Liverpool mockery of Alexander-Arnold is ‘not bitterness’ as short-term Iraola plan enacted | OneFootball

Andoni Iraola and his penchant for a two-year contract ‘dovetails’ nicely with what seems to be a short-term grand plan at Liverpool.

A necessary part of that process is to laugh at Trent Alexander-Arnold, of course.

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Own Scholes

Read Tickner’s take on Scholes’ aversion to music and thought: the World Cup really needs to start now. Immediately.

This is the sort of thing people write when they’ve run out of ideas. Who cares what music someone likes? Or whether they have any interest in music at all?

Scholes is a dull pundit. He’s often overly negative, and his “analysis” tends to lack joy, enthusiasm, or genuine insight. But his interest (or lack of interest) in music has absolutely nothing to do with that. If he’d said he listens to music every waking minute, would that suddenly make his punditry more engaging or his personality more appealing? Of course not.

So this isn’t really about Scholes, and it isn’t really about music either. It’s about a writer searching for something to say when there isn’t much worth saying. More broadly, it’s about what I see as a certain arrogance of mindset: the inability to comprehend, never mind accept, that someone else might not enjoy the things you enjoy, no matter how important those things are to you.

It’s the assumption that your tastes, views, and interests are the benchmark against which everyone else should be measured. If someone doesn’t share them, there must be something wrong with them.

That mindset sits at the heart of countless arguments and prejudices. How dare you love someone I don’t think you should love? How dare you worship a god I don’t believe in? How can you not worship a god at all when I’ve decided one exists and deserves worship? You don’t think Player X is the GOAT? You don’t agree that this sport, film, food, band, or whatever else I happen to adore is the greatest thing ever? Then clearly you’re the problem.

But none of those reactions are really about the sport, the music, the religion, or the player. They’re about ego. They’re about people who need others to validate their preferences in order to feel secure in them. Any disagreement feels like a challenge to their judgement, and any differing opinion feels strangely personal.

To me, that’s quite sad.

A person should be able to enjoy what they enjoy, believe what they believe, and hold whatever harmless preferences they hold without needing the rest of the world to nod along in agreement. Diversity of thought (or interest) isn’t something to be feared or corrected. It’s simply part of being human. AY

(MC – It is a bit weird though)

The conditioning World Cup

As PSG have shown in the Champions League this season, having players who are fit, not over-played and fresh, makes a big difference to on the pitch performance.

This World Cup looks set to be the most gruelling ever. The extra round, the long travelling distances, the heat, and the fact that most leagues only finished 3 weeks before it starts.

As a result, who can manage the squad best will probably win. In many ways this is England’s advantage. We don’t have the absolute best first XI but we do have amazing depth (just look at who missed out). The key will be lots of rotation throughout the first 3 (maybe 4) games and fine tune the players for the Last 16 onwards.

As a result, I think the squad picked is pretty sensible. You have a relatively easy to pick first XI and then lots of plug (ish) and play replacements. Foden doesn’t have an equivalent in the starting XI so he’s out, Palmer the same and so on.

The key is going to be rotating well and effectively – whichever manager gets that right amongst the big teams will go far – hopefully the Three Lions. James, Sussex.

The grass isn’t always greener

Dear F365,

Footballers are forever telling us they “love the club”, “owe everything to the supporters”, and “want to stay for many years to come”. It’s become the football equivalent of a politician promising to fix potholes or a bloke on Tinder claiming he’s “just looking for a genuine connection”.

Which brings us neatly to Trent.

Liverpool gave him everything. Academy graduate. Local lad. European Cup winner. Premier League winner. The city adored him. The Kop practically adopted him. Yet after years of noises suggesting he wanted to stay and build a legacy, he walked away for nothing.

Not £100 million. Not £80 million. Not even enough to buy a replacement and a decent packet of crisps.

Nothing.

The suspicion was always that this wasn’t just about football. When your agent is your brother and the move involves contracts worth astronomical sums, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes, Columbo and Inspector Clouseau working together to figure out where some of the motivation may have come from.

The romantic story sold to supporters was that Madrid was simply too big an opportunity to turn down. The reality is football has a funny way of reminding people that the queue is always longer than it looks from the outside.

