Just up late, drinking a few cold ones and trying to understand how Arsenal managed 6 goals. I think it flatters them. They are a decent team but Everton must feel horrible for yesterdays showing. Todays match will be hard but I´m predicting a 1-2 win for the mighty men in red.

Holy shit Aresenal are going to win the league!!!!

Panic all stations

Everton were pure shite yesterday

All in all though it was a pretty interesting opening say

Van Halen lookes like a good buy for the Arse

I agree that both Blackburn and Hull put in a god showing yesterday too

Roll on the pool today

Im going for a tough game but Liverpool to come out on top 3-1

Over and out

Nice one gerry great opening day blog. I was out watching the tall ships last nite and had a skin full full of pints before heading on a pub crawl. this is all so i’d get a good kip and therefore our match would roll round quicker…

Didnt work, i’m far to excited about today also the fact im waiting on us for my bet its no wonder i was up at half 7. Anyway short an sweet im confident we can turn spurs over with a tasty 1-3 win. lets hope its our season,lets hope we get the breaks,lets hope the rafa crushing machine starts firing on all clinders.

COME ON YOU REDS

YNWA

Lancelotti!! Classic and gave me a good long chuckle first thing in the Morning. Spot on with everything Gerry and Spurs are going to be a tough opening act. I look on the bright side, even a point will be 1 more than we got last year but I think we can take all three if we take our chances unlike last year. Looks like Vorinon might be off to Hertha (again) and I hope you are right that another 2 players will come in, a versatile defender and another attacking option would be just what the doctor ordered especially if Vorinon goes and my concerns about Degen wont go away. I don’t think we could give him away and I wake up with the sweets dreaming of Johnson being injured and watching Maloude, Lennon, Milner ect, all running at Degen. It will be interesting to see who Rafa brings in and if what you are saying Gerry is true then Rafa could have 20 odd mill to spend, as was promised when he signed his contract. Time will tell. Come on you Reds lets start with a bang.

Super stuff Gerry.

I`m nursing a bit of a hangover myself so that concoction dosen`t sound bad at all.

Ya we got a tough opening day fixture but i see it as getting one out of the way.Three points would be just the tonic and we`ll move along nicely to stoke on wednesday while the media cream themselves over the Arse.

Donal,i`ve 39 points so far in the fantasy PL is that anygood?

Great stuff as always Gerry! Thank god for your blog, otherwise I shall not know what to do with my life. I’ll be as bored as a nun living without cucumbers.
I am predicting a 3-1 win for us tonight. The Cobra Club will be in full swing again tonight with new membership renewals, new season T shirts and even some free food for members to watch the game live at around 11pm. Donal, I shall miss you and Tracy there!

Great read Gerry and I hope that you are right about two extra additions before the window closes.

I didn’t see all the Arse match but the Toffee’s defending for the second and third goals was simply awful. I don’t think anyone disputes that the Arse can put a team away but we will have to wait and see if they can do it over the entire season, especially if they get a few injuries.

TT, I am not sure if 39 points is good or not but it’s fucking considerably better than my current points total. A total train-crash for me!

I certainly hope you’re right about Rafa bringing in two more players before the window closes Gerry, but it seems very unlikely to me. For what reason would Rafa wait until the season has already begun before using the remainder of a transfer budget he’s had available for a long time? He’s been speaking of the importance to bring new players in as early as possible in the summer, so that they would have time to adapt and get a proper preseason with their new team.

The only reason we signed Aquilani so late was obviously because Alonso left and money became available at that time. The only reason there’s been rumours circling around about defender signings is because of the injury problems we’ve had in that position lately. Sure, Rafa should still have some money available from the Alonso deal and various minor offloads, but I just can’t see it being for a major signing.

A replacement for Sami (I don’t think any of the young lads look able to fill that role, although Martin Kelly is a great prospect) and another attacking player is in my opinion what we need to be able to claim that title at last. The attacking player should preferably be able to step in as a striker when Torres isn’t available, but perhaps also to play in that left wing which still looks rather weak to me, although I hope Riera and/or Babel can prove me wrong.

Some people seem to think we’ll have defensive problems because Glen Johnson lets anyone through, but that flank really seems perfectly composed to me combining Johnson’s ability going forward with Dirk Kuyt’s work rate and defensive ability. I’m sure those two will be devastating to other teams going forward and damn near impossible to get by when they’ve played together for a while.

Anyway, I’m a bit worried ahead of the Spurs game today. They look like a dangerous side at the moment and although three point would be great, a draw would still be a good result.

Timmy Its not bad and you have your captain playing tonight so good for you!!

Thanks Knight say hi to the lads for us

Just watchin the Scum game

Birmingham are letting them play but have been unlucky with a few shots themselves

forgot to say earlier ….Nice blog to kickstart the season Gerry

Over and out

Nice take on the cucumber/nun scenario that pops its head into the blog now and again Knight

Will Skeat Motson be joining us this evening??

Over and out

Liverpool team in full: Reina, Johnson, Carragher, Skrtel, Insua, Kuyt, Mascherano, Lucas, Babel, Gerrard, Torres.

If we dont bring in atleast one shrewd quality signing by the end of august, it will be one disappointing start to teh season … i just dun see gerrard and torress playing evry game without picking up a knock …. and we do need SOMEONE who can fill either of those slots … thats where we lost most points and realisticly, we still havent got a replacement for alonso … Remember, aqua man is still injured … Last season we atleast had teh luxury of ALonso in absence of Gerrard and/or Alonso … this season we havent …

Gerrard and/or TORRESS * .. i meant ..

…and we are down by a goal at half time….

First half … Absolutely DISAPPOINTING!!!!!!!
No drive … no desire watsoEVER …..
Seeems more likely to end 3-0 .. Reina already wid two superb saves …

Unless we change the tempo over its head in second half, its only a one-team game so far ….

We seriously need benny Onion….
Babel is still the same, once he got the ball… heads down, run into a group of Spurs defender and lost the ball…

Carragher made lots of mistakes in the first half, including the knock with Skrtel.

Lets claw back in the second half….

Come on You reds

Benny onion should be coming soon for Babel..a disappointing first half

Welcome back Skeat

Fucking frustrating 1st half

Not ready to give up yet though

Great save from Pepe

Dirk Stevie and Nando need to get their shit together

over and out

We could have been 3 goals down at half time, if not for the poor finishing of Robbie Keane

Donal,

Glad to be back.

I just hope me coming back would be celebrated with a Liverpool win

What a save from Pepe!!!

a beautiful run by johnson –> penalty- –> GOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

1 – 1

and penalty! Goal… and 1-1…

…and we are 1 goal down again…..

Sigh

FKk — 2 -1 !! bassong

Carra’s performance is absymal….

Benny getting ready

…he is in there for Babel…Babel not convincing his doubters still

Liverpool more of a team now after Benny’s insertion!!!

Time running out… Come on, Redmen

Babel was playing ??? I only realized THAT wen he was substituted ….

nd it starts with a loss!!

Final score tot 2-1 liv

Back to earth, gentlemen..

We are lucky not to lose by a bigger scoreline, thanks to keane’s poor finishing

Red card for Sammy Lee made things worse

Its a bad start, though we have still 37 games to go. But 1 game gone… 3 points down.

Good night from China, guys

How dissapointing. I am sorry but no matter what you say, Babel and Lucas are just NOT good enough to cut it in this team. Nothing that I saw today will change my mind about that.

It was a dysmal performace adn that is being kind

Well done Skeat welcome back.

Dissapointing performance/result.

Early days though no need to panic lads.

All your coments are way off. Lucas was one of the only players who tried doing something. Why all the stick on Babel or Lucas when the performances of players like Mascherano, Carragher and Torres were just shocking.

We were never going to win with that kind of TEAM performance.

Ivan, spot on, it was a poor team performance all round.

The team cannot rely time after time on the top two/three stars i.e Gerrard, Torres and Carra and given that, who else can we expect to step up to the mark?

All I am saying is that Lucas and Babel are not those two who can – I hope after a few games in that they can prove me wrong

Well, Skeat, one might also say there was nothing wrong with Keane’s finishing, that Reina made some great saves, that we were unlucky to get both our central defenders more or less injured yet again, that we were unlucky not to get a second penalty and a draw in the end – despite the terrible overall performance. A matter of perspective, I suppose. A Manc supporter would undoubtedly choose your view.

I am convinced we would have gotten ourselves a draw had Yossi started the game instead of Babel. I am not convinced we would have deserved it though, but not all draws are fair as we all well know.

All I want to say is, we deserved to lose. Overconfidence always leads to nothing but humiliation and we were humiliated today.

As for FS! I just pity you old man. All your encouragement failed. You kept saying, leave it to Rafa. Why? Because he knows best. Well Rafa knows nothing to start with. As for your trademark comment: “FFS lad”, I just want to ask, what does it stand for? You know what I’m thinking. I hope it does mean that. You must be thinking why I’m posting now, after all these days. But I was waiting for the right moment and as it is, this is the best. You wanna have a go at me? Have a go at the club. Get a dose of reality.

Aitch: Our team is the best. We are going to beat the hell out of every one. Bring it on Tottenham! Voronin, Ngog, and Babel are going to deliver goals when we need them to. Well, we needed them today and they did nothing except bringing their useless arse on the field.

LB, you kept saying that we need a CB to fill in for Carra and Skrtel. I and Dig kept contradicting you for bringing in a forward who can score when FT is absent or when he can’t score. Weren’t we both right? The CBs did their job, and the forwards whom you trust blindly didn’t do shit. Even Ayala could play well in the forwards position than all those *****. Voronin is our key striker. I think he’ll bag 20+ goals.

FT had a bad day, but what can we expect. When he and Gerrard don’t perform, we just lose. I don’t want to see last year’s statistics as I am sure one of you will post it after reading my comments showing how good we played without our key players.

But surely, like I said Lucas is nothing but crap. He thinks he can succeed Alonso? Yeah sure mate, maybe when there’s no midfield player left to replace him. Hell even Anderson is better than this load of shit. But I guess he’s the best midfield player alive according to you all, isn’t he?

I went on an on, saying how good Spurs and their manager are, but no, we are unbeatable, aren’t we?

2-1 bah! As a matter of fact, we didn’t even deserve that one goal. It was just a consolation. Even that was a penalty for crissakes.

Obviously this is the first game. But I guess we are already missing Alonso.

But, what a start to the new season. LOSS!!

Well Gerry, you’re right. The score line was 2-1. It’s just a pity you wrote Liverpool’s name instead of Spurs.

I completely agree wid you KopKing … We needed a replacement tht cud START the season wid us .. not the one thats out atleast untill october and even then wen the Aquaman will be fit, it will take him time to settle in the team and teh system and that will stretch the GELLING factor till xmas …and till then, i am afraid we’ll have fallen waaayy behind the leaders, let alone leading the league …

Ok, this was the very first game, but apart frm banny-onion and jhonson, none of the BAbels and Lucas were able to show ANY glimpse of the talent required to push for the title … INfact, i realized Baabel was playing only wen he was being substituted …

We really need a GOOD signing that can atleast give us a 50% of wat alonso was giving us .. During the whole game, gerrard had to fall back in order to provide that killer sort of a pass to the forwards …

We can moan all abt getting a tough away fixture, but wat we cud have done was, even in a loss, shown the DESIRE to win teh title … Sadly it wasnt shown by many of ours players that HAVE to step up this season …

For me this mit eturn into a disappointing season cos i cant see, from this performance, anyone stepping up and taking the responsibility … Have no clue wat rafa saw in lucas during the pre-seasons … seems more like it was sort of a psychological statement he made abt him …

For Fuck Sake Kopking are you a complete twat or just when you come on here
Maybe you should support Spurs seem’s as they have such a great team and manager
Do you think we should have a pen when Vorinin was brought down ?
Cant remember anyone saying Lucas was the best midfielder but what exactly did Lucas do wrong ?
As for your couldn’t wait to tell us that all us supporters were wrong with your little quote’s. Well the reality is they are saying what SUPPORTERS are supposed to say and if you weren’t the gloryseeking pr*ck you are you’d know that.
You give Kneejerks a bad name with your i told you so.
Some people say Istanbul was a bad thing because it attracted the likes of you
now i’m beginning to think the same.

What attracted you to the club rome77? Losses since the last two decades? I won’t take crap from you. I think you liked Lucas’ performance. Wow! He was truly brilliant. So brilliant that we were forced to play from the flanks instead of the centre. Did he make any key passes? I didn’t see any. I think you did. What were you watching any ways. Pre-season repetition telecast?

You’re just a load of s*** rome

KopKing,

Get a grip mate.Reading your comments over the summer i knew you`d be the first in with the razorblades.We lost a game,the first game,not a title clinching game.

We`ve 37 games to go,why all the feckin panic.Also we lost to a decent side who will do well this year.

We can all point the finger at this player or that but the bottom line is we played shite as a team.End of.

As for Dizzy,you were coming in with depressing posts before the game was even on i suppose your satisfied to be able to say i told you so.

And as for Rafa knowing nothing…ah well whats the point,you can`t educate the ignorant!

Kopking…

I thought Lucas played well.

Torres did not even have a shot tonight
Gerrard did not have a shot on target, apart from the penalty goal.
Babel is still the same headless chicken
Carra made lots of mistakes, though none of them resulted in a Spur’s goal

Why blame Lucas?

And furthermore, this is only the first game of the season. 37 more egames to go.

an early whip in the ass could a blessing in disguise for the team.

My first game we lost 2-1 to the Mancs 32 years ago but once again what did Lucas do wrong “forced to play down the flank’s” ? goes to show what a idiot you are along with the above mentioned .Maybe you should find a dictionary and look up the word’s SUPPORTERS and FANS and then fuck off and support Spurs.

Rome, a proper team can only win when it respects the other. From your posts, I get a feeling that you don’t rate Spurs or Harry Redknapp. Just get this thing right. This manager outsmarted our own beloved Rafa.

Okay, tis was the first game of the season, but surely we can see our preparations in the absence of Xabi.

Kopking,

You are unbelieveable.

Rome,

Its OK. Everyone entitled to their opinions. All of us felt down with this result. It’s not the end of the world..

Bring on, Aston Villa

Hey Kopking, chill out mate!!! Why are you venting your frustration on fellow Liverpool supporters? You should be berating Moores, Parry and the American clowns. They are the cancer within our club. Did you notice Tottenham’s bench today? Full of internationals, while ours full of kids bar Benayoun and Dossena.
That’s the whole story, we can’t compete with these bastards at the helm.Rafa is doing miracles keeping the team competitive, and yes he does make mistakes… like playing Babel instead of Benayoun from the start.
But keep in mind mate, that you won’t feel any better after coming in here and release all the venom on someone who doesn’t agree with you.
AFter all, we’re all Liverpool supporters and want the best for our team.

So again, CHILL OUT mate.

That makes you a glory hunter as well, you ass. You started supporting the club when their greats were playing and when they were really beating all other teams to win the league titles. At that time they were being managed by Shankly the great. At that time Liverpool won four European cups between the years 1977 to 1984.(32 years to be precise)

Fuck off with your s*** full of hypocrisy. You’re disgusting and you make me sick.

i understand mates, but he was the one who started off with bad language in the first place.

Please, KopKing, as some sensible people in here have repeatedly told you – get a grip. You are ruining this comment section at the moment.

First off we played poor today but i think we should have had a draw but maybe Vorinin was’nt fouled,i don’t know what you think because you didn’t answer.
Maybe because you know it was a pen and that would mean you couldn’t have
your little i told you so.
Any team with 60 million sat on the bench deserves respect .
Nearly as much as a fan as for the team he support’s and thats the thing
with you, you have no respect for LFC so once again f*ck off and support
Spurs.

Oh yeh timmy .. i AM depressed by the transfer activity this season … and i have every rite to feel that way… being a supporter doesnt mean that you ONLY say gud things abt the coach and players .. as a supporter u have teh rite to say wat you think is wrong … ANd wat did i say in my posts above ?? i was merely pointing out that the players we are looking forward to step-up this season didnt show any GLIMPSE of it … You just cant hide those deficiencies by saying “oh well the otehr players too didnt perform ” … Tell me if i am wrong wen i say that Gerrard HAD to drop deep during the game to do wat alonso used to do … WHY?? cos, lucas was having a good game ??

After watever has gone on during the transfers, these YOUNGSTERS have to step up.. rite form teh word GO … U just cant put this issue under the carpet, saying, oh this is only the first game… and then after couple of games, u guys will be saying, oh its just the first couple of weeks …. etc etc..
We are suppose to push for teh title this season … I really find it hard to believe that we can do that wid THESE few continously under-performing youngsters … we just cant rely on gerrard-torress every game… they are bound to have a day off .. but saying that we do need our young guns to seize that oppurtunity and step up … Didnt see anyone doing that except Jhonson and Benny …
or maybe i was watching the wrong game ….

