by Neil Atkinson | Feb 4, 2017 | Footie, Match Review
WHAT wouldn’t you burn down now? Imagine being on Liverpool’s coach coming back down the M62. A set of players looking at each other. A coaching staff looking at players. Loads of eyes on the back of the manager’s head. Imagine it. I genuinely hope...
by Neil Atkinson | Feb 1, 2017 | Footie, Match Review
There are no excuses and no hiding places. Everybody sees every game. Everybody knows where the bodies are buried. If this season doesn’t result in the league title then the body wasn’t buried tonight. It was buried against Swansea or Bournemouth. The dirt...
by Neil Atkinson | Jan 27, 2017 | Footie
I CRACKED a bit on Wednesday. Which was problematic because I cracked a lot on Saturday. There isn’t that much more to crack. I realised I’d cracked when I dropped to my knees on the aisle and slapped the concrete repeatedly after Daniel Sturridge’s...
by Neil Atkinson | Jan 26, 2017 | Footie, Match Review
THE cusp. The abyss. The tightrope. All modern Liverpool seasons end up there at some stage. It’s what they do when they reach it that counts. Almost every football season when you watch Liverpool is death or glory. Sometimes that’s the case because good...
by Neil Atkinson | Jan 21, 2017 | Footie, Match Review
I’M 36 today. Liverpool last won the league when I was nine. It’s hard to escape the crippling feeling that, at best, it next happens when I am 37. At best. Without sounding overly dramatic it is difficult to put into words how that second half felt. When...
by Neil Atkinson | Jan 18, 2017 | Footie, Match Review
WHERE’S the balance for this? Where is the tone? Because it is the rhetoric which tends to let these affairs down. For all the talk of the magic of the cup, and while acknowledging that tonight was a significant game for Plymouth Argyle and for two or three...
by Neil Atkinson | Jan 18, 2017 | Footie
REPORTS today suggest that Xabi Alonso has told Bayern Munich he plans to retire at the end of the 2016-17 season. The Spaniard has been at the Allianz Arena since 2014, having previously been at Real Madrid and, of course, Liverpool. His stellar career has spanned...
by Neil Atkinson | Jan 15, 2017 | Footie, Match Review
CAN I tell your congregation how a resurrection almost feels? There was something about that little cup run combined with Sunderland combined with everyone else winning football matches for what felt like forever which hurt. Which dented. Which made you wake nights...
by Neil Atkinson | Jan 11, 2017 | Footie, Match Review
THAT should probably be all over bar the shouting. Liverpool were dreadful for the first hour of that game and they were poor for the last half an hour, but they remain in the tie. Had you offered Claude Puel and his side a one goal lead before a ball was kicked, I...
by Neil Atkinson | Jan 8, 2017 | Footie, Match Review
GOOD lord. #PrayForGibbo. As ever a long season finds a way to get longer. At least this wasn’t heart-renderingly intense. The third round of the cup rarely is. I have no issues with the selection. Maybe Daniel Sturridge ahead of Divock Origi or Ben Woodburn,...