Now Madrid have brought in Dumfries, a proven international right-back who doesn’t arrive carrying a documentary series about his passing range. Suddenly the dream move doesn’t look quite as straightforward.

Trent may have imagined himself arriving like a conquering emperor. Instead he risks discovering he’s just another suitcase in Madrid’s overcrowded spare room.

Football history is littered with players who left stable, successful clubs believing paradise awaited. It’s like divorcing Margot Robbie because you’ve convinced yourself Scarlett Johansson is waiting outside your house with flowers and a bottle of wine.

Sometimes you open the door and find you’ve actually moved into a studio flat above a kebab shop.

Liverpool supporters aren’t angry because players leave. Players leave all the time.

They’re angry because they were sold one story while another was being written behind the scenes.

If Trent goes on to dominate Europe for the next decade, fair play. He’ll have earned it.

But if he’s spending next season wondering why he’s watching league matches from the bench while some bloke from Rotterdam, Milan or Munich is starting ahead of him, Liverpool fans may permit themselves a small smile.

Not bitterness.

Just appreciation for football’s enduring sense of humour.

Because sometimes the grass isn’t greener.

Sometimes it’s AstroTurf painted green by an agent.

Regards, A Liverpool supporter who has seen enough football to know that karma often is a female dog

Iraola *is* the answer, but not to Liverpool’s question

Interesting mails recently on Liverpool, including some expressing empathy to Slot, which I too am starting to feel (I’m aware of my hypocrisy in light of previous unjustifiably personal attacks, I will do better in future). With Hughes and Edwards presumably off next summer, it’s starting to look they are in full arse-covering / reputation-preserving mode before they feck off, rather than doing anything with Pool’s best interests at heart.

I remember the briefing from Anfield around the time of Slot’s arrival that they were happy with him as the continuity candidate, i.e. he would stick to Klopp’s (mostly) winning formula) but also that he would calm the chaos a little it in order to preserve the player’s fitness. This would in turn prevent the burnout that the squad and Klopp suffered under his leadership.

In Slot’s first year this worked perfectly, I remember (could be wrong) that we had an enviably low injury rate – rival fans saying that this luck, and the rest of the league being sh*t, is the only reason we won the Title (I don’t take it personally, it was just our time in the sun so other fans were p*ssing on the Pool parade – it goes with the territory – take note Arse fans). Last season, and I again stand to be corrected, the injuries were of the more calamitous and season-ending variety, rather than muscle injuries due to over-exertion. They also tended to occur in the same position.

So there is a view that Slot fulfilled his brief perfectly, and it was injuries and an unbalanced, irrational, vanity project squad that did for him. More specifically, Hughes and Edwards asked him to produce the more pedestrian football that ultimately got him hounded out of Anfield, his last memory sitting alone in the dugout watching Salah (et tu, Brute?) and Robbo get their hero’s send-off.

Iraola could, and did, go hell for leather at Bournemouth because they only have one game a week, but also because, as a selling club, they can offload their players before they break down – the same does not apply at Liverpool. Is Hughes just pandering to the Salah-incited crowd baying for the return of heavy metal football, not caring whether the squad is suited to it, or fit enough for it, as he is leaving next summer for the sunnier climes where it literally rains money? Given the pursuit of shiny new wingers like Diomande (“I love Liverpool, no wait I meant PSG”) instead of the desperately needed cover at centre back, its looking like long-term planning isn’t top of the agenda (Iraola’s preferred two year contract dovetailing nicely).

As previous mailers have noted, Pool simply don’t have the pace or durability in the squad for Iraola’s all-gas-no-brakes style. We don’t have the PSR headroom to make the necessary signings. The performances last season were so abject that it’s hard to see how any of the hilariously over-priced powder puff attackers can be sold for anything but a huge loss – and these aren’t the players for Iraola’s system if they are retained.

On this basis, maybe the more prudent thing to do would have been to retain Slot, to see if his methods could have worked for the second year in three, without the injuries and some new signings to plug the clear gaps that needed to be filled for his system (which was duller by the Anfield suits’ design) to work as it did in year one. The alternative that is unfolding in front of us, is a new manager with a new approach with none of the players that he needs.

