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On the bright side it was better than West Brom. And Fulham. This dropping points to shite really needs to stop though doesn’t it? It’s all well and good us hardly ever losing, but the old expression ‘its the draws that kill you’ is actually spot on. In 2008/09 when we finished second we only lost twice all season. Didn’t do us any good because of all the draws against shite. There are shades of that with what’s happening at the moment. I’m still confident it won’t end the same way, but we could have put a lot of daylight between ourselves and the pack just by beating two shit teams. After that 7-0 over Palace it was all set for us to assert our dominance over the league and all we had to do was beat dogshit West Brom and a very limited Newcastle. And we failed. Just like we failed to beat two other bottom dwellers Fulham and Brighton. The problem is we’ve been spoilt over the last couple of years. These kind of results are normal. It’s always been like this. The Champions will have several games when they drop points to teams they shouldn’t. That’s why anything approaching 90 points would usually win you the league. What we’ve seen from the Reds over the last two seasons and from City in two of the last three has been the exception to the norm. This is the norm and I’ll be honest, I don’t like it. I’m in a stinking mood today because we didn’t beat Newcastle. The dropped points to West Brom didn’t impact me too much because I expected we’d put it right at St James’ Park. We didn’t. In isolation though this wasn’t bad. We weren’t at our best but we played well enough to win. Not just by one either. If this had finished 2-0 nobody would have said we didn’t deserve it or we were lucky. Unfortunately we didn’t take our chances and we had absolutely no luck either. That can happen and if we hadn’t dropped so many points to shite before this one I’d probably have been completely fine about this. But we have dropped loads of points to shite and therefore I’m not taking this one very well. It’s not that I’m blaming anyone or that I’m angry with anyone. I’m just pissed off and feeling sorry for myself that somehow, if they win their game in hand, United will be level with us. That does my head in. Not just because I can’t stand the fuckers, but because frankly I don’t think they’re even close to being on the same level as our team. If it was Man City who were breathing right down our necks (and if they win their games in hand they will be) that would be easier to stomach. But we’re miles better than United but we’ve somehow let them sneak up on us. The thing that worries me is that we were (and still are) so much better than everyone else and they all knew it. So if we’ve won three of those stupid games we’ve drawn, I reckon everyone would have already given up and would be playing for second. Now? I guarantee that City and United will be thinking they can win the title. We’re giving them belief when we should be grinding the cunts into the dirt. That’s what these stupid draws are doing. So what’s causing it? Fuck knows. As I said, I could put this one down to just one of those frustrating games when you almost know that the ball just isn’t going to go in. I felt like that after the second goalmouth scramble they cleared. I knew then we wouldn’t score. Other games have seen us shafted by decisions or bad luck, or just plain old shit performances. It’s a combination of things but it’s starting to become a little bit of a worry. I’m not overly concerned and I still think we have more than enough to win this league relatively comfortably, but the inconsistency is definitely an issue. It’s mad that a team who can look so clinical at Selhurst could be so fucking useless less than two weeks later. This draw is on the forwards. They were shite. Well two of them were. Relatively speaking anyway. It wasn’t so much the chances they missed, it was the sloppiness at other moments that prevented chances being created. Newcastle didn’t even defend well truth be told. There were countless opportunities for us to carve them open but the passing and decision making was just fucking woeful. Salah and Mané were the main culprits as I actually though Bobby played well overall. Defensively we only gave up a couple of chances and in terms of possession and controlling the game we did that pretty well. We were just too wasteful in attack though. Salah had a great chance in the first half that was brilliantly saved by the keeper. I thought Mo did everything right there Good run, good control, good composure and a finish that was going right in the corner. Can’t really legislate for the keeper somehow saving that one. So he gets a pass for that. Pretty much everything else he did was crap though, and Sadio wasn’t much better. We’re missing Jota because he brings something different and it’s something else for the opposition to worry about. He could be playing with the big three or instead of one of them. Either way, we’d be more of a goal threat because he was prolific before he got injured. The sooner he’s back the better. The midfield didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory either. Hendo had his least effective game in a long time. He was alright, but usually he’s the best player on the pitch or very close to it. This time he wasn’t. He was just ok. Milner didn’t do much in the first half but he was much better after the break until he made way for Thiago. The biggest disappointment was Curtis though who just never got into the game at all. It’s not that he did much wrong, he just didn’t do much. With Thiago, Milner and Ox now fit and pushing for a spot I think we’re going to see his minutes drastically reduced, which is a shame because overall he’s been great this season. The timing of his last two performances has done him no favours though. I’m trying to think of anything else that we created in the first half but I’m struggling. Bobby had a header straight at Darlow who produced his customary save for the cameras. If you’ve been reading the round ups you’ll know I really fucking hate him for that shit. Gobshite. Him being man of the match against us was nailed on just because of how much abuse I’ve given him all season. He made a few decent saves in the second half but it was that first half one from Mo that was the killer. If that goes in we win the game at a canter I think. Instead it just became more and more frustrating. The moment when the game should’ve been settled was when Bobby did brilliantly to escape on the half way line and drive at the defence. All night when we’d been in this situation the wrong pass seemed to be chosen or the execution of it was shite. This time it was perfect and Salah went through on goal only to inexplicably roll it wide. Bobby himself then missed an open goal when Darlow flapped at a corner. The only thing I can say in mitigation there was he was wrestling with the defender and by the time the ball came to him he wasn’t set and could only head it wide. There were a couple of mad scrambles too where it seemed certain that we’d score only for Newcastle to somehow smuggle away the danger. On one of those I thought there was a foul on Sadio by the keeper. He tipped the ball onto Sadio’s thigh and as they