Jurgen Klopp’s massive Quadruple ‘cojones’ and the Cristiano Ronaldo underpants
Jurgen Klopp has such massive balls that he occasionally uses teenagers, while Alejandro Garnacho makes the news with his pants.
Captain underpants
Manchester United beat Wigan 2-0 on Monday night, but more importantly…
Garnacho pays tribute to hero Cristiano Ronaldo during FA Cup win as Man Utd winger takes ‘obsession’ to new level
How did he ‘pay tribute’? With a siu? By bromancing with Piers Morgan? By asking a woman to sign an NDA that absolutely does not in any way imply guilt?
No, he wore Cristiano Ronaldo pants. Which really shows how ‘obsessed’ he is. Oh and that ‘obsession’ quote in The Sun‘s headline is in fact quoting nobody at all. Of course.
And as for this ‘new level’…it’s pretty much exactly a year to the day since The Sun brought us this headline:
Man Utd starlet Alejandro Garnacho spotted wearing Cristiano Ronaldo’s CR7 underwear during FA Cup win over Everton
It’s almost like those are his pants.
First refusal
Liverpool man Andy Dunn must have ventured into the ‘bitter Wigan chill’ to write a column about Manchester United with hopes for something other than a pretty routine win.
Which made for a pretty routine column…
If Erik ten Hag was feeling the heat – even in the bitter Wigan chill – you could not tell.
Under a woollen, rather than tin, hat, the Manchester United manager stood impassively for most of a one-sided tie. Even when Diogo Dalot opened the scoring with a lovely hit just after the 20-minute mark, Ten Hag’s expression barely changed.
But this is the Mirror and nothing is ever knowingly undersold so…
Erik ten Hag’s touchline refusal said it all during Man Utd’s easy FA Cup victory
Yes, his ‘touchline refusal’ to *checks notes* celebrate the opener v a pretty poor League One side. That really did say it all absolutely f*** all.
A message to you, Roy Keane…
When he wasn’t making a stand on the touchline, Erik ten Hag was ‘sending’ a ‘defiant message after Roy Keane’s sack prediction’. Sorry but was he f***.
Erik ten Hag has insisted he will ‘survive the setbacks’ after Roy Keane predicted he would be sacked by Manchester United within the next few months.
And then, for good measure, ‘Ten Hag has insisted he is still the man to lead United’.
Or, Ten Hag did a pretty anodyne interview after a pretty routine win in which he was not asked about his future – because that would have been ludicrous – nor mentioned his future of his own volition.
In fact, this is exactly what he said:
“We have had a lot of setbacks. I think in the summer we were on a good way, but it’s a journey, it’s a project.
“Now we have to deal with some setbacks but we will keep alive, we will survive it, and we will strike back.”
It is actually a relatively ‘defiant message’ for a naturally dull man, but is it remotely related to anybody’s ‘sack prediction’? Is it balls.
Klopp of the pops
The Daily Telegraph‘s Liverpool journofan Chris Bascombe actually made Mediawatch genuinely LOL at this opening line to his latest Jurgen Klopp fanfiction.
The debate can rage about whether Jurgen Klopp is the best coach in the world, but Liverpool’s latest victory confirmed there is no one of elite status who is so daring.
Where the hell is this debate raging? The Anfield press box perhaps but certainly nowhere else after a season when Liverpool dared to finish 22 points behind Manchester City. How brave.
We have scanned and re-scanned the top 10s of various world coach of the year lists issued throughout 2023 and we can nary find a mention of the man who coached Liverpool to fifth last season.
But that was before Liverpool got thoroughly outplayed by Arsenal in the FA Cup but stayed in the game long enough to claim victory against a ludicrously profligate Gunners side.
And that is where he showed his derring-do:
With 15 minutes remaining of the FA Cup third round match with Arsenal – the tie delicately poised at 0-0 – Klopp sent on two under-23 players: 20-year-old right-back Conor Bradley and 18-year-old midfielder Bobby Clark.
Some context is needed here. He did take off two of Liverpool’s poorer performers in Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott (about three months older than Bradley) and he did have absolutely f*** all else on the bench.
And what was very clear was that Klopp needed to find a way to get Alexander-Arnold into midfield and the easiest way to do that was to bring on a right-back.
But well done, Jurgen. So brave. And it’s not the first time…
Klopp has been making such bold decisions throughout his nine-year Anfield tenure, but they have gone up a notch this season. On the opening day of the Premier League season he replaced Mohamed Salah with the then 17-year-old Ben Doak for the latter stages at Chelsea. Too many were obsessed with Salah’s sulky reaction to being subbed than to recognise the gutsy decision.
Strictly speaking, he actually replaced Salah with Harvey Elliott and Luis Diaz with Ben Doak. But that does rather spoil the narrative.
At Newcastle United in August, with Liverpool a goal behind and down to 10 men after Virgil van Dijk’s dismissal, Klopp handed Jarell Quansah his senior debut.
A tad misleading, that. Klopp’s response to Van Dijk being sent off was actually to send on Joe Gomez. He then turned to Quansah late in the game because – in his own words – Joel Matip “looked tired”.
It’s fair to say that Klopp has made some relatively bold substitutions but ‘there is no one of elite status that is so daring’? File under ‘propaganda’.
Such courage has accelerated the Liverpool revival to a point where Klopp was without a full outfield senior team at Arsenal and still emerged triumphant. The list of absentees would have been a shield for many other managers. Klopp’s default position is to look for solutions, not take refuge in excuses.
Van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson, Dominik Szoboszlai, Joel Matip, Thiago Alcantara and Wataru Endo are starters in a first-choice Liverpool XI. Kostas Tsimikas, Stefan Bajcetic and Doak would certainly have played in the FA Cup tie if fit and on form.
So a first-choice Liverpool XI would have a midfield of Szoboszlai, Thiago and Endo? But also Bajcetic? Alexis Mac Allister wants a word.
And that’s ignoring the fact that Liverpool only advanced in the FA Cup because Arsenal are so toothless that they have scored with one attempt from 61 in their last three games.
Klopp’s preference for coaching and developing what he has before demanding owners Fenway Sports Group splash the cash is a recurring theme of his Kop era.
Yes, that would be why he spent £150m on four central midfielders this summer despite having Jones, Elliott and Clark. And why Doak has only played 13 minutes of Premier League football this season.
Pesky fact: Trent Alexander-Arnold is the only homegrown player among Liverpool’s most-used 17 players in the Premier League this season.
It is a reflection of the foundations Klopp laid over the summer and the absurd standards he has set that the Liverpool manager has already been hit with the ‘F’ word in 2024.
With somewhat preposterous prematurity, Klopp was asked before the trip to Arsenal to weigh up the pros and cons of an Anfield foursome and a campaign similar to two years ago when Liverpool were two wins from a quadruple.
Well, it’s more a reflection of Liverpool being in the Europa League this season, Chris. And a reflection of the media being obsessed with quadruples.
It remains laughably early to talk about a quadruple given how much football is left to be played. The fact the whispers have started at all is the ultimate compliment for Klopp’s rebuild.
It wouldn’t really be a quadruple though, would it?
Whatever happens from here, for all his coaching and man-management skill, Klopp has rapidly rejuvenated Liverpool thanks to an asset which is too often overlooked: the biggest cojones in football.
All down to the cojones and nothing to do with the brilliance of Mo Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alisson and Dominik Szoboszlai? Or the fact that playing in the Europa League means that their most talented four players have largely been spared European football?
What a load of balls.
