I am really looking forward to the Arsenal game tomorrow and I am quietly confident we can get the 3 points against a (hopefully) tired & dispirited Arsenal team. This is MUST win for us to keep the pressure on manure.

The last few games between us and Arsenal have been 1-1 so I hope this an exception with Liverpool taking out the 3 points with a 2-0 win.

It was brilliant watching slur alex blow his top yesterday. My kids thought it was hilarious as well. Prick!

I think a victory in this game will send the biggest message of all to Fungus and the Mancs, that we’re coming to get them. They will have pencilled this one in as somewhere we could drop points, and to be fair, all season I’ve thought that we will have consistent results against the other top 3 so I had us down for a draw in this one. However with the extra rest, and the Gooners’ injuries, I’m crossing my fingers that will tip things in our favour.

Will Gerrard do a Lazarus and appear from the dead for this game? I think it’s possible… Rafa has likely seen the benefit of playing against a team who’s entire game plan doesn’t revolve around stopping Gerrard.

I’m a little worried that Carra and Skrtel have been conceding a lot of goals recently, so I’d actually like to see Agger start this one. I think he’s a little bit quicker, and gives us more quality bringing the ball out.

I think the only thing we can expect from Agent Pennant is for him to foul someone and turn and bitch at the Referee!
As far as secret aggents go, all hopes will hang on Crouch! (cue the Robot dance!)

I think for the Arse, we need someone in the hole capable of doing a bit of a mazy dribble and Benny fits that bill.
As much as we miss SG, I think there are certain players who just seem to play with a bit more “freedom” when he isn’t on the park… almost as if they are suddenly not worrying about trying to get him the ball, or what he might think if they don’t, so they come out of their shell and sort of go for it?

I agree with Andy. Rest Ninja, play Dagger

Pepe,
Arbeloa, Carra, Agger, Insua
Masch, Xabi
Kuyt, BennyOnion, Aurelio
Torres

Subs: Carra, Babel, Riera, Ngog (maybe SG?)

3-1 win for us Torres, Kuyt, Aurelio
(and Scum to collectively shit themselves at 9pm!)

Great blog Gerry!

Awesome blog Gerry. I could not post in the previous blog. Sorry to hear about your aunt. Let her soul rest in peace.

Aitch
Spot on sire. I predicted this team exactly. This can change into a 4-4-2 with Benny on the right if required. Although this is what i expect, i hope we play Babel on the left instead of Riera. Just want to give the lad a chance to prove he’s good. We will be a little short in set-piece delivery with both Gerrard and Aurelio not in the team. So Aurelio might start.

My predictions: I’ll keep it to myself. Last time i said it, we drew 4-4. Better to be superstitious than regret it later.

The king is back as Rafa’s advisor for the academy
Yippee…

abhiram, I’m only floating my prediction coz I’m hoping Gerry will be giving away one of those t-shirt vouchers… to the person who correctly guesses the time of the first Manc to shite their Ronaldo numbered shorts!

(My last attempt at a score prediction was 3-1… unfortunately it was the Chavs who scored the 3, so I’ll just be shutting the fuck up now!)

Great blog Gerry.

Its so good to read articles where there is a definite sense of passion for one’s own club and at the same bringing out the truth.

Arsenal are a good team, lets face it. Likewise they are tired after the FA cup match and we need the win more than them. It is our biggest challenge. Today and Hull on saturday will be two crucial matches.

Agree with Aitch about the lineup. Spot on. My prediction : 2-1 victory for us.

Super stuff Gerry,

If we approach the game all guns blazing we should have enough to beat this arsenal side.

They will be a threat though with wallott,fabregas,eduardo and arshavin so we`ll have to be on our toes at the back.

2-0 to the reds.

Weird this, before a game I’m usually pretty sure on what’s going to happen – win, lose or draw. That’s not to say I get them right. But I can at least usually make a decision on what I think is going to happen. This one, I keep floating from, “We’ll win this.” We’ll only get a point.” “Oh no. We’re going to get stuffed.”

Bit confusing to say the least. Then I remembered… this is what it feels like to be in with a shout at the business end.

So, I suppose it’s called Flapping, worrying, panicking, shitting meself.

But you know what, it feels good and it sure beats watching the end of the season just hoping they all lose. And the best thing about it all… I can start getting used to it again. Because no matter what happens tonight, we are definetely becoming a force again and hopefully we will be in this position for many more years to come.

LeShark, here’s a little something for your kids….
ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lig0ckkT_rc

Just stick an h on the front and give yourself and them a little giggle.

PS…. Where’s Keith?

last week before the chav game I felt we would just come up short, I have a much better feeling about tonight.

I was watching a bit of ESPN classic last night and they were showing the 4-2 defeat away to the gooners in 2003-04.
We were a million miles from a title challenge back then (only a few short years ago).

A win tonight sets us up nicely for the remaining games, so 2-0 would do nicely.

The thing that worries me about Arsenal is that they’ll be relaxed and can play under no pressure. If we give them time and space we’re likely to get cut apart. I’m hoping we adopt the same approach as we did against Real Madrid. I also hope Anfield will be bouncing with a great atmosphere. This is our biggest home league game in many years so I hope the vocals fro mthe fans reflects this. If we fly out of the traps we could steam roller Arsenal.

I won’t make any prediction, I just want any kind of win.

My team would be:

Reina
Arbie Carra Agger Aurellio
Masch Alonso
Kuyt Benny Babel
Torres

I’m playing Aurellio for his set piece delivery which I think is important against an Arsenal side without a few first choice defenders and goalie. Riera hasn’t done much for a while and could do with some bench action. Babel could do with a game and tends to perform in the big matches. Benny to play behind Torres.

What I think Rafa will do is play Riera instead of Babel and maybe Lucas will play instead of Benny.

Here’s an interesting article

Wenger might be eyeing third place and that why might have rested Arshavin and others during FA semis

http://www.arsenalnewsreview.co.uk/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=1242&cntnt01origid=30&cntnt01returnid=42

tp://www.arsenalnewsreview.co.uk/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=1242&cntnt01origid=30&cntnt01returnid=42

Abhishek, that writer is a bit of a drama queen I think.

That link seems to be broken i went onto the site though and i agree with LB,thats just typical knee-jerk journalism.

Have to keep a close eye on Eduardo.With Alonso and Masch in the team-there is no need for Lucas to start.Hope Babel gets a start.

Eduardo is the closest thing to Fowler I’ve seen. Wicked player! Definitely got the ability to give Carra and Skrtel lots of grief.

Agger deserves a start tonight-spot on regarding Ed and Fowler.Their keeper looks dodgy-lots of good crosses will test him.

That Charlotte Jackson the setanta presenter is one fine bit of gear.

Just thought i`d say that.

I just checked out that bit of gear Timmy and I agree!

Rafa:

“For us the important thing is to do our job, to prepare properly for every game and look to take three points from each of them.

“If we do that and then still can’t win the league then there’s nothing else we can do.

“It still depends on United, but we have to keep the pressure on them.

“If we win tonight then we go back to the top and put them under more pressure for tomorrow night.

“The players have trained really well and yesterday’s session was fantastic. The atmosphere among them is really good and I feel we are in a good moment.

“We’ve had a full week to prepare for Arsenal which has been good because we have been able to look at all of the small details, which I always like to do.”

Im hoping for a 2-0 win but have butterflies in my stomach. I like your team setup LB but I think Rafa will go with Dossena on the left and put Babel on when Arsenal are getting tired. Around the 65min

Ms. Charlotte Jackson was the only reason i used to frequent the football365 website. Am sure they have lost traffic since she left.

Tonight, I dont know why I can see an absolute hammering of the goons. I’ve never felt so confident, please dont let this bite me in the arse. hah a pun as well!

YNWA

Typical rafa.Good to hear the camp is high on confidence.

Normally i would stress having to play a big game without our aptain,but it has been proved time and again this season we can play well and win without him or Torres.Not that i prefer that obviously,i just think the squad is well equiped to compete on any given day against anyone without Gerrard.I think we`ve proved it time and again this season.Its a sign of the progress we have made under rafa.4 years ago with gerrard out we were a very ordinary side.

With the injurys we`ve had to withstand this season manly to our top 2 players it would be some achievement if the club was to win the league.

Jay Spearing scored a hatrick for the reserves last night. He had a great game, defending, attacking, he was all over the field. I hope he breaks thru next year

Gerrard must be pretty gutted that he’s injured in what would be the most important league matches of his career.

Another excellent blog, Gerry.

Good to know that Rafa is focusing on the game (as usual, of course) instead of responding to Mr. Alley Fungus-sun and his lapdog’s idiotic tricks (gosh, I really like this lapdog thingy).

I think Rafa will play a high-tempo game. We’ve had a longer rest and are better prepared. The gooners will most likely be distracted by their CL game. So if we go for their throats from the whistle, they will not have the heart to fight. Also, I read someone (I don’t remember who) mentioned that if the gooners were to lose to us, it will make the Mancs more worried about the league and so may not be as focused on the CL game. Hope the gooners read that article too!

My prediction – LFC 3 Arsenal 1

This is “another most” important game of the season – if you are fortunate enough to be at Anfield, make it another memorable night!

The joy of supporting Liverpool Football Club!

A lot has happened in the last 18 days since i got tickets for tonights game .
( A lot of grief from our lass ) i think she’d rather go shopping, but hopefully it
will all be worth it with a nice win and 3 pts.
Last time i went we went top with a 0-0 with Wet Spam the ref cost us 2 pts
that game and the boo boys were there boo’ing at full time, how times have
changed .
Anyway i’ll be on the back row block 223 and my lad will be banging on the
back wall and generally been a noisy little sod .
YNWA

Good call on Charlotte Jackson… well worth my Setanta subscription!

Don’t be worried about the atmosphere tonight. Before the game both set of fans will be holding up a mural for Ray Kennedy. Sadly, Ray isn’t in the best of health, has been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for some time. And the Ray of Hope appeal has organised this for tonight’s game.

So, it will get off to a good start. Remember the Justice for the 96 mural and the 6 minute non-stop Justice chant against Arsenal. It baffled them. Mind you, it must be weird coming to Anfield after playing in a library. And, win lose or draw, we always seem to put on a show against them. Obviously the longer it goes without a goal the more nervous the crowd will get, but I have a feeling we could be in for a European type night tonight.

Funny enough, I was just reading an interview with Wenger in a paper and he said, he has immense respect for LFC, the fans and the city. It was a really nice touch especially after all the usual shite we get. He was very impressed when we sang YNWA despite being 5 – 1 down. He also said, how other fans re-act when their teams are being beat. A little gee up to his own fans? But fair play to the man anyway.

I know Rafa won’t be falling for any of it. He will make sure the lads play a very low risk game. Don’t be expecting no gung ho juglar attack. That could be suicide against Arsenal, and their not going to throw anything away at this stage or risk using players (Babel) in the hope they perform.

But I will expect Rafa to want a very high tempo, quick passing game, both short and long. Make the ball and the Arsenal players do all the work. I also think their heads would fall if we can score an early goal. But, as usual, a last second 1 – 0 win will do for me.

One hecck of a game to watch tonight. This game could be the decider if we win the PL. That’s why me and the boys and gals( yes wee do have them too) coming to the Cobra Club tonight at 2.30am for the 2.55am kick-off. Yawn!
I too will go with Agger instead of Skrtel at the back and Aurelio instead of Insua. I too favour Benayuon to play behind Torres, with either Babel or Reira on the left and Kuyt on the right.
My gut feeling is a 2-0 win.
YNWA.

Good to hear that there will be a great atmosphere generated before the match. Sad to hear about Ray Kennedy.

I’m well looking forward to this game. Liverpool v Arsenal games are usually full of goal mouth action! Think I’ll get a couple of cold Heinekens in…. will help calm the nerves.

Quiz question lads and no cheating please!

Who has made the more first team club appearances since August 2006?

A) Phillip Degen
B) Harry Kewell

There I was reading through all the positive posts, getting all gee’d up for the game… and you had to go and ask THAT question LB!

But you fogot C) Sean Dundee

Chuck Jackson is smokin, as is Sky’s Georgie Thompson, but for my money, I still have to go for Millie Klode. There is just something inherently innocent yet nasty about that girl!
Just that twinkle in here eye that suggests you just might not survive the encounter!

Answer: Harry Kewell with 44 appearances. Degen managed 43 apeparances.

Another question! This one more positive so expecting a better response!!

Which of the following players scored the most goals in their first 50 appearances (all competitions) for LFC?

A) Kenny Dalglish
B) Ian Rush
C) Robbie Fowler
D) Michael Owen
E) Fernando Torres

Hi gang -

Musing on tonight’s game … I reckon we have the motivation and that might just about push us through.
I go with the “Real Madrid” school of thought on this one. I don’t want the Arsenal getting time and space to play their way into this game. I think we are capable of playing as good football but so are they so close them down, push up, and score first and early. There you go !!
I would also go with Benny as link to and floating around Torres but I don’t think Rafa will go with that. He has Benny playing quite effectively now coming in from the wing so if he plays that’s where he starts.

Gerry, Sorry to hear about your Aunt.
Lurgankop, will get back to you closer to end of May vis a viz Killarney.

Let’s hope Anfield rocks tonight !

LB- I’d guess Torres ?

Close Dougle, but incorrect. Anyone else?

I’ll give the results at 19:00 UK time.

evenin lads,

great blog Gerry, and another must win game tonight…I am confident if we go at the arse from the off with a high tempo approach then we can get the result, just like against the sadacticos, lets not underestimate them though, there is another reaction to their defeat last Sat, and that is to win their next game. Good to see Don Rafas comments though, confidence seems high…..Right thats it from me till after the game, too nervous and superstitious to mention anything else ,in fact feel a bit bad about the comment above. (never met a red that wasnt superstitious to the point of sillyness!! my wife still laughs at my pre-match rituals!)

agreed about Millie klode though! and Georgie Thompson (together??!!) right thats enough of that! far too much excitement for a man my age!!

Shitting myself about tonights game, if we don’t win thats the league gone for another year. Can’t see the mancs losing many of their games. I’d feel a lot better if Stevie was fit, what do you boys reckon? Can we last the pace without him?

LB,
I`ll chance fowler since he got 5 early on in his career and also a hatrick early on in his second season v`s arsenal thats 8 in 2 so he can`t be far off.

Jackson all the way lads,what a woman.

As we say here in cork “she eat ya without salt!”

Of the 3 young ladies being discussed I’d go for Jackson. However there is a dark haired chick on Sky Sports News that is top totty! Can’t recall her name.

Natalie Sawyer is her name!

lads get yer minds back on the match!!

I reckon Insua will get the nod tonight, Aurelio’s lack of pace was exposed in the matches against the chavs, Insua played the the away game earlier this season as well.

with 4th place looking fairly secured, i am sure some of their players minds will be on the CL semi’s so get at them for the start. If you think about it, we have being doing that since loosing the boro game anyway.

I have done fuck all work today, these mid-week matches are a killer!!

Corky, have a go at the quiz question mate!

I’m trying to take my mind off the match until nearer kick off.

Was fowler right LB?

I`ve one.

Name the only player to play in all 4 league divisions in england and win a european cup medal?

sorry for hogging,

I seen this revised kit for next season,looks nice.It ain`t officially picked

yet.http://www.pitchslap.co.uk/new-liverpool-kit-0910/

Didn’t Torres just recently miss out on that record by a game or two LB.
Was it Rush?

LB ???

Who is it?

2hrs til kick off. My team would be pepe, arbie, jc, dagger, insua(he was motm at emirates), dirk, xabi, masch, aurelio, beni, and torres. Dagger deserves/needs a start. Skertl deserves/needs to sit a couple. Likewise Riera. Arsenals backline is shot to pieces hence I expect Rafas tactics to be a brutal onslaught from the start a la Madrid game. Crowd will be vital tonight. Answers to quiz questions: I’m going with Rush and Finnan. Oh and I’m with Aitch – Millie rocks!

Finnan`s correct Digger.

LB “Deggen = 43 appearances” ??????????? WTF?

You must mean either
A) appearances at the office, hobbling in to collect his pay stub
B) appearances on the treatment table
C) appearances on the Medical Staff’s Christmas List coz in a downward economy, he kept all employed for another year.

I hadn’t seen her before and she’s only been on once over here in the States, but last week there was a young Indian Girl on presenting Sky…. don’t know here name, but, corrrr nora!

Having said that Millie is still me #1 (and I’m sure that just makes her day to know that a bloke exactly twice her age thinks that…. slinks away feeling dirty.)

LB- I believe the answer to be robbie(I’ll love ya for life)fowler!!

COME ON THE POOL-ITS NOW OR NEVER BABY!!

Anybody now a link to a stream for the match?

A friend of mine wants to know.

Cmmon Liverpool !!!!!

Decent side out most in here will be happy with it i should think.

Reina

Arbeloa,carragher,agger,aurelio

alonso,mascherano

kuyt,benayoun,riera

Torres

happy dagger’s back in. Seems like the strongest line-up that we had available.

Come-on the redmen.

Right lads result time. I asked the following question earlier:

Which of the following players scored the most goals in their first 50 appearances (all competitions) for LFC?

A) Kenny Dalglish
B) Ian Rush
C) Robbie Fowler
D) Michael Owen
E) Fernando Torres

Answer:

C) Robbie Fowler with 34 goals in his first 50 games for the Reds.

The order goes as follows:

Robbie Fowler – 34 goals
Fernando Torres – 33 goals
Ian Rush – 30 goals
Michael Owen – 28 goals
Kenny Dalglish – 23 goals

Right time for the match!!

Timmy, usually you can find a streaming link on myp2p.eu

Your mate should get on their pretty sharpish and download the sopcast application, if he does not already have it.

come one reds, do us proud

YNWA

come on*

Sopcast 6816

Is Howard Webb a Scum supporter?

OMG OMG OMG

They were under attack for most part of the 1st half…. then suddenly a mistake by monster masch..they scored,,,

Fabianski is in the form of his life….. as most keepers when they are playing at Anfield..

We can still do this!!! We all over them!! They got jammy with the goal.

Come on pooooooool!!

how are we behind in this one!!!!????!!!

and i just saw gerrard in the sky room!!! wtf is he doing next to fungus ass kisser dick keys!!!

come on redmen, we can win this!! we will have to be wary of goons counter attack – that can finish us. COME ON!!!!

I can’t believe that we are trailing at half time…..

and what a silly mistake by Mascherano…

Well, somehow we came out of that half trailing?

I guess we need to find at least two in the second half. It’s never easy with this squad, is it?

C’mon boys, let’s not balls it up here.

I BELIEVE.

To be honest we didn’t have any shots that required world class goalkeeping so it’s a bit early to complain about Fabianski’s form. I still hope we can put a few balls past him in the second half.

What a great effort by Liverpool, we’re so unfortunate to be losing.

We can do this.

I hope this keeper does the same thing when the arse play the scum.

I doubt it tho

45 Mins to go

YNWA

I guess we need to push forward and attack. A draw doesn’t really do us any good, so we’ve got to go for it. Feels like last Tuesday all over again, hopefully we do a little better dealing with the counter attack.

Let’s see what Rafa comes up with during the break. Keep the faith…

Kopper, Almunia will most likely be back by the time they play the scum.

Can someone explain to me why Riera seems to be playing deeper than Aurelio?

Bit of Keystone Cops for 5 minutes, but other than that we’ve been all over them. Should be 3-1 up already, instead of 0-1 down.

Nevermind. Other than the goal the Arse have shown nothing. I’m confident we’ll get goals. Just don’t get caught out for a 2nd pushing forward and we’ve got this.

Howard Webb is a Bastard!

U rite lvcjmac.
Who would Rafa send to win this?
As you said mate…keep faith

Webb will be refereing the FA Cup final.

That’s what he’s got as reward to cost us our points

Does anyone know where I can watch the match online? Just got home from work in the US….

Honestly We only got ourselves to blame for the Arse goal

cmooooooooooooooooooooooon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

T

you beauty

Come on you reds….Lets win this~

beautyyyyyy

Benny??????

Benny scored….2-1!!!!

Come on Reds Come on!!!!

BENI…TEZZZZ

oh no

2-2…..Arshavin

See..All our own mistakes..this time by Arbeloa

2 stupid mistakes

wtf??

OMG….no eyes see….2-3 This time an error by Carragher

All our three most reliable players of the season…

Make that 3 stupid mistakes.

Torres!!!!! 3-3!!!!

Torres..
BEAUTIFUL

Come on!!!!!!

NANDO!!!!!!

They have Arshavin… We have Fernando Torres!!!!
3-3

Torres boy, get a hattrick!!!

Torres = #1 striker in the world

3-3 not enough….

we must win, must must win~~!!!

get dossena on to score our 4th as usual! come on!!! YNWA

damn it

..and over the line by their defender to prevent Torres hattrick

no more time… no more time…

4-3 Game over

Well, can’t fault the effort by the boys in red. YNWA

Our defence is penetrated 8 times in 2 games…
Unbeaten record end

at least we went for it!

Some sloppy mistakes but you cannot doubt their commitment.

YNWA

O.O

Incredible!

Benny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At least it is not a loss

INcredible…. OMG OMG

YOSSI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

surely i have dreamt the whole game. i will wake up tomorrow and watch it live.

well done lads. YNWA.

At least it is not a loss…and we keep our home unbeaten record.

