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Seeing Klopp giving it the first pumps in front of the Kop is surely the best moment of the season so far? Ok, there was only a couple of thousand fans there but it was still great wasn’t it? The performance was too. Hell of a day for us and everyone will have an extra spring in their step today. Much like Leicester a couple of weeks ago, I really thought this was going to be a hard game for us. Wolves has always been a tough nut for us to crack and that’s even when we’ve been at full strength. Now we were facing them without Alisson and Van Dijk, and Trent was only fit enough for the bench. Yet we smashed them anyway. We dominated and the second half in particular was great. We had two teenagers in the side as well as a young keeper making his league debut but you’d never have known because it just looked like Liverpool didn’t it? It doesn’t seem to matter who is called upon to fill in, we still always look like Liverpool. Certainly at Anfield anyway. Even without some of our key players this team is just rolling on and wiping the floor with good teams. The record since losing Virgil is fantastc all things considered. Mind you, we may have lost the best centre back in the league, but we had the second best one coming in to replace him. Yeah that’s right, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Joel Matip is better than any other centre back in this league not named Van Dijk. He’s fucking brilliant but because he’s so low profile it has largely gone under the radar. Pundits will talk about how he’s a good player, but they almost sound surprised when they say it, like it’s something they’re just discovering and that they’re revealing something the viewers don’t know. A lot of them probably don’t know. It’s partly because he misses so many games through injury, partly because Van Dijk gets most of the plaudits, and partly because he has zero interest in promoting himself. But Matip is so under-rated half the pundits don’t even know his name and call him “Matic”. Name me a better centre back in this league right now? You can’t, because there isn’t one. With him fit and available we’ll still miss Van Dijk, but nowhere near as much. Especially with Fabinho doing such an admirable job back there too. Those two were the platform that this performance was built on. Don’t get me wrong, everyone was superb too, but when you have a solid base like that (I’m including Kelleher in that as well) it helps everyone else. They probably won’t get the recognition they deserve but they won’t care either. They just do their jobs and let others get the glory. And there is plenty of glory to go around with this team. One week it’ll be Salah, the next Mané. Then Jota or Jones. Soon it’s going to be Bobby again, I can feel it in my water. He’s coming back to form. Wolves will be disappointed with how they played but Nuno got it wrong with his formation. They’ve given us all we can handle by playing 3-5-2 and counter attacking on us, but for whatever reason he switched to a back four and as soon as I saw that I was confident we’d win easily. In fact, I even posted in the group chat just before kick off that “if they play a back four we’ll twat them as Coady will get exposed”. I didn’t say that just because I don’t like him, I said it because it’s a fact. I’m glad he fucked up for the opener and I’m glad he got caught diving just because it vindicates what I’ve been saying about him. I’ve been telling you all for ages how much I don’t like Coady. It feels like it’s just me and my mum though because seemingly everyone else loves him. Maybe not after this carry on though. There’s plenty of room on the bus for you all though, so hop on board. He just rubs me up the wrong way because he’s just so fucking full of himself. Every time I hear him talk I have to switch the telly off, especially as it feels like I’m the only one who sees it. Why does everyone think he’s such a great lad? He’s not, he’s a smug, cocky bastard. I was in the post office the other day and the woman behind the counter is a red and always talks footy with me. She was referencing the injuries at the back and said “I want us to sign Conor Coady in January”. I just bit my tongue and said “no he’s not for me, I think he’d get exposed in our system” when really I wanted to yell “Fuck that, I’d rather cut off my own cock and set fire to it”. I’ve said for a while that he only looks good for Wolves because he’s in a back three and that in a four he’d be shite. Well guess what, Wolves played him in a four in this game, they got battered and Coady got exposed. He even fucked up for the first goal by inexplicably trying to chest a ball down instead of heading it clear. Too cocky, you see. The finish from Mo was boss though. Nothing fancy about it but it was ruthlessly executed. The speed of thought to anticipate