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Bit of a strange one. For long spells I thought we looked really flat and lifeless, but we had enough quality to get the job done easily enough despite the early scare. All things considered, this was probably as good as we could have expected and there were plenty of positives to come from it. The young lads did well, Fabinho, Virgil and Konate got a run out which will help them with their sharpness, Bobby and Taki are back just at the right time, and of course we’re in the hat for the next round. So I’m happy enough overall. The team selection was odd to say the least but I think we all expected it was going to look a bit mad because of the crazy week we’d had. The training ground closed, loads of players reportedly testing positive, an u18 game cancelled because we were going to need some of those players for this game. We didn’t know who had COVID and who didn’t so predicting the line up was hard. I assumed Virgil, Curtis and Fabinho would play as they’ve recently had it so should be fine. I also thought Alisson, Bobby and Joel would be back. Two of them were in the squad but no Alisson. Hopefully that’s just because he’s excused FA Cup duty and not because he’s still suffering. Other than that though it was anyone’s guess. There had even been rumours that Karius was going to play, but Kelleher and Adrian were both available so we were spared that. In a way I kind of wanted him to play as it would have been nice for him to not have the Madrid game as his final match for us. As it turned out we were strong at the back but really inexperienced up top. The worry you have when playing lower league sides is if they go alehouse and rough you up a bit. Some play like that but these days it’s becoming increasingly rare and a lot of them want to play football, which lessens the chances of an upset. Even when we play a load of kids I’d still back us to beat any lower league side that wants to play football. If they’re big and physical, that’s when we might have problems. Not when Konate and Van Dijk are at the back though and Fabinho is shielding them. Shrewsbury’s attacking players must have been a bit deflated when they saw the team sheet. The defenders will have been relieved though. A front three of Jones, Woltman and Gordon isn’t going to strike fear into any experienced back line, while our midfield was also largely inexperienced, with Morton and Dixon-Bonner flanking Fabinho. The thing with us now though, regardless of who the names are you’ll still know it’s Liverpool because we’ll always play our football. The style is the same, the patterns of play, the movement, the way we’ll move the ball up the pitch and the areas we’ll do it in, none of that changes regardless of who the players are. So we were able to dominate possession and control the game, but we weren’t really creating anything because we didn’t have that thrust up front that you have when Salah, Mané, Bobby, Jota… even Div are playing. I did wonder where the goals were going to come from so when we fell behind I can’t deny that I was thinking we were in trouble. Such a bad goal too. Two minutes earlier we’d had a scare when they got down the left and flashed a ball across the face of goal. Nobody was on the end of that, but when the same thing happened soon after, this time they had someone arriving for a tap in. Bradley needs to stop the cross coming in, but the bigger problem for me was Konate at the near post. That’s your area. Your job is to be in position to cut that ball out. It’s basic stuff. He was just standing and watching it, and then his mistake was magnified because Van Dijk wasn’t marking the lad in the middle. It was just really sloppy and not what you expect from the strongest area of the team. Great moment for the Shrewsbury fans though. Even though they lost easily they had that experience of taking the lead and holding onto it for six minutes or whatever it was. The day before we saw Chesterfield fans going mental after scoring a consolation when five down at Chelsea. I’m not big on the whole ‘magic of the FA Cup’ thing but these are moments that will live long in the memory for lower league fans. I don’t begrudge them that, but fuck me some of them were scummy weren’t they? I’m sure you’ve all seen the video of the drunken pricks in town singing “fuck the 96” but I can’t be tarring the Shrewsbury fans with that same shitty brush. It’s literally a handful of cunts. You can’t judge a fanbase on such a tiny minority as everyone has that. This isn’t an entire away end singing “always the victim” or “the sun was right”. They were very much what you’d expect though. Lower league banter merchants singing about shit support, libraries and even Demba Ba. I mean fucking hell, really? You’re in League One, why are you singing about Steven Gerrard slipping over? Stay in your lane. The “fuck the 96” thing though, I’m not holding that against Shrewsbury fans because loads of them have come out and condemned it and even one of their players tweeted about it and called for them to be identified and banned. So fair play for all that. Hopefully they do get identified and banned. And battered too, ideally. Cunts. Anyway, yeah. 1-0 to Shrewsbury and that’s