Liverpool banter 10

02 Nov 2026 08:56:36
I think it's sad for football that we now have a manager who feels he has no choice but to state on TV that players should go down in the box to ensure penalties are awarded. Referees and VAR incompetence are pushing this narrative along with the likes of Arsenal whose players go down like they've shot at the slightest of touches. I know we have our own Greg Luganis but they seem to have a fully trained synchronized team of divers. Last season it was their pulling and dragging at corners and freekicks.

It's disheartening to see a top team play football like this, there was a time the spoilers were the teams fighting to stay in the League, now the champions are as bad. In my opinion the PL is becoming a worst product with Arsenal as champions. Others may see it differently but when City and ourselves were going toe to toe it was great football to watch, now it feels there are so few great exciting attacking games to watch.

02 Nov 2026 09:05:51
Yeh it's bad. We're all on here slating Mac for his nonsense, yet Isak has proved that cheating is the only way.

02 Nov 2026 09:21:28
Absolutely right McG. We (all fans) were lucky to have both Klopp and Guardiola for a decade, because of the open, expansive style of football that they preached and played. Every time I look at Arteta, I see Diego Simeone, and their common style of "win at all costs football - the dirtier the better".

02 Nov 2026 09:34:32
Given our expensive array of attacking talent isn't it up to us to lead the way and show how the game should be played?

03 Nov 2026 11:09:27
ArAY, and you know who used to mock AM and Diego Simeone's tactics?

Arsenal fans.

02 Nov 2026 08:15:27
A lot of talk about the fact we don't have a midfielder who can win the ball back, which is true. But we don't have a senior midfielder who can pass either. I don't think the lack of creativity will be solved by signing even more attackers, we lack the profile of player who can collect the ball deep and distribute it to start attacks properly.

Thiago/Alonso type would be ideal but literally anyone with a passing range who doesn't carry the ball forwards in a straight line then get all confused and pass it back to where he's just been (cough Gravenberch/Szobo)

02 Nov 2026 08:27:07
Didn't we sign Wirtz to unlock defences like Arsenal's? Who, I thought, defended superbly by the way.

02 Nov 2026 08:38:35
They defended brilliantly but were unlocked a few times, so they fouled our players.

Nothing you can do if the ref and VAR don't call it.

02 Nov 2026 08:44:58
Mc Allister is a very good passer of the ball from deep. There are no such "elite passer" at Arsenal either. Zibemendi who was known as the "Alonso type" can't get a game for them.
Wirtz was signed to win us the league.

02 Nov 2026 08:47:35
Ignore VAR and the ref. We were second best. Arsenal were comfortable especially in the second half. They showed why they are the champions. Us? A lot of huff and puff but zero end product which is undeniably poor considering there was half a billion worth of forwards on the pitch.

02 Nov 2026 08:50:45
Only watched highlights when I got back, Ron. I don't blame the ref for not giving pens. The shirt tug should have been brought to the ref's attention by VAR, for him to decide.

Regards to Arsenal fouling; I would have to watch the game back and I can't be bothered.

The bottom line is, we've won one game at home out of five. That simply isn't good enough. We're heading in the right direction, but, like I've repeatedly said, there's no quick fix.

02 Nov 2026 09:07:28
I definitely definitely don't think that Isak should have gone down, but he should definitely have made a huge fuss about the shirt pull and given the referee an earful instead of joking around with Timber after the fact about the shirt being tugged, and our players should have backed him up, Isak is a really laid back and soft spoken character and in these sorts of situations he needs to do everything he can to get us an advantage, that's his job as a footballer.

He needs to be more of a killer to justify the price tag, Arsenal are champions because they do all the unspoken, unglamorous parts of the game to win a game of football.

02 Nov 2026 09:23:29
We lost because we don't have a frontline that can successfully have a shot on target for 90 minutes.

02 Nov 2026 09:42:02
Spot on ArAy. you should pin this on the top of the page,

02 Nov 2026 07:39:01
{Ed's Note - MCR has posted a new article entitled, Liverpool's Wide Areas Are Letting Us Down

01 Nov 2026 21:33:29
I think declan rice is overrated and the quality in the Premier League has lessened. I think he's top class and would go straight into our midfield.
World class? Well then the games regressed.