I don`t care about losing today once Gerrard scored,thats added a few more points to my Fantasy team`)

Just breaking the ice incase anyone attacks me!

No it was Paisley and i was devastated at losing the FA cup final to the mancs
but i stuck with LFC and didn’t jump ship because i’m not a glory hunter.
And it’s 5 times in 32 years .
PS your comment 40 disgusts me and its that what shows you as a hypocrite
masquerading as a Liverpool supporter.

I don`t recall saying Lucas had a good game.Read my post i said we played shite as a team.If i am to name one or two who played well i`d say reina and benny when he came on.

And the transfer window is not over.We have to trust Rafa,why you might ask?.Well because he`s brought us this far with his hands tied behind his back.

I can`t believe i`m even having this conversation after one game.

Skeat made a good point in saying it could be a kick up the ass we need,ala middlesborough last season.

Kopking I have refrained from having a go at you because you are still a kid but your comments are juvenile at the best and complete moronic at the worst, Dizzy you are not far behind if you agree with him, if you cannot be constructive (yes criticism can be constructive not just slagging off) and intelligent then keep quiet. This is the first game of the season and like everyone is was a below par disappointing display especially in the first half. Unfortunately it was our experienced players that did not show up. Gerrard looks injured still because that was one of the worst and disinterested performances I have seen from him in the first half. Torres had no services; thank God he showed up in the second half when we decided to play and by all accounts should have had a penalty to get a draw. I thought we where starting to click when Carra had a brain freeze and decided to take Skertal out and we lost shape form and rhythm, he also was responsible for their second goal. What ever Rafa said at half time worked because we did play better after the break. Babel was poor and I think Rafa should have brought Benny on sooner and that was the only mistake he made from my point of view, despite all the pathetic comments above

The difficult preseason has boiled over to a slow start, although we looked better towards the end. On the bright side we are on a par with last year, so while we gained nothing we are no worse off. Let’s hope all these bloody injuries sort themselves out and we can have a fit and firing squad. If there was complacency it has surly given the team a big wake up call. We need to bounce back quickly and the established players have to hold their hands up and come to the party.

Skeat in all honesty i dont think KK feels down about the result,in fact he probably hoped we’d lose because he wanted his little i told you so.

Most knowledgable fans in the world eh Rome?I know you were part of that brigade but unfortunately,that title is rapidly losing its meaning.I was listening to a phone-in here in Ireland tonight and some idiot came on with these “Rafa has to go” comments with no basis for reason.Thankfully they let on proper LFC fan who put him straight with facts intelligent comments.I turned off after that.

Thakfully most of the regulars in here are pretty level headed but it annoys me to see comments like the above from Kopking.He comes in here like a pissed off little boy who has been sent to his room and attacks Fatty knowing full well he`s at the match and is not in here to defend himself.I`m sure we`ll here from him tomorrow.

On to stoke wednesday,if we don`t win by six,give Rafa his papers

Yeh i guess its ONE fat kick up the ass .. and i do hope this game has highlighted a few areas where rafa needs to re-think ..
our next game is against stoke at home … the sort of team that parks a bus in their defence … I am just keeping my fingers crossed so that someone mite step up his game in that game cos another draw agaisnt stoke will be anotehr disappointing result early in the season …

Gerrard dropped deep because Vorinon was brought on to play in the hole, Lucas mover to the right and Benny played on the left. It called a chance in formation. One fucking game and we already have morons making stupid comments. Yes you have a right to a opinion but that does not mean your opinion is valid or even close to being correct. The old saying springs to mind rather let people think you are an idiot then speak out and remove all doubt.

This was a poor performance. Play like this and we’ll struggle to stay in Top 4.
On a brighter note, We had a bad result against Boro last season, and that seemed to give the team a jolt and we played the very best football we played under Rafa.
Keep up the faith mates.

YWNA

Looks like your hoping for another poor performance and points dropped on wednesday so Dizzy are you.

Have a bit of optimism and stop making stupid comments.

BTW,where did you come up with the name Dizzy?

Ah well if the cap fits.

I am just pointing out something where we dropped points last season … Me being optimist wont change a single thing if we put in a performance like today …

And tell me timmy, wat STUPID comment i made ??

ANd well, keith, U mite view it THAT way but i viewed that DROPPING BACK as a result of lack of those first-time passes by Lucas, who was REPLACING alosno in the team ….

Alrite lads, I was at the game today, gutted at the result as everyone is, but I think its not really worth taking out our frustrations on this board.

The one thing that struck me, and I have to say I agree with Dizzy, is that the extent to which we missed Alonso was very worrying, both in terms of how easy it was for them to get a hold in midfield and the cohesion of us as a team. Gerrard and Torres were making loads of runs and none was picking them out, and Im sorry to say that the only time we got any kind of rythmn was at the end because they dropped off physically. In fairness I was very worried about how we’d cope without alonso beforehand, and with good reason, I think alot of people here have underplayed his importance and been very harsh on others who’ve made an accurate assumption in this instance. I dont want to sound like a doom monger but its clear we have a huge hole in the team (not squad, actual team) to plug, which if we fail to will be hugely costly. Im confident Rafa will do something because if he doesnt we stand very little chance of winning the league.

I do trust the man, and am fully behind him so at this moment thats what matters and while upsetI am optimistic

So we played badly today.

Then obviously we MUST sack Rafa. I hear David O’Leary is on the look out for a job. Maybe DO’L can make Alonso see the error of his ways to come back to SUCH loyal fans.

Lucas SHOULD be deported back to Brazil.

Carragher SHOULD be moved to an old folks home.

Voronin SHOULD leave and rejoin Whitesnake (Google them KK)

I WILL go to JJB Sports or wherever and buy a Spurs top because obviously I SHOULD give up after one game of the season. In the whole history of the game no team has EVER won the league after losing the first game. In fact what we should do is give up. Sell the players, sack the backroom staff and sell off the ground to make some new apartments. Yes, that sounds like the thing to do. We can all go and support other teams, who let’s hope, won’t be so TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTING as to lose on the first day of the seaon. Buy hey, if they do there’s always another 90 odd teams to pick from, maybe I’ll see some of you on Spursblog. Just had a thought (Sorry if that seems like showing off!) but Bryan Gunn has been released by Norwich. Maybe he’d come to us.

This rant has been brought to you by the letter S and the word SARCASM.

KopKing… Grow Up… You Fuckin Child!

Spurs are hardly Burnley. We lost against a competent team, well up for it, on their own turf. Sad, but hardly razor blade time.

now… to the comment directed at me personally…

Point 1 “Our team is the best”
THAT’S FUCKIN RIGHT! We are Liverpool Football Club. The best team in the world. Why do I feel that way? Because I’ve been supporting them since my father stuck a red teddy in my crib and I’ve stuck with them through thick and thin, win, lose, or draw, for 4 decades. No glory hunting. Just red blood in the veins kid!
Are we all of a sudden not the best team in England coz Spurs beat us 2-1? If you think so, then I have no time for you.

Point 2. “We are going to beat the hell out of every one. Bring it on Tottenham!”
Again… its called support.
If you don’t feel that way prior to every game, then why on earth bother following the Reds or any other team?
The reality is any team can give any team a good game on any given day… but with 37 games to go, I expect us to win them all… if you don’t, there are other teams you can go support.

Point3. “Voronin, Ngog, and Babel are going to deliver goals when we need them to. Well, we needed them today and they did nothing except bringing their useless arse on the field.”
I’ll grant you Babel was ineffectual and should have been subbed sooner. And Voronin while his movement was decent for the 15 minutes he was on, really didn’t do much with the ball when he got it. But Ngog, didn’t even get on the field, so how about leaving him out of the equation.

All in all, it’d be best if you thought before you spoke (or typed in this instance) or better yet, go into the official sight and get all your frustrations out, f-ing-n-blinding with the rabble.
Your contributions so far, are bringing this site down. It is the only safe haven I know of from the constant rabble-rousers that have fucked up every other LFC-MB I used to participate in, with their petulent teenage dummy spitting.

A higher knowledge of the game and a better thought out opinion is required in here.
Your comments today place you comfortably in the pole-position for being the 3rd person to be banned from this forum. So go easy.

Dizzy,this was apretty stupid comment;

” We needed a replacement tht cud START the season wid us .. not the one thats out at least until october and even then wen the Aquaman will be fit, it will take him time to settle in the team and teh system and that will stretch the GELLING factor till xmas …and till then, i am afraid we’ll have fallen waaayy behind the leaders, let alone leading the league … ”

Now your forcasting that we will capitulate without Aquaman.To say something like that after one game is ludacris.How do you know it will take time for him to settle in.He could gel right away.Even if he dose not,why don`t you think we can stay in touch with the leaders until he`s fully ready?

I don`t want to get into a slagging match Dizzy and the coment i made about your username was a tad arrogant on my part and i apoligise for it but we need to be positive heading forward.

If we all feel doom and gloom this early it will get to the team but if we stand together and get behind Rafa and the lads it`ll be good for the team.

To be this pessimistic this early is madness.

Well said Aitch….easy there fella!

Tough lose Today,but I fancied Spurs would be up for it on their own turf and first game of the season.
Long way to go yet Lads, don’t give up yet.
Have to say Babel was poor and I wouldn’t start him again this season unless we had no other option.
Let’s see what happens against Stoke before we start throwing the Toys out of the Pram…

TBH outside reina and benny when he came on,to a man we were shite.So all this “we`re missing Xabi” business is just the easy excuse when we drop points.

Of course any team would miss a player of Alonso`s class but lads he`s in our past,he`s gone,he`s no longer a Liverpool player.

This is the stick the media will use tomorrow morning in the papers to beat Rafa with he don`t need his “supporters” beating him with that too.

SO, wat was STUPID in that comment ?? The fact that u dont agree wid it doesnt make my comment STUPID … i didnt abuse any member or player or teh coach … cos THAT wud have been stupid … But saying wats in ur mind in a decent manner doesnt count as stupid..

I made that comment on MY perception of the situation that Aquaman is from a different league, has a dodgy injury record and as in the case of most of the players from foreign leagues, will take his time to settle in … AND also today’s performance just highlighted the HOLE we have in our midfield thats NOT being filled in by our TALENTED-yet-UNDERPERFORMING youngsters… On whom we are depending so heavily upon this season.. and its not just ONE such performance by them that makes me say that…

Wat is teh use of such forums/blogs wen you cant share your opinion .. one doesnt naturally has to agree to wat the other person is saying but atleast he has to give some respect and not dismiss his opinion as being STUPID …

Watched the match. Overall the team was not as aggressive as they were at the end of last season. Not too surprising considering one of our best players left. It might take some time for the team to play now that our distributor has joined Real. Don’t think Lucas did much wrong. He probably has his role to play which is to be the link between the back and the front. He doesn’t have the passing range of Alonso so we can’t expect him to suddenly become a pass master. Babel was very poor today, but he was playing as a left winger when he is a right footed striker. I think he would be more effective and more confident on the right but Dirky is there so what to do? Not every player is versatile enough to play different positions so give him a break.
Is it me or does Torres take a long time to get up every time he goes down? Hope he’s not injured and playing through it or something.
On the whole, the team did not play well today. Passing was poor and not much energy, but not the end of the world. Hell Man U started slow last season and look what happened to them? Better to lose now and fix the problems now so we can go on a nice run later.
Keep the faith people.

For crying out loud…we lost the first game of the season and its game over already for some people…

This outcome was always a possibility…Spurs arent rubbish…

I mean the mancs lost more than us and still won the league last year…

Where do all these negative-doom-and-gloom-the-sky-is-falling-its-the-end-of-the-world types come from…and why are they bothering if they have so little faith…

Yes – we were poor – the game was poor – the ref might have made a mistake with the 2nd penalty shout…but the facking league isnt lost or won in the opening game – clue – its a league not a knockout competition…

No wonder FS goes off all the time…no body wants to be around such negative types…

I know everyones entitled to their opinions – but seriously – some people just shouldnt be allowed to express them…

ldhawan – I noticed that as well…he also seemed to limp quite a bit after a couple – favouring one of his ankles…

I feel sorry for Babel – I think perhaps he’s trying too hard and consequently doing all the wrong things…

Benayoun looked really good when he came on…Lucas is a much improved player…

Oh well…on to the next game…at least Everton lost

To be honest Im surprised people are saying things like Alonso is just an excuse and the whole team played crap not just Lucas, if you saw what we were like most the match it rings hollow. The way we played seemed to many in the stand a cumulative effect of losing Alonso, not totally of course, but certainly to an extent. Iv always thought that being able to pick out faults within your own team was part of being a fan, it can give you the hope for a solution. I think some people are getting hassle when theyre just mentioning obvious problems, yet to some this is plotting against the boss, as if your not a true fan if you hold an opinion which is incongruent with Liverpool being the best team in the league.

Well just watched the game again just noticed a few things We were playing
well untill Carra had 12 staples in his forehead and Skyrtle broke his jaw
Even then they had few chances apart from Keane their MOM whom Pepe
was equal to.Then Skirtle (the one with the broken jaw) gave a free kick
away which they were lucky to score from .Second half deserved pen
then the Carra (the one with the 12 staples in his head ) free kick in which
he fails to win a header against someone who should be serving a match ban
Babel been missing so its subs time Benny & Crouch who was more effective ?
voronin played all right and should had a stonewall pen and by the letter of the
law should have been off.so it could of been 2-2 with them down to 10 men
2 mins later handball right hand against his chest then hits his left hand sticking out another pen possibly 3-2 but ref’s often get it wrong.All in all we were unlucky and i know we can play a lot better.
YNWA

Get a grip lads, especially KK.
Its the first fucking game.

Let me remind u there we games last year against far inferior opponents that we lost/drew with alonso.
Appeared a few things didn’t go our way and it was downhill from that.

Keep the faith lads.

Surprise, surprise. One loss against a great side and some guys are ringing the alarm bells already. I think most of had guessed some thing similar would happen but there you go, that’s what expectations do.

Look, for starters, tottenham are a really good side. They are as good as any top 4 sides in my view, as are man city. If our rafa were managing them, they would be in the top 4 side by now, ffs with the amoung of money they can spend. It is always tough playing against them; in fact, records aside, we always have a very nervous game against tottenham. None of the games that I remember have been comfortable.
They had a good home record last season, and they certainly have a formidable set of strikers. They have pace and class, so it was always going to be a tricky fixture.

Secondly, this is our first game, and if you looked at all the top 4 sides, every one of them were playing crap. Even Arsenal weren’t doing too well. It was the poor set of marking that allowed the first 2 goals to go in and that opened that flood gates (in other words, our blue nose neighbours were shite!!).

I think we need to calm down.

And kk, nobody was saying we shouldn’t buy strikers instead of centre-halves. Every one was looking forward to a cracker signing. You are comletely missing the plot, as was digger. We don’t have the money to buy a decent striker. If we can’t even spend more than 10 million on a good centre-back, it means we are skint, mate. you have to stop looking at our squad in the same way you would look at a playstation game. There’s no point saying “see we should have had a back-up striker for this game” because that was never going to happen. It is unrealistic. When you see the likes of tottenham, who have not even played in the champions league, be able to secure the services of keane, defoe, crouch and pavulychenko, when we only basically have torres, does not that tell you the financial situation we are in? You have to stop moaning from that perspective, mate.

MaccyD, I have to disagree with you slightly there. I don’t think the loss of Alonso was the issue for this particular game. Alonso would not have made a difference. We lacked penetration. Alonso would not have been able to dribble past 4 or 5 players to set up a striker, which was what was needed. In that sense, Babel was more the worry for me. He should have been the one to take on players and draw defenders to ease the muscle off torres and stevie where the pressure was the most intense.
In hindsight, we should have used Benny from the start because everything started to click as soon as he came on, but credit to Rafa, he gave Bable a chance. Which Babel didn’t seize, and did not seem to want to seize. Enough of giving the lad the chance, we should stick with Benny or Riera from now on.

Also, torres and stevie still seemed a couple of matches away from full fitness. I wouldn’t worry too much about the result of this game.

What we should worry about is that we only have 2 days to get ready for the next game. I am hoping both carra and skrtel will be fine by then.

Using the alonso argument is the easy way out.
How about for every game we play badly we blame alonso’s departure.

Its easy to use alonso cause its the most visible difference to our team from last year.

From what I saw last night the team played poorly individually and as a unit.

PS NEWSFLASH Lucas isn’t as good as Alonso but to say he was responsible
for gerrard having to track back i suggest you watch the game again and take
notice of what happened after Carra and Skyrtle got injured that effected SG
and the entire formation because they knew how much pain they were in and
all dropped back a bit. If they hadn’t collided no way would we have lost.
Alternatively dont watch it again and ignore the crap decisions by the refs
and FA, Or the lack of fit players or money to buy players and just blame
Lucas or Carra or Rafa or whoever.

