Here we go [to Anfield] again. Yes, and this time around it’s to face a Liverpool side buoyed by their quite astonishing Carabao Cup Final win over Chelsea 11-10 after penalties. Me? I’d have preferred a replay but currently, worldwide television scheduling rules out anything of a traditional nature so penalties to decide the contest it was. Not a bad game for a 0-0 for those of us who watched it.
Inevitably and fortunately it gave me yet another chance to speak with Tony Evans, who is a columnist for The Independent, a former Football Editor of The Times, a contributor to talkSPORT and Five Live and is heavily involved with Reds website, The Anfield Wrap.
As always, Tony and I enjoyed a good old natter about the state of the game in general, but in the meantime, I wondered how the triumph would affect Jurgen Klopp’s reasoning for Wednesday.
MP: Surely Jurgen might rest a few players against us on Wednesday?
TE: Once you’ve got the sniff of silverware you want more. We’ve got a decent squad and we might not put out our very strongest side but it will be pretty damn strong. Alisson does not like being on the bench so will be hungry for a start although there is a chance that Klopp might play Caoimhin Kelleher over Allison in goal. We’re pretty much secure with either of them.
Mo Salah is a greedy bugger who will always want to play and always want to score goals!
MP: What hope could we might expect to have tomorrow night?
TE: Last time you were here you played really well for an hour or so. Had Teemu Pukki have taken one or two chances it could have been different. But we are so good going forward that when the dam breaks*** we can cause major problems. But it’s not a foregone conclusion by any means. All I will add is that while shocks can happen, class will prevail [cheers mate, Martin]
MP: Is a shock likely – after all, you’ve one trophy won and have the three biggies to fight for.
TE: The ones we really want are the Premier League title and the Champions League – that would be the best of the lot – but that doesn’t mean we won’t be doing our utmost in the FA Cup. All four can be done but when I look back to the days of ourselves, Forest and Villa hoovering up European Cups I can see that it’s changed. It seems to be just ourselves and Man City at the moment.
MP: Care to add to that Tony?
TE: Yeah. Back in the 1980s we always wanted to win the League Cup in order to “get a trophy in the locker early”. I’m pretty sure Jurgen Klopp and the entire squad will be pleased with the recent achievement.
As ever Tony and I also discussed a bit of footy philosophy, which proved that no matter where we are born or bred there are several things we all have in common. Over to Tony:
” I feel a bit sorry for what we would both call the ‘TV generation’ and some of them have never even been to a real live match. I remember getting on a train on my own and by the end of the journey, I had made some new friends.
“It’s just like a communal expression of identity I suppose – I realised I was a Liverpool fan before I knew what my name was. It’s the same for you guys in Norwich and everywhere else – kind of like an accident of birth I guess.
“Places I’ve been, adventures I’ve had, they will always stay with me. Whoever you support, football is a major part of your life. It becomes part of something you believe in forever.”
We disagreed on one point.
Tony reckoned that after a couple of post-match beers a loss is forgotten and the conversation quickly turns in another direction.
As I’m a bit of a home bird I get home as quickly as I can after a Saturday match and have been known to have the ar$ehole until Monday morning. I still feel that way, unfortunately.
We also discussed a bit of Liverpudlian social history which interests me as I worked in Huyton, Liverpool, for some time.
Tony ended with: “Despite what she claims Nadine Dorries cannot be a scouser as she is a Conservative.*
I know what he means and I hope you good MFW readers do as well.
***
I’m off to Anfield tomorrow with not much hope in my heart. After over 40 years of regularly going to away games this is my first visit there, which is a bit odd.
Perhaps Tim, Zimm, Kabak, Byram and Giannoulis will form a new defence. Rupp and Sorensen might get a run out. What we’ll do to give Pukki a rest is beyond me. Liverpool have at least 2 teams of players that none of ours would get into, so I’m sure Klopp will mix it up a lot.
Hopefully it will be enjoyable, but it’s Saturday that counts.