I have always thought peak Jordan Henderson would edge this rice. Henderson was a better passer. Same engine and legs. I think the hype on him is crazy atm. He wouldn't be a patch on Gerrard.

01 Nov 2026 22:22:54
He's overrated, but he's top class?!

01 Nov 2026 22:30:47
Let's be real, Rice would improve our midfield two-fold. He has the bite we are sorely missing, and the engine to match.

Having said that, really excited to see what kind of player Nyoni will be in a few years time.

01 Nov 2026 22:40:18
I'm concerned as I think I am starting to get what Ron is saying!

Basically, Rice is not as good as he is made out to be, but he would still improve our midfield.

I'd go along with that, and I'm also really excited to see how Trey develops over the next few seasons, Mango.

01 Nov 2026 22:48:51
You can be world class and overrated at the same time. World class isn't a static thing, if you're up there with the best in the world in your position you're world class. He is. But that doesn't mean he's a special player by any means, it's an indictment of the lack of quality players around these days.

01 Nov 2026 23:21:20
Zeddicus 😘.

01 Nov 2026 23:48:01
Trey's going to be brilliant.

01 Nov 2026 23:54:15
I'd have Rice in our midfield over any of ours right now to be honest.

01 Nov 2026 23:57:58
Our midfield was quite good today until Trey went off I think.

02 Nov 2026 06:42:20
Trey was good today. Rice is an outstanding player.
We started to slow, gave them to much respect.
Overall progress is being made. Our future looks good.

What a difference it would make if VAR did their job, same goes for Isak by the way.

02 Nov 2026 07:08:51
Stopped reading after "No better than Henderson". How exactly is Henderson a better passer?

02 Nov 2026 07:43:27
It's OK to give credit where it's due. Rice is a very good player, one of the best mids in the PL at the moment.
He'd absolutely walk into our starting 11. World class (whatever that means)? Probably not. But, as much as I loved the guy, Hendo was also nowhere near top shelf.

Desire, passion, drive and commitment: yeah, world class, but that only gets you so far.
Having said that, I think even present day Hendo would add a control and calmness to our midfield that we lack from time to time.

02 Nov 2026 08:49:53
Rice is the best midfield player in the league. To think otherwise is foolish. He's exactly what Liverpool require.

01 Nov 2026 21:14:42
The reactions on here and other sites are mind blowing, but hey we could be Man United or Man City with 115 guilty charges pending sanction .

01 Nov 2026 21:28:40
Or we could have spent half a billion and be an average team. Who cares about City? We are supposed to be a top club challenging for the major trophies.

01 Nov 2026 22:11:30
Well said Mark, scraped over Chelsea midweek and got lucky against Brighton last weekend had a lot of people talking about a title challenge. It's incredible how people aren't scrutinising the money Liverpool spent the last two summers and still accept no trophies last season and unlikely to be near any this season.
Zero shots on target today is embarrassing.
Hiring Iraola was a mistake and will possibly have to leave at the end of the season.

Can see us barely scraping top 5 again.
He bottled the chance to get Bournemouth Champions League last season and is going to get found out at Liverpool. We needed a strong manager like Simeone to unite the club again but instead we chose someone who doesn't have the ability to get the best out of squad.
Get rid now while we still have a chance to have a decent season.

{Ed025's Note - seriously???..

01 Nov 2026 22:25:11
No, nobody is scrutinising the money spent in the last two summer transfer windows.

01 Nov 2026 22:28:21
Go to bed. School on the morning.

01 Nov 2026 22:35:15
We played well, we're definitely on an upward trajectory.

Arsenal and City will drop more points.

01 Nov 2026 22:39:11
arteta has had well over 8 years at Arsenal, andoni has had 9 lfc Premier League games so far, you can only make a fair assessment at the end of the season, anything can still happen in football and it usually does!

Sir Bob Paisley never won a trophy in his first season, Jurgen was 3 years and 8 months to win his first ever LFC trophy (UCL), he finished 8th in his first PL season, if LFC had never persevered with those two, God only knows where we would be now?

