GWT: Premier League round 26

[Live in the Now]

Took my time to address this because I've been out today, but this is a load of crock. Last season we outshot Spurs 12 to 4...they had 1 shot on goal that game, we had 8. We had 57% possession and Coutinho did absolutely nothing in that game (in fact, the nicest outlet of the game came from Wijnaldum to spring Mane for his first goal)

51% according to BBC. I'm sure of course having Coutinho play had nothing to do with the performance or possession at all. I think my memory is fine, I'm not the one going around pumping up players and claiming later it never happened. They need Coutinho and I hope the rest of the season doesn't show that, but it probably will to some extent. They would have destroyed Spurs today with him.

 

[YNWA14]

51% according to BBC. I think my memory is fine, I'm not the one going around pumping up players and claiming later it never happened. They need Coutinho and I hope the rest of the season doesn't show that, but it probably will. They would have destroyed Spurs today with him.

Typical response, deflecting when proven wrong rather than admitting to just being wrong. Too bad we didn't have Coutinho (who could have just as likely had an off game as Mane/Firmino/Salah, and who also did nothing against Spurs last year when we were dominant over them rather than playing scared).

But hey, if you can get a jab in (even when it's fabricated) feel free. Clearly you think there's nothing wrong with how we played, and you put Klopp on a pedestal.

 

[Live in the Now]

Typical response, deflecting when proven wrong rather than admitting to just being wrong. Too bad we didn't have Coutinho (who could have just as likely had an off game as Mane/Firmino/Salah, and who also did nothing against Spurs last year when we were dominant over them rather than playing scared).

But hey, if you can get a jab in (even when it's fabricated) feel free. Clearly you think there's nothing wrong with how we played, and you put Klopp on a pedestal.

I don't need to admit wrong, it says on the BBC's own site that it was 51% possession. Look it up if you want.

I don't think there's a problem with how we played, I think there's a problem that Klopp didn't bring in quality to replace quality and blame him completely for that part. We lack quality and have to play bad football sometimes now. It is the way it is. You somehow think the team is good enough to play great football against everyone and still get points, you've said it numerous times so I'm just going off of that. Clearly you think it based on this game too. It's obviously clearly not true.

 

[YNWA14]

Even if it were 51% that's a very far cry from 34%, but you don't have to admit anything. You keep looking down from that high horse even though we didn't play anything like today last season. So we could play quality football with a midfield of Wijnaldum/Lallana/Henderson/Can for all of last year, and have done so at times this year, but replace Coutinho with Salah and suddenly we can't? Please. Coutinho has nothing to do with it. We are better and deeper than last season even without Coutinho, and he wouldn't have done anything in this game just like he was absolutely awful against Spurs earlier in the season.

Anyway...

“I think it is a dive. You see [Kane] diving clearly and no-one is talking about it but I think it is a dive,” said Van Dijk.
“There is a lot of discussion about whether it is offside, yes or no, but I think it was offside as well.
“You could just see him making that dive. The referee made his decision together with the linesman. It was good for us that it got saved.”
Asked whether he thought Kane should be retrospectively punished the Holland international added: “That is not something for me.
“I thought it was a dive that is my opinion and the referee thought it was no offside and no dive and he gave a pen. Good for us that we saved it.”
Van Dijk was also unhappy with the award of the second penalty when Lamela went down as the Dutchman tried to clear the ball.
“I saw him coming in the end and I try and hold my leg in, he just pulled his body in front of the ball and he goes down,” he said.
“The ref said play on and I was very disappointed that the linesman said otherwise.
“I don’t think that is a penalty, same with the first one. That is also clearly not a penalty.”

Nice to see someone speaking out about it, even though nothing can be done at this point. Also yeah...seeing from the linesman's view just reinforces how much of a dive that was by Lamela. If he was "booted" in the back of the leg, in that spot, his leg would have buckled and he would have fallen to his knees, or down to one knee and forward. There's contact, but you can tell he felt the contact and immediately jumped and did the whole arched back and lifted his own legs off the ground to try and con a call after he jumped in front of van Dijk as he attempted to play the ball. Spurs were absolutely embarrassing today, even though there will be no retroactive action.

 

[Baxterman]

LOL

What a shock VVD didn't think it was a dive.

Spurs were fine today and of course there will be no retroactive action as there is no action to take because nobody did anything wrong.

 

[Live in the Now]

Even if it were 51% that's a very far cry from 34%, but you don't have to admit anything. You keep looking down from that high horse even though we didn't play anything like today last season.

Manchester United 1-1 Liverpool

Manchester City 1-1 Liverpool

Yeah we played nothing like today last season. Like when Liverpool won one of ten games and played like that in the games I linked.

The thing you fail to understand always is that teams have to continue to make improvements to play well. There are countless examples of this but I don't expect you to learn any of them. It's like the Dortmund bosses who think they can still send Sahin and Kagawa out there to be competitive with top teams. Klopp is clearly of that mindset as well and it's by far his biggest problem. Every team got better in midfield, ours is now the exact same, we'll suffer for that. That you think it's putting Klopp on a pedestal to point that out is completely foolish nonsense. In equal matches of managers like Klopp vs. Poch who like to play similarly, games will always be decided by players.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

Manchester United 1-1 Liverpool

Manchester City 1-1 Liverpool

Yeah we played nothing like today last season. Like when Liverpool won one of ten games and played like that in the games I linked.

The thing you fail to understand always is that teams have to continue to make improvements to play well. There are countless examples of this but I don't expect you to learn any of them. It's like the Dortmund bosses who think they can still send Sahin and Kagawa out there to be competitive with top teams. Klopp is clearly of that mindset as well and it's by far his biggest problem. Every team got better in midfield, ours is now the exact same, we'll suffer for that. That you think it's putting Klopp on a pedestal to point that out is completely foolish nonsense. In equal matches of managers like Klopp vs. Poch who like to play similarly, games will always be decided by players.

