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It is an old age question which usually comes back with a whole range of different responses: What is the true definition of a world class footballer? A high level of skill is naturally one of the most important qualities, however that is only one element. An underrated factor is being able to do the little things that makes your team successful. Having attributes like an insatiable work ethic, and an ability to create goal scoring opportunities for your teammates set you on your way to becoming a complete player. One player I have come to truly admire for what he consistently produces in both these areas is Roberto Firmino. Signed by Brendan Rodgers at the start of the 2015/6 campaign from Hoffenheim, the first few months saw him struggle to find his feet which was only natural for someone transitioning to a new league. It also did not help that the beleaguered Rodgers did not know how to fully play to his strengths. When Jurgen Klopp came to the club, he would have assessed the squad and identified a player he believed could set the standard of what he expected. Firmino was the ideal candidate for that role. Klopp, who saw the talent of the Brazilian first hand in the Bundesliga, made a subtle change by playing Firmino in a more central attacking role. While not known as a natural striker, it was his versatility which caught the eye of the manager. Once he regained his confidence, Firmino's impact was clear, and his good form marked the beginning of the end for Daniel Sturridge as a guaranteed starter. Liverpool fans are always quick to recognise a player who gives their all for the cause and Firmino quickly became a fan favourite for his wholehearted displays and he became the 'face of 'Klopp's Liverpool.' Another impressive quality that became quickly evident about Firmino, was that he played with a smile on his face. He was just as happy setting up a teammate than scoring the goal himself. That is indeed very rare in today's football where ego quite often gets in the way of comradery among teammates. While it isn't seen as a 'sexy stat' for forwards, you only have to look at the number of successful tackles made by Firmino (169) in his two and a half years at the club. That is head and shoulders ahead of his nearest competition (Alexis Sanchez with 128). The 26 year-old's ability to read the game so well also saw him register the most interceptions amongst forwards last year (26). Both statistics show why he is such a valuable player with his ability to defend from the front and why Klopp loves what he brings to the team so much. His ability to mix his "hard graft" along with some traditional samba flair make him a fascinating player to watch. Last season showed that he was a player rapidly on the rise, but this season he has unquestionably progressed to another level. Since his arrival, Firmino was naturally compared to his countryman Philippe Coutinho despite being different types of players, however he has emerged from the shadow once and for all. Firmino has already surpassed his league goals tally from the previous two years, while it takes a player of quality to shine on the biggest stage of club football. However, that is exactly what Firmino has done with seven goals and three assists in the Champions League this season and has arguably been our best player in the competition so far. The beauty about our current front three is that when one of them has a quiet patch then the other two players are ready to fill the breach. All three also have different strengths, which makes it more difficult for the opposition to identify a way to stop the trio. It might be a big statement to make, but taking everything into account, I believe Firmino is currently our most important player. This is certainly not taking away from the brilliant form of Mo Salah this season, however you need someone to set the standard in all aspects of the game and Firmino has done that on a consistent basis. Debate has raged over the past few years about the lack of leaders in the current Liverpool side. While Jordan Henderson is the current captain, constant injury setbacks have deprived him a consistent opportunity to show his worth in the role. His deputy James Milner, is as solid a pro as you would find in football, but he has probably reached the stage of his career where he isn't a automatic selection for the starting eleven. Some would conclude that in the current trend of major squad rotation from one game to the next, that the captains armband has somewhat lost its aura. Taking all that into account, can Firmino be a future candidate to be captain of the Reds? I would personally love that to be the case, however In this day and age managers tend to give the role a to a central defender who can see the whole pitch in front of them, or a central midfielder who covers a lot of ground. So while the Brazilian is unlikely to be given the role, he will certainly continue to remain the heart and soul of this current Liverpool team. Jason Harris @JayHarry80

A good week for us and a bad one for United. Happy days. The gap between us is now just two points while we’ve already virtually booked our place in the last eight of the Champions League. I don’t know who I’d want in the next round but I know I don’t want it to be them. Not because they frighten me, but because I’m really enjoying how open games are in the Champions League and the last thing I want is to be bored rigid for 180 minutes as that shitbag Mourinho lines up with a back eight and has them launching balls up to Lukaku. The sooner they are out the better for all concerned. They face Sevilla next week which should be interesting as the Spaniards might be the snidiest bastards to play in this competition since Mourinho’s own Porto side back in the day. There are very few sides that could make me root for Sevilla, but United are obviously one of them. Besides, I’d quite like another crack at those bastards as we owe them a massive beating and I’m pretty sure we’d give it to them. I feel like we’re destined to face Man City though, if not in the next round then somewhere down the line. It just felt like after the 4-3 the other week that wasn’t going to be the end of the story. If we do have to play them again I’d rather it be over two legs than a one off game, as I feel we’d need the Anfield factor to beat them. City battered Leicester on Saturday as Aguero went goal crazy. De Bruyne produced some amazing assists in this game, as did Kasper Schmeichel. The next time anyone (any by ‘anyone’ I’m mostly meaning my Dad) tells me this fucker is a top keeper and would be a significant upgrade on what we have, I’ll just refer them to this game. I’m not saying he’s bad, just that he’s one of a shitload of keepers who people seem to think are better than the Mig (and by definition Karius too) when they clearly aren’t. This guy is middle of the pack and the family name and occasional ‘starfish save’ shouldn’t blind people to that. Sterling kicked things off with a left foot finish from a yard out. “You can’t question his finishing” said the commentator, referencing the sitter he missed last week. Errrr, yes you can question his finishing. He misses sitters every other week and just because he also puts plenty of them away doesn’t make him a good finisher. He’s a terrible finisher. He’s also a very talented lad with a good football brain who gets himself into some great positions, but he is fortunate enough to be playing with De Bruyne and Silva who put countless chances on a plate for him. I actually reckon I’d hit double figures playing in that team. Fuck off, I’m serious. Vardy equalised when he was played in by, erm, Otamendi (shite him) and beat the keeper with the aid of a slight deflection. It’s not fashionable to say it, but Vardy is fucking boss. He is averaging a goal every two games against the top six sides so he gets the job done in the big games. He’s like a reverse Zlatan. Aguero restored City’s lead when he tapped in another stunning ball from De Bruyne. Schmeichel got both hands on it and probably should have done better. He was beaten far too easily for the third too, letting Aguero’s shot go right through him after his shitty clearance had caused the initial problem. Another shite clearance then presented Aguero with a hat-trick. He had no chance with Aguero’s fourth though. Granted, it went straight down the middle but it was hit with such force and dip that the only way anyone is stopping that is if they’re seven feet tall. Guardiola was signing Aguero’s praises afterwards, which is a bit hollow considering everyone knows he wanted to replace him with Sanchez. Fucking slapped. Anyway, moving on. I was hoping for an Arsenal win in the North London derby because, well, fuck Spurs, but the thing with Arsenal is on the rare occasions you need them to win they’ll always let you down. Always. Flaky bastards. I watched the first half and then switched it off in disgust at how fucking useless Ozil was. I hate him, he’s a massive fucking waster. Arsenal got battered for long spells of the game but somehow only conceded once, and even that shouldn’t have counted as Kane had two hands on the back of a defender and stopped him jumping. Spurs had loads of chances to add to it but didn’t take any and then Arsenal came on strong at the end and should have snatched a point. Lacazette came off the bench and missed two great chances. I really thought he’d be better than he is, but he’s been disappointing. At the end Jack Wilshere wanted to fight Lamela. Here’s something I’d never have typed up until a fortnight ago, but I wanted Wilshere to rip his stupid pretty fucking face off. Fuck Lamela, fuck big chin Kane, fuck