Topic: LC: Liverpool v Arsenal

[red_Mark1980]

From what I can gather it doesn't look great though.

[Mighty_Red]

He's not 'reporting it again' - there's loads in there that's new information.

Anyway, think it's clear we made some mistakes in our handling of the situation. It's ok to say that, and it's ok for a local patch journalist to write an article to that effect. In fact, we should probably welcome it - all too often, local patch sports journalists are seen as in the pocket of the club, and that can have really bad consequences.

The tone of both articles (but particularly the first) has been an accusing finger at Klopp and the club that this was all deliberately done to get this game off, even if the facts (as he's reported it) backs us up.

Doesn't change the fact that games have been postponed for far less both before and since that incident which I'd like reported by him if he wants to remain balanced.

[Uncle Ronnie]

Back onto the match then….

We thinking Klopp’s starting Si Hughes in the mid 3, or possibly as a 10?

[Caligula?]

Get to the final and we'll beat Chelsea with a full strength lineup. The only problem is overcoming this. It's going to be a challenge for sure. We were awful in the first leg.

[Fromola]

From what I can gather it doesn't look great though.

Amateur hour, really.  Goes some way to describing the insipid first leg performance, just how shambolic the preparation had been, at least going into the Shrewsbury game.

Hopefully we're at it tonight. We'll need to be against a rested Arsenal who'll have their own crowd behind them, as the whole shambles has cost us home advantage.

[Caston]

God has any other team who's had a game postponed had a 3000+ word essay written about it?

[Dim Glas]

The tone of both articles (but particularly the first) has been an accusing finger at Klopp and the club that this was all deliberately done to get this game off, even if the facts (as he's reported it) backs us up.

Doesn't change the fact that games have been postponed for far less both before and since that incident which I'd like reported by him if he wants to remain balanced.

It’s a pretty bad hatchet job on Klopp for sure, don’t agree with whoever posted before that it’s ok for a 'local patch journalist’ to write something like this. He’s basically saying that because Klopp helped the local ‘vaccination drive’ they are letting him get away with stuff.

Anyway, fuck it, Simon Hughes has come across very poorly over recent months with his Athletic articles, and it’ll be intersesting how much access he gets to Klopp in a press conference after this one now.  People being so willing to take as gospel ’sources close to’ articles are the ones who need to have a little think I would suggest.  The press has too much power, that they don’t need to back-up with facts. 

The maddest part of it is, Liverpool gained nothing from the postponment, it’s just bizarre so much has been made of it.

Is there a game on tonight? 

[royhendo]

I'm on my course tonight so I'm not even gonna be able to see it - should be a good game I reckon - we'll be chomping at the bit with a full away allocation.

[RainbowFlick]

https://twitter.com/_Abzino2/status/1484110184276705283?s=20

this is hilarious albeit overstepping the mark a bit. amazing how many Arsenal fans a commercial manager can randomly fiddle with results... in order to give us a worse fixture order 

[Fromola]

https://twitter.com/_Abzino2/status/1484110184276705283?s=20

this is hilarious albeit overstepping the mark a bit. amazing how many Arsenal fans a commercial manager can randomly fiddle with results... in order to give us a worse fixture order 

The Hughes article has just raked it all up again unnecessarily and now this connection will be used as some grand conspiracy.

[Ciara (with a capital "C")]

We should be in a better place tonight in terms of rhythm than we were last week. I am hopeful that we can't be as bad as we were in that first leg and the game should be a bit more open as Arsenal are at home and may be encouraged to play a bit further up the pitch.

Think it's daft to think this won't be a difficult game. This is the only trophy Arsenal can win this season and they are 1 game from the final too, so I wouldn't think they would be as strong as they could possibly be and will be fired up for this. I always think they are a couple of games from slipping into crisis mode but there's no doubt they are a better, more resilient side than they were 3-4 months ago.

Think this will be tough but absolutely we can go there and win.

[jillcwhomever]

God has any other team who's had a game postponed had a 3000+ word essay written about it?

It’s crazy Leicester City had games called off when no player had Covid. Yet no one’s going after them.

[Xanderzone]

I'd throw Kaide in.

Last week we struggled big time because all three of Taki, Bobby and Jota all kept coming toward the ball and Arsenal had nothing to worry about in behind.