Along with the constant stream of players leaving on a free, players turning us down for rivals, and ongoing targeting of the wrong players, not to mention losing Alonso (no guarantee of success, but a better fit for the squad) – it’s fair to ask wtf are Hughes and Edwards actually doing, and since they are buggering off – do they really care? Gofezo (Arse fans seeing the start of a dynasty – have you learned nothing from our lot last summer?)

Heavy metal football

I’ve always flirted with gentler music. Every few months I convince myself I’ve matured. I’ll put on something soothing, nod thoughtfully, and tell myself I’ve moved beyond angry guitars and shouted choruses. Then, inevitably, I find myself crawling back to the toxic relationship I have with heavy riffs, bizarre song structures, political themes and irresistible hooks.

Which is why, 25 years later, Toxicity by System of a Down remains the album that best captures my musical soul. It makes absolutely no sense, changes direction every 30 seconds, occasionally sounds like four people playing different songs at once, and somehow ends up being glorious.

It’s also why I completely understand Liverpool’s apparent interest in Andoni Iraola.

Pep Guardiola’s football is beautiful. It’s sophisticated, controlled and technically flawless. It’s the musical equivalent of a perfectly composed classical piece. Every note is in the right place. Every movement is deliberate. The ball is cherished like a family heirloom.

But once you’ve experienced Heavy Metal football, the quiet life can feel a little dull.

Liverpool under Jürgen Klopp were football’s version of Toxicity. The pressing was relentless, the transitions chaotic, and there were moments when you genuinely wondered whether everyone involved had lost their minds. Yet somehow it all came together. The noise, the aggression and the sheer emotional force were the point.

Iraola’s Bournemouth have carried some of that spirit. Only Liverpool won possession in the final third more often than Bournemouth in the Premier League last season, while Bournemouth ranked among the league’s most aggressive pressing sides. They don’t just want the ball; they want it back immediately, preferably before you’ve finished deciding what to do with it.

Watching them is a bit like being punched in the face by a very well-organised orchestra.

That’s not to say Iraola is Klopp 2.0, nor that Liverpool should simply try to recreate 2019. Football evolves. Managers evolve. Nostalgia is usually a terrible recruitment strategy, as Manchester United’s post-Ferguson years have repeatedly demonstrated with the enthusiasm of a PSA.

But clubs have identities, and supporters have preferences. Liverpool fans spent nearly a decade falling in love with football played at maximum volume. Asking them to swap that entirely for a more measured, possession-heavy approach is a bit like asking a lifelong metalhead to spend Saturday night listening to whale sounds and ambient jazz.

Some will embrace it. Others will spend the entire time wondering when the guitars are coming back.

Perhaps that’s why the Iraola links feel so logical. Not because he is the best manager available, or because he is guaranteed to succeed, but because stylistically he speaks a language Liverpool supporters instinctively understand. High energy, high intensity, occasional chaos and the belief that football should sometimes feel like a rollercoaster designed by someone who lost the safety instructions.

Pep’s football may be the safer relationship. More stable. More sensible. Better for your blood pressure.

But nobody ever wrote a great album about being sensible. Gaptoothfreak, Man Utd, New York (Slipknot’s Iowa is a close 2nd)

The challengers

I enjoyed the ‘Arsenal as Obi-wan Kinobi and City , United , Chelsea  and Liverpool as Darth Vader’ quote and it got me thinking which of these new coach lead clubs could challenge the Gunners next season .

First off the bat , Britain’s two biggest clubs : Liverpool and Man United do not look serious threats yet . One could argue that United’s re-build is further along than Liverpool’s but that ‘fewer games’ really did paint United in a really favourable light. Then so much to fix in that Liverpool team so I’d put them fourth and fifth .

On the other side of the coin the lack of Europe will surely aid Xavi Alonso’s bedding in period , Colwill will be back , a new decent goalie and I can see them leaping up to third.

City’s second half of the season really did show us that Guardiola has left a mighty fine squad for Enzo Maresca to to take advantage of . Of course losing the master will affect everyone though Maresca’s modus operandi won’t be a million miles away from what the players are used to and I see them as the major threat to Arsenal defending their title.