the mistake, the touch to take it out of his stride and then the finish across the keeper. Assassin like. At that point most Kopites were probably joking about “Look at Conor, good Red him yano lol”. I bet they weren’t laughing when he dived to win a penalty at the Kop end though. The reactions of some of our lads spoke volumes. Fabinho was just laughing at him, while Hendo and Robbo were disgusted and let him know. Welcome aboard the “Fuck Conor Coady bus, lads”. He did what most other players would do in that situation. To his credit is I think he did actually look pretty sheepish about. He thought he was getting kicked and he went down in anticipation of it. Only problem was Sadio pulled out at the last second and made him look foolish. I do think he looked embarrassed though so I’ll give him that at least. The issue I have with him doing what he did is that you know he’d be the first one in line to complain about forwards pulling that kind of shit. Good old fashioned honest pro Conor, a proper defender, a throwback. Turns out he’s not who you thought he was, eh? After everything I’ve said about VAR since it’s inception, and especially recently, it’s only fair to point out that this is the kind of situation when it is actually useful. At full speed it will have looked to some people like a penalty. I didn’t feel like it was but not because I didn’t think Sadio caught him (I assumed he had), I just didn’t think it looked like a foul. The first replay I saw changed my mind though. It looked like a foul from that angle so the referee has done nothing wrong there. He can only give what he sees and it looked like a pen from where he was so he’s right to give it. So without VAR, Coady would have cheated his way to a penalty and possibly an equaliser for his side (I say possibly, as would anyone have been shocked if ‘Kweev’ had saved it?). It’s only when they showed the replay from the other angle you could see Sadio had somehow managed to pull back his foot and didn’t actually make any contact. I saw that and still worried that the ref might not back down, but fair play to Pawson, he realised he was wrong and overturned the decision. Why the fuck did he not book Coady for a dive though? That isn’t optional. It’s a compulsory decision, surely? He has to yellow card him there. He couldn’t wait to et the card out in the second minute when Neco had a little pull on Neto’s shirt. That was really harsh, especially so early in the game. When that happened it had “hauled off at half time again” written all over it, especially with Trent back on the bench. Klopp didn’t do that though and it was a smart move. Neco was outstanding and didn’t let the booking bother him, so leaving him out there was a good show of a faith for a kid who has had a great bounce back week. I did think Nuno missed a trick by not switching Traore to the left more or less as soon as Neco was booked. That’s what I’d have done as it was a no brainer. He eventually did it at the start of the second half, but I don’t remember Neco having any problem dealing with him before he made way for Trent. Maybe he left Adama on the right in the hope he would keep Robbo occupied? If that was his thinking it didn’t work. Robbo ran them ragged and I can only think of one occasion when Traore was able to get away. Robbo went to close the ball down and didn’t get there, which allowed them to release Traore into the space. Fabinho dived in, to either win the ball or take down the man, I don’t think he was too bothered which, but Adama was too quick and skipped away. He fizzed a great ball across the box but Neto couldn’t get there. When you watch it again, Williams’ positioning is great and there was no way Neto could have beaten him to that ball. Just something I felt was worth mentioning. Wolves without Jiminez look a completely different side, which is understandable as he’s a massive part of what they do and for me is one of the best centre forwards in the league. I’m a big fan of his, I enjoy watching him play. Hopefully he makes a full recovery. They definitely have to play a different way without him though. Podence is class, Traore can be unplayable and Neto is a tidy little player too (even if he is a diving little prick). But they have no penalty box threat anymore and although they managed to get some good crosses in against us, with no Jiminez attacking them we dealt with them easily. They had a few moments here and there but by and large we were comfortable enough. Podence had their best effort with a clever chip that looked to be heading for the top corner before Kelleher scampered back and tipped it away. That was a really good save that and there are a lot of keepers in the league who wouldn’t have made that. Great footwork. It gets better every time you watch it. They had another chance in the second half when the ball reached Coady on the back