Stottie

Just to focus on the reason why we lost Darwin Nunez vs. all PL teams except us (understat numbers) 1657 minutes 8 goals off 60 odd shots and 14.08 xG (minus 6 goals vs. xG) Darwin Nunez vs. NUFC (two games) 72 minutes 3 goals off 4 shots and 0.79xG (plus 2.2 goals vs. xG) Klopp only gave him 9 minutes, so hardly a tactical masterstroke. It was basically just a freak result.

Nice post! As for the potential concern of "we can't beat a low block (or 10 men)", this low block or 10 men was Liverpool with the best goalie in the league. Other teams' low block won't be as good. Last week a team called NUFC created a fine defensive display at the Etihad that limited Man City to 1.0 to 1.3 xG. I doubt many of their fans were calling for wholesale changes or dismissing Haarland et. al as ineffective. Rodri's error created a big chance to score, but we missed it and Nunez scored the chances he got.

A brilliant performance from him which deserved a win. Great movement and never loses the ball. He gets lots of hate for reasons I can't quite comprehend, I think it is some combination of his face, his accent, his history with prior clubs, and his tenaciousness on the field, so huge amounts of noise to screen out about him. If you'll excuse the politics, some of the noise will be from folks with otherwise progressive views, because kicking down on people who seem working class or "common" never gets the limelight other forms of prejudice do.

I agree with the comment, and just want to add that I think the "reason" was Maddison being on 170k a week at Spurs. FFP likely also cost us one of Szobo and Diaby. FFP mean less quality on the pitch, and quality on the pitch decided yesterday's game. This does not mean Howe could have set up better in the second half. His subs are one-dimensional and "have a try to please everyone" preprogrammed feel about them. Even if the plan is "use 90 mins of energy in 60 mins and get replaced", that's still one-dimensional. This match was a classic example of a team failing to properly manage what was a very favourable game state. There was a flukey, run-of-the-ball aspect to it, but a strong bench and a man advantage for over 60 minutes should do better when a goal up to overcome the randomness that will always be present in football matches.

As an individual Nunez scored two off 0.42.

No FFP and we buy a right winger who does not cut inside or simply stop and pass it back. We wanted Diaby or Szobo. FFP said no. If we do better down the right, I think it would make enough of a difference/margin to come out winners here.

70-80% good and 20-30% absolute disaster + flashes of true quality from Nunez that decided what should have been an easy match. It would be nice to see Nunez do it against someone else and not just us. This one's going to hurt. Stay off social media. No FFP and I think we win this match. We came close and could have won anyway with better game management, but we came up just one body short. Stronger in just one position and we get a second.

Yes yes yes

I can't say I've noticed the word "rivalry" much on here. People just dislike Liverpool. My own reasons for this are Repeated diving and other cheating (Gerrard getting Bowyer sent off etc.) in this fixture European Super League, trying to block our takeover, and other closed shop type behaviour. Ridiculously high number of ex-Liverpool pundits blurting on about them all the time with zero impartiality. Klopp nonstop whinging in the past two or three years. Before that he was okay.

We should ignore that tweet and live and let live. We're not rivals because we're in the Champions League and they're in the Europa on Thursdays.

We did better than that. 4 vs. Chelsea, 6 vs. Spurs, 4 vs. Man U, 1 vs. City, and 1 vs. Arsenal makes 16.

He probably calls the police "the Feds". To me, that's a shit brewery. It's a bit ironic for Hurst to go on about the Geordie Nation because the first two episodes are basically the board and commercial team desperately trying to expand the fanbase worldwide to increase revenue. It's all "30m potential fans in Saudi Arabia". They correctly realize that that is the key to growing the club.

Salah is on 350k, presumably with UK taxes. His former team-mates Fabinho and the mackem are now on 700k each, with Saudi taxes.

Salah plays right, Mitoma plays left. Ornstein?! Does that mean there's something in this. I do hope so.

I've just watched the extended highlights, in better res than the stream I watched, and you can see Isak stopping for a pullback just before Gordon fires it across the six yard line. Isak puts his hands to his face when he sees where the ball goes. More time playing together for them to get an understanding and that's a goal.

Here are some stats about our record last year when you combine the top five European leagues into one table. Fewest goals against: 5th xG: 8th xGA: 11th Expected goal difference per 90 mins : 6th (!) Points per game : 17th Most wins: 19th Most draws : joint 4th Fewest league defeats : joint 3rd (!) We also got to a domestic cup final, so can be considered a good cup team. https://fbref.com/en/comps/Big5/2022-2023/2022-2023-Big-5-European-Leagues-Stats

Today's stat of the day is that Gordon leads the league in being fouled. Nine times so far, once every fifteen minutes. Bruno is second. Gordon's been called for second most fouls too, but just five. Stats from fbref. Some fans make claims about Gordon's temperament, but he's in the wars all the time and mostly on the receiving end. I'm sure Liverpool will kick him and try to get into his head at the weekend, they did it before when he was at Everton. That season, 21-22, he ended up seventh most fouled player in the league in just 25 games' worth of minutes.

I reckon Chelsea will come to regret both Livramento and Hall.

Liverpool pundits have no right to demand rule changes for "right and wrong". They got one of the biggest refereeing/"rules of the game" gifts in the history of big matches, a penalty in the first minute of the CL final against Spurs. The ball hits Sissoko's knee from about one yard away, nowhere near the goal, bounces up to his hand, and the ref points to the spot because of "unnatural position" or other small print bollocks. No-one talked about "right and wrong" on that day. With 2023 rules, I doubt it would be given.

The bare minimum for decency here was for Greenwood to confess that it was him on the audio and admit he'd acted in an indefensible way. He could then state (hopefully accurately) that he'd had lots of counselling and was now appalled about how he acted. He could also urge other men to refrain from such behaviour, send the stongest possible message to incel types to not bully his partner or other women (including the Man U womens team and Lionesses) over this, and finally beg for forgiveness. From a PR perspective, he would probably need to frame it all as "DV" to get the conversation about him as far from "rape" as possible. Marriage guidance people will hear of DV all the time, the vast majority of which will not involve criminal investigations. That should not be raised as an issue. This would probably not get him back in the team, but at least some good or reparation would have come out of it. As it is, we are left with "no crime was committed!" as the loudest message and suspicion that he's just paid her off. This is appalling.

Came in here to admit to being far too emotionally involved in this game. It looks like everyone else is the same! Poetic justice would be a 1-0 off a penalty won by an Alexander Isak dive. Miggy or Gordon and they won't give it. Let's see how their fans fucking like it. We're the Champions League team now, like Ray Winstone, the new Daddy, and we're at home. We should get the decisions, not them.

I thought it before Saturday's game, but isn't Alvarez a step up on Gabriel Jesus? Jesus doesn't score from there. Arsenal have better wide forwards than Man City, but there is no contest down the middle. Liverpool's classic front three was goals out wide and a linking false nine in the middle, but I'm not sure that wins you the league any more.

Some berk at the Guardian said we could have finished with "nine players". I reckon some of it will be Liverpool bias in commentators willing our players to be sent off to even up the Mac Allister red.

Bruno F, Rashford, Garnacho, and Antony have hit 27 shots, only four on target. None of them have scored. Only two games, but my suspicion is they'll need Hojlund to hit the ground running. Their team lacks goals.

Yes, I find the "we Geordies are special" stuff cringeworthy. I'm a Geordie but I don't think I'm special. A cartoon version of working class Northerners is partly to blame for the rise of Lee Anderson and all his "I speak for ordinary people" bollocks. You don't speak for me pal. Yes, the club all looks very professional, which is reassuring if rather dull. There's no sign of a Balotelli setting off fireworks in his bathroom. I'm still halfway through episode 2, but do the kids who came up with the Joelinton Hawaiian shirts get a mention? A bit more quirky stuff like that would be nice to see.