The arrival of Ronald Araujo and the sight of Jeremy Jacquet in training have somewhat alleviated fears around centre-back. Jeremy Frimpong’s endurance has been tested over pre-season and so far he’s held up. Although right-back is still a concern.

In midfield, it’s anyone’s guess. The most likely scenario is Curtis Jones leaves and Trey Nyoni is trusted to play 25-30 games next season. And that Dominik Szoboszlai is treated solely as a central midfielder playing in a two. Alexis Mac Allister stays (I reckon). As does Wataru Endo to cover midfield and defence. Not ideal, but it will do. And we won a title with the very same midfield.

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Which brings us back to the forward positions. Like Rust Cohle’s flat circle analogy, everything loops back around to who will be Andoni Iraola’s attacking options for 2026-27, sort of.

The Gutter mentioned Julian Alvarez on Wednesday because that’s what The Gutter does. It’s why he wins the awards. Gutter be guttering in that sense. It made a point Rob wasn’t trying to make, which is that almost everything is still possible and in-play. That the stillness of Liverpool waters can sometimes precede an almighty ripple.

The club seems to agree. When interest in Ibrahim Mbaye broke last week, there was an addendum added which claimed they are planning to have five wingers at the end of the window, with an additional young winger they would like to develop.

In lots of ways, they’ve set themselves up for a fall by providing a number, something they rarely do. We often ponder the sweet-spot they imagine while Richard Hughes adopts a Wizard of Oz-like figure from behind the curtain.

The big question there is what does Rio Ngumoha represent to them? Let’s say he was the young project still being developed, then they currently have two recognised wingers in Cody Gakpo and Victor Munoz. This would mean they’re planning to sign three established wingers before the end of the month.

The likelihood is they count Ngumoha as a first team player for the coming season, which gives them three. Still, that would leave them with two-to-three signings still to make in these positions alone.

If Liverpool added Bradley Barcola and Mbaye and briefed the young project was, say Keiran Morrison, I’m not sure how confident I’d be in that plan. For starters, Morrison is older than both Mbaye and Ngumoha.

Secondly, it would leave Liverpool with three wingers whose ages all end in teen, a big-hitter in Barcola, a streaky Gakpo and untested Munoz.

Mbaye could be the young project, but at around £40m and given some of the turmoil around his PSG career has stemmed from a self-imagined claim that he’s better than Ousmane Dembele, I’m not sure he’d be coming to Liverpool as sixth choice.

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To throw further confusion into the mix, Gakpo is continuing to be linked to Tottenham. Let’s ponder them selling him for a second. That would leave them with just two and a need for four (young player dependent).

Barcola and Mbaye were both left on the bench for PSG’s Super Cup win over Aston Villa on Thursday. It looks almost certain that at least one of those players end up at Anfield. Away from those two, the three other players mentioned on Liverpool’s shortlist are yet to move.

Said El Mala looks destined for Borussia Dortmund, leaving Matias Fernandez-Pardo from Lille and Yakuba Minteh of Brighton. Fernandez-Pardo is attracting interest from most of Europe and is believed to be gettable at around £60m. Minteh has a Premier League tax and would cost around £80m in the current market. Oh, and he’s also injured from a pre-season fixture with the prognosis unknown.

With interest in El Mala and Fernandez-Pardo hotting up, Liverpool might break out their signature hijack move if they feel the price has been set and they’re now forced into action. Ones to keep an eye on over the coming days.

Still with me? Confused? Given up? What’s ironic about this entire riddle is that Liverpool are the ones creating it. If the brief was they simply wanted two for each wing you could end up solving the puzzle pretty quickly.

What they haven’t said, of course, is what they plan to do at number nine. Alexander Isak will need rotating. We won’t need hindsight to offer wisdom after the fact. When the club decided to pay £125m for his services they knew exactly what they were getting. Mobile, dynamic and predatory in front of goal. But breakable and lacking durability. They also knew that Hugo Ekitike is unlikely to kick a ball until 2027.

Federico Chiesa has never been used in his proper position off the left for Liverpool and they won’t start now. There’s been an emerging trend over pre-season with Chiesa around how he presses. From the body language of the coaching staff and teammates, he isn’t doing what is asked. It’s notable that against Leeds and Monaco the first press all but disappeared when he was on the pitch.

We’re already seeing his minutes dissipate in friendlies, so what happens when Iraola’s side start playing two games a week as early as September and we need to rotate Isak out of the lineup for one of them. Worse, what happens when the Swede inevitably requires time on the sidelines?

The answer cannot be Chiesa. In the same way I’m not sure the answer for a Florian Wirtz alternative is Harvey Elliott, but I don’t have the time or will to tackle that situation alongside everything else already on fire.

So, the attack. Is it five wide players and two nines? Is it six and one? Is it six with two who can potentially play nine? What constitutes a young player? Help.

The only way any of this makes sense is through squad additions that provide quality and the requisite cover to negotiate the season. Something we absolutely don’t have right now.

Two and a half weeks of the month left. Maybe then we can focus on the football, Amazon owners, queueing to get in Anfield or whatever else emerges from the tumult of supporting Liverpool Football Club in 2026.

It will be a break from this madness.

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A special talent, and a boy in a man’s body from early teens. Rooney wasn’t held back, especially not by Alex Ferguson when he moved to Manchester United aged 18.

You couldn’t hold him back. He was too good, too insistent to be cautious with. The world demanded him and Euro 2004 was evidence that he could make any pitch his playground.

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There is a very cautionary tale with Rooney, of course, being he played his last Premier League game 179 days short of his 33rd birthday.

Rooney, like every player to quickly hit 100 league appearances, is his own unique case study. You can also look at Michael Owen or Joe Cole and think about how playing too much, too early curtailed them mid-career. Yet James Milner and Gareth Barry exist as embodiments of timeless durability.

Rio Ngumoha will carve out his own path. Right now that path looks destined for accolades and success. The 17-year-old added an England cap to his list of growing accomplishments last week, with a man-of-the-match award to boot.

This came in the midst of rumours about Bayern Munich sniffing. Already, Rio is a hotly debated subject among Liverpool supporters about how much he should be relied on next year. What is good and right for the player isn’t universally agreed on.

Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool appointment adds another element to discussions. As does what Liverpool does in the transfer market this summer. They need wingers, and we know they have already identified Yan Diomande of RB Leipzig as a main target.

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With everyone already talking about Rio’s game time in 2026-27, there’s a few things to note. The player is developing physically and mentally. That means mistakes will be made like the one at Old Trafford. Keeping the player away from the levels of scrutiny and responsibility someone like Raheem Sterling had at Liverpool too early on is a good thing.

In Sterling’s three seasons at Liverpool, only one was in a team which was used to winning and had other star quality around it. By the time we got to the middle of 2014-15, Sterling had become weather -beaten by having to be Liverpool’s best player whilst still in his early years.

Environment is key for promising young players. Liverpool were in massive decline in 2025-26. Supporters became desperate for any form of hope, often seeking it in the youngster. But the team was disjointed and meek. When Rio was volleyed into the air by Brighton’s Mats Weiffer in March after coming on as a late substitute, not a single player in Red leapt to his defence.

Rio needs to come into a team already thriving and backing itself and each other to fully blossom. If things would have continued under Slot, he would end up being the one everyone looked to sort things out despite not being old enough to buy alcohol.

That situation creates a mess on two parts: one being that Liverpool’s reputedly stringent wage structure would be undermined if Rio’s representatives suddenly demand wages in line with top earners. They want to manage the player’s worth by managing his trajectory.

Secondly, this somewhat shatters the illusion that the club are responsible bodies that nurtures top talent carefully with an expertly crafted pathway to first team football, a pitch which seemingly helped them land the player in the first place.

We ultimately still don’t know how good the player is going to be. He looks very special, but we’ve seen special talent derailed by the concept of too much, too soon.

It’s not just about career longevity. Liverpool have got so much riding on the next two years of Rio’s career. He could be brilliant under Iraola, but at this stage there should rightly be three to four attacking wide players ahead of him at a club of this magnitude.

That there isn’t nods to the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into over the past 12 months. It needs to be fixed, but Rio Ngumoha should not be the answer to Liverpool’s problems just yet.

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We’ve heard the musings of Chappers, Fletch and ‘Coisty. BBC pundits remain fenced when trying to have an opinion. TalkSport guests are told the fence doesn’t exist. Steve McManaman’s decibels have been creeping up whenever the subject is raised, which is never a good sign.

Football is just better without VAR, they say. Human error allows for a more organic, natural football experience, apparently. We just want to celebrate goals again, they plead.

There’s a big problem with this notion, being that the level of refereeing in this country at top level is diabolical.

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VAR isn’t a rogue technology that is killing excitement and rewriting the script in games. Rather, it’s bailing out officiating and being abused at times.

This weekend’s FA Cup ties have once again highlighted how desperate refereeing in this country has become.

We can argue about the purity of a marginal offside being given or not. Tammy Abraham was grateful his goal bonus was paid, while Rio Ngumoha was left lamenting the fact he couldn’t celebrate a fantastic finish in front of The Kop.

If that was the only debate on the table after this weekend, I’d entertain conversations about whether or not we need the governance of technology and its fun-Police reputation.

Enter Chris Kavanagh.

It is jaw-dropping when Lucas Digne handballs a full two yards inside the penalty area and he gives a free-kick outside the box. There are no lines to be drawn. There isn’t a whiff of debate about it. It is fucking lunacy. The type of moronic incompetence I wouldn’t stomach at Sunday league level. The only reason it isn’t being spoken about more is because Newcastle won.

