mike23

It's a tough one isn't it? And something that shouldn't have even been an issue but for some really unprofessional attitudes from the senior players involved yesterday. In seasons gone by and maybe even last season I'd have been so annoyed with them that I'd have wanted Klopp to tell them they'd lost their time off privilege and would be involved in the replay, but I'm just so proud of the whole first team squad this season that I'm feeling a bit more charitable towards them and willing to forgive them for one dodgy outing. Winning the FA Cup would be nice, but it's bottom of our list of priorities this season. Everyone in and around the first team squad might yet have a role to play and I wouldn't want to see anyone injured in the replay. I certainly don't think it would be fair to punish any of the other fringe players/those returning from injury by making them be involved if they'd already been promised a week off. It would be a shame for Shrewsbury if they missed out on a big gate receipt from the replay if there was either a poor attendance due to high ticket prices for what looks like being effectively an under 23 game, or because the club charges a heavily reduced ticket price. Maybe the club could organise a friendly with them for pre season and that would benefit them?

Vardy must be excited at the prospect of facing them in a few weeks. Although the way things are going we might actually be better off with City doing something in that game. A draw would probably be ideal. Arsenal certainly have the forwards to cause them problems next week as well, but it's probably a bit much expecting anything from them these days. They'll probably score 1 or 2, but City will get 3 or 4 at the other end.

Atkinson on VAR for Wednesday as well. Not only is he not being kept away from our games like he should be, but he seems to be involved in virtually every one of them in some way. We'd better hope VAR isn't needed for any marginal offside decisions on Wednesday, and we might as well forget about getting a penalty, as even if the on pitch ref gives it, Atkinson will find a reason to overturn it.

I'd actually wiped the memory of that early Firmino effort out of my mind it was so bad. It was probably the first of many times where I was also screaming 'what the fuck was that?' at the telly. Ah well, at least we didn't lose and, as you mentioned, at least this game came early on in the season rather than during the run in like last year. The annoying thing is City will go there and make them look exactly like the bottom half shitbags they really are.

I thought the ref was really bad as well. There was an incident just before halftime that really irritated me. We won the ball back in their half and at first he seemed happy for play to go on despite their player going down, but then he suddenly seemed to change his mind when he realised how exposed it had left them. Just seemed like he panicked and went against his own conviction because he was worried how it might look for him if it led to a goal and replays showed there had been any contact on their player. There was no contact at all on their player. It seemed fairly inconsequential at the time, but a fourth goal at that point probably would have led to a completely different second half. Some of his other decisions were pretty bizarre and inconsistent as well (rightly booked Fabinho for a cynical challenge late on to stop a dangerous looking counter attack but had failed to book one of their players for doing virtually the same thing not long before). I actually quite liked their manager. He just seemed passionate and got a bit carried away at times because of it.

VAR really is a waste of time the way they're using it. Constantly slows the game down checking back on nothing incidents and then when there's the chance to actually correct a match changing decision like that they refuse to use it to overrule the original decision. My thoughts watching in real time were it was a clumsy challenge by Robertson and it was a penalty, but the replays clearly showed there was no contact and the player just threw himself to the ground. If that's not a clear and obvious error then what is? Does it need the diving player to wink at the camera before he chucks himself to the ground? VAR isn't the problem - it's the fact it's being used by utter imbeciles. The performance wasn't great but we were heading for a solid enough away draw before that, which would have left most of us happy enough. If the front 3 hadn't all been completely off all night then it probably would have been an away win and we'd have been hailing Klopp for his tactics being perfect. It was a better performance than in this fixture last year at least. The response after the goal was pretty woeful, but there wasn't a great deal of time to sort it out and Napoli are probably one of the worst teams in Europe to be chasing a game against. It's a long time since we've lost, and weirdly one defeat in this competition is a lot less damaging than a premier league defeat would be. Plenty of chances to sort it out at least, and it doesn't really matter too much whether we finish first or second. Need to make absolutely sure we do the job at home to Leipzig next time though or we really will be making qualification difficult for ourselves.

