Morning Gooners, how we all doing today then? How we all feeling?

I’m feeling pretty good, although I have to admit to a fair bit of frustration today, which is of course English media related. Honestly, have you ever seen a club with so many people prepared to defend whatever they do and find excuses for whatever they do as much as Liverpool? We’ve all know it for years; the media has been awash with former Liverpool players now operating as ‘pundits’ and ‘journalists’; they gloss over any contentious issues when it is for Liverpool and they amplify when something goes against them. There is a chant that can be heard in football grounds from across the country, which relates to this obsession and Liverpool as a club. I won’t repeat it, but essentially it taps in to this perceived nature that,  on the pitch and with their fans, they are always the victims.

I’m sorry guys, but you don’t get to cry foul on poor refereeing decisions from Sunday, because Michael Oliver and VAR ignored Tsimikas getting away with multiple fouls during the game and, when you’re slowing down the Gabriel Jesus head injury incident, that looks deliberate all day long.

But there’s been an outpouring of grief from the Chief Constable of the Celebration Police Richard Keys with regards to some decisions from Sunday, completely ignoring other decisions that went in Liverpool’s favour, including the added three minutes of injury time on top of the injury time that was had. When was the last time we saw five minutes of injury time ever last to 98 minutes? It doesn’t happen. It doesn’t matter if the winning team are taking a minute of injury time to take a throw in, referees just blow up post the allotted time – it always happens. Not for Liverpool though. Not for ‘False Positive FC’, who I reference in that manner to last season when they gamed the COVID system so they didn’t have to play their League Cup match against us.

Crying foul on some of the decisions from Sunday is laughable for a team who seem to have got decision after decision against us, the most brazen being Sadio Mane punching Tierney in the face during the era of VAR at Anfield. Any recompense for that? Of course not.

So I’m sorry, I’m not having this “we were robbed” nonsense by Liverpool fans. Look at the numbers, look at the match, look at the performance of those Arsenal players. Look at some of the dodgy decisions that have gone for Liverpool down the years and look at the fact that the best team won. Oh and if you want to chalk off the Gabby Jesus goal as ‘soft’ then you crack on, but have a think about how you should have been down to ten men and you probably should have had a penalty against you when Alisson knocked out Jesus without getting the ball in the box in the dying embers of the  game. Little mention of that in Mr Keys’ cry-fest in the Daily Fail. Then again look what paper he is writing in; says it all really.

As for us, we  move on and the feel-good factor remains, with the players most likely travelling today or tomorrow to Norway for the away leg of our Europa League game against Bodo/Glimt. The games come so thick and fast and it will no doubt be tough – and cold – on Thursday when those Arsenal players take to the field, but the key has to be to get a result by hook or by crook. Last week when we played Bodo/Glimt (do you always have to spell out the whole name?) it was a victory at a canter,  but that won’t happen on Thursday, so I wonder what Mikel will be thinking in terms of keeping momentum versus keeping players fresh for Leeds? I watched the first 20 minutes of the Leeds v Palace game and I have to say I was pretty impressed with Leeds. They lost the game and I didn’t actually see Palace fight back to win it, so I was surprised to see that they’d fallen behind, because when I was watching they were all over Palace. So when the weekend rolls around and we have Leeds on their turf, I suspect Arteta and the lads will know we are in for a tough game against a high intensity opponent.

Going back to the game at the weekend, it seems the fallout from it continues in the shape of Jordan Henderson and Gabriel, with the Brazilian very unhappy with what the England international said. In this world of TV cameras everywhere we haven’t had any expert lip readers out to find out what Henderson said, which says to me that there isn’t any conclusive video evidence like the John Terry/Anton Ferdinand incident that happened all those years ago. With nothing conclusive it will most likely come down to a ‘he said / he said’ case and that will most likely mean nothing comes of it. But you only have to look at the responses of some of the Liverpool Brazilian players to see that they thought something wasn’t right. Again, having seen Alisson and Firmino talking to each other, I’m not sure it is conclusive that they are both talking about Henderson’s words, if I’m honest, so I think it is going to be difficult to know exactly what was said. Only Gabriel and Henderson known what was really said and if it is racially motivated, as has been implied, then that’s a bad look for Henderson. A real bad look. But all we have at the moment is speculation so it is wrong to condemn a man in lieu of any hard evidence.

I think I’ll probably call it a day with that news. I’ve got a busy one in London ahead of me, non-stop until the late hours of the evening, so will leave it here and be back tomorrow with hopefully an inkling of who has travelled to Norway for Thursday’s game.

Have yourselves a good one and I’ll catch you all then.