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And after the briefest hiatus, it's time to assess the highs and the lows, the successes and failures, the stirlings, and the Johnsons as we begin the first of two season review podcasts. On tonight's show, a packed bunker is joined on the line by James Owens as we examine Liverpool's season and throw a night towards the club's influence on the World Cup. Before we begin, through no fault of Rome last Sunday's event didn't really pan out. Lessons have been learned. And when we go again, it'll be spectacular, but huge thanks to all of you showed up on the day. Lovely people want to know. And also, massive thanks to our co-host, AI, who are smashing a bunch of that. Right. Let's begin with a look at the attack. And I suppose we have to start with a remarkable talent that is Luis Suarez. With the biggest stage of all approaching, just where does the Euro going rank in world football? And what were your highlights of the season from our number seven, Paul Brown? I'd say probably the best striker around at the moment. I think, like we've said before, I think he's hit the kind of heights that Messi and Ronaldo have been after the past few years, just the consistency and the end product. And the best moment, it's not even one of his goals. It's just the volley against Arsenal. I still wish. Every day, I think about that. Just went there. Just I was unbelievable, like running away from the goal and hitting it that hard. Yeah, but obviously we have to keep him because he's basically one of the top three in the world now. I think that's gone from the top two being to a top three. Now I think Suarez is in there. Would you say he's firmly powerful at trail? Yeah, definitely. Would that be your outstanding moment, seriously? No, the volumes are always or something else. And well, the usual kind of where he's taking the make out of Norwich was gone as well, four goals. So yeah, but seriously, I just wish that volume went in. It's one of the best pieces of technique I've ever seen. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, realistically Norwich was the best moment. OK, James Owens, what about yourself? First of all, where do you reckon he ranked in world football? And secondly, what were your outstanding memories? I'm hesitant to actually say he's kind of in a top three with the obvious two Massim Ronaldo, actually. I mean, because I mean, funnily enough, I mean, on the last season, it's for Messi out of this triplet season and didn't necessarily hit the heights. And I think Suarez matched-- I think Suarez and Ronaldo in terms of goal output, shared the European golden boot, don't they? Yeah, they knew the Turks. But obviously, Suarez has not had the benefit of taking penalties. Not that he's shown himself to be very good at him in his time at Liverpool so far. But the reason I'm a bit hesitant to say, to putting quite that level is just-- I was really quite disappointed with this performance. And maybe it was just part of a bigger picture of a general sort of dip in forward towards the end of the season, which you can kind of forgive any player who's been at such amazing levels for most of the season. But I was really quite disappointed with his displays against City and against Chelsea. I mean, not just in output, but I mean, in terms of in discipline, in general terms against City, given that he's improved a lot in that respect, in tactical terms against Chelsea, where he kept coming short for the ball. And OK, that's symptomatic of the fact that the rest of the team didn't really help him that much. But I think to put him at the same level as Ronaldo and certainly towards the same kind of bracket as Messi. For me, he's got to be a match winner against good opposition a bit more. He is a little bit of a flat-track bully, I hate to say, but I think he is a little bit, and he needs to come up with it a bit more at times when other players can't against good teams. But I mean, in terms of his highlights, it's funny, actually, because a lot of his kind of on that theme, a lot of his best goals didn't really seem to come in the biggest game. It seemed to come in routes of weak and seems. I mean, Norwich is hard to argue with because it was basically a goal of the season competition. Now, I mean, like a lot of people would have said the dip in Volley, but I would have said the one where he kind of emulates gas scoring and lobs the defender and that volleys it in because it's beautiful as the dip in Volley was. And I love it just an amazing long-range strike as much as anyone. You've got to get more difficult things right to score the third goal he scores that even. I mean, the second goal is not a bad finish either. And then he scores an amazing free kick to finish it, which just felt a bit underwhelming by the time he scored it. Yeah. Norwich is a hard one to look. I mean, probably laughing into his hands when he scored at Old Trafford. Where he actually had a terrible game within those knitted boots, he was awful at Old Trafford, but he ended up scoring a goal despite it. You know, the way he laughed into his hands then was quite funny, but Merseyside Derby as well scored at score a very good free kick. But no, I mean, funnily enough, yeah, a lot of his goals kind of weren't necessarily in the biggest of games or at the most important of the time. It's actually strange. Fair enough, fair enough. Dave Thomas, what would you think yourself in terms of where would you rank them first of all? And then what would be the highlight for you? Well, I think if you're just judging him on the season he's just had, he's the best player in Europe. Yeah. So I think that, you know, he has scored the same number of goals as Ronaldo Morrisis in a far poorer team and in a tougher league. So for me, if you're just going on the season, he's the best player in Europe. Is he in that level, he has to do it more consistently, and he has to do it in the Champions League, and he has to do it, as James mentioned, against, you know, tougher opposition. Sure. But judging it, he can only play against what he's got and, you know, score 31 goals in that season, missing the games that he missed. And even having the odd poor game, you know, shows what a phenomenal season he had. In terms of, I mean, it's really hard to pick as far as moment. So I have a couple. I love the West Brom header, you know, where he's on the edge of the box, and he puts the curl on and it goes to the top corner. It's a phenomenal goal. And I tried to pick things that you probably wouldn't see him, you know, see people do again. My second one is against Cardiff at home, where Henderson plays a back heel at the end of the box, and he bends it around the entire defense into the bottom corner. And the reason I like that goal is because Coutinho, who's Brazilian and has played friend of Milan, just looks around and starts laughing. Like, I've never seen anything like that in my life. I mean, you know, so I like people's reaction when he does what he just does, amazing things like that. And he just curls this ball into the bottom corner. And then my third moment is when he's actually against Everton at home, the fourth goal, where he picks the ball up and halfway line, and there's no way he should score from then. There's just no way he should score from then. He beats two Everton defenders for pace and scores this left foot after running 50 yards. And again, I can't think of any players who score that goal, you know, because you've either got the pace to beat the player, but you haven't got the control, or you've got the control, but you haven't got the pace. And this was, I think, was it 75th minute or something like that, but it was well into the game. So, I mean, just so many moments. If I had to choose one, it would be the Cardiff goal. Just for, if you get the watch, you go back, because there is a camera angle, which for like two seconds just catches Coutinho after he doesn't, and Coutinho's just shaking his head like, "Oh my God, what did that man just do?" You know, an LFC TV, if you heard John Bradley's commentary on that, the ball drops him and Suarez hits it. And I mean, as soon as he hits it, Bradley just kind of goes, "Oh, dude, dude, he's here!" He goes, "Oh, straight, right?" And it's in the key prison guy and anywhere near it. And he's just like, "That is outrageous! The band on it!" You know, the funny thing is, if you just, if you listen to goal rush on LFC TV, and just listen to Bradley's commentary during the entire season, it sounds like a porno. It's basically the job, I think, going, "Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! He is phenomenal!" Absolutely phenomenal. The game against Norwich really scores four goals. Bradley, by the fourth goal, doesn't know what to say. He actually has just run out of things to say. I think he says, "I just don't even know what to say about this guy." Phil, I have to say, I've been kind to agree with Dave about the everything goals, one of my hands as well. I was trying to think, what was the goal for the guy who was basically on the ground? I didn't get to do... Palace at all. But that's outrageous as well. Palace is a pretty good shout-out, because I didn't realize he scored that. I was watching it on a crap stream. Sorry to cut in, but you just thought, I thought, you know, I think he tried to have a shot, then he slipped down, and he thought, "Ah, fuck, this one's coming to nothing." And then all of a sudden, the ball's in the back. No, it's absolutely outrageous. Phil, what would you say yourself? Not like me to be a bit contrarian, but my favourite goal is the one that was disallowed the last day of the season. The outside at a right peg. The free kick had that gone in, right? It was just outrageous. Like, he just sees it so quickly and he executes it with near perfection. The ball drops into the side netting. You couldn't have hit it more perfectly. And Crow doesn't even have that far off as well. When you actually look at where the ball drops in and where Crow does stand, he's not that far off as lying. And I was just there going, eventually when I saw it about two days later, I was just there going, "Jesus, that would have been fucking masterful to see." I love the dip and volley against Norwich. I just love that the execution, the distance out the whole lot, and he has this knack of scoring massively long-range