Arshavin was incredible…..truly magnificent. Hopefully he will play the same way against the Scum…

Torres could have got a hattrick…

But in the end.. we are on the top of the table at least for the next 24 hours…

Ps:
Gillett and Hicks sitting together in the match

Pure magic. What an effort, what an attitude! We deserve to be champions and that says a lot!!!

The commitment and effort from the lads was great! The defending fucking dreadful. First 3 goals conceded were a total shambles.

We were by far the better side and should have won that game. Those 2 points dropped hurt.

oh the heart we showed today. its clear that when you put all your focus forward on scoring goals you make silly, silly errors at the back.

we played them off the park tonight, no questions about it. they tried to make it difficult for us in midfield, but there was no trouble.

i just cant get over the fact that we literally handed them 4 goals. its incredible. and they all went to f***ing arshavin. it almost looked like he was embarrassed celebrating the third.

god we through that away…all of our goals were earned, all their given. football is a funny game.

proud of the lads

YNWA

Crouch to score and Pennant to povide the assists tomorrow…anyone?

what about that handball right at the death from diaby??? they didnt show a replay – it seems there might have been something though based on the players and fans reactions…

still, watch those goals by arshavin again, he wasnt even really doing anything…not making a run (except for the fourth)…he was just standing there and the ball would fall at his feet.

Anyway Fungusface and hiddink will be the one laughing after today’s game…

just saw the stats…unbelievable:

shots on target:
liverpool 14
arsenal 4

The best team drew!

hahaha

Cant have too many complaints. Ya defend like that….well you get my drift. Gotta get this off my chest though, FOR FUCK SAKE….AAAAARRRGGHHH…. the player I pleaded prayed and called for to be signed during the last 2 fucken windows comes to Anfield and twats 4 past us…..ffs….sorry lads, this one just sticks in the craw a little more as a result. Alright, calm Digger, calm. Well done to the lads, great heart and fight once again, good draw against a good team….sigh…

Reina…feel free to make a save.

Can’t blame Pepe, the defence made silly mistakes.

Have to say Digger, if Arse Shaving would have been on the pool side tonight, it would have been a different story.

He’s a quality player that lad.

Anyway, proud of the lads tonight as the commitment was there, maybe too much so. But you rarely draw matches, not alone win them, if you give away goals like that.

Cracking game though and, for me, that is a major part of it.

ditto bash786

Horrendous and unforgivable schoolboy errors aside, all I want to say is:

WHATEVER HAPPENS COME MAY, I’M PROUD THAT YOU BOYS ACTUALLY MANAGED TO LAST THIS FAR WITHOUT OUR CAPTAIN, WHICH NEARLY NO ONE EVER THOUGHT FATHOMABLE A MONTH AGO.

As long as it’s still mathematically possible, I won’t be throwing the towel just yet. Like I said, even if it’s still not enough, Rafa is now in a position of strength to ultimately go one further next year, compared to the cracking up Ferguscum.

I know I’m clutching at straws here, but I don’t want to give in to negativity just yet.

If the Gooners gave their all against us in a match which they have nothing to gain, who’s to say they won’t do the same against the Scum? (Their league match comes 10 days after their UCL encounter, so more than enough time for them to recuperate. ) Must admit Arshavin’s a very good player.

So keep walking on, with hope in your heart. YNWA.

We need snookers now lads.

Yeah he’s not bad for 16mil…..FUCKKK!!!!….(begins banging head against the wall)….

Can`t fault the performanCe they really wanted it and gave their all.Can`t ask for anymore than that.

Proud of the lads.

Strange season alright,somethingtells me this tale has a few more twists.

Hang on, Hang on, hold the phone here a minute!

Kinny “If the Gooners gave their all against us in a match which they have nothing to gain,…”
&
Lurg “Have to say Digger, if Arse Shaving would have been on the pool side tonight, it would have been a different story.”

You are both havin a larf aren’t you?

Kinny what “all” are you referring to? Defending for 86 minutes and taking advantage of 3 mistakes/gifts and a breakaway gift?

I can only assume Lurg, that had AA signed for us, you think the Arse defense would have sat Arshavin on their laps before the game and asked him what he wanted for Christmas, then gift wrapped the hat-trick and laid it at his fuckin feet.

PUHLEASE!!!
The lad is a talent, but my Granny could have scored 3 of those.

Very poor defending is what gave us that result… just like the Chav CL games.

And Kinny, I don’t mean to pick on you mate, but its hardly a case of advanced calculus to suggest that Scum are still capable of 2 draws… (apparantley Arshavin is enough to insure that Scum will drop 2-3 points)

That was the hardest of our remaining games and we’d have won at a fuckin cantor if we’d defended! It becomes a lot more about Scum fucking up now, but we are not dead and buried yet… we’ve still got 10 seconds on the clock

True that, timmytorres.

While Arshavin’s no doubt the MotM, but our MotM has got to be Benny Onion.

First he nearly got knocked out cold when he headed the ball over the line.

And then, his crucial header tied the game and preserved our unbeaten record.

Just think how funny it would be if the scum ends up level on points with us, but lost it all thanks to the goal difference column thanks to Benny’s equalizers today? I think Ferguscum would get a heart attack, and will probably end up in Arkham Asylum.

Details details oh for little details. We absolutely murdered them and ….
“never give a sucker an even break” not to mind 3 f**king goals.
I don’t know what to say. Benny, Kuyt, Nando, Xabi, D’agger great games. Great kop, great heart and skill. Good luck, bad luck I don’t know. At this moment I don’t care. Amazing night.

Watched it in a “closed bar”, patrons brought their own booze and supplements. Bar got thumped, glasses smashed and screaming fights between the one brave arsenal supporter and a man-mountain Pool fan. I never met these guys before yet having talked my way in there they were throwing booze at me. God it’s feckin’ great to get out of the house and watch a game with real nuts again.

Objectivity and sobriety later. Life is great.

Shouldn’t I be proud 2 be a liverpool supporter irrespective of what we achieve come may ? We came back thrice from behind & let’s be honest, it’s a good earned point.. Thank almighty I’m not a plastic manc fan .. This team & management shall be graced with glory when time comes .. Fuck trophies, I’m staying up at 4 a.m. in bangladesh for such glorious nights … Lads, chin up & let’s cheer our team till last with pride & belief … YNWA… ( pray 4 SG’s fitness..)

Aitch, I don’t understand why Wenger rested him against the Chavs, but unleashed him on us. He was the difference and took advantage of all the mistakes made. That’s probably what I meant by “all”, so maybe I misphrased that part a bit.

As for “knocking me” when I’m steadfastedly trying to maintain some form of positivity here and clutch whatever few straws there are, can you please not pluck those straws from my fingers just yet at least until tomorrow?

I’m gobsmacked! My brain can’t deal with what I just saw. We have so much spirit in our side, coming from behind 3 times to salvage a point and even then it wouldn’t have suprised me if ww had got a fifth.

But what on earth has happened to our defending?? Is it nerves? I don’t know, but I do know it has got me very worried.

Maybe it is clutching at straws, but I also believe we can still do it, and an away win for Portsmouth tomorrow night (however unlikely) will put a smile back on our faces. Whatever your church, now’s the time to pray! (Sorry for getting all biblical again, FS)

4-4 again, I still can’t quite believe it.

Oh, almost forgot. Agreed LB, Natalie Sawyer is a cracking looking lady. Millie, I’m with you Aitch, there is something sinister about that angelic looking little lady.

I haven’t seen Miss Jackson, but going by what you guys have been saying, she must be something special.

Do you guys remember Sophie Blake? She used to cover Speedway (May still do for all I know) but she is one sexy looking chick too!

A month again, we were what? 10 points behind? And then came the demolition of Old Crapford, and Fulham unexpectedly came to do us a favour thanks to Agent Murphy.

There’s no doubt the Gooners will make them drop points, we can only walk on, and have hope in our hearts in wondering who our other “saviour” will be (perhaps Agent Crouch tomorrow? I don’t know).

Sorry, typo there, meant “a month AGO”.

Incredible effort from the team and supporters. Brilliant atmosphere.

Has to be said, woeful defending on all 4 Arshavin goals.

Thought Stevie G spoke alot of sense on Sky.

It’s not over yet. I still have a feeling that it will go to the end of the season and we will pip it on the last day. I know that is my heart more than my head talking but …..

How many of our players have been talking about there being “no room for mistakes”? Well, apparently the weren’t referring to defensive mistakes, because I’ve never seen such a difference between offensive and defensive quality as in this game. Carra won’t be able to sleep for months if we lose the title with a 1 point margin after this. I’m equally shocked by how good and bad we are at the moment. Never seen anything like this before. Still, I think Arshavin deserves a lot of credit for the timing and precision and his finishing. I’m sure Torres and Gerrard (and a whole bunch of other top class players in the world) would have scored given those chances as well.

The biggest plus that I take from this game is that Utd have to face the Arse too. But for the fact Bentner is so average, it could have been a bigger score. But then the shape of the game would have been different too. Another plus is that we didn’t seem to miss Stevie. Our two main attackers scored two each too.

Two of the goals we conceded were, were avoidable, so that is something that can be addressed. Agger had an alright game; you couldn’t fault *him* for the goals. He deserves to keep his place. Yossi’s first goal stemmed from him tirelessly chasing down the keeper, and was rewarded with an assault during his diving header.

This was always going to be our biggest test, so let’s keep our heads up.

4 fucking gifts. Gutted. That second goal Arshavin scored was something else.

Lads, am I the only one that thinks Riera needs a drop?

Final corner count was something like 9-0 in our favour.
Possession was 61% – 39% in our favor.
Shots on goal was something like 18-5 in our favor.

Sachem… forget world class players… there’s about 500 million amateur players around the world would have scored at least 2 of those 4 goals.
You only have to look at Arshavin’s goal celebrations. He knew he has never, and will never score 4 easier goals in his life!

As aiyic said. Full Marks to the forward line. Our defense let us down today!

Agreed Ayic, we have all said that this would be the most difficult one.

The Mancs have a trip to Middlesborough sandwiched in between their CL games with Arsenal, Then Arsenal to visit them in the PL and let’s not forget their local scrap with Man.City.

We will have a difficult match at Hull, but we must stay positive. Come on Pompey, play up!

LB… I certainly wouldn’t blame the result on this, but I wouldn’t have started Riera (see comment #3.) I actually thought Riera was good today.

I reckon Aurelio and Riera are a weak left side partnership.
If we are gonna play Riera, I think we need to play Insua, or Dosser (in that order)
And if we are gonna play Fabio at left back, then someon else needs to play left-mid other than Riera.

I just think Riera gets himself in awkward positions when he drops back and it does more harm than good.

but it wasn’t poor performances today. It was mistakes.
Masch had a decent game aside from his mistake.
Aurelio had a good game aside form his mistake.
Arbeloa had a very good game aside form his mistake.

You simply DO NOT gift Arsenal 3 goals and come away with anything…. and yet we did… so figure that one out.

One possible upside. Surely Arsenal will feel they did well to score 4, and get a point today… Which should give them a lift for the CL game with Scum… which hopefully will translate to the now-all-important League game?

(now Kinny… ems straws and clutching! )

Maybe LB, perhaps Rafa will give Babel a start at Hull in Riera’s place?

I think Insua will start at left back at the KC stadium. No slight on Aurelio, I thought that before tonight’s game. But come to think of it, Aurelio did have a bit of a mare defensively, didn’t he?

No your not LB. I’ve been calling for it for a while and wanted Insua and Aurelio today. Most ineffective red on the pitch today, a regular occurence since Christmas it must be said. But he cant be blamed for today. Your in a run of bad form for 3mths, not your fault, happens to the best of em, you just shouldent be playing is all. But Rafa cant be blamed either, ya make on (regular) selection error, whaddya gonna do? Wasnt Rafas fault Masch, Aurelio and Arbeloa decide to have 3 brain farts.

We should slaughter Hull.

Agreed LB
… my score eprediction for Hull is… EERRRRRR…. NEVERMIND

It should be Insua every week for the rest of the season I think. No way should such an experience player as Aurellio is be fucking up like that. Masch dwelled on the ball all night and Arbie got caught sleeping.

You just can’t legislate for individual errors.

Well there is no more room for error now. It’s 15 points and hope for the best. The mancs need 16 points to win the league:

Portsmouth (h)
Spurs (h)
Boro (a)
Man City (h)
Wigan (a)
Arsenal (h)
Hull (a)

Oh well…the situation is much changed – we needed the mancs to stuff up twice…we still need the mancs to stuff up twice – just a little more so now…

As for Reira – he was good today…provided the cross for one of the goals…as did Kuyt – another player regularly criticised by the unknowledgable…in fact Kuyt was pretty bloody good today…and could of had a hat trick of assists with a bit more luck…he was quite impressive playing in the hole and out wide…

Theres really not much you can do when your 3 most dependable players decide to stuff up in the same game…

The arse could well beat the mancs and they can easily draw 2 other games…

This aint over yet – but even if it was…we have performed so much better this season – and next hopefully we wont lose Torres and Gerrard for so much of the season (they real reason we arent 10+ points clear)…

I thought Riera was pants. That was my observation. He did though provide the pass from which Torres scored just before being hooked.

Steady on Aitch! #152; ‘he’ll never score 4 easier goals’, eh?! Wasnt nothing easy bout his 2nd goal except the fact that it was easy on the eye! Superb drive into the right corner from 20yds, great finish. The 4th? Recieves the ball while running at pace toward the goal before calmly dispatching it in the bottom right corner with his left foot! In the 90th min mind! Think maybe your being a tad harsh on the lad?!

Digger, I’ve see similar chances fluffed all the time! The Arshavin finishing was top drawer unfortunately. 2nd and 4th especially.

Got to say Benny was awesome tonight.

My point exactly LB! I know we’re disappointed but I think to dismiss Arshavins goals as ‘easy’ (I’m looking at you Aitch!) is to not give a Superb footballer his due for some superb finishing. As you and I both pointed out the 2nd and 4th goals brilliantly taken. Sure we may have gifted him the opportunities but you can only put away the chances in front of ya and boy did he ever. Perhaps if some of our lads had been as clinical over the season we wouldent be lamenting 2 dropped points tonight?…..

Regarding Arshavin, I think what some who are dismissing his quality, are missing the point that he made them look easy. He shot at the earliest possible time each time; not what most would to if in the same situation. The guy is pure quality. It has to be repeated, four shots – four goals. What does that tell ya. Compare them to El Zhar’s shot at the end – while being powerful and on target, didn’t have the devastating accuracy of Arshavin’s to beat the keeper.

Big-up for Yossi taking a bullet for the cause. His first goal was one of those that you don’t get to celebrate properly because of the angle we have.

I would dismiss the claims for offside for the first goal; it would have gone in anyway, and wasn’t what I would be concerned about. Mascherano dithering is what would concern me more. He has a propensity to do that in dangerous areas sometimes.

Arbeloa does some good running, and has good forward drive, but he needs to just get that cross whipped in quicker – like Dossena does (:/ That would really add something to his game.

Agger gives us something more than Skrtel at set-pieces. He had one knocked off the line by Gibbs.

Their keeper is a tremendous shot-stopper; he saved some defo goals.

Well, I’m fucking shattered at the result. That’s not the first time we’ve dominated Arsenal at Anfield and not come away with the victory.

Yes, we showed great spirit and tremendous fight, as we have done for most of the season. However, I believe that what we lacked tonight was poise. It was a frantic match and cool heads basically didn’t prevail. Obviously the defensive errors cost us – what happened to our invulnerable defence of old?? This is partly due to us “going for it” in games these days, which I’m OK with, but conceding 4 goals in our last 2 games isn’t pretty. Is Carra getting old, tired…?

I actually believe the turning point of the match was when Riera was clean through on goal and all he needed to do was slide the ball across to Torres and we were up 3-1, game over. Instead he took an extra touch and went for goal himself – to me this was as big a mistake as those made by Masch, Arbeloa and Aurelio for the goals we conceded. Defenders have nowhere to hide when they make mistakes, but Riera’s mistake was just as costly and I’m still seething about it. I agree with LB that he was pants, and has been for a long time now.

That said, I’m not meaning to turn on the team or make scapegoats out of anyone. It was a cracking game, which highlighted some of our current weaknesses – quality on the left, and a defence that is looking tired and lacking confidence.

I don’t believe the title race is over, but every game that goes by where Man U don’t drop points is another nail in our coffin. I think Arsenal will beat them at Old Toilet, what we need is a relegation-threatened team like Hull or Portsmouth to pull out a dogs of war performance to save our bacon.

Okay, I just watched the game again and perhaps I overstated it with “4″ easier goals, but he went unchallenged for all of them, even the field length sprint for his 4th.
Yes he finished his 4th and 2nd well. … but the other 2 were on a plate…
I said I wasn’t questioning his quality, but come on lads…. I’d have scored them, you’d have scrored them, Arsene Wenger’s Uncle Francois would have scored them… shit even Dirk Kuyt would have put those 2 away (oops sorry Dirk.)

What a knackering result.. Haven’t been more tired watching a 90 minute+ game. The effort was huge but we were stabbing ourselves at the same time. It sort of epitomised this season for me.

I do not think it is all over, and, just as our back-line and masch may regret their uncharacteristic mistakes, that final benny goal might just prove to be a vital one. We really have to be positive here till the end of the season. We are still in it. We have to enjoy it because this is as close as it has been for a while.

Arshavin’s finishing was fantastic. Granted, we made the job easier for him but as LB say, the 2nd and final goals (with his weak foot) were deadly. Only top class players can do that with such ease. But I do have to restate that we made the job easier for him. A combination of errors and fine touch is what the goals were about.

As for riera, the problem I had with him today was that he was not providing width. Maybe he has become knackered again, cos he is being a bit lazy and trying to take the easier route of getting past players by cutting in. A touch of Kewell is what’s going on. Unfortunately, we do not have others to play there really– Babel was not fairing much better either.
We will have to look forward to next season in terms of personnel.

On to you Agent Crouch, do us proud.

What a game! What an effort by the team! What a disappointing score!!

I am disappointed with the score, but not the effort from the team as a whole. I won’t single out any player to find fault with, after all, we win as a team, we draw as a team and we lose as a team, like wise we make mistakes as a team. Well, when is a mistake a team mistake and not an individual mistake?

Our score against the other 3 top teams is: 4 wins, 2 draws, 0 loss.

We have the most number of goals scored so far.

We have the best goal difference so far.

What’s more can we ask for? The title! But for now, the team must still carry on with the same positive attitude and commitment, there is still hope! Like many of the lads here have said, it’s not over yet!

Nevertheless I am still very happy with our campaign so far, I know that I will still enjoy the rest of it, and I know the next campaign will be fan-tastic!

Keep up the good work!

YNWA

That fourth Arshavin goal was contributed by a stunning run by Walcott, which is exactly similar to that Champions League goal last year which nearly finished us off.

And again, like last year, I notice Xabi seemingly not daring to come forward to intercept Walcott when he was the last man standing yards before Pepe, and he let Walcott escape like that.

To be fair to him, he’s probably quite knackered after having to make up for the previous mistakes of his teammates and everyone was charging forward for the goal.

I dunno Aitch, I’ve seen Dirk miss easier chances than those 2, more times than I care to remember. I still shudder when I recall the one put on a plate for him by Stevie at the Riverside that he somehow conspired to miss. I could go on but the list is too long and the memories too distressing. Cant we just agree that that was a virtuoso exhibition of left and right foot finishing from a fantastic player? And lest we forget, what about no.9? Another 2 gems for the collection. As Tyler said, ‘what a header!’

Yes defo Kinny, great run by the youngster. But we were pouring forward for the winner and unfortunately got caught. But ya know yourself, league title on the line, no guts no glory etc. Cant really blame them for that. They gave their all again, 3 silly mistakes punished by clinical finishing, what can ya do? Learn hopefully. Hyde, we could have played Insua at LB and Aurelio at LM. Riera’s gotta sit for a while. 3mths of mediocrity bar 1 clunker vs Villa. Enoughs enough. The chap is a passenger of late.

Lay off Dirk, I thought he was outstanding today.

I wouldn’t have called Walcott’s run “stunning” Kinny, we just didn’t have anybody back defending – Carra had decided it was desperation time and thrown everyone in the box, Xabi was all we had as cover so once they were past him that was it. To be fair to Alonso, and as you suggest, he was definitely looking knackered by the end of the game – a few times he tried to sprint and looked like he was running in mud.

Anyway, I’m not giving up and hopefully no one else is either. If the Arse beat Man U, all we would need is 1 draw from them in all their other games (if we can take all the points in our’s of course). They play Hull last game of the season (away too I think), and I’m ready to bet right now that Hull will go into that game requiring a win to stay in the Premier League.

He was Andy. He’s had some outstanding misses throughout the season too. Thats what we were talking about. Not his outstanding performance tonight.

I know Digger, I guess I just thought it was a bit unfair to bring up his old misses when he’s just played a great game.

Yeah perhaps. Aitch brought it up jokingly (you’d score them, i’d score them, hell even Dirk would’ve scored em!) and I guess it is funny in that context but over the course of the season it is arguably our greatest failing and the reason Rafa was pissed after the villa and blacburn games – so many missed goals – so in the grander scheme of things its perhaps not that funny and maybe why I pointed it out. A little more Arshavin-like in our 6 home draws and inexcusable loss at boro and we’re already champs.

It was again a memorable game. Two back to back 4-4.

Amazing spirit buy the players and all the fans including the gr8 ones here !! But its time to realize that the Title is gone. It was always based on hope after our bad run in January. Hope that ManUnited would drop points. Now it has become even more so. Arsenal showed what a dangerous side they are going forward but the way they defended, i can see them outscored by ManUnited.We all can hope that ManUnited drop points.Nothing more in our hand apart from winning the remaining games.

