dockers_strike

1 hour ago, dave u said:

 

Yeah, but even if the flag goes up the defender would need eyes in the back of his head if the lino is on the reverse side. And then if they start flagging it fucks up the way they want to do it now by leaving it to VAR. I don't like any of it, but we're stuck with the VAR aspect of it. The other thing could be sorted easily. It won't be though.

It's like you said Dave, they're fucking about with the interpretation of the rules too much.

Im certain the original interpretation of the defender playing an offside opponent onside by playing the ball was until recently, that the defender had to be facing his keeper, intentionally playing the ball back to him and seeing there was a striker in an offside position but still played the ball. It wasnt if the defender had a striker behind him, couldnt see him but was lashing at the ball or heading it away because he cant take the risk that a lino wont flag.

It's like the '2 kicks' rule on a penalty. That rule was brought in a hundred years ago to stop the penalty taker either nudging the ball forward off the spot a couple of feet then, hitting it into the net or lifting it off the ground with a foot then volleying it into the net. But now, you have players screaming at the ref '2 kicks' if the taker slips while taking the pen and the ball brushes his standing foot.

Fleet Auxillary Tidesurge leaves Devonport on 4 January. The tug on the stern cable is going backwards because its towing bollard is fixed to its aft deck and can help turning a big, slow moving ship.

The best 'speed' for pushing your hoover around to collect the most dust is 1.65mph!

Heart says top 4 is best we can get now but head says we'll likely finish 5th.

Hmmm, Ive been saying for ages we dont win tackles so I dont think Jurgen's revelation is anything new.

Even last season and the season before, you watch any of our players, they go racing towards the man with the ball, the oppo gives a little dummy and our player(s) go sailing past them while the oppos retain possession. Ive repeatedly said this on match threads and I see it virtually every game from my seat in the SKD Upper.

It's basic football, the players arent looking at the ball, they're looking at the man hence why virtually every dummy the oppos throw, our players dont win tackles.

I agree with Dave. We looked so good because the press forced the oppos into errors with panicked passes that went astray or were intercepted.

After going so close to win all 4 trophies just over 6 months ago and missing out on the big 2, I really think many of the players have lost a bit of belief. Not the 'totally given up' kind of lost belief, just that niggling little doubt at the back of the mind that no matter how much effort they put in, it's going to come up a little short.

I really dont know where we go from here but like Dave said on the pod, we're playing pretty much like we did for most of the time from late 1990 until Jurgen arrived.

2 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

You realise this is not a good thing yea?

 

In other news:

 

Qatar Sports Investments, owners of Paris St-Germain, are looking to make a minority investment in another team and have held exploratory talks with Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy.

Sorry, what's not a good idea? I also said there's fuck all I \ we can do about anything to make such a sale happen.

Whether PSG hold exploratory talks with Levy about spurs or, talks previously with Leeds isnt going to make any sale of us happen.

The owners of PSG were reportedly looking for 3rd party investment in PSG themselves recently.

What an absolute non story this is. Except the Echo, sports media and FSG Out and social media brigades have made it into just a massive non story in my opinion.

Horus asked me if I was in tears when the news about FSG 'selling up' broke? Maybe Horus is in tears because nothing is happening, FSG arent selling up and in fact, are struggling to even get a 'strategic partner' on board.

Me, I just shrug my shoulders because in the scheme of things, there's fuck all input I have except to watch on from the sidelines. If anything did happen, that is.

No one should be surprised really. Apart from the fact FSG been open to partial investment in the club ownership for years, nothing has come of it. They were open to a naming rights deal for the Main Stand. Except everyone and his wife knew the ground would still be called Anfield and only the tv companies would say 'Welcome to the blah, blah, blah main stand here at Anfield' so the bang wouldnt be big for the buck, as they say. Naming rights for the stand has been quietly dropped from the agenda.

chelsea had a number of interested parties sniffing around them within days of the government signalling it wanted Abramovich out as part of the Russian sanctions. The Landarn draw isnt it, something we dont have in the provincial 'norf.'

The Echo constantly regurgitates the same article about who isnt in the frame to buy the club. I think it's even running the story yet again today!

