We have more mails on Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp and the real worry is that the German cannot fix this himself.

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Ba-dum-tish
I turned off the game after Salah’s goal. Did I miss anything?
John, LFC, Washington DC

…The most special of all those special nights at Anfield.
Aidan, EFC, Hoxton

What’s the score?
Nik in the Wednesday morning mailbox says it wasn’t that bad – the stats were, after all, ‘on an even keel’…

Except the score, obviously, which, according to certain schools of thought, is one of the more important stats to consider in football…
Andy (MUFC)

Not adding up
Interesting to read TM (bring back Origi) comment this morning on John Henry wanting to join the super league: “This is what you’d be signing up to. Week in week out. Being spanked by clubs that actually buy players, consistently, every year.”

So I thought I’d compare the transfer history of Liverpool and Real over the last three seasons to get to the bottom of this spanking. I haven’t included returning loans or promotions from youth teams.

22/23 – Liverpool signed Nunez, Gakpo, Carvalho, Ramsay and Melo for 190 million. Real signed Tchouameni and Rudiger for 80 million.

21/22 – Liverpool signed Diaz and Konate for 87 million. Real signed Camavinga and Alba for 31 million.

20/21 – Liverpool signed Jota, Thiago, Tsimikas and Kabak for 82 million. Real signed no one, nada, zilch.

You’re welcome.
Danny (pedantic) Brighton

The Real Deal
Out of form in their league, way behind a resurgent Barcelona and needing a rebuild in the next year or so.

Doesn’t matter on jot to Real Madrid – I love watching them play and battering Liverpool playing in second gear for a half was great to watch.

Don Carlo is the man – seems to be the king of man management, trusts his players to manage the game and never panics when he loses or over celebrates when he wins. The King of Cool.

Controversial view but when are we allowed to say that Virgil Van Dijk isn’t as good as he was or was stated to be? Never seems to close down or tackle when I see him. Still better than Joe Gomez though. If he wasn’t English he’d be nowhere near that Liverpool starting lineup.
Tom

Knee-jerk
What a season it has been for knee jerks and some of the ones around Liverpool have been quite spectacular. At half time during Arsenal’s eventual victory over Aston Villa last weekend I saw a ‘fan’ on a live text muse that Arsenal may be nervously looking over their shoulders at Liverpool as their season was clearly about to derail and they were facing a fight for fourth.

The same live text last night had Liverpool fans opining that they were back and that Champions League victory was a real possibility. Maybe we should just all tie our knees together when watching football eh?
Andrew

Under the Boardwalk
Not to spoil Aiden, LFC’s viewing pleasure, but I’m sorry mate, Boardwalk Empire is very much the Jurgen Klopp of TV shows. The first few seasons are great, but it all goes rapidly downhill from there…
Bill Handley, Gloucester

We’ll be back!
A little trip down memory lane if I may, the season 2001/2 – the game Liverpool vs Barcelona at Anfield in the 2nd group stage (who remembers that eh?) of the Champions league. We lost 3-1 and were completely and utterly outclassed. Barcelona were so good, I recall applauding them at the final whistle.

Madrid, strangely when you consider the scoreline were not as brilliant last night, but it was right up there. Ruthless with their chances. Expertly exploiting our weaknesses. Liverpool have problems. Major problems. But sometimes you also get beat by a team who are absolutely on song. To go two down and respond like that. Incredible.

We know Liverpool are poor this season, we know they need new players and a good summer off. But it’s football. It happens. It doesn’t change what we already knew, just acutely hurts to watch it play out in front of you.

This was not the nadir btw, the Brighton game was far worse. Hard to believe last night can be considered an improvement, at least we competed for 45 minutes.

We’ll be back. Up the reds!
Marc

This is the nadir of the Klopp era
First thought was – this ain’t happening!

Second thought – But it has. It’s dark, sardonic and somehow vicious.

What I saw unfold on Tuesday night against Madrid was a sheer lack of confidence, nerves and anxiety. It’s like entering a rich club when you are dirt poor. Some time soon, you are going to get find out!

I agree with Matthew Stead – When Liverpool faced an opponent who stood up to them, they shat themselves. The glaring inferiority complex, nerves and zero confidence led to LFC conceding 5 goals when they were 2-0 up.

It’s the end of the road for many in that squad – Gomez to blame for disaster defending, Matip – not reliable, Fabinho – past his best, Milner – needs to retire, Arthur, Adrian, Keita & Henderson – time to go!

There is a massive rebuild job in the summer and Klopp could be the right man for it. The confidence firstly needs to come and then the momentum will shift.

Right now is the darkest period for Klopp and his staff. But only if he clears out the deadwood, there will be light at the end of this tunnel.