Or linesmen.

 

[bluesfan94]

I absolute do. On the fact alone that Lamela was offside (VAR 1) before he dived (VAR 2)

But again. The system rewards those who are looking for the PK by diving, embellishing, whatever you want any to call it.

Offside is very questionable given the angle and it clearly wasn’t a dive. Embellishment perhaps, but that’s not what VAR is for.

 

[Savant]

Offside is very questionable given the angle and it clearly wasn’t a dive. Embellishment perhaps, but that’s not what VAR is for.

I’m done talking about it.

In my opinion neither were penalties. That’s how I feel about it and I’m not changing my mind. Nothing else to say. Onto the next game.

 

[Burner Account]

Alli was a dive (obviously).

Kane was a dive. Yes Karius made contact but it looked like Kane recognized that if he stayed on his feet, it would have taken him too wide and the chance would have been gone.

Lamela was embellishment.

 

[YNWA14]

Manchester United 1-1 Liverpool

Manchester City 1-1 Liverpool

Yeah we played nothing like today last season. Like when Liverpool won one of ten games and played like that in the games I linked.

You just linked to two more games where we outshot, or had the same number of shots, and still had 40+% possession. So yeah, no we didn't play like we played yesterday. But whatever reaching you need to do even though I was talking about how we played against Tottenham last season (which we were dominant, btw, as linked).

The thing you fail to understand always is that teams have to continue to make improvements to play well. There are countless examples of this but I don't expect you to learn any of them. It's like the Dortmund bosses who think they can still send Sahin and Kagawa out there to be competitive with top teams. Klopp is clearly of that mindset as well and it's by far his biggest problem. Every team got better in midfield, ours is now the exact same, we'll suffer for that. That you think it's putting Klopp on a pedestal to point that out is completely foolish nonsense. In equal matches of managers like Klopp vs. Poch who like to play similarly, games will always be decided by players.

I don't expect you to be able to teach what you don't understand. Spurs put out a worse line-up than they had last season against us in the same games and our team was better than the line-up we had last season yet our performance was much, much worse. Tottenham weren't even playing really well or doing anything special, we were just set up very poorly. But foolish nonsense and all that.

 

[Burner Account]

Moss pretty much asking Martin Atkinson for VAR.

 

[Live in the Now]

He should be banned.

 

[Baxterman]

He should be banned.

In the end he got the call right, if it took a little bit for him to get there isn't the important thing that he got it right?

 

[Live in the Now]

He said he didn't even see it. There is no referee on the planet who should be making calls they didn't even see, that their assistant doesn't know either. The call was also wrong according to Mark Clattenburg.

Both penalties were offside but Harry Kane didn’t dive — unlike Dele Alli

 

[hatterson]

The assistant is 100% wrong about any touch by Lovren being a deliberate action. The FIFA guidelines even explicitly mention a ball deflecting/rebounding off a defender.

 

[Baxterman]

Mark Clattenberg is an idiot who spent his career showing that he was clueless who cares what he thinks.

It really isn't surprising that he would be wrong in both cases.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

The assistant is 100% wrong about any touch by Lovren being a deliberate action. The FIFA guidelines even explicitly mention a ball deflecting/rebounding off a defender.

Lovren deliberately stretched for the ball, did he not? That's deliberate. Purely from my recollection, it didn't passively deflect off him, him mis-kicked it.

 

[YNWA14]

Does it matter if he deliberately played the ball? He was making a play to stop a pass to Harry Kane who was already offside. Isn't the new offside rule made specifically for cases like this where player in an offside position influences the play by being offside? Lovren has to make a play for that ball to prevent Kane from going through alone because he doesn't know if someone else is playing Kane onside.

 

[hatterson]

Lovren deliberately stretched for the ball, did he not? That's deliberate. Purely from my recollection, it didn't passively deflect off him, him mis-kicked it.

Deliberate action in the offside rule doesn't refer to a deflection, even if you deliberately move towards the ball. Lovren is playing defense and trying to block/clear the ball because he's under pressure. That's different than trying to control it and making a bad pass/deflection backwards.

 

[Savant]

What’s the over/under on number of Willian/Richarlison hugs/fist bumps/high fives today?

I take the over.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

Deliberate action in the offside rule doesn't refer to a deflection, even if you deliberately move towards the ball. Lovren is playing defense and trying to block/clear the ball because he's under pressure. That's different than trying to control it and making a bad pass/deflection backwards.

Okay, but that's not the case the assistant was making and I need to believe he's on top of the one rule that governs 90% of his job.

My interpretation of what he was saying is, "I saw Lovren make a play on the ball. Did he touch it? Because if he did it's a penalty."

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

I think it's already been rather clear that different referees interpret the offside rule differently. Nobody is at fault apart from the person writing the rule. The fact that people are debating about it to no end just proves it.

 

[Savant]

Chelsea starting Moses and Zappacosta is... interesting.

Thought today would be a good day to give Emerson a debut.

I don’t usually watch non-Liverpool games start to finish but have a decent chance today. Also I am always partial to a yellow kit.

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

Chelsea starting Moses and Zappacosta is... interesting.

Thought today would be a good day to give Emerson a debut.

I don’t usually watch non-Liverpool games start to finish but have a decent chance today. Also I am always partial to a yellow kit.

Agreed, I suppose Conte doesn't think Giroud or Emerson have trained enough with the squad. I'd expect Giroud to come on around the 55th minute though.