Tomo

But isn't that the narrative with every team? All of the top 4 challengers will have those if, buts and maybe's, it's why we're all fighting for top 4 and not the title.

Problem is Arsenal still mentally collapse facing Mourinho. His record against/hold on them is the one things that's still as strong as it was during his peak.

And most of those games he failed to get clean sheets was in the period the whole team collapsed. Pre collapse Lampard and Tuchel his record reads 23 games 17 clean sheets 6 goals conceded.

Mendy is living proof that popularity and trends matter in football. If a 22 year old twink had the record he has he'd be hero worshipped but because Edou did it the unfashionable way, came from an unfashionable club and was cheap he's not going to get the credit he deserves regardless of what he does.

Because Klopp inherited a genuine mid table team and never got backed by the owners unless the money was raised in a sale. Not saying he nesseserily deserves more credit than managers that do it quicker but all of them had better resources to select from.

If Tuchel is carrying on his recent habit of subtly giving one otherwise regular starter (so far under him) a game rest then could it be Azpi's turn for this one? If so hopefully we see James in the hybrid RCB position.

Problem is if Liverpool fix themselves up there's a very real possibility top 4 becomes top 3. Imagine finishing 4th only for Liverpool and Tottenham or Arteta to take our place, would be sickening.

It's literally a similar situation with us with the old guard, got too comfortable with their core of stars and while it was okay in the short term a stagnation was going to happen eventually. Jota is the only signing they've made with a view to a long term replacement, Thiago was an attempt to squeeze one last season of success out of them.

What seems to be forgotten given his average last 2/3 years is Oscar was pretty promising when he first came on to the scene. If Mount can become was Oscar was suppose to have turned into I won't be complaining.

Christensen lost the plot post Barca in a back three, i imagine the confidence blow combined with Conte's behaviour at that point was a pretty heavy thing for a 20 year old to deal with. Under Sarri he had that shocker vs Liverpool where he was took off for his own good but after that largely did ok when called upon (always in a back 4) and was fantastic in Baku. Last season he was shit but Kepa and Willy tax needs to be factored here, even Thiago looked nervous playing with the latter.

They've got a point though, he's still contributing despite his goals/usual performance levels not being there.

With Torres it isn't just revisionism, when he was here was getting compared favourably against Sturridge and Eto'o, was absolutely insane if not shameful.

Three certainties in life. Death, taxes and an ex world class player being "back" everytime they hit a mini spell.

Our last 3 matches at Goodison were lost due to poor finishing and we absolutely dismantled them in this fixture last season.

City are facing a Kante 19/20 esque situation with KDB. They currently look so much better without him.

Nah he's like Gerrard, a "heroball" type player who will never win the league.

He could have scored the goal of the season vs Spurs and it still would have been beyond crass to use it to boost his profile given what happened that game.

Someone at the calibre of Tuchel very likely wouldn't have accepted the job at that point. Yes the season wasn't perfect, yes Lampard made some very strange decisions (shoehorning an out of sorts Kante in every game he was available drove me up the wall) but there was enough encouragement from when the performances did come together that it could have progressed into a good end product. We were also largely good in the big games despite often not getting the result we desired, he also got a level out of Pulisic that not even Tuchel has managed to do (at BVB or so far here). The hope was that the good part of his management would become more dominant over the green part, unfortunately the opposite happened and yes there was no arguments he deserved the sack when he got it, but let's not water down last season, we lost our elite game changer (for all intents and purposes lost two world class player's given Kante's form) and had a keeper almost throwing shots into the net, to get a top four spot with those handicaps was a decent achievement regardless of whether the points tally would usually be enough or not.

How refreshing is that to hear after 18 months of Lampard shoehorning him in every game he was available (the one major gripe i had with him even when things looked good/promising).

One thing i noticed a few times last night was Liverpool player's gearing up to hit one from range but decided against it. Salah at one point was in an identical position to where he scored THAT goal. That is one of the under the radar differences having Mendy in makes, Kepa in goal they hit them and atleast one probably goes in.

Tbh come the end of January anyone would have been an improvement. It was a 15/16 esque collapse.

Even under Lampard pre collapse the defense improved immeasurably. They weren't ever that big a problem, Kepa and Willy were.

A year to the day on from that 4-0 aswell.

My mistake I completely missed out this season before he was sacked. But the four season's before that he only lost one which was for PSG against Reims, never lost at home for BVB in the Bundi.

Klopp home league loses in the last two months - 5 Tuchel home league loses with his last three clubs - 1