I can forgive Kavanagh as much as anyone for the offside call or even the Digne tackle on Jacob Ramsay. I think he probably gets the Marco Bizot red card shout correct. But the penalty is such a clusterfucking disaster that I can’t take him seriously ever again.

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There are two things at play, here. The first being that refereeing in this country is probably at an all time low both in terms of quality and reputation. David Coote lent credence to the view that bias and prejudice exists when it comes to certain managers and teams.

This is where Howard Webb — instead of doing another PR piece with Michael Owen on a Monday — could encourage more support, dialogue and communication about how referees are officiating games. There could be much more of a humanistic tone to how we approach refereeing and what we’re doing about it’s entire trickle down effect on football at every level. Instead it’s closed shops and clean up operations.

The second thing — which Eddie Howe was absolutely spot-on about yesterday — is that refs are now using VAR as their insurance policy. They’ve become lazy. Instead of calling what they see with sharpened senses, they are refereeing in the context of using VAR at every opportunity and making decisions to suit retrospective action.

That’s not what VAR was implemented to do. It was supposed to be a silent and secondary method to a still very human and moments-based experience. The referee’s were supposed to be lost in the game, only getting an intervention when something was glaringly obvious or an offside is too tight to call.

Refs have now positioned themselves in the middle. They’ll give a yellow knowing they can upgrade to a red should Stockley Park say so. They’ll play on knowing the tech can help them with a replay. What has happened to calling what you see?

I need to be careful what I wish for, because if Kavanagh’s wretched Villa Park penalty gaffe is anything to go by, I don’t want these man having any agency at all. This is the juxtaposition we find ourselves in. The entire thing is an absolute mess.

Abolish it to allow for human error, sure. But have you seen the types of errors these lads are capable of? They can’t even get it right with the technology most of the time.

I’d honestly be in favour of automating the entire thing and using technology to make decisions based on its programming and understanding of the rules as they’re written. I know it’s Orwellian, but if I never have to sit through 90 minutes of Simon Hooper again then sign me up and ship me off to our ASI overlords.

Something has to give. I’d just like referees to do better before we even entertain anything else.

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And then Chelsea happens.

And then Manchester United, and then Brentford. You think you’ve turned a corner and then Man City.

Now this. Maybe the nadir, I’m still not sure. I’m sat on a train ready to leave Lime Street still wondering what’s just happened.

A cold burn from the rushed journey to make the train cocktailed with the fact Liverpool muster just one shot on target in the second half.

There will be plenty of questions about team selections, around right back and number nine.

The subs are a mess again. You can make an argument for three or four of them being unworthy of staying on the pitch for the duration. Those that came on were ineffective and even culpable.

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Arne Slot has the burden of decisions. When things are shit, those decisions become prosecution material. He’s paid handsomely enough to own them and know they’re judged solely in the context of the result.

The reality is Liverpool start well and should be 1-0 up at a minimum. Cody Gakpo decides to pass to Milos Kerkez for once (10 times, actually). Mo Salah gets loads of ball (88 touches) and is effective with it for half an hour.

By 30 minutes, Liverpool had double the amount of shots with six to three (Forest’s three were from outside the box and only one was on target). The game ends with an xG of 2.02 to 1.40 in Liverpool’s favour.

But they lose 0-3. You wonder if there’s a worse way to lose a game of football. There’s no statistic for mood. And the reality is that from the moment they concede first again, they are no longer waving but drowning.

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They look like they hate football. The sport has itself become a sworn enemy which does them no favours. The referee is inept but what’s new? The crowd and the game fragment horribly. Everyone is in stunned silence while Sean Dyche happens around them.

It’s hard to be stoic. In there, on here, wherever you are. They can’t be serenaded as champions because this isn’t how champions play.

If you turned off, walked out, sang YNWA or stood aghast in silence like I did you’re justified because there should never be a precedent for losing 3-0 at home to a Dyche side.

There’ll be lots of talk now about Slot, about players and about where all of this possibly leaves us.

They somehow need to find a way to get football back on their side. Their luck is horrible. They are the butt of jokes. Their Saturday night consists of going out on the 90 percent question. They’re the Ant and Dec meme and the caption is ‘now score from your first corner’.

I’m at Crewe and still not ready for verbal communication. One step at a time. Ask me again tomorrow.

I am talking about Jürgen Klopp. And in Steven Bartlett, I’m probably able to fulfil a Sopranos quote from the great Gerry Adler: ‘the man is driven, in toto, by his insecurities’.

Klopp and Bartlett were pitted together for the latest instalment of Diary of a CEO, the podcast described as being a series of interviews with influencers, entrepreneurs, business leaders, creators and thinkers delving into their journeys, struggles, mindset, values, failures and successes. It’s not a production aimed at me, a fella who’s nearly 40, doesn’t make money a priority, likes to sleep in and has no idea what his resting heart rate is.

My girlfriend once played an episode on a car journey, when 45 minutes of my life was spent listening to Bartlett and a sleep consultant talking about how eating cereal before bed was a life hack. Hardly going to get my on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index anytime soon.

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Yet here Klopp was, sitting for two-and-a-half hours with Bartlett. Why he did so has been the question on many lips. What was the desire, why now and what could he say that hasn’t already been said?

The most important thing to remember with Jürgen is that he loves getting paid. He literally talks about why money is so important to him in the podcast (he wanted to ensure he and his family wouldn’t have to worry financially). He has over 10 major brand sponsorships to his portfolio. However, it’s widely cited that no guest is paid to go on the podcast. It’s an exposure piece designed to boost your awareness and reputation.

Klopp doesn’t need that, so why else would he do it? Maybe because he thought Bartlett wouldn’t make it a biopic, momentary account of his career. Maybe he would pose more philosophical musings around how a football manager and high ranking finance CEO can face similar challenges. How dressing rooms can resemble any workplace across the world. And, to Klopp, what winning means beyond profit margins and hard numbers.

The problem is, Bartlett’s behaviour is fucking weird. No, like odd football-banter-kid vibes in how he speaks to Klopp. He speaks about football in a manner of relating to the other person not because they’re genuinely interested, but because it’s the brush they’ve tarnished that person with and believe it’s the only way they can communicate with them.

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His approach is to therefore tap into nostalgia and try to show relatability with this faux-banter approach. Bartlett is a Manchester United fan. You’ll know this because he mentions it FIVE times during the podcast. And this shoehorning negatively impacts the whole thing.

It gets out of control at times. Look at some of these segment titles:

Learning how to lose

Believing in yourself

Showing respect to everyone

Small ideas you implemented early

Great, good. All Ted Talk worthy topics you would want one of the best leaders in sport to talk about. Now let’s look at some others:

Why has Manchester been struggling?

Why didn’t you join Manchester United?

Why Manchester felt like a football project

It didn’t stop there. In different segments Klopp would talk about overcoming adversity and sometimes reference a game when Liverpool won to exemplify this, then Bartlett would mutter some tribal nonsense under his breath like ‘I fucking hated that game’. He’d then proceed to tell Klopp that he was a United fan for the 47th time.

He went off piste when talking about Liverpool’s summer transfer spending to state how he hoped it would be ‘our (Radamel) Falcao and (Angel) Di Maria’ equivalent. Just very odd.

It got slightly worse at times, particularly when calling Diogo Jota ‘Diego’ — something I was a little disappointed in Klopp with for not correcting him.

It takes Bartlett a full two hours to reference the premise of the podcast through his listener base, which he describes as often being ‘business people, leaders, CEO’s’, to then ask about Klopp’s core philosophy of leadership and management.

Jürgen Klopp: Diary of a CEO

The answer was insightful: build the best team possible whatever you’re doing. Learn about each other deeper than a workplace relationship — something Nick Clegg and his rejection of bringing your authentic self to work would baulk at — and create a culture where you would walk through fire for each other.

‘The respect you show is the respect you get’ line emanates Klopp’s decency when talking about the importance of all roles being of equal importance to building an entire organisation from the bottom up.

Interviewing Klopp will always be good value. He offers an outlook and insight which has always been inspirational. My only gripe was with Bartlett’s forced football fan persona. if that’s the piece you’re after, I know plenty of journalists and fan media personalities who’d have done it better over a coffee in Homebaked.

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A transfer ‘in the know’ (ITK) account handled @FootballAgent49 amassed over 40,000 followers all hungry for gossip and inside information into the movements of players across Europe.

People didn’t just follow, they argued, accused and eulogised about the information this account posted. Hours of people’s time invested into content posted by a supposed football agent.

The problem was that behind the account was a carefree, blagging 18-year-old lad who boasted to have been stringing all his followers along.

‘I’ve been fooling you gullible idiots with my fake stories for the past 2 months’, he revealed.

A noble ruse. The account holder, still unnamed, disappeared into the ether seemingly smug at having taught a lot of silly sausages a valuable lesson.

‘I’m not sorry for wasting everybody’s time’, he signed off with. Ouch.

In today’s hustle economy, he’d be forgiven for sticking around and selling the grift to a silent partner who can use such traffic and engagement for their own ends.

Rory Smith’s recent delve into the identity of the fabled Indykaila X account was a nod to something similar. The account is post-modernism of the transfer bait variety. Tattle mixed with a simple defence of the account owner being someone who works in a chicken shop whenever accused of inaccuracies.

The tone of Indy’s account has changed recently. He’s mixed the absurd with exclusive, corroborated scoops. There has been speculation that the account has moved hands. Whatever the case, engagement remains huge.

There’s an obvious thing to reference here, being that I’m talking solely about one platform, Twitter (now X). The Elon inferno of right-wing, pornographic, anger driven propaganda that extends to every facet of societal topic now broached on there.

Musk’s unwavering determination to own and control the news cycle is something he’s passed down to his users. For a minimal fee, you could be verified, thus pushing you to the top of the reply threads and ramming your opinion or agenda in front of every sucker who just wishes for a bit of good old balanced debate.

Gullible fools.

We’ve been mostly spared as Liverpool supporters because everything has been mostly good in the life of Kopites. Getting bantered about football is hard when you win the Premier League.

The odd faceless account appears dedicated to Liverpool, like @Lea_EFC or that angry Arsenal kid with the Saliba profile pic. But we’ve not felt the wrath of the newly digitalised LFC family, something which has grown digitally by around one billion from 2020.

The closest we got was from the #FSGOUT brigade, who once famously arranged a protest outside the stadium that nobody, themselves included, turned up to. They’ve been conspicuously quiet since this summer’s spending.

After Liverpool’s week of three losses, we’ve seen what a football revolt on that platform and others now looks like. And, as predicted, it’s wholly inauthentic.

By being here talking about it and engaging in such content I remain part of the problem. I shouldn’t be giving these agendas oxygen.

Yet here I am, feeling the need to say in a roundabout way that no, Arne Slot should not be sacked as Liverpool manager. No, he didn’t win a league with Jurgen Klopp’s team and no, Florian Wirtz isn’t shite.

In the aftermath of defeat to Chelsea, I took an overground from Stamford Bridge and checked my phone, teetering on the brink of responding to nonsense about the manager, the Federico Chiesa conspiracies and the general head loss I could see.

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Two things happened; firstly, I looked up and reminded myself of what reality was. Secondly, I looked at who I’d potentially be interacting with. Emoji-ridden profiles with images made to fit their handle. People with ‘LFC’ before a singular name and a picture which looks suspiciously off. Actual ‘Slot Out’ profiles that had probably been made that afternoon.

These accounts, I reminded myself, could be anything and anyone and are almost certainly not what they seem from appearance alone. I’m not donning a tinfoil hat, but there is a salient lesson in asking yourself what and who is on the other side of a profile.

There is so much evidence now around bot-farming, fake profiles and rage-bait engagement to know that if you have an agenda and the know how, platforms like X are breeding grounds for creating narratives.

We’re back to the young lad who was pretending to be an ITK. His greatest gift and lesson were to turn this entirely frivolous endeavour back on us. To remind us that we’re the idiots here.

In today’s engagement economy, this isn’t just reserved for X. The credentials and intentions of content creators have been seriously scrutinised. What appears to be a middle-aged, scowling and hapless Manchester United fan stepping on rake after rake for our amusement is more scripted and sculptured than anyone realised.

It doesn’t matter. What Mark Goldbridge, Anfield Agenda and the various watch along channels out there are serving is exactly what we desire. It’s chameleon-like based on mood. They piggy-back on the adrenaline fuelled affirmation of victory then tap into the sense of self-loathing losing brings. They can switch it on and off like a light. They know what haters want to see and vinegarise the wound some more. No nuance, no balance, just pure affirmation injected straight into your most activated vein.

Football has never been the most reasoned environment for social barometers. It’s a breeding ground for tribalist instinct. That means, more often than not, we actually go looking for these people and narratives.

But if there’s perhaps one future question to ask yourself, it’s just who the fuck are you actually arguing, agreeing or engaging with on these platforms?

If you care enough to listen to that voice, know that outside it’s still mostly quiet and calm. We should spend more time here.

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Its appropriateness has been debated incessantly, so much so that in 2018, fan website ‘The Liverpool Way’ ran a poll asking its readers if it belonged.

The results were 36.84 percent said ‘yes - Liverpool is in Britain’, and 63.16 said ‘no - we are Scouse not British’.

There is, of course, a considerable amount of Celtic and Rangers and therefore catholic and protestant and there again republican and unionist discourse which impacts this discussion, but the majority agreed it represents something Liverpool isn’t.

Nationalist and proud.

Extend this to Liverpool’s visits to Wembley (there’s no reference point for Everton this side of 2012), when the English national anthem is drowned out with booing from the Liverpool end. This happened as recently as August’s community shield loss to Crystal Palace.

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I was in Liverpool last week to see family and witnessed a significant amount of George Cross and Union Jack flags tied to lamp posts, in house windows and painted on roundabouts across the city. It left me speechless.

They weren’t everywhere, and that’s not the point. This place, I’ve always been told, stood against a sense of nationalism which let it down at key moments, which abandons it time and again. Which mocks its hardships at every available opportunity.

Growing up in a post-Thatcher Liverpool meant you were fed on piecemeal of ‘pumping water up hill’ and ‘managed decline’. Then there was Hillsborough, the grave injustice it brought and the anger at government, at the establishment. The death of Liverpudlians being blamed on Liverpool.

Like many families in the city, I’m a descendent of a Northern Irish grandmother who came to Liverpool at 18 after marrying my grandfather, a soldier posted in Ireland. Many of these families remained immersed in either their republican and unionist roots and views. This was passed down to younger generations and added to Liverpool’s tinge of anti nationalism. My nan, like many others, was initially viewed as an immigrant and often treated with outsider status. Eventually, she settled here and made a family of her own.

The influence of Irish culture became part of Liverpool’s community. The Orange march remains a weekly procession along Netherfield Road in the city every Sunday, as an example.

To go further back, Liverpool’s picturesque streets and waterfront still tingle with nostalgia harping back to the days of its thriving port trade. The excitement of its ability to be at the forefront of external cultural influence and to scoff at the sovereign ignorance of entitled Englishness.

I was born in the mid 1980s. I’ve seen a deprived city become a thriving tourist hotspot which beams with pride at the ability to show itself off with a revamped waterfront, shopping and night time economy scene.

But deprivation remains in urban areas. And where deprivation and poverty are present, an ability to infiltrate with blame culture will be seen as an opportunity.

As content creator Billy Moore has shown with his All or Nothing YouTube page, Liverpool and many other parts of England is still rife with inequality, addiction and crime.

But that’s not new. A report in The Financial Times in May showed that ‘people living in the 20 per cent most deprived areas in England are almost twice as likely to be admitted to hospital due to infectious diseases than the least deprived.’

It went on to state that ‘those living in the North West are 30 per cent more likely to be hospitalised for an infectious disease compared with the English average.’

Liverpool’s urban deprived communities are the same as Leigh, St. Helens, Blackpool. A majority white, working class English city and town with majority white, working class issues. It has been forever thus. I’ve worked in these places and seen it first hand.

Local politics certainly hasn’t helped. Perceptions of Liverpool as an uber left-wing haven mainly stem from the uprising of Derek Hatton and Militant in the 1980s. The reality is Liverpool has been crippled by local corruption and gerrymandering at council level for the past two decades. I can’t be arsed going into Joe Anderson and Operation Aloft — look it up.

But the narrative went that Liverpool was wholly socialist, entirely devoid of any sense of national pride and always looked outwards, welcoming in.

As for its makeup, the last recorded consensus in 2021 had around 72,000 foreign‑born residents living in the city — which is roughly 15 percent of Liverpool’s population. It’s worth noting a significant amount of these will be overseas students, a massive economic driver for the city.

Some Scouse generalisations have never fully added up. Thatcher, in certain parts of Liverpool, was liked by those who seen her as an enabler to finally getting on the property ladder. There’s also a very small percentage of Liverpool’s elderly population who still view the Conservatives as the party which is ‘sensible with money’.

A sample size of this is Liverpool’s West Derby constituency. Seen as a more affluent area of the city, it polled around 35.28 percent during Thatcher’s first term in 1979, falling to 27.51 in 1983 and finally 19.18 in 1987. Many would still struggle believe that a Liverpool ward could be over a quarter Tory in a post-war era.

In the last general election when Labour romped to a landslide, Reform UK polled around 14.2 percent of the vote in Merseyside, higher than the Conservatives, but failed to win any seats.

The overwhelming view is that if there was a general election tomorrow, Reform would be forming a government with an anti-immigration heavy mandate.

What’s happened over the past six months in this country has largely been whipped up by online propagandists — leaving many in a frenzy of immigration fuelled hostility. But where does this leave Liverpool?

The show of nationalist pride in Liverpool arguably puts the final nail in the ‘Scouse not English’ coffin. Where it gets really complex is trying to untangle exactly what it was in the first place.

It’s vitally important to say it doesn’t apply to everyone. Nadine Dorries was born on Merseyside, need I say more?

I would always pin the concept of individualism to Liverpool’s ability to knit community and fight adversity. We’ve seen this become innovating and inspiring over the years, be that reactive ventures such as Fans Supporting Foodbanks to arts and culture based flagships such as the Africa O’Ye festival in Sefton Park. Binding fairness with the idea of people coming together to improve things has been the city’s greatest trait for many years.

This doesn’t make it exceptionalist. What has is its need to constantly explain itself for demanding fairness, equality and justice. What ‘Scouse not English’ actually represented was a big ‘fuck off’ to those who made it go alone.

But as we’re seeing, there’s more than one ideology present in Liverpool — just like the rest of the country. Whatever your nationalist stance, the reality remains that most of the outspoken profiles flag bearing will often have accompanying bios that boast of there anti-vax, anti-woke, anti-net zero and/or anti-trans status.

