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Monday Nov 1: There’s an interview with Suarez on UEFA.com where he spoke about when he TWICE wanted to leave and that Brendan and Stevie talked him out of it. We knew about the Arsenal thing, but turns out he wanted to leave the summer than Kenny was sacked and Brendan had to call him in Uurguay and give him a big sales pitch to get him to stay. Fucking hell, he’d only been here five minutes and he was wanting to go. This is arguably worse than him wanting to go to Arsenal that time. Why the fuck did he leave Ajax two join us in the first place if he was going to be wanting to leave a year later? It’s not like he joined a good team and we suddenly went shit. The summer he first wanted out we’d just won one cup and lost in the final of another. And although he was boss, he was nowhere near as good as he ended up a couple of years later. He was too good for us when he eventually did leave. He wasn’t too good for us the other two times though. He’s gonna do something mental on Wednesday, I can feel it. He’s either banging in a hat-trick or he’s getting sent off for trying to chop Robbo in two. Also today, Spurs sacked Nuno. What’s that, ten games? What exactly has happened in ten games to make them think any differently about him than they did when they hired him, because this is pretty much what most people expected. He’s a counter attacking manager who doesn’t play good football. This shouldn’t be any great surprise to Spurs. Daniel Levy is a fucking bum. He might be great at refusing to be low balled on players, but he’s shit at everything else. Tuesday Nov 2: Simeone says he won’t shake Klopp’s hand after the game tomorrow because he doesn’t believe in it. Apparently it’s a “British thing” and it’s phoney. He’s such a piece of work that fella isn’t he? His dedication to the shithouse craft is admirable though in its own way. Klopp says he wasn’t aware of Simeone’s policy on handshakes and if he had been he wouldn’t have approached him for one. Fuck that. If I was Klopp tomorrow night, with about 30 seconds left I’d be going to stand in the tunnel to cut him off. I’d extend my hand, and if he didn’t take it he’d look like a bellend, and if he did I’d do this…. Meanwhile, Conte is the new Spurs boss and Newcastle are trying to get Unai Emery. Conte is too good for Spurs but that doesn’t mean he’ll do a good job. He’s going to need money to spend and by all accounts they’re skint. They’ll be better than they have been under Nuno but the best they can hope for is to finish above Arsenal. Right now I wouldn’t even bet on that as Arsenal are getting better. Emery would be a massive risk for Newcastle at this moment in time. In the summer, sure. But right now they’re in a relegation dogfight. I can’t see Emery coming in and getting them out of the shit, so I absolutely hope this happens. Short of us winning the title or CL, nothing would make me happier this season than Newcastle going down. Wednesday Nov 3: L 2 Atletico 0. Well that was a lot less eventful and a lot more routine than I expected. There were no Suarez fireworks, Simeone was subdued and we basically just put them over our knee and spanked them. We’ve thrown away two goal leads a few times this season but even before the sending off I never felt like there was any chance of that. We had the bit between our teeth and it just looked to me like Atletico knew there was nothing they could do about it. Even their shithousing was half arsed. It was one of those fast starts we often have in these games, when we just blow the opposition away with the speed and intensity of our play. Mo and Sadio were on fire and we had proper quality coming in from the two full backs all night. Trent made two goals but on the other side Kostas put some fucking boss balls in too. The midfield dominated the game and Joel and Virg barely gave Suarez a sniff. The sending off was hilarious. That was the very definition of ‘what goes around comes around’. All these years of their manager and players acting like twats and showing no respect to officials or the rules of the game. And then one of them is getting a yellow card but it gets upgraded to a red because he acted like a twat with no respect for the officials. Beautiful. As I said in the report, I was totally fine with the booing of Suarez during the game but I hated it when he was subbed. Proper small time, Soccer AM style shit that was. Like the shouting of “SHOOOOOOOT” whenever Virg or Joel got the ball in their half. It wasn’t a European night atmosphere, it was a bit weird. Presumably because the stakes weren’t so high. We were pretty much through regardless of what happened and because of the lack of any edge maybe it took some of the intensity out of it. Plus the fact the game was so comfortable. We’ve won the group now because Porto drew in Milan. Hopefully Porto can beat Atletico and nick second, but I can’t see it. We might need to give them a helping hand by losing at Anfield. I