gkmacca

The most thought he's invested in the past year has concerned the length of his socks.

Not really that much like too much different from any half, in any of these games, at any of these grounds, in any of these past decades. But let's not let that dilute the wailing and whining as if this is some kind of weird and entirely unexpected scenario.

A typed laugh of exasperation? Fucking hell. Grow the fuck up.

Ha ha, idiotic manc-like rants, "ha ha" - really???

And that broadcast from the Masochism Channel is available for all from now...

Pretty definitive from you, then. Off to your stable, no need to repeat.

Disgraceful dive. And some commentators pretend they don't realise..

If Slot brings his assistant with him, that bloke's already worked with our Dutch contingent, and Virge seems to really rate him, so that will be a decent transition. That's all I have.

Quite. The thralldom to nerds has grown tiresome.

And vice versa.

It's his bespoke mini socks. Once players get obsessed with that kind of thing, it's a problem. Not an insurmountable one, but it needs a word or two. He's drifting into the Beckham-esque world of edited achievement. Blast multiple free kicks over the bar, but score the odd one - "genius". A triumph of PR over data. Huge talent, but it's worrying that, at this stage in his career, he's acting like he's some kind of cultural phenomenon.

Mental fatigue. That's it more than anything. There's no need for fatalism because of that - you CAN fight against it - but some of these players are pretty stoical, it seems. I thought we were okay for much of the half. Fulham fans booing Elliott, yet again, as if he's some Figo-like superstar who abandoned them - christ, how classless can they be? Much more pace required, second half. It's all about the end result - if you arse around at the back for three minutes and then give the ball away, that's three minutes wasted - show some fecking conviction.

Probably just one of his tenants.

Yup, the sheer brilliance of the side last week and on Thursday definitely meant that there would be mass incredulity at five changes being made today. That's absolutely clear.

It's also stupid and counter-productive unless it's done with confidence and pace. The number of times we pass it slowly around at the back, then leave it to the keeper to kick it forward into a congested midfield area and we lose possession - it does my head in. And in the past few games we've also taken to passing the ball right back to the keeper from deep in the opposition's half. So much of this nonsense is excused because it's 'tactical'. Bollocks. Most of it recently has mainly been down to a mixture of fear and fatigue.

Yes, I remember that one. Crazy. I'm afraid I'm getting increasingly cynical about the supposed tactical nous of players for dead ball situations. Do players really have a range of corner kicks to choose from? Robbo seems to put up his hands in the same gesture no matter where he puts the ball these days. Same with the intense hand-over-mouth chats over the ball before free kicks ('I think I'll try to whip it over the wall and straight down into the left-hand corner'. 'I was thinking of doing the same for the other corner'. 'Let's compromise - I'll blast it straight at the wall, then you blast the rebound over the bar').

Keita's attempt to swazz a shot into the goal against Madrid - the gold standard for idiocy. For me, Trent's ludicrous attempt in the last game to curl the ball into the goal, when all it needed was a straight hard shot, represented the next most stupid decision in recent years. But there are so many recently. Amazing that we can have multiple specialist coaching and brain scans and god knows what else but we can't get forwards to just sharpen the heck up.

Much better tactics, much better performance, but the same horribly wasteful finishing. What is always exasperating is the sight of top class technical players leaning back and blasting shots way over the bar. Really, it should hardly ever happen.

He's never recovered from George Harrison's evaluation of him:

Didn't look like it, though.

There probably are, deep down, some factors that the farewell era has brought on us. Klopp, for all his professionalism, has been doing some 'where next' media interviews; he's turned down loads but he's had to do some. If that doesn't affect someone, it would be weird. Pep seems to have already moved on. He's nowhere near as engaged he used to be. It's as if he's already mulling over the chats with his agent. Then there are the players. What is at the back of their mind these days if they don't push themselves on? 'The manager might drop me next season?' Nope. 'The manager might sell me next season?' Nope. So everything, now, is very much short term, no matter how much they fight ('fight,' hah!), against it. The end of the season, suddenly, cannot come soon enough.

Quite. He is absolutely exasperating. Part of being a top player is making the right judgement at the right time. He hardly ever gets that right. That early attempt, leaning back, trying to curl the ball in - utterly wrong for that situation. Trying to hit the ball back into the area without lookng up to see three players were offside, and he didn't even find them anyway - just witless and irresponsible. And he'll probably think it was all someone else's fault.

TAA - when pace and power was all that was needed, he leant back and tried a shot with his instep. After that, multiple deep crosses without looking into areas where several of our players were offside, and some truly stupid looping balls towards their keeper. Infuriating.

I'd have to disagree about Endo. He's doing his best and without someone like him in that position we'll be even more open to their attacks. You have Konate falling over and making multiple other errors, Macca getting caught with the ball, Diaz getting caught with the ball, Jones being caught with the ball, Bradley being caught with the ball - in his position, Endo's hardly going to look calmly in control with all of that chaos around him and coming at him. We are still creating chances but everyone is so anxious they're snatching at everything, and that's just going to go on unless we get some luck, settle back down and use our intelligence. It needs a great HT talk.

It's the mental aspect that's become so slow. I half expect George Sephton to announce each pass before it happens. The fans need to hold their nerve as much as the players. The confidence has slipped away. It can come back if we just fight our way back into this, but there's way too much tension in the team at present.