A Long Road Ahead
Written by Gerry on 29 Aug (251 Comments)

My head is in a bit of a spin at the moment because there’s so many players coming and going at Liverpool at the moment that I hear Anfield has been fitted with a revolving door! The transfer activity is certainly increasing as we approach the close of the transfer window and I’m hoping that when it all settles down we will have added at least three good quality additions to the squad because we could certainly use them.

It would be easy for me to slag of that treacherous Judas, two-faced scumbag bastard Mascherano but I try to rise above such things! If there was any truth in the rumours that he wanted a move because his family couldn’t settle on Merseyside then you would have some sympathy for him because family comes first but letting down the fans, the club and his team-mates by refusing to play is totally inexcusable and quite sickening in my opinion.

Mascherano is just a useless wart on the arse of humanity and why another club would even want to sign such a scumbag after such an act of treachery is beyond me but it’s good riddance to bad rubbish as far as I’m concerned. If it weren’t for our precarious financial position I would have been delighted to see us putting him back where we found him rotting in the reserves but as things stand I’m happy to be rid of him as long as the money we get goes back into the team where it’s badly needed.

On the pitch, I hope things are starting to look promising but I can’t really say for sure. With all the comings and goings and the different levels of match fitness among the players in our squad, it’s difficult to gauge exactly where we’re at right now. When Cole was sent-off in our first game against Arsenal, I thought the response from our ten men was terrific as they took the lead and were dealing fairly comfortably with the gooners before a rare error by Pepe robbed us of the three points we deserved. It seems our change of manager hasn’t brought us a change of luck but at least there were plenty of positives for us to take from that performance.

In our next game against Trabzonspor in the first leg of our Europa League qualifier at Anfield we only managed to win by a single goal thanks to a great finish by Flyin Ryan but we did create a lot of other opportunities, so again there were positives for us to take from the game. But against Man City at Middle-Eastlands in our next game our performance was as flat as a watch’s tit!

For Liverpool to lose 3-0 against any team, anywhere, regardless of the circumstances, is totally unacceptable and I could see absolutely no positives for us in that game. Our passing was poor, our build up play was far too slow and defensively we were all over the place at times. I’m a big fan of Danny Agger but it was reported that he suffered a bad concussion against Arsenal and couldn’t remember anything about the game afterwards and I think our game against City will be another he’ll want to forget because he was tormented throughout by Adam Johnson.

But it’s unfair to single out individuals after such a bad performance because collectively and individually everybody was pretty poor on the night. Afterwards Roy Hodgson said we didn’t deserve to be beaten 3-0 and he was right, it should have been more!

We followed that game with a trip to Turkey for the very dodgy looking second leg of our Europa League qualifier against Trabzonspor holding a slender one goal lead. The manager understandably made a lot of changes and fielded a weakened side for the game and things looked very ominous for us when they grabbed a goal inside five minutes and dominated the game for the next half hour or so.

But I was quite impressed with the way the players kept calm heads and gradually grew into the game. By the second half we were in increasing control of the tie and eventually got the goals and the win we deserved. There were a number of very good performances for us on the night but Glen Johnson was probably the pick of the bunch and it was great to see Pacheco making such a big impact from the bench.

The win put us into the Europa League draw on Friday and we’ve ended in the toughest group of the competition alongside Steaua, Utrecht and Napoli which almost seems strong enough to be a Champions’ League group. I know the Europa League is not our number one priority this season but these should be interesting games and I’m looking forward to them.

So overall, on the pitch we are still very much a work in progress and it’s difficult to say how close we are to firing on all cylinders but it better be soon because we cannot afford to lose too much ground in the league waiting for it all to come together. Tomorrow we face West Brom at Anfield and it presents a different kind of challenge than we have faced in our other games so far.

This is a game where we will be expected to take it to the opposition, show our quality and win comfortably. However things are rarely that simple in the Premier League and it will be very interesting to see how Rodge will set the team up for this task. I obviously fancy us to win and at the end of the day that’s the most important thing but I’m a selfish football fan and I’m also hoping we might see some firm signs that the Hodgson blueprint is coming together.

Thankfully Torres will be available and should be a lot closer to full fitness. I find it unbelievable that we are approaching the end of another transfer window and we still haven’t signed another striker. There are rumours about several possible targets and I really hope we’ll bring in at least one of them because for about two years now we’ve been crying out for some extra cover in attack to cover or partner Torres in attack.