Vicious…vicious…snap snap.
Tejas (Book tickets for Bellingham and Mount)

Can Klopp fix this?
Well that was just straight out and out embarrassment. In the final last year we significantly outplayed Madrid and only a worldy keeping performance kept us at bay. Yesterday we conceded five at home. It’s a quite staggering piece of deterioration by any standards – the speed of it is just breathtaking.

The time has come for a massive tactical rethink. The players we have are no longer capable of playing the way Jurgen wants. As a result we may literally have the most porous defence in the entire Premier League. Let’s just pull back our lines a fair bit and tighten it up a lot. Defend as a team again for fack’s sake.

Yesterday I said we should be pushing for Bellingham and Mount – but there was sweet naff all on show last night to attract them or others of their ilk.

For the first time I’m beginning to think the unthinkable. Is Jurgen either incapable or unwilling to make the changes required? I refuse to believe he’s incapable, he’s too bright to miss the very obvious changes we desperately need. So is he just too stubborn? Maybe he really just does have a natural lifespan at every club and now his race is run.

Make no mistake – I want it to be Jurgen who pulls us out of this. There’s only Tuchel out there of sufficient quality to replace him. He’s tactically top notch of course but he seems to bring a level of antagonism I’m not sure we need.

However, there’s no sign, zero, nicht, nada that Jurgen can sort this. He just looks shell shocked every time we capitulate. Changes can’t wait until summer – the tactics need sorting *now*. I just hope he has it in him.

But can we at least have an end to the narrative that we’re favourites for 4th now? Newcastle might be having a bit of a stumble but they sure as hell aren’t plummeting like this.
James, Liverpool

Why Chelsea won’t sack Graham Potter
This will obviously become obsolete when Graham Potter gets sacked after the next loss, but…

The purchase of Chelsea should be viewed through the lens of its Private Equity owner. Firstly, it’s purely a financial transaction. Invest £3bn, get back £6bn within x years. They’re not emotionally invested or sports-washing – invest A to get B.

Next, Private equity back management teams. They put £200m behind Tuchel before he pissed on their chips by telling them to bog off and leave the football side to him. Lessons learned – independent minded manager and hard cash spent on a large number of depreciating assets with high wages to fill short-term holes was just a waste of money, and added nothing to the future Enterprise Value of Chelsea. That won’t be repeated.

So they backed Potter and a new management team. From the PE perspective, the January transfer window was a roaring success – lots of high-value “accretive” assets secured on long contracts and low wages. £300m invested that probably is already worth £500m to them.

On the football front, actual league position is not that important at this point, as long as they don’t turn into a dumpster fire and get relegated.

Arteta, Klopp, etc, etc all took time to bed in and Potter will be given until the end of the season as a bare minimum.

Spending £200m on Tommy T, then firing him a couple of months later, and then spending £300m on Potter and then firing him a couple of months later would smack of a lack of due diligence and incompetence to their investors. Bottom line – firing Potter is just not going to happen (which is fun for the rest of us).
Matthew (ITFC)

Offside chat
Here’s something for mailboxers to ponder.

If an attacking player is deemed to be not interfering with play then he is not offside. Seems simple enough other than why is he on the pitch if he’s not interfering with play and also those pesky additional caveats as to whether he is blocking the keepers line of sight.

However, something no-one talks about are defenders not interfering with play. What if the last defender is the opposite side of the pitch to the ball? Surely he is “not interfering with play”?

This is a little tongue in cheek as I know the rule changes were designed to give attackers an advantage but ultimately I think the changes to the rule have just made things overly complicated. Rather go back to you’re either offside or not. You’re on the pitch so you’re interfering with play. There are simpler ways to give the attacking side an advantage to see more goals scored. You cannot be offside from a throw, why not do the same for corners and free kicks around the box? Simpler and easier to ref. Any other ideas? What about a long lost rule where a ref could move the free kick forwards 10 yards if players complained too much? (I’m sure i didn’t dream that). Why not give the ref a sin bin card – send the player off for 10 mins to cool off?
Jon, Cape Town (I believe VAR has improved the amount of correct decisions but it has not taken pressure/abuse off referees and makes the big mistakes less forgiveable)

TV and Son
First time writing in and would really value an opinion on this.

Now I consider myself a regular run of the mill kinda person but, for some years now I have noticed that whenever Son scores the broadcaster who is showing the game immediately zooms in on any east Asian fan celebrating.

I first noticed BT Sport did it and more recently all of them have started to do it.

My point being they don’t zoom in on black fans when a black player scores, and they don’t zoom in on north African looking fans when a player from Morrocco, Egypt or Algeria score so why is it a thing for Son?

If it was an image of the Korean flag and they moved on I would get it but it is almost an entire focus on Asian fans.
Maybe I’m being too sensitive but would genuinely like to know what others think.
LGB Spurs (Chelsea have won 1 game in 10 matches, Spurs “hold my beer”)

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