It was a bit of a swipe and I feel sorry for Voronin cos there was not a lot he could do, but I just had to laugh at one of the comments I saw on a different chat:

“The ref couldn’t have given Liverpool a late penalty because, like many people, he refused to believe that Voronin was on the pitch. ”

I could not help but laugh at this one!

Whew, we’re only out of the drop zone on goal differential right now.

Man, some of the shit on here today just makes me shake my head.

There are quite a few in here who are too ready to preach doom and gloom. Yes we lost. Yes we were outplayed.

In spite of how poorly we played, we still should have gotten a draw out of the match. I believe Voronin was fouled in the box, and I’ve yet to see a replay that shows me otherwise.

Too many of our players played poorly today (Torres, Gerrard, Kuyt, Carra, Masch, Sktrel). If those guys don’t play well, we won’t beat anyone. It has nothing to do with the manager getting his tactics wrong. When your big guns don’t produce, you’ll struggle to win.

Babel was shit, and I feel it will be a long time before Rafa gives him another start. The only tactical mistake Rafa made was waiting 65 minutes to get Benny on. The tempo of the team was much better once Benny came on for Ryan.

My main concern right now is the center of our defense. I’ve no clue what the status is on Dagger for Wednesday’s game. He wasn’t in the squad today and I’m hoping he’s an option for us on Wednesday?

I’m thinking Skrtel could be out for a bit of time with a broken jaw. I haven’t seen that reported anywhere, but he didn’t look good after Carra wiped him out. He’s a hard dude, but he’s wasn’t look that way once he came off the pitch.

Did anyone notice if Carra picked up a knock late in the match? He seemed to be struggling with his thigh trying to loosen it up.

Carra is a whole discussion onto himself. What the fark was he thinking on the play where he took out Skrtel? You could see Skrtel call for the ball as he went up, and Carra just blew him up. It completely took us out of the flow of the game and we struggled for quite some time after that.

Both goals were set up by mistakes from our CB’s. Skrtel fouled Palacios in the build up on the first goal, and Carra was in the process of being skinned by Dafoe before hauling him down to set up the free kick for the second. Compound that with Carra getting beat by Bassong for the head ball and here we are bitching.

At the end of the day, it’s three points dropped to a top 10 team on their pitch. This same team happened to beat us twice last season. We won’t be the only big team to drop points at White Heart Lane this year. Spurs are a good squad, and Harry will have them in the top 7.

Instead of spending all our time bitching, why don’t we focus on grabbing all three points for offer at Anfield on Wednesday? The title was lost last year due to 7 draws at Anfield, and I’m hoping Wednesday night will be the first installment in the return to Fortress Anfield.

Keep the Faith…

We’ve talked in previous blogs about how thin the bench is, but today’s was really scary. I know Agger and Reira shouldn’t be too far from returning, with Aqualani four plus weeks away, but it does show you how limited our transfer funds are.

Cavalleri (4 appearances all comps), Doss (26), Benny (89), Voronin (27), Ayala (0), Kelly (1), and Spearing (2). Not much experience there.

Oh dear me, at this rate, we’ll definitely end up like Leeds and Newcastle and get relegated this year and be playing Conference football in 5 years time. Time to support another regular Champions League team or moderately “successful” mid-table team with an occasional shot in Europe rather than hang around and be hurt by all this disappointment.

Like MTMMC, this post has been brought to you by the letter S and the word SARCASM.

What hurts the most is that ALL FOUR of the lame pundits on Football Focus (Asian edition)
got it rite!!?!

All of em put spurs down fer a 2-1 win. Fook. Have we become THAT predictable?

OR

are there nefarious Far East betting syndicates at work (cue dramatic music)?

Being a supporter doesn’t mean to act as a blind even when ur team plays like shite. It makes my case worse when my gloryhunter manc & chav mates bark in my ear when we lose. But even a blind man could see lucas is NOT the answer to midfield stability,holding possession, slowing tempo, finding killer pass & fluid movement. Hear me: he is NOT ‘SOLID’. Even though it was a push, voronin’s finishing was crap. Carra didn’t do us any favour and Dagger’s as fit as a sugar brick. Either shawcross or turner would do 4 me. Sell voro. Rafa, I trust u man but why don’t u buy players like olic,gourcouff,modric,lennon,young etc ? Why babel is becoming crappier everyday ? Gerrard ran his ass off with split groin & came down to midfield coz lucas was crap. For fucks sake, only thing he did was to get rid of the ball as quickly as he could by passing it to the next man beside. Only rafa didn’t notice this. We could salvage it if: 1. Benny was brought on for lucas, 2. Babel partnered torres & gerrard partnered masch. Peace out. But u know what guys, i have a feeling this squad will gel in time & a trophy shall come this season. Go easy on kopking. That dude is cool.

Oh sod it I dunnno why I bother, but Maximus:

“Either shawcross or turner would do 4 me.”

– We can’t afford turner. Shawcross, just about, but stoke are already starting to hike the price.

“Sell voro.”

– Which is exactly what Rafa has been trying to do. Maybe you haven’t realised the fact that no one actually wants to buy him.

“Rafa, I trust u man but why don’t u buy players like olic,gourcouff,modric,lennon,young etc ?”

– Then trust him, mate.
“Olic”– can’t run.
“Gourouff”– we’ve already bought Aquilani.
“Modric” Can’t afford him. If you mean we should have bought him last year, then we needed a winger more back then.
“lennon” we can’T afford him.
“Young”– we can’T afford him, or may be you mean Luke Young??

And although I agree your subsititution alternative was something I first had in mind as well, Babel was shite on the flanks. He would have been even worse had he moved towards the middle. We couldn’t afford to keep him on. He was more detrimental than Lucas, mate. Lucas may have done nothing, but babel was not only doing nothing, he was breaking the play, keane-like. He had to come off more than Lucas.

“Go easy on kopking. That dude is cool.”

Makes no sense, whatsoever.

One thing is clear from this match that Babel can only be used as a super sub

Yes, Puchong Red, it hurts that those pundits at ManC Focus got it right.

Negatives:
1) Depleted defence (injuries to key players)
2) Shaky start due to interrupted preseason training (Confetti Cup, World Cup Qualifiers and transfer saga).
3) Lack of drive, purpose and cohesion.
4) Distinct lack of quality on the bench: namely options in MF and attack compared to our non Champions League counterparts.
5) Shocking officiating
6) Stingy Yank owners retracting transfer funds

Positives:
1) Lost the same game last season at White Hart Lane. Couldn’t have had a harder start to the campaign considering the circumstances
2) Spurs will cause problems to the other top 4 teams at home and are even stronger this year with a settled manager and useful additions
3) Slow start but still have plenty of time to peak later, like United when they won the league
4) Quality players yet to come back
5) Returning fitness to key players will bring us back to the high tempo performances of last season
6) Kick up the backside we needed after overly optimistic and complacent attitudes due to last season’s good run in the 2nd half of the season.
7) Rafa will iron out the problems before the next game.
Home to Stoke
9) Benayoun will start instead of ineffectual Babel who will probably be the designated impact sub from now on.
10) Aquilani, Agger and Riera yet to return to shore things up and add a bit more quality.

I am desperate to hear Gerry or anyone in the know to spill the beans on the mystery 2 that we are supposedly signing. By my reckoning there will be one centre back and one attacking option that can lead the line. I believe it will be either Shawcross/Fernando Amorebiata (Bilbao)/Pape Diakahte (Dynamo Kiev) in CDF and either Tuncay/Keisuke Honda/Goran Pandev in attack with Voronin heading back to Berlin for 3 million (according to a number of sources I have read). Pandev will be the best Torres backup and a very good addition to the team at 26 years of age but will probably be out of our price range.

I may be completely wrong. I also believe Rafa would have lost his patience with Babel after he flattered to deceive or do anything of note in yesterday’s showing and will offload him at the nearest opportunity in order to sign Arda Turan (which I believe FS has already mentioned).

Probably the most frustrating for us supporters is the perceived lack of funds or retracting of transfer funds from the Yanks to Rafa this summer. It is evident that the net amount after sales is far short of the usual funding and something is not right for Rafa to be talking about money again.
With only 2 weeks left in the transfer window it will be vital to add quality depth to the squad. There is no doubt quite a lot of money has already been spent on backroom staff overhaul and improved contracts for our key players. If rumours are to be believed in a bid to tie Mascherano down he will be offered 100,000 a week in his new contract which is approx. triple his current compensation. Torres has also been given an improved contract tying him down until 2014 for 120G a week.

So I suppose people are wondering where all the money has all gone? TV rights, Champions League earnings and Gillete’s Ice Hockey franchise sale. Well it turns out Gillette has only agreed and not concluded the sale, hence the 500 million that would have been spent on the loan debts, super star signings or the stadium and the Hick’s buy out has yet to roll in. And on top of that, the Molson family, the prospective buyers have had their financing completed by their lender pulling out ttp://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/20269/ It now says they are hopeful of closing the deal by the end of August.

Well let’s pray that a few signing are in place and all we need is some of this emergency funding to complete them.

Fucking hell

Chill out lads

I was as frustrated as a nun without a cucumber watching the game last night

But fuck it lads 1st game we’ll do Stoke at Anfield
We aint the Liverpool Globetrotters we are LFC and it aint gonna be an easy road but we do have a long season ahead

Now is now the time for whining

Fuck me,listen to ‘You’ll never walk alone’ again and take a Valium or smoke a spliff or something and get ready for a long hard season cause nobody is gonna hand it to us on a platter

As a wise man usually says “Keep the Faith”

Over and out

By the way a chap by the name of Rottweiler in TIA found that article which I just knabbed to bring the whole transfer funding issue to light.

Ok first of all Kop King you are a disgrace to your blog name. King of Crap is more like it. You are an idiot. You are right about one thing LFC were poor but watch how constructive criticism is done and learn boy.

Pepe Reina class! Best goalie in the league if we didn’t already know that and I loved the fact he was furious when the first goal went in.

Carra was poor today, his decision making I mean, his desire clouded his judgement.

Lucas was steady, did nothing wrong but does need to be more positive.

Babel has hammered the last nail into his coffin I reckon. He was shambolic. Really poor. I can’t see Benny not starting. I would be tempted to play Riera on left with Benny in 2nd striker role and Stevie G a bit further back.

To be honest this was a typical first day of the season performance.

we were poor but still should have come away with a draw after the ref turned down a stonewaller.

Now Kop King have I said we were magnificent? No. Have I slagged anyone off? No.

That is how a fan objectivley views a game. Am I gutted about the result? Hell yes, I wouldn’t let my granny win at tiddlywinks if I could help it.

Early days lads! No Need to panic… side will most certainly improve and rather a loss now than later on!
All your negative idiotic comments from you armchair critics who never kicked a ball will soon be on hold once the winnings start! Rafa will most certainly have seen the performance and the lads will come right sooner than you think… TAKE A CHILL PILL BOYS

Of course losing the opening game is disappointing but there are still 37 games to go. I seem to recall we did not play great for the first 5 or 6 games of last season either.

A good team do not become a bad team over night. Spurs away will be tough for lots of top teams this season.

United were just as poor as us but had a easier home game to start.

Too many of our players did not perform on the day and we are adjusting to losing one of our top players.

Like somebody else said, I have thinking that Benny may be able to slip in Alonso’s role or maybe himself and Gerrard can alternate the Alonso role and playing behind Nando.

2 wins in the next week will get us right back on track.

It’s a pity to see so many negative knee jerk reactions on this post.

Unbelievable that Rafa was asked if the defeat had dealt a serious blow to our title chances.

Was talking to a mate of mine during the game he told me he switched it off at half time
I told him I hoped he switched off the Champs Lge final in ’05 at half time too.

Good constructive criticism there Kenny

Heres my effort

Pepe: Great saves that saved us from a heavier defeat
Insua: Thought he did well going forward but had his hands full with Lennon
Skirtel: Looked good until Carra broke his Jaw (leading to his shakey performance after)
Carra: I think his commitment overpowered his decision making)
Johnson: good league debut and I’m happy we have his attacking presence this year)
Kuyt: didnt look himself his 1st touch was off but tried hard as usual
Mash: noting of note
Lucas: thought he was solid would like him to pass forward more but then again the guys ahead of him weren’t making themselves open
Babel: disappointing performance im sure he aint happy with, but I’m not gonna write him off I just dont think he’s a left winger
Stevie: Must be injured he didn’t play to his usual standards
Torres: Like Stevie he looked a bit hungover
Benny: great play and very creative I think it might be time to start looking at this guy as a 1st team regular as opposed to a squad player. Very commited guy too
Alaya: didnt look out of place
Voronin: should of had a peno
Overall we looked lacklustre and Spurs came at us hard and look a Very good team with plenty of pace and excellent attackers

Sorry if my assessment sucked but I’m as hungover as a dog and trying to explain meself through a keyboard is becoming more and more difficult

I think its beer O’Clock

Over and out

Spot on Donal

Torres should not of played midweek for Spain, he was carrying a knock.Babel was the worst of a bad lot, he has had more than enough chances .Why not try Degen on the right side of midfield?.The poor performances against Espanyol and Atletico were carried into this game.If we don’t beat Stoke, the Reds could be 8 points behind the rest going in2 the Villa game on Monday night.Unnecessary pressure.Both goals came from set pieces, not a surprise.Need to play 2 up front.

Dizzy,

Your missing the point.We didn`t lose the game yesterday because there was a HOLE in our midfield,we lost it because the whole TEAM played SHITE.

So using the excuse of we didn`t replace Alonso is the easy option now instead of anylising the performance or UNDER PERFORMANCE of our players as a TEAM!!!

Now THERE i threw in a few CAPITALS there for myself to get my point across.

Okkk…. I get the point .. maybe i was a bit too upset over the performance and the result last nite… and that was compounded by the fact that i watched the game in manchester… and then had to take all that cow-dung by my manx-supporter friends…

Anyways .. I hope this was the wake-up call we needed and hope our players step-up their performance for the next game … If we arent going for any new players, then this lot HAS to improve massively and quickly fill in watever deficiencies exposed during the pre-season and this first game …

We got to take the maximum points outta the next bunch of games in order to get a momentum built up before we have the top-4 in october …

KopKing, we could have had Pele and Batistuta up front yesterday and we’d have still lost. Our passing was shite and we created nothing. Torres who many regard as the best striker in Europe didn’t get a sniff, neither did Gerrard. We were shocking. Only Pepe Reina had a good game. The Lucas and Masch partnership confirmed my fears. Maybe we’ll have to drop Gerrard deeper, put Kuyt up front and Benny on the right… I don’t know. I’d see how the Masch and Lucas partnership does against Stoke and if they are both as useless as they were yesterday then I’d be inclined to make a change. Benny definitely should play especially if Riera is injured. Is Riera injured?

What on earth was Carra doing? He looked up, saw Skrtel yet still launched into a aerial challenge almost breaking ninja’s jaw while splitting his own head open.

Anyway I promised myself I was not going too upset or angry should we fuck things up this season so I’m gonna remain cool. I won’t be reading any football articles or watching any football at all until we play Stoke. Until then I’ll be watching the Athletics. Did anyone see Usain Bolt last night?

Read the blog, will have to catch up with the coments later. I’m home, safe and sound but licking my wounds. What a fucking day. Nightmare from start to finish.

And what the fuck is Rafa playing at?

You all know I love the man, and I always will but Babel over Benny, and Gerrard still taking corners. Sorry Rafa mate, just can’t be having anymore of it.

And no excuses. We deserved no more than to get beat. But that Ref completely bollacksed it. Gave a penalty that never was. I’ll watch it again on the telly, but it happened right under me nose. And the fact is, that one was never a pen and he knew it so then he didn’t give us two that were bang on pens. As I say no excuses but thingsl like that and 6 minutes added on for bollack all are what decide titles. Thank fuck there’s a long way to go yet.

Oh and I can’t even think of his name, but that little right back for Spurs is brilliant. Now back to me curer.

FS, our pen was a stonewall mate.

LB Which one 1st 2nd or 3rd ?

LB you beat me to it mate. FS defo a pen and we had a defo turned down and a poss as well. Didn’t deserve anything but don’t think we’ll see Babel over Benny again. I was seething over Babel’s performance.

LB Usain Bolt was bloody brilliant last night!! The one bright note on an otherwise dismal day. I’d rather we had a crap day now against a good team and have our better days against the lower teams and beat them all. Because let’s face it, Man U won the league not by beating their competitors but rather by beating the lower down teams. That is our aim I would imagine. Win the winnable games and work on the rest when they come along.
PS I’m also in favour of Gerrard coming back to fill Alonso’s spot and Bennie going as the second striker. He proved how creative he is with that sweet one touch pass for Gerrard to burst into the box. It could work.

a poor performance is no excuse for the ref having a shocker. Sat with me mate waiting for the game to start and then we saw who the ref was. My mate says we’re done for.