Yesterdays match showed why winning every game would have been more than sufficient to win the title. The first 15 minutes of the second half, we absolutely murdered them in addition to the better performance throughtout the match.

But bad defensive play proved crucial. Insua needed to play. I am sure it is Aurelio’s corners,free kicks which kept him on the team. In exchange of those abilities Rafa took a defensive gamble.

Lets hope our pompey agents do some favour tonight.

And one more thing lads: We were undone by Arshavin. He was simply incredible. I hardly saw him pass the ball around in the entire match but whenever he got chances he scored. Mark of a gr8 player. Same goes with Torres.

I must say the burden on Gerrard and Torres is too much to score every time they wear that famous red shirt. Its too much to take game after game.

And what was Gerrard doing sitting at Skysports studio? Hicks and Gillet were seen together. Looks like Recession has made them friends again.

Reina didnt make a single save the entire match, yet he conceded 4 goals.

Somnath, why are you hoping our Pompey agents do us a favour if the Title is already gone?

It’s not gone. Simple logic/maths says that this draw is not the massive difference it appears to be. Previously we needed the Mancs just to draw 2 games if we won the rest of our’s and maintained the goal difference. Now we need them to lose 1 game and draw 1 game. It’s not unreasonable to think that Arsenal have a decent enough chance of beating Man U next month, that leaves us needing someone else to draw with them.

Well digger, I actually would want to see how Insua does in midfield. Aurelio seems a bit slow for me there.

I’ve just realised, but hasn’t Nando scored in every game he has played against the other big 3 in the prem this season? Maybe he didn’t against the chavs in the first game, but he certainly got the memorable 2 late goals at Anfield. He is just miles apart from the rest. That header was incredible; I dunno how that went in with so little pace on it. Incredible, absolutely incredible.

@Andy

What do you exactly mean by asking me that question? I am hoping because i want Liverpool to win.Let that be very clear.
My logic unlike yours clearly tells me that it has become massively difficult to win the title now. Who is saying that a draw with Arsenal is not a good result? But given the situation, it is not.
How come you are saying we need 1 loss and 1 draw for Manc? They are 6 points clear(Assuming they win their 2 matches in hand). In that way 1 draw and 1 loss will still keep them 1 point ahead if i am not mistaken.

I said Title is gone because the odds are stuffed heavily against us. Having said that i am proud to be a liverpool supporter and the way we have played this season.

@somnath – I asked the question because in your comment you stated that “the Title is gone” and then you hope that Portsmouth do us a favour against the Mancs. I was pointing out that I think it is contradictory logic to say both those things. If the title is gone, then Portsmouth’s result against the Mancs is irrelevant, right?

However yes I think I did fuck the maths up, my apologies. The mancs need to lose twice now, or draw 3. Fuck!! I’m still not giving up though, they still have some testers and I’m not giving them anything.

@Andy

I said Title is gone as things stands now. Tonight if Portsmouth say beat ManUnited(God i would love that to happen)the equations will change totally.

And to be exact one was a logic and another was my hope. So they cant be contradictory as they both are not the same things.

However like you said i am also not giving up my hope. We are in it together! YNWA

somnath07in, difficult does not equal impossible.

Even at 3-4 down with only stoppage time remaining, the boys still marched forward. Just this attitude is enough to convince me to continue clutching straws, rather than having to say that it’s gone before it is 100%, absolutely certain we can’t win it.

(As a “get out of jail card” for my stubborn clutching of straws, I’d like to point out that as long as we have this attitude + Rafa’s full control of the team budget, we WILL win it next year, if not this year. )

Haha ok somnath, let’s just call it a different interpretation of what “the title is gone” means then. To me gone means gone, it can’t come back. To you it seems to mean it has gone away, but it could come back. Which to me means it isn’t really gone, it’s just further away!

David James is the man I’m looking to have a MOTM performance tonight… he’s capable of it, unfortunately last year at Old Toilet he was on the wrong end of a missile from the ladyboy which made him look pedestrian.

Lads,

I have said the “Title is Gone” as the situation stands now. For heavens sake dont equate the same with me ruling out our effort to win the title. It has been immense. And while terming the statement i am not at all dejected because i know what the boys playing in such tensed encounters have given. Its a privelege watching these players.

My apologies if my statement is reflecting a ‘lost hope’ attitude. Its not so guys. Its just an analysis based on the league table as it stands now.

@Andy

Spot on Andy. Lets hope the mancs loose today!! Now thats a hope from my side which will help the Title to come near to us again like u mentioned.

Andy, manu have 2 games in hand. Potentially (hopefully not) 6 points. They’ll need to lose 2 games for us to win it on goal difference.

Isn’t it?

Yes Kopper, I corrected myself in #183

Just to keep the hopes up – the Mancs have got both weekend and midweek games for the next 4 weeks, it’s only the last week of the season they have free. That’s a lot of big games in a month. I’m thinking that even if they manage to hold onto the Prem title, the small consolation will be that it will (hopefully) cost them a spot in the Champs League Final.

somnath, perhaps “gone” is too strong a word and perhaps needed a bit of rephrasing, but from your explanation, I see where you’re coming from.

So apology accepted, and my apologies as well for misinterpreting you.

FFS. Bring back the shit on a stick

@Kinny

Not a problem Kinny. Onething which we all have in common is the desire to see Liverpool win the title. So no problem watsoever.

FS – I know what you mean – I would rather win a dogged 1-0 than have to suffer through that all the time – my heart cant take it…

Sorry Andy, didn’t refreshed my page before posting that.

Im keeping faith. We are still having a shot come May. We made some real progress this year. Next year will def be ours.

Just having a question ringing…where are those saying that Liverpool play boring football!!

@Kopper

Let those who think we play boring play boring football go to hell.

On a serious note,its a question to all.

Do you think in the pursuit of scoring more we are not able to cope up defensively? Is it a limitation which is coming out now after these 2 high scoring draws? Is it something which we can improve upon?

Also another question, maybe not the right time to ask this. Gerrard and Carragher are the only two englishman in our starting line up nowadays. Where do you all seeing it going? What about the academy? Why is not home grown talent coming up?

I’m still fuming from the defensive horror movie served by our boys. It would be an insult to school boys if I described it as school boy defending. There was nothing that could have been done about the 4th goal as we were cut on the break. Their previous goals, however, were gifts from our players. Not surprisingly Arshavin said thanks lads I’ll take those. The goals demonstrated text book finishing – simple. All we can do is hope for a miracle to stand a chance of winning the title.

I don’t really have much hopes for Portsmouth tonight but I’ve pencilled Spurs and Arsenal as Manure’s potential party poopers. Not sure about Man City because it depends on whether it’s jerkyl or hyde that turns up on the day. We need to take out our frustrations on Hull and hopefully defend properly once more. My man of the match was Benayoun.

The mancs need to drop at least 6 points if we are to have a sniff and hopefully they don’t slaughter anyone to go past our goal difference.

If we show that sort of commitment and attitude and we keep Torres, Gerrard and Benny fit we should win our remaining games and get 15 points. Fortunately we won’t be coming up against players like Drogba, Arshavin and Fabregas for the remainder of the season. What we can’t continue to do is make school boy errors. As the end of the season gets nearer and nearer some players will panic and do silly things. Like give the ball away, score an own goal or give away a daft penalty. We need cool heads all over the pitch. This brings me onto Daniel Agger. In my opinion he had the coolest head on the pitch, certainly was the most comfortable in defence. Not once did he panic, choose the wrong pass or dither on the ball. He’s class! We all know about his left foot and that he’s a threat in the air. In my opinion when he’s in top form he’s our best defender. What ever it takes we need to keep him. Massage his ego, pay him £80k a week, play him every week. Just do it because I seriously doubt we’re gonna find better than him without shelling out a truck load of millions.

You can tell our players want the title badly. They sure did go for broke in that game. Trouble is we don’t have the pace at the back to play gung-ho football. When we leave our defenders exposed we’re in trouble. Once Walcott got that ball I knew the ball was going to end up in our net.

When Rafa analyses the game I hope he comes to the conclusion that Kuyt is far more effective on the right than he is up as a striker. Much better to keep him on the right and put Benny behind Torres if we don’t have Gerrard. Rafa made that switch for the 2nd half and we had better balance. How inspired was Benny though? He played his heart out!

How pissed off did Rafa look after the Arbie and Aurellio fuck ups?

He was too pissed, LB; I thought he was going to commit suicide on the spot. Those goals were in denial of everything that Rafa had tried to build– maybe over-confidence, I don’t know, but I hope that is going to be the last of those mistakes. It is heart-stopping, including the Masch dwelling that led to the opening goal. FFS.

i have definitely aged because of this game…

@somnath07, although it would be nice to have home-grown stars, as far as I’m concerned, I just want the best players at our club, so I care less if they are English or not. It is about merit and about understanding the mentality of the club. Rafa is definitely pissed with the academy though– the wonderful story of Kenny’s return (if it is finalised) is one good indicator that our gaffer is trying to sort this out.

well what a fucking game, once again I might add. I don’t know about the team but I’m feeling the pressure. No time for dwelling we’re either in it or not.
.
The lads are giving all they’ve got and thats all we can ask. Lets face it some top class goals in that game and the last couple.
.
Good luck to all of them for the rest of the year.
.
LB, I think we lack a little bit of pace around our edges. I’d like us to have some blistering pace with skill out wide on both sides.
.
However I never thought we’d get within 5 points let alone be pushing all the way.
.
Ps hats of to Kuyt he’s slow but the bastard has an engine as big as a Kenworth truck, and a love of the colour RED.

somnath, we don’t have the back 4 to play all out attack mate. Teams that play that way usually have very quick defenders that won’t be beaten for speed one on one with an attacker. We don’t have one quick defender. I think that’s why Rafa likes his 2 midfield players to hold their position in front of the defence all the time and why the wide players have to always track back.

When we’re in a position where we have no choice but to attack against a quality team we’re in a bit of a pickle. It’s why I was never confident of shutting out Chelsea the other day or getting a clean sheet last night.

Wenger:

“Don’t worry Liverpool, we’ve got to play at United and we will try to win, so it is still very open,” said Wenger.

“I give my team credit. It was another great performance tonight, and Liverpool were too so a draw was a fair result.

“It was a game played at a frenetic pace with top quality technically. Both teams created many chances.

“We are half-happy because we scored four goals and half-unhappy as we conceded four goals.

“Arshavin is a great player and great players can play anywhere.”

@Hyde

Yeah. Its true the best players should play irrespective of the nationality. But i was just wondering about the minimum english per side rule. If it is ever imposed, we would be having problems. But yes i also agree, let the best players come up.

It seems Liverpool have the largest squad in the premier league. This includes all the players who are under contract by LFC. I think thats another indication that Rafa wants to hold a lot of youngsters and wants to check how far they develop. Lets hope we get some good homegrown players in future like in the past.

@Lb

Yes. Thats why keeping Agger is important i think. As u mentioned he looks the best on his day. The reason behind us conceding 4 goals against chelsea and arsenal is exactly what u said. We needed to win on both the occassion and that prompted us to attack in an unprecedented way. That left us badly uncovered.

But the 4th goal baffled me. We were 3-3 and at that point we were getting one point. They had walcott on the edge of the penalty area. How on earth we decided to leave our defense entirely vacant is beyond me. We were playing Arsenal who have showed their knack for goals anywhere,anytime in a football match. I think it was a bad gamble. For all our efforts, we rightly got a point atleast but i was shocked to see that. That goal was a strategic mistake. Other three were individual mistakes.

Somnath, Rafa was gutted at the 4th goal as well. It goes against all his principles. He said they talked about it all week, that they must control the edge of the box when we have a corner. We usually do this well. Rafa said at 3-3 we had time so shouldn’t have done that. The thing is though, the players got emotional and desperate. You see Carra making surging runs with the ball and trying to drive it into the top corner…. lol! The players want it BADLY!! And as we’re not experienced at title run ins maybe we went for it a bit too much against a very dangerous Arsenal side.

One thing is for sure. If we don’t win the league it won’t be for the want of trying.

As for individual mistakes. The Aurellio one was shocking and an exact replica of the Sagna fuck up for one of our goals.

Where was Insua?.Aurelio is not a defender.Would we of conceded so many if SG was playing?.Carra was sound as ever.86 points is the best we can hope for, the Mancs can finish on an incredible 92.Expect lots of goals in the Hull game.Alex Hymans is better looking than Ms Jackson.What do you think LB?.In a normal season our goal difference would be very similar to that of a title winning team.Babel cause them a lot of trouble.Hope he stays.

Burgerman, I think Insua will play the remaining games. Aurellio as picked for his set pieces I think. But I would like to see the following back four in our remaining 5 games. Arbie, Carra, Agger, Insua.

I’m praying either Pompey or Spurs can get a point at Old Trafford over the next couple of games. Meanwhile we just have to stuff Hull and Newcastle!!!

Now let me check out Alex Hymans….

Hymans presents golf on Setanta-she is about 27.There has to be pictures somewhere on the web.Arbeloa and Aurelio were very poor-the former , like Degen is living on borrowed time.Finnan was miles better.Valencia were a lot more compact than this Liverpool team.3 seasons without a trophy and no sign of the Yanks leaving us in peace.

Aurelio’s mistake was a bad one.

@LB

We have shown a great deal of spirit but if we look at it in a impartial way we could have moved forward smoothly without showing this much of spirit and yet win the matches if (and thats a very big IF)we defended properly in both the Chelski and Ars game.

For all our goals and a brilliant Nando, we have let in some poor soft goals. Very unlike our defense. Thats why morning i wrote that this title is GONE(#177) as it stands now. Unfortunately i was misunderstood. We have thrown away a great position back in January too. Probably inexperience of winning the title might be a factor.

Insua has pace, but he is the only one. Then again
he is only 20!

Agreed on Benny, he was outstanding and could well get LFC player of the season if he keeps up this form until the end of the season.

Agger is an old head on 24 year old shoulders. It’s obvious to all of us why Rafa is desperate to keep him.

It’s great to see that most of us in here have not given up hope. Football is never predictable, and we must keep our belief.

On to Hull…………. surely this won’t finish 4-4?????

Steve if we can’t beat Hull then we need to forget it. They have won only 1 football match in 2009. Have won only one match at home since October. They’ve been slaughtered 4-1 by Sunderland at home and 5-1 by Man City. They’ve lost at home to Fulham, Blackburn and Spurs. They failed to beat West Brom at home.

In short if we don’t get 3 points we don’t deserve to be champions.

I’m with you LB, if it does finish 4-4 you’ll find me hanging from an oak tree somewhere!

We have no divine right to win at the KC though, and we will have to graft extremely hard to secure the 3 points.

Perversely, our defending in our last 2 matches will have given Hull a little bit of hope, so we must shatter their illusions from the off – and remember how to defend at the same time.

You could say that the way we defended last night means we don’t deserve to be champions, but football is not as simple as that. Our spirit and drive may yet take us over the line first.

We have now scored 4 goals in 5 of our last 8 matches, champions form until you look at the goals against column in our last two matches. 16 goals on display in our last 2 matches, I will be happy with something much more sedate at Hull as long as it yields 3 points for us.

Man.U won’t enjoy facing Crouch tonight, and Glen Johnson looked in terrific form the other day, he gets forward so well, and has a ferocious shot on him. Come on Portsmouth, get 3 points tonight!

Never has a team won the title without first going close and properly challenging for a season. Check it, all you like. Argue, all you like. It just doesn’t happen. I haven’t said that before because I didn’t want to put the mockers on this season, but that’s the truth of it.

And last night illustrates exactly why. You could feel the desperation from the team and the crowd right from kick off. In fact, we could have had that game in the bag as early as the second minute. Torres tried a little curler from half way inside the box when all he had to do was square it to Kuyt. Dirk was wide open, standing straight in the middle of the goal, just in front of the six yard box and he wouldn’t have missed from there. Square ball – 1 – 0, settled nerves, Arsenal panicked, calmer football, easy 3 points.

I hate to say this, but the tramp was right… we don’t know how to win a title. You watch them bastards tonight… business as usual.

But the fact is, as much as I refuse to give up on this season, we have built a foundation that will serve us well for seasons to come. So, as awful as it will be to see them bastards lift it and equal our record, we should all be happy in the knowledge that things can only get better from here on.

@FS

Your comment about Fergusson statement is like a knee jerk reaction to yesterdays match. Had we taken 3 points out of the game, i am sure you would not have come out with the comment.

I dont agree that we dont know how to win the title. Its just that things didnt work out the way we wanted them to be last night. When Valencia won the title in Spain, i guess they didnt know how to win it either. Having won it(and assuming they learnt how to win it)did they start dominating the la liga?

Its not about knwing how to win, its about players and the quality. I can put together so many instances during the season when ManUnited have not played well and yet a split second of brilliance from their stars won the match from them. I think the knowledge of winning it is with Rafa(Specially having managed for a long time now). Its the execution and lack of 3-4 match winners in our team which has resulted in us dropping points.

The bottomline is we are not the same team without Gerrard or Torres. We need world class players who could make that difference by scoring at that crucial moment. It is not the draw with Arsenal that has hurt us. Its the drawn games (Gerrard and Torres absent during those games) which has hurt us.

We simply dont have enough goal scorers in our team.

Me… kneejerk. You on the glue or what. FFS I walked out of here because I couldn’t stand the knee jerking that goes on. From about the fifth game in the season I was telling everyone to calm down, and I couldn’t take it in the end.

And then I only came back in because people were still at it a couple of months ago. Even after the Boro game I was in here telling everyone there would still be more twists and turns.

Criticise me and me comments all you like, but at least get it right before you do. I even made a little deal with meself not to have a go at people or their comments. But are you seriously trying to tell me I don’t know what I am on about?

FFS you are telling me about draws in the middle of the season as if I don’t know we had a few. You’re telling me we miss Gerrard!
Go way, do we really.
You’re telling me we are not the same team without Gerrard and Torres.
Do me a favour, tell me something I don’t know… errm, like errr, eerrrrr, errrm… What fucking team in the world would be!

FFS. Talk footy with me if you like but please come up with something me grandaughter doesn’t know.

I swerved a lot of comments in here since last night, as I didn’t want to be seen as having a go at people. But fuckinell.

I’ll tell you where we lost them points last night… before we even took the field.

If any of our defence was to be dropped, it should have been Carra. I can’t even be arsed telling you why.

I’ve been telling everyone in here things I know as fact. I don’t know why I bother. I say something, something I know first hand, and the comment either gets ignored or gets doubted. As I say, argue my comments with me all you like. I’m not the fucking oracle. But please don’t tell me things like it’s the lack of 3-4 match winners???
FFS maybe you should email that to Tom and George.

Hi Guys, I haven’t been in for a while, been busy as hell, well just quickly to read the blog and as usual superb effort Gerry, condolences by the way, been a few in the family over hear, must be the time of the year for it. Cheers FS, I have just caught up on this blogs comments, too many on the other ones.

Firstly what a game, when last have you seen a Liverpool team totally dominate an Arsenal side, out play them to such an extent and still manage to draw 4-4. Talk about snatching parity from the jaws of victory that is really talking the piss. Our best defenders, Masch, Carra, Arbeloa and Aurellio (been way off the pace since the international break) making such school boy errors and maybe you are right FS the anxiety and pressure is getting to them.

Not defending the box for the rebound from a corner and allowing them the breakaway was criminal and Carra as Captain should have calmed things down and organized better. For all those saying that Arse Fan was the MOTM he really was gifted his goals, yes he took them well with clinical and superb finishing, but he hardly had to create the chances with our defense being in such a generous mood.

Putting that aside for a minute, its not half bad for a boring defensive side and a Manager who thinks of stifling the game and stopping other sides from playing instead of going out and attacking the opposition. We must have played some of the most attacking, attractive and skillful football that I have not seen at Liverpool for a very long time and certainly in the last few months we are second to none in the Prem when it comes to total football.

It beggers belief why our defensive has been so poor of late. However it still is not over, yes more difficult but there will still be a few surprises along the way and I can still see ManU slipping up, I am not too sure it will be enough though. I did say at the beginning of the season that any team getting 86 points will be in with a shout, top of the log in April, still challenging, definite improvement.

On the bright side this team under Rafa is starting to look like the real deal and it is not a case of if but when we resume our position at the top. It’s only a matter of time. The future had never looked better the future is defiantly Red. Long may the Rafalution continue.

@FS

Yeah if you gimme their email address i will probably do that because i believe thats the reason for us not winning the title. That has been the reason all these years for us not winning the title.

And as a matter of fact and to set the record straight there has been a number of instances when i have agreed with your comments either through writing a reply or just by reading them.

Are you trying to tell me that terming Fergussons comment right is not a knee jerk reaction. And why do you think that i am not getting it right? Can u please explain it to me?

We need 3-4 world class players in our team to win the league. Lets face the fact. We have Gerrad and Torres and we need 2 more.

I dont understand why you are talking about things you know and dont know? When did i tell you that you dont know things? You might be one of those die hard fans and i respect that fact but why you are reacting to my comment in such an agressive manner?

And if you really think that Fergusson is right that we dont know how to win the title, then you can have your view. I am light years away from that view. And yes you are not the oracle. There are other people whose views are important and they too make important statements.

And yours statement regarding the point getting lost even before we took the field is ridiculous.

