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The tension created by the build up to this is amazing- Same for this one, although for very different reasons-

That final four in the CL is the perfect encapsulation of this horrendously soulless season. I hate all four clubs with a passion.

Got sent this today, pans out the story is about 10 moths old, heartwarming more than funny, but well worth a share I reckon.

Call this morning to say a teacher in my daughters class has tested positive (all the teachers have been vaccinated so she should be ok) and she’s got to isolate until a week Monday. Third time she’s had to isolate since September. The wife is in work so I had a nice day off to myself planned which has gone up in smoke. On the plus side I’ve got a helper to help me sand down this bench and paint it.

My parents had their first Phizer jabs yesterday. No side effects so far thankfully.

Arguably - and this is not to disparage our midfield - that was because often our most effective attacking play missed out our midfield and went straight from back to front. Our defence was quick to spot any opportunity for a quick counter attack. In addition, we were much more effective in the press because our back line and midfield were routinely playing 15-20 metres nearer the opposition goal than in this season, because we had pace, strength and great technique. This meant our midfield and attack had less ground to cover to press the opposition's back line effectively. Our FBs would more readily and fluently attack knowing they had Henderson and Fabinho ready to cover should they lose the ball in advanced positions. All of this had an energising effect on the attacking players, as they believed they would see more of the ball in advanced positions, and the effort they would invest in the press would not be wasted, as everyone else would be working to close others down.

Keita is probably one of the worst signings we have ever made, Thiago is a card away from being sent off virtually every game, Bobby sadly has lost his mojo and tries to rely on Brazilian flicks when just playing the game would work better, Mane just seems to have gone back into his lazy mode of not giving a shite, Salah is turning into Sterling, one goal/decent bit of play for a dozen plus attempts, and is well shy of a tackle, how many times does he lose a ball through not wanting to get involved. we are relying on Trent and Robbo to do all the work, while the rest just seem to bimble about. Injuries aside, we are 5 to 6 players short of a top team at the moment. We need to spend, but more importantly, we need to sell, and sell big, ie get rid of the dross collecting wages for no effort. I personally cant fault Milner, he is one of the few who puts a shift in and works his arse off no matter what.

Carragher annoys me more than McManaman. I suspect I may be alone in this.

Maybe the dry cleaners are still shut

Andrew was planning to wear an Admirals uniform . Jesus wept ! Apart from the fact he isn’t officially an Admiral yet having the fucking sleazy twat parading around dressed up as one must be a kick in the nuts to our sailors that do a real job. He should be dressed in prison uniform slopping out his cell .

Coutinho has been shit for years and doesn't even play the same position. Why are we still talking about him? You'd think winning all we've won after replacing him and him turning to shit would have eradicated him from people's minds, but it seems like he'd need to have his right foot amputated or something for that to happen.

Not sure this can be beaten overall Drama, suspense, music, cinematography. Its the perfect scene

Just seen this pop up on Twitter again.

Can't agree with it being the most miserable season. I think you are about my age. In the early 90's we had a few under Souness that were far worse than this one. We were going nowhere fast in the league, and a league cup and fa cup win giving some false hope that we were on an upward trajectory. What really brought home that we were no longer a big club was losing in the UEFA cup to nomarks like Genoa. The team and club seemed rudderless, and I envisioned a life without trophies. This is still the best I've felt about the club's stature and future since the mid 80's (when I started supporting), and this clusterfuck of a season is just that, an amassment of freak injuries, VAR, no supporters and oil clubs being oil clubs. I still believe the team below wins the league this year (and next). Even if you're critical to our forward line and their their lack of clinical finishing, so much has been lost from our play with the absence of VVD/Gomez/Matip. Probably 3 of the best 6 CBs in the league. It has impcted our positional play, our pressing. You can complain that we've been slow to react etc. Would Chelsea have been dominant without Terry/Carvalho? Utd without Vidic/Ferdinand? It's impossible to establish a dominant team without a very good/elite CB partnership. We SHOULD have gotten replacements earlier in the January window, that might have saved us a few points in the league. I'm still very optimistic about next year, even if a CL quarter final exit is hard to take. ----------------------Allison------------------- --Trent------Gomez-----VVD--------Robbo ----------------Fabinho---------------------- -------Henderson-----Thiago/Gini---------- --Salah----------Firmino------------Mane--- Give these guys a proper pre-season and we're rolling again... 2nd team: -------------------Kelleher------------------- --Neco-----Matip--Kabak/Phillips--Tsimikas -----------------Milner------------------------ ----Oxlade/Shaq--------Jones-------------- ---Elliott-----------Origi----------Jota------- Players in bold with legitimate claims of being 1st teamers. Some upgrading needed in our other backups, with Tsimikas and Elliott relatively fresh faces with something to prove. We know what the others can and can't do. One would think a few of these might be shipped out, but with the pandemic affecting clubs all over the world, we might be "stuck" with them for another year. Anyway, I'm rambling now, but I really can't understand the doom and gloom from everyone. I'm normally a pessimistic or at least realistic character, but I don't see the obvious shake-up everyone else seem to be expecting. The want for new players when these have served us so well over the last few years really isn't in my blood I think. Would it be nice to get a super-striker in to compete with our front three (like Jota has done when fit)? Sure. Is it realistic? Probably not. We need a 4th CB with pace, as the questionmarks over the fitness of our main 3 is my only big worry in the season to come. Other than that, I think minor tweaks is needed, not major changes. This season ended with the assault on VVD and subsequently when Gomez did his patellar tendon. Avoid something major like that and we should be competing in both the league and CL (which is still realistic to get).

This week’s episode of Snowfall was fucking superb. Set up nicely for the season finale next week but it’ll be difficult to top that. Bodies dropping everywhere. Rapidly approaching the very, very top tier of shows, for me. I think they’ll get two more series out of it after this one. For anyone that hasn’t seen it, get on the first three series on BBC iplayer. It just gets better and better. Still blows my mind that the lad who plays Franklyn is from Peckham. He’s got that LA accent nailed. Superb actor. Only realised recently that he was in an episode of Black Mirror. I didn’t recognise him at the time because I hadn’t seen Snowfall.

The hospital scene from The Godfather.

I'm still finding pieces of my lung round the living room a year and a half after first seeing this scene

I think signing Thiago and moving to a slower build-up game with shorter passes was an attempt to evolve our style a bit, but without defenders who can play a high line we can't compress the play enough to make it work. Right now we have to keep the defensive line a bit deeper, press harder, and move the ball more quickly when we win it back. Because we're so narrow in midfield and we don't have defenders on the halfway line, our midfielders have to cover much more ground than is ideal when the ball is lost - both to counter press and then to regain shape if the press is beaten. The lack of energy from the front three on the initial counterpress hasn't been fucking helping either. Thiago looks shit because he doesn't have the energy of someone like Wijnaldum, the aggression of someone like Henderson or Fabinho, or the directness of Trent. If we swapped out Thiago with the 05/06 version of Momo Sissoko we'd probably look better, but if we swapped out any of the front three for their 18/19 versions, or even just got Van Dijk and Gomez in the back four, we'd look fucking shitloads better.

My folks have had both (Pfizer) jabs now. No side effects at all.

Gobshites on memorial posts. Today is dominated by the remembrance of the 96 and to give thanks to those, either living or sadly no longer here, who fought and are still fighting to clear the names of family members and those wrongly accused. However, we seem to get knobheads who want to take potshots at the team on such posts because we aren't doing well. "Sell X player", "Hala Madrid", "Klopp out", "we lost because of..." The majority of these posts are from foreign fans or fans of the team we have just lost to and I can understand in some cases the language barrier; they may post because they see the name Liverpool FC and not fully understand the context of the post but in things like this, the official account should switch off comments. Modern football fans are a pain in the arse.

I do think it's about time the royal family stopped wearing their fancy dress uniforms completely. Yes some have earned medals, some haven't even earned a pass out parade. But nobody gets to wear their uniform once they've left completely. it just takes the piss seeing them draped in gold braid and parading around like some tin pot dictators. The queen is the head of the armed forces and she doesn't waltz around dressed in military uniform. Wear a fucking suit like everyone else.

VID-20210414-WA0015.mp4

RIP YNWA x

Bet he loves Storm from The Jeremy Vine Show then.

Those gloves don't seem to fit her like a glove.

This put the hairs on the back of my neck up, excruciating- Also, the opening scene and bar scene in Inglorious Basterds.

For 135 minutes of the tie we were marginally the better side. For 45 minutes in Madrid we played like Everton in Europe.

A black redstart turned up in my brother's back garden in Sheffield last week. I've never seen one anywhere, let alone in the middle of a city.

A perfect ending to the report, Dave, in all its wistfulness.

You’re not.

The next post must therefore be

Totally agree on this season. I’ve felt that for a while. It’s just been a perfect storm of absolutely miserable shite of one sort or another, week after week.

Good luck to the marketing department trying to shift any season 'highlights' DVDs for this season. The annoying thing is it's all been so depressing and abject that I can't even find any solace in watching old highlights from last season. I've had a documentary about last season recorded off Sky Arts since about the end of January and still not been able to find any desire to watch it. I don't want to hear a load of self-congratulatory hyperbole about last year when we've fallen so far so quickly since. It's starting to look more and more like we need a considerable rebuild rather than everything being magically better next year. Rather than the last 2 years being the start of a sustained period of being at the top, it's starting to look more and more like it was the peak of that team. Maybe occasional spells like that are the very best we can hope for these days when other teams have bottomless pits of money to spend. Good report of last night. We were good, not great, but ultimately did far too many things wrong over the 2 legs to go through. As well as the finishing last night the final balls so often just seemed to be a bit off. There were a few attacks that broke down in the first half because key passes were delayed or were played a a bit behind their target and momentum was lost as a result. At our best, when everyone was full of confidence, those passes would have been played automatically and been spot on. It's hard to imagine we'd have been able to beat any of the other teams left. I watched the games between Bayern and PSG and couldn't help but think they looked light years ahead of us at the moment. It was a depressing contrast to just 2 years ago when Bayern looked almost scared of us over the 2 legs.

It is a fairly big task. Loads of uncertainty at centre half - can Matip (stop sniggering at the back) really come back and contribute on anything like a regular basis.....Is Gomez capable of staying fit...Will VVD be the same....and then what are going to do to ensure have enough cover and depth back there? Midfield is up in the air...Wijnaldum - who knows....Milner is 62....Henderson ageing an injury prone....Thiago not settled at all...Keita a waste of time....Ox same... Forwards - lots of questions about Firmino and Mane. Overall age profile of squad quite high. Plenty to do/plenty of questions/puzzles to solve. It feels like we could be entering a period of transition/this teams cycle is at or near its end.

Martin Tyler is a cunt.

I had my first jab yesterday evening, nothing report except a bit of an ache in my arm. Nothing to do with the jab, mind.

The only player who seems to even try when he can is Ox. But he rarely plays. Milner does on occasion but he's not renowned for it. When Fabinho does try a shot he can really hit them. But it seems to be tactical for them not to shoot which is criminal when the forwards are playing like treacle.

Agreed. Although anyone not getting the red, white and blue, true Brit AZ jab is a traitor.

Dammit Jim! I'm a Doctor not some kind of mutant with claws and virtual immortality!

3 financially doped sportswashing operations making up the 4 semi final places along with a legacy club that has relied on significant benevolent state support in the past. Football has always been dominated by money, but I can't remember it being so egregious and rubbed in your face in the highest echelon of the game. City's continuing dominance of the domestic game hardly seems to raise an eyebrow anymore either, if they were to win the league at a canter again and a domestic Cup next year would anyone talk about what is happening? Everyone in the media held that they were poor last year as they amassed 81 points, won the league Cup and charity shield, made the semi finals of the FA Cup and Quater finals of the champions league. I think in retrospect what Liverpool achieved during 19/20 was absolutely incredible as was keeping pace with Dynamo Abu Dhabi the year before and that over time that achievement will only grow as the monopoly/duopoly of the financially doped clubs with an occasional appearance from United or ourselves sets in.

Lack of goals from midfield is killing us.

Starting Keita in Madrid was madness.

It doesnt help when you have governments who you wouldnt trust you to sell you a vacuum cleaner running it all and here is where the problem lies.