Yep it was a bad day at the office and the better team won.

The lads looked like they should be introduced to each other again, since it was apparent that they had no idea who they should have been passing the ball to. Babel is in his last last chance saloon and should only be used as an impact sub. The onion lad made a big impact on his introduction and should keep his place.

Having said that, I have not thrown the towel in just yet and hoping for the a good reaction from the team/supporters and three points from the next match.

Fatty, I though that both were stonewall pens. So, for me, the ref bottled it.

Also, taxi for KopKing.

BM Have you seen Degan play?
One thing made me laugh anybody see Benny trying to outjump Crouch for a header

I can’t believe that it took me 30 mins to write that!

That performance by Bolt was out of this world!!! Kept the kids up to let them watch history!

Almost forgot, tough luck Roarin Red but keep the predictions coming.

Well I’ll take your word on it lads. I only got a second to judge it, but I’d like to see the replay. To me, it looked like the first wasn’t and the next two were bang on. But at the time, I was holding up my dickhead mate who was that fucking drunk I was ashamed for him. A terrible day all round for me

Just a question… If Rafa keeps on playing Babel, does anyone think he can do a Kuyt?

By that I mean, come good and make us people knocking him look silly?

Meself, I just think the lad hasn’t got it in him. To me, he’s a mid-table team player at best, and I can’t see the point in Rafa playing him. I’d love to be proved wrong, but I just don’t think the lad is good enough.

FS The first pen was a bit like the one the Mancs got against us at the Toilet

The match showed a number of things, not least why needless friendlies hurt teams more than helping. How many Reds were involved in mid-week friendlies? Torres, Reina, Riera, Benayoun, Kuyt, Babel, GJ, Masche (versus Defoe, Keane and Crouch). There was clear fatigue present. Add to it injuries or returns from injuries – Gerrard, Carra, and Skrtel, and you can see which team was fresher. None of the mentioned players had a good day.

We did have legit shouts for penalties, when Voronin was bundled clumsily and when the culprit player, Assou, handled in the box. That will be forgotten in the media referring to Benitez’s opinions as “rants.”

It was just a bad day in the office and the better team on the day did win. I’m unsure if the Spurs can repeat that performance (which wasn’t all that much) or even sustain it (their usual self-destructive streak).

It is simplistic to say we lost in the absence of Alonso. We won lots of games with XA present, but we were not infallible either. We lost twice last season at White Hart Lane and selective memory won’t help our team. Kudos to them for continued pressing, seeking the equalizer and winner.

Did I see any positives? Plenty. Babel played with more hustle, and participated in defending; Lucas is continually improving and his passion was evident (remember when Torres was manhandled in the box?); Ayala was blooded; Benayoun added liveliness to a lethargic performance; we didn’t pick massive injuries; and the resultant anger will no doubt spur this team on.

I can’t wait for Stoke and Villa next. I live in hope always and we shall confound our critics.

Fatty (#118), I think you’re doing a disservice to Kuyt comparing him and Babel.

Dirk is the consummate professional. Even when he struggled here during his second season, he still out worked the entire squad every single time he stepped on the pitch.

Babel just doesn’t show me that same drive. I don’t know what’s going through his head right now. It’s a big deal to play for the Dutch national team, and with this being a World Cup season I thought Babel would find another gear. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Whoosh… Ivcjmac mate, I’m not comparing the two. I’m asking a simple question… Does anyone think Babel can come good if he keeps getting pitch time?

In fact, scrap the on the pitch bit. Does anyone think Babel can come good?

I’m a bit wary to just write him off completely, but everytime I watch the lad he seems to get worse.

Funny game yesterday. Like I said earlier, we were outplayed so I’m not making excuses.

Two quick observations.

Benoit Assou-Ekotto scores his first ever goal in all professional appearances. Figures he bangs in a belter against us (120+ appearances).

Bassong shouldn’t even have been eligible to play yesterday as the Echo article pointed out earlier in the week, and the cunt scores the game winner on a beautifully placed header.

I don’t really accept the notion that Babel doesn’t try. Like FS, I am just having some serious doubts as to whether he is good enough. Simple as that.

I thought Babel was very poor and to do a Kuyt he has at least got to try, up the work rate and put in an effort. We have to start with Benny until Reira is fit. Dropping Gerrard back into midfield is not the cure. He just did not play in the first half and looked like he was still carrying an injury. Kuyt was also static and out of touch only Torres was making an effort which made it difficult for our midfield to create because they marked Torres out of the game and with Gerrard not making his usual runs no space opened up until Benny came on and created more space. I thought there where 2 penalties the third was ball to hand and would have been harsh. Don’t over estimate how the shaky defense disrupted us as well, I thought we where starting to gel then Carra decided to take Skertal out. The rest of the first half was dire and we only started to look like a challenging team when Benny came on. For me the desire was lacking right from the start, no urgency. Lets see what happens on Wednesday

FS,

I can`t see him doing a Kuyt.First of all his mentality seems to be all wrong.Kuty`s is spot on so that gives you a foundation to become a decent player.

His pace is frightening but so is Usain bolts and thats all he seems to have in his locker at the moment.He just seems to stick his head down and run into a bunch of opposition players.It`s crazy.

I can kind of understand why Rafa started him FS.I`m thinking Rafa expected Spurs to go at us from the off and hoped babel could use his pace on the counter-attack.Thats the only explanation why he started with him that i can think of.

It could be a confidence thing with him,in fact i`m sure of it,because we have all seen promise in his first season especially.It`s consistancy we need from him.

FS: Babel has no chance of coming good. Kuyt was good already and just had to transfer that to the English league, Babel has only had potential, sadly that will not be realised.

I was really excited when we signed Babel, and I really thought he was going to be something special after his first season as super sub.

Last season he was crap. Even his big moment of the season, the game winner at Anfield against the Mancs, was a scuffed shot.

I really have my doubts about him right now. He just seems to have gone backwards. I’ve got him down as fourth choice on that left wing right now. I’d prefer Reira, Benny, and Doss ahead of him.

I pray he comes good, but I don’t think we can afford to continue giving him run outs on that side when we have better options.

Fatty have you read back through the comments?

Think last season was bad man…..

~I probably worded it wrong by putting Kuyt in the same sentence. I’m sure you all know what I meant by that… you know, give him playing time against good opposition and hope he eventually shows what he’s got.

But the point is, I now really doubt he’s got anything.

I’m not judging the lad on one bad performance. But every performance seems the same to me… shite.

Take the Holland “Friendly.”

The Dutch were leathering England. Babel comes on, they were lucky to get a draw and Johnson was lucky to be able to stand up after it.

All it is, is that I don’t want to write off one of our own. In fact, I desperately want the lad to succeed. But I just can’t see it, and if he played for anyone else I would just come out with it and say he’s kack.

Missed LB’s comment, but that sums it up… it’s not the lad doesn’t try.

Kieth that handball hit his right hand which was ball to hand as it was against
his chest but also hit his left hand which was sticking out, got to be a pen
baring in mind the Vorinin one was also a red card (letter of law) thing’s could
have been a lot different , despite a below par performance by a few of the
players.

Nah Timmy haven’t read them yet. I’m suffering a bit. I had a nightmare day that started on Saturday night. Me mate who had the tickets rang me at 8:30 Staurday night thinking it was 8:30 Sunday morning, and he went downhill from there. How I got home in one piece is beyond me. You should have seen the state of the daft bastard, and I had to baby sit him allday. Not a pleasant or easy chore

Ivcjmac he’s sixth, I’d have Aurelio and Insua before him.

LB: I don’t think he doesn’t try I just think he’s crap. Bit harsh maybe, not crap just doesn’t have it in him.

Timmy i think FS is feeling bad enough without having to read all that sh*t.

One reason Babel may have got the start yesterday was because of those bloody friendlies Wednesday night.

Benny played the full 54 minutes for Israel, Dirk played 78 for the Dutch, Torres (who I’m not quite sure is 100%) played 64 for Spain, and Reira (who we think is still not fit) came on and played 45 minutes for Spain.

With those minutes, a game Sunday against Spurs, and a Wednesday night game against Stoke, Rafa had to rotate the squad for the first game of the season. Nuts isn’t it?

That was our seventh lose in 3 season. Yep, that’s right…. we’ve only lost 6 games in the last two seasons.

That’s how big the margin for error is. And to me that says we can’t carry anyone. And I really, really hope Gerry is right on the 2 new players before the window shuts.

Christ, now I’m reading Barca are sniffing around Reira. Rafa needs to tell those bastards to fuck off and remind Albert about how many Spain call ups he was getting when he was at Citeh and Espanyol.

The last thing we need to do is sell right now.

~That bad R77. Think I’ll swerve it.

We aren’t the only ones with injury problems in the back right now.

The Mancs have some issues: Vidic out, Rio out for two weeks, Evans limped off Saturday with a groin problem, Van der Saar out until October, Neville’s out.

I wouldn’t feel so terrible about yesterday’s result if Dropba hadn’t scored deep into injury time to save the three points for the Chavs.

One thing i noticed when Carra was off getting those 12 staples in his head
Babel lost the ball and just stood watching not thinking of trying to win it back
despite been a man down. For some reason i thought of peanut and the way
he’d charge around like a crazy c*nt trying to get the ball back.

Where did 6 minutes come from though?

I listened to the game on the radio. There was no major stoppage time, and it used to take the likes of a broken leg to get 6 minutes added on

FS, to be fair the chavs scored their winner in the 91st minute so the 6 mins was not relevant. In fact Hull had a chance to equalise after Drogba’s 2nd goal.

Your right Rome,he shouldn`t read them.Kneejerking at its horrible best.

Stoke wednesday,and it`s a chance to right the wrongs of yesterday.Plus its a chance to put right one of the wrongs from last year(silly home draws against teams we should beat at Anfield).

Any news on dagger`s injury?I`d like to see him play against stoke on wednesday.He would bring something to our attack with his runs into midfield.We will have the lions share of posession too.

FS, I think babel cannot play as a midfielder, full-stop, even at a mid-table club.

Only when we play with 3 upfront aka the 4-3-3 style, will he be effective in any sense.

People talk about him being fast, but he is only fast when he doesn’t have the ball, sprinting. And he can’t pass for life.
He is just a simple winger (in the truest sense of the position), and that’s it.

Disappointing because he has/had potential, but he just does not have the brain. He would make a good runner though if he is interested in track and field.

It was so bloody obvious the Chavs would get the 3 points when 6 minutes of injury time was announced. Of course the players got a boost when they still felt they had enough time to make it. I know Drogba scored several minutes before the game ended, but as Lampard clearly had an awful game I don’t think they would have scored if it was 3 or 4 minutes of injury time instead of 6. This and the penalty we should have had could be deciding factors when the champions are crowned in the end. And I don’t think the bad ref decision gets levelled out between the top teams during the course of a whole season at all. The Chavs will have a lot more of those gift minutes, at least when they are in need of another goal.

To be fair Sachem,the chavs were ombarding hulls goal all of the second half.They plugged away until they scored a second.Just because 6 mins was announced didn`t make them try any harder,they would try the same if 3 were announced.Luck did play a part in the winning goal.Dogbreath openly admitted it was a cross.

Meanwhile we created f*ck all against Spurs. Only the great run by Johnson earned us a goal but I can’t remember anyone missing a sitter or Gomes making a great save. It was a depressing performance and if Robbie Keane could finish we’d have got a good hiding. Deservedly.

I agree timmy the Chavs might still have scored if it was three minutes, but I think people often underestimate the psycholical impact. The Chavs were bombarding Hull, but not with much accuracy. The effect on the Hull players should also be taken into account. The tiniest suggestion of despair in any of them could well be the difference.

Only in the last couple of years I’ve witnessed a countless games where the Mancs were playing poorly and creating very, very little. Still Ronaldo would usually score the winner late in the second half and no journalist would even dare mention afterwards the victory wasn’t perhaps fully deserved. In fact, they might as well have lost a number of those games, but they didn’t, and that’s what one them the titles. Winning when playing poorly is what gives a team confidence. What I mean to say is, I still think we were unfortunate not to grab at least one point yesterday, despite the very poor team performance.

But enough dwelling on that and let’s do our utmost to support the team. I’m sure Rafa will it all out somehow. As soon as the players get back in shape we should be alright. Stoke I believe is one of only two teams we didn’t manage to beat in the league last season. Time to fix that.

Sorry about all those spelling mistakes. I should probably start using some kind of spelling correction tool.

For a bit of perspective have a read http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/NG165445090817-1537.htm.

I’ve never understood why babel is always played on the left hes right footed and the chances of a decent cross is less likely he seems to charge down the flank and then he tries to beat the player because he cant whip crosses in with his left foot .i dont think the lad has a great football brain .i think we should try him on the right and give him simple instructions get to the line and get crosses in .its got to be easier to mark a right footed left winger who you know will always try and cut inside onto his right foot.he should be given a run on the right he’s bloody quick and he might offer something different to kuyt

good read Rome77 and prity much says what most sensible kop bloggers have said.

Here’s an interesting article as well:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/120889/Spaniard-Benitez-facing-the-inquisition

Ahhhh… the calm after the storm, with the return to Monday Morning Sanity!

Nice to see the regulars, and even some of the new lads, keeping some perspective in their analysis.
Its never easy to take a loss… I doubt there’s a single poster in here, from Kirkby to Kenya to Kuala Lumpur, who wasn’t seething during and after the game… but you can’t let that emotion cloud your analysis of the game, the palyers, the performances.
Please, I beg of all of you…Don’t let Kopblog become a place to just come and vent your spleen… there are other places for that.

By all means discuss your opinions, just give some thought to them first. Venting our spleens accomplishes nothing.
Viva Kopblog… a safe haven for those who know their footy and their LFC.
Viva LFC and Viva La Rafalution.

Keep The Faith… refrain from stupid comments… There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.
If you don’t think we are gonna lose games and draw games this season, then you’re an idiot who knows nothing about the game. This is football.

We’ll win, we’ll lose, we’ll draw. We’ll play some amazing footy and we’ll play like steaming shite warmed over, but in the end….

…Come In Number 19… Your Time Is Up.

Tomkins always seems to make sense with his columns.Very good read maybe some should look at it and realise its not doomsday after all.

Now in answer to FS’s question.

He’s a tough one isn’t he FS?
We’ve been fed a steady diet of “players with potential” for so long now that most of us are at the point where we can no longer stomach it.

But never have we bought a player with so much potential who has yet to fulfill it.

I’m not ready to write him off just yet… but if he doesn’t start delivering at least competent performances soon, he’s got to go.

timmy, I miss Tony Barrett.
The Echo’s footy coverage has gone downhill over the summer.
Does anyone know if he took the Times job?

To me it looks clear that Babel is first of all just completely shattered in confidence and coupled with the fact that he’s trying too hard, he seems completely crap but we know what he can do. He has shown glimpses here and there, with the brilliant goal against Arsenal and a few more here and there. I think what FS said might make some sense. At first Crouch couldn’t score jack but he kept playing him and he came good. Hell Rafa will probably stick him on the bench next game but if he persists, something might give. Either we see the real Babel or we try to sell Babel to Real!

I think Babel will fulfill his potential eventually but not at Liverpool. He’ll need to establish himself at a club with less pressure first. Probably in a league that affords more time on the ball and a system that requires no defensive duties of him. Then once he has matured and got more confident I could then see him going to a bigger club and being successful. I think Van Basten was right from the beginning. He left Ajax too early in his development.

Aitch, Tony Barrett is at the Times. Here’s his article on yesterday’s match:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/liverpool/article6798489.ece

Hey lads, I was “lucky” enough to be at the game yesterday (even caught up with FS for a brief minute before the game and can confirm that his mate was sweating vodka like a jockey in a sauna).

I guess it’s easy to jump on the negatives after a game, but when you’ve predicted some of those negatives it is a little worse. I told my mates before the game that I was still extremely worried about the loss of Alonso and that our start to the season was going to be tough, as finding form as a team when you’ve had such a big change in the engine room is doubly difficult. That said, it isn’t the first time Masch and Lucas have played together back there, but for me they only had success together in the past when the rest of the team was in fine form – which we most surely weren’t yesterday.

I’m not jumping on Lucas’ case because I think he tries hard and isn’t a bad player. For me he just isn’t the answer to the hole in our midfield, he is best there as a backup. We accept the lack of creativity from Masch because of his defensive strengths, but we can’t afford to have 2 central midfielders that lack creative quality.

I agree with whoever it was that said Gerrard and Torres were making runs but no one could pick them out. For much of the first half we were horribly shapeless – caused largely by the disruptions of Carra and Skrtel going off multiple times – but even when we found some sort of rhythm, Gerrard and Torres never looked like getting the ball.