Not everyone is an agitator. Reform are hoovering up people who feel vulnerable and scared about the NHS and there prospects of receiving adequate healthcare, housing or job opportunities. They are swaying those rightly underwhelmed by Labour under Keir Starmer and the shit-show of the Tories before them. People of all different age groups with varying degrees of income and political drivers.

Reform will happily tell you who’s to blame, but what happens when anger requires actual solutions and governance? What happens when Nigel Farage cosplays America again and looks for another scapegoat when nobody’s lives have improved, just like with Brexit?

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What does this mean for Liverpool’s identity? It will always have its flaws regardless of this issue. Therefore, part of what it stands for must remain rooted in unity during great hardship. But that shouldn’t only apply to certain ethnicities, backgrounds and skin colour.

Will the rise of Reform’s boogeyman politics mean the end for Liverpool republicanism? It was always more of a concept. But I fear many people in the city and beyond have come to believe its woes lie at the door of a group of people who represent just one eighth of its population and are mostly well meaning and contributing.

They might just be flags, but in Liverpool they should be held up against all of the contradicting ideologies I’ve outlined above.

Now they’re suddenly a source of pride. Yet by previous Liverpudlian standards they are the very symbol of representation for what the city isn’t.

Following someone as pivotal and brilliant as Sadio Mané would always be difficult. Liverpool were on the back of such a physically and emotionally draining season.

They came as close as any time had to winning a quadruple. What happened in Paris was still a live thing for everyone.

From the moment Núñez had used two head motions – one to nudge the winner in the Community Shield and the other to plunge into the chest of Joachim Anderson – the sense that Liverpool had ventured into territory a little less known was evident.

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This was the protracted summer of Mohamed Salah’s contract extension. Julian Ward had stepped up as Sporting Director following Michael Edwards’ departure. Jurgen Klopp had signed a contract extension and was allegedly gaining more influence over matters off the pitch.

It was in the Núñez transfer that you felt a shift from convention had taken place. The player was, according to whispers, someone coveted by Pep Lijnders and Klopp more than the scouting and data departments.

But Núñez’ performance across both Champions League ties with Benfica the season before had everyone excited. Manchester United had moved, but Liverpool stepped in and didn’t hesitate. Yet this certainty never materialised into a consistent sense that Núñez was Liverpool’s answer at number nine, or on the left for that matter.

Ultimately, it will go down as one of the oddest Liverpool careers ever. Supporters felt both the underlying talent and the price tag could be realised with their help and encouragement.

Núñez was always much more than his ‘captain chaos’ label. The chaos people often referred to was brilliance. He was never sent off again after the Anderson red card. If anything, he wasn’t chaotic enough.

You never felt like you seen the real him. For someone who looked so fast, you barely seen him sprint. For a player with an eye for goal he missed some glaring opportunities. For someone Mohamed Salah loved playing with, he never really believed in himself the same way.

The inquest into his Liverpool career will start now. There’ll be talk of application and concentration. Discussion about whether he was ever used correctly and if a wider left position would have suited him more.

Ultimately, none of this matters because the reality is much more than 40 goals and 23 assists in 143 appearances. It’s Newcastle away and scoring twice the day you beat United 7-0. It’s Brentford and Nottingham Forest on the way to the Premier League title.

And now, the abyss of Saudi Arabia. In many ways it’s fitting. The odyssey of the player will now disappear into the ether of football’s linear voyage. A weird cocktail that lingers on the pallet.

I’d much rather he moved to Atletico Madrid or Borussia Dortmund and found an environment to coax out his inherent goodness.

I wish him all the best.

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Nostalgia for the good times don’t always manifest in a run of sold out shows and Adidas collabs. They can be more melancholic, often when the present seems much bleeker.

What happens when a legend dies while still in place? When you crave a previous version of something once so exciting and impenetrable. See New Labour, Kanye West and maybe Pep Guardiola?

A living dynasty everyone is treating as forgotten. Guardiola is one of the most successful managers in English football history and will go down as a figure likely to mimic Bob Paisley and Alex Ferguson at Manchester City.

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Guardiola has won 18 major honours in eight seasons at City. Six of those have been Premier League titles. They were so dominant that only a mammoth effort from Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool came close to penetrating them. As of last summer, pundits and commentators overwhelmingly tipped Guardiola to wipe the board clean in May once again.

He and City bombed. The loss of Rodri was perhaps more impactful than anyone realised. Phil Foden and Jack Grealish lost their footballing soul. Ruben Dias got exposed for the criminally overrated defender he is. Erling Haaland suddenly looked starved of service.

By December, City were all but out of the title race. They tried to offset some of the damage by bringing in the likes of Omar Marmoush from Eintracht Frankfurt for an inflated fee with some success. Ultimately, the season was a write off culminating in a humiliating FA Cup final defeat to Crystal Palace in May.

Guardiola remains at the helm. City have continued to rebuild through players like Rayan Cherki, Rayan Aït-Nouri and Tijjani Reijnders. They still clearly have a wealth of resources and Rodri is back.

Yet general conversation seems to centre on a new era of potential Liverpool dominance, pondering whether Arsenal can go one better and whispers of an outside push from Chelsea following success at the Club World Cup.

From recently living in a time when every question centred on how you beat Guardiola’s chess master grip on English football, he and City have suddenly become an afterthought.

Is this valid? We know that Guardiola won the league convincingly twice after failing to attain the Premier League title in 2016-17 and 2019-20. He was fairly dominant in Spain and Bundesliga, only losing one La Liga in 2011-12 — the season he stepped down as Barcelona boss. His losses of German Super Cups and Copa Del Ray finals were offset by league and European success.

So why this feeling of uncertainty and dismissal in certain quarters? Maybe the inertia we all encounter from today’s rapid news cycle means you’re only valid while you’re winning and therefore fresh in people’s memories. The lack of a real statement signing like Florian Wirtz may have fuelled underwhelm. There also remains the outstanding verdict on City’s 115 Premier League charges that surely needs resolving soon.

There is precedent for Guardiola’s current situation. Ferguson was often overshadowed by the emerging challenges of continental coaches like Arsène Wenger, Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez. He would have to reinvent himself and his Manchester United sides constantly to reinstate himself as top dog.

Mourinho and Wenger are interesting comparisons in this conversation. Wenger was a prime example of someone who stayed too long, resulting in the streets actually forgetting. This is valid for Guardiola too, who at times seems to fantasise about recharging away from football the same way Klopp did at Liverpool.

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Mourinho never lost that energy but rather turned it inwards. His personality became defined by his own sense of self. The ability to inspire others and remain charismatic dissolved. Him looking dishevelled no longer felt sexy and edgy. He simply looked unhinged and uninspiring. He became a journeyman.

There are traits of Guardiola in these examples. Yet he deserves more airtime than he’s currently getting and it’s very strange that he no longer seems the barometer of success.

Whether that motivates him to be strutting around Manchester in the summer of 2026 with shiny big trophies and a fat cigar in his mouth remains to be seen. Now questioning such desire may solve this entire riddle. The pondering as to whether he has it in him once more is arguably the most damning argument of all.

But Pep Guardiola is a serial winner, and he’s not gone yet.

I’ve really struggled to write since penning something on 3 July, the day of Andre Silva and Diogo Jota’s death. If I’m honest it feels too soon, too open and too crass to get excited about things like transfers.

The football has actually helped. Watching Liverpool play against Preston was weirdly comforting. It might be the only real sense of grounding we have throughout this whole process.

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It was weird seeing them in last season’s Nike kit. It felt like I was holding on to some other world. Pre-season gives a whiff of new beginnings regardless of how you felt in May. It has shiny new toys in shiny new clobber, like Christmas Day on your estate, same surroundings but brand new feel.

None more so, this should have been the case with Liverpool. Having switched from Nike to Adidas — the ‘worst kept secret in football’ as the German giants branded the announcement — the tan lines and afterglows should have been adorned in fresh three stripes.

Yet Liverpool persist, until August 1st, in last season’s threads with printed initials peeling off, Conor Bradley’s training top shrunk and new signings running around in numbers in the 50’s.

It couldn’t really be helped. When Nike’s sponsorship of Liverpool was agreed, it was delayed in line with the break in football, which meant Liverpool had to fulfil the 2019-20 season with New Balance late into July.

Nike entered amid a wave of excitement and a degree of controversy. They had become part of a three-way court battle with Liverpool and New Balance over legalities concerned with obtaining the deal.

New Balance had a clause in their contract with Liverpool which stated that if another brand bid for sponsorship rights at the time of renewal, they had the option to match that deal and therefore remain as sponsor.

Nike’s offer actually came in around £5m lower than the Boston brand. However, Nike’s argument was that New Balance couldn’t offer what they could, being 20 percent royalties on the sale of LFC Nike merchandise globally, as well as brand representation from the likes of LeBron James, Drake and Serena Williams. Nike used its wider and more heavyweight retail power to secure Liverpool, often referred to as ‘doors’ during the case.

The court sided with Nike and Liverpool, and they were free to embark on a fruitful relationship, or that’s what we hoped.

It’s important to remember two things, here. One is that Liverpool’s commercial revenue has grown exponentially (and that’s factoring in the pandemic). In 2020 it was reported to be at £217m. The last accounts for 2023-24 had commercial revenue at £308m. To that end, it could be argued Nike have done their job.

The second part, and the argument I’ll make to why they haven’t done their job, was that they entered Liverpool at arguably the most promising time in the club’s recent history.

Jürgen Klopp had just secured the first Premier League title in 30 years. A season before Liverpool were European Champions. They had a squad and manager supporters adored and they had Anfield. It was complete unison

Klopp’s ability to unite players and supporters brought a sense of global community. Liverpool has become a bucket list destination for supporters around the world. Supporters groups have formed and strengthened, thirsty for Scouse culture through the music of Jamie Webster and fan media representation to help them feel Liverpool.

There’s snippets of this in Nike’s first kit release video. It is largely filmed at locations like Homebaked and the locally named dog shit alley — which connects the stadium to the King Harry pub — on a gritty, rainy Liverpool day. It stars the likes of Webster, Vicky Jepson and several Liverpool players, as well as an appearance from a Scouse Nan in rollers (Liverpool royalty). This built the narrative of a Republic of Liverpool, with phrases like ‘a place where miracles come for their big night out’ inserted along the way.

You know what, I liked it. There was obvious things they could’ve done better and I have my own opinions on Scouse independence which are for another day, but generally my feelings were that it was a good start.

And then, well, nothing that made any sense, really.

Let’s see, there was some infrared and strobe lighting effects used in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 kit releases. Although it was significantly watered down, there was some reference to the city with local artists like Kieo providing voice overs.

Then it disintegrates into madness, with a 1970s angle to the 2023-24 kit launch and players in flared trousers, messing about with seven inch vinyls. I barely looked at last year’s but I seem to remember seeing Virgil van Dijk and Harvey Elliott on vespers and decided that was enough for me.

No consistency, no solid messaging, nothing. Nike seemingly just decided to phone it in after initially launching. Despite having one of the most picturesque cities in the world with unique cultural identity accompanying a team and fanbase united, they instead created some half-arsed nonsense which nobody cared about.

Maybe this was to do with a change in CEO around 2020, when Marc Parker stepped down after 14 years. Priorities could have changed with incoming CEO John Donahoe, this happens. You could even forgive Nike for feeling like they’d conquered football following such dominance since the Total 90 era.

So, what could they have different? Well, a fuck-ton, frankly.

For example, Liverpool is literally the city of Nike 110’s, so why not delve into that aspect of Scouse subculture? Not because you want that brand of kit, but because it resonates with young people which in turn adds authenticity, rawness and youth to messaging. Liverpool is raw and can be rough and tough, yet has a way of remaining honest, something Nike never did.

Ultimately, this is one of the strongest vehicles of storytelling any club has. Nike failed to do the city of Liverpool justice in that sense, and people around the world weren’t made to feel part of what the club is.

I’m intrigued to see what Adidas do with Liverpool. You get a sense they’ve learnt lessons. Their past reliance on casual culture undoubtedly brought complacency.

But new energy is present. They have the golden ticket. The Premier League champions. The story hunters. This place.

Get it right and the benefits go way beyond revenues.

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Rarely we see they’re fallible, flawed and destructible.

They get lauded, labelled and often abused. They get injuries which would be life altering to you or me. But we expect them to rise above all these elements.

We bestow responsibility way beyond our own years. When we win, we want them forever, in this space, exactly like this.

The deaths of Diogo Jota and André Silva are unfathomable in so many ways. It’s devastating. I remain shaken as everyone imaginably is. I can’t type these words with any kind of logic attached.

Footballers take us on journeys. They can be viewed as commodities but also family. They are dispensable but precious to our own sense of memory. Of our youth and sense of living.

Players age and retire and morph into new identities the way we all do. The lens dims but they remain here, representative of a time and place. An embodiment of nostalgia. If you’re lucky, you reminisce on the best possible time together.

Jota will remain eternally 28-years-old in this hazy summer as a Premier League champion and Nations League winner who would enjoy more fruitful Liverpool years.

It’s so upsetting to imagine time moving on and Diogo not. It’s a gut-punch of inexplicable reality.

His legacy is of a prime footballer adorned in Liverpool and Portugal red, but his life simply should have expanded long beyond when his time in football was over.

Most importantly, football collectively looks out at loved ones. The thought of how their parents, his wife Rute and his three children are facing this tragedy is all anyone can rightly contemplate right now. They have the support of the entire football world.

There’s one quality of Jota that always stood out, being how he carried the shirt so well. He was a left field signing which, at the time, almost felt under reported due to the Thiago Alcantara transfer that had everyone’s attention.

But Jota walked through the door from Wolves, into the champions, every inch a Liverpool player. He didn’t blink in front of goal and took his game up levels nobody imagined. He knew what Liverpool required and embodied what it means to play for this club.

He was a fighter, a trait Scousers adore.

And now he remains perpetual in this identity. A Liverpool player entering his peak years. Our number 20 who delivered number 20.

Outside the footballing lens, Diogo will always be a dad, son, husband and brother who lives on through those who made him and who he made.

Sometimes it’s hard to make the distinction between player and person. In this horrendous instance, it’s very easy.

Time should have moved with these two young men with so much still to give.

There is no explanation, just sheer pain and sadness.

Diogo Jota: 1996-2025

André Silva: 2000-2005

A hedonistic summer of transfers is something we’re not accustomed to. In recent years there has been such little appetite that many broadcasters simply didn’t bother sending anyone to The AXA on deadline day.

Yet by mid-June we’re awaiting a third significant first team addition. The second, Florian Wirtz, was announced on Friday at 7pm GMT for a fee of £100m, potentially rising to £116m.

I don’t subscribe to the notion that this isn’t what Liverpool do. They have coveted the biggest names across Europe for the past decade in line with moving higher up the transfer food chain.

Sometimes the player wants something else. Sometimes it doesn’t work for both parties. Sometimes the club’s priorities change.

Wirtz was a sweet spot moment for everyone. Possibly the best club in Europe to negotiate with in Bayer Leverkusen, coupled with a patient player only wanting Liverpool was the perfect weather to strike the right deal.

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The anticipation was palpable, and yet the announcement fell relatively flat.

It’s important to reiterate there’s loads Liverpool are getting right. That usually extends to their video, production and social media output. People like Mark Volante and Phil Reade have captured the cultural essence of the city and offered a virtual experience of feeling Liverpool to millions around the world.

And yet the Wirtz announcement had non of that. It was dry, repeatable content which now feels almost templated. It goes something like this:

• Nationality flag draped on a chair or bench and enticing caption

• Player in the shirt — announced

• Snipped of first interview

• Player doing some keep-ups

• Photo of them signing a contract, pen in hand

Rinse and repeat.

There’s a ton of intriguing addendum’s to add here. Firstly, Liverpool have a habit of making these announcements on a Thursday or Friday. This is clearly intentional, but is it working?

We know that content engagement is highest on matchday. But the transfer activity supporter is a blood thirsty insomniac, so why not therefore engineer this more to when people are at their desks or doom scrolling on a Tuesday night at home?

Then there’s the whole Nike/Adidas angle. Could Liverpool be playing down the marketing push on these deals because of the impending switch? Jeremie Frimpong and Wirtz have been paraded in a jersey Liverpool won’t play in next season, by a designer Liverpool won’t have.

Wirtz, an Adidas athlete, hasn’t yet had his squad number released. Whether this is part of a further media drive when Adidas are announced remains to be seen. I doubt they can hold off until the August 1 changeover with three friendlies scheduled in July and many hoping to get a glimpse of the German in at least one of them.

Who knows, maybe they’ll play the friendlies in a good old fashioned one to eleven shirt allocation.

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The question is, who in football is actually getting this right? Well, nobody really.

There’s now a whole manner of directions player announcements are going. From Saudi’s weird animation/AI generated videos, to Burnley’s really randomised links to TV and film culture.

There was the weird-ass Harry Kane goes the cinema to watch Oppenheimer in a tuxedo as Bayern Munich’s announcement.

It’s notable that some of the biggest recent announcements, such as Lionel Messi to Inter Miami or Jude Bellingham to Real Madrid, had the look of Adidas ads first and club announcement second. In general, nothing is really hitting. I wouldn’t want Liverpool to do any of these.

None of this is my domain. But if you wanted to ponder what Liverpool could tap into — a bustling waterfront, the pyro infused title celebrations, the Premier League trophy or general Scouse culture — there’s certainly options to explore different themes which player announcements could tap into and hit home, just as the club’s other content does.

The excitement about Florian Wirtz to Liverpool won’t be tamed, but could have been heightened by doing something different.

Picture it, you’ve just won the Premier League with Liverpool in your first season through some tactical manoeuvring around your work schedule.

After the season has finished, you hijack the managerial positions of Real Madrid to give yourself £10m for a player leaving for a free in a month, and Bayer Leverkusen to sell their right back and the most attacking midfielder in Europe to you on the drip.

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As you’re enjoying a well earned end of season break and your news feed informs you Pep Lijnders has joined Manchester City as assistant coach. You LOL at the algorithm and go back to sending some work emails.

Jurgen Klopp’s former assistant, who claimed he would only ever assist the German, has taken up an offer to work with Pep Guardiola at City after another hugely deflating foray into management with Red Bull Salzburg last season, which ended when he was sacked on 16 December 2024.

Lijnders shouldn’t be questioned for taking up the opportunity to work with someone like Guardiola. Mind you, they would be an awful pint together. The worst dinner party company imaginable. Like two of your mates who have gone through a breakup at the same time and need to vent with each other in your company.

You wonder whether this is it for Lijnders the manager. He would follow other figures like Brian Kidd, Mike Phelan and Sammy Lee if so. God help us the day Jason Tindall decides to have a crack.

Lijnders was always going to be hands on as a manager. His excitement as a coach coupled with the level of information and coaching drills, tactical expertise and training ground etiquette in is head was always going to be hard to step back from.