went for the loose ball Darlow impeded him which allowed a defender to hack it off the line. We’re never getting a decision like that though. I doubt they even checked it. The biggest - the only - positive to come out of this was Thiago was back. Fuck me he’s good isn’t he? He was only one for 15-20 minutes or so but he’s amazing. The weight of his passing is perfect but he also disguises them so well. Pinging passes into the forwards while looking at the full backs. The mad thing was he won virtually every header too. Just springing up above players much taller than him. With him starting games I feel as though we’ll win every time. We’ve done great without him but he’ll just bring that something extra that will hopefully turn these draws into wins. He basically did that in the derby before VAR screwed us out of it, and it’s that kind of quality that should make the difference. It won’t be that he’ll have loads of goals or assists, but he’ll be the one playing that pass that often leads to the assist. The quick little ball that splits a defence and sends one of the full backs or forwards in behind. We need him to stay fit now because there have been too many of these games already. We also need a defender now because we’ve seen in the last couple of games that if we have to pick Williams or Phillips on a regular basis eventually we’ll get punished. Williams was done with that ball over the top against West Brom and Phillips got skinned alive by Wilson in the first half of this game. Other than that both have been good, but you know that with more playing time they’d get exposed. Phillips was booked in the second half for a crude foul on the touchline but that didn’t bother me. He didn’t have a great deal of choice there and I’m not averse to my centre half taking someone out to prevent danger. Fabinho did similar and also picked up a booking. Nothing wrong with taking one for the team. The worry with Phillips (and Williams) is you don’t want them left in one v one situations but because of the way we play that can occasionally happen. That’s why we need to get someone in. I don’t know whether we will, but it would be pretty fucking irresponsible not to as it seems like the only thing that could derail us. Overall we’re in good shape going into the New Year. I say this all the time, but it’s worth repeating. As thing stand we’re going into a 22 game season with a head start over everyone other than possibly United. That head start should much bigger than it is, but still, we’re top despite all the problems we’ve had and despite having a lot of room to improve. Oh yeah, one final point. Just what the fuck was the point in sending Shaq on two minutes into stoppage time? I was angrier about that than I was about the result. It annoyed the fuck out of me. Give him ten minutes at least or just don’t fucking bother. That was utterly pointless and it’s the second game in a row where Klopp has done something like that. Pack it in. Star man is Robbo I think. Other than one lapse in judgement that saw him caught out positionally, he was one of the few players who I don’t really think could have done much more than they did. Fabinho was good too, as was Alisson. 2020 has been an absolute twat of a year with the only positive being that we finally ended our wait for the title. I can’t wait to see the back of it to be honest, although I’m not sure 2021 is going to be much better the way things are looking at the moment. So yeah, Happy New Year. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Phillips, Fabinho, Robertson; Henderson, Milner (Thiago), Jones (Wijnaldum); Salah (Shaqiri), Firmino, Mané:

A lot to get through but not as much as there was meant to be as Covid intervened on some of the midweek fixtures. Not much fun this week really. Hate watching other teams win when we haven’t, and it’s even worse when it’s a double header and we’ve filed to win twice. Not really how I’d want to be spending New Year’s Eve but it’s not like there’s anything else to do is there? If 2020 were a footballer it would be Richarlison. The absolute fucking pits. Ok, let’s get started then. Things are finally looking up a bit for Arsenal. Two wins in the space of a few days has taken some of the heat off Arteta. The win over Chelsea was somewhat unexpected, especially considering the youth of the Arsenal forward line. Saka, Martinelli and Smith Rowe (no hyphen, for some reason) all started behind Lacazette. Mount hit the post with an early free-kick but the Gunners went ahead from the spot. Lacazette converted after Tierney had been felled by James. I’ve watched this about half a dozen times and I just don’t think it’s a pen. What contact there is was actually initiated by Tierney leaving his leg there waiting for James to run into him. James can’t actually do anything about that. His mistake was getting beaten in the first place. Mad how all the pundits I’ve seen discussing it all said it was 100% a penalty. Would they be saying that if it was a foreign forward ‘winning’ a pen like that rather than a good old fashioned honest Scottish full back? Timo Walcott had a chance to equalise but scuffed his shot well wide. Then Xhaka lashed in a free-kick from 30 yards to make it 2-0. There hadn’t been much in the game but Arsenal had shaded it. The scoreline flattered them though. And then early in the second half it was 3-0. Again, out of absolutely nothing. Saka was 100% trying to cross that ball. I don’t care what he says to the contrary, that was a cross gone wrong with his weak foot. He tried to claim afterwards he meant it but he’s a fucking liar. It genuinely annoyed me. He didn’t even do that thing where you say you meant it but you have a little twinkle in your eye that shows you’re taking the piss. This fucker was deadly serious, trying to say he saw the keeper off his line and lobbed him with his right foot. Get. The. Fuck. Outta. Here. A dodgy pen, a worldy free-kick and a complete fluke, and just like that it’s 3-0 Arsenal and it looks like they’re back in business. Nah, they were just lucky and on another day they’d have lost this game, even though Chelsea were shite. With a three goal lead though Arsenal’s confidence seemed to grow and they should have had a couple more. Mendy recovered from his own howler to foil Lacazette and Elneny hit the bar. Then Abraham pulled one back with a cool chested finish. Initially it was given offside but VAR said it was a goal. It was one of those that they could have given whichever way they felt like. We would never have been given a goal in that situation, I know that much. Chelsea then got a pen in the last minute but Jorginho was thwarted by Leno. I proper jinxed Jorginho didn’t I? He’s never been the same since I said he was automatic from the spot. So a huge win for Arsenal and a third defeat on the spin for Chelsea. Fucking hell, what a fraud Lampard is though. Completely entitled cunt. He threw his team under the bus by saying they didn’t work hard enough or want it enough in the first half. This is what he said: “Any game in the Premier League you can’t be below par, you can’t lack energy, you can’t lack desire to win balls, second balls, fight for everything. We lacked it and we were 2-0 down at half time”. The interviewer said “presumably you put that right on the training pitch?”