goals. We're talking like he's scored from the halfway line against Norwich as well. You know, the season before last. There's a litany of goals you can pick across the season. Suarez doesn't do many tap-ins. There's always something ridiculous even in a tap-in. He's bound to do a step-over or something as the ball is coming across. There's always that little bit of extra shellmanship that goes on the goals. And it's just phenomenal watching them. It makes you happy. It puts a smile in your face. You can't not put love to see Marcel just the goals, but his walk rate. I've never seen a centre forward walk as hard over 90 minutes in every single game that he can possibly play when he's not suspended. You know, he doesn't get injured. Touch wood. He never gives up. And even when he's having it, something that James said, you know, he wasn't having a particularly good game that day. He wasn't having a particularly good game, but he still scored. And it just felt like through the whole season, no matter what was going on, he still scored or he still assisted something or he still made something happen. Or, you know, you just look at him. Every time we look to go, we were in the fire, he did something that pulled us out of the fire. And even coming back to that Cardiff game when we had to get back into it, he's there fucking prompting and pulling and the whole lot that's going on. Even against Crystal Palace. So when you saw him completely dejected at the end, your heart broke for him as much as anything else because he put his heart and a soul into that season. I know some people say about the big teams team, right? But we're only talking about City and Chelsea really, because he did it against Arsenal this year. He did it against Chelsea. I'm sorry. He did against Tottenham. He did it against Everton. You know, and every year he's been getting that slightly bit better, slightly bit better, and knocking off those teams that he hadn't done and against in the previous season. And there's almost an element that he figures teams out in the off season and things that, you know, he goes back and looks at his videos in the game, really takes it in and absorbs. He seems to me a student of the game. And that's what I adore mostly because he learns he's a street footballer in the way that he plays. He's a god of football in the way he executes everything that goes on. He's a leader on the pitch. He's a talisman for the team as much as any other player is in that team. And as much as our season was about a team, our team was really led by Louis Suarez this season. And his maturity in terms of not getting involved with the things that happened in previous seasons, keeping his discipline. You know, he picked up yellow cards but avoided getting a suspension over yellow cards as well. Well, given that pretty much eulogy that you've just gone on there, I don't think many people would argue with any of us. And given that we can't judge him in Champions League, he hasn't played Champions League. Where do you think he is in terms of ranking with this kind of question of where does he stand in the pecking order? Well, he's fortunate. And I always say, look, this team isn't as good as blah, blah, blah. It isn't as good as blah, blah, blah. But let's be honest with it. This is one of the most potent attacking forces in Europe regardless of what you want to say. And when I look at it, where does he stand? He has every right to stand alongside Messi and Ronaldo in the back of this season. Because what he did, he emulated those two players. And if it was any other player in Europe, that was Marco Rousto, and it would be eulogy about him. If it was, you know, look at Diego Costa, what he did for Atlético Madrid. And he didn't score as many. And that team won the league. He, Luis Juarez, has done it in a team that finished owners up, has done it in a team that moved from seven to second in the league. So he, and I said, he led the team. So he deserves to be there at this moment in time, beside Ronaldo and Messi in terms of the influence he has on the league and the influence that he has on the team that he's playing in that league. And there's still more there ahead of him as well. And that, for me, is why I put him with those two boys at this moment in time. The next step for him is consistency and replicating that because what Ronaldo and Messi have done is they've done it at that level season and season and season and season and season. Now, every one of us will probably say, oh, we don't expect them to score as many goals. But those two boys scored the same amount of goals. No, and that's what I'm saying. And there's no reason why we shouldn't expect them to do it. Yep. James, Phil's talking about us having one of the most potent attacks in Europe. And we certainly hope that's going to be proved next season. If it is going to be proved down the storage will be an important part of that. He's been possibly even a greater success story in terms of the performance standards, the goals, consistency when he has been fit. He's one that seems to have benefited from having a good relationship with Rogers, the faith of the coach, the encouragement of the coach, the technical aspects that the coach has added to his game. Do you think he can be the main man there for England? And how afraid are you that Roy is going to break him? I mean, for England. Yeah. I'm not really that bothered about what it goes for England as long as he doesn't get injured. Well, what a bit for us next season? I mean, in terms of us, I think if he kind of scores at the sort of rate, he asked for Liverpool so far with Liverpool as a Champions League club, then he goes pretty high in that bracket of strikes that aren't quite as good as Suarez. I'm talking about kind of Cavani, Lewandowski, Higuain, Falcal, Jago Costa. He goes pretty close to the top of that bracket. If he does that in a season where Liverpool are in the Champions League, if he's scoring, I think he scores about three goals every four games storage. I mean, that's amazing. For someone who's just an outstanding mere mortal rather than a mad genius like Suarez, that's exceptional. The thing with storage, you came in and you did that in his first half season, but you thought, "Right, okay, you've made a fantastic start." But you kind of waited to see whether he'd keep it up, but he kept it up and then some. So I don't see any reason why he can't do it in Europe as well. For sure. And given that, as you say, he did kind of surprise us on his level of consistency, like we did with Suarez, what would be the things that stood out for you about him this season? I think the thing with me for storage, I mean, it's exemplified by the run of games where he scored, you know, eight goals in one game. I mean, I think, I think storage in a team which kept more clean sheets would be even more valuable, because he's that kind of player. He's not, you know, you get players in the Premier League. There's been players, I think Rudy's been one for a lot of his career. You know, Jermaine Defoe was one as well, where they might actually get a very respectable title, they might get around about 20 goals, but they tend to do it by scoring two, one week three the next, one the next week and then doing nothing for a month. You know, storage tends to score about a goal again. Yeah. Here's the old game where he doesn't score, you know, it tends to be longer than ever again. You've got like a sort of a steady feed of goals like that from a player. You know, you just kind of play with that kind of metronomic consistency, and does it against all our position as well to a better degree than Suarez does. Then, you know, I think it makes life a bit easier for everybody, you know, everywhere else in the team, really, because you know that, you know, you provide that particular player with, you know, three or four chances a game and one or two are really good chances. You will score. Yeah. So. Yeah. He's also capable of goals that, you know, like Suarez that he has really no right to score. It's not that good. Yeah. This is the other thing is like it kind of gets overshadowed. You just, you almost just think of him standing functional straight. Whereas when you actually go back and think of some of the goals he scored this season, like the lob against West Brom, I can't even imagine most of the players in the world thinking to attempt up there, let alone actually doing it, you know, doing it on Brom, but we defend the stone in front of him. It's absolutely crazy. And then, you know, there are other goals you could say that. If you think of the goal is called away, but it's just the speed of feet and just, you know, storage, I mean, again, I couldn't really say it better than I said at that time when I was actually over recording, which is, you know, Suarez is like a sort of a, you know, a self-taught genius like Jimi Hendrix, and storage is like, you know, a world-class kind of classically trained, I don't know, Spanish guitarist or whatever. Everything he does is just so done with such finesse and such kind of apparent ease, but he does do outrageous things as well. And again, he scores a lot. He also scores a very good range of goals. He's even started scoring a few hours. You know, he's thinking of how do we score to equalize a good person. Yeah. That was a pretty good header. It was. Yeah. Yeah. Paul Brown, James makes a good point there. He is a very much a consistent player, but also capable of moments of genius as well. Yeah, the consistency, especially at the start of the season when we had Suarez, and he won three games and on the bounce, like it was just solid. Yeah. Like James said, it's just like a goal all the time. Yeah. There's not many games he doesn't score. And then, like, yeah, there's the kind of outrageous moments, like the Aston Villa, kind of going across the defense and then the West Brom, like, he's not going to be able to give you a good tip and a keeper who's on the line. Like, that's ridiculous. It's like, he's almost like the other end of the spectrum to Suarez, where he's really consistent and does some, like, ridiculous things, whereas Suarez does ridiculous things all the time and probably isn't quite as consistent. So having the two of them together is just why we score so many goals. Yeah. Fair enough. And what would be out of all of them? You're outstanding memory of what he's