Some say a sale wont happen overnight. True, but, it didnt take potential buyers long to line up to buy the club after RBS decided enough was enough of the 2 cowboys and threatened to put the club into administration. Obviously, there arent as many nation states never mind individuals with a spare £3bn-£4bn stashed in a bank account than there were people with £300m+ back in the day.

With a supposed asking price well north of £3bn, I just dont see a sale happening and that's discounting united, PSG and supposedly spurs all touting themselves as being on the market to the right buyer.

Personally, I dont see us being sold any time soon and even a partial sale looks very, very distant possibility to me.

Crack on.

Whatever way you look at that game, the performance was hugely disappointing. That was after all our strongest side wecould put out given current injuries. Jurgen has real problems on his hands and not just because of this game. Even if he could splash £70m- £80m this window, Im not sure that would solve the problems. Gakpo worked hard but wasnt really able to create anything. New players generally take time to bed in.

It might be an old cliche but too many players just look to be going through the motions. Jurgen says it isnt just a midfield problem, you defend from the front and we dont do that any more.

The players out there tonight were good enough to beat wolves, the same as they were good enough to have beaten Fulham, Brentford, Leeds, arsenal and a few others. How do you fix that? I dont know and it's beginning to look like Jurgen and the coaching staff dont know either. The World Cup break hasnt fixed anything and the hope I had that it would is draining away quicker than Keita losing possession yet again.

The loss through injury of Diaz, Jota and Bobby is hurting us. It's particularly annoying we're missing Diaz now because the medical team screwed up with their assessment of his injury.

While we seemed tighter in defence insofar that Wolves couldnt run through us at will, we give the ball away needlessly.

Case in point, what on earth was Alli doing on the first goal? He doesnt even have the excuse he was concussed yet played the ball to the feet of the wolves player when trying to find Trent.

The 2nd while close to him, I thought he should have done better. He seemed to forget he can use his hands and instead tried to stop it with his leg? Apart from a great block in the 2nd half, he looked like he thought Kelleher should have been playing and him given the night off.

I like Thiago, he's a good player but he gives the ball away for fun, as do too many of our players at the moment. If wolves hadnt scored with Alli's brainfart, Im pretty sure the ref would have pulled the game back for a free kick on the edge of the box.

Darwin's goal was well put away even if he did shin it. Them's the breaks he hasnt been getting in front of goal recently. Like I said, I dont care if they go in off his arse, knee or shin. Just get the ball in the net and we'll discuss the beauty of it later.

Anyone moaning about VAR and Mo's goal can GTF. You only have to direct them to Kane's goal when Degsy sliced a clearance to him when in an offside position. That goal should have been a signal to kick on and win the game but instead, we had to rely on yet another VAR intervention (or not?) to rule out what would have been a wolves winner. If that had stood, no way could I see us getting a late equaliser.

Last season when we conceed first or needing a late wiiner to turn a draw into a win, you just knew the boys would do it. Now you dont, or at least, I dont. For all the huffing and puffing, there's just no guile in the team any more.

Confusion seemed to be on who was offside in the middle but tv later said the corner taker was offside when the ball was played back to him. They took over 2 minutes to rule the goal out. There were loads of subs and Mo's goal yet only 5 minutes added time at the end?

MoTM is Konate for me.

Sad news and gone at a relatively young age. RIP GianLuca.

I reckon they'll stick with Fwank and wait until Moysie is sacked by the 'ammers then, pull the trigger and bin him off and welcome the return of the Moyesiah!

Cant fathom why anyone would want arsenal and that tool Xhaka getting a title winning medal. He'd be yet another no mark with a Prem medal while Stevie has none.

Id rather city whitewashed the league if we cant win it.

Just read that article by Wallace and after the first para or so, thought what a steaming pile of shite. So our 'most satisfying' part of the Gakpo deal is stopping him joining united? Seriously, wallace? You think everyone at the club is patting themselves on the back because we stopped him joining united rather than signing an exceptional talent and addition to our team?

Wallace then goes on to say Diaz is out because of an injury picked up in training? Nope, he picked up the injury when Partey I think it was wrapped his leg around the boy's knee. That caused the injury. The club's decision not to operate was a poor one and the injury re appeared as soon as he started to train.

The inference is Ljinders is almost interferring with our transfer decisions. Im sure Jurgen does encourage and use his knowledge similar to what he did with Bouvac (remember him, Jurgen's 'brain'?).

Put simply, Wallace chats shit no more so that in this article. End of.

what they moaning at, they've got this shinny new super stadium being built on the banks of the royal blue mersey. Fucking blerts.

God, if we could find our form from last season, we'd have smashed either of arsenal and newcastle tonight.

Eddie Howe doesnt rebutt shreeves' suggestion on Sky that newcastle doesnt have an 'agreement' to sign ronaldo if they qualify for the CL.

Will say one thing about the 3rd goal: anyone think that's down the other end and Mo or Darwin is chasing the last Brentford defender, gives him a little nudge like they did on Konate, the defender goes to ground and Attwell gives the foul and disallows our goal?

12 hours ago, an tha said:

Not a bad article...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jan/02/liverpools-latest-loss-poses-champions-league-problem

I know Jurgen keeps saying, publically, we dont need CL participation to attract the better calibre of player and if a player only wants to join us because we're in the CL, he doesnt see signing them as being a good move. I think he knows that's not the case deep down.

Failure to get in the CL will hurt our plans for next season.

But, the issue is if we miss out on CL footie next season, which is I hate to admit looking more and more likely, how long are Alli, Mo, Diaz, Jota, Konate and a few others, going to stay if we fail to qualify for a season or 2 after that?

It was hard enough getting back into the CL if you dropped out of the top 4. That was before Kronke loaded a £150m transfer spend loan onto arsenal, the Saudi's rocked up at the 'toon' and boehly being given a £250m FFP exempt transfer kitty for seeing off filthy Russian gangster money.

Staying in the top 4 for CL qualification became a lot harder from the beginning of the season. Once you're out, getting back in will be much tougher.

People can say we've got injuries or need a new midfield etc but I think that misses the real point.

What strikes me as something we dont seem to learn from is, our corners attacking the oppos goal, we send both CBs, whoever they are, up in the box and one of the fullbacks, Trent, Robbo or Kostas generally taking the corner. Any team worth their salt who wins the ball on our corner knows we're exposed with 3 out of our 4 defenders out of the game if they win the ball and break quickly. It's virtually always a two or one on one.

Stop sending both CBs up for the time being, they hardly ever score anyway. Once again, Keita got robbed of the ball far too easily for the break on the 3rd goal. Where was Matip, Trent and Robbo? Once again lost possession 10 or so yards in the oppos half has left us 1 CB, Konate and Alli.

At arsenal we had a corner seconds before half time. Everyone piled into the arsenal box, both CB's and fullback. We lost possession from the corner and guess what? We were exposed and conceeded a needless goal seconds before half time.

It didnt happen last night against Brentford but how many times have we conceeded in the first few minutes of each half? I say 1 time too many.

These are glaring errors and I dont see anything happening to stop them.

Has anyone told the boy you dont drive over black cats in your car in England because it results in bad ju-ju for you?!

We got out of jail on Friday night. After almost making Leicester, who got their arses handed to them by Newcastle, in front of their own fans and, we made look quite good at Anfield, I really thought we'd be up for this. I was wrong.

I love Jurgen, he's done incredible things at this club. I dont understand why he and the coaching staff havent addressed the problems in defence. You can pay a heavy price because of too much loyalty to your boys. We look every bit as shaky at the back now as we did before he and Virgil arrived. Maybe they have tried addressing the issues but the players arent listening or capable of doing what's asked any more?

It doesnt seem to matter who we have in the back 4, we look as shaky as fuck. And no, it's not just because the midfield is shit or Ox played or Harvey played.

Im talking the back 4 cant seem to defend any more and especially at corners. Even with the best midfield in front of them to protect them, I couldnt see this defence keeping a cleansheet. Good luck if others think a whole new midfield solves all the problems, we're sorted and, back to 100 points a season form. But I dont see it.

