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So much to get through here to get this out before the New Year games, so I’ll dive straight in to the Boxing Day fixtures and start at Old Trafford where the Mancs were given several late Christmas presents by Steve Bruce’s Newcastle. Matty Longstaff had all but disappeared after scoring against United earlier in the season, but Newcastle wheeled him out again for the return fixture and he scored again to put them in the lead. Lightning couldn’t strike twice, surely? No, it couldn’t, unfortunately. Solskjaer’s side were given gift after gift after that and ran out comfortable 4-1 winners. Dubravka’s error allowed Martial to equalise, then Schar’s howler allowed Greenwood to make it 2-1 with a thunderous shot. United’s third came via the head of Rashford from a Wan-Bissaka cross. The ginger Longstaff had been smashed in the face by a McTominay elbow in the build up but as we know VAR won’t disallow Manchester United goals at Old Trafford for clear fouls in the build up. Maybe that elbow gave him a concussion as not long after he played a backpass straight to Martial to send him clear for the fourth. Basically three of the four goals were handed to them by Newcastle and the fourth was a present by the officials, but to be fair they were all finished superbly. United do have quality in the final third, even if they’re massively flawed everywhere else on the pitch. United twitter was cock a hoop with the Wan-Bissaka assist (his first of the season, for the record). Cries of “Trent who?” and “this is England’s best right back” rang out all over social media. Trent v Wan-Bissaka is actually a thing, believe it or not. Granted, it’s only a thing on United Twitter and nobody else gives it the time of day, but if you don’t believe me just do a search and enjoy. You can thank me later. The jist of their ‘argument’ seems to be that Wan-Bissaka is a ‘proper’ full back who can defend, and if he can just improve a little going forward then he’ll therefore be miles better than our boy. Here’s the thing. I’ve had a theory on this type of thing for a while. If you’re a full back who is shit going forward (Wan-Bissaka, Eric Pieters, Paul Dummett etc) then the general consensus is that you must a boss defender. Conversely, full backs who specialise in going forward (Dani Alves, Trent, Digne, Marcelo etc) are all seen to be lacking defensively. In some cases it’s true but it also tends to be wildly exaggerated on both ends. Ashley Cole would be the most obvious example I suppose. Believe it or not, there are people (mostly Evertonians) that don’t think Robbo is a good defender. It’s very rare you get someone who is lauded for his play at both ends. Generally though it’s just lazy, stereotypical analysis. Good going forward = shite defender. Shite going forward = strong defensively. Yet this so called elite defender Wan-Bissaka gave away a stupid penalty at Watford with a wild lunge last week. I also remember him being embarrassed by Josh King for Bournemouth’s winner. There’s two howlers just off the top of my head and I don’t even watch them every week. So he’s not that great at defending, is he? And he gives you fuck all going the other way. Trent isn’t perfect defensively but he’s better than he’s given credit for (he’s been a mainstay of the best defence in Europe for the last two years) and he’s by far the best attacking right back in world football. Trying to compare Wan-Bissaka with him is laughable, but this is where United are right now. Always looking for these little ‘victories’ that they can claim because they’ve got fuck all else to shout about. I even saw one of their fan accounts tweeting the goal totals for Martial, Rashford and Greenwood compared with Salah, Firmino and Mané. The United trio have scored more, which apparently means something (even though half of those goals have come against farmers and plumbers in the Europa League). You can have your little ‘win’ there lads, good for you. We’ll just completely gloss over the fact that the rest of our team have scored shitloads more than the rest of yours and we aren’t completely reliant on three forward players. We’ll also completely gloss over the 24 point lead we’ve got over them with only half a season played. You sit there knocking one out to your one assist right back and your three strikers who are apparently better than Sadio, Mo and Bobby. Good for you, Man United fans. Good for you. *condescending pat on the head* Meanwhile, Chelsea lost at home to shite again. What a weird team. They won at Spurs but have recently been beaten at the Bridge by Bournemouth, West Ham and now Southampton. “This kind of inconsistency is what happens when you play youngsters”. Fuck off. It’s not like they’re sending out a side like we put out in the League Cup. They’ve got some boss young players (who are all well experienced from loans at other clubs) and a load of seasoned internationals like Azpilacueta, Willian, Kante, Jorginho and others. Their struggles at home have nothing to do with youth, it’s just one of those things that good (but not great) teams often have problems with. We’ve been there ourselves for most of the last 30 years. Chelsea can raise their game when they play the better sides and they look very good when it’s an open game and they have space to play in. When they face a defensive team and the onus is on them to make all the play and break them down, they struggle. If Lampard is the real deal he’ll figure it out. If he isn’t, he won’t. At the moment it’s too early to tell. Might be an idea to play Giroud in these type of games and look to get wide and get crosses in to him, because what they’re doing at the moment sure as hell isn’t working. It’s not like they’ve deserved to win any of those games. Southampton were well worth the win and have gotten themselves on a bit of a roll of late. Not before time. I’ve been saying for ages they shouldn’t be as shit as they have been because they have some good players there. They rested Ings for this one and his replacement, some cat named Obafemi (never heard of him before) scored the opening goal. Well taken it was too. Chelsea huffed and puffed but couldn’t find a breakthrough and Southampton added a second through Redmond. That was a fucking great goal. It felt like there were about 50 passes and the ball went all around the pitch and back before they worked it forward and played Redmond in. Seriously brilliant goal that. Across London, Spurs were lacklustre in a fortuitous win over Brighton. Kane thought he’d put them ahead only for VAR to rule it out for offside. Really close one but it was off. Brighton were then awarded a free-kick when that full back who looks like a pirate took a dive over a challenge from Winks. Definitely no contact, but Winks was booked which earned him a suspension, and Brighton scored from the free-kick when their centre half Webster thumped in a header. Kane equalised when he scored from a rebound after his initial shot had been saved, and Alli won it with a clever lobbed finish. Mourinho’s arrival doesn’t seem to have had any immediate impact. Spurs don’t really look much different and they’re leaking a lot of goals, which is surprising. The only obvious improvement is that Alli has decided to pick up the tools he downed 18 months ago. MOTD showed an incident where Kane went down holding his face after the faintest of contact from the arm of a defender. Lineker bemoaned how social media complains that they don’t look at incidents like that when they involve England’s golden boys like Kane and Sterling, so they would take a look at this one. The verdict? Murphy said “he got a whack”. Ian Wright said “everyone goes down for that kind of contact” and Lineker said “much ado about nothing”. He then added “Happy now?”. No, Gary. I’m not happy actually. Social media was clearly right. In future you may as well not bother if you’re going to just whitewash Kane’s cuntery like this. Next up, Palace and West Ham. Two dogshit teams, one of whom has been masquerading as something better. I keep saying that Palace are woeful and they keep fucking winning. It’s doing my head in. Mind you, everyone is beating West Ham these days. Things got so dire for them they eventually turned to Davie Moyes. More on that later though. My boy Snodgrass put the Hammers in front with a lovely finish but West Ham old boy Kouyate equalised. Palace won it when another West Ham old boy (I think, it may have been his brother who played for them?) Jordan Ayew scored a sensational individual goal in stoppage time. Beautiful goal that, great balance and technique. I see that Connor Wickham was playing for Palace. It’s funny, every time he plays I think the same thing “fucking hell, I’d forgotten all about him”. It’s because every time he plays he then disappears for ten months. I’ll be writing the same thing this time next year probably. Mark Noble completely lost his shit with Ogbonna and had to be held back by team-mates, including Antonio. If he’s holding you back then you’ve got no chance of getting anything done. I don’t know what Ogbonna did to incur Noble’s wrath but that’s not something you would normally see from Noble and it shows what a fucking mess West Ham are in at the moment. Another of the claret and blue sides, Aston Villa aren’t doing much better either, although they did scrape a rare win over Norwich. Hourihane broke the deadlock when he fired in after good work by Grealish. Norwich had missed loads of chances before that and they squandered a great one after it when Heaton pulled off a great save. I feel like Norwich are just really fucking unlucky you know. They’ve had loads of games where they deserved more than they got. I’m rooting for them, I want them to get out of it. Greasily is Villa’s one shining light and he knows it. “I love that the lads rely on me and I thrive off it”. Classic big fish in a small pond mentality that. He’s good but maybe he’s more of a Matt Le Tissier than a Jordan Henderson. Ancelotti got off to a winning start as Everton edged out Burnley in a game that was only marginally less shit than their draw with Arsenal a few days earlier. Calvert-Lewin scored again. He’s clearly shit, and most Blues even seem to think so, but somehow he’s finding the net nearly every week. He’s the new Darren Bent, only with tighter shorts. He was linked with Man United this week which would be the funniest transfer of all time if it happened. The likelihood is that it was just his agent putting it out there to get him a new contract, and it looks as though it worked too. I hate that big lump Chris Wood you know. The more I watch him the more I hate him. Nothing personal, it’s not like he comes across as a bad lad or anything. I just hate watching him as he’s a big yard dog. I saw him miss an easy header in this game and it infuriated me. It’s the one thing he’s meant to be good at. You have one job, you big useless fucking dope. That Dan Gosling jabroni put Bournemouth ahead at home to Arsenal but they couldn’t hang on and Aubamayeng equalised from close range. Callum Wilson thought he’d won it but he was just offside when he converted a rebound from a Harry Wilson shot. Arsenal are so fucking shit. Absolute bunch of losers. Arteta claimed they’re the biggest club in England it’s time they started acting like it. Another cunt who thinks nothing outside of London matters. How can anyone make that claim with a straight face? Mind you, he played for Everton and he coached at Man City, so the bitterness is strong in that one. Aubamayeng reportedly wants out in January. Of course he does. Who wouldn’t? He should never have signed for them to begin with though. Why would you leave Dortmund to join Arsenal? Money, that’s the only reason. Still, he couldn’t have imagined they’d be as bad as this. He’s got China written all over him I reckon. Watford’s improvement under Nigel Pearson continued as they picked up a battling point at Sheffield United. Deulefeu ran through to give them the lead but Will Hughes brought down Baldock and Norwood equalised from the spot. The Blades were the more likely winners but they came up against Ben Foster on one of those days he tends to have now and then where he looks like the best keeper to have ever played the game. Such a strange one him. I don’t think there’s anyone in the league who makes more incredible saves than him but he’s also prone to massive clangers. He’s the English Hugo Lloris. The day after Boxing Day saw a cracking game at Molyneux where Wolves came from 2-0 down to beat ten man Manchester City. This is almost too good to be true now, isn’t it? It wasn’t that long ago when City never lost any games, now they’ve lost five in their last 12 or something. It’s fucking great. This loss will have really hurt them because they put so much into it and for a while it looked like they were going to pull off a hugely impressive win against all the odds. Ederson was sent off early doors but they took the lead from the penalty spot soon after. It took over five minutes from when the incident took place to when the ball ended up in the net though. What a farce that was. Initially the referee didn’t give the penalty but VAR intervened and over-ruled him. A lot of people weren’t convinced but to me it’s a stonewall pen as the defender stands on the foot of Mahrez as he’s running. Definite pen, but let’s also make a point here of drawing attention to VAR benefitting City as it seems to have been lost on some people (most notably City’s fucking deluded conspiracy theorist fanbase). Sterling stepped up to take it and was denied by the keeper. Then VAR intervened again to rule that Conor Coady had encroached and because he cleared the ball, the kick needed to be retaken. Coady wasn’t in the box but he was in the ‘D’ and that’s not allowed. Even as a schoolkid I knew that, but as we’ve discovered over the last couple of days poor Conor struggles a little bit when it comes to understanding the rules of the game. So anyway, Sterling got another chance and this one was saved too. Not surprising at all to me, as honestly, he’s probably the last person in that Man City team I’d be letting anywhere near a penalty kick. I couldn’t believe they let him take it as despite the amount of goals he scores, his ball striking is shite. He scored from the rebound of course, as six yards out in front of an open goal is very much his comfort zone. In fairness his second goal was finished superbly. Good run, lovely linked finish over the keeper. 2-0 at half time and I stopped following it at that point as my phone battery was low, so I plugged it in in the kitchen and forgot all about it. I had a nice pleasant surprise when I checked the phone at full time! My boy Traore had gotten Wolves back in the game with a powerful blast from 20 yards into the bottom corner, and then he robbed the hopeless Mendy to put one on a plate for Jimenez to equalise. A draw would have been great, I’d have been made up with that, but it got even better when Doherty won it in the last minute by dancing around the traffic cone that is Otamendi and beating Bravo. There was still more drama as City were awarded a free-kick in the dying seconds and Sterling hit the bar with it. Defeat was probably harsh on them all things considered but they can’t defend so they keep losing games they normally never would have. Turn out the lights, the party’s over for Man City. Onto the next round of fixtures now. Leicester traveled to West Ham without Vardy and with Brendan making sweeping changes. Only Schmeichel and Evans kept their places and everyone else was rested. If West Ham were ever going to get a result to ease the pressure on Pellegrini then this was the time. And they couldn’t do it, the fucking bums. Leicester’s reserves got the win with goals from that Iheanacho cunt and Demarai Gray to stay in second place and maintain their lead over Man City. I had been hoping for a West Ham win to put Leicester even further back. I’m not actually worried about being caught by them but the bigger cushion we have the better. On the flip side, if they finish ahead of City then that will send Brendan’s ego soaring into another stratosphere and it will be a blow to Guardiola that might send him scuttling off back to Europe to look for another job where the deck is stacked in his favour. After all, ‘Pep’ doesn’t like competition. Don’t know why he doesn’t just go to PSG or Juventus and be done with it. West Ham reacted by ditching Pellegrini (an obvious call they should have made a while ago really) and bringing in Davey Moyes. It’s a mad one that, as he was there before and they didn’t want to keep him as they thought they could do better. Now they’ve gone crawling back. Moyes is seen as a joke figure by most people but I think he’s an obnoxious twat, just because of how arrogant and deluded he is. Look at these comments he made when he took the job: "They are getting a very experienced Premier League manager. I think there's only two or three managers with a better Premier League win record. That's what I do, I win. I'm here to get West Ham wins and get them away from the bottom three." I mean fucking hell, who talks about themselves like that? Mourinho maybe, but when you’d got a CV like his you can boast all you like. Yeah, it makes you look like a right big headed bastard, but no-one is actually going to dispute the validity of it. Moyes has won fuck all but acts like he’s God’s gift to footy management purely on the basis of the job he did at Everton. Ask Sunderland fans if they think he’s a winner. Or Real Sociedad fans. Or Man United fans. He’s lying his arse off as there are loads of managers with a better win record than him. If he had an ounce of humility or self awareness I wouldn’t have a problem with him, but such levels of arrogance from someone who has achieved so little just makes him an unlikeable prick. He’s like Tim Sherwood and Alan Pardew only without the fun aspect. Yeah, they’re both wankers but those two at least have a ‘wrestling heel’ persona about them. They know they’re twats and they play up to it. Moyes is just a charmless, dull, big headed bastard who doesn’t even know he’s a wanker. I really hope he takes them down. Anyway, moving on. Norwich’s bad luck continued as they fucking battered Spurs but ended up drawing after conceding a late equaliser. Vrancic (whoever the hell he is) put them ahead after Foyth was caught in possession. Norwich do that high press very well and they caused Spurs a lot of problems with it. My boy Pukki thought he’d made it 2-0 only to see it ruled out by VAR. It’s just bullshit this. Under the stupid fucking rules they have now, technically he is offside, but as I keep saying, look at the feet as that gives you a much better reflection of what ‘should’ be offside and what shouldn’t. His feet are well onside because he bent his run to get onside, but because he’s leaning forward as he’s sprinting, and the defender is standing more upright, his shoulder is an inch or two offside. In terms of the cruelest VAR offside calls we’ve seen, this might be number one. I just feel bad for Norwich as they deserved to win this game and morally that should not be offside. Morals have nothing to do with it though unfortunately. Eriksen’s free-kick drew Spurs level but an own goal from Aurier restored the Norwich lead. He’s shite that Aurier but there was nothing he could do about that. Didn’t stop social media from savaging him of course. Kane then went tumbling in the box to win a pen, which of course he buried with the minimum of fuss. Not everyone thought that was a penalty but as much as I’d like to accuse him of diving (again) I just think that was clever play. The defender launches himself into a tackle and slides right across him. To me, Kane is an idiot if he tries to avoid that. Spawn point for Spurs to go with the undeserved three they got against Brighton. Watford smashed Villa at Vicarage Road as my boy Troy enjoyed himself against the side he hates more than any other. He grew up a Birmingham fan and loves scoring against Villa. He reacted first to a loose ball to put the Hornets 1-0 up. Mariappa was then sent off for two quick yellows but it didn’t make any difference. Deeney won a pen and smashed it home to make it 2-0 and Sadio’s ‘shy boy’ Sarr added a third. Watford are off the bottom now and have a decent run of games coming up. Things are looking up for them it seems. Villa were unhappy that Watford didn’t put the ball out before the second goal as one of their players was on the floor with a pulled hamstring. Villa had the ball and could have put it out themselves, but Grealish tried to nutmeg a Watford player and gave it away. Deeney said “They lost the ball. Are we then supposed to put it out? It is what it is, we’re in a relegation battle, we’re not here to shake hands and be nice”. I agree with him, as I usually do because he talks a lot of sense. This is different to the Iheanacho thing the other week and Watford were within their rights to do what they did. They probably SHOULD have put it out, but when Grealish didn’t do it that gave them the justification to play on. When you watch the replay though Grealish has no idea his team-mate has gone down, but you can’t expect Watford players to be aware of that at the time. Villa also thought they should have had a free kick in the build up to the third when Grealish appeared to be caught late. The ref saw it and gave nothing so VAR didn’t want to over-rule and the replays suggest that Grealish made a meal of very little (if any) contact because he’d given the ball away. It’s immaterial anyway as Watford were well deserving of the win and should have scored more than they did. Dean Smith said as much to be fair. “I was frustrated with that (the non-foul on Grealish) but I was more frustrated with how my team played”. I like him. He’s the only thing about Villa that’s decent. Ancelotti’s winning start continued as the Blues went to Newcastle and won. They went in front when the ball broke kindly for Calvert-Lewin to finish from close range, but Carroll had the ball in the net after Almiron’s shot hit the post, only he was a yard offside. Didn’t need VAR to spot that one. Carroll then nodded one down for Schar to equalise but Calvert-Lewin restored Everton’s lead from a couple of yards. He almost fucked it up, completely missing his kick only for it to trickle over the line. Like I said, the new Darren Bent. Somehow Newcastle were denied a late penalty when Sidibe shoved Carroll in the back with two hands as he attacked a set-piece. How is VAR not giving that? I can understand why Lee Mason missed it because he’s shit, but when you can clearly see the defender shoving him with two hands in the back while Carroll is in the air, I just don’t know how you can not give that. Obviously I wanted Everton to lose but I’m fine with how this played out as their winning goal came right after the Geordies had been singing “Feed the Scousers”. Fucking have some of that you clueless, Tory enabling wankers. Speaking of which, you know how irrelevant the Mancs are now? I didn’t even know how they got on at Burnley until just now as I’m watching it on MOTD. That’s how irrelevant they are, I’m not even looking out for their scores as it means fuck all. For the record, they won 2-0 as Burnley followed Newcastle’s lead and gift wrapped the opening goal for Martial, before Rashford finished it off following a late counter attack. Brighton beat Bournemouth as Dom Solanke’s scoreless run stretched to 29 games. Some lad I’d never heard of put Brighton in front and then started crying because it was his first goal. Dread to think what Solanke will do if and when he ever scores, but chances are it’s going to be NSFW. Dan Burn had a goal ruled out for another one of those comical offsides. His chest was maybe an inch ahead of the defender’s chest. It’s so shit this isn’t it? It didn’t cost Brighton because my former boy Mooy made it 2-0 and gave them three valuable points. There was another of those infuriating disallowed offside goals as Palace had one ruled out purely on the basis that Zaha has bigger feet than the defender. Tomkins did put them in front with a powerful header but Ings seized on a terrible pass from Martin Kelly to equalise. He nearly won it with a sharp near post header that was well saved. That Palace keeper is sneaky good. No-one ever talks about him but he’s boss on the sly. He made three great saves in this one to earn them a point. Not a bad result for either side though. Sunday’s game at the Emirates that saw Chelsea do what Chelsea do, and Arsenal do what Arsenal do. The Gunners murdered Chelsea early on and deservedly led through an Aubameyeng goal. Lampard saw what was going wrong and made a change before half time, bringing on Jorginho to give them an extra body in midfield. That made a big difference but Arsenal still led at half time. I said to my Dad as we were on our way to Anfield though that there is zero chance of Arsenal holding onto it and they’d probably lose but might just sneak a draw. I’m generally shite at predictions and I never bother betting on games because it would be a complete waste of time. One thing I do know though is that Arsenal are fucking spineless and shit. They conceded twice in the final seven minutes, the absolute shithouses. The normally reliable Leno completely flapped at a cross and left Jorginho with an open goal for the equaliser, and then they got done on the counter attack with the kind of goal they’ve specialised in conceding over recent years. Really well executed from Chelsea’s point of view and it was nice play between Kevin Abraham and Willian, but Arsenal do this so often. Every time they attack they look like they’ll concede. Chelsea brought on a kid at right back who I’ve mentioned in the diary a few times as I’ve seen him playing against our Academy sides and he’s fucking brilliant. Tariq Lamptey is his name, defo one to keep an eye on as he looks dynamite. Now that their ban has been lifted all these kids will be up for grabs in a year or so. Finally, ManchesVAR City (not as catchy as LiVARpool but I’m making a point here) edged out Sheffield United at the Etihad to end the Blades long unbeaten away record. It could have been so different though if Mousset’s goal at 0-0 had been allowed to stand. Again, he was off by about an inch. It was goalless at half time which shows just how tough Sheffield United are to play against. They were the better team in that half and Mousset missed a sitter before his disallowed ‘goal’ and another great chance after it. It’s just so easy to get in behind City these days. City eventually took the lead in controversial circumstances when the referee obstructed Fleck causing him to lose the ball to De Bruyne who sent Aguero in for the finish. If the ball had touched the official he would have had to blow the whistle and award a drop ball, but he dummied it so he was able to play on. The ref was Chris Kavanagh, from Manchester. Just sayin’. I think that’s everything covered now but it’s been so mad over the last week that if I’ve missed any games then I’m not going to apologise because it’s New Year’s Eve and I’ve spent all day watching three episodes of MOTD and writing this, so just be grateful for what you have. Only messing, Happy New Year. I love you all.