stick. He controlled but just as he was about to shoot it was taken off his toe by Fabinho. I thought Coady was offside anyway, but the flag didn’t go up so it would have gone to VAR, which is a lottery as we know. We scored almost immediately after that. Lovely counter attack it was. Hendo released Gini and it was three against two with him, Mo and Sadio. Mo’s run wide spread the defenders but I didn’t think Sadio did much to help really. He kind of just got in the way but Gini decided to shoot and curled it around the defender into the top corner. Sensational finish from a player who if he wasn’t sacrificing himself for the greater good week in week out would be scoring 15 goals a season easily. He did it in a relegated Newcastle side and he scores for fun when he’s with Holland. For us that’s not what is needed from him so he does the grunt work and allows others to shine. I fucking love Gini Wijnaldum and in years to come he’ll probably be viewed like a Ronnie Whelan or someone of that ilk. Great player, a huge part of why we’re successful but massively under-rated because others get all the attention. The contract impasse has been confusing as no-one seems to know exactly what the issue is. Does he just fancy a change of scenery or is it about the club not giving him what he wants? We found out in his post match interview. He wouldn’t talk about it but eventually said “you need to ask the club about it” which tells us that it’s purely about the terms of the deal and it’s not a case of Gini wanting to move on. If he wanted to move on he wouldn’t be putting the focus on the club. So, to me this is simple. Just fucking give him what he wants. He’s been underpaid for his prime years so if we overpay him a bit when he’s on the way down (and by that I mean when he’s 33/34 as he’s got a few more years left at the level he is now) then so be it. We’re still well up on that deal over the course of his time here. It’s pissing me off to be honest. He should be rewarded because he’s been a fucking phenomenal player and person since he’s been here. He leads by example, he’s a consummate pro who puts the needs of the team over himself, he delivers in the big games and…. I can’t stress this one enough…. he’s hardly missed a game in five fucking years. As much as I love Hendo and Fabinho, I can’t say that about them. Even Milner has missed more games than Gini and he’s seen as being something on an iron man. I’d say there’s a very good chance Gini’s wages are considerably less than what Ox and Naby are getting, so yeah, fucking pay the man because all things considered, no-one has ever deserved a rise more than Gini Wijnaldum. Get it done. Anyway, 2-0 up and I felt that the game was done. It never looked like one of those games where we might get pegged back, although you can never be totally sure as one goal can change everything of course. We were playing so well though that I could only see more goals for us. We got two more. One for Big Bird who attacked an absolutely gorgeous Salah delivery and headed in at the Kop end. He loved that, going mad in front of the fans. Love me some Joel Matip, there should be a camera on him at all times as you never know what mad face he’s going to pull or what odd gesture he’ll make. What a guy. The fourth was an own goal following a typically lethal delivery from Trent, who had been given a run out to replace Neco midway through the second half. He looked good considering the lay off he’s had. We could have scored more but the scoreline was about right I’d say. Some of our football was glorious. One move in particular stands out for me. Salah floated a great ball to Robbo and he fooled everyone by cushioning it back perfectly for Mané, but he shot disappointingly wide. The disguise on the pass by Robbo though was class. Wolves had a little spell late on when it felt like that might grab a consolation goal but Kelleher made another good save and Fabinho produced some top drawer defending to keep them at bay. All in all just a really enjoyable day. Big win, big performance and a big pick me up having fans back inside Anfield. Everyone was smiling afterwards and Klopp was the happiest he’s been in weeks. He’s been a right grumpy bastard lately, understandably so, but it was great seeing him on a high again, fist pumping the Kop and beaming from ear to ear in his post match interviews. I would have loved to have been there but I’m not resentful or envious about not being eligible for a ticket. If I lived two minutes up the road I’d have been in the ballot but it is what it is and I’m honestly happy enough to wait until we can all get back in. I’m just buzzing for everyone who got to go as they were representing the rest of us and they did it brilliantly. It did not sound like there were only two thousand fans in there did it? It was fucking loud. It made me think, imagine how