takanohana

Just finished The Secret Race, Tyler Hamilton's tell-all story of the Lance Armstrong years. A good and infuriating read. So many people in a state of suspended disbelief (or corrupt) until the house of cards finally collapsed. Now looking back it's hard to believe he got away with it for so long, how was that allowed to happen. Unavoidable similarities with City. I hope in five years from now football will also be looking back thinking, how the hell were they allowed to do that in pretty much plain sight.

Interesting Mo's comments after the game about Slot coming in. Paid tribute to Klopp but also spoke about players getting too much into a comfort zone. Seemed to be saying the change now was good no matter how great the time with Jürgen had been.

Will be good for Slot to have some time to work with Darwin. He's a dab hand at getting the best out of players.

Further evidence, if it was needed, that the xG weirdos are generally the dumbest people in the room.

It is. But probably a couple of signings short of a title winning squad. Still, always optimistic at this time of year. Come on redmen.

If this was the first time we'd not secured a defensive midfielder this argument might fly. As we all know this is the latest of repeated failures to fill this position. At some point a spade is a spade and a f*ck up is a repeated f*ck up. Start of last season, exactly the same discussion. Maybe not a big deal, Endo will work out etc. Did well for most of the season but, as many expected, we were too open through the middle and didn't have enough options in midfield. If it looks like under-investment and a hapless approach to key signings, as Rafa's interview with Carra et al showed, that's v probably what it is.

I'd fancy our forward line against that team.

Who said today would be uneventful!

This seems a decent analysis https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/aug/30/federico-chiesa-liverpool-juventus-italy Positive for being understudy to Mo 'Chiesa’s best season with Juventus came under Andrea Pirlo, playing out wide in a team geared to attack.' Though this seems to have been mislaid from the Ben Doak debate 'It is also true, though, that Chiesa has been criticised through his career for trying to do too much, playing with his eyes down.'

Keepers: Alisson, Kelleher RB: Trent, Bradders LB: Robbo, Tsimikas CB: Virg, Konate, Quansah, Joe 6: Gravenbach, Endo 8: Alexis, Curt 10: Dom, Harvey LW: Lucho, Gapko RW: Mo, Church CF: Jota, Offside V good squad, but obviously 6 is the potential weakness unless Grave can continue his early season form and stay fit. Centre forward too but have options with Mo, Gapko moving more central if needed.

City have got Watford at home. And we get all that. It's beyond a joke now.

I know it's not much in favour but the 1982-84 vibes from the home kit are giving me all sorts of nostalgia and making me optimistic for this season.

The 'Liverpool has identified' wording makes it sound like we crunched the data on DMs again yesterday and Hezze's name popped out. I'm sure that's not the case though. There's also the more serious issue of using American-style 3rd person singular for sports teams, which should be a capital offence.

Yes, not sure anyone is suggesting Endo type filler, but if our strategy for strengthening 6 is Zubimendi or nobody, that's a seriously flawed approach. Particularly after last summer's failings too.

I don't understand the rationale if that's how they're thinking. We see a need to strengthen the 6 position, to the extent that we target a highly rated Spanish international. But not getting him, we decide we are actually ok with our current options... I hope Morton develops into a cracking player, but it's a bit of a stretch to say we now don't need a Zubimendi alternative because we have a promising youngster who has played almost no top flight football.

Time to raid the Caicedo fund.

They'll be out for revenge for 1981.

I've gone from wtf are we doing, to excited about Chiesa. Don't want to become jaded and not feel that thrill of anticipation from a signing like this.

All I can think reading that is how difficult it will be to replace Salah whenever the time comes. From what I've seen of them, I can't see either Chiesa or Gordon filling a Mo-sized hole.

It's ok we've got Dolmio to make him feel at home.

Have a nagging concern about whether we will have enough goalscoring options in our forward line. Jota is obvs great but can he stay fit, Nunez let's say there are question marks, Chiesa if he comes in is not a big goalscorer. We may need to rely a lot on Mo again, and hoping Luis improves his conversion rate.

The silence on the topic of goals scored says more than all the words in that article.

They're desperate to do another Coutinho aren't they.

A potentially low cost opportunity for FSG to speculate and accumulate. Not, of course, answering (or even asking) the question: what do we need to win the league?

Carra's been briefed by Ornstein.