{"id":2236,"date":"2022-08-01T12:24:49","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T12:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/?p=2236"},"modified":"2022-08-01T12:24:49","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T12:24:49","slug":"did-we-learn-much-from-the-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/did-we-learn-much-from-the-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Did We Learn Much From The Weekend?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t watch much women\u2019s football. That is nothing to do with the fact that it is women taking part and everything to do with me not having the mental capacity to watch anything other than the Liverpool first team. I don\u2019t even watch Liverpool Under-23s, so it is absolutely not because of sexism. I watched some of the Women\u2019s European Championship final last night and enjoyed it. I was so very pleased for the Lionesses (awful name) that they were able to get the win over the line, achieving a win in the Euros before the men\u2019s team was able to. I was also delighted at the manner in which the country as a whole got behind the team, proving that women\u2019s football deserves as much respect and focus as the male equivalent. There will be bores all over England who refuse to acknowledge that last night\u2019s win was <em>real<\/em> football, so it\u2019s great that it is being given the same sort of treatment as a win for the men would be by most.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Our family. Our home. Our England.<\/p>\n<p>This summer meant more. To you, to us, to all of us.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve done us proud, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Lionesses?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Lionesses<\/a> &#x2764;&#xfe0f; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HouPuGOQYo\">pic.twitter.com\/HouPuGOQYo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 England Football (@EnglandFootball) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EnglandFootball\/status\/1554053073017905153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 1, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Though I personally don\u2019t follow women\u2019s football, I know a lot of people that do and I\u2019m delighted for them that they get to enjoy this moment. Perhaps you also don\u2019t watch women\u2019s football and hate people going on about it. All I\u2019d say is that no one is forcing you to enjoy it or get involved. All people want is for those that do invest time in it to have fun. In my eyes, it\u2019s a little bit like the debate around pronouns or conversations about people\u2019s sexuality. I don\u2019t need to be non-binary or a member of the LGBTQ+ community to be happy for those that are to live their lives free of criticism, judgement or hatred. I am not comparing the two, of course, apart from the fact that it will be the same bunch of bigots and bellends that aren\u2019t pleased about those involved enjoying themselves. I would like to think that I don\u2019t tend to attract such people to my site and make clear my feelings on the matter on my Twitter account, but thought I\u2019d say it so my feelings were clear.<\/p>\n<h2>Liverpool Looked Bright<\/h2>\n<p>As I said in my piece on this site last week, the Community Shield is a friendly. Treating it any other way is a silly thing to do, especially when you consider that Liverpool don\u2019t even include wins in the competition on the club\u2019s Champions Wall. Even so, no game against Manchester City is completely meaningless in the current climate. Pep Guardiola\u2019s sports-washing outfit have been the only thing standing in the way of the Reds witnessing an era of dominance over the past couple of years, so bloodying their noses early on in the campaign can only be seen as a good thing. That we did it in such relatively emphatic style will be extremely pleasing for J\u00fcrgen Klopp and his staff. I honestly thought that the Reds looked tremendous during the opening half an hour of the match, making City look bang average as they struggled to find their rhythm. They are too good a side not to do so eventually, of course, but we weathered the storm relatively well.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Community Shield doesn&#8217;t really mean a lot in the grand scheme. But there&#8217;s no doubt <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#LFC<\/a> made a bit of a point here. And whenever they win a trophy, they do like a bit of an on-pitch party. Must be great being in this squad<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ian Doyle (@IanDoyleSport) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IanDoyleSport\/status\/1553445088990216192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 30, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It is, of course, impossible to talk about anything to do with Liverpool in an objective manner. Yet I do feel as though independent observers will have felt as though we looked more settled and as though we\u2019d used our pre-season well over the course of the 90 minutes. I also thought that Darwin N\u00fa\u00f1ez looked more like an integral part of the team than Erling Haaland did in the City side. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019ll be putting the Danish forward in my Fantasy Football team and expect him to get close to the 20-goal mark this season, but I think it might take the Cityzens a little while to work out how he fits into the side when compared to us and the Uruguayan. Given that City have effective bought Haaland to help them win the Champions League and we\u2019ve bought N\u00fa\u00f1ez to get us over the line in the Premier League, things might well be working out exactly as both manager expected them to this early on in proceedings. Only time will tell on that front.<\/p>\n<h2>Our Pre-Season Has Done What It Was Designed To Do<\/h2>\n<p>There are some people that read in to every time a ball is kicked during pre-season. They pour over the matches and the training sessions that the club put out, wondering what they can learn from what they\u2019re watching. I am not one of those people. There is very little that last night\u2019s result against Strasbourg can tell us, other than the fact that Anfield coped well with the return of supporters. The team was one that we\u2019re not even likely to field in the domestic cup competitions this season, let alone in a Premier League match. It will have felt entirely pointless to those that watched it on TV or paid to be in attendance at the ground, but J\u00fcrgen Klopp and his staff will know exactly what they have learnt from the experience. Pre-season is partly for letting the new players get to know one another, partly to try new things on the pitch but mostly about getting players fit for what is to come. With a World Cup in the middle of the campaign, getting a fast start could be crucial.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Harvey Elliott has been one of the standout performers of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#LFC<\/a>\u2019s friendly programme. Another 90mins in the tank today after playing 20mins in the Community Shield. Big season ahead for the teenager. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qx6nHOGfSu\">pic.twitter.com\/qx6nHOGfSu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 James Pearce (@JamesPearceLFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JamesPearceLFC\/status\/1553845267094437888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 31, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Fulham will not be looking forward to their game against us at the weekend, I think that\u2019s entirely fair to say. West Ham, on the other hand, might well have seen some weaknesses in Manchester City that they\u2019ll be keen to exploit if they\u2019re able to. Though City\u2019s start to the season is much more kind than ours in terms of the fixtures, I feel as though we\u2019re better placed to hit the ground running than they are. As Mike Tyson once said, \u201cEveryone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.\u201d I might read this article back in a month\u2019s time and wonder what on earth I was going on about, considering the fact that City won their first four games and we dropped daft points all over the place. It doesn\u2019t <em>feel<\/em> like that\u2019s what is going to happen, though. In a sport of fine margins and a title race that is likely to be decided by even finer ones, this weekend showed me that we\u2019re ready for the fight to come. Now let\u2019s hope that we don\u2019t get hit in the face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t watch much women\u2019s football. That is nothing to do with the fact that it is women taking part and everything to do with me not having the mental capacity to watch anything other than the Liverpool first team. I don\u2019t even watch Liverpool Under-23s, so it is absolutely not because of sexism. I watched some of the Women\u2019s European Championship final last night and enjoyed it. I was so very pleased for the Lionesses (awful name) that they were able to get the win over the line, achieving a win in the Euros before the men\u2019s team was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2238,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions\/2238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}