Stottie

Frank Chippa should start tweeting that Klopp has signed for Chelsea.

This undercooks it. Pope alone probably gives us fifth. Villa in fourth even only finished 8 points above us. I see the season as mostly good but with some exasperating "sliding doors" moments. Here are a selection. Liverpool home. Any of the misses and Alisson save from Miggy when 1-0 up. Both Nunez goals also came from sloppy errors. Everton away 70 mins in, looking good to go on and snatch it, and the ball goes under Trippier's foot. It kicks off the lose 6 out of 7 streak. CL Dortmund away, a goal down but Tino gets in down the right, superb cross and Joelinton misses a point blank header. They get a second at the death CL PSG away, the pen.... Carabao, winning with a weak team, minutes to go. Trippier gives it to Mudryk. Lose in penalty shootout. Man City home. KDB coming on and Dubravak not saving that shot. Just to show how knee jerk the media are, after our loss at Brighton, the tv people etc were calling Ferguson the new Shearer. Look at the season he and Brighton have had since. He may develop into a great striker, but he's certainly not there yet.

Man U finished the season with an expected goal difference of minus 14, versus an actual goal difference of minus 1. Onana is their player of the season. West Ham's keeper did pretty well, but they finished with an actual goal difference of minus 14. In the past, I suspect someone will have been relegated with a better goal difference than that. We finished the season with only a few fewer goals scored than Arsenal and ahead of them on xG. We were miles behind defensively though, which is why they got 29 more points.

Lots of it without Trippier, who on August 1 2023 would have been our main chance creator. Miggy didn't do much this season, Barnes got a freak extended injury, Willock missed pretty much every game, Tonali was suspended and couldn't play, and Wilson only played about 1000 minutes in the league. So 100 goals without what we would have thought would have been the recipe for 100 goals. I don't quite know how (superb seasons from Gordon and Isak excepted) but that's some achievement.

Silly stat, but possibly the highest ever finish (Prem era) by a team with a streak of losing six games out of seven. Considering that adversity, where we also lost against Chelsea on pens after winning on 90 minutes and went out of Europe, its a very good turnaround. So many "sliding doors" moments this season where things could have gone a bit better, but the lads keep fighting and I hope they're rewarded with a place in Europe. Thanks for all the chat everyone, which made the season better for me. Howay the Lads!

Yeah, the game felt like a return to December, terrible finishing, Trippier mistakes, Dubs letting in soft ones. I would warn people who create narratives from the result and result alone is that this empowers people who talk about stats like xG. It is "We lost, so what!" people who hate xG the most. On a personal level, Man U are still poor and miles off their best, so I don't mind losing to them. This one result won't make them better.

Hope we still have a chance after tonight

Probably an unpopular opinion, but the Premier era Liverpool legend should be Mo Salah, not Jurgen Klopp. He's the one who deserves tears and eight page commemorative specials in the local papers. For all the hype and attention grabbing, as a Liverpool manager, Klopp is behind Shankley, Paisley, and Dalglish. I suspect Rafa would have won the league more than once with Salah, VVD, and Alisson.

That's actually positive. Has Hope had a personality transplant?

No tears from me for PSG, but when it won't go in, it won't go in. Sometimes it's the keeper, like when Courtois kept Liverpool out in the final. It's always a recipe for great entertainment when the team you don't like loses.

This came out the other day in case anyone is interested, points lost from winning positions. We're in the bottom half. Tottenham are worse but the current top 4 are all ruthless. They go ahead and stay ahead. Villa have been amazing. 20 wins, 2 draws, and 1 defeat off 23 leads. https://www.football365.com/news/ranking-all-20-premier-league-clubs-points-lost-from-winning-positions I had a look into this and here are the stats when one goal up. Basically xG and xGA are identical between us and Villa. When one goal up, we've underperformed xG for and against by 12 (!!!) in just 700 minutes, missing chances galore and allowing easy equalizers. Our goal difference when leading by one is actually minus! Villa have overperformed xG in the same state by 6, making an 18 goal swing between us and them off pretty much the same xG stats (i.e., chances created and allowed). There is the points difference between us and them for you right there. I can't remember many glaring misses when one up, but it's not hard to come up with equalizers from low quality positions, the Nunez one, the Kudus one, and the KDB one for starters. The Dummett penalty was also very avoidable. The reason I post this is that I don't think we need massive tweaks to playing style or personnel, probably just a better keeper and better luck. Our finishing and goalkeeping going to shit when we are one goal up is just freaky.

First 14 (to Man U home) P14 W8 D2 L4 F32 A14 Pts 26 Most recent 14 P14 W8 D3 L3 F37 A24 Pts 27 Unfortunately consequential bit in between (also featuring CL and Carabao misfortunes) P7 W1 D0 L6 F9 A18 Pts 3 So lots of credit to Eddie for pulling it back with lots of lads out. Last year's success was built on a strong end to the previous season and we're putting in another one of them. fwiw, but even if those seven games had produced 10 points, we'd still be four points behind Villa. So lots of credit to them.

The ball's gone so it doesn't feel like the challenge impeded anything. Dunno what the rule is.

An Arsenal player was allowed to back into the Spurs keeper with his arse sticking out last week for the headed goal by Havertz. It was a much clearer foul.

Ha ha hilarious. Please make a mental note of this in case we or Villa or some other unfancied team ever get close to the title. Do not let some Sky 6 loving commentator or pundit make out that a wobble or jitters are a sign of weakness that would not happen to a fancied team.