After all the fun of the World Cup Qualifiers, it’s back to the grindstone of the league. Yay! Real football is back.
This fixture was Arne’s bête noire from last season, with him frequently mentioning Forest as his nemesis match. Both Forest and we are very different teams this season, and I am hoping that this will be a much improved performance from us.
It’s a traditional 3pm Saturday afternoon kick-off at Anfield, so I am assuming that is isn’t on the telly in the UK.
Match officials: Referee: Andy Madley. Assistants: Adrian Holmes, Simon Long. Fourth official: Adam Herczeg. VAR: James Bell. Assistant VAR: Mark Scholes.
Hopefully, that means we can actually enjoy watching the footy for a change!
I forgot Ali was mentioned as being back for this, hopefully more of the home performance against Villa and Madrid, to be fair even the Man Utd one was better than what we saw away.
Ah , at last ! … a new season is finally upon us. I hope the lads have put the disappointment of last year behind them and are raring to go this time round.
I guess the back 4, niggles and minutes prermitting, will be Bradley, Konate, Virgil and Robbo. The international break probably came at the right time for Konate, even if it’s highly questionable how much trust there is in Gomez.
Midfield picks itself with Gravenberch and Mac at the base, Szobo at #10. Good to have Jones fit and ready to challenge if anyone has a drop in form or a niggle/injury.
Would like to see Wirtz start in whichever half-space to create the box-shape midfield in possession instead of either Gakpo or Salah. Probably Gakpo.
If Ange was still in charge, I would be very confident of winning this game. Now Dyche is there, he will have Forest better organised defensively, low block and all that boring bollocks.They will try to hit us with long balls, over the hapless Konate and because Slot has told the world that we can’t cope with set pieces and long throw in’s, they’ll try to capitalise on that also. I can only hope we perform like we did against Madrid.
Very next game after the clear corruption involved at City (and Webb’s lying/gaslighting on TV) PGMOL (Webb) decide not to send the usual assortment of Mancs, Geordies and other gobshites (Hooper/England/Attwell) and instead send a ref who we have no previous trouble with and a 4th official and VAR nobody has ever fucking heard of.
There was no way he was ever going to send any of the usual suspects and risk being exposed even more as the cheating cunts they are so soon after the last game.
As to the game itself, imo this is the 1st of 10 Slot has between now and New Years Day to convince us all he has an actual plan and the tactical knowledge to get us out of this slump and competing again.
We will be clear favourites in 8 of those games with only the Spurs and Inter aways being seen as possible draws or even losses.
I think we need to take a minimum of 19 points from the 8 PL games and beat PSV in the CL. Any less than that and I think questions will be asked.
Stick with Robbo and Bradley at FB, no doubt Konate will keep his place, usual 3 in midfield and Wirtz behind a more central Ekiteke and Salah. Wishful thinking I know.
Instead Oliver gets the Arsenal v Spurs game. Just as City climb to second in the table chasing down Arsenal, you literally couldn’t make this shit up. I will be having money on Arsenal dropping points this weekend.
That would be my line-up as well. Especially Wirtz in one of the half-spaces (ie. on the left) will suit him better, and allow Dom to play in his best position.
Hopefully everyone will be fit and running. Let’s start this new portion of the league with three points, fingers crossed!
(On Forest’s side, I’ll be interested to see if Dan Ndoye starts. He has been on fire with the Swiss national team, and I’ll be very interested to see if he can translate this with good performances in the PL.)
