The Guest

The reality was that we hadn’t played “helter skelter” football for a long time. Klopps style had evolved over the years but everyone seemed trapped into thinking we were this swash buckling style because of how many times we conceded first and had close games with sides inferior to us. Even in the final few years of Salah Mane and Firmino we played very controlled football squeezing the life out of teams by keeping the ball but only winning by one goal. I’d say if anything last year we were far too safe. We would constantly try to play “safe” which is a strange way of putting it I suppose because I’m guessing we thought it was safe but what it resulted in was playing ourselves into trouble instead of taking a risky offensive pass far earlier in possession. It would then cascade as each player played the safe pass backwards until we give the ball away in a ridiculous position or one player got isolated. It’s why we conceded so early in so many games. Before the players were comfortable in the game and had their touch etc we would be doing stupid things instead of just going direct. It would lead to corners and free kicks which quite often led to goals. I hope Slot has watched a lot of these games and analysed them because it’s clear as day what a problem that was. The other side of it is that we were actually fucking awful at creating chances from open play for large parts of the season as well. The main reason for that was the slow ponderous keeping for possession for the sake of it style we had. A lot of managers that come into this league always seem quite surprised just how negative some teams will set up and how willing they are to just put 10 men behind the ball for the whole game and in some cases just take a loss with small goal difference. If you’re naive to it and play tactics that don’t involve getting numerous players wide over and over again then these games will eat you alive. I couldn’t believe how dumb our play was in this respect so I hope Slot addresses that as well. City for all of their boring play and killing sides that way repeatedly get players wide to the byline and it’s the reason they murder so many teams.

Honestly if he signs a new deal we may as well write the next 5 seasons off now. It’s going to be like the Ozil-Arsenal situation. He will be completely unflushable as he stinks the gaff out and the toys come out of the pram. Maybe Madrid have come to their senses unfortunately and actually watched him play. Everyone seemed to think giving him the vice captaincy would sort his attitude out. It didn’t and he’s doubled down on the walking around by shushing the crowd every time he does something of note. Van Dijk is going to leave/retire at some point and if he’s here you know what’s coming. At that point I wouldn’t be surprised to see him start the game in sunglasses or with no boots on.

You don’t let your contract run down to a year if you’re planning on staying. The club can’t control his intentions. All this “I can’t believe the club have allowed this to happen” is complete nonsense. Had the club tried to sell him with 2 years to go last year there would have been the same level of crying we are seeing here. He clearly wants to go to Madrid. We have to try and get whatever we can for him now. We’ve seen his “business decision” behaviour on the pitch getting worse and worse each season. Imagine what he will be like this season. He might not even want to walk never mind run. Every post saying we need to keep him is always doing the same thing. Just giving him some arbitrary title of world class and ignoring every single issue that he bring to the table and they aren’t minor things. They’re catastrophic weaknesses that bring the whole team down. I honestly find it insane that people just refuse to see them happening in front of their eyes every single time the cunt walks on the pitch. Wherever you move him the problems still exist. The reality is that his best asset is long range passing. The further forward you put him negates that skill. You can’t put him further back though because he sees defending as beneath him. It’s not like he’s just bad at it, he pretty much outright refuses to do it most of the time. This is where the main problem lies for me and it’s not actually football related. It’s that he thinks he’s highly intelligent whilst actually being Wayne Rooney level thick. He’s got absolutely zero self awareness and it’s why he doesn’t improve any of this stuff. You can see it near enough any time he speaks. He’s got that sneering I’m above everyone else personality. I honestly don’t know how Klopp or anyone in the team puts up with it. I think a lot of the team will be relieved when he finally fuck off. I imagine he thinks when he turns up at Madrid it’s going to be a walk in the park because it’s a worse standard league with a higher standard of team. He’s right about that until they reach the later stages of the champions league and he’s so used to just walking around that he falls asleep at the back post again or lets players walk past him and they get knocked out and it will be completely on him. They won’t be shy telling him it is over there either. It’s also going to be funny to watch the meltdown on here as he goes to Madrid to play right back and then people might start to realise that the midfield thing wasn’t Southgate or something to do with what he thinks he should be doing etc. It’s because he sees Liverpool as beneath him and he should be playing centre midfield for us but he will play right back for Real Madrid.

Whenever I read GOT I always see the comments like “when will we ever catch a break” and “why are we so unlucky” and it’s insane. They are an absolute no mark of a club that don’t bring any money in. They got luckier than most clubs when a multi billionaire bought them and started throwing far more money around on players than they could ever have afforded. It got them in Europe and eventually it helped them avoid relegation. They mismanaged their signings both on and off the pitch and when clubs do it as badly as they do they usually get relegated. What they could do was spend their way out of trouble unfairly. They then got lucky again by only getting points deducted relating to that unfairness in a season where it didn’t get them relegated. They’ve followed up being so unlucky that this billionaire has built them a brand new stadium. The only two scenarios that exist now are that some idiot buys them and they play at this new stadium and all the financial shenanigans that went on before will essentially be forgotten or two they go into administration and don’t have to worry about all this debt they’ve taken on to keep the stadium getting built and paying the players wages which they can’t afford to without. They won’t own the stadium but being the only other major club in the city they will be able to get a pretty fair rent to play there from these idiots who will. So unlucky that now two separate companies in the past year have lent them a total of about 400m just to keep the business going with no repayment plan in place. The whole thing is completely insane and has never added up. They don’t just not make money. They fucking haemorrhage money constantly. Why the fuck would anyone go near them?