don’t think we’ll do that because of the prize money at stake, but one thing we defo should do is give Big Nat a run out in that game because he’s earned that. Thursday Nov 4: Jesus fucking Christ, this Torres love in is nauseating. LFCTV fucking love him don’t they? There’s a big interview with him on there and the club social media have been loving all the behind the scenes stuff with him posing for pictures with Elliott and Kenny. It will never sit well with me how he’s embraced but Owen is virtually black balled. I don’t have any affection for him but I don’t dislike Torres anymore either. This fawning over him and attempts to re-integrate him into the “LFC Family” doesn’t sit right at all. He was here five minutes, he won fuck all and he downed tools before leaving for another English club. All this prodigal son shit is just not right. And what's with his fucking massive neck and shoulders these days? Meanwhile, there’s a story today that we’re battling United to sign a kid from City who has been labelled the new Phil Foden. He hasn’t signed a contract with them yet and that has put us on alert. Barca want him too apparently, and presumably if he’s that good then every other top club will want him as well. James McAtee. I’ve never heard of him to be honest. He’s 19 so he should be knocking on the for now but he’s only made one sub appearance in the league cup. He’s gonna end up at Dortmund isn’t he? They always do. I haven’t read much from Stevie Nicol in a while but I stumbled across one of his notoriously flaming hot takes today. Speaking about our current midfield issues he said “100 per cent I would take either Rice or Kalvin Phillips. I’ll tell you what, I’d take Doucoure from Everton.” Rice will cost £80m at least so that’s pie in the sky. Phillips wouldn’t be much cheaper either, but Leeds would not even consider selling him until next summer. And Doucoure?? Fuck me, if he was somebody we wanted (which at one time he apparently was) then we would have signed him when he left Watford. Everton would rather go bankrupt then accept a penny from us for a player so why even mention that? Come on Stevie lad, fucking hell. Friday Nov 5: Still, there are worse takes than Nicol’s. The Spanish press are claiming Klopp wants to sign Eden Hazard. Honestly, this is almost as bad as the Pogba story from last week. I say almost, because at least Hazard can play. But he’s on upward of 400k a week and has a terrible fitness record since leaving Chelsea. And from what I recall he missed a fair bit of time when he was there too. He’s also pushing 30, so this is right up there with the “least FSG signing” you could possibly come up with. Klopp’s presser was quite interesting today as he singled out Bowen and said “I like him a lot”. We were heavily linked with him over the summer so naturally now people will put two and two together and come up with Bowen in a red shirt. I’d say this makes it much less likely. If he was planning on signing him he’d keep quiet about him, surely? He also said Bobby’s hamstring is serious and it will be at least four weeks. That means it’s going to be at least six. I’m not too concerned as long as we can get him back to full speed in time for January when we lose Sadio and Mo. Bobby has been contributing a lot so he’ll be missed, yet weirdly I just have this feeling that Divock is going to step up and do something, and I’m also curious to see what Minamino could do in that role when surrounded by the actual senior lads rather than the league cup side. Today was a good day. It’s very rare an opportunity presents itself when you can use a famous TV or Movie line in normal conversation, but one fell into my lap today. I was on the phone to my mum and she said “Your dad went for his booster jab yesterday but he wasn’t sure it worked as he didn’t feel it. Just a tiny prick” I was in there immediately with “I know he is but he’s still my dad”. Del Boy would be proud. It reminded me of the time my mate Chris (who hosts the midweek TLW pod) lost his Pulp Fiction themed wallet. He knew he must have left it at the gym so he rang them up and they asked him could he describe it. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to put on a Samuel L Jackson voice and say “it’s the one that says Bad Muthafucka” but he shit out and I’ve never let him forget it. ….and that was the week that was.

