No Need For A Red Alert
Written by Gerry on 3 Jul (80 Comments)

Firstly congrats to NigeriaKopite for winning my brilliantly designed t-shirt, well done mate and hopefully you have received your voucher by now. If I can find a way to get it off the ground, I hope this will be the first in a range of Kopblog exclusive t-shirts, the latest in trendy apparel for the pisshead about town. I’ve got a mind full of ideas but I’m not sure how to set it up yet or even if I should, but I’ll give it some thought.

In other matters, I’ve just had a very frustrating few days. I thought I had the best of security on my laptop but somehow a virus snuck through my defences and infected my whole system. I tried everything I could to get rid of it but this thing just seemed to be indestructible. It was one of those rootkit viruses, a real nasty little bastard that hides away and hits you when you least expect it, in football terms it would be very much like a Joey Barton!

In the end I decided to use my nuclear button and rebooted my system back to a restore point I created a year ago. This obviously got rid of the virus but I lost everything from the past year and had to spend many hours updating and installing software etc. It was just as well I did though because I soon discovered that the asshole responsible for infecting my machine had also used it as a means of getting into my e-mails etc and was in the process of emptying my paypal account, but I managed to stop him just in time. On the plus side, the experience has given me a newfound respect for poor old Helen, it’s certainly no fun having a Trojan inside you!

Anyway with all that going on I had lost touch with what was happening in the footballing world but once I had brought myself back up to speed I found that I hadn’t missed anything, in fact things are more or less exactly the same as they were a few days ago. The media is still full of the usual much ado about nothing but the worrying thing from a Liverpool point of view is that despite the club issuing a statement a couple of weeks ago stating it’s unwillingness to sell Masch or Alonso, the stories just won’t go away and they do appear to have some substance.

I think it’s fair to say that there is nothing we would all like more than to see both of these guys still in our team at the start of the season. It would be difficult for us to replace either one of them but if we were to lose both it would certainly be a big blow, although I just can’t agree that it would necessarily be a knock-out punch to our chances next season that some doomsday merchants seem to be predicting.

I can certainly understand the concern a lot of fans have about this situation. Now that we seem to be finally on the verge of making that big step forward we’ve all been waiting for, it would be very disappointing for us to lose two of our most important players, but should it happen life will go on. Maybe age has brought me wisdom or made me a little bit soft in the head but over the years I’ve been privileged enough to see some of our greatest ever players in action and while they were all fantastic in their day, there came a time when each of them either hung up their boots or moved on.

I’m not saying I didn’t spent time fretting about some of these departures but over time I soon learned that life goes on and it often proved to be the case that when one hero departs, another emerges. I don’t need anyone to tell me how important Xabi and Masch are to our team, I’ve written a lot about them both in past blogs and I am very well aware that they are two of our best. That said, I just don’t buy into the argument some people make that our prospects next season will be finished without them.

Damaged yes, but over, no way. We’ve got too many other good players for this to be the case. Let me emphasise again that I would be delighted to see them both in our team next season but if they leave we will still have players such as Gerrard, Torres, Carra, Pepe, Agger, Kuyt, Benny, Skrtel, Johnson, Rier, Insua, Babel and all of the others giving it everything they have to bring us success and that ain’t to shabby.

Even more importantly we will also still have Rafa and knowing that crafty bastard he is most likely already working on plans B, C, D and E. This guy leaves nothing to chance and he will be well prepared to cope with whatever scenario may come our way. Besides this, both players have plenty of time left on their contracts so it’s not as if they will walk away for nothing. We don’t want to sell either of them but if we are forced into it, each of them will bring us a hefty fee to fund replacements.

So overall I would regard the possible uncertainty regarding their futures at Anfield as a cause for concern, but certainly not a cause for panic. Rafa has built us a team, not a collection of individuals and I’m confident we will cope with whatever circumstance may throw our way. For example, if at this time last year we had known that Gerrard and Torres would only be available to play together for us in less than 20 games there would have been plenty of doom and gloom about, but the boss managed that situation and we ended up with our highest ever points total and pushed the mancs all the way.

I suspect calm heads will be needed more than ever in the season ahead, so let’s not go losing ours before it even begins. I actually believe Xabi and Masch will stay with us and at the very least I just can’t see us losing them both, but should that prove to be the case we will cope with it and I still think we will have an excellent chance of getting our hands on the title. So keep your chins up (quite literally in the case of Fat Scouser) and as ever;

Keep the Faith

(26 votes, average: 4.46 out of 5)

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(80 Comments)

Out With Old, In With The New

Doesn’t time fly when you’re scratching your bollocks? It’s hard to believe that in less than a couple of week’s time most of our players will be returning for pre-season training and shortly after that we’ll even have some friendly games to keep us occupied ahead of the new season. I’m really looking forward it because, to paraphrase that great 20th century philosopher and trusty Blackadder sidekick Baldrick, life without football is like a broken pencil, pointless!

I’m not a big fan of international friendlies so I haven’t watched any of the action in the Confetti Cup, my only interest in it is that none of our players pick up any injuries. I’ve been keeping myself occupied by doing some work on the house, taking long walks with my dog Homer, watching some annoying movies which I’ll tell you about in a future blog, reading some very exciting Matthew Reilly novels and finally getting a chance to watch a couple of seasons of The Wire.

That all sounds great but I’m getting bored now and I want my football back. For the past few weeks all we’ve been able to do is speculate on press speculation and most of that has been total bullshit. That said, it does appear that Arbeloa may be moving closer to the Anfield exit, while Dossena is moving further away from it. As I said in a previous blog, I don’t have a problem with Dosser staying with us but it’s just a pity he can’t play on the right because we are going to need some extra cover there if Arby leaves.

I can’t really comment on Degan, I only saw him play once and he was dreadful but other than that he spent the rest of the season on the treatment table so in fairness we just don’t know at this stage if he has anything to offer. As for Darby, he’s a player I have seen a few times playing for our reserves and was impressed with the lad. He’s a tidy cool-headed young full-back who seems sound defensively but I didn’t see much from him going forward.

He was unlucky not to get more than a few minutes of play in the first team last season because he unfortunately picked up a knock at the same time as Arby was unavailable, but hopefully he’ll get a couple of run-outs in our pre-season games. I’d love to see him make it in the first team squad but there is such a huge step up from reserve football it’s difficult to say.

The big news of the day is that Johnson has put pen to paper on his four year Liverpool contract and I’m as happy as a pig in shit about it. The guy was on more Most Wanted lists then Jesse James but he elected to come to Anfield and I believe he is an excellent addition to the team. He will improve our attacking options on the right and he will be particularly useful to us when we try to get behind the defences of teams who put ten men behind the ball, and given our superb attacking form at the end of last season I suspect we may face a lot more of that type of tactic next season.

In other news, Leto appears to be moving on for about £3 million which would be a tidy little profit and I see Voronin is returning to us from his season long loan at Hertha Berlin and modestly proclaiming that he is now ready to conquer England. Clearly this guy has such a big ego, if he went to a bar he’d pick up himself!

Obviously he’s been in Germany too long and seems to have picked up that country’s obsession with conquering Old Blighty, when will they ever learn! He would have been near the top of all of our lists of players to be offloaded during the summer however, it has to be said that until we manage to bring in another striker perhaps Rafa won’t be too anxious to offload him just yet.

In fairness, Voronin actually started off quite brightly at Liverpool last time but unfortunately after he picked up a couple of knocks his form rapidly went downhill and he eventually proved to be about as useful as a trapdoor in a lifeboat! We are a little thin on cover upfront and I’m sure Rafa is working on addressing that at the moment but until he does, Davy Crockett may be with us a little longer.

Off the pitch, we’ve had of the departure, or imminent departures, of Rick Parry and David Moores from the Liverpool board at least and I’m very happy to see the back of the pair of them. Some have said they would have preferred to have them around on the board to use their voting powers to block the Americans but I think that horse has already bolted and their powers would have been at best limited and we are better off without them.

There have been many examples of Parry’s complete incompetence as the club’s Chief Executive over the years and we’ve covered that topic many times on this blog, but the fact, as reported this week, that this clown can walk out of Anfield and straight into a no doubt highly paid job chairing an “expert” panel on sports betting integrity, is surely ample evidence of the old pals act that exists at the top of the English game.

This guy’s track record shows that he couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery but clearly when it comes to the sport’s governing body, it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know. And did anyone else notice the irony of the opening words of the statement he made when appointed to this new position? “Integrity and sport must go hand-in-hand and anything that threatens that bond of trust has to be stamped out.” Unbelievable!

As for David Moores, I think if you look up the words lame duck chairman in a dictionary, it’s likely you will see a picture of his face. As you’ve probably gathered by now, I’ve no sympathy for the guy. No matter how you slice it, it was either stupidity or greed that prompted him to do a deal with the Americans that threatens the future of the club all of us have invested our lives in.

He said at the time he was acting in the best interests of the club but I strongly suspect he was acting in the best interests of himself and hoping for the best in terms of the club. In short, he gambled and lost but we are the ones paying the price while he consoles himself with the many millions of pounds he made from the deal. There are some who claim that but for the deal with the Americans, his record as our chairman isn’t actually too bad but I think that’s complete bollocks!

I grew up in an era where you would struggle to recall the chairman’s name, much less any of the directors or what any of them actually did at the club. Back then we didn’t care about such stuff, the only thing that mattered was what happened on the pitch and the off the field stuff could take care of itself. But the game has changed so much. Money has become so important in the modern game and having a strong chairman and chief exec can dramatically improve your chances of success, but unfortunately throughout most of the Premiership era we had Moores and Parry!

As far as I can see the three main responsibilities of the Chairman and Chief exec are the manager, the cash and the business, and in at least two of those areas Parry and Moores records leave a lot to be desired. In terms of the managers they had to deal with, Souness was allowed to stay for two seasons too long, Evans did well to steady the ship but when it became clear he couldn’t take us those final few steps they didn’t have the bottle to dismiss him and instead allowed him to continue in a disastrous joint manager partnership with Gerard Houllier.

When he Houllier eventually took over the sole responsibility he did bring us some initial success but again it wasn’t long before it was clear that we were going nowhere but again he was also allowed to continue for at least two seasons too long. Their only saving grace in this area is the appointment of Rafa Benitez, but I suppose even a blind squirrel can eventually find an acorn!

In terms of cash, I suppose we could argue about that as well but in fairness I think we could give them the benefit of the doubt in this area as it seems they gave the manager as much to spend as they were able, it just wasn’t enough. However, perhaps it would have been if they had been competent enough to get the business side of things right.

The positive side of things since the Americans took over is far outweighed by the negative, but it is interesting to look at some of those positives on the business side of things. For example, long after some other teams we now have a TV station which granted I don’t spend a lot of time watching but nevertheless it does bring us in another source of revenue and is a connection to some of our overseas supporters that should have been in place years ago.

Some people say that our new Commercial Director Ian Ayres is merely a Tom Hicks yes man, but I don’t know about that or even if it matters. What does matter is that he seems to be turning up everywhere making all kinds of largely marketing deals that again is bringing in more revenue to the club. I was particularly interested in the recent deal we did in India which gives us a strong foothold in a previously untapped market of nearly a billion people which has huge potential and for once we seem to be leading instead of following and have gotten in there ahead of the posse.

I also noticed another big improvement on the business side of things on a more practical level recently. A couple of seasons back on this blog I mentioned my frustration at trying to find a new design replica Liverpool shirt for my nephews birthday. Bearing in mind that the season had already been started for nearly two weeks at the time and yet I visited nearly half a dozen sports shops, and rang as many more, full of manc, gooner and chav shirts, and none of them had any Liverpool shirts in stock yet.

All of them told me they were inundated with requests on a daily basis from frustrated parents and the like but “as usual” the Liverpool shirts were late in arriving. However, two weeks ago I was in town here and the three sports shops I passed by had their front windows completely full of our new black and gold designed away shirt in all sizes from infants through to adult, apparently other teams new shirts hadn’t come in yet.

I’m now seeing people wearing these shirts all over the place here in Dublin. So in little more than two seasons we’ve gone from being the last to release our new design replica shirts to the first and no doubt the club will also see the benefit in this in terms of yet more extra revenue coming in. And there is also the superstore opened by the club in Liverpool last year, with more planned to open around the place including one here in Dublin where there is certainly a market.

It should also be noted, although it was completely overshadowed by the debts ran up by the Americans holding company mainly due to interest payments, that according to the last auditor’s report the club actually made an operating profit of more £10 million. Regardless of how this may have been achieved, this is the first time the club has made a profit in years.

Now after all that it may seem that I am making some kind of argument in favour of the Americans but that is by no means the case. The reasons why we need to be rid of them should be obvious to everyone at this stage and I am not going to start listing them off once again. The point I am trying to make is that some of these recent deals were made for good business reasons and others have been down to pure common sense but practically all of them could have been made years ago if Moores and Parry had been reasonably competent at their jobs.

With the right people in charge, this club could be run profitably and had those people been in charge 15 or 20 years ago there may have been no reason to sell it and we might even have a new stadium in place by now. Many years ago Moores and Parry decided to sell the club to the highest bidder and spent many years whoring the club around the globe until they got the deal that would best line their pockets.

All of their focus went into this endeavour instead of focusing on ways that the club might have been run better and more profitably. So while it is true that they are both guilty of signing over the club to the Americans, in my view they are also guilty of creating the conditions where the club needed to be sold in the first place and we are well rid of them.

As far as I’m concerned there were four people involved in creating the mess we now find ourselves in and with Moores and Parry now gone, it’s two down and two to go!

On a final note to this epic blog, if I can get this picture thingy to work properly you should be able to see a picture of the t-shirt I mentioned last time somewhere around here, if not I’ll slot it in later. This is a design I suggested to the good people at Soccerprint, who donated a couple of competition prizes to the site during the season, and they decided to run with it as a limited edition, so I guess you could call it a Kopblog original.

I was thinking of something aimed particularly at our often neglected overseas supporters. So on the front it has Shanks famous “We’ll conquer the bloody world!” quote and on the back it says, “Proud Member of the Worldwide Kop”. I hope you like it and I’m going to give away a voucher for this or another t-shirt in the soccerprint range as a competition prize. We’ll go with the usual format that we are all well used to by now. With the Confetti Cup final on over the weekend, in the comments section of this blog give me your time prediction for the first goal and the final score. Whoever get’s closest wins, good luck.

Keep the Faith

(25 votes, average: 4.64 out of 5)

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(212 Comments)

Glen Johnson - The Right Stuff

Great news on the transfer front at last with the news that Liverpool have confirmed the signing of Glen Johnson. He is Rafa’s first major signing of the summer and a quality addition in an area where we badly needed more options. The fact that he also turned down the chance to rejoin the chavs is also a good sign and will immediately put him in the good books with Reds fans.

But the most important thing about Johnson is that he’s a bloody good player. Some have had reservations about his overall defensive qualities but these are the same reservations that are always expressed about attacking full-backs. Pushing forward there is always a chance that they can sometimes be caught out but Johnson will have an excellent partner on the right hand side in Dirk Kuyt and the hardest working player in the game will be sure to give him plenty of cover.

I look forward to seeing the Doris and Glenda partnership on our right next season. They seem to have qualities that could complement each other well and it should certainly improve our attacking options on that side. However, as I said in the last blog, I still think we should try to hang on to Arbeloa as well. Arby and Johnson vying for the right-back spot would give us plenty of cover and over the course of the season I think they would both get plenty of games.

But Johnson wasn’t our only signing and I suppose it had to happen one day, Jesus has finally come to Anfield. Another signing Liverpool have made is 16yr old Jesus Fernandez Saez (Suso), who has joined us from Cadiz. Apparently it’s not just his first name that he has in common with his famous namesake but, according to his former coach (Click Here) , this kid can also walk on water!

It’s great that we have made our first move on the transfer front of the summer and I’m sure it won’t be our last as Rafa will no doubt be working hard to bring in another couple of additions, to give us that extra little bit of strength and quality to improve on our endeavours from last season. Johnson has the right stuff, in more ways than one, and is a strong beginning to an important summer for us in the transfer market.

Until we make our next move we’ll have to content ourselves with the usual exaggerated bullshit in the press. In many ways the crap these clowns write can be very annoying but I must admit there is a small part of me that is a little amused by the irony of it all, for reasons which I’ll attempt to explain.

You see it wasn’t so long ago that many of these same morons were calling us a “one man team” and claiming that Steven Gerrard was practically keeping us afloat singlehandedly. Then Fernando Torres arrived and suddenly we became a “two man team”, which is a term I was still hearing last season despite the fact that we collected a record number of points and came pretty damn close to winning the title with both of them missing a lot of games through injury.

I would certainly agree that Gerrard and Torres may be our two most important players but referring to our side as a one or a two man team is extremely stupid and totally disrespectful to the rest of our team. But the ironic thing is now that Torres and Gerrard have recently happily signed off on fresh new deals to keep them at Anfield for the foreseeable future, it is our other players, presumably the ones many of these idiot journos dismissed as bit part players in our “two man team”, that are appearing on the wish lists of other top teams around Europe and giving these same press clowns something to fill their pages with.

It seems like Liverpool players have become the latest fashion accessory in football and every billionaire owner wants to have at least one of them in their team! If we believe that there is even the smallest grain of truth in many of these press stories then it would appear that in recent weeks the club have had enquiries for Alonso, Masch, Benny Onion, Babel, Dossena, Arby, Dagger and even Reina. That’s quite a bit of interest for a bunch of “bit part players”.

I mean other than losing the Ladyboy to Real Madrid and Tevez who doesn’t belong to them anyway, I haven’t heard of any teams knocking on the mancs door to make any enquires for the likes of Carrick, Fletcher, O’Shit, Evra, Park, Ferdinand or Van Der Sulk etc. And the chavs haven’t been inundated with requests for the likes of Teary, Cashley Cole, Bootswinger, Plank Lampard, Obi Wan Kenobi, Michael Bollocks or the rest. I would expect there may eventually be some callers for Adebayor and Fabregas at the Gooners, but other than that no-one seems too interested any of their other players.

No, it’s the Liverpool players that are attracting attention and are in demand, which may be a little disconcerting at times but it is a sure sign that we are most definitely making waves and going in the right direction. I know from reading the comments on previous blogs that some people are concerned about the possibility of us losing one or two players and that’s understandable, but I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about such things.

My view on such matters has largely remained the same from the day that Keegan left us to join Hamburg all those years ago. Basically I’ve always been of the opinion that if, for whatever reason, a player no longer wants to play in front of The Kop for Liverpool Football Club then we are better off without them, and it really is as simple as that as far as I’m concerned.

We may feel the loss in the short term, but in the long term it will be their loss, just ask Michael Owen! This club is much bigger than any player and we will carry on regardless. We may not be the richest club in the world but our players are very well paid and if any of them want to earn an extra few grand somewhere else, let them go and do it. I think it really depends on what a player wants from his career but at Liverpool we write songs for our heroes, at other clubs they can only write cheques!

On a final note, if you’re planning on buying any merchandise such as LFC books, replica kits, retro shirts, t-shirts, DVDs etc, could you give the TIA site shop a try first (Click Here). The lads on the main site have just relaunched the shop and any commissions earned through sales goes straight back into both the main site and here at Kopblog, so give it a try and hopefully you’ll find what you’re looking for.

And on a final, final note, I have personally designed a Liverpool t-shirt aimed mainly at our often neglected but completely fantastic international supporters, which I’ll be unveiling in the next blog and giving away a couple of them in competitions over the next week.

Keep the Faith

(41 votes, average: 4.83 out of 5)

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(166 Comments)

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