it. Most will still be unable to do it because we’re really fucking good. But some opponents will have more joy against us than they’ve had previously because they’ve had time to figure it out. It’s going to get harder for us, especially if we don’t adapt or evolve. Man City were virtually unstoppable a few years ago but they still play the same way and over time opposing coaches have found a way to hurt them. Not all the time and City still have dozens of those games when they steamroller the opposition, but when they don’t steamroller teams they often don’t win at all. They lost nine times in the league and were beaten in the CL by a bang average Lyon. In a sense, they’ve been found out. The same will happen to us if we don’t evolve. I find it baffling that the only player we’re being seriously linked with is Thiago when surely the most obvious, glaring need we have is for another forward. I’ve written this a few times but it’s worth repeating. The production of the front three has steadily declined over the last three years. It’s generally been dismissed because the team as a whole has improved year on year, but it nags away at me. I think it’s an issue. Only a minor one currently, but it could escalate with a few more disappointing results like we’ve had since that first Atletico defeat. It needs freshening up. Not by selling one of the existing three, but by adding someone who provides a genuine threat to their place and forces everybody to raise their game. It would also allow Klopp to rotate and avoid the risk of burnout, which is going to be more of a problem this season than ever before as the games come thick and fast. And just as importantly, it would give the opposition something else to think about. They’ve seen enough of how we play to be able to figure out ways of stopping it now. Shit, if Arsenal can do it with their collection of clowns at the back then that gives hope to everyone, surely? You add a fourth top drawer attacker into the mix though, either playing instead of one of the existing three or sometimes even alongside them, and it changes everything. Existing gameplans have to be thrown out of the window and rival managers would need to find another way to defend against us. Klopp says that to break down tactics like those employed by Arsenal we need everyone fully fit. He’s right, but we need more than that. We need variety. There are days when you just know that Salah isn’t at it or that Firmino is never going to score in a month of Sundays. You can usually tell from early on too. Currently there’s no viable alternative. Maybe the thinking is that having Thiago pulling strings behind them will make life easier for the front three. I can sort of see the logic in that but even if that works it only solves part of the issue. Besides, it seems fairly clear that we aren’t going to pay what Bayern want (unless Gini is sold) so this might drag on for weeks yet. I always said that if we ever win the league then I won’t care what happens the following season as that’s a trade off I’m willing to make. Just winning it was the only thing that mattered. I still feel like that to some degree which is why I’m not throwing toys out of the pram about the lack of spending. As things stand I’m expecting us to come back to the pack this year. By how much I’m not sure, but we’re not going to be running away with it again if we retain the status quo. If that happens and we don’t have a successful season, I’ll try not to be too upset about it because that’s the deal I made with myself. Not everyone made that deal though so I can understand the growing sense of unease when rival clubs are spending like drunken sailors while we look like we might make a profit on transfers again. Since the window when we signed Alisson, Fabinho and Keita we’ve basically done fuck all other than take advantage of a clause in Minamino’s deal that allowed him to leave for peanuts. Make no mistake, we signed Taki because the value of the deal was too good to ignore rather than because he was a player we desperately wanted. Put it this way, if his price tag had been £20m plus then we wouldn’t have signed him. Yet these last three years we’ve made more money than ever before. We’ve made a fortune in Champions League prize money, we’ve won the Premier League and cashed in on that, while also signing massive sponsorship deals including a lucrative deal with Nike. I hear people saying “if we can’t spend when we’ve got all this going on, there’s something seriously wrong”. It seems a valid point and I shudder to think what would be happening if we hadn’t been so successful. Probably Sadio or Mo being sold to the highest bidder, as would have happened previously. So how come there’s no money? Covid had an effect but how much did we really lose? I’ve seen some estimates of £75m or so, but i that’s true surely that’s the same for all the other top clubs as we’re all in the same boat? We’ve got the additional cost of the new training ground and I assume we’re still paying back the FSG loan for the new Main Stand. Does that really explain how a club that is raking it in doesn’t seem to have a pot to piss in? I don’t know, I’m just asking the question. I can only assume it’s the increase in wages that’s eating into the profits. Prioritising looking after the players we have has been a point of emphasis (except with poor old Gini who is still on the contract he signed when he joined from relegated Newcastle) and it hasn’t come cheap. It’s important to do that though. These players have brought success and should be rewarded (including Gini, in my view). Klopp always talks of how he wants to make Liverpool the destination rather than a stepping stone and he’s done that. It might be at the cost of being able to compete in the transfer market, but it seems to be a situation he’s happy with. And if he’s happy with it then I can only assume that the money being generated is being made available to him. How he spends it (e.g. wages, new training ground) is up to him. It is frustrating though as it shouldn’t be too much to ask to make one top quality addition every summer. That’s how we were successful for so long in the past. We didn’t overhaul the team every year or make six or seven signings. We had a great team and we added to it with one (or at most) two players each year. We’re in the strongest position we’ve been in since those halcyon days of the seventies and eighties, but I can’t help but feel we’re letting an opportunity slip away by not capitalising on it. A club with the global fanbase we have, with the sponsorship deals we have and with the recent success we’ve had should be able to go out and buy, say, Jadon Sancho for example, especially when we could sell the likes of Origi, Shaqiri, Wilson, Grujic etc to cover most of the outlay. Maybe I’m being too simplistic, but that’s how I feel. The only legitimate reason I can think of for that not happening is that Klopp has something planned for next summer and is keeping his powder dry. He’s shown before that he’s prepared to wait for the right player while the rest of us are losing our shit and demanding he compromise and settle for a secondary target (like with Van Dijk), so I’m clinging to that for now. Star man is Robbo because who else was there even in contention? No-one. It was just varying degrees of mediocrity all around with only Robbo doing anything. Team: Alisson; Williams (Keita), Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Wijnaldum (Brewster), Milner (Minamino); Salah, Firmino (Jones), Mané: