Turkish Delight

I've decided I want them to keep winning now. I want us to win it in one of our games rather than after them losing. If Leicester beat them and we keep winning then we'd win it on 8th March if they lose at United. Better that they keep winning and we do it v Palace or them instead.

It was noticeable how few crosses we attempted in the game and how they struggled with the few we did attempt. Our approach to attacking play seemed to be launching long passes into their deep defence with the front line all miles apart. The movement all over the pitch was non-existent.

Ole will be out of a job soon enough anyway so I want us to smash them and not worry about him too much. I don't expect us to though. They'll look to sit in and hit us on the counter with pace. If we score first then I expect us to play keep ball until they get desperate to chase it and leave gaps. If they score first it could be a slog.

Chelsea 2014 is the most gut wrenching one as I knew that dream was over following that loss and didn't think we had a side to challenge again. I think from a sheer bleakness perspective the home loss to Blackpool in 2010 stands out too. Not so much that we had been outplayed by Blackpool at Anfield which was bad enough. I just found the whole day emotionally draining as the match was a sideshow to the protests we had to do. At that point I was genuinely worried about Hick and Gillett keeping hold of the club and that we were heading for a decline we might not recover from.

His problem is his lack of tactical acumen and to a lesser extent quality players. He has one way to play which involves quick counter attacks. That's effective against good teams who leave space in behind for Rashford, Martial etc. It won't help you break down a team camped in their own area though. They also score the least (or did until recently) amount of goals from set pieces in the league so they either aren't being imaginative enough with them or lack quality delivery. They're a team set up to keep every game tight and sometimes that means you edge a win on the big boys. Sometimes it also means you lose to the shite. Long may it continue.

David Luiz for worst performance by an opposition player for me. He was shocking at Anfield giving away the pen and then being destroyed by Salah for the third. Every time I watch Burnley I become more convinced that Charlie Taylor is the worst player in the league though.

Something just seems off about all this. Talk of Ancelotti being in Liverpool and agreeing a deal in principle being followed by statements that no official offer has been made yet and that he's in Rome. Either he's using them to get a big deal elsewhere or Everton are just trying to show they're being ambitious by releasing snippets before they're certain they can even land him. It's not to say he won't end up there but the messaging doesn't suggest to me that he will.

I had a look at our fixtures last night. The 6 after we get back from Qatar are tough and January was when we struggled last year. Leicester (a) Wolves (h) Sheffield United (h) Spurs (a) Man United (h) Wolves (a) If we're still well clear after that run I may allow myself to be confident we'll do it.

His performance at right back in the 5 minutes he got against Spurs was awful too. A narrative built after that game about the number of shots they had and how Alisson was the difference. Almost all came after our second and most of them came from Gomez struggling

I reckon the job Moyes did at Everton was massively over-hyped. He got 4th place with 61 points and a negative goal difference. That's a fluke occurrence as far as I'm concerned. Most years they got somewhere around that points total and finished 6th or 7th which was about par for what he spent. One year they finished 17th with 39 points. A total that would have relegated them a year earlier. He oversaw 11 years of mainly mid-table mediocrity where one cup final apart they never threatened to win anything.

Leicester and Southampton did too.

He was influential under Ged and his potential was obvious. He only averaged about 5 or 6 goals a season though and didn't score too many until he hit his mid 20s and Rafa came in.

While I agree Davies doesn't look like a Gerrard in the making Stevie was far from prolific when he was younger. I just checked back and at the point he turned 20 he'd scored once in over 40 appearances. Young Gerrard was tough, combatitive, skillful and rough round the edges as you'd expect from a young player. He only really became the player he did consistently when he was a bit more experienced and when Rafa came in and gave him more freedom to go forward.

They need to be open that VAR is used only to check offsides or whether the ball has hit someone's hand on a goal and stop fucking about with it outside of those things. I don't recall there being one single decision on anything else all season so what's the point in delaying the game for no reason at all?

They're set up to defend deep and play on the counter with pace with Rashford, James and Martial if he's fit. That's tactically inept against the dross of the league as it gives no method for breaking teams down who want to sit deep and let you have the ball. It might work against some better teams though as it's basically Hodgson's Palace blueprint. First goal is massive. If we get it I can see us playing the same sort of spoiling game we played against Spurs in the final knowing they lack the creativity to break us down if we stay organised.

Clinical finishers will outscore expected goals and better goalkeepers and defenders will concede less than it. Put it this way if Mane gets the same chance that Calvert-Lewin gets I know which one is more likely to score but expected goals makes their chances out to be even.

Guessing I saw a different game than most. Just back from the match and thought that was one of Fabinho's worst games for us. He was shocking on the 3rd goal too. Mane Robertson Milner Mane and Robbo for the blistering start and Milner for calming the team down and encouraging controlled possession when he came on.

They'll be shit scared of taking us on. The time we flooded their emails will be imprinted in their memory.

Exactly my thoughts too. They may only be from Austria but they only narrowly went out to Napoli in Europe last year and have scored 5 or more 6 times this season already. One of those was against Wolfsberger who won 4-0 away at Monchengladbach the other week. If we don't win this we're going to have a big battle on to not be playing Thursday night football after Christmas.

Robertson has something in his ears. Guessing he might have something up. He was awful in that half though.

Give the players a rest at Milton Keynes next week rather than a tough European away. There's 5 days to Chelsea which is enough. Win this and we can give them a break in December when we're through and they'll need it more.

The last thing we need is players not playing on instinct and hesitating before making decisions on whether to pass or shoot. It crippled Mane's game for a while after one in the derby a couple of years ago. Looking at the game yesterday I think the one he should have passed was to Firmino earlier. I don't think a pass to Mane would have reached him.

There's an old guy who's been on the telly this past couple of weeks who's been going there 70 odd years. I took my two kids to their first ever match in the friendly there last year and we sat next to him. He seemed a bit of a celebrity fan there as everyone knew him and he was so nice to my kids giving them his programme to read and chatting to them about the game. He couldn't have been more complimentary about Liverpool going there to make them some money either. His passion for Bury shone through and we had a good chat about their season ahead. I've been thinking of him today as the poor fella must be absolutely gutted. I know I would be if it was Liverpool. The people that stitched them for their own profit deserve to be strung up.

I hate VAR but mainly for the immeasurable stuff. I expect it will get more decisions right than previously but it will also break games up and slow them down which will work against more often than not. We'll also never score a goal like the one v Fulham at Anfield last season again as the VAR would be getting looked at for two minutes on Fulham's offside goal first. Added to that it ruins the experience of the moment when the ball hits the goal. I see it as more scientifically accurate but at the expense of what makes football so popular. It's fucking shit.

She'll out-live all of them