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21 Jul 2018 08:55:53
With three weeks left of the transfer window there is a lot that can happen but, as of today, out starting midfield is Hendo, Fabinho and Keita with Lallana, Milner and Wiji as back ups.

With rumours of Wiji moving on I'm wondering if people think this is enough? Mane and Shaqiri can play deeper but neither are natural midfielders and I'm not convinced any of our youth players are knocking on the door this season.

Obviously there's conflicting stories about Fekir but I think we could do with one more player of the right one is available.

13 Jul 2018 12:54:32
A number of people have compared the Shaqiri deal to the Ballotelli one, this can be discounted out of hand because the nature of Ballotelli's disruption was so extreme and un-professional, Shaqiri doesn't come close to his antics.

There's a far more important difference however. In 14/ 15 we had to rely on Ballotelli after Suarez left and Studge was injured for goals. Ballotelli's failure was a main reason for our poor season. We will not rely on Shaqiri at all. A) he's not a starter and b) even when he does play we won't be reliant on him as our main goal threat. Shaqiri is low risk in a way that Ballotelli wasn't.

26 Apr 2018 11:04:49
There's one thing I don't think anyone mentioned about Tuesday which I'd like to highlight. Everyone knows what Salah does, he's most dangerous when he's on the right side of the area, takes a touch to create a yard of space and curls the ball into the far corner with his left foot. His first goal was the perfect example of it. There nothing complicated about it so why is it so hard to stop? For the first goal the defender didn't get close enough to block it, shouldn't he just closed down the space he knew Salah was going to move to?

The answer to why you can't get that close was highlighted by Firmino's first goal. Once again Salah had the ball on the right of the area. This time the defender closed down his left foot. Salah's response? To cut inside the defender onto his right to square it for Bobby.

There nothing complicated about what Salah does but it's simple football played perfectly and no one can get near him.

18 Apr 2018 12:50:56
I just read an article in the Echo asking ‘are Liverpool on the verge of having a better season than City? ’ This highlighted a number of things that have made me angry recently and I wanted to write about. If I ask any of you directly ‘will we win the CL’ you’d all give a measured answer along the lines of ‘we’re in great form and have as good a chance an any of the other teams but it will be tough’.

However, that’s not been the subtext amongst Liverpool fans recently; the subtext is ‘IT’S IN THE BAG! ’. I can stand optimism, I can stand confidence, what I can’t stand is arrogance. If we lose either the semi or the final our arrogance makes us look stupid and if we win our arrogance makes us look like stuck-up douchebags. I am much more comfortable with earnest hope than cockiness.

The second thing is a lack of respect for our rivals. City are on the verge of having the greatest PL season in history, they will likely break records for most points, most goals scored and best goal difference but instead of acknowledging this brilliant achievement I’ve seen posts undermining it saying it’s all down to the chequebook or, I even saw one post, trying to argue that the PL was particularly weak this season.

Then we have Utd, let’s forget that Mourinho’s improved the team significantly over last year, let's forget that Utd are having their best season since Ferguson retired, let’s forget that they’re above us in the table, no, they’re a terrible team playing terrible football worthy of our scorn. Looking at our European rivals Real are dismissed as a poor team with Ronaldo papering over the cracks, Bayern are only doing well because of the uncompetitive nature of their league and, as for Roma, we’re nice about them but only because we all secretly think they’ll be a walkover.

Maybe we’ll win the CL and if we do that will be brilliant but it will mean no more than Benitez’ win in 2005, a great achievement and memory but short of our ultimate aim of winning the league. We’re getting better and we’re inching closer but we’ve achieved the square root of zero so far so let's show a little humility and class guys. I know this doesn't apply to everyone and maybe not even the majority but can we just tone it down a bit.

20 Mar 2018 17:35:41
I’m going to be honest here, I expected Salah’s goals to dry up a while ago, I thought he'd run out of steam of the opposition would figure out how to stop him. What he's achieving is hard to fathom, here’s a player who hadn’t made a success of his first crack at the Premier League, who was supposedly a second or even third choice purchase, who isn’t a dedicated striker, in his debut season with a good but still in development side who is on course to have the greatest season, in terms of goal scoring at least, of any player in Premier League history, it’s just crazy!

How crazy? Salah is only the tenth player to score 28 goals in a 38-game PL season, he’s hit that mark with seven games to go. He’s only three goals behind the record for a single season shared between Shearer, Ronaldo and Suarez, barring injury it’s almost a formality that he’ll break it. To hammer home the point he’s currently scoring at a rate of one goal every 85 minutes, only two other players (who scored at least 20 goals) have broken the 90 minute barrier (Ronaldo, 89 minutes in the 07/ 08 season and Kane who holds the record at a goal every 87 minutes last season) .

The surprising thing is that he’s not even a classic world star, he doesn’t bamboozle defenders with fancy tricks or have an unnatural ability to manipulate the ball, he’s just brutally efficient. Klopp’s team is at it’s best either on the counter attack or when it steals the ball in the opposition half, in these situations Salah can receive the ball behind the opposition midfield and find himself in a one on one with defenders who simply cannot cope with his pace and strength. It’s then a ‘simple’ case of creating a half a yard of space and slotting beyond a despairing keeper.

For some reason though, I still doubt the greatness I'm witnessing. The great Liverpool goal scorers of my time have been Torres, Suarez and Sturridge (sadly Fowler peaked just before I started following Liverpool seriously and Owen was never great), I’ve seen each of those players do things that boggle the mind and made me purr but Salah has yet to elicit that reaction in me despite scoring enough goals to put them all to shame. Is it because he plays the game more simply and his style is less aesthetic? Maybe I want to be astonished and he’s made goal scoring look so easy. Whatever my emotional reaction to him objectively he's been sensational, the only question is 'are we witnessing a one-season wonder or the emergence of the next great star'? I can't wait to find out.

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