For me, until Aquilani is fit enough to start playing minutes, I’d like to see Gerrard drop back to his old central midfield role alongside Masch (or even Lucas if need be). He did that after Voronin came on yesterday and we looked immediately more threatening, even though SG didn’t have a great game. Benayoun is clever enough and attacking enough to forge a dangerous partnership in the hole behind Torres I reckon, especially if they are getting service from Gerrard.

Probably a good thing to have the Stoke game so soon, I’ll be up there for that one too (anyone care for a pint before the game??). Benayoun must surely start that game, but let’s see what Rafa does with the midfield – he himself admitted that they were the big let-down on Sunday.

If we beat Stoke on Wednesday we will be 2 points ahead of the corresponding fixtures last season.

I see rafa has said that buying another striker may disrupt the team i disagree.it puts too much pressure on Gerrard and Torres to be on form and fit for every game.we need quality players knocking on the 1st team door not untried youngsters.its not rafas fault he has not had the backing financially.we all seem to think we can win the title but if Torres gets a serious injury whos gonna score the goals ? Kuyt/ngog/voronin.not likely.and the youngsters should be a bonus not the solution

Yeah, time to re-think strategies & most importantly, bring back the intensity of last season. Had an idea: remember the season before last season when alonso was long-term injured ? Gerrard partnered masch in midfield & kuyt partnered el nino upfront. Just put benny & riera on flanks ( babel sub ) in this formation & i think teams will be torn apart. But rafa is a different cookie. He will persist with lucas. But with lfc, my heart says cure shall come. Stabilty is needed in midfield now more than anything. That’s why gerrard is so crucial. More penetrative attacking option when torres is nullified & the midfield issue must be addressed.

maximus, rafa will surely will be working on that!

Rafalution!

It appears that some measure of calm has returned. The performance in the second half was a bit better but not by much. Torres looked a bit out of sorts. Perhaps he’s not quite fit. The best tonic for a poor performance is another game, which provides an opportunity to show some ‘bouncebackability’.

We can’t win or lose the title on the first day of the season, so it’s important to take a deep breath. I understand that the passion may be high and that’s why I don’t comment immediately after a match.

Keep your chins up lads. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

I completely understand why people don’t want to break up the Torres/SG partnership, but I think SG gets way more involved in games in a midfield role.
I’m not against Masch/Lucas as a midfield partnership… Masch had a stinker yesterday in my book, yet Lucas gets the venom? (interesting that!)… and I think they ended up both playing deep because of what happened between Carra and Ninja (word has it he had double-vision through most of the game and played through a killer migraine) … so i don’t know that we can judge too much by this game (and yes I know many of you are using performances last season to argue the case)… but I think partnering either of them with SG would be of greater benefit to the team. (and I was saying that the minute the Alonso to Real rumors started, so that’s not a kneejerk solution/idea.)

Which brings me to Benny…. why the fuck do people want to stick him out on the right wing? Benny is as natural a hole player as you are likely to find!
His movement with and without the ball creates space for others… which will naturally forge a partnership with Torres… AND with SG moving forward from midfield (as he did on that sweatest of reverse passes) plays everyone to their strengths… which will have a knock on effect to the others.

Oh and I agree with FS… why the fuck is SG still taking our corners???

Thanks for the times link lvcj…

To me that’s a disappointingly lacklustre article by TB’s standards. He should have stayed at the Echo (where the fans loved him) instead of opting for a “big money move” to a prem-paper!

Christ but that was a horrible Sunday afternoon. Sorry to hear about your drunken “mate” Fatty. I fecked off out of the pub like a scalded cat as soon as the final whistle was blown and legged back to the fresh air and delights of my little kid and her mummy. I went picking blackberries to cure the frustration of that lame performance. It felt good.

I didn’t come on-line until now for all the obvious reasons. (Cheers KK).

I agree with Neilob 162, a win (which will be anything but easy) vs Stoke and we are actually up points on the same fixtures last year.

A part of me was saying we played really crap at the start of last season but got away with it, this time not. You (Rafa) can also learn a lot from defeat. Also you gotta get this poisonous hyped Bullshi* out of the system as soon as possible. We are now “out of the title race” of course so we can quietly go about getting our systems sorted properly.

I want to talk about systems.

As Keith SA said we were taking control of the game and Spurs looked toothless and timid until Jamie effectively polaxed our defence with one rush of blood. I think maybe we could have gone on to win comfortably enough. Just a thought ….

Nando looked somewhat dispirited and I didn’t see Stevie all first half. What I could pick up (from Sly Tv pictures) was the lack of support for the front 2, the midfield seemed to be very reluctant to push on in the first half particularly. The same with 2 full backs. From memory, Glenda’s driving run, which gave us the spotter was only the second time he’d attacked all game at that point. Insua was obviously busy with Mr Lennon of course but he could have reversed the roles.
I think this is why the midfield appeared so muffled for us. There did not seem to be any movement, nobody running on the flanks to create an outlet. Same with Stevie, first half, he never came looking for the ball. We seemed stuck in first gear.

In one of my brilliant posts on the last blog (joke ok !) I said I felt that there was going to be no natural replacement for Xabi and that (imho) the team as a whole was going to have to adjust and widen their role in the new situation. It simply did not happen …. until Benny came on. Now what happened when he came on ? He moved, played across the park not just up and down. He looked for the ball deep, on the flank, close to Nando. He played off and brought Stevie much more in to the game. He brought Voronin into the game. He has intelligence.

I think he should start and I think he should start central midfield-to behind/off the striker. perhaps switching with Stevie ? It demands wit from both but would, I think, give the team more options and fluidity as well as create much more difficulty for opposing teams. I would play Mascher as bulldog when needed otherwise Lucas .. tho’ his lack of physicality in the defensive sense would worry me. Riera, when fit has to be first option on the left. I think Dirk and Glenda will nail down the right no problem.
One other change I would make is that I would play dagger.
How many times did it fall to jamie / Skyrtl to lump it forward yesterday ? we need options and a ball carrying centre-half would be a major plus.

So for a bus parker special / a goal down at half-time here’s my line-up..

Pepe

Glenda, jamie and D’agger, Insua.

Mascher/Lucas

Dirk, Stevie, Benny, Riera,

Nando

ps – kopking mate, have a look at the posts that have been put down today. Nobody doubts you are a passionate lad. But you are no more passionate than anyone else here. So save us the **** and the vitriol. Give us some cool, clear, critical analysis based on what the team and squad is and not what you would like it to be. How ’bout it?

Hi all, first time poster here but have lurked on for a long time. Got my team into the Fantasy League, look for Fernando’s Merry Men (currently waaaaaaayyyy down in the Kopblog League).

Gutted about the result. Is Ninja’s jaw really broken? I’ve been too pissed/depressed to read any match reports, and won’t do so till at least after the Stoke game (and I’m not going to read the reports for the Spurs game). And we can bang on about how we should have got another penalty, the ref was f*cked (its Phil Dowd what did we expect?) but the fact was that the performance was below par.

Gotta agree (of sorts) with dougle in #169, with Xabi’s departure and Aquilani’s absence we’ve got to re-align the midfield, and even then we’ve got to be flexible enough to jig the midfield when all are fit. For the moment until Aquilani is fit SG should be moved back to play in CM (with Masch against big teams, Lucas against bus-parkers) and stick Benayoun with Torres up front. Like many others I would hate to break up the Torres-SG axis, but if anyone can take SG’s place in the setup its Benny. Based on his performance on Sunday, he’s pretty much hit the ground running and merits a place in the first 11.

Re: the enigma that is Babel, I saw the match on telly, and really could not see how anyone can say he’s not doing well because he’s trying too hard. To me he’s not doing well because he doesn’t want to. Full stop. He seemed disinterested in trying to get the ball, and on the rare occasions he got it, he didn’t seem to be killing too many brain cells in trying to figure out how best to use it, i.e. head down and head straight for the Spurs goal headlong into the 4 Spurs players between him and the target. I’m sick and tired of him and his unfulfilled potential, and reckon he should not be anywhere near the starting 11 until he gets his head sorted. Currently I’d take (in the following order) Riera, Fabio, Dosser, Insua ahead of him in LM. Until he gets his head out of his a*se anyway…

Good luck with that request dougle.

I like the line-up and the idea of having Benny/SG rotating (though I’d like to see Benny playing further forward and SG deeper/running from deep)
But I think D’Agger’s a few weeks away inne?, So the back 4 is anyone’s guess at this point.
Maybe our purchase before the closing of the trans-window should be Dr. Kildare if JC keeps that shit up! MEDIC!

Well it all just makes 2 things clear to me…
We need players in, but cover at CB is the most essential.
If we don’t win the league, it can be blamed on 2 people.

That might seem simplistic, but sometimes there is no need to work it all out. And to me it looks like the yanks have lied to Rafa again.

How many weeks ago was it that Rafa said there was plenty of money to spend? Only about a month ago as far as I can remember, Rafa was saying things like “Only Chelsea have more money to spend than LFC.”

Now I’m hearing things like , nevermind bringing in new players, Rafa mightn’t be able to give a pay rise to Mascherano, as he might not even have what’s left from the money he has brought in on sales. And no matter how good of a manager you have, it’s proven fact that you can’t win this league without money.

But what I find even more worrying than that is, Rafa won’t be mugged off like that and if they keep this sort of shit up he will eventually walk. And I think it’s the lying not the lack of funds that will drive him out.

So I hate to start with the doom and gloom. I’m not kneejerking over one bad day at work. It’s the fact that we look to be stuck with that pair of greedy fat lying bastards that worries me.

I don’t trust the daily mail one bit but I think this sort of sums it up:

Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez left devastated after owners tell him he has just ?1.5million to spend
By David Maddock

Rafa Benitez has been left devastated after being told he has just ?
1.5million to spend by his club’s American owners.

The Liverpool manager has struggled against budget constraints all
summer because of the financial crisis at Anfield, and revealed a week
ago he was in talks to try and extend his kitty.

Benitez wants a centre half to provide cover in a crucial position, with
Daniel Agger suffering from a back problem, and he also would love to
sign a wide player who can also operate as a stand in striker.

But after talks with the Yanks, he has been told there is only a miserly
sum available – which will not even buy one player, never mind the two
he desires.

It has left the Liverpool searching frantically around for a loan
signing before the transfer window closes at the end of August, and he
has sounded out several targets.

His first choice was Ryan Shawcross, but Stoke have laughed off the
suggestion that they would let a defender important to them go out on
loan for an entire Premier League season.

Benitez has also enquired about the Real Madrid centre half Ezequiel
Garay, and he may have more joy in that direction, with the Spanish
giants ready to consider a further loan period for the 22 year old.

Liverpool’s Spanish boss was actually in the market for Garay a year ago,
but was beaten to the punch by Madrid, who snapped up the Argentina
international for ?10million, and promptly loaned him back to his
former club Racing Santander.

That loan period was up in June, but with the Bernabeu side signing
Valencia centre half Raul Albiol in the summer they have no room in the
squad for Garay and will consider another loan.

That will suit Benitez perfectly, because he knows that the frankly
insulting ?1.5million will do little more than pay the loan fee for a
year.

Liverpool have been thrust into a desperate financial situation
because the American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have been hit
by the worldwide credit crunch, which has reduced dramatically the value
of their assets.

They were forced to go to the banks in July to extend loans they took
out to buy the club for another year. Hicks and Gillett had extended
their debt to around ?360million, but were told by banks the RBS and
Wachovia that it would have to be reduced.

The pair were asked to find around ?60million, and that has come by
cutting the Anfield transfer budget and diverting operating profits into
repaying some of tyhe loans.

When Benitez negotiated a new contract back in April, he was offered
guarantees that he would be given ?20million to spend, plus the money
from the sale of Robbie Keane to Spurs back in January.

That amounted to almost ?38million, and the Spanish coach was also told
that he could use any money he generated in the transfer market through
sales.

But this summer he has raised more than ?40million through the sale of
Xabi Alonso, Sebastian Leto, Alvaro Arbeloa, Paul Anderson and Jack
Hobbs.

Benitez has spent around ?33million of that on signing Glen Johnson and
the Italian midfielder Alberto Aquilani, who was a direct replacement
for Alonso.

But it means he has made a PROFIT in the transfer market in a summer
which was widely perceived to be a massive one in the history of the
club, given how close they were to becoming genuine title contenders.

The Anfield boss believed that he needed two more quality signings to
allow his side to make the final step to becoming Champions, but instead
he will now have to shop in the bargain basement for just one more
addition to his squad.

He has also enquired about taking the Portsmouth defender Sylvain Distin
on loan, but was again met with near incredulity by the South coast club.

What will have angered Benitez most is that he was in a position to sign
the Spain international winger David Silva from Valencia, but then had
to pull out of the deal because he didn’t have the money to meet the ?
17million asking price.

The Reds manager has so far refrained from speaking out about the
apparent u-turn on their word by the American owners, but he is known
privately to be angry about the situation, and may not be able to resist
a reaction in the coming days.

That’s a frustrating and enlightening article Hyde.

Maybe if we can all now agree, we have to deal with the players we have, we can stop the sniping at Rafa and discuss his attempts to make a silk purse out of a sows ear objectively?

(though I’m not actually of the opinion we have a sow’s ear, but you get my drift…)

Agree with Aitch (*167), Benayoun is perfectly suited to play in hole behind Torres. Pull Stevie G back to central midfield & am pretty sure Benny will strike up a pretty good partnership with Torres.

However, me reiterates a point me have made on a couple of accoassions, me thinks Benny would also be good as a creative midfielder.

Fer those of ye who say Spurs will take points of other big guns, me just wanna say that will NOT include the scum.

No matter what Spurs do, they will almost always lose to them. Remember ref blunder last season when spurs were leading 2-0? The Roy Carrol incident?

As fer Stoke, we couldn’t have a harder game. They play the sort of physical, defensive footie we always struggle to break down.

For me until Alquilani is fit for us to get into the stride of play we finsihed last year with we need to let masher do his thing. Stevie G drops back a bit but still with the licience to bomb on and Benny has to play off Torres in the hole. Stevie G playing the centre midfield role is a temporary option for me. We have to remember he is 29 soon he will be on the wain and he won’t be able to play with the same dynamicism.

So all players fit, my team would be;

Pepe Reina

Glenda Carra Agger Insua

Monster

Kuyt Gerrard Riera

benny

Torres

I think that the KopEnd should try to send a message to those two cunts in the states. Show Rafa support over those jokers because im afraid that by christmas Rafa might have packed his bags. Who could really blame him.

Oh I wanted to mention; Danny Ayala was excellent when he came on. I was thinking what! How come Kelly’s not coming on? Shows what I know. Digger will be pleased though, the youngster got his chance and took it, no striker though I’m afraid digger or centre back, we’re skint! although Gerry seems certain we’ll bring in two players.

I am so sick and tired of these two Yank Twats and I would not be surprised to see Rafa walk if we do not win the Prem this year. I think its time for another round of demonstrations to show them how much they are hated.

Hyde, your post #172 is scary. In the article I provided the link to yesterday there was one quote from Rafa that stood out for me, when he was asked about transfers.

“At least now when you have a question the answer is given quickly. Sometimes we are not happy with the answer but it’s part of the process and we have to keep on working together.”

H&G seem to be up to their old tricks and we all know that Rafa is a man of integrity and will not stand for such nonsense. Football aside, this is becoming a critical time for LFC!

Ah Keith, you beat me to it!

They’ve obviously been lying again, but when it was reported how much money Rafa would have – 20 mill, Keane money, sales money – a lot of us warned to not hold any breath while waiting on that.

It might still turn out to be newspaper bollacks again, but I’m hearing worrying things. Nothing concrete but people are telling me there’s fuck all in the pot. I hope they’re wrong.

But if that’s true, then that means the yanks have conned Rafa again. If you think back he only signed his new contract when he was promised there would be money available.

And if that’s the case, that’s the most worrying thing about all this.

Rafa would have went into the summer thinking he would have had x amount of money. You can see from his statements at the time that he thought he had plenty of money. In fact, I remember him at one point saying he didn’t need to spend all the money he had.

Of course the sale of Xabi changed that. But, from some of the things he said at the time, it still seemed like he had plenty of cash in reserve. Then the injuries to the CB’s came along, and from there you can see the shift in Rafa’s thinking.

And that there is the problem. Obviously, if he has been led to believe he has all that money, he would have been planning his transfer stratedgy around that. In fact, the purchase of Johnson shows he was. He even addmitted he’d paid more than he would have liked for the player. Would he have done that if he was counting the pennys? I don’t think so.

And I think if he’d been told honestly from the start that he would only have the money he brought in from sales, he would have acted differently. I also think, he would have accepted that and got on with it. But to now have it thrust open him that there is no dough and have all his plans thrown out the window, well… ask yourself this, would you keep putting up with that sort treatment, when you could easily walk into a much higher paid job, in your home country, with all the resources you could possibly imagine?

And there’s far more than that to consider, i.e. the shit the press will throw at him, if we don’t press on from last season.

