The good thing about summers when there is a World Cup or a European Championship is that you don’t have to spend too long without top-class football. You can sit and watch matches morning, noon and night during the group stage, then you can start to get into the serious business of the knockout phase of the tournament. When it comes to a close, however, then you’re stuck twiddling your thumbs, wondering what to watch. Thankfully we have had a decent summer of sport already, thanks to Wimbledon seeing anti-vax moron Novak Djokovic roundly beaten by new wunderkind on the block Carlos Alcaraz. Then the cricket got underway, with England making up for my youth when they gave the West Indies a hiding. The Open Championship was also thrilling for most of the weekend, albeit up to the point that Xander Schauffele simply took it away from the rest of the field and ultimately won it comfortably at Royal Troon. If you’re still hungry for more sport then the good news is that the Summer Olympics starts on Friday.
Anyone else feel that Sport has peaked this summer?
Test Cricket🏏
Test Rugby 🏉
Wimbledon 🎾
Open golf ⛳️
Euro’s Football ⚽️
TDF 🚴♂️
World Matchplay Darts 🎯
F1 🏎️Olympics to come 🏆 🌈
Closely followed by start of Football season
Almost overloaded.
— Frookie50 (@frookie50) July 20, 2024
Whilst I have enjoyed the numerous sporting events that have been taking place, part of the reason I’ve been able to do so is that they have been ones that I’m not really all that engaged in. I was at the cricket on Thursday, but mainly as an excuse to have a few drinks with my friends in the sunshine rather than because of any particular affiliation with the sport as a whole. The big difference between all of these various sporting activities that I’ve mentioned and Liverpool is that Liverpool is all-encompassing for me. Even in periods like this, which should theoretically be the down-time, I’m still obsessed with the Reds. The room that I work in has signed shirts adorning the walls along with photos and artwork to do with the club. There is a panoramic picture of the old Anfield next to my monitor and a ‘This is Anfield’ sign on my door. In that sense, I’m not quite sure that I’m ready for the new season to begin yet, having not quite decompressed from the last one sufficiently to be able to go again with ten months of unadulterated obsession. Are you?
The Behind Closed Doors Friendly
If you want to get a sense of just how mental some Liverpool supporters can be, may I point you towards the reaction to Liverpool’s 1-0 loss to Preston North End in a pre-season friendly? If you’ve spent any time whatsoever on Twitter over the years then you will have a very good sense of what the replies were like when journalists such as James Pearce tweeted the result. People were quick to question his claim that it was a ‘youthful’ squad, simply because Mo Salah, Dominik Szoboszlai and Wataru Endō featured in the first-half. There is, according to many, no excuse to lose to a team like Preston and the fact that we did so means that it is a sure-fire sign that Arne Slot’s tenure at Anfield is doomed. The fact that Salah was unable to score means that he is ‘washed’, whilst some found time to blame Jarell Quansah for the goal, in spite of the fact that his pass reached its intended target and the goal itself was an absolute worldie. Twitter obviously isn’t entirely reflective of the fanbase, but it at least allows the temperature to be taken.
A youthful Liverpool beaten 1-0 by Preston in behind closed doors friendly at the AXA today. 25 players involved for the Reds.
First half: Jaros, Bradley, Van den Berg, Quansah, Tsimikas, Jones, Elliott, Szoboszlai (Endo, 33), Doak, Salah, Carvalho.
Second half: Davies,…
— James Pearce (@JamesPearceLFC) July 19, 2024
The problem with taking pre-season friendlies even remotely seriously is that you look into things that you can’t possibly understand. Aside from anything else, there were two completely different teams playing across the 90 minutes, so no wonder there wasn’t much coherence. Add into that the fact that the players are having to learn an entirely different way of playing under the new manager and the game was about getting them all started on their journey to gaining match fitness and you can see why it is that taking it seriously is idiotic. Even if you allow for all of the players that were missing as they haven’t yet returned from the Euros, there is also the fact that it was behind closed doors for a reason; this was not a march to be taken in any way seriously. Some Liverpool fans can’t help but lose their heads over such a result, with the likes of CorballyRed no doubt using it as a way to monetise his personal brand of anger and FSGOUT idiocy. We might be quick to dismiss these morons, but if we’re not careful they can start to lead the narrative to a click-hungry national press.
Transfer Rumours Abound
Let me be clear: I think Liverpool need a few transfers this summer. The loss of Joel Matip has been mitigated to an extent by the breakthrough of Quansah, but he is a youth player and will regress at some point. Virgil van Dijk needs to be able to be rested in games that the Reds should be able to win without him, whilst Joe Gomez alone can’t cover the defence. That means that a centre-back would be high on my list of priorities, alongside the sale and replacement of Kostas Tsimikas. Although midfield is generally fine, I would definitely be on the lookout for a defensive midfielder rather than asking Alexis Mac Allister to fulfil the role that isn’t really his speciality. Then there is the forward line, which I do think needs another name added to it. All of which is to say that I’m not someone who buries my head in the sand when it comes to new signings. I love seeing a new player doing the AXA lean as much as anyone, I’m just not willing to completely lose my head over how quiet things have been on the transfer front so far this summer.
Liverpool when it comes to doing absolutely nothing in a transfer window pic.twitter.com/Pxp1pv3rkz
— ᴊᴏᴇ™️ (@joepearce_) July 21, 2024
When the news about Leny Yoro going to Manchester United was confirmed, a huge swathe of people absolutely lost their minds. The fact that the Red Devils ‘won’ his signing by significantly overpaying for someone who hasn’t really proven how good he is made me think of that line from Succession, “Congratulations on saying the biggest number, you fucking morons”. Not that that stopped some Reds from going insane about it, pointing to the leaks to journalists that said that if Yoro didn’t go to Real Madrid then we’d be ready to pounce, as though we should’ve done so regardless of the associated costs. Anyone who watched Slot’s first press conference will have seen Richard Hughes say that he expects the transfer market to hot up in August, so it’s likely that Liverpool are keeping their powder dry until there are some moves to be made. Of course, outrage is the currency of people online, so I don’t know why I’m so surprised that it happens every summer. Perhaps it is me, not them, that is the mental one.
