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Only eight more weekends and then this is over. Who knows, we might yet salvage something from this complete catastrophe of a season. A couple of weeks ago it had an 8th or 9th place vibe about it but as shite as we are, others are in the same boat. And that boat may as well be named the Titanic as everyone seems to be sinking fast. Everyone below third is shite. I still think Chelsea are probably the least shite, but losing 5-2 at home to West Brom probably flies in the face of that. Are they as untrustworthy as us? They might be. They hadn’t conceded for 12 hours but then shipped five to one of the lowest scoring teams in the league. That result was one nobody could have seen coming. Nobody except for Sam Allardyce that is. It went exactly how he drew it up on his tactics board apparently. At least that’s what he told Talksport on Monday morning. No-one blows their own trumpet quite like Allardyce. He actually said that they targeted Mendy because they’d studied him and he is prone to doing mad things. How much of a cunt do you have to be to publicly shame an opposition player like that? It’s not as if Mendy played any part in this defeat for Chelsea either. It defo wasn’t on him. Chelsea actually scored first when Pulisic reacted quickest after Alonso’s free-kick came back off the post, but Thiago Silva saw red soon after. Tuchel went mad at the time but honestly, how can they possibly have any complaints there? He lunged in and caught the lad after he’d got his shot away, and David Coote really had no choice but to give him a second booking. Chelsea were complaining but if he hadn’t produced a second yellow for that, West Brom would have been complaining and they’d have had a much bigger grievance than Chelsea had. The game then turned on its head. Partly because of the sending off, partly because of a freak injury situation. Ivanovic came on to replace an injured Baggie, and 12 minutes later he too had to go off injured. His replacement was Callum Robinson and he was the most influential player in the second half. Not really sure how a manager can say that was all part of his plan, but if anyone can, Fat Sam can. Before the Callum Robinson show began though we had big drama in first half stoppage time when Pereira scored twice in a couple of minutes. First he equalised with a cool finish from a long ball over the top. Mendy had started to come but knew he wasn’t getting there, and he ended up in no man’s land. Allardyce was pretty smug about that but that goal was on the centre backs, not the keeper. Still, anything to suit the ‘tactical genius’ narrative eh? Then, with Chelsea all over the place, he fired in a low shot to give West Brom a half time lead. He’s a good player that Pereira. I just don’t think he’s consistent. If he was he’d be playing for a better team than West Brom, but when he’s on he’s quality. Had Chelsea still had eleven men I’d have fancied them to turn it around, but losing Thiago Silva and then two goals in such a short space of time gave them a mountain to climb. And they couldn’t climb it. In fairness West Brom were sensational at times in the second half. The goals they scored were ridiculously good for what is basically an alehouse team. Robinson made it 3-1 with a gorgeous volley after a sweeping move. Most players would have lashed at it but he just guided it with his sidefoot right into the top corner. Fucking brilliant goal. All the FIFA virgins who were creaming themselves over that shitty rabona from Lamela the other week won’t have a clue how good this goal was, but it was glorious. Diagne then finished off another length of the field move full of dummies and back heels, and although Chelsea pulled one back through Mount and briefly threatened a comeback, Robinson wrapped it up with another lovely finish to cap off an amazing day. The funny thing is, every goal he’s ever scored in the top flight is against Chelsea. Five goals, all against Chelsea. Usually it’s us on the end of weird anomalies like that. Kevin Lisbie anyone? Dwight Gayle? Lots of talk afterwards about West Brom playing like Brazil. It’s the stock comment we all make whenever a team plays exciting football but I think that’s a comparison that needs retiring now as there’s absolutely nothing magical about Brazil anymore. They used to be the benchmark for flair, skill and dazzling football, but nowadays they’re no different to anyone else. There’s fuck all magical about a team that’s picking players from Everton. Final point on this game. Chelsea won the XG count, which shows just what a fucking crock of shite that is. Pisses me off that it’s somehow made it’s way into mainstream analysis of games now. Man City beat Leicester. Didn’t watch any of it and don’t care who scored, but I did hear that there was a five minute spell when Leicester had 0% possession, which is almost impossible to do. Reverse Rodgeball. Moving on. I knew Chris Wilder had been sacked but I had no idea who replaced him. Paul Heckinbottom. Never heard of the cunt, but apparently he was Leeds boss before Bielsa. They went head to head in the Yorkshire derby on Friday night and Bielsa came out on top. Harrison had a tap in to make it 1-0 following nice play by Raphinha. He almost doubled their lead soon after but the keeper made a good save. In the build up to that a Leeds player got fucking wiped right out by a two footed lunge from Baldock, who gave himself a concussion in the process. He tried to come back on but he was all over the place and they were forced to sub him. You have to wonder why 1) he wasn’t sent off for the two footed tackle and 2) how the Blades medical staff didn’t know he had a concussion. It was 1-1 in first half stoppage time when Osborn arrived at the back post and just about converted. It initially looked like a Leeds defender had blocked it on the line but goal-line technology intervened and gave the goal. It was actually miles over the line but the original angle was deceptive. Jagielka put through his own net to give Leeds the win. 7th own goal of his career, the Evertonian cunt. Southampton came from 2-0 down to beat Burnley on Sunday. Cracking game this one, astonishingly. Even more astonishing, Burnley actually got a penalty. Incredible scenes. The ref didn’t give it initially because it’s Burnley and they weren’t at Anfield, but after being told to take a look at it he eventually got it right and saw that Walker-Peters just scythed down Eric Pieters after he crossed the ball. How he didn’t see that to begin with though, fuck knows. Wood emphatically blasted in the pen to make it 1-0. He had earlier gone close with a toe poke from the edge of the box. I love that. You don’t see anywhere near enough toeys in the modern game but it’s a good way of catching out the keeper. Fraser Forster actually did well to react and turn it round the post. Vydra made it 2-0 with a route one goal. Hoof forward by Ben Mee, nice flick by Wood and a thumping finish by Vydra. Armstrong started the comeback and Ings equalised with a beautifully taken goal. Just superbly done. He celebrated too even though Burnley is his old team. I think that’s crept in since fans have been missing. Players don’t want to celebrate in front of the fans they used to play for but in empty stadiums all bets are off. Southampton absolutely blitzed Burnley after that and Nick Pope was in the kind of form we only usually see from him at Anfield. He was keeping the scores level almost by himself but eventually he was beaten by Redmond and the Saints picked up a rare win. They did need a really acrobatic save from Forster to deny Wood though. He moves pretty well for a big Frankenstein looking twat with bolts in his neck. Newcastle snatched a late draw at home to Spurs but they’re right in the thigh of that dogfight at the bottom. If Fulham could ever find a way to convert performances into results then Newcastle would be fucked. This was a big point for them though. They led with a first half goal from Linton. Nice to see big Joe getting a rare goal. Fourth goal in 62 games. Kane managed half that total in four minutes to turn it around and put Spurs ahead. They should have made the game safe in the second half but didn’t take their chances and got caught late by an equaliser by on loan Arsenal man Willock. A good day for Newcastle attackers called Joe. Sunderland are looking good for promotion so hopefully next season there’ll be a return of the North East derby game in the Championship. I want them to go down but I was happy for them to pick up that point on Sunday as it did us a favour. We made up two points on Spurs and Everton this week, and three on Chelsea and Leicester. But fucking West Ham are now somehow in a top four spot. If that’s still the case when the season ends then us, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal and even Everton would all be justified in sacking the manager and using “finished below David Moyes” as the justification for it. Fulham had such a great chance to pile the pressure on Newcastle but they blew it by losing to Villa, for home Grealish was still missing. Villa’s record without their star man is shite and this really should have been a game where Fulham made a statement. As usual, they played pretty well and deserved more than they got. There’s no way they’re the third worst team in this league, but if you can’t get results then this is what happens. Villa were awarded a penalty that was over-ruled after the ref checked on the screen. Good that. Can’t blame him for the initial decision as it looked like a pen, but the replays showed that Lemina got the ball and the right decision was made. For every one of these though there are ten shit ones. Mitrovic took advantage of a Mings mistake to open the scoring but Trezeguet equalised from a Mings cross and then made it 2-1 soon after. Watkins wrapped it up from close range with a couple of minutes left. Scott ‘Scotty’ Parker’s body language concerned me. He seems more concerned with looking like a Burtons poster on that touchline. He’s stood there, posing like a statue while his team are shipping stupid goals. Show a bit of that Dunkirk spirit, Squadron Leader Parker. Elsewhere, the Mancs just about beat Brighton and look to be on course to be the worst second placed team since… actually since Mourinho somehow got them 2nd a few years ago when they were at least as bad as they are now. Onto Monday now and Everton’s abysmal home form continued as they conceded a late equaliser to Palace. Their home record of late isn’t much better than ours, and we’ve lost six on the bounce. Rodriguez opened the scoring with his right foot. He’s been out for a long time but scoring with the foot he only uses for standing on? It's like he’s come back a new man. Or woman, if you believe that WhatsApp message that was doing the rounds last week! Batshuayi equalised very late on but it was no more than Palace deserved as they had their chances. If Everton weren’t Everton they’d be miles ahead of us by now but they can’t even beat us at being shit. What was with the weird Palace away kit? Never seen that one before. Navy with the red stripe down the centre. Palace Saint Germain. See what I did there? That’s worth two quid a month of anyone’s money, surely? Finally, as already mentioned West Ham won to go into the top four. They beat Wolves 3-2 with Lingard once again proving to be their talisman. He’s had a massive impact there hasn’t he? The prick. He ran half the length of the field to open the scoring and then he was heavily involved in the second, scored by Fornals, and the third, scored by Bowen. They did their best to blow it as goals from Dendoncker (after sensational play by Traore) and Fabio Silva made it interesting but the Hammers held on to leapfrog us, Spurs and Chelsea and go fourth. If anything sums up this completely fucked up, mental season, it’s Moyes slithering his way into the top four.