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The problem with being the main guy is needing to be in front of the laptop, delegating, having meetings and increasingly being the villain. You can be loved by players but you’ll also be hated. The decision making is yours and therefore so is the fallout.

Another big question is how he will improve City. Lijnders prides himself on two main ideologies: intensity and counter pressing. He adores sides who work to win the ball back quickly, close spaces and create the platform for attackers.

But let’s be clear, this guy wants intensity in EVERYTHING. He wants it on the ball, off the ball, eating your breakfast. He wants you to sleep with intensity.

You can certainly argue City lacked counter-pressing proficiency after the loss of Rodri last season. Turnovers led to chaos. Their out of possession shape became horribly mangled. Lijnders manages the pitch in blocks and, at his best, can certainly help this.

In terms of personnel, Erling Haaland is many things, but Bobby Firmino he isn’t. Also, City under Pep are not known for their intensity in attack. Once they pin you, they move you around the ring like prime Ray Leonard. Tapping you with jabs, tiring you out, waiting for an opportunity. They’re a python around the neck.

The weird thing about City last season is that their numbers were actually quite strong. Their xG per shot conceded was horrendous, meaning they were giving up high value chances. This was also a weak point of Klopp’s Liverpool, offset by the super human exploits Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk at times.

Lijnders’ Champions League campaign with Salzburg made you hide behind the sofa. They were conceding 1.72 expected goals per game and 3.50 clear shots. They were also picked off by counter attacking shots (1.33 per 90). The problem is they weren’t creating chances either.

So much of what Lijnders and Klopp built at Liverpool does mirror City. The metronome presence of Rodri and Fabinho. The wide triangles. The extra man created by an inverted full-back or roaming number eight.

It can definitely work, but doesn’t feel like the most natural fit on first glance. Whatever the fate, you feel any momentum behind the idea of Lijnders the manager has dissipated.

In every sense, he’s back in his natural habitat.

Monday was a terrifying reminder of how events like LFC’s trophy parade rely on kindness, and at times patience and goodwill.

The event had passed without any real incident. It was joyous celebration in the rain. It was defiant. Our own Red Rocks moment.

And then trauma beyond imagination.

A community rallied. People took in wet and cold strangers. Lifts were offered by car to people unable to access public transport.

The sense of unease hasn’t been displaced. I only left The Strand via an adjoining street by chance. Despite becoming aware of an incident on Dale Street, I had no idea of its severity.

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The days after have been blighted by questions. Waiting for the facts remains more important than ever.

As usual, the actors of worst faith push themselves to the front of the queue desperate to plant further misinformation or, in Nigel Farage’s case, claim some form of vindication.

Farage has this hypnotic spell that makes his ineptitude almost more alluring to the national media. I found myself listening to a quote from him on national radio yesterday, wondering how he remains so prevalent in our information sphere after Brexit.

As usual, any genuine empathy or concern for people was brushed aside to emphasise his welcoming of naming the suspect’s characteristics – something seen as fundamental to causing riots in the aftermath of the Southport murders a year ago.

In not releasing these details last year, misinformation was allowed to spread by people like Farage, who wondered ‘whether the truth was being withheld from us’ in relation to offender Axel Rudakubana being known to security services.

A classic twirling of the hair line which is so Matt Le Tissier in its ‘makes you think’ suggestiveness.

Farage clearly believes he created such a shift here by competent politicking before. Yet it’s his ability to become a face and voice of UK far-right prejudice while emitting the persona of a fox-hunting aristocrat that is truly at play.

Reform could win a general election based on some current polling. They are having success in byelections. Labour is panicking and inexplicably cosplaying them in places.

Farage done nothing to calm the situation prior to last year’s riots. If anything, he fuelled them and has continued down this route of championing hate because that’s all he has.

In the clip I heard, he’s at pains to point out it’s the same Police force (Merseyside) as Southport and therefore he’s ‘glad lessons have clearly been learnt’.

Yet Merseyside Police were not acting based on some form of civil duty to Farage, rather in the knowledge that he will fill any void with conspiratorial aggression.

This wasn’t Reform playing shadow politics or acting on behalf of people. They are only here to reinforce their own agenda, which leads us to the key reason Reform will fail should they ever form a government, being they will happily tell you who is to blame, but have zero solutions.

The second thing to make clear is that Farage deserves no explanation or sense of being proved right from the city of Liverpool or Merseyside Police.

He represents everything I know my city isn’t. If that is changing then I’m lost as to how it became so brainwashed by such pernicious actors.

Liverpool has fought oppressors on all sides, often simultaneously with Thatcherism and Militant. It stood by values of working together for something better.

All our best traits were displayed once again on Monday evening.

That’s the Liverpool I know. Nigel Farage and his views should never be welcome here.

Direct rivals, maybe not. Perhaps we’re talking more about the types of rivals who orbit each other in occasional synthesis.

Both have the same love interests. Both compete for one major honour. Both are hugely successful and decorated. Both are rarely ever in the same room together.

Where similarities exist, so must differences. Where Liverpool still try to emit a sense of savvy operators within the outlined rules, their Spanish counterparts would rather lean on propaganda and power to get whatever way they so desire that week.

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These moral arguments have been made as part of the Trent Alexander-Arnold debate, but as the universe directs these two powerhouses towards each other once again, the conversation widens to Dean Huijsen, Ibrahima Konate or Rodrygo.

Madrid lurk like the boogeyman of every important contract which enters under 18 months. They’re constantly there as a reminder to the horrors of rejection and ineptitude if inaction lingers.

The historic tag of ‘Galacticos’ looks to have morphed over a period of time to a younger, more market-value player who can maintain their stock or spend over a decade at the Bernabeu. They have always had an eye on free transfers. That remains part of the modus operandi.

In all the Alexander-Arnold fallout, nobody is asking the question of why Madrid? It’s just assumed this is the halcyon of sporting ambition and achievement.

Yet conversations about how obsolete domestic competitions are compared to England’s Premier League have been commonplace for a while now.

The fact Manchester United and Tottenham are competing in the Europa League final is a blemish across the entirety of European football.

Madrid themselves have referenced struggle when competing against the Premier League. In December, chief executive José Ángel Sánchez took part in a Harvard Business School case study – seen by the Guardian – in which he once again called for the restructure of the Champions League and lamented a 'growing sense of unfair competition'.

What Sánchez was encouraging was more conversation around the concept of a Super League (remember that?) and for clubs to seize control over their own media rights, thus making UEFA redundant.

Sánchez stated, ‘We feel like Asterix’s village in a world dominated by the Romans,’ perhaps in reference to UEFA or Premier League.

Barcelona’s success this season, at Real’s expense, actually helps them in this conversation of being marooned as a super club outside of England.

Alongside both Spanish clubs, only Bayern Munich, Paris Saint Germain and Inter Milan can currently ponder identity in such a way. They are of the quality to compete at elite level but exist in a mostly subpar environment week-to-week.

This argument ironically centres back around to Premier League quality this season. One we’ve heard a lot as Liverpool fans.

Chelsea and Aston Villa (63) currently occupy fifth and sixth place in England. In La Liga, Villarreal and Real Betis sit in the same spots (64/58). Germany has Borussia Dortmund and Mainz (54/51), Serie A has Lazio and AS Roma (54/53) and in Ligue 1 it’s Lille and Strasbourg on 57 points each.

Both Chelsea and Villa squads are far superior in terms of quality, depth and value and are far more competitive. This is ultimately what Sánchez is arguing against. However, this point never really gets aired whenever discussions about the lure of Madrid surfaces.

It seems that a clicking of fingers and trance-like spell can hex most players into wanting to join the club. From a football standpoint, that is understandable given their continued success in the European Cup. But it’s increasingly clear they can’t offer the best domestic league competition, they are also saying as much.

A lot has been made about Trent seeing himself as a ‘brand’ as a reason to want to move to the Spanish capital. Whether the likes of Endrick’s Red Bull sponsorship or Jude Bellingham being the face of the reinvented Predator boot is a huge sway to other players is unknown.

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As Sánchez rightly puts it, ‘They [the governing bodies] are not able or not willing to guarantee an honest competition between clubs.’ Madrid’s intentions might once again be sinister, but they’re actually outlining to Alexander-Arnold, Huijsen and anyone else that they cannot compete with England’s competitiveness and quality.

The Premier League, for all its faults, remains the place to be for elite footballers across the world.

It had all the razzamatazz of Friday night RAW or Smackdown. There was the Vince McMahon ownership figure entering the ring with a phone and set of earphones like some kind of prop, seemingly asking Nuno Espírito Santo for a spare charger.

This was followed by Anfield’s pantomime. The one time hero turned villain who choke-slammed an entire fanbase with a soppy two minute leaving montage which left everyone tapping out, begging for the mercy of it to stop. Super Sunday should have had you reaching for the foam finger, popcorn and beer, strapped in for a raging spectacle of male testosterone.

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At least Manchester United and Tottenham done the decent thing and decided to be shite to restore some sense of parity.

Of all the Trent Alexander-Arnold fallout, nobody is yet to really delve into the performance of his likely successor, Conor Bradley. It was another interesting afternoon for the Northern Irish fullback, who is clearly still lacking in match sharpness at this level.

Liverpool, in more of a mid-block, decided to cede territory and possession to their usual Anfield standards, and for 45 minutes it worked perfectly. Bradley only attempted 16 passes all game and completed 13. He attempted only two in the opposition half and both failed. To put it bluntly, he did a lot of right-backing.

