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How do you write something to encapsulate what we just saw? There’s a lot of hyperbole about modern footy where everything that’s pretty good will be labelled “the best ever” but what we witnessed at Anfield on Sunday is a genuine once in a lifetime occurrence. It’s literally never happened before. I don’t know if it’s fully sunk in yet and I can’t really process how I’m feeling about it. Beating them 7-0 wouldn’t have been a massive shock a year ago when we were flying and they were pathetic. We could have beaten them by more than that at Old Trafford if we hadn’t stopped playing at 5-0. We could have done it in the Anfield fixture too if the ball had broken a bit more kindly at times. This time the breaks did go our way. We’ve have won the game regardless, but you don’t get seven goals without some things bouncing the right way for you and a couple of the goals were like that. The other goals though? Fucking hell, this was us back to our best. The recent signs have been promising but I don’t think anybody other than maybe Graeme Souness saw this coming. He wasn’t thinking 7-0 but to his credit he did say that he believed we’d win well and that Anfield would drive us on to a performance. Keane and (especially) Neville were laughing at him but he was right and at full time it was Souey, Carra and Kelly who were laughing at Neville as he tied himself in knots trying to say Liverpool weren’t even any good. Keane was laughing at him too in fairness. Whenever there’s a result like this there are two stories to be told and usually the bigger story is just how shit the battered team was. And that’s fair. I’m fine if the wider football world wants to focus on them being a disgrace more so than us being outstanding. I don’t really care. The story for me is how good we were, but I don’t begrudge anyone who wants to put the boot in on Bruno Fernandes and co. We should not be able to beat any ‘top’ team 7-0 if they play the way they should but equally we know that if we play at our best then the only teams who can potentially live with it are City and Real Madrid. Everyone else is going to get blown away, even if they play well. Not 7-0, but they’re going to lose. But what we didn’t know is whether we were capable of hitting that top form anymore. It’s not been there all season except in flashes. The first half against Madrid was as good as anything we’ve produced in a long time, so despite what happened afterwards there was something to take from that. And it looks like we have taken something from it because this was like rolling back the clock. There’s so much to get into here that it’s going to be tough to keep any structure to it so I’m going to say whatever comes into my head and let it flow. Make yourself a brew or something, or if you’re reading it after work this evening get yourself a nice cold beer and strap yourself in as this is going to be a long one.

I said during the week that when we missed out on the title last weekend I was gutted far more for Klopp and the players than I was for myself and the rest of the fanbase. After this one, I feel the opposite. I’m gutted for us. Proper gutted and down in the dumps about it. We needed this after last week and it would have been fucking amazing to add number seven and parade it around town. Last week the lads took care of business in their own game but they had no control over what happened elsewhere. They’d had an incredible season and did all they could in the run in but it wasn’t enough. That’s why I felt so bad for them. It wasn’t in their hands but they did all they could. There’s no regrets over the league, only resentment that we were beaten by cheats. This was different. This trophy was in their hands. All they had to do was go out and beat a team who they are clearly superior to. Sadly they couldn’t do it and therefore it’s not really like last week. Our players can have no complaints after this because the bottom line is they just didn’t do enough to win. It’s not that they were outplayed, far from it. We dominated the game and Madrid offered virtually nothing in attack. But they scored and we didn’t. Even though we were clearly the better side overall, Madrid played exactly the way they wanted to and I don’t think we can say the same. It’s massively disappointing and it’s a missed opportunity because we haven’t lost to a great team. We should be beating them but it’s Real Madrid in this competition and for whatever reason (not going to get into the “aura of the competition again” but it is a thing) it’s much easier said than done. Mind you, the whole night just had really bad fucking juju about it. There was the disgusting way the fans were treated which resulted in a delayed kick off, and all that drama with Thiago where it looked like he wasn’t going to play, then he was, then he wasn’t, then eventually he did. It just had a bad feeling before it even started. The most disheartening thing about the performance is that I never felt at any point in the second half that we would score. It wasn’t just me either, all the lads I was watching with had the same feeling. You could just tell we weren’t right in the final third and it was a tough watch. Everything up until there was sound, but it was one of those games we have from time to time where the decision making in and around the box is just generally awful. We picked the worst possible time to have one those performances. Courtois was man of the match but he only really had to make three real saves. Considering how dominant we were, three decent efforts on goal just isn’t anywhere near enough and we have to be better than that if we want to seize the moment and win the trophy. The players only have themselves to blame for not winning this game and I’d imagine it will stay with them for ever because they know what a missed opportunity this was. You only get so many of these opportunities so when its a game you should win, you have to win it. 2018 was different, it wasn’t a game that we ‘should’ have won. We could have if circumstances had been different, but you don’t look back and think ‘that’s a game we should definitely be winning’. This one is though. It’s not that I don’t feel bad for the lads. Of course I do. I’m gutted for them. I just feel worse for me and for you and for especially everyone who went over there and had to endure what they went through. It’s left a fucking sour taste in the mouth and although we’ve had 10 incredible months, inevitably it’s the pain of the last week that will be the thing that lingers for a little while until perspective is fully restored. Eventually we’ll look back on the season with real pride and fondness, but it will always feel like a missed opportunity because that’s what it was. We should be beating Real Madrid because we’re much better than them. We were much better than them in this game even though we did not play well at all. If we had played well in attack we’d have fucking destroyed them and that’s what hurts. That’s why this will always feel like Athens to me. That was another one we clearly should have won but we blew it. We blew this one too. I hate saying that but it’s true. It’s so frustrating because we’d started the game really well and looked like we might blow them away if we could score early. We flew out of the traps and had some early chances. Not exactly clear ones but we were threatening and it felt like a goal was coming. We started the FA Cup final in similar fashion and didn’t score then either. It’s costly. Watching on a big screen in an arena isn’t exactly conducive to taking everything in and assessing a game properly. It’s not like being there in person or watching at home on TV when you are able to focus a lot better on what’s happening. So my view on the game might be different than if I’d been in the stadium or at home watching telly. The commentary was on but I wasn’t really listening and tuned out to most of it. One thing I do remember though was Glen Hoddle saying after about 20 minutes that we needed to score while we were on top or we would regret it. I was annoyed at the time as it seemed like unnecessary scaremongering. We were in complete control of the game and the goal would come eventually. Sadly it turns out he was spot on. In hindsight we absolutely needed to score in the opening half an hour when we had them on the ropes. Madrid weathered the storm and just dug in, waiting for their opportunity. It came just before half time with their first real attack of the game and it ended with Benzema putting the ball in the net. I’m not sure why it took so long to disallow it as it was clear from the first replay that it was offside. I actually thought he was offside from the initial pass too but they didn’t show any freeze frames on that so presumably it was checked and was ok. The second one though, he’s a yard offside and the ball is played forward by Casemiro. Open and shut case, but it took them ages to come to a decision. The commentary team were adding to the confusion too, and I can’t believe I’m saying this but it needed Peter Walton to come on and set everyone straight. What’s the confusion? The ball bounces off Alisson and then Casemiro challenges for it with Fabinho and Konate. He plays the ball forward, it might have then taken a nick off one of our lads but that’s not relevant as they were simply making a challenge, not trying to make a play at the ball. It then falls to Benzema who is offside because Alisson is well out and Robbo is the only player between Benzema and the goal. It’s an easy decision that they made a right fucking meal out of. Even though it wasn’t a goal I felt that moment changed the game. It gave Madrid the confidence that their game plan would work. Keep doing what they’re doing defensively and wait for their one moment. It also maybe put the wind up us a little, as for all the dominance we’d had the closest either side had come to a goal was them from their one fucking solitary attack. It was jarring. The second half was basically the same only this time they scored from their one opportunity. I thought it was offside at the time and I haven’t seen any replays that convince me otherwise. That’s been noticeable in Europe this year. The threshold on offsides seems to be less tight than it is in the PL and we don’t always get the lines shown on TV either (we benefitted a few times from that). I don’t think that goal would count in the Premier League but I might be wrong. Until I see a replay showing that Vinicius Jr’s shoulder isn’t ahead of the last man though I’ll feel mildly aggrieved about that. I’m more aggrieved that we couldn’t score though. The worst part is that when that goal went in, deep down I knew we’d lost. Obviously you keep hoping, but I can’t explain why, I just knew in my heart that we weren’t going to score. It wasn’t just me either. Our entire group were the same. We all knew we were fucked if we conceded first as it never felt like we were going to score. Even when he had chances there was just no real conviction. And Courtois looked like he wasn’t going to be beaten by anything. He’d been running his mouth in the build up about how Madrid never lose finals. Carvajal made a jibe too about how he hopes Mo will be able to cope with losing to them twice or something like that. It pissed me off but it’s up to our lads to ram their words back down their throats and they didn’t do it. Courtois was right. He talked the talk but he walked the walk too. He did what Mo did except unlike Mo he backed it up with his performance. I’ve never liked that Postman Pat looking goon but he did go on social media this morning to say he felt bad for the Liverpool fans who were mistreated and he hopes everyone got home ok. He didn’t need to do that and I appreciate that he did. I also respect anyone who runs their mouth but then backs it up. It’s just so galling that we lost to a team who basically approached the game like Everton, Newcastle, Villa and all those other inferior teams do when they come up against us. This isn’t sour grapes as I’m more disappointing in what we did than what they did. I’m not criticising Ancelotti for those tactics because it fucking worked and in a final winning the game is the only thing that matters. It’s no fluke either, he’s like Kryptonite to Klopp. He clearly knows how to stifle Klopp teams because he’s done it before with players who aren’t as good as he has at Madrid. I don’t know exactly what went wrong. We did create some chances but I think the writing was on the wall from the moment Courtois made a great save to tip Sadio’s shot onto the post, and then got incredibly fortunate when the ball bounced back and hit him but stayed out. They almost always end up in the net but it’s Real Madrid in the European Cup. Bad fortune just never comes their way does it? It’s weird that we had loads of shots but most of us probably felt that we were never going to score. There were too many bad crosses, the set-pieces were fucking woeful and when we did get good opportunities we just weren’t clinical enough. The one moment when it looked like maybe this would be it was when Mo went through late on. His first touch was sensational and he did everything right. Actually going on the outside for once instead of cutting back in. Courtois made a great save and that was that. When that didn’t go in I knew it was all over. Mo had six shots on target apparently. I barely remember most of them. There was one when he arrived at the back post and was blocked by Courtois. That annoyed the fuck out of me because instead of just attacking the ball he adjusted his run to get on his left foot and that split second could be the difference between Courtois making the save or not. I don’t think the subs helped us at all either, although I understand the logic behind it as something needed to change. Thiago was never going to play 90 minutes but I wouldn’t have subbed Hendo. Certainly not for Keita, but that’s probably my bias kicking in. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a position where I’ve thought “bring Naby on, he’ll sort this out”. Maybe it’s just me though. I’m going for Milner all day when the stakes are this high. Tell you what though, when Keita fucking skied that shot I’d have subbed him on the spot, not just for Milner, but for Curtis or Harvey. Even Ox. I know that’s the meathead in me talking and that’s not the right thing to do and would never happen, least of all with Klopp making the decisions. But I was - and still am - disgusted at how shit that was. This is harsh based on that one moment, I know that and don’t need telling. Nevertheless, I really hope we sell him this summer. I know this is knee jerk and it probably seems like I’m making him a scapegoat. I admit I am definitely lashing out at an easy target, but I’m not making him a scapegoat for this. Far from it. Let me make this clear; we did not lose this game because of Naby Keita. On a list of reasons why we lost it, he isn’t even on it. I’m not blaming him for anything. I just want us to fuck him off as I’ve seen enough. I just can’t warm to him at all and it’s been four years now. After four years we shouldn't still be waiting for him to really show what he can do. We've seen who he is now and he's just ok. I want better than 'ok' for my fourth midfielder. I want someone amazing who will put pressure on or even displace one of the other three. That chance he put into orbit, did anybody actually think he would put that away? He’s literally the last person in the entire squad I would have wanted that falling to in such a big moment. Cometh the hour cometh the man, and he’s most definitely not the fucking man. The fact he’s wearing the number eight shirt just makes it more galling. We have a squad full of winners. Lads who delivered for us on the biggest of stages. Mentality Monsters. And then there’s Naby, who is an Arsenal player in all but name. A flakey, inconsistent, unreliable, lightweight, fair weather player who can look good when things are going well for the team but shrinks like a set of bollocks in the cold when the pressure is on. As I say, he’s an Arsenal player. Get rid and bring in a top player who will deliver every week and put genuine pressure on the established three. A midfield version of the Diaz signing. Enough of that though, I don’t want to be singling Naby out when he is most definitely not the reason we were so disappointing in the final third. That's not on him, despite his heinous shooting. I always say that we’ll only go as far as the front three (whoever they are) takes us so therein lies the big problem we had here. I say that because the rest of the team tend to perform virtually the same way every week. Our performances don’t fluctuate too much, we control almost every game we play, dominate possession and we’re really hard to play against. How successful we are largely depends on what happens up top and whether they take their chances. So many times I can remember writing stuff like “we won 2-1 but this was really a 5-1 game”. Too often we let teams hang around in games where they've been played off the fucking park. When they don’t take their chances we often find it difficult and have to grind it out. Usually we find a way but our fate generally depends on if the front three are at it or not. They usually are but this time they just weren’t really at the races. Mo did what he’s been doing ever since he got back from AFCON. He’s had fucking loads of these games where it just hasn’t happened for him. He’s not glaringly bad and his finishing hasn’t been terrible, but for whatever reason he’s just not getting it done. With pre-AFCON Salah we win this game. No question about it. But he’s just been very average in front of goal now for four months. And he looks a bit daft after all of his “revenge” talk. There was nothing wrong with anything he said but if you’re going to talk like that you need to deliver in the big game. The greats do that, in whatever sport. The greats say what they’re going to do and they do it. Bottom line, Mo just didn’t deliver. That might seem harsh but when you call yourself the best player in the world (as he has) then you have to show that in the biggest moments. Three finals, no goals. Hmmm. Not good. Diaz did even less. Seriously disappointing display from him against a full back who really shouldn’t have been able to live with him. Carvajal completely marked him out of the game though. Diaz is probably my biggest disappointment as I expected so much from him in this game. He’s shone in both cup finals prior to this but the game looked too big for him. It was his first CL Final though so that's his excuse. What's the excuse for the other two? Sadio wasn't great but he was easily the pick of the forward line. I’m damning him with feint praise there though. It’s like being the least bitter Evertonian. Not the swansong he wanted, although I'm still waiting for clarity on what the fuck he meant by "I have great news". I had absolutely no faith in Jota bringing anything from the bench because he’s done nothing for months now. Bobby was sent on as a last roll of the dice but he was never going to do anything either. I thought he was alright in fairness. I don’t have any complaints about him but he’s just not someone I ever see as being a game changer off the bench late in games. In hindsight though if we could do it all over again I’d start him and have Diaz coming off the bench. God I wish Divock had been available. The front five have been a huge reason for us going as far this season as we did and I love them all. But we’re at a crossroads now and there are questions that need answering. Firstly, Mo’s contract. His demands are beginning to look stupid now based on his form in 2022. You can ask for 350-400k a week when you’re doing what he did from August to December, but you’ll get laughed out of the room based on what we’ve seen since. Personally I’m probably not giving him what he wants, on principle as much as anything else. “You want to be paid like “the man” then fucking play like “the man” and deliver in finals like Gerrard did. Then we’ll talk about that massive salary”. But if he’s adamant that he’ll be here next season no matter what then something has to give, either with him or with the others. My preference would be to call Mo’s bluff and give him a final take it or leave it offer. If he refuses then I’d invite bids for him. I really want Mané to stay but if Salah is determined to do a Bosman then the club might look to recoup some cash by allowing Sadio to go. Bobby should go now too really, simply because we can’t extend his contract on the current terms as he’s no longer worth that kind of money. I'm happy for him to stay his final year though, especially as I doubt he'd bring in that much of a fee in the current market. Jota is worrying me slightly now. Which is the real Jota? Is it the Fowler clone we saw in the first half of the season, or the pale imitation of it we’ve had since? Ideally I’d want to keep all five but the contract issues make that impossible really. It must be giving Julian Ward sleepless nights but big decisions are needed now. This is going to sound ridiculous considering how many goals we’ve scored and how many games we’ve won, but we’re really not that clinical. We score so many because we create so much. It feels like we miss too many chances though, so in games like this one when we don’t create unlimited chances that can be a problem. That’s three cup finals in a row where we haven’t scored. In the two domestic ones we created fucking loads of chances and didn’t take any. In this one we weren’t at our best but still had loads of shots. No goals though. I feel like a twat for even bringing this up when we’ve had such an amazing season. I love this team. It’s the best we’ve had and I love watching them. It’s all about context really. What they’re doing is unprecedented but that’s part of the frustration. These lads should be seen as the greatest team to ever play the game but to do that they need the silverware. They’ve won plenty but, and this will sound ungrateful when it really isn’t, they should be winning more. They should have won this, which would then have led to opportunities in the Super Cup and World Club Cup. Klopp will feel the same way, as will the players. They may never say it publicly but they will 100% be thinking they’re a better team than the trophy haul shows. Because they are. I’m by no means complaining about what they’re giving us, I’m merely talking about what is needed for them to get that little bit extra that would have secured a quadruple and made them immortals. Becoming more clinical is top of the list for me. Klopp has evolved the team every summer by making adjustments and improvements to the playing style as much as to the personnel. What is the plan this summer? There will be one, because Klopp and his staff are always looking to make tweaks and evolve our style. The uncertainty surrounding the original front three really complicates things and my gut feeling now is that we’ll probably break them up and bring in a clinical centre forward type. It won’t be Kane despite recent rumours, but maybe it will be that someone like that Darwin Nunez lad, who looked like a good finisher when he played against us. The midfield also needs bolstering. Bellingham would be nice but that seems unlikely now Dortmund have lost Haaland. The lad at Monaco has been strongly linked but might be headed to Madrid. Clearly we need something there though because there’s no point keeping Ox as he never plays, Milner is not going to feature much and Keita either needs a new contract or he needs to be moved on for whatever we can get for him (please God be the latter). Those are questions for another day though really. I’m probably not in the right frame of mind to be objective on it either. I’m not thinking straight really. For example, I’ve got a downer on Mo right now, partly because it looks like Sadio is going to leave even though we’re no closer to getting Salah tied down. Haggling over money and having your agent act the twat when the goals are no longer flowing isn’t especially endearing, but if I’m honest then had we won this game I wouldn’t be arsed about the contract situation. We didn’t win the game though and he didn’t score, so yeah I’m lashing out a bit in his direction. I may feel bad about that in a day or two but that’s how I feel right now. I hope Mo has learned a lesson from this. I know I have. I too was full of bravado and all that “I want Madrid, it’s payback time”. You know what though, fuck all that. I want no part of them ever again because there’s something intangible about them and this competition. There is with us too, it’s just stronger with them unfortunately. We’d have beaten anybody else in this final. Anyone. It might have needed penalties again but we’d have won. Not Madrid though. 14 wins from 17 finals is mental, and it’s been obvious for months that their name was on this trophy. I dismissed it because we’re clearly a better team, but there’s something in it because they’re really not that good yet they somehow overcame PSG, Chelsea, City and us despite being outplayed by all of them. So forget all talk of “we owe them” and revenge missions. I’ve learned my lesson now, I want to avoid them if at all possible, the arrogant fucks. Of course now we’ll have to endure the mocking from all the sad little banter cunts throughout the nation. The worst will of course be the Bluesers. Bottom line here is we won half of the competitions we were in, we lost another by one point and we also got beat in a final. Some failure that, eh? These are rich people problems. We’ve been swimming every day in our indoor heated pool, while the next door neighbours look on enviously from the paddling pool they got from Lidl which they have to keep topping up with hit water from the kettle. Then they couldn’t even use the paddling pool because the dog shit in it. Instead they stood with their snotty little noses pressed up against our window, watching us having a great time for 10 months in our lovely, warm, private Olympic sized pool, Then the filter broke and we couldn’t swim for a week, and suddenly the neighbour is there banging on the window, pointing and laughing his scruffy little fucking head off. Sad cunt. I hope his house burns down next year. With Richarlison trapped in it. It’s not just Everton either, most of these other knobheads too. Our ‘failures’ would be their greatest achievement. So all of that is like water off a duck’s back. I don’t care about anything these dickheads want to try and throw at us as it means nothing. It’s like the mocking of the parade. No-one else would have had that and they know it. Klopp knows it too, as do all the lads. And that just gives them more fuel for next season. They were on the floor, then 24 hours later they’re on a massive high because of the homecoming they got. Anyone trying to take the piss at that is merely highlighting the jealousy they all feel because they could never have that, either because their team would never be good enough or because their fans just don’t have that in them. In most cases it’s both. I’ve said nothing so far about the events before and after the game because what is there for me to say? It’s a scandal, we all know what happened and who is and who isn’t to blame, but that won’t stop the bellends around this country ignoring facts to try and smear us with shit. Thankfully there were so many journalists caught up in all that shit beforehand that the story is being reported far and wide and accurately. UEFA tried blaming the fans but they found it’s not so easy to do that when loads of journalists are present and there’s camera phone footage all over social media. When the proposed Super League thing came about the only objection I had with it was that they wanted a closed shop with the same teams playing every year. That was stupid and unworkable so I was out. The basic concept of it though, I could have got on board with that. A new league that has fuck all to do with UEFA, with much better ticket allocation for teams who reach the final, what’s not to like about that? That Super League could have worked if they hadn’t been such greedy self preserving dickheads wanting to prevent other clubs gaining access. Fuck UEFA, fuck the French police and fuck the local PSG rats who were at the heart of most of the shit that went down. This is why I have no interest in going to finals. Athens was bad enough, after that I’d rather just stay here and watch in town with my mates. More power to anyone who goes though, but it’s not for me as the potential for this kind of shit looms large. So what now? A summer that could have been the greatest ever, basking in the glory of four (or even ‘just’ three) trophies now feels pretty flat. It shouldn’t, because what we’ve done this year has defied belief really as we still have two pieces of silverware. But it’s human nature isn’t it? It’s also recency bias. We’ve had two disappointments in a week and we’re also having to deal with the probable departure of Sadio now, while Mo continues to fuck about with not signing a contract. We should be buoyant, celebratory, but instead there’s a bit of a shadow over us this week. It will be lifted, Klopp will have something lined up to raise everyone’s spirits but I’m not really handling this well at the moment and just feel like licking my wounds for a bit. It’s been a long season and we all need a rest I think, not just the players. Just realised I haven’t done the star man. For me it’s Konate who was completely flawless. I’d have started Joel but that decision was vindicated spectacularly by that performance by Ibou. The kid is fucking amazing. Tell you what was weird about the game though. I barely remember even seeing Virgil. Has he ever had less to do in a game? Any defending we had to do came down the other side with Trent and Konate, who were both brilliant. Trent maybe got caught out on the goal but sometimes there’s really not much you can do. Usually he’s the one delivering crosses like that. Overall he defended Vinicius superbly I thought. As a team we did a brilliant job of not letting them counter attack. They hardly had any attacks but ultimately they didn’t any more because they scored from one. That’s what I mean about the performance was good aside from when we got in the final third. To restrict Madrid to as few counters as we did shows we did a lot right, but it’s fine margins in these big games and we’ve just got to find something to give us a little edge. We played Chelsea four times, City three times and Spurs twice. We also played Real Madrid once. Those were the best opponents we faced and in ten games we only won one of them. We only lost one too, so we’re really, really close to perfection here. That’s the only thing lacking really; in the tightest games against the best opponents we didn’t quite have enough. It’s not going to take much to tip the balance in the right direction for next season, but we need to get our business right and hopefully Klopp and the staff will add another wrinkle or two into our game to make us even better. They do that every summer. Whether it’s the high line, the introduction of Thiago or changing Trent’s role to get him on the ball more in dangerous areas, there’s always something and there will be again. We’ll see what that is, but I’m excited about it already. Reading this back, this report has probably been more downbeat than I’d like but the funny thing is that I don’t feel as bad at the end of it as I did at the beginning. I’ve watched the parade and seen the interviews with Klopp and the players and it’s taken a bit of the edge off the disappointment. I know in a few days I’ll be over it and looking forward to what we do over the summer, but this was a tough one to accept because as I said earlier, it’s just a huge opportunity missed. Klopp said afterwards to “get the hotels booked” for Istanbul next year. He has history for that kind of thing and it usually ends up going exactly the way he said. When they come back after their holidays Kloppo will have the squad absolutely fucking champing at the bit for next year and the hurt they’re feeling now will no doubt spur them on, as will the reception they got when they came back for the parade. So that’s it then, another season over with and it was a fucking long one. Two games a week for virtually the whole season. That’s a lot of reports and podcasts we’ve had to do this year but it’s been great fun. Only four defeats in the entire season is incredible really. Hopefully it’s a similar story next season. Thanks to everyone for reading / listening. Your support for TLW genuinely means a lot to me. Have a great summer and let’s go again in August. Up the Reds! Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Firmino), Thiago (Keita); Salah, Mané, Diaz (Jota):

I can’t really think of an intro for this. I don’t know where I’ll end up going in this report either as there’s so much to cover and my mind is racing off in all kinds of different directions. I’ll start with Klopp’s assertion that it’s his most special final. It’s not mine, that is always going to be Istanbul, but I think this might be second you know. Doesn’t matter that it’s the League Cup and not one of the bigger prizes. It’s all about context and when you factor in everything that ultimately led to this victory, and how it made us all feel, this is right up there when it comes to the level of achievement. So much was against us going into the game, and then so much went against us during the game. Yet not only did we grab the late winner to spare everyone the agony of penalties, we did it by completely out playing Chelsea in extra time despite arguably only having one of our first choice eleven on the field. It’s kind of fitting that he scored the goal I guess, as he put the team on his back and was not going to allow us to come away from Wembley without that cup. I may as well talk about Virgil now. There’s not going to be much structure to this, I’m just going to write down whatever comes into my head so it’s not going to be in much of an order. I’m just going to type and see what comes out. So I’ll deal with Virgil first. Usually I wait until the end to say who the star man is but I’ll say it now; it’s the captain. Others were equally as impressive, but what Van Dijk did here is what the greats in other sports do. He was Michael Jordan in the NBA Finals. Patrick Mahomes in a Superbowl. What makes this more impressive is that unlike Jordan and Mahomes, he’s not really supposed to be the one “winning” games. His job is more about stopping us from losing it. He did both though. Defensively imperious, but also went up the other end and settled the game. Twice. Only one of them counted, but we know what he did even if the record books won’t show it. We’ve had the Gerrard Final and the Owen Final, but now we’ve got the Van Dijk Final. Not that it was a one man show by any means, but the big man captained a team that started without at least nine regular starting players and ended without several more, and he led them to an unlikely victory through sheer force of will. I very rarely go into games expecting anything other than a win. Even when the odds are against us I usually find a way to talk myself into it. At half time when we were 3-0 down to Milan I was having a piss and telling everyone in the bogs that we were still in it and just needed to get the next goal. I hadn’t given up hope when we needed to beat Barcelona by four goals. I usually always see a pathway to us winning. But fucking hell I had a massive dark cloud over me in the build up to this game. The uncertainty over Darwin and Mo was like a massive weight on my shoulders, it was all I could think about on Sunday morning. Prior to that I’d been ok because I assumed one or both would make it. Maybe Dom too. But when they ruled out it hit me hard. Suddenly little things started to become big things. Chelsea had lost five straight finals, which should actually be cause for optimism. But the air of misery I had over me just had me thinking “well that run is going to come to an end sooner or later, so probably today”. I was also stressing out because we’d played Luton in midweek with most of the line up that would be starting this, while Chelsea had a full week to prepare for us. Wembley is a notoriously draining pitch and now we’d been robbed of much of our pace. With Dom, Darwin and Mo we’d absolutely fucking destroy Chelsea like we did a few weeks ago. I haven’t mentioned Jota there purely because he’s out for a while and there was never any chance of him making this game, but we had hope that the others would make it. When they didn’t, it was just a massive blow. And because we spanked them a few weeks ago I was worried we were going to see a Crystal Palace situation when we beat them 9-0 and then lost to them in the cup later in the season. All of these negative thoughts were flooding my head. I was unloading all of it in the group chat, much to the annoyance of some of the lads who just aren’t used to me being like that. I couldn’t help it, I was dreading the game and was convinced we’d lose. I expected a great effort, I didn’t think we’d be shite, but I thought we probably wouldn’t have enough and we’d run out of gas. By the time kick off arrived I’d done an about face and felt confident that we’d win. Why? It sounds mad, but the thing that snapped me out of it was just watching Virgil in the tunnel and then when he was leading the lads out. He just had this look. A smirk, a look of complete and utter confidence like “I’ve got this lads”. Not just him either, the whole team seemed relaxed despite all of the absentees. On the flip side, I thought Chelsea’s players looked nervous as fuck.

Oh fucking hell, where do I even begin here? This is genuinely the biggest officiating scandal / catastrophe I can remember in this country. At this point, I don’t think there is anything I can say that is over the top or unreasonable, because everything is on the table here. When something this outlandish happens, you can’t rule anything out. But before I get to all of that I want to talk about the lads. Because that won’t get spoken about as much as it deserves to. I’m fine with that because the focus absolutely needs to be on what the officials did and that should be the main talking point in any football related show for some time to come. I’ll get to all of that in due course because you won’t be surprised to know I have a lot to say about it. But first, what a fucking heroic effort from our lads. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt prouder of my team than I did here. They were incredible and that is the most unjust defeat I’ve ever seen. The amount of shit they were having thrown at them, yet they kept fighting and fighting and refusing to yield. And they they lost to the cruelest of blows right at the death. Just heartbreaking, and yet it might just prove to be another thing that speeds up the development of this team as they become even stronger. You go through adversity and through it comes strength. We’ve seen it already this season and this is just more fuel they can use. We’ve seen it already. The defiance from the players as they thanked the travelling fans. Darwin giving it the beans, pounding his chest and getting the fans going. Then he goes on social media talking about how “its us against everyone”. You’re damn fucking right it is. I’ll call it now and I don’t give a fuck. We’ll win the league this season. We’re already fucking boss and we’ll get even better. If we don’t win the league it won’t be because we’re not the best team. It will be because of the kind of corruption some of us have always suspected was there and now is there in plain sight for all to see. If they keep fucking us then it’s going to be hard to overcome that. If somehow the heat from this means they have to start calling our games down the middle, then God help everyone because these boys are going to run all over everyone. I kept saying last season how we’d lost the eye of the tiger. Well it’s back. This group of players are hungry and fuck, talented as anyone and now they’re motivated like nobody else. Brighton thought this weekend was bad. Wait and see what happens next week when we roll into town with a score to settle. Spurs were being talked up a lot prior to this game. If it had stayed 11 v 11 we’d have tatted them. Probably by three or four at least. The signs were there, we looked like we could slice through them at will. Had it stayed 11 v 10 we’d have beaten them too. I could see that coming a mile off. Even with ten men we looked the more dangerous side and the gaps were there to be exploited. Darwin was ready to come on and finish them off, and then suddenly we were down to nine men and the plan had two change. And even with NINE FUCKING MEN we weren’t in trouble. Alisson had virtually nothing to do after Jota’s dismissal and it needed a fluke own goal for him to be beaten. The way we defended was perfect right up into Joel got his feet into a mess. Spurs can take the points from the game but - and they may kid themselves and think differently - there’s nothing else they can take from this because clearly they’re nowhere near us. We don’t take any points from it, yet I take much more confidence and belief from it than I had going in. This team is going to be special. Klopp knows it. The players know it. The fans are beginning to know it too. So all of that needed saying first and foremost. Now to the rest of it.

Well that was harder work than I expected it to be, but when you’ve got Divock Origi you’ve got nothing to worry about. Especially against Everton. He’s the bogeyman to them. They wake up in a cold sweat screaming his name in terror every time derby week comes around. I half jokingly suggested on the last couple of podcasts that we should be starting him against Everton. I’m not going to now say that it was a mistake not doing so, because the players we’re selecting ahead of him are world class and you can totally understand why Klopp went with them. In fact I’d be far more inclined to give Klopp credit for the fact he wasted little time in getting him on to win the game for us. The game absolutely changed with the arrival of Origi and Diaz, and we further strengthened our grip on it when Henderson was belatedly introduced too. Now that was someone who definitely should have started, but I’ll get to that in a bit. It was fitting that the goal that made the game safe was fashioned by the three lads who came on. It’s easy to say things might have been different had they all started but that’s just hindsight talking. The first half was awful, both as a spectacle and in how we played. Everton did what they had to and for that I offer no criticism. Tactically anyway. The rampant cheating is another matter, but in terms of them setting up with everyone behind the ball and just hoping to sneak the odd counter attack, well that’s exactly how they should be playing. There are two reasons for that. One, depending on your allegiance, we’re either the best or the second best team in the world. Secondly, Everton are proper fucking shit. I’m not saying that in general terms, the way we always would even when they were finishing sixth or seventh under Moyes. They are genuinely proper shit right now. They’re in the bottom three and they deserve to be there. Because they’re genuinely awful. So for them to come here and try to engage in a football match was only going to end in them getting the kind of spanking they’ve had regularly in recent seasons. Lampard played under Mourinho so he knows all about parking the bus. They did it pretty well I thought. Yes, we were really poor, but you have to acknowledge that they made it difficult for us and handled us well. Of course they did that with a flat back nine and Richarlison was the only player within snarling distance of our defenders, but as I say, what else can you expect them to do? They went into the game having dropped into the bottom three so there were as desperate as it gets. A point would have been a massive win for them. At half time they will have been delighted with how it went. From a football perspective they’d restricted us to virtually nothing. A Mané shot just over and a Jota effort that went wide were just about all we had to show for a dire 45 minutes. The bigger concern for me was the way frustration had set in with the crowd and our players. Everton’s diving, time wasting and general shithousing really rattled us. I compared it on the post match pod to being “like playing Atletico Madrid only without the good players”. This was straight out of the Simeone playbook. Constant dives, feigning injury, kicking off at the ref over every single decision, rampant time wasting, trying to start little skirmishes all over the park. And it worked as we got sucked right in to it. I’ve watched a lot of Everton in recent months. Usually I never bother, but because of their proximity to the bottom three I’ve taken far more of an interest in them of late and because of that I knew what Anthony Gordon was well before this game so nothing he did surprised me. This is who he is. It’s what he does. He’d rather dive than back himself to try and score. The first time I noticed what a cheating little fuck he was was when we played them at Goodison. I’m pretty sure he was one of three Everton players booked that day and he should have been booked twice for it. With the second one the ref bottled it and gave him a free-kick even though he hadn’t been touched. So that put him on my radar and he’s done it in every game I’ve seen since. There was one a few weeks ago when he won a pen against Burnley with an outrageous bit of cheating. Fuck all was said about it too. Everyone just said it was a pen and I thought I was going mad. How was it I was the only one who could see what he did? The answer is that people don’t want to see it. He’s a young English kid playing for a plucky underdog team. No-one wants to call him out on his cheating. Even now, after this, the focus is on the ‘penalty’ he didn’t get even though it’s clearly not a penalty. He initiates the contact himself when he was actually ahead of Matip and could have tried to score. As I said though, he doesn’t back himself to score because his real talent is not football, it’s diving. He’d been booked in the first half for a clear dive which he later described as “probably not a penalty but there was some contact”. Ok, some contact. Right. So explain the four rolls and the screaming in pain then if there was only minimal contact? He’s just a cheating little fucking rat. He was fouled not long after that when Trent nudged him in the back and sent him flying. The ref didn’t give it, just like he didn’t give the one in the second half when he tangled with Matip. Everton have written to Mike Riley to ask for an explanation on why they didn’t get a penalty. Honestly, the absolute fucking gall on these wankers. Gordon and Richarlison spent the entire game trying to con the referee by diving and pretending to be injured. If the referee then decides to rule against them on a call he’s not completely sure about, that’s only natural surely? The boy who cried wolf. It’s like Lampard kicking off on the touchline and Doucoure running around trying to boot anyone in red because we didn’t put the ball when Richarlison went down for the third time in the half (it may even have been fourth, I lost count). No-one believed Richarlison was injured because why would you? He was at it all game, so when he went down under no sort of challenge from anyone, the entire ground (including the Everton end) thought he was taking the piss again. So we didn’t put the ball out, and Doucoure takes the law into his own hands, sparking a confrontation in the middle of the pitch that ended with Sadio being yellow carded for shoving Coleman in the face. On another day that could have been a red card and it was silly from him to get involved in that shit. That’s what they wanted. Doucoure was booked for chopping down Fabinho to start the whole thing, but none of that happens if Richarlison and Gordon hadn’t been trying to con the ref from the opening whistle. Lampard and Klopp were going at it too, but again, that doesn’t happen if they weren’t playacting. It was a wretched 45 minutes in which no football was played and the ball was own play for about 10 minutes. Pickford took an age on every goal kick, he took even longer when he had the ball in his hands and the smug little tit was loving every minute of it. The way he kept collapsing to the floor every time he caught a cross, what a little fucking bellend he is. He’s such a tit that even Alisson felt the need to mock him, and he’s the nicest man on the planet who will turn the other cheek to anything. Pickford will never learn will he? He’s actually the living embodiment of modern Everton. Any time he does shit like that he ends up with egg on his face. I remember him winding up the Newcastle fans and then throwing one in late in the game. That’s just pure Everton. Like throwing a flare onto the pitch when Van Dijk skied a volley only to then see Origi heading into the net three seconds later. Or like invading the pitch after an equaliser at Bournemouth, causing a load of extra stoppage time to be added which allowed Bournemouth to score a winner. This is what they do. Every fucking time. Why would you ever get chesty if you were connected to Everton? It always, ALWAYS comes back to bite you. But at half time I did have some concerns. I mentioned to a couple of the lads I meet with in the concourse under the Main Stand that the feeling I had as that half unfolded was a bit like how it felt in that Chelsea game in 2014. The parked bus opponent, the rampant shithousing, the frustration starting to get to everyone. There were definite shades of that game here. The differences are that Everton aren’t Chelsea, this Liverpool are not that Liverpool, and we’ve got Divock Origi. The second half was undoubtedly better, but if I’m being completely honest, the first ten minutes or so reminded me even more of that Chelsea game. We did exactly the same thing we did on that day. We just pushed everyone miles up the pitch and left 70 yards of space for the opponent to run into any time our attack broke down. Everton had three or four of those breakouts because we were all so high up the pitch. Most of the time all ten of our outfield players were within 35 yards of their goal. So when we lost it, they would just look for Gordon to run into the space left by Trent. Iwobi got away in that space too on one occasion. None of it led to anything because Everton are shit. I suppose that factored into the risk we took. It’s worth pushing right up on them because chances are they wouldn’t be good enough to punish us. I doubt we’d have done that against better opposition. Klopp said that we just played poorly in the first half and they needed to make some adjustments so we could get in behind them. I actually said that myself at half time. Everything was in front of them, we didn’t get behind them at all and the passing was too slow and the tempo not what we needed it to be. I could see all of that but I wouldn’t know how to fix it. Thankfully Klopp and the staff do and they always have video clips ready to show the players to point out where the space is and what they should do to exploit it. All of those things improved in the second half but it wasn’t until the subs came on that we were able to make it count. The personnel changes helped but so did the system switch. Basically 4-2-4, and Everton couldn’t cope because it threw them out of the defensive shape they were in. Suddenly we had players able to find space. Mo had tried that cut inside and look for a one-two thing several times with no joy, but as soon as Div came on it worked. Mo found him, Div held it and then popped it back to him, Mo crosses into the middle and Robbo arrived round the back to head past Pickford. If I could have picked any player to score a vital goal at the Kop against Everton it would have been Robbo. Trent would have been a close second, but Robbo is definitely who I’d have most wanted to see get that goal. He loved it and because he doesn’t get to experience that very often it means more to him (and us) than it does when it’s Salah, Mané, Jota etc What a moment. It completely changed the flow of the game too because from the restart Everton immediately lined up like they were in an actual game of football. Suddenly there was space between their midfield and defence. 30 yards of it in fact. It was incredible seeing the difference in how they were now set up. And I knew then it was over because if they have to take us on in a game of football they have no chance. We had space to play in now and we just started to look much more dangerous. They had a couple of moments too. Gordon stayed on his feet for once and then dragged a shot wide, showing exactly why he usually looks for the dive rather than the shot. Gray fizzed a brilliant effort just wide too. What a strike that was. He was invisible for the rest of the game but I do like him, he’s too good for Everton and whoever picks him up will be getting a decent player. But those were isolated moments and we looked like we had more goals in us. Matip had a header cleared off the line and Salah lashed the rebound over the bar. Then Pickford had to scramble across to keep out a deflected Thiago shot. And then Divock struck. Hendo crossed to the back stick, Diaz went with the acrobatic volley across goal and there was the man himself lurking on the back post to head past Pickford from close range. We’ve seen that movie before. This sequel wasn’t as funny but it was still enjoyable. Even on a day when we were miles from our best we still had moments to remember. Divock scoring again, Robbo’s celebration, the Diaz Rabona trap, Alisson trolling Pickford and yet another Kloppo fist pumping celebration in front of the Kop. It’s great being us isn’t it? I want to pay tribute to Hendo here because when he came on he showed exactly what we’d been missing until then. Not just with his passing and energy (which really gave us something at a time when we needed it), but just with his savvy and know how. Look at how he dealt with Richarlison. Had the ref done his job that twat would have been sent off and it would have been completely down to Hendo playing him like a fiddle. He’d had to sit there watching from the bench as that shithouse was rolling around, stopping the game and generally just riling everyone up. I guarantee Hendo knew exactly what he was going to do if he got on, and we saw him do it. He was harassing Richarlison and he was always going to foul him, but he’d do it in a way that just looks like he’s been a bit over eager in his pressing. Hendo got tight to him, nudged him, held him, chipped away at him until Richarlison did what he always does - fall to the floor. And that’s when Hendo kicks the ball out of play while making sure he left a bit on the grounded Richarlison too. He knew by doing that he’d provoke a response from the petulant little twat and sure enough he did. That’s a red card and had it not been 2-0 the ref would probably have sent him packing and Hendo’s plan would have been carried out to perfection. He’s the one player in the squad who knows how to deal with shithouses. Milner too, although his approach is less crafty as he tends to just clatter them. If we were allowed to use five subs now I’d have defo sent Milner out there with instructions to boot Richarlison and Gordon. Not that he’d even need telling. We missed Hendo in this game though and I don’t how what the logic was in going with Naby over him for this particular fixture. That’s not any kind of shot at Keita, it’s just that Hendo is fucking boss against Everton. Hopefully he’ll never get another chance to prove that though, not in the league anyway. I’m be more than happy to get them in the early rounds of the cup now and again, just to inflict a bit more pain on them. Yeah, I desperately want them to go down and quite honestly I struggle to understand how any Red feels differently. Actually that’s not quite true. I understand that some Reds don’t want to see their Blue friends and family members have to deal with a relegation. I don’t feel that way myself, but I get it. What I don’t get is people wanting them to stay up for the good of the city or because they’d miss the derby games. Funnily enough, before the game I saw one of the lads from the forum who I hadn’t seen in a while and he was saying he didn’t want them to go down. He wouldn’t be bothered if they did, but he couldn’t bring himself to wish for it. I said “That’s fine, I can wish hard enough for both of us”. He messaged me after the game and said “I’ve changed my mind since we spoke before the game. Fuck them the little mongrels”. Quite. I do understand the sentiment about how no more derbies means no more of the countless hilarious moments we’ve had with late winners, absolute spankings and Pickford making a tit of himself. Playing against them often sees us deliver something special that will live long in the memory, but that’s actually why I’m happy for them to go down and never come back. I’ve got loads of great derby memories I can relive. I don’t need any new ones. If the consequence of them going down and disappearing without trace is that we don’t get to play them anymore, that’s a small price to pay and I’m more than willing to pay it. Yeah, of course it’s great when we beat them and more often than not we do just that, but it’s not all Pickford clangers, Origi goals and us taking the piss out of them and their purple flares. There’s downsides to playing them too. There’s the wild, out of control challenges from their overly amped players, the nasty shit that often comes from their away end (nowhere near as unrelentingly vile as United, but it’s still pretty bad at times), there’s Richarlison, Pickford’s face, Anthony fucking Gordon’s face, Richarlison, Anthony Gordon’s diving, Calvert-Lewin’s diving… did I mention Richarlison? Of course if they go down that doesn’t mean we won’t see Richarlison and Pickford again. They won’t hang around in the Championship and Everton couldn’t afford to keep them anyway. So they’ll resurface somewhere else. Probably at United as Evertonians can continue supporting them then. I’ll despise them wherever they end up but it won’t be as bad as when they’re playing for Everton because they just won’t be as rabid when they play us. No-one ever is. Even mild mannered players because vile little scrotes when derby day comes around. Coleman for example. Holgate is another. Anyway, I don’t want to say too much more about them and their relegation fight. I am desperate for them to go down though so all being well they will do. As for us, we keep on rolling. We don’t need to play well to win but life is so much easier when we do turn on the style. I thought we’d smash Everton everywhere but it was clear from quite early on that we just didn’t have our A Game with us. That’s fine, on those days just go out and win. We did that and all we can do is continue to rack up the wins and hope City slip up somewhere. It was never going to happen this weekend so I don’t feel in any way disappointed or disheartened. In fact, I’m kind of relieved that we still have a goal difference advantage because City playing Watford meant there was a possibility that would be wiped out completely. A four goal margin of victory for them almost feels like a mini win for us. Our attentions now turn to Europe again and the first leg against Villarreal. I expect quite a few changes for that one as I want to see us go strong at Newcastle on Saturday. We should be able to mix things up a bit on Wednesday (not too much though) and still perform to the level we need to, and it would make sense to bring in some fresh legs as Klopp hasn’t really made too much changes in recent games. I’d suggest that Kostas, Konate, Diaz, Henderson and Jones should all come in but we’ll see what Kloppo has up his sleeve. Star man is a toss up between Robbo and Divock, but I’ll go for the living legend because he pulled it out of the bag for us yet again. He’s an absolute marvel in the way he can just come in out of the cold and deliver in big moments. We’ll really miss him when he goes. Maybe there’s a twist in the tale yet and he could be persuaded to stay for another year, especially as five subs will be allowed from next season. I can’t see it happening but I know that I feel a hell of a lot happier knowing that we’ve got him in those ‘break glass in case of emergency’ moments. Still, if Everton go down Div can probably just ride off into the sunset knowing his work here is done. What a man. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Keita (Origi), Thiago; Salah, Mané (Diaz), Jota (Henderson):