Good old VAR eh? Slag it off all you like, and God knows I have, but without it we’d have dickheads like Anthony Taylor and Martin Atkinson shafting us without impunity. Put it this way, if we’d had VAR last season we’d have won the league. Unfortunately there was no video to over-rule Taylor when he failed to send Vincent Kompany off at the Etihad, or to correct the errors of Atkinson when he didn’t send Harry Maguire off and later waived away a blatant penalty when Keita was upended against Leicester. We’d have been screwed in this game too without the video cleaning up Taylor’s mess. Manchester’s finest did his best to screw us over again when he scandalously tried to disallow a perfectly good Sadio Mané goal. His whole performance was exactly what you'd expect if you put someone from Manchester in charge of a Liverpool game. I'd be the same if you let me loose at Old Trafford or the Etihad, only I'm not a qualified referee and even if I were they wouldn't let me anywhere near those games, and rightly so. Taylor is allowed to have his fun with us a few times a year though, for some reason. It was 40 minutes before he awarded us a free-kick. Is that a record? He only gave us three free kicks in the entire game. THREE!!! Again, that has to be a record, surely? A foul every half an hour of play in a game in which we dominated possession. Dodgy little baldy twat. Most refs are shit and Taylor falls into that category for sure, but just like Atkinson there’s more to it than that. I’m not suggesting he’s been paid off, I’m just saying that consciously or subconsciously, he’s out to do us over. Let’s look at the Mané goal for example. Firstly, even I could see from my seat on the other side of the ground there was no handball there. It was obvious it was Lallana’s chest with a little bit of shoulder to assist with the controlling of the lay off. If it had come off his arm the flight of the ball would have been vastly different. So that was never a handball in a million years. That being said, if Taylor thought there might be a hint of an arm, that’s fine, let VAR check it. The one thing he should not be doing in that situation is making that call himself and blowing his whistle. Yet he did. Interesting. The VAR check took ages, which made me believe that Taylor’s decision would be upheld because if there is doubt they are supposed to side with the on field decision. The delay suggested there was doubt but it turns out there wasn’t. They knew immediately there was no handball. So why the delay? Because that cunt Taylor blew his whistle, that’s why. If he’d managed to get that whistle blown a split second earlier then VAR wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. Thankfully the ball was in the net before he blew. So again, why is he getting involved in that situation when there is quite literally no need for him to do anything? If Lallana had handled VAR would pick it up and there’s no harm done by him not interfering. By him getting involved though the whole thing could have been fucked. He’s a disgrace. Mind you, so were the Wolves players, led by Conor Coady (more on him later). Why exactly were they surrounding Taylor before and after the VAR decision? He fucking disallowed the goal you soft cunts. He’s on your side! Some fella in Stockley Park overturned him, but the Wolves players were giving Taylor grief. Gang of mings. It seems part of their unhappiness stemmed from what they thought might have been a 'handball' by Van Dijk prior to the ‘handball’ by Lallana. Virgil didn’t handle it but even if he did VAR isn’t allowed to go back that far to check. The attacking handball rule change only applies to a player who scores or who provides the assist for the scorer. Wolves can cry about that all they like, but that’s the rule so tough shit. Besides, there is no replay that shows the ball hitting Virgil’s hand anyway. I’m annoyed that we were robbed of the chance to celebrate the goal but for once it wasn’t the fault of VAR. We couldn’t celebrate not because of the fear it would be ruled out, but because Taylor himself disallowed it. By the time the decision was reversed I was just relieved more than anything. The moment was ruined. The Wolves fans were kicking off and giving it the “Fuck VAR” chants, but this is 100% on Taylor. He’s the reason they got their hopes up thinking it wasn’t going to be a goal and the whole ‘controversy’ is because of him, not VAR, the fucking gimp. So that got the Wolves fans and players all riled up and a couple of minutes later that fury was magnified tenfold when they thought they’d equalised only for Stockley Park to intervene again. Firstly I should say that I’m sick of goals being ruled out for these marginal offside calls. There have been at least half a dozen this season where you look at it and the immediate reaction is “there’s no way goals should be getting wiped out for THAT”. We’ve had two of them ourselves, but the worst I’ve seen was probably Sheffield United at Spurs or maybe Teemu Pukki, also against Spurs, this weekend. This one was marginal too but I don’t see it as being anywhere near as contentious. Not because we benefitted from it, but because it was the lad’s foot that was offside and it wasn’t some egregious line being drawn to make his nipple look a centimetre ahead of the last defender. His standing foot is a few inches offside so that goal can’t be allowed to stand. Wolves can bitch about it but it’s not like the officials in Stockley Park got it wrong. The fact is they could not allow that goal to stand based on the technology they used. His foot is ahead of Robertson’s so what are people wanting them to do here? They had NO CHOICE but to disallow that, it’s not like they did us a favour. It doesn’t feel right though does it? Forget that we’re involved in this one and just imagine it’s two teams you don’t care about. Do you want to see goals disallowed for that? I don’t. Equally though, I don’t really have an ideal solution to it other than scrap the whole thing, which they aren’t going to do. The first thing that needs to be done, as I keep saying, is you judge it based on where the feet are. Forget everything else, just use the feet. Then, maybe there needs to be a 30cm buffer zone until they have technology that is exact. Currently it isn’t, so the Wolves ‘goal’ might actually have been onside for all we know as the technology can’t identify the exact moment the ball leaves the player’s foot. That’s where the 30cm variance comes in. The Wolves player was offside based on the technology we currently have, but it isn’t exact to the exact millimetre so some of these marginal calls we’ve seen this season might actually have been onside. This kind of thing is not why offside was brought in and we’re all sick of seeing goals ruled out on such marginal calls. But I don’t know why we’re getting so much grief for this. As I said, they HAD to disallow that goal. VAR did the job it’s supposed to do. Complain about whether we should have it or not all you like, and if it were up to me I’d drop it like a bad habit, but this “it’s been brought in to favour Liverpool” horseshit is just embarrassing. The worst for that are Man City. The same Man City who only two days earlier were awarded a somewhat contentious penalty by VAR, missed it and were allowed a retake because of VAR spotting a marginal (at best) encroachment. The same Man City who this very same day were spared going a goal down against Sheffield United by a VAR call that was every bit as close as the one that saw Wolves denied. But sure, ignore those and continue to cry conspiracy, you delusional, bitter fuckwits. The decision was correct but Wolves were always going to feel hard done by, especially as they’ve been on the wrong end of more VAR decisions than anyone. They’re currently net -6 on VAR calls, which is the worst in the league. I didn’t think they handled this well at all but when you take that into account it’s easier to see why their toys came out of prams. For the record, Brighton have had seven decisions go their way, Sheffield United have had seven against. Wolves are yet to have any go in their favour and have been on the receiving end six times, so yeah, that will have gone a long way towards what on the surface looked like over the top behaviour from them. Part of the problem was that nobody even thought for a second that their goal may have been offside. None of our players appealed and everyone just went back to prepare for the restart. To have that called back completely unexpectedly tipped them over the edge. I’ve said before that I’m usually shit hot with potential offsides but even I didn’t suspect there was anything untoward with this one at all. When the Wolves players were all celebrating right in front of where I sit, I lost my shit and was yelling all sorts of obscenities at them, and at Taylor for standing back and allowing them to incite the crowd like that. It wasn’t my finest hour and if there was a camera on me I’d be mortified watching myself. I feel as though it was partly justified though as that little Neto cunt was bang out of order. Who the fuck does he think he is giving the Main Stand all that shite? I don’t even accept it when Jurgen does it so there’s no way I’m having it from this little fucking nomark! Honestly, that celebration was so far out of line. He’s giving us loads and then he’s trying to get to the Kop to taunt them as well, only his team-mates were holding him back. Who the fuck are you, you little shitbag? And Taylor’s just stood there letting it happen. I’m only surprised he didn’t join in. Then as the teams are ready for the restart, we get the news that there’s a VAR check. “Oh please let this be disallowed, just because of how the fuckers celebrated”. I’m looking at my phone to see what the lads watching on TV made of it and they were undecided as it was that close. Then eventually Taylor starts walking back towards the box and we realise that it’s not been given. We didn’t exactly celebrate like we’d scored a goal, but there was a huge cheer and it was funny seeing the reaction of the Wolves players again. That Neto prick launched the ball into the stands and should have been booked. Nuno Holy Spirit had been yellow carded before the verdict was even in. I don’t know what he said or who he said it to, but Taylor walked over and booked him while he was waiting for the VAR check to come in. Wolves had lost their heads at that point, which was understandable given their history with VAR. Again though, why are they on Taylor’s case? He didn’t disallow the goal and was doing all he could to help them out. I’ll say again, it was 40 minutes before he gave us a foul, and we only got two more after that. Hell, almost immediately after the disallowed goal he gave them a free-kick in a shooting position and booked Lallana. There was fuck all in that, it was just a foul nothing more, and it smacked of him wanting to put Lallana in his place after his protests about the ‘handball’. Thankfully the free kick from Neves hit the wall. I haven’t mentioned anything else about the first half other than the two VAR incidents, but not a great deal else happened. I thought we played ok and had control of the game up until the Taylor brought by chaos unsettled everyone. We weren’t creating much but if anyone was going to score it always looked like it would be us. Despite all their changes Wolves were dogged and well organised and we were finding it tough to create anything clear cut. There were one or two moments when we might have done better, but generally it was a bit of a slog. And the second half was worse, as we clearly began to look goosed. Wolves have played more games than us and they went into this one on less rest, so I’m not making excuses here. It is a fact that we looked more tired than they did though, and the worry for me before the game was that if we didn’t put daylight between us and them in the first hour, they had Traore and Jimenez to bring on. I’d have preferred them to start because the thought of Traore running at us when we’re tired worried me. He was a threat from the moment he came on but generally we did a good job on him. One of the best moments of the game was when he picked it up for his first run and Lallana sprinted across and tackled him. Hell of an effort, and he was doing that all day. He was fucked by the time he went off and it’s fitting that his last involvement was a long chase back followed by a flying block. It was interesting how we handled Traore I thought. Sadio dropped in really deep to help out Robbo, which made sense considering he’s our fastest player. He made life so difficult for Traore that he switched over the opposite flank to try and get at Trent. When that happened, Klopp made a change to get Origi on and Sadio then moved over to the right to continue to help with Traore. I like Traore, so much so that he’s even been granted ‘my boy’ status in the round ups. He’s been brilliant this season and has completely transformed his game. He’s not just fast now, he can play as well. When he had the ball we surrounded him with to or three players to block off his running lanes, but I thought it was really impressive the way he was able to shift the ball quickly in tight spaces to pop it off to team-mates and then look for the return pass. If he’s added guile and skill to his game (and it looks like he has) then he could become virtually unstoppable. Klopp seems to love him, so who knows what the future might hold there. Wolves piled on the pressure in the last ten minutes but thankfully they kept putting their shots into the top tier of the Anny Road. It looked like we’d weathered the storm but then Traore picked the ball up out wide and began cutting inside across the box trying to find room for a shot. He seemed to go past three or four challenges until it opened up and he struck it, but thankfully Van Dijk was in the way. I think Alisson had it covered anyway but Virg didn’t know that. That should have been the last action of the game as the four minutes of stoppage time were up, but obviously Taylor was always going to let them take the corner to see if they could equalise. The ball came in, and Virgil’s massive beautiful head rose highest to power it away. Now the whistle went and we had three more huge points. This was a sweet victory on many levels, but after the way Wolves fans carried on here last season on the final day it was especially nice to stick it to them. And even more so given the nature of it. “It’s not football anymore” they chanted. I agree, but if those decisions had gone in their favour I’d bet everything I own that the dopey cunts would have been ‘bantering’ us by singing about VAR. I had sympathy with Nuno afterwards. Clearly he doesn’t like VAR and who can blame him? He was dignified about it though. Which is more than can be said for his captain, who “couldn’t get his head around” the decisions. Listen soft lad, if those decisions were wrong then you have every right to kick off about it. But they weren’t wrong. Interviewer: “Why were unhappy about the goal?” Cody: “Apparently Van Dijk might have handled it but Anthony Taylor said he’s too far back to check. He played the pass that led to the goal.” Firstly, he didn’t handball it. Secondly, even if he did VAR can’t get involved in that because of THE LAWS OF THE GAME. if you don’t understand the laws, Conor, then that’s on you mate. And again, Virgil didn’t handle it. Neither did Lallana. So what exactly is the problem again? Not sure if I’ve ever gone on the record with this or not, but I don’t care much for Conor Coady. I’ve felt that way for a long time but didn’t say anything because I don’t like criticising one of our own and I really wanted to like him. I watched him come through our Academy and always thought he was a good player (albeit a right fucking big head) and he’s a Red, so yeah I wanted to like him. I don’t like him though. Any time I see him interviewed I just think “fucking hell he’s so full of himself”. He’s too cocky and I just can’t take to him, never have been able to. It’s fine though, Conor loves himself more than enough to make up for those of us who don’t have much time for him. There’s a lot to not like about Wolves, not least their fans. Gobshites. I like the manager a lot though (seems a top bloke) and they’re clearly a good side. They might even grab that fourth spot because they look every bit as good as anyone else outside of the top three. They made a load of changes and still gave us a tough game and with my boy Traore in the form he’s in they’ll be tough for anybody to face. That kid who played left wing back was good too. We had an extra day to prepare but that was negated by Wolves making so many changes. That weakened them to a degree as some of their best players were left out, but it also freshened the legs and made them very difficult to break down. We couldn’t really do that because we were down to 13 fit senior outfield players plus the kids. It won’t be much different against Sheffield United on Thursday but there’s a reasonable enough amount of time between this game and that one and I expect a strong team before a lot of changes for the Everton game. You could make a reasonable argument for resting everyone on Thursday and going full strength against the Blues, but personally I don’t think that will happen. It’s a tough one though. Ordinarily I’d be in favour of just prioritising the league games, but we’ve got such a massive lead that we could rest people for Sheff Utd and go all out to beat Everton. I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision. Star man is Joe Gomez. He was brilliant again and over the last few weeks he’s recaptured his very best form, which is great to see. I thought Hendo was terrific again (the way he’s filled in for Fabinho is a credit to what a great footballer and leader he is), while the work rate of Lallana and Wijnaldum was commendable. Sadio was dangerous as well, but everyone else seemed a bit off key. Even Robbo wasn’t at his sharpest (and Virgil looked human for once), but they all battled and ensured we got the win. 2019 was a hell of a year, here’s hoping for even better in 2020. Happy New Year, Reds! Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson, Wijnaldum (Milner); Lallana (Keita), Firmino (Origi), Mané; Salah:

Saturday Dec 21: L 1 Flamengo 0 We never do it the easy way do we? The only surprise is it didn’t go to penalties. Watching it live I wasn’t particularly impressed with our performance, especially in the first half, but I watched the whole game again later and with the nerves and emotion removed it was much better than I initially thought. Firstly, they’re a good side. Steamrolling them was never going to happen. They had a good go but we took their best punches and eventually just overpowered them. Andy Robbo’s handling of Rafinha was brilliant. I couldn’t possibly love him any more than I do. He’s a little bastard and every team needs one of those. Funny how they’re often Scottish! Hendo was great as well, and you’ve gotta love his trademark trophy lift. All those years he had to battle to win people over and he had all kinds of shit thrown his way, and now he’s lifting the biggest prizes in the game as our captain, and he’s doing it in his own unique way. I’m just made up for him. There are still some weirdos out there on social media who want him replaced, but every trophy he lifts makes them look more and more ridiculous. I only wish his brilliant shot in the last couple of minutes had gone in so he could have scored the winner. That was an incredible save actually. So pleased for Bobby as well. It’s always about Sadio and Mo as they get the goals, and this season especially Bobby has struggled to score. But this tournament is a massive deal in Brazil so for him to score the winner in both games will have meant the world to him. As much as Flamengo were bad shithouses, I like the fact we’ve played the South American Champions and wish we could do it more often (in other words let’s win more European Cups!). It should be seen as a bigger deal than it is really. Even some of our fans weren’t really on board with it, but seeing how much it meant to the lads probably swayed their opinion. Finally, I have to tell you this as you’ll love it. At the start of the game when the camera showed Jorge Jesus, I laughed and said to myself “look at the state of that Peter Stringfellow looking prick”. A bit later on, Adrianna comes in to see how the game is going. He comes on the screen and she goes “he’s got hair like you”. “You cheeky get, his hair is nothing like mine”. “What about it is not like yours? Name one thing that’s different?”. “The colour for a start”. She didn’t say anything, she just gave me the Ancelotti eyebrow, shook her head and walked out. The lack of respect I get in my own house is almost as bad as it is on here. Sunday Dec 22: Some sections of the media still talking about it like it’s some glorified friendly. Makes me laugh really. You know why no-one in this country gives a fuck about this tournament? Because our teams our usually not good enough to be in it, and when they are everyone else wants to talk about how shit it is. It’s understandable really. If City or Chelsea had been playing in this, I’d have been downplaying it too. No-one wants to see another English side crowned ‘World Champions’ so of course the importance of it is going to be dismissed. Fans of most other teams will never ever see their team competing for it, so why would they attach any importance to it? If the competition were expanded and there were 32 teams from around the world involved it would be viewed differently, but hopefully that never happens as nobody needs that. Bottom line is we’re the European Champions and we just beat the best team in South America, so now we’re officially the best team on the planet. I don’t care if some chin stroking journos on Sunday Supplement are pontificating about it not being a big deal. Look at how our players have reacted to it. Their joyous celebrations tells me all I need to know. Meanwhile, while we’re basking in the glow of becoming World Champs, the Mancs were losing 2-0 at bottom club Watford and Mourinho was getting schooled by Frank Lampard. Great stuff. These really are halcyon days. Monday Dec 23: Got nothing to say about footy today as there’s not really anything happening. I did go to see the new Star Wars movie though so I can talk about that if you like. No spoilers, obviously, so you’re fine to continue reading. I’m a massive Star Wars nerd but I wasn’t looking forward to this as I thought “the last Jedi” was mostly terrible. I’m not one of those fanatics who want to pick holes in everything, I don’t want to be disappointed by these films so I’ll turn a blind eye to a certain amount of shite, but TLJ wound me right up. Not wound up like the final season of Game of Thrones, but it was a disappointment. This one was boss though. Me and Adrianna loved it. I have no complaints, there’s nothing I’d change about it and we’re going to go again before the end of the school holidays. Jumanji 2 is great as well, we saw that the other day. Frozen 2 was a big let down though (I loved the first one), defo wouldn’t recommend that. Tuesday Dec 24: Christmas Eve, no idea if anything interesting is happening as I’ve spent my day putting together a cross trainer we got for Adrianna. I had three spirit meltdowns which involved me swearing at the top of my voice and belting fuck out of the thing with a hammer. The dog shit itself and hid under a chest of drawers but I make no apologies for it. The meltdowns were justified. I’m actually boss at putting stuff like this together, but when the holes aren’t lined up properly and it’s impossible to get the bolt in there, it’s fair game to lose your temper and shout and swear. The way I see it, it’s part of being a Dad and as long as your kid isn’t there to see it then it’s fine. Wednesday Dec 25: Christmas Day so fuck all happening footy wise. So here’s a list of some random ‘Best of 2019’ awards for you. Best Game: Easy - Barca at home. Best Goal: So many to choose from. I’ll go with “Corner Taken Quickly Origi!!!!!” even though there were plenty of goals that were probably better, including all of the first half goals against Everton the other week. Best Moment: Impossible to choose one. Hendo and his Dad in Madrid. The Trent corner. Robbo calling Suarez fat at the Nou Camp. Robbo hitting Messi on the head at Anfield. Milner crying at full time after we beat Barca, while at the same time Hendo was collapsing with exhaustion. There's loads I haven't even mentioned. What a year. Worst Moment: Anthony Taylor not sending Kompany off at the Etihad, closely followed by Martin Atkinson doing likewise with Harry Maguire. If either one of those fucknuts did their job properly we'd be Champions. Best Player: Toss up between Virgil, Fabinho and Mané. Wait, and Andy Robbo and Trent too. Shit, this is really hard as any one of them could get it. I’ll go Sadio but if you pick any of the others you’d get no argument from me. You can even throw Alisson in if you want and I’m good with that. Jesus, how good is this fucking team? Best Visiting Performance: Bon Jovi. Not even close. Best Visiting Fans: Barcelona. Despite the absolutely soul crushing defeat they showed a lot of class and applauded us off at the end. I don’t like them as a club but I’ve got respect for those fans who were at Anfield. Worst Visiting Fans: It’s Man United every year but if we exclude them then it’s Wolves on the final day of the season. Unfunny, small time, banter obsessed jarg Brummy cunts. Worst Visiting Performance: I think I’m going with Arsenal this season. Instead of attacking us and getting battered, they chose to defend and get battered instead. Best Opposition Player - Minamino at Anfield is up there, but I’ll go with Messi in the game we won 4-0. He was actually on top form that night (which made Fabinho’s display agains him even more impressive), but it’s completely overlooked because we won the game. Honourable mention to Lewis Dunk the other week as well. No, I’m not kidding. Worst Opposition Player - So many to choose from, I’ll need to have a think. Fuck it, my memory is so bad these days there's no way I'll get this right, so I'll let you decide. Post your suggestions underneath and see what jogs my shitty memory. Thursday Dec 28: Leicester 0 L 4 Holy shit, that was incredible. I was mildly concerned about this game, in part because of the tiredness factor and in part because Leicester are good. We made it look easy though. It was complete and utter dominance from start to finish and it was probably the biggest statement win of the season. Even more than when we beat City, because this was away from home and was a game that everyone will have looked at as a real chance of us dropping points. And we played like THAT! How disheartening for the rest of the league. One thing I hadn’t counted on tonight though that I really should have, was Brendan’s ego giving us a helping hand. He won’t compromise his style at all even though he was playing into our hands by trying us beat us with ‘Rodgeball”. What he should have done is gone old school Leicester and tried to just play on the break. His ego wouldn’t allow that though, he had to try and play out from the back and as a result of that Jamie Vardy didn’t get a kick. Thanks Brendan. The Leicester fans picked up where they left off at Goodison the other week. Chants supporting Boris Johnson and the S*n. Just embarrassing. It’s a minority and many of those inside the stadium will have been fuming, as Leicester is actually a labour supporting city, but this is modern footy for you. “Bantz” is king. Won’t surprise me if Wolves do the same this weekend. Football fans throughout this country are for the most part, tribal, banter obsessed wankers. Friday Dec 27: Holy shit part two, City lost again! None of us want to say that it’s over and we've won, but if someone else was this far ahead and playing the kind of football we’ve been playing for the last couple of years, not one of us would be saying there is still a chance of someone catching them. If City were to win every game then there’s a slim chance they might catch us but they’re not going to win every game. This is not the Man City of last year or the year before. I do expect them to be much better in the second half of the season than they have been in the first, but it’s not going to be enough. Some might say that’s tempting fate or being over confident, but it’s really not. If I’d been giving it the beans a month ago then maybe so, but we’re 14 points ahead of them with a game in hand. It's no over-confidence, it's just reality. I could make a case that anyone saying it’s not over is showing under-confidence not to mention a serious lack of belief and trust in a team that would have to completely fall apart to not win it now. Let me put it another way. What do Klopp and his team have to do to make you trust them enough to not blow a potential 17 point lead? So now, it’s not being cocky or arrogant, it’s just having enough faith in this team that they won’t lose it from the position they’re in. If you don't think it's over then you're basically saying you think this team might completely bottle it and lose six or seven games between now and May. Caution is understandable and if the lead was single digits I'd be exactly the same. This lead is fucking massive though and we've lost one league game in 18 months, so my take would be that I have enough faith in them to not completely shit the bed. Meanwhile, Luke Shaw says that United’s squad is just as good as ours. So, given that they’re 24 points behind us, he must be saying that it’s Solskjaer’s fault then? Unless he's going down the Blue Moon forum route and blaming VAR and the Premier League. Staying with the Mancs though. Scholes made some disparaging remarks about the World Club Cup, saying it means less than winning the darts in his local or something. That’s fine, unlike most who are doing likewise he’s actually won it and if that’s how he feels then he’s entitled to say it. I’d be interested to know if that’s what he said at the time like, but whatever. I’m sure the European Cup meant something to him, and the league title definitely will. So he can downplay us winning in Qatar all he likes, we’ll just have to shove the other other trophies in his pasty little round ginger face. that was the week that was….

Wow. How impressive was that? Leicester are our nearest challengers and we just went into their back yard and stole their dinner money. It was an absolute mauling and 4-0 flattered them. First versus second shouldn't look like this, but with the Reds in this mood Leicester had no chance. This should have been our toughest game of the season but the lads made it look easy. We just went to the second placed team and didn’t let them have a shot on target. The most dangerous striker in the league didn’t get a kick and we put four past a team who had only conceded five at home all season. The best word to describe the performance is 'imperious'. We were right on them from the opening whistle and never let up at any stage. Incredibly, we could have scored twice inside the opening 60 seconds. First Trent brought a save out of Schmeichel with a rasper from 25 yards. Seconds later Salah had the ball on the right and picked out Mané with a brilliant ball. It seemed a certain goal but Sadio got it all wrong and missed by miles. Still, what a start. And it carried on. We created loads of chances and Leicester couldn’t get out of their own half due to the way we completely smothered them. We’re fucking horrible to play against when we’re in this mood. Leicester are taking a lot of stick for how they played but in this mood we’d smash anyone. We’re the best team in the world and anyone having a go at Leicester should look at the league table. They’re pushing us harder than anyone else. The only thing standing between Leicester and the kind of beating they themselves dished out to Southampton earlier in the season was our wastefulness. Salah put one miles over from 18 yards and then messed up when he was sent clean through on goal. He went around Schmeichel but his touch was heavy and sent him too wide. It was a similar situation to the one the other week when he scored with his right foot, but this was more difficult as there was a defender back covering and he was never going to be able to score from there. He should have taken a touch and tried to pick out Mané or Firmino really. We were all over them though. Keita was picking the ball up and gliding past people, the two full backs were bombing forward, Firmino was finding space to operate in and any time Leicester played the ball forward it was won by either Van Dijk or Gomez. We just needed a goal, and then we got one. Leicester cleared the initial corner but the ball found its way to Robbo and he immediately gave it to Trent in space. The ball in was brilliant, as you’d expect, and Bobby kept his eye on it and guided it expertly into the bottom corner. Chilwell played everyone onside by dropping deeper than the rest of his defenders. If he held the line we might not have scored there. Poor from him. He’s a promising player but he didn’t have a good night and was left exposed too many times. For some reason Brendan used Maddison on the left, which not only nullified the threat he poses but also meant Trent had all the room he wanted without having to worry about a winger. Mind you, Trent’s job was made easier by having the pace of Gomez behind him. That safety net against Vardy basically ensured Trent could just go forward at will without worrying about the space in behind him. Mané should have made it 2-0 when he ran through the centre and a lucky bounce led to him being clean through on goal. Schmeichel did well to make himself big but Sadio has to score there. Terrible miss. I had mixed feelings at half time. I was hugely impressed with the performance but mildly irritated that the missed chances meant Leicester were still in the game. All it would take is one ball for Vardy to get in behind and all our good work would be wiped out. We needed to be more clinical in the second half and we were. But not straight away. We had loads of good situations (usually from right wing crosses) but the second goal remained elusive. Leicester finally began to get a little something going and it felt like the momentum had shifted a little in the minutes before we scored again. Alison didn’t have to make a save but they did have a couple of promising situations that might have troubled us. Then we were awarded a penalty at just the right time. I’m usually on the side of defenders in handball situations but this is a clear penalty. The ball wasn’t smashed at him from close range and he wasn’t put off by the player in front flicking it on. Granted, his arm wasn’t in an unnatural position but it doesn’t matter because he leaned into the ball. There’s clear movement towards the ball, so it’s a pen. You always get arguments over these decisions as it’s a subjective discussion. I look at it this way though. If that wasn’t given I’d be willing to bet most people would be saying it’s a clear handball, because it was. You don’t always get them, but I’d expect to get that one more often than not. Leicester can cry about it all they like but when you’ve had such a chasing like that you’ve got to have some balls on you to argue about the officiating. Schmeichel was crying about it afterwards and making out they were hard done by. He should just be glad Sadio and Mo didn’t have their shooting boots with them or he’d have let in ten, the big dope. He should be looking at an FA charge for what he said afterwards. Oliver “wanting to be a hero” and “couldn’t wait to give it”. Leicester shouldn’t expect any favours from Oliver the next time either, as he never forgets. Just ask Guardiola, whose disrespect at Anfield came back to haunt him when Oliver was the VAR official in the Manc derby. What about Kloppo and his perfect timing though? Sending Milner on 30 seconds before we get a pen is genius. Of course Big Games James kept his nerve and buried the kick. Was there ever any doubt? That goal killed Leicester and after that it was easy. Trent was getting all sorts of room out wide and that’s never going to end well for the opposition. He made the third for Bobby with a brilliant ball and then ran onto a Mané pass to make it 4-0 himself. A word on the Firmino finish though. Fucking glorious that. The first touch, the calmness to take his time and the ability to casually stroke it into the top corner. Simplistically brilliant. Made up for him to have gotten back in the goals over the last week or so. On a night when his two strike partners were wasteful as fuck it was vital that someone stepped up, and Bobby did that. That World Club Cup might have kick started his season as he’d blown hot and cold up until then. Keita had made way for Milner while Salah was also replaced by Origi. Mo didn’t look happy, but it makes sense to get the front three a bit of a rest whenever possible. It was his turn. At the weekend it might be Mané. At 4-0 we might have seen Curtis Jones or Neco Williams get a run out, as we don’t get too many chances to get the kids playing time in the Premier League. Unfortunately Klopp had to use his final change on replacing the injured Henderson with Lallana. Hendo had been hurt by a late tackle by that Ayoze Perez loser, who had only just come on. Hendo let him know what he thought of it on his way off. I expected Robbo to extract some revenge but Perez wisely went nowhere near that side of the field. Hopefully Hendo is ok. It didn’t look bad, he seemed fine afterwards and didn’t appear to be concerned. Looked more like a knock than a pull so I’d expect him to play at the weekend, although he might have to sit out one of the next two. A few of them might. What a performance though. I can’t get over how good this team is, and the thing is, they haven’t even peaked yet. In their last 56 league games they’ve lost one. ONE!! It’s insane, we’re now close to eclipsing what Man City did two years ago. I keep thinking that eventually we’re going to lose a game, and I still think we will. I’m not even thinking about going through the season unbeaten at this point, as we’re not even halfway through yet. It would be nice to do that but right now it’s the last thing on my mind. Increasing our lead is the only thing that matters at the moment. Just keep churning out wins and putting the pressure on City to try and keep up. They’ve got absolutely no room for error now and that’s going to make it incredibly tough for them. We’ve got a difficult run of games ahead but I’m beginning to think that tired legs aren’t going to be a factor. Everyone thought this game was going to be a grind because we’re coming off the back of the trip to Qatar, but just look at how we played. It was our best display of the whole season. The whole team were right at it in terms of work rate, organisation and pressing. Ok, Salah and Mané could have been sharper in front of goal, but this was one hell of a team performance. It’s one hell of a team. The rest of the league will have watched this and been hoping to see Leicester give us a real test and maybe take points off us. The message sent out was emphatic though. No-one can touch us. The travelling Kop sang “Now you’re gonna believe us, we’re Champions of the World”. Leicester embarrassingly responded with “Champions of England, you’ll never sing that”. Every time they sing that to clubs who have won more titles then them it makes me cringe, but this time I just laughed. Enjoy it while you can, because in a few months time it’s going to be completely redundant. Star man is Trent but I was buzzing with how so many of them played. Hendo was great again, Naby is looking the business, Gini was quietly effective, Virg was imperious, Robbo was great and Gomez is now back at the level he was before his injury last season. We’re fucking brilliant and we’ve still got Fabinho, Matip, Lovren and Ox to come back from injury, and of course we’re about to add Minamino to the mix. What a time to be a Red. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson (Lallana), Keita (Milner), Wijnaldum; Salah (Origi), Firmino, Mané:

The weekend kicked off with one of the worst games of football I’ve ever seen. It was so bad I wasn’t even mad, I was impressed. The bizarre thing was that I couldn’t switch it off as it was so terrible that it was fascinating to watch. So many bad passes, mis-controls, awful decisions and clumsy fouls. It was completely inept from both teams. I saw all but ten minutes of it and in that time I didn’t see either keeper make a save. Apparently the only shot of the game came when I wasn’t watching. Arsenal’s players celebrated their point like they’d just pulled off a heroic European away display. Calum Chambers was talking afterwards about what a battling display it was and how pleased they are with the clean sheet. Fuck me. You’re Arsenal, not Accrington. I know I’m repeating myself every week, but Arsenal’s utter shitness just makes me so angry. They’re an absolute fucking disgrace, so much so that Freddie Ljungberg decided to give himself the ready made excuse for not winning by ditching the likes of Pepe, Lacazette and Ozil and picking a load of kids. The idea that Arteta is going to walk in there with his PlayMobil haircut and turn that mess around is preposterous. If he’s still there in 12 months I’ll be staggered. He won’t know what’s hit him, going from working every day with Man City’s squad with their ultra professionalism, unrelenting work ethic and single minded winning mentality, to that fucking spineless rabble of shthouses. The game itself was fascinating though. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for players at this level to look as bad as this. Every pass was either underhit, overhit, misplaced or when it eventually got there it was mis-controlled. There were just clumsy tackles all over the place and everyone seemed to just be making the wrong decision every time. So many passes were put straight out of play it was like a rugby union game. It was so bad it was almost good. Almost. There were weird scenes at full time where Dunc was saying his ‘goodbyes’. He isn’t going anywhere, but this was his last game as caretaker boss, so he was out there on the pitch milking the adulation of the crowd and then spoke proudly to BT about how he’s unbeaten in his time in charge (technically he’s not as they lost a penalty shoot out, but I tend to agree with him that they don’t really count). Then he goes “What a fantastic performance we put in”. Ok, slow down, Tonto. I know you’re excited and caught up in the moment, but let’s not get silly here. Fantastic performance? Even the Hodge would have struggled to describe that as ‘fantastic’. Fuck me. I wish he’d been given the job full time as it would have been a disaster, but to his credit he knows that and he’s said from minute one he wants Everton to get the best manager available and that he knows that isn’t him. He’s made the most of every second he’s had the job and he’s actually been a fun watch if I’m honest. Of course I’ve found myself laughing at him but it wasn’t even in a malicious way. He starts every game with the suit jacket on but it always comes off as he’s prowling the touchline in his shirt and tie. And the blue sweatband is incredibly fucking sad yet somehow quite endearing. He even bought a load of them so he can give them away to his adoring public. He gave that to a girl in a wheelchair at full time as he went over to see everyone in the disabled section. It was a nice touch. Then he grabbed an arl fella in a wheelchair and kissed him on the head. It’s really funny how a player who did so little is such a huge legend with the Blues and it basically shows just how little they’ve had to cheer for since the 80s. The way they idolise Ferguson is desperately sad, but it’s nice to see someone interact with his fans the way he has. I’m sure he’ll get to do it again when the fans turn on Ancelotti and hound him out like they have with everyone they’ve had since Moyes. Eyebrows were certainly raised when they went for him, none more so than from Carlo himself when he saw how much they were offering him. Villa have been on a sneakily bad run of late and are in more trouble than most of us realised. They found themselves 3-0 down at home to Southampton and suddenly they’re in the bottom three. Can’t just be me who until the last couple of weeks thought they were doing quite well? Our boy Ings scored twice (feels like he scores just as often as Vardy these days) and Stephens got the other. Grealish pulled one back with a class strike and went close to repeating the feat late on, but Southampton did a proper number on Villa and deserved the win. Whereas Villa seem to have lost the impetus they had early on in the season, Norwich seem to be rediscovering theirs. They were all over Wolves early on and deservedly took the lead through Cantwell. My boy Pukki should have made it 2-0 but got his finish horribly wrong. He had another chance soon after but hit it straight at the keeper. Those misses proved costly as Wolves clawed their way back into the game and Saiss headed them level from a corner before Jimenez won it with ten minutes to go. Harsh on Norwich, who played well again, but Wolves keep on rolling and a top four spot might not be beyond them. The other newly promoted side fared better though as the Blades continued their incredible unbeaten away run with a 1-0 win at Brighton. They haven’t lost away since January but their next two are at the Etihad and Anfield so we’ll see what happens there. McBurnie got the decisive strike in the first half (fantastic goal too) but his partner McGoldrick still can’t score. They see him as their version of Bobby Firmino as he’s so important to what they do, but he’s more like Rob Jones at the moment. He missed an open goal in this one when he went round the keeper and then hit the side netting. He then put one on the roof of the net before racing 50 yards to go right through the back of Mooy. Hey guess what, it finally happened! The world with eyebrows actually scored a goal at the 27th time of asking. Almiron signed for Newcastle in January, he plays up front every week and it took him 11 months to find the net. It was an important one too. Palace had been the better side but didn’t take their chances, and with seven minutes left the ball fell to Almiron who lashed it home and then went mad, taking off his shirt and running into the crowed to celebrate. He got booked of course, and while I usually frown upon that kind of celebration, sometimes you just have to say ‘you just crack on and do what you like son’. Personally I’d go down the Peter Crouch route and run around the entire perimeter of the pitch slapping hands with everyone, but each to their own. I’m pleased for Almiron, not least because it means I won’t have to keep bringing it up every week. Just need that McGoldrick chump to score now. But not at Anfield. Bournemouth took on Burnley at home having just won at Chelsea to end a five game losing skid. I fancied them to win this one but their injury list is pretty crippling and they had seven first choice players out. The game was predictably shite and neither team deserved to win it, but Burnley won it with two minutes to go with the only shot on target of the entire game. The most interesting moment of the entire game was a VAR check for a possible red card. Barnes was holding Billing, and Billing swung an arm and caught him on the back of the head. Barnes went down like he was pole axed but VAR said ‘nothing to see here, move along’. Surprising, as everyone knows that Sean Dyche’s players don’t dive or cheat so surely that has to be a red card? That game was hideous, but it wasn’t bad enough to be on last on MOTD. Congratulations to Everton and Arsenal for somehow producing an even worse spectacle than this abomination. With the Mighty Reds busy winning a world title, the biggest game of the weekend saw 2nd playing 3rd at the Etihad. Vardy broke the deadlock with a sensational ‘Vardy goal’ as he ran off the back of Fernandinho and raced through to finish with style. He’d earlier almost picked out Barnes for a tap in and soon after he raced clear again before shooting over. City couldn’t cope with him at all and hopefully we’ll manage him a bit better today. City’s equaliser was a flukey deflection from a Mahrez shot that would have otherwise been saved. These cunts are turning into Mourinho’s original Chelsea side when if it wasn’t Lampard hitting one in off a defender’s arse then it was Joe Cole. City are becoming just as bad for this shit. Soon after they were ahead from the penalty spot. Sterling went down easily but Leicester’s players (including Maddison of all people!) telling Mike Dean it was a dive made me laugh. Ricardo lunged in, missed the ball and kicked Sterling on the foot. Of course he’s going down there, I’d expect our lads to do the same. He’s been impeded and it might have prevented him from reaching the ball before the next covering defender. If he stays up he won’t get a pen. No complaints from me. Ederson saved from Maddison just before half time and Guardiola spent the first minute of the break remonstrating with the fourth official over something. Every game he’s doing that lately, the bald crysarse. Vardy continued to wreak havoc on City’s backline and Barnes went close from a brilliant Vardy cross. Should have scored but he saw the keeper coming and took his eye off it. Leicester didn’t play well at all but the danger posed by Vardy meant they were always in it until De Bruyne powered through three challenges and drilled the ball across to give Jesus a back post tap in. That was that. It’s only a matter of time before a rival manager chooses to man mark De Bruyne, because he’s single handedly carrying City of late. He just hangs around on the corner of the box and he’s either lashing in shots or whipping in crosses that are impossible to defend. He hit the post early on when three defenders went to Mahrez and left De Bruyne all alone. He’s an incredible player when he has room to play in, so you have to deny him that room. Easier said than done, but too often I see him just being left all alone around the box and that’s begging to be punished. At full time Brendan went the full on ‘back of the neck grab, pull in for a hug’ with ‘Pep’. He lost the game but he’s got Guardiola’s respect and that means as much to the little man’s gargantuan ego. Harsh? Maybe, but that’s the impression he gives off. We won’t know for a little while if that result was best for us or not. I suspect it was the best short term outcome for us, but long term a Leicester win may have been better. That would have put them just seven back with the opportunity to close it to four if they beat us, so the short term benefit to this was that our lead remained at ten points. If City go on one of their mad winning runs though then they’re a much bigger danger than Leicester. Ultimately though it’s in our own hands and we shouldn’t be concerning ourselves too much with what these two are doing. Sunday was great fun. Mourinho taking on Lampard and United going to bottom club Watford. The Mancs are hilarious. Home draws with Villa and Everton, an away win at City and now a loss at Watford. Being a United fan must be like eating a packet of Revels, and this game was the coffee cream. They had actually started well and had decent chances before De Gea inexplicably let one go through his hands. Shocking stuff. Wan-Bissaka then clumsily gave away a penalty that was converted by my boy Troy. United fans are hilarious the way they’re going on about that Wan-Bissaka and continually trying to compare him with Trent. It’s cringeworthy. He’s good, but it’s like comparing Line of Duty with the Sopranos. Any time Wan-Bissaka does anything decent United fans are all over Twitter giving it the “Trent who?” shouts. Strangely quiet after this one though. Finally, the big one at White Hart Lane. I have no love for Spurs or Chelsea and under normal circumstances I have considerably less disdain for Spurs. This time though I was well and truly rooting for a Chelsea win. Why? Lampard, that’s why. I wanted to see him get the better of his old boss because Lampard is alright and Mourinho (when he’s not being a very entertaining pundit) is a tit. Willian was brilliant and scored both goals. The second came from the penalty spot after the Spurs keeper had inexplicably tried to volley the ball away instead of catching it, and succeeded only in karate kicking the helpless Alonso who couldn’t get out of the way. Anthony Taylor actually gave a free-kick to Spurs initially, which genuinely boggles the mind. How is it possible to get it THAT wrong? VAR intervened and ensured the right outcome was reached, and did so again late dropped to his knees at the ‘injustice’ of it all. My mum was right about him and she was off on one again about it when I spoke to her the next day. “Told you he’s a sly little thing him. He knew what he was doing there”. Yep, he did. Some will claim that it was soft and he barely touched him, and they’d be right. Rudiger made a massive meal of it and Mourinho was ripping the piss out of him afterwards, saying he hopes his broken ribs are ok. It’s true that Rudiger was embarrassing, but you know what else is true? Son deliberately - and obviously - kicked out at him and deserved to be sent off, because, and here’s the key aspect of this. YOU CAN’T FUCKING DO THAT!! He’s a fucking snide but because he’s always smiling and happy (except when he’s crying) people think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He’s a fucking prick. Spurs had the balls to appeal that decision. I’d double his ban just for that. Sick of this ‘Poor Son’ shite. The cunt has been sent off three times in 2019 yet there are people still saying ‘he’s not that type of player’. He is EXACTLY that type of player. Fuck that guy. Mourinho was as graceless in defeat as ever. I didn’t see every interview he did, but in the one I did see he never mentioned Chelsea or Lampard by name even once. He kept saying “the opponent”. Rather than give Lampard praise, he claimed that Chelsea won by using “Conte’s tactics”. He’s such a dick, but it no longer winds me up because he’s not successful anymore. The game was overshadowed by incidents of racism. Rudiger claimed a Spurs fan made monkey noises at him while a Chelsea fan was caught racially abusing Son. The game had to be stopped three times while announcements were made over the tannoy. This country is a fucking cesspit right now, I hate it. I also hate the way this is always described as ‘football’s problem’. How the fuck is this football’s problem? The country is full of horrible racist pricks, and some of them go to football matches. Talk of making teams play in empty stadiums or deducting points is utterly ridiculous. How is it Tottenham’s fault that some cunt called a black player a monkey? How is it Chelsea’s fault that one of their gobshite fans abused Son? What exactly are people expecting the clubs to do about it? They can act retrospectively and ban the offenders (which they do) but preventing it is virtually impossible. It’s easy to blame football and say football fans are racist, but football is a lot less racist than society in general, and in terms of percentages there are more racists in the houses of parliament than in your average football crowd.

Jurgen Klopp says young defender Trent Alexander-Arnold has turned out to be the biggest surprise since he took over the reins at Anfield, describing the player as a “machine.” The 21-year-old was given his senior debut in October 2016, a year after Klopp took over from Brendan Rodgers and has since gone on to cement his place in the starting 11. He’s also forced his way into the England squad, having become one of the most highly-rated defenders in Europe. Alexander-Arnold is a player who typifies the modern-day full-back, effective both in defense and attack as he marauds up and down the right flank. Klopp has known the youngster for a few years now but he admits he didn’t think he would show that much improvement this quickly. "I have known Trent Alexander-Arnold since he was 17 years old,” the German said after being asked what the biggest surprise of his Liverpool career has been so far by BBC Sport. "He was a big talent but we were not sure he could do it physically. Now he is a machine - so he is a big surprise." The 21-year-old, now a Champions League winner, was named Liverpool’s Young Player of the Season for two consecutive campaigns (2016/17 and 2017/18) and was an inclusion in last term’s PFA Team of the Year. He was also nominated for the Ballon d’Or this year. Klopp is certainly owed a lot of the credit for Alexander-Arnold’s development. The coach has his work cut out for him when it comes to keeping his squad fresh and competitive, however. Asked how he maintains respect while making difficult decisions, he said: "All my former players have my number and we stay in contact. "I support them still, apart from the moment we play each other. If we win 5-1 I would prefer my former player scores the one. It is like a family and friends forever. "When I was a very young manager [at Mainz] and I knew my players did not earn very much, I had to tell some of my best friends they would not get another contract and I did not know which way it would go for them. "Now it is a different level and I do not put the players on the streets, they will find another club.” Meanwhile, Liverpool are on course to win their first title of the Premier League era, having just lifted the FIFA Club World Cup. They’re 10 points clear at the top of the league table with a game in hand and are 1/7 to claim the coveted title at the end of the season with Betfair, who are handing customers the opportunity to win £100 in free bets. The sportsbook has several other offers and promotions available which, coupled with the above, is thought to be the reason why Betfair are one of the top bookmakers in the UK. They have reigning champions Manchester City at 6/1 to win the league for a third successive time but the Reds are the clear favourites after dropping just two points in 17 games so far this season. Leicester City are 60/1 while Chelsea are a huge stretch at 500/1, as are Tottenham Hotspur.

