WE have conquered all of Europe. I never want this to stop. Let’s not fall flat on our faces at this stage. Let’s win the fucking pot. ALLEZ, ALLEZ, ALLEZ! At each stage of this European Cup journey I’ve said to myself “just let us reach the next round”. I’ve not...
I DIDN’T sleep last night. Spent the small hours fighting with my pillow, turning the TV on and off, getting up to take unneeded pisses. I’m not in a fit state now. I’m a troubled soul. Why? I’ll tell you why. Sadio Mane is injured. And Liverpool have a European Cup...
WE were chatting yesterday about the game. There was talk of needing to enjoy the occasion — it’s not often we’ve had a European cup semi final to savour — and not to be shredded by nerves nor filled with dread and foreboding. I’ve dwelt on this overnight....
GET out the way, West Brom. Just move, will ya? Only the European Cup matters. I think only the European Cup has ever mattered. All else is chimera. Can you even be a Liverpool supporter without feeling this way about the European Cup? It defines no English team the...
IT’S gonna be a bit all “after the Lord Mayor’s show”, isn’t it? Whatever that actually means. It must have been some spectacle — that show — to induce the comedown it’s credited with. As an expression, it obviously harks back to simpler times. These are...
WE all offered silent prayers a week ago. Pleas to higher powers not to spoil this for us. We should trust more. I like to keep my expectations modest. A not very wise man once said to me “don’t cry before you’re hurt”. That can fuck right off. I like to...
IT feels strange to view a derby as a sideshow. At least it’s tempting to fall into this trap. Big Sam will say to his blue boys: “Their heads are elsewhere. Their legs are heavy, their hearts are lost in Europe”. Jürgen Klopp, though, will be taking faces...
JÜRGEN Klopp once described his grand strategy as being a process of “dragging teams down to our level, and then beating them”. He was modestly diminishing a much more sophisticated process. This is not what his Borussia Dortmund did and not what his...
IT’S about us. It should always be about us. But while he’s kicking, a bit of it will always be about him. It’s small minded in extremis to give a shit about Roy Hodgson now. He is yesterday’s man, if he ever was today’s. He is not our business. Beating Manchester...
I WASN’T unduly disheartened by that defeat at Old Trafford last week. In a slightly perverse way I thought it was a marker of the progress the team is making this campaign. We’d lost just three times in the league previously, and two of those setbacks had felt...
