There is a glimmer of hope in the Premier League title race after this weekend’s results.
The problem Liverpool have is that Manchester City are unlikely to drop enough points for us to overtake them, unless something kicks in like major injury issues. They had it in the bag last week, but they have given a little bit of light by drawing against Southampton.
If Liverpool win the game in hand at home against Leeds and win away at City - which is a tall order but not impossible - the gap is down to three points.
We will have to go on a fantastic winning run, like we've done in the past. And If City want to throw it away, let’s catch it.
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I don’t think we are quite at the level we were at in 2018/19. We were mentality monsters that year and went on to win the European Cup. It was unbelievable what they did and we should have won the double, but it wasn’t to be.
But when Salah comes back, Mane comes back, Thiago comes back, Keita comes back and Elliott comes back… all of a sudden, you just never know.
Just touching on our win over Crystal Palace, the big talking point has been around the late penalty.
Was it a penalty? We were a bit lucky to get it, to be honest. There was a coming together, but you’d say it wasn’t a penalty compared to the Diogo Jota incident at Tottenham. That one was 100% a penalty, and the sending off for Kane? 200% a red card. It is just swings and roundabouts and, yes, it is inconsistent.
We haven’t had many VAR calls go our way of late, especially last season. So, it’s nice that one has possibly gone our way. I think we would have seen the game out anyway, we were 2-1 up, so people can stop crying about it and move on.
In the referee’s defence, the goalie has got stuck in the middle and has committed himself while hitting the player. Did he mean to? Probably not. But he did.
It doesn’t matter that the ball was going out of play, look at when Jordan Pickford injured Virgil van Dijk last season – the ball was going out of play there before he was wiped out.
If someone kicks another player and the ball is not there, you’re still sent off. People should remember that. It doesn’t matter that the ball was going out, that is not an excuse.
For the pundits to then analyse Chamberlain’s goal and say that shouldn’t have stood… loads of goals get given like that. If Roberto Firmino touches the ball he is offside, but you can’t give that as offside. You look at the goal Manchester United got at the weekend and we could go on and on and on.
It was better when referees made human errors before the introduction of VAR, but the technology is a must for big decisions like sending offs.
AFCON worries successfully laid to rest
There is only one more match we are likely to be without Mohamed Salah, Naby Keita and Sadio Mane for.
The games in January fell quite kindly for us while they have been away, but Jurgen Klopp will be over the moon and you can’t fault the players.
Keita is now on his way back after Guinea were knocked out, and hopefully Mane and Salah will come back soon. At least with our next game being against Cardiff, we should have enough quality to win that game if they are not ready to play or are still at the tournament.
Leicester are then next up in the league, which will be a nice game for them to come back into as we owe them one after last time.
