Faustus

Bit baffled, if I'm honest, how anyone can say with great certainty how we'll finish 6th this season. Every team is flawed, every team is much of a muchness. Five teams into three this season, even if, granted, Chelsea and United look better positioned to capitalise. Still, no guarantee though.

'You don't turn down Everton'. 'Kinell, they honestly think they're Real Madrid. Weirdos.

Must admit, Stickman, he went down in my estimation slightly when he admitted he has his steak cooked well done.

I don't disagree with that; De Bruyne, Silva and Aguero in particular are wonderful players and great to watch, but still, I'm just left cold by them. Your line 'since the Sheikh took over' pretty much nails it for me, because it's all just so artificial. It's basically just GM football and personally speaking, the complete antithesis of what I like about the game. Wenger's invincibles are probably the best team I've seen in this country and I'd go out of my way to watch them. It felt like the culmination of a man's vision and the complete evolution of a side that went from 'boring Arsenal' to playing football that was out of this world. City, though, it's basically just an examination into how deep oil reserves run. It's at the stage where failure is simply an impossibility. It's obviously about what you're after as a football fan, but I think Section called it when he said City and PSG basically just appeal to a demographic that value nothing but cricket scorelines. Obviously it's a personal perspective, but it's the narratives, the team building, the culture of a club that fascinate. The Harlem Globetrotters cobbled together on a pitch just do nothing for me. I'm honestly not exaggerating, but if I was offered a ticket for a City or a lower league or non-league side, I'd choose the latter because I'd personally get more out of it as an overall experience.

City winning the league is obviously preferable to United, but I wouldn't exactly be doing a jig over it. Their fans are obnoxious bell-ends and were fucking cunts with the 'always the victim' shout at the game at the Etihad this season. Similar to Everton, it's funny how they positioned themselves as guardians of the game against a capitalist behemoth and the true fans in a city. There's absolutely nothing I find interesting or particularly likeable about them as a team or a club. Everything about them leaves me cold.

Rzouki's always been a tit because of her pronunciation. 'Peeeeer-lo', 'Marrr-keeeeeeeee-ssssssssio', 'De-Ruuuuooooosi'. Needlessly OTT all the time. Chats balls as well.

I'll bet that Simeone has never even heard of the scruffy meffs.

I didn't watch it last night and having seen the line-up, I have absolutely no desire to catch up on it. The absence of a Patel question can be attributed to the fact that nobody cares. Just like nobody actually cares about the issue of tax avoidance despite initial shock and outrage. Next week, people will be decrying the state of the NHS or urging politicians not to use it as a political football; completely failing to join up the dots. There's just so much empty symbolism and superficial bollocks substituted as patriotism in this country, it's fucking nauseating. Forget about arrogant politicians acting flagrantly abroad to sell the country to a frankly abhorrent state, or stopping to consider the social or moral issues of an endemic culture of tax avoidance, just stick the biggest, shiniest fuck off poppy you can to your lapel without even giving it so much as a second thought.

It made me laugh when a Man Utd supporters group released a statement saying they'd welcome a meeting with Mourinho over his comments about the fans' apparent lack of support and treatment of Lukaku. He's not arsed, lads. It's egotism. He's already got his eyes on properties in Paris.

I'm from the same generation as Lovren, Jockey mate! I'm 29! The only thing I bother with is Facebook, as I've got mates from school who've moved all over, along with mates from the States, Japan, Germany and elsewhere I've met over the years I've been travelling, so it's pretty handy for keeping in touch with them. Can't be arsed with posting pics, articles or status updates- fuck that. Everything else gets skimmed. For the most part, it's really opened up this weird solipsistic mindset, whereby only you, your beliefs and your own gratification are all that matter, rendering anything or anybody that doesn't conform to your sensibilities as fair game for some abhorrent shit. I'm obviously not talking about responses to stuff by fascist loons or anything like that; more innocuous shite that people post, the way something innocent can be completely misconstrued, or people can get their knickers in a twist over something like football to the extent of sending a man and his family death threats. Largely, social media just seems like a vortex of narcissism, self-loathing and complete and utter misery.

This might sound a weird question to ask, but are players contractually obliged by clubs to have social media accounts? I'm mainly thinking to plug club tat and come out with glib comments before and after games. It's honestly beyond me why anybody in the public eye would have a social media profile because the amount of posts you receive from cranks must be off the scale. Not that I'm saying that the death threats are anything but deplorable, of course. That in itself is a mentality I struggle to comprehend. A lot of issues there.

Just imagine if they got relegated. I think I'd dance in the street.

The manager really isn't helping himself at the minute. You just have to hope there's a reaction from those he singled out, as opposed to moping, feeling sorry for themselves. Normally, I'd think this kind of game was tailor made for us, given you can imagine Huddersfield to open up and have a go. That's been a factor in our good record against the big sides since Klopp took charge, but as we've been smashed twice by two good sides and conceded dome atrocious goals when put under the slightest bit of pressure, I'm not sure that line of thought is entirely accurate these days. Come on, reds. Three fucking points.

Quite funny how accusations of treating cup competitions with disrespect can be levelled out in this day and age when organisers seem to be doing their very best to destroy whatever credibility they have.

Fucking hell, some of the ale houses Moof is posting look like borstals. One I remember I went to was this place when I was in Japan last year. It wasn't rough as such, just really moody. I was in Nara and it was about 10, 11 at night. I was on my back to my hotel after a wander and fancied a bev. Clocked this Hawaiian themed place during my walk and so popped in. The place was tiny, an absolute sweatbox and filled with smoke. Walking in was like that scene from An American Werewolf in London, where everyone just stares at the lads walking into The Slaughtered Lamb. I order a beer from the barmaid who's done up in dystopian cyber punk gear, and there's no let up with the stares. There was even a darts game going on that stopped when I walked in. Knocked back my pint in about 5 mins and left because I was feeling freaked out having 30 odd pairs of eyes on me the entire time. They probably laugh about the time they made a foreigner shit his kecks in there now.