Great reports throughout the year, Dave. Always enjoyable to read. Well worth the £2 subscription fee alone for anyone who doesn't subscribe. Should be an enjoyable summer. Think I'm actually looking forward to a break from football for a few weeks after tension filled match after match in the last few months.

We seem to be back to like it was under Rafa when every team in Europe would think 'oh shit' if they drew us in a two legged tie. Manchester City are probably the only team I wouldn't be entirely confident of beating over 2 legs these days. I'd probably make it 50-50 with them. Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Juventus, PSG … we'd batter the lot of them. Barcelona had an incredibly jammy first leg and it still wasn't enough for them. I fancy us for the final whoever we get, but I'd feel a lot happier if it was being played over 2 legs. Weird one with the ref. He was driving me potty in the first half. Seemed to fall for it every time one of their players went down but theatrically wave away any fouls on our players. But in the second half I can't recall even noticing him - usually a good sign for a ref. Impossible to pick a motm. Was reading some of the newspaper ratings earlier and ridiculously one of them awarded Milner a 6 and Fabinho a 7 (they gave a lot of the Barcelona players a 6 as well, so it's not like they'd just set a ridiculously high scoring scale). I'd love to know what game they were watching.

As bad as the English referees are, the ones we've had in some of the big European games in recent years have been even worst. I just don't think he was prepared to make any sort of decision that might upset their fans last night. Some of the tackles their players didn't get punished for were ridiculous. And whilst the amount of cheating and moaning from a lot of the top sides is pretty hard to watch these days, no one else ever seems to be anything like the level of the big 2 Spanish teams. Sadly, we've found that out to our cost in the last 2 seasons. To be honest, I wouldn't mind if we did try it ourselves against them next week. Fuck playing nicely against a team like that. But I'd hate it if our players acted like that on a weekly basis. God knows how Messi is seen as some sort of bastion of great sportsmanship whilst Mo seems to have acquired a reputation for being a cheat.

Ah, the Higuaín chance was the other chance they had. I was reading BlueMoon last night and they were all moaning about Chelsea missing 3 great chances in quick succession. I shit myself on the two Hazard ones and was just waiting for the net to bulge, but I think I was so convinced that Higuaín would fuck it up in that position that I just ended up erasing the chance from my mind. I do vaguely recall it now. Ridiculous how he's developed a reputation as a diver this year. He's one of the most honest players around. It often looks a bit forced when a player running at pace goes down when he's caught slightly. The challenges aren't usually enough to knock them down completely, but they're always enough to knock the player out of their stride and lose the chance. But the refs never give anything if they don't go to the ground, so it's hard to blame anyone for going down easily.

The offside goal did go to VAR. Even on the replays it was extremely hard to tell and looked to me like a defender's outstretched arm was maybe keeping Mane level. There was certainly no benefit of the doubt given. I always thought the linesman was supposed to keep his flag down in such tight scenarios, too. I don't even really know how it's supposed to work entirely. Is it like the NFL where they always go with the original decision unless there's clear evidence to overturn it? Had the goal been given originally then it might have been hard to overturn it in that case. VAR was just doing my head in even watching it at home last night, and it must have been much worst for anyone at the ground. I can't imagine anyone in the ground had a clue what they were checking for on the Lovren penalty incident in the second half. It's going to seriously slow the flow of the game down if they're constantly stopping to check for things like that (didn't exactly make any difference in the second half last night as there was never any game flow to slow down). One step from the semi finals and yet there seems to be a general air of indifference amongst people about the champions league this year because everyone's so wrapped up in the title challenge. What a lovely contrast to the state we were in a few years back, though, when we'd have all been happy with a run in just about any competition. On to Chelsea. I didn't see Chelsea's game on Monday, but the commentators last night were raving on about how great Hazard was in it. Good to know he's come into form just before he faces us just for a change. No idea what will happen but can guarantee Chelsea won't just wave the white flag like they did at City. Hopefully this is the month where the fixture pile up will weigh City down. Last night was a good start, with them finally being given a game, as it wont make much difference how many fixtures they play if all their games continue to be the glorified training sessions they've been playing for the last few months.

Good report. I'm starting to think we're just cursed in the league. We finally sort out the defence after years of keystone cop defending, and the forwards go to shit instead. If the front 3 had performed anything like they had last season then we would have absolutely walked the league, even up against the financially doped juggernaut that is City. Mane has probably been about the same as last year - he's been inconsistent this year but he was by far the least consistent of the front 3 last year, too - but the form of Salah and Firmino has just fallen off a cliff. As you say, I think it's more likely Salah was having the season of his life last year and we're getting his general level now - a very decent player but too inconsistent to really be considered world class. They've not really shown up in any of the big away games this year - other than at maybe Spurs, and even then they were wasteful as hell. The failure of Keita to make an impact has perhaps highlighted the contrasting situations at the two clubs. Every big signing we make has to be an instant success, while they can get away with signing a few expensive duds. They signed Mahrez for a similar amount and he's had a pretty minimal impact on their season (I know he scored the winner at the weekend, but they've basically had a 50 million fringe player with him). Good point about the difference in efforts teams make against us and City, too. We all knew it would be the case with Everton - our failure is their only hope of success - but the fans of other clubs definitely want City to win it over us, and I think a lot of the players do, too. Certainly with the fans it's down to a hatred of us while no one really cares about City, but I think players of teams like Chelsea and United would find City winning it more bearable as it would be a lot easier to justify their only failure to win the league. If City win it then they can just say they lost out to a team with a much more expensive squad, but if we were to win it they'd have no such excuse.

Definitely true about the performances this year. We're doing so much better in terms of points than last season and yet there barely seems to be have been any games where we've completely blown teams away like last year. It briefly seemed to be clicking around December, but we seem to just be back to the start of the year now but without the clean sheets to bail us out. I just don't get why the players look so knackered. They always seemed to be a step or two too late to every challenge last night. I'm definitely starting to worry. In terms of the fans being split - this week has reminded me a lot of the week under Rafa where we had back to back draws with, if memory serves me correctly, Fulham and West Ham in December, and Anfield was a mixture of agitation at the dropped points from some and others getting annoyed with them and chanting about being top of the league. If we could get over this long title drought then everyone would probably have a much greater sense of perspective in future challenges, but as it is we just seem to become a tenser and tenser fanbase with each year it continues.

I've always found just how little effort most teams put into researching opposition penalty takers baffling as well. You'd think the goalkeeper and goalkeeping coach would spend a long session going over where players are likely to take it in the week before a game, but most keepers seem to just randomly make some half-hearted dive and hope for the best. Obviously the taker is the favourite in the situation and if he hits it perfectly into a corner will score every time, but there are definitely patterns with some takers which keepers seem to pay no attention to at all. I'm amazed no keeper has ever just decided that they're just not going to dive when Hazard takes a penalty no matter how much he tries to convince them otherwise that he's not going to just roll it down the middle again. Salah certainly never really fills me with much confidence on penalties. It probably is only a matter of time before he misses one and let's just hope it's in a game we're winning by a few goals rather than late on in a 0-0 draw or something. The trouble is there's not really anyone else in the squad who looks a better option. Firmino has missed a fair few, Mane seems to be terrible at them. Milner is probably the most reliable but even he's missed some and he's not always on the pitch to take them anyway. Wasn't Fabinho supposed to have an outstanding penalty taking record? Yet he's never seemed to show any inclination to take any. I guess maybe the worry would be what the reaction would be if a defensive midfielder took the ball away from an attacking player and then actually missed.

Yep, you're right. Certainly was a bad time for it to run out last night though. I hope we now get ridiculous good luck in every league game between now and the end of the season.

