HOW many times have we been through this before? How many times are we going to sit in Anfield, agog, staring at the pitch in disbelief? How has this happened? How has this been allowed to happen?

Someone somewhere is going to need to get a grip of this, stop it in its tracks. We don’t deserve this continued level of unprofessionalism masquerading as entertainment. How have they managed to puncture the atmosphere so much in such a short space of time?

Anyone in the ground on Saturday will know what I am talking about. The half-time entertainment really was an absolute disgrace. I’m not just saying this for dramatic effect; it was really bad, so shit in fact that they got booed off. Think about that for a minute.

Who gets paid to think up this nonsense? And how on earth can you make it so bad that everyone involved in it, including John Aldridge & Alan Kennedy, two club legends, get booed off after it is finished?

This week’s effort involved a rather shy-looking wool, with his hands presumably glued to the inside of his pockets, trying to kick the ball and stop it on a massive big target in the centre-circle only for him to continually twat it into the Annie Road.

How hard is it to make it entertaining? Next time you need an idea lads, give me a bell. In fact, don’t bother, have two ideas for free right now:

1. Two competition winners, (preferably unfit and overweight) one situated on the back row of The Kop, one on the back row of the Annie Road, upper tier, wearing the home, away and third kits and a big coat, have to race down the stands (Annie Road fella either has to jump from the top tier or shimmy down a rope) onto the pitch, dodging the stewards and the bizzies (who aren’t in on the game) and get to the ball on the halfway line and score in the opposite goal to which they have come. The winner gets a free season ticket in the new Main Stand corporate and the loser gets banned for life for being a big fat mess.
2. Two competition winners have to wear them big massive kecks designed to allow you to catch stuff, in said kecks, with a hula hoop as a belt (you know the ones – they used to have them on the generation game or Noel’s House Party) and everyone in the crowd gets to bring in three items from home, to throw at them from the stands. The one still standing at the end with the most stuff caught in his kecks wins a season ticket in the new Main Stand corporate and the loser gets banned for life but gets to keep the contents of his kecks.

Imagine that second game. How much fun would that be? What would your three items be? I reckon I’d take a corky, an iron and a hot sausage. Big Toe Pulis would love this game. It is, after all, a pretty elaborate metaphor for his preferred type of football. West Brom’s whole attacking game plan is to attack down the wings, get in a position to throw, kick or cross it from wide, and try to land it in an area the size of a clown’s kecks. What would Pulis be throwing? The Ball, Jonas Olsson and six elbows.

You have to give credit where it is due, though. Never has a man had a cap stitched to his head before. Never has a man worn whiter trainees. I mean, Big Toe’s trainees are absolutely box fresh, a never before seen shade of white, the kind of white people say heaven is like when they nearly die (think of the film Ghost); whiter than the leave campaign’s ideal Brexit Britain.

His commitment to white trainees is astonishing. The only time Pulis takes his cap off is if you stand on his trainees, so he can land his gnarly welsh forehead square on your nose, as if you are James Beattie and he is bollocko.

I actually quite like Pulis. I quite like his commitment to his style of play. I quite admire his ability to extract in excess of 40 points with the absolute minimum level of quality. His ability to close space down is second to none. His ability to train his players to consistently play football matches in 30 yards worth of space is astonishing. He is extremely talented and I mean that.

If I was the owner of a mid to lower table club, I would back Pulis over any other manager in the league to guarantee me 40 points in a season. I wouldn’t watch any of the games, mind, but that is by the by. I mean, he manages to play Jonas Olsson every week and keep this team in the league; that takes some doing you know. There are loads of things Jonas Olsson should be instead of a footballer. Here are my top three:

1. Some Game of Thrones divvy.
2. Some True Blood divvy.
3. Some Lord of the Rings divvy.

Credit where it is due, Tony.

That said, these Reds aren’t messing are they? Patient in the extreme, happy to keep the ball, to move them about, to try and tempt them out of their 30-yard front-to-back comfort zone. The Reds took the Pulis challenge, stepped all over his trainees, took them off him and lashed them into a clown’s kecks in the first-half.

Phil Coutinho’s dummy was outrageous. He took away West Brom’s ability to close the space by doing nothing – literally nothing. It is mad that it won’t go down as a key pass or key assist when it completely and utterly made the first goal. The play after it was brilliant but it was only possibly because he was able to break their lines. The dummy for the second was a disgrace – it was obscene, it should come with a warning sign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrmk3hIwb9k

Liverpool cruised for 70 minutes, knocked off for about five, had hard lines with their goal, could have scored five in between and then pretty comfortably saw the game out.

We are joint top without our goalie having made a save in about six games. That is a bit mad, isn’t it? We are conceding pretty much with every shot on target and yet we are joint top. Imagine how good we will be when we decide to start making a few saves every now and then. How good must our defence be to limit teams to such a low level of shots on target that we can be joint top?

This is a proper Liverpool team. This is a Liverpool team that relishes the challenge, whatever your challenge may be. Come and play footy and we will put you to the sword. Come and dog it and, nine times out of ten, we will break you down. Come with a plan of lashing balls in our box and we will limit your ability to do that to a couple a match.

What’s that mate? You want us to race them from the back of The Kop and twat it in the Annie Road goal before they have even got out of the upper Annie? Sound, Jimmy Milner, you’re up lad.

You want us to wear big massive kecks and catch whatever you can throw at us? Go ‘ed then. What have you got? We can handle it all. What’s that you are throwing? A title charge? Yer go on then, we will have a go of that.

Name the terms of engagement and these Reds will be there, ready and willing. You want to try your hand against us? Give it a go. We aren’t messing about anymore.

Let’s get into these Reds.

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