JimJams

Well we'll be putting that to the test because Peps on the way mate!

Nice.

Fair enough, I suppose it depends what your definition is. A bit like World class.

IT'S EITHER DECEMBER 25TH OR APRIL 1ST!

Their golden generation was around the 2018 world cup. Praet wasn't in the squad. Courtois, Vertonghen, Kompany, Alderweireld, Dembele, Witsel, Chadli, Eden Hazard, De Bruyne, Lukaku was their semi final losing line up. More than just De Bruyne. Eden Hazard for starters.

Not put your arm on it!

Nah, be fair. They had top drawer players all over bar fullback. Kompany, Vertonghen, Alderweireld, Vermaelen as your CB choices. It's been a drop into the void in terms of quality to end up at Faes.

Luckily we probably can't afford him.

Liverpool get lucky there. Kelleher just comes out and wipes Armstrong out.

Saints will at least give Liverpool a clear cut chance from an error this half surely?

Pretend it's a positive hoping it puts the shits up us enough to do the right thing.

Belgium, like England, are top heavy.

I don't need to watch the highlights, I watched the game. Defensively they are still shit. It's still a winnable game. Though their run could mean they're clear of us before that anyway.

Optimism?

Yes. Any of the next 5 to be honest. All the teams we are up against are beatable. But if we write off Brentford, Brighton and Newcastle due to Cooperball we still have a chance against West Ham and Wolves. And for him to keep his job he needs to beat both. Which'd both mean 6 points from 6 games and it'd mean taking maximum points from survival rivals. Which is the only way he can be kept on. That's how long we might have to wait. Lose to Wolves, sack him, caretaker for Liverpool and Man City, new guy in for the new year. Merry Christmas.

Cooper doesn't need Marescas help on that front.

Wissa and Mbuemo will absolutely shit on us. VK will be chasing shadows.

He was the only one to say "I'll take the job". And that was enough.

I think if you look back at last years FA Cup win against Bournemouth you can see that last years style would have worked for us this year. Maybe not well enough against the big guns, but against half the division you'd be confident you could get something. And the great thing about that FA cup game was that we played more second string players than Bournemouth did and they still played the system as it's coached, players like Hamza at RB looked comfortable. Raikhy, Marcal, Praet, Cannon all started. And we played the same way as we would if it were our best players. The squad is well capable of staying up.

I think he's going to be a decent player for us. But in a team that's as badly coached as ours evidently is, it's difficult to tell when it's the players own shortcomings or the way they're being made to play. Winks and Skipp have pretty obviously different strengths and weaknesses, as such you'd expect (suspect!) that Cooper will have Winks playing the role differently to our other options. So when Winks comes off injured, and Skipp is thrown in, is Skipp going into the team to do what Winks was supposed to do or is he going in to play to his own strengths? We had 3 defensive mids on the pitch. One playing as a 10. Is that Wilfs strength? Soumare, much maligned, but clearly a good runner on the ball. Is he being asked to do that? So what is Skipp being asked to do? Pretend he's Winks? I don't know. I don't think any of them do. They were up against £200mill worth of players in Caicedo and Fernandez and then whatever ridiculous figure Palmer is valued at, so it's potentially a world class midfield they're competing with, but the battle plan seems to be to just throw bodies around, hope the opponent has an off day. And Palmer did. Cooper would have been better off just telling them to pick a player and sit on them. All 3. Would have been far more effective than just backing away until you're just defenders.

Thomas? Cover is on his way up, but LT's trajectory seems to be going the opposite way. OOOOoooh just clicked. Silko...

I never bought into this idea. The fact is, if your gameplan is to do nothing but defend a 0-0 and stay in the game, once you're a goal or two down that gameplan has gone to shit and it's out the window. Then the shackles are off. It's not playing for the manager. It's just playing. Maybe for a bit of pride. But it's nothing to do with him. If anything, it's the opposite. "We tried it your way, and it didn't work".

Klopp'd get the credit though!

The guy has a massively inflated ego compared to his ability. I mean, I know he played for Liverpool once, and grabbed a few important goals for them, but that's in the past, and he needs to accept the level he's at now.

Peps lost 5 on the bounce. Writings on the wall. We should get him in. But I reckon deep down, he's past it. Honest.