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There's a lot to unpack here but even so, I'm going to try to keep this as brief as possible again, not least because I didn’t even see any of it after it went 1-1. Maybe if I had kept the TV on I’d be more pissed off about the way we capitulated, but I didn’t see the capitulation though so that’s not my primary focus of anger. I switched it off because I’ve had enough. This sport is rigged. Officials are dictating the outcomes of games for reasons I’m not going to speculate on. I don’t know why this complete dishonesty and utter lack of sporting integrity is happening, I just know that it is. Because I see it virtually every week. Not just in our games either, although we do seem to be on the receiving end more than most. I’ve seen too much evidence of it this season to put it down to bad luck or acts of random incompetence. It isn’t that. If you want to tell yourself it is because you don’t want to look like a conspiracy loon or bad loser or whatever, that’s fine. Have at it. Keep telling yourself this is happening because referees are shit. Funny how we never benefit from that ‘shitness’ though, eh? This was the straw that broke this particular camel’s back. I don’t think I’ve ever switched off before the end of a game before. Certainly not with this long to left to go. I had to though. For my own sanity. I couldn’t watch anymore of this shit. There’s only so much you can take before completely snapping and if I’d kept that TV on I’d have done something I regretted. I love my big TV, I don't want to see it with the coffee table embedded in it. So I switched it off and went into another room. I knew what was happening because I had my phone and the lads in various group chats were posting about it but I didn’t see it so somehow it wasn’t as bad. That equaliser being allowed to stand broke something in me though. I’ve honestly had enough now, I don’t even want to watch footy anymore as it’s corrupt as fuck. I’ve been saying it for months and not just relating to our games, but in general. On those close offside decisions they decide what decision they want to make and they then manipulate the lines to fit. That Leicester goal is offside under the current shitty rules. Without VAR I’m fine with that being given as a goal as it’s close. No problem if a linesman thinks its level and gives a goal. One of those things, it happens. Arguing about offside decisions that are that close is pointless. How can you expect a lino to be 100% when it’s that tight? As soon as you bring the video into it though it’s a different ball game. I’ve seen goals allowed / disallowed based on lines being drawn a few centimetres back of where one should be and a few ahead of where the other should be. The lines here are bullshit. The line is on the shoulder of the Leicester player. Compare that with the one Bamford had disallowed where they drew the line nearer his fucking elbow. Or Virgil at Goodison. Countless others too. And look at the line for where Bobby’s boot supposedly is. Is he wearing Sideshow Bob’s clown shoes or what? (actually that would explain a lot) As I say, they give whatever decision they WANT to give. If there was any way the cunt on VAR could have given the penalty instead of a free-kick he would have done. Anthony Taylor couldn’t wait to point the spot and will have been gutted he was over-ruled. Surprised the baldy manc cunt didn’t join in the celebrations with the Leicester players. Fuck him. Everything time he’s near one of our games bad shit happens. I’ve had enough now. I can live with us not winning games and just being a top half side. Shit, I’ve lived with it for large parts of the last 30 years. I can’t be doing with this incessant fucking cheating we’re being subjected to. Because it is cheating. Anthony Taylor and VAR not giving a free-kick when a defender shoves Sadio over with two fucking hands is cheating. Call it an error if you like, but it isn’t. This is the problem. I keep saying it but when you look at these decisions in isolation you can say “he got that wrong” or “could have gone either way” or whatever. And that is exactly how these cunts have been getting away with it all season. Because taken in isolation you can explain away any decision. It’s bullshit though. They know what they’re doing. Don’t tell me that four officials all ‘forgot’ to send off Pickford. Don’t tell me that Lee Mason the VAR saw Mo shoved in the back on the edge of the Fulham box when they scored and thought ‘that’s not a foul’. No, he saw it and he knew it was a foul. Just as the cunts on duty at Goodison all knew it should have been a red card. And these fuckers in this game knew EXACTLY what they wanted to do and they did it. And they’ll keep doing it because they can. There’s nothing to stop them doing it. They give decisions based on what they WANT to give and not on what they SHOULD be giving. There’s no way to prove it of course and I’m almost certain there’ll be no money trail to follow because it isn’t THAT kind of corruption. At least I hope it isn’t. But don’t tell me this is a level playing field and we just aren’t getting the rub of the green because it’s fucking bollocks. I switched off when that goal was allowed to stand because what is the point in watching this anymore? Seriously? Why should we watch? We invest so much time, money and emotion into a sport that is now about as legitimate as WWE. At least WWE fans know their sport is