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Monday Oct 18: So the PL clubs did fuck all to stop the Newcastle takeover but they are getting together to ensure they aren’t allowed to write blank cheques for sponsorship deals paid for by the owners. All except one of course. The one who have built their success on doing exactly that. Even Chelsea under Abramovich never resorted to that vastly inflated sponsorship shit. I’d love to have been there to hear City try to argue their corner on that when the discussions were taking place. They never even had the balls to vote with Newcastle though, they abstained, which is even worse really. I just feel like is one of those ‘finger in the dike’ scenarios. The clubs might be able to plug that particular hole but there’ll be all kinds of other holes appearing all over the gaff, especially when Newcastle’s lawyers team up with City’s legal team and get the whole concept of FFP thrown out completely. Because that’s where this is headed. And the more I think about it, the more I suspect the reason that the other clubs didn’t put up more of a fight to stop this happening is because half (or more) of the owners in the league are looking enviously at Mike Ashley and thinking “I wish we could have cashed in like that”. In more depressing news (for me anyway), Adele is releasing a new single this week as we prepare to face Luis Suarez tomorrow night. It feels like the universe is taunting me now. Tuesday Oct 19: Atleti 2 L 3 Get the fuck in. This result is great and satisfying in the extreme. The performance was a bit meh but that makes it better in some ways. I’d have liked to have played them off the park and battered them but the contentious nature of this one and seeing Simeone losing the plot at the end was great. They’re horrible aren’t they? An absolute mirror image of their manager. They can really fucking play when they want to though and I thought they were really good in the period between going 2-0 down and Griezemann being sent off. We didn’t play that well but we’re at such a high level now that good teams can’t even beat us on our off days. We weren’t good against City either but they couldn’t beat us. So far this season feels a bit like when we won the league. Not quite the same because that year we were winning every week whereas this time we’ve drawn three already, but that resilience is there when we aren’t at our best. And when we are at our best nobody is going to be able to live with that. We’re basically through to the knock outs now barring three unexpected defeats. In the other game Porto beat Milan and are level with Atletico now. Milan are bottom on zero points so if we discount them we have an opportunity to send Atletico into the Europa League. We need to beat them to win the group, then we can lose to Porto and hopefully dump Atletico out. I’d love that. I’d happily lose to Porto if it meant shitting all over Simeone. Hopefully they end up playing the Mancs in the Europa. That’d be great as I could root for Suarez without any of you fuckers trying to make me feel bad about it. He was a knobhead tonight when he came on but that’s exactly what I’d expect. When he gets on that pitch he’s an absolute cunt and he’ll do whatever it takes to gain an advantage. He’s not going to refrain from that because he’s playing us. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. He’d be like that if he was playing against his own kids. He’ll be a fucking nightmare in a couple of weeks. I just hope he doesn’t injure anyone this time. Wednesday Oct 20: More rumours about Sterling maybe coming back and there seems to be a little momentum building with this one as its popping up every few weeks. As I’ve said before, I don’t see how it could happen because of his salary, but IF that was doable and the fee wasn’t too high, I’ve been trying to work out how I’d feel about it. And I’m not sure. I know I wouldn’t hate it, but I can’t say I’d be totally on board with it either. He’s a great player who does a fantastic impression of a shit one. His shooting is still weak as piss and he’s not very good one v one with the keeper. So he obviously misses loads of chances but he does everything else to a really high level and his football IQ is off the charts. It was sky high even when he was a kid playing for us but Guardiola is so tactically obsessed that Sterling has improved that side of his game even more. Brendan played him in all kinds of different positions and he was effective in all of them because he’s got a great football brain. That’s why he scores so many tap ins, he knows where to be and when to be there. I don’t bear any grudge about the way he left anymore. His conduct was pretty terrible but he was a kid being advised by a bellend and he was being offered treble the salary we were offering by a team that was winning titles while we were signing Mario Balotelli and Rickie Lambert. His decision to leave has been vindicated by everything he’s won, although if he had stayed and got to play for Klopp we’d probably worship him now. City fans don’t even like him much and for some reason that annoys me. It’s funny really because when I heard that City fans had been giving him stick and complaining about him, weirdly I found myself getting a bit defensive about it and having an urge to almost stick up for him. Not because I like him, but because it pissed me off that he wasn’t getting the level of respect he deserved after all he’s done for that club. Do City fans love any of their players? They loved Vincent Company but you get the feeling they’re not really arsed about any of the others. Maybe Silva and Aguero, but none of the current squad get the kind of adulation our players get from us. Everything about City just feels hollow and manufactured these days. The likes of Goater and Kinkladze got more love from City fans than most of these trophy winning superstars get. Going back to the original question though; would I take him back? It wouldn’t be a signing I’d make because the money would be better spent on buying the next big thing rather than an established