the thing about cup games against lower league sides; it feels weird when they score. It’s just a different vibe, partly because they have the whole end behind the goal, but also because it means so much to them and it’s almost totally expected. Any time these teams even get into our half there’s a big roar from the away end and it definitely feels different to league games. I was a little concerned because I hadn’t banked on us conceding given how strong we were in defence. Where would the goals come from? Now we needed at least two. Jones would have been my pick as I really felt like he’d take this game by the scruff of the neck and just dominate. He saw a lot of the ball but just wasn’t able to do anything with it and he seemed to be a little frustrated with himself. This will do him good though. He’s hardly played in months and needs games. Getting 90 minutes under his belt will help with that massively and we need to get him into a rhythm now as his season has been very much stop-start. But with him not really doing much creatively it was going to fall to someone else to get us back in the game. Enter Conor Bradley. Yes, the goal was scored by Kaide Gordon, and a quality goal it was too, but Bradley was our most creative outlet all game and ended up with two assists and a star man award. I like him a lot. He’s definitely got something about him and I can see why Klopp talks him up so much. That finish from Gordon though. Such composure. Not many players would have the coolness in the box, but to have it at 17 bodes well for his future. He’s a massive talent but as Klopp pointed out afterwards there’s a lot he still needs to learn and work on. I think his words were “he finishes like an adult but in the rest of his game you can see he’s a kid”. He referenced him not getting involved in the game enough and too often just standing out wide waiting for the ball. These are not big things though, it’s easy to learn that. You can’t coach the talent he has though. The equaliser was a relief because it came so quickly after we had conceded. You don’t want these things to drag out because that’s when the crowd gets edgy and the players can start to panic, especially with so many young lads out there. So getting back level so quickly was big, and it wasn’t long before we were ahead. What a stupid thing to do though. There’s jumping with an arm in the air, and then there’s soaring like Hakeem Olajuwon swatting away a lay up. What the fuck was that lad thinking doing that? Did he say “Get that shit outta here” as he pawed it off Virgil’s head? I hadn’t noticed but apparently he’d almost done the same thing a little earlier when Virgil headed one over the bar, only he just missed it. He got all of this one and David Coote didn’t need VAR to tell him. With all of the regular penalty takers out the responsibility fell to Fabinho and he buried it with aplomb. He was a penalty specialist at Monaco but never gets a look in here. I’d completely forgotten that he was so good at pens but with Mo away for a while he might get other opportunities. So 2-1 and we were back in control of the tie but after a bright start to the second half we got stuck in a bit of a rut. Dixon-Bonner had almost made it 3-1 when he arrived in the box to get on the end of Robbo’s cut back but the keeper made a sensational save to deny him. After that we didn’t really create much despite having all of the ball. We weren’t in any danger at the back other than from our own complacency. Virgil under-hit a back pass that needed Kelleher to race off his line and just about clear ahead of the forward, while Kelleher himself almost tripped over the ball on his own six yard line before recovering to avert potential embarrassment. Other than that we were solid but until you get the third goal there’s always a worry that you reach 80 minutes and then the opponent will start to throw everything at you and then anything can happen. So I wanted the third goal to kill it but there wasn’t much intensity in our play. Understandable, training had been disrupted, some players hadn’t played for a while and it was an unfamiliar line up. Thankfully we were able to get Bobby on and he made it safe with a typically impudent Bobby goal. Again, Bradley was the creator even though he won’t officially get the assist. Fabinho’s ball to him was good but looked like it would just run out of play. Bradley chased it down and cut it back to Konate who looked like he would score, only for his shot to be blocked by the defender into the path of Bobby, who controlled and then immediately back heeled it in before the keeper could get set. That was game over but we added a fourth goal in stoppage time when Fab missed his initial header but then lashed home the rebound from a tight angle. The only negative was that Robbo had to go off injured following a heavy challenge. That was always going to be a possibility as there was a little bit of the “Ole’s” going on with our lads nutmegging them and the likes of Curtis and Bobby bringing out some party tricks. You have to be careful doing that against lower league sides who don’t want the piss taken out of them. Curtis was booted by one of them for the free-kick that led to Fabinho’s goal. He was fine but Robbo