The Worst Take On Liverpool FC You Will EVER Read

(In a season of really bad takes on Liverpool FC)

There’s a take so excruciatingly bad in The Guardian (which I wish someone hadn’t shared on this site when they pointed out, quite correctly, how bad it was) that I could only call it ‘cunting arse dribble’, even though I’ve no idea what cunting arse dribble is.

Cunting arse dribble just feels particularly unpleasant, like it’s just oozed out of Daniel Harris’ mind. But it’s also what passes for a lot of journalism these days, I guess.

I don’t spend much time reacting to cunting arse dribble these days, as I’d rather not encounter cunting arse dribble in the first place (hence why I don’t use social media anymore, and mostly avoid newspapers that rely on clickbait and snide; albeit there are maybe 5-10 football writers whose work I follow, all of whom do not spend more time writing about darts. Many are smart analysts, or who quote smart analysts.).

But there is a swamp of cunting arse dribble out there, with its aim to ruin everyone else’s fun with cynical, bitter and deluded takes that are not based in reality, often mired in total bias, but with the gutless pretence of being neutral (a spineless, shameful existence, to pretend to be neutral while sticking the knife in).

I googled Daniel Harris, and yes, he’s the Man United fan who wrote a book a dozen years ago.

So it’s always good to get an opinion on Liverpool from a ‘neutral’ in the neutral media, albeit having worked at The Guardian for three years myself in the late 1990s (in the advertising department) you couldn’t move for Manchester Evening News alumni, given the origins of The Manchester Guardian. As with the BBC, based in Manchester, when you have so many Man United fans in one place, you can’t expect fairness regarding Liverpool.

Of course, you can still get savvy and fair Man United fans. But this guy isn’t one of them.

From 2013: “Always an away game: Manchester United fan Daniel Harris writes book about following the Reds away from Old Trafford.

“He’s a dedicated United fan who follows his team around the world and will be at Wembley on Saturday for the Champions League final. Yet Daniel Harris hasn’t been to Old Trafford in five years, boycotting the ground because of the Glazer family’s ownership. He tells David Henry about his new book.”

Click to order his book and see him and his body of work here.

Beyond that, he seems to write a lot (or make films) about darts, boxing, tennis, cricket and probably so many other sports he barely even knows what football is. I mean, I’m supposed to take you seriously and you hardly even know about the sport? (Supporting Man United could be taken as further proof. Cheap gag.)

Do you know what?

I’m gonna write about how bad modern darts is, as Luke Littler, or so I’ve heard, is 12 years old, and any 12-year-old winning majors, and with women (WOMEN!) qualifying for tournaments, means that darts must now be a terrible, skill-free game, very weak at the top; and it’s a damning indictment. Darts used to be a man’s game, not child’s play or women’s work, where a coronary between the 17th and 18th pint, when no one could even see the board or the players due to the pall of carcinogenic cigarette smoke in the hall, was all part of the mastery. See? I know all about current darts. Darts is rubbish. That’s my considered 2025 take.

(I once threw 181, btw, as I was that good at darts in the 1980s. My maximum break in snooker was 148, and aged 15 I ran a one-minute mile. In cricket I once hit 17 sixes in an over. I know my sport, and I never lie.)

It certainly doesn’t feel like Harris has actually watched more than three Liverpool games this season, before analysing the data on each. (Some of us have watched every game and analysed the data on every game.) I did see that he wrote a match report on the Wolves game, which was the worst Liverpool have played this season, in between his articles on other sports.

So maybe, like every time I used to watch Zlatan Ibrahimović in the 2000s, it would be an uncharacteristically bad display, that skewed my sample of his work. A good writer would be self-aware, mind.

Anyway, here’s his cunting arse dribble:

“The standard at the top [of the Premier League], though, leaves plenty to be desired, as illustrated by Liverpool’s tie with an improving but still embryonic Paris Saint-Germain, and though, on a game-by-game basis, this [Premier League clubs being much better overall] benefits the competition with matches that are often closely contested, over the piece it is unrewarding. There is no sense we are watching anything exceptional or eternal ...”

Which is indicative of why I wrote pieces like the ones I’ve been writing lately, and sharing the European ELO Index.

Liverpool are ranked #1 in Europe, Arsenal #2. Man City are in the top 10, and eleven (44%) of the top 25 are English teams. Three of the top eight in the group stage were from the four English entrants. Two of the top four in the Europa. The top team in the Conference.

(Also, PSG, with their established manager, are described ‘embryonic’ to shame Liverpool for losing to these mere new kids on the block, and Liverpool with their new manager and new systems of play presumably are not? Hasn’t Luis Enrique had an extra year to pull PSG into shape?)

So, the Premier League being better overall, all the way down to the bottom three (who have good players, notes Harris), means that Liverpool running away with it is a sign that Liverpool are not that good, and leave plenty to be desired?

So the league is really strong at the bottom, and very strong in the middle, and very strong in the upper reaches, and it’s just Liverpool, way clear at the top, who aren’t very convincing?

Is this logic, or cunting arse dribble? That’s right, it’s the latter. It’s cunting arse dribble.

“Over the piece it is unrewarding…”

Maybe if you’re a Man United fan prone to spouting cunting arse dribble and who seems to know more about darts. I mean, talk about deluding yourself into downplaying the success of a rival whilst seemingly showing no self awareness.

You know that Man United treble? To be honest, looking back, as they were not as good as the best Barca sides of 10-15 years ago that would follow, it leaves plenty to be desired. To me, over the piece it was unrewarding. United’s late goals to win the Champions League? Over the piece, definitely unrewarding. Let’s give that title to Bayern.

As a Liverpool fan, who doesn’t pretend to be a neutral, am I allowed to say such utter guff? I would be ashamed to do so. But let’s just say all good teams from the past were not as good as people said they were.

“As illustrated by...”

... is also a perfectly stupid way to dismiss the team that topped the equally embryonic Champions League (winning seven of the first seven) with a new hot-take from six days towards the backend of a long season, to sum up that season.

“As illustrated by...” is how we reduce a body of work to one minor exception.

You know David Bowie? That Tin Machine stuff was a bit shite. It thus proves that anything he did before then was not satisfying; all it did, those many great albums, was show that eventually he’d end up making bad metal with a mullet. And the Beatles? Let’s judge Paul McCartney’s entire output by focusing on The Frog Chorus, and John Lennon’s by looking at Forgive Me My Little Flower Princess.

Anything that came before obviously merely building to those low points. You know, as illustrated by.

To me, this (below) is the league table that shows an elite side at the top, as when other teams dominate the Premier League (and make it to a domestic cup final, and win 80% of their 10 games in Europe). Normally, by non-biased non-stupid people, this would be the sign of a Fucking Good Team. Especially when the underlying numbers are so consistently good.

Does this table below also leave plenty to be desired?

Is it just because it’s Liverpool who are top, and not Real Madrid or Man City, that it’s not special? Was it Liverpool’s fault to draw the most in-form and petro-doped team as reward for finishing top? Drawn against almost anyone else, and Liverpool would be through.

And of course, any team can go out of any knockout competition if they have a bad week, or just a bad game. If you don’t know that about football beyond the age of 11, you haven’t been paying attention.

Most of the very best Premier League sides since 1992 went out of the Champions League well before the final. Plenty of great sides before 1992 didn’t win everything.

It’s not used to condemn those teams.

So, let me take any single game or tie from any great team, where they lost – Arsenal’s Invincibles against Chelsea in 2004, Man United against Fiorentina in 1999, Man City’s Centurions against Liverpool (5-1 on aggregate) in 2018, or Chelsea against Liverpool in the 2005 semifinals, or Liverpool against Wimbledon in the old meaningful FA Cup in 1988 – and that they were all not very good, a bit mediocre, as illustrated perfectly by those, er, totally unrepresentative examples.

I mean, if Man City could win 100 points in the season, and didn’t do that well in Europe, the league can’t have been very good, could it?

If Man United won so many titles, the rest must have been shit all the time, right?

And hell, even that Barca team wouldn’t have been as good without Lionel Messi. So, they weren’t actually that good, when you look back, and remove all their best players.

If Man City stumble this season, the league has to be a bit rubbish, to have no Man City beating everyone, even though that’s the opposite of logical.

And what’s the logic with Big Six teams in the bottom half of the Premier League table but thriving in Europe?

We can take superb teams having superb seasons and then, if we wish, pick the moment where they lost a game, perhaps a key game, and say they were shit all along.

I mean, this is something a six-year-old turtle in a coma could do better with, even if it hadn’t spent all its time focusing on darts.

Despite what Opta ranked the 2nd hardest set of fixtures before the games began, Liverpool won eight of 10 Champions League games (one defeat was with the reserves and kids at PSV), and by dint of being too good for everyone bar PSG (who played exceptionally well). Almost no one wins eight of 10 Champions League games in a season against mostly excellent teams.

Liverpool thrashed German champions Bayer Leverkusen 4-0 with an xG to match?

Not played anyone good yet.

Liverpool comfortably beat Spanish and European champions Real Madrid?

Not played anyone good yet.

Liverpool beat Man United, who are thriving in the Europa despite being in the bottom half of the Premier League, 3-0 at Old Trafford?

Not played anyone good yet. (That one may be true, but even so.)

Liverpool deservedly beat reigning Champions Man City home and away?

Not played anyone good yet.

Liverpool beat AC Milan, RB Leipzig, Lille, Bologna and Girona, who’d just finished top four in Big Five European leagues?

Not played anyone good yet.

Liverpool beat Spurs, who despite being in the bottom half of the Premier League, are thriving in the Europa League? Liverpool score 10 against Spurs in two games, and creating about 10xG in the process?

Not played anyone good yet.

Liverpool deservedly beat Chelsea? Newcastle? Brighton?

Not played anyone good yet.

Liverpool go to Arsenal, Forest, Newcastle and Aston Villa, as well as the vitriolic final Goodison derby, and do so unbeaten? Coming away with more xG created than conceded? And as part of some truly monumental battles that were breathtaking in their intensity as each side sought a winner?

Not played anyone good yet.

Liverpool beat Aston Villa, a team in the Champions League quarter-finals? (And also outplayed them in the aforementioned game at Villa Park and thrashed them on the xG in a 2-2 draw?)

Not played anyone good yet.

Liverpool beat Bournemouth home and away, despite Bournemouth’s incredible home record?

Not played anyone good yet.

Liverpool beat the fast and bruising Brentford home and away?

Not played anyone good yet.

Liverpool win at PSG?

Not played anyone good yet. (Typical lucky Liverpool, always so lucky, never any good, etc.)

Liverpool had the better xG Difference in almost all of these games, bar against a fresher (and extraordinarily fast) PSG, who had just rested their team as they play in a farmer’s league, as the one super-rich entity in a team of financial strugglers with collapsed TV deals and no real income?

Shows Liverpool were never any good.

Scoreboard journalism, recency bias, and dismissing eight months’ of hard-fought, hard-won (or hard-drawn) games, to focus on just two? Shocking. Absolutely shocking. (Someone revive that turtle and give it a job at The Guardian’s sports desk.)

Liverpool go out of the Champions League to the most in-form team in Europe on penalties?

I always told you Liverpool were shit.

We need less cunting arse dribble in the world; fewer generalists who actually know nothing about anything, stealing livings (his darts documentary might be very good, mind, albeit I’d rather stick three arrows in my eyes than take a risk).

Making proclamations that don’t even qualify as fake news, or disinformation, as they’re not even that valid. Opinions are like cunting arse dribble, or something.

Maybe it’ll wind-up some absolute knob on the internet (guilty, your honour!), but what good does it serve? Or are you just playing to your “neutral” audience of Man United, Man City and other fans who will lap up the nonsense that Liverpool aren’t actually that good? Is it so cynical, so pathetic? You can do good business by just saying everyone is rubbish, as all rival fans will lap it up.

Liverpool ran out of steam, a bit, when facing PSG after a monumental schedule going back to December; constant football, no winter break, two domestic cups and two additional Champions League games, against good teams, tough teams, fast teams, hard teams, physical teams, that wears you down. The English league is hard enough, 38 wars of attrition, without 10 tough Champions League games and countless domestic cup ties. Or does that context not count?

Again, I’ll leave you with the record how good Liverpool have been in the games against the best teams in Europe, which is actual analysis, not cunting arse dribble.

Yes, I’m biased (and once saw a doctor for a bad case of cunting arse dribble), but I’m using data, to go with having watched every game. This is called …

… analysis.

Maybe try it?

Twenty-five games against the best 25 teams, 72% won, scoring (and creating on xG) more than two per game and conceding (and conceding on xG) less than one per game.

These numbers – 72% of games won with an average of more than +1 xG Difference per game – would win you the league, and yet these numbers are against the best 25 teams in Europe (and thus not including the impressive win at Man United).

The record is even better versus everyone else in the other 21 games, and the xG better still when playing the rest, as you’d expect.

But to me, this is the table and graph that shows how elite Liverpool are, and two tired games against an expensive, in-form team able to peak in the spring as the rest of the time they have nothing to test them, is proof of quality.

I’m sorry if that leaves plenty to be desired, Daniel Harris.

But maybe stick to darts?

This is a free read but comments and many other articles are for paying TTT Main Hub subscribers only, and where we try to keep the cunting arse dribble to a minimum.

Warning: may contain swearing. D’oh, too late. Fuck!