I’ll kick this off with the mancs, who ran away with the ‘El Sackico’ against Spurs. It’s funny because the first time I heard that expression I thought it was daft because I honestly didn’t think Nuno was actually under that much pressure so early in the season. Turns out he was. Either that, or losing badly to this United side is seen as a sackable offence all on its own. Daniel Levy should be sacking himself as well as Nuno though as he was the one who hired the fella even though virtually everyone else was thinking “what the fuck is he doing appointing him?”. Nuno went in there and did what he does. He tried to set Spurs up like Wolves and in time he probably would have done just that. Of course, Wolves were boring as shit and could only really play on the counter attack. And when teams got wise to that, Wolves started to struggle and Nuno was moved on. None of this is a secret though. So absolutely none of this mess at Tottenham is down to Nuno Holy Spirit. Not even the tiniest bit. He is who he is and nothing he’s done there should have taken anybody by surprise. Levy fucked up and it’s cost him a fortune because not only has he had to pay Nuno off, he’s now had to throw a load of money at Conte to replace him. Turns out he’s not the “shrewd businessman” he’s portrayed as. That reputation clearly isn’t based on business acumen, it’s based on just being a stubborn cunt who won’t budge on transfer fees. The irony is, as each week goes by he probably wishes he’d rinsed Man City out of £140m and got rid of Sir Harold of Hotspur because the fella doesn’t seem to have any motivation left. For all the (deserved) criticism they've had, United only have to be reasonably well organised and set up tactically to win plenty of games because they will score goals. This was a perfect example of that. They were set up better than they were against us but they were also up against a side not even remotely at our level. Spurs are a bit shit this year and, similar to United, they don’t equal the sum of their parts. The amusing thing is that because he’s scoring loads of goals Ronaldo is seen as the only thing standing between United and obscurity. The truth is if you took him out of the team they’d be no better or worse. What they’d lose on the swings they’d gain on the roundabouts. All that’s happened is Ronaldo is scoring the goals now rather than them being spread around like they were before he came. He hasn’t made them better, he’s just made himself the hero that’s wrongly seen as their 'saviour'. Reminder; they finished second last season and third the season before. Ronaldo isn’t making them better than they were. If anything, he’s making them worse. But he looks like the hero and he’s banging in goals and that’s all that matters, right? I don’t usually watch their highlights when they win but I did this time. Not sure why, I think it’s mainly because they’re just absolutely no threat to us so there’s no reason to avoid watching them, especially when the mute button means I can avoid having to listen to their fans. Ronaldo opened the scoring with a brilliant volley. Not spectacular, just clinical as fuck. He then turned provider to send Cavani clear for 2-0. Rashford ran clear to make it 3-0 and the crowd turned on Nuno massively. You could tell he was toast by that reaction. He subbed Moura and the fans went nuts. When that third goal went in it was proper hostile. He looked a broken man afterwards so there was no real shock when he got his walking papers a day or two later. Hoijberg’s interview afterwards was a bit cryptic too. He was basically saying how shit they were and that it wasn’t acceptable. He didn’t say why that was but then goes “I better not say anymore”. It felt like he was pointing the finger at the manager without actually pointing the finger at the manager. I like Nuno. I wouldn’t want to support a team he was in charge of, but he seems like a good guy. He’s made a fortune for a few months’ work so good luck to him. Spurs are a joke, but then other than that spell under Poch they always have been. Moving on, and Patrick Vieira continues to make me look like a bad knobhead as his Palace team goes from strength to strength. They won at the Etihad this week. Of course that’s nothing knew as good old Roy also had a decent record against City. I don’t know what it is but sometimes you just have teams that for whatever reason you find to be awkward as fuck. For us it’s Brighton, for City it’s Palace. Granted, the sending off of Laporte didn’t help but Palace were already ahead by that point so it wasn’t that big of a game changer. Palace fully deserved the win. Zaha was brought back into the side and he put Palace ahead after the busy Gallagher robbed the ball in midfield and sent him clear to finish low past Ederson. Laporte was sent off in first half stoppage time for hauling down Zaha after he’d been rolled by him. Debatable that one as Cancelo may have been in a covering position. Probably not though as Zaha is quick. There was a bit of a kick off at half time as the City players all went for Zaha. He’s usually at the centre of anything like that as he’s a fucking hothead, but from what I saw here Zaha was entitled to be pissed off. That rat Bernardo booted him and when he took exception to it, other City players got in his face, including Jesus. When the half time whistle went Jesus went at Zaha again and others joined in. That whole thing was caused by that Bernardo cunt though. No-one ever seems to talk about what a fucking scumbag he is. He causes murder all the time and nothing ever sticks to him, the little prick. City