After finally concluding the long-winded Coutinho saga, Liverpool have been looking at a myriad of options on the transfer, most of which involve getting another dynamic creative midfielder (Mahrez? Rakitic?). But for now they'll have to do with a squad that's been performing well recently, winning 4 of 5 to bring them within a crack of the podium. Unfortunately for them they will have to play their first post-Coutinho game against runaway leaders City, showing no signs of slowing down despite some sketchy wins here and there. City haven't been resting on their results and have been seriously looking at new additions, with a strong preference for Alexis, though United is apparently doing all it can to swoop in instead. Klopp may decide to go for broke and play an open style, something that's actually seemed more successful compared to the bus parking tactics when facing City this season (witness Bristol City this week). Salah is due back this weekend, though he could be a game-time decision.

Speaking of Mahrez, he somehow remains at Leicester for now, despite showing this season that last year's slump may just have been a blip. The Foxes go to Chelsea with a recent record against the Blues that isn't cause for optimism but Claude Puel seems to have steadied the ship a bit since arriving so hope is not all lost.

EPL
Sat 13 Jan 2018
10:00a Chelsea - Leicester
10:00a Crystal Palace - Burnley
10:00a Huddersfield - West Ham
10:00a Newcastle - Swansea
10:00a Watford - Southampton
10:00a West Brom - Brighton
12:30p Tottenham - Everton
Sun 14 Jan 2018
08:30a Bournemouth - Arsenal
11:00a Liverpool - Manchester City
Mon 15 Jan 2018
3:00p Manchester United - Stoke City

4 draws in a row. 3 of them 0-0
Actual turgid uninspiring football

Keep the same motherfucking energy as when you talk about us

Salah was genius. Ederson probable the most impactful.

But a lot of "ok" decent high dollar guys, and some just downright useless:

Moratta
Bakayoko
Lacazette
Lukaku
Mendy & Silva (City ball'n, but these two haven't done shit)

Siggi (everyone saw that coming)
Drink water (35m)
OX

morata been surprising i really thought he;'d hit the ground running since hes played well in spain and italy. really soft player.

lacazette...i just dont think wenger knows that hes doing. his linkup play is top notch

lukaku just needs actual service. in a bad rut rn but unlike last year our supporting cast is stepping up.

silva will be fine. they dont need him right now.

drinkwater and ox just a waste of money to fill numbers tho.

can't remember the last time I saw the Blues dominated like that at home. They got lucky with the soft 2d yellow on Chilwell, otherwise it was looking like Leicester was gonna get one
Great game from Mahrez, some of those cross-pitch balls were fabulous

List at home to villarreal. Barely in cl position by one point over Villarreal right now (with a game in hand, but still).

What's up w zizou?

Meanwhile, Arda off Barca's wage bill (finally), coutinho signed, dembele healthy, Mina in to replace masche. Arthur might be next?
-----------
you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

Once they lose the CL then it's just time for them to figure out if they want to spend 500m in the market or 700m

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_xLtlNx7Io

please buy a Oblak or something liverpool.

or better yet, dont

So glad we stuck w Wenger.

He’s the one who has passed on multiple players bc he deemed them as poor values for the fee (Kante, Higuain, Suarez, Lemar, Mahrez, etc etc etc).

i ran across a roster analysis of you all on redcafe. sack wenger and just start over. be the best of the rest for a bit and build back up from there.


Petr Cech - turns 36 in 4 months
Laurent Koscielny - 32 - looks to be in decline
Nacho Monreal - turns 32 next month
Per Mertesacker - 33 - looks too slow
Hector Bellerin - 23 - the only real talent in defense, how long will he stay ?
Alexis Sanchez - 29 - out of contract and on his way out of the club
Mesut Özil - 29 - probably the same as Sanchez
Oliver Giroud - 31 - will leave in the summer
Theo Walcott - soon 29 - on his way out of the club
Santi Cazorla - 33 - career over ?
Danny Welbeck - 27 - yet to reach 50 League goals. Scored 13 in 3.5 seasons for Arsenal. Not good enough
Mohamed Elneny - 25 - hardly ever plays - not good enough
Calum Chambers - 23 - hardly played after his first season at the club. Not good enough

Hopefully we don't fall further than 6th or 7th while we figure things out post-Wenger.

Ideally, we sack Wenger this year and get Ancelotti in here for a couple of years until we identify the right manager (and director) going forward.

Unfortunately I can see Wenger staying through the end of his contract, which will prolong the timeline even further

Such is life as an arsenal fan

No big teams play well there really but this is shocking from City

That invincible Champagne on ice

Yes, that's literally the only thing left to root for

https://streamable.com/1z7cs

Not sure I've ever seen something like this

Mhkitaryan bum ass. Maybe Wenger can fix him

.

cant believe arsene had the balls to ask for him in the sanchez deal lmao.

https://twitter.com/ShaneBurns_/status/953049297309913089

coming to the EPL and a FIFA Ultimate Team near you!

Nearly have Malcolm signed as well. Diamond eye Sven Mislintat (former head of scouting for Dortmund who left after a row with Tuchel - wasn’t even allowed on the pitch)...and then Tuchel was promptly fired lmao.

