Mo Salah has ‘lost it’; him and Liverpool need to ‘take the pill and move on’ | OneFootball

Liverpool fans are united in thinking it’s time for Mo Salah to leave, while we have cautiously optimistic Man Utd fans and more.

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Newcastle played into Liverpool hands

Does the Newcastle tactic of attacking a team that ‘cannot play against the low block’ seem like an error to anyone else?

Thank you Eddie for allowing Wirtz the space and Ekitike the space also to play some delightful football.

Thank you for not defending with 10 or 11 men and trying to hit us purely on the break.

Tho maybe this week you would have come up against Ibou in last season’s form. What a game he had, after what hes been through. Fair play lad.

Sorry Mo. It is time now. You’ve been as good as anything we’ve seen. But it’s time to take the pill and move on..

Please can we have 2 central defenders and a right winger at the very least for the summer.

Thinking if Xabi wasn’t about, Slot would be safe… but .. he isn’t.. (for both)

Time to go Mo Salah

AT LAST….a (Premier League) win. After a run of draws and boring football Saturday’s 4-1 seemed a turning point. Ekitike is going to be fantastic. He will get a run in the side and his relationship with Wirtz (a ‘luxury player’ apparently) is improving. Konate’s emotional goal will hopefully allow him to focus, play well and leave on a free in the summer with my best wishes.

Was also really encouraging to see everyone try to get Salah playing again. Wirtz in particular tried a few times to find him in space. The look on Mo’s face when he either missed, wasn’t where he wanted to be or just didn’t have the pace to power away was evident. Slot has put him back in but Slot knows Salah has ‘lost it’.

The issue is it’s Salah who has to see that before Liverpool can make real progress. On his substitution in the 83rd minute I thought I saw a glimmer of that in his eyes. ‘Leave football before the football leaves you’ is one of the most philosophical and cringe worthy quotes of all time by the Scouse Plato Jamie Carragher but it’s accurate.

Only the Saudi clubs can afford him but whether he feels he still has a couple of years left in European football is an issue as he will need to take a pay cut and Liverpool won’t get a big fee. He needs to accept being substituted and work on his next move.

Leave Slot until the summer. His new style of play isn’t working as it’s too deliberate and allows the opposition to reset in formation too easily but it seemed to change yesterday. Winning the league last season shows he is a pragmatic problem solver. Ngumoha should replace Gakpo on 60 mins in every game at a minimum. We all love Chiesa but he plays like I did before I moved from the over 35s to the over 45s team….

Alonso in, Isak and Ekitike upfront with Wirtz top of the diamond next season will be perfect. Hong Kong Ian (hoping Utd get 5 wins in a row so that fella gets a haircut) LFC

Man Utd not brilliant but…

– Three on the bounce, if there was a single United fan that thought that possible when Carrick took over I’d love to meet them. Obviously overjoyed. But.

– For me Fulham were the better team. United’s high-press couldn’t get near them, but they insisted on trying, creating plenty of space in the centre of the park.

– Which is why anyone still doubting Casemiro needs their head examined. Second he goes off that space is exploited, and United can’t keep the ball. Whoever the new manager is needs at least two midfielders in, and Ugarte somewhere very, very far away.

– Speaking of which, I wish I could find an ex-pro to ask if the defenders know which ‘footed’ their opponents are, if they’re not a big name/starter. Because showing him inside to shoot on his stronger foot is just pure idiocy.

– The Guardian’s 55th best player in the world continues to deliver. Most assists in the league. Match winning move on the wing. Pressed for 100 minutes. If United somehow sneak into the top 4 he should be in the discussion for POTY. He won’t be because he’s the most underappreciated footballer in the world.

– It’s definitely a penalty on Maguire, and it will definitely be another ‘one-off’ from the officials. Every match sees a foul like that after a shot is taken, and they’re never called. Except that one.

– Automated offsides sure are fast aren’t they?

– Delighted for Sesko, still not sure he’s absolute top level, but after hitting the post (20th of the season for United) felt like he was the scapegoat-to-be.

