Liverpool boss Arne Slot has been told that it was ‘criminal’ to drop Hugo Ekitike for Alexander Isak earlier in the season, while one Chelsea fan is already keen to see Liam Rosenior sacked for Xabi Alonso.
Plus, Mohamed Salah needs to be sold quickly, shoddy form across the Premier League, a defence of Viktor Gyokeres and lots more.
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com…
Liverpool fans will ‘riot’ if Hugo Ekitike is dropped again…
Hugo Ekitike shows shades of Thierry Henry and Torres in the way he plays football. It was criminal that Slot dropped him as soon as Isak was fit; that decision also coincided with our horrendous down turn in form but I suspect that correlation rather than causation. If he were to do so again then I think fans would riot. Hugo has earned that spot right now and it should be his to keep; everyone else in this team needs to find a place around him in my opinion.
The Mo drop off is so sad to watch and so hard to understand. He was through and clear on goal and forgot to curve his run to bring him closer to goal. In the end Trippier just took it off him. Is he fully devoid of confidence or just downing tools until Slot is gone? His lack of output combined with Gakpo is probably why we have struggled so much this season. Today Gakpo had these flashes driving into space but then had zero output or clue of what to do every time. He seems so out of sync with the team; once he raced into the box and then to the byline and crossed it at chest level for a defender to clear when he could’ve rolled it on the floor two touches earlier into feet for a finish.
Ultimately a much needed win given everyone around us is suddenly rejuvenated, good and bouncing off their new managers.
Simon Hooper truly is an awful referee by the way. It’s weird thinking I’ll never reach the standard required to be a professional footballer but I’ll also never sink to the level of incompetence required to make it at the PGMOL.
Minty, LFC
Funny how things work out innit?
If Newcastle had been willing to let Isak move to Liverpool during the summer as he wished then they probably would’ve just signed Ekitike as a replacement.
Instead they and their went all Johnny big balls on it and missed out on probably the hottest young striker in Europe and lost Isak also.
After a summer pile on by Newcastle fans, pundits and certain writers on certain websites last night showed that you can talk all you want but at the end of the day Wirtz and Ekitike are the new Gerrard/Torres (we’re not quite at Daglish/Rush comparisons yet) and that Isak fella should be pretty decent when he comes back as well.
One for the haters.
Dave LFC
Liverpool need to sell Salah while they still can…
If Liverpool have got any sense, they’ll sell Salah while they can still get wedge, keep bulking Wirtz up in the gym, build around him, and make Ekitike first choice striker even when Isak is back. That first Liverpool assist & goal was a thing of beauty. I was badly wrong about Ekitike when I said he’d only ever be as good as Nunez, and right about Wirtz that he might well struggle with the physicality of the PL this season. But! Fair play to the lad, looks like he’s got to grips with it after half a season despite tantrum pants Salah doing precious little to help him.
RHT/TS (That brawl at Chelsea was class too, Todibo is not a man to be fucked with)
Dr. Feelgood
I want to give a shout out to the recent contributor posting his XI players that reinforced his love of the game. It reminded me that in spite of all the negative emails, we all still desperately love the game, even if it has all the hallmarks of a codependent relationship!
What the posting did was to get the “little grey cells” working and I realized it wasn’t only players that have reinforced my love of the game. So here are XI experiences that touched me the most.
George Best. There is more than enough written about him and sadly not enough videos of him but hunt out the video of him receiving the ball in the penalty box, controlling it on this thigh and then CHIPPING the goalkeeper has to be one of the most outrageous pieces of skill I have ever seen. From then on I was hooked.
Stylo Matchmakers. While my parents would not let me grow my hair like Best, they did indulge me with a pair of Stylo Matchmaker football boots. In retrospect, they weren’t of the greatest quality but for a couple of hours each week, I could pretend I was George Best.
Adidas Tango Footballs. I doubt many of you have seen, let alone played with a leather football with laces that became hard as a rock when it got wet. I may be wrong, but the Tango ball was the first to have a waterproof plastic coating. Now you could even see the curl on the ball!
Bovril. I honestly don’t recall ever having Bovril other than at a football ground. I can’t even say that I liked it, but combined with a pie or pastie at half-time, it was a minor but integral part of the football day experience.
Football Chants. Football is virtually unique as a sport where the fans various ditties. From what I can gather, these came to the fore around the 60’s. How and why is probably a topic within itself. As a MUFC fan, I did enjoy the “Ryan Giggs” chant but in truth my two favorites were Chelsea chants; “One Man Went To Mow” and “Celery”. To this day I have no idea what they had to do with football but they were funny as hell.
Holland’s Total Football. The Dutch are supposedly the tallest people in Europe and the 1970 World Cup team looked like a bunch of Viking had just gotten of a boat with their beards and long hair. But their style of football was out of this world and breathtaking. I’m surprised with today’s levels of skill why no one has contemplated it again.
Dimitar Berbatov. He should have been allowed to play with dark sunglasses smoking a cigarette. His insouciance attitude belied an absolute God given talent to control the ball. One of a handful of players I could not stop watching.
Beckham’s Goal Against Greece. For a time, many England fans hated him but I defy you to show me one England football fan who was not cheering his head off when that went in.
