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So try this stretch and flex movie in Tarte Cherry or Pineapple Kale. Order online today for pickup or delivery. Smoothie King, rule the day. All this week on NBC4, new products to new technology. Susan Hogan is showing you how local restaurants are changing the way we dine in and take out in this new world, tonight at 6. A new twist on outdoor eating. A lot of it is creating flexibility. How one local restaurant is making their outdoor space mobile, giving you plenty of sunshine and social distance for a stress free meal. It's all part of restaurant revitalization. Tonight at 6 on NBC4, working for you. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] The festive season approaches an after two exhausting, maddening, expletive-inducing victories on the spin Liverpool are halfway through what could be an absolutely pivotal four-game run. Stoke and Leicester have been dispatched Sunderland and Basel away. I'm Trevor Dining and joining me on the podcast tonight to get into the analysis of what's been passed and what is to come are on the line from South Africa, our old friend Marco Lopez, the AI Champions League podcast host and scribe. I'm in the bunker. I'm joined by Stephen Dady, Ray Brady and Phil Casey. Okay, let's take a look back at the recent games involving Liverpool. The drought, Ludigrette's, the narrow victory over Stoke and the recent victory over Leicester City. A lot of analyze and very little time. So probably the best thing to do is after such a hellish period of gloominess, let's just revel in those six points. You know, there's a lot of podcasts and seven points. Okay. Because you've got a point to the Champions League as well. Yeah, it is a different competition, but sure, let's add them all fucking together. Up, you know. Plus two forever. Yeah. So we've got nine points. Two good boy points. Yeah. Nine points. So look, I mean, it's only last week or the week before we had Andy Young in here saying that we were the worst team in the league, and it was hard to argue them because it was a good point made about how disheveled we were. Marco, we're back in with a shout of keeping ourselves involved in the Champions League. We're five points off the ranks in fourth place. There are reasons to be cheerful now, yes? Yeah, they are. I mean, it certainly wasn't terrible to get results. I mean, we've kind of been aching for them for a little while. And the results are obviously a lot more important in the performance. And we kind of have to do our best to concentrate a little bit more on the fact that this is a team still playing largely like shit and still getting, and how did you get the point? It's not a... The first opportunity we spoke about it. Oh, we're rolling now. It's a step up on shit, isn't it, largely? Yeah, it's a step up on shit. But no, no, no. Okay, on a serious note, I mean, it's nice to see the shades of positivity coming in. I really, really hope that the fact that we're starting to see, you know, the use of Gerald off the bench might be signing things to come. Sterling has looked fantastic last couple of games. The fact that Lucas has kind of emerged as an option, not as an amazing option. I still don't rate him highly, but, you know, he's functional. He's certainly done a job a little bit in these games. And you kind of... These are the points Liverpool need to start picking up. I actually did some rare math earlier in my head, of course. And I worked out. When the key things Liverpool really have to start doing is taking points against the crap in this league, because they're really bad at it. If you look at it, if you assume, for example, that there's, you know, Southampton, unfortunately, just sort of position themselves up there and are clearly in the fight for the top four. If you take the bottom 12 teams and I'm kind of roping in West Ham and Swansea into that, even though we're currently below them. Liverpool have only taken 13 points from that group, right? Southampton have doubled, have doubled that figure, and Liverpool just got to start taking points against these guys. So the next game against Sunderland and the games against the Dros are just really key there. Liverpool have got to start. If you were going to say to me that we were going to, you know, have... It's very similar to the beginning of the last season. All these 1-0 wins, we were playing like crap, but we're still getting the points. Absolutely, I'll take it hands down, you can even throw in... Yes, I'll even tolerate, you know, kissing Martin Skirtle's head if I have to. Yeah. Well, as long as the points come in, because it is so, so critical to be in that race for top four this year. I don't think any of us really understand just how important it is. Ray, do you understand how important it is? By the way, I have a cheer for you after that from Mark, it was great, isn't it? Brilliant. I was saying being positive. Yeah, I was saying. Me. That's how you were so uncratching over at Michael. How's the start rope there, Trevor? Sorry, I'm using it. Go ahead, Ray. Talk to me about, you know, Michael does make some good points there a bit. You know, we need to start taking results and we need to start taking points in the games coming up. And look, the point is, we have started. Yeah, but, yeah, obviously winning, that's what we want. We want the points, Bo. I'm still really negative on how badly we're playing. Look, it's a step up that we're playing shit and getting points. I'll take that. It is a positive, obviously. It's a numbers game. We want to get points on the board, Bo. Play was, I'm still really pessimistic about Ray, really pessimistic. Yeah. So, like, you're not seeing, you're not taking heart from the, what appears to be a turnaround in the attitude of the manager, even. Um, well, in what sense do you mean that it is? Well, just as little indications that he's maybe learning from his mistakes and that there is his little best ability. Is it right, for example, or just playing the same thing? Well, I see we are going with this. No, well, baby steps, though, right? Yeah, well, baby steps, maybe. Um, but just, I don't, I don't know how much I put down to the manager. Honestly, I think Stalin's come into a bit of form. Um, he's been a broids bag first. Um, I'm one of the only ones offensively. Um, and... Who's a fan, did you? [laughter] Okay, do you know what, do you know what Ray? This is fucking ridiculous. [laughter] So, that's crap to fucking positivity and Steve. I was enjoying it because there is lots of positives. I think there is, too. Yeah. Let's say, I'm not trying, I don't want to force. You think I'm a virgin to doom tonight? No, I don't, I don't want to force, but look at this. He's doing really hard. No, no, no, no. I tried to force Ray to be positive and it's not fair. I feel like an asshole. So, I'm just going to ask you, what's your take? What's your take on? Is there a turnaround? Do you see reasons like for us to take it in a bit apart? Yeah. Listen, for winning games, that's a start. Yeah. So, like, is there positives from the performances? Yeah, there probably are. I can't say there's not positives. Are they on the whole positive performances? No, because there's still plenty of things you're looking at. You're still saying to yourself, how are certain people being selected? When, in my opinion, there are better players on the bench or in the squad. Or at heart. Or at heart, yeah. But no, in looking at it on the whole, you have to be happy about six points from two games. Regardless of who it's against, regardless of how you play, it doesn't matter. Especially in the fucking doldrums that we've been in. And what it does is it gives us a chance now to go into the Basel game on the back of four games on Beaten. And nine points or ten points from the last four games, if you want to include that in Champions League. Yeah, I'm doing film nights. Yeah, I was filming film nights, yeah. That's on the film nights. Two and two plus potatoes. So, yeah. So, yeah, no, it does give us that chance. We're turning and coming up at the weekend now. And they're actually getting a good result against City at the moment. Yeah. With that in mind, I suppose, yeah, I think we can go on Beaten on the weekend, go in on the bounce. Three wins from three in the Premier League, going into the Basel game. It's only going to give us a lift. And listen, we're going to get onto the review of the games that we've been on in depth. We're going to talk about the players that are being played and whatever else. But what it will say is, if we're winning games, it gives everybody a boost. Whether we like the players that are on the pitch or not, whether we believe they should be there or not. Yeah. That's kind of irrelevant because it's going to boost the confidence of everybody who's involved. Even the subs, even the lads who are pissed off that they're not getting in. If there's a sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking hell. But even them, if you're winning matches, they say, "Well, I'm pissed off I'm not getting in, but we won." So I suppose I can half understand why he played what he did or he did what he did. If you're losing matches, you lose to Crystal Palace. You're thinking, "How the fuck do I not get a game there?" You know, it's a different mentality from players once you're winning matches. So, there has to be positives. I'm sure I'll pick out some negatives over the course of next. I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. Phil, I know you want to have a little word about things taking an upward turn. Yeah, yeah. Listen, I've been fairly vocal and we complain about what's going on in terms of the teams that are being picked and the whole lot. But every time I've said, ultimately, it doesn't matter whether I agree with the team or I don't agree with the team, we want it to win because if we want the best for the club and we all support the club and we want the club to do the best that possibly can, it's that I will take a scrappy win to get some form gone. What we had lost from the run of form that we had was that fair factor teams had coming against us. Every time we played last year, we were getting results out. Even tight results, we went to Cardiff at that time and we went down a couple of times and we still came back to win the game last season or when teams turned up and we were getting leads against them. They were fearful of us. They didn't want to come. They didn't know how to approach us. Do we attack them? Do we sit back because they had answers for everything? What the stoke game and what Lülrich didn't give us, it gave us the belief that we could score again. It didn't look like we were going to score for the majority of the games before. Then we get into the stoke game and we pull that out of the bag at the end of the actual game and we get the winner and it's a one-year win and it's a huge psychological win because our home farm has been abysmal for the majority of the season. We haven't been winning games at home. So suddenly again, it clicks and we won. Then we go into Leicester and we go behind in Leicester. It looks like Jesus hears another... It could easily fall apart. Exactly, exactly. But again, a bit of fighting them, you