wasn’t so lucky. The foul on him had nothing to do with taking the piss. It was a young substitute who was a bit over eager and dived in recklessly. He caught Robbo with his studs either on the ankle or maybe the top of the foot, but it looked like a really painful one and Robbo had to go off even though we were in stoppage time. Hopefully he’s ok for Arsenal this week. In theory we should have all of the missing players back for that bar Trent, who actually has COVID. The others were all false positives, which has caused absolute fucking mayhem on other club’s twitter, especially Arsenal. What’s their problem, the absolute fucking weirdos. The idea we’d deliberately look to postpone a game against them is mental. Why would we do that and forfeit home advantage in the second leg? If they actually believe that ANYONE is scared of them then they’re even more deluded than I suspected them to be. Nobody is scared of Arsenal. Absolutely nobody. Ask Nottingham Forest if they’re scared of Arsenal. Fuck Arsenal, the shower of lightweight, spineless cunts. If we lose this semi final to the I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Klopp or the players. You can’t lose to them. That’s a team that wilts any time there is any pressure on them so we simply have to beat them, even though our job will obviously be more difficult without the AFCON lads, and possibly the best full back dup in the world. We should still have enough because they’re Arsenal. Star man is Bradley, just ahead of Morton and Fabinho. Konate was very good too other than for their goal, and I liked what I saw from Dixon-Bonner too. That’s worth mentioning actually. This is a kid who grew up in London as a massive Red. He played for Arsenal but we came in for him and he upped sticks and moved here to follow his dream. For a long time it looked like he’d never play for the first team but this season he’s really kicked on and this was his reward, starting a game at Anfield alongside players like Van Dijk, Fabinho and Robbo. I’m made up for him, because whatever the future holds he’ll always have this. And he played really well. Just a shame the keeper pulled off an amazing save to deny him a goal. He did himself proud though. And the other thing is Max Woltman and Tyler Morton starting a first team game together. They’re best mates from when they were tiny kids and they’ve been going the match together for years. Imagine playing in Liverpool’s first team with your best mate. Just such a nice feel good story for them. You could even call it ‘the magic of the FA Cup’…… Team: Kelleher; Bradley, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson (Tsimikas); Fabinho, Morton (Norris), Dixon-Bonner (Firmino); Gordon (Frauendorf), Woltman (Minamino), Jones:

I didn’t bother with round ups over the holidays because there were so many games cancelled it was a joke and I just couldn’t be arsed with any of it. I didn’t watch any of the games that were played and part of that was because of the major sulk I had on after we lost to Leicester. I still have that sulk on but I'll crack on with the weekend’s games and I’ll start at the Emirates where Arsenal looked like they were going to ram my taunts back down my throat before reverting to type and going the full Arsenal. As you know, you never want to go the full Arsenal. That being said, there are some mitigating circumstances for what happened and for that reason I won’t go in as hard on them as I usually would. Some of the reaction from their fans afterwards was fucking mental though. It was conspiracy theories galore and they convinced themselves that the refs in this country are taking bungs from Abu Dhabi. I mean, not even I have gone that far and I’ve said some pretty damning things about officials over the last couple of years. I think they’re biased as fuck and they’re also really shit. I think they often give decisions based on what they want to give rather than what they should give. I don’t think they’re on the payroll of City though. Let’s look at this game for example. The decisions they gave and the ones they didn’t. Arsenal got the shitty end of the stick and have a right to feel a bit hard done by. But we’ve seen much worse this season. Shit, just look at what happened to us at Spurs. Then again, I suppose that fits the “refs are working for City” theory so that’s not the best example. The Arsenal penalty that wasn’t given is a really contentious one. I’ve changed my mind on it twice already which tells me that it isn’t a black and white decision and that going with the refs on-field verdict was in fact the only call to be made. If I’m an Arsenal fan I’m not happy about that, but that’s one that really can go either way. Initially I thought no penalty because Ederson got the man and ball together. Then there was an angle that changed my mind because to showed he caught Odergaard’s foot before getting the ball. I was convinced it was a pen and that Arsenal had been shafted, but then I saw the same angle only zoomed right in, and someone was saying it’s actually a foul to City because Odergaard stands on Ederson’s foot. And that’s what I saw when I looked at it. It reminded me of that “red dress / green dress” thing, or that other thing when you look