created openings, as you’d expect, but Palace did what they did at Anfield. We won that game but I seem to remember them making loads of blocks and producing great bits of last ditch defending. City did think they’d equalised through Jesus but Foden was offside in the build up and it was chalked off. Palace wrapped it up with a couple of minutes left when Zaha led a counter attack and although the chance looked to have gone, he kept his head and waited for support, and it ended with Gallagher finishing superbly. He’s been brilliant so far this season and Palace are way better than I expected. Vieira said afterwards that the sending off helped. “The decisions went in our favour. The offside went in our favour. They had a couple of chances and….” zzzzzzzzz. Sorry, nodded off for a second there. Anyway, moving on. I don’t want Chelsea winning games as they’re above us, but honestly, them beating Newcastle didn’t upset me one bit. Firstly because just like last week when they faced Norwich, I didn’t allow myself to entertain even the tiniest possibility they might not win. They were always winning it. Secondly, any time Newcastle lose from now on is going to be seen as a good thing by me. If they lose every single game they play between now and May then fucking brilliant, sign me up for that right now. They need to go down. Newcastle kept it goalless until the break but in the end Chelsea won at a canter with goals by James (absolute fucking corker that one), James again (another corker) and then a Jorginho pen. Chelsea’s full backs are going to score more goals this season than Burnley aren’t they? That jabroni caretaker in charge of Newcastle said he was really pleased with the way they played, even though they only had one shot. If Steve Bruce had said that he’d have been crucified. They’re in a difficult spot currently because it’s going to be hard attracting a top manager and top players there while there’s the chance they’ll go down. That’s why its so important they do go down, just to fuck up their plans for a bit. Prime target Unai Emery knocked them back this week. It looked like that was going through but then he had a change of heart at the 11th hour. The suggestion is he wants to stay at Villarreal who are in the Champions League. Personally I think he saw the tweets from Geordies referring to him as “Toonai Emery” and he ran a mile. The expression I keep hearing is that no-one wants to be their next manager, they want to be the one who comes after the next manager. In other words, they want someone else to do all the hard work and then they’ll come in and spend all the money and get the glory. Also known as “doing a Mourinho”. Eddie Howe now looks like the last man standing and should be announced soon, which put me in mind of this…. Leicester lost at home to Arsenal. Not sure what to make of this. Arsenal are on a good run at the moment but it will be a cold day in hell before I acknowledge they are anything other than a fucking disgrace, so I’ll just put this one down to Leicester laying an egg. Gabriel headed Arsenal in front early from a corner and we then had the obligatory “Arsenal players dancing celebration”. It’s much less of a problem when it’s a) a premier league game, and b) they aren’t bottom of the table. Smith Rowe made it 2-0 soon after as Leicester were all over the place. That was a terrible goal to give away. I blame that Maddison tit. God I hate him. Others were just as responsible but they don’t look like him so they get a pass from me. Ramsdale referred to him as “Madders” afterwards so he can fuck off too. Leicester had their moments but Ramsdale was in inspired form and some great saves. Johnny Evans should have been sent off for doing a Laporte. No, I don’t mean he suddenly declared his allegiance to another country because he wasn’t good enough to be picked by his own. No, he hauled down a striker after being rolled. Unlike Laporte though he had nobody coming around on the cover. Michael Oliver only went with a yellow. Is it me, or has Oliver really fallen off a cliff this season? I don’t think he’s even being given big games anymore. Something’s going on there. Keep an eye on that. Moving swiftly on, Chris Wood put Burnley ahead at home to Brentford and then Lowton headed in a second. Cornet made it 3-0 (brilliant goal) and then he put one on a plate for Gudmundsson who fluffed his lines. Burnley murdered them in that first half and actually played some good football. The impact Cornet has had on their game is incredible. He looks boss him. Ghoddos volleyed in to give Brentford a bit of hope late on but Burney saw it out comfortably. Their first home win since January, which is a big surprise as you feel as though home advantage is one of the few things they have going for them. Che Adams linked one into the top corner from 18 yards to put the Saints up at Vicarage Road. Lovely goal that. Sarr had one cleared off the line and then Adams headed over from about three yards as chances