DaveT

And yet he'll probably still get accredited with any goals they score in the meantime!

Yup. Should have had three last season, didn't get any.

BBC were soooooo pissed off with us last night, turning their big showpiece of the 3rd round weekend into a couldn't-care-less shitfest, instead of a classic,thrilling cup tie. The commentary team just dripped with negativity towards us, especially Jenas. The laughable/annoying bit was how they bigged up the Wolves performance. they were just as shit as us, with less excuse. Imaging picking your near-strongest line-up and only having THREE shots on target against the defence we had out. If the situation had been reversed, and we'd been that cautious/feeble against a young reserve winger, a 16yr old, a midfielder and Moreno, we'd have been going spare. A reflection of how little we cared about this - by design, or just poor attitude - was that only TWO fouls were given against us all night.

Good read, captures my emotions perfectly. Agree with all of it - except the suggestion that City deserved to win. As I've said elsewhere, with a tiniest smidge of luck and a half-decent (unbiased?) referee, we're 1-0 up against 10 men after half an hour. City, for all their huffing and puffing, barely laid a hand on us until Aguero scored out of the blue. And how much did they threaten our goal between their two goals? They had several big chances towards the end when we were chasing the game - that's normal, as Juergen would say. We were arguably a bit naive after we equalised - going for the throat when our tails were up and looking for a killer blow. Maybe we should have gone a bit more Mourinho and stayed compact - a draw would have been great for us, bad for them. Hindsight and all that.

Fantastic business by Dortmund. £58m for someone who can't currently get in their first team. Meanwhile Sancho, who they got from City for fuck all, is really looking like the real deal. I like Pulisic, but we're not paying that money for a back up.

Having watched some of most of the televised games over Christmas and attended our home matches, I can state without fear of contradiction that the standard of defending (us aside) in the Premier League is utterly pitiful.

And Dele Alli offside right in the middle of goal when the ball bounces off Kane. Fuck knows whether it should have been given or not, given the chaotic state of the law. Tottenham have a different offside law to everyone else anyway.

Let's just go back to OT in the spring and remember Ashley Young taking a piggy back ride on Mo in the box. Even Gary Neville said Young was clearly fouling him - that tells you everything. (I won't mention Fellaini taking out Sadio just inside the box in the same game - or the blatant Valencia handball). All Mo is doing now is following the unwritten rule espoused by Shearer every week - 'you feel contact, you've every right to go down'. Trouble is, these unwritten rules seem to apply to everyone but us! It was telling that Dummett didn't complain about the penalty given against him. Because it was clearly a foul. In the box. Ergo, a penalty.

I think we limped over the line in the league in each of the last two seasons. Klopp's recognised that and we clearly played well within ourselves for most of the season so far. I'm sure running stats would confirm that, if I could be arsed to check them. There's been plenty of healthy rotation in the midfield, too, although his hands have been a bit tied as far as the defence is concerned with the injuries. Likewise, the front three are playing most games, with an occasional early substitution. We've a run of games after Thursday where squad players will get used a lot more....and hopefully Naby will bomb on in the 2nd half. I've no doubt we'll be much stronger for the run-in. Just heard that Anthony 'Altrincham supporter' Taylor is ref on Thursday, which has deflated my bubble of optimism somewhat.

Excellent, as usual. Re the CL draw - there was another 'easy' option - Schalke, who are utter gash this season. We all know who got them in the draw. Same team who then got Burton in the LC draw.

The rule is....there is no rule. The VVD situation is governed by a set of highly subjective words, open to wide degrees of interpretation..... 'A direct free kick is awarded if a player commits any of the following offences against an opponent in a manner considered by the referee to be careless, reckless or using excessive force: • charges • jumps at • kicks or attempts to kick • pushes • strikes or attempts to strike (including head-butt) • tackles or challenges • trips or attempts to trip If an offence involves contact it is penalised by a direct free kick or penalty kick. • Careless is when a player shows a lack of attention or consideration when making a challenge or acts without precaution. No disciplinary sanction is needed • Reckless is when a player acts with disregard to the danger to, or consequences for, an opponent and must be cautioned • Using excessive force is when a player exceeds the necessary use of force and/or endangers the safety of an opponent and must be sent off' It boils down to whether that tackle is seen as 'reckless' or 'excessive force'. Not very long ago, it would have been seen as a textbook tackle. Nowadays, it changes from ref to ref, what day of the week it is, who committed the foul (was it Fernandinho. for example), or even the same ref in the same match. I just saw Valencia's yellow card last night - much worse than VVD's, as he gets nowhere near the ball - nobody's mentioned it in the media that I can see. Bottom line, Carlo - boo hoo, enjoy your Thursdays.

Didn't realise it was the same ref from the Roma tie. Just watched the game back again and he was every bit as bad as he seemed watching from the stands. Maybe this explains why he tried so hard to shaft us last night..... https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/954743/Liverpool-news-Referee-destroyed-Champions-League-Roma-mistakes Irony is that he also fucked us over that night - didn't give us a pen for a clear shove on Mane early on, didn't send the guy off for the horrendous challenge on Mane, and gave that outrageous pen against Klavan - all of which kind of evened things out that night. Real pisser about Matip, who's done really well. Who was saying that we'd had plenty of luck this season on another thread.......?

Agree totally with this. The difference this season is that good luck has balanced out the bad luck/crap decisions. We had a perfectly good goal disallowed at Arsenal, a clearly offside goal allowed to Burnley last week, just as two examples of the latter. Last season is was almost exclusively bad luck/decisions - I can think of nailed on penalties being denied at West Brom, at home to Stoke and also Brighton (twice), two ridiculous handball penalties in the Roma games - just in the last couple of months of the season.

Great read, as ever. Agree about the Mounie red card - absolute joke, especially when you compare that with the Bardsley tackle on Moreno - which we didn't even get a free-kick for. I'm still miffed about Henderson getting sent off for two innocuous challenges - the first of which should actually have been a free-kick to us anyway. Then think about Elbows pulling the Arsenal lad back BY HIS HAIR, ffs! Not even a yellow. No mention in the City/Bournemouth game of the blatant two-handed push in bis own box by Fernandinho. What the fuck does he have to do....? Wouldn't surprise me if Footyleaks discovers in 10 years time that he's got photos of Mike Riley shagging a donkey. And Torreira - very good. One thing we're missing right now is an excellent, street-wise Uruguayan.

Agree with everything apart from the Burnley tackling. Their intent was clear - rough us up, make sure you leave something on the player. Much of it was reckless and occasionally out of control (i.e. yellow cards - but only 1 (!) was given to Burnley), and it was a matter of luck that there weren't other injuries. Leaving aside the Gomez situation, they took every opportunity to dive in on players right up against the touchline even though it was seldom necessary e.g. the ball was already going out of play. The underlying issue is again one of consistency - we could barely touch any Everton player on Sunday without them falling over and being given a free kick - TAA's slight touch on Bernard that led to Mina's (offside) header. Yet last night, Burnley played as if they'd walked straight out 70's Division 1 football and it was deemed ok.