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The transfer window came and went and the Reds did very little. Understandably, many of the natives are restless and FSG are coming under increasing scrutiny, not least with the news that Michael Edwards is reportedly off at the end of the season. Chris Smith is joined by TLW Editor Dave Usher and long time TLW contributors Paul Natton and Dan Thomas in a bumper length episode of the podcast. Why no new forward? Should the entire budget have been spent on Konate? Do we need new owners? Is there even a realistic and palatable alternative to FSG? All of this is covered as well as some broader points about the damage the oil clubs have done to the transfer market and why transfer windows in general are a miserable and frustrating time. The lads also discuss some of the best and worst transfer windows of recent times, with Gerard Houllier's summer of 1999 in particular bringing back a lot of happy memories.

Monday Aug 30: Michael Edwards is apparently stepping down at the end of the season. Not good but probably not as catastrophic as a lot of people seem top fear it will be. Without wanting to diminish what he does, a big part of it seems to be analysing data to determine which players we should be looking at. Now maybe he set up the system that collates all that data, I don’t know, but the point is does it really matter which nerd we have crunching numbers? They’ve all got access to the same data. So I don’t think our player recruitment will suffer if he’s replaced by one of his colleagues. Where we may be impacted is in negotiating with other clubs, as it seems like Edwards is a fucking king at that, or at least he was. Not been so great since Covid, but then in fairness he’s probably out of practice as they never let him spend any money. I guess what I’m saying is that the way analytics has taken over has reduced the need for the genius scout who can see a player for 10 minutes and know if he’s good enough or not. A Geoff Twentyman if you like. Someone like that is nigh on impossible to replace because it’s a skill you can’t teach. Analysing data is something you can teach. I’d be more concerned about why he wants to leave. Maybe it’s just a change of scenery he wants after 10 years, but if it’s something else then that could be problematic. People will speculate that he’s fed up of having to tell Klopp he can’t have any new signings, or that he himself is fed up of identifying targets and then the club not spending the money to get them. It could be that, I have no idea. I doubt we’ll ever find out either. Bizarre rumours linking Curtis with a move to Villa. If that happens I’m handing back my season ticket. It was bad enough seeing Gini leave while that waster Keita was allowed to stick around, but if he outlasts Curtis as well then count me out. Also today, some interesting stuff on twitter from people joining the dots about Mendy’s arrest dates and him not only being allowed to play for City, but for the club to be going to bat for him when he was accused of having a house party during covid. Seems one of the terms of his parole was he wasn’t allowed to have house parties. Murky as fuck this, and City’s conduct is predictably shitty. What do you expect from people who feel they are untouchable and can do what they like and just lawyer up to avoid consequences. Cunt club. The absolute fucking worst. Tuesday Aug 31: Deadline Day and the club are trolling us with contract announcements. First Hendo, who, considering he’s away with England, must have signed this and done the interviews some time last week, meaning they waited until today to announce it. And then Big Nat, who presumably was offered a deal because no-one offered what we wanted for him. I like to think I’m fairly chilled out about transfers and I’m not one for stamping my feet and demanding “spend some money you cunts” but I don’t blame anyone who is pissed off today as it really did feel like they were taking the piss out of us. They can’t be THAT tone deaf, surely? The Hendo thing is a disgrace and did him a complete dis-service. That should have been good news that would be greeted as such, but the delay in announcing it just pissed everyone off. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs to give their head a wobble. This has obviously been done for weeks because it was reportedly ‘almost done’ ages ago. For them to wait until today to put it out…. Well they deserve every bot of shit they get for it. As for Nat, could they not have announced that later this week? I’m assuming he only signed it when they knew no suitable offers had come in and when Rhys Williams had gone out on loan (he too got a new deal, and well deserved it is too). But putting that news out late on deadline day is just really fucking poor and again, ensured people were kicking off about it when it had nothing at all to do with Nat. On the one hand I’m glad for him that he’s been financially rewarded for what he did for us last season, but on the other I feel bad that he’s going to be an afterthought now and will hardly play. We did need to have a fifth centre back option but it would have made much more sense for that to be Rhys. He could learn by training with and against world class players every day and that would compensate for the lack of playing time, plus he could turn out for the 23s. Nat is 24, he can’t be not playing. I don’t like this, but I am glad he’s getting paid and I suppose this protects his transfer value for next year too. Wednesday Sep 1: Robbo played right wing back for Scotland tonight. Not sure how I feel about that. I mean, he’s the captain and it’s his responsibility to set an example and do what’s best for the team, but he’s also their best player and the best in the world in his position, so why the fuck isn’t someone else being asked to fill in? Chelsea have been charged for failing to control their players at Anfield. Not really a surprise considering how they badgered Anthony Taylor after the sending off. They should be punished because this wasn’t even a judgement call by the ref, he had no choice. Where’s the charge for Taylor though, the bent twat? Not a single free-kick awarded to us in the entire second half. Couldn’t have made it more obvious, but nothing will be said or done about it. Go ahead, make an example of Chelsea’s players, but they weren’t the ones bringing the game into disrepute last weekend. Heard a few people suggesting that FSG are preparing for a sale and that’s why they’ve locked down so many players and why they spent fuck all. No idea if that’s the case but I have been wondering what their end game is here. They’re hedge funders. They buy a business, grow it, then sell for a profit. So you’d assume that one day they will sell, and I suppose in theory that day could be coming soon. They aren’t going to hold onto the club indefinitely and they did sell off 10% recently for a huge profit. If they could sell the whole lot for ten times their investment, why wouldn’t they? The only reason they wouldn’t is if they felt like they could make even more by holding onto the ‘asset’ a bit longer. They've had the club over ten years now, it must be on their minds to maybe cash in soon. Loads of fans want them out but all I’d say in response to that is be careful what you wish for. I don’t care for FSG much but in this modern era I’m not sure we can expect anything better. Multi billionaires as a rule tend to not be particularly good people, so there’s no telling who they could end up selling to. I think some fans don’t care as long as we’re competing for the big signings with City and PSG, but most of us don’t really want that. The problem is that I’m not sure what we want actually exists. Are there owners out there we can look at and say “yeah I wish we had them”? If there are, let me know as I don’t see any. Thursday Sep 2: Played golf with Dennis Taylor today. I’m a trustee for the Roy Evans Foundation and we had a charity golf day, so I got to play with the former world champ. What a lovely fella, really humble and didn’t really say much about his great career, even when I was badgering him about it. He didn’t really want to blow his own trumpet, whereas if I were him I’d have a tattoo on my forehead of that famous celebration he did when he beat Davis. He was more comfortable chatting about golf and telling us funny stories from his commentary career. He’s 72 but I was struggling to outdrive him. Not sure if that says more about him or me though. Stan Boardman was in the group behind and was on the tee when we went off. One of the lads in our group teed off and Stan mutters “seen better swings in the park”. I wonder how many times he’s used that one? In fairness, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t planning on using it at some point in the future. Dennis reckons that whenever Stan plays golf he always leaves one shoe untied just waiting for someone to tell him his lace is undone so he can reply “no it says on the sole Taiwan”. You’ve actually got to admire that kind of commitment to getting a gag out there. Leon Osman and his team won and I don’t begrudge him it at all as he’s never won anything else. Probably cheated like, but as I say, I don’t begrudge him a rare chance to celebrate. Meanwhile, it’s reported that we considered