`Preview Percy has just about dried out following his trip to a rain-sodden Bournemouth. Well externally anyway. Here’s his look at this weekend’s visit of Liverpool...
Next up we return to home territory on Sunday where we will play host to Liverpool. Kick-off is at the rather odd time of 2:05pm with Sky being on the case for UKTV purposes. Engineering works prevail on the C2C meaning no trains between Leigh on Sea and Laindon or Stanford Le Hope so check before you leave etc. Also being Liverpool, expect some more stringent security checks.
So Liverpool, then. Hilariously they are falling apart this season and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch. Having won their first five on the trot, the wheels fell off. Their first defeat of the season came at Palace, who seem to be a perennial thorn in their side at the moment. This was followed by defeats away to Chelsea, home to Man Utd, and away again at Brentford.
There was some brief respite when they beat Aston Villa 2-0 at home but normal service was resumed with consecutive 3-0 defeats away at Man City and, last weekend, at home to Nottingham Forest. All of this has left them in 12th spot with 18 points from 12 games. That’s seven points clear of us and, amusingly, one place behind Everton on goal difference.
The summer window started in traditional style with them riding roughshod over the various rules and regulations relating to player transfers as a blatantly tapped-up Alexander Isak made a much-protracted move from Newcastle. Newcastle played what our American cousins refer to as “hardball” over the deal.
Having told his Newcastle employers that he wanted to explore a move elsewhere, code for having spoken illegally to another club, he then moved on to the standard tactic in these cases which was developing a mystery thigh injury, just before the Magpies headed off to Asia for their pre-season tour.
The injury was so bad that the Geordies left him behind for the trip, though the thigh healed up enough for the player to hop on a flight to Spain where he was spotted in San Sebastian using the facilities of former club Real Sociadad to keep himself fit. I mean recover from injury.
With Newcastle not having put the player up for sale Isak elected to go on strike and made himself unavailable for the Geordies’ opener against Villa. Eventually, Liverpool resolved the situation in their usual fashion by throwing extra cash at the transfer, eventually bringing the matter to a conclusion for a fee of £125m.
Of course what they were getting for that money was a player who had effectively had no pre-season. And it shows. He’s amassed one first XI goal this season – and that came in the League Cup against Southampton. Sorry, no refunds.
Daisy informs me that the first signing of the summer came in the form of right-back Jeremie Frimpong. Although Amsterdam-born, he somehow ended up in Greater Manchester playing for his local team in East Manchester, entering the City youth system. Progress there stalled and he moved north of the border to Celtic where he spent a couple of years relaxing in what was then the less than stressful environment of a one-horse rase.
He appeared on the radar of Bayer Leverkusen who snapped him up, the player becoming an integral part of the unbeaten Bayer side that won the Bundesliga a few years back. It cost Liverpool £35m to bring Frimpong, who has 14 Dutch caps, back to the UK. A thigh injury will make him doubtful for this game.
Arriving on the same flight over from Germany, probably, was Florian Wirtz. The fee that brought the midfielder over from Bayer Leverkusen has been quoted as being anything from £116-£123m depending on which source you believe. He has 37 full caps for the full German side for whom he made his debut at the age of 18.
Wirtz is one of 10 children. His sister Juliane is also a professional player with Werder Bremen, whilst his mother is said to be exhausted. Wirtz is a doubt for the weekend with an unspecified “muscular injury”, though there is a good chance of him being available.
They were a little closer to home in signing Serbian-born Hungarian international Milos Kirkez, who arrived on a £40m plus deal from Bournemouth. He received one of life’s more amusing red cards in a Euro qualifier against Bulgaria a couple of years ago when he got his marching orders seconds after future clubmate Dominik Szoboszlai had ordered him not to do anything silly “in three different languages”.
In truth he should have added another red to his collection this season. The first yellow against Burnley was a bit of a collector’s item, a Liverpool player actually being given a yellow for diving. He then hauled down a player on the halfway line to break up a potential attack – another favoured tactic – only for Michael Oliver to forget the laws of the game and issue the second yellow.
In a clear admission of guilt, Slot subbed the player on 38 minutes lest Oliver suddenly forget himself and apply the laws of the game. Any other club...
One player who has received a red card this season is Hugo Etikite. The striker arrived from Eintracht Frankfurt for a fee worth something like £82m including add-ons. Having picked up a yellow earlier in the match he celebrated scoring the winner in the League Cup match win against Southampton by taking his shirt off.
Not, perhaps, the sharpest tool then. In the same match Giovanni Leoni, an 18 year-old defender made both his debut and his last game of the season, the £26m arrival from Parma doing his anterior cruciate ligament in the process.