01 Nov 2026 22:47:11
Wombatz, do you actually support Liverpool?

01 Nov 2026 23:44:58
We ARE a top club challenging for trophies, Markp08. We just lost a game same as the other top teams challenging for trophies have.

02 Nov 2026 02:31:57
As ever @MarkP, what would you do to improve the squad, the quality of play and the system you would chose to enable, what I personally think is a very promising core of players, to challenge for the PL and CL.

Let's for the sake of argument, say that your criticism of what the club has done, is correct and put that to one side, the question is what would you do to fix it?

02 Nov 2026 06:04:16
Klopp didn't inherit such a strong team so you cannot compare the two. Looking through our team: A Brazilian national Goalkeeper, Uruguayan Captain, starting French CB, Netherlands captain, World Cup winner in midfield, 100 million winger, 100 million attacking midfielder and 100 million striker along with a starting Netherlands midfielder and attacker.
How anyone can look at that talent available and accept the results so far is beyond me.
Arsenal won't drop a whole lot of points from here on in. We can forget about City as they will more than likely be punished before the season ends so they won't be near the top.


Spurs are 5 points behind us despite not being able to win the first 5 games.
2 losses and 3 draws is not good enough for the first 9 games.
We were Premier League champions 2 seasons ago for God sakes. How anyone can accept the position we're in now is beyond me.
If anyone can put forward arguments highlighting the positives I'm more than happy to listen and change my opinion.
But please don't use excuses like giving the manager time and injuries. Every team that was put out this season was more than good enough to win that game.

{Ed001's Note - are you 12 years old or just starting watching football this week?? If not there is no excuse for your ignorance or these moronic comments. These kind of posts are just embarrassing. It is like you are too dense to remember that we just played the reigning champions and UCL finalists, who also happen to have good players in their team.}

02 Nov 2026 06:29:26
Not to mention being extremely close to equalizer.

02 Nov 2026 06:39:43
More like does he even watch football, Rome.

02 Nov 2026 06:47:51
Our results haven't been good enough across the piece this season, despite playing well in games like yesterdays we can still be disappointed with the points tally. We've spent a fortune on attacking players but can't score enough goals in the league, especially at home.

02 Nov 2026 07:10:03
No goals at home against Fulham Arsenal and city and no shots on target the entire game against Arsenal is really really worrying. 2nd half looked like a stroll in the park for them and we've spent £400m on attacking players and none of them look like any are prolific scorers. Best ever Goalkeeper and centre back are coming to the end.

Left and right back need replacing and I think everyone can agree the midfield ain't great. Manager needs a chance but if Slot had zero shots on target at Anfield apparently for first time ever he would be slated. We beat Arsenal last year remember. Take the rose tinted glasses off. We are in trouble.

{Ed001's Note - no we are not. This is just short sighted nonsense. Put your toys back please.}

02 Nov 2026 07:26:42
No toys, just facts.

{Ed001's Note - except the lies about them having a stroll in the park. You are talking utter crap. It is sad how desperate some of you cretins are to jump on a team that is actually trying. I remember when Liverpool fans were actually decent and applauded the opposition for doing well. Arsenal defended brilliantly yesterday, they should be being credited instead of all this childish ignorant toy throwing about us not getting a shot on target, people should instead look at how many times they got bodies in the way of balls to stop chances being created.}

02 Nov 2026 07:28:49
Wombratz had too much Sunny D mate.

02 Nov 2026 07:38:48
The squad is a work in progress, but i really feel we are moving in the right direction again.

We have the right manager in place, if the club back him, we will be ok.

02 Nov 2026 08:07:51
Wow, didn't see the game yesterday but from match reports it seemed quiet even with Liverpool being denied a pretty solid penalty so I'm surprised to see the levels of negativity.

I do get some fans frustration in general, you look at the names available to us and money spent and you think we should be dominating, we should be getting more from this group but sometimes if you zoom out and get some perspective we can see that we are not the only ones who spend big, there are many teams with very good squads, great coaches/managers and still 3 points isint guaranteed. This is football!