It’s nice when a game goes pretty much as expected and how it should do. I said it when we played Arsenal, that was a game where we should be twatting them because they’re just perfectly set up for us to exploit. And exploit we did. This one was a little different in that it had nothing to do with their style of play being a good match up for us, it was just a case of us being miles better than them. They shouldn’t be able to live with us, and it turns out they couldn’t. The only way we were not going to win this game, and win it handsomely, would be if we went out there and basically threw up all down ourselves. Everton have nothing that we should be worried about. They’re a lower/mid table team, without their main goal threat, they’re in terrible form and their fans fucking hate them. Everything was pointing to a big away win for us and that’s what happened. That doesn’t make it any less enjoyable though. This was fucking boss. It was an absolute beatdown and even though the game appeared to be in the balance for a time when it was 2-1, realistically it was never really in doubt given the huge gulf in class between the two sides. The home crowd were furious, obviously. They always are. The life of an Everton presents two options. Misery or anger. Sometimes the two cross over, but generally Blues fall into one category or the other. It must be the most miserable of existences. In terms of this game though I don’t know what they were wanting from their team. They were booed off, the atmosphere was toxic and Rafa will bear a lot of the brunt of it. Here’s the thing, and this isn’t a defence of Benitez in any way. I haven’t done that since some time around late 2008. This is simply a fact. Everton are not a good football team, irrespective of who the manager is. Liverpool on the other hand, are probably the best team in the world when firing on all cylinders, which we are pretty close to doing at the moment. United lost 5-0 at home to us. Arsenal and Southampton were swept aside 4-0. Watford, who beat Everton 4-1 the other week, conceded five to us a week prior to that. So I would ask Evertonians, what exactly did you expect here? You can’t live with us. We’re in a completely different league currently and if this game was played ten times, this probably wouldn’t even be the biggest beating you’d take. That’s not bravado, or gloating, or any of that. It’s just a fact. Look at how we started this game. We had two gilt edged chances in the first two minutes. The opening 20 minutes of this game we were imperious and much better sides than Everton wouldn’t have been able to cope with it. You could see that our lads had a score to settle after the two derby games last season and there was just no way Everton were going to be able to withstand that. The Blues can get angry with Rafa and their players all they like, but it’s stupid. It’s like putting Ronnie Corbett in the ring with Mike Tyson and then berating him when he gets battered. This was a mismatch, pure and simple. We went into this game with our best eleven players (you can argue the toss over Bobby and Jota if you like, but I don’t think that’s even really a debate now with how dangerous Jota is) and our best eleven players are scary as fuck. You hear all the time from opposing players and managers just how hard it is to play against us, so a team with Michael Keane as the defensive lynchpin and Saloman Rondon leading the line is always going to be in trouble. From the opening seconds our lads were right at it. We forced a corner immediately and Matip should have scored. Poor header that, but he is very much hit and miss in those situations. A minute later Mo should have scored when for some reason he went with his left foot rather his head from a Robbo cross. In fairness he was probably expecting Pickford to being doing something mad, such as flying through the air with his boot raised like Bruce Lee. The Blues were rattled right from the start of the game. It’s almost like they knew they’d angered the beast last season and now was the moment they were getting what was coming to them. Coleman and Pickford had a big bust up within seconds, which showed how on edge they were. Imagine how Evertonians must have been feeling. Two minutes, two absolutely glorious chances for us. They knew they were in for a long night. A blue in Adrianna’s school group chat posted that he’d switched it off after that second chance. Smart kid, he knew what was coming and wasn’t going to upset himself by watching it. Same with some of the fans who’d actually paid for tickets, although they waited longer than two minutes before bailing on their team. Many of them left when the second goal went in though, one of them clearly making a “wall pushers” gesture to the away end as he left. It was like the Alamo back there for the Blues and Pickford had to make a really smart save to get down low and turn away a close range Mo shot after another cross by Robbo, who was running riot down that left wing. The goal had to come eventually and it was no surprise it originated down that left side again. Hendo played a ball up to Sadio who did well to head it to himself before playing in Robbo. His cutback was definitely meant for Sadio but it ended up falling perfectly to the onrushing Hendo, 28 yards out on his left foot. Be honest, who fancied him to put that away? Not me. On his right foot, yeah I’d have said there was a decent chance he’d convert. I didn’t see that finish coming though. Stunning. Absolutely perfect strike, started it a foot outside the post and curled it back inside to give Pickford no chance. The goal provoked a bit of a response from Everton who tried to push forward a bit and strike back. Big mistake, as that just gave us more room to pick them apart. One of their ‘attacks’ broke down and before you knew it Hendo was sending Salah racing clear past the hapless Lucas “better than Robertson ye no lad” Digne. Everyone knew what Mo wanted to do, including Pickford, but he did it anyway. It doesn’t take much for me to blame Pickford for anything, but I don’t think he could have done much there. If he’d moved a step or two over to cover that corner, he’d have left a massive gap at his near post and Mo could have just rolled it in there. This goal was brilliance from Salah, it was not an error from Pickford. 2-0 though and it looked like it was going to be a landslide. A scoreline for the ages. Then the game kind of got a bit scrappy. They were throwing in a few tackles and Thiago was repeatedly being pulled up for phantom free kicks that slowed our momentum. It was mad how often their players resorted to diving though wasn’t it? I expected heavy challenges, but I wasn’t expecting diving like that from anyone other than that Richarlison cunt. Amazingly, he didn’t do it at all while his team-mates were throwing themselves all over the gaff. Paul Tierney deserves a lot of credit for how he handled it. He booked Townsend for a dive and then he did the same thing to Gray. It’s really difficult for refs as they only get one look at these incidents and it’s quite a big call to essentially just call a player a cheat when there’s always the possibility that there was contact that you didn’t see. He was dead right on both of those though. He would later miss perhaps the most blatant dive of them all when Gordon went flying through the air after zero contact from anybody. Tierney awarded a free-kick for that but I can’t criticise him for that as I’m not sure there’s a referee on the planet that would have booked a third home player for diving in the same game. He was always going to give one of them because apart from anything else, he must have thought “there’s no way they’re still diving after I’ve booked two of the cunts. It must have been a foul”. That free-kick indirectly led to our third goal but I’ll get to that shortly. In between our second and third goals it didn’t go too well. I think the problem was we didn’t score a quick third goal. At 2-0 and with chances being created at will, Everton were on the verge of being knocked out completely. The crowd were fearing the mother of all beatings, as were the players. But the third goal didn’t come straight away and slowly but surely Everton’s players gained a bit of hope. Not so much hope that they’d get anything from the game, but that maybe they’d weathered the worst of the storm. Allan was booked for a foul on Jota, who was furious and was demanding a red card. I didn’t think it was that bad. A yellow was fine, but Jota was needling them all night. He’s got that little bit of snark in him and I love that. Tempers were getting a bit frayed at that point though and I was fairly sure there would be a red card for someone. They had more players in the book than we did, but Thiago was a concern for me. He was booked for ‘persistent fouling’ but there was nothing in anything he was penalised for. One free-kick against him was laughable as he was just stood still, having his shirt pulled by Townsend, who then went down and was given the decision. That contributed to the yellow card so that pissed me off, mainly because it put Thiago at risk. We know he likes to stick his foot in at times when he probably shouldn’t and that was the only chance Everton had of getting anything from the game. As it got scrappy and we stopped playing our high intensity football, the game became more even. They had the ball as much as we did, and while they didn’t look particularly dangerous they were at least carrying some threat now and spent a bit of time in our half. And then they scored. It was a good goal too from their perspective. Not so good from ours. I thought Trent was too slow getting over to cover behind Matip and that left a big gape for Gray to run into. He got a bit lucky with the finish as it went through Alisson’s legs, but I thought he was the only Everton player that looked even remotely dangerous. He’s only been there five minutes but he looks too good for them. He should be looking to move on to a more competitive team, like West Ham or Villa. It was proper annoying that we found ourselves only 2-1 up though considering the huge gulf in class. I wouldn’t say I was worried, but I was frustrated and in the back of my mind there was a concern that they might nick another and if it got to 2-2 then who knows. The more likely scenario was we’d go in at half time and Klopp would tell them to raise the intensity and show them where the space was to attack, and make sure they got a grip of Gray who was the only one capable of hurting us. And that’s what happened. The game was kind of in the balance for a while though as it was only 2-1, even though it was clear that we were vastly superior to them. When they were awarded that free-kick for the Gordon dive, that could have been a pivotal moment for them. I thought Digne would have taken it but instead it was Townsend. He liked it too, but Virgil was in the wall and he jumped, meaning that’s a really difficult task getting the ball over him and back down onto the target. He couldn’t do it, Virgil got his head on it and it went behind for a corner from which we scored. I say this all the time but I genuinely think we must have scored more goals from opposition corners than they have. The funny thing is we actually bring everybody back to defend them, which might lull the opponent into a false sense of security. Usually we clear the first ball in but the second ball will often fall to one of their players outside the box. They then have the choice to knock it back in, or play safe and go backwards. In this case, Doucoure played it back to Coleman on halfway but it was an awkward ball to control and he had Salah bearing down on him. He should have just knocked it forward, but the risk there is when you do that it will probably be headed clear by us and then we’ll have four or five players screaming forward at 100mph on the break. So Coleman tried to control it, made a mess of it and was robbed by Mo. He still had a lot to do but he carried it forward, stayed ahead of Coleman and then rolled it wide of Pickford into the far corner. The finish reminded me of Owen against Arsenal in Cardiff. Didn’t need power, just directed it where it needed to go. And that was game over. The pyro came on the pitch from the away end as our lads celebrated in the red smoke. Everton weren’t coming back from that, it was now just a case of how hard we wanted to push for more goals. We didn’t push that hard, but I don’t think we settled for what we had either. The lads wanted to humiliate the Blues after the shit that went down last season. No-one wanted it more than Virg, although I didn’t like it when he pulled rank on a free-kick at 2-1 and took the ball off Trent. He’s maybe taken one free-kick for us in four years, but because he was desperate to put one past Pickford he let that get the better of him. If we were two or three goals up then I don’t care if he wants to take a shot from inside his own half. Go for it. At 2-1 now I didn’t like it, especially as Trent scored with the last free-kick he took. It’s a minor quibble though and I obviously understand where Virgil’s head was at there. I just didn’t think that was the time for that. Klopp brought Thiago off and sent Milner on. Smart move, and Milner was fucking boss I thought. So was Thiago, but that yellow card made it an obvious substitution to make. The fourth goal was probably my favourite of the night. The touch from Jota was sublime. The finish was great too, although Pickford left a big gap and did his best to make himself look small. So much of what Jota does reminds me of Fowler. I’m not putting him at Robbie’s level as he isn’t the kind of football genius that Fowler was. But loads of his goals have got that look of Fowler about them, this one included. Ox came on for Hendo and Taki got a late run out for Jota. Not gonna lie, I’m disappointed we didn’t send Divock on just to rub their noses in it even more. He’s Everton’s bogeyman and I wanted to see him out there, especially as he might have wrapped it up with yet another goal against them. The away end had a great time. Some of them will have been at Old Trafford too. They’ll remember those two games for the rest of their lives as there’s nothing quite like being able to take the piss out of your big rivals. Everton aren’t exactly rivals in a football sense anymore and haven’t been for some time. They’re rivals geographically now. That’s it. And now they’ve got Rafa as their manager which just makes it even funnier taking the piss. The “Rafa’s at the wheel” chant was funny as fuck. The La Bamba song got an airing too. Partly I’m sure out of affection for Rafa but mostly to rub Evertonian noses in it. Some of the videos from full time are hilarious. The booing, the abuse of Kenwright and Brands, and all the while you can hear the “Merry Christmas Everton” song belting out from the away end. Just glorious. I think the best video I saw was a red who was sat in with their fans, undercover, and at the end he was joining in with the booing and shouting “time to go lad”. At one point you could even hear him shout “where’s the Arteta money, Bill?” Just fucking sensational stuff. Well played that lad. So the score is somewhat settled after last season although I still feel an absolute honking at Anfield is required to fully make them pay. I expect that to happen too, but that’s a long way off and there’s a lot of football to be played before then. We’re in a great run of form now and look like we’re in the groove. Everyone is playing well and picking a star man wasn’t that easy. I mean, I knew who I was giving it to but there were others in the conversation too. Mo was brilliant and scored twice, Jota was lively through out, Robbo is back to his best again. Trent was class, Matip was imperious, Fabinho was Fabinho. But Henderson was the best player on the pitch. What a fucking performance from him. Next up it’s Wolves. I’ll start to think about that probably about 10 minutes before kick off. Until then I’ll just bask in the glow of this one. What a team these lads are. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Thiago (Milner); Salah, Jota (Minamino), Mané:

Saturday May 22: Wow, as far as tributes go this one is pretty spectacular by Klopp. “Gini Wijnaldum. An LFC legend now and forever. What this person – this wonderful, joyful, selfless person – has done for our team and club I cannot sum up in words in truth because my English is not good enough. “He is an architect of our success. We have built this Liverpool on his legs, lungs, brain and his huge, beautiful heart. “If – and it is still is if – he goes, he does so knowing we as his teammates are eternally grateful for having this special human being come into our lives. I love him and he will always be family.” I’m intrigued by the ‘and it is still if’ part though. Why add that if it is definite that he’s leaving? I feel a bit like Lloyd Christmas here, but is he telling us there’s still a chance? Meanwhile, “Hamez” has taken the last couple of Everton games off due to ‘fatigue’ and posted this picture on his instagram, causing something of a fume with our neighbours. The irony in this is off the fucking scale. They signed him due to his social media clout, they bragged about him having more instagram followers than LFC, they embraced all these new fans from Colombia, and now they’re crying about the ‘content’ he’s putting out. It’s that content that got him all those followers, so you live by the smartphone you die by the smartphone. Losers. Sunday May 23: L 2 Palace 0. Third. Haha fucking hell. The rest of the league should be looking at that and wondering just how the fuck that happened, because we were dead and buried a couple of months ago. What a dog turd of a season though. Man City won the league without being anything special, but all of us who were meant to be challenging them fell massively short. People actually think United are City’s closest challengers when really they’re a million miles off. If they’d had to deal with what we did they’d have been relegated. Chelsea had to deal with Frank Lampard, Spurs and Arsenal are just a hot mess and even Leicester, one of the non-big six teams that should have taken advantage, well they choked like dogs in the run in for the second year running. What does any of this mean for next season? Honestly, I don’t think any of it means shit because this year was a complete outlier and none of what happened is relevant because these circumstances will never be repeated. Next season everyone starts with a clean slate and as of right now I’m not worried about City being ‘uncatchable’. That may change depending on who they buy though, because they are a couple of top quality players away from being out of reach I think, especially as we aren’t going to be competing for those players. I’m talking Kane, Sancho, Mbappe, Haaland, Grealish etc Now more than ever we need Edwards and Klopp to be the smartest people in the room Monday May 24: The kids lose the Youth Cup final to Villa. No complaints, they got fucking battered in the first half and were lucky to only be 2-0 down. The second half was better and they had opportunities to take the game to extra time but couldn’t take them. The only one who impressed even a little bit was James Norris. I thought all the others were below par and the ones who you would have been looking to step up were the most disappointing. Koumetio, Balagizi and Musialowski did nothing. That being said, it fucking stinks that this was a one off final played at Villa Park. That shit just isn’t right. Either have it two legs (as it always used to be) or play at a neutral ground. We had this a couple of years ago too when we had to play away at City. It’s shit, but it’s like virtually every other change made to the game in recent years. None of it makes anything better. Meanwhile, it looks like Konate is close to a done deal and some reports say we’re paying more than his buy out clause just so we can pay in instalments rather than the whole lot up front. Makes sense as £40m is a big slice of the budget considering we need to strengthen in midfield and up top as well. Is the money going to be there for what we need? And if it’s not, then I want to know which cunt wouldn’t sanction the contract for Gini? There won’t be a permanent deal for Kabak though. I knew there wouldn’t be as it’s been pretty obvious for a while that he was not high on the list of targets. I think he may well have been good enough for us if the circumstances were different, but it’s not the right time for him. He did a top job though and can leave with his head held high. He’s played a lot of games in Germany but he’s still a kid and coming into the situation he found here was really not easy. He wasn’t perfect but he did what we needed him to. Maybe in a couple of years we’ll revisit it and if we do I’d be happy to see him back here as he seemed like a good lad as well as a promising player. Obviously they prefer Konate but I don’t know what that actually means for our spending. We could have had Kabak for £18m and freed up funds for other positions, but instead we’re paying £35m or whatever it is on Konate. Does that mean we’ve got more money to spend than people think, or did we just prioritise centre back over other positions? Tuesday May 25: Happy ‘sorry but I’m really not arsed about Istanbul Day’. Seen all the clips on social media, just skimmed over them all. Fair play anyone who still likes the trip down memory lane but I’m all Istanbul’d out now, especially with Chelsea and City preparing for a final this weekend. It didn’t annoy me though as it has in the past. It would have if we’d finished 5th, but because the season ended up being ok it didn’t seem too desperate. Nothing worse than when you’re shit and you have Istanbul thrown in your face. Meanwhile, Southgate bottles naming his squad and includes half a dozen or so extra players who will be cut next week. Just prolonging the suffering for some of those lads who know they aren’t getting in. Like Trent, if reports are to be believed. I just can't see Southgate being brave enough to make that call. Can’t remember if I mentioned this last week or not and can’t be arsed checking back to see if I did, so I’ll just say it again. Last week I had Talksport on in the car a few times and the talk was usually about the England squad. I heard four different pundits picking their squad and not one of them had Trent in it. Not even Martin Keown, who may not be everyone’s cup of tea but he’s not thick. But even he has bought into this weird bullshit about Trent somehow not being in England’s top three right backs. Never mind right backs, he’s one of their top three players!! They don’t deserve him. I really wish he was Scottish. Staying with full backs, although this one doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Trent, I thought these quotes from Alberto Moreno were quite interesting today. “To this day I don’t understand why I got so, so much criticism, when the whole team didn’t play well. The finger was pointed at one player and …” Moreno shrugs. “I don’t think that’s OK. People blame you. Only you. It was like I lost the final. It’s hard. You can’t get it out of your head. You look at the paper, at social media – I don’t usually pay much attention to social media because it’s all so false – and read things. ‘Alberto, Alberto, Alberto, Alberto.’ I’ll go to my grave not understanding why I got all the blame.' This may surprise you a little, but I mostly agree with him. The whole team was shite that night and Klopp didn’t cover himself in glory either with his inaction when the game was getting away from us. We didn’t lose because of Moreno, but what he seems to be unable to grasp is that until his brain farts we were well in control of that game. He turned the tide against us and then nobody was able to swim against it. So while what he says is mostly true, I’d think a lot more of him if he owned his own shit, because he’s a likeable lad other than that. Wednesday May 26: I don’t know exactly what has happened at the Hillsborough trial as quite frankly reading about it just makes me angry and depressed so I try not to follow it too closely. Basically though it has been stopped before it went to a jury, which means that 96 people were ruled to be unlawfully killed and fuck all has been done about it. None of those responsible were dealt with by the law because the system - and the whole country for that matter - is fucked and stacked in favour of rich cunts and freemasons. Is anyone remotely surprised by this though? I could not have any more respect, admiration and sympathy for those who have fought so hard for justice and I feel just so fucking sad and angry for them. But I’m not the least bit surprised. Nobody was ever going to be held to account because the establishment looks after its own. Always has, always will, and nothing will change because the good people of this country keep voting for the cunts no matter what they do. It's like all these calls for an inquest into the government’s handling of Covid and all the unnecessary deaths. Even if there was an enquiry where it was proven that Johnson and his cronies took bets on how many people they could kill by their actions, they’d still win the next election because there is literally nothing they could do that would stop the people of England voting them in. That’s the world - or the country - we live in. A jury of regular people may well have done something, but a judge? Get the fuck outta here. Remember the other cunt judge they put in charge of the inquest back in the day and the first thing he said was a quip about “Liverpool fans being late again”. I absolutely despise this country and wish I’d been born somewhere else. I’m not sure where like, as most of the world is just as fucked up as here. New Zealand seems sound though. Thursday May 27: Woke up this morning to the news that United lost the Europa Final on pens last night. Nice. Even better, Moreno scored one of the pens and then absolutely obliterated United on instagram afterwards. Funny as fuck, I saw it this morning and watched it about half a dozen times and it got funnier each time. “Manchester United… GET OUT” hahahaha he was always a really funny lad to be fair. Meanwhile, Mbappe took to social media to show off his new tattoo…. Friday May 28: Konate is done. I have no idea what to expect. Maybe he’ll kick on and become one of the best in the world or maybe he’ll be another sicknote like Matip and Gomez. We needed to sign another defender though and if this is who they wanted above all others (which apparently he is) then I guess I’m happy enough with that. The suggestion from James Pearce is that we won’t be replacing Gini though. I mean, I suppose you could argue that Thiago was signed to replace Gini and that’s fair enough, but whatever way you try to dress it up we’re still a midfielder light now because we can’t count on Keita to give us anything. Then there’s the increasing number of injuries Hendo is picking up, Milner is another year older and Ox isn’t exactly reliable either. So that leaves Thiago, Fabinho and Curtis. We need another, it’s blatantly obvious. I’d go and get Ward-Prowse as he looks like a perfect fit for us and is ready to make a step up. Of course I’d prefer Grealish but the talk is that City are in for him. I’d be sick if that happened. I’d love him here but we don’t have the money to make Villa sell. He’s worth far more to them than he is to anyone else, but this talk of City looking at Kane and/or Grealish for huge money is a little disturbing. As much as they’ve taken the piss out of FFP with their spending, the one thing they haven’t done is gone massive on fees in the way that United have. If City start pulling that shit by signing £100m players then everyone else may as well forget about it. I won’t be watching that Champions League final tomorrow and I just hope Chelsea can stop those cunts from getting their hands on our trophy. I’ve got no love for Chelsea but I fucking despise City so there’s no dilemma here. Saturday May 29: Would usually post the diary today but thought I’d hold off a day so I can cover the CL Final. I didn't watch but I tuned in without a couple of minutes left and watched stoppage time and then some of the celebrations. Chelsea winning was the lesser of two evils by far, but I did think I’d be more sickened by it than I actually was. Weirdly, it didn’t bother me at all seeing them win and celebrate. I didn’t begrudge them it. There isn’t one Chelsea player I’ve got any kind of dislike for and although Tuchel seems like a fucking weirdo I can’t say he bothers me too much. Can’t stand their fans of course, but fair play to Tuchel and his players for ruining Noel Gallagher’s birthday. Tuchel has Guardiola’s number doesn’t he? This wasn’t even that difficult for Chelsea, they just completely nullified City once again and only gave up one shot on target. Guardiola shit the bed and tried to be too clever again and that’s a huge flaw of his his. In the biggest games he out-thinks himself every time. Not only did he not start with a striker, he decided he’d also leave out a holding midfielder too. Rodri starts virtually every game but he was benched for this. It’s amazing how often Guardiola shoots himself in the foot when the pressure is on. He’s spent the last ten years or so with every possible advantage he could have and he still can’t win a European Cup without Messi. Bald fraud. Chelsea have been a consistent force in this competition and they’ve earned the right to win it. They’ve got scars, they’ve been to finals, lost in semis generally just been a big player for the best part of 20 years. City have no more right to winning it than Spurs would have had when they faced us. They haven’t earned it, they don’t have the scars. Now they’ve been in a final and lost that gives them more right in future, but the other thing to consider here is that the cunts shouldn’t have even been in it as they were thrown out for cheating. So all in all the last week has been pretty good. We secured a top three finish, we’ve made a new signing, United lost the Europa League and were trolled by Alberto Moreno and now City and the Gallagher’s are left crying their hearts out. Considering where this season looked to be headed that’s a pretty reasonable outcome all in all. …. and that was the week that was.

First let me say that this result means nothing when it comes to the season ahead. Not a thing. It’s completely irrelevant. The last two winners of the Community Shield were Leicester and Arsenal, who both went on to finish eighth. Leicester just weren’t very good and Arsenal spent six months smelling themselves after beating us on pens. The point is, winning this is not any kind of barometer for what lies ahead. That said, it feels great doesn’t it? Beating them is always good, whether there’s points at stake or not. Maybe it laid down a marker but I don’t necessarily think so. City know how good we are and this won’t have told them anything new. Except maybe that the King is dead and long live the King. Sadio was great against City so they’ll have been glad to see the back of him. Nunez showed them that life isn’t going to get any easier. Again though, this doesn’t mean that Nunez is going to be a roaring success or Haaland will be a flop. It’s just first blood to us, that’s all. It feels great though, and while the trophy itself isn’t particularly important, it’s something that Klopp and the lads hadn’t won so it kind of does feel important just for them to complete the set. More than anything though it’s just good seeing a performance like that. It wasn’t flawless and we had lulls during the game, but that happens every time we play them. You can’t boss City for 90 minutes as they’re too good. In total we probably bossed two thirds of this game and the other third was relatively even. It never felt like City were on top at any point. We started the game brilliantly and ended it the same way. That bodes well for the start of the season as it shows we’re pretty sharp despite the shortened pre-season. The starting eleven looked really good and then the subs gave us that extra push in the closing stages. It couldn’t have gone any better could it? The start of the game reminded me a little of the semi final a few months back. This wasn’t as spectacular but we’re still in pre-season so we’re never going to be at the intensity we were playing at in April. The way the game went though was similar. We started fast and were well on top. We dominated the ball and were moving it around well. In the first few minutes Mo hit one into the side netting after dancing his way into the box. I really thought that had gone in at first. Would have been a sensational goal. Robbo missed a good chance too when he arrived at the back stick to meet a Trent cross but headed horribly wide. Bad decision, he should have headed back across goal, either to try and score himself or to square it to a team-mate. Robbo might be the worst finisher I’ve ever seen, which is mad because he’s such a great player. He does the difficult stuff really well but when it comes to goalscoring he couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo. We had other openings too. Hendo was within a whisker of picking out an unmarked Diaz in the centre but Ederson just got a hand on it to take it away. Diaz was really lively all day and picked up where he left off last season. Mo, on the other hand, did not pick up where he left off. Thankfully. This was the Mo Salah who was the best player on the planet for the first half of last season. He looked fresh, rested and free from the baggage he was carrying around at the back end of last season. In between those two we had Bobby, who got the nod to start ahead of Nunez. No surprise, it made sense to ease Darwin into it from the bench and Klopp loves Bobby in games against City. I don’t really know what to say about his performance. He wasn’t bad but he didn’t really do much to catch the eye. That’s kind of his role though isn’t it? He’s rarely one who really stands out as most of what he does doesn’t catch the eye because a lot of it is off the ball and general dirty work. Klopp judged it perfectly really because as soon as the game got stretched in the second half he introduced Darwin to run in behind them. Bobby doesn’t do that and the difference was huge. That space in behind wasn’t really there in the first half though so Nunez may well not have had anything like the same impact if he’d started. It’s definitely easier coming on for the last half hour than it is doing the hour long shift before the space opens up. Bobby might start next week against Fulham too. In fact I fully expect that to be the case. Go with the tried and trusted for now until Nunez is fully integrated. It’s only a matter of time before Nunez is leading the line though. Anyway, our dominance eventually paid off when Trent fired in the opening goal with the help of a slight deflection off Ake. It was a really good build up and although the finish was a little fortunate it was no more than we deserved as we’d been all over them from the start. City had missed a couple of good chances though. One of them was miles offside but Adrian had to make a save from a powerful Mahrez blast. That was scandalous really. I know they are told not to flag anymore but that was so far offside he was in a different post code. In theory, Adrian could have broken his wrist making a save he should never have had to make. That wasn’t a legitimate chance but Haaland had two opportunities within a few seconds. The first when he held off Robbo and got a shot away as he was falling down. Adrian made a decent save with his feet, but seconds later the ball was whipped back in and Haaland just had to put his head on it, or even his right foot, and it was an almost certain goal. Instead he tried to go with his left foot. It looked awkward as fuck and he ballooned it well over the bar. Shite that. That was a rare foray into our final third though as we were generally comfortable. The goal changed things a little though as our intensity dropped a bit and they were able to keep the ball more than they had been able to. They weren’t doing much with it but I just wanted half time to come so we could regroup and then take back control of the game. It didn’t really happen. The second half started the same way the first had ended, fairly even. Not really anything for us to worry about as we looked fairly comfortable, but all it takes is one moment. Foden coming on concerned me, and not just because it meant we had to now look at his awful face along with Ederson and Haaland. You won’t find three worse faces anywhere than those. Foden isn’t ugly but he’s got the worst little manc face you’ll ever see. The other two are just fucking gruesome. Remember back in the day on telly if it was before the watershed and there were tits or a knob shot in a TV show they’ve have that pixel thing that would blur it out? Can we not have that brought in for City games? But yeah, Foden worried me because he’s always a massive threat against us. City looked more dangerous with him on the field. The other lad was getting a lot of love from the commentary team but Foden was the one who gave City the lift they needed. City’s equaliser was avoidable though. Initially it was ruled out for offside against Foden but that always seemed dubious to me even from the first view of it in real time. Adrian wanted a free-kick too but that was desperation. Yes, he had two hands on the ball but it’s not like Foden kicked it out of his hands. The ball was at Foden’s feet when Adrian challenged him. Nothing wrong with that. I don’t blame Adrian for the goal but what I would say is I don’t think that happens if Alisson is between the sticks. It’s not a knock on Adrian, he is what he is. A decent third choice keeper who is nowhere near as good as Alisson. No shame in that, the big, bearded Brazilian is the best in the world. The drop off between the world’s best and his number three is always going to be significant as third choice keepers aren’t going to be any better than Adrian really. One thing I did notice about that goal was that Trent stopped playing when he saw the flag had gone up. He’s on the line and could have maybe blocked the shot, but he turned his back and stopped playing because he saw the flag up. He’s not even looking when the lad hits the shot. The goal set up a tense finale. I expected it to go to pens because our Community Shield game always do. I also worried that maybe we’d lost the momentum and City would finish stronger. Klopp had made several changes so it was no longer our best line up. Milner had come on at right back, Harvey took Hendo’s spot and Darwin was up top for Bobby. We took control again after we conceded though and it wasn’t long until we were ahead again. Quite how Craig Pawson missed that handball in the first place I have no idea. I can only assume refs know they have the VAR safety net now so they aren’t making decisions. I knew immediately that was a penalty even before seeing the replay. I don’t think the header from Darwin was going in though. It might have been a deceptive camera angle and sometimes those headers back across goal bend inwards, but it looked like it was drifting wide. Doesn’t matter though really, the defender handled it so it’s a pen. City tried to put Mo off by protesting about the decision for ages. Ederson tried to flash his ugly mug in front of Mo to put him off too. Not just put him off the penalty, but put him off his food for a week. No-one wants to eat after seeing that close up. Urgh. Thiago did a great job getting himself in between them, making sure he had his back to Ederson so he didn’t need to look at him. Mo kept his cool and buried the pen to get us ahead again. Klopp then send on Keita for the magnificent Thiago, while Carvalho replaced Diaz. The changes didn’t weaken us as all of the subs made a positive impact. Nunez was a handful from the moment he set foot on the pitch. Within seconds he went through and was denied by Ederson, but he was offside anyway. He went clean through again not long after but couldn’t get enough loft on his attempted dink and it hit Ederson in his ugly grid. He won the pen with the header and also had another header drift just wide. Things happened when he was on the pitch, he looks like one of those players who is going to be on the end of a lot of things. He’s always on the move, always trying to run in behind and he pops up on the end of things. He capped a dream debut with a goal in stoppage time when Mo picked out Robbo on the back post and this time he did the right thing and nodded it back across goal for Darwin to head home. His celebration was pure South American. He was so fired up, I love that. This was a big deal for him as he wants to make his mark quickly, especially because of the fee and the daft amount of attention it attracted. That goal gave the scoreline a more accurate look. The game wasn’t that close, we were comfortably better than them and 3-1 was about right. It should have been 3-2 but Haaland missed an open goal. That was on his strong foot too. No excuse for that it was just woeful. Adrian was at fault there, he made a hash of dealing with a well manufactured effort by Foden. It was a great moment though as our fans were in the middle of chanting for Nunez when Haaland missed, and the chant just got louder after that. It was nice to see Nunez outshine Haaland but both of them are going to score loads this season. They’re quite similar players and they’re both totally different to what ourselves and City have had, so the dynamic of both teams is going to change to some degree. I feel as though we’re better equipped to deal with the change because we evolve every season anyway whereas Guardiola is much more rigid in how he wants his team to play. In the tougher games maybe that’s where City might suffer a little, at least initially, but Haaland will fill his boots against the likes of Bournemouth, Everton and the rest of the dregs. I’ll call it here and now, there will be a game this season against some bum team where Haaland scores five. Probably Everton. What will be interesting is if he picks up one of the regular muscle injuries he’s had each season. If Nunez is missing for us we’ve still got Firmino and Jota to choose from. Take Haaland out and City no longer have Jesus or Sterling. That might cost them. We’ve got a better starting eleven and a better squad. But then we did last season too and they still pipped us to the league. It’ll probably be neck and neck again this season, but I do have a gut feeling we might blow them away early by going on big winning run to start the season. The only weakness I see with us is the occasional wastefulness that has cost us from time to time in games we’ve dominated. The Champions League final being a case in point, although we wasted loads of chances in both domestic finals too. If Nunez can help with that, and if Mo can do what he was doing pre-Afcon then I think we’re in for another memorable campaign. Star man is Mo but Thiago ran him close while he was on. Mo though, fucking hell. I said this on the post match pod but it’s not just that he was doing the things we’ve come to expect from him, he was doing other shit too. Like the whipped right footed cross onto the head of Nunez for the pen. Since when has he had that in his locker? He’s so much more than a goalscorer now. He’s so creative. He played the pass for Trent to open the scoring. He played the cross that Nunez won the pen from and then it was his vision and perfectly flighted ball that allowed Robbo to tee up Nunez for the third. He looks ready. They all do. Roll on next week. Team: Adrian; Alexander-Arnold (Milner), Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Elliott), Thiago (Keita); Salah(Jones), Firmino (Nunez), Diaz (Carvalho):

That performance exceeded anything I expected, but the result didn’t. I actually thought we’d win the game but I didn’t think we’d completely dominate them for the entire second half. That was something wasn’t it? Fucking hell. We should have won, we deserved to win, but we didn’t win. Partly because of our finishing and partly because earlier in the season City’s chairman paid a few refs to go over and do some side gigs in the U.A.E. and since they came back they’ve given some of the worst decisions imaginable to help City out. Oliver is the main culprit but don’t forget that Darren England was over there taking the oil money before he did what he did in the Spurs game. Oliver though, in his first game after his little jaunt to the Middle East he failed to send Kovacic off against Arsenal. A week or two later he was VAR in the Manchester derby and invented a penalty from nothing to give City the lead in a game that was close up to that point. We’ve not seen a penalty given like that before or since. Now we are continually told there’s a “high bar” and VAR won’t intervene on penalties. The bar wasn’t very high for Oliver at Old Trafford though eh? And then he ignores that one at the end of this game. Could be because he knows what side his bread is buttered or it might just be that he took the coward’s way out. A lot of refs would have bottled that decision, not necessarily because they’re “pro City” but because it’s the 98th minute of the biggest game in world football right now, and they don’t want to be the ones who decide the game so late. We might have got that in the 75th minute. Maybe. Probably not. But defo not with the last kick of the game. Alan Pardew was on the radio after the game and actually said “it’s probably a penalty but I’m glad it wasn’t given because a game like that shouldn’t end that way”. As ludicrous as it sounds, he’s not going to be alone in that fucked up view. Had we been 1-0 down the feeling would be different. Pardew for one would be singing a different tune, because a draw would have felt like the right outcome for neutrals and they'd have felt cheated by not getting the penalty. When it's us being cheated out of a win it's like "meh". That’s why I think both Oliver and the VAR (Attwell) bottled it. Had we been 1-0 down I bet that would have been given, if not by Oliver then by Attwell. At 1-1 though the easy thing to do it ignore it and blow for full time as soon as possible. So that’s what they did. I’ll say no more about that because there’s really nothing to say. It’s 100% a penalty. Not one of those subjective calls where you can argue it either way. I know there are people trying to argue it, but it’s a penalty. End of story. If people want to argue that it wasn’t given because it was so late in a tied game, I’ll agree. It doesn’t excuse the decision, but it explains it. If they try to argue that it’s not a foul then sorry, that’s utter bollocks. Everyone knows that’s a foul and if they’re trying to argue otherwise they need to stop and ask themselves why. They’re either biased, or they’re trying too hard to be impartial. It’s a pen. Right, with that out of the way let me get on with the game. Just wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Klopp happier or more excited after a game than he was doing his post match stuff here. The LFCTV interview in particular, he was absolutely beaming and was singling out loads of different players, looking straight into the camera and saying things like “wow” or “oh my god”. He was so thrilled with the performance it masked any disappointment he might have had with the result. He didn’t even get mad about the penalty and was very calm about it all, mainly because his over-riding emotion was pride in his team. I get that and I feel that way too. Except I am mad about the non-penalty and I am disappointed we didn’t win. Actually disappointment is way too strong a word, I don’t feel that. I just really wish we’d won because I think a performance like that deserved three points. If I was feeling disappointed I’d probably be picking players out and saying “he should have done this” and “he needed to do that”. That’s not how I feel though, I have no disappointment in any player and I’m not digging anyone out for missed chances. They gave us absolutely everything and produced one of the best halves of football you'll see. As great as we’ve been under Klopp, we’ve never been able to do that to City.

I could just copy and paste large chunks of the League Cup Final here as it was basically the same game. Some of the minor points are different but essentially it was a highly entertaining 0-0 that we shaded but that could have gone either way as both teams had plenty of good chances. Extra time and pens once again. *sighs* Thankfully the outcome went in our favour once more but I feel another few months have been taken from the end of my life. Of course there's nothing surprising about the stress and drama of it all. It’s Liverpool in a final, it’s never straightforward. Plus Chelsea are a really strong side on their day. Forget the inconsistent shite they’ve been serving up, like losing at fucking Everton for example, when Chelsea are focussed they’re dangerous because they’ve got quality all over the park and a top manager. They even wore their magic yellow kit which was supposed to bring a change of luck for them as they keep losing finals in blue. Can't believe that foolproof plan didn't work. Four games we’ve had with them now and neither side has won any of them. We got two trophies because we were marginally better at penalty kicks, but that’s four draws with them now. We were the better side in this one but they were dangerous and even when we were well on top they still created chances. Not as many as we did, but with better finishing they could have won in normal time. So could we of course. We started the game like we wanted to blow them away in the first 10 minutes and with better luck we could have. We were absolutely dazzling early on and Diaz was running all over them. They’d left out Azpilacueta and included Chalobah, and that was so obviously due to being scared of what Diaz could do. With good reason. He was sensational all day. He must have had five or six near misses. It’s not like his finishing was bad, but the ball just wouldn’t fucking go in no many how many times he tried. We've had the "Owen Final" and the "Gerrard Final" and It's such a shame because this could have been "The Diaz Final" if he'd been a bit more precise. The only one where I thought he really should have done better though was the one that Mendy just about kept out. That really frustrated me because of what we were denied. That would have been the best Wembley goal ever scored and would be right up there with any goal we’ve ever seen. It started with an outrageous outside of the boot pass by Alisson. Then the ball comes to Trent and he repeats the feat with an even more sumptuous ball to send Diaz clear. That pass was like the Gerrard to Sturridge one at Fulham all those years ago. The difference was that Sturridge finished it off, Diaz didn’t. Virtually everything we did had him at the heart of it though. He was brilliant in the League Cup Final but he was even better in this one. What a player he is. He’s fucking relentless. He’s so good that I wasn’t even that concerned when Mo had to go off. I was concerned about him potentially missing the Champions League Final, but I wasn’t worried about how it would impact this particular game as I thought we’d be fine. Mo didn’t actually look in too much trouble and seemed fairly relaxed as he applauded the fans on the way off. He didn’t give the impression he was worried about the final so it just seemed like a precautionary measure. Virg later went off in similar circumstances and I reckon Klopp and the sports science team had already come to the decision that anyone that felt anything was going to be subbed because we have five subs in this game and there’s no point risking anyone ahead of the Madrid game. It’s mad though when you think about it. This is a cup final but it’s not our biggest priority because we’re so fucking boss that we’ve got even bigger fish to fry. Imagine being us! But anyway, the fast start we made didn’t exactly fizzle out as I thought we still played well for the most part, but Chelsea settled themselves and began to look a threat on the counter. Alisson made a fine save from Alonso as the game went end to end. Jota volleyed over from a Robbo cross when he should have done better. There were no shortage of chances and the parallels with the League Cup Final were obvious. The second half starts and Chelsea flew out of the traps. We were on the ropes for a few minutes but then we regained control again. The ball just wouldn’t go in though. Diaz hit the post as well as seeing other efforts go inches wide. Robbo hit the post too. It looked like a bad miss but I’m fairly sure that a defender got the tiniest touch on it to take the ball off his boot and onto his shin. He was unlucky there and he’d earlier missed a similar chance when the ball dropped over a defender and he was unable to react to it and it bounced off his shins and went wide. I think it was around the 70 minute mark or so when I resigned myself to it going to extra time and pens. It was like watching a re-run of the last game. You just knew a goal wasn’t coming. When extra time came along we had the disconcerting sight of Virgil going to take a seat on the bench as Joel came on to replace him. I mean, we’re fortunate to have such a world class replacement but the bottom line is we went into the game without Fabinho and then lost Salah and Van Dijk during it. That’s three absolute mainstays of the team. But the replacements aren’t bad are they? When Mo was injured in the 2018 Champions League Final his replacement was a midfielder, Adam Lallana. When he went off this time, Klopp had to choose between Jota, Firmino and Origi. When Virg went off, it was Matip or Gomez. The squad is incredible now. We need it to be, because everyone will be fucked and this Tuesday night will see mass changes. We’ve seen Mo and Virg narrowly avoid injury and we’ve no doubt got a load of lads in the red zone now. The title is still just about alive but highly unlikely so we can’t send out Trent, Hendo, Sadio, Diaz, Thiago etc at St Mary’s this week. It would be reckless and stupid. We’ll need to rely on Kostas, Joe, Curtis, Harvey, Milner, Div, Taki and the rest. They’ve served us well so far. Extra time was something of a non event. As soon as Diaz was replaced that was our attacking race run really. Chelsea had the better of it but didn’t threaten much either and penalties seemed inevitable. I didn’t like the decision to take off Diaz because unlike in the last final he still looked full of energy. However, I don’t think we can second guess these decisions too much because we don’t know who is at highest risk of injury. They knew Diaz was playing great but subbed him anyway. There had to be a reason for that so although it was disappointing I’m ok with it because let's face it, they know what they’re doing. You know what I didn’t really like though? Bobby coming on and not Divock. Was anyone surprised that Bobby looked like a man who hadn’t played for a month? He was shite but I expected nothing else. It wasn’t a game for him and it baffles me how Klopp keeps ignoring the Origi narrative. I know Bobby is a better player and I know in other games, such as Spurs, we may have had better tactical options to call on, but Divock is so much more than logic can quantify. Fucking get him on the pitch and just let him do his thing. Anyway, we get to pens and Chelsea win the toss for ends and for who goes first. Not great. They score with their first pen too, through Alonso. So did we, but only just. Milner’s pen wasn’t his best and Mendy got a hand to it. Thankfully he couldn’t keep it out. Next up, that tit Azpilacueta. He hit the post. Yes. Game on now. Up steps Thiago and he hits the post too, but the inside of it and the ball nestled in the net. Advantage us. Reece James scored. So did Bobby. Again though, only just as Mendy got a hand on it. Barkley scored for them. Then up steps Trent, cool as you like and a nice little strut back to halfway. Nearly there. Jorginho needed to score to keep it going and did. So it’s all on our fifth taker to win it. I thought it would be Jota, who has been nails for us in shootouts. But no, it’s Sadio. I didn’t like it. Firstly because I don’t think he’s good at pens at all. Secondly he’s up against his international team-mate, which always makes me uncomfortable as no-one will know Sadio's penalties better than Mendy. So I didn’t like his chances but then I also didn’t know about the unintentional mind games from Klopp that fucked him right up. Asking him which way he was going and then telling him to go the other way? What the fuck, Jurgen??? Sadio’s penalty lacked any kind of conviction and now we know why. Mendy saved and at that moment I thought we were screwed. Ziyech had to wait a long time to take his pen because the Chelsea fans had thrown a flare on the pitch. If he’d missed because of that it would have been pure unadulterated Everton that. He didn’t miss though, he held his nerve with a great pen. Now Jota has to score to keep us in it. He did. Probably the best pen of the lot and proof he should have been on the fifth. At this point I’m getting annoyed with Alisson for not even looking like saving any of them. “Come on Ali, you need to fucking do something here or we’re not winning this”. He did. Great save to deny Mount and as soon as I saw who was taking our seventh pen I knew we’d won. Why was I so sure? Because it was just perfect wasn’t it? Of all the people to get the chance to hit the winning pen there was just no-one better than that mad little bastard. He’s always the first one being happy for everyone else, he’s an incredible team-mate and all of the players seem to love him, but now was his moment to be the hero. Great penalty and then wild celebrations. What a moment. What a guy. I fucking love Kostas, he’s just the best isn’t he? Such a sound lad and this couldn’t have happened to anyone more deserving. Quick word on Alisson here though. He only saved one penalty but his contribution was more than that. Remember in the last final when that Kepa knobhead kept trying to put our lads off by walking out with the ball and then trying to psyche them out? I don’t know whether Mendy would have pulled that shit or not, but he wasn’t able to because Alisson just took command of the whole situation by going to get the ball and walking to the edge of the box to hand it to his team-mates and given them a word of encouragement. It might not have made any difference, we’ll never know. I mean, we scored all of our pens last time despite the shenanigans from their keeper, but I just think it highlights how well we do things. That’s obviously something that was picked up on by the staff (or players) and Alisson made sure that didn’t happen again. We just do things better than everybody else. Check out this thread on twitter highlighting the preparations of Klopp and Tuchel and showing the difference. Klopp was just much more organised and our whole process was smoother. I don’t think it made any difference as we both scored four out of the designated first five kicks, but it’s about the bigger picture. Nothing is left to chance with us now, we just do everything properly and much thought goes into every little detail. It’s the marginal gains that have allowed us to take things to that extra level. Even things like hiring the fellas to come in and work with the players on the mental side of taking penalties and shutting out all of the noise. The throw in coach too. Some ex pros laugh at that stuff but it all adds up. We’re not winning things because we have a throw in coach. We’re winning things because we have maybe a hundred of those little things on the go that add up to a big advantage over teams who aren’t doing all of this stuff. We’ll never know if Alisson’s actions won us the shoot out, or if it was how quickly Klopp selected and prepared the takers before setting the tone with a passionate speech and then relaxing his players with hugs and jokes. It’s impossible to know what impact it had, but we do know that we won. Again. So that’s two trophies in the bag in a season where we have reached another CL Final, will hopefully top 90 points again and have so far lost only three games all fucking season, and one of those (Inter) wasn’t even a loss as it was essentially just like losing a half. Winning in Paris would make this one of the greatest seasons in our history. If we lose that, it’s still a great season now regardless. Two trophies, we’ve played every possible game we could have played and we’ve had an incredible ride. If we can win at Southampton we’ll take the title race into the last game. It will probably be a futile chase as I’d never want to rely on Aston Villa for anything, the flaky bastards, but whatever happens I hope we can at least ensure that City have to win that game to hold us off. We’re going to basically have to change the entire team for that Southampton game. Of the starters, I’d only keep Alisson and Konate in. Keita too actually as he was subbed early. Gomez, Kostas, Divock, Curtis, Taki and the rest, its your time again lads. We got some heroic efforts from players in this game. Diaz was the best player on the pitch but Trent was fucking brilliant. It might even be the best all around game he’s played for us. His defending was unreal and I lost count of the number of times he covered around the back to make vital clearances. Reece James is a great player but he’s not in the same league as Trent. There’s no shame in that, as no-one else is either. James is the second best right back in the country but the gap is massive. Hendo had a great game and Thiago was quality (one or two stray passes aside) and I thought Keita was good too. Him being replaced was no reflection on his performance, I just think Klopp wanted Milner on. There was an interview with Milner through the week when he spoke about being left out of games and he said Klopp told him “I want you on the pitch at the end, so you can’t start”. Having his experience and know how out there in the big moments definitely helps. Konate had another great game and it’s so impressive how we get these signings right now. Everyone talked up his partner at Leipzig and he ended up at Bayern. We watched them and said “forget Upamecano, Konate is the one”. And he is. He’s fucking brilliant. He also seems like a great lad who (like Kostas, Thiago, Diaz etc) has settled in quickly and is very popular with the rest of the team. That’s important. We just don’t sign knobheads anymore do we? As I say, marginal gains, all these things help. In previous seasons if we’d beaten Chelsea in big games it would have meant more than just us winning. There was also a massive pleasure in them losing. I don’t really feel like that currently. Yeah, it’s always nice getting one over on their fans who are right up there with the worst we come across (awful Tories) but the team itself really doesn’t inspire any kind of negativity from me. Azpilacueta is the only one I genuinely dislike. If I wanted to, I could find reasons to dislike Mount, James, Pulisic etc but I don’t really have the energy for it these days. There are more than enough players in the league for me to hate that I don’t need to go looking for reasons to add to the list. By and large this Chelsea team is alright, and - whisper it - I like Thomas Tuchel. I never used to, that creepy paedo vibe he gives off made him an easy target but the more I’ve listened to him and watched how he interacts with Klopp and our players, he’s won me over. He’s alright, I’ve got absolutely no beef with him at all. These two finals could have gone either way and although we were the better side in both games, it wasn’t by much. Neither team were clinical and that’s why both games ended up going to penalties. The margins are so fine that we could easily be the ones empty handed but thankfully we aren’t and it’s Tuchel who is left cursing his luck. There is a real uncertainly surrounding them now that their sugar daddy has gone. I’d like it very much if they slid back into the relative irrelevance they were before he arrived, but I don’t see that happening immediately. They’ve got loads of really good players and a very good manager. They’ll be competitive for a while yet, but they’re a long way behind us. Not in a one off game, we’ve seen that four times this season. But they are a way behind us and long may it continue. So now we regroup, hope to get the result we need at Southampton and then see what happens at the weekend. It’s easy to be relaxed about that knowing we have a date with Real Madrid in Paris the following weekend though isn’t it? What a team. What a time to be a Red. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk (Matip), Robertson (Tsimikas): Henderson, Thiago, Keita (Milner); Salah (Jota), Mané, Diaz (Firmino):