I’ll tell you why I answered in such an aggresive manner… It’s because you pissed me off. It’s pathetic of me to let it. I have swerved a lot of comments lately that pissed me off and just told me self it wasn’t worth arguing the point. But FFS… calling me kneejerk! Behave yerself, eh lad.

I even started my comment by saying….
Never has a team won the title without first going close and properly challenging for a season. Check it, all you like. Argue, all you like. It just doesn’t happen. I haven’t said that before because I didn’t want to put the mockers on this season, but that’s the truth of it.

Or did you miss the part where I said… “I haven’t said that before”

I made me own statement and then used the tramp to back it up. And like it or not… he does know a thing or two about football.

But you know what, I can’t even be arsed arguing it with you.

Here’s the bottom line… United have 7 games left. They need to drop 6 points from 21 possible.

Do you think they can’t do that?

I’ll save you the time of checking…. for the last 2 seasons they have dropped 7 out of 21.

So, yes. It’s possible. But then for the last 2 seasons it was possible to still win the league after dropping 7.

So I tell you what, if you want to discuss footy with me feel free but telling me I’m a kneejerk, when I spent most of the last 2 seasons in here trying to tell other people to stop doing it… Oh fuck it. I don’t know why I bother sometimes, I really don’t.

FS I couldn’t agree with you more I think Carra has been off the boil for a few games know, yes his last ditch line clearance all looks spectacular but he has been caught out of position any number of times, along with his ball watching and as a unit the defense had not been up to their usual high standards and that has to be laid at Carra’s feet as he marshals and organizes them. He looked over anxious yesterday and maybe he also needs a rest as he has shouldered a lot of the responsibility since Gerrard has been out injured. When we need cool and calm heads we did not have it. Fabio has been very poor of late, both against the Chavs and the Arse. Masch made a mistake, then compounded it and did not track back, but he makes few mistakes and you could see how annoyed he was with himself. Carra sold Arbeloa short with the header, who compounded the mistake by waiting for the ball instead of going to meet it. Rafa will be fuming with these basic mistakes because they where avoidable and it was a game we could have won very comfortably.

As an attacking unit we are looking the bees knees. Our one touch football and some of the flowing moves where a joy to watch. I said to my Son that Fabeski (forgive the spelling, Arse keeper) is going to have a blinder today with all the flak he took on Saturday and it turned out he did just that. However our defense has lost us the last few games.

Classic!!! just reading the comments here with Sly sports news on in the background and in an interview with the tramp he still thought Harry Redknapp was Pompey manager!! The anchor girl said hmmm hes not losing the plot is he?

Didn’t see Keith’s comment before I posted that last one. Thank fuck you’re back mate. Won’t be long before I’ll be passing you the baton again. I can’t take this.

4 defensive mistakes… 4 goals. I think they only had 5 shots on goal. I remember Fabregas shanking one wide and that’s it.

Some in here think Carra had a good game. Arbie is getting most of the blame. FFS. Watch the bloody goals again!

I just got told I was being ridiculous for stating we dropped the points before we took the field. I couldn’t be arsed arguing the point.

I’ll tell you something, I was sat in the alehouse with an aul friend last night. The team sheet was put up on the screen. We both looked at each other and shook our heads. We didn’t have to say anything, we both knew the damage had been done…. drop Skrtle our only fast center back against the fastest attack in the league.

No we didn’t even need to say it, but me mate did say something interesting to me… Drop Carra, not going to happen with no Stevie G in the side.

There’s just been a little argument about homegrown players. Me more than anyone would love more scousers in the side. but you field your best team, no matter where they was fucking born.

Here’s a little clue lads… watch the goal where Arseshavin robs Arbie.

Redboy he’s been on the turps and glue again

We keep missing each others comments Keith. But I’m glad someone else has at least caught on. Not only did he sell Arbie short, he never even shouted “Man On!” And the lad had no idea Arseshavin was up his arse.

I love Carra but as you say, it’s been a long hard season. The lad should have been on the bench.

Simmer FS, cool your jets.

I prefer to reflect on something you have been saying all season……….. that there will be many twists and turns this season. Well, there already have been and I’m sure there are more to come. It could still work out in our favour.

Business as usual tonight? Don’t dismiss Portsmouth that quickly, they are not a bad side, and still need a few more points to be safe.

Somnath

Masch and Alonso are world class with Skertal, Kuyt, Benny Agger, Insua to name but a few are not far behind. We are top scores in the Prem by a mile and that is while Torres and Gerrard between them have missed more than half our Prem games. Any team would miss these quality players. Take Wanker and Shrek out of the Manu side and they struggle every time. FS’s comment is very valid and you can call him many things (many people have) but knee jerk is certainly not one of them.

We are still new as a team and still gelling, refining and working out our style of play. As the season has progressed we have played some of the best football bar nobody in the Prem and in Europe. The draws against the so called lesser teams have hurt our campaign, which is where a Torres or Gerrard could have turned some of those draws (3 as it stands) into 3 points. Mental toughness plays a big factor as it affects composure and calmness under stressful circumstances. Having been there and done that before always helps. That is one of the reasons Manu have toughed out all those 1-0 win while playing shite.

We are not a million mile off and yes we will improve over the summer but so will the other teams. This season has not finished yet, I am certainly not throwing in the towel. However next year we will be that more settled, the youngsters will have had one more years experience, they will be stronger and more experienced and the need to bring in a lot of players will not be there so we will just have 2 or 3 new players to fit into our system with the luxury of taking our time and not rushing their integration as we have a largely settled squad.

Everybody forgets what a young squad we have, they will be together for many years to come, this run in and experience will put them in good stead for the campaigns that will follow. I am very excited about the future.

FS,

You’re right that many of the teams that have won the EPL had experienced a close 2nd place before they eventually won it. But somehow, I still have hope that our lads may do it this season, and I kinda sense that you feel this way (maybe I’m wrong).

Football is a funny old game. Remember our Owen FA Cup final that despite being outplayed we still won due to 2 stupid mistakes made by Arse? It seems it’s now our turn to suffer it, but at least our guys still got a draw, which made me a little happy in the end.

Like many of the folks stated, I think there’ll still be a few twists and turns, and I’m not giving up (just like our team). The scums may still bungle, as I see Boro, Spurs, Arse and maybe even Wigan / Pompey as potential banana skins for them.

somnath07in, I don’t agree with the 3 or 4 more top class players thingy you mentioned as the solution as every team including Arse, Chavs and Scum would have liked another 3 or 4 more top class players. I think our guys are finally showing the belief and guile to score goals and win (only if they keep their heads cool), and like FS had been saying, I’m feeling confident the tide has finally turned.

I’m still keeping my fingers (and toes) crossed that we can still win it. Stranger things have happened….

FS, agree with your statement in #213 is spot on.

Even Paul Tomkins agrees with you:
liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldow/NG164115090422-1352.htm (add the www in front)

And here’s the paragraph concerning that point:

“I’ve long-since said that a serious title challenge that falters is vital in eventually winning the Premiership, as a precursor; it’s almost essential to get that experience of the pressure –– all the time accepting that, as newcomers to the really, really sharp end, mistakes will be made. Every Premiership title won for the first time came after a narrow miss the year earlier: United, Blackburn, Arsenal and Chelsea. It’s all part of the learning process.”

Allow me to illustrate the point.

Let’s look at the recent 20 years and see what we can glean from Tomkin’s point.

Here’s a great resource for football archives:
rsssf.com/engpaul/FLA/league.html

Firstly the Scum
1991/1992 – 2nd —> 1992/1993 – Champions (Ferguscum’s 1st generation)
1994/1995 – 2nd —> 1995/1996 – Champions
(Ferguscum’s 1.5th generation)
1997/1998 – 2nd —> 1998/1999 – Champions
(Ferguscum’s 2nd generation)
2005/2006 – 2nd —> 2006/2007 – Champions
(Ferguscum’s 3rd, and hopefully last, generation)

Blackburn
1993/1994 – 2nd —> 1994/1995 – Champions

Arsenal
2000/2001 – 2nd —> 2001/2002 – Champions
(Wenger’s 2nd generation)
2002/2003 – 2nd —> 2003/2004 – Champions
(Wenger’s 2.5th generation, AKA “Invincibles”)

Chavski
2003/2004 – 2nd —> 2004/2005 – Champions
(The Chavs have the advantage of the Russian roubles to lay the foundation right away instead of building up for years which Rafa is doing now, all that’s needed is someone like the Special Needs One to sort things out and voila)

Keith, FS, good to have my 2 old adversaries back! Note I said “old”. Only messing.

FS I agree with you about no team having won the PL title without competing for it in the previous season. I read that from one of the writers on the main TIA site and then cast my memory back and agreed. It hasn’t happened in the PL era but Leeds did it in 1992. They finished 4th and 19 points behind Arsenal in 1990-91. The difference then was that 2 teams who were battling for the title were both inexperienced at challenging for it and both stuttered in the run in. I remember Leeds falling over the line and winning it.

I think anxiety from the players is playing a big part but to be fair we often get away with some of the mistakes we made against Arsenal. Only this time we were punished heavily by some ruthless finishing. People point to the goals we’ve conceded lately but to be fair we have been up against Lampard, Drogba, Arshavin, Walcott, Fabregas in games where we’ve had to push for the win. If we let in 2 or more goals against Hull, Newcastle et al then I’ll be worried.

I agree Carra made the first mistake with his header to Arbie, but I still blame Arbie for not coming to meet the ball. Surely Carra would have screamed man on as he headed it. These things happen though and its not often the attacker gets the ball and drills it into the top corner from there.

Not sure I agree that Carra should have got dropped. I think Skrtel has been as bad in recent games. Both of them have lost form but at the same time the players in front of them are attacking more and searching for goals. I’ve always thought Carra is vulnerable when exposed. I think all of our defenders are.

It’s possible the mancs can drop 6 points in their remaining games. I’m praying they do and that we capitalise. At the same time I’m enjoying the desire the players are showing and I’m happy to actually be in a title race. If you offered me this in August I’d have had your hand off. BUT being in this position I’m depserate for us to go all the way, coz I know if we finish runners up and the mancs win by a couple of points – although I’ll be proud of the effort by the team and Rafa I’ll be absolutely sick that we didn’t quite do it.

The mood in here has been generally good and quite positive. Not sure why there is so much heat under the proverbial collars.

If these last comments had been meant just to wind me up, I would have found it funny and joined in the joke.

I’ve spent the best part of 3 seasons in here telling people to be calm and wait. In that time, I’ve seen the manager’s head being called for and the team called shite. I tried to explain things don’t happen over night. I make a comment what I’ve held back all season. I even explain in the comment that I don’t think it’s over yet and I even explain that I have held back on making the comment itself – even though it is proven fact.

I get called kneejerk.

I have a go at that. I shouldn’t have, but it pissed me off. But even in having a go back – I say, I’ve been swerving loads of comments as I didn’t want to argue with anyone. In fact, out of respect for the blog and Gerry and in the interests of peace, I’ve even swerved biting back at some digs that have been made at me personally. I finally crack at being called something I am most definetely not, and I get told to calm me jets.

You couldn’t make it up.

I’m taking me dog and me grandaughter down the river.
Tatty bye

Its a point very well made and explained FS. Maybe some of us just don’t want to accept that the mancs will equal our title haul this season. And the fact he predicted we don’t have the experience to win it this year is too much for some to stomach.

This is the most points we’ve had after 33 games since 1988. Most goals scored in I dont know how long. It’s a shame we’re (everyone in general) still argueing.

LB the commitment was been great, but to be fair it has been like that all season and I think I am right, but we hold the record for winning the most games in the dying moments of a game and have the most fight backs in the second half of the game when trailing.

What’s got me more excited is the manner and style of our play. As a team we have grown in leaps and bounds, we look like a team; our style of play is both fluid and interchangeable. We can change from one touch football and free flowing moves, to direct right down your throat football. Remember the Arsenal team that came to Anfield last year or the year before I think and played us off the park and we got a draw, compare this to how we dominated them this year.

That for me is the progress this team has made under Rafa and it can only get better as we grow and the youngsters come through. The way we are playing, dominating position and creating the opportunities reminds me of the 70’s and 80’s minus the defensive errors of late. This team still has not reached it’s peak and there is a lot still to come. Do not right off the title just yet, Manu could just relax with this result and they still have a few tricky fixture that could trip them up. Spurs, Man City, West Ham, Wigan and Arsenal are by far forgone conclusions.

As they say there are no easy games in the Prem.

I woke up this morning, and we’re top of the table!

Although it’s true, I was gutted after last night’s match. Great effort, but not the result we needed.

We’re level on points, and United have two games in hand. Fixture congestion could work out to be our friend?

Wed. 22th April Man U v Portsmouth
Sat. 25th April Man U v Spurs
Wed. 29th April Man U v Arsenal (CL)
Sat. 2nd May Boro v Man U
Tue. 5th May Arsenal v Man U (CL)
Sun. 10th May Man U v Man City
Wed. 13th May Wigan v Man U
Sat. 16th May Man U v Arsenal

5 games for United in the next 14 days.
8 games for United in the next 25 days.
9 games for United in the next 32 days.

By contrast, we play 5 times in the next 32 days.

We need some help, but it’s doable. We’ve got to win our remaining 5 matches, and there’s a few tough ones in there.

6 points = 2 Man U losses
6 points = 3 Man U draws

I haven’t given up just yet. Agents Crouch and Peanut tonight, Agent Keane on Saturday?

One other point, those dropped points last night bring the Chavs back into the equation. We’re four clear of them and they’ve got a game in hand. Hopefully our small neighbors can nip a point off them tonight.

BELIEVE

Keith, the commitment has been great all season I don’t deny that. What I mean is since the Boro game when it was pretty much regarded as season over in the league we have gone into every match with a real desire and commitment to press forward and get goals. It’s been fantastic to watch.

My main arguement in months gone past where we’d have heated disagreements is that I thought in certain games we seemed happy to remain compact, control the game and then if we’re still level or losing with 20 mins to go, we’d then go for it. That’s where Rafa was criticised for being negative – well from my point of view that was the case. Since Real Madrid at Anfield we’ve been going after sides from the first whistle and its been great.

I never thought I’d hear Rafa moan that we should have scored more goals after winning 5-0.

Exactly LB. If we’d played earlier in the season the way we’re playing now….Its difficult to think of what might of been. Sitting back in our own half containing Villa, similar story against a ten man Arsenal, and who can ever forget those gag inducing 75mins at the britannia where we lined out behind Dirk and decided to abandon all semblance of attacking football. I’m not writing this seasons Eulogy yet but as our window of opportunity gets smaller its difficult not to back at what might have been.

If we’d played tight and compact last night we’d have won.

Anyway, I’ve been the river, had a lovely walk and a laugh, downed a couple of cans of Grampy Juice (As me grandaughter calls it) and so I’m in a much better mood.

Normally I would have just laughed at the irony of being called kneejerk, but I’ve been pissed off since last night. Shouldn’t have bit though, and I appologise for it.

But here’s the gist… I went the pub last night, settled down with an aul mate that knows his football, and looked forward to a very enjoyable night. It went downhill from there. We were soon surrounded, people talking going on, fucking about, as we tried to watch. Some daft bird sat at the end of our table. She knew one even dafter Arsenal song. She sang it over and over and over. I ignored it for the most part, but things started to get on me nerves – our defending, their bloody goals, Arshavin… what the fuck is it with that shussh melarkey to your own bloody fans?

See, I turn into bloody Victor Meldrew. But even when I’m happy I hate them silly bloody celebrations. Give me Ray Kennedy’s little run with an arm in the air anyday over some daft rock the baby, riverdance, dentist’s chair, kiss my boots melarkey anyday. Good to see Ray looking a bit better last night. He has been very ill.

Anyway, the more people enjoyed what was a after all a great spectacle, the more pissed off I got. Who’d be a manager? If it pissed me off, god only knows how Rafa felt.

After 20 minutes I said to me mate… “We’re in trouble here.” Some one overheard it an said, “We’ll batter these.” If should have said, “And how many times have you seen games where there’s been total domination, no breakthrough, and a frustrating draw or worse lose at the end?”

But obviously, it would have been a waste of me breath. But after about 20 minutes me and me mate both agreed that a draw or worse was on the cards.

And Digger the only difference between last night and Stoke was… the goals. It’s just easier to excuse an exciting bad result than it is a boring one. As for the entertainment, you lads are right. Liverpool have been fantastic to watch since the Boro game. And as Keith said, both the swift one touch passing and the direct jugular attack have been a joy to watch. But give me shit on a stick football and the right result everytime.

The Mancs have been fucking woeful for about 2 months, but they have grinded out the results. Yep. There’s been a few clangers but for the most part they’ve got what they needed. And the horrible bastards haven’t been bothered by what means, hook or crook. But they’ve dug in and got them. We are learning that, and it will come.

But here’s why I’m so upset, and here’s why I kept the first you need to challenge comment to myself all season…
If we win it this season, that puts the mancs 2 behind. Which means, they would need 3 to finally knock us off our perch. And I’ve sid this before, but I firmly believe it… if that was the case, the tramp would probably throw in the towel. And, no matter who takes over, it wouldn’t be seemless. They would need time to adjust and make the transition. On top of that, can you just see the tramp riding off into the home for the terminally drunk?

Not a fucking chance. He would be lurking around in the background, pulling strings and undermining whoever takes over.

So, in my opinion this was a great chance of knocking them off that fucking perch before they’d even knocked us off ours.

Ahh well, not to worry. We all know it’s just a matter of time. Still it will be great if we don’t have to wait any longer. 20 years is about all my patientce will bear.

PS… Arsenal fans are shit. they don’t even deserve a decent team. No wonder Henry and Wenger love the kop.

@KeithSA,LB

If you think me terming FS’s comment as ‘Kneejerk’ is wrong then i would better suggest you to go through his first post(#213).

He clearly states that Fergussons comment that We dont know how to win a title is right.Where is that statement coming from? Its a pathetic one specialy when we have dropped points. I called that a Knee Jerk reaction and i will continue to do so.

Most of you seem to disagree that we dont need another couple of world class players(Gerrard and Torres are the other 2). I dont care what you guys think about it,i am sure time will prove me right. Why you all are craving about Silva? Why you all want to have Agger in the team next season? When it comes to scoring goals and making a difference in a match, we have Torres and Gerrard. One misses out and we dont look the same unit anymore(Again please mark my words, Its scoring goals and takng chances which i am concerned with.). So try to understand the point i am trying to make. I am not saying that the players who are at our disposal are not good enough but we are still short in the attacking third.

It is very important to understand that all these talks came up when FS mentioned that Fergussons statement is right. We dont know how to win titles? For gods sake dont tell me that. We do know how to win titles.

FS says that The match was lost even before the team went out to play(His next comment). Is it not ridicuous?I mean how on earth after that performance can anyone say that?

He might be a wise old man but the way he reacted to my comment is unfair. He does not possess the right to dictate to fellow fans what to think and what not to.

@FS

My apolozies if my statements have made u feel bad. Its better we dont continue this argument anymore.

I dunno bout that FS. First off that was a good result last night – 3-2 and then 4-3 down? – that was a point saved against a very good team. Had we enough chances to win? Sure, but its our perennial problem and one that we havent been able to correct in 2 seasons so to be honest I’m content with the draw. And FS the stoke game and last night are WORLDS apart. Last night we came to play. To attack. To win. At stoke we left Nando and Keane on the bench, played Dirk up top alone and were lucky not to be beat.

Well, all I can say is… this a waste of my time.

@FS

This is not a waste of your time. Both of us are Liverpool fans and i am sorry if i made any insensitive comments. I will take it on my chin.

But dont say that that Fergusson is right that we dont know how to win titles.

Enjoy and no offense meant.

FS, glad you enjoyed your walk by the river. My advice to you to “cool your jets” was meant in a friendly way, and was not intended to offend you, that’s the last thing I would want to do.

The expression came from my 16 year old son (also a Red) who said I should “chill out and cool my jets” after pulling my hair out watching the match last night. And you know what? He’s right. Me giving myself high blood pressure is not going to win us the Prem. The Liverpool players are the
only one’s who can do that…………. with a little help from Portsmouth, Man.City, Arsenal and Middlesborough perhaps.

Arent we lucky wasting time is so enjoyable eh FS?!

Wow… you go away for a couple of hours and Sitting Bull has circled the 7th Cavalry and tried to kill Custer at Little Big Horn!

I fuckin LOVE KOPBLOG!!

Anyway… I’ll keep me comments to a few points.

FS: I completely understand your statement about resting Carra. Prior to the game, I might even have agreed, but in retrospect… Arsenal rarely pressured our defense let alone tested us for pace.
He should have gotten his rest against Blackburn and Fulham, in my opinion, that way he’d have been a bit refreshed for last night.

2nd point:
Last night was just one of those things. To suggest we “defended poorly” is a bit wide of the mark really.
We didn’t defend poorly if we restricted them to 5 or 8 shots on goal (depending on whose stats you believe)… on the contrary, we defended well… but made 4 critical errors that they capitalized on.

3rd point:
Its all well and good suggesting that SG and Torres would have made a difference in all those draws back in Dec/Jan … but frankly, if the players that are playing well now had been playing this well back then, it would have been a different story, and we wouldn’t have needed SG and FT.
BennyOnion’s form/contribution alone in those games was a pale shadow of his subsequent form/contribution since Feb.
The draws were a result of too many players not stepping up a notch.

Anyway… I still think its ours on goal difference May 24th.

You can show me all the stats you want that say we must first finish 2nd…. but stats/records are made to be broken… and this Liverpool team is the team to break them!

Somnath, you might want to do a quick math calculation as to how many titles Fungus has won and how many LFC have won since 1989.

A simply massive quantity of shit eminates from Fungus’ mouth, but if he’s only ever said one true statement, it is that we do not know how to win a Prem title.
We don’t, simply coz we haven’t.

I’m sorry, I know life didn’t start with the Prem, and you certainly won’t find me discounting our 18 First Division Titles, but history is just that… history.

It’s a complete and utter waste of my time.

I appologise for biting. I get another load of gyp. But apparently after neigh on 20 years of not getting a sniff of one, we know exactly how to win titles. The man who has won 10 of them since we won one doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And then I get told to enjoy it. It’s quite hilarious really.

But like I said, god knows how many comments back… we was in trouble before we even took the field.
We left out our fastest defender against the fastest attack in the league.
We played schoolboy football from the off.
When, with a wee bit more calmness, we could have been 1 up within 2 minutes of kicking off.
We should have played more compact, tight, controlled football and we would have probably won.

Yes it was good to watch, but sadly that seemed to stop a few people from actually seeing. I’m sure some games were great to watch when we finished fuck knows where in the league in 1900. Believe it or not, I can’t remember. I wasn’t there. But I know we won it in 1901. Had we not our record would say 17.

Shit on a stick and 3 points? Oh yes please Rafa.

But as exciting as it was, at the end of the day, last night’s result is just the same as both Stoke results… 1 point.

But like I said, it’s obvious I’m wasting me time now arguing the point. So, I’m going the alehouse. If I bump into the tooth fairy after ten pints or so, I’ll ask him to leave 4 world class players and maybe a young Maradona under Rafa’s pillow.

Tatty bye

@Aitch

Its so so surprising hearing this from people like you. I cant believe that i am in a blog which is the most favoured amongst the Liverpool fans.

We dont know to win titles. Now this statement was still understandable if Liverpool consistently pressed ManUnited for the title season in and season out. We were not at the same level let alone challenging them for so many seasons.

This is probably the first time we are making them nervous. And to know or not to know to win titles comes into the picture only when we are close to winning it. This is the first time thats happening.

And this what you are saying is a polite way of stating that We are not good enough to win the title. If we do not win this title it will be because of our poor play against some of the lesser teams, it is because of our inability to find match winners in the absence of Gerrard and Torres.
So you are rephrasing the same thing in a more polite way. To me we are short of 2 match winners in our attacking third. Thats my point. Thats why there are so many of us wanting Silva in our team next season.

If you want to put it like having a even stronger squad, i will take that. I will agree with that too. But We do know how to win titles. I just wish that we win it this time and prove ur statement wrong Aitch!! Then we both can have a laugh about it

@FS

We didnt had a sniff for 20 years because we were not good enough. Its not because of we not knowing how to win title. Anyway no point arguing with you. Think as you like Goodbye.

Somnath for your info and comment that we need more proven goal scorers these are the facts as Rafa would say.

Liverpool 63 Prem goals conceded 25 goals
Arsenal 58 Prem goals conceded 35 goals
Chavs 55 Prem Goals conceded 20 goals
Manu 54 Prem goals conceded 21 goals

It is not about the goals scored or conceded, but about the three points. The 4 extra goals we have conceded in comparison to ManU is the difference between 3 wins or 3 draws, very fine margins.

LB it could also be a matter of the team being more comfortable with each other, formation and gelling better. Earlier Torres was out, then Gerrard, plus the disruptions from the Olympics. We saw glimpses of what they can do against New Castle. It is still the same team with the same formation (abandoned trying to fit Keane into a 4 4 2) self believe and confidence changes things around. We are now seeing what this team can do. I don’t think Rafa’s ideas and philosophy has changed one bit we are just that much more comfortable in terms of our capabilities and belief of what we can achieve.

That’s what FS (when he isn’t having knee jerk responses!!! Still laughing about that one) and myself and quite a few others, Hyde, Atich etc have been saying all season patience give it time, dynasties are not built overnight, with the drastic overhaul and all the new and young players coming in it takes time for them to combine as a team.

The stat from FS I think that over the last 2 seasons ManU have dropped 7 points over these last few games is very interesting. It is far from over and there will still be some twist and turns before the end.

Your not wasting your time arguing your point FS. I, and others I’m sure, read and respect your points. From time to time however, I disagree with your point and I’m sure the same can be said for you of me. It is the sacred way of Kopblog, handed down from generation to generation! So just because someone dosent agree with you dont go all Victor Meldrew on us, your not like those evangelicals who try and convert people and their beliefs are you?! And like I said, who knew wasting our time was so much fun!

Lads just flew through the comments there,its so easy to get frustrated an take it out one another,and in away thats what these blogs are for. Though as a whole it has been pretty upbeat in here and its good to see. I think its so close now where all wound up to the hilt!!!

FS- that point about them dropping 7pnts last two seasons outta 21 really cheered me up.cheers my good man.

What i’d like to say is a big thank you to everone at the match they were singing YNWA when we were 4-3 down.AMAZING
I turn into a complete idiot when we score a goal an it usually results in things been smashed or chairs going across the bar,last night i didnt celebrate the 4th………. how ironic will it be if we’re looking back at that goal in may as the most crucial goal of our season!

off to bed now i’m up at 4am. Theres only one thing worse than waking up at that time an its waking up to all my manc mates leaving txts on my phone telling me the leagues over after they beat pompey. six meter peter please see to it that it doesn’t happen!!

roarin-red, have been meaning to comment on the YNWA being belted out at 4-3 down. That was one of the most fantastic moments I’ve seen – really magical.

YNWA

We need two wide players and 1 striker to deputise for Torres .he’s not had a good season but i think david bentley From spurs would be a good buy and a good provider for Torres based on his performances in his last season at blackburn when he set up a lot of goals for santa cruz .i think harry might let him go due to lennon being 1st choice.i think he would fit in to our team brilliantly.also Petrov from man city might be available if robinho stays.also what about dean ashton from west ham if he’s fit as backup to Torres.also looking at other positions glen johnson looks good upson if Agger goes.barry would be less expensive this time around brunt from wba looks useful.just kicking around some ideas because we really need to improve our squad next season if we can get 2 world class players in the summer that would be great but most teams dont want to sell this type of player and when they do the price is always beyond our means so we may need to look at players who will improve us as a squad.YNWA

I was on the Kop lastnight….
sung my Heart out, it’s been a few years since I
had the chance to be at a game..

Torres first goal was a moment of Magic.
Benny Onion worked his socks off lastnight
Riera and Babel not with the money, sell them both..
Insua should have been at LB.

Somna… no offense, but is English your 2nd language? Pr do you just not think before you type?
And I don’t mean that offensively. I respect all our Worldwide supporters… but fuckin hell man.

I can stand here and tell you all I know how to give Halle Berry more pleasure in bed than she’s ever experienced in here life, but until I’ve actually done it its all braggadaccio mate!

You can’t win the League with a team of kids.
Was Hansen right?
Strictly speaking… Of course he was… er… until someone (and I anin’t saying who) did it.

We have not won the Prem. None of our current squad has… Therefore, until they have… they do not know how to do it!
When they’ve won it, no one will be able to say that’s the case.

Somnath… You stated in an earlier argument #187 that you had said “I have said the “Title is Gone” as the situation stands now.”
…when what you actually said in #177 was “But its time to realize that the Title is gone.”

That’s simply changing the argument… and frankly with 6 games left for us to play and 8 (+cups) for Scum to play… its far from over!
Christ, even the Chavs are back with an outside chance after last nights result.

Then you switch the argument to… Are our current players good enough to win the Prem?
In my opinion they are… have been for 3 seasons. But they haven’t so such an opinion is only worth the e-paper its written on.
Even if they do win it though, we still need 2 more “world class” (whatever that means) players… and then the following season we’ll be needing 1 or 2 more world class players and then the following season…. etc., etc., etc.

Aitch, in my last comment, #140 or so, I was not that clear. I was basically saying that the Arse would not have won if Arshavin would not have been on the Arse team.

Anyway I see in a later comment from you that you admit that he is better than your granny, so no harm done.

IMHO, he is a class act who would sync up superbly with torres and StevieG. What eveidence do I have for this? Fuck all!

But three players like that in our forward line is what dreams our made of.

Clearly Lurg.

My earlier statement was in no way questioning Arshavin’s quality… just the idea that his perfromance was somehow “testimonial stuff”, like he had scored all 4 after mazey dribbles from the half way line, or as a result of controlling a difficult ball on the turn, swivelling and etc… hopefully you get my drift.

His finishes were sublime, but I still maintain all 4 were on a plate and that any player worth his salt should have finished all four well.

Just because players worth their salt routinely miss easier goals, doesn’t make all four Arshavin goals numbers 1 through 4 in the “goal of the season” compilation tape on Sky Sports. (oh wait.. its Sky Sports, so never mind that last comment.)

I mean seriously, someone earlier actually compared El Zhar’s saved effort to Arshavin’s finishing!
Hmmm… a kid from the reserves compared to a full blown International with half-a-dozen Uefa/CL seasons under his belt?
Seriously???

The press was banging on about Arshavin being Arsenal’s Man-of-the-Match, and I suppose if you score 4 you have to take it, but really the kid Gibbs had a far better 90 minutes in my opinion!

I know where you are coming from Aitch but you cannot say that the 2nd goal he scored (with his weaker left foot) that any player worth his salt would have finished.

I agree that Gibbs played well but it was Arshavin who, unfortunately, made the difference.

There is a player very like Arshavin hanging around – you might have heard of him – David Silva. I think they are very similar in the pass and move roles.

Well at least Chelsea didn’t make up ground on us. They didn’t try so hard tonight. Nothing like how they tried against us.

Well this is where we get into interpretation Lurg.

I don’t have any problem with that opinion. Though, if you want to get into a discussion of how big a difference Gibbs’ headed clearance off the line (and he was right on the line) made we can

I tend to be harsher in these types of judgements I think. People have often raved about our own SG in here after games where he was anonymous for 88 minutes, but popped up with the all important goal. I don’t discount the importance of the contribution, but don’t label it man-of-the-match.

I’ve scored a few game winning blinders in my day, but my better games were those in which I passed sublimely and tackled the fuck out of people for 90 minutes… (okay sure, those games were mostly in my dreams….:) )
The goals might be what you remember as your brain ages and turns to mush, but the overall performances were the most rewarding.

Benny was the man-of-the-match, not because he scored 2 very important goals, but because he did so within the context of 90 minutes of contribution to the game at large. (Arshavin was a passenger by comparison.)

Following this with interest….What club wouldnt like another 3-4 world class players? personally Id like another 5 or 6. an additional world class centre back might have meant that Carra wouldnt have played so many games and as a result might not be as knackered as he has so obviously been looking of late)
Also, I would like to point out that there is not a single person at the club, not one, who has won the prem (or 1st division, for you arl arses) so how can you believe that we know how to do it with no experience at all (and yes, FS, it showed last night) The Halcyon days yes, we were the best at riding out pressure with business as usual cos we had done it so often, and like it or not, the scum are in the same position now as we were in those great days.

But the truth is, Rafa is building something really special (note the word building not BUYING) something that will last cos its been put together from the foundations up. Ultimately we will have done it (because we will, If this season proves to be a near miss then we go into next season armed with the experience) without getting the cheque book out at the first sign of a problem, (truth is, we havent got the money) or employing dirty conniving portugese ladyboy like cheats, without intimidating refs to the degree the other pretenders do, or big centre forwards who, despite their talent go down like a tart when a defender comes near them……the game these days has changed radically since the days we had all the knowse gained from our success, we havent been able to compete financially with the others (and dont want to buy the title anyway) When we do get back on top, it will be that much sweeter for the points above, alongside some of the football we are beginning to play…..

right feel better about last night for getting that off my chest!

I have a funny feeling It still aint over though….

Viva the Rafalution!!

I think the biggest problem from last night is about initiative. Like in a penalty shoot out, one miss can switch the emphasis from one side to the other, understanding that is where the experience comes in, practical experience of what to do in these situations…..last nights result passed the initiative from us to the scum, and with their experience they will know what to do……but still some tricky games left for them…

FS,

Are you sure you haven`t made that statment in here before?(about challenging first then wimming it.)

I know somebody did,i thought it was you.I think it`s a very valid point and one i have raised a lot recently talking to fellow reds and most thought it was a fair statement.

Weather we win the league now or not i don`t know.My heart says yes but my head says no.But i`ll always have hope in this rollacoaster season.

What is pleasing is if we don`t win it we`ve now got a taste of it.Therefore we`ll be even more determined,experienced and hopefully,better equiped next season.

Being top a the turn of the year was new to our players and i dont think they quite knew how to deal with it.That said i won`t go pin pointing out the draws and all that beause over a long season we will drop silly points here and there.I think this experience this season will stand to us next season should we find ourselves in with a shout come feb/march 2010.

ah Redboy… “we havent been able to compete financially with the others (and dont want to buy the title anyway) When we do get back on top, it will be that much sweeter…”

Never have truer words been spoken.

NOW is not the time to be talking about “needing 3-4 world class players” when the players we do have, have brought us so close!
Appreciate that. Praise that! (and I know most of you do!)

Fuck all this buy, buy, buy mentality.

Someone actually said something earlier along the lines of… we need a better right back than Arbeloa and they wished we still had Finnan…

That’s just fuckin sad. Finnan did the biz for us for a while, but he was on the slide when we let him go,a s evidenced by the fact that he hasn’t popped up on the transfer list for Scum, the Chavs, or Arse has he… or even Spurs, Everton, Villa for that matter… so how about showing Arbeloa and the players of his ilk in oour squad the respect they deserve?

All these supposedly NOT world class players that we have are young and are growing. Don’t be too eager to write them off just yet… sucess breeds success (and that includes near success as indicated earlier by the league stats) so some of these kids could surprise all of us.

Big money signings can be just as big a failure as a sucess.
For every Torres, there is a Morientes, Bellamy and Keane.

Last nights game was the best game i’ve been to for a long time,apart from the 2pts we dropped which is sickening.
The atmosphere was brilliant and the football was highly entertaining even at 4-3 while singing YNWA most of the crowd still thought we was going to score.
It felt like we summoned the goal out of the jaws of defeat .
We dominated possession/ shots on goal and corners unfortunately they dominated LUCK make no mistake thats all they dominated ,( Even a few Gooners i spoke with agreed ). If Aurelio was to kick that same ball 1000 times
again it wouldnt fall for Arshavin again,the same goes for 2 other goals
his 4th was a product of his earlier luck.
Torre would have had 4 with a bit of luck, but it wasn’t to be.
just heard Scum won 2-0 so thats 6 pts they need to drop now still possible,
But we need some luck, or maybe we are destined to finish 2nd the year before
we win it.
YNWA

Okay gang. Before last night we needed 2 Manure results to go our way. After tonight we still need (just) 2 results. IF …. If and when they lose a game then it totally cranks the pressure up on them. They will not be able to afford another defeat. By the sketchy reports I have of tonight’s game it was another edgy win for Manure. It can still happen.

Upon mature reflection (sober now), we gifted the draw to Arsenal. Every time we played forcefully and compactly we caused panic in the gooner defense, controlled aggression and focus would surely have done it. But we could not manage it. For me it was a repeat of the Chelsea 4-4 in essence.
Small details and lapses gave Arshavin & Co the chances and well he had one of those nights. He could have been blindfolded and he’d still have scored with an overhead bicycle kick.
In answer to the above debate as to the “need” for 3 new world class attackers / defenders / wingers / whatever… We whacked Manure, Real, Villa, put 4 past both Arsenal and Chelsea with the team and players we have. That’s our reality. We could have knocked Chelsea out of Europe (it was our errors as much as Drogba’s “talent”) and for me we should have put the Gooners to the sword last night. We have what we need right now, the pieces (mental belief & focus primarily) need to hang together.

Aitch Keane wasnt a failure. Keane was failed. And Aitch are you saying that El Zhar is not worth his salt?! In 255 you say any player worth his salt would have finished Arshavins 4 chances implying they were run of the mill. Yet you question someones contrasting of El Zhars missed chance and Arshavins deadly finishing! Why? Fair contrast and compare no? I mean if the lad was worth his salt he’d have scored no?! I know a Russian who would have….

Looks like there was a bit of overnight venting, everyone a bit pissed with the result obviously. Fair enough.

FS, it was only one guy who called you knee-jerk. The other 50+ of us contributors know you are anything but. You can’t win them all, but you know that.

I think Carra has still got some good years left in him, but not with the amount of games he is playing, and it is showing now. The problem is that he is the General of the Defence, the organizer, and without him someone else needs to step up to that role. Sami is only a very short-term prospect for that. Agger and Skrtel have got all the talent and ability to be a superb defensive pairing BUT who would be the new General? Both would appear to be the quiet types. Perhaps either one of them could grow into the role but it appears to me that neither is a natural leader. I think this is important, in my opinion every good back 4 needs a strong leader. Anyone agree?

GREAT HOW A COUPLE OF HIGH scoring draws makes everyone argue with eachother.

no wonder i hate men.

not fussed on women and children either.

give me a dog any day

RE: Fat Scouser’s observation – “Never has a team won the title without first going close and properly challenging for a season. Check it, all you like. Argue, all you like. It just doesn’t happen. I haven’t said that before because I didn’t want to put the mockers on this season, but that’s the truth of it.”

Me agrees. Was telling the same thing to me fellow Kopites beginning of season & was shouted down as a pessimistic shit.

As much as me would abolutely LOVE IT (Kevin Keegan stylie) that we lift the title this season, we just have to chalk this down as a part of the learning curve.

Just hope we don’t do a Houllier & let all the good work fall apart after a season of challenging fer title.

Shite, couldn’t access the blog for a whole day for some strange reason, and look what I bumped into!!!

Just to make matters worse, the mancs have killed off another win. They were shite just as they have been all season and not the convincing side that we have so sadly been used to seeing. Having said that, Portsmouth’s effort was also shambolic. Next game, please…..

Which turns me to the discussion that has been going on.

I think the best way to sum up what FS is trying to say is that “there is a first time for everyone”. Which, in a sense, is what Somnath is also trying to say. It is just a matter of how you construe that. My gut feeling is in the same line with FS (I had been so melancholy before the start of the campaign), but my wishes are in line with somanth07.

Unfortunately, none of the players in our squad have experienced winning the premiership. They all understand what it would mean for liverpool and its wonderful supporters to get there. And now, they see that there is (or was) a slight chance of doing that. It doesn’t matter how strong your mentality is, that expectation and sudden realisation will definitely start to affect your play and focus as the countdown becomes imminent.

To counter that queasiness, you need experience, and in some sense, the ability to actually be indifferent to the feeling of winning the league. If you’ve won it before, you become a little bit immune to that hype. You need that sense of calmness.

Can we expect that from our first-timers?? Definitely not. But the experience of this year, regardless of how it turns out, would have done wonders for our “virgins”.

I think the story of Roma a couple of years back may shed an interesting light.

Roma had not won Serie A for ages. Then, came Capello. I remember reading in an interview where he stated that, in comparison to AC milan, who were undoubtedly winners back then, he found Roma to be a total second division side in its set-up, training mentality, approach of the board– bascially everything you can think of being important for a club looking to win. And the team itself was a total mess. So, he employed strict rules for members and staff; he made them professionals. He completely altered the set-up of the youth system. He then set the team to play “boring” football, making sure that they played tightly, so much so that it makes the first years of our Rafa Reds look like brazil. Contrally to impression, Capello is not a negative manager. You only have to look back at the wonderful AC Milan side in the late 80s and early 90s to know that– if given the right players and back-up, he can build a team with a lot of attacking intent. But that was because that Milan side were already full of winners who he knew would not get “carried away”. He couldn’t do that with Roma, despite having a lot of attacking qualities. He slowly built the side adding attacking flair with fighters– batistuta, totti, cafu, montella, nakata ,etc. They finally won the much-coveted scudetto in 2001. Coincidentally, their last league win was in 83.

I don’t think I need to make any more implications, but the similarities of the run of things are comfortingly similar.

We will do it under Rafa. I have never been so certain of that. But if we continued to play like we did against Arsenal, as first timers, we won’t do it.

I think the players gained vital experience from that, but it could have been too late.

That is what FS is probaly implying.

I personally still have hope. My ulcer would probably resurface if I see the mancs totalling our record.

So I will continue to maintain my hopes.

There is a first time for everyone.

Digger are you winding me up?

You’re completely twisting my words mate, to make your point.
I already conceded that I overspoke when suggesting all 4 were easy, and that I agree 2 of Arshavin’s finishes were very good. (goals 2 and 4)
I still maintain however that 2 were easy. (goals 1 and 3)

It doesn’t mean I don’t rate the lad.

I compared Arshavin’s 4th goal to El Zhar’s miss… where one scored under no pressure and the other’s shot was taken… in injury time… under pressure of a defender, and saved.

I think El Zhar is a talented kid and I hope that he develops and comes good… but to compare him to Arshavin is to suggest you know fuck all about footy… and I know that isn’t the case.

You aren’t seriously suggesting that there is no difference between Arshavin and El Zhar, are you?
Coz I know you want to have Arshavin’s baby, whereas you might not give El Zhar the time if he asked

(and for context, let me remind you, that I was one of only a few voices in here agreeing with you a year ago, and suggesting that we try to steal him from under the Arse noses.)

