El Mansfield

I don't think there's evidence to suggest that Trent shouldn't be trusted. Especially defensively, he's been more switched on this season than I've ever seen him. There's no disputing the effort was shit today, but you can't possibly call it a trend over an outlier

Hard to disagree

Exactly. He was far from the outlier

Yep, but that's why you build leads. There's always the potential for days like this

I'm not going to put much stock in Trent having a shocker against the backdrop of this whole contract saga.

No one is immune to shit performances, regardless of the circumstances.

What I will put stock in is how he responds to this showing.

Days like these hit like crack when it came to crucifying Arsenal Twitter.

But no amount of dopamine erases the fact that Elon Musk is a cancerous hack and he turned that platform into a disgrace.

Says a lot about the state of things that Liverpool are top of everything, yet we have people running hatchet-jobs on our former manager, our current sporting director, our first-choice left-back and right-back,our record 9 and our only summer signings.

And worse, people are feeding this shit.

a blue cartoon character with red eyes and a red shirt ALT: a blue cartoon character with red eyes and a red shirt

I see we're once again focusing on the silliest of Darwin Nuñez discourse

Happy new year, friends!

I’m kicking off 2025 with a look at Arne Slot’s title-winning 2022/23 season.

His experience could give Liverpool the edge over the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea: open.substack.com/pub/andrewbe...

Incredible talent, but needs a clear role at wherever his next stop is for me. If he moves to England, I'm not sure he has the physicality to play centrally but could be a wonderful left back. Could just as easily be an elite ball-playing centreback in a less physical league

It takes a lot less energy. I'll say that

Far from it, but there's also zero chance my old ass makes it close to midnight!

Mountain time for the win

That would be Biblical

Gonna be so funny when Trent's is the first contract to get done.

I don't think he's disingenuous, I just think he's easily influenced. Folks like his brother and his best mate may have colored his thinking. That makes him human, not a rat

I'm not as decisive. I don't like it, but I recognize that he's not the one who put the club in this position.

He's given most of his life to the club -- if his heart is elsewhere, shit happens. I'm only concerned if his head is elsewhere

Doesn't change the fact that he's under contract for this club. If he's putting forth the effort Slot wants to see, you play him and you likely win trophies. You don't just assume he'll be unprofessional

It's always possible, and it wouldn't be the first time the media was used as a bit of a pawn, but the noises aren't great. And I'm hopelessly positive

He can and likely will win us trophies this season. I'd expect any offer from Real to be derisory at best -- certainly not worth what you can get out of Trent for the remainder of the season.

For some, leaving Liverpool harms Trent's legacy with the club. And I get that.

But if he leaves by playing a part in an historic season for the club, it equally enhances it.

The notion that he should be sold or frozen out makes zero sense to me.

Not sure that works when the system is largely designed to run through the player on the right

Best laid plans, I suppose. But I really don't think he fits what Arsenal do from the right

With Saka, Arsenal are in the same predicament City find themselves in with Rodri: who do you target in the market that is good enough to fill that void without a massive dropoff, yet willing to drop to second-choice once those players return?

PL games missed due to injury this season:

Liverpool - 44
Arsenal - 54

I'm being generous and including the 14 games they've lost from Tomiyasu, their third-choice right-back.

I've never been old before

I go for a big run on my birthday every year to convince myself I'm not getting older.

I wake up feeling immeasurably older.

Every. Time.

I always find it funny when people say Darwin has always been shit.

He objectively hasn't. He finished last season 29 goal involvements across 2,750 minutes in all competitions.

Strong underlying numbers too with an xG involvement of ~0.9 in the Premier League.

He's made a high-profile error for the first time in a long time -- something that even Alisson is prone to -- but with the undisputed No. 1 on the verge of coming back, Kelleher won't have much in the way of opportunities to atone for that error.

I think last night highlighted why Kelleher needs to leave LFC.

And that's not a shot at him.

The only thing keeping him from being an elite-level goalkeeper is the consistency of his performances, and that's only going to come as a No. 1.