Liverpool fans are not very impressed with the lightweight Florian Wirtz and know they are lucky to be top.

We have lots of Premier League mails here on Liverpool, Arsenal and Wolves; the Manchester United fall-out is here.

Send your views to theeditor@football365.com on all subjects.

 

Is the Premier League going backwards?

For all the bluster, fire and fury of the transfer window with records smashed here and there, now that the smoke has cleared, not many teams have actually improved, with at least half regressing.

Whilst Arsenal, and to a certain extent, Chelsea have addressed weaknesses, the rest really haven’t.

Liverpool and Man City at least seem to have a plan (but is either stronger than last year?). Newcastle, Villa, Forest, Palace, Wolves, Brentford, Bournemouth, and Fulham are noticeably weaker. Everton, ManU, and Brighton aren’t noticeably stronger, and Spurs have changed their manager…and then we have the three sacrificial lambs from the Championship.

I guess it’s going to be a competitive year, but with three relatively boring 1-0’s and two nil-all draws just this weekend, I’m a bit disappointed so far.
Matthew (ITFC)

 

Wirtz is the elephant in the Liverpool room

As LFC continue their trek thru the EPL schedule and winning despite not playing well…

My elephant in the room has to be Wirtz. He was bought for these moments – operating efficiently and smartly in tightly compressed spaces, penetrating them with a canny mix of timely dribbling and incisive passes.

Unfortunately
– he’s small and slight like Joao Felix, that will be a perpetual problem in the physical EPL.

– In addition, his passes aren’t working out yet – understandably, he’s still working on building better chemistry with his teammates. It’ll get better over time.

– in his shots and passes and dribbles he still seems surprised by how quickly and physically the defenders get up to him, before he’s had the time to decide whether to pass, dribble, or shoot.

– Oftentimes he loses the ball that way, either before he’s had time to start his dribble, or get his pass or shot away. Even when he belatedly tries to shield the ball, he gets body shoved out of the way, which unlike the Bundesliga, isn’t a foul in the EPL.

Wirtz needs time to get used to the EPL, to the shortened time window for decisions as well as the physicality. Timing wise, i’m sure he’ll get acclimated soon; physical is the area that’s more uncertain in my opinion.

For reference: Fabinho hardly played for the initial 2-3 mths; and he was rubbish on the rare occasions he did come on. He later became one of the most dominant #6’s in the league. Then again, Fabinho was physically more robust.

It’ll be interesting to see how Wirtz does after half a season. And in the unlikely worst case scenario that Wirtz doesn’t work out, I’m sure he will leave LFC a much better player for having come up against such extremely fast paced and physical opponents, week in and week out. I’m pretty sure we won’t take heavy losses on him.

Still, I’m looking forward to seeing how much better LFC can get, once Wirtz and Isak have been properly incorporated into the team. It’s good to know we can still go up a couple of gears.
Gab YNWA
PS Manchester midtable derby yawn. Seems like Amorim is continuing in his role as tragic hero: [cue violins] how much longer can he last before he resigns/iis sacked? Good luck Man U fans…

 

…Kitchen sink substitutions in a deathly frustrating outing at Turf Moor while endlessly awaiting one solitary piece of quality which never arrives… that’s the precise definition of football doing your head in. We splashed an ungodly £116M on a playmaker to unlock and create, presumably for fixtures such as this, opponents such as this. In my excitement over the summer I’d called him a Rolls Royce of a raumdeuter but instead we got a rusty, misfiring Ford Pinto still looking for wheels.

A win that feels like a loss just about for the fourth time running… Simeone has his blueprint for Wednesday already.
Eric, Los Angeles CA (It just had to be that former Man Utd kid giving away the late pen though… I remember him vividly and you just can’t script stuff like this, really the only lighthearted moment on a heavy, dire day of football.)

 

…Why are we pushing our best player by a country mile out wide to accommodate what is currently no more than lightweight potential? Wirtz should bow to the King.
Niall, Annapolis

 

Some Liverpool perspective

Things worth remembering:

It’s very early in the season.

We are bedding in a lot of new signings and handling the loss of our most creative player from the previous few years.

No matter how poor we have looked, everyone else has fared worse in terms of points earned.

We have played two of last season’s top four and three of last season’s top ten.

These boys are still coming to terms with the loss of Jota.

This all said there are either things to be concerned about or things to be optimistic about. Playing badly and winning, looking a bit leggy, new signings not looking quite right. How you see it all depends on your mindset.

Burnley were incredibly stubborn today. That said they were lucky to not be down to ten men in the first half after that horror challenge on Macallister. How the VAR doesn’t review it really does boggle the mind. Mo is looking a bit dreadful but I think that’s largely related to the continuing puzzle of how to replace Trent’s creativity. You’ve got to trust Slot to figure it out and if he keeps picking up 3 points every week whilst he does that’ll be just fine too.

The good thing about playing Burnley today was that we got a lot of practice trying to attack a very well organised low block; that bodes well for Atletico on Wednesday and Everton on the weekend.
Minty, LFC

 

Liverpool lucky v good?

Better be lucky than good, but both would be nice.
Aidan, Lfc (very entitled, but fk me, we were awful)

 

Why are Burnley fans so angry?

Having watched the Burnley/Liverpool game yesterday, I have a question for Burnley fans :

Do you take any pleasure from football?

I have no real issue with the way Burnley were set up by Scott Parker – they were facing a clearly superior team, and we are in a pattern now where the promoted teams invariably get relegated. Pragmatism is a sensible option, statistically it is probably the best way to try and stay up, and if it wasn’t for a momentary lapse, they would have squeezed a point out yesterday, and everyone would have said how much the deserved it had they succeeded.

So that’s point one – the manager took no risks, and sat deep with nearly the whole team behind the ball for the entire game. It wasn’t great to watch, but it was Liverpool’s job to break them down, and up to the penalty, they had failed to do so. I can remember the early days of Rafa Benitez, when he employed similar tactics, although to mitigate this, he won the Champions League. It’s a lot easier to put up with negative tactics when you win something.

But point two – the Burnley crowd were, by and large, a seething mass of toxic masculinity. I was sitting there watching it, thinking Christ, imagine being in the middle of that. From kick off, all we could hear was jeering, booing, aggression and anger. I get that there will be flashpoints, refereeing decisions, idiots diving to try and win penalties, I get that any given crowd will behave negatively at certain points. But the Burnley fans started at minute one and did not relent for the hundred minutes or so of football.

Isn’t going to a football match supposed to be fun?

Was it like this last season, when Burnley dominated the Championship, or did this lead to a different behaviour?

I mean, people pay their money, so they can make their choice, but the Premier League, this is the show, this is what all clubs in England aspire to be playing in, so why is it, now that they have achieved this, that Burnley fans are so angry?

It was hard to conclude that for the sake of everyone, it would be better if they were still in the Championship. Give it eight months and they will be, and what a mercy that will be.
Mat (not necessarily a typical football fan)

 

Arsenal have depth

Thinking about how Arsenal faded away last season mainly due to injuries, I never thought I would feel confident about seeing Arsenal without Saka, Havertz, Saliba along with losing Odegaard early on. Mosquera, Eze, Madueke and Gyokeres are serving their purpose already in transition.

Also, I would never have thought we could have Rice, White, Lewis Skelly, Martinelli and Trossard on the bench. Things are looking healthy with the squad depth Arsenal now have. Anyway it’s now or never!

A final note: I’ve noticed you’ve upset a few sensitive Liverpool fans with your neutral article about how poor they’ve been in achieving four wins out of four. I totally agree with your article but should Liverpool fans care as surely they can only improve especially with Isak playing in due course. Arsenal shouldn’t have beaten Man U but that’s football.
Chris, Croydon

 

…Question: who’s Arsenals worst player? In the entire squad? I’ll tell you this, whoever it is, they are better than every single other team in Europe’s worst squad player.
Brad Smith

 

Liverpool will be caught out

Another lucky lucky undeserved win.

Wirtz did nothing again, Salah anonymous, Kerkez poor (what a dive that was by the way).

Liverpool fans might point at 12 points but at some point these poor performances catch up with you. Lucky late goals and pens, excessive injury time, these aren’t sustainable long term.

They look a shadow of the frankly average team from last season.

Enjoy it while you can net spend nerds.
Tom (AFC – we are coming), London

 

On the woes of Wolves…

Hoping Vitor turns it around but this season has been rough so far.

He doesn’t seem to know his best team yet. And something is rotten with the defense and midfield just gaps all over the place.

V Newcastle there was a moment Murphy I think was offside but if you see it our defence and goalie were in god awful positions.

Lucky to only lose one nil in the end. Also massive problems with putting chances away. I hope now that window closed he has a chance to work with the team and turn it around because this Leeds game is looking like an essential win is needed.

To be a Wolves fan.
Irishwolf (sore head drowning sorrows)