Liverpool have been ‘swindled’ on one player and it’s not Darwin Nunez

Liverpool won in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night but one player is not pulling his weight in Liverpool 2.0.

We also have mails on supporting Man City, pressure on Mikel Arteta and much more. Mail theeditor@football365.com

Life as a Liverpool fan right now
64 minutes in.

The quality of Liverpool’s final ball is nowhere to be found.

You know the players can do it so one cross/pass could change everything but so far, unimpressed.
Nik (hope to send an edit in 25 minutes), Paris

…Here you go.

Pure luck getting the equaliser but the winner was a class assist from Darwin.

Fulham were good but will have to go for it second leg, gaps will appear. Too bad the replay is two weeks away…
Nik (…), Paris

On board with the chaos merchant
​Many will give Nunez stick unless he becomes a regular goalscorer.

He’s far from the finished article but what an exciting player to watch.

He can score, assist or fkup from almost anywhere; drift past a player or give them the ball; or just be offside.

As long as he’s the catalyst that can change a game, and makes it more fun to watch, I’m a fan of Captain Chaos.
Aidan, Lfc (loved a 10p Freddo, but reckon 5p Space Raiders were even better)

Gravenberch is the weak Liverpool link
Over the yrs my wife and I have had just a small handful of disagreements serious enough that after a day has passed and clouds lifted, she reminds me of her philosophy that most successful relationships have a sort of reservoir of value, if you will.

The idea is that over the course of a marriage (or any relationship btwn any parties, really), you build value stores in a reservoir enough to withstand inevitable times that come where a shiny turd hits the proverbial fan.

Her chief complaint is that I often overlook adding to the reservoir in our day-to-day, which is probably fair, but probably also a topic for a different kind of mailbox.

Watching Liverpool play a mid-wk cup tie doesn’t ordinarily bring me to contemplate vast relationship complexities in my life, but for some reason I ventured there today. And you know what ? It’s made me realize my “relationship” (albeit one-sided) with the majority of our 2.0 players is strong, healthy and forgiving. At different times I’ve come down hard on different players, as fans often do with ease from their sofas.

I’ve gone at Darwin (for his finishing / lack of composure in the final third), TAA (defensive awareness, aerial balls over his flank), Tsimikas (his defending in general), Wataru Endo (slow reactions and a risky, lunging tackling technique). I even went in for Ben Doak once, and I love the player and how I might see his future, yet I called him too green for the now.

But in general, I see that in the day-to-day these individuals are bringing hard graft, commitment, footballing intellect, impressive tekkers and noticeable improvement of their craft over time, an undeniable willingness to go and go again. In other words they make tangible contributions to the product on pitch, so they also fill up the storage of footballing value in the reservoir for anyone who supports them, such that their efforts can surpass their mishaps and you applaud their overall arc.

I realized today the one player in our 2.0 push that fails in every measure thus far is Ryan Gravenberch. He brings seemingly lacklustre work ethic and an almost casual, hangdog demeanor.

He doesn’t show for passes (in fact often hiding from the ball), he isn’t particularly strong in the tackle, he is not tidy in his passing nor effective in his ball progression, and he simply seems to lack the fight so exemplary in the rest of the side. He tends to drift around but he doesn’t make runs nor does he track back to defend, and his decision making is atrocious for someone listed as a senior squad member.

Today he picked up the ball while it was still in play near the touchline, ceding what was our throw-in and possession straight back to Fulham. I think back to our solitary league loss (yes, the farcical Spursy one) and with about a minute remaining while playing with 9 men he decides to play hero ball rather than taking it to the corner flag to see out a point.

I won’t line-item all the disappointing little vignettes I have playing in my head when I think of him on the ball or when he’s needed out of possession, nor do I want to recollect him ever trying to strike for goal, but in summation this is a player that has one paltry tap-in and one assist (albeit, not a terrible one) to show for plenty of opportunity in a side overly stretched and competing deep on four fronts.

You know, Bayern Munich are an esteemed institution of sport with quite strong footballing machinations and lineage (as I like to believe we also are), it’s not like they’re a Chelsea or a Man Utd where blindly thrown darts result in mass stockpiling of depreciating flotsam or random jettisoning of overlooked talent. The Germans will have afforded plenty in brains, data, intuition (and patience !) before concluding their reservoirs had run dry with this kid, and I already sense the swindle was on. Gravenberch needs to markedly improve, he isn’t good enough.
Eric, Los Angeles CA

READ: Liverpool 2.0 are not the best Liverpool but this is the best of Jurgen Klopp

What if Arsenal finish behind Liverpool?
If Man City didn’t win the league, and Arsenal weren’t the ones that DID, how much of a disaster would that be for him/them ?
Adam Halliday, Villa Fan (I’m thinking Liverpool more than Villa), Sunny Saigon

Best. Mailbox. Ever
A lot of thought went into the opinions published in Wednesday afternoon’s mailbox, probably my favorite one ever, even though I wasn’t in it.

To MAW, LA Gooner (We’ll be fine.), I’d like to say first that yes, you’ll be fine, but also that I wonder whether Saka’s dip has to do with the right back position despite having five of them on the books, none of whom are lighting the world on fire. At any rate, Transfermarkt values Ben White at 55 million Euro; that could fund a real upgrade…or go a long way towards a top-class striker. I mean, if they could get it. I’d say 40 million tops, myself.

Stu, Southampton’s missive is massively reasonable, though I also think that Football365 is to some extent a humor website. Sometimes humor misses the mark, even when it doesn’t punch down. It felt kind of mean to me, too, even if I can’t argue the basic truth of Tickner’s observations. Mike, LFC, Dubai evidently agrees.

By contrast, Andy the Hammer made Matt Pitt look a bit of a ‘culture war dullard’ in the nicest way. The basic misunderstanding of the term “woke” lit my fuse, but I didn’t have a chance to respond. I was gratified to see how many folks wrote what I was thinking (including Stewie Griffin, whose mails I always read, but seldom agree with). That said, I do associate F365 with wokeness in a most positive sense, and that has a lot to do with the Mailbox.

Morris, Newcastle can’t buy Kylian Mbappe. We might not be able to afford Kalvin Phillips on loan. FFP rules are working as intended, and we are near the limit of three-year losses permissible under them. I absolutely believe that those rules were put in place to freeze the financial hierarchy in place, and at one level, I can’t argue with that; do the English really want foreign billionaires, oligarchs, royalty and governments to buy the top ten or twelve clubs not already owned by one of them and thrust the most popular clubs from their thrones more times? And while almost every club that has had top-level success in the last ~50 years has bought it, new money seldom comes across great. On the other hand, I also resent FFP because freezing wealth and power in place when you’re on top is how colonialism worked and how late-stage capitalism is working. And then again, while I love my club and celebrate its little victories, it’s now majority-owned by actual villains, so I can hardly complain when obstacles to them are thrown up.

Red Jim should try American sports journalism. When I lived in England in 1995-96, I was completely thrown by the style of your sports journalists, who often didn’t lead with the result and always, always placed events out of order. Obviously, I’ve gotten used to it, but I do prefer the more direct style over here. The Athletic has some good football writing, much of it from Americans.

A, LFC, Montreal, something like that happened to me once! I took it as a quiet honor, BUT MAYBE I SHOULDN’T HAVE. Especially since I have at least one tab open for F365 basically 24/7 and it’s evidently funding the editors’ lavish lifestyles, as revealed by the editor’s response to Red Jim!
Chris C, Toon Army DC

A sportswashing cheerleader replies…
Hello. Sportswashing cheerleader masquerading as a fan here. Barney, back in the day, if I’d have written that mail about any other dominant team, the red half of Manchester would’ve called me a ‘Bitter Blue.’ And they would’ve been right. I’ve been supporting my club for just over fifty years and, as sweet as the success of recent years has been, that’s mostly involved doing so when we’ve generally wavered between being a bit rubbish and astoundingly awful.

But here’s the thing. City is MY club, rain or shine and I have no more say in who owns it or runs it than you do. What follows a statement like that, though, generally involves either a clear inference or, much less commonly, an outright declaration that, had Sheikh Mansour bought YOUR club, you would’ve walked away as a matter of principle.

Now, like those that felt the need to write in to F365 to state that they wouldn’t be watching the Qatari World Cup, again on principle, that’s a relatively easy thing to say and, even if such things were said in earnest (and I’m sure they were) there’s no way the rest of us would know whether such missives were followed through. The worldwide viewing figures would suggest that such sentiments may have been in the minority.

I also wrote in here when the Saudi takeover of Newcastle was in the offing stating that there would be no fan exodus at St James’ Park if it happened. And the reaction of Newcastle supporters was/has been when it did? Similarly, I don’t recall mailboxes full of indignant United fans swearing to burn their season tickets if the Qatari bid would succeed. Given the atrocious Glazer ownership, I can understand, but my basic point remains.

There is a Paddy Power advert currently airing in the UK where a Hartlepool supporter states, “Money can’t buy MY club” before a fellow fan bursts in and declares “We’ve been bought by an oil baron!” Cue hordes of ‘Hartlepool’ supporters parading down a street singing about FFP and transfer budgets. It’s funny because it’s true.

Why, back in the day, was everybody ABL or, after 1992, ABU? Because they dominated the game, had easily the best players and could, and did, sign whomever they pleased and won pretty much everything there was to win. Very few others got a look in. Sound familiar? Blackburn won the PL because of the wealth of its owner. United did after the millions pumped in by Sky and those TV companies following thereafter. City have by the squillions Sheikh Mansour has at his disposal. Seems to me there’s a pattern here. It’s money. And who, at any given time, has the most of it to spend. And I don’t know of any millionaires, billionaires, or squillionaires whose hands are spotless in acquiring that money.

City dragged themselves up from the (old) third tier, and by the skin of their teeth, to where they are now in 2024. Luton, Bournemouth, and Brighton have done more than that. You know why they’re not getting pelters? Because they haven’t upset the top four applecart and, consequently, royally pissed off the supporters of same.

I was at Wembley in 1999, wearing the most garish yellow and blue striped shirt my club has ever produced, at a moment when I was convinced, we were doomed forever. There is a book of City fan experiences of that day. One is of a supporter who said, just before Super Saint Paul Dickov scored, (and I’m paraphrasing here) “My daughter looked up at me in tears and said, Why did you make me a City fan? And thirty seconds later, she had her answer.”

I am not ashamed in the slightest to say that I cried when I read that for the first time. That’s Manchester City right there. Far more agony than ecstasy. ‘Typical City’ in a nutshell. I can’t speak for any other City fan, but that day was more important to me than the later ‘Aguerrrrooo!’ one. (But not by much!).

Like every single person reading this, I have my memories of my club at both their best and worst. The thing is, I’ve been there through all of it (well, since 1972 anyway) and I won’t be ‘skulking back into my corner’ anytime soon. F365 is a site for football-related opinions. Don’t like what you read? That’s fine. Write in and reply. That’s the point of logging on here in the first place.

For me though (Clive), you can keep your ‘oil-washing’ snipes and moral high ground lectures for those that can’t see them for what they really are. And that is annoyance or jealousy that it’s not your club up there. Rip this mail to pieces by all means. Just be honest as to why you’re doing it.
Mark (City ‘till I die. Literally). MCFC

Bruised and amused
You’re nobody until you’ve been eviscerated in the hallowed pages of F365 so much gratitude to my many detractors in yesterday’s Mailbox. Excellent work. A particular highlight was Stewie Griffin (no less!) suggesting I’d never read a book at the close of an email peppered with emojis, misplaced commas and a long, slightly unhinged COPY + PASTE from Wikipedia.

Anyway, far too much silliness for me to reply to each point in turn, so allow me to focus on what I identify as the recurring theme: a failure to understand that language evolves. Saying ‘woke’ means X because that’s what someone told me it meant in 1920 is like insisting that ‘gay’ means ‘light-hearted and full of good cheer’.
Matt Pitt
PS: I wonder if thayden and Chris have ‘Be Kind’ in their Twitter bios. Seem the sort who might.

Weighing in on woke
I felt the need to weigh in on woke.

I say all this as a card carrying leftie. I believe that humanity’s only hope is progressive, pragmatic left-wing politics, but the battle is all but lost at this point, and it’s those that represent the left who are to blame, by and large.

Trying to define a term like woke is difficult, but Andy the Hammer made a good fist of it:

“…‘woke’ means to be aware of the struggles, injustices and discrimination that exist in the world. Literally to have your eyes open and be awake.”

and this is pretty much what it meant when it first started getting used. But it doesn’t really mean that anymore. Like so many things that start on the left, such as identity politics and political correctness, they mean something good, meaningful and aspirational, but they soon become corrupted and nothing but a stick to beat people with who step outside of the latest left-wing dogma. Ricky Gervais nailed it right at the end of his latest stand-up special on Netflix.

Many who claim to be woke at this point are judgemental, sanctimonious and often hypocritical. And that’s why it is used pejoratively.

This is the big problem with the modern left – winning hearts and minds is irrelevant to many, and being judgemental and asserting their own perceived moral superiority is all that counts. Many on the left lack the ability to critically think, and all they do is work out how they are “supposed” to be thinking, and then use this mindless dogma to denigrate others with their “purity” of thought. It’s empty, vapid and lacks substance. And it reeks because of this.

BLM, Antifa, Extinction Rebellion – all great examples of movements that could have been agents of significant and much needed change, all of them now lost to this virus that represents modern left wing behaviour across social media and beyond. Flawed, often hypocritical, always sanctimonious and judgemental.

As for Jordan Henderson – he just isn’t very bright. He means well, he is probably a good man, but he completely over-extended himself from an intellectual perspective. He built up an image, but he couldn’t follow through because he didn’t think it through. Had he not taken the Saudi cash, he might have had a career outside football in a variety of ways, but he took the money and he blew it. I’m not judging him. I am sure if he had the benefit of hindsight, he’d do it all differently. He made an error in judgement, and I am sure he will get over it.
Matthew (if I write a letter and everyone ignores it, does it make a sound?)

Stick to football
Wednesday afternoon’s mailbox was full of Guardian readers (I assume) piling in on the woke debate. Referring to people as Right Wing Head Bangers on the one hand and Delusional Libnuts on the other is unnecessary. I would say that no normal sane person is full on left or right. I am more right wing than Farage on some issues and more left wing than Corbyn on others. That’s just how it is.

Having said all that, I know it’s been said before but can we leave the politics for other websites? Can we argue about who is a bigger dick (Klopp or Arteta), who is more annoying (Grealish or Bruno), why Man City won’t get punished despite being obvious cheats and how much would you pay to see a fight between Joey Barton and Gary Neville?

On side note, Andy The Hammer mentioned that he had met Gary Lineker once and that he was a bit of a dick. I agree. I also met him once and was left with the same impression.

That’s all.
Teapot Mekong

…I opened up 365 this morning to read about football, and mainly the Premiership. I read the first section of the mailbox and quickly shifted to another site in the hope I could read about football.

If you are going to be a football and political site please advertise yourself as such.

Sport should be a distraction from the political crap that exists to divide us. Football banter is entertaining, political banter is at best boring and at worst starts wars. I am an expat living in the States that has currently descended from a Republic to a banana republic in its politics. I don’t keep an eye on British politics as much as I used to but reading todays mailbox has me thinking that UK politics isn’t much better

Please let’s keep to football and the only thing that divides us in that world is who we support on the pitch. There are a multitude of sites that cater to those who want to argue the definition of woke and other political divisions.
Ken B

(If only there was a way to ensure that the Mailbox largely focused on football… – Ed)