know, regardless of the team that's out there. We managed to drag it out of the doldrums and we turned around. We got a decent win out of it in the end, right? The two second halves of both games, the stoke game and the Leicester game, we looked like there was something about us again. Of all the games, Lülrich Red's game, we never looked great for the 90 minutes. For the stoke game, we went great for the fourth half. We were much, much better in the second half. And against Leicester, we were shot in the fourth half and we were much, much better again in the second half of the game. And, you know, we were saying, "Where's the puzzles?" Well, we put six points on the board. We put ourselves in a position because everyone else in the league is eminently shit, right? That we're only six points off-toward and seven points off-second place, which is completely mad when you consider how bad we've been over the course of this season, right? And just showed you how poor this league has been. And the results go tonight. We could still be only six points off-toward spot. Going into place on the land at the weekend. Might take in the disc going when I was coming up in the car, I was thinking, "Jesus, do you know what? A first number to win tonight. We're only six points off-toward." If we went and we managed to win the next three games on the bounce, we'd have closed to within a pointy annoyed. And we'd have caught up with Arsenal and we'd only be within six points, possibly even three points. That's actually within three points of-of-toward place. And for the start of the season that we've had since September, that's some fucking go. And it's the maintenance, so all we have to do now is put a run of form together. I hate looking at it, but what they've done now is they put four wins on the spin in the league. And yet again, you look at them at the weekend. They've not that safe from the ring and the block. You know, they're just getting that turn of luck. That's the little bit of form. That's the sterling block against Aoka at the weekend. It's the same sort of game. Well, I said to Andy, and I said, "Steve, I was well the other day." And I was looking at him, "Jesus, do you know what? My fear is that we don't want to be behind everything everton, spores, aerosol, and your noises going into the torn of the season." That's still anything, yeah. Because you have to pass forward them to get into the top. To get to where you want to be. And get to where you want to be in toward, let's say. And you have to pass at least three of them. So that means you have to better at least three of their results from there to the end of the season. Whereas with this way, if we can get ahead of two of them by the actual torn of the season. Well, then all of a sudden, you know, the stream is then fighting for two places. You've got much better odds, and we can really put ourselves in the driving space, but just build them a bit of form over the next three or four weeks. And that's the most positive thing that's come out of it. Regardless of team selections, everything like that, we've poured ourselves inward a chance again, which we rightfully shouldn't have. They should be off on the fucking distance at this stage. Let's take a look at the actual games themselves. Look, it's very much, there's positives, negatives, and sort of half and half. So for the Analyze games, we may see the tone turning down a bit here. Let's look at something that was a bit of a mixed bag, Marco. We'll start with you, and that's the defense. We had 2-ray Skirtle Johnson featuring the last two games. Enrique got a match, and Manquillo Moreno shared a game there against Leicester. 2-ray seems to have added some solidity. Skirtle has been pretty erratic. And really, I'm just going to leave you to talk about Johnson in whatever way you want to. Talk to me about that defense and how you think they've done, given the record of the match and the performance that you saw. Over the last, say, two league games anyway. Did you just give me an open invitation to talk about Glen Johnson? Yes, glowingly, I assume. You know, when he scores against Stoke, the only thought running through my head, and not necessarily saying that I've experienced this, it's a bit like your IDX girlfriend gets plastic surgery the last one glorious minute. It was just... I can't even describe just how hilarious it was that he was the guy who scores. And in the strange way, it would be quite poetic that he sort of gets his nasty gash to his head and whatnot. I can't begin to explain the conflict I feel about the guy because the irony is, if you look at it from an attacking point of view, there's every good reason why someone like him back in his day would have made perfect sense to help break open a team like Stoke, break open a team like Leicester. Ludiger, it's a little bit different because they were trying to take us on. The whole defence just is a mess, unfortunately, and sort of right from back to front. I think Skirtle just looked a lot worse with Johnson next to him in a Ludigeret's game. I think Manquillo compensates a lot better for his positioning inefficiencies and whatnot. I think it's saying quite a lot that Colo Turre is looking the best of these guys. And it's not to be disrespectful to Colo, I think he's been fantastic. And I think he's shown true leadership when Lovren clearly is incapable of it. So I think from that perspective, it's been nice to be able to call on someone to come into the defence like that. It's just a pity that we forget, he's playing on his wrong side, he's not normally the left side at centreback. The other thing is from a left-back perspective, the funny thing is, I mean, Enrique, we've all seen it. I mean, Enrique has had some bizarrely good performances for Liverpool down the years. Well, let's be honest, he's featured there in the only game where we actually managed to keep a clean sheet. That's to his credit, I guess. Yeah, I agree with that because I think one of the challenges we're seeing with Moreno, and I've seen a lot of hate speech towards Moreno recently, I think the problem with Moreno is that he's very much that classic attacking Spanish feedback. Manquillo is a lot more defensive-minded, you can see. Manquillo doesn't offer you a lot going forward, but he's great defending. Moreno is just, you know, literally the polar opposite, but that's fine. There's a place for that. I think, ironically, if he was fit, I'd probably say that John Flanagan would be my first choice left back at this stage just to sort of offer some defensive solidity. Otherwise, the other thing that obviously, you know, it shows you is that it's so important, the midfield covering in front of that side, whether it's on the right-hand side or left-hand side, because a case in point, you look at the goal we can see against Lodeger, it's the first one. It's diabolical midfield. That's where it starts. Many of that spill doesn't help, but I mean, I can't remember who took the shot, but I mean, he just basically has a red car, but as he runs through the midfield to score. But other than that, I don't think we've been that bad. We've had some moments where we've looked like we've been taking chances. Yes, against better teams in Stoke, Leicester, and Lodeger Ets, we would have been punished. But that's the thing. You kind of play the opposition that's in front of you. So, you know, the reality is, and I mean, a case in point, it was very funny. One of my other Ben Ficke made so, unfortunately, to a discord, if the port's Manchester United, was very quick to say, "Yes, Leicester beating Liverpool." And I said, "Keep quiet. Last time you were 3-1 up against Leicester, we all know what happened." Yeah, yeah. I think it's to Liverpool's credit that they still managed to grind that out. But I don't know if I created Skirtle and Johnson with that in particular. I definitely created some improvements in the midfield and in particular Colo Tour. I think bar that pass, which he didn't read in last night's game, which was a very good pass. So, you almost have to be a bit careful with criticising Colo for that. I don't think he's done too much wrong, to be quite honest. That's fair enough. Ray Colo Tour, for you, a very, very important addition. Is he making the difference? Without a doubt. Without a doubt, he's the main man. He's escaping criticism free from me. Anyway, maybe you could point a finger last night at the ball that went in behind him. But other than that, he's been a solid rock and now he's played brilliantly. Explain to me what it is that you think he's doing, because I'm still beside him. I see Martin Skirtle and he's just terrifying. He's just so erratic. You really don't know what you're going to get from bar that he'll generally be good aerially. What is it that Colo's bringing there that's actually keeping it together? I don't know if he's doing that. I'm just gauging it off. Other people that have played with Skirtle and look how bad Skirtle has made them look. The Tour is managing to stand up there and look quite decent if you know what I mean. He's almost doing that. And as I was saying, Skirtle doesn't seem to be involved in the back for set up in any way. He drops off. He's telling people to pick up, not the owner himself. He's not involved. And Tour is picking up pieces left, right and center for me. What did you make of the two Spanish lads getting a half each last night? What did you think was the thinking mind that? Because apparently it was tactical as opposed to being enforced. Oh, I don't know. I don't know what's going on with the Glenn Johnson team that he's been preferentially picked above the two Spanish lads, no matter what Roy and Queen even being played out position to go ahead at the Spanish lads. I don't think the Spanish lads should escape criticism. Moreno has been foreign parts. Mankria got a good roast in that palace as well. And Royfully a bit of criticism, but they're head and shoulders above that guy. I don't know what do you say. It's good for them to get game to him. I don't know what it's doing for their confidence. You say someone performed like that and still getting ahead of them. That's interesting, Steve. Just that point, you might just take it up on that. I heard someone say recently that an awful lot of the reason for why the newer guys have been pulled from the line up. There's some serious eyebrows you're making at me there. They're just my eyebrows, mate. They're like big caterpillars of all my eyes. They're lovely, they're lovely. The main reason, I've heard it said. I've heard it argued that basically... We have to get a back in there. We're just going to have to go from my herders. I've heard it said... Anyway, yes. I've heard the brands basically keeping the newer boys out of the line like deliberately, because he doesn't want them to get used to being part of a losing team. What do you think of that as a complete horser? I think so, yeah. I suppose I think maybe I've been watching different matches to other people recently, because whilst I've seen Moreno makes some mistakes, maybe it's just easy to blame Johnson whereas you give other people the benefit of the doubt. That definitely happens. It does happen. It happens with me and it happens with everybody else. But that's because... You're a judgemental. You're a judgemental. You're a judgemental person. Yeah, well, yeah, probably. You're probably. What I'm saying is, right, you look at Moreno and you say, okay. Being a lot of positives to him, as we've slipped, there's no leader in that back four. Okay, and you're not going to get it from your new left back who's come in there. Okay, so with a more solid, center half partnership, I think you see a better Moreno. Glenn Johnson's been doing it for three years now, two and a half years anyway. Okay, so it's harder to forgive. It's that old Einstein thing, isn't it? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Was that Einstein or who was it? That was the Texas Narcotics Anonymous Society, but it's regularly credited to Einstein. Well, whoever it was. Phil Casey, let's just say. But anyway, what I'm saying is, you look at Johnson and every time he goes into the team, you say to yourself, okay, maybe this is the game where you, you know... It's the four scenes ago. You have to think that. Like, as much as like, fucking curse and, you know, I'm going mental when I see him on the team sheet. I'm still thinking... Maybe he'll do it today. With Moreno and Mankio, I didn't think Mankio, yet again, maybe I need to go back and look at the Palace game again. But in real time watching that Palace game, I didn't think he got roasted. Well, if he did, he didn't get roasted with it being his fault. I saw Gerard not picking up runners. I saw Skirtle not coming out to meet his man, and I saw on more than three or four occasions, so standin' toe for toe with Balassie, blockin' crosses, sendin' him away from goal. I didn't think he did anything to justify being negatively looked at after that game. What the point is that Johnson might get an excess of criticism for an awful lot of things that Mankio gets away with because he's... Yeah, again, Mankio's 20. You know what I mean? It's like forgiving, sterling for having a dip in form, but not forgiving Gerard. You know what I mean? It's because, as you mature, as you come into your prime, you're expected to be able to perform at a more consistent level on a regular basis. Fair enough. Phil, what do you think of the half-and-half situation with the two? Look, I didn't agree with this race. You know, if anything, I would have taken your man off, and left out. What's your man, Phil? That's just calling me a man. Right, and brought Moreno on. The thing about it is, people are criticizing Moreno for being everything that everyone praised, Glenn Johnson, for when Glenn Johnson was gone. That he was an out-and-out attack and fallback, and while he will have the defensive lapses, you know, he gives us so much when he goes forward, he gives us so much pace here. But when... For all of Moreno's faults, he walks as Arasov to get back. He walks as Arasov. I think yesterday was a particularly bad game. He's been better than that. He has been better than that. But he's coming in after a couple of games, layoffs where he hasn't been playing in. It's going to take a bit to get it up to speed. I didn't understand and take Mankio off because all the Lester attacks came down Johnson's flank, the left-hand side in the forest half. And then the attacks that they did have in the second half all came down Johnson's flank again in the second half. No, I just don't understand it, right? But Rodgers insists on picking Johnson. And the one thing I'd say is that, for a fella who is out in the newspaper, giving out that nobody started to contract talks with him and everything like that, right? He's not exactly... He won't go crawling. Yeah, he won't go crawling. But he's not exactly... He won't even go crawling on the pitch to catch up on something that goes past him. But like, you know, it's not that he's putting in these woolly performances that's screaming. You have to give me a contract because I'm so good. But he's being picked as though he's putting in performances that says, "I'm so good on your best left back and your best right back, right? On your go-to man, a full back." That's frustrating, right? And then when you put Scarett at the long side, like, Scarett was appalling against Lester. I mean, absolutely appalling. Your man who chow it, he just had him in his pocket for the whole forest half. Yeah, and that destroyed a little bit of inform as well. Yeah, but you know, he just completely bossed him. Now going back to what you're saying about... The goal thing about Tori is he appears to be a strong communicator when he's on the pitch. And you're saying, "What influences he has?" I think of all the things that he brings to that team is he's arranged them. So he's arranged and he can't arrange for full 90 minutes because there's going to be moments where he's going to be involved in the play and can't see what's going on. And they tend to be the moments that teams start to pick us apart because when he's able to stand off and organize and communicate what's going on, that's where we've been stronger defensively. And the thing that says to me, despite all the picks and all that's going on, is that as soon as we've taken Lovren out of the team, we start to concede less than one goal per league game. I know it's only two league games, but we haven't done that when Lovren was in decide. And when Saka won and Lovren was... Sorry, when Skirt was in decide at the start of the season, we were conceding to the league goals again. Skirt goes out, Lovren was playing alongside Saka. We only concede one or less than one per game. Skirt comes back in, we start... Look, the Skirt Lovren partnership should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever take to the field again, even if there's injuries. You know who's starting the weekend, don't you? Just never, never, because you're basically giving... If you start Lovren... So you're saying six to seven games a season is enough for them two together? Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. I think you missed that few of the others. I'm sorry, I didn't get drifted on there. But it's hypnotic. I just, like, I would not start him. I just can't start that pair, ever. There's no reason to do it. And you're certainly not start Johnson, Lovren and Skirt, because it's a complete... And then Minuli, I know we're gonna get on to Minuli, but like, whatever it will go, keep it at the farm. What you don't do is put a bunch of Spaniards in front of him, right, who just literally are going to cause fuckin' mayhem, and he's gonna be left out for him. Do you reckon all the lads are in the dressing room when Rogers comes in and goes, "Okay boys, I'm gonna call it the team." No, no, no, no, he's not satisfied actually. I started off well, but then I went and said, "What the fuck are you doing here?" But... I reached Dan then. Now, do you reckon he knows that, like, he comes in and he goes, "Okay, Minx, Johnson, Skirt, Lovren, and there is the boys, just go out." This is my bollocks. They're sitting there looking at each other, shaking their head, going, "Yes." I'm not impressed, but I am not impressed. Okay, well, look, I'm gonna leave it. Let's have a vote. Do we want to talk about positives next, or do we want to talk about negatives next? There's one more thing in the mix bag, by the way, and that's Stephen Jarrah, but we'll talk about him later on, because I think that's... He's in both of them. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He's the definition of mix bag. I think the only real negative that's gone, that's run through to three games, is the completely erratic form of Minuli, right? No. Are you going off? You're going off to gender here. No, no, no, you were saying about it. You're saying about it, we'll just cover off the mix bag and the defence and the whole act. Minuli don't shoot all three games as being mental. It's the most up and down performances that you've seen from a player as we go through it. And you've got absolute raspberries for the goal last night. And look, as a former goalkeeper, there's very little you can do when the ball hits the inside of the post, and it comes back and hits it on the back of the head and goes into the net. I think he could've done more to stop your man getting the ball back in. That's when he went out to the soil and he went out to go out on his knees. He could've started to almost burst him and the ball. I think Colin should've been quicker out to him. Yeah, and I think Colin himself has said that he, you know, he's accepted someone to blame him. But Phil, he's beaten us near post for us. I know he's beaten us near post, but in other games that hits the post and comes straight back out. While I'm saying to you, listen, I'm not saying it's great goalkeeping. But what I am saying is that he was getting... Are you beating on your near post if you hit the post? You know what I mean by that? I think you can get right over fingertips to the actual post. If it comes off the post, it's fucking anyone's guess where it goes. You know, that either Colin's back at the striker, goes across the face of goal, or in this instance, hits the post and hits the corner. I'll tell you what, wait, if that hits a slightly different angle and goes out, goes across the goal and out, it doesn't hit any Liverpool player, right? It doesn't go in the net and it looks like... It's really out for a throw. Yeah, it looks like a chance that was given away. There's a lot, a lot, a lot of luck that's gone in there, bad luck that's gone into that goal going in. He should get raspous for his kick and because... I was just going to say, nearly more worrying is when he played the pass to fucking Cambioso. Oh, just getting lost. And he halfway decent player. But Rogers made this point during the week. You know, Rogers actually came out and said, "We've got to make sure he's going along with the kicks for a fella who's really struggling with the ball at his feet at the moment. We've got to stop playing the ball to his feet. We've got to make him go along with it." Rogers has come out and said that himself last week. And then last night there he was getting patter. I'm trying to remember the passage of play that led to that. But I think it was Johnson playing back. Was it straight back to him or was it Johnson and Torrey? No, it was straight back to him. Straight back to him. When he should have never really been under pressure in the first place. He did the Johnson thing whereby he took control of the ball and then took four seconds for his brain to contact his legs and tell him what to do with it. And therefore, he had to turn around and play it back to Mignoli. Now, there's no excuse for Mignoli. You know, that should have been an easy ball back out to Mankio. Or even into Torrey. We were doing that all evening, though, Steve. The only thing that was more comical over the last few matches than that pass from Mignoli was Glenn Johnson dribbling it straight to the opposition in the previous match. I mean, I've never seen anything like that. Of all the people at the fall that can't be asked or they're true world class football or at least X world class football, that's inexplicable at miss. Yeah. You know, people say shooting is in this strong point. But, like, you know, he's an Argentinian international. Yeah. He should be able to hit the button. Mignoli is kicking down to, as in, the nervousness of a particular aspect of his game, or just that he's a bag of nerves in all aspects of his golf game. He's a kick in the ball. He wasn't a bag of nerves that season. Yeah, even as best as kicking has been brutal. You know, we were spoiled with a keeper in Rayna who could put it on your toe from 95 yards, you know. But me, he can't even seem to get distance. This would kill me. He's like looking at a bad amateur goalkeeper in terms of the kicking. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't remember him being this bad as Sunderland. Is it just because we're watching all the games? You see, yeah, you didn't watch him. And the thing is someone on a match of the day for four minutes. Well, it's on the level. He was, he was a team match day. You'd see him in highlights packages. And he's making a string of worldies because they're all oppression. Well, listen, you look, you're not a Liverpool fan. You look at that the other night. You don't see his kicking, but you see his save against Stoke. And you say, "Fuck a Mignoli is a decent keeper, isn't he?" You know what I mean? That's the truth of it. It's only when you... And we can do that with any prospect that we ever look at. You know, unless you're certain people on Twitter who seem to watch 120,000 matches a week, you know? You do. Yeah, you know what I mean? But unless you're one of these Supreme beings that has 120 hours in a day, you know, you're only seeing the clips that you get to see. You know what I mean? Unless you're a fan of that club whereby you go into the game every week, or in our instance, we're looking off to be, you know, a fan of a big club where their matches are televised constantly through both illegal and legal means. [laughter] You know, it's those sort of things that you just sort of say to yourself. It's much easier to pick out the flaws in people's game because you're getting so much exposure. People tell you, "Oh, you know, so-and-so was a brilliant player in the '80s." The truth is, they didn't see every game in the '80s because the television coverage wasn't there. You know, so it's easier nowadays to pick out flaws in anything. Yeah. Just finish yourself on this Mignoli chart, Marco, which your take on. I mean, the likes to touch on most of the stuff there. Where do you stand on him and his contribution at the moment? Mignoli, well, I kind of really enjoyed his past, the Canvas solo. I don't know how much he intended, but it was certainly the least spectacular thing I've ever seen him do. No, he's regressed terribly. I don't know what happened. Obviously, some of his short-stopping abilities are still there, but he's just... You know, I think the big concern with Mignoli is the fact that we went through a stage last season, for example, where we knew we had... we'd obviously all figured out, you know, we've got this amazing attack and we've got this shocking defense behind it, but we sort of all accepted that the short-stopping abilities of Mignoli would fundamentally build us out and give us some confidence. And I think what's unfortunate is that right now, I just don't know, you know, you guys were sort of joking about how Rodgers picks a team sheet. I'm kind of like thinking if he doesn't have that envelope prepared for Mignoli in every single game. Mignoli, just, you know, he really... You always think that he's capable of a mistake just like the one that he produced last night. And again, I'm not talking about the one where we can see the goal. I agree with full, that's damn unlucky. But the... that situation with Cambiosa could have been diabolical. Marco, is it overplayed the way everybody's down? I mean, I suppose what I'm asking is if it's not, and you're Brad Jones, and you can't get a game when a guy seems to be so badly out of form, what are you thinking, you know? Not much, 'cause you're a sleeper. I can imagine him during the Crystal Palace match, Brennan looks at Mignoli, a bad kick, and he goes, "Fuck this, I'm going to make a change." Brad, get... Oh. Fuck off, Brad. So I'm going to keep going, so I'm doing your best. Just going to write my own name again, well, I'm... I can imagine looking over at yourself. You know, you look to your sobs when something bad happens, and you think, "Fuckin', what can he give me?" You look over at Brad Jones, and the big fuckin', he looks like a narcoleptic from Whoville. He's in there. A little blanket over him, and everything. He looked like a granny in the back of a seat going for a drive. Oh. Uh, Marco, you... Driving the drone. Yeah, yeah. It's like that. Your answer's been a little bit easier up there, mate, but go ahead. Sorry, man, sorry. No, no, all of us are going to say, Trevor actually does have a point. But I think, unfortunately, I trust Mignoli is shot-stopping more than I do Brad Jones, and I guess that's what it comes down to, right? Yeah, no, that's fair enough. Ray, take us onto kind of a thing that's going to segue away from negative independence, because it's the issue of pace in the team, right? So, negatively speaking, the lack of pace that we have in the forward areas, bar sterling, is kind of killing us. You know, when you have sterling breaking, breaking the line, or continue breaking through, there's nothing ahead of them, ever, because nobody can get ahead of them. Like, I mean, it was hilarious to watch Lambert being deeper than Steven Jarrod for the entire match. And he left our mascot running past them as well on the side. Lambert was, like, so sorry, deep-lying midfielder, looking around him slowly and deciding not to go for the ball. At one point, I think we broke, and I'm pretty sure Mignoli got beyond them. [LAUGHTER] Looking, Brad Jones goes beyond them. It's like we broke, and Ricky Lambert's out tracking back now. I've got this, I've got this. Matt's head just popped out of his head, it was fury. [LAUGHTER] But, like, I mean, OK, so that's the negative side of it, and you can chat to me a bit about that, if you want, right? But I suppose in the positive side, at least we do have Sterling. At least we do have that little bit of a burst of pace. And he does seem to be emerging as a little bit more like he was last year. Talk to me about those two things. I was waiting for him to come up with more names there, Barre Sterling. No, that's it. [LAUGHTER] That's your lap, brother. Do what you can. [LAUGHTER] We work with what we have, right? Yes. Well, look, he is the only Breuerke, offensively, for me. He is that only bit of pace. It's like a one-man show, practically at times. He's-- it must be several straight. You're giving him the ball, and that famous out barre. You're just hoping that he'll take us up the other end of the pitch. And he gets up the other end of the pitch. He's had to leave in Lambert up at the halfway point. [LAUGHTER] It's not the day to aim. I mean, he is the only Breuerke, but he can't do it on his own. There's more negatives than puzzles, but that's where we're lacking for me. It's going back to missing storage, and just lack of pace up front, and he's totally anisweighting. We had a bit of pace, or we could have a bit of pace from the bench, I thought. Yeah, and-- You know, you're a man. The one thing I'll say is that what this has given us is we're starting to see Henderson, starting to find that, you know, that gear, that Lampard used to always come up with as well, where he's borsed him from midfield. He suddenly realized that, look, I'm probably the next quickest player on the pitch. So last night even was a great example. Every time Sterling borsed, Henderson was following him up, and he was the next man in. And even Landon himself, we broke a couple of times in the fourth half, and they were the three that were, like, completely borsed in their arses to get up the pitch and support. Like, if Sterling was gone, the two boys just went and went and went, because they knew that neither Gerard or Lambert were going to keep up with Sterling's run. So it was really down to them to make up and be the other bodies in the box when Sterling's got there. And a couple of times when Landon was covering defensively, or Henderson was covering defensively as well, when we did break, you could see Gerard couldn't, he couldn't have the legs to get up as quickly as he used to. And we're saying, look, for all the slagging off Lambert, you know, he got a goal against Ludo Gerets, and he was in the box when we scored yesterday as well. So, you know, there was, you know, he is getting in the box, and, you know, look, he is bringing something to the game. Yeah, yeah. Something. Something. I think you can see Henderson taking on the next level of responsibility again. You know what I mean? So what we've seen is it's nearly a change in another guard, in a sense, now that he's been, even before he was stepped up to Vice Captain, we were talking about last season, you could see him taking more responsibility, especially when Gerard was out injured, you really seen him step up. And now he starts, you can start to see what I'm now that he's saying, okay, well, it's up to me to do this. It's not up to me to rely on Gerard to do it anymore. It's not up to me to rely on other people to do it. I've got to get in there. I've got to be the one breaking my balls, get up and support him if the others can. And that comes down to him taking another level of responsibility on and saying, let's drive this forward. He absolutely berated Ricky Lambert last night. Probably four, five times. We looked for an out ball last night when we were clearing the ball and fucking hell, he was offside on the halfway line. You know what I mean? Ridiculous. That's absolute amateur levels. It's a big ass. It was probably on one side. His feet were on side. But that's great to see. It's great to see Henderson doing that. It's great to see Henderson turn around and saying, we're fucking breaking our balls back here and you get yourself on fucking side for us and give us that out option. You have no use to us if we're given back possession to them on the halfway line when we try to give you an out ball. I suppose one of the things that, you know, when you look at the way we've been playing in the last couple of runs of the game, they've tried to play towards Lambert's strengths and tend to do more high balls going towards and where he can get a flick on or something like that. And all butchers. So you've shown good touching. Yeah. And yeah. I know he has. He has. One more area. He won more balls in the air than anybody on the pitch against Stoke. And against Stoke who are known for their area. The reason I'm just being harsh is, look, I haven't seen anything from Ballotelli or him outside of, say, the sports game with Ballotelli, right? That says to me that we have capable centre forwards of playing that sole centre forward. You know what the problem is? We should have had a second striker that was top notch to go along solid storage. So my point is... As opposed to getting... Just say me out on this one, right? Is that... Rodgers has sort of changed things around to try to fit the skill set of... The player's centre. ...of Ricky Lambert, right? Well, it's taken him so long to get there. He didn't change