Football Extended

The Reds score three at Carrow Road on the opening day of the 2021/22 season to silence early doubters. The Premier League is back! With the European Championships taking up much of our summer entertainment, it seems like it has been an age since Liverpool wrapped up their 2020/21 campaign against Crystal Palace at Anfield in May. Similar to our title winning 2019/20 season opener, Liverpool faced newly promoted Norwich City on this seasons opening day - this time away from home at Carrow Road.  Klopp's selection reflected what many thought the Liverpool team would look like with many players not yet at full fitness due to their pre-seasons being cut short due to their exploits at the Euros and still recovering from injuries picked up last season, with the likes of Thiago and captain Jordan Henderson missing from the first team. After 301 days without playing a competitive game, Virgil van Dijk returned to the starting line up along with Joel Matip, who also missed a hefty chunk of...

  A week on from Liverpool's final game of the Premier League season, let's take a look at the campaign as a whole and how the Reds did in each of the four competitions they took part in. On the whole, given the circumstances with the injuries, the packed schedule, and the personal struggles some of the players and staff have gone through over the course of the last nine months, this season has to be considered a success with Liverpool qualifying for the Champions League via a third-place finish in the league. The squad that was left to pick up the pieces from the injuries of Van Dijk, Gomez, Matip, Henderson, and Jota (to name but a few) did extremely well to pick themselves up from these setbacks and ensure that Liverpool remain where they are supposed to be amongst Europe's elite. This may have meant that the cup competitions had to take a back seat to make sure that top four was secured, but I'm sure many Liverpool fans will agree with me when I say in the context o...

  Ten thousand energetic Liverpool fans descended on Anfield for the highest attendance since March 2020 for Liverpool's final game of what has been a miserable 2020/21 Premier League season. All the injuries, home defeats, last-minute draws, all came down to a final game to get the Reds into the Champions League for next season, else suffer the dreariness of Thursday nights in the Europa League. Crystal Palace were the opposition, and considering Liverpool had won the previous six meetings in the league, the odds were stacked in the home team's favour.  Anfield tends to provide for Liverpool when the stakes are high, and the addition to the ground of supporters will have gone a long way and given the players a massive mental boost.  However, it was a nervy start for the Liverpool players and Palace started the game on top. Liverpool had Alisson's saves and a sitter from Andros Townsend to thank for not being behind by the twenty-minute mark. This clearly kicked Liverpool...

Liverpool have been a broken team this season; injuries have forced players out of position and at times our lack of depth has been exposed. Season-ending injuries to Virgil Van Dijk, Joe Gomez, and Joel Matip have forced a regular centre-back partnership of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson who are both midfielders by trade. This has allowed players like Curtis Jones to get great first-team experience, and kept James Milner in a starting position, but whilst these players are both reliable when called upon they're not the quality that Liverpool require to be still challenging for the top prizes, which they have fallen off from this season.  The lack of depth up front has also been very detrimental this season, as the injury to Diogo Jota mid-season meant Klopp was turning to the likes of Divock Origi and Xherdan Shaqiri, who simply are not up to standard, and with Firmino and Mane not performing at the levels we've seen previously, Liverpool have had no real talent to call on off t...

  After the disappointment of Monday night at Elland Road, falling to a late equaliser and missing an opportunity to move into fourth place, you might expect the Liverpool players to rectify that poor result and go out at Anfield and get a resounding victory against 16th place Newcastle United. With the front four of Salah, Mane, Firmino, and Jota all starting, Liverpool's intent to attack from the off was clear, but it just did not happen for the Reds, and with Chelsea travelling to West Ham later in the day the battle for top four was set to take yet another twist - unfortunately not in Liverpool's favour. It all started so brilliantly, Newcastle's back five was breached in the first three minutes as Mane put a ball into the box, and Firmino's flick-on found Salah at the back post. A lovely swivel and a thumping strike put the ball in the back of the net and the Egyptian King became the first Liverpool player to score twenty goals or more in three separate Premier Lea...

Image from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9487381/Leeds-vs-Liverpool-Premier-League-2020-21-Live-Result.html#i-1cba3347456dcdc7 This game was one of the stranger ones to have been played in recent memory. It almost seemed futile for this game to go ahead after the drama that had erupted in the football world over the past two days. Liverpool travelled to Elland Road to face a Leeds side who were coming off the back of a shock 2-1 away victory at champions-elect Manchester City, but due to the Reds' upturn in form in the Premier League over the last few games, a positive result was to be expected.  However, the game as a whole was marred with the announcement of the European Super League and J.W. Henry's betrayal of the English game. Fans of both Leeds United and Liverpool gathered outside the stadium to protest against the proposed Super League with banners and jeering when the Liverpool team bus arrived. The Leeds players even wore warm-up t-shirts, even o...

Football is currently staring death in the face. The game is being held at gunpoint by the richest men in the game and we are waiting for them to pull the trigger. After the news emerged today that the 'Top 6' English clubs, as well as the biggest teams in Spain and Italy, have signed an agreement to form a breakaway Super League, the football world rightly erupted in outrage at the disgusting level of greed shown by those in charge of some of the most respected and prestigious football clubs in the world. Two of these clubs are England's 'finest', Liverpool and Manchester United. The nation's two most successful teams domestically and on the continent are the front runners for a footballing entity to rival any amount of corruption and greed ever seen in the game. Two clubs from cities whose people are unanimously against greed and have working-class beliefs and values ingrained into them from generations past, when football was nothing but a bi-weekly hobby for...

Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images 3-1 down, Champions League quarter-final, Anfield. It was all set up for yet another famous evening under the lights at Anfield for Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League, but due to the forward's lack of competence in front of goal, the Reds played out a goalless draw in the second leg and lived to rue the poor quality in Madrid from the first leg.  The thing that hurts the most about this result is that it feels more like a 0-0 defeat than a 0-0 draw. Two goals without reply would have seen Liverpool through to the semi-final thanks to Mo Salah's away goal in Madrid last Tuesday, but Liverpool's scoring sensation was off the boil as he alone had at least three chances to score throughout the game, once thwarted by Thibaut Courtois, once blocked by a Madrid defender, and once blazed over the bar. Also missing clear cut opportunities was Gini Wijnaldum who also launched a shot into the upper tier of the Anfield Road End from eight yards...