warm bluntness. Forest beat Liverpool but my god did Liverpool help.
The referee was terrible. Don’t care. The time-wasting was ridiculous. Don’t care. The scoreboard drove them mad. Don’t care. The job is the job. The irony of picking an unchanged eleven with pre-programmed subs which serves that performance up is that it suggests somewhere a decision has been made that Tuesday is the bigger game. Tuesday is not the bigger game. They are all big games and it is this to which we have signed up.
No transitional seasons, no hiding places, no hint of wanting it to be easy. This has been the job so far and has been the message. Like most swords actually are, that is double-edged.
Today wasn’t good enough. Not good enough in tactics and selection. Not good enough in terms of substitutions. Not good enough in terms of individual performances. Not good enough in terms of mentality. Not good enough on minute 30, worse on minute 60 and abysmal by minute 90.
Forest come away from it worthy of respect and praise but the truth is they will almost certainly finish in the bottom half. To be clear – the side that wins this league will win the most games against sides that will finish in the bottom half, home and away. The side that finishes second will win the second most. And third the third most. The challenge is partially Old Trafford and the San Siro. But the challenge is massively this and the challenge is believing everything can change when the scoreboard says 85 minutes.
You can have one of these. Liverpool have lashed theirs in early. Not again.