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The Reds fielded a stronger than expected side in Prague and it paid off with a big win that makes the second leg at Anfield a formality, but it may have come at a cost as Ibou Konate was forced off with an injury that makes him a doubt the weekend. Chris Smith is joined by the usual Europa League line up of John Brennan and TLW Editor Dave Usher to discuss tonight's game and to look ahead to the big one on Sunday. View full article

I’ll start at Goodison and the hilarious scenes that saw the Blues concede twice in stoppage time to lose to David Moyes. Then as their disgruntled fans were leaving the stadium they heard the news of Darwin’s winner at Forest. We often say “Imagine being us”, but another way of looking at it is... imagine being them!! Kinell. They were awarded a first half penalty when Everton old boy Zouma handled in the box. It is a pen, no doubt about it, but I’ve seen more blatant ones not given this season so it’s always a little irritating when VAR gets involved in these. The Odegaard one at Anfield was way worse, but having said that Everton had not been given a single penalty all season prior to this, so I can’t begrudge them it. Especially as Beto missed anyway. He’d have been the last player on the pitch I’d have had taking it. Pickford should be their penalty taker. The Blues always looked the more likely to score though and eventually they did when Garner whipped in a cross and Beto arched those giraffe like neck muscles to head into the corner. McNeil missed a great chance to double their lead but was denied by Areola, and that proved to be costly as Zouma produced a brilliant header into the top corner from a Ward-Prowse corner to tie things up. Always enjoy Everton conceding from a corner as that’s their thing. Like beating Rio Flair with a figure four leg lock. Hold on, did I just compare Everton to Ric Flair? Kinell, that’s worse than my Villa / West Ham take. I’ll rephrase it. It’s like doing the stink face on Rikishi. The Blues had an effort cleared off the line (from a corner, of course) and then the game turned own its head in stoppage time. First, Soucek chested down a ball at the back of the box and although there didn’t look to be any immediate danger, he did remarkably well to adjust his body and then lash it into the far corner with the outside of his right foot. Brilliant goal. Alvarez rubbed salt in the wounds when he finished off a late counter attack to give Moyes a sweet victory at his old stomping ground. It was daylight robbery to be honest, even I can say that Everton played well and deserved to win. They didn’t though and that’s no wins in ten for them now. The PL have given them more points than they’ve won themselves in that period. Maybe they should be thanking them instead of crying about it, the cheating fucks. View full article

And we thought last week was dramatic. This team, fucking hell. It wasn’t a good performance, the lads just didn’t have it but they dug deep and found a way. That’s what Champions do. It’s hard not to draw parallels with the Villa game in the title winning season, but it’s too early to know if it will have the same significance. Teams who win titles usually have moments like this one that they look back on as being pivotal though. Hopefully this is ours. For so long it was looking like it wasn’t going to happen, yet because of the faith I have in these players I wasn’t panicking and even going into stoppage time I thought we’d win. It wasn’t until around 95 minutes or so that I gave up and had resigned myself to us ending the weekend in 3rd spot. It’s ironic that the moment I had given up was the moment that Forest are kicking off about and saying it decided the game. May as well get all that out of the way first. The game was in the balance and Forest looked just as likely to get a winner as we did in extra time. They had carried a threat on the counter attack all day and the more we pushed forward looking for the winner, the more space we left for them. They had the ball in our final third and time was running out. It was around the time they had that corner that I lost hope. In fact, it was the moment when play was stopped for the Konate head injury. Forest had already been wasting time (more on that in a bit) and Hudson-Odoi had been in possession when play stopped. I expected a brief delay while Ibou was sorted and then I assumed Forest would keep it in the corner and that would be that. The stream I was watching on buffered at that point and when it came back on we had the ball in the Forest half. So I didn’t know what had happened there until afterwards. Then a minute or so later we scored and all hell broke loose. On the final whistle the Forest staff were going mad (their assistant manager was red carded) and even the owner was on the pitch kicking off. The big fat fuck even waddled down the tunnel chasing after Paul Tierney. Imagine John Henry doing that shit. Add some more points to their impending deduction, the crying pricks. The commentators explained that they were furious that they didn’t get the ball back after Ibou’s head injury and at that moment I could understand why they’d be pissed off. I would be too. It made no sense why Tierney gave us the ball back, and even know I’m still not entirely what should have happened. I do know that Tierney had done virtually the same thing at the other end though. View full article

Monday Feb 26: Still basking in the glow of yesterday. The content that comes out after these wins is always brilliant and this is no different. All the footage of Darwin being mental, from numerous angles, the goal celebrations put to the Rocky music, the image of Klopp fist pumping the fans with a crestfallen Caicedo sat on the pitch looking on, the kids celebrating together with the big photo of them all, Klopp’s dad dancing to Dua Lipa, Diaz’s actual dad dancing, the video of the best Allez Allez Allez ever that spurred the team on, Neville savaging Chelsea with that “billion dollar blue bottle jobs” just because he was pissed off we’d won…. there’s just so much to digest. Imagine being us. Meanwhile, the PL bottled it and gave Everton four points back. On what grounds? Because of how much they’ve cried? What a load of bollocks this is. The punishment was the very least they deserved given the offences. They had been allowed to write off a load of shit they should never have been able to write off (all the Covid losses for one thing) but they cried and screamed "corruption" and the PL have shit themselves. It's a joke. Not as much of a joke as them doing nothing to stop City from just carrying on regardless, but it's still a joke. Everton still have another charge which might see them docked more points, and Forest will probably get done as well. THIS SEASON. Whatever happens to City won't be this season. It won’t be until God knows when, by which time they might have added another tainted title to the collection and ruined yet another PL season. If they win it and then get punished next season, what fucking good does that do us or Arsenal? I understand how complex it is and that it will take time, but the more I think about it the more I don’t understand why they don’t just do them in blocks of five charges, starting this season. These cunts need the book throwing at them to the extent that whatever punishment they get causes them to fall down the leagues, lose all of their best players and see Abu Dhabi pull out of there because of the bad PR they’re getting. I want that club ruined and for them to never win anything again. And not even that would make up for the memories they’ve robbed us and others of. Meanwhile, "Go and win it for them, young King". The new “eight worst words in the English language” perhaps? Tony Bellew tweeted that yesterday when Danns came on and as you can imagine it caused quite the stir with the Blues. Neil Danns is his best mate so he's known Jayden since he was a little kid, but "go and win it for them" was never going to go down well. He knew that but said it anyway, because in his words Jayden is “family” but now they're mad at him and his ‘top blue’ status is being questioned. There's never a dull moment with the Blues is there? View full article

Once again the Reds left it late but once again it was an incredible moment and a massive win. Klopp's mentality monsters were on the brink of dropping two points and perhaps ending the weekend in third spot, but up popped returning substitute Darwin Nunez to win it and spark manic celebrations in the away end. TLW Editor Dave Usher is joined by John Gallagher and a just back from the City Ground Julian Richards to look back on another dramatic win for the Reds and to reflect on what it might mean for the rest of the season. View full article

I’ll kick things off at Old Trafford where the Mancs lost in comical fashion to Fulham. United had five wins in a row and were unbeaten in 2024 going into this. Some had been fooled by that and were thinking they were turning things around. Shit, Gary Neville was even predicting they’d beat Spurs and Villa to a top four spot. It never ceases to amaze me how people can allow themselves to be so influenced by results and completely ignore what they see with their own eyes. Klopp always talks about how important the performances are in terms of knowing where you are at as a team. If we win and play shit, he’ll say so and he’ll say that we need to be better next time because that won’t get the job done. You can play shite and win, or play really well and lose. As a coach he takes more from the latter because he knows that playing well will yield much better results over a period of time. United’s record in 2024 looks really good, providing you haven’t seen them play. No team in the league has a bigger disparity between performances and results than they do. Even when they win they look shit. Only Sheffield United have given up more shots on goal than these fucking bums. Some of their fans get all chesty when they’ve won a few but the knowledgable ones surely knew a result like this one was in the post. I wasn’t at all surprised Fulham beat them, but the manner of it wasn’t something I’d have expected. Once United got their spawny late equaliser I expected them to get another, so that 87th minute Fulham winner was funny as fuck, especially as Brighton were equalising against Everton at virtually the same moment. I say this a lot so I should be used to it, but it’s always jarring to me any time I see a United line up as it’s always so shit looking. They’ve got absolutely nothing there in terms of top talent and they’re not well coached either. They’re complete dogshit and it’s a miracle they’re so high in the table. They had Lindelof at left back, some kid I’d never heard of on the wing and Rashford is now back at centre forward because the one player they have who does look decent is now injured and will miss the Manc derby this weekend. They had virtually no chance of getting anything at City even when Hojland was available, but without him forget it. That lazy arse Rashford with his four goals all season strutting around like his shit don’t stink. He’s a fucking disgrace him. I heard loads of school kids in Manchester are refusing their free school dinners because they don’t want to be associated with the bone idle bastard. Fulham were all over them in the first half and Iwobi was running them ragged. Imagine being run ragged by Iwobi. Kinell. I like that Muniz up front for Fulham. He’s proving to be a decent replacement for Mitrovic now and I don’t think they’re missing him any more. Maguire should have been sent off for a first half lunge but his name isn’t Curtis Jones so he escaped with a yellow card. Bassey blasted Fulham ahead from a corner and at this point in the MOTD highlights United hadn’t actually had a single chance. They were in the Fulham box once when they had a corner, but Fulham broke on them and nearly scored. That was the only time we’d seen them in the Fulham half. Eventually with 10 minutes to go they got a corner and Maguire headed over. That sparked a little bit of pressure and Maguire equalised with a rebound after Leno spilled a shot by Fernandes. United poured forward looking for a winner and left the back door open for Traore to break on them and find Iwobi who fired into the bottom corner past a static Onana. Fulham have been trolling United on social media ever since and Ten Hag has been crying about something they put on Tik Tok taking the piss out of Fernandes faking injury. He also had a go at Carra over his MNF analysis, even though it was absolutely bang on. Baldy is proper rattled now. They’re going to get killed at City this weekend. View full article

Three goals, another clean sheet and the kids step up. A perfect evening’s work then. Yes, it is I, Dan Thomas, to regale you with the tales of a midweek win in the FA Cup 5th round. Instead of a cup goalkeeper, Dave has cup match report writers! It wasn’t as straightforward as the scoreline suggests but we’ll come to that. This result stands squarely on the shoulders of Liverpool’s Academy. It feels like we could have at least two breakout kids to step up into the first team in Bobby Clark and Jayden Danns, and James McConnell isn’t that far behind either if not an equal in the conversation. The Academy is in the best place it has been for a long, long time. And yet, this match report felt like it could be significantly different at one point given that Southampton started really quickly. Everything about our start was slow, even fans arriving late en masse. Apparently there were bad problems with the ticketing system – I was straight in but from what I was told, the Southampton game was not appearing in people’s wallets and it wasn’t just a few people, it was causing bedlam outside the ground come kickoff time. Luckily I’d gone in early because Paul Natton’s bladder is not as capacious as it once was. Anyway, back to the football – Southampton made a lot of changes, 8 in fact, and rotated heavily for this game. I think they would have done that no matter what team we put out because the reality is for them, and for Norwich in the previous round, the FA Cup is a distraction. Getting back into the Premier League is their priority and having lost 3 of their last 5 in the league they were always going to look at giving key players a rest. For us, that was more or less the strongest team we could put out given the frankly ridiculous situation we have with injuries and we lost two more at Wembley. The team we put out was stronger than I expected, I was surprised that van Dijk started. I genuinely thought we might go with Quansah being the experienced centre half. Because the reality is that he has now played enough football to warrant the tag of first team player. Kostas starting made sense (even if his performance didn’t) and Gomez at holding midfield was…. unexpected. It wasn’t the greatest performance from a holding midfielder you’ll ever see but it wasn’t the worst either. It just goes to show you can put Joe Gomez wherever you need him to and he will get the job done. However, the first 15 minutes were not a good watch. Southampton absolutely battered us quite honestly; they were ahead practically straight away but Mara slightly mistimed his run and the flag went up. Nice finish but we were carved open far too easily. That was only a taster of what was to come though. The visitors sensed a chance against a very youthful reds team and piled forward. Joe Aribo in midfield was running the show and he took control of a loose ball, played in Sulemana on the wide left only for his low shot to hit the post. With an inexperienced midfield on the park it was no surprise that we were losing every 50/50 but that’s what was happening. Southampton hoovered up every loose ball and played some nice football. I was very critical of Norwich in the last round for trying to pass their way around a front three of Diaz, Nunez and Jota but Southampton played around at the back and into midfield very nicely. As the half wore on, we got wise to it and almost nicked the ball a few times but for the first half an hour we struggled to get on the ball. Kelleher made a couple of sharp saves, including a really good one from Mara. That came from McConnell being dispossessed. Van Dijk played a simple ball to the midfielder and he tried to turn – he was simply muscled off the ball and Mara’s low shot was really well saved by Kelleher. I’ve been critical of him this season but last night and at Wembley, he showcased how good a goalkeeper he actually is. From the subsequent corner, Rothwell jinked into the box from a second ball (a theme all night with second balls) and placed his shot just wide. It honestly felt like a Southampton goal was an inevitability. It took us 15 minutes to have a shot of any kind, when all the dickheads in the crowd shouted SHOOOOOT and Joe Gomez did – it only just landed in the lower tier. We just couldn’t wrestle control of the game. Ultimately it was that midfield battleground and Clark and McConnell were simply getting overpowered physically. Technically, they both showed nice touches but that’s where Southampton were getting their joy – winning the ball and looking early for either flank but especially Sulemana on the left, who was direct and tricky. He went on a run and went in between both Bradley and Quansah before hitting his shot straight at Kelleher. It was a good run but some real naivety and inexperience from our lads to let him go in between him. At least boot him if he gets through you both, eh lads? After that the game settled down and we started to get into it a bit more. When we had possession we were tidy with it and worked some nice overlaps and forced a few corners. We took the sting out of the game, calmed it down and looked a much better team as a result. Gomez grew into his role and won the ball back nicely a few times – our biggest threat always looked like it was going to come from Bradley though. Elliott had a shot tipped wide and we suddenly went in front and what a moment for Lewis Koumas. Shout out to Bobby Clark here because he injected himself into the game at the perfect time, driving in from the left and fizzing in a ball to Koumas, who jinked himself into a shooting position. It hit the defender on the calf and flew into the bottom corner. The ground properly erupted – relief and ecstasy, because who doesn’t like a debut goal? Serious business for Koumas who was understandably delighted – chalk one up to the Academy. One thing that I liked about this goal was that the superfan mouth on a stick sat behind me missed the goal. You know the sort – loudly complaining about the atmosphere and people not singing. He was so much a better fan than everyone else that he went down for a half time burst and missed the goal. He is also so much a better fan than everyone else that he left about 30 seconds before the 3rd goal. Glorious. It reminds me of that time I was watching Premier League Darts at the Echo Arena and a gang of young lads behind me were pissed up and kept spilling beer down our backs. My mate told them in no uncertain terms that if it happened again he’d use them as a dart and they apologised and went downstairs to let the situation calm down and of course, replace the drinks they’d just spilled. As they were downstairs, they missed a 9 Darter. Exquisite. Gakpo should have immediately doubled the lead but he tried to clip a shot and missed the target. I initially thought the goalkeeper had saved it but looking at replays, he just missed. Poor from him – as the experienced forward on the pitch I was looking for a lot more from him to be honest. The game just passed him by for long spells which seems to happen too often. We nearly had a chance to nick another one just before half time as our press caught Southampton out with their extravagant passing around the back but the ball just ricocheted away from Clark – had he been able to take it in, we had runners left and right. Half time and some relief. I don’t know what Kostas’ problem was, but he played like he had his boots on the wrong feet and as above, Gakpo needed to do more and lead the line. The kids had all done great. Van Dijk came off, Konaté came on and we should have extended our lead but Gakpo scuffed a very presentable chance wide in keeping with his evening. Should have done better, should have been 2-0 but instead, Southampton lived on. Credit to them, they kept going and should have been level after a lovely ball in behind saw Sulemana hit a shot at the back post straight at Kelleher. With any composure at all, he’d have scored. They had another great chance from a corner when a flick on saw two unmarked at the back post but Charles lashed it into the side netting. It was a quite incredible miss and it was actually their last chance. The game got into a pattern where we were in control and Southampton never got close again. We’d brought Danns on before that miss for the hard working, but tiring Koumas and MacAllister soon followed. It’s no coincidence to me that he comes on and we find another level and possession was much tidier and progressive. McConnell played well but MacAllister stepped it up a level. It was another FA Cup moment befitting of a Hollywood blockbuster TM as Jayden Danns scored his first goal for the club, and to be honest it feels like it could be the first of many. Smallbone (the best named player on the pitch) gave the ball away and Elliott swooped onto it and ran into space. He played a perfect ball through for Danns and for an 18 year old kid that finish is just ridiculous. He showed a certain Dutch international how to finish with calmness and composure as he lifted the ball over the goalkeeper. Game over. We nearly extended that lead as Gakpo lead a counter attack and ran with it from pretty much the edge of his own box. He held off three attempted fouls from that Smallbone jabroni and ran to just outside their box and fizzed a shot just over. That’s what I want to see more of from Gakpo – be direct, back yourself and get a shot away. I still have question marks over what he is and what his role should be for us, but he is clearly a gifted footballer. I just wanted to see more from him last night, this was good though. The game was capped off nicely just before the end as Bradley’s shot was saved and Danns swept in the rebound. Again, it is very promising for an 18 year old lad to know where to stand to get to the ball first – but he was switched on, he had ground to cover and reacted quicker than anyone to poke it home. I thought that was possibly Bradley’s weakest game for us, certainly defensively, but he always carries a threat going forward. In the end it was easy, but we could have got a kicking there had Southampton taken their chances. Thankfully they didn’t, and we can “look forward” to a “mouthwatering” quarter final at Old Trafford. Star Man – It has to be Danns, but shout out to Kelleher as well because without him, we could have been in serious trouble before we even got a foothold in the game. Team: Kelleher; Bradley, Quansah, Van Dijk (Konate), Tsimikas; Gomez, McConnell (Mac Allister), Clark; Elliott (Nyoni), Gakpo (Gordon), Koumas (Danns): View full article

The kids did it again! Goals from 18 year old Youth Team duo Lewis Koumas and Jayden Danns saw off Southampton at Anfield as the young Reds set up a quarter final clash at Castle Greyskull. Chris Smith is joined by John Brennan and TLW Editor Dave Usher to bask in the glory of another great night for the Academy and to look ahead to the game at Forest this weekend. View full article

Last time I wrote: "The front five are now up to 57 for the season and will go close to 100. The team is up to 84 and will go through the 100 barrier sometime in late-February, early-March and could hit 130 or more by the end of the season. We’ve done this before and not got the rewards we deserved in terms of trophies, so there are no guarantees, but with those numbers, we are going to be in contention – and the supporters likely on valium – for the rest of Klopp’s reign." Well, I had to get something right after the injury jinx I ‘cursed’ the squad with on the pod! I wrote that just after the Norwich game on the 28th of January and since then, things have gone great, in the main, the sole blot on the Reds’ copybook being that off-day against Arsenal. The front five have moved on to 67 – not bad adding 10 goals between them in the space of a month, given the injuries in that area. All of those goals came in the League too, with Darwin and Diaz really stepping up. We are looking at a game every three of four days from here on in, so getting four out of those front five back to fitness will be more vital than ever. If Diogo manages to get back on his feet for the final games, all the better. However, that doesn’t seem too likely at the moment. We managed to hit the 100 mark on February the 21st, against Luton. Harvey doing the business in his 100th game for the Club. We still look to be on course for somewhere around 130, time will tell. Whatever, we’ve got one trophy in the bag and as stated above, with those kind of numbers, we’ll always have a chance of contending. The Arsenal defeat seemed to knock the stuffing out of a good few Reds. I wasn’t that bothered: they were very good on the day, we were terrible, it happens. It hasn’t happened a lot this season – we’ve had two or three stand-out below-par to downright poor performances, Wolves in the first-half, Luton away, Sheffield United away spring to mind. Yet, we still came away with seven points out of nine against those. The only thing that mattered after that Arsenal defeat was the reaction to it. And to that end, the Reds have come up trumps. Nine points out nine, 11 goals for, three against. Not forgetting the 4-1 demolition of Chelsea before the Arsenal game! We’ve scored three or more in a League game 13 times this season (out of 26 played). That’s extraordinary, all the more so as we have done it while looking solid at the back, with the second-best defensive record in the League. This is largely down to Virgil. One of the things we all said we needed was for him to be back to his imperious best this season. He has stepped into the role of captain admirably – Paul referenced his leadership on the Cup Final pod. That leadership has been off the field as much as it has been on it. Off it, he’s been an example, accompanying the youngsters and representing the Club really well in the media. On it, he’s been colossal, back to his commanding best. I think two things in particular stand out for me this season with Virgil. The way he took his punishment on the chin after the Newcastle game, served his extra game ban and was commanding all winter. And the way he took the blame for the second goal conceded against Arsenal, came back and inspired us to a win against Luton, helping to turn Anfield rabid and then a few days later leading us to Cup glory. He’s not a one-man band though and all of them have been heroes this season – Ibou’s physicality is off the charts, Joe Gomez has gone above and beyond the call of duty, Andy has come back with fire in his belly, Kostas is so vital to us in terms of the spirit he brings to the whole ‘project’ and the young lads have seized their opportunity with both hands, whether in the League or in the Cups. ‘If we go all the way in the FA Cup and the Europa League, there is a maximum of 29 games remaining. I know, only 29 more games – at best – with Jürgen at the helm… The intensity will really ramp up in February and March. Three League games, the League Cup final and an FA Cup 5th round tie before our very own version of March Madness with – take a deep breath – four League games, a possible FA Cup quarter-final, a two-legged Europa League tie and, as if that wasn’t enough, an international break. It’s exhausting even thinking about it. We are well-equipped though, given the depth of the squad and its freshness which is down to the rotation referenced earlier and really good in-game management.’ We are now down to a maximum of 23 games remaining – the end is nigh, as witnessed by Jürgen going to all sides of the Ground for the fist pumps. He even acknowledged the Main Stand, for goodness’ sake! The rearranged Luton game meant that we actually played four League games in February. March was always going to be crazy and even more so now, given the scale of the injury crisis. It’s all about managing on a game-to-game basis and trying to get bodies back. That the injury crisis hasn’t damaged us that much is down to a combination of fight, composure, maturity, desire. If you take the end of December as the start of the crisis (not to mention Mo’s and Endo’s absences), we have come through more than unscathed. We’ve advanced to the 5th round of the FA Cup, won six out of seven in the League and won ANOTHER trophy under Jürgen. Oh, did you think I was forgetting? Sunday, at Wembley, was the epitome of what we have become under Jürgen Norbert Klopp. What he has instilled in this team, this backroom team, this communion with the supporters is intangible. It was best typified by him believing – genuinely – on the night of the loss to Madrid in Kiev that we would be back a year on. And we were. And the year after that we won the Title. Against all odds, against the greatest cheating enterprise in the history of English football, we have gone toe to toe. Never backed down. A bounce or two of the ball away from epoch-defining moments. Almost 1000 goals. More than ‘a never-say-die’ attitude, it’s a ‘fuck-you-all’ attitude. We are here, come what may. In fact, the more adverse the conditions, they better we like it. Alisson out. Caoimhin impersonates him. £500m-worth of footballers on crutches, we’ve got Joe Gomez, Conor Bradley, Jarell Quansah, Bobby Clark, James McConnell and Jayden Danns to come in and star. There have been bigger victories in the Club’s history, there’ll be bigger ones to come, hopefully, but few, if any, will equal Sunday’s. The manager was bursting with pride. So were Reds everywhere. Soak it up for the next couple of months, because soon we’re going to have to sing, ‘I’m so glad That Jürgen was a Red’. John Brennan View full article

I can’t really think of an intro for this. I don’t know where I’ll end up going in this report either as there’s so much to cover and my mind is racing off in all kinds of different directions. I’ll start with Klopp’s assertion that it’s his most special final. It’s not mine, that is always going to be Istanbul, but I think this might be second you know. Doesn’t matter that it’s the League Cup and not one of the bigger prizes. It’s all about context and when you factor in everything that ultimately led to this victory, and how it made us all feel, this is right up there when it comes to the level of achievement. So much was against us going into the game, and then so much went against us during the game. Yet not only did we grab the late winner to spare everyone the agony of penalties, we did it by completely out playing Chelsea in extra time despite arguably only having one of our first choice eleven on the field. It’s kind of fitting that he scored the goal I guess, as he put the team on his back and was not going to allow us to come away from Wembley without that cup. I may as well talk about Virgil now. There’s not going to be much structure to this, I’m just going to write down whatever comes into my head so it’s not going to be in much of an order. I’m just going to type and see what comes out. So I’ll deal with Virgil first. Usually I wait until the end to say who the star man is but I’ll say it now; it’s the captain. Others were equally as impressive, but what Van Dijk did here is what the greats in other sports do. He was Michael Jordan in the NBA Finals. Patrick Mahomes in a Superbowl. What makes this more impressive is that unlike Jordan and Mahomes, he’s not really supposed to be the one “winning” games. His job is more about stopping us from losing it. He did both though. Defensively imperious, but also went up the other end and settled the game. Twice. Only one of them counted, but we know what he did even if the record books won’t show it. We’ve had the Gerrard Final and the Owen Final, but now we’ve got the Van Dijk Final. Not that it was a one man show by any means, but the big man captained a team that started without at least nine regular starting players and ended without several more, and he led them to an unlikely victory through sheer force of will. I very rarely go into games expecting anything other than a win. Even when the odds are against us I usually find a way to talk myself into it. At half time when we were 3-0 down to Milan I was having a piss and telling everyone in the bogs that we were still in it and just needed to get the next goal. I hadn’t given up hope when we needed to beat Barcelona by four goals. I usually always see a pathway to us winning. But fucking hell I had a massive dark cloud over me in the build up to this game. The uncertainty over Darwin and Mo was like a massive weight on my shoulders, it was all I could think about on Sunday morning. Prior to that I’d been ok because I assumed one or both would make it. Maybe Dom too. But when they ruled out it hit me hard. Suddenly little things started to become big things. Chelsea had lost five straight finals, which should actually be cause for optimism. But the air of misery I had over me just had me thinking “well that run is going to come to an end sooner or later, so probably today”. I was also stressing out because we’d played Luton in midweek with most of the line up that would be starting this, while Chelsea had a full week to prepare for us. Wembley is a notoriously draining pitch and now we’d been robbed of much of our pace. With Dom, Darwin and Mo we’d absolutely fucking destroy Chelsea like we did a few weeks ago. I haven’t mentioned Jota there purely because he’s out for a while and there was never any chance of him making this game, but we had hope that the others would make it. When they didn’t, it was just a massive blow. And because we spanked them a few weeks ago I was worried we were going to see a Crystal Palace situation when we beat them 9-0 and then lost to them in the cup later in the season. All of these negative thoughts were flooding my head. I was unloading all of it in the group chat, much to the annoyance of some of the lads who just aren’t used to me being like that. I couldn’t help it, I was dreading the game and was convinced we’d lose. I expected a great effort, I didn’t think we’d be shite, but I thought we probably wouldn’t have enough and we’d run out of gas. By the time kick off arrived I’d done an about face and felt confident that we’d win. Why? It sounds mad, but the thing that snapped me out of it was just watching Virgil in the tunnel and then when he was leading the lads out. He just had this look. A smirk, a look of complete and utter confidence like “I’ve got this lads”. Not just him either, the whole team seemed relaxed despite all of the absentees. On the flip side, I thought Chelsea’s players looked nervous as fuck. View full article