Good report. Agree with pretty much every part of it. So sick of City and their obnoxious fans. They were much more fun when they were a complete irrelevance before winning the lottery. I'm mainly sick of how we never seem to get the rub of the green and/or competent referees whenever it seems to really matter. Last 2 Champions League finals, the Europa League final, the Chelsea game at Anfield, even the 2-1 loss at City in the same season as the Chelsea game when a clearly onside Sterling was flagged offside when clean through - it always seems as though every major factor that influences the result seems to go against us. But we still have a 4 point lead. Who knows what happens next. Maybe in a week's time we thrash Brighton and then Wolves go and do a job on City like they did at Spurs and the gap opens up again. It's still in our hands at the moment anyway, and hopefully it will stay that way.

It wasn't just people in the ground; the decisions of the ref were just as perplexing and infuriating watching at home on tv. I hadn't realised it was the same guy as the Roma tie so, yeah, definitely a good thing that he never got an opportunity to make any really pivotal decisions such as awarding them a penalty as we'd probably be out now. The only decision he made which might have maybe made a difference in terms of the score was the one he gave for the non-existent foul on their keeper when he just flapped at the ball and fell over; we'd have been in a great position to score with the way it fell and the keeper still down on the floor. Matip injured as well? Suddenly starting to look rather thin at the back with Gomez out injured. Not a good situation with the busy Christmas schedule coming up.

Both penalties were very soft, but I did think a clear foul on Firmino in the box was missed just a couple of minutes before the first one was awarded. That definitely seemed to be the usual case of the player not going down so having nothing given. Anyway, it was nice to see us look a bit more like the side from last season. Red Star might not be a very good team, but I'm not sure they're any worst than some of the teams in the bottom half of the premier league. Maybe it was simply a case that this time we got the second goal and could afford to play with a bit more freedom. Our pressing at the start of the second half seemed to be way more intense than at any other point this season.

Yeah City fans are just odd with the Champions League (just odd in general really actually). I've seen some of them comment that it's 4th on their list of priorities. Fair enough the league should always be most important for anyone but who on earth thinks the FA cup and the league cup are more important? Never seen so much bitching about refereeing decisions either. They lost 1-5 over two legs, the one goal they did score shouldn't have counted, yet them being knocked out is all on the officials - ok then. On bluemoon the first leg has now been rewritten and they were actually brilliant instead of utter shite, and last night they'd have been 20 goals up by halftime if not for a UEFA conspiracy to prevent them from winning the Champions League. On to the semis now. Not really fussed who we get. Roma might be the easiest but they can't be too bad if they can outplay Barcelona like that. Unlike with the other 2 teams (assuming there are no mental comebacks tonight) we'd be in the position of favourites against them too and the underdog role seems to suit us. It's mostly just nice to be relevant in Europe again. Feels like the days under Rafa when no one wanted to draw us. That season in the competition under Rodgers and the realisation that we were a complete irrelevance at this level was really depressing.

Our record at Old Trafford for the last 20 odd years really must be appalling. We had a little run under Houllier where we seemed to do well there and the spectacular 4-1 and 3-0 wins under Benitez and Rodgers, but other than those games it always just seems like we completely forget how to play football when we go there. Time after time I've just found myself wondering what the hell has happened to some of our players when they step out onto their pitch.. Anyway it's out of the way now. Hopefully that will be it for this season. Agree that I'd rather have anyone other than them in the Champions League. Maybe Sevilla will take away the worry of drawing them by knocking them out tomorrow night. Can't really see it though. Every other result went against us this weekend so it seems to be shaping up to be one of those weeks where nothing good happens.

I think we'd have a lot more points this season but for officials. Seen some people saying on the boards we benefit from our fair share of dodgy calls too. Maybe I'm just too biased but I'm struggling to recall many this season. Mignolet was lucky not to be sent off at Stoke and a soft penalty against Everton in the cup and I can't think of many others. We've had the dodgy Everton penalty, the clearly offside last minute Watford equaliser (although who knows what is offside these days, maybe one of our players was guilty of looking at the ball in a certain way and that made it onside) and now this absolutely farcical ending which topped the other 2 and any other game I can recall for officials completely influencing a result. Six points right there. The Everton game you could say we still had 15-20 minutes to sort it out but the other 2 games had bad calls go against us so late that there was no chance whatsoever of winning the game. I no longer care if we win every remaining game this season with a dodgy call, or if Spurs drop points every week because of a dodgy call. I especially hope we get Spurs in the Champions League and beat them with a dodgy 94th minute penalty in the second leg. See what Pochettino has to say about diving then. The 2 games against Everton showed how hypocritical managers are when it comes to things like that. The officials should be demoted next week and yet there are people in the media actually praising them for their performance. No wonder officiating in this country seems to have reached an all time low in terms of competence. The club and Klopp should say they don't want Moss and that linesman anywhere near our games again. Dodgy as fuck the way they came to those decisions. The linesman doing a fist pump after the second penalty is given is pretty incredible.

Think I was more anoyed with Mane than the ref at the end of the game. I simply just don't get why he doesn't square it there. Had it gone to 2-0 I think we'd have finished up putting 4 or 5 past them. They were absolutely terrible - even worst than I was expecting them to be. The comparison with a lower league FA cup team is spot on and in fact most of those teams would try and play more football than Everton did. Ridiculous that they were saying on Sky afterwards that it was a penalty. I think it just fit into their narrative for this match. Plucky Everton getting battered against superior opposition but thanks to their genius new manager Big Sam (a close friend of most Sky Sports pundits) they come away with a point. They love to focus on our defending too so yeah let's say it was a stupid mistake by Lovren rather than a disgraceful decision by the referee then we can have another long segment about Klopp's inability to sort out his defence.

Poor Spartak were like my primary school team in a game once where we were getting hammered by a much better team and the ref started giving us lots of generous decisions and eventually blew up early. Not sure that sort of thing should really be happening at Champions League level though. Shame we didn't meet Everton a couple of weeks ago as I think we'd have done something like this to them the way they were playing at the time. Allardyce will probably at least have them organised enough to avoid a complete humiliation.

I didn't have any problems with the penalty being given, okay he got a nick on the ball but if you make contact with a player in the follow through after that you're always asking for trouble, but it all came about because the officials missed a clear foul on Salah near the halfway line. As well as the big decisions on Saturday it seemed like pretty much every small decision went Leicester's way. I lost count of the times they got away with blatant shoves when challenging for aerial balls and yet every small bit of contact on one of their players was a freekick. Couldn't believe how after so many many decisions went against us MOTD's focus was on things we got away with. Mignolet lucky to not be sent off (wtf?) and then the Can handball which was apparently a blatant penalty. I don't think they even showed the Lovren penalty claim in the highlights. No wonder useless pricks like Taylor get away with performances like on Saturday. Some of our problems at the start of this season have obviously been self inflicted but I do think we've had a pretty bad time of it in general with refereeing decisions. The last minute offside equaliser from Watford, Mane being sent off for a challenge where there have been at least 2 examples since where players were only shown yellow cards for similar challenges, and a very strong penalty appeal turned down near the end of the Burnley game. And now officials who did everything they could on Saturday to get Leicester back into the game. It's a pretty long list for so early in the season. I certainly won't care if we get some iffy decisions in the coming weeks to even it out (because it always evens itself out over the course of the season according to a lot of people which is another reason why refs get away with performances like that).

There wasn't really any reason for Southampton to be so negative at Anfield last week either as they also didn't really have anything much left to play for. This Middlesbrough side is one of the most negative teams I can remember being in the premier league too. I'm not sure they even know how to play any other way. Hopefully they do have a go as it would certainly be better for us but if they did but it would be a pleasant surprise if they did.