contributed this season. I'd say the individual moment would be the West Brom goal. But the three, like, that was so important, the three one-nills at the start of the season. Because we weren't really, we weren't that fluent. Like, we weren't fire and, like, and storage kind of got us through it. So I probably actually said the three one-nills. Yeah. I think that's a bloody, very good shot. And Dave Phil, would you concur with that? That's probably, it was his outstanding contribution to keep us on track at the start. I think his whole season's contribution. It can't, like, if you didn't have Louis Suarez, the goal contribution alone from dangle storage over the course of the season, would have had us in the run for a Champions League spot. You know, what we're dealing with in absolutes in terms of, you know, he does this. But he was, he's up there with being, with the best, he's the second best striker in the league. Like, the goal said is conversion rate is, is for the amount of games you play in the goals you score, he has a better conversion rate than Suarez had, I think, he's 21.2% against Suarez, which is 17%. And we bought a fella for 12 million quid. If you could sign a centre for over 12 million quid in the summer and you can guarantee 20 goals over the amount of matches you play. Now, allow for the fact that storage missed a fair chunk of games through injury because that's his one flaw in his make-up is that, like James said, he's a prime racehorse. You know, he can't, he's not the type who's gone to run through an injury as Suarez can. Like, it affects his game and you can see towards the back end of the season when he was carrying the knock, he wasn't as potent and he wasn't as lethal as he was. It is one chink and his actual hammer is his consistent fitness level. But we know that once he's fit, he's gone to score goals. And it's great to know that going into next season that you still have two consistent scorers in your side. I know we're going to come out to Sterling next and rightfully so. But you can't talk about Sterling, and I can't talk about storage in Suarez without talking about Sterling in terms of the seasons we had because if we think back to the fourth half of the season, you know, we did eke out the fourth three games, we eke out one-nails. We weren't particularly brilliant in terms of what we did. We dropped silly points in a certain stage. The second half of the season is near flawless in terms of execution. It's ridiculous. When you look at the run of form, you have one loss in the second half of the season. One loss, right? And two draws that were before we hit Crystal Palace. You go on the run of 11 wins. And it's after the back of the goals that's both storage and Suarez has supplied. And when one wasn't on top form, your fellow was chipping in one or two goals in the game. It's fucking ridiculous. Genuinely, when you look back at that, the two, the output from both storage and Suarez, it's ridiculous. And storage should be talked about in the same terms. And you talked about England onto World Cup. You know, if they have half of these manager of Brendan Rodgers, they have half of these in chance over there because they have goals in their team. Yeah, fair enough. Dave, that is something that we're hoping for this level of consistency carried through into next season as well from these two men. But talk to me a bit down in storage in particular on what you thought his outstanding contributions were. Well, I think storage is the best striker we've had since Robbie Fowler. To be honest, I think the numbers prove that. I think he's got absolutely everything in his locker. Absolutely everything. You know, if you had two small flaws, one, he's never going to give you 45 games a season. You know, he's probably never going to give you 35 games a season, right? He's that type of player that he's so physically strong and so quick and relies on, you know, being such a supreme athlete that if he's, you know, two or three percent below that, it has a real impact on his game. But I think, you know, I think there's everything to be excited about about storage. You know, him and Sterling make me not worried about losing Suarez. Even though I don't think we should lose Suarez and there's loads of reasons for that. But if we did versus if we lost him last summer, you know, I'm much more comfortable about where we are. I can't believe no one's mentioned the derby goal, the lob. I mean, for me, that's the best thing he did also. I mean, the West Brom goal is phenomenal. I actually watched it today and I forgot it. I actually forgot he'd done it because we did so many great things this season. I forgot that goal because Suarez scores, that's the game he scores the header. And Suarez nut makes also on the way through and scores the first goal. And I forgot the storage, he got the hump and went, fuck you then. And then he scores the score. But the goal in the derby, when the ball comes over, he looks at Howard, looks where he is on the pitch, hits it first time, scores, and then just stands there looking at the Everton fans. Where his armor on Suarez is if to say, yep, I just did that. That's the game. So that goal, that moment was just phenomenal. He didn't do the dance. He just stood there and looked at the Everton fans. What was his quote afterwards? He said that sometimes you got to stand there and let him know what time it is. Yeah, that's it. You just got a lot. Yeah, the only reason I didn't mention that, David, I just didn't think of it. And I don't know why, because I was there as well. I was looking straight at it from the main stun of that night. And it was just fucking outrageous. I don't know what the worst thing is, right? Again, on LFC TV, I think it's marketeer that's accommodating. And the ball's in the net. And this is how fucking dumb marketeer is. It keeps going, chance, chance. It's in the fucking net. It's not a chance, it's in. I'm back. Chance, chance, chance. All right, let's look at the third member of the Triumvirate if you want to talk about it in that way. Phil mentioned Rahim starting a few minutes ago. And no review of our attack would be complete without looking at this man's efforts over the course of the year. In his press conference of Wednesday night, Rogers was at pains to point out how he was going to basically try and treat Jordan Iby in the way that he treated Rahim starting, which is to play him deliberately in a variety of positions to try and bring on his game intelligence. And I think that certainly worked this season. You can see that maturity in his displays. And pace and technique and goals. How do you think starting can get, James? I think he's probably the second best wide attacker in the Premier League already. Right, okay. Adam Lazard is probably better, and that's probably about it. I couldn't, I couldn't, you know, well, look, we're talking on the strength of the two-thirds of a season here, because Sterling's only played two-thirds of his season. But, you know, he's 19. You know, he wasn't in the team before December, really. I think he started maybe one or two games, but, and he's not purely a wide attacker either, because he's obviously shown. And this is a remarkable thing for a player who kind of relies primarily on pace to be converted to play in the kind of, the tip of a diamond or the sort of number 10 kind of area. That's quite something. You wouldn't really have seen that coming with Sterling. And it's a credit to Rajan. It's a credit to him as well, because he's, you know, he's remarkably technically aware and intelligent player for his age. But I mean, as to how good he can become. I mean, I looked at sort of Sterling, and I looked at the way he played since coming back into the team as of about December. And I said, he can become allowed who can score $15 a season this month. And the amazing thing about that is pro rotary ended up doing that this season. I thought he might do it in, you know, by the time he was, take 22 score in nine goals. Now, if you extrapolate that for playing, I don't know, a 40 game season or something. And I think that had put him probably at about 15 goals or upwards. Now, you know, not every player who is outstanding at 19 goes on and gets even better. So he might not get much better than he is. But again, he would still, that would still have him as one of the very best sort of, you know, nominal wide attackers in the league. But I mean, as to how good he could become. I don't know, really. In terms of raw output, maybe he could end up being as good as a player like Suarez. I don't know. That's a bold claim. But Sky's the limit, really. Yeah. He's got time to learn and time to improve whether, you know, whether he's quite close to receding already or not. I don't know. But I mean, all I can say is he's probably, people always had high hopes for him, but he's possibly already better than some people thought he was going to be. Yeah, because you've got to remember a lot of people writing him off. So I mean, it's going to be exciting to watch, put it that way. Yeah, I think that's a very fair point. Would you concur with that Paul Brown that there's basically no reassignment on this kid because he's already exceeded expectations and he looks comfortable doing it. Yeah, and he just looks like he's going to keep getting better. That's sort of improvement. It's only a second season and he only came into a kind of, maybe a third of the way through it. And I think that was only just because of injuries or something. Because we needed to change the formation, but for him to improve that much, it's just being spectacular. And I think it's him that he's one of the biggest reasons that we really started firing. Because we were trying around, you know, the three, five, two, I wasn't a fan of that. You know, trying to shoehorn Suarez and storage up together. It was when Sterling came in and Rodgers kind of said, well, he can play anywhere across the front and he can play behind them. It was then that we were able to kind of adapt our attack to every game. Like, you just did Rodgers, like the tailor to whatever he wanted. He even did things like, you know, playing Sterling against beans. Because he pins beans back and he creates goals as well. Like that in the home derby. So like, I just think he's absolutely brilliant. And again, like, he seems to have the actual that he wants to stick. Like, Rodgers