My confidence against City has taken a real battering over recent seasons. I went from being bullish to the point of telling the world that City are terrified of us, to fretting that they’ve got our number and that we need to change what we do in order to match them. I felt differently going into this one though and I was confident. Not my usual notorious over confidence, but I did think we’d win when I saw City’s starting eleven. Even before that I was talking myself into us winning. I started to feel confident in midweek really after seeing what they had to go through in Madrid. Our lads either had their feet up or their slippers on, while City were going to war against the most horrible team in world football. To go through what they did and then have to deal with a fresh and fired up Liverpool… I honestly don’t think that’s possible. And then when I saw the team Guardiola had picked, that’s when I felt that they were there for the taking. Not because it was a really weak line up. Clearly it wasn’t. That team would win against most opponents. We’re not most opponents though. To face us without Ederson, Walker, Laporte, Dias, Rodri and De Bruyne, yeah that’s a seriously tall order, despite the quality they still had. Especially given how fired up and rabid our lads were obviously going to be. That said, 3-0 at half time was much more than I was expecting. The way the game went wasn’t surprising to me, I thought we’d be on the front foot and would be fresher than them, but scoring three unanswered goals was not something I’d have predicted. We were good value for it though. Without the ball we were incredible in that first half. With it we were pretty good too but I think we can do better. I’m not we can do any better without the ball though as we just smothered them. I’m not sure why City tried to play out from the back as much as they did. I thought they’d learnt that lesson years ago as they’ve really toned that down since. Maybe it was due to the changes they made and they wanted to keep the ball more to conserve energy. Whatever the reason I’m glad they did it, because they were just laying down a trail of chum in the water for our hungry sharks. I made the point last week that a big problem for us in the game at the Etihad was we only had one corner. We’re so good at corners that if we get half a dozen you expect us to make one count. Games like this are often decided on the little details and being boss on corners is a big advantage for us. The emergence of Konate as a huge threat on corners has been most welcome, especially as the goals have dried up from Mo. We needed to replace his output somehow and we’ve done it via the most unlikely of sources. Three goals in consecutive games for Ibou now. This was the best of the lot. Good corner by Robbo but that’s all about the dominance and aggression of Konate. It’s one of those “get the fuck out of my way, this is mine” kind of goals. He just bulldozed his way through the box and then soared above Ake to plant a header past the keeper. When you watch the replay, Ake does nothing wrong. He jumps pretty high but Konate is just too much for him to deal with. He’s a fucking powerhouse, but the most impressive thing has been that when he wins these headers he directs them exactly where he wants to. So that gave us the perfect start and you could really see we had the bit between our teeth and City were rattled. From the first couple of minutes I thought they looked dodgy at the back and that keeper didn’t seem convincing at all. I had no idea who he was so I had no pre-conceived opinions on him. I rarely watch City and I never watch them in domestic cups, so I’d never even heard of this fella. Honestly, I thought Claudio Bravo was still their number two. But the first few touches this fella had suggested he wasn’t to be trusted. I even said to my dad early on that we should be pressing him any time he has the ball. And then lo and behold he goes and does that. It’s great from Sadio because it’s not just that he pressed him, he did it flat out and turned on the afterburners. The keeper messed up his touch but Sadio is on him so quickly. It’s just brilliant from him. The keeper obviously has had a complete ‘mare with that but when you’re encouraged to play around in your own six yard box like that then this is an occupational hazard. Playing out from the back is all well and good but I never like seeing keepers playing about near their own goal line. Even Ederson, great as he is with his feet, almost got caught by Jota last week. Sadio deserves all the credit for that because he’s so good at it. He almost did it earlier in the season at Anfield but was denied by VAR. It might have been against Brighton, I can’t remember. He’s a fucking menace though isn’t he? So 2-0 and we’re in dreamland. City were completely rattled, we were dominating them all over the park but a two goal lead isn’t enough against these, especially when they had De Bruyne and Mahrez on the bench. I felt like the third goal was the key because if we could get to 3-0 we’d probably go on and get more. So that third goal felt massive when it came, and what a goal it was too. Just brilliant football. The first two goals had shown two sides of our game where we excel. A set-piece and a high press. The third showed we can also build up attacks from deep and carve through opponents. It’s one of the best goals we’ve scored all season. The cross field ball from Trent to Diaz is great. The persistence between Diaz and Robbo. Then the sheer quality of Thiago and finally the finish by Sadio. Fingers will be pointed at the keeper again as he was beaten on his near post, but I don’t think he can save that. His position is ok as he has to assume Sadio is going across goal. His body shape suggested that’s where he was going, but then he slices right across it and it flies in at the near post. The keeper isn’t wrong footed and he tries desperately to get down and save it, but the strike is too good. Sadio was sensational all day. He’s really starting to look the part in the middle and is getting better every time he plays there. He’s great at coming deep to collect the ball and then getting turned and running at people, and he’s scoring goals at a good rate too. Klopp is spoiled for choice right now, especially up front. That’s going to lead to some potentially surprising choices over the coming weeks I think. There were a couple in this game actually. Konate for Matip wasn’t really a shock and given the goalscoring exploits of Konate of late it made sense to keep him in, and that decision paid off big time. I didn’t like the decision to leave Henderson out for Keita and I wouldn’t have started Diaz either, but I was fine with that. Keita over Hendo though? In a game this big? Nah, I didn’t like that one bit. Naby actually did well and justified the decision but I didn’t really see anything from him that Hendo isn’t going to give us either. That said, a fresh and angry Hendo lining up against the Mancs on Tuesday is something I can’t wait to see. Keita was brilliant in his pressing and positioning, and he was pretty good with his use of the ball too. I think he can play better but I have no complaints about this. He’s contributed a fair bit this season. He’s not been brilliant by any means but he’s not a weak link anymore either. The fact he’s being trusted to start big games and he’s not being subbed before half time is certainly progress. Last week at the Etihad the midfield didn’t really function. Thiago was the pick of the three but Fabinho had a stinker and Hendo didn’t make much of an impact either. Klopp’s solution to it was to pick Keita and even though I didn’t like it, I can’t argue with it now given how we played. There’s a lot more to how we played than just that change though. Fabinho wasn’t himself last week but he was back to his best in this one. Klopp referenced that and said they had to look at the reasons Fabinho struggled. He rested him midweek so presumably fatigue was the problem. Thiago though, fucking hell he was playing football from another dimension. Not enough is being said about what he did in this game. I said on the post match pod that I think this might have been a perfect performance. By that I mean literally everything he did was good. The decision making, the execution, just everything he did was perfect. It was one of the most accomplished midfield performances I’ve ever seen. He’s amazing. City’s midfield couldn’t really handle us at all, but then Rodri and De Bruyne weren’t there so that makes a difference. I would have thought Gundogen might have started as that midfield three was always going to struggle to deal with us. I’ve got to say that at half time I was thinking we might be about to witness something epic. Like a 6-0 or something. That was naive of me really. It very rarely works out like that. When one great side has a big lead over another, it rarely ends up as a rout and more often than not the other side gets back into it. 3-2 flattered City of course, but its not surprising. We’ve seen that before. Remember the game at Anfield when we raced into a big lead and then ended up hanging on desperately at the end? This wasn’t like that as we were never under the cosh, but it is fairly typical of what often happens. We didn’t get complacent or ease off massively, but when you’re 3-0 up against a great side something changes and you just get a little bit more pragmatic and safe. We didn’t play with the same kind of breathless intensity we had in the first half, but then we didn’t need to as we were 3-0 up. City scoring so early after half time didn’t help of course. Good goal to be fair. Robbo gave it away when trying to play a forward pass but it was on halfway and didn’t scream out immediate danger. City played it really well though. Jesus got himself back onside and then darted back in behind. Great movement. Fernandinho’s pass was perfect and took Virgil out, but Fabinho was still back covering. Jesus turned him inside out though and then rolled it to Grealish who lashed it in. Really good goal and that’s what they can do at any moment. That gave them a lift and could have caused us to wobble. It didn’t really. The second half was pretty even but I never felt we were in any danger until stoppage time really. We were mostly keeping them at arms length and always looked dangerous ourselves. They got in behind us twice and Jesus was the problem. He got in behind Virgil and Alisson needed to make a save from a tight angle. Virgil nudged him in the back to put him off and if Jesus had gone down there I think he’d have got a pen. He stayed up and tried to score but it knocked him out of his stride. The commentators said it was great defending by Virg, I think he was pretty lucky. Jesus got in again a bit later and Alisson needed to make a great save with his left foot. That came about because Konate tried to play a ball down the line that was cut out, and Virgil was about 20 yards behind everyone else which allowed Jesus to get in. I think Konate was also playing him on, but Virgil’s position seemed odd at the time. I think he’d dropped deep wanting a pass from Alisson but it went out to Konate instead and he was slow to push out. Those were the only real moments of danger I can remember. Aside from that we were in control and had chances of our own. Sadio shot straight at the keeper when well placed and Mo had a few openings he didn’t make the most of. I’d have subbed Mo with about 20 minutes to go and brought Bobby on. Other than Hendo for Naby, Klopp didn’t make any changes until later than that and when he did he brought off Diaz and Mané, who were both brilliant. Mo was left on, presumably just because we need him back in the goals. I didn’t mind those changes but I did recoil somewhat when Jones was brought on for Thiago. It felt as though we were acting like the game was over and I didn’t feel that it was. There were only five minutes left but even so, that change made me a bit itchy and scratchy. To be fair, that change had no bearing on what happened and Curtis wasn’t responsible for the panic at the end. The late goal for Silva gave the scoreline a false look but it also set up a grandstand finish in which City had three chances to equalise. We should NEVER have found ourselves in that position but top players can do that to you and I’m just glad we had a three goal cushion. I don’t even really blame anyone for the City goal. Mahrez did absolutely brilliantly to create that and although Robbo looked all at sea there’s really not much he can do. By the time he’s in position to even foul him it’s too late as Mahrez is in the box. It was a bit unfortunate for us as the initial pass from Foden wasn’t even meant for Mahrez. He was looking for Sterling and Robbo had tracked that run before having to then veer off course and close down Mahrez. He was struggling to get there, his angles weren’t right and Mahrez was able to completely skin him. His shot from a tight angle almost squirmed through Alisson into the net but we were fortunate that the deflection took it away from goal. Not so fortunate that it fell perfectly for that little rat Bernardo. After that City had three chances to equalise. Van Dijk did enough to deflect a Fernandinho shot over the bar. Then Jota did the same to deny Mahrez. The best chance they had fell to Sterling who found himself unmarked in the box but hit a tame shot straight at Alisson. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but the way this ended did take some of the shine off it for me. Not too much and in time when I look back on this season I won’t be thinking about how this game ended. For now though it is a little annoying. If we’d taken one of the gilt edged opportunities we had in stoppage time to make it 4-2 that would have been more palatable. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t, it just would have been nice. Mo had one that he put well wide when there were three or four team-mates in the box wanting a pass. You could actually make a case that he should have gone to the corner flag with it. He’s never going to do that though. Diaz might have. Maybe Sadio would too. Bobby wouldn’t have any hesitation in doing it. Mo is always going to try and score though. Bobby should have scored in the dying seconds too when the keeper headed it out to him after racing out to deny Salah. I thought Bobby should have just lobbed it over him but yet again we saw one of our strikers spurn that and try to dribble instead. In fairness Bobby went around Fernandinho like he was a cone on a training pitch, but as he went to shoot, a City defender came flying in through the back of him. The ball ended up in the keeper’s arms but Michael Oliver blew for a free-kick. What the actual fuck? It’s either play on or a penalty. I have no idea what he thinks he saw there but giving a foul against Bobby in that situation ranks as one of the worst decisions you’ll ever see. It’s an irrelevant footnote now but I thought it was worth mentioning because he’s literally five yards from it and somehow came up with that decision. Fucking mental. Overall I thought Oliver was pretty good though, aside from showing the same failing that pretty much every other ref in the Premier League has had over the past decade. I am of course referring to the different set of rules that Fernandinho is allowed to play by compared with everyone else on the pitch. This isn’t about refs being biased towards City. It’s not that, it’s Fernandinho specific. It’s been a running joke for years how he’s allowed five or six fouls before he eventually picks up a card, and we saw that again here. Honestly, there has to be something going on here as the cunt gets away with fucking murder every time he plays. He could easily have had four yellow cards in this game. Other players - from both sides - were booked for similar or even lesser offences, yet he just bounces around booting fuck out of people without any kind of recourse. At this point it’s just completely bizarre. He’s like that South African twat in Lethal Weapon 2, smugly taunting Murtagh and Riggs by saying “diplomatic immunity”. Fernandinho must have something on Premier League refs that means he gets three free ones before they can book him. The first one he did on Thiago was nasty as fuck. He didn’t just foul him, he booted him and was wanting to hurt him. There was another wild one on Diaz too, as well as numerous other persistent offences. Eventually he got a yellow for a challenge that could easily have been a red when he lunged in at full speed and caught Sadio. He went in with both feet. It wasn’t exactly two footed as the first foot missed but the trailing one didn’t. It was worse than a yellow but not quite bad enough to justify a red under normal circumstances, but when he’d got away with so much before that then he’d have had no right to complain if he’d been sent packing there. Absolute fucking shithouse him. There seems to be a genuine respect between the two sets of players and there’s very little needle there. A lot of them are mates. Virgil was chatting with Ake afterwards, the Brazilian lads all seem to get on well with each other and I even saw Jones and Sterling having a friendly conversation at full time. Fernandinho seemed to piss most of our lads off though and is probably the most disliked other than Bernardo. I reckon half of our lads hate that little rat. Fabinho is a former team-mate of his and I reckon even he can’t stand him. Jota is probably the only one who doesn’t, because they’re international team-mates. And Alisson of course, he doesn’t hate anyone as he’s a saint. Even the managers seem to get on. I despise Guardiola but he’s been alright these last couple of weeks. I thought he’d say something to piss me off but he hasn’t. He’s been sound. Even when the City fans ruined the minute’s silence, the club put out a statement immediately and it was unequivocal in its condemnation. Guardiola hammered them afterwards too, so fair play for that. I’m not even bothered about it to be honest as I expected it. There were always going to be some scumbags who were not going to respect it. When this happens I tend to feel sorry for the decent fans who get tarred with the knobhead brush. There were loads of City fans absolutely mortified and embarrassed by that. The dickheads don’t represent the entire fanbase. That’s United, not City. Although they are getting worse every year. I haven’t read the replies to the statement they put out but I expect the whataboutery is off the scale and I imagine there will have been countless references to Koppaberg bottles too. City’s response to it was as good as we could have hoped for so I’m not going to dwell on it. I heard Guardiola on the radio afterwards and he didn’t make excuses even when they were offered to him on a plate. Of course the Atletico game made things tougher for them but he made an interesting point about why they weren’t at their best. He said that when one team plays well the other usually doesn’t. He’s right when you think about it. It happened last week in the first half too, only with the roles reversed. You rarely get both teams playing well and I think it’s just because of the strength of the two teams. When one is on top the other is going to struggle to do what they do because the team in the ascendency doesn’t allow it. Klopp said last week City were brilliant but that we weren’t ourselves. He wanted us to play like ‘us’ this time and we did, but there’s no doubt that we were helped to do that by City’s starting line up and tired legs. Against anyone else they could probably get away with it, but we just blitzed them and they couldn’t do anything. There’s a lot of talk now about how this might impact the title race. It won’t. If anyone thinks City will start to doubt themselves because they lost this game, they’re kidding themselves. If they think this will have any bearing on the Champions League final should we both get through, again, it’s wishful thinking. City know they didn’t have their best team out there and that they were goosed after their midweek game. Next time we play them, they won’t even be thinking about this. It’s possible we might get a bit of a boost from it though. We’re reached another cup final and we beat City to do it, so we should be feeling good about ourselves. We can’t afford to think about that yet anyway as there’s so much football to play. We’ve got United and Everton this week and those are two games where we should be absolutely filling our boots. I don’t want to hear anything about them being “derby games” and form counting for nothing. Both of those teams are absolutely pitiful and should have no chance against us. This is the worst Everton side of my lifetime and it’s possibly the worst United one too. And this is our best ever side. We need to be battering both of them to keep the pressure on City and to cement our goal difference advantage. That might be crucial because if they lose a game and we draw one, it will come down to goal difference. And City have to play Watford which is nailed on to be about 8-0. Star man is Thiago but I feel really bad for not going with Sadio as he was sensational and was the catalyst for everything we did. The whole team performed really well though so it’s hard singling people out. Special mention to Trent for his defending. He won pretty much every duel he had regardless of who he was up against and made a mockery of Shearer’s lazy analysis pre-game. Konate too. It’s easy to forget how young he is because he’s so dominant. What he’s doing at 22 isn’t normal. He shouldn’t be this mature and this good. Playing alongside Van Dijk obviously helps with that, but this kid is special. There is no bigger Joel Matip fan in the world than me, but right now I’d stick with Konate because defensively there’s no real drop off when he plays and now that he’s on such a hot streak in front of goal why wouldn’t you just keep playing him? I’d defo play him on Tuesday and then probably bring Joel back for the derby. The selection on Tuesday might raise some eyebrows as I could see Klopp mixing it up big time to go with fresh legs. I could see Tsimikas maybe getting a run out, and the midfield will be interesting. Maybe Curtis comes in with Hendo and one other. Up front is anyone’s guess. I expect Jota will come in and probably Bobby too, but who do you leave out? Does it even matter? Whoever doesn’t start will come on anyway and that’s such a luxury to have. Whoever we pick on Tuesday should be good enough to swat United aside and I can’t wait for that one. These are such exciting times and we need to savour every second of this. We might be on the verge of seeing something that’s never been done before. In fact, we already have because no team has ever reached this stage of the season and still been in the hunt for every competition. If we beat Villarreal we will play every single game that we could have played this season. It might not lead to four trophies, or even three. Maybe we won’t even get two, who knows. But to be where we are at this stage of the season is just incredible. What a team we have. What a manager we have. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Keita (Henderson), Thiago (Jones); Salah, Mané (Firmino), Diaz (Jota):

I suppose it’s a measure of how great this team is and how much they’ve spoiled us that my over-riding feeling after a 3-1 away win in the first leg of a Champions League quarter final was mild annoyance. That’s ridiculous I know, and probably comes across as a bit “Sky Generation whopper”, but in my defence it wasn’t a case of me just demanding perfection and expecting us to win by five or six. It wasn’t that, it was just that it was so obvious from early on that this was a game where we could easily fill our boots so I just wanted the tie over, which would allow us to rest most of the big hitters in the second leg. I didn’t go into the game thinking that and I’d have happily taken 3-1 before kick off. It’s just that it was clear from early on that we could create chances at will and the second leg would be a formality if we hadn’t been so wasteful. In fairness it is actually close to being over anyway thanks to the late goal from Diaz, but the gulf between these two teams was so big for most of this game that this really ought to have been at least a five goal margin of victory. It wasn’t because we weren’t clinical, with Salah’s profligacy a particular concern ahead of this weekend’s trip to the Etihad. On the flip side of that, I’d probably be more worried about the weekend if we’d scored six or seven in this one, so I suppose I should be happy that we’ve held some back. That isn’t to say Benfica didn’t have their moments. They had a flurry in the second half after they scored and they made it uncomfortable for us for a 10-15 minute spell, but by the time that happened we really ought to have been completely out of sight. We completely dominated the first half without ever really hitting top gear and it had the feel of those games across the city when we spanked Porto. The only difference was we didn’t convert enough chances. Any time we went forward we looked like we’d fashion a chance but the finishing wasn’t up to scratch. Salah was lively but wasteful, Keita had a couple of efforts he didn’t make enough of and eventually it was left to the big fella to show them how it’s done when he planted a header into the bottom corner from a Robertson corner. That’s his first goal for us but this should be just the start. He’s going to be a threat on set-pieces, especially when the main focus for opponents is stopping Virgil. He ran off to celebrate near the corner flag, signalled for everyone to give him room and then he nailed a knee slide. Fabinho tried to copy it and ended up on the floor folded up like an accordion. He’s lucky he didn’t injure himself. Knee slides are so much more difficult than they look. I tried it once and ended up leaving two massive knee divots in the turf before I face planted. You’ve got to get your weight leaning backwards otherwise you end up like Fabinho. And me. The second goal was a work of art. I love absolutely everything about that goal. There are just so many layers to it. Look at what happens when we win the ball back. Watch the forwards immediately look to see if they can run in behind. Watch Trent. As soon as he sees we’ve got the ball he’s looking towards the front line to see where the runners are. That’s before the ball even comes to him. So when Konate rolls the ball to him, Trent already knows who is making a run and where the space is. As great as Trent’s passing ability is it’s the game awareness and football intelligence that allows him to play those passes. Like all the great players, he’s got a mental picture of where everyone is on the pitch so he’s always one step ahead. A lot of players could play the pass, but most of them wouldn’t even see it, or by the time they did it wouldn’t be on. The pass is brilliant, the run by Diaz was great too but I initially did him a dis-service because I wondered if he had deliberately picked out Sadio or if he’d just mistimed his header when going for goal himself. The replay quickly confirmed how unselfish and aware he was as he knew immediately that he was going to nod it across to Mané, who had a simple finish. It’s a brilliant goal and I love how happy Diaz was. You can tell already that there’s just no ego there with him, he just wants to be a part of the group and to play his part. This was a big game for him because Benfica are his old rivals and their fans made sure he remembered that. He was jeered all night but it didn’t phase him. Picking him to start this game was a no-brainer because he’s so familiar with the opponent that there is a comfort level there for him. It also meant that Jota and Bobby could be held back in case either are needed to start at the weekend. I have absolutely no idea who will start that game but all five should be quite fresh because of the way Klopp has rotated them all recently. Sadio played centrally again in this one and was a bit hit and miss. I felt like his touch was really heavy at times but I do like how he’s able to come deep and then get turned to run at the defence. He did that to good effect when he collected near half way, spun and then carried the ball forward before sliding in Diaz. He could have gone around the keeper but the angle would have then been tight so he elected to take the early shot and try to dink it over him, but the keeper was able to make the stop. Mo also went clean through after another ridiculous ball by Trent. He didn’t do much wrong here and I think this is one of those instances that just highlight the kind of run he’s in. He’s running at full speed so it’s a tricky ball to control into his own path and it kind of bounced up awkwardly onto his knee, which meant by the time he got there the keeper was smothering him and there wasn’t really anywhere to put it. He tried to prod it to the side of the keeper but it was saved. He’d had an earlier effort deflected wide off the keeper’s foot too. Again, not much wrong with that but he’s in one of those runs where he’s not getting the rub of the green. He badly needs a goal to get him rolling again. I felt like it started to weigh on him a bit and some of his touches began to look very un-Mo like. I’ve marvelled at times this season at his ability to pluck the ball out of the air and kill it with one perfect touch, but that just wasn’t there. Some of the passes to him were difficult to take, but whereas he usually makes those look easy, too often here they were bouncing off him. It’s a concern, but only because of who we have coming up next. We’re still winning games regardless of whether Mo scores or not, but that game at the Etihad is one where we will almost certainly need him at his best. We’ll get chances, of that I have no doubt, but we can’t afford to be as lax in front of goal as we often are. I’d go as far as to say Mo is our most important player this weekend, because I feel as though I know what we’ll get from virtually everyone else, but right now I don’t know whether we’ll see ‘best player in the world’ Mo or the slightly off version we’ve had since he came back from AFCON. If he’s on, I’m certain we’ll win that game. If not, well, that makes it a lot more difficult. Anyway, 2-0 at half time and all good. It felt like we were cruising towards a four or five goal win that would allow us to rest whoever we wanted next week. But then as we’ve seen quite regularly before, we had a lull and ended up under some pressure. Don’t get me wrong, at no point did I ever think we would not win the game but it became clear that we were not going to run away with it and it was actually a game now. What caused the second half wobble? Probably the goal. Goals change games and it certainly got their crowd into it, and in turn their players got a massive shot of adrenaline and suddenly Benfica looked a bit of a handful. Most teams we face will have some sort of spell in the game because we aren’t coming up against pub sides here, either domestically or in Europe. They all have good players and if we have a bit of a down spell then they’ll be able to cause problems. Their goal was sloppy as fuck from us, and it’s not just on Konate either. It starts with a casual ball by Trent that looped right up into the air and put Robbo under pressure. Robbo then compounds it with a not especially great header towards Diaz, who then has to jump in a 50-50 to win it. He did win it but couldn’t direct it to Robbo and it sent Benfica off on the attack. Rafa raced away down the right and swung in a cross towards Darwin Nunez. Konate had covered really well and was in a great position to deal with it but he got his feet in a muddle and the ball went through his legs to the Uruguayan, who controlled it and finished well. He’s really highly rated but I wasn’t overly impressed. He took the goal well but I think my judgement of him is clouded by the constant diving and the dreadful fucking haircut. His record is impressive and we’ve apparently been scouting him, so watch this space I suppose. I do love a good Uruguayan striker so if he sorts the hair out then maybe I could get on board with it, but as of now it’s a hard pass from me. He had another chance soon after when he was picked out by Everton (I never thought I’d see the day when Everton was playing in the Champions League) but his shot was too close to Alisson. We were wobbling big time in that spell and we were just uncharacteristically sloppy all over the park. Even Thiago was at it. He gave the ball away horrendously and as soon as he did that you knew he was just going to chop the lad down and get a booking. Sure enough, he cleaned him out to stop the counter. Smart foul that. Klopp had seen enough though. He had a triple change planned anyway and I was sure Keita would be one of the three to make way, because he always is. He’d played quite well but it’s the easy and obvious sub to make. I don’t know if that was Klopp’s intention or not, but after that little mad moment of Thiago’s it was him who got the hook, along with Sadio and Mo. The changes definitely gave us back control. Hendo made a big difference and I thought Bobby helped with that too. He was getting on the ball and kept us moving higher up the pitch. Jota looked direct and hungry and really should have scored when he was played clean through very late on but he shot straight at the keeper. That did my head in because I’m sick of seeing strikers run onto a bouncing ball, with the keeper well stranded off his line, and for some reason they don’t just lob the ball over them. It’s the easiest finish in the world. All joking aside, when I used to play 11 a side when I was younger I reckon half the goals I scored were lobs, because it really is the easiest thing in the world to do. If a keeper is running out of his goal he can’t turn and get back in time if you loft it over him. And also, by going over the keeper you now have the entire goal to aim at, rather than trying to squeeze it around him into a tight window. When the ball is bouncing and sits up for you, there’s honestly nothing easier than just easing it up and over the keeper, but Jota chose to try and bring the ball down and then go for the finish, by which point there was basically nowhere to go as the keeper was on top of him. This isn’t a Jota thing, it’s something I see all the time and it irrationally pisses me off. I feel like it’s a dying skill. You just don’t see people chipping keepers anywhere near as much as you used to. The likes of Dalglish, Bergkamp, Cantona, Berbatov and of course myself, we were the masters of it but now most strikers shit themselves and go for power. It makes me sad. Anyway, prior to the Jota miss Diaz had shot wide when he should have done better and it was looking like we’d have to settle for a 2-1 scoreline that would still have been a good result but would have left the tie still in the balance. After all, we lost 1-0 to Inter in the second leg of the previous round so it’s not out of the question that it could happen again and we’d therefore need to go close to full strength, which isn’t ideal when sandwiched between games with City. Thankfully Diaz made amends when he ran onto a deflected pass by Keita, rounded the keeper and finished it nicely before racing off to celebrate in front of the Benfica fans, who understandably weren’t happy. Some tit lashed a plastic flagpole at him though. The damage that could have done doesn’t even bear thinking about. When you see them flying through the air end over end, all I can think is that it’s going to hit someone in the eye. It almost did, as our lads were running in to celebrate and it whizzed narrowly past one of them. More flagpoles then came raining down too and they should be fined heavily for that. UEFA are quick to go way overboard over flares but this is much worse. Robbo got pelted with lighters as he took a corner late on too. Not really sure why they were so angry as surely they must have expected to lose. They’re miles behind Porto, who we always hammer, so Benfica never really had any chance here barring something mad happening, like us picking up a red card or something. On that note, a special mention to the ref who had a great game. He wasn’t falling for their diving at all and let the game flow for the most part. Refs in Europe are usually class and it was reassuring to see this guy’s performance after the complete shitshow we got from his compatriot in the last round. Normal service was resumed here and hopefully if we reach the final this guy is in contention to officiate it. As for the performances of our players, it was mixed I’d say. Everyone was good first half but only a few were good in the second half. Naby is getting an awful lot of praise for his display and I’ve even seen people saying it was one of his best games for us. I don’t see it. I thought he was fine, a solid 7 out of 10 but no more than that. Maybe I need to watch it again and I’ve missed something, but to me he was busy, neat and tidy, did very little wrong but didn’t really stand out as being anything special at all. I didn’t think Diaz was that great either, although he was definitely one of our better players. I mean he was good, but he’s played better on quite a few occasions since he came here. The difference here is that he had something to show at the end of it with a goal and an assist. His work rate was impressive again and he kept going right until the end, but as I say, he’s played better than this a few times already. Fabinho was good, and other than that one costly mistake I thought Konate was really impressive. Take the mistake away and he’d be the star man, but because of the mistake I’m not giving it to him and I’ll go with Trent instead. He just oozes quality. We’ve had some great passers of the ball in my lifetime. Molby, Alonso, Gerrard… but Trent is as good as any of them when it comes to dropping a ball on a sixpence. I’d give him the night off next week though. Play Gomez in that one to keep Trent fresh for the double header with City. I think most of the team for this weekend picks itself but I don’t know what I’d do up top. Mo starts because he’s Mo, but as for the other two, I honestly have no idea. I can make a case for all of them and I’m glad I don’t have to make that call. If you put a gun to my head I’d probably go with Bobby and Sadio because they know what it’s all about and have had a lot of success against City, but leaving the goals of Jota out of such an important game would be a huge call. It's the biggest game we've had since... I don't even know, we've had lots of huge games over recent seasons but this feels as big as any of them. I'm dreading it to be honest, I hate games with City as the tension is fucking unbearable, especially at their place. Hopefully it goes the way we want it to and we're not left feeling aggrieved at Manchester based officials being inflicted on us again for such a huge game. You know what I want to see on Sunday? Milner coming on in the 88th minute as that's the sign that all is well and we're just seeing out the game. He must have come on in the 88th minute for what feels like 10 games in a row now. It's every week, and long may it continue. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold (Gomez), Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Thiago (Henderson), Keita (Milner); Salah (Jota), Mané (Firmino), Diaz:

So third then eh? It’s quite remarkable given where we were in March. The first third of the season was great, the final third was too, but that middle third almost killed us. To be able to recover from that deserves a lot of credit. Jurgen and the players stuck together and turned it around. I’m not sure how, but then I’m not sure how it got quite so bad in the first place. It was just a weird fucking season and not just for us either. Even the shit teams had a wild, unexplainable ride. Everton losing nine games at Goodison while looking a pretty good side on their travels (last day humiliation at City notwithstanding) is hard to explain. Burnley not being able to buy a win at home but picking up enough points on the road to survive comfortably is equally weird. United being virtually invincible away from home. Just a fucked up season. 99% of the shit that happened has to be due to fans being absent so hopefully we’ll see things get back to something close to normality next season. That third place finish will boil a lot of piss as we were the butt of a lot of jokes for a long time this season. Not so funny now though, eh? Chelsea and Leicester both went the full Jean Van Der Velde and our lads held their nerve to take advantage. If there is any image to sum up this season it’s Phillips and Williams, both bloodied and battered, celebrating at full time in front of the Kop. I fucking love that photo and I love both of those lads. Regardless of what happens in the future, what those two did deserves the gratitude and admiration of every Red. Imagine back in August if you’d been told that we’d play the last ten games of the season with those two and Ozan Kabak rotating at centre back and that we’d win eight and draw two (the two we drew were when Nat was injured). I think Fabinho played a couple of those games too, but you get the point. This is the maddest season in history for so many reasons. We just kept getting punched in the fucking face. There was a period where the lads stopped fighting back and it looked like they were beaten (the meek as fuck derby loss at Anfield was the point when I really started to become pissed off with them), but they got off the canvas at the nine count and then came fucking roaring back. Winning eight of the last ten despite the injury list we had (wasn’t just the centre backs) was commendable and, although I hesitate to say this, I think we have to say this season was a successful one in the end based on where we were a couple of months ago. Success is subjective and it doesn’t always require silverware. Context is king, and given everything we endured this year I think it’s fair to say that retaining the title was an impossible task. So finishing third, in this context, is a form of success. Not making the Champions League would have been fairly catastrophic for us given the financial hit we’ve taken due to Covid. Missing out is bad news at the best of times but it was more important than ever to get in this year and for a long time it looked like we wouldn’t. I’d written it off after the bottle job against Newcastle but we bounced back and others faltered. Thiago had it right when we said the door was closed but we’d try to sneak in through the window. We did, and all things considered third place was an achievement. I’m not advocating Arsenal style celebrations as it’s more relief than joy, but there is also a sense of satisfaction that I hadn’t envisaged. Klopp sees it as one of his greatest achievements and given everything they needed to overcome it’s hard to argue. There’s probably a shitload of stuff we don’t even know about. He hinted at that previously and then again after this game when he revealed that Rhys Williams had a hamstring and hadn’t trained since Burnley. That’s been the story of the season, just one problem after another. At least VAR finally decided to lay off during these last ten games. It felt as though we were getting shafted every week at one stage this season, and it’s not a co-incidence that as soon as VAR stopped getting involved those defeats dried up. This game was fairly comfortable in the end, which in hindsight is what was always most likely to happen. I’d worked myself up a bit about bad omens and the prospect of Palace being the ones to fuck our shit up again, but taking that somewhat irrational fear out of it there wasn’t really any reason to worry about this, especially when Palace were hit by untimely injuries to Eze and Benteke. We played well and should have won by more than two, but the only real moment of concern we had was when Townsend went clean through and shot wide. That was the moment it could have all gone wrong, and three months ago it probably would have gone in. It didn’t though and the rest is history. Alisson had earlier made a save to deny Zaha but there’s no way that would have stood as he was clearly offside. It was weird watching a game with fans present. This shitty covid version of footy has become the norm now and any time I see highlights from previous years with a full crowd celebrating, my first reaction is to note how strange it looks. I hate that. It used to be that a behind closed doors game looked utterly fucking bizarre, now it’s the opposite. There was only 10,000 inside Anfield although it sounded like more on the TV. I can’t wait to get back in there when it’s full again, but at least when we are all back in there the vibe is going to be positive now. A few weeks ago there was a massive dark cloud hanging over everything but that’s gone now. The win at Old Trafford contributed to that (we never win there) but I think Alisson’s header is probably the main catalyst for our changing fortunes. It’s almost like after that nothing was going to stop us. We were bright, energetic and confident against Palace. Even Sadio looked like himself again. Both he and Mo were brilliant in the first half and looked dangerous any time they had the ball. They were even passing to eachother. It was still a little nervy when the chances weren’t being converted, especially as Leicester took an early lead over Spurs. We were briefly down to fifth at one stage. Young Rhys had a chance to make himself a hero when he found himself all alone from a corner but he badly missed his header. What a story that would have been, following on from Nat at Turf Moor the other night. Speaking of Nat, his urge to head everything in sight cost him as he headed Fabinho and ended up with a big gash over his eye. He’s one of those old school defenders who is never happier than when he’s got a bandage on his head. It didn’t faze him. Not be outdone, Williams also ended up with his eye busted open but he didn’t go for the bandage. Probably didn’t want to mess up his hair, he’s definitely more looks conscious than Big Nat. Having missed that sitter Rhys made amends by getting a touch on a Robbo corner that diverted the ball to Bobby. His touch was a little heavy and he probably wasn’t reaching it, but Sadio was there to pounce on it and prod the ball home. It felt inevitable after Townsend missed that chance. That was Trent’s fault as his sloppy pass forced Phillips to go for a bad he had no chance of reaching and Townsend ran clear towards the Kop. Alisson did all he could to make it difficult and the gap Townsend was going for wasn’t the biggest. You’d expect him to score there though and it was a huge let off that we took full advantage of. Going ahead was big, especially as Spurs came back at Leicester and Villa went ahead against Chelsea. All of a sudden we were in third, and even if we’d given up an equaliser we’d still be fine as long as Leicester and Chelsea didn’t win. The second goal was vital though just so we could relax. Palace were always going to fight for a result when there was only one goal in it, but a second would see them lose interest. It took a while to come though and for much of the second half I thought we were playing it a little too cagey. We were happy with the 1-0 and weren’t pushing too hard for a second. The tempo of the game dropped, but with Spurs doing well at Leicester and Villa going 2-0 up there wasn’t really any cause for concern. Eventually we got the second when Sadio’s deflected effort went in. Brilliant play by Mo to set it up but I thought Sadio had fucked that up. I didn’t like the way he controlled the ball and stood still to line up a shot. It just didn’t look right, usually he’d have taken it in stride and hit it on the run. He got a bit lucky with that one but given the shit luck he’s had all season (mainly with officials giving him fuck all whenever he’s fouled) no-one can begrudge him that. That was that then. The only thing left to do was get Gini an ovation from the crowd and hopefully get Mo on the scoresheet. Gini got his ovation when he was replaced by Milner, but sadly Mo’s goal never came and he missed out on the Golden Boot. That’s the only negative as it obviously meant a lot to him and it would have been nice if he could have snagged a share of it with old slobber chops. We’re basically in the Champions League next season because of Mo and his unquenchable thirst for goals. That and the heroes who have filled in at the back. Nat, Rhys, Ozan, Hendo, Fab…. all of them, but especially the first three lads. It feels like we’ve kept a shitload of clean sheets and when we haven’t we’ve usually only let in one. To do that without Van Dijk, Matip and Gomez is commendable. Not just to the fill in centre backs, but the team as a whole who have defended really well. It’s the attacking side of it that hasn’t been great, but the shoots of recovery have been there recently. With Jota fully fit and one more addition to the front line, hopefully that problem is solved for next season. A fully fit midfield will help too. Hendo coming in with Fabinho and Thiago looks formidable, but I’ll be honest, losing Gini really hurts and put a big dampener on this for me. Seeing him at the end just made me sad. And angry. He clearly doesn’t want to go but whatever contract they offered was not acceptable to him. I don’t get it. It makes no sense not to pay him. Was he asking for than Thiago or Hendo are getting? I highly doubt it. But if they were willing to pay Thiago (and I have no problem with that) then why not reward a player who has been fucking immense for us? He never misses a game, he does whatever the manager asks him to do even if it means sacrificing his own attacking instincts, and he’s a proper leader who everyone loves. If he was at Bayern Munich now and available on a free, we’d probably be leading the chase. So why are we letting him walk? We’ll have to pay £35m for a replacement and then give him a similar wage to what Gini is currently on, so why not pay him the extra? We’d still be well in profit. I’d love to know the thought process behind all this because to me is seems fucking stupid and I’m pissed off about it. I’ll get over it, but I shouldn’t have to. Anyway, I’ll miss him and his beautiful smile, and his supercharged performances in the biggest games when no-one can get the ball off him. They’re big shoes that need filling and hopefully Edwards and Klopp have a plan. Tell you what Gini leaving does though. It makes me resent that fucking waster Keita even more than I do already. If he’s still here next year and Gini isn’t that’s going to be seriously fucking hard to stomach. If I have to see that fucking fanny jumping out of tackles and limping off with some minor injury while Gini is playing 60 games and winning titles at Bayern or somewhere, I'll go fucking mad. Let’s see how it all plays out though I suppose. So that’s that then. Season over and it isn’t one that will remembered fondly as 90% of it was fucking miserable for one reason or another. The other 10% though at least gives us something to smile about. Mo’s goals, Big Nat and Alisson’s header. Thiago’s performances down the stretch were fun to watch too, and Jota’s impact pre-injury. So it wasn’t all shit, just most of it. Still, how fucking bad are everyone else that we could have that relegation type run of form in the middle of the season and still finish in the top three, just five points off second? Oh and one more thing. That ‘incredible’ Man City team I keep hearing about, we finished closer to them than they did to us last season. They were worthy Champions and they were comfortably the best team this year. They’re not all that though and it won’t take too much from us to be right back up there with them. Whether we do what is needed this summer remains to be seen. Star man is tricky. Probably Sadio because he scored both goals, but the two lads at the back ran him close and Mo was a constant menace all day. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Phillips, R Williams, Robertson (Oxlade-Chamberlain); Fabinho, Thiago, Wijnaldum (Milner); Salah, Firmino (Jota), Mané:

Putting aside the frustrations of us need a million chances to score one goal, there was so much to feel good about from this performance. It’s probably the best we’ve played all season and the only thing lacking was the bucketload of goals we should have had. The fact that this game was still somewhat in the balance until Mo’s late penalty is infuriating, particularly in light of other recent games in which we’ve had thirty odd shots and still struggled to convert them. Statistically there are probably quite a few similarities with the United game. Certainly we had a similar number of shots against the mancs, albeit nowhere near as many on target and the XG won’t be remotely comparable. The wider point though is that too often we need to create a lot of chances to score the goals that we should be scoring, but this felt different to me. I don’t think the finishing was too bad for the most part. We didn’t do much wrong and a lot of the time the keeper was making terrific saves. He had the game of his life and he’s the reason we didn’t get double figures. It’s partly down to below par finishing, but mostly it’s just one of those nights when too many shots are within the keeper’s reach and he gets to show off by making a load of saves. We were great though. In fairness, I think Newcastle showed in limited opportunities that they were in decent shape themselves. I thought they played quite well when they were allowed to. They weren’t really allowed to very often though, because we absolutely smothered them. The tempo, intensity and pressing was great for pretty much the entire game, aside from a 10 minute lull before half time which I blame entirely on that twat Anthony Taylor. I’ll get to him in due course. You can tell when we’ve played really well by how animated and excited Klopp is in his post match interviews, and he was fucking beaming after this. He said afterwards something along the lines of “some people say I’m not a good example for grass roots football but maybe they can show the video of this game to grass roots to show them how to counter-press”. I didn’t get onto it immediately, but it was that snivelling little Saudi shill Howe who said Klopp wasn’t setting a good example. He’s defo having a little jibe at Beheddie there. Love that. When we counter press like that we’re a nightmare to play against. That was our identity, it’s why everyone hated playing against us. We lost it for various reasons but it’s back now. Not every game, we’re still a work in progress and besides, it’s impossible to play with that kind of maniacal intensity in every match. What we need is for it to be there when we need it. I’ll tell you something. If we’d played like this against the mancs the other week then another 7-0 wouldn’t have been out of the question. Newcastle are in a terrible run and they’ve got a lot of problems currently, but this performance was way better than what we saw from Ten Jarg and his band of fucking losers. It’s just a shame we didn’t perform like this against them. Right from the start we were on top of Newcastle. That first half was brilliant, the only thing missing was a goal but it wasn’t for the lack of trying.