fucking noisy it’s going to be the first game when we’re all back in there. It’s going to be like a European night every weekend. Hopefully that first game back is before the end of this season and if it is they should defo follow Shankly’s lead and have a couple of injured players (Virg and Gomez?) walk around with the Premier League title before the game. Imagine that! Fucking hell I’ve got goosebumps now just writing it. So we’re once again joint top and widely regarded as still being the team to beat despite the problems we’ve had. Rightly so, in my mind we’re four points clear as VAR is the only reason Spurs are level with us and other sides are within touching distance. We’ve been shafted twice and that’s kept things tight at the top. Maybe that’s the plan? I’m not one for conspiracy theories but honestly, that game at Goodison is really fucking hard to explain. It’s also galling to think about that pen at Brighton when we’ve seen at least three incidents since that were similar but went unpunished. But anyway, not wanting to go down that road again, especially when we’re doing so well. Beating Leicester and Wolves in the manner we just have is not to be sniffed at. These are tough opponents and we’ve made it look easy. We were brilliant all over the park against Wolves so picking a star man was really difficult. Sadio didn’t score but some of things he did were incredible, such as controlling the ball from the most difficult of angles with a marker draped all over him. He’s amazing at times. Mo was a threat all night too and I thought Bobby was very good in an understated way. He didn’t do much that was especially eye catching (although there was one brilliant volleyed pass to Sadio) but he was just generally bust and tidy in his link up play and looks much sharper now. Gini was brilliant. Curtis was ace again, particularly as he seemed to be injured really early on and was holding his side for most of the first half. He played through it and was very influential again. His performances are just so mature now and he’s in this side on merit. Put it this way, if Ox and Naby were available right now, would you drop Curtis to accommodate either of them? I wouldn’t even drop him for Milner. Thiago is a different matter but I’m not 100% sure that him signing for us wasn’t just a dream. I mentioned both centre backs at the start, while Kelleher deserves every bit of praise he’s been getting and then some. Being a top keeper isn’t about making loads of saves. For years I thought it was but Alisson showed us it isn’t. You want your keeper to be assured, to not fuck up, to inspire confidence and to be there when needed to make the save. This week Kelleher has played twice and he’s ticked all of those boxes both times. I was made up with Neco’s performance too and it looks like he’s over that wobble now. He wasn’t even fazed when they put Traore on his wing. It’s fucking boss that we can just plug lads from the u23s into the best side in the world and they hold their own. Star man was either Robbo or Hendo though. Both were fucking sensational but I’ll just about go with the skipper. He’s so fucking good these days. With him on the pitch I almost feel like we can’t lose. His influence on how we play is massive but even just his own individual performances ooze quality. Everyone can out their feet up in midweek now but I’m looking forward to seeing whoever gets an opportunity in midweek. Bench players and kids I’m hoping for. I don’t want any first teamer involved, and that includes Curtis and Neco. Don’t risk anyone we might need. I know Trent is back, but calf injuries can often flare up again so Neco needs to be ready. Cain and Clarkson will probably feature, hopefully Stewart as well because he’s been tearing it up in the 18s this year. It’s nice to be able to not worry about what happens in that game and have everyone rest up for Fulham next weekend. Team: Kelleher; Williams (Alexander-Arnold), Matip, Fabinho, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Henderson (Keita), Jones; Salah, Firmino (Jota), Mané:

Saturday Nov 28: Brighton 1 L 1. Well that was unpleasant. Just a real kick in the balls again. We weren’t great today but we were the better side and deserved the points. The lads are goosed. They’re either dropping like flies or they look tired as fuck because they’re having to play so many games. It’s a vicious circle. We’ve got loads of injuries so can’t rotate the squad, and because we can’t rotate the squad we’re getting more and more injuries. Milner was playing his third full game in six days so it’s no wonder he broke down. Matip was left at home because we couldn’t put him in that situation. Fabinho had to sit out much of the Atalanta game because he’s just back from a hamstring, and Robbo is running on fumes and looks ripe for an injury of some sort. It’s a fucking nightmare, which