RaoulD

It is to be expected. He is in the last year of his contract and his biggest bargaining chip in negotiations for a new contract is the threat of him leaving on a free in the summer and his ability to talk to other clubs from January, He knows the best deal he can do is to force the club to give him a long contract on the same if not higher wages than the one he has at present. The club's position is that he is 33 and a long contract at his current wage presents a huge risk should his form dip or he gets injured, The latter risk is inherent in all contracts but probably greater given his age (muscles are less elastic and healing/recovery time is longer the older you get). He is doing his best on the pitch this season to disprove the former. The coded message to the club is that he wants to stay, the fans want him to stay so don't let them down and get it sorted now. The club on the other hand are probably thinking that the interest in him in January might not be as attractive as some seem to think and that his desire to remain in the Premier League will outweigh a move to a less competitive league. Italy is probably not an option given he moved from there and the big Spanish giants probably have no room/budget for him. It's a high stakes poker game at the moment but I think it will get sorted but probably not until after January when the strenght of his agent's hand will be clearer.

I think that is the correct interpretation on what he was saying overall on Sunday. Of course everyone in the media seized on the "its my last year" quote and interpretated it as him leaving but it was no more than a factually accurate statement of how things stand at present in terms of his contractual position with the club. It seems to me that there are really only 2 scenarios here: (1) Salah decides that he is not going to renew his contract and seek to play elsewhere. He can do this regardless of whether the club offer him a new contract or not so it is out of the club's control; alternatively (2) Salah elects to stay and an extension to his contract is agreed. I doubt it will be more than 3 years given his age and the potential for diminution in his effectiveness but I suspect that the club beieve that he is keen to stay hence the fairly relaxed approach to the fact that he is now in the final year of his contract. The fact that he turned down the opportunity to play for Eqypt in the Olympics coupled with his performances both in pre-season and in the first 3 games, suggests that he wants to extend his Liverpool career and is making it known to FSG. If FSG wanted to cash in on Salah, the last opportunity was this Summer so not offering him a contract and letting him leave as a free agent next year makes no sense.

Chiesa is a player that would have been a stand out signing if we had managed to sign him a few years back. He would have cost far more then than now and was a key player for Juventus last season. This looks to me to be a bargain given the quality of player he is and whilst the ACL injury might raise a question mark about whether he still has the turn of speed that he had prior to the injury, he is potentially a very good fit for the way that Slot is setting us up to play. I think his availability at the price we have now agreed was not common knowledge because it would have cost a lot more in the early part of the summer given that he was part of the Italy squad in the Euros and played reqularly in the Juventus team last season. The change in management appears to have been the catalyst for him becoming available at a much lower price and it looks like we got the heads up and moved quickly to secure him before others got wind.

At the moment we really don't know what Slot is going to do with the players he has got. The pre-season gave some clues but the Euros and other competitions in the summer meant that he has had little time to work with the full squad. Much like Jurgen when he first arrived, I suspect that he is happy to evaluate the existing squad and take his time to identify where the squad needs strengthening to play in his style. If there is a player available who he thinks will improve what he has already got, then I don't doubt he will push for the player to be signed. The real team building began the summer after Klopp had arrived with the signings of Mane, Matip and Wijnaldum so I don't expect much different with Slot. The weakness in defensive midfield was highlighted because of Klopp's high press/high line/fast counter tactics which mean't that there were gaps behind our full-backs if we lost possession. This was where Fab came to be crucial to that system. Klopp had to tweak his system last season as he could not replace Fab. Slot appears to want to have more possession in midfield and we may see more bodies in there than we did under Klopp. I think we will need more cover at Centre Back over the course of the season because of the likelihood of injuries and suspension but other than that I can see Slot keeping faith with the existing squad until next Summer in the same way that Klopp did.

They don't calibrate the system each time. The hawkeye system is calibrated to the pitch before the season starts so that a 3D model is created which is used for the rest of the season. The system then uses 5 cameras plus any other broadcast cameras which are calibrated each match to synchronise with each other so that a virtual picture can be created even where one of more camera angles might be obscured. The lines however are inserted manually by the VAR and it is this that introduces an element of subjective judgment by the VAR as to where the lines are to be placed. There is also an element of judgment as to when the ball is played in determining the appropriate screen capture to use. The lines that you see on TV are thicker than the lines originally drawn as a tweak was introduced a few years ago to allow a small margin for error but it still probably does not overcome the fundamental problem that a marginal decision will still depend on the human input into the system by the VAR. As in any virtual model, there is an inherent margin for error which does not seem to have been properly recognised under the current offside system. In cricket, this is recognised by the use of the umpire's call and in rugby by the application of the referee's on field decision where it falls within the margin of error. The real issue is that there is total reliance on technology which still requires human input from the VAR to the exclusion of the on-field officials view in real time. If there was no human input into the decision, then removing their input would not be problematic but substituting their view for that of another individual miles away in a room (albeit with the benefit of television replays and the hawkeye system) leads to the sort of marginal decision that could easily have gone the other way had the lines been inputed manually by the VAR differently.

