Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2024/25

We are so conditioned to Keita picking up small niggles of injuries for the most innocuous of things - kicking the grass for example.

It would be very ironic if he gets stretchered off the field in a game but somehow is fit for the next game!

Quality performance yesterday from him. I was very impressed with his work off the ball, and then when he got it, he used it smartly.

I had read that Souness had offered some good commentery yesterday so I did a Google search to try and view it.

Was surprised at the suggested search results.

Enjoy no bank holiday for me in the North so was a good hour killer today

Disaster sells more. Also so many pundits/journalist placed United above Liverpool and that Liverpool wouldn't challenge at the start of the season so they won't be bringing up the fact that Liverpool are title contenders any time soon.

Many of them are still asking is VVD being back the reason for the uptick in form, still ignoring that Gomez and Matip didn't play for most the season either. Barely a braincell between most of them, they like Ole are scratching their head trying to figure out how they've got it so wrong.

Hardly any. Was all about United.

sit back and enjoy

5-0 flattered Utd.

Tuesday and I'm still laughing 🤣🤣🤣

Any word on Thiago's injury or his likely return?

It thought it was more humiliating, Liverpool having a low intensity training session at Old Trafford from 50 odd minutes on & still winning 5-0

Looks like it could be after the next international break

Am I losing the plot or was their no Neville / Carragher Monday Night Football show last night? IIRC it's normally on Sky Premier League at 7pm but for the life of me I couldn't find it and searched other channels in case it had been moved. Has it been dropped or was it just not on last night for some reason?

Keita should be ok, his foot thankfully wasn't planted. Just a nasty whack to the shins.

Genuinely still gutted we eased up on them. Could have made it truly a historic battering and improved the GD even more to boot.

Telegraph piece on Bobby

One day, a long, long time from now, it would be interesting to sit down with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, in the unlikely event he could stomach reliving this humiliation, to ask him what plan - if any - he had in mind coming into this to try to muzzle Roberto Firmino.

Because, amid the fixation on and fear induced by man of the moment Mohamed Salah, Manchester United forgot all about the cat burglar Liverpool have in their midst.

Firmino’s work was done long before he exited the stage 14 minutes from time and slipped into a warm embrace with Jurgen Klopp - the manager all United fans secretly wish they called their own - as the Liverpool supporters momentarily halted their brutal taunting of Solskjaer to stand to acclaim their imperious No 9.

It was only marginally more fitting than Klopp’s eulogy to Firmino after the game. “Mo obviously gets a lot of attention and rightly so but Bobby Firmino, for people with football knowledge...I’m pretty sure when he finishes playing people will write books about how he interpreted the false nine position,” the Liverpool manager said with the deepest admiration.

“I won’t say he invented it but the way he plays it looks like it at times. He played outstandingly well.”

Players this clever are hard enough to shackle with a game plan. Take them on without one and you are simply asking for punishment and what was as deeply troubling was Solskjaer’s lack of response when it was clear to everyone inside Old Trafford that Firmino had United exactly where he wanted them.

Operating almost as an advanced midfielder at the tip of a diamond, Firmino revelled in that half space just behind or in between Fred and Scott McTominay and ahead of Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof, who seemed in a perpetual state of confusion about what to do with the elusive Brazilian. Part centre-forward, part false nine, part playmaker and, on this day, a ghost as far as United were concerned.

Maguire should never have been drawn out to Firmino for Liverpool’s first goal inside five minutes but this is what he does - he creates uncertainty, drag players out of position, he teases and torments.

United were already like dominoes falling before Diogo Jota prodded the ball through to Firmino in the inside left channel just over the halfway line but his positioning was immaculate and set the tone for what was to follow.

Behind him he had McTominay scrambling to come back, ahead of him he sucked Maguire out and from there slipped a perfect pass into Salah who, with the help of Luke Shaw playing too deep, played in Naby Keita to score. It was like Firmino was playing chess all day with United and constantly had their players in check.

It was not just Firmino’s quality on the ball, though. His efforts out of possession are fundamental to Klopp’s press and that work-rate shamed United’s own forwards, whose half-hearted approach to closing down space was one of a litany of fault lines on a truly wretched day for the club.

When Salah scored his third and Liverpool’s fifth shortly after the restart, it stemmed from Firmino rushing back and hounding Paul Pogba off the ball before Jordan Henderson released Liverpool’s top scorer with a stunning pass. “What he did defensively was absolutely insane,” Klopp said.

Liverpool were everything United were not: organised, bright, sharp, incisive, committed, hungry, technically accomplished and with complete clarity about their roles and their manager’s intentions. In Salah, they also have an executioner and Firmino, most obviously, revels in the attention the Egyptian attracts given how much space it frees up for him to exploit.

Firmino was not the orchestrator of Liverpool’s third goal but it did provide a neat snapshot of the panic Salah invites. You could have thrown a blanket over United’s back four, McTominay and Mason Greenwood as they were all drawn, like a magnet, to Salah.

It left the right side totally free for Keita to speed into and cross for Salah, whose reaction to his shot being blocked by Maguire was half a second quicker than anyone in a red shirt.

After a trying last season, Liverpool are back with a bang and, with Manchester City and Chelsea also flying, the Premier League could be shaping up for a genuine three-horse title race.

Things are looking positive on the injury front.

Yeah, I was a bit hungover from Sunday (well well worth it!) so wasn't sure of myself when I saw Larne Vs Linfield on Sky Premier League. I thought what are Sky doing taking what must be one of their most watched programmes off in favour of a match so few people would spend time watching!!

I was really looking forward to seeing Carra and Neville dissect Sundays match 😎

Robertson didn't go forward much and had a relative easy time defensively. In the first 25 minutes the furthest he went forward was about 15 yards inside Man Utd's half and that was when he misplaced the pass back to Milner.

7 seconds later, Milner had chased Ronaldo to the edge of the 18 yard box and Robertson had made up the ground. Greenwood was nowhere to be seen, he was about 30 yards behind the ball and strolling. He should have been given a kick in the arse at that stage.

Greenwood's most positive contribution was in the 10th minute when he lumped the ball forward into the 18 yard box from just inside Liverpool's half. Rashford and Ronaldo look at him bewildered and his manager gave him a thumbs up from the side line. 🤣

Henderson, Robertson and Jota each received instructions from the coaching staff while Milner was being treated. After that the team sat back more and encouraged them to come forward, leaving gaps for us to exploit.

He actually rang in sick, Probably covid but they never said,

Brilliant

No Tsimiskas?

Edit: Nevermind, he's cut off the edge on mobile.

As Mentioned Gordon is injured and given the state of our midfield options right now I wouldn't want to risk Jones. Ox needs a game, only reason I'd taker a chance on him. No idea who'd play instead of Jones or Gordon though!