Deli Alli and fuck Spurs, the cheating cunts. Fuck that manager and his fat cheeks too. And fuck everyone who’s falling over themselves to kiss their arses just because they got a draw against Juve. The Italian league is shite and the best team in it wouldn’t even finish in the top five over here. And you know who else can fuck off? Higuain, the massive fraud. You know what he is? He’s a short, chubby Edinson Cavani. FRAUD. Anyway, moving on as talking about Spurs is ruining the good mood I was in when I started writing this. What’s next? Ah bollocks, there’ll be no lightening of the mood just yet as it’s Everton, Roy Hodgson and John fucking Motson. Just when I thought I couldn’t hate that old ballbag (Motson, not Hodgson) any more than I do, he pops up at Goodison in his shitty sheepskin coat and the first sentence out of the old cunt’s stupid old mouth is “Referee Jon Moss is back on Merseyside today, along with his assistant Eddie Smart, who lived up to his name, and between them they got the decisions right.” I’m not even going to type what I’m thinking as, frankly it does me no credit. I was expecting Palace to give Everton all they could handle but then I heard Zaha was out injured and they had replaced him with the giant Norwegian that the Hodge brought in last month. The outcome of that was entirely predictable. In fairness he actually looked pretty good, but Wilf Zaha he aint. Zaha has missed seven games this season and Palace have lost all of them. He might be the single most important player to any team in the league. He is to Palace what Sigurdsson was to Swansea last season. Sigurdsson isn’t anywhere near as important to the Blues but he’s been better of late and has banged in a few goals. His deflected shot just after half time broke the deadlock in this one, before goals from Niasse and Davies wrapped up a comfortable win. Palace were awarded their now weekly penalty kick, while Benteke missed his weekly great sitter when he headed wide of an open goal. Both of those things are as predictable as Burnley being involved in a one goal turfiest. Speaking of which, Burnley were involved in another one goal turd fest. They were on the receiving end of it this time, getting turned over by resurgent Swansea. Ki Sung-Yeung got the only goal of the game late on. They actually look like they might save themselves now after being dead and buried a few weeks back. Carvalhal has been trying to sweeten up the local press by giving them home made Portuguese pastries. Nice try, but I give it three months before he’ll be spitting and wiping bogeys on them before he hands them out. Elsewhere, Watford followed up their terrific win over Chelsea with a piss poor defeat at West Ham. I’m not happy about this at all. I desperately want West Ham relegated, especially now they’ve signed that lying little shithouse Evra, but as long as Arnautovic is playing they’ll probably be fine. It feels as though any time they win, he’s instrumental in it. Hernandez headed them in front and then should have put one on a plate for Arnautovic, but he’s a greedy ‘little pea’ and tried to go himself, and fucked it up. Arnautovic did get his goal eventually and he was the best player on the pitch by a mile. Unfortunately he went and embarrassed himself in his post match interview, and not just because of his new bleached blonde look (it looks fine now, but give him a couple of weeks until his roots start coming through and it looks like a pigeon has shit on his head). No, he started going on about how his performance will show all of those critics and people who don’t like him that he can play. We know he can play, I don’t think anyone has ever suggested otherwise. Plenty scoffed at the ridiculous contract West Ham gave him, but in the last few months he’s probably lived up to that when you consider how much staying in the division is worth to West Ham. He’s their best player and it’s not even close. Stop playing the victim, soft lad. Arnautovic’s importance to his old side is also fairly obvious now too. Shaqiri hasn’t been anywhere near as influential this season without him, and Stoke are now second from bottom after they were held at home to Brighton in a disappointing game with a dramatic ending. Brighton scored a brilliant opening goal through Izquierdo (not only did I have to google that again, I had to copy and paste it too as try as I might I just can’t get that right), who played a couple of one twos before slotting into the corner. Shaqiri equalised and then in the dying seconds Jese took a dive and Booby Madley (that was initially a typo but I’m leaving it as it suits him) pointed to the spot. Jese spat his dummy at not being allowed to take it, and that just put even more pressure on Charlie Adam, who produced a weak kick that was easily saved. His attempt to reach the rebound was comical too. It was like he was being shown in super slow mo while everyone else was at normal speed. He actually gave the keeper more trouble from the resulting corner than he did with the pen, as he almost caught him out at the near post. The keeper just about turned it round the post for another corner, and from that one it needed a goal-line clearance from Knockaert to save a point for Brighton. Onto Sunday now, and Huddersfield snapped out of their slump by hammering Bournemouth. I didn’t see that coming, as Eddie Howe’s side have been in great form of late and Huddersfield have been dire. Prichard fired in the first following a great run and cross by Mounie but Stanislas’ cool finish squared it up. Mounie climbed high to head Huddersfield back into the lead and they never looked back after that. Mounie swept in another when he converted a cross from my boy Mooy (who was excellent), and Van La Parra wrapped it up from the spot. How great was it seeing Rafa sticking it to Mourinho like it was the mid 2000s all over again? Even more irritating to the Mancs will have been that the best player on the park was Jonjo. He was brilliant, as he can be when he’s not being a dickhead. Such a good player, if he had a brain he’d be England’s best midfielder. Imagine how good he’d be if he had Hendo’s brain and discipline. Shelvey completely outshone Pogba, who was hauled off again. Shite him. All hype and no substance. He’ll play a couple of nice cross field passes against Palace or some other no hoper in a few weeks, get a new tattoo and yet another stupid haircut and Twitter will be worshipping at the altar of Dab as usual. Mourinho was in a charitable mood afterwards. Just when you think you know what to expect from him he springs a surprise by being highly complimentary of Newcastle’s performance. I didn’t see that coming, but I suppose it must be hard work being an absolute cunt all of the time. You need a day off every now and again. He’s failed to win at St James’ in seven attempts now. Staggering. That record is so bad it could have been made by Ed fucking Sheeran. Because there’s been no challenge of any kind to City at the top, United have almost been thrust into the role of ‘chaser’ even though the only teams they are competing with are those who are hot on their own heels. United are not - and at no point this season have they ever been - in a title race. Yet when City won at the weekend, I heard two separate radio stations refer to how they have increased their lead over United. They shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath. They’re as much of a threat to City’s title chances as I am to United have been second almost since the beginning of the season, so maybe some have taken it as a given that second is where they’ll finish. Hopefully they’ve been thinking that way themselves, because it will be interesting to see how they react if they find themselves fourth or fifth in a couple of weeks. Their next opponent is Chelsea, who could draw level with them with a win. We could already be above them if we beat West Ham, and Spurs will be breathing down their necks soon enough too the way things are going. It’s because of this that I was happy Chelsea won on Monday night. That might put me in a minority of one, but bear with me as there is method behind my madness. Until this weekend I’d just be hoping for defeats for anyone around us, and more often than not that will still be the case. I want us to finish second as that would represent a season of real progress and be pretty satisfying all things considered. Even finishing third or fourth would be fine I suppose, but what would make it all the more satisfying is if Mourinho’s bunch of dabbing cunts were to be edged out of it and into the Europa League. Chelsea are up and down but they’ve got so much quality that they’re not going to go into a tailspin and they’ll be there or thereabouts at the end, unless something happens to Hazard in which case they’re royally fucked. What a player he is. He scored twice against West Brom and he’s really back to the form that made him player of the year last season. Finally for this week, just take a look at this shit…. If you’re going to blag your way into a press conference to play a ‘prank’ on a manager, then at least make it funny. This is the lamest ‘prank’ I’ve seen since… since… since the same unfunny boring cunts cornered Mourinho and got him to sign that same shirt the other week and then showed him Conte’s name on the back. Honestly, I’m a lot angrier about this than I should be. I'm genuinely pissed off even knowing that this actually took place. Fucking sad bastards. Why didn't Chelsea's press officer just have the cunt thrown out? The disdain coming from Conte was palpable though. I like him more and more every week, he’s fucking boss. He should have spat on the shirt though. Maybe he's waiting until next week?