We narrowed the gap between us and Arsenal.

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If Klopp told FSG in November that he wanted to leave at the end of the season and that was accepted then, the timing of the announcement only makes sense if the replacement is already lined up or even on board. As there may need to be a negotiation with another club, I anticipate that it is being kept quiet so as not to disrupt that club's season and to allow them to make plans themselves for a replacement without having to do it in the full glare of publicity that will inevitably follow. The press are currently feeding on the speculation that when Klopp goes, it will all fall apart at LFC. It was going to happen at some point and I would much rather have the certainty of knowing when it was happening and allow plans for succession to be put in place in advance than the sudden shock of the departure of an icon. It happened with Shankly, Dalglish (twice), Joe Fagan and to a lesser extent even Bob Paisley. In each case the club was not fully prepared for the departure and the replacement was still to be decided. It is no surprise that players being asked about their future by members of the press answer in a non-committal way as I suspect that they are either as much in the dark as everyone else or sworn to secrecy given the sensitivities involved.

The problem I have with the red card decision on Curtis is why VAR were reviewing it in the first place. It is my understanding that the protocols in place limit the review in circumstances other than when a red card is issues, a goal is scored or a penalty given/not given to incidents where the referee has made a clear and obvious error or has clearly not seen the incident in question. The referee clearly saw the incident and deemed it worthy of a yellow card. Whilst some might debate whether a yellow was merited, there is no power to review yellow card unless the referee has made a clear and obvious error. I cannot see how the Curtis incident justified VAR's intervention since whilst Curtis could have been shown a straight red by the referee, a yellow was equally justifiable in the circumstances. To then have the Diaz offside decision merely 6 minutes later and then the purported explanation makes the earlier decision even more suspect in my mind. The explanation for not checking offside when, as we know there is communication between the referee, his assistants and VAR makes it very hard to believe that the VAR genuinely believed that the on field decision was to award a goal. The fact that the same "mistake" was made not only by the VAR but also by the AVAR is improbable but the real difficulty with the account is that they must have realised that the referee was not allowing the goal almost instanteously with the whistle being blown for the freekick since it is pretty fundamental that play restarts from the centre of the pitch where there is a goal and not with a free kick where the opposition have moved up field. Surely if they realised an error in communication had been made there was nothing to stop them advising the referee to correct his error by stopping play awarding the goal and restarting with a kick off since that is what happens any time VAR get involved. This would not have involved the referee re-reviewing the incident, merely correcting a miscommunication of the outcome of the original review. It should have been done immediately and the fact that it was not done at all or even acknowledged until after the game cannot be justified.

I don't think going for Caicedo was a mistake or that we should have tried earlier. Clearly we had assumed that given Chelsea's interest, there was no encouragement from his agents that he would be open to a move to us. The money being sought for him would also have been an issue were it not for the £50M+ we got for Fab and Hendo. His agents clearly were seeking to force Chelsea to pay Brighton's asking price by getting us on board. They may not have factored in a bid from us that was acceptable to Brighton as part of this process but if the player really wants to play for Chelsea then we cannot be faulted for trying to sign him. Lavia is a completely different proposition and I am surprised that he is now being seen as the answer to our DM issue. He may turn out to be the world's best but he is still very raw and whilst the potential is there, paying upwards of £50M for him will not solve the problem caused by Fab's departure. Caicedo at least proved himself over the course of a season but I cannot believe that there are no alternatives available, especially as we clearly have the budget to bring in some quality. We may still sign Lavia as I suspect that if Chelsea have signed Caicedo, his opportunities there are likely to be limited and he may be reluctant to sit on the bench for up to 8 years!

1967 and it was because the song was played at half time after Gary Sprake had thrown the ball into his own net.

Looks that way but if Chelsea have FFP issues which given that they have spent over £500M in the previous two windows and their net spend in this window will be wiped out if they buy Lavia let alone pay £115M for Caicedo there may be problems in making the bid which they are trying to resolve by off loading some of their squad.

Possibly more than one given the values placed on them by their clubs/release clauses.

Mbappe was not seen that way in 2017 largely due to his age. He really exploded on the scene the following year but I accept he was still a huge talent when he was at Monaco and the amount of money PSG paid blew us out of the water. The Premier League sold it soul to the devil when Chelsea were allowed to effectively buy the league in 2004-5 by buying up the best 24 players available. Since then what has happened is just a refuelling of the fire but because it makes serious money, the suits and moneymen don't give a damn about the integrity of the game or the league.

I know and in a funny way I am not disappointed. If he wants to play for that shower then good luck to him and I hope we use the money better elsewhere. I just don't trust FSG to now come out with the we tried line to justify a lack of spending now.