I like him and think he’s got a lot of potential but he’s got main character syndrome. Fuming when people don’t pass to him but is a complete pig himself in the same situations. We need a genuine unselfish player to be a creator in the front 3. You can’t have 3 players who are all willing to shit on each other to score goals. Whenever you hear Gakpo speak he comes across as a highly intelligent guy who’s willing to learn so hopefully he’s the one for that job.

I mean whatever amortisation they’ve already taken is in their costs and losses already. Had he been on a 5 year deal instead and they would have amortised less so far then obviously their profit on the sale of the asset is lower but they’ve already had the benefit of less cost in the books to date. It all works out the same if they sell him because he’s only been there 18 months. I might have misread your point to begin with but I thought you were suggesting having him only on a 3.5 year deal has benefitted them on a PSR basis if they sell now.

If he refuses to go anywhere but Liverpool though then that doesn’t help them with PSR. He knows they won’t force him to sit on the bench because they haven’t got the squad to do that. They either keep him and take even less next year or accept what we offer which won’t be an auction. The fact he signed 18 months ago makes the amortisation so far pretty much irrelevant. The PSR covers 3 years so they signed him for 40m and if they sell him for 40m they’ve still made no profit on him.

This is so odd. He only signed a 3 and a half year deal at Newcastle. If you look back to the reports on the day they tried to cover it up saying he had signed a “long term deal” which was clearly spin at the time. They 100% knew they would be in this position 18 months down the line. I’m not the biggest fan of him. I think he’s the biggest cheat in the league. He wins pens and free kicks but they’re the sort of things that we don’t get so when you take them away what are you left with. When situations like this come up though it’s just an inevitability about it. He’s a Liverpool fan and wants to come here. If the club think he’s good enough then it will happen at some point in the next 2 years.

He doesn’t get slated for absenting anywhere. He gets slated for letting players dribble past him easily, run away from him or completely switching off when he or the team isn’t in possession or when defending set pieces. Lots of the time he just completely stops moving as soon as the opposition go past him. He’s an absolutely braindead idiot that has convinced himself he’s a genius. This is all at right back. You move him into midfield and benefit from having a full defence behind him but it remains to be seen how bad that attitude is going to impact the team in there. It’s potentially even worse. It could be absolutely horrific. I actually think he’s good enough on the ball, he can dribble and he doesn’t panic when pressed and can handle the receiving the ball facing whatever way etc. it’s just his dickhead attitude and at this age it’s never changing.

It does exist to be fair. There’s a tiny minority doing it. They’re called the Labour party.

I just log in to see if everyone is on the same page yet and then just try and think of a slightly new way to slag him off. It’s getting harder but I’m still enjoying it.

You can’t cover gaps when he’s literally standing in position and just lets players run past him in possession or walk off him when he decides it’s not important anymore and he needs to show off his strut again. We’ve seen countless times this past season where players went to cover gaps and then they get caught out of position leaving massive gaps in the middle. He’s beyond a liability. Unless you want another player to just stand next to him all game at right back and do all his tackling and heading for him. Thankfully he seems to be taking the decision out of the clubs hands by running his contract down. It means we’ve only got to put up with one more season of this shite until he’s somebody else’s problem. It’s going to get pretty toxic the closer it gets to the end of next season though particularly if we are in the running for any trophies. He’s taking the “business decision” in most situations already so it’s going to become comical in the last 3 or 4 months.

Sports washing is such an outdated phrase. It doesn’t fit with what they’re doing at all. They’ve got more people disliking them than they would have if they just carried on without buying City. The same with Qatar and the World Cup. You get mouthpieces in the media and celebrities happy for the pay day but everyone knows what’s going on. Personally I think it just comes down to boredom. They’re so rich they just want to keep buying the next biggest thing. At the moment that’s sport and particularly football. I don’t think these people at the top care about the competition and the sense of achievement that winning a fair fight brings. For their whole lives they’ve had people letting them win like you would on Mario Kart with a 5 year old. They don’t understand fairness. They’ve got the perfect cheating cunt of a manager in charge as well. That quote from one of the French clubs chairman to the PSG owner asking how could he be enjoying/entertained by this sums it all up. I think if everyone just fell around them and said they were greatest thing ever they would get bored and move on but they’re digging their heels in because most people aren’t doing that and they don’t like it. I think 30-40 years ago this wouldn’t have happened because our government wouldn’t have let it. The way society has gone now nobody in power actually cares any more about their country etc. it’s all just about fame and money. People can be bought off in plain sight and there’s nothing anybody can do about it and that happens on both sides of the aisle because they’re your only 2 options. The end game will be when people actually start switching off. I’ve paid for the full sky package for years but I’m close to fucking it all off and just going the game and streaming our aways. I used to watch about 90% of the televised league games but I’m probably closer to 50% now. I don’t know if it’s an age thing but I’m getting sick of the whole city situation. I don’t know if there will ever be a mass switch off but that’s the only thing that’s going to stop them.

Instant Cunt Identifier - People who use the phrase “Generational Talent”

It’s that late in the day now in terms of his contract we aren’t going to have any say in what he does anyway. He’s not signing a new contract. He’s either waking away on a free next year or Madrid are going to come in with an offer. There’s no flogging him because he’s refusing to sign a new deal. There’s no threat there because we don’t bench players who run their contract down. My best guess is that we get a year of him half arsed pretending like he’s going to sign a new deal to then just leave and get some Mbappe style signing on fee. I just hope he doesn’t completely derail Slot’s first season like he did Klopp’s last. It’s going to be amusing watching Madrid put up with his antics. If he’s playing in the final the other night instead of Carvahal they lose comfortably.