Trumo

A familiar foe in Europe marks our first away game in this season's Champions League. We've played them twice in recent seasons, and met them in Europe twice in the first decade of the new millennium. Like Milan, they aren't the same force they were 15 to 20 years ago, but like Milan they can pose a threat that cannot be taken lightly. What do we need then? Power. Accuracy. Urgency. Luck. Organisation. Flair. Unwavering faith. Tactical nous. Resilience. Elegance. I don't ask for much. We played them in the quarter finals during our CL winning run of 2018/19, but it's the Round of 16 tie from a year earlier in February 2018 that I want to recollect. Porto were predicted to be a very tough task for anybody, especially in their own stadium where they had a very very good record. It was a big ask for us to take something away from the Dragao and then finish the job at Anfield. Apart from a sticky few minutes early on, the game turned into a rout that nobody saw coming. We went full Red (Orange) Arrows, with a Sadio hat-trick added to with a goal apiece for Bobby and Mo to complete a 5-0 shelling and kill the tie off completely. Mo's effort was just an immense bit of ball control on his head in a tight space. He was a complete goal machine in 2017/18 and it's funny because for the first half of the season, his conversion rate from all the excellent chances he found himself with seemed to be about 50%. He'd come away from games having scored a brace when he could easily have had 4. We dismantled Porto so comprehensively that the second leg was a mere formality. We'd go on to face City in the quarters. The box office in mid-February 2018 was headed by the MCU's latest cinematic superhero movie. It's one that came in a little bit under the radar even though Marvel Studios had introduced the character a couple of years earlier in Captain America: Civil War, but it and he became a cultural phenomenon, not least in sub-Saharan Africa. The fictional nation of Wakanda, the young leader T'Challa ascending the throne to lead his people, and a cohesive, impressive and entertaining film that made Black Panther one of the best of the genre. A career-making turn for the late, great Chadwick Boseman who overcame monumental personal health issues to take on the role. It's sad he's not around anymore, but he has left one hell of a legacy. As I said above, you cannot underestimate just how much the character has resonated throughout much of Africa. They have a hero of their own, someone who they can relate to, someone who can inspire, and something to aspire to. Our team has its very own African superheroes, and they are more than capable of doing exactly what they did to Porto 3 years ago. They might be older now, and one of them has been very erratic recently, but they are still a danger the Portuguese side will undoubtedly be wary of. They'll also be wary of the goal threat posed by one of their countrymen. I wouldn't expect us to hand out a similar thrashing, nor would I underestimate Porto, but I would say that if we do all the right things and play to the standards we are capable of, we can get outof Portugal with a 100% record in the group going into the double-header with our European bête noire Atlético Madrid. Just get it done.

And so on to our latest meeting with a Premier League debutant. Brentford had been knocking on the door for promotion for a couple of years, with a mobile and prolific front three that was probably the most highly effective unit outside the top flight. It even had its own name - BMW. Benrahma, Mbuemo and Watkins. Mbuemo is still there but Brentford sold the other two at the beginning of last season for about £50m combined. They added the very effective Ivan Toney and finally earned their place in the top tier. They've even spent money on a brand new stadium, moving away from their very lower-league-old-school Griffin Park - a stadium best known for having a pub at every corner of the ground, and for being right below the Heathrow flightpath. The new place is just a short distance away. Balls. Energy. Experience. Skill. Know-how. Nerve. Effervescence. Endeavour. Shooting boots. I don't ask for much. Brentford are far from regular opponents for Liverpool down the years. We last met them in a couple of cup ties in the 80s but for league action, you have to go way way back to before the Second World War to find our last league win at Griffin Park. It was March 1938, and the reds beat their London opponents 3-1 thanks to goals from pre-war goal machine Jack Balmer, Alf Hanson and debutant Jimmy McInnes. Somebody named Hopkins replied for The Bees. I can't find Youtube footage (I was hoping for an old Pathe news reel narrated by Mr. Cholmondley-Warner, but no such luck). Not even a photo from a newspaper cutting. It was a top flight game though, and not because it was near the old London Airport. The top film that mid-March 1938 week was the musical western The Girl of the Golden West, directed by Robert Z. Leonard (best known for the Oscar Best Picture-winning The Great Ziegfeld two years earlier) and starring Jeanette MacDonald (who?) and Nelson Eddy (again, who?). The plot is described as "A frontier woman falls in love with an outlaw." What else can I say? Stringy is the probably only one who paid tuppence to watch it at his local fleapit. Interestingly, the last match thread featured a film about the final frontier, and this one features a film about what many people see as the first frontier. Anyway, there is a trailer of sorts on Youtube. Another early-evening Saturday fixture, against a team that have generally looked bang up for it this season. Sort of like Sheffield United two years ago. They even have the same kit. We basically know what Thomas Frank's side are going to try and do. Be physical and hope the ref is favourable. They will look to give it a go in front of their fans, just like they did in their first game against Arsenal. The thing is, we are not Arsenal (thank fuck for that, fam!). We just need to ignore all that and do what we know our players can do. Get it, get the goals and get out with the 3 points. As ever, be that single-minded about it. Oh, and more precise with our finishing of course.

