People questioned Klopp for buying Salah and the Ox, nobody questions him about it now. They also questioned him over signing Robbo. Robbo was an established international when he came here, and it was clear even from his debut against Palace, that he was the perfect fit for the role and a bargain. Not everyone who comes here for next to nothing is the next Solanke.
Last season I felt that Mane was a bit perturbed about the amount of success that Salah was having, and at times it was like he did not want to pass to him. To me that is even more evident now, it is as if he (Mane) looks more for Keita than who is in the better position to receive the ball, and it seems as if he wants to be seen as the top goal scorer.
After last year's result there, the above is a nice "problem" to have.
Mane, like everyone else, doesn't care who scores, as long as we score. If he sees a teammate better positioned, he will find him. It's a team game.
The first thing that went in our favour came about 6 weeks ago, with the news that we wouldn't have to play it at their new stadium. The second thing, was their injury crisis. It made our job much easier than it looked when they tried everything possible to make us be the first team to face them in their new stadium, with all the pomp ceremony and media promotion to go with it. That is somebody else's problem now.
The strike force may not be firing on full cylinders yet, but we've still scored 2 more goals, conceded 7 less, and have 7 more points than at the same stage last season. We've won 9 games in a row now. Big teams, weak teams, bus parkers, long ballers, major rivals, we have an answer for them all atm. People will say I'm getting ahead of myself, I probably am, but I genuinely haven't seen this level of determination in the club to win the league since 87-88, when we had a few scores to settle after the disappointments of the previous season.
But I also know that when we do drop the ball the next time, there will be another 200 posts to add to the match thread in question. They were all ready to go if that injury time decision went the other way. But it went our way, and all that spam had to be saved for another day.
In the meantime, we're back to winning at Wembley, for the first time in 6 years. It took a while, but it was well worth the wait.