Marcas

Good report in the circumstances Dave. Now for a thought which may not go down well: Darwin is a luxury Liverpool can’t afford. My reasoning is this - for a club which isn’t backed by oil every quid spent has to hit the mark, so when we go out and spend c£85 large on a striker, we need the guy to have a high conversion rate in terms of the chances that come his way. Not only that, but at the bare minimum we need that same guy to have a high percentage in terms of hitting the target with his chances (you never know what happens when you do). Darwin is not that guy. Loveable, exciting player? Yep. Captain Chaos? Of course! Aldridge/Rush type player who you would bet the ranch on scoring a decent opportunity? Not a fucking chance. Will he ever be….dunno, sort of doubt it. The miss in the first half is one of the worst I’ve ever seen, not because it’s a ‘glaring’, open goal. No, it’s his thought process/technique: he’s on the left side of the goal with the keeper begging to be chipped, but Darwin makes connection with the instep of his right foot. What the actual fuck was he expecting to happen? I’d have put money on Danns knocking that in ahead of Darwin, and what does that say about Nunez? Sorry folks, I’m not looking a pile-on on Darwin, it’s just an honest opinion that might not go down well. If we’re happy with the loveable rogue who needs 10 or so chances to score 1 then we’re grand. If not…

Tuesday and I’m still raging and staying away from football sites and YouTube. I think I fall into the draws kill you camp, hence why I was screaming ‘play the fucking team, not the fixture’ from about 5mins into it. The feeling that has seeped into me is we can’t rely on the forwards when the chips are absolutely down. Someone (I’m looking at you “my boy”) will miss a sitter, one of them will try a fancy backheel hence avoiding the 5mt square pass to a teammate with an open goal, and Mo will give the ball away, or run into 3 defenders…and give the ball away. Jota would make a difference, as he’s got it in him to take on and beat defenders and (above all), hit the fucking target. I’m still scratching my head wondering how guys getting paid £150-300k a week can miss the target from 5-10yds so consistently, it’s fucking baffling. I don’t know if the stats back this but my sense is we to create 20+ good chances to score 1 or 2 and that’s fucking abysmal. Jesus if you planted a telegraph poll in the box and smashed the ball off it 25+ times it would go in more than once or twice…

Just watched the Behind the Scenes video on YouTube and there’s a bit just after 21mins where 3 or 4 of the kids are lining up for Jurgen hug and the look of adoration/awe on their faces is unbelievable. The man is irreplaceable.

For the sake of my sanity I’d rather have a guy who never misses a sitter over the guy who scores the odd 25yd wonder goal now and then. I’d echo some of the points here - in situations like Luton I don’t think you have time to have the yips: the ball’s on you too fast. You do have time to have a lack of concentration and shit technique though.

Mac Allister is fine addition as is Szoboszlai. But our transfer ‘strategy’ is amateur hour, and that’s being kind. We’ve bid £60m for a kid we could’ve got for £50m less than a week ago; we’ve been humiliated by the Caicedo debacle and now every fucking club in the world knows how much many we have to spend and will extract every last penny. How did we go from the best at recruitment in Europe to this? Little did we know how how much Michael Edwards brought to the party…

The whole thing is fucked on so many different levels. There’s been no coherent plan. I never thought a back-room guy leaving would ever derail a club but since Michael Edwards left we haven’t been the same, smooth, strategic force. Is it true he left because of the Hendo deal…?

I think the team/squad management has been a fucking disgrace for a few years and Klopp has to take his fair share of criticism for this. The Bellingham thing is a fiasco, an utterly unacceptable and unprofessional bag of shite which has left us a laughing stock. We’re going to sit on hands while one of our main rivals (assuming we can call them rivals after this season) goes and future proofs their MF for the next fucking decade. It’s just a shit-show on so many levels, depressing and breathtaking in equal measures. Klopp should be kicking the fucking door down to get this lad, if only to give the club/fans a boost and make sure we’re still relevant when it comes A-list players choosing where they want to play - I mean what sort of message does this send out? We’ll end up with a big bag of bang-fucking average shite and pay top dollar for it - and whatever the question is, Mason fucking Mount is not the answer - one of the reasons we won stuff last year is because that Tory-boy couldn’t score in a brothel, and now he can’t get in the worst chav side in over 20yrs? And why do we need so many MF players in the first instance? Ah yeah, Jurgen and his ‘I have 8 midfield players’ crap; pity they all turned out to be a mix of past it/never up to it in the first instance.