AI is only starting to get this team playing his way, it's going to be a bumpy road so we need to show patience, performance's haven't been consistent and tactically we are still learning where everyone should be and what they should be doing but as others have highlighted Arteta was given years and plenty of financial backing to get to this Arsenal squad and level of performances and consistency so we can't just walk out against Arsenal today and expect the same levels, yes on our day we can beat any team but right now we need to accept that results and performances, the players and the coach need time.

02 Nov 2026 09:35:30
Please list below the teams who some of you lot seem to think we can't beat: some of these posts are getting ridiculous now.

We are a top club (a few results in a season doesn't change that) we will challenge for trophies this season, we will get top 4, we will win more games than we lose, we will lose some games along the way, other top clubs will try and beat us, other teams will try and win the big trophies.

In England maybe Arsenal and City have a better chance than us right now - City however are in a world of s**t - we are bigger and better than every other team in the league and the table will show that at the end of the season.

Europe: PSG are on a different level right now, then maybe Bayern, Barca and Madrid - I would give us a chance in a one off game against all of them and that's all we need to get our hands on big ears.

We got beat by a very good team who defended very well yesterday, we made the reigning champions and champions league finalists defend like their lives depended on it - and fair play they did and got a result. They didn't batter, embarrass, destroy or dominate us but yes we lost 1 game.

We are one of the biggest clubs in world football, admired and envied by millions of fans - with one exception: a fair few of our own absolute wet wipes.

01 Nov 2026 20:40:51
Imagine what we could do if we had a LB that could play football!

01 Nov 2026 20:51:13
The holes in the squad that Hughes neglected remain.

In January We can hopefully start rectifying the problem areas and actually give Iraola a squad that can compete for the big trophies

Until then, it's top 5 and hopefully a domestic trophy.

01 Nov 2026 20:51:55
Embrace the chaos.

01 Nov 2026 20:54:00
He was fookin awful.

01 Nov 2026 21:29:25
Omg he is a pub player. Such a weak link.

01 Nov 2026 21:43:56
Great business would be a top CM and LB in January. This season will fall massively short relying on that midfield. Kerkez is OK. He could make it but that's not good enough for the price and expectation. He should have serious competition.

01 Nov 2026 22:01:48
He's not ok if your trying to compete at the top level.

01 Nov 2026 23:07:07
I watched the entire match and don't understand what Kerkez did to make him the whipping boy? Somebody please explain to me.
Sometimes your team loses a match. The performance was good l. Should have had a penalty.
We move on.

02 Nov 2026 02:33:33
@LFC08 - Araujo, Jacquet, Munoz, Barcola - we started 'fixing it in the last window.

02 Nov 2026 06:42:52
Kerkez was absolutely fine to me, yes we all know he can do better with his delivery from out wide, but at the same time he delivered an absolute peach of a ball to Macca who uncharacteristically messed up his header, usually Macca would have that in the back of the net 9 times out of 10 and he is absolutely the midfielder in our team you want arriving in that situation.

Kerkez is trying his hardest to justify his place in the team, and sometimes it looks like he is trying a bit too hard and that he should relax a bit and play his game, I love that about him though, he gives 200% every game.

02 Nov 2026 08:16:50
Although I'm well aware of Kerkez's technical frailties I'm always quite surprised by how quickly a portion of the fans have decided he is the new whipping boy as others have put it. Kerkez leaves it all on that pitch and never shirks a challenge, you can see him run and fight every game without question and still he is 'utter crap', 'not good enough' etc.

we need to remember he is 22, he is still very much developing, Robbo didn't come to us until he was 23 and was awful when he first arrived. In my opinion our biggest mistake at LB was keeping Tzimikas and letting Robbo go, kerkez could have learned a lot from him and had a genuine back up when needed.

01 Nov 2026 20:17:43
Having watched Gakpo last 2 games, either Munoz or Rio needs to be starting over him.

01 Nov 2026 20:42:15
Should have taken the £85m for Cody in the summer. We will never be offered that kind of money for him again.

01 Nov 2026 21:02:24
Were it not for Gakpos contributions, we'd be sitting mid-table and out of the Leage Cup, despite his poor performances of late, he's still got the most goal contributions in the squad, I say that as somebody who;s never been a fan of his.

