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Well, I’m glad that game didn’t have anything riding on it. Last week I wrote about how refreshing that Ajax game was, in no small part due to VAR not sticking it’s big fucking beak in where it wasn’t wanted. It made up for it this week and then some. Maybe they got the decisions right (I say maybe because I’m not totally convinced) but it effectively ruined yet another game as a viewing experience. It’s just fucking awful. Even Klopp is now saying he doesn't want it, and he was one of those in favour of it being introduced. He and everyone like him owe the rest of us an apology really. This should never have had the backing of anyone in football and I'm not using hindsight here as I was against it from the start. I was actually enjoying this game up until the first VAR involvement. It was surprisingly decent and the first half was much better than I expected it to be. It helps that we were winning, I won’t deny that, but generally it was a decent game that flowed quite well. There was no hint of our players not being arsed about the result and they treated the game seriously. The second half was brutal though. We didn’t play well and VAR dragged that half out at least 10 minutes longer than it needed to be. We came out on the wrong end of two decisions and the right end on one. I don’t even want to waste my time analysing the rights and wrongs of them as I don’t even know the rules anymore. Luckily the result didn’t matter. With that in mind I was surprised to see Fabinho and Salah in the starting line up. I could understand the other senior lads who were in there, as Trent and Naby needed game time and Jota hasn’t exactly been ran into the ground so far. Personally I wouldn’t have played any of them but I reckon Kloppo just didn’t want to see us embarrassed on the European stage. I get that to be fair to him, and I think the second half showed why he didn’t just send a load of kids over there. That being said though, Mo and Trent played 90 minutes, Fabinho played a half while Hendo, Robbo, Bobby and Sadio were also on the pitch at full time. I suspect Jurgen is going to have a hard time fielding questions the next time he complains about player fatigue. If he had left all the first teasers at home we’d have lost this game and lost it heavily. I know this just because from the moment Fabinho was replaced by young Billy Koumetio, the game changed and we were under pressure for much of the second half. Hendo had to come on to steady the ship. Yet with Fabinho there we never looked in any trouble and seemed to be headed to an easy two or three goal win. A team full of kids would have been battered. A lot of us would say “so what?” but Klopp decided that wasn’t something he was comfortable with. I’m not especially bothered about it but that’s easy to say when no-one 9that we know of) was injured. We led through a first minute Salah goal that he didn’t really know anything about. It was a comedy of errors from the Danes really. Mistake after mistake, culminating in the last defender toe poking the ball onto Mo’s right boot and past the keeper. Mo didn’t celebrate much, either because he wasn’t sure it was his goal or because he was a little sheepish about how it went in. They all count though. He was good all night. He played the full game and never stopped chasing from first minute to last. He laid on good chances for team-mates and put a proper shift in. The stakes were low but you’d never have guessed by watching Salah. He didn’t get much help though. Jota was getting into good positions but some of his passing was terrible. He did have a couple of decent efforts saved by the keeper but it wasn’t his best night. Then there was Div. Every time he gets picked I’m hoping he’ll be able to finally just pull out a performance for us. And every time we get slight variations of the same thing. He did nothing really. The one chance that came his way he snatched at it by taking it first time instead of controlling it and picking his spot. Finishing is usually a strong point too. He doesn’t deal very well with only playing once every three or four weeks, but he isn’t good enough to play any more regularly than that. Minamino was bright in the first half though. He faded after the break but he did some nice things in that first half. His pressing was good, he was neat and tidy and looked like he was on the way to having his best game for the club before he disappeared in the second half. Even still, it might be his best game as it’s not like he’s set a particularly high bar prior to this. Clarkson had a much better first half than second too. He suffered more than most when the game got away from us but overall he held his own and can be quite pleased with himself I’d say. I can’t really remember them causing us any real problems in the first half other than when Fabinho had to clear off the line. Other than that we defended them well and played some nice footy. It all changed at half time though. Koumetio was thrown in at the deep end alongside Rhys Williams and having two kids there (with another one in goal, relatively speaking) really left us exposed. Williams had been good in the first half and I don’t think he did much wrong in the second either, but the inexperience of the pairing really showed and Billy the Kid looked all at sea. Their centre forward had looked fucking shite in the first half. All of a sudden he was pulling the ball out of the air, turning on a sixpence and lashing in shots from all angles. I reckon they just got a big shot in the arm from Fabinho being replaced by an untested kid and the game changed completely. We weren’t helped by Kostas getting injured either. He was playing well I thought and hopefully this won’t keep him out long. While he was off getting treatment Clarkson had to fill in at left back. He did ok but the penalty they won came down his side. Not sure there was anything he could do about it though. He held the line and it looked like the lad ran offside. He also got back in and cleared off the line after Kelleher had brought the attacker down. My first thought was that it wasn’t a penalty. It looked like Kelleher got a slight hand on the ball and although there was a collision between them, I thought the striker had tried to lob him and just didn’t get enough on it. After seeing it again I thought it probably was a foul and it was actually a great touch by the forward to deftly flick it over him. Still, it was offside so it didn’t matter, right? Or so we thought. The linesman had flagged and the replay looked like it was offside, but the next thing we know the ref is being told to go and view the Kelleher challenge. And as soon as that happened it was always going to be a pen. I think this seemed a much worse decision than it actually was because they didn’t show us the replay of the offside until much later. The lad was defo more advanced than Clarkson and he looked off, but the screenshot they showed us seemed to suggest that the heel of Williams was the mark they used for the line. I have no idea if it was off or not so just have to take VAR’s word for it. It took fucking ages though, which at least does tell me that there was a thorough check on the offside. So they scored the pen even though Kelleher went the right way and made a valiant attempt to get there. After that they grew in confidence and piled forward. It looked like they’d scored again but this time it was ruled out for offside. No idea what happened to be honest. The striker was well offside when the ball was nodded towards him, but he didn’t make a play on the ball until another player had knocked it back to him, by which point he was onside. To me that should always be offside but the rules say differently. So I don’t know if the goal was disallowed because of that, or if there was the most marginal of offsides on the first ball played forward. I assume it’s the latter but fuck knows really. Again, it took an age for them to sort out. Most of the action was in and around our box. Kelleher made a great save and they also hit the bar. They had a few other chances too. We weren’t doing much but the subs helped. Henderson settled us down and gave us good delivery from the right. From one of those it looked like we’d won it late on. Sadio challenged for it and the ball dropped to Taki who knocked it under the keeper. The linesman’s flag went up but you could see on the replay it was clearly onside. There was a suggestion of a penalty as it his the arm of the defender but given that we scored that was surely off the table anyway. Peter Walton was asked about it and was adamant it should be a goal, he seemed annoyed by the delay. Foolishly, I got my hopes up at that point. Then the ref is called over to look at it and even though I couldn’t see anything wrong, it was obvious now it would be disallowed as the refs go with what they hear in their earpiece 99% of the time. There was one final replay angle that seemed to show it hit Sadio’s hand. At least everyone else seems to think so. I didn’t think it was 100% conclusive even though it did look like it probably did come off his hand. It’s a stupid fucking rule and when you combine that with the technology allowing these fucking pedants to analyse everything to the tiniest degree, this is what we’re left with. It should have been a goal, although ironically even without VAR it wouldn’t have counted because the lino had incorrectly flagged for offside. So after another lengthy delay the game starts again and we had eight minutes added time. A lot, but not as much as it should have been. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining as I’d have happily seen the whistle blown as soon as we hit 90 minutes. I’m just saying, if you’re going to keep stopping the game for four minutes at a time, at least add that time on. But I’m done here. The game meant nothing, I doubt any of us really cared too much about what happened and I’m not going to waste any more of your time discussing it. Star man is probably Mo, just about. Honourable mention to Rhys Williams. Team: Kelleher; Alexander-Arnold, R Williams, Fabinho (Koumetio), Tsimikas (Robertson); Clarkson, Keita (Henderson), Minamino; Salah, Origi (Firmino), Jota (Mané):

Professional football managers are always looking for smarter ways to improve the performance of their players both on the pitch and off it. Players, on the other hand, need to understand that it's not enough for them to just show up—they need to work hard and smart too; finding the perfect training formula is the ultimate goal for any football team. The question is how do you structure a perfect football training session? Here are a few tips to help coaches and players structure their training sessions. Warm-up During a warm-up session, the players line up in a circle with one player in the middle who has to interrupt the play by touching the ball. Each player in the circle strives to keep the ball or else they have to swap positions with the middle player. Trainers can enhance this drill by bringing more players into the middle and imposing one or two passing rules on them. This warm-up routine is beneficial to players in different ways. For example, all players in the circle will improve their sense of awareness and communication. Also, defensive players will build on their agility, mobility, and interception skills. A 10-minute warm-up will also increase the heart rate of the players and prepare them for the next step of the training session. Fitness For fitness drills, you could set up a 10 x 10 yard box and position attackers in these areas. Pairs of defenders will have to enter the box and try to win the ball from the attackers. This fitness drill boosts communication and teamwork among defenders. Defenders should be encouraged to maintain an appropriate distance between each other. The coach has to teach the team how to make their passes predictable to their colleagues. A 20-minute fitness session is enough to make players work together and improve their passing and movement. It also helps defenders master the art of winning the ball. While some athletes like bodybuilders use pharmaceutical steroids to boost their performance, many of football’s governing bodies ban anabolic steroids. Phase of play Set up a back 4 on the edge of the 18-yard with two midfielders at the front. The other half of the pitch may contain 4 attacking midfielders and 2 strikers. As the attacking side tries to score goals, the defensive side must try to defend well. This training encourages the attackers to get the ball out wide; wingers can isolate the full-backs and then try to defeat them. Ways to improve the effectiveness of football training sessions Coaches need to plan their sessions ahead of time, at least two days before. This will allow them to picture the training in their minds and make adjustments when necessary. The football team must have a clear objective of the training session, and follow the routines to achieve their objectives. Players and coaches should report in time for training. They should arrive at the training venue at least 10-15 minutes early. Teams must provide the requisite football training equipment. Examples include cones, stopwatch, first aid kit, and training bibs. To improve the efficiency of the training program, a team can engage two coaches to direct the flow of the session. As one coach takes the players through a warm-up, the other coach can set things up for the next routine. Typically, coaches incorporate dynamic warm-ups and stretches into every routine. The training ground also serves as a proving ground for managers to explain their tactics to their players. Technical sessions must focus on the achievement of training objectives, and small-sided games should revolve around what the players have learned.

As we all know, Liverpool are nearly always on the winning side of their games. Having finished second in the 2018–19 Premier League season, Liverpool contested the 2019 FA Community Shield against Manchester City, losing 5–4 on penalties. As winners of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League, they contested the 2019 UEFA Super Cup against Chelsea, winning 5–4 on penalties. The victory was Liverpool's fourth in the annual contest. On 25 June, Liverpool clinched their nineteenth league title—the first since 1989–90 and the first during the Premier League era. Upon winning the league, Liverpool claimed the unusual achievement of winning the Premier League earlier than any other team by games played (with seven remaining) and later than any other football club by date (being the only team to clinch the title in June). So with these great performances, you will be asking yourself, why not get this team working for you? And how? Let us make this easy and say you have got your ticket for the weekly match. But it is against a minor team, who quite frankly does not announce much of a thrill. So why not get a little extra kick and bet on the victory. In an era where many land-based businesses and industries are still struggling, to fully adjust to the new digital age, the gaming space certainly is not. The convenience of sports betting due to advancements in technology is clear to see. In regulated markets such as the UK, there is not a time nor a place where you cannot get a cheeky punt on, thanks to the rise in mobile betting technology. And the fierce competition amongst the online casinos, throwing no deposit bonus, free spins, and much more free goodies to players to make their ground amid gamblers. A recent survey carried out by the UK Gambling Commission has revealed that 50% of 25-34-year-olds have used a mobile or tablet device to gamble online. The 1960 Betting & Gaming Act legalized gambling. After this high-street bookmakers were popping up all over the country, including many of the big-name brands we know and use today; as William Hill, Ladbrokes, and Coral. The Premier League is the most wagered upon league in football. And this is intensified with the immense amount of variety in the types of bets you can put down. For example, there are dozens of bet types covering outcomes for individual Premier League games. The most popular of these include: Match Result 1X2: Selecting the result (Home win, Draw, Away win) at the end of 90 minutes plus added time. Premier League Relegation Odds: Betting on which sides will finish in the Premier League bottom three is another favourite for many bettors. As with League Winner and Top Four Finisher bets, Premier League relegation. Asian Handicap: Selecting the winner with each competing team carrying a goals handicap. Goal Total Over/Under: Selecting either over or under a specified number of goals. And there is so much more out there. So why not give it a shot and try to make a few pounds with a good bet. No matter your style, you will find your pleasure in the abundance of betting styles. And Make those Liverpool games even more thrilling than what they already are. So even if you lose, which will happen sometimes, it'll make for a suspenseful game!

Football is classified as one of the most highly paid and popular sports in the world. Hence, football players enjoy stardom and high salaries. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a drop in the players’ income. Yet the players are earning as if winning a £1 million Lotto x5 jackpot. Here’s the list of the best football players making under £1 million per year: Bukayo Saka (Arsenal) An English football player, Bukayo Saka plays as a winger and left-back for Arsenal F.C. and the English national team. The Premier League club has signed a long term contract with Saka. An exceptionally hard-working player who has earned his respect in the academy is earning a decent salary of half a million pounds. Well, he is still a youngster, and he has a lot to achieve in his career. Even Saka would be hoping to grip the £1 million Lotto x5 jackpot that you all can now bet on. Callum Hudson-Odoi (Chelsea) Callum Odoi is an English football player who has been playing in the Chelsea Academy since he was a schoolboy. But not only that, he has been scoring and regularly assisting throughout his young career. Although he’s still very young, he is an extremely skillful and talented attacking player. However, still very young, Callum Odoi has the potential to become one of the best football players in the upcoming years. Having an annual salary under one million pounds, Hudson-Odoi is certainly among the top football players making under a million pound per year. £1 million Lotto x5 jackpot is what you need to win to get the lavish lifestyle of such talented football players. Dan Burn (Brighton & Hove Albion) An impressive defender, Dan Burn is an English pro football player who plays for Brighton & Hove Albion in the Premier League. Though, he has struggled a bit during his initial days. Dan Burn made his debut for Darlington in the League in 2009, but after one year, he had joined Fulham. Since he moved to Wigan, he has been playing for Latics. His regular on-field performance there caught the attention of Albion and got picked up by Brighton & Hove Albion for the Premier League. The talented defender is now receiving a salary under one million pounds a year. Therefore, £1 million Lotto x5 jackpot is the go-to for you to cut the chase and strike it rich. Well, you can still strike it rich if you can’t play football. Declan Rice (West Ham United) An English pro football player, Declan Rice plays as a center-back or defensive midfielder for West Ham United F.C. in the Premier League. The tall, well-built, versatile player has been on a boost to the best of his game since he joined the club. Despite such talent, Declan Rice is currently earning an annual salary of £156,000, well below than £1 million Lotto x5 jackpot Conor Townsend (West Brom) Conor Townsend plays for West Bromwich in the Premier League and the England professional football team. The skillful defender made a debut for Hull City. Later in 2018, he signed a contract with West Brom club for £756,000. Surprisingly, the English professional defender is paid under one million pounds per year. On the other hand, Lottoland is offering you to grab a £1 million Lotto x5 jackpot. So strike it rich with Lottoland even if you are not a professional football player. John Fleck (Sheffield United) A Scottish pro football player, John Fleck plays for Sheffield United in the Premier League. The talented midfielder began his football career with Rangers. In 2008, he was hyped as a future star by the media. Fleck is going to miss the play for six weeks amid a back injury. Considering the talent he got, his peak performance is yet to come—John Fleck’s annual salary well below our £1 million Lotto x5 jackpot, around £416,000. Oliver Norwood (Sheffield United) Oliver Norwood (born on April 12, 1991) currently plays for Sheffield United as a midfielder. Norwood started his career by playing for Manchester United. Although born in England, Oliver has played for Northern Ireland throughout his national football career. Currently playing for Sheffield United, the top defender for his team earns £780,000 per year. Wrapping up! You must have admired how many of the football players are highly paid. But their salaries are usually based on the skillset they provide to take their clubs at the top. You can now skip the training process and hard work by signing up for Lottoland’s £1 million Lotto x5 jackpot as one million pounds are up for grabs!