Charlotte Sine.

Hamilton wins his 100th grand prix. Huge shame that Lando Norris got kiboshed by his own team having been brilliant all weekend. He really should have had a podium finish.

Yep, Strachan, Gary Mac, Batty and Speed were a very solid unit but Bremner, Giles and Lorimer were more successful over a longer period.

I suppose you could also argue C/ Media coverage either ignoring or not accurately conveying what Labour is putting across

I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum.

A good panzanella or tabouleh are perfect accompaniments to a bit of grilled swordfish or some lamb koftas respectively.

A bit of a perfect storm for Brentford in that so many of our players were not at the races especially at the back, and by going long and early they were negating our ability to press high and squeeze the pitch, nearly every second ball and bounce was favourable to them, AND they made the most of the relatively few chances they had. Even when we play the more direct PL teams like Burnley, they are more about defending their penalty area, letting us have the ball and launching it long on the counter. It's not a game that defines anything for us, but it is a wake-up call that being at the races is the real key to us getting something from games that are tight.

You've been doing a sterling job filling in mate.

Robin Askwith stars in...Confessions of a Hermes Delivery Driver.

More like Pat Butcher in a wig.

"I need £200m for some new full backs" message from the manager.

Don't the Americans usually start off like a house on fire before their individualism gets the better of them and the Europeans' more obvious camaraderie begins to turn the tide?

Harsh on his mate that.

Jutta Speidel.

A Saturday 3:00pm kick off? What is this sorcery? Rarer than hen's teeth those nowadays, as to me it always seems we're in that late Saturday or last-game-on-Sunday slot. What do we need? Nous. Intensity. Nerve. Efficiency. Nuisance factor. Impudence. Luck. I don't ask for much. The corresponding fixture last season was the last game of the season, where a Sadio brace secured a 2-0 win and a place in this season's Champions League. We'd found an upsurge in form while those ahead of us began to falter, and we ended up finishing 3rd. Of course the game from yesteryear has to be the 9-0 tonking we dished out to Steve Coppell's Palace side in mid-September 1989. It was Aldo's last game as we'd sold him to Real Sociedad, and one of the abiding memories was of him lashing most of his kit into the Kop at the end. He's done some very questionable things off the field, and could be a bit of a hothead on it at times, but there is no doubting his love for LFC. He doesn't try to hide his bias which is why he does punditry and co-commentator for local radio and the club channel rather than at national level. Anyway, my other main memory is of a great chipped goal from McMahon. Palace's goalkeeper Perry Suckling never really recovered from the trauma of this game, and Palace replaced him with a young Nigel Martyn soon after this game, making him the country's first million-pound goalkeeper in the process. Nicol got 2, Gillespie and Hysen both got on the scoresheet, and the attacking threat of Barnes, Beardsley, Rush and Aldo saw each of them register a goal. Mark Bright has been a bitter bastard when talking about us ever since. Incidentally, I never realised Palace's Geoff Thomas had skied a penalty over the bar in this game either. The top film at the box office in mid-September 1989 was Sea Of Love, starring Al Pacino as an alcoholic burned-out homicide detective, and Ellen Barkin co-starring as the love interest whose ex is the murderer offing all her dates. Pacino's played the same sort of role to more telling effect in the likes of Heat. It's not a bad film, and is as coherent and watchable as any decent film in the thriller genre, but at the same time there is nothing particularly memorable about it. Ellen Barkin has a bit of a weird face too. Anyway, Palace. Now managed by Vieira and looking to have settled down a bit. I read that they had a dozen players out of contract in the summer. Andros Townsend went to the shite but I can't remember if anyone else left as, Odsonne Edouard aside, they seem to have the exact same team as last year. They still have a bit of pace and goal threat in attack with the likes of Zaha. But we have plenty of threats of our own. As ever, it's about us playing with the right attitude and intent as if we play like we are capable of, we could very well blitz this lot again. It might not be as goal-heavy as in 1989 but we are more than capable of getting the job done and getting the 3 points. Just get it done.