said he's one of the most tactically clued in players that he's kind of worked with already, which was kind of at odds with, you know, the way he was being portrayed, that he was a wild child and... Yeah, it's a lazy bullshit, isn't it? Yeah, he was painted as being too big for his boots, really. But he liked it just, he's just been absolutely brilliant. He just looks like he wants to keep wearing it. And yeah, I don't think there's a ceiling really firm. Yeah, I agree with you. Dave, would you say that that's fair enough as well, that basically what we've seen from this kid is an incredible adaptability and intelligence about his football. Yeah, I mean, I got to be honest, I was wrong with Sterling. I mean, you know, if you'd asked me a year ago, would he make it? I mean, I remember watching Jordan Eibing in Scupiar in the last game, last season, and I remember saying I was a better player than Sterling. And, you know, we should be looking to move Sterling on or, you know, loan Sterling. And, you know, we wrote, I can't be the only one that was sort of a loaning Sterling to like a championship side or, you know, let him get some games. But, I mean, this kid is phenomenal. I mean, absolutely phenomenal. Is there a better teenager right now in world football playing the Raheem Sterling in terms of what this kid has done over the last four or five months? Dave, there isn't. Yeah, there isn't. I mean, this kid, I mean, I think he's going to light up the World Cup because he's got pace, he's got power, he can score. His goal against Man City shows that he's got composure, he's got intelligence. His pass with the outside of the boot against Swansea for a starages goal. I mean, just what a player this kid is. He can play anywhere. I mean, I can't remember what someone said recently. He's the best right back at the club. Like, do you know what I mean? He's that good, you know? Yeah. I mean, you could play him anywhere in the front six positions. I mean, even, you know, if we get in a jam, you could play him up front as a striker because he's got the pace, he can play off the shoulder. I mean, he's really, really exciting. I think that, you know, after saying all that without wishing to lump too much on him, because I think that what we need actually for Sterling to really blossom is to have, you know, more options around it, you know, to be able to bring him in and out to the game. But I mean, it's phenomenal. I mean, really excited about what he's going to do next season. Really excited what will come of him now in the World Cup and next year. Cool. Phil, I'm going to change tax slightly and bring you on to a far less cheery subject. And that's the glorious trio of Iago Aspas, Victor Moses and Luis Alberto. In fairness, I think you could use the word flop there without being too aggressive in your attitude. And it looks as if, does it not, the lads are all gunners. And it looks as if also that when we could don't want them to have a bit of quality and give us a bit of a dig out, they were pretty much found wanting. What were their highlights for you, Phil? Um, well, let's think of the highlights. Do as Victor Moses has passed. Victor Moses. That's a season highlight for the miss. The old miss. The miss against Christopher Palace. That moment where the ball drops. When you look at that picture of that open goal, the goalkeeper lying beside the post, dropping nicely onto a strong force, emptying it and he air shots it. You can't help but think that he's going to take there. You could have won the dare before us as well, then you from two yards out, heading along the way. Well, obviously you'd blame his head for that really, wouldn't you? Just quickly as well. Jordan Henderson had a heavy touch, which led to him making the bad challenge and saw him get sent off against City. But Jordan Henderson had been running around like a nutcase for 93 minutes until that point. Victor Moses had been on the pitch about 10 minutes and had a piss poor touch, which led to him giving the ball away and it running through to Henderson. Yeah. So there's just a litany of fucking examples of where he let us down by being shit. Yeah, it's all believable. I felt a bit sorry for Aspas in a way because you've a bit of Aspas love going on, not you? What's that about? I saw him play for Kelta Vega a couple of times last year and I was impressed with him. He reminded me of a Suarez light in terms of he was aggressive and he was hard and he's mad running around the pitch, right? We never saw any of that play. That is the word though. No, no, and it was like he was just bounced around the pitch. And the one thing that you probably don't factor in when you're looking at these players is, you know, the lightweight thing you think that most of them can withstand, because when you see the likes of Catina, you're not getting pushed around and you see Sterling learning how to use his body strength. You're imagining that a guy coming in that's a bit older, a bit more wise than his years in terms of dealing with harder tackles and stuff, because, let's be honest about Lee isn't the fucking, you know, a game of touch football out there. Like the hard tackles going over as well, but he was just bounced it out of pitch. He never really fit in. Then you're looking at Moses and you're saying, I couldn't make sense of the loan deal at the time. I tried to pick the best part there and say, yeah, you know, a bit of potential there. I did well on the Rafa, you know, you know, the loan move might work for him. He might be eager to impress a bit like the way Lukaku did at everything. He was fucking horrific. He was so horrific. And you melt the games he played on his day. You used to just pull your head out. I would rather say to share to come on and loads of those games than Victor Moses. In fact, I would rather be played with ten men at times instead of saying Victor Moses. The shunt was majorly. People, people. He was melogian. If ever it was a word to describe a player, Victor melogian. Victor melogian. People want to call him Pascal on the pitch ahead of him. Oh, he certainly would concur. Can't already. He's tugged out. He's tugged out. He could just sniff out. And he genuinely looked like he didn't give a bollocks when he was under pitch. That's the thing that gets me. His Chelsea career was like, maybe he was hanging on by a thread at best, where if he had a decent season with us, maybe they'd say, we'll keep you as a squad player. as a squad player. And he just does not care. See he managed to piss them off as well by tanking it. It pips you for the great day he had him. The day they were defeated. I almost forgiven that miss against Krista. No, no, no, no, no. Also, Bertham might be a bit harsh, but the guy came as a front tree player, having played in Barca B and he also played on the sort of a left hand side of a tree when he was at Seville before he went to Barca B and he came with a big reputation. And we had to try converting him into a sentiment field or because he didn't look like he had the pace to make it in the actual premiership and the way we had to play it. Now, you know, there's a lot of debate going on in terms of who's going to be in control of transfers that will the committee have as much say will Roger's have as much say. And what you wouldn't like to see is a knee jerk to say, well, we tried to soil knees large from Spain and it didn't work out. So we're going to just boil English players. You just want the best players. It doesn't matter where they come from. You just want the best players. You know, Alberto was always like, look, the bit that gets to me and it's a it's a fair comment around stuff is like, you look at Alberto and you say we paid what was it 8 million for him? 8 million for Alberto. And we paid six for aspects six or seven six or seven for aspects, right? That's, you know, 14 million, let's say. And for 14 million, have we bought one player that would have contributed over those last five or six games? Ericsson. Well, that is one that the people I was saying decided that whatever, for whatever reason, it didn't happen. But you're looking at it, you just say, because given we just said about storage being a 12 million pound sign and being smart enough to get in and continue was an 8 million pound signer. And when you're outside the Champions League, you have to make a gamble on these 8 and 12 million players and hope to come true. But even then, I suppose there was a bit of a sign. Well, you know, I'm not sure about this for the money we're spending on Alberto. I'm not quite sure that like, he's won for the future. But can you afford to be by buying in the situation that we're in once for the future? And I'd even say now this season, we can even less afford to buy ones for the future. Because the amount of games we're going to have to play, we're going to need players that can come straight in and be a force team player. Like, it doesn't matter what your force 11 is going to be, because when you've got Champions League and you've got Premiership football and hopefully we've got Cup runs as well, you're going to need more than 14 players. And it even showed over a season where we did manage to come second to get that extra bit to the title. You needed more than 14 players. Just let that sink in from, let that season frame itself in your head with our three signings as past Moses, Alberto, all being utterly shit and useless. Sacco only playing a certain amount of games and us having left gold, the likes of wisdom, having that gold, the likes of Jack Robinson, having that gold, the likes of Jordan Ivey where we had a little bit of death in use. How the hell do we manage that season? Because from what we've just talked about for the last half an hour, the strike force that we had, that strike force, when you put over 100 golds up, it shows you, you could have fired them. We're going to talk about the defense now. You can afford to concede 50 golds because you put over 100 golds on the board. And your strike force carries you now. If you add in another player that brought in, that would have brought 10 golds to the table in terms of an attacker, right? Then those extra 10 golds could have been the difference in the end. You know, it could have been a four tree against Crystal Palace or a one all against Chelsea, just something different to bring from the bench to just to give us that