Istanbul Day

Rome ‘77

The deserved narrative for Villa.. Nothing happened for them in the first 20 minutes

xG - 0.9 to 1.5

Another time waster team who disrupts the game so much:

Shirt grabbing, falling over and OMG the time wasting

Martinez 7th yellow card

Villa fans claiming that our tactical fouling was a bigger issue 

I thought Diaz, Gakpo and Jones looked bright - heard conflicting views

Didn’t think Trent or Salah had great days and then there wasn’t anyone else stepping up. Too much through the middle, over the top passes weren’t quite working

Referee rant part 4,625: was giving the whistle to a man that Klopp had just punked on national tv the best possible move?  

All the big decisions - penalty (can we get one of those), Cash shove on Diaz, red card, penalty, offside goal. 

PGMOL - ‘plausible interpretations of subjective rules’

Chance to experiment?

Chance to have one last beer with a crowd

How much will we be watching the relegation battle?

Bobby - 361 games, 110 goals; Milner 330 games - heart and soul

Ox and Naby salutations muted it felt like. I feel for both of them as it could’ve been so much more for them. 

Who do we think might be the other outgoings? Kelleher? Joel? Tsimi? 

Connor Bradley is up in the air?

New signings - MaCalister? Mount? 

Kane - Fallon D’floor

Curtis Jones

xG 1.73 to 0.53 (Understat)

3-2-5 shape continues to be used, Salah the assist king

Two scousers scored, first time since 2006

Trent 3rd time lucky - Klopp ‘we hit our own man with the previous 2’

Bobby Firmino - Si Senor….

Leicester - shout for the most obnoxious fans in the league. Won’t be missed.

Unai Emery, Ollie Watkins, Jacob Ramsey

Our line up?

Confirmed departure of Millie, Bobby, Ox and Naby

Bobby - we loved that man

Millie - 7 year end of career move

Naby started only 49 PL games in 5 seasons

Ox - great contribution, felt like it could have been more

Before we talk about refereeing, let’s talk about the line up and the approach

Salah - ties the Gerrard record for goals. He’s been quietly brilliant.

TAA, big chances. A defensive performance - Jurgen 15/16 set pieces. 

Brentford’s tactics - xG - 0.2. Response to Taylor or an over reliance on set pieces?

Ball in play - 43 mins, 10 secs - lowest for the Reds since records started in 2006

Leads to another Greater Manchester man conversation:

Every 50-50, the cards - Alisson! 19 fouls - the most since Klopp’s 3rd game in charge. Gakpo’s comment that it influenced how they played the game

Only the usual suspects seem to be upset - Piers Morgan (‘pathetic’)

Eurovision looks way more fun 

FiveThirtyEight has us 29% to get Champions League - was 9% on Friday.

Leicester have over 3xG in their last 2 games, but their defense looks shot.

We have got the second phase corner thing looking good. 15? goals from corners, Leicester are the worst in the Premier League defending corners

Uniteds - Man and New - need 3 wins in 4 - for Newcastle 2 is probably enough

Elsewhere - the miracle of the Amex Community Stadium

Thiago out for the season was the pre-game news. Plus the fallout from Klopp’s comments on Tierney.

4 penalties in just over a month, can’t believe there was so much objection to the penalty

Nunez - felt peripheral not for the first time. Klopp talks up his contribution

Tsimikas as the left of a 3 didn’t look great

Liverpool’s performance

TAA - fluidity is a challenge for teams (eventually Spurs brought Kane back to sit where Trent was). 6 assists in 5 games.

Defense - Konate looked a little unnerved - does he need to be less front foot in this system? Robbo looks uncomfortable in this system doesn’t he? Back line - too high, not straight enough?

Jones and Elliott looked like they gave Liverpool the width that created so many problems for Spurs. Could have been 4 up easily.

Diaz, Gakpo, Salah looks workable.

Nunez plays Richarlison on for their 3rd goal.

Paul Tierney’s performance. The man from Wigan who has no allegiance to things Manchester:

He’s refereed us 7 times in 33 games this season - most elsewhere is 5.

Paul Tomkins Big Decision analysis (red cards, penalties) - show us he (although he’s not alone) gives more decisions against us than for us. Even though every other team that dominates possession come out positive here

No penalties since 2018? Until the elbow.

I think it’s the fouls not given and the cards that lean against us - the Skipp challenge on Diaz, the card for Milner, the foul called against Salah.

‘Of course Jota should have been sent off’ Haaland -cough, cough

Brentford - they have looked a bit disinterested but have managed to beat Chelsea and Forest with very few goalscoring chances

Elsewhere - Everton need Leeds, Leicester and possibly Forest to be worse than them to survive. That is a low bar. But Leeds have big Sam!

Salah’s shit season continues - he’s currently scored more than Rashford, Watkins, Martinelli and Callum Wilson (who have all been outstanding of course)

Most 90+ minute winners in PL history

Liverpool 41

Next is Arsenal on 30, Spurs are on 29, and United are on 27

Most winners conceded:

Spurs - 26, Villa - 24, Everton - 20, West Ham - 20, City -19

Forest are poor aren’t they? Long balls seem to unnerve us - wasn’t the same watching it back

Were we good and bad in moments or bad and good in moments?

Diogo Jota is back

Trent’s positioning

Salah’s finish - again being dragged back

Nicholas Cage - maybe a Forest fan?

West Ham - toughest on paper

Gave up a couple of big chances

What about the midfield with Jones and Trent?

Agents of our own demise more often than not

Looking ahead - Spurs and Fulham at home

Is it a concern that we haven’t got a defined way of scoring - apart from corners?

Elsewhere - no mention of the Cheats - United and Newcastle

Relegation battle - looking rough for Everton

Trent - 40% of the episode has to be devoted to him

Seems like a front foot Trent is always going to be better for us - but much depends on how we set up, games state etc.

Feels like Leeds were a good opponent, sadly because they don’t try to cheat the clock like other teams we will go on to speak about. And Meslier…. 

6 attackers available for the first time this season

Arsenal - for 50 minutes we look like peak Liverpool 2021-22. 4xG or close to 4xG depending on the model you used, Crowd, team figuring out the changes.

Penalties - do you know what counts for a penalty any more? Salah goes down easily AAAAAHHHHHH. Tierney did not hold onto Salah for long enough said the blustering Craig Burley - confirmation bias meets mental gymnastics again. Brighton get an apology, why not us?

We seemed to have decided that the officials are against us given the much stronger reaction to the officials in recent weeks. Tierney to be fair has form.

Arsenal - probably not going to win the league now. Their time wasting and flopping drove me to distraction. We had them on the ropes of course. 

Oh and a brief word on Chelsea - why didn’t we get to face Frank Lampard? Are they just disrupting themselves?

Forest at home - they haven’t looked great away from home and now they look like they lack belief at home.

West Ham away - probably one of the harder games

Transfer speculation - Bellingham news - do we have the energy?

Season review starts now…  Liverpool have scored 56 times from 54.7 expected goals in the league this season. 

Klopp said he thought Gakpo, Fab, Hendi and Alli could be excused…..

The ‘chasm’ that now exists between us and City?

First half, if we’d gone in ahead would that have been a surprise? You think they were not trying? Mo’s reaction to being grabbed told us he was fired up.

Rodri - they failed to set about him after the second bookable tactical foul. BTW he committed 4 that I counted

Grealish MotM? And Jesus, the diving - the theatrics are bizarre

Our 2nd half performance - like a team that easily loses confidence

Man Utd continue to struggle in the League since they lost 7-0 to us. Martinez and Shaw still got plaudits on NBC’s coverage though.

Manager merry go round - Rodgers, Potter.

Chelsea 

Arsenal

Leeds