mike23

I've always thought it was pretty unfair that league suspensions get carried over to cup matches. It's something that's benefitted teams a lot in the past, however, when instead of an important league game they've ended up serving the suspension for a cup game in the early rounds that they wouldn't have played in anyway. On this occasion Pope was unlucky at the timing of the suspension, but it was absolutely ridiculous how so many pundits then felt this justified questioning the decision. It really needed Graeme Souness or Roy Keane in the studio to tell them they were talking utter shite. It seems to be driven by this horrible idea that Newcastle are these plucky new challengers to the established elite. A lot of people are so desperate for some different teams to compete that they seem happy to completely overlook the unpleasant reasons behind why they can suddenly compete. I was talking to a neutral fan about Newcastle the other week and they just shrugged off any talk of sportswashing and just kept wittering on about how refreshing it was to see someone else competing for the top 4. I certainly don't remember all this complaining about how unfair it was when Doni got sent off in a league game at Blackburn and was subsequently suspended for the following week's FA Cup semi final against Everton.

It's probably a good job it was such a clearcut decision or Taylor would have found a way to bottle it. There were some incredibly strange decisions in this game. I genuinely wondered if I was watching a different game to the commentators when they made no comment about Trippier going right through Nunez, handballing it, and then somehow being awarded the freekick. There was an even more ridiculous foul on Mo near the sideline in the last few minutes where a Newcastle defender went right through him and a freekick wasn't even given. It was bad enough that the ref didn't give it but the linesman was literally stood about a yard away. But defenders have been allowed to do whatever they want to Mo for years (whereas if he so much as breathes a little too hard on them they get awarded a freekick every time). He really must have a Zen-like calmness about him as I genuinely don't know how he always manages to just laugh it off. I'd have completely lost it with one of them years ago if it was me. 

They do whatever the hell they want with these lines. Nothing will convince me that 2nd United goal is onside. You could see it was offside with the naked eye without having to faff about with any lines. No doubt we'll get some more bullshit justification that greater leeway is given for offside this year like after the game against us even though I've not seen it happen in any other games this year. If greater leeway was given they wouldn't have spent about 5 minutes checking our 2nd goal yesterday when everyone could see it was onside even without the lines. The officials are doing everything they can to make a really mediocre United side relevant this year.

Better performance so far although it was so nearly very different. We really need to see this through now though. Everton are utter shite and even in our current state there's no excuse for dropping points to them from here. I'm genuinely starting to wonder what exactly an Everton player has to do to get booked in this game. Tarkowski and Iwobi both should have been booked several times now. Much more like it from Mo even before the goal. It was nice to see everything not just bouncing off him for a change. 

Relegation would probably result in virtually all of their players leaving and necessitate a complete rebuild. Some of Juventus's best players such as Buffon did actually stick with them after relegation and help them to come back up and rebuild. That's not going to happen at City as none of their players are going to have any sense of affiliation with the club. Their agents would probably be ringing around looking for new clubs within seconds of the relegation announcement. City would be under a lot of scrutiny in terms of future spending too, so even if they bounced straight back it would be very difficult for them to re-establish themself at the top of the premier league.  

53 minutes ago, Mathewbet1 said:

Another argument is that if the PL had stamped out these fuckers , a few years earlier, when the should have, then we would have at least 2 more PL’s in the bank, we have more reason's than most clubs to be aggrieved.

You really have to wonder why it has been allowed to go on for so long. Had it been dealt with sooner then in addition to 2 more titles we might also have an additional Champions League to our name. How different might that Champions League final last year have been if we hadn't gone into it after the soul destroying blow of losing out to them cheats on the last day of the season yet again? If we hadn't had to go balls out in every single game in the run in for months while Real Madrid in contrast had their league wrapped up with weeks to go? The pessimist in me just feels that even if they somehow end up experiencing a severe punishment for this that it will all end up being too late for us and it will be other teams who benefit from it. Maybe Klopp can build another great team from the current ruins, but it all feels like a big if at the moment. 

It wouldn't be the same as winning them at the time, but our players from those years definitely deserve them. Genuinely feel for Klopp and our current players. They should be one of the most successful teams of all time and instead they have just one solitary league title to their name because they were up against a bunch of cheats. And loads of idiots in the media and supporters from other teams always equate them with the likes of other one-off winners like Leicester and suggest that they're inferior to past United and Arsenal sides. They'd have wiped the floor with any legitimate challengers. 

21 minutes ago, dave u said:

Whatever the punishment is if the charges are proven, it has to be pretty draconian. Like, relegation not just to the Championship, but right to the bottom of the ladder.

 

The reason why it has to be that severe is that you can't have a club cheating for that length of time, distorting a competition where everyone else is playing by the rules. If the punishment isn't massively severe then City will feel the cheating was worth it (because it will have been). You have to hit them with something that shows cheating isn't worth it.

I've read a few pieces from journalists where they've outlined the potential punishments and then added that they don't think it would come down to any of the more serious punishments such as relegation or stripped titles occurring. But what would be the point of any of the lesser punishments? They won't care about any fines, no matter how big. Even a one-off points deduction would be no deterrent; one future season being a write-off would make over a decade of success seem well worth it. The hope is that the other clubs would insist that any punishment has to be so severe that no other club would ever just brazenly break all the rules again. 

17 minutes ago, Reckoner said:

Remember when we thought losing to Forest was stupid as it put us further out of the title race?

The embarrassing thing is I was actually looking at the table after the run of wins just before and after the world cup and thinking there was half a chance we could get back into the title race. Probably not many others were equally as optimistic, especially after the Leicester performance, but I doubt anyone on here realized things were as bad as they were. Genuinely starting to look like this might be our lowest finish in decades. 

1 minute ago, Trumo said:

Finishing second in the league has a habit of fucking us over the following season. The only time it didn't was in 2019, when we went on to win the league the following year. 2001/02 was followed by the Ged shitshow starring the likes of Diouf. 2008/09 was followed by the Rafa shitshow starring the likes of Aquilani. This season is as appalling as those.

 

We don't help ourselves by stepping onto the pitch and doing all the wrong things early on. Joel's first pass was a dreadful giveaway right from our kick-off, and he had a real stinker of a first half capped off by an own goal. He improved in the second, but only to the level of bang-average.

 

The midfield was not the issue for us in this one. Apart from calamitous defending, our forwards looked like they'd never met. Darwin had our best chances (the second he should have done more with). Cody tried but nothing came off for him. Mo was insipidness personified.

 

We are bad. Really bad. Like United last season under Ole/Rangnick levels of shitness.

Matip seems to have reached almost Fabino levels of regression recently. Absolutely dreadful at Brighton and again in the first half today. Even in other shit seasons there were always a few players who still seemed to be performing at reasonable levels, but every single senior player other than Alisson this year just looks a complete shadow of the player they were 12 months earlier. 

It's actually reaching a point where it's an insult to the United team from last year to compare them to us this year. 

1 minute ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

All the cunts I want to win are losing and all the cunts I want to lose are winning.

 

Cunt of a day.

That seems to have been the case whenever I've been looking at the other results this season. Be glad to see the back of this season.

Could have got back into it in the second half but our finishing is just as shit as every other aspect of our play. Then yet again a team has to do virtually nothing to score against us because it's so easy. Every senior player bar Alisson should be embarrassed to collect their wages this year. 

Maybe Brighton wasn't rock bottom. It's quite impressive to concede 2 goals in the first 10 minutes against a team who usually struggle to score once in 90 minutes. 

15 minutes ago, bizzle10 said:

were a bag of shite this season from top to bottom Madrid must be looking forward to playing us

I wonder if we'll ever get Madrid in a 2 legged knockout tie when we're actually any good. They completely have our number in one off finals but I still think some of our teams in recent years would have destroyed them over a 2 legged tie, particularly with one in front of a bouncing Anfield. But instead the 2 times we've had them in knockouts were the covid season when we were an utter mess at the time and now this year when we look an even bigger mess. 

I thought the performance was mostly relatively good compared to what we have been serving up recently. Better team for a good chunk of the game and their first goal was just one of those unfortunate things that you can't really do too much about. The last 10 minutes were just a mess though and Robertson diving in for a ball he had no chance of winning to give away the freekick that led to the goal pretty much summed up how rash and chaotic it all was. It's no coincidence that it all went downhill after the final couple of substitutions. Fabinho was an absolute embarrassment when he came on. He managed to give the ball away within about 10 seconds and within a minute was lucky not to be sent off. Definitely time to cash in on him this summer if anyone is daft enough to take him. He barely even resembles a footballer these days.

I'm struggling to care. Nothing is getting fixed this season. It's the 2nd season in 3 years that's been allowed to just drift away through inaction in January when there was still the potential to rescue it with some January signings. They got away with it last time, mainly because everyone else was really shit that year. They won't get away with it this time and at the moment I'd be surprised if we finished above Brighton let alone made top 4. There will probably be a load of headlines making this out to be some sort of giant killing but the saddest part is there was nothing remotely even surprising about us losing this game today. 