Monday Oct 30: In one of the more unlikely bits of news I thought I’d ever read, Torres and Arbeloa have a continuing feud that seems to boil over every time their teams meet. One coaches Real Madrid youth, the coaches Atletico’s youth, and whenever they meet there’s murder. Torres refused to shake Arbeloa’s hand at the end of the game and then the players had a mass brawl this weekend. This comes off the back of a confrontation they had in their last meeting when Torres yelled at Arbeloa “I’ll blow your head off!”. This is amazing stuff, I hope they both make it at senior level so we can see this play out. Meanwhile, Vincent Kompany a few weeks ago after the Spurs debacle: “Mistakes are human. I like the fact there’s transparency and that people come forward, own their mistakes, that we get access to the footage. For him personally, we all make mistakes.” Vincent Kompany this weekend after HE was on the receiving end….. Basically four minutes of wah wah wah. Bulb headed, baseball cap with a suit wearing Man City twat. Still no word on Diaz’s dad. This is getting concerning now as the longer it goes the less likely it’s going to have a happy ending. I blame Everton for this. Remember when they signed “Hammez” and were telling anyone who’d listen how they now had "millions of new fans in Colombia"? And now our player’s parents are being kidnapped?? Don’t tell me that’s a co-incidence. They’ll probably post the ransom demands on Grand Old Team.

Massive win this in terms of how the fans can start to see this team. We’re still in that new stage with this group of players which means it’s difficult to know what we’re going to get. Throughout all the Klopp glory years there was a level of trust and confidence in what the players were going to serve up and generally we knew what to expect. We’re not there yet with “Liverpool rebooted”. How could we be, we’re only four games in. The start of this season has been mad. Really up and down with some strange circumstances that have made it almost impossible to know who we are and where we’re at. A Jeckyll and Hyde display at Chelsea, a terrible start at Bournemouth followed by a decent enough recovery but then having to play with ten men for half an hour just when it looked like we were about to really click into gear. And then last week. A rough start followed by a show of great resilience, character and tactical acumen against Newcastle, but we did it with ten men for an hour so that told us nothing about how we’d fare in a game like this one. It was hard to take anything from any of those games in terms of where we’re at and how we’re playing. This one though, this is the first game of the season we can actually judge based on what we saw. And it was really fucking impressive. There’s a lot to take from this game and we saw why Klopp was so bullish with his pre-match declaration that “I love this team. You will love this team too if you give it time”. I don’t know if this team will reach the heights that Klopp’s first Liverpool side did, but I do know they’ll be fun to watch and we’ll enjoy watching them. The rebuild isn’t complete yet as there are still gaps that need filling, but Mac Allister and Szoboszlai are top class and we can see that immediately. There’s no bedding in period for them, they’re just ready made quality. Mind you, they did have a full pre-season here which massively helps. The way we handled our business after that left us short handed and Endo and Gravenberch will need time to acclimatise. The good thing is we’re not desperate for them to come in and immediately hit top form. We can be patient because we’ve got other options. One of those, Curtis Jones, returned to the side for this game and while he didn’t do anything that made him stand out, he’s going to be a big player for us in this new set up, as he was at the end of last season. He presses superbly and never loses the ball. Ever. Considering how we want to play now, that’s a big deal. Most of our vulnerable moments come when someone (so far usually Trent) loses the ball cheaply and puts us on the back foot. Jones being on the pitch really helps us control the game, which then allows others to do their thing. Others like Szoboszlai and the strikers. My boy got a start after his match winning cameo at Newcastle and he needs to stay in the side now. He’s such a massive threat and he’s got a really good understanding with Mo. They have had that from day one, but the opportunity to build on it hasn’t really been there because Darwin has been on the bench so often. They enjoy playing together though, you can see it. For so long we had the false nine and the two wide men making diagonal runs in behind, but we’re a different team now. We don’t need to replicate that because Diaz isn’t Mané and Gakpo isn’t Firmino. Cody does share a lot of Bobby traits, but we have a new midfield now with different skill profiles and a different set up behind the forwards. We don’t need a locksmith to carefully open the door for others, we’re fine with a battering ram who can smash it in by himself. To put it another way, we have two midfielders in advanced positions now, whereas previously we had none, so Bobby (and then Cody) would drop into that space to play between the lines. We don’t need that now, we need to stretch teams with runners in behind. Nunez does that brilliantly and I reckon opponents must hate facing him. Nobody likes facing pace and someone who runs in behind all the time. Him and Mo ran Villa’s high line ragged.

Where I do even start with this? It’s one for the ages. Biggest win at Old Trafford for over a hundred years or something. It was an absolute fucking beatdown and United were utterly humiliated. The funny thing is we were probably only at about 75%. We played well but we definitely have another gear we can go to if needed. It wasn’t needed because United are so flawed and we were so clinical on the day. It was billed as Ronaldo v Salah and it did feel like a passing of the torch moment. Any claim to the throne Ronaldo may still think he has was dismissed out of hand by the Egyptian King going into his back yard and taking the fucking piss. At this moment in time there is no-one in the world better at football than Mo Salah and he proved it beyond doubt on this stage. United might be shite but it’s still Old Trafford and it’s a huge game. The eyes of the world were on it and Mo put Ronaldo over his knee and spanked him. This was almost surreal at times. That moment when Sky showed a fucking fuming Alex Ferguson and then cut to a beaming Kenny was just iconic. What a fucking moment that was. Kudos to that director, that was fucking phenomenal TV. In hindsight it’s easy to look back on this and go “yeah, what we were even worried about? That’s how it’s supposed to happen.” Football is rarely like that though and this is a notoriously bad ground for us. We won there last year and although there were no fans there I was hoping that maybe it will have given the players confidence that they can win at Old Trafford. City have been horrendous at Anfield but won there last season in an empty stadium. It’s easy for us to say “it means nothing” but clearly it meant something to them because this season they came here and played better than I’ve ever seen play here. I was hoping a similar thing would happen with us, and specifically Mo. He’s usually been shite at Old Trafford. Really bad. But he was boss there last season and maybe that changed something in him and gave him confidence to do it again. And he sure fucking did. Wow. I was neither confident nor pessimistic going into this. I had absolutely no clue what to expect, but when I saw the starting eleven my shoulders did slump a little. Konate in for Matip was a weird one. Protecting Joel makes sense, but it seemed like an odd time to throw Konate in, especially when Gomez is available. Klopp said they saw something when analysing United that made them think Konate was a good fit for the game. No idea what it was, but they were right because Konate was fucking boss. Looked completely at home and not overawed at all, even though he was up against someone with the reputation of Ronaldo. The midfield was a concern too. No Fabinho? Fucks sake. He’s one of the first names on the teamsheet in big games as he’s so important. I know United’s midfield is shite, but the quality they have up front is beyond question so you want Fabinho there stopping the likes of Fernandes getting on the ball. Hendo, Keita and Milner isn’t going to inspire massive confidence in a fixture we’ve found so difficult in the past. Milner shouldn’t have been anywhere the starting eleven having played twice this week already, while it was a big call to retain faith in Naby after what happened in midweek. The Milner decision was proven to be a mistake but Keita absolutely justified his inclusion. He was boss and was as influential as anybody in what we did in the first half. I’m made up with 5-0 as beforehand I’d have snatched your hands off for any kind of win and the performance didn’t really matter. Because it’s them, because it’s there, I’d have taken any win I can get. But if you’re a long time reader you probably know what’s coming next. Yes, there’s a small part of me pissed off that we only scored five. As ridiculous as that sounds, it’s true. The last half an hour was frustrating to me because there were more goals to be had there if we’d pushed for them. We were arguing about this on post match pod as Paul and Brownie were shooting me down about it. You might agree with them and don’t see this as any kind of missed opportunity because 5-0 was beyond all of our wildest dreams. If you think that, let me ask you a question: When Pogba got sent off with half an hour to go, if you had the option to stop the game there and then and take the 5-0, or carry on playing to see if we could score seven, eight or possibly even more, would you have settled for the five at that point? It looked to me like half the team wanted to keep piling forward to score more goals but the other half had their sensible heads on and wanted to play keep ball, take the sting out of the game and make sure we didn’t pick up any more injuries. Those instructions may have even come from Klopp, I don’t know. I just know it was frustrating because this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something completely unprecedented. All the years we suffered at their hands, all the times their fans taunted us at their place as well as at Anfield. The misery they inflicted on us right throughout the 90s and for another decade after. This was a chance to give them the biggest payback imaginable. Sure, 5-0 at Old Trafford does that to a great extent anyway, but imagine if we’d scored eight. There was half an hour left and they were completely broken. Their heads were gone and we could have scored as many as we wanted. There was an element of “stop hitting them, they’re already dead” about this. The thing is though, I’d have been kicking that corpse until my feet hurt. Then I’d have pissed on it, set it on fire, and then pissed on the ashes. This is Manchester United. I wanted to absolutely destroy them and five feels like they got away with it a bit. That’s only a small part of me though. The overwhelming feeling is of massive satisfaction. It’s a result that will be remembered and spoken about for generations to come. Probably this generation’s “5-1 at Goodison” result in many ways, with Mo in the Ian Rush role. I think what I enjoyed most about this is that it actually went the way it was supposed to based on the current level of both teams. That rarely happens, usually because the inferior side raises their game and the superior side doesn’t perform as they can. Great United teams have come to Anfield and played bang average Liverpool teams and not won, while we’ve gone there knowing we’re miles better than them but just not performed. This one went exactly how it should have though. It’s fascinating now looking back on Paul Scholes’ comments after they beat Atalanta as he called this one exactly right. He hit the nail on the head instead of putting it between his teeth. He knew what was going to happen if United tried to play the same way against us and he even said it would be three or four nil at half time. That’s someone giving an informed opinion based on actually watching how a team is playing and analysing their weaknesses. Compare that to Gabby Agbonlahor who predicted a United win based entirely on a narrative; Ronaldo won’t want to be outshone by Salah at home. I never dreamed it would go this well for us just because so often we haven’t done ourselves justice, and also because I didn’t think for a second Solskjaer would try to play like that. I assumed they’d sit in their own half, compact, try to restrict the space for our front players and full backs, and then hit us on the break with their speedy attackers, especially in wide areas when our full backs go forward. Instead they were attempting this half arsed high press where some players would press, others wouldn’t, and they just never got near us. The first goal is amazing. Not because of anything we did, but because of how naive and disorganised they were. Coming out to press and getting there a second late every time and leaving gaps in the space they vacated. It was too easy for us. Credit to the lads involved in the move, especially Mo and Naby, but that’s pure shite from United. Just lovely from Mo though, I’m buzzing off the way he’s so often looking to play team-mates in now. There’s been a real maturation in his game this season. He still desperately wants to score but he wants to win trophies even more. He’s making great decisions every week, while still scoring at a rate like never before. It’s class from Keita too. Lovely run into the space and a cool finish. He started the game well and made a vital interception with only a minute gone. We were potentially in trouble there after giving the ball away cheaply but Naby nipped in to steal the ball back. After what happened in midweek there was a lot of pressure on him to deliver in this game, and usually he’s folded under that kind of pressure. This time he delivered a top performance. Probably his best since arriving at the club. He was involved in the second goal when he took advantage of a misunderstanding between Maguire and Shaw to play a lovely little ball into the overlapping Trent, who crossed for Jota to poke him from close range. I thought that was offside at first and even after a couple of replays I still expected it to be chalked off. The camera angle was really deceiving though and when they draw the lines it wasn’t even that close. 2-0 inside 13 minutes. Dreamland. But then this happened the other night too and we got pegged back before half time. Maybe that helped this time, with the memory of what happened in Madrid so fresh in the players’ minds they were completely switched on. Or maybe Atletico are just miles better than United. United are always dangerous though because of the talent in their team. As shot as they were in this game, they had chances. Fernandes misses a great opening when the game was still goalless. They had other moments of danger too. Alisson made good saves to deny Greenwood and Ronaldo, but this is who United are. They’ll always have opportunities because good players will have moments in games. Their problem is that is all they have. They aren’t a team, they have no plan, no organisation, no identity. Just a load of really good players doing their own thing. It was 3-0 when Mo found Naby in the box and then got on the end of an excellent return cross. Unbelievable. United’s heads had gone and so had a good chunk of the crowd. They were leaving in their hundreds, maybe even thousands, before half time. Ronaldo lashed out petulantly after losing out to Jones, who had replaced the injured Milner. The least surprising thing about this whole day was Milner going off with a hamstring injury. That’s what happens when he plays three times in a week. It happened twice last season where he did his hamstring in the third game of the week. Going back to the Ronaldo incident though. He doesn’t do that it if it’s Robbo, Trent, Virg, Hendo or whoever. His ego couldn’t handle being mugged off by a kid he’s probably never even heard of. A scouse kid at that. The offence was probably deserving of more than a yellow but it’s not quite a red so I have no complaint about Taylor’s decision to only book him. He kicks the ball and not the player, even though he knows exactly what he’s doing. Bottom line, because he kicked the ball it’s very difficult to send him off for that. There was a little skirmish afterwards in which Robbo was wagging his finger at Ronaldo, Fernandes gave a little push to Virg and then big Konate arrived to shove Fernandes out of the way. Ronaldo walked away from it all, with Curtis saying something to him. I’d love to know what it was, but if I had to take a guess it would be along the lines of “you mad, bro?”. You could see they’d lost whatever composure they had and there was no way they were getting back into this game. They needed the half time whistle to arrive just to try and clear their heads and come up with an alternate plan, but before that happened we killed them stone dead with a fourth goal. The first few times I watched that I wondered if Mo had actually been looking to put it in the other corner. I think Klopp hinted at something along those lines too afterwards. Having watched it over and over I now think he did exactly what he was trying to do. It’s clinical as fuck. 4-0 at half time, just as Scholesy predicted. Solskjaer responded by subbing Greenwood and sending on Pogba. That right there is a big part of their problem. Greenwood should never have been subbed. Ronaldo was the one that needed to go as it was all hands to the deck and that preening cunt isn’t going to do any dirty work for the team. And if Pogba is not the answer to anything, unless the question is who is the most over-rated footballer on the planet. Last week he said “something has to change” after they lost at Leicester. The thing that changed was he was dropped, but sending him out there in a game like this when they were 4-0 down was never going to end well for them. Pogba will have been fuming about that. Not just because he was on the bench, but because he was sent on when they were 4-0 down. Anyone would be pissed off by that, but you still have to be professional and he wasn’t. Within minutes he’d lost the ball in midfield (as he so often does) and it was 5-0. Hendo robbed him and then played the most exquisite of passes to release Mo who did the rest. I thought he’d over ran that with a heavy second touch but he’s so quick he still got there and re-adjusted his feet to dink it past De Gea for his hat-trick. Unbelievable. What a player. I’m finding it increasingly difficult not to bow to the argument he’s the best we’ve had. I’m not there yet but my feeling is that soon I won’t be able to argue against it. It was now just a case of how many we’d score, although Ronaldo did think he’d pulled one back with what was actually a really good finish. Shame he was offside hahahaha. If anyone was going to have disallowed at 0-5 I’mm glad it’s him, because none of the others would have give a fuck but this will have pissed him right off as he’s such a selfish twat. Then Pogba saw red for a wild tackle that saw Naby have to go off on a stretcher. Hopefully it isn’t too serious and it’s just bruising as that would be a massive shame for him if he can’t build on what he did here. Initially Taylor only gave a yellow but I can see why he did that. He only had one view of it in real time and it did look like Pogba got the ball before catching Naby. With the safety net of VAR in place, refs don’t need to do anything overly hasty now so he’s gone yellow and then waited to hear if he needed to take another look. As soon as they showed the replay there was never any doubt he was going to overturn that decision. He could have sent Maguire off too for bringing down Jota as he went clean through. Had the scoreline been closer he may have done, but Maguire did get the ball as well as man so again, I can see why he made the decision he did. He had a good game did Taylor. I was worried about him ahead of this, because why wouldn’t you be? Funnily enough though, United fans can’t stand him either and think he favours City. Maybe he does, I don’t know. I just know that having a Manchester ref in charge of a game involving a Manchester team and a Merseyside team is not a good idea. Fair play though, he was good. This time. So 5-0 with half an hour left, but that’s how it finished. United will be embarrassed at the result but they should also be massively relieved that this wasn’t a scoreline for the ages. Like Leicester winning 9-0 at Southampton the other year. While some fans like me watching on telly were thinking about what might have been, those inside Old Trafford won’t have given a fuck. They were too busy enjoying themselves and rightly so. I’ve been there when we’ve won and other than winning trophies there’s nothing like it. I’ve been there for some bad losses too, so everyone who was in that away end will have been having the time of their life as it means so much. We’ve been on the receiving end of taunts from them for decades but the worm has definitely turned now. They’ve gone back into the pack and we’re up there fighting for titles and European Cups. These things go in cycles and it’s important to enjoy while you can because it can change quickly. It was a shame that Curtis couldn’t put the cherry on the icing when he went through at the end. I’d have been buzzing for him to get one, not least because he’d probably have let Ronaldo know about on his way back for the restart. So in closing, it feels fucking great finally see us go there and do what we’re supposed to do. Much of the focus will be on how bad they were but so what? It’s fair comment, they were absolutely shite. It doesn’t take away from what we did though and although it’s taken a while, it looks like the world has finally woken up to the fact we’re still really fucking good. The post match on Sky was hilarious. Souey and Carra were really giving Neville a hard time and making him squirm as he did everything he could to blame everyone and everything else other than his mate Ole. He looked fucking haunted as he sat there, it was great. What a man Souey is by the way. Before the game he was needling Neville and then at one point he turns to Carra and says “I told you we’d have a lot of fun today”. Fucking brilliant. The only thing missing was Roy Keane. Imagine what he’d have made of that. Star man is Mo, obviously. I also want to single out Keita for what he did, and also Konate who looked so comfortable and composed. We’re so strong at centre half right now it’s almost unfair. Look at United and how shit their defenders are. Maguire cost more money that Virg, Joe and Joel combined. Bobby was sneakily good too. Didn’t score and only really had one effort on goal, but he was popping up all over the pitch winning the ball back and linking play. Jota was sharp and a constant menace. That left sided role is where he’s best suited and if Sadio is having to fight for his spot that can only be a good thing as it will elevate his game. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson, Keita (Oxlade-Chamberlain) Milner (Jones); Salah, Firmino (Mané), Jota:

So that’s it for another year then. Is it me or has final day been shite for years now? There doesn’t seem to be much drama at either end of the table. Even the other year when the title race went down to the last day everyone knew that City would beat Brighton so there was never the possibility of any real drama, and the relegation spots seem to be getting decided earlier each year too. This was shite really. The only thing of any consequence up for grabs were third and fourth. That was interesting and had some drama due to Leicester and Chelsea both failing to to take care of business, unlike the Mighty Reds (yeah we’re mighty again now). I expected that I’d feel sorry for Leicester if they missed out, but I actually don’t. They were given two penalties against Spurs, had the lead twice, and still somehow managed to lose to a team with nothing to play for. They completely bottled it but it’s probably not a bad thing for them really. They won the FA Cup so it’s been a memorable season for them and let’s be honest here, Brendan is abysmal in Europe so the Champions League was probably biting off more than they could chew. Maybe the Europa League will be better for them, and I don’t mean that in a condescending way either. They could actually win that if Brendan doesn’t get in his own way. You can argue that Leicester deserved top four but the season is 38 games and they finished where they finished. Had they beaten Spurs they'd have been in, but they didn't. Maybe they deserved it ahead of Chelsea who ended the season with Jorginho as their top scorer on seven goals (all pens). That’s fucking scandalous given how much they’ve spent on forwards, but let's not forget that they had to overcome being managed by Lampard for over half a season so overall they’ve done well. We overcame all kinds of shit too so I don’t think anyone can dispute our right to be in there. It does seem a bit sly on Leicester that they’ve spent virtually the whole of the last two seasons in the top four and then dropped out on the final day both times, but the season lasts for 38 games, not 37, and they didn't learn the lesson from last year. Their game with Spurs was pretty wild. They led through a Vardy pen after he’d been tripped by Alderweireld. Somehow Anthony Taylor failed to spot that and needed VAR to correct him. He’s going to the Euros though. Our best ref, apparently. Jeez. Vardy scored the pen and Leicester were briefly third. That changed when we took the lead in our game. Then Kane scored his customary goal which won him the Golden Boot and things got complicated. Leicester were fifth but Chelsea were losing at Villa courtesy of a fluke by Traore, which kicked the ball onto his standing foot and it lopped into the top corner. We were in great shape but Leicester and Chelsea’s fates were in the balance. Leicester were given a second penalty, and this one was a fucking joke. Blatant dive by Vardy yet this time Taylor gave it and VAR backed him up. So yeah, that baldy manc fuck got both penalty decisions wrong. Vardy converted again and Leicester were back up to fourth. There was more penalty drama, this time at Villa Park when Traore was clipped by Jorginho and El Ghazi made it 2-0. Chelsea were in big trouble now but Chilwell’s goal put them back up to fourth on goal difference. Leicester needed a goal but ended up conceding one instead when Schmeichel punched into his own net. It was a brutal day for him as he’d earlier let Kane’s volley go through his legs, but that second goal gets disallowed more often than not as he was definitely impeded. It got worse for Leicester when they got done on the break and Kane set up Bale to make it 3-2. Again, that usually gets disallowed as the ball bounced up and hit Kane’s hand. Not deliberate, completely unavoidable and I don’t want to see goals disallowed for that, but isn’t that the rule? If the ball hits the hand of the goalscorer or the player who plays the final pass to the goalscorer, it doesn’t count. So I’m not sure how this was allowed, but given the two penalties they were awarded Leicester don’t have too much grounds for complaint. Bale rubbed further salt in the wounds deep into stoppage time as Spurs secured their spot in the Europa Conference for next season. Better them than us, that’s all I can say. Kane was player of the year and it isn’t even close. He was the top scorer, he had the most assists and he was playing in a dogshit team under a negative manager for most of the season. Yet Ruben Dias is probably going to win it just so chin strokers can show how ‘clever’ they are by not going for the obvious. I couldn’t even pick the cunt out in a line up but that’s because I avoid City games as much as possible. So you can argue that makes me unqualified to pass opinion on him and that’s fair. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong though. The reasons given as to why he’s been the best player this season just don’t stand up at all. This ‘transformational’ shite I keep hearing about makes me laugh. Has he improved City at the back and made them a real force again? That’s what I keep hearing, but it’s based on one impressive spell during the season when they barely conceded a goal. The big picture tells a different story. Last season 81 points and 35 conceded. This season 86 points and 32 conceded. Well that’s me convinced. Don’t forget that this time last year we were told that losing Laporte was the reason they didn’t win the league. Yet for most of this season he couldn’t get in ahead of John Stones. So yeah, that was bollocks, just like this Dias love in. They had Fernandinho and Garcia playing centre back last season and conceded only three more than they did with the great Dias. Dias hasn’t ‘transformed’ anything. He’s come in and played well and been better than their other centre backs. It’s not a high bar he had to leap over though is it? Put him in the team of the year and you’ll get absolutely no argument from me (unless it’s at the expense of Nat Phillips in which case we’re going toe to toe) but pick him as the best player in the country this season and that’s taking it way too far. People who pick Dias over Kane as Player of the Year are footy hipsters who just want to show they’re more ‘thoughtful’ than the rest of us. The same cunts who would tell you how Michael Carrick was the most influential midfielder of his generation or that David Silva is the best foreign import. Harry Kane is Player of the Year. You don’t have to like it but it is what it is. Moving on. West Ham ended a good season with another positive result to secure a sixth placed finish. Minamino was inches away from giving the Saints the lead after a swift counter attack. I like him a lot but there’s no way he’s ever going to establish himself with us and hopefully Southampton want to keep him. Maybe we can include him in a deal for my boy Ward-Prowse. That miss was crucial as Fornals bagged a quick brace and that was that for Southampton. Rice added another late on and Moyes is going to be in Europe next season. Not for long, obviously, but it’s always funny seeing him doing better than Everton. His old club, Manchester United (still funny whenever I think about that and the ‘Chosen One’ banner) ended with a win over sorry Wolves despite resting all their first team ahead of the Europa League Final, which they hilariously lost to Albert the Moron’s Villarreal. So I have nothing to say about this other than Wolves have had a fucking diabolical season and Nuno Holy Spirit’s time had clearly come. That’s a tasty looking job for any ambitious manager though. Lots of good players and the Jorge Mendes connection which gives you access to the entire pool of Portuguese players as well as a load of Brazilians. The downside is you have to see Conor Coady every day. Leeds ended a great season back in the big time with a win over West Brom at Elland Road. Nice for the Leeds fans to finally get to see their team playing. Imagine the fun they’d have had this season if they’d been allowed in. They’re one of the few sets of supporters who genuinely missed out by not being able to watch their team play. Rodrigo is ending the season well and he scored again before Phillips doubled their lead. My boy Patrick made it 3-0 from the spot with his 17th league goal of the season. Fucking boss him. Love watching him, the elegant bastard. Hal Robson-Kanu bagged a late consolation which was his 5th goal of the season. Mad that, the first time I heard the cunt’s name mentioned was when he scored against us a week ago. How’s he managed three goals prior to that? Hopefully this is the last we see of West Brom for a while. It’s bd enough Norwich and Watford are coming back up but if Brentford can do it as well as least that makes it a bit less boring. Arsenal managed to sneak up the table and finish 8th with a late flurry. As Arsenal as it gets that. As soon as the pressure was off and everyone stopped giving a fuck about them, they put a few wins together and back doored their way into the top half. Pepe scored his 15th of the season to put them ahead against Brighton. Sounds impressive, but I’m assuming at least ten of those goals were in the Europa League as I’ve bene watching MOTD all season for these runs ups and I’m fairly sure he’s done fuck all. He added another to make it 2-0 but that isn’t really important. The real takeaway here is Arsenal were playing music after the goals. Not just any music, they were playing that “Rule the Arsenal” song. They’re utterly fucking shameless aren’t they? They don’t get it at it all. They should be fucking embarrassed at how shit they are but instead they carry on acting like they’re at the top of the league, overly celebrating goals and playing music when they score. I’m so offended by Arsenal and their lack of standards. The mad thing is, as shit as they are they couldn’t find a place for Joe Willock, who always looked good whenever I saw him and has been fucking boss at Newcastle. He scored for the seventh game in a row to set the Geordies on their way to victory at Fulham. They want to sign him permanently but Arsenal would be mad to let him go given the dogshit they regularly send out in their first team every week. Then again, word is Arsenal are skint so maybe they’ll need to sell. Will Mike Ashley stump up the cash to buy him though? Fabian Schar wrapped it up from the spot. Might be the most stylish penalty I’ve seen all season that. Very nice. Newcastle finished 12th, despite being without most of their best attacking players for much of the season. That Steve Bruce though eh? What a fucking bum. Mighty Newcastle deserve so much better than him, what with their impressive history and track record of regularly finishing higher than 12th. Sheffield United ended the season with a win. Not sure what that means and whether they’ve avoided any unwanted records. They did fuck up my Dad’s accy though as he’d foolishly included Burnley. Never bet on Burnley when they’re already safe. Rookie mistake that. McGoldrick got the only goal of the game and a good one it was too. I like him, he’s probably my favourite shit player. Eight goals for him this year, which would make him top scorer at Chelsea. Yes, that was another shot at Timo Walcott and why not? I was right about him so I’m going to milk that for as long as I can. The Blades should come straight back up if they keep their squad together. Brewster will tear up the Championship and with fans back in Bramall Lane they’ll be a completely different proposition to this season. Last and very much least. Everton. Fucking losers. I haven’t been right about much this season but one thing I’ve been consistent about is that Everton are fucking shit and would finish around 10th. They finished exactly 10th. Because they’re fucking shit and I kept telling you that. If we’d finished below them it would have been the most shameful season in our history. That’s how shit they are. They shamed themselves on the final day by losing 5-0 to City. Not sure why they bent over when the title was already won. Old habits die hard I guess. Half that team will have had a semi on while they formed that guard of honour for the Champions. Honestly, they make me fucking sick the pathetic cunts. Over the last five years there are less than a handful of teams that have spent more than Everton yet somehow they can keep being shit without any kind of scrutiny. It just shows how little interest anyone outside of County Road has in them. They’re fucking irrelevant. Even all those millions of new Colombian fans they accrued when they signed the Instagram Kid have fucked them off. Every year it’s the same. They spend a load of cash, boast about winning the transfer window, fantasise about a new stadium that’s never going to be built and talk of power shifts. This year they took it even further and flooded the charts with 80s cup final songs just because they won four games. They’re like a cartoon fucking moron. Wile. E. Coyote or Tom from Tom & Jerry. They never learn. Just the same fucking stupid mistakes year upon year that make them look ridiculous. It’s actually staggering that this can happen to them so often and at no point do they ever take a step back and think “you know what, let’s not get ahead of ourselves this time as we always end up with egg on our faces”. De Bruyne put City ahead early and Jesus added another after Michael Keane attempted to dribble past four City players. Really Michael? Really? As deluded as their fucking fanbase. That Richarlison cunt won a penalty when he got clear of Footballer of the Year Dias and was crudely brought down. Of course he made a huge meal of it by rolling around screaming, hoping to get the City man sent off. He failed. Yellow card only. Sigurdsson missed the pen, which begs the question what’s the fucking point of him? Literally the only thing he does is take pens and set-pieces, and if he can’t do that then they may as well just put an Everton shirt on a scarecrow and stick it out there in midfield. Although that would be unfair on commentators who would struggle to tell the difference between that and Tom Davies. Heaviest defeat of Ancelotti’s managerial career, second worst league position of his career (the worst was also at Everton) and yet he’s under zero pressure and he’s one of the highest paid managers in the world. Aguero came off the bench and accepted a gift from Davies to sign off with a goal. Holgate’s defending on that was hilarious. Aguero then bagged another with a brilliant header to make it 5-0. There were rumours that Holgate and Big Dunc came to blows afterwards. Given that Holgate is still breathing I’m assuming that’s bullshit. Aguero did an interview in English afterwards. Fair play, it’s only taken eight years. Guardiola turned on the crocodile tears when talking about how much he loves Aguero. He’s such an insincere weird fucking cunt. He dropped an ‘F’ bomb on Match of the Day too, which pissed me right off. Klopp can do that and it’s charming and funny. This bad fuck is just a bad try hard. Why was he swearing? At the notion that City’s achievements are just down to money. He’s right, it isn’t just money and he’s a really great fucking coach. But sorry, you don’t get to complain about that when you’re breaking every rule in the book just to be able to spend more money than everyone else. Fuck Guardiola. Fuck Man City. Fuck Everton. Fuck this season. Player of the Season 1 Kane 2 Grealish 3 Bamford (and I’ll fight each and every one of you who disagrees) Manager of the Season Bielsa, by a fucking mile, with an honourable mention to Graham Potter. Flop of the Season Everton Wish he played for us: 1 Harry Kane 2 Jack Grealish 3 Mason Greenwood Cunt of the Season 1 Richarlison 2 Pickford 3 Guardiola / Bruno Fernandez Goal of the Season 1 Alisson at West Brom 2 Firmino at Palace 3 Salah at West Ham Goal of the Season (non LFC) Any one of my boy Bamford’s. The Jason Puncheon ‘My Boy’ Award Patrick Bamford The Massive Cunts XI Pickford, Walker, Mina, Maguire, Digne; Allan, Fernandez, Rodriguez; Son, Richarlison (c), Iheanacho.

You’ve got to hand it to Everton. Only they could suffer a completely routine defeat in which they managed only one effort on goal and somehow make out it was controversial. It’s crazy to me that all the talk after this game was about a referee who was for the most part fine. This is the most Everton thing you’ll ever see. Essentially they’re attempting to stir up a massive controversy and crying about conspiracies and unfairness based on…. well one minor foul that may or may not have been a yellow card. That’s it. One fucking decision that a referee made a judgement call on. Imagine if these fuckers had to deal with what happened to us at Spurs. They aren’t complaining about Ashley Old getting two clear yellows. They aren’t complaining about the stonewall penalty. The sane and rational ones aren’t anyway. But they are crying conspiracy because the referee chose to award a free-kick and no yellow card for what was just a pretty standard foul. And for some reason that’s become the story of the game that everyone is leading. Shit, I’m even doing it here. So many games this season have been ruined by refereeing decisions and we’ve been on the receiving end of those fuck ups more than anybody. This isn’t that. And trying to lump this in with the other shit we’ve seen undermines the genuine debacles we’ve seen. Craig Pawson’s performance wasn’t bad. Other than that one Konate decision which could have gone either way, what’s the problem here? There isn’t one. It’s a fucking joke. There’s nothing here that you won’t see in literally every other game of football this weekend. I guarantee you can find a foul in any game where you can argue a yellow should have been given but wasn’t, or vice versa. That’s all this is. Everton will argue that all the decisions went against them. They’d be wrong. Pawson didn’t give us a penalty when Patterson brought down Diaz and let’s not forget that he didn’t give the penalty for handball either until VAR told him he’d missed it. So one decision went against them and it’s sparked all of this. It’s pathetic. This reaction and behaviour from them is embarrassing even by Everton standards. Manager, p[layers and fans. All of them are making fools of themselves. You’re really going to make a massive song and dance over that Konate foul? Jesus Christ. Even if the ref had sent him off we’d have still beat them as Everton can’t handle it when there’s any sort of expectation on them to do something. You know when Everton are in their absolute derby game element? When they’re down to ten men, crying about referees and putting up a ‘brave, backs to wall’ effort in a valiant defeat. If that game went ten v ten they couldn’t have just sat there on the edge of their own box, pumping alehouse balls up to whichever big donkey they have up top. They’d have had to try and play a bit, and they’d have got royally fucked because that would have left space for my boy Darwin to run them ragged.

As that brutal car crash of a first half unfolded I was trying to make myself feel better by concentrating on the excuses. We couldn’t take anything from this performance because it’s a massively changed line up from that impressive win over Villa, some of the squad had barely trained, it was an early kick off after an international break and so on. It wouldn’t have made the result any easier to take but it would allow me to dismiss it to a large extent and not allow it to cloud my judgement on the team and where we are headed. Similar to how having to play with ten men in two of our opening three fixtures made it hard to get a handle on what kind of form we’re in and how far along the road we are with the ‘new team’. What we saw in that first half was no real indicator of anything in terms of how the rest of the season would go. That’s the angle I was going for if it continued to go wrong. Thankfully it didn’t. Klopp was largely culpable for what went wrong in the first half, but he recognised what needed to be done and he fixed it emphatically. He started the game with the wrong line up and the wrong system and we didn’t really have any chance. We’re lucky it was only a one goal deficit at the break, although had it been more I still feel that we’d have come back given just how massively things improved after Klopp righted the wrongs from the first half. There were two massive errors made by Klopp to start this game. The first was starting Alexis Mac Allister, the second was asking Joe Gomez to be Trent Alexander-Arnold. This isn’t hindsight talking either as I don’t think any one of us would have asked Joe to be moving inside into that inverted role, and given what we knew about Macca’s exploits in midweek I’d say most were a little surprised he wasn’t on the bench along with his South American compatriots Luis Diaz and my boy Darwin. Mac Allister played a full game at altitude three days ago. He needed oxygen before and during the game and he didn’t get back to Merseyside until 24 hours before the game. You could tell within a couple of minutes he was miles off the pace and at no point did he ever get to grips with it. He was like Fabinho's dad and in a half when most of his team-mates were also shit, there was no way we could hide him so he got badly exposed. Not his fault, I don’t think any less of him whatsoever as I don’t think he had any chance of putting in a performance. Klopp said as much afterwards which makes it all the more baffling that he started him. What’s the fucking point in Endo if we can’t put him in a game like this? If I was him I’d be well pissed off. Gomez was done no favours either with what he was asked to do. This system was designed for Trent, so if he’s not there then fuck it off and don’t over complicate things. Look at how Gomez performed in the second half compared to the first. Night and day. It’s mind blowing that we saw him moving into those midfield areas. Not all the time, but it was happening occasionally. I felt sorry for him as he’s not familiar with it and he’s not suited to it. I like him as a right back, I think he’s improved massively in that role over the last couple of years but he was put in a bad spot there. He had a torrid first half, not helped at all by how bad Matip was alongside him. It sounds daft, but alarm bells went off for me seconds into the game when Jota attempted a simple enough pass and put it miles up in the air. That set the tone for what followed. Sloppy, slow, totally lacking in any kind of intensity. Klopp said afterwards that the players just couldn’t physically do what they needed to do to make the system work, and he couldn’t change the whole team so he changed the system. Better late than never.

And we thought last week was dramatic. This team, fucking hell. It wasn’t a good performance, the lads just didn’t have it but they dug deep and found a way. That’s what Champions do. It’s hard not to draw parallels with the Villa game in the title winning season, but it’s too early to know if it will have the same significance. Teams who win titles usually have moments like this one that they look back on as being pivotal though. Hopefully this is ours. For so long it was looking like it wasn’t going to happen, yet because of the faith I have in these players I wasn’t panicking and even going into stoppage time I thought we’d win. It wasn’t until around 95 minutes or so that I gave up and had resigned myself to us ending the weekend in 3rd spot. It’s ironic that the moment I had given up was the moment that Forest are kicking off about and saying it decided the game. May as well get all that out of the way first. The game was in the balance and Forest looked just as likely to get a winner as we did in extra time. They had carried a threat on the counter attack all day and the more we pushed forward looking for the winner, the more space we left for them. They had the ball in our final third and time was running out. It was around the time they had that corner that I lost hope. In fact, it was the moment when play was stopped for the Konate head injury. Forest had already been wasting time (more on that in a bit) and Hudson-Odoi had been in possession when play stopped. I expected a brief delay while Ibou was sorted and then I assumed Forest would keep it in the corner and that would be that. The stream I was watching on buffered at that point and when it came back on we had the ball in the Forest half. So I didn’t know what had happened there until afterwards. Then a minute or so later we scored and all hell broke loose. On the final whistle the Forest staff were going mad (their assistant manager was red carded) and even the owner was on the pitch kicking off. The big fat fuck even waddled down the tunnel chasing after Paul Tierney. Imagine John Henry doing that shit. Add some more points to their impending deduction, the crying pricks. The commentators explained that they were furious that they didn’t get the ball back after Ibou’s head injury and at that moment I could understand why they’d be pissed off. I would be too. It made no sense why Tierney gave us the ball back, and even know I’m still not entirely what should have happened. I do know that Tierney had done virtually the same thing at the other end though.

Another one to add to the “was that our best performance of the season?” discussion. I’ve heard a lot of people say it is, I’m not sure though. Was it better than the Newcastle game? In fact, are Chelsea better than Newcastle? Probably not, beating Chelsea now isn’t the accomplishment it once was, that’s for sure. There’s a reason they’re 10th and we’re top. We’re miles better than them and it showed. We were at this one right from the start. You could tell after a couple of minutes it was probably going to be a comfortable win as long as we didn’t have to wait too long to make the breakthrough. Klopp hadn’t changed the team as much as I thought he might. Trent and Robbo didn’t come back in, but Dom did. I was a little surprised but at the same time Bradley was man of the match last game and Gomez has been one of our best players all season. They deserved to stay in. They probably deserve to stay in at the weekend too, but sports science comes into that to some extent too. Imagine if someone had sent a couple of months back that Trent and Robbo would be fit and available for selection but they couldn’t get in because Gomez was left back and Bradley was right back, both on merit. It’s mad really, but that’s the level they’ve played at. And Bradley upped that level and then some in this game. I don’t want to go overboard, but he might be the best player in the world right now. Ok, I’m joking, but the performance he put in against Chelsea was something really special. It was a performance that Trent would have been happy with, yet this is what, his third league start? Second maybe? Incredible performance from him. I’ll get to that though.

Monday Jan 22: The kids beat Arsenal 7-1 in the youth cup at the weekend. I love the youth cup, always have, going right back to my playing days when I scored against United in this competition. The kids will be buzzing about this, especially as last season there was that well publicised u16 game when they conceded double figures against Arsenal in a game when we didn’t have a goalkeeper. Some of these lads will have played in that game and I reckon that will have been a motivating factor in giving them a spanking. In other news, Forest have written to PGMOL again. They’re unhappy because… *checks notes* Ivan Toney moved the ball eight inches to the right before he scored from a free-kick. Hmmm. Couple of things here, and far be it for me to be defending refs and VAR, but this is ridiculous. Number one, the ref doesn’t have eyes in the back of his head. He doesn’t know what Toney did as he didn’t see it. Number two, VAR is actually not allowed to get involved in this. The rules prevent it. So if Forest have a problem, write to FIFA. But this isn’t the first time. Last season they told the press that they had put together a dossier of decisions that had gone against them, but when PGMOL asked to see it, it contained clips of only two incidents, which were both from the same game. Fucking babies. You know what, dock them 10 more points just for this cryarse behaviour. They’re undermining the clubs who have genuine cause for complaint. These cunts will be writing letters about not getting a throw in soon, it’s genuinely pathetic.

Monday Sep 4: Trent is out of the England squad and is expected to be out for two weeks. In other words, he’s out until our next game. Hopefully that’s the case anyway and this is purely about him getting out of England duty. If it’s not and he misses our next game, who plays right back? Gomez will be needed in the centre so who else is there? I keep thinking about this and can’t come up with anyone, so then I think it’s just me being old and I must be forgetting someone obvious, but I’m not am I? We genuinely have no other alternative aside from Gomez? Crazy. Staying with the international break, and Big Red Ron has kicked off about Gravenberch not showing up for Holland. This is an absolute fucking joke. He’s a lad who has a dozen or so senior caps and a shitload of under 21 appearances. He just played for the u21s in the summer tournament and that really should have been the end of his career at that level. He has literally just moved to another country three days ago and needs to find a house and sort out all sorts of other things. He pulled out of the u21s to get all of that sorted and Koeman is hammering him, the silly fat tit. Trying to make it up to the Blues after his red Crimbo tree. Meanwhile, it looks like that Antony cunt is going the way of Greenwood. Police in Brazil are investigating him after an ex girlfriend reported him for all manner of cuntish things. I’m shocked, I mean he looks like such a nice lad doesn’t he? Seriously, finding out he’s a real piece of work is the least surprising thing ever. I can spot twats a mile off, I’ve got a sixth sense for it and I’m hardly ever wrong. Man United should probably hire me to vet all of their potential signings, I’d save them a fortune. Because they paid £90m for this turd and pretty soon they’ll be suspending him and eventually letting him leave for free, like the other scumbag. Tell you what, Ryan Giggs is lucky there was no social media when he was in his pomp or he’d have been kicked out at 21, the horrible fucking walking carpet. Saw a report linking us with Mitoma as a replacement for Mo when he eventually leaves. Not really a surprise as he’s one of the best players in the league these days, but what did surprise me is that he’s 26. Honestly, I thought was about 22. He’s only been at Brighton a year or so, so where the fuck did they pluck him from and why was he still playing there at 25? Weird. He’s the Japanese Jamie Vardy.

