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Besiktas manager Senol Gunes has questioned the enthusiasm that Loris Karius has for the game after the Liverpool loanee produced a substandard performance for the Turkish giants on the weekend.The woes of Karius at Liverpool have been well documented, none moreso than in the harsh spotlight of the Champions League final against Real Madrid last May.After that moment, it was clear that Karius needed to get away from the club, more so for his own mental state that anything else. In the aftermath of his calamitous performance, Jurgen Klopp made a passionate defence of his player.Despite displaying the loyalty which is one of his trademarks, in his heart of hearts, Klopp knew a world class keeper had to be brought in. The summer signing of Alisson saw Karius go on loan to Besiktas where the German would have hoped to rebuild his career away from the bright lights of one of the top leagues in the world.However it has not been a happy arrangement for both parties, with reports as early as October saying that Beskitas wanted to cut the loan short immediately.While that did not eventuate, more poor performances have transpired, to such a extent that Gunes has publicly slated him.The Liverpool Echo has reported the manager saying that he would drop the loanee if he could after he conceded a soft goal in the first half of their 3-2 win over Konyaspor on Sunday.The 25 year-old was heckled by his own fans and reportedly asked to come off at the interval.Gunes bemoaned the unavailability of reserve goalkeeper Tolga Zengin for the clash saying that he would have replaced Karius if he was on the bench.Alarmingly, the veteran manager also questioned the enthusiasm that Karius has for the game. "He was at fault for the goals he conceded. Karius has gone a bit stagnant, something is wrong with his electricity, motivation, enthusiasm for the game. He does not really feel a part of the team. "It has been like that since the beginning and it's something we haven't been able to work out and, of course, I am partly to blame for this."He is talented but something is wrong and we have a problem. In this day and age of teams looking to keep everything in-house and control the narrative, it is a ruthless opinion that the veteran Turkish manager has made public.Besiktas currently sit in third position in the Turkish Superliga, but are 13 points behind leaders Istanbul Basaksehir with just nine games remaining.They have also conceded more goals (36) than Bursapor (28), Goztepe (33) and Buyuksehir Erzurumspor (34) who currently occupy 15-17th on the table respectively.Being loaned out can work both ways for a player.If it is a success, confidence builds and helps pushes them to the next level as we have seen many times in the past.Conversely, if the player struggles, they run the risk of becoming of football 'journeymen' bouncing from one club to another, and never really fulfilling their true potential.It seems that Loris Karius looks to be entering the latter category.While he obviously made his share of mistakes in a game situation for the Reds, it would certainly be unfair to hold that against him on a personal level.Let's hope finds some happiness in wherever he ends up playing next, or whatever he ends up doing away from the football pitch.

This could easily have gone badly wrong but it didn’t. The players overcame an unjust early setback and got the job done, and in the process stuck it to the rest of the country, most of whom are desperate for us to come up short. If we pull this off it will be the sweetest victory we’ve ever had. All the lads can do now is keep winning and hope for a break that at this moment in time just doesn’t look like coming. Things can change though, we have to cling to that. City have a difficult April so we just have to apply pressure and hope they crack. Klopp said afterwards that we aren’t going away and let’s hope not. It only takes one bad week and everything can turn to shit. Look at Spurs - they’ve gone from being in a title race to looking like they might even end up sixth. There’s no margin for error at the top, but that goes for City as well as us. This team deserves better than all this recent talk of “bottling it”. After 30 games they’ve lost once, they have equalled the club record for points won at this stage of the season and are only one point behind a team that has been labelled the greatest ever by some. The form hasn’t been great since the turn of the year and that’s a concern, obviously, but even on their bad days they haven’t been losing, which is why it’s unfair to talk about bottling it. Spurs have shit the bed massively and had far less accusations of bottling than our lads. I guess when you’re Spurs it’s to be expected so no-one even bats an eyelid anymore. The main problem we have is the away form, as at Anfield we’ve been damn near flawless. Barring the Leicester game (a result that was heavily influenced by poor refereeing, let’s not forget) and the rather fortuitous draw with City we’ve been perfect at home. A look at our remaining fixtures sees us with four at Anfield and four away. The away games aren’t exactly the toughest on paper (particularly looking forward to Rafa sending out the youth team against us in May), so that gives cause for optimism. So as long as we can get back on track away then that could make all the difference. I don’t know if that will happen because it’s so hard to get a handle on this team at the moment. Just when it looks like they’re back in the groove they’ll go and draw a blank somewhere. Everton are as bad as any side we’re likely to face and we couldn’t beat them. They were supercharged and powered on bile that day though, something we won’t have to face from the likes of Fulham and Southampton. Of all the fixtures we had left, the Burnley one was one of the more difficult ones because we never find it easy going against them. It’s always a slog, but this was pretty straightforward in the end, the late scare notwithstanding. The front three looked like they’re supposed to and it was particularly nice to see Bobby back in the goals. Mo remains a bit of a worry, but only because he appears to be uncharacteristically uncertain in front of goal recently. He’s holding onto the ball too long, or taking an extra touch when it’s not necessary. Other than that he still generally looks the same and Burnley struggled to cope with him. Jurgen said he was the best player on the pitch. He wasn’t, but I’m fully on board with the manager saying whatever he feels necessary to help his players. There’s not much wrong with Mo, he’s just a little bit off and has been most of the season. There’s still time for him to explode again and we really need him to. He didn’t score but he caused havoc against Burnley and was involved in most good things. That elusive 50th goal just won’t come though. Five games without him scoring is just bizarre. It sounds mad, but I never thought that could happen given how prolific he’s been. It won’t last though and someone will eventually end up being hit for three or four by him, probably Fulham next week. It would have been nice if he’d scored in this one, especially as both his strike partners did, but it’s not a big deal. We won, we played well and there’s nothing to be displeased about. Apart from the officiating that is. I have two explanations for that Burnley opener being allowed to stand. One is that Andre Marriner seemed to be on a one man mission to sabotage our title bid (actually it’s more of a two man with Paul Tierney) and the other is momentum. You can’t overestimate the power of momentum. It’s massive. We’ve lost it and City have it, and in recent weeks we’ve seen the effect it has. We need to get it back and maybe this result does that. When momentum is with you, strange things will go in your favour. City had that phantom penalty against West Ham and the scandalous offside goal against Watford. When it’s against you, shit like this can happen - a goal direct from a corner with the goalkeeper being blatantly fouled. It almost never happens, but when momentum and an official doing his best to make things difficult combine, this is the result. Lesser teams may have crumbled and felt sorry for themselves at that setback, and I daresay some fans felt that way. Klopp went fucking mad at the Kop and the Main Stand, both immediately before and after the Burnley goal. There was an audible groan of displeasure when Matip conceded a corner after misjudging the flight of the ball. Klopp lost his shit at that. I can understand why, as we were only five minutes into the game and there’s no need for anybody to be panicking about anything. At the same time, I didn’t think it was anything too out of the ordinary either. It wasn’t exactly mass panic. Any time a player makes a mistake and needlessly concedes a corner you’ll get a bit of a rumbling of disapproval. It’s not like people are yelling abuse, but if you have twenty thousand people muttering “fucks sake” then it’s going to be fairly audible. It’s easy to say now because we won, but I don’t even attach any blame to Matip on that as the wind out there was fucking ridiculous and that’s probably what caught ol’ Big Bird out. Initially I felt that it was an error, but the longer the half went on and the more it became apparent just how wild that wind was out there, it put the incident in some perspective. The ball suddenly picked up pace and Matip didn’t have time to react properly. Shit happens. The wind also aided Westwood with his corner kick. He could try that a 100 times with an open goal and nobody else on the pitch and he probably couldn’t do that again. You know what annoyed me even more than Marriner allowing the goal to stand even though he could clearly see Alisson was mugged? I’ll tell you. The thing that tipped me over the edge and had me on my feet screaming all sorts of abuse at Marriner, was that he then had the audacity to book Alisson for complaining. Actually that’s not even true, he booked him before he could even start to complain. Alison ran out of his goal to make his point to Marriner, who pulled out a card before he even reached him. How fucking arrogant is that? He makes a monumentally bad decision and then doesn’t even attempt to explain it or allow Alisson to get his point across. Fucking egotistical, superior twat. His linesman can fuck off too. He was a disgrace as well. He was fine with the offsides, but he gave nothing else and turned a blind eye to so many incidents. Maybe he was told by Marriner not to get involved unless he is asked for his opinion. Some refs rely on assistants more than others. This guy gave fuck all though even when it was right in front of him. Ashley Barnes nudged Robbo in the back on every throw in Burnley had and I think we got one free-kick from it all day. Virgil was fouled too when he went for a header and Marriner gave nothing. I saw Big Virg go to the linesman and ask him about it, and it genuinely looked like the lino agreed with him and said it was a foul (he gave him the thumbs up and nodded). So if you saw it, put your flag up then you impotent cock. I probably shouldn’t focus too much on the officiating given that we played really well and won the game, but it annoyed the shit out of me. It’s all well and good saying it doesn’t matter because we won, but it does matter. We conceded two goals in this game and both have Marriner’s fingerprints all over them. The second goal was a clear foul on Salah before they went down the field and scored. It could even be argued that our goal difference is two goals worse off because of this game, although that’s hypothetical because we might not have scored the fourth if they hadn’t just scored their second and we don’t know how the game would have played out if we hadn’t fallen behind. What is not in dispute is that our great defensive record is now two goals worse off than it should be because of this tit. And along with Michael Oliver this fucker is probably the best of a piss poor bunch. What concerns me is that on another day we might not have come back from that disgraceful decision on the opening goal. What if it had been 75 minutes in and we didn’t have so much time to pull it back? I genuinely want to know how he can see that incident with Alisson and call it the way he did. It’s alarming. Not as alarming as what Tierney did at the Etihad, but it’s still hard to fathom. Goalkeepers get so much protection in the modern game that it’s actually a running joke. “You can’t breathe on goalkeepers these days” they say. Yet our keeper has a player all over him, preventing him from jumping, and that’s not given as a foul? Get to fuck. I’m not prepared to go down the “even the refs don’t want us to win the league” but I can’t deny it’s in the back of my mind after this weekend. City’s opening goal against Watford is genuinely the worst decision I think I’ve ever seen. Then it’s compounded with the Burnley goal. You can’t blame us for being paranoid at the moment given that everyone seems to want us to fail. When the Burnley goal went in, Klopp turned to the Main Stand and started yelling like a loon, pointing at his watch. His point was obvious, chill the fuck out, knob heads, there are 85 minutes left. The message seemed to strike home as I didn’t think there was any sense of panic or frustration after that (I didn’t think there was much before it either, in fairness). The crowd got behind the lads, the lads kept their cool and played their football, and it wasn’t too long before they had the lead. The equaliser had an element of fortune about it as both the keeper and defender had a chance to cut out Mo’s cross before Bobby tapped it in. You know what though, that was exactly the type of goal we should be scoring more often. Every week I bitch and complain about us not doing this enough, but it’s a fact that good things happen when you get to the byline and drill the ball across the face of goal. I loved that goal, it was brilliant from Mo. I loved the second one even more though because it epitomised just what can happen when you work hard and try to force mistakes. Lallana said afterwards the Klopp had pointed out a moment in the Watford game when Milner closed down the keeper and blocked a clearance. He told the players that’s what he wants to see as it lifts the crowd and fires everyone up. Lallana took that message to heart and looked like the player we saw in the opening months of Klopp’s regime when he was running himself to a standstill every week and leading the pressing game. That press hasn’t been as evident this season, not specifically because Lallana hasn’t played, but his absence hasn’t helped. This was great to see though. He doesn’t get an assist for that second goal but morally he should. He closed down the defender and flung himself to block the attempted clearance. That in itself would have got the crowd going, but the ball broke nicely to Salah in the box and although he was tackled, the loose ball was superbly whipped into the corner by Mané. Just what we needed. While I said the crowd were fine and didn’t panic, if we’d still been level or behind after an hour that probably wouldn’t have been the case. Thankfully we’ll never know. It was a nice moment for Lallana, whose inclusion hadn’t exactly been met with universal approval. Some of the reaction on social media was embarrassing. I was surprised when I saw his name on the team sheet but I honestly didn’t have a problem with him starting. I don’t ever want to see him playing in a front three and I’d say that he’s a pretty terrible substitute who rarely makes us stronger, but starting in a midfield three is fine with me, particularly in games like this. Our midfield is generally much too ‘samey’. We often have three players doing the same job, which is fine against the better teams (as long as the front three are on their game) but can often see us get bogged down against more defensive opponents. What Lallana brings that nobody else (other than Ox) does, is that ability to run beyond the forwards and drag defenders out of position. He’s got great feet in and around the box too, but the biggest thing he does is ‘gegenpress’ the absolute fuck out of people. That’s why Klopp has always loved him. Hell, that’s one of the reasons I loved him until the injuries completely ruined him. I’d all but written him off and while one swallow doesn’t make a summer and all that, it’s great seeing him making such a positive contribution again and I couldn’t be happier for him. I’m not getting my hopes up too much as he’s just as likely to pull a muscle in training this week as he is to play like this again, but to me there’s no doubt that a fully fit Adam Lallana is a big asset to this team. For two years though he hasn’t been fully fit and he may never be again as all the evidence points to his body just not being able to withstand the demands of the style of football he plays. Forget the silky skills, quick feet and Cruyff turns he’s known for, this lad runs his fucking bollocks off for the team but sadly his body just can’t handle it anymore. If we can somehow get two more months out of him without him breaking down though he could really play a big part in some of these games we have left. He’s probably moved ahead of Keita and Shaqiri in the pecking order after this. We’ll see what happens now, but he played his part in this win and it will have meant a lot to him because he’s seen his team-mates do remarkable things these last two years while he’s barely been able to contribute anything. That can’t have been easy for him. Back to the game though, as I seem to have gone off on several different tangents there and have no idea where I was. Oh yeah, 2-1. Once we got our noses in front I was probably 95% sure we’d win. I wasn’t worried we’d throw it away and I didn’t think Burnley had another goal in them. You can’t ever be completely relaxed about it of course, because all it takes is a set-piece or a referees intervention (or as with the first goal, both), but I’d say I was as confident as it’s possible to be in that situation. Still, the third goal is always crucial and makes life much easier, so the sooner we got it the better we could all feel. Several chances came and went and we were playing some lovely football. It took a mistake from Tom Heaton for us to finally get that two goal cushion though. His poor clearance went straight to Salah who collected well and ran through on goal. He should have scored himself but the obsession with getting onto his left foot saw him tackled. It may have been a foul but I doubt Marriner would have given us anything so it was a blessing that Bobby was on hand to follow up and tuck the loose ball away. After that it was just a case of how many we’d get, but the finishing wasn’t great and somehow it stayed 3-1 until stoppage time. The closest we came was when Mané hit the bar from a couple of yards out following a brilliant move that ended with Trent delivering a buffet ball to the back post. Sadio stretched and took the ball away from Robertson who would have had a tap in. Robbo absolutely savaged him in his post match LFC TV interview afterwards and then on social media too. It was all good natured and very funny, but he’s defo annoyed about it. So am I. Imagine Robbo scoring at the Kop end? The roof would have come off the place. Despite how comfortable the game was at that stage, Marriner was still winding me right up with some of his decisions. It was going on right throughout the game. One minute he’s giving a free-kick against Lallana for winning a header against a stationary player who didn’t jump, the next he’s ignoring the exact same thing by a Burnley player. He gave a free-kick against Henderson after some brilliant pressing and then allowed a Burnley player to clearly foul Salah, resulting in them going up the field and making it 3-2. Absolute twat. I honestly didn’t mind him before this, but it really felt like something was amiss watching this. Maybe he just had a bad game though. Maybe. There was only about a minute left but that goal caused unnecessary, but understandable, anxiety. This game should never have been that close but this is why getting that third goal is so vital in those situations. All it takes is one freak moment or a mistake from the ref and just like that, two points gone. So that third goal was massive. The fourth was nice too (lovely play by Sturridge and a good finish by Sadio) but the only significance of it really was to ensure that everything stayed ‘as you were’ in the title race. City won by two goals, we won by two goals. No change, just one game less to play. It also meant that Mané is now the joint leading scoring in the league if you disregard penalties. He’s not really getting the credit he probably deserves for that. Last year he was very much the third man in our dazzling front three (they scored ninety goals between them. NINETY!!!), but this year he’s been at least the equal of Mo and he’s been better than Bobby. That probably says more about how they’ve dropped off than it does about any improvement in Sadio, but he’s done well. So three points more to the tally and the gap remains one (two really, we need to start eating into that goal difference soon before it becomes too late). We’re about to enter a key stage in the race because we no longer have to play catch up by playing the day after City. That’s a big help I think, as it’s tough seeing the gap go to four points, even with a game in hand. At least we won’t have to do that again for a while. City have no league game for three weeks now, while we play twice. In other words, if we win our next two games we’ll have a five point lead. Yes, they’ll have two games in hand (and one of them is Cardiff at home), but psychologically it’s a lot tougher being behind so we just have to win those next two games and make life uncomfortable for them. Whatever happens I don’t think it will be down to pressure. The players are dealing with that and it’s insulting to them to suggest otherwise. I’ve probably said it myself in moments of frustration, but it’s bollocks really. They might not always perform well but I don’t think it’s because they’re feeling the strain. When you look at what the players overcame to get this win it says a lot about their character. Early kick off, playing catch up after City’s win, terrible weather, awkward bastard opponents who we always have difficulty with, and an abomination of a referee intent on shafting us at every turn. They shrugged all that off and won. So a great job from the lads I’d say. Maybe going behind even helped, as it added a sense of urgency that might not have been there otherwise. It was a jolt to everybody and the players were stung into a reaction. I’m still livid about it though as it’s put a dent in our great defensive record. Interestingly, we’ve now got the exact same record at this stage of the season as the 1987/88 season. You know, the team widely regarded as the greatest we’ve ever had and who have been immortalised in song - “Kenny’s Boys of 88, there’s never been a side so great”. Until now maybe. There’s every chance these lads might give us the best league season in our history and not even win the league. That shouldn’t be held against them though, as none of our previous great sides had to compete against what Klopp’s team is facing. Kenny’s side were 14 points ahead with two games in hand. He wasn’t up against City. The last few weeks have been so frustrating, with the draws against Leicester, West Ham, the Mancs and Blueshite. It’s cast a shadow over what has been an incredible season really. It all stems from how desperate we are to win it and that we’re so close we can taste it, but getting down in the dumps about a few draws and singling out players for criticism is pretty unfair when you actually think about it. I’ve done it myself. I was steaming mad after the United game, I wasn’t thrilled after the derby and I’ve had a downer on Mo and Bobby for a while just because they haven’t been able to maintain the incredible form they had last season. It’s completely unfair but it is what is it. Wanting to win the title so badly makes us a little irrational. The real problem here though isn’t anything our lads have or haven’t done, it’s those cheating cunts completely ignoring the rules everyone else is playing by. Star man could have been any one of several. Van Dijk was majestic again, not even the tornado blowing around Anfield could unsettle him. Fabinho was solid as fuck, Bobby looked like Bobby again and Mané was razor sharp and should have gone home with the match ball. I’m giving it to Lallana though. He might not necessarily have been the best player on the pitch but he was certainly in the conversation, and given the context involved he deserves it. Hell, even my mum said he played well, and it didn’t even seem to be through gritted teeth. I’ve seen it all now. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold (Sturridge), Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Wijnaldum (Henderson), Lallana (Keita); Salah, Firmino, Mané:

Liverpool showed their main title rivals that they are well and truly up for the challenge after defeating a resolute Burnley outfit 4-2 at Anfield on Sunday.Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane each scored twice as the Reds showed their fighting qualities were in fine order after falling behind to a contentious Ashley Westwood goal in the sixth minute.While the nature of conceding that goal would have knocked the confidence out of Liverpool sides from the recent past, this squad is made of real substance and that showed as Firmino and Mane scored within ten minutes and they took that lead into the half-time interval.The Brazilian gave the Reds some breathing space midway through the second half, but the home team had to withstand a nervy finish when Clarets substitute Johann Berg Gudmunsson struck in the first minute of injury time.However Mane sent everyone's heart rate back to normal levels when he scored two minutes later to give the Reds a deserved victory. Speaking to the Official site, Andy Robertson said that the team would be embracing the challenge that lies ahead in the last couple of months." It’s another game down, eight to go. It’s going to be exciting one way or another." I’ve said in all the interviews I’ve done, we need to give 100 per cent in every single game and whether it gets us a trophy or it doesn’t, we need to deal with that." The position we’re in now, one point behind with eight games to go, if we perform like that – especially with our attitude – then it’ll stand us in good stead." We’ve got some tough games coming up but we look forward to the chase and hopefully we can push them all the way.” Robertson was very pleased with the way the team responded from conceding the early goal and the overall quality of their play." The work-rate from all of us was brilliant, our counter-press to get the ball quickly and our reactions to poor passes or chances missed." We reacted well and we looked positive, that’s what we needed to get better at. " We did that. We kept going and we were ruthless when the chances came." Away from the title race, Robertson is looking forward to the challenge that awaits in Munich on Wednesday evening against a in-form Bayern outfit.“Last season we were good away from home in the Champions League, we caused teams problems and that’s what we need to do again."It will probably be a different game, they’ll need to come out a bit more, their fans will demand they try to create."It’s all about trying to keep them out first and foremost and then hopefully we can take the chances we get and do enough to get through.”

Adam Lallana has given Jurgen Klopp a pleasant selection headache after producing a vintage display in Liverpool's 4-2 win against Burnley on Sunday afternoon.You could be forgiven for thinking that we had seen the best of the English international in Liverpool colours after a wretched two year battle with a number of leg muscle injuries.Eyebrows were certainly raised when the starting lineups were released for the high noon clash and the 30 year-old's name was on it.This was especially the case when you take into account the demand for the likes of Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri to return to the starting lineup in the hope it would give the team the kind of impetus it had been lacking in recent times.However, as we know so well, Klopp is a man with his own ideas and has always had a fondness for Lallana, a player who was so pivotal in the German's early tenure and the midfielder got the nod after a strong week in training. Making just his fourth league start for the season, Lallana was at the heart of a number of attacking moves by the home side as they overcame an early deficit to register a vital three points to narrow Man City's lead to just one point.Just like any player, Lallana just wants to play and admits the last couple of years have been extremely frustrating.The Official site reported Lallana as saying:"It has been a difficult two years for me with injuries, but hopefully that’s behind me now."I just want to keep working hard and contribute to what will be an exciting end to the season."It helps when you can be fit consistently, I’ve not had that over the last couple of years. It was a good game and I enjoyed being out there.”Competition for places is a delight for any manager and if Lallana can maintain his current level of fitness, it will be a massive boost in the title run-in because at his best he is a player of proven quality. Understandably Klopp was thrilled with the performance of the man of the match. " He is always good on the ball but he is pretty aggressive too, so on the counter-press situation it is a game changer, it's a brilliant thing. "Well done and well deserved, I am really happy for him."Lallana said that the players knew that the resilient Clarets outfit would be a tough nut to crack, especially as they are fighting for their Premier League survival .However, he was pleased with the overall effort of the team and said that maintaining focus was a key factor for the remaining eight games."Burnley made it very difficult for us and obviously got an early goal." All we’ve got to do is concentrate on ourselves and win games. "City won yesterday, so it was our job today to put in a professional performance."Burnley didn’t make it easy, and we might not have made it easy for ourselves at the end, but Sadio finished it off.” With Man City in FA Cup action next week, Liverpool can return to the top of the table with a win over Fulham at Craven Cottage on Sunday.

Saturday Mar 2: Some ridiculous quotes from Sterling today on how pressure from the fans got to the players in the 2014 title race when we were pipped by City. Apparently all that support made them nervous. He doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. Empty seats don’t make any noise. What a crock of shite though. That team won 11 of their last 13 games and the only defeat was to third placed Chelsea. It wasn’t the pressure that did them in, it was incredibly bad luck on the Gerrard slip and then a lack of quality from the bench to change things when it became clear that Mourinho had completely done a number on us and nullified what we were good at. Sure though, blame it on the fans if it fuels the bullshit narrative coming from City that our crowd is not actually a help to the players, but a hinderance. We’ve dropped just four points at home all season, maybe other clubs could do with having such unhelpful fans too? Staying with City, they had an unimpressive 1-0 win at Bournemouth today. They didn’t play well but they didn’t need to because Eddie Howe’s men just curled up into a little ball and begged not to be hit. Bournemouth became the first team since records began to not have a shot on or off target or win a single corner. I’m not sure how that’s even possible at this level of football, but this is the problem we have now. When a lot of teams play us it’s like a fucking cup final to them because they don’t want us to win the league (not Bournemouth, in fairness). When they play City they’re happy to just not get embarrassed. They aren’t arsed about winning because hardly anybody hates City because they were so insignificant for so long they haven’t had time to make any enemies. Their biggest enemies are probably fucking Macclesfield or Oldham or someone from back in the second division days. Even United don’t give a shit about them, while Everton idolise the fuckers. Hell, even Chelsea went there and bent over. Wait until you see how up for it they are when they come to Anfield though. City don’t have the kind of ‘grudge matches’ we have and it’s a big advantage. I reckon Burnley might give them all they can handle, and Palace will be up for it too. The rest? Nah, City will have it easy in all of those games, including the trip to Old Trafford. Meanwhile, a hat-trick for Bobby Duncan in a 7-2 win for the u18s draws him level with his partner Paul Glatzel on 24 goals apiece for the season. I like watching them and would love for one or both to make it here. It’s so tough though, and having a good international pedigree doesn’t mean as much as it used to. Michael Owen made a name for himself at youth level with us and England, and from the first time I saw him play I knew he’d make it. He’s probably the only youth team player I can ever say I was 100% sure was nailed on to be a star, and I use him as the barometer for all the other kids that have come through afterwards. Some of them have been hyped up, like Jerome Sinclair, Adam Morgan and more recently Rhian Brewster and Duncan, but honestly none of them have even come close to looking like the sure thing Owen was. Duncan is a star for England youth and once scored a hat-trick against Brazil for the u17s. People get excited about that kind of thing, but there’s a long way to go between under 17 and senior football. Hell, even when they’re a couple of years older it’s still really tough to know whether they’ll make it or not. I mean, England u20s won the World Cup a couple of years ago and their star player was Dom Solanke. The lad who scored the winning goal in the final was the bang average Calvert-Lewin. I really want Duncan to be a star and perhaps he will be. There’s a hell of a long way to go though and I’ve seen too many of these young strikers come up short because the standard is just so high these days. Sunday Mar 3: Everton 0 L 0 Well that was shite. Not as shite as last week at Old Trafford, but it was shite nonetheless. We didn’t play well but we should have won because we had all the chances. Its like the Anfield derby, a lot of shit being spoken about how well the Blues did. They played like the plucky underdogs they are and did a great job of stopping us playing and making sure we never really got a grip on the game. The rabid nature of the crowd inspired their players to put in the kind of shift they never have before, and never will again (not unless they play us when we’re going for a title again). They worked their bollocks off and rode their luck. They never looked like scoring though and that’s five clean sheets on the bounce for us now, so take all this ‘bottling’ talk and stick it where the sun don’t shine. We aren’t bottling anything, but a seven point lead is not one point deficit and that’s hugely demoralising. On the group chat some of the lads have completely given up now. Others aren’t having it, I’m somewhere in the middle. I think it’s probably gone, but I also know that there’s enough time left and one result can change everything. I’m sick of seeing fans running down other fans for their lack of faith though. Honestly, how can you blame anyone who thinks we may have lost our chance to win it? There’s been an eight point swing in a couple of weeks and we’re up against a side that amassed 100 points last season. We could still win it, but truth be told it would be a pretty big upset now if we did. In a perfect world everyone would keep faith that we were going to win the title regardless of how patchy our form has been since the turn of the year. Human emotions just don’t work that way though. No two people are the same and everyone reacts to setbacks in their own way. Some will believe right until the point when it’s no longer possible, and more power to them and their positive thinking. You can’t blame anybody who has thrown in the towel though. After all, this isn’t our first rodeo and in most of the others we fell off and were kicked in the head. Klopp is a big fan of the Rocky movies and has even likened the Reds to the “Italian Stallion” himself (perhaps instead of taking the lads for warm weather training he should have had them growing beards and chopping logs in Siberia?). Rocky had one big advantage over us though; he had somebody writing a favourable script for him. Whoever has been writing our script over the past decade clearly has a sadistic streak and has looked to inflict as much mental anguish on us as possible. So how can you blame anybody who fears it’s about to happen again? When you’ve been repeatedly knocked down there comes a point when you decide you’d rather stay on the canvas than get up and take more punishment. Some Reds have reached that point now, whereas others are still staggering to their feet and hoping to land a knockout blow, Rocky Balboa style. Anything can still happen, but it’s perfectly understandable that some are preparing themselves for the worst possible outcome. It’s just a natural defence mechanism. It fucking sucks though, doesn’t it? As for Everton, they can celebrate their 0-0 win all their like and sing about us ‘winning fuck all’, but watch them shit the bed next time out and spend the rest of the season continuing to be the embarrassment they’ve been all year. Losers. Monday Mar 4: It was the Mini derby tonight at Anfield. I was gonna go to this and take my daughter. Season ticket holders get in free, just like the old days (there was a time there when they were playing at Chester and Wrexham where season ticket holders still had to pay to get in). Only catch was you had to get there before 5pm and actually pick up paper tickets because for some reason you can’t just use the fancard to get in. There was no pay at the gate either. What the fuck? This club does my fucking head in. Why go out of your way to make it as difficult as possible for people to actually go and watch? I don’t get it. Would it really have been so difficult to open up some pay turnstiles? Fucking pricks. The more money they get they less they give a shit about us. Games like this are great for kids to go and get a taste for being in the big stadium watching footy. Get to fuck Liverpool, you fucking dickheads. As it turned out, they did us a favour as it was dire. The Blues won 2-0 and I watched the first half on LFCTV. Just awful stuff, this is not a fun team to watch at all. If you thought the midfield Klopp sent out yesterday was workmanlike and lacking in guile, you should have seen this. Fucking hell. Connor Randall (yeah he’s still here), Isaac Christie-Davies (I’ve seen him half a dozen times and still have absolutely no idea what he is or what he does) and Liam Coyle (I like this kid, he’s a tough tackling number six). No wonder we didn’t create anything. Although the front three were useless as well. Ben Woodburn has completely fallen off a cliff. Remember when Klopp was calling him the “Prince of Wales”? The last two seasons have been a complete waste of time for the kid. He played centre forward tonight for some reason. Madness. The other two forwards were Camacho and Jones. It amazes me that Camacho gets on the first team bench because we’ve had loads of young wingers who were better than him and got nowhere near. I don’t see it with him at all, he’s alright like, but a million miles away from first team standard. He doesn’t even stand out much at this level. As for Jones, I’m a big fan of his but has not kicked on at all this year and it annoys me seeing him playing on the left wing. It’s a Lallana thing. He’s not quick but he’s got great feet, so he’s a midfielder, not a winger. It’s doing my head in seeing him doing all his tricks miles from goal marooned on the touchline. Tuesday Mar 5: Remember a few weeks ago and Spurs battered Dortmund at Wembley. Some idiot ran his mouth about how Dortmund would still go through. Yeah, well tonight Spurs won 1-0 in the away leg to go through 4-0 on aggregate. Christ, that was some poor judgement from me. Still, I’ve got some way to go before I can match Sergio Ramos in the massively ill judged decision stakes. The soft cunt deliberately got himself booked at Ajax three weeks ago, thinking the job was done and the home leg would be a formality. UEFA weren’t happy and doubled his ban to two games, and then tonight Ajax dicked Madrid all over the Bernabeu and won 4-1. Absolutely glorious. As much as I wanted us to be the ones to put them out, I’m realistic enough to know that given how we’ve been playing away from home recently (and all season in Europe) there are no guarantees we’ll get by Munich next week. So at least Madrid are out in the most comical of circumstances. If we win number six at least we won’t have far to go to reach his house and celebrate outside. Oh, and sign that De Ligt kid to partner Big Virg. Wednesday Mar 6: Duncan and Glatzel (has anyone dubbed them D&G yet? Hope not) inspire the u18s to the semis of the youth cup. Glatzel scored two and Duncan got one (while both laid on a goal for the other) in a 5-1 win over Bury. The lads have had a piss easy run to the semis and they now play Watford, who you’d imagine they should also beat. City play West Bom in the other semi, so maybe we’ll play them in the final? Imagine how up for that one Duncan would be. Also tonight, the Mancs turned it around against PSG and went through. Of course they did. PSG are the biggest bottlers in Europe. I had thought after the first leg that even they couldn’t fuck this up, but I under-estimated just what massive chokers they are. Still, United needed a farcical stoppage time penalty awarded by VAR to go through. It won’t stop everyone tonguing Solskjaer’s balls, but the fact is they were incredibly spawny and if football wasn’t so completely intent on ruining itself then they’d be out. I’ll say it again. VAR IS FUCKING SHIT. I hate it, and it has nothing to do with United benefitting from it tonight. I’d honestly be saying the exact same thing had it gone the other way. It’s genuinely the worst thing that’s ever happened to football. It ruined the World Cup and now it’s ruining the Champions League. And next season it will ruin the Premier League. If this wasn’t how I make my living I’d seriously be thinking of fucking the whole thing off, as this isn’t the game I grew up with. Between handball, offside and VAR I’m genuinely starting to hate this game. Thursday Mar 7: The fallout from last night continues, with Neymar letting loose on Instagram and telling UEFA to go and “fuck yourselves”. Leaving aside the fact he’s a massive twat and I hate him, I have three thoughts on this. Firstly, had that decision gone his way he’d be singing a massively different tune. Secondly, he’s absolutely right. And thirdly, seeing a footballer tell UEFA to go fuck themselves is great, so fair play to him. On the subject of UEFA though, they’ve belatedly launched an inquiry into Man City and their dodgy dealings. City issued a statement protesting their innocence, which should be used as further evidence against them when they’re found guilty. They had a chance to come clean but instead doubled down on the deceit. That should mean further punishment. The end result of this will probably be some sort of ban from European football. I’m not arsed about that at all really, I want to see the Premier League do something. This is a little more complicated though apparently. The PL can’t do anything without the backing of the clubs. There are some rumours tonight that “up to a dozen” clubs are concerned about this and want to know what the league are going to do about it. A dozen? What about the others? Obviously Everton won’t want any part of it, but that still leaves 18 clubs. This is the biggest frustration about the whole thing for me. Madrid, Barca, Bayern, Juve and all the European big hitters should be piling the pressure onto UEFA to do something, but so should every club in the PL too. Do they not understand what’s happening here? There are rules in place that it appears everyone else bar City are following. One club is blatantly ignoring those rules to gain an advantage. Why the fuck isn’t everyone kicking off and demanding the league do something? I can’t get my head around it, unless they’re worried about their own rule breaches being exposed. Friday Mar 8: Surprise surprise, the suggestion is that FSG are the ones pushing hardest for the PL to do something about City. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I don’t like the implication that we’re the ringleaders just because we stand to gain the most if anything is done. There’s even an element of us being “grasses” about this. If FSG are the ones leading the charge, firstly I’d say good for them. Secondly I’d say, about fucking time. As I say, everyone should be pissed off about this as it’s blatant cheating to gain an advantage. I despair when I see the love for City from so called ‘neutral’ fans. Everyone should hate what they are doing, but because it means they’re sticking it to us and United you’ve got all sorts of dickheads thinking it’s great. They’re not just sticking it to us though. Look at Burton for example, who reached a league cup semi final and lost 9-0 to City and their illegitimately paid for squad of all stars. If they are found guilty (and that should be a formality given the leaked emails that confirm their guilt) it’s going to be fascinating to see what happens. You can’t fine them, because they’ve got all the money in the world and it is no punishment whatsoever. A transfer ban is an option, but Chelsea have just had that for illegal payments to Academy players or something trivial like that. What City have done is a thousand times more serious than taping up a youth player or buying his parents a house or whatever shit clubs are getting caught out doing (us and Everton both included). There’s no comparison, so the punishment can’t compare either. That’s why talk of a transfer ban is laughable to me. It has to be a points deduction and strip them of the titles they won since the rules came into play. Anything less is a farce and should not be accepted by the other clubs. I won’t hold my breath though. In other news today, Ox was back and Ox was injured. Thankfully it’s not thought to be anything to worry about, but this is exactly why we shouldn’t be pinning any hopes on him coming back and giving us that drive and thrust he provided last season. Any player who comes from such a long absence nearly always ends up picking up minor muscle injuries. They reckon it usually takes around six months after they come back before they reach peak level again, so if we get anything from Ox this year it’s a bonus. Meanwhile, his mate Brewster has done ANOTHER interview. Fuck me, have we ever heard so much from a kid yet to play a first team game? It’s not his fault and he actually speaks very well and seems like a really likeable kid, but it’s mad how high profile he is considering he’s only ever played youth football. Finally, it seems that the plan for Harry Wilson is to loan him to a Premier League side next year, and Leicester were in pole position until they appointed Brendan. Now, reportedly, that won’t happen. Why not? He’s pretty good working with youngsters isn’t he? Is this because of the beef between him and Edwards? If so, put that shit to one side and do what’s best for Wilson. and that was the week that was...

The evolution of the Liverpool defence has undoubtedly been one of the most pleasing elements of the season to date. For so long seen as the main thing stopping Liverpool from progressing to the next level, it has now become the bedrock of the Reds success this campaign.It has been a meticulously planned process by Jurgen Klopp, a manager who saw the faults, but took his time to assess and rectify it in his own way.Part one of the plan was to throw plenty of challenges the way of young full-backs Andy Robertson and Trent-Alexander-Arnold in their first full season at the club.In the main they passed them with flying colours, however Klopp knew he was missing a key element, a defensive leader if you like.The signing of Virgil Van Dijk was certainly a drawn out affair, but Klopp wanted his man knowing full well what kind of role he could play, not just on the park but as a mentor to the likes of Robertson and Alexander-Arnold.It is a role that the Dutchman is loving and the results are there for all to see.However, in typical mentoring fashion, he is convinced his pupils can go to another level.The Official site reported Van Dijk in saying:" They are having outstanding seasons and I am always a bit hard on them because I want them to do very well." But I am enjoying every bit of it, seeing them perform like this." They are fantastic players, full of confidence and they should be full of confidence because they’re performing at such a high level." I said to Robbo the other day that he needs to get some goals as well to be even better, but that’s just me wanting to push him to improve even more!" That’s something I like, to push him – and Trent the same"The trio have a fantastic relationship which is vitally important when you are playing in such a pivotal area of the pitch."We have a great understanding and that’s how we all work together, especially at the back. "In the end, we do it all together”Liverpool are currently on the back of five clean sheets in all competitions with the last goal conceded coming on the fourth of February against West Ham.Again, Van Dijk hails the importance of everyone playing a vital role." 100 per cent [it’s a collective effort]. "Robbo is having a fantastic season, Trent has been amazing and Joel has come in for the last few games and been playing very well."It’s very important that everyone is getting to their best level, especially for the last nine games."It’s obviously very important, especially with the games we have left and the situation we’re in, it’s good to have something to build on.With the likes of Joe Gomez and Dejan Lovren edging closer to full fitness, Klopp may have some selection headaches on his hands in the near future.But you sense with how well the current quartet are playing, he would be wary of changing too many things.As Van Dijk says, stability is key with so much on the line." We have to keep doing it."We’ve had five clean sheets on the bounce with the Bayern game as well and we hope to keep it going. "That’s the way forward. Other than that, we have to keep working and hopefully keep winning games as well."Let's hope they can make it six clean sheets on the bounce along with a vital three points against Burnley.

It has been one of the main unanswered questions for the Liverpool faithful as we have progressed into 2019. What are the reasons why Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri have been receiving inconsistent game time of late?While it has been speculated that Jurgen Klopp may have lost a level of faith in the duo, there is enough proof to say that the German is not that kind of manager.If anything, he is a shining example that patience can win out in the end, and certainly he is not going to toss you out on the scrap heap in a matter of months.Klopp addressed the issue yesterday at his weekly press conference with the Liverpool Echo reporting the manager as saying:"It is about our situation in training and what's needed individually for the next opponent. That is all that we think about."We don’t stick to one formation or the other, but the boys need to offer. "Sometimes it is more possible and sometimes it is not possible for different reasons." Sometimes we don’t have the sessions. "Then it's more difficult to offer something. It's all part of the decision making.In terms of Keita clocking minutes on the pitch, it appears to be all or nothing.The Guinea international made starts against Leicester, West Ham, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth along with Bayern Munich in the Champions League, yet only clocked up ten minutes total in the other league fixtures against Brighton, Watford and Everton.The 24 year-old has been widely criticised for his lack of general impact, especially as he was touted as the sort of box to box midfielder the club has lacked in recent seasons.Klopp has regularly backed Keita and maintained he will live up to his £52 million price tag. The German explained his current situation. “It's just that we have to think about a lot of things before a game."We played quite a few teams with really good set-pieces, stuff like that. We needed to make sure that we had the right line up and set up for that."Naby is actually in a good moment and has trained well. It's only been the last three games he didn't play too much."The team is in a good moment and we feel in a good moment so it's difficult if things are working out well in midfield."If we play the system we usually play most of the time then there are only three positions (in midfield). Somebody has to be out but it's all good. "They are all fit and we can use them all.”Shaqiri's plight has been even more puzzling to those looking on from the sidelines.In fine form at the tail end of 2018, the Swiss star has only made two league starts in 2019 and only seen 39 minutes of game time in the past month.Again, Klopp explained his reasoning in regards to the former Bayern Munich and Inter Milan star.“It's similar with Shaq."He had a little injury and was out (for Bournemouth at home). There was something with his back and he needed a little time."I remember the moment when he got the injury - he won a heading challenge near the sideline. His body wasn't used to that! It affected him."With the line up we had and system wise, it wasn't difficult but we have to change a little bit if Shaq is playing. For the last few games we didn't do that. He's fully fit now.”Alluding to the overall improving health of his squad, Klopp says there is no reason why they cannot finish the season very strongly."Yeah, 100%, that's my feeling at the moment."Everything is prepared for that. It looks as positive as I don't know since when. People are coming back. "We had to go through situations with two centre-backs, one centre-back plus Fabinho. We came through all these situations. Midfield there were exactly three players left."To cope and deal with all of the situations during the season that is the art, that is what it is about and then if you do that then you are in a situation that pretty much all the other teams want to be."

Steven Gerrard brought unbridled joy to millions of Liverpool fans all over the world with his ability to consistently produce the goods on the big stage.
 The amount of times the talismanic midfielder was able to dig his team out of a hole is way too many to list. However, for all the adulation that football brings you, it can snatch it back in a instant without any questions asked.

 For all the heroic moments and achievements, Gerrard is remembered very harshly by some as the player whose mistake against Chelsea cost his team the league title in 2014.

 As with all top players, Gerrard is his harshest critic and hard as it may be, he still lives with that haunting memory and admits it may remain with him for the foreseeable future. ESPN reported Gerrard as saying: "This wound has been open since my experience. I am not sure it will close because I can't change that experience and my experience. 

"It doesn't affect how I feel towards what I am looking in on now.

 I see a support that gave me absolutely everything from the terraces and around the world.

 "I just hope for their sake, and mine as a supporter, that come the end of the competition they are victorious. 

But it won't make me or my wound feel any different."

 The expectation of winning the title in 2013/4 grew with every passing match, and while the 'slip' against Chelsea remains the moment that is remembered the most, Gerrard tries to look at the bigger picture.

 "I don't just look back to that one game [Chelsea] or one campaign," he said. “I don't overthink and drive myself crazy over it.

 "At the same time, I have been honest and open, it was such a big year. It was the trophy that eluded me, so of course I am always going to look back and wish it was different.

" In terms of the modern day squad, Gerrard does not believe in placing any extra pressure on top of what they are already dealing with.

Instead he has told them to enjoy the challenge. 

"My advice, having been a player in that team and playing for those supporters for so long, would be don't overthink it. 
 "Just enjoy it. Believe in yourselves.

 I think the supporters are very excited, but I think there are some nerves about which is understandable. I think it will be very mixed.

 "I think now, in the Liverpool dressing room, they can use experiences of what has gone before to try and help them in the run-in." 

There has been a prevailing view that if Liverpool fail to lift the trophy in May, it falls into the category of 'another one that got away' especially as the Reds had a seven point lead at the turn of the year. 
 


However, Gerrard has seen the progression made by Jurgen Klopp and his players, and feels that they will give their best effort from now until the final minute of the season. 
 "If that is good enough then it will be fantastic, but if not, they will just have to accept it and move on. 

"I think certain people around the world will see it as failure, but there is nothing you can do about that.

 That is football and opinions.

 "For me, as a fan, Jurgen has taken the team and the squad forward giant strides. He is doing everything he can.

 "Sometimes in football, if someone beats you to it, just, sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say the better team won. 

"I hope that is not the case, but I don't think you can be too critical if you have been fantastic yourself and have done ever so well to be in it in the first place." 

While Gerrard has moved on to become the manager of Rangers, it is only natural that the Reds remain in the forefront of the mind of the club legend. 
 Just like all of us, he will hoping we can go one step further this season.




Shitty weekend for us as we lost top spot. We only have ourselves to blame for not being able to take care of a shite team like Everton, but life isn’t exactly being made easier by the way other teams approach games with City is it? I’ve had a soft spot for Bournemouth and Eddie Howe for a number of years. I root for them to do well and quite enjoy watching them play. I may need to rethink all that though after what they did this weekend. Or more specifically, what they didn’t do. Not a single shot on or off target and no corners. At home. Honestly, I’m not being melodramatic here, but that is genuinely the most cowardly thing I can ever remember from a top flight team. Had City been playing a League Two side they’d have been given more trouble than this. The frustrating thing is City were bang average again, just as they had been when needing a phantom penalty to beat West Ham last week. They aren’t playing well but when opponents are doing this, what does it matter anyway? Part of the problem is that (other than us) nobody really hates City. They have no rivals because they were lovable losers for decades. Even United don’t really hate them. The rest of the top clubs are happy for City to win the title because it gives them a ready made excuse for not doing so. Look at how Chelsea and (to a lesser extent) Arsenal approached their games at the Etihad. The white flag was raised at the first sign of adversity. It's like "It's City, they're loaded. What can we do?" The year Leicester won it blew everybody else’s bullshit excuses out of the water and it would be similar this year if we won it. I'm not comparing us to Leicester, what they did was miraculous, but fans of Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and United would rightly be able to ask the powers that be at their clubs “if Liverpool can win it then what's your excuse?” When City are winning it though there’s a ready made excuse for everyone, because how can you compete with oil money? That’s why no-one hates City, but they should do, because the cheating fucks are breaking all the rules that everyone else is playing by, yet somehow hardly anybody seems to have an issue with that. Why? In most cases it’s because the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and so many of these fuckers want to see us come up short that City are seen as the lesser evil. They're fighting the good fight against the evil scouse empire. In fairness that wasn’t Bournemouth’s motivation (I doubt their fans give a fuck who wins it, this show of cowardice is 100% on Howe), but it’s a fact that a lot of opponents we face (specifically the crowd) are more up for it when they play us than they are when they play City. It’s almost like manager's think “as long as we don’t get embarrassed a defeat is fine” and the crowds around the country are generally fine with it too. When they play us though they’re bang up for it. Old Trafford was rocking the other week even though they barely left their own half. The United fans were more up for that than they have been for any game in years. Will they be the same when City go there? No chance. The players might be up for it and give it a right good go, but will they have the same determination to not concede as they when they played us? Nope. The crowd will definitely lack the frothing at the mouth intensity they had when we went there. That’s just a stone cold fact. I’m not lumping Bournemouth in with the ‘anyone but Liverpool’ brigade though. They don’t have a horse in this race and I imagine that, in general, their fans don’t give a shit if we win it or City do. They probably expected their side to have a go at City, as what did they have to lose? They’re mid table, safe, and they’d been hammered by Arsenal so if the same happened against City, so what? They kept the score down to 1-0 and on paper that seems like a good effort, but it’s a phoney ‘victory’. Like Everton the other week. They made it look good, but the result was never, ever in any doubt because they had no interest in doing anything other than not get thumped. Bournemouth were even worse than Everton, as statistically it was the most inept effort since nerds began keeping records on this stuff. I know exactly what happened here though. They’ve had some real beatings away from home and were coming off a spanking at the Emirates a few days before. So they got gun shy. Normally Bournemouth at home are a handful for anybody, but instead of taking the game to City like they’d normally do, Howe had them curl up into the faetal position and begged City to go easy on them. And how shit must be Begovic be if he’s lost his place to Boruc? That turd was beaten at his near post by a weak as piss shot from Mahrez. Howe said the only blemish was they gave up an ugly goal but otherwise they did very well. 18% possession and not a single shot. Oh yeah, you did fantastic, you bad shithouse. Defending with everyone behind the ball is fine. Palace and Newcastle both beat City playing like that. You know what else they did though? They attacked when they had the opportunity to do it. So fuck Eddie Howe and fuck Bournemouth. The days of me wanting them to do well are over now. Thanks for nothing, losers. I just hope the likes of Palace and Burnley will have a go at City, as I’m not relying on United or Spurs for any favours, that’s for damn sure. And anyone thinking Brendan is going to do something against them with Leicester has read too many fairy tales. Speaking of Spurs, they’ve taken one point from the last nine and are now finally out of the title race. They’re now in a race to stay in the top four, which seemed inconceivable a little over a week ago. The Burnley defeat really hurt them and it’s also cost Pochettino a place on the touchline for their next couple of games after he rose to the bait dangled in front of him by Mike Dean. The Spurs boss is usually quite controlled and cool, but Dean can have that effect on anyone. He could cause Ghandi to lose his shit. Spurs ended their mini losing streak this weekend but only just. Ramsay signed off from North London derbies in some style with a superbly taken opener to put Arsenal ahead. Spurs equalised from the penalty spot when a clearly offside Kane was shoved in the back by the train wreck that is Mustafi. Arsenal had the better of the game and had a chance to win it at the death, but Aubamayeng’s penalty was dreadful and he looked terrified prior to taking it. Arsenal’s frustration was compounded when Torreira was sent off in stoppage time for winning the ball and having Rose step into his follow through. Absolute joke that. Spurs have their keeper to thank for escaping with a point, but no-one does a camera save quite like Hugo Lloris do they? He makes the simple look difficult and the difficult look difficult. There was one camera save from Iwobi in this game that was hilarious. Even the penalty save right at the end initially looked like a great save, then you see the replay and it’s about two yards away from him yet somehow he’s at full stretch making it look like a worldy. Anthony Taylor was fucking shocking though. Neither penalty should have been given, Vertonghen was three yards inside the box when it was taken and was therefore able to make a key block on the rebound, Torreira shouldn’t have been sent off and he somehow gave nothing when Xhaka launched himself from behind at Kane, got nowhere near the ball and caught him on the back of the knee with studs raised. Can’t stand that baldy manc bastard. I saw at least half a dozen clips of Arsenal fans filming themselves watching the game and they all posted up the clip of them watching the penalty miss. What’s this shit about? I don’t get it. Is this an age thing, am I just too old to understand this, or are they just self absorbed helmets who want to show everyone how “passionate” they are? Maybe both, but mostly the latter. Moving on and Burnley were beaten at home by Wilfried Palace. Good game this though, surprisingly. A swift counter saw Bardsley put into his own net after good work from Zaha. Batshuayi lashed in the second after being picked out by Wan-Bissaka. Great goal that. Not as good as the third though. Zaha beat two defenders and he beat them about three times apiece before lashing a low shot past Heaton. Said it before and I’ll say it again, Zaha is fucking brilliant. One of my favourite players to watch, massively talented. Barnes grabbed a late consolation and Crouchy was inches away from his first Burnley goal. Burnley actually played well and dominated the game, but Palace on the break are a real handful and their gameplan worked to perfection. Brighton came through a must win home fixture with Huddersfield, but only just. Substitute Andone won it for them late on with a good header from a lovely cross by Knockaert. Mouniet almost equalised immediately but Matt Ryan saved. Typical Huddersfield really. Played well, kept it close, couldn’t score and lost. Massive win for Brighton though as they were sinking fast. They were level with Southampton and only two ahead of Cardiff going into this. They’ve got a little breathing room now but they’re form has been so bad they still need to be careful With Huddersfield and Fulham pretty much cooked, Cardiff have picked the worst possible time to completely lose their form and right now they look doomed. Two heavy defeats to Watford and Everton and now a loss at Wolves has put them right back in the shit after a decent little run had given them hope of escape. Jimenez and Jota did the damage with two goals in two minutes. Cardiff then lost Sol Bamba to a serious, self inflicted knee injury. He hurt himself booting Adam Traore to stop a Wolves counter attack. No Bamba, no chance. I'm pretty sure now that Cardiff will fill that third relegation spot now and it looks as though they know it too. Warnock looked a beaten man afterwards, he was half heartedly complaining about a red card that wasn’t given but you could tell he knew it wouldn’t have made any difference. He’s probably relieved, soon he’ll be back in the land where he is king. No, not Yorkshire, I mean the Championship. Warnock reminds me of Michael Jordan. Now hold on, hear me out. What I mean, is Warnock in the Premier League is like when MJ quit the NBA to play baseball. He was a fish out of water but went back to basketball and reeled off three titles on the spin. Warnock in the lower leagues is basketball Jordan. In the Premier League he's baseball Jordan. The moral of the story is he should stay in the lower leagues. United won again. Haven’t seen any of it and don’t want to talk about it. Bet they win every game up until they play City and then they’ll turn in their worst performance since the Goblin took charge. Pricks. Elsewhere, Declan Rice headed West Ham in front at home to Newcastle and then ruined all his good work with a terrible celebration. The Hammers were then awarded a penalty when Hernandez fooled the ref with a top class dive. No blame to the official there, it looked a pen all day until you see the replay and realise there’s no contact whatsoever. Noble buried the pen in some style and that’s how it finished. Onto Sunday and Chelsea just about edged out Fulham at Craven Cottage. That prick was back in goal after the leanest of punishments. One weeks wages and dropped for one game. Sarri has no balls. I had him down as this no nonsense, don’t fuck with me Italian wisely type, but that incident with the keeper and how he dealt with it afterwards just made him look like a bad pussy. That dressing room didn’t respect him before, so he’s got no chance now. He’ll be gone at the end of the season. Still, he’s lasted a lot longer than poor Claudio, who was sacked last week. What was the point in even bringing him in? Presumably they thought he was a short term shot of adrenaline who might be able to save them, and when it became clear that wasn’t going to happen they fucked him off. My question is if that’s all they wanted, why didn’t they just give it to Fat Sam? Ranieri deserved better than that. Higuain gave Chelsea the lead with a sharp finish. Scoring against Fulham is just about his level, the big fucking fraud. Fulham levelled when an unmarked Chambers converted a Ryan Babel cross. Jorginho side footed in from 18 yards to restore Chelsea’s lead just three minutes later, and that’s how it finished. Finally, my boy Troy set Watford on their way to a 2-1 win over Leicester. He looked offside but the goal was given anyway, much to the displeasure of new Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers. Vardy equalised with a trademark Vardy goal, running onto a through ball and finishing with aplomb. He looked razor sharp all day and no-one will be happier about Puel getting the bullet than Vardy. He can enjoy his football again now, as Rodgers will at least play to his strengths and not keep benching him for no reason. Leicester played well and had plenty of chances, but Andre Gray won it for Watford right at the death when Maguire played him onside and he ran clear to score. Leicester piled on the pressure in the dying seconds and had three good chances, but Watford held on. A bad start for Brendan then, but he’ll do alright there I think. He’s got loads of talent to work with and next season they should be comfortably in the top half and ready to pounce on the top six if anyone of them has a bad season (Chelsea are looking most likely given the likelihood of Hazard getting off and their impending transfer ban). I don’t bear him any ill will at all, but equally I don’t think I can be arsed listening to all the insincere bullshit that just pours out of his mouth any time there’s a microphone put in front of him. He’s just annoying as fuck, still coming out with the same cringe soundbites he did when he was here. In his opening press conference he gave it the old “I’ll give my life for this club.” Yeah, until another stepping stone comes along. Still, I’m glad Puel has gone as he seemed to have Klopp’s number for some inexplicable reason. Leicester will be good to watch now, but there’s as much chance of me tuning in for United games as there is of me sitting through any more of Brendan’s interviews. Unless he beats City in May of course, in which case he can spout all the shite he likes. Hell, I'd even let him have a medal if we won it. Rafa too. Not Roy though, not unless he beats them again in a few weeks. God this is depressing, having to rely on Brendan and Roy to do us favours. Stranger things have happened I suppose. I can't think of any, but there must be something.

When you think of Brazilian footballers, world class technical quality is almost a given. Wanting to do the less glamorous things like winning possession for his side by relentlessly pressuring opponents and basically covering every blade of grass in the process is less common. If there is one Liverpool player who emphasises what Jurgen Klopp wants to see from his players it is Roberto Firmino.Like many young aspiring footballers from the Samba nation, Firmino idolised the true brilliance of Ronaldinho, but he also wanted to forge his own identity in the game.To his credit, the 27-year old has managed to combine the key elements of skill and workrate to become a very well-rounded footballer. Firmino took a few months to adapt to English Football when he was signed by Brendan Rodgers in the summer from 2015 from Hoffenheim.However, under the tutelage of Klopp, Firmino flourished scoring each of his 45 league goals for the club under the German.Firmino is someone who loves to take on board any information that will help improve his game, and under Klopp has learnt plenty about what he can do on a football pitch.Firmino talked about the transition of his career from a midfielder to a number 9 with Eight by Eight magazine (republished on the Official site)." I was a midfielder, though for a while I even played as a central defender." But whenever I got the ball, I would start to dribble and to nutmeg people and join the attack. "So every year I evolved a little bit further forward up the pitch." Once I got to the U17s, I became a No.10, which was the position I held up until recently – when I established myself as a centre-forward."It was Klopp’s idea to fix me as a No.9. But I accepted this role and adapted to it. "Now I want to continue in this position until the end of my career.”Klopp was a admirer of Firmino when they were both in the Bundesliga, and made no secret of his thrill with working with him, referring to him as the 'engine' of the side.It is fair to say that the appreciation is mutual. “We get along so well. He’s an excellent coach, an amazing person, so passionate on the pitch."When he says that, to me, it’s a sign that I’m giving back what he wants. It motivates me to keep going, to do the things he asks.”Just like his fellow forwards in Sadio Mane and Mo Salah, Firmino has had a somewhat inconsistent campaign.His best has been elite such as his all-round display against Watford in November, the hat-trick against Arsenal and more recently against Bournemouth.However, at times he has looked off the pace with his touch and general efforts in front of goal, and currently has scored just once in his last six starts.If Bobby manages to play to a consistently high level in the next few months, it will go a long way to seeing the Reds raise the Premier League trophy in May.

Liverpool fans can rest easy in the knowledge that Jurgen Klopp will reject any overtures from Real Madrid to become their new manager in the summer.Speculation is rife that the Spanish giants will dispose of yet another manager in the aftermath of their crushing loss at the hands of Ajax in the second leg of their last 16 clash in the Champions League on Tuesday evening.Even before that dismal display at the Bernabeu which was their earliest exit in the competition since 2010, Santiago Solari's cards appeared to be marked due to their woeful domestic campaign.Madrid is currently 12 points off the pace in the La Liga and last week suffered a humbling 3-0 home loss at the hands of great rivals Barcelona in the second legs of the Copa Del Rey.Understandably, Klopp's name has been mentioned as someone who the Madrid giants will take a very close look at due to his fine body of work throughout his managerial career.Any time Madrid gets linked with a player (or in this case a manager) a feeling of dread comes over you, especially as they have a remarkable ability of getting who they want.However, the Liverpool Echo reports that the German has no intention of leaving the club any time soon with his current contract running till the end of the 2021/22 season. Last month there was a report that said that Klopp may in fact extend his tenure past that date, but said he wants to focus on the current moment, and will let things take care of themselves from there.While it is true that the club have not won any silverware during his 3 and a half year tenure, what is an undeniable fact is that the German has certainly transformed the Reds on the pitch, and truly connected with the fanbase which is a underrated element in itself.The 51 year-old has previously stated that he wants to retire by the age he is 60, so lets hope by the time that time arrives, he has won a couple of league and Champions League titles with the mighty Reds.No pressure Jurgen.

At this time of the season when the big games come thick and fast, managers look for any advantage they can find to get one over their rivals.With the transfer window well and truly closed, they have to look at options from within and Jurgen Klopp is able to call a couple of individuals to help the Reds cause.The imminent return to competitive action of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is a triumph for all involved with the club, as it seemed in all likelihood that he would miss the whole campaign due to a significant knee injury.Understandably, the club will take a careful approach with the English international and they are keeping tight lipped over whether he will play for the U/23s against Derby on Friday as previously speculated.Whatever impact the 25 year-old can have for the rest of the season, it will certainly give his teammates, the coaches and the fans a real boost.However, there is one other player who can provide an immediate impact, that being Xherdan Shaqiri.When the Reds were playing their best football of the season, Shaqiri was a key factor, with two match winning strikes against Man United, while playing a starring role in the thumping win against Arsenal at the end of 2018.Just like the team, the form of the 27 year-old's impact has dipped somewhat in the new year but in Shaqiri's defence, his ground time has been at a premium, only making two league starts in 2019. One statistic that cannot be understated is when Shaqiri starts, for the most part Liverpool pick up the three points this season.Liverpool Echo reports that in Shaqiri's 11 league starts this season, the Reds have claimed 10 wins with the only dropped points coming against Leicester at the end of January.With opposition teams wary of Liverpool's attacking threat, Shaqiri has that quality to unpick a tight defence and create scoring opportunities for his teammates along with putting the ball in the back of the net himself which he has done six times in the league this season.Why the Swiss star has been overlooked in more recent times is somewhat of a mystery, but in the aftermath of the midfield and front three coming up short in big games against Man United and Everton, it seems like just the right time to unleash the 'Shaq Attack' once again.

There goes top spot then. Didn't take long for that seven point lead to go up in smoke. It's not easy though when we're having to play in other team's cup finals. If only Everton had put up this kind of fight when they played City. Maybe United will match last week's effort when they face their 'noisy neighbours', but don't bank on it. I can guarantee that the Chelsea that shows up at Anfield will be unrecognisable from the disgraceful rabble that bent over at the Etihad. The price of being hated I guess. City have won eight of their last nine and we’re drawing more than Tony Hart. That’s a big problem and although nothing is over yet and there are a lot of points still to play for, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that we now need to win every game to even stand a chance. It still might not be enough, but we’ve got no control over what City do so there’s no point being overly concerned about that right now. What we should be concerned about are our own performances. Let’s be honest here, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever to suggest that we can win all of our remaining games. Nothing. We’re not losing, mainly because the defence is fucking boss, but we aren’t winning enough either because the attack is so fucking streaky. Bottom line - I don’t trust the forwards to deliver anymore. They’ve misfired too many times this season, whereas the defence have had less than a handful of poor games. We’ve kept five clean sheets in a row in all competitions but we’ve only won one of those games. Over the course of the entire season we’ve had eight draws and in five of those we kept a clean sheet. In the others, we conceded only one in each game. If the attack had found the net just once in each of those games we’d have eight more points and would have a lead to take to Munich. The forwards are fucking killing us, and who could have seen that coming? We didn’t play well against Everton but we still should have won fairly comfortably. You can argue that we didn’t deserve to win based on how we played and you’ll get no real argument from me on that, but deserved or not, we should have won because we had all of the chances. It was a massively frustrating game because everything was there for us to win it. Everton were made up with the draw but in fairness they didn’t play for it. This wasn’t like last week when United just got everyone behind the ball and tried to stop us. The Blues didn’t do that, they might be shite but they had a go and tried to win the game, and because of that there was space for us to exploit. We did exploit it to some degree and we created some great chances. We just wasted them. We didn’t control the game as we should have done but I’d give Everton a lot of credit for that as they made it difficult and maintained a really high work rate. They didn’t play much football and Pickford was back to doing what he did under Allardyce and spent most of the game kicking for touch. I had hoped we’d see them repeat the hilarious “Man City-lite” style we saw at Anfield, but sadly not. Their work rate was impressive, no doubt fuelled by the hissing, venomous “support” from the home crowd. They’ve barely make a sound at Goodison all season and most of them hate their own team these days, but they hate us more. The chance to stop the Reds going back to the top of the league meant they turned in the performance of their lives. Both on the pitch and in the stands. Everton’s players absolutely ran themselves ragged against us. You won’t see that from them again this season. Job done now. I didn’t think they’d be able to keep up the pace they set early in the game and assumed they’d tire, opening it up for us late on. That never really happened though. If anything we looked more leggy than they did, which is a worry. Time on the ball was at a premium but it wasn’t the blood and thunder derby games of old. We should have played better than we did but it wasn’t all bad either. We’ve played a lot worse than this on numerous occasions this season. At least we had chances in this game. If we’d taken one or two that would have put an entirely different slant on how we played. I don’t think it’s being unfair to say that Mo Salah is the reason we picked up one point instead of three. I don’t particularly like singling out one player like that, but it’s true. Talk about the midfield’s lack of goals and penetration all you like, but it’s not their fault that Salah missed two one on ones with the keeper. This season he has actually been the player we thought he was at the very beginning of last year, before he morphed into a global superstar who couldn’t miss. Remember all the “he’d be great if he could finish” shouts back in the first month or two he was here? With last year’s Mo (and Bobby) we’d be ten points clear now. Damn, I miss last year’s Mo. Klopp was asked afterwards why Salah didn’t take his chances. He laughed and to be fair it was a pretty ridiculous question. I mean what’s he supposed to say? “Mo didn’t score because he won’t use his fucking right foot and his obsession with using his left makes him easier to stop”. He’d be right, but he’s never going to say that and nor should he. Not publicly anyway. We had other chances as well as those squandered by Salah, but the wastefulness of our leading goalscorer was the real issue. Matip’s 50p head missed the target as usual, while Fabinho should have scored too but an elephant like touch took the chance away from him. He’s a defensive midfield player not known for scoring goals though, his talents lie elsewhere. With Mo, it’s his job to score and to win games for us and he didn’t do it. Getting goal number 50 is becoming a massive fucking problem for him now as since he got within touching distance of it the goals have just dried up. It wasn’t just his finishing that hurt us in this game though. There was an easy cross to Milner in acres of space that he missed by about ten yards and instead curled it straight into the tiny arms of Pickford. That might have been the worst moment of the entire match. It was unspeakably shit and had me screaming in frustration. It summed up his day though. I don’t get what’s happening with him. I know he was pitiful last weekend, but when you see how electric he was against Watford it’s hard to believe he could go out and shit the bed again like this. He’s been wildly inconsistent this year and I no longer have any idea which Salah we’re going to see anymore. Bobby was garbage when he came on too, and I’m struggling to remember anything of note that Mané did. Origi seems to be taking more flak than anyone based on what I've seen, but I don't get that at all. He's an easy target and I'm not trying to tell you he played well because he didn't. He was certainly no worse than anyone else though. I felt that his biggest problem was that we didn’t get the ball to him often enough. He skinned Coleman a couple of times to get crosses in and he knew he had the beating of him, but we kept going through the middle, as usual, and didn’t take advantage of that mismatch we had. He was predictably subbed so that we could get the usual front three back in the saddle, but can anyone really say we looked better for it? Personally I’d have left Origi out there for a little while longer and brought Firmino on for the invisible Wijnaldum. Starting with three mostly defensive workhorses against Everton makes no sense to me. The balance was all wrong. Everton don’t deserve that kind of respect as they’re not very good. Henderson or Fabinho. Not both. But if it’s both then the third has to be Keita, not Wijnaldum or Milner. So yeah, I didn’t like swapping in Milner (who Klopp said has been dealing with a hamstring problem) for Gini in a like for like move while also subbing Divock for Bobby. Give it ten minutes with the four of them up top and if it doesn’t work then go for Shaq or Keita for Origi. Instead we just got more of the same and the game continued on as it was, end to end with neither side in control or ever really looking like scoring. The hardest part to take is that if Mo puts one of those chances away we definitely win because Everton would not have scored past Alisson & co if they had played until midnight. They had a couple of half chances but nothing clear cut and Van Dijk was absolutely imperious. What a player he is. Matip was good too, but everyone else ranged from average (Robbo, Trent, Hendo) to varying degrees of shite (everyone else bar Alisson who was fine). We really need to talk about those substitutions though. I don’t get it at all. Just as Keita looked like he was coming into form he’s completely overlooked for the next few games. At this point, what a fucking terrible signing and a massive letdown he’s been. He may well be great next season but we needed him to be the business straight away and he’s contributed virtually nothing. I wasn’t alone in expecting him to tear this league up, but here we are in March and he can’t get on the field in a game we really needed to win. He was supposed to be the player to transform our midfield and give us that thrust and penetration we lack when Ox isn’t there. Instead he’s sat there watching as a half fit Milner and a washed up Lallana are sent on instead. And how shit must Shaqiri have been in training lately if we’re being subjected to Lallana being brought on ahead of him? Utter madness that substitution. Instead of having the fourth official raise the electric board with the numbers on Klopp should have just waved a big white flag, because that’s what it felt like. It was almost as bad as the decision to send Sturridge on at Old Trafford last week. The use of substitutions and inability to change games that aren’t going well remains Klopp’s biggest (maybe even only) weakness. Don't get me wrong, I love him and we’d be absolutely fucked without him, but he’s just not good at this particular aspect of the game. Part of it is that he doesn’t have the same kind of bench options as Guardiola (or even Solskjaer) has, but it’s not just that, is it? Sturridge last week, Lallana this week, seriously Jurgen, what the actual fuck? So what now, where does this leave us? Right up against it I’d say. Yes, there’s a long way to go and the players are making all the right noises about fighting until the end. Of course it’s possible that City could drop points but it’s all looking a bit ominous now. The more defiant among us will say that we’re only one point behind and there’s nine games left, so there’s hardly cause for panic. I agree, and yet it feels as though we’re one more disappointing result away from it being over. If that gap were to get to four, can anyone see us clawing that back? I felt as though the best chance we had was to just keep our noses in front and make City do the chasing. Instead we’ve dropped eight points in our last six games and it’s cost us top spot. It’s hard to stomach but we just have to keep going and hope for the best. It’s difficult to remain upbeat and I don’t blame anyone who has already given up. It’s not like fans are throwing the towel in at the first sign of adversity, we’ve been getting punched in the face repeatedly over the last decade or so. There’s only so many times you can get knocked down before you decide to just stay down and avoid further punishment. I’m still getting up, but the ref’s count is getting higher with each knockdown. He got to nine this time. Star man is Van Dijk, by absolute fucking miles. The same margin, co-incidentally, by which he should be named Player of the Year. Just a shame that last year’s Player of the Year isn’t producing the same kind of form. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson, Wijnaldum (Milner); Salah, Mané (Lallana), Origi (Firmino):