Nevertheless , as long as the coaching team in north London can properly learn how to rotate and forget the domestic cups by prioritizing the league I reckon they are the team to beat .

All these predictions will be muddied by the sensational signings / transfer window sagas. All of the above will re arm and spend eye watering amounts compared to the other european leagues.

Yet I’m sticking to my guns and going for a tight one and two between Arsenal & City ,

Chelsea ahead of Liverpool and United but all five of these behemoths getting the necessary Champions league money come the end of next season .

Another mailboxer wrote about Vinicius Junior moving to Arsenal which I suppose is more likely than Kylian Mbappe . He’d certainly upgrade all the squads except possibly City’s . Alonso probably wouldn’t want him so I expect Gabriel may be coaxing him a little during the Brazil squad get togethers .

Overall,  I hope Yamal, Nico O’Reilly and Musiala will shine at the World Cup and there won’t be too many horrible injuries on the back of so much football .

Let the well chilled beer flow into the night ! Peter ( whose gonna sign Wharton I wonder ) Andalucia

Lies, damned lies and statistics

In response to Rob A, who says that xG has accurately predicted league positions, that’s not how statistics work. xG reflects some of what happened in the game after the fact but has no context and tells you nothing about how the team actually played. And that’s Disgruntled, RSA’s point. xG tells you nothing new if you watched a game but can be incredibly misleading if you haven’t.

For example, in a game, one team has a couple good chances fall to their strikers and they score two goals. The other team takes a ton of shots from difficult positions, by whoever happens to get the opportunity, and score nothing. A person who watched the game will have no doubt who deserved to win. But someone just relying on xG will assume that it was much closer and the team that lost were just unlucky.

A lot of football statistics are useless. The only reason they are so prominent nowadays is that betting companies like their customers to think that they have actual facts at hand when taking their guesses. Josh, South Africa

Rob A. Honestly really interesting letter and very thought provoking. I did have to have a great scratch and come back to you. Agreed that my initial framing of a “faux stat” was incorrect; it was supposed to be a throwaway comment without the nuance required for a discussion about xG and it’s limitations that make it largely unreliable and deceptively accurate.

First is the collation of xG data. Ceteris paribus it flattens the skills of the shot taker because the xG value for a 25m shot from a striker is going to differ from a defender. So it already has caveats that the average Joe/pundit doesn’t have the statistical literacy to understand

Those predictions do seem really decent but it’s predicting position and not order which is a much lower bar to reach; you even say that it only predicted the actual order on once. Which is decent but I’m pretty sure there are plenty of people who could have predicted those positions based on a non-xG heuristic based on things like money spent, historical performances and positions, form etc. So you ever establish what you’re actually beating. If a simple prior based on last season’s table predicts top 6 membership at a similar rate, what signal is xG actually adding?

Then you showed a six year time period with a trend that shows the predictive ability of xG has deteriorated over time. You can’t collate an average over time to pad poorer recent performances with more effective past performances when there’s actual data showing a trend. A trend you overlooked and tried to smooth over with your average variation

And remember that average is 3.1 which means it was decent with some calls (I’m inferring from the 68% performance of top and bottom) but then got some other complete rotters. Coupled with how unpredictable the last season was I think it shows xG’s limitation in accurately predicting a season that’s inherently chaotic any more accurately than some non-xG heuristic. Which implies that while it can provide a decent picture, it misses noise in the data that is obviously affecting position over and above xG/xaG. Hull city and sunderland re perfect examples of this

My point is that in conjunction with other statistics, reasonable concerns about and inherent caveats in how that statistical data is gathered, it can help but your average Joe has no idea how to really use it. There’s a reason why the Oakland A’s used incredibly educated statisticians and economists when they used their sabermetrics and not some random pundit

The point is that statistics can be very accurate when you don’t look at the whole picture and you’re scrunching up one eye and find information. Humans draw coincidental data points while ignoring other salient information because we’re designed to do so. Go check HTTPS://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations for great examples where people like to create accuracy and correlations.