Parted Beard

Enjoy vs best. I like the way he separated on the pitch from off the pitch.

In 15 seconds Gomez created a big chance and saved a dangerous chance.

We have a case where Wirtz created 22 chances with 14 created under “high-intensity pressure” and 0 of those 22 chances of high quality “0 big chances” as a result he has a total of tiny 1.02 xA (0.05 xA per chance created). Other players high on the chart like Palmer (6 big chances created), Pascal (7) or White (7). Where they bring better balance with high numbers vs high quality of chances.

He whispers softly: Leao with 5 key passes, Sane 8, Trossard 12, and Greenwood 14. All not in Top 20 of chances created.

Not mentioning midfield is strange. Knowing Carragher and his influence on the usual suspects they’ll start repeating the same message “the midfield is fine”.

With Saka, Madueke and Dowman unavailable against Liverpool it will be interesting to see who’ll play on Arsenal’s right-hand side. Timber? Or even Eze?

Great news, now Liverpool need his twin for the left back position.

It’s a good thing to change our opinion when presented with new facts so Carragher moving from doom and gloom two months ago to Liverpool potentially being title challengers now is not necessarily a sign of ignorance or hypocrisy, but definitely shows a tabloid-like mentality where things are exaggerated for attention. To be fair nuance, subtlety and thoughtful reflections have never been Carragher’s strengths.

Some Trabzonspor big accounts on social media discovered that attacking Salah gives them huge engagement numbers, relevance and attention. They are busy minimizing the good, maximizing the bad, cherrypicking stats, and spinning the facts. These attacks are happening while Trabzonspor are winning (6/6), Salah having mostly solid performances and his overall stats are excellent including most G/A, chances created, etc in the league. I wonder what will happen if Trabzonspor lost a couple of games or Salah’s form dropped for some time? If this attitude is while things are good, I don’t want to imagine when things are bad. Slandering Salah sadly guarantees not just getting engagement from Trabzonspor fans (disagreeing or agreeing), but also Istanbul clubs’ fans loving the Salah slander with likes and retweets. Those Trabzonspor big accounts also like that as it makes them look intellectual, objective and as if they see things the majority of us peasants can’t see. It’s bizarre to see almost all big accounts from Besiktas fans vigorously defending Trossard or Fenerbahce fans scapegoating everyone to defend Greenwood, Galatasaray contextualizing Osimhen’s bad behavior, and then see some big Trabzonspor accounts dissecting “the first 45 minutes” of Rizespor game and simplistically using it to reach broad negative conclusions receive hundreds of likes in a smaller fanbase. I’m not saying Salah is beyond criticism, I just wrote a long post criticizing him last week, so criticism is absolutely fine, but some posts cross the line into agenda, deliberate to undermine or tabloid-like (I’ve seen drop and sell Salah posts from some Trabzonspor fans with many likes or ignorantly blaming Salah for any defensive problems, etc). Some are also starting the toxic Salah vs Muci vs Aral vs Dju. The who is better or more important? This creates camps and groupies defending each player. Who benefits? The monetized accounts (I’m not monetized by the way), the podcasters, and the desperate for attention. Many of us seen this before with Salah vs Mané, Salah vs Nunez, Salah vs Wirtz vs etc etc. There is definitely the “look at me I’m slandering Salah” the world star syndrome We’ve seen it with the Turkish referee that gave Salah a yellow card for simulation when it was a penalty “look at me I gave Salah yellow card” or the Rizespor player posting a picture “look at me Salah couldn’t dribble past me” or the religious figure “Look at me criticizing the Salah chant” or the football pundit “look at me saying Hagi and Alex are bigger stars” or the Trabzonspor podcaster “look at me blaming Salah for all Trabzonspor gaps”. They all realized the power of using Salah on social media as it brings Trabzon, Istanbul, Cairo, Liverpool and other places to defend or attack. It’s good business for TV shows, newspaper headlines, Spotify podcasts, YouTube channels, and clicks on Twitter. The overwhelming majority of Trabzonspor fans are amazing, but some big accounts will make sure the narrative will get worse because the incentives on social media for big accounts is to feed fans anger and frustrations through targeting a big star like Salah as it is a good business decision. Yes, it’s not football, it’s just business.

The more Ballon D’or voters speak the more irrelevant it becomes. Condo’s voting approach: In the absence of clear favorite, vote for career. Mbappé got Condo’s vote for being an exceptional talent running out of time of winning (career not year) He didn’t vote for Yamal because he thinks he still has time to win in the future. Then didn’t vote for Kane because Condo thought other voters will treat Kane like he treated Mbappe. Pure stupidity. Also, if this is how Condo thinks (in the absence of clear winner vote for career) then hard to reconcile this drivel with Condo’s Top 3 vote in 2025: 1- Lamine Yamal 2- Ousmane Dembélé 3- Mohamed Salah

Glad this dick missed his penalty. For the referee to ignore it is another reason referees are losing the fans respect. It’s not always the big decisions, but these stupid in-your-face actions going unpunished are just embarrassing.

Alonso never won as a coach at Anfield as he lost the three times he came with Leverkusen, Real Madrid and now Chelsea.

I like El Loco, but I disagree with his analysis here. I find any analysis of Salah that is built mostly on “age” to be incomplete. Age is the convenient go-to angle when some are trying to analyze a Salah performance “He’s 34 so it must be age”. I’m not saying age is not a factor especially for a winger, but I remember when VVD returned from his injury and had a bad game immediately the analysis became “he’s not the same center back because of his injury, career over”. The injury was their simplistic go-to. Same thing with the Salah “age” some use it too conveniently in their analysis. Last season when Salah struggled, lazy pundits or those running an agenda focused on “age” while ignoring that Salah’s RB partner that was key to Liverpool’s ball progression left after 6 years of partnership (Trent), Salah played with 6 different RBs with incompatible profile (carriers rather than passers), Robbo on LB was dropped when he was a key source of feeding Salah (with stunted Kerkez as replacement) or Slot changed the system to anchor Wirtz as #10 and asked Salah to play deeper/wider, and changing the #9 profile from false 9 to facilitate and create space for Salah to a traditional #9 like Isak waiting for Salah’s crosses. Many ignored all that and made it simply about “age” and I noticed some make the same mistake now in Turkey. In addition to the missing context, El Loco’s analysis is slightly transactional where he uses the “first 45 minutes vs Rizespor” to reach a wider conclusion. For instance, every Trabzonspor player vs Rizespor in the 1st half underperformed and Reis emphasized that in his press conference. So to make it only about Salah or have unrealistic expectation that Salah will not have off games is strange. All players 24yo or 34yo have bad days at the office. Even Salah in an off day vs Rizespor provided two “pre-assists” leading to 2 of the 4 goals, and his presence created space for the other three forwards (we’ve seen Reis use Salah before as a defenders magnet “bait and switch). It is also strange that Salah who is a volume shooter (3.1 shots per game in Turkish League) had 1 shot in the whole game at the 76th minute, which shows the level of service he was receiving and his role in the game. By the way, about dribbling, at Trabzonspor he is having his second best dribbling per game since 19/20 season. Then El Loco jumps to another dimension “Salah’s performance in tough away games” which is again a bizarre argument as if Galatasaray at home was “easy home game” or KuPS was not away game where Salah starred, but then at home vs Hearts had an average game. The home vs away game distinction is simplistic and using a team overall away performances (Trabzonspor vs Samsunspor first away win) and blunt stat (only 2 G/A in away games) to build inaccurate narrative. Salah was never a traditional winger (Doku) nor a winger to constantly help with defense (Mane) and in many games (regardless of age) Salah was more of “key moments” player rather than nonstop hammering winger fighting in ground duels and nonstop pressing (Diaz). Klopp (in all seasons) and Slot (in 24/25) understood that and built a system to maximize the good (goals and creativity in chances creation) and minimize the bad (Henderson or later Szoboszlai to support the RB, Left winger to do the “dirty” work, and false 9 to drag defenders and create space for Salah). This was the case in most of Salah’s Liverpool career so it’s not the “age” or “home vs away games”. By the way, this is exactly what Reis is doing so far. The worst thing to happen is for Trabzonspor fans to start Salah vs Aral vs Muci vs Dju. Salah and other new players are still adjusting to a new team, league and country, yet they are generating excellent results so constructively supporting them is key to help the players and the team have more consistency.

Predicted Liverpool XI vs Chelsea: Mamardashvili, Araujo, Gomez, VVD, Kostas, Maca, Nyoni, Rio, Graven, Barcola, Koumas. Will be great if VVD is rested, but doubt it. I think Wirtz will be on the bench given his ankle injury. Munoz sadly is unavailable. Alonso never won as a coach at Anfield as he lost both times he came with Leverkusen and Real Madrid. Let’s hope this is his third loss.

Completed it for you … ✨Leandro Trossard has been on the field for all 5 matches Beşiktaş played in the last 15 days. ▪️ 450 minutes ⚽️ 0 goals 🎯 0 assists 🚩 1 big chance created 🔸 2 yellow cards

Trabzonspor played most of the top 6 and most of the bottom 6, now it will mostly face mid-table 6 teams (and Fenerbahce) in the remaining of the first half of the season. Is that good or bad? Given how Trabzonspor play I’d say this is the perfect mix of teams as they do not park the bus and have the ambition to attack (with the exception of the more prudent Erzurum and Alanyaspor).

It’s not only about winning the CL, but style of play and team identity matter too. The claustrophobic and anti-football way Arsenal played with vs PSG in the CL Finals (25% possession and 1 shot on target) diminish your team’s chances of gaining credibility.