rigged and aren’t under the illusions football fans are. We may as well have Vince McMahon sat in his office deciding on the outcomes of these games. Instead it’s Dermot Gallagher, a twat who looks like a dandelion with all the fluff blown off. His little bunch of minions are shafting us every other week. It isn’t random acts of incompetence. The sample size is way to big to explain it away like that. We’ve got enough problems of our own to deal with but when you factor in the completely one sided officiating of our games there’s just no chance really. Virgil won’t change this. Shit, we could build a team machine and bring Alan Hansen back from the 80s to play against him and it won’t make a blind bit of difference. For 75 minutes of this game we were good. We were clearly better than Leicester and deservedly led. A win would have been huge for us when you look at the table. It would have helped rebuild some of the fragile confidence. But then out of nowhere the rug is pulled out from under us. Firstly, that’s not a foul in a million years. Trent and Thiago have closed off any space and there’s nowhere for Barnes to get though. So he knocks the ball through and runs straight into Thiago. I see Thiago getting a lot of stick for that (especially from that skinny cunt McManaman who was an absolute disgrace on commentary by the way) but Barnes is hitting the deck regardless of anything Trent or Thiago do. Thiago doesn’t even tackle him. He initially goes to but then doesn’t, and Barnes just throws himself to the floor. He’s playing for it and he was all afternoon. He got Jones booked with a dive, he did the exact same thing to Trent soon after and then Kabak was booked because Barnes ran straight into him as well. Put it this way, would Salah have been given a foul for that? Or put it yet another way, would Barnes have been awarded a pen in the first half for the incident in which Mo got the ball first and was clipped on the foot? I think we know the answer to those questions, but if you’re unsure about the second one then I’ve got two words for you. Danny. Welbeck. This is what I’m saying. You can look at any of these incidents and justify the decisions made because they’re subjective. It’s only when you look at how many of these ’subjective’ decisions have gone against us and how few have gone for us that the true picture emerges. That wasn’t even a fucking foul but Taylor pointed to the spot immediately, even though it was outside the box. VAR must have been like “sorry Ant, I’d love to let that stand but it’s outside and I can’t get away with it. We’ll get ‘em though, don’t worry”. Seconds later he’s like “it’s ok, he’s offside but it’s close enough that I can sort it. Jobs a good ‘un”. And just like that, 75 minutes of good work is undone and our players lost their fucking heads completely. It’s easy to criticise them for that but we knew going into the game that their confidence was fragile and it just seems to me that there’s only so much adversity you can rail against until eventually you just succumb to it. I mean fucking hell, I didn’t even want to watch it after that ‘goal’ but those lads are then expected to just pick themselves up and get on with it. And then when they do, Sadio is blatantly shoved to the floor, it gets ignored and just like that it’s 2-1 in a game we had under complete control. If I’m Hendo I’d have walked off the pitch at that point and forfeited the game in protest. No fucking wonder they let in a third. Their heads will have gone completely. I haven’t seen the second or third goals, all I’ve seen after it went 1-1 was the two handed shove on Mané that was ignored. I don’t care who was at fault or what happened after that equaliser. I honestly just don’t give a fuck because it’s irrelevant anyway. For us to have any chance of overcoming the officiating we’d have to be playing at the level we were last season (at least until before Watford) and that’s just not going to happen with the injuries we’ve had and with no fans. We’ve dropped off significantly due to various factors but with a level playing field we’d still be comfortable in second or at the absolute worst third. If I had a choice I’d fuck the Premier League off completely and the only games I’d watch for the rest of the season would be Champions League. That’s not an option for me because this is my fucking job. There’s no escape. No walking away from it and there’s actually a part of me feels guilty that I switched the TV off at 1-1 because this is my job and I take pride in it. The truth is though, if I had another way of making a living I’d walk away from this tomorrow because I fucking despise what they’ve done to football now, with their stupid rule changes and VAR bollocks and jumped up little fucking nazi refs throwing their weight around without any kind of comeback. What can you do though? If Klopp complains he’ll get fined and nothing will change. If he doesn’t, they just carry on anyway. If he were to insist on that bald fuck Taylor being banned from our games one of his buddies will step up and screw us even more just to teach us a lesson. Besides, it isn’t just Taylor. There’s at least half a dozen of them who are continually fucking us. We’re at the point now though were we have nothing to lose. Klopp should go off on one big time with a list of all the times we’ve been shafted. He should also instruct the players to be fucking hammering the ref from start too finish. We just accept these decisions