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Saturday Dec 26: It seems like every press conference lately Klopp is being bombarded with questions about Salah. He doesn’t seem perturbed at all by anything that was said in the interview Mo gave but he’s probably irked that he keeps having to answer questions about it. Rightly so too, as it was all completely unnecessary. The more I think about that interview he did the more annoyed I am by it. It’s not that he said anything especially contentious, it’s just you have to ask why is he even doing that interview at all? He rarely does interviews at all yet here he is speaking to the Spanish press. Why the Spanish press? Speak to the English press, Mo. By that I mean the local lads who cover the Reds. He never speaks to them, yet he’ll do an interview with Marca or AS or whoever the fuck it was? Honestly, it’s proper bizarre when you think about it but his agent isn’t going to set that up without some kind of ulterior motive. Coming so soon off the back of his Covid shenanigans, I’d say there’s a good chance Mo is very much in Klopp’s doghouse at the moment. If I was having to answer questions about him all the time, and then having to walk on eggshells in case I said anything that would add more fuel to the fire, it would annoy the fuck out of me. Meanwhile, Lampard is moaning about the fixtures because Chelsea have it much worse than we do. He’s got a point but it’s swings and roundabouts isn’t it? We’ve had brutal runs of fixtures before (usually at this time of year) and no-one cares when Klopp complains. “This is how English football is, if you don’t like it, fuck off back to the Bundesliga” etc. I can remember us having to go up to play away at Sunderland 48 hours after playing on Boxing Day. Shit happens, especially in the Christmas period. Lampard loves an excuse though. Anything to deflect away from his own deficiencies. It did highlight something to me though. We’ve got it really, really fucking good here for once. We’ve got West Brom tomorrow, then we don’t play until Wednesday. And then our next game isn’t until next Monday. Seriously, this is almost unheard of. Klopp is always complaining about the timing of fixtures and the stress it puts on the players, but we’ve been helped out massively here. Anyone heard of Folarin Bolagun? I haven’t, but we’re interested in signing him from Arsenal according to reports. He’s a striker who will be out of contract this summer. Surely if he’s good enough for us to be interested then he’d be getting games at Arsenal? It has the whiff of Dom Solanke about it. Sign him for peanuts and then sell for good money. Either than or his agent is flirting with us to get Arsenal to panic into giving him the deal he wants, like they did with Saka. I read a report on this in the Express and it just highlighted how daft modern football / society has now become. Just have a read of this nonsense… “The 19-year-old, who was born in New York, commented on Curtis Jones' latest post yesterday with a handshake emoji. Jones then replied with a prayer emoji, which would suggest he was referring to the prospect of a link up at Anfield.” Honestly, it’s ridiculous. This is what we’ve become? It’s like a conversation between teenage girls - “He sent a handshake emoji and then OMG he replied with a prayer emoji”. This is modern football journalism though and it’s pathetic. I’m not even singling out whoever wrote that article either as I’ve done myself. I’ll see a player message another player and immediately start thinking ‘aye aye, whats going on here?’. What’s going on is probably just two players having a laugh at our expense. Anyway, I’ll go out on a limb and say it right now, we won’t be signing this kid. Sunday Dec 27: L 1 WBA 1 Ah fuck off. The only thing worse than dropping points to relegation fodder is dropping points to relegation fodder managed by Sam Allardyce. The sight of his big smug mashed potato face on the touchline, chewing on his gum and being all self satisfied just makes me sick. As much as I hate him though, this result is on us. It’s our fault, not his. He did what he always does. There was nothing surprising about it even though Klopp made a comment about “who could have expected them to play a 6-4 formation?”. Yeah, only everyone in the entire football world. Kinell. You know the only thing that surprised me about West Brom today? That they actually had a bit of a go in the second half. What they did before half time is what I expected. And I didn’t think they’d change even at 1-0 down. Not until the last 10 minutes anyway. But the second half they did try to counter attack when possible. The first half they left Grant all on his own and made zero attempt to support him. After half time they were considerably more willing to get more men up in support of him and they at least gave us something to think about. We were fucking terrible though. They lulled us to sleep and we didn’t wake up until they scored. Matip going off didn’t help. It unsettled us a bit but there’s no excuse really. This was a strong side we put out and we started the game well. Then we just went shit for a long spell. It’s hard to explain, especially as Hendo was out there and usually he is able to prevent this kind of thing happening. We had eight days between our last game and this one and we’ve seen this before. Lots of times actually. Whenever we have any sort of a break we’re flat as fuck when we come back. The only thing different about this is