Monday May 2: Haven’t done of these in a while but I can’t really be going over all of the things I missed because we’d be here forever. The plan was to pick up from today and go from there. However, there’s one thing I needed to cover because it’s pissed me off so much I needed to vent. So I’ll have to go back seven days…. The Blues wrote to PMGOL to demand why they weren’t given a penalty when that Anthony Gordon rat did his regular Tom Daley impression as soon as he got in the box. I mean, what exactly are they expecting for an answer? Surely even they have to know what happened there. First and foremost it wasn’t a foul by Matip, so there is that. Even if it was though (which it wasn’t), it wasn’t an egregious enough error to be writing letters of complaint about. It’s a decision that sometimes you might get if the ref just gets it wrong. And if that happened, VAR wouldn’t have overturned it because that’s not how it works on subjective calls. You actually have some pundits mistakenly saying it’s a pen but I’d say based on what I heard there were more saying it wasn’t. So what you have here is one of those “could go either way” type deals. Everton are the ONLY club in the entire fucking league that would write a letter of complaint over a decision like that. There’s absolutely nobody else that would do that. They’re missing the bigger picture here though. They want to know why the referee didn’t give them the benefit of the doubt on a subjective decision, but the answer to that is fucking easy. It’s because Gordon and Richarlison spent the entire game trying to con the referee and fool him into giving them decisions they didn’t deserve. So when one came along where he probably wasn’t sure, he no doubt weighted it up in his head like this: “Was that a foul or a dive? It could be a foul but how do I know these cunts aren’t just trying to cheat me yet again?”. And so he waved it away, as most people would because it’s human nature. PGMOL should reply by simply reciting the story of the boy who cried wolf. Nothing else, just that story and leave it at that. Crying fat, balding, tory twat. The other thing in play here is that refs have been told to interpret these things differently now and that contact between two players in the box isn’t always a foul because sometimes its the striker who initiates it. The Calvert-Lewin / Lovren one would never be given as a pen now as that’s a classic example of why they’ve changed things. You could also take away 50% of the pens Jamie Vardy has won and 100% of any decisions Shane Long has been given. We suffered from that new interpretation when the ref wrongly decided that Jota initiated the contact at Spurs, but by and large you see a lot less pens given now for the kind of shit Gordon pulled in the derby, and that’s a good thing. Fuck Lampard and fuck Everton. Honestly, the fucking balls on these wankers kicking off over that. It’s like a murderer who kills a dozen people and then gets all wound up and outraged when he’s asked about a thirteenth one that he actually didn’t do. "Why are you picking on me? This isn't fair". Except that doesn’t really work because in that analogy Gordon would have actually been fouled for the pen, and he wasn’t. What else has been happening? Well I've been watching Top Boy on Netflix and I'd highly recommend it. Probably the best way to describe it is like watching Arsenal Fan TV only there's a bit less aggression and fewer threats on Top Boy. Man defo says da ting worth a watch though, fam. Anyway, back to the present. Richarlison threw a flare into the crowd yesterday as they beat Chelsea at Goodison. Firstly, I called that result a week ago. I knew it would happen. Chelsea were always going to shit the bed there, just as Arsenal and United did before them. Those three are going to be responsible for Everton staying up. They should be ashamed of themselves. Chelsea should have their world champions crown taken away immediately. I’m not even joking. Cunts. But yeah, Richarlison has to be suspended for that. Carra got three games for throwing a coin into the crowd and that’s not as dangerous as throwing a fucking lit flare. That also happened in much different times when you could actually do stuff without there being a massive clamour for excessive punishment. Yeah, I’m saying Richarlison should be cancelled, the fucking scumbag. The Blues actually had a banner yesterday with the PL logo and the word ‘corrupt’ underneath it. Was that there in the game after they got screwed on the handball against City, or do they only get upset when a decision goes against them in the derby? I want them down almost as much as I want the quadruple. As for us, Klopp’s press conference today was decent. Usually these CL ones are shite because the questions he gets asked are so fucking lame that not even Klopp can make an interesting answer out of them. Even this one opened with “is the job done?”. I mean fucking hell, what kind of question is that? There isn’t a manager in the world who would say “yeah this one’s over”. The follow up was “just how important is this game in the context of your season?”. IT’S A EUROPEAN CUP SEMI FINAL!! For fuck’s sake. The Spanish ones were shite too. One fella asked Klopp if he’s worried about the amount of times he’s lost away to Spanish teams. Klopp looked baffled and pointed out times when he hadn’t lost, and also made the point that most of the time he lost he went through anyway. He asked the fella how many times he’d been knocked out by Spanish teams and there were crickets on the other end of the headset. Honestly, some of these journos are stealing a living. The best bit of the presser was on Thiago, who a Spanish reporter asked about because he’s not been getting selected for Spain. Klopp said Spain have great midfield players but that Thiago could play in any national team in the world and look like the best player. That’s true, he often looked like the best player in a star studded Bayern side, and recently he’s looked a level above even in this incredible team. I joked on the pod last week that I’m looking at Thiago recently and wondering if he’s the best player I’ve ever seen. He might be, but it’s way too soon to make that kind of statement. Tuesday May 3: Villarreal 2 L 3. There’s no real logical explanation for this. Had this been a 1st leg we’d never have gone 2-0 down. Had it been a group match it wouldn’t have happened either. But weird things happen to us in Champions League semis. Look at our history in these games This was never going to be easy even though last week we made it look like it would be. We should have known better. That first half was so so bad. Some of it is due to how well they played, but some of it was just inexplicable, like Thiago being unable to find a red shirt with easy passes. Thankfully they ran their race in the first half and we battered them in the second half to avoid the potential embarrassment that was on the cards at half time. So on to the final and hopefully we’ll be facing Real Madrid in what would be a proper iconic European Final between two of European football’s royalty. Us, Real, Milan and Bayern are the four. Throw in Barcelona too for the glamour aspect of it. Real Madrid in Paris, that’s what this cup is all about. Not having to play them scruffy twats from up the road. Hala Madrid, you got this. Meanwhile, Lingard’s brother launched an instagram attack on United after poor old Jesse didn’t get a proper send off last night. It was their last home game, and Rangnick let Cavani go on late on instead of putting Lingard on. I don’t blame him actually, that’s pretty fucking scandalous. Cavani has wanted no part of what’s been going on this season, and although Lingard is a bad whopper he’s a United lad and has given everything he has for that club. They really can’t get anything right though any more, and it’s not just the club either. Take the fans, please. Sorry, slipped into Henry Youngman in Goodfellas mode there for a second. Seriously though, take their fans. Last night they planned a protest on 73 minutes but they were playing well and winning for a change, so they just stayed instead (the old ‘green and gold unless we’re good’ mentality). Pathetic. Why 73 minutes? Because the Glazers have been there 17 years. But why 73 though, you ask again. Well 73 is 17 minutes from the end, see. Can’t be leaving on 17 minutes, can we. They can’t even leave on 73 because Ronaldo was doing his thing and they might all get to shout “SIIIUUUUU” like the sad little virgins they are. They’re a fucking shambles from top to bottom, and it’s great. Wednesday May 4: God I enjoyed that. To steal a phrase from Noel Gallagher, it’s just “too funny”. I’ve got no love for Real Madrid but the sense of relief I’ve got at not having to deal with playing City in Paris is fucking enormous. It’s not even that I think City would beat us. I make it a 50-50 game but potentially losing to them in a European Cup final, to give them their first one, honestly I’m struggling to think of a (realistic) football scenario that’s worse. Fuck all that, I wanted no part of it. We might lose to Madrid again too, which would also be awful and would take a lot of getting over, but losing a final to fellow European royalty is far more palatable than having to see City's corrupt paws all over our trophy. We’re miles better than Madrid and should beat them, but this is a strange competition that almost seems to have a mind of its own so it's in the lap of the footballing gods. This trophy decides who it wants to be lifting it, and clearly it fucking hates City. It loves us, but it loves Madrid more. They’ve got out of jail three times in a row now and you do wonder if their name is on the trophy. The only thing is, those three comebacks all came at the Bernebeu and the final is at a neutral venue. Meanwhile, I don’t know the details of all this because I can’t be arsed reading up on something that is almost certainly not going to go the way it’s being reported, but it does seem like Abramovich is trying to call in the debt owed to him by Chelsea. Initially it was claimed that he was writing it off, which let’s be honest does seem like just the kind of thing a billionaire crook would do. It was also reported that he valued Chelsea at four billion quid, which is essentially the value of the club inflated by the one and a half billion they owed him. Yeah he’s a real stand up guy isn’t he. Anyway, there’s now talk that they will go under unless the government relax some of the sanctions imposed and allow the sale to go through. That won’t happen. As if a tory government is letting the most tory club on earth go out of business. So Chelsea aren’t going under but it does feel like their days as a superpower are probably coming to an end if they don’t have his money propping them up. All the fucking trophies they’ve won since he got there and it turns out that his motivation for it all was just needing somewhere to launder his dirty money. Yet Abramovich isn’t even close to being the worst owner out there. Football is fucking rotten. Thursday May 5: Mo gets his POTY award from the writers. His agent was with him, and so were Julian Ward and Michael Edwards. What the fuck are they doing there unless it's for contract talks? Imagine we announce a new deal before one of the finals. Mo was asked when he collected the award if he would still be in England next year and he said "I'll be back on this stage next year". Amazing. Such levels of swag but it's done in such a cheeky way it never comes across as arrogance. It’s mad how much stick Guardiola is getting over last night. I know his record in the competition screams out “bottler” but what the fuck could he have done about that last night? If anything it’s the players to blame as their arses went when they were finally put under pressure, but to me it’s just one of those mad things this competition throws up all the time. The European Cup didn’t want City’s corrupt paws on it so it did its thing. City fans think it's UEFA conspiring against them when really it's just old big ears itself. I hope City fans start turning on Guardiola though and thinking they can do better. They won’t, because they’re not complete fucking idiots. Yeah you’ll get some knobs calling for change, but most of them know what they’ve got in him and appreciate it. I tell you this, if he left then they wouldn’t get within 15 points of us and they’d be back to what they were under Mancini and Pellegrini. Occasionally that was enough to win the title, but that's because we weren’t piling up 90+ points each season. I heard some fans on the radio having a go at Grealish too for not killing the tie. Fucking hell, I’m all for him getting shit but come on, he was fucking boss when he came on and was desperately unlucky with those two great efforts. It’s the low hanging fruit to blame the £100m signing who hasn’t really done anything, but it’s mental slagging him specifically off for last night’s game. Still, never mind eh. I also love the crysarsing about Casemiro somehow escaping yellow cards all night. It’s a valid point but when Fernandinho is in your team it’s not really a point you should be making. Poetic justice that, the kind that the European Cup often likes to dish out. In other news tonight, Rangers once again overcame superior opposition to advance in the Europa League. They’ve been incredible, it’s not even like they’ve scraped through these games either, they’ve played out of their fucking skins and deserved to win every tie they’ve won. It’s not quite Leicester winning the title levels of beating the odds, but it’s one hell of a story. I don’t root for or against Rangers and Celtic, the whole Old Firm thing and the shite involved with it all bores me to be honest. I really hope Rangers win this competition now though, and if it were Celtic in the same position having played as well as Rangers have, I’d want them to win too. They’ll play Frankfurt, who beat West Ham. You’d think that a team good enough to beat West Ham would be too much for Rangers, but Frankfurt are below Dortmund and Leipzig in the Bundesliga and Rangers have knocked both of them off already so who knows. The Hammers going out is good news though. Ordinarily I wouldn’t begrudge them getting to the final or even winning it, but they play City three days before the Europa League final and we can’t afford to have them sending out the youth team when we need someone to take points off City. So bad luck West Ham, hopefully you’ll want to give your fans one more special occasion this season and you’ll turn up against City next week. Friday May 6: Moyes is in trouble after booting the ball at a ball boy last night. It was a pretty low class thing to do and he’ll deserve whatever punishment comes his way. However, every time I watch the clip of it I laugh. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it, it’s just fucking hilarious, especially when you see him saying "ye wee shite, fucking throw it quicker". So is his explanation / apology. “I have to apologise but the ball boy left it short and it fell nicely on the volley for me”. I’m torn here, because I don’t like Moyes and the natural thing here is for me to rip into him, but that’s funny as fuck. Also hilarious, Ancelotti calling himself “an Evertonian” and saying he’s treating the final like a derby game. Where to start with that. He didn’t even need to say it as they’ve already stopped hating him now that he’s their only hope of stopping us getting number seven. He's "Don Carlo" again now. He'll soon be "that fat Italian cunt" again if he doesn’t win, so there’s no need for him to be sucking up to them. Another funny thing from last night was Mourinho completely breaking down in tears of joy after knocking Leicester out of the Europa Conference to reach the final. A few years ago he’d be absolutely ripping the piss out of any ‘big’ manager even being in that competition let alone taking it that seriously. How the mighty have fallen. Look at this… Klopp talking about Diaz today was interesting. He said how the Spanish / Portuguese lads had helped him a lot to settle, but then mentioned how close he also is to Harvey and Curtis. You can see that on all of the videos the club put out. Diaz is with Curtis and Harvey quite a lot. Those videos are good for seeing the dynamics of who hangs around with who, but the biggest takeaway I usually have is how Kostas seems to be in the middle of everything and seems to be loved by everyone. I’m getting the same vibe from Diaz now too. What a signing he’s been. We’ve apparently made £100m from this year’s CL run. The question is what to do with it. We could do what Chelsea and City did and buy a Lukaku or Grealish. Or alternatively we could just set fire to it, the end result would be the same. We'll probably go out and sign a couple of players of the calibre of Diaz though because that's how we roll these days. Great isn't it. and that was the week that was....

We’re top, but are we actually that good? It’s weird because the league table and results suggest we’re REALLY good, but the performances are giving us more questions than answers. I definitely don’t think that’s a bad thing at this stage because we’re clearly a work in progress and have a long way to go until Klopp has things humming the way he wants, yet we’re finding ways to win regardless of how we play or whatever roadblocks are put in our way. Klopp said from 76 minutes to 105 we were really good, and before that we were really bad. That’s absolutely spot on isn’t it? We were atrocious for most of the game, even worse than the other night at Bramall Lane when I thought we were hideous. We had our problems against Fulham last weekend too but we’ve taken nine points regardless. There’s a saying in golf that “a scorecard doesn’t have pictures” and that applies here. The league table shows the points we have collected, it doesn’t show he we got them. I’m struggling to work us out though. The record since Trent switched roles is the best in the league. We’ve got more points than anyone and I think we have the best goal difference too. So that tells you it’s working. But is it that simple? I don’t think it is. I’m not sure it is working because we’re often a bit shit in the first half of games and it’s quite common that it’s Klopp’s changes that turn the game our way. How many of those points were gained because we were struggling and had to make changes, either to the system, personnel or both? Quite a lot I’d say. We finish games much better than we start them, so can we really say this system is the reason for our success when a lot of the time we’re getting results after abandoning it? Are the points we’re picking up because of the system, or in spite of it? It’s an interesting discussion I think. I don’t know yet, I need to see more before I’m convinced either way. In the last week we’ve had to scrap the system to come back and beat Fulham and Palace. We did beat Sheffield United but looked shite for the entire game. But we won all three games and it feels like we’re doing it through sheer willpower more than anything else. Nothing is coming easy to us. I don’t see that as a negative though. Well, maybe a bit, but generally I think it’s a good thing because I don’t expect this patchy form to last and I’m sure we’ll be playing well again soon. If you are a talented team that can keep collecting maximum points even when you stink, you won’t go far wrong because when you play well you’ll blow a lot of teams away. The amount of times we could / should have dropped points this season only to pull it out of the fire is the stuff of Champions. That doesn’t mean we’ll win it, but it definitely helps. Tired legs and the 12.30 kick off time contributed to this below par showing, plus I have to say that Palace did a really good job on us until that period of a minute or so when everything was turned on its head. Elliott came on, Ayew was sent off and then we scored. All of that happened in such a short space of time and it’s difficult to know which had the biggest impact. I’ll get to that though.

When we beat Villa a few weeks ago it was really impressive. Klopp was buzzing about it and it was a really good performance and result. This was better though. Why? Because while Villa are a decent team, they played right into our hands with their tactics. West Ham didn’t. They made it really hard for us but we stuck at it and eventually rolled over them. We were really fucking good in this game, and we needed to be because West Ham were very impressive. Much better than Villa were. They’ll finish no lower than 8th this year and if they had a goalscorer they’d be pushing towards the top five. They gave as good as they got in the first half and it was only when we stepped up after the break that we were able to shake them off. They started with a real spring in their step and I was surprised at how slick they were. Little one touch passes to play their way out of trouble when we closed them down, and some swift counters that caused us problems. Alisson needed to make a world class save to keep out Soucek’s downward header. Stunning save that. Then Antonio headed miles wide from a golden opportunity. If you’re gonna talk the talk you need to walk the walk, but Antonio failed to back up his pre-match bravado. “I’m backing myself. We’ll finish above Liverpool this season”. Not with you leading the line mate. This was his big moment the chance to put the exclamation point on his boasts, and he shit the bed. Thankfully. I’m sick of us conceding the first goal so it was nice that we avoided it this time. Thanks Michail, much appreciated.

Monday Aug 14: So not only did we miss out on Caicedo, but by making that desperate late pivot in a doomed attempt to get him we also ensured we didn’t get the lad we’d been chasing all summer. It’s quite the clusterfuck. So much so that right now we’re on the brink of the worst summer of transfers in my lifetime. Nothing against the two lads we did sign, who I’m very bullish about, but the way we’ve conducted ourselves in this window is even worse than the dark days of Parry switching off his phone to go to the cinema when a tearful Owen was stalling Newcastle and desperately trying to get hold of him. While it’s fair to say we don’t know the in and outs of how these things develop and to exactly what extent the club have fucked things up, there are some things we do know and based solely on that, this lurches from bad to fucking inexcusable. I was fuming with us a week ago, and that was before all this shit. So, Caicedo. When the news broke we’d had a record bid accepted I was fucking buzzing. He’s exactly the player we need for how we want to play. Perfect fit, the club putting their money where their mouth is, what’s not to love about that? Then it emerges he doesn’t want to come here. So why did we bid for him? You don’t do that without encouragement, but I’m reading reports today saying that’s exactly what we did. So we either bid for a player who gave us no indication he wanted to come, or we were played like a fiddle by him and his agent. Then there’s the question of why we didn’t walk away when he snubbed us? I think the answer to that is more simple. Spite. We wanted to ensure Chelsea paid through the nose. I’m good with that. The rest of it though? It’s a joke. This is what happens when you don’t have a competent Sporting Director. You think Edwards or even Ward would have been played like this? They’d have sniffed it out from a mile away. That lad and his agent have made cunts out of us. Actually we’ve done a good job of doing that to ourselves, but fuck them anyway. Fuck Chelsea too, what they’re doing is scandalous and it’s bizarre that the Premier League are allowing it. I hear all the explanations of nine year contracts, amortisation, book value and all that shit but I refuse to accept that a team not in Europe, with no fucking shirt sponsor, and that has been spending shitloads even before they replaced the last mad cunt with an even worse one, can spend ONE BILLION in three windows and somehow still be within the rules. But what about us. If we had that kind of cash to throw at Caicedo then why were we haggling over four mil for Lavia? We fucked that one up royally. I don’t blame that kid one bit for going to Chelseas. We were his preferred destination, he’d agreed terms and we left him waiting for weeks while we failed to meet the asking price. Then, we threw £110m at another player who plays in the same position. When that player snubbed us we went back to him. I’d have told us to fuck off too. Especially as Chelsea still wanted him even though they’d already signed Caicedo. If we’d got Caicedo would we have gone back on for Lavia or would we have left him high and dry? Honestly, the more I think about this shit the angrier its making me. Actually it’s more disgust than anger. I don’t know who to be angry at as I don’t know who is to blame for all this. I know a lot of it is on Klopp this time. Last summer was too. I’m just appalled at how incompetent we’ve become. I’m really looking forward to Kloppo’s next jibe about “whatever we do isn’t going to be good enough for you”. It’s not good enough for you either is it, considering you’re going to end up with someone who wasn’t even in the top ten list of targets a few weeks ago? Fucking shambolic shitshow this and there’s plenty of blame to go around. FSG’s role in this can’t be overlooked, but their culpability is probably not for what most people say it is. Not this time anyway. This summer is not about them being mingebags. I don’t think for a second we were lowballing Southampton because John Henry wouldn’t stump up the cash. That ‘strategy’ was on whoever was negotiating. Probably Ibiza George and Klopp between them. Maybe a bit of Billy Hogan mixed in. But it wasn’t about a lack of funds that stopped us getting Lavia, it was about trying to be too fucking smart. Where FSG fucked up massively was in taking their eye off the ball last year. When Julian Ward said he was leaving, what did they do? Mike Gordon fucked off and spent months trying to find investment. That chase was about as fruitful as the Caicedo one. So instead of bringing in a competent Sporting Director, Flash Gordon was off chasing money and coming up empty handed. So we then end up with this fucking German lemon who has been as useful as a chocolate fireguard. That’s where FSG are to blame. The rest of what we’ve seen this summer is on the ‘football people’. And that means Klopp for the most part. He’s got more power now than he’s ever had before and it hasn’t worked out well has it? I don’t think he’s actively gone looking for that power, he’s no Rafa that’s for sure, but no matter what happened to get us here, this is the outcome - Klopp with much more power and us no longer able to get the players we need. Meanwhile, we’ve fucked around for so long without signing a midfielder that Manu Kone has now recovered from his knee injury. May as well go for him now, there aren’t exactly a lot of alternatives anymore. The sporting director at his club is the son of Ibiza George so presumably even he couldn’t fuck this one up. Then again, maybe his son thinks he’s a deadbeat too. On the field tonight United were outplayed by Wolves but spawned a 1-0 win as Gary O’Neil was given an apology by the officials for missing a blatant penalty. They didn’t miss it, they knew what they were doing. United aren’t getting pens given against them at Old Trafford on Howard Webb’s watch. Our u21s kicked off their season with a 4-0 spanking of Everton that really should have been more. Brilliant performance, absolutely murdered them. If you can find the highlights anywhere its defo worth a watch as this was a massacre. Bobby Clark ran the show and the pressing was incredible. The goals came from Musialowski, Miles, Hill and Clark. These lads might be worth following this season. I’ve lost interest in the u21s in recent years but if this squad stays together that might change.

Monday Jun 6: New deal for Milner. He’s taken a pay cut and agreed a one year deal. He says the parade influenced his decision to stay and you know that’s not bullshit either. There’s that clip on Hendo’s insta where Milner says to him “mate, what am I fucking seeing? Wow!”. Just a shame Sadio and Mo weren’t suitably moved. Milner is the last of a dying breed though. Well, maybe Hendo too. He’s like Milner-Lite. On the subject of our Egyptian King though, not great developments this past weekend regarding him. Apparently he played for Egypt despite being injured and having refused LFC’s request for him to have a scan. Now he’s missing their next game because of it. Lots of Reds are unhappy about it and I get that. I’m not particularly arsed because Mo’s international situation isn’t the same as, say, Virgil’s or Fabinho’s. He carries the weight of an entire nation and there’s huge pressure on him to play. If the injury wasn’t that bad and he though he could play through it, whatever. He’s done it enough times for us over the years. This is only really an issue because of the contract. I agree it isn’t a good look and it appears that his relationship with the club is becoming strained, but I don’t think this is a big deal and I’ve got more important things to be mad at him for than this. Meanwhile, Trent is getting ‘slammed’ (© every click bait website in the land) for not singing the National Anthem. This is a bit unfair because when you watch the video his lips are moving a little. He’s not giving it the full chest out Captain Brexit Stuart Pearce routine, but there is movement of the lips. Granted, he’s probably booing or singing YNWA, but they can’t prove that so this criticism seems harsh. Funny thing is, someone on Twitter dug out an old clip from years ago of Gary Neville standing there, lips firmly closed, defiantly not singing. There have been loads of players down the years that haven’t sung, but flag shagging has become a national obsession in recent years (taken to whole new levels this past weekend with the jubilee and people waving at a fucking hologram of the queen). I hope Trent sticks to his guns and doesn’t sing next time too. The highlight of the last few days though was an Everton fan site running a news piece on Sigurdsson being allowed to leave on a free and somehow managing to completely avoid the David Unsworth sized elephant in the room…. I mean that’s some serious North Korean style shit right there. Staying with the Blues though and that despicable piece of shit Richarlison got in a bit of a disagreement with Vinicius Jr in training with Brazil. This shocked me to be honest. The biggest Liverpool hater in football not seeing eye to eye with the lad who just scored the goal to beat us in a European Cup Final? What the hell could have brought that on? Maybe Vinicius Jr didn’t appreciate him trying to suck him off for an instagram post to impress the Blues. Tuesday Jun 7: Somehow missed this yesterday, but Bayern offered £21m for Sadio. I’m sure they knew that wouldn’t be accepted and this is just a bargaining position, but fuck me that’s low. I don’t see us selling for anything less than double that so this could drag on a long time. Keita is said to be close to agreeing a new deal. Not gonna lie, I’m on a downer about this. It’s not so much that I really want him out as I’m fairly indifferent towards him really. It’s more that him being here probably restricts what we will do when it comes to restructuring the midfield. Here’s the thing. We have three midfielders over 30, and Fabinho who isn’t far behind. Then we have the talented kids; Jones, Elliott and Carvalho. You can include Tyler Morton too if you like, he looked promising. The problem is the ones in between. Ox and Keita. We need them to be really pushing the first choice three and giving Klopp a tough decision to make, but they aren’t. We all know who the three starters are when all things are equal. Klopp has occasionally chosen Keita over Henderson but he has NEVER delivered a “wow” performance that makes you think ‘this lad needs to play all the time’. I want someone that will do that, but we won’t buy that player if we have Keita here on his 120k a week salary or whatever it is. Ox will leave, but Keita should too. That way we can go out and sign one absolute fucking star who will give Klopp a headache as to who he leaves out. We got that up front with Diaz, we now need it midfield. But if Keita signs a new deal then that becomes less likely. I felt the same way about Origi last summer actually. I didn’t want him to stay because while he was here I knew we wouldn’t sign the top drawer forward we needed to shake things up and give us real competition for places. I love Div and I’m glad he stayed, but I wasn’t wrong about that. We signed Diaz only because our hand was forced by Spurs. Origi’s presence (and salary) meant that we wouldn’t go out and sign another forward, and Keita staying is the same thing. We might still get someone because Ox will go, but ideally we let them both leave and one boss player in. Wednesday Jun 8: Just having a read back of what I said about Darwin Nunez after the Benfica games. Not overly flattering like. After the first leg I wrote: He’s really highly rated but I wasn’t overly impressed. He took the goal well but I think my judgement of him is clouded by the constant diving and the dreadful fucking haircut. His record is impressive and we’ve apparently been scouting him, so watch this space I suppose. I do love a good Uruguayan striker so if he sorts the hair out then maybe I could get on board with it, but as of now it’s a hard pass from me. I’d softened my stance a little after the return leg, but not by much. “Benfica had another goal disallowed late on when Nunez finished well again but was clearly offside. Good player him, despite the appalling haircut.” He was annoying as fuck over those two legs but he was a constant threat and his finishing was great, even if most of them were offside. As for the haircut, that’s only a minor issue that could easily be fixed. His hair game is actually really impressive on the whole, but the look he was sporting against us was appalling as it looked like he was wearing a hairnet. A pony tail or - preferably - an Alice band sorts that problem out in a heartbeat. He’ll be great for us because every forward we’ve signed under Klopp has been. To be spending this much on Nunez tells me that Klopp and the scouting team must be absolutely convinced he’s what we need and that’s good enough for me. I see nothing to suggest that he won’t be amazing for us, because other than Keita who hasn’t been great? Ox I suppose, but he looked like he would be until he was derailed by one of the worst injuries a player could get. Even Keita hasn’t been terrible, just a massive let down based on the hype prior to his arrival. We just get signings right these days though, it’s almost a 100% hit rate. I saw a headline today about how the England U21 coach wants Jones to not play within himself and be the best player in every game and every training session. He’s been listening to me and Paul on the TLW pod, I thought. Then I realised the U21 coach is Lee Carsley so that’s pretty unlikely. He’s spot on about Curtis though. ''It's important to me that Curtis doesn't play within himself. He's got to be the best player every day, every game. I think he can score more, I think he can assist more. When he gets in front of goal, he's got that quality. He needs to show it on a regular basis, consistently, for us. You'd like to have this conversation at the end of the camp where you're swooning about him, saying "what a player". I still think he's building his reputation with the Under 21s in that respect.' Couldn’t agree more. Curtis doesn’t even have a ceiling, he’s got so much talent he could (and I still think will) be a superstar. He needs to start showing it more consistently though. If Keita gets a new deal that’s good for Curtis (and Harvey) because it wouldn’t take much for him to leapfrog Naby in the pecking order. If Keita left and we signed someone boss to replace him, that makes it more difficult for Jones and Elliott. Thursday Jun 9: The Nunez deal is edging ever closer despite “last ditch” attempts by Man United to “hijack” the deal. This was over as soon as we made contact with Nunez and told him we wanted him. There’s only one reason anyone would spurn us for United and that’s money, and if a player is motivated mainly by that he isn’t someone we’d be going for anyway. We wouldn’t be this far down the line if he was asking for crazy money so United are not a factor here. You’d have to be mental to turn down Klopp’s Reds to sign for them. How good is that by the way? Remember when we could never land anyone we really wanted if United or Chelsea or Arsenal were in for them. Shit, we were losing players to Spurs not so long ago. Now look, we’re the number one destination for any player not just looking for a massive wage. Off topic this but worth mentioning as it’s so fucking depressing and mirrors what is happening in footy. The Saudis are basically trying to fucking ruin golf, the sportswashing twats. Similar to what PSG and (to a slightly lesser extent) City are doing by completely distorting the market by paying stupid fees and wages to raise the bar to a level that non-oil states can’t compete with. In football, they’re trying to fuck over the likes of us, Bayern, the Spanish giants, United etc In golf, they just need to sabotage the PGA Tour and they’ll have the whole sport to themselves. The money the PGA makes is mainly given back to players in prize money and filtered down to grass roots golf. It has its faults for sure, but the key element here is that they have to operate within a structure that ensures they don’t lose money. The Saudis have no such restraints. So they have set up this utter shitfest of a ‘league’ where everything they do is just pure cringe. Golfers are selected to teams each week, those teams have the lamest names and logos, and the whole thing is just dogshit. No-one is buying tickets but that doesn't matter because they just give them away for free and then lie about how many people have turned up (bit like City). But it doesn’t matter if nobody watches it or cares about it, because eventually they’ll throw so much money at players that the PGA Tour will be ruined and they’ll be the only show in town. They gave 52 year old Phil Mickelson $200m just to join. That doesn’t include any potential winnings. That’s just money in his pocket for him to leave the PGA Tour and sign with them. Dustin Johnson got $150m, apparently. Bryson DeChambeau got $100m to jump ship. They have a bottomless pit of cash and unlike in footy there is no pretence of FFP so they can just lash eye watering sums at players to attract them, and the more who join, the easier (and cheaper) it gets to get the rest because the PGA Tour will take a hit from sponsors, meaning less prize money. Plus, the best golfers will play where the competition is the most challenging. It fucking stinks, these oil cunts are just ruining sports. They've got their hooks into F1 too I believe, but I don't know anything about that as other than horse racing it's the most boring thing in the world. Of course some of you will say the same about golf, but that's ok. Some of you don't think that Livin' on a Prayer is the greatest song of all time. People are wrong about lots of things. Seriously though, some of you won’t have a clue about this and won’t know most of the golfers involved, so allow me to sum it up quickly. Basically, all of the golfers who people already knew were absolute fucking wankers, well all those are on board. In fact, I can’t think of any of the established knobheads who haven’t joined. The whole thing is fronted by the biggest knobhead of all - Greg Norman - who I’ve known was an arrogant cunt since I saw in person how he acted at Birkdale in 1999. Actually Tom Watson was worse, but that's another story. None of the names who took the cash are a surprise to anyone. It's mostly washed up 40 somethings looking for one last payday before driving their golf carts off into the sun. Any time one of them was announced my reaction was “yeah, I knew he was a dick, not surprised at all”. As I say, there isn’t one of the established dicks that hasn’t taken the cash. The journalists are giving them a hard time about it and some of the press conferences this week have been horrific. Graeme McDowell saying he’s “proud” to help the Saudis get to where they want to get was a particular low point. Westwood and Poulter (two badknob heads except other than when its a Ryder Cup) were given a proper grilling today and just refused to answer the questions, which included “If Vladimir Putin held a tournament would you play in it?” and “would you have played in an event in South Africa during apartheid?”. The obvious answer to both of those questions is “fuck yeah, they would”. Loads of people say “you can’t expect them to turn down that kind of money” and I do understand that viewpoint. They are entitled to take the cash, but we’re entitled to call them cunts for doing it. The real villains here are the Saudis but that doesn’t mean those taking the blood money should get a free pass. Fuck that. Multi millionaires selling out the Tour that provided them with the lifestyles they have just so they can line their pockets further do not get a free pass. They’re greedy cunts with no moral compass. Speaking of greedy cunts, Mo was named PFA Player of the Year tonight. That's right, I went there. Congrats to him. We had six players in the team of the season too, which sounds about right. Could have been even more because Matip and Robbo were overlooked, although the players chosen ahead of them were both outstanding so it’s fair enough. Ronaldo getting in ahead of Son was funny, but his inclusion is not as outrageous as a lot seem to think. He scored a load of goals in a fucking awful, dysfunctional team, and without his input they’d have been in the bottom half. Of course he is a part of the problem there too because his lack of work rate hampers what they can do without the ball, but he’s always been the same and you know what you’re getting with him. He’s there to score goals and he did it. Take away the name, reputation and the fact most of us think he’s a twat, and you have a 37 year old who scored 24 goals this season, including two hat-tricks. That’s impressive whether people want to admit it or not. That being said, I hope he stays at United because they’ll never get better while he’s playing every week. Also today, the club announced the list of players who will be leaving at the end of their contracts. Divock is the most notable, but Karius was on there too. I have mixed feelings towards him. I have sympathy for what happened to him in Kyiv because he WAS concussed and that did cause the fuck ups that gifted them two goals and cost us the game. The real villain of that night isn't Karius, it's Ramos. That said, he didn't help himself by how he acted that summer, and he also chose to sit out his contract and collect the money instead of going to play somewhere else. So I don't wish him well, but I don't not wish him well either. I'm just glad he's finally gone. Friday June 10: Speaking of United, they have apparently dropped their interest in Nunez because they don’t want to get into a bidding war. This is like back when I decided not to pursue Jennifer Aniston when Brad Pitt started sniffing around her. The about face from United fans on this has been hilarious though. Last week I saw Darwin Nunez trending on twitter so I clicked on it in case it was about us bidding for him. We’d been linked with him for ages so it would have made sense. It wasn’t us though, it was United and their fans were going big on it. The virgins were posting their little team graphics with him playing just off Ronaldo, with De Jong bossing the midfield with Bruno, and the general consensus was that Ten Hag means business and United will be buying whoever they want this summer. Fast forward to the last couple of days and suddenly Nunez isn’t that good, he’s not worth the money and United are right to walk away. Yep, just like I was right to walk away from Jennifer all those years back. Newsflash knobheads, you were never getting him from the second Klopp made a move. I had more chance with Jen. I'm really having to fight hard not to respond to the dickheads but sometimes I just can't help myself. Look at this from today... I know I shouldn't get involved, but sometimes it's just so hard not to. The amount of shit I’ve seen from knobheads on twitter though regarding our spending is just weird though. They clearly aren’t teaching maths well enough in this country as people have no grasp of it. Apparently we can’t complain about City because we broke the record for most expensive defender and goalkeeper and now we’re spending big on striker. I mean, we just made £100m by reaching the CL Final and we’ll have also picked up a shitload of money for 2nd place in the league. Are we not allowed to spend the fruit of those labours? Not to mention we’ll more than cover the Nunez fee with the sale of Phillips, Williams, Sadio, Taki and Ox. It’s the very definition of how to successfully run a football club, yet somehow it’s being labelled the same as vastly inflating the value of our sponsorship and having our owners pay it. I mean fucking hell, stupidity on the internet knows no bounds, especially in football and particularly when it’s Manchester City and Everton fans involved. In fairness, half of them are bots paid for by Abu Dhabi. I’m not even saying that as a joke, it’s absolutely true. You can spot them a mile off too. They usually have about 3 followers and a username with more digits than one of those “clubcall” lines back in the day. The other thing they’re pushing is that Nunez is more expensive than Haaland apparently. Sure, Benfica are receiving more than Dortmund did, but then we aren’t paying €40m to a dead agent and another €30m to the player’s dad are we? We’re also paying a quarter of the wages that Haaland is getting, and that’s only if we count what he’s getting through the books. Fuck knows how much they’re paying him off the books. Because they will be. They’re paying Guardiola a shitload off the books too (just like they did Mancini before him), and probably half the team. You only have to look at the money the Saudis are throwing at greedy cunt golfers to know that the only thing stopping Abu Dhabi paying £1m a week is the pretence of FFP. They will be paying it, just not through the books. It will all come out in years to come, but by then it will be too late for anyone to do anything about it and we’ll have several fewer titles than we should have. The sense of entitlement those cunts have is staggering though. It’s not enough that they win the league pretty much every year, they need to have people kissing their feet and telling them how great they are. They’re always complaining about a lack of recognition but that’s because their accomplishments are hollow as fuck because no-one cares about them as a club and everyone knows they’re ignoring the rules that everyone else (other than Everton) are following. Today you had Laporte crysarsing on social media because he wasn’t in the team of the year. A team that was voted for by HIS FUCKING PEERS remember. It’s not like it was picked by the “LFC loving media”. And he had no business being anywhere near it anyway. Van Dijk is a shoe in and although I’d have made Matip the next best, I’m clearly biased. Take Joel of the equation and Rudiger is the obvious next one. He’s top quality. Laporte isn’t even the best centre back at his own club, the arrogant, entitled little fucking tit. Meanwhile, in France. The government has done something of a walk back from their outrageous claims and now admit that they made mistakes. They’re still peddling the fake tickets bullshit though and using that as the root cause for everything else that went wrong. The police did the same thing the other day. “No we shouldn’t have tear gassed you, but there were too many fans there because of the fake tickets”. They’re no longer claiming 30-40 thousand fakes but even the number they have given is bollocks because it obviously includes load of real tickets that were incorrectly flagged as fakes. The CCTV footage from the stadium and metro has also been deleted. Footage which they claim showed fans being violent and causing problems. The explanation given is that it’s automatically wiped after seven days unless the authorities ask to see it. A few things here. Why would the authorities NOT have asked to see it? Why are UEFA and the police not using the footage to back up their claims about poor fan behaviour? Do they really expect us to believe that in 2022 there is no way of retrieving deleted footage? It’s scandalous really. All of the video evidence collected by fans, journalists, TV news reporters etc shows the fans behaving impeccably and the police and locals being bad fucking scumbags. All of it. There’s nothing out there backing up any of the false claims. Yet they claim they had footage backing up those claims but they didn’t use it and allowed it to be deleted? As if. UEFA finally took down the article they posted two weeks ago blaming the fans for the delay in kick off. Spirit of Shankly have been on to them about that, but why did it take so long to remove it? It should have been taken down immediately, but it was left up there. Why? Just to water the seed that had been planted in people’s minds. Those who know, know. But the casual football fan around Europe who can’t be arsed looking into what happened will just hear what UEFA and the French are saying and believe it. That’s why they leave shit like that on the website. That’s why there is no full climbdown by the French ministers, just a gradual walking back of what they’ve said just so there is still blame attached to the fans. Their plan here is to just try and ride out the storm until people get bored of asking questions. It will happen too. The British (and French) sporting press have been great but it’s only natural that other events will take over and this will become less “newsworthy”. What you’ll get is our fans, the club, the local press and MPs etc continuing to fight and then being subjected to a lot of shite from outsiders about being victims and that we should move on. Thing is, we’ve got experience of this kind of thing so we know how it works. Compared to the fight for Hillsborough justice this is a walk in the park. There’s no hiding place for UEFA and the French Authorities. The club have been great so far too and Billy Hogan (my new favourite Hogan, sorry Hulkster) has kept fans updated with video updates outlining what action they’ve been taking. They’ve met with the so-called “independent” inquirer and they’ve already let it be known they are concerned about just how “independent” this is going to be. They’re fighting our corner and while it’s easy to say that this is exactly what they should be doing and it requires no praise, I just think about what would be happening now if Parry and Moores were still in charge. Or Hicks, Gillett and Ayre. It makes me shudder. Werner and Hogan have stood up for us and I’m grateful. I hope they continue to fight for us in the way the likes of Spirit of Shankly will. If we all stand together we can make mincemeat of the French authorities and UEFA. ....and that was the week that was

It’s been a while since I did one of these as personal circumstances didn’t allow it, but loads has happened at the top and bottom of the league since the last one. The most significant development was Everton finally dropping into the bottom three after flirting with it for months. I’ll start with that actually. This might be the first time ever that I’ve led one of these round ups with a Burnley game but it seems fitting as they’ve been on an absolute rampage since they sacked Dyche. I’ll be honest and say I thought that was a terrible move and that they were essentially surrendering their Premier League spot and getting Everton out of jail. I was wrong. I’ve been watching Burnley games quite closely of late and I’ve unashamedly become a bit of a Clarets fan, because needs must. If they can send Everton down I’ll be forever grateful. That dramatic win over Watford felt like a pivotal moment until Chelsea shit the bed 24 hours later at Goodison. Still, the importance of this Burnley win could still be massive. Especially given the drama of it. They fell behind early at Watford and it stayed that way until very late, when goals in quick succession by Cork and Brownhill gave them the win and relegated the Hornets. I hope we don’t see Watford again for a while. I have nothing specific against them but I’m just utterly bored of them and their yo-yo shite. Same with Norwich, who have been up and down more times than a fiddler’s elbow. Don’t come back any time soon, you pointless bastards. Burnley have taken 10 points from 12 since Mike Jackson took over. I’d never heard of the fella and given how Dyche has pulled them out of this situation several times before it just seemed like a stupid, panic move. The only caveat I had to that view was if maybe Dyche had lost the players, but there hadn’t been any reports of that and usually in that situation there are leaks in the press every other day. Maybe we didn’t hear about it because no-one gives a shit about Burnley so the press don’t ever write about them? Or maybe it’s because the players are solid pros and not spoiled whiny cunts like at Man United for example. It kind of feels like Dyche must have lost the dressing room though. Maybe not in the sense that they hated him, but it does seem that they’d stopped listening to him because they actually look like Burnley again now. So if they stay up the owners get a massive pat on the back, as does Jackson. Shit, if he relegates Everton I won’t even object if someone wants to build a statue of him outside Anfield. It wouldn’t be the first Mike Jackson statue at a Premier League ground. Remember when Fulham unveiled that Whacko Jacko one at Craven Cottage? Is that still there? How mad was that though, fucking hell. I had to google that just now to make sure it really happened and it wasn’t some weird dream. But yeah, if Mike Jackson is responsible for relegating Everton then a statue is the least he deserves. Can’t be doing with the shit puns though. MOTD’s commentator said after this game that “Mike Jackson has served up a Thriller”. Fucks sake, that’s Bad. MJ was asked what he’d done to turn things around and he said “we just reminded these lads of who they are”. So you could say he told them that it starts with….. the man in the mirror. What? Oh fuck off, that’s gold that is. Burnley have been amazing of late though. They lost at Norwich and it looked like they were fucked, but the spirit they’ve shown since has been great, but it’s not just that. Whisper it, but they’ve played some pretty good footy. It’s not all long balls and set-pieces, they’ve put some nice passing moves together and they look a totally different side to what they’ve been all season. Unfortunately Leeds are right back in it now. Not because of anything they’ve done, but the points picked up by Burnley and Everton have got them back on the cusp of it despite their resurgence under the new boss. They lost 4-0 at home to City but that doesn’t tell the full story as apparently (I say apparently as I didn’t watch it) they did pretty well and were in the game for a long time. They had chances too but they couldn’t take them. That’s where they miss my boy Bamford. They’ve got more injuries now too and lost a couple more key players during this game. The only thing I’ve seen from this was all the fans lashing balls of paper at Grealish as he was taking a corner. Twitter went into meltdown over that and Leeds fans were getting slaughtered for it. What did I miss? Since when is throwing scrunched up bits of paper this massive crime? Fucking snowflake society. Leeds have tough games to come but I feel as though they just need one more win and that should be enough. The counter point to that would be that they let Fernandinho score against them and arguably deserve relegation just for that. On a similar note, Jesse Marsch said before the game it was “the best team in the world versus the best club in the world”. Again, that’s relegation worthy. It’s the kind of shite I’d expect from Everton really. Norwich’s fate was sealed with a loss at Villa, who really needed that win as they’ve been in freefall these last couple of months. They were not too far out of the relegation mix themselves but the three points here should be enough now even if they don’t pick up another point, which unless they can take something off City hopefully they won’t. Watkins put Villa ahead with a deflected effort after Brandon Williams had fell over to set him clear. He’s shite that Williams, so no doubt he’ll be back in the United team next season. Ings was lively throughout and had earlier been denied by the bar before eventually getting his reward in stoppage time to wrap up the win. Villa have to play us and City as well as Burnley twice so they could have a huge say in the top and bottom of the table. Makes me sick to think of the Blues cheering Stevie on against Burnley. Hope they lose both games and Stevie winks at the camera on his way off. Wolves got spanked at home by Brighton. Two really unpredictable teams these. Brighton went on a massive losing streak before coming back with some really good results. They’re finishing the season strongly, just as they started it. Wolves are a team you don’t really enjoy playing because you always think it will be tough, but then you look at where they are in the table and it makes you realise their reputation isn’t really justified. I think it’s just that they play better against the good sides because they can sit in and play on the break. When they’re expected to make the play they can’t do it. Brighton could even afford the luxury of missing a penalty in this one. Mac Allister missed that but soon after he got another chance and he just about made amends, although Sa did get a hand to it and almost made a great save. Young Farage made it 2-0 and then gave it the binoculars celebration. Not sure what that was, maybe he was looking for boats full of refugees so he could grass them up to the authorities? Joking aside, I feel kind of bad for Trossard as it can’t be easy looking like that fucking scumbag. I probably should stop making the comparison but it amuses me so *shrugs* whaddayagonnado. Bissouma added a third as the home fans either booed or walked out. This doesn’t bode well for them playing City, but you can look at it another way, which is what I’m choosing to do. They need to respond in front of their home crowd and they’ve generally done well against City in recent years so they’ll see that game as a chance to redeem themselves and give their fans a nice send off. We only need them to get a draw. Come on Wolves. Southampton, who have done their bit with two draws against City this season, led early against Palace as Romeu headed in a Ward-Prowse corner. The delivery from Ward-Prowse is just always fucking right on the money, I really like him. Wonder if they’d be interested in a part ex with Ox this summer? Palace levelled when Clyne crossed for Eze to volley in at the back post. Clyne has been getting a good run of games recently and is doing well. It’s weird because he played a fucking shitload of games for us but he’s someone who didn’t really leave any kind of lasting memory. I liked him, he was good, but for some reason he’s very forgettable, like he was never even here. Palace won it at the death when Zaha came off the bench to spin away and fire in a low shot past Herman Munster in goal. He’ll have enjoyed that as him and Ward-Prowse have had beef for years. I’m surprised he didn’t go and celebrate right in front of him as he seems like the type to do that shit. Don’t take that as a dig either, I’m absolutely the type to do that too so I’m not judging. Onto Sunday now and Chelsea did exactly what I feared they’d do. I said it on the pod and in various conversations I had during the week. I saw it coming a mile off but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. I just didn’t trust them to go and do what they should be doing against Everton. Arsenal couldn’t do it, United couldn’t do it and I didn’t think Chelsea would either. And sadly I was right. It’s almost like these fucking teams are taken by surprise with how hostile Goodison is and the rampant shithousery of the Everton players. They’re either not expecting it or they just don’t have the balls to deal with it. I think in Chelsea’s case it’s just that they’re very much apathetic at the moment. The Abramovich thing lingers over them like a bad spell, they don’t have much to play for until the FA Cup final and on Sunday it showed. Everton were shite but they wanted it more. We saw Gordon and Richarlison diving all over the place, Mina outdoing both of them with some seriously embarrassing shit, Coleman trying to referee the game again and Pickford constantly charging sixty yards from his goal to get involved in every little fracas, of which there were plenty. Horrible shower of cunts. And Chelsea just let it get to them, the fucking useless wankers. I can’t even tell you how angry I am with them. They should be stripped of their World Club Champions crown for this. Not even joking, They don’t deserve that title if they can’t even beat that fat, bald, tory twat and his team of horrible little shithouse rats. As each week passes my desperation for them to go down increases to the point where sometimes I think it would be just as good as us winning a trophy. I then have to chastise for myself for being a tit, but I can’t lie that there have been moments when I’ve thought that. Usually when Richarlison is on my screen. I want them relegated so much now that it’s constantly in my thoughts. It’s not even because of the fans either. It’s Lampard and the players. I fucking can’t stand the cunt and some of those players are among the biggest shitbags in the entire league. Pickford, Richarlison, Mina, Gordon, Coleman, Allan, Calvert-Lewin, Gomes… Fucking hell, Sigurdsson doesn’t even make the list and he’s an actual nonce. That’s how much I hate some of those players. Come on Leeds. Come on Burnley. Don’t let us down. The battle for fourth looks like going down to the wire as Spurs and Arsenal both won. Spurs started badly against Leicester and could have been a couple of goals down before Kane settled the nerves by heading them ahead. Son added two more as they won comfortably in the end, even though that Iheanacho prick bagged a late consolation. Leicester’s league form has been shite as they’ve been pre-occupied with Europe. They better sort their shit out and beat Everton this weekend, but they won’t because they’ve been fucking shite for months. Arsenal won at West Ham, which was no surprise as the Hammers are 100% focused on their Europa League semi and have given up on the league now. They even let Rob Holding score. Fucking hell. At least I think it was Rob Holding. Where the fuck did he get that head of hair from? Has he been to see Shaq’s barber? Bowen equalised and was later brought down by Ramsdale as he ran through on goal. The keeper got a yellow for that but it could easily have been a red. Surprising that Mike Dean went with the lenient option, especially as he has previous for fucking Arsenal over. He’s going soft, no wonder he’s retiring. Gabriel won it for the Gunners with a back post header. West Ham conceding two goals from set-pieces to Arsenal, who never score from set-pieces. Good job Moyesy. Finally, Monday night saw United beat Brentford and celebrate like they’d won a trophy. It was their last home game so the lap of appreciation was somewhat understandable, but the way they were smelling themselves wasn’t. Absolutely shameless bunch of twats that United team. They’ve brought nothing but embarrassment on the club all season but they beat Brentford and walking around with their dicks swinging, like a Poundland Arsenal. The fans deserve no better though. They planned a protest but then the team were playing some good stuff for once and they were winning, so they sacked off the protest and stayed until the end, and then applauded them when they walked around the pitch afterwards. Green and Gold, unless they’re good. Embarrassing wankers.

