David Hodgson

I think it's 'Johnny' by the Fine Young Cannibals.

Yes. I’ve been telling people we’re the best team in the world and I think they think I’m joking . But we are. It’s only Barca and Man City in the conversation with us. Literally no one else even close. Barca - I think there’s daylight between us and them . City - harder to say. It’s close.

I was told by a journalist with the right sources , before Klopp signed, that Edwards was the one at LFC who was reticent about Klopp. If memory serves, I think he wanted Ancelotti. He might have changed his mind though.

Prefer the Japan version .

Couldn’t Spurs still lose Erikssen and Alderweireld ?

Is right lad . Let’s get into these. Finally . Right at the death , I’m back with you on everything . Feels better.

Yeah, I hear you, but I’m taking the composite of our front 3 and our supposed dodgy seconds over their front 3 and their slightly more polished back ups .

He’s in their front 3 already .

They’re decent players but big drop offs. Mahrez is a show pony. He gives you nothing defensively and he’s not sensational on the ball. Jesus still looks potential at 22. He’s miles off Aguerro. Would you swap Mahrez for chamberlain? I definitely wouldn’t for the pre-injury version . Would you swap Jesus for Brewster’s anticipated potential ? Maybe on balance , but I wouldn’t do it lightly . And we have numbers - Shaqiri and Origi too.

City losing Leroy Sane is massive . Suddenly you look at their front options and they don’t look particularly richer than ours. Their front 3 back up is now Mahrez and Jesus. Ours is Origi, Brewster, Shaqiri and possibly Chamberlain. Suddenly it’s not night and day , in terms of relative attacking resources . We’d look seriously weakened if we lost Salah for a spell but they would equally if Sterling had a problem. At the risk of being the worst guy in the room , I’m going to say them losing Sane is the best new signing we could have made.

Is there ye. I’m more than comfortable with our options should he not play . I just think he will.

I get that , but I’m not sure why they wouldn’t have just let him have that extra weeks holiday then. I do wonder if some of the thinking is that next summer he gets to have a serious break.like from mid May til mid July. Unless I’ve forgotten some tournament he’ll be required for.

He sure is. I do wish this window didn’t shut so early for us though. The early games can be so instructive . Players seem vulnerable to a big injury early on, and with others you can just sense if it’s going to be their season or not . Take Chamberlain - he could look sharp and ready or he could look like a lad who isn’t going to get his mojo back for at least 6 months. Then there’s Brewster - he could ‘do a Michael Owen ‘ or circumstance could dictate he’s barely getting near the match day squads and he starts to disappear from view. The whole picture could look very different in 3 weeks time. I’m saying that whilst I buy into everything Klopp is saying , it would be nice to have 3 full weeks of evidence so that he could make doubly sure that what he’s certain of today is going to be sustainable . But this is a different subject really.

He won’t play in the league cup and expect there to be discussions about getting respite from international games. There are other Norwiches at home to come. Bench him for one or two of them. We’re not sports scientists but my hunch is that it’s better to have periodic rest rather than longer sustained rest and then non stop work. Who knows. My fear is that if you treat the opening 4 games as literally Mane’s ‘pre-season’ then you’re going too far backward to go forward. We’ve got a player now who is relatively well rested ( no game in 3 weeks) and who is also in peak condition . Starve him of full games for another couple of weeks and whilst that might have longer term benefits , it could short term mean we don’t see full throttle Mane until quite a few games in.

My view was that I’d have liked us to make one reasonable status attacking signing . I think that would’ve been funded had the manager insisted on it. Recently I’m swayed by klopp’s argument and that’s calmed me right down. I think we’ll be more than ok.