Wicket

Agree with this but I think it’s fair to say that most teams have set up like this against us since February. You could have set your watch by Arsenal setting up like this so I was surprised to see a workmanlike starting midfield with no Keita.

A total abomination of a signing at a time when we were not far off being genuine contenders. Signing that waster instead of Anelka will always sting with me. We'd just finished second the previous year to an excellent Arsenal team.

I seriously doubt Sancho's agent will be getting anything like £50m. Agent fees are published every year, we've been top of that pile for the last couple of years and 'only' paid £30m (ludicrously, in the main on contract renewals) in 19/20 and £44m the year before. £50m for an agent on one transfer doesn't pass the smell test for me.

You could be right, there is a huge element of the Mancs and Chelsea buying these players simply as they are the only ones willing to pony up the dough now. I don't think that Manc squad is anywhere near as bad as it's made out to be either, Solksjaer will get a tune out of what he has even with a dodgy looking defence (that only conceded 36 goals last year anyway). The Mancs are balls deep in debt, currently unable to fill their 70k plus seater stadium yet are forking out £100m on a player and probably about £60m on his wages/agent fees, at the end of the day that's not the kind of transfer I ever expect us to get involved in. Whilst I think we've been affected by Covid, I'm still not convinced that we couldn't have speculated/invested in Werner. It wasn't Sancho type fees/wages, and he was all but nailed on to come here. My take is that we dithered and Chelsea stepped in with a silly offer to secure him. I doubt that there was ever any danger of us needing to pay him £250k per week, even allowing for the fact that we've probably just removed that from the wagebill!. As others have said, the more success we have on the pitch seems to equate to less money being available; we keep being told we're commercially savvier than we've ever been but can't find a £50m fee for one player having barely spent a bean last year.

I would never have called it a worldie but pretty sure Ian Marshall scored winners against us twice. I was at one of them where he scored in the last minute at Anfield. Just for some added context into why it probably happened, this was our team that day. The bench is probably the worst one I’ve ever seen us have. Laughably bad all round really. Liverpool: James, Song, Carragher, Babb, Matteo, Thompson, Redknapp, Ince, Leonhardsen, McManaman, Riedle. Subs: Kvarme, Staunton, Dundee, Ferri, Friedel.

Was going to tell that tale about Dundee myself. Unless my memory has deceived me most of the away end was pissing themselves laughing.

I thought the same about bringing Lovren on instead of moving Gomez back into the centre and reshuffling at left back. Lovren's kryptonite is a strong physical forward like what Calvert Lewin seems to have become under Ancellotti, he just can't resist trying to outmuscle these type of players and ends up coming out second best.

Like a bottle of Blue Nun left in the wine rack for 3 years

I’ll be cancelling BT as well. For varying reasons a lot of companies are going to be on shit lists after all this eventually settles down.

Nice one, thanks for the tip. Just checked my future bill and it’s showing free for May now and has updated April too. Have some rep!

Latest is that BT as of yesterday are saying ring in to discuss your options, but the lines are rammed. Sky now have their pause option online but the website is buckling under the strain. need to get this sorted as I’ll be saving about £50 a month, which I’d rather have in my pocket

BT need to step up and do the pause thing too, I was told the other day that I'm in contract until September so couldn't cancel. Argued that they aren't really providing what I'm paying for but I think that legally I'm on sticky ground because they are still broadcasting. In fairness to the chap I spoke to on the phone he said that they were looking at things for this precise reason so I just left it and am keeping an eye on it for a few days.

Depth has been an issue all season, we’ve had luck with the front 3’s availability but are now lacking the ability to rest or drop any of them as the back up isn’t up to scratch. Another good forward is a must for next season, bollocks to all this ‘who will come and sit on the bench’ , if you get the chance to join us then you take it and back yourself to get in the team or be willing to bide your time a bit. Competition for places is never a bad thing.

Can’t see CL being completed at all this season. It’s going to be touch and go domestically but with the Juventus and Inter players being in isolation it’s not going to get any better soon.

Good point about opposition intensity. It’s noticeable how much harder teams are running at us and pressing our defence, and winning the second balls. The Watford game especially. that said, we are not doing the basics at all well, passing at the moment is as bad as I’ve seen and the front 3 have all coincided crap form.

2 good posts. Agree with both. I still believe it was a massive gamble to not bring in a forward in the summer. Brewster, despite, all the hype is clearly miles off as anybody could probably have predicted. Salah is playing with an ankle issue, Robbo too. 10 games in December including a trip to Qatar a week before Christmas is unrelenting. Biggest worry for me is that trip to Leicester on Boxing Day, fear we’ll be running on fumes by that point against Vardy and co unless we can integrate more players into the starting 11 more often.

All the niggly injuries have seemed to come along always at the wrong time, primarily when he was having to settle in and learn the way we play then, when he was finally showing good signs at the back end of last year he got that groin (I think) injury that ended his season then it seems that fucking Guinea applied massive pressure on him to play at AFCON, then most likely as a result of that he broke down again in pre-season. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I know it can't be an easy decision to tell your country you can't/shouldn't play in a major tournament but I bet he wishes he'd told them where to go and have the summer off to properly recuperate.

I'd agree with all of this. What is also true is that we should have signed Gary Mac in the mid 90's instead of ending up with the the likes of Ince and Leonhardsen, he was always a top quality player and would have been a great influence on the squad both on and off the pitch.

Great stuff Dave, as usual.

sod this, might as well watch the masters for a couple of hours.

Any wonder seeing fucking Hodgson at the beginning with Guardiola pre kick off. He hardly looked like a man who'd given his troops a team talk let alone anything remotely motivational. I bet he said more to Guardiola than his own team.

It's strange that the stats say we've scored more at this point that the same point last season but i agree in that like in games last night where not a lot was happening that we'd be best reverting to the Salah out wide and Bobby as the 9. Give Leicester credit, they defended well all night but the attacking subs last night not for the first time baffled me as to what they were meant to achieve, I thought Fabinho was very good when he came on but the problem was that 2 of the options in front of him were Lallana and Sturridge and no Bobby. I do think the way forward for the remainder of the season should be Fabinho, Gini & Keita with last years front 3 in last years positions. I genuinely don't see why this wouldn't work. I think that the Fabinho/Gini axis there is the key to unlocking Keita, with the added bonus of Shaqiri as the impact sub.

i thought he did 'ok' in a game where others stunk the place out like Salah and Shaqiri. Personally i would have kept him on as I thought he was starting to make a bit of headway the deeper that Leicester got in the second half, especially so when Fabinho came on.

I'd also add to that the fact that we had the choice between him and Anelka. It was clear as day within a few weeks of seeing Diuof's performances that Ged had dropped an almighty bollock in signing him.

Exactly, i thought they must have been watching a different game with the amount of praise Wolves got.