came at both ends. Armstrong wasted five presentable chances and then the one time he hit the target it was deflected wide. Watford created very little but almost grabbed a late draw only to be denied by a sensational save by McCarthy. So Watford have lost 5-0 to us and been thoroughly outplayed by struggling Southampton. This begs the question, just how bad must Everton be? We found out on Monday, but I'll get to that. Onto Sunday first and another win for West Ham. An impressive one too, as Villa Park isn’t an easy place to go and win. Right back Ben Johnson (who I’d never heard of until now) broke the deadlock early when he cut in and found the bottom corner with a low shot. Watkins equalised after being well set up by Buendia but Rice fired in from 25 yards to restore the Hammers’ lead and I have to say, he’s now a really fucking good player. I resisted that for a long time as I didn’t see what the hype was all about, but this year he’s been great. There was a really strange situation when there was a VAR check for two red cards within about a second of each other. Hawes flattened Fornals with a forearm smash and then Konsah hauled down Bowen on the edge of the box. Konsah was sent off but Hawes wasn’t. Of the two, the Hawes one was much worse, not least because there was a covering defender on the Kansas one. Both should have gone though, which would have been hilarious. Then Fornals and Nakamba went in for a 50-50 and Nakamba rolled, and rolled, and rolled. Basically it was like watching Neymar. Fornals was booked but I’d have sent the Villa man off for making such a show of himself. Fornals had the last laugh when he made it 3-1 to rub salt in the wounds. It got worse for Villa when Bowen finished off a terrific move to make it four. Villa are not having a great time and there is talk that Dean Smith is under pressure. They spent the Grealish money and on paper it looked like they’d done well. It can take time for it to gel though and I wouldn’t be doing anything too hasty if I were Villa as he’s done a good job there and there aren’t exactly loads of top managers available. You don’t want to end up with Nuno. Norwich lost again as Leeds picked up a much needed win. They were second best for most of the game but then Raphinha produced a moment of magic to give them the lead. Such a good goal that, his first touch had that stamp of “I’m fucking boss me” all over it. Only really good players make it look that easy. Just looked like Salah or Mahrez the way he took that. Norwich equalised when Omobamidele headed in from a corner but Kabak lost the ball trying to do a Bergkamp turn 30 yards from goal and Rodrigo won it with a shot that squirmed past Krul, who should have saved it. Kabak has actually been better running with the ball than he has defending this season. It’s a shame for him he wasn’t with us a bit longer to be mentored by fellow ex Schalke defender Joel Matip. ‘Big Bird’ has clearly shown him how to dribble but didn’t have enough time to teach him to defend. Basically it’s Empire Strikes Back when Luke has to leave Yoda before he’s completed his training. Finally, another loss for Everton as they went down 2-1 at Wolves on Monday. The first thing to say about this is their social media team needs firing for putting THIS out on Monday afternoon…. I mean, leaving aside the fact they were setting themselves up for a massive fall, it doesn’t even make sense. If they were playing a team known as Ghosts then sure, Ghostbusters works. But what the fuck have Wolves got to do with Ghostbusters? Where’s the link, what am I missing? Are they gonna do this all the time now? God I hope so. Can't wait for "Cockbusters" when they play Spurs. Then there's “Hammerbusters” “Leedsbusters” “Gunnerbusters” “Cheatbusters” (Man City) “Beebusters” “Hornetbusters” Oh wait, they already got stung on that one.... .....oh fuck off, I'd like to see you do better! I think what annoyed me most about it is they left the little ghost in the logo on the ‘O’. At least make the effort of changing that to a Wolf you fucking lazy bastards. I know the whole idea was shit but it’s even worse if you don’t fully commit to it. I knew they’d lost this game as soon as I saw that tweet, and sure enough they quickly found themselves 2-0 down as Wolves fucking pulverised them in that first half. It should have been four or five as Everton’s performance was almost as criminal as Calvert-Lewin’s suit on MNF. Raul Jimenez looks back to his best and he took the piss out of that Everton defence all night. The second half saw Wolves ease off a bit but they still squandered some great opportunities to extend their lead and then ended up hanging on a bit after allowing the dreadful Iwobi to pull one back. The last 20 minutes were crying out for Traore to come on and exploit the space Everton were having to leave as they chased an equaliser, but he was left on the bench and Podence came on instead. Traore has really fallen out of favour there. Mo and Sadio are away in January…. just sayin’. Everton were so fucking bad though. Genuinely awful. Booed off at half time by the away end and the chat on their forums is basically Rafa out (he’s ‘Rafa’ again now that ‘Rafael’ isn’t working out) and give it to Big Dunc. Please God yes. It’s mad how my reverse jinxing worked last week though. Iwobi scored this week after me saying he’s the worst player in the league, whereas Gray had a stinker after I praised him and produced one of the worst shots you’ll see when he shot 12 yards wide from 12 yards out. So with that in mind, let’s try it again. That Everton defence is fucking fantastic and they’ve really impressed me. And Richarlison, he’s some player him isn’t he?

