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The Geordies under the Anfield lights then. It’s a fixture that has produced some real highlights down the years, and very probably the greatest game of the Premier League era. As I write this, Newcastle have yet to play their 4th fixture whereas we go into this on the back of the 9-0 hiding dished out to hapless Bournemouth. There’s also the hectic backdrop of the impending closure of the transfer window the following evening. Again as I write, Newcastle haven’t been throwing their money around the way Chelsea and City did when they won the lottery. Sure the Geordies have spent a fair bit of money (£100m-odd on Botman and Isak), but they haven’t been spending to anywhere near the extent of the likes of Chelsea and Man Utd, nor have they signed an entirely new squad like Forest have. It’s been quite muted when you consider how everyone’s been going on about their new financial might. Anyway: Organisation. Precision. Energy. Control. I don’t ask for much. As I mentioned before, this fixture has produced some cracking moments in the last 30 years. The 4-3 game in 1996 is the obvious call. The 4-3 the following year was just as dramatic albeit in a different way. Then there’s the game in 2012/13 where we laboured to a 1-1 draw, getting an equaliser thanks to a moment of absolute magic from El Pistolero. Nobody on the planet would have thought of doing that, never mind executed it so brilliantly. It remains one of my favourite ever Liverpool goals, and I also think it’s the best goal he ever scored for us. And when you consider the quality of so many of his goals, that is some statement. I have to include a gif. The game I want to recall is from Boxing Day 2018. Rafa Benitez was the visitors’ boss back then, and the Toon Army loved him while being highly critical of owner Mike Ashley for not loosening the purse strings and giving Rafa some money to improve a squad that was almost Championship level. Also, we’d never beaten a side coached by Rafa until this game. It was a routine 4-0 demolition though, with Ram Man (Shaq, in case you’re wondering) the star of the show. Degsy got us under way, smashing a well-taken half-volley into the roof of the net after Newcastle failed to clear Robbo’s deep cross properly. Mo doubled our advantage, burying a spot kick after being tripped as he raced into the area down the right. Ram Man got the goal his display deserved when he tapped in the third after a nice bit of pass-and-move between Gini, Hendo and Trent to keep the pressure on and prevent Newcastle from getting out of their own box. Fab put the icing on the cake, nodding in at the near post from Mo’s right wing corner to register his first goal for the club. The game marked the halfway point of the Premier League season, and we remained unbeaten as we recorded our 16th league win from 19 games. We had a healthy lead over City in the title race but they still had games in hand, plus an upcoming fixture between the two sides. That’s the game where Kompany was allowed to launch into a reckless knee-high lunge on Mo with nothing doing from the ref (Manchester’s very own Anthony Taylor of course), and a goal-line clearance that showed the ball to be a mere millimetre from being fully over the line. We were not blessed by fortune in the league, and this was the side that would amass 97 points yet still not win the bloody thing! I’m getting sidetracked a bit here, so here’s a vid of the Newcastle game from Boxing Day 2018. The big box office hit on Boxing Day 2018 was The Upside, a remake of French film The Intouchables, starring Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart along with Nicole Kidman. It had been 5 years since Cranston was starring in Breaking Bad, and Hart seemed to be in nearly everything released at the cinema around this time, usually alongside Dwayne Johnson. Cranston plays a rich quadriplegic in need of a new carer, and Hart is the former prison inmate now on welfare who needs a signature to prove he’s been going to job interviews so as not to have his benefits stopped. It lends itself to being a mismatched buddy movie where two people are initially at loggerheads but gradually form a bond, as Hart’s character is given a trial run at the job before taking it on full time. I haven’t seen this film but I do remember seeing The Intouchables and that was decent. From what I’ve read of The Upside, it’s a lazy facsimile focussed on style over substance and one that doesn’t make enough use of the chemistry between the two leads. Kevin Hart is a bit of an anomaly in my opinion. Everything I’ve seen of him when he’s not acting shows him to be a nice guy and a great laugh, just extremely likeable. In his acting roles though (in the films I have seen), I just see Chris Tucker dialled down a couple of notches, and not just in height, as Hart is a real shortarse. Hart’s characters can get really irritating really quickly. Has anyone seen this film? What did you think? Plans aimed at a further reduction in plastic waste was one of the big news stories on Boxing Day 2018, as then-Environment Secretary Michael Gove announced that the government were looking to increase the cost of single use plastic bags from 5p to 10p by 2020, with small shops also being forced to introduce this charge. At the time, small shops were handing out around 3.6 BILLION plastics bags for free. The British public have now become used to things like bags for life and compostable carrier bags so I’d say that the number of single use plastic bags in circulation has fallen significantly since then. We usually keep bags for life in the car along with a couple of boxes, so it’s very rare for us to purchase carrier bags when out shopping. I actually think this push towards reducing plastic bag usage is one of the very few positives to come out of this government and party being in power. It was a bit of an eye-opener when I visited a Walmart in Florida a few years ago. They have this carousel of carrier bags at the end of each checkout and the checkout assistant fills the bags after scanning the shopping. This guy filled about a dozen bags with groceries when 4 or 5 would have sufficed, and he was genuinely surprised when we told him how things worked back in the UK, even at Asda (then owned by Walmart). It’s kind of relevant to this thread, because the Saudi regime has built its wealth off the back of the country’s huge oil reserves and consolidated their stranglehold on the rights and freedoms of its people off the back of this extreme wealth. Most plastics are derived from crude oil, so demand for plastics has only helped the likes of the Saudis to get wealthier. They are now trying to sportwash some of that wealth through investments like the purchase of Newcastle and the inception of LIV Golf. As I mentioned before, I am writing this while there are a few unknowns. Newcastle have another game before they face us, the transfer window is still open so a few deals may yet materialise for both sides, and I’m not sure of our injury situation. Jurgen did say last week that a couple of players might be ready to return to training this week. It might not put them in the frame for the Newcastle game, but it will hopefully help ease the load on the others. And who knows, we might surprise everyone by signing a player or two. Stranger things have happened! Eddie Howe has got his team looking competitive. Guimaraes has been a very astute purchase. I don’t know how well Botman has fared thus far. You know what you’re going to get with Nick Pope in goal. Saint-Maximin has been there for a couple of years now and has looked a real livewire this season. On his day, he can make a real mug out of highly competent full backs. Wednesday will not be that day. If we show the right attitude, the right application and the right focus, we can show that we still have what it takes to be amongst the very best in the country. Go out there and carry on where we left off against the Cherries.