attack and impetus back in games where maybe a little laggy behind. Similarly, you can go back to the drawers, the Villa game, maybe the West Brom game, you bring somebody on with 60 to go and you get the gold back, that type of thing. And that's probably why we're still being linked with attackers as opposed to thinking that it's going to be a massive influx of defenders over the course of the season, because you can never have enough gold in your team. And it's going to be hard to replicate 100 golds again unless we bring in fresh attack and impetus. I mean, just on the three signings, I think that Park in Aspass for a minute, because I think he never looked like, you know, that was going to work. I think there's a degree of logic around both Alberto and Moses. First of all, I don't think I think he thinks he's getting another attacker in, you know, that likes E pursued Maccatarian, he pursued Costa, pursued William. So he thinks Alberto's down that pecking order. I don't think Rogers, when he's planning the season is thinking, Lewis Alberto's on the bench, you know what I mean? And I think that Moses then becomes not quite a panic sign, but he becomes a ship, we got to do something. And all of a sudden, you've got a bench of Aspass, Alberto and Moses, whereas maybe in his head, he's thinking, well, actually my bench should be sterling, Coutinho and Aspass or whoever it is. I think that the transfer window shouldn't be locked just in terms of who we signed and how they did. We've got to look at overall, did we sign enough for the right players and we didn't. And therefore, that puts more pressure on the players we did sign. And what I'd say is we can't afford that mistake this summer. So I agree, I don't think we should have an eager reaction. But my view on this is, if Rogers have him more of a say, and I don't think he's not going to get full control, means that we, but if he has more of a say, and it means we sign players the trust and it's going to play, I'd rather that than him getting players given to him by a committee that after two games, he's never going to play. So if, to put it into context, if Michelle Vom or Adam Lalana is the price that we have to pay to make sure that the transfer business goes better, and that we have more of a mix between Rogers' first choice and the committee's first choice, then I'd rather pay that price than say, no, we just sign these, and they are punts that the committee, you know, they assume that the committee is identifying and saying, okay, well, this is what we, this is who we're giving you, Brandon, make it work, because he won't do that. He'll promote youth players and then we've wasted more money. Fair enough. Well, let's talk about another shower of punts. I'm moving on to the fence. It is the biggest area of concern for most Liverpool supporters, is the full-back area, only John Flanagan really, a man who most was considered cover at the style of the season, emerging money, real credit in that area over the course of the campaign as a whole. Enrique seems to be done at the club, and this seems to be an area which Rogers most be thinking of reinforcements, Paul. Yeah, well, it basically needs a kind of overhaul that, yeah, Enrique Johnson, while you'd hope, Johnson's out anyway, Enrique, yeah, he looks like he's got, Agar seems to be done as well. Dave will be happy with that. Well, he's quoted today saying that he's now playing second-field at anyone. Agar? Yeah, in a, in a dangerous newspaper, so it's, he's, he's, he's in Holland with the website. He's in Holland and Denmark? In Denmark, then. Copa Netherlands. Yeah, well, you, so you think overhaul is the word for you? I'd say so, yeah, because um, Sacco really, Sacco's basically the only defender who I would really kind of look at and say, I really hope he has a future with us, because I'm still not convinced by Skirtle at all. And um, yeah, Agar, I like him better than Skirtle, but Rogers does seem to, like he doesn't seem to, he seems to prefer Sacco over him. I won't play them together. So when you put that together with the two fullbacks, I would say that we do need an overhaul. Yeah. In terms of how they did this season, we'll not be fair to say that Skirtle, it's, it's hard enough to, to make two little of his contribution. He was pretty awesome. I thought he'd go back into the season for maybe February onwards. I thought he came in against, you know, he didn't play it well. To be honest, I thought he spoofed his way to a lot of the rest of the season until then. I know, I know people seem to think like, because he did play well the last few months. And I think people kind of glossed over some of the chamois performances that opened like earlier on in the season. A lot of the fourth half of the season and the issues we had in the fourth half of the season have been forgotten because the second half of the season was so good. Yeah. Yeah. Straight up. I'm thinking, you know, you look back to the madness of Holloway, you look back to the idiocy at Newcastle, where we couldn't defend deep balls to back posters, back posters. Even stuff like Swansea at home, like everything Skirtle touched turned to absolute muck. But it didn't matter because we won the game. But like, if you're telling me, like, we're going into next season with him in the setting, I'm still nervous. Are you saying that he's a key contributor to that mayhem, that feeling that we all have as supporters that fuck this could just go so bad? Yeah, definitely. I think what, what age is he's like 20 out of 29. I don't think he's just suddenly going to stay like I don't think he's had maybe Kenny's full season. I think he was quite good that season. Other than that, he's never put a full full season in like, I think of good form. And I just don't see how he's going to suddenly start doing it now. Like when I think Torre had, you know, a decent set to the season and then certain making areas he was taking out the team. Skirtle was the other way. He was making areas at the start and he was good at the end. And I think like people have kind of looked at like, kind of, oh, Torre was shit at the end and Skirtle was deadly. So Skirtle's had a great season and Torre was crap. Like I think they were fairly similar to be fair. Yeah. And I know people, people love saying like, 'cause Torre's stuff was like real slapstick stuff, like, you know, the West Brom personal. But like, I don't think he was that much worse than Skirtle. Overall, I just think Skirtle had a really strong finish this season. And that was a fair enough. Dave, as a unit, what did you make for a defense this season? Well, I don't think we had a defensive unit for the vast majority of the season. You know, I think this is part of the problem is that we actually haven't had, you know, a set of back fall. And I think that what we lack, it's really difficult to assess our defense. I think that, you know, if you take them individually, Aga, Sako, and Skirtle are all good players, right? I mean, you don't play in a team that just finish second if you're not a good player. You can argue about whether they're the best we can get or whatever you can argue about that. But they're decent players. They were, you know, they've been signed by and played for top managers, you know, signed by Raffa, played by Raffa, Kenny, Steve Clark, Rogers, all played these guys, right? Hodgson, you know, all of these guys had something about them. So I think there are two observations I'd make. Firstly, we are terrible for back. And I think that in our system, you've got to have, we expect a lot out of four bucks, right? And if you've got Sisoko or Enrique or Johnson and these guys, they just can't do both ends of that job. And there's not a lot of people who can, but you know, we can't do both ends of that. My sake of thought is that you've got to, your partnership has got to work. And I don't think we have out of those three, there isn't a partnership that works. I think if you say, if we were going into next season and Roger said, Skirtles, my man, he's my man. And I'm going to build the defense around what he's good at and what he's not good at. It won't suit the way we play. No, no, but wait a minute, right? But wait a minute, what I'm saying is that you, but it suited the way we played all season. So he's played all season. What I'm saying is that, well, we can see the 50 goals. My argument would scare it. Hang on a minute. Hang on a minute. I haven't finished yet. My point is that you, what Rogers has done is put it together. I wouldn't put Skirtle into the finish. I know that I'd forget it, Matt. Hang on a second. You're trying to build it, but you're trying to get the guy go, pull it out and fill it out. Let me change the example, because you're not listening to me. My point is, my point. So let's say he decides to pick Saku then, right? Perfect. Right. He then has to go and buy someone that can play with Saku. Which he seems to be doing. Can I get a sentence? Probably not, but it looks. So he has to go on, but so what we've had this season is three good center halves that none of them can play with each other, because none of their styles work in our system, in the system that we're looking to play, right? So what he's got to do, he's got to choose who his number one is. I think it'll be Saku, because of the money we've spent them, because he's got the, perhaps the caliber that the other two don't have. And then you've got to say, well, what do I need a wrong Saku? That Saku's a proactive defender. He's not allowed us. So we need someone next to him, perhaps it's going to be a little karma. We need someone next to him who's going to sweep up behind it, because he tends to come out. We need fullbacks that are going to be able to take the ball off him, because he's not a dribbler. He likes to pass, but he's not a dribbler. We haven't had that all season. So reflect on our center halves. What I think we've got is we've got defenders who individually are okay, but when you start lumping them together, they're not great. And then the second problem we've got is they all lack concentration. They've all got concentration issue, because you can't tell me that this side, this defense, I was watching the game today, we beat Arsenal five, one more call or two or a player, right? And everyone says he's the worst defender, you know, he's muck. So it's not about our ability. It's about