coachpotato

Not good to base anything on one game, particularly as some players will be assessed for their efforts in the Euros, or on injuries carried into the closed season and played accordingly, but if that’s how city will play this season, without de Bruyne, they will struggle to be top. 
They were much more threatening when he came on and he was everywhere, Grealish didn’t impress me at all and Sterling was thankfully back to the show pony who can’t shoot to save his life. By comparison, we appeared to be back at it against Norwich and have 3 points more than them, so a good weekend for us.

But, still early days.

Fabulous goal scorer, another legend departs. 
Sad.

That visit home will be so cathartic for him, being as spiritually committed as he is.

Same for Klopp I would think, being able to actually share their grief with their families after being stuck here when their loved ones passed.

Or our dear neighbours.

11 minutes ago, Vincent Vega said:

Rafa is on a hiding to nothing isn’t he? I suppose the pay off will add to his pension pot. 

So they’re top of the League for Realism then?

Nothing there that has been said by Klopp that hasn’t been said in previous closed season breaks.

It’s manager speak for “we’re not showing our hand to anyone before we play our cards”.

I’ve no doubt if the right player, at the right price, became available then we’d be in for that player. We might already be for all we know.

We all know the script now though, where FSG are concerned, that we have to sell before we buy.
We have a squad of players and if Klopp wants to add to that squad then he has to get rid, because our business model doesn’t run to that of City or Chelsea for instance, where you can stock pile players and loan them out or just have masses of cash to keep them sweet.

We won’t be arsed about winning the domestic trophies because that allows us to concentrate on the two big prizes that carry the highest financial and reputational kudos, and so this season won’t be that much different from previous seasons in our priorities on the pitch.

As far as the players go then, Klopp has to place his faith in his medical and fitness staff and their opinion of who can perform at the highest level, when and for how long.

He will know that certain players are likely to break down more than others and who those players are.

Last season was spectacularly bad in terms of injuries and this closed season break is the first some have had in three years, so, in the absence of enough cash to buy a really big player, Klopp is gambling on us having fewer injuries and fresher players to mount a challenge on the two competitions most important to any club in the top six of the PL.

He must believe that the gamble is worth taking and that we can take off at the start while others bed in their new players, he must believe we have the talent and level required to be top of the pile at the end of the season, and we must believe he trusts the players to deliver.

It’s a risky strategy to me, and likely many on here, but we have to trust Klopp knows best and that perhaps it isn’t as risky as we think, and that he continues to show why he’s the best coach in the world, and the only coach that could walk into any other club in the world.

It certainly won’t be dull.

What I meant there Pidge was that, generally, American customer service is supposed to be so important to owners of leisure and entertainment providers, so I agree that many of the previous ticketing issues has predated them, but they’ve been here over 10 years now and while some aspects of ticketing has improved, we still find ourselves in a less than ideal situation with just over a week to go before the first home game.

Fucking yippee.

10 days in which to get a system implemented that can’t be tested properly before it’s in use.

My lad was 35 minutes in the queue for the Athletic Bilbao game, reckon the Burnley game will be very “interesting” trying to get in.

Grundig radios were boss back in the day. 

This club has always, and I mean always, had issues where the selling or distribution of match tickets is concerned. It’s an absolute farce and has been for years and, given it’s one of the most important aspects of supporters lives, actually being able to access the ground to see the team playing, it should be at the top of the clubs agenda for things to be done properly.

One of the most decorated and storied clubs in the world and yet the ticketing is always ham fisted and amateurish.

I wonder if the Red Sox supporters have the same problems.

Despite us currently not adding to the squad greatly, we have the best Coach, we will have fans back which will make the biggest difference than at any other club, and we are Liverpool, which is the biggest cause for any optimism.

8 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

 

 

Oh errr, non-LFC. Hmmm.

Marco Tardelli then.

Makelele was the epitome of a DM.

Souness had pretty much everything.

Arie Haan DM for THE Ajax team.

15 minutes ago, TheDrowningMan said:

I think you can argue that Guardiola has massively underperformed relative to resources as it is. Three league titles & some heavily diminished domestic cups is a poor return for a billion spent on an already outstanding squad over five seasons.

He was brought in to win the Champions League because Mancini and Pellegrini couldn’t/didn’t.

Given the resources all three have had, it’s been an epic fail so far, but it’ll happen one day and all the previous failure will be conveniently forgotten about.

2 hours ago, Elite said:

In answer to the original question. I think £15.63 a hour and double at weekends.

 

Fair.

Maybe triple time for MNF?

Any notions that football at the highest level is a sport is a bit fanciful.

It’s a business and has been for decades now.

On that basis then, footballers should be allowed to earn as much as they can get for their skills, in the same way as any Electrician, Plumber or Doctor can do.

Of course, Club Owners (Employers) will try to get those skills as cheap as they can to maximise their own profits, or they’ll pay a premium for the highest skilled to try and ensure their product is more attractive (successful) and sells more than their competitors, thus giving them more profits that way.

