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Whenever I see Ferguson these days, I immediately think of this.

Before you lot totally take the piss out of me and call me an old cunt, hear me out! (and then call me an old cunt) I was walking back with my eldest from his hurling match a few Saturdays ago and walked past the junior soccer training that my lad used to do a few years back and Cillian went over to say hello so I followed over too. One of his old coaches called me over. He’s around 62 or 63 but in good shape. An ex League of Ireland player with Shelbourne and has kept himself relatively fit. He said they had walking football and asked my age. I said “fuck off I’m only 51” and he said it was for over 55s but they are not getting enough people so do I fancy coming down? I again told him to fuck off, but he said just give it a try. That was a month ago. Last night I relented and went down. Holy shite the craic I had. 12 blokes in their 60s of all shapes and sizes, but all good players who played in their youth from all levels up to League of Ireland, and me and another bloke in our early 50s. It’s on an 8 a side pitch so decent space to be able to enjoy the ball, but people still on you quick. We just use a 5-a-side goal and you can only shoot from within 10 metres, so passing and skill and touch are to the fore. You can’t run, but a jog to get back in position is fine, and the walking pace is fast walking that is bordering on a jog. Lots of piss taking. And exercise wise, I have a fitbit and I checked my steps before and after, and for the hour I did a little over 11,000 steps. So good exercise too. So laugh away, but I’m a convert. I can’t wait for next Monday already.

A return to club football and another very busy period prior to the next international break. In the news this week, FIFpro (the global players' union) and the European Leagues (representing 39 leagues in 33 countries) have brought about a lawsuit against FIFA, arguing that the governing body has prioritised its own events in order to monetise them, while also threatening players and teams who try to pull out. Too many games in the calendar means very little chance for players and coaches to re-energise, and many more games where no-one is at their optimum. While I agree that players are playing too many games these days (it's a much higher level of intensity and there is usually more at stake compared to say the 70s and 80s when some players were also playing a lot of games), it also feels like we've barely played any league games. 7 games out of 38, and we're in mid-October. We welcome the lunatic asylum to Anfield. I think they have more points and goals than signings this time round, but it's hard to tell. It's also hard to tell whether they've return to the median or whether they are outperforming their stats. Under Poch, they did seem to create a lot of chances without converting them. Under their latest head coach Maresca, they have been creating a lot of chances but also converting a lot of them. They've also been quite open in midfield and defence. Their summer transfer activity consisted of trying to force out a lot of their home-grown players to book the whole transfer fee while signing new players on the never-never and only having to book the amortisation for PSR purposes. They also sold the hotel to themselves and tried to sell the women's team to themselves too. The PL and UEFA have actually been wise to the ruse on the whole. Amongst the incomings are Neto from Wolves (injury-prone but dangerous), Felix from Atletico (still yet to show he's the new Kaka), National Trust Estate from Leicester (part of the PSR fiddle than a player they actually needed), plus Sancho on loan from the Mancs (again a player they didn't actually need). Palmer has been their breakout player since the previous summer, far and away their best signing. Cucurella and Fofana both picked up their fifth yellows of the season so miss out through suspension, and they are checking on the fitness of Madueke, Colwill and Chukwuemeka. No idea on the rest. For us, Ali will be missing for the next month at least so we will have Queef between the sticks. He has proved to be more than a capable deputy over the years, and it's understandable that he wants to be a number one. Ali is the clear number one but he's also very injury prone hence why we did the deal for Mamardashvili. We also have Jaros as back-up, who if he was a regular at club level would likely be first choice for his country too. Macca played against Bolivia so his little knock prior to the international break may well have cleared. Mo and Virg got to put their feet up this week, and Curtis returned early from international duty due to the birth of his daughter. The other internationals got a fair bit of game time and chipped in with a fair few goals to boot. That means that as I write, Ali and Harvey are the only absentees. Not heard any updates on Fede's situation. Slot will want to avoid the shitshow against Forest that was the aftermath of our last return to domestic action after an international break. We'll of course need to be wary of Chelsea's attacking threat but we have enough to hurt them like we did last season. It needs the right level of control and intensity, and the substitutions need to have more impact in terms of being effective and not hampering the set-up and putting us needlessly under the cosh. How have our previous managers got on in their first home fixture against Chelsea? It's pretty good on the whole. Souness...05/09/1992...Liverpool 2-1 Chelsea (Saunders, Redknapp) Evans...19/03/1994...Liverpool 2-1 Chelsea (Rush, Burley og) Houllier...16/10/1999...Liverpool 1-0 Chelsea (Thompson) Benitez...01/01/2005...Liverpool 0-1 Chelsea Hodgson...17/11/2010...Liverpool 2-0 Chelsea (Torres 2) Dalglish...08/05/2012...Liverpool 4-1 Chelsea (Essien og, Henderson, Agger, Shelvey) Rodgers...21/04/2013...Liverpool 2-2 Chelsea (Sturridge, Suarez) Klopp...11/05/2016...Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea (Benteke) I don't ask for much. Maximum motivation, control, application, attitude and concentration from minute one. 3 points please. Get it done!