Ha ha! True! Not a bad consolation!

Has it ever been verified that Peter Sellers goosed Sophia Loren? Would be a massive result for ugly blokes the world over if that could be proved definitively.

What summed that up was something I was glancing at in the Echo before the start of last season. It was a season preview piece that consisted of an interview with a fan of every Premier League club. As well as being asked questions relating to their own side, they were asked their thoughts about Liverpool and Everton. One of the questions they asked was, "which Liverpool player do you dislike most?" Bar a fan citing a player playing for us who used to play for them, the most common answer was, "None of them really." There was a line that Souness came out with last season about Arsenal, calling them "a team of son-in-laws"; obviously the insinuation being that you'd be delighted if your daughter brought one of them home to meet you. It pretty much crystallized what I've thought about us since Suarez left. I fucking yearn for a bastard or two.

I don't disagree with the general sentiment- that new managers are often given carte blanche in the early days- but I just think that the main reason why all that you've mentioned are still here is because Klopp thought he could get them playing. I think back to that line in Klopp's first few months when he said the squad wasn't bad, that it was full of good players. A load of us- myself included- thought it was the classic 'Paisley- toffee' approach, given he'd need them for the season and wouldn't be able to make changes until the summer. At the time, it reminded me of Dalglish in one of his early wins going out of his way to praise an average Christian Poulsen performance, mainly because he knew he'd need to call on him at some point and couldn't afford to have a player low on confidence. Given that Dalglish fucked Poulsen off the first chance he could get and the bulk of the side of Basel final are still with them, I think you have to say that Klopp wasn't being Machiavellian; he was being honest. I think he's that convinced in his coaching ability, that he could indeed get them playing. It's all I can think of to explain the loyalty he's shown to players he never even signed, who've consistently let him down. Again, that interview he gave to The Times I'm Jan, where he recounted his time as a youth coach (at Frankfurt, I think), where he said he rejected an influx of new players because he was happy with what he had. For Klopp, I think everything fundamentally comes down to what happens on the training ground. It's an admirable but flawed sentiment, as we're seeing. I honestly don't think FSG can be thrown into the equation here because if Klopp indicated he wanted a player gone, I think he'd get his wish and the money would go into his paltry kitty. I switched the telly off straight after the match Sunday as I had a flight catch, but reading Klopp's comments, there seemed to be an edge there; that maybe he's finally given up on some of them. As I said to a mate, there's players in our side I'm genuinely sick of watching because after 3, 4, 5 years, we know what they're like, yet they're still here. Hopefully now Klopp will realise he has to start breaking eggs. I think Saturday's team selection will be interesting in this regard; whether it's genuine or hyperbolic bollocks. Personally, I hope it's the former, because I don't get how a 50 year old man in trabs can say he could do better than a £20m player and then proceed to play him in the next game. That would just be bizarre.

Disagree with that, magcrat. Carroll, Downing and Adam came in for just shy of £65m and all three were gone within two years. Carroll, in particular, was a club record signing in January 2011 and he was bombed out in August 2012 after Rodgers indicated he wanted him fucked off. Take the yanks (who I'm no fan of, by the way) out of the equation here, and I think the reason why Lovren's still here is because Klopp was convinced he could get a tune out of him. Hopefully, he'll realise now that he simply can't. If, in the long run, we look back at Sunday as the day when Klopp saw finally that he can't rely on some of the deadbeats in the squad, it won't be a bad thing. A good few have overstayed their welcome by 3-4 windows and it's mystifying why they haven't been sacked off.

Spurs look a bit lightweight in midfield there, plus they've got a full back operating on the wrong side. Could be plenty of opportunities to isolate their back three against our front three. Glad to see Milner starting.

The thing that genuinely winds me up about his shithousery in big games is that through all 'Mourinho masterclass' nonsense that inevitably comes is the pressure it puts on you to make up the points in the other games; from 'should wins' they become 'must wins'. In theory, it's not a bad idea: grab a point at Anfield, dick Huddersfield; four points from two games, one of which is against a direct rival. Obviously as we know following Liverpool, it never works out in theory because you'll inevitably get a dodgy result somewhere down the line and think, 'why did we keep the handbrake on in such and such game?' The situation we found ourselves in, you can guarantee that Guardiola, Pochettino, Conte would have been smelling blood and viewing it as a chance to lay down a marker. Mourinho typically went full shithouse, put all his eggs in the one basket and now looks a tit. The way it's worked out now, they may as well have played for the win at Anfield last week because if they'd gotten it, they'd be two points better off as things stand. It's just a weird way of looking at things. It was like last season when they played us at Anfield and then Chelsea back to back. The basic idea of keeping things tight and hoping you can nick one isn't bad, but you're dependent on fine margins. Chelsea scored after ten seconds in that match, the game plan went out of the window and you're left with one point out of six. Neither use nor ornament. Again, I've no problem with teams going to places and shutting up shop- it's their prerogative depending on what's riding on it- but to do it this early in the season, never mind so consistently for x number of years, it's genuinely bizarre management.

Well, that point they got last week suddenly looks useless.

I like that Mooy for Huddersfield. He's looked good on the odd occasion I've seen them play. That finish was a deceptively difficult one. Easy to sky or scuff wide.

Abysmal defending from the shithouses. That Lindelof lad looks absolutely turd.