we actually started well and got worse. usually it would be the other way around. I do think that for all the complaining about no rest and heavy fixture load and all that stuff, we’re actually much better when we’re playing all the time. Monday Dec 28: Allardyce was on Talksport this morning telling everyone how he did it. Odious fat egotistical fuck. City call off their game with Everton because a few players have Covid. Not sure what to make of this to be honest. Newcastle had a game postponed so there is a precedent for it, but wasn’t the guideline meant to be if you have 14 players you have to play? City defo have 14 players so what’s the deal here? Everton aren’t happy which tends to make me side with City on this. Why? Well basically fuck Everton. They’ve turned a blind eye to City flouting rules for years but now they’re on the receiving end suddenly it’s a problem. Two faced cunts. They’re second at the moment and for once they were actually looking forward to a game with City because they wanted to win and weren’t going to just drop their kecks and touch their toes for them. Now, because it’s postponed and will be played later in the year, chances are they’ll be back in their usual mediocrity and City will be our main challengers, so when this game comes around they’ll have to throw it again. Tuesday Dec 29: Sheffield United also have a Covid outbreak but their game at Burnley went ahead because they didn’t ask for a postponement. They lost, predictably. Still more subs than points. It is interesting that they just went ahead and played the game though. You’d assume they looked into the possibility of getting a postponement, so maybe they were told no? Meanwhile, we’ve hired a new medical guy. They created a new position for him, which seems like they’ve brought him in specifically to get injured players back quicker. He’s got his fucking work cut out here with Keita and Matip. I hope we’re paying him well. West Brom lost 5-0 at home to Leeds. Looking forward to hearing Fat Sam’s explanation on Talksport tomorrow morning. Leeds used the win to do a bit of point scoring against a pundit who said “Covid helped them get promoted”. Talking about how they don’t finish seasons well because of possible burnout is perhaps valid. Saying Covid got them promoted is the kind of line I’d use in a Round Up. It’s not really something that’s going to go down well from a serious pundit. Maybe Keane or Evra could get away with it, but anyone else is getting shit for saying that. It’s not really for the official social media accounts of club to be calling pundits out though is it? I don’t like that because it’s like a dog whistle that gives wankers free reign to weigh in. And because the pundit was a woman, they did weigh in. All manner of sexist, misogynistic comments followed. She was talking shite but it has nothing to do with being a woman. Loads of male pundits talk shite too, and they’ll be called on it too, as Karen Carney should be (not by a club's official account though). You can call someone out on talking bollocks without being sexist. Also today, Wolves are interested in signing Gini this summer. There’s just no way this happens. How much of a moron would you have to be to willingly leave Liverpool when you’re a key player, to join Wolves? That’s not Gini, he’s too smart for that. And too good. Just fucking give him a contact, for fucks sake. Wednesday Dec 30: Newcastle 0 L 0. Ah fuck off again. Tough one to take this. We didn’t play particularly well but if we’d won this 2-0 no-one would have complained that it was undeserved. We should have won, we created enough to win, but we didn’t take our chances. In isolation this wouldn’t have bothered me too much but because of the points we’ve already thrown away this looks so much worse than it probably was. It's about finishing though. We're not always going to be as clinical as we were at Palace as that was exceptional, but it's not too much to expect Salah to take that one v one had in the second half. Or for Bobby to head into an empty net. We’ve taken a step back to the bad old days when we repeatedly failed to beat the worst teams in the league. At least we haven’t been losing to any of them, but in many ways draws are worse because you fixate on how “we’ve only lost one game” as though that’s a big positive, when you’ve got the likes of City and United losing several but still being right up there because they don’t draw. We need to knock this shit off and start putting these bad teams to the sword. We’ve been great in the more difficult games this season. Spanking the likes of Wolves and Leicester, beating Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea and getting a decent point at City. But not beating the absolute fucking dregs undoes a lot of that good work. All the shit United got the other week when Arsenal beat them but when they beat Villa in a couple of days (which they will because they always beat Villa) they’ll be level on points with us. Why? Because we drew with Fulham, West Brom, Brighton and Newcastle. Eight points dropped. Last season we didn’t do that. The season before we didn’t either. We’d have been at least eight points clear if we’d maintained that level. But then we all knew there’d be a drop off with all the injuries we’ve had. I think the disappointing thing really is that isn’t specifically the defensive injuries that have caused us to drop points. We’ve been mostly alright at the back. It’s the forwards that are letting us