and at what point did Mo's decline start, Bird? when he scored goal 24? goal 25? goal 26? (I'll stop now) that's wrong imo Speke - the last bit should be "I don't think anyone expected the drop off we've seen in his game this season."
I thought last season would be his last great campaign but that we'd see him with 10g, 10a for a couple years before he sailed off into retirement. This has been hard to watch.
Which is precisely the point. It’s the intangibles, those that aren’t visible to anyone unless you’re looking for them. The signs were there. I know they’re not the most reliable of sources but if have time and patience go through the match threads. He was failing to beat his man as regularly, was butchering chances more often and was often invisible. Shankly and Ferguson were masters at spotting the decline way before anybody did, letting players leave to , to almost universal outrage, and lose their legs under somebody else’s charge.
In my mind Salah was showing signs of decline before last year. Still capable of great things but slowly, slowly a little bit less consistent and a little bit less convincing. But then out of nowhere he produced one of the all-time great seasons! Sadly, it seems that was a last (and very great) hurrah but he has now reverted to the trend ........
Great revisionist thinking, Bird. I'll repeat - nobody anticipated the dropoff in Mo's form this year. Nobody. Not him. Slot, the coaches, the fans - nobody. If you spotted this dropoff coming last season, please share those posts and I'll gladly apologize. Fact is, his dropoff this season has been unbelievable. Even when Fab and Hendo each hit a wall in their last season they could still execute the basics and do a decent turn most games. Right now Mo is struggling to hit any kind of standard for a PL starting player, let alone his own standards.
I remember this discussion with you in 2024. The numbers and performances, in my view then, were already falling. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/mo-salah-11.2059208/page-28#post-42669584
Celtic beat Rangers 4-2 on pens in the Scottish Cup. Alex Oxlade Chamberlain scored Celtic’s first penalty.
Ah damn, one of my all-time favourites. Holds the record for total LFC appearances - 857 games and booked a total of ONCE. Get well soon Ian!
Cally is one of the Greats for Liverpool. Always a fixture of the Reds sides through my childhood. Whats the word on his health?
It's not going well, is it. Liverpool Transfer News: Blame game begins at Real Madrid over disastrous Trent Alexander-Arnold deal
Yikes. Maybe this year is an anomaly and he'll eventually get back to his best. He got his "dream" move though...
A patient style of team play. A surfeit of midfielders who can do the job without needing him to invert. Dodgy positional sense defensively. An inability to play a 7 yard pass when there might be an opportunity for a 63 yard one. He was 'hurt' by the Liverpool supporters not being 100% behind him - and now the fickle rm fans are after him and he's shrinking under the pressure. Is anyone surprised he's not settling well in spain?
All that said - he produced some bloody pass for one of their goals in one of the last two games. There is magic in there. I'm hoping Touchel keeps steering clear, because Riise James won;t produce the pass that maybe wins the World Cup - and I don;t want England to effin' win it!
Because he SMASHED it with ALL the angry force he could muster. He could have just knocked it to one side and scored his "I am me, Andriy the GREATEST and you are not going to keep denying me this game", but he was also faced with the (to him 100 % chance of just blasting it.) Unfortunately for him and fortunately for us it turned out to be actually 99.999999% certain, unless it hit Dudek's scrambling paw Squarely. Where then the force of the spin off was soo hard that it got enough return propulsion and torque to bloody spin it high enough to go out over the Crossbar. One of football's most weird moments. Ever. Zany and beautiful. Like Riise's cross for Gerrard's opening goal of the comeback. Totally fvcked up the cross, and it bounced back to him for a 2nd stab. Int hat timing split second, Stam and maldini and etc are jerking out of position, and Gerard is looming in.... more beauty