Klopp and his ‘absolute joke of an excuse’ at Liverpool and Postecoglou is the Australian Mourinho
Jurgen Klopp looks dejected on the Liverpool bench
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp moaning about Saturday lunchtime kick-offs is ‘an absolute joke of an excuse’. Plus, Ange Postecoglou is the Australian Mourinho at Tottenham, Carlo Ancelotti is the GOAT and Championship final day…
Send your thoughts to [email protected]…
Has to be read in Arnie’s accent…
Haaland is basically the Goalinator.
“Give me your golden ball.”
Niallio, Dublin
Championship final day
No disrespect intended to the brilliant fans of Birmingham City. They’re a huge club.
But the decision to get rid of John Eustace was ridiculous and has now, unfortunately , been fully proved. I don’t want to bash Rooney at all I just think Eustace was getting every drop from that squad and he was always going to be a hard act to follow.
Glad to see Blackburn safe and sound for another year and Eustace vindicated. I don’t think any Birmingham fans were Eustace out though!
In fairness to the owners of Birmingham they’ve admitted, as such, removing Eustace was a mistake, and have claimed they’re in it for the long haul and will be just as committed to the plan in League 1 and acknowledging it will just cost more time and money. I genuinely hope they are as Birmingham are a huge club.
As a Sunderland fan it’s a deja vu case of be careful what you wish for. I didn’t want Mowbray to go last December (especially since what he said about needing a proven and experienced goalscoring 9 was what anyone who regularly watched Sunderland would say) and since he’s went we’ve skid down the table similar to Birmingham.
In any case, I’d love to see Mowbray take them back up next season at a canter because the Blues don’t belong in League 1.
Edward Canhands SAFC ( Get well soon Mogga and thanks for everything)
Saturday Lunchtime
Dear Football365,
It’s hard to pick just one but on reflection, I think the thing I’ll miss most about Jurgen Klopp is his moaning about Saturday lunchtime games. Even beyond the element of biting the hand that feeds him, given how broadcasting money is the primary source of income for Premier League teams.
Over the last three seasons, Liverpool have played 17 Saturday 12.30pm games, winning nine, drawing five and losing three. This season alone they are undefeated in such games (four wins, two draws) and in 2021-22, they won five out of five without even conceding a goal. Across all three seasons, Liverpool have taken an average of 70% of all available points, and in lunchtime kickoffs, the figure is 65% (72% in other games).
Anyway, long story short, playing those games generally has a negligible effect on Liverpool’s overall form, they still generally win more than they lose, and it’s more evidence some football managers see football matches as a huge inconvenience instead of, you know, their job.
Ed Quoththeraven
Just a quick question…
After reading Klopp’s whining about the early Saturday kickoffs, it really makes me wonder about his legendary man management skills.
Surely if a chap earning lottery winner level money per year cannot inspire his players, who also “earn” lottery winner money per week, to run about and kick a ball a whole 3 hours earlier than usual, he may not be a great leader of men after all?
I held Klopp in high regard for a while, but that’s an absolute joke of an excuse.
Maybe I’m wrong, but don’t both teams have to kickoff at the same time? Or are poor Norbert’s lads left all alone on the pitch for a couple of hours until their opponents turn up?
If his team struggle with this specific time slot then surely it’s the manager’s job to do something about it. He’s had the best part of a decade in charge FFS
Ta,
Dave PVFC
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Dave, Winchester Spurs
Arsenal are such a weird fanbase
Every club’s supporters are weird and that’s a fact. Yours are weird, ours are weird – you, like the rest of us support a cloth that random individuals wear and we shout a lot and pay money to support the shirt – we then write odd emails into a forum dedicated to the same people – please keep your casting of aspersions to the football and leave us poor saps who do the exact same thing as you alone (as your really having a go at yourself – hahahaha)
Thomas Partey blatantly shoved Romero
he got his header off and missed – you can’t have it both ways – isn’t that what you are complaining about – VAR interfering/not interfering. What if the ref decides to call the push (looked worse than it was because of a thing called momentum) but the header goes in…. Yeah now it’s starting to make sense hey! The stadium as a whole would have shit itself – would that have been better – you should consider what happened with both eyes and not just your one eye
Trossard fouled Kulusevski
who initiated contact – you can clearly see as Trossard runs behind Kulusevski his run stride meant his leg came up and hit Trossard, to give a penalty it would have to be the other way round – and that’s why it wasn’t given by VAR
Obvious foul on Vicario for the Havertz goal
are you actually made of straw cos all of your arguments are hahaha – player stands in position -> 6 foot 3 keeper then starts to act like there is an impenetrable force field in front of him called Benjamin White -> if he simply lets Benjamin lean into him then move to the side old Benny boy falls into the net or into an offside position -> no what the big lug does every time is just act like his legs don’t work and he can’t move but can shove a lot (it was so funny to see Benjamin doing the glove thing – that’s fu*king hilarious). Your keeper is a wreck at corners that’s why every team targets him – his big but weak and gets bullied when if he had a bit of common sense he wouldn’t just do that thing HE does every single time – which is push a lot then get beaten then complain about it – now thats a bit thick and slightly mad really – but it’s your teams problem to solve as we all will keep just doing it if it works – your team would do the same each time if you could (is your middle name revisionist)
That’s a four goal swing – the shrooms are having an adverse effect bruv!