The throw in coach is another one who should be out the door just on the basis of that last throw in. A chance to get it into the box from a relatively decent angle and instead we pig about it with it and end up with Milner launching an up and under from a worse angle about 20 yards further back. 

Couldn't fault the effort but the quality and decision making just isn't there. Absolutely infuriating how many times players picked the wrong pass or made a mess of the right pass. I can't be bothered to get annoyed with it because I wrote this season off last week and the club haven't even tried to address any of the issues in this transfer window like they should have done. There were odd bits of quality and 1 little spell at the start of the second half (which as usual we couldn't sustain), but it was mostly pretty shit and a sad reminder of how dramatically we've somehow managed to regress. They kept talking in commentary about the players missing who would improve us, and we're certainly missing a lot up front, but they seemed to be including the midfielders left out of the starting 11 as well and if they honestly think they'd have improved us then they haven't watched us this year. 

Ref was a cunt all match as well. Shit decision after shit decision all in Chelsea's favour all match. Falling for Jorginho flopping to the floor when they couldn't clear a corner in the first half was especially egregious. They were in all sorts of trouble in that moment. The ref had no view of it at all and went completely off the the player's reaction. If it had led to a goal and then shown that Jorginho had been fouled then VAR could have looked at it.

The Ox chance must have occurred during the period when my stream died and I was hunting around for another one (must admit I was half hoping I wouldn't find one) as I can't remember it at all. I love most of these players for what they've given us in the last few years but this performance was just embarrassing. It was as bad as anything we saw from United last season when we were all laughing at them. How quickly things can change. If we ever become really good again then I might rewatch this game to remind myself not to ever take winning for granted again like I have done at times in the last few years. 

3 minutes ago, Carvalho Diablo said:

Seriously, is anybody truly surprised by this?

Not at all surprised at losing but definitely a bit stunned by just how bad the performance has been.

I genuinely don't know how you go from almost winning a quadruple to this. This performance has been as bad as anything I've seen from various shit Liverpool sides over the past 30 years. This has been like watching a Sunday League team who were all on the ale the night before. Major changes are needed and unfortunately the owners don't seem to be willing to provide the sort of investment that is needed to rebuild this squad.

Score now reflecting Brighton's complete and utter dominance. We seem to get worse with each passing game.

Somehow we've not conceded a goal yet and that's literally the only good thing I can say about that first 45 minutes.

I was confident of top 4 before the season got back underway, but I'm no longer feeling as confident. It just seems like the same issues game after game with no signs of them being fixed. My earlier optimism was also based on the assumption that we'd be insane not to bring in at least 1 new midfielder in this window, and yet I've seen a few worrying stories suggesting that any budget we did have has gone on Gakpo. Hopefully the journalists who wrote those those stories don't really have any real idea of what is going on at the club. At the moment I'm leaning towards 5th or 6th, but there's still a part of me that won't let go of the belief that we'll suddenly click into gear and go on a big run at some point. 

I thought Keita was looking good when he came on. Then he gave the ball away 3 times in the space of a minute.

Genuinely dreadful display. Not even the gift of a 2nd goal could help us. I'm not even sure a couple of new midfielders would make much difference any more. We seem to have major issues all over the pitch. So much for the hope that the international break would give us a chance to sort out the early season problems. We look even worse than did before the World Cup.

We started well but then it all seemed to quickly fall apart. A rare mistake from Alisson for the goal and those sorts of things happen from time to time, but even before that it was pretty alarming how dangerous Wolves were looking. This is a team who have struggled for goals all season and aren't even at full strength. The lack of response after the goal was really disappointing as well, and it was looking like we needed to get to half time to try and sort things out.

The goal though - what a ball from Trent. That was genuinely world class. The finish from Nunez was decent too and one he really needed after all the recent missed chances. Hopefully we now build on that and produce a much better second half performance. 

It's a foul for me. Fouls like that get given against forwards virtually every time. Certainly Mo constantly gets penalized for far less.

Doesn't make much difference as we hadn't look remotely like scoring after that quickfire start to the second half. Nothing has changed since the first half of the season and it won't unless they bring in several new signings. We've been an embarrassment today. Completely bullied by Brentford. This was the sort of thing that used to happen to various Liverpool sides pre-Klopp and isn't something we've seen much of since Klopp's first season. It might all have been different if Nunez hadn't missed yet another complete sitter early on. I guess we'll never know.