Hi TG,

The fact that our best player yesterday was an 18 year old playing out of position at LB and our only real goal threat was from an 18 year old playing in a wide area says everything about where we are as a team.

Luis has played very well lately but then you see him literally not jumping for a corner and letting his man have a free header and you realise we are capable of conceding at any moment under the very minimum of pressure. It's almost farcical.

Hi mate

I think Saka did well and is a good player.

The problem with our entire side at the moment is midfield. Xhaka is much better under Arteta. Why ? Because Mikel isn’t letting him run aimlessly around the pitch and demands he works in a certain area and this makes us more compact but not offensive enough if we also play Torreira.

We need to sign 2 new full backs, 2 central midfielders and a experienced left wide attacker. Only horse trading gets us out of this situation.

Arsenal at the moment are on a sabbatical or a coma right now. We need the season to end.

Lampard couldn't strengthen in the summer and is doing a halfway decent job without any new players. It will be interesting to see what he does with money. Chelsea are bound to spend big to make up for it.

I'd love to beat them next week. But right now, a draw is probably what we can hope for.

This match is my earliest memory of British football. I recall watching the news a little boy and there were lines of cops on horseback protecting fans coming off a train. And they are bustling to get to one another and my brothers and I were thinking 'This is insane!'...haha

Ironically, Philadelphia's old Veterans football stadium became the first sports facility in America to have a court and jail installed in it because of so much fighting. We saw it as the norm.

I wonder how things would have worked out had Ferguson stayed a few more years. My guess is he knew after that last title, he wasn't going to get one for a while and wanted to end on a high note. Smart. He must of seen the likes of Clough and Wenger and thought, I'm not staying past my time. The league has changed.

I'm sure he'd love to see a resurgence and he hates seeing that City and Liverpool are the clubs that are at the top and will win it for the next few years. Pep and Klopp will likely go back and forth on the title for the next few if not several years.

Wenger on the other hand must be having a 'I told you so' smirk on his face. Where we would be now had he stayed? Worse or better (hat tipped to omoh).

I still think it was time for him to go and have no regrets as a fan about it. In fact, we got him out way too late.

Agh your off our meds again aren’t you

Time for me to entrust Man Utd with that famous american gooner lucky charm magic. C'mon Man Utd 2 goals like you did against that good for nothing rat b****** Bayern Munich team of '99.

What this Liverpool side are doing is unprecedented. 91 points from 93?? That’s *%^@*** incredible. I think we are witnessing the best PL side yet, regardless of whether they go undefeated or not.

It's past incredible. Look at their total losses in all competitions. That is equally as astounding. I've said this before, if they are going to go unbeaten, I'd rather share the pain and see them win the treble.

Hi Darren,

You would think that at some point they would have a bad day at the office, or an injury crisis, or the opposition would score a couple of worldies or they would suffer some bad refereeing decisions but none of these seem to be happening at the moment. Even the best United and Barca sides lost the occasional game and I think they are better than the current Liverpool side, but stats suggest otherwise.

If Leicester gets runner up or even top 4, it would go almost unnoticed. Klopp will rightfully be manager of the year if things remain the same but Rodgers, if he gets runner up, really should be in the conversation at least. Although it would be almost laughable not to give Klopp it if things remain as is.

I'd love to see our invincibles on their best day against this Liverpool side. Or even the spring '02 side vs. this side.

Interesting how quite a few teams are missing absolute guilt edge chances against them, Martial today, Spurs before that, Watford missed a couple of tap ins. Liverpool so rarely give anything to anyone that there is so much pressure on any chance that comes a teams way.

The balance in this Liverpool team is superb.

I think they could easily be the best prem team of all time, but the other option for me are City over the previous 2 seasons. Liverpool are utterly ruthless but they haven blown away many teams this year, lots of 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1. City were absolutely spanking teams 4 or 5 every other week.
I think the City team of 2017-19 when they played to their best were better, but they couldn’t reach their best every game. Liverpool’s best isn’t quite as good but they are on or near their best in far more games.

Liverpool’s front 3 would cause the invincible’s problems for sure. Our best hope is that dynamic left side of Henry/Pires/Cole would best Liverpool’s weaker right side. I don’t think Alexander-Arnold and Gomez could cope.
Vieira and Gilberto would do their midfield.
If Liverpool got on top though, their flying full backs and front 3 would be very difficult to stop.

Had a debate today about how strong the league is at the moment, or how you determine the strength of the league.

A few seasons back I think 5/6th place was on something like 70 points. The big 6 swept everyone aside. Is that a stronger league than we have now where we have a single phenomenal team but everyone else is beating each other. Have the best teams got worse or have the weak teams improved?

With the huge jump in tv money, and the fact it’s distributed evenly has allowed teams in the bottom 3 to sign £30m players. They can bring moments of quality to win games that these teams just didn’t have before. I think it has condensed the league.

Hi Rich,

I think the secret to Liverpool's consistency is that they do not overcomplicate things, they have a simple well drilled system and thus can play relatively well in every game. A simple system with attacking fullbacks, a fast interchanging goalscoring front three and a high press when they lose the ball. It's not rocket science but it works bloody well. Having players prepared to bust a gut without the ball is a big help.

The best GK and CB in the league makes them a tough cookie to crack but teams do create chances against them.

Some day, by the law of averages, you would think a team would take their chances and beat them, even if undeservedly so.

The sad thing is that we probably need a major signing or two this January because we need a load of players and you can't buy them all in one summer so you need to add in every window you can or else face years in the wilderness.