things around to try to get the best out of Ballotelli's skill set. What he did was he tried to get Ballotelli to fit in with the actual system. Yeah, it'd be storage. And in a way, I wonder, is there an element that Rodgers was trying to be more accommodating for Lambert because he feels that Lambert is a limited player and thinks that Ballotelli is better than the player that he's actually shown for us, right? And in a way, it may have been better to try to build your game around Ballotelli in the absence of storage and maybe get the best out of him. The best out of Ballotelli is far superior than the best out Ricky Lambert. Yeah, but you're not getting the best out of either of them. And the one thing I say about Lambert is he's looked better in the games. Like, he's put three games back to back now at this, four games back to back at this. And he has looked progressively better in each game. Even though it's limited in what he can do, he has looked better. Like, he seems to be getting a bit of match fitness, which is also important. Well, if we go back to the running thing and the lack of pace, right? The one thing that I was disappointed with over the whole thing is that we haven't seen Emory Chan because I think if we go back to somebody who can drive from midfield along with Henderson to get up alongside the pace of Sterling when we do break, I think he'd be ideal for it, right? And I know we can cover it in the preview, but I just... That's been a frustration through those games because when we have been breaking like that, that's where we seem to get the most out of it. I think that he is very good when he has pace going past him as well because he's great at picking out a pass on the run. Yeah, and he can beat a man and then suddenly it's open, but if there's nobody running ahead. Look, Marco, one man that's been left out of these discussions. I kind of have the hump about it because I'm quite impressed with him. He's Alan LaLana. He takes his goal very well last night, but he is a very tidy footballer. And to be honest with you, I think he's kind of underrated. There's a lot of people here. And elsewhere, I think, have been harsh on him. What did you make of his contribution when he's been involved lately? I don't think he's been used enough, to be honest, because a lot of us, the concerns we had about LaLana relate predominantly to the price Liverpool paid. So that price ultimately comes with a certain expectation. And I think there was never much of a debate around the fact that he is a player who's got some ability and can do a job for us, particularly in a squad respect. I think I was very surprised that he didn't come on during Stoke. I thought, given the game situation, Stoke clearly weren't going to try and win the game. So it was a bit unusual that Rogers didn't sort of tap into the lackey packet of substitutes that he had. And I think you saw it last night. The LaLana made a contribution, and I think another thing as well is that LaLana, Lambert combination. I agree with you guys saying what you're saying about Lambert, and especially as it relates to referencing him against Balotelli. But the reality is Lambert is just contributing a lot more right now. So whether we're happy about it or not, I'm a Balotelli apologist, to some extent. I'm very disappointed with him, but it would be important to explore that relationship between them and LaLana more deeply in terms of how we get that going. Lambert, I think one of the reasons also we see Lambert coming deeper is because he's more comfortable too. And that allows people like LaLana to also push up, move into certain positions further forward into the box or whatever the case would be. So I think for as long as we have LaLana on the bench and he's got some technical ability about him, we should get more out of him. Because he's not going to make much of a contribution being used as a marginal player. And even though you do have, I mean, I don't think LaLana is better than continuous turning. I just don't. But I do think that LaLana has got a lot of value to add, especially in the reality is teams like lists. I'm not going to really try and, you know, they're either going to counter lucky stars on a lucky goal or probably they're going to park the best. So people like LaLana become quite important to use in that situation. Yeah. Well, look, we might be doing it in a sort of half-pistakey fashion, but at least we're talking possibly about some players and we're getting a couple of results on the line. So I think we'll wrap our review up at that. OK, let's look forward to two games coming up. We'll focus mostly on the Sunderland match and we'll have a look forward to the Basel game as well. Obviously, it's a make-or-break Champions League game. It's going to be a big occasion. But the line-up and tactics for that are going to be considered to be affected by whatever happens in the preceding match this coming weekend. So let's start by looking at the Sunderland game and we've got three wins in a role if we beat them. That would be quite massive. Mr. Poi at Sunderland are playing very decent football. Steve, I think you've got an eye on the results. Yeah, the City are 2-1 up at the moment. The City are 2-1 up at the moment. I can't see who scored, because live score isn't working for me. Well, let's be honest, they have done very, very well. I've watched them against Chelsea and they look a very, very decent. Maybe we can get a half-time score round up from Steve out at Sunday. Yeah. Sunderland 1. Beautiful intonation. What do we think about how our latch should approach this? Maybe you might get the ball round about how Brendan should approach the Sunderland match. Well, just how Brendan is going to approach it, and just how Brendan should approach it. Yes. I'm probably not going to deal with how he should approach it because it just drives me. It's pointless. It drives me mad as well because eventually I'll go on a rant about it on Twitter probably in the morning of the game because it does drive him out. So I'd imagine there'll be changes definitely made because there's going to be an eye on the Basel game. It's the most they have to be Basel because otherwise if they don't throw out the Champions League. The season could be dead in the starts. Well, I don't know if it'll be dead in the starts, but you know what I mean? You really don't want Europa League, you know what I mean? That's unfortunate. The only thing is if you win the Europa League this year you're into the Champions League. You are, you are. I don't think we're good enough to win the Champions League. There's a bit of a character where traditionally there hasn't been. Well, going into the game, I'd imagine he has to rest players because he's going to, you know, there's a short run around to the actual Champions League game. Although the game is at home and when we were playing in the Europa League and we had home games he tended not to make too many changes from the Saturday team to the Torres League team when they were home games that were going on. So I would imagine... I'd say love him comes back in, Toriel drop out because he'd want to play Toriel in the Basel match. And I'd imagine Moreno will start and Skirtle and your man will start because they never get dropped ever. Yeah. Midfield will be interesting. Midfield will be interested in terms of what does he do. I think... Can you see Alan come back in? I think Alan and Chan come back in. Yeah. I don't think that would hurt anyone. Yeah. Come back in. Absolutely. I would love and I've been calling out for all season. I'd love to see an Alan Chan Henderson midfield. I've got to take... I've got to take... That's our most mobile and probably our most physically, powerfully unit that we have, right? But I would imagine he would play Gerard on the fact that he's given him a rest there recently. But he'll also then play... The thing about it is, again, you're back to the last three games in a week for Gerard. We're back into this same tournament. Well, the only thing you might get is you might get him taking him off after 60, whereas normally he would have played him for the 90. For the 90, yeah. You know what I mean? So, I think Alan definitely comes in. I'm hoping Chan comes back in. I think Lucas will need a rest because he's played three games on the spin now at this stage as well, right? And the one thing about Lucas is fair play to him. He's actually done very well in the three games that he's played in. He's shown that even, you know, even though he's not a brilliant defensive midfielder, having any form of defensive midfielder is better than having no form of defensive midfielder. I'll tell you what he's been bringing to that is reading the aerial balls. Yeah. You know, when we've been looking at Dejan Lovren, like, laughing at balls coming into our box and having a clue where he is, he's read it really well. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, that's why I'm thinking that he won't lose for the Champions League match. I think he'll definitely start to lose for the Champions League match on the back of this, but I think he'll rest them for the Sunday night. You see the same midfield as last night starting in Basel? I didn't understand Lucas Dejan. Honestly, I think that's what he'll go with. And then I think that, I think up front will be interesting. It's very hard for Lambert to start another game. That's five and four games in ten days, isn't it? You know what I mean? I know he played against Lucas Dallas as well. So you're looking at five games in two weeks. Yeah. It's a lot to ask from a fellow who clearly was blown out as ours after 65, 70 minutes. So I don't know if Balotelli has fit, does he put Balotelli back into the lineup? And I actually think Markovitch comes in for Sterling in this one. Really? Yeah, because again, going back to the idea, we've got Sterling. No, we've got Sterling to run a form. Sterling's importance in the Champions League game is going to be massive against Basel. And I think he might be aware of born and Sterling out ahead of the actual Champions League game. And a wooden surprise, Markovitch hasn't played in a while, but he offers pace, I think, Marco. [laughter] He supposedly offers pace. I think what happened was that was part shipped. What they did is they sent the player over to us and said, "The pace will arrive later." He just wasn't ready in time. No, but I think Markovitch gets a game in this one. I think he uses the squad against this one in the long game. Now, where do you prioritize? Do you prioritize your league match? Is this the right thing to do? This is the question I'm going to go. I'll ask someone to you, Marco, because it is a big one. I'm listening to this potential lineup from a fellow here. Obviously, I think an awful lot of people might make the same kind of arguments. But the idea of, in any way, not pulling Sunderland as a priority match has me very, very nervous, because it's like you'd almost forsake any momentum that you've built up in a Premier League. For that reason, there's an argument to play your strongest team against them. Where would you stand on this? I completely agree. I think that it was that argument about a lot of people when we sort of had the debate about