Mo is ready, he had a few days off. 
Michael Oliver used to be the best referee and actually, in a break from tradition for PGMOL, genuinely excellent at his job.
However in the past few years his performances have massively deteriorated, as his ego has ballooned in response to being regarded as the best one. VAR seems to have been a trigger for him, and there are rumours of him being furious if his colleagues send him to the screen.
He now can be considered a classic narrative ref. He sees himself as the most important person on the pitch, and his job is to help the game towards its favoured narrative outcome. For example, last Merseyside Derby at Goodison in front of 40,000 feral blues. No fucking way are Liverpool winning this, and it’s Oliver’s job to see the game towards this conclusion.
Then we have the succession of odd decisions he gave in favour of Man City while he had his lucrative side hustle in the UAE. That absolutely stunk the place out, and if PGMOL were any kind of serious outfit, it would have sparked an immediate suspension and investigation.
But to me, the nadir of Oliver’s fall from the best ref in the country to just another egotistical dickhead who can’t do his job was the events in the Merseyside Derby at Goodison in the 20/21 season.
This was the game where he failed to send off Pickford for jumping arse first into Virgil’s knee, focussing more on the offside in the build up than the shithouse challenge that did Virgil’s ACL. Oliver said after the game that in retrospect it probably was a red card, but that Liverpool players should have made more of a fuss in demanding it. Which is an absolutely mental thing for a ref to say.
Oliver did show a red card in the game to Richarlison late on, who felt emboldened to snap Thiago’s ankle after Oliver had indulged Everton putting in horrendous tackles all games, because narrative. Losing a game is one thing (although I think it was a draw), losing two players to lengthy serious injury because of the referee is another.
5 Likes
And his Mum cuts his hair. (According to Goldbridge. )
3 Likes
Not the ideal time to be playing these cunts. At least majority of our players performed well while on international duty so that says a lot about our current predicament at club level. I doubt Slot will sort out the current issues soon, the squad is just too imbalanced at the moment.
1 Like
To be fair it looks like it.
2 Likes
Ok
We have biased fuck Oliver as ref…nowt more to say there.
We have injury concerns on…
Gravenberch
Konate
MacAllister (finess questions after playing midweek)
Allison already out…
Any doubts on Gravenberch and Konate should mean rest.
I reckon
Jones Szoboszlai and Wirtz start, with Jones at 6.
Frimpong and Kerkez at FB, Gomez with VVD.
Up top its Gakpo, Salah and one of Ekitike or Isak.
I remember the excitement in the past regarding this fixture. On TIA we would have this topic done to death. Not a criticism, just an observation.
Now we have less than 50 posts midweek before the match. Maybe its Utd falling from success, maybe its us flapping after the last two games,afraid to speculate on the fixture.
Fuck it, we should win this.
2 Likes
1 Like
In all those matches that Liverpool won, they were the better team.
Those stats prove nothing.
In the past, we would have been looking forward to testing ourselves against the best, hoping to put one over on our rivals. Nowadays, it’s just another game against a mid table team who might be awkward, but we should beat.
In fairness, both teams are underperforming. They have some decent players, Mbueno and Cunha have caused us problems before, for example. If they play at their best, and we play like we have been, it’s not going to be easy, but I’m hopeful that we will improve, and that class will prevail.
2 Likes
Crowd will be big, I do think we desperately need to be back home.
3 Likes
Half-term, off to visit some mates in central Italy tomorrow. Hopefully I can find a bar somewhere with the game on.
As they say in Umbria…
Yanited are a pack of cunts and their manager is fucking shite.
6 Likes
I haven’t packed away my football memorabilia box yet and found the following which took place 43 years ago today:
The match ended 0:0 although it wasn’t one of my happier football memories mainly because we were close to the away fans pen and there was a lot of unpleasentness all around the stadium.
8 Likes
If past is prologue. 
So, full strength then.
Arne’s pre-match press conference is tomorrow at 09:00:
1 Like
Lazurus fib again…
It’s clear we can be gotten at, but they basically don’t have a midfield or defence. 
We should have enough but that’s not how these things work.
1 Like
Let’s be clear: if we win we are not back and if we lose it doesn’t mean the whole team needs to be replaced.
Plus I expect my post will be completely ignored.
5 Likes
I think this post would work more without the inclusion of the word “doesn’t”.
1 Like