I thought these were meant to be difficult to play against? We made this look easy and it had nothing to do with them going down to ten men either. This was over even before then and the sending off probably saved them a real beating. We went easy on them in the second half as we just managed the game and conserved energy. We started much the same way we did at their place and quickly found ourselves 2-0 up. The main difference this time was that Atletico had actually started ok themselves. In the first game they didn’t start playing until they went down by two. This time they had a go from the opening whistle. They played some decent stuff and had the ball around our box quite a bit without really doing anything to test Alisson. Defensively though they couldn’t cope. We were right at it and when Sadio and Mo are in this mood they’re hard to stop. Throw Jota into the mix with his knack for scoring goals (I still say he scores every game even if the numbers say differently) and we’re probably the most fearsome side in the competition. Nobody will want to draw us in the knockouts. The opening goal was brilliant. The little triangles between Trent, Hendo and Mo caused them problems the entire first half. The left back got booked early for fouling Mo and he never looked comfortable after that. He’s the same moron who conceded the pen in the first game. Anyway, the lads worked it around well until Hendo rolled it back to Trent and he crossed for Jota to head in. BT Sport’s analysis of it afterwards was great. You had Ferdinand pointing out how lost the centre back was and what he should have been doing, then Crouchy and Owen are talking about what a striker is thinking in that situation and finally they had a great angle of Trent showing how he was looking to see where Jota was before the ball was even played to him, and then again as he shaped to cross. Just brilliant. Trent is fucking ridiculous. He made the second too, although it’s debatable what his intentions were. Was it or a shot or was he just driving it into an area? Maybe both. Sometimes you hedge your bets by blasting at the far corner knowing someone might get a touch. I think that’s what he was doing because when you look at how he strikes it, it’s not really the cleanest if he’s having a shot. If it’s anyone else I’d just assume it was a mis-hit shot, but because it’s Trent you just don’t know. He really is that good. Sadio started that move and then he finished it. He was on fucking fire. He obviously hates these fuckers because every time he’s played them they’ve done everything possible to try and get him sent off, and at least twice he’s been subbed because Klopp was worried he’d end up with a red card. He was booked in the first half for reacting to a bad tackle and that pissed me right off. That Koke prick booted him three times and also had a little follow up nibble when Sadio was on the ground. The ref booked Sadio for retaliation but did nothing to Koke. He was letting them away with too much early on, especially against Sadio. Then after being too lenient he suddenly went too far the other way by producing a red card that really wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it was a naughty tackle on Sadio and was one of those that deserves more than a yellow but the tackle itself wasn’t quite bad enough to be a red. There’s absolutely no doubt that the ref was giving him a yellow but then he got mad when Felipe wouldn’t come to him. If he was giving him a straight red he wouldn’t have even called him over, he’d have just shown the card and told him to get the fuck off the pitch. Refs call players over when they are booking them and that’s 100% what was happening until Felipe disrespected him and the ref’s ego took over. What he should have done is given him a yellow for the foul and then another yellow for the dissent. Instead he just gave a straight red. That probably means a lengthier suspension, which is probably fair all things considered. Overall I thought the ref was pretty poor but I can absolutely relate to what he did there as I’d be the same. Refs know what horrible fuckers Atletico are and he clearly just decided he wasn’t going to be played by them. What was weird about it was that Simeone didn’t react much and in fact he was fairly