Burning Gold

You didn't watch us repeatedly struggle to break down the 'low block' last year then. The lack of a proper striker was a big issue there and it's no coincidence that we battered shit teams at the end of the season when Sturridge was playing. Firmino himself wasn't the problem, but he was nominally playing in the striker position and wasn't doing that job, so he got a lot of the blame. As you say, Mo Salah's essentially our striker these days and it works beautifully

Don't get me wrong, I don't think he's a particularly good keeper, and I'd be disappointed if we signed him as 'the answer'. I just think he's the sort of player who'd improve us much more on the pitch than he would on paper, if that makes sense?

It's not totally systematic, mate. Lovren's not very good, Klavan's bad, Mignolet's shite, Gomez is young and will make mistakes (same goes for TAA when he plays), and our midfielders never track runners even when they are in a defensive position (Can being the worst culprit). Throwing everyone forward and pressing is bound to leave gaps in behind, but we still concede too many goals from innocuous looking situations like City's first or Burnley's goal against us (I know the latter was at home). For me, it's an issue of leadership. Klopp may have been being flippant when he said one of Tottenham's goals wouldn't have happened if he was on the pitch, but he inadvertently touched on the fact that there's no leader on the pitch to be his representative and direct players on the fly. No one to scream at Wijnaldum to just get rid of it shortly before Watford equalised, no one to tell Gomez to get tighter to stop the cross (I can't actually remember who scored the goal I'm referring to, but Gomez gave their winger acres of space and he put in a good cross), etc. etc. etc. That's why I'd actually quite like Joe Hart at the club. He may not be much better than Mignolet as a goalkeeper, but at least he shouts and organises the defence.

How long after the international break though? Someone fell for his 3 games on, 10 games off routine. There's a good player in there somewhere, but he's horribly inconsistent. Beyond that, though, there are key things that hold his game back which he may never overcome; he's not going to get more mobile, for example, which is especially problematic in our system. The other problem is that he wants to play as a holding midfielder for us, a position at which he's fucking terrible, and one which limits his opportunities to utilise his best attributes.

Apparently he wanted assurances that he was going to play CDM, which is by far his worst midfield position, before he'd sign a new contract. I'm not too bothered that we're losing him. What pisses me off the principle of letting a decent player go for free in this market.

Dejan Lovren's been voted our player of the month. I really fucking loathe Liverpool fans sometimes.

I love a good bit of Rugby League, but I honestly think their world cup could be the worst of any sport. Every single time, you know with 99% certainty who the finalists will be, and you just have to watch the three or four decent sides embarrass everyone else or half-arse it for three weeks until they meet each other in the late rounds. There's the occasional high quality fixture early on like today's, but even then there was nothing riding on it because we all know both teams will qualify for the knock-out rounds. This, by the way, is what the Champions League would be like if the 'league champions only' crowd got their way.

First of all, if our people couldn't find anyone better than what we have other than VVD, they need to be sectioned immediately because I can only assume they're severely retarded. Second of all, depth and competition.

It's a terrible argument. What harm did Balotelli do? Okay, he was shit, didn't score many goals, and was generally a bit of a waste of space on the pitch, but he didn't actually do any harm, did he. If there was a Balotelli type character out there who could sort of play centre back, I'd have him in a heartbeat, because currently we're stuck with four centre backs, two of whom are prone to injury, two of whom are shit, and one of whom is 20 years old and also currently our first choice right back. It's absolutely inexcusable, mate. Heads need to roll. They're simply on too much money, mate. No one's going to sign a player whose wages are so far out of sync with his ability. It's by no means just Lovren that's vastly overpaid at Liverpool, but he's on £100k a week. I don't think the clubs on his level can afford to pay any of their players that much, let alone a player who demonstrably isn't worth it.

Because who else is there?

It's always a laugh listening to people like that. They spend half the time saying Manchester United are great and Liverpool are rubbish and the other half saying they have to play defensively at Anfield otherwise they'd get battered. It's an incredibly stupid argument, but it isn't new; we heard the same sorts of things after United played exactly the same game at Anfield last season. To his credit, Neil Custis (whoever he is) did offer a new piece of stupidity by completely misdefining 'parking the bus' and then arguing that that's not what Mourinho did

Yeah, it wasn't just quality that was an issue, it was depth as well. Regardless of ability, going into a season with 4 centre backs, 2 of them being prone to injury and one also being required to fill in at right back (Gomez), was absolutely retarded. Add to that the fact that we can't seem to defend as a unit even when we do have our first choice back 5 and I think we're fucked.

As much as I also hate most United fans, I think it's a shame we don't have any serious fans of one of the biggest clubs in the country anymore. I miss the contributions from the likes of Deadlinesman and CCisKlaas even if they were usually wrong

@LFCMadLad

I'd say it's more likely that Karius plays all the cup competitions and Mignolet plays (most of) the league games. I think Klopp's trying to mould Karius into being our starting keeper, and exposing him to the English game is an important part of that.

Oneplus?

Yeah, same as the new iphone. I actually have two pairs of bluetooth headphones (one pair of earbuds, one pair of proper headphones) and they're useful for certain things, but for the most part it's so much more convenient to have a pair of normal headphones

I do indeed. Thanks I was ready to buy an HTC U11 as soon as it came out (which I never do) until I found out it doesn't have a headphone jack. What a waste of time that is

Does it have expandable storage? I'm also looking for a new phone, although not particularly urgently

If he does play for Southampton before then, they won't sell him in January.

Strange? I think it's shambolic. We spent the whole summer waiting for Southampton to invite us to make an offer for a player they didn't want to sell!

No, it's because he's a twat. Behavioural issues last preseason led to him being frozen out, not even considered for selection when we had something of an injury crisis at CB, and ultimately sent on loan to Crystal Palace. He's actually a pretty good passer of the ball for a centre back, although not a player you'd want to spend a lot of time on the ball.

Christ. I remember a mate trying to convince me that Carlton Cole could be a 20-25 goal a season striker in our team.

It'll be interesting to see how you manage this season with a squad of about 3 players

Apparently he's already agreed to sign for Juventus next year, which will be incredibly annoying because he's finally starting to look like the top class footballer we all knew was in there somewhere.