and say fuck all. From now on, I want all of them fucking surrounding them and screaming at them. If it’s Mason or Taylor I want Hendo screaming “YOU CHEATING BALDY MANC CUNT”. If it’s Jon Moss I want him or Robbo or Trent or whoever in his face calling him a fat useless sack of shit. Take the fucking headset off them and abuse the VAR twat as well. And if one gets sent off, then another one needs to get right in there and do it. They can’t send everyone off. Show the cunts we’re not standing for it anymore. I despise the body language of our players when these decisions are going against us. We make it easy for them by saying fuck all. It does my head in. Stand up for yourselves. I don’t give a fuck if that’s not Klopp’s way. Let these cheating fucks know we’re onto them and apply some pressure on them. Seriously, I guarantee none of them have the balls to send two or three players off for dissent. You’ll notice I’ve said virtually nothing about how we played and what worked and what didn’t, because what’s the point? Seriously, none of it matters when you’re up against this kind of shit. I actually feel that criticising players or pointing out mistakes is glossing over the real problem in this game which was 100% the officials. It was fine until they fucked us over. Looking at what happened after that is just a distraction from the real issue. I can’t write a ‘normal’ match report for this game because my head has gone completely. I can’t get past the officiating screwing us over like that again. I said a few weeks back that going into games now I never fear the opposition (other than City to an extent) but I’m terrified of what the officials will do. THIS is exactly why. Every week I worry about what the officials are going to do and half the time it turns out to be justified. So I don’t give a shit about Alisson supposedly fucking up again (haven’t seen it) or Kabak getting done on a goal (haven’t seen it). I’m not arsed about Thiago still looking like a fish out of water or Bobby being shite again (other than that glorious assist). I’m not arsed because I just don’t think it matters anymore. The season is fucked because everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and any attempt to fight through that shit is being undermined at every turn by cheating from the officials. So yeah, that’s how I feel and I don’t care if it sounds like paranoia or self pity. I might be paranoid but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Kabak, Henderson, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Milner (Thiago), Jones (Oxlade-Chamberlain); Salah, Firmino, Mané:

Tuesday Feb 9: I wasn’t going to do the diary this week. After the weekend I just wanted to forget all about footy until the next game, which thankfully is a week away. The window is shut so there’s not really much going on anyway, so I figured it was best to skip it this week rather than dwell on the misery. But I accidentally stumbled across something on youtube today and I can’t let it pass without comment. I watch a lot of golf stuff on youtube so my plan was to just dive into that this week and forget all about the footy. The problem is, I also watch stuff on the Reds quite a bit and as I’ve mentioned before I also watch a LOT of Roy Keane. So I’m watching a golf video but I leave the room. The video finishes and youtube’s algorithm understandably thinks “oh here’s a clip of Keano talking about the Reds. I’ll play this for him as he loves this shit”. I come back in the room and Keane is talking about what “bad champions” we’ve been. I should have turned it off but it piqued my interest. He’s right, we have been bad champions if you remove all context from the season. Conceding seven at Villa, dropping points to pretty much all of the bottom six clubs, shitting the bed against City… none of it befitting of the defending Champions. But fuck me, you can’t disregard all of the factors that have contributed to this. Other teams have made a worse fist of defending the title than we have, and you don't have to go back far to find them. City last season. They lost nine games and were a million points behind us by this stage of the season. But they lost Laporte so they had no chance, right? Funny how the likes of Keane don't seem to be arsed about all the things we've had to contend with. Firstly, we’re in a fucking global pandemic. Secondly there are no fans in stadiums which has dramatically reduced the adrenaline of the players which leads to less intense games. Thirdly, there was no pre-season so players (right across the whole league) are not performing to their normal level of fitness. Fourthly we’ve got half a team either missing or playing out of position. We’ve been playing with no centre halves and a back up midfield. I could go on but you all know this. Everyone knows it. Keane knows it too, but for whatever reason he decided to “go into character” and played the angry, disgusted old pro who would never have let this happen “in my day”. Some of the shite he was coming out with was just embarrassing and insulting. “I never heard any of these players talking about wanting to win the title again” he says. Apparently they were happy with what they’d won and started “believing their own hype”. What hype would that be Roy? Maybe the hype from you, when only a couple of months ago you were eulogising about the drive and hunger those very same players were showing when they went top of the league despite the loss