Match Day Liverpool v Huddersfield, Saturday 28th October 15:00

[SALTIRE]

Match chat.

 

[G-Dragon]

Back to winning ways!

 

[SALTIRE]

I hope so, Huddersfield play almost the same way we do, so I expect they'll come at us and we can pick them off with our superior quality. If we aren't bang on it though, they could get something.

 

[Bilo]

Huddersfield play almost the same way we do

No they don't.

 

[SALTIRE]

No they don't.

They did in the Championship. Maybe they've changed a bit since promotion. Haven't seen them play this term.

 

[Bilo]

They did in the Championship. Maybe they've changed a bit since promotion. Haven't seen them play this term.

They did during the first third-ish of the season, first half at a stretch. They became more and more defensive and you can't have watched a minute of that playoff if you think the change came since promotion.

In my HUMBLE opinion the english press tried to lazily analyze Wagner in relation to Klopp because they're mates and all, but Wagner's style of play is much closer to Simeone than it ever was to Klopp. Benitez is more direct but without the ball there are similarities there too. He instructs his players to work hard and as a collective but the objective is different from Klopp, and as such the execution is.

 

[Stevencc]

Back to winning ways!

Or we won't see you for six months?

 

[AnkleBiter]

Wagner is definitely tighter at the back than Klopp. This changed last season after we conceded 8 goals in 2 games against Cardiff and Fulham before losing at home to Wigan despite totally dominating but being picked off by 2 rare counter attacks. He basically learnt from our mistakes after teams became familiar with our game after our surprise blistering start to the season. The main similarity is the pressing game.

Liverpool without Coutinho, Mane, Lallana and Clyne, well fuck me, after last weekends results I doubt we'll ever have a better chance to get something at Anfield... and believe me, after so many years of Tranmere being the only Merseyside club we'd play, that feels bizarre to say!

The win against Man Utd has serious potential to be a season defining result for us, we'll come with plenty of belief, which I really didn't think I'd be saying this time last week.

 

[G-Dragon]

Or we won't see you for six months?

BET?

 

[snortingfrogs]

Tough game diz, they spanked Man Utd last week.
Hopefully we can bounce back from that shitty loss to Spuds.

Liverpool 2 - 1 Hudd's

 

[silkyman]

klopp really is overrated.

 

[SALTIRE]

3 - 0, Wijnaldum finally bags a goal this season, his smile is enough to warm the soul!

 

[snortingfrogs]

Dat Gini goal

 

[SALTIRE]

Dat Gini goal

I've used that gif before, and erm yeah...

 

[G-Dragon]

Firmino masater of celebration

 

[Pagnell]

Shite first half, decent second and a fully deserved win. It also makes a change to see a visiting team starting the game with a 'draw at any cost' philosophy come undone.

 

[SALTIRE]

I only caught it from just after Sturridge's opener; and thought Liverpool played excellent from there. Apparently the first half was indeed a drag, but it was comfortable in the end, and we could've won by 6; and a much needed 3 points to get back on track.

 

[HtfcWArrior]

Shite performance

 

[AnkleBiter]

Really disappointed with how we played, that wasn't us at all. We can't expect to be getting something in these kind of games, but to not even have a go at that defence is poor stuff. Wagner needs to learn from that, I'm sure he will though.

Also, as many of us have said on twitter, that was up there with the worst atmospheres I've ever experienced. The ground is full of tourists and half and half scarves. I've never seen home fans that are sat next to the away fans not react at all. Didn't hear a single scouse accent at the ground!

 

[Pagnell]

Also, as many of us have said on twitter, that was up there with the worst atmospheres I've ever experienced. The ground is full of tourists and half and half scarves. I've never seen home fans that are sat next to the away fans not react at all. Didn't hear a single scouse accent at the ground!

I can understand some of what you say there. Anfield, like a lot of the bigger grounds, certainly has it's share of day trippers and fans who have nothing to do with the local area beyond the team they follow. But unless you were deliberately selective in your hearing, to claim you didn't hear a single scouse accent is simply ridiculous.

 

[HtfcWArrior]

Hope they all had a safe flight home

 

[Pagnell]

It must have taken you hours to think up that highly original gem.

 

[HtfcWArrior]

It must have taken you hours to think up that highly original gem.

2 days

 

[AnkleBiter]

I can understand some of what you say there. Anfield, like a lot of the bigger grounds, certainly has it's share of day trippers and fans who have nothing to do with the local area beyond the team they follow. But unless you were deliberately selective in your hearing, to claim you didn't hear a single scouse accent is simply ridiculous.

Not sure why I'd make that up. Walking around the ground before and after the game, I genuinely didn't hear any. Wasn't exactly trying particularly hard to listen tbh but it struck me after a while.

 

[G-Dragon]

tbf our fans don't seem to make much noise when small clubs come to play. On the other hand the opposition fans pretend its a cup final. Not a great attitude to have but thats how it is at most big clubs.

 

[JimJams]

What the fuck would you know about it?

 

[Bilo]

It's a question of class more than anything else. With the Premier League came a middle classification of English football and it won't stop until there's only upper middle class and day trippers ever going to football matches. It's painfully obvious and no team which has been in the Prem for the majority of the 25 years is an exception.

