Looking Ahead to 2024
Merry Christmas, friends. With hindsight, last week’s column was too doom laden for the eve of the festive season. "Aye, here we are with problems at the top of the league,” and all that.
There remains a lot to be positive about with regards to this version of Liverpool, so as 2023...
Frustrating Stalemate
There’s a strange thing which occurs too often in football for it to be entirely random: a massive victory will be followed by a very underwhelming result.
In Liverpool’s final title winning season in the pre-Premier League era, they beat Crystal Palace 9-0 at Anfield. Eight different players scored, John Aldridge marked his final...
Klopp’s Assessment
“For 76 minutes it was a really bad performance. We did have rhythm changes; we didn't have any kind of acceleration. We had no timing. I don't know how often we were offside, it was horrendous, so that's always a bit of a sign that we are a bit too passive.”
Amen to that,...
Liverpool's Resilience Against Man City
Would you have taken a point ahead of kick-off against Manchester City on Saturday lunchtime? If you wouldn’t have at 12:30, you almost certainly would have just after 2pm, with the Reds a goal down and time rapidly running out.
It was always going to be difficult for Liverpool to create...
What xG Can’t Tell You
Liverpool’s 3-0 victory over Brentford last weekend was a travesty. Or at least it was if you choose to live and die by expected goals as your means of adjudication, with FBRef deeming it the joint-sixth most unjust result in the 2023/24 Premier League. Still, at least it wasn’t Aston...
Late Drama in Liverpool's League Clash
Liverpool’s last league game ended in Late Drama, with both sides scoring in the Final Minutes (plus stoppage time) of the match. Yet it needn’t have turned out that way with some Sharp Finishing.
Reds' Sharp Finishing Secures Point
In the Reds’ 1-1 draw at Luton on Sunday, four of their...
Liverpool's Impressive 3-0 Win Over Nottingham Forest
While Liverpool didn’t have to be at their very best to beat Nottingham Forest 3-0 last weekend, there were a number of decent performances across the team. The whole squad deserves tremendous credit for playing so well in the immediate aftermath of the dreadful news regarding Luis Díaz’...
The Art of the Soundbite
Bill Shankly was the master of the soundbite, the one-liner, the quip. Imagine how he’d be on Twitter in 2023, with Everton struggling every year. Even their own fans want to draw the curtains when they’re playing these days.
Jürgen Klopp also has a way with words, which is all the...
VAR in Premier League Football
As the below video will tell you, it is the time of VAR, and it has been for quite some time. The Premier League introduced the Video Assistant Referee process ahead of the 2019/20 season, ah, memories. This means that, as of now, there have been 1,559 matches played with...
Liverpool's Pre-Season Preparations: A Mixed Bag
Liverpool’s pre-season preparations for the 2023/24 campaign continued Wednesday with an entertaining 4-3 loss to Bayern Munich. While it’s pointless to read too much into friendlies, the same old positives (going forward) and negatives (the defending) from last season were in full effect.
In the Reds’ last five matches played,...