In fact, that might be our main hope. We all know Rafa is a stubborn proud man. And it might just be the desire to prove everyone wrong and succeed against all the odds, that keeps him here.

And having said all that, I don’t think it’s time to panic just yet. But I do wish that pair of greedy fat bastards would just take the money and fuck off out of our club. Don’t hold your breath on that one though.

PS… I’m going to find out if SOS have anything planned, but as for fans pushing them out… sadly the exact opposite is happening. I mentioned the tricks H&G have pulled on the ticket sales. It could be seen as them trying to break up the core support, replace it with corporates/tourists and so do away with the opposition while still increasing revenues.

As I said, I don’t think it’s time to panic just yet, but I don’t know how far away that moment is.

I still believe in number 19 and Rafa. YNWA!

PPS… This shit is now appearing in all the papers and on the telly and radio.

Wonder what Rafa will have to say when he gets quizzed at Friday’s press conference.

Yep, it is definitely worrying.

People can call me a rafa-lover or whatever nonsense they would like, but the only thing that has kept this club anywhere near a constant champions league club is Rafa. Without him, kuyt wouldn’t have come, stevie would have gone, reina wouldn’t have come, torres and masch neither and many fans would still have been discussing whether man-marking is better than zonal defense for set-plays and that level of shite.

We can talk about being able to replace big players, but it is very, very, very difficult to replace an excellent, honest, diligent and stubborn manager. And someone who actually understands any football tactics at that.

If rafa goes, I think we really need to face fighting for european places with teams like fulham et al (no disrespect to them) at best.

That’s the way I see it.

I was hoping this summer that we would actually see some arabs or the like coming into rescue us, but so far, news has been quiet on that front. It really looks like the two owners are willing to juice every last penny out of this club to lessen their own burdens.

We may have been resigned to losing xabi, but we must do everything it takes to make sure that rafa is willing to fight on with us.

It is not doom and gloom yet as FS says, and I am going to concentrate on what is happening on the pitch, but really, not a day goes by without my thinking about what would happen to us if we lose Rafa.

Tony Barrett says more or less the same thing. If this is true then those lying, backstabbing owners have yet again proved themselves to be the second worst thing that ever happened to the supporters of Liverpool Football Club.

I don’t think there is anything to be done about this, though we must still try. As long as Rafa stays we will at least remain a top four Champions League playing side, so I would just do everything I can to support the manager and the players at the moment.

In my opinion losing Rafa would be devastating for the club. We could kiss goodbye to players like Torres, Gerrard, Mascherano, more or less the entire spine of the team and what manager would want to come here with no money for transfers. Lucky if he could hold on to the money he raised through player sales. We would become a midtable team im afraid.

Hyde, you beat me to that article. I actually spotted the figure 1.5 mil. on a few different rags today and did some further calculating of loans the yanks owe, Rafa’s supposed transfer kitty and the net outcome. So here’s my take.

Now without reading between the lines we know Rafa has been saying he will have talks shortly with the yanks regarding transfer funds so it is no surprise that we are hearing about this now. You would have thought these talks would be confidential but the fact that Rafa has to even ask for funds strikes as being very strange.

After Rafa’s contract renewal he was positively glowing and confident of the coming season. With the kind of transfer funds or promises they could guarantee before he finally signed his extension.

However, if this article bares any truth I won’t be suprised if Rafa has leaked this figure publically. He would be seething and making very worrying public statements such as the quote Lurgankop posted. He would want us supporters to know that he is swimming upstream with his hands tied behind his back and weights attached to his bollocks thanks to these lying bastards.

Regarding the figures which I have done before (prior to the Arsenal sale) but will go over again, the situation is actually worse than what the article above states.

Besides the Keane money which Rafa was allegedly promised: 16 million + addons there has been a lot of activity in the fire sale amounting to approx. 38 mil: Alonso, Leto, Arbeloa, Anderson, Hobbs, Flynn and the more recent sale of Hammil and the loaning out of San Jose…

The article while being fairly accurate fails to point out the 8-9 million or so which Portsmouth still owed for Crouch which you can substract from the Glen Johnson transfer. Actually Aqualani cost 15 million with further clauses and add ons which may rise to 20m. Glen Johnson was also 17.5 million so if you do the math for Rafa’s two major purchases it is in fact 33 million. I might be 34-35 at a push with the undisclosed purchase of Mawinga and the loaning of Poloskei.

Anyway Rafa should have in the region of 75 to spend or around 58-59 if we don’t include Keane. He has so far spent 36 million or more like 24 million net with the money Portsmouth owed for Crouch reducing a significant portion of the G. Johnson fee.

Just to make sure that we have covered all operating costs let’s say the contract renewals of players such as Torres, Gerrard, Kuyt e.t.c , staff over haul, the considerable severance fee to Rick Parry, the lofty salaries of the 2 Yanks, the hiring of Ian Ayre (Commercial Director) and Christian Purslow (Managing Director) and Rafa’s new deal himself cost the club a further 3-4 million (to begin with for argument’s sake). Rafa still should have 47-48 million to spend on transfers left over or around the 30 mark if we don’t include Keane.

With the largely recouped profit augmenting the transfer funds we could easily afford players with more creativity like David Silva 17-23??, a 10 million quality centre back (although not strictly necessary) and have money left over for a player like Goran Pandev/Tuncay. If we bought a cheaper defender maybe luring a very promising and prolific talent like Keisuke Honda would have also been possible. Having depth in our attacking options can never be underestimated.

Honda who has been tracked by Liverpool scouts by the way scored another goal against Utrecht making it 4 goals in 3. Not bad for a MF whose team just got promoted eh? Sky sports are saying he wants to stay in Holland to continue his development. With it being a World Cup year perhaps he doesn’t want to risk sitting on the bench for the majority of the season. Anyway it won’t be long before clubs like us and Lyon pounce again. It’s probably a good thing the guy does not want to move yet. We can’t afford him ’8.65 mil’for one and once he moves to somewhere like PSV, or Lyon expect his price to inlfate to 15-16.

The only MF I know that is capabale of being a regular goal threat in our team is Gerrard (who no longer plays in MF), Benayoun and Kuyt. These are our first team players by the way. Once we dig into our reserves or our bench there aren’t too many we can rely on.

Anyway back to the doom and gloom: A measily 1.5 million…. where has the 45 million gone??? Well with the well documented 60 million loan payments demanded by the banks of which the first installments were 40 this summer followed by 20 early next year it is all starting to add up now.

I really do hope Rafa doesn’t abandon us like he did with Real and Valencia over broken promises. The owners are certainly testing his patience and resolve.

The truth is I just don’t know what to believe anymore. I am praying Gerry’s 2 mystery signings is reliable and that this recent talk is either bogus or a little smoke and mirrors. I am hoping that the Yanks are not so stupid as to offer Rafa funds and then go back on the deal.

And if the money had gone on the loan, Rafa would have known this for at least a month, plus the terms of the re-financing had already been done and dusted long before Xabi was sold, so that money wouldn’t have entered the equation.

All in all a lot of things don’t add up but with the slow progression in the transfer market I am a tad worried.

Sorry it took me a while to write that so I may be repeating what others had already said.

I don’t think any of us trust the Yanks. Why should we?

On the pitch, trying to put a positive spin on things it’s worth mentioning that if we do manage to beat Stoke tomorrow night that means we would have taken 3 points from Tottenham away and Stoke at home. Last season we took just one point from those 2 fixtures. I know we played much better at Tottenham last season and really should have won.

But even if we beat Stoke tomorrow night, we may still have to play catch-up for a little while as our next game after that is on the Monday night (24 Aug) at Anfield against Aston Villa.

The performance at Tottenham was poor, and we really didn’t deserve to get anything from them this time around. But let’s keep positive, we have only played one game!

If I was Rafa I’d walk. The situation with the owners is getting from bad to worse. It might have to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. Rafa f*cks off, we get a shite manager and finish 10th which hopefully forces the yanks to do one.

http://www.empireofthekop.com/anfield/?p=2596

Aitch made a good point in an earlier post about the echo. It’s football articles have gone to shite since Barrett left. I shall be checking out the times website far more often now.

Please sign on petition on above link fellas – the pricks need to be out of our spiritual home

There will be a demonstration at the Stoke game.

I’ll sign but the time for petitions has gone. We need direct action, and hopefully this will lead to some.

To me, it doesn’t matter about this story, even if it’s true or false. These two need driving out of the club, no matter what and that should be the supporters number 1 priority. But believe me, except for a dedicated few, the apathy is quite shocking.

And I suppose it’s even understandable that people want to just concentrate on the football and having a good season. But no one should just bury their head in the sand and hope it will all go away. It won’t.

There’s apparently another 60 million quid disappeared out of the club’s coffers as – get on this – further expenses for the preparatory work conducted in Stanley Park for the new stadium.

I haven’t seen that confirmed. It’s only something I’ve been told. But it doesn’t really matter. The fact is them two have to be driven out of the club. I doubt it’s even possible but at least some opposition should be shown. If nothing else, it might show Rafa we know what he’s up against and that we are behind him.

I’ve heard something is being organised. I don’t know what yet, but I will let you know once I know meself.

As for this story and the current state of affairs… well, I can’t see the point in panicking just yet. Nothing’s really changed. We all know they are lying bastards. We all know they intend to bleed every penny they can out of the club. They told us that themselves. So, I’m going to try and just concentrate on the footy for now. But as soon as some sort of direct action/opposition is planned, I will do my best to support it.

Nice one LB. But I think the time for demos, just like petitions, has come and gone. There needs to be direct action such as boycotts and picket lines at the games and all club shops. Only when it affects their wallets will they take any notice.

And as much as I refuse to panic just yet, if we don’t get shut of them soon, I fear you could be right…
Rafa will fuck off and the yanks will milk the club for all it’s worth, then sell up to the highest bidder and fuck off leaving it wollowing in midtable mediocrity.

Much as everyone was anticipating #19 and wanted to concentrate on footy, our owners have dragged us back to the times of protest and petition. What a thick load of bastards!!

Thommo was interviewed on newstalk.ie/offtheball last night and he said Rafa has £1 mill left to spend.bbc.co.uk/liverpool provides the best post match phone in and has a football show on Monday and Tuesday between 7 and 9 pm.Hope Parry enjoys his retirement.He made a complete balls up of selling the club.

FS, I agree it’s time for drastic measures to get these fuckers out, making sure merchandise is not bought and so on.

Problem is, it will have to be a sustained effort because those two cunts are not going to go quitely, they will try to blled the club dry no matter what. Picket lines? I like the idea but I see the problems being who is going to form the lines on a regular basis? It takes alot of organisation, time and determination to succeed with something like that.

I’m not trying to knock your idea, just stating what comes to mind in response to it as a suggestion.

Burgerman for once I can’t argue with your comment. Miracles will never cease.

It’s easy to blame Parry and Moores and they did indeed fuck it up completely. But there are only 2 villains in this plot that set out from the very start to con and steal and suck this club dry.

I’m not giving Morres or Parry a walk over, but they were just dupped like the rest of. Fair enough. He pocketed an extra few bob by selling to Barnum and Bailey, but Moores actually fell on his sword for the most honourable of reasons – he couldn’t take us to the next level.

The 20 million or so a season that he could come up with just wasn’t enough to take us further. But let’s not forget how every one of us cheered when we thought we’d got Father Christmas from America who was going to give us all lovely new pressies, like players and even a new stadium.

It’s easy to point fingers and make accusations, but the fact is there is 2 people who deserve that far far more than anyone else.

Don’t forget though FS, Moores could only turn over 20m a season because the club wasn’t being marketed correctly around the world, merchandise compared to that of Man.U was a fucking joke.

We all know who was culpable for that, and thank fuck he’s no longer at the club either! Let’s hope we at least have the brains in place now to maximise revenue in that department should we ever get rid of G&H.

Well I don’t want to pile on the shit lads, but apparently ninja has a cracked jaw. 2 weeks at the earliest it seems.

A new stadium should of been built a decade ago.Interest rates were low and there was no shortage of credit.It would of been completely self financing.Why was Steve Morgan treated so badly?.I would take a top 4 finish, Cita looked ruthless on Saturday.

again burgerman I can’t argue, are you on drugs?

As I said, I am not giving Moores a whitewash. Of course, he was part of the family dynasty that kept LFC in the dark ages of football. But he isn’t the villain in any of this. His only real crime was being gullable and, yes, maybe even greedy when it come to selling.

But the fact remains that H&G willingly set out to decieve everybody involved so that they could milk this club for every penny. And even if he chose his words a bit wiser, the mouthiest of the pair, Hicks, has even had the nerve to say as much on quite a few occasions.

I hadn’t bothered talking about them for ages. It wasn’t because I’d changed me mind or was burying it in the sand though. I was just keeping it to meself instead of bringing the atmoshphere in here down all the time. I’ve even tried that this morning, constantly saying it’s not time to panic.

But the fact is, these 2 men are a parasitic tumopur on the back of the club. And as such, they should be removed post haste by any means possible. And this or any other story doesn’t change that.

If Moores was Batman, Steve Morgan would be his Riddler. They hate each other and it was purely a personal matter that stopped Morgan from ever getting any more shares. But he didn’t then, and stil doesn’t now, have the sort of dosh that LFC needs to move on to the next level, i.e. winning league titles and CL leagues on a consistent basis, in a brand new stadium.

In a nutshell…

Kop Holdings which actually owns the debt has only 1 source of revenue… LFC.

Which means LFC will have to make the repayments. Have a look at how Hicks bought Weetabix, and his statement comparing the purchase of that company to the purchase of Liverpool Football Club.

Nothing has changed. And so, it effectively means every single one of us who spend even one pence on the club directly, are buying the club for Hicks.

20 mill a year is looking like a luxury right now. Burgerman you are in overdrive with sensible comments.

I doubt boycotting or picket lines would be organised. We couldn’t even boycott the new kit a year ago. There is just too much worldwide demand for a match ticket at Anfield. The ONLY way I could see a boycott working in the foreseeable future would be if Rafa resigned and then promptly told the whole world in detail what the reason was. Maybe if he himself said that this pair of cuntholes MUST be removed from the club for it to survive people would finally get the message and we’d have an empty Anfield on a match day as a result.

I am willing to right off the season and see Rafa walk just to get this pair out. I’ve gone 20 years without seeing us win a title. I can wait another 1 or 2 seasons so long as the parasites fuck off and die somewhere.

The start of the new season is looking worse and worse. What is going on? Back in May I was convinced we were returning to the glory days. Now it feels like we have changed direction completely and are heading straight downwards.

The injury to Skrtel is a big blow, because it’s imperative we grab every point we can from now until the next international break. No one seems to know what is going on with Agger. We just have to hope Ayala and Kelly can provide the cover for a while.

Well this doesn’t make easy reading today lads. Firstly the match, we didnt deserve fuck all an the result was a true reflection of the game. I’d came in with a vicious post which i realised was being written in rage so deleted it an cooled off(by cooled off i mean went on a 12hr drinking binge)
Theres so much shit running around my head an the last thing i wanted to be doing was focusing on H&G however i new they’d be thrown in quite abit this season just didn’t expect it to be so soon. Unfortunatly they have us over a barrell but no more than the mancs are being fucked by the glazers. 80mil for ronaldo???? As much as its an issue which needs to be addressed would this be the talk if we’d won 3-0 on sat. LB fair play that you’d be willing to write off the season an see rafa walk but i’d fucking dread that happening.
It seems were damned if we do an damned if we dont so fuck them pricks. Lets get us back on track an start winning again. I’m desperate for the title an fed up waiting on the bastard’n thing.

A empty stadium would be the only way to get the message through,
having said that those with season tickets have already paid,but its those
who probably want them out the most,and they cant sell their seat again.
As a occasional visitor to the ground i know if i dont go someone else can
buy my ticket so its down to the season ticket holders.
Hyde 204 I knew that jaw was broken the minute Skyrtle stood back up
he must be one hard f*cker to play with that and Carra’s head must have
been throbbing those staples hurt like f*ck especially when they take them
out to put normal stitches in.
PS those who thought Carra had a sh*t game should consider these things
before venting their frustrations .
YNWA

With this latest “Transfer-Funds” B****SH***t, i am keeping my fingers crossed for Rafa to be wid us come the end of teh season … This is utterly frustrating for him and quite understandably so …

Why do these american clowns dun understand that we cant compete in the league wen we are so short of (proven)quality in our squad … just have a look at our bench against spurs … Wasnt it the same reason we fell so agonisingly short of the title last season … ?? And we were all so excited of this season wid the thot of increasing our quality but now this stinker of a news and that excitement is turning into prayers that we dun lose Rafa at this stage …. Yes we have bought two new players but also sold two similiar players … so its back to square one .. and now wen we need those extra back-ups, these clowns give us a 1.5 million CHARITY ??? Are we playing in a championship ?? i dun think 1.5 mil can buy a decent player in teh championship as welll … let alone TWO in a premiere league …

LB, I’d be willing to bet that if Rafa ever did walk, it’d be a darn sight longer than 1 or 2 seasons more before we ever come anywhere near to winning the Prem again.

My head’s going to explode figuring out what we’re going to do at CB tomorrow night against a big physical team like Stoke. Based on last year’s match and the way the bus was parked, we may not even need to play Pepe, but I’ve got big concerns anyway.

I’ve seen all sorts of shiite this morning regarding Skrtel. According to his agent, Skrtel has a “cracked jaw” and could be out of action for two weeks, at which point he’ll return with a mask.

A source I’ve come to trust on another fansite (take that for what it’s worth) has said Skrtel didn’t train Monday, did train today (without a mask) and will be in the lineup on Wednesday.

Carra looks like a game time decision because there’s concerns over the wound on his head, but I’m guessing he’d have to be just about dead not to be in the first 11.

Agger is out for Wednesday, and it looks like it could still be a few weeks before he’s ready. If any of you have suffered from a bad back, you know how temperamental they can be when they act up.

Don’t be surprised to see a bench that includes both Ayala and Kelly again tomorrow night. That’s assuming that one of them isn’t actually starting?

If we can just get these three vital players healthy, I think we’ll be fine, but the next few weeks look like they’re going to be a struggle in the back.

I know everyone complains about our inability to break down teams who park the bus, but that’s not what cost us the title last season. Our inability to shut teams down and not concede was just as big of a factor.

We did have 5 scoreless draws last season (Stoke H and A, Villa A, West Ham H, Fulham H), but we had some score draws that were just as crippling.

Hull Home 2-2
Arsenal Away 1-1
Everton Home 1-1 (Cahill 87′)
Wigan away 1-1 (Mido pen 83′)
Citeh home 1-1
Arsenal home 4-4 (4 goals conceded, enough said)

If we could have kept both Everton and Wigan from equalizing, we would have won the league on GD.

lvcjmac, I also completely agree that our defense was not up to its scratch last season. My bet is that skrtel will not be playing tomorrow. Rafa might actually have to play johnson as a centre-half, or use dossena there. I dunno. Although I think Ayala did pretty well when he came on and as much as I rate Kelly, I would be a bit nervous to see either of them having to fight for the ball against faye, shawcross and fuller. They might be jittery against delap’s throw; something they would not have encountered in the youth matches.

What a difficult job rafa has.

I think Ayala would do ok. He didn’t seem fazed when he came on at spurs and I was impressed with the lad.

Just saw these comments from Rafa on .tv:

Benitez told reporters at his pre-match press conference: “We have to wait. Daniel Agger will be out for at least two or three more weeks. Skrtel was training this morning and we will decide tomorrow. Carra is okay.”

And his comments on todays news abt that 1.5 million transfer budget gives away nothing atall …. The usual Rafa-conferrence … Not a single hint … sometimes i soooo wish that he isnt this MYSTICAL and KUNG-FUI (as per the words of the Kungfu Panda) …

My mate just sent me a text asking why everyone is on Babel’s case when 9 other players were shite as well. I thought he made a good point.

Jesus Christ.
The Sky is falling and we should write off the season?
Are you people fucking kidding me?
We lost 2-1 not 6-1 for fucks sake.

Had JC and Skrtel not done their best Monty Python immitation of the Battersey Ladies Auxiliary reenacting the Battle of Waterloo, the Spurs game would have been completely different.
Maybe we still would have lost… Maybe we would have drawn… Maybe we’d have won… Who knows? But that incident changed the entire complexion of the game and our approach to it.

We’ve lost 2 good players. We’ve added 2 good players and we dealt with injuries to key personel last season and still almost won the fucker. AND this time Scum don’t have Winker to save them… so why all the doom and gloom???

Yes… the boardroom bollocks and their implications are worrying… but if Rafa fucked off on us now, he’s not half the man he suggests himself to be. Isn’t he supposed to love us and want to return us to our “rightful place”???
I happen to think all this shit will make him more determined, but time will tell.
In the meantime, please lads… have a little faith.

Come In Number 19… The word “Liverpool” is written on your stern!
(of course it was written on the stern of the Titanic too, so …er… never mind…)

Things are not right I have just seen the interview with Rafa and for him not to comment means he does not have the funds. If there was no truth then he would have said so. This is his way of having a dig at the twats and letting the fans know something is wrong because we can all do the math’s. I am not saying the figure quoted is right but he has been hamstrung in the transfer market.

Still I think our squad is strong enough to cope, hope we do not get any more injuries.

Aitch, I haven’t seen people panicking on the playing front, not today anyway and I never read the post match comments. People are rightly worried about what’s going on in the boardroom. That’s all.

Has anything changed well, yes and no. We all knew what shysters they was, but we didn’t expect their shite to start so soon into the season. The on field problems, injuries and poor performance only highlight were the real problem is… if Rafa had the money he should rightly have none of this would be a problem. He’d just go out and buy a quality CB for cover and at least one player that could cover in attack and midfield. But we can’t so we will have to get on with it.

I think we all more or less accepted that weeks ago, and most of us think we can cope. But there is no way we should ignore the situation or pretend it isn’t going to affect us at management and playing level.

LB is right. (I’m getting tired of saying that). Even losing Rafa and struggling would be an acceptable option if it meant getting these 2 blood suckers off our backs.

But as for the playing side of things, I’m not panicking and anyone who is needs to get a grip. Didn’t last season teach you anything?

It’s a long hard season ahead. There will be lots of twists and turns before May. We still have as much chance of winning it as anyone else. And it will be Christmas before the picture starts to take shape, and Easter before any real decisions/predictions can be made.

As for Rafa walking, why would that bring him down in anyone’s opinion? He’d be completely vindicated if he bailed. The constant lies that he has had to put up with is excuse enough. And just by reading his statements you can see that he has obviously been lied to yet again.

But I do agree, as I said earlier, with the opinion that this might just have the opposite effect, and he will dig in his heels and do his upmost to triumph against all the odds. But I’d sleep a little easier if H&G just packed in all the trickery, and came out and told at least Rafa the truth, instead of hiding away in their bunkers somewhere concoting lie after lie after lie.

PS… LB, why did Babel get all the stick when there was at least another 7 who played crap?

Easy. Babel does it constantly/consistently and he is one of the few reserve/squad players that we hope can turn things around when the usual suspects aren’t playing at their best.

I don’t want to condemn the lad from the first game. You know, I hope he comes good, but I’m more than doubting he ever will.

If you want to take your mind off things, here’s something to do…

[email protected]
[email protected]

They are 2 email addresses for a company that has pulled out of advertising on Steve Cohen’s show.

I actually recieve emails from Cohen’s side now. Daft bastards. They sent me one saying this company, VIP Communications, has pulled out but they are organising an email campaign to get them back on side.

Well, don’t let them. Use the addresses to congratulate them for refusing to advertise on World Soccer Daily, Cohen’s show, but that you will revert to boycotting them if they go back to advertising on the show due to the pressure put on them by Cohen and his supporters.

Sorry to bring this up. I remember the days when supporting LFC just meant going the match and having a laugh with the lads, and I can’t wait until it’s just that again. But this deserves our support.

I’m in the house on me todd, with nothing to do. So, I just went and looked at some of the comments during and after the match…. thank fuck. Something to finally cheer me up after all the doom and gloom of today. I don’t think I’ve laughed in here like that since Alex Ferguson shit his kecks on his way to work.

Where was wee KK today? We need him and his sidekick in here. It’s been a bit light on the laugh side lately.

KK and Dizzy don’t be sneaking about out there spying, come in and cheer us all up. But Dizzy do us a favour lad, knock that text speak melarkey on the head. I have to bring in me 3 year old grandaughter as a translator.

FS, I no wat u mean. It wud b gr8 if every1 spoke england!

So I see that chel$ki are 1 nil down at HT. They must be crap in a kneejerk world.

BTW, you were warned about going over the match comments! Madness!

omg FS its gr8 tkin dis way. ur miles outta touch old skool lol

where’s your predictions RR?

Lurgan you beat me to it. great minds an all that. well my little experiment didn’t work i shall not be posting my bets on here again. fucking £300 was coming just when I’ve two weddings round the corner. I turn 30 on Thursday all i want is a Liverpool win when i wake up.

No worries mate, and I made a few shillings from it, so no harm done. In fact I enjoyed the sweat!

Nice to hear that you have a few potential wives on the go

At least you have a few choices, unlike Rafa.

Am right here FS .. And i still dont think i said anything wrong ..
No matter how badly i want liverpool to win teh title, i just dont see it happening with such lack of quality in our squad … and i mean PROVEN quality … not just potential-quality players .. For us, gerrard and Torres will not perform every day … and we need other players to take that responsibility and come out good.. Yes i agree it was the first game but the way the team performed disappointed me big time .. We need the likes of Lucas and Babel to perform now .. you cant discount this fact by saying that the whole team played shite ..

OK M8 No probs. USOS?

OK, 3-1 to Chel$ki, so I shall shut me gob for now on!

According to Sly Sports we are closing in on a deal bringing 30-year-old Greek defender Sotiris Kyrgiakos to Anfield. Apparently he’s already travelling to England to undergo the medical. A cheap but nonetheless welcome option in the CB position. He’s said to be as tall as Sami. Don’t expect him to be anywhere near as good, but who knows?

Anyway, there’s no reason to believe in this quite yet. Just felt the need to write something positive for once.

Sachem, it is open to debate if this is good news or just an indication of how bad things are, money wise, for LFC. Personally I would go for the latter!

Hope you’re right but not holding my breath.

Oh Lord …. Hey Gerry, is this one of our 2 signings? A real pity the news broke about Kyrgiakos as we’ll have to fight off late bids from Madrid, Arsenal, Man City, Cowdenbeath, Longford Town, Aldershot and the leaders of the blue square southern section whose name escapes me right now …

Sach, I know you’re trying to be positive, but I’m at a loss to understand how a player who you “don’t expect to be anywhere near as good as Sami” is welcome news.

Ayala outfitted himself very well in a high pressure situation on Sunday, and Kelly has shown himself to be both hungry and capable, so why go for some washed up 30 year old Greek fella with no Prem experience when people are always screaming for us to “give youth a chance”???

And FS, I’m assuming now you’ve read the first 100 posts, you understand where I was coming from in #223.

I am in complete agreement with your stance on our owners and am of the mind that I think Rafa will dig his heels in rather than fuck off home with his ball.
I know everyone has their breaking point, but I just don’t see the man as a quitter. He’s a man on a mission with a point to prove to the English media, and in my opinion… He’ll do it… IN-SPITE of our owners.

I’d like to make one other point.

One of the ideas a lot of people use as a stick to beat Rafa with, is this idea that he doesn’t put an arm around the shoulder and encourage players, who might have fragile confidence.

Yet these same people fail to understand that we the fans, have our own “arm around the shoulder” role to play with these players and picking on Babel and Lucas as the “reason our Prem challenge is over” (AFTER 1 fuckin game???) is hardly the way to support and encourage our mighty reds.

I doubt they come in here, but you can bet your miserable arse these “opinions” get back to them!

For instance… I wish when people talk about Lucas they’d at least try to frame it in the context of him having been a star youth player in Brazil… having made the move to play 6000 miles away from home, friends and family… and having to play in the shadows (and they are pretty fuckin considerable shadows) of SG, Xabi and Monster… (all while getting booed by his own fans)(Nice!)

The fact that this kid still shows for and wants the ball, shows me he has more character than some posters on here.

…so having said that…. I doubt we’ll hold a clean sheet tomorrow, given our defensive “issues”, but I fancy us to respond with a comfy 3-1 win.

I think this Kyrgiakos guy is a case of the old finger in the dyke
( sure theres a joke in there somewhere ) and just a stopgap till we
can upgrade him in a couple of years.At 30 he wont mind sitting on the
bench and having played for Rangers he’ll be used to the “physical”
side of things, and bring a bit more international experience when
training with the youngsters as he’s scored more goals than any of our
defenders.
The fact we dont seem to have any money is worrying but whats more
worrying is where’s Digger.

For instance… I wish when people talk about Kyrgiakos they’d at least try to frame it in the context of him having been a star youth player in Greece… having made the move to play 2000 miles away from home, friends and family… and having to play in the shadows (and they are pretty fuckin considerable shadows) of Carra,Dagger and Ninja… (all while getting called washed -up by his own fans)(Nice!)

He hasn’t played a single minute in the considerable shadows of Carra, Digger or Skrtel… or in a Red shirt
His own fans would be Greek since he isn’t a Red yet. (or Ranger’s fans maybe?) So okay, maybe “washed up” was harsh, but he’s not a red yet and I’d sooner put my support behind a youth I’ve seen play than some Greek fella I’ve not heard of or seen play.

And I’ve never heard of him, other than that he’s perhaps “not quite as good as Hyppia” and “played for Rangers, so is used to the physical side” so where’s the context again rome????

Put him in the shadows, considerable or otherwise, of the Rangers squad defenders, or even the Greek national side… if you Must try to use my argument against me… I’d have expected better from you rome!

PS Aitch You know i’m joking don’t you, would have put one of those
smiley faces but can’t do it on ps3 and hate LOL.

Didnt think you’d bite so quick.

Sorry rome, been a bit snappy since I got that Eddie Gravatar… (that’s my excuse and I’m stickin to it.)

I had an idea you were just tugging it, and didn’t mean my reply to sound so caustic… but people often try to twist your words against you in here.

I made a case for dropping SG back into midfield when the Xabi rumors first started flying about 8 or 9 blogs ago and my words got completely twisted and used as evidence of me having some sort of personal vendetta against SG… it took forever to talk people down off their ledge over that one and get them to see what I had actually said rather than what it was insinuated I’d said.

Maybe I’m getting too touchy in my old age… but I feel the beginnings of a definite split amongst the fans coming, like during Ged’s final season… and get testy when people misquote me.

No worry’s mate for the last 3 weeks ive had bad back pain and not been
getting any sleep.So i finally went to the doc’s today ,1 tablet later i feel fine
and in a great mood ( sleep patterns still messed up ) hence the wind up at 3am
If Mr D.agger is reading this Diclofenac is what you need,soon get you back on
the field.
YNWA

PS Got the bad back from coughing when i had Swine flu.
Bit of a bad month really.

Having disappeared without a trace after getting the stuffing beaten out of him (and FS didn’t even have to say anything, for that matter) for making that disgraceful and naively premature “I told you so” post in #40, in the same venomous vein as his infamous predecessor who holds his namesake, it’s funny how I’m beginning to miss that guy Kopking.

(Perhaps it’s a hidden perverse pleasure to want to see him react childishly again and prove ourselves “superior” to him, thus stroking our own egos. )

Anyway, jokes aside, KK, if you have genuinely reflected on why you were pummeled so badly and learned your errors, you’re welcome to come back. The opposite is true if you don’t.

Anyway, tonight we take on Stoke, the ultimate Bus-Parkers. I won’t say anything else for fear of jinxing the game in anyway, so I’ll just pray to Fowler down under in Queensland to bless us all.

Lads, frustrations doesnt beging to describe how i am feeling at the moment. Put simply, G&H are wankers.

FS, I agree when you suggested Parry and Moores arent really the ones to blame, but surely some basic due diligence work may have prevented this. I mean, members of this forum were able to find background information (regarding past dealings and failures) of G&H with the use of a search engine yet the owners selling their “beloved” club overlooked these aspects.

We have definately taken a large step Back. 5 years ago we were unhappy with only receiving 20mil a year on transfers, yet this year we are no better. Having looked at our ins and outs we should have at least 10-20mil in the coffers, yet this is not the case (i was excited at getting one more quality player)

But enough of my complaining and bringing up what has already been discussed.

On to this Sotiris Kyrgiakos lad. For 1.5Stg i think it is some sensible business. I know the lad has had some international experience and is a physical player. Whilst we can always use our younger lads in defence, sometimes you need a real hardened player in certain games. I have no issue with Rafa going out and buying him.
However i think digger and burgerman may demand rafa use that money to buy David Villa or some other named player (from their experience on football manager).

Rant over, looing forward to stoke.

When I said I don’t expect Kyrgiakos to be anywhere near as good as Sami, I meant I don’t expect him to give us brilliant performances at places like Old Trafford when given a last minute call. I don’t expect him to be a Liverpool supporter from the start and I don’t expect him to as respected among team mates and opponents as Sami was.

That being said, I still think he will do a better job for us than lads like Ayala for the time being. Otherwise, why would Rafa sign him? I think Rafa will say he has quality and experience and I’d choose that over promise and inexperience any day.

1.5 million wasted if you ask me. Why didn’t we put a bid in for messi? That’s the type of player we need to take us to the next level, not some sweaty kebab eating greek pub player. Rafa has lost the plot and must go – now!!! Where’s Klinnsman when you need him.

