PhilM

There's a big flaw in your plan, involving Barca paying money for stuff.

And it can't be understated how much it was literally from nowhere. We were absolute s*** at the time. We won the Champions League with Djibril Cisse and Milan Baros as our only strikers, Djimi Traore at left back, and John Arne Riise on the pitch, in the same season that Michael Owen f***ed us off for Madrid. That squad on paper wasn't even Champions League level, let alone Champions League winning level, and they knocked out Juventus and Chelsea, and that Milan side that they beat in the final was an absolute Harlem Globetrotters joke of a football team.

They better hope that Moshiri has another buyer lined up.

Yeah, but in that respect, he has built a perfect Spurs side.

I want it. Purely for the Blue fume. Same as I secretly hope we're getting Ancelotti rather than Arne Slotti

They've got that Luca Susic lad that we were linked with last year.

And Matos is going with him to be assistant manager.

Maybe it's just a person who is bang into desserts. Cheesecake is a bit of a bland and noncommittal choice though. It's like going all in on savoury and going with Sandwich.

Although you have to admire DM's persistence in claiming that we're better than a team who scored more goals, conceded less, beat us comprehensively the last time we played them, got more points in two consecutive league seasons, and played in a higher level European competition than us.

You never know, he might have sat with his feet up playing Candy Crush.

Especially if @Gethin's d**do of justice is on the way.

I don't get it. What has Endo done to justify that label? He's been really good hasn't he?

Almost like he's a raging narcissist or something. Anyone seen pictures of his Christmas tree on Instagram? That's the best way to tell.

The answer to that is really probably "because we f***ed up all of the other signings that we tried to get in", either by Brendan kicking off, us messing up the negotiations, or them not wanting to sign for us. So by "It was Balotelli or nothing", it probably means "we had a list of 10 strikers and we didn't get any of them, so he was just about the only one that we could get in with the time we have left".

I just can't get my head around that being real. Balotelli or no-one isn't any kind of solution. Literally any other striker sold that summer would have been a better signing. For example Romelu Lukaku left Chelsea that summer. Given that Rodgers had a hard on for Benteke, why didn't we go for him, or Griezmann, Mario Mandzukic, or Morata, or any other striker. It really wouldn't surprise me if Rodgers' ego went "I can fix him". Isn't that the summer that we tried to sign Loic Remy as well?

Wasn't that because we'd gone all in on Alexis Sanchez and then he binned us off for Arsenal. Probably because he met Brendan Rogers and decided that he was a massive whopper. And then the player that we signed instead turned out to be absolutely miles better than Gotze had ever been. I thought the general narrative (however true that is) is that Klopp wanted Brandt and the scouting team/Edwards said "we think Salah is a much better option".

STOP GETTING BOND WRONG!

Maybe, but he did famously want Gotze and Brandt over the last two. What's really obvious is that our attacking signings when Edwards was here the first time delivered in spades. The ones that we've signed since he left - Nunez, Diaz, Szoboszlai, arguably Gakpo have not. So what has changed? Is it that we're signing the wrong players, that our luck ran out, that our tactics are not enabling the output that we got before? We had what can only be described as an incredible level of success with the players that we signed, and that suddenly stopped.

We won't hear from DM for a while, he's busy being pursued by Russian s***s in black jumpsuits with lemon piping.

What if, and bear with me, what if the players that we've signed since Edwards left are the problem because our scouting isn't as good and we've signed based on what Klopp and Lijnders have asked for, instead of the magic metrics that we used to sign the likes of Robbo, Mane, Salah etc.

Might be missing something, but that looks offside to me. It's not by much to be fair.

Rediscovered Red Dead Redemption II at the weekend. It's an absolute masterpiece. It looks beautiful and the feel and atmosphere is just incredible. It's quite relaxing just trotting your horse around and not really doing much else apart from admire the view. The only thing I don't like is that the controls are quite complex. I spent the first 20 minutes running away from the law because I accidentally shot a window by pressing the wrong button by mistake and I couldn't remember how to pay off a bounty.

Imagine not loving Bobby. Just imagine it. It's literally going "I hate joy, me. Puppies and kittens really piss me off. Sunshine can f*** off."

He was as well. His continual employment by a Champions League club is baffling.

And the visual inspection of his entire Liverpool career backed that up too.