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This would have been so much more enjoyable if we hadn’t been humiliated at Villa Park. City failing to win again and United conceding six at home to a team managed by the fella they sacked, this is the kind of shit that invariably brings the best out in me. This Round Up would have been boss, but instead it’s had the gloss stripped right off it. How can I go balls out ripping into United for letting in six when we then let in seven? City dropped two points but they still closed the gap on us, so that’s a bit shit too. I’m struggling here but it’s because I’ve forgotten how it feels. I was thinking about this prior to starting to write, and I can’t actually remember the last time I did one of these when we’d had a defeat that was actually significant. Sure, we lost a few games last season but by the time we did we were leading by a country mile and it didn’t matter much. The first game we lost was Watford in February. Up until that point the only time we hadn’t won was when we drew at Old Trafford. The Watford loss was disappointing but it was easy to shrug off because we were miles ahead, the title was all but wrapped up and basically it didn’t matter. This loss maybe - hopefully - won’t matter in the long run. In fact, it’s entirely possible that it was something we needed in order to refocus and regain that intense hunger and drive that has made this kind of situation so rare. So with that in mind I’m going to try to enjoy the suffering of our rivals as much as I can in the hope that we’ll be back on track sooner rather than later, while their woes will continue. So I’ll get to United at the end as they played on Sunday. We’ll start with the Saturday games and where better to kick things off than Elland Road, where Leeds and Man City played out one of the best games of the season so far. It was only 1-1 so it doesn’t immediately jump out as being anything out of the ordinary, but it was wildly entertaining, end to end stuff. Leeds started terribly. They were all over the place and kept losing the ball while playing out from the back. City should have been 3-0 up before Sterling eventually put them ahead. It looked like they were going to run away with it but Leeds eventually settled and started playing some nice stuff. Ederson had made two good saves before he flapped at a corner and allowed Rodrigo to equalise. He redeemed himself later with a stunning fingertip save to deny the same player though. Both teams had chances to win it and Sterling spent most of the game trying to win penalties by diving. He’s almost at Richarlison levels, but no-one ever says shit about it. Cheating little fuck. Guardiola’s interview afterwards was pathetic. Kissing Leeds’ arse big time because he loves Bielsa is one thing, but it was the little veiled dig at Leicester that was embarrassing. Sterling did the same thing. All this “it’s so refreshing when teams actually try and play against us instead of putting eleven men behind the ball”. Shut up you sad whiny cunts. Bielsa is fucking weird though isn’t he? He spent the whole of his post match interview staring at the floor and not making eye contact with the interviewer. He’s definitely on the spectrum of something, but then that’s a common trait with geniuses. And he is a genius even if he isn’t a serial winner. My boy Ashley Barnes was back for Burnley as they lost at Newcastle. My other boy Saint-Maximin broke the deadlock with a low shot from the edge of the box after some nifty footwork. Boss little player him. Dyche wasn’t happy about it because he felt Wilson fouled Long in the build up. He had a point actually, but Wilson only did what Wood and Barnes do probably a dozen times a game. They usually get away with it too. It was a foul though. That back up keeper for Newcastle is the worst camera save merchant I’ve ever seen. He’s always flinging himself all over the place when the ball is straight at him. Just watch him next time, he's a bad show off. If he wasn't in goal for them he'd be on Geordie Shore. Westwood lashed in a great volley to equalise but Saint-Maximin escaped down the right to cross for Wilson to make it 2-1 at the back post. Wilson wrapped it up from the spot when Pope took a heavy touch and ended up giving away a penalty. Pope had almost been caught earlier in the game too when he was closed down by Wilson. Top keeper but he’s useless with his feet. So he’s basically the polar of opposite of Pickford, who’s useless with his hands but boss with his feet. Elsewhere, Chelsea overcame a poor first half to overcome Wilfried Palace at the Bridge. They were much better after the break and were good value for the 4-0 scoreline, although they owe a big debt of gratitude to Big Mama. Christ, he’s fucking shite isn’t he? I mean, he’s so bad I’m not sure he’d even get in the United squad. He makes Lindelof and Bailly look like Hansen and Lawro. In fact, probably the best comparison for Sakho is Phil Jones, another utterly hapless, accident prone useless turd. It’s to my eternal shame that I ever thought Sakho was good. He can be good on some days, but his overall body of work is comic levels of bad. It’s the insane levels of unjustified self confidence that gets me though. He’s never seen a situation he can’t back-heel himself out of. He approaches football the way I do golf. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I’m playing the 9 hole course at Aintree. There’s a par four with a big pond in front of it. It’s probably about a 210 yard carry to get over the pond and another 15 or 20 to get onto the green, so it’s doable if everything goes smoothly. On this day though it’s windy as fuck. I’m stood up there on the tee, wind howling into my face, knowing I’d been playing like shite, but still I reach for the driver. My playing partner has knocked an eight iron down the fairway, well away from the pond, and has about 100 yards left. I can feel the disapproving look from him as I take the Big Dog out of the bag. Deep down I know I’m going in the pond, but if I catch it absolutely perfectly I might just be able to carry it over, despite the hurricane blowing into my face. So I went for it. Splash. Undeterred, I went for it again. Splash. I then walk up to the pond, drop a ball and hit an easy little wedge. Splash. There was no excuse for the third one other than my head had gone completely after already hitting two in there. The really stupid thing is even if you carry that pond it’s almost certainly not going to stay on the green anyway, so there isn’t any real benefit to going for it. I could have just hit a seven iron into the wide open space to the left and then hit a wedge into the green. But I didn’t. Why? Four little words - “He who dares, wins”. That’s my approach to golf. He who dares, wins. Except it’s bollocks. Unless you can actually play, he who dares usually ends up in the pond. Or ends up losing the ball in his own penalty and letting his team down. Sakho definitely goes out onto the field thinking “he who dares, wins” because it feels like everything he tries to do is the highest risk option he could take any that particular moment. He’s not even anywhere near good to attempt most of the things he does, and his decision making is reckless and deluded beyond belief. Maybe that’s why I can’t help but like him even though he’s shit? His silly mistake led to Chilwell scoring the opening goal on his debut. Zouma should have made it 2-0 when he out jumped Sakho but headed wide. Soon after the same thing happened again and this time Zouma found the net. Abraham was brought down by Palace’s young left back Mitchell and Jorginho converted the penalty with his customary aplomb. He’s brilliant at pens when he isn’t being reverse jinxed by me. He added another soon after when Sakho arrived about five seconds late to make a challenge on Havertz. Appalling decision again, going with the driver when the smart play was to lay up with the seven. Abraham tried to take the pen away from Jorginho and had the right hump when his captain Azpilacueta dragged him away. I hate seeing that. It puts unnecessary pressure on the taker, but at 3-0 up in an empty stadium there’s not really any pressure so actually it might actually be a good thing. Palace were fucking rubbish though. Zaha especially did nothing. He got the hump on social media because Tony Cascarino had a pop at his performance, saying he looked like a player who was sulking because the move he wants has never materialised. That’s exactly what it does look like though. He was well up for it against United because it’s his old club and he wanted to prove a point, but he just didn’t look interested at all in this game. Tell you what’s fucking mental. Not only are Everton top with a 100% record, they’re now being shown first on MOTD. What kind of fucking bizarro world is this? I’m about one more month of this away from It’s amazing what a few good results do for confidence. We saw that with how aggressive, sharp and bright Villa were right from the opening whistle, and the Blues started this game in much the same way. They had two good efforts on goal in the opening couple of minutes and just seemed more alert and up for it than Brighton did. Calvert-Lewin rose well at the back post to head them in front. I can’t bring myself to accept that Calvert-Lewin is actually any good but he’s banging in goals. I don’t know how, but he is. Tap ins, poachers goals, great headers… I hate to say this but he might be a John Aldridge. I’m sure fans of other clubs looked at Aldo and saw him as a Poundland Rushy and wondered how he was scoring as many goals as he did. I watch Calvert-Lewin and he just seems bang average to me, but at the end of the game he’s walking off having scored two or three. As I say, I’m not prepared to ever admit he’s any good, but that says more about me than him at this point. Brighton levelled unexpectedly when Pickford dropped a simple ball at the feet of Maupay. He’s made so many clangers over the last 12 months or so but this was arguably the worst. The only reason he hasn’t already been dropped is because they signed that Losl loser from Huddersfield as their number two and he’s so bad he makes Adrian seem like Ray Clemence. Ancelotti had said recently that he wasn’t looking for a new goalkeeper and had faith in Pickford. All the while they were trying to get Romero from United. When they couldn’t do that, they went for Gazzaniga from Spurs. And when they couldn’t do that, they signed Sweden’s number one on deadline day. Pickford is probably one more howler away from being dropped. Let’s hope it comes in their next game, against us at Goodison. Anyway, Mina headed them back into the lead and then led an awfully choreographed “Macarena” with James, Doucoure, Digne and Calvert-Lewin. Took them an age to set the thing up and then when they eventually did it it was shite. Bit like some of my gags. Seamus Coleman went over to congratulate Mina, saw what they were doing and them immediately turned away. He wanted no part of it, to his credit. Celebrations like that are only even remotely acceptable if they’re: 1) spontaneous 2) in front of crowds 3) done by our lads Mina’s ticked none of those boxes and therefore goes down as one of the lamest, cringiest celebrations of recent times. Honestly, it was fucking sad. All trying to get in a line and then having to move Calvert-Lewin to the opposite end because he didn’t know he was supposed to be. Fucking pricks. Rodriguez then added a couple of goals to give the scoreline an emphatic look. He’s had a great start for them but some people are getting well carried away about him. He’s a good player, very talented, but the Blues seem to think he’s an actual legitimate superstar just because he’s got a lot of followers on social media. You know what he is? He’s Shaqiri, only more cool, exotic and handsome (sorry Shaq, but he is). In terms of football though, they’re basically the same player. Great left foot, can score, can assist, not particularly quick and not big on helping out much defensively. Everton see James as the man that can win them the derby next week. He might, but equally if I’m Jurgen Klopp I’m looking at him and thinking that if Ancelotti keeps playing him on the right of the front three then Robbo and Sadio can run wild down that side because he’s not going to giving Coleman much help. Ancelotti is a wily old fox though so it wouldn’t surprise me if he changed his system to compensate for the lack of running he’ll get from Rodriguez. Bissouma hammered in volley from 25 yards to give Brighton a late consolation. They played pretty well but defensively they were wide open and if need to sort that out they’ll be comfortable in mid-table. If they don’t, they’ll be in the dogfight again. On that note, we’re four games in now and I said I’d wait until now to make my predictions. So, here goes. Top four will be us, City, Spurs and Arsenal. Bottom three will definitely include Fulham (bottom by miles) and West Brom, but the third team to drop is really hard to call. The easy thing to do right now is to say Burnley, but Dyche will turn that around as he always does. If he ever gets pissed off to the point that he walks though, they’ve got no chance. Sheffield United look in big troubled based on the first few weeks, but I think they’ll be alright as they’ve got a good team spirit and a manager who can get the best out of them. I hope they’ll be alright anyway, but they need to start scoring goals. Ok, hands up who predicted West Ham would smash Leicester? Not me, although we probably should have seen it coming based on what Leicester have done since Christmas. My boy Antonio opened the scoring (is he my boy? Hard to keep track but I think I gave him ‘my boy’ status at the end of last season) and Fornels made it 2-0. Bowen added a third when he ran in behind Leicester’s raggedly high line to slot home. Awful defending that, reminded me of Southampton against Spurs the other we…. actually no, it was like us at Villa Park. Barnes thought he’d pulled one back with what would have been a runaway winner of goal of the month, but Vardy was an inch offside and VAR ruled it out. Shame, would have been a cracker that. Not that Leicester really deserved anything as they were terrible, a fact acknowledged by Brendan afterwards. Here’s a controversial thought. Now bare with me here, I know this sounds outlandish. But could West Ham actually not be shit after all? There’s a growing body of evidence to suggest they might not be, especially the last couple of games. It’s surely not a co-incidence that since Moyes got Covid and has had to stay away from games they have turned into a winning machine, banging in goals and keeping clean sheets. Hopefully he makes a full and speedy recovery and makes them losers again. Sheffield United went to Arsenal without a win, without a point, and without a goal. They left there with no points, no win but at least they finally scored, even if it did turn out to be just a late consolation. It could have been different if Luiz had been sent off early on when he gave the ball away and then pulled the striker back by his shirt. The keeper probably would have got there first but Luiz had a handful of shirt and slowed the lad down. He’s such a fucking calamity. Arsenal were toiling away without really threatening, but eventually they put together a move of quality and Saka headed them into the lead after an hour. Pepe quickly added a second and they looked to be cruising. The third didn’t come and McGoldrick ensured a nervy finish when he curled one home with seven minutes left. Arsenal held on and Arteta and his staff celebrated like they’d won the league. Pricks. Southampton picked up three points with a routine win over West Brom. Djenepo bagged the first and then Romeu thundered into the box to volley home number two. The only surprise here is that Ings didn’t score. Wolves have had a dreadful start and really needed a result to stop the rot. So you can imagine how happy they were to see Scott ‘Scotty’ Parker and his hapless Fulham side stumble into town. You know that I’ve been banging the drum about how terrible Tim Ream is from the time Fulham were relegated last time. Well I remember back then that as horrific as Ream was, Fulham wheeled out a fella who was even worse. I couldn’t remember his name but assumed that he’d have long since been sent packing. I was wrong! He resurfaced in their starting line up this weekend, alongside Ream. Le Marchand is his name, and defending like a hallucinogenic snail is his game. It says a lot about Wolves that they couldn’t take advantage of such a woeful defence. They are well off the pace at the moment, which is understandable. They did have chances but the Fulham keeper Areola had a blinder until he was eventually beaten by a low drive by Neto. So, finally. Old Trafford. Mourinho’s revenge. I bet loads of you were proper taking the piss weren’t you? I said nothing. Not because I thought we might do even worse than they did, but just because it’s not good karma saying anything until your own game is over. What would have been one of the worst days in the lives on many United fans was made a lot less shitty by what we did. It doesn’t make their loss ok, but it did take a lot of the heat off them because everyone was more shocked about what we did. I’ll say what I’ve said the past couple of weeks. United aren’t this bad, but the late finish to last season and the lack of preparation for this season is hurting them. They’re playing catch up in terms of fitness and that’s putting them (as well as Wolves and City) at a disadvantage. Mind you, I hope I’m still using this excuse for them in May! They were shite against Spurs but I also think they were more than a little hard done by. There’s no excuse for how badly they defended but their cause wasn’t helped by a ridiculously unfair sending off. It all started so well for them though. Martial was felled in the box by Sanchez with less than a minute gone. Manchester’s own Anthony Taylor pointed to the spot and Portuguese Gylfi did the rest. 1-0 United. That was as good as it got for them though. Ndombele equalised after some proper keystone cops defending by Maguire, who headed the ball up in the air and then wrestled Luke Shaw to the ground before he could clear. The world’s most expensive defender that. Kinell. Mama, I take it all back son, you would get in that United squad. United’s heads went then and almost immediately they allowed Kane to take a quick free-kick to send Son clear to make it 2-1. No-one hates Harry Kane more than I do (except maybe my mum) but he’s a world class player. I know there are people who say he isn’t, but he just is. I don’t see how it’s even a debate. He’s a brilliant player. He isn’t just a goalscorer, he’s setting up even more than he scores these days and although he’s a cheating cunt, he’s also a clever one, as we saw with the sharp thinking on that free-kick. What was De Gea doing though? Son’s touch was so heavy that the ball was just screaming out to be picked up by the keeper, but by the time he realised what was going on Son had beaten him to it. Proper shit that, it’s almost as though he wasn’t even watching it. Like when you’re on the train daydreaming and you realise it’s your stop and you have to do a mad dash to get to the doors before they closed. Only in this case the doors slammed in De Gea’s stupid werewolf looking face. This was the point when United got really unlucky though. That sending off was a disgrace. I honestly don’t know how that can happen. I could understand Taylor only seeing the reaction of Martial, but when VAR is involved then that’s just fucking staggeringly wrong. Lamela gives Martial a little nudge on the chin with his elbow. Martial then flicks a little hand back at him in retaliation. Lamela then drops to the floor like he’s been roundhoused by Van Damme. Both offences were exactly the same, only Lamela acted like a cunt to try and get Martial sent off. That should have been a yellow card each and then a second yellow to Lamela for being a snide. To send off Martial when literally the only difference in what they did was that Martial didn’t cheat to get the opponent in trouble is genuinely a disgrace. I’m actually angry about it. As much as I enjoy seeing United lose that has bothered me because it’s just a level of incompetence that we shouldn’t be seeing. If that had been against us I don’t think I’d ever get over it. That’s one of those decisions that’s so bad that if I’m the manager I’d actually take my players off the pitch and refuse to finish the game. There is absolutely nothing that the officials can say to justify why one player was sent off and not both of them. Nothing at all. As I say, I’d have taken my players off and I’m not even kidding. I don’t feel sorry for United, that’s not what I’m saying. But that decision was a fucking scandal. United conceded again almost immediately when Kane found the net. Clearly they were all over the shop mentally now and being a man down this was always going to get ugly. Not just regular ugly, but like, Phil Jones ugly. Son made it 4-1 when he stole in at the near post and nutmegged De Gea. Then Aurier made it 5-1 and Kane wrapped it up with a penalty conceded by Pogba, who was fucking rubbish once again. Fat Luke Shaw then got booked for a fabulous foul. Great stuff that. Moura knocked it past him and Shaw was like “am I fuck chasing after you” and he just booted him. Should have been a red that really. But if you’re getting a red that’s how you’d want to do it. Martial must be wishing he’d proper chinned Lamela now. He’s not the only one. I’d love to see someone smack that boyband looking cheating twat. Solskjaer was a lot more calm about the sending off than I would have been. He praised Martial for staying on his feet, which is weird to me. That’s like praising someone for not mugging old ladies. You don’t get praise for not doing something you aren’t supposed to do. He then chided Lamela by saying “if that was my son I know what I’d tell him”. What would you tell him? Come on, you can’t leave it at that. We need to know. Why didn’t the interviewer press him on it? “What would you tell him, Ole?”. Who knows, he might have answered it. “I’d tell him to stop being a cheating shithouse cunt”.

Shit. Just what the fuck happened there? I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years of watching football. We never defended that badly even when we were rubbish. By defending I don’t specifically just mean the defenders, I mean the whole team. It was a shambles. This team hardly ever loses games, so to see them spanked like this is actually incomprehensible. If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed this was even possible. Sure, we could have lost the game. I could see that happening. I could even see another Watford type result being possible. But this??? Nah, I never thought even in my worst nightmares this could happen. I don’t really know what to say. It was only a few days ago the entire world was ready to just hand us the title. I felt like that too. I still do, despite this. The point is though literally everyone in the media had already decided that the title was staying here. Maybe that was the problem? The players have got fuck all to do these days other than train and then go home and watch telly. They can’t go anywhere, or do anything. So maybe they’ve just been sat around watching Sky Sports News all week having smoke blown up their arses, and this was the result of it. We didn't run away with the title last year just because we're better than everyone else. We ran away with it because we were focused and concentrated in every game we played (bar Watford) until the title was won. We didn't always play at our best, but we avoided the kind of bad results against inferior teams that had plagued us over the last 30 years. That's how you win titles. So with that in mind, and having seen how we've approached almost every game in recent seasons, I think I can safely say that they just weren’t mentally prepared for this game, which tells me they didn’t take it as seriously as they would have if they’d been playing an Arsenal or a Chelsea. It’s not something you can level at these lads very often, but I don’t see how you can draw any other conclusion after this. A fully switched on, fully motivated Liverpool does not concede seven goals against anybody, let alone Aston Villa. So therefore, clearly they weren’t switched on and motivated or this couldn’t have happened. It looked wrong right from the start. We've seen that before and usually we find a way to steady ourselves and get into the game. This time we never did. Before I get fully into the inquest though I feel it needs saying that Villa played incredibly well and fully deserved this. It wasn’t lucky and we can’t say it was a freak result because it wasn’t. They were outstanding and could easily have scored more. Yes three of their goals were spawny deflections but considering they also hit the woodwork and missed four or five other great chances I don’t think we can say the scoreline flattered them at all. Credit where it's due. We can have no complaints at all. We were fucking abysmal and deserved to be humiliated. How can this happen? I don’t think there’s any one simple answer. There are all sorts of factors that went into this and it just ended up being a perfect storm. First of all it had been a troubling week at Melwood. Thiago and Sadio coming down with Covid shouldn’t in itself be a problem as ordinarily we should be able to cope without them. How has it impacted the group though? How many of them have had it on their minds this week or thought that they themselves had it? We don’t know how this kind of thing might affect them. Shit, I’d have demanded all of them were tested right on full time, because if Corona Virus was a football performance this would be it. Defensively this display was me in March / April when I’d struggle to summon the energy to go for a piss and then I’d immediately fall asleep for an hour afterwards. Even then I was more alert than Joe Gomez in this game. My point is that players are humans and sometimes we overlook that. There could be any number of reasons for it but something just wasn’t right with their mental approach to this game. What caused it is something they need to figure out for themselves. Losing Alisson plays a part too, obviously, although even as shit as Adrian has been in 2020 I’m not pinning this on him. That’s too easy. We lost Allison at the beginning of last season too and we won every game with Adrian in goal. I have no hesitation in blaming him for the Atletico Madrid defeat as that was completely on him. The team were great that night but he gave the game away virtually on his own. He isn’t the reason for this one though. He was just one of many factors. Of course the first goal was shite but it doesn’t justify what happened afterwards. You have to respond when someone makes a mistake. We did it against Arsenal last week when Robbo fucked up. This time we didn't, but that's not on Adrian. He’s an easy target but scapegoating him would be falling into the same trap as those who blamed the Watford loss on Lovren. Far too simplistic. He is a problem though, obviously. A problem that I don't know we have a solution to. Other factors come into it too. The empty stadium thing is definitely playing a massive part in some of these wild, unpredictable results we’re seeing. As is the shortened pre-season. There are too many crazy results right across Europe for this to not be a thing. Pandemic footy isn’t the same as normal footy. All of the above plays a part but in addition to that Villa were well up for it and had clearly done their homework on how to get in behind us, because they were able to do it ALL THE FUCKING TIME. The easy thing to do is jump on the Sky bandwagon and talk about the “risky high line”, but that high line has helped us to 196 points in two seasons as well as a title and a European Cup. Nothing wrong with how we set up, but it doesn’t really matter how you set up when half the team are throwing in absolute fucking clunkers and we’re losing individual battles all over the park. You just can’t win when so many players play this badly and ignore the jobs they are supposed to be doing. I’m trying to be kind by putting forward reasons as to why they may have played like that, but nothing really justifies how bad this actually was. I’m so shellshocked by it that I’m not even angry yet. I might be in a day or two when it fully sinks in, but chances are it’s just something that I’ll want to forget about as quickly as possible. The international break doesn’t help with that. Couldn’t have come at a worse time. We got off to the worst possible start when Adrian misplaced a pass to Gomez in the box. He should be clearing that ball and not trying to play in that situation. Even if he’d played a decent pass Gomez would have been put under immediate pressure by Grealish. Yes we play out from the back when it’s safe to do so but there’s nothing wrong with kicking it long when needed, and in fairness we see both Alisson and Adrian do that plenty. We aren’t a play out at all costs team like City or Arsenal and kicking it long is something we do when the situation demands it. On this occasion Adrian chose not to and was punished. Bad decision and bad execution. It typified how the whole team had started though, Villa were sharper than us right from the first whistle. I had hoped the goal would wake us up but it didn’t. We didn’t start playing until we were 2-0 down. The second goal was good from Villa’s perspective. Grealish played a nice ball down the line to get Watkins away and he cut inside Gomez and lashed one in the top corner. Shite from Joe though. Keep him on his left foot. It's really not that difficult. We eventually settled down and had a good spell, created some chances that we didn’t take, probably should have had a penalty, and eventually made the breakthrough when Salah finished sharply. I felt good at that point. The goal got us back into it and we were playing quite well after that nightmare start in which we could easily have conceded more than the two (Barkley missed two great chances). Then we gave away another goal almost straight away and never recovered from it. The third was a fluke that we couldn’t do much about. We cleared the corner, McGinn volleyed it back in and it hit Van Dijk and went in the opposite corner. I think they’d won that corner from Barkley running through unopposed again and forcing a save from Adrian on his near post. Actually that might have been a different incident. They had so many attacks it’s hard for me to remember the sequence they came in. I know that the attack that led to the corner had initially looked offside and Klopp was going mad. Replays showed the linesman was right though as Gomez tried to step out and catch them offside but he was too late. Their fourth had a hint of offside about it too. It came from a free-kick that went to the far post and was knocked back into the centre for Watkins to complete his hat-trick. The lad who put the cross in was just onside and although there were a couple of them in the middle who were off when the free-kick came in, that’s not classed as offside anymore so again, nothing wrong with that goal. Predictably, much is being made of how high up the pitch we defended that free-kick but we’ve been doing that for years and nearly always catch the opposition offside. Mind you, Villa scored from a similar one last year I think, so unlike the rest of the league they seem to have figured out how to beat it. So 4-1 now. Fucking hell. The craziest thing is I rang my Dad at half time and I said I wouldn’t be surprised if we still came back and got something. Seems daft now but how can you ever completely write this team off? Robbo even said after the game that he thought we could come back and win it, but then we went out and played just as badly if not even worse. Minamino replaced Keita at the break, which made sense I suppose but I’d have probably put Milner or Hendo on to get more control. It wasn’t an extra attacker we needed as we looked dangerous enough going forward. We just had zero control of the game, the defence had no protection and it was like basketball at times. Clearly Hendo mustn’t have been fit enough as getting him out there was a no brainer otherwise. Minamino did nothing really, but he wasn’t alone in that and considering we were 4-1 down when he came on he’s not really on any list of culprits here. The next goal was always going to be vital and if Villa got it then that was us done and dusted. And they did. Fucking Barkley with a deflected shot that looped over Adrian. It was the only way that turd was going to score as he missed every other chance he had, the breeze block headed cunt. It was a flukey goal but it was self inflicted because it came about from Gomez passing it straight to a Villa player and putting us on the back foot. He was subbed soon after to put him out of his misery. We were just a completely disorganised mess at this point. We were losing the ball cheaply and were wide open to counters. Klopp always talks about protecting our attacks and how important that is. We didn’t do it at all. The defenders deserve all the stick that will come their way after this (not Robbo, he was sound) but they got no help whatsoever from those in front of them. None. Mo pulled one back with another fine finish after Bobby actually finally fucking did something and found a team-mate with a pass. He spent most of the game passing it to Villa players and his evening was summed up when he gave them the ball and they went up the pitch and scored again when Grealish’s shot deflected in off Fabinho. I couldn’t for the life of me even remember the seventh goal and I’ve just had to watch the 90 second highlight package on LFCTV to remind me. It was Grealish running free through the middle with no-one anywhere near him. That made me remember a similar one when Watkins ran through and Adrian had to make a good save to deny him. Due to having to watch that I also had to sit through the other goals again and ok yeah, now I’m getting angry about it. Some of those players gave up. Their heads went down and they allowed what would have been a bad loss to become a historically bad one. Probably doesn’t happen with fans in the ground as professional pride kicks in and you want to keep the score down. It just gives you that extra bit of motivation to not be humiliated. I didn’t see that here though. I just saw players not tracking runners, not putting pressure on the ball and generally just letting Villa do whatever they wanted. I feel as though I’m finally done with Keita now. He just doesn’t do enough. Even his good games aren’t THAT good and the fact is most of his performances are like this one. Not terrible, it’s not like he stands out for being crap, but too often he just doesn’t do anything. He’s a nothing player. A pisser and farter. He floats around being neat and tidy, but he’s meek as fuck and our midfield is nearly always far more open when he’s in it. He’s good at nicking it in the final third but if that doesn’t happen then once they’re behind him it’s goodnight. He’s our least effective midfielder and at this point I’d rather see any of the others (including Jones and Grujic) play ahead of him. He's in his third year and he's basically no better than he was when he first got here. Bobby needs dropping now too. I don’t know how many performances like this he’s going to be allowed to get away with before he’s finally benched. There’s no way I’d start him next game. Not a chance. Mo through the middle with Sadio and Jota wide for me. Minamino even, I could live with that but I’d prefer Jota as I think he’s done well. But Firmino will start. I'm under no illusions there and I’m not sure how bad he’d have to be to ever get dropped because Klopp is his number one fan. Dropping him might be what he needs though as this has been going on for 12 months now. He either needs a kick up the arse or he's low on confidence. Either way, benching him is the way to go. If he does play in the derby then he better fucking perform because we can't have any passengers in that game. Then there’s Gomez. What the fuck? I thought he was great against Arsenal last week but then he goes and plays like this. It was truly horrendous. It was Lovren on one of his meltdown days. That Watkins kid gave him the absolute runaround. In fairness, Virg was shite too but Gomez was a whole other level of bad. Fabinho was no better when he dropped into the backline and he was also shite in midfield. Barkley was running through uncontested time and time again. Given that it’s Fabinho’s job to protect the back four I think it’s fair to question just where the fuck he was when that kept happening. I actually thought Gini was ok. By ok I mean he wasn’t terrible like some of the others. He did the kind of job he usually does, but usually he’s doing it with two other midfielders also helping to boss the game. It felt like he was a one man midfield at times. Fuck me we don’t half miss Hendo sometimes don’t we? There is no way in a million years we concede seven with him on the pitch. Not a chance. It’s interesting when you hear the other players talk about how last season it was Hendo keeping everyone grounded and not letting them get carried away even when we were miles ahead. Robbo in particular has mentioned it loads, how Hendo refused to relax or get complacent right up until the moment the title was finally won. The way Robbo describes it you get the impression that some of the other lads were getting a bit too relaxed about it and it was Hendo who kept demanding more from everyone and making sure they kept their standards up. Hendo didn’t play at Watford and he didn’t play in this one. That isn’t a co-incidence for me. Yeah, he didn’t play at Chelsea or against Arsenal either, but that’s different because games like that are ones when everyone is always going to be fully up for it because it’s a big game against a top six rival. Watford away and Villa away? Different story. We’ve done an incredible job in recent years of being up for games like this and not letting standards slip, but the two times when we’ve let ourselves down have been when the skipper wasn’t out there. The only good thing about this I suppose is that Villa fans didn’t get to see it in person. I dread to think what Brummy wit we’d have had to endure. They’re the most unfunny, unoriginal cunts in the league at the best of times, but this would have been unbearable. Then again, if the stadium had been full this wouldn’t have gone down in this manner anyway. The stakes just aren’t as high when the stadium is empty. It just adds an extra layer of incentive that is almost impossible to recreate. Would Man City have conceded five at home if fans had been there? Would United have let in six? Would Wolves have been spanked 4-0 by West Ham? I doubt it. And there’s no part of me willing to accept we’d have let in seven against Villa in a full stadium. Football without fans is really shit and the results are just not realistic. Every week there’s completely mad scorelines and it isn’t a true reflection of the teams involved. But we’re stuck with this for the foreseeable future so these lads need to figure it out. You can’t play the way they did against Arsenal and then six days later serve up a shit burger like this. It’s incomprehensible. Maybe this is something they needed. Were they starting to believe the hype? The hype was completely justified as this team is the best in the land by some distance. However, they’re only that good when they do the things that made them the best. Against Villa I didn’t see ANY of that. There was no pressing, no closing down, no tracking of runners. I’d never accuse these lads of a lack of effort but they were definitely not switched on and focused for this game. I don’t like saying it because the attitude of this squad has been exemplary for years, but I suppose it’s only natural. It’s impossible to be completely focused week in week out. That’s why even the very best teams don’t win every single game they play. So yeah, whatever the reason it seems clear to me that that the players approached the game differently to the way they did the Chelsea and Arsenal games. Maybe you disagree and don’t think it was complacency, or you put it down to something else. Something less tangible like some of the things I mentioned earlier. Whatever the cause of it, I think we can all agree that Aston Villa would not be putting seven goals past us if we were mentally right. Too many players just weren’t at it, for whatever reason. So what now? We’ll see I guess. Before this game everyone had us running away with the league and one game shouldn’t change that, no matter how chastening an experience that game proved to be. I still think we’re by far the best team in the country but this empty stadium thing makes things far less predictable and we just don’t look the same as we did before lockdown. We can still play at full throttle when we’re really up for it. The Palace game just after lockdown ended was a good example, as was Arsenal last week. I’m now beginning to realise that we can’t do that week in week out in empty stadiums though. In theory it shouldn’t make that much of a difference, but in reality it does. It’s not even just the Anfield atmosphere we miss. Away games are more difficult too. It should be easier without a hostile away crowd but for a team like ours who play on emotion and need that intensity, it’s really difficult to do that every week when there are no crowds. We thrive on the emotion inside stadiums, whether its supportive or hostile. This one off loss doesn’t change how I view our chances of retaining the title. Losing Alisson for six weeks does a little though. We coped pretty well at the beginning of last season when he couldn’t play but that feels like an awful long time ago now because Adrian now looks like he’s going to fuck up every time he plays. We can overcome losing Alisson if everyone else is on it and last year that’s what happened. But it’s when we’re not playing great that we really need Alisson, and him not being there for any length of time is probably cost to cost us some points. Personally I wouldn’t play Adrian again. He’s a busted flush now. I doubt his team-mates have any confidence in him and he’s now looking like he has no confidence in himself. He will play though because Klopp isn’t going to throw Kelleher in for the derby and for CL games. The Villa away game last year was the day when a lot of Reds believed we would win the title. When you look back on it, it was definitely a pivotal moment. I wonder how we’ll look back on this one when the season is over? Maybe this is the first chink in the armour, or perhaps it is the wake up call that we needed. Right now I’m positive that it’s the latter, but it’s this shitty Covid footy that is really throwing everything up in the air. It’s levelled the playing field massively as it’s not like real footy. There’s just an artificialness about it all and it’s causing results to be all over the place. In closing, a result and performance like this shouldn’t ever happen but it might be a good thing that it has because now the players know that as great as they are, they aren’t invincible and if they don’t do the things that made them great in the first place they can be severely embarrassed. Use that embarrassment as motivation to ensure it never happens again, and for the love of all that is good and pure, get your fucking shit together before the derby. Star man is Robbo, which is mad because he plays in a defence that conceded seven goals. He was by far our best player though, along with Mo and Jota who were both alright. Team: Adrian; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez (Jones), Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Keita (Minamino); Salah, Firmino (Milner), Jota:

Saturday Sep 26: Ah fuck off. Alisson is injured AGAIN??? And Thiago too? Actually maybe they aren’t ‘injured’ as it’s all been very sketchy. Usually you’ll hear that there’s a muscle injury or a slight knee problem or whatever, but this has been much more vague than usual. They’re isolating, aren’t they? Meanwhile, there are STILL random reports linking us with Koulibaly. This does my head in as it’s just completely unrealistic. Even Stan Collymore is banging the drum for it and while I understand the argument that him and Van Dijk together would be invincible, if Man City can’t afford to prize him from Napoli then there’s no way we can considering we have no money whatsoever. Even the deals we’ve done have cost us virtually nothing. £5m a year for Thiago and only a £4m down payment this year for Jota. We’ve made that back with sales already. Koulibaly ain’t coming Stan, get over over it. Speaking of Collymore though, I read something about him today that I didn’t know. It was an interview with Tony Warner on some podcast a while back and I stumbled across it online while looking for something else. Warner had a scrap with Stan on a night out. He said Collymore swung a big heavy chair at his head and he had to block it with his arms or it might have killed him. He then starts swinging and the pair of them hit the floor. According to Warner, all the other players couldn’t stand Collymore so James and Ruddock pinned him down and held down his arms and legs allowing Warner to lay into him. Then Roy Evans arrived to break it up and caught an accidental smack in the mouth. Warner told another story about how Steve Harkness was obsessed with his own shit. This is absolutely fucking mad, and filthy. “He was always messing around with shit. His own shit. He put it on the door handles in the hotels, especially with the foreign lads.” “We used to stay at a hotel in Waltham Abbey. When you go in there, there’d always be sweets and three or four chocolates next to the bed. I’d always fly in and scoff all the chocolates dead quick. So, one day I’ve walked in and I’ve grabbed the chocolates. Bang! One goes in. Bang! Another goes in. Then there was another one. They usually come wrapped in paper like cupcakes, but this one looks like it had kind of been smeared in. “Do you know what gave him away? An arse hair. Just an arse hair hanging out the shite. At the same time, I’ve picked up on the smell. So, I’ve seen it and thought ‘imagine if that went in my mouth’. I’ve turned around, looked at the door and Harkness is there with his head poked around the corner. “He’s burst off laughing and I’ve legged it after him, shouting ‘I’d have fucking killed you had I have eaten that, I’d have fucking destroyed you’. “I was thinking to myself afterwards that if I’d eaten that shit, that story would’ve followed me around forever. I remember saying to him afterwards: ‘The fucking hiding I’d have had to give you to appease myself… I’d have been ruthless.” Hard to believe we never won anything with that group of players isn’t it? Fucking hell. Sunday Sep 27: City got whallopped at home by Leicester and it was glorious. It will be covered in extensive detail in this week’s round up so I’ll just focus on the reaction to it rather than the game itself. Because the reaction has been hilarious. Rodri’s quotes afterwards tell you all you need to know about that team. He sounds like the playground bully who has been unexpectedly punched on the nose: “It is very difficult to explain. When someone knocks you out you are confused and don’t know what happens. Football has not been fair with us. We deserve many things. We prosed many things in the game. We tried many things, they tried two or three things”. It’s called rope a dope you soft twat. Teams will let you come onto them because they know your defense is shite and that any counter attack is likely to end up in a goal. It isn’t ‘difficult to explain’ at all. It’s fucking obvious. “Maybe it is our fault, maybe it is their strength. I am young and try to learn every game but games like this where the opposition do nothing, you are a bit confused. You don’t know what to do.” He doesn’t know what to do. What does that tell you about Guardiola’s coaching? Imagine one of our lads saying something like that? There’s such a stench of entitlement about that club and ironically that’s the thing fucking them up now. “The opposition does nothing” even though they scored five goals. “For me they are lucky. It is not the way I like to play”. Hahahaha fucking hell, talk about arrogant. They beat you 5-2 you soft cunt. It wasn’t some 1-0 backs to the wall Mourinho-esque shithouse display. THEY SCORED FIVE GOALS!!! It’s the football snobbery of City that is killing them. They think everyone should try to play the way they do and beat them at their own game and they don’t like it when teams use City’s own strength against them. City want the ball so let them have it, let them think they’re in control and then as soon as they lose it, stick it straight up their arrogant tiki taki, FFP dodging cheating arses. Guardiola too, the bald fraud. “Even at 2-5 they settled back with 11 men behind the ball and it so difficult to create chances”. Mate, it only became 2-5 with 88 minutes gone! And of course they got men behind the ball. They were winning, What do you want them to do, all go up front because “Jamie Vardy’s ‘aving a party”. He’s so used to winning that he has no idea how to handle losing. Meanwhile, Suarez makes his debut for Atletico and scores twice after coming on as a sub. Diego Costa was asked afterwards about how he feels having Suarez as a team-mate and he said. “It’s great. One of us bites and the other kicks.” They’re going to be must watch this season. They’ll probably finish above Barca. Monday Sep 28: L 3 Arsenal 1 Boss that. Just completely dominant from start to finish. We still managed to gift wrap them a goal yet again, but this time we hit back straight away and continued to dominate. The score flattered Arsenal but I don’t think anyone is fooled by it. We’re being praised to the rooftops by most pundits. Shit, Roy Keane actually said we make him giddy. This was after Klopp had torn a strip off him after getting the wrong end of the stick. Keane was raving about us all night, even before the game he was talking about how great we are. Then he makes one little poorly worded remark about us being sloppy (which we were on a couple of occasions) just as Klopp comes into earshot! Keane had already said we’d win the title and he completely dismissed City as any kind of a threat to us. I understand why Jurgen saw his arse over it because he’ll have been thinking that his boys put in an incredible performance and will have been expecting everyone to be purring about it. Keane actually was, just not at the moment Kloppo arrived on the scene! It’s a back handed compliment that this team has set such high standards now that brilliance is almost taken for granted. When a team creates a chance against us, people read too much into it because they need to believe that maybe there’s a vulnerability there. Otherwise, everyone is just resigned to us running away with the title again and to a neutral that’s boring. The great United and Arsenal sides had to deal with the same thing. City too, although the cracks and vulnerabilities people saw with them were actually real and have been exposed for all to see over the last 12 months or so. Klopp has been making the same point for ages about how loads of chances we give up are actually offside and wouldn’t count anyway. He’s right. Every game there’s one or two incidents where the opposition go through on goal and everyone gets all excited, but you know if they’d scored and it went to VAR they’d have been offside. But because the flag didn’t go up and because they didn’t score so VAR wasn’t needed, the perception is it was a chance. Other than the goal we handed them, Arsenal had, what, two chances tonight? And all the other ‘moments’ they had wouldn’t have counted because they were offside. Like the one when Lacazette tried to lob Alisson and the big fella denied him. It wouldn’t have counted, but it was probably in his head when he went through again soon after. He shit himself and hit it straight at the keeper. Speaking of Alisson, he played so at least we know he isn’t sick. He wasn’t injured either, so his absence from training must have been covid related. The club say Thiago didn’t play because of a “slight problem”. If he was injured they’d just say, surely? Meanwhile, two keepers left today. Karius went on loan to Union Berlin while Kamil Grabara went back on loan to AGF, where he’s been before. We’ve got so many keepers on the books it’s impossible to keep track of them all. Every other week there’s a different one playing for the 23s or the 18s. Not sure what the point of it is but Edwards knows what he’s doing. He’ll probably sell half a dozen of them for £50m over the next couple of years. We’re not getting shit for Karius though. Tuesday Sep 29: Yep Thiago’s officially got the ‘rona. No surprise really as it was fairly obvious that’s what was going on with him and Alisson. Big Ali must have tested negative but now Thiago is isolating for 10 days so he won’t be able to play our next couple of games. I’m not sure how all this works though, as he’ll have been in contact with all of the other players and probably Klopp (who is still hugging the lads as much as ever). Do they not all need to isolate too? This whole thing is confusing as fuck. Meanwhile, Danny Murphy says Pogba wouldn’t get in our midfield. “Because Pogba’s got everything, he could defend better than he does. But he doesn’t, for some reason, and I don’t know whether that’s the lack of consequence for not defending. “Pogba wouldn’t get in Klopp’s midfield, I don’t think. He might if he was going to work as hard as he was supposed to but I don’t think the likes of Klopp would put up with midfielders defending like that.” In other news, the sky is blue and water is wet. Ok, that’s a little unfair on SuperDan as there are loads of deluded fools who think Pogba would get in ANY midfield so he's just setting them straight. They’re either United fans or people whose knowledge of football comes entirely from youtube clips and playing FIFA. Pogba is shite. Absolute turd. But as soon as he does one thing good (which he occasionally does because he’s incredibly talented) you get all the FIFA nonces posting clips and salivating over him. I wouldn’t swap any of our midfielders for him. Well, maybe Keita, but that’s not saying much. Wednesday Sep 30: Ljinders address the Neco Williams thing in his press conference. It was strong stuff but he could have stronger. He said something about you can’t be a supporter without supporting, but that’s kind of missing the point I think. I didn’t like it when Houllier went down that road as being a supporter doesn’t mean you can’t criticise when it’s justified. The Neto thing is completely different. It isn’t about being a supporter or not. It’s simply about not being a cunt. It’s that simple. Anyone who sends abuse (or even needless criticism) to a player from their own team is a cunt. Express your opinion all you like, but don’t force that opinion onto the person you’re talking about because that makes you a cunt. And when you’re doing it to a teenage lad playing for a team that is winning everything and had just won 7-2 then you probably just deserve the death penalty as the world would be a much better place without you. That’s what Pep should have said today. Meanwhile, Ross Barkley signs for Villa. Good move for all concerned. He’s a talented player but the lack of a functioning brain means he’s not cut out for life with a Champions League calibre team. He’ll be very good for Villa so they’ve done well to get him. Of course the move was greeted by lots of smugness from Evertonians who somehow see this as Barkley getting his comeuppance for thinking he’s too good for Everton. He left for Chelsea and he won trophies. He made a ton of money and now he’s joined Villa, which Evertonians seem to think it a step down from the Blues but really isn’t. Villa are a bigger club than Everton in every sense. The Blues are higher in the table, but that’s literally all they have over Villa, who have a bigger ground, more fans and a richer history. Thursday Oct 1: L 0 Arse 0. I hate losing penalty shoot outs and I have losing them even more when it’s against Arsenal. That’s the only real thing bothering me about this. Going out of the cup would be more of an issue if there wasn’t now a three month wait until the next round. By the time that comes around it’ll have been the last thing Klopp would have wanted. If the next round had been next week I’d probably feel worse about this, as it would have been nice for the kids and squaddies to get more gametime. As it is, we probably won’t see some of these lads again. Wilson & Grujic will probably go, maybe Div too, and Elliott and Rhys Williams are going to struggle to see the field given the nine subs proposal was shot down. There were things to be pleased with tonight though. The Williams kids were both ace and Grujic probably put another couple of mil on his value as he was the best player on the pitch. I’d like to keep him but it’s not fair to the lad as he’s too good to just sit around and wait for the odd cup game. We should have won the game as we were comfortably the better team. I like how sharp Jota is looking and it would be interesting to see how he did in a 4-2-3-1 with Mo playing central and Bobby a little deeper. I thought tonight was a big chance for Minamino to put pressure on Bobby for his starting spot but I don’t think he did anywhere enough to do that. He was alright and was unlucky not to score, but he needed a big performance and that’s not what we got. For now I think Bobby’s spot is safe but he is going to have to start scoring at some point. Friday Oct 2: Oh for fuck’s sake. Sadio has Covid now. There have been rumours for a day or two and this is going to happen a lot now I think. The club puts out videos and photos from training sessions and eagle eyed fans are looking to see who isn’t there. Sadio wasn’t on any of them in the last couple of days so we kind of knew what was going on and tonight the club confirmed it. More and more players seem to be testing positive now, which makes it all the more remarkable how successful operation restart was last season. I don’t think there were any positive tests right across the PL last season which is astonishing really. I think I remember reading a few weeks back that games won’t be postponed because players have Covid and that as long as you have enough players to complete the fixture then you can’t get it called off. So we’ve got to go to Villa without Thiago and Mané and possibly anyone else who might test positive in the next couple of days. Given the close proximity the lads are to each other I’d be surprised if it was only these two that have it to be honest. On the transfer front, Brewster completes his move to Sheffield United. £23.5m with a buy back clause that can be activated at any time in the next three years, and a 15% sell on clause. In general I don’t like the idea of selling our best youngsters, especially before they’ve had a chance to show what they can do, but that one deal has covered the Thiago transfer fee and if Brewster actually turns out to be boss then we can bring him back. Unless we change how we play I don’t see him ever being a good fit for us but the kid is going to score goals so good luck to him. I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the reason we were prepared to let him go is because of how highly they rate Layton Stewart and that he’s more of a natural fit for our set up. He’s started the season brilliantly for the 18s and might be the next one to be moved to Melwood to train with the big boys. Shaq is close to leaving too, which upsets me more than Brewster going. I can’t disagree with it really though. He’s been injured so much that it reached a point where he wasn’t worth the wages we were paying him. He’s quality though, I love him and I’ll be sad if he leaves. Wilson may be staying now though after Burnley supposedly dropped their interest. They offered £12m plus and extra £4m in add ons. As if you’re getting Michael Edwards to accept that. If we got £23.5m for Brewster then Wilson’s fee is more likely to be around £25m as he’s a proven Premier League player who scores goals. Under normal circumstances I don’t think we’d sell both Shaq and Wilson but if there’s a chance to get money in to recoup what we’ve lost through Covid then it’s probably wise to do it and then rely on Harvey Elliott to fill the hole that’s left. To be honest I’d rather sell Origi and keep Shaq or Wilson. Doesn’t look like that’s happening though. and that was the week that was….

I’d be lying if I said I lost any sleep over this result but it is a little disappointing to go out, not least because it was to Arsenal. I think what bothers me most though is losing on penalties again. Hate that. We seem to lose more shoot outs than we win these days and that’s annoying because we never used to lose any. We should have won the game before that as we were better than Arsenal in both halves. The shot count reflects that, as does the fact that their man of the match was the keeper. We outplayed them but didn’t take our chances and that’s why we’re out. But does it really matter that we’re out? For me, no not really. I’ve said before that the main reason I like this cup is because we get to see the kids and fringe players. It’s just something a little different and these games are usually fun because of that. For some that’s not enough. Some fans want to see us going flat out to win every competition we play in, but I just don’t see it that way anymore. It’s not realistic in this era. Of course I wanted to win it but I wanted to win it with the kind of line up we field in the early rounds. I wouldn’t be at all in favour of risking senior players in these games when the fixture load is so intense, but it’s not just that. I want the squad players to see some action because it allows them to feel a part of things and you never know when they’re going to be needed. For example, if we picked up a few injuries in midfield we now know we could just plug big Marko in there and he’d be sound. So that’s a benefit. We also need to keep the likes of Minamino and Neco sharp in case they’re needed, while any chance for us to get Jones out there can only be a good thing. But going all out to win this cup is counter productive. Like it or not, the League Cup is not that important to us anymore because we’re at a level where the bigger prizes are within reach. If we were an Everton or a Newcastle who haven’t won shit for decades, then I’d be wanting to see us go balls out to win either of the domestic cups, even if it meant resting players in league games. But we’re not Everton or Newcastle and the league games we have before and after these cup ties are more important. That’s just a fact. If that means we can’t win those cups then so be it. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t thrilled to see Mo in the team for this one because I’d rather he had been at home with his feet up preparing for Villa. With Virg it’s a little different as he doesn’t have to put as much mileage in and is less likely to pick up an injury though being kicked. I actually kind of like the idea of Van Dijk playing when we have an inexperienced centre back like Rhys Williams (the same would apply is Sepp Van den Berg had played) because it makes life much easier for the kid. He’ll learn a lot more from playing alongside Van Dijk than he would without him. Williams must be absolutely buzzing having now played two first team games alongside his hero. So yeah, cool with Virg playing but not on board with Salah being out there. As for the rest of the team, I was surprised that Shaq wasn’t involved but happy that Harry Wilson finally got a chance to play for us. He’s almost certainly going to be leaving but it has bothered me for years that his only first team opportunity was those few minutes against Plymouth. He’s a lifelong Red and I just wanted him to be able to have the experience of playing for the team he’s always supported. Circumstances just kept conspiring against him though. When opportunities were there he was either injured or on loan. Even last week he was on the bench but didn’t get on, so even though he’s probably off at least he’s had this night that he’ll always remember. He might remember it for the wrong reasons now of course having missed the decisive penalty, but it wouldn’t have felt right if he’d left not having had a chance to play when dozens of kids who were not as talented as him had made appearances. I thought he did ok but clearly midfield isn’t a position he’s used to. Had Tsimikas been available we’d probably have seen Milner in there, but instead he had to play left back and the door was opened for Wilson. So the team had a bit of a makeshift look to it while also containing some senior players. Arsenal went stronger than we did. Most of those players are regular first teamers but they were still second best to our makeshift side. Our lads played relatively well but it was a far cry from Monday night’s game when we had the full team out. You have to expect that though. We played the same way and as Klopp likes to say, if you changed the kits you could still tell it was us, but it just wasn’t as good. With and without the ball. Arsenal played out from the back again but this time they were able to do it quite regularly. Not that it really got them anywhere. It’s not like Adrian had much to do at all. I only remember him having to make one save and that was a header from a set-piece. Actually no there was another brilliant one when he dived at the feet of someone and nicked the ball away. That was it though, he had nothing else to do. We had the best chances in both halves. The closest we went was when Neco crossed to the far post and Jota met it with a diving header. Leno could only push it away towards Minamino and his follow up struck the underside of the bar. I just thought that was really unlucky. The ball came at him quickly and he did well to get it as close as he did. That was a rare highlight though. The first half was pretty dull overall but I expect there will have been a lot of things Klopp liked about it. Minamino was busy, Grujic controlled things in the middle and the two kids at the back were doing well. The second half was better. We had more control and made it difficult for Arsenal to play out as much as they had before the break. We were better in attack too and but for Leno we’d have scored two or three. Grujic went close with a header and had a low shot turned away by the full stretch Leno. He also won a nice little knock down header to give Virg a chance that once again Leno kept out. His best save was from Jota though. Such a shame we didn’t score there as it would have been a cracking goal. Either Jones or Minamino played a ball over the top of the last defender and Jota brought it down on his chest and lashed a shot goal wards, but Leno acrobatically turned it away. I think that was probably the moment when I thought we weren’t going to win it. It just had that feel about it, but with us it’s hard to know as we have that habit of pulling results out of the fire. When Virg and Mo went off I thought it was going to be difficult, but we knew those two weren’t going to play the full game. I don’t know why Jota was brought off though. The obvious call there was to take Wilson off. Gini was very good when he came on but I don’t think Wilson got a kick after he was moved into his natural right wing position. The other problem was Divock coming on and giving us fuck all again on the left. He might be the worst ‘supersub’ ever. The Everton goal and then scoring in the Champions League Final have given him this reputation as an impact sub but most of the time he just makes us worse. He’s much more effective as a starter than a sub but it's generally perceived to be the opposite. I expected that kind of performance from him. What I didn’t expect was him to miss in the shoot out. I was confident when it went to pens. Not sure why, just a feeling. I think it was based on seeing Adrian after the coin toss. He just looked like he was relishing it. He looked like he knew this was his time to shine. And it almost was. He got nowhere near the first, went really close to the second and then saved the third. Milner, Taki and Gini had all scored, so we had them at that moment. That save was the momentum changer and if Origi had capitalised on it by scoring the next kick then we’d have gone through because Curtis was never going to miss. I really thought he would score too. He’s not one to get nervous as he’s so laid back but that pen was dogshit. Everything about it was terrible. Shit run up, shit strike, shit direction and to top it all off he absolutely telegraphed where it was going. That was when I knew we were done for. We had them and we let them off the hook. Curtis obviously scored, but Arsenal didn’t miss either of their next two and we went to sudden death. Then Wilson stepped up. You’d think he’d be boss at pens because he’s lethal from free-kicks, but he’s not great. I’ve seen him miss a few for our Academy sides and they were usually like this. Low and too close to the keeper. Gutted for him but we still had Adrian. He could have still bailed us out. He should have bailed us out. But somehow he let the ball squirm under him and that was that. Disappointing, but *shrugs shoulders* meh. Let Arsenal enjoy another hollow victory they barely deserved and let them keep thinking they’re closing the gap. They’ll be at least 25 points behind us come May. So even though we went out I think there are positives to take from this, not least the Williams kids and my boy Grujic, who was the best player on the park. As I said last week, he could easily play for us as he’s quality. But he’s got a shitload of players ahead of him who are even better. He’s been in the shop window and anyone watching these games should be impressed. There are loads of Premier League teams who would be better with him in their midfield. And I don’t just mean the shite relegation fodder either. The likes Palace, Southampton, Sheffield United, Burnley or Newcastle would be much better with him in there. Someone will surely come in for him before the window closes, but if no-one meets the valuation of Michael Edwards then sound, he can defo stay as he’s an asset who we might need at some point. I didn’t expect to see Rhys Williams playing at centre back but it looks like maybe they didn’t want to cup tie Van den Berg in case he leaves on loan. Or it could just be that Williams is ahead of him. If he wasn’t before, he probably is now after the way we played. He was pretty much faultless wasn’t he? He was up against Premier League players too in Nketia and Pepe and then later on Lacazette. He coped fine. Neco had one or two awkward moments against Saka but that’s to be expected as he’s a dangerous player. It was a good battle between those two kids and I felt Neco won it. By the end Saka was going down with cramp because he’d spent so much time chasing back after the relentless Welsh kid. Given the shite he’s had to deal with from ‘fans’ this was a nice big “fuck you” game from Neco. We don’t need to worry about his character, he's got balls. I thought it was interesting how Ljinders described him as a “do’er” and pointed out that “do’ers” will make mistakes. I agree with that, but there’s being brave and there’s taking silly risks. I think Neco dribbles a little too much in dangerous areas. It was great when he first broke into the side because it worked all the time. Now that opponents have film on him they’re catching him out more. It’s just about decision making now, and he’ll definitely improve that with experience. Those three were the standouts I thought, but Grujic is the star man. It’s a shame we won’t see much of these three for a while, not to mention Harvey Elliott who couldn’t even get on the field for this one, but even if we’d won this one there’s no game in this cup for three months anyway, so it’s even less of a big deal when you factor that in. I just hope that 'Curtinho' is still involved when everyone is fit, because he’s the one we really need to keep in the squad and get as many minutes as we can. He’s so good that I was actually a little disappointed with him in this game even though there was nothing wrong with his performance. I just expect a lot of him now because he’s class. By the way, I was a little bit naughty in the report last week when I first referenced the Curtinho nickname and took credit for it. It was a bit of an in joke with the lads as it wasn't me who came up with it, it was one of the long time TLW writers and I was just busting his chops by claiming it as my own. So, allow me to set the record straight and apologise. It's a great nickname but I can't take the credit for it as it's the work of long time TLW forumite and fanzine contributor, Stu Monty. But anyway, in closing, this isn’t a defeat that will stay with us for long. In fact, as soon as I switched the TV off after the decisive penalty my mind was already on to Villa this Sunday. Lets make it four from four Redmen! Team: Adrian; N Williams, R Williams, Van Dijk (Gomez), Milner; Grujic, Jones, Wilson; Salah (Origi), Minamino, Jota (Wijnaldum):

What a wild weekend that was. Goals galore, upsets, controversies, we had the lot. I’m struggling for the words to sum up what happened at Brighton. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more scandalously undeserved win than that and that’s before I even get into the winning goal that was scored AFTER the final whistle. I’ll get to that penalty incident in due course though. That was without doubt the spawniest win I think I’ve ever seen though. Brighton absolutely fucking murdered them. They scored twice, had numerous other chances and hit the woodwork five times. FIVE FUCKING TIMES!! Has that ever happened before? It’s incredible just how charmed a life the United goal led. Trossard was the first to be denied by the woodwork when his left footer from 18 yards struck the post with De Gea well beaten. He was the second one to be denied by it too, when once again he beat De Gea but struck the upright. I don’t like Trossard but I’m honestly not sure why as I can’t remember him ever doing anything to piss me off. I think it’s his face. He kind of looks like a frog. I know I shouldn’t let something like that define how I think about a person, but what can I say, I’m my mother’s son. She’s hated footballers (i.e. Lallana) for far less than that. He’s a tidy player though is Trossard and one day the above comments might come back to haunt me if he ends up playing for us. *checks wiki*. Yeah that’s not happening as he’s 26 in a couple of months. That’s shocked me as I thought he was only a youngster, or if you like, a tadpole. If he was 21 or 22 then he’d probably be on our radar, but this is as good as he’s likely to get. Actually I’ve just realized why I don’t like him. He reminds me of a young Nigel Farage. Not his fault, but now I really can’t stand him. Webster then hit the bar with De Gea again struggling as the onslaught continued. Greenwood thought he’d put United in front with their first attack but a late linesman’s flag curtailed the celebrations and VAR showed that Rashford was offside in the build up. My boy Lamptey was brilliant again. I discovered him you know, not sure I’ve mentioned that before. I saw him playing for Chelsea at our Academy and I told you all to watch out for him in the Diary. You could say he’s the Stevie G to my Gerard Houllier. No-one else knew he was a star, but I did. Seriously though, I think he’s been man of the match every time he’s played for them you know. Every week when I see anything online about Brighton he’s the one getting man of the match. He’s such a fucking handful down that right flank. He’s probably not the best defensively but in a three at the back set up you can compensate for that easily enough. He won the penalty from which Brighton took the lead. I don’t actually think it was a pen to be honest as what is Fernandes supposed to do there? He doesn’t really make a challenge, he’s running toward the ball and Lamptey gets there first and cuts right across him. Clever from Lamptey but I’d be pissed off if a pen was given against one of our players for that as it’s virtually unavoidable. The flip side of this is that Fernandes is the biggest cheat in the league and has won penalties himself for far less than this, so fuck him and fuck United. Maupay took the absolute piss with his penalty. He “Panenka’d” the shit out of it and then milked his celebrations too. Came back to bite him on the arse later on, but I’ll get to that shortly. He dinked this one so softly that De Gea had dived and had time to get back to his feet to watch it cross the line. Lewis Dunk put through his own net to get United level and then we had a moment of real controversy when Connolly was awarded a pen only for VAR to overturn it. Much as I’d like to complain about that, the right decision was made in the end. Pogba has a little pull at Connolly outside the box, but it was nothing really and then Connolly just runs in front of him, grabs hold of Pogba’s shirt and then hurls himself to the floor. Never a pen in a million years (despite Shearer saying it was, the tit), and Chris Kavanagh reversed his decision after watching the replay. Connolly defo learned that on international duty from Shane Long, as that was right out of Long’s playbook that. Long is just better at it, but then he’s had years of practice. Rashford then thought he’d put United ahead but VAR ruled him offside. Interesting that Sian Massey-Ellis missed that one. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her get a decision wrong before. I’m not being condescending there either, I think she’s fantastic. To be fair, it was a close one and who knows, maybe without VAR she would have taken the initiative and flagged. It’s going to be increasingly difficult judging the linos now with this “don’t put your flag up” directive they’ve been given. Rashford did finally manage to stay onside for once not long after and he raced clear to score a superb goal on the counter attack. That’s what you have to watch out for when you play United as other than winning penalties there’s not really anything else they do well. They can play on the break though as well as anyone so you need to watch that and Brighton didn’t. Connolly then pulled the old Longaroony again, this time on Maguire, but the ref was wise to him now and was having none of it. This one was a slightly more legitimate claim than the one he had earlier but still not enough for a pen. Brighton were peppering the United goal looking for the equaliser and March made it woodwork number four when his shot went across De Gea only to strike the inside of the far post. Then Trossard completed his hat-trick by blasting an effort against the bar. Unbelievable. Trossard then had a great chance from six yards out but toe poked it straight at De Gea. Awful miss that one. That felt like it might have been their last chance but incredibly March popped up at the back post five minutes into stoppage time to head in the equaliser. And that’s when it got REALLY crazy. United went down the other end and won a corner. From that corner Maguire sent a header towards goal but March headed it off the line. The final whistle then sounded, Brighton players congratulated March while Maguire ran to the referee claiming handball. As soon as they showed the replay I knew Brighton were fucked as that was a clear penalty. There have been loads of bullshit handball pens this season but that’s one that you just can’t argue about. Maupay led with his arm and the ball struck his hand. It clearly impacted the flight and power of Maguire’s header and without that touch maybe March can’t clear off the line? But the final whistle had gone, so obviously a lot of people weren’t happy about that. Personally I don’t have any issue with that. The offence happened before the whistle went. The ref hadn’t seen it but if VAR is there to look at things the ref doesn’t see then why should it not be used in this instance? I don’t think Brighton have any cause for complaint there, especially as it’s in the rule book that decisions can be given after the full time whistle if VAR has spotted something. The ref followed protocol and had no choice but to give the penalty. Where Brighton do have plenty of cause for complaint is in the amount of added time played. They were WELL over the allotted amount of injury time, and even allowing for the Brighton goal and the time it took to restart, this was still pure Fergie-time and the whistle should have gone well before the corner was taken. Of course Portuguese Gylfi scored the penalty. That’s all he does, the fucking one trick pony. I don’t think he’ll ever miss one as he’s great at them (it worked with Jorginho so I may as well give it another go). Of all the players at United he’s the one I can’t stand the most. Him and that cunt Maguire. This was United’s strongest line up and they were fucking shite. In fairness, I do think their (brief) involvement in European football at the end of last season is playing a part in how bad they look. Its not just them. Look around Europe and virtually all of the teams who were involved in the CL and Europa knock out games are suffering at the moment. Even Bayern lost 4-1 at the weekend, and that never happens. So that’s part of it, and the United we are seeing currently is not a true reflection of where they’re at. They’re not this bad, unfortunately. Of course they’re not particularly good either. I felt sorry for Brighton but United winning games in this fashion does not bother me. They aren’t a threat to us and while I always enjoy seeing them lose, if it happens too often they’ll eventually see Solskjaer for the “Norwegian Lampard” he is and they might actually appoint someone good. None of us want that to happen, so if it takes some more flukey wins like this to extend Ole’s stay at the wheel then sign me up for it. Final note on this. Rashford wore a mask in his post match interview. Not because he needed to as nobody else does. He’s behind a screen so it’s not necessary at all. He’s obviously done that to set an example and make a point. He’s such a good lad, Manchester United fans should be proud of him. Loads of them aren’t, because Tory Tory Man United. When the cunts are allowed back in they’ll still be singing about unemployment and how “you look in the dustbins for something to eat”. That’s probably why Rashford gets so much shit off his own fans any time he tweets about starving kids. “Fucks sake Marcus, if we get rid poverty and unemployment what are we gonna taunt the scouse bastards with?”. Anyway, moving on. West Brom v Chelsea was another cracker of a game. The Baggies picked up their first point of the season but they’ll be kicking themselves they didn’t get all three. Willy Caballero was in goal for Chelsea as Fat Frank threw Kepa under the bus. As I said in the Chelsea match report after we beat them, that second goal was on Lampard, not the keeper. If you want your goalie to continually pass it around in his own box then eventually he’s going to get caught and when he does, as a manager you need to be big enough to accept the blame for it and protect your player. The only thing big about Lampard is his head. And his belly. Ok, not really, but that’s what makes the whole Fat Frank thing so great. Imagine having been called fat for your entire adult life even though you’re as fit as butchers dog. Apparently he really hated the “Fat Frank” thing which is why it stuck. There’s not enough of this type of thing. If I was a player I’d be ripping team-mates all the time with bullshit insults. I’d be calling Shaqiri “Lurch”, Virgil would be known as “baldy bastard”, Matip would be “short arse”, Alisson would be “Quasi Modo” or “ugly bastard” and I’d be calling Sadio “ginge” or “fanta pants”. Nothing will ever top “Fat Frank” though, it’s just an all timer. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the goalies. Caballero is just as shite as Kepa and seems to have made an entire career out of winning a penalty shoot out for City against us, the fucking slaphead. Hilariously, Chelsea found themselves 3-0 down by half time and with no Kepa to blame for it. As it was, it was annother Spaniard carried the can and became Lampard’s latest scapegoat. Robinson opened the scoring after three minutes with a shot across goal into the corner. A better keeper saves that, although the real main guilty party was Alonso who inexplicably headed it straight to a West Brom player. Robinson added a second soon after when Thiago Silva was caught in possession on his debut. You’re not in Kansas anymore Dorothy. You don’t get that kind of time on the ball over here lad. Bartley made it 3-0 with a tap in from a corner and Chelsea were in complete disarray. Alonso and Kovacic were replaced at half time and Alonso reportedly tried to watch the second half on the team bus rather than on the bench with the rest of the squad. After the game Lampard lost his shit about that and an inside source was quoted saying: “The players were saying they have never seen the manager like this. It kicked off after the game and he was going mad at Alonso. Some were talking about how they’d be surprised if he plays for Chelsea ever again.” Alonso has a clear case of the “fuck ems” after they signed Chilwell and he obviously wants out now. The problem was that Lampard had already fallen out with Emerson and was trying to fuck him off, and now he’s had to make up with him so he can get shut of Alonso. It all seems to be unravelling there. As the pressure grows Frank’s true colours are beginning to show and he’s turned into a fat version of the Wealdstone Raider, picking fights with everyone. “You want some?” It would have been much worse if they’d lost the game, but they came roaring back and got a deserved draw. Mount started the comeback with a shot from distance that the keeper just stood and watched go past him. Awful that. It wasn’t even right in the corner but he just didn’t see it coming until it was too late. Never heard of that keeper but I’ve already decided he’s shite just based on this goal alone. Hudson-Odoi pulled another one back with what was only his second ever Premier League goal. A £180k a week forward and he’s scored two fucking goals?? Nice work if you can get it like. I hate how football has gone with regard to how much agents are being paid, but whoever is representing Hudson-Odoi has earned his pay by hustling Chelsea into paying that. Chelsea piled on the pressure and eventually, three minutes into stoppage time, Abraham scored from a yard out to snatch a point. Interestingly, the ball came off the hand of Havertz in the build up but unlike last season this is now not an offence unless it leads directly to a goal. The ball clearly hit him on the arm, albeit completely unintentionally, but because West from then had a chance to clear and failed to do so, it is no longer enough to cause the goal to be chalked off. The fucked up thing now is that if a defender had done that it would now be a pen. It’s gone full circle. West Brom look a poor team defensively but they’ve got some nice attacking players. Perreira is great to watch and the kid they got from West Ham is lively. They’ve got their work cut out staying up but I don’t think they’re anywhere near as much of a certainty to go straight back down as Fulham are. Chelsea lost to Spurs in the cup a few days later as Lampard was throwing his considerable weight around on the touchline again while showing a lack of respect to a rival manager who has won far more than he ever will. Yeah, Mourinho’s a twat but I’m taking his side over Lampard all day these days. I wouldn’t have not so long ago, but that incident on the touchline at Anfield a few months ago really showed Lampard in his true light. They had a row in the technical area and Mourinho completely destroyed him by referencing the West Brom game and saying “fucking hell, Frank. When you’re losing 3-0 you’re not standing up here!” He later clarified it with the most condescending, patronising explanation in his press conference. It’s funny as fuck, just watch….. The bit about him being “sad and quiet in his chair” is hilarious. He’s blatantly taking the piss out of him while pretending it’s all done out of love. The biggest touchline mis-match since Lampard tried to take on Klopp. I don’t beIieve Lampard’s claim about what he said back to him though. I reckon his response was more along the lines of “fackin this” and “fackin that” and “won 22 major trophies and you’re giving’ it the big ‘un”. Deluded prick. It’s funny because for a good while there I was thinking that Lampard was alright and I was struggling to find reasons to dislike him. He seemed like a top fella, but then the mask slipped and now you can see on a weekly basis what a spoilt, petulant little shit he is. The only thing that cunt is winning this year is the sack race. Another farcical handball penalty resulted in Everton winning at Palace. Honestly, whoever has come up with this bullshit rule change needs the living shit kicked out of them. What is Joel Ward supposed to do there? I used to go mad when Albert the Moron would have his hands behind his back in the box all time. I hated it and ripped him to shreds for it. Turns out the poor lad was actually way ahead of his time. Sorry Alby! Now you need to have your hands behind your back all the time otherwise this shit is going to happen. Richarlison headed it from point blank range and it hits Ward on the hand. When you watch it in normal speed it looks like nothing. In super duper slo mo it looks like something, and that’s part of the problem with these decisions. Maybe when they’re reviewing these things they should only watch at normal speed, because it’s only then you can see that Ward can literally do nothing about it and while his arm is away from his body he’s not in an unnatural position and he’s not seeking to ‘make himself bigger’ to block anything. Everton played alright though and so did Palace. It should have been a draw but the only difference between the sides was that fucking terrible penalty. I’d like to blame the refs for this shit but it’s not their fault. They’re doing what they’ve been told to do. Mark Halsey said this week that if he was still refereeing he’d ignore the instructions and apply the law with common sense. Easy to say when you’re making a living from being controversial in the media and not with a whistle in your mouth. If he was still refereeing he’d tow the party line like the rest of them because otherwise he’d be out of a job. No wonder all the other refs hate him. So anyway, the net result of this was that the Blues have won three in a row and were briefly top of the table until first Leicester and then those pesky Redshite leapfrogged them. Nevertheless, it’s a 100% start for the Toffees but to their credit they’re not getting carried away. Well, not much anyway. I mean, sure, a quick look at the iTunes chart does see them occupying four of the top seven spots and their official Twitter account was this week throwing shade at Miley Cyrus after they knocked her off number one, but other than that they’re not getting ahead of themselves too much. Last time they made a start like this they brought out a DVD called “Off to a Flyer”. I’m not even taking the piss, they actually did that. Look….. It’s things like this which has virtually made my number one skill in life utterly redundant now. No-one made Everton look more stupid than I did. Until Everton themselves kept raising the bar so high that I could no longer match them. I suppose you could liken it to how African-Americans took back control of the ’N’ word. Everton have done the same thing with piss taking. Nothing I can say can ever be funnier than their every day antics. They’ve completely taken back control as they’re much better at getting people to laugh at them than I ever could be. I know when I’m beaten. Imagine if one week ago I’d said “if they win another game they’ll flood the charts with all their old 80s cup final songs and they’ll be taking shots at Miley Cyrus on Twitter”. I just can’t come up with anything that funny even in my wildest dreams, but they did. Fair play. I almost want them to continue winning just to see how far they can take this. Next up Southampton at Burnley, or “the Danny Ings Derby”. Fittingly it was Ings who settled it with an early goal on his former stomping ground. Ralph Hassenthwrththehwel finally put the God awful Jack Stephens out of his misery and brought back the giant Vestergard, who isn’t much better in all honesty. Still, they got a clean sheet, mainly because you can play that suicidal high line against Burnley as they don’t have Son Heung Min running in behind it constantly and they don’t have anybody with the vision and ability of Harry Kane to pick out those runs. Binning Stephens off definitely helps though. Chris Wood took a blatant dive in the box and Sean Dyche got a cob on that they weren’t awarded a penalty. Next time he gets on his soap box about diving someone should point this one out to him. Not that he admitted it was a dive. Far from it. "It would have been a soft penalty but we've seen how soft penalties are given in the Premier League.” So basically his argument is that “Yeah it’s not a pen but sometimes bad decisions are made so why can’t we get a bad decision here?” "I think the honesty of our players to try and do the right thing - he [Wood] is trying to stay on his feet to receive the ball in the box, he gets a push in the back and goes down. We all know players get less of a push and go down in a more lively manner and get penalties.” This is as bad a take as you’ll hear from anyone this week. Wood was not trying to stay on his feet at all. He was pulling the arl Didi Hamann stoppage time flop, only the defender doesn’t push him at all. He barely even came into any contact with him. It was just a blatant dive. Dyche also had the hump about a disallowed goal for Wood. The linesman flagged early instead of letting it go, but he was offside. The exact same thing happened at the other end when Ings thought he’d grabbed a second but he was offside too. The two linesmen were right on their game in this one but apparently even getting decisions right is not enough to stop managers bitching. “He (the ref) just said he shouldn’t have blown up. It's not that acceptable when you think that we've been specifically told to make sure your players play through every moment. So we did, scored a goal and, lo and behold, the linesman flags, he blows up, gives offside. I don't know whether he was offside or not, it's a close one." Technically he shouldn’t have blown up, but it was offside, so why cry about it and make out you were hard done by? If he wasn’t offside then yeah, you’d have every right to be pissed off about it. But he wasn’t, so pour yourself a nice big glass of shut the fuck up juice. Onto Sunday now and it was another day when it was absolutely raining goals. Wolves were on the receiving end of a shocking result at West Ham which I’m putting down to the European Football factor. It can’t be a co-incidence how so many of those teams who played in Europe are looking like dogshit right now. Wolves were good last season and a lot of people fancied them to do well this year. I still do. I expect them to be pushing hard for the top six but it’s not a good look when you get spanked by West Ham. How do you explain that one? Like I say, it has to be related to their lack of a pre-season. Or it could be that West Ham were great because Moyes wasn’t there as he’s got Covid? West Ham played really well although their opening goal shouldn’t have stood as they took a free-kick from the wrong place and it looked like the ball was moving. Great finish by Bowen though. Bowen got the second too with a rebound after a shot by Fornels had come back off the post. Soucek headed in the third. Of course he did, cunt seems to score a header every week. If I was one of those fantasy football playing losers he’d be one of the first names on my team sheet. No offence to any of you fantasy football playing losers reading this by the way. Update: the goal was taken off Soucek and put down as a Jiminez OG. If I was one of those fantasy football playing losers I’d be doubly fuming as I’d have Jiminez in my side too. Haller headed in goal number four and the crazy thing is the score didn’t flatter West Ham at all. They should have scored more. I didn’t even see my boy Adama when I was watching the highlights. I had to check the line ups and it seems that he started the game in the front three but was subbed. There’s two schools of thought on him. There’s the one that says he’s over-rated, doesn’t do enough and is basically a bit of a fraud. Then there’s the correct thought that says he’s sensational and just needs to be in the right set up with the right team-mates around him and he’d be virtually unplayable. I did think that set up was ours but then we signed his team-mate Jota instead, and now there’s no room at the inn for Adama and his big beefcake frame. I can’t see him being at Wolves much longer though the way he’s being messed about by them. It is weird how often he either starts on the bench or gets subbed. If anyone wanted to buy him Wolves would demand at least £80m for him, yet they don’t treat him the way you would an £80m talent. If he’s worth £80m why you keep subbing him or playing him at wing back? Here’s a hot take for you and it probably won’t be popular, but fuck it I’m going to say it anyway. Conor Coady isn’t very good. There. I said it. He’s shit. He can’t defend and he’s slow as fuck. The only reason people think he’s good is because he plays in a back three so he’s not isolated too much, and because he can spray the ball around as well as anybody. The clamour for him to be in the England squad makes me laugh because these same clowns (Adrian Durham being the clowniest) calling for it will be the first to slate him when he plays in a back four for England and gets his pants pulled down by the first decent forward he faces. The reason I bring this up is because my Dad thinks he’s boss and would happily see us sign him back. I had to take issue with that and point out that he’d be a disaster playing for us because he’d be exposed in one v one situations all the time and he couldn’t cope with it. You’re probably wondering what my Mum thinks. Well she doesn’t have any football opinion of Coady, but she tore into my Dad about it anyway because “Noooooo we don’t want him. He’s a cocky little thing. Loves himself.” Agreed. Next up, Spurs against Newcastle. Funny as fuck how it ended but leaving aside personal preferences and how amusing it always is seeing a Mourinho meltdown, once again you have to say that penalty was a fucking disgrace. Spurs deserved the points as they were by far the better side. It looked like they’d get them too thanks to Moura’s goal midway through the first half. They didn’t add to it (although Son hit the woodwork twice before going off injured) and then in stoppage time the ball inadvertently struck the arm of Dier from point blank range and once again we saw a penalty given. Even Steve Bruce was pissed off about it. What makes this even more of a joke is that exact same thing had happened not long before. Carroll won a header and the ball hit the arm of Dier who had his back to him. No penalty for that, but when virtually the same thing happened again they gave a pen. I don’t get it at all. Good away point for Newcastle though, albeit totally undeserved. I don’t have the stats to back it up but my impression of footy with no fans is that home advantage now isn’t really an advantage at all. It’s almost as though every game is being played on neutral grounds these days, which I suppose they kind of are. The Yorkshire Derby between Leeds and Sheffield United was a decent game even though it was the lowest scoring game of the weekend, along with the games at Turf Moor and White Hart Lane (sorry, I’m not referring to it as anything else). Leeds won this one with a late header from my boy Bamford. I say header but he admitted afterwards that it came right off his nose. They all count kid, I scored one with my nose too back in the day. Pretty sure I’ve told this story before but I’ll do it again as not all of you will have read it the first time around. So I’m about, I dunno, 13 maybe? Possibly younger. Playing on a Sunday morning for my team and we were shite. We lost most weeks and I was top scorer with about five a season. So I’m chasing a bouncing ball into the box but I’ve got no pace and the defender beats me to it. He tries to clear it and smashes it straight into my face. I hit the deck, the ball hits the net and my team-mates all run over to celebrate with me. I’ve got blood coming from my face. It was either my nose or my lip, possibly even both, I don’t remember. What I do remember is making my way back to halfway for the kick off, crying, and seeing my Dad on the touchline laughing his fucking head off. So yeah, me and Bamford have that in common as well as our impeccable taste in music. He listens to Bon Jovi to motivate himself before games while I do it to motivate myself for these Round Ups. That’s three goals in three games now for a lad who everyone (except me and his mate JBJ) had written off. He’s given Leeds a real Bounce to start the season and if he keeps this up then he’s gonna Runaway with the Golden Boot. Sheffield United played some nice stuff but that’s three losses for them now and no goals scored yet. They’ve got a few key injuries too. They need something to spark them soon. Maybe it’ll be Rhian Brewster? I hope they start picking up points soon as I find them refreshing and their fans were sound at Anfield last season. They’re away at Arsenal this weekend so that would be a nice place to start, especially as we’ve softened the Gunners up for them. Great start for Leeds though who now have six points. Their keeper had a blinding game and one first half save to deny Lundstram was sensational. No idea who he is but he looks about 12. They do look suspect defensively but with my boy scoring for fun they’re going to be a handful for anyone. They’ve got City next and we saw what Leeds can do when they’ve got space to play in. City will defo give them space, so that will be one to watch this weekend. Speaking of City though, just what the fuck happened at the Etihad? Mental, but incredibly funny wasn’t it? City took an early lead through a brilliant Mahrez strike and then it was just carnage. Vardy completely destroyed them. If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know I love watching Vardy play, I think he’s phenomenal. He’s probably my favourite non-LFC player. He’s great, he’s the closest thing I’ve seen to Ian Rush since Rushy hung it up. He’s just so fucking sharp and fast and clever. He won a penalty when he got on the wrong side of Walker and drew him into a foul. He buried it emphatically too. Rory Delap’s kid was brought on for Fernandinho five minutes into the second half. It was a tactical move and the game was 1-1 at the time. Well that worked out nicely, eh Pep? What a genius he is. Vardy soon made it 2-1 with a lovely little flicked finish at the near post. Love goals like that because I scored hundreds of them. Not even lying, I scored goals like that every week at TLW Thursday night footy. In fact, it should be named after me, like a “Panenka” penalty or a “Cruyff Turn”. That type of goal was my trademark. That and great hair. Anyway, soon after it was 3-1 as Vardy sneaked in behind Garcia and drew another foul. Again, he buried the penalty with aplomb. A screamer by Maddison after coming off the bench made it 4-1 and City were in complete disarray. It almost feels like City aren’t even trying anymore. I mean fucking hell, they had a free-kick on the edge of the box and they let Sterling take it while De Bruyne stood and watched. What the fuck? Sterling?? Really? He’s literally the last person on the pitch I’d want over a dead ball. They’d have been better off letting Ederson take it. Actually he’d probably be great at them as he’s much better with his feet than he is with his hands. Ake pulled a goal back but Leicester just went up the other end and won a third penalty when Maddison channelled his inner Vardy and got in behind Mendy who brought him down. Vardy wasn’t on the field at that point so Tielemans took the pen and scored. Can you imagine how smug and self satisfied Brendan will have been after that? I’m surprised his head even fit through the dressing room door, it’ll have been that swelled up he’ll have looked like a Corinthian Figure.. Tell you what’s mad though. Guardiola has spent £400m on defenders alone, never mind the rest of their squad, and yet Leicester had a stronger looking bench. I know City have some injuries but their team and squad just doesn’t look particularly strong anymore. They’ve almost turned into what we were for most of Stevie’s career. Only it’s De Bruyne in the Gerrard role for them. They’re virtually a one man team at the moment. Of course they took this loss with their usual good grace. Rodri came out with all sorts of nonsense but I’ve gone into that in this week’s diary so I’ll say no more on it here. I’ll just concentrate on the bald fraud instead, who was talking complete Zlatan after this. “Leicester didn’t try to play” apparently. “They only wanted to counter attack” and blah blah blah. Mate, shut up. You lost 5-2 and you were tactically outsmarted by Brendan Rodgers. City are so predictable now that even Brendan, a man who NEVER compromises his style and belief of how the game should be played, even he knew that the way to beat City is to sit in, nick the ball off them and then break with pace. It’s taken him longer than most to figure it out, but even he knows how to exploit City’s weaknesses. Guardiola can’t handle it. He’s used to having his own way and we are seeing now that when things are going against him he’s completely lost. He isn’t signing a new contract, their squad has cracks all over the place and when you actually analyse his record in the transfer market it’s fucking pitiful. Most of City’s best players were there before he arrived and age has either caught up, or is catching up with a lot of them. The replacements haven’t been anywhere near as good and they’ve wasted millions on shite. I can tell you already before he’s even kicked a ball that this Portuguese defender they’ve just signed will be fucking rubbish, because if he was any good he’d be at Wolves. Unless he’s the only Portuguese player on Earth not represented by Mendes. Hilariously, City fucked up the announcement of his signing. Their website made the following announcement: CITYZENS: NEW SIGNING - Ask Kalidou Koulibaly a question. and CITYZENS: NEW SIGNING - Win a Kalidou Koulibaly signed shirt Someone will be having their hands chopped off for that. Great though isn’t it? Welcome Ruben Dias! Sure, we wanted Koulibaly and we had all the marketing stuff ready for him until he signed a new deal with Napoli, but you’ll have to do. Still, welcome! Also, they actually refer to their fans as Cityzens? That's actually a thing? Forget all the FFP breaches, they should have their titles stripped from them just for that. He’s on a hiding to nothing that Diaz lad though. He’s not even particularly highly rated based on reports coming from Portugal, but even if he’s not shite he won’t make a blind bit of difference to them. Yes their defence is shite but it goes well beyond that. It’s not just about them. Stones and Otamendi were crap even when City were getting 100 points but back then it didn’t matter because most opponents couldn’t ever get in their half to put them under any pressure. Now most teams can, and the ones who are able to take their chances are having a lot of joy against them. City have lost ten of their last 38 league games, yet they were still, somehow, favourites for the title this year. I feel like Klopp hasn’t lost ten league games in the whole time he’s been here. I know he has, but most of them will have been in the first year. Yet so many ‘experts’ were tipping City. It’s only taken three games (and just two for City) for that to change. We’re favourites now but it was laughable that we weren’t when the season kicked off. I heard Carlton Cole on the radio this week saying he tipped City for the league but now he’s changed his mind and is going for Liverpool. What kind of knee jerk shite is that? We beat Arsenal and City lose to Leicester and all of a sudden they’re all jumping ship and distancing themselves from their “City will be too strong” hot takes that were never based in any kind of fucking reality anyway. The Leicester result doesn’t change my opinion on City. I still see them exactly as I did before this game. In fact, I’d even put forward the argument that this game should almost be disregarded because of their late start due to their (brief) involvement in European competition. As I said with United and Wolves too, teams who played in Europe at the end of last season are struggling badly, but in a few weeks they’ll have all caught up fitness wise and we’ll have a better idea of where they’re at. I don’t know where City will be at, but I do know that come May they’ll be a lot closer to United, Chelsea, Spurs and Arsenal than they will be to us. Finally, Monday night. Apparently here was a game before we took Arsenal to school in the later fixture. I didn’t see it, didn’t know anything about it until now. The only reason I even know about it is because I’ve just checked through and noticed that I’d only mentioned eight games and not nine. So, last and very much least, Fulham were spanked 3-0 by Villa. I’ve watched the highlights on youtube and Fulham’s defence is every bit as bad as advertised. Villa ended last season well and they’ve picked up where they left off. They’ve got McGinn back from injury now and with him, Grealish, Barkley and Douglas Luiz in midfield that’s a pretty good line up. The defence and forwards aren’t as strong but I don’t see Villa having to fight as hard to stay up this year as they did last, unfortunately. As for Fulham, what’s the fucking point of them? They’re already down. Their owner put out a public apology to the fans for the performance and assured them that they’ve been trying to sign centre backs and are still looking. That pissed off Scott Parker who said “It’s not something I agree with and it’s not helpful. The one thing I’m disappointed in is him apologising for the performance.” Parker feels like his players are giving all they have, and they probably are. They’re just shite and there’s not much they can do about that. They signed Ademola Lookman this week, which isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference. Remember when Everton fans were hating on Allardyce for not picking him? He went on loan to Leipzig and did fuck all and now they’re loaning him to Fulham. If he couldn’t get in that terrible Everton team then he was clearly shite and he’s not going to help Fulham much when the thing they really need is a new defence. Tim Ream *shakes head* Parker having a public spat with the owner isn’t likely to end well for them though. Him and Lampard should do a job swap as they’re basically the same anyway. Who’d even know the difference from watching the teams play? Neither of them have a clue at how to stop goals going in. Ok you know what, that comparison is a bit unfair on Parker because he actually managed to get his team promoted from the Championship, unlike fatso.

This sets the record straight somewhat. It wasn’t quite the mauling of Arsenal that I had hoped for but it’ll do. Some Arsenal fans had started to get a little bit carried away after those two most recent clashes between the sides and saw themselves as our equals when the truth is they’re nowhere near. The gap is massive. We dominated them at the Emirates but gifted them two goals and we should have beaten them in the Community Shield. We didn’t though and all of a sudden people were talking about Arteta having our number. They needed putting back in their box and this has gone some way towards doing that. We were brilliant from start to finish and showed that Arsenal are nowhere near our level. That being said, Arsenal are clearly better than they were because this level of performance would have been enough to see us beat them by ten not so long ago. They did well to dig in and stay in the game in the face of the relentless pressing they were subjected to and how good we were with the ball. They should probably feel pleased with themselves because the two previous results they had against us were flukes and by no means any indication of a “closing gap”. If anyone connected to Arsenal is disheartened by the gulf there was between the two sides in this game then it’s because they had kidded themselves into thinking the gap wasn’t as big as it is. We’re so much better than everybody else right now. We’ve never been this much better than all of the competition, not even in our 70s and 80s heyday. I know not everyone is comfortable saying this in case it blows up in our faces, but it’s true, we’re miles better than everyone. Over the last two seasons we’ve averaged 98 points. Whereas our closest competitors Man City have grown weaker year on year, we’ve kept all of our players and now added Thiago and Jota which makes us even stronger than the team that averages 98 points. I wouldn’t be surprised if the players already have it in their heads to try and beat last year’s 99 point total, as they’ll need to set themselves targets this year if nobody is going to push us. I know we’re only three games in but I’m not basing it on that. I’m basing it on the last couple of years and the general strength of our squad compared to everyone else. Seriously, who is going to be able to live with us this season? City won’t. United won’t. Chelsea won’t. Spurs? Nah. Arsenal won’t either, although unlike the rest of our ‘big six’ rivals they do at least seem to be on an upward curve. So are we though. We’ve still got the potential to get better. An already great team has now become even stronger by adding one of the best midfielders in the world and another forward who plays the same way as those we already have and thus gives us great depth. Thiago wasn’t even playing in this game and look how dominant we were. It’s scary how good we might be when he is playing. It’s probably worth pointing out that we were not only without Thiago for this one, but Henderson, Matip and Oxlade-Chamberlain were all unavailable too. Thankfully Alisson made it despite a pre-match fitness scare. He had very little to do but when he was needed he came up big with a save when it mattered. He had no chance with the Arsenal opener though. A complete fluke and totally against the run of play. It might have been the first time they got out of their own half. Credit where it’s due, they played their way out nicely and got Maitland-Niles in down the left. His cross looked like it would be cut out by Virg but he couldn’t reach it. Robbo was there behind him but he made a brutal mistake and his mis-kick teed up Lacazette. He too mis-kicked it, and because Alisson had committed himself to where the shot would have gone if it hadn’t been completely spooned, he was unable to reach it as it looped over him. Fucking hell. Not gonna lie, I was shaken by that. It was too early in the game to say I was worried as such, but it did have me cursing Arsenal and their incredible spawn against us. Why do we keep just fucking gift wrapping them goals? It’s infuriating. And Robbo of all people? He’s probably the most reliable player we have, he never makes mistakes. Fucking spawny bastards. They surely couldn’t fluke another result against us? Thankfully no, they couldn’t. Some magic from Salah allowed Mané to equalise soon after and then we were back in total control again. Great goal that, and credit to the ref too for playing advantage when I was cursing him for not giving the free-kick. I didn’t think there would be any advantage but turns out there was. The touch from Mo to go inside Tierney was pure filth. Yes, he’s quick and he’s a strong little fucker too, and that helped, but the touch to go past him on the inside was outrageous. His shot was saved but Mané was on hand for the tap in. Look at Sadio’s movement though. He’s wanting a pass to begin with but as soon as Mo takes another touch to cut inside he just drifts off the back of the defender looking for a rebound. Brilliant from both of them. The second goal was class too. Trent had started the game in sensational form, spraying passes around and whipping in brilliant crosses, so it was no surprise he created the goal. It was a little surprising that it was Robbo scoring it though. Again, Mané showed great football smarts in the way he drifted in to create space for Robbo coming in behind him. Sadio couldn’t win the header but because he’d pulled Bellerin in with him Robbo was all alone at the back post to control and finish. Great stuff. I’m expecting somewhere between 5-8 goals from Robbo this year. He’s got it in him to do it, just needs to sharpen up his finishing a bit. This was an encouraging start and no doubt he’ll have felt extra special because it made up for his mistake. After that it was just a case of how many we’d score, but frustratingly the third goal wouldn’t come. We continued to play great football and the pressing was phenomenal, but Arsenal did play better in the second half and managed to get out of their own half much more than they had in the first. People are going way overboard about them though. I’m hearing all sorts of shit praising Arteta and Arsenal for “sticking to the way they play” and “being brave” by playing out from the back. It’s fucking nonsense. They’re copying Guardiola by having the keeper playing one twos with his centre backs in their own six yard box. If you want to do that against Palace or Burnley or whoever then sound, have at it. Repeatedly trying it against us when IT’S CLEARLY NOT WORKING though is just fucking arrogance and hubris of the highest order. It was the same with Lampard last week. It’s great for us and I should be made up when teams do that, but weirdly I find myself just getting increasingly pissed off at the sheer fucking ego of it all. Arsenal (and Chelsea last week) kept doing the same thing and we kept either taking the ball off them or forcing them into knocking it out of play. It worked once in the whole game and they ended up with a spawny goal from it. ONCE!! How many times did we rob them in their own third? Had to be at least twenty times. There’s nothing brave or clever about it, it’s just stupid, irresponsible, negligent shite and the net result is Chelsea and Arsenal were both soundly beaten because of it. We play out from the back too, but not like that. We play out from 25 yards away from goal. These fuckers are trying it from their own byline. It’s crazy to do that against a team that presses like we do. Man City have done it and got away with it to some extent but even they don’t try it every time. Arsenal did this under Emery too and he was roundly slaughtered for it. Arteta is lauded though. I guess being Smithers to Pep’s Mr Burns has it’s advantages when it comes to how people perceive you. Arsenal would have a goal kick and do the exact same thing. Leno to Luiz, then to one of the other centre backs, back to Leno or Luiz and then out to the wing back who was invariably now stood by the corner flag because they’d been forced so far backwards. David Luiz can do this all day and probably never give the ball away because he’s quality in possession. The rest of them though? Rob Holding had a decent game defensively and he’s actually played well against us the last few times. He does not want the ball fizzed into his feet with Sadio Mané flying to close him down though. He must have been cursing Arteta and his “I wanna be like Pep” style of footy. As I say though, it was perfect for us and our lads were smelling blood all night. They don’t often get to do this because most managers are pragmatic enough to change their style and avoid playing into our hands. When you’ve got these ego driven cunts like Lampard and Arteta (albeit to a slightly lesser extent because unlike Lampard he does actually seem like he might be a capable manager) insisting on playing “their” football instead of doing what’s best for that particular game, then it’s like Christmas morning for our boys. On another day we’d have added a couple more goals and Arsenal would have been well out of it, but the longer it stayed at 2-1 the more chance there was of them getting another underserved result against us. They were always going to have one moment and it came when Lacazette went through after Trent had played him onside but thankfully Alisson stood big to deny him. Much is being made of that missed chance but even if he’d scored I’m sure we’d have just gone and scored another one or two and won the game anyway. I thought Sadio going off was a strange one. He didn’t look happy at all and understandably so as he was the best player on the pitch at that point. He’d been fucking phenomenal and he was like a man on a mission all night. It felt like he must have taken the last couple of results against Arsenal personally as he was hugely fired up. Perhaps a little too much so. In the first couple of minutes he completely flattened Bellerin and then seconds later he was on the opposite side of the field decking Tierney. I don’t think he should have been sent off but it was close. Not quite a red card because it wasn’t an elbow to the face, but it nearly was and he was probably close to being sent off for that. The referee got it right but on another day, with another official, Sadio might have been severely punished there. I was genuinely surprised he was subbed because he was tormenting Arsenal with and without the ball. Personally I’d have taken Bobby off but what the fuck do I know. Jota came on to play in Sadio’s left wing spot and could have had a hat-trick. Klopp knows what he’s doing. It’s nice for Jota to get off the mark so quickly as the last thing you need is to have to wait for that first goal. It’s important for his confidence because although he’s a talented player and wouldn’t have made it this far without believing in himself, it still has to be a little daunting coming from Wolves to the World Champions and knowing that the level you’re required to play at is the level set by Salah and Mané. If he wants to play, that’s the standard he’ll need to be at. The good thing is he’s made a fast start and he’s part of a squad that welcomes everybody. Sadio will have been as pleased for Jota as anyone, because he knows that we needed a more natural alternative to him (and to Mo) than we had in the squad. I didn’t like some of the implications made on commentary about Mo when he took that chance of Jota’s foot and tried to score himself. This whole “Selfish Salah” thing is just too easy for people to throw around at times. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve criticised Mo for his tendency to get greedy at times in the past but I honestly didn’t have any issue with what he did there. Or course it didn’t look good because he didn’t collect the ball and score, but he was entitled to go for that. It was a little too far in front of him and he couldn’t quite get it, but in that split second he didn’t have time to think. The idea that he’s seen Jota and gone to himself “I’ve just set you up and you missed, so this one is mine” is just a steaming pile of Zlatan. He acted on instinct. Jota had been in position to get a shot away but this was just an instinctive thing where Mo is running at full speed into the box and genuinely believes he can collect it in stride and score. Had he been able to get it under control then it would have been a much better chance for him to score than it would have been for Jota to take a touch, set himself and then get his shot away. The problem is he couldn’t quite get there and then it just looks terrible. I don’t put that down to greed at all though, it was just a player in a split second backing himself to reach a ball that ultimately was just beyond him. Pretty sure Klopp saw it the same way, although Jota might feel differently! Salah was fucking brilliant all night. His work rate was incredible and he tormented that left side of the Arsenal defence. He’s in great form right now, as is Sadio. Having Jota around is only going to help with that as not only does it allow us to occasionally rest them when needed, but if Jota performs well then it provides genuine competition. And based on this, I think that’s what we already have. Jota isn’t going to be starting ahead of Sadio or Mo any time soon but he looks like he fits this team like an arse in a bucket. He should have scored earlier following brilliant set up play by Mo, but he stuck at it and was rewarded when a Luiz header dropped to him on the edge of the box and he controlled it before steering a shot perfectly into the corner. Every single player was right over to him and you could see how happy they all were for him. Klopp said afterwards that he’s had his eye on Jota for two or three years but it’s about the time being right. That’s how we operate now. There’s no point signing 19/20 year old who aren’t going to be ready to play. Wait until they reach 23/24 and are at the level required to come in and play. That’s what we did with Sadio and Mo. They were ready to explode when we signed them and maybe Jota is too. I can’t wait to se more of him now. So that goal killed off Arsenal once and for all. Other than the Lacazette chance they never really threatened. There were other chances that wouldn’t have counted because they were offside, but as Klopp pointed out to pretty much every reporter he spoke to afterwards, that’s just not a good way of doing things. In theory it makes sense. Don’t stop an attacking move for offside in case they aren’t offside. The video can confirm it afterwards. So yeah, good idea in theory. In practice though its shit, because it’s taken responsibility away from the linos and they are told not to flag unless it’s blatant. Well hardly any are ‘blatant’ on first view to the naked eye, so what we’re seeing is no flags going up and play continuing even when players are offside. And when it doesn’t end up in a goal they don’t need to use VAR, so all of these ‘chances’ that it looks like we’ve conceded are actually nothing of the sort. It was happening a lot last season but it’s even worse now because they just aren’t flagging at all. It’s only a matter of time until someone is injured either making a challenge or spinting back to chase an offside player, but that’s not my biggest problem with it. I remember complaining about this a couple of times last season but it felt like I was the only one bringing it up until Klopp did after this game. By not putting the flag up, play continues. Fine. But sometimes the ball then goes out for a corner which is allowed to stand because they don’t go back to check for offices when there is no goal scored. So what happens if a team then scores from the corner? Basically it’s tough shit, the goal counts. I don’t like it at all. The rule is the same for everyone but it’s going to be more harmful to us than most because we play a high line to catch opponents offside. Anyway, it’s not going to change any time soon and in comparison to the bullshit new handball interpretation we’re seeing every week it’s really not that big a deal. Speaking of big deals, I don’t know what kind of wages Gini is asking for but unless he’s taking the piss then give him that fucking contract. He’s been a huge part of the success we’ve had and he’s in his prime now. He’s fucking brilliant and does whatever the situation demands. Get him signed up. For most of this game he kept things simple, filled gaps, pressed diligently and was generally just typical unsung Gini. When it’s needed though, he’s so much more than that. The last twenty minutes of this game he was fucking unreal. Turbo charged Gini showed up and it was great. It’s like in the old NBA Jam game when a player would make three shots in a row and then go “on fire” and become faster and jump higher than everyone else. That was Gini in the closing stages of this game. He just stepped up the pace and Arsenal couldn’t get near him. He was sprinting 50 yards past some of his own team-mates just to go and press the goalkeeper. The midfield as a whole performed really well, especially without Hendo and Thiago. Fabinho was just utterly dominant from start to finish while Gini and Keita were really good with their positioning and pressing. With the ball I thought Naby didn’t really do much and it was no surprise that he was replaced by Milner. The options we’ve got in midfield when everyone is available is just…. wow. We could have a first three of Fabinho, Hendo and Thiago. A back up trio of Gini, Ox and Milner and then a third combo of Grujic, Keita and Jones. I’ve probably missed somebody as we’ve got so many options it’s almost impossible to predict our line up for the domestic cups now. On that note, I can’t wait for Thursday’s game. Anyway, back to this one and Arsenal did have one opportunity late on that may or may not have been offside (I think it was just on) when Aubameyang finally got clear in stoppage time. Had he scored it wouldn’t have effected the result, but Gomez was not going to let that happen. He chased him back, stayed on his feet and then made the block. Klopp celebrated it like a goal. He was proper fired up about this wasn’t he? And rightly so. Arsenal have frustrated us the last couple of times we’ve met so he’ll have been made up to not only dominate them again but to actually get the result that reflects the performance. Poor Roy Keane though. He spends the entire night absolute salivating about how good we are and then he makes one poorly worded throwaway remark just at the moment Klopp is listening in and ends up with a flea in his ear! He wasn’t wrong. We were sloppy on a couple of occasions but equally I can see why Klopp would be annoyed if he thought that the main take away from the game was a couple of rare lapses in an otherwise phenomenal display. It’s actually a back handed compliment when you think about it. When any other team concedes a goal or gives up a chance or two, it’s just football. It happens. How often do you go through a game against any Premier League side, let alone one of the better ones containing one of Europe’s top strikers, and not give up any chances? It hardly ever happens. But because Klopp’s team is so good, so dominant, and has set such sky high standards over the last couple of years, when an opponent even so much as gets near our goal it results in criticism and inquests about whether we have a problem defensively. As I say, it’s testament to just how good we are that an opponent creating a chance or two is even seen any kind of talking point. It’s almost like people are looking for something to cling to, to provide some hope that maybe we aren’t going to just steamroller the league again. Roy Keane hates everything and everybody. If you get any kind of praise from him you’re doing well, but as I say he was gushing about the Reds all night. At one point he made a snarky remark about “don’t be getting too giddy about Everton”. Carragher asked him “do you ever get giddy about anything?” and Keane replied “I’m giddy about this Liverpool team. They’re brilliant.” He’s right. We are. Star man is…. shit I don’t know. Mané was incredible, Salah brilliant, Fabinho dominant, Gini supercharged, Trent imperious, Van Dijk masterful… could be any of them really. But fuck it, I’m going Joe Gomez because he probably needed a performance like this. He’s been up and down since footy came back but he was class in this game. Not saying he was the best player on the pitch (that was probably Sadio) but I’m giving him the star man because his performance will probably be overlooked by a lot of people. Not by me, well in Joey lad. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Keita (Milner); Salah, Firmino (Minamino), Mané (Jota):

There is no doubt that the internet has changed the world; anyone who has lived before the era of smartphones can confirm this. But beyond all the obvious industries that followed suit because of this and had to transform to keep up, we can also see its effects in other areas. Football and bingo started out as leisure activities, but their presence has grown and evolved throughout time. Of course, the internet had a role in their change, too; and here’s how. Football and the internet Football is, without a doubt, a British staple. Keeping up with football has always been popular, and after the emergence of television, it became much more accessible to the public. Needless to say, the internet took this to the next level. It allowed for even more attention from all over the world, and this growing popularity also naturally meant that more money was at play. Today, not only is it extremely easy to watch matches from all over the world, it is also a breeze to look up any information on your favourite team you are curious about. With teams’ prominent presence on social media as well, you can keep up-to-date with what’s happening even if you don’t have a lot of time. This applies to both league and non-league football. In fact, fans of non-league clubs are thriving in this digital era where they can connect with other fans through social media. The fact that everyone has a voice on the internet means that non-league players and clubs can also gain popularity if they are a bit more social media-savvy and people notice this. Therefore, while the internet has made the gap between league and non-league football more prominent, it is not necessarily bad news for smaller clubs. The internet’s effects on bingo Another one of Britain’s favourite leisure activities is bingo. This game has a long history dating back to the 18th century, and it is basically a tradition that was standing strong until recently. A game of bingo used to involve socializing: getting together with other people, going out and visiting a bingo hall. Bingo halls used to be everywhere, and they were frequented by local bingo-enthusiasts regularly. In the 21st century, however, this activity, like many others, has also seen some big changes. As the number of bingo halls throughout the country was on a decline, a new form to enjoy this game emerged. The internet has provided us with online bingo, which many received with scepticism at first. Fans thought that this form of bingo would kill the game’s traditional spirit, however, what it had done is actually evoke interest in those who previously were not into this activity. If you read more about some online bingo sites, you will clearly see that it’s an easy and comfortable way to enjoy this game. Just choose whether you want to play 75-ball or 90-ball bingo, enter a room of your choosing and start marking off your numbers. Online bingo became a competition to physical bingo halls, which was a good incentive for them to step up their game, too. Soon, non-traditional bingo halls emerged and they started being creative with their offer; they paired bingo with other fun activities and organized events to evoke the interest of young people. What this means is that this game is certainly here to stay. Football and bingo are more than just leisure activities; they are important parts of many people’s lives and continue to be so even in the digital era. The internet has allowed more people to get interested and involved in these activities, as well as changed some aspects of the games. Who knows what the future holds for them?

Saturday Sep 19: Jota is unveiled. You’d think that there was nothing left for our fans to moan about but I actually saw some whopper complaining about how our social media team sucks because the signing videos for Thiago and Jota were too similar. At least it’s original I suppose. Also seen a lot of complaining about the fee and that if we can pay £43m for Jota why couldn't we pay £50m for Werner. *sigh*. Ok, here we go, I'm off again... Right, first of all the financial implications of both deals are completely different. Most of the Werner fee (maybe all of it?) was due up front. We're paying £4m this year for Jota. So there's no comparison. Also, Werner's wages will be double what Jota is getting. Secondly, Jota is a much, much better fit for how we play. I'm not telling you he's better than Werner and will score more goals. But he's a more natural fit for the wide attacking positions in our team than arl no finesse Timo. Werner is much more similar to Danny Ings than he is Jota, and you can't sell Ings for £20m and then pay two and half times that much for someone who is a marginal upgrade at best. I'd back Ings to outscore Werner this season but there probably won't be much in it. They'll both get more than Jota because they'll play more games and they'll be playing centre forward rather than left wing. Give me Jota over Werner all fucking day though, and I reckon anyone who is still crying over Werner will be signing a different tune by the end of the season. We're meant to be signing some kid from Motherwell too. A 16 year old defender. Totally on board with this because you always want a Scot in your side. He might not make it but it's worth the risk. I'd probably sign one Scottish kid every year just in the hope that one of them comes through. The current Scotland captain meanwhile, says that a Manchester United player will get a standing ovation at Anfield when fans are eventually allowed back in. I hope so, I'll certainly be applauding Rashford the first chance I get and I genuinely couldn't give a fuck who he plays for. I hate United but not to the point where it stop me from applauding one of their players if he deserved it. It's like the goalkeeper thing. The Kop will applaud the United keeper when he takes his place in goal. I'm not sure Schmeichel got it (he may have, my memory isn't that good) but all the ones in recent seasons have been applauded. United fans would NEVER do that for our keepers and that's the difference between us and them. Rashford is a top lad and he seems to be more popular with our fans than he is with his own at the moment, although judging by the replies to him on social media I'd say that United fans who are actually from Manchester are a lot more proud of him than those who aren't. It's fucking mad. Just look at the responses any time he tweets about how kids shouldn't be starving in this country. It's a mix of overseas United fans telling him "concentrate on your football because you've been crap for a year", Liverpool fans telling him "well in lad" and random Tories from other clubs complaining that they don't want their taxes used to feed kids "whose dads have done a bunk" or "whose mums are smackheads". Sunday Sep 20: Chelsea 0 L 2 Any time you win away at Chelsea it’s a good day. We’ve almost reached a point now whereby we’re so fucking good, even when we win games like this you find yourself over-analysing and thinking “well we probably should have been better at X and I don’t think we did Y very well” and if you wanted to you could probably do it here too. It wasn’t a perfect performance but it was pretty damn good and we were miles better than Chelsea even before the sending off. We don’t need to be at full throttle with everyone playing out of their skin to win games anymore, but on those occasions when we are there is literally nobody that can live with us. Maybe that’s why even teams like Arsenal and Chelsea are scared stiff when they face us? Chelsea were ultra defensive today. It might just be that we penned them back and they couldn’t get out, but it was probably a case of them not really wanting to come out either. We didn’t create too many chances in the first half but it always felt like we were well in control and that eventually we’d make it count. Without the ball we were brilliant and Chelsea couldn't really do anything. Their only outlet was Werner on the counter attack, but his bull in a china shop approach didn't faze Fabinho who just kept taking it off him like a bully nicking a little kid's lunch money. Still, at 0-0 its always up for grabs regardless of how much you're on top. The sending off right before half time though ended any hope Chelsea had of holding out for anything. Brilliant vision and technique by Hendo and Sadio was clever in the way he got himself in front of the defender to force the foul. Hilarious that Lampard tried to say it wasn’t a definite red. Tit. With VAR that is a red card 100% of the time. He was clutching at all kinds of straws though. “If the sending off doesn’t happen, and if Kepa didn’t gift them a goal and if we had scored the penalty then it’s 1-1”. Yeah, and if you didn’t have a big moonface I wouldn’t be able to call you moonface, would I, moonface? He seems like a man who feels under pressure already. But then Roman has always had a notoriously quick trigger finger with under-performing managers, and ‘Lamps’ doesn’t have the ready made excuse of a transfer ban hampering him and forcing him to bring through youngsters this season does he? Spending £200m brings a whole different level of expectation. I actually think he’ll get the push before Solskjaer does. Something I didn’t pick up on initially so it’s not in the match report, but I saw it on Twitter today. On the penalty save, Milner comes from waaaaay back to get there first to help Virg make the clearance. The desire is the first thing that stands out, but it’s also the professionalism. He had no idea if Alisson would save the penalty but he acted as though he would and that the rebound would need to be cleared. It’s little things like that which make him a fucking superstar in my eyes. What a man. It was funny listening to Klopp afterwards when he said that they didn’t tell Thiago anything about what to do. He just went out and figured it out for himself and controlled the game. Imagine what he’ll do when they do give him instructions on what they want from him. Even without really doing anything exceptional, Thiago just has that presence and swagger about him. He carries himself like a superstar and everyone around him seems to view him as one, even other world class players seem to look at him like he’s a level above. Monday Sep 21: Odd goings on today concerning Brewster’s future. The likes of Pearce & co reported that Palace were the front runners and were close to a £25m deal that also involved a buy back clause for us. Then Sky reporters that a formal bid had been made and a deal was close. Then Palace’s chairman took to Twitter to say that no bid, formal or informal, had been made and they had demanded Sky remove the tweet. Who knows what the fuck is going on there but it seems unlikely that they’ll sign him now after the chairman went so strong to deny it. Who tells Sky to retract transfer stories like that? Most clubs don’t give a fuck about speculation and just ignore it, but something about this has pissed Palace right off. On a similar note today, L’Equippe claim that Mbappe is in continued talks with us and Real Madrid about a move next summer. Liverpool didn’t demand they withdraw the claim so I’m drawing my own conclusions from that and assuming that IT”S ON BABY!! Meanwhile, fuck off Wolves. I had high hopes for you tonight and you let me down. Mind you, this Traore at wing back thing seems pretty bizarre to me, especially against better teams when Wolves are on the back foot a lot. He needs to be in the attacking third as much as possible. Nuno Holy Spirit being too clever for his own good there. Tuesday Sep 22: So last week it looked like Suarez was signing for Juve, but something about them having too many overseas players meant he had to take a test to become an Italian national. And it turns out, he cheated! Is that the most Luis Suarez thing ever? In fairness, it wasn’t just a case of him sneaking into the school office and stealing the test paper beforehand or just copying from whoever was set next to him. I expect he had a lot of help from his agent, Juventus and whatever other parties had a vested financial interest in the deal. As it’s Italy, I doubt it would have been too difficult to bribe whoever needed to be bribed. I was going to say we’ve reached peak Suarez but I think that might be premature considering he’s about to form a strike partnership with Diego Costa and his manager is going to be Diego Simeone. I feel like he’s just getting started. Atletico Madrid games are going to be must watch this year. Also tonight, the u21s got beat 6-1 at Wigan. I think it was Wigan’s first team rather than their kids, but still… ouch. You don’t expect that. Wednesday Sep 23: Ljinders is on press conference duty for the League Cup again this year. Some nice little soundbites from him today as usual. I liked what he said about why we signed Thiago. "This team deserves a player like Thiago, he will help us evolve. It's important that we stay unpredictable. We didn't buy a problem, we bought a solution." Sums it up nicely really. We signed him because to evolve we need to adapt and avoid becoming predictable. Something he said about Billy Kemetio got my attention too as it confirmed something I was thinking about why we allowed Hoever to leave. Hoever is class and could become a genuine star, but he isn’t tall enough to play centre back for us and he was third in line at right back. Why is his height such an issue? Because as Ljinders said today, teams hit a lot of long balls against us to avoid the press, so it’s really important for our centre backs to not only be good at winning the ball, but to also be able to head it to team-mates. Virgil is great at that, as is Matip. Gomez is probably a little too short for what Klopp would ideally want but because he’s quick and has a good spring he just about fits the bill. Hoever just didn’t have the physical tools to be a centre back in our set up. I liked what he said about Jota too. “A pressing machine with the technical ability of the rest of the front three”. That’s high fucking praise that. I do think he’s going to be boss though. I’m expecting him to elevate his game in the way Sadio and Mo did, virtually from the moment they stepped through the door. Can’t wait to see him play. On telly of course. It’s going to be a long fucking time before we get to see any of the new lads playing live in the flesh. It’s getting me down now. I miss going the match. I miss meeting up with the lads before the game. I miss walking up the steps in the concourse and seeing the green of the pitch. I miss YNWA. And I miss watching this team play. It’s just shit not being able to go to Anfield. Fuck this virus and fuck the government who basically wasted three months of lockdown. We should be preparing for life to be getting back to normal, but instead we’ve got another six months of this shit because these corrupt cunts handed out all the contracts to their mates instead of to companies who would actually get the job done. I don't think we'll get back into Anfield at all this season, which makes the club's attitude to transfers look extremely prescient now. Some of these other big spenders might be sweating in a few months. Meanwhile, this Wolves thing is just weird. I’m not sure if they’re breaking any rules, but ethically what’s happening there just seems fucked up. How is there not a conflict of interest in what Jorge Mendes is doing? For example, he represents Matt Doherty, who was sold to Spurs for a relative pittance (£15m). Spurs are managed by Mourinho, who he also represents. And guess what? He also represents Samedo, who is about to join Wolves from Barca for £37m as a replacement for Doherty. Barcelona fans can’t believe their luck getting so much money for a player they think is shite. How much of that fee is going to Mendes? How much of the Jota fee is he getting? How much did Spurs give him for orting the Doherty deal so cheply? All agents get boxed off with pay offs from transfers but in this case it’s the agent who is sanctioning the deals between the clubs too. Wolves paid huge money from that kid from Porto this summer (represented by you know who). It just seems shady as fuck. His influence is so great that it can’t be healthy for anyone other than him. I mean fucking hell, Wolves' third kit now is basically the Portugal shirt and the way it’s going their first team is going to be Conor Coady, Raul Jiminez plus nine Portuguese lads, all represented by Mendes. Thursday Sep 24: Lincoln 2 L 7 How much fun was that? Lovely goals, some terrific football and a completely stress free night. Don’t take this for granted because it wasn’t that long ago that fixtures like this would have given us the potential for all sorts of embarrassment. I actually like the policy of playing the kids and squad men. I realise that it’s necessary, but even if it wasn’t I’d do it anyway. If we had no games a week before or a week after a fixture like this, I’d still want the second string to play because they always play like they want to impress. Shrewsbury away last year was the only real exception to that but it was senior players who were the big problem that day. Matip and Lovren in particular from what I remember. Usually though, since Klopp arrived our cup games hve been really enjoyable and this was no different. Curtis and Taki were great, Tsimikas had a good debut, Shaq looked really good and my boy Grujic was quality. If we needed him to play in the first team he’d be up to the job as he’s a fucking good player. I like him a lot, always have. We don’t need him to play though as he’s got about nine players ahead of him in the pecking order. That’s how strong we are right now. Grujic would walk into at least half of the teams in the Premier League. So would Origi, Shaq, Wilson etc Next week's tie will be interesting. I think we need to go a little stronger against Arsenal because I reckon Arteta will put most of his first team out as he’ll be desperate to win that game. I wouldn’t make too many changes though, but Harvey might find himself on the bench and I doubt we’ll see Rhys Williams in the first team again. He did fine but I wouldn’t have him anywhere near next week’s team and his future opportunities might be limited too. Injuries gave him his chance tonight and whatever happens he’ll always have that. Good for him. Arsenal next week though is a different proposition. Wouldn’t surprise me if we saw something like that mad one we had last year. With the likes of Shaq, Jota, Origi, Jones and Taki on the pitch we’ll score goals. We might concede loads too though. Unless big Virg plays again of course, but I can’t see that happening. I’d like to see us win this cup but I’m not one of those miserable old timers who bang on about “we should take every competition seriously because we exist to win trophies”. Nah, you can’t be risking the bigger prizes by taking this little thing too seriously. I’ll never side with anyone complaining about fielding ‘weaker teams’ in the cups because it's just clearly the smart thing to do on every level. The importance of the cups is nowhere near as great as it once was and I only really want us to win it because I want to see the ‘weaker team’ get their hands on a trophy. If we got to the final with the kids and squad men, I’d want them to play in the final ahead of the big boys as they\d deserve it. I doubt that would happen, and if we were playing Man City I’d take a different view. In general though, if these players were to get us there then they should stay in the team. Imagine seeing Milner lifting the trophy and doing the Hendo shuffle! Friday Sep 25: Suggestions today that Origi and Shaqiri are both staying. I wouldn’t put money on it because I still think if a good enough offer comes in we’d sell either of them in a heartbeat, but this probably means that we won’t sell for the sake of it. Whereas with Wilson and Grujic it’s probably a case of getting as much as we can and letting them go, but Shaq is more than happy to stay and it would appear that, based on his inclusion and his efforts let night, Origi might be too. His chances of playing in anything other than the cups seem fairly slim but maybe he’d rather be playing a handful of games here than a full season at Villa or somewhere? He’s such a weird one is Div. Last night is a good example. Most people would say he was one of our worst performers on the night. For most of the game he just wasn’t really involved and he flattered to deceive, but when it’s all said and done he’d scored one and made one. That’s often the way. He rarely makes you think “Origi was boss today wasn’t he?” but when he has significant playing time he nearly always seems to score. I feel as though his time here should be up now but maybe there’s still another chapter to be written? I’d feel a lot happier if he grew his dreads back though. Dreadlocked Divock was a legend. Finally, the 23s had a mad one tonight away at United. They were 5-1 up and cruising but then it all got a bit nasty. Leighton Clarkson got sent off for an outrageously bad tackle where it looked like he was trying to chop the lad in half. Then one of their players was sent off for shoving Clarkson to the ground. It ended up 5-3 but that’s a good win for the boys. Jack Bearne scored two and he’s a nice little player to watch. Small and skilful with a great left foot. I like him. and that was the week that was….

It was 10 years ago this week that we were humiliated at Anfield by Northampton. Obviously the club has come a long way since those dark days and we’re now the best team in the land, but I thought it was quite fitting to see the second string perform like they did at Lincoln. Northampton wasn't a one off either. We’ve spent decades struggling in these type of cup ties when the big hitters were rested and we had to call on the kids and fringe players. Now? I actually look forward to these games as much I do the ‘proper’ matches. Some of the most enjoyable games we’ve had in recent seasons have been when the second string has played in the cups. Arsenal and Everton last season were great. So too was the Shrewsbury replay when it was a team full of kids. This was more of a mixed line up but we had a bit of everything really. We had the star quality of Van Dijk, we had the fringe players like Shaqiri and Minamino, the wonder kids Jones and Elliott, the unknown youth teamer unexpectedly thrown in at the deep end as well as a couple of new signings making their debuts (Tsimikas looked good I thought). We also had a couple of lads in Big Div and my boy Grujic who maybe won’t be here much longer. Everyone played their part though. It was a real mish mash eleven and in the past whenever we’d done anything like this it would usually end up in a risible performance and a cup exit. Spurs away jumps out at me for some reason. I couldn’t even tell you who played that night but I remember it was a real shitshow. Probably people like Degen and Plessis were involved but I’ve kind of wiped it from memory so can’t be sure. Generally in the past when we've thrown together a team of kids and misfits, they've played like total strangers. That doesn't happen anymore. Win or lose they always look like a Klopp team. This was great. Not perfect, and the second half wasn’t good defensively after Virg went off, but scoring seven times away from home with a second string against the League One leaders isn’t anything to be sniffed at. The quality of some of the goals was ridiculous too. Shaq’s free-kick to open the scoring was a belter. I saw that coming a mile off and called goal before he even took it. I watched it at my parents house and as I'm sure I've mentioned before, Shaq is like the son my Dad always wanted. I don’t mind that, I love Shaq as well and wish he was my little brother so I could playfully slap him in a headlock and ruffle his expensive new hair. Love that little guy, he's fucking boss. So yeah, anyway, as soon as the free-kick was awarded I said “This is a goal, Shaq will put this in the top corner”. And he did. I was on point with my predictions all night actually as before kick off I called goals for Jones and Grujic. The only one I got wrong was saying that there was absolutely zero chance that Jota wasn’t scoring when he came on. Other than that I was…. what do the cool kids say these days…. oh yeah I was FIRE!!!! But enough of that, back to the footy. Shaq’s opener was glorious but Minamino matched it with a fabulous first time hit to make it 2-0. He just looks so much more comfortable and settled these days, but that's hardly a surprise as new signings into this team generally take a few months to start showing their form. Some are so good they transcend that. Mané, Salah, Van Dijk and I'm pretty sure Thiago will be another. So that was a lovely goal that came about from Lincoln trying to pass it out from the back. Lads, you’re League One and we’re the World Champions. You really think you’re going to succeed where the likes of City and Chelsea have failed and play through our high press? Talk about delusions of grandeur. Jones then made it 3-0 with a superb finish after Origi had cleverly knocked down a long pass from Rhys Williams. Nice moment for Williams and the first half will have been most enjoyable for him. Playing alongside Virgil and basically not really having to do anything other than pass the ball around under no pressure was an ideal debut. The second half was much tougher for him but he did well all things considered. Jones made it 4-0 with a goal that just reeked of Phil Coutinho. That’s who he is turning into now. A tall, scouse, Coutinho. He shares so many of the same attributes as O Magico and that cut inside and bend it in the top corner thing that Phil had down to a fine art is something Curtis has down to a tee. In fact, I might just start calling him “Curtinho”. Yeah I’m pleased with that one. “Curtinho”. Nice. Feel free to use that if you like, I don’t mind. So yeah, 4-0 and it could have been more as we played some lovely football. Klopp said that if the lads were wearing a different kit he’d still know it was Liverpool based on how they played. They basically were wearing a different kit as that one we were wearing was nothing like a Liverpool kit. In general I’m not one for being arsed about kits and I don’t even mind this one even though I know loads hate it. What I don’t like is that the shorts are not the same colour as the shirt and that just makes it look shit. I’m sure you were all as surprised as I was that Virgil started the game. With Matip and Gomez unavailable it made some sense for him to play but it’s still not something you expect to see at this stage of the League Cup. I would have thought Nat Phillips was a more logical choice but he wasn’t involved at all, so must be close to a move and they didn't want him cup tied (same with Brewster). It will have been great for young Rhys to have that half alongside Virg, but the difference in our performance from first half to second was alarming. Was that just because we were so far ahead and took our foot off the gas? Or was it because Van Dijk wasn’t there after the break? I suspect it’s more the former really. We went 5-0 up within seconds of the restart as Minamino grabbed his second of the game. It wasn’t spectacular but it was a great goal because of the desire shown by Taki. He won the ball initially and then sprinted to get in the box and was rewarded when the loose ball fell to him for a tap in. He was really lively throughout and thrived in a rare outing as the number nine. He’s pushing hard for a starting spot at the moment given Bobby’s lack of goals. So it's 5-0 and I’m thinking we might get ten. And after that, it was a bit shit and all of a sudden Adrian was having to do stuff. He made a great double save and then followed it up with another good one. Lincoln were slicing through us at will and as easy as it is to put that on Virgil not being there, it has to have been more than that. I just felt as though the intensity of the whole team slacked off and that left the defence more exposed. Lincoln deservedly pulled one back when Neco was caught trying to do too much and then Rhys was unable to retrieve the situation. Fabinho didn’t cover himself in glory either. Neco didn’t have the best of games. He wasn't that bad but sometimes he needs to keep it a bit more simple and not try the stepovers and the chops or whatever they’re called. It’s the way of the modern game now that full backs are all trying to do moves like Ronaldo, but there’s a time and place. He hasn’t been at his best when he’s played the last few months but if he wasn’t the real deal he wouldn’t be getting these opportunities. We all seen what he could do in his first half dozen or so appearances and I’m sure he’ll come through this little dip. Apparently he’s had to delete his social media accounts because he was getting stick off ‘fans’. Honestly, I know I keep going on about this kind of shit but I get unspeakably angry about it. It’s bad enough abusing players after a loss, but what kind of despicable little fucking shithouse rat sends abuse to a teenage lad after a 7-2 win? A law needs to be passed whereby any fucker who does this can be exposed and some lads can be sent around to sort them out. I’m not even joking, these fucking shithouses need a good kicking or even worse. If I ruled the world then death row would be full of cunts who sent abuse to people on twitter. So Lincoln were making a game of it and they continued to look dangerous, but we did too and Grujic grabbed himself a goal with a low shot from the edge of the box to make it 6-1. Adrian then flapped at a corner to allow Lincoln a second goal before Origi ran clear to score at the death. Jota was inches away from a debut goal but otherwise couldn't seem to do anything right. I don’t know what to make of Origi’s inclusion in this game. Not just that he started, but that he got to play the full game whereas Elliott was subbed early (I thought Harvey played well and was disappointed to see him brought off). If Div’s going, why is he getting this playing time? The more I think about it, the more I think he might be staying you know. He probably shouldn’t, because he’s behind Minamino, Jota and possibly even Shaqiri now in the forwards pecking order. Maybe he’s ok with that and just likes being here? In fairness to him, there was nothing wrong with his attitude in this game. He took his goal well (he usually does, he’s a clinical finisher) and he had a nice assist. He’s a good player and would be a nice acquisition for someone. He just doesn’t really fit the profile of player we need for any of the forward places. By that I mean we’ve got Minamino now as the deputy for Bobby because he can play the role in a similar way. Jota will do the same with Salah and Mané. Origi is just completely different to all of them. Maybe that’s a reason to keep him around another year? I wouldn’t, but then I’m not Jurgen Klopp so there is that. Basically, I’m good with whatever they decide because clearly they know what they’re doing. If I had to bet on it though I’d say Grujic, Brewster and Wilson will leave and Shaqiri and Origi probably won’t. That should bring in a decent amount to help offset the Covid losses though. Going back to Klopp’s point about the identity of the team, I feel like that’s actually really important. It was the same last season in the cups. Even when none of the first team were playing you could still see the same shape and patterns of play. That Shrewsbury game was a great example. The midfield trio of Chirivella, Cain and Clarkson pulled off a fine impression of the senior lads. This was similar in many ways, but it was also different. Shaq was in midfield for one thing. We haven’t seen that before. We might not see it again considering we’ve got about ten players fighting for three spots, but he did well. Curtis was brilliant in there too and he’s got much more chance of getting regular minutes. It’s going to be hard keeping him out of the team at the rate he’s progressing. Probably the biggest indicator of how deep we are in midfield though is the performance of Grujic. He was fucking boss I thought. I’ve always liked him but how can you make a case for him playing when there are so many superior players ahead of him? Grujic could play for most teams in the Premier League and he deserves to play regularly. He’s been going out on loan but the time has probably come to just let him leave permanently now. Another loan is pointless as it’s not as though a midfield spot is opening up for him in a year or even two. He was a contender for the star man but really it came down to a choice between Jones and Minamino. I’m not even going to choose between them, they can both have it and I’ll just happily sit on the fence. We now have to play Arsenal twice in a week. I’m still pissed off about how we let them beat us in the league and that we didn’t put them back in their box in the Charity Shield. This is a chance to set the record straight and I expect a Thiago inspired rout on Monday. The cup game is a different story and anything could happen there. Last year’s game was a fucking belter and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw something similar. I actually can’t wait for it. It’s weird really. I put virtually no importance in the domestic cups these days in terms of actually winning them. We have bigger fish to fry and I’m fully on board with the selection policy we’ve had for the cups. In fact, it’s that selection policy that makes these games so much fun. I expect we’ll go a little bit more experienced next week and I wouldn’t expect to see Rhys Williams anywhere near the side for that one, but most of the other lads will be involved again. Maybe Grujic will have left by then but Milner can easily step in. I’m surprised he didn’t play in this one actually. Get him back in there and let him lead the reserves to Wembley. Be boss seeing Milner doing the Hendo shuffle. Team: Adrian; N Williams, R Williams, Van Dijk (Fabinho), Tsimikas; Grujic, Jones, Shaqiri (Keita); Elliott (Jota), Minamino, Origi:

So last week I was rejoicing in it being a manc free weekend in the Premier League but both of them were back in action this week and frankly it was great. Well, half of it was. That United loss against Palace was great fun, as was the subsequent over the top reaction to it. There’s just no middle ground with them is there? When they’d beaten up on some shit teams their fans and the wider football media got far too carried away by it and convinced themselves that they were much better than they actually are. Now, after they lost at home to Palace, the opposite is happening. “Ole Out” was trending and there have been various discussions about his future on different media outlets. After one fucking game!!! There’s just something about Manchester United that provokes far more hysteria (positive and negative) than anyone else. It’s similar with us and Arsenal, but just not as ridiculous. All we’ve heard for months is how United are “back”. I didn’t buy into that and I’m not buying into the notion that they’re completely hopeless now because they’ve lost one game. They are what they are. They’ll be on a similar points total this year to what they managed last year and the year before. Not great, not terrible, just meh. Far be it for me to be the one to offer up a defence of Solskjaer, but it seems ridiculous that one loss has caused such a big about face. I think he’s shit and I hope they keep him for a long time, but this was one game and there were extenuating circumstances for how shit they were. Not least that they haven’t had a pre-season. They came in cold against a Palace team that was much better prepared than they were. I’d have been more surprised if they’d won, not least because they’re a bit shit when they can’t play on the counter attack, and Palace were never going to let them do that. Palace can do this to anyone though. Their record against top six sides over recent years is pretty good. They’ve basically beaten all of us at some point. You don’t want to fall behind against them because they can just dig in and play on the break, and they’re really good at it. There was nothing especially unusual or surprising about this result. Anyone who thinks there was hasn’t been paying attention or they were swept along by the ridiculous hype United have had since lockdown ended. The one thing that it was, of course, was fucking hilarious. It was hilarious even before it kicked off, with Patrice Evra saying live on Sky that Zaha was bombed out of United because of the rumours “true or untrue” that he was in a relationship with Moyesy’s daughter. This fella is a fucking idiot. How can you not know that there are certain things that are off limits when you’re on live telly? He shouldn’t have said anything at all but if he really felt like it was a point that needed making then you say something about ‘there were rumours about his personal life’ or something like that. You don’t just repeat what was essentially just a wild internet rumour. Of course it was hilarious, but Kelly having to apologise for him was excruciating. Make HIM apologise for it. Anyway, as has been said on countless occasions, Zaha (or more likely his solicitor) pointed out to Sky that the rumours were false and he’d never even met the daughter of David Moyes, let alone done anything else with her. So anyway, the game gets underway and Townsend gave Palace a deserved lead. He should have made it 2-0 actually as he had a couple more good chances. Palace were looking like they’d score every time they attacked, mainly because United’s defence is shite. They eventually doubled their lead from the spot in the most hilarious circumstances. Firstly, that’s never a pen in a million years. If that’s a penalty then every time the ball hits a defender’s arm in the box you’re going to have to give one, just for consistency. Or alternatively just keep giving them against United, that works too. The comedy wasn’t finished there though, as De Gea made a great save to deny Ayew and play went on for a good while before out of nowhere, BOOOOOM, the VAR ref said “nah ah Man United”. De Gea was an inch off his line so it had to be retaken. The rule is the rule and harsh as it seems, officials have been told they have to clamp down on this from now on. Solskjaer even acknowledged that was the right call but said he didn’t think it was a penalty. I agree with him, but considering how many pens they’ve had over the last couple of years sympathy will be in short supply. What makes this even better is that Palace not only got to retake the kick, they also got to change their taker. Ayew was fucked off and Zaha stepped up to bury the spot kick to add a capital ‘F’ on the Fuck you. United pulled one back through Van der Beek but Zaha punished them on the break late on to add a capital… erm.. UCK on the FUCK you. Goldbridge’s reaction to the retaken penalty was glorious. One of the funniest Goldbridge moments ever this (skip to around nine minutes in): It was raining goals this weekend though. I don’t know if that’s a result of no fans in stadiums or just because everyone is completely rusty and hasn’t had a pre-season to hone their defensive shape and organisation properly. It looks a bit amateurish though when so many goals are flying in. Makes for a more interesting MOTD on a Saturday night though. The Blues put five past West Brom in a game that was shaping up really nicely until Kieran Gibbs stupidly got himself sent off for clouting Rodriguez. Moron. Diangana, the lad who caused Mark Noble’s twitter outburst when West Ham sold him to the Baggies, put the visitors in front when he ran the length of the field before beating Pickford from the edge of the box. He looks a good player, so I can see why West Ham fans would be upset about him going. Problem is, he plays in a position where they have plenty of players on big wages who they probably couldn’t shift. Livermore then hit the post before Calvert-Lewin levelled with a back heel. “Hamez” gave Everton the lead and was then involved in the incident that resulted in Gibbs being red carded. He made a right meal of it but he was smacked in the face and it was as blatant a sending off as you’ll see. It wasn’t a punch and it wasn’t particularly hard, but Gibbs hit him in the face right in front of the linesman. Absolute fucking dickhead. Rodriguez had left a little bit on him but it was nothing that justified such an act of stupidity. Bilic was fucking livid and he too got his marching orders after confronting Mike Dean on the pitch at half time. I don’t really understand what his beef was, as there isn’t a referee in the world who isn’t giving a red card for that. Bilic even said afterwards it was a red card, which makes it even more strange that he was on the pitch accusing him of “trying to kill us” and saying he should have gone to the screen to check. Here’s the weirdest part of all this though. Danny Murphy said that Mike Dean should have gone to the monitor but instead he rushed the red card decision and got it wrong. What the fuck???? He hit him in the face. Just because Rodriguez made a dog’s dinner out of it that doesn’t change a thing. Everyone seems to hate SuperDan these days and he is a terrible pundit. I’ve heard him on the radio quite a bit and he’s good when he’s talking about his own experiences and he does give good insight into certain things. When you show him an incident and ask for his opinion on it though, he’s nearly always so far off that he should be Matt Le Tissier’s replacement on Soccer Saturday. Anyway, back to the game. The ten men started the second half well and equalised with a brilliant free-kick by Pereira. Pickford though, fucking hell. Proper shite him. He followed it up with another stinker in midweek against Fleetwood. Garbage him, but it makes me laugh hearing people talk about whether or not he’s going to prevent Everton from being successful. Everton had no problems finding ways not to be successful before Jordan Pickford and they’ll have no problems when he’s gone. Everton, aren’t they? Terrible West Brom defending from a free-kick saw Kean (Michael, obviously, that other one they have never scores) restore Everton’s lead and after that they ran away with it as Calvert-Lewin completed a hat-trick when he shouldered in from a left wing corner. It wouldn’t be a Round Up without a contribution from my Mum, and this week’s whipping boy was Calvert-Lewin, who she can’t stand due to his “stupid hair” and because “he looks like someone who would be in the nightclubs trying to impress all the girls by telling them he’s a footballer”. Probably true but not sure why he’s being singled out for that when it probably applies to half of the players in the Premier League. Whatever. When it comes to having irrational reasons to dislike players I’m not really in a position to throw stones, but it’s obvious where I get it from. Goals were raining down at Elland Road too as Top Knot FC edged out Fulham 4-3. Not sure there’s ever been so many bad haircuts on the same team before, so fair play for that Leeds. Helder Costa smashed in the opener but Koch made a cock of himself by lunging in to concede a penalty. The lad played for it and I’m not sure I’d have given it, but if you go sliding in like that and don’t get the ball then the risk is always there. Mitrovic converted the pen to make it it 1-1. He’s looking mean as fuck this year. Even more mean that usual. He looks like a villain in a show like Chicago PD or the Wire. Someone who sells guns or does a bit of human trafficking. He’s definitely the toughest looking hombre in the Premier League. Aaaanyway, Leeds regained the lead soon after when my boy and fellow Bon Jovi enthusiast Bamford won a penalty and Klich cooly converted. Bamford then made it 3-1 with a cool finish and then he set up for the fourth for Costa. Great to see my boy doing well and silencing his critics. Choke on that Bad Medicine, Bamford haters. What? You don’t like it? Tough shit, I’m here all season and I’ve got a list of Bon Jovi puns as long as Nial Quinn’s neck. Bobby Reed came off the bench to fire Fulham back into the game and Mitrovic powered in a brilliant header to make it 4-3 and put the heebeegeebees up Leeds for the last 20 minutes. They held on for the win but I’m still none the wiser what to make of them. They’ve conceded seven goals in two games, but they’ve also scored seven. What’s more likely to dry up, the goals for or the goals against? Could go either way I think, but I hope they do ok because - longstanding historical rivalry aside - it’s far more interesting having a club like Leeds in the top flight than these fucking yo-yo clubs like West Brom and Fulham. So bored of them already. Scott Parker’s post match interview on MOTD was fucking hilarious though. When he finished I had this great urge to shout “PARKLIFE!!”. He’s a lively little cockney chappie isn’t he? Right little dapper don he is too. Doesn’t really look like a football manager though. More like a model for George at Asda. Ok, who else played on Saturday? Oh yeah, West Ham got beat again. They actually played well at Arsenal but they still lost and they’ve got a brutal run of games coming up too. Long term they’ll probably do what they did last year and be fine, but short term I only see misery and panic for the Hammers. Lacazette headed the opener but West Ham were denied two good penalty shouts. The first when Bowen was clipped was one you’d maybe get 25% of the time (or 99% if you’re Man United) but the handball one looked clear to me. Gabriel missed the header and the ball hit his arm. How is that not a pen when the Lindelof one was? This shit needs clarifying because we’re only two games in and no-one has a clue what’s happening with defensive handball at the moment. It’s like attacking handball last season. A complete farce. Antonio levelled and then twice almost put the Hammers ahead as they enjoyed a good spell of pressure. They didn’t take their chances though and substitute Nketiah tapped in with four minutes left to win it for the Gunners. Both Arsenal goals looked offside to me but with the technology they have now I assume they must have been ok, but that didn’t stop Moyes complaining. Have to admire his consistency. He’s never seen a decision he couldn’t complain about. Onto Sunday now and I must confess I was surprised that Leicester won. I heard on the radio they’d gone a goal down at home to Burnley and my first thought was “Yep, sounds about right”. After the way they ended last season it’s fair to say I’m not expecting much from them, even though I think they’ve got a lot of good players there. I just don’t trust them after the way they capitulated and usually when the tide turns Brendan ends up drowning. They’re currently top though, which means nothing after only two games I know, but it’s not really what I expected from them. Still, there’s still plenty of time for the arse to fall out of them again. They lost in the league cup this week which was a shame as we would have played them next. Still, it gives us a chance to beat Arsenal twice in a week so I’ll take that. We’d better fucking beat them or I won’t be able to contain my fury. I tell you, this whole not being able to beat Arsenal thing is taking the shine off all of our recent success. Seriously, what’s the point in trophies when you can’t beat those fucking gutless wastrels? Sort it out, Jurgen. It was a strange game actually as Burnley probably shaded it on chances. Wood put them in front but Barnes levelled. Leicester then went ahead when a Burnley defender deflected a cross past his own keeper, and then James Justin arrived in the box to make it 3-1. Jimmy Dunne headed in on his debut to get Burnley back in it. No idea who he is but this was his debut and he’s got the most Burnley appropriate sounding name ever. Throwback team, throwback football and he’s got a throwback name. Praett made it 4-2 with a crisp strike from 20 yards but Burnley can feel a little aggrieved at the scoreline given they probably had the better chances in the game. Harvey Barnes seems to get plenty of love on MOTD every week but I’m not completely sold on him. He’s decent enough but I imagine he’s probably one of those players who looks miles better on a spreadsheet than he does to the naked eye. Wouldn’t even be surprised if we were monitoring him. Elsewhere on Sunday, Spurs fucking smashed Southampton at St Mary’s but it was a weird game. The Saints actually looked really good going forward and could easily have scored more than the two they got from the brilliant Danny Ings, who is again being linked with a move to Spurs. I don’t think he’ll want to go anywhere as why would he want to go back to being a rotation player when he’s currently the main man? That Southampton defence though. Fucking hell. At times these lot are as bad as anything I’ve seen in the top flight. Fulham a couple of years ago were shocking but these are right up there too. Jack Stephens is a pub level player, Bednarek is no better and that big giant Danish fella is too ponderous to play the style of defending they want to play. What’s happened to Yoshida, he was always fairly competent. *checks wiki* Ok, he’s at Sampdoria and probably delighted to be away from the train wreck that is that Southampton back four. It doesn’t seem to matter who they play at centre back, they’re all just fucking woeful. Spurs sliced through them time and again, and all it took to do it was Kane hitting a first time ball in behind for Son to race onto. It’s not like there was anything clever about how Spurs played, they just took full advantage of Southampton’s ineptitude. I watched most of this game and it was entertaining, but that Saints defence looks like they’ve never been coached in their lives. Old Ralph must spend all of his time on the training field working on their high press, which is pretty damn good. But once you get past it and reach their back four it’s like taking They don’t have a back line, they have a back zig zag. They’re just all over the place. No organisation, no leader, no clue. I expect eventually they’ll sort it out and they’ll finish mid table again but right now they look like the team that conceded nine to Leicester. Still, credit to Kane and Son for taking full advantage of it. I despise Kane as you all know, but there’s no doubting his quality. He’s a great goalscorer but he can play too. When he’s not being a greedy selfish cunt he’s more than capable of picking a decent pass. I don’t know how many of you have watched the Spurs fly on the wall thing on Amazon, but having watched a load of clips from it I’ll defo give it a go when I’ve got the time. The bits I’ve seen have been fascinating, and I’m actually looking at Mourinho in a different light than before. I’ve always slated him for how he publicly criticises his players but I look at it somewhat differently now. He only does that with ones who are wasting his time and aren’t putting in the effort. He’s not going to slag off Kane or Son because they want to win and will do whatever it takes. Someone like Deli Alli though? Mourinho called him out for being lazy in training. He then had him in the office and said the same thing and told him that his career has stalled because he doesn’t put in the necessary effort. And he’s right. I think Mourinho’s attitude is that he’s won everything there is to win and has a CV as impressive as any manager out there, so he doesn’t give a fuck about upsetting players who have achieved the square root of fuck all. That’s why he had a go at United players when he was there, and it’s why he’s singling out some of the losers he has at Spurs. It’s not necessarily what I’d want to see my manager doing (and thank fuck we have Klopp) but having seen some of that documentary I don’t think it’s as wrong as I did previously. And yes, Deli Alli is just as big a tit as I suspected he was. Comes to something when there’s an argument and I’m siding with Eric Dier, but that’s what happened. Final point on this one. Southampton were awarded a pen for handball against Doherty and again, it looked well harsh. He wasn’t even involved in the challenge. One of his team-mates challenged the striker and the ball bounced up and hit Doherty’s arm. Yes his arm is outstretched because he was getting touch tight with the forward. He couldn’t have anticipated the ball would ricochet of two players and strike him. As I said though, if the Lindelof one is a pen then any time the ball hits a defender on the arm that whistle needs to go, and to be honest I hate it. Except when it’s against a team I don’t like, in which case it’s sound. Brighton’s win at Newcastle was a little surprising. Newcastle have bought well and had a good win to start the season, but Brighton battered them. The main damage was done by my boy Tariq Lamptey, who absolutely ran Newcastle ragged. He won the penalty that allowed Maupay to set Brighton on their way after just four minutes. Not sure that was a pen though as Saint-Maximin got the ball as well as the man. Maupay made it 2-0 soon after. Initially the linesman had flagged but VAR showed it was just onside. Lamptey twice went close to scoring himself and Brighton hit the post twice before eventually extending their lead through Connolly, but the game ended on a sour note for them when Bissouma was sent off for dangerous play, as his wild attempt at a back heel caught Lewis in the face. There seems to be a lot of discussion as to whether that should have been a red card or not but to me that’s clear. It’s reckless swinging your boot like that, and he smashed him in the face with his studs. So yeah, definite red. Of course Danny Murphy completely disagrees (calling it ‘ludicrous’ and a ‘shambles’) which re-enforces my belief that I’m right. Jamaal Lewis’ head must have been spinning, and not just with the concussion he got from that challenge. One minute you think you’re signing for the Mighty Reds, the next you’re at St James’ Park having some pint sized teenager making you look stupid and some other fucker is booting you in the face. Still, it could be worse. His old team-mate and fellow Norwich full back Max Aarons has been denied a move to Barcelona and is still in the Championship. Norwich are doing one hell of a job of ruining their players’ futures. Onto Monday now. Sheffield United lost again The Blades had their skipper Jon Egan sent off early on while that prick goalkeeper Villa signed from Arsenal saved a penalty from Lundstram. The sending off was soft. Egan was grappling with the forward but he didn’t drag him down and there’s a good case to be made that the keeper would have got there first anyway. It wasn’t a Christensen on Mané situation even though the punishment was the same. There wasn’t really anything between the sides but the penalty miss was massive. It wasn’t a bad pen and it’s a great save by Martinez, but I hate saying that because I don’t like the cunt. He was too mouthy in the Community Shield shoot out and I have a long memory over random little things like that. I’ll hold that grudge for at least another ten years. Konsa won it for Villa midway through the second half when he headed in at the back post from a corner. As I said last week, I’m holding off on predictions until I’ve seen everyone play another game or two, but I expect Villa to have a better season than they did last year and I expect the reverse to be true for Sheffield United. I hope I’m wrong on both counts though. Finally, City beat Wolves on Monday night. Didn’t see that coming as I thought Wolves would turn them over. They did twice last season, and this time they had the advantage of being much more match fit. It didn’t really show though. City were comfortably the better side in the first half and established a two goal lead thanks to a De Bruyne penalty and a Foden effort. Wolves were proper shite and I don’t know what the hell Nuno thought he was doing. Their best player is my boy Adama. So you’d want him on the ball as much as possible and you’d want him in areas of the pitch where he can do the most damage. Playing him wing back is all well and good when you’re going to be dominating possession and he can get forward, but in a game when you’re on the back foot it’s just fucking bullshit. It was doing my head in watching this. On the rare occasion he was able to get on the ball in the City half he looked really dangerous, but really he barely had a fucking kick. They went out and signed a right back from Barca this week but from my perspective the horse had already bolted. I wanted Adama running all over City but instead he had to play in a straightjacket. Wolves were much better in the second half and with better finishing would have got something out of the game. Jiminez pulled one back after some great play by Podence but they couldn’t find an equaliser and City scored a third with virtually the last kick of the game. We didn’t learn anything new about City in this game. They played some lovely stuff but when they come under pressure they always look like wilting. Wolves had them on the ropes in the second half but they just couldn’t land the knockout punch. Someone else will though. City aren’t that unbeatable force they once were, but as long as they have De Bruyne on the field they’ll always be a force. Just wish he’d fuck off to a club that actually deserves someone of his talent, humility and class. He’s too good for those petty, small time, cheating fucks.

Mohamed Salah put down a marker in the opening game of the season by scoring a hat-trick in Liverpool’s 4-3 win over Leeds United. The Reds needed the Egyptian to operate at the peak of his powers to overcome the newly-promoted side. He displayed composure from the spot to notch two penalties - the latter strike to secure the three points. Salah’s effort in between the two spot-kicks was a sumptuous volley that was perhaps Liverpool’s best moment of the night, drilling his effort with power past Illan Meslier in the blink of an eye. In the process of scoring his match-winning hat-trick, Salah became the second-fastest player to score 50 goals in home matches in Premier League history – reaching the feat in only 63 games. It’s achievements of that nature and his all-round brilliance on the field that have seen Salah installed as one of the top contenders in the bookmakers’ odds for the PFA Player of the Year award on a regular basis since his breakthrough season in the top flight in the 2017/18 campaign. Kevin De Bruyne won the award last season, while Virgil van Dijk claimed the prize in the previous term. The Belgian is considered the favourite ahead of Salah to win the title for the second time in a row, although Salah has solid odds of 5/1 among the leading bookmakers highlighted by SBO.net. There can be value to be found using sign-up offers and bonuses to utilise those odds, which could yield a healthy profit if the first game of the season is anything to go by for the Egyptian. Salah looked tired at times towards the end of last season, especially in the final matches of the term. He has been available to Jurgen Klopp on a regular basis throughout the past four years – he has barely missed a game due to injury – highlighting his fitness and determination. Having that extra edge on the pitch will be vital for the forward. He’s at his best when he can torment the opposition with his pace and skill as well harassing defenders in possession, creating further opportunities for himself, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino. The 28-year-old is entering the prime years of his career, and he will have been pleased to have converted all of the opportunities that came his way in the opener. If there has been a slight criticism of his play since the 2017/18 campaign – it has been a slight decline in his clinical edge in the final third. Salah’s goal production has fallen each year in the Premier League since his arrival at Anfield. It would have been an incredible feat to match the 32 goals he scored in his debut campaign in the two years that followed. However, he then notched 22 and 19 last season, missing some decent chances that he would have buried in his first year. It’s a harsh statement to make, but if Salah is to win the PFA Player of the Year award for a second time he has to be a cut above De Bruyne, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Harry Kane, Bruno Fernandes and Raheem Sterling. Only a special campaign of the ilk of his debut season with Liverpool will cut the mustard, and his perfect start will certainly aid his campaign to be the top man in the Premier League again.

On paper this is one of the three or four most difficult fixtures we’ll have to play this season. In reality though it was pretty easy. It never felt in doubt to me. Ok, the sending off just before half time helped massively, and Alisson needed to save a penalty, but this was comfortable. We had another couple of gears to go to if we needed them. We didn’t need them though. I thought Chelsea were shite but to some extent that’s to be expected. It’s a good time to play any team that’s trying to bed in new players (although it was only two, its not like they had a whole new team out there) as there’s basically been no pre-season to speak of. Chelsea were disjointed but they weren’t helped by Lampard’s insistence on playing out from the back and inviting pressure, especially in the second half when they were a man down. They didn’t do much even when they had eleven men. We penned them back and the only time they posed any threat was with the occasional counter attack. Even then Fabinho usually just snuffed it out with the minimum of fuss. He was terrific, which strangely seems to have taken some people by surprise. This isn’t anything new. He’s been great any time he’s played centre back and now that we have so many midfield options he should be regarded as a genuine option to play at the back if needed. And he will be needed, because ol’ Big Bird is injured yet again. So frustrating that. I think he’s great. I’d even go as far as to say that other than Van Dijk he’s probably the best centre back in the Premier League. He’s certainly the most under-rated, but then that’s probably because he misses so much playing time that no-one outside of ourselves would be able to pick him out of a line up. Matip is absolute quality but he’s got those same cheese string muscles that Sturridge and Lallana had, and chances are his career with us is going to end up going the same way. It’s a real shame, but thankfully we’ve got Fabinho who can just step in and perform like this. Joe was missing as well but his injury is less serious and he’s not as unreliable as Matip. His injury issues have been more bad luck that anything else and he's generally been available for most of the last year or two. I understand why plenty of Reds would like to see us add another centre back but I probably wouldn’t do it because what happens when all four are available? You’ll have one who can’t even make the bench, and that’s going to cause problems. So for now I’d stick with the three we have plus Fabinho. That’s a discussion for another time and place though really. Back to the game. As I said, Chelsea barely laid a glove on us because their only outlet seemed to be trying to get the limited Werner in on the counter, only any time he ran at Fabinho he got nowhere. Actually there was one time he got away but only because he tried to crudely run straight through him and the ball fortuitously bounced back off Fabinho’s face into his path before he shot wide. This game showed exactly why I never wanted us to sign him and why I spent months saying it in the diary. He’s a bull in a china shop and has zero guile at all. All he can do is run and shoot, which is fine when you’re playing on the break all the time, but that represents of 5% of our game these days. We rarely have that luxury. Imagine this fucker trying to play intricate little one twos around the box against a packed defence. He can’t do it. May as well ask him to tie his shoelaces while wearing boxing gloves. He's great at what he does but what he does wouldn't benefit us. The man has no finesse at all. Chelsea are welcome to him at that price. For all our dominance of the ball though we didn’t exactly create much either. There were some nearly moments but it was difficult as all Chelsea seemed to want to do was defend. Two hundred and odd million quid spent, mostly on attackers, and they’re sat back like Crystal fucking Palace. Eventually we were always going to find a way through and we would have done just before half time had Christensen not rugby tackled Sadio as he ran onto Hendo’s brilliant ball. Initially I wondered if Kepa would have gotten there first so I could understand why Paul Tierney didn’t immediately reach for the red card. It all happened so quickly in real time. It was obviously a foul but the keeper arrived on the scene to clear the ball as Mané was hitting the deck. It’s only when you see the replay that it becomes glaringly obvious that but for the foul Mané would have taken it in stride and Kepa would have been stranded in no mans land. After looking at the pitch side monitor Tierney correctly upgraded the yellow card to a red. This is how VAR is supposed to work. Last season was a farce but it’s been better so far. So with Chelsea down to ten I expected the second half to go well for us and it did. It was one way traffic, aided in no small part by Lampard’s bizarre insistence on trying to play out from the back. Once they went down to ten the first thing he should have done is put Giroud on to give them a focal point to get the ball up the pitch and away from their own goal. He didn’t though. Every time they had a goal kick they’d take it short and we’d swarm all over them. I lost count of the amount of times they ended up knocking it out for a throw in under pressure. Our lads probably couldn’t believe their luck. Thiago was brought on at the break and it didn’t take long for us to break the deadlock. What a fucking goal it was too. Just beautiful play between the front three. Absolutely gorgeous football. Bobby played it to Mo and then went for the return ball which was perfectly delivered to him. He then stood the ball up for Sadio to steal in front of his marker and plant a great header into the corner. Just a fantastic goal and really encouraging to see the front three combine like that. Five goals in two games for the strikers now. It’s a small sample size but hopefully it hints at a return to the crazy, prolific numbers we saw from them a few years ago. The sooner Firmino gets among the goals again the better. He had one first half opportunity when Salah picked him out, but it was defended well by Christiansen who blocked Bobby’s close range effort for a corner. The second goal came as a direct result of Lampard’s insistence on his team passing the ball around in dangerous areas. Sadio had given the ball away and was visibly annoyed with himself before he went chasing to try and win it back. Kepa didn’t even really dawdle on it either. He took a touch and then tried to play a pass but Mané was on him so quickly to intercept it and then score. Kepa is an easy target because he’s shite but that goal is as much on Lampard as it is him and I thought it was cowardly of Lampard to not shoulder some of the blame himself afterwards instead of throwing his under-fire keeper under the bus. A manager worth his salt would have said “I want us to play like that and we know the risks so if you want to blame anyone for that, blame me”. Not Fat Frank though. The snide. Deflect doubts about himself onto a player who is a convenient scapegoat. Some of the shit he came out with afterwards was embarrassing. I cringed all the way through his post match interview, which was full of passive aggressiveness and was more defensive than his tactical approach to the game. He even had the gall to suggest it wasn’t a clear red card! Tit. I’d have been fuming at that second half if I was a Chelsea fan. What was the point in all that fucking around at the back? Did he think anything good could happen by having Kepa playing one twos with his centre backs all day? Seriously, what was his end game there? Did he think they were going to go “bang bang bang” beat our press and go the length of the field and score? Talk about naive. They never got close to playing through us all day, even when they had ten. Kepa will take all the heat as usual but this moonfaced turd Lampard is a complete fraud. Watching this game removed any doubt about that. I could hardly believe what I was seeing, he played right into our hands. You know what this game reminded me of? Arsenal at Anfield last year. They played exactly the same way. Needlessly passing it around in their own six yard box and inviting trouble. If we’d wanted to and really pushed for it, we’d have put five or six past them easily. As I say, we had other gears to go up to if needed and if they’d converted the penalty then I’m sure we would have. They didn’t convert the penalty though and for that I’m claiming a double assist. I told you a few weeks ago when I ripped Alisson for his inability to save pens that you could thank me in a few weeks when he saved one. Not only that, but in this week’s round up I jinxed Jorginho by calling him the best penalty taker around and commenting that he never looks like missing. So yeah, double whammy from me there. Classic reverse jinxing. I'm on a roll with this shit. I got Trent scoring free-kicks again too, don't forget. I thought the penalty was soft but I'd have demanded it at the other end. Thiago didn’t mean to catch him and in truth he barely did, but there was just enough contact to knock Werner off balance and impact his shot, so I’m not going to complain about it. It would have been annoying as fuck to not keep a clean sheet though. Other than the pen I think they only had one other shot, which was well saved by Alisson shortly after the penalty stop. We didn’t exactly force Kepa into a load of saves either. Wijnaldum and Van Dijk both should have scored and Salah had a great turn and shot near the end. Sadio had one from distance well saved too after it took a big deflection. Generally though we had loads of promising situations but too often they didn’t amount to much of anything and most of the half was spent just controlling the game and passing it around, making Chelsea run. Milner was brought on for Keita (very quiet I thought) and Minamino was given a late run out for Firmino, but it was another substitute that we all wanted to see. It was great that we were treated to Thiago for 45 minutes wasn’t it? It was a shame Hendo had to make way for him as - along with Fabinho - the skipper had been our best player to that point. With most new signings it takes a few months for them to get up to speed but there are exceptions to that and Thiago was always going to be just that. You could just drop him into any team and he’d just do his thing. That’s not to say he is fully adjusted and familiar with how we play, but he’s such a clever, talented footballer it doesn’t matter. He’ll get better when he has more familiarity with how we play and the strengths and weaknesses of his team-mates, but this isn’t a Fabinho or Ox type situation where he needs to sit for a few months to learn how we do it. I mean, 89 touches in one half! Kinell. He had the fourth most touches of anyone on the pitch and more than anyone in the Chelsea team. We can see already what he’s going to do. He’ll just completely dominate the ball and allow us to control games even more than we do already. There were a couple of really quick passes into the front lads too that nobody else would have played. It’s going to be fun watching him. The one negative was the penalty he gave away but I put that down to him trying a little too hard to impress. He knows everyone in our team works like fucking Trojans on quadruple overtime pay and he was trying to show that he’s up for that too. So two wins from two and one of our most difficult looking fixtures negotiated. Mo and Sadio are among the goals, we’ve got a couple of quality new signings on board and things are looking good. Star man is a toss up between Fabinho and Mané. I’m going with Sadio because it’s hard to overlook two goals and forcing a decisive red card, but Fabinho ran him awfully close. We’ve got a cup match next so that’s a chance for Klopp to rest all of his starters and bring in the back ups. Even the second choice line up looks strong as fuck really. The squad now is ridiculous, as strong as we’ve ever had. Even getting on the bench is quite the achievement these days. I mean fucking hell, look at the players who weren’t in the 18 man squad for this one. Shaqiri, Matip, Ox, Gomez, Williams, Brewster, Jota, Elliott. I’ve probably forgotten one or two as well. Wilson too. See, I forgot him. It’s mad. We’ll run away with the league again this year. Hopefully Wolves can take care of City tomorrow and ensure they start their season on a downer. If City fall behind us early again they’ll give up like they did last year. And other than them who is there to worry about? Get in front and turn the screw on the bastards again, Redmen! Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson (Thiago), Wijnaldum, Keita (Milner); Salah, Firmino (Minaccino), Mané:

Saturday Sep 12: L 4 Leeds 3. So that was unnecessarily stressful. For all the talk of how well Leeds did, the truth is that we should have won this by a landslide based on chances. Leeds scored from every chance they had and that, combined with them somehow having more possession (certainly didn't feel like it when I was watching) makes this game seem closer than it was. It wasn't that much different to Norwich last year, other than Leeds being much more clinical. As irritating as this was at times, in the end there was no harm done and actually when you analyse what happened there's not really much to be concerned about. The concern would have been if we'd dropped points, but we didn't. In terms of how the game went, the good was that we looked good going forward and created a boatload of chances. The bad was that we made errors at the back, and we have been doing ever since footy came back after lock down. That's obviously a concern but it's more of a short term worry than a long term one. We know these lads can defend well and keep clean sheets, but they seem to have lost a bit of focus and concentration. I put it down to there not being any fans in stadiums and it's not something that will continue indefinitely. Fans might not be back any time soon though so they do need to sharpen the fuck up and I expect Klopp will be drumming that into them. Personally I'd be a lot more worried if we looked bad in attack, as this is an easier fix and it's easier to overcome. How good was Mo though? This was his best performance in a long time. He just looked dynamite all game. The hat-trick was well deserved and even though two were penalties it doesn't really cheapen it because the performance was so good. I hope this is a sign of things to come and we see 2018 Mo again, but one swallow doesn't make a summer. Sunday Sep 13: What the fuck is this? Arsenal are getting £20m for that keeper who played against us in the Charity Shield and acted the cunt during the shoot out. This is mad. I’d never even heard of him until Leno got injured and he got a run of games, but now he’s worth £20m?? And what's with Villa having that kind of dosh to throw around? So much for Covid killing the market. Mind you, we’ve signed a keeper too. Not for £20m like, and we’ll probably never even see him play for us, but we’ve spent a million or so on a Brazilian kid who Alisson recommended. We seem to be stockpiling young keepers and I don’t really understand it. We must have a dozen keepers on the books now, it’s like Jurgen has a fetish for them or something. Reports today have United having agreed terms with Thiago. Absolute bollocks, I’m just not buying this for a second. Thiago is playing for a much, much better side than United and he’d have to be a fucking moron to swap that to go and play for Solskjaer. It makes no sense. So when reports like this come out, you have to question who benefits from it. The obvious answer here is Bayern. They’re trying to force our hand, whereas we seem happy to just let it play out until Barca make us an offer for Gini or we can sell someone else to raise the cash needed. All the reports from sources close to Thiago seem to suggest he’s agreed everything with us. The way it's dragging out is annoying and I can't say I'm sure we'll get him, but he's not going to end up at United, that much I'm confident in predicting. You don't leave the European Champions to sign for Old Gunnar Solskjaer. Meanwhile, Mbappe again hints at leaving PSG next summer. This is all well and good, but who can actually afford what it will cost to get him? There's only really City, and that's only because they'll disregard the rules to do it. Kloppo should be telling Mbappe to stay there for the finl two years of his contract and that we'll come calling for him then. Monday Sep 14: Interesting interview with Ox today on goal.com. Specifically talking about us winning loads of games when not at our best, he said “I felt that for the most part of last season,” Oxlade-Chamberlain says. “When I look back on the season, as amazing as it was, there were a lot of times when I wasn’t happy with how I’d played, personally. That’s me being honest with myself, which I think you have to be. I know I can do better, and I don’t think I was the only one who thought that. “But if you look at the season before, when we finished second, we had a lot more games where we won 3-0 or 4-0. The difference last season, and it was obvious, was that in the games we didn’t play well in, we were still able to win 1-0 or 2-1. We’d find a way. We were drawing those games before. We’d win 4-0 and look unbelievable, then we’d not quite be on it and we’d draw 1-1, and drop points. That didn’t happen this time.” Also today, the agent of Marko Grujic says Liverpool want to keep him. Why? What’s the point? He’s 8th in line for a midfield spot and if Thiago comes he’ll be 9th. It’s not really fair to keep him when he’ll never play. So this seems to be a bargaining tactic. Tell Hertha Berlin “yeah if you don’t wanna pay for him that’s sound, we’ll just keep him”. There’s no way we’re keeping him though. Same with Wilson. Both of them will go as neither will even make the bench unless we have injuries. Not only can we not afford to keep assets like that when they can't make a matchday squad, but on a personal level it's unfair to keep them. That's just not how Klopp operates. Brewster should be concerned too really, as he's not getting near an 18 man squad when everyone is available either. Tuesday Sep 15: “You can’t put Van Dijk in the category of Kompany and Ferdinand. He’s too arrogant” said someone on Talksport. Usually you trace this this kind of nonsense to Adrian Durham and his radio clickbait. I swear he doesn’t believe half the shit he comes out with, but if it gets people talking and ringing in then job done. This wasn’t him though, it was a former Premier League player. I didn’t want to click on the link to the article to find out who it was as that would be falling into their trap. Instead, I had a look through the replies to the tweet and the player in question was….. Gabby Agbonlahor!!! Hahahahaha fucking hell, what kind of a world are we living in when the opinion of this bum is actually deemed worthy of airtime? Honestly, if you were to compile a list of former players whose opinion I’d value the least, arl Thicky Agbonlahor would be right up there with Dean Windass. He looks like he eats crayons. He also compared Grealish to “Iniesta in his prime” and said he’s the best player he ever played with. “When I played centre back in training for a bit of banter I couldn’t get near him”. Ok well thats me convinced. Kinell. Take that microphone off him and send him back to the oblivion he’s been in since he got too fat to play footy anymore. Speaking of Talksport though, Simon Jordan was killing it again today by pulling up Lampard on the bollocks he was talking about Klopp ‘spending big’. It’s ridiculous how so many seem to think Klopp has spent loads of money when the reality virtually all of the big signings have been funded by other players leaving. There’s so much lazy analysis about it, usually from ex pros, but maybe Jordan’s background as a club owner is the reason why he can see the reality of that situation. Or maybe he’s just not a fucking moron? Speaking of morons, Jim Davidson was trending on Twitter again today. Every time I see that I’m hoping the cunt has died, but every time it’s because he’s been a massive racist again. I’ve got a story about Jim Davidson. Many, many years ago me and a mate went to see him do a show in Southport. The place was about half full, and you could tell from the moment he came out that he had the hump about that, as let’s just say he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about his work. Anyway, as usual there were a few hecklers. Comedians love that as it gives them a chance to get some cheap laughs at the hecklers expense. Davidson didn’t do that though. He was just a nasty cunt. The thing I remember most about that night though was his act was so fucking shit and the jokes so obvious that my mate was calling out the punchlines before Davidson could get to them (which was way funnier than the actual jokes) and old Jim was fucking FUMING about it. I thought we were going to get thrown out at one point, which would have been doing us a favour. We ended up just walking out anyway as he was such an unfunny horrible twat. I used to watch a lot of comedy gigs back then and Davidson was by far the worst. He was even worse than Chubby Brown. In fairness, he was good the first time we saw him but I was sober the second time and that made a hell of a difference. Frank Skinner and Lee Evans were good but the best one I saw was, surprisingly, Mark Lemarr. He was really funny. Wednesday Sep 16: Speaking of comedians, David James tips Arsenal for the title. What the fuck is it with some of these ex pros? I think it’s become such a dog eat dog world now and punditry jobs are in such high demand that some of these lads feel the only way they can push themselves to the front of the line is to say controversial, stupid shit just to draw attention to themselves. There’s no fucking way James actually believes Arsenal are winning the title this year. Not unless he’s been on another 48 hour playstation bender. By the way, Agbonlahor is also tipping Arsenal to win the league within the next three years, which isn’t as bad as Jamo’s take but is still daft as fuck. Also today, I spoke to my mum before and she asked if I was coming round to watch the match on Sunday. As it’s Chelsea we’re playing she somehow shoehorned their game against Brighton into the conversation just so she could absolutely rip into poor Adam Lallana again. She’s not letting that hatred go, this was fucking brutal. He’s “a disgrace” apparently. I pointed out that he’s not getting injured deliberately, to which she replied “it was a minute before half time, why couldn’t he have waited? It’s because he knew the manager would tell him to get back on and stop being a wimp”. Jesus. “He walked off like there was nothing wrong with him. He should have waited until half time but he doesn’t even want to play, he’s a disgrace.” I told her she was talking shite but she doubled down on it and got even more hostile. “He wanted to get back to the dressing room before the others so he could have the mirror to himself to do his hair or put on his make up”. Then she compared him with Andy Carroll, who she says also doesn’t want to play and on the rare occasions when he does make an appearance “spends the whole game trying to elbow people so he can get sent off and get suspended”. She might actually have a point on that one, but lumping a great pro like Adam in with Big Andy is out of line. I don’t even hate Richarlison as much as she hates Lallana, and I REALLY hate Richarlison. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t be a transfer window without us being linked with Ousmane Dembele and the Spanish press have come through for us again, claiming we want him on loan. Who knows, maybe it’s true this time. I think I’d rather bring someone in on loan than spend £40m on Sarr. At least that way we’ll have dosh next summer for arl Kylian when he leaves PSG.... I see the Blues are revelling in the new found fame that “Hamez” has brought them. They were the most watched match in Colombia last weekend and their fan accounts are swinging their dicks about it, which is funny seeing as how they’ve always mocked us for being ‘global’ and revel in their relative anonymity and wear it as some kind of badge of authenticity. Now the first time they get a bit of overseas interest they’re all jizzing themselves. Sheffield United seem to be the favourites to land Brewster but there’s still talk from the LFC patch journos that he’s been touted around for £25m. How shit is this transfer window? We aren’t getting anyone, or if we do it’s going to be some second rate benchwarmer like Sarr. All the focus seems to be on trying to get money in by selling promising young players like Wilson, Grujic and now maybe Brewster. Meanwhile, every other cunt is signing players, even notorious mingebags Spurs, who are close to bringing in Bale on loan. Fucks sake, this is annoying. Thursday Sep 17: Ohhhhhhhhh yes, I cried that one in good and proper. Nothing like a good little reverse jinx. “We aren’t getting anyone, or if we are it’ll be some second rate bench warmer”. Next day, BOOM!! Thiago. You’re welcome people. There were actually twitter rumours last night about a private jet flying into Liverpool from Munich but we see so much of this shit that it was generally just disregarded by most of us. Turns out it probably was a pre-cursor to what happened today. I’m not saying Thiago will have been on the plane (he defo wasn’t) but it will probably have been representatives from the club and maybe the medical team. It was funny seeing the Echo shoot down the Thiago stuff eight minutes before everyone else confirmed it though. I have sympathy for the LFC reporters currently because it’s difficult for anyone to know what’s happening behind the scenes anymore as the club is such a tight ship these days, but the Echo seems to always be behind everyone else now. It’s a shame really as it used to be the go to place to have rumours confirmed or denied. Thiago though. This is quite the coup and I’m obviously made up, with one caveat. If it means Gini leaves then I’m a lot less thrilled about this deal than I expect most of you are, but equally as I’ve said before maybe we do need to tweak the style and that a player like Thiago might be the next step in the evolution of this great side. If Gini stays as well then I’m over the fucking moon about it. The thing that excites me the most about it are that I can’t wait to see what it means for the style of play. Thiago is so different to anything we already have that I’d say the change he will bring will be quite drastic. He’ll help us control games because he never gives the ball away, and he should help the forwards be more productive by getting the ball to them quicker and thus giving them that extra yard of space to do their thing. In addition to what we’re getting from Thiago the player though, the other thing that I’m buzzing off is what this represents. This lad was playing for a team that has won the Bundesliga seven or eight times on the bounce and is currently (along with the Reds) the best team in Europe. They wanted him to stay and offered him a new deal and he turned it down because he wanted to come and play for us. We’re fucking massive right now. This is the place everyone wants to be. That’s huge really. Remember when we kept losing our best players to other clubs because we’d dropped out of that group of Europe’s elite teams? Now we don’t have to worry about players leaving for ‘bigger things’ because there are no bigger things. This is where it’s at. Everyone wants to play for Klopp. Of course the money isn’t there for us to go and buy anyone we want but I doubt there is a top player anywhere in Europe that wouldn’t want to play here if he could. I’ve repeatedly said that I’d have rather we signed another forward than a midfielder and I stand by that. I’d have preferred Mbappe, Sancho or even Traore over Thiago just because I feel as though we need to strengthen that area more than midfield. That being said, it was important that we signed ‘a star’ (irrespective of position even) just for the impact it has on the dressing room and on the fanbase. When you don’t sign anyone things can go a little flat and stale. A new player though, especially someone who everyone in the dressing room will be excited about, well it just lifts everyone and raises the level of the players. That first training session with Thiago will be off the fucking scale. LFCTV should show that live and charge for it and make a fortune. They won’t, obviously, but I’m just saying, they could because we’d all pay for it. The other thing to consider here is the fee. £20m plus £5m add ons is good but it’s not that much less than Bayern were asking. We haven’t pulled their pants down on the deal, but by getting them to accept four yearly payments of £5m you have to say this is one hell of a fucking bargain, especially if Brewster brings in £25m which would over the entire deal. This sends out a nice, timely little message to everyone else; The best just got better. Friday Sep 18: HOLY SHITBALLS!!! Not only did we finalise Thiago today, but we’re getting the fourth forward we need as well. Granted, it’s not Mbappe, Sancho or Adama, but I’m not complaining as Diogo Jota is a boss little signing. I like him a lot and had I known he was only 23 I’d probably have suggested him myself but I thought he was a journeyman in his late twenties who was as good as he was ever going to get. Turns out he’s way younger than I thought and still has room to improve and become a genuine star. He perfectly fits the profile we look for in strikers. He’s a similar age to what the current front three were when we brought them in and I’d imagine his numbers are pretty similar to Sadio’s as he’s not too dissimilar in what he does. I don’t mean in terms of style (he’s more like Bellamy I’d say) I just mean in terms of his contributions to goals, assists and the general job he’s done at Wolves being similar to that of Sadio at Southampton. I’d imagine his nerdy pie chart spider graph thingy is similar to Southampton Mané when it comes to dribbles, sprints, shots and all that jazz. He’s very much a signing that fits in with how we do things and he can play anywhere across that front three. The age he’s at, and the experience he has, means he’s at that point where he’s ready to kick on to the next level as Sadio, Mo and Bobby did after coming here (the main reason I didn’t want Sarr is he’s still a year or two away from that). If he does that then we have the four man rotation I’ve been calling for. There might even be times when they all play together. Sadio and Jota wide, with Bobby behind Mo. When you look at that, as well as the ridiculous options we’ve got in midfield now, we’re going to be a lot less predictable for teams to plan for because we’ve basically got it all now. These two signings tip us right over the edge and I don’t see anyone even running us close this year. What a fucking day! Oh, I should also mention Ki-Jana Hoever leaving. Disappointing that but the writing was probably on the wall for him when he was overtaken by Neco. In the long term he might end up at centre back (and I hope we have a buy back clause in there because I still feel he could be really special) but he’s not the tallest and is probably a few years away from being able to play at the level we’d need in a centre back. I’m sure the initial plan was for him to break through as a right back but with Trent becoming the world’s best and then Neco’s rapid rise from Academy kid to first team talent there was just nowhere for Hoever to go. Letting him go makes sense, especially as we needed to raise money for Thiago and Jota. According to reports, only £4m or so of the Jota fee needs to be paid this year, and that's already been covered by the sale of Hoever. I expect we’ll see Wilson, Grujic and Origi all leave now too. Probably Shaq and Brewster as well. So by the end we’ll have ended up bringing in Jota, Tsimikas and Thiago and still coming out with a profit of around £100m. As Uncle Junior once said, “what did I tell ya, hold onto your cock when you negotiate with Michael Edwards”. Or something like that anyway, I forget. Spare a thought for Everton today though. They thought they'd won the transfer window again but not only was that taken away from them, their manager had this to say about Thiago: “Breaks my heart, breaks my heart. The only good thing about this signing is that he is a neighbour and that’s it. I think he chose the wrong team. “He could choose the blue team, not the red team. I am joking. He is a fantastic player and my friend, Jurgen, will be happy.” Ooof!! and that was the week that was…

The first couple of weeks of the season are a Manc free zone, so let’s enjoy that while we can because as soon as either of them has a convincing win over some turd team we’ll be subjected to the nauseating fawning over them. The back end of last season was a joke really. All that bollocks about “resurgent United” because they looked decent against a load of slapdick bottom half teams and because Leicester and Chelsea choked like dogs to let them sneak third. They’re still majorly flawed and they’ve still got a manager who got Cardiff relegated. Then we have City. Seemingly everyone is tipping them for the title, in many cases because of “how strong they looked after lockdown”. Did they really though? Or are people getting carried away by their flat track bully act? They lost the same amount of games as we did but the perception seems to be that they were great when footy came back and we were shite. This actually suits me just fine as I’d much rather not be the favourite, but it is a load of bollocks when you actually take a step back and look at it objectively. They shouldn’t be favourites because they’ve done nothing to suggest they’re better than us. Absolutely nothing at all. People have been completely fooled by City. They win so many games by cricket scores that it influences people into thinking that the bad results they have are somehow just a fluke. The bad results aren’t a fluke. They’re every bot as much who City are as the 6-0 wins. City will always finish with the best goal difference because when they get on top of a bad team they pound them into the ground and keep trying to score goals right up until the end. They’ll do it again this season. There’ll be games when they score six, seven, maybe even eight (although their personal bitch Watford getting relegated makes that less likely) and everyone will be going “oh aren’t City just wonderful”. Yeah, they are. When they have it their own way there’s nobody like them. At the risk of sounding all Neil Warnock though, the fact is they don’t like it up ‘em. Get City in a close game and you’ve got every chance of beating them. Just ask Lyon, or any of the nine Premier League sides who beat “Pep” last season. I feel like this is lost on most people though. It’s like how they’re always favourites for the Champions League even though they have zero pedigree in the competition. Why the fuck would City ever be favourites for the Champions League? There’s absolutely no logic to it as they’ve never done anything of note in Europe. Even when they seemed to have a clear path to the final this year they went and lost to a team that finished 7th in a “farmer’s league” for fucks sake. They’re about as welcome in Europe as Nigel Farage. In terms of the Premier League, on what basis do people have them being better than us? They lost nine league games last season and they finished 18 points behind us. Since then they’ve lost David Silva, while Sergio Aguero is another year older and the squad have had even more time to get sick of the sound of Guardiola’s voice, the fuckin’ weirdo. There’s only so much “guys, come on guys… we need to play better guys… ok guys, let’s do this guys” that even the most ardent professional can tolerate before he switches off completely. So I’m not sure why everyone just assumed that last year was a blip when City’s flaws have been exposed on so many different occasions. They’re a bully with a glass jaw. They look big and tough when they’re pounding on the weaker kids and stealing their lunch money, but as soon as anyone hits them back they run off crying (to the CAS when it was UEFA doing the hitting). If they sign Koulibaly that could certainly be a difference maker and if that happens then you could probably make a case for them being at least joint favourites with us. But as of yet they haven’t signed him, yet people are still falling over themselves to tip City for the title. It isn’t based in logic because over a sustained period of time (i.e. two full seasons) we’ve outperformed them massively and neither squad has changed much, other than City have lost Kompany and now Silva. So while I’m not shouting from the rooftops that we’ll win the title again, what I would say is that if you look at it rationally and sensibly then we should be seen as favourites, but I’m glad we’re not. I won’t be making any predictions in these round ups until we’re four or five games in though. Actually no, I’ll make one prediction right off the bat. Fulham are going straight back down. They’re no different to how they were last time they were up. I’ll reserve judgement on Leeds (and West Brom too, I suppose) but my mind is already made up about Fulham. They’ve got no chance of surviving, especially as that bum Tim Ream is STILL at the heart of their defence. Incredible. Nothing has changed with them since last time. They played nice football and created some chances against the Gunners, but they lost 3-0. Standard Fulham that. Lacazette got the first, new boy Gabriel shouldered in the second and Aubameyeng hit a brilliant third. That was a great move and a terrific finish. How weird was it seeing Willian playing for Arsenal though? He’s a good signing for them as he’s already their second best player behind Aubameyeng. Arsenal will definitely have a better season than last time but how much better only time will tell. Beating Fulham isn’t an indicator of anything, as everyone will beat Fulham. Elsewhere, there’s a real dark cloud hanging over West Ham at the moment and for once it isn’t David Moyes. In fact, much as I enjoy ripping into Moyes the fact is he actually did a decent enough job last season in keeping them up. They ended the season in encouraging form, with Antonio scoring goals and there generally being a more upbeat vibe about the place. That’s gone now though. The fans fucking hate the owners though, and who can blame them? I hate them and they don’t have anything to do with my club. Sullivan, Gold and Brady are the reason I wanted West Ham to go down last season. Other than them (and Moyes, obviously), I’ve got no beef with the Hammers. I still want them to go down this year but at the same time I do feel sorry for the fans. This isn’t a Newcastle situation where I just think the fans have the owner they deserve. West Ham’s fans have done nothing to deserve these fuckers. The unrest has really increased in recent weeks due to their transfer activity. No signings of any note and they sold some kid who had looked good in pre-season and who the club apparently had high hopes for. Things are so bad that club captain Mark Noble took to twitter to express his disapproval at that decision. I like Mark Noble. It’s not a popular view but I think he’s sound and him speaking out against how the club is being run only reaffirmed that. COVID is the best thing that could have happened for West Ham’s owners as it means no fans in the ground to protest. Can you imagine the unrest there’d be if fans were in the London Stadium right now? They were convincingly beaten at home by Newcastle and Moyes even admitted as much afterwards. The Geordies have done some good business this summer. Jamaal Lewis was good enough to attract a bid from us so he’s quite the coup for them. Ryan Fraser may be a turd and a wretched individual (© Simon Jordan) but he improves their squad significantly, as does Jeff Hendrick, while Callum Wilson is EXACTLY what they needed. He will definitely score goals for them. He broke the deadlock at West Ham with a poachers effort at the near post and Hendrick’s smart finish wrapped up the win. I could even see them finishing in the top ten this year but I’ll hold off on that for another few weeks. Can’t believe Southampton lost at Palace though. They were one of the form teams of the second half of last season and looked to be heading in the complete opposite direction of struggling Palace. I had them down as a banker there but Palace are the absolute fucking masters of the “how the fuck did they win that” result. Zaha got the only goal of the game when he volleyed in a cross by Townsend. Other than that it was mostly Southampton but they couldn’t beat an inspired Gueita in the Palace goal, while in fairness Zaha could easily have had a hat-trick and looked very dangerous. Looks like he might have to stay at Palace another year unless something drastic happens. The most interesting thing that happened in this game was a red card for Kyle Walker-Peters that was overturned after a VAR review. This was great, really encouraging. Fat Jon Moss got it badly wrong as although the kid was high he didn’t really catch the Palace player. It was never a red card in a million years although in real speed I could maybe see why Moss may have thought it was worse than it was. So Craig Pawson has a look and then tells Moss to go and check it out on the monitor to see what he thinks. Moss has a look and changes his mind. That’s exactly how this thing was supposed to work when it was brought in. So how come we had that entire year of complete bollocks last season? It’s really not difficult, just let the on field ref use the tech and then either stick with his decision or change it. If he sees the video and STILL gets in wrong then we can all hammer the cunt. Which no doubt we will when Moss hands out yet another phantom pen to United and then stands by his horrific decision. It will happen. You know it will. Still, I can’t believe I’m saying this and the likelihood of it happening against at any point this season is virtually non-existent, but…. well done Jon Moss. Sidenote on this one. Southampton’s kits this season are sexy as fuck by the way. They wore the away shirt in this one but the home one is even nicer. Just lovely. Ok, so I know I said I wasn’t making any predictions yet but fuck it. West Brom are going down too. Them and Fulham plus one more as yet unnamed team. There’s just no way either of those are staying up though. I’m prepared for the possibility that I might be writing the Baggies off too early, but no way are Fulham proving me wrong. West Brom were beaten easily in the end by Leicester but the first half was pretty even. The game changes when new signing Castagne stole in at the back post to head Brendan’s boys into the lead and after that they never looked back. He’s their only signing so far despite them bringing in a huge fee for Chilwell. He’s a right back, but they’re well stocked there with Ricardo and James Justin. Why not sign a left back, Brendan? He’s proper shite at transfers isn’t he? Do Leicester have a transfer committee he can blame? What’s Aly Cissokho doing these days? Vardy then doubled Leicester’s lead with a penalty. Bit of a soft decision as it looked like an accidental off the ball collision. He added another penalty to make it 3-0 late on. This was a stonewaller. Vardy always scores against West Brom and their fans fucking hate him. He's always rubbing their noses in it when he scores and even though the stadium was empty he still couldn't help himself and ran to the home end cupping his ears. Top notch shithousing as usual from Vardy. Final note from this. I’d forgotten just how much I hate James Maddison’s face as I hadn’t seen him since before lock down. His face and his hair is proper annoying. I feel the same way about him that my mum did about Lallana for all those years. Some faces and haircuts just rub you up the wrong way I suppose. One face that I most certainly hadn’t forgotten how much I hate is that Richarlison cunt. I hate his face even more now he’s bleached his hair. I actually think he’s the player I hate the most in the entire league, he’s just such a massive cunt. I’d never tire of slapping him and I reckon Calvert-Lewin probably feels the same way. That chance he wasted when all he had to do was cut back to an un-marked Calvert-Lewin was a fucking disgrace. Greedy selfish prick. On another day it might have cost Everton but not this day, because Spurs were terrible. Calvert-Lewin superbly headed in the only goal of the game to give them a rare win away at Spurs. Lot of nonsense being spouted about this new look Everton and how much stronger they are with their new signings. They’re still shite and they’re in debt up to their eyeballs. House of cards that is. Spurs are shite too. There’s just no fun about them anymore. It’s all very dull and stoic these days. Maybe Gareth Bale can give them the spark that’s missing but I suspect it’s going to take more than him to completely cancel out the Mourinho effect. They’re just so fucking uninspiring and if they had fans in the ground I suspect there’d be plenty of unrest at how they’re playing. The results have been ok since lockdown ended but they’re boring as fuck to watch. Doherty is a good signing I think. I like him a lot. Hoijberg not so much. It’s going to be fascinating to see what Bale does though. He was amazing in his last few seasons with Spurs before he left but he seems to be injured a hell of a lot and it remains to be seen how he’ll cope with being asked to play as a second left back in Mourinho’s 6-4-0 system he uses in big games. Onto Monday now, where there was actually TWO games played. Why were Wolves and Sheffield United playing at teatime? Is this how it’s going to be now, because fans aren’t in the ground no-one gives a shit what time games kick off anymore? I don’t like this. I understand that each game needs to be televised, but this is shit. There were only four games on Saturday Wolves won this game inside the opening six minutes when they scored twice. A lovely controlled finish by Jimenez set them on their way and Seiss added a second with a great header from a corner. By the time the Blades had settled the damage was already done. Wolves could have scored more as they hit the woodwork twice. They look to be the best equipped of the “non big six” clubs to break into the top six this season. They should be thinking they can finish above Spurs at least. Maybe Arsenal too. Mendez FC are going to be interesting this season as they’ve made a few new signings. It looks like my boy Adama is going to be playing wing back as they’re completely stacked with forwards but sold Matt Doherty to Spurs. Playing Traore there is either going to be a masterstroke or an absolute waste of his talent. Maybe he’ll get pissed off and demand a transfer, and we can do a swap with Wilson, Origi and Grujic. What would I give for that? I’m so desperate for us to sign him that if that happened I’d even be willing to oil up his muscles before games. Who’s with me? Let’s grease up this beefcake, gang…. Chelsea have been getting a lot of positive press too after all the new signings they’ve made. They look to have bought well but there are two reasons why I’m not yet too concerned about them. Firstly, Frank Lampard. His teams concede shitloads of goals and there’s nothing as yet to suggest he’s a top level manager. Secondly, their keeper is SHITE. It’s funny really. Lampard was lauded last year for bucking the Chelsea trend of spending big and instead concentrating on bringing through young players like Tomori, Hudson-Odoi, Mount, James and Abraham. As soon as their ban was lifted though what happened? Bish bash bosh, two hundred million spent and most of the kids are out in the cold. James is still in the side and he scored a cracker as they beat Brighton 3-1. It wasn’t the most convincing performance and Brighton gave as good as they got, despite losing Lallana to a first half injury. The poor bastard, it’s just really sad. Hopefully he isn’t out too long but his body just can’t cope with the demands of top flight footy anymore can it? He’s got the same cheese string muscles that Sturridge has and it’s such a shame. Anyway, Chelsea had taken the lead courtesy of a Jorginho pen (he might be the best in the business as he just never looks like he’s going to miss) but Trossard lashed in an equaliser. Plenty of fingers pointed at Kepa for that, and rightly so. He’s the Spanish Brad Jones. James hammered in from 25 yards to put Chelsea ahead again before Zouma’s scruffy late deflected effort killed off Brighton. In between those two Chelsea goals though Lewis Dunk missed an absolute sitter at the back post. We’ve got Chelsea next week though so my lips are sealed until then, and if the football fates can just forget everything I’ve written about Timo Werner these last few months too that would be appreciated.