concentration in the big games. If you look at the goals we've conceded in the big games, you can see the tiny, you know, a tiny number of goals, you know, against the top sides. And then we go and see three to Cardiff, and we can see three to Crystal Palace, and we can see two at Newcastle and three at Swansea, and we can see all these goals. That's that's a concentration issue. That's not an ability issue. So for me, he's got to get people in there who can concentrate over 40 game season and who compliment each other. And I don't think we've had that one. There's a lot of sky are already shitting themselves with the thoughts of you making a sack or the key part of the offense, because they all written them off as a card of cards, dodgy. Let me come in, because the point that Dave makes is, or I agree with, I just don't agree with Martin Scirtle. If we look, I've got to say, and it should be. No, I'm just into a ball. Let me, let me hear. Can I speak? Can you listen? No. The reason why I said no to Scirtle was, Scirtle to me is a Robert Hoot, or a Gary Cahill, or a Jack Yelke, in that he's 18-yard line defender, and he's very good at doing that deep line defending. And this is what the lads, that's why you were saying, keep going on, drop deep, drop deep, or drop in deep. He naturally wants to defend on the 18-yard box. And when Raffle Bottom, that was the way he used to set his team up. He liked to be compact. He liked to be deep, but he'd play on the counter when he was playing in the way games, right? We have a style issue. I thought what Dave was saying hits on it about the colo tour, I think Touré looks to play in the front, but his issues are probably age and pace in terms of what he has now, right? Agar always gave the impression that he likes to play in the phone phone, but I think Agar prefers to defend the 18-yard box as well. And that's why him and Scirtle were always seen as a partnership in terms of what it was. But I don't think this team, the way it plays, the way it wants to move up the pitch, and the way it has to play can defend the 18-yard box, because purely if our fallbacks are pushed on so far up the pitch, our centre backs cannot afford to sit on the 18-yard box and stretch the actual pitch, because it means that the likes of Gerard and the rest of midfielders get exposed in terms of the distance they have to cover when things break down through transition. Sackout to me seemed to get caught in two steals, so he was playing alongside Scirtle who wanted to play relatively deep, and he was playing against his natural game, which if you remember back to the fours games that Sackout came in, he was on the front foot, he wanted to press high, the defence were coming up with him. And yes, that's why I think when we're being linked with defenders, the defenders that were being linked with seem to be defenders that have played this front foot aggressive style of centre back and not 18-yard defenders as such. Going back to where the defence was a mismatch, and that was my point on it. It's a mismatch of players. We've got players that haven't been informed for months in Glen Johnson, and we haven't mentioned him, but he was diabolical for 74% of that season. Like that Crystal Palace match, three Rose goals, he's cool for it, that game alone. You take Glen Johnson out and play with 10 men, there's probably a chance to be come out with air with a win. The fella just stanked the fucking high heaven come the end of the season. Is this what you meant when you wrote on the piece of paper here, keep it gentle? Well, we're talking about how does this defence get better? The defence gets better by being a user. Okay, well, hang on a second. There's a decent point that Dave's making there. If we're going to move forward, and if we're going to move forward, I think what Dave's saying is right, Roger's going to have to pick an anchor, and he's going to have to build around that. Now, if we take it that Sacco is likely to be the anchor, perhaps he's not, maybe it is going to be skeletal, whether you like it, or I like it, or Dave likes it, or not. So, what I think if you build it, just if you build it around skeletal, right, the issues that we have this season don't go away. Don't go away. And it's the same as if you keep Johnson in that team, the issues don't go away. Well, it goes away, but he has to change everything. If he anchors, and this is my point, I think that what we haven't done to your point, it's been a mismatch all season, because Roger's has a system that says, here's how we're going to play, and he's got defenders that are conflicted in terms of playing that system. So I've got, I've got no problem with it being Sacco. I'm not I'm not advocating Skirtle. I think Skirtle is a big moments defender. He has big moments. He'll win a big header. He'll make a covering tackle, score a goal. And that's what creates the impression then that actually he's he's a good defender. And he has his moments, but he belongs in a different team. He belongs in a Rafa Benite team. He doesn't belong in a Brendan Rodgers team. Sacco belongs in a Brendan Rodgers team. And actually, I think we'll see more from him next season. And that's why in Love Run, or Corca, or someone who's used to play and with the board of their feet covering another proactive defender. You know, regardless of the name of what we buy, it's got to be someone who can play in the next room. I'd love to see Laurie again again, because Laurie is quick enough to cover the likes of Sacco in a proactive team. So hopefully we'll see that next season as well. James, one of the features that popped up a couple of times over the course of the season was this idea of us moving to a three at the back. What were your feelings on that? And how did you enjoy watching that? Or was it something that you'd just as happy to walk away from? I think systems always depend on the players you've got and who's available and who you play. And I think at the time, we'd suddenly got this influx of centerbacks, you know, after the end of the summer window, and after we beat Man United at the end of that window and Skirtle came into the team, suddenly got Tory who'd made a great start to his Liverpool career and was probably quite important in terms of leadership and being vocal, particularly when you've got a new goalkeeper in there. You've got Skirtle who would have been hard to drop after he'd come in and done so well against United. Then you've got Man with Usocco just coming across about £17 million. So as much as anything, I think at the time, it was possibly a way not to say it's as trivial a decision as this as this could sound like I'm saying it is, but it was possibly a way to get kind of certain players onto the pitch, particularly because at the time, you know, Sterling, who was then purely a wide player, wasn't really in the picture, and because it was very close to Suarez coming back and being available again, and it's a system in which, you know, in the way we played it, it allows us to play with two strikers. I mean, and I thought at the time, we could eventually see us move to something like a 4-3-1-2 or, you know, a diamond if you like, not that there's a vast difference between the two, and that's in the end what we did see, because it has the same benefits in terms of allowing you to get to, you know, both strikers onto the pitch, but with a back four, which is maybe a more conventional kind of plan A in terms of your defensive structure, but I mean, it's hard to say really because I think players form, and our overall sort of form and style, at the time we really played that system was different. I mean, we used it sporadically since, you know, we switched to it, not that it got noticed much at the time, but we switched to it against filler in the home draw, and then, you know, we obviously did it against Chelsea, so we didn't really do it with a great deal of success, but I mean, I don't know, I mean, you know, systems themselves in terms of like, you know, numbers and configurations. I don't really, I don't know if I've already put that much store by them, so much is kind of like, you know, in isolation, I don't think they mean that much, I think it's more, it's more a question of kind of, you know, who, you know, who, you know, who strengths that they play to, and how do they kind of get the best out of the players that are available? Like I say, I think at the time it was probably a, it was probably a way of just, you know, kind of getting three players on the pitch, it was hard to drop as much as anything else perhaps. Yeah, that's fair enough, and there's no doubt that Rogers has that kind of utilitarian side to him when it comes to the personnel at his disposal at any given time. Paul, is it something that you liked seeing the trailer back? Is it something that you wouldn't mind seeing popping up on occasion next season? That depends who we sign really, we need Fallbacks for like proper Fallbacks, because it puts a lot of onus on them to get up and down and, you know, be kind of creative out loud and get involved, and I don't think we could do that. And I think, I don't think our midfield either, like, would they look confused as to what to do when, you know, their wing backs had the ball? And just in general, I just thought it was, like James said, it was kind of, let's try and get Suarez and storage together on the pitch up front in their positions, and we've got some centre backs who are playing well, so let's just get put loads of centre backs in as well. So we give this a go, I think we've got a couple of kind of results out of it, but with the current players we have, no, I don't want to say it again, I think we'd need quite a bit of an improvement. And I think as well, when we were playing that we had the kind of Lucas and Gerard in midfield going on, which obviously, you know, I think even Rodgers knows doesn't really work, and when they're playing really close together. So I don't know, yeah, well, I think we'd have to improve a lot of areas for me to be happy to see it again. Fair enough. Well, look, we're going to do plenty of talking over the summer about who we'd like to see coming in. We're doing plenty of specials on targets and all the rest, but so we'll leave that for now. Okay, we can't really finish without talking about John Flanagan, who I said at the outset, to be fair, was probably the outstanding