When he is fully fit and firing, Torres is the best striker in the world in my opinion and it’s almost impossible to replace him when he’s injured but we could certainly bring in an improvement on the options we have available at the moment. Ngog is a promising youngster and a game lad but he is in no way ready to be leading the line for us yet.

Kuyt isn’t prolific enough and I think his unbelievably hard-working style is of more use to us in other areas and we don’t know enough about Jovanovic yet. I would play Babel ahead of Eggnog in attack every day of the week. It’s true that he never fulfilled his promise for us but if you’ve got to take a gamble, gamble on pace and power and Babel certainly has that. But a club of our stature really shouldn’t have to be gambling and despite our financial problems etc we really should have had at least one more recognised goalscorer in the squad long ago.

Anyway whatever way things work out we’ve got a long hard road ahead of us this season but at the time of writing this I’ve just heard reports that we’ve signed Raul Meireles and Paul Konchesky subject to a medical. If these reports are true and if we get a good win tomorrow and add a good quality striker before the end of the transfer window, I’ll be as happy as a priest at an altarboy convention because it will be game on and if you hear news reports about a naked man dancing around on top of the Liver building, it will probably be me!

Keep the Faith

(28 votes, average: 3.89 out of 5)

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(251 Comments)

Gunning For Glory

Well after a long summer we are finally here on the eve of kicking off another Premier League season and while I’m really looking forward to the football, I’m still as confused as a hungry baby in a topless bar and I haven’t got a Scooby Doo what to expect from the campaign ahead.

Off the field things are still as clear as mud. They are apparently interested parties in taking over the club but it’s proving to be a slow process. Now I know about as much about the financial side of the game as Wayne Rooney knows about personal hygiene but appears likely that any takeover of the club won’t now happen until closer to the October deadline when the circumstances will be more favourable for the bidders.

The bid by Kenny Huang seems to be the one with the most momentum and while I can’t say if he’s the best man or has the best finances, I think it’s safe to say that he certainly has the best PR people. He seems to have been painted as the white knight among our bidders but promises of no club debt, a new stadium and all the top players we can eat is something we’ve all heard before and whoever does take over the club will need to quickly start backing their words up with actions if they are to win over the Liverpool fans.

One of the things I found interesting about the Huang bid is that at one stage it was being reported that an investment group representing Chinese government was one of his backers which led to some people expressing concerns about their human rights record. Now don’t get me wrong, human rights is something we should all be concerned about and I don’t have a problem with that, in fact some of my best friends are humans! But I just find it interesting that when we talk to American or Middle Eastern investors, their shabby human right records is never mentioned as a concern. It seems Kenny Huang isn’t the only one with good PR people!

Anyway back to the football and once again the Premier Leagues fixture computer has shown that its anti-Liverpool virus is alive, well and shitting all over us. We start our league campaign against Arsenal at Anfield tomorrow followed by a trip to Middle-Eastlands to face the biggest club in Manchester, then a game against West Brom followed by a trip to bogey side Birmingham and then a trip to the Theatre of Illusions to face the mancs.

It’s a bit of a nightmare start and our preparations have been far from ideal. With the way things worked out with the World Cup over the summer, the manager began our pre season training with only 3 or 4 senior players and a squad full of youngsters to work with. In recent weeks more of our senior pro’s returned but we still have several first team players who returned so late that they haven’t had a chance to get a pre-season game under their belts.

I know it can be said that it is the same for other teams but as ever with Liverpool, our situation is a bit worse than others because we’ve got a new manager still in a “getting to know you” phase and trying to impart his playing philosophy to the players. Even with all of his experience in the game, it’s going to be tough for Roy Hodgson and he could have done with a couple of softer fixtures for the team to find its feet but as things stand he’s going to have to hit the ground running.

One of the big problems with the staggered way that our players arrived back for pre season training is that we now have a squad of players with varying levels of fitness and the manager will need to get the balance right. As far as I know the only way to deal with this is to rotate the side from game to game so I would expect to see a bit of chopping and changing in our early fixtures. However, on the plus side our Europa League games may actually help us in these circumstances in terms of us giving some players a run-out and getting their fitness up to speed.

Earlier I described our early run of fixtures as a bit of a nightmare but of course this will be all determined by results and if we bang in a few wins it would be a dream start. It all begins with our game against Arsenal tomorrow and to be honest, I’m really not too sure what to expect. The main reason for my confusion is because at this stage I’m really not sure who is going to be in the team or even how we are going to play.

In defence, Reina will no doubt return with Glenda, Carra, Dagger and perhaps Aurelio making up our back four. Insua may play at left back but the fact that we’ve already tried to sell him twice would seem to indicate that he’s probably not in our future plans and may yet be on his way before the end of the transfer window. Another player who might well be in with a chance of starting is Martin Kelly, a fine young versatile player who can play anywhere along the back four and I’m expecting this to be his breakthrough season.

We can also be sure that Gerrard and Cole will start but other than that it’s hard to say who else will be starting the game for us but I’ll give you my best guess. Firstly, I wouldn’t want Masch in the team or even in the squad for the game, his head has already left the club and it’s only a question of us getting enough of a transfer fee for his body to join it so I don’t see why we should get him match fit for somebody else and I would prefer for us to stick with the players who are fully committed to being with us this season.

Despite what some other people have said, I think Poulsen is a very good signing for us. He is a hugely experienced defensive, tough tackling midfield player who has played in all the big leagues around Europe as well as having nearly 80 caps at international level. Besides that, he’s comfortable in possession, is a decent passer of the ball and scores an odd goal here and there.

I don’t know why some people are so critical of him. He played 50 games for Juventus over two seasons so he wasn’t exactly the failure there that some people have made him out to be. While it’s true he has been known to have a bit of a nasty streak at times, I consider that a plus point because sometimes I think we are a little too nice and could use a little extra aggression at times.

I’m also a fan of Lucas who I think is getting better all the time and I’m happy to have him and Poulsen competing for a place alongside Gerrard in the centre of midfield. I think I’d lean more towards Lucas starting tomorrow and maybe let Poulsen make his full debut alongside the very promising young Shelvey in our Europa League game on Thursday.

The rest of the team really depends on the fitness of Torres. If he is anywhere near fit I would definitely play him even if it’s only for an hour. Because the sooner the better he gets his match fitness back and starts linking up with the likes of Cole and if he gets through the game we can rest him on Thursday and give him over a week to recover before we play at Man City where he’ll be a lot more effective for us with a game under his belt. So if he plays we can play Jovanovic on the left and Maxi or Dirk on the right, that would be my guess at our team.

However if he doesn’t play it looks like we will have to use Eggnog instead and that changes everything. I actually have a lot of sympathy for Eggnog. Let’s not forget that the lad is still only 21 and a promising young striker in his own right but when Torres is injured or unavailable he is expected to come in and fill the boots of the best striker in the world and then comes in for criticism when he can’t live up to those unrealistic expectations.

If he has to play tomorrow, he could be put into the side as a straight swap in the Torres role but in those circumstances I would prefer it if we switched to a more traditional 4-4-2 formation. We could switch Cole on to the left and let Jovanovic or Kuyt go upfront to give Eggnog some back up in attack. I just don’t think the lad is developed enough or experienced enough to play the lone striker role effectively and funds permitting, bringing in another striker must surely be a priority for the manager before the transfer window closes.

As for the result, I am obviously hoping for a big performance and a good result but this is one of those games where we will really have to maintain our concentration for the full 90 minutes because Arsenal are well capable of pouncing on any lapse on our part. So this one could really go either way but I’m hoping we can get our campaign off to a strong start and build up a bit of momentum so my money’s on a 2-1 win for The Reds and then ring the changes for our Europa League game against Trabzonspor on Thursday. So fingers crossed and C’MON YOU REDS!!

Keep the Faith

(19 votes, average: 4.47 out of 5)

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(737 Comments)

A New Season, A New Hope

It’s hard to believe another new season is upon us but here we are once again. Under normal circumstances, I would be feeling about as excited as Harry Redknapp in a brown envelope factory at this stage but these are not normal times at Anfield, in fact normal left the building a long time ago and I’m just not sure what to expect anymore.

From the start of this year, somewhere between our many dreadful performances, the disappointing finish to the last campaign, the departure of the manager and all of the usual off the field stuff, for the first time in my life I just completely lost my appetite for the game.