I don’t know what to feel about this one. It’s a decent point under the circumstances, the performance was quite good for the most part but on the balance of chances Spurs deserved something from the game. All that being said, we were absolutely fucking robbed by the officials so it’s hard to really think about anything else. Everything that happened in this game is skewed by Tierney and the VAR monkey failing to send Harry Kane off early on. If they do their job it’s a completely different game. It’s easy to have a go at Tierney and believe me I will, but the bigger problem here is Kavanagh on VAR. Tierney’s performance is bad, Kavanagh’s is fucking scandalous. I can always make allowances for the on field official as he only ever gets one look at an incident and it’s at normal speed. Sometimes one look should be all he needs (like the Jota penalty, which I’ll get to shortly) but with incidents like the Kane tackle it can be difficult to know exactly what happened. He might not have had a great view of whether Kane caught Robbo or not, or how high it was, or whether he got the ball first. I can live with refs not being sure on first view and producing a yellow. After all, that’s what VAR is for. Kavanagh has access to as many replays as he needs from numerous angles. How the fuck is he looking at that and not telling Tierney it’s a red and to go and look at the monitor? Honestly, it’s mind boggling that a fully qualified, professional referee is looking at that and not saying “red card”. I don’t actually know how it’s possible to be honest, when literally everybody else who sees it knows it’s the textbook definition of out of control, high, endangering an opponent. It ticks every box. Listen to every pundit and it's unanimous. There are no dissenting voices, yet someone who is paid to do this somehow gets it wrong? As I say, I don't know how that is even possible. Kane catches Robbo in the shin with his studs, at full force. He’s running at full speed and launches himself. Kavanagh apparently said the difference between this and the Robbo red card that came later was the amount of force involved. Seriously, he needs sacking immediately because if he’s telling the truth he’s incompetent, and if he’s lying then he’s dishonest. Force? Kane has a running jump and has his full weight behind it, whereas Robbo takes a wild swing from a standing start. There's no comparison. Thankfully Robbo saw it coming and ensured his foot wasn’t planted so he avoided serious injury. That’s not relevant though. Or at least it shouldn't be. Kavanagh has apparently used that as justification for it not being a red, which again is absolutely scandalous and to me amounts to a sackable offence. A player doesn’t need to be injured for it to be a sending off. Being England captain probably helped Kane but I don’t think it’s just that, as the lad who fouled Jota for the ‘non penalty’ isn’t England captain but he got away scot free too. This is just Tierney being shit and Kavanagh just going with the outcome he wants rather than just doing his job without personal bias. What a cunt Kane is though. He said afterwards he wasn’t worried he’d be sent off because it was a strong challenge but he won the ball. The only touch he got on the ball was with his fucking hand! He was nowhere near the ball. Just say “yeah I was a bit lucky there but there was no intent”. How hard is that? I fucking despise him, he’s an absolute piece of shit. It bothers me that this isn’t widely recognised. This is a fella that lied about getting a touch on a ball and swore on his daughter's life, so that tells you all you need to know about that cunt. I saw someone on twitter referring to him as the Boris Johnson of football and that might be the most apt description of him ever. Other than "slobbering goon", of course. The incident came at 1-0 and was shortly after Kane had scored. He’d almost bagged one just before that too only to be denied by a great block by Konate. That was concerning because we’d started the game really well and were creating plenty of chances. Then the first time Spurs got near our box they nearly scored, and the second time they got in they did score. You could tell at that point we were vulnerable because of the midfield. The defence was exposed but it wasn’t a back four issue. There’s very little they can do really. The problem with the midfield was twofold; giving the ball away cheaply and not being in the right areas to ‘protect our attacks’. We’re usually really hard to counter attack on because the trio of Hendo, Thiago and Fabinho are great at stopping teams getting out. You change out all three of those and bring in two players just back from injury and a kid making his first PL start, then there’s going to be an inevitable drop off as thee's no chemistry or understanding there. You've got three of them not working as unit because how could they really? They'd been thrown together last minute. I don’t blame the three midfield lads. You can’t expect them to replicate what we get from Hendo, Thiago and Fabinho and what happened here was unavoidable in many ways. I have no doubt that Tyler Morton is ready to play in games like this, but not in a makeshift midfield. If you have to put him in there with, say, Hendo and Thiago, I’d have absolutely no worries about the kid at all. He didn’t even play badly in this game, at least not in possession. He was just left too exposed time and again because the gaps in our midfield were fucking massive. They often are when Naby plays. He pushes forward because he’s great at nicking the ball in the final third. But when he doesn’t nick it and they play around him, there are gaps. I’m not blaming him specifically, it’s a structural issue that’s probably not there when you have Fabinho hoovering up behind him. But look at the second goal for example. The goal isn’t his fault as such (it's Alisson's), but that’s a good example of what I’m talking about. He tries to win it high and when he doesn’t they have too much time to play through us. The first goal is partly on him too as he badly shits out of a tackle. The pass to him from Trent isn’t good but he wanted absolutely no part of that challenge and I cringe every time I see the replay of it. What an absolute fart. We also had Morton and Milner over on that side of the pitch which meant Ndombele had time and space to pick the pass for Kane. I’ve been saying all season that it feels like most of the chances we give up come from us giving the ball away unexpectedly and then not being set as a result of that. The first goal wasn’t the most glaring example of it but it is kind of what I’m talking about. Trent had the ball, so now everyone other than the centre backs are switching to attack mode. But Trent under hits the pass to Keita, who shits out of the tackle with Winks and just like that we’re on the back foot unexpectedly and not quite set when the pass is played. We never really got back into our set line as there’s a gap between Robbo and Konate and to make matters worse Robbo is a yard deeper than everyone else (something that has been happening all season). The pass was good, so was the finish, and just like that we’re behind. It could have been worse too. Kane got away and crossed for Son who volleyed wide on the stretch with the goal gaping. An even closer call came when Son broke away and squared to Alli who was denied by a stunning fingertip save by Alisson. Son was also denied by Alisson when he went through one v one but he was offside anyway. Alisson didn't know that though. The mad thing was those chances were totally against the run of play. We were bossing the game, passing it around well and creating loads of good openings. But in between that we kept giving it away cheaply and getting done on the break, which made for a wild game that had Neville and Tyler jizzing themselves about how everyone should be grateful that Sky were bringing such great entertainment in such dark times. Sickening really. The game shouldn't have even been played but seemingly it's only the non-Sky games that get called off. Konate and Matip were going up against Son and Kane with no back up. As good s they are, there will be times when they get done because Son and Kane are two of the best forwards in the world. They're two of the biggest cunts in the world too, but they are great footballers, even I can admit that. This is how we play though. We always defend that way but usually the midfield is preventing the opposition from getting the ball to their forwards more than once or twice a half. That’s what was lacking for us here. That and players just giving it away cheaply. Milner and Keita in particular kept under-hitting passes in the first half. After the break they were much better, especially Milner. I thought we looked really good going forward though and got into some great positions. Robbo especially was marauding down that flank and getting into great areas, but invariably his end product was shite. He should have scored in the first minute but headed wide and his crossing was completely off until he produced a beauty for the equaliser. That was class from him. Great run into the box, brilliant first touch to take it past his man and then he stood up a perfect ball for Jota to head home. What a header though. He’s so good in the air and that was a cracker. He’d started the game very quietly but got better and better as it went on. He put in a huge shift and was knackered by the time he was subbed late on. It’s mad how he didn’t get a penalty though. You just can’t explain what happened there. Tierney had the best view in the stadium and STILL got that wrong. His reason was that Jota deliberately stopped so that the defender would run into him. Firstly, that’s not what happened. Jota slows down because he’s setting himself to shoot. You can't shoot when running at full speed as you have to adjust your stride pattern and steady yourself. That's why Klopp had a go at Tierney about "you've never played the game". Secondly, even if he did stop it’s still a foul anyway. He doesn’t have to keep running, you’re allowed to do what you like. Run, jog, stop, it’s entirely up to you when you have the ball. And if you have your body between yourself and a defender and he trucks into you, then it’s a fucking foul whether you stopped or not. So Tierney is pathetic in that situation. He’s displayed a total lack of understanding of how football works, which isn’t good when your job is to officiate football. But as bad as that was, even worse, once again, was that Kavanagh cunt not stepping in. Twice he’s seen clear and obvious errors and done fuck all. He's hung Tierney out to dry too, as it's the man in the middle getting all the flak from Klopp and the media. Kavanagh had a duty to get involved and help his mate out and he failed in that duty. And that makes what happened later with Robbo all the more sickening. I’ll get to that in a bit. At half time I had two emotions. Rage and confidence. I was fucking steaming about the officials but having got it back to 1-1 and I was confident we’d go on to win the game. I assumed we’d sort out the midfield issues and stop the counter attacks, while we were doing enough in attack to make me feel that we’d score another couple of goals. Neither really happened though. I didn’t think we were as good going forward as we had been in the first half and we were still vulnerable to those breaks. Still, when we got the lead I expected us to keep it so that’s disappointing. Spurs will complain about our second goal but there is no way you can disallow that. The rules were changed so that accidental attacking handball only applies if the player scores or directly assists. Mo did neither. They also wanted a penalty for something that happened seconds earlier. Never a pen, Alli just took a dive and didnt even appeal for anything. So the only issue is whether it’s deliberate handball by Mo or not, and it clearly wasn’t. That said, Tierney and Kavanagh were making it up as they went so there was always a worry they’d disallow it. Klopp may have stormed the pitch and beat the shit out of Tierney if that had happened. What a ball by Trent though. It was so good that even Robbo couldn’t miss. We should have turned the screw on Spurs then by keeping the ball and penning them back, but we just got ragged and sloppy instead. It was too easy how they got in behind us but it shouldn’t have been a problem as Alisson had it under control. Until he didn’t, that is. That was proper shit. He should never be allowing that ball to go through him and it’s really frustrating because other than that he’d been fucking brilliant. These mistakes are adding up now though and he needs to get his shit together. At 2-2 it was anyone’s game but then out of nowhere we were a man down. I don’t have any complaints about the actual decision but I have a massive problem with how they arrived at it. On first view I thought it was a red and that Robbo was in trouble, but Tierney gave a yellow so that should have been the end of it. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t complain about that being a red. I don’t think it’s 100% a sending off, it’s probably 75% maybe 80%. Kane’s was 100%, but Robbo’s is one that would occasionally maybe only be a yellow. It was rash, wild, petulant, stupid. It wasn’t a leg breaker though. So the problem here is that Kavanagh had not intervened on two decisions that were absolutely and categorically wrong, yet he stuck his little fucking manc beak in on one that wasn’t actually that clear and obvious an error. You seriously have to question Kavanagh’s motivation here. I mean, you just wouldn’t do it would you? If you knew you’d fucked up massively on the two previous ones by not getting involved, why would you interject yourself into this situation when it’s less obvious? Refs naturally have a "balancing out" instinct. Mark Clattenberg even admitted this when he did Carra's podcast. It's just a natural thing to do, yet Kavanagh has done the opposite. This isn't a Tierney problem. He gave Robbo a yellow even though he almost certainly knew it was a red. He was 'evening it up' and at least trying to show consistency. Once again, Kavanagh has made him look like a cunt. Tierney is just shit and had a bad game. I can understand that because refereeing is fucking hard and doing it in high pressure situations in full stadiums is even harder. I couldn’t do it. You know what isn’t hard though? Sitting in a quiet room watching video replays of incidents and making decisions on them. I could absolutely do that as it’s fucking easy. That’s why Kavanagh’s role in this seems much more sinister to me. You go with the on field decision if it suits what you want but when it doesn’t you suddenly get involved? Fuck that. This cunt needs investigating, but because Klopp focused on Tierney I doubt anything will be said about the real villain of the peace here. I can explain away Tierney’s decisions by saying he’s shit and he only had one look at them in real time. I can’t explain away Kavanagh’s actions. That sending off fucked us and I’d have gladly taken 2-2 at that point. So in that particular context I’m not displeased with the actual result. Spurs merited a draw based on chances but given everything we had to overcome here it feels like the lads deserved more. We went for the win and even with ten men we didn’t just sit in. I like that. Klopp had made a positive change at 1-1 when he took off Morton and sent on Bobby to play in a four man forward line. Morton was on a yellow card and wasn’t really in the game much anyway so that was an obvious change. I thought Bobby was poor though and the tactical change didn’t really work. I mean, we did score and Bobby had an involvement in the goal, but other than that I didn’t really like our shape. Going down to ten compounded that because Milner went left back and we were left with Keita in midfield on his own for a spell. Scary proposition that. Kostas coming on allowed Milner to go back in there, and then Gomez came on to give us an extra man at the back in the six minutes of stoppage time. We held out comfortably enough really, although Milner had to make two or three really good late interventions. I thought he had a really good second half after struggling in the first. Quite a few of the lads blew hot and cold, even Joel, who is usually just flawless all the time. He had a couple of ropey moments but also made up for it with some of his mad runs forward. One of them took him all the way into the box and he should have gone himself but instead tried to play in Jota. Mo was quiet and didn’t look himself. I don’t think he was fully fit, maybe he has the same illness Hendo has. Our best players were Mané and Konate. I thought Sadio was electric in the first half and although he faded a bit after the break, overall he played well. It’s frustrating we didn’t just have him continually run at that shite right back who was a booking. Sadio had him beat all ends up and we should have used that more. Konate was star man though for the second time this week. He’s dominating at the moment and looks much more settled and confident now. I honestly don’t think this game would have been any different even if we had Virgil back there. The problems originated higher up the pitch and Konate did all he could to stem the flow. Really, this game shouldn’t have even been played. Other teams are getting games called off but we have to play despite having at least four players ruled out with Covid. Chelsea had to play too, but other teams are allowed to call games off, presumably because unvaccinated players have to isolate when they’ve been in contact with someone who has tested positive whereas our lads are all vaxed and only have to isolate if THEY test positive. That seems really fucking unfair to me, but Sky were never going to allow their big game of the weekend to be called off. I don’t know what’s going to happen now as it doesn’t seem feasible for us to play our next three games with a depleted squad. Three games in six days we’d have unless there are postponements. There’s no perfect solution here as if games are postponed they still need to played at some point and there’ll be a backlog, but playing these next three games in a six day period is surely not an option. The whole thing is a mess but it sure feels like both us and Chelsea have been shafted here, doubly so in our case as we also had to deal with Tierney and Kavanagh who are worse than fucking covid. And Kane, who's worse than.... well worse than pretty much anything or anyone you can name. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Konate, Robertson; Morton (Firmino), Keita, Milner; Salah, Jota (Tsimikas), Mané (Gomez):

We probably have a completely false view of Porto based on us always battering them. They’re actually a good side but we always make them look useless, especially at their place. We’re like kryptonite to them. Their goals against at home record over recent seasons is brilliant when they aren’t playing us; it’s either a clean sheet or they’ll let one in. Then we come to town and run riot against them. It isn’t about their lack of quality as nobody else does it to them. It’s not about how good we are either as it’s not like we do this to everyone. It must be style of play. Whatever it is about them, it suits us perfectly because we can carve them open at will. There’s space everywhere and I know this is an easy thing to say and I feel as though I say it every week, but we really ought to have scored more than we did. In one sense that seems a bit daft. I mean, I read today that after the first nine games this is the joint most goals we’ve ever scored in club history. So talking about how we should have scored more seems a bit churlish, but I don’t think it’s being unreasonable either. We aren’t going to score with every chance, that’s not really my point. In this game specifically it wasn’t missed chances, it was missed chances to make the chances. In the first half I couldn’t believe just how on top we were. The game was wide open for us and it felt like every single time we got the ball within seconds we were right on top of their defence with a promising situation. We didn’t make enough of those opportunities. It was never going to matter because unlike at Brentford you knew that Porto weren’t going to pose much of a threat, while they were so bad at the back (and in goal!) that we were always going to score four or five. We only managed two in the first half despite almost total dominance. And both goals were gifts by their keeper. Ok, maybe it’s going overboard to describe the first one as a gift as such, but it wasn’t good from him was it? Curtis has done really well to drive into the box and make room for a shot, but the keeper should just be gathering that instead of parrying. It’s a modern goalie thing though, they parry every shot. I get that when it’s a powerful strike, but Curtis is trying to bend that one in and there’s no real force behind it. He could have just caught it but instead he punches it into a danger area, the left back doesn’t control it and Mo was able to get a toe on it and poke it over the line. What I liked about the goal was Jones’ involvement in it though. Not just the shot, but what led up to it. His movement was great all night and he was drifting into little pockets where he could pick the ball up and drive at them. He makes a run out wide to give Robbo an option, and as soon as he picks the ball up and sees the space he just drove into it. His eyes must have lit up. When he gets in those areas he’s so skilful that it’s difficult stopping him from getting a shot in. This is the Jones I watched in the youth set up. He did this all the time and now that he seems to have learned the positional and defensive responsibilities required of our midfield players, hopefully we’ll see him start to show that creativeness that makes him so special. The second goal also had much to do with their keeper. It looked like a great cross by Milner but if the keeper just comes out and gathers it then it suddenly isn’t looking like a great ball after all. He came half way and then pulled his hands away. I have absolutely no idea what he was trying to do there. You can live with your keeper diving full length to try and cut out a cross and missing it, but when he does that, I mean fucking hell. Sadio gleefully cushioned the ball over the line for the easiest goal he’ll ever score. Nice for Mo and Sadio to both score but this was a homecoming for Diogo so I was hoping he’d get one. He had chances but didn’t take them. He was twice denied by the keeper and he also screwed one horribly wide from a position where he’s usually really strong. Mo was in much more clinical form and he bagged a second after brilliant play again by Curtis, who was completely running the game now. He robbed a Porto player and then surged forward. He had runners, including Sadio to his left, but he didn’t rush the pass and waited for Jota to make a run that took a defender away and then he rolled it into an unmarked Salah who took a touch and then rolled it past the keeper. That was so fucking good by Jones though. It just had everything you’d want from your midfield player. Winning possession, committing defenders and then playing the killer pass at the perfect moment. With a three goal lead Klopp took the opportunity to make changes. Milner was brought off for Gomez, which tells us that Trent is almost certainly out for Sunday as Milner is being protected for that. Sadio and Mo both got a rest too, as Bobby and Taki came on. The changes disrupted our flow for a little while and Porto pulled a goal back with a good header from a lad who got in front of Gomez. I don’t blame Joe for that though, he had two players to deal with and he was already quite far across on the cover. He was almost in the left sided centre back spot as Virgil and Joel were dragged so far over. We didn’t do enough to stop the cross either and that’s maybe something we need to figure out. Klopp’s take afterwards was we defended great for almost the whole game so he’s not going to sweat about one goal. I imagine privately he’ll be saying something a bit different, but you don’t want to feed the narrative that we can’t deal with crosses and long balls so best to shoot that one down. Bobby then bagged himself a couple of goals. Nicely taken but again, our pal the keeper gets a big assist for the first one. That was FUCKING MENTAL. He’s got no business being anywhere near that through ball. The defender is dealing with it comfortably and Bobby isn’t a speed merchant. The only reason the defender doesn’t snuff out the danger is he must have seen the keeper suddenly arrive on the scene and thought “the fuck’s this loon doing all the way out here?”. He was distracted for a split second, Bobby nicked the ball away and then rolled it goal wards with his left foot. It took an age to reach the goal, but so did the keeper, who looked like he was towing a couple of caravans as he chased back. He arrived a fraction too late and the ball had crossed the line. It took a few seconds before it became clear it was a goal, and Bobby’s second had an even longer delay as it was initially given offside before VAR overturned it and awarded the goal. Despite having to wait, and the moment having obviously gone, Bobby celebrated anyway. Did we expect anything less from him? So all in all that’s a fucking great night’s work. Atletico beat Milan with a stoppage time pen from Suarez so they’re now second in the group and we’ve got a double header with them. Unfinished business for us there. Let’s see how they cope when they don’t have Adrian bailing them out. Our lads will be right up for that one after what happened last time. We played so well in that second leg and should have gone through, so we know what to expect and they should be two highly charged games. They probably won’t be great spectacles as Atletico are spoiling bastards, but it will be intense as fuck, especially with Suarez and Robbo renewing hostilities. Robbo was fucking boss in this game. This is what he needed, just some games to get his rhythm back. With Trent most likely out on Sunday we’ll need this kind of rampaging performance from Robbo this weekend so it was great seeing him flying like this. How good was that ref by the way? When Fabinho brought their lad down over on the far side to stop a breakaway, that was a stonewall yellow in any other game. This fella didn’t even give a free-kick, and when they showed the replay you could see he was right. Fab actually slid under him and their lad went out of his way to ensure contact when he could easily have just gone past him. That was top drawer refereeing and he wasn’t buying any of the shit they were selling. Top marks to him. We also had a Marko Grujic sighting. He came on at half time and then honestly I didn't see him again until he was hugging Klopp at the final whistle. Did he even touch the ball? Star man is Curtis for the second time in four days. So far this week he has a goal and four assists. Let’s hope he can make a similar impact on Sunday. I absolutely can’t fucking wait for that now. I was up for the Chelsea game a few weeks back but this is different. This is more personal. We’ve got history with Chelsea but it’s not particularly recent. With City it is. It’s a current beef, not a historical one, and we’ve got some scores to settle. Just like Everton, they ended their Anfield hoodoo last season, except they didn’t. On paper maybe, but there’s a fucking massive asterisk next to that result as the stadium was empty. On Sunday it will be bouncing. Let’s fucking have these financial doping, human rights abusing, crying bald bastard manager employing, lawyering up to avoid punishment cunts. Team: Alisson; Milner (Gomez), Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Jones; Salah (Firmino), Jota (Origi), Mané (Minamino):

How great was that? Absolutely made up to have footy back at Anfield. 18 months. It’s hard to believe we’ve had to go that long without being inside Anfield watching the lads. I know some got to attend last season but that’s not the same. I had no interest in going last season and I always said when I went back it would be in a full stadium. So this was my first time inside Anfield since Atletico Madrid. So much has happened since then and not much of it good. The tribute before kick off to those no longer with us brought a lot of that home. Really emotional, poignant stuff. I feel like we were denied the opportunity to pay proper respect to some of those we lost and although this went a little way towards doing that, it’s not really the same is it? The whole day was a bit surreal. Although it’s been a year and a half since I’ve been to Anfield, when I got there it didn’t feel like it had been that long. It was still a familiar feeling. This whole covid period has fucking flown by though. It’s hard to get my head around it. A year and a half since life was normal. It’s still not normal now but at least it feels like we’re getting closer and being back at the match is a huge step towards it. Initially I was annoyed at being told I had to be in the ground so early but on reflection it was a good thing as I just loved being back in my seat. I was in an hour before and just sat there looking around, savouring it. I was on my own as my Dad has packed it in now as the winter games and night time kick offs are too much for him, plus he fucking hates VAR to the extent it’s ruining his enjoyment of the game. So it was a little strange being on my own but not completely alien to me as I’ve been going to the cup games on my own for years. I rang him when I got in the ground and he said he was regretting his decision to stop going. We’ll see if he feels the same when it’s -2 degrees and we’re playing Brighton or Norwich in February! Being in early meant I got to watch the warm up for the first time in years. I used to do that all the time in the days before I started the fanzine so it was a nice change. Not something I want to do all the time though, as warm ups ain’t what they used to be. Back in the day it would just be a few sprints then everyone blasting shots at the Kop goal. Plus big Jan trying to hit the giant Crown Paints tin from 50 yards away. This wasn’t as much fun. It went quickly though and before I knew it the game was kicking off. I liked the team selection mainly because I was giddy at the prospect of Harvey getting a start. I’m so excited about what we’re going to get from him over the coming years but I wasn’t expecting him to be getting the nod for this one so it just added to the sense of anticipation. With Fabinho, Ox and Milner unavailable he got his chance and he certainly took it. Fucking brilliant that lad. I didn’t think we started the game too well and Burnley gave as good as they got in the opening 5-10 minutes. That didn’t stop them immediately going into time wasting mode though. We hadn’t even played four minutes before Pope was at it. Taking an age over a goal kick and helping himself to a drink while everyone waited around for him. This was after they’d been fucking around at a throw in too. Mike Dean was on it immediately and had a word with Ben Mee. After that it wasn’t as bad, but then we scored after 18 minutes so there was no point them time wasting when they were behind. The goal put paid to that and saved Dean from having to deal with it. There’s been a lot said about Burnley’s ‘robust’ approach to the game but I can’t say it bothered me at all. In fact, I fucking loved every minute of this game and I’d even go as far as saying that Mike Dean actually contributed to how enjoyable the game was. Aside from one or two obvious fouls he missed, he generally gave free-kicks when they were needed and he let all the little stuff go. Refs are definitely making a point of “letting them play” this season and the games are much better for it. I don’t know how long it will last but so far so good. They’re not going to get everything right but overall Dean called it pretty well (no I can’t believe I’m saying that either). It’s fair to complain that he didn’t produce any yellow cards but again, I don’t really care about that as long as it’s consistent for both sides. Last season was pissing me off as we were conceding twice as many fouls as the opposition and our lads would get booked for next to nothing. There was a stage when Thiago was getting booked just for stepping onto the pitch. It was a joke and the opposition knew all they had to do was fall down in the vicinity of a red shirt and they’d get a free-kick. That wasn’t the case here, and Sean Dyche was losing his shit about it from first whistle to last. I’m sure it will have been evident to anyone watching on TV that he was pissed off but you won’t have seen just how ridiculous his antics actually were. I was watching him closely all game as I’ve got a good view of the benches from my seat, and honestly, he moaned non-stop the entire fucking time. He was just kicking off constantly and wouldn’t leave the fourth official alone. It was funny hearing him complain about the “penalty” they didn’t get though when McNeill and Trent went shoulder to shoulder, because when that happened I instinctively looked towards him expecting him to be going ballistic. He’d been ranting and raving about everything before that so I naturally assumed he was going to explode. He didn’t though. He was shouting at his players to get back into position to stop the counter. So for him to start moaning afterwards that he thought that was a penalty, nah, he’s lying. He knew it wasn’t and he didn’t even appeal for it. He’d spent a good couple of minutes crying about Gudmundsen not getting a free-kick when he thought he was body checked by Tsimikas though. Maybe if he hadn’t rolled around holding his face for two minutes when he was barely touched he might have gotten something? Burley players don’t do that though, apparently. There was a very similar incident in the second half when Cork completely flattened Jota by barging into him off the ball. in the box Nothing was given for that either but Dyche is overlooking that one. As I said, at least Dean was consistent. Burnley’s players were leaving something on Elliott and Kostas and that’s clearly come from the top. Again though, I’m ok with that. If Dyche hadn’t said to them “get stuck into the 18 year old, see if he can handle it” then he wouldn’t be doing his job properly. I’d have done that if I was him too. And I’d also have said to try and rattle Tsimikas a bit because he’s not experienced and might be a bit nervous. I’m fine with them doing that, it’s football and it’s naive to think it doesn’t happen. It’s up to the ref to deal with it and although I think Dean was overly lenient on occasion, overall this is how I want to see footy played. Give me blood and thunder over tippy tappy anyday. There does come a point when you have to produce a card though and Dean didn’t do that. I mean fucking hell, how has Ashley Barnes come off that field with no yellow card to his name when all he did the entire game was barge into Big Joel. How does he get away with it when it’s so obvious what he’s doing? I mean there was one where he just launched himself at Matip, wrapped both his legs around him, grabbed him and pulled him to the floor. Dean waved play on!! Incredible. You know what I think it is? Barnes does it so often that refs just give up in the end. It’s like, they can’t blow the whistle every fucking time he does it, and they aren’t serious enough fouls to justify cards, so after a while they just think “fuck it, what’s the point”. It was relentless. Every long ball saw Barnes and Wood just barge into Matip and Van Dijk. Wood at least occasionally tried to win the header (and often did to be fair), but the buffering our lads took all day was laughable. Klopp complained afterwards but I wish he hadn’t. There’s no point. It won’t change anything and it didn’t matter anyway as we won the game. Instead of raving about Elliott or how sharp the forwards are looking, the narrative after the game was “moaning Klopp” and “the big clubs don’t like it up em”. MOTD even suggested he was “playing mind games”. Klopp doesn’t play mind games, he just says what he’s feeling. I just don’t see the need in giving Dyche what he wants, because he thrives of this kind of shit as it allows him to play the “downtrodden little club not getting the breaks against the big boys” card. Fair play to him for naming a side that were wearing 1-11 though. That’s the most Burnley thing ever. I keep joking that they’ve had the same side for five years but this is some next level shit. Not gonna lie, I love it. I really thought we were going to snot Burnley though because we badly owe them a beatdown. After the last two fruitful visits they had to Anfield I fully expected us to set the record straight and spank them everywhere. Had Mo’s goal not been ruled out I’m sure we would have done, but that really set us back as it took the air out of our balloon for the rest of the half. Thankfully we already had the lead so it wasn’t too damaging, but it was such a shame that goal didn’t stand. Brilliant football and it would have been nice for Harvey to register an assist there. The finish by Mo was quality too. I honestly didn’t even consider for a second that it might get chalked off. Usually I’m pretty good at spotting possible offsides but that one completely fooled me and I gave it the full, unfiltered celebration. So my heart sank when the VAR review announcement showed on the scoreboard. Fucks sake. You know when that happens it means the goal is almost certainly not going to stand, and so it proved. It was a fraction offside but it’s a bit galling when they’re supposed to be giving close ones to the attacking team now. Mo must have just missed the cut off point for that benefit of the doubt, but it was offside and I’m not complaining about that specifically. Personally I’d fuck VAR off when it comes to offsides and just let the linos do their job. I’d let refs use the video for pens and red cards as that’s a great help to them on difficult decisions they may need to see again to be sure. I’m good with those because they don’t ruin the moment. VAR on offsides does ruin it. Either because you don’t celebrate ‘just in case’ or you do and then it’s all for nothing. If the lino gets it wrong then so be it. That’s preferable to me if it means I can get back to celebrating goals normally. Anyway, shame it didn’t count as it was lovely football. The opening goal was a nice one too. Great cross from Kostas and a sharp bit of movement and quality header by Jota. He just scores every time he plays. Proper little poacher he is. We played some great football at times but Burnley did have their moments. They didn’t come to just sit back but with them being shit they needed to pick their moments to attack. When the opportunity was there to get forward they went for it, but the only tactic they seemed to have was to get the ball to Dwight McNeil and see if he could get a cross in. It’s hilarious how so many people think that lad is good purely because he’s the only player at Burnley who can run with a ball without falling over his own feet. He’s shite and he only scores two or three goals a season. Dwight Downing. When that tactic wasn’t working they just resorted to lumping high balls and trying to win free-kicks. It’s something that has often worked for them in the past because Barnes is a master at winning free-kicks despite him being the one doing the fouling. Mike Dean wasn’t falling for that but equally, as I said, he wasn’t penalising him enough either. Barnes thought he’d equalised early in the second half but he must have been the only person in the stadium that didn’t know he was offside. He was taunting the Kop too, the cheeky cunt. Honestly, I’m outraged at that. I’m fine when a player has been getting shit from the crowd and he gives it back. That’s fair enough. I understand when it’s a United or Everton player giving it loads in front the Kop as it’s a local rivalry thing. Who the fuck is Ashley Barnes to be doing that though? Upstart prick. This is almost as bad as Neto doing that knee slide in front of the Main Stand a couple of years ago. Barnes will have instantly regretted it when the linesman’s flag went up though and the Kop ripped the piss out of him. He’s guaranteed himself a heated reception next time he comes back too. Tit. Obviously we needed that second goal but at no point did I ever really worry that it wasn’t coming. It was just a matter of time and after a ropey start to the second half we hit a hot spell where we were creating chances at will. Elliott just burst into life and started running the game. It seemed like all of our attacks were going through him at that point and that right hand side was working wonderfully. Harvey, Trent and Mo…. fucking hell, the quality on the ball with that three is something else. Great to watch. Elliott crossed for Mo to bring it down on his chest and then see his shot cleared off the line. Sadio was then denied by the feet of Pope after more good football and you could tell it was only a matter of time. Mo seemed like he was enjoying playing with Harvey and that’s something we will probably see a lot more of based on how well it worked here. It was no surprise that the goal came via some great play on our right. Virg switched the play, Harvey killed it instantly and found Trent and he immediately knocked it around the corner for Sadio to finish. Sensational stuff. It started with the Van Dijk pass because that quick switch of play just gives you that extra second or two to make something happen while the opposition are still shifting across. Elliott’s quickness in getting a difficult ball under control in an instant further caught Burnley on the hope, as did Trent’s first time ball. When we play that fast, and that good, it’s going to be almost impossible for anyone to deal with it. We had other chances to increase the lead and I was desperately wanting Mo to get a goal. Like Sadio last week really. When one of them hasn’t scored I hate that and Mo deserved it for how good he was. The forwards have all started the season in great nick and if that continues nobody is stopping us. Bobby got on for the closing stages, as did Thiago. No surprise it was Jota who went off but I think most of us assumed it would be Elliott also making way. Not because of how he was playing, but because that’s usually what would happen. The kid would almost always be brought off, but not this time. Klopp replaced Keita instead (he’d played well, no reflection on his performance) and that was a great move I think. Reward for Harvey and important for him to be able to say he’s got a full ninety minutes under his belt. Kostas almost made it through the full game too but was replaced in stoppage time. He’d picked up a bit of a knock to his shoulder but he looked like he could have carried on and I think he was subbed purely so he could feel the warmth of the crowd. Great day for him, he played really well and the crowd have taken to him in a big way. That moment when he was battling for possession and was knocked over but still came out of the challenge with the ball was great. The roof nearly came off the place and it was his “Robbo against Man City” moment. That was when Kostas arrived as a Liverpool player for me. He’ll probably make way for Robbo next week but we now have a genuine rotation option there and that can only benefit both him and Robbo. For the second week running we needed Alisson to step in late on to protect the clean sheet. Thiago came off the bench and looked like he was playing beach football, he was so fucking casual. He gave the ball way twice in dangerous areas and one of those almost led to a Burnley goal, but the big fella said no. He’s started the season looking like a fucking boss hasn’t he? He might never concede another goal again. So all in all, just what we wanted. Three points, a good performance, joint top of the table, the forwards all off the mark, no goals conceded and we’re able to go the game again. Can’t ask for any more than this, I’m just buzzing again. Apparently some Burnley fans booed the taking of the knee. I didn’t hear it, but it seems they did it last week too. Thick fucks. I did hear them taunting Robbo with some song that I believe was something like “Scotland get battered every fucking where they go”. I mean, why would you be that arsed to even bother with that? Fuck me, have a day off you bad Brexit wankers. Watching the highlights on MOTD and I’ve got beef. How come they showed an early Burnley chance when it was offside and wouldn’t have counted anyway? The only reason you’d do shit like that is to give a false impression that the game was closer than it was. It pisses me off as it happens all the time. We might have 15 chances to an opponents three, but you can be sure MOTD will show three each. Why? Fair enough if Burnley create a good chance, then by all means show it. But when he’s two yard offside and it doesn’t result in a disallowed goal then what’s the point? Star man is Harvey. He wasn’t the best player on the pitch, that was either Trent or Big Bird, but he was an 18 year old kid making his home debut against a physical team that wanted to test his mettle. He came through with flying colours and we’ve clearly got a fucking generational talent on our hands here. I doubt he’ll play next week as I don’t think he’s ready for a test like Chelsea yet. He’s clearly good enough to play in this league but against world class players I’d be looking to go with the more experienced options, preferably Fabinho, Henderson and either Thiago (if he’s ready) or Milner. I can’t fucking wait for that one. Anfield will be rocking for that. I thought the atmosphere for this one was great for a 12.30 kick off, but it wasn’t quite as special as I expected after an 18 month absence. It was pissing down and it was Burnley and it was a lunchtime game though, so it was never going to be an “Anfield under the lights” type atmosphere. Next weekend might be though. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Tsimikas (Gomez); Henderson, Elliott, Keita (Thiago); Salah, Jota (Firmino), Mané:

A decent enough way to start our home campaign all things considered. Far from perfect and we still have a lot of question marks over our play (and specifically the system), but the encouraging thing was how the team responded to adversity. First, going behind and coming through a wretched opening 20 minutes, and then the way we handled the absolute joke sending off in the second half. This could easily have gone wrong, but it didn’t. So I’ll take the positives and the points and we move on to next week. That’s going to be much tougher though. Tougher even than Chelsea last week. And if we don’t get that ban overturned it will be tougher still. I’m going to start with that because it really was such a disgusting situation. The problem is twofold though. I’ll start with the initial decision first. I genuinely don’t see how the referee can be sure that was such a bad tackle that it’s worthy of a red. He couldn’t possibly know for sure because it happened so quickly. What he did know is that Mac Allister didn’t go in with studs raised high. He also knows that he didn’t leave his feet, or lunge wildly. So he was in control of his body and wasn’t throwing himself recklessly. So the worst that could have happened was that he was a fraction late and caught the lad on the shin, possibly with the sole of his boot. It’s possibly that it might be a red, but highly unlikely. So why was his first instinct to produce the red card? That’s just bad refereeing, but we have a safeguard in place for that now to prevent those mistakes from wrongly hurting teams. Don’t we? Ha! As if. The first problem is a referee who, if he is unsure (which he had to have been because how can you be sure when the tackles doesn’t fit most of the criteria for a red card?), should be issuing a yellow card and then letting VAR help him out if he has indeed missed something really bad. A referee should only be handing out a straight red if he’s certain, otherwise he should always err on the side of caution just for the good of the game. Klopp said afterwards that if a yellow had been awarded, VAR wouldn’t have overturned it. He’s probably right, but it’s Paul Tierney and his Toblerone shaped mate, so you can’t be so sure. Nevertheless, Klopp’s overall point is correct. There’s no way anybody looks at a replay of that and says “no that’s a red card”. So why didn’t they step in and tell the ref he was wrong? Well the answer to that is simple. We’ll hear a lot of bureaucratic nonsense about “high thresholds for overturning decisions” and “clear and obvious” but it’s really just about who is making the call. Paul Tierney is out to fuck Jurgen Klopp every chances he gets. He always has been, but it’s gone into overdrive since Klopp waged a public war with him. He was never going to overturn that. He was probably laughing his tiny cock off along with Captain Roid Rage beside him. So we got fucked again by Tierney and Webb (who put Tierney in position to do it, just because he can). The question now is what do we do about it? Klopp has wisely refrained from attacking the officials who made the decisions and has concentrated solely on the decision itself and why it was wrong. You have to do that and you also have to appeal. You can’t not appeal a decision as bad as that because you’re basically making yourself a punchbag for the refs. You have to stand up to it. So lodge the appeal and made sure as many pundits as possible call it out for fucking travesty it was. We shouldn’t need to do too much as I expect any ex pro who is commenting on it will say what a joke it was and that it needs to be rescinded. As far as I’m away it isn’t the refs who hear the appeal so we should be ok there. We’ll see though. But enough of that and onto the game itself.

What an absolute sickener. It’s an all timer for me that, just because of who it was, how it happened, and the fact that it was all so fucking unnecessary. We’ve lost here in the cup to a couple of late goals before and it hurts like fuck, but when that happened they were better than us and it would have been a great effort for us to have beaten them. It hurts but it’s understandable. That’s not how it is now. They’re shite, we should never be losing to them and I don’t feel any better about it today than I did yesterday. I'm still fuming. That said, having been able to sleep on it and collect some thoughts, I can compartmentalise this to some extent. With the dust having settled on it, I’m not that arsed we’re out of the FA Cup. I’d have loved to have won it, obviously, but going out of the cup in itself isn’t bothering me today. I can easily find a positive in that because not having to play in the semi final means the Fulham game takes place at the weekend and does not need to be crammed in somewhere late in the season when we’re already going to be overstretched. We still don’t have a date for the Everton game unless I’ve missed that. So does going out of the FA Cup help us when it comes to the league? To a degree, yes it does. Is the league more important? Fuck yes is it. I’d like to still be in the cup but it’s the manner of the loss and who we lost to that hurts today, not the fact that we’re out of the FA Cup. There’s a reason quadruples don’t happen and it’s not because no team is good enough to do it. It’s because competing on four fronts takes a monumental effort and you need a huge amount of luck. Trying for four actually makes it harder to win any because the mental and physical toll on a squad is huge late in the season. And when you’ve got as many players missing as we’ve had (and still have) then it’s even more unlikely. So yeah, I can make my peace with no longer being in the FA Cup quite easily. The thing I can’t make my peace with is losing to them. They aren’t a serious football team. They do things that proper football teams just don’t do. Honestly, look at the number of screenshots doing the rounds showing countless instances of how much space we had. We don’t get that kind of room to play against anybody. Maybe that’s how they’re as high as sixth, they just lull you into a false sense of security by being utterly fucking inept tactically. They’re the worst Manchester United side I’ve ever seen. If we’d been beaten by Fulham or Palace or someone of that ilk I’d be over it already. It wasn’t Fulham or Palace though. It was a shite team with cunt fans who spent all afternoon chanting about Hillsborough. We can’t do anything about that (the FA have put out a statement saying it’s not acceptable though, so I’m sure that will ensure it doesn’t happen again), but the players can. They need to fight that battle for us by inflicting misery on those cunts. Instead they gave those Hillsborough mocking lowlifes the best memory they’ve had in a decade. Nice one lads, thanks for that. Good job. *slow hand clap* We beat these cunts 7-0 a year ago. Seven fucking nil. They somehow escaped from Anfield with a 0-0 draw this season but we should have been going there and spanking them and - I don’t say this lightly because they’ve been incredible and I love them - but for once the players let us down. I don’t mean in effort as they gave absolutely everything, they always do. I mean in execution, in focus. I mean in just making the right fucking decisions. You just can’t not win this game. Can’t happen. Not acceptable. Not the way the game played out. Look, if we just hadn’t been at it and they’d played well, then of course we can lose to them. Shit as they are, it can happen. We almost lost at Luton and needed a last minute equaliser to spare our blushes. You can have an off day and when that happens you can lose. This wasn’t that though. We didn’t have an off day, we dominated the game. But you have to beat them and make your superiority count, and instead we thought 2-1 would be enough.

