Hoopla10

Pep', Klopp, Tuchel they all start moaning around this time in their first season because of our "traditional" seasonal fixture. I don't really get the hate tbh, they have a right to speak out for their squad of players. For sure they have it easier than most other clubs/managers but I don't see why that matters. Maybe the other managers could speak out too and we can introduce a winter break into the schedule. If those other managers don't speak up and they are suffering then it's kind of on them. It's not a coincidence anymore how most foriegn managers respond to our Christmas schedule. As tradtions go maybe it's something we should discuss continuing.

I completely forgot about the empty stadiums. D'oh!

Is it? Didn't he play at home in that Arsenal loss last Feb?

what is Rodgers talking about? That's not remotely true.

i don't pay much attention to Liverpool fans, such a bunch of whiners. I get a Liverpool fan moaning about how we slowed the game down in the League Cup game and it was bad sportsmanship yadda yadda, when I asked how sportsman-like was it for Morton to break Pereira's leg his reply was, what about Kane.

Amazing performance! Kasper might not leave his line for corners but he had a blinder. Amartey stood up and was amazing. I can't say I was surprised when Ndidi went in a second time like that for the pen', he does it all the time in midfield, those second stabs at the ball he's never getting. I think it's probably hardwired into him or something. Can we take time to appreciate how good Thomas is doing. Having to play because of our injuries, this year and last, has given him all this valuable game time and we're really seeing the benefit. The way he kept getting him and the ball forward was brilliant. The whole team were aggressive, snappig at them and getting into them. I could go on rhapsodizing about all of them tbh. Mild negatives, Tilly didn't look right when he came on. And while it's hard to knock Vardy he looked off the pace. Too often off-side and when the ball turned and we could run at them he wasn't on their defender's shoulder, often too deep.

Maybe a part of this problem is the lack of constistency (for whatever reason) in who gets into our first team. But if pressing is being drilled into them as a sqaud it shouldn't matter who is in and who is out, so I don't know. I can't remember the specific match where I noticed this most blatantly exposed. The opposition defense was running onto the ball to the left of their goal and one of our players was running to press and as he did he must have looked behind himself to make sure the rest of the team was coming about 5 times. That says to me they don't trust each other to press as a team. Which I find odd.

A defense that's constantly in-out injured. An unbalanced team around them. It's fine to question what our defensive couches are doing to shore-up our defense as much as possible and eliminating silly/lazy mistakes. But with this blaming merry-go-around we seem to do on here there's this hardline 'out' attitude. I don't think these defensive problems are new but are they getting worse? GA numers 14/15 season onwards 55, 36, 63, 60 -BR joins club- 48, 41, 50... Yes we're in mass crisis regarding injuries and players out, a problem we've been struggling to a lesser extent with since last season. But I also don't know whether this isn't purely the level of these players. In the last 5 years our best GoalsAgainst (40) also happened to be with No European football. Generally it looks like top four all have a GA well below 40. But they also spend 40+mil for key defenders. The only defender we've spent close to that money for is Fofana. And those key defenders are leaders and organize the line, doing much of the work of coaches and managers for them. We don't really have that at the moment. Even Evans has lost control. Where Huth came in during the winter transfer period that's the sort of player I'd like to see brought in now.

Is that true? Armartey is a squad player and I think everbody can agree Vestergaard is not good. Does that seem ideal? Out of curiousity, when was the last time those two played as a partnership in that 2 CB role? On top of that, against Manchester City? The numbers thrown about on here of our loss 9-0 10-0 etc... so maybe saying 'only to be expected' is unfair since we expected more... well done our defense

Our defense was Amartey and Vestergaard at CB. So yeah it was never going to be pretty against ManC. We're decimated at the back, that's just the reality of it and probably should make our peace with it. Partnerships are the most important thing in those roles and we have no consistency due to injuries. Would like to see the club bring somebody experienced in during the transfer window, even if its on loan. Exciting second half where hope raised its nasty little head for a moment but I saw 25 minutes to go and knew they'd have a few chances. And Foden coming on in the same minute of Hamza is a good indicator of where we're at. Good game for the neutrals and another win for ManC but so far this season: ManC 0 cups. Leicester City 1 cup. And yes it counts. BR is doing well holding this team together during an insane schedule with an awful injury list to key areas.

Was he recalled then? I thought he'd been loaned out to OH Leuven this season. I do wonder why we're managing Benkovic as we've done. Signed him 3 years ago and he's not played for us once and been on constant loan.

I like the idea of this. Why don't we? It would be against the odds to get anything from this game anyway, we'd be giving our first team players christmas off and resting them.

It's hard to really criticize last night imo. Though many have. The team played really well, gave 100% and probably deserved to win. People complain about Rodger's change of tactics but that was also in part forced changes because of injuries. And even if it wasn't it makes sense. If we started a strong side, they finished with one. Klopp's half time subs were Jota, Konate and Milner. My main irritation was seeing Bertrand playing in a Foxes shirt again. I thought we agreed he was banned. He's so so bad. I'd rather they played Perez, but given that's kind of the alternative it says a lot about where our injury and sqaud depth is at. And last night isn't going to help. The referee was a joke. It blew my mind watching some of the decisions he made. Seeing Thomas on the deck and the game just continueing was awful. The state of refereeing as Shearer talked about on MOTD has been abysmal for a while now. VAR gets the blame the majority of the time but VAR is just a bunch of equipement. It's the people opperating that equipement. Not good enough and until something happens I just don't see it getting better any time soon. Oh and the positive is we didn't actually lose the 90mins.

Would you rather him take it later?

stop start run-ups should be banned.

I have the BBC football app open and their response to Liverpool's goal is "They've done it!!!!" as plucky lower league Liverpool have giant killed mighty Leicester. Oh well we go to penalties and I hope all those diss'in Kasper earlier are made to look like foolish little boys and girls.

Erm, how are Barca able to afford Ferran Torres? Also how are they getting around the Spanish FFP rules?

I take my sister's kid to rugby occasionally when she can't do it and it's really good. They're all working class kids, coaches etc as far as I can make out (I only say this as a lot of this aggression gets blamed on class). There's a nice bit of respect when explaining the refs decision and they move on.

WARNING: THERE'S FLASHING LIGHTS IN THIS VIDEO!!!! Amazing video, reminds me of something Chris Cummingham might have done a while back. After posting that Mobb Deep tune a while back I remembered this remix...

Has this aggressive culture at that lower level always been that bad? It strikes me that addressing that wouldn't be a bad start in dealing with the awful way top-flight players and refs interact with each other. If that relationship is dysfunctional then refs are bound to make mistakes, make biased judgements...

True, plus more likely to be in a cup fixture.

I suspect it's because they're the only ones that the media pays any attention to. I'm sure a lot of smaller clubs have plenty of complaints. The other is purely financial. Smaller clubs and lower leagues clubs need these fixtures. But I don't hear Klopp talking about the big clubs financially compensating them sooooo.... It just reminds me of last year when his answer was more subs. I like him more than most on here and I wish Rodgers had a 10th of his charism and being vocal but he don't half talk some tosh sometimes.

It's hard to sympathise tbh. I'm thinking he's not hangng on a phone for nearly an hour at 7-8 in the morning hoping his surgery will pick up and even if they do preying they can provide a "telephone" appointment. Then if he needs a physical examination waiting up to 8 eight hours for somebody to come out and deal with him and god forbid he needs a trip to A&E... I agree with his general sentiment, something needs to be done and the authorities are only looking after their own self interests but he needs to frame it differently.

While I'm painfully frustrated and irritated with people who don't get jabbed (let alone a bunch of privelaged overpayed healthy footballers who don't) nearly two years into this nightmare clubs can't force players to get jabbed if they don't want to. It would be unfair that the whole club should suffer consequences for the selfish few inside. The other argument is they should coerce them by threatening them into not being played, being exiled from the rest of the team etc. But again it really only hurts the larger club.

Strikes Omicron has changed the game. So Vaccine Passports aren't going to be as effective (even though they still have an impact as this isn't binary), Not surprised they made no changes to the fixtures. There are no adults in the room anymore. I'd be interested to know how clubs have voted because I don't think this is about the big clubs as we're seeing with Liverpool and Chelsea. Both I should imagine desperate for their games to be called off.