{"id":6746,"date":"2022-10-08T14:52:10","date_gmt":"2022-10-08T13:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=6746"},"modified":"2022-10-10T03:22:06","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T02:22:06","slug":"klippety-klopp-klippety-klopp-scousers-stomp-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=6746","title":{"rendered":"Klippety-klopp. Klippety-klopp: Scousers stomp south"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<a id=\"MUbXOXJ1R-hP8EqhxCZKag\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1431489702\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'MUbXOXJ1R-hP8EqhxCZKag',sig:'5IAn5E9-DBIcud7xTXV8GS3zTKZszUW2lWIMZcRvhzY=',w:'594px',h:'416px',items:'1431489702',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" async=\"\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p>On Sunday, we entertain Liverpool in the Premier League for the 238th competitive fixture between the two clubs and our most testing game yet this season. After it, I fancy, we shall have a more accurate measure of where our ambitions for the season should lie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The visitors have the better overall record, 94 wins to our 81 with 62 draws. We started the sequence dismally in the old Second Division in 1893-94 and 1895-96, losing all four games and failing to score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We broke our duck on the opening Saturday of the 1905-06 season. With Liverpool returning to the First Division that season (our second in the top flight), we beat them 3-1 at the Manor Ground, initiating an 18-game unbeaten run against them at home in the league that lasted until February 1930.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bemoaning the first-half loss of Liverpool\u2019s centre forward Jack Parkinson with a fractured wrist of sufficient severity to have him immediately taken to Woolwich Infirmary to have it reset, the Liverpool Daily Post opined that &#8216;there can be few who saw the game who will deny that Liverpool were the better side&#8217;, adding that &#8216;the Gunners were left distinctly fortunate winners by 3 goals to 1&#8217;. Nothing new in media antipathy towards us, especially when we win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Your moment of history<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first of our three goals, a rapid response equaliser after Liverpool had opened the scoring early in the second half, came from John George &#8216;Tim&#8217; Coleman. He was an inside forward whose goalscoring partnership with Tommy Shanks was instrumental in Woolwich Arsenal&#8217;s elevation to the First Division. He was sold to Everton in 1908 for \u00a3700 \u2014 serious money when the record transfer was only \u00a31,000 \u2014 to ease the club&#8217;s financial woes (Nothing new there, either).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coleman retired from professional football when the First World War started. After the war, in which he won a Military Cross, he eventually pursued a successful, if largely forgotten, coaching career in the Netherlands\u2014 three league titles with different clubs in nine seasons in the 1920s and &#8217;30s. He died in unlikely circumstances during the Blitz, fatally falling off the roof of an electricity substation in Prince Consort Road, South Kensington, onto which he had clambered to repair bomb damage. He was 59.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recent results have heavily skewed Liverpool&#8217;s way. We have beaten them once in the league since April 2015, the 2-1 home win in July 2020 played behind closed doors due to Covid-19 restrictions. There have been a couple of other victories since then: the Community Shield at the end of the following month and a League Cup tie in October, both also behind closed doors and won on penalties. We have not scored against them from open play in our past six games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jurgen Klopp&#8217;s men will arrive on Sunday buoyed by an easy midweek Champions League win over Rangers. Yet in the Premier League, they have stuttered with two wins in seven games, although only the Mancs have beaten them.&nbsp;They sit ninth, eleven points beneath us with a game in hand. Caution is warranted over those early-week stats. After seven games last season, they had won only four, yet would still push City for the title to the end, losing only two of their remaining 31 games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Klopp, the Spinal Tap of football managers, says his team needs to go &#8216;back to basics&#8217; in defending. They have conceded nine goals in their seven games, against six in their first seven last season and 20 in their next 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Virgil van Dyke and Joel Matip, Klopp had two of the top 10 centre-backs in Europe last season. This season, Matip is only newly returned from injury, and backup Ibrahima Konate is also only now back in contention after a long-term injury. Joe Gomez has filled in alongside van Dyke, who has been slow to get back to his best form. Konstantinos Tsimikas has had to deputise for first-choice left-back Andy Robertson, who is out with a long-term knee injury. Right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold has been exposed as the English Nuno Tavares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sadio Mane&#8217;s departure to Bayern Munich has unbalanced the front line more than might have been expected. Yet Klopp has plenty of fire-power to juggle with across 90 minutes in Luis Diaz, Diego Jota, Mohamed Salah, new boy Darwin Nunez and old hand Roberto Firmino.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With Jordon Henderson, Tiago, Fabinho, and James Milner off the bench, Klopp has steel and experience in midfield. Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho offer youthful creativity.&nbsp;Arthur Mello, on loan from Juve, the Ox and Naby Keita remain unavailable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Klopp played 4-2-3-1 against Rangers instead of his habitual 4-3-3, although he used 4-2-3-1 in 2018-19. Henderson and Tiago, as the double pivot, tightened the defence. Elliott, Carvalho and possibly Firmino offer the 10s the system needs. A rehearsal for Sunday, or a Klopp double bluff?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We come off the exhilaration of the NLD win and a much-rotated team&#8217;s slightly disjointed Europa League win over visiting Bod\u00f8\/Glimt. Klopp&#8217;s lot will be a different kettle of custard. Last season, we lost three of our four games against the bin dippers, drew the other one, and failed to score in any of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet, as TTG observed in his Tottnumb review, we are a much-changed team from last season; we should now be able to match Liverpool as a footballing side. Yet, this game will be won and lost in the mind.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The mental resilience needed against Liverpool differs from that required in a derby match against the neighbours. Liverpool has become acclimated to winning against us, and we to losing to them. It is redolent of the Mancs at OT, where we lost the game, albeit being the better side for much of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is, as Arteta likes to say, &#8216;the moments&#8217; that matter. We cannot let those get away from us on Sunday. That is what Arteta means when he talks of the need for consistency.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><em>Pace<\/em>&nbsp;possibly Zinchenko, absent from the bench on Thursday, no new injury concerns prevent Arteta from starting the XI that put the neighbours to the sword:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Ramsdale<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Partey, XhakaSaka, \u00d8degaard, Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Jesus<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bench: Turner, Holding, Tomiyasu, Tierney, Lokonga, Fabio Vieira, Nketiah, Nelson, Marquinhos<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The &#8216;holics pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bookies have a draw as the clear favourite and the odds on either side winning a toss-up. The classic 1-0 to The Arsenal (a scoreline not seen between these clubs since 2010) can be found at twelves, and a much overdue and history-repeating 3-1 home win at 20s. A nervy 2-1 home win, available at tens, may be the most likely outcome.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This will be a testing game, but there to be won if the team puts its mind to it \u2014 and the faithful their voices behind it as magnificently as they have all season.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>North London forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enjoy the game, &#8216;holics, near and far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images On Sunday, we entertain Liverpool in the Premier League for the 238th competitive fixture between the two clubs and our most testing game yet this season. After it, I fancy, we shall have a more accurate measure of where our ambitions for the season should lie. The visitors have the better [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6746"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6767,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746\/revisions\/6767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}