down. We aren’t scoring enough and that seven at Palace has skewed the attacking stats as much as the seven conceded at Villa skewed the defensive ones. Thursday Dec 31: There seems to be a lot of Covid going around the PL right now doesn’t there? Like, an abnormal amount in comparison to how it’s been since footy first came back. Games are being called off and there are all sorts of rumours about players from various clubs going to the same house parties (Kyle Walker’s name is usually right in the thick of any kind of rumour like this). I don’t know if there’s anything to that or not but apparently some of the South American contingent from Spurs and West Ham all got together with their families over Christmas and the soft bastards posted pics of themselves (not socially distancing) on social media. Honestly, I’d ban them for half a dozen games. One for the breach of Covid rules and five for being so stupid as to post pics of it. I just hope our lads haven’t done anything this daft. My worry would defo be the Brazilians as they’re always in and out of each others houses and having barbecues and shit. But here's the thing; if Alisson, Bobby and Fabinho are in a work bubble, and they’re also in bubbles with their own families, does that not make them all part of the same bubble anyway and are they not therefore allowed to mix? I’m asking the question because I don’t really understand any of this now. I know they shouldn’t be mixing with anyone from other teams though, which is why the Spurs and West Ham players should be in a world of trouble. There are still some reports that we aren’t planning on signing a defender in this window. ‘Sources close to the club’ tends to mean nothing these days though as the club give nothing away. Any tips on who we are signing almost always come from the other end now. I thought it might be Alaba as he’s available, but everyone in Germany seems to be saying he wants to go to Spain. And would we pay his massive salary having also just given Thiago a big contract at 29? Hard to see that happening. We will sign a defender but it will be someone I haven’t heard of, which is fine because they clearly know what they’re doing now and don’t get much wrong. If the club are downplaying any potential transfer moves it means nothing as they lie every window. That’s not a criticism, I love how we’ve been taking care of business. It’s just an observation and it’s something people should bear in mind before going mad. I don’t see how there’s any way we don’t sign a defender given our current situation. If we get to the middle of January and nothing has been done, then yeah, go mad and I’ll join you. If we get to the end of January and still nothing, then people are entitled to get as angry as they want to be as rotating Phillips and Williams alongside Fabinho would amount to us waving the white flag on the season. We may as well forget all about Matip as even when he’s fit it never lasts. So for the foreseeable future we have Fabinho (a midfielder) as our only senior option in a position where you need two in the team and another two as cover. There’s just no way we aren’t signing someone as it would be the biggest act of gross negligence in the transfer market in club history. Even more negligent than selling Alonso and buying Aquilani. Friday Jan 1: It might be a new year but clearly nothing has changed as far as the Mancs are concerned. Another questionable penalty saw them edge past Villa to join us at the top. It’s sickening really. It’s not so much that the penalties they get are clearly not penalties (barring the odd exception), it’s just that any opportunity there is to give them one seems to be snatched with both hands by the officials. It’s mad. We have just as many possible pens as they do, probably even more, but we get half the amount of decisions. Example. The other night, Darlow grabbed hold of Sadio’s thigh with both hands as he tried to stop him reaching a loose ball on the goal-line. It wasn’t given. I don’t think it was even looked at. And no-one has said anything. Now, if that’s in a United game they get a pen for that. No question. And it was a pen, so technically you wouldn’t be able to dispute it. But we didn’t get it and because it wasn’t one of those obvious ones that jump out at you immediately, fuck all is said about it. That’s the point here. It’s not that they get loads of pens that aren’t pens, it’s just that any time there’s a claim they get it, whereas we’re lucky to get one out of every four. It’s the same for the other top clubs too. None of us get the kind of preferential treatment these fuckers are getting. I don’t understand it. I don’t know why it’s happening but I don’t believe for a second it’s ‘random’ or ‘luck of the draw’. Something is going on as this isn’t normal. Meanwhile, we might be closing in on a defender. There are reports that some cat named Sven Botman is on his way here. He’s a 20 year old Dutchman who plays alongside Jose Fonte at Lille. Why is Fonte significant? Because most of the defenders we buy seem to play alongside him, something which he himself referenced on twitter. He said “not again” or something in response to a report linking Botman with us. He also used the eyes emoji, so make of that what you will.... I’ve never seen Botman play but I hope this is true just so when we’re allowed back in we can all sing “dinner dinner dinner dinner BOTMAAAAAAN!!!” and that was the week that was….

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: