Anfield, Premiership
8.15PM KO, Wednesday 26th February 2025.
‘Live’ on TNT Sports. (Rio alert.)
LFC 1st P27 64Pts
NUFC 5th P26 44Pts
When it’s good it's really good and when it's bad I go to pieces
David Bowie, Candidate (off the seminal ‘Diamond Dogs’ album)
This lyric by the ‘Thin White Duke’ has been buzzing around my head for a while now. It was penned in 1974, around about the time Newcastle first faced Liverpool at Wembley (gulp) and it completely encompasses my feelings re the Magpies’ current vintage.
Our schizophrenic football team are driving us from sheer ecstasy to depressive numbness and there’s not much in between. We actually just managed to achieve these polar states in one afternoon of football Sunday gone. Quite an achievement. Next up, it’s a trip to Fortress Anfield. It feels like a mixture of Darth Vader & Thanos away.
The Merseyside Reds are having a stunning season. If I’m honest, I can recall more swashbuckling Liverpool teams, but their ruthless efficiency has seen them basically suffocate nearly all the opposition thus far. Fair play to the Dutchman. I think we all prefer him to the toothy, passive aggressive German. But, these are early days. Remember, even Jürgen appeared to be canny early on in his tenure.
Like more than a few of you, I’ve been watching them more keenly in recent weeks, looking for armour chinks. From a B&W perspective, as they cement their place at the top, it’s not great viewing tbh.
If there is a glimmer of hope, it’s at the back. Trent is a Rolls Royce of a footballer, but an ave defender. VVD is a captain, a leader, and still a force. Just less of a one than maybe a couple of years ago. Konate? Aye, ye knaa decent but doesn’t worry me too much. Andy Robertson? What a players he’s been. Looking a bit past it in more recent times. Can’t fault the keeper. I think he’s mint. Mamardashvili* ain’t coming to sit on the bench. If you like beaches, boisterous Brazilian team mates and bridges, we’re your boys, Allo.
The bigger problem is their midfield. Ours is good, theirs is better. To put pressure on their back four, you’ve gotta get through them. I’ve been so impressed with their workrate this season. They’re all top quality players, but constantly put the ‘pressing’ hard yards in. AG, we (mainly all) know you wanna go there, but to be a proper success, this has to be your bread and butter. Watching wingers saunter past you when you can’t be arsed isn’t allowed in the big league. Ever.
My biggest problem with any hopes of success versus these is the little Egyptian cheat. I’m griefing him there cos he does get on me nerves, but as a football purist, I’ve always been in awe of his talent.
In this season’s entertaining 3-3 draw at St James’ I actually thought we were the better side. We’d have definitely won without him. Until a late, late equaliser, he took the game away from us at Gallowgate, giving a more than decent Lionel Messi impression, which left our young starlet, Lewis, giving it ‘wibble wibble’ on the left flank. I keep on hoping he’ll get injured. Nothing too nasty. Just mebs a thigh strain approaching mid March.**
I think the biggest problem we’ll face on Wednesday night is the ‘Juggernaut effect.’ One of Liverpool’s last biggest hurdles was a weekend where they had to go to the Champions and their main challengers, Arsenal, had what looked like a relatively straightforward home fixture. If you emerge from that with the Gunners three points closer, nerves could begin to jangle. As it happens, it couldn’t have gone better for them, and what could’ve been a slightly nervy Anfield will be full on ‘Russell Crowe Colosseum.’ And when things are going their way, they’re good at that. Romans versus Christians. Aye, we’re the latter.
I’m going on Wednesday. My eldest lad is studying in this class city. I’m just another advert for TF folk going to away matches. Don’t tell Elon’s NE Twitter Trolls. I’m also going to visit my mam’s grave. She was originally from Scottie Road in Liverpool and now resides permanently a few hundred metres south of the Anfield Road away end. It’s always an emotional one for me.
Getting back to football, you can probably tell I don’t hold out much hope. If it makes you feel any better I last felt similarly whilst trudging towards the Emirates a few short weeks ago. I still think we’ll lose. 2 or 3-0. Soz.
My kids think this sort of shit is more important than the Carabao. It’s all about Champions League qualification for the younger generation. From my 50 years+ pew, this game is the precursor to something much bigger. For us, anyway. If a little Mersey Mephistopheles were to knock on my door, I’m up for a deal. I’d gladly take another decade of failure against them as a Faustian trade for a Carabao Cup triumph.
Let’s have it right. That’s the major one.
Nick Clark
X : @Clark5Nick
Bluesky : @njc1892.bsky.social
*They signed the best keeper in the world for £35M. How mental is that? We were first in the queue but were fucked by the cartel’s PSR. Couldn’t get it over the line. I can’t help but think had we have pulled it off, Masters would have tried to charge us double as it’s not ‘Fair Market Value.’
**The little diver has been at Liverpool for 8 years. In that time, he’s been unavailable due to illness/injury on 12 whole occasions. To put that into perspective, Callum Wilson has twatted that record in about 8 weeks.
Brilliant read Nick, as ever. Managed to make me feel even less confident, as any good NUFC preview should do
Reds supporter here. I won't say "in peace" (as seems to be the fashion these days on the internet) as I'm not a Comanche chieftain, although I did have a feather headdress as a kid in 1974. That looks like what it is, a crowbarred link to 1974. I still have the matchday programme. On the back page, Newcastle had a goalkeeper called Iam McFaul, and as a young lad I wondered why he was called I am McFaul. The original Will I am.
Not long after, we would sign my favourite ever Reds player off you: Terry Mac. A man that could drink a dozen cans on the team bus to an away and still manage to score Goal of the Season. Don't make em like Terry Mac any more. Or David Bowie.
And fast forward to 2024/25. I thought you lads were one of the best sides we've faced this season, probably even deserved to win it, and then ended up snatching a draw with a freak goal. If you manage to put in the same sort of shift as that night, you're in with a shout tomorrow.
Slightly surprised you feel we've got a 'better' midfield. Yours looked a really difficult group to play against physically, and that's without Tonali who missed the first game due to suspension? Ours is boss, yeah, top quality, but the balance feels off. Ryan isn't a natural 6; Macca is a 10 playing as a 6/8; Dom is never a 10 in a million years, doesn't have the guile for the position.
[Edit - apparently Tonali played in the 3-3. So 0/10 for my observational skills and/or memory.]
Our defence will be a different story this time round. No Joe Gomez for Isak to run rings round. Konaté is a monster, a one-man defence. If Isak gets the better of him, he must be some player.
Trent is a Rolls Royce of a footballer yet is also the worst defender in world football, bar none. You can have him. For nothing. I'll drive him to Newcastle myself. In a Tonka toy truck.
I'd take your little deal. That feels shite just writing that, it's a trophy after all, one the kids these days are far too quick to dismiss, but if it guaranteed the league title, yeah I'd sacrifice a League Cup for it. It's not gonna make me want to put my fist through the telly, losing to Newcastle, unlike losing a final to 115 FC. I've always had a soft spot for Newcastle, like I think a lot of Reds of my generation have, although I suspect the younger generations don't share that sentiment. The Alan Kennedy Terry Mac Kevin Keegan Peter Beardsley stuff is a long time ago now.
So, another 4-3 then...
Hopefully without the "Sign on" bollocks; not because it rankles, it doesn't, we've heard it for 50 years. It's just a shite thing to sing, for obvious reasons. Makes fanbases look like dickheads. Liverpool got half-flattened by German bombs in WWII, leaving the city a mess. Hardly our fault. I don't know where all the Marshall Plan money went after WWII but it didn't go to Liverpool.
Hope you're able to enjoy a spiritual moment at yer ma's grave, away from 60,000 people stressing over grown men kicking a football around a field.