Liverpool ‘should walk’ Premier League title race as ‘pathetic’ supporters slammed
Liverpool ‘are so well set it is unreal’ if they add Alexander Isak and Marc Guehi to a side which should already be considered heavy title favourites.
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.
Calm down, calm down
What on earth is wrong with the Liverpool fans/trolls in Monday’s mailbox?
Here’s a counter argument to the doom and gloom.
Nearly everyone agreed last season that the full backs were the weak link, right? So they’ve gone and addressed that by buying a right back and a left back of proven quality, with pace to burn and energy in droves. What’s not to like? What is it about those signings that don’t address exactly what the perceived problems were? Answer: nothing.
And so on to midfield. One of the complaints in recent years has been how Liverpool have lacked spark and guile in midfield. While no one could fault the work rate of Gravenberch, MacAllister, Szoboszlai and Jones, the missing link was that type of player they’ve not had since Coutinho. Enter Florian Wirtz. AKA the new Kevin De Bruyne. Except he’s not pitched up at City. He’s at Anfield. Playing for LIVERPOOL. What’s the matter with you if you can’t get excited about this?
Up front, they’ve swapped Nunez for Ekitike, a clear and demonstrable upgrade. Diaz wanted out and they got a good fee for him. That has opened up a space for Ngumoha. Not heard of him? You soon will. Think Michael Owen 1997.
The only players they haven’t yet replaced are Quansah, and poor old Jota (god bless him). The former wanted to leave and will almost certainly be replaced. The latter the club have had to handle with care in terms of not being seen to be too hasty with a replacement.
If Isak and Guehi arrive, as seems likely, then Liverpool are so well set it is unreal.
Jesus Christ guys. It’s been 35 years since the club has been so well run, on and off the pitch. Enjoy it. Savour it.
Andrew H, Swansea.
Favourites
When City had peak KDB and Rodri they had the two best players in the league at that point. They added Haaland -who was instantly the third best player at that point. And they were reigning champions. So They were made favourites and rightly so – and their fans never denied it. It was actually a bragging right.
Liverpool had the 2 best players in the league last year, they have the best keeper and they are probably going to add the third best player in the league from last year. And they are reigning champions after winning the league by 10 Points in second gear.
They are favourites. They should walk it. Anything less than another 10 point victory is failure. They have spent all the money -and apparently are selling half the academy lads to raise more to spend on more flashy signings.
There it is. Own it Liverpool fans. This pathetic attempt to downplay your chances ain’t fooling anyone. The stakes have been raised by your club – nobody else. If you win it then kudus to you and you can be unbearable again. But if you’ve blown your load on making the team worse then we get to laugh hysterically for a very very long time.
That is modern football. Frankly that’s all it is – but that’s another email. That’s the deal. Best of luck. (I’ve seen frimpong defend and salah ain’t gonna be helping him.)
Johnno.
Opinions welcome
Dearest Ed,
While I do enjoy reading people’s views on what recruitment is still required for this team, and how a newly recruited player has imbalanced this team, or how this player is not the player this team actually needed, and especially how this and that player are finished and the manager should have realised this and planned for it, I can’t but help think what all the recruitment teams at these clubs do all day?
I mean, they work with the manager day in day out on strategy, and get to see the squad training and developing day in day out, recording every players every move so they can analyse things appropriately. And all this after they’ve tracked and traced the players they’ve recruited for some time. Which begs the question, how have they not seen what some of the contributors here can see so clearly?
I shall be on to my own particular club, Liverpool, later today. Arne Slot needs to know all the mistakes and misapprehensions he’s made this summer. And if Michael Edwards, that famously incompetent overseer of recruitment, thinks he’s getting away without a piece of my mind, he has another thing coming.
IJR (Patience is key when making a fine cheese dip)
MORE LIVERPOOL COVERAGE FROM F365
👉 Liverpool have ‘real weakness’ which will have Arsenal ‘licking their lips’ over obvious ‘exploit’
👉 Isak would only be ‘fraud’, ‘mercenary’ and ‘unprofessional’ if he went on strike to leave Liverpool
Hopes and dreams
Haven’t written in for a while, us utd fans have had too much of a kicking of late to have anything to say. Time to start building up hope for the new season, or going into meltdown after one drawn game for the scousers…
What’s your hope for the season?
As a utd fan, I have to tether the hope based on what’s gone on before. While we’ve replaced a goal-shy front line with 3 shiny new players costing 200 million pounds guaranteeing us goals, first remains to be seen whether they’ll live up to expectations or be more like our last 3 shiny new young stars guaranteed to score goals of Sancho, Hojlund and Anthony who cost 220 million pounds. I feel Sesko is the biggest risk of the 3 and I hope he has some backup / competition.