Considering this “isn’t a big deal” it sure felt like kind of a big deal. In fact, as the game wore on it began to feel like the most important game in the history of the club, so desperate was I to win it. Of course I knew it wasn’t but it’s easy to get caught up in the moment like that when the opposition are carrying on like Flamengo were and when the referee was as bad as this fella was. We’d been there before of course. This competition doesn’t have happy memories for us. I can’t speak too much for what happened in the 80s when we lost to Flamengo and Independente, but the loss to Sao Paolo in 2005 still stings because of the controversial manner of it. We missed loads of chances, had THREE goals disallowed, they were massive shithouses and the referee that night was almost certainly bent. History seemed to be repeating itself. With every missed chance, every bit of Brazilian playacting and every inexplicable decision from the ref, my desperation to see us win the game grew. I really wanted this trophy anyway, but I know not everyone was as enthusiastic about it as I was. Surely though, even those who were largely indifferent to it would have been gutted if we hadn’t won? I wrote after the semi final that this was likely to be a similar type of close game against horrible opposition. As usual though, by the time kick off arrived I’d convinced myself we’d hammer them because their high line wouldn’t be able to deal with our front three. The way the game started suggested I was right, but after some early scares they adjusted accordingly. Bobby missed an absolutely sitter inside the first 40 seconds when Trent’s ball over the top put him clear. That was a terrible miss but the ease with which he got in was a good sign. A couple of minutes later Mo got in behind them and cut it back for Keita, who leaned back on his shot and side footed it over the bar. Just needed to put his foot through that one. Trent then went within inches of a brilliant goal from distance. His shot was curling inwards and if he’d been another five years further out it would probably have crept inside the post. Those first five minutes were great and I thought we were going to wipe the floor with them. And then it all just fell flat. They were arguably the better side in the first half as we just got worse and worse the longer it went. We defended well and Alisson wasn’t exactly over worked, but we were wasteful with the ball and they looked a little more settled with the ball than we did. Salah was especially wasteful while Bobby was hit and miss. The midfield was the real problem though. The balance wasn’t right with Ox and Keita both in there. Henderson was great but they seemed to be finding a bit too much space in there and that stopped us from dominating. Keita had some good moments but Ox generally did nothing until he was forced off with an ankle that hopefully isn’t as bad as it looked. Their left winger was their main threat and Trent had some difficult moments against him. Fortunately Gomez was always there covering behind him and he got across to make a fantastic block on the one occasion the winger got through on goal. Brilliant defending that. Trent seemed to figure the lad out the longer the game went on and he stopped being as much of a nuisance. The biggest frustration for me though was the referee. He was hopeless. To begin with I was angry with him. I didn’t like his demeanour and the sneering way he was addressing the players. Like a jobsworth prison guard ordering inmates around. He was shit and his attitude was terrible, so he was winding me right up. As the game developed though it dawned on me that the poor fella was just in way over his head. It’s not his fault, it’s FIFA’s. I don’t blame the ref at all. He wasn’t qualified to do the job, it’s as simple as that. It’s like asking me to fly a plane or the general public voting for Boris Johnson to run the country. The results are never going to be good. When you play teams from this part of the world you need a strong, streetwise ref who isn’t going to fall for their shite. This fella was just so naive and Flamengo’s players took full advantage of it. Especially Rafinha who played him like a fiddle. He was acting the cunt all night and Mané in particular was in danger of losing his rag with him. Any time Sadio went near him he threw himself to the ground and got a free-kick. Just before half time we had a break away and Rafinha grabbed Sadio to prevent him joining the attack. Sadio shrugged him off and he hit the deck like he’d been shot. That clown ref stopped our attack, gave them a free-kick and booked Mané, who was so angry about it he could have landed himself in real bother. A few of the lads went to speak to him to calm him down and as they left the field Robbo walks over and in clear earshot of Rafinha says to Mané “Sadio let me deal with it. I’ll get him, don’t worry”. Rafinha’s reaction shows he heard every word. Seven minutes into the second half Robbo did indeed get him. The beauty of that was that hardly anyone even noticed until replays of it were put on social media afterwards. A free-kick wasn’t even awarded. Robbo is just the man isn’t he? As soon as the final whistle went, there was Robbo right in Rafinha’s face letting him know what the score was. You know how when you’re a kid you idolise these players and put them on a giant pedestal? That changes as you get older. Paul Walsh was my hero when I was a kid, but you grow out of that once you hit your twenties or (in some cases) thirties. I certainly did. Then Andy Robbo came along. He’s my hero, there’s no-one else like him. The second half started exactly the same way as the first, with Bobby missing a sitter. He did everything right this time but his shot came back off the inside of the post. Really unlucky that one. Alisson then had to make a smart save to deny the dangerous Henrique. It’s a save you’d expect him to make but the impressive thing was the strong hand he got on it to push it away from danger. As I said earlier, that Henrique was good. So good that I’m not even going to poke fun at his ridiculous hair cut. Everton lived up to his name and was completely ineffective against us, while “Gabigol” was more like gabagool. He did nothing other than look for free-kicks and eventually got stretchered off with cramp, although he did come back on. Not that anyone noticed as he did nothing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player go off on a stretcher with cramp before, but then I’ve never seen a goalkeeper get cramp either so it was a night of firsts. Funny how all those cases of cramp stopped when they fell behind though. It’s almost as if there was actually nothing wrong with them at all. As the game reached the latter stages it looked quite obvious that we were stronger and they were getting tired. They were hanging on for pens at that point, you could tell by the time wasting and fake cases of cramp. We were turning the screw but the goal wouldn’t come. And then right at the end Bobby sent Sadio scampering clear and he was caught on his foot in the act of shooting. The ref signalled for a pen and when it went to VAR my first though was “wait, we’ve got VAR for this game?”. How come it took until 90 odd minutes before they used it? For example, when Henderson was dragged down in the box, how was that not looked at? Keita was taken out on the edge of the box too as he tried a one-two with Mo. Those non-calls paled into insignificance compared to the penalty incident right at the death though. Bobby played Sadio through and he was tackled in the act of shooting. The ball missed the target by about 20 yards, which tells you something wasn’t right. The ref pointed to the spot and VAR officials told him he needed to take a look to make sure it was in the box. The replay wasn’t 100% conclusive really. I’d say it was almost definitely outside but Sadio’s toe was touching the line and I think (I’m not sure) that means it’s a pen. Whatever, I wouldn’t have been complaining if that had been ruled outside the box and as I watched the replays that’s what I expected to happen. I also thought that if it was outside the box then Rafinha would have to be given a straight red, as ‘double jeopardy’ no longer applies min that instance. So I thought it would be a free-kick right on the edge of the box and a sending off for Rafinha. What I didn’t expect was for him to decide that actually there was no foul at all. I mean really? You think Mané is missing the target by that much if his foot wasn’t kicked from behind? The replay clearly showed Rafinha lunging in from behind and hitting the sole of Sadio’s boot just as he went to shoot. But ok, if that’s what he thought then it is what it is. I mean, he’s wrong, clearly, but for argument’s sake let’s say that hypothetically there was no foul. That makes it a goal kick, right? It looked to me like he gave an uncontested drop ball though. Amidst all the confusion the commentary team didn’t pick up on that, so when the full time whistle went I rewound it back to see how he restarted the game. After he signals that there’s no penalty or free-kick, he’s stood there holding onto the ball sending everyone away, and then he drops the ball at the keeper’s feet. The camera moves away for a few seconds and is showing various players, and when it pans back to the action, the keeper is kicking the ball downfield from the edge of the box. What the fuck? You can’t just restart the game like that, surely? If play had been stopped for VAR then yeah, a drop ball at the scene of where the ball was when the game was stopped would make sense (and I believe is the actual rule). But he didn’t blow the whistle for a foul until after the ball had gone behind, so this just seems like he was making it up as he went. Fifa want this competition to be seen as the pinnacle of club football. It never will be, because the Champions League is always going to be bigger in the eyes of fans and the clubs in Europe. There is merit to this competition though, as it pits the best in Europe against the best in South America. How can you have that though and then put a ref from Qatar in charge? I understand that a South American team wouldn’t want a European in charge, and vice versa. But don’t tell me that this fella was the best of the rest. There has to be refs from other, more competitive leagues around the world that are more qualified than this hapless clown. You demean the credibility of the competition by putting these shit refs in charge of games. The only thing I can say in possible mitigation for him is that he did not see the same replays we did because VAR were satisfied that it was a foul and just wanted him to decide if it was in or out. That meant the replays did not show the contact, just where it took place. They presumably didn’t think for one second he was then going to say ‘actually that’s not even a foul, I’ll give nothing’. It was beyond farce. This game is second only tot he World Cup Final in the eyes of FIFA, so this would have been hugely embarrassing if it had decided the outcome of the game. That it didn’t decide the outcome shows once again just how mentally strong this bunch are. That overturned decision at such a crucial stage of the game was such a hammer blow and most teams would have struggled to deal with it. We went from having Mo stood with the ball on the spot waiting to take a stoppage time penalty to win us the trophy, to having to play half an hour extra time. But what did these lads do? They scored within five fucking minutes, that’s what. Mentality Monsters. Nothing seems to faze them. Nothing at all. They’re just relentless and never let anything get in their way of winning. Klopp says he couldn’t be any prouder, and he’s right. Imagine being their manager? Every game you’d just be beaming at what they manage to achieve, often in the most trying of circumstances. I thought Bobby got lucky with the finish because it was so nearly blocked by the defender. He’s being praised for how calm he was and the way he took his time, but I thought he was too casual and got away with it. Maybe I’m being harsh, but look how close that was to not being a goal. That would have been three sitters missed in one game. We know there’s more to his game than goals but it would be nice if he started scoring a bit more regularly, like he did two years ago. The build up was quality though. Brilliant ball by Hendo and great awareness and unselfishness from Mané. That’s the thing with this team. Eventually they’re going to get you. To beat us the opposition need to perform at their absolute best for the entire game, and that’s hard to do. And sometimes it’s not enough. The way we took control of this game in the second half and in extra time was typically impressive. Flamengo did nothing until the very last minute of extra when they should have equalised only for their young substitute to balloon one over the bar. Other than that we defended with such an assurance and organisation that at no point did I ever feel they’d score. I’m made up we beat them and equally made up that we hardly ever have to play teams from this part of the world, as if they’re not booting lumps out of you they’re shithousing like Mourinho’s Porto side. They’ve been singing about beating us for nearly 40 years, which is fine as it’s an achievement they are rightly proud of. I don’t have a problem with that but I didn’t want them having another victory to sing about for decades. Fuck that. Going all this way and not winning would have been a sickener. I wanted to be crowned World Champions, but more than anything I just didn’t want us to go over there and lose. The fear of losing outweighed the desire to win. It was the same in the Champions League final actually. I feel it’s going to be different from now on though. Having won these trophies it changes things and maybe in future that fear of losing won’t be as prevalent. We no longer have to hear about Klopp’s record in finals or Liverpool not being able to get the job done. That’s gone. We might not always win but the next time we don’t we shouldn’t have to hear any of that crap again. You can throw any obstacle in front of this team and they just shrug it off and keep marching on. Nothing fazes them at all. The way they dealt with all the shite that went on in this game and didn’t lose their composure shows just how mature they are these days. They don’t let things like that put them off their game and they just put it to one side and play their football. European Champions. World Champions. Hopefully soon to be English Champions. What’s next? Is there an inter-galactical tournament we can go and win? There’s probably some big alien fucker out there now just begging to feel the wrath of Robbo. With this now out of the way we can concentrate solely on domestic matters. Leicester away on Boxing Day is going to be seriously tough coming off the back of the energy sapping exploits in Qatar. It would have been a whole tougher if Leicester had won at the Etihad though. We could have been going there knowing that defeat would have cut our lead at the top to just four points. Now we go there ten ahead and with a game in hand. We’re eleven ahead of City with a game in hand on them too. The games we have coming up are tricky though and some points might be dropped. At least we’ve got a decent sized cushion if that proves to be the case. The addition of Minamino could be just the little shot in the arm we need in this busy time though. Can’t wait to see him play. Star man is Henderson who was head and shoulders above everybody other than the magnificent Joe Gomez, who ran him fairly close. After 90 minutes I would probably have given it to Gomez, but Henderson just dominated extra time and seemed to constantly be around the ball, whether we had it or not. He was everywhere. It’s staggering that there are still people out there who doubt him. He’s our fucking captain for a reason. He’s even got his own trademark trophy lift. How many people can say that? Here’s hoping we see it at least a couple more times before the season is out (I was going to say three but I don’t want to be too greedy and demand an FA Cup as well). Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson, Keita (Milner), Oxlade-Chamberlain (Lallana); Salah, Firmino (Origi), Mané:

Saturday Dec 14: L 2 Watford 0 That was shite. Watford deserved something from this game but if you’re going to get anything against the Reds you can’t afford to waste the kind of chances that Watford did. It was a typical early kick off following a midweek Euro away type game though really. These are never good, not when you’re playing a struggling team anyway. These are the games we’ve always drawn or lost in the past. Go back over the last couple of decades and they are littered with letdown games against shite. The last couple of years though we seem to have completely eradicated them. These days we just win whether we play good, bad or indifferent. This one was somewhere between bad and indifferent, but the goals were class, especially the first one. Mo loves playing Watford. You’d never believe they were bottom of the table based on this performance, but then in a way I suppose maybe you would. Scoring goals has been a huge problem all season, and we saw that today. I hope they get out of the bottom three but it’s not looking likely. My boy Troy loves the Reds doesn’t he? See him on the pitch at full time being matey with all the lads? He was chatting with Sadio in the tunnel too, it was captured on camera as Sadio wished him Merry Christmas and told him to “look after my boy (his Senegal team-mate Sarr) because he’s shy”. Love that. Deeney had a little tussle with Virg in the first half too which was funny. He was chasing a through ball and Virg stepped across and gave him a little elbow in the ribs. Deeney looked genuinely upset about it, he was looking at him like “how could you? You’re my hero”. Virg immediately gave him a friendly little pat and they had a hug and all was well with the world again. It’s funny because if that was, say, David Luiz or Mustafi, Deeney would have had fucking murder with them because of the disdain he has for weak defenders. He fucking loves Virg. Who doesn’t though? Sunday Dec 15: The u23s drew 1-1 with Chelsea today and the line up revealed a lot about who is likely to play at Villa. It was basically Curtis Jones plus 10 under 18 players. Jones scored a brilliant goal (his 13th of the season) but only played a half before being withdrawn. He’s travelling to Qatar and won’t play against Villa. Nor will Neco Williams. The lads who played today did a pretty remarkable job though all things considered. Chelsea had loads of highly rated kids out there, some of whom are on the fringes of Lampard’s senior squad, while we had a number of 16 year olds, so this was a hell of an effort. In the big league today, City had a predictably easy win at Arsenal but the interesting thing was that the game wasn’t shown in China because the Chinese have seen their arses over a tweet by Mesut Ozil and as a result of that they pulled the game and showed a repeat of Wolves v Spurs instead. Ozil spoke out about the treatment of Muslims over in China, and Arsenal shit themselves and were at pains to point out that these were Ozil’s views alone and don’t represent what Arsenal as a club feel. They didn’t do this when Bellerin (the big fucking hero) tweeted “Fuck Johnson” the other day. Why? Because like most other sports teams, Arsenal are terrified of upsetting the Chinese because of how much money is at stake. Same thing happened with the NBA a few months ago. LeBron James is something of a social justice warrior and is generally great when it comes to speaking on important issues. When an NBA exec from another team condemned China for their human rights issues though, LeBron wasn’t having it and said the guy ‘was not educated’ on the China situation. Why would he do that? Because the NBA is fucking massive in China and LeBron & co are wetting their beaks. just like Arsenal. Good for Ozil for speaking out, although he’s best mates with the Turkish president and they’ve got some shit going on over there themselves, so Ozil is leaving himself a bit open to claims of hypocrisy. A bit like when Guardiola preaches about Catalan independence while taking the Abu Dhabi money. I don’t actually know where I’m going with this now as I’ve started rambling. I suppose the point is just, fuck Arsenal. Monday Dec 16: Atletico it is then The draw I want the least really but it’s a worse draw for them than it is us. I don’t know what to expect because I don’t watch La Liga and until this week I didn’t know just how many players have left in the last year or two. I immediately think of Atletico as that ruthless team of defensive minded, spoiling bastards led by Diego Godin at the back, but apparently they aren’t that team anymore. I’m still taking nothing for granted though because Simeone will have them defending for their lives and shithousing all over the gaff. I expect two horrible games. In other news, there’s a lot of talk that Ancelotti is going to take the Everton job. This blows my mind really and I compared it on Twitter to Robert De Niro accepting a part on Coronation Street. Immediately I was inundated with replies on how De Niro did adverts for Warburton’s bread. Ok, smart arses, so that comparison doesn’t work. Let’s just replace him with Al Pacino, ok? Happy now? Meanwhile, former Everton boss Fat Sam was on Talksport this morning talking about the Arsenal job. He said he knows he’s got no chance of getting it but that if he did go in there he’d sort out that defence and make them harder to beat because he’s done that at every club he’s been at. Imagine falling so far that Allardyce is telling people he could make you better and he isn’t talking through his arse. Arsenal are so shit these days that I can’t even take pleasure in, I just find them grossly offensive. Allardyce is actually right. He would make them less shit. It tells you all you need to know about just how fucking shit and spineless Arsenal are currently that they could actually do a lot worse than Allardyce, and they probably will. Tuesday Dec 17: Ancelotti is actually taking the job, the fucking loon. Mind you, they must be paying him