Groundhog Day again

Derby day at Anfield

Another derby at Anfield another loss, doesn't quite tell the story though does it?

We knew going into the game, they were the favourites, yes, they have the better team/squad, yes, they were at home but, well, let's talk about it.

For the first time in quite a while, we went there on decent form, we had only lost one game and that was the first game, an away game, to a penalty, we went on to win the next two Premier League games and draw the following one. The opponents, the defending champions, were four for four, played four, won four, hasn't been plain sailing but people will say "that's what champions do, find a way". The last game they played in the league was an away game at Burnley, the home team played very well, held on for over 90 minutes, they had gone down to 10 men but eventually fell to a penalty, who would have thought? It was a penalty, there's no disputing that but it's when it happened, am I saying it's a case of 'we play on until Liverpool score?' Maybe, yes, maybe I am, will come across as bitter, do I care? No, no I don't. This as we know, will become somewhat of a factor for the derby.

We had Mykolenko back in the team so this freed up James Garner to go back into midfield where we need him more, there was talk of if Mykolenko hadn't have made it, Garner would have played in the left back position and then we would have to put either Tim Iroebungham or Merlin Rohl in midfield, personally, I wanted Rohl in there if one of them needed to go in. It wasn't needed anyway with Mykolenko back in and as it turned out, Rohl had got a knock in training and didn't even make the squad.

I'm not going to go through the match reason being, I only watched the first 30 minutes, whether right or wrong, after we had gone down to 2-0, I switched it off. I genuinely thought it was going to be a mauling at that point and in my defence, I was shattered, we had our grandson overnight and he had been up since 2am and due to his complex needs, he is very demanding so yes, you may read this and think I was out of order turning it off at 2-0, with the tiredness and the way I thought it was going to go, it was easy for me to slope off to bed. I woke up at 15:30 and the first thing I did was check the final score and I saw we weren't mauled, we did lose but only by 2 goals to 1. That didn't tell the story though did it? The first half saw just one minute added on, during the game, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was booked for taking a free-kick before the referee said he could, let's see if that happens again in another game and the real talking point was the fact only three minutes were added on at the end of the game. Now, bitter, maybe, but three minutes, when was the last time only 3 minutes was added on in the Premier League? Moyes basically said, if Liverpool needed a goal, there's no way there would've been on 3 minutes added on.

Don't think I have seen a Kopite say yet that it's wrong that only 3 minutes was added on but what I did see, and I will link it below, is a Man Utd fan, who does a YouTube channel that covers all teams but he's basically saying, Liverpool getting preferential treatment is not a thing. Taking into account he's a Man Utd fan, supposedly the biggest rival of Liverpool, this is weird. He does bring up if I recall, how fans of other clubs would go on about 'Fergie Time' back in the day and 100%, that was also a thing, along with Ferguson getting in officials ears to have things go his way, it's no conspiracy theory, it's true. Watch the video yourself and let @terryflewers know what you think on X -

Don't think I have seen a Kopite say yet that it's wrong that only 3 minutes was added on but what I did see, and I will link it below, is a Man Utd fan, who does a YouTube channel that covers all teams but he's basically saying, Liverpool getting preferential treatment is not a thing. Taking into account he's a Man Utd fan, supposedly the biggest rival of Liverpool, this is weird. He does bring up if I recall, how fans of other clubs would go on about 'Fergie Time' back in the day and 100%, that was also a thing, along with Ferguson getting in officials ears to have things go his way, it's no conspiracy theory, it's true.

I don't know what it is, they won the title last season after winning their last one during covid, Man City fell of a cliff basically when you think of how dominant they have been over the last 4 years or so, maybe that's what it is, their dominance with that dark cloud hanging over their heads of those 115 charges and the authorities in football don't want them getting back on the saddle. Arsenal will always be the bridesmaids so it seems it's geared towards wanting the Kopites winning back to back titles. All we can do is hope Man City can upset the applecart and take it out of the Premier League/PGMOL's hands.

So that's it, not much of a review of the game, I didn't see the majority of it, glad we didn't crumble of course, just wish we would have handled that first 30 mins a bit better though.

Two home games in the league next (Wolves away in the League Cup on Tuesday) with West Ham next Monday night and Crystal Palace the following Sunday, let's bounce back after this defeat and only getting a draw the last time out at Hill Dickinson. West Ham could very well have a new manger and with that comes a manager bounce, not always the case, look at ourselves, when Moyes returned, we lost our first game, at Goodison too against Villa but we could see there was a mindset change I'll give him that.

Thanks for reading, please share, all the best, Stu - UTFT.