Foxtrot

I said "mostly". Those passes you refer to are mindboggling, yes. And the being dispossed bit is weak s*** too. Those are issues that need to be rectified, for sure.

This is what I'm seeing too. Most of the bad passes he makes comes with the question to his teammates why aren't they there receiving the ball. Wirtz isn't doing great, but this is a team thing. Against Bournemouth he tried to pass it long to Isak, only for Isak not running for it. Or he went short while Isak was going for the long pass or not moving at all. That always looks bad on the player making the pass. They definitely need to work on it and you'll never know if it's going to end well, but Iraola needs to sort it.

Didn't notice. That fixture is a mess of a watch on the telly, as you only see a sea of legs anyway.

Was at Groeningen at 21, didn't get a move to Ajax. So yeah, Jacquet looks good at this stage.

Flat white?

Positives: Sunshine, 3 points, Nyoni and Koumas. Negatives: Awful camera angle, Carragher boring, awful LFC performance

All true. Yeah, they'd do that one, given half a chance. Hope he regains his form this season - the signs have been positive thus far - and signs a new contract.

https://amp.dw.com/en/klopp-wants-germanys-football-team-to-reclaim-the-flag/a-79307610?utm_source=chatgpt.com This is an English report on the topic here.

Think he'd do well there, all the nice stuff that looks good on tiktok. They'd get instant satisfaction while watching the game highlights on their phones. As long as they've got hunters or controllers behind him, which they have in Tchouaméni and Camavinga. Earlier shouts of him being a Bayern sort of player are good too.

Yeah, but like you said in a previous post, we concede soft fouls all the time. Either we have a bunch of players who can’t tackle clean, or the refs almost always support whichever team that is not us, or both things being true. I don’t understand how we keep giving soft fouls away and how often we’re penalised for very little.

I just don’t agree with that at all. His got a lot to learn still but even in a game like yesterday he did better than everybody else bar Jacket. And it’s not his fault if Isak is on his heels and can’t read the pass that Wirtz makes.

”Show horning” is precisely what Szoboszlai is doing, the perfect term for it. Absolutely awful in midfield, especially with Gravenberch.

Did nothing? He tried to find his teammates in good positions more often than he himself got a good pass to try to do the number 10 thing. Also covered more ground than any other player on the pitch (12,3km). A net positive performance in a bad team effort. The midfield behind him is as bad as our fullbacks.

The only problem with this is that while Barcola is alright on the right, his numbers playing from the left are about twice as good. So I'd say it does matter which side he plays, in the long run. Right now we only have stopgaps for the right, but no "specialist" right winger/forward. Add to this that both Isak and Wirtz tend to gravitate leftward on the pitch. So while the attacking setup and personnel might work fine this season, it is far from ideal, balance-wise. This season will show which players are making themselves impossible to drop on the left and which ones can be coached to do the job on the right. A few game in Rio, for instance, looks a bit lost playing there. But we'll still need to get a real right-sided player for next season (if not already in January), and in the meantime see which two players are our main starters for each flank.

Obviously. A joke on sound and grammar.

Not mine in any case. You keep him.

Yeah, saw that. Class from the lad.

stats say he won the ball back more than ten times. 8 recoveries and half a dozen other defensive contributions. Pressed like a maniac too for a 10 and created a good amount of chances. All good.

The amount of stick he got on here after every game was insane

This exactly. Suddenly loads of ours were hunting in packs and players like Macca and Wirtz are winning their duels. Wirtz had 8 recoveries and a few good tackles.

To me that is exactly it: they are great to watch (as long as you win or don’t have any skin in the game) because they make the ugly into art. Phil Thompson and others talked about the “ugly game” being just as important as the “beautiful” part of it. The best thing that has happened in La Liga in about a decade was when Simeoni’s Atleti won the league, with Luis Suarez. That’s to me is much more interesting than the easy beauty of a Barcelona team. But again: it was lovely to see a Liverpool side turning that game around.

Yes, some things are truly irritating. But then again: how different is that from what the absolute majority of footballers, regardless of nationality, have been doing for the past how many decades now? And then there was Szobo trying to win a penalty by being savvy. There are all kinds. The most important thing is how well our lads rose to the occasion and wrestled a win tonight. It was a great performance and a very good game. Mind you I'd be cryarsing about the opposition had we not won.

Ref was really poor, with loads of nailed-on free kicks that he never gave. Same as against Newcastle the past few years, when the refs have waved away rugby tackles. That's on the referee, not the opposition, who'll play that game if they're allowed to. (Fair play to them though.)

I don't think that is fair to Atleti actually. Gave us a good game, fair play.

Yeah, compare that to Konate, huge difference.