01 Nov 2026 21:03:02
2 games out of position? He was our best player before the internationals, maybe moan at the £400 million quids worth of players.

01 Nov 2026 21:03:39
I didn't want to accept it at the time but he's dreadful, started the season really well but its normal service resumed at the moment unfortunately.

Maybe it's still on the cards to sign another winger and sell him.

01 Nov 2026 21:30:28
Yep give him a break he's probably been our best wide player this season. Certainly in terms of numbers.

02 Nov 2026 02:27:12
Jesus always on to slate players rather than mention how good anything worked as a newly formed team lol people always looking for the negatives. give the team time.

02 Nov 2026 06:44:11
What is up with this board? One good game and everybody says somebody is the best player ever, one bad game and everybody says we should have sold him in the summer. I distinctly remember people saying thank goodness we didn't let him go to City earlier in the season.

01 Nov 2026 19:13:39
I think the general more positive feel of late is warranted. Toe to toe with Arsenal today, beat Brighton last week and blow for blow with City until the dodgy ref card ruined it. So that's us giving a good account of ourselves against the top 3 whilst beating Chelsea in a cup tie in the same period.

However, the performances have been built on defending well which fortunately we now seem capable of doing with Araujo and Jaquet in the team. But this is where it becomes a bit of a concern. In a performance like that today against the champions, we should expect to at least create a few chances. For all the possession, territory, touches in and around Arsenal's box, we created NOTHING. Barcola, Isak, Wirtz. Surely we expect more. Wirtz was a passenger and I think he needs a spell out of the team. Could genuinely have started Ngumoha, Koumas and (hypothetically) Curtis Jones in place of those three and we'd have carried more threat.

It's the sort of situation where Coutinho used to make something happen and the sort of situation that presumably Wirtz was signed for. He's a problem, no matter how much we don't want to acknowledge it.

01 Nov 2026 20:28:50
We weren't toe to toe they keep us exactly where they wanted. We were massively underwhelming.

01 Nov 2026 20:40:15
We played well today - kept the present champions to one goal and had the best of it - final pass etc needs to improve but that will come.

We won't play teams with 24 CB's every week - onwards we go.

01 Nov 2026 20:57:58
I think both teams started with 3 centre half's in their back 4.

01 Nov 2026 21:04:30
Agree with Mark, they were only delighted to get one goaland sit back for 75 mins. I think we would have been more effective sitting back ourselves and pouncing on the counter to utilise Barcolas pace, like we did against Brighton.

01 Nov 2026 21:32:11
We never looked like winning so not sure where the positives come from.

01 Nov 2026 22:23:15
Never looked like winning? If it wasn't for blatant VAR incompetence we would have went into the second half all square and then the second half would have been a different story.

01 Nov 2026 23:23:51
@RR,

I totally agree with ye post, but can you please explain the reference to (Ex) Curtis Jones, also Florian hit the bar, on another day that could go in. Wirtz and Barcola also have to contribute with either goal assists or goals, both have not scored a PL goal so far.

02 Nov 2026 06:49:22
Our problem is not capitalising when we are on top, it's a very old story and even Klopp faced this difficulty for periods of his reign. Yes we absolutely should have had a pen, and mind you, if that shirt pull was a pen, Timber could have also got a red for denying a clear goal scoring opportunity, would have changed the game. But there were other times when we could and should easily have scored, the Macca chance, the moment when Calafiori and Raya had a mix up and we should have at least have a clear shot on target. If you are that much in the ascendancy in the game and have the opponent penned in, you have to make the keeper work continuously and at least score one.

It's like we do all the good work for 95% of what is needed to score, the fast and decisive build up, the creating space by moving the opposition around, pressing them high to win possession back, and then we can't score.

Big credit goes to Iraola for identifying why we were getting played through the first part of the first half because Odegaard was floating around picking up space, once he started putting Virgil on Odegaard we wrested complete control of the game. It was then up to our forward line to take over the game and get us ahead or at least level, and they failed. Hopefully playing together more will help with that.

01 Nov 2026 20:07:38
{Ed's Note - MCR has posted a new article entitled, Liverpool's Wide Areas Are Letting Us Down