Gordon could give us that.

[Slippers]

It’s crazy Leicester City had games called off when no player had Covid. Yet no one’s going after them.

Lads,it's Leicester.

[J-Mc-]

The crying from the Arsenal lot about the covid tests on twitter is still going on.

Laughable now, they’re saying it’s a consipracy because Kenny’s daughter is commercial manager for the lab and it wasn’t investigated by the EFL because of Rick Parry…

[lamonti]

From what I can gather it doesn't look great though.

It doesn't look great if you read everything through the lens of the fan of another club on the internet.

There's a summation in the comments from a Paul J. that pretty much gets to the crux of the matter in the space of a long paragraph:

So, to sum it up... due to the positive tests at Chelsea, LFC were being cautious, more careful than the guidelines are suggesting, and chose to double up their testing by using the BioGrad testing as well, to hopefully get the all clear earlier than the longer testing. Alongside this earlier and extra testing they requested the postponement early (again being cautious and thinking of the travelling fans in this instance) knowing that if enough players were negative they would be allowed to play.

Unfortunately a lot of the testing from BioGrad came back positive, and this automatically meant that the game was to be postponed, as despite the Prenetics testing contrasting this, a negative does not override the earlier positive.

So at this point there's been nothing wrong at all other than more caution and care from LFC than most.

The second round of Prenetics testing, after the postponed Arsenal game had passed, proved that the BioGrad testing was wrong, or 'discounted' as is the apparent term, while Klopp, using his second language, called them 'false positives'. This is ridiculous, and they were positives at the time, and turned out to be false. Just because that is not the term the UK government use (and they're a shambles and don't seem to know their own rules anyway) it's still a completely understandable way to pass on the information for a native German in a football interview.

The article clears it all up, thanks Simon, though still seems quite sided as if Liverpool did something wrong, even though the evidence shows they didn't, and the story is only a story because fans can't understand it and the 'false positive' term has been disputed, for semantic reasons only, as they clearly were positive, and were false.

The moral is... do the bare minimum when it comes to being cautious, as football fans are not the most understanding.
Up the 'discounted testing' reds.

It feels very much like Simon has got the hump with someone at the club, and their lack of clarity over what is a mess of their own making is being framed as some gigantic conspiracy based around two minor semantic points.

Once again, the Athletic's article is conspicuous in its use of unverifiable tittle-tattle from unnamed sources. Pointedly Klopp had a go at the a few weeks ago for something they wrote that he considered to be untrue regarding the behaviour or comments of LFC players after beating United.

[NarutoReds]

+ The Guardian, UK: "Lijnders insists Liverpool have 'weapons' to beat Arsenal in second leg"
Jurgen Klopp's assistant says team have been written off

- Pepijn Lijnders:

"I couldn't wait for this game since the final whistle at Anfield because everyone was writing us off," he said. "It was the disappointment of the stadium, the disappointment of the fans and the disappointment of us as a staff. It is not the outside world I am speaking about, it is the inside world. We need optimism in our squad because this semi-final is decided over two legs. It is half-time, it is 0-0 and there are no away goals. We proved already a lot of times that with a 0-0 at home, Bayern Munich for example, we can go there and do the things we do."

"We are Liverpool Football Club and our team proved that we want to attack this competition and reach finals. A lot of people didn't believe me when I said that before. We are here in the semi-final and can reach Wembley and we should try with everything we have to reach it. The journey for the fans to London to prepare a final, that is what this club is all about. As a player of Liverpool we won a lot but if you want to become a true legend you need to go for the national cups as well."

Klopp will be without Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané and Divock Origi, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who scored as a makeshift striker against Brentford on Sunday, is also absent. But Lijnders believes Liverpool have evolved as an attacking threat this season and have numerous ways to hurt Arsenal.

[Fromola]

The crying from the Arsenal lot about the covid tests on twitter is still going on.

Laughable now, they’re saying it’s a consipracy because Kenny’s daughter is commercial manager for the lab and it wasn’t investigated by the EFL because of Rick Parry…

Was there a reason Simon Hughes needed to stir the shit on the morning of the game? The Athletic twitter handle also very incendiary with its story headline knowing the story is behind a paywall.