We were all over the shop defending any corner Brentford got. Konate was desparately unlucky the ball came off his shin and left Alli unable to get near it. But even after that, they had the ball in the net twice more only for VAR to correctly rule them out. That, by the way, says a lot to me about the ref tonight. Some fucking weird decisions he didnt spot and like it or not, that's a shove on Konate for the 3rd.

But when Brentford did get their 2nd, Trent unfortunately got caught out. Im not blaming him for the 2nd but it happens a little too often. Either coach him to attack the ball better in those situations or, bite the fucking bullet, move him into midfield and put someone who can head a ball at right back.

Once again Darwin had a great chance and was unlucky Mee got back to block it. Or, could a bit more composure have made sure the ball ended in the net instead? Tough call, I dont know. What I do know is, you cant keep just saying 'unlucky' on every missed chance or offside goal.

He scored a lovely 'goal' a few minutes of the 2nd half restart. Only he'd timed his run wrong and was offside.

Ox soon pulled a goal back and I thought he was having a good game, certainly better than his instant detractors on here would give him credit for. That still gave us the best part of 30 minutes to find an equaliser. Against fucking Brentford! We should have been looking for a winner at that stage. Fair play to Brentford. Once again, they shocked us and probably deserved the win for sheer tenacity and effort. But it doesnt sit easy with me that they were better than us.

And why the fuck was Mo playing out wide all game again? We seem to have gone back to this Mo on the wing and Darwin down the middle. I dont like it. They seemed to link up well in the first 10 or so minutes but after that?

I really dont see us getting past Real in the CL or Wolves in the FAC at this rate and form. 4th is looking a real struggle and we cannot have any more slip ups if we are to nick it.

It's not fucking good enough, Jurgen. Sort it out and quickly, please.

5 hours ago, Moo said:

I need a new mattress or rather I want one.  My current one is very comfy so am loathe to change but it's a pain in the arse to make because I have a memory foam topper, and it moves around quite a bit so keep having to fix it back in place.  Can't complain, had it years and it's been great but just want something easier now.  Thinking of one of those hybrids, Simba etc but a bit worried about taking the plunge and it not being as comfy as my current one.

It's a dilemma.

We've got a Simba but I wouldnt recommend one to anyone. They did keep to their gaurantee though and replace the mattress free of charge after 6 years when it developed two 'valleys' where the foam had gone.

Cant say it's particularly comfortable and next time we buy, we'll probably go back to a slumberland one.

Good report Dave. Considering newcastle whooped Leicester, I thought we almost made them look good in that first 20-25 minutes. We could still be playing now and I reckon we wouldnt have scored, unless Faes notched for us again.

The Brentford game is a bit more edgey now than it should be. Not sure if Toney's fit. Think we should hope he isnt.

Not sure Gakpo would be fit enough for this game even if the lard arses at the PL manage to get him registered in time. Read somewhere he hasnt trained since the Netherland got knocked out of the World Cup!

6 hours ago, sir roger said:

 

I had the misfortune to have Beglin on comms who seemed to think Leicester last night could be bracketed with Brazil 1970 and should have 'easily' won the game, while I'm thinking they only had one shot on target after the first 20 minutes, while Darwin and Mo could have had 5 goals between them.

 

Good to hear VVD emphasising once again that opposition chances that come from offside moves caught by our deliberate offside trap are neither here nor there despite this obvious fact being ignored by commentators.

I thought it was bizarre Mo's goal was chalked off for offside. Yeah, he was in an offside position but Ward kicked the ball at Nunez, I think and the rebound fell to Mo who should then become onside and 'scored.'

How is Ward's deliberate kicking the ball, it striking a player any different to a striker being offside but the defender 'intentionally' touches the ball, either an attempted clearance or mishit, plays the 'offside' player onside?

1 minute ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

Less than half a season ago one of the bedwetters on here (I can't remember who and I can't be arsed checking) said they couldn't see City dropping any points this season.

Cue Guardiola saying in the New Year they're concentrating on the CL. *shudders at the thought of the capitulation*

Hmmm. These twats are picking up points where they need to. city dropping points to the shite just gives arsenal a head of steam so when they do play harder games, they'll havea cushion.