I have never seen our fanbase so divided over anything. Was it two important points lost against Liverpool, when we are in a title race against side that has been on the top from like last 5 years? Or was it a point gained at Anfield, where we haven’t won since 2012? We were competing against a team built by Klopp, regularly competing at the top.
It’s tough to decide, but lets talk about the positives first!
We went to Anfield, we dominated them in the first half and scored 2 against the likes of Virjil Van-Dijk. Klopp looked awestruck with our performance; we could have easily scored more, had Jesus managed to keep the ball down of Saka’s cross in 17th minute. Martinelli could have had a better pass in the end, and Saka would have scored. There was another Gabriel header that landed into Allison’s hand but he could have done better. Going to Anfield is never an easy job, not just for us. They have great home-record and if you consider the fact that Manchester City lost there, one points sounds as a good result.
Another positive was Ramsdale. What a business that was, I wasn’t happy with buying a Goal Keeper who was part of team that got relegated. I loved Bernd Leno and why shouldn’t I when he was our best player before his injuries and emergence of Emi Martinez. I wasn’t happy selling Leno for cheap and then spending 24m in cash for a goal keeper. I was proved wrong. Ramsdale is the reason we didn’t lose 4-2. He made some brilliant saves, he keeps the enthusiasm high and he can fu*king celebrate like TH14 whenever he wants. We need passion, he has it in abundance.
Another positive to take from the match was our front 3. Jesus is back and he is looking in his best shape. I doubt he will ever be a prolific 25-goals a season CF but he keeps defences busy. He creates chances, open up spaces for others and is very very good in tight spaces. He has another Brazilian on one side and Saka on the other. This front 3 will grow to be a Salah-Firmino-Mane in coming time and that time isn’t far away.
Negatives? A lot.
One point sounds like a win but if you consider the fact that were 2-0 up, and then blew it away, it’s not good enough. We are not a top 4 battle but fighting for the title and every point dropped is a loss. This loss brought us to just 6 points difference when City has a game in hand, a game against us at their home ground and a better goal difference. From ‘ours to lose’ to ‘theirs’s to lose’ now, just because we didn’t manage to keep our 2-0 lead.
We also ran out of gas in second half. Zinchenko had a bad game, Saka didn’t look like the one we are used to watching, and our midfield didn’t impose on the game. About 20mins before and after half time, Liverpool played in our half and we didn’t have any answer. They missed chances, Ramsdale had to make some brilliant saves, Salah don’t usually miss a penalty but he did, and none of this should have happened. If your best player on the pitch is your Goalkeeper, it ain’t good.
Arteta’s subs were dubious. Tierney should have replaced Zinchenko much earlier, there was no need to give Kiwior his league debut against Pool at Anfield for last 15min when all they will do is attack. Saliba was missed. Odegaard wasn’t having a great game and Trossard should have been brought in the game earlier in my opinion.
I run a poll and majority of the readers were happy with one points. We still have 6 points lead and even if City wins their game in hand, they won’t go on and win all of their remaining games. They have Champions League fixtures, and points will be dropped.
Are you happy with one point considering our past record at Anfield?
— London Is Red (@LondonIsRedCom) April 9, 2023
If you ask me, I wasn’t happy. This has sorted Pep’s life in Manchester. He don’t need to depend on our results & luck anymore, they can win all games and run away with trophy. What we need to do is, to improve our GD, we are 5 short of City and if we manage to make it better than them, we can lose at Etihad and still be crowned.
However, I don’t want to see it. I want us to beat them at their home. I want those 3 points. I’m sure Mikel and company has the same in mind.
Lets keep our hope, we will still make it.
Morning all, this is why I don’t do the dare devil stuff. Apparently, this wasn’t supposed to be a gyrate and launch as can be witnessed by the poor fellow’s face as he disappears over the cliff.
It’s one of these don’t try this at home jobbies…….
https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/preview/mol/2023/04/14/1070368981809581377/636x382_MP4_1070368981809581377.mp4
Back later with things that make sense or not
Tony
Nice one. Setting that thing up by a cliff is truly deserving of a Darwin award.
That clip represents a perfect metaphor of what Arteta’s reign at Arsenal could turn out to be, the bottom of the cliff being Real Madrid.
Cardiff up at Sheffield United today. I went last year and the team was wiped. I’m sadly expecting it to be even worse today so didn’t bother. I’m not even going to start talking all that shit about prayer mats either, oops I just did. I hope you’re enjoying Song Kran.
KP
The incredulous look on the poor guy’s face as he disappears over the cliff is priceless.
Best thing to come out of Sheffield was the The Full Monty by far, which I may add launched many careers in far more serious cinematic rolls.
Hope for the best and plan for the worst, KP, and maybe help junior perfect his swallow dives onto pillows and cushions. 🙂 Did you know that allegedly Rick Parfit would launch himself at walls to see how good the coke was when he couldn’t feel his face.
Sorry, digressing where was I? Ah yes Cardiff and spanking, sorry that was Mrs T, er Cardiff’s not so good record at Sheffield now the wall bouncing images are receding. Sorry can’t help you other than to offer buckets of empathy at a reduced rate you being a Gooner mate and all that.
Did I lose you at Spanking, KP? Thought I would.
Best Spanking scene? Californiacation absolutely hilarious.
Cardiff will probably fare as well as Leicester City were the latter could do well to keep the score to single digits.
Bournemouth deserve to beat the Spuds after they stole the win from Brighton.
After Villa beats Newcastle I’m hoping De Zerbi puts Fat Frank and his pampered prima donnas to the sword. Would be good to see Palace take 3 points from Southampton and put a smile with Woy’s toothless grin.
TRVL
I can imagine how tough that would have been at the time and the sheer will power sense of right & wrong or the filters as reasoning is known. It’s what I had to teach junior when he was 2 onwards.
When grief or an acute over emotional event strikes reasoning goes out of the window and filters with it. One has to deal with it with help from others they trust when they are ready to let go for closure’s sake. Then it’s gone and not forgotten for me and people I’ve lost.
Hope you had good support at the time.
My reacquainted friend and sound calibrator’s daughter is in her 20s and undergoing chemo and other treatments for lymphoma cancer. As best as I can I’m keeping him busy musically, as he is actually busy flying round the world calibrating. His last Job was the main palaces for the Jordanian royal family.
All I can do is be here for him and his wife through the ordeal however it turns out.
Really happy you have life worked out now, as no doubt you and KP would be the types to deep dive like myself into whatever seriously interests us.
Does your son share your intellect and sports’ interests?
First thoughts now the KO is not far off is how happy I am that dirty cnut Lisandro Martinez finally got some of his own medicine or injury karma because he’s put enough players on the medics’ tables.
Junior and I watch Manure only if McGuire is playing.
Calling him a donkey is an insult to the sure footed creatures who have braved mountain passes keeping sherpas safe in blizzards, whereas McGuire squealed like a stuck pig when he challenged Greek police “do you know who I am?” and they replied “no, who are ya?” Then took him to the nick. His excuse? Some blind Albanians trying to kidnap his sister who looks like him and also can’t grow a mustache.
Then he cracks the funniest joke of all and says I’m a professional footballer to which his arresting officer said sure and I’m Anthony Quinn of Norbra the Geek.
Manure keeping him always has junior and me laughing as he with deft precision almighty hoofs the ball for an up and under in their final 3rd where sometimes the ball miraculously stays in play, but is fired straight back at the now panicking McGuire or he does his statue pose pretending not to register the ball bouncing a yard or so from him. When McGuire does finally sense movement he sticks a leg out leaving studs in his opponent’s calf if he’s lucky.
Teeth Fernandes will run to the ref and complain the pass was too quick to the guy on the ground rolling in pain, Fernandes with fingers at tight Emu shapes moving up forward and back to the ref. I suppose it’s better than going all Albatross flapping arms and legs at the ref although Xhaka has got that down to a fine art. I always thought Xhaka was asking to go for a shit myself, but there you are……….
Now toothy will complain that McGuire with the best will in the world could never move that fast, snails yes, so it’s the player with the gashed calf’s fault too moving too quickly and while saying this moving his head from side to side so the camera’s and ref get his gnashers in his most intimidating way. Clearly Teeth Fernandes is no warrior match for his ultimate idol: Luis Suarez who does not pull his fangs/incisors or punches.
Right that’s enough of probably something only junior will laugh at and onto the game.
Emery doing a really solid job at Villa – wouldn’t be in the slightest surprised to see them win the EL in the next couple of seasons.