Didn't want to put anything on here for a while. Niece's funeral on Thursday, 6 months ago had a lump behind her knee. Biopsy and scan showed it was cancerous and had spread to her lungs and was really aggressive. Spoke to her over a week ago and it had spread to her brain. She was only 20. Absolutely shite.

A nice gesture…

Has become a father

We’ve only beaten teams below us so far.

And this...

VID-20231219-WA0028.mp4.220c08e94eac3270f3c079f415b69cb2.mp4

Sorry Chris, no. When you’ve shared the City with them for a lifetime listening to the lies about our players, their sad little conspiracy theories, their assumption of the role of the victims of Heysel, the chants of murderers, calling us wall-pushers, feeding the egos of Mancs who chant about burning scousers, and the slowly growing number who think it’s ok to make Hillsborough faces-against-fence gestures, then you can call people out.

In regards to Virgil - I'm throwing Sami Hyypia and Jamie Carragher into the conversation. Carragher turned 36 during his final season with us, and Hyypia left a few months before he turned 36. Both absolute defensive legends of the club right up till the end no? Why the reluctance to offer 33 year old Virgil van Dijk a new contract then? He's superior to those 2 in almost every aspect - plus he's got less miles on the clock due to a relatively late start and the year off due to that little cunt over the road. I'll never understand how we've got to this point.

I don't think anyone is. People are, quite rightly, laughing at the exaggerated claims of "the best stadium in the country"; expressing scepticism about claims that it will miraculously transform their fortunes: worrying about the impact it will have on local traffic, etc. If I had to sum up a TLW consensus, it would be "fair play to them, it looks alright on the outside and I hope it helps regenerate the area; but it's not going to be the magic bullet that fixes all their problems".

Back to the Champions League this coming midweek, as we travel to face the first of two Bundesliga opponents in our next two European fixtures. We have a 100% record after two games whereas Leipzig have been beaten in both their Champions League fixtures so far, by Atletico Madrid and Juventus. It's still early days to know how decisive a win could be in the overall picture, but a win is what we must look for as, on paper, the two games after this one are our toughest of this league stage. Leverkusen have made a habit of not losing games over the past 12 months or so, and have an even bigger habit of getting goals very late in games. Real Madrid find a way to get the job done even if they've been made to look ordinary in large parts. Leipzig currently sitting joint top and undefeated alongside Bayern in the Bundesliga, having also handed Leverkusen their first league defeat in well over a year. Marco Rose is the coach, and is another one those who preaches a higher intensity attacking game with plenty of pace and pressing. His earlier career had seen him lower down the Red Bull chain at Salzburg, dominating Austrian football. Then he moved to Gladbach where his reputation built up. Then followed a move to Dortmund in 2021. Despite having Haaland banging in the goals, and players like Reus, Bellingham and Malen chipping in with their fair share, Rose couldn't steer Dortmund away from being a team that scores and concedes an awful lot of goals, and finishes in the top 4 a fair distance away from Bayern, so the coach was only there for a year. He moved to Leipzig in 2022. Leipzig are a club with a high turnover of players each year as they can't compete with the big guns on fees and wages. While it is not exactly sportwashing, the Red Bull set-up is an example of a club hierarchy and a competitive advantage gained by having first refusal of players within that hierarchy. And Jurgen has recently signed up to head up the operation, which seems contrary to who and what he is. Maybe such a role isn't something that he's ever seen a problem with, and maybe he would have liked to have a similar role within FSG's set-up. Two issues with that. We got Michael Edwards back for exactly the same role, and FSG haven't yet added any other clubs to the footballing side. We've spent well over £150m signing Naby, Ibou and Dom from Leipzig, and have been tentatively linked with a couple of their current squad too (the likes of Lukeba and Openda, and maybe even Sesko). Reds old boy Gulacsi is still between the sticks for them, and they brought back Simons on loan from PSG. They've added Nusa from Club Brugge as well as Geertruida from Feyenoord, who is obviously a player Slot will be more than familiar with. At one point, I thought we might be looking at him as a Gomez replacement when it looked like Joe might be leaving in the summer. Sesko and Openda are their main goal threats, but they have plenty of options we need to be wary of. No sloppiness. Something more akin to the last 80 minutes or so against AC Milan is what is required here. Ali will be out, and Harvey is still to step up full training. Diogo picked up a rib injury against Chelsea but hopefully it's just bruising and soreness and not a fracture. No idea about Fede but I hope he's available as an option. I would rather we didn't have to go to the well for this game, but at the same time we cannot take it lightly just because the Arsenal game is coming up. Play to get the job done with the minimum of fuss. How have our previous managers got on in their first game against Leipzig? The club in its current guise didn't exist before 2009 after buying the playing rights to another club (SSV Markranstädt), so we have no real history with them. We have met them in the Champions League before though, and due to Covid restrictions, both ties were played at the Puskas Arena in Budapest. Shankly...N/A Paisley...N/A Fagan...N/A Dalglish...N/A Souness...N/A Evans...N/A Houllier...N/A Benitez...N/A Hodgson...N/A Dalglish...N/A Rodgers...N/A Klopp...16/02/2021...CL Round of 16, 1st Leg...RB Leipzig 0-2 Liverpool (Salah, Mane) I don't ask for much. Maximum motivation, control, application, attitude and concentration from minute one. 3 points please. Get it done!