 

[AnkleBiter]

It's a hard thing for one person to judge. I've been to every top 6 clubs ground apart from Spurs, and Anfield is the only place it really struck me. I certainly didn't notice it at Newcastle, and am doubting that I will at Everton.

Not sure what clubs can do about it either tbf. I imagine Spurs will go that way with their new stadium, but if they didn't get a new stadium then they'd be less likely to stay part of the 'top 6' in the long term. Essentially you have to sell your soul to the Premier League these days to be one of the big boys. It's a shame as one of the things I'm most proud of about us is how important the club is to the community, you'll be pushed very hard to find someone in our home end not from the town, and that to me is a massive part of a clubs identity, but maybe I'm old fashioned and am too used to away days at Oldham and Walsall...

 

[Bilo]

It's a hard thing for one person to judge. I've been to every top 6 clubs ground apart from Spurs, and Anfield is the only place it really struck me. I certainly didn't notice it at Newcastle, and am doubting that I will at Everton.

Not sure what clubs can do about it either tbf. I imagine Spurs will go that way with their new stadium, but if they didn't get a new stadium then they'd be less likely to stay part of the 'top 6' in the long term. Essentially you have to sell your soul to the Premier League these days to be one of the big boys. It's a shame as one of the things I'm most proud of about us is how important the club is to the community, you'll be pushed very hard to find someone in our home end not from the town, and that to me is a massive part of a clubs identity, but maybe I'm old fashioned and am too used to away days at Oldham and Walsall...

No, you're perfectly right regarding the part about the community being a massive part of the club's identity, rightfully so.

However, what people are generally asking for when they talk about the "famous Anfield atmosphere" is one that in most stadiums, all over the world, is represented by the working class. Without trying to demonize them in any way, they're more likely do to do lots of good and bad things. They sing and get drunk and they fight. We kicked out most of the fighting, but with it went the singing. The working class can't afford to visit Anfield anymore, and if you start to finish in the top half of the Premier league regularly, your working class will be outpriced as well. Take any stadium you like, the cheaper the tickets, the more the singing. The part in your ground that is the most expensive is probably also the silent one, I'd wager.

In Sweden, this hasn't really happened. Any given club won't fill their stadium most of the time so you can still get tickets on the cheap. Anyone, literally given our relative wealth, can attend every home game in my hometown, a small sized club usually in the lower half of the top division. The singing is as loud as ever. We're known for having quite a shit atmosphere for other reasons, but you catch my drift.

What's important, however, is to recognize the hypocrisy in the whole debate. I wrote I didn't want to demonize the working class because they already are being demonized, constantly, everywhere. I don't know your class background. But from a middle class perspective (the vast majority) they're the areas to avoid, the pubs you never visit, the clubs you haven't been to in years, the clothes you'd never wear and essentially, the songs you'd never sing.

So when you're asking for an improved atmosphere beyond the quite ridiculous notion that safe standing is all it takes, you're asking for something you, in life in general, don't want. You don't socialize with the working class, you try very hard to distinguish yourself from them with your choice of words, your ambitions and your cultural preferences. But since it's such a blast to see videos from the Kop in the 60's, you want a little bit of their culture. The parts you like. And it doesn't work that way.

So when blaming the Premier league and all that comes with it, it's important to recognize the fuel behind it which is an antire society that has demonized the working class for decades. To make football more attractive for the wealthy upper middle class, and by doing so increasing the income through ticket prices (and TV-deals), the working class absolutely had to be priced out in the process. You couldn't leave the Kop financially available for the working class because the middle class, in every measurable way, want nothing to do with them. If we well and truly ask for football grounds where everybody's welcome and the working class mixes with the middle-class, who by all rights too should be welcome at the grounds, then we can't start with football. Because at the end of the day, places like Anfield are above all a symptom.

Like I said, I don't know your class background and you could be a part of the group that stands to be priced out by Huddersfield's potential success. But for everyone who's not, like myself and most of us on this forum, we're not a part of the problem, we are the problem. And with every way we act, every preference and every opinion, we show that we don't want it any other way. We just wish the singing had continued.

 

[Skinner]

I stopped going completely for this reason. I used to love it in the championship when we'd be getting 14-17 thousand and everyone in the ground were Palace fans, now though the ground is sold out every week and a lot of attendees are supporters of the traditional top four. The last time I went was two years back and I was sitting next to three fellas, two of them Arsenal fans and the other was a Palace fan who wasn't that interested in football, and he was the only one out of the three that didn't have a season ticket!

As said, there's not much you can do about it when there's top flight football on offer, I used to hope we'd go down and they'd all fuck off but that would defeat the whole purpose of competitive sport, so I just sort of gave up and found another sport to attend. I cringe at what I was hearing/seeing at Selhurst against an awful Villa side, I don't even want to imagine what it would be like against one of the bigger clubs.

Charlton had the some problem, but for them their club were handing out leaflets in surrounding areas to 'head to The Valley to see stars such as Gerrard, Lampard, Ronaldo & co'. Millwall have an extra 50,000 fans appear whenever they get to Wembley.

I think if you support a London based club and attend another London based ground on a regular basis you're an absolute mug, but that's just me.