Pre Match | Ajax Amsterdam vs. Liverpool | CL Matchday 1 | Wednesday October 21st 20:00h | Johan-Cruyff-Arena

Probably this:

Adrian
Trent Gomez Fabinho Robertson
Keita Henderson Wijnaldum
Salah Firmino Mane
Subs: Kelleher, Jaros, R. Williams, Phillips, N. Williams, Milner, Cain, Jones, Shaqiri, Jota, Minamino, Origi.
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Gini and Jurgen looks so subdued and disheartened at the moment. I feel so sorry for them having to answer the Derby match incidents instead of the forthcoming match.

Jurgen will get the lads back stronger mentally and more motivated than ever.

I feel so sorry for Virgil too, he must miss being with his team mates.

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All of a sudden our strength in depth looks fucking terrible beyond the first 11

JK and the players know how serious the injury to Virgil is. Heā€™s out for the season, but nobody knows for sure when heā€™ll be back or how well heā€™ll recover. Itā€™s potentially a career ending injury and they know it, no wonder they appear subdued. Thiago is extremely lucky not to have suffered the same fate. I hope Pickford and Richarlison are very proud of themselves.

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I hope weā€™re back in Anfield when the home game comes roundā€¦

On a separate note wouldnā€™t it be nice to win the first 3 games of the group and be already qualified going into the 2nd half of the group games.

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Here we are then, itā€™s match day, the first Champions League game of the season. How do I feel about it? I feel completely flat. Have to say, Iā€™m finding it difficult to get enthusiastic about tonight, because of what happened at the weekend and over the many years Iā€™ve played and followed football, I donā€™t think Iā€™ve ever said that.
Having seen the pre match press conference, itā€™s pretty obvious how the much the Everton game has affected Jurgen and the squad. They were both very subdued and I think heā€™s got a job on his hands to lift them up for tonight. I hope, as a team and to a man, they are angry and channel that anger in the right direction.
What the world witnessed on Saturday, was a team of cheating thugs, whoā€™s tactics were to stop Liverpool from playing football, by any means whatsoever. If that meant causing serious physical harm to our players, so be it. And thatā€™s exactly what happened. Will any action be taken against Everton for failing to control their players? Will there fuck!!
As Klopp stated, the only people facing the consequences of this disgraceful episode, are Virgil and Thiago. Meanwhile, the rest of the country celebrates the injury to Virgil, one that could finish his career.
So no, I canā€™t get excited about tonight.

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Itā€™s a bit thin tonight but moving forward we should be ok apart from lack of defensive options. Once Tiago is back, and hopefully it wont be too long, weā€™ll have 7 players to contest the 3 midfield slots (providing Matip is fit of course) and 6 contesting the 3 in attack, and thatā€™s not counting Shaqiri and Ox.
I know itā€™s been done to death but not signing another CB was a bad mistake. Everyone spoke about the fragility of Matip and to a lesser degree Gomez but nobody saw this coming. I think the only option is to play Matip in the prem and Fabinho gets all the CL games.

With the kind of season going on, matches coming quickly and players missing due to covid this would look the case at times. We signed three players in Jota, Thiago and Tsimikas and were overall happy with the window except for the replacement for Lovren, who the majority were anyways happy to see the back of. Minamino hadnā€™t featured much and should be expected to play more. And we didnā€™t lose Shaq and Gini.

We actually have a very nice squad depth IMO. Itā€™s just that one of our mainstay in the team is out for rest of the season which makes us look thin at the back; where we had a named fourth choice CB in Lovren. That CB now is Fab and the corresponding midfielder now is Thiago.

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I checked - heā€™s definitely not Elvis

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But he has left the building.

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Almost everyone associated with Liverpool is feeling in the same way. But life and football goes on. There is no point in reflecting on what took place as there is nothing that can be done about it.

We have to push on. Use what happened to make us stronger. Put the anger and the frustation to good use. We are still champions, we are still one of the best teams on the planet. Itā€™s time to show it.

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Klopp always makes an extra point of pronouncing Matipā€™s first name correctly, but the dumbfuck journos canā€™t be arsed to listen and correct their own pronunciation.
/jo WELL/ āœ“
/JOAL/ x

I hold journalists to a higher standard than fans in this regard.

JoĆ«l obviously does prefer the two dots to mean what theyā€™re supposed to mean: the o and e are separate sounds. Whereas Naby I guess doesnā€™t care so much that his surname is actually pronounced /Ke EAT a/

Ajax are ok. I am not disrespecting them but I would play Jota and Minamino. I think they are suited to CL. We need to rotate. Injuries (other than from pure thuggery) will kick in for all later so we need to protect against that now.

Isnā€™t it pronounced Ź’É”.ɛl?
Where did you get the W from?
I say Joe elle!
Also isnā€™t the emphasis on jo and not well?
Oh! isnā€™t it fun to be pedantic. :wink:
We definitely need a thread on how to pronounce our players names in English.

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Got me a really nice shmoke for this evening.

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Iā€™m looking forward to tonight. I love the Champions League. Wasnā€™t that long ago that just getting in it was cause for celebration. Thereā€™s too much negativity about on the back of the Everton game and the injuries. I hope itā€™s not seeping through to the players and management team. VVDā€™s out for the season. Matip predictably fucked again. Tough luck. Injuries are part of football and we just have to get on with it.

I was a bit ambivalent about this season at first. No crowds. COVID hanging over it all. Now Iā€™m right up for it. Everyone thinks weā€™re going to struggle without VVD. It would be glorious to shove it down everyoneā€™s throats and win this bloody thing again.

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You forgot your apostrophe. Pedantic is my middle name.

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/w/ is a linking sound in connected speech. In your phonemic script above the w would be written in small font size before the second syllable. Itā€™s sometimes called intrusive/w/. Itā€™s also in NoĆ«

Other phonemes can be used in words with diareses e.g. Intrusive /j/ is in the name AnaĆÆs
Connected speech may not apply to your native language of course. Itā€™s not quite as widespread in syllable-timed languages ( French, Italian and Spanish) but in the stress-timed Germanic languages adding sounds so that syllables and words flow into each other is essential.

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I count on you. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Thanks, my limited knowledge of phonetic script is in French (too old to learn it but found it extremely useful and interesting).
Been here in France soo long that itā€™s difficult to ā€˜getā€™ the ā€˜Englishā€™ pronounciations anymore with Ws and Js all over the place.
Got it and understand it now. Thanks for the little lesson.
Anyway you should hear me say Widge-nal-dom. :rofl:

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