[redmark]

It feels very much like Simon has got the hump with someone at the club, and their lack of clarity over what is a mess of their own making is being framed as some gigantic conspiracy based around two minor semantic points.

Once again, the Athletic's article is conspicuous in its use of unverifiable tittle-tattle from unnamed sources. Pointedly Klopp had a go at the a few weeks ago for something they wrote that he considered to be untrue regarding the behaviour or comments of LFC players after beating United.

The article doesn't frame it in that way at all - it's quite clear in its view of cockup rather than conspiracy. BioGrad's* cockup mainly presumably (they declined to comment), but then badly handled (in his view) by the club; Klopp included. He's a little overly prickly in the article and responding to comments about the phrase 'false positives' (an unfortunate one, but you sort of knew what Klopp meant as soon as he said it, even without confirmation of testing problems); but he's a journalist and it's a legitimate story. Journalists using unnamed source is hardly new (and pretty much essential, or we'd have very little journalism at all, in football, politics or any other walk of life). If he has a problem with Klopp and is misrepresenting sources at the club, those sources will dry up - not a good move for a journalist.

*I've seen people slating him for naming Lynsey Dalglish, too - if he hadn't, someone would have googled that within seconds of publication and it would have been portrayed in an even worse light.

Anyway - suspect we'll win this, but possibly only after some nailbiting. Arsenal fans can then complain about the original postponement again for a few hours, before we can ignore them for another few months.

[Charlie Adams fried egg]

Was there a reason Simon Hughes needed to stir the shit on the morning of the game? The Athletic twitter handle also very incendiary with its story headline knowing the story is behind a paywall.

He may have a beef with Klopp calling out the Athletic a while back.
I think though reading between the lines, people at the Athletic are in either job preservation mode, or make sure the CV looks good mode.

They are like the DFS of paywalled sports journalism - there's always an offer on, usually for a quid a month, and that's not enough to support the model. They've just been taken over and no doubt by now some messages will have come from the new owners about costs and/or jobs.

He'll get far more reaction from this than a "Ultra cautious Liverpool unlucky to lose home advantage" headline.

[Fromola]

The article doesn't frame it in that way at all - it's quite clear in its view of cockup rather than conspiracy. BioGrad's* cockup mainly presumably (they declined to comment), but then badly handled (in his view) by the club; Klopp included. He's a little overly prickly in the article and responding to comments about the phrase 'false positives' (an unfortunate one, but you sort of knew what Klopp meant as soon as he said it, even without confirmation of testing problems); but he's a journalist and it's a legitimate story. Journalists using unnamed source is hardly new (and pretty much essential, or we'd have very little journalism at all, in football, politics or any other walk of life). If he has a problem with Klopp and is misrepresenting sources at the club, those sources will dry up - not a good move for a journalist.

*I've seen people slating him for naming Lynsey Dalglish, too - if he hadn't, someone would have googled that within seconds of publication and it would have been portrayed in an even worse light.

Anyway - suspect we'll win this, but possibly only after some nailbiting. Arsenal fans can then complain about the original postponement again for a few hours, before we can ignore them for another few months.

I'd say it's more of a flex from Hughes because Klopp essentially accused him of making up a story with such "sources". Puts a big, extensively detailed, high profile story out there which could only have been obtained with well connected sources. It also just happens to show Klopp in a bad light and the club's PR department as totally inept.

[Nick110581]

Hughes has always come across well.

Weird to release this today but be about numbers and subscriptions.

[newterp]

I'm still a bit concerned Klopp will persist with Milner as a starter to help "control the game" and then bring in Jones later.

[VVM]

The Athletic article posted on twitter comes across as very clickbaity even if the content is more reasonable. Must not be getting the number of subscribers they'd hoped for anymore so they've resorted to those sorts of tactics.

[Mister Flip Flop]

Not worried about this in the slightest. We are levels above them even with Mo and Sadio out. Think we'll win fairly handy 4-1 something like that. Just hoping the fume from Arsenal reaches epic levels post match 

[ScubaSteve]

I'm still a bit concerned Klopp will persist with Milner as a starter to help "control the game" and then bring in Jones later.

I really hope not. Milner shouldn’t be a starter for this game..

Jones has to start

[exiledintheUSA]

I'm still a bit concerned Klopp will persist with Milner as a starter to help "control the game" and then bring in Jones later.