One team dominated in every other measurable aspect of the game (apart from corners)
check your brackets – that’s why you lost bruv, but you still struggle to see it – you just made an argument – undid your own point – then made it again in a different way – but still went back to the original point you had already said isn’t valid. Just step back and see it for what it is – your teams been playing crap for months and your only going in one direction – Ange is the australian Mourinho, looks good for a while but ultimately is easy to work out and easy to play against – hence us only needing to make an effort for corners – we let you have the rest as we knew you wouldn’t be able to do anything with it – as the game showed – we gave you gifts (free goal and penalty) and with all of your sterile ‘dominance’ you still couldn’t get it done – that says much more about the poor state of your team then us, refs, VAR and the poor Unicorns!
I do believe in Unicorns – I must as I am certain even when playing bad we were 3 up against you in a derby at your toilet bowl of a ground – and even with gifting you a free goal and a penalty to make it more interesting for us you still really didn’t get close – that was your lot playing at their max – and us playing badly but as the score line suggests we could never play so badly as to be like Spurs at their best!
Micky, AFC (leave the poor Unicorns alone!)
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Great managers
The question of who is greatest manager ever is at first an easy one to answer, but the more you think about it the harder it is to answer.
You might immediately jump to fergie or peptide pep and list all the trophies they won. But I’d counter that by saying – how many international trophies did they win? And in peps case I’d also say what has he achieved in difficult circumstances?
You might then say Brian Clough, achieved genuinely insane things with Nottingham forest. I can’t even begin to say how mental his achievements with Nottingham forest. Liverpool fans might point to shankly who took a lower league club to top level dominance in just a couple of seasons or paisley who continued that great success or fagan who was the first manager to do a treble on these shores (it’s not fergie unless you believe football began in 1991) – all things done in tough circumstances and great successes. But you’d be wrong again.
To my knowledge there is only one coach who has literally won every trophy available at both club and country level, and that’s del Bosque who won la liga, Spanish cup, champions league and then got bored and won back to back world cup and European championships with Spain as well. And played some amazing football as well.
But that only looks at what they won. We should also include how they played and managed the players under their control. Del Bosque fell out with people all the time at Madrid and is quite a tetchy character causing rifts at all levels in Madrid and leading to his eventual sacking.
If you asked many managers they would probably name arrigo saachi since almost every aspect of modern tactics was created by him to lift Milan out of the doldrums of catennaccio, he’s probably the most influential manager of the last 50/70 years. But he took fell out with people all the time, notably worlds best player Roberto baggio (genuinely one of the nicest chaps on earth).
So I’m gonna make the case for Carlo ancelotti. You can disagree (and I’m sure you will) and you can also point out carlo too hasn’t won anything at international level, that’s true. But has any manager had success at all levels in more places than Carlo? Nope. Spain, Italy, Germany UK, France…he won titles in all of them.
Carlo himself cites saachi as a major influence (almost every manager does) but Carlo is far far more adaptable than anyone. He will play any system which gets the best out of his players. Most other managers devise a system and buy players to fit it. Carlo looks at what he has and says – how can I get the best of this? There are very few in today’s game with this flexibility (laugh if you want but nagelsmann can do this as well, underrated) .
Carlo has also worked under some of the toughest and most annoying management structures in football, from Milan’s notoriously difficult berlusconi and Chelsea’s trigger happy abramovic to the insanely toxic Madrid management team. And he never complains. He doesn’t blame the club , he doesn’t bitch about not having money. He understand his role in that structure and just gets to work.
He is also capable of playing truly brilliant football (his Milan, Parma and psg teams were great to watch) or take to his roots and shut up shop as city found out. He’s played multiple different formations and systems and won trophies using all of them.
While fergie, pep and del Bosque are good shouts they all play(ed) a certain way and rarely deviate from it. So for me Carlo is probably the best football manager of all time.
Ok my fan club in the comments can talk about what a moron I am now, I’ll look forward to reading your adoring messages.
Lee
The world will forget the brilliance of Klopp’s Liverpool team
I found myself agreeing almost completely with Dan, Plastic LFC’s mail, and that the world in general will forget the brilliance of Klopp’s Liverpool team ,because they so often came up just short (often to the two current superpower clubs). But I think Liverpool fans will always remember how brilliant the football was, how compelling the drama was, the many phenomenal performances, and the pleasure of watching a very likeable team play some wonderful football. And I completely agree in regards to Man City and Real; I don’t like City, but I respect their realisation of football at the absolute highest level, and I despise Real to a degree far beyond how I feel about any other team, perhaps even Man United.
Henry, LFC