the team that was placed out for Real Madrid ahead of the Chelsea game. I just felt a lot of people had the right expectations around the Chelsea game. Yes, fair enough. We actually didn't play that badly. This is a similar thing. I think the problem is, if you don't play the strongest team against Sunderland and you mess that up, then it really puts a hell of a lot of pressure on the team going into their Basel game. Basels are playing well. They're top of their league. They've come up with a couple of really good results. They're in very good shape. They're going to fancy themselves. I think, in a way, I'd rather use that against them. I'd rather use the fact that Basels are going to try and come to Anfield and chase the game. Whereas Sunderland are going to be very happy to sit back, park the best. I kind of – this is going to sound a bit weird because, obviously, he said a few things mixed feelings about Lazar. I would agree with Phil about playing Markovich, but only from the perspective of playing that and Sterling and Coutinho and Alana to try and unlock that defense as much as we can to make sure maybe we get a couple of early goals or something against Sunderland and then shut up shop and then just sort of hold out for one or two now when. See, you're looking at one of those line-ups that doesn't necessarily have a kind of big striker and just basically play all the quick, nippy guys and see how it goes. Well, I think, invariably, you do have to go at Lambert, but I think, you know, you've kind of got to be realistic about his fitness. You look really, really tired against Little Garrettes and I don't think a good idea to sort of extend that. I think also, someone like Burini might be quite – mine is Burini Furt, I can't remember. And I suppose if you look at it, he played against them last year. It's the old player coming back to hunt a former team. That's what he played. Exactly, although that sometimes doesn't work in Johnson, but anyway. But I think – I mean, look, the Looper this way, if we mess up against Basel, it kind of becomes a context of, well, we messed up in Switzerland as well, so, you know, we kind of blame it on the first game against it, not so much the second. If we mess up against teams like Sunderland often enough, we know we've messed up completely. And the problem is, if you lose to Basel, there is the outside chance that Madrid get lazy and suddenly, you know, I mean, a data, it's at the Burnabout, but they suddenly get lazy and they sort of give up points for Little Garrettes. And I mean, the worst thing that I can think of – well, don't mind your hold on. No, no, no, Little Garrettes can't finish above it. No, they can't because we beat them both times. We beat them both times, you're right. Or we didn't lose. Okay. So that means Liverpool is – Is there someone else there? Sorry, guys, I'll just have to podcast by myself. No, listen, it's good stuff, go ahead, go ahead. Brad Jones is going to sleep out of here. Sunderland, we have to use the strongest team against Sunderland. And based on that, we decide how we put together a team for Basel. That's interesting. Okay, Ray, let's keep going. Steve was opinionless as well, and then we can talk about a different topic. But what team? Yeah, no. Is it your priority? Yeah, no. Listen, why are you taking that as always? I'm not into this business looking ahead, two games in. For me, he starts with the strongest team possible against Sunderland. And he'll go from there then. Okay. Just hopefully, in an ideal situation, we'd get a lead and then he can start resting players. But for me, really important to get the three points. He's going to be a very similar line up to what happened just there. There were two of them we saw last night. Yeah, and the Lambert team, yeah, he does, he is looking unfit. I don't know, but whether a few games might too, maybe we'll get fitness from playing the games almost. If that makes sense. No, it does. You know, so, yeah, look, he's sitting in a couple of girls. He's going to play Lambert for me. Yeah, okay. Steve, what a priority for you. Yeah, definitely Saturday. Yeah, for me, momentum with possible fatigue outweighs the lows of a loss and freshness. So, from my point of view, looking at it, I can't see where the benefit is dropping points to Sunderland at the weekend, allowing the people that were scrapping for with top four and were already behind to get further ahead of us. That's going to put them down or going into the Basel game. Now, I'm not saying that you can't lift yourself for a game that means knock out stages of Champions League. But I think you worry about it at 60 minutes on Saturday. You go in, you try and smash them early. We haven't done that this season. Our ability, apart from maybe Spores, I think, our ability to actually get a goal in the first 20-25 minutes, which was our absolute specialty last season. And I know we're a much different outfit. We don't have storage spares and sterling and the form that they were in. But, you know, if we could get in at the weekend and get a goal early and see Sunderland's heads drop, at 60 minutes, you can start to make those smart substitutions. You can pulse Gerard. You can pulse Sterling. You can pull whoever else you feel you need to. That gives them the freshness. There's players young enough there that can handle in 90 minutes on Saturday. And what will happen is they'll just be given Sunday off. They'll do a light session Monday, probably travel to Switzerland, do another session. Or train a home. Oh, yeah, that's right. We are. Well, then it was better again. Sorry for your brain, I thought we were traveling. So, even better again. I wouldn't be worried about the fatigue because there is no travel now. No, absolutely, I've begun. Strongest team out. Obviously, what I would like to see and feel, our strongest team isn't what Roger is putting out at the moment. But he will put out whatever he believes, I think, is the strongest team on Saturday. Couple of changes, as Phil said. I think you'll see Toure come out. I think you'll see Moreno and Lovren go back in. I think you'll see probably maybe Lucas come out. But it'll still be a very strong team. You'll still see those core players and Johnson in the end. No. We'll get a prediction for this one then, Marco. How do you think Livables on the line will go? I'm making this prediction on a day that Jaga Aspa scores a four minute hat trick. I'm feeling lucky. What? I'm feeling lucky. Yeah, apparently. Three and all deliverable. Okay. Okay, right? Two and a half. Two and a half. Two and a half. Two and a half. Okay. I interrupt this broadcast and tell you that Hull City have equalised with Everton. Can you get that fell out of the way? Steve Oh. Yeah. Sorry. That was just John there. He was going to make an announcement. I would say... John. He's pushing. Listen, he's an old... John DeJohn. He's an old English gentle. You know what I mean? You go. I'm part of age action. Okay. That's why you're here, Trevor. Yeah. Two and a half. Two won Liverpool, I think. Yeah, I think we'll concede it only. We'll keep a clean sheet, unfortunately. Yeah. Maybe Minnulegos has an absolute worry because he's an old- Yeah, not in the best debate. The better opinion here. No, yeah, I'm fine. Yeah. Live up all two. Sandalind one. Phil. Oh, hi, sorry. Yeah, I'll disagree. It's stable because he's been... He didn't know what makes sense. He's been nice to the old guys. What do you think? I think it's going to be tight. I think Sandalind have shown against Chelsea and even tonight against the... Oh, I don't know. No tree wanted to see... Yeah, tree wanted to see. City's here to be coming to form. And they've got lots of tread up front. I think it's going to be very tight. I think we're going to... If we're going to win, it's going to be a scrappy passage of a win. And all this about, you know, taking players off at 60 minutes is not going to happen purely because it's going to be so scrappy. So far, Neil Sandalind. Excellent. Now, scrappy passage of a win is something that we would very, very much take against Basel. Let's finish this preview up talking about that game specifically. How likely do we feel this progression is going to be? Like, how optimistic are you when you look forward to this Basel match about us being in the part for the next? Not very optimistic. Andy Carlson, do you know nothing about it? [Laughter] Absolutely loves an outfit. Yeah, sorry, it's the lips. [Laughter] Let's start with the countdown, what's wrong? [Laughter] Look, I'm not optimistic. I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful. It's a clawback on to the famous European lights that I'm filming again. Everyone's leaning on that. Look, they're stuck in Jared to get a late winner. Yeah, well, you have to. I don't know what else to say. I'm just hopeful rather than optimistic. I'm hopeful, rather than optimistic. Marco, where are you in that whole hope and optimism train? Without giving away too much of what I may say in a couple of days. Yes, yes. I wonder who's going to be on that. That's looking like it's going to be a class show. Sounds like it's going to have some great guests on there. Some proper guests on there. At the weekend, yeah? Yeah, that's so hard. Anyway, go ahead. Anyway, sorry. I have no idea what you're talking about. [Laughter] I didn't realise I was on this weekend, Marco. [Laughter] Anyways. Yeah. Well, all I can say is I do think that this is the potential to be – well, what Olympiocross was to Benitez, this could be Basel to Rogers. I just think that if there's one guy that really needs to sort of prove a little bit more of himself to a lot of us now, it's his Rogers. So I would love him to put out a hell of a pick out a good team. It's for that game to just reinforce, I believe, in the men. Because I think it's going to be a difficult tactical battle. But I do think it's when he can win. So he's just got to prove it for us, right? Yeah, fair enough. Phil, are you optimistic or hopeful? How likely is progression, do you think? Going back to what Marco said and what the latter said. To be honest with you, I don't know what this sounds like. Mad, considering how hard we've worked to get back into the Champions League. But for me, to making sure that we're in the Champions League again next year, and keep building and keep progressing on the whole lot. That to me is the most important thing, given the type of start we had this season. If we were flying and we were a top tree in the whole lot and everything was rosy. Like, yeah, we'll not go for the Champions League. But for me, the League has to be pre-eminent at this moment in time. So do I think we progress against Basel? It's one of those ones where at the moment it seems written in the stars that there's going to be something really dramatic on the night. Do you reckon? Yeah, it's built up the way it always is. But then I've seen plenty of notes where it hasn't exactly gone that way. Paris, Saint-Germain and the Copwinners' Cup when it just fell apart. To be honest with you, do I think we progress? No, to be totally honest with you, I don't. I think there's still too many flaws on the team against a very competent Basel side. Man, if I change my mind, I might say it