THE CASE FOR A *NOW* JANUARY WINDOW

CHATTING LIVERPOOL PR, JANUARY SIGNINGS, AND A BIT OF NEWCASTLE

Listen up my friends, I might have taken a few perceived Ls over the last year.

Did I think Fabio was a dark horse this year? Yes. Did I make the same prediction last year? Yes.

Did I think Eddie was a £35m striker? Yes. Is he playing like one? No. God no.

Did I think Liverpool would struggle? Yes. Have they? No no no no NOOOOO. But I did say this:

The team that manages their distractions the best will win the league.

City have not managed their distractions.

Liverpool have not had any... until now. Jamie Carragher, who plays the mouthpiece role for his old club, leaned in heavily on Trent last week to insinuate he was encouraging bids from Madrid and that was bad because it would destabilize the United game.

Well, guess what destabilized the game? Trent, because he spent the week with nasty fans in his DMs while his local family and friends probably wondered what he'd done to deserve this treatment after 20 years of impeccable service because Carragher gave them permission.

This savaging went from Twitter into the in-game commentary where he attacked Trent all game - even Roy Keane got in on the act, saying Trent wouldn't get a move to Tranmere. Liverpool fans in the stadium took their cues from Carragher and went after the player at Anfield.

So where has that landed Liverpool?

• Dressing room friction was rumored and that story is now picking up hype in the papers.

• It’s now being suggested Liverpool should sell now

• Mo Salah, in a similar situation, clearly furious with the treatment, put up a picture of the three contract rebels.

• Carragher then went after his professionalism because now control of the public relations strategy has been lost.

• Salah retweeted and said "I think you might be obsessed with me."

I'm here to tell you this: Trent and Mo Salah wouldn't have cared if this entire attack was being led by Thierry Henry. They care because it's a Liverpool mouthpiece doing it and they know this wouldn't be happening without the say-so of the club.

Let's be fair... I suspect the original plan was to just go after Trent, but now that control has been lost, Salah has been sucked in.

High-performance dressing rooms are like delicate flowers. It can take years to create the perfect balance of many things to have a season opener that has bloomed like this one... but it doesn’t take too much salt in the soil to spoil the crop. This is salting of the land wasn’t caused by a neighbor, it was caused by someone in the family.

Civil war tends not to heal when the two people at the center of it are exiting for greener pastures.

Think what the entire squad now knows:

• The love is transactional.

• Step out of line and powerful club mouthpiece personalities will savage you. Tenure, trophies, prestige... none of it matters if you disobey the system.

• They are all putting their bodies on the line and fans are going after players while the club is top of the league.

So now Liverpool are in a nightmare. Half the fans are calling for one of their secret weapons to be sold now. The player likely feels absolutely betrayed. Virgil looks like he's at war with a right back who is leaving.

... and Mo Salah, a man who has racked up G&As so high, his personal contribution sits at 66% of all of Liverpool's goals, now looks like he's part of the fight.

When you are leaving a club at the latter part of your career, one thing is absolutely true: You want to preserve your fitness so that fat check will land.

Salah is 32 years old. He could move to Saudi and earn a minimum of £200m. How do you think he's going to feel about putting his body on the line now? He's just seen the machine of Liverpool go after a teammate who is local.

The honest answer is we don't know... but what we can say with assurance is this: It ain't good.

Transfer news hasn't really moved with any velocity. Nico Williams is the latest to get a link but apparently David Ornstein says the money won't work during this particular window. My issue with a move like this? The boy has two goals. Do we really want to be taking a rough diamond in January that has the same number of league goals as William Saliba? I thought we wanted a forward who was solving an issue this season?

Now, don't get me wrong, long-term, it's clear that Nico Williams is a very good player, with a lot of upside. But we need to win the league this season, and signing someone out of form to push us over the line doesn't sit well with me.

Players scoring and delivering impact now:

• Marmoush - 17 goals, 11 assists

• Mbeumo - 13 goals, 4 assists

• Cunha - 10 goals, 4 assists

• Sesko - 11 goals, 3 assists

• Barcola - 10 goals, 2 assists

Even an out-of-form Coman has 4 goals and 2 assists.

My hot take is that if we're trying to push for the league this season, you either find Premier League players who can hit the ground running, or you find loan deals for players with pedigree that might need to prove they still have it.

Some people are highlighting Alex Isak and how well he's done despite not scoring goals. Yes, I agree. He was a high-risk signing and the only team in the Premier League willing to take the chance was a freshly monied Newcastle. Has it paid off? Well, obviously. But they still signed a player who has averaged 1,900 minutes of league time in the last 3 seasons. Availability has to be part of the mix for any of these players we're looking to sign. We are a team that has lost out on major trophies three seasons running because we have lacked the robustness of Manchester City.

Final story, Nick Ames of The Guardian says Thomas Rosicky is being considered a hot contender for the Sporting Director position vacated by Edu. This one worries me a little bit because he's really good friends with Mikel Arteta. Working with your mates is rarely a good idea because you need to have friction to succeed in high-pressure jobs. Will Thomas have the clout to challenge Arteta? Or will he be extremely grateful for a massive, massive role that he's probably not experienced enough for and do what he's told because he knows how he's landed that job?

But, to put a positive spin on it, he's revived Sparta Prague.

He has overseen Sparta's revival in recent seasons that culminated in a return to the Champions League proper this season for the first time since 2005, although they were thrashed 5-0 by Manchester City in October. Arsenal are said to have been impressed by his record with the Czech side, who have won the league title for the past two seasons.

This is a guy we all loved, he was a technician, fun to watch, a really good professional, and he was VERY creative. He also understands the weight of the badge. So, I'm totally game for whatever name is selected, but also think we should be seriously considering non-players who are doing genuinely innovative things at clubs we're not thinking about. Phil Giles at Brentford works at an extremely data-centric club. Piero Ausilio at Inter Milan. Tony D'Amico at Atalanta. Simon Rolfes at Leverkusen. Michael Zorc, who was previously at Dortmund. Grégory Lorenzi at Brest.

Hey, we'll see.

Big game in 2 hours' time. Newcastle is going to be a struggle to get a decent team out. But getting to the final of a League Cup must be high on the agenda this season.

We don't have a right side of our forward line, so some reshaping is going to have to happen there. Players are dead on their feet, we have an FA Cup game at the weekend, and two massive Premier League games next week. My suspicion is we'll go hard tonight against a Newcastle lacking key players.

But who knows... this month is about survival. Let's see what Arteta has. We'll be live after the game.