a move for Ward-Prowse this summer as a replacement for Wijnaldum. Not sure I believe it to be honest, but if I could have got rid of Keita and brought in Ward-Prowse I’d have done it in a heartbeat. It isn’t about who is better, it’s the total package. Ward-Prowse never misses games, he helps with the homegrown quota, he’s boss at set-pieces and his agent isn’t a mouthy wanker. Shame it didn’t happen really. Same story with Bissouma. Maybe January. Also today, Gabby Agbonlahor has dismissed our chances of winning the title. That’s me crushed, I have so much respect for Gabby’s opinion that this is a real blow and I may need to reassess my prediction that we’ll finish top. Friday Sep 3: Rumours that Turkish clubs are sniffing around Divock. Wouldn’t that be the most modern LFC thing if we sold him now that it’s too late to replace him. I know he offers virtually nothing, but if we get a couple of injuries we’ll need him, and who knows, maybe if there’s a bit of incentive there for him he’ll show the form we know he’s capable of. I just think he’s given up because he knew no matter what he did he’d never be good enough to nail down a regular place, and the arrival of Jota basically pushed him out completely. As much as I wanted him sold this summer, if they do it now that it’s too late to replace him then heads should fucking roll. Remember Nabil Fekir? He’s spoken out (again) about his move here that fell through. Usually he says he doesn’t know why we pulled out, but today he’s said that the move didn’t happen because of a problem with his agent. Liverpool were briefing everyone off the record that it was his knee, but maybe it was the agent? Not sure why the club wouldn’t have just told people that instead of implying that the lad had a bum knee. I doubt we’ll ever know what happened, but I was irrationally gutted about that considering I’d never seen him play other than on youtube. Sadio sets himself a target of 30 goals. I’ll say it here and now, if he does that then we’re Champions. Presumably he didn’t mean 30 league goals, but if he gets 23 or 24 in the league, we’re winning the title because we’ll have close to the best defensive record and Mo will be around 25 goals as usual. Jota will be chipping in with a dozen so if Sadio does that it won’t even matter if Bobby is shite again. ….and that was the week that was.

Arsenal. *shakes head*. I’m a broken record here but I don’t even enjoy Arsenal’s struggles because frankly they absolutely make me sick. The disgust I feel over-rides any amusement I may have as I just find them completely offensive. They’re utterly fucking pathetic and I hate them for it. If I was an Arsenal fan I just wouldn’t pay to watch it. Simple as that. There’s no way I’d be handing over cash to watch that group of players, and that’s before we even start on ownership. Everything about Arsenal is a fucking disgrace and I just find them shameful. City winning this game was as nailed on as when they played Norwich a week earlier. The chances of them not winning either game were about the same as me winning the lottery, and I don’t even do the lottery. Only marginally less predictable was Arsenal getting a red card, and if they were getting a red card the name at the top of most people’s list would have been Granit Xhaka. So named because he’s thicker than a bucket of rocks. He epitomises exactly what is wrong with Arsenal these days. The cunt has nine lives. He’s been on his way out every year for the last four or five years but somehow he’s still there and sometimes he’s actually the captain. That tackle he got sent off for absolutely stank of a player trying to fool people into thinking “at least he cares”. He probably does care, he may be one of the few that does, but he’s a fucking dickhead. He does shit like this all the time and he’s an absolute liability. I’m actually ok with him absolutely fucking wellying someone because they’re getting hammered, but not in the first half! The fact he’s still there doing it does not only reflect badly on him, it reflects badly on the lack of leadership and competence at Arsenal. They either have players who don’t give a fuck (the dancing clowns Aubameyeng, Lacazette, Pepe…) or reckless, ill disciplined liabilities like Xhaka and David Luiz. Then you someone like Ainsley Maitland-Niles who can’t get a look in when he’s one of the few players there with any kind of resilience about him. Arsenal are such a fucking shambles that Maitland-Niles is desperate to get out of there to join Everton. Imagine! They lost 5-0 and they should be relieved it wasn’t double that. If City had wanted to really humiliate them they could have. Still, Arsenal