. Nope, that would imply that this is something that Fat Frank could be somehow responsible for. He’s not having that. No siree. “And in the mind. You can prepare as well as you want but if you turn up like that then that’s another thing”. That was to the BBC. To Sky he was even worse. “Not good enough. First half not good enough. Second half, yeah good enough but we had a mountain to climb. We fought second half, the people that came on added speed and energy, intensity.. but that should be a given from the start” When asked why that was, he said “Dunno. That’s one for the players. I’ll take responsibility on the outside but the players have to take responsibility because the message was clear. This was a dangerous game for us. We were lazy to give away a penalty. Lazy to give away the free-kick that he puts in from 30 yards. It’s not about tactics and systems or whatever. It’s about do you you want to run. Do you want to back your team-mate up. Do you want to sprint. Or do you want to jog and say maybe I don’t have to run, and we took that decision rather than the right one”. What a fucking bellend. Defo a tory him. “Not my fault, guv”. What he’s said there is basically “I told them not to be shit but they were shit so it’s on them, not me. Because I told them, don’t be shit. It did get better when I made changes though. I made it better. With my changes.” Arsenal have had some shit results and performances recently but all I’ve heard from Arteta is how his players worked hard and they’re fighting and just need some luck. He could easily have done what Lampard did, but he didn’t because most managers don’t do that. Most take responsibility in front of the cameras, even if they absolutely fucking lay into the players privately. Not Lampard though. He’s the type of cunt who probably brings in his medal collection to show his players why he’s better than them. Next up, United’s run of away wins finally came a halt as Leicester twice came from a goal down to grab a draw. Rashford gave United the lead with a cool finish after Fernandez has fortuitously diverted the ball into his path while stretching to control a cross. Fucking jammy cunts these. Absolutely sick of them. Barnes lashed one in from the edge of the box to equalise but Cavani played in Fernandez to make it 2-1. My boy Vardy equalised with a shot that went in off a United defender. That Fernandez is just one horrible little shitbag. Sick of him constantly trying to get people booked and sent off, the prick. At one point I was looking at my phone so I didn’t see what happened, but I heard a big girly scream and knew instantly it was Fernandez. Not a doubt in my mind. No-one else on that pitch is making that noise. I looked up, and sure enough he’s lying on the ground looking like he’d been shot. United’s young full back Tuanzebe had the ball and he actually passed it to Fernandez even as he lay on the floor! He knew. He’s seen enough of him to know what a cheating little shithouse fuck he is. As soon as the ball arrived Fernandez jumped to his feet and sprinted off with it. Horrible little cunt him. Goofy little shit looks like Suarez around the mouth too. He’s got the same snide way about him but absolutely none of the charm Luis had. Rat faced fuck. The draw was a fair result as both sides had their chances. Great result for us although I’d have much preferred a Leicester win on so many levels. Especially as we fucked up the next day. And then again a few days later. Grealish was playing his 200th game for Villa at the weekend. He might spend his whole career there you know. If he was going to leave you’d think he’d have gone last summer when they only just survived. For him to sign a new deal suggests he wants to stay, and Villa have become a fucking good side almost overnight. Traore put them in front against Palace. He then hit the post with a great solo effort. He might be good him you know. Not seen enough of him yet to be sure but what I have seen has been quite impressive. He could become my new second favourite Traore (behind Djimi, obviously) given the way that Adama tit has been playing Zaha and Mings were both booked for a spot of handbags. Looked like Mings maybe left a little on him (could have been an accident, not easy to tell) and Zaha twice kicked out and then had a little swing of the arm at him too. He’s got that in him has Zaha. Most of the time he just gets up and gets on with it when he’s kicked (which is a lot) but every now and then he completely loses his shit. Usually it’s when Ward-Prowse is in the vicinity (one of the funniest beefs in football that one), but the time it was Mings that got under his skin. Mings paid the price though as he was soon back in the dressing room after fouling Zaha again. He can’t have any complaints on that but something I noticed that was a bit weird was that Anthony Taylor didn’t produce a second yellow, he just pulled out a red. I’ve seen this a few times recently. Refs just pulling out reds instead of a second yellow. Not sure what that’s about as they were definitely not straight red offences, and presumably the suspensions are still just the one game. The ten men took a 2-0 lead when Hause headed in from a yard out following a set-piece and El Ghazi then smashed in a cracker to wrap it up. Really disappointing from Palace. That beautiful kit they were wearing really deserved a better performance than that. City were without Walker and Jesus due to the ‘Rona but they had more than enough to see off Newcastle at the Etihad. The opening goal came from a Sterling cutback. Of course it did the boring bastards. Gundogan was the beneficiary this time. Good play by Sterling to be fair. De Bruyne then went clean through but never looked like scoring. He shot straight at the keeper which wasn’t a surprise, because from the moment he was played in he was looking across to see if there was anyone he could pass to. Bizarre really. Maybe Trent and Robbo have got in his head with the whole ‘beating him on assists’ thing. He’s brilliant and I love him as a player but this is one of several reasons why he’s inferior to Gerrard. Why am I bringing up Stevie? Because when I saw De Bruyne miss that chance the first thing I thought was “Stevie would have buried that”. Why am I thinking that? Probably because De Bruyne is the closest thing I’ve seen to Gerrard. There are a lot of similarities, but Gerrard is just much better because he can do more things. Would De Bruyne be able to drop into right back and be the best right back in the world? No. He can’t score the bread and butter goals that Stevie would collect either. Passing, crossing, shooting, driving forward with the ball, there’s nothing to choose between them, but as an all round player Gerrard is just clearly superior. You’re probably thinking “well duh, captain fucking obvious” but you’d be surprised. There was a game either last season or the season before, I can’t remember exactly when it was but I wasn’t in my normal seat, I was in the Kop. In fact, I can tell you what game it was. It was Brighton last season when Lewis Dunk scored that free-kick after Alisson was sent off. I don’t think I’ve been in the Kop for any other league games so it must have been that one. Anyway, I was queuing up to