But things changed over the summer when, as a complete neutral, I was able to sit back and enjoy the football at the World Cup without any of the baggage and then Roy Hodgson was appointed as our new manager and for better or worse, at the very least he represents a fresh start. So while I can’t say that I’m as excited as I used to be, from the football side of things I am at least interested again and curious about what’s in store for us in the weeks and months ahead.

The club is currently going through the darkest chapter in its history and one way or another you get the feeling that this will be the pivotal season and by the end of it we will either be taking our first few steps on the road to recovery or be forever lost in the abyss. In the campaign ahead we face a battle on two fronts, on and most particularly off the pitch, and I believe we must win both of them.

Obviously the situation off the pitch is the big one because it’s for the very existence of the club and it must be resolved as quickly as possible but as far as I can see, nothing has changed. Despite new appointments and new faces arriving in our boardroom tasked specifically with resolving the situation it doesn’t appear that any real progress has been made. The American parasites are still here, the massive debts are still here and we still don’t have a pot to piss in, in the transfer market.

I’m not sure some people fully appreciate how dire our current situation is and if the fact that we had to recently meet with officials from the league to convince them we would be able to complete our fixtures this season isn’t enough to set the alarm bells ringing, then I don’t know what is!

But a lot’s been said about that on this blog already and I’m not going to rehash it all again except to say that it’s become pretty clear to me in recent months that among Liverpool supporters there are some people who see everything but understand nothing!

Anyway, I’m just quite literally praying that there is something to these latest reports about a possible takeover of the club by Chinese businessman Kenny Huang. I don’t know the first thing about the guy but anyone taking over from the Americans is bound to be an improvement and if it’s true that they would make no profit from the deal it would be doubly delightful.

There has been talk of this deal being pushed through before the end of the transfer window which would be fantastic but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen as I’m sure the greed of our current owners would see them placing as many road blocks as they can in its way. But even if it does drag on, just knowing there is a deal in the works that will finally rid us of these two parasites will be a boost to everyone at a time when it is badly needed.

The battle for the future of the club is obviously massively important and quite rightly overshadows everything else and Leo (aka Fat Scouser) and some of the other lads have been doing a great job keeping everyone here up to speed on the latest goings on and I hope they continue to do so. But the battle for the future of the team is also important in its own right and it’s in this area that I’m going to mainly focus my efforts in the blogs ahead. I know there are bigger issues and I can understand why some people may not have the appetite for it right now, but I miss talking and blogging about football and I believe there’s room for us to discuss both.

That said, no matter what may be happening behind the scenes at the club, I believe that this is a very important season for us on the pitch. We can argue all day about the rights and wrongs of Rafa’s departure. I believe he should have been given at least another season to turn things around but I would accept that there is also a genuine, not media driven, argument that maybe it was time for a change.

I know some people might get bent out of shape because of that last comment but there are pro’s and con’s to everything and at the end of the day, he’s gone now and it’s time for us to stop bickering about it and row in behind the new manager. It may seem callous to say the king is dead, long live the king but that is the nature of the game these days and we’ve just got to get over it and “walk on”.

In my opinion, I believe that in the fullness of time Rafa will be remembered as one of the great Liverpool managers. Sure he had his flaws as every manager does but to his great credit and despite everything that’s happened over the past several years, he still left us the nucleus of a great side and an impressive collection of very promising youngsters at Melwood and the Academy.

So I think we’ve got a strong foundation in place and plenty for Roy Hodgson (Rodge) to build on. This is why I believe it’s so important for us to have a successful season because if we don’t it might well all fall apart so badly that even Humpty Dumpty and all the kings men would struggle to put us together again.

If we fail to make a significant improvement on last season then you can be pretty damn sure that the likes of Fernando Torres and Captain Invisible among others will be gone from Anfield quicker than you can say multi-million pound signing-on fee! I believe that this would be the most likely scenario regardless of who the new owner is and the departure of some of our big name players would likely have a knock-on effect that could bring the whole playing side of the club tumbling down like a house of cards and set us back years.

In such a scenario and assuming we had an owner with deep enough pockets, we would likely end in a Man City situation throwing money at the team in the hope that we could buy some short term success but without any long term sustainability. However, if we manage to have a reasonably successful season and keep everybody together and our foundation in place, then I think we can continue to build on what we have and hopefully any new owner can supply the manager with a transfer budget to enable him to bring in the right players, not necessarily the most expensive ones, to help take us to another level.