It’s easy to take this for granted and sometimes I have to stop and remind myself of exactly what this team is doing. Going to the San Siro in consecutive Champions League games and beating AC and then Inter, and doing it without any real drama, it’s nothing to be sniffed at. Yet it doesn’t feel like a big deal because we’re so clearly better than these teams. We’re clearly better than most teams and that’s the thing that we shouldn’t take for granted. These are halcyon days we’re living in right now. Where we get drawn against Inter Milan and no-one really gives them any kind of chance against us. We’ve had great results against Europe’s big names throughout our history of course so this is nothing new, but what is new is that we’re so good now that we didn’t even need to play to win these games. We can do it on cruise control. If you go back to some of our great European results under GH and Rafa, it was often done in a backs against the wall fashion. Great tactical gameplays by the manager and players carrying it out to the letter to win games with great defending and then smash and grab counter attacks. Often we were up against sides that were better than us but we found a way to overcome them. This isn’t that. There isn’t any team on the continent that can lay claim to being better than us. In fact, Bayern Munich are probably the only ones who can even say they’re close. Real Madrid will argue their case and they have had the better of us in recent seasons, but there’s no way they’re a better side than us and if we meet them this season (which I pray we do) I’m sure we’d dispose of them handily because the lads would be so up for that game that Madrid would be facing us at our best, and our best would take them apart. We didn’t play particularly well by our own standards against Inter but even that was still comfortably enough to beat the best team in Italy. That’s the level we’re at these days. I don’t think anyone gave Inter much chance going into this game which speaks volumes about how strong we are now. It’s just taken for granted that we’ll beat teams like Inter Milan. That sounds mad when you stop and think about it. Ok, Italian footy is nowhere near what it was, but it’s still Inter Milan in the San Siro and virtually nobody gave them a hope of winning. I feel as though we got their absolute best effort too. That’s as well as they could have played, but they didn’t manage a shot on target all night. In fairness I feel like that’s an over-rated stat. You can hit the woodwork five times, miss a bunch of sitters and it’s classed as no shots on target and gives the impression you didn’t offer any threat. Inter did offer some threat though. They had some good moments and they hit the bar in the first half. They played as well as they probably could, and we just dealt with it in second or third gear. Much like at Turf Moor at the weekend, we didn’t attack particularly well but our shape and play without the ball was just quality. Virgil’s level seems to have gone up a notch in recent games and he’s looking like he has his swagger back now. Inter’s forwards were just completely intimidated by him. Dzeko is class but he’s outmatched in every department against Virgil. He couldn’t win headers and he definitely wasn’t outrunning him. He was a non-factor. The other forward, Lautoro I think his name is, was like a little kid playing with the grown ups. At one point he was sent clear with just Virgil to beat. Instead of backing himself and running at Virg, he completely shit his pants, slowed right down and waited for someone to pass it to. That’s the Van Dijk effect. Bit Inter did cause us some problems and will probably feel like they played well. All things considered, they did play well. They kept us relatively quiet in attack and they had some promising attacks that gave the crowd something to get excited about. The shot that hit the bar came from some nice play by my boy Perisic on the left (he’s been my boy in World Cup and Euro round ups for as long as I can remember now. Top player him). He was a danger all night and Trent just couldn’t stop him getting crossed in. Dzeko was a whisker away from getting on the end of another great Perisic delivery in the second half. That came in a spell where they were building up a head of steam and we were struggling to get out. We needed to get a foothold of the game but the midfield weren’t controlling it and the forwards kept giving the ball away. The front three weren’t good. It was a lot like the game at Burnley in fact. Sadio started well but faded, and Mo just never looked like he had full control of what he was doing. His touches were a little heavy and a couple of times in the first half he didn’t make enough of situations we’re used to seeing him score from. It’s not quite there with him at the minute but Norwich this weekend feels like a chance for him to get back to top form. Jota didn’t play well either and then he didn’t come out for the second half. I thought that was tactical because the forward line wasn’t getting it done. I would have gone for Diaz before Bobby but before I knew that Jota was injured and I assumed it was tactical, I could see the logic in it. There was space to operate in between Inter’s midfield and back three, but we weren’t exploiting it well enough. So putting Bobby on made sense. Except he couldn’t get going. In the first five minutes of the second half he lost the ball at least three times. Klopp even alluded to this himself afterwards, saying that it was difficult because he’s in the most difficult position in which to keep the ball. Jota wasn’t keeping it either in fairness. But the second half started badly for us. It wasn’t just Bobby giving it away, as a team we weren’t keeping the ball well enough and that gave Inter a lot of encouragement. It was obvious that Harvey was going to have to be taken off. He was ok, it’s not like he was awful, but he wasn’t making any real impact on the game. The fact he was selected to start a game of this magnitude when Klopp had a full squad to pick from is a massive compliment to him. Klopp said he went with Harvey because against Inter you need to play in the half spaces and that’s where Harvey operates. Had the game been at Anfield it would probably have worked a treat, but away games can be different and you don’t always get to play the way you want to. I didn’t think Thiago made much of an impact either, at least not until Klopp made changes. The three subs were brilliant and that’s why we won the game. Inter were on top when those changes were made but the game just switched right back into our favour from the second they stepped on the field. I don’t really want to single out one over the others as all three were outstanding. It doesn’t matter who was more important. Robbo praised all three afterwards but kept mentioning the impact Hendo made. He probably was the biggest factor due to the position he played and how influential that was, but Keita and Diaz made really big contributions as well and that triple change just wrestled the momentum away from Inter. Hendo gave us control and leadership, but Keita’s movement and ability to keep the ball really helped too. And then you have Diaz who just injected a shot of adrenaline into the team. He was like the fucking road runner. He just does things really quickly and he’s direct. He caused Inter more problems in the first five minutes he was on the pitch than all three of the other forwards had prior his arrival. He was unlucky not to score after a long run and one two with Trent. He did everything right but a defender got back to make a block. From the second he got on the pitch though I thought he was going to score or create a goal, as we just looked more dangerous. It was another sub who broke the deadlock though. Very little had gone right for Bobby prior to that but that’s a fucking tremendous header. I think the keeper should do better but by taking a big step to his left he couldn’t react quickly enough to change direction. Great header though, reminiscent of Sadio at Villa Park. Bobby had a bit more spring in his step after that goal, which was good to see. As soon as we got that one I knew we’d get another. Inter had put so much into the game and to fall behind to a set-piece will have just completely taken the wind out of their sails. The crowd were deflated and you could see their players were too. Gaps started opening up and had we been a bit more clinical with our passing in the final third we’d have carved them open. As it was, we didn’t need to do that because the second goal came from another set-piece. They cleared the first free-kick but Virgil had stayed up and when the ball came back ion he nodded it down and Mo pounced to score with the aid of a deflection. Game over. It was a routine win in the end because we defended so well and eventually just wore them down. As I said after the Burnley game, being able to win games with cheap goals from set-pieces is a massive weapon to have and this was another example of it. Without our set-piece prowess this is 0-0 and all to play for at Anfield. We’re not playing great in attack right now but the shape of the team and the defensive solidity is there and I think that’s partly a result of us playing every three or four days. We’re in a groove but the big wins only come the the front three are right at it, which they haven’t been. The attacking magic will come back and when its does we’ll be winning games by four or five. This weekend feels like the ideal opportunity for that. Diaz will surely start that one and I can honestly see him running riot. He’s fucking electric. Klopp will probably start to make some changes now as the next couple of games look like the kind of fixtures where he can do that without too much risk, particularly as we have a cup final coming up after that. When you have a squad like this and you have the rare luxury of having everybody fit at the same time, you have to make the most of that but the flip side is there’s a temptation to make too many changes which can backfire. I’d expect to see three or four changes at the weekend and then similar for Leeds. As for who comes in, I have no idea. Klopp tends to spring some surprises from time to time and we might see something random like Ox being brought into midfield or Gomez at the back. Divock could even come in out of nowhere. Nothing would surprise me at this point because if a player has a great week of training Klopp will often reward them with a place in the team. I’d probably give Thiago the weekend off just to not overdo it with him, and maybe Joel comes back in too. I say maybe because it must be tempting to leave Konate in there after this performance. Klopp’s selections of Konate have been quite interesting. He hasn’t looked to ease him in has he? He’s just thrown him in to some massive games and the lad has delivered the goods. The sky is the limit for him. The three week gaps between Inter games isn’t ideal but it doesn’t matter much now that we have a two goal lead to bring back to Anfield. There’s a lot of games before we play Inter again though so we can just put this one to bed for a bit and crack on with the quest for other trophies. Star man is Virgil, who just edges out his defensive partner. Special mention to all the subs too (not Milner who only came on for garbage time) for making a significant contribution. Long may that continue. Final word on the ref, who I thought was excellent. No bookings for either side and he wasn’t just blowing his whistle all the time and tied to let things go. He wasn’t having any of Vidal’s bullshit either. How shit is he by the way? What the fuck is it with this guy? How has he played for so many massive clubs when he’s complete dogshit? I know I do this quite a bit and Zlatan and Cavani were good examples of it, but this guy really is a huge fraud. He’s had the career he’s had because of that stupid haircut. Honestly, it’s a stroke of genius to be fair. Looking like a massive twat makes you stand out and somehow convinces people you must be good or you’d never go out in public looking like that. It worked for Pogba and Hamsik too, but at least from time to time they did something to justify the hype around them. What does this cunt do except foul people, roll around on the floor and follow the ref around the pitch complaining? He’s fucking crap and his next move should be to Old Trafford as he’d fit in perfectly with modern United. The bum. Wait, that’s not the final word. The final word has to be on the best moment of the entire night. Joel smacking lads on the head after the first goal and Hendo seeing his arse about it. Joel Matip is the funniest man in football. Not even close. There should be a Matip Cam at every game. In fact, LFC TV need to get on that immediately. Their content is great and I’m not telling them how to do their jobs, but come on, who wouldn’t want to watch a Matip Cam? Make it happen. Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho (Henderson), Elliott (Keita), Thiago (Milner); Salah, Jota (Firmino), Mané (Diaz):

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. He’s back. The superhero retired the cape for 18 months or so but he’s back on the job now. What a man. It’s crazy when you look at the decisive moments he’s been responsible for. There’s a huge differential between talent and impact in Divock’s case. How has a bit part player like him produced so many iconic moments? Probably only Alan Kennedy surpasses him in the 'talent / hero' lopsided balance. ‘Barney’ was a good left back but - European Cup winning goals apart - in a team full of stars he was probably the most low profile and easily replaced. Divock is way down the list of best players in the current squad but few can compare when it comes to key, decisive moments where we needed a hero and he stepped forward. I’d be willing to bet this won’t be the last time this season he does something massive either. He’s just got that knack. It went missing for a while but you could see every time he has played this season that he had that spark back. Time will tell just how significant this contribution turns out to be, but if we win the league then we will all 100% look back on this as one of the key moments. Hopefully this game will be this season’s “Villa”. We all look back on that late win at Villa Park as one of, if not the most decisive moments of the title winning season. This wasn’t quite as dramatic as we were drawing rather than losing, and scored one late goal as opposed to two, but it still feels fucking massive. We started the week four points behind Chelsea and one behind City. We’ve ended it still one behind City, but we made up five points on Chelsea in the space of three games. That feels pretty significant, especially as it looked like we were going to fail to take full advantage of their loss at West Ham. On that note, our defeat in that fixture doesn’t seem quite as bad now. It looked like we were going to be left frustrated by Wolves but if we had dropped points I can honestly say I wouldn’t have been kicking off or complaining about the performance. Sure, I’d be going fucking mad about the sitters we missed, but performance wise I thought we did everything that could be reasonably expected. The lads dominated the game from start to finish, they completely restricted any threat Wolves may have had on the break and they created enough clear chances to win a couple of games, let alone one. You can’t legislate for some of the misses we had though. Usually they cost you. This time it didn’t because we’ve got Origi. And Salah. For all the glory Div will rightly have bestowed on him, let’s not forget just how fucking sensational that bit of play from Mo was to create it for him. Virgil’s pass deserves a mention too, but that goal was all Salah really. Incredible skill. The first touch to knock the ball perfectly into the space. The little second touch to delay a split second until the gap was there to play the pass. And then the cutback to Divock. Three world class touches. Divock still had work to do though, but finishing is what he does. It’s his thing, he’s fucking boss at it. And he’s also utterly nerveless, which helps. This is why he can produce goals in such big moments, because he’s so laid back and calm it’s just like finishing chances in a training session for him. His laid back attitude probably hurts him in some ways. He never seems like he’s bothered if he plays or not, but then that easy going nature helps him do what he does. What a moment that was. Last minute winners are always great but this one felt even more special. Not sure why, we’re only just into December and there’s so much football still to be played. I think it meant more because it was so deserved. I’d have felt hard done by if we hadn’t won this game because the performance merited all three points. I also knew if we didn’t win we’d have to listen to a load of fucking bollocks about how well Wolves defended and how they deserved a point. And crucially, I knew that the main source of that bollocks would be Conor fucking Coady, who’d have seeked out every camera within a ten mile radius as well as booked himself a slot on MOTD2 and MNF to talk us all through his match saving block. Except he wouldn’t talk about that, he’d downplay it and tell us how great the whole team played because that’s part of his schtick. “I’m sound me, proper good lad ye know” I heard Barry Glendenning say on the radio on Sunday “I don’t think there is anybody who could dislike Conor Coady is there?”. I nearly crashed the fucking car, shouting “Yeah there is, I fucking hate him!”. There isn’t any specific reason why. He just does my head in. He rubs me up the wrong way with how fucking cocky he is, while simultaneously trying to come across as being a boss lad and that. He’s too full of himself, always has been even when he was at the Academy. My mum hates him too, she has done for years. “He’s a cocky little thing him” she always says. And he is, she’s right. This isn’t an irrational thing like her hatred of Lallana, I completely get where she’s coming from on this (like the disdain she has for Son too). But we were heading for that doomsday scenario where Coady’s “heroics” were going to deny us the win. There was nothing heroic about what he did though in truth. He got back onto the goal line as any defender would have done, and then Jota inexplicably just smashed it into his bollocks instead of rolling it into the corner. Jota won’t be able to explain what happened there but I know. His brain will have been telling him to be composed and roll it in the corner, but the little devil in him took over and was like “there’s that cunt Coady. Remember him? Smash it right into his bollocks lad. Go on, you know you want to”. And he did. I’m fine with it in theory, but wait until we’re a couple in front next time, eh Diogo? He missed a great chance in the first half too when he headed wide from a brilliant Trent cross. He had another header cleared off the line and we probably should have known then it wasn’t going to be his day. It was his birthday too, against his old club. Everything seemed set up for him to shine but nothing went right for him. He was booed as well, which was a shitty thing to do really as there was no animosity when he left there and there’s no reason for them to be booing him at all. In fairness, when he was subbed there was booing but there was loads of people applauding too and I’m fairly sure on my dodgy stream I heard a chant of “Diogo” so I’m not going to judge Wolves fans too harshly. After all, Michael Owen has been booed at Anfield. It wasn’t all Liverpool fans doing that, and it wasn’t all Wolves fans booing Jota either. Anyway, it had taken us about 20 minutes to get going, which Klopp put down to us just needing to figure out what Wolves were doing and where the space was to attack them. After that quiet opening period I thought we played really well. We got in behind them down the side loads but the cutbacks didn’t always find a red shirt. Trent volleyed over after a lovely diagonal by Thiago got him in behind. I don’t actually think he was even trying to shoot, although that’s how it looked. I reckon he was trying to square it for Jota and Mané in the middle but just miscued it. We had a really close call when the marauding Robbo ran onto a Jota pass and crossed low. Sadio couldn’t quite get a touch but it looked as though Mo had a tap in. He was challenged and the ball squirmed away from him. I think Klopp wanted a penalty for that as they showed him going mad at the fourth official just after it. None of the replays I saw were conclusive but Mo didn’t appeal for anything so I assume Saiss must have got a touch on the ball to take it away from him. If he did, that’s some great defending from him. The only moments of danger for Wolves were from offside situations that wouldn’t have counted anyway. The first time Alisson even had anything to do was in first half stoppage time when he had to come out and intercept a cross that was headed towards Traore. They offered nothing in attack because we didn't let them do what they wanted to do, which was sit in and then counter attack. Hwang was anonymous and the only time I noticed Jiminez was when he was acting the cunt. Like when he apparently got injured but rolled himself back onto the pitch to try to make us put the ball out. There was fuck all wrong with him but even if there was, he chose to come back onto the pitch so fuck him. The other Wolves forward, Adama Traore, didn’t do anything either. No doubt plenty of you are now saying “that’s because he’s shit”. Well, if he was shit Klopp wouldn’t have clearly worked so hard on ways to nullify him. It was obvious that our lads had a plan for him as any time our attack broke down and Wolves looked to counter, either Thiago or Fabinho was smothering Traore and not letting him turn and run. Thiago did a great job of it on a few occasions. He couldn’t stop him, but he held him up long enough until help arrived. And in the second half when it got more stretched and Traore was able to wriggle free a few times, we just fouled him. That’s what you have to do. Thiago, Robbo and Fabinho all took him out when it was necessary. Traore wasn’t effective because we knew he was the danger and we snuffed him out. Other teams have been doing it too. And you can do it because Wolves don’t really offer much of a threat anywhere else. Stop Traore getting it in space and that’s half the battle against them. If Traore was in a better team, where other players are the focus for the opposition and he was able to have more room to operate in, I still think he could be unstoppable. If Klopp got hold of him he’d be unreal. The only doubt I have about him is does he want it enough. I don’t think he does, because with all the attributes he has (he’s not just pace, contrary to popular opinion) it does seem like his head goes down too easily and he doesn’t have that fight in him. As I say though, put a player like that in Klopp’s hands and let’s see what would happen. There’s no debate that he was shite in this one though. We wouldn’t allow him to be anything else. It’s not easy to look good against us when we’re playing like this. Especially in midfield, where I thought all three of our lads were fucking boss. Well, Hendo was good, the other two were brilliant. Thiago was the best player on the pitch for me. Outstanding with and without the ball. He was unlucky not to score too early in the second half. A corner found its way to Mo at the back of the box and he drilled it back across goal. Thiago met it but his side footer was blocked by Jiminez. The rebound hit Thiago and went back towards goal but was saved by the keeper, and then Thiago stuck out a leg to have a third bite at it but couldn’t direct it on target. Still, the chances were coming and I was still confident of the win at this stage. Then came the Jota miss and suddenly I wasn’t so confident anymore. Moments like that change games. Initially it looked like he’d done everything right. The keeper collided with a defender and suddenly he was clear with an empty net. He could have taken the shot early but the angle wasn’t great and two defenders were sprinting back towards goal. Coady was already in position to block any shot that wasn’t hit very firmly, so he correctly decided to hold off on the shot and dribble towards goal. He carried it to the edge of the six yard box, in a fairly central position, and although there were two defenders on the line they were right next to eachother on the left side of the goal. The easy option was to just roll it into the far corner where he had half the goal to aim at. He didn’t, and all of a sudden it had “one of those days written all over it”. We kept plugging away and Klopp freshened it up by sending on Origi for Hendo. Bit of a strange one as it meant four forwards and just two in the middle of the park. I was concerned we’d get picked off on a counter attack now that we had one less player patrolling that area, and I also just didn’t like the change of shape when we were playing quite well. We play 4-3-3 virtually all the time and players know where their team-mates are going to be in any given situation without even looking. They’re so used to it that it becomes second nature. Suddenly you only have two in there and you have four forwards, the whole dynamic changes. So I was a bit concerned about that and was therefore happy when Ox came on for Jota not too long after and we went back to our normal shape. Both Origi and Ox looked sharp and were involved straight away after coming on. Div had a brilliant turn on the edge of the box but then slipped as he got his shot away. He also got on the end of a great cross by Trent but Saiss challenged him and deflected the ball behind for a corner. Sadio had two great chances as well. The first when he couldn’t control a dinked pass from Mo and the keeper was able to smother it. And the second when the ball fell to him in space but his close range shot was too close to the keeper who made a great save. That was the moment I gave up. It was late on and I assumed that would be our last big chance. I assumed wrong. We had two. The first when Mo turned brilliantly in the box but instead of his usual curler to the far corner finish, he went low at the near post and the keeper saved easily. Game over then. Fucks sake. But then….. Deep, deep, deep into stoppage time. Virgil strides forward with the ball, assessing his options. He sees Mo and pings a raking 40 yard ball that hits him perfectly in stride. Mo doesn’t control it, instead he surprises substitute Ki-Jana Hoever (who had just replaced the outstanding Ait-Nouri) by immediately knocking it past him. Next thing you know, Origi is blasting it through Coady’s legs into the net and all hell is breaking loose on the touchline as Klopp, his staff and the subs all went crazy. Klopp putting Tsimikas in a headlock was the highlight of it, although there was no restraining Kostas who didn’t know what he was going to do or who he was going to do it with, he just knew he was going to go nuts. I love that lad, he’s such a character. Someone on twitter described him as “Like Moreno, only he can play football”. Nailed it there. Star man really ought to be Thiago but who can begrudge Divock getting it? Not me. Thiago was the best player on the pitch but Origi is the star man. As I said on the podcast, I’m all in favour of whatever over the top praise is thrown at him because it’s a really difficult role he fills and it’s vital we keep him involved and motivated. He’s hardly played this season but when he has he’s scored goals and looked lively. We need that from him, so anything that keeps his spirits up and keeps his mentally engaged should be encouraged. Shit, at this point I wouldn’t even object to a statue being built. What a moment. What a man. The legend continues to grow. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Origi), Thiago; Salah (Minamino), Jota (Oxlade-Chamberlain, Mané:

There are some games where beforehand I’d happily snatch your hand off for a one goal margin of victory. Not many, as usually I’d roll the dice on us getting more than that, but sometimes I think in the build up to a game that I’ll happily take any kind of win. This was one of those games. Klopp had not beaten De Zerbi in the previous four attempts. I’m not sure exactly why, but Brighton have always given Klopp trouble and especially so since De Zerbi arrived there. Maybe Klopp could have given Dyche a call and asked him for the secret to beating the little gel headed Italian. So going into this, with the stakes as high as they are, any win was fine by me. I didn’t think for a second it was going to be easy and I was expecting 3-1 or 3-2 with a lot of nervy moments and for the game to be in the balance until late on. I was close enough. It wasn’t comfortable at any point. Of course we conceded more or less straight away. What was it, 80 seconds or something? Feels like this happens every other week. I know it doesn’t, but it feels like it. It’s tiresome isn’t it? Having to come from a goal down all the time, it’s great when you do can do it but fucking hell, it’s not good for the blood pressure. It was avoidable from our perspective but it’s a brilliant finish by Danny Welcrap. It starts with an inaccurate pass by Mo. As soon as he shaped to play that pass I thought it was a bad idea, but I’ve seen the replay now and I’ve changed my mind. I thought it was a bad decision at the time but it’s not. Sure, it’s not the safest pass he could have made and there was risk to it, but it wasn't reckless and it defo shouldn’t be leading to a goal. Bradley was miles up the field and I think he may have even been the intended recipient of Mo’s pass. So Brighton broke up that side with Odingra and although we got enough players back to deal with it, we got pretty unlucky as Dom got a foot in to take it away from Welbeck, but Virgil then had to stretch to cut it out and the loose ball fell nicely to Welbeck who leathered it home. I don’t think we could do a great deal to stop it other than to not give the ball away in the first place. It’s just one of those things really, but it’s annoying as fuck to keep falling behind in games.

I wonder how many more players we need to lose before it actually becomes a problem? You can make a convincing argument that only two of the eleven that thrashed Luton would make it into Klopp’s preferred line up when he has a full squad to choose from. That doesn’t mean these lads are ‘reserves’ as it’s very much a squad game these days, but Alisson, Trent, Konate, Robertson, Jones, Szoboszlai, Nunez, Salah and Jota are all probably starting if they’re available. They weren’t available though (or in the case of Konate and Robbo they were being rested for the weekend) and yet I thought that starting eleven still looked good. Not great, and you wouldn’t want to be playing that eleven every week, but it’s a sign of how strong the squad is that we can be without all of those players (I haven’t even mentioned Thiago, Bajcetic or Doak either) and still field a line up that didn’t have any glaring weaknesses. Going into the game I was a little concerned simply because Luton never get battered and they’re in every game they play. If they lose, it’s usually by the odd goal and they normally score. If they scored in this one, would we have the firepower to get the win? That was the worry I had, but even though we went in at the break a goal down that worry had gone based on how the first half went. I couldn’t believe how open it was. Right from the first couple of minutes we were getting in behind them and it’s not at all what I expected. I thought Luton would be deep and compact and force us to try and play through them, but they seemed to just go man for man all over the park and although we went in a goal down, it felt like a game we should have been leading by two or three. It started early on. We’d already forced a couple corners in the first minute or two and then Diaz ran clean through from a ball over the top by Kelleher. I’m not sure how Luton allowed that as it’s the kind of chance you’d never expect to get against a side at the bottom, because they usually play a deep low block and won’t allow anything in behind. Yet Kelleher plays a ball over their high line and Diaz runs clear. He should score, it’s an easy chance really. One of the easiest chance you can get when running through on goal as it’s a bouncing ball and the keeper is coming out. Knocking it over him and getting it up and down is so easy and I couldn’t understand what Diaz was even thinking. He hesitated and as soon as he did that the chance was gone. I’ve watched it back and I think the problem is his first touch didn’t get it out of his feet and he never really got his body in position to just lob the ball over the keeper. And once he hesitated, that was that.

Monday Jan 8: Henderson wants to quit Saudi because the weather is too hot, the training facilities are shit and the crowds are pathetic. Apparently there’s loads of others who want out now too one of the reasons being given is the lack of freedom the wives have. I mean, where to even fucking start with this. How thick are these cunts? I assumed they knew all of this beforehand but just wanted the money. There are also rumours that players want to leave because of the human rights issues and how they impact their wives. You couldn’t make this shit up, it’s fucking pathetic. It seems almost incomprehensible that they didn’t know it was hot and that women aren’t allowed to do normal stuff over there, but after that interview Henderson did with the Athletic it’s clear he’s thick as fuck so maybe he didn’t do his homework before he went there. It’s more likely that he fell for the bullshit about how that league was the new happening place to be and that he was going to be playing with / against loads of stars in front of massive crowds, but now that he knows that’s not how it is he wants out. Imagine completely fucking ruining your legacy at Liverpool to go and play six months over there before coming back with your tail between your legs. What a fucking knobhead he’s turned out to be. I don’t really give much of a shit about anyone else who went over there. I didn’t like it, but didn’t judge them too harshly. With him though, I just thought he was better than that so it was a tough scene finding out he wasn’t. And then he did the interview which just made me think he’s a fucking helmet. And now it’s even worse because he’s quitting and didn’t even have the stones to stick it out. I hope he doesn’t come back to the PL because I don’t want to even look at him. There’s talk that Newcastle want him and that he’s interested. As much as I think he’s a fucking gobshite, I don’t think he’s that much of a gobshite. Meanwhile, United beat Wigan in the FA Cup tonight. Fernandes is getting shit for diving to win a pen, but not from Wrighty who called it ‘clever’. I love Wrighty but you’ve got to be consistent on these things or you look like Alan Shearer - in other words a twat. Last week Wrighty hammered Jota but tonight he’s justifying what Fernandes did. Come on, Wrighty, you’re better than that.

It’s always enjoyable beating Arsenal, but doing it when they think they should have won is especially satisfying. I think we’ve done this before, at least to some extent. My memory is notoriously sketchy these days but that cup game a couple of years ago when Jota knocked them out, didn’t they come flying out the traps in that one too? Maybe not to this extent, but I seem to remember us starting that game quite slowly and then gradually playing our way into it and breaking their hearts. This one was especially hilarious though, as our first half performance was a train wreck and we gift wrapped them five or six great chances. They didn’t take any of them and aside from the one that hit the bar, they weren’t even that close to scoring. What did Alisson actually have to do? A routine stop from Havertz and a tip over from Ben Shite, and after that I’m struggling to remember much. The first half basically went like this; we tried playing out from the back, got caught by Arsenal’s high press and then they wasted the chance that they created. It wasn’t like they were playing their way through us from back to front, it was mostly self inflicted on our part and when we fixed that the chances for them dried up. That isn’t to take anything away from what Arsenal did in the first half. They pressed with intensity and with organisation and it worked great for them. I’m just saying though, we kept playing right into their hands and it was doing my head in. That being said, when we got to half time at 0-0 I was 100% convinced we’d win the game. That was Arsenal’s chance and they didn’t take it. You come at the Kings you best not miss, and Arsenal missed repeatedly. If you let us off the hook like that it’s only going to end one way. Arsenal fans aren’t taking it well but I think Arteta had a point when he said they did everything right but didn’t take their chances, so what can he do? He did a good job setting his team up to get at us and give us problems. If they’d finished some of them off we’d have been in trouble and they’d probably be in the hat for the next round instead of us. They didn’t though and as soon as Klopp made his adjustments at half time to counter what Arteta had done it was a different game. The second half was much more of an even contest but I’d say we edged it. Arsenal’s chance to win the game was in the first half and they squandered it and then they lost. There’s no disgrace in that though, we’re better than them, even if a lot of them don’t realise it. Some Arsenal fans are still kidding themselves about that but that’s what they do. Saka is better than Salah, Saliba is better than Virgil, Tierney was better than Robbo, Arteta is better than Klopp…. these are the wild takes I see all the time from their social media whoppers. Almost every tweet I see from Arsenal fans reads like it’s come from a teenager. They’re proper weird. There’s no malice in them, they’re pretty harmless, but they’re just weird and irrationally arrogant. They’re putting the ‘goon’ in ‘gooners’. They actually booed their team off at full time, which is pretty fucking bad like. They’re the most reactionary fans in the country. A few wins and they’re lauding their players to the rooftops, a couple of bad results and it’s “I don’t think Arteta is the guy, blud”.

Was this our “Aston Villa away” for this season? We won’t know until May but it definitely feels like this might have some significance. It was a day when we never really got going but it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. We finished like a runaway train and Fulham were left in a bloodied heap on the tracks. It will mean nothing if we don’t take advantage of it, but it feels big because we don’t tend to have too many of these games at Anfield, but we found a way to get through it unscathed. Home games are usually easy. We win by two or three goals and don’t have to sweat much over the result. It’s reached a point where I’m taking these wins for granted and I didn’t see any way Fulham were leaving Anfield with anything. So for us to be staring down the barrel of a defeat with a few minutes left felt like a massive blow. With our away form being somewhat patchy, we absolutely can’t afford to drop points at home to anyone really, let alone bottom half teams. Yet it looked like we would. Imagine the mood today if we hadn’t turned this around. We wouldn’t be dreaming of a possible title that’s for sure. But we did turn it around and we are still dreaming of it. And wins like this give you that extra spring in your step on a Monday, and I’m sure it gives the players a little extra belief in themselves and what they can achieve. It’s still a long shot, we’re not favourites and nor should we be. But we’ve played 14 games and we’re above Man City. That’s a better situation that any of us expected. Wins like this help to create belief among the squad and also the fans. The next time we’re in a tight spot we’ll draw from this experience. This is a new team but they’ve had a number of tricky situations to deal with already and they’ve come through all of them really. They had to play with ten men against Bournemouth and Newcastle but they got the results anyway. They had to play with nine at Spurs and were a last ditch freak own goal away from getting a point, despite having a legitimate goal scandalously not awarded. We lost the day, but it was a test they passed with flying colours. We went a goal down away at City and came back to get a point and end their 100% home record in 2023. Even Luton, as shit as it was, can be spun into a positive in the sense that they managed to avoid losing the game when it looked like they would suffer a humiliating defeat. The draw was pretty humiliating, but they pulled that one out of the fire late to get a point. Then there’s this. Conceding late on to fall behind on a freezing day in which the crowd had offered virtually nothing. Everything was flat, we were heading for a result that would have really damaged morale and the faith the fans have in the team, but instead we ended up with a win and one of the most enjoyable five minutes we’ve had at Anfield in a good while. The crowd had barely made a peep for 80 odd minutes, but Anfield was rocking by the end.

Monday Oct 23: Fucking hell, this Konate / Beto thing is still rumbling on. It’s mental how much airtime it’s getting. A lot of you won’t even know about this if you don’t watch MOTD, but in the last round of fixtures two weeks ago Bruno Guimares was booked for a foul and then a couple of minutes later he did pretty much the same thing and the ref bottled it and didn’t send him off. That was MUCH worse than the Konate one (which was not a definite yellow) but hardly anyone knows about it? Why? Because decisions like that happen in most games, and sometimes they happen when a player is already on a yellow. It’s completely normal, yet this one has gone viral because these bitter fucks are piggy backing on the recent officiating controversies and trying to put this in the same ball park. It’s pathetic and it undermines the actual problems there are with officiating. You can’t be castigating a referee for THAT performance. Compared to what we usually see, Pawson’s display was very good. Yet these fucking paranoid cranks are crying conspiracy against a referee who didn’t give us a penalty for the foul on Diaz and needed VAR to tell him about the handball he missed. If he was trying to fuck Everton then he did a pretty poor job of it. Sean Dyche is a crying cunt. Always has been, always will be. Now he’s found the perfect home for his small time, everyone hates us, little club, paranoid, chip on the shoulder whiney bullshit. The sooner these go out of business the better for everyone, including their own fans who need saving from themselves. As long as Everton exists they’ll be miserable.

One down three to go. Of course we had to do it the hard way as nothing is ever easy with us in finals. This one was particularly excruciating though as that penalty shoot out felt like it would never end. Neither team deserved to lose this one and for a long time it looked like neither would. Until Kepa ended the impasse. You often need luck to win finals and that was certainly the case here. We were just about the better side but Chelsea probably had more clear chances. They also had THREE goals disallowed for offside. Two of them were clear enough, one of them was as close as it gets. We had one ruled out too, a decision not everyone is happy about but I have no complaints. More on that later. In addition to the disallowed goals Chelsea missed some glorious chances. So did we, probably quite as many though. How on earth did this end goalless? It’s as good of a 0-0 draw as you’ll see. I thought it was a great game, really absorbing, full of incidents and chances and there wasn’t really any lull in it at any point. Maybe extra time things dropped off a bit as players got tired, but this was a pulsating game with two great teams going toe to toe. We won and I’m obviously made up about it, but if we’d lost I wouldn’t have had any complaints as it really was one of those coin flip games. Chelsea played us really well once again. There’s absolutely nothing between us in three meetings this season now. It’s a good job they’ve dropped loads of points to shite teams or they’d be as much of a threat as City. We have a clear edge over them up front although we didn’t show it in this game, mainly because Sadio wasn’t as clinical as we needed him to be. I thought he played well apart from the lack of a goal, but I agreed with the decision to take him off even if he didn’t. Again, more on that later. The starting eleven was exactly what most expected. At least it would have been had Thiago not injured himself in the warm up. Keita replaced him and Elliott then found himself promoted to the bench. Both he and Curtis had been left out completely, as had Joe Gomez. Brutal for all of them, and it was noticeable that neither Jones nor Gomez seemed to play much of an active role in the post match celebrations. Not everyone can be like Kostas I guess. It does seem a little strange that Elliott wasn’t on the bench initially yet he ended up going on to replace Hendo while Ox was left kicking his heels. I’m not questioning that decision, in anything I’m questioning why Ox was preferred for the bench when he is clearly behind Harvey in the pecking order. Losing Thiago was such a body blow though. It completely knocked the stuffing out of me just prior to kick off. I wasn’t exactly full of confidence beforehand but I had us maybe 60-40. After losing Thiago that dropped to 50-50. Which as it turned out was pretty accurate. The game kicked off and we saw Thiago absolutely distraught on the bench, being consoled by Allison. I think if I was as upset as that then Alisson would be the person I’d want consoling me too. You’re not going to get anyone better, he’s just such a great fella. Gutted for Thiago though, and also for us if he’s out for any length of time. Still no word on the injury so let’s just hope for the best. We didn’t start well, which may well have been because of what happened to Thiago. Nothing specifically relating to Keita, more just the shock of losing Thiago and how it may have unsettled our preparation. Chelsea were the better side in the opening 15 minutes, of both halves actually, but then we took over and had periods of domination before they hit back again. Chelsea had the better chances early on but we looked threatening too, mostly because Diaz had Chalobah on toast and was just beating him for fun. Chelsea’s threat came from the late runs of Mount and Pulisic to beat our high line, while most of what we did came down the left with Robbo and Diaz. Pulisic had the first clear chance of the game but was denied by Kelleher. The shot was more or less straight at him but he still showed good reactions to keep it out. It wouldn’t be the last time. That chance came in part because Robbo chased back in to cover Mount and ended up playing Pulisic onside. It was a recurring theme, although not specifically with Robbo as the one deepest. Our line was all over the place for spells in that first half. Our best chances fell to Sadio. He produced a woeful header that went miles wide from a brilliant pick out by Trent. He just didn’t time that right at all but it looked like he lost his bearings. That’s one where you need to flick your head at it to direct it goal wards, but he just headed it straight at the corner flag. Weird. He wasted a glorious chance not long after though when Mendy could only parry a good effort by Keita. Sadio was first to the loose ball and didn’t really do much wrong other than not lift his shot a bit higher to take the keeper out of the equation. Mendy did incredibly well to save that but nine times out of ten it hits his hands and goes in. This was the one unlucky time when it goes over the bar. What I loved about that was after the ball goes over, Sadio is gutted and Diaz just runs over and picks him up, hugs him and gives him encouragement. I absolutely love him already, he’s fucking boss. He tormented Chelsea in this game and every time he got the ball he looked like he’d do something. He also set a record for the number of no look passes in one game. He was totally overdoing it to the point that it was just fucking hilarious. Good stuff by Naby on that chance though. He had a quiet start but then got involved in a couple of incidents that had Chelsea players wanting him sent off. The first was a joke. He was in a foot race with Mount and was struggling, but he did a good job of using his body to get between Mount and the ball. As he was moving across his arm accidentally caught Mount in the face. There was nothing in it, a complete accident and not a swinging elbow, but Mount made a big meal of it and Chelsea players surrounded Stuart Attwell demanding he do something. He did. He gave us a free-kick. Not long after there was another clash involving Keita. This time is was Chalobah on the receiving end. Not an elbow though, it was studs right to the bollocks. It looks bad on the moment of impact but when you watch the whole incident it’s just a case of two players going with a foot up for a bouncing ball. There’s no intent from either other than to win the ball and it could just as easily have been Keita on the receiving end. There’s nothing in that for me, and Attwell and VAR agreed. Pulicis then had another shot that stung the palms of Kelleher after our back line was all over the place again. This time Virgil dropped to deal with Havertz and Matip was about 20 yards higher up, which left Pulisic loads of space to run in without being off. Another sweeping Chelsea move soon after ended with Mount shooting inches wide when he simply has to score. Didn’t deserve a goal simply because of his hair. What the hell is going on with that? He went even closer early in the second half when he got in behind us again and this time hit the post. The ball then rolled right across the face of goal to safety. It was weird because everyone seemed to stop and I was expecting the flag to be up but it wasn’t and the replay showed he was well onside. Not great from us again but in fairness Mount timed that run to perfection. Next Mo ran clear and linked over the keeper, but didn’t get enough on it and Thiago Silva cleared off the line. Mo should do better there. I thought he’d ran offside but he was just on and that was the moment where he would normally step up. It was the one clear sight he had and it’s not a co-incidence that it came from a Chelsea mistake at a moment when he was on the other side of the field to Rudiger, who plays Mo as well as anybody. We’d regained control of the game at this point and were all over them. Mo won a free-kick off Alonso and when Trent played it to the back post Sadio nodded it back across goal for ol’ Big Bird to steam in and head home. I didn’t even see a hint of anything wrong with that so that was a full on celebration, no holding back in the way I’ll often do these days because of VAR. The players were the same. There was nothing dubious about that goal and when it said there was a check for offside I wasn’t worried because I knew both Sadio and Joel were fine. Then I saw Virgil blocking James, and I immediately knew it wouldn’t stand. The same thing happened the other week with Maguire blocking someone off while standing offside. You can’t do that as you’re interfering with play. Virg doesn’t really do much other than stand still, but he also has a little grab at James. Even without the grab that might still have been disallowed, but with it there’s no way that goal is going to count. James might not have even got back to win the header, in fact he probably wouldn’t have, but there was a chance he might and that’s enough to cancel the goal. I didn’t even get mad about it as I agreed with the decision. It’s upsetting that we’ll probably see the same thing happen in the next few weeks and the goal will count, but that doesn’t alter the fact that Attwell got this right. And it was Attwell, as VAR didn’t make the decision they just told him he needed to see for himself. Attwell is known as being one of the worst refs in the country. But he had a really good game. He let the game flow, was very reluctant to issue cards (too reluctant in the case of that Azpilacueta tit) and the only complaint I have is how lenient he was with Kepa in the shoot out. But again, I’ll get to that. The disallowed goal was a blow but we were looking really strong at that point and I felt that the goal was coming. Diaz was sensational and Sadio led the line really well. Diaz ran clear and was denied by Mendy. So close to being a great goal but his final touch took him a fraction wide and it wasn’t a great angle to shoot on his left side. So exciting though, he was unplayable. It caught up with eventually though and right at the end of normal time you could see he was cramping up. We’d used three subs by that point as Klopp had made a triple change with about 10 minutes or so left. Hendo made way for Elliott, Keita for Milner and a furious Sadio was replaced by Jota. I felt for Sadio but what choice did Klopp have? Mo is never going to be the one subbed and Diaz was the best player on the pitch. We needed a goal Sadio hadn’t taken the chances that came his way and we had Jota in reserve. In theory it was the right decision. In hindsight, we’d have been better leaving Sadio on a bit longer as Jota looked rusty. Diaz stayed on for the start of extra time but Matip was replaced by Konate. A smart move. Chelsea had introduced Lukaku and Werner so the extra speed and physicality of Konate was useful. He was really good I thought. It was just so draining. Every time it felt like we were in control Chelsea would have a spell where they created a good chance or two. Extra time was slightly less manic but there was that absolutely mad scramble when Diaz and Robbo both nearly scored only to be denied by Mendy, and then there was Mendy making that brilliant save from Virgil’s header. Then Diaz eventually made way for Origi and I won’t have been the only one expecting Divock to have a Divock moment. It never arrived though and in truth never looked likely. He didn’t get a sniff of a chance as without Diaz (and Mané) we lost a lot of the thrust we’d had up to that point. Overall our subs weakened us but Chelsea’s probably did too. Werner is fucking shite. I’ve said it for ages so this is nothing new. I’m pretty sure Timo in German means Stuart, and Werner translates as Barlow. All he has is speed, but what good is that when after all these years of playing football he still doesn’t know how to stay onside? Thick as fuck him. As for Lukaku, he was a danger because he times his runs much better. We did a good job overall of stopping the service to him but it did look like he’d done us when he ran through and scored. On first look I didn’t think he was offside and was fully expecting the VAR check to confirm my fear. Even when they paused it he still looked onside, but it’s one of those where the shoulder of the leaning forward is ahead of the foot of the last defender. Havertz had one ruled out for offside too but that one was clear. I can’t even remember the third one they had, I just know there was three. Ok, I’ve just had a look and it was Havertz again. He wasn’t offside but Lukaku and Werner both were (Werner by three yards) and Werner was the one who crossed it, so yeah defo no goal there. Lukaku went close with a close range stab that Kelleher reacted well to block with his foot. That was a real heart in mouth moment that one as it was really late on. Can’t actually remember if that was normal time or extra time, as there was so much going on I’ve lost track. Either way, it was probably the biggest moment of the game actually, given the timing of it. “Kweef” defo justified his inclusion, even if he didn’t save any pens. His performance in the game itself was class. Tuchel had been itching to get Kepa on before the end of extra time and when he did I was thinking how funny it would be if he made a mistake that led to us scoring before the final whistle. He didn’t, but we’d have the last laugh over him eventually. Usually I’d have sympathy for a keeper in his situation, but honestly, fuck him. He thought he’d come on and be the big hero, with his gamesmanship on literally every single one of our pens. That was weak from Attwell. After he’s delayed the first pen you have a word. If he does it again on the second you book him, and you say if he doesn’t wind his neck in then he’s getting another yellow. Instead he allowed him to delay every kick. He’d fix his shinnies, he’s mess with his laces, and even when he wasn’t doing that he was standing on the edge of the six yard box, eyeballing the taker. Which is fine. It’s his right to do it, but it’s the ref’s job to stop it. And Attwell just kept going up and telling him to get on his line. Compare that with Kelleher, who just went and stood on his line and waited for the kick. Fair play won the day for once. Kepa thought he’d get into the heads of some of our lads but it just didn’t work because they’re so strong mentally. Our pens were mostly brilliant. Milner drilled it into the bottom corner and Fabinho dinked up the middle. Outrageous. Then up stepped Van Dijk. To my shame I wasn’t confident. I just wasn’t expecting him to take one, I didn’t like his run up and I was so fixated on that I didn’t even notice what was happening with Kepa. He was stood on one side of the goal trying to psych Virgil out. Anyone else, literally anyone, would have just put the ball in the vast space Kepa had left. Not Virgil though. He just leathered it into the side Kepa was guarding, right in the top corner, and then glared at him with utter contempt as if you say “don’t try that shit with me, junior”. The absolute swag and self belief you need to do that, in that moment. I’m blown away by it. Some people are just built differently to the rest of us. Then it’s Trent. Again, I’m worried. Why? Because he doesn’t normally take them. I didn’t know that the takers had been chosen based on tests they’d done in training, involving heart monitors and electrodes wired to the brain. Virgil and Trent were two of the calmest so they made the five. Then it was Mo. Again, I feared the worst. I was worried about the narrative you see. Salah missing against his old team after not having his best game. I didn’t like the potential for that storyline. Mo stepped up and smashed it right in the corner. Another sensational pen. So on we go into the ‘others’. We had Div and Jota so thats strong on paper, but by now I’m not thinking straight and I’m expecting all of ours to miss and all of theirs to score. What I wasn’t banking on was Kepa diving the wrong way almost every time. Div and Jota didn’t even need to end the corners. Robbo sent him the wrong way too. Robbo had looked petrified but that was clearly just concentration, because he didn’t panic at all. Then Harvey. Oh no, I couldn’t have handled him being the one to miss. Yet I didn’t really think he would. There’s always a fear but mostly I just thought he’d score and it might even be the winning pen. Narrative you see. It would have been a great story. He scored, but so did Chelsea. Fucks sake. And then up stepped Konate. And what a horrendous pen that was. Everything about it was wrong. He rushed the run up, his body angle was awful, he telegraphed where it was going, it wasn’t in the corner and it was almost the perfect height for a keeper. Thankfully it was just high enough that although Kepa got a hand on it, he couldn’t keep it out. That was the one bad penalty we had though. It was also the only one Kepa had a sniff of, whereas Kelleher guessed right quite a bit and got close to two or three. Then it was his turn to take one. Weirdly, I was relatively calm about that. No idea why, I just had confidence in him. And it wasn’t misplaced. Top penalty from a lad who has such a cool, calm demeanour about him. Nothing fazes him does it? And so to Kepa. He was never scoring that. The narrative was against him. A keeper brought on at the end of extra time specifically with the brief of saving penalties, and every single one of our lads had scored against him, including Kelleher. This was never going to end well for him after that. His penalty was brutal too. Often when you see a penalty go over the bar it looks like it’s gone miles over until you see the replay from the side and realise it’s actually quite close. The angle is deceptive but usually those pens don’t miss by much. This one was MILES over though. And so it was over. Wild scenes of celebration at Wembley with the players and staff charging about everywhere. As for me, I slumped back into my seat like Admiral Ackbar at the end of Return of the Jedi when the Death Star was destroyed. There’s far too many great moments from the celebrations for me to list all them, but highlights are Klopp dancing, Alisson taking a random kid up to lift the trophy with them and then spending time talking to him and his family (what a special fella he is), Kostas just going completely mental and making sure he filled the Josemi role by never leaving Hendo’s side, and the scenes in the dressing room with Ljinders showing his moves and then Pete Krawietz just randomly strolling into shot clapping and dancing. For some reason, that made me laugh more than anything else. The celebrations won’t have been too mental because we’ve got big games coming up, starting with Norwich in the cup this week. The lads have a taste for silverware again now but on Wednesday it’s likely to be most of the players that were overlooked who we will be relying on. It’s vital that they have the right attitude. The likes of Ox, Curtis, Joe especially. They seemed to take it harder than most. Poor Ox just looked sad when he lifted the trophy. Not in a sulky way, I’m sure he’s delighted we won but he probably felt a bit distanced from it because he wasn’t involved. That’s the hard part about having a big squad, you need to deal with disappointed players and my gut feeling is that Klopp has quite a few of those he’s going to need to work his magic on. Even Sadio, who was definitely distancing himself from the celebrations at the end. When the team was posing for the photo with the trophy, he took himself off and was stood to the side. He’s an emotional lad though and it sometimes gets the better of him. I’m sure he’ll be fine but he definitely looked like he had a bit of a cob on. Football is a strange old game though. I can remember Michael Owen being fuming about being left out of the League Cup Final in 2001. Then look what he did in the FA Cup Final a few months later. He scored in the UEFA Cup Final too I think. Similarly, Robbie started the League Cup Final and scored but was then livid when he was benched for the FA Cup Final. It’s the nature of the beast. You can only start eleven, you have nine subs so if everyone is fit we’re going to have four disappointed players. The likes of Curtis and Gomez just need to keep their focus and be ready because you never know when they’re going to be needed. And Sadio might need to get used to being subbed or left on the bench more than he’s used to as well if Diaz keeps performing like this. He’s the star man by a mile for me. I think Virg got it from the sponsors and maybe he deserved it just for the penalty alone, but Diaz was different class. If he’s this good now when he’s still settling in, how good is he going to become? That signing feels like it was a real turning point in our season. It gave everyone a massive lift and we haven’t looked back since he arrived. We just need to keep this roll going now as we’ve got so much momentum with us there’s a 2001 feeling about it, only this time we’re in a title race as well. Team: Kelleher; Alexander-Arnold, Matip (Konate), Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Elliott), Keita (Milner); Salah, Mané (Jota), Diaz (Origi):

