Fuck you Chelsea, you billion dollar bottlejob. Fuck you Boehly, you daft prick. Fuck you Pochettino, you arrogant cunt. Fuck you Caicedo, you useless thug. Fuck you Chilwell, you brainless bully. Fuck you Kavanagh and your fellow corrupt mercenaries. What a fucking wonderful club we have. What a fucking hoard of warriors our players are. What a fucking glorious human Klopp is. Blessed is the day I started this journey. What a privilege to be part of something so excruciatingly enchanting.
No, you are in the FA Cup game thread; bear with me.
This is Liverpool. This is what means to be Liverpool. The trophies are just the froth on the top, the real nectar lies underneath. It’s the heartbreaks, it’s the endurance, it’s the thrills, it’s the passion, it’s fights that’s the elixir that sustains us. We will take our random trophies over a bucket-load of grimy trinkets.
Yes, yes, it’s really the FA Cup game thread, bite me.
Can see McConnell getting a start. He only played 35 mins in the final.
Southampton’s league form has been patchy lately, but they are all but assured of at least a play-off place. Not sure how they will approach this one. Maybe they’ll see us as vulnerable with the absences and a cup final hangover, or maybe they are far more concerned with getting direct promotion.
I expect Jürgen to piece a team together out of the available players and apprentices like MacGyver fashioning an explosive device out of household detergents, kitchen utensils and a broken teasmaid that was originally won as a price on The Generation Game circa 1972.
The match is available in the UK on ITV1, STV and UTV (England/Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) and also on the associated streaming devices for those with a VPN (not that I would advocate such shenanigans, of course).
Soton have been in a bad patch of form against teams you’d expect them to beat so two minds whether they will take this seriously or rotate.
Norwich rotated last time out to be fair so expect something similar.
For us well I can see a very inexperienced first 11 even though many already have a cup winners medal and quite a strong bench. Hopefully the 3 who are close can get some minutes as it might give us something resembling a first team for the game against Forest start only 15 mins earlier against Man Utd. So no favouritism in this really. As both could go extra time.
Klopp said those who came on would likely play, those who did only 90 mins I assume will also be in contention for the bench and Kelleher.
Russell went with a pretty young side for their replay with Watford, whether he goes with that many changes again only time will tell.
Someone alluded to yesterday the added importance of getting through this game, being the Everton game gets pushed back until after the intl break.
Sure the FA cup comes last in the priority list but it’s still a piece of the jigsaw we need to complete a historical quadruple so for these 2 reasons I’m less inclined to go with a full u21 side.
My XI - Kelleher Bradley Gomez Quansah Kostas Mcconnell Nyoni Mac Gordon Gakpo Koumas
If Salah, Nunez, Dom ready for the bench I’d be giving them 25-30 mins each too.
I’d play Bradley for 50-60 min and then see off the match with Joe. I don’t believe we have any other wingback there who can slot in. Maybe Clark can do a job as well , who knows.