Liverpool ‘back’ after Zubimendi pursuit reveals Alonso plan with ‘desperate half-baked delusions’

The Liverpool optimism had sapped away until their pursuit of Martin Zubimendi revealed the managerial succession plan which will see Arne Slot leave soon.

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United on everyone’s mind
Everyone has an opinion on Manchester United, and everyone wants to hate Manchester United. It’s getting kind of boring. Dumbass opinion after dumbass opinion without a single brain cell used from opposition fans.

One thing I am slightly proud of is how the majority of United fans have level headed expectations, realistic goals and understand that 11 years back is a long time, and we know our current place in the league. It’s not at the top, or even the top 4.

First things first, the same old discussion of “everyone had injuries”. No, not to the scale United had, and not the drop off in quality that United have. Playing 40+ games in a season, and having your favored Starting XI for less than 4-5 of them shows why we sucked ass. You know one of the ONLY games we had our first choice center backs, we won the FA cup and we won it easily against the best team in the league/europe. Our entire back 4 was injured close to 75% of the season. I don’t remember Liverpool or City or Arsenal facing these issues. Our season started with Mainoo out for 2 months. We had Varane out for ages. Casemiro out for ages. Hojlund scored 8 in a row and got injured and lost all form. It was truly a horror show of injuries. So yeah, unless you can see what the drop off was when you replace Martinez with Evans & a fit Varane with Maguire, there is no point discussing this further. Again, the blame lies with the club, but not with ETH.

If our lowest post Fergie is 2 trophies in 2 seasons, then i fear Moyes is jumping with joy at all the success he had in playing dross football and being considered a better season than an FA Cup winning season. I can name at least 6 seasons since Fergie that were much much much sh*tter than the last one. I know cause i saw every minute of every one of them
A

I think what’s grating the opposition fans about United is that they want to see fan meltdowns, tears and general psychotic fan behaviour associated with some fan bases. Whereas most fans are happy to just see some signs of progress, winning a few trophies on the way while giving our manager the support and backing he deserves till he is not the manager anymore.

We know we had an insanely successful 30 years in the premier league, and are happy to see the rebuild and progress while supporting our injury laden team with a stadium roof that is falling down. We (most United fans, not all) will back our manager till the end, our players till the end, our rubbish stadium till the day it all falls down and turns to sh*t. We demand more from the owners, managers and players. But we support them even when 4-0 down to your Brentfords and Brightons & Huddersfields. Because that’s what support means. We demand a lot more, but we will not just start abusing Ten Hag with banners and protests just because that’s what opposition fans think we should.

I remember everyone laughing the entire last season that “hahaha i am glad you kept Ten Hag”. They werent laughing after we ended with a trophy which Chelsea got f***ed off to the Conference League, Newcastle out of Europe, and with a more valueable trophy than Klopps farewell quadruple attempt & trophyless Arsenal. So yeah, we are glad we kept the faith with Ten Hag and did not pull a Spurs and fire our manager before the final.

He is OUR manager. We will support him till the time he is a part of Manchester United. If he is sh*t, we will demand more from him or expect the owners to act and fire him. But we will not turn our back on him just for the sake of it. Results & trophies speak for itself. No one gives a sh*t about who is 2nd or reached the finals. If he didn’t win the FA Cup, he would be out. But he did so he deserves a second chance to do things his way. So yeah, bring on the season. And if it all turns to sh*t, we go again the season after.
A

The windscreen is bigger than the rearview
Must not bite…must not bite…ah f**k it!

Patricio Del Toro suggests “If results were dished out based on performances then Utd were genuine relegation contenders” – well if your granny had testicles she’d be your grandad!

Everyone knows we were poor for a lot of last season, and the circumstances have been flogged to death. Going by expected points we were the 15th best team in the league, well above the relegation zone by the way (phew), but that’s not how things work and the league is based on actual points won and not expected points or the ramblings of a keyboard warrior. We finished third the season before under TH and could easily bounce back up into the mix for top 4 this season, because that’s what can happen when building a squad whereby results and performances are inconsistent. Liverpool finished 8th during Klopp’s reign and Arsenal have finished 8th twice under Arteta – good things come to those who wait.

