Leaderboard

Probably the most disheartening thing about this was that I’m sure none of us were surprised. I actually said in a group chat before the game “I’ll be shocked if we win tonight”. Beating Sheffield United was important to stop the bleeding (albeit temporarily as it turns out) but it was never really going to have any bearing on this. It wasn’t that I envisioned us to be outplayed and lose by a few goals. That was never likely as we rarely get dominated by anyone. I expected exactly what we got because it’s the same performance we’ve seen over and over again since December. This is who we are now. A team that has a lot of the ball but who can’t score. When you actually look at the starting eleven we fielded it wasn’t THAT depleted. Of course we are missing some key players but it doesn’t look like a bad line up on paper. We’re just shit though aren’t we? And it isn’t the patched up defence that’s the problem. In fact, all of the lads who have filled in at the back this season come out of it with varying degrees of credit. They aren’t the ones that have let us down. Our problems are at the other end. Opposing keepers often don’t need to even make a save when they come up against us. Chelsea didn’t do anything special and I thought a lot of the praise they were getting was greatly exaggerated. What they did do though was what most teams are doing against us now. They nullified the front three and exposed the space we leave at the back. The truth is that it’s no longer difficult to do either. I mean shit, even Aston Villa’s fucking youth team did both for 45 minutes. Chelsea can do that easily because they have quality all over the pitch. That’s why I didn’t think we could beat them in our current state. They’re better than us. That’s just a fact. Half the league are better than us right now. More than half probably, the form guide since we smashed Palace will back that up. We’ve fallen so far, so fast that everyone’s heads are spinning and no-one knows how to get us out of this tailspin. Even Klopp doesn’t know, which is cause for panic. I was hoping he did but that hope disappeared at the same moment Salah and Jones did. The most baffling sub since Rafa hooked Stevie at Goodison. That one actually worked but this one never had a chance. Any hope we had of getting back into this game left with Salah. Not because he was brilliant, but because he was the only forward who actually looked anything like himself. He was sharp and engaged and looked bang up for the game right from the start. Too often he was crowded out but he wasn’t playing badly. He created chances for Mané and Jones with excellent passes and he was chasing everything. The other two? Fuck me. Firmino just plodded around doing fuck all again but Sadio was even worse. He was brutal. He couldn’t do a thing right and was getting more and more frustrated with himself, the referee and the Chelsea defenders who stuck to him like limpets. He was hopeless and I said at half time I’d probably sub him because his head wasn’t right and he was a red card waiting to happen. My mind was blown that Klopp chose to take Mo off ahead of the other two. Jones going off I can accept because I think there are some underlying fitness concerns with him at the moment and there’s a worry about overplaying him. Taking off Salah was insane though. I don’t buy the explanation Klopp gave us either. He didn’t look tired or jaded or anything like that. Just before he was hooked he went sprinting off like a man possessed trying to win back a ball he’d given away. If he was subbed to prevent injury that smacks of Rafa waving the white flag at Reading (taking off Stevie and Torres) because he was prioritising the CL. I’m not angry that he subbed Mo and I’m not even confident that we’d have equalised if he’d left him on. That isn’t really what I’m getting at here. What I’m saying is that decision really left me deflated because it shattered any illusion I had that Klopp was in control and he could fix this. He can’t fix it. We’re done. We aren’t getting top four and I’m now 90% sure we’ll finish below Everton. Everyone other than City is shite and from that perspective there is hope, but that hope vanishes whenever you actually see us play and realise that we’re actually shitter than most now. It’s just utterly miserable and it can’t end soon enough. There’s no shame in losing to Chelsea as they’ve got a massively talented squad and now they finally have a capable manager to work with them they should probably finish in second. So in isolation this result is something you can shrug off but the issue here is it’s virtually the same game as Brighton, Burnley, West Brom, Everton etc This is no longer a slump, it’s an identity. Our identity used to be our intensity. Now it’s this shit. Our identity is that we’re slow, timid, scared, toothless, afraid to shoot. Thats who we’ve become. Not such a catchphrase and don’t expect Pep Ljinders to be throwing that one around in interviews, but that’s what we’ve become. We’re ok moving the ball from back to front but when it gets up there nothing happens any more. We had one good