gkmacca

...So you're SURE now, are you? You want to go to and live in an appallingly repressive and obscenely intolerant regime to 'help build the sport'? Yeah. You're SURE, now, are you? Cos it'll be REALLY embarrassing and expensive if you change your mind. So you're 100% sure? Yeah. Here we are then. Don't like it.

ONE SHEIKH: Hey, that Henderson guy - he RUNS funny! ANOTHER SHEIKH: Now that you mention it...He DOES run funny. THIRD SHEIKH: Kill him!

No, I disagree. Take the time to look back at what Klopp said, repeatedly, and what his England manager said, repeatedly, about the need for him to start pushing on. They both preached the same message, over quite a long time, and it took quite a long time before it seemed to be absorbed (even as recently as last year, Carsley was saying: ''It's important to me that Curtis doesn't play within himself. He's got to be the best player every day, every game. I think he can score more, I think he can assist more. When he gets in front of goal, he's got that quality. He needs to show it on a regular basis, consistently, for us"). So that's not me being a bit harsh. Sorry, I know you feel compelled to argue with me, but that's not a fair complaint.

Kudos to Klopp for persevering with him. Lots of managers would have regarded his younger self as too 'unfocussed' to fit into their plans and moved him on. Klopp was obviously exasperated by him at times, but kept challenging him to work harder and he did so. Well done to Jones as well for pushing himself, belatedly, in the right direction. I can actually envisage him becoming a bit like Ray Kennedy in his role in the team - creative, industrious and disciplined in midfield but still able to get into the box and score a few goals. A long way to go yet but it's promising.

He's got excellent technique, and he's our main goalscorer, and he's obsessed with adding to his goal tally, so the appetite and ambition is there as well, so he remains the obvious person to take penalties. Very few penalty takers don't go through the odd shaky period. Gerrard certainly did. So Mo missing one every now and then is not in itself a reason to drop him from duties. That said, as someone noted earlier in the thread, it's a bit odd that someone who is described as obsessive about knowing what keepers do, and who has been known to quiz keepers after games about how they prepare for his kicks, was 'surprised' by the Newcastle keeper doing what he usually does. It's also slightly concerning that whenever his confidence does go, he tends to blast it down the middle. That's not uncommon in such states of mind, but it's not the way to get out of a rut. Hitting the corners with force and precision is always the better way. But I don't see a strong case for giving the job to anyone else. What concerns me much more is Trent's Beckham-like monopoly on all the other dead ball kicks. Yes, he can be brilliant, but not every angle and distance, every time, suits him more than one of several other excellent free kick takers in the team. It's always a mistake, IMHO, when a team lets one star dominate every free kick. Some free kicks don't suit Trent, such as those that are close to the area and he keeps trying to get the ball up and down when there's simply not enough distance for it to dip under the bar in time. In that kind of situation, surely it would be worth trying occasionally someone who can hit the ball hard and fast around the wall, such as Szoboszlai. Improving our success rate at free kicks is probably easier than reducing Mo's misses at pens.

Again, I doubt he 'thought' much at all in that moment. And even if we can stop time and ponder the move, as TV likes to suggest we can, I rather doubt he would have thought, 'Even though I'm past the keeper and can slot the ball in as I've done many times before, the better bet will be to fall down, risk a booking and leave it to the player who missed his last penalty'.

This is the problem with slo-mo replays. People project whole chunks of thought and motive into them. They run through a range of options, imagine different decisions, then make a conclusion, entirely divorced from how things work in real time and real life. In real time he moved past the keeper and had the chance to score, and the only instinctive thing to do in that nano second was hit the ball. I don't care how 'slight' the touch seems when frozen in a replay.

We've not been bad in shit conditions. Neville (who ludicrously tries to suggest it's an even game) obviously thinks that unless there's a Glazer involved, it's all down to the players. Mo, as I've said before, is not that confident a penalty player if he keeps being drawn back into those stupid strikes right down the centre. The best takers go for the corners because they have the technique, the confidence and the cool-headedness. Mo has each at certain times but one or the other seems to disappear at times. Oh yes, and they say he's first on the training pitch and last off it - so is it that unreasonable to think he'd work on his right foot every now and again? Second half - bring Elliott on, calm the short-socked artiste Trent down, and play the ball earlier to Nunez before he wanders offside.

Quansah - if our late departed and heavily sainted nerd Michael Edwards had got him for 40m it would be hailed as a genius move. Inglethorpe got him for next to nowt and Klopp brought him on and it's not that much more positive than 'meh'. The guy is a great find.

