ljkeane

Lamptey touched the ball. I agree the Jesus one should be a penalty but Howard Webb came out after the Liverpool City match and said the Doku one at the end wasn't a penalty because he got a touch on the ball. So what's the interpretation there? He doesn't kick out his leg to the side to initiate contact (which is usually why it's not given) or collapse his weight to initiate contact. He just brings his leg through. He does it because he knows Wan Bissaka has dived in but, hey, either get the ball or don't dive in. Pretty clear penalty for me.

Come on. He's seen him coming, nicked the ball away and is absolutely going for the penalty but he's not obliged to hurdle Wan Bissaka's leg. Fuck off. You're really burnt out on the best manger we're likely to have for the forseeable future? Ok then.

We can't really have any complaints with that result. An easy win was there for the taking and we've shot ourselves in the foot. ETA: Very like the cup game to be honest. Probably should have learned some lessons.

United appear to have overwatered the pitch to try and restrict our passing game. Feels very like the FA cup game so far. Klopp’s picked a very ‘we’ll win in a back and forth shootout game’ side but that doesn’t work if we don’t put away some of these opportunities.

To be fair with Diaz I think his end product is always going to be a bit hit and miss but I think there was a period at the start of the year when it looked a real concern that he wasn't going to be able to get back to the level he was at after his knee injuries. I don't think that's the case anymore. I also think he's got a pretty tough job when we play Gomez tucking into midfield from leftback rather than Robertson. Basically he has to hold the width to stretch teams and he's got a right footed Gomez and a right footed midfielder inside him so there's not often anyone overlapping or much threat of an early ball into the box so it's quite easy for defences to double up on him. Brighton - Arsenal should be interesting tonight. Brighton are absolutely going to try and draw Arsenal's press onto them and try and play through it so it's either going to not work and they're going to get battered or they could cause Arsenal some problems. I suspect the former is more likely but it'll be fun to see them try anyway.

Christian Cameron's Treason of Sparta was pretty good. I like Cameron's books and he obviously likes writing about Greek history so something about the Peloponnesian War is the obvious thing he hasn't covered yet. He also obviously likes Arimnestos from his Long War series but I feel, a bit like Bernard Cornwell with his Uhtred books, that he's probably stretching the reasonable period you can cover with a character and maybe he should have just started a completely new series.

I thought that too but, to be fair, looking at the crowd behind the goal for Cole Palmer’s penalty it didn’t seem like too many had. If it’s that open a game I suppose you always think you have a chance.

Okay that was fun.

Well that was nervy as fuck. A bit of a complacent performance from the players I think after the goal but I think Klopp got it a bit wrong too. The lack of a left footed option on the left makes it a bit too easy for teams defending deep and Gravenberch has potential but it’s not quite clicked for him yet. Elliott probably should have started, it’s his birthday too. On the plus side Jones is back and he looked sharp already.

So I've been a bit wary of saying it, 'cause you think 'hey, City aren't as good this season' and then it comes together and they reel off 15 wins to end the year, but City have definitely dropped off a bit this season haven't they? I think they deliberately made themselves a bit worse at the traditional Pep style by getting Haaland in, who's a bit of a passenger in general play, in the pursuit of being better in the latter stages of the Champions League but when he scores 36 goals it probably balances itself out. If he only gets 20-25 goals I'm not quite sure it does. Add in they haven't really adequately replaced Gundogan or Mahrez (probably should have kept Palmer). Plus it looking like De Bruyne might be struggling to hit the same heights post injury at 32 and they're not quite what they were. The problem is even a not as good version of City are still clearly better than everyone other than Arsenal and Liverpool and you could still easily see them winning the remaining 9 games.

If you look at the xg numbers though it's pretty clear Arsenal have the best defence. Liverpool do somewhat defend in a way that factors in that Alisson's the best keeper in the league but, still, I think it tracks with the eye test that Arsenal look a lot more solid defensively than the other two sides.

Arsenal definitely came to get a draw and a win would have been a bonus. They defended pretty well and, fair enough, it’s a decent result but I’d worry not taking a chance to widen the gap from City might be costly. For Liverpool I suppose there’s a good argument that’s the best result but, I don’t know, I’d still have preferred to open up more of a gap to City even if it’d mean we’d still be behind Arsenal.

Yeah, I suppose. City were pretty happy to take the draw in that game though, I’m not sure they will be today. Arsenal seem to have picked up the tempo a bit in this half and Kovacic does look a bit vulnerable to being pressured. City seem to have sacked off the centre back into midfield tactic they’ve been using and they’re just having Rico Lewis do it. Makes sense.

Arsenal have actually been a lot less proactive with the press than I thought they’d be. I know a draw at the Etihad isn’t a bad result for them and you risk City cutting you open if you try and press and get it wrong but, I don’t know, it feels like if you let City have 70% possession it’s eventually going to cost you.

I’m interested to see how this one goes. Arsenal’s best quality is their press. In both the FA Cup and league games Klopp backed our attack to play through that press and probably got it wrong, we looked a lot better when he stopped doing that and played direct up to Nunez. City are better at passing through midfield than Liverpool but they could play direct to Haaland if they wanted to.

Mac Allister was very good as the deepest midfielder too. He’s not quite as good as Endo at the destructive side of things but his progressive passing is excellent. I think he’d have been the perfect Gundogan replacement for City but fortunately they didn’t see it that way.

PGMOL had to come out and apologise for the non penalty decision for the Odegaard handball in the Anfield game this season too. They didn’t admit they were wrong for the Doku non penalty but listening to the VAR audio was interesting. ‘They’ve both gone in high’. Fucking what? It’s been a fun year on the refereeing front.

Fucking hell, the refusal to just play the game out in injury time there wasn’t fun. Anyway, good win. Mac Allister is a quality midfielder. We’re lucky no one else seemed to be interested in competing with for his signature in the summer.

So this is fairly nerve wracking. Brighton always try and play through the press and Klopp’s response to that is to be even more aggressive with it. Every time Brighton have the ball in their own half it seems like it’s going to be a chance at one end or the other. Salah was largely at fault for the Brighton goal but, on the plus side, before the international break he looked very reluctant to do anything that would require him to break into a sprint, he looks a lot happier to try and get in behind today.

Newcastle post Saudi takeover are firmly in the ‘teams I want to lose every game’ bracket and, as I said, I don’t think that was in anyway a penalty but, fair play, this is entertaining.

I don’t think Gordon’s in any way taken possession of the ball there. He’s just put his leg on the way of Phillips, I think that’s a foul on Gordon’s part actually.

I mean, yeah, given their resources any squad issues they have are largely a reflection of the choices they’ve made in their squad construction. Still, losing their two best defenders is a problem and I doubt Gvardiol will be replacing either of Stones or Walker on the right side of the defence. They don’t really have anyone who replicates the centre back into midfield role at anywhere near the level Stones does it at. The depth behind Walker at right back isn’t the strongest either, it’s probably either Rico Lewis or just going with an out and out centre back there.

Shame about Alonso but you can’t really begrudge him wanting to give it another season with his Leverkusen side. You’d think that means he’s targeting the Real job next since the Liverpool job is probably unlikely to be available in 2025 and I don’t really see the point of leaving it a year to go to Bayern. England/Southgate have done Arsenal a big favour with both Stones and Walker out of Sunday’s game. That’s a pretty huge blow for City.

So I found Locklands a bit of a strange read. It's a very imaginative and well thought out setting and the story's good but elements of it didn't really click with me. Next up I'm going to red Christian Cameron's Treason of Sparta.

I watched it, which was a terrible decision. I got suckered in by it being England Brazil but you never watch international friendlies. Anyway, England were fucking terrible in attack, they really created absolutely no chances of note. I think that’s a more worrying issue than the defence, if you’ve got that much talent and are still mind numbingly boring going forward that’s a bit of a damning indictment I’d say.