I trust Klopp to pick the right players to get us to the final. #Believers.

[Mighty_Red]

I'd say it's more of a flex from Hughes because Klopp essentially accused him of making up a story with such "sources". Puts a big, extensively detailed, high profile story out there which could only have been obtained with well connected sources. It also just happens to show Klopp in a bad light and the club's PR department as totally inept.

Not when you release a detailed story with no context or balance. The headline even has "A game that didn't need to be called off".

Again, if you're going to write a report on this subject why not mention Arsenal cancelling a game with a single covid case?

Sounds like a strange strategy to simply piss off the club and the fans unless your goal is to simply turn into a clickbait journo.

[Fitzy.]

How depleted are Arsenal?

[Mighty_Red]

I really hope not. Milner shouldn’t be a starter for this game..

Jones has to start

Agreed, Milly to finish the game not start it

[redmark]

Again, if you're going to write a report on this subject why not mention Arsenal cancelling a game with a single covid case?

Then we'd be complaining about a false equivalence being drawn between our (supposed) overly-cautious-cockup and Arsenal's more questionable manipulation of the rules.

Klopp's a big boy, he can cope with a journalist being slightly critical of his handling of the situation. It'll be forgotten by the vast majority soon enough, and those who'll still be raising it as some dark conspiracy in years to come would do so whether journalists write about it or not.

[UntouchableLuis]

How depleted are Arsenal?

Whoever they put out the big dangers are Saka and Martinelli, if we can nullify their threat we will win as I don't fear anyone else.

[sinnermichael]

[rob1966]

[4pool]

It's the media.

It's what they do.

Put Headlines on a story to get you to read them. Whether the headline matches the article or not.

We all know this, so why the surprise.

[Son of Spion]

A star for each false positive?

[Kenny's Jacket]

It doesn't look great if you read everything through the lens of the fan of another club on the internet.

There's a summation in the comments from a Paul J. that pretty much gets to the crux of the matter in the space of a long paragraph:

It feels very much like Simon has got the hump with someone at the club, and their lack of clarity over what is a mess of their own making is being framed as some gigantic conspiracy based around two minor semantic points.

Once again, the Athletic's article is conspicuous in its use of unverifiable tittle-tattle from unnamed sources. Pointedly Klopp had a go at the a few weeks ago for something they wrote that he considered to be untrue regarding the behaviour or comments of LFC players after beating United.

Sorry for side tracking ,I thought that article was all about them saying United should have has more red cards. What dis they/write say about our players behaviour ?

[duvva 💅]

Looking forward to tonight, semi finals always have that added element. Same team as Sunday for me, and hopefully a better performance than last Thursday. Think it’ll be tight after not taking full advantage of them last week, but still very hopeful we’ll be going to Wembley

[Jm55]

Suspect we may see Keleher in goal after Klopp’s comments that it’s his competition and Alisson just needed the rhythm?

I’ll go

Keleher

Robbo
Van Dijk
Konate
Trent

Hendo
Fabinho
Jones

Minamino
Jota
Firmino

[FLRed67]

It doesn't look great if you read everything through the lens of the fan of another club on the internet.

There's a summation in the comments from a Paul J. that pretty much gets to the crux of the matter in the space of a long paragraph:

It feels very much like Simon has got the hump with someone at the club, and their lack of clarity over what is a mess of their own making is being framed as some gigantic conspiracy based around two minor semantic points.

Once again, the Athletic's article is conspicuous in its use of unverifiable tittle-tattle from unnamed sources. Pointedly Klopp had a go at the a few weeks ago for something they wrote that he considered to be untrue regarding the behaviour or comments of LFC players after beating United.

What a bizarre summary by this Paul J whatever. Perhaps English is not his native language?

False positive is a long-established and easy-to-understood scientific concept.

Scientific tests make mistakes, because they depend on instrumentation, measurement accuracy, confidence interval, parameter tuning, test conditions, etc..

In science, a test that, for instance, mistakenly says you are not ill, when you actually are ill, is called a false negative.
When you are actually not ill, but the test says you are ill, that is called a false positive.

Most schoolchildren can grasp this. 

Why LFC saw fit to request further lab tests is another matter.