chance in this game when Mané raced onto a ball over the top but somehow completely missed his kick. He ended up all confused, looking around to see where the ball had gone. That one moment was this season in microcosm. Shite, clueless, confused and in a daze. I don’t know where the fuck Sadio’s head was at all night really. He was fouled in the box but stayed on his feet. No-one does that. Every other forward in the league nicks that ball away, draws the contact and then goes down. Instead he rode the challenge and nothing came of it. He also got absolutely clattered by Reece James near halfway but immediately bounced back up and tried to carry on playing, which saved James from an obvious yellow card. Something just wasn’t right with him all game but then he’s been mostly shite for months now. He’s noticeably slower too. He used to get to balls he had no right to. You’d think “he’s not getting that” but somehow he’d get there and get a toe on it and be away. The last couple of games he’s had sprints against defenders where he looked favourite to get there but didn’t. Something isn’t right. You can say that across the whole team though really. Physically and mentally they just look completely cooked now. There’s nothing left. I don’t think it’s about confidence because even when we’ve had good wins we’ve taken nothing from them and followed it up with stinkers. Chelsea had the best chances in this game and they looked comfortable throughout. At no point did I ever feel like we were going to score. I wanted to switch it off at half time as I knew we weren’t getting back into it and I knew that watching would just make me feel sad. And it did. That’s mostly what I feel now when I watch us. Sad. I’m past the angry stage. I haven’t been angry with the team for weeks and most of my anger has been directed at the officials (with great justification) but I can’t even be arsed getting angry about them anymore. Even in this game, as shite as we were, we probably would have salvaged a draw if the officials had done their job properly. We were denied the most stonewall of penalties when Kante handled. I’m not one who often calls for handball decisions in the box because more often than not there isn’t a thing the defender can do and I don’t want penalties given unless they’re clear. This was clear. Kante is doing fucking jazz hands for about five seconds! He’s got both hands up and out and he blocks the cross with his hand. That isn’t a natural position, he’s just making himself bigger, which is the very definition of a penalty. Whereas most defenders now are putting their hands behind their back to avoid this very thing, Kante is waving both hands around and makes no effort to get them out of the way. That’s a penalty. No two ways about it. The decision not to give it was ridiculous but it’s what I’ve come to expect now. I didn’t even get angry about it. I knew it wouldn’t be given. I’m almost numb to it all now. I’ve been beaten into submission. I reckon we’ll get some daft decisions go our way between now and May because it no longer matters. They can even up the numbers a bit without it helping us in any way. The only thing that surprised me was that Werner’s goal was disallowed in the first half. That was so tight I was certain it would go against us. I wouldn’t have even been arsed if it had. I almost don’t care anymore, I just want this over with and for the misery to end. Disallowing the goal was the right decision under the current rules but let’s be honest here, none of us want goals like that disallowed. To me that’s onside. It looks on to the naked eye and that’s what these decisions should be based on. All these lines and stupid rules about arm sleeves and shit has made football much, much less enjoyable and we’ve seen loads of goals disallowed because of it. It worked in our favour this time but I still hate it. We need to be seeing more goals, not less. Instead we’ve got the authorities instructing officials to forensically look for reasons to disallow goals (Fulham’s disallowed goal against Spurs in the game before this one is one of the worse decisions I’ve ever seen). It’s just shit. Like us. The one bright spot was Jota coming back. He looked lively and when he’s physically ready he’d be the first name on my team sheet now. He’s been our best striker this season and it was his injury that really fucked us. We were coping with everything else but when he went out and we were left with only the fading front three to rely on the goals began to dry up. Maybe he can give us a spark but it feels now like we’re just broken, both mentally and physically. We’ve got Fulham next and I’m not expecting us to win. What I do expect is for Klopp to start mixing it up and try something different. This isn’t working and the sample size is now big enough to know that this isn’t going to get better if we keep picking the same players in the same system. If Phillips or Davies are available then get them in alongside Kabak, get Fabinho back in midfield and for fucks sake get Firmino out of the team. There has to be room for Shaqiri now too. At least he isn’t scared to fucking shoot. Put him in and get him in advanced areas. Just try something different because we’ve all seen enough of this now. By something different though I don’t mean Oxlade-Chamberlain. What’s the point of him anymore? Star man is really difficult. I thought Mo was doing alright. Kabak didn’t do much wrong. Gini was decent and Trent played well other than not backing up Fabinho properly on the goal. No-one really deserves it though so I’m not going to bother. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Kabak, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Thiago (Milner) Jones (Oxlade-Chamberlain); Salah (Jota), Firmino, Mané:

It would have been a good week if we hadn’t lost to Chelsea. But we did lose to Chelsea so now it’s another shitty week in an ever increasing list of them. The one straw to clutch is that other than City everyone else is shit too, but it’s not really much comfort given how bad we are. City beat West Ham 2-1 which was a good result for us. Two months ago I couldn’t imagine thinking that way but so much has changed since then and none of it for the better. City led through Dias but Antonio’s close range strike tied things up. Stones won it late on but Diop was within a whisker of an equaliser right at the death. West Ham gave a good account of themselves and could easily have snatched a draw with a bit of luck and some better finishing, but City’s winning streak goes on. And on. And on. They’re close to beating their all time winning run now but does anyone actually care? None of these records mean shit in empty stadiums. Call it sour grapes if you like, but this is a hill I’m prepared to die on. This isn’t proper footy and when it comes to records there should be a big asterisk next to all of it. That’s not even a dig at City. They’ve been the best team by a mile and will be deserving Champions. It isn’t their fault that it should have a huge asterisk as they can’t control these circumstances. It’s just a fact that winning all these games in empty stadiums is not as credible as doing it in front of fans. That doesn’t mean I don’t wish we were in their position because I do. So anyway, moving on. That absolute fucking clown show at West Brom then. Everyone was going mad about that and my Dad even rang me as it was happening to ask if I was watching as he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Maybe I’m just becoming hardened to it now but I wasn’t surprised and didn’t actually think it was THAT big a deal, probably because the outcome was right even if the situation itself was ludicrous. The mistake Mason made was blowing the first whistle to allow Dunk to take the free-kick while the keeper was still lining up the wall. There’s nothing in the rules to say he can’t do that but it’s really poor form and it shouldn’t happen. He realised his error and blew the whistle again just as the ball was about to cross the line. Whatever happens after that is going to leave one team majorly pissed off. VAR got involved but that was only to determine whether the ball had already crossed the line before the second whistle. I don’t really see what difference it makes as all Mason has to do is say he made a mistake, he shouldn’t have blown the whistle while the keeper was lining up the wall, and order the free-kick to be retaken. Instead he awarded the goal which pissed off West Brom and then he disallowed it which pissed off Brighton. It was kind of impressive in its own way. It’s not easy being that utterly hopeless. The simple thing to do would have been to say “I didn’t realise the keeper wasn’t ready, take it again”. Brighton wouldn’t have been happy but tough shit. They’d have been livid if it had been their keeper lining up his wall and they would have expected the goal to be disallowed. I can understand why Dunk would be annoyed because he claims he asked Mason if he could take it and he said “yes” and then blew the whistle. Dunk did nothing wrong, it’s entirely the fault of Mason, but the goal shouldn’t have stood. Kyle Bartley had a different take on it. He said Mason told him he blew the whistle not to signal that the kick could be taken, but because there was some jostling in the wall and he wanted to sort that out. I don’t doubt Bartley’s word but that’s a blatant lie by Mason. If that was why he blew the whistle why did he initially give the goal? He signalled that it was a goal and it was only when presumably VAR had a word (or he saw the look of thunder on Fat Sam’s face) that he corrected himself. So for me this was embarrassing for Mason but at least the right decision was made in the end and there was no miscarriage of justice. The exact same thing happened to us last season against Brighton. Alisson had been sent off, Adrian came on to defend the free-kick and the ref (Atkinson I think) let Dunk take it while Adrian was still lining up the wall. And you know what? Fucking nobody had any problem with it. No-one said shit except us. All the media and pundits showed no sympathy about it and the goal stood. Thankfully we won the game but frankly it was scandalous that the goal counted and that