I’d be pleasantly surprised to see any more transfer activity and Baleba would be amazing. The utd hierarchy have seriously backed the manager after the lofty heights reached last season. With these additions we have to be aiming for top half at least? Outsiders for scrapping it out for the final Europa league places? Sorry, didn’t mean to get carried away…
I’ve decided this season i just want to be entertained. I’m not going to worry about losses or position if I can just see us try and play some good attacking football. We have the players to do that. Ultimately, I guess I’m looking for signs that the toxicity of the club is dispersing enough to allow the players to play.
Utd have a decent squad and sone good young players coming through, I hope for this to be a year for transition and realism that we can build from in the coming years.
Jon, Cape Town (Is it just me or is the premier league getting back to a better place where almost anyone can beat anyone rather than the silly seasons when Pool and City both got about 100 points – i don’t mean any direspect to those clubs for that, i have a million other reasons to disrespect you, many unreasonable and/or hypocritical)
Stupid idea
This one is very much in the “thought experiment” category. I enjoy reviewing the league table and looking at the goal difference trends. In general, it pretty closely follows the points as you would expect with the occasional outlier.
My idea is what would happen if you abandoned points and just ranked the league on goal difference. Make number of wins the tie breaker. My gut it that it is a terrible idea, but I can’t figure out exactly what would happen. It would certainly have some interesting effects.
No one is relegated or wins the league until the last game of the season.
Scoring that 4th goal in a 4-0 win is as valuable as the goal in a 1-0 win
Scoring that consolation in a 5-1 loss is just as valuable as any other goal.
There is no coasting when you are 3-0 up (or 3-0 down) as the 4th, 5th, 6th etc. goals all matter.
There is no going to the beach with 6 games left when you are mid-table as a bad enough defeat can put you right in the sh*t.
There is also a corollary in another sport. The way the league works now is like match play golf and this would be like stroke play. One really bad game could have a huge effect on your season.
Again, I have no idea what would actually happen if you implemented something like this. Given that the “big six” often are outliers in the goal difference list it may favour them but, it would obviously alter how everyone approached games so may be completely different. I can honestly imaging scenarios where it is terrible, or fun or boring.
One reason why I mention it now is the new UCL format. Given 36 teams and only 8 games each something like this is closer to being a reasonable idea. You are always going to end up with many teams on the same points anyway and this would obviously help UEFA’s goal of minimizing dead-rubber games.
Ozzy AFC DC
The Seven – The Five – The Eight
Since the days of Jose underachieving at United I have tried to create my own alternative league table that sees a kind of ‘weighting’ of points.
Due to its complicated changing of points awarded, depending on which team you are ‘taking points off’ , I have previously given up after 8 or 9 rounds of fixtures .
Anyway, I am trying again .
By grouping the 20 clubs into three bands Top, middle and bottom basically this is how it will roll :
Deep breath…. Villa , Palace , Brighton , Forest and Fulham are all non elite clubs that have good managers and will put the cat among the pigeons again this season . Each time they take points off the ‘big guns’ the journos will be over dramatically smashing the flaws that they may or may not have instead of bigging up the work and organisation of the five mentioned above .
In my alternative league table they will get 3 points for a win against any of City , Chelsea, Spurs , Liverpool , United , Arsenal or Newcastle whereas these’ll only get 2.
Those fixtures are deemed middle band versus top band.
Four points for a win for any team under those twelve should see Brentford , Everton, Wolves and Bournemouth accumulate plenty . And any draw against the ‘chunky seven’ will see them nab 2 points instead of 1. Whereas wins against any team in their own lowly group will be worth 3 .
West Ham stand out as quite a rich club in a quagmire . Potter felt he needed to be working again but probably picked the wrong place to re-boot his career .
I expect to see ‘the Five’ getting plastics of ‘the Seven’ spitting feathers all across social media .
Finally, welcome back Leeds and Sunderland kick some arse please !
Peter ( very early in the morning ) Andalucia.
Scottish commentary? Nope…
Probably some other F365 Mailboxers have sent in the downlow as well to the Ed…but to Ian, LFC Hartford, CT USA,
Your classic clip is actually Allaster McKallaster – AKA Pete Reid, who is a Scot living in Austin, TX, and fantastically dubs his Tartan-tinged take commentary over famous footy video clips with that not-at-all ever take the piss out of the English.
Two of his all-time classics are a play-by-play of the Hand of God in WC 1986:
“England claiming a handball – the sore losers! The wee man was using his arm but yes, his hand does seem to be in a natural position…above his head!”
And the Trump-would-be-proud assessment Frank Lampard’s disallowed vs. Germany:
“He’s got a face like a sour cabbage!”
Ian, if “McKallaster” sees your email, I’m sure he will smile 😉.
Russell, Birmingham, AL