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Liverpool should sell TAA
I’m really surprised that no one has picked up on this, but the player Liverpool should be selling, and probably getting a lot for is Trent.
His non-marking of Burns for the Brighton goal was a schoolboy error, and its not the first goal like this that we have conceded.
I love Trent and he is a scouser, and great at going forward but he is just not a right back.
Unless Klopp moves to a 3-5-3 where he can operate as a wing back, or pushes him into midfield I think he is just a liability.
Neil, LFC, USA
Harry Kane’s absence
As a fan of both (American) football and football, Jose Mourinho’s lack of a real plan without Harry Kane reminded me of an (American) football story:
Peyton Manning is a legendary quarterback, who used to play for the Indianapolis Colts. Years back, before a nationally televised game, the on-air commentators attended their practice and noticed something; in practice, Peyton took every snap for every repetition. This is unusual, as teams usually want their backups getting some reps so they’re prepared to step in. So one of the color guys asked the Colts offensive coordinator why Manning’s backups didn’t really get in on practice. The OC responded, “Fellas, if 18 [Manning] goes down, we’re f***ed. And we don’t practice f***ed.”
Pretty sure this is what’s going on with Jose and Spurs right now; they don’t have a plan for when Kane goes down, because if/when he does, they’re f***ed.
Ben G, NYC
Erling The Heskey
Top clubs scheme and race for Erling Haaland to put pen-on-paper, summer come. Boy’s record is nothing short of stellar. He also radiates the top-striker-mandatory poise and confidence, which will greatly help sales of shirts and other paraphernalia to the numerically-illiterate.
No wonder City’s stable masters have stuffed €100M euros in one of their finest-leather saddle bags while Chukotka’s Millhouse LLC is readying a pile of banknotes with a faint scent of oil, natural gas, coal, gold, and tungsten.
Erling is 20 and stands a 1.94m (or 6’4” these days? not sure what the proper post-Brexit etiquette is.)
While at Dortmund, a phenomenal record of 87 goals in 55 matches.Yet: €100M ? 400k/week for Erling’s cars and candies? Have the interested parties undertaken the proper risk-analysis?
Actually I am sure they did.
But here’s my scoop just in case. (I know for a fact Roman devours this rubric.)
At surface all looks good: no injury record; has grown into a proper-footballer household; no disco fights or drunk driving; Dortmund physios have maintained him in top shape.
The troubling stat is the small number of goals he’s scored from headers while at Dortmund: three or four. Think of it: 20 year old, highly mobile, athletic, 6’4” and rarely scores from headers?? This may not mean much- it’s the total number of goals per game that counts – as I hear Popper aficionados grumbling at the back.
As his body matures Erling will inevitably grow larger, thicker and slower. He may end up as a tank of a striker; one that bravely holds the line, fast and strong enough to flip any center-back.
But who doesn’t head the ball in unless it accidentally ricochets off his forehead into the net.
The risk is: paying 400k/week to a striker who may slowly morph into another Emile Ivanhoe Heskey.
Radu “No COVID here” Tomescu, Xindian, Taiwan
Fun…
Hi Ed,
I fell in love with football during the 78 world cup. If that Holland were not going to win then that Argentina were fine by me. The next year my uncle brought me to his season ticket seats in the west stand and I saw tiny Lou Macari score a spectacular goal. That was 1979 and I’ve been a Manchester United Fan ever since. The reason for my mail is that I suffered through years of scraps when liverpool, in particular, were in the ascendancy and years of unbelievable joy when united were, but after several years of safe bullshit appointments OGS has made me look forward to watching united. It is mocked by other fans but OGS “gets” united. His teams are sometimes baffling but always fun. I’d rather watch them win/lose like this than LVG or F%*king mourinho bus parking classes. Moyes was just out of his depth imho.
This year will not be our year, but I’m back to enjoying watching united which is more important.
Liam Mu and Ireland.
The fall of Mourinho
The fall of Mourinho is pretty fascinating as his death spins seem to be getting shorter and shorter with each club. The era of zonal marking, 4-5-1s ultra tactical, risk-averse setups of the noughties and beyond where Jose thrived is well and truly behind us. He is clearly no chump though. He has an understanding of the game that very few could even imagine to emulate. So where does that leave him? Simple really… he should re-invent himself as the firefighter.
Your club is hurtling towards relegation, misfits causing disharmony and you’re shipping goals faster than you can say Ralf? Call Jose. He will weed out the timid, empower the beefy players, shore up the defence, revel in bloodying a big-team’s nose with a stack of parked buses and see the team over the line towards safety just before the wheels fly off. He is perfect for it.
He already dresses like Neil Warnock on boxing day (seriously, what happened to the slick suits?), he might as well go full PFM by undergoing the reverse Sam Allardici treatment and call himself Joe Morrison.
“The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a man without a purpose”. Come on Jose, save yourself…. West Brom / Fulham / Burnley await.
Samwise, MUFC
Hazard to Chelsea
It’s not just me but even Marina thinks Hazard can make a successful come back to EPL.
Hazard was infamous during his time at Chelsea for being super relaxed in training but used to come to life in matches. It’s very likely that he kept his fitness without risking injuries in training.
At Madrid as he’s still unproven plus working with slightly better players is having to do much more in trainings plus he arrived unfit so had to stretch himself getting back in shape and form. All of this plus … bad luck has got him in this vicious cycle of injuries.
He needs a good break to get back to shape and ease into action. And do much less in training.
It will be great pleasure to have him back @30 million with add on bonus for EPL snd CL wins. Surely Marina can handle that part.
B CFC (Still skeptical about Tuchel)
What February 6th means to me
Growing up in Millom, Cumberland in 1958 in the middle of Rugby league country following a football club was frowned upon. Like many young lads Manchester United and the Busby Babes caught the imagination of everyone, I was no exception.
The family never had a TV so the only match coverage I saw was at the home of a friend up the road whose family had a TV. My family never had much spare money and my ninth birthday was coming up on the 9th of February. My birthday present that year was to be a trip to Manchester and a game at Old Trafford against top of the table Wolves.
In those days a trip from Millom to Manchester was a major undertaking, taxis, buses and trains. No such thing as booking a ticket to the ground. Queuing with thousands for a spot in the terraces. For weeks ahead I could hardly sleep such was the excitement.
The devastating news filtered through of the crash in Munich. Obviously I never got Old Trafford that weekend. Just over a month later the family relocated to Southern Rhodesia. It was twenty five years later that I had my first visit to Old Trafford.
I am now retired and live in South Carolina in the USA but I feel I have as much right as someone living in Manchester to call myself a Man Utd supporter.
My son was born on February 6th 1980 the one thing my ex wife got right.
Jim
Care in the community
I love how F365 publish mails from geniuses and fools alike. The email from Fred (spurs fan of course) really made my day.
Let’s be clear, Liverpool have been lucky against spurs once in recent memory (this season at Anfield) other than that, they have defeated them thoroughly, 427 times in a row. I love when spurs fans select the one memory that fits their narrative (Son missing a chance when 1-0 up) ignoring the myriad chances that Liverpool also missed that game. There was even a video doing the rounds on social media displaying how Liverpool were Spurs bogey team, selecting only the best parts of the highlight reels as if they were representative of the whole game. It smacked of the idiot who based Monday’s water-cooler conversation on watching MoTD rather than the actual game.
I would love to see where this crazy ‘luck’ was when Liverpool were facing such travesties as Firmino’s and Mane’s ‘offsides’ last season. Also, Henderson’s mistake wasn’t last minute. Not much more than frustrating than someone not checking their facts before going on a diatribe, never mind the fact Liverpool peppered Sheff Utd goal for the whole game – law of averages and all that.
And now it’s lucky to win games by 1 goal! They should rewrite the points system – Jimmy Hill had it all wrong. 1 point for a draw, 3 points for a big win, but only 2 points for a win by a solitary goal, as it’s not really a win…Is it…?
Stijn then weighs in with the same narrative.
This train of thought can be easily put to bed with the simple realisation that Liverpool made 2 Champions’ League finals in a row, as well as missing out on the league the season before last by a gnat’s whisker. Were the CL and PL wins down to luck, they would not have run them both so close for 2/3 seaons. Let’s not forget that if it weren’t for (yet another) unlucky injury (this time to Alisson), Liverpool would have advanced past Atletico (no h for those of you in the back) last season – a game in which Liverpool peppered the Atelti goal without much success. Does that make them unlucky (as Fred implies Son was to miss) or does it mean the finishing wasn’t great and the goalkeeping was? Probably the latter, except for Adrian’s.
So whilst opposing fans would love for Liverpool to be reverting to the norm, I would suggest that the norm is the last 2/3 seasons. That’s how averages work. I am absolutely certain that without these crazy injuries, if they were able to keep Hendo and Fab in midfield all season, Liverpool would be clear at the top of the table. Yes injuries happen, but it takes a grade A idiot not to realise that they don’t tend to happen like this – first 3 CBs out for the seaon, 2 of which were still in the autumn!