– Finally, Marco Silva eh. I’ve seen worse auditions for a job. Ryan, Bermuda

…Another weekend, another hard won win. It’s not been often this season we’ve been able to say that.

The various narratives that surround football are often fascinating. Grinding out a win is sometimes considered good and sometimes considered problematic or signs of inability to dominate.

People obsess over xG as though it’s a whole story in a can, when it – like possession percentages – completely fails to show any appreciation of context. For example, teams can often fly off the blocks, score a couple of goals and then sit back and let the other side try and do something, content that they are in charge. Of course, it can backfire; you can suddenly find yourself back in a contest and all it takes is a poor decision from a famous purveyor of poor decisions and an error by the officials on who’s throw-in it is followed by a moment of pure football magic.

Fulham are a good and dangerous, well managed team as Chelsea, Liverpool, City and the league table can attest. They played well but thankfully not quite well enough.

Three very nice goals plus a header and a penalty. And performances from pretty much everyone in red (including Dalot who seems to have been replaced by his twin that actually plays football) that United fans can be delighted with, with Casemiro continuing to deliver against my fears and his own previous performances in an excellent partnership with the Amorim-and-haters-disproving Mainoo (can’t run, can’t tackle, can’t play 90 minutes, can’t play long passes etc). Very nice work.

Spurs game should be fun! Badwolf

We all love a comeback

Comebacks are fun, eh? The best ones in football are basically comeback albums.

And there is no greater comeback album than Stillmatic. The comeback album of all comeback albums. The one from that battle, with that song, the one where he even raps a whole track in reverse just to prove he’s still smarter than everyone else.

Nas was finished. Apparently. Then he dropped the album, reminded everyone who he was, and suddenly it wasn’t a comeback, it was a correction.

Which is exactly how the best football comebacks feel. Not “we did well”, but “you were wrong about us”.

Chelsea, United. Spurs. Real Madrid.

All variations of the same story: written off, outplayed, nearly out… and then history gets mugged in stoppage time.

Even Paris Saint-Germain understood the assignment. They’ve had their share of Stillmatic moments, just rarely on the right side of them. Barcelona 2017. Madrid 2022. The culture says you can buy everything except nerve.

That’s why comebacks hit harder than dominance. Dominance is expected. Comebacks are personal. They feel like a diss track dropped on reality itself.

Football’s best moments aren’t highlights. They’re rebuttals. Gaptoothfreak, Man. Utd., New York (I did not have a scorpion kick keeping Thomas Frank in gainful employment in my 2026 bingo card)

The teams playing in Europe are bought onto a more level playing field, not only by the purchasing power of the middling prem clubs but their extra midweek exertions.

That almost anyone can take the game to the big six clubs is great and even unique.

We have seen some excellent play and exquisite goals against Arsenal, City, Liverpool and today United (from the good ol’ Brazilianly named Kevin) and long may this continue.

That said when push (off) comes to shove (off) the Champions league places are moving towards all of Chelsea, United and Liverpool edging out the dwarfed in terms of turnover Aston Villa who could quite possibly get in anyway by way of conquering Unai’s fave’ competition.

Whether all this was by serendipity rather than design or vice versa, I suggest we embrace it …just with a wee tweak that clubs in Europe don’t play in the League cup – then any English teams reaching the Champions league quarter finals won’t be so knackered. Peter, Andalucia

Mails from confused Aston Villa fans

It sure is confusing being a Villa fan.

After arriving to my sofa, seemingly through a cross dimensional wormhole, I see Douglas Luiz and Tammy Abraham playing for us again. That’s a bit weird.

VAR disallow a goal for a ball that may or may not have gone out of play down by our own corner flag 19 seconds before we score. “It looked like it was out” is apparently enough to disallow a goal now. Very confusing.

Several news outlets announcing we are out of the title race when, for the last few weeks, we were told we were never actually in it anyway? Head scratcher that.