is why Klopp is over-reacting to the whole 12.30 thing. He has a point, of course he does, but surely those two and a half hours difference between 12.30 and 3pm kick offs aren’t going to make THAT much difference? He’s just pissed off about everything right now and I don’t blame him. I’d be lashing out in all directions if I were him too. Not sure Chris Wilder would be high on my list, but each to his own. Des Kelly was a bit of a twat in that post match interview today and did seem to be poking the bear a little bit. I do think some of his points were valid though, as were some of Klopp’s. To Jurgen’s credit he stayed and argued his case whereas a lot of managers would have stormed off at that line of questioning. It wasn’t comfortable to watch though and he’s looking a bit frazzled at the moment. It’s understandable, everything is going against us at the moment but personally I don’t want to see the manager looking as pissed off with everything as I am. I need to see him looking like he has it all in hand and to be a reassuring presence. That’s obviously difficult given the shit he’s having to deal with. In terms of VAR, I could just copy and paste what I wrote in the diary exactly a week ago after the farce at Old Trafford. It’s killing football and sucking the enjoyment out of it. Milner even said the same on Twitter. This is not football, it’s a fucking made for TV drama now. Meanwhile, there were rumours today that a couple of funeral workers had been killed by Boca Juniors ultras because they took selfies with Diego’s corpse. Turns out it wasn’t true but it raised an interesting question. What kind of punishment would have been too much? Killing them would be excessive, obviously, but some level of retribution is in order I’d say. It’s basically the Marcellus Wallace / Tony Rocky Horror discussion that Jules and Vincent had in Pulp Fiction. Marcellus threw Tony out of a fourth storey window for giving his wife a foot massage. Was that an over-reaction? Maybe, but Tony Rocky Horror had to know there would be consequences, just like the morons who took selfies with a dead Maradona should know that’s not cool. Now they’re issuing grovelling apologies and pleading for clemency. Good luck with that. For what it’s worth, I definitely think some kind of beating is warranted as you can’t be showing that level of disrespect just because he was famous. Imagine how his family must be feeling. I’m still obsessing about Maradona by the way. The documentary was on Channel four tonight and I watched it again. It’s fucking brilliant, if you haven’t seen it you should as it’s an incredible look into all the shit that went down when he was in Italy. It’s also very sad, especially now. You see the fresh faced kid and then you see the mess he ended up as and all the trials and tribulations in between that caused it. It was emotional. One thing that really stood out to me because I didn’t know any of this until I watched the documentary the first time was that Italy turned against him just because Argentina beat them in the semi final and Diego had asked Napoli fans to support Argentina. A lot of them did, as the game was being played in their stadium. After that, all bets were off and the press (not to mention the law) went after him with everything they had. It’s not Maradona’s fault that some Neapolitans turned against Italy though. The rest of Italy has looked down on Naples and treated them like shit for decades. Fans of clubs in the north of Italy sing about Naples being dirty and the people being unwashed and in need of soap. It’s basically how Merseyside is treated by most of England. It got me thinking. If England were playing a World Cup semi final at Anfield against Uruguay when Suarez was in his pomp here, if he asked scousers to support Uruguay what percentage do you reckon would? 50%? 75%? 90%? Obviously I would, but that doesn’t count for much as, hell, I’d have backed El Hadji Diouf even now if he asked me to support Senegal over England, and I can’t stand that cunt. Sunday Nov 29: Going back to Klopp’s interview after the game yesterday. While I didn’t like Kelly’s confrontational approach, Klopp did start that whole argument with his response to a question about Milner’s injury. He said something like “you’ll be happy now” which was always going to draw some kind of response from any interviewer with a backbone. Obviously I side with Klopp as he’s right about us getting shafted with all these 12.30 kick offs, but he should probably let it go now as it’s not a fight he’s going to win. We’re a massive fucking draw in the Asian market so BT are going to want us (or United) in that time slot as much as possible. They aren’t going to show Burnley v Everton and while Klopp is right to say this problem could be avoided if BT and Sky worked together, there’s as much chance of that happening as there is Everton