Henrick Larsson’s Iconic Header. I think it was against Bulgaria around 2004. It’s goals like this that makes one realize that these players are from another planet.
The Classified Football Results at 5 pm on a Saturday by James Alexander Gordon. Did you also try and predict the result by the tone of his voice when he said the name of the away team?
Ole! Yes, I cried!
I’m sure you all have your own lists but these football moments have helped me through thick and thin and while it might not save the world going to hell in a handbasket, at least I’ll smile on the way down!
Adidasmufc (To think “Cantonaa!” Didn’t even make the list!)
READ: Spurs signing, two Aston Villa transfers among six most bizarre PL deals in 2026 January window
Shoddy form across the EPL
Dear Editor,
I was just perusing the premier league table on the BBC and it’s really poor reading
Arsenal: WWDDLW
City: WDDDLW
Villa: WLWDLW
Chelsea: DDLWWW
Liverpool: WDDDDL (it’s half time against Newcastle)
And it gets worse as you keep going down.
Arsenal take a hiding for their recent displays, but frankly nobody is great. Either the EPL is so strong that hitting six wins in a row is incredible or all the leading teams are consistently capable of brain farts
Or both.
But either way, this last couple of months has been fun but hardly a stellar display of hitting form.
Alexander
In defence of Viktor Gyokeres…
Gyokeres has looked poor in some arsenal games this season, but an article on the arsenal leeds game by Matt Stead seemed to go in on him quite hard so I feel I need to do a quick defence.
We are in January and he scored his 11th goal of the season. This is after missing almost the entire preseason and missing an entire month due to injury around October-November. 11 goals in all competitions at around 60% of the way through the season (assuming we go far in the FA and CL) when making a move to a new team and a brand new league is definitely ok and, by the way, he has scored more goals this season than the following forwards who had Summer transfers:
Bryan Mbeumo
Liam Delap
Benjamin Šeško
Matheus Cunha
Nick Woltemade
I thought he had scored more than Joao Pedro, but his double in the CL the other day puts him one goal ahead of Gyokeres.
Fair enough, I won’t mention Isak there since he has a big injury (each of his goals costing Liverpool over £40 million so far, there, I mentioned him).
Apart from Chelsea’s 2 strikers here, every forward mentioned in this email cost more than Gyokeres, so his criticism seems overly harsh, unless the other players will get criticised for their comparative lack of goals?
The only striker who transferred this season who I’d say is objectively doing better than Gyokeres would be Ekitike, fair play to Liverpool, and I’m not complaining about this because all clubs spend big money but, if all add-ons are achieved for both Ekitike and Gyokeres, then Ekitike costs £20 million more than Gyokeres so you get what you pay for.
Honourable mention to Calvert-Lewin with a 9 goal return for a free transfer, he’s looked good but he was in Saliba’s pocket in yesterday’s match.
Andrew M, AFC, Arsenal
Hire Alonso
Can’t believe the dross I am watching now. Down 2 goals now and can’t even claim West Ham don’t deserve it.
What I can see has improved under Rosenior is back passing and play acting.
We have an extremely talented young squad needing coaching tactics set up and not man management like Real.
Really hope this nightmare ends with Alonso on our bench. We need a good coach who knows what they are doing instead of a yes man. Alonso or Fabregas maybe the one who can truly help.
B CFC ( Time for Stars to shine and save us)
Surely own goals are a positive thing…
Hi,
Great website. Ref – MOTD and Arsenal tonight… Why did they portray the second top goalscorer, Own Goals, as a negative thing? If that’s the case, surely that’s on the defending team not being able to do their job properly and down to Arsenal pressurising the other team into conceding a goal…? If the team you are playing against score goals for you, surely that’s a positive thing.
Kind regards
James, Leighton Buzzard
It feels…
It feels Hodgson. We should be grateful to be fifth. What should we expect. I have injuries.
He’s talking like a manager at west ham (sorry west ham fans)
Klopp took us champions league nat Phillips and Rhys Williams. Check the level they’ve found
Watching Newcastle game and first time since hodgson thinking it wouldn’t be worst thing if we lose.
He’s small time. Not Liverpool that’s the feeling.
Other thoughts same theme Kerkez is Konchesky
Ekitike is Torres regen
And should have sold Allison not Kelleher.
Anon
READ: Romano reveals Liverpool are ‘in talks’ to sign a Premier League defender before the deadline
Starved fans
It is official that ManU fans have been starving since their club owners became a joke with manger recruitment. The way they’ve celebrated the last two weeks after seeing off Man City and Arsenal is indeed amazing.
Today they were very sure that Leeds would cause an upset against Arsenal. Sorry!
By the way, what do ManU fans do on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays when the big nine clubs in England, ie, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, City, Tottenham, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Forest and Crystal Palace are playing matches in Europe?
They are just keyboard warriors spewing hate and negativity about the other teams.
For a team set to play only 40 matches this season, compared to the other teams, their performance hitherto has been a serious embarrassment. Failure to qualify for champions league will really be the Nadir for a club basking in past glory.
Yiembe, Mombasa