get in and struck up a conversation with a lad stood next to me. I think De Bruyne had scored a worldy that day in an early kick off and this lad says “he’s unbelievable him. He’s even better than Gerrard”. I politely disagreed with him while thinking “fucking hell get me back into the Main Stand. Kopites really are gobshites”. Anyway, so yeah, De Bruyne - not fit to lace Gerrard’s boots. Torres made it 2-0 after Newcastle made a complete mess of dealing with… yep, a low ball across the six yard box. Samey bastards. Newcastle still have key players out with Covid (Saint Maximin and Lascielles) but they’re still completing their fixtures. So how come City were able to call off their game with the Blueshite? They played this game but then called off the next one even though they had more than enough players to complete the fixture. I’m not even saying they should have played it as I don’t know the exact circumstances, but if other teams are playing then how come they are able to call it off? Are they just making up their own rules again? If so, I’m all in favour this time as I love the irony of Everton finally being on the wrong end of it after years of them condoning that shit. Speaking of the Blues, they scraped past Sheffield United to move into second spot. I said last week they’re shit and I stand by it. I’ll always stand by it. You’re just not going to convince me otherwise. Because they are shit. That shitness will catch up with them again soon enough, as it did a few weeks ago because this flukey winning run started. Sigurdsson got the only goal of the game with ten minutes to go. They’re fucking shit, as I may have previously mentioned, but Sheffield United are worse. The Blades are in such a rut now that they just look utterly devoid of any belief. They shouldn’t be THIS bad. Rhian Brewster might have killed his career with that move. May as well start calling him Rhian Solanke really, as their career paths are eerily similar. Started at Chelsea before moving to Anfield as youngsters, great England youth careers including Golden Boots at major tournaments. Moved on for big money to struggling sides and just can’t score. Scott ‘Scotty’ Parker was isolating as Fulham took on Southampton at Craven Cottage. The game ended goalless although both sides had good penalty shouts for handball turned down. I wouldn’t have given a pen for either but we’ve seen them given for a lot less than that. It’s just pot luck at this point isn’t it? Southampton had two goals ruled out for marginal offsides too. Correct decisions but you’d be pretty sick if you celebrated twice only to have them chalked off. Of course, most people now probably just didn’t celebrate. Other than those disallowed goals the closest anyone came to scoring was when Ward-Prowse hit the woodwork with a trademark free-kick and Che Adams somehow failed to convert the rebound from a yard out. Proper shit that was, especially as he’s been playing well this season. Not as well as my boy Bamford though. He won and converted an early penalty for Leeds against Burnley. Bit of a contentious one as Pope came out and won the ball before taking Bamford down. I’d have been majorly pissed off if that decision went against us but technically Pope did have his studs up and did wipe out Bamford after playing the ball. To me it’s not a pen but if that tackle was in the middle of the park by an outfield player it would almost always be given as a free-kick nowadays. Keepers generally aren’t held to the same standards and as a rule they can pretty much do whatever the fuck they like without punishment, so I can see why Pope (and Dyche!) felt hard done by. I think this is just one of those ‘modern football’ decisions. The game has changed, and not necessarily for the better. Burnley’s sense of injustice was heightened when Barnes had a goal ruled out for a foul by Mee on the keeper. Scandalous decision. Mee is not looking at the keeper and just wants to jump for the ball. The keeper came charging out, smashed him in the back with his knee as he tried to come over the top of him, and then he just dropped the ball. Barnes lashed in the loose ball but the the ref had blown the whistle immediately so VAR couldn’t even overturn and give the goal, but they could have given the penalty but for some reason didn’t. Shite officiating that on multiple levels. The idea that that was a foul on the keeper is just fucking ludicrous. Leeds held on for the win but Burnley were massively hard done by I’d say as they played well and threw the kitchen sink at Leeds. You can’t really overcome those kind of decisions though and Dyche was understandably pissed off. I think he was pretty restrained all things considered. If that was me I’d probably be looking at a six month touchline ban after that. Dyche didn’t even go as far as the normally mild mannered Nuno Holy Spirit who has just been banned for three games for telling us that Lee Mason is shit. Not sure if he’s been punished for criticising a referee or for stating the bloody obvious. Speaking of Wolves, they needed a late equaliser from Saiss to secure a point against Spurs after Ndombele had lashed one in from 20 yards with only a minute gone. Kane dived to try and win a penalty late on but no-one will say anything because it’s Sir Harold of Hotspur. What a fucking cunt he is. Maupay gave Brighton the lead at West Ham but some kid I’ve never heard of equalised early in the second half. Dunk bundled in from close range to restore Brighton’s advantage. West Ham equalised when Soucek headed in a corner. Of course he did. I told you, he scores every week this fucker. Without doubt one of the most annoying - yet perversely satisfying - results of the festive period was West Brom getting dicked at hone by Leeds just two days after they got a point at Anfield. One on hand it’s sickening because you think “why couldn’t you have been this shit on Sunday?” but on the other it’s “hahahaha fuck off Allardyce you mashed potato faced cunt”. They were 4-0 down at half time!!! Fucking losers. Badly want them relegated now, the impatient, manager sacking pricks. They went a goal down from a hilarious own goal by Sawyers who attempted a back pass when his keeper was nowhere to be seen. Alioski hammered in number two with a John Arne Riise special and Harrison made it 3-0 with another brilliant goal after a nice one-two with my boy Bamford. Rodrigo’s deflected effort made it four and Raphinha thumped in number five. He’s a boss little player him, and I like that Harrison too. Bamford is obviously my favourite though. If you’re with me, Raise Your Hands. What, no takers? Well I don’t give a fuck. Me and Patrick don’t care about conforming to your bland, socially acceptable musical choices. We Weren’t Born to Follow. Been a great response by Leeds after the spanking they had at Old Trafford and all the nonsense about them having to change their style. Fuck that, you stick with what got you where you are. They’ve probably been the best team to watch all season, good or bad they’re always fun. Seeing United get that undeserved, spawny as fuck late winner against Wolves was a sickener. I’m officially worried about them now. Not because I think they’re that good, but because for the past year or so they’ve had the most ridiculous