doing something to help us out. Bet they're against the five subs rule just to spite us. Cunts. On the pitch today there was a sickening injury to Raul Jimenez, who fractured his skull in a clash of heads with Sideshow Bob. I didn’t watch it and I don’t want to. I was told about the horrific noise which was clearly from his skull cracking, and I have no desire to see or hear that. I like Jimenez, he’s boss. I really hope he makes a full recovery, but so much of his game is about heading that there’s a good chance he might be finished, which is terrible really. Why does this happen to the inoffensive ones? If this has to happen to anyone, let it be the likes of Richarlison. Monday Nov 30: My boy Troy has let himself down today talking about the Jimenez / Luiz incident. He’s getting hammered for what he said about players should be able to decide if they carry on with head injuries, but really he needs educating as this is a commonly held belief in the game. I’ve said it so many times but he’s a complete throwback to the 80s. He thinks and plays like an old school player so is it really any surprise that he thinks players should be allowed to decide themselves if they can carry on? It’s easy for those of us who have never played at that kind of level to sit in judgement about how these players need to be more sensible, but you have to understand what makes these fellas tick. They’re built differently to us. They’re intense competitors and in a lot of cases that’s the reason they’ve gotten as far as they have. Deeney hasn’t had the career he’s had based on just his talent. It’s the fire and drive they have to win and be the best that allows these fellas to make it as high in the game as they do, but sometimes they need protecting from themselves. I see it in the NFL all the time. Those lads needed to be protected for their own good because they’d lie about concussions just so they could stay in the game. They’d get smashed on the head, be down on the floor seeing stars and when the physio would get there they’d say “it’s my knee”. I’ve heard loads of NFL players talking about how they’d say they were ok and that they can’t even remember the rest of the game. The NFL now has people sat in a box whose job it is just to watch for potential head injuries and they will send down the order that a player needs to be assessed for a concussion, and if he has signs of one then he can’t go back in the game. David Luiz yesterday would 100% have been pulled from an NFL game, and clearly footy has a long way to go to catch up. Deeney is far from the only footballer who thinks like that, although most of them are aware enough to not say it publicly. Meanwhile, Klopp gives us a little more clarity - if you can call it that - on Thiago’s situation. He didn’t damage ligaments or break anything, but whatever the injury actually is (they haven’t said) it hasn’t improved at all since it happened and he still can’t train. Some days he can do a bit, others he can’t do anything. This is fucked up. Klopp said he’s still a few weeks away but what difference is a few weeks going to make if it’s as bad now as when he did it? I really don’t like the sound of this at all and it feels like we’re heading into a situation like we had with Gomez a couple of years ago when he ended up having an op months after the initial injury because they didn’t know what the problem was initially. We won’t see Thiago before Christmas, I’m fairly sure of that. Fucking dirty Everton cunts. Tuesday Dec 1: L 1 Ajax 0 Ah football. That’s how I remember it. What a boss game that was and not a VAR review in sight. I loved how Ajax didn’t give a fuck about who we are and just went and played their own game. They played really well I thought, but they were so wide open on another night we’d have scored five. The forwards were sloppy throughout though and Curtis was our most likely scorer all night. He’d gone close twice in the first half and he made it third time lucky after the break with a boss little finish. The kids were great tonight. Kelleher didn’t do anything I wouldn’t expect a Liverpool keeper to do, but given that not all Liverpool keepers have been able to do those things in recent years so you’ve got to be happy with what he did tonight. Yeah he made some saves, but what I liked most was he just looked in control of what he was doing and he radiated confidence. I haven’t really seen that for him in the cup games he’s played prior to this but goalkeepers do take time to mature and develop and even at 23 he’s still a baby. Great night’s work for him though and also for Curtis and Neco. We expect Curtis to play well but I was made yup seeing Neco bounce back like this. I think a lot of people have forgot just how impressive he was in his first half a dozen or so games. He’s not been too good since the first lockdown ended but tonight was the Neco we