Report by Dave Usher Nothing this team does surprises me anymore, especially in Europe. They could go to the Nou Camp and score six and I wouldn’t be shocked. Delighted, obviously, but not shocked. I don’t think many teams in Europe can cope with the speed and style of play. Beating Porto 5-0 away is a remarkable result but if you were shocked by it then you couldn’t have been paying attention in the group stage. Porto will have fancied their chances against us and that proved to be their undoing. Attack this team at your peril. If our front three have space to run into then they’re close to unstoppable. When they’re backed up by a midfield in this kind of form, they are unstoppable. The best way to play against us is not a style that many sides in Europe like to adopt and that’s why we’re the top scorers in the competition. It’s hard for a team that is the best in their own league to suddenly transform themselves into a park the bus bottom feeder. They aren’t used to it, and ego also plays a part. You can’t expect Porto to play like Swansea did, especially not at home. That’s what you have to do though, or this is what can happen. We’ve been absolutely fucking murdering teams in Europe this year and putting up the kind of scores that we’ve not seen before, not even in our European heyday. The days of going somewhere and quietening the crowd and coming away with a 0-0 or a 1-0 defeat to take back to Anfield are long gone. We’re going away from home and fucking webbing teams everywhere. 5-0 against a team of Porto’s stature in the knockout stages is not only the kind of thing we’ve never really done, it’s something that very few sides outside of Spain’s big two have been capable of. We’ve been like this throughout this year’s European campaign, even going back to the qualifier when Hoffenheim were taken apart. The only issue has been giving away silly goals at the other end (we battered Sevilla twice but let them off the hook, and the world’s leading scientists are still trying to get to the bottom of how Spartak held us to a draw in Moscow), but against Porto the defence were every bit as good as the forwards. Porto had only one good chance all night. Van Dijk and Lovren were outstanding, the two full backs were both terrific and the protection from the midfield three made life easier for everyone. Karius had next to nothing to do. Despite what you’ll probably be reading and hearing today, Porto are a good team. They’re running away with their domestic league and had conceded only 10 league goals in six months. We put five past them in 90 minutes so now the narrative will be about how shit they are. We’ve heard this before. We heard it about Maribor when we put seven past them at their place. We heard it about Moscow when we put seven past them at Anfield. We heard it about Hoffenheim in the qualifiers, and Arsenal back in August. When we get it right we’re the masters at making teams look bad. This was fucking masterful. No wonder Klopp was in such great form afterwards. Mind you, he was the same beforehand. It’s almost like he knew what was coming. He probably did, based on watching how Porto play and knowing how he was going to set his own team up. Firmino was the same, talking about how we would “make Porto suffer”. As a general rule, I don’t like that, but if you back it up then fair play. There was an element of fortune about the opening goal but right from the opening minutes it seemed obvious that it was only a matter of time before we made the breakthrough. Lovren (who was great) started the move by stepping in and winning the ball aggressively. Wijnaldum drove forward and eventually it broke to Mané. His shot was well struck but was too central and should have been saved. Thankfully the keeper let it go through him. Sadio needed something to go his way and that ought to have been good for his confidence, but for the rest of the half I still felt like he was still struggling with his game, as he has for a couple of months. Here’s the thing though, by most other player’s standards Mané has been doing fine. It’s not like he’s been shit, he just hasn’t been as brilliant as we know he can be. It hasn’t mattered too much because of the way Salah and Firmino have picked up the slack, but if we can get Mané going too then the next few months are going to see a few more teams go the same way as Porto. Salah just does something in every game now that makes you just go “wow”. His goal was just utterly ridiculous. How many players could have made it look that easy? Just like his second goal against Spurs, it was the kind of finish that usually you’d only see from Messi. 30 goals now, he’s actually outscoring Messi this year. Just needs to overhaul that slobbering big chinned goof at Spurs now. I felt a little sorry for Milner as he deserved the goal himself after a brilliant run and shot, but he won’t be arsed as personal glory doesn’t interest him in the slightest. He’s the ultimate team first player and he probably enjoyed Mo’s finish as much as he would have if his own shot had gone in. At 2-0 and in total control of the game, the only real danger facing us was complacency. Maybe the players would think it was too easy and stop doing the things that were actually making it so easy for them. They’ve done it before, most notably in Seville, but aside from one opportunity that Soares put inches wide, they didn’t allow Porto a sniff. At no point did they let their guard down and the second half display was just ruthless. Defensively strong as fuck, hunting in twos and threes and never letting Porto find any rhythm, and then slicing through them at will when we won the ball. Better teams than Porto will struggle with us on this form. Better teams than Porto already have actually. If we can defend the way we’ve done in the last two games (three if you count the Spurs game where we defended well but were undone by circumstances out of our control) then who will want to face us? Who will fancy their chances of keeping our front three under control? If Mané hits top form then we’ve got the best front three left in the competition. PSG are staring elimination in the face but even if they turn that around, their front three isn’t better than ours. It’s got that fraud Cavani in it for a start, but the balance in our three makes them the most dangerous around. Look at the third goal for example. Goals like that strike fear into the opposition like no other. Porto were on the attack but it broke down in our box when Salah got back in and made a nuisance of himself. That halted their momentum and a second or two later we won the ball back and Mo was off an running. Firmino came short for a pass and then delightfully flicked it into Mo’s path and he was off and running. There’s no finer sight than one of our attacks from deep like that. It’s been the hallmark of this season. We get it and then everyone just fucking goes. Mo led the charge but Mané and Firmino, as usual, were able to keep pace with him. Porto’s players could not. Credit to Milner too, he got himself right up there as well. Salah’s slide rule pass to Firmino was perfect but it was a difficult ball to take in stride while running at pace. Bobby’s touch was stunning though and his shot wasn’t bad either. He deserved the goal but the keeper made a terrific save. Mané was on hand to bury the rebound and now it was just a case of how many we’d get, and specifically, whether Mané would get his hat-trick. As I said, I didn’t feel that the first goal made much of a difference to his form, but the second did. After that it was more like the old Sadio. Just look at his play in the build up to the next goal. He wins the ball, shows great strength to turn and escape despite having the shirt almost ripped off his back, and then plays a stunning ball to Milner. That pass was accurate to the fucking millimetre. He has plenty of room to roll it to Milner but by taking the tightest of angles it made sure Milner didn’t have to go too wide and it was that pass that allowed him to pick out Firmino for the finish. I wrote in the Southampton report that I no longer felt that Mané would regain his form overnight and it would be a slow process. It still might be, we’ll see how he plays in the next game, but the way he smashed in that hat-trick was a fairly emphatic statement that he was ‘back’. He is the star man but everyone played really well. Only Karius would be below 8 out of 10 and that’s only because he had virtually nothing to do. Trent did well against a pace opponent who wanted to run him at every opportunity. He saw him off and by the second half the lad had been moved infield before eventually being subbed. On the other flank Robbo was fantastic. Solid defensively, tons of energy and he put in two stunning crosses. Had to laugh at Klopp afterwards saying “Robbo finally found his crosses, eh? I thought he’d left them in Scotland”. Van Dijk just strolled through the game, winning headers, making interceptions and pinging cross field passes like a big Dutch Alonso. Henderson was quietly efficient but played his role superbly, while Wijnaldum had his best away performance in…. maybe forever actually. Loads of good forward runs and strong as an ox on the ball. Milner was probably the best player on the pitch but I can’t give him the star man when Mané has bagged a hat-trick. Milner was great though. He was so good that the ref refused to book him even though he spent most of the second half committing tactical fouls and slowing Porto down. He’s been great in Europe this year, his experience is really proving beneficial. All in all it was a great team performance and a magnificent result. What it means is Klopp can rest a few for the second leg and we might see the likes of Ings, Ox and maybe even Woodburn getting a start. And when the draw for the next round takes place we’ll be the name everyone wants to avoid. Who knows how far we’ll actually go, but whatever happens now this season has gone a long way to making us relevant on the continent once again. Team: Karius; Alexander-Arnold (Gomez), Lovren, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson (Matip), Wijnaldum, Milner; Salah, Firmino (Ings), Mané:

Report by Dave Usher We don’t win like this very often so this one was pleasing, particularly given the result at St James’ Park earlier in the day. Two great goals, a clean sheet and a professional, mature performance in which we didn’t have to expend too much energy ahead of a big Champions League fixture in midweek. Just what we needed. Southampton couldn’t lay a glove on us in the second half. We should have added to the lead we’d established in the first half but missed some really good chances. Usually that comes back to haunt us as more often than not we’ll make a daft mistake at the back and then the pressure is on us, but defensively the second half was more or less flawless. In the first ten minutes of the game we looked dynamite, ably assisted by some sloppy play by Southampton it needs to be said, and we could have had a couple of goals even before we took the lead on six minutes. Southampton were all over the place and our pace and pressing was giving them more than they could handle. Firmino almost got in when he robbed Hoedt and then went down after a tug from the defender. I don’t think there was enough in it to be a foul and I thought Bobby went down because he knew he wasn’t reaching the ball. The ref got that one right, but he then spent the rest of the half allowing Southampton’s players to foul Firmino as much as they liked without any punishment. It was fucking ridiculous and it’s to Bobby’s credit that he didn’t completely lose the plot over it. He was later denied a clear penalty and two blatant free-kicks. The penalty has pissed me off massively because of how nobody has made anything of it. Both Sky and BBC’s commentators dismissed it as him ‘going down too theatrically’. Fucking hell, after the absolute horseshit we had to listen to last week after those Spurs pricks were diving all over the place, that was hard to stomach. The defender reached around Firmino’s neck and grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. There was ten times more contact in that than there was in both of last week’s penalties combined. The same knobs who dismissed this one would no doubt have been saying ‘there’s contact’ ‘he’s entitled to go down’ ‘the defender has given the referee no choice’ and all manner of other tired old clichés had Martin Atkinson pointed to the spot instead of waving away the appeals. I’m not sure how Firmino kept his cool with all these decisions going against him. I couldn’t help but wonder what Suarez would have done under that kind of provocation from the ref. Scoring obviously helps to ease the frustration and having slotted one so early it was perhaps easier for Firmino to deal with the frustration. That strike on six minutes was his 20th goal of the season. Expertly finished and also brilliantly created by Salah. Hoedt should have cut out the initial pass but got his feet in a mess. He did a lot of good things in the game (he stopped Salah a couple of times in one v one situations in the second half) but his performance was Lovren-esque. He looks very good until suddenly he doesn’t. Hitting the 20 goal milestone is significant for Firmino as maybe now it will finally put to bed the tiresome narrative of us needing a 25 goal a season striker. If he avoids injury he’ll finish with at least that many and will most likely be pushing the 30 mark. When you consider everything else he does too (assists, tackles, interceptions, defending from the front and an insane amount of sprints) it really makes the calls for him to make way for a ‘natural centre forward’ all the more baffling. Only this week Aldo was banging that particular drum. What exactly are we looking to achieve here? Move Firmino out of the number nine spot because he does too many things that a number nine can’t normally do? Even with everything else he does, he’s still scoring more than any striker other than Kane and Aguero, and he does a shitload more stuff than the rest of them combined. Bring in another goalscorer to give us depth and options by all means (personally I'd like another option for those games against packed defences), but for the love of all that is good and pure stop with this “we need a 25 goal a season striker” now because we’ve actually got one, and on top of that we’ve got a wide forward who’s scoring even more than that. What we don’t have is the Sadio Mane of last season. If and when we get him back, that forward line makes us a match for anyone. Having gone in front we seemed to drop off and allow Southampton a lot of the ball. It could have proved costly as they gave it a good go and created a few chances. I actually thought Southampton played pretty well but I seem to be in a minority there, and their own fans certainly weren’t impressed and booed them off at half time. The second goal just before the break killed them really, but they had us under pressure before that. Most of the danger seemed to be coming down our right where Tadic was occupying Trent which allowed Bertrand to keep surging forward on the overlap. Robertson was caught out a couple of times by crosses to the back post that went over his head, and it seemed to be a ploy of theirs to overload the back post. The clearest chance Southampton had came when a ball was dropped over Robbo’s head and fell to Hoijbjerg. He brought the ball down but by the time he got his shot away Karius had charged out and made himself big, blocking it with his chest. Good goalkeeping that. He also made a routine save to keep out a header from Carrillo who had peeled away onto Trent and beaten him easily. Karius had to make another good stop when he tipped over a Ward-Prowse header after they’d overloaded behind Robertson again. Too many crosses were coming in and we could easily have conceded in that first half. We lost our way in attack too and it was all very sloppy until BOOM, just like that, it was 2-0. Matip played a good ball into the feet of Mo, who had dropped into a little pocket of space. He received the ball on the half turn, laid it off to Firmino and then ran into the box. What happened next was just great. The first time lay off wasn’t on and the early back heel wasn’t either. Firmino delayed that split second and then flicked it through the gap putting Mo clean through. It looked class, but it was so much better than it even looked because it was all about the split second timing. You don’t see Kane, Lukaku or any of your ‘traditional 25 goal a season men’ doing shit like that. Just sayin’. Mo finished it without fuss and that was that. Game over. It didn’t feel like that at the time of course, as no lead is ever safe with this team, but now that the dust has settled on it you can see that Southampton kind of gave up after that. They had a bit of a go in the second half but it never really looked like they had any belief in themselves and they soon became dispirited. I still couldn't feel relaxed though and I was waiting for the third goal to come to finally kill them off. We’ve been in this situation plenty of times and all it takes is for them to get one goal and suddenly the crowd are into it and belief returns. We didn’t give them a sniff though and in the second half Karius was more or less a spectator. Van Dijk wasn’t put under any great pressure but he just exuded calm and authority. He spent half the game smirking as the home fans booed and tried to unsettle him. Much was made beforehand about the ‘hostile’ reception he’d get, but St Mary’s is hardly an intimidating venue. I mean let’s face it, Southampton fans aren’t exactly Galatasaray are they? So they boo a little bit and and throw in a few songs about players being wankers or cunts. It’s going to take more than that to unsettle Van Dijk. He looked like he was loving it. At one point he even charged forward and was trying stepovers on the edge of their box. It didn’t work but it showed how completely not arsed he was about it all. It was amusing seeing Klopp throw Lovren on at the very end too, as a massive ‘fuck you’ to the home fans. Pity there were hardly any of them left to see it. We should have buried them in that second half and that’s the only slight negative on what was a great day for us. Mané isn’t anywhere his best level but he wasn’t that bad and still had some good moments. He had a spectacular volley that looked like it was headed goal wards if it hadn’t been blocked by Lemina. Mo blazed the rebound over. Mané then created a chance for Firmino that was saved by the keeper. This time Mo put the rebound into the side netting. Sadio just still seems to be not at full throttle. Initially I felt like he just needed