amount of good fortune. If that continues, then with all the pens they get as well, they’re going to be a problem if we keep failing to beat the dregs of the division. That’s the thing that separated us from the rest (excluding City) these past couple of years. When you beat all the shit teams and drop no points against them you’re going to be pretty close to winning titles. I only watched the last 10 minutes or so of United / Wolves and I shouldn’t have even done that. I had a sense of dread every time United crossed the halfway line. I sensed it coming and should have just switched it off. One thing I did notice in the short time I watched was that my boy Adama just couldn’t be arsed. It’s been like that the last few times I’ve watched him. He doesn’t look like he’s interested. To be honest, he’s been a disgrace. I think he’s playing for a move. He wants out but his value last summer was way too high so no-one came in. By playing shit he’ll make himself more affordable. I don’t want him anymore though. Terrible attitude. I still think he could be fucking incredible in the right team with the right coach, but this season he’s been garbage. Speaking of garbage, Arsenal managed another win. 1-0 away at Brighton. Lacazette came off the bench to get the only goal of the game. They weren’t very good but against Brighton you often don’t need to be. For all the nice things Brighton do between both boxes, they’re proper shit at both ends. They only won one home game in 2020. Arsenal will start to get all chesty again now they’ve won a couple. They’re a fucking mental fanbase. They’re either wanting everything burned to the ground or they’re telling everyone how good they are. They do look livelier with the kids playing up the top end though so maybe they have something to build on there. Makes you wonder why they gave William that big pay day though. Sheffield United lost again. 1-0 at Burnley. Mee’s header from a corner was enough for the Clarets who have dragged themselves up the table a bit now and eased their relegation worries. They’ve got a five point cushion over the bottom three. Not only that, but they’ve got new owners now and they’re promising Dyche some funds. Honestly, he won’t have a fucking clue what to do with it as he’s had the same starting eleven for five years. He’ll probably lash in a £50m bid for Michael Keane. Danny Ings was back and scored a fucking lovely goal against West Ham. Until VAR told him he hadn’t, that is. One of those etch a sketch line decisions against Che Adams. Probably just about right but I’m so sick of seeing quality goals ruled out because of these gnats pube type offsides. A point apiece then but I feel like Southampton deserved a bonus point for keeping Soucek off the scoresheet (only just, he nearly headed one in late on) as nobody else has been able to do that all season. At least that’s how it feels. Did he score against us? I’m sure he must have. Finally, Chelsea failed to win again. How many more until Lumpard is under genuine pressure? He spent loads and made the team worse. Villa are flying though. I said a month or two back that they might actually be a very good side and then they went and lost a couple. Since then they’ve picked it back up again and I have to say they look a decent bet for the top six. They’ve got a good keeper, some decent defenders, an excellent midfield and they can score goals. Big handsome Giroud headed Chelsea in front with his 11th goal in his last 14 league games. He’s sneaky good and just doesn’t get any real credit. El Ghazi’s good run in front of goal continued as he volleyed in the equaliser. Chelsea had a player down injured at the time and seemed to lose focus as they expected Villa to put the ball out. Christensen got hurt trying to challenge Grealish. He didn’t actually make a tackle but Grealish was doing that ‘leave the leg in to draw a foul’ and booted the defender. Should have been a Chelsea free-kick that. There was a possible handball seconds before that too, so that gave Lampard the excuse he needed for not winning. Decent game though. McGinn hit the bar with a screamer from distance and Timo Walcott blazed one over as both sides looked for a winner. Chelsea went closest when Chilwell was inches away from goal of the season with an incredible volley that flew just wide. Leicester made a load of changes against Wilfried Palace and it showed. That bum Iheanacho started instead of the rested Vardy and he missed a pen. He then missed a header from four yards. I don’t just mean he didn’t score, he actually missed it with his head and it him on the shoulder. Probably had his eyes closed, the twat. Useless cunt. I fucking hate him. The fact he’s still at Leicester reflects extremely badly on Brendan. I get that it’s not easy finding an alternative to Vardy, but it’s not that difficult improving on this loser. Zaha broke the deadlock with a back post volley. Schmeichel should have saved it but may have been caught by surprise as you wouldn’t have expected him to shoot from there. Barnes equalised with his 8th of the season. He’s developing nicely. Good player. Leicester should have won it late on but the chance fell to that loser Ayoze Perez who blasted it high over the bar. Because he’s a loser. And that’s a wrap for 2020. See you next year.

Well that was shit. It’s hard to comprehend how a team can go from a performance like we had last week at Palace, to the one we saw here. Well, the second half anyway. I actually thought we were pretty good in the first half and there was nothing to suggest what was to follow after half time. I think West Brom just bored us to sleep. They sat back in their own half and didn’t even try to put pressure on the ball until we got into the box. They just let us have the ball and do whatever we wanted. Until we reached the box and then they actually defended. I don’t think our centre backs or midfielders were closed down even once all day. What that sometimes does is lull you into a false sense of security. Players take an extra touch because they can. They relax a little too much. And before you know it, you’re not creating any chances because the ‘zip’ isn’t there. That’s why Thiago was brought in. Games like this one. We started brilliantly and just got worse and worse the longer the game went on. I can’t even say West Brom didn’t deserve a point because based on the second half they probably did. Their performance levels were as contrasting as ours. From the beginning of the second half they clearly had much more intent to break when they could. In the first half there was zero intent. In fact, there was one breakaway when Grant chased a ball with Matip and when he reached it he was surrounded by six of our players and not one of his team-mates had even bothered crossing halfway. That changed at half time and although they were still playing with everyone behind the ball, they did look to counter when the chance was there to do so. And the chance was there because we were sloppy as fuck and gave the ball away far too often. It shouldn’t have been like this though. We scored early and if we could have added a second the game was done. West Brom always had one goal in them because they did the same thing at City. Went behind, scored with one of only a handful of attacks and then held on for a point. The second goal kills teams like West Brom because at 1-0 they will just stick to their gameplan and won’t change until the last few minutes. At 2-0 they either have to try to keep the score down or open up. 1-0 changes nothing. 