Didn’t want to win The Carabao Cup anyway. Bunch of reserve teams competing for a can of some mad Thai energy drink in front of record low attendances. Instead of getting up at four in the morning to watch the next round draw live from Madagascar, I’ll just have a lie in instead.
It’s not great for Liverpool though, really. It’s not ideal for Jurgen Klopp, who could do with a trophy soon if we wants to join the list of successful managers at Liverpool Football Club rather than the list of promising, ultimately disappointing ones.
It’s not great for a number of the players either, who will have seen the competition as a chance to show their worth, only to fluff their lines rather when the opportunity was given.
One of those was Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who Liverpool fans have been waiting patiently to see what all the fuss is about since he signed last month. It is fair to say those who were curious about his actual level and worried about his poor goals and assists stats were not reassured by what they saw on Tuesday night. We’ve since heard from Jurgen Klopp that he played with a calf injury.
Although I had to check to see if he hadn’t actually said he played like a new born calf.
That said there has been quite the reaction to his performance, considering it was just one game and he looked like he’d spent the last month unpacking suitcases and on the phone to broadband providers instead of training. One Spurs fan went to the trouble of making a compilation of all the bad things Oxlade-Chamberlain did, and I must admit, even as an optimistic Liverpool fan, it rivals the new IT film as a horror show.
https://twitter.com/elliottsimmonds/status/910244103572611076
It’s an odd thing to spend your time doing though, isn’t it? I am aware he used to play for Arsenal and they are rivals and all that, but still? I’m always amazed at the strange things people spend hours doing on the internet.
Don’t these people know there are actual naked girls on there? I’ve googled Kelly Brook three times just in the time it has taken to write this article. That’s why Paddy always has to keep chasing me with increasingly aggressive emails. I’m certainly not going to start splicing together footage of Harry Winks leathering passes into touch. Although partly because I’m not entirely sure he isn’t a barber from the 1920’s.
That Oxlade Chamberlain pass a snapshot of his Liverpool career so far. #LEILIV
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) September 19, 2017
Anyway, Oxlade-Chamberlain looks like he needs games, but because of this defeat you struggle to see where he is going to get them, for now at least. I think I’ve got more chance of kissing Perrie Edwards than her fella has of starting again on Saturday and if Liverpool get back on track, he might start thinking right wing back at Chelsea doesn’t look so bad after all.
I’m sure he is much better than he has shown so far, but without it being more clear what he can bring and what his actual strengths are as a player, you’d think the manager will continue to keep faith with the lads who got fourth place last season. Luckily for him we are probably only about two weeks away from an injury crisis, so he can play when Jordan Henderson’s legs fall off again.
Already the predictable few are starting to cry off another trip to Leicester. Although to be fair, it is rubbish. Traffic jam in, get beat, traffic jam out. Joel Matip, Dejan Lovren and Emre Can are the latest lads who are reported to feel a bit poorly or have hurt their finger.
I’m not one to moan about old footy being better all the time, far from it, but I do wish our football players would just get on with it more. I remember when Jamie Carragher tried to play on with a broken leg or Xabi Alonso, rather brilliantly, tried to sort out a fractured ankle by stamping his foot on the ground. And that’s not even getting into the lads who played before my time.
I’m sure one of our centre halves missed a game last season with a broken wash bag.
As you can tell I am not that confident of our trip to Leicester at the weekend. A few bad results will do that for you. It feels Liverpool are in one of those lulls where we feel sorry for ourselves and decide the sky is going to fall in. I’m not sure what breaks us out of it. Probably not Wes Morgan heading a corner in unchallenged on Saturday. And probably not a trip to bloomin’ Russia on Tuesday.
But stranger things have happened. As football fans, we live in hope.
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