want to see. I read some comments from Lallana last week about Neco and how unfair it is that he’s been getting stick. He said that when Neto was first called up to train with the team most of the lads had no idea who he was, but immediately they were wondering why they hadn’t seen him at Melwood before before he was so good. That’s the thing for me. If these lads weren’t good enough they wouldn’t be here. Klopp could have signed players for the squad but instead chose to promote young players because he believes in them. It’s not like when he first got here and just had to make do with what he had. These kids aren’t making up the numbers, they’re training at New Melwood because Klopp wants them to be a part of the squad. And if he thinks they’re good enough then I’d say he’s probably done just about enough for us to trust him, no? We’ll see several more of the kids next week now because we’ve won the group with a game to spare, which is a refreshing change. We’re down to the bare bones in midfield and defence now with all these injuries, so next week is a chance for Cain, Clarkson, Rhys Williams and a load of other kids to get a senior appearance to their names. I’d imagine Tsimikas, Origi and Minamino will start too as they badly need games because they’ve looked well off the pace when they have played. Wednesday Dec 2: So fans are back in Anfield this weekend. I didn’t qualify for the ballot on account of living a 2 minute drive away from an area that did qualify. That’s fine though, there has to be a cut off point and I’m just outside of it. *Shrugs* whadayagonnado? TLW’s own Dan Thomas qualified though so I’m excited about that. I knew I had no chance of getting a ticket but Dan getting one is the next best thing. This must be exactly how Jimmy and Henry felt in Goodfellas when they heard Tommy was getting made. They knew they could never be made on account of them being part Irish. Only 100% full Italians could be made guys so Tommy getting his button was the next best thing. Hopefully Dan’s story has a better ending than Tommy’s did. Now I’ve got an image in my head of Dan walking into Anfield, all excited, then suddenly seeing there’s no-one else there and going “oh shit”. Saw an interview with Trent today where he spoke about how competitive he is and that is what drives him on to improve. “I’ve always found the competitive side of playing to be really beneficial. If I want to work on long-range passing, then I’ll turn it into a competition as that’s how I get the best out of myself. I’ll challenge someone, saying: ‘I bet you can’t do this’, and make sure that mine’s better.” Yep, we see that all the time when LFCTV put out videos. Trent is the worst loser you’ll ever see. He takes everything ultra seriously and his toys come out of the pram all the time when he doesn’t win. It’s great, especially as he hardly ever seems to win when they do those random challenges or quizzes, or playing FIFA. Doesn’t matter what it is, he’s always moaning about something when he doesn't win. He lost again on this week’s episode of Wingmen. Him and Robbo had a quiz and Trent lost, with the forfeit being he had to post an inspirational voice message to the player’s WhatsApp group ahead of a training session. It was fucking hilarious to be fair, but they missed a trick by now showing us any of the replies. That was the first thing I thought when he sent that message. We needed to see how it was received by the rest of the lads otherwise there wasn’t really much point showing us that. It got me thinking anyway. I reckon most of the foreign lads didn’t even know it was a piss take and will have replied with thumbs up emojis. Gini will have posted a 100 emoji, a bicep emoji, a fist emoji and five flame emojis. Gini loves his emojis. The savvy Milner will have known what was going on and will have posted a crying with laughter emoji. Curtis will have replied "Lad WTF lad???" Sadio, bless him, will have heard it and got all fired up and will have replied “Trent’s right boys, let’s do this”. Minamino won’t have had a clue what was happening and will have just posted “Taki!” Mo will have immediately forwarded the voice message to Lovren. Can’t believe they didn’t let us in on the responses though. Poor show that lads. Once again though, Wingmen proved to be a highlight of the week. It’s great, I love it. Hendo was in this one and his straighten routine was fucking hilarious. The best bit was when Trent had to do the speech and Hendo said “do you want me to do it for you?” because he knows he’s boss at them. Robbo then says “he is great at motivational speeches to be fair” and even Trent goes “yeah he is”. Hendo fucking rules doesn’t he? He reckons him and Milner would do a better show than Trent and Robbo. I’m not sure they would but I’d certainly like to see it. “Middlemen” - come on LFC TV, make it happen. Thursday Dec 