2-0 changes everything in games like this. The way we started I couldn’t see any way we wouldn’t score three or four. Robbo was getting in down the left at will and putting dangerous crosses in. Not high, aimless balls that play to West Brom’s strengths. Low ones drilled crosses across the face. Sadio looked sharp, Bobby was floating around linking play. All good. We were knocking around at pace, the movement was good and we were pulling them all over the place. Look at the goal. Sadio isn’t in his usual spot on the left, he’s hanging around in the centre forward spot. He went short, didn’t get it. He loitered around a bit and then the ball went to Matip and Sadio hit the space. The ball by Big Bird was great, the chest control and finish from Sadio even better. It should have set us on the road to another home win but instead we just seemed to lose more and more intensity as the game wore on. We were still doing quite well for the rest of the half but there was a gradual decline and by half time I was thinking we needed to step it up just a smidge. I was happy with the overall performance but felt like we’d started to relax a little too much in the last 10-15 minutes of the half. It was just too easy. If we hadn’t scored I don’t think the sloppiness would have been there but because we were winning and the opposition were offering nothing, we kind of went to sleep. The second half was genuinely terrible. I can’t think of a single positive thing to say about it. As Robbo said afterwards, everyone got sloppy and everyone (other than Alisson) made mistakes. There was no urgency whatsoever until we conceded. After that we pushed for another goal and would have found it but for a world class save from their keeper to deny Bobby. Klopp then immediately subbed Bobby for Origi. Why? What was the fucking point in that? 90 minutes on the clock, Bobby had played well and he’d just nearly scored. The commentary team alluded to the amount of crosses we put in as a reason for getting Origi up there. This is one of the biggest myths in football. Div hasn’t won a header in about three years. Bobby is way more of a threat aerially and it annoyed me that he was subbed when we needed a goal. It smacked of “fuck it, might as well give it a try”. Ox had come on for Jones prior to that but even that was about 15 minutes later than it should have been. And Ox couldn’t do a thing right. He wanted to inject some much needed pace and urgency into our play but he kept running into trouble. To be fair, his intent was right and if he’d had longer on the pitch I feel like he’d have settled down and maybe done something. At least he wanted to have a shot. No-one else did. I thought Jones was too safe. In a game like this you want someone to make a bit of space on the edge of the box and get a shot away. That doesn’t just fall on Jones but it is a particular strength of his so I was disappointed that he continually looked to pass. And his sloppiness in possession that led to the corner they scored from was terrible. He was already about to be subbed anyway so maybe that was in his head and affected his concentration. But that was shit and it almost felt inevitable they’d score from that corner. I thought they might have scored from one a few minutes earlier when Robbo’s sliced clearance gifted them one. We cleared that one but you can’t keep pushing your luck against shit teams by giving them set-pieces. That’s what they live for. They’d probably spent hours practicing them all week. Allardyce isn’t stupid. He’s only really got one way of playing and he’s smart enough to stick to it. His teams do the same thing against us every time. Sometimes it works (too often, actually) and sometimes it doesn’t, but he’s never going to do anything different and nor should he. Stick to what you know. We weren’t helped by yet another injury to Matip. There’s really nothing more needs saying about him. Wonderful player, made of cheese strings. He twisted awkwardly and looked to have pulled his groin. He knew the second it happened he was in trouble and he was signalling to come off. Williams got the nod over Phillips again, which is fair enough based on how he played last time out against Spurs. He got caught almost immediately in this one with a ball over the top to Grant. I’m almost tempted to say there’s nothing he could do there as the lad was just quicker than him. But he’s quicker than Matip too and I bet there’s no way he’d have gotten in so easily if Joel was still on. I don’t think Williams gave himself enough of a cushion really and Grant blew him away. To be expected though, he’s a kid and he’ll need to make mistakes to learn from them. Not really ideal if he’s having to play a load of games when we’re chasing a title though. Thankfully Alisson was there to make the save. We’d had a couple of other warnings prior to that. Nothing serious, just little moments where it looked like they might cause us a problem with a better ball. The longer it went the more they fancied their chances and the more nervy we seemed to get. We were offering nothing. It felt like every attack ended with Mo dribbling into trouble or someone (usually Mo or Hendo) trying and failing to pick out a run by Robbo, which West Brom were now waiting on every time. This isn’t like me but I’d have gladly taken the 1-0 with about half an hour to go as it never felt as though we were going to score again. I wouldn’t say their goal was inevitable but it wasn’t surprising either. Am I the only one who thought that was a foul on Fabinho though? I haven’t seen anyone else mention it but the lad has two hands on his neck and pushes off to get in the air while also stopping Fabinho jumping. I don’t expect to get it as we get fuck all from VAR, but I’m surprised it wasn’t at least mentioned on commentary. I thought Kevin Friend’s performance was fucking appalling all game though really. No consistency, got loads wrong and generally rubbed people up the wrong way. He’s actually been alright the last couple of seasons but this was the Kevin Friend I remember from before that. Fucking terrible. Klopp was lucky not to get sent off though as he was giving him all kinds of abuse. Friend gave him a yellow but he could easily have sent him to the stands if he’d wanted to as you could see exactly what Klopp was yelling at him. Klopp was really agitated for the entire second half though and seemed rattled. Maybe that explains his weird substitutions. And after their equaliser I had a genuine concern we might even lose. Why? Because Allardyce, that’s why. That twat was the last manager to win at Anfield and I’m a big believer in this kind of weird co-incidental shit. It would be just like football to have his big mashed potato face end our run. Thankfully that never happened as it would have been incredibly difficult to swallow that. But for a stunning save by the keeper we’d have won it but a draw was probably what we deserved. There are no excuses for it. We had a strong line up, we hadn’t played in midweek, we were at