at a word and then you hear that word when you listen to a clip, but if you read a different word and listen to the same clip you then hear the different word. It’s confusing as fuck and I have no idea who fouled who in that incident now. They both fouled eachother I think. So if it’s that confusing it isn’t ‘clear and obvious’ and you have to go with what the ref gave initially. Should he have initially given a penalty? Maybe, but it probably looked like Ederson got the ball so you can’t give that. As for the one City got, well I don’t think that’s a pen either and I don’t really see why VAR ignores one and then gets involved in the other. Stuart Atwell had a good view of it and was adamant that it was a dive, because it fucking was. Not only does Bernardo dive, but it was him that initiated the contact by running away from the line of the ball and instead running into Xhaka. The problem is that Xhaka is thick as fuck and decided to leave his leg dangling and also grab his shirt, which then gives VAR a decision to make. I’d be ok with that penalty if the ref had given it because we know that the bar is supposedly very high for overturns currently (unless you’re Andy Robbo) and that isn’t one that would get over-ruled. My problem here is that this wasn’t ‘clear and obvious’ because Atwell said it was a dive and it clearly is, even though there is also a shirt grab as well. You get a hundred shirt grabs a game and probably 99 of them go unpunished, so it sticks in the throat that City were bailed out here. It’s the point I made repeatedly last season when we were getting fucked by VAR seemingly every week. It isn’t that these decisions are really bad in isolation, but the issue is that there’s no evening out of decisions. Decisions that could go either way are in fact ALL going the one way. Currently everything that can go City’s way is going City’s way. If they were this unbeatable superteam they are being hyped as they wouldn’t struggle to beat Brentford 1-0 and they wouldn’t need the officials to help them out against Arsenal. They’re very good, sure, but this gap has opened up because they’re getting every conceivable break at the moment while we’re getting none (plus we shit the bed at Leicester). The problem is this shit has got them on a roll and the more wins they reel off, the more intimated opponents become and the more the ‘aura’ comes into play. If Arsenal hadn’t pulled an Arsenal and could have taken the three points then the title race would have a completely different feel than it has currently. But Arsenal gonna Arsenal. They were actually really good until they came up against a bit of adversity and then folded like a cheap suit. Gabriel is a fucking moron. Arsenal fans complaining about his sending off need to have a word with themselves. That soft cunt deserved all he got and gave the ref no choice whatsoever. Yellow for dissent (he should have been given one for scuffing up the penalty spot) and then another a couple of minutes later for clattering Jesus. Arsenal could have rallied again at 1-1 and still gone on to win the game, and they should have retaken the lead when Martinelli missed an open goal, but Gabriel’s antics killed them and meant they would have to just hang on and try to hold out for a point. They did for a while but there was nothing more predictable than them giving a goal away right at the end. Absolutely sickening though isn’t it? Fucking spawny, cheating cunts. My contempt for them knows no bounds. Fuck Arsenal too though, the flakey fucking bottle jobs. Next up, West Ham at Palace. Antonio’s close range effort put the Hammers ahead, showing the world why Garth Crooks prefers him to Mo Salah. Lanzini made it 2-0 with a brilliantly taken goal. Remember when he was really good and getting linked with us? That injury he got completely derailed him and now he’s only really a squad player at West Ham. He made it 3-0 from the spot after VAR spotted a handball by Milavojevic. Palace had been enjoying a good spell then too but that killed them. Edouard pulled one back late on and it was no more than they deserved as they’d wasted a lot of chances before that. Olise bagged another one in stoppage time and Mateta was inches away from a last gasp equaliser with an overhead kick. Palace were the better side overall and Vieira said afterwards “We shouldn’t lose the game because we were the better team and…” zzzzzzzz Watford are in trouble and Ranieri is rumoured to be close to the sack already. They’re a funny team. They score plenty but defensively they’re horrendous. They held out for a long, long time against Spurs only to concede in the 97th minute to a Sanchez header from a Son free-kick. Proper kick in the balls for a team down at the bottom, and I’m not liking these developments at Watford because they may end up being the reason Newcastle stay up. Ranieri said “we are alive and we will survive”. Hope so, but we could still see another two managers in charge of them before we know their fate. That Spurs away kit is fucking vile. Can’t believe someone got paid to design that. This might be why Kane was so adamant he wanted to leave this season. If so I don’t blame him. That right back they got from Barcelona is shite too. I heard a Spurs fan