3: Fell down a Maradona rabbit hole on youtube again today. Saw something that really made me laugh. It was an interview with him when he was talking about Italia 90 and he referenced what I mentioned the other day about when he asked Napoli fans to support Argentina. There was more to it than that, as he explained. He said “I told them that for one day they want you to be Italian. Then for the other 364 days in the year they’ll go back to calling us Africans.” Then he starting laughing his head off at the memory and said “They went mad. They went loco!!!” It was boss. Firstly because he was 100% right in what he said about how Italy treated Naples back then (and probably still does). They did refer to them as Africans and you can bet that Diego bringing that up will have touched a nerve with the Neopolitans. Secondly, I loved it because even though that incident changed everything for him in Italy and caused him a lot of pain, suffering and humiliation, he was sat there laughing his cock off about the memory of how Italy reacted to what he said. Saw something today that Harry Winks might be looking to leave Spurs. I’ve always thought he’s a bit over-rated, which makes what I’m about to say seem somewhat contradictory. I think he’d look great in our midfield. How can I say that if I think he’s over-rated? Because while I think he’s been good for Spurs, but nothing special, I see what Klopp has done for so many players and I look at Winks and his style of play and I could see him being dynamite for us. Not that we’re going to sign him, I’m just saying that there are loads of players out there who would go from being good to great just from playing in this team. Look at Jota for example. Everyone looked at him and thought “yeah he’s a good little player” but nothing more than that. No other top teams were banging down his door, he wasn’t even going to be an automatic selection at Wolves this season as Podence (Jota’s clone), Neto and Adama (my boy) were all fighting for the same spot. Yet he signs for us and immediately his game is elevated by about ten levels. I could see Winks being the same, and there will be loads of other players out there in the same category. A few of them will be playing against us on Sunday. Podence, Adama and Neves. All good now, all would be great if Klopp got his hands on them. Not Conor Coady though. Klopp’s great but he can’t turn water into wine. Friday Dec 4: Virgil posts a picture of himself in the gym starting his rehab. It was meant to be uplifting but it just made me sad and angry. He has to spend the next six months in the gym after having his entire knee rebuilt, while the reckless little cunt responsible for it is allowed to continue to go out there and concede daft goals in his mediocre little fucking team. It’s proper shit this. Jeez, Klopp looked rough as fuck in his presser again today. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now. He looks tired, bedraggled and he doesn’t have his usual upbeat demeanour. Something is just a bit off with him lately. He looks like I feel. In terms of what he gave us on injuries, Naby and Trent are both back in full training now but he more or less said there’s no chance for them to start but maybe they could be on the bench. That’s good as it means they can start next week if needed. Ox is closer too. Every little helps at the moment. Still no Shaq though. What the fuck is up with him now? Is it his calf again? I don’t think they’ve given us any detail on what it is have they? I know Klopp said it was a muscle problem from international duty, but which muscle? Obviously there was nothing on Thiago. Let’s face it, we won’t see him again in 2020. I know I keep saying it, but I don’t think I’ll ever not be boiling over with anger about what happened that day at Goodison. We could win every trophy there is to win for the next ten years and I’ll still be fucking raging about that derby. Not enough was made of that. It feels like it’s all been forgotten now except we’re left to deal with the aftermath of it, with no Virg, no Thiago and two points less than we have actually earned. Dirty Everton cunts. Speaking of whom, how funny is this! The other day I wrote “they aren’t going to show Burnley v Everton” in that 12.30 slot. Tomorrow’s early kick off on BT is Burnley v Everton! I’d love to see the viewing figures for that compared to when we’re in that slot. That will show once and for all why all of Klopp’s complaining isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference because the bottom line is the Reds pull in more viewers than anyone else. Staying with the Blues. Chippy Tits Joe and Derek Hatton have been arrested for corruption and intimidation of witnesses. I for one am shocked that these two might not have been acting completely above board all these years. Shocked I tells ya! and that was the week that was….