Ferguson avoided Old Trafford and showed up at Aberdeen this weekend, which is very on brand I'd say. In fairness though why would you watch them if you're no longer being paid to do so?

But Sir Alex? Did you not quit when the Glazers came in, financially exploiting the club and risking its future?

He had to draw the line somewhere

Here's one of him playing against Pele in the NASL. I showed him this photo and he was just like "oh yeah. Pele, he was a dead nice fella". Like he was some fella he knew from his local.

Cole Palmer looks like the simpleton novice sidekick of a detective monk in a medieval murder mystery.

They need to take Gary Neville off our matches. That big “ooooohhh” at the end when Chelsea had a chance. Hahahaha. The felt tip muzzied little Manc meff.

I'm in my 40s and zero interest in drugs. The grimmest shit I've seen is 50 year old men sniffing coke in a local pubs bogs. They paid all that cash to become a more enhanced version of the utter cunt they are. To each their own but I do think coke is a scourge.

I can see you've not spent much time on the GF.

Anyone else watch that about 50 times?

Boedean's in Camden Town. Sausages were fucking lovely. Smoked bacon (not usually my preference, but really nice here) and smokey barbecue beans.

It's really that simple though isn't it? If we take them out of the team now, would we be better? No. Give them new contracts then. If they start showing signs of being shadows of their former selves, then bring in other members of the squad to replace them. We have that benefit now. And start the search for their eventual successor soon after. Virgil still gives you 8/10 every week. A slight dip in theory to him giving you 9/10 every week from 2019-2021. Hardly a reason to look for a replacement. Konate can regularly serve up a nasty looking 5/10. It's truly baffling that this thread is 7 weeks old and we are no further along. We are, however, now only 11 weeks away from them being able to openly talk to other teams.

Baklava

It’ll take more than pink cocaine and the knowledge that all the cool kids are doing it to make me jump of my current wagon. I’d rather have a biscuit and early night.

Excellent listen as usual. I met Paddy this morning in Manchester Airport. Even more handsome up close!

Some of our fans are proper ugly bastards.

His assistant had to pull him off the pitch at the end. I reckon he was making a beeline for the ref. Baldy agro ello ello

I've always been from the ' If you are going to get sent off, get your moneys worth ' school

Finished dinner time today so made a lasagna.

Funny. I always thought he looked like proper cunt.

You’d imagine that it’s now going to be very tough for Spurs to qualify for the Champions League this season.

Mane, Gini, Milner and Henderson were all declining - while Ox, Thiago, Keita and Matip were ready for the glue factory. These are undeniable truths. Virgil is one of the best central defenders in world football still, and Mo is consistently producing numbers that players 8 years younger than him can only dream of. Also undeniable truths. They are not regular players. They should not be treated like regular players.

So we believe him now when he says they’re having talks but not earlier when he said they hadn’t? The effort some go to defend these owners makes Johnny Cochran look incompetent.

Great foul by Ibou

Great to see Jocky looking so well again. He visited his old club Partick Thistle yesterday with his brother:

None of the supermarkets by me sell Irish soda bread anymore so I decided to have a bash at making it myself. Not bad for my first attempt, and it tastes really good too. Piss easy to make as well, just the clean up afterwards that’s a bit of a pain in the arse.

Ghost says Boo!!

Philly Burkhill.

Harry Redknapp on the radio saying Gerrard or Lampard should have got it because managing England is easy.