subdued all night. I expected him to be bouncing around being a complete twat, as usual, but he wasn’t really himself. He didn’t shake Klopp’s hand at full time though, so at least he stayed true to form there. Prick. As soon as they went down to ten it was obvious what their response was going to be - get Sadio sent off to even the numbers. Within a minute or two Sadio had committed a nothing foul only for their lad to roll around, writhing in agony while they all badgered the ref to produce a second yellow. At that moment it was obvious what Klopp needed to do, which was such a shame because Sadio was fucking killing them. He was flying and they couldn’t deal with him, but that yellow card he had meant he was too much of a risk against these cheating fuckers. Klopp summed it up perfectly afterwards when he said he hated having to do it but he had no choice because all it would take is for one of them to go up for a header and make contact with Sadio’s arm and that would be that. Half time came, Sadio was subbed and Bobby was on. 100% the right call. We started the second half like a team that really wanted to step on their throat. We were flying at them from all angles and it’s a miracle they didn’t concede. Jota had a goal disallowed as he had a toe offside. A real shame that as we were robbed of a sensational assist by Matip. How good was that? He’s fucking boss, I love him. He should have scored himself when he sliced wide from a corner. Jota missed an easy header too. If the third goal had came so early in the second half we might have added a couple more before we stopped playing. It didn’t come though and the final half an hour was mostly everyone just passing it around playing keep ball, and Mo getting it and trying to score. He tormented them all night but the ball just wouldn’t go in for him. It did feel like he was the only one really arsed about trying to score more goals but I was fine with that this time. When we shut it down in the last 30 at Old Trafford I was frustrated as it was opportunity to do something truly historical, and there was also the goal difference to factor in. That might be important after 38 games. This was different. As much as I’d have liked to batter them just because of how horrible they are, it wasn’t really important in the grand scheme of things. Goal difference was irrelevant and whether it was 2-0 or 5-0 didn’t really matter much did it? And with West Ham away at the weekend the priority was conserving energy and avoiding injury. Fabinho was given a well earned rest (he was fucking awesome) as Thiago made his return. I’ll be honest, Thiago in games like this winds me up. I feel like he needs to be playing in high stakes games where the result is in the balance, otherwise he’s just so fucking casual. He almost gave a goal away through the kind of sloppiness we’ve seen from him before in similar circumstances. It’s good to have him back though, especially with Curtis having joined the walking wounded after taking a finger in the eye in training. Ox hurt his knee too, and even though he was able to continue for a bit he was subbed as a precaution and had an ice pack on it at full time. He played well though and I’m pleased for him. We need him to regain some confidence because he’s going to get minutes. The other midfielders are so prone to picking up knocks that Ox is going to play a lot more than would have been expected. I’d definitely start him at West Ham as he needs a run of games to get going and it looks like he might be coming into form, Great to see Big Nat thrown on for the final few seconds too. That was clearly Klopp’s way of rewarding him for getting us into the competition with his heroics last season. Without what he (and Rhys Williams) did we’d be in the fucking Europa Conference League. Bobby going off with a hamstring was the only real downer on an otherwise great night. We’re probably looking at 4 weeks minimum with that. At least there’s an international break in there so he won’t miss too many games. I feel like Divock is going to do something in the next few weeks during Bobby’s absence though. And by something, I mean something good. Not something like the stoppage time shot he launched into the back row of the Kop! So four games, four wins and the final two games don’t really mean anything now. The prize money at stake means we won’t see Klopp just throw the games but there is a balance that needs striking here. We lost Bobby in this game and that shows what can happen at any time. We lost Jota for two months last season when he played in a dead rubber. The prize money is important but keeping our first choice players fit is more important. Honestly, I’d play something resembling the league cup side against Porto, not least because it might fuck over Atletico’s chances of qualification. I’d love to see them go out, partly because they’re fucking horrible and partly because it means there’s no chance we’d have to play them again. We’ve beaten them twice