no-one seemed to care. Refs ALWAYS allow the keeper to get his wall set. It’s just how it’s always been done. Should it be the case? Maybe not. I don’t mind if they change that but it has to be right across the board. You can’t have keepers thinking they will be allowed to line up a wall only for some fucking random weirdo ref to suddenly blow his whistle and catch them out. So regardless of what the rulebook says, morally that should never have been a goal and the right outcome was reached eventually. If Brighton have a problem with that because they lost this game then they’re looking for blame in the wrong place. Convert your chances and you won’t have to worry. It’s incredible how they managed to lose this game but it wasn’t Lee Mason’s fault. He actually did his best to help them out. He gave them two penalties. Short of putting the ball in the net himself he couldn’t do much more. Bartley headed in from a corner to give the Baggies something to defend. And they did have to defend. A lot. Brighton murdered them but they just don’t score enough goals. The first pen was for handball and it was. It won’t always be given but it should always be given as he led with his arm, turned his head away and it hit his hand. Gross hit the bar with the spot kick. The second one, I don’t know. I thought the lad got the ball but he did tackle from behind and that’s always risky. Probably more of a pen than not but could go either way. Welbeck took it and hit the post. Brighton wouldn’t have scored if they were still playing now. How Allardyce was this win though? Scrappy as fuck, extremely fortunate. Controversial decisions and a winner from a corner. If this game was a stick of rock it would have “Fat Sam” stamped right through the middle of it. Something else I noticed in this. West Brom came out to that same shitty song that Chelsea come out to. I don’t know what it’s from, probably some shitty TV Show like Benidorm. The point is, Chelsea have had that as their song for donkey’s years. When and - more to the point - why did West Brom start using it? They deserve to be relegated for that alone. Also down at the bottom, Newcastle should have won but were held to a draw by Wolves at St James’. The first half was all Newcastle but their finishing kept letting them down. Lascelles finally made their pressure count when he headed in a Fraser cross. The lead didn’t last long though as Neves headed in from Neto’s pinpoint delivery. Dubravka should have saved that. He’s been brought back in for “Mr Camera Save” Darlow. Bruce might have been regretting that decision following the goal but Dubravka pulled off a great save from point blank range to deny Fabio Silva. Elsewhere, Leeds lost 1-0 at home to Villa. The Elland Road pitch is fucking awful. My boy Bamford was robbed of a goal of the season contender when he showed off some terrific footwork to move the ball in between two defenders only for the pitch to trip him up as he got his shot away. The skill though. Is there nothing this boy can’t do? Villa’s winner was also a result of the pitch. Watkins attempted a shot and slipped on his arse but it ended up being perfect cross for El Ghazi on the back post. Leeds had a few chances to equalise but none of them fell to my boy so they weren’t taken. Aside from us, Leicester have been hit by injuries more than anyone. They were without the in form Maddison for their home game with Arsenal and it showed as they were well beaten. They did take the lead though when Tielemans won the ball out wide, surged into the box unchallenged and drilled a shot into the far corner. No idea where Arsenal’s centre backs were. Arsenal thought they had a penalty when Pepe was tripped but VAR (that David Coote cunt) said it was outside. That’s a pen all day that. I’d have been fuming if that had gone against us. It wasn’t costly as David Luiz headed in an equaliser from a Willian cross. Arsenal did then get a pen when Paul Tierney somehow missed the most obvious handball by Ndidi and needed to be bailed out by Coote. It feels as though 90% of handball penalties these days are missed by referees and awarded by VAR, and in most cases it’s completely understandable as they aren’t easy to spot with the naked eye. This one though, Jesus Christ. How is he not seeing that? Lacazette buried the penalty and Leicester then lost Barnes to what looked like quite a serious injury. You could tell it was bad because he was unable to dive when it happened and sort of just collapsed with a stagger instead. It got worse for Leicester when Pepe made it 3-1. I do think I judge Arsenal a little too harshly at times but I can’t help it. For example, when they scored the third goal Pepe was giving it the beans with his celebration and all the subs were over there joining in, and it wound me up. I almost feel that they don’t have the right to celebrate anything because they’re such fucking losers. Look at the league table, you were in the bottom half before this game. You’ve got no business bouncing around like that. It winds me up. I feel as though them celebrating a win like this is equivalent to a team that’s