H Don
I’m glad you’re going to experience Anfield – it’s unique I can assure you.
Don’t forget to give either Gary or myself a shout afterwards on one of our MFW articles about the experience – we’d love to hear from you for sure.
Cheers mate
Hi Martin
Sadly yesterday I met up with a Kirby scouser and he is an in law.
Like many Loserpool supporters he thinks they are entitled to win something every season and brags about winning their first Premiership.
I tried to explain that due to covid-19 that so many teams were badly effect that it was a title when most teams never turned up.
The CL they got the season before was given to them by the Ref, who out later and said that it wasn’t a penalty but what’s done is done.
Can we win YES will we win NO nothing is a given conclusion except that Saleh will do all his diving tricks to get a penalty Oscar yet again.
As for there manager I lost all respect when he said that they don’t get penalties they deserve and since then it seems every game they get a penalty, since when does a team deserve a penalty.
My question would be does he have a stunt coordinator teaching them how to con the Ref and the watching public like they have a specialist throw in coach???
Back to my in law like many he is a bad loser if at home and they go behind he turns all the TV off and will not turn them on till he gets a text to say they have scored or the game is over.
He only goes to Anfield 2 or 3 times a year but will leave early if they are losing by 2 goals or more.
Sadly I would prefer to see Ipshite win a game than Loserpool
Hi Alex
You can choose your friends but not your family 🙂
I’ve always found Liverpool – and indeed Everton – fans to be pretty sound tbh. They believe in what they believe in and I’m all for that, even it’s often at our expense – Everton sold us Naismith after all 🙂
I find it so much easier to deal with a defeat if I’m at Carrow Road and see events unfold before me – I hate following away games on the radio or online too.
There’s a fair bit of dislike around for Liverpool but I’m not a part of it.
We have to accept they are on a different level to us and although that hurts to the core nothing will ever happen at NCFC to change it with sleepy D at the helm.
Cheers
There are the have and the have nots (Ernest Hemmingway) and we are in the latter sadly.
I suppose having lived my life as a mercenary working here there and anywhere you learn to lose with a smile on your face as there is always someone ready to hammer the point home to you.
Smugness and entitlement have never sat on my shoulder comfortably maybe I am realistic or a happy clapper, someone once suggested that the league should level the playing field by restricting how much clubs can spend so that they all have the same amount and also a wage cap that would be set by the league.
I just wonder how Klopp, Arteta, Pep, Conte and a few others could manage without spending £50+m on a player or having 25 international players to pick from.
Now that would be an interesting concept.
But then again Delia hits the headlines about her G&T halftime rant why can’t she hit the headlines and say she is looking for a buyer but that will never happen
Funny you should mention Hemingway just as some university or other is putting up warnings for students that *The Old Man and the Sea* carries a warning concerning potentially distressing words about fishing.
I found Hemingway a great descriptive author and nobody will ever change my mind about that. He and Mark Twain are the only two American writers I’ve ever appreciated, anyway. Unless I can include Lester Bangs!
I’ve a lot of time for Jurgen Klopp. Sure he’s backed financially by the Liverpool board but his purchases seem sound and to me, just like Pep, I think he presents himself very well in the media.
As for Delia I was there for the outburst and I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. I drink like a shoal of goldfish but never, ever would I go public on a PA system when pi$$ed. Not a good idea.
Hi Martin. I’m into American crime writers, and can highly recommend Michael Connelly and James Lee Burke. Give them a try, the writing is excellent (and the plots are good, too).
Cheers Jim
I’ll give them a try some time.
Hello Martin. I’ve just seen Dean smiths press conference and suffice to say were going to lose tomorrow night.
Injuries and suspensions galore. Or maybe just keeping some powder dry for Saturday?
Hi Chris
Looks like Dimi and Sam Byram as full backs, doesn’t it?
I had no idea Hanley was suspended for this one – looks like we might have to field a dreadnought CB partnership of Zimbo and Gibson with no cover on the bench!
