Klopp, Liverpool to be ‘dragged’ to Prem title by referees and are Arsenal being wrongly ‘dismissed’?

Jurgen Klopp

The Mailbox reckons referees will ‘drag’ Liverpool to the Premier League title in Jurgen Klopp’s final season. Also: Are Arsenal being wrongly ‘dismissed’?

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The Whipping Boys Conundrum

Some talk last night on Jason Soutar’s article

that Arsenal were being overhyped by highlighting a 5-nil away win at current Premier League strugglers. The problem is, this believes the fact that Burnley, as whipping boys, have done one thing relatively well this season and that is “not sit back”. To all intents and purposes, I can’t see any team (haven’t checked every game, mea culpa) reducing Burnley to less than 3 shots on target in a game comparatively to Arsenal not allowing a single shot on target in the game yesterday.

At 5-0, Arsenal did something no team has done this season against Burnley by beating them for -4 (highest so far in the Premier League is -2, with Burnley having played every opposition at least once). Doing so all while conceding not a single shot on target. Does that mean they are Champions-elect? No, but it sure highlights how quickly the goalposts move on Arsenal criticism for a lot of the commentariat.

Last week Liverpool conceded at Anfield to Burnley and allowed 4 shots on target. No muss, no fuss.

3 weeks ago, City conceded at the Etihad to Burnley and went for 3 shots on target. No pity, it’s City, they did the important thing and won.

But sure, let’s all dismiss Arsenal’s performance yesterday as “everyone beats them 5-0 at Turf Moor, come back when it’s 10-0 and we’ll talk”.

Fact is, Arsenal did a perfect yesterday, a week after doing another all-but flawless victory and that’s impressive. You can dismiss both with “but West Ham are on a run of turgid performances” and “but Burnley are whipping boys this year” but I can’t remember many prior teams, especially ones that “need a goalscorer”, going for 0-11 aggregate across back-to-back away games whatever the opposition in the Attacker-focused-era (lighter, more agile balls, harsher tackling limits).

I do wonder what some commenters would suggest Arsenal are failing at if they managed to go on and pull the 1000/1 shout of winning the title and Champions League. “didn’t do it on Mars!”, perhaps?

The erstwhile Harold Eddington Hooler

City-Chelsea combined XI

Well, F365. The selection of only city players was embarrassing.

Palmer, Sterling, Chilwell, and Disasi dismissed so easily. That aged well.

As much as I don’t like Chelsea I was so happy to see them get a deserved point. Bit of a strange result as I am sure every media site have been falling over themselves to declare city title winners already. But. Oops.

Brentford win and hopefully, finally the media will consider that city won’t win the league in February. For every football fan out there, I salute you, Chelsea.

Ade Walker

The real winners​​

Of course, the real winners from Man City dropping 2 points against mid-table Chelsea were Man City.

Simon, London

What Red Cartel?

James Outram from the Wirral is absolutely right, all this talk of a ‘Red Cartel’ is complete nonsense. Just because Liverpool and Manchester United were (according to a report in The Times) “given special access to vet candidates to be the Premier League’s chief executive” to replace Richard Scudamore, and that the “special treatment for United and Liverpool caused widespread resentment” from other clubs, there was nothing untoward going on.

They were probably just making sure that the new Premier League Chief Executive promised not to say silly things like Scudamore did when he claimed United struggling was bad for the ‘Premier League brand’.

Michael The Bert (still chuckling at Dave from Manchester trying to explain how the current FFP rules are ‘an equal spending cap’ and fair for all teams).

Referees helping Klopp’s farewell tour

It’s the 85th minute and Brentford just conceded to Cody Gakpo of all people. They may be relegated next season. But either way, just want to highlight how the Klopp farewell tour is being refereed. Brentford 3 fouls and 2 yellows, Liverpool 15 fouls (5 times as many) and 1 reluctant card (half as many).

The Premier League will drag Klopp to the final weekend, and after VAR shafted Chelsea in both their last FA Cup and Carabou Cup finals against Liverpool I think we can expect more of the same.

But hey, they once didn’t get a decision against Spurs.

Anthony, Dublin

​Torres’ return

An email on the return of the incredible Pau Torres. Is there a finer sight in Hipster Football than a regal centre back strolling out of defence to start an attack?

Gently setting down their newspaper, exhaling, and saying, no chaps, like *this*, and then airily wandering past 6 players at 0mph and sliding the ball onto the most perfect blade of grass in the whole postcode.

And now we’ve got one. After an uneven 2024 for Villa so far, Torres is finally back from injury – unlike every defender since Derek Mountfield by the looks of it – and just like that, the team works again. Even Lenglet and Cash know which goal the ball shouldn’t go into when Pau is playing.

Of all 30 players on the pitch on Saturday, who had the most touches of the ball? Pau. Who completed the most passes? Pau. Who started moves for Villa’s best chances? Pau. The stats have more Paus than a Batman comic.

Villa fans in quiet corners are already whispering comparisons to God and that is something I *never* thought would happen in my lifetime.

Basically, if Emery and Monchi fancy buying more players of this calibre at a cost of 0.3 Harry Maguires, then I’m up for it.

Neil Raines

Young Chelsea rejects vastly overrated

Seeing the article on the consistently overrated Loftus Cheek is so weird to me. The guy has had one major injury when he was 23. He was not even a starter for Chelsea at that point, was more of a Europa League player.

He was solid but at no point did I ever think he would become a top player. I couldn’t understand why he was always lauded so highly. I feel like in recent years the bar was much lower for him than for someone like Mount, and the criticism Mount would receive was disproportionate.

Loftus Cheek is now 28 and it’s not as if he’s been injured his entire career. For a lot of that time, he wasn’t deemed good enough to be a starter. Obviously injuries held him back and he would be better now, but he still wasn’t the player people make him out to be.

When he joined Milan it was fairly obvious that he would do well. I remember thinking when I was like 15 that the Premier League is overrated and all these other leagues are actually just as good, but Serie A is pretty crap.

Players that often struggle in the PL will do well there. Like Tomori was nothing special at Chelsea and I still don’t see the hype. Every time I watch him in the CL he more often than not has a shite game. I can fully imagine him coming back to the PL and being nothing special.

The fact that he will be 27 this year is mad to me, always pictured him being younger for some reason. Another player who will end up going to Italy is Chalobah. A very average player who will start games for a decent Serie A side and then people will demand Southgate calls him up. Rinse and repeat. It’s so tiring.

Dion

Man Utd are weird…

Just looking at the table and Man Utd are in 6th place with 33 goals scored, while Luton are in 17th place with 33 goals scored. And they play each other tomorrow. This is weird, right?

Niallio, Dublin

“Not good enough service” for Harry Kane?

Not good enough service? Hey, Harry: Actually, Bayern were pretty good until you got there.

Scott, LFC Toronto