contributor to that defence in terms of taking us by surprise, if nothing else, and consistency when he did get in. Phil, he looks like a kid who could really have a future at the club. I think he's definitely made himself stand-out member for the squad next season, whether he's our first choice left back, because it looks like we're going after targets who would fit the natural mold for an attack in left full. But in terms of what he brings to the table, unlike Johnson and unlike Enrique, his solidity in defence, I know we get the stats that he's the most run past defender and stuff like that, but you're never worried about him, you know, not putting 100% in, not doing the right things when he's on the ball. Occasionally, yeah, he made mistakes, but they're acceptable mistakes in terms of what goes on. It's not repetitive, it's not game after game, it's not fundamental errors in the way he plays the game, they're just natural errors that occur in the course of a match. And to think that this guy was in Roger's own world, couldn't get a team to go and loan to at the start of last season, to see where he's gone from, because I remember when he broke through under Kenny and everyone saying, "Oh God, look at this fellow." You know, he reminds me so much of character in terms of the character and the heart that he plays with, right? And even the style of the game, he loves that last-ditch tackle, he loves putting blood and thunder into the way he plays the game. And I remember so many times in the second half of the season when he'd go through somebody, you know, at important moments when a team is getting back into a game or something, and he'd go through a player, no, fairly, but go through and let them know he was there, and even down to, you know, he just embodied everything that was good about the squad over the course. And let's have it right as well, let's have it right. He has a bit of technique about him. The guy carried the ball quite supremely out of fence in the left back slot. He often likes to cut in and go past whoever the wide man that's caught in the office, and he's confident in the possession. For me, and I'll leave it to the rest of the lads and this then, but the quintessential John Flanagan moment, apart from the goal when he gets a semi-er in the white hat lane, and he wouldn't really scar that one, right? But the cripe-torn heart magic in "I'm Fierce" against pours again, he fucking loves playing against pours. But the cripe-torn, with about 90 sports players around him, and then he just opens up space, and he eventually, he comes up with the assist for a Catina, because he plays the ball and scores the goal, but had you told me that at the standard of seas, and somebody's going to play a ball out to John Flanagan, he's going to do a cripe-torn, on the fucking byline, take himself into space and set up an assist for a Catina. I would have pissed myself laughing at it. I think while it's crucial, it wouldn't fair. He's a guy who has surpassed expectations, and like I said, let's not be condescending. He's a proper football. Well, I think Flanagan has a couple of really important roles this season. The first is a very practical one, which is he's coming to the left back when we didn't have a left back, and he's done a great job. I mean, John Flanagan's left back for the 11 games we went, so, you know, again, you can't argue with that, right? The second thing is more of a symbolic of thing, right, which is he is the link between the youth system and the main system. If John Flanagan doesn't come in and do well in this team, to share, I never gets a game. You know what I mean? Or whoever comes in next season is not going to get a game, because I think that when Roger saw Flanagan versus Justo, and he went, and he's always said, young players would run through brick walls for you. And Flanagan ran through brick walls, and my favourite John Flanagan moment is also against Tottenham, and it's when he went through Roberta Sordado as if Sordado was a fucking Domino's pizza in front of the manager. He fucking enveloped this guy and got up, and my favourite bit is he doesn't even look at him. He just gets up and goes, "Oh, fuck off." Right? I'm off there and I'm like, "Well, what do you mean, ref? Well, that's not a foul. It's not a foul. You know, he cleans the guy out. They say Sordado now is still having nightmares about this big, good, Scovsk guy, which has kicked the shit out of him. And let me leave you with this part. John Flanagan is Glenn Johnson's hamstring away from playing in a World Cup. That's where he's at right now. That's a nice way to end, though, I think. Okay. Right, let's move it on, then, to our listeners' questions. And the first one up is from Deggsy, and Deggsy wants to know what is the best 1980s film soundtrack. I think there's a wee chat on Twitter during the week with a certain demo flood. I think he had a few opinions on this, but I'm going to throw it out there to anybody. The best 1980s film soundtrack, what was it? There's many of them. There's so many contenders for that. Go on, you'd be a flash dance man, would you? Oh, you can't beat a bit of flash dance. You've got the quintessential Scarface pushing to the limit. Oh, Christ. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, in the club. Jesus. Okay, that's good. That's good. And they won't have kicked it off. Obviously, it was top-gone. Top-gone, yeah. That was '80s. I was just wondering if it was '80s or '90s. Oh, look at the young guys. The four of my times. No, I've got a shout out here. Rocky for, just purely for, no easy way out by Robert Tapper. There's a lot of good songs on there. I mean, there's a lot of some fires, a good song. There's obviously a little bit in America by Godfather of Soul, James Brown, God rest him. But Robert Tapper actually followed me on Twitter after a while, so I can't mention it like I always listen to my music. I think you might still follow me, and then I followed him back, and then I followed him so it could have been fun. It's probably one hit wonder, but it's a great song. Well, I mean, the answer, in terms of soundtrack in our film, is Dirty Dancer, because it has Soundcock Love Man on it. It has a lot of a thousand dancers. It has some of the soppy ones. It has a perfect, swaggy song. If you like soul music, Dirty Dancer soundtrack is actually very good. Fair play, fair play, okay. The one thing I'd say about '80s movies, and it's a great thing about the soundtracks, is you can almost remember the films by the songs. I can't think of modern films where I remember if a song comes on radio go, that was Beverly Hills Cup, that was, you know, that's Topgorn, that's straight away. Artemically you're able to associate films from the '80s. That's actually a good show. You don't really get soundtracks anymore. Do you think I can take off? At the end of 'Heath', there's a movie tune where Alan and Robert De Niro does soundtracks. Yeah, yeah, apart from him, I can't think of a single movie recently where you're going, geez, that song is freaking great. Or that brings back the songs that come out of the movies now, are like generally orchestrated works that are just, you know, for the emotion and stuff that's gone through. Frozen. Oh, here we go again. Oh, fuck's frozen. There you go. There you go. There you go. And next one is from Jimmy Henry. And Jimmy wants to know, if you can give a description of Harlem, for all our UK-based and elsewhere-based followers who'll be able to soon follow the football and school YAA. So if you were to sum up Gaelic football or Harling, you can choose either. In a sentence or two. Paul Brown, how would you do it? Gaelic football is kind of like, if Stoke were allowed to pick up the ball. I'm just keeping plumping it up the field. Like, if there were two Stoke teams that were allowed, well, not the Coronne Stoke team, obviously last year, they're two Tony Pulis teams that were allowed to pick up the ball and kill each other and all this stuff. That's bad, it's just percentage, like rubbish. And Harling is just that with sticks. And basically, just some more GBH trainings. That's fucking terrible. Have we got anyone to defend the ROGA, because I'll do it if you want? Well, Harling is better than football. I mean, Harling is- Probably, yeah, tiny bit. Isn't it the fastest Langame? Apparently. It's a long game, right? Langame, right? Is that how it's been achieved? It's a long game. What's that? I mean, football, don't watch football, don't watch football, it's okay. Watch Harling. If you're going to watch the GAA, watch Harling- Watch Harling, do that. Because at least you'll get scores and they whack each other with sticks and what else do you want? Look, you. Okay, next one from Jimmy says, "Have any of the day trippers ever taken out?" I think he's got this. He says, "Are you the day trippers?" I don't think Jimmy knows you. "Ever taking a selfie?" No, no, no, I don't think- Have I ever taken a selfie? And if so, where and when? What's the best selfie you've ever seen? Just go on to Trev Downey's feet. Trev, I think about him a question to me, "Is there anywhere you haven't taken a selfie?" I am a selfie-maker. I'm quite openly in there. Although Phil, although Phil, there are some lovely ones of you lately. Yeah, but they're all in context. Yeah. Lad, there's a bad L1 in your danger for sight, your appetite. Bad L picture, I don't have it to sell. It's a bad L picture, that's what it's called. Bad L picture. I told you, I put a selfie. I took one of me and my son, actually, when we were in town. And I put it as, you know, my Twitter avatar. And I was probably about 10 tweets. "Hey, I've been pulled apart or stacked by a car." Okay, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hi, heartfelt. I just have to show you one thing, just for the benefit of it. That's gormless, Phil. I wish I could communicate how wonderful this picture is. But I can't. Hang on, that isn't a selfie. It fucking is a selfie. You can just see the bottom of your hand. No, it's not. I'm 20 years later on. That's live from Dutch television. Oh, shut the fuck up. When I video-bombed... No awareness, I was video-bombing. I was 14 points in the dance stage. And I was halfway through the video, really nice to cameras there. You can kind of see it in the eyes. Chris wants to know if you're reincarnated. What animal would you like to be and