Not buying the generalsation here - we've held on on numerous occasions this season and last afrer being pegged back.

It's purely a symptom of our style of play and the personnel we have playing at any one time - having a makeshift centre half who's not physically or aerially dominant is not ideal when a home team are pushing forward and I agree the goalkeeper is still an issue.

However, the style that sees us blitz teams in 20 minutes will occasionally mean we have days like yesterday. Had Origi's late effort been inches lower we may be a lot happier today. Klopp will learn - he should've put Klavan on and moved Lucas into a holding role at 1-3 with 15 left. We really missed Matip that's for sure.

Such a collapse has only happened once this season and I'll take that with 9 wins and 34 goals in the bank already. Mourinho has dropped seven points from conceding late goals. I think over the season we'll gain more points playing the way we do than lose them so as long as it doesn't happen every other week I'm happy to roll the dice.

Beefing up the squad will pnly help - but to infer this a regular and terminal flaw at the club is wide of the mark in my opinion.

I think the final top 4 will be 4 of the current top 5 and we must be heavily fancied to be in the top 4 at the end. All the top teams have bad days - as we did yesterday. Heck we have already won away at the two teams above us and the top team have lost to both the 2nd and the 3rd team - hence why I said it will be close till the end and we will be in the race.

You say 'we won't be title challengers' - I say we already are. I think cos LFC fans have been disappointed too often in the past we have almost become scared to say that but if 4 points behind top and 1 point behind 2nd almost half way through the season is not challenging I don't know what is

You say 'We will probably collapse' - yes there is a danger we might (due to the weaknesses in the defence and keeper) but since Burnley we have not lost in league or cup so I don't think probably is the right word to use. You are beginning to sound like our friend Grouty!!


I think this is a valid point - we love to score and do nice things at the top end of the pitch and so seem to always want to 'go for it' - when really the best thing to do would be to occasionally play in a more cautious manner. At 3-1 up we should never have let them back in and with a different mentality we wouldn't - I think we need to change the mentality near the end of games when we are winning to close them out safely - as losing unnecessary points like this could prove costly in the end. Lets hope we learn from it

Believe me I'm not trying to be negative, just realistic. There have been a couple of games this season we have done our best to throw away leads. We were 4-1 up at Arsenal, they scored a minute after we made it 4-1 and it went from comfortable to half an hour of chaos where we just got the victory. Against Swansea they missed a last minute sitter otherwise we'd have thrown that away, same against West Brom and of course yesterday.

You are correct when you say all the top teams have bad days, however looking at the table, the games they are losing are to each other, Chelsea - Spurs and Arsenal, Arsenal - Liverpool, City - Spurs and Chelsea, Spurs - Chelsea, none of them are dropping points to the lower teams and certainly wouldn't throw away 3-1 leads with 15 minutes to go.

Overall though I'm happy with where we are at the moment, I'd be over the moon if we finished in the top four this season and think Klopp is doing a fantastic job, like most pundits have said though our defensive and GK frailties will cost us.

Liverpool v Newport/Plymouth in the FA Cup 3rd round.

Matthew i do have a lot more sympathy with your second post than your first and can agree with it in principle.

I must admit my view prior to Bournemouth was 'The way we are playing we stand a good chance of winning the title this season' - altho I was reluctant to voice it for fear of maybe making myself look stupid. After what happened there I still think we can win the title this season - which I think puts me at odds with you- but I am far less convinced about it. You are right we have seen tendencies to fold (or nearly fold) under pressure in some previous games too. I am confident about top 4 though and also confident that under Klopp one day we will win the title

I think the bottom line about our title hopes this season is whether we learn the lessons from Sunday that need to be learnt - also whilst I do like seeing us linked with good attacking players like Pulisic (or whatever he is called) or Dembele is it from Celtic I feel that surely the priority right now should be to bring in people who could help us to be a bit tighter defensively - for instance I would love Van Dyk and would even be prepared to overpay a bit to get him. Given the fact that we had a negative spend in the summer unlike almost every other club we surely have the money to get him - and if we sell Sakho (which surely has to happen for everyone's sake) then we raise some cash towards it.

I was obviously disappointed with the loss at Bournemouth, all credit to them though to be fair.

We still should not be losing games when leading by 2 goals with 15 mins left though. Individual errors accounted for the majority though, Lovrens poor header then Milner gives away the pen. Even in the lead up to the others, Origi losing possession too easily, Hendo can'r sort his feet, then Karius's mistake, all avoidable, but these things sometimes happen.

For me it's more about the response on Sun. We win, I'll feel a tad better about things, we don't and lessons perhaps will not have been learnt from the Bournemouth defeat. I mean WHU were simply awful v Arsenal last weekend so they too will want a reaction, but we need to be winning at home to them when they are having a struggling season in comparison to last season.

Sturridge - not heard if he's been ruled out or in yet. If he's fit do we start him?

I think we have to. Despite Origi's recent goals and unbelievable promise, Sturridge is still streets ahead of him.

Hope it's newport. I remember when Aldridge played for them.

Sevilla have finally gone through to the CL knockout stages after winning the EL for three years in a row. If only they could've done it last year and we had an easier team in the final, not accounting for Moreno turning into a clown during half time.

Dortmund have also won their group ahead of Real Madrid. We did very well to knock them out late on in that tie last season. Amazing how a team can lose Gundogan and Mikhiryatin from their midfield and still look such a formidable outfit.

Random question, but do you ever look back at Djibril Cisse and think, "what if he didn't break his leg?". Watching a highlights video of him just then, he was a damn talented player. Just never seemed to kick on when he return from injury.

Fernando Morientes in the video too makes me sad. Just didn't adapt to English football. He's probably the one player I'm the most gutted about not working out. An exceptional player for Real Madrid and Monaco, a huge shame he could never apply his talent for us.

Morientes, Cisse and Baros, on paper, sounded like a ridiculously brilliant strikeforce. None of them could really do it for us though.

Cisse was one of the quickest players I'd watched, prior to his injury.
I wasn't too surprised that Morientes didn't set the league alight.

It has been announced that our third round cup tie will be on Sunday January 8th at 13:30 on BT Sports. Premier League wise, we are away to Sunderland on the 2nd January and away to Southampton on the 11th January, then away to Manchester United on the 15th January.

Just a heads up that there is going to be a Hillsborough programme on Monday night ITV 1.

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep1we...s-search-truth

Need a win tomorrow.

Apparently Chelsea are at risk of being deducted points. I think they're safe for now but the players need to behave. Their next few games seem winnable, and they don't look like ones that could get heated. They play Tottenham away on the 4th of January, so that could mean something.

It would be funny if that happened.

This is such a big game today, we will find out if we have what it takes to challenge for the title. we could be 7 points off.

Nothing but a win today.

West Brom doing us a favour so far, 0-0, only 15 minutes left.

and Chelsea have just scored lol

....and that's why Chelsea will be top at Christmas and will probably win the league

Can out with injury. Youthful looking bench. West Ham have scored in each of their last 5 games but are conceding over 2 per match in the league.

We're just a-waitin' for The Hammers to fall!

Shame about Can having a knee injury, but here's hoping that we can get a must win over the bubble blowers.

Good start, Lallana after 5 minutes, 1-0.

1 all, Payet, Karius clanger.

This seems familiar.

West Ham on top now.

And it's all going to $hit again.