On a more serious note it’s just depressing that a big club like ours do not stand a chance of keeping up with the top teams in this financial model. If I hear how ‘Leiciester did it’ one more time as some kind of legal defence against the tyranny of the Man Cities/Chelseas/Liverpools/Arsenals of this world I will go crazy. Who was it before Leicester? Leeds before the prem? Blackburn when they spent a comparative fortune on players? And who has even got slightly close since? No one. Leicester were a glorious, perfect, once in a lifetime, stars aligning moment in time. Seemingly never, ever, to be repeated.

I heard how ‘brave’ and what a ‘statement’ performance it was from Arsenal. They beat a promoted team with their now full strength billion dollar squad (Yes, I know, the angel Saka wasn’t playing). We’ve had to wheel and deal to stand still with our midfield decimated by bad luck and Paulinha. There are no £30m-40m squad players on the bench to hop on and carry on as normal.

Maybe I’m just bitter, frustrated and read too many Jonny Nic articles but I thought sport was supposed to be, kinda, fairer than this? Funstar (apparently we are still 3rd and one point behind City. Weird.) Andy

…Villa deserved to lose. I get it.

But that disallowed goal by VAR. It isn’t checking the goal, it’s not checking offside, it’s not even checking anything in the opposition half, it’s checking to see if a ball was out 100 yards from where the goal happened. It can’t say definitively after 4 mins of review but let’s go with it.

Why is this allowed to continue? It is ruining football as a spectacle. Clouds are forming over the sport and this is not helping. Paul

VAR is fine, actually

There is an old adage that goes something like “if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” People seem to forget why VAR was introduced in the first place. Remember that Pedro Mendes goal that was disallowed, or Lampard’s goal in the World Cup or Henry’s handball? And we wouldn’t have 60 years of controversy about “that” goal in the 1966 World Cup Final. Various forms of technology exist in many other sports and like any technology, they improve over time (remember Windows 3.1?). It’s not the technology, it’s the implementation.

In the old days, the mistakes weren’t replayed and analyzed to death on TV but now Referees are so scared of making mistakes that they understandably review and deliberate for ages. And they STILL get it wrong sometimes, but much less than you think. What are your expectations? Are you seriously thinking that Referees will now make 100% correct decisions with VAR?

How about, instead of ranting, perhaps offer some possible ideas that could improve the implementation of VAR. For example:

1. All VAR reviews are taken out of the hands of the “old boys club” and sent to a national Command Center, staffed by former Referees, ex-Players and Technology Experts. Each VAR review is run against a database of prior decisions (e.g. “this is 93% similar to the goal that was disallowed on [date]”). This significantly reduces the subjectivity we see as a result of Referee inconsistencies.

2. Each team has two VAR reviews available, one per half. A number of sports already have similar rules, NFL and Cricket immediately spring to mind. Now the emphasis (and power) shifts away from the Referees influencing the flow of the game and what constitutes a debatable decision rests with the teams.

Will this improve outcomes and speed up the game? I would contend a bigger issue of game delays are time wasting. I’ll guarantee you that the number of stoppages and time delays from time wasting far exceeds VAR delays by orders of magnitude. But focusing on VAR means you don’t have to hold your own club and players accountable. Adidasmufc (We all love VAR when the decision is in our favor so it’s obviously not the technology at fault)

Jamie Carragher is a gob for hire

As a regularly published contributor with my random musings of football related guff, it hasn’t escaped me that you’ve never once published any of my mails relating to Mr. Jamie Carragher.

However, maybe now is the time for change? I forget the specific article, but one of your very own team labelled him a hypocrite last week, and he’s once again had to backtrack on his “bum-water” style of “expert opinion” with regards to Casemiro this afternoon.

This guy is clearly nothing more than “A Mouth for Hire”. He gets to spout biased, blind, emotional rubbish, but then also expect us to turn a blind eye when he needs to retract the very same garbage.

And I know you guys have an issue with me bringing up “Spit Gate”, but he did it. It’s on camera. This is fact, and it cannot be disputed.

And yet, he continues to be on our screens in his cushy, highly paid position.