Supremolad

I dont believe it was a penalty for Cardiff. Their player moved away from the ball and "initiated contact" - in PGMOL parlance. (In plain English he tried to cheat his way to a penalty).

I think it should definitely have been a red card for Kelleher though. Very lucky on that one. Even though Konate was going to cover behind, I think if the attacker had skipped past Kelleher there would have been a very good angle for a shot into an empty net. Also a good chance that the tackle could have easily been deemed dangerous play. 

19 hours ago, Caramac said:

Not content with making mugs of the defenders, Diaz had to nutmeg Jota too.

Settling into life at Bournemouth very nicely.

Thought this cunt said he never shakes hands after a game. There he was was shaking hands and hugging Xavi after their game Sunday afternoon. Should just have admitted he was pissed off at losing to Klopp that day instead of coming out with the bullshit he said below.

---------

Immediately after last month's game, Simeone had said: "I never shake hands after a match, because I don't like it. "It isn't healthy for either the one who wins or the one who loses. That's the way I see it

2 hours ago, suzy said:

Also he’s not a regular pen taker.

He is Senegal's regular taker. He even scored one for them earlier in the tournament. They consider him their best penalty taker so they rightly had him as the 5th taker and he won them the cup with his kick.

4 minutes ago, Josef Svejk said:

It guarantees that you get to take a penalty. 

So what? It doesnt guarantee you would score or that your other teammates wouldn't shit the bed.

Anyway, extensive research of thousands of penalty shootouts has showed that the 5th kick is harder to score than the 1st kick. So statistically, it makes more sense to have your best kicker on the 5th kick rather than the first.

16 minutes ago, Razoray said:

If the 4th penalty taker scores this bet probably comes up. 

 

Salah can't be criticised for "taking" the fifth when Mané went 5th and nailed it. Who is to say one of his teammates wouldn't have bottled if they had to take the pen to win the competition?

Also, the player who missed the 4th for Egypt - there is a greater chance he misses the 5th, with the added pressure of needing to score to stay in the competition. 

 

 

Salah took the 5th penalty vs Ivory Coast and won it for them. Mane took the 5th for Senegal and won it for his country. Going 1st doesn't guarantee anything. And even if you scored the 1st, you still need 3 or 4 other players to score theirs.

Cameroon's first kicker in the semi final was Aboubakar. He is their best taker and had scored 2 penalties earlier in the tournament. He scored his in the semis but that didnt stop the subsequent 3 takers from shitting the bed and losing to Egypt.

Interesting there wasnt any dissent here when Mo took the 5th penalty to win Egypt the game against Ivory Coast in the round of 16. But now some are annoyed he was waiting to be the 5th taker last night.

I dont there is any hard and fast rule to this penalty thing. Aboubakar is Cameroun's best penalty taker. He had scored 2 earlier in this tournament. He also scored their first in the penalty shootout last night. That didnt stop his teammates from shitting the bed and missing the subsequent three.

7 hours ago, MegadriveMan said:

I still think that if Klopp really wanted to keep him then we would have done. It would have been cheaper for us to renew Wijnaldums contract than sign Thiago, yet we decided on Thiago.

 

There's a video that gives a bit of an insight into the relationship between Klopp and Wijnaldum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw_8zTxr1qs

 

For anybody that can't be bothered to watch it, there's an interesting bit where Klopp says that if Wijnaldum starts a game badly, he doesn't get better during the game. I also think it's quite telling that Klopp started Milner over Wijnaldum in both legs of the Champions League semi final in 2019. I get the feeling that Klopp was never 100% convinced with Gini and felt that the time was right to move him on. 

Gini started the first leg at Nou Camp. Watching the YouTube video posted, it is clear that they both have great respect for each other and their relationship was very good.

I do think Klopp wanted him to stay but the club just didnt give in to Gini's demands. Klopp actually "joked" in one of those LFCTV Q&A interviews that Gini was a tough negotiator. I think he really liked Gini. He rarely benched him more than a couple games in a row. And his goodbye message to Gini sounded very sincere and emotional.

26 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Kaide Gordon does not like this post.

Exactly. I was wondering why a lad who plays at right back is being selected ahead of Kaide Gordon.

Think that collapse was on the cards. Simply didnt manage the game well enough when 3-1 up. Guess the under 18s have been taking notes from the first team.

51 minutes ago, Boss said:

 

He's a very underrated player. People just look at stats and say he's shit. He's man of the match in most games he plays. Wijnaldum didn't score many goals or assists for us but he was a boss player. Traore causes chaos in every game he plays and there's something to be said for that. Teams have to double mark him at times, which creates opportunities for his teammates all over the pitch. On a loan with no obligation to buy it's a cracking deal, in my opinion.

I call bullshit.

Klopp and the laptop guys went to Wolves looking for a forward, they had a look at Traore and swerved him because they know he is shit. They bought Jota for 40m instead. If Traore is underrated,  then it's because people underrate how daft and ineffective he is.

His lack of goals and assists is a big red flag. But even if we were to ignore that, he simply doesnt have enough game intelligence. At the age of 26, "causing of chaos" isnt the barometer for a good attacking player. Mane and Salah get double marked too. Doesnt stop them from being incredible in number of goals and assists.

1 hour ago, Harry Squatter said:

 

 

 

next year's away kit 

Definitely wont be keeping any clean sheets with that kit.

Refreshing honesty.

35 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

As off today, PL clubs must prove 4 covid positive tests amongst playing staff to have a PL game postponed.

 

arsenal managed to get their game against spurs called off despite only having 1 positive covid test. Funny they didnt get the same amount of vitriol thrown their way like we did, eh?

The fact that the PL have changed the rules again shows how shambolic the whole thing has been. They have handled it poorly from the beginning.

Look at the league tables of all the other major leagues in Europe. Most of the teams there have played an equal number of games. ONE is the highest number of games in hand by any of the teams in France, Germany, Italy or Spain. Because they ensured games weren't postponed unless absolutely necessary.

In contrast, have a look at the PL table. A fucking joke. Some teams have 2 or 3 games in hand. And Burnley have 5!! 

Simon Hughes with a big article on the Athletic about the postponement of the first leg. Headline - "Liverpool, covid 19 confusion and the Arsenal match that didnt need to be called off". Cue more fuming from Arsenal fans online today.

I think some of them are now simply clinging onto this thing as an excuse if they get knocked out tonight. Even though they now have 2nd leg home advantage. Would really love to batter them there today. Would also be interesting to see if other journalists write long articles about other clubs with numerous postponements since December.

3 hours ago, Jordy Brouwer said:

 

Its unlikely his own decision. We prize ball retention. Ultimately he has to do what the gaffer says. 

Well the manager is explicitly saying in the article here that they need more from Jones because he isn't showing his potential on a regular basis. So I reckon ball retention is the bare minimum for him.

5 hours ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

Some people saying now liverpool have took the piss everyone is trying it. One game we asked to be postponed just one. How many have others had and before ours.

They're all suffering from convenient amnesia. Pretending Liverpool were the first to ask, when loads of games had already been postponed for other clubs throughout December.

2 hours ago, Lee909 said:

Mirror saying we are not prepared to meet his wage demands. 

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/liverpool-not-prepared-meet-mohamed-25947477.amp

 

 

Mirror basically took the Telegraph article which was posted on the previous page here and spun that headline for clickbait. They added a couple quotes from Salah's interview with GQ and a couple from Klopp's recent press conference. And just like that, they had enough words to essentially say nothing new.

They should have a look in the mirror for such dastardly behaviour.

Would be interesting to see the hypocrisy from the conspiracy theorists who condemned Liverpool last week.

On 12/01/2022 at 14:57, dockers_strike said:

I agree Dave. It surprises me the number of people who dont think Jurgen and his staff would improve this lad. At £20m, the lad is well worth a punt in my view.

I just think Klopp and his staff already had a look and said "fuck that". They went to the same club and picked Jota over him. Justifiably so.

He isn't a raw teenager. He is 26 this month. I doubt any magic Klopp would work on him would automatically make him a 10-15 goal player for us. He just doesnt have the base requirement for a top team like ours. If he did, Klopp would have jumped at the chance to take him instead of Jota.

Ok, so Nottingham Forest are complaining about this even after knocking Arsenal out of the FA cup on Sunday? This shit doesnt make any sense.

Great pod, quite enjoyable. Around 10 minutes into it, @dave u talks about wingers who score only 5 goals a season. Said that such players are only good enough for midtable teams. And that for our level, we need a winger or wide forward who can score 15 a season minimum. I agree with that.

Leads me to wonder why he is so in love with his boy, Adama Traore, who has zero goals this season and has barely scored a total of 10 goals across the last 3 seasons. Last weekend in Wolves' FA cup game, I saw him run through on goal yet again only to blast his shot into row Z. Nice oily biceps and thick calves though. He certainly doesnt skip leg day in the gym. More likely, he skips "finishing drills" day.

Non-Liverpool - Gabriel Batistuta. Loved everything about him. Flowing locks of gorgeous hair. Proper centre forward. Could head, hold up the ball and was quite good at twatting the ball dead hard into the back of the net. Very passionate celebrations too.

1 hour ago, George Costanza said:

Its a load of shit and it simply isn't improving as time has gone on.  Its just mates backing up mates and even when an error has occurred its still 50:50 whether that error will be rectified as they hide behind the 'clear & obvious' bullshit.  Time to stop re-reffing games because its the blind leading the incompetent blind. 

 

I'd like to see it either completely binned off or at worst reduced to a challenge system.  If the manager/coach of a team thinks a clear mistake has been made he makes a challenge which is then reviewed. The ref is forced to view the incident on a monitor to review his decision.  He also then has to explain his decision in the review process so everyone has clarity whether he's just inept or on the take. 3 challenges per match for each team whether successful or not. Offsides need much more margin for error as well. This increasing the width of the lines is still a nonsense. marginal for or against is not an obvious mistake.  The attacker needs to be clearly ahead or behind the last defender to overrule whatever the onfield decision was. If its tight one way or the other then tough shit stick with the onfield decision.

When VAR system started being used in the PL, it was clear that it was going to end up too meddlesome. A good number of people have suggested the challenge system, similar to tennis. But others think doing it wont be better than what we have now. I've always been in favour of a challenge system. 1 per half.

I seriously see no downside to reducing the need for VAR officials to stick their noses into every contentious decision. Using the challenge system robs them of their power drunkenness and reduces the number of times they get to be involved. Give a good chunk of power to the teams competing. And if any team waste their challenges stupidly, they only have themselves to blame.