That isn’t a criticism, it’s somewhat expected with Gabriel Martinelli to deal with. But Mikel Arteta’s half-time flip of Putting Leandro Trossard left forward and inviting other Arsenal collaborators that side of pitch offered Bradley a challenging 20 minutes before he was subbed.

The question persists of just how ready is he to replace Alexander-Arnold on a permanent basis. Sure, Trent also has his critics – cheerlead by Gary Neville – around his defensive attributes. But looking at their Premier League performance this season according to Statsbomb, Liverpool’s vice-captain and their young protégé share the spoils of attributes quite evenly.

Yet their comparative numbers are quite opposite to what you might expect. Bradley comes out on passing percentage per 90 minutes data (85/75), whereas Alexander-Arnold excels in deep progressions per 90 (8.44/6.00). I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, and it’s worth noting Trent’s sample size of games played is much higher.

More importantly is how often Bradley is getting on the pitch to gain experience and rid out any errors in his game. There have been 19 Premier League occasions alone where he hasn’t featured for Liverpool this season. He has only completed 90 minutes in a league game once, away to Southampton in November.

That simply isn’t enough, and his injury record suggests Liverpool can’t bank on him being available and robust enough to have the output and consistency of players like Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Ryan Gravenberch this season.

You trust the club will know this and make the right call. It’s not hard to imagine that planning is already well in underway.

Any form of common sense was something clearly absent across the country during yesterday’s WWE inspired fun-fest. The irony of it all was that tensions were high in the places they really shouldn’t have been. Liverpool and Nottingham Forest have spectacularly outperformed this season, and yet Old Trafford and Tottenham Stadium remained pretty bullish by all accounts.

Football is not logical and, as Ben Johnson from The Anfield Wrap quoted, Liverpool is full of lunatics. If he didn’t know this already, Arne Slot does now.

I can’t wait for the trophy lift, but I also can’t wait for the serious stuff to start again.

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I mean, there were many moments from my seat in The Kop as a perfect late Sunday afternoon drew to its closing.

It was, for those of a Liverpool Football Club persuasion, the perfect day. The embodiment of a crowning moment. A life’s work, as some have referenced it.

As the pyro lingered and the celebrations slowed pace, the Liverpool players sat on the pitch with each other gazing at the famous terrace still brimming with adoration.

Just sat there like Glastonbury heads on stone-circle anticipating the morning sunrise.

It was a reminder that football in and of itself is communal. It’s cultish, yes, but it’s capable of unity and creation and goodwill.

The club are at the forefront in branding such concepts. Whether it’s ‘This Means More’ or ‘Tell Us Never’ or encouragement to join the ‘LFC Family’ (equating to spend money on our merch, memberships and content), they have never been shy in marketing this supposed unity.

This was in large parts down to Jürgen Klopp’s influence in the modern era. In reality, supporters can become residual in such conversations because it becomes all about managers, players and transfer windows. The win is solely a result of sporting superiority.

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It isn’t this binary. We can talk about 12th man concepts or Anfield’s atmosphere, but the players and supporters must want success for each other. They must want to drive each other. They must have to like each other.

Off the pitch, as the celebrations continued into the night, drinks were drank and glasses raised to those absent. Football accompanies life’s journey and can occasionally orchestrate our memories and sense of adolescence like nothing else.

We remember those loved ones who didn’t get yesterday and smile. How they would have adored this. Although melancholic, that person once again lives with you. Or you share these times knowing this will become a cherished memory one day when you or a loved one are no longer here.

What an amazing achievement of football to offer us this.

Negatives aren’t hard to find, mostly because of male ego and the money involved. We can all point to bad faith actors however we follow the game. The direction of travel remains grim where this is concerned.

It’s true that you have no control over who follows you through the turnstile or sits next to you in the pub sporting the same shirt. They might be the most egregious character you could encounter, but there you both are, uniting behind this common cause.

Why? It could be purpose, a sense of identity or even something that just looks fun that people want in on.

I’m not sure why matters too much, as long as you’re getting what you need from this leisure activity.

Yesterday we got a communal experience of which I couldn’t have dreamt better. It was love and emotion, joy and euphoria. It was shared and reciprocated between all players and supporters, on and off the pitch.

It was a perfect Liverpool day. I’m glad I spent it with you.

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But they’re increasingly in flux. Today, principles are currency. Principles are information. Principles are profit.

Being invested in elite football should make all of us question principles and be aware of contradictions.

The cognitive dissonance we adopt when dowsing ourselves in adulation for our club and players remains a form an adolescent innocence in many senses.

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Such omnipotence can be problematic. How can we bestow such grotesque wealth and disparity on young men running around a pitch for 90 minutes? It’s uncouth and Gladiatorial. The ultimate game of lords and peasants and class sacrifice.

Fans Supporting Foodbank collections outside a stadium and fellas on upwards of £400,000 per week inside.

Football has too much money, greed and entitlement to change. As a writer, I’ve made it a boundary not to slip into the quagmire of purporting ludicrous transfer fees and wages just so you get the office bragging rights on a Monday.

As mentioned, I own my contradictions by mere investment but try to stay within these lines as much as I can.

Still, something irked me about the reaction and finger wagging to the apparent entitlement shown after Trent Alexander-Arnold’s winner for Liverpool away to Leicester City, which put them within three points of a 20th league title.

The accusations against the player ranged from making it all about himself and not putting the team first to even staging the celebration.

The fanfare around Alexander-Arnold’s return was always going to be theatrical given his impending future announcement. It sounds like there was a mixture of support and derision when he came on as a substitute for Conor Bradley on 70 minutes at the King Power Stadium on Sunday (side note, don’t boo your own players. It’s the most Evertonian thing in existence and a trait they can very much keep).

Ok, so the theory is floated that Trent is some sort of egomaniac who shouldn’t have celebrated in the manner he did because it made it about himself and was disrespectful to Liverpool in the process.

Firstly, it WAS all about him in that moment. He had just scored a goal in the 77th minute to put Liverpool within touching distance of the league title.

Goals are the ultimate act of ego. They are the reason all forwards treat being substituted on 85 minutes when 4-1 up as a grave act of disrespect. Goals perpetuate the individual act of adoration we all dream about. You’re the frontman at Knebworth. The match-winner at Wembley. You dream of looking into the eyes of thousands who adore you with chauvinistic awareness it was you who caused such joy.

Also, what was he supposed to do? Can you imagine the deep dives this week if he’d put his hands up apologetically like some cowering shrew who’s turned up and bagged against his former club? What type of weirdness would that have invoked?

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The last line of his defence is that he’s ultimately still living and breathing Liverpool. It’s the place he spends most of his time. It’s his employer but also that of the team mates and staff he interacts with on a daily basis. If they know how much it means, this man from West Derby, L12, definitely does.

Trent was entitled to celebrate exactly how he did. I have my issues with his situation like everyone does. My biggest gripe remains that I simply don’t think he’s been a very good vice captain for Liverpool FC.

Steven Gerrard had Jamie Carragher. Jordan Henderson had James Milner. Dressing rooms are fragile ecosystems. Virgil van Dijk will have needed a trusted Consigliere to help manage an undoubtedly transitional season, despite its success.

The demeanour of Alexander-Arnold at times has been anything but leader-like. He might be more so behind the scenes, there are things we don’t see, but he hasn’t carried that publicly.

The rest, the money and geopolitics around his future are where I get off this train. Anfield may be divided on this issue over the next month, I hope not. One thing is for certain, if Alexander-Arnold repeats the trick of scoring the goal which ultimately takes Liverpool to the title, I hope he celebrates with as much emotion as humanly possible.

Even if it is the last time.

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Truman Burbank isn’t an insurance salesman in our reality. He isn’t American. His name isn’t even Truman. Looks nothing like Jim Carey.

Our version is a handsome yet increasingly jaded Portuguese football coach in his late thirties purporting to be a manager of Manchester United.

The idea of any management taking place at such a rudderless vessel is itself fantastical.

But here we are. Watching democracy wither and congress of the supposed free world resemble a wedding where the groom’s worst mates have got up and given impromptu speeches with nobody knowing quite how to get the microphone off them.

Instead of an escape to the beautiful game, with Liverpool grittily navigating wins in Paris and Anfield this week, we have to consume something which has now surpassed bizarre.

Ruben Amorim’s every move now seems to hit back pages across the world. The fella went for a walk around the pitch in training the other day and people were analysing his psyche. His press conferences are clipped up for ‘best bits’ and sit top of the newsreel.

In fairness, old Ruben seems to be absolutely lapping it up like a walking LinkedIn profile, reaching for one last motivational and bombastic quote which ranges from self deprecation to simply bad workplace management.

We seemingly have no choice but to consume this. Football news and media conglomerates have decided we must adhere to such mediocracy. The once thriving empire now crumbling is the story of today, yesterday and tomorrow.

At least when Liverpool are playing in Europe’s elite competition we can tune in and forget about any United influence on our consumption.

Not quite.

We were subjected to Rio Ferdinand in Paris on Wednesday. Think Emily but somehow more annoying. This was peak Rio. Rio in the free role covering every inch of stadium. Rio in the tunnel. Rio in the bogs. Rio in the ice bath at full time for content and recovery purposes.

Don’t get me wrong, he is far from my favourite pundit. But he’s much of a muchness. Yes, he dislikes Liverpool and hasn’t quite found the sense of cuddliness Gary Neville has in that respect.

Ferdinand’s hubris is far more grating. His severed-worker-persona, where he seems removed from who and what he was a player compared to his punditry is incredibly frustrating.