While we’re at it, when did ‘approaching 30’ become retirement age? I hear pundits saying that 30 is a player’s peak (as long as they don’t solely rely on pace). Just look at Milner FFS.
I suppose Spurs fans are just following the lead of their Fuhrer with deflection – focus on yourselves, you’re providing great entertainment to the rest of us.
Dom Littleford
I’m sure Fred and Stijn are trolling, but even so it’s difficult to let the ‘fluke’ jibes pass. They’ve both conveniently overlooked that Liverpool’s title winning season with the second most points ever wasn’t a one off.
Over the two preceding seasons Liverpool racked up 75 points and 97 points, before exploding to a *whopping* two points better off when winning the league.
Just for comparison, Leicester finished with 41 points the year before winning the league with 81 points when no one else could get above 71. The next year they got 44. Liverpool are currently on to finish with about 70, which isn’t great but goes to show which of the title winning seasons was more of an anomaly. City, btw, managed 78 before notching 100 and 98 in maybe the best PL side we’ve seen, and then falling away to 81 when faced with a few key injuries.
Leicester lost two key cogs and collapsed – against Brighton Liverpool had over £300m worth of talent unavailable (not even counting Matip on a free), which I believe is more than Leicester’s entire title winning squad. Goes to show what an incredible effort it was from Leicester – probably the greatest achievement the league will ever see. But also that once you remove key elements it’s very difficult to continue that form – 6 of Liverpool’s 7 most expensive transfers still at the club were unavailable on Wednesday.
This may be the end of the current Liverpool team, it may not. Certainly the plan of selling one of the front three for top dollar to fund a rebuild is looking difficult given global finances, just as they were in the summer when the club’s pre-Covid plan was to raise over £50m from Shaqiri, Wilson, Grujic and Phillips to buy another CB. They still spent a decent amount mind, yet pulled out of high upfront payments.
But you can’t write off this team as lucky – two CL finals in a row, record points totals in successive seasons and then emerging into a world where they can’t celebrate with fans, can’t capitalise on commercial opportunities, and have faced a new campaign without a pre-season to bed in tactics, with reduced finances for back up and a swathe of injuries.
Liverpool fans will remember this team as their greatest in decades – and who knows, we might not have seen the last of them yet.
Will, LFC
A reasoned Liverpool perspective
Judging by the response in the comments and the afternoon’s mailbox, it seems that sarcasm is a little lost on some people. For what it’s worth, here are my actual thoughts on Liverpool’s apparent woes:
Am I disappointed that we are a little way off pace this season? Sure. I would like us to be topping the league and I certainly would like to see some more dynamism in our play, we have been frustrating to watch at times.
However, the reality is that we have had some wonderful times under Klopp and are now in an inevitable lull period. It’s happened to Man Utd, it’s happened to Man City and it’s happening to Chelsea right now. It, frankly, is incredibly hard to stay at the summit every season. Added the fact that this season, we have no crowds, an insane schedule and injury problems. I think a little understanding is required. (Not saying that this is exclusive to Liverpool, more that this season is a bit of an outlier for everyone)
Salah, Mane, TAA, Firmino etc. have not become bad players overnight (Salah is the PL leading goalscorer ffs!). Klopp doesn’t need to overhaul the squad. Next season, we will have VVD, Gomez and Jota back, Thiago bedded in more, hopefully crowds back and probably an addition or two (like any normal season). Let’s see how things go then before we call for major changes and enjoy the fact that our down period has us still in 4th place.
Den Norris, LFC
Liverpool (fans)
As a Liverpool fan, I’m supposed to say how much I dislike Manchester United and their fans.
Yet the fans I dislike most, especially of late, are fellow Liverpool fans.
There’s no question the team’s form has been wildly inconsistent these last few weeks. Couldn’t score a goal to save themselves. Then manhandled Tottenham and West Ham, in the process scoring one of the most sumptuous goals imaginable. Then lost, at home, to Brighton.
The ridiculous response? Klopp must go. Countless players must be sold.
In the last two seasons, apart from winning a bunch of silverware, Liverpool amassed 196 points. The only reason they didn’t win the league two years in a row is City managed to amass a remarkable 98 points in 2018-2019. To put these levels of performance in perspective, United once managed to win the league with 80 points and Leicester’s sole title was won with 81 points.
In the 2015-2016 season, Liverpool finished eighth with (wait for it) 60 points.
In effect, for about 5 years now, Liverpool has enjoyed steady and even quite remarkable progress in the league, while managing yet another Champions League win (and breaking Barcelona in the process).
Now, in this strangest of pandemic seasons, they’re all of a sudden useless. Still in the top four, mind you, and managing that without VVD and Gomez for most of the season and now Matip for the rest of it. Oh, and they bought Thiago, only for COVID and Richarlison to sideline him for a few months. Jota? Brilliant initial impact . . .but away injured for the better part of two months. Fabinho? Presently injured. Mane? Also injured. Henderson? Not injured, but playing out of position to compensate for all the other injuries.
In fact, against Brighton, Liverpool was missing five regular starters (VVD, Gomez, Alisson, Mane, Fabinho) and their impact sub (Jota). Let’s do some simple math: that means Liverpool was missing 6 of their top 12 players. And yet again playing Henderson out of position.
I can’t say I know the roster of every Premier League side, but I wonder how well many of them would be managing if they were missing half of their best 12.
To sum up: The season is not going according to plan. The team has not only been gutted by injuries, but many of those injuries have also been concentrated in one very key position. Entitled and obnoxious Liverpool fans (of which there seem to be many) might bear this in mind when they start moaning about firing the manager and gutting the squad. If this season turns out to be one to forget, then concentrate on remembering just how brilliant the ones preceding it were. And, above all else, stop being so unbearably negative and entitled. That’s what AFTV is for.
Chris (TAA to Shaqiri to Salah) from Canada
Reading the mailbox over the last few days and the reaction of so called fans to a defeat really pisses me off. Yes it wasn’t great, but you know what, sh*t happens!
This Liverpool team has excelled over the last few seasons, and it’s something to be proud of! Circumstances dictate that due to our defensive problems, midfielders have to be sacrificed to cover, but we still overcame Spurs and West Ham away from home. I am not going to make excuses and call for this or that player to be sold, I’ll still support the team like always, and pine for the day I can watch them live again.
Shankly once said, “If you can’t support your team through the difficult times, don’t bother supporting them!”
Never a wiser statement made.
Gronk (LFC – hating plastic fans)
Club 18-30
Can the mailbox stop this sudden obsession with players being almost 30 being past it? At least 3 contributions this week have referenced that players approaching 30 should be sold to bed in a new generation. Nonsense.
Footballers today aren’t the party-going, pre-gaming, lads-about-town types that they were 20 years ago. They are athletes that treat their bodies as temples and dedicate themselves day in, day out to being in peak physical shape. The idea that performance, fitness and ability begin attrition near 30 is outdated.
Vardy. Ibrahimovic. Lewandowski. Messi. Ronaldo. David Silva. James Milner. All players far past the age of 30 and still putting up ridiculous numbers weekly. The general rule of thumb is that players were peaking at around 26-28, I’d now argue players’ peak around 28 as experience, consistency and understanding of pressure become second nature.
So no, we shouldn’t be selling Salah, Mane or VVD. We should continue to build around these players whilst giving opportunities to the new blood (Curtis Jones will be our next 10-year man in midfield).
Lee (doing his best Jimmy Milner impression at 32 in the SAL), LFC
Football managers and hard work…
I know football managers have the hardest job in the world. How do I know? Because they keep telling us how hard it is. So what is it that they actually do all day? No really. What?
They are surrounded by coaches and physios etc, who tell them who is fit and who was good at going here or there on the pitch in training. So then they have to pick a team from the available players. There are around 20,
Then they have to tell them what to do, along the lines of “you look out for him, he’s a striker and will want to score a goal!” and “If you run really quickly when the ball goes there, then kick it really hard in the direction of the goal, we might get lucky.”. A football pitch is not that big. No player is actually going to disappear,, he just has to stay in a particular part of the pitch, And then they have a cup of tea and go home.
Match day and it is “Right lads, you are really good at football. You get paid a shedload. So go out there and try and beat that lot.” If the team loses, he says, “We are going to work harder”. Doing what? And then if they don’t he gets sacked. Not like you or me get sacked, and then panic about the children going hungry, No, he pockets £5 million and tells us all over again how hard he worked. And then someone else gives him another go for an enormous pile of dosh…
Tim
Wake up
It saddens me that newspapers such as The Sun still have an audience.
Keep fighting the good fight F365
Dale (Steered away from the sun by this site over a decade ago)
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