on the radio refer to him as “Emerserge Royalier” and I thought, yeah he’s nailed that one. It’s a shame those teams in the bottom four are so bad because otherwise there’d be a genuine chance of Everton going down. They’re fucking hopeless aren’t they? They lost 3-2 at home to Brighton but that scoreline flattered them massively as Brighton bossed it. Alexis Mac Allister put them in front early to start the boos. Dan Burn headed in to make it 2-0 to continue the booing and then Calvert-Lewin missed a pen to crank it up further. Never a pen in a million years that either. Gordon just stood in front of Mwepu and waited for the collision. Cheating little cunt him. Remember his blatant dive in the derby? School of Diving. He pulled one back with a shot that went in via a wicked deflection off Lallana but a stunner by Mac Allister restored the two goal lead. That’s the most goals Brighton have scored in a game all season. A defensive coach whose team can’t defend. Not great that is it? Gordon pulled another one back but Brighton held on. ‘Benitez’ was trending on twitter so I had a look and it was exactly what you’d expect. Blues talking about fat waiters and Reds talking about secret agents. Exactly how this was always going to play out from the second he was hired. That Moshiri is great isn’t he? The only surprising thing to me about this result is that Calvert-Lewin didn’t further antagonise the Blues by dressing up as a nun or something and posting it on Insta. Maybe he’s learning. Burnley are in big trouble after losing at Leeds. They’ve hardly played for weeks and that’s left them right in the thick of it down there because they’d played loads of games fewer than everyone else. Then they lost to the Mancs and Leeds in quick succession and don’t have as many games in hand anymore. Leeds had the better pf the chances but kept missing them. That Tyler Roberts had an absolute Jon Walters. Wretched stuff. Harrison eventually put them in front at the second attempt after Hennesey had saved his initial effort. He’s done fuck all this season after looking pretty good last year. He was getting linked with some big clubs last summer and I even saw one tenuous link with us, which was bollocks because he was still a Man City player and they wouldn’t have ever sold to us. His stock has fallen massively this season though, much like Leeds in general. My boy Maxwell Cornet levelled with a stunning free-kick and they’ll miss him big time now that he’s off to AFCON. Lowton needed treatment after being hit on the head with a bottle during the celebrations. Leeds gonna Leeds. Stuart Dallas is another who hasn’t done anything this year after really making an impression last time around, but he restored the lead late on with a lovely curling effort from the edge of the box. His first goal of the season, although in fairness I think he’s been filling in at the back due to injuries. Dan James wrapped it up with a back post header i9n stoppage time. Huge win for Leeds and a catastrophe for Burnley who couldn’t afford to lose this one. Looking at the bottom of the table and it’s mad that Norwich are still only one win from 17th spot. Of course that win would need to be 20-0 because of their horrendous goal difference, but that’s kind of my point. They’ve scored only eight goals and conceded 42, yet they’re only a point behind Newcastle and Burnley. The widely held perception is that they’re certainties to go down but when you look at the table it really isn’t that straightforward. They are the worst team in the league but all it takes is a result or two here and there and things will look a lot different. I don’t really care who of the four drops just as long as Newcastle are one of them, but I do think it would be funny if Norwich escaped given how we’d all written them off from about September, if not before. Brentford had a big win as they came from behind to beat Villa and leapfrog them in the table. They’ve had a wobble but they’re still grinding aren’t they? Fair play to them. Ings put Villa ahead with a clinical finish on his left foot. Such a good finisher Ings is. Villa felt they could have had a pen when a Brentford defender had hold of Konsa’s shirt for around five seconds straight on a set-piece. You’re never going to get that though, not unless you play for City and swan dive like that Bernardo cunt. Konsa stayed upright the whole time and if you do that you won’t get the decision. Not that I’m even saying it should be, as that happens a dozen times a game and I don’t know how you police it. It’s easy to say give a pen every time it happens and they’ll soon stop, but it’ll cause murder as initially there’ll be half a dozen pens every game. That’s why I think they’re just letting it go now, especially on set-pieces. Wissa equalised with a lovely curling finish on his left foot. That was Brentford’s first attempt of the game and it changed things around completely. All of a sudden they had a spring in their step and Onyeka hit the post after my boy Toney set him up with a back heel. Both teams pushed for a winner and Brentford got it when Roerslev fired him a rebound with seven minutes left. Stevie wasn’t happy and was very critical of the attitude of his players defensively. He said