Ha, 'played it down'! She was shattered she had to explain who she was, that was one thing, then she was too scared to stick to her argument.

They bring in Clattenberg to 'clarify' the offside decision. It's like ending the Watergate hearings by saying, 'Let's get this settled by G. Gordon Liddy...'

I'm really impressed with how smart he is as a player. Good for the squad, at the very least, and he's improving all the time.

NOW you tell me!

Commentator on Burnley's forthcoming fixtures: 'It's not going to get much easier'. Utterly crap commentary, from start to finish,,

Diogo does good finishing. Write it on the loo wall.

I really don't understand how bringing in a woman as co-commentator, who sounds like a Harry Enfield impersonation of a 1970s dimwitted blokeish ex-pro, is supposed to be 'progress'. I couldn't care less about what gender they are, but christ can't we move beyond this depressing reliance on conveyor belts of cliches?

Did somebody say just win?

'...And the next question, Daphne: Which hip hop band was associated with lyrics that the underground fanzine Mi-Patwa-Aye described as so bleeping bleeped-up a duck should be bleeping them out of its bleep'? 'Oh, ha-ha-ha, I really have no idea, oh goodness me, ha-hah-ha...' 'I need an answer, Daphne'. 'Oh, ha-ha-ha, oh, I don't know...oh, let me just say...The Pharcyde?' 'That is the correct answer!' How DO you do it??' The woman was a fraud!

I have an almost visceral aversion to Arsenal and their insufferable fans. For years under Graham and others they bored other fans to tears with their shamelessly horrible football, then when Wenger took over they suddenly decided they were the sole connoiseurs of the beautiful game, shouting 'hoof' at other teams even when a keeper took a goal kick. Then, when things started to go awry again, impossibly large sacks of goose fat named things like 'Splatz' and 'Twatz', who had achieved the geographic miracle of having been born simultaneously in North London and Jamaica, took to YouTube to address the world about how unhappy they were about their glorious team, and expected the world to give a shit. They spend entire games singing about their opponents, then whine if their own team doesn't get three points. Add all of them collectively to a Borges-style map, stand back, and you'll see it forms a portrait of Piers Morgan. Land-fill is too good for those preening, Coke-watered wankers.

It's an unhealthy fixation. I don't care so much about filling the gap in defence that Trent leaves. I care more about the fact that filling the gap that Trent leaves merely moves the gap to elsewhere in the defence. No matter how well a CB moves over to the right when he goes up and inside, the fact remains that, by doing so, the CB leaves a gap where the CB should be. So while the tactic might suit Trent, it doesn't suit the defence. He can be a glorious player, as we saw at times yesterday, but the team's the thing, and he needs to either move into midfield or revert to his old position. The back four needs at least four players, otherwise we're merely signposting where the weakness has moved to.

I guess fans realise that injured players still get paid? And have to be used again when they get all better? So while it's hugely frustrating that so many do get injured, it's not like getting an extra pack of loo paper over the festive season. It's quite expensive 'just buying some fucking players'. Sometimes it's as if reality stops and the age of everyone shrinks to about ten.

He epitomises sport before it became a form of pantomime. He was a great player and he's an even greater human being. Humble, modest, decent and inspirational, he's the hero you dream of but very rarely get.

When he's on form, he's worth it, when he's not, he's not. What bothers me is the apparent imprecision of his position: either play him at RB or as CM but when you try to do both, the rest of the team becomes his servants, and, long term, that's just unacceptable (especially when he doesn't play that well). At times, such as yesterday, he seems to find his own image almost erotic in its appeal - the stupid cut-off socks, the Gerrard-at-his-most egomaniacal swagger, and the brushed-aside overhit passes: deeply depressing stuff. He needs to shake-off the 'evolution of a superstar' outlook and get back to being one player amongst others. It's the team that's important, not him.

Funny how 'iteration' became a thing. In't it fancy, eh?

I have the sound down. That's the only way, even though it wrecks the sense of atmosphere. Carra screeches into his mic as if he believes he has to be heard without recourse to amplification. Neville is so blatantly biased it's beyond tiresome. And my pet hate, the use of replays - do we REALLY need two or even three replays of run-of-the-mill headers way over the bar, or scuffed shots to the keeper? It's SO tiresome, and you have to endure them while wondering what the hell is going on with the action. I don't get why it's not more commonly criticised. As for Keane, his absurd delusion that he occupies the moral high ground, when he was kicked out of his club for lack of respect, and kicked out of his country for the same thing, and kicked out of several clubs for being a shite manager, is mind-blowing. He's laughable, and only idiots would be intimidated by his pantomime schtick.