You don't see managers passing notes to players half as often as you once did.
The art of instructing one player to pass on messages to his teammates via the scrawled tactics on a piece of paper is a dying one but it reared its rare head on Wednesday evening as Liverpool lost 1-0 to Southampton in the first leg of their EFL Cup semi-final.
The Reds fell behind to a first half Nathan Redmond goal, for which
defender Ragnar Klavan must take some blame, and struggled for large stages of the game.
https://twitter.com/SturridgeNote/status/819295070180491275
It wasn't until the return of midfielder Philippe Coutinho, a substitute on the hour mark, that Liverpool began offering a genuine threat to the hosts but, still, the Saints defence remained resolute and will take a goal advantage to Anfield in two weeks.
One of the most talked about moments of the game arrived 15 minutes from time when forward Daniel Sturridge was handed a note by manager Jurgen Klopp.
Sturridge glanced at the message before passing it to an entirely disinterested Adam Lallana and, shortly thereafter, it was scrunched up and tossed to the turf.
https://twitter.com/Laurenpickettxo/status/819291804105379840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
But fans watching were overcome with curiosity about what the note could have said, with these the most popular theories.
Kev thought there was nothing other than a threat issued from the dugout.
https://twitter.com/KevThompson/status/819291788896862208
Dave's hypothesis was some words of motivation, rather than anything tactical.
https://twitter.com/davidharvey16/status/819291749327716357
We would hope, given Klopp's paycheck, that he came up with something better than Mick's suggestion.
https://twitter.com/MickHLFC5/status/819291749440978944
You wouldn't call the below "bad advice."
https://twitter.com/lfcmaestro23/status/819291825957650442
Jack believed the underwhelming Emre Can was singled out by the fiery Reds boss.
https://twitter.com/Jackhellyer/status/819291827085905920
While this fan offered a more existential theory.
https://twitter.com/inspectahDegs/status/819291833096355843
Rita reckoned Klopp just broke the game down to its basic parts.
https://twitter.com/mrschalky25/status/819291870614482944
While some positional advice was on the mind of @prov1jcb.
https://twitter.com/prov1jcb/status/819291898137427976
A lot of rivals would have agreed with this sentiment.
https://twitter.com/UncleRBenson/status/819291906463170560
While everyone wanted to see Sturridge stay on his feet, at the very least.
https://twitter.com/avantiproperty/status/819291908920983552
However this interesting theory suggested that Klopp had given up on the game entirely and set his sights on a transfer target who was standing quite close to Sturridge.
https://twitter.com/Gazonca/status/819292781055184896