have got Norwich next so they’ll probably win that and be back to doing their whacky goal celebrations. Shameless cunts. I didn’t watch any of it but I’ve seen the Xhaka tackle and read Guardiola’s post match comments praising Arteta. He’d be doing that even if it wasn’t his former protege. As I said last week he loves an opposing coach that makes it easy for him. Disingenuous baldy shithouse. West Ham’s opening goal against Palace was terrific. It looked like the chance had gone when Antonio didn’t shoot and instead cut back inside. But he found Fornals who then returned it to him with a lovely disguised ball. Antonio then squared it back to Fornals for a tap in. Lovely. Chelsea loanee Conor Gallagher equalised with Palace’s first goal of the season. He’s looked lively for them in all of their games so far. Yet another player Chelsea will move on for an ‘undisclosed’ fee. Antonio blasted West Ham in front again soon after but Gallagher hit back again with a brilliant bit of skill and a tidy finish. West Ham will feel they should have won as they dominated the game, but they could easily have lost it right at the death. Patrick Vieira was full of praise for Gallagher afterwards, saying “We wanted to get Conor running in beh..” zzzzzzzz. Sorry nodded off there. Good result for the Blues as they won 2-0 at Brighton. Maupay had a shot from 35 yards that went well over. Pickford threw himself into the air anyway instead of just waving it goodbye, and then he leapt up and started screaming at his defenders. God I fucking hate this little scrote. Any defender in the world is going to be happy with a forward shooting from there, and if my keeper started yelling at me for allowing the shot I’d tell him to fuck off. Pickford’s just the fucking worst. Ok, he’s not quite the worst. Richarlison has that honour. I’ll get to him shortly. Demerai Downing gave the Blues the lead with a shot that should never have beaten the keeper. Appalling stuff that, why the fuck did they get rid of Matt Ryan? So, Richarlison. What a cunt. Pretty sure I’ve said before that Calvert-Lewin probably hates him and if he didn’t before he almost certainty does now after this. The Blues were awarded a soft penalty when Coleman ran into a Brighton player and took a tumble, and Richarlison grabbed the ball and insisted on taking the pen even though Calvert-Lewin was the designated taker. Rafa, sorry, Rafael, had to get word out there and Coleman and others needed to drag Richarlison away. That put needless pressure on Calvert-Lewin but he scored anyway. Rafa, sorry, Rafael, hates shit like that but he can’t have been surprised. He has eyes, so he already knows that Richarlison is the absolute fucking pits. No redeeming qualities at all, just a complete cunt with the most punchable face in the world. Vardy opened the scoring with a neat finish from a Ricardo cross. Little disappointed there was no canary impression from him. Norwich could have equalised straight away after another howler by Soyuncu, who’s been shite for a good while now. Then he conceded a penalty with a needless challenge. Pukki scored from the spot to make it 1-1. Norwich’s first goal of the season that, but they did face us and City in consecutive weeks. Albrighton’s deflected shot face Leicester the three points although Norwich had their chances and played pretty well overall. They had an equaliser ruled out because that Cantwell turd was stood in front of Schmeichel in an offside position. Tough one for Norwich to take as Schmeichel wasn’t saving that one whether Cantwell was there or not, but if you put a player in that spot specifically to block the keeper then don’t cry when he gets given offside. That’s some Burnley behaviour that is. Leicester have signed Lookman from Fulham. Nice little addition that. They play 4-2-3-1 so having Barnes and Lookman in the wide areas looks pretty decent. Let’s face it, anything is an improvement on that Ayoze loser. More VAR woe for Newcastle as they had victory snatched from them deep into stoppage time against Southampton. Djnepo missed two early sitters as the Saints made all the running in the opening exchanges. He was inches away from opening the scoring early in the second half too but his shot curled just wide. Those missed chances eventually came back to haunt them as Wilson headed the opener. Southampton levelled through some fucker I’d never heard of before. Mohamed Elyounoussi. They said he hadn’t played for two years, but I don’t ever remember seeing him before. Southampton have pulled a Watford on us there. Newcastle thought they’d won it in stoppage time when Saint-Maximin scored. He went into the crowd to