losing 5-0 celebrating a late consolation goal. No self awareness. It’s probably unfair of me but that’s my reaction any time Arsenal look like they’re enjoying themselves. I actually feel that way about us now too. If and when we ever have a convincing win again I don’t even want to see big celebrations and Klopp hugs and high fives at the end. You’re massively underachieving, show some awareness of that. Leicester are having a bad time of it now. They were knocked out of Europe last week and every game they play they seem to lose another player to injury. Spurs had a comfortable win over Burnley as Gareth Bale finally did something. It’s mad how ineffective he’s been this season but this was more like what people expect from him. Obviously he’s decided to start playing now to get a bit of form for Wales this summer. Wales. Golf. Spurs. In that order. He’s had his feet up since the summer. The summer of 2018 that is. He opened the scoring from close range and it was one way traffic early on. Kane shot just wide and Moura shot straight at Pope following a Bergkamp-esque turn. Would have been a great goal that. Kane made it 2-0 with a deflected shot. Pope’s attempt at saving that was risible. Moura made it 3-0 inside half an hour and Bale added another in the second half. Mourinho said “He isn’t the Gareth Bale of 6-7 years ago. If he was he wouldn’t be here.” I’m not sure who that’s more offensive to - Bale or Spurs? Not that he’s wrong, but you don’t really want to hear that if you’re player or club. The biggest game of the weekend was at Stamford Bridge where Chelsea and United played out a goalless draw that was a bit shit but not without controversy. That’s one of those incidents that would never have been a pen in those halcyon pre-VAR days but it’s one you’d expect to be given almost every time now when it’s viewed in super slo mo from different angles. Unless it was against us of course. Hudson-Odoi could have grabbed the ball and dribbled down the pitch like LeBron James if it was against us, as Ngolo Kante proved a few days later. Manchester’s Chris Kavanagh on VAR certainly thought it was a pen to United but on-pitch ref Stuart Atwell disagreed. I can’t believe it wasn’t given to be honest. Not that I think it should have been but I find it astonishing that Atwell didn’t give it after seeing the video, and it’s especially surprising that he didn’t buckle under the pressure from VAR. It’s quite funny how the pens have dried up for the Mancs since Klopp drew attention to it. Maybe if Jurgen actually said something about the constant shafting we’ve been getting that might work too? Solksjaer has now started crying about them not getting decisions so get your money on them getting two or three pens over the next few weeks. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Finally on this, Mason Greenwood is rivalling Phil Foden and Ian Brown for the most punchable manc face ever. You can tell where he’s from just by his face. He doesn’t even need to speak, you just know he’s a manc by his fucking face. Fulham dominated at Selhurst against Palace but they couldn’t take any of the numerous chances they created. They’ve been in the bottom three all season but they don’t play like a team that deserves to go down. I honestly think they’ll beat us on Sunday as they’re playing much better than we are. I think they might escape but if that happens then it would mean Newcastle or Brighton dropping into the bottom three and I can’t really see either of them going down either. But I’m a big believer in goal difference being a good indicator of a team’s true standing and if you look at that then Newcastle could be in trouble. Of the three I’d much rather they went down than Fulham or Brighton. Everton beat Southampton 1-0 on Monday Night Football. I don’t know any more about it than that as I didn’t watch it and I can’t be arsed looking for highlights. Same with their win at the Hawthorns on Thursday. Onto midweek now. Dendoncker’s own goal put City ahead early against Wolves. He had no need to do that as he was three yards out with Sterling behind him. That’s Sterling’s Kryptonite that. How many times have we seen him miss from inside the six yard box with the net gaping? Laporte then had a goal disallowed for offside. Those etch a sketch lines were hardly convincing though. That should be a goal and the game is a lot worse off for the fact we’re having so many of these ruled out. Coady equalised with his first ever Premier League and they would have gone ahead if Traore was still the player he was last season. He’s not though, he’s become absolutely fucking shit and that shot he smashed miles over the bar summed him up. Jesus fired in a loose ball from six yards to put City ahead and Mahrez made it 3-1 when a Wolves player tried to dribble past two City players in his own box. Jesus scored again from a rebound with the last kick of the game. As I said earlier, the one tiny saving grace from this huge steaming turd of a season is that other than City, everyone else is just shite. Relatively speaking I mean. The likes of West Ham, Everton, Villa and Leicester