Marc-I was very interested to see what transpired in this pretender/contender battle…was rather surprised to find a fairly one-sided affair, considering Newcastle’s recent form…there’s no doubting that if they qualify for the Europa, they will be a tough out, especially in light of his unmatched record in that particular competition, but if Emery gets backed, come the summer, and they don’t lose anyone of significance, they could be a really thorn in the sides of those who currently sit atop them in the standings
what a strike by Enciso in the BHA/Chelsea match!!
speaking of which, I really miss not having those who can score from distance…of course, under the pass-into-the-net Wengerian philosophy, such a sighting was rare, which is probably why Sanchez was so adored, as he would score quite often from the top left corner of the box…then we had Auba who would do likewise, when given the necessary service and protection…even before that I can remember thinking that the only saving grace about the Xhaka acquisition was that he was known for scoring the odd left-footed screamer from distance, whether in open play or from a set piece, but we all know how that turned out…who knows, maybe Vieira will eventually get his legs under him and provide us with something spectacular on occasion, albeit I’m not convinced quite yet that he has what in takes in the present PL…fact remains, when your most effective player, in this capacity, is Elneny, it’s a fucking sad day; no disrespect intended towards his couple of stellar efforts in the past few seasons…this is why I so wished we had signed Nkunku while we had the chance, oh well…
Smith Rowe can hit them and Martinelli could try more 20+ yarders.
What a great evening of football. Emery has got Villa nicely race tuned at the right time. No doubt Emery will build is the summer and be throwing his hat in the ring for the EL and other cups. Emery is not known for his league Titles but never say never.
De Zerbi deserves all the plaudits this season. Brighton just completely played the Chavs off the park to notch up their first ever win at Stanford Bridge, and it won’t be their last if Tony Bloom keeps running BHA they way he’s been doing. A real footballing owner and serial winner if you look at his wealth. He’s banked over £100+m profit from player assets alone in the last year plus.
Brighton seemed to be able to cut through Chelsea at will, they were always first to the 2nd ball and immediately tag teamed any Chelsea player who had the audacity to take possession away from Brighton. It was a pleasure to watch such entertaining football.
Brighton are going to be a big test for us at BHA, but Chelsea are there for the taking even at the Bridge.
Not sure I want to watch the City game – I’ll see how the games goes.
Marc
I still be live if Emery had got Saha instead of Pepe we’d have made the CL and probably won the EL cup.
By the way that was some calm cool feet by Julio Cesar Encisco (who) a 19 yo who cost £10m who is another one to watch. Unbelievable recruitment process.
3 points essential tomorrow against the Hammers.
Bonkers season.
City winning against Leicester 3 nil without even breaking a sweat. They are a fucking machine and Arteta will have a meltdown and throw it away.
Tony
Not only 3 points but we need to start looking at the goal difference it could come down to that.
Mad results today save for City-Leicester which was wholly predictable. Bournemouth doing an ‘Arsenal – Bournemouth’ against the Spuds but coming out the right side this time and Villa beating the barcodes. That Dracula lookalike manager of their’s looks pretty good… Oh and Fulham beating Everton. Squeaky bums everywhere.
Tomorrow, I think if we keep Bowen quiet, it’ll be a clean sheet and 3 or 4 nil.
Marc
The only thing working against City is that fucking daunting fixture pile up. I’m not holding my breath but it would be handy if they hit the wall soon. Although the table says otherwise, it almost feels as if their destiny is in their own hands. I don’t even want to think about the psychological effect of their record of trophies potentially being expunged.
Fuck me Almunia… It’s the Snooker WC again! Just tuned into the Rocket against some lad called Pang (who’s making my heart miss the hordes of banned Chinese lads – geddit?)
Who are you going for this year? Maybe we should each pick three, the winner getting LiR bragging rights. I’ll let you have first pick. At least I now know how I’m going to be spending my evenings over the next few weeks. Pang looks about 12 and makes me feel 120!
Kroenke
I just can’t see it, City are like Arnie from the original Terminator – it just keeps coming. If we can get a draw there then we should win it but the truth is I can’t get past the constant feeling Arteta will do an Arteta.
thankfully for us the best team doesn’t always win the title, as even Stevie Wonder can see that City is a better footballing outfit…can anyone imagine us, under Arteta, skunking Munich in a CL quarters??? just look what he did against a far inferior Pool side when we had 2 first-half goals and the balance of play to boot…I might be wrong but I feel like if we were in a similar position one of two things would happen, either we would pack the pitch with every rostered defensive player immediately following the second tally, maybe even deploying a 2 Keeper formation, or Xhaka would Cantona a young Munich fan without provocation, leaving us down to 10 men for the 2nd half…ironically in the days following the incident it would be revealed that one lone individual made an astronimical futures bet a year to the day earlier that predicted a kick-related exodus by our current, I mean former, captain
as for our fixture tomorrow, we simply must wax a very bang average Hammers side to make up for that horrendous second-half display at Anfield…if we trip over our collective dicks again, it could be City’s to lose, which certainly isn’t a revelatory statement
Tony-sorry to hear about the cancerous struggles of your close firend and business associate…it’s hard these days to find anyone who hasn’t been touched by this horrible affliction…one can only hope that the treatment she’s receiving and the fact that she has youthful resiliency on her side will lead to very positive outcome
as for my son, who just turned 24, he cares very little for sports-related matters…when he was young he was far more scholastically inclined than myself and even though I attempted, on a myriad of occasions, to get him involved in a variety of sporting endeavours, it just wasn’t his bag
by the time he was 10 he was placed into a “gifted” program, which led to his love of all things IT related…in many ways he was quite fortunate in that he became a bit of a wizard when it came to a particular brand of coding, which was in high demand during his post-secondary years, as such he did summertime internships at Google, Palantir, Robinhood and Terra, which opened the door to a shitload of opportunities upon graduation
presently he works on Wall Street and thankfully he has a very bright future…right now, he’s in Hong Kong, on business, then he’s taking a little vaca to Tokyo/Kyoto, followed by a few weeks back in Seoul, as he has a a real strong affinity for South Korea…he has a whole host of buds in the Seoul region, not to mention several business associates he became close to during his time at Terra…I’m incredibly proud of his vocational pursuits, but even more proud of the fact that he’s a great person, especially considering the cast of entitled twats he must endure in his given profession…Cheers
close friend
lead to “a” very positive…
TRVL – That’s truly wonderful to hear and a testament to his parents of which you, as I do and KP does – we as fathers with our parenting/guidance shapes their lives as adults. Sounds like your son should meet my daughter; both scholars where she’s just turned 25 with beauty & brains. She’s Mrs T’s niece who she took on as a parent when she was 6 months, as is the way in Chinese Thai families where there are more than one child and where affordability to put 2 kids through private education would be too much; one is happily farmed out and often adopted.
I came along and we adopted her. I’d been adopted, so I knew the emotional trappings that came with that. What we didn’t know was her high intelligence, once kicked off kilter, led to terrifying depression where she would stay in her room for days. She was top of year for aerospace engineering winning a full ride for a 2nd aerospace degree majoring in new materials when covid hit her program hard and eventually it all became too much for her to understand and control.
Needless to say I’ve done countless hours of reading regarding ADHD and its attachments and depressions over the years.
Happily, she’s much better now with her life cat we’ve all adopted because Pumpkin thinks he’s a dog all bar the barking. Kind of feels right for this house. She’s teaching herself Chinese because she’s bored being too overqualified for work in Bangkok or not experienced enough for the work she’s qualified for – yes that old chestnut. Her learning French would be her 4th language with also a good understanding of Korean.
I’m hoping she gets in front of the French-Thai fusion idea I bounced off her and decides to go on a 2-year culinary learning curve in Paris and Bangkok’s best schools while I prepare the move and find properties for us to choose. Maybe 6 months in an Indian cooking school would polish the learning off.
You know what’s really uncanny, TRVL? my daughter spends her TV time watching all things Korean! Has done since a teenager. When you said your son has an affinity with Koreans I thought WTF? I’m sitting at my keyboard laughing, in my office thinking this shit just keeps on getting weirder but in a good way. 🙂
My biological father was a Scottish BBC producer who did a runner before I was born. Now if you tell me you have a Scottish accent I’m going to book an appointment with the therapist and then think about the book rights. 🙂 🙂
Back to football.
Jared Bowen, KP, mentioned will no doubt be a threat. I thought a while ago that Jared would be a good Xhaka replacement until Mitoma came on my radar. Bowen is another Podence type player a level or 2 below Trossard.
Doesn’t look like Saliba is going to make it and will probably not be anywhere near match fit for the City game. I’m going to surprise people and say Xhaka should play in this game with his invisible cloak. I’d Play KT, too for when Xhaka goes walkabout up top. If the pace is too much for Xhaka then he can be subbed for ESR/Trossard/Zinchenko.
Fragile West Ham are there for the taking where we should have a chance to increase our GD. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy game, it’s not, if we treat it that way. We need to silence the home supporters and keep West Ham on the back foot for 90 + minutes and the goals will come.
Spuds losing was perfect and City finding Leicester tougher than they thought, and not managing to significantly increase their GD was a bonus for us.
1:4 is my stat induced, mathematically counted, wet finger in the air test.
See you at the game.
TRVL-I should add our daughter spent a year staying with a behavioral scientist PhD mom and a DA dad and family for a year in the Eastern States near Chicago and graduated High School in English, then came back to her school in Thailand and graduated 3.78 which is a university run high school that prepares students through uni curriculum teaching. It’s notoriously tough where lower scores are respected more. Now Junior is there living in our daughter’s shadow, and although very smart nowhere near older sis.