The Warm-Up: Should any of us bother with Liverpool tonight?
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Updated 04/02/2020 at 09:22 GMT
Jurgen Klopp's decision to give this game a swerve is fair enough, but there isn't much incentive for us to watch it
Liverpool v Shrewsbury
Image credit: Eurosport
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Should any of us bother with Liverpool vs Shrewsbury?
The Warm-Up isn’t particularly fussed about Jurgen Klopp’s decision to recuse both his senior players and indeed himself from their FA Cup fourth round replay against Shrewsbury tonight. Of course, if they wanted to avoid the replay then the best policy was to simply win the first game, but having failed to do that we can certainly see his point that being asked to play a game during their ‘winter break’ – a period when they were specifically asked not to play a game – is a step too far, especially after all that nonsense about the League Cup game when they were in Qatar.
But it does bring up an interesting question for the rest of us: if the manager isn’t bothering, should we?
Probably not, is the short answer. Unless you’re a fan of either club, super keen on scouting the possible next generation of talent at Anfield (of whom, realistically, only two or three will actually make it into the first-team proper), an FA Cup completist or literally have nothing better to do with your time, there aren’t many reasons to watch this game. Curiousity is probably the other, wondering how a big club’s youth team stacks up against the gritty and hairy men of League One.
“When you are playing against men who are fully matured and developed physically they have an advantage,” said Neil Critchley, the man standing in for Klopp who will apparently be watching the game on his laptop and might text in if he has any advice for the kids. “But maybe we can play our way and take that advantage away a little bit. If our boys want to have a career in football then they need to cope with that side of the game and with nights like this.”
Mbappe, Neymar’s rainbow, a party and a bruised rib
Who knew that throwing together a bunch of superstar players in a league that their team is simply bullying into submission through the power of pure resources, in one of the most vibrant and ‘partyable’ cities in the world, with a coach who might be a technical and tactical wizard but lacks a certain amount of authority and gravitas…well who knew that would all turn out to be bad news.
The short version is that, after Neymar was ludicrously booked for attempting a rainbow in their game against Montpellier at the weekend (or more specifically was booked for complaining about being told not to do that by the referee), the lads headed out on the town, going out to celebrate Neymar’s birthday at a venue near the Eiffel Tower.
This was of course far from ideal because a) Neymar knacked up his rib in that Montpellier game and b) they have another fixture against Nantes on Tuesday that Neysers will now miss, thanks to that rib knack. Thomas Tuchel said:
Is it the best way to prepare for a match? No, clearly not. Is it the worst thing in the world? No. I always protect my players and I really love my team. With this party I accept that it is a bit difficult to protect the players but the context is not simply black or white. It is a shame because we are giving people the chance to speak badly of us. We need to adapt to the situation but I am not going to leave a player on the bench or at home because they went out and celebrated.
Throw in another apparent disagreement between Tuchel and Mbappe after the young tyro was substituted at the weekend, and it all gives the impression of a club that perhaps isn’t in the ideal state.
“There is nothing personal between him and me. These things happen,” Tuchel said. “It was between a player who does not want to come off and a coach who had his reasons for doing something and who wanted to give a game to players who deserved it.”
IN OTHER NEWS
Professional footballers aren’t really supposed to be funny. Or at least not intentionally funny, outside the banter cocoon of the dressing room, and they’re certainly not supposed to have terrific comic timing and a talent for mimicry. But then there’s Bayern Munich’s Canadian winger Alphonso Davies…
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: The actor playing the character Richard Keys
OK, we admit it, we’ve been had. For all these years, we assumed Richard Keys was actually a real person, and not just some elaborate Alan Partridge-esque character called Richard Keys played by an actor. Clearly, we’ve been adorably naive, and the thespian in question has simply pulled the wool over our eyes, but no more: in his latest blog, ‘Keys’ has surely revealed himself to be a comedy creation, because obviously no real, actual person with a scrap of self-awareness would actually write this.
Zeros: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer/Manchester United
We realise this is from the weekend, but nevertheless we did enjoy Ole Gunnar Solskjaer noting that Anthony Martial has “been asked to play too much as well, especially now when Marcus [Rashford] is injured.” Now, if only there could have been some way to ensure your only senior centre-forward wasn’t overplayed. Some sort of pre-arranged period of time in which a club was allowed to recruit extra help in areas of the pitch they require it, perhaps. We’d imagine that would’ve been really useful to prevent this sort of overwork.
RETRO CORNER
Kids, ask your parents about this one, but Manchester City weren’t always part of a merciless, lavishly-funded, multi-national football corportation: once upon a time they were just a hapless team from a spicy part of town, who occasionally achieved extraordinary results. One of those occurred on this day in 2004, when City went 3-0 down in their FA Cup replay against Tottenham, had Joey Barton sent off but still managed to come back to win. Drink in the Jon Macken game.
HAT TIP
In the chairman’s office deep in the belly of Bramall Lane’s main stand Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz al Saud is defending the manoeuvres that have brought him total ownership of a Premier League club worth £104m for a remarkably low price. It is the final result of a furious battle between him and Sheffield United’s former long-term owner, the property magnate Kevin McCabe, who, in 2013, gave Abdullah, a member of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family, 50% of his shares in return for £10m invested in the club. The subsequent fallout has been bitter but Abdullah, accompanied by his Riyadh-based lawyer, Yusuf Giansiracusa, is unapologetic about McCabe: “He tried to screw me, he got screwed,” he says.
Understand the intricate and bitter-sounding machinations over the ownership of Sheffield United? Us neither. Allow David Conn to explain.
COMING UP
In addition to the Liverpool children, there are a few other FA Cup replays for you this evening: having drawn with Birmingham at their temporary home of St Andrew’s, Coventry travel to St Andrew’s for the return, Oxford United have another swing at Newcastle United, Wayne Rooney’s Derby County face Northampton while Cardiff play Reading again.
Making sense of all of that tomorrow – or ignoring it all in a Kloppesque fashion – will be your pal and ours, Ben Snowball.
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