No Aitch I’m not winding you up or twisting your words! Surely you see the irony in your statement is all I’m asking?! Your banging on about the easiness of Arshavins chances, any player worth his salt etc, someone points out a player misses an easy chance, ya know, pointing out maybe not any player worth his salt can finish these supposedly easy chances, maybe Arshavin deserved more credit than he was getting and you pulled him up for it! Dont mind me bro, I just thought it was funny!

Btw I do remember you agreeing with me on Arshavin and believe me if we’d spent 16mil on him last summer instead of 27 on Keane and Dossena we’d be league champions now. If we’d released Keane earlier in January as would have been prudent a) because Rafa dident want him and b) because it would have enabled a replacement to be bought, we could have invested the re-couped 15mil on Arshavin. And we’d be top of the table now. My opinion of course, but (adopts del boys voice) you know it makes sense!

Some absolute dribble in here guys. Who cares what statistics Thompkins pulls out of his arse, did statistics count in Instanbul. Not f’ing likely. LFC is a team who makes statistic, not lives by them.
.
We should have already won the league by now and most of on here know that. The dross draws against Stoke and Hull etc are costing us now. A 4-4 draw against a class outfit and constantly challenging team is not the same as a 0-0 with Stoke.
.
When Rafa would have been calculating his points he would have thought a draw with Arsenal was acceptable while 2 wins against Stoke were mandatory.
.
I’m happy for the improvement and hope it continues but lets not pray for boring as bat shit football.
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FS do you think Rafa got his team selection wrong.

Morning gents…
If you think back, Arsenal fucked Arshavin about something rotten. He was brought over from Russia and then left in an hotel by Heathrow airport for days while Arsenal bickered over the price.

We were trying to offload Keane at the same time. Rafa tried to step in and slyly buy Arshavin at the last minute. We didn’t have the money. But we pushed Arsenal into diving in and grabbing him. And they came up with the reduced asking price at the last minute just because we tried to steal him. And, if you think back, the FA bent the rules and kept the transfer window open to allow him to sign.

Just another one that Parry let slip out of Rafa’s net. It won’t be happening anymore. (Please H&G just fuck off).

Timmy, I did indeed mention the fact that a team who won the league for their first time had always put in a good challenge before winning it. I dropped it in as a sort of “Keep the faith” statement a couple of times when we’d had a bad result. But what I never done was make it my whole point and used it as an “Oh well, there’s next always next season” sort of statement.

The big difference being, I said it puposley said it yesterday to…
1: keep everyone’s hopes up after the disapointing result.
2: Proof to show we are on the right track.

So, Hyde mate, no need to try and summise what I said. And please don’t take umbridge at that, I’m not having a dig. I don’t mind you trying to back it up, but I said it clearly as I could. And Kinny backed it up perfectly. He even had statistics to prove the point, way back in his comment, #227.

But I shouldn’t put words in Somnath’s mouth, either. He said what he meant, but it seems me using The Tramp as back up is what really got up his nose. It didn’t exactly thrill me either. But he also said on a few occasions, I wouldn’t have said it “If we’d won.” No Shit, Sherlock.

But anyway, make of it what you will. I can’t be arsed going on about it anymore. As I said yesterday… I’m wasting me time. And more importantly that was yesterday. Time for me to let it go now – like I hope the team will.

Nothing much has changed. We still need Man U to fuck up twice. We needed that anyway. Sadly we are one game nearer the finish line and we need them to drop 2 more points. But who of us really expected Pompey to get anything at their gaff? Not me. But that was another thing I kept to meself as I also knew what sort of reaction that would bring.

But, and I do think this is important, although results from the last 2 days haven’t changed the big picture that much really, let’s hope we see a return to sane, shit on a stick, grind out a result football.

You see there’s one of the major differences between the 2 sides. I believe they were shite last night. Me mate phoned me and said Rooney’s first was offside. It probably wasn’t. Me mate hates them more than me, if that’s possible. But that’s the sort of luck champion’s get. And one of the differences between them and contenders.

They know how to ride it out. We don’t. But now the pressure of expectation is back off the players, I expect them to stop playing every game like it’s a cup final in the last moments of extra time. And I expect them to shut out the season with 5 straight forward wins.

Who knows if that will be enough? In all truth, probably not. (Man U need to drop a full third of their remaing possible points, and lose 2 out of 6. They have only lost 4 out of 32 all season. But 2 of them have been in the last 6. So, I will not give up until it’s mathmatically over. And even if the Mancs win all their remaining league games, it will mean they have only beat us to it in the last 2 games of the season. That will do for me. And I know everyone in here would have regretfully accepted that before the season started.

And here’s something I have said in here many times…
What we have been trying to do is about the hardest battle we have ever faced. Our enemies were further ahead of us than they’ve ever been. They are more powerful than they’ve ever been. I have compared it to the hardest battle you can fight. Any general will tell you, that is an up hill fight, against a well armed and deeply entrenched enemy. It’s like we are in the landing craft, storming the beach, while they are firing down on us off the clifftops. But over the last few seasons, we have took the beach, we have stormed the hill, we are now facing them on the cliff top. But we will soon be chasing them down the other side.

Obviously Gaz I got something wrong… why doesn’t nobody seem to understand that the Stoke and Arsenal games were the exact same thing.

FFS… We got one point from each of the four games. We played them all under the pressure of expectation. We were desperate for all 3 points in each game. We didn’t get them. All 4 results saw our chance of winning the title slide a bit further away.

The only real difference was the spectacle of each game. But I tell you something, Tuesday’s result annoyed me far more than not being able down to break down Stoke. And I dare say, judging by his face the other night, Rafa felt the same way.

As for the boring as bat shit football, of course we want to play with a swagger. But give me 5 1 – 0 boring jammy wins from now until the end rather than another 4 – 4 draws. We have to grind out results when we can’t storm them. It’s what champions do.

You’re up early Fats. And here I am about to knock off work!

With regards to the shit on the stick. I’m not disagreeing, but just adding to it (and perhaps you’ll agree?) – I think what we really need is the ability (and I guess, maturity) to know when to serve up the shit on a stick and when to put teams to the sword. I think in the first half of the season we did a lot of grinding, but then came unstuck when we’d ground ourselves into a team that couldn’t put the opposition to the sword when required – hence the proliferation of draws.

Now more recently, we’ve found the ability to batter teams, but it is costing us at the back. It’s like the tap was a nice steady trickle in the first half of the season, then it wore down to a bit of a drip and splutter, now we’ve almost turned it on too hard and can’t control where the water is going. Against the chavs in the CL and the arse yesterday, we really looked like we had lost our shape, with the back 4 often left very exposed. Against the “lesser” teams the tap at full-blast will generally blow them away, and we could have done with a bit more of that during the season. But against the better teams, it can leave us too exposed and we get the 4-4 type of result. Fun to watch, but 4-4′s probably don’t win premierships unfortunately.

Forgot to add in my last post – that ability/maturity to be able to both grind out results and put teams to the sword – is most likely the ability/maturity that we will hopefully learn with our title challenge this season. Hence supporting the point you FS, and others, are making about how finishing 2nd can be a great lesson for how to win a premiership…

Oh and FS I’m sorry but your 2nd comment (#275) only just came through for me. You’ve basically said in a short paragraph what I crapped on about in 2 big ones. At least we seem to agree though!

1-0 wins in straight rows is mark of true champions, FS. Unfortunately, we are not clinical enough to do that; some days, we are tight as a baby at the back, but are so skint up-front, other times, we are wreaking havoc with goals, but just as loose behind like the morning after a local Indian dinner. Nearly there, though.

Digger, I think everyone wanted arshavin in here, but you have to remember, the lad wasn’t remotely interested in coming to Anfield. Wasn’t his preference of football. Retrospectively, we could have financed the price that Arsenal spent, but you can’t force someone to sign. The price was probably lower than expected because it was a team that arshavin wanted to go to. Zenit would have not been pressured from Arshavin’s side and would have fought harder if we wanted to sign him, thus hiking the price, probably way over the 20 million mark.

I shit the bed Andy.

But, a huge difference to the draws would have been a fit Torres and Gerrard. And maybe it’s the way I phrase meself, but you get me drift… the talk for weeks has been “Cup finals” from now until the end of the season.

That’s fair enough. But we are playing them as if we are 1 down in the dying moments of extra time. We don’t need to do that. Rafa should have calmed them. I’m sure he did. But once we got on the pitch. It all went out the window.

That’s why I kept going on about Torres shooting instead of squaring the ball in the 2nd minute. That was Istanbul stuff. We didn’t need it. We needed calm, clear headed, straight forward, no risk football…. what I called shit on a stick.

Hope you didn’t leave Mrs Fat Scouser in there mate. On second thoughts… sneak out and let her think she did it. Clever.

I agree with you. I’ve been saying the same thing but about Riera not crossing to Torres in the 2nd half – would’ve put us 3-1 up, game over. Instead he saw glory and fucked it up, and the Arse equalised about 5 minutes later. As I said before – we played with no poise.

HA! Good one Andy. You sly bastard, even I never thought of that.

I’m up doing these bloody US government things for a visa for Mrs FS. Fucking horrendous.

But that last bit summed it up perfectly – “we played with no poise.”

Can’t understand why nobody can get it. But a 4 – 4 draw is no different than a 0 – 0.

Don’t know why they seem to think I want to watch boring shite football. I don’t. But I’d have been far happier with a 1 – 0 win on Tuesday.

But like I’ve been trying to say since yesterday afternoon, it’s something we will learn. And fuck all the arguing. It’s been great watching LFC in the last few weeks. The football has been proper thrilling, once we match that to the results we will be in proper business.

I remember going to Anfield when we battered Spurs 7 – 0. They had just bought the world cup winners, Ardilles and Villa. They both played well. In fact, believe it or not, Tottenham had played really well – far better than Arsenal the other night. They looked absolutely shell shocked at the end. That game could have easily been 7 – 7, even 10 – 10.

The difference was, we knew how to shut teams out at the back as we battered them up front. It comes with the confidence of winning titles. But it didn’t happen every week. I saw us win many a title courtesy of 1 – 0 wins, with the winning goal coming in the last few minutes. It’s what we did. It’s what champion’s do. But fuck it, let’s just enjoy the ride from here until the end.

Good comments there FS, I must say that I’m of a very similar opinion…

What a shame that Gerrard and Torres have been injured for much of it… I’m very interested as to whether or not Torres can get another 4 goals to break the 20 goal mark….

Well, I’ve got to go now. But here’s something to consider, and something I’ve been meaning to say…

We all agree an Arshavin/Villa type player would make a great difference to our team. But we have one – Daniel Pacheco. The problem is, he’s only 18 years old, he’s only 5 ft 6 inches tall, and weighs about 10 and a half stone.

But this kid really is the business. And I don’t think he’ll get much bigger, but he’ll definetely mature into a good un.

I noticed he’s been playing wide a lot lately, instead of in the hole. I think that’s deliberately being done as part of his education. But no matter where the lad plays, he really is the real deal. Like Insua, I have no doubt he will make it.

And I know only the coaching staff have the answer to this, but…
With a lad like this in the ranks, would you spend most of our budget on a Villa type player, or strenghten several parts of our squad/team where we need it and wait on Pacheco?

FS – notice yer slightly apprehensive about Pacheco’s lightweight physical presence.

Who knows, he may just be another Yossi . . . or even Messi.

Short, small but fooking lethal!

Lads, I think the goals we’ve been conceding recently are a little bit misleading. Most people including myself watched the Arsenal game and came to the conclusion we are panicking for results, showing a lack of poise and as a result not defending well. In our last 6 games we’ve conceded 11 goals. 7 of those in champions league cup ties against a very good side. We didn’t play compact in those ties because firstly we wanted a good lead from our home leg and secondly we needed at least 3 goals to go through.

Against Fulham, Aston Villa and Blackburn we showed great poise. The only league game I’ve seen panic was the Arsenal one.

If we continue to concede daft goals in our remaining games then it’ll confirm that the lads are in a bit of a panic but on reflection it’s a bit unfair they have lost their heads. Maybe in that one game they did.

So we need the mancs to draw half of their games or lose 2 out of 6. Doesn’t look likely does it? Oh well, all we can do is win our games and hope for the best.

On reading the debates you guys have been having. I think Digger was speaking about the Stoke 0-0 at the Britannia whereas FS is talking about the Stoke 0-0 at Anfield. The draw at Anfield – we did indeed attack for the entire match, scored an early goal that was disallowed and dropped 2 points. The approach was similar to what it has been recently so you can’t blame the manager or players for that game I don’t think. The draw at the Britannia was a bloody awful performance though and the attacking intent was non existent. 4-4 draw against Arsenal gets the same reward as 0-0 at the Britannia. 1 point. However if we attacked Stoke (away) the way we attacked Tuesday night 99 times out of 100 we’d give them a good hiding.

If we finish runners up I hope we start the next campaign the way we finish this one. Last season we finished strongly and established the 4-2-3-1 formation with Gerrard off Torres. Then we bought Keane, switched the formation and things were disjointed. I hope next season we just make 1 or 2 top quality additions, keep the formation and continue where we left off.

LB, Ms Hymans also presents on Setanta Sports news.If Riera and Lucas don’t play, then we will win 3-2 V Hull.If we fail to win , we don’t deserve the Prem.Where did Leeds finish in 1991-the season b4 they won the title?.

Exactly LB. Of course a draw is a draw is a draw and all you get is 1pt. But for the 3rd or 4th post on this blog I reiterate the difference between Tuesdays draw and that at the Brittania is that if we’d played with even a quarter of the attacking intent (and maybe a couple of 20+mil pound benched strikers) that we showed Tuesday at the Brittania, we’d have 2 more pts now. Same at Emirates. Sat back against ten men for the final 30mins. The difference is the fear of losing won out over the desire to win.

And Digger, your point maybe be that only now its clear we simply HAVE to risk defeat in order to win it’s brought about the change in approach?

Keith mentioned the fact the players are more confident together now and gel better as a result. Rafa is saying the same thing that there has not been a change of mentality. Only a change in confidence. It’s a good point but I don’t know if I agree, we seemed quite confident against Newcastle and gelled very well then played Stoke not too long after that and for most of the game seemed happy to not take risks and settle for a point.

Burgerman, Leeds finished 4th (19 points behind the champs Arsenal) the year before they won the title in 1992.

Hyde I cant agree with you in 279. How do you know he wasnt remotely interested in us? Way I remember it he was desperate to join the prem – he was going to sign with Spurs first ffs! Now the way I see it is if his agent comes back to him and says ‘we got 2 offers, spurs and Liverpool, join spurs and you’ll win nothing for the rest of your career. Join Liverpool on the other hand and you’ll probably retire with 2 c.l and 2 prems. Your their missing link’. Only one place he’s going mate….

don’t know if posted before

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1ADuaiFE0Q&feature=fvst

Digger the draws that have pissed me off the most are:

Villa away
Hull home
Man City home
West Ham home
Fulham home
Stoke away

I agree with the opinion that we need a couple more world class attacking players. These players tend to make a difference in the tight games where the team maybe doesn’t play at its best against a stubborn defensive side. When the team play great and win 5-0 that’s brilliant. But we’ve drawn 7 games at Anfield and maybe an Arshavin or a Silva added to our team would equate to 3 or 4 draws instead of 7. This making the difference between say 84 points – runners up and 90 points – champions.

At the end of the day though I think the team/squad is getting the maximum capacity out of it’s quality and depth. If we finish with 84-86 points and say 6 points behind the mancs none of us can’t really complain too much in my opinion. That would definitely represent tangible progress in my eyes.

FS 284: No we cant wait for Pacheco. We do it now. We do it this summer. ‘It’ being we go out and get that Arshavin/Villa type player this summer. We’re very close – we should have fucken won this league this year. To wait 3 or 4 years for a prospect who might never make it would be absofuckenlutely retarded. I apologise for the strong language lads but I cant overstate the importance of this summers transfer window. Look back on the debacles that were our last 2. It simply cant happen again. Get him now.

Next season we will need 95 points to win the title, so it’s important we finish on 86 points and the jump needed won’t be so high.There are lots of handy players playing for Hamburg,Bremen etc-check them playing in the UEFA semi next week.Have to get some decent right sided players for next season.Finishing second is no guarantee that we will win next season.Rafa won his 2 titles @ Valencia with points totals in the low eighties!.

289, exactly LB. The change occured when it dawned on Rafa ‘hang on a minute, we lose today and its over, games are running out’ and voila, you get 4-1 at old trafford and all the rest thats come with it. Contrast our style of play and approach to games from the first 2 3rds of the season and the final 3rd. Theres no comparison. There has been a sea change in mentality since the utd game, a change that has come from the coach. A change I’d like to have seen and called for earlier, but good to see nonetheles

Digger I don’t think it’s so simple as Rafa letting the players off the leash and we go out and do what ? We got knocked out of the CL by Chelsea, conceeded 3 then 4 goals against them and then conceeded 4 goals against Arsenal. It certainly is more entertaining and it does show what we can do attacking wise but, as many have said in this blog comments section you’ve also got to do the dirty business i.e defend well. I think it has been very heartening for us the punters to witness the spirit and talent of the lads but we’ve been daft at the same time. We did not take care of business. For me we have the players right now we just don’t have the mental discipline and focus we need. Perhaps indeed it is the bitter knowledge of a league lost that will burn that into plyers minds.

Dougle, unfortunately that’s what happens in here. You have a discussion, part of it get’s seized on then it becomes a mission to disprove it.

Immediately, after first saying, no team had won the premeireship without first mounting a challenge, Kinny posted proof of this. It hasn’t been mentioned once. 24 hours later though, Leeds win has been dug up as “proof” that this isn’t true. How pathetic is that? But it seems to some, one abberation surely disproves all that went before.

It’s one of the reasons why I walked away last time… scoring internet blog points outweighing sensible discussion. It’s a shame but that’s the way it is.

I could sit here and check Leeds results for the season before, see why the finished so far off the pace and why they was able to make it up the next season. I can’t be arsed.

As far as I’m concerened, I know I’m right. It’s one of the crapper changes football has made over the Prem/Sky years. The old first division was a much more interesting prospect and far more open. We won the second division, came up and won the first the following year. A few teams did. But in these days it’s become a 2, 3 or 4 (At best) horse race.

Another sign of the times we live in.

I could do with a new van for work, but I’d love a brand new BMW instead. But fact is, I’ll get neither and will then get another crap one when I’ve ran this one into the floor. Reality. Fact of life.

I’d like another 2 world class strikers an all. I’m sure Rafa would. But I trust him to act realistically and take care of the practicalities during the summer.

I’ve spent 30 odd hours now, trying to explain why the Stoke and Arsenal games are no different in the big picture. Each time it’s been discarded. doesn’t really matter. I know I’m right. You can argue the point all you want about style of play, and the games as a spectacle. The 4 league games between the 3 teams all yeilded exactly the same thing… 4 points for each club.

So, to disprove it, people use selctive memory to say how crap we was against Stoke, especialy at the Brittannia. Well, here’s the facts…
Stoke have a fantastic home record. It’s what is going to keep them up. The Brittannia is a stadium nobody likes to go to. We battered them for the first 20 minutes that day. The fans started to get nervous. It transfered onto the players on the pitch. And on the pitch – we had no Torres, no Alonso and Gerrard was carrying an injury. So we had Lucas and Mascher in the heart of our midfield – Lucas had one of his nightmares, after playing really well against Newcastle, and Mascher was in the sort of form that would have got any other player slated. In a nutshell. He was awful. I remember that vividly because Diego Maradonna was there and he must have been shocked.

And as the play disintergrated, the nerves started to take over and we just couldn’t gee ourselves up. In fact, as it went on, Stoke dragged us down to their level and we got more and more desperate, so our game went from bad to worse. But we still managed to hit the woodwork a couple of times late in the second half – Gerrard post and bar. And had either of them shots went in, it would have been one of them 1 – 0 wins that all champions need to grind out from time to time.

But fuck all that. Discard it and boil it down to Rafa simply taking off the leash, and so drag a rabbit out the hat and disprove someone instead of having a sensible discussion on how we get round these things and forge a championship winning team/mentality.

Puchong Red, I’m not bothered by Pacheco’s stature. Great things come in little parcel’s. It’s the fact that he is small and only 18 years of age. He’s not so much a Messi or Benayoun type player, but, like I said, he’s the real deal. I have no doubt he will be special for us as he matures.

My point was, we have class attacking players that will make the step up….
Pacheco, Della Valle and Nemeth probably being the closest to being ready to take the big step.

We also have a limited budget and places where the squad/team need strenghtening. So, in the interests of decent debate and changing the subject, I asked a perfectly legitimate question… beef up the squad where it needs it, or put all our eggs in one basket?

Because sadly that could be the difficult choice Rafa will have to make in the summer.

Selective memory?! Surely you jest Fat one! We Battered em for the first 20mins?! I think it is you who has developed selective amnesia! I dont know what game you were watching or maybe LB’s right and your mixing up the Anfield and Brittania performances. We were death warmed up at Stoke FS, it was THEY who battered US. They should have been 2 up after 20mins. We were crap from top to bottom that day until Torres introduction late on when stevie hit the post in 91st min. We battered them? Good grief….

Will Man U draw half of their games? or lose 2 when they have only lost 4 so far. Who knows?

All I keep telling myself is this -
1) if we win all our games, as we absolutely must
2) United just draw ONE game before they meet the Goons
3) The Goons do us a favour

then…

United will be travelling to a hopefully relegation battling Hull with a game they MUST win. And then que sera sera.

