The Barclays Premier League thread 2015/2016

[Nerf]

Graham Beecroft of talkSPORT (lol), reckons Rodgers will be gone before the weekend. BBC also reckons Klopp is attending the Villa game.

[The Lusophone]

BBC aren't the only ones running with the Klopp thing. Sun are saying Rodgers has 10 days to save his job.

[Summers]

Graham Beecroft of talkSPORT (lol), reckons Rodgers will be gone before the weekend. BBC also reckons Klopp is attending the Villa game.

something something dortmund model.

[Lineker]

As if I couldn't dislike Liverpool even more, they're now bringing back the Dortmund model joke. Terrific.

[DavidMarrio]

Can't wait for the next few months of "Klopp wants a Prem job, Rodgers is on his way out".

[therockbox]

The 'Klopp attending Villa game' thing seems to have come from a joke tweet from some Liverpool fanclub that suggested that the fans should go to the game at the weekend dressed as Klopp to send a message to FSG. My opinion of our owners is fairly low but even I don't think they'd be stupid enough to invite him to the game before they've even sacked our current manager.

[DavidMarrio]

The 'Klopp attending Villa game' thing seems to have come from a joke tweet from some Liverpool fanclub that suggested that the fans should go to the game at the weekend dressed as Klopp to send a message to FSG. My opinion of our owners is fairly low but even I don't think they'd be stupid enough to invite him to the game before they've even sacked our current manager.

I'm sure the telegraph ran a story about Liverpool fans protesting by dressing up as Klopp from that tweet as well. 

[Baddar]

As long as Liverpool players continue to show character, Rodgers will be ok.

[therockbox]

They just need a wee bit of luck, that's all. They've been outstanding, they really have, they're a credit to the club and their families.

[Lineker]

Steven Gerrard has criticised manager Brendan Rodgers’ “overconfident” approach to Liverpool’s fateful game against Chelsea that derailed the Merseyside club’s 2013-14 Premier League title bid.

Rodgers has had to deal with uncomfortable headlines linking former Borussia Dortmund manager Jürgen Klopp with his job, with scrutiny building after Liverpool needed penalties to scrape past Carlisle in the Capital One Cup on Wednesday. And quotes from Gerrard’s new autobiography published in the Independent will do little to improve matters.

Liverpool led the table by five points with three games to go until they were beaten 2-0 by José Mourinho’s side in April 2014, and would go on to finish two points behind champions Manchester City.

The match was decided in part by Gerrard’s slip which presented the ball to Demba Ba for a breakaway goal in first-half injury time.

But in ‘Steven Gerrard: My Story’, the influential midfielder – now with the LA Galaxy – points the finger at Rodgers as well.

Gerrard said: “I’ve never been able to say this in public before but I was seriously concerned that we thought we could blow Chelsea away. I sensed an over-confidence in Brendan’s team talks. We played into Chelsea’s hands. I feared it then and I know it now.”

Gerrard also recalls the moment he was told he would not be in the starting line-up against Manchester United last season. Gerrard was used as a half-time substitute in the game but was sent off just 38 seconds after his introduction for stamping on United midfielder Ander Herrera – and he reveals in the book that he came close to venting his displeasure at Rodgers himself.

“A sudden lump formed in my throat,” he said of the conversation in the manager’s office earlier in the week. “I had a split-second decision to make. Do I have a go at him?”

Elsewhere in the book, Gerrard discusses his role in keeping Luis Suárez at the club in the summer of 2013. The Uruguay striker appeared set to join Arsenal, only for Liverpool to turn down the London club’s bid and keep Suárez at Anfield to spearhead that title near-miss.

Gerrard recalls texting Suárez to ask: “Luis, what’s going on here? We need to straighten this out.” The pair talked at training the next day and then met with Rodgers, with Suárez eventually persuaded to stay on Merseyside. He scored 31 league goals that season before leaving for Barcelona last summer.

Gerrard also describes being deployed to attract transfer targets to Anfield and claims he was asked by the club to “take a crack” by text at both Chile forward Alexis Sánchez, before his move from Barcelona to Arsenal, and Germany midfielder Toni Kroos who ultimately left Bayern Munich for Real Madrid.

[MDK]

Isn't that tapping up or am I mistaken?

[Matt]

Paging @stokeriño

[TCO]

Yeah tapping up doesn't really exist, it's foolish to think that the first contact a player has with a club is after a bid is made. You can't stop agents talking to clubs.

Chelsea just did it in a stupid way in a public place with Ashely Cole

[Gazz]

I'd imagine that Brendan would have been pretty confident that his club captain, he obviously thinks he's Liverpudlian Jesus, wouldn't fall over and gift their title rivals an easy goal.

[TCO]

Yeah that was my first thought. Chelsea were playing very defensive that day and there's was no real danger of them scoring other than a Liverpool error. It was just unfortunate that it was Captain Fantastic and now it seems he's a bit bitter.

A win more or less seals the title and given the way Liverpool were playing, I don't blame Rodgers for going for it.

[Gorka]

I just like the thought of Toni Kroos about to complete his move to Real Madrid only to have a text from an unknown number in the middle of the night spouting about Liverpool's history. 

[Lineker]

Mourinho is slaughtering Wenger in his pre-match presser  

[MDK]

He does have the jewels, I'll give him that. Surely Wenger just has to ask him to look at the table.

[stokeriño]

Surely Wenger just has to ask him to look at the table.

Slightly dangerous territory when it's only 3 points difference after 6 games. And they lost to Chelsea last week. And the PL trophy is in Chelsea's cabinet, not theirs...

[Lineker]

Gabriel charged with improper conduct and will face a one match ban with immediate effect.