Enough of them. It is time for the Wild & Wacky World of Association Football. Now, if there were still anyone left in the world who believe in the old FIFA slogan “for the good of the game” – and frankly if you’re that stupid we need to have a chat involving your bank details – their illusions should have been well and truly shattered by the brown envelope brigade’s latest efforts.
Having messed about with the qualification for their dumb World Club Cup so that it included whatever club Messi was representing at the time, they figured that they ought to do something for their other darling, Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo, you may remember, was sent off in Portugal’s qualifier against Ireland, his elbow earning him a three-match ban. This would have seen him miss the first two group games across the pond.
Well FIFA came up with a rule that allows them to alter bans as they see fit. I’m guessing when that rule was introduced the drafting was intended FIFA to allow them to increase bans where three matches seemed inadequate for the crime.
Well of course FIFA decided that this would allow them to reduce Ronaldo’s ban, with two games being suspended because it was the first time he’d been red-carded for Portugal. So that’s alright then. Don’t be surprised I there is some fiddling with the draw that gives Portugal a bye to the final against Argentina.
And so to us. Well if you’d offered us a point ahead of last week’s trip to the south coast I suppose we would have taken it. However, throwing away a two-goal lead was still a bit disappointing.
I’m not entirely sure the withdrawal of Callum Wilson was the main cause of the turnaround. There was an odd stat that showed how, by half time, Wilson had scored twice without actually completing a single pass. Now to bring that up as a negative point is a bit “what have the Romans ever done for us”.
However, the changes made by Bournemouth – who had the wind at their back in the second half – meant that they were no longer relying on crosses from deep that served to give our defence heading and catching practice. Wilson hadn’t been holding the ball up and something needed to change. Unfortunately, the change didn’t really work but you can see why it was made.
In the end, we needed Areola to be on his best form to give us the point. Areola also clocked up a record in becoming the first ‘keeper I’ve seen to fall foul of the “eight second” law that gives the opposition a corner if the custodian holds on to the ball too long. Which is all fine and dandy, but there seems to be no allowance made for the ‘keeper being impeded.
Areola rightly picked up many MotM plaudits post-match but I was also very impressed with young Freddie Potts who reminded me of a certain Declan Rice with the nature of some of his prodigious hard work in retrieving the ball from the opposition. He also displayed a very mature head when the opposition tried to wind him up from time to time.
On the absence front, Lucas Paqueta will return to the fold following his suspension. Crysencio Summerville is 50-50 following the unspecified knock that kept him out of the Bournemouth match as is Dinos Mavropanos. Young Ollie Scarles is recovering well from his nasty shoulder injury and may be available for selection again by the end of the year.
So to the prediction, then. Relegation? Well I think they’ll stay up. Apart from anything else, PGMOL wouldn’t let anything happen to their favourites. However, it is fair to say that they are well out of sorts at present. Media darling Van Dijk seems to have gone from being a decent player who got away with murder with referees to just being a player who gets away with murder with referees and the “how dare you” attitude with the referee in midweek after he palmed away a cross, spoke volumes.
Of course, their reputation for - shall we say - the robust nature of their game still hasn’t quite registered with match officials this side of the channel and after the quite disgraceful kicking we got from them last season a strong referee would be welcomed – a vertebrate would be a nice start. Unfortunately, it would appear that they are in short supply at PGMOL.
This is a game that would be winnable but for the sneaking suspicion that they will make the 12th man count as usual. So I will be putting the £2.50 I’ve managed to hide from “Rachel From Accounts” on a draw this time around. Make it 2-2, Mr Winstone – with a bonus payable should they get a dodgy penalty at some stage in the proceedings.
Enjoy the game!
When last we met at the Olympic: Lost 0-5 (Premier League December 2024)
They took full advantage of the licence given to them by PGMOL’s love-in in a display of thuggery reminiscent of the early '70s. Paqueta came in for some stick that Anthony Taylor chose to ignore. A later red-card challenge - unpunished of course - on Bowen saw the player out for weeks with a broken foot. Even the BBC – for whom Liverpool can do no wrong – raised their eyebrows.
Referee: Darren England
This doesn’t bode well. He allowed Bristol City to kick lumps out of us in a Cup match a while back only producing a red card when Said Benrahma retaliated. Just the ref we need this weekend then. Also once made a VAR mistake against them that saw PGMOL withdraw him for all Liverpool games that season for breaking their internal rule of not upsetting the scousers. So he owes them.
Danger Man: Mohamad Salah
Past his best but his unsteadiness whenever he gets near the box will be getting more and more use the longer their bad run continues.
Percy and Daisy’s Amazing Liverpool Fact Of The Week Type Thing
I am reliably informed that Merseyside is the only region in the country in which the so-called sitcom Mrs Brown’s Boys gets constant positive approval from viewers. That legendary sense of humour eh?
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