Seeing Klopp giving it the first pumps in front of the Kop is surely the best moment of the season so far? Ok, there was only a couple of thousand fans there but it was still great wasn’t it? The performance was too. Hell of a day for us and everyone will have an extra spring in their step today. Much like Leicester a couple of weeks ago, I really thought this was going to be a hard game for us. Wolves has always been a tough nut for us to crack and that’s even when we’ve been at full strength. Now we were facing them without Alisson and Van Dijk, and Trent was only fit enough for the bench. Yet we smashed them anyway. We dominated and the second half in particular was great. We had two teenagers in the side as well as a young keeper making his league debut but you’d never have known because it just looked like Liverpool didn’t it? It doesn’t seem to matter who is called upon to fill in, we still always look like Liverpool. Certainly at Anfield anyway. Even without some of our key players this team is just rolling on and wiping the floor with good teams. The record since losing Virgil is fantastc all things considered. Mind you, we may have lost the best centre back in the league, but we had the second best one coming in to replace him. Yeah that’s right, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Joel Matip is better than any other centre back in this league not named Van Dijk. He’s fucking brilliant but because he’s so low profile it has largely gone under the radar. Pundits will talk about how he’s a good player, but they almost sound surprised when they say it, like it’s something they’re just discovering and that they’re revealing something the viewers don’t know. A lot of them probably don’t know. It’s partly because he misses so many games through injury, partly because Van Dijk gets most of the plaudits, and partly because he has zero interest in promoting himself. But Matip is so under-rated half the pundits don’t even know his name and call him “Matic”. Name me a better centre back in this league right now? You can’t, because there isn’t one. With him fit and available we’ll still miss Van Dijk, but nowhere near as much. Especially with Fabinho doing such an admirable job back there too. Those two were the platform that this performance was built on. Don’t get me wrong, everyone was superb too, but when you have a solid base like that (I’m including Kelleher in that as well) it helps everyone else. They probably won’t get the recognition they deserve but they won’t care either. They just do their jobs and let others get the glory. And there is plenty of glory to go around with this team. One week it’ll be Salah, the next Mané. Then Jota or Jones. Soon it’s going to be Bobby again, I can feel it in my water. He’s coming back to form. Wolves will be disappointed with how they played but Nuno got it wrong with his formation. They’ve given us all we can handle by playing 3-5-2 and counter attacking on us, but for whatever reason he switched to a back four and as soon as I saw that I was confident we’d win easily. In fact, I even posted in the group chat just before kick off that “if they play a back four we’ll twat them as Coady will get exposed”. I didn’t say that just because I don’t like him, I said it because it’s a fact. I’m glad he fucked up for the opener and I’m glad he got caught diving just because it vindicates what I’ve been saying about him. I’ve been telling you all for ages how much I don’t like Coady. It feels like it’s just me and my mum though because seemingly everyone else loves him. Maybe not after this carry on though. There’s plenty of room on the bus for you all though, so hop on board. He just rubs me up the wrong way because he’s just so fucking full of himself. Every time I hear him talk I have to switch the telly off, especially as it feels like I’m the only one who sees it. Why does everyone think he’s such a great lad? He’s not, he’s a smug, cocky bastard. I was in the post office the other day and the woman behind the counter is a red and always talks footy with me. She was referencing the injuries at the back and said “I want us to sign Conor Coady in January”. I just bit my tongue and said “no he’s not for me, I think he’d get exposed in our system” when really I wanted to yell “Fuck that, I’d rather cut off my own cock and set fire to it”. I’ve said for a while that he only looks good for Wolves because he’s in a back three and that in a four he’d be shite. Well guess what, Wolves played him in a four in this game, they got battered and Coady got exposed. He even fucked up for the first goal by inexplicably trying to chest a ball down instead of heading it clear. Too cocky, you see. The finish from Mo was boss though. Nothing fancy about it but it was ruthlessly executed. The speed of thought to anticipate the mistake, the touch to take it out of his stride and then the finish across the keeper. Assassin like. At that point most Kopites were probably joking about “Look at Conor, good Red him yano lol”. I bet they weren’t laughing when he dived to win a penalty at the Kop end though. The reactions of some of our lads spoke volumes. Fabinho was just laughing at him, while Hendo and Robbo were disgusted and let him know. Welcome aboard the “Fuck Conor Coady bus, lads”. He did what most other players would do in that situation. To his credit is I think he did actually look pretty sheepish about. He thought he was getting kicked and he went down in anticipation of it. Only problem was Sadio pulled out at the last second and made him look foolish. I do think he looked embarrassed though so I’ll give him that at least. The issue I have with him doing what he did is that you know he’d be the first one in line to complain about forwards pulling that kind of shit. Good old fashioned honest pro Conor, a proper defender, a throwback. Turns out he’s not who you thought he was, eh? After everything I’ve said about VAR since it’s inception, and especially recently, it’s only fair to point out that this is the kind of situation when it is actually useful. At full speed it will have looked to some people like a penalty. I didn’t feel like it was but not because I didn’t think Sadio caught him (I assumed he had), I just didn’t think it looked like a foul. The first replay I saw changed my mind though. It looked like a foul from that angle so the referee has done nothing wrong there. He can only give what he sees and it looked like a pen from where he was so he’s right to give it. So without VAR, Coady would have cheated his way to a penalty and possibly an equaliser for his side (I say possibly, as would anyone have been shocked if ‘Kweev’ had saved it?). It’s only when they showed the replay from the other angle you could see Sadio had somehow managed to pull back his foot and didn’t actually make any contact. I saw that and still worried that the ref might not back down, but fair play to Pawson, he realised he was wrong and overturned the decision. Why the fuck did he not book Coady for a dive though? That isn’t optional. It’s a compulsory decision, surely? He has to yellow card him there. He couldn’t wait to et the card out in the second minute when Neco had a little pull on Neto’s shirt. That was really harsh, especially so early in the game. When that happened it had “hauled off at half time again” written all over it, especially with Trent back on the bench. Klopp didn’t do that though and it was a smart move. Neco was outstanding and didn’t let the booking bother him, so leaving him out there was a good show of a faith for a kid who has had a great bounce back week. I did think Nuno missed a trick by not switching Traore to the left more or less as soon as Neco was booked. That’s what I’d have done as it was a no brainer. He eventually did it at the start of the second half, but I don’t remember Neco having any problem dealing with him before he made way for Trent. Maybe he left Adama on the right in the hope he would keep Robbo occupied? If that was his thinking it didn’t work. Robbo ran them ragged and I can only think of one occasion when Traore was able to get away. Robbo went to close the ball down and didn’t get there, which allowed them to release Traore into the space. Fabinho dived in, to either win the ball or take down the man, I don’t think he was too bothered which, but Adama was too quick and skipped away. He fizzed a great ball across the box but Neto couldn’t get there. When you watch it again, Williams’ positioning is great and there was no way Neto could have beaten him to that ball. Just something I felt was worth mentioning. Wolves without Jiminez look a completely different side, which is understandable as he’s a massive part of what they do and for me is one of the best centre forwards in the league. I’m a big fan of his, I enjoy watching him play. Hopefully he makes a full recovery. They definitely have to play a different way without him though. Podence is class, Traore can be unplayable and Neto is a tidy little player too (even if he is a diving little prick). But they have no penalty box threat anymore and although they managed to get some good crosses in against us, with no Jiminez attacking them we dealt with them easily. They had a few moments here and there but by and large we were comfortable enough. Podence had their best effort with a clever chip that looked to be heading for the top corner before Kelleher scampered back and tipped it away. That was a really good save that and there are a lot of keepers in the league who wouldn’t have made that. Great footwork. It gets better every time you watch it. They had another chance in the second half when the ball reached Coady on the back stick. He controlled but just as he was about to shoot it was taken off his toe by Fabinho. I thought Coady was offside anyway, but the flag didn’t go up so it would have gone to VAR, which is a lottery as we know. We scored almost immediately after that. Lovely counter attack it was. Hendo released Gini and it was three against two with him, Mo and Sadio. Mo’s run wide spread the defenders but I didn’t think Sadio did much to help really. He kind of just got in the way but Gini decided to shoot and curled it around the defender into the top corner. Sensational finish from a player who if he wasn’t sacrificing himself for the greater good week in week out would be scoring 15 goals a season easily. He did it in a relegated Newcastle side and he scores for fun when he’s with Holland. For us that’s not what is needed from him so he does the grunt work and allows others to shine. I fucking love Gini Wijnaldum and in years to come he’ll probably be viewed like a Ronnie Whelan or someone of that ilk. Great player, a huge part of why we’re successful but massively under-rated because others get all the attention. The contract impasse has been confusing as no-one seems to know exactly what the issue is. Does he just fancy a change of scenery or is it about the club not giving him what he wants? We found out in his post match interview. He wouldn’t talk about it but eventually said “you need to ask the club about it” which tells us that it’s purely about the terms of the deal and it’s not a case of Gini wanting to move on. If he wanted to move on he wouldn’t be putting the focus on the club. So, to me this is simple. Just fucking give him what he wants. He’s been underpaid for his prime years so if we overpay him a bit when he’s on the way down (and by that I mean when he’s 33/34 as he’s got a few more years left at the level he is now) then so be it. We’re still well up on that deal over the course of his time here. It’s pissing me off to be honest. He should be rewarded because he’s been a fucking phenomenal player and person since he’s been here. He leads by example, he’s a consummate pro who puts the needs of the team over himself, he delivers in the big games and…. I can’t stress this one enough…. he’s hardly missed a game in five fucking years. As much as I love Hendo and Fabinho, I can’t say that about them. Even Milner has missed more games than Gini and he’s seen as being something on an iron man. I’d say there’s a very good chance Gini’s wages are considerably less than what Ox and Naby are getting, so yeah, fucking pay the man because all things considered, no-one has ever deserved a rise more than Gini Wijnaldum. Get it done. Anyway, 2-0 up and I felt that the game was done. It never looked like one of those games where we might get pegged back, although you can never be totally sure as one goal can change everything of course. We were playing so well though that I could only see more goals for us. We got two more. One for Big Bird who attacked an absolutely gorgeous Salah delivery and headed in at the Kop end. He loved that, going mad in front of the fans. Love me some Joel Matip, there should be a camera on him at all times as you never know what mad face he’s going to pull or what odd gesture he’ll make. What a guy. The fourth was an own goal following a typically lethal delivery from Trent, who had been given a run out to replace Neco midway through the second half. He looked good considering the lay off he’s had. We could have scored more but the scoreline was about right I’d say. Some of our football was glorious. One move in particular stands out for me. Salah floated a great ball to Robbo and he fooled everyone by cushioning it back perfectly for Mané, but he shot disappointingly wide. The disguise on the pass by Robbo though was class. Wolves had a little spell late on when it felt like that might grab a consolation goal but Kelleher made another good save and Fabinho produced some top drawer defending to keep them at bay. All in all just a really enjoyable day. Big win, big performance and a big pick me up having fans back inside Anfield. Everyone was smiling afterwards and Klopp was the happiest he’s been in weeks. He’s been a right grumpy bastard lately, understandably so, but it was great seeing him on a high again, fist pumping the Kop and beaming from ear to ear in his post match interviews. I would have loved to have been there but I’m not resentful or envious about not being eligible for a ticket. If I lived two minutes up the road I’d have been in the ballot but it is what it is and I’m honestly happy enough to wait until we can all get back in. I’m just buzzing for everyone who got to go as they were representing the rest of us and they did it brilliantly. It did not sound like there were only two thousand fans in there did it? It was fucking loud. It made me think, imagine how fucking noisy it’s going to be the first game when we’re all back in there. It’s going to be like a European night every weekend. Hopefully that first game back is before the end of this season and if it is they should defo follow Shankly’s lead and have a couple of injured players (Virg and Gomez?) walk around with the Premier League title before the game. Imagine that! Fucking hell I’ve got goosebumps now just writing it. So we’re once again joint top and widely regarded as still being the team to beat despite the problems we’ve had. Rightly so, in my mind we’re four points clear as VAR is the only reason Spurs are level with us and other sides are within touching distance. We’ve been shafted twice and that’s kept things tight at the top. Maybe that’s the plan? I’m not one for conspiracy theories but honestly, that game at Goodison is really fucking hard to explain. It’s also galling to think about that pen at Brighton when we’ve seen at least three incidents since that were similar but went unpunished. But anyway, not wanting to go down that road again, especially when we’re doing so well. Beating Leicester and Wolves in the manner we just have is not to be sniffed at. These are tough opponents and we’ve made it look easy. We were brilliant all over the park against Wolves so picking a star man was really difficult. Sadio didn’t score but some of things he did were incredible, such as controlling the ball from the most difficult of angles with a marker draped all over him. He’s amazing at times. Mo was a threat all night too and I thought Bobby was very good in an understated way. He didn’t do much that was especially eye catching (although there was one brilliant volleyed pass to Sadio) but he was just generally bust and tidy in his link up play and looks much sharper now. Gini was brilliant. Curtis was ace again, particularly as he seemed to be injured really early on and was holding his side for most of the first half. He played through it and was very influential again. His performances are just so mature now and he’s in this side on merit. Put it this way, if Ox and Naby were available right now, would you drop Curtis to accommodate either of them? I wouldn’t even drop him for Milner. Thiago is a different matter but I’m not 100% sure that him signing for us wasn’t just a dream. I mentioned both centre backs at the start, while Kelleher deserves every bit of praise he’s been getting and then some. Being a top keeper isn’t about making loads of saves. For years I thought it was but Alisson showed us it isn’t. You want your keeper to be assured, to not fuck up, to inspire confidence and to be there when needed to make the save. This week Kelleher has played twice and he’s ticked all of those boxes both times. I was made up with Neco’s performance too and it looks like he’s over that wobble now. He wasn’t even fazed when they put Traore on his wing. It’s fucking boss that we can just plug lads from the u23s into the best side in the world and they hold their own. Star man was either Robbo or Hendo though. Both were fucking sensational but I’ll just about go with the skipper. He’s so fucking good these days. With him on the pitch I almost feel like we can’t lose. His influence on how we play is massive but even just his own individual performances ooze quality. Everyone can out their feet up in midweek now but I’m looking forward to seeing whoever gets an opportunity in midweek. Bench players and kids I’m hoping for. I don’t want any first teamer involved, and that includes Curtis and Neco. Don’t risk anyone we might need. I know Trent is back, but calf injuries can often flare up again so Neco needs to be ready. Cain and Clarkson will probably feature, hopefully Stewart as well because he’s been tearing it up in the 18s this year. It’s nice to be able to not worry about what happens in that game and have everyone rest up for Fulham next weekend. Team: Kelleher; Williams (Alexander-Arnold), Matip, Fabinho, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Henderson (Keita), Jones; Salah, Firmino (Jota), Mané:

Saturday Nov 28: Brighton 1 L 1. Well that was unpleasant. Just a real kick in the balls again. We weren’t great today but we were the better side and deserved the points. The lads are goosed. They’re either dropping like flies or they look tired as fuck because they’re having to play so many games. It’s a vicious circle. We’ve got loads of injuries so can’t rotate the squad, and because we can’t rotate the squad we’re getting more and more injuries. Milner was playing his third full game in six days so it’s no wonder he broke down. Matip was left at home because we couldn’t put him in that situation. Fabinho had to sit out much of the Atalanta game because he’s just back from a hamstring, and Robbo is running on fumes and looks ripe for an injury of some sort. It’s a fucking nightmare, which is why Klopp is over-reacting to the whole 12.30 thing. He has a point, of course he does, but surely those two and a half hours difference between 12.30 and 3pm kick offs aren’t going to make THAT much difference? He’s just pissed off about everything right now and I don’t blame him. I’d be lashing out in all directions if I were him too. Not sure Chris Wilder would be high on my list, but each to his own. Des Kelly was a bit of a twat in that post match interview today and did seem to be poking the bear a little bit. I do think some of his points were valid though, as were some of Klopp’s. To Jurgen’s credit he stayed and argued his case whereas a lot of managers would have stormed off at that line of questioning. It wasn’t comfortable to watch though and he’s looking a bit frazzled at the moment. It’s understandable, everything is going against us at the moment but personally I don’t want to see the manager looking as pissed off with everything as I am. I need to see him looking like he has it all in hand and to be a reassuring presence. That’s obviously difficult given the shit he’s having to deal with. In terms of VAR, I could just copy and paste what I wrote in the diary exactly a week ago after the farce at Old Trafford. It’s killing football and sucking the enjoyment out of it. Milner even said the same on Twitter. This is not football, it’s a fucking made for TV drama now. Meanwhile, there were rumours today that a couple of funeral workers had been killed by Boca Juniors ultras because they took selfies with Diego’s corpse. Turns out it wasn’t true but it raised an interesting question. What kind of punishment would have been too much? Killing them would be excessive, obviously, but some level of retribution is in order I’d say. It’s basically the Marcellus Wallace / Tony Rocky Horror discussion that Jules and Vincent had in Pulp Fiction. Marcellus threw Tony out of a fourth storey window for giving his wife a foot massage. Was that an over-reaction? Maybe, but Tony Rocky Horror had to know there would be consequences, just like the morons who took selfies with a dead Maradona should know that’s not cool. Now they’re issuing grovelling apologies and pleading for clemency. Good luck with that. For what it’s worth, I definitely think some kind of beating is warranted as you can’t be showing that level of disrespect just because he was famous. Imagine how his family must be feeling. I’m still obsessing about Maradona by the way. The documentary was on Channel four tonight and I watched it again. It’s fucking brilliant, if you haven’t seen it you should as it’s an incredible look into all the shit that went down when he was in Italy. It’s also very sad, especially now. You see the fresh faced kid and then you see the mess he ended up as and all the trials and tribulations in between that caused it. It was emotional. One thing that really stood out to me because I didn’t know any of this until I watched the documentary the first time was that Italy turned against him just because Argentina beat them in the semi final and Diego had asked Napoli fans to support Argentina. A lot of them did, as the game was being played in their stadium. After that, all bets were off and the press (not to mention the law) went after him with everything they had. It’s not Maradona’s fault that some Neapolitans turned against Italy though. The rest of Italy has looked down on Naples and treated them like shit for decades. Fans of clubs in the north of Italy sing about Naples being dirty and the people being unwashed and in need of soap. It’s basically how Merseyside is treated by most of England. It got me thinking. If England were playing a World Cup semi final at Anfield against Uruguay when Suarez was in his pomp here, if he asked scousers to support Uruguay what percentage do you reckon would? 50%? 75%? 90%? Obviously I would, but that doesn’t count for much as, hell, I’d have backed El Hadji Diouf even now if he asked me to support Senegal over England, and I can’t stand that cunt. Sunday Nov 29: Going back to Klopp’s interview after the game yesterday. While I didn’t like Kelly’s confrontational approach, Klopp did start that whole argument with his response to a question about Milner’s injury. He said something like “you’ll be happy now” which was always going to draw some kind of response from any interviewer with a backbone. Obviously I side with Klopp as he’s right about us getting shafted with all these 12.30 kick offs, but he should probably let it go now as it’s not a fight he’s going to win. We’re a massive fucking draw in the Asian market so BT are going to want us (or United) in that time slot as much as possible. They aren’t going to show Burnley v Everton and while Klopp is right to say this problem could be avoided if BT and Sky worked together, there’s as much chance of that happening as there is Everton doing something to help us out. Bet they're against the five subs rule just to spite us. Cunts. On the pitch today there was a sickening injury to Raul Jimenez, who fractured his skull in a clash of heads with Sideshow Bob. I didn’t watch it and I don’t want to. I was told about the horrific noise which was clearly from his skull cracking, and I have no desire to see or hear that. I like Jimenez, he’s boss. I really hope he makes a full recovery, but so much of his game is about heading that there’s a good chance he might be finished, which is terrible really. Why does this happen to the inoffensive ones? If this has to happen to anyone, let it be the likes of Richarlison. Monday Nov 30: My boy Troy has let himself down today talking about the Jimenez / Luiz incident. He’s getting hammered for what he said about players should be able to decide if they carry on with head injuries, but really he needs educating as this is a commonly held belief in the game. I’ve said it so many times but he’s a complete throwback to the 80s. He thinks and plays like an old school player so is it really any surprise that he thinks players should be allowed to decide themselves if they can carry on? It’s easy for those of us who have never played at that kind of level to sit in judgement about how these players need to be more sensible, but you have to understand what makes these fellas tick. They’re built differently to us. They’re intense competitors and in a lot of cases that’s the reason they’ve gotten as far as they have. Deeney hasn’t had the career he’s had based on just his talent. It’s the fire and drive they have to win and be the best that allows these fellas to make it as high in the game as they do, but sometimes they need protecting from themselves. I see it in the NFL all the time. Those lads needed to be protected for their own good because they’d lie about concussions just so they could stay in the game. They’d get smashed on the head, be down on the floor seeing stars and when the physio would get there they’d say “it’s my knee”. I’ve heard loads of NFL players talking about how they’d say they were ok and that they can’t even remember the rest of the game. The NFL now has people sat in a box whose job it is just to watch for potential head injuries and they will send down the order that a player needs to be assessed for a concussion, and if he has signs of one then he can’t go back in the game. David Luiz yesterday would 100% have been pulled from an NFL game, and clearly footy has a long way to go to catch up. Deeney is far from the only footballer who thinks like that, although most of them are aware enough to not say it publicly. Meanwhile, Klopp gives us a little more clarity - if you can call it that - on Thiago’s situation. He didn’t damage ligaments or break anything, but whatever the injury actually is (they haven’t said) it hasn’t improved at all since it happened and he still can’t train. Some days he can do a bit, others he can’t do anything. This is fucked up. Klopp said he’s still a few weeks away but what difference is a few weeks going to make if it’s as bad now as when he did it? I really don’t like the sound of this at all and it feels like we’re heading into a situation like we had with Gomez a couple of years ago when he ended up having an op months after the initial injury because they didn’t know what the problem was initially. We won’t see Thiago before Christmas, I’m fairly sure of that. Fucking dirty Everton cunts. Tuesday Dec 1: L 1 Ajax 0 Ah football. That’s how I remember it. What a boss game that was and not a VAR review in sight. I loved how Ajax didn’t give a fuck about who we are and just went and played their own game. They played really well I thought, but they were so wide open on another night we’d have scored five. The forwards were sloppy throughout though and Curtis was our most likely scorer all night. He’d gone close twice in the first half and he made it third time lucky after the break with a boss little finish. The kids were great tonight. Kelleher didn’t do anything I wouldn’t expect a Liverpool keeper to do, but given that not all Liverpool keepers have been able to do those things in recent years so you’ve got to be happy with what he did tonight. Yeah he made some saves, but what I liked most was he just looked in control of what he was doing and he radiated confidence. I haven’t really seen that for him in the cup games he’s played prior to this but goalkeepers do take time to mature and develop and even at 23 he’s still a baby. Great night’s work for him though and also for Curtis and Neco. We expect Curtis to play well but I was made yup seeing Neco bounce back like this. I think a lot of people have forgot just how impressive he was in his first half a dozen or so games. He’s not been too good since the first lockdown ended but tonight was the Neco we want to see. I read some comments from Lallana last week about Neco and how unfair it is that he’s been getting stick. He said that when Neto was first called up to train with the team most of the lads had no idea who he was, but immediately they were wondering why they hadn’t seen him at Melwood before before he was so good. That’s the thing for me. If these lads weren’t good enough they wouldn’t be here. Klopp could have signed players for the squad but instead chose to promote young players because he believes in them. It’s not like when he first got here and just had to make do with what he had. These kids aren’t making up the numbers, they’re training at New Melwood because Klopp wants them to be a part of the squad. And if he thinks they’re good enough then I’d say he’s probably done just about enough for us to trust him, no? We’ll see several more of the kids next week now because we’ve won the group with a game to spare, which is a refreshing change. We’re down to the bare bones in midfield and defence now with all these injuries, so next week is a chance for Cain, Clarkson, Rhys Williams and a load of other kids to get a senior appearance to their names. I’d imagine Tsimikas, Origi and Minamino will start too as they badly need games because they’ve looked well off the pace when they have played. Wednesday Dec 2: So fans are back in Anfield this weekend. I didn’t qualify for the ballot on account of living a 2 minute drive away from an area that did qualify. That’s fine though, there has to be a cut off point and I’m just outside of it. *Shrugs* whadayagonnado? TLW’s own Dan Thomas qualified though so I’m excited about that. I knew I had no chance of getting a ticket but Dan getting one is the next best thing. This must be exactly how Jimmy and Henry felt in Goodfellas when they heard Tommy was getting made. They knew they could never be made on account of them being part Irish. Only 100% full Italians could be made guys so Tommy getting his button was the next best thing. Hopefully Dan’s story has a better ending than Tommy’s did. Now I’ve got an image in my head of Dan walking into Anfield, all excited, then suddenly seeing there’s no-one else there and going “oh shit”. Saw an interview with Trent today where he spoke about how competitive he is and that is what drives him on to improve. “I’ve always found the competitive side of playing to be really beneficial. If I want to work on long-range passing, then I’ll turn it into a competition as that’s how I get the best out of myself. I’ll challenge someone, saying: ‘I bet you can’t do this’, and make sure that mine’s better.” Yep, we see that all the time when LFCTV put out videos. Trent is the worst loser you’ll ever see. He takes everything ultra seriously and his toys come out of the pram all the time when he doesn’t win. It’s great, especially as he hardly ever seems to win when they do those random challenges or quizzes, or playing FIFA. Doesn’t matter what it is, he’s always moaning about something when he doesn't win. He lost again on this week’s episode of Wingmen. Him and Robbo had a quiz and Trent lost, with the forfeit being he had to post an inspirational voice message to the player’s WhatsApp group ahead of a training session. It was fucking hilarious to be fair, but they missed a trick by now showing us any of the replies. That was the first thing I thought when he sent that message. We needed to see how it was received by the rest of the lads otherwise there wasn’t really much point showing us that. It got me thinking anyway. I reckon most of the foreign lads didn’t even know it was a piss take and will have replied with thumbs up emojis. Gini will have posted a 100 emoji, a bicep emoji, a fist emoji and five flame emojis. Gini loves his emojis. The savvy Milner will have known what was going on and will have posted a crying with laughter emoji. Curtis will have replied "Lad WTF lad???" Sadio, bless him, will have heard it and got all fired up and will have replied “Trent’s right boys, let’s do this”. Minamino won’t have had a clue what was happening and will have just posted “Taki!” Mo will have immediately forwarded the voice message to Lovren. Can’t believe they didn’t let us in on the responses though. Poor show that lads. Once again though, Wingmen proved to be a highlight of the week. It’s great, I love it. Hendo was in this one and his straighten routine was fucking hilarious. The best bit was when Trent had to do the speech and Hendo said “do you want me to do it for you?” because he knows he’s boss at them. Robbo then says “he is great at motivational speeches to be fair” and even Trent goes “yeah he is”. Hendo fucking rules doesn’t he? He reckons him and Milner would do a better show than Trent and Robbo. I’m not sure they would but I’d certainly like to see it. “Middlemen” - come on LFC TV, make it happen. Thursday Dec 3: Fell down a Maradona rabbit hole on youtube again today. Saw something that really made me laugh. It was an interview with him when he was talking about Italia 90 and he referenced what I mentioned the other day about when he asked Napoli fans to support Argentina. There was more to it than that, as he explained. He said “I told them that for one day they want you to be Italian. Then for the other 364 days in the year they’ll go back to calling us Africans.” Then he starting laughing his head off at the memory and said “They went mad. They went loco!!!” It was boss. Firstly because he was 100% right in what he said about how Italy treated Naples back then (and probably still does). They did refer to them as Africans and you can bet that Diego bringing that up will have touched a nerve with the Neopolitans. Secondly, I loved it because even though that incident changed everything for him in Italy and caused him a lot of pain, suffering and humiliation, he was sat there laughing his cock off about the memory of how Italy reacted to what he said. Saw something today that Harry Winks might be looking to leave Spurs. I’ve always thought he’s a bit over-rated, which makes what I’m about to say seem somewhat contradictory. I think he’d look great in our midfield. How can I say that if I think he’s over-rated? Because while I think he’s been good for Spurs, but nothing special, I see what Klopp has done for so many players and I look at Winks and his style of play and I could see him being dynamite for us. Not that we’re going to sign him, I’m just saying that there are loads of players out there who would go from being good to great just from playing in this team. Look at Jota for example. Everyone looked at him and thought “yeah he’s a good little player” but nothing more than that. No other top teams were banging down his door, he wasn’t even going to be an automatic selection at Wolves this season as Podence (Jota’s clone), Neto and Adama (my boy) were all fighting for the same spot. Yet he signs for us and immediately his game is elevated by about ten levels. I could see Winks being the same, and there will be loads of other players out there in the same category. A few of them will be playing against us on Sunday. Podence, Adama and Neves. All good now, all would be great if Klopp got his hands on them. Not Conor Coady though. Klopp’s great but he can’t turn water into wine. Friday Dec 4: Virgil posts a picture of himself in the gym starting his rehab. It was meant to be uplifting but it just made me sad and angry. He has to spend the next six months in the gym after having his entire knee rebuilt, while the reckless little cunt responsible for it is allowed to continue to go out there and concede daft goals in his mediocre little fucking team. It’s proper shit this. Jeez, Klopp looked rough as fuck in his presser again today. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now. He looks tired, bedraggled and he doesn’t have his usual upbeat demeanour. Something is just a bit off with him lately. He looks like I feel. In terms of what he gave us on injuries, Naby and Trent are both back in full training now but he more or less said there’s no chance for them to start but maybe they could be on the bench. That’s good as it means they can start next week if needed. Ox is closer too. Every little helps at the moment. Still no Shaq though. What the fuck is up with him now? Is it his calf again? I don’t think they’ve given us any detail on what it is have they? I know Klopp said it was a muscle problem from international duty, but which muscle? Obviously there was nothing on Thiago. Let’s face it, we won’t see him again in 2020. I know I keep saying it, but I don’t think I’ll ever not be boiling over with anger about what happened that day at Goodison. We could win every trophy there is to win for the next ten years and I’ll still be fucking raging about that derby. Not enough was made of that. It feels like it’s all been forgotten now except we’re left to deal with the aftermath of it, with no Virg, no Thiago and two points less than we have actually earned. Dirty Everton cunts. Speaking of whom, how funny is this! The other day I wrote “they aren’t going to show Burnley v Everton” in that 12.30 slot. Tomorrow’s early kick off on BT is Burnley v Everton! I’d love to see the viewing figures for that compared to when we’re in that slot. That will show once and for all why all of Klopp’s complaining isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference because the bottom line is the Reds pull in more viewers than anyone else. Staying with the Blues. Chippy Tits Joe and Derek Hatton have been arrested for corruption and intimidation of witnesses. I for one am shocked that these two might not have been acting completely above board all these years. Shocked I tells ya! and that was the week that was….

Liverpool were held to a cruel draw by Brighton at the Amex Stadium on the last weekend of November, as the home team scored a last-minute penalty to claim a point. But it was the fireworks after the game that took most of the post-match headlines, with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp embarking on a passionate tirade against fellow manager Chris Wilder, interviewer Des Kelly and the broadcaster he works for, BT Sport. Klopp’s complaints were sparked not just by the loss of two points, but by the loss of yet another of his first-team players to injury. As James Milner limped off in the 74th minute and joined seven other Liverpool players on the treatment table, fans must be bemoaning their terrible luck so far this season. But Klopp is convinced that it’s not just luck at play… is he right? The case for Klopp Klopp became incensed when Kelly referenced Milner’s injury, complaining “You did it!”. While Klopp was obviously not referring to the interviewer personally, he was highlighting the fact that his employer (BT Sport) had forced Liverpool to play in the 12.30pm kick-off spot on Saturday, just two-and-a-half days after their European exploits against Atalanta. Klopp pointed out that it was the third time that Liverpool had played in the early kick-off, something which no other Premier League team has to contend with. It’s this lack of consideration on the part of the broadcasters which Klopp takes issue with and for which he blames the raft of injuries that have crippled his side so far this season. The case for the broadcasters To his credit, Kelly did a manful job of defending both himself and his bosses, pointing out that Liverpool had been chosen for that spot because it is deemed the most prestigious of the weekend. However, that argument is more relevant outside of lockdown periods, when fans are more likely to spend their Saturday afternoons and evenings outdoors. Kelly also drew Klopp’s attention to the fact that the organisation of the Premier League schedule is something that has been decided and agreed upon by all clubs in collaboration with BT Sport and the other broadcasters. This argument holds more water than his previous one, especially since Liverpool are more than happy to be the beneficiaries of the lucrative TV deals which sets the Premier League apart from the competition. The verdict? While Klopp’s frustration is more than understandable, it’s true that there is no perfect solution guaranteed to satisfy all parties. In the nature of a condensed season such as this one, it’s inescapable that fixture pileups will come to pass. His derogatory comments about Chris Wilder (whom he called selfish) and his team Sheffield United (whom he highlighted had just one point so far this season) were particularly undignified, but that is out of character for Klopp and can be explained away by the high tempers caused by the late draw and the loss of Milner. The truth is that the fixture list could certainly be managed with a little more foresight and a little more consideration for all involved, but as current champions, Liverpool are likely to receive a disproportionate share of the limelight – especially when Klopp kicks up a fuss like he did on that Saturday. Placing your bets online Even with their recent injury woes, Liverpool have still put in solid performances and remain among the favourites to reclaim their title. As such, canny football fans can take advantage of the attractive odds offered by online casinos like 777 Casino to place a bet on them winning back to back titles for the first time since the glory days of the 1980s. Alternatively, there are also plenty of other online games and slots to enjoy at the site, meaning that even if the team’s luck sours on the pitch, yours needn’t do so off it.

After we had two points stolen from us at the end of the Brighton game I wasn’t in the best of moods and unsurprisingly had pretty much zero interest in watching any footy for the rest of that weekend. And I didn’t. I’m catching up on it now although I did know most of the results. In fact, I knew the result of Man City v Burnley before it even kicked off. Ok, that’s not quite true as I thought it was going to be 6-0. It almost was but City had two goals disallowed and had to settle for just the 5-0. That was on right after our game and although I wasn’t watching it, the TV was still on while I was mooching around doing other things. When I saw Burnley’s starting line up with no Nick Pope I knew there was only one outcome here, and that was a massive City win. You see here’s the thing about Burnley. We know they can be difficult to play against for a lot of teams but they’re an absolutely perfect opponent for Man City. If Guardiola was to create the perfect team for his boys to roll over, whatever he came up with would give them more of a test than Burnley. The Clarets have zero pace or skill in the midfield and forward positions and therefore pose no counter attacking threat. And how do you hurt Man City? Counter attacks, of course. The only way Burnley can potentially hurt Man City is with set plays but you aren’t going to win enough of them when you’re being pushed back into your own penalty for most of the game. So Burnley are like a big ol’ slow heavyweight boxer who no longer has a knockout punch. Putting them up against Man City is like when Homer fought for the heavyweight title against Drederick Tatum. They just stand there taking punch after punch after punch and the only hope they have is that eventually Man City might break their fist on their big dumb old head. That never happened, and City won 5-0 against Burnley at the Etihad for the fourth time in a row. Burnley would actually just be better off forfeiting this game and taking a 3-0 loss. Elsewhere, Everton’s stuttering title challenge *sniggers* suffered another blow as they lost at home to Leeds. It finished 1-0 but Leeds fucking battered them and could easily have won by three or four. They look good and the early season hype about them seems justified. Leeds I mean, the early season hype about Everton was fucking laughable. Cracking game this by all accounts. I’ve only seen the MOTD highlights but I caught bits of it on the radio and they were raving about how entertaining it was. Loads of chances at both ends (but far more for Leeds) and Everton had two goals ruled out for offside by VAR. Both correct decisions and both would have been given by the linesman anyway. My boy Bamford had one ruled out for offside too before Leeds eventually broke the deadlock when the lively Raphinha fired in from 20 yards. Even after taking the lead they kept throwing men forward looking for a second and they almost got caught on the break. That’s just all the more reason to like this team though. Leeds are fun. Meanwhile, across Yorkshire Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder still has “three subs and one point” after they were beaten 1-0 at West Brom. The Baggies hadn’t won all season but everyone is beating the Blades at the moment because they just can’t score. Even in this game they missed two or three absolute sitters (Mousset somehow missed an open goal from two yards out). They didn’t deserve to lose but that seems to be the case most weeks now. It feels like they get beat 1-0 every game. Last season must feel like a lifetime ago for them. I’m pleased for Bilic that he’s finally got a win. I like him. I don’t think his team have a snowballs chance in hell of staying up but maybe I’m wrong. Palace were without Zaha for their home game with Newcastle. Wilf’s got the ‘rona, but then has the Newcastle squad did too so that balanced itself out. First thing I saw in the highlights of this game? Another camera save by that fraud Darlow. Shot straight at him, pushes it away then flicks out the legs, arches the back and flies through the air. Twat. Palace dominated the game but didn’t take their chances and paid the price late on. Callum Wilson broke the deadlock with two minutes left and Joelinton added a second in stoppage time. Wilson was a great signing for them as he’s exactly what they needed. Some players just seem like a perfect fit for certain clubs and Wilson was made for Newcastle. Their fans aren’t happy with Bruce though and I sort of understand it as he is incredibly negative. Thing is though, those same fans moaning about Bruce fucking idolised Rafa who is basically the same guy but with much better PR. Bruce is no more defensive than Benitez but he is picking up more points. Yet one is demonised while the other is loved. What makes it even more baffling is that Bruce is a Geordie and lifelong Newcastle fan. Nobody knows how to get the local media onside better than Rafa though. Shit, he employs people specifically to do just that. Maybe Steve Bruce should give Owen Brown a call? Results aren’t going to win the fans over so maybe getting Rafa's self proclaimed "Minister of War" will do the trick? Onto Sunday now and Southampton had United right where they wanted them before completely shitting the bed in the second half. Bednarek headed the opener and then Ward-Prowse doubled their lead just before half time. I was listening to this in the car and when they went over to St Mary’s because Southampton had a free-kick, I said to Adrianna “listen to this now, it’s about to be a goal for Southampton”. And it was. She was like “how did you know???” and I just shrugged and said “I know football, it's my job” and left it at that. Cool. As. Fuck. She was less impressed a few days when we went to pick her mate up from the bus stop. Her mate's name is Rihanna, and it was pissing down that day. So you can probably guess the rest. That's right, she gets in the car and I go "Hi Rihanna, it's lashing down out there. Did you not bring an umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh" Rihanna laughed a little awkwardly while Adrianna sat there and fumed. I have no regrets. Anyway, my clairvoyance in the Southampton game wasn't actually that impressive really as a free-kick to Ward-Prowse is like a penalty to most players. He’s lethal and I honestly fully expected him to score. De Gea probably should have saved it though, but he’s shite these days and only seems to be able to make saves with his feet. He injured himself trying to save it and was replaced by Dean Henderson for the second half. He might not get his place back now as this might be the opportunity Solskjaer needed to get Henderson in. Tell you what was weird. I’m watching MOTD now and when Henderson came on I found myself saying “is that what he looks like?”. I’d never have been able to pick him out of a line up, even though I must have seen him play at least a dozen times when he was at Sheffield United. Has he had a facelift or something? It was another half time sub that made the difference though. Cavani created one for Portuguese Gylfi and then scored two himself, including the winner in stoppage time. Fair play, that was a good comeback from United. If Southampton could defend they’d be nailed on for top six. They can’t though, which is why they’ll do well to stay in the top half. Afterwards Cavani got himself in hot water by using the term ‘negrito’ on social media. I’m not sitting in judgement on him as there’s not a chance there was any racist intent to what he said and I feel like it’s pretty fucking arrogant of the English to judge what a word means in another language. Translating a word that means one thing in one language and then applying the meaning it has in our language is a nuanced issue. Cavani wasn’t using that in any kind of negative way, it’s a term of endearment where he comes from. Should he be aware of what could happen when using that term though? Maybe, he’s close to Suarez and knows how all of that went down and the massive stitch up that was involved, but really I just struggle to give a fuck about this as it’s a nonsense and making an issue out of it cheapens the real fight against racism. Still, it’s fucking hilarious seeing United fans bending over backwards to make excuses and telling everyone about how certain terms are meant affectionately in Uruguay and should not be translated literally. The stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming. Cunts. Sunday’s big game was Spurs v Chelsea and it went perfectly from our point of view. We didn’t want either of these winning so a 0-0 draw was just what the doctor ordered. Awful game, a proper Mourinho ‘masterclass’. Lampard and Mourinho really don’t like each other anymore do they? Nothing happened here, there was no kick off or needling like last time they met, but you can just see it with the coldness in the handshakes. There’s no warmth of friendliness there between them, which is weird seeing how they had so much success together. As much as we all know what a twat Mourinho is, I reckon this frostiness is totally down to Fat Frank who has outed himself as a bad bellend since he got that job. Chelsea went closest to winning it but Werner’s goal was ruled out for offside. Not by VAR, but by the linesman. It was tight but the linesman spotted it and put his flag up. This is what I’m saying. The linos are generally very good and don’t need VAR, which only seems to be brought in to give decisions that are so fucking tight they should just be given as onside. Go back to how it was. The refs might all be shite but the linos are actually really good at their jobs. I see Arsenal lost again. The wheels have come right off since they won at Old Trafford and had Tim Cahill declaring Arteta a genius. Roy Keane wasn’t having it and he finally got to gloat this week as Sky had him working the Arsenal game. Everything he said about the Gunners was dripping in either dripping in disdain or sarcasm. It was great. Talking about how the “Arteta cheerleaders” were out in force after they beat United and then quipping “I think they’ve got enough to stay up. I think they’ll be ok”. It’s just a pity they didn’t have Cahill on with him so Keane could have directed the ‘cheerleader’ comment at him, as that was blatantly what he was referring to. Keane looked mortally offended when Cahill was embarrassing himself by talking up Arteta like he’d just produced some kind of masterclass. He sat there seething until eventually he had to interrupt with “how many games have Arsenal lost already this season?”. However many it was, it’s more now. They’ve only taken one point since then and Wolves were good value for this win. Neto got the opener, Gabriel equalised and Podence got the winner. My boy Adama caught the eye for pretty much the first time this season. He was really sharp which isn’t good news for us as we welcome him and Wolves to Anfield this weekend. That’s going to be a tough game, it always is when play these. I know I keep saying it, but its mad the way they’ve just replaced Jota with an exact replica. Its scary how Jota-like he is. He runs like him, moves like him, he’s two footed and he basically plays exactly like him. And like Jota, he’s fucking brilliant. Has Jorge Mendez discovered cloning? Would anyone be surprised if he had? He knows how to make money this fucker. If there are any flies on him they’re paying fucking rent. Even Neto is like a Poundland Jota. Or a Neto Jota if you like. If he has discovered cloning, can he make another Adama and send him our way? The biggest thing to come out of this game though was the horrific skull fracture to Raul Jiminez following a clash of heads with David Luiz, who also ended up going off with a concussion. A terrible shame as he’s fucking boss. I enjoy watching him but there has to be a real chance that we might not see him play again after this. So much of his game is about his aerial prowess but how is he going to able to attack a ball with his head again after this? Even if it was medically cleared, psychologically how would you do it? I defo couldn’t, I’d be gun-shy as fuck. I hope he makes a full recovery and is back playing soon, I just fear that won’t happen. It has sparked discussion again about concussion in football and what needs to be done. One of the things being suggested is a concussion substitute that doesn’t count toward the regular sub count. It seems like a good idea but I promise you that if that is brought in, you’ll have cunts like Mourinho instructing players to feign head injuries so he can make an extra sub. I’m fine with that rule coming in, but any player who leaves the field with a concussion should automatically be ruled out for seven days, just like in the NFL who are light years ahead of footy when it comes to this issue. The heat is increasing on Arteta now and no amount of Tim Cahill caressing his balls is going to help him now. He needs results and performances, because Arsenal look fucking sterile as shit right now. They’ve got loads of good attacking players but they can’t score goals. Arteta is being exposed. After the Wolves game he was banging on about how many crosses they put in and that if they keep doing that they’ll win games. Jesus Christ, he’s gone full Moyes. Everyone knows you never, ever go full Moyes. Still, it just shows you once again, when Everton touches you…. Finally, Monday night. Fulham beat Leicester and they deserved it. It was no fluke. They’ve been playing pretty well for most of the season but that defence is so bad it undermines anything they good they do at the other end. And they are doing some good things. Lookman opened the scoring when he finished off a nice counter attack. Then they were awarded a penalty when Bobby Reid touched the ball past Fuchs and was clumsily kicked by the Leicester man. On first viewing you probably wouldn’t have given that if you’re the ref because it was difficult to see from his position. As soon as you saw the replay though it was clear that it was a pen. VAR was useful in that situation and it’s decisions like that one that strengthen the case for keeping it. Not for me though, I’d rather my team not get that penalty if it means no VAR. It’s always been a part of the game that sometimes you get penalties and sometimes you don’t. It’s only really a big problem when you don’t get the blatant ones. Anyway, Fulham actually converted a spot kick for once to go 2-0 up and although Leicester pulled one back in the second half through Barnes, Scott ‘Scotty’ Parker’s men held out for a huge three points. Initially I said they’d finish bottom and might smash the record for the lowest points tally. More recently I said they’d finish above West Brom but still go down. Now I’m not so sure. Their defence is terrible and will probably be their undoing, but one thing I have to say is that they look like they’re well coached and so I have to give Parker some credit. He might actually be a decent manager. I’m not prepared to go there yet but I’m preparing myself for the possibility. The other game on Monday saw West Ham beat Villa. Ogbonna headed West Ham in front but Grealish drew the visitors level with a run and deflected shot from distance. Bowen won it for the Hammers with a flicked header. Trezeguet missed a sitter and then Watkins missed a pen. Justice there as I didn’t think there was enough in that to give a penalty. Sight tug of the shirt but not enough to impede the forward who took a clear dive. Not a VAR call that though, the ref gave that himself. Watkins smashed it against the bar though and West Ham survived, not least because of an incredible shit VAR offside call against Watkins. His arm was adjudged to be slightly ahed of the last defender, but the only reason that was the case was because the defender was pulling him back and he was having to struggle to free himself When he did that, his arm strayed offside! VAR looked at it and they disallowed the goal. Yet more evidence as to why this fucking farce can’t be allowed to continue. There’s just no way that isn’t a goal. None. Villa were absolutely fucking robbed there. If you’re disallowing the goal then give them a penalty for the pull by the defender. This is just so shit. Every week we see two, three, sometimes more games completely ruined by this fucking nonsense. As an aside, I just realised that I don’t like that Watkins. I’m trying to think why that might be and I’m fairly sure it’s because he seemed way too cocky when he was scoring those goals against us.

That was great. Just what we needed. Good performance, loads of balls shown by the lads, a win, qualification from the group and - fingers crossed - no serious injuries. No wonder Klopp looked happy for the first time in a couple of weeks afterwards. Even leaving aside the positive result for us this was just a great game of football. Really enjoyable to watch from first minute to last. Two teams just going after each other with attacking intent and not a VAR review in sight. We even had linesmen flagging for offsides! It was like a throwback to when football was fun. It's so much better like this, even though if this had been a Premier League game we’d have been facing ten men as Ajax would almost certainly have been a man down when their young centre half chopped down Sadio as he went clean through. The ref gave a yellow when that was a clear red. You know what though, if decisions like that are the price to pay for scrapping VAR, sound. I can live with that. There have been refereeing decisions in the recent past that have stayed with me. Naby not getting a penalty against Leicester. Kompany not being sent off for the foul on Mo. Sterling and Suarez having goals ruled out for outrageously bad offside calls. I could go on, but the point I want to make here is that none of them have left me as angry, frustrated and disillusioned as I have been with VAR. So let the officials do their jobs, like in this game. How refreshing was it to just have a normal game of football? I know VAR is in use in these games and I've seen some CL ruined by it, but my point is that we didn’t see it here and the game was infinitely more enjoyable as a spectacle because of it. I know it’s easy to say that because we won but I’d honestly made the decision even before the game had ended that I was going to bring this up in the report regardless. It was just a really good, entertaining game of football and despite the ref not getting everything right, the intent was there from him to just let the players play. Last week against Atalanta was similar actually. That ref just wouldn't give any free-kicks at all. I reckon he switched off his ear piece so he didn't have to listen to anyone advising him on anything, because 'fuck that, I'm letting them play'. The problem last week was that the ref was trying to let us play but we didn’t oblige him. That game was terrible because we were shite, that’s all. And because of that result we really needed to get something in this one to avoid the nervy finale next week in Denmark, or Germany or wherever it will eventually be played. Klopp went with the strongest line up he could and as I’d said in the Brighton report I think that was the smart play, even if it had meant we picked up another injury or two. It was a risk he had to take. And it paid off because now we can completely disregard that final group game and send the legends team over to play it. Ok, not really as they aren’t eligible, but the kids are as they don’t need to be registered. Send them over to play the game and rest EVERYBODY. Because we can. Its not even like Ajax or Atalanta need us to take the game seriously as it has no bearing on their qualification. So yeah, the lads have earned the night off and the great thing is we can now forget about Europe until February. The reduced fixture load will hopefully slow these fucking injuries down a bit as we’re running out of players. Who’d have thought a couple of months ago that we’d go into a really important Champions League game and end the night with Kelleher, Jones, Williams and Williams on the field? We did though, and three of them actually started the game. And how cool is, all three were in contention for the star man. I’m not giving that away yet though, you’ll have to read until the end to find that out. We call that a teaser in the writing game. There had been rumours the night before that Alisson was missing with some sort of knock and so it proved. No-one expected Kelleher to play though. Even the Twitter team selection mole got that one wrong. I think we saw in this game exactly why Kelleher got the nod over Adrian and it’s not even because of his goalkeeping (although that was very good on the night). There’s probably not too much to choose from them on that front but with a ball at their feet it’s like night and day. Adrian looks nervy and always on the brink of being caught on the ball and that in turn makes others look nervy around him. In his most recent appearances it has started to look to me like the defenders don’t really trust him and you can understand that. If he’d played in this game, straight away there’d have been a negative vibe about it and the narrative would have been completely different. Instead of everyone worrying about what Adrian might do, the question was more “let’s see what this kid has got then”. The players probably felt the same way. They'll have been excited for him. He’s played before of course, in the domestic cups, and he’s never really looked like anything out of the ordinary. He wasn’t particularly eye catching in this game either (which is good, as Alisson rarely is either) but everything he did looked assured and confident, and that goes a long way. With the ball at his feet he was superb I thought. His clearances with both feet were really secure and when the chance was there to pass it he invariably pinged it to a red shirt. The saves he had to make were ones you’d expect your keeper to make, but he made them and that hasn’t always been the case when we’ve had to call on back ups. Shit, it wasn’t always the case when we were calling on our first choice either until Alisson arrived. But Alisson is turning into the goalkeeping equivalent of Daniel Sturridge. Brilliant when he’s fit but constantly picking up one ailment or another. He’s missed a lot of games since he’s been here. The shoulder injury I can live with but goalkeepers shouldn’t be pulling hamstrings and calves, surely? It remains to be seen how long he’s out for but that was just the latest injury blow in a season that has so far been full of them. It’s ridiculous, we seem to be losing two players a week at the moment. It looked like we might lose Robbo early on too as he got a nasty knock on the ankle and was hobbling around for much of the first half. He gritted his teeth, got it strapped up and soldiered through. Fucking love Robbo. Hendo too. Apparently he’d done his back in but he shrugged it off too and played the full game. We’ve seen that before from him. “It’s only pain”. Remember that? In terms of the rest of the line up Klopp didn’t have too much choice really. He had to decide which forward to leave on the bench and he opted for Bobby. Fair enough. He also had to decide whether to retain Neco at right back or maybe switch things around a bit. Tsimikas could have been used thereat a push, or Fabinho could have switched over and Rhys Williams could have partnered Matip. Neco has had some problems recently but he was still the best option we had. Klopp revealed afterwards he had a long chat with him this week. Whatever was said worked as Neco started steadily and just grew in stature as the game went on. He was brilliant in the second half which was great to see. Made up for him as he needed this. Other than those decisions the team picked itself really as there wasn’t really any other viable options. Jones has been getting a lot of games this season due to injuries to the likes of Keita, Ox and Thiago (or was he just a mirage?). He was always good enough to be a regular but the main thing missing was opportunity. These injuries gave him that and he’s responded well. He’s fucking boss and he'll take some shifting now because given equal playing time 'd back him to outscore every other one of our midfielders, and in some cases he'd be doubling their numbers. He went close twice early in the first half in similar situations from the edge of the box. The first saw his left footer saved by the keeper. The second saw his superbly struck right footer come back off the post. We were really lively early doors but then Ajax started to find their own rhythm and the game had a nice end to end flow about it. I thought they were wide open and we should have punished them several times only for a poor decision or a heavy touch from one of the forwards (more often than not Jota) let them off the hook. Ajax looked threatening too though and we had to defend very well to keep them at bay. Matip and Fabinho were pretty much faultless I thought but Ajax did still have some very presentable chances. They’re a good side though and have been in terrific form since we beat them last time. The battle between Mané and their young centre back was fascinating. The kid held his own for most of it but he defo should have been sent off when he mistimed a tackle and sent Sadio sprawling. He’s the last man there and the covering defender wouldn’t have even caught me, let alone Mané. It should have been red but the game was actually much better as a result of it being eleven v eleven. We’d have won comfortably if the kid had been sent off but him staying on kept the contest very even. Klaasen was their most dangerous player and I can only assume it’s because our lads looked at him with his old man head and his CV stamped with ‘Failed at Everton’ on it and decided he wasn’t worth marking. They were right. Even when he was left in front of goal all on his own two or three times he still couldn’t score. Once you've been touched by Everton.... The closest Ajax came to a goal was when Kelleher made a save and Neres struck the post with the rebound. A big let off and we took advantage as around 90 seconds later it was 1-0. Neco had really started to grow into the game and had been making a lot of forays forward after the break. From one of them he cut inside and swung a deep cross to the back post that was missed by Onana and converted from a tight angle by Jones. That was a fucking brilliant goal. The most orthodox way to finish that would have been with the left foot but by doing that the angle would have been much tighter. Curtis is just an instinctive, natural footballer and without even thinking he used his right foot so he could take the ball earlier and give himself more of the goal to aim at. I loved that finish, it was quality. That kid is a natural and he’s going to be great. We had loads of opportunities to increase our lead but some of the finishing was wayward and a lot of the final passes left a lot to be desired. Salah went through a couple of times but was wasteful. He also put Firmino though (he’d come on for Jota) only for Onana to make an incredible save to tip his shot onto the post. Yes Bobby should score but nine times out of ten that goes in as the keeper doesn’t get near it. Onana did brilliantly there which was a shame, as Bobby looked lively and a goal would have been good for him. I feel like he’s turned a corner with his form now though. He just looks more like himself. There was one fantastic run and lovely through ball to Mané that was so good it deserved a goal just for the quality of the assist, but Sadio allowed the ball to elude him and the chance was gone. It summed up his night. He did a lot of nice things but in and around the box it just wasn’t happening for him. Defensively we did a good job keeping Ajax at bay but they did create one really good chance that needed Kelleher to make a good save. Initially it looked amazing but when you see the replay it was pretty much straight at him. Still, good reflexes and he pushed the ball well clear of the goal which is all you can ask. Ajax threw the kitchen sink at us. Every forward they had was on at the end, even Huntelaar. I’m sat there wondering when Kluivert and Litmanen were going to get the call. We held out fairly comfortably in the end though. Kelleher was the first player Klopp ran to at full time, which was fair enough as he was thrown in at the deep end but he did us proud. A clean sheet on his European debut against a side like Ajax is something he’ll remember forever. Shame there were no fans there to see it like, but hopefully we’ll get back in there soon. The second player Klopp went to was Neco. Again, the right call. That kid has had a lot of unfair criticism, some of it from cunts who are meant to be supporting him. Its fine to say he didn’t play well. It’s fine to express concerns that you don’t think he will prove to be good enough. We’re all allowed to have an opinion and there's nothing wrong with that. What’s not fine is when you force that opinion onto the kid himself by sending him messages on social media. If you do that you’re a fucking cunt. Simple as that. Neco was brilliant when he first got into the side and he’ll be brilliant again in time. He needs to play his way back into form and this was a good way to start, as he was great in the second half. We need him because although Trent is on the way back, we can't just keep playing him week in week out so Neco needs to be playing well to give us that alternative when it's needed. There was one bit of skill when he plucked the ball out of the air and lobbed it over the winger all in one movement. It was probably the best moment of the entire match, especially as he followed it up by pinging a great ball down the line. Made up for him and I hope he’s feeling a lot better about things now, as that must have been rough for him last weekend. The kid has character, we know that at least after this. In terms of the star man, both of those two were strong contenders as was Curtis. The three kids stood up tall for us when we needed them. Both centre backs were class too, Gini was machine-like in the middle (give him that fucking contract) and Hendo was Hendo. Any one of them could have been the star man but I’m going for..... Neco, on the basis that he was under more pressure than anyone else. I’m just really pleased for him. And for us. Because despite everything we’ve had to deal with and are continuing to deal with, we’re in the knockout stages and we’re still joint top of the Premier League. Up the fucking siege mentality, sticking together and fighting for each other Reds! Team: Kelleher; N Williams, Matip, Fabinho, Robertson; Henderson, Wijnaldum, Jones; Salah (R Williams), Jota (Firmino), Mané:

So far this season has just been a series of kicks to the balls. It’s like we’re being punished for winning the title. A title that we weren’t even able to celebrate by the way. And now it’s just one setback after another. It all seems to be getting to Klopp, who is growing tetchier by the week. This was enough to test the patience of a saint though. It’s not even about whether the decisions are right or wrong (technically they were all right in this one), it’s about the stress and emotional turmoil that players, managers and fans are being subjected to on a weekly basis by this fucking video shit. Klopp’s main grievance may be with the broadcasters and their penchant for having us play at 12.30 on a Saturday following Champions League fixtures, but that would be a lot easier to take if we didn’t keep getting slapped around by fucking VAR too. The boss was in a bad mood BEFORE this game. By the end of it he was positively fucking seething. He wasn’t the only one. Hendo was massively pissed off in his post match interview, while James Milner, JAMES FUCKING MILNER, spoke about falling out of love with the game. I mean fucking hell, when someone as dedicated to and as obsessed with football as Milner is talking like that, you know something needs changing. It won’t be changed though. They won’t put the genie back in the bottle and we’re stuck with this now. Football as we know it is dead. What we’re left with is this joyless, reality TV show in which all decisions are being completely distorted by super slo mo replays and forensic over analysis of every incident. It might sound like sour grapes because we’re on the receiving end of it rather than being he beneficiaries. That definitely plays a part in how angry I am about it, but my overall opinion on this issue has nothing to do with how it impacts LFC, it’s about how it’s completely destroyed the game we all love. The VAR virgins (most if not all of whom have never set foot inside a stadium in their lives and their entire football viewing experience is done either online or on TV) will argue that if all the decisions were correct what’s the problem? Well it isn’t even about whether they get them right or wrong. It’s the fact that there is no joy in watching football anymore because VAR has killed it, just like I knew it would. It ruined the last World Cup and now it’s ruining top flight football across Europe. It was a terrible idea from the start and I never wanted it. And this is why. Take the disallowed Salah goal for example. Under the current rules that was offside so the decision was correct. I could go into one about why it ‘shouldn’t’ be offside and that it’s only offside because the nerds got overly excited with their technology that can draw lines on a pitch to determine whether a player is a centremetre offside or not, but I won’t do that. Actually you know what, I will, because I need to get it off my chest. Salah was offside by the tiniest of margins but he was offside and the decision was correct. I actually find it easier to stomach that one because it was measured by where his foot was in relation to the foot of the defender. That’s how it should be, rather than this top of the arm, head, knee, armpit, ballbag or whatever other body part they occasionally use. So in terms of close offsides this is one I don’t have a massive issue with, but I do have some issue with it and with offsides in general. If it’s so close that you need to get those lines out then it’s level and the right way to do this is to allow the goal. Do we really want to see goals like this disallowed? The control and pass by Bobby to set Mo clear was fucking amazing but we’ll probably never see it again now because the goal was wiped out. We want to see goals like that but because of this warped new reality we’re having loads of goals disallowed needlessly and even worse, they’re making up for it by awarding a shitload of penalties for nothing incidents. Football has changed massively since VAR, and not for the better. We’ve benefited from these tight offsides before and we will again, especially because of the high line we play defensively. I’m not arsed if we’re on the right end of it or the wrong end though, I just want offside judged the way it used to be, preferably just by a linesman but if we’re stuck with the technology then at least change the rule. Just draw one line across the defender’s foot and if its not clear that the attacker’s foot is ahead of the line without having to zoom in and check it to the millimetre, then he’s onside. Simple. But leaving that aside, here’s the real issue here. Let’s say that Salah was onside and the goal had stood. I hadn’t even celebrated it and I bet many of you didn’t either, because any time there’s even a possibility of it being offside you just don’t celebrate now. So even if VAR then says it’s a goal, the moment has gone anyway. And that is the problem. It was much better when the linesman was making the call because at least you knew if it was a goal or not. If the flag is up then you don’t celebrate. If it isn’t, happy days. I miss that. The best thing about football is that explosion of joy when your team scores a goal. That’s why we watch. That’s what makes it special. It’s why we love it. And now it’s gone. They’ve taken it away because they got excited about technology and what it could do for the game. I’ll tell you what it’s done. It’s fucking ruined it as a spectacle. I’d say that currently I probably don’t celebrate around half of the goals we score because I’m always wary about a possible offside or maybe an inadvertent handball or foul in the build up. That in itself is reason enough to fuck this shit off, because even if it got every decision right (which it doesn’t), the price for that would be too high anyway. Give me shit refs making bad decisions in real time rather than the same shit refs making some right and some wrong with the ‘benefit’ of video. We should have won this game and without VAR we would have. I’m not talking about the two disallowed goals as we’ll never know whether the linesman would have flagged for those. There’s a chance Mo’s would have stood but 99% of the time a lino is getting the Sadio one correct. Having the safety of VAR is only going to lower the standards of the linos because they don’t need to be right anymore. The penalty at the end though, there is not a referee in the league giving that one in real time, except that David Coote piece of shit. Hell, even Dermot Gallagher said that wasn’t a penalty and he never disagrees with any decision. Likewise Peter Walton, who at the time said there is not enough to overturn that and he didn’t think a pen would be given. When those two are disputing a call you know you’ve been hard done by. Graham Potter said it wasn’t a pen. Even Danny fucking Welbeck told Hendo it wasn’t a pen, and according to the skipper four or five other Brighton players said the same thing. Yet here we are, with one point instead of three and once again left feeling as though we’ve been screwed over. As for the game itself, Klopp said he was really pleased with the performance. I didn’t see it quite like that myself as I thought we below par, but in view of the injuries we have, the amount of games we have played and the fact you could see how tired we looked towards the end, all things considered I can see why he was happy with the lads. We started brilliantly and had more sights of goal in the opening two minutes than we had in the entire game against Atalanta in midweek. We were bright and inventive early on but then it faded away and Brighton came more into it. We dominated the ball but they looked a threat in behind with the pace of Connolly. Klopp said it was due to the backline not being familiar with each other and that they figured it out before half time. It looked that way. We had a rocky spell in the first half when they got in behind us a few times but after that we looked comfortable enough. We did have a massive let off when Maupay missed a penalty though. He was subbed immediately with what looked like a pride strain. No complaints about the decision as Neco was naive as fuck there. You could see when he went charging back into the box he was going to do something rash. Connolly knew it too, which is why he just stepped across his path in anticipation of the challenge that was coming. Clever from the striker, I’ve seen him do this kind of thing before and he’s obviously learned from the master while on international duty. Pure Shane Long that was. Hopefully Neco learns from that. He’s not having a great time of it recently. In fact, when I think back, the turning point for him was the first lockdown. He was doing great up until then but since footy came back he’s found it difficult. The strange thing is it doesn’t look like it’s a loss of confidence as he isn’t exactly playing it safe is he? He still takes chances with the ball in his own half and he isn’t afraid to try things. Confidence doesn’t seem to be his problem. He’s just not playing well and making mistakes. He isn’t being helped by the barrage of shit heaped on him by social media cunts after every game, but really that’s something the club or some of the senior players need to deal with. Tell him to stay off social media because there is literally nothing good can possibly come from it. I don’t understand why any player would be on there, but especially a young lad trying to make his way at a massive club. He’s struggling and it was no surprise he was brought off at half time. It could just as easily have been Minamino who got the hook though as he wasn’t doing anything and looked lost in that midfield three. On paper I like the idea of him playing in there. In practice it looked awful. He worked hard but didn’t seem to know where he was meant to be half the time. Taki survived though and Neco made way for Hendo with Milner switching to right back. And immediately we looked more in control of the game. The first half was disjointed and we didn’t keep the ball well enough. The forwards were wasteful in possession and it had the look of one of those frustrating days about it. After Hendo came on though I felt it was only a matter of time before we made our superiority count. And we did. And how. What a fucking goal. Like Fowler against Alaves that. Jota has been so good since he arrived that I knew that was a goal more or less as soon as he picked the ball up. Fantastic finish. Klopp made another change when he brought on Sadio for Mo, and Mo was not impressed at all. Tough shit. Fucking deal with it. You’ve missed 10 days training because you got Covid and we’re in the midst of a massive injury crisis. You think Klopp is going to take any chances by overplaying you? The balls on him spitting out his dummy like that. I actually like what Klopp did there. Firstly, he needs to protect the players from burn out so getting Sadio on for Mo made sense. Secondly, as I said last week I’d be wanting to make a point to Mo that he isn’t above reproach. Subbing him lets him know that there are consequences to certain actions. I want him sat there thinking “you know, maybe I won’t go to the next party and jump in the mosh pit”. It looked like a genius move when Sadio headed in what we thought was the second goal. Funny thing about that one, I kind of half celebrated as I didn’t see any hint of offside on first viewing. Then you see the replay and he’s well off. I don’t know if the linesman flagged or not but I’d be surprised if he hadn’t seen that. Something I’ve thought for a while but not sure if I’ve ever said it. While I think most refs are garbage, the linos are generally really good when it comes to offsides. It’s a difficult job but they get it right almost all of the time. Sure you get the occasional really bad one (Sterling against City and Suarez at Goodison still hurt to this day) but most of the time they get it right. It’s a bit rich me saying that given the amount of energy I use screaming at them when I’m at the match, but a lot of the time when I’ve been hurling abuse at them I’ve got home and seen the replays and they’ve been right! I guess what I’m saying is I’d rather they were making decisions with the naked eye than having it done by some knobhead in Stockley Park with his stupid etch a sketch lines. So anyway, no goal for Sadio but we were still in the lead and looking comfortable. Then Milner did his hammy and we ended up with Jones at right back. Bit of a weird one that. Tsimikas was on the bench, and Rhys Williams. Either one would have made more sense given we were defending a lead. The injury thing is getting daft now. Not just with us either. Brighton lost two players to muscle injuries as well, although one of them was poor Ads and that’s not exactly surprising. When that happened, I had to message my Mum. The response was predictable…. This is Klopp’s argument for five subs. It isn’t just about the clubs in Europe, although we’re going to be hit the hardest because of all these extra games. Even the sides who are playing once a week are getting more injuries than usual, because players had three months of doing nothing, then they came back and played, then they had a ridiculously short pre-season and are now cramming games into a shortened season. These lads are so finely tuned and the demands on them are so great now due to how fast the game is that it’s inevitable they’re going to break down. Even super fit James Milner succumbed to it because he was playing his third game in six days. Thankfully Klopp was sensible enough to tell Joel Matip to stay home, because the odds of him making it through a third game inside of a week would be astronomical. Losing Milner hurt us massively. We were in control of the game and then we weren’t. It’s not like we were hanging on, but it felt like it and I was watching the clock anxiously. Curtis was high up the pitch and didn’t seem to have any idea where he should be when defending. That didn’t cost us but it could have done. Surprisingly it was the other full back who got caught out. If you can call it that. Technically it was a penalty as Robbo missed the ball and kicked Welbeck, but no-one thought anything of it at the time and it was only when VAR got involved that it became an issue. Brighton players didn’t even appeal and Welbeck only went down because he figured it was worth chancing his arm with VAR. He took two steps before deciding to go down. I don’t blame Welbeck one little bit. He WAS kicked and even though it had no bearing whatsoever on the play, it’s stoppage time and you’re a goal down so of course you’re going to draw attention to it and hope you get something. I’ve seen it compared with Salah’s pen against West Ham. There is a similarity in the sense that contact was minimal but where they differ hugely is that Mo was still in possession of the ball when he went down. Welbeck had lost it. He got there before Robbo but could only touch it onto Robbo’s knee and the ball went in the opposite direction to where he did and Robbo cleared it up field. The ref saw it clearly and waved play on because in real time you can see that is never a penalty. Once you start with the super slow motions though everything looks different and because we are now in this situation where “contact equals foul” then this is nearly always going to be given. And that’s completely fucked up. Much is being made of the “clear and obvious” thing but that’s a red herring. Whether something is clear and obvious is largely subjective isn’t it? Do they even apply that anymore anyway? It seems like old news to me. Last season they trotted out the clear and obvious line to justify overturns they didn’t make. Now they seem to just overturn everything. I actually think the ref had to give that penalty once he saw that slow motion replay because Robbo missed the ball and kicked Welbeck, albeit only just. Without VAR you can factor other things in, such as Welbeck not keeping the ball and how late it was in the game. Because that is an issue too. If you’re giving a penalty in stoppage time it better be a clear one. Now that VAR is there all of that has changed. There is no longer any room for common sense or referee’s discretion. After being told to look at the video by whoever the goon in Stockley Park was, Chris Kavanagh would have taken more criticism if he hadn’t given that than if he had. So I don’t have any grievance with him at all. That’s four points we’ve had taken off us now thanks to stoppage time VAR calls. We won the derby. The record books say otherwise but we won that game and we all know it. This one didn’t leave me feeling anywhere near as furious or as cheated as the Goodison debacle did, but it is depressing and leaves me just wondering what the point is anymore? Do you actually enjoy watching football anymore? I don’t think I do you know. Of course there are still lots of things I love about it, but I don’t love the game anymore. I actually hate it. Or at least the top flight version of it. Lower league footy is still sound. Those fans don’t know how lucky they are really. It seems to me that most fans hate VAR and I’m fairly sure the majority of players and managers would happily fuck it off. So why do we have it? Who is this benefitting? At the end of the season there should be a massive survey carried out. Clubs across Europe’s top leagues can ask their fans, players and manager whether they think we should keep VAR or not and let’s see what the results are. It would be easy enough to co-ordinate, and if the majority don’t want it, then scrap it. Star man is Phillips. He seemed at full stretch on a couple of occasions but he always found a way to get the job done. I really like him. I’m not saying he’s a long term solution for us but I love his commitment and his self awareness. He knows what he is and what he isn’t and he plays to his strengths. I especially like how when he attacks those long balls he does so with such force and aggression that it looks like he’s actually trying to score! Next up Ajax. How do we approach that one? Players are dropping like flies and if we go full strength in that we may need to leave some big names out of the Wolves game. Which one do we prioritise? There’s an argument to be had that we prioritise the Wolves game because if we lose to Ajax we still have that Mdjityland (defo spelled that wrong but can’t be arsed checking) game to secure qualification. Usually that’s how I’d see it, but I think I’d go the other way this time and go all out to beat Ajax, even if it means a weakened side facing Wolves. That way, if we win (or draw, that’s enough isn’t it?) we can send the youth team over for the final group game and give some much needed rest to key players. There is a lot more wiggle room in the league than usual because you don’t have Man City picking up 100 points a season. If we did come unstuck against Wolves there’s plenty of time to make up for that because no-one is running away with it. We’ve played 10 games and we’re joint top. So to put it another way, we’re about to play a 28 game season and we have a head start over everyone other than Spurs (and possibly Leicester if they win their game in hand). Dropping points in the league isn’t the catastrophe this year than it has been in previous years. With that in mind, I think I’d prioritise Ajax. I see both sides of this one though and whatever Klopp decides I’m good with. It’s tough at the moment though isn’t it? It’s not enjoyable and we’re running out of players. The sooner the CL group stage ends the better because no sooner have we finished one game than there’s a press conference previewing the next one. It feels never ending. I can’t wait until we get back to one game a week again and we get some players back because this is too much. We’ve done incredibly well to be where we are all things considered, but it is starting to feel like it’s catching up with us. Klopp is clearly not himself at the moment but he needs to circle the wagons. Stop picking fights with the TV companies and other managers because it isn’t going to change anything. Plenty of other managers agree with him (15-5 voted for five subs) but none of the cunts (other than Guardiola) are willing to stick their head above the parapet. They’re letting him fight the fight and take all the heat. Forget all that shit now, Jurgen. Focus on the things you can control rather than getting pissed off about stuff you can’t. Fuck everyone who isn’t us. Team: Alisson; N Williams (Henderson), Fabinho, Phillips, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Milner (Jones), Minamino; Salah (Mané), Firmino, Jota:

Saturday Nov 21: David Coote is at it again. What he did in that United game today was just… I don’t even know what to say. He’s either the worst official in history or he’s bent as fuck. Only part of that circus today was on him though. This nonsense about keepers coming off their line a fraction early on pens is purely a result of technology. I’m not saying it’s leading to incorrect decisions, but it’s just overkill though isn’t it? It’s like, we’ve got this technology so now we can examine every fucking thing to the tiniest degree. They’ve sucked all the joy out of the game. Football is in an absolute mess and we’re at a crossroads. The standard of refereeing is genuinely appalling but it seems to me that it’s providing a smokescreen for the real problem. VAR. Now, I’m partially on board with the view that the technology isn’t the reason for all of this controversy we’re seeing every week. The technology wasn’t the problem at Goodison for example. That was Oliver and Coote. In general though, every week we’re seeing two, three, four sometimes even more matches negatively affected by decisions made via the use of VAR. It doesn’t even matter in most cases if the decision is right or not, it’s just ruining the whole experience of watching footy. You can’t celebrate goals anymore because half the time they’re reviewed. Doesn’t even matter if they’re given or or not, the moment is ruined. So that’s fucking shit. Then you have the super slo mo replays, and the busy bastard traffic warden approach to making decisions based on the fucking tiniest of margins. It’s all well and good saying the video isn’t the problem, but it kind of is really because without it refs and linesman are making decisions based on what they see. Of course that leads to mistakes but is that really worse than what we’re seeing every week now? We still get mistakes now (feels like even more than before) but even the correct decisions are often leaving everyone angry and frustrated. Offsides based on whatever part of the arm they decide the lines should be drawn from, handballs based on slowing replays down to almost a standstill, penalty decisions likewise. We’ve actually had more controversy since it was brought in than we had before. The reason I say we’re at a crossroads is because if we don’t scrap this soon then we’re stuck with it forever and football will never go back to how it was before. You’ll have a whole generation who have grown up with this and think it’s normal, and once that happens it’s all over. It needs scrapping but the only way it will happen is if the fans, clubs, players, everyone stand together and say “it doesn’t work, it’s killing the game, get rid of it”. Will that happen? Nope. Basically they’re slowly killing footy and turning it into a TV show. Because the match going experience is being ruined by this shit. It’s hard enough watching it on TV, but when you’re in the stadium and all this bollocks is going on it’s horrible. Imagine being a West Brom fan inside Old Trafford today. Fucking hell. Ironically it was West Brom’s experience at Anfield that had me against VAR from the start. I saw how their fans and players didn’t know whether to celebrate one of their goals and immediately I knew it wasn’t for me. I’d rather have wrong decisions that right ones if this is the price we pay for them. Sunday Nov 22: L 3 Leicester 0. That was great wasn’t it? It had the feeling of an upset about it but the lads were never going to let that happen. The performance was outstanding, our best of the season so far I’d say. We defended great as a team and the forwards looked good. Nice to see Bobby looking like himself again. No wonder all the lads were so made up for him getting his goal. Hopefully that’s him back on track now. It’s the other end of the pitch that’s the real concern, despite how well we did today. There was a report today (from Simon Hughes I think?) that we had a shortlist of four centre halves for next summer and that we’ll only strengthen in January if we can bring one of those deals forward. The obvious solution here is to send Keita back to Leipzig in part ex for Upamecano. Assuming they’d have him back of course. It just seems fairly clear that it’s not going to happen for him here. It isn’t meant to be. He’s a good player and it should have worked out, but he’s always injured and has had rotten luck pretty much since day one. And ask yourself this. If all of our midfielders were fit and available, where would you have him in the pecking order? Right now I’m picking Fabinho, Hendo, Gini, Thiago, Curtis, Milner and Ox ahead of him. I might even go with Shaq over him too. And if Grujic wasn’t out on loan, maybe him as well. In an ideal world I wouldn’t let anyone leave in January, but if money is tight then I’d happily sacrifice him to bolster the defence. Klopp went off on one afterwards about how the TV companies are screwing over the clubs who are in European competition. Incredibly, there are some who don’t get it and he’s getting shit for being a ‘moaner’. Actually it’s not so incredible, as the ones who don’t get it are the ones who aren’t in Europe and therefore don’t give a flying fuck if they have to play at 12.30 on a Saturday because why would they? Klopp is right, just like Solskjaer was right when he kicked off over it a few weeks back. Lampard will be right if he complains, so will Baldiola. It’s really not that difficult to arrange the fixtures in a way that isn’t fucking over the teams who are flying the flag for this league in Europe. If you play in Europe on the Wednesday, then make it a Sunday kick off or even a Saturday 5.30. Every game is televised currently so does it really matter who has the time slot? Klopp’s argument is that BT and Sky should work together on this and not be so fucking rigid on who has what time slot. Again, why can’t they just swap? If BT have a CL side scheduled for their 12.30 slot, why can’t Sky switch one of their Sunday games into that spot and BT have the Sunday one? These are unprecedented times and everyone is having to make sacrifices. The TV companies have made them too as I’m sure their revenues have been hit in some ways, but they really could be helping out here. Instead they’re making things even harder than they already are. But then this is perfect for them isn’t it, as it stops us running away with and makes the league much more competitive. If Brighton beat us next weekend that’s better for BT than us having a routine win. So Klopp is wasting his breath. I mean fucking hell, Sky didn’t even air that part of the interview. Monday Nov 23: And not only did they not air it, they’re actively trying to get it taken down from youtube so people can’t hear it. I mean what’s the point? Just accept the criticism or respond to it. Don’t try and censor it, you overly sensitive fucks. This is virtually an admission that they know they’re wrong. If they had nothing to feel bad about they’d just let him have his say and then dispute it. Mind you, Sky aren’t the ones making CL teams play at 12.30 on a Saturday as that time slot is BT. Presumably Klopp’s beef with Sky is that they are unwilling to swap time slots with BT? Sky’s argument will be that they paid more than BT for the prime time slots. The 12.30 spot was one they used to have but BT wouldn’t pay for the 5.30 one and went for the cheaper 12.30 one instead, so Sky got the more expensive evening slot. Klopp is having a go at the TV networks for not working together. In an ideal world they would, but there’s just nothing in it for them so they don’t give a fuck about Klopp’s problems or those of Solskjaer or anyone else. Meanwhile, there was some rumour recently that Gini was close to signing a new deal but it seems that it was a false alarm. Honestly, this is doing my fucking head in now. Unless he wants to leave (which might be the case, who knows), then it’s fucking madness not paying him what he wants and extending him. He plays every week, does exactly the job he’s told to do, he’s great in the dressing room and he’s in his prime now. He’s got two or three years in him at this level at the very least so give him a new deal. I’m baffled by it to be honest. It’s got that Emre Can feel about it except that was a situation where you could understand both parties. Big Sexy wanted big money because he knew he could get it from Juve. We weren’t going to pay him more than he was worth and I think most people were fine with the situation. This isn’t that. Gini has more than earned a nice payday here as he’s been the lowest paid member of the team for years now. Maybe he wants a change of scenery but why would you? If we offer him what he’s worth, surely he’ll sign? I’m getting more and more annoyed by this by the day. Tuesday Nov 24: Bad News Pearce delivers the team news ahead of tomorrow and lo and behold, still no Thiago. This is one of the weirdest injury sagas I can ever remember. Klopp never gives anything away in press conferences but when he speaks with LFCTV he’s always more open and engaging because it’s like he always says, everyone at the club is part of the family, including the website / tv guys. His post match interviews with Peter McDowell are completely different to when you see him on BT or Sky. Anyway, McDowell asked him about Thiago following the Leicester game and you could see how frustrated Klopp was. Not with the question itself, but with the situation. He basically said he knows as much (or as little) as the rest of us do and that every day he comes in hoping to see Thiago back in full training, and every day the docs tell him he’s not ready. Unless I’ve missed it, they haven’t actually said what the injury even is. Just that it was a result of being kicked on the knee by that cunt Richarlison. Klopp did say it needed rest rather than surgery, but if it hasn’t cleared up after all this time maybe it’s going to end up going down the surgery route after all? I fucking hope not. From the little taster we’ve had of Thiago so far, I’m struggling to remember a player I’ve been looking forward to seeing play regularly than him. Wednesday Nov 25: Oh fucking hell. Not Diego. 2020 is the fucking worst isn’t it? Maradona dying is the fly on top of the turd. It’s not a huge surprise as he’s had so many health scares and his lifestyle was never conducive to a long life, but it still hit me quite hard. I loved Maradona. I even mentioned it last week in the diary, or maybe it was the week before. Definitely recently anyway. It was his 60th recently and when he was asked what he’d like if he could have anything he said he’d like to score against England with his right hand this time. Shilton’s big fucking stupid head will have exploded at that. I love Diego anyway but knowing how much he still makes Shilton miserable all these years later just adds to it. To me Maradona is and always will be the greatest. People can make cases for Pele and Messi (no one else though) and it’s all subjective so I’m not saying they’re wrong. I just think Maradona was unique. It was the whole package. Maradona is by far the most iconic footballer who ever lived. If you want to argue that Messi is a better player then have at it. His goal tally and trophy haul make it a worthwhile argument. I don’t agree Messi is better but sure, it’s a worthy discussion. In terms of the impact made on the game though, Maradona is out on his own. He was bigger than God in both Naples and Argentina. Messi has never had that status. The mistakes Maradona made and the trouble he got into only adds to it all. Everything he did was headline news because he was the biggest star in the history of the game. Look at the reaction today. Will Messi get that when he eventually dies (and hopefully that's not for a long, long time)? I doubt it. Maradona just impacted so many people's lives for one reason or another. Maradona was just larger than life. He just made people smile no matter what he was doing. I’ve written before about how I watched that WC Quarter Final in 86 wearing an Argentina kit and rooting for Maradona. When it finished I went out in the garden with the ball and was pretending to be him, dribbling round cones and pretending they were Peter Reid, Terry Fenwick, Steve Hodge, Terry Butcher and all those other losers who tried to kick him out of the game and failed. And this was before I would actively root against England. I wasn’t supporting Argentina because I hate England (as I would do in years that followed), it was because I loved Maradona. I had that boss Napoli shirt with Mars on it too. Then in later years when he wasn’t playing anymore, I just loved watching him whatever he was doing. He was always into something, saying something hilarious or dancing or having his coaching staff block the camera while he snorted coke on the touchline. There was never a dull moment with Maradona and the world just got a little bit shitter today. Oh yeah, we played tonight and lost 2-0. I have nothing further to add. Thursday Nov 26: There’s a report today we’ve bid £27m for Perr Schuurs, a 20 year Ajax centre back. I assume he’s the kid who played against us and everyone said he was the new De Ligt. I’m dismissing this rumour on the basis that we aren’t signing a 20 year old kid to ‘solve our defensive crisis’. Anyone we sign in January has to be ready to plug in and play. At the other end of the scale is 34 year old free agent Ezekiel Garay, who is also being linked with us. That’s not happening either, because he’s just not a good fit. Still, I’d say a short term deal for him is more likely then us spending £27m on a player for the future though. He’s Argentinian so I’m in. Some good news today as fans are going to be back inside Anfield soon. Not many, but some. Some figures today are suggesting 2,000 which almost seems pointless to me. I would have though at lest double that, but it’s a start I guess. I won’t be one of them as if it’s only 2,000 there’s no way I’ll be getting one as I’m assuming it will go on proximity to Anfield. I’m not THAT far away but there’s no way I’d qualify for that. I really can’t wait to get back, but I’m not sure I’d even want to be going if there was only a couple of thousand. I miss Anfield. I miss YNWA. I miss seeing the pitch when I walk up the steps. I miss the buzz. The noise. The way the place erupts when we score. I miss catching up with the lads before the game and talking about how we think it’s going to go. Most of that is only happening when we get a full stadium again though. Meanwhile, Lucas Digne is ruled out for two months with an ankle injury. Just waiting for Ancelotti to say in his press conference that it’s a delayed reaction to a challenge by Van Dijk in the derby. Finally today, it’s announced that we’re going to be on Amazon Prime three times in December, and one of those games is a 12.30 kick off on Saturday after a weekend game. So add Amazon to Klopp’s shitlist now alongside Sky and BT. He’s right, they don’t give a fuck because people are going to watch it no matter what, and if we lose it just makes the league more interesting. We’re not getting any favours so may as well just get used to it. Friday Nov 27: Klopp is asked for fitness updates on Henderson and Thiago. He spoke about Hendo, then said the rest of the squad were on a recovery day and he completely ignored the question on Thiago. It just isn’t good this is it? Will we ever see him again? Fucking dirty Everton bastards. He was asked about Gini too. He compared it to the Emre Can situation which annoyed me. Yeah, there is a similarity there and I agree that Can continued to give us all he had right up until his last day here, but the big fella was expendable. No-one was that arsed he was leaving and the truth is hardly anyone will have given him a second thought since. Gini is way more important than that. Klopp said “I cannot really say a lot about that but would be happy if he would stay here. I am pretty happy with Gini as you can see when you look at most of the line-ups! Gini is one of the best people I have ever met and he is one of the best players I've ever trained and he is an outstanding person so there is no issue, no issue at all.” So what’s the fucking problem here? Pay the man, and if it’s not about money and he just wants a new challenge, then tell us. Oh that video the club put out today with Sadio and the lad with Downs. Fuck me, that was so good and so emotional. I didn’t cry but I came close. Timo and Lee are incredible and it’s class that Sadio could see it. You could see how genuinely impressed he was with the work they do, and fair play to Nivea Men for organising that and paying for he delivery van. There’s so much shitty stuff going in the world right now it was a nice welcome little relief seeing I’ve been thinking about Maradona a lot today. I just feel sad. Not specifically about his death, but just a general nostalgic thing really. I was thinking about some of the most iconic figures to me when I was growing up. Maradona, Payne Stewart (RIP), Eddie Murphy (still going strong thankfully), Madonna (still hot to me, always will be), Jon Bon Jovi (immortal)… They’re either dead or old and it fucking sucks. It just brings home to me that I’m well into the back nine of life now. I’ll miss Maradona. It’s not like he was a regular part of our day to day life, but there was always something popping up on Twitter about whatever mad shit he’d been up to, or old footage I’d never seen before about mad shit he’d got up to in the past. I’d always show it to Adrianna and she buzzed off him too. He was just a massive character and the world is definitely a bit duller without El Diego. and that was the week that was….

The biggest game of the weekend was obviously us v Leicester as firstly, it was us and we’re always the biggest game of any weekend, and secondly it was 3rd v 4th, or at least it was at the time we played. Going into the weekend Leicester were actually top so it was a big one. They aren’t top anymore, as Spurs beat Man City in the second biggest game of the weekend. I say second biggest but City are 13th so maybe I’m giving them too much credit. Obviously that position isn’t a true reflection of their level. I still have them as comfortably the second best team in the league, but it’s entirely possible I’m going to be proved massively wrong there. Was anyone actually surprised they lost at Spurs? Should we be surprised when they lose to anyone these days? Everton, obviously, but if and when the Blues eventually realise that losing to City isn’t actually going to make any difference to Liverpool’s season then even they might have a shot at beating Pep. It’s weird though because if you look at all the numbers from this game it looks like a standard Mourinho smash and grab act. And it was to some extent, but despite all of City’s possession and countless goal attempts, Spurs seemed to carry more menace all day, albeit with far less opportunities. City are just extremely vulnerable to counter attacks. This is why that point we got at their place a few weeks back almost felt like a missed opportunity. I’m not saying we deserved to win that game because we didn’t. I’m saying that with the forwards we have we ought to have caused them more problems than we did and I do feel a sense of disappointment that the only goal we scored was a penalty. City are easy to play through. You see it virtually every week now, even in the games they win. If you can defend well then you can get at them on the counter attack quite easily. The way City are now must be like a Mourinho wet dream. They’ve become the type of opponent he loves and this game went exactly how he’d have envisaged it. Son ran clear to make it 1-0 after only four minutes. He then teed up Kane to make it 2-0 but it was correctly ruled out for offside. City thought they’d equalised but VAR said otherwise. The Hand of Jesus. Actually before I go on, that reminds me. Of all the arguments against VAR there’s one that stands out more than anything to me, and it’s this: If VAR had been around in 1986 then my favourite World Cup goal of all time would never have stood and I wouldn’t be able to mock that Peter Shilton cunt about it on Twitter every time he brings it up. There’ll be plenty of Maradona stuff in the diary so I won’t dwell on it here, but yeah, VAR would have ruled that goal out so that alone is enough reason for me to be against it. Anyway, back to this game and Los Celso came off the bench and scored 30 seconds later after being sent clear by Kane. City never really looked like getting back into it despite having plenty of the ball in Tottenham’s half. Spurs had four attempts, City had 22. The corner count was 10-0 in City’s favour. Yet Spurs won 2-0. How many times have we seen this shit? And then we hear about another ‘Mourinho masterclass’. Makes me laugh. It’s only a ‘masterclass’ when they win. When his teams play like this and don’t win they look fucking awful. Just ask United fans. Despite their lowly league position I’m not writing City off at this point because they if they win their game in hand they’re only five points back. Four wins on the spin will have anyone in the top ten moving up the table and there’s no reason City can’t do that. It’s not like they’re playing badly. They just aren’t the force they were. Guardiola signing a new contract might not be the great news they thought it was either. Don’t get me wrong, all things being equal he’s the best coach they could possibly get (only Klopp is better and they obviously can’t get him because he likes proper football clubs), but he’s been there a good few years now and he’s got the kind of personality that grates on people after a while. His signings have been ropey as fuck too. There was a time when I’d have been made up if he had left but now I’m not sure if it’s better for us in the long run that he didn’t, as he may have outstayed his welcome. We’ll see. So the win put Spurs top and suddenly everyone is falling over themselves to tickle Jose’s balls. No doubt many of the same people who were saying he was washed up when he left United. No-one has benefited more from lockdown footy with no fans than Spurs, that’s for sure. Are they serious title contenders? Well yeah, they’re top so they have to be. But it’s early days and as I say, all it takes is for one of the decent sides to win four on the bounce and they’ll become contenders too. There’s going to be a lot of surprising results this season and no-one is going to put together a run like we did last year. Being a contender now doesn’t mean you will be by the time Easter comes around though. I don’t think Mourinho is working any magic and I’m not overly impressed by how they play. They will probably stay around the top for a while yet though because Kane and Son are genuinely brilliant, as good as any forwards in the league. When you have that you’ve always got a chance. The rest of the team? Meh. The league is fucked up this year because of Covid and the empty stadiums. It’s a great leveller and it’s not going to need a points total in the high nineties to win it this year. So yeah, you can’t dismiss Spurs out of hand, not when Kane and Son are doing what they’re doing. They are still Spurs though, we shouldn’t forget that. Chelsea have to be seen as contenders too. I’ve said before that their only real weakness now they’ve replaced their dodgy Kepa (see what I did there?) is the manager. At the moment their talent is cancelling out Lampard’s lack of nous and they look strong. They won 2-0 at Newcastle with a performance that was more like a five or six niller. They wasted loads of chances though and that kept Newcastle hanging around in a game where they were basically dominated from start to finish. That Darlow twat made a decent low save to deny Werner early on and then guess what? Yep, an absolutely fucking outrageous camera save again not long after to stop a Kevin Abraham header that was straight at him. I keep telling you. Every. Fucking. Week. I hate him. Have you got onto it yet? Seriously, next time you watch Newcastle play, or even if you’re just watching MOTD, watch this vain little fucking prick because he does it constantly. Never seen anything like it. You have to wonder what his goalkeeper coach is thinking, as if I can spot this then he sure as hell must be seeing it. It bothers me far more than it should but it’s an age thing, I’m just an angry twat these days and the slightest thing like that has me flying off the handle. Fernandez put through his own net and then ol’ no finesse Timo missed a sitter. Fernandez then got caught dwelling on the ball by Werner and it should have been 2-0, but Timo’s lack of finesse cost him again as he fucked up a simple pass that would have left Abraham with a tap in. Hayden then wasted a glorious opening and Chelsea made them pay as Werner played in Abraham and Kev finished this one off. Werner had one disallowed for offside (nice finish though to be fair) and Mount scuffed one wide when he should have scored. Longstaff went close with a thunderous 30 yarder that skimmed the bar but overall Newcastle were shite and once again they looked far too defensive. They’ve got some decent attackers and Bruce need to let them off the leash a little bit. This defensive approach is not gonna fly when the fans are back in. Chelsea are playing really well at the moment though and that Ziyech looks like a good acquisition. They’re doing this without Captain America too. Their squad depth will stand them in good stead this year if everyone keeps getting the kind of injuries we’ve been seeing so far with the clubs who play in Europe. I don’t like Chilwell though and I don’t really know why. I can only put it down to his face. He looks like he’s just stepped out of the 1920s. Elsewhere, Danny Welcrap scored for Brighton as they had a good win at Villa. Nailed on that was after me taking the piss out of him last week. I stand by everything I said though. He’ll score two or three goals a season so this was just one of them. He took it really well too. Class finish. Hopefully he’ll revert to type this weekend but if he doesn’t I’m not taking the blame for that. I deliberately mocked him before this game so he could get his goal out of the way and leave us in the clear. If he scores against us that’s on our defenders, not me. Konsa converted a Grealish free-kick from close range to get Villa level but March bent one in the top corner with his weak foot to restore Brighton’s lead. My boy Lamptey was then sent off for two quick yellows, the second of which was ridiculously harsh. Grealish just stepped in front of him and the contact was unavoidable. Still, he’ll miss the game against us now so that’s good as he’s fucking boss. It won’t be easy this weekend because I’ve been saying it for over a year now but Brighton are one of the best coached teams in the league. They know what they’re doing, they’ve got a clear way of playing and they’re greater than the sum of their parts. It’s a lack of quality that holds them back. There was late drama as Villa were awarded a penalty when March caught Trezeguet. March went up to Michael Oliver and was saying “I got a tiny bit of the ball” and the replay showed he did. Oliver looked at the screen and then changed his mind. Dean Smith handled it well I thought. He didn’t say it was a pen but he said he doesn’t know what is anymore. None of us do. This probably wasn’t a pen but we could easily see that given next week. I didn’t agree with Smith saying if the VAR didn’t think it was a pen because he got the ball then he should have just told Oliver it wasn’t a pen and there was no need for the ref to go and look at it. I thought this was what we all wanted? Refs going and looking for themselves rather than have some fuckwit like Coote in Stockley Park going rogue and making wrong decisions for them. Speaking of whom, that cunt was at it again this weekend with an outrageous showing at Old Trafford as he ensured United beat West Brom. Nothing he ever does will be worse than his antics during the derby the other week, but this was still pretty fucking scandalous. He gave West Brom a pen and it looked blatant. Whoever the VAR gimp was must have put doubt in his head by telling him to go and look. He should have looked at it and said “the fuck are you talking about, VAR gimp? That’s a pen”. Instead he changed his mind. What was really weird about it was you could see on MOTD that he walked away from the screen right before they showed the clearest close up of the incident. He watched a few angles that weren’t the best, then turned away when they showed him the best one. This cunt should not be anywhere near a football pitch. To add insult to West Brom’s injury, United were then awarded a pen - of course they were - and this one wasn’t overturned - of course it wasn’t. In fairness, you’d want a pen for that because the defender got himself into a terrible position and the ball hit his hand. He did all he could to get his left arm behind his back but he forgot about his right arm, which was sticking out by his head as the ball hit him right on the hand. That’s going to be a pen 9 times out of 10. I don’t blame Coote for what happened next as that’s not his call, and as annoying as that decision is there was really no way that could be allowed under the current rules. The keeper saved the kick from Fernandez but he had jumped off his line before contact was made. It was retaken, Fernandez scored and United picked up three points they really didn’t deserve. Still, anything that keeps Ole in a job a bit longer. This keeper moving off his line thing on pens is bollocks though. Add it to the list of shitty, petty jobsworth type rules that need fucking off. This isn’t what the rule was brought in for. It’s to stop keepers doing a Dudek and coming four yards off their line when pens are taken. Now we’ve got these fucking traffic wardens watching the TV and reporting back that the keeper’s foot was an inch off the line. I hate it, it’s shit. And here’s the other thing that needs addressing. Why is the keeper being punished when the likes of Fernandez (and Jorginho) is blatantly taking the piss trying to get him to commit by delaying the kick as long as possible so he can see where the keeper is going? I don’t have an issue with anyone taking a pen like that, but if they do then you can’t be punishing keepers for moving a fraction early. The West Brom keeper tweeted about that, saying that keepers shouldn’t be punished when the taker is doing “a hop step and a jump” and he’s bang on there. That rule needs fixing along with offside and handball. Then they can throw all the fucking video monitors in the sea (along with David Coote gaffa taped to them) and maybe then we’ll have our game back? I won’t hold my breath on any of the above. In fact, I’d put money on them making it even worse. West Brom were incredibly unlucky not to get anything from this game and they even hit the bar late on. They played well but it says more about United than anything I think, because we know West Brom aren’t very good despite how they looked in this game. They haven’t won a game yet for fucks sake. Onto Sunday now, and hold on, Fulham v Everton was live on BBC. When did this happen? I thought Sky and BT had all of the games. Have they decided that the really shit ones who no-one cares about can go to other channels? I’m not sure that can be the case seeing as how Burnley v Palace was the MNF game. Surprisingly, it was actually a decent spectacle as there were five goals and a missed penalty. Richarlison was back. The fucking cunt. Not right that he’s back out there playing while Thiago is… I dunno, dead? Just where the fuck is he? Calvert-Lewin got the opener when the ball hit him on the shin and went in from close range. Liverpool fan Bobby Decordova-Reid levelled but Calvert-Lewin scored again. Sick of these double barrel names but I can’t bring myself to use initial abbreviations unless it’s one of our lads like TAA or AOC. Maybe it’s me, but it feels inappropriate doing that with opposing players, especially ones I can’t stand like Calvert-Lewin. It’s kind of like using nicknames for them. It’s not acceptable. I mean only this week Stu Monty referred to Mourinho as ‘Mou’ in the TLW Writers chat and all hell broke loose. We all rounded on him and I’m not gonna lie, I almost removed him from the chat. I don’t think he’ll do it again but it was a harsh lesson for him to learn. The point is, as much as I’m a lazy bastard and I hate doing it, I’d rather type Calvert-Lewin than DCL. Not least because I can type that out scornfully, but you just can’t do that with initials. Don’t know if that makes sense, but I know what I mean. Doucoure’s header made it 3-1 but Fulham hit back in the second half. Loftus-Cheek (or RLC to his friends) came on at the break (how is he not starting, he’s ten times better than any other player they have at the club) and won a penalty straight away. Fulham have had some real penalty woes this season and it continued as Caballero kicked his own standing foot and the ball flew high and wide. Soft cunt. That was even worse than the Lookman ‘Panenka’. Loftus-Cheek pulled a goal back from a Lookman cut back but Fulham couldn’t find the equaliser and Everton ended their winless run. Everton are shite though. I’ve said it all season even when they were ‘flying high’ (after beating nobody of note other than Spurs who they caught cold on opening weekend). They’re shite. They’ll finish somewhere around 10th at best. The one concession I’m willing to make is that Calvert-Lewin is definitely better than I have ever been willing to give him credit for. He’s limited but he plays to his strengths now and he’s really effective. I may have made this comparison before, I find it increasingly difficult to remember anything I write these days, but he’s kind of a John Aldridge type, which is no bad thing. If he keeps scoring at the rate he is now he won’t be with Everton for long. As average as I think Everton are, the way they’re going Arsenal might be right there with them fighting for 10th spot. They were fucking shite at Leeds and it was nothing short of a miracle they came away with a point. Leeds hit the woodwork about ten fucking times and Arsenal were just dire. They weren’t helped by Pepe stupidly getting himself sent off. What an absolute bum he’s turned out to be. He’s not shit, but for £70m or so you’d want a hell of a lot more than he’s given. Still, it was a clean sheet with ten men so no doubt Tim Cahill would have been lauding another “Arteta masterclass” if he’d been covering it on Sky. He’s so sycophantic when it comes to Arteta that it’s bordering on weird. He was on Carra’s podcast last week and when he had to pick his ultimate five a side team of players he’s played with, against or just seen play, he had Arteta in there. I mean really? I was going to say that everyone should have someone who views them in the same overly flattering light that Cahill does Arteta, but I actually have that with my mate John who will argue with anyone who’ll listen that in my playing days I was a cross between Berbatov and Dalglish. I hope Arteta is as appreciative of the blind and utterly misplaced devotion he gets from Cahill as I am for what I get from my boy John. Next, Sheffield United. Fucking hell they’re in trouble aren’t they? They can’t score and they can’t win. They’ve had a tough run of games lately but having got those out of the way this was a chance for them to put some points on the board. West Ham aren’t bad these days but if you’re Sheffield United you have to be looking at this as a great chance to finally pick up a win. But they didn’t. They were beaten 1-0 thanks to a belter from Haller. I see Brewster was only on the bench. He came on for the final half an hour and created a chance for McBurnie who hit the post. That’s just how it’s going for them at the moment. They didn’t deserve to lose this but when you’re in this kind of run you don’t get any luck. Wouldn’t surprise me if Brewster ends up having to wait until about April before finally getting goal, and it will be through no fault of his own. Onto Monday now and a couple of games no-one really cares about. I didn’t watch either of them and I didn’t even know the scores until just know when I fired up youtube to watch the highlights. Burnley got their first win of the season by edging out Palace 1-0. It’s uncanny how many of their games have either zero, one or two goals in them. I should start betting on that every week. This time the one goal went their way as Wood scored early on. Gudmundsen hit the bar with a nice effort while in the second half Pope had to be alert to deny Batshuayi and Benteke. That was Burnley’s first win of what looks like being a long season for them. Finally, Southampton were held to a draw at Wolves. Walcott gave the Saints the lead and then missed a great chance to make it 2-0. He’d have buried that when he was younger but he’s gotten worse with every season he’s been a professional. That Arsenal stink was bad enough but he’s also been rolling around in Everton stench too. Substitute Neto equalised for Wolves, who are just having a really nondescript season so far. I keep waiting for them to kick into gear but so far it’s not happening. And what the fuck has happened to my boy Adama? He isn’t even showing up in highlights packages these days. It’s a crime what they’re doing to him. Go and save him, Jurgen.

It has been three and a half years and 64 matches since Liverpool last lost a league match at Anfield. A 1-2 loss at Crystal Palace's hands in April 2017 is the last time a team left Merseyside with all three points. It was former Red Christian Benteke who scored the two goals to help his new side pick up a rare win at the now-crowned fortress. Out of the 64 opponents to come to Anfield, only 11 have managed to escape with a point. Liverpool’s last home assignment was against a strong Leicester side, touted to push for a top-four finish - if not the title. Manager Jurgen Klopp assembled a makeshift defense amid an injury crisis and COVID-related absences. The only familiar face in defense was Andy Robertson, playing alongside the fabulous Fabinho, Joel Matip, and the versatile James Milner. The odds with Betway kept rising in favor of Leicester. In midfield, there was no place for captain Jordan Henderson and Thiago Alcantara. A young Curtis Jones was drafted into the starting eleven to partner Gini Wijnaldum and Naby Keita. Keita himself did not last the entire first half, coming off with a suspected hamstring. Diogo is Born Mo Salah was not available for selection following a positive return of his Covid-19 test results while on international duty for Egypt. But it was former Wolves striker Diogo Jota who stole the show. The Liverpool strike force of Jota, Sadio Mane, and Roberto Firmino was at its best, as they rolled past the Foxes defence with swagger. In the end, it was three goals and 3 points, meaning Liverpool have remained undefeated in 64 home matches. Stats at Anfield Klopp’s side has won 53 and drawn 11 times at home, with Burnley the last team to grab a point in an inconsequential match at the end of last season. The Reds have managed to hit 5 goals on seven occasions, with Watford being their biggest client. Other teams to concede 5 goals in the hands of Liverpool include; Swansea, Chelsea, Arsenal, Huddersfield, Everton, and Watford (twice). The Reds' next assignment at home is against Wolves on December 5, and you can bet with Betway for another routine Liverpool win or an upset from Wolves. Salah will be back after missing the Leicester game so it remains to be seen if Klopp will drop Firmino or Jota to accommodate his talisman. Given Jota’s form, where he became the first Liverpool player to score in his first four home games, it will be hard for Klopp to relegate him to the bench. Firmino finally scored a premier league goal, and his all-round performance against Leicester was impressive. He looks the most likely candidate to drop for Salah, but we have seen Klopp accommodate all four forwards before. Wolves are already too aware of what awaits them, and they’ll go to Anfield with a purpose – to end the run. Nuno Espirito’s men are typically known to spoil the big boys’ parties, but something seems not to be working for them this season. Understandably they lost Diogo Jota to Liverpool, but the new Portuguese brigade at the Molineux can pull a surprise.

Incredible to think we smashed these 5-0 a few weeks ago. Was that performance even better than we realised, or was this just even worse than it seemed? Atalanta definitely seemed like they had a point to prove and often it can be difficult facing an opponent you’ve just battered. We lost to Palace not long after beating them 9-0, and last season Southampton beat Leicester 78 days after being humiliated 9-0 by them at home.* There was always a danger we’d throw in a clunker in this one so that didn’t particularly shock me. I didn’t think it could be as bad as this though. Jeez. It was brutal to watch. No chances, no shots on target and I don’t actually remember any off target either. Did we have a single shot of any note? A lot of these group matches are forgettable but this was so bad it might actually stick in the memory much longer than usual. We’ve lost other group games in recent years and most of them I couldn’t recall now even if you showed me the goals. This one stands out because of how poor it actually was. Not that it matters too much and it’s easy to shrug this off. At least it will be as long as we don’t lose the next two. If we end up in the fucking Europa League then this is going to take on an entirely different feel. I put it on the players rather than the manager though. It wasn’t our strongest line up but they should have performed much better than this. I certainly don’t have any issue with Klopp making changes to the team and he probably would have been entitled to make a couple more had he wanted to. Not making changes for this one would have been irresponsible. The games are coming thick and fast, our players have been dropping like flies and having won our first three fixtures in the group this was a game we did not have to win. And it showed. Put it this way, if a performance like this was coming then I’d much rather it been in this one than in a league game. I can console myself with that easily enough as this was a game we really should be able to afford to lose, unless we completely shit the bed in the next two. It was grim though wasn’t it? Full disclosure, I actually fell asleep and missed the last ten minutes of the first half. I was lying on the sofa watching it and just nodded off. Apparently I didn’t miss anything. Shame I woke up really as the second half was even worse. No-one played well but by far the worst were Salah and Mané. Well, Origi too but I kind of expect that now so it doesn’t impact on me that much. He was given a rare chance to play centre forward and somehow managed to be so bad that I almost understand now why Klopp usually plays him wide, even though he’s fucking terrible out there. Divock basically retired after the Champions League final. He did have one comeback bout when he knocked Everton out but then the gloves were hung up again. He needs to go somewhere and play because he’s not the type of lad who can play once a month and be able to produce his best. Seeing Sadio play like that was mad though. He started badly and got much worse. It’s by far the worst game I’ve ever seen him have. He didn’t look like a good player having a bad game, he just looked completely shit. He was so bad I ended up laughing at one point, wondering just what the fuck was going on. He couldn’t trap a bag of cement, his passing was woeful and he kept falling over his own feet. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wouldn’t have believed he could play as badly as that if I hadn’t witnessed it. Mo was shite too but it’s the kind of shite we’ve seen from him before. It was just a standard bad Mo game. Sadio was on a whole other level to that. He literally couldn’t do a thing right. The service to them wasn’t great either it needs to be said, but since when is that a problem for them? They usually make a lot of their own chances themselves, either through linking up together or doing something individually. Neither offered any threat all night though. The forwards were undoubtedly the worst of the bunch but it was just a terrible collective performance. So many passes went astray it was inexplicable. Even when Fabino came on he was passing it ten yards behind people and then looking thoroughly disgusted with himself. One of those nights where everyone was off. Credit where it’s due though. As awful as we were they played very well and fully deserved their win. Atalanta were the better side in the first half and their confidence grew by the minute. In the second half they looked like the side we were told they were before we smashed them 5-0. They defended well but it was the way they hunted in packs and closed us down quickly that really impressed. When they had the ball they used it well without really cutting us open. They were actually more dangerous in the first game but they had far more control and composure in this one. The little number ten was pulling all the strings and it was no surprise that he was the creator of their opening goal. Lovely ball in to the back post where the striker got away from Tsimikas to meet the cross and leave Alisson with no chance. Klopp had been preparing to make four changes prior to that but it seemed to take forever to get them on. The goal provided the break in play that allowed him to send on Fabinho, Robbo, Bobby and Jota for Gini, Tsimikas, Mo and Divock. It doesn’t bode particularly well for Minamino that he’s back behind Origi in the pecking order and can only get eight minutes at the end of a game when the team is heavily rotated. I had fairly high hopes for him when the season started but it’s not going well is it? The changes improved us I’d say, but not by much. Robbo was about 30 yards higher uptake pitch than Kostas had been which immediately gave us an outlet and produced some crosses into the box. Going to take the Greek lad a little while to get up to speed I think, but that’s normal. No judgements on him yet, that’s for sure. Within minutes of the substitutions it was 2-0. Another ball to the back stick where Robbo was beaten in the air and an unmarked Atalanta forward arrived to finish. Rhys Williams kind of got a bit lost there. I’m not sure what happened as he and Matip seemed to have swapped positions. Matip had been playing right centre with Rhys to the left, but for whatever reason those roles were reversed and the kid drifted to the right edge of the box to follow the striker and then didn’t turn and follow him back in. That was the only blemish on another decent display from him. The kids were certainly not the reason we were so shite in this game. Big Rhys was fine and Jones was probably our best player on the night. Not saying much as it’s not like he played THAT well, but he was ok and gave the ball away a lot less than everyone else. Neco was adequate at right back too. Not great, he still had some of those infuriating moments when he gets caught in possession or holds onto it too long and then has to just launch it, but overall he wasn’t bad. You see how important Trent and Robbo are when they aren’t there though. It was just an incredibly flat, lifeless performance all round. I wasn’t even angry watching it. I was just waiting for it to end so I could switch it off. I’m not angry now writing this, I’m just looking to get to the end so I can move on and start on this week’s round up. Like it or not, we’re going to get some games like this. Everyone is. It’s an inevitable consequence of too many games and no fans in the stadiums. It’s not possible for the players to turn up with maximum intensity every game so I just hope our lads continue to produce it when it’s most needed. Fact is, it wasn’t needed against Atalanta and we saw what happened. Beating Ajax next week is important now because it would allow us to rest everyone for the final game, but I’m calling it here and now that it won’t happen. We won’t beat Ajax because we always seem to take it to the last game. I had hoped after winning our first three that we’d finally put that to bed, but after seeing how this went down I’m now fully expecting us to need to go to Denmark and win, because that’s just how we roll. It’s not ideal and hopefully I’m wrong and we do finish the job against Ajax, but as long as we can continue picking up wins in the league I’ll not get too worked up about nights like these. I don’t really have anything else to say really. On to Brighton, let’s get three points and never speak of this ever again. Team: Alisson; N Williams, Matip (Minamino), R Williams, Tsimikas (Robertson); Wijnaldum (Fabinho), Milner, Jones; Salah (Jota), Origi (Firmino), Mané: * yeah I looked that one up, I didn’t know it was 78 days. I didn’t actually know Southampton beat them either, I just remembered they lost 9-0 and was curious to see how the return game went.

Well that was brilliant, if a little unexpected. When you doubt these lads this is how they respond. They did the same last year against the same opponent. Remember how we all thought that trip to Leicester on Boxing Day was going to be a massive test for us and we went there and demolished them? Same thing happened. I’ll be honest, I thought this was going to be really tough. Coming off an international break and with half a team on the sidelines, it’s never easy. Leicester have had injury problems of their own but they’d won every away game this season and their counter attacking style could have given us a lot of problems given the defensive changes we had to make. Then there was the Brendan factor looming large too. We were one game away from the record and the last team to beat us were managed by a former Reds boss, Roy Hodgson. Throw in the fact that the team that set the previous record saw it ended by Leicester and it all seemed set up for a let down. Honestly though, I could tell after about five minutes it wasn’t going to be. You could see immediately the lads were at it and I was sure we’d win from a very early stage. We made a great start and continued it for about an hour. Leicester then had a five or ten minute spell of possession after they changed their formation, but once we adapted to that we took control again. It was just a great performance. Brendan was typically magnanimous in his post match. He always is after defeats. He said the better team won, he was full of praise for our players and said he thought his team were too passive, which they were. He was also asked if he saw it as a missed opportunity due to the “makeshift” backline we fielded. I thought his answer was spot on. Matip is a top defender, Fabinho has filled in brilliantly, Robbo and Alisson always play and Milner is great wherever he plays. It wasn’t the first choice defence but it’s not like we’ve sent a load of mugs out there either. He was being complimentary of what we have rather than dismissing what we don't. Yet I hear on Talksport this morning that “Rodgers dismisses Liverpool injury crisis” when that’s not what he did at all. Proper snide reporting that. And the thing is, Leicester were missing three of their best defenders too, so if we had suffered a bad result we couldn’t have really used that as an excuse anyway. Not that Klopp or the players would have done. Whoever plays is expected to do a job and has the full confidence of Klopp. I made the point after we lost Virgil that all it meant was we would run away with the league again and would now have to work harder to win it. We’ve lost Gomez since, which makes it even more difficult as we’re relying on Matip staying fit, which he has so far been unable to do in his entire time here. What we’ve also seen is that if we do need to occasionally call on Nat Phillips or Rhys Williams, we can still win games. And if we have Matip and Fabinho playing? That’s as good as any pairing in the league. Seriously. It is. Matip is the best defender in the league other than Virgil, while Fabinho potentially could be as he's been brilliant in the limited time he's spent there. He can only get better with more games. They were both great in this game. It’s easy to say they weren’t tested much and that’s true, but a lot of it is down to their positional discipline and anticipation of situations. Vardy didn’t get a sniff. You can’t restrict him like that without the whole team playing its part but if the centre backs aren’t switched on then Vardy is going to get away at some point. The one sighting of goal he had came late on when Alisson forced him wide and he could only find the side netting from a near impossible angle. Other than that, he was not a factor. I don’t know exactly how we did it as I’m not a coach, but we didn’t allow Leicester to do anything that they usually do and that meant they couldn’t get Vardy going down the channels. Vardy has destroyed some good teams over the years but he needs the ball in space to be able to do it. We never let him have it, despite playing with a high line (not as high as we’re used to, but still higher than most). Klopp will have had a plan to stop Leicester doing what they do and the players must have carried it out almost perfectly. They closed Maddison down immediately any time he had the ball and I don’t think I even saw Tielemans all night. Tactically we bossed it and we had so many great individual displays. The pick of the first half for me was Milner, who bossed the game from right back. His passing was brilliant and he kept getting us on the front foot by finding the forwards (especially Jota) early and in space. Jota is just fucking quality. He tormented Leicester and just looks so direct and confident. He’s linking up with his team-mates better and better each week and this was probably his best showing yet on that front. Some of the slick interplay between him, Milner, Firmino and Jones on that right side was lovely to watch. It’s in and around the box when he really comes to life though. He could easily have had three or four again. He’s fucking dynamite. He may even end up as our top scorer this season, which was pretty much unthinkable when he signed. He went close early on when he was denied by Schmeichel. It was great awareness from Jota as initially it looked as though he should play Sadio in, but Diogo quickly realised that Mané would have been offside so he shifted it and had a go himself. That right flank was a productive outlet for us. We didn’t miss Salah at all, which is high praise indeed for the job Jota did. He gave Fuchs a torrid time right from the off and it looked like we deliberately targeted him as Jota was looking to get down the line at every opportunity. He wasn’t too bothered about coming inside, he played very wide in that first half and it worked. He created an early opening for Keita when he collected a lovely pass by Milner, beat Fuchs and the picked out Sadio in the box. He had his back to goal so laid it back to Naby but his shot was deflected wide for a corner. From that corner Sadio headed into the side netting. Funny thing, any time we got a corner I was thinking “yeah nothing’s happening from this” because we’ve got no Virgil now. Yet we scored from two of them. Much of that is down to how bad Leicester were in dealing with them. It felt like we had loads of corners and a lot of them were shite. We had some belters as well though. As I said, Sadio went close from one and Matip had a decent effort from another one. Some of the football we played to win those corners was exceptional. We just looked really sharp and Schmeichel was busy throughout. He made a save to deny Jones after a lovely break that was initiated by another perfect Milner pass into the feet of Curtis. His initial ball to Bobby wasn’t great but he did well to find Keita who rolled it back to Jones, and his low shot was saved by the feet of the keeper. Terrific football though. The corner that we took the lead from came about from yet another great ball from Milner to pick out a run in behind by Jota. Evans just about dealt with it and got the ball behind for a corner, which he promptly headed into his own net as he was too pre-occupied with trying to wrestle Sadio. Funny story. I was watching different bits of analysis of the game on Youtube afterwards as I generally like to do. Usually there’s Ian Wright and Alan Shearer on one of the overseas broadcasts, and there’s one from the Premier League’s TV channel. When we win I like to soak up as much of it as possible. So I’m going through it all, and it’s wall to wall praise of how well we played and generally it’s all good. Then I came to BeIn Sports. Keyes, Gray and De Jong. The latter two were fine. Keyes though. Fuck me. What an absolute weapon. According to the old hairy handed sex pest, that first goal shouldn’t have counted because, get this, Evans was fouled by Mané. Honestly, that’s what he said. Keyes: "Shouldn't he (Evans) get the benefit of the doubt there?" Gray: "No. We want to see goals." Keyes: "But only if they're legal". Embarrassing. You’d struggle to even find a Leicester fan complaining about that goal. He then said “I'll guarantee you there wasn't one Liverpool fan when they signed Jota who said 'that's great business' and 'I'm really looking forward to seeing him. Where did that come from? None of us saw that". What an absolute cock. When we signed Jota, virtually every Red I know reacted in the same way, which was pretty much "yeah that makes sense, can't believe I hadn't thought of it myself". I don't remember seeing/hearing/reading ANY dissenting voices. I'd go back and check the forum thread only I can't be arsed because I know Keyes is talking through his far hairy arse again. Anyway, Leicester’s best chance of the game came almost immediately after we’d taken the lead. That’s often the way. You score and lose a little focus for a minute or two, while the opponent is stung from conceding and immediately tries to hit back. You see it all the time. Thankfully Barnes wasted the chance after being well picked out by Vardy. That all came about because Keita twice failed to win the ball in the middle of the park. The first one was especially bad, but he could have recovered from that and had the chance to win it back or at the very least make a smart foul. He did neither, which was ironic as he had no trouble giving away fouls in other moments of that half. He was doing my head in, but I’m fairly certain that I’m being harsh and he wasn’t as bad as it felt like at the time. He just frustrates me. Even when he’s good he’s not what I thought we were getting and that causes me to judge him unfairly at times. I’ve said countless times in the past that when he plays we often look wide open in midfield. I’m not even saying it’s his fault specifically, but it’s often been the way. When he’s in there, we’d see runners piling forward at our defence. That never happened in this game and given that I’ve already said how well the team as a whole did to keep Leicester quiet, Keita must have been doing his bit too and therefore I accept that I’m being harsh. He just leaves me so underwhelmed though, and then of course he gets injured again which does absolutely nothing to make me think he’s ever going to be the player we all wanted him to. It’s not going to happen for him. This is his third season and it’s going exactly the same way of the previous two. He hasn’t progressed at all and he’s always fucking injured. And by the way, whatever Gini wants just fucking pay the man. He’s been underpaid for five years so if we overpay him now for a few more then we’re still coming out of it on top. As much as I love our other senior midfielders, every one of them (bar Milner) misses time through injury and the one constant we’ve had over the last few years in Gini. Hendo, Fabinho, Ox, Keita, even Shaq is seen as a midfield option now. Before them we had Lallana. All of them missed plenty of games but when we’ve been short handed the one thing we’ve always been able to depend on is that Wijnaldum will be there, doing whatever job he’s needed to do and doing it to a fucking high standard. Availability is fucking massive and he’s been our most reliable player. Hopefully I haven’t jinxed him, but I feel that needs saying as I’ll be honest, I’m pretty fucking angry that he hasn’t been given the deal he deserves. I’ve gotten a little sidetracked but I feel better having got that off my chest. Back to the game and our second goal, which was fucking glorious. 30 passes apparently, although I don’t remember anything before Curtis knocking a cross field ball to Robbo. It was a decent ball but it floated a little bit which meant Albrighton was able to close Robbo down immediately. That actually worked against Leicester because Robbo did brilliantly to control the ball, lure Albrighton in and then skip away from him. Absolutely sensational. The cross was even better. He put it into a perfect area for Jota to attack and head the ball past Schmeichel. Fuchs was getting some criticism for that and it’s easy to say “look at the old man unable to keep up” but I’m telling you now that 90% of defenders aren’t doing any better than he did there. Fuchs is marking Bobby initially. Jota isn’t even his man but he spots the run and goes with it. He can’t get in front of him because Jota has the run on him. That’s just a great goal and any criticism of Fuchs or anyone other than Albrighton really is unfair. I forgot to mention that Leicester had a penalty shout early on. It was never a pen in a million years but because the game is so fucked up these days and we’ve seen some absolutely scandalous handball decisions given, I can understand why they might feel a little hard done by. The ball hits Matip on the hand so based on other pens we’ve seen given this season, that could have been awarded. Thankfully some common sense seems to have been applied on this occasion, or perhaps there’s been a relaxation on how these things are interpreted after the two ridiculous ones given a couple of weeks ago against Gomez and the Wolves lad. So 2-0 at half time and I was buzzing about that first half. I thought we were fantastic all things considered. And the second half was more of the same. Leicester improved after the break but how we never scored two or three more than we did was bordering on a miracle. I don’t know how the ball stayed out at times. When Keita went down with a hamstring, Milner was moved into midfield as Klopp elected to send on Neco at right back. He could have brought Minamino into midfield or even handed a debut to Leighton Clarkson. That would have made sense as Milner was doing so well at right back, but Neco got the nod and within seconds Milner was splitting the defence to send Mané clear. He shifted it onto his right foot as we’ve seen so many times before as he looked to bend it in the top corner. It was too close to Schmeichel though and he was able to palm the ball up into the air. Jota looked like he would get there and it was also possible that the ball would drop under the bar before he even reached it. Fuchs got there first and somehow managed to head it over the bar. A huge let off for Leicester but that was only the start. Next up we had Jota skinning his man in the box and forcing Schmeichel into a smart stop low down on his near post. Jota then picked up the rebound and crossed low for Bobby who was also denied by Schmeichel. The ball looped up into the air and just as Bobby looked like he was going to nod it in, Evans arrived and headed against his own post before they managed to get the ball clear. Unbelievable, but even more madness was to follow. Bobby did brilliantly to turn away from Foffana and then beat Schmeichel at the Kop end. We were all thinking “GOAL” but the ball hit the inside of the fucking post. Fucks sake. The loose ball came back to him and he bundled it goalwards only for it be hacked off the line. It looked in, but I’ll get to that in a sec. The clearance fell only to Sadio who hooked it goal wards again. It his Schmeichel and then looped up onto the post again and then bounced perfectly into the arms of the keeper. Just staggering. You had to feel for Bobby as he obviously needs a goal desperately and he was playing his nuts off. If anyone deserved a goal it was him, yet he had to go through that torment? Goal line technology is great and I’m all in favour of it. What I’m not in favour of, and never have been, is this bullshit “the whole of the ball has to be over the line” nonsense. No, what it should be is that if more than half of the ball is over the line then it’s a goal. This is an absolutely stupid rule. Let’s say the goalie is the edge of a cliff and you roll a ball over it. As soon as more than half of the ball is over, it’s gone. If you roll a ball over a line, once more than half of it has gone over the line, it’s no longer touching the line. It’s past it. They don’t apply this same rule on corners and throw ins. With those, as soon as most of the ball is over the line it’s classed as out, and rightly so. I hate this rule, always have. As far as I’m concerned, that was a goal and all this 10mm bollocks is just that. But it perfectly sums up the state of modern football really. Poor Bobby. Everyone was gutted for him but then out of nowhere he appeared to gloriously head in a Milner corner. Awful, awful marking from Leicester but who cares? Bobby had his goal and everyone was made up for him. The reaction of all of the players said it all, and Milner said afterwards that if Firmino hadn’t come off the pitch with a goal to his name he’d have been even angrier for him than Bobby himself would have been. The goal is important, obviously, but the main takeaway I had was that he’d played really well. I was thinking even before he scored that I was going to be praising him in the report because it’s the best he’s played in a good while. It’s easier to give him credit when he’s on the scoresheet but even without that goal he played well and looked more like himself. I’ve said recently that he should probably be on the bench until his form justifies a spot in the team but Mo getting Covid spared Klopp from having to make what would have been a tricky decision. I don’t think it’s that tricky now after this. There should be no doubt about him keeping his spot for the next game and to me it’s pretty simple what happens next week at Brighton - Mo should be on the bench. I might play him in Europe simply to rest one of the other three for the weekend, but in terms of the next game that matters, if you like, I’d be benching Mo to teach him a lesson. He acted irresponsibly, didn’t follow club guidelines and as a result he got Covid and missed this game. You could tell Klopp was steaming about it in Friday’s press conference, and with the front three playing as well as they did there’s an opportunity here to take a stand. He’s never, ever, left out of the starting eleven unless he’s being rested, and even that hardly ever happens. I’m not saying I’d be leaving him out for long but he shouldn’t walk straight back in. That being said, if he does play in midweek it’d be just like him to score three or four and then make it virtually impossible to leave him out. All things being equal though, I’d be starting the same front three next weekend as they’ve earned it. So overall, just what we needed and it’s another confidence boosting performance and result. What the lads have done since losing Virgil has been great, especially as they’ve been doing it without other key players too. I mean fucking hell, we just smashed Leicester without four players who would get into any team in the world right now. No Hendo, no Thiago, no Trent, no Virg… and we still played like this. I just wish we were able to see it in person. It’s really getting me down now seeing the lads playing in front of an empty Anfield. Klopp summed it up beautifully afterwards and I just can’t wait until we can all get back in there. Just imagine how loud the Bobby chant would have been had Anfield been full. If there’s one silver lining to come from all of this it’s that when we are allowed back in the place is going to be fucking bouncing every game. 12.20 Saturday kick off against Burnly will feel like a Champions League semi. There’ll be no taking anything for granted anymore, when we’re back in there it’s going to be electric. Hopefully we can get back in before the end of the season and hopefully cheer the lads on to the title we didn’t get to celebrate last time. There’s a long way to go before then and a lot of football to be played, but would you bet against Klopp and this group of players? Star man is Robbo but it was close. He was incredible (as usual) but Milner and Jota weren’t far behind. Everyone played well though. Special mention to Curtis who was superb in a relatively understated way. He wasn’t flash but he just did everything well and again showed that growing maturity we’ve been seeing from him lately. That lad is a proper player and is going to be a star for us for a long time. Him and Trent will be this generation's Carra and Stevie, and praise doesn't come any higher than that. Team: Alisson; Milner, Matip, Fabinho, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Keita (N Williams), Jones; Jota (Minamino), Firmino, Mané (Origi):