This lets me sleep at night. Sort of.

YNWA

FS, I mentioned Leeds as a team that won the league without competing for the title previously. Not to disprove your point because actually I thought it was a very good one but to (a) share information and (b) give some hope that although it’s unlikely it is indeed possible. Obviously if we have to go back 17 years and beyond the Premier League era it proves you’re theory has validity.

I think only one dude (Somnath) disagreed with you on that one anyway.

I think Pacheco, Nemeth have huge potential. The other young lad Della Valle, I’ve only seen play a couple of times but he has impressed me. Jay Spearing has looked great this season. I don’t think we can afford to wait for these lads to develop while just improving the squad a little in areas where we are short. And I think Rafa feels this way also. It’s why I think he wanted Barry and Keane (in that order) last summer. And why I think Macia was sent to Valencia a month ago to make enquiries about Silva. I think it’s realistic to get a couple of experienced top quality players and I think Rafa will try to do that. I envisage another GROSS spend of around £30m this summer. That figure being made up of the POSSIBLE sales of Voronin, Dossena, Babel and the sale of Keane. I don’t think that’s fantasy or wanting to swap my Fiat for a Ferrari.

What do you reckon?

FS, I don’t get to see Pacheco much, living here in Australia and all. Realistically, how far off do you think he is from making the first team squad and then being eased into some first team experiences?

Given he’s 18, and you have (correctly) said in the past that he shouldn’t be thrown in too early, I’d assume he’s probably at least a year or two away, is that about right? Based on that, I’d say there’s still a good argument for getting someone ready-made for that role in now, ready for next season. The Arshavin-like or Silva-like player who can potentially play in 2 or 3 attacking positions would be very good for us I think.

I totally agree with the concept of bringing youngsters through where we’ve got them, but of course only when they are ready – and I also think this needs to be tempered with where we are as a team. Right now we appear to be entering the “peak” of a cycle – we’ve been building for years, and now we are challenging and I would hope/expect us to keep challenging with the core of this team for perhaps 3 or 4 more years.

Looking at our top players in the famous “spine” of our team, we’ve got the likes of Torres, Gerrard, Alonso, Masch, et al. I think all of these guys are pretty close to the peak of their game right now; they might get a little bit better, but it’s hard to imagine them getting a lot better. It is realistic to hope they can maintain their current best form for the next 3 years or so before they perhaps start a slow decline (some before others, some later).

What I’m getting at is that we should probably be trying to take advantage of this “peaking” as it is the golden time to win trophies. And the good thing about a team at its peak is that we should be killing games a bit earlier, thereby giving the youngsters like Pacheco more opportunities for some first-team minutes, which means we are simultaneously building for the future. We haven’t been able to do that so much in the last 5 years because we’ve still been building.

Don’t misunderstand me anyone, I’m not saying we are at our peak as a team right now, but I think you can see it just around the corner and I think we need to take advantage of it. If that means we take 1 or 2 ready-made players where required, instead putting a youngster in there and giving them time to develop, then so be it… there is still plenty of space for youngsters in that setup.

Digger I describe the game at the Britannia to a T, even naming the personel and distinct instances, you still think I’m talking about the game at Anfield. Good grief indeed.

And yes battering them might be over stating it, but that’s only a phrase and it wasn’t far wrong… After about 4/5 minutes their goalie made a great save from Kuyt. We then dominated for at least the next 15 minutes, and Kuyt went close on a few occasions. He absolutely leathered one chance at goal. The goalie got his chest fully behind it and even managed to cling onto the ball, even though it lifted him off his feet and any nearer the goal it would have bundled him in the net.

But you refuse to get me point – shite draw or great draw – same result, one point. We need to grind out 1 – 0 wins sometimes. Adn when we give teams a hiding we have to learn to keep the back door shut. It’s a sign of champions. It’s what we used to do. But I’m going to leave it at that, as I’m sick of going round and round in circles. One more and I’ll probably disappear up me own arse.

LB: I never meant you over the Leeds instance. I know that you know what I am saying about challenging makes sense and is true.

Funny enough, I only said it to keep chins up after what was a bad result. That’s also why I dragged up the fact that the mancs have dropped 7 points from their last 21 in both of the last seasons. Chances of lightning striking 3 times in the same place, very remote. But I’m clinging on to the hope.

As for what we will have to spend and how will we spend it, I think only time will tell. Apparently Macia and Rafa have 95 possible targets to go for. I’m sure that that amount of players includes from absolute top proven stars, to squad players, right down to hopeful kids for the future.

What I think will dictate who/what we go for is who leaves in the summer.

For instance, Wheater is lined up, but obviously that will only happen if Agger leaves. But I agree, the perfect thing would be to clear out some lesser players and replace them with absolute quality in a couple of positions. That’s obvious enough, as it’s what should have happend last year. But whatever happens, that won’t happen again. And especially how he fought to get control to the point of near losing his job, I trust Rafa will get it right this time.

Andy, I reckon you’re bang on the money… this team will/should be the nucleus of a trophy winning team for many years. A bit of tweeking from Rafa, a bit of investment from the borrowers and we should be in business.

As for the kids… I think we would have already seen some games for Nemeth this season, but he’s had a horror story season with injuries. I expect him and Pacheco to see a bit of first team football next season though – cup games and starts from the bench. Also, don’t forget Ngog. I thought what the fuck, another cheap duffer when Rafa bought him. But I’m starting to believe he will come good.

Sad thing is, you just never know with kids. Look at Plessis. He looked the business at Arsenal last season. He has gone steadily backwards since then though, and it’s starting to look like the kid will get shipped out soon.

No worries FS.

Last night at about 10:30pm I checked the teletext to see the manc score in hope that Pompey got a result. No joy. I think I’ll continue to do this for the rest of the season. Watching them beat Aston Villa and Stoke some months ago in the last minute was heart breaking.

Andy, good post.

One annoying thing is that Rick Parry leaves and Rafa has more power over transfers during a summer when we’ll probably be at our most skint. Sods law init?

Regarding Plessis….. he does look like he’s gone steadily backwards after making such an impressive debut. Since then he’s looked very limited as a midfield player and as a result it looks as though Rafa has lost a bit of faith in him. He hasn’t made the squad in a while. Spearing may have gone ahead of him in the queue. Talking of Spearing… how tall is he? Better yet how short is he? I don’t think I’ve seen a shorter player. The stats say 5’6″ he looks more like 4’6″. Lad can play though.

In an attempt to get more people to clutch more straws in case they even think about giving in to despair, I’m going to throw some more encouraging statistics. So go ahead and say these are just numbers, I don’t care. :p

Firstly, we’ll use the data courtesy of this useful football archive site:

rsssf.com

Let’s compare the results of last 6 Premier League games of both Liverpool and the Scum starting with the 2004/2005 season.

The reason I’m starting here is because:

1. Rafa started out here, obviously

2. Ferguscum’s current generation, which I call the “Diving Generation” (2004-present), began here (the previous 2 generations are the Cantona Generation (1993-1997), and the Posh & Becks Treble Generation (1999-2003))

Without further ado, here are the numbers:

2004/2005
LIV: DWLDWL – 8pts
Scum: LLWWDW – 10pts

2005/2006
LIV: WWWWWW – 18pts
Scum: WDWDLW – 11pts

2006/2007
LIV: WDWLLD – 8pts
Scum: WDDWWL – 11pts

2007/2008
LIV: DWWDWW – 14pts
Scum: DWDLWW – 11pts

First, an interesting pattern with this current generation of Scum is that they never go beyond 11 points for their last 6 games, regardless of whether they’re in the title race or out of it.

Second, when Liverpool is distracted by the latter stages of the Champions League in 2005 and 2007, Rafa understandably saves up his resources (which you must remember is less adequate than it is now) and puts full focus on the Champions League.

Third, on the other hand, when Liverpool is not distracted by the Champions League in 2006 and 2008, they CAN obtain more points than the Scum.

That said, Liverpool obtained more points in 2006 and 2008 under an environment where they were already out of the title race. So, the most crucial factor is: HANDLING THE PRESSURE.

If the boys can learn from the mistakes against the Arse and do that quickly, than we have a good chance. But even if they did not, they will have earned some very good experience in the handling of the nerves. And come next year, our chances will go from 70-80% to 85-95%.

PS Thanks to FS for actually reading and commenting on the stats I provided in my previous post. And I was wondering whether anyone read them. lol

Fair enough FS we’ll agree to differ mate. After the boro game I thought it was our worst performance of the year. I remember being so angry after it I could have clubbed baby harp seals!! Anyway, you saw it one way, I saw it another, thats the beauty of footie eh? Love having it out with you even though we never agree! Btw at the risk of us going at it again, i touted nemeth for a bench role next yr earlier this season and you fairly bristled at me, now your touting the same yourself! C’mon Fatty!

Digger, can’t find the link, but Arshavin clearly stated that he only wanted to go to Barca, and if not, arsenal. Barca were first negotiating with arshavin before they chickened out with the price zenit were asking. But no matter now, cos we do not have him.

FS, I hardly think anyone is doubting that a 0-0 draw and 4-4 draw makes no difference in the big picture. I also think people are looking into the data that Keith picked up.
It’s the same simple logic as saying that no one remembers who lost against Uruguay in the first world cup. Unless your winners, it means nothing. We can talk about substance of how well we attacked against the gunners, but unless we get the all important 3 points, which championship winning teams do, then it hardly matters. It is not about being able to score, it is about being able to win. That is a “know-how” than can only be gained from experience.

I hope for an anomaly in the method or pattern we gain that know-how, but i fully understand that in reality, it requires steps that cannot be skipped.

Kinny, your stats were appreciated!

It is indeed the handling of the pressure that is key. It would be nice to bloody well have Torres and Gerrard fully fit as well. Is there any news on Torres fitness? He did the ankle some damage against the Arse in the first half. Will Gerrard be in the team/squad at Hull?

Would be nice to get some luck such as a Ronaldo red card and a Rooney hamstring pull.

No Digger. When things weren’t looking to good, yousaid throw them in. I said Rafa would introduce them when the time is right. You said Nemeth was right. I had to tell you the lad had a broken face/cheek bone.

Now, believe it or not, that’s not me scoring points. I understand you live in New York so obviously your not as close to the reserves as me. And even though I live in Bournemouth, I do get inside information from the reserves and academy. That doesn’t make me any smarter. I just have an in. Again, not making points, but that’s how I knew Insua would be the first to show out of the youngsters.

So, I said back then, Nemeth won’t get a chance for two reasons….
1: Obvious, he’s injured.
2: We couldn’t just throw in kids when there was still a chance of winning it.

But, and I’ve said this all along, next season, I think/hope the kids will get a chance in the early stages of the cup competitions and some will make the bench.

Add to that the fact that we have a great squad of even younger kids coming through behind them. And on top of that we’ve given quite a few kids a chance lately… Lucas, Ngog, Darby, Plessis, El Zhar, Spearing, etc – So, things are definetely looking good in the development department. And they will only get better if Dalglish gets involved.

As for Spearing he is indeed a very talented lad. And I hope being the size of the average garden gnome won’t hurt his chances. It didn’t do the likes of Scholes any harm. But that’s one of the great things about footy… it’s talent not size, stature, speed or anything else that tells in the end.

Money, I hope Rafa is given at least 20 million, and what ever he recoups from sales – including Keane. But I reckon he’ll get about 30 million all in.

But whatever happens I’ll say this… it’s a shame if we end this season empty handed. Look at the media and the nuetrals – even they are starting to say a win for Liverpool would be good for football. And there’s no denying we shot ourselves in the foot a few times, but hard lessons have been learnt and it only bodes well for the future. But there again, I’m like Kinny and his numbers… refusing to give up until it’s mathmatically impossible and even then I’ll probably still argue we can do it!

No problem Hyde, I understand. All I’m saying is if we took the 27mil we wasted on Keane and Dossena and pursued Arshavin with the same gusto for 3mths the way we did Barry, the lad would have been a red. And I know its a matter of opinion but mine is that he would have supplied the 10 or 12 goals (not to mention who knows how many assists) over the course of the season that would have slashed our draws column in half and made us champions. I cannot overstate the importance of this summers transfer window.

Kinny good man yourself,any shape or form of believe you can muster up looks good to me! keep em coming.

Fatty I’m sorry mate but that is categorically incorrect. I never called for Nemeth to be thrown into the first team. Never ever. I called for a bench role for him next yr and questioned why he wasnt given one this yr – whats the point in Ngog in otherwords was my point. And for what its worth I knew he was on loan (blackpool i think?) and I knew he broke his jaw on his debut (great loanwatch thread in the forums) which is why I never called for what your saying. Check it out mate, I remember the debate.

Ahhh Digger lad. Here you go again. Moving the goalposts. You’ve just done it twice in two posts….
I said this morning, Arshavin was treated like shite by Arsenal. They left him in a hotel in Heathrow. I remember watching the lad standing in the smow, looking lost. We stepped in. There was no way he was going to join us anyway. He wanted to go to/live in London. All our offer did was help lower the price and Arsenal then swooped. They wasn’t that fussed, but they thought it worth grabbing him at the cut price.

As for Nemeth, I told you this morning…. old Fatty is not quite suffering dementia just yet. And after the Boro defeat, which you yourself said, drove you mad – you started calling for the youngsters to be thrown into the side. Not only did I have to argue and argue for days, that it wasn’t over and there would be more twists and turns, I had to inform you that Nemeth had broke his face. And I did indeed tell you, that it was on his debut for Blackpool. That hasn’t been the only injury’s the lad has suffered this season, but I even remember the exact words I used to tell you what had happened to him… Welcome to the championship.

I then went on to say prematurely throwing kids at huge cart horse centre halfs could destroy them. We then got into the Owen debate and round and round it’s gone until it has resurfaced and I have run around in that many circles I am about to disappear up my own arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…..

Digger, I think you need to get yourself down to London and have sex with Arshavin as soon as possible, man. Get it out of your system.

How many times do I have to concede that I mispoke when I said all 4 goals were easy.

I have now stated FOUR times that All 4 finishes were quality. Yet you continue to quote my first statement!

Can you not concede that 2 of them were served up on a plate?
Or will that mean the Arshavin Admiration Society will recind your Platinum Level Membership.

Its funny coz we are arguing something a bit silly here.

Arshavin is a quality player. No one is arguing otherwise. But simply put, he’ll never score 4 easier goals (and by that I mean get 4 easier chances in a game) and Arshavin knew that himself when he scored them, hence his 4 “seemingly embarrassed” goal celebrations.
Has anyone in here seen a more humble hat-trick, or Quad, celebration from any player ever?

We need to draw a line between conceptual discussions and applied discussions.
Is Arshavin the BeesKnees?
is a different discussion than
Were his 4 goals the greatest ever scroed at Anfield?
If you don’t see the difference (and I find that hard to believe mate) then I’m wasting my e-breath.

At the risk of wading in-between you and FS, I think the “draws” argument is the same.

Conceptually, of course all draws are the same… they end in us getting a point, so no difference.
But as games, the Fulham draw was well different than the Arsenal draw.
Shit, even the 2 Arsenal draws, as games, bare no resemblence to one another… but they both ended in a point a piece.

Aitch, you can now consider the baton well truly passed on to you!

I’m being drove mad here… me grandaughter’s here. I just caught her drinking the dogs water and eating his biscuits from he’s bowls. We’ve got pigeons nesting outside and the dog is going fucking bonkers barking at him. I was up and down all bloody night, quieting him down. I come in here for a break, and Digger decides to wind me up. But I’m sure he’s just being naughty an all.

If you want to end the Arshavin debate, the lad’s interviewed in today’s papers. Looks like another Arsenal player who is sorry he never decided to play in front of The Kop. He was glowing in what he thought of them, and even appologises to them, saying he never meant to be disrespectful in his celebrations. He then goes onto say how shocked he was to get the goals. He admits he done fuck all else but score them and he even says he knows they all came from defensive mistakes.

But having said that, I will say this for the lad… he took them very well. Whether his shooting will be as good all the time, remains to be seen. But Aitch, you have to realise this is the blog where people wish the likes of Zaki is signed when he scores that one wonder goal against us.

All I can say is, thank fuck Rafa is in charge.

Tell you what lads, here’s the team for tonight’s reserve game…

The team in full:

Martin Hansen, Stephen Darby (c), Robbie Threlfall, Mikel San Jose Dominguez, Godwin Antwi, Damien Plessis, Ryan Crowther, Jay Spearing, Andras Simon, Gerardo Bruna, Gary Mackay-Steven

Subs: Deale Chamberlain, Krisztian Nemeth, Victor Palsson, Vitor Flora, Philipp Degen.

No Pacheco, must be injured I’ll have to check.

And seeing She Who Must Be Obeyed has fucked off the bingo, drinking and gambling, and left me to mind the fort and the troops, I’m gonna to try and dig up a link and watch the game.

If I can find one, I’ll post it.

It’s on here….
ttp://www.justin.tv/uktvsport_1

Just add the h if you want to watch. It’s 0 – 0 15 minutes gone

Digger how do you know that money was ‘wasted’ on Dossena. As far as I can see he still has a red shirt assigned to him.

FS, just got your link in time to see us going 2 – 1 up. Playing some decent footie since as far as I have seen.

We should sign david bentley/petrov from man city/santa cruz 3 Achievable signings that would improve us

We were very sloppy in the first half, Lurgan mate – crap passing, bad movement, no final ball. Got it together in the second though.

I love watching the ressies and the kids. It’s not just the actual footy and weighing them up for the future. One of the things I really enjoy, is listening to the bench.

With the small crowds and not so many cameras there, the microphone is normally near the bench and picks up everything. I love watching the young ones try and do as they are instructed. It’s nice to see them being taught the Liverpool way – pass and move. But it makes me laugh when they take no notice, try to be a hero and then get bollacked.

Daft, I know. But for some reason I get a kick out of that.

Thought Plessis, Crowther, Threlfall and San Jose played well. Bit sick Nemeth and Pacheco weren’t on, and a shame Spearing got injured. Think it looked worse than it is.

But surprise, surprise Degen never. So, what’s the odds he falls on his arse in the shower and is out for the last few games.

Rafamuffin, I don’t fancy any of them 3 meself. And I have a sneaky feeling Rafa will be pulling one of his magic tricks and appearing a good one we’ve never heard of.

FS, it seems that I tuned in at just the right time. Usually tuning in for the 1st team, we end up conceding a goal.

Meself, I wanted to have a look at Nemeth but it was not to be.

BTW, where do you find the streaming links for the ressies.

Gordon Bennet! Aitch, I understand you’ve conceded you mis-spoke, I was just curious as to whether you saw the irony in your post is all. Curiousity satisfied, you dont! And I’ll give Arshavin a rodgering whenever you take Dirks cock out of your mouth! (oh no he di’ent!) Moving on…
Fatty, my corpulent cyber colleague, what am I to do with you?! I never moved any goalposts bro. Look at My post 311. Where do you see me mention anything about the January window? Which is what you’ve gone off on a tangent on in your next post claiming I’m moving goalposts. What the fuck?! I never mentioned January in my ‘last 2 posts’, I clearly talk about the 27mil spent on Keane and Dossena (idicating the Summer window) and the pursuit of Barry (again idicating the Summer window). Moving goalposts? Clearly thats your area of expertise mate! But just while you brought that window up, you say ‘all our offer did was lower the price and then Arsenal swooped’. Now I’m no economics whizz but, when a second offer comes in for something, or someone, from a seperate party, dosent that drive the fucken price up?! Nah, Arsenal werent fussed on him. They only flew him over to London to sign a contract! Sigh….
As for the Nemeth thing, FS I’ve tried archiving the blog after the boro game but cant seem to find it but its irrelevant anyway because the comments section seems to be absent from all archive blogs. Look FS I dont know how I can explain this to you anymore strenouosly than I already am. I never ever called for Nemeth to be thrown into the first team after the Boro game. I knew the kids jaw was broke on his debut, somebody posted it in here the day after it happened ffs. And before you say ‘yeah me!!’, no, not you. This was posted after it happened, not a couple of weeks later during our debate when you imparted what you assumed was new knowledge for me. Fatty I never called for the lad to be thrown into the first team. What I called for was a bench role for him next year and a run in the fizzy cup and I questioned why that hadent happened this year. What was the point in buying an 18 or 19 year old French kid when we already had a superior kid in the wings, was my arguement for having him on the bench this year I believe. I do remember you saying ‘Welcome to the championship’ and other such things as you, I said it earlier, bristled at my suggestion that the kid should have a bench role next year. Look, FS, not that it really matters a fuck, I just wanted to clarify that you were misquoting me and putting words in my mouth that were never. I remember the whole thing quite well mate, I think your just remembering it the way you want and so be it, I guess we all develop selective amnesia when we like. Anyway, we’re going in circles here, wanted to get that off me chest, no goalposts moved my friend, you just dident see them!
Lurgankop; if you think the 7mil spent on Dossena was money well spent then fair play to ya!

Digger you’re a very naughty boy. You’ve moved them again. Arshavin was bought in the window. That’s the only time we could have bought him. We tried. We didn’t have the money. The price got lowered we still naever had the money. Arsenal swooped in at that price, after yes… bringing him from Russia and leaving him abandoned in a hotel room at Heathrow airport for days, where he was shown walking around like a little boy lost. the whole thing was completely fucked up and only eventually went through as the FA left the window open after the deadline.