something to kick start him, but goals against Burnley and City didn’t do that and now I’m thinking this is going to be a gradual thing. One great moment won’t suddenly see him hit top form again, it’s going to be a step by step process. I thought this was a small step in the right direction, but that said, if we had a viable alternative I’d probably be dropping him until he finds his form. We don’t have one though, as Ox has been mostly shite when he’s played in the front three. He wasn’t great in midfield in this game either. Can was too casual at times as well and the midfield is a bit of a concern. Wijnaldum was the pick of the three even if he was only a little above average himself. He made several really good runs past the frontmen and one of them should have led to a goal in the second half, but he opted to dummy the ball for Mané, who wasn’t expecting it and had to then attempt an off balance shot with his left foot that flew well wide. No wonder Wijnaldum hasn’t scored in 50 away games. Firmino had been in a similar situation for the first goal, he could have left it for Mané too but he took responsibility himself and buried it. Wijnaldum should have done likewise, especially as we were 2-0 up and under no pressure. He did a lot of good work in this game though. Neat and tidy in possession and he made some timely interceptions. Overall the midfield didn’t seem to be influencing the game too much and Southampton had an awful lot of the ball, just as Spurs did last week. Is that because the midfield aren’t performing well, or is because they are playing to orders? Ideally we need more goals from midfield as we’re not getting enough. I blame Lallana for that though, the fragile bastard. He showed in the brief time he was on just what we’ve been missing this season. He was absolute class and should have scored. I’ve got big concerns about whether our midfield is going to be good enough between now and May, but those concerns would disappear if there was a guarantee that Lallana could stay fit. That’s how important I think he is. I have definitely sensed a shift in Klopp’s tactical approach these last couple of weeks though. When we get a lead we aren’t chasing the game and trying to force a second or third as we have often done in the past. We’re being cagier, sitting off and filling spaces and then trying to hit on the break. We’ve done it before too. West Ham away springs to mind. It’s a solid plan that plays to the strengths of our forwards, but it all goes to shit if the defence doesn’t get the job done. Most of the time this season we’ve defended well during games, but it’s often undone by one silly error or bit of misfortune. Last week for example, defensively we didn’t do much wrong at all against Spurs, yet conceded twice and dropped two points. If we’re going to adopt this approach that’s fine, but we’ve got to be more clinical with counter attacking opportunities the we have been these last two weeks. For that to happen we probably need Mané to get back on track, because the ‘Fab Four’ is currently just a ‘Dynamic Duo’. Star man is Mo, who just shades it from Firmino and Van Dijk. Special mention for Karius too. The saves he made were ones you’d expect him to make, but he made them and is generally giving off a more confident air recently. I just hope Klopp doesn’t fuck him about by bringing Mignolet back in for Europe. Just let the lad play now and let’s see if he can prove doubters like me wrong. Team: Karius; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Can, Oxlade-Chamberlain (Milner), Wijnaldum; Salah (Lovren), Firmino (Lallana), Mané:

While we were getting hosed out of two points, our top four rivals were enjoying mixed fortunes this week. Arsenal murdered hapless Everton, the Mancs eventually bored Huddersfield into submission at Old Trafford but Chelsea’s up and down run continued as they were humiliated at Watford. Fat Sam went with a back five and two holding midfielders at the Emirates. A sensible approach; keep it tight early doors and feel your way into the game, maybe nick something from a set-piece or with the pace of Walcott and Bolasie. Somehow they found themselves 3-0 down after 19 minutes. Imagine how many they'd have conceded if he hadn't gone with that extra defender. Ramsay bagged the first of his hat-trick when he converted a Mkhitaryan cross from close range. Koscielny made it 2-0 and Ramsey added a third with a shot that deflected past Pickford, who probably still should have saved it. Mkhitaryan picked up another assist when he played in a clearly offside Aubamayang, who finished with a nonchalant little dink over Pickford to make it 4-0 just before half time. I say it was clearly offside, but do we know for sure? Perhaps they’ve made yet another change to the offside law without telling anyone? That Calvert-Lewin prick came off the bench and headed in a consolation, but then helped to lay on Ramsay’s hat-trick when he presented the ball to Mkhitaryan who delivered another buffet ball for the Welshman to despatch. The best thing about Everton defeats these days is watching Allardyce talking to TV post match. It's great, he doesn’t give a shit. He just comes out and moans about how crap the players were. Every week he just lays into them, it’s marvellous. “We played the same system as Swansea, and put players in the same positions, but I might as well have been talking to them in a foreign language from what I saw from them out there”. Brilliant that. He did his job by basically copying Swansea’s system and telling them “go and do what Swansea did”. When it doesn’t work, it’s because they don’t listen to him. Easy money this management lark isn’t it? “I’m angry at the players for that performance. It’s unacceptable”. Outstanding passing of the buck. He's up there with Mourinho when it comes to the "my plan was great, blame those fucking deadbeats who couldn't carry it out" approach to self preservation. It’s shameless. To quote Ron Burgundy, I’m not even mad, I’m impressed. You almost have to admire such rampant ego. That’s a nice little segue to the next game actually, which featured another out of control ego - my main man Pards. His Baggies team have been much improved of late and they took on struggling Southampton at the Hawthorns. All signs pointed to a home win, but Pards was given an unexpected taste of ‘the long pork sausage’. It started well for the Baggies though, as that giant Egyptian defender put them ahead from a corner (somewhere up in Teesside, a 60 year old man in a trackie, wearing a baseball cap and the whitest pair of trainers you’ve ever seen, wiped away a small tear of pride as it rolled down his cheek), but Lemina hit a thunderbolt to bring the Saints level. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of him but he looks a player I reckon. Jack Stephens then struck two minutes later with his third goal in consecutive games and Ward-Prowse made it 3-1 with a free-kick. That was funny because Boufal had wanted to take it but was over ruled by all of his team-mates, who have obviously seen Ward-Prowse pinging them in every day in training, as that’s his thing. Boufal threw a massive strop at not getting his own way, but to his credit he was first on the scene for the celebrations, which wouldn’t be the case with some players. Rondon did pull one back when he headed in a Chris Brunt set-piece, but Southampton held on for a much needed win. Given that 90% of West Brom goals come from set-pieces, Brunt must be a fucking superstar in fantasy footy. I wouldn’t know as any time I’ve done it I’ve lost interest by the time September even starts, as I've got more important, responsible grown up things to be doing (ok, I know you're not buying that. I'm basically talking about playing the xbox and watching reruns of Its Always Sunny on Netflix), but if there are any fantasy football playing virgins reading this, you might want to sign him up to your team and make him captain. It was weird - and to be honest a little sad - seeing Sturridge playing for West Brom. It doesn’t seem right. Like seeing a Crufts winner rummaging through bins in an alley and hanging out with some mangey, flea ridden strays. No offence meant to West Brom players, and I’m sure they’d agree anyway. West Ham meanwhile, looked like they were climbing towards safety a few weeks ago but they’re right back in the shit now and sit just three points ahead of the relegation zone. They got turned over by Brighton on Saturday and Chris Hughton's plucky underdogs are now level with the Hammers, with the same points and goal difference. Glenn Murray got the opener but Hernandez finished well to get West Ham back on level terms. You know the only thing more lame than a fully grown man calling himself ‘Chicarito’? An even older man, commentating, also calling him ‘Chicarito’. Yes Jonathon Pearce, I’m talking about you, you fucking cringey bastard. Izquierdo (pretty sure I've spelt that wrong despite looking at it three or four times. My brain just can't seem to formulate those letters no matter how many times I try) curled in an absolute beauty to restore Brighton’s advantage and Gross then added a belter of his own to make it 3-1. West Ham are back to looking like boiled shite again, which is great because if seeing Moyes losing isn’t fun enough for you (I can't think why it wouldn't be though, are you dead inside?), his assistant is Stuart Pearce, which just makes it doubly satisfying. Triply satisfying if you also detest their Tory owners. The most surprising result of the weekend saw Burnley spring an upset by taking two points of Man City after coming from behind to grab a 1-1 draw. Danilo whipped one into the top corner from 25 yards to give City the lead but Gudmundssen equalised. Fair play to Burnley for hanging in there but they were helped by some terrible finishing from City. Sterling produced the miss of the season. The surprising thing is that people were surprised. He does this on a regular basis, always has. He still converts plenty and he’s got 19 goals this season so I’m not saying he’s shit. I’ll just re-iterate what I’ve been saying all season. For a really good player he does a fantastic impersonation of a shit one at times. All the talk afterwards surrounded ‘Pep’ only naming six subs because “I had nobody else”. Bet that went down well at ‘the Etihad Campus’. He’s a knobhead. People were second guessing it and wondering if it was a protest about not getting Mahrez, or maybe it was about his players being on the receiving end of some bad fouls in recent weeks. Who cares why he did it? He’s just a knobhead. Knobheads do knobhead things. Nothing to see here, move along, move along. Speaking of knobheads, Mourinho’s United made hard work of beating Huddersfield but two second half goals, one of which came from Al€xi$ $an¢€z (won’t be doing that again, it took me fucking ages to find the ¢ key and by the time I did, I’d realised it’s not that clever anyway, but I’d spent so long on it by that point there’s no way I wasn’t going to use it) who scored a rebound after he’d missed a pen. Obviously I didn’t watch it, why would I, but I saw a clip on twitter of a pen that United were denied. Funny as fuck, not only was it a clear foul by Kongolo on that McTomwhatshisface, but he nearly fucking killed him. It was some proper Harold Schumacher shit, but Stuart Atwell was like ‘nah, that’s never a foul’. He’s immediately jumped to the top of my ‘favourite refs list’. He’s actually the only name on it, but still, he’s my favourite. For now. Mourinho complained afterwards about the Old Trafford atmosphere, making an unflattering comparison to Portsmouth, of all places. Basically his argument is that Old Trafford has four times as many people than Fratton Park had back in the day, but for some reason it’s nowhere near as loud. Might wanna go down to Pompey some time before the end of the season, I think you might change your mind on that. Although maybe not. These days I expect there’s only that knobhead with his bell and a handful of other die hards dotted around the ground, but they still make more noise than United fans. It’s not like me to defend United fans over anything, but in this case I’m going to make an exception. The atmosphere at Old Trafford has been abysmal for years, even Ferguson used to complain about it so this is nothing new. Here’s the thing though. Ferguson had every right to moan, considering he was delivering league titles while playing a “Man United style” brand of football. This cunt is boring everyone to death with his dull safety first football yet he expects them to sit there screaming and shouting like performing seals just to fuel his own fucking enormous ego. Still, they fucking deserve each other. If he wants to sample support like that, maybe he should go and manage a club that hasn't been spoiled by success and expects to win every game 5-0? Of course to do that he'd have to go to a team that wouldn't let him outspend everybody else and might expect him to actually try and bring through some young players instead of filling his team with 29 year old 'finished products'. Tit. Huddersfield are in real trouble now sadly, but that's hardly surprising when they have the only striker capable of giving Joselu a run for his money in the “shittest player in the league” stakes. Depoitre is horrific, but when we played them last week the commentator described him as ‘the Belgian international’. He didn’t say international what, but unless hod carrying is now a sport then I can only assume he meant football. Which leads me to ask, how can a nation that has Lukaku, Benteke, Origi, Batshuayi and fuck knows how many other decent forwards to choose from, ever, EVER, find themselves in a situation where they call up this fucking bruiser? He’s the Belgian Michael Ricketts. Actually, having just checked wiki and noticed he has one cap and one goal, he’s more like the Belgian Dave Nugent. Anyway, moving on, and Bournemouth’s unbeaten run stretched to seven games as they came from behind to beat Stoke after Shaqiri had put the visitors ahead. Both goals from substitutes but Eddie Howe refused to take any credit for that. He’s got a lot to learn hasn’t he? I can just imagine Allardyce spitting tea all over his telly when he heard him say "it's nothing to do with me, it's all about the players". No no no no you silly boy, you say that when you've LOST. Josh King equalised and Mousset headed a late winner. Bournemouth are rolling now and might rival Leicester and Burnley for those 7th and 8th spots the way they're going. To think earlier in the season I thought this was the year it would all catch up with them and they'd go down. Fair play to Nice Guy Eddie, he's a good manager and a likeable fella. By the way, no matter how many times I hear a commentator say “Norwegian international Josh King” it never fails to make me go “yer wha? Oh yeah, forgot about that”. Don't think I'll ever get used to it. “Foxes never quit” reads a sign at the KingPower Stadium. Someone needs to tell that to my boy Mahrez, who is still AWOL after not being allowed to join Man City. Poor form that, he's undoing all the positive rep he built up by the way he handled not getting his move last summer. His replacement, a French kid called Diabate, should have been sent off early doors after an over the top challenge on Clucas. Apart from that he looked really good though. Could be one to watch him. Vardy gave Leicester an early lead and Ndidi thought he’d made it 2-0, but it was ruled out for offside. The offence happened about ten seconds before the goal and the lino had his flag up for ages, but Anthony Taylor never bothered stopping the game, the shit manc cunt. Swansea gradually began to get themselves into the game and equalised through Fernandez after the break and that’s how it ended. Swansea’s new manager is proving me wrong as he’s really turned them around quickly. I still don’t like his face. I finally figured out who he looks like. He's like Robert De Niro playing Inspector Clouseau. Onto Sunday now, where Rafa and Roy faced off at Selhurst. No love lost there on either side, and the handshake afterwards was as brief as it’s possible to do. Blink and you’d miss it. Diame broke the deadlock and Newcastle had chances to extend their lead before Palace were awarded a scandalous penalty. Yes, Clark did have a slight hold of Benteke but it was just two players grappling for position. The ref didn’t give it but it was a day for busy cunt linesmen sticking their oar on. Milivojevic (yes I looked that up) buried the pen and then Clark redeemed himself with two brilliant blocks in the space of as many seconds to preserve a point for his side. Palace have signed a 6ft 4 Norwegian striker. If you were to ask me who’s the manager most likely to sign a 6ft 4 Norwegian striker, Neil Warnock would be my first guess and the Hodge would be my second. It’s just such a Hodgson move that. Bet he's absolutely terrible too. Mind you, no matter how bad he is he'll probably fancy his chances of getting a game, because is there a striker anywhere in the game who misses more one v ones with the keeper than Benteke? Every fucking week. He also missed an open goal from three yards, but it did come at an awkward height and wasn’t a miss of Sterling proportions. Still, he's been a joke this season. We've completely broken him I think. Finally, it was an eventful Monday night game that saw Chelsea humiliated by Watford. Bakayoko was sent off early and that turned the game. Chelsea fans sang "You're fucking shit" as he trudged disconsolately past them. So many of the reasons to hate Chelsea are no longer there and I don't think I'm alone in not really being bothered by them much these days. The one constant is the absolute lack of class of their fans though. I don't think there is another set of fans in the Premier League (other than maybe West Ham) that would treat one of their own players like that. Fucking appalling. Watford just steamrollered them in the end, with Deulefeu doing much of the damage. Deeney scored and gave it the double bird (presumably to the Chelsea fans but maybe to the FA, who knows), which will probably land him another ban. I enjoyed it though, so fair play to him. The worry I have now is that Chelsea might sack Conte before he gets to sort Mourinho out. There was even some talk he’d be given the old heave ho after the Watford game, but thankfully that didn’t prove to be the case and he's had a temporary reprieve with a vote of confidence. That was a relief. Antonio Conte doesn’t deserve to go out like that. He’s a fantastic manager and an even better guy. He deserves to go out swinging, on the touchline at Old Trafford, like this…. Say that again about match fixin'. Say it again, you fuckin' mutt you.

Report by Dave Usher at Anfield This was the biggest screw job since Bret ‘the Hitman’ Hart dropped the WWE title to Shawn Michaels in Montreal. Fat Jon Moss and his little publicity seeking lino robbed us of two points. There’s no other way to put it; we got shafted. It doesn’t matter that Spurs played well enough to have merited a draw, what matters is they only got it because 1) they’re diving bastards and 2) the officials were either incompetent, or something worse. May as well get the controversy out of the way first, so let’s begin with the first penalty, which came shortly after Spurs had got back to 1-1 and could therefore have proved pivotal in the game. Kane is offside, or at least that’s what everybody other than Moss and his little sidekick thought. Apparently there has been a rule change that means if the ball deflects off a defender, it doesn’t matter if the forward is miles offside. Firstly, if this indeed the case, how are we not all aware of this pretty fucking massive change in the law? And more to the point, how has there not been a huge outcry over it, because frankly it’s fucking scandalous. Whichever cunt came up with this change should be in the unemployment line, alongside Fat Jon Moss, the fucking clown. No doubt you’ve all seen the transcript of his conversation with the linesman regarding the first penalty. Moss had no idea whether Lovren did or didn’t get a touch, yet he opted to give the pen anyway. Now, either he was told by the fourth official in his headset that Lovren touched it, or he just thought ‘fuck it, I’m giving the pen anyway’. Either way, it’s unacceptable. You can’t have selective video replays. Either we’re using VAR or we aren’t. And unless they've quietly slipped this rule in along with the offside changes, we aren't using video assistance for refs, so why the fuck is he asking Martin Atkinson if he saw anything on the TV? There's so much to dissect from that one incident, but the linesman’s statement that if Lovren touched the ball then Kane can’t be offside really shocked me. He knows the rules better than I do, or at least I’d hope he does, so we have to assume that some soft cunt at FIFA has now decided that goal hanging is an acceptable part of the game and is no longer punishable by offside. It seems you can be as far offside as you like if the attempted through ball strikes a defender on the way through. Think about that for a second. Think what a fucking monumental change to the game as we know it that is. And yet how many of you knew this was the case? I certainly didn’t. Klopp didn’t either, so at least I'm in good company. The incredulous look on his face afterwards when he was told about what the linesman said was absolutely priceless. It seems the rule has been changed without anybody being informed, because it’s not just the fans that don’t know. The managers don’t and neither do the players. How the fuck did we get here? We’ve now reached the stage where a striker can spend the entire game stood near the penalty spot if he wants, and the only time he’d be given offside is if the ball is played directly to him and he goes for it. He can stay there and wait until his team-mates run through and then they can cross it to him as long as he’s behind the ball. Or he can benefit in the way Kane did, by collecting a pass that struck a defender on the way through. It’s a fucking travesty and that rule needs changing back to the way it was. Then there’s the decision itself. It’s not even a penalty, it’s a dive and it should have been a booking. Karius does not touch Kane. He doesn’t even come close to touching him. What minimal contact there is comes because Kane leaves his leg in there and kicks the keeper on the back to make it look like a foul. One horrible Bruce Forsyth’s bastard faced twat he is. Moss was conned, so now it should therefore be a three game ban. Won’t happen though. It’s easy for the FA to make an example of an African playing for little old Everton, or a South American at West Ham. England’s golden boy though? Not a fucking chance they do anything to the big chinned slobbering cunt. Karius saved the penalty so there was no real harm done, but it’s still difficult to accept when you then see the same two officials conspire to give another penalty late on, only this time with a complete role reversal. Moss chose to ignore his linesman when it would have meant not giving a penalty. Then he chose to listen to him when it meant awarding one. Fishy as fuck that, especially as this is the prick who sent off Mané at City and has since done nothing about similar incidents, including one in this game when a Spurs defender tried to boot Mo in the head. Then there’s the linesman. He gave that penalty at the end even though the ref was closer and had a better view of it than he did. Who the fuck does that? It's his job to give it if he has a better view and the ref asks for his assistance. It's not his job to put the ref in a terribly awkward situation by refusing to move from his position and insisting it was a pen even when the ref - who was much closer and had a better view - had waved it away. If he’s so eagle eyed, how come he didn’t spot that Lamela was offside when the ball went to him? Oh wait, Van Dijk got to the flick before he did so I guess that’s not offside either? I say ‘guess’, because that’s exactly what I’m doing. Lamela looks offside to me, but what is and isn’t offside is now so muddied that I have no clue anymore. The cunt then celebrated with a fist pump. It’s a long time since I’ve been so angry after a game. I feel cheated, so much so that any flaws in our performance seem largely irrelevant. The players weren't at their absolute best, but despite all the possession Spurs had in the second half they didn’t really hurt us. The first equaliser was a once in a lifetime strike by a fucking donkey who 99 times out of a 100 puts that in the back row of the Kop, and the second was… well we’ve already been through that. We were excellent in the first half but could have been more clinical with some good situations. The game plan was sound though and it was working well. Clearly the players had been instructed to knock the ball over the top behind Spurs’ high defensive line at every opportunity, and it was causing them a lot of problems and they looked nervy and unsettled for most of the half. Salah gave us a dream start when one of those balls over the top caused confusion and the useless Dier poked the ball behind his defence for Mo to run clear and beat Lloris with ease. Not sure what the keeper was even doing there, he dived the wrong way like Brad Jones always used to. You’re not playing dodgeball you fucking over rated bum. We had chances to increase the lead but it just wasn’t really clicking in the box. Mané continues to struggle and not having any viable alternative to him is not helping. He’s just overthinking everything and not playing on instinct. So many times recently he’s gotten into decent positions around the box only to take too long to decide what to do. He wasn’t terrible by any means but he’s definitely low on confidence. The problem is that we have no alternative. Ox came on to replace him and was fucking horrendous, he never caught up with the speed of the game and offered no attacking outlet. I have to say that the substitutions made by Klopp once again made us worse. It's a recurring theme. Bringing Henderson off was understandable as we can’t overplay him as he works his way back to full fitness, but we really missed him when he went off. I thought Hendo was excellent and when he went off Spurs enjoyed much more possession in the pockets of space between the defence and midfield. In fairness, they were starting to get it while he was on which is probably why Klopp made the change, but Ox was all over the shop and Wijnaldum didn’t get involved too much either. All that said, Spurs weren’t creating chances and I can’t help but think part of the reason they had so much of the ball was because we were happy for them to have it and we funnelled them into areas where they couldn't hurt us. The plan may well have been to lure them onto us and then hit them with our pace on the break. It’s not how we usually play and the fact it’s so rare for an opponent to have so much of the ball against us tells me this was more about our tactical set up than it was Spurs being anything special. The ploy was actually working up to a point. Defensively we were very good but the counter attacking wasn’t up to standard and we ended up having to protect a slender one goal lead. All it takes is a moment of bad luck or a mistake to wipe out a one goal advantage, and that’s what happened. Some will say it’s a mistake by Karius. I’m not a fan of his by any means but I don’t put any of this on him at all. He played well and had earlier made a fine save to deny Son. Maybe he could have held onto the cross, but it wasn’t a “gimme” catch and he may have dropped it at someone’s feet in the box. He took the percentage option and punched it, and I’m good with that. He’s a little unlucky that it landed right at the feet of Wanyama, and massively unfortunate that the big cart horse then produced the hit of his life to send the ball flying back into the top corner. It was a kick in the balls, but nothing compared to the penalty that was awarded soon after. Karius held his nerve well and didn’t commit himself and had an easy save in the end. I don’t know why more keepers don’t do this as so many penalties go straight down the middle. Good for him, perhaps this game can be the making of him? It was looking like we were headed for a 1-1 that would have left everyone relatively satisfied. There would have been no sense of injustice on our part as the equalising goal had been legitimate and neither side deserved to lose. But then Mo produced the kind of goal that for so long has been the exclusive domain of Lionel Messi. It was just stunning and would have been a fitting way to win any game. We’d have been talking about that goal for fucking years, but instead it was completely overshadowed by that fat cunt ref and his dickhead assistant. We have enough trouble seeing games out without also having to deal with officials making it even harder. Klopp had sent on Matip at 1-0 and gone with three centre backs. I don’t like that approach except when it’s to counter an aerial bombardment. I feel as though it just invites pressure and the fact we’ve conceded twice after that change does nothing to sway my view on that. Matip wasn’t the problem and I can’t even point to anything to say the formation change was either. It’s just as a general rule I don’t like it. The last second equaliser was not a result of anything systematic or tactical, it was just down to a cunt of a linesman, a cunt of an opponent and a split second lapse of judgement by Van Dijk (and I mean split second as he immediately corrected it and pulled out of the challenge). Karius this time dived the wrong way and Kane was off celebrating and goading the Kop with his fucking stupid Jimmy Hill face. Fuck him the gormless looking gargoyle. Fuck Deli All too, the diving cunt. And fuck Lamela, the talentless diving pretty boy shitbag. And fuck Pochettino too. He said afterwards that Spurs were “much, much, much the better side”. I liked him far better when he let his interpreter do his talking for him. He’s talking out of his flabby man tits there. He can fuck off, so can Spurs, the diving bastards. I hope Arsenal destroy the cunts next week, and that's not a sentence I've uttered too often in my 44 years on this earth. As for us, it’s not a bad point as it keeps Spurs at arms length but that is scant consolation at the moment simply because of the injustice of it all. I'm pissed off and will be for quite some time yet. It should have been three points and if we never see that Jon Moss twat again it will still be soon. Star man is Mo, of course. What a player he is. He wasn’t even at his absolute best and yet look at the damage he did. He's incredible. Trent was very good too, and apart from that awful missed clearance that “played Kane onside” Lovren was aggressive and solid. We need to put this behind us now and take out our frustrations and anger on Southampton next week and hopefully increase the lead over those diving shithouses. Team: Karius; Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson (Wijnaldum), Can, Milner (Matip); Salah, Firmino, Mané (Oxlade-Chamberlain):

If last week was Sam Smith, this week was Will Smith. Unexpected losses for Chelsea and Arsenal and we closed the gap to the Mancs to just three points. A proper ‘Boom shake the room’ couple of days. Can’t really ask for any more than that. I know we lost at Swansea too, but there are ways of losing at Swansea and the way we did it is kind of what you expect when a big team goes to a struggling one. Loads of possession, missed chances, not much luck and concede to the only chance they have. Not condoning it by any means, but it can happen. Arsenal’s loss was totally different though. They completely embarrassed themselves. The Gunners actually took the lead against the run of play through Monreal but Clucas levelled a minute later. Cech then gifted one to Ayew with a terrible scuffed clearance. If Mignolet - or Karius - had done that…. Clucas made it safe with his second of the game which condemned Arsenal to their sixth away defeat of the season. Such a soft touch. Arsenal were so desperate they sent on Giroud to try and rescue it. He knew he was off to Chelsea so what was the fucking point of that? They’re a joke aren’t they? Arsenal have given Ozil a new deal worth £350k a week. No player epitomises everything that is right and wrong about Arsenal than this fucking lightweight, but he’s cashed in on the Sanchez situation almost as much as Sanchez himself. Arsenal shit themselves at the prospect of losing another star, but for them to pay this flaky bastard so much tells you all you need to know about where they are headed. Nowhere. They’ll continue to play lovely football on their good days, and they’ll continue to lose away from home to teams they should be beating easily. Aubamayeng and Mkhitaryan will probably do well and there’ll be games when Arsenal look brilliant. But they’re just fucking soft. The defenders are mostly fannies and their midfielders hate tracking runners. That Xhaka is a total liability. Elsewhere on Tuesday night, Benteke managed a rare goal as Palace drew at West Ham. His record this year is embarrassing but you have to assume it’ll improve in the second half of the season and that Palace will finish somewhere in mid-table. I’m still harbouring faint hopes that West Ham could get sucked down the plughole into the Championship, but they seem to have steadied themselves under Moyes now. They cancelled out Benteke’s goal with a Mark Noble pen. Iffy decision that though, as Hernandez stretched out a leg to ensure Tomkins’ challenge caught him. Cue lots of comments about “clever play” and “if you go to ground as a defender you’re asking for trouble”. Fucking nonsense. Tomkins had to go to ground because it looked like Hernandez was going to shoot and he had to try and make a block. What happened then is Hernandez didn’t shoot and then he initiated contact with Tomkins. Boss the way it’s the defenders who get slated in these situations and not the player that’s actually cheating. Onto Wednesday now, and Blockhead Barkley made his first start for Chelsea and they lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth. Co-incidence? I think not. Wilson put Bournemouth ahead early in the second half after some weak play by Bakayoko. My Chelsea supporting mate reckons he’s shite. I’ve seen nothing to make me think he’s wrong. Stanislas made it 2-0 following a nice one-two with Wilson and Ake bagged the third against his old club, and he celebrated too. Good lad. Ibe is steadily getting better week by week now and he’s looking decent again. I’m glad, as at one time I really thought he was going to be a good one, but he completely lost his way and only now seems to be finding his way out of the slump he’s been in. Chelsea are such a strange club right now. They aren’t spending money like they used to and no-one seems to know who is signing the players. Giroud looks very much a Conte type signing though as he loves a big unit up top. Great signing for Chelsea that I reckon, I’m a big fan of Giroud. They went from Carroll for £20m, to Crouch for £15m and ended up with Giroud for £18m. One of the best deals of the window that. Arsenal though, they’re fucking idiots. Constantly allowing their players to leave for clubs they are trying to compete against. Since August they’ve lost Ox to us, Sanchez to United and Giroud to Chelsea. It’s been going on for years. Cole to Chelsea, Van Persie to United and half a team to Man City. No wonder their fans are always fucking whining. City had a routine win over West Brom that would have been a cricket score but for Ben Foster. They lost David Silva to injury and he joins Leroy Sane on the treatment table. Oh now, what will they do now? Bring in Gundogan and the other Silva, that’s what. Still, best slap in a panic bid for Mahrez too, just to be safe, eh? What message did that send out for the talented kids they have there? Sturridge came on late and should have scored. He completely fluffed it though with a poor touch. In fairness to him it can’t be easy running with a football while towing that caravan. A couple of years ago he would have scored that chance without even thinking. It’s sad seeing his decline. Speaking of players who have fallen from grace, Walcott scored twice as the Blues beat Mahrez-less Leicester at the Pit. It was funny seeing how fired up he was after scoring. He’s spent the last ten years playing in the Champions League and winning cups, and although this may be all new and exciting for him now, when reality kicks in it’s going to hit him hard. The expression ‘missed the boat’ could have been written for Theo. Vardy pulled one back from the spot and Iheanacho hit the bar, the post and had one cleared off the line as Leicester bombarded Pickford’s goal, but somehow Everton held on. They’re proper shit though, this is the worst Everton side since the days when they were battling the drop under Moyes. As for Leicester, it’s tough for them with this Mahrez thing. It’s tough for him too. He didn’t get his move in the summer but handled himself like a pro and he’s been terrific. Then, at the last fucking minute City come in for him and understandably he fancied that move, but Leicester quite rightly told them if they wanted him so late in the window they’d have to pay a big fuck off premium. That never happened and Mahrez is not reporting for training because he’s depressed at not getting his move. I feel some sympathy for him as he’s clearly outgrown Leicester, but how he handles this now will say a lot about his character. Burnley were involved in a two goal thriller up at Newcastle. Well two goals is a thriller if you’re a Burnley fan. Newcastle got a penalty, Joselu stepped up to take it and the St James’ Park crowd groaned because even thick Geordies can see that he’s a fucking bum. He missed and no-one was surprised. Rafa looks to have finally given up on him and brought in Slimani on loan from Leicester. Good signing that, not sure why Leicester have let him go though. Lascelles is the best player at Newcastle by a distance. I like him. He’s a big threat from set-pieces too and he gave his side the lead when he powered in to head home a Kenedy corner. Burnley equalised when a header by Vokes hit the bar and then went in off the keeper’s face. Glad to see Burnley slowly dropping back into the middle of the pack, and glad to see Newcastle in trouble. It’s so hard to predict who’ll go down though because there are about ten teams that are realistically in the mix. Two of them met at St Mary’s, as one win in 16 Southampton took on one win in 14 Brighton. Murray’s penalty gave Brighton an early lead but Stephens bundled in to level midway through the second half. That’s how it finished and the Saints were booed off. They’re in the bottom three, which is some achievement given the amount of crap around them. Deulefeu is on loan at Watford now. One of the greatest mysteries in modern football is how this little gobshite ever managed to play as many games for Barca as he did. He couldn’t even get a game at Everton, then all of a sudden he’s playing with Suarez and Messi, and now he’s at fucking Watford. Funny old game, Saint. They drew 0-0 at Stoke. Either side could have won it, neither side deserved to. The biggest game of the week was at Wembley where Spurs comprehensively outplayed the Mancs. They scored after 10 seconds and it was a great goal too. The flick from Alli to set up Eriksen was world class. Almost as good as the volley on Sanchez he produced in the second half. There was never any intent to go for the ball, he just wanted to boot Sanchez up in the air and he did. He got booked, but he’ll no doubt feel that it was worth it. Probably should have been sent off, which would have been good for us as we play them Sunday. United had chances to equalise that early goal but fluffed them both. Phil Jones then showed his strikers the way when he brilliantly swept home a right wing cross…. into his own net. I love Phil Jones you know. Seriously, I do. Remember when United had Bruce and Pallister, and then Vidic and Ferdinand. It was horrible. Now they’ve got this gormless clown back there. Long live Phil Jones and his gurning face. It finished 2-0 although Spurs had plenty of chances to increase their lead as United were dismal in the second half. They’re the most fraudulent second placed team in the history of the game. The brilliance of the keeper is the only reason these cunts aren’t sixth.