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Saturday Sep 5: L 7 Blackpool 2 The scoreline doesn’t really tell the story here, as we were shite for a significant part of this game and only really ran away with it when Blackpool started to make changes. We deservedly went 2-0 down. Koumetio was caught out for the opener but that was as much on Salah as it was him. The pass to the kid was shite and put him in a difficult spot. Then Alisson was culpable for the second goal. It might not have been in the box but it was close enough that he can have no complaints that a pen was given. Of course he got nowhere near the spot kick because he never does (hopefully there’s some nice reverse jinxing going on there). Matip headed us back into it just before the break and the second half was massively improved as the goals flowed. Nice for Elliott to get a goal and for Taki to get himself another. He looked lively again. I’m not reading anything into the poor first half performance as it’s pre-season and we had our entire back four away on international duty, but there’s just a weird vibe about us at the moment, on and off the pitch. Considering we should be on such a massive high, it doesn’t feel like that does it? Loads of fans are unsettled about the lack of transfer activity and the team looks a bit flat, although it is pre-season and it’s stupid to form any opinions - good or bad - based on these friendlies. I do have concerns about the front three though, as I’ve written quite regularly over the summer. Minamino has been our liveliest forward recently while Jones looks like he’s the most creative player in the squad right now. Hopefully when the season kicks off we’ll see the ‘big three’ step it up a gear but I’d feel a lot better about things if we added another one into the mix. Bobby looked very good today though, at least. Klopp wasn’t happy at all in the first half of this and the pitchside mic picked him up having a go at Fabinho telling him “make a challenge, be in the right places”. He subbed him at half time too. Don’t know if there’s anything sinister in that or if it was pre-planned. By the way, I’ve skipped a few days since the end of the last diary as I want to get back to the Saturday/Friday format now that the season is upon us again, and there’s been virtually nothing of note to talk about this past week anyway. The one significant bit of news was Messi staying put, which surprises no-one really as it felt like a power play right from the start, and as soon as it became clear that he wasn’t going to be allowed to just walk away this was always the most likely scenario. Tell you what though, he’s a proper scheming little fucking diva isn’t he? Ronaldo was always the one who got pilloried for his arrogance and selfishness but this fella is just as egotistical on the sly. Hope we play Barca this year so we can make him cry again. Sunday Sep 6: I saw Robbo was trending on twitter and I panicked and thought he might be injured. Turns out it was just a load of ‘Tierney Nonces’ posting about how shite he is when isn’t surrounded by the great players he plays with for us. If you think Kieran Tierney is better than Andy Robbo then you need to start watching a different sort, because footy isn’t for you. Meanwhile, Neco scores a last minute winer for Wales on his home debut. Nice. That’ll be great for his confidence as I don’t think he’s been at his best in the last few first team games he’s had for us. He was fucking brilliant to start with but just the last two or three times he’s played he’s had some struggles. He’ll come back flying now after this hopefully. Sheyi Ojo joins Cardiff on loan. Anyone even remember that he was still our player? I’d completely forgotten about him. I thought he was permanent at Rangers but he was only on loan. I’d imagine this will be his last loan deal and then he’ll just be sold for whatever we can get for him. Talented player but really inconsistent. Moving on, and the latest on Thiago is that he’s now saying stuff like “I’ve never said I’m leaving Bayern” and he made a comment about “going home” after international duty. Home being Bayern. Proper bored of this now. Reports in Spain today claim that Barcelona want him. You know what, they can fucking have him and we’ll keep Gini. I’m good with that. Monday Sep 7: Foden and Greenwood are sent home from international duty after bringing a couple of local girls to their room. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a big deal (unless you happen to be Foden’s long time girlfriend of course) but pulling this shit when in a bubble, in a foreign country and under strict orders to follow the rules is pretty fucking bad I reckon. It just shows a total lack of respect for Southgate. If I was Southgate I wouldn’t pick either of these upstart cunts again for a long time. Not that he’ll be there for a long time of course, but if by some miracle he is. They wouldn’t have done this if they feared or respected Southgate. That’s probably as much on him as them actually as he’s such a fucking wet lettuce. This is his chance to set an example. This wouldn’t have happened under Capello. Or Sven, albeit for completely different reasons. Capello ruled with an iron fist, whereas it wouldn’t have happened on Sven’s watch because those birds would have already been in his room, the smooth old bastard. Meanwhile, “Hamez” has signed for the Blues. Quite the fall from grace that. One minute you’re the young superstar of the World Cup and signing for Real Madrid, and then six years later you’re being unveiled at the Pit. Still, at least he’s got experience of dealing with disgusting little fucking creatures clinging onto him, so he’ll be sound when the fans are allowed back in. So Power Shift FC have won the transfer window again and they’re also declaring themselves the social media kings now because “Hamez” has around 14m more instagram followers than LFC. Mostly Real and Bayern fans who simply haven’t unfollowed him yet, but regardless, they can have this one. When’s the parade? Oh wait, hold on a second, news just in…. turns out that a lowly minority stakeholder in the Reds has…. *checks LeBron’s page* 71.8m followers. Better cancel that parade then. Unless they can somehow pull off the signing of Taylor Swift maybe? She’s got 140m followers and is probably a better keeper than Pickford. Tuesday Sep 8: Trent is PFA Young Player of the Year. I’m relieved, because if anyone other than him had won it I’d never have been able to get over the ridiculousness of it. I don’t think there has ever been a more obvious decision in the history of this award as he was soooooo far ahead of everyone else. Take Trent out of the equation and it would have been close (I’d have probably gone for Shagger Greenwood), but Trent was so far ahead of the rest that not even the PFA members could fuck this one up. Meanwhile, as expected, De Bruyne got the senior award. Hendo might have won it if it hadn’t been postponed, but post lockdown he didn’t play and De Bruyne was fantastic so this was the right call too. Congratulations to him, great player and a top fella. Deserves better than to be associated with that absolute cunt of a club. Probably the only person less arsed than me that Hendo didn’t win it is Hendo himself. He actually comes across as the type of fella who’d rather not win any individual award as the team is the only thing that matters to him. We had four players on the shortlist of six, which probably did Hendo’s chances no favours as the LFC vote was split whereas KDB was City’s best player by light years. Five of our lads made the team of the season too, which is about right I’d say. The only one who missed out who probably should have made it was Alisson, although the two injuries he had probably counted against him. I don’t begrudge Nick Pope his spot in the team, and Vardy and Aubameyeng getting in is fine too. Soyuncu though?? Much like his team, he had a great first half to the season and a poor second half. Still, him getting in is another slap in the face to the Mancs for spending so much on Maguire only to see his replacement at Leicester do even better. Of course it would have counted for much more if Leicester hadn’t completely fucking choked away a top four spot and allowed United to sneak in the back door. ‘Spanish Scholes’ getting in was the thing that really pissed me off. It was a team of the season, not a ‘let’s pay tribute to someone who’s had a good career and is leaving for pastures new XI’. Absolute joke that he got picked. Most charitable selection since Giggs was named Player of the Year when he was 45 or something. Fuck David Silva, the little gobshite. Wednesday Sep 9: What the fuck? Reports from the LFC patch journos claim that Brewster can go out on loan for the season but that if anyone offers £25m then we’re prepared to sell him. Look, if you’ve been reading this feature for a while you’ll know I’m not completely sold on Brewster and if you put a gun to my head and ask me if he’s good enough or not then I’d say ‘not’. But selling him before he’s even really had a chance to show what he can do? I would most definitely NOT be on board with that, mainly because I’d question the reasoning behind it. Would he be being sold for football or financial reasons? It would seem to be the latter. I don’t think it will happen but if it does LFC Twitter will