For Employers and Employees it’s all about getting as much as you can.

The fans (customers) can buy if they like, or not.

All very cold and calculating.

Welcome to modern football.

So it looks as though Messi might be being used as a (willing?) pawn in a power play between Real Madrid/Barcelona and La Liga over how they can run their respective finances.

La Liga look as though they are trying to keep some form of FFP and regulation to, presumably, make things more equal between the clubs in a financial sense.

Real/Barca want to be able to spend what they want, when they want and on who they want to maintain their grip over the whole of La Liga.

The threat from Barca is that Messi could be off if La Liga win, taking arguably the biggest draw in the league away and no doubt causing consternation to the leagues sponsors and partners. And Barcelona’s too of course.

Could this also play out here if City/United/Chelsea find the FA Premier League telling them they can’t spend as they wish? 
 

La Liga will drop their kecks over this won’t they.

They deserve each other.

Somebody posted earlier that we should learn from our mistakes, and this is the whole point.

Two seasons ago we won the League and prior to that the CL and we’ve pretty much sat on our hands compared to other clubs in our league even though we have bought one decent player in Jota and potentially another in Konate. I hope Thiago can show his true worth too this season.

While City, United and Chelsea have more spend than us, we’ve seen other clubs as well spend more in an effort to get into the top four, and they’ve almost succeeded.

The time to speculate was when those two trophies were in our possession, when we were cash rich, and able to attract the best players, and instead we speculated we’d have enough to get by and barely scraped into the top four.

Knowing this, what have we done? We’ve bought Lovren’s replacement 12 months too late and, up to now, nobody else.

I don’t include contract renewals or the need to sell players on because that applies to other teams as well, and as for satisfying FFP, we’ll that’s a busted flush as proven by City and Chelsea.
We always used to improve the squad when we were winning things, for those of you who remember them days, and so we shouldn’t just learn from our mistakes, we should learn from our history too.

Spurs are buying up players before Kane leaves, likely with the money they’ll get when he does leave.

There have been 3 mentioned in the last few days and it looks as though Coady may go there as well.

It’ll likely work out they’ll  have one leave, and four come in for the same money or just a bit more with the one leaving for big money a known fitness risk.

Good business?

What are we doing, apart from watching from the sidelines, and buying (in this case Konate) someone who should have been here last summer when Lovren went?
 

If City have changed the PL into a one horse race, as was expounded on Talkshite earlier today when they took the assumption City will sign Grealish and Kane (I know, I know), and go on to have their reserves win the FA and League cups, and go on to walk the CL, then maybe the other clubs that were touted for the ESL will actually say “Fuck this!” and walk away and form a breakaway League with the wherewithal to balance things out.

The greedy cunts will end up eating themselves in their thirst for glory, greedy cunts always do.

8 hours ago, Doctor Troy said:

Sooner or later they will start winning again unless they hire another complete fuckwit once Rice Krispie head gets put on the bonfire. 

This precisely.

United are the epitome of throw enough money at a problem and eventually you’ll get it right.

Solskaer has been given more than enough time compared to Moyes, Van Gaal and Mourinho, even though the latter two upset too many people there probably, so I’d contend he’s an acceptable face rather than a competent coach, and it’s likely he’s getting support behind the scenes.

Ultimately they’ll start winning again though, while we sit back and allow a squad to get older still believing in money ball.

2 hours ago, Doctor Troy said:

What is it with Nottingham Forest fans?. Stan Collymore tweets about JFT97 and a couple of Forest fans reply saying they were there and "know the real truth". 

Yes, the truth was they thought we were rioting and all of them were booing until the first advertising board stretchers went past them.

Many of them then started applauding as I recall.

Despite that, and the overwhelming evidence that there was no wrongdoing by our supporters, there are still those in this country, and beyond, who think they “know what actually happened”. 

They also think the earth is flat, that there are 5G chips in the COVID injections and that David Icke is a full shilling.

Our differences are what make the world go round, rightly or wrongly, and it would be a boring place if we all thought and believed the same things.

We can appreciate many of the differences and beliefs without agreeing with them and can scorn the others, because we were also there, and we actually do know what happened, and we’ve stood alongside the families of the 97 and the survivors since then and they’ve been proved right time and again.

And that is all that matters.

RIP Andrew. YNWA.

Just to add further, the authorities have let the genie out of the bottle by allowing city to dictate just about anything that they want, it’s going to be like the Wild West over the next few years, would be investors with loads of money would have baulked at joining the party if city had been reigned in. I mean,  why would you want to take part in a big dick contest if you couldn’t use your full length?

Now any Oligarch or State funded entity who fancies flexing their muscle can do so, they’ve been shown how to do it by city’s brazen “fuck you” approach and UEFA’s inability to show who’s actually running the show.

They don’t need to have credibility, that’s the problem. Cunts who don’t give a toss for order and rules don’t care about credibility, they only care about winning at any price as has been amply demonstrated for many years now.