So that and the fact that the longer we remain out of the top four, the harder it’s going to be for us to get back in means there’s a lot at stake for us on the pitch this season. In the absence of Rafa we need a strong manager who can handle the pressure and help us turn things around and I believe we’ve got one in Roy Hodgson. I’ve been impressed with him so far and while he may not have been everybody’s idea of our Mr Right, I think he might well prove to be our Mr Right Now. Because he is a respected figure with bags of experience, can handle the players, the media and knows the English game inside out and right now that’s exactly what we need.

I’m sure he’s frantically working at bringing in a few more new faces because we definitely need to get a few more bodies in and even under Rafa I felt our squad was too small. We’ve had a few departures and while I regret that Benny Onion has moved on, I’m not too bothered about the others and I hope Mascherano joins them. The guy sulked his way through the early part of last season because he didn’t get his move to Barca and he’ll do the same again this season if he doesn’t get his move to Inter or wherever he’s looking to go. Don’t get me wrong, the guy is one of the best defensive midfielders in the game when he’s in the mood but he is replaceable and provided we get a decent fee for him, we could do without someone like him in the dressing room at the moment.

On the incoming front we’ve brought in Joke Hole, Jocky Wilson and Milli Vanilli which is a good start but more is required. It was a great boost signing Cole. We know all about him at this club, basically if you can get the ball to him he will make things happen and I’m sure Torres will enjoy playing with him and Gerrard might even occasionally pass him the ball! I saw Wilson playing for Rangers a few times last season and he’s a terrific young player with a calm head that belies his tender years. I’m not sure about Milli, he hasn’t pulled up any trees in pre-season so far and every time I look at him I keep thinking Voronin but its early days yet.

We’ve also re-signed Fabulous Aurelio which I think is a good move, I know the guy always seems to pick up injuries but unlike some players I could mention, he’s never let us down on the pitch when he has been available. He’s never going to be world class but he gives it his best and he’s also got that sweet left foot, so if we can 25 or 30 games out of him I think it’s worth having him in the squad.

We still need to get a few more in, by my reckoning a good quality left back, central midfielder and striker would round off the squad nicely, anything else would be a bonus. Maybe Bridge, Parker and Crouch if reports are to be believed, although personally I’d prefer Figeroa, De Four and Ruiz but in any case we would probably be looking at a £25-£30 million spend and hopefully a decent transfer fee for Mascherano would cover a large chunk of that, assuming we re-invested the money in the squad which is of course about as likely as a Jamie Carragher hat-trick under the current regime.

In other matters, we’ve got the second leg of our Europa League qualifier at Anfield on Thursday. The two away goals scored by Eggnog in the first leg should be enough to see us through comfortably and hopefully we’ll get another chance to see Cole, Gerrard and one or two of our other big guns in the team because this is the last game we have before we kick-off our league campaign against Arsenal.

Obviously the Europa League isn’t one of our main priorities this season but I will be delighted if we go all the way in the competition because this year’s final will be held at the Aviva Stadium which is the newly refurbished home of the Irish football team and only a 20 minute journey from where I live, so your all invited to stay over at my place if we get there!

I don’t think the likes of Torres, Gerrard, Cole, Reina and the rest of our big guns should be allowed anywhere near our Europa League games unless we reach the latter stages. But I still think the competition could be useful to us if we use it to bring on some of the youngsters. I would like to see us playing with a team of three or four senior pro’s and the rest made up of young Reds. The likes of Wilson playing alongside maybe Paddy the Greek, Spearing and Shelvey in the centre of midfield with maybe Pacheco and Eggnog upfront and a couple of senior pro’s on the bench if we need them.

Anyway, that’s enough from me for now and apologies if this blog drifted all over the place but I’ve been away too long and once I started writing this I just kept going. A new season brings new hope and I’m feeling a little more optimistic about our prospects recently.

In the news today I heard Torres “committing” himself to Liverpool and while he certainly took his time about it, it was still great to hear. And there’s also a lot of talk in the media about us making a decision on a preferred bidder and maybe having everything sorted out before the end of the transfer window, which would be fantastic. It’s hard to believe that we might yet reach the golden cloud at the end of this perfect storm we’ve had to endure, but as ever we have hope in our hearts.

Keep the Faith

(23 votes, average: 4.13 out of 5)

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(254 Comments)