We waited three years for a chance for payback and THIS is what we got? Absolute fucking shite. What a massive letdown. We probably shouldn’t be surprised as revenge is not something that this team does well. You only have to go back to the insipid surrender against the Blueshite the other week to see that. With this being the Champions League though I really expected better. I had high hopes about this game because other than Porto, Real Madrid might be the weakest team we could have been drawn against. The problem is they can say the same about us, and they’d be right based on this. They won EASILY. We were fucking awful in every single area of the pitch. Not one of the players come out of it with any credit. Not a single one. Everyone was shite and it’s hard to take or understand given the importance of the game. I’d allowed myself to get excited about this one. I was really looking forward to it and believed we’d see a big performance. More fool me, I won’t be making that mistake again. We started badly and got worse. There was a decent spell just after half time but it didn’t last and we were just well beaten. It’s easy to blame it on the team selection, specifically the surprise inclusion of Keita, but that’s just scapegoating. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Keita and if he never played for us again I wouldn't lose a minute's sleep over it, but there was far more to this than just Naby being Naby. He did nothing whatsoever but he isn’t to blame for the rest of them making the most basic of errors time and time again. If you want to say we’re a worse team when Keita plays and that we always look more open then I’ll agree with you. This shocking performance had very little to do with Keita though. Whether it was Fabinho and Wijnaldum simply passing the ball straight to Madrid players when under no pressure, Phillips not being aware of players running in behind, Trent ‘assisting’ at the wrong end or the forward players taking four touches to try and get the ball under control only to still fail, this was just one huge collective shitshow. Everyone was crap. When Real scored the only surprise was it had taken so long. Vinicius Jr was having his own way down the left hand side and we just weren’t dealing with him, which is infuriating because he's shite and we come up against better wide players every other week in the Premier League. The opening goal is mostly on Phillips who needless got sucked into the middle towards Benzema and allowed Vinicius to run off his shoulder onto a ball over the top from Kroos. Trent should be more aware of that though too, either by screaming at Phillips to warn him or by tracking the run himself. I didn’t think much of Alisson’s attempt to save it either if I’m being honest, although that might be harsh. The second goal was virtually all on Trent but I thought Ferdinand’s analysis of the role the centre backs had in it had some merit too. Trent’s header was shite and that’s on him, but the ease they were getting behind us with that ball over the top doesn’t bode well for next week. I’m not going to say anything bad about Kabak and Phillips though as what are they, sixth and seventh choice? They’ve done better than anyone has a right to expect from them but this was a bridge too far. So while I don’t dispute any of the points made by Ferdinand I just can’t bring myself to be pointing the finger at those two lads when we essentially had our first choice players in every other position on the field and THEY WERE ALL FUCKING SHITE. Kabak and Phillips have an excuse. The others don't. Well, tiredness might be one because some of them they do look fucked to be fair to them. Worst of the bunch was Sadio, who is absolutely fucking hopeless right now. Just genuinely dreadful. His performance here was hideous. He couldn’t do a thing right and it was sad to see. He’s in the mother of all slumps now and looks like a Sunday league player. It doesn’t help that he’s getting absolutely fuck all from refs either. He was blatantly fouled just before their second goal and it’s staggering that VAR looked at that and said it was ok. I’d be annoyed about it if we hadn’t absolutely deserved to get walloped anyway. That decision stank almost as much as our performance. Klopp hooked Naby a few minutes before half time and confessed afterwards that it was tactical and Keita just wasn’t in the game. He added that he could have taken a few more off as well. I don’t question the decision at all, but I do wonder why it was done three minutes before the break. Usually you’d just do it at half time as it’s less humiliating to the player. It’s really, really unusual to see a player hooked on 42 minutes. Maybe Klopp felt let down after putting his faith in him? I know the feeling, I was predicting big