go fucking mental and for once I wouldn’t blame them. Also today, Lovren posts a picture of a letter and present sent to him by Hendo, and it’s fucking awesome. Everyone should have a friend like Hendo. What a guy. The season starts on Saturday and frankly I couldn’t possibly be less excited. I think it has to be that we’re not allowed in to games. It just doesn’t feel like a new season is starting. I should be looking forward to meeting up with the lads before the game and strolling up to Anfield in glorious sunshine. There's nothing quite like the opening home game of the season. Instead I have no buzz whatsoever and from talking to a lot of other Reds I’m not alone. Maybe it will all change with a thumping win over Leeds, but right now I’m just not feeling it. Thursday Sep 10: Klopp does an extended interview on BBC 5 Live and it seemed to confirm the fears fans have that we won’t be signing anyone. Lots of talk about how ‘there are other ways to strengthen a squad without new signings’ and ‘we do things differently to other clubs’ etc I’m not getting as worked up about it as a lot of people are but it’s really not what we want to be hearing as we prepare for a title defence. In fairness Klopp admitted that himself, he knows that there’s some anxiety over the lack of transfer activity. He's probably feeling it himself but he accepts the situation. We all know we aren’t owned by a country or an oligarch and I don’t think fans are expecting us to compete with City’s (or even Chelsea’s) spending but you can’t blame fans for wondering what the fuck is going on when Everton are throwing loads cash around for the third year running. Yes, I know it’s got them absolutely nowhere so far, but that isn’t really the point. Every club has been impacted by Covid yet we seem to be the only ones who can’t buy players as a result of it. Other than the Thiago crap virtually the only transfer talk surrounding us is about players leaving. Gini, Origi, Shaqiri, Wilson, Grujic and now Brewster. All said to be available at the right price. Meanwhile you have the likes of Villa spending £34m on a striker from the Championship, Newcastle buying Bournemouth and Wolves signing every Jorge Mendes player in Portugal. Why can't we do anything? From what I’ve been told it’s not specifically a result of what COVID has cost us so far (estimates are anywhere between £75-100m) but what it might cost us in the future. Other clubs are borrowing against future earnings on the assumption that fans will be back in stadiums sooner rather than later. Rightly or wrongly, FSG aren’t prepared to do that. I can’t say I’m happy about it or that I’d make the same decision if I were in charge, but equally I can’t say with any confidence that I can see fans being allowed back in as normal at any point this season. I expect limited attendances at best and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if at some point football ended up being suspended again. And if that happens, some clubs might be sweating a bit based on what they’ve spent this summer. So I see why LFC are being cautious even if I don’t necessarily agree with it. What else was going on today? Oh yeah, Simon Jordan referred to Ryan Fraser as a ‘turd’ on the radio. He also called him ‘a wretched individual’. Bit strong perhaps, but it’s not entirely unfair either as Fraser has been talking about how he could have really helped Bournemouth survive if he’d stayed and played for them in the run in. Jesus Christ, I get that he’d think that because every footballer needs to have that belief they can make a difference, but the fact is he didn’t play for them. He walked out in their time of need because he was looking after his own self interests (he was entitled to do that even if it was a bit cunty to a club that had given a little fat kid the chance to become a star), but having left them to fend for themselves it’s a proper turd move to then say “I could have saved you if I’d wanted to”. Anyway, this was pretty entertaining I thought, so check it out.. Friday Sep 11: The FIFA ratings were announced yesterday so all the spotty virgins are now arguing with each other about why ‘Auba’ doesn’t have a higher rating than ‘Kun’ and why Pogba isn’t a 99 instead of having the same rating as Henderson. Pathetic. Yeah I’m old, I get that. But if being young means acting like these sad cunts then… oh who am I kidding, yeah I’d love to be young again but *shrugs* whadayagonnado? I think Lukaku made a good point about all this. He said “Fifa just mess with the ratings so we players start complaining about it and give them more publicity… I ain’t with this shit. I know what I do.” He’s right, but the irony of him tweeting