It’s February 1st - welcome to the latest edition of the pod, after the Reds reached the League Cup Final, are in the 5th round of the FA Cup and last night they overwhelmed Chelsea. I’m Paul and I am joined by Sean, Daz and Enrique. We’ll look at Fulham and Norwich, do a deeper dive into the Chelsea game, look at some of the fallout from the Klopp news, and finish off looking ahead to Arsenal at the weekend.
Part One: Cup glory:
Fulham - 1-1 in the second leg.
Lot of commentary about Fulham being too emotional to focus early on
Should probably have scored another
Difficult few minutes after they got an equalizer
Closed the game down brilliantly with Konate and later Bobby Clark
Norwich 5-2 stroll - least important game for the rest of this season (hopefully)
Some nice goals - Jones, Darwin, Jota, Virgil and Gravenberch
Return of TAA, Andy Robbo and Dom
Why did he play James McConnell (who was very good) over Bobby Clark? 6 vs 8?
Part Two: Chelsea at home (xG 2.95 vs 0.56) - first time we have beaten them at Anfield since we won the League!
First half was especially compelling, especially so after watching it back and realizing they are not the Russian state backed operation they once were:
Looked so lively, especially Jota and Diaz
Connor Bradley is 20. Toffee TV presenter tweeted about them losing players and playing people out of position, while Liverpool lose their best player and discover the next Cafu.
Mac Allister, Jones and Szobozlai - that is some midfield
Darwin 37 pressures, Alexis 49
78 - Darwin creates the chance for Luis Diaz only he will create
67 to 71 looked a bit disjointed after 4 changes.
BTW Nkunku finish… if Darwin has that luck, he’s scoring 5.
By 75 we are back making chaos
They’re only half a football team compared to the boys in Red:
Badiashiel, Madueke, Mudryk
Cole Palmer - signing of the season (apart from James Madison!)
Paul Tierney!! Surprised he didn’t give them at least one penalty.
3 weeks we’ll be back, said the Chelsea fella in the pub, So will Mo….
They can’t be this bad at Wembley, can they?
Part Three - fallout, state of our season and Arsenal:
Starts with VVD answering some mixed zone questions about his contract. He finished his comments (not reported in most places) with:
‘It’s noise that we don’t need. We just focus on getting the job done. At the end of the season, different things will happen of course but that’s for the club to sort out, not for us to speak about.’
And although he is speaking about the manager search. Feels like it’s noise we don’t need could be applied to all of these articles. James Pearce we are looking at you.
4 goals in each of the last 3 Premier League games. Feels very 1987-88. No one gets battered but almost everyone concedes 4 goals (9 times in that season, although we also beat Forest 5-0 at the end of the season). On pace again for a 90+ finish.
Arsenal away:
How tricky do we think this one will be? Arsenal have won both their games since we beat them in the cup (Palace and Forest)
They have Jesus back, we have Szobozlai, VVD and potentially Robbo.
Line up? Predictions?
We will be back after the next Premier League game against Arsenal. Thanks to Sean, Enrique and Daz. And thank you dear listener for joining us.
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