when he first went in there players were putting their body on the line to make blocks but he isn’t seeing that now. Not sure that approach will work. It’s old school and because of Stevie’s legendary standing in the game he commands respect, but the modern footballer doesn’t take well to public criticism and there’s a balance that needs to be struck. Bet there’s players in that Villa squad cursing him after that, even though none of them are even fit to look at Stevie’s majestic fringe. Finally, Monday was great fun wasn’t it? I didn’t watch the game but I caught up on it by taking in “Goldbridge’s best bits” on youtube. Glorious stuff. Phil Jones was back in for Harry Maguire, a move that Goldbridge compared to replacing a bucket with a hole in it with a sieve. Phil Jones was United’s best player, which makes this even funnier. All those ‘stars’ they have and Phil Jones comes out of mothballs and outplays them all. They’re fucking shite but every time they beat some no hopers like Burnley you’ll get some of them clinging to the hope they’re on the way back. Fred and McTominay will look good and all is well. Then the next game they’re shite and they’re all pining for “Donneh”. That Van Der Beek fraud gets better and better with every game he isn’t picked for. Here’s the thing, if he was any good they’d play him. Managers jobs are on the line, they aren’t going to leave out players who are better than the ones they’re picking, so as shit as United fans might think Fred and McTominay (and Matic for that matter) are, Van Der Beek must be worse. Wolves fully deserved to beat them as they created loads of chances. Wolves don’t score though and that was the only reason United stayed in the game as long as they did, the fucking bums. Eventually Moutinho managed to find the net and that was that. The fans booed when Greenwood was taken off and we’re already hearing hot takes about how it “doesn’t look any better than it did under Ole”. It’s fair to say they shouldn’t be this shit with the players they have, but Rashford is doing fuck all, Greenwood seems to have a questionable attitude and Jadon Coutinho must be asking himself just what the the fuck he’s done. The briefing from inside the club against the new manager has started already, with one report claiming players don’t respect him and had to google him when he was appointed as they didn’t know who he was. They don’t like his tactics apparently either. Who the fuck do they think they are? Bet they’re taking their lead from Ronaldo. He’ll be making all kinds of waves because this isn’t going the way he wanted. Mind you, maybe not as he’s happy enough as long as he’s scoring. Where the fuck is Pogba by the way? I don’t remember seeing him since he got sent off against us. *googles* Ah right, when the going gets tough, Pogba fucks off somewhere sunny.

Monday Jan 3: United are proper fucking shit aren’t they? Anyone can lose 1-0 to Wolves as they’re very much a 1-0 type of team if you aren’t quite at it, but by all accounts this should have been 4-0 as Wolves played them off the park. It’s great, the new fella hasn’t been able to get anything out of them that Solskjaer couldn’t, and that has given the “Ole Loyalists” the chance to jump on him and say he isn’t doing any better than their guy. They’re absolutely fucked and it doesn’t look like a quick fix. Until now I expected them to sneak into fourth by the end of the season but I can’t see it. They’re not as good as Arsenal or Spurs. Can you believe that? Damn. Saw some rumours today that Neco wants out. That would be a mistake. Why leave now? His Wales place isn’t under threat as they’re not going to drop him for some League One jabroni just because he’s ‘only’ on our bench. If he wants to go in the summer that would be more understandable, but leaving now when there’s a chance of winning trophies here makes no sense. And the other thing is we should not even be entertaining the idea of letting anyone leave if they might be needed. So that also goes for Joe Gomez who is on the radar of Stevie. Again, we’d have to be fucking mental to let him leave now. I do think a decision is going to have to be made on him this summer and that decision will probably be to sell him. He’s fourth choice and it’s difficult to see how that changes when the other three are all better than him. His situation reminds me of where Ox was a couple of months ago. He doesn’t get many opportunities and when he does he doesn’t look good because he’s not in match shape, which in turn means less opportunities. I like Joe but his future here doesn’t look good right now. I mentioned last week about us supposedly being after some lad from Benfica. I got that wrong, it wasn’t Benfica it was Porto. Luis Diaz. I vaguely remember him from the group matches we had. Isn’t he the lad who played on the right and kept throwing himself to the floor all the time? It’s a no from me, and at £60m I’m confident in saying it’s a no from FSG too. Nothing to see here, move along. Tuesday Jan 4: Fucking hell it really is silly season. Reports online that Klopp wants Eden Hazard “as cover” for Salah and Mané. His wages are probably more than Sadio and Mo combined and he has the fitness levels of Thiago. There’s more chance of us