Barrington Womble

I think Trent has had a few games where he was splitting the centre backs like that and wanders off to find space from there before his injury. It's just when Gomez has been playing that role, he does it like I think most players who do it, just a full back who kind of comes inside, rather than outside in the traditional way as the ball progresses, so it's really noticeable just how different Trent is. Trent is showing he can play an almost Alonso style role from full back. When you consider Trent played this role for the first time against arsenal a year ago with just one days training and did it well, with the time he's had out, he's probably had plenty of time to think about how he can improve what he's done before and really take his game on. I wasn't too shocked by the lineup, although I don't like so much the gakpo/grav/Elliot combo as I think they're all a bit too easily dominated physically. But it worked out. I expect more changes in the front 6 on Wednesday..

He's been much improved. He needs to get much, much better.

We could do with some of this. Turkey appoint foreign VAR officials after 'bias' claims - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68797201

To be honest, I'm not thinking about amorim or anyone else. When klopp arrived, he did so with a background of 4231, landed with 442 here and aimed for 433, which took him 18 months to get to. When Amorim has gone for his 343, I'm sure it's because it was something different to disrupt rather than it being some type of way style he'll never move from. If/when he comes here, he's hopefully got new plans and if they don't work with the squad we have, he'll evolve to it and make something else work till he does. He might stick with similar to what we're doing now. But the reality is before all that shit of a new manager, we have 5 to win and I'm not looking beyond that. Trent is one we've got back into some form. Jota has got a goal, so hopefully more stems from there. Macca will have had a bit of a breather today, so I expect to see him bounce back. Get one of Nunez, Dom or Salah back into form and we might actually win the 5 games.

Absolutely twat these cunts redmen.

I thought Trent did well there, for the first 40 mins at least..I just don't think often enough there were passes on to him, so he's forced to play a little too slowly. I also thought we lacked width, so he didn't have too many passes into wide areas available to him. For Trent to excel there, I think we need to make the pitch as wide as we can, that enables both the passes out there, but also the space between for him to exploit.

Or we just tell them to fuck off.

I don't think we've been getting the ball forward well all season. We look like we are, a team that hasn't yet gelled. We're brilliant until recently at keeping things quick and winning turnovers of possession, but I don't think we've passed forward too cleanly all season. I think what we've struggled with before today was the whole man marking thing with Atalanta, so we didn't know where to pass and the game in Salford where they effectively played dead, we can't make the pressing/chaos thing happen if the other team plays dead. Palace I didn't think we fucked about too much. It'll be interesting to see what happens on Wednesday. They'll (fans at least) want to battle for everything, but what I've seen of Everton this season, they've been very passive without the ball and are happy to get in position and try to make it hard to play through. I think that's the worst for us. Fulham did a lot of that today.

He was sensational for the first 40 mins today. He ran out of steam then,which was when they got back into it. He didn't quite hit the same level after the break, but hopefully he'll be closer to full speed as each game goes.

I thought there was way to much of that stuff, it's just Trent was in the middle of them. For me, it was absolutely the worst aspect of our play, how happy we were to play 5 yard side ways passed just inside our own half.

It wasn't a great performance, but it was enough. I thought Elliot and grav had been our worst 2 players till they combined for the winner. Shows what a mad game football is at times. That aside though, the goal was sloppy as fuck that we conceded and we move the ball too slowly at times, but it was enough. Trent was sublime for the first 40. And then he tires and they get back into it for a 5-10 mins with the injury time. I didn't think he was as good 2nd half, but it shows what we've been missing. Let's hope he can make Wednesday. I expect us to make a few changes on Wednesday to the front 6 and those who don't get swapped will on Saturday.

For me it is not about the decisions. It's about the appearance of impartiality. I've been banging on for ages about why there seems to be differing standards for what is classed as impartial depending on who the club/region is. It's a very clear thing and always has been, you don't ref your own team. Or that of rivals. Rivals can consist of rivals based on region or rivals based on league position, yet it seems to happen with complete inconsistency - Manchester refs can ref Manchester clubs for example. Merseyside refs don't get the same opportunity with Everton and Liverpool. Then there's the refs who operate abroad and take wages from owners of clubs in this country. And this follows on from what I've posted above. Neville is appalled because forest question the impartiality of the VAR. He's had a right old rant. But all we need is the appearance of impartiality for the whole house of cards to come crashing down. I've said this consistently. Howard Webb should be out of a job, because he thinks he is above these petty protocols.

I didn't write him off. I said he's not a candidate to play next season and we should find him a club where he'll play some football.

And this could get interesting!

He wasn't in rehab though. He was available and played as soon as he arrived there. And quickly they dumped him out of the squad. The only games he's missed at Bolton are a couple with illness.

They were never going to play him? Shouldn't our team who look at loans have something like that in mind before sending him there? Is he that bad, we don't even want him in training?

That wouldn't surprise me considering how close this game is to both the Atalanta and the derby game and we need to play at 12.30 next Saturday. I think we'll see a few changes across the games. I hope we can keep a solid back 4, in fact 5 with whoever plays deep in midfield. Try and give us a building block and then as much freshness as we can ahead.

Arne Slot. He sounds more made up than Eric seven hag. https://anfieldwatch.co.uk/next-liverpool-manager-arne-slot-ruben-amorim/

Can you pay extra to have it cooked?

What did he say about this? He spouts so much shit, I forget when he makes a point.

I've just watched the interview on SSN. It was quite downbeat. But his message was he's feeling good and he's got to pass that on to the other fellas. Klopp also did an interview, which was also not exactly positive. But the same kind of message, let's get to the last game. They're not exactly going to say "well city aren't quite as good as normal, so we expect them.to drop points".

Yeah. And I think we need to get a couple of those easy ones in. We're missing all the one on ones, not even hitting the target. And plenty of chances in the 6 yard box and we contrive to only hit the keeper or defender. I do wonder with the one on ones are our own keepers getting in the players head. Both are tremendous at one on ones and they're probably just as good in training. Perhaps we need them on the training pitch up against Adrian till they get some confidence back.

Keith Hackett having a moan today about the penalty incident in the fa cup game yesterday in the telegraph (according to SSN). The thing for me is it's yet another incident where Michael Oliver favours man city and Coote is his VAR and refuses to ask him to go to the screen. It's incredible how often this happens with Oliver, his decisions don't seem to much go against his employers Abu Dhabi.

What's he say? He seems to be doing a lot of press at the moment. I'm still not convinced he's not on his way this summer.