We were a fucking shambles in that first half, worst I’ve see in long time time, possibly going back to Woy. As for Arsenal, don’t really mind the team but their fans harbour the utter delusion they’re a bigger club than Liverpool, which totally baffles me…and that cunt Tierney makes me want to carry out acts of totally irrational violence merely by seeing his smug face!

Totally effed-off like everyone else. Hard to know what’s caused it but 2-3yrs of doing fuck all constructive planning in the transfer market have caught us out. Jones ain’t gonna make it; Harvey’s a decent player and seems like a great lad but he’s slow as fuck and has zero physicality and neither of those problems are going to change. The management went all in on Thiago, who’s a stunning player when fit (!) and in the right team, but we’re not right team - Klopp’s best team had 3 guys who’d run themselves into the ground to get the ball off the opposition and we don’t do that anymore. As for Trent, I’d say he’s already at a career crossroads which is unbelievable given what he’s achieved and at his age, but let’s say he start’s next season in the same shambolic form, what then? Every fucking team in Europe targets him and it’s not because they want a look at his cool hair-do. Up-front, fucking mess also. As Dave says we bought a guy and have no idea how to play him and wastefulness has killed us at times. I’m not even hopeful the summer will turn things around - If you were Bellingham you’d run a fucking mile and even if he does come he’s not fixing anything by himself. We could spend £250m without breaking sweat and not get close to what we were between 2018-22. Depressing…

Depressing but not surprising. Slow, witless in MF. When we had a decent great MF Baj and Harvey wouldn’t haven’t git in the squad let alone the first team - they’re both neat and tidy and Bajcetic might turn into a very good ‘Thiago lite’, but if you’re looking to breakdown shite away from home does anyone have any faith that the two young lads will provide the spark? We’re the kings of the 5 yard sideways pass: Virge to Ibou; Ibou to Virge, who then might knock it 5yards forward to Fab or Gakpo/Jota coming deep to knock it back to Virge…repeat. 1 0 down with 20 to play and they were still at that shit. Have they forgotten what urgency is? And I swear this is not being wise after the fact but if Milner’s on the pitch and we get a pen we need 5 of the other players to sit on Mo until the kick’s taken. I never expect him to score but fuck me Saturday’s was just eye-wateringly bad. Ughhhh….

A report fit for the match Dave. Big mention for Fab as I thought he was cooked and I’m delighted to have been proven wrong. Special award goes to Anthony in the ‘utter tool showboating far too early’ category, but he disappeared up his own hole in the second half before he could collect it; “dirty tramp” award could go to most of the Mancs but Mctominay snides his way to the gong for trying to remove Cody’s leg - follow-through my hole, that fucker knew what he was at. And last but not least, ‘most punchable face’ goes to…Bruno, who else? (Anthony came a close 2nd and will overtake him though. guaranteed!)

Spot-on report, wouldn’t disagree with any of it. I just hope JK is a ruthless bastard during the summer. Much as the guys have been brilliant and given us 5 of the best years since the ‘80s, there’s zero room for sentiment and there’s 5 or 6 who can’t cut it. I’m trying to think of any player who’s been a bigger let down than Keita and I can’t think of one. Diouf was a disaster, but everyone knew he was a cunt to begin with so no-one was disappointed. But that wee fraud Keita grinds my fucking gears. Aside from that, well done Dave for calling out the elephant in the room: Trent has been a joke all season. His on-pitch demeanour is a disgrace and I wouldn’t be surprised if his social media is full of him lounging on yachts with Lewis fucking Hamilton all summer. He needs to remember the hunger he had at 18 instead of his next £xhundred hairstyle

Unlike a few I was raging. Not so much that we’d had our collective trunks pulled down by those fu*****s, but raging that our recruitment has been so piss-poor that we’re left with an 18yr old in MF against Modric and the other two who walk into most European teams. I could go on about this but fuck it. The utterly depressing thing is we could drop £200-250m during the summer and not even begin to cure the problems. Klopp’s all-in on Bellingham, but he’s not fixing MF by himself. The defence - Joe isn’t and will never be good enough, Joel’s cooked, Virge will be 32 during the summer and how likely is Konate to ever play a full season? Whoever arrives I just prey to god in high heaven they aren’t fucking sick-notes, but if the club’s serious about getting the team to where they were then by my reckoning it’s at the least a world-class CB and two world-class MF (possibly 3 if we’re being honest) minimum. And I don’t mean young guys who might be the next big thing, we need proven talent who can come in and improve the team straightaway otherwise we’ll fall further behind. Not asking much I know…