And so we move onto the League Cup 3rd Round. I can't call it by it's sponsorship name, firstly because I've never bought the stuff, and second because it's been almost exclusively in the hands of an oil state since being so named. I'm not overly keen on all these energy drinks, and in fact I had no idea what the brand was until maybe a year or so after they'd been sponsoring the competition. Whatever happened to all those shit-to-average UK-based companies from the TV rental, catalogue shopping or shite-to-bang-average beer sectors that used to sponsor this thing? Anyway: Work-rate. Heart. Effervescence. Respect. Exuberance. Accuracy. Robustness. Energy (drink). Youthfulness. Obstinacy. Urgency. I don't ask for much. This is a fixture that has been played in this competition before. In December 1979 to be exact. It wasn't a competition we took especially seriously back then, but these sides met in the 5th Round at Carrow Road. We'd been finalists two years earlier, but generally the competition, much like in recent times, was treated as an afterthought by a club that had much bigger fish to fry. I can't actually find a clip of this one on Youtube (not even a photo on Google), but we won 3-1 thanks to a brace from David Johnson and a goal from Kenny; Kevin Reeves scored the solitary goal for the Canaries that night. We'd go on to face Forest again in the semis, and again they came out on top. At the time, they were at their very best in two-legged cup ties, having won this competition two years in a row and going on to lose the final this season, but to compensate they would also go on to retain the European Cup against King Kev's Hamburg in Madrid. The biggest box office draw in early December 1979 was the big-screen version of Gene Roddenberry's 1960s TV sci-fi classic Star Trek. The movie, subtitled The Motion Picture, saw the old cast reunited after a decade. Kirk and Spock have remained an iconic duo, with the friendship and cameraderie between the human former USS Enterprise captain and now Admiral at Starfleet, and the half-Vulcan and always logical sidekick always at the forefront of the story. It's an alright film as sci-fi goes, but it's not a patch on the sequel which for me remains the movie franchise's finest hour. For one thing, the sequel has a memorable villain in Khan Noonan Singh. Like Star Wars, Star Trek still has a massive and fanatical fanbase. My brother is one of them, although that's based on subsequent TV series' rather than the films. Back in the real world, I'd expect Jurgen to rest quite a few of our players, and give run-outs to those who need a bit of game time. So the likes of Keeva in goal, Neco at right back, Big Nat in defence, Curtis in midfield and an attack of the young Kaide Gordon, Big Div and Taki should all expect to see some action. Much as I'd like to see us make more progress in the domestic cups, I can also see why some at the club still see the likes of the League Cup as more of a chance to use squad players than a cup to go and win. Norwich might not want to go too strong in this one because they are faltering in the league at the minute, but Jurgen should just ask our players to give it all they've got and see what happens. We've had players make a name for themselves in this competition and go on to establish themselves in the first team.

Patience man! I've been working 8 till 7 today.

We did what we had to, getting through to the next round whilst giving first-team squad members some more minutes in their legs, and the youngsters a bit of experience. On we go.

Greavsie and Der Bomber gone within months of each other. Two outrageously prolific goalscorers. Like most of us, I know Greavsie as a pundit and TV presenter. He never seemed to have an agenda and bias when presenting, just enjoying the game for what it was, but with one exception. He couldn't help but take the piss out of Scottish goalkeepers!

One of the best smug laughs ever.

They've each got 5 kids from 7 different men, so plenty of concensus.

Thing is, the prices generally change (go up usually!) on April 1st and October 1st. The upcoming rises are huge and it makes you wonder what's in store for April 2022. I've just switched suppliers and will be paying £20 per month more than my current tariff, but that's still better than the £50 per month increase I was being offered at renewal and through the comparison websites.

Not bad going considering Adidas makes their kits.