Although with Arsenal, I don’t believe anything until I actually see the cat on the pitch with our kit on.

>Nearly have Malcolm signed as well.

Oh and it's Malcom :)

Plus, Who’s Mané with a ruthless finish.

tis a sad day for Papa Wenger. held onto him about 5 years too long and he never turned out good.

weirdly enough he turned down a move to Dortmund because he wanted to play for Big Sam.

because of Sanchez deal being 6 months and MK having 2.5 or 3 years left or something like that.

kinda funky.

time to go watch more sanchez highlights.

Same as any other sport

i was expecting sanchez for MK+money
or just sanchez for money

And even though Mkhi is yet another player who Mourinho has isolated and not been able to work with (De Bruyne comes to mind), lets not forget how talented he is when he's being utilized correctly.

Additionally, you add in that Auba might be coming and the chemistry between those two is undeniable, we likely are willing to give up a little leverage and cash back in order to get the deal done....Sven doing his thing.

>And even though Mkhi is yet another player who Mourinho has
>isolated and not been able to work with (De Bruyne comes to
>mind), lets not forget how talented he is when he's being
>utilized correctly.
>

to be fair these extremely different situations
mourinho couldnt afford to wait on KDB to come good. chelsea does not afford that kind of time to managers. he had to go with who produced immediately. (and dont even bring up Salah. no chelsea fan was sad to see the back of him. he was abysmal.) whereas at united jose is afforded the time to be patient on developing players like martial, rashford and lingard. not to mention jose has shown to be very protective of MK even though he has let us down time and time again. in fact jose played him so much we started to wonder if he was only playing so jose could save face on a marquee signing. mata and lingard stepped up and kicked him down and out of the pecking order at CAM/RAM.

also even at dortmund MK didn't play well under Klopp. only Tuchel. he was also too much of a coward (look it up) to take a pen in a cup final vs Bayern causing a defender to take it and he missed.

so MK is not some blameless victim here. he's been nothing but poor for us bar a hot handful of games at the start of this season. even last season at his best he was inconsistent. we cant even rely on him to make 5 yard passes properly or withstand a defender hounding him. so one good (and it was a great one) season out of the last 5. i guess its mourinho's fault he cant perform the basics of the game.

he'll probably do well with you all though if only because there's no pressure to succeed and no punishment for failure under Wenger. however personally i dont think hes built for the EPL game at all.

https://streamable.com/u2klu

I'm still mad that dude is gonna be on the WC squad on the basis of two good games at the Euro, but not as mad as the goalie here (who strained a ligament on the play as well)

He had also said we were waiting on that deal before finalizing any other transfers...so now lets what happens with Malcom (thanks Benny), Auba, Mkhi.

uhhh yeah he's shit... under mourinho. brilliant @ BVB tho.

best 2 players in the prem this season were shit under mourinho. it happens. means nothing.

average the first. abysmal the second. you dont interact w/ too many dortmund fans do you.
https://www.reddit.com/r/borussiadortmund/comments/4o3k8j/watzke_confirms_mkhitaryan_wont_extend/
https://www.reddit.com/r/borussiadortmund/comments/4qwx6f/mkhitaryan_megathread/

or consider this from a dortmund fan im pretty good friends with
http://www.slaent.com/thread/750677/page/1/post/750696/
http://www.slaent.com/thread/764070/page/1/post/764076/ <- sounds an awful lot similar to how he was a bust for us. before it ever even happened.

but yes it's big bad mourinho's fault.

on many many occasions, and gone on to flourish once out of his clutches?

i'm sorry, i didn't realize i was making that up. thought it was well-documented as fact.

mkh dealt with multiple injuries his 2nd yr @ dortmund, and was bundesliga POTY under tuchel in his 3rd. i'm betting he regains some of that form with a change of scenery.

he not built for the EPL. soon as he started getting roughed up he lost ALL his heart.

you must have not watched when he was balling the first 6 weeks being generally allowed to do what he wanted. when teams started bodying him, he lost all his mojo and hasn't done anything since.

so...yeah. enjoy that.

Jose Trump is shit, but I'm not sold on Mikki killing it with us. But I'll take him cuz our level is so low anything would help at this point.

He's 28 too! Too old to be that soft!

He came to us a grown man and fully developed player. Idk how you can blame mourinho for his failure with us. We gave him every chance. Too many actually.

Kdb you can say he wilted. I say it's bad timing.
Salah was flat garbage for Chelsea.
Lukaku again bad timing. You gonna play him above Drogba?
Who else?

Meanwhile he handpicked Ozil gave him the keys and he flourished
Hazard flourished under him. They just didn't mesh well despite Jose trying to build him up at any opportunity. Hazard don't have the psychotic desire to reach that ronaldo/Messi level that his talent implies.
Oscar was good under Jose until Jose was sacked because of a team mutiny.
Mata was the odd man out at Chelsea but now they're a match made in heaven at United.

People gotta stop wholesale eating these narratives the media feeds them. You cant judge a managers ability to bring young players thru at Chelsea. They're not in that business. Where musonda. Where RLC. They never gonna pop at Chelsea.

https://streamable.com/nhi2u