things from Keita in the group chat when I saw the team. For the record, not one of the lads agreed with me and they were right not to. Klopp had said Keita got the nod because of how well he’d trained for weeks and because he wanted someone who would dribble and take the game to Madrid. He must have spotted a vulnerability in how they play and he wanted Keita to exploit that. It never happened but I don’t think that’s just Keita’s fault as we never had hold of the ball long enough to build any kind of attack. Keita was no more responsible than anyone else for that, but he was the obvious one that you’d take off. He shouldn't play again. It isn't working and it never will. I'd rather Jones or even Ox got his minutes. We did improve a bit with Thiago out there, but he was no great shakes either. He picked up another booking (harsh) and didn’t really do anything especially creative. At least he kept the ball though (other than one terrible pass about a minute after he came on) which is more than anyone else could say. Actually that's maybe harsh because the passing in the second half was nowhere near as slack as it was before the break. Gini and Fabinho were much better in the second half but given how bad they were in the first that wasn't difficult. We got ourselves back in it with a scruffy goal. Jota drove at the defence and then his shot was partially blocked. It fell to Mo who got it stuck under his feet before just about getting a shot away that hit Courtois and went in off the bar. I didn’t celebrate, partly because we’d been so bad I didn’t even feel emotionally invested in it at that point, but mainly because VAR has killed that now. I only celebrate when it’s clear there’s absolutely nothing that needs to be looked at, and this one initially had a faint whiff of offside about it. If we could have kept it 2-1 then we’d still have a chance of going through but instead we gave away another awful goal. Vinicius was given too much space in the box and Alisson’s attempt at saving a weak shot just wasn’t good enough. Just before that we’d almost conceded from our own corner when somehow we ended up with Thiago as one of only two players back. That can’t happen. He can’t run (and he was carrying a yellow card) so you don’t put him in that situation. It summed up the whole night though. Trent did well to save us there, but he undid that by not being close enough to Vinicious on the goal (Phillips should have been tighter too). On a completely unrelated note, I wish Alisson would shave that fucking muzzy as I don’t like keepers drawing attention to themselves. I just think it makes them look a cunt when they make mistakes, which Alisson has been prone to doing this season. When you’re winning you can do whatever you like, but with the run we’ve been having I want the players being low profile, not swaggering round like fucking Magnum P.I. Anyway, at 3-1 we had a fair bit of the ball but did nothing with it as Madrid just saw it out without really breaking sweat. That’s the thing that bothers me. They’re not that good and if we’d played them in either of the previous two seasons we’d have fucking pummelled them. Instead, we play them now and make them look like…. well, Real Madrid. This is the worst side they’ve had in decades but we made them look like Galcticos. But then we’ve lost to Villa, Everton, Burnley, Fulham, Southampton and a load of other deadbeat teams so it’s hardly surprising that the worst Madrid team in years had their way with us. We’ll now have to listen to all the “its only half time” and “second leg at Anfield, you never know” rallying talk but I’m not putting any stock in that whatsoever. If Anfield was going to be full I’d still back us to go through, but nah, it’s not happening. We’ve been horrendous at Anfield for months and there is absolutely nothing whatsoever to suggest we have any chance now. It’s over. I’d like to think we’ll make a fight of it and give them a scare but we’ll get done on a counter attack or by a moment of quality and that will finish us off because our forward line in its current state is not scoring the three or four goals that we’ll need. Not without a packed Anfield roaring them on. So after next week all that will be left is a demoralising ‘fight for fourth’. I know how important that is and obviously I hope we can do it, but I can’t get excited about it. It’s actually depressing that this is where we find ourselves again, so soon after it looked like we’d be top of the mountain for a good while. Half the team just looks completely fucked now. Mentally and physically. The hope is that they can recharge their batteries in time for next season and then with crowds back things will return to ‘normal’. It is by no means certain though, especially as some of them will have to play in the Euros. By the time Robbo comes back for pre-season I’m expecting his legs to be worn down to little nubs as he’s played so much football. As for Sadio, we may as well just let his rest start now and hope he can be back at his best next season, because the way he is right now is no use to anyone. I'd pick Firmino over him now, which says it all. One thing I do want to see next week though is Milner starting. He needs to play as he brings the intensity that we don’t have without him or Hendo in there. In hindsight, he should have played this game. Star man is nobody. Easiest decision of the season. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Phillips, Kabak (Shaqiri), Robertson; Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Keita (Thiago); Salah, Jota (Firmino), Mané: