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SHOULD have known. At 6.30am yesterday I should have known.

I woke up there with what felt like an undeserved hangover. One of them under the radar ones which don’t feel warranted but feel like you have been killed for no reason. Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Death by water extraction. Even when I realise that the hangover is not only fully warranted but also 100 per cent to be expected and probably even a little lenient, I should have fucking known.

One-one at half-time isn’t the end of the world, though. It’s recoverable. The day can get better. Then the theme tune to Neighbours plays and it becomes painfully obvious that we are going to get beat and we should all just go home. Why? You have got a captive audience of 55,000 people, a vocal majority of which need motivating to support their team a bit better in the second half and the choice of record is the Neighbours theme tune. To be honest, we deserved to get beat on the strength of it. I can’t think of any actual scenario within which the Neighbours theme song should be played in the ground. The best we could come up with is that Karl Kennedy was knocking about for the match which is absolutely mental. Why would a fella, who is off work, and probably on holiday want reminding of his job when he is at the match? There is a wider issue here. A lot of people in that ground were pissed off yesterday. Pissed off with the team, with Sam Allardyce, with Dan Sturridge for having wham bars as connective tissue. If I’ve got half a chance to influence supporter behaviour, I’m playing a track list of bangers, not some second-rate nostalgic bull shit.

Just when the Reds are trying to get their minds back on the game some overenthusiastic bizzie gives it the big one with the volume turned up to eye-watering levels.

“Operation Anfield exercise.”

Every year without fail, the same bizzie. Must be the highlight of his working life, trying to time it so he gets on Match Of The Day. He has a viewing party and everything. Why do they have to disrupt the match? Why can’t they do it on walkie-talkies? They are only setting the frigging fire alarms off and opening some doors? Why do we have to put up with this shit? If the crowd weren’t pissed off before Neighbours and this nonsense, they were after it.

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Sunday, April 23, 2017: Crystal Palace's manager Sam Allardyce shakes hands with Liverpool's manager Jürgen Klopp after his side's 2-1 victory during the FA Premier League match at Anfield. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

Couple that with the Reds propensity to give teams a goal whenever they want one and it’s a miracle that people weren’t fighting in the stands. Say what you want about the Reds but we don’t half make it easy for teams every now and again, do we? Even when we are defending well. They make no sense. We attacked every corner and high ball into the box really well and then decide not to. The ball should not bounce off a corner and find it’s way into our box. It deffo should not bounce off a corner and find its way into our box and onto their big head of a centre forward unmarked five yards out. The fact that we gifted them the corner by Degsy Lovren passing it straight to them and then, in true Degsy style, diving in to win it back only adds to the frustration. In fairness though, he was probably chocker with the Neighbours theme tune ringing around his head, wondering whatever happened to Madge and that. Degsy, la. Good enough to play every now and again, but I can’t have it that his mentality is strong enough to allow you to build a side around a defence with him in it.

Imagine managing these. Jürgen Klopp must want to kill them. All the time. One week learning how to defend. Next week back to square one. The week after learning how to unlock any defence. Week after that devoid of ideas. The lack of a Liverpool chance after they scored the second was worrying, but when you are playing against a block of 10 with absolutely no ability to change it from the bench then you are going to struggle. Liverpool grafted, they tried their best but every now and again it isn’t good enough. The fight that the Reds showed last week against West Brom and Stoke the week before was still in evidence we just didn’t really play that well. Once Palace equalised the pressure from our own crowd and the lack of an alternative to pretty much any of the players on the pitch meant Klopp was trying to work with his hands tied behind his back. Hopefully the lessons will have been learned from this year and he will get the options he desperately needs to manage games better.

The only positive I suppose is that we don’t have to see or smell Allardyce and his massive big gravy jowls for another year or listen to him proclaim about how much of a tactical genius he is. If it was so easy to exploit Liverpool’s weaknesses, why did you only have two shots in the whole game then, stew head? Give the man his due, he isn’t shy when talking about himself, is he? Which leads you to wonder about other things he isn’t shy about discussing. Here is my guess at a top five:

5) Bodily functions
4) Not washing his hands when he carries out said functions
3) Brexit
2) Well done meat
1) Rafa

So, my day that started so poorly ended with me, still hungover, on the train home when three arl pissed Bluenoses got on and started singing Crystal Palace songs and saying how much they loved the Queen. I don’t know either. Should have known, though, I suppose.

Up the weary Reds.

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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda Photo

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