Anfield. We should have won but we didn’t. In previous seasons this would have felt like the end of the world but now it’s just one of those things. There’s a lot more margin for error than there has been but it’s still irritating as fuck that United and Everton are within touching distance of us. It’s partly our own fault and partly due to terrible misfortune and officiating incompetence in some of our games. This was a chance to extend our lead and in that context dropping points to the second worst team in the league is pretty bad. To make matter worse we’ve lost Matip for God knows how long now. Fabinho, Williams and Phillips are going to need to hold down the fort for a while unless we buy someone. We surely have to buy someone now because Matip won’t be back in a week or two, he never is. And even when he comes back, how long before he’s out again? We almost need to completely discount him when planning for anything. Same with Keita. He’s a fucking waste of time too. Injured AGAIN??? Seriously I can actually see us playing games with Fabinho and Hendo at the back as soon as Thiago is ready to come back in. It’s not ideal but in games like this one it wouldn’t really be a problem. If anything it might even help us. Thiago was signed to help in this type of game but we’ve hardly seen him yet. If he can stay fit then we’ll be an entirely different proposition against park the bus shitbags like Allardyce. Hopefully he’s ready for our next game because Newcastle are going to play in exactly the same way, only they’ve got much better forwards than West Brom. As disappointed as I am by this, the players will be far more annoyed than I am and I expect a response from them at St James’ Park on Wednesday Star man is Firmino. It was probably going to be Hendo until that awful cross he hit straight to the keeper deep into stoppage time. And by the way, what the fuck was Trent playing at taking a short corner, five minutes into an allocated four minutes of stoppage time? Jesus Christ. Anyway, yeah I’m going for Bobby because although nobody stood out I thought he was good with everything he did. He’s definitely back now. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip (Williams), Fabinho, Robertson; Henderson, Wijnaldum, Jones (Oxlade-Chamberlain); Salah, Firmino (Origi), Mané:

Saturday Dec 19: Palace 0 L 7 Holy shit! Well that was fun. Having a game won by half time is something I could defo get used to. It’s nice to just be able to sit back and watch us win an away game with no drama, no VAR, no stress, just some sensational goals. The finishing today was unreal, especially Bobby’s two. Those were just glorious goals. The skill and technique to pull those off was just different level. He’s back now. He’s been steadily getting there for the last few weeks but he’s defo there now as you don’t score goals like that unless you’re right on it. If Jota was fit right now who would you leave out? I think I’d have to pick all four even though that doesn’t really work as well as 4-3-3. It’s not even as though rotation is an option as any time Sadio or Mo aren’t on the field they’re throwing toys out of the pram! Sadio’s reaction today was just hilarious. Angry Sadio is funny because it’s so out of character that it’s hard to take him seriously. He saw his arse big time today because he was brought off earlier than he’d been told. Then you’ve got Mo who wants to play every minute of every game and take every penalty and set-piece because he’s obsessed with the Golden Boot. When Jota is back I reckon we’re going to have one angry forward every week. There are worse problems to have though and I’m sure Klopp doesn’t give a fuck if one of them has a titty lip. Also today, we had some weird shit involving Mo and an interview with the Spanish press. I say weird not just because of what he said, but because of who he was saying it to. He doesn’t do many interviews and when he does he usually goes with the likes of CNN as it’s a global thing and raises his profile around the world. Why is he talking to AS though? There will be a reason for it as he doesn’t do things like this on a whim. He flirted a little with Real and Barca but it seemed more polite than anything else “both huge clubs, you never know what might happen one day” that kind of thing. He also said he wants to break every record there is at Liverpool though, so it’s not like he’s agitating for a move. It’s just really strange, and that shit he said about nit getting the captaincy last week was utterly bizarre. Trent is the longest serving player so he got it. That’s how it works under Klopp. Whenever the regular captains aren’t playing it goes on length of service. If Mo doesn’t like it, tough shit. It’s weird really because I couldn’t be any more relaxed about this situation. If he is getting itchy feet and fancies a move, I’m not bothered. If he wants to stay here for years, great. Whatever happens is fine with me as the club will be just fine whatever happens. This isn’t like whenever the prospect of Suarez leaving came up and I’d be terrified and devastated in equal measure because I knew we’d be fucked without him. If Mo leaves, it’ll be his loss, not ours. Which is why I don’t think he has any interest in moving on as he knows what a great thing he has going on here. Sunday Dec 20: Do we reckon this Mo situation is about him wanting another new contract? And by that, I mean a pay rise? He said something about wanting to stay and break records but that it’s up to the club. And the fact he even agreed to an interview to begin with tells me he’s after something. This is it you know, he wants a pay rise. Nothing else really makes sense. Why would you want to leave the best team int he world when you’re a key member of it? And why would you want to join Barca (skint and in transition) or Real (skint and shite) at this moment? In the past, sure, I get it. The idea of having Barca or Real on the CV is appealing, but going there now is a huge step down if you’re playing for us. So I don’t think he wants to leave. I think he’s using their ‘interest’ as leverage to get a pay rise. But fuck that. He signed a deal not long ago making him the top earner and he’s got three or four years left on it. So if we tell him ‘no’ what’s he gonna do? Fuck all. If anyone is getting a pay rise it should be Gini. Monday Dec 21: Carra and Neville pick their team of 2020 and Conor fucking Coady was in it. I can’t tell you how irritated I am by this. There are other subjective calls too but those are generally borderline decisions. Mané didn’t make the team which also bothered me, but there’s not much in it between him, Salah and Son so it’s understandable. Coady getting in is just fucking ridiculous though. I can name 20 centre backs off the top of my head who are better than him. Virg, Joel, Joe, Fabinho, Laporte, Stones, Ake, City’s new lad, Maguire, Lindelof, Alderweireld, Gabriel, Mee, Tarkowski, Dunk, White, Mings, Konsa, Keane, Mina, Soyuncu, Foffana, Evans, Rudiger, Silva, Zouma, Ogbonna, O’Connell… Ok, so I can name a lot more than 20 who are better than him and if I really thought about it I could add more to that list. I think I’ve made my point though. One of those I mentioned was big Virg, and that video he put out today was fucking incredible. He’s