What a win for The Reds at the weekend and what an Anfield Wrap show we have for you. Looking at what worked and what needs to keep working for this Liverpool side are Stu Wright, Rob Gutmann and Paul Senior with Neil Atkinson keeping the pace and intensity up.
Touching on Liverpool’s fast start, Mane’s quality and how playing that well leaves you hungry for more, The Anfield Wrap is the perfect end to a perfect weekend for Liverpool.
Direct: The Anfield Wrap – Reds Too Hot For Spurs
Is it just me, or have Spurs fans become really annoying? I had an discussion with one of them after he made the point that we “raise our game” against them (because we are obviously inferior:), and that the fact that they have finished above us in 5 out of 7 seasons. I countered, that although we have not set the world alight recently, we have been to three European finals in the last 11 seasons, (winning one), 2 FA cup finals (again, winning one), 2 League cup finals (one again….I think) and have finished runners up twice in the league. I don’t know quite why I was that bothered but I think it was this ‘superior’ type attitude that a few have them seem to have engendered recently. Do not get me wrong, like Gibbo’, I’ve never minded Spurs’ and generally been very impressed with them recently but, I draw the line at comparisons (which ridiculously seem to be prevalent) about their last season, and ours in 2013/14. I find that baffling. We may have sunk to being ‘nearly men’ over the last few years but I still find our league and cup record quite favourable to theirs. They are doing well, and they have finished above us recently but in doing so, have not once even come close to glory. As I said, not quite sure why I was riled, possibly the attitude that “We (Spurs) are so far ahead in every department I can’t believe we put in such a limp display at Anfield” – nonsense, I think they have an excellent defence but I prefer our midfield and attack. I’m not having a pop at Spurs, I just do not believe that it is in any way a given, that they are better than us. Apologies, it annoyed me that some of them see Saturdays’ result as a classic ‘shock’. All the best.
No one wants us to win the title james, it’s as simple as that. But this time you sense a little more hatred for us and LESS credit given than what is due BECAUSE they know we’ve got a real top quality manager, dare I say the best manager we’ve had for over 2 decades (and I know Rafa won us the Champions league). The ‘ceiling’ as one of the boys mentioned is very high with Liverpool, but that potential will take a little time and will be fulfilled once Klopp brings in some quality in the Summer a la Inaki Williams, Julian Brandt or whoever it will be.
Up the ****** reds!!
We might not even play Leicester on that Monday, if they need to play a replay in the FA cup.
As well as Kane it was also Alderweireld’s first yellow of the season.
I got into a debate with a Manc mate on Saturday night. He was saying how poor Spurs were. I was seething.
Everytime we do this to teams they were poor on the day. It’s happened the last 15 times or so. It’s no coincidence. Then Danny Murphy highlighted the point of how poor Spurs were on MOTD and I get more texts saying ‘Thank You Danny Murphy’. Fuckin infuriating. Going off him big time. Whilst I’m here that other Liverpool ex player could do with stayin off the mozam. The Klopp contract talk had me incensed.
Rob was funny re Mignolet.
I struggle to praise him as well.
Ignore what Danny Murphy says, although he was a great player for us I think he’s kind of bitter towards Liverpool about how he left, probably the most bitter of those players who left in 2004 and didn’t get to experience the following season’s magic. He went down south and is now completely ‘Londonised’ (including his accent which is bizarre). But I think it’s unfair to put Didi Hamann in the same category, Didi has a lot of love for Liverpool – I know he was quite critical about the contract, but he’s honest and tells it how he sees it. Whether we agree with him about Klopp’s contract or not, I think it’s a perfectly valid point to discuss; football is after all a political creature and is therefore open to doubts and contentions to do with owners’ policies/contracts and so on. It’s not a religion (well it is to us fans, but not to the moneymen upstairs!)
And the stuff he said about us lacking bastards in midfield was 200% true
Quality quality quality podcast – I totally believe that chelsea are bound to drop more points and we should be there to capitalize it. This little winter break has come at a perfect time –
usually I despise these breaks because of you look at our previous runs of form we’ve always run into these breaks at a high and that hurts the momentum a little bit.
This time it’s perfect for us.
United are sooner or later going to have their streak ended and hopefully this break affects their momentum, Spurs will probably carry on picking up points against the lesser teams but you never know, arsenal are entering that period of the year where they’re likely to drop points.
Top 4 looking a real possibility now but I’m sure Juergen and the boys know that the title is still possible. Shoot for the stars and at the minimum we’ll have CL football where we’d be perfect because it’s BIG games – and BIG games against BIG teams are our cup of tea.
Quality podcast boys
It’s funny that afterwards the only ones to give us true and proper praise for the performance were some of Spurs’ players (Lloris, Dembele, Dier etc). Not going in to what exactly what was said but the message was pretty clear: we couldn’t cope with Liverpool’s aggression.
We were fucking boss, simple as. We had a good team’s card marked and had answers to their few questions, hence a convincing win.
Klopp brought Kornmeyer in coz he was so impressed with Bayern’s fitness at the end of the season (when he was at BVB). Hopefully, now that we have woken up from our New Year slumber, this 4 day break at La Manga will reinforce Klopps methods for the run in, and Kornmeyer’s fitness regime will become apparent.
The title is gone, sadly, but a strong top 4 finish should be achievable which would help the club attract the players it wants with the promise of CL next season.
Enjoyed the podcast (just was able to finish it). A couple of points in general:
1) I’d have much rather won 2-0 like the Reds did than something like 6 or 6-2. I think it was important to win the way it happened; go up 2-0 then grab Spurs by the balls and not let go. No outscoring teams with a leaky defense, just continuing to dominate and shutting up shop.
I commented on the free pod after the Hull match that the main problem Liverpool have is the overall quality of their players, with the secondary problem the system Klopp has really been forced to employ the majority of the time. There’s generally a very fine line at the end of the season in 12-15 points give or take. Chelsea have been on the good side of the line for those give or take points where Liverpool have been on the bad side, particularly against the lower sides of course. Chelsea also struggled at times against lower sides during their run but there was 1 player who was generally coming to their rescue – Diego Costa. While Mane has been excellent this season, he’s not the sort of difference maker at this point that Costa is. Liverpool don’t have a difference maker like Costa in the side and generally lack the quality get the job done when the overall performance is a 6/10. There’s no, or maybe not enough, Fergie time type play makers in the squad.
Kloppo is definitely the right guy for the job but he needs better players, and maybe better players who can fit into a better system, like a 4-2-3-1.