If they progress in the Champions League, and there’s no reason to think they won’t, and they get the Premier League win confirmed very early, might Klopp start resting players in the domestic league? That could weaken the side and stop them remaining undefeated.

Having said that, I’m probably being over optimistic. Even though they still have sixteen games left, I do now expect them to finish the Premier League season undefeated, and to drop quite a number of points less than we did (24 from drawing twelve games).

Maybe they have but Liverpool seems to rarely make a bad big signing. Signings may leave but not before they have made a huge impact (Suarez, Coutinho) and not because they are flops. Man Utd has had a lot of flops. Chelsea a few as well. Liverpool seems to research very well who their target is and they seem to slot right in.

I don't think they'll do it (go unbeaten).

I still sometimes have trouble believing we did it.

It's an almost mythical thing to do.

I'm sure everyone knows that before us only Preston did it, in the League's first season. As an aside they were proven to have paid their players so I don't think that one should count. Anyway, when we did it I got my book of league tables out and looked through all the divisions because I wondered if it had happened in the lower leagues. In the whole history of all the divisions I only found one other unbeaten league season and that was from the 1890s (from memory) in Division II, and it was ironically Liverpool. Three times total.

Banana Split man won't make it four.

(opinions subject to change as the season wears on)

I thought the the villa went unbeaten as well in around about eighteen/canteen

Thinking about it that was the double villa won along with PNE.

(edit - Rog, what sort of link to I use to get utube up here? I'm obviously being a bit stupid here but I can't get it right)

You just put the last bit in of the URL in between the YouTube tags

CB and RB will do, preferably made of something other than breadsticks.

It is an amazing record. At the same time when every other match-up in the league is a lottery which I think is a symptom of the organisation and strength of the rest of the league.

I still think they'll come unstuck before the season is over though. Like Exiled said, just one banana skin and they can lose.

I wouldn't discount the impact of technology as well with all the clubs now having access to video footage and mountains of data and analysis. If utilised properly, this gives them statistical analysis of strengths, weaknesses, speeds, team stamina, times in match where teams are scored against (I.e. losing focus), tactical gaps, etc that improves their odds of results.

I think the main reason is lack of ownership from the traditional top 6 clubs.

Arsenal and United have been set back by the consequences of American ownership and inability to innovate and stagnating.

Chelsea similar with Abramovich not really bothered about them anymore and probably wanting to sell.

I really hope you (and grantyboy) are right. I don’t know; it (them going undefeated) has a certain sense of inevitability to me. If any team is capable of not being affected by it being an almost mythical (to use your term) thing to do, I think it’s this Liverpool team under Klopp. Indeed, rather than it making the unbeaten season less likely, if anything I can see Klopp successfully using it as a motivation to drive his players to do it.

Maybe I’m wrong (on Liverpool remaining undefeated and this point about Preston), but I’d have thought plenty of Arsenal fans would know they did it. It was reported a fair bit when we did it. I didn’t know they paid their players but I don’t really see that as a reason it shouldn’t be counted.

Liverpool would have been 12 points in front of the invincibles at this stage of the season if they played the same season. The only real chance of Liverpool slipping up is City away, City will be hugely up for that game. We play Liverpool at home near the end of the season, if they are still in Europe (could be about semi final time I think) then we might have a chance of winning, but really I expect them to go unbeaten.

It is noticeable how their intensity levels have dropped from the past few seasons, it isn't a high 'heavy metal' press all the time, they pick and choose when to go. Even though, their fitness levels, both phsyical and lack of injuries, is incredible.

It seems like only loan signings will be considered in Jan.
There is still a lot of work to do, much of it with outgoings. We've managed to shift a fair bit of deadwood in recent years but they were often peripheral players, there are still players in the first 11 who either shouldn't be here or should be a squad player only.

If you went through our squad of 25 and got rid of the 6 weakest players, then went through the 1st 11 and demoted the 6 weakest players to squad positions and bought in 6 1st team ready players we'd be on the right path. That for me is how squad building should happen. Not always that easy because players who were 1st 11 don't like being squad players so may seek a move as well.

They should be looking at a core of Leno, Bellerin (fitness permitting), Holding (fitness permitting), Saliba, Tierney, AMN, Saka, Torreira, Guendouzi, Pépé, Martinelli, Nelson as players who will be with us for the next 6 or so years (some mainly squad players). Maintain some quality older heads wherever possible and the rest are expendable.
Main targets need to be CB, Def Mid, RB, creative mid......and strikers if Aubamayang/Lacazette leaves

That’s pretty well how I see it too. I hope we’re both wrong but I’m not expecting us to be. As I said there just seems a sense of inevitability about the whole thing.

Not seen you around much lately. How are things?

The Preston one was but I didn't see the Liverpool one reported.

As for Preston's not counting because they paid their players - it was an amateur league at the time and many clubs got in trouble for paying players. Preston didn't, even though it was known about and it would appear the League knew and did nothing.

Anyway, here's Magic Man in Shoot from today in 1990 promising to be a good boy from now on. Oops.

Life.

I think he's done better than that but having watched the match just now thought we were astonishingly dire for the first 40 minutes so can understand how you feel that way.

True, I knew nothing of the Liverpool one until I read your post. Assume it went unreported because it wasn’t in the top league.

My thoughts as well.

A lot of transfer buzz surrounding the club and its exciting to some extent. Arteta is shaking things up it seems in a good way. We need to be shook up.

I like that Arteta seems to have no respect for anyone's station but talent and if you work hard and will put in a shift.

The bloke has been manager for one month. Bloody hell give him a chance.