Yeah I think he’s debased himself a bit with some of his responses about Newcastle’s decisions, their Saudi owners, the PL votes. But I can’t deny he’s a v good coach.

I mean a draw is probably best result for us but that ruled out goal was laughable. Would’ve been given against us every day and twice on Sunday. Inconsistency is just ridiculous

I’ll die on this hill TAA is a fabulous player. Been Liverpool’s best all day.

I’ve heard some talk that Liverpool have “successfully” rebuilt their midfield… Well they might be having an off day but not off the back of what I’ve seen today. MacAllister, Jones, Gravenberch are all not at the level.

Curtis Jones is a serious problem for this Liverpool side.

Yeah got him in a bit of trouble because he declared them as a gift a couple days late I think

Injuries right at the start of their toughest run too. Bad luck, but it’s what a lot of us were saying, they’ve sailed through with a comically easy fixture list and minimal injuries and the test will be what happens once they hit some harder fixtures and bad luck. Let’s see.

That said Richarlison out for a month hardly affects them

Really pleased for Eddie after a tough few weeks for him. Very good performance (against a poor side). I don’t think it particularly changes my opinion of him tbh. I’ve always thought he’s a very good goal scorer, easily PL quality and a great squad member to have. My major issues with him are many of his substitute appearances flatter to deceive and we have had to rely on him a little too much for my liking. Still, great performance and pleased for him.

They’re decent defensively and are usually a pretty tough nut to crack at home. They’ll need a bit of a lucky break to score without Eze or Olise though.

Totally agree. The only reason I feel different is I could see on the pitch a clear upgrade from Leno to Ramsdale. So far I haven’t seen that upgrade from Raya to Ramsdale (maybe my puny brain isn’t seeing the subtleties but I can only say it as I see it).

Unless Ramsdale has said he’ll sit this one out because of his baby, I think this puts the final nail in the coffin of the thought that he meant his earlier comments about competition.

He obviously just prefers Raya as a keeper. Not sure I see the upgrade myself, but let’s see how it goes over the season.

Keep an eye out for their next 5 games starting with Palace away this Friday night

Next 7 imo. West Ham are always up for a trip to Spurs and then it’s Newcastle.

They haven’t played Chelsea so I don’t know where you got that from. They’ve played us United and Liverpool. Importantly they didn’t actually look very good in any of those games (they also didn’t look good against Brentford on GW1). United are dreadful but they probably should have been 2-0 down, we handed them a draw and Liverpool were down to 9. Other than that they’ve played all of the bottom 4, Fulham and Brentford.

They have 7 proper tests coming up. If they get 5+ wins in that run I will have to change my tune and take them seriously. Have they exceeded my expectations of them coming into the season? Yeah, fair play to Ange he’s done great work. But where do I see them finishing? Between 4th and 5th. Their squad is thin (lose Madison and they’re done) and whenever they’ve been truly tested in games they haven’t won.

And you are supposed to drop players when they make mistakes. That’s the whole point of having “two number 1s” as arteta called it

I think this is the point. If you want to keep Ramsdale engaged and claim publicly “they’re two great goalkeepers fighting it out” you have to do as you would with other positions, swap them when one has an awful game.

On the other hand if Arteta is happy to dismiss Ramsdale because he’s certain Raya is better and is committed to replacing him, then don’t swap them.

“I swear the most annoying people here are the fucking optimists!”

Yeah exactly. I do think game state is doing something for us here… Behind for 60 minutes, they had little incentive to open up and go attacking. That said they were broadly “on top” for long periods and did very little. I don’t rate them in the slightest (but we were very poor).

Next week should be lovely. Tough away match on a Friday night for spurs, City play United. We should pump our GD and watch the disasters unfold elsewhere