The only reason Ferdinand and Steve McManaman should be there is to talk about what it’s like to play on one of these nights. What’s happening in your head on and off the pitch. What gets you through the game.

I’d have loved nothing more than Ferdinand talking about the potential Ibrahima Konate red card in comparison to his identical challenge on Freddie Ljunberg at Old Trafford all those years ago which wasn’t given.

He could have talked us through what’s in your mind at that moment. Are you meaning to foul your opponent? Are you caught up in a scrambled panic, and how do you play the referee?

Instead, he bounces around in the same clobber, talks the same shite and slaps hands with players and coaches while calling them ‘top man’ in the same way they all do.

Meanwhile, over on CBS, Jamie Carragher, Thierry Henry and Micah Richards dress smarter but act dafter under the room temperature guidance of the brilliant Kate Abdo.

CBS isn’t perfect. The talk over banter doesn’t quite hit right. The SNL inserts of Carragher having a foot race with TikTokers are fine. The content is different and is trying to be less dry, boring and serious.

The problem remains not everybody has the same needs. The Americanised model of punditry might be great for the neutral, which is probably a large section of its target audience, but if Manchester City have just beaten Liverpool do you want to see Richards jiving on tables under the name of entertainment?

The reality remains that football in England is far too serious for that. There’s more relatability in the idea of Roy Keane sitting there with his scowl, talking about intentionally trying to hurt an opponent if you’re losing.

Football is great when you’re winning, as we currently know. Even then it’s not perfect. Despite the relief of Paris, our audible senses continue to be tortured by Ferdinand and co turning up on the jolly and offering next to nothing for our experience.

Thankfully, there’s the day-to-day to keep us sane. Speaking of which, tune in later today for another episode of The Ruben Show.

It’s quite the line, right? One which makes you sit up with intrigue at its didactic charm. Shaun O’Donnell is someone who carries the mantle of storyteller with relevant provenance and corroboration. Softly spoken in Merseyside Scouse but with no shortage of presence through stories of an incredible trajectory over recent years. O’Donnell is one of the co-founders of BOSS Night, a music event for Liverpool FC supporters which now sells out venues across the world.

BOSS’s roots, like their surroundings, are truly humble. Originating from BOSS magazine – a written publication which covered match going, gig and general Liverpool social life – founder Daniel Nicholson wanted to evolve the concept into something tangible.

“The events were originally free spaces where people from around the city could get together. We had local artists booked, but they wouldn’t be playing Liverpool FC songs. They would play acoustic covers of songs popular at the time”, says O’Donnell. “It was the crowd who decided that between songs, they would sing covers with more appropriated lyrics relating to the team and their heroes. It was an organic process of songs going from the pub to the stadium.”

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BOSS would truly elevate when a local artist – usually booked bottom of the bill in his early days – noticed an opportunity to harness that idea further. It was there where Jamie Webster began to weave club, team and player related lyrics into his cover versions, generating a higher decibel of each rendition with every passing gig. Webster has gone on to become an acclaimed solo artist in his own right, with a knack for untying themes of protestation and establishment wrongdoing through elegiac characterisation. His 2020 debut album We Get By reached number six in the UK charts.

It was Webster’s on-stage ability to cajole and lyricise with adoration which made him the unofficial musical curator to Jürgen Klopp’s Anfield revolution. There’s a wonderful alchemy to the rise of BOSS which coincided with Klopp’s Liverpool legacy. The desire for supporters to celebrate those bringing the team success was one thing, but the German coach was a huge advocate of togetherness across the club, and what O’Donnell and co. were doing was the perfect foil.

“The singalong culture, being together and in unison. The camaraderie and sense that you’re all going in the same direction”, is how O’Donnell describes why BOSS, and more generally song can be so evocative, even softening in the hard and increasingly tribal environment of soccer.

Of course, this is why music bookends most of our lives. It can spark an emotion, mood or nostalgic yearning. But in football, where tribalism spills into vitriol from terrace to timeline, it’s becoming an even more fascinating space. Think about it, the idea of supporters, mostly emotionally conservative men with an average age of 41 (according to the last Premier League survey in 2013), fawning over and serenading men they should find threatening is quite funny.

To go further, they openly bestow unwavering love and responsibility on much younger and considerably wealthier males. There aren’t many other aspects of society – especially in places like Liverpool – where people can openly advocate that another person should be paid upwards of £300,000 per week, for example. So many factors which usually amount to surrounding toxic masculinity, instead show themselves in curated swooning from the stands.

Liverpool’s own anthem, the discernible You’ll Never Walk Alone, stands as a perfect example of the dichotomy of song in the game. A tale of togetherness and hope, it is often used against it to highlight disaster, poverty and general anti-Liverpool themes over the course of 90 minutes. Across the country, you can also hear The Beatles Hey Jude, John Denver’s You Fill Up My Senses and Paul McCartney and Wings’ Mull of Kintyre belting down from towns to terrace with galvanising effect. Tottenham Hotspur supporters have modified the lyrics to UK artist Robbie Williams' hit 1997 ballad Angels in honour of Ange Postecoglu.

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Further down the English soccer pyramid, aspiring A.F.C. Wrexham now have their own shanty to accompany Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s Welsh love story. Dai Meyer, a teacher, musician and supporter from Wrexham, has recently penned the songWhere the Dragon Heart Beats – pounding out themes of community, family and even hints at legacy and mortality. Meyer explains how he wanted to pen something all supporters could relate to at this exciting junction of the club’s history.

“Wrexham is a love story with our community at its heart”, he says. “Football and music is everything to our small working class town. I take my two boys to every home game where we create memories that will last forever. I lost my father to COVID-19 and miss taking him with me on match days. It’s not just the football we love, it’s singing and celebrating together. We share and embrace emotions as one. Football and Wrexham are entwined in all our lives.

“We are a working-class town and have saved our club from sinking into the abyss. We have been extremely lucky to have been picked by our new owners. They have literally brought us back to life.”

The word “picked” stands out and potentially explains how this entire concept is linked to moments. Football’s appropriation of song in this form is nothing unusual, but the when often is. It will usually depict a time when something is stirring in a particular club and there is an overriding, bursting desire to transcribe the emotions it brings.

There is also what sets it apart when contrasting worldwide. Terrace culture in the Americas and parts of Europe can range from a humdrum of constant drumbeat which has no scoreboard context applied, to a raucous, bouncing cacophony accompanied by pyrotechnic bursts of colour. Usually whatever is chosen tends to have more of an avant-garde feel.

US sports culture is of course far more complicated to define. It has geographical context (do those in Atlanta share the same culture as those in New York?) Are we talking about one sport or the multitude of sports? Then there’s the questions around youth and college sports in comparison to other countries and how to interpret interactions with different sports (Premier League supporters in the US, NBA fans in China etc).

Perhaps it’s far easier to leave the rowdiness of the chant to anything which proceeds a Jay Landsman monologue about a laid-out Baltimore Police Detective in an Irish cop bar. After all, who wouldn’t join in with The Body of an American after such poignancy and delivery about sharing a small corner of the American experiment?

Such stereotypical depictions are rarely so binary. It’s interesting to note the increasing Americanisation of Premier League games with firework and strobe lighting displays pre-match as appropriation going both ways. It’s not Super Bowl half-time, but the idea of an experience inclusive of, and not exclusive to the game itself is gaining traction.

In addition, the translation and overseas success of concepts like BOSS means they can tour America with success, as they did in 2022. I witnessed Webster’s impact first hand in Philadelphia and South Carolina as part of Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the USA last summer. O’Donell believes it works because of that sense of place being emitted through song and the understanding it creates:

“The emotion and essence of what we do absolutely carries over the same”, he says. “Overseas events are special because people make an extra effort to be like the videos they’ve seen from events in Liverpool.”

Meyer says something similar: “I love how we are growing as a fan base. Our new American fans are amazing as they have taken our story on and embraced our club as their own. We are a very special club and we welcome all to come and join us on our journey.”

It makes perfect sense. The likes of Klopp, Reynolds and McElhenney have created and bottled the concept of journey perfectly. They have ensured the club is a byproduct of its place and that place is the base of operations. Liverpool, Wrexham and anywhere else adored by overseas support will naturally want to understand the place as much as the entity. Song often fits perfectly in this space.

The future of song, chant and terrace culture in football remains as uncertain as the game itself. Perhaps the use of artificial intelligence or connective technology will have more of an input. Right now, the Premier League thrives off debate more than ever. With VAR and financial stringency becoming commonplace in the discussion stream, frustration and anger are never too far away.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t be frustrated, tribal or impassioned by watching. It is competitive by its very nature. Maybe there isn’t a need to check ourselves when we go from rage and confrontation to loving big Ange instead. Perhaps we should just accept that this is a somewhat contradictory space in which emotions flit and trigger by innocuous actions. Is that so far away from the rest of our lives?

There’s a beautiful balance that song provides to such feelings. It makes the environment palatable and romantic in the face of hostility. The sense of responsibility in Meyer, O’Donnell and those who continue to innovate through song to create connection is commendable. They feel that while the plates of sport continue to spin, there is an awareness of responsibility to how they support, and how it creates its own bookmark for this generation.

“I think terrace culture will change”, says O’Donnell. “But the organic nature of Liverpool, the supporters and BOSS won’t because it lives in us. It’s part of our DNA. While things might appear to shift around us, we, the core, the heartbeat of the club, will remain the same”.

In an ever-increasing world of polarisation, football still plays a small part in uniting people globally through celebration and positivity. That ability shouldn’t be lost on anyone.

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