are all doing ok by their own standards but my point is that City are the only ones you know are going to win week to week. Nobody is going to put together a long winning run because no-one (ourselves included sadly) are good enough to do it. Sheffield United are going to finish bottom but they won’t be breaking Derby’s record as the worst ever Premier League side. Good for them. They beat Villa in midweek. If you can call them Villa when Grealish isn’t playing. The Blades aren’t that bad but they’d have some terrible luck with injuries and they miss the home crowd as much as we do. McGoldrick put them ahead with a close range finish that he almost missed. Their task was made a lot more difficult when Jagielka was sent off after a VAR review. Not sure about that one. El Ghazi mis-controlled the ball which lured Jagielka into making a challenge rather than jockeying him. He wiped the lad out and was given a yellow. VAR then checked to see if it was a clear goalscoring opportunity and asked the ref to take a look. He did, decided it was, and changed the yellow to a red. You can make a case for that either way really but that was definitely not a clear and obvious error. The covering defender wasn’t close but he had an angle to get across and close El Ghazi down. I’d have probably given a yellow there, not least because I’ve seen much worse than that where a yellow card has been given. Villa pushed for an equaliser but it wouldn’t drop for them in the box and the Blades held on. Leicester dropped more points as they were held to a draw by Burnley. Choudhury’s bad backpass allowed Vydra to fire the Clarets ahead early. Choudhury then missed a great to equalise soon after but that cunt Iheanacho bailed him out by volleying in to make it 1-1. Nick Pope was in no man’s land there. I’m starting to really hate that tit. Plays like prime Gordon Banks when he faces us and then turns into Gordon the Gopher against everyone else. It ended honours even but Leicester deserved to lose for wearing their away kit when they didn’t need to. I hate that. It winds me right up. Also, how come both teams were wearing white shorts? I didn’t think that was allowed. That’s why we would often see those weird combos where a team would have their home shorts with the away shirt. Just another shit thing about modern footy. Speaking of kits, that United third kit is just the worst thing ever. Hideous. They drew 0-0 at Palace which was about right as neither team really did anything. Benteke had a chance on the volley early on that he launched into orbit. My fault that, I jinxed him last week. He had another chance in the second half which he swung at, missed, and it hit him on his standing leg. It staggers me how quickly he went shit. We fucking ruined him. Why are people still talking about United as being in a title race? Talking about how this result isn’t going to help them catch City. They aren’t catching City as that gap is going to get bigger, not smaller. I feel like these pundits and commentators are watching a different league to me sometimes. United aren’t very good. They’re better than most but they aren’t in a title race. They’re 14 points behind a team that is winning every single week. They’re as much title contenders as Sheffield United are. Finally, Thursday night. Everton won, we lost, so it was a miserable fucking evening. I have nothing to say about Everton as I didn’t watch it, I watched the other game. At least I watched some of it. I put the Fulham v Spurs game on at half time figuring I’d watch that to kill time before our game. I was enjoying it too. Apparently Spurs had been good first half but from when I tuned in Fulham looked really good and they deservedly equalised through Maja. There was absolutely no hint of anything untoward, no-one appealed for anything but then just as Spurs were preparing to restart, the dreaded VAR check happened. Sorry, but any sport in which that is not a goal is not a sport I can be arsed with. I switched it off there and then. I don’t put this one on the refs themselves as it’s more to do with the rule makers who have tried to apply a black and white ‘logic’ to an issue in which the grey area is massive. The Fulham player did not handle the ball. It was twatted at him from about three yards away and it hit him on the arm that was pinned to his body. If it hadn’t hit his arm it would have smashed into his ribs. He gained no advantage from ‘using an arm’ and the only way he could have avoided that is if he didn’t actually have an arm. It’s one of the worst decisions of the season but of course Peter Walton couldn’t get in there quickly enough to tell us how the officials got it absolutely spot on. If that’s true then whoever decided that’s how ‘attacking handball’ is to be interpreted needs to die a slow and painful death. I absolutely guarantee that will be changed at the end of the season but that doesn’t do Fulham any good does it? They may go down by one point and they can trace it back to this moment. Seriously, fuck football. If this is what they’re turning it into then why are we even watching anymore? It’s a joke.