DaveT

Anyone else think there's a certain irony in the Chelsea situation?........ Having to play their youngsters because of a transfer ban. Their decent start is largely down to the performances of their youngsters, Abraham (Kevin?!, didn't know that!), Mount, Tomori. What was their transfer ban for - 29 infringements regarding the recruitment and registration of.... young footballers.

Spot on. I've seen some weird reports on this game, mainly fuelled by the penalty and 'Luckypool' narrative, but I sat through that match thinking - 'this is a 3-0 type of game, how come we're not winning 3-0?' because that was the level of our dominance. The scoreline flatters Leicester massively and I feel they're being over-hyped right now because of how crap United and Spurs are and how bang average Arsenal are.

The Everton match was interesting but somehow also preductable. They stood off and admired City's pretty football for 20 minutes (complete contrast to how Sheff U played earlier in the day) until the inevitable happened and City scored. They obviously had to come out then.....and scored within minutes. They obviously realised that the City defence was shite and it was worth having a go...and they started actually, y'know, closing down, tackling and attacking and consequently made a match of it. Hope other teams take note, but I'm not holding my breath. My barber's an older generation i.e. fairly sensible and reasonable Evertonian and he agrees Pickford is massively overrated. He also says they paid double what Richarlison and Sigurdsson are worth. Have to admit I fully agreed with him

Amateur hour is when someone leaves your company/organisation/FOOTBALL CLUB - especially to a competitor - and nobody deletes their accounts or takes appropriate measures to prevent them from continuing to access your confidential information.

When Adrian was slowing things down late on with the ball at his feet, their manager, several times, threw his arms out in exasperation - not sure whether he was appealing to the ref for time-wasting (which of course was ridiculous) or at his players for not closing him down. Either way, it made him look a bigger dick than he already did. I thought the ref was an utter tosser as well.

Finally!

What’s Lewtas doing? 2nd half performance has been abysmal but he’s done nothing to change it

For quite a few decades now I've watched many, many teams come to Anfield and deploy the usual range of tactics to knock our team out of its stride - make us play into the Kop 1st half, pack the defence, fall over under minimal/no contact......... and waste time from the first minute. And what do referees do? Fuck all. Maybe point to their watch half a dozen times whilst goalies take endless seconds over goal kicks, and only then because the Kop has drawn attention to it again and again. Do they ever get booked? Can't remember it happening too often. And yet we've had players booked in consecutive away games for time wasting. Funny old game.

Some guy (analyst-type?) on the Robbie Savage segment on 5Live this morning made a comment about how more and more teams will sit deep against Liverpool and play on the counter. Where has this idiot been for the last God-knows-how-many years? Even City sat deep at Anfield last season and relied on counter attacks, ffs.

Free the Everton One!

I used to think Marriner was one of the better refs out of a dreadful bunch, but he should have been put out to grass about three years ago. Just to remind everyone - he was the guy who allowed Burnley's goal at the Kop end last season, despite not one, but two Burnley players clearly fouling Alisson. Despite having a perfect view of it, as evidenced by the behind-the-goal camera. As for VAR - I'm still in support of it in principle. The only problem is that the idiots in charge of setting the protocols and operating it are the same bunch of tossers who do their best to ruin most games through constant, glaring errors. (Or rampant bias - Anthony Taylor, I'm looking at you, you twat.)

What this report doesn't reference is the countless millions City have spent along the way....... a long,long list of players who they've bought at high prices and sold low, having been complete flops, or had moderate success and been moved on quickly. They lost a packet on Robinho, gave Jo away having spent about £29m on him, Managala £26m (more say some reports) and can't give him away, Nolito, Navas....there's a long list of these. Because of their bottomless pit of petrodollars, they didn't pause for breath, just kept throwing money at the project. We, on the other hand, have largely funded our expenditure by increasing the value of some players - Coutinho, Suarez etc - and getting our initial investment back on others - Benteke, Sakho. But at the same time, our costly mistakes - e.g. Markovic almost certainly had a drag on transfer expenditure.

I thought Trent was very solid, especially up against flavour of the month Dwight McNeil and some recent (valid) criticism.

Agree with that. I was fuming all game, as much with the officials performance as with our sloppiness in and out of possession. The praise being heaped upon her from all quarters is so patronising, because, purely based on the performance of the officials and quite irrespective of their gender, they were all abysmal. The ref got both penalty calls completely wrong (even Hoddle and Cole struggled to find any justification for the Chelsea pen - tells you everything) - and the fact that those decisions weren't overturned by VAR is highly questionable. It wasn't just that though - I lost count of how many fouls and throw-ins were given the wrong way. In fact it was just like most league games, especially when Taylor, Moss, or Pawson are involved! On a playing note, I'm worried about just how bad Big Games James has been right since the start of pre-season. Desperately hope we're not witnessing the start of his decline.

Captures my mood perfectly too - on a high at half time, a little deflated after a disappointing 2nd half, and a tiny bit depressed after the City match. Ridiculous state of affairs on the first weekend of the season,especially after a 4-1 win! Another thought - we'd have done a Premier League and Champions League double - think about that - last season if we didn't have to compete against the FFP-trampling, sports-washing of City, and this team would be even bigger legends than they already are.