Does Kabak actually exist, I ask myself.
Not sure what powder we can keep dry for Saturday as I’ve never known a squad this size look so thin on the field!
Cheers
Perhaps powder is over egging it Martin.
Last night’s underc23 line up was missing young Riley and Tomkinsnson. Perhaps with an eye to bolstering the bench.
I don’t know much about Riley but they are rumoured to rate Tomkinson very highly so I’m sure you’re probably right.
I wholeheartedly agree Martin that I would love to go back to FA Cup and League Cup final replays.
Not much chance tomorrow night I’m afraid.
It’s strange really as under Daniel Farke’s first couple of years the team for the most part gave the EPL clubs a proper game.
But convert that to the Premiership and we’ll we know the outcome!!!
Cmon you yellas!!!
Hi Tim
I remember me and a mate bunking off school to listen to the West Ham-Hereford replay on the radio all those years ago – probably early 70s?
We’ve never troubled Wembley in the FA Cup and I doubt we ever will but I went thrice with Spurs [Man City, QPR and the replay] but couldn’t make the 87 Coventry final because I couldn’t swerve work. I had a bl00dy ticket too. Mind you Spurs lost that one so it could have been worse!
Don’t have a second team like Alex B & myself do – it only doubles the pain 🙂
Cheers
Mine is Spurs Martin😂
So how the hell do they go out to Middlesbrough tonight with a full strength side ? Crikey are Boro that much better than Leeds ?
I went to Spurs V Newcastle for my 40th birthday many years ago. Mind you I did miss a Norwich 5-0 win.
But we were in London for the weekend and I don’t know why I had always had them as my First Division side as a little boy. Until they got relegated ! But by then we were a regular first division team.
Talking of bunking off school me and my mate Harry went to watch City at home to Millwall in a League cup replay on a Wednesday afternoon in 1974 1.30pm kick off due to the miners strike. ( They weren’t allowed to use the floodlights )
The funny thing was that for decades I thought I had got away with it until me and my dad were talking about that game in his care home shortly before he died, so I decided to finally came clean, he laughed and said that that he knew all along where I had been that afternoon !
Basically he was saying he would have done the same thing. Typical.
I really can’t remember why we didn’t all go to the Norwich v Spurs final, I was there for the Villa one. But my Niece’s christening scuppered me going to the Sunderland one.
So it has always rankled that we have never got to a FA Cup final in my Canary supporting years up to now.
The Sunderland semi defeat took me weeks to get over. The Everton one was irrelevant in my mind due to The Hillsborough Disaster.
I am so grateful to my mate Marty for getting us tickets to the playoff final against Middlesbrough so I finally saw Norwich win at Wembley.
And what a day that was🏆
I can well recall the 1:30 kick offs in the 70s during the era of the three-day week – I would have been about 14 I guess.
I got my full hat-trick of League Cup finals although I was a bit too young for the Rochdale games. Totally agree with you about both FA Cup semis.
As for Boro I travelled on my own and couldn’t believe how many people I knew both in The Torch before and inside the ground later. It seemed like the entire population of Coltishall was there!
What a day that was indeed.
Morning Martin! Enjoyed the preview. Have a number of Liverpool supporting mates (a product of being an 80s child I suppose….) – I enquired as to the likelihood of the squad having gone out on a 3 x day bender…..but was reminded that several of their quality players are of a religion that forbids alcohol. Straw clutching at best, from yours truly…..
Enjoyed the final line of this article. Might be why a certain song came into the charts at #2 in April 2013…..
Hope you’re well
Hi Martin
I can’t speak for the Liverpool lads but there are a few footballers [and certainly cricketers] around who have the odd lapse in understanding of the word *forbidden* when it comes to alcohol and their religious beliefs 🙂
The full history of the concept of *scouse* and everything that goes with it is fascinating – and moving as well, particularly if you can relate to it in a personal sense.
Yes we’re all fine ta and I hope you and yours are too.
Cheers