I think we should buy Maradona, Pele, Beckenbauer, Rumminigge, Kenny Dalglish, Messi and Ryan Shawcross. We would conquer the bloody world and build Liverpool up into a bastion of invincibility and everyone would have to give in or submit.

KDLL, personally I would go for Zico instead of Rummenigge. Deadly at free-kicks and vital for the bus-parkers.

Don’t want to open that can of worms though

Indeed Aitch, your avatar suits you. Good posts BTW.

Lurgankop we should buy Zico as well as not instead of! Socrates, Cruyyf and maybe Hansen because we’re short in defence.

Pardon my butting in…there is a fantastic(!) Malaysian player we could buy at less than 1.5M…fantastic because he did score two against Manc recently.

Bring back Titi Camara!

And Ronnie Rosenthal!

Rafa said he left Riera out because he had not had enough pre-season training. Benny got left on the bench due to sore ribs. My side against Stoke would be….

Reina
Johnson, Carra Skrtel, Dossena
Kuyt, Gerrard, Lucas, Riera
Benny
Torres

Seems about right LB.

Tough call between Insua and Dosser though. Personally, I would stick with Insua, as he does get up and down the flank well and can put in a decent cross.

Lucas over Monster LB? Is that a typo? Dosser over Insua? explain please.

KDLL, I am not sure that this is a match were Monster’s breaking up play capabilities are really needed. Lucas would provide us with a more attacking option.

On top of this, Stoke will probably bypass midfield altogether. So we could probably play a 4-1-5 formation if we wanted!

Lurgan, Stoke probably wouldn’t even bother with attacking, relying on us to lose possession and hope the ball goes out of play in our half so they can make their annoyingly long throw-ins into our box. Otherwise, it’s going to be 10-0-0, the ultimate Bus-Parkers, as I’ve said.

Their aim last season was probably staying up with 38 points, i.e. at least 1 pt per match. Anything else is a bonus for anti-football scum like them.

Now, now Kinny your bitterness is coming through. I am no fan of their “football” is the loosest sense of the word but they were skint and crap so they did what they had to do and their fans backed them I bet Newcastle would give their right feet to be in their position.

I don’t have a problem with Lucas, but LB normally does. Is he winning you over LB.

Alright lads,

I really am frustrated with all this off the pitch crap thats going on again.The two pricks are really making Rafa`s life very difficult altogether and it`s a credit to the man for getting on with it.

As for the game hopefully we`ll get a positve reaction and an early goal tonight to open the floodgates.

My team would be:

Pepe

glenda,carra,Kelly/ayala,insua

mash gerrard

kuyt,benny,riera

torres

If Babel,Voronin and Degen were sold for a combined £12 mill, that would leave room for 2 or 3 more signings.We have 2 players for each position, a squad of 23 players is optimum.2-0 to the Reds: Gerrard 21 and Kuyt 58.

burgerman nobody wants Degan, except maybe that German doctor who does public post mortems to see how a man apparently made of glass functions in daily life. Voronin, didn’t see many takers for him and Babel I think he’s in the last chance saloon.

My team

Pepe

Degan san jose shawcross arbeloa

anderson alonso molby babel

ronnie rosenthal

sean dundee

I have a question for anybody willing to answer. First of all many people either complain that we don’t buy that quality player, then others complain that our squad is too thin. Now clearly Rafa cannot do both. He either buys those quality players at higher prices or those lesser quality players at lower prices not guaranteed to shine. Clearly Rafa had to strengthen the squad before with a crappy budget so how can we complain if some of those players don’t work out? We see clearly that premier league experienced players are overpriced. Shawcross etc all will cost over 10 million so what do we want exactly?
Has anybody looked at how much the other teams have wasted yet nobody talks shit about their managers who clearly have alot more money to burn and boy do they burn it! Mourinho bought how many players who are not there anymore? Fergie as well…Redknapp has also spent loads and many of his have not worked out… yet he can still afford to buy defoe, crouch, and is still in the market for more.
What do we want exactly? Knowing the budget we have, should we have a quality players but a thin squad or more squad players in a team of overall lower quality. We might be a top four team but we don’t have the depth to match even the other top 4 or 5.
The owners are complete assholes for letting this happen to one of the greatest ever clubs in Europe.

Kenny, I would like Lucas to get a run while Aquilani is out. I don’t mean charity appearances either. He’s earned a place in the team through his performances in pre-season. I thought he did ok against Spurs, not great by any means but ok. It’s Masch I was a bit peeved with. I’m going to be careful with what I say here because I know most of you lads are big Masch fans, I was as well. But he is beginning to piss me off. When he first signed he was a revelation but since we signed him on a permanent contract his performances has slightly dropped in my opinion. In some games his passing is shocking and I don’t think it’s because he lacks the ability to pass the ball. I think that in some games he lacks the motivation to play at his maximum level. It’s clear to us all now that he wanted to fuck off and play with his mate Messi at Barcelona. Is his head in the right place? Rafa said he was disappointed that he didn’t get to move to the Nou Camp.

Against Stoke tonight we’ll need players who can pass to red shirts. Lucas keeps the ball ticking over nicely and him and Gerrard should be able to control the match. I’d play Benny and Riera because we’ll need players who can run with the ball against the bus parkers. Stoke will launch it, so I don’t see the need to have a destructive midfield player in the game.

Someone needs to tell Masch that he isn’t as good as he thinks he is. Not so long ago he couldn’t get a game at West Ham and they had Hayden Mullins and Nigel Ria-Coca in their midfield. All of a sudden he thinks he is the best thing since sliced bread because he is captain of Argentina.

Is 2night’s game available on the web?.Cheers.

KDLFCL: You mention Sean Dundee in your ‘starting’ XI. Funny that – he is now a ‘pundit’ (and I use the terms very loosely, as his command of the language is not too clever) on Supersport here in SA. And he also admits to being an Arseynil supporter. Forgot that he ‘played’ for the Reds. Embarrasing.

LB: I am a monster fan but I agree with what you’ve said. I am married to a Latin woman and I know a fair bit about Latin temperaments and when things aren’t going their way they are sulkers.

Hi lads!

I have been following this forum for sometime now and i can surely say that it belongs to die hard Liverpool fans. It also belongs to those whose optimism i can only admire. On a few occasions i had difference of opinions with some of the senior fans here namely FS.

The most recent one was w.r.t Alonso leaving us. A group of people here believes that we can cope with his departure and go one better this season. I was not of that view and i am still not. I am certainly not throwing in the towel following our defeat at Spurs.

I think Rafa is a great manager which is why we are dreaming of winning the title. He has done a great job. Our American owners who were suppose to make us richer have got it horribly wrong.

As much as we try to deny it, we are weaker this season. We are hoping that Aquliani can make that difference but we dont know who will fill the void left by Alonso? Some respected followers like FS say we dont need to play that style anymore. We can instead have two attacking midfielders and stop crying about Alonso. Only time will tell whether we can play like that or not.

In my view, Voronin, Babel, Lucas are very risky bets to win us the title. I would like to see Ayala,Insua,Pacheo,Spearing to be given more chance.

Hoping for a win against Stoke.

@Idhawan

Whatever you are saying is correct. But then the expectation of winning the title is what results in making people say these things.

Already the papers have started talking about we have lost the chance to capitalize on ManU’s loss of 2 players, A new coach at Chelsea, Arsenal’s lack of buying etc etc.

It all comes with the great expectation of winning the title mate. In order to win the EPL, you need the financial strength.

Rrgarding the depth of squad, the other day Tottenham’s striking department had better established players like us. We are clearly short in supporting Torres. I fear for the lad given the way defenders are distracting him with their physical approach.

Been depressed since 5.45 Sunday Rome. Not much to say really. When Pepes our motm that says it all dosent it? Anyway good comment Akka, way to take everything I say and distort it out of all context. Who said anything about Villa? I said I wanted Cryuff and Beckenbaur. Sheesh. Well at least you’re paying attention. Kinny, ever been an 18yr old full of piss n’ vinegar? Exactly. So ‘big’ of you to pardon the lad and welcome him back. Cringe inducing post mate. I like Kennys team for tonight!

Hi gang,

Good to see Somnath07in and Digger. Been a while boys.

My team is same as LB. One small small ray of hope is Stoke did “improve” quality-wise after mid-season buys last year and they may be tempted to play a little ball tonight. Bring it on boys we’ll play ball with you anytime. But it is a small ray of hope I admit.

An early goal in each half, thanks God !

By the way Rome77, i did the same thing to my back by sneezing a few years ago and went to a chinese acupuncturist. One treatment and cured ! Good luck.

knight, if you’re reading this, just wanna say that i’ll be down at the cobra tonight. seems like the lads there will be screening the game via satellite tv from south africa, i think. i dunno the full details. tis only my second time there. in case u’re showing up too, plse look me up. i’ll be wearing a red champions league athens 2007 final t-shirt. i’d like to say hi.

btw, to the rest of the lads here, the game will start 3am here in kuala lumpur (malaysia). might as well be at the cobra, doubt if i’ll get any sleep tonight if i stay home. damn jittery.

Noticed something today , i’ve got one of those green CL top’s wore it 3 times
whilst watching games Chavs home CL, Athletico home freindly,and Spurs last
Sunday, think i’ll wear the Red one tonight.
YNWA

BM Go to Myp2p.eu you’ll find a link there, you’ll need to download a program
but you get good streams.

Can’t stop. Hate to say this, because it’s only rumour but it from the comments looks like no one’s heard it…. Bookies have suspended betting on Benitez leaving LFC.

I’m having none of it, but Talk Shite is full of it.

Don’t shoot the messenger. Someone had to break it.

Sh*t,

Just seen that rumour too …

Would not surprise me but if the source is Talk Sport I have to consider it bullshit until proven otherwise.

LB I’m having none of it mate. It’s from the bookies but it’s that kunt Paddy Power. I think he does the karoake at Old Toilet. Manc loving knobhead of the worst kind.

But it was Quinny who said he’d heard things but didn’t really want to talk about it and he said he wouldn’t talk about it until it’s concrete.

You can’t get a bigger Red than Quinny. So, I hope he’s just heard rumour and nothing from inside the club

The rumour is Rafa told the yanks to fuck off and stormed out of Anfield. That’s all I’m saying on it for now. We’ll soon know when we take the field against Stoke.

Wouldn`t blame the man if it were true FS.

Just called me mate. He’s at Anfield and Rafa is in there walking around, talking, laughing, joking. Looks like more media shit to undermine us.

Didn’t mean to panic anyone but thought I should let you know. Just fucking shows you… even the bookies look as if they’re out to do us in now.

Someone’s scared, then eh.

For fuck sake FS thats just the type of shite that rattles my cage. Them fucking wank bags in the media love the idea of us falling apart but when bookies start it then ya just gotta wonder.
I was laying a bet an the racing post(which i thought just focused on results) have practically said were outta the title race. I mean what the fuck????
This is the reason we need rafa to succeed,it’ll be so sweet ramming it down all the fuck wits throats. I hope like a few have said rafa really digs in his heels and brings us untold success I’ll personally make so many suffer.
I will be amazed if benny doesn’t start tonight and with that we should really do stoke he’ll pick out the necessary passes for torres an gerrard an that should give us a 2 nil win……. here’s hoping anyway.

Fuck it FS you have just given me a heart attack. I literally broke out in a cold sweat and thought know we are truly fucked you can just imagine the knock on effect if it where true.

Thank christ for that FS you put the shits up me there.

Just a thought,i might be clutching at straws and i don`t know anything about finance but does anybody think Gillette is waiting for the sale of his hockey team until Rafa see`s some money?

I`ve heard the sale is set to go through at the end of August.Maybe they are waiting to make sure the deal goes through because if it went tits up at the eleventh hour they would be snookered.Does this make any sense?

I don`t trust these two pricks at all but i`m wondering does would Rafa really put up with being double crossed like that again.There`s has to come a time when enough is enough.

Agian i`m not trying to make excuses for the reason Rafa has no money because lets face it,history has told us we should never trust them but i`m just throwing it out there to see what ye lads think.

Just like when we were about to play R Madrid and that rumour snowballed
untill the bookies stopped taking bets. Probably just the bookies trying to
drum up trade.
Any way 2-1 for tonight with Benitez coming off the bench to score the winner
YNWA

Heart attack victim #3 here. Just happy that the main man is still around.

Now, let’s now focus on a win tonight.

BM, the sopcast and TVU streams usually work best for me. So I would advise you to download and install the apps now, to avoid missing the start of the match.

Well you know you’re in the shit when FS of all people posts a Kopking/burgerman-like kneejerk-bomb rumor he “just heard/read” somewhere!

Didn’t they suspend betting about something similar last seaosn that turned out to be complete bollocks?
Have we learned nothing?

If they are dropping the odds and writing us off… FANTASTIC… that means better odds for us and a bigger pay out for all of us when we go gathering cups in May.

….

Untired and untested kids stay that way unless they get game-time against the likes of Stoke.

If Dagger, Ninja and JC were fit, would any of you want us to be buying this Greek lad as our 4th choice CB?
I suspect the answer would be HELL NO!
So why the fuckin panic buy now?

Blood the kids NOW agaist Stoke, Villa, Bolton, Burnley, West Ham and Hull… Villa and West Ham are the only concerns in that lot… Skrtel and hopefully Dagger too wil be fit by the time we face Chavs and the kids will be 6 games better off as well.

As for today, I agree with LB (I just threw up a little bit in the back of my throat when I typed that)… (just messin LB) … I love Monster, he’s a personal fave, but we don’t need a yard dog against Stoke..
I can’t see Skrtel being fit, so Carra and either Ayala/Kelly at the back, and stick with Insua.
Pair Lucas and SG in the middle and play Benny in the hole.
I’d start Riera if he’s up to it and bring Babel on at 65/70… just to give him a chance to salvage himself.

I envision a passionate bounce back and if we can get a goal in the first 20 minutes to stop the “fans” from getting anxious, we’ll go at least 3-1.

Lads, like I said… don’t shoot the messenger.

I thought long and hard before telling you that, and I didn’t even tell you the full story or where it came from. And, hate to say this, but it’s not over yet.

Please don’t take that wrong. I’m not saying Rafa has walked but apparently there’s been some really harsh words exchanged between Rafa and the Yanks.

No worries FS.

There’s no smoke without fire and if them yank fuckers want Rafa to pay off their debt, then they better be ready to keep their side of the bargain. So keep the titbits of info coming because I am way out of the loop here, even if they may result in a cardiac arrest.

BTW, it will be interesting to hear the reaction of the crowd this evening.

Aitch wash your mouth out wwith soap and water. I am a bit beyond spreading panic for no reason

Yeah, it wasn’t meant as an attack FS, I guess like timmy in regards my earlier comment, I should have added a smiley to the end of that sentence!

I just think its all a bit “Drama-Queen”.
If Rafa spits his dummy and fucks off home, I’ll be well pissed… not coz he’s left us in the lurch… but because I’ve supported the man through thick and thin since the day he arrived.

I backed him during his last toe-to-toe with the owners and when people were slating him for “airing dirty laundry in public” and for my mind, he made us a promise to “return us to our rightful place.”

Now I know, understand, and appreciate that the goalposts have been moved on him since he made that promise, but the promise wasn’t made to the owners, it was made to us… the fans… the ones who have kept faith with him… supported his team/player selections… defended him against the hoardes… not out of blind, rose-tinted suport, but out of an attempt to understand his “plan” for us.
He needs to suck it up and keep faith with us… which I have confidence he’ll do… which is why I wouldn’t give such rumor any credence.

Will he get pissed and storm around Anfield/Melwood? Yes.
Will he get petulent and pissy with the press and bait Fungus? Yes.

How else is he gonna get his frustrations out?

I just believe he’s a bigger man than leaving us in the lurch, (or letting those two fuckwits get the better of him.) (Seriously he’ll win the Prem as much for us as just to spite those two fuckers!
Rafa knows the score. (I just thought you were on the same side of the fence as me in that regard.)

Aitch you can build a thousand bridges in your lifetime. You shag one sheep. Do they call you a bridge builder?

1 – 0 Torres

Ha ha FS. Good point.

Why does that asshole matt(the fat fuck)le tisser hate liverpool so much?
He’s praying for stoke to score, and laughing at insua getting forward. COCK!!

2-0 JOHNSON. GET FUCKIN IN THERE YOU WE RIPPER

So you use to build bridges FS

Anyway, 2 nil to the redmen and Johnson is pure quality. Sharp as fuck at the moment. Long may it continue.

Honourable mention for Lucas as well. Stevie G and Torres still of the boil.

Thanks for the website info.Have to score 2 to win the game.Ayala looks very shaky.We don’t want a 1-1.Paddy Powers real name is Ken Robertson and like the CEO of the company Pat Kennedy is a big Liverpol fan.Take a