about it and giving them publicity seems to be lost on him. Ben Woodburn has joined Sparta Rotterdam on loan for the season. It’s a step up from Oxford I suppose but I’d be surprised if this went well. Very few of these loans work out when you actually think about it. Harry Wilson has done well and so did Brewster, but most of the other kids who go out don’t have a good time of it. Woodburn deserves some better luck though so hopefully this can kickstart his career again. Other reports today claim that Gini held positive talks with Klopp and might be staying. Hope so, but how the fuck would anyone know what was said in those talks? Smells like guesswork to me, but we’ll see I guess. Tell you one thing though, if the club announce a new deal for Gini this week then the FIFA virgins in our fanbase will have a fucking meltdown if it means no Thiago. Jamie Redknapp thinks Thiago is coming though. “He isn’t fazed by anything. He’s already played for two of the biggest clubs in the world in Barcelona and Bayern. He would give the midfield an extra dimension on top of Henderson, Fabinho, Wijnaldum and Keita. They are all brilliant players but technically Thiago is on a different level.” All true, but Jamie forgot to mention Milner and Jones. Neither are playing ahead of Thiago of course, that’s not my point though. My point is we already have six midfielders competing for three spots (seven if we don’t get the asking price for Grujic). So unless someone leaves, Thiago ain’t coming people. I’ve just been catching up on videos on LFCTV and I have some observations. Firstly, it looks like Shaq has shamelessly slid into Lovren’s role as Mo’s sidekick. Actually it wouldn’t surprise me if big Dej left instructions with Shaq when he left to make sure Mo doesn’t get too depressed without him. Secondly, they were doing laps of the training ground and Milner left everyone in his wake as usual. It wasn’t the lactose test thing they do each summer it just looked like they had to do a few laps of the pitches but no surprise that it was the old man leading the way. He’s a machine he is. Thirdly, the u18s have been smashing everyone in pre-season and they beat the Macs 4-1 at the Academy this week. I watched the highlights today and Oakley Cannonier caught the eye. If he made it here it would be quite the story as he’s the kid whose quick thinking helped Trent take the famous corner. I’d love to see him come through but I also want to see the other kid make it. You know, the one who ran on and gave Messi the V’s at full time. The official word on him has always been that he was just a kid from the crowd, but it sure looked like he was a ballboy, and all the ballboys were Academy kids, so..... Maybe one day we’ll find out who he was, the little fucking hero. Finally, have any of you ever watched a Klopp press conference live on youtube? It’s fucking mental. Not because of Klopp, but because of the live comments on the chat. I just sat there today watching as hundreds (thousands maybe) of comments were flying in while he spoke. I don’t get it. I don’t really know what people get from this as it’s not like they’re even making any salient points. They're just firing out random words. It’s just hundreds of goons posting shit like this: “Thiago” “Sign Thiago” “Thiago *load flame emojis* “Keita” “De Bruyne to Liverpool” “Sign Messi” “GO GET IT BABY” “Get Mbappe in at LFC” “I’M A PROUD RED FIFA. ARE YOU?” “Bale” “we don’t want Bale he plays too much golf” “Chelsea” “J-U-R-G-Y-A-N-K-K-L-O-P-P” “thiago is blue” “Bale is golfer” “salah salad” Every one of those is legit and there were hundreds more I could have thrown in too. It’s actually quite fascinating in a weird way. It would make for a good social study I think. Oh yeah, there’s one last thing. Klopp was clearly not happy today about the voting down of the proposal for 20 man match day squads and five allowed subs. I’m with him. I like the idea because when it was brought in after lockdown it allowed us to get some kids on the bench. They wouldn’t have been involved otherwise. How is this a bad thing? I’ll tell you why it’s seen as a bad thing and why it’s been voted down. It’s because cunts like Man City and Chelsea would abuse that and end up bringing on five subs who had a combined cost of a half a billion. That’s the only objection people have to it. “Oh it favours the big clubs” they say. Not really, and it would be easy enough to add a little rule change that means you have to include a certain number of under 19s in the 20 man squad and at least one of the five subs has to be a kid. Fucking Man City ruining everything with their big spending cheating ways. and that was the week that was….