Nice one Dave, you’re basically articulating the pain that all of us are feeling at the moment. It’s almost laughable how bad this team of club legends have become. And that’s what the majority of them are which makes it worse and utterly unfathomable. Defence is shot, MF is a disgrace - yeah young Bajčetic is doing ok but he’s a half-decent flower (not a rose yet) among an acre of fucking weeds right now. Let’s face it, an 18yr old who wouldn’t have made the match-day squad much of last season is our only glimmer of hope! Up front, Mo’s been shite for a year now, but isn’t helped by being played wide; I’m running out of hope/patience with Darwin. I said in a post after the Brentford game that his finishing is fucking killing us and nothing’s changed. And now we’ve dropped Gakpo into this sea of mediocrity and truthfully, I don’t know what he is or is supposed to be doing. It’s a monumental shit-show across the club, owners, players and. - yes, let’s be honest! - Klopp and the back room staff. You build from strength and our time to do that was 2019-2022 and we did fuck all except sit on our hands. How many elite players are looking at us now and thinking ‘yeah, I fancy some of that’? We had the money for Tchouaméni (is he clairvoyant by the way?), but when he bailed we threw our toys out of the pram screaming “if I can’t get the latest PS5 I don’t want anything!!” What the fuck was all that about, an A list club that didn’t have a plan B??! I know the MF won’t necessarily cure the problems up front, but it sure as shit would make us tighter at the back. I’m looking for positives and the only ones I can see are 3 or 4 of the injured guys coming back in but who knows what level they’ll be at? Why can’t it be late May right now…

Christ Dave you did well to get that much copy out that turgid pile of shite! The Ukrainian lad…ah remember when we signed technically good players who were fast as feck? Yeah I know Darwin’s quick, but you know I mean. Nothing to add except once this rancid turd-burger of a season is over I want someone in the know to write a book detailing exactly why this team nearly reached the top of Everest, took a sideways step to admire the view and promptly fell off the fucking mountain. Someone in the club is absolutely bound to know exactly why and when it started to happen…

Couldn't disagree with one word of that, particularly on Klopp. I've read so much 'FSG Out' shite since Saturday, but they don't pick or coach the team and I'm pretty sure Henry isn't in front of the whiteboard on a Friday before a game. It's true they haven't backed Klopp as much as everyone wants, but to an extent JK's let them off the hook time and time again saying he's happy with the MF players he has. How could you be happy with them?? They're a mix of 30-somethings, sick-notes and kids who show ZERO sign of ever being at the standard you need to compete at. Klopp should have been kicking the MD's fucking door in demanding back-up in the transfer market, but we stagnated instead. I have the argument over and over: when we dominated in the 80's we never stood still, we always were on the hunt for someone better, an upgrade and it didn't matter who you were, if there was someone better you got replaced. And I'm not letting the front 3 off either - I'm fucking sick of the sight of Mo running down yet another blind allay, into traffic and losing the ball. And to make matters worse I'm doing dry Jan in the middle of this shit... (sighs and rolls eyes)

Apologies for longish post... Crazy watching that and trying to reconcile that just over 6 months ago virtually the same set of players were going for the Quad. I can’t get my head around – Mane’s loss was big but surely not THAT big. The MF legs have definitely gone and I agree with Dave, if we’re not buying players who suit the system we need to rethink the system. Having said that, the young blood coming into the team are meh! Sorry, but just because Harvey’s a fan/decent kid/neat & tidy shouldn’t make us (or JK) oblivious to the obvious fact that at this level he’s bang average. Yes he’s young, but is he going to get 2-3 seconds quicker just because he’s a year older? Is he going to be any more dynamic? Will he suddenly learn how to defend? He’s reasonable going forward but defensively he’s a total liability. The back 4 are over exposed because we’ve let the MF age without replacing deadwood and hoping that one or more of the kids make a Gerrard-like breakthrough, and being honest none of them are looking likely – they’re all the same, neat & tidy technical players who have zero pace & would get knocked over by an ‘adult’. None of our MF create anything at the moment though and there’s zero goal threat from any of them as well. And I know this is not going to go down well, but Darwin’s finishing is fucking killing us. I love the guy and would love nothing more than for him to be the monster that we all hope/suspect is lurking in him, but at the minute he's as likely to hit the corner-flag as the target. If he nets that one first-half last night it gives everyone a lift and perhaps it’s a different game. And let’s be honest, he’s not that unlucky with the finish, he hits it petty well but it's right in virtually the only spot where Mee can get back to clear it. Jotta & Diaz have been much bigger blows than anyone thought. The whole thing is like a Stephen King novel – I was thinking Misery but there’s a few others (The Dead Zone…Rage etc).