just had his whole knee rebuilt only a few weeks ago, but he’s already doing shit that I can’t do even with a normal knee. The squats and the stepper exercises, how the fuck is he doing that so quickly? He’s kicking a ball too. Maybe that’s completely normal? I’m no physio so what do I know, but that footage today has massively shocked me. It’s hard not to start thinking maybe he could be back A LOT sooner than expected but we probably shouldn’t go down that road, especially if what he’s doing now is normal in the early stages of rehab. Also today, Divock has removed all mention of LFC from his twitter profile. He’s unfollowed everyone and deleted all his tweets. His Instagram account is unchanged though. What’s this about then? Have the ‘LFC fam’ been giving him shit? Does he just want to fuck twitter off? Do we actually care? He can do whatever he likes as far as I’m concerned as his legacy is secure. He’s been shite for 18 months but even if he’d taken to the field with a microphone and called us all knobheads every time Klopp sent him out there, it wouldn’t make any difference to how fondly he’ll always be thought of after what he did that season. Tuesday Dec 22: I never have dreams or if I do I never remember them. Last night I did though and it was a belter. I was part of the squad and we were walking off the field after training. A few of the lads (I can only remember Fabinho though) were complaining about Mo not passing and being a greedy bastard. Then Sadio comes up to me, and says in Sadio’s voice / accent “my friend, I’m starting to think that he (Mo) just doesn’t want to pass to me”. And I went “nah Sadio it’s nothing personal towards you mate, he just doesn’t pass to anyone. Even some of the other lads have been moaning about it”. Sadio was a little bit pacified by that but still wasn’t happy so I was trying to work out what to do about it. I thought about going to Klopp but that would be a bit of a shithouse move running to the boss, so I said to Sadio “let’s have a word with Hendo, he’ll sort it”. Sadio didn’t want to but said he didn’t mind if I did, so I decided that’s what I’d do. I saw Hendo running off somewhere so shouted him. “Can’t stop I’ve got to be somewhere” he replied, and carried on running. So I started running after him, thinking I’d catch up with him and I could tell him about Mo being a greedy bastard and get him to sort it, because he’s Hendo and he can sort anything. And then I realised that it’s Hendo and he’s likely to run all day and I can’t run for more than about 30 seconds, so I gave up pretty sharpish. I also found out why he was running. He’d hit a ball into the crowd at Man City and it hit someone in the face, so he wanted to make sure they were ok. Because he’s Hendo and that’s how he rolls. And that’s it, I think I woke up or the dream just ended. I don’t know. But it was ace being Sadio’s mate while it lasted. Some rumours that we might swap Div for that Schalke centre back. Won’t happen, not because Div won’t leave or because we don’t want the Schalke lad (both may be true) but because swap deals just don’t happen anywhere other than on footy manager. In other news today, we’re meant to be signing some kid from Birmingham. I don’t know anything about him but I’ll ask Sadio tonight and find out what’s what. Hendo too, if I can catch him, Wednesday Dec 23: One of Mo’s Egypt team-mates reckon he’s unhappy here and wants to leave. Mohamed Aboutrika says “I called Salah about his situation at Liverpool and he is upset, but that would never affect his performance on the field. “I know that Salah is not happy in Liverpool, he told me the reasons why he is not happy but they are secrets and I cannot talk about it in public. One of the reasons that made Salah angry was that he was not the captain against Midtjylland.” You know what, if he’s not happy about not being captain, Klopp should get him in the office and tell him “fucking get over yourself, you big baby”. This is mad though. There’s defo something going on here. I said it when he did the interview last week but when his mates are revealing phone conversations they’ve had, then I don’t see how anyone can even be in denial over it. The only question I have is whether he’s ‘unhappy’ because he wants to play elsewhere, whether he wants a pay rise, or whether he thinks the the club want to cash in on him. The second seems most likely, but what if it’s the third option? I wouldn’t entirely rule that out because something just isn’t right about this whole situation. Sadio, Bobby and Mo are all the same age and will all need replacing at similar times you’d assume. Their values will be low when if we let the grow old together so maybe the club are thinking it makes sense to cash in one of them and freshen up the forward line with a younger face? It does make economical sense, but I’m not sure it makes football sense. Replacing all three at once would cost a fortune though so maybe they are thinking if they could get big money for Mo it would be worth sacrificing him. Maybe the plan is moving him on while we can get maximum value and then bringing Elliott through as his replacement. If Elliott becomes the player that it looks like he might, that would make huge financial sense, but it’s a tricky needle to thread because how many seasons will it take until Elliott is contributing 30 a season like Mo is? He’s only 17 now, so it’s hard to see him being at that level in the next two to three seasons. By the time Elliott is contributing at the level of Salah (if he ever is) then Mo will be long gone, so if this is the plan we’re going to need a stop gap, who may not come cheap. So all in all, maybe we should just keep Mo for another two or three years? I dunno, to be honest I’m relaxed about it as they know what they’re doing don’t they? Thursday Dec 24: Klopp looked in great spirits again in his press conference. Laughing and joking and taking the piss out of the journos by threatening to make them sing Happy Birthday to Matt McCann (the press officer). Then he said “we’ll do it in the embargo’d section”. It’s a far cry from the way he was a few weeks ago. He said we won’t see Thiago this weekend as it’s too soon but Shaq and Milner might be involved. We’ve come through that injury crisis in pretty fucking good shape haven’t we? No wonder Klopp is full of beans again. Saw something today about how every keeper who Messi has scored against will get a bottle of Bud for every goal they let in. So some keepers from the lesser lights in Spain are going to see them delivered by the truckload. Even Alisson will get two because of the CL semi. I’m annoyed by this but I’m not sure why. It just seems a bit arrogant and condescending, albeit unintentionally. Alisson should post a photo on Insta of him and Divock drinking the bottles while wearing their CL medals. Friday Dec 25: Klopp’s video message today was just… fucking hell… he’s just the greatest man alive isn’t he? Only he can deliver such an inspiring, heartfelt Christmas message while also singing “Last Christmas” in the same video. He can do it all that man. You’d follow him anywhere wouldn’t you? We’re so fucking lucky to have him. Nothing else to say really as it’s Christmas Day and there’s nothing happening. …. and that was the week that was