We needed that. I needed that. After two poor results this was a big game for us. I don’t want to over-state it by saying it was going to be pivotal to our season, as there’s an awful lot of footy still to be played, but it was probably bigger than most people realised. It’s rare that we have two bad results in a row, but three would definitely suggest a chink in the armour. More than that though, for me personally anyway, this is Arsenal. You have to beat Arsenal. You can’t not beat them as it’s just completely unacceptable. It’s the cardinal sin in my eyes. If you say “Hey Siri, show me a team that looks like it’s been created just so Liverpool can batter them” you’ll get Arteta’s Arsenal. I still haven’t got over us losing to them in our title winning season. I was so offended by that it took some of the shine off number 19. Ok, not really. Well, yeah a little bit. That was the night when we blew the chance to reach one hundred point mark. If we’d taken care of business that night we’d have ended the season on 101 points. I know most people don’t care about that, and in the grand scheme of things neither do I, but it did really fucking irk me that Arsenal beat us and were then smelling themselves like they’d done something special when really we handed them the points by being wasteful at one end and sloppy as fuck at the other. They didn’t even play well. They were fucking shite. So yeah, I didn’t take that one well at all. Losing to a Watford or West Ham I can handle. In fact, losing to most teams I can handle as it can happen. Losing to Arsenal though should never happen. I’m not saying Arsenal are as bad as Norwich as clearly they aren’t. They’re probably a top seven or eight team, maybe even a little higher than that. But the way they play means they should never even get within two or three goals of us, let alone take any points. So I loved this simply because it went EXACTLY the way it’s supposed to. When we play this incarnation of Arsenal, this is what should happen. Every time. Why? Just fucking look at how they play. The sheer arrogance, stubbornness and delusion of that tit manager of theirs is mind boggling. We’ve seen this movie before. He does this shit every time they come to Anfield and each time I’m sat there wondering just what he’s playing at. It takes a planet sized ego to go up against a team as great as ours and insist on playing like that even when it’s continually getting punished. I remember being completely staggered by it the last time it happened but the arrogance to come here again and do the exact same thing, and then blame the players afterwards for it not working… just what a fucking knobhead. Don’t get me wrong, we were really good in the second half and it was great to see. What I’m saying is that this is what should happen when a team comes to Anfield and does this. I used the analogy on the podcast that Arsenal were basically throwing chum over the side of the boat, waiting for the sharks to work themselves into a frenzy and then just throwing themselves in the water. Thats what the second half felt like. It was football suicide from them but unlike Arteta I don’t blame their players. They’re just playing to his orders. It’s actually annoying it took us as long as it did to make them pay. In fact, for half an hour we made them look relatively competent because we just didn’t have any intensity in our play. I don’t know if it was the international break or if it was tactical, but we just seemed lethargic and slow in possession. We weren’t moving the ball quickly enough and there was too much passing around at the back. We were pressing them quite well and won it back in the final third a few times, and I thought we looked like we might do something from a set-piece, but in possession it wasn’t sharp enough. Arsenal were comfortable even if they offered virtually no threat of their own. The only moments of relative danger came whenever we gave it away cheaply and they were able to have a bit of a run at us. It only happened a couple of times and they didn’t really go close to scoring. I can recall one dangerous ball in that Ox got back and dealt with well, and very little else. But we weren’t creating much either. They insisted on trying to play out from the back every single time they had a goal kick and that looked like our most likely source of a goal. In fact, I’d have been tempted to instruct our lads to stop passing it around on halfway and just twat it out for goal kicks all the time and try to catch them out that way, because the stubborn fucks insisted on doing the same thing every time. They didn’t mix it up at all, it was just passing it around in their box, they’d work it to one of their midfielders and we’d either win the ball back there, or they’d knock it forward under pressure and it would be picked up by our lads. Have Arsenal ever scored a goal by playing it out from the keeper like that? It isn’t a successful tactic and I don’t know why Arteta persists with it other than to satisfy his own vanity. But for half an hour we weren’t making them pay. And then came the game changing moment. Sadio made an innocuous aerial challenge on their right back and he may or may not have made incidental contact. There was fuck all in it though. The kind of challenge you see a dozen times every game. But Arteta went ballistic, yelling at the ref and waving his arms about. A few of his players did too, and it’s just blatantly obvious this was a ploy they came up with before kick off. They’d tried it earlier on too, but when this one happened right in front of the bench they took the opportunity to go nuts. And so did Klopp. When he saw what was happening he went charging at Arteta yelling “What do you want?? What do you want for that??” The surprising thing was that Arteta then lost it even more and went for Klopp. He had to be dragged away for his own safety. Klopp would have knocked that spray painted wig right off his stupid little Thunderbirds looking face. What it did though was wake the crowd up. The atmosphere had fizzled out after a lively start and both crowd and players were a bit flat. Until that happened and everyone was suddenly riled up. Within seconds of the restart we’d put together our best move of the game. It was everything we hadn’t been doing previously. We moved the ball quickly and purposefully up the field, Kostas reached the byline and cut it back to Salah who’s shot was blocked by Ramsdale. He’d earlier made a close range stop to deny Mané and also turned over a shot by Trent after a good run. He was Arsenal’s best player but he should have done much better with at least two of the goals, including the opener which arrived not long after the spat between the managers. Matip strode forward on a trademark mazy one but was tripped by Aubamayeng. That might be the only time I even saw the Arsenal skipper all game actually. What a fucking waste of space that cunt it. He’s the living embodiment of modern day Arsenal him. Utterly pointless cunt who will score a bagful in the Europa League and against some of the dregs of the league, but never do anything in any game of any importance. And he’s the captain too. Never change Arsenal. Anyway, from the free-kick Trent whipped the ball in and Sadio powered a good header across goal. Ramsdale should have saved it but didn’t, and the deadlock was broken. I know you can’t ever be sure, but as soon as we got the first I never had any doubt we wouldn’t go on and smack them about after that. It’s Arsenal, it’s what they do. The second half was just complete domination. They couldn’t get out of their own half because they insisted on trying to make 15 passes before even thinking about playing it forward, and very few teams are capable of doing that. In fact, the only teams I can remember who had any joy playing out from the back are City and Brighton, and City don’t really try to do it much anymore because they’ve been caught out too many times. It’s like if you’re playing tennis against someone with an amazing backhand, you don’t hit it on that side unless you have to. We’re fucking incredible at the high press but Arteta just kept playing into the trap and then pinned the blame on his players for handing us goals. I mean, it’s partly true but he’s the one telling them to play like that, the bad snide twat. I’d be proper pissed off if I was one of his players hearing that. The second goal was a gift to be fair. But then Arteta is the one who picked that lad who I’d never even heard of until this week. He had Tierney available but instead chose to put some inexperienced nobody up against the best player in the world. Then that inexperienced nobody pass the ball straight to Jota and it’s 2-0. How boss was that though? So calm, so composed. What was also good about it is that he seemed to anticipate what was going to happen and he positioned himself where the ball went. He wasn’t just stood there and got lucky. He moved into that area before the lad passed it there. And then he threw two dummies to beat White and Ramsdale and tapped into the empty net. Brilliant. In that spell we looked like scoring every time Arsenal had the ball. Because you knew we were going to rob it from them in their half and create something. Ox was within a whisker of a morale boosting goal but he shot just wide having done everything right. I’d have loved that one to go in for him. Jota looked like he was going to add a second but a heavy touch allowed Ramsdale to come out and smother. They collided and it looked pretty bad for both of them. Ramsdale continued, Jota did too briefly but was taken off not long after. I saw a video on youtube earlier in the week of Ramsdale playing golf with that Tubes fella from Soccer AM. I only watched a bit of it before I got bored, but I thought Ramsdale came across well and seemed like a decent lad. Then I watched him come out for the second half and run towards the Kop, who at that point were still booing Arsenal onto the field. They weren’t booing him and he was always going to get a good ovation. But he started applauding while many were still booing, and he continued applauding all the way to his goal. Not gonna lie, I loved that. Made me think “yeah, he’s a good lad him”. While I don’t think he covered himself in glory on the first two goals, he did make a lot of saves and he’s the reason it wasn’t six or seven, because it quite easily could have been. Jota was denied by a terrific Ramsdale save before Mo made it 3-0. That third goal was Sadio in microcosm really. Great run in behind to get on the end of Jota’s clever header, a heavy touch that looked like it had ruined the chance, and then a brilliant cross to give Mo a tap in. It’s actually quite brilliant when you watch the replay from the angle behind the goal as Sadio immediately knows he has over ran the ball and the chance of a shot had gone but straight away he’s looking across to see where Mo is. He has another look as he gets near the ball and then puts it on a plate for him. Class. Ox was replaced by Hendo and Taki replaced Jota. Within seconds the skipper was playing a perfect ball over the top for Sadio to run onto again. This time he waited, played it to Mo who in turn rolled it into the path of the overlapping Trent. His cross was perfectly weighted for Taki to arrive at the back post for an easy finish. Everyone was clearly made up for him to score and it was a nice moment for him. He arrived just before Covid hit, ended up stranded here in lockdown when he didn’t even speak the language. Then he’s playing in empty stadiums, trying to find his feet in a new league and trying to break into the best starting eleven in world football. He ends up on loan at Southampton, still playing in empty stadiums, then he comes back here and is hardly playing again. It must be really tough, but he always seems to have a smile on his face and he’s a boss little footballer. I like him a lot and hopefully we can get him a bit more playing time over the coming weeks to see if he can build on what has been an encouraging season so far in limited opportunities. Klopp was able to give Tyler Morton a Premier League debut late on and he slotted in seamlessly in place of Thiago. I think this lad is probably much better than any of us realise you know. He’s definitely got something about him and Klopp seems to have a lot of belief in him. It’s a shame the five subs rule wasn’t voted in or we may have seen Bradley and Beck get a chance too. All in all this was a perfect day assuming Jota’s injury is just a knock and nothing more serious. I’m happy with four goals even if it could have been more. 4-0 is about standard really when we place these fannies. It’s level par, so I’m pleased, especially as all four forwards got a goal. The clean sheet is good too, but it wasn’t a particularly taxing day for the defence. Alisson had little to do. There was a decent save to keep out a drive by Partey. It was one of those saves that most keepers love because they can arch their back, throw their legs up in the air, tip the ball over the bar and smile for the cameras as they fall back down to earth. Alisson just shuffled across, tipped it over the bar and didn’t even leave his feet. Imagine Pickford there, or that Darlow knob at Newcastle. He also made another good stop later on but I can’t remember if that was offside or not. I don’t think the flag went up but maybe it would have if they’d scored. We were at least 2-0 up at that point anyway but the clean sheet is important after some recent wobbles and besides, I didn’t want Arsenal getting anything at all from this. The pricks. To think I was actually apprehensive about this before kick off. Not because I bought into any of the shite we’ve been hearing about ‘new look Arsenal’ and how their new young team are suddenly not pushovers any more and they have more steel about them. I’ll concede they aren’t the utter clowns how they were when they had Mustafi and David Luiz back there, but they’re still Arsenal. I wasn’t worried about them. I was worried about us. We hadn’t played well in the last couple of league games so I wasn’t sure what to expect. My head was telling me it would be normal service resumed and we’d swat them aside because… well, they’re Arsenal, but I did have this nagging worry that we might completely shit down our own leg and then I’d have to call for everybody’s head because losing to this Arsenal side is just not something I’d be able to process rationally. It wasn’t that I didn’t think we’d win, it was that I kept thinking “imagine if we don’t. Imagine if we somehow let these fucking bums get something”. Thankfully that didn’t happen and I’m a happy camper today. Obviously this doesn’t compare to winning 5-0 at Old Trafford but there’s a different kind of enjoyment about it. I was buzzing after spanking United. This isn’t that. It’s just a sense of satisfaction at a job well done. As I keep saying, this is what is supposed to happen when we play them so it feels good that the lads did the job they should be doing. It was important to get back to winning ways and we’ve done that. The squad is stretched at the moment and we had nine players missing for this one. The bench was seriously inexperienced but we’ve still got enough players to put out a really strong eleven, with two or three good options on the bench too. Ox is now making the kind of contribution we expect from a starting player. I’m not saying he’s been brilliant or anything, but the performances he’s been putting in of late are definitely ones you can live with. I actually thought he was really good in this one despite three or four slack moments when his passing went astray. His pressing was outstanding and he brought great energy, especially in the second half when we just robbed Arsenal’s lunch money. Ox was the one picking them up and hanging them upside down by their ankles to see what fell out of their pockets. Kostas was really good again, as was Thiago. He had one sloppy moment when he was dispossessed in the first half and Arsenal countered on us, but other than that I don’t think he lost possession once. The front three were all dangerous. Jota was the quietest but he scored again. Like I say, it feels as though he scores every time he plays. Sadio was wildly erratic but caused absolute fucking mayhem and ran Arsenal ragged. Mo just looked like the most skilful man on the pitch, which he usually is these days regardless of who we’re playing. Some of his touches and control when running at full speed just defy belief. Star man is Fabinho though. When he plays like that nobody can beat us. I just wish we could play Arsenal every week, because the only way we would ever drop points is if we were complete dogshit. I still can’t believe Arteta thinks he can play like that against us and not get absolutely twatted. Guardiola learned that lesson very quickly and he’s got vastly superior players in his side. Hopefully Arteta never learns because I quite enjoy putting four or five past them every time they come to Anfield. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Tsimikas; Fabinho, Oxlade-Chamberlain (Henderson), Thiago (Morton); Salah, Jota (Minamino), Mané:

To think that some of us thought this might be tricky. It couldn’t have been easier in the end. The front three were on fire, the defenders had the pipes and slippers out, our inexperienced keeper barely touched the ball until the last 15 minutes and the ‘makeshift’ midfield completely bossed it. Watford were brutally bad though weren’t they? It was almost like someone told them they were playing Man City so they just went into roll over mode. Five was the absolute minimum we deserved from this game. On another day we might have scored eight, but I’m glad we didn’t as usually when you run up a cricket score you end up drawing a blank the next game. So if we’ve ‘saved’ a few for the next couple of games then great. Going into this one I would have taken three points regardless of how we got them. I didn’t care if we struggled or weren’t at our best. Given the circumstances I’d have been made up to just get the points and get out of there. I mentioned this on the pod, but in the build up to this I’d started to talk myself into how tricky this game was going to be. They seemed like legitimate concerns. Coming off an international break, playing at a ground where we’ve had some terrible defensive collapses under Klopp, players missing for various reasons…. It felt like it had the potential to be trouble but the second I saw the Watford line up it was like a slap to the face to bring me back to reality. There’s no way that team were going to be able to live with us. Not a fucking chance. I hadn’t heard of half of them and the ones I did know were either shite or had seen better days. The new manager bounce wasn’t a factor either. Watford didn’t bounce, they just went splat. But should that be surprising? The international break hurt them too. Ranieri hadn’t worked with his entire squad, which is a pretty big problem when you’re trying to implement a new set up. Watford looked like they didn’t have a clue what they were doing, because realistically they didn’t. As it turned out, this was the perfect time to play them even though we had difficulties of our own that we had to deal with. Bottom line here, look at the team we were still able to put out despite having four midfielders missing, no Alisson and Jota only fit enough for the bench. Now compare it to Watford. Of course there are no guarantees and inferior teams can often upset the odds. Look at Brentford the other week. The big difference is that Brentford are a settled team, well organised with a good manager who has been working with them for a while. Watford were a disjointed mess. Ranieri might improve that with time, but probably not. We won’t have an easier game all season. Mo said afterwards that they spoke in the dressing room beforehand how important it was to start well because they didn’t want a repeat of how badly the first half went against City. That showed. We started fast, aggressive, confident and Watford just looked shell shocked. They had no outlet, no way of getting a foothold in the game. They couldn't hurt us. Basically, keep Sarr in check and there was nothing to worry about. When the game started it was obvious inside the first couple of minutes we were winning this game comfortably. We were on the front foot, we looked really sharp and Mo was absolutely fucking having his way with Danny Rose. We went ahead after eight minutes but even before that you knew it was coming. The opening goal was so fucking good though. Just perfection really. Matip dealt with a high ball and nodded it forwards toward Mo. Rose got too tight, Mo just rolled him and was away. He could have continued running forward into space himself but he quickly assessed his options and he ran toward the ball and he spotted Sadio on the far side. There was a small window to deliver that pass as it had to be far forward enough to cut out the defender, but not too far that it brought the keeper into play. Then of course you need to get the pace of it right. The ball from Mo was utterly filthy. Inch perfect right into Sadio’s stride. The finish was very good too, and it was just devastatingly fast and clinical. When you concede a goal like that you just wonder what hit you. We were just all over them after that and the only thing that could hold us back was that it was too easy, We’ve seen that sometimes with the lads. It’s easy, they know it’s easy and they get a bit sloppy. Taking extra touches, doing silly flicks and shit. Watford couldn’t get out of their own half on their own and the first time I remember them doing anything was when Sadio lost it on halfway doing a daft back heel. That was the only risk to us because Watford couldn’t do anything on their own. It was complete and utter dominate from us. Even Keita looked alright. He didn’t do anything exceptional but he played his part. He made some good tackles and hit the bar with a deflected effort. From the moment we went ahead the only question was how many we’d score. Frankly it was a little disappointing we only managed two in the first half. The second goal was nothing like the first but it was still brilliant in its own way. Lovely move, capped by Milner making an overlapping run past Sadio, collecting the pass and drilling it across the face for a Bobby tap in. The first goal was pure Liverpool, but that second was a Man City goal and I loved it. We need to do more of that. The third goal was a bit shit. Robbo was a bit late with the cross and Mo had ran well offside. This is where the new offside law is absolutely fucking shit though. The defender has to try to cut it out because even though he might suspect Mo is offside, in that split second you can’t know for sure. But the only reason he is even making a play at the ball is because Mo is behind him. And Mo is miles offside, so saying that is ok just makes a mockery of the rule. Bobby is on the spot for a tap in so credit to him for that, but I hate that this is a goal under the current laws of the game. Because it is a goal, the decision was correct and we’ve seen similar goals given too. I’m just saying, it’s fucking stupid and needs to change. It made no difference to the outcome of this game because we were battering Watford with or without that goal, but there will be other games when it’s tight and a goal with this will prove decisive. And that’s just wrong. It actually blows my mind that the people that make these laws can look at a goal like this and say “yeah thats fine, we want those to be given”. They’ll happily disallow goals because a toe nail is offside, but this is ok? It’s like they just don’t understand the game at all, because you have to look at incidents like this from a defender’s point of view and ask what are they meant to do. You can’t have defenders just letting balls go through to forwards who are offside, because sometimes another defender will be deeper and playing the forward on. The other thing is that the flag doesn’t go up straight away so you end up having to chase back anyway. So if a defender thinks he can cut it out he’ll make a play at the ball, but he’s only doing it because he’s trying to keep the ball away from AN OFFSIDE PLAYER!! It’s a joke. There was nothing wrong with the fourth goal though. Wow. Fucking hell. Was it better than last week? I don’t know, it was incredibly similar. It was similar to others he’s scored from similar situations too. The point is it isn’t a one off. I think last week’s goal against City helped him score this one. Defenders expect him to cut back onto his left foot but last week he skinned Laporte and finished with his right. So Cathcart almost certainly has that in mind when Mo goes on the outside of him. Mo feigns the shot and Cathcart buys it hook line and sinker because he has to. After what happened last week he can’t risk it. He has to assume Mo is going to shoot. He didn’t shoot though, he cut back onto his left side, steadied himself and calmly bent it into the corner. It was fucking ridiculous but this is becoming standard now. He’s scoring and assisting every week. The goal and assist combo v City was special but this pair probably eclipsed that in terms of quality. The calibre of opposition wasn’t as high so that needs to be factored in, but what he’s doing this season is a level above anything he’s done before, even in the 44 goal season. The great thing is he isn’t doing it alone. Sadio is scoring regularly and Bobby has been pretty prolific on the quiet. He’s not played much but has six goals now. The numbers of the front three (and that’s not even including Jota) so far this season compare favourably with anything they’ve done before at this stage of the season. If they keep this up no-one is stopping us. The first season they played together they managed 91 goals. We also had double figures from Coutinho who left halfway through the season. Since then it’s dropped off year on year but if they come close to what they did that year, with Jota chipping in double figures too, who is going to be able to live with that? Bobby getting three tap ins is fucking great. I love that. That’s what I want from him. Cheap goals that boost his tally, help his confidence and take the pressure off him. That season when the three of them got 91, Bobby got 26 I think. And quite a few of them were like this. Tap ins, often no look finishes. Goals cover a multitude of sins for a number nine. When he isn’t scoring he needs to be spot on with everything else or he’ll rightly be questioned. That hasn’t been the case in the last couple of years and his form has been up and down. If he was scoring regularly that wouldn’t have mattered, but when you aren’t scoring then everything else is put under a microscope. The fact he’s getting in there looking for goals is great news and is probably a result of the competition for places. He’s fallen behind Jota in the pecking order this season but it wouldn’t take much for him to change that because he’s more of a natural fit for the position than Diogo, who for me is probably more at home in the wider positions. So if Bobby is scoring, it’s a no brainer to pick him. His hat-trick goal was a proper number nine’s goal. Nice ball by Ox, good play by Neco and Bobby is in the area you want him to be in to get a tap in. Quick point on that, just look at Danny Rose again as Neto blows by him like he isn’t even there. He was completely shot by that point and it’s probably the worst individual display since that time Jon Walters scored an own goal, missed two pens and smashed the ball into his own face while attempting an overhead kick. Nice to see Ox and Neco making positive contributions off the bench though. Of course this was an easy game to come into and to look good, but we’re going to need all of these players throughout the season so anything that helps with their confidence is a big positive. This was just a great all around performance in which everyone looked like they were on form. Sadio and Bobby had some erratic, sloppy moments but that’s the nature of their job I think. They’re always going to have moments when they give it away cheaply and it looks bad, but it’s because they have that freedom to try to make things happen and some of the things they do is more high risk. Mo is the same to some extent, it’s just that he’s in such incredible form that most of what he’s attempting is coming off. All over the pitch though we were great. Kelleher didn’t have much to do but made a fine save late on when he tipped the ball onto the post. Trent was fucking ridiculous with some of his passing. Virgil was completely dominant and that one moment when he back headed a difficult bouncing ball and then shrugged off the forward and casually rolled it Robbo was almost unfair. Imagine having to play against a defender who can dominate you and take the piss like that. It must be soul destroying. And he probably wasn’t even the best centre back on the pitch, because Big Bird was just about perfect once again. Every game he’s just flawless. Proper world class player him even if hardly anyone outside of LFC seems to know it. Robbo was good and Klopp had the luxury of giving him and Trent a rest by bringing them off early. Kostas was fucking class again when he came on, I love him. The midfield was good. I mentioned Keita already, while Hendo bossed it without really having to exert himself at all. The pick of the three was Milner though. Absolutely brilliant in midfield and then did a good job at right back before Neco took over. Star man is Mo though, which considering Bobby bagged a hat-trick shows just how special a performance this was from Salah. I haven’t checked back, but this feels like it must be his fifth or sixth star man of the season as it seems like I’m giving it to him every week at the moment. Long may it continue. We’ve got Atletico next but my mind is already on next weekend if I’m honest. I expect Jurgen will go really strong in Spain because the early Saturday kick off means there is a reasonable time between games, while the Tuesday / Sunday thing means there’s no need to rest anyone ahead of Old Trafford. It might be prudent to let Joel sit this one out and give Gomez a run out, but aside from that I don’t envisage too many changes other than Alisson and Fabinho coming back in. I hope we go there and just fucking throttle the pricks as we owe them after last time. I badly want to beat them but in reality a draw would be fine in terms of qualification from the group. I just hope we come through unscathed with no injuries so we can go and wipe the floor with United next weekend. Team: Kelleher; Alexander-Arnold (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson (Tsimikas); Henderson, Milner (Williams), Keita; Salah, Firmino, Mané:

Thank fuck that’s over. If you’re expecting me to be gloating or happy about England’s heartbreak you’re going to be disappointed. I stand by everything I’ve said previously and under no circumstances did I want them to win, but when they lost all I felt was relief and, surprisingly, some sadness. I took absolutely no joy in it, in fact I actually felt quite bad for some of those involved. That doesn’t mean I wish they’d won because that would have been a fucking nightmare. But I do feel for a lot of the players and to a lesser extent for the decent, normal people (especially the kids) who got swept along and have been enjoying the ride. Rubbing their noses in it is not something I have any desire to do. I said ‘lesser extent’ there because those who aren’t really that arsed about footy but got excited because they’d reached a final will get over this pretty quickly. They probably already are. They can take the flags down from their windows and go back to not caring again. That’s not a criticism by the way. I get it and I don’t have a problem with it. They aren’t the reason I wanted England to lose. That being said, any time I heard anyone saying “it’s coming home” it provoked a reaction in me that I couldn’t control. “Fuck off you twat” was my instinctive response and it didn’t even matter if it was man woman or child saying it! There’s just something about that phrase that brings out the devil in me. The initial song was great and relevant at the time. Over the years it’s been hijacked and the meaning of it skewed by entitled dickheads. England are international football’s equivalent of Huddersfield or Blackpool. Imagine Huddersfield fans talking about “it’s coming home” if they happened to be in a title race. The song was about a tournament coming home to where football began. Now it's used as some weird self entitled mantra that suggests England have some kind of claim on international trophies when they haven't won one in my lifetime, and I'm nearly fifty now! They have no idea how ridiculous "its coming home" sounds and it just gives other nations more reason to take the piss. Look at the Italy players with their "It's coming to Rome" shouts. Can't blame them, everybody is sick of that "coming home" bullshit. I’m not proud of this but the players and the decent people supporting England are just collateral damage to me. If them being disappointed also means the huge amount of fucking wankers living their lives vicariously through ‘their country’ being successful are also left disappointed, so be it. That's the only thing that matters to me. I just didn’t want to see that huge amount of fucking twats from all around the country being happy. It’s that simple really. And if others who I have no beef with are also denied happiness then that’s preferable to me than seeing the absolute worst people in this country getting to celebrate. I should be the bigger man but *shrugs* I’m clearly not. All those videos we all saw of the mobs lashing bottles, fighting, shoving flares up their arseholes, storming the gates of the stadium, drinking beer out of each others arse cracks (yes, that happened) and all the rest of it, I did not want those people to be able to celebrate anything and if that meant hundreds of thousands of kids up and down the country also being disappointed then fine, I can live with that. As I say, I’m not proud of it but I can’t control it either. Speaking of kids, Adrianna came out of school today and told me her form teacher - who isn't really into footy - decided it would be a good idea to play the Italy anthem in class to wind up the lads. "This is for you" he said and then blasted it out. One of the lads stormed out of the class and reported him, and someone then showed up and took the teacher outside to have a word. It's pretty unacceptable behaviour that though I've got to be honest. Grassing up your teacher like that? What a snivelling little fucking baby. Anyway, I digress. Another reason for wanting them to lose was so the politicians would not be able to use it to distract attention from the shit they’ve been pulling. The likes of Johnson and Patel shoving on an England shirt and hash tagging #itscominghome to try and make themselves more relatable. Fuck all that. They’d have used the feel good mood of the nation to deflect away from all the deaths they’re responsible for. So to me, England had to lose because them winning would have been too unbearable on multiple levels, and yeah I’m relieved they did. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy or that I want to rub anyone’s noses in it. I thought I would be, but it turns out I’m not. This whole tournament stressed me out way more than it should have. It used to be easy rooting against England because I despised at least half the squad and that’s before we even get into all the other bullshit that surrounds it all. That isn’t the case now. Obviously I can’t stand Harry Kane but he alone wouldn’t be enough to make me actively root against the team. But if you were to take away the fans, the Brexit / Tory voting public, the politician bandwagon jumpers and the xenophobic element of the media, then.... nah I’d still want them to lose just because of that little cunt in goal. Sorry, there’s not a fucking chance in hell I’d be putting that to one side. Not after what he did. Anyway, avoiding England games by going to play golf hadn’t been working out too well for me as the only game they hadn’t won was the one I actually watched. So this time I went with a different approach. I decided to try and take one for the team by watching it. Wasn’t a great idea as all it took was the booing of the Italy anthem to set me off with the shouting and swearing. There I am trying to belt it out and I’m hearing boos. Basically this was me…. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/svEx6iCV1s8" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> So that already set the tone and when Luke Shaw scored early that was me done. I had to get out of there if only for the sake of my marriage. I took the dog for a long walk and kept updated via the lads in the various group chats. I stayed out as long as I could but predictably it dragged on and on and when the rain started coming down I had to head back home. I got back for the second half of extra time but England seemed to be on top and I just couldn’t watch it. So I went to sit in my office, watching Netflix to keep me occupied. Penalties was the absolute fucking nightmare scenario because that potentially threw up the worst possible outcome for me. England winning was always going to be unpalatable, but Pickford being the hero would have been the absolute fucking worst. I’d rather they won 10-0 than have that crayon eating thick twat be the hero. And he almost was. The only way he wasn’t going to be the hero after saving two pens was for some of his team-mates to be the villains. I genuinely feel bad for the lads that missed, especially Saka. I feel really bad for Rashford too as he’s always going to get it the worst from the little Englanders because he’s put himself out there with all the great work he’s done taking on the establishment and looking out for hungry kids. I don’t really know anything about Sancho so have no opinion on him other than that I certainly wouldn’t wish a penalty shoot out miss on him. The ideal scenario would have been Kane missing the decisive one but beggars can’t be choosers and I’ll take this even if I don’t feel good about it. Just what the fuck is Southgate doing putting a kid on the fifth penalty bthough? If he’s taking one, let it be one, two or even three. You can come back from those if you miss, but having him on the decisive fifth kick was negligible beyond belief. Criminal. Loads of people are giving Sterling and Grealish shit for not stepping up, but Grealish has since come out and said he wanted one but it was the manager’s call. No surprise there. I expect Sterling did too, even if he’s the last person on earth you’d want taking an important penalty. These lads are wired differently to the rest of us. If they didn’t have that belief in themselves they wouldn’t have gotten as far in their careers as they have. I doubt any of them said they didn’t want one but Grealish especially will have been desperate to take one because that’s his mentality. Self confidence is not something he’s lacking. So that mess was completely on Southgate. He even subbed Hendo because he didn’t trust him to take one, which was a relief to us Reds but again, I think it’s pretty scandalous and if I’m Hendo I’m fucking seething about it. I know he’s missed a couple for England but he’s got massive balls and I’d have bet on him scoring. How often do we see those redemption stories with penalties? If someone has missed in a tournament, they usually score next time. Hendo has big game experience and he’s taken penalties in big moments. He hasn’t always scored but he’s got the experience of being in that position and he’d have taken responsibility. Yet you sub him and let a teenager step up for the fifth pen. Incredible. Apparently Southgate went with who did the best in training. Soft cunt. I could probably bury eight out of ten in a training environment, but those odds come down massively in a pressure situation like that. I doubt I’d even be able to run up without falling over. So my point here is that training means fuck all because you can’t replicate the actual situation. Putting a kid in that spot was criminal. It was the biggest moment for the country in over 50 years and he’s putting al that weight on the shoulders of a teenager with barely a handful of games under his belt. What makes it worse is Southgate himself missed one of the most important penalties in England history so he ought to know better. When you look at the vile messages sent to the three lads who missed though, it highlights the dilemma facing those of us who just can’t back the team. You can either choose to condemn it and support the team in spite of the scum element (including the government who condoned booing of the lads taking the knee), or go the other way and want the team to lose just to deny these cunts anything to celebrate. I’m obviously in the latter category but I’m not saying I’m right. It’s probably not the way to go but it isn’t something I can control. I saw some tweets from black and asian lads and girls saying how this group of players and what they stand for has made them finally feel they can be a part of being English and supporting the national team, and that’s great. Genuinely, it’s sound and I’m delighted they can now feel that way. It doesn’t change anything for me personally though. I don’t want to stand shoulder to shoulder with the football fans of this country any more than I wanted to stand with the Mancs in their fight against the Glazers. They sing about scousers year in year out and then cry when some of us don’t “get behind your country”. I just can’t see past all the bad shit that ‘being English’ represents and I guarantee that as soon as the new season starts it will all be brought home again when we’ve got the ‘always the victim’ chants and the ’sign on’ chants and all the rest of it thrown our way. I see those comments directed at Saka and Rashford, I see the videos of England fans up and down the country acting like neanderthal wankers and I can’t help but just want to see them suffer and be miserable. The Rashford mural got vandalised, which is really fucking sickening as it’s in his home town where he basically should be seen as a fucking Saint. Imagine being from Manchester and not loving Marcus Rashford. He’s probably more popular with Liverpool fans. And if history is anything to go by there’ll be some twats singing “you let your country down” at the lads who missed the pens. Remember Gerrard got that? If and when Rashford, Sancho or Saka are subjected to that I’ll sit back and take some comfort in knowing that the cunts singing it will have been absolutely fucking devastated by what happened in the final. So many of these small time dickheads live their lives through the England team because their clubs are complete fucking non-entities that never bring them anything to celebrate. It’s no co-incidence that Liverpool and United are probably the two fanbases that on the whole care the least about England. Chelsea and Arsenal would be similar if they weren’t based in London. Those scenes inside Wembley were way worse than anything I would have expected, and I expected pretty bad shit to happen. Thousands forcing their way into the stadium without tickets was not something I saw coming. Then you had those who were already in deciding to beat the shit out of those who hadn't paid to be there. The whole thing was fucking nuts. People will say “don’t let them win” or “why let them stop you supporting England?”. If you can compartmentalise it and put that to one side then good for you. Seriously. I’m not being facetious. If you want to support England then do it. I respect your right to do it. Hopefully you respect mine to not. As for the footy itself, it’s difficult for me to offer any kind of assessment of England and how they played because I only watched one game (Scotland) and they were shite. Based on what the lads in the chat were saying and what I’ve read on the forum, they weren’t great overall and were shite in the final. Italy deserved to win the final because they weren’t as negative. Imagine being more negative than Italy! Southgate adopted the philosophy that the way to be successful was to not concede any goals and in fairness to him it almost worked. It’s not my cup of tea but he was a penalty shoot out away from winning the thing so he will say his approach was justified. With the attacking flair he has at his disposal maybe he should be a bit more adventurous (imagine what Klopp would do if he was choosing from Sterling, Sancho, Kane, Foden, Grealish, Saka, Mount etc) but it’s not my problem. I don’t really care how he gets them to play as it’s none of my business, but for what it’s worth my opinion of him as a coach is that he’s shite. He had every possible advantage to win this tournament but he came up short, and even at the last World Cup they basically had a bye to the semis and then lost to the only decent side they faced. He’s a decent fella but he’s not good at his job. He picked Declan Rice over Hendo in every game for fucks sake. This is some Brazil style, Fred over Fabinho baffling shit. So in the end the best team in the competition won it and even the England fans I heard on the radio afterwards said Italy deserved to win the final as they were the better side for most of it. Mancini has done an incredible job really because man for man that isn’t a great side. It’s a good one, but put it this way, how many of those players would you have at the Reds? I’m taking Veratti, and some of the others would be great additions to the squad but how many get into the starting eleven? Then again, we’re one of the best sides in Europe so it’s a tall order getting in our line up. I think my point is that on paper Italy are not even as strong as England, let alone the likes of France and Belgium. The French should have pissed this tournament but they’re another team being held back by a shithouse coach. Mancini got the balance right. Italy were attacking when they needed to be and defended when they had to. I’m happy for my guy Chiellini who added another highlight to the collection with the horse collar tackle on Saka. I was walking past a row of houses when that happened and all I heard was yelling from different households. I didn’t know what was going on until I read it in the chat and then someone posted a clip of it. Outstanding, that’s what you need from your defenders. I saw his “it’s coming Rome” tweet from the plane where he’s holding the trophy and some of the replies were gold. Loads of moral high ground taking about “you need to cheat to win” and “I’d rather lose fairly than win like that”. It’s usually people who don’t watch footy and jumped on the bandwagon, because any proper footy fan absolutely gets why he did that and they’d want their own defender to do the exact same thing. There was a fair bit of cry arsing about Jorginho not being sent off for a stamp on Grealish. Not for me, Clive. It looked worse than it was. It’s difficult for a player when an opponent slides in needlessly while you are making a play on the ball from a standing position. It isn’t a deliberate stamp but a lesser referee would have sent him off for that so I understand the debate about it. It didn’t make any difference because neither team were going to score in extra time (they rarely do and it’s becoming a bit pointless really) and he missed his pen. Credit to Pickford for that because he did exactly what you need to do against someone who takes penalties like that. You have to not commit and make them beat you by finding the corner. Pickford didn’t go early and got his reward. He might be a repulsive little hyperactive twat but that was great goalkeeping. Player of the Tournament for me is obviously my man Chiellini, but it probably would have been Spinazzola had he not been injured. Jorginho was extremely influential too and is worth a shout, as is Bonucci. Donnarumma got the official award which I’m not on board with at all, but it was difficult as there was no one obvious stand out candidate. My team of the tournament is probably a load of old bollocks because I didn’t watch every game live and a lot of this is based on highlights. Plus I can’t include any England players as I didn’t watch their games. Maybe a couple of them should be in here but on this occasion their absence is not based on bias, just ignorance. Team of the Tournament: Sommer; Spinazzola, Bonucci, Chiellini, Maehle; Jorginho, De Bruyne, Pedri; Ronaldo, Schick, Chiesa. Honourable mentions. Wijnaldum, Dumfries, Hoijberg, Damsgaard, Lukaku, Robbo, Coufal, Veratti, Barella, Forsberg, Donnarumma, Shaq and Pogba. Yes, I said Pogba and no I can’t believe it either. Goal of the tournament Schick against Scotland was great, but I did love the Denmark goal with the glorious cross by Maehle and of course the Luca Modric effort against Scotland was stunning. My favourite goal was the Ronaldo counter attack one though. Love that shit me. Game of the tournament 1 Switzerland 3 France 3 2 Belgium 1 Italy 2 3 Portugal 2 Germany 4 Moment of the Tournament 1 Chiellini's shenanigans with Alba prior to the shoot out. 2 The Scottish right back's treatment of Grealish. “McGinn gave me some tips. You need to nibble his ear but don’t be critical, be complimentary. So the whole time I was telling him how good looking he is. I love his calves, asking how he got his hair like that” 3 Any Italian Anthem Random player I'd like us to buy based on the tournament Definitely Maehle. Honourable shout to Pedri (not realistic, but it would be funny to take him off Barca's skint little grubby hands) and Renato Sanches too. And if Veratti and his haunting blue eyes ever fancy leaving Paris then there's a spot here for him too, despite our dismal prior record with Italians. Pundit of the Tournament 1 Roy Keane 2 Roy Keane 3 Roy Keane Twat of the tournament 1 Pickford. Just because. 2 Benzema. Hate him. 3 The Turkish fan with Covid 19 on the back of his shirt. My Boy of the tournament 1 Chiellini 2 Maehle 3 Pepe Fraud of the tournament 1 Deschamps 2 Russia 3 Southgate 4 Laporte (he's fucking FRENCH!!). 5 Martinez Surprise package of the tournament Pogba. He actually performed like a top footballer at times. Worst Player in the Tournament Lyndon Dykes. (See also 'worst player in the history of the world') Biggest disappointment of the tournament Has to be Mbappe. He played ok on the whole, yet he was expected to take this tournament by storm and make no impact at all. Special mention to Germany as well. Fucking dickheads could have spared me a lot of stress if they hadn't been so shit.

Before the game I’d have been made up with a point. After the game, I am made up with the point, especially as we had to come from behind to get it. That doesn’t mean I thought we played well though. We were ok, there were plenty of things to like about this, but we were nowhere near our best. Neither were City, despite Guardiola’s protestations to the contrary. The early kick off after an international break just doesn’t do this game justice. The Premier League are a fucking joke, letting the Manchester bizzies dictate to them like that. This is their showpiece game and it’s been watered down in quality by that kick off time. This isn’t sour grapes as I don’t think it hampered us any more than them. I’m just saying that neither team were near their best level and the spectacle suffered because of it. We got a point though and that’s all that matters. It’s a better result for us than them, especially given they had the lead and were at home. They’d have expected to win from there, I mean, they literally do win all of their home games. Every single one in 2023, in all competitions. Until now. That’s why we should be happy. I wouldn’t be happy to settle for a draw at any other venue (maybe Arsenal currently) but City are better than us and our record there is shit. So this is a really nice result. As for the performance, it’s a weird one because we deserved a draw and did not get outplayed, so we must have played pretty well. If we hadn’t then they’d have taken us to the cleaners like they do everybody else at the Etihad. Yet I couldn’t help but feeling a bit frustrated by our play, particularly going forward where we did not make the most of countless decent situations that should have been converted into decent chances. That has to be a good thing though big picture wise. Going to City and getting a deserved draw without playing anywhere near as well as we can does make you wonder what might have happened if we had played somewhere near our best. Equally though, we didn’t get City on their best day and they were without De Bruyne and Grealish, who along with Son have probably been the biggest thorns in our side in recent seasons. I didn’t think there was anything surprising in Klopp’s team selection. Maybe Konate over Matip, but he’s not played much of late and Joel is in a better rhythm so I’d have leaned that way too. Curtis coming back in made sense because he keeps the ball and he’s our best presser. It didn’t work out like that in hindsight, but the selection made sense. Jota for Diaz was a coin flip really, but I’d have gone for Jota too. He was crap, but there was no way of knowing he would be as he’s been doing well lately. City were able to welcome back all of the players who missed the international games through injury. How about that eh? They all played the full ninety too. No matter how much he wins, Liverpool will always be front and centre in Guardiola’s mind. Sneaky cheating bald fuck.