I sooo want Nunez to be brilliant, but at the minute his finishing is abysmal. As already mentioned by previous posters if he’d signed for Utd and missed some of the absolute nailed-on sitters for them the piss would be well and truly taken. It’s also his decision making - the volley was brilliant technique but he didn’t need to take it first time. He’s bound to have known the last defender had gone on his arse so why not take it down instead of going full-on Hollywood? Maybe if one goes in there will be a deluge - fingers crossed.

Since the day he arrived my favourite player has been Virge, the best defender we've ever had (some will say Hansen and that's fair enough), who at his best has been imperious. It's utterly heart-breaking to see him playing the way he is at the minute. Heart-breaking and utterly baffling. His anticipation has deserted him and he looks slow. What would you give to have Virge prior to that fucktard wrecking him back again?

I read a post (which I sincerely hope was made up BS) from some Corgi Club asking if any other member's dogs had been acting 'strange, mopey and clingy since the Queen died'. I mean, fuck me lads, if that's genuine (and who can tell these days) then there's a lot of people out there who need some serious, serious therapy sessions and soon! Ref the game, agree totally Dave, not back to our best but if the the luck's with you then that game ends 5 or 6 - 2. Thiago brought utter class; Kostas brought a HUGE set of Greek Balls and big Joel was big Joel. Still think Harvey's struggling to really make an impact but I don't want to beat up on him as he's bound to get better with a run in the team. The front 3 looked more like "Liverpool's front 3" (TM) which was a massive relief after the last four or five matches. Personally I'm glad of the break now as between the end of last season/start of this one it's been an emotional wrecking ball...

Let's play statues....

Judging by the way we've played this season this has been coming, but suspecting it's coming and seeing it happen was still shocking to see. I can't explain it; I've been following them from the 70's and I've never seen a team (be it Liverpool or any other club) be so brilliant yet completely fall off a cliff within Months. Virge looks like he's aged 10yrs overnight; Gomes has always been prone to a brain fart; 'Hollywood' Trent looks like it's all gone to his head; when was the last time Robbo got an assist? Fab looks like he running through treacle; Milner looks 46; Bobby was goosed two years ago but will throw the odd performance in against the likes of Bournemouth and suddenly we're supposed to forget that he's been shite for 2 years; Hendo's done as well - we've 8-10 MF players but 4 of them are constantly injured; Elliot is a decent talented kid, but he looks like a 12yr old playing for his Dad's 5-a-side team because one of the 'adults' couldn't get off work. Diaz is the one bright light in a front 3 which makes Mane looks better and better with each passing game; Mo? Just what the absolute fuck? Is he playing on the touchline by his own design or being told to be there? He's been shit-average since AFCON, but we've all been avoiding calling it out. And the elephant in the room is Nunez. Feck me I hope I'm wrong but expect him to fall over every time the ball goes near him. It's all 20:20 with hindsight, but Jurgen's been too loyal to a few players who have clearly been on the wane over the last year - maybe it's down to FSG 'sweating the assets', who knows? But we beat the scum 9-0 in two games less than 10 months ago...how the fuck have we allowed ourselves to end up like this? (Rant over, sorry!)

Completely agree about Hamann who’s turned into a total and utter first rate Melt. He never opens his gob unless it’s to trash the team or one of the players. Twitchey fucker…

That was a perfect summation Dave, that’s exactly how I feel and at the minute I’m having mixed emotions about Saturday, somewhere between indifference and dread. But hopefully by Thursday the excitement will kick-in. If we start Saturday with a MF of Hendo, Fab & Thiago all will be good. If…..

Mo’s agent is a total knob. That’s all