signing Micky Hazard. It’s a shame what’s happened to him though as I can honestly say he’s one of the best players I’ve ever seen. He was fucking incredible, especially when he played against us. He’s finished now though. New Melwood is set to be closed after more COVID cases and we’ve asked for the game to be postponed. The keeper coaches all have it and the rumour is all the keepers do too. Except for one that is. One of them couldn’t even catch COVID. I almost want it to go ahead now though so we can have the “Karius redemption game”. What a story that would be. I know he’s a knobhead but I feel bad for him. No-one wanted him, even on loan, and he’s had to stay here and train even though he’s about fifth in line for a game. Of course he’s being well compensated for it, but money doesn’t solve everything and it might be a tough time for him mentally. Of course it’s also possible he’s not that arsed and I actually hope that is the case. Wednesday Jan 5: City announce a new “luxury hotel partner”. Of course it’s one in Abu Dhabi that the Sheikh owns. DO they have any sponsors that are actually legit? I bet they don’t. It would be nice if this was called out in the media but other than a few journos on twitter (Tariq Panja & Nick Harris especially) and Simon Jordan on Talksport, no-one else really seems to be arsed. It’s almost like they’re all told to avoid it at all costs as it’s never fucking mentioned. It should be mentioned as a caveat in every single conversation about City, but it never is. Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along. *sigh* Ljinders cancels his presser as he’s now tested positive. There were more cases of players getting it too apparently and eventually the EFL agreed to the request to postpone. It’s a farce, everyone has been cancelling games while we’ve played through even without our manager and key players. Then as soon as we ask for postpone a game we’re suddenly the bad guys. The idea that we’d pull a fast one because we’re scared of Arsenal is offensive, especially as we’ve now lost home advantage in the second leg as it’s been switched around. The way Arsenal fans have carried on over this I’m even more desperate to spank the twats now. I’m only sorry that the second leg wasn’t put back a few more days so there would be a chance that Sadio and Mo could get back in time if their nations are knocked out early. Imagine the fume. Meanwhile, we’ve down a £7m bid for Big Nat from a Serie A club and we’re holding out for £15m, which we’ll probably get from a club over here. I’d love him to go to Napoli or somewhere with a really passionate fanbase that will shower him with love and affection. Imagine murals of Nat adorning the streets of Naples alongside the ones of Diego. I’ll be gutted if he ends up at fucking Newcastle, but I could see that happening as they need a centre half and have apparently targeted Tarkowski, who will cost five times what Nat will despite being half the player. West Ham would be alright, I could live with that. The Bobby Moore comparisons would be inevitable but that’s a price he’ll have to pay. Newcastle are being linked with Divock too. Weirdly, there are reports that we only want £7m for him because his wages are so high that’s putting clubs off. I can believe the second part, but £7m?? Fucking hell, he’s worth more to us here as he’s capable of scoring decisive goals that can make us millions. If we sell him for £7m I’ll be disgusted. On a related note, I’ll say again, Michael Edwards need to fuck off now as he shouldn’t be playing any part in any deals we do in or out. Thursday Jan 6: Fuck all happening at the moment so Talksport turned their attention to Newcastle today. Every time I jumped in the car and stuck the radio on they were speculating about who Newcastle might buy. This is obscene really. It’s this kind of shit that normalises (and glamourises) what’s going on up there. We had the initial uproar about human rights abusers buying another one of our teams and how we don’t want “another Man City” but as soon as the dust settles the likes of Sky, Talksport and some of the papers suddenly don’t care about that because they get to talk bollocks about how much money they’ll spend and who they’ll spend it on. Sickening. I mean, if only they dedicated the same attention to City’s continued cheating. For the second day running they announced a massive sponsorship deal with a company owned by their owner, and no-one other than Liverpool fans (and the usual handful of dogged journalists) seem to give a fuck about it. I don’t know what’s happening here though because wasn’t a restriction put in place about this shit as soon as the Newcastle deal happened? Remember, when 18 clubs voted against this kind of sponsorship deal and only two voted for it. Actually I think City abstained, but I may be wrong. Either way, this was voted on and it’s not supposed to be happening. So how come City have announced these two deals? Staying with City, all of a sudden they’ve had a COVID outbreak. Well ain’t that convenient. They’ve avoided it all this time but now they have an FA Cup game at a lower league club and don’t need their first teamers, suddenly they have COVID. I’m not buying it. I don’t think they have had an