Burning Gold

That's a fair argument, but you could make it about any save. There's nothing special about saving penalties (outside of a shootout) and they don't happen often enough to be a significant factor when assessing goalkeepers for me. My quarrel isn't with Pickford, I think he's quite good and England's best keeper for a long time, although it's mad that he's listed as 6'1.

One against Manchester United where he kneed it to Lukaku. Then maybe the one where we conceded directly from a corner or the one against Fulham. Anyway, at the risk of drawing the obvious comment by being the third Liverpool fan to respond, clean sheets and penalty saves are stupid ways to rate a goalkeeper. Clean sheets are almost always more to do with the defence than they are the goalkeeper. Penalty saves, while probably a nice morale boost for the team, are barely worth anything over the course of a league season. Pickford's saved Everton a whopping 3 goals from the spot this season, or just under 7% of their current goals against total.

I think the club still employ him as an ambassador which is absolutely disgraceful To his credit though, he's always a good sport about showing up to these things despite knowing he'll get booed. That or he suffers from a total lack of self-awareness

You say that as if he showed up late to a match one day and they were already playing like that? He put that system together to start with! Also simply untrue about his lack of tactical flexibility. We used about 5 different formations over the course of the 14/15 season. We went three at the back to moderate success (roaring success relative to the rest of the season) for a bit, but our squad ultimately wasn't built for that and it got found out. I don't think you can blame the lack of balance on him. The squad itself was horribly uneven with some very talented attacking players, but a shite goalkeeper, shite fullbacks, and average centre halves who couldn't get a run of games together. Not a single holding midfielder at the club either; Gerrard didn't have the tactical discipline, awareness, or (by then) the legs to play there, but he was the best we had, so we even turned that into an attacking role. Rodgers had us playing to our strengths and, while that might've meant we conceded more goals than we should've, our best chance of winning was by turning games into a shootout and outscoring the opposition because that lot weren't keeping it out at our end no matter what. He of course deserves his share of the blame for the state of our squad, but he was never fully backed by the owners the way Klopp is.

Not sure why you're framing it as a criticism that he found great success using a formation that wasn't his preferred one? Harsh to say he was forced into it, as well. Suarez was talked about as a wide forward or second striker just as much as he was as a 'genuine' striker back then, and Sturridge often played out wide for Chelsea (relative to how often he played at all, that is). No one would've batted an eye if he'd gone 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1. People did bat an eye, however, to see Gerrard back in a deep role for the first time in, what, at least 10 years? I really don't think many managers would've even tried that formation, let alone made it work as well as it did with the players we had.

No doubt the man's a bellend, but I can't agree with this. Sturridge and Suarez were brilliant (worth noting he rescued Sturridge from the scrap heap at Chelsea) but just look at the rest of the squad. Mignolet: Shite. Johnson: Shite. Flanagan: Shite. Cissokho: Absolute fucking dogshit. The centre halves (Agger, Sakho, Skrtel, Toure) were decent but no more, and only when they were fit. In the midfield you had Gerrard, who everyone said was finished and had been for a few years, Henderson, about whom big questions were being asked, and Joe Allen, who was the very essence of mediocrity. Going forward apart from the aforementioned, there was Coutinho at 21 and the teenage Sterling. Both very raw. Then Aspas and Luis Alberto. Both very shite. That squad had absolutely no business being anywhere near the top of the league, and Rodgers deserves a lot of credit for getting them as close as he did. Would a more pragmatic manager have just taken the draw we needed at home to Chelsea? Probably, but a more pragmatic manager wouldn't have had us in a position where that was good enough. I think he's a limited manager, but clearly good at what he does. I'd like to see him back in the Premier League. He's good something to prove and I'm intrigued to see what he'd do with this Leicester squad. At the very least he wouldn't just park the bus and be happy with a 1 or 2 goal loss against the top sides.

Would you want that for your club, out of interest? Ashley's a scumbag, but City's owners make him look like Mahatma Ghandi

He's not one of the best defenders in the world like he claims, but Lovren's a lot better than he gets credit for. He's pocketed some of the best attackers in world football and on his day would start for almost every team in the league. His problem is that when it's not his day he looks absolutely fucking dreadful.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the defensive players we've added have made a big difference in this regard. Alisson, Trent, van Dijk, Gomez, Robertson, and Fabinho are all very good passers of the ball which draws out the opposition a little bit, and allows us to get the ball in dangerous positions much quicker. They're also snuffing out attacks earlier and winning the ball higher up the pitch than the players they replaced, meaning we're spending more time on the front foot and putting the opposition under pressure that eventually tells. @LFCMike mentioned our defensive improvement, which is obviously massive, but I think the contribution those same players make to the attack is overlooked sometimes.

This is something that's being glossed over I feel. I listened to an interview with a referee a while ago, and he said that 'the line' as far as abuse goes is different for each official, but no one would stand for being called a cheat or having their honesty called into question. A lot of people defending Williams and/or criticising the umpire are going with the "she didn't even swear" line, but that misses the point.

Shocking signing from day one, but this isn't a massive blow in its own right as it would've been a small fee and I don't think he's on a lot of money. He'll be gone at the end of the season fortunately.

Sorry, officer

Incredible the amount of fuss over who's going to play the main character in a tired, predictable film franchise that's about 20 years past its sell-by date. Don't have a problem with it going to a black man, but Idris Elba would be absolutely wasted in that role.

Matip's probably a more talented defender, but defending isn't always about talent and Klavan's much less erratic. I think we're hoping Gomez will be fit for tomorrow which would be interesting as he's tipped to be our long term solution at CB.

Jesus

Not for £40m it wouldn't

My guess is that we won't sell both, but both are for sale. If we sell one, the other will be the backup.

I don't think that's necessarily true. For the last 20-25 years, the youth turnout has always been low in the UK, but Corbyn still appealed heavily (and successfully) to young people.

I haven't seen that anywhere either, but there is a conspiracy theory doing the rounds on social media. Fabinho's only ever worn number 2 in his senior career, and he still hasn't been given a number for Liverpool, so apparently we're waiting to sell Clyne before we give him the 2 shirt. Sounds silly to me, but there's got to be a reason we haven't given him a number yet. I'm with @Dr. Gonzo, though. I'm not comfortable going into the season with Gomez being our backup rightback and our 4th choice centre back behind two injury prone players in Lovren and Matip.

Having a kid apparently Be interesting to see how much of a part he plays this season, given how well Trent did last year

I haven't seen any of our pre-season games this year, but apparently he's been playing in a slightly deeper role, which could be less demanding on his ludicrously fragile body.

There are definitely downsides to foreign tours, but there are also massive financial incentives, which is obviously beneficial to a football club. It's a short term cost for long term gain thing and I'm sure someone's done the cost/benefit analysis and decided they're worth doing.

Those fees are pretty ambitious, but we're hardly going to come out and say we'll let Markovic go for nothing to any cunts stupid enough to take him, even if that is closer to the truth. Curious that Sturridge isn't mentioned there, though. Are we giving him another chance?

True, but I feel like I'd be doing them a disservice if I used that vote to elect either Jeremy Corbyn or Theresa May. I agree with you on the referendum, though. I don't really understand how someone wouldn't have a preference in a yes/no question. Unless they decided it wasn't worth their time trying to wade through the smears and misinformation to make an informed decision, particularly when (as discussed) their individual vote wouldn't make a difference anyway. Someone I used to work with had this idea he thought was brilliant. Everyone gets one vote, but if you could demonstrate some intelligence and an understanding of the issues, you'd get another one or two votes. That way the informed would have more of a say, but you wouldn't deprive anyone of their right to vote. I think both are bad ideas, to be honest, both on principle and in practice. You'd be neutralising an entire sector of the electorate and of course the criteria for voting would be very tempting targets for abuse and corruption.