Wezza

When we win it, reds supporters outside Anfield will be outnumbered 5-1 by blooos who have come along to get photos of reds not adheering to the rules, and the irony will be sadly lost on them.

I think only the no option works

He will never get a better opportunity than now to get on the Rosetta Stone English - he should be fluent by the time the team are back in training!

United paying £27.5m for him? It bewildered me so no wonder Bellamy was bewildered as well.

I said broadcast for free ie Sky and BT make it available for free on various platforms to support the wider community. I imagine Sky and BT have already paid the Clubs up front so I’m not suggesting Clubs should not then pay their employees as a consequence.

If this happens then really the tv companies should make a % if not all of these games available for free.

The FA are already being threatened with legal action for cancelling the games further down the pyramid. Clearly people's health is the priority, but my gut feel is that they will still find a way to finish the season.

It would be interesting to see how we would invest the Brewster's Millions.

Errm https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11671/11903754/marcel-brands-faced-angry-everton-fans-at-finch-farm-after-liverpool-defeat

Jordan Prickford

Gomez carrying a small knock

I’d say the RFU got it right with Saracens

I hope there are no other Clubs out there with suspicious looking training ground sponsorship or (imaginary) Stadium naming rights.

Football 365 take on that article Copy cat cocoa ‘How Jurgen Klopp copied Pep Guardiola to create Liverpool FC success’ is the preposterous headline in the Manchester Evening News that immediately gets the fingers of Mediawatch itching and a-twitching. So the team currently unbeaten and 22 points ahead of second place is only really successful because their manager ‘copied’ Pep Guardiola? Okay. This should be fun. First of all – before we even read any of the actual piece – it is surely worth noting that Klopp did in fact win back-to-back Bundesliga titles with Borussia Dortmund so he does have some minor experience of building a successful side. It’s not like he is some bum who lucked his way into the Liverpool job and then decided that copying the best manager in Europe was the safest route to silverware. If it were, then why wouldn’t everybody simply do the same? Anyway, let’s begin: ‘The narrative of this season’s title race has already been written – grand old Liverpool, steeped in history and tradition, conquering the dirty oil money of shallow, plastic Manchester City. ‘The fact that the tribe of media punditry is teeming with former Liverpool players has set that skewed narrative. But it simply isn’t true, whichever way you look at it.’ That’s one hell of a straw man you are fighting, fella. We’re not sure we have seen a single person – former Liverpool player or otherwise – painting this as a victory for tradition over money. Indeed, the only recent Google match for the phrase ‘grand old Liverpool’ is this piece. And the only match for ‘shallow, plastic Manchester City’ is this piece, too. Most are too busy marvelling at the mastery of this extraordinary Liverpool side to talk about any other narrative barring the end of a 30-year wait for the title. Largely because, well, it hasn’t actually been a ‘race’. ‘No-one should take away from what Liverpool have achieved – they are a brilliant team, the best in the world right now, and their brand of high-tempo, high-quality football has set a new bar so far this season. ‘Their coach has done a magnificent job of building a team and getting them toned and tuned to near-perfection. ‘But the likeable Jurgen Klopp has only become successful after tearing up his blueprint, dropping his principles, and following the example of Pep Guardiola.’ Except for all that success with Borussia Dortmund, you mean? ‘Three years ago, Klopp was sniffily having a pop at Manchester United for spending £89million on Paul Pogba, declaring he would walk away from football if it boiled down to spending big in order to win. ‘Roll on a couple of years, and Klopp was happily overseeing the biggest annual transfer spend in British football history, as the best part of £240million gave him Virgil Van Dijk, Fabinho, Naby Keita, Alisson, and Xherdan Shaqiri.’ Sorry, what? We have to stop you there because you appear to have discovered a whole new way of measuring transfer spend: the never-spotted ‘annual transfer spend’. We cannot stress enough that THIS IS NOT A THING. And even if it were a thing, it would mean nothing without the perspective of other ‘annual transfer spends’ – like £80m in 2017 and absolutely nothing in 2019 for example. That one in particular seems more instructive. And it means even less without the perspective of Liverpool actually receiving over £150m in their – fine, we’ll play this game – annual transfer sales of 2018. ‘No quibble with that – all good buys, who have not only added value to the squad but have also increased their individual values on the transfer market. ‘Asked to explain his quite stunning U-turn, Klopp was, at least, honest, saying: “Did I change my opinion? Yes. It’s better to change your opinion than not have one at all. That’s a problem, whatever bull**** you say, no one will forget it. ‘”It’s still kind of true. I couldn’t have imagined the world could have changed. £100million was a crazy number but since then the world changed.” ‘So it was a huge change of mind and heart which turned Liverpool from contenders to Champions League winners and now Premier League certs.’ Well kind of. It’s true that Liverpool spending money did accelerate their progress but there are more than a few other factors: magnificent coaching, excellent scouting, extraordinary work in the transfer market to generate funds. They did spend significant money in 2018 but in the previous 18 months before the purchase of Virgil van Dijk, they had spent around £155m to City’s £368m. It was from that position of relative parsimony that they broke all those ‘annual transfer spend’ records. In fact, in the four years since Guardiola took over at Manchester City in 2016, their spending has exceeded Liverpool’s by around £300m. Factor in incoming transfers and that figure rises to about £450m. To suggest that Klopp’s Liverpool are only winning the Premier League because they ‘copied Pep Guardiola’ is ludicrous. ‘Guardiola never had such noble pretences. He has always been up front about his position – he needs the best players in order to play the highly technical brand of football he loves. And the best players cost money.’ Well, some do. Liverpool have a right-back that cost nothing, a centre-half that cost £3.5m and a left-back that cost £8m. Klopp did not buy a whole team in those 12 heady months of 2018. ‘City have spent big under Guardiola, but since Klopp’s spectacular U-turn, there is little difference between the two – Liverpool have coughed up about £236million and City around £244million. ‘That alone is an admission that to be the best, you have to spend bigger than the rest. Or alternatively, to be the best in a financially skewed competition, you have to spend significant sums – which you should try to part-fund yourselves through player sales – to compete with those who have already spent the equivalent of the GDP of Tonga.