why? Dave's throwing his hands up. What am I going to say here? No. You're going to say a monkey with a knife. Exactly. I'm just moving on. Move there. A bear. I got a take on day. Pay from you. You've already said a monkey with an eye footwind, so... Let's put it to the test. Get it on. John Ritchie asks us if you had to spend the rest of your life in the desert island, which one would you take? You have to take one of these guys for company. And you can have Roy Hudson. Paulson or Ayr? Roy Hudson. You're taking Roy. What? He'd be dead soon. It's the rest of my life. Oh, fuck it down! That's ruthless. Ian Ayr and Paulson are going to live... What, at least another 20 years. Sergeant's got two left and everything. You should see a world cup campaign for yourself. Right, next one is from Ryan Burger. And Ryan James asks you. He says you're a hotshot fighter pilot. What is your call sign of which LFC player would be your wingman? I haven't got an answer either. I just wanted to say before that my current profile picture on Twitter is a selfie. It's me, the black ball of flowers. I'm not going to answer for that question, but I've got hope for the one before. Ah, pretty much. Don't worry, that works really well. I know what my call sign would be, really. See, if he hadn't been so horrendous and then so kind of like unrepentant on Twitter after the Palace fiasco, I'd have said Glenn Johnson, but I mean, I can't think of a good... For your wingman. Okay, well, actually... If you get a call sign though, you want it to be something that people are being comfortable saying, like, "Cutty bollocks" or something like that. I go for... Maybe that's a "Cutty bollocks" or anything like that. Tampon, boy. I go, "Call sign, charge us a little shit for brains." I go, "Wingman, flannel." Just... Just cosplays it. I'd have Alisa Soko's moving man. Why would you have Alie? For the crack. Just for the crack. He looks like you'd be great crack. He looks like... And tell you... Right, I have him on a desert. He hasn't... He just looks like a fella, who's just happy with everything. You know, wingman's supposed to be watching every when you're getting attacked by meags. Yeah, but it'll be the crack. Alie won't be there. Alie will be somewhere else. Alie will be looking at the window. This is... Deadby class. I'm in a plane. I'm in a fire plane. This is the best ever. What am I doing here? I can see my house from here. Look at this. It's when he planes there, Alie. No idea. No idea, Tampon. No idea, Tampon. No idea, Tampon. Let's ask Antibonix. Antibonix, what's the crack? No idea, no idea. Ask chadyship for brains. Okay, right. Let's go on to the next one, which is also sort of Top Gun related. And again, it's from Fluddy. Fluddy's wondering if, in Top Gun, could Maverick have done more when he went into that spin, because Goose is dead? I don't know enough about this fucking film to comment, so... Well, he should have killed himself as well. I guess we should have done. Gone down in a place of glory with your own man, make it up. Oh, of course, yeah. Oh, at least. Why didn't he do it into Iceman? I mean, Iceman was acting in the bollocks, wasn't he? He just kind of cut across, and got caught in his jet wash. Don't pretend you have a watch to try. You don't know it. I don't know it. Because he went to the blow him later. I was the gayest film of all time. Yes, I'm always it. Who me? No, you're not. All right, okay. Tom, Tom again. He's like a homoerotic fantasy. It was so they say, yeah. Yeah, again, I must watch it. I love Top Gun. So I love Top Gun. I love Top Gun. Next one's from Lost Dog. Oh, god. There's only one person that's going to be able to answer this, and you don't even want to know about it. Rio Ferdinand. Rio Ferdinand was treated. I wonder if he knew he was not. Rio Ferdinand was treated awfully by United and Texas, and he asked, can we have three tears from the lads as a fucker off the boat? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. That went really well. Melty faced wine club. Fucking hell. Okay, we're going to finish with a couple from Paul Murray, who I know intended these for last Saturday. The incident. His first question is, would you rather not fuck a goat and have everyone think that you did? Or fuck a goat, but no one will ever find out. Listen, I've seen a bloke and half of the dog on the way home from Liverpool, right? And so this doesn't phrase you at all. And it's just like, once you're seeing that, anything can we clarify for a listener instead? It's not. It was an actual dog. It was a dog. I don't know. I wasn't alone and seen it, like. Yeah. Fluggies. Now, is this a female goal of legal age, like is it? I need to know. I like that you're weighing up this. Yeah. I don't know, man. Lovely to find out. Lovely to find out. I thought I'd made some dodgy statements. Okay, the other part of Paul's double question is, would you rather watch Roy Hodgson and Susan Boyle have sex every day of your life? Or join in just once and you can stop it forever. But again, how long is Hodgson going to live? It's every day of my life. He's only got two of his life, right? So you're going to live just once? You can probably sex with the death within five minutes. And if you have to shock Susan Boyle, he'd probably kill himself. So I definitely let them talk. But Dave, this could be clockwork orange strapped in a chair and watching a video of them over and over again. I can't think of much harm. Oh, no, it's not life. Well, no, there was no specification of life. I want my money back then if it's not life, like, you know. But fair enough, see you're out. Let's get back to the goal. [laughter] Right. We'll wrap up with that. We're very lucky to be joined for the last time in this kind of Liverpool season at least by a special guest, Roy Hodgson, who's going to give us his thoughts on England and their progress and hopes for the summer. Roy, if you guys are to do very well in this World Cup campaign, it will be probably due to a lot of Liverpool players and the work done with them by Brendan Rodgers. Do you feel in any way beholden to your former club as things stand? Well, I think really, Trevor, you're asking me two questions there, only the first is, is what influence were the Liverpool players and that have on England's prospects in the tournament? And what part of that is down at Brendan Rodgers? Well, first of all, I would say that I think people have rather overlooked as you look particularly at the form of a player like him sterling in the latter stages of Liverpool's campaign. I know that people have overlooked the fact that I was in fact the manager who gave him his debut at the club when he was 15 years old and a pre-season friend against by labor crews and so I think I would like to think that people would appreciate that the faith I showed in Raheem as a youngster and the role that that's played in his development since and in the second part of your question, do I feel beholden to Liverpool? Well, no, because I think ultimately do I feel beholden to any of my former clubs? If I was going to a tournament as manager of Sweden in the 1980s, would I feel beholden to a homesteads or Malmo or a rainbow? Well, not particularly when I was manager of Switzerland, but I turned it off, the beholden to Notre-Tosamax. Well, I didn't. I had to have been manager of Italy, what I feel beholden to an Aussie or any international players. I think, well, no, I wouldn't. I think I just very much focus on the job at hand and it's really no more than coincidence and some of my own work and perhaps some of that at Brendan Rodgers as well, that they may perhaps be a number of Liverpool players in my starting lineup for the crew matches in one else. Fair enough. Is there anything you can tell us in relation to the day-to-day activities of the England squad, what they might be doing? I think any little extras that you might have planned for them, culturally even. Well, there's been a lot of talk in the round-up to recent tournaments about whether the players have been given too much to do or not enough. And I know there was a lot of talk going into the last World Cup on the Fabio Capado as to whether or not the players were rather too isolated. Well, that's not going to be an issue in this case. We're going to be staying in a pretty central location in Rio de Janeiro. But another thing we've been very keen to do, although a lot of players, a lot of players these days, they like to take their play stations and their Xboxes and use their smartphones. One thing we've been very keen to take is Connect 4 because Wayne Rooney, in fact, is a little known, is very much a big fan of Connect 4 and can become rather unhappy if he's not able to play Connect 4 while he's away at tournament. So that's one of the few stipulations we've had. And we've spoke to with early Asian people just to make sure that there's not one but a couple of sets to be able to play Connect 4 in case anything happens to the first. Because if Wayne hasn't got access to that, then that can affect this concentration on his game. Well, Roy, on that strategic bombshell, we shall leave it. Thank you very much. And welcome to all of us, Trevor. Thank you. And finally, your day trip is tonight where James Owens, Paul Brennan, Dave Thomas, Phil Casey, and myself, Trev Denny, see you next week for part two. Hey, don't forget that Johnsons are coming over. I want to find a rosé Jill hasn't tried yet. Let's go exploring a total wine. Their prices are ridiculously low. Wonderous selection, helpful guides, always low prices. Total wine and more. Turn off your laptop. We're on stankation. I'm on TotalWine.com. They have so many rosés, chardonnays, and proseccos. It feels like a real vacation. Wonderous selection, helpful guides, ridiculously low prices. Total wine and more. This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. [Applause]
Part 1 of our season review kicks off looking at the best of things and the worst of things. Attack and Defence. Was it all good or conversely all bad, the lads discuss the drivers of both key talking points through the season. We also kick off our world cup debate looking at Englands chances which will hinge strongly on the LFC contingent if that coach of 37 years experience has any semblance of intelligence.We round off with listeners questions as ever.
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