player on a high contract with little resale value. I don’t think it makes sense financially (especially if we push the boat out to keep Mo) but if it happened I’d be completely fine with it. I’ve seen some Reds saying he wouldn’t get in the team but I don’t agree. There’s not much to choose between him and Sadio, plus he can also play through the middle. If he was in the squad right now he’d be getting plenty of games. I’d give this one no more than a 5% chance of happening, and even that’s probably way too high. Thursday Oct 21: Jesus. Looks like City have their own Sean Cox situation. One of their fans was assaulted against Bruges and he's in critical condition and the suggestion is that even if he comes through he's going to be seriously impacted by what happened. Fucking disgusting. He's just a fella in his sixties, who was minding his own business wanting to watch his team. The thing with these 'ultras' that really pisses me off, is that they hardly ever fight with the people who would be up for fighting them. I've always thought if knobheads want to go to footy and have a fight, let them arrange it with eachother, go and meet somewhere away from normal people and then have at it. Anyone who gets hurt, it's their own fucking fault. This business of just twatting random, defenceless fellas is just proper reprehensible. I hope they catch who did this and they get what's coming to them. Meanwhile, I found this picture on my phone today. I took it a couple of weeks ago and planned to use it in the diary that week but forgot. It’s a quiet day today so I figured what the hell, I’ll still use it. What is it you ask? I was watching University Challenge and I saw this nerd who looked really familiar. I was trying to figure out where I knew him from and then it hit me. He’s some kind of alternate reality Jordan Pickford! Or he’s the twin brother who got all the breaks while Jordan was in the attic being fed fish heads. It’s uncanny though, just look at this brainy twat. He was so much like Pickford I was half expecting him to launch into a tirade of abuse any time a team-mate didn’t get a question right. I don’t make a habit of watching it by the way. I would if I was smarter but it’s sobering as fuck not knowing any answers while these spotty virgins are smugly getting everything right. At least with Mastermind it was a specialist subject so you’d expect them to know the answers. These nerds know everything about everything though. From chemistry compounds to Ancient Greek philosophy and everything in between. The only things they don’t know are stuff that normal people do. Like sports questions or music, or movie trivia. In fact. I’d smash these nerds all over the place if the questions were on those. Like in this one, I only got one right but they didn’t get it. “Which 1990 Guy Ritchie film…” and I shout out straight away “Lock Stock!!”. I was right, but in fairness it could just as easily have been “Snatch” for all I knew. I took a shot and it landed. So fuck you Shelbyville Pickford. Friday Oct 22: Mo actually goes on the record with Sky saying he struggles to imagine playing for another club and the thought of ever playing against Liverpool makes him really sad. He looked pretty uncomfortable talking about it but it was clearly pre-arranged that they could ask him about it. That’s how these things work, the reporter knows beforehand what subjects are off limits and it seems to me that this is Mo’s agent putting the ball in the club’s court. It’s not the first example of it either, there have been a few things Mo has said and done recently that seemed like a power play in his battle with the club over his new contract. By saying he never wants to leave and he’d like to stay here until he retires he’s backed the club into a corner now. We’ve lost players in the past because they wanted to go elsewhere. Alonso, Suarez, Mascherano, Owen, Torres, Sterling, Coutinho…. the club generally didn’t get blamed for those departures because the players wanted out. If Mo leaves because they didn’t give him a contract befitting a player of his standing, fans aren’t going to go for that at all. I don’t see how this deal doesn’t get done now. The interview overall was fucking boss though. We’ve been saying it on the pod all season but you can see Mo’s got the eye of the tiger this season. He kept talking about how “I don’t like to hear we are underdogs. We aren’t underdogs, we are Liverpool”. He said it a few times and I definitely think the lads felt slighted by everyone talking about City and Chelsea, and even United just because they spent a few quid and brought Ronaldo back. All that pre-season lack of respect from the pundits about our title chances has defo pissed him right off. One day, when there’s a documentary made about his time at Anfield he’ll be sitting back talking about all this and he’ll be like… Hopefully he can follow up on what he did at Old Trafford last year and we see that Mo rather than the one who stinks the place out there and spends most of the game in Luke Shaw's pocket, nestled next to a Big Mac. I'm dreading Sunday. Not because United scare me or because I think they're any good. They're pretty average but they have loads of players capable of producing something out of nothing. I expect us to dominate the game but that's the only prediction I'll make, because domination doesn't always equal success against this United side. They rely on moments. Along with the trip to the Etihad I hate this fixture more than any other. Unlike the Etihad trip though it's not because of any fear of the opponent, it's the fear I have that we won't play the way we can. We're miles better than United but that means fuck all in this game. They've been miles better than us countless times coming to Anfield but we were often able to raise our game, ride the emotion of the atmosphere and turn them over. That could happen on Sunday for them, or we could go there and play the way we can and snot them all over the place. I honestly have no idea what to expect though. I just want it over. ….and that was the week that was.