Irish Paul

I don't buy that excuse either, other than the fact he's just a huge loss as a player and along with Diaz and even Nunez, you're losing a lot of workrate and defensive work compared to Wirtz, Isak & Ekitike. With a waning Salah up there too, their pressing game is non-existent and they're easy to play against.

Always thought we should have tried to buy Kelleher. Less error prone than Pope and infinitely better with his feet.

Beautiful footwork from Barnes to control and finish.

Brilliant assist from Bruno too.

With the benefit of hindsight who would people buy/sell? I assume everyone would still sell Isak and buy Thiaw but beyond that? Or in other words, who looks good that would have come here? And, would you still sign Nick? Was Wissa the right signing but just rotten luck? Would anyone make a case for still signing Elanga, Ramsey etc? Completely pointless but interesting question imho.

66/1 to go down with PP and Boyles which seems very high to me. Good price if anyone wants to take out some insurance. I'd have us in the region of a 12/1 - 16/1 shot for it. Hall, Livramento and Wissa back in the mix should make us way too good. Might win a cup yet. We must be nearing the point where our best/only hope of getting back into the champions league is winning it Summer business looking catastrophic at this point. Isak has somehow managed to wreck two clubs singlehandedly.

Burn's body language is terrible in those situations. Holds out his hands and has that "Oh no I've just given away a pen" look written all over his face, even when he hasn't fouled. Has to have an influence on the VAR official's thinking.

Didn't see the game but saw the headlines that TAA was jeered last night. You'll never walk alone, unless despite giving years of brilliant service and so much success, honouring your contract, you decide you want to try something else in your short career but treat the club honestly and respectfully in the way you leave. The modern Liverpool fan base is the opposite of what it purports to be.

The taking-a-knee thing feels very hollow and corporate to me. If you tried to protest against, say, Israeli apartheid at a Premier League game — even in the most peaceful, non-obtrusive way — you'd be out on your ear. "We're all for equality as long as it's good for business" is what it feels like to me. We've seen a Match of the Day presenter, and even club staff (the Arsenal kit man, for one), lose their jobs for speaking out against that supremacist state. Meanwhile, the players taking the knee every week remain silent on a genocide rooted in supremacism and racism. The clubs, including our own one obviously, are owned by billionaires who support equality about as much as they'd support wealth tax. Taking a knee is sanctioned and safe; it couldn't be further from the bravery of Tommie Smith, John Carlos, or Colin Kaepernick, in that respect. I agree with the sentiment of it, but it just feels so hollow. I'd also look at British politics and opinion polls and wonder whether the knee-taking has had any positive impact at all.

Wonderful bit of shithousery from Cunha with a minute to go when he wouldn't let play continue out of concern for the injured Liverpool player. Very good at using his body position, strength &. close control to win free kicks and relieve the pressure too.

I can only congratulate those in Newcastle that they found an idiot who paid that much money for him.

Injured himself diving again?

"Hindsight..... low-risk.....just pure bad luck.. no one could have seen it coming". You'd think from reading some of the posts here that Wissa had been struck by lightning or a tree had fallen on his head, so unforeseeable was this terrible misfortune. He's an ageing professional footballer who got injured playing football. Ramsey got injured too but not a major problem really (even if he had been out for the same length of time), it could all work out long term. With Wissa we went all-in on the short term.

Almost no one on here would have wanted him at that price, and there were pages of posts earlier on this thread of people saying they didn't want him because of his behaviour. Once the news broke that we'd signed him, everyone changed their tune. There's a lot of denial at play here or maybe it's a sense that Eddie is infallible. I never wanted Wissa. Isak is a prick, and he's not much better.

I'd disagree that Woltemade was higher risk. Even if he wasn't very good(looks like he is thankfully) he would still have had some sell on value. Plus the potential reward part of the gamble was much higher with Woltemade.

It WAS impeccable.

Shite. Impeccable injury record is no guarantee, especially at that age and the type of player he is. At that price, he was going to have to hit the ground running(with no football played having gone on strike) and be brilliant for us in the short term, there is no long term with him in all honesty. He was always going to miss the Afcon period. All it was going to take was one injury, not even a huge one, and it was going to look a big mistake, which is where we're at now. Ludicrous to call it low risk.

We could moan about our luck on this one but paying huge money for a 29yo tool-downer whose game is primarily dependant on his athleticism was stupid. He's not a Teddy Sheringham type who has years left at the highest level. A high risk, low reward gamble.

That VAR official will be promoted to Grand Master of the Orange Lodge for that call.

Called it stupid and said he could maybe understand a player celebrating like that if he'd gone past 3 players and stuck it in the top corner, but for that goal, he should have just went over and thanked Chiesa who did all the work. It was surprisingly cutting and honest I thought.

Fair play to Arne Slot. Great answer there about the Ekitike sending off.

Fair enough, left myself open for that one, but I'm very happy with the Woltemade signing as I mentioned earlier. I meant instead of Wissa of course, this being the Wissa thread.

Like the look of Tolu for Wolves there, 23.4m from Genk. Big athletic fella, delicate finish for his goal, 23yo. That's the kind/age of player we should have been buying. People on here are fooling themselves about Wissa. When he was just a rumour almost no one on here wanted him - overpriced (when the price was around 45m) and behaviour/character no better than Isak was the consensus. Now we've signed him, no one will say a bad word about him.

He's played well for Roma in the first few games, hasn't scored though.

We should have offloaded Wilson and Osula, ran a mile from Wissa at that price, signed Woltemade and 2 other strikers at the bargain end of the market. As another poster mentioned DCL would indeed be a big improvement on Osula. Even the likes of (Irish lads) Evan Ferguson and Troy Parrott, would be a step up from Wilson/Osula, and wouldn't have cost too much. Wissa signing looks insane. 55m for a speedster who's at the age where he'll start to lose his speed. Plus he did an Isak to leave which makes him harder to cheer for and takes away any moral high ground we could have claimed on that.