now so we’ve avenged what happened a couple of years ago. We’re clearly better than them and if we played them later in the competition I’m sure we’d beat them again. I’d just rather not have to as it’s annoying as fuck having to watch their antics. These games aren’t enjoyable. I haven’t really mentioned Suarez yet. You’re probably thinking I’m going to go off on one about the treatment he got from the crowd. I’m not, although I do have some thoughts on that which I’ll get to shortly. My main grievance with the crowd was “Ole at the wheel” again. Just fucking stop it. We’re playing against the Spanish champions, a fucking horrible team that we have a recent beef with. Just what the fuck has Solskjaer and United’s situation got to do with anything? European nights at Anfield are about us. No-one else, and certainly not an irrelevance like this current United side. So that pissed me off, not least because it happened several times. We’re better than that. Or at least we used to be. Now we’re booing ex-players, singing about Man United and yelling “shoooooooooot” when our centre backs have the ball forty yards from goal. In terms of big European nights this might be the worst showing in years. Even the “Simeone, you’re a wanker” one. I don’t recall us ever doing that chant before for anybody. Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels like a chant everyone else does and we don’t. Not a big deal by any means, just something I thought I’d mention as I was surprised by it more than anything else. The Suarez stuff riled me to some degree though. The booing of him at kick off and throughout the game genuinely didn’t bother me one bit. Honestly, it didn’t. I was fine with it as it’s fair game. He’ll do whatever he can rot gain an advantage and so should we. If booing him gets in his head and throws him off his game (which it kind of looked like it may have based on how ineffective he was), then that’s a smart move. It’s our equivalent of him diving to get someone booked. He isn’t going to approach the game any differently because he used to play for us and we shouldn’t either. When the whistle blows, he’s the centre forward for the snidiest, most horrible team in Europe and he’s as snidey and horrible as any of them. So if you want to boo him, go ahead. What I didn’t like was when he was subbed and loads booed him off. Not everyone, most people applauded him, but the booing was very audible. The game was won, his race was run and this was probably the last time he’ll play at Anfield. And some people took that opportunity to boo him other than just use it as a final opportunity to either show appreciation for the fucking incredible things he did when he was here, or to just keep quiet and say nothing. I mean, each to their own I guess and I don’t expect everyone to feel the way I do about it. I just think it was pretty small time and it made me a bit sad. I felt the same when McManaman and Owen both got grief when they came back too though, so much as I’d like to say this is a new trend it really isn’t. It was interesting when he thought he'd scored to make it 2-1 and he didn't celebrate. Was that because of where he was, or because they were losing and the goal wasn't especially significant? Maybe both. Doesn't really matter now, the main thing was it was offside and didn't count, because nerves would have started jangling if that had stood. Star man isn’t easy as everyone was good but no-one was really great because they didn’t need to be. Kostas caught the eye with another lively display and some quality crosses. Joel was back and looked fucking boss. We even had a ‘Matip Moment” late on when he was adjudged to fouled a player when he clearly won the ball, and he went into full on “Toddler tantrum in the supermarket mode”. Fabinho was class too, as was Hendo. I’ve already mentioned Ox and I was encouraged by him. Mo didn’t score but looked razor sharp, Sadio was brilliant but only played half the game. So I’ll go with Trent I think, although I don’t feel strongly about it and could easily be talked out of it. Onto West Ham now then. Tough game but we’ve done much better away from home and we’ve had some good performances at their place recently. Losing Bobby is a blow but we should be able to cope with that. Having Fabinho back is massive as he’s like a giant security blanket that just makes everyone feel safer. I feel pretty good with a midfield of Fabinho, Henderson and then any one of the other options. Take Fab or Hendo out and it’s a different story. If we can just pick up another three points we can head into the final international break very pleased with our work so far. It might not be enough to go top, depending on what Chelsea do, but a win at West Ham would be a fucking good result considering their current form. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold (Phillips), Matip, Van Dijk, Tsimikas; Fabinho (Thiago), Henderson, Oxlade-Chamberlain (Minamino); Salah, Jota, Mané (Firmino, Origi):