somewhere. Okay. Steve, before we get predictions, same question to you. But also, maybe tack on how important you think it is to this team's development to maybe make it through to that stage. Do you think it's vital or is it more like Phil saying that it's followed by the Premier? I don't think it is. I think the experience this season is vital. But it's only vital if we can assure ourselves, passagen to the Champions League. It's not going to get in this experience every four years. It's lost. So for me, it's absolutely paramount that we take something from the group stage of it. If we get through, great. I'm nervy. I'm really hopeful that we will actually go and beat them on the night and get through. But I have a premonition of 15, 20 minutes into the game and Basel got the goal. And not being that heroic fight back to 3-1. You know what I mean? I just get the feeling that's 1-0 and we're going bollocks. You know what I mean? And that's just it. That's how we sort of peed her out of the Champions League. But yet again, my viewers may change after the weekend. I want to see how we approach Saturday. And I want to get a feeling on how we come out of that game, how we performed in that game. Maybe the scrappy wins were what we needed. And we go out to Sunderland and we actually put a performance together where we actually get back to where we should be able to. But I think what we need to get used to is that that's the Liverpool we had last season. Isn't the Liverpool we're probably going to see again this season at any point. Even when storage comes back into the team. I'm not sure that's the way Rogers wants us playing right now. That counter-attacking football. I think he wants a more possession-based game. He's given that up in the last couple of games and we've got results from it. But, you know, I think it's not essential that we progress next. Well, start us off with the predictions. How do you see it going on? I think you're putting more or less set already. I think actually a draw. I think that's what it could come to be. I think I can see Basil getting maybe an early goal. Just not doing quite enough. I'm just not quite doing enough to get that one. No, you just don't know. You know, you get to 65, 70 minutes. They might just shit themselves. You know what I mean? They might just lose the position. Oh, so far. You know, at one all, you might just find it, you know. OK, OK. Ray, prediction. Yeah, squeaky boom. 1-0. If I live up here. Lovely. OK, I'll take that. Marco. I think Basil would do a defeat. OK. So... I don't know what score it'll be. But I just... I want to believe in this team because... Well, someone has to. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I'll join you. I think we squeeze through as well, Phil. This is one of those moments like last season. I think we tumped them. Despite me thinking that we are going to progress. I think we're going to tump them to a two-nil defeat. That'll show you. No, no, no. Now that I've taught myself to think that we are going to progress, I think we're going to bash them. OK. We're going to put three past them. OK. We're going to concede five. We're going to put three past. I know. I do. I think we're actually going to win this and win this well. Win comfortable. Let's take that. I am Lou Schwarier. You are listening to Troopers Chat. OK. Let's start our chat here about looking at a topic that's been dominating the newspapers lately and that's Stephen Gerald. I didn't purposely speak about much in the previous sections of the show because we wanted to talk about them here and talk about the impact that he's had over the three games and have a look at, talk about whether lessons have been learned or whether his impressive second half last like kind of muddied the waters. Marco, looking forward to the next few games, what kind of involvement do you see Stephen Gerald having and what kind of involvement do you think you should have? Well, I think I'll start with the last part first of that question, but I think he should. I still want to see him manage better and I still think that the template or how Frank Lampard was used to Chelsea and how he's being used at Man City is the template that we need to be looking at for Gerald because, you know, it's funny if I was having a conversation about this with a friend earlier. And in essence, I just feel that the more we ask him to stretch beyond what what his legs allow, what his defensive awareness or lack thereof allows, we were basically damaging the dignity of one of the most important players that this club has ever seen for most of the fans of our generation at least the best player we've seen as well for the club. Not necessarily the most talented, I still think that's Louis Suarez, but the best player that we've had in the last sort of patch of 10, 15 years. And I think that it's really, you know, he's still got a contribution to make. I think that it's really important to give him the opportunity to come in as it impacts very much in sort of that patch of games, either to round the game off or to help unlock a defense. Unfortunately, I don't necessarily think that Rogers is ready to do that. I think he started to toy around with that deer and maybe to some extent in the last couple of games he's still to find Stephen is tired or there's been a lot of backlash around using Stephen this much, so let me bench him a little bit here and then serve him a little bit there. But I would like to think that Rogers is starting to notice us finally and that even though it's not as quick as we would like it to be or we think it should be, he's going to start managing Stephen slowly but surely. I'm not necessarily, you know, sort of convinced that this is, it's almost to the extent where he doesn't get offered a new contract. I don't think he should get offered a new contract at a higher wage, let him learn the same one. I think unfortunately he'll ask for it. I don't think we should give it to him. But, you know, at the end of the day, I just, I just want this guy's dignity protected because he, more than anyone, this is a guy that deserves a send-off. This is a guy that he doesn't deserve a league title because he hasn't won it. He deserves it because he's a good man and because he's a fantastic servant to this club. And I just, you know, I don't want people's lasting memories to be him slipping on his arse in front of Chelsea. Yeah. I want it to be another screamer against Basel hopefully or something like that. And I think that the least he deserves. Yeah, that's very fair. Phil, has Brendan, do you think, sort of, turned the corner with Stevie or... No, no. You know, and I remember doing one of POD's last season and I was messing down. I really like Rodgers, right? Because I was having a right go at him at the time. And my concern with Rodgers is, and it's very hard to, like, he seems to react to what certain people say in the press. So, a character was saying recently that it was okay to rest around and play him in certain games. And then all of a sudden, Rodgers is out and he's saying, "Well, you know, I'm wrestling Gerard in this game. We need to manage the time under pitch a bit better, right?" Yeah. And I don't think Brendan does that unless it's dained okay for him to do it. I think he's very, very, not so much easily swayed, but he reads into what the, say, immediate agenda is. What the perception of him is? Yeah. Yeah. What the perception of what he's going to do next is, right? So when it comes back to Gerard, Gerard, then there's a bit of a media campaign going on between the two parties. You've got Gerard in one side, you know, around the contract, saying, "Well, I'm not going to make me mind up because I want the shortances that I'm going to get playing time and I'm not going to be just, you know, a bit power player here." And then we've got on the other side, we've got somebody who's reacting to saying, "Well, Gerard needs to be managed and he needs to be a bit more of a bit power player and he can't be in the force 11 for all the games." And that's his rhetoric now at this moment in time. Personally for me, like Marco, you know, he has a legacy. He's been a fantastic serum for the club. He's been an incredible player for the club. And, you know, I hate seeing a player with such a big legacy in the whole lot wind down his career at that club. I prefer to see them go off at, say, 21, 22, to, say, a different league, to a different club, a different league to go play in it, you know, maybe to do something that they haven't done, get experience somewhere else. And at the clubs, the legacy of this player and everything that he does remains untarnished, so that if they do come back at a later point into a coach, whatever, that legacy is still there and are still that massive draw, I would love to see Gerard go at 21, 22 because we're seeing now the decline and a very rapid decline in Stephen Gerard as a 90-minute player. And, you know, I might think on this whole thing, and even in playing him, when I watched him playing last night, I'd love to see him play as a false nine for us in terms of what we have at the moment because I think you bring more to that team than Lambert or Balotelli Will in that type of position. And if you put loads of your pacy players around them, you know, the likes are staring at that get past him and players can go past him that if he's sitting and he can drop into midfield and fill in those gaps, but he'll also be able to play the front and he's arguably our best finisher out of Balotelli, Lambert and Beringy as well. And you could see it with the goal that he took last night. So I'd love to see Gerard go out in a hoy. I'd love to see him finish up this season go out in a hoy and go out maybe to America or go off to Spain or go off to Italy, experience football in a different club with different ways, with different pressures and just a whole different team so that his experience and his learning experience in football becomes more rounded so that if he does want to go into coaching, he comes back with a different view similar to the way Guardiola did with Barcelona. And it just takes away that sort of almost the want to have him straight away as manager when he packs in the team because a big worry I have is that if something goes wrong on the side, Rodgers was to give him the chop. But the end is easier. Now Gerard is still there. The clamor from like it was with Kenny, the clamor will be, give Steve and Jamie the job. Give Steve and Jamie the job. Get them in as the managers. When in fact, that isn't the right decision for the club. Yeah. Steve, where do you stand on this in terms of what's the right thing for us to do in the short term and possibly for him? I disagree with Phil on a couple of things there. One would be, I didn't want to see him go 31, 32 and go off to a different league. And secondly, I can't remember what I was disagreeing with the second. Somebody just said there at the end there Christ. Christ, I can't remember. They'll come back to me now in a second. But, you know, I think he holds the same level of reverence as Tati does at Roma. Del Piero did at Juventus and gigs did at United. You know, I think he has the ability to do that. But that came down to the managers being strong enough to dictate what was happening with the player. And the player didn't, you can't tell me that Del Piero, in fact, I know I read Piero Lo's book. Del Piero wasn't happy with how Comte dealt with him in the last season, you know what I mean? But that's not his choice. He's a player. He's not the one that gets to dictate that. The manager dictates that. And not only does the manager do what's best for the team, but the manager actually gains the respect of the rest of the squad for being able to dictate that. You know, everybody looked and said Del Piero has been dealt with a little bit unfairly at the moment by Comte. But they realized that if he was willing to do that to Del Piero, every one of them needed to be on their fucking toes. And that norm was going to have the opportunity. So you're not buying into him being rested the other night and being brought on as substitutions? Oh, yeah. I still don't think Brendan's strong enough to do that. That's kind of my problem. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think that was, well, I don't buy into him being dropped. I do buy into him being rested the other night and brought on. You know what I mean? He wasn't dropped because of poor performance. He wasn't dropped because Brendan thought I'm going to lay a marker down here. That was Brendan just thinking, OK, I've got to rest this guy. But straight away, as soon as I feel, he's ready. He'll be back in front of the 90, another 90, another 90, which I don't think is the right way to use him. Phil did say something smart there in the sense that, you know, using how we deal with him now is very important because, you know, gigs wasn't used as a 90-minute player every game. And when he came in, people said, "Jesus, gig still has it. Gig still has it." Because he was so fresh. It's the same with Lampard. And that's what's happening with Lampard at City now. There's no way that Lampard has more legs than Gerard. I don't believe that for a second. But he's putting less miles on the clock than Gerard is. So from my point of view, long-term, I'd be OK with seeing him getting another contract. I'd also be OK with seeing him leave the club at the end of the season. I don't want them to, but I would say, OK, it's a natural progression. If he does get a new contract, it has to be on the basis that Rogers is, by then, strong enough to be the dominant force in that dressing room. And Gerard understands what's coming up from. People were talking here a couple of weeks ago and by people, I mean, Andy, about the fact that Colo knows his place. You know what I mean? He knows his place in the team. Well, if that is the case, and if that's the way Rogers runs as squad, then Gerard needs to know his place and needs to know that he's a squad player, not a 90-minute man every game, and that he gets to go in. And what I would actually nearly do is take the captaincy off him at the end of the season. That's what I would do. I would take the captaincy off him, give it a Henderson. It's the same way that hippie has. You keep them as club captain. You don't make them. They're not the 90-minute captain. They become the club captain. They're still the figurehead of the club, but they don't wear the iron band. Well, Jamie Redknap was when he was injured. Do you know what I mean? He still went up and collected what was it? The Coca-Cola Cup or something like that that he was injured. You know, you can do that, you know what I mean? But yeah, I think keeping up the club, but there needs to be a shift and a seismic shift in how he's dealt with and how he's viewed by the manager. We've pretty much sorted that out for the club there. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Just call Steve. Marco, I know you have to go this day, so we'll take a look at it. Thanks for that. Thanks, man. We'll start off with a question from Noli, and he's wondering what is your favorite Christmas dessert? Anyone want to have a go with this? I read that as the Christmas desert. That's because you can't spell. Oh, no, no, no. It is a Christmas desert. Yeah, it's because he can't spell. It is a Christmas desert. I don't think that's what he meant on this. I spent the whole day taking what's the best Christmas for? It's been an opposite. Obviously, it says Christmas morning like a set-and-get-in. That's a good answer. I spent a reindeer I can see over there. Seriously, I was there going, "Hey, what's a Christmas desert?" It has to be the attic. Yeah, it's like a trick question, and you worked it out. I worked it out, and it's just gone to base. So, let's walk away and put it. My favorite Christmas desert is Queen of Puddings. What the hell is a Queen of Puddings? That's a very British one. It's not actually even that Christmassy, but are you tempted? I'm telling you about this. No, no, no. Why don't you get John into telling us about the Queen of Puddings? Queen of Puddings one? Excuse me, Dasty. Queen of Puddings. What's the world's desert? Basically, what it is is you make custard with milk and vanilla pods and stuff like that, and then in on top of breadcrumbs, let it set. Nice, thick, layered jam over the top. You bake it, and then you put a thing of meringue over it, like a pavlova meringue. Okay, so it's not putting it up? No, no, no, no. Well, it's a pudding in the sense that, you know, that's what the English and British calls. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, you put the meringue back in and bake it again, and it's fucking delicious. It's so cool. No, it's really, really fun. But other than that, Christmas pudding with custard. Just straight up. Just straight up Christmas day, and I don't even look custard. I don't know if Christmas pudding. Don't even look custard. Put the two of them together, and it's just orgasmic. It's just magic. Ready to go. Now, just a boring bastard. It's Christmas cake. Christmas cake. Yeah, marzipan. Oh, fuck off, marzipan. Yeah, absolutely love it. Arctic roll. Is that Christmassy? I got in. The Arctic being a dessert. Oh, okay. There you go. Good. That's quite the combination. What are those? Good in. Right. Okay, just a little short one. Feel free to, feel free to not reveal too much, because I'd rather you didn't. Does anyone here have a talent that the listeners might not be familiar with? No. That's gone very, very quietly flat. I'm trying to think now. Oh. Like, I can break from this. Fucking knew that was going to happen. I immediately regretted asking. And let's get back to safer territory. Steve Oderfish. With David's question, David's asked us, what is your favorite? Well, he said song or movie. We've done movies before, so what is your favorite Christmas song? I want a shout from everyone on this. So, go. Right. Grandma got run over by a reindeer. Oh, quality. It's a classic. Yeah, it's a classic. Right. Now that Ray has actually said that. Yeah. I may have a little bit of a thing here. Well, oh, come on. Well, you're a hoylier. Oh. Aaron? [laughter] That may have been the wrong video. [laughter] Hey, what is up, guys? [laughter] I'm not sure where it is now. I forget about me. It was actually me saying Grandma got run over by a reindeer. Ah, that's a shame. Sorry about that. Maybe we could finish it out. Okay. We'll finish off with a question from a former guest, Christian. Christian is known on Twitter as von Strangignon. He's wondering what would be your dream vine. Phil, I think you've taken this day. Yeah. I'd love to see him do one with Glenn Johnson as the cowardly lawyer from the Wizard of Oz, singing if we only had a heart. [laughter] Listen down to yellow brick road out of Anfield. [laughter] That's what it meant. [laughter] Let's finish what I mentioned for Astro Park. You can book your pitch time to play some football here at astropark.ie. On Friday 19th of December, in the Red Cow Inn, there will be a Liverpool Christmas Gallatin or hosted by YNWA Irish Reds, featuring John Barnes, Roy Evans, and Peter McDowell, and the details, re-tickets, and the likes of that will be on our website, LFCdaytrippers.com. So check on there and have a look. Our only other plug this week is for the fantastic We Are Liverpool Fanzine, which features contributions from no fewer than three of the trippers here, and some log called Rafa Benitez as well, apparently. Neil pulls on an excellent job with this publication. It really is on a different level. So get on to www.weareliverpoolfanzine.com. You can buy this remarkable collection of running for the frankly ridiculous price of £1.50. That's one of your English £1.50. Or you could avail of the discounts for multiple purchases. The man himself, along with one or two of his little crimbo elves, will be selling the fans in front of the cop for the next few home games. Your day trippers tonight were Marco Lopez, Stephen Daly, Ray Brady, Phil Casey and myself, Trev Downey. All right, next one up is from Kalen, Kalen's wondering, out of the popular Irish group, The Cores, which would be your favourite, musically speaking I presume. Andrea? No, actually, that's a lie. That's a lie. I don't know why I said that at all. Sharon Cores, by far my favourite back in the day. I would have said that as well. Back in the day, Sharon. Although, I do know for a fact that the drummer Caroline had an awful habit of wearing skirts or dresses, and she'd be sat up there now, as any drummer will know, especially if you're up on stage. You're a drummer yourself. I am a drummer myself, yeah. When you've got your high hat to the left, and your bass drum pedal to the right, it's going to create a bit of a 70 degree angle in where your legs are going. Yeah. And if you're wearing a skirt, or an old guna, it gives you grand old view. She's up about six feet on the stage, you know what I mean? And he's sitting there with the legs ourselves saying she might be the ugly of the tree, but she's the only one showing me out. (Laughter) Okay. We've just blown off the questions there. Without fucking... That sounds just... That was the last question. Leave it in. Leave it in. (Laughter) I did say... (Laughter) Oh, Arsenal, you dirty fucking cunt in the 89th minute. You're fucking... They've done that all season. They have done that all season. Jiroo, I bet you. That... Sanchez. Oh, yeah, we fucking... All season. Doherty Sanchez! We're a better off-roading. Doherty, doherty Sanchez. The only way this can get worse is if Everton can get a late winner against Hope. 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So after many games we get to talk about them. We discuss the positives from the madness of the last few games. Whats working, what isnt, any logic to the team selections, who needs rest who doesnt, is it possible to travel faster than light and the something lambert brings. We look ahead to the weekend and our thoughts on the rotation or not thats necessary as we head to Sunderland looking for 3 in a row. We finish out debating Stevie and his immediate to long term future, followed with xmas desserts or deserts, favourite xmas songs and our request to vonstrenginho for a vine special. Plus the usual stuff. The lads at YNWA Irish Reds have a night on in the Red Cow on December 19th details on the website later today. www.lfcdaytrippers.com
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