It should not be lost on anyone that Patricio is a Liverpool fan, so of course he’s still licking his wounds from United derailing their season last year. Following the last-minute FA Cup heartbreak, they came to OT expecting us to roll over and let them reclaim top spot in the league, but the game ended 2-2 as they scored a late equaliser and their season continued downhill from there as they lost to Palace and Everton soon after. Although kudos, this statement did make me laugh “However, Liverpool played actual children from January to April and were challenging for a quad until March”. Marvel at how close Klopp’s Kids (aka Elliot, Quansah and Bradley – all 21 by the way) came to a quadruple: knocked out of the FA Cup in the Quarter Finals; knocked out of the Europa League in the Quarter Finals; and finished 3rd in the League (only the 9 points behind City). No doubt the engravers were left with egg on their face after prematurely etching Liverpool FC onto those 3 trophies.

It’s nice of people to tell us, United supporters, what our expectations and targets should be this season, mocking us for having realistic expectations with claims of “oh how the mighty have fallen” and taking the p*ss for having the temerity to suggest we have seen some good signs in preseason. Newsflash numbnuts, we have fallen; hence why we’re trying to get back up again! Are we confident of reaching Top 4 this season, no but wouldn’t rule it out. According to the bookies we are joint 5th favourite to make top 4, so they don’t see us a million miles away.

We have made positive changes behind the scenes, we have bought and sold players, brought in new coaches with fresh ideas, have stuck by a manager who knows how to win trophies instead of ripping it all up and starting again, so forgive us for trying to look ahead with some positivity rather than dwell on past failures. The windscreen is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason.
Garey Vance, MUFC

So “Liverpool played actual children from January to April and were challenging for a quad until March”…

As a club that loves its facts, Liverpool fans will know they gave a whopping 136 minutes to teenagers in the premier league last season. Over a game and a half (only if you don’t include injury time).

United however stuck with the old guard, having had zero injuries all season, giving a meagre 4,971 minutes to young players in the same period. Almost 40 times as many minutes for the 20 times champions but these are just facts and it probably means more anyway.

Appreciate United fans may not have ample reason to be cheerful but I can’t see why it would be any better down the East Lancs?

You’ve got a blue club with no owner and awful players hoping the big ginge can do it again. Then you’ve got the red one that has just lost the world’s best manager (who couldn’t be arsed building a midfield before he left), has two star players – both in their thirties with a year left on their deals – and hasn’t signed a single soul.

Maybe Arne Slot is the messiah (there’ll be a nauseating banner like that anyway) but he has a similar CV to Ruud’s one season in the Netherlands.

One.

Cheers
Simón (Fully aware they’ll batter us September 1st) MUFC

On the ‘mend
You know what’s great about being a fan and not a pundit or former footballer? No one’s keeping track of what you’re saying. I recently wrote in to the mailbox with a rather downbeat assessment of Liverpool that you could summarise as – ‘Urgh’.

We’ve lost Klopp, the owners are spendthrifts, Trent/VVD/Salah are in the last 12 months of their contracts etc etc. I didn’t see much to be optimistic about. That wasn’t an indictment of Slot who I have yet to make an opinion about, and it doesn’t mean we would suffer abject failure, I just felt it unlikely we would be involved at the sharp end of a league or Champions League challenge. Which is fine. Liverpool are not entitled to always contend and most of my years supporting them they were a notch below Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, City before Klopp came in and finally dragged us into actual contention.

It was the end of our cycle and we would slip away for a while. When Klopp originally announced he was leaving, and we were linked with Alonso, I thought perhaps there could be a second dynasty. Klopp could hand over a young squad with lots of potential to the best up-and-coming coach in world football. Then he did the honourable thing of staying with the successful squad he had built at Leverkusen (Classic classy Xabi) and I realised that Madrid were building a group of galactico’s to rival any era and no matter how much he might love Liverpool, you’re always taking your homeland, his former team, Madrid and that squad over whatever Liverpool have to offer.

And so to Wednesday night. Family and work having sapped me of my energy, I just about summon the strength to click onto F365 before bed and what do I find…?

Zubimendi.

A player I vaguely recall from the Euro’s final. Immediately I do the usual check – is this like the 100 other transfer links a day I see and based entirely on bullshit. Wait, BBC, Sky Sports echoing the reporting. Ornstein and Romano too… OK, so there is real substance, better have a peruse of him on youtube.

Now being over 8 I know to take fan made video’s with a beach sized amount of salt, but regardless he seems a very skilful player playing in a position where we are desperately short. All good. Bit more reading. Alonso is his spirit dad. That’s interesting.

And then I see it. The plan. Alonso is coming. Give him 2 years to fulfil his obligations to Leverkusen and then he will take over from Slot. It just makes sense and is absolutely not the desperate half-baked delusions of a fan.

I’ve completed the flipflop. We’re back. Thanks unconfirmed transfer business…
Ed Ern

MORE ON ZUBIMENDI TO LIVERPOOL
👉 Ornstein reveals club ‘expect’ Arne Slot ‘priority’ to make £51m move to Liverpool
👉 First Liverpool signing hits rocks as Zubimendi ‘full of doubts’ with only ‘small chance’ of transfer

Are all VAR calls alike?
Not all VAR calls are alike. I’ve been thinking about which VAR calls are the least and most annoying.

Clear and obvious push, foul, red card, penalty, not spotted by the referee but brought up by VAR: least annoying.

Offside not called straight away and the goal opportunity is missed or saved, then VAR signals offside in the build-up: also not very annoying.

A handball nobody had spotted in the penalty area, turns out it’s a penalty according to VAR: more annoying. Even when it goes for my team, I still find this uncomfortable.

(If you watch games on TV in a pub with fans of different teams, you cheer loudly when your striker scores but do you cheer loudly because you got a marginal handball decision? I don’t think so).

A wrong card-related VAR moment, such as calling attention to a foul that gets upgraded to a red card, or calling a ref to a monitor to wrongly downgrade a red card, is pretty annoying.

And then, of course, the VAR marginal offside or spotted something in the build-up, which cancels what looks like a decent goal. Very, very annoying, and no matter the “them’s the rules” argument, it is hugely dispiriting.

Andy MUFC suggested I would be blowing a fuse if the other team scored a marginal offside goal; actually, no, I am capable of looking at the game dispassionately and saying he’s onside to the naked eye so it’s fine. It’s no more irritating than an other opposition goal.

What is far worse, however, is watching Lukaku score a goal at the Euros, and then have the VAR bring it back to an accidental handball by Openda down the wing, or DeBruyne score a goal which turned out to be valid, but not celebrating because I was sure there would be some excuse not to allow it. And then you say “Oh, it’s OK” instead of being able to cheer.

Basically, disallowed goals are the worst.
Paul in Brussels (Wolves fans were right to be aggrieved last season)

Offside
Dear Ed

It’s really quite simple. Impose a Premier League rule, each time a player is offside, the club should be fined £5000.

This forces clubs to start attacking from their own half, in effect negating the offside rule.

Maybe we can then also get rid of VAR and the marginal offside calls.

Best
Wik, Pretoria (oh how I hate the offseason and everyone trying to fix VAR in the mailbox), LFC

It is actually quite funny watching people argue where the line should go and how thick it is without ever realising no matter where they put the line or how thick it is some bleach drinker will always say “yeah but if it was 1cm thicker …”

If there’s wiggle room people will wiggle. That’s just how it is.

Id rather talk about handballs for a second. Another hot button issue. I was rewatching the classic Chelsea Vs Barca (it’s a disgrace!) match. In that game I genuinely think a modern ref would have awarded three penalties due to handball and each of them are ball to hand.

First the ball gets kicked up into ballacks arm. No pen then and probably correct. Then pique has the ball hit his hand but his arm is pretty much horizontal so it probably should have been given but isn’t. And finally ballack smashes a shot at goal and abidals arm is hit by the ball…above his head.

What do we do with this rule? Because it seems like every solution is a bad one. We can’t measure intent until prof.x decides to become the manager and literally look inside the players mind so the idea of accidental or not is really impossible to determine.

At the same time punishing every single time the ball ricochets into someone’s arm is insanely harsh. Spending ages determining how far the arm is extended and if it’s 30 ° angled blah blah just makes that inevitable review take longer.

The only thing I can think of is when it’s stopped a goal bound shot – penalty. When it’s deflected or ricocheted into your arm indirect free kick. Because if it’s an accidental handball in the centre of the field it’s a free kick, why would it be different elsewhere?

Incidentally doesn’t it give some weight to the idea that all box handballs are kind of intentional when you consider handballs outside the box are really really rare? I know i know less shots etc but even accounting for that how often do you see a handball outside the box? Twice a season? For the whole league? But inside the box it’s usually about 3 or four games a week.

Anyway whats people’s opinion on handballs?
Lee