Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2024/25

City, 3 points from their last 12.

Relegation form.

Any word on Macallister's injury?

Was laughing and joking with klopp walking on the pitch at FT so say its nothing major, battered and bruised id say.

Devastating news for Matip.

At least for him the worst case scenario he retires at 33 with tens of millions.

Been a huge servant to the club, arguably a more important free agent signing than even Milner.

I would be surprised.

MacAllister with a cut to his leg that required stitches. Nothing serious but not sure if he will be available for Saturday

What did he say

Same reply as above regarding Joe...is he really or did he just have a really good game tonight? Cos I would "fcuking love it" if he was...

I see Marcus Buckland from Amazon is making friends.

What I find interesting about this where it is 100% true is that the presenter can say anything and not get into any trouble, but if Klopp talks negatively he will get another fine and possible touchline ban. It is obvious this presenter is not used to football as he set a trap for Klopp but got called out on it.

An a related note, Oh Joy another 12h30 kick-off away. Guess TNT had to get us when they could as they missed out due to us playing on Thursday...

Every team should play a 12.30 game before the first selected team is picked again.

I a fan of Jo myself, but he was atrocious on the ball last night. He started poorly, got caught in possession on the halfway line that gave up a good chance to SU, and I think it effected him. He was like he was wearing boots on the wrong feet or something, looked nervous, misplaced passing, poor ball control. It's not his strongest part of his game anyway, but he's normally adequate enough - he wasn't last night.

Anyway, 3 points.

because the presenter threw in a couple of sly digs at the start

Don't think we are playing particularly well, getting by on individual talent. Midfield still doesn't work, its not fluid, too many bodies in there maybe. Its understandable its a new midfield. Trent sat back a bit in the end and Szobo excelled, he was getting forward making things happen, I really don't want to see his talents stunted.

I don't think midfield was an issue last night, you could argue that Endo and Szobo we're our 2 best players after Virgil. Our issue lately, and it was at it worst last night, is our forward line has fallen flat, particularly Diaz and Salah, but Gakpo has been poor of late too. All constantly losing the ball, badly under hitting or just completely misplacing passes, some of the poor first touches from them have been dreadful altogether.

Nunez gets a lot of flack, some of it deserved. But he's the only real threat we offer at the minute, teams are content defending against us when Gakpo starts up front as they can double up on Salah and Diaz is not offering much on the other side currently. Gakpo is tidy and can nick a goal when presented to him, but he has zero aggression and sometimes that's what you want from your No.9.

When Nunez plays he makes live so difficult with his strength and movement, so he takes completely focus of both centre backs and it makes it much harder to defend against a front 3. Salah has 12 goals this season and only 1 of them have come with Nunez not on the field. That stat says a lot.

Because they only agreed to move those to 8 that played in Europe on the Wednesday night not league or cup games, after this weekend Liverpool will have 3 TNT games left for the season for 12:30pm

Big fan of Nunez, I do believe the goals will come for him and he'll be unstoppable. Its easy to see why the fans like him so much, he's like Suarez, pure aggression and would die on the pitch for every ball. How many forwards do you see make a tackle like he did last night to set up Szobo?

But Nunez is the problem.......

Why is every discussion painted in such a reductionist, binary fashion?

There was an element of 'being dragged down to their level' last night with Sheffield United, and the game was a real slog of a game. Stodgy. Those dirty wet away games in December. But what if Liverpool did it in purpose? It wasn't too far away from the performance away to Luton but I think they actually played better against Luton and created more clear cut opportunities, just that the finishing was off. 

Does Klopp send them out to be real possession heavy, at one point last night it was 80-20 in the second half after being 80-20 in the first half. Gakpo was basically in midfield packing the midfield and Trent there too. Lots of options to keep the ball and work/tire out SHU instead of ourselves. A lot of corners, and maybe this was targeted as SHU have had some big problems from set pieces this season. With the possession heavy game, it helps conserve legs somewhat and this week is a week where legs are needed. It was very noticable that Trent sat back for the second half, after the lead was taken, and tried to rest where possible rather than playing both DM + RB. 

It was only when Nunez came on that the chaos came, and started making runs in behind, into the channels etc and that started to open up the game. Maybe game state dictated this with SHU opening up a bit, but this was also when Szobozlai's running came to the fore too and he could have a bigger impact. 

Maybe Klopp designed that, so that the team is somewhat fresh for Saturday morning. Trent kind of rested, Tsimikas fully rested, Salah got a rest, Nunez got a rest. Gravenberch & Jones rested.