of Van Dijk. All the talk about how it’s harder to retain the title than win it carries some weight, but it’s a lot fucking harder to retain it when you’re dealing with everything that we’ve had to deal with this season. I’m not happy about what’s happened and some degree of criticism is warranted. But “believing their own hype” is not the reason for what we’ve seen. It isn’t even a contributing factor. Not now, maybe it was when we went to Villa and had our pants pulled down, but every team has that kind of an off day occasionally. Even Keane’s Manchester United, who he seems to view with this glossy eyed nostalgia that causes him to ignore the facts. Facts that he himself admitted to in his own autobiography. What facts am I talking about? How about the way they went from top spot in January to finishing miles behind Arsenal just because they lost Rio Ferdinand to a drug ban. Keane himself cited that as the reason their season fell apart, yet he’s not prepared to cut the Reds some slack for losing not only Van Dijk, but also Matip and Gomez. They lost Ferdinand, they still had the rest of their defenders. But they couldn’t cope. Gary Neville also said the same thing. Losing Ferdinand had a massive impact on them both on the field and in terms of the morale of the players. Keane said it too. In his fucking book!! Yet this tit is ripping on our lads, questioning their attitude and telling them they need to just get on with it despite losing Van Dijk. I like watching Keane, he’s entertaining and a lot of what he says is actually spot on, but it’s when you see him sounding off like this with nothing to back it up and leaving himself wide open to calls of hypocrisy that you know why he can never be any good as a manager. Also today, the u18s had a game live on LFCTV. They won 2-1 at Stoke. I thought about watching it but when I saw the team and there was no Layton Stewart and none of the new signings were playing (we’ve signed four in this window, believe it or not) I swerved it. One of the goals was scored by Oakley Cannonier, the ball boy from the Barca game. He’s a good little player him. I’d love him to make it as it’d be a great story. Wednesday Feb 10: Kloppo’s mum died a few weeks ago and he couldn’t go to the funeral. Just fucking brutal this. I realise a lot of people are in the same boat and I know people who have been unable to attend the funerals of loved ones. It’s heartbreaking. The difference is that most people in this situation aren’t in the public eye and having to face the media a dozen times a week answering some stupid as fuck questions. There were some rumours about it at the time but none of the media reported it (even though they must have known, they did the respectful thing and kept quiet). I don’t know how he’s continued functioning to be honest. No wonder he got arsey in a few post match interviews. Just when you think you couldn’t possibly love him any more. Kind of feels like those Spurs and West Ham wins were “let’s do it for Kloppo” performances when the lads were able to temporarily raise their game, and then they just reverted back to how they’d been playing before. On the field tonight Spurs and Everton played out a wild game at Goodison which the Blues won 5-4. I panicked a bit when I saw the score because I thought it would put them above us, but then I realised it was the FA Cup and breathed a sigh of relief. How the fuck has it come to this? Thursday Feb 11: Bloody hell, Fulham got absolutely stiffed on the Harvey Elliott fee. The most we’ll pay is just over £4m and that’s dependant on him getting a second contract and meeting certain other requirements. He’s already worth £15m easily just based on his Blackburn performances this season. This is the way to go isn’t it? Get these superstar kids like Elliott and the lad we just got for Derby and hope they develop in the way everyone thinks. It’s a pity we didn’t get the kid from Birmingham who went to Dortmund. He’s 17 and he’s a regular there. He’s played 20 odd games this season so he must be really fucking good. Friday Feb 12: Fabinho is out tomorrow and possibly longer. Not surprising. He didn’t look right last week and we clearly rushed him back because we were desperate. If Klopp is adamant that he’s going to keep playing him and Hendo at the back then this injury might actually be a blessing because it forces him to put one of the new lads in (presumably Kabak). Klopp also says Jota is 2/3 weeks away and that Keita is closer than that. I don’t give a fuck about Keita, and yet I have to say if he was fit now I reckon he’d probably be playing because Hendo and Fab are in the back four and Thiago is like a square peg (albeit a solid gold diamond encrusted one) in a round hole. We’ve got Leicester tomorrow and honestly I can’t see any scenario in which we come out of there with three points. They’re flying, we’re in a rut. They’ve got Vardy back, we’ve got all manner of issues at the back. The only way we win this game is if the front three all perform, and who has any faith in that happening? Not me. There will be games when they do click and we’ll look great but I’ve given up on expecting every game or predicting when it will happen. I hope it’s tomorrow but I wouldn’t bet on it. Mind you, usually I’m going into every game convinced we’ll win and that’s not worked out too well. Usually when I’m not confident is when the team produces their best performances. So we’ll see. …. and that was the week that was