outbreak at all. I reckon this is bullshit. I reckon they’ve been ignoring positive tests or they haven’t been testing at all, but now to throw people off the scent (there’s been a groundswell of people asking how come they’ve been COVID free) they’ve telling us Guardiola and seven players have it. I wouldn’t believe a fucking word that comes out of that club as there are no depths they wouldn’t plumb to get what they want. Cunts. Meanwhile, Coutinho is close to linking up with Stevie at Villa. It’s a loan deal and it’s claimed five other English clubs are interested. No word on whether we’re one of them. Given our current predicament with Mo, Sadio, Div and Taki all unavailable you could make a case for doing this. We rarely do anything in January and that’s understandable in some ways, not least because it takes players a while to learn how we play and very few will make an instant impact. Coutinho knows how we play though so that’s one problem we wouldn’t have to worry about. We won’t do it because in three or four weeks we’ll probably have everyone available again and won’t need him, but getting him on loan would be a decent insurance policy for the rest of the season. Not gonna happen though and I’m completely fine with that. However, if it did happen I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be absolutely buzzing about it. There’s also an argument to be had that he might be shite now as he’s done nothing since he left. He might be another Torres. Friday Jan 7: Looks like we’ll be fielding a lot of kids in the cup tomorrow against Shrewsbury because the talk is that we’ve got loads of COVID cases. The youth approach worked last time. I had a great time that night at Anfield when we beat them 1-0 but I’m not sure we’ll be able to pull that off again. Most of the lads who played in that one aren’t even here anymore though. That’s the downside to all these loan deals for people like Cain and Clarkson, although Clarkson is back after his move to Blackburn didn’t go well. Maybe he’ll play, but it depends which first teamers are available. Normally I’d say rest everyone but not this time. Any senior player who is fit and available should start this one because they need the minutes. We know how shite we are when we have time off and I want to see them get some minutes before we play Arsenal. Presumably we’ll have Alisson, Bobby and Joel back, so those three should play along with whoever else hasn’t been hit by COVID. In other FA CUP / COVID related news, poor old Man City were still able to field what looked very much like a first choice line up at Swindon tonight. There was one kid in the team but that didn’t stop that bootlicking cunt Henry Winter from tweeting this…. I mean where do you fucking start with that? It’s this kind of enabling shit that allows City to do what they do with the financial doping. Winter should be hammering them for that, but instead he’s giving them ‘kudos’ for ‘just getting on with it’ with their ten full internationals against League Two opponents. What a pompous little twat he is. Honestly, if you were to search his tweets and break them down into percentages, a good half of them will include “Foden” and “Etihad Campus”. He’s like a fucking hype man for Abu Dhabi. You’ve got journals like Nick Harris with a fraction of the followers Winter has at least trying to address the giant elephant in the room(and getting absolute dogs abuse in the replies from the sports washed City mob) but the “nation’s number one football writer” is vying with fat Martin Samuel to see who can blow the most smoke up City’s arse. Absolutely zero journalistic integrity in that fucker. He’ll be the same with Newcastle in a few years if things play out the way they hope, the absolutely dreadful twat. I wouldn’t normally see any of it as avoid City like the plague, but I was at my parents house and they had it on so I caught bits and pieces of the first half. Swindon were fucking around at the back and trying to play out through the keeper, but the keeper had two left feet and didn’t look comfortable. I’m certainly not against lower league teams playing a passing game and building from the back, but there is a price to be paid for that and the days of lower league clubs pulling off upsets against the good teams will soon be over if everyone does that. Cup upsets are usually down to long balls, set-pieces, physical football. The bigger clubs don’t like going to shitty stadiums with muddy pitches and physical opponents, but that hardly happens anymore. The pitches are great, most teams try and play football and generally it’s a lot less likely that you’ll get an upset. I’m not talking about Championship sides beating Premier League sides. They can do it by playing football. League One and Two sides though, they’re not going to beat a top flight side by playing like Ajax. That’s not how the Crazy Gang did it. It’ll be interesting to see what Shrewsbury do this weekend because last time they came here they shit their pants against a team of teenagers. They played like they were up against our first team and paid us too much respect, but from what I remember they were quite alehouse and only threatened from crosses and set-pieces. ….and that was the week that was.