Now behave yourself. As for Nemeth, you can swerve it all you like. But the fact is, I came back in here because everyone was having throwing wobblers at a few bad results. I tried me best to say the season was far from over and there would be more twists and turns. You were adamant that a solution would be to throw in the kids. We then shadow boxed for days over it. Seems Rafa agreed with me. And if you’d have watched the game on the link I put up, you might have seen why.

We certainly do have some good talented kids, but, and I qoute…
“What was the point in buying an 18 or 19 year old French kid when we already had a superior kid in the wings, was my arguement for having him on the bench this year I believe.”

…you don’t seem to understand that Ngog is the better, but more to the point – more physically ready – than any of them to play first team football.

In fact, it seems you don’t rate Ngog from that. And I think you’re wrong there an all. I reckon he’s got every chance of becoming a very tidy player indeed.

And while I’m giving you a hard time… what’s with this down on Dosenna malarkey?

I have a feeling he might be sacrificed in trying to raise funds. But I hope not, and I will bet you a pound to a penny, if he isn’t he will become a very useful player for us next season.

As for the ressie streams Lurgan, they are never in the same place and not all games are streamed. But a bit of rooting around will usually find them. From now on I’ll put them up in here for you lads to watch.

And Digger, I want you to watch them all carefully and take notes. There will be a quiz after every game.

Dossenna made 70,000 mancs dissapear in one second at old toilet……

Thats well worth £7 million in my book any day

Oh and I will be keeping records that will be pulled out if and when there’s any more naughty goal post shifting!

Timmy watch Dosenna closely if he gets another game before the season ends. After his first few games, before he got made a whipping boy, the lad himself said, he wasn’t pleased with his form or performances and that he was struggling with the pace of the Premiership.

He also said, he was going to work very hard on correcting this. He was true to his word. His movement is excellent. He ghosts into some great positions. He’s practically impossible to knock off the ball. He gets forward well, and he’s one of the better crosses of a ball that we’ve got. His tackling and stamina need working on, but he’s more than willing to keep trying until he gets it right.

It’s his first season, and, like Riera, he’s feeling the strain. But like Riera, he doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt. He gets to carry the can and be a scapegoat. For some reason nowadays, it seems football fans have to have one.

I’m sort of out of my time. I can’t understand it. A kunt like Harry Kewell with all the talent and skills, sits on his arse skivving… people defend him. A lad like Dosenna admits he’s off the pace and pledges to work hard and put that right. He does exactly that. He shows the improvement. He puts in some very decent shifts. He still gets slatted. I admit, it’s beyond my comprehention.

Digger, if you don’t think that the 7 million on Dossena was well spent, then ‘fair play to ya’.

But how did you come to this conclusion, considering you are not at Melwood every day of the week. Or maybe you are, I do not know.

What I DID see is that Dossena has improved considerably in the last 2 months. He has now adapted to the speed of the EPL and logic would say that he will continue to improve. Maybe he has settled in a foreign land/culture – have you ever done that?

From what I have seen of your comments is that you state something and then structure all your comments to support your initial point, no matter if it is valid or not.

IMHO, not winning the league could be the best thing that happened to us. Look what happened to manure when they drew with wet spam to lose the league so many years ago. Ferguscum told them not to forget that feeling and I do not want to go thru’ what happened afterwards.

BTW, senile or not, I also remember you stating that Nemeth should be, at least, on the bench for the 1st team. Do you know why, because I agreed with you – before FS and told everyone about his injury on-loan.

Could go on but can’t be arsed…

you’se fooker’s are quick.

I`ll keep an eye on him alright FS and as you said,if he`s willing to knuckle down and work hard to improve(are you listening ryan babel)then i`m willing to give the lad a chance.

I hope it comes good for him it must be tough for him to change to a different culture as well as team.Every foreigner is different when they come to england to play football.Some fit in straight away eg,Torres and some take more time to adapt to the change.

Well, I’m off to bed. Will leave you lads with a laugh though…
ttp://www.sport.co.uk/news/Football/18402/Benitez_My_team_is_better_than_yours_Ferguson.aspx

Rafa’s been at it again. He’s like the terminator that fella. He just won’t quit. And he’s got the tramp firmly in his sights.

He’s a twat, isn’t he.

Ha was just about to post that link from the gaurdian on Rafa but you beat me to it FS.

I`m off to bed myself…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!

I think the stats Kinny provided prove a few things ,the season is not over
the mancs do bottle it towards the end of the season ( so much for experience
of knowing how to win the prem ) but what FS says about finishing 2nd before
winning the prem is also true. Thats the thing with stats for they can contradict
each other.
Bore draw or 4-4 yes both 1pt but 4-4 is more entertaining and for us fans entertainment is part of the reason we watch football, its like getting on a
rollercoaster.
Dossenna is worth 7 million he first got slated when he got “turned inside out”
cant remember but i think it was Chelsh*t .Point is which 20 or 30 million pound
defender hasn’t been “turned inside out”. Since then he has lost some weight
and got a bit quicker so he has shown commitment and remember he was
used to playing a lot further up the field than our LB ( no not you LB )
been the only Italian doesnt help, but he had the right attitude,
besides that Manc goal priceless .
Hyde wasn’t it USA
YNWA

Well Gordon Bennett right back at you Digger, you’re not letting your battle with FS get the better of you are ya?

Yes I get the irony in my first statement, but since I recinded that statement and rephrased my argument… PRIOR to you suggesting there was irony in it… then isn’t it a mute point for you to be harping on about the existence of irony in a statement I recinded and rephrased????

What irony is there… NOT in my first statement, which I both recinded, AND restated but in the statement that…
All 4 of Arshavin’s goals (a full blown International with several seasons of CL and UEFA cup footy under his belt) were essentially unchallenged shots from a relatively central position…
when compared to
… 1 shot in injury time made by El Zhar, (a frigging kid with 1 PL start and fewer than a dozen sub appearances) who was pushed wide, and had to get a shot off under challenge from Gibbs, at a wide angle.

If you can’t see the difference… and the irony in your insistence that there is any irony in that comparison… then we are clearly using a different dictionary!

So what FS, we couldent have bought him in the Summer? Nah, January was the only time we could have bought him…..sigh….And FS, what did I move? My point was always about the Summer window. It was YOU who brought up the January window and so ‘moved’ whatever. Check my 311 post again. I dunno, am I in the fucken twighlight zone here or are you on a wind-up?! Cos I know you aint as stoopid as i think you’re trying to make out! And Fatty how do you know we dident have the money for him? It was common knowledge the initial fee was in the region of 20mil, so what the fuck were we coming in for with a sneaky bid if we knew we were looking at that kind of money? Strange that, no money but yet we’re trying to highjack a potential 20mil pound deal. I can only hope for the day we have money if thats the case!!
Regarding the Nemeth thing, I’m done Fatty. I know what I said and what I dident say. Gerry if its possible, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could dig up the comments section for your blog after the Boro game and email them to me and Fatty (I’m guessing the lads are sick of this ‘he said, he said’) or just post them here, whatevers easier, thanks mate. Sometimes ya just gotta go to the video tape!
Thanks for the ressies stream offer FS but its unlikely I’ll be able to take you up on your offer. Most of the ressies games are at night right? Well with the 5hr time difference and all I’ll never get to see them due to work. I can pull a Homer J and disappear for the senior games but if I started skiving for reserve games too I think it would be curtains for Digger at work! And besides, was never much good at quizzes, I’ve failed more tests than the Aforementioned Homer J Simpson himself!
Lurgan; I came to that conclusion because he has been unable to perform the task he was purchased for. Under the consumer protection act that definition implies a defective product and the consumer is entitled to a refund! Oh if only…. Look, Lurgan ask yourself this, what has he really contributed to our campaign this season? Really contributed. He was bought for 7mil. The starting Italian International left fullback. He was bought as our starting left fullback. He was given the job, as you would imagine a 7mil pound fullback would be. It was promptly taken from him when it became clear he couldent do the job. No harm to him, some people cant cut it in the prem. The 20 year old kid took his place and made it his own til International duty took him away. Could he make it his own at the second attempt? No Aurelio did and deservedly so. So what have we got here? A 7mil pound fullback who couldent defend and is now a squad player. His main contribution to our campaign the way I see it is 2 goals at the end of 2 games that were dead and buried anyway. And this resurgence that everyone rightly applauds has taken place at Left midfield not Left back the position he was bought for. So no, I’m not at Melwood every week but at 7mil for that kind of contribution do I think he was a waste of money? Yes. And I’m not down on the lad, I’m delighted he’s knuckled down and found a bit of form, Kudos to you Andre, but unfortunately in my opinion he has not done enough to be worthy of retention next year and so the money from his sale should be used and used more wisely this year to strenghten the team in areas we all know need strengthening. And that is the bottom line, its for the good of the team.
And yes I did move to a foreign land when I was 20 lurgan, and it dident affect me at work.
I’m sorry Lurg, but I just cant let this one go : ‘from what I have seen of your comments is that you state something and then structure all your comments to support your initial point, no matter if its valid or not’. Eh…what the fuck?! Isnt that what we all do?! Isnt that the point of the blog?! To come in, make our point, back it up as best we can, i.e structure our comments to support our point!! Are you on the wind-up or am I in the fucken twilight zone again here?! Lord….give me strength lord!…
And of course you remember me stating Nemeth should be on the bench….cos thats what I fucken said!!!! Not what Fatty’s suggesting, i.e fuck him in there into the first team willy nilly….AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!
Anyway, whatever, good night and good luck…

Ahhh Fats…you are like the Godfather of this blog…Don Fattione…

I love reading your calm reasoned arguments…as opposed to some others that seem to be “so and so is pants” because he makes 1 mistake in a game or “such and such is crap” because he hasnt instantly settled and played as well as Torres or Ronaldo from his first game…

And to think some of these gimps were actually calling for Rafas head?

If theres one thing wrong with the internet it allows every dumb arse the opportunity to publicise their unthoughtout unwanted unneeded unfactual opinions…and then go ballistic when not everyone on the planet agrees with them…

If it wasnt for You, Aitch, KeithSA and one or two others (wheres Aussie KopFan btw) then I wouldnt bother reading the comments…I just couldnt be arsed with the level of stupidity…

Just saw your post Aitch, fair enough mate, point taken. A good debate though no?! Ger think its time for a new blog, seriously! Its been another battle royale in here today and we love it! Goodnight all and good luck

Nah Dig, I say let’s get thus fucker to 400 posts first.
A new blog can then be posted to warm us up for Hull.. which I’m sure Ged already has on the backburner waiting to go, but thought to himself “hang on, some of this shit is getting interesting.”

And I probably shouldn’t even be thinking about wading into the Dossena debate, but fuck it, like I said, we need to get this one to 400.

I don’t discount any of what you stated above in #336 regarding Dossena… to some extent its fair enough comment… but whenever anyone gets into a thorough drilldown of any player in their first or second season, I’m always reminded of Jamie Carragher’s first couple of seasons as a first team regular.
There were so many people calling for his head, saying he needed to be got shut of for a better option, suggesting he wasn’t good enough for LFC, etc., etc.
UNBELIEVEABLE when you think about it now.
But seriously JCs first few seasons were well dodgy, but there were a few voices I could chorus with in my call to “chill and give the lad time.”

I’m inclined to think Dossena will be sold, as FS suggested.
But I’d be really careful about what we wish for in the summer.
There’s no doubt we could do with a top quality player or two.
BUT… Our “so called fringe” players have really been turning it on of late and I like the way they look to be gelling.
There’s a lot to be said for that sort of “team unity” and players who’ve been around for a while and are settled.

Yeah I know Aitch, its unfathomable looking at it now that many were calling for JC’s head early on in his career and I must confess he dident fill me with much confidence in his early days – I used to cringe at his constant back passing to the keeper – but Aitch JC was a kid then. Dossenas what? 27? Truthfully Aitch, how much more room is there for improvement? Good points though about team unity. Btw I thought Andre had his best game as a red vs Fulham. Only 60 more to go! (posts!)

Sure he’s 27 Dig, and I see your point, but there’s no figuring who will fit into the hustle and bustle of the Prem and who won’t and at what age.

My opinion of Dossena is that he has gotten rogressively better as the season wore on… so extrapolating that, I’d be more inclined to say keep him than sell him…. but I wouldn’t be heartbroken to see him go, since we’ve got Insua emerging and Aurelio finally rediscovering the form he had when we first bought him.

but here’s something to think about… Age = Experience (at least when you’re talking about an Italian International) and there is a lot to be said for having that in the squad.

As was stated about the Arse/LFC game… for the most part, we were ruching and pressing things when it wasn’t necessary… what a player of Dossena’s age and experience gives you is that added “er hold your stones here boys and stick to the plan” voice.

I feel we let Didi Hamman go a season too early and that his experienced head was occasionally missed in midfield.

I think having lads like Sami and Dosser backstage helps the younger lads.

It isn’t always just about… he didn’t perform like Roberto Carlos every week so get shut!

To that end, you look at the “myth” that Fungus won the league with kids

Hmmm… but they were playing alongside Bruce and Pallister and … (I’m blanking on the left back, but he was ancient) and Keane and Froggy and Hughes to name a few.

Tell me those guys didn’t help the kids and I’ll tell you someone who’s full of shit!

Re: dossena, I think we only need to cast our minds back to how nerving evra was in his first season. Italians are one of the most canny at defense, and so there has to be a reason why he was in contention. Besides, I quite like the look of his crosses; I dunno about set-plays, but I think his crosses are better than aurelio’s.

The only reason why he will be sold is down to increasing our transfer kitty rather than on merit (or demerit).

In all honesty, I waded into this, but I find something a bit distasteful and disrespectful about discussing players who should be sold… when they are part of squad, and by association part of the reason, we are on the potential cusp of the impossible.

I don’t have a single name on my list of “players I’d like to see sold” because my opinion is that they are 2 wins versus the Arse away from a Prem Title and subsequent greatness!

Sale candidate discussions should be held for May 25th.

only 56 to go… oops make that 55

I understand your personal feelings Aitch but I dont necessarily agree. It maybe a dirty distasteful job but someones gotta do it. Do you think that most ruthless of men, Shanks, pondered such things when planning his next step towards invinciblity? Like fuck he did! Whatever needed to be done was done and long premeditated. And Rafa? Another ruthless hoor! Do you think he’s already not mulling who to cull to further his vision? Believe me theres men playing for there futures for the next 5 wks!

Maybe I mis-tated my point Dig.
I have no doubt that Rafa has his summer moves all pencilled in (maybe even inked in some circumstances) that’s not what I was getting at.

My personal opinion (and I know others, yourself included, will disagree with this) is that the current squad we have, that is to say the current personel we have in it, are capable of more than we’ve seen from them.

In some cases… the dour draws… that’s the least than can be expecting and they fuckin well better be capable of more!

…but what I’m referring to are the 2-0 win over the Chavs, 3-1 and 3-0 wins over mid-table teams, the 4-1 win over Scum, the 4-0 win over Real, and not conceding 4 goals to the Chavs and Arse.
I’m saying we are, as the current personnel stand, capable of more than that and THAT is fuckin scary man!

Like I said, I know some will disagree and want players like Dosser, Lucas, maybe Ngog, whoever, moved on for “better world class players” and that’s fine, you’re welcome to your opinion and I understand where its coming from. I certainly don’t disagree that Silva, or an Arshavin type would be a good addition.

I just tend to look beyond results, good and bad, and have faith in what I’m seeing. I think we have players who have come nowhere near their potential yet .. and that goes as much for Torres (cue the “are you fuckin kidding me reactions) as it does fro El Zhar.
Again, fuckin scary to think about!

If this lot, knit well together off the field, gel well together on it, and they all fulfil their potential… we really are on the cusp of a dynasty.

A few dodgy moves from a rattled Fungus and Scum will finally stumble.

The Chavs weer all at see prior to Hiddink’s arrival and are still not exactly stable with the players wanting Hiddink to stay and him reiterating that he’s off in May. If he stays its a different story though, coz I rate him far more highly than I do Jose M.

And I think the Arse are 1 or 2 singings away from a scary fuckin team… and they don’t even need world class players, they just need a hard man in midfield and a hard man in defense, coz they’ve got talent all over the pitch… actually what they are missing are those one or two experienced older players we discussed earlier.

that’s all maybes of course and depends on certain things transpiring… but I see these as stronger possibilities than in previous seasons.

Nowe there’s a debate that should get us to 400?

I find it amusing that people can come on a world wide blog, such as this and then complain about peoples views. Afterall reading them is what makes us think, write and read.
.
Back to the draw debate, is one draw the same as another, as FS said there both 1 point. Yep got to agree with him there. However a draw with Arsenal coming back from behind even in the last minute tells me my team what lay down and never knows when it’s beaten.
.
The team that drew at the Brittania wasn’t that team, they were coasting along with intensity. That all changed when we player Real Madrid. I think we realised the pot at the end of the rainbow was catchable.
.
No doubt everyone on here’s played football at some level, well how different does a draw feel inside when you come from behind rather than slaughter the team all day. Some may say it even feels like a win.
.
Arsenal are a very good team, Stoke are cannon fodder. Afterall these years we need to stop making excuses for so-so results against so-so teams.
.
This year we’ve managed to turn losses into draws now we need to push those draws into wins. Then we can rightly be classed as champions. Don’t get me wrong I would be happy with 1-0 wins, but I also like magical nights at Anfield to reign on for the future.
.
Ps we haven’t actually been leaking goals in the prem just the CL where we had to give it all we had. Personally though I thought we had to go for it against Arsenal, and lets face it their going to give Man U a run to.

@Aitch

I am sorry to reply late to your wierd post(#253).

You in a very diplomatic way state :

“Somna… no offense, but is English your 2nd language? Pr do you just not think
before you type?”

Can you please tell me what you didnt understand of my 2ND LANGUAGE? Let me tell you onething very clearly. Your comment didnt please me at all and i think it is your lack of understanding which led you to type that. Just think twice
before you type a response to others post like that.

It is very clear to me that there exists a lot of biased views in here and a lot of groupism take place. Is FS your good friend? Well i dont give a damn if he is but the way you have picked out sentences from my posts clearly suggest that you wanted me to prove wrong because i was making my point against the LEGENDARY FS.

You follow up with :

“Somnath… You stated in an earlier argument #187 that you had said “I have said the “Title is Gone” as the situation stands now.”
…when what you actually said in #177 was “But its time to realize that the Title is gone.” ”

Assuming you have read my posts to find out the differences so that you can pounce on me, i would like to tell you that you have not read the replies to my post by others. So what has happend is you have not understood the complete reason for me to express my views.

As a reply to my post# 177, Andy Wirral wrote:

180. ” Somnath, why are you hoping our Pompey agents do us a favour if the Title is already gone?”

I replied by saying :

“182. @Andy

I said Title is gone because the odds are stuffed heavily against us. Having said that i am proud to be a liverpool supporter and the way we have played this season.”

Did you hear Hiddink say their chances are over after they drew with Everton? Now thats pathetic according to you isnt it? I told the same thing because we are 6 points adrift now.

I again state:

#187 “Lads,

I have said the “Title is Gone” as the situation stands now. For heavens sake dont equate the same with me ruling out our effort to win the title. It has been immense. And while terming the statement i am not at all dejected because i know what the boys playing in such tensed encounters have given. Its a privelege watching these players.

My apologies if my statement is reflecting a ‘lost hope’ attitude. Its not so guys. Its just an analysis based on the league table as it stands now.”

In that post i cleary state what i meant to say. You still have the audacity to take that point and accuse me of thinking before typing? Take a look at your actions mate.

Why you didnt mention my posts where i have repeatedly stated to FS that i am sorry if i have hurt his sentiments by calling his statements “KNEE JERK” ??????

You mentioned that you respect World wide supporters but the fact is you dont. Thats why you took a baised view of this entire argument. Did u read everything what FS wrote? He clearly stated two things which annoyed me and still continue to annoy me. Perhaps you will never state anything against those because of some reasons i dont want to know. He said the following things:

1. “I hate to say this, but the tramp was right… we don’t know how to win a title.”

2. “I’ll tell you where we lost them points last night… before we even took the field”.

Both these were ok according to you isnt it?

Lastly Aitch, its high time to start respecting WORLD WIDE VIEWS from WORLD WIDE SUPPORTERS.
I didnt want to drag this any further because i have got the idea of how things work in here. I dont want to react to certain people ever in future.

If making a point against you guys is barred here then do lemme know that.

Somehow even some of the press is thinking we’ve got a chance. Read this.

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=goal_english_angle_why&prov=goal&type=lgns

I think everyone has seen the difference between the same team before and after the Real Madrid game. I’d like to sum it up in one word: CONFIDENCE. Like Rafa himself said, they’ve been training and playing more or less the same this season, and I think the confidence the lads are carrying is now being translated into the goals scored lately. And here’s the link:

http://www.rivals.net/news/pgarticle.aspx?artid=13482_5230000&id=46

Well, confidence work both ways. Here’s hoping that ours will soar while the scums dip toward the end of the season. YNWA!

@KeithSA

The statistics you stated is quite right. But what i feel is the draws which we suffered against the lesser teams ultimately is hurting us.

We have scored more goals.Agreed but when on some occasions we have failed to score and that has led to us dropping points. Most of these matches we had Torres or Gerrad absent. So there was no other player whom we could have looked upto to deliver that finishing touch. So i stated we need 4 world class players in our attacking third(2 we already have, 2 we need).

@Kinny Riddle

Nice set of informations put together and thanks for that. I can now understand what FS was saying.