celebrate but it was premature as VAR said “nah, you’re not having three points” and awarded a penalty when Lascelles challenged Armstrong in the box. Could have gone either way, but Newcastle’s beef will be that a virtually identical incident at the other end was waved away. Ward-Prowse buried the pen and then gave it the full Jamie Vardy, standing in front of the Geordies, miming a golf shot, looking up at his imaginary golfball, then cupping his ears, grinning, nodding his head, the full beans. Really funny, but not when it’s against you. Big fan of Ward-Prowse though, can we not swap Keita for him? Pretty please? Ivan Toney opened his Premier League account with an emphatic finish to put Brentford ahead at Villa Park. Buendia cancelled that one out with a lovely finish of his own. That’s how it finished but both teams had chances to win and it was a decent game. Brentford had a goal disallowed when the striker nicked it off the keeper as he tried to kick downfield. The keeper had it in his hand but when he let go to volley it, is that not now in play? The forward nicked the ball away cleanly and it wasn’t dangerous play, but VAR took a look and ruled it out. If that isn’t allowed then the rule need rewriting to simply say that you can’t challenge the keeper when he’s kicking out of his hands. If the rule doesn’t already say that then this was a goal. Brentford’s manager is class. I really like him, even if he comes across more like an art teacher than a footy manager. Interesting character. Villa had a 17 year old starting in midfield. I think I remember him from the youth cup final last year. They’ve got some really good kids there. They’ve got Watkins back now too and it will be interesting to see how he gels with Ings. Onto Sunday, and some of those decisions in the Wolves / Man United game just gave me a real feeling of deja vu. We’re not paranoid are we? They do just always seem to get favourable decisions year in year out. Wolves got screwed but nobody is surprised. The only goal of the game should never have stood as it was a clear foul by Pogba. How is Mike Dean not seeing that? Well, because he’s Mike Dean. How isn’t VAR sorting that though? Well, because Mike Dean said he’d seen it and refused to check the monitor. Disgrace. Baldy little pointy faced fuck. Wolves were also denied a penalty when their player got absolutely wiped out after he cut the ball back. Remember last season when Rashford got a pen for being caught after getting his shot away? Yeah, one rule for them and a different rule for everyone else. It fucking stinks. Wolves main problem is that they keep missing sitters. All three games now they’ve had better chances than the opponent but they aren’t taking any of them. They should have signed Origi as the one thing he does well is finish. Wolves are so toothless that Wayne Rooney fancies them. Spurs beat Watford 1-0. Is that three 1-0 wins on the spin now for them? *checks table* Yeah it is. That’s not sustainable but Nuno has obviously gone in there with the intention of first and foremost making them hard to beat, and so far it’s working. Son got the only goal of the game with a cross that deceived the keeper. Watford did their customary “send out a player you didn’t know played for them” routine again. Moussa Sissoko. I heard his name and assumed he was playing for Spurs, but no he’s joined Watford. Good signing for them that. They sold the albino Will Hughes to Palace. He wasn’t playing this weekend, presumably because he’s not allowed outside in natural light. Finally, Burnley and Leeds. Proper war of the roses shit this one. Tackles flying in all over the place and Burnley going the full Burnley. Tarkowski body slammed my boy Bamford early doors and then Barnes went right through a defender with the same kind f scissor kick move he tried on Joel last week. Burnley went ahead with a typical Burnley goal. Set-piece not cleared, scramble, ball still not cleared, cross, shot, deflected in by Wood who was stood right in front of the keeper. If the Leeds defender had pushed out he’d have caught him offside, so not great by Leeds there really. My boy dished out some Bad Medicine late on though when he poked in from close range to snatch a point for Leeds. A shot through the heart of Burnley that one. Remember last week when Klopp pointed out that Burnley’s players are prone to wrestling moves? That was headline news for days and everyone had a pop at him, including Dyche who was aghast that he’d mentioned players by name. Check out this gem of an interview from my boy. Not one fucking word has been said about it either. Serious double standards here. He’s great though isn’t he?