something utterly obscene for him to agree to it. He’s a good manager and perhaps even more importantly he’s a hugely respected figure within football, which instantly gives Everton some much needed credibility, but he’s something of a specialist who is suited to specific types of situations, and this ain’t it. Expect him to go the way of Koeman. That severance pay off is gonna be huge. Meanwhile, Villa 5 L 0. I’v e got mixed feelings about this. Going out of the cup doesn’t bother me because it was always going to end this way. The scoreline is upsetting though as it just doesn’t reflect the game. Villa deserved to win as they were far more clinical and their experience (and physicality) was always going to prove decisive, but the kids did brilliantly I thought. The bravery on the ball and the way they went out there and just played ‘Liverpool football’ was great. Harvey Elliott was the best player on the pitch and Neil Taylor was genuinely worried any time Harvey had the ball at his feet. He could play for the first team now and wouldn’t look out of place. He’s the best 16 year old we’ve had since Michael Owen. Pedro Chirivella was class too. How on earth is he still stuck here in our u23 side? Don’t tell me there aren’t hundreds of teams who couldn’t use a player like him, because I’m not having it. That lad is a quality footballer who plays with his head up. Of course we’re getting flak from some for the team we picked, even though there was no viable alternative. That soft twat on Talksport who does the show with Jason Cundy was kicking off that Origi, Shaqiri, Lallana, Milner and the other squad players weren’t involved. They’ll be playing tomorrow night, because there is no way on earth we go full strength against Monterrey with the injuries we have and the games we’ve got coming up. All in all, I see this as a positive because there are some kids who would never have gotten to play for our first team who can now say they have, while for the likes of Elliott and Hoever it’s more valuable experience. Wednesday Dec 18: L 2 Monterrey 1 Jesus, that was tough. It shouldn’t be, because these are 8th in the Mexican league and would struggle in the Championship, but this competition means so much to these clubs that you get an almost superhuman effort from them. We struggled without Van Dijk, but that’s to be expected as Hendo has never played there before. Not only did the defence suffer, but the midfield did too because Hendo wasn’t in there. Lallana, Ox and Keita is not a midfield three anyone ever expected to see, but needs must. Keita played well and scored for the third game in a row. Salah was sharp too, but without the contribution of the subs we were never winning this. The amount of late goals we get is incredible, but it’s almost a self fulfilling prophecy now. We know we’re going to score and the opponents are fearing the worst. The pass from Trent to pick out Bobby for the winner was just sublime. Anyone else would have blasted that cross into the middle, but Trent just eased it in there into the perfect spot. He gets a lot of media recognition and seems to be highlighted on MOTD every other week, yet I still feel like Trent is widely under-rated. He’s a genuine superstar talent and does things most other players can only dream of. I suppose playing in a team with loads of other stars means there’s only so many plaudits to go around. Thursday Dec 19: Arteta takes the Arsenal job and City aren’t happy about how it was handled. Seems they’re always complaining about something lately. One might even say they’re always the victims of something. They want £2m compensation from Arsenal, which seems a bit steep for a fella who puts the cones out and fetches Guardiola’s coffee. He’s hardly Pep Ljinders is he? I think City are most upset that he’s gone to Arsenal and not Everton, thus denying them the chance to ring the Blues and ask “where’s the Arteta money, Bill?”. You like that one? Me too, I was going to tweet it out but I thought nah, that’s so good people shouldn’t get that for free. That’s what you pay your money for folks. Imagine thinking that Mikel Arteta has enough about him to sort out the absolute shambolic mess that it Arsenal right now. Then again, other than Klopp I don’t think there is anyone out there who can fix them any time soon. Meanwhile, Minamino is now officially a Red and will reportedly make his debut against Everton in the FA Cup. Can’t wait, hope it goes the same way as Big Virg’s debut against them went. Friday Dec 20: Origi is asked what his favourite goal from last season was and he said it was the Everton one. This is just some top trolling. I mean, the lad scored one of, if not THE most iconic goal in club history with that winner against Barca, and he also scored in a Champions League final. Yet he picked a scruffy little header from a yard out against a mid table team. You’ve got to hand it to him, he knows his audience! In other news today, the kids came from 2-1 down in the last minute to beat PSG 3-2 with two stoppage time goals. Gotta love this mentality running right through the club. Some of these lads played at Villa only a few nights earlier, including Tom Him who came on a sub to score the equaliser. The winner came from another sub, Larouci, who is back from the injury that kept him out the other night. Arsenal are linked with a move for Ndidi. They’re rumoured to be ready to offer Leicester a deal of Granit Xhaka and £40m. Ah, the old £40m plus one pound bid again. ….and that was the week that was

Another good weekend for the Reds as our lead at the top was extended by a couple of points when Norwich upset the odds to end Leicester’s long winning run. Norwich could easily have won the game and may feel that a draw was a little harsh on them. Leicester will probably see it as two points dropped and will feel that they should be beating Norwich. More often than not they would do, but this isn’t a big shock. It’s normal that a team like Leicester will have a few days like this. What isn’t normal is the winning streak they’ve been on. That isn’t a criticism, it’s just a fact. Leicester are good. Better than most people expected. But they aren’t going to win every game and it was therefore only a matter of time before they dropped some points. Few expected it to be against Norwich but the Canaries have beaten Man City this season so they are dangerous on their day. For Leicester the setback probably feels bigger than it is because any point dropped now looks like being fatal to any of the chasing pack, but at the beginning of the season the expectation for them was that they might gatecrash the top six. No-one had them in second spot at this stage of the season, so a home draw with Norwich is no big deal. Shit happens, this is completely normal. Until recently you could have several results like this and still challenge for the title. City averaging 100 points changed that and now we’re picking up the baton to keep that going. Leicester have made a better start than they did when they won the title, but it’s a different ball game these days. My boy Pukki had missed a glorious chance early on but he made amends soon after when he was sent clear and beat Schmeichel with ease. He’s back among the goals again after a barren spell. I’d love Norwich to fight their way out of it but I don’t hold out much hope. What will probably happen is they’ll win three of their next four and I’ll get suckered in again, telling you all how good they are and how they’ll stay up. Then they’ll lose ten on the bounce and make me look stupid again. The one area where I rarely end up being wrong though is identifying twats. I’ve got a rare talent for it. I told you last week that I hated Iheanacho more than any other player in the league and the very next game he proved to the world that I’d got it spot on. What a deplorable shitbag he is. Ricardo and Pukki went in for a thunderous 50-50 and both players were hurt. Norwich put the ball out so Pukki could get treatment (he'd broken his toe), and when the game restarted Ricardo threw it to Iheanacho near the edge of the box. Players from both sides had stopped, expecting him to knock it back to the keeper, but the cunt just started dribbling towards the box and had to be stopped by a foul from a Norwich defender, who was booked. Todd Cantwell was also booked for grabbing Iheanacho by the collar as he lay on the ground. It’s hard for the ref here as he couldn’t not book those players, but none of it would have happened but for Iheanacho being an unsporting sack of shit. Fuck that guy. Proper cunt. Credit to Leicester who did not try to score from the free-kick (Maddison passed it back to Krul) and Brendan actually subbed Iheanacho a few minutes later (in the first half). So this wasn’t bad sportsmanship by Leicester, it was just one fucking helmet showing once again what little regard he has for the integrity of the game that has made him a millionaire. Bizarrely, Match of the Day didn’t address the incident at all and put his early substitution down to him making little impact. I don’t know why they wouldn’t give that scandalous incident the exposure it deserved, but then no-one called him out on his deliberate miss against City last season either. Leicester equalised when Vardy got across the near post and headed home for what looked like his ninth goal in consecutive games. Turns out it wasn’t on target and it goes down as an own goal by Krul who in trying to make the save actually pushed it into his own net. Having drawn level I expected Leicester to go on and win and for a while they dominated and had Norwich on the ropes, but the goal didn’t come and Norwich finished the game strongly and probably should have found a winning goal themselves. Cantwell is a good player but I can’t take to him as he’s just got too much of a “Young Conversative” look about him. Same reason I’ve always disliked Patrick Bamford (although him repeatedly refusing to sign for me on Footy Manager also played a part). I also don’t like Cantwell’s hairband, which just looks like a white shoelace tied around his head. That’s just not acceptable to me. I’m grateful for his contributions against our two main title rivals though. It wasn’t so long ago that Chelsea were right up there too and almost within touching distance of us. They weren’t close enough to be a genuine concern but it was mildly irritating how they were holding onto our coat tails. The wheels have fallen off Lampard’s bandwagon since and they’ve lost four of their last five now after being turned over by Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge. Hell of a result for Eddie Howe considering he was without half a team and they’d lost five in a row. Chelsea actually started brightly but they didn’t take either of the two good chances they created and it proved costly. The longer it stayed goalless the more edgy they looked. Emerson should have headed them in front but he put it straight at the keeper. Bournemouth started to show some ambition in the closing stages and they got their reward late on in dramatic circumstances when that Dan Gosling jabroni was initially flagged offside when he hooked the ball over the keeper. VAR showed he was at least a yard onside though and the goal was given. It’s the correct decision but it’s an unsatisfactory way to win the game. Players all standing around waiting to discover their fate. That being said, when the ref gave the goal the Bournemouth players just went charging off to celebrate with the fans anyway, so I don’t think their moment was ruined too much. It was a clever finish too, to give Gosling credit. Lampard was classy afterwards, refusing to use tiredness as an excuse and acknowledging that they just didn’t play well enough. I don’t want to like him but it’s hard not to. It has been ever since he stopped playing. Sheffield United won again. It’s mad what they’re doing. The whole ‘overlapping centre-backs’ thing is great, I love it. Their opening goal came when a centre back in the right wing position produced a back heel to find Lundstrom, who crossed for John Fleck to score from close range. Fleck got the second too, and again it was nice football. I enjoy watching them, there’s something refreshing about what they do and Fleck is a really tidy player in the middle of the park. Villa should have pulled one back when they were awarded a penalty for handball but Grealish smashed it against the bar. The Blades moved up into 5th spot with that win, although they’ve since been overhauled by Spurs and United. Still, they’re doing great so far. I don’t think they can keep it up but we’ll see. Southampton were garbage for most of their home loss with West Ham. The Hammers made all the running in the first half and led through Haller. The impressive Antonio thought he’d made it 2-0 but it was ruled out for an accidental handball. Southampton just couldn’t cope with him, he ran them ragged all day. Southampton eventually started to get a foothold in the game and Ings went close on a couple of occasions but West Ham held on for a deserved three points and Southampton continue to look like a doomed side. Burnley edged out injury hit Newcastle at Turf Moor. That yard dog Wood got the only goal of the game when he arrived at the back post from a corner. It feels like so many Burnley goals come like that. Sunday saw Man City cruise to an embarrassingly easy win at the Emirates. City could have scored seven or eight and De Bruyne was given the freedom of the park. Guardiola said afterwards that they played better last week when they lost to United, which was his way of saying that this game was just too easy. 90 seconds was all it took for Arsenal to concede. The white flag waving, weak as piss bastards. They’re an absolute joke. They had almost scored themselves and won a corner. From that corner City scored, but it wasn’t a bang bang bang Redmen style counter. City passed it all around the pitch, backwards and forwards, side to side, it took at least 30 seconds and Arsenal had loads of time to get back and get organised. Yet they still got done by a typical City run in behind and cut back from the byline. The finish from De Bruyne was stunning, but if Arsenal had anything about them the ball would never have reached him. Kolasinac actually ducked out of the way of it on the line. That’s just so Arsenal. The big goon will take on two knife wielding muggers but he’s scared of a fucking ball. They got done the same way for the second goal too. De Bruyne to the byline, crossing to the back post, Sterling tap in. How many times have we seen that goal? Every other week it seems. De Bruyne then found loads of space outside the box and curled in a brilliant left footer from 25 yards. Not a great deal they could do about that, not with ten men anyway. Why ten men? Because Kolasinac went off injured and they took an age to get the sub on, because he had about ten layers of gear on but not his shirt. What the fuck is that about? Ozil was replaced by a kid I’ve never heard of. Apparently he’d played ten games and scored three goals. Must be the Europa League, that would explain why I’ve never seen him before. Ozil took an age to leave the field and the fans understandably got a bit annoyed with him and let him hear it. He got to the touchline, took off his gloves and booted them in anger. First time he’s ever showed any sort of passion, the lightweight flakey twat. God I hate this Arsenal squad. Arsenal being shit doesn’t bother me, in fact I welcome it. It’s the manner of their shitness that offends me though. I get wound up by it. They’re a bunch of fucking shitbags stealing a living. Now they’ve appointed a fella who has never managed before and whose only qualification seems to be that he’s worked with Guardiola. Good luck sorting that out, legohead. Still, he can’t be any worse than Ljungberg, who was laughing and joking with Guardiola at full time. You just lost 3-0 at home and you’ve got a semi on because you get to share a joke with ‘Pep’ on the touchline. Everyone and everything connected with that club just screams out “LOSERS” these days. Spurs won at Wolves but no-one can explain how. They got battered. Vertonghen played left back and was given the mother of all chasings by my boy Adama Traore. He’s so dangerous that he was given the Messi treatment by Mourinho, who clearly instructed all of his players to take turns in fouling him. Even Kane dropped back into the left back position to boot him at one point. Spurs went in front after eight minutes with a brilliant solo effort from Lucas Moura and Wolves then missed chance after chance before eventually Traore lashed one in from 20 yards to equalise. It was all Wolves but Spurs completed an act of daylight robbery when Vertonghen headed in a stoppage time corner. Trademark Mourinho win this one. Meanwhile, United were looking to build on impressive wins over Spurs and Man City as they took on Everton at Old Trafford. Would we see the swashbuckling side who dazzled at the Etihad, or the bunch of slapdicks that drew at home to Villa? Yeah, it was the latter. I did say this last week. United have the speed and skill to look good when they’ve got space to counter attack (i.e. against the better sides), but put them up against an opponent that they’re expected to beat and it’s a whole different ball game. They just don’t have the creativity in midfield or from the full backs. Everton were riddled with injuries and had that Mason Holgate chump playing in midfield. They went ahead with a Lindelof own goal but there’s no way that should have stood as Calvert-Lewin (who seems to have decided in the last couple of weeks that he wants to be just like his new boss) had his arm in the face of De Gea. 99 times out of a 100 that is given as a foul on the keeper, but VAR let it stand. United eventually equalised through substitute Mason Greenwood, but all anyone seemed to want to talk about afterwards was how Big Dunc had humiliated Moise Kean by bringing him on and then taking him off. I don’t think he did anything wrong, other than the way he blanked the kid as he walked past him. He could have given him a hug, after all he's not much older than a ballboy. Ferguson obviously sent him on with instructions on what he wanted from him, and bringing him off just tells me that he didn’t think he was doing what was required. He’s trying to get a result, he’s not there to worry about the ego of a teenager who has done fuck all since signing and whose arl fella has gone public on what a mistake it was joining Everton. Being subbed as a sub is embarrassing of course, but what’s even worse is being replaced by Oumar Niasse. Who even knew he was still there? Fucking hell. Next week they’ll be wheeling out Mickel Madar and Arouna Kone. The Blues have definitely rallied under Ferguson but their hopes of breaking their trophy drought are hanging by the slimmest of threads now after they were knocked out of the League Cup in the most agonising way possible. Trailing 2-0 at home to Leicester they rallied late and managed to equalise in stoppage time, sparking wild scenes of celebration with Big Dunc throwing his jacket off, running up the touchline and hugging ballboys again. It went to pens, and Pickford saved one before busting out the Pardew dance. Then they lost. As Everton as it gets. What an utterly miserable existence they have, it’s just one punch in the face after another. The saddest thing is they’ll have now convinced themselves it’s about to change because they’ve managed to land Ancelotti. I almost feel bad for them. Almost. Here’s what will happen. They’ll beat Arsenal this weekend in Ferguson’s last game and then in a couple of months when things are back to being shit they’ll all be wondering why they didn’t just let him have the job permanently. He might eventually get it when they send Carlo and his crazy rogue eyebrow packing, but that severance deal is going to make the Koeman and Silva ones look like loose change. Finally on this, I’d heard some murmurings about Leicester fans taunting Everton by singing about Boris Johnson ‘stopping their benefits’ so I had a look on Twitter afterwards and the Blues were fucking steaming about it. Tweet after tweet referencing Leicester fans as being the worst in the country (a bold statement when Chelsea, Villa, Wolves and Newcastle are still in existence). Some of them were even saying they’d rather see us win the league than them. Jesus, they must have been bad! It’s easy to forget sometimes that despite our differences we do have much in common with the Blues, particularly when it comes to politics and also how the rest of the country takes the piss out of scousers. No doubt we’ll also be subjected to the distasteful shite dressed up as banter that Everton had thrown at them by Leicester (especially if our fans keep singing about hating Tories). Every shitty little smalltime set of ‘banter merchants’ up and down the country will be taunting us with chants about Boris Johnson now, especially from the Midlands down. The likes of Newcastle and the Manchester clubs won’t go that far, they’ll just continue with the ‘feed the scousers’ ‘sign on’ and ‘Liverpool slums’ shite instead, which is essentially the same fucking thing when it comes down to it. This fucking country. Other than that minority of gobshite Leicester fans going home happy, that result was the perfect outcome for us though as it means two more games for Leicester in January which ought to slow them down a little. Two Manc derbies that month is also good for us. Brendan’s a fucking case though isn’t he? He fielded a reserve side against Real Madrid in the Champions League because he wanted to keep our players fresh for a weekend game with Chelsea, but here he is sending out Jamie Vardy and James Maddison to run around for two fucking hours in a league cup tie a few days before they play Man City. What’s up with that? Not sure who I want to win that game yet. Logically a Leicester win is best because it would pretty much be the final nail in Man City’s coffin. A Man City win though would keep our lead at the top at ten points with a game in hand. I suppose a draw is the best outcome but I’ll take positives from whatever happens. I won’t be watching though as it’s on at the same time that we’re trying to become World Champs.

That was hard work. Not what I was expecting and certainly not what I hoped for. In an ideal world we’d have been able to play the second string in this game, get the job done with no drama and have everyone fresh for the final on Saturday. Good job we didn't rest everyone. Klopp clearly didn’t see it the way some of us did and he picked a strong team. Not his strongest, but some changes were enforced (no Virg or Gini) and some were just prudent due to the number of games we’ve had and are due to have (Sadio, Bobby and Trent). The selection of Alisson in goal shows you how seriously Jurgen took this game. It would have been easy to just give Adrian a run out, but thankfully he didn’t because Alisson was the main reason we didn’t suffer an embarrassing loss. Defeat in this game would have been virtually unthinkable considering what we’ve given up to be out there. Sending the kids to play Villa was the right decision (the only decision really), but if we’d fallen at the first hurdle in Qatar that would have rendered the whole trip meaningless. It’s not even like we’d have been able to come home and have some time off either; there’s a third / fourth place playoff game that would need to be played. This game was in the balance right up until the end and Monterrey carried a goal threat all night. I was surprised at how dangerous they were, especially as they’re 8th in their domestic league and have lost seven out of 18 games this season. By rights they shouldn’t have even been on the same pitch as us, yet they gave us all sorts of problems. We didn’t play well but we weren’t awful either. There were several moves of genuine quality and the two goals we scored were brilliant. They defended really well though, while their shoot on sight policy at the other end meant we could never relax. They raised their game massively due to the opposition and the prestige this competition has outside of Europe. We went ahead with a delightfully worked goal. Milner did well to feed Salah and his pass in behind to Keita was world class. Naby finished well for his third goal in three starts. He could easily have doubled that tally and his breaking into the box has given us a nice little extra that we haven’t had in a while. He’s in great nick now and he's a joy to watch, very easy on the eye the way he glides into the box. The lead didn’t last long though, as we failed to clear a free-kick and the twin brother of that dirty ex Everton twat Funes Mori was able to equalise. Few thoughts on him. Firstly, he’s much better than his twin. Secondly, isn’t it weird how they’re identical twins, but one is a striker and the other is a centre back? It’s kind of like how the De Boers were like a mirror image of each other, with one being right footed and the other left. The whole twin thing fascinates me, I can’t get my head around it all. It's just weird to me. Like, if you have an identical twin, why would you choose to go and get the same fucking haircut? This Funes Mori has the exact same stupid 1930s haircut as his cunt brother. I don’t get why you’d do that. Do they WANT to look the same, or is it a case of not wanting to back down? Any twins out there who can shed some light on this, I'm all ears. Anyway, that made it 1-1 and the rest of the half was a struggle. We looked threatening whenever the ball was anywhere near Salah but we also looked vulnerable at the other end and Alisson needed to get a fingertip on a brilliant low cross from their lively right winger to prevent a tap in at the back post. He made some other saves of note too, usually from that right winger who packs a hell of a punch. Milner brought a save from their keeper after more glorious set up play from Mo, while Keita went close to a second just before the break but he too was foiled by the keeper. At half time I felt as though we’d be ok as long as we got more from Origi and Shaq, neither of whom had done anything in the first half. Ox had been quiet too, while Monterrey had done a brilliant job restricting Robbo’s raids down the left. The second half was better in terms of us dominating the ball but otherwise it was just more of the same really. The odd chance here and there for us, the odd dangerous break from them. Naby burst through into the box again and was denied by the keeper, Ox shot wide from 20 yards and Origi had a goal rightly ruled out for offside. At the other end Alisson made a few more sharp saves and they seemed to force a lot of corners and free-kicks. It was just really uncomfortable and their antics off the ball were only adding to the tension. Any time one of them was touched he’d be on the floor pretending to be hurt. It was a fucking joke. They were dirty bastards too, always leaving their foot in late. Gomez was deceived by a high ball and inadvertently brought down Funes Mori. Their coach (more on him in a sec) wanted a red card, but that was never happening as it was a long way from goal and Henderson was right there covering. It put Joe on a knife edge though and they seemed to be targeting him all night. When he miscontrolled the ball and it bounced up and hit his hand, their coach went apeshit and was waving an imaginary card wanting Joe sent off. That’s never a yellow card in a million years and Jurgen saw his arse, mimicking the guy and then looking like he wanted to fight him. That coach looked like a right bellend. I’d heard Tim Vickery on the radio earlier in the day talking about how he is known for his quirky fashion sense, and as soon as the camera went on him at the start I instantly knew he was a twat. I keep telling you that I’ve got a rare skill for this. I can spot them a mile off. To be fair this wasn’t difficult. All you need was a working pair of eyes to know he was a massive helmet. Just look at the fucking state of him. I admit I’m throwing bricks from the world’s biggest greenhouse here as I buy most of my clobber from Matalan, Primark or George at Asda. If I’m going to push the boat out then occasionally it’ll be Next. So yeah, I’m not in much of a position to be criticising when it comes to fashion, but I’m sorry, that fellas outfit, beard and haircut just screamed “mid-life crisis” to me. The skinny jean wearing dope. Jurgen should have stuck one on him and his defence only needed to be “just fucking look at him!”. Anyway, it was really becoming edgy and eventually Klopp sent on Mané. Then it was Trent, and finally Bobby. In the closing stages we looked the more likely winner but it felt to me like we’d have to go through extra time to eventually wear them down. Thankfully it never came to that, as two of the subs combined for an absolutely delightful goal in stoppage time. Mo did well in the build as well, but the weighted ball in by Trent was just…. I dunno, I don’t think it’s being talked about anywhere near as much as it should be because that was something special. Virtually anyone else in that situation would just try to whip the ball in hard or just drill it into the box. Trent just eased it into an area that he knew would cause problems, but he did it at just the right pace to allow our lads to get in there and attack it. If he blasts that ball in then Bobby wouldn’t get there in time. You can’t teach that, it’s just natural world class talent. Even after that goal they came right back at us and had chances in the 90 seconds or so that remained. They looked a really good side, but the truth is they’re not. They’re shite. But this competition is huge to the non-European clubs. They want it so badly, and the chance to knock off the Champions of Europe is such a big thing for these other teams that it’s never going to be easy. There are some Reds (including some of my mates) who see this competition as a major inconvenience and would rather we weren’t out there. Personally I don’t see it that way at all. The timing of it isn’t ideal, but I’ve always liked the option of the European Champions playing the South American Champions. I don’t particularly like the format, and these other sides have no real business being it (even though both ourselves and Flamengo were really tested by these ‘lesser’ teams). I’d love to see it as a two legged tie where the European Champs take on the Copa Libertadores winners home and away. Imagine going to play Boca Juniors or River Plate away. Imagine their fans at Anfield. Spine chilling. But that’s not how it is. FIFA want to make as much money as possible and don’t really care about how inconvenient it is for the teams involved. That isn’t enough reason for me to shun the competition though. I badly want to win this. Not as much as I want to win the league obviously. And if we do win it, it’s not going to feel anything like it feels to win a European Cup. There'll be no open top bus parade. So I’m not putting it in that bracket, but I don’t think it’s like the Charity Shield or Super Cup either. Put it this way. Every other team in this competition sees it as the absolute pinnacle, which means when we play them we’ll get their best effort and then some. By rights Monterrey shouldn’t be able to even give us a game. It should be easy for us, yet it was anything but. They went toe to toe with us and Alisson probably made more saves then their keeper. Don’t expect Flamengo to be any less motivated, or to shithouse any less than the Mexicans did either. Saturday is going to be a war because it’s all they’ve been thinking about for weeks. Shit, they beat us nearly 40 years ago and have been singing about it ever since. That’s right, they’ve got a song about beating us back in 1981 and they still sing about it now. They didn’t want the easier game against Monterrey, they wanted us. This game means everything to them and if we don’t treat it seriously then we’ll lose. I don’t want them singing about beating us twice. Fuck that. Let’s take care of business and win this trophy, and if we do then let’s not be embarrassed about revelling in it because it’s a bigger deal than anyone in this country seems to realise. Let people up and down the country dismiss the importance of it. They’ll never see their team play in it so of course they don’t care. The Mancs enjoyed winning it back in the day, and so they should. We’ve lost three times to South American times and it’s about fucking time we set that record straight and added the title of 'World Champions' to the roll of honours. Roll on Saturday, I can't fucking wait. Team: Alisson; Milner (Alexander-Arnold), Gomez, Henderson, Robertson; Lallana, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Keita; Shaqiri (Mané), Salah, Origi (Firmino):

If ever a scoreline didn’t reflect a game then it was this one. Our team of kids had more possession, more corners and more shots. Somehow they lost 5-0. Don’t get me wrong, Villa deserved to win the game but that scoreline was grossly unfair to the young lads. They played like a Liverpool team. The shape and style of play was just like the first team and you can see the identity that runs right through the club. They fought for everything and Neil Critchley couldn’t have asked for any more from them. Ultimately what did for them was a big gulf in ‘know how’ and a huge difference in luck. Nothing bounced the way of our lads all night while Villa had all sorts of lucky breaks. There was zero percent chance that the team we put out would win the game but without the incredibly shitty luck they had they would have kept it fairly close. Villa would have won because they had that extra bit of experience, especially in the final third when it came to playing the decisive pass and in the middle of defence when it came to preventing it. The way the young lads started the game was incredible. Sharp passing and movement, great pressing and Villa looked like they didn’t know what had hit them in that opening ten minutes. They couldn’t get the ball of us and we were carving them open. Kane, Elliott and Christie-Davies all had efforts at goal and the travelling fans were loving it. The noise from the away end was as loud as anything you’d hear even when the first team are playing. And then, it all came crashing down. A free-kick out wide was whipped in dangerously and Kelleher was beaten low down. Difficult one for the keeper as he can’t commit to it fully in case an attacking player gets a touch on it. Their striker went for it and may or may not have gotten a touch. Either way, it made life difficult for Kelleher and we were a goal down completely against the run of play. Minutes later it was 2-0, and if the first was unfortunate then this was just fucking outrageously unlike. Elmohamady tried to cross from the right but it was blocked by Boyes. The ball looped up off his boot and over the head of the helpless Kelleher from the tightest of angles. That was a 1000/1 chance at best of that ending in a goal. Elmohamady didn’t even have the good grace to just walk back to the halfway line. He fucking stood there like Russell Crowe in Gladiator, the absolute cunt. I mean fucking hell, acting like you’ve actually done something good when all you did was attempted a fucking cross that hit the defender. I’m still seething about that even having slept on it. I mean come on, this nomark celebrated that goal in the exact same manner Salah did after scoring in the Etihad in a Champions League quarter final. Their centre forward then took advantage of a fortunate ricochet to run through and make it 3-0, and he completed his hat-trick with a close range finish from a right wing cross. I can’t even be arsed looking up how to spell his name as I’ll never have reason to mention him again. I’d never heard of him before this game and I expect I’ll never hear of him again. He was another one over-celebrating and showing no awareness of the situation. He was aptly named something that sounds like ‘codger’. A 30 year old slapdick playing against teenagers and celebrating like the teacher in Kes. Yep, stupid arl codger indeed. 4-0 at half time was just a staggering scoreline given the way the game went. We’d created plenty of chances but their keeper just kept making saves. It was infuriating. At one point the stats came on the screen and it said we’d had seven attempts to Villa’s two. The scoreline was 3-0 to them. Fucking hell. Neil Critchley says the lads got a message from Klopp at half time that just said something like ‘stay brave and keep playing football’. They did. They were outstanding, I can’t praise them enough. They played it out from the back (and were rarely caught out) and the midfield lads were always demanding the ball and showed no fear whatsoever. Villa understandably eased off after the break as they knew the game was over, so that at least ensured the scoreline didn’t get completely out of hand. It’s just a shame the kids couldn’t manage to get a goal back, as that was the least their performance deserved. They went close a few times but Villa’s keeper just wasn’t going to be beaten. I thought he was man of the match actually, which shows just how well our kids played. Elliott was brilliant and the experienced Neil Taylor looked scared stiff any time Harvey had the ball at his feet. He created several good chances and went close himself. He’s going to be something very special and he could go straight into the first team now and not look out of place. With better players around him he’ll thrive. The fact that Curtis Jones is ahead of him in the pecking order tells you just how good Jones has been this season. I thought Hoever was brilliant too. He broke down with cramp and was forced off, but it’s not surprising given how much ground he covered up and down that right flank. The link up between him, Elliott and Christie-Davies caused Villa all sort of problems, particularly in the first half. The one player I was slightly disappointed with was Herbie Kane. It’s not that he had a bad game, it’s just I expected more from him as he’s a really good player and other than Chirivella he was the most experienced player in the side. He played a full season in League One last year so this wouldn’t have fazed him. He got himself into some good positions but his finishing was just shite and it was hugely frustrating. A really big problem for us was that we didn’t have a natural centre forward. Louis Longstaff has been playing there this season, mostly through necessity because of the injury to Paul Glatzel and because Bobby Duncan is a massive tool, but he isn’t a number nine and it showed. When he was replaced, Jack Bearne came on and he’s not a number nine either. Rhian Brewster’s injury was most untimely because this would have been a great game to see him in. Honestly, I feel if we had Brewster, Lewis, Larouci, Jones and Williams available we might have even won this game. It’s all moot though as we didn’t have them available and we lost 5-0. There are no negatives to come from this though. Losing really doesn’t matter because like I said, the line up we picked did not have any chance whatsoever of winning the game. The result was determined before the game, it was only the scoreline that was to be determined, so going out isn’t a negative as it was beyond our control. Jurgen is probably relieved not to have to play two more games in January, but the benefits of this game to some of the young players can’t be over-stated. For those who aren’t going to make it, they’ve had a chance in the shop window which will help them and perhaps also increase any transfer value. For those who might make it, this game will have helped them immeasurably. I loved how gutted Elliott looked at full time for example. He’s a winner that kid. The travelling Kop spent a lot of the night chanting “fuck the Tories” “Maggie’s in the mud” and “We’re gonna have a party when Boris Johnson dies”. I fully endorse all of those sentiments but it’s a bit counter-productive I think. For example, I didn’t like all the attention that was paid to our fans in Austria chanting for Corbyn last week, because given the petty nature of rival footy fans up and down the country there will be loads who would vote Tory just because “it pisses off the scousers”. The same twats who buy the S*n for that very reason. It’s not a big deal and it’s not something that bothers me, but that’s what I was thinking when I heard the chants so I’m just mentioning it here. Villa fans were Villa fans. At one point they were singing “top of the league, you’re having a laugh” which would have been mildly amusing coming from anyone else. The problem with Villa is that they’re such humourless, thick twats that it’s not entirely certain they were being ironic. I’d lean towards giving them the benefit of the doubt this time, but I’m far from sure about it. Other than the over-celebrating by a couple of players, Villa were alright I thought. It was a no win situation for them really. No-one is giving them credit for winning 5-0 but if they’d lost or been held to a close scoreline they’d have been hammered for it. When our lads went down with cramp it was usually Villa players who were first on the scene to help them, even while the game was still going on. Afterwards, Dean Smith and John Terry went into our dressing room to offer some encouragement to the kids, which was nice because they didn’t need to do it. I was going to make a joke about Terry just for old times’ sake, but I’m not going to because he did a nice thing and it would be a bit snide of me to rip him for it. So I won’t. But if I were to make a joke about it, I’d probably say something like; “Kids did good. Mongo impressed.” Tell you what has irked me though. The talking media heads debating whether Klopp was out of order selecting the team he did. There was some shite written in one of the papers yesterday by some fucking chin stroker about how surely supporters would rather win the League Cup than the World Club Cup. Presumably we should have sent the kids over to Qatar then? I’m sure FIFA would love that. Besides, why the fuck should we not go all out to win a title we’ve never won before and that the rest of the world actually takes pretty damn seriously. Real Madrid love strutting round with their dicks swinging calling themselves World Champions. If it’s good enough for them, then why should we feel embarrassed about it? That’s before you even take into consideration the vast difference in prize money available for winning in Qatar as opposed to winning the League Cup. I put the radio on this morning and the main topic of discussion was Klopp and whether he ‘got it wrong’. In fairness, Alan Brazil and Ally McCoist both said he did the right thing, as did Ian Holloway when they had him on the phone. The night before though, those two goons on the late show (Goldstein and Cundy) had apparently slaughtered Jurgen for “hanging those kids out to dry” and that has set the tone for the discussion today. Fuck me, what an absolutely terrible take that is. Did they even watch the game? Those lads won’t have left Villa Park with their confidence destroyed. If anything, they should be feeling proud of how they acquitted themselves and confident about their ability to play at senior level. The suggestion that Klopp has in some way let them down is just stupid. Most of those lads would never have gotten an opportunity to represent Liverpool’s first team, but now they have and no-one can ever take that away from them. They’ve played in a cup quarter final for Liverpool in front of a crowd of forty thousand or whatever it was. Lads like Tom Hill, Isaac Christie-Davies, James Norris, Jack Bearne, Morgan Boyes, Tony Gallacher etc could never have dreamed that they’d be playing for our first team this season. Ok, technically you can argue it wasn’t a first team as there were no senior players involved, but it was a competitive senior fixture and the record books will show they played a senior game for Liverpool Football Club. You think they feel “let down” by Klopp? The idea that he had any other choice but to do what he did also irks the fuck out of me. Fans of other clubs dismissing the World Club Cup can fuck off because barring one or two exceptions those clubs have never been - nor will ever be - in this situation. And if by some miracle they were, none of them would prioritise the league cup. Not fucking one of them. United were in this situation and had to pull out of the FA Cup, and that was back when the FA Cup meant something. I get that people feel that this was a mis-match and I have sympathy for the Villa fans who paid full price to see their team play a team of unknown teenagers, but you know who should feel most hard done by here? Us, that’s who. Klopp didn’t want to put out a team like that but because of poor planning by the organisers he was left with no choice. We had a chance to win this cup and it was taken away from us because no suitable date could be found for us to play the game with something resembling a senior side. We’re the injured party here, and if neutrals are pissed off because they didn’t see a ‘competitive game’ then tough shit. Star man is Elliott, just ahead of Chirivella. Pedro is such a nice little player. So cultured and classy. It’s a sad indictment of scouting around Europe that this lad is stuck here and doesn’t have teams beating down his door. He’s a really good player and any time he’s played for our first team he’s been class (he was brilliant at West Ham a few years ago). I hope he gets a decent move in January, he deserves it. Team: Kelleher; Hoever (Norris), Van den Berg, Boyes, Gallacher; Chirivella, Kane, Christie-Davies (Clarkson); Elliott, Longstaff (Bearne), Hill:

This reminded me of some of the games in the first half of last season = unconvincing performance but a clean sheet and three points. Even the switch to 4-2-3-1 with Shaqiri coming into the side put me in mind of a year ago. Under normal circumstances we’d smash Watford but an early kick off after midweek European action can be a great leveller. Watford having a new manager didn’t help either, so all in all this was a great three points even if it was “top versus bottom”. You get strange results at this time of the year. Even this weekend Chelsea lost at home to Bournemouth and Leicester were held by Norwich. We used to specialise in fucking up this kind of game. Not any more. Klopp said afterwards that we didn’t have “an off day” and that it was just a tough game. I’d say it was both. It would be unfair to Watford to suggest that the only reason this game was close was because we didn’t play well. but obviously it was a big factor and even Nigel Pearson would concede that. There are a number of reasons why we didn’t play well, but Watford’s performance is high on the list. They played very well and looked nothing like a bottom of the table side, but whether they stay there or not depends entirely on whether they can raise their game like this when they play the teams around them. They didn’t just come here to defend and I was impressed with the way they were able to play their way through us. Thankfully their finishing was like Mo in Salzburg (minus the one cracker he scored, obviously). It’s all well and good putting in a shift at Anfield and clinging to a moral victory, but let’s see if they can do it when they play Burnley and Everton. If they do that they'll stay up. If not, then it's bye bye Harry the Hornet & co. Actually, why isn't their mascot 'Marvin the Moose' or something? And why aren't they known as the 'the Mooses'. Is Mooses even a word, or is the plural of Moose 'Moose'? No matter, they gave us a tougher game than most have and at the final whistle the over-riding feeling was of relief more than anything. We never really got going for some reason. I thought we’d blow them away when I saw the team Klopp had picked. Shaqiri being brought in to play with the regular front three ought to have been enough to take Watford apart, but what looks good on paper doesn’t always translate to being good on grass. The weird thing is that it's not as though the forwards were all shit. Shaq was alright, while Salah and Mané both looked really sharp. It was only Bobby who wasn’t at the races. His form has been patchy this season and I always feel he struggles in that 4-2-3-1. He shouldn’t do, as in theory he’s made for it. It just rarely seems to go well for him when we play this system and maybe Minamino will be better suited to it when we switch from 4-3-3. Nothing was going right for Bobby at all. He was giving the ball away constantly and even the times when he did everything right it still wasn’t quite coming off. He still made a telling contribution to the game with his role in the opening goal though, but I’ll get to that in a sec. Most of the big chances in the first half came at the other end. Watford seemed to be able to get in behind us at will and the space between Milner and Van Dijk was an especially profitable avenue for them. It wasn’t the fault of either player, it was more a flaw in the system I think as they just seemed to be able to work overloads against us and always had a spare man running into the box. The chances they had, fucking hell. Deeney just failed to get a touch on a brilliant ball in from Sarr. Then Doucoure missed his kick in front of the Kop and then Sarr did likewise with the goal gaping. Klopp went mental at the Main Stand after that one. I don’t know what his problem was but my impression was that he didn’t like the way everyone mocked Sarr when he missed. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it as any time a player misses like that the crowd will instinctively go “waaaaaayyyyyyyyy” but something got under Jurgen’s skin and he was waving his arms and shouting at us. Don’t fucking shout at us, shout at your players who weren’t tracking runners!! Watford grew in confidence as the half went on, but ironically that contributed to them going behind as they got caught cold from one of their own corner kicks. They sent a lot of players forward and paid the price. I mentioned a few weeks back that I missed those “red arrows” style counter attacks and I’m delighted to say they’ve returned with a vengeance since. We destroyed Everton with them and our first goal in this game was just devastating. I love how we’re more dangerous from the opposition’s corner kicks than they are. It’s gone full circle. A few years ago it was panic stations any time we gave away a corner. Now I’m thinking it might actually be worth our while in close games to deliberately just put the ball behind for a corner just to give ourselves the chance to break on them. This one might be my favourite goal of the season so far. We scored some crackers against the Blues but I’m struggling to think of a better goal than this one, just because of the devastating simplicity of it. Watford must have been wondering just what the hell happened. One minute they’re going forward for a corner kick, and 10 seconds later the ball is in their net. It was just fucking ruthless. Gini cleared the initial corner and that was the key for everyone to charge out en masse for when the ball is knocked back in by the last man. If we win that second ball then look out. We did win it and Firmino produced a stunning overhead ball to find Mané. Usually you’d expect him to run with it but this time he just knocked it into space for Salah to chase. The rest was all about Mo. The defender did well to stay with his run and must have been thinking if he can stop him getting a shot away with his left foot then that would be enough. Mo surprised everyone by chopping it back inside and then bending it into the far corner with his right. It was a finish we’ve seen many times before from the likes of Owen and Suarez but they are both right footed. I don’t expect to see Salah producing a finish like that on his weak side, but he said afterwards that he’s been working on his right foot and it shows. Two brilliant right footed finishes in a week. Well in, Mo. It was a lead we didn’t deserve but so what? If Watford can’t take their chances then that’s on them. If you miss chances against the top sides then you’re going to lose as the margin for error is so small. You have to take your opportunities when they come along, and Watford missed two absolute sitters. Scoring goals has been a massive problem for them all season. Klopp blamed their misses on the wind. He might have a point as the wind did wreak havoc all afternoon. You could see the ball moving in an unnatural manner when it was in the air, but it was just as bad when it was on the ground. At one stage Foster was about to take a goal kick and the ball just blew across his box. The wind might have played a part in Sarr misjudging the flight of the ball on the chance he had, but I think Doucoure just completely made a mess of his and can’t blame the wind for that. He'll be kicking himself about that. Or he'll be trying to. He'll probably end up booting his dog instead. Watford never lost heart though. They had their chances in the second half too and Alisson needed to make two good saves from one v one situations. Perhaps if we’d gone two up earlier then their resistance would have been broken? While they were only one goal down they still had every incentive to keep going and at one stage we began to look really ragged and edgy. Even Virgil wasn’t immune to it and for a heart stopping moment it looked like he’d passed the ball past Alisson into his own net, but thankfully it rolled just wide. That was an incredibly sloppy passage of play, as Robbo overhit a pass to Gomez and as he stretched to retrieve it he inadvertently nodded the ball down into the path of Andre Gray to set him in on goal. Virg got across but didn’t look where Alisson was. That would have been the worst Anfield moment since the Gerrard slip if that had gone in. The crowd were understandably getting edgy and it wasn’t an enjoyable game at all. For the last 20 minutes I was just counting down the seconds until the final whistle. It could have been very different if our old pal VAR hadn’t screwed us early in the second half though. The notion that this is helping us (LiVARpool etc) is bizarre and reeks of straw clutching from jealous rivals. I don’t think we’ve had a ‘questionable’ VAR decision go in our favour all season (maybe an offside at Chelsea if I remember rightly?) but we’ve had two perfectly good goals ruled out by it at key points in games. Everyone in the stadium thought we had gone two up when Shaq’s brilliant cross was headed in by Sadio. I’m usually shit hot when it comes to spotting offsides and it’s rare that I get caught celebrating a goal that doesn’t stand. At least it was before VAR. Normally if there’s a hint of offside I’ll reign in the celebrations but this one caught me out completely. Not for a second did I think there was even a possibility that there was anything wrong with that goal and I was baffled when they said there was a VAR check. Having seen the freeze frame and the stupid lines that are drawn in order to manipulate something into looking offside when it’s not, I still say there’s nothing wrong it. Based on goals I’ve seen disallowed and goals that have been given, I’m now convinced that any decision that’s relatively close can be manipulated to be offside depending on who the video ref is and what he wants to do. You can freeze the frame as the passing / crossing player first strikes the ball, or you can do it as the ball leaves his foot. That’s a 30cm variable apparently. Then you have the lines drawn from the feet / body parts of the attackers and defenders. I saw one recently (Sheff United I think) where the defender’s foot looked like he had clown shoes on because of the blur on the video. The line went from the edge of his foot and the other line was halfway inside the knee of the forward. That’s before we even get into the jarg angles we’ve seen used on some of those lines. It’s not accurate and yet they’re still making decisions based on millimetres. It’s wrong and it needs a complete revamp. It doesn’t need dissecting that much anyway. Whatever happened to “if it’s level it’s onside” and “the benefit of the doubt goes to the attacking team”? Now we’re seeing goals ruled out when to the naked eye they don’t look even remotely offside. It’s a farce and it’s ruining the game. Klopp doesn’t even celebrate goals anymore (which is a crime as no-one enjoyed goals more than Jurgen) and we’re going to reach a point where fans aren’t either. This is exactly why I never wanted it brought in. It was the FA Cup defeat to West Brom that made my mind up. I saw how the Baggies couldn’t celebrate goals properly because they had to wait for VAR and I knew there and then it was shit and would kill the game. Footy is all about that moment of euphoria when your team scores a goal and it’s being taken away by this garbage. The offside thing is the worst part of VAR too. Just change the fucking law so it uses the standing foot of the attacker and defender as the marker. None of this shoulder, armpit, left testicle nonsense. And because we know it isn’t accurate to the exact centimetre, anything that within the 30cm variance should be onside. But I’m wasting my energy even thinking about this shit, because the governing bodies will do exactly what they like and it doesn’t matter what the fans, players or managers think about it. We’re stuck with this VAR bollocks and the best we can hope for is they manage to make it a bit less shit than it is now. We had a VAR check on Mo’s second goal too. That was one that at the time I did think was probably offside. There was a defender lying on the touchline having tried to cut out the cross, but the keeper was off his line and that made me suspect Mo was off. I didn’t really celebrate that one with any gusto and I was mildly surprised when it stood. Having looked at it since, I’d say it should have stood but that it looks more offside than Sadio’s. Great finish from Mo (right foot again too!) and a lovely disguised assist from Origi, who feigned the shot and fooled everyone by just rolling it to Salah. What? You don’t think Origi could hit a shot that badly do you? How dare you disrespect the legend like that. Shame on you. So a difficult day and a workmanlike performance, but it’s another three points and that’s all that matters. At this stage of the season it’s not always going to be pretty as the period between the start of December and the end of January is just a war of attrition. The worst of it is yet to come too. Star man is Salah, with honourable mentions to Alisson, Henderson and Gomez. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Milner; Henderson, Wijnaldum (Robertson); Shaqiri (Oxlade-Chamberlain), Firmino (Origi), Mané; Salah:

Saturday Dec 7: Bournemouth 0 L 3 Three more points closer to our objective. Just keep racking them up boys. Few games will be easier than this one though. The thing with Bournemouth is if they think they have a chance, they’re a difficult team to play. If they know they’ve got no chance, they just meekly accept it and curl up into a ball begging not to be hit too hard. They played this game like they usually play against Man City. The outcome was never in doubt. The great thing about this team is they can can score all sorts of goals and hurt teams in a variety of ways. They can score on a quick break from a corner, they can score from set-pieces, they can score after a patient build up or they can just hit a ball over the top and score that way. We don’t get many from outside the box, so maybe that’s one area where improvement is possible. Look at today though. First goal is a long ball over the top from Hendo to Ox. Usually it’s Mane making that run, but he was rested today and his replacement just stepped in and, well, replaced him. Second goal is a lovely one two between Naby and Mo that went right through the heart of their defence. Third goal is winning it high up the pitch and then Naby playing a perfect through ball for Mo. We’ve got so many strings to our bow that we’re virtually impossible to stop unless we have a bad day and the opposition plays to their absolute maximum. 14 points ahead of City now, who will be six points behind Leicester if the Foxes beat Villa tomorrow. This is just mental. It’s so much more than we could have even dreamed of when the season started. Those two play each other in a couple of weeks and we might actually be rooting for City. How mad is that? Meanwhile, the u18s had a good win today as well, bouncing back from their Youth Cup loss last week with a 5-1 win at last year’s league winners Derby County. They were 1-0 down at half time and then ran riot in the second half. It was the Cain and Clarkson show again. If you haven’t watched the 18s this season, it’s worth checking them out on LFCTV even just to see these two. They’re great to watch. The Manc derby made headlines for all the wrong reasons as a City fan made monkey gestures at Fred, who was also pelted with coins. I take the same view with this as I did with the Chelsea fan who abused Sterling on this very weekend a year ago. It’s not a Chelsea problem, or a Man City problem. It’s not even a football problem. It’s society. Loads of people are cunts, and some of those attend football matches. This doesn’t mean City have a problem with racism or that their fans are all scumbags, but it’s ironic really given how they’ve spent the last 18 months creasing about the behaviour of our fans because one lad threw a bottle. Now it will just be “it was one dickhead”. It was actually more than one, but he was clearly the most obvious offender to everyone except the two stewards who were stood a yard away from him. Sterling is taking a lot of stick over this, which is wrong but almost inevitable given the way he put himself up as some kind of figurehead for the fight against racism. He defended Bernardo’s tweet and today he stood there and did fuck all while two of his team-mates pleaded with the fans to behave themselves. Wasn’t a good look for him at all, but it doesn’t sit right with me seeing all the people lining up to have a go at him. He has left himself open to accusations of hypocrisy though by saying things like clubs whose fans are guilty of racial abuse should be docked nine points. He’ll no doubt be asked about that now but what can he say? That’s a no win situation for him, but seeing fans of other clubs (mostly ours actually) tweeting him gleefully about that feels like it’s making light of a bad situation. Let’s not forget the story here people. Some twat was making monkey gestures, everything else is just background noise. Sunday Dec 8: Oh man, that picture of John Barnes with Boris Johnson was just a massive kick in the balls. It’s genuinely upset me if I’m honest. I wouldn’t have been shocked to discover he voted Tory and it is what it is. I’d imagine plenty of our former and current players do too, as is their right. Actually going out there and being seen campaigning with arguably the biggest cunt in the country (and make no mistake, Johnson is certainly in the running for that title, the Poundland Trump, chuntering piece of shit) is pretty heartbreaking to me. John Barnes was one of those people who when he spoke I’d listen and usually feel more enlightened afterwards. If he had an opposing view to mine, generally I’d just assume I must be wrong. That’s all gone out of the window now though. What a mental couple of days though. Last night Gary Neville called out Johnson on racism as Roy Keane sat there nodding his approval. Today we have John Barnes, JOHN BARNES!!!!, hanging around him him. Right now I like Gary Neville more than I like John Barnes and that’s something I never thought I’d say. Can a giant meteor not just hit us and wipe us out and put an end to all this shit. The human race doesn’t deserve this planet, it’s like the earth has chickenpox. Monday Dec 9: Ok, so Barnes kind of, sort of, partially explains what happened by saying he was promoting England’s world cup bid and that he didn’t know Johnson was going to be there, as he just turned up out of the blue. Wasn’t really enough of an explanation to make me feel ok about it though. Still doesn’t sit well, does it? Meanwhile, the absolute fucking state of this ‘woe is me’ shite from Guardiola: "We have to improve and accept it and move forward," said Guardiola."[Manchester] United have the quality to defend and the quality to attack on the counter-attack and you have to accept that. That is the level we face against Liverpool, Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus. They are the teams we have to face and the reality is maybe we are not able now to compete with them. "Maybe we need to live that as a club to improve, to accept the reality now and improve. The reality is we are 14 points behind for the mistakes we have done, for the quality of our opponents and especially, as well, the things we cannot control. That is the reality but we have to continue." Firstly, just what the fuck is he doing putting United in such esteemed company? Just because United spanked his team doesn’t mean they’re any good. A week earlier they were being held at home by Villa. Unless he’s maybe talking about not being able to compete ‘financially’, which is even more hilarious given we didn’t spend anything last summer and most of what we have spent under Klopp has come via sales anyway. So I don’t actually know what the fuck he’s on about at all. As for ‘especially the things we cannot control’, he means VAR doesn’t he? The fucking weirdo. He should just fuck off to PSG where he’ll have everything his own way (domestically at least) and won’t have to worry about any of this. He’s defo talking like a fella who wants out, but maybe he’s just getting his justification in for the almighty fucking spending spree the corrupt cunts are about to go on? Rafa was on Monday night footy tonight. I didn’t see all of it but I watched his analysis of the Reds. It was good, very interesting stuff with the jist of it being that the only way you can hurt us is by attacking the space behind the full backs, but when he tried to do it with Newcastle he couldn’t because our defenders were faster than his attackers, so *shrugs* whaddayagonnado! Tell you what, these Champions League pre-match press conferences are an absolute fucking joke. So amateurish. These foreign reporters ask the shittest, most inane, pointless questions and I don’t know if it’s because of the language barrier or if it’s just the awful standard of journalism. Every time I watch one of these though I’m squirming with embarrassment. Today Jurgen got really shirty about it and it’s been a long time coming. Every time he has to sit there and listen to stupid questions and try to be polite and give an answer, when you can tell he’s thinking “I’d get more relevant questions in the local nursery school”. It’s just so fucking bad. Tuesday Dec 10: Salzburg 0 L 2 I honestly believe that Salzburg would have beaten any other English side tonight. They’re so much better than people realise and we had to be right on our game to get through tonight. Klopp tried to make that point afterwards and he was gushing in his praise for Salzburg, but I think a lot of people are just dismissing that as him just being nice about a beaten opponent. In the end it was comfortable, but only because we’re the best team in Europe and we showed it. They went toe to toe with us in that first half and could easily have scored a couple of goals. So could we, and it was clear that as dangerous as they were going forward, the trade off for that was they were wide open for us to counter on them. Had Mo not been doing his best Stuart Barlow impersonation it would have been over before half time. It’s utterly ridiculous that he scored the goal he did while missing so many far easier chances. He had no right to score from that angle on his right foot. Incredible goal that was. Good to see Naby on the scoresheet again too. He’s been brilliant in the last two games. Not just good, but brilliant. He’s played like the player I saw in all those youtube videos before he arrived. He’s had a few false dawns so some caution is needed, but to me it looks like he’s finally turned the corner now and this is what we can expect from him most of the time from now on. If he can stay fit, of course. The injuries are starting to kick in now, as we thought they would at this busy time of the year. We lost Lovren tonight, but that was negligence on Klopp’s part. He went off with cramp in his hamstring (in the first half!) at the weekend, which tells you there’s a vulnerability there. He’s got a track record of struggling when he has to play too many games in a short space of time, so why the fuck was he sent out there tonight? Honestly, I’d have been more surprised if he hadn’t had to come injured. We’re down to Van Dijk and Gomez now, plus the two 17 year old Dutch kids, neither of whom are likely to be thrown in for any meaningful game. Fabinho can’t fill in as he’s injured too, so that leaves Gini and Hendo as emergency options, but then we’re light in midfield. Can we get Ragnar back on loan until the end of the season? Wednesday Dec 11: With the group stages now complete, we know who we can and can’t get in the knock outs. I’d rather avoid Atletico Madrid if possible, as they know how to spoil a game and turn it into a borefest. We can do without that. I don’t want Dortmund because we’ve been there and done that. Lyon would be fine, and I don’t really know what I think about Atalanta. I watched them against City and there’s nothing to fear, but I don’t know what their fans are like. Are we looking at a potential Roma or Napoli type running the gauntlet of gobshites? Or are they more like Milan? Real Madrid is the ideal tie for me because we’d twat them everywhere and it would be nice to get some revenge on Ramos. If we get through them it opens up more and we can get anyone. I’d be more than happy to get Barca again and inflict more misery on them, and I’d be ok with getting City too because I think they’re now scared stiff of us. I’d rather not get PSG because I don’t fancy watching Neymar rolling around on the floor for 180 minutes trying to get our lads sent off, and besides, it wouldn’t be fair on Mbappe to have to go up against his future team-mates. Basically I’m happy to play anyone except Napoli, the arse stabbing, playacting, kryptonite twats. Meanwhile, Paul Merson thinks it’s disrespectful how people are dismissing Leicester as title contenders and insists they’ll push us all the way. Great news. Bet everything you have on them dropping points this weekend because if Merse says something, then the opposite is true. Seriously, Leicester have been brilliant so far and they have more points now than they had at this stage when they won it. There’s absolutely nothing to suggest that they can keep up this pace though, and they’re already eight points behind us. I’m not counting them out because I’m a red and you never want to tempt fate, but if I were neutral I’d be telling everyone that this title race is over. Put it this way, if Man City were 14 points ahead of us and eight ahead of Leicester, would ANYONE out there be saying there’s still a chance of them getting caught? No, they wouldn’t. Not even Paul Merson. Thursday Dec 12: Minamino!!! I love these stealth signings that catch everyone by surprise. This is like the Fabinho one. No speculation beforehand, just a report out of nowhere that we’d signed him. Same with this lad. Of course it’s not actually done because it’s not January yet, but it’s all been agreed and will go through when the window opens. I was raving about him (and his mate Hwang) after the Anfield game and they were both dangerous on Tuesday too. Apparently some of our lads were telling Klopp he should sign him and he kept it quiet that he was way ahead of them, the canny bastard. It's funny now looking back at Klopp's reaction to Salzburg's goals at Anfield. He almost looks pleased, he's got a 'that's my boy!' look on his face when Minamino scores and assists. The lad looks tailor made for how we play; he’s skilful, clever, versatile and runs his arse off. I reckon he’ll see a fair bit of action as Bobby’s understudy, playing in that false nine role. He can play wide too, as well as in the ten spot in a 4-2-3-1. Can’t wait to see him play. The price we’re getting him for is almost too good to be true. We sold Ryan Kent for more than that. I had some serious issues with Michael Edwards for a while (fully justified at the time), but the work he’s done over the last couple of years is exemplary, both in terms of getting players in and cashing in on those who go out. This is a fucking steal. We’ll make that transfer fee back in a week with shirt sales in Japan. Not going to comment on the other big event today and it’s just too depressing to dwell on. Friday Dec 13: Feeling pretty shitty today for obvious reasons, and then out of the blue we get Jurgen telling us he’s just signed a new deal. Doesn’t make everything ok, but it definitely took the edge off it a little. Then, in the afternoon, we got the news that Milner has extended his contract for another two years as well. The Reds, doing their bet to cheer us up. I did spare a sympathetic thought for the Blues today. They were just as down as us about the election, but where’s their pick me up? This just made things worse for them. I’m probably less surprised by Klopp signing an extension, simply because it was really looking like they didn’t want to extend Milner. It’s been bothering me for some time that it looked like we were going to let him leave, as he’s still a very important player and that’s before you even factor in everything else he brings. I’d love him to join the coaching staff at the end of this deal, but he looks like someone who will play on until he’s 40 so I expect he’ll drop down a level and continue playing after he leaves us. As for Klopp, my gut feeling was he was going to see out his contract and then return to Germany, especially if we won a league or two in the meantime. He could say “and now my work here is done” like Josemi and leave with our eternal gratitude, but he’s probably weighed everything up and realised that theres nowhere better to be. He’s put the work in to get us in this position, so why not reap the rewards of it? He could go anywhere and be a success, but why go through the two or three years to get everything just right when he’s already done it here? He’s never had this before, because despite Dortmund being hugely successful they were always up against it because they couldn’t stop Bayern nicking their players. He doesn’t have to worry about that here, he can build a team exactly how he wants and he can actually go out and sign any player he fancies because they all want to come here now. He hinted at this when he said part of the reason he extended was because potential signings wanted assurances he’d still be here. It’s obvious to me who he meant. Only a superstar talent would have the gravitas to be bringing something like up. Put it this way, Minamino isn’t going to be saying “I’ll only sign for Liverpool if I know Klopp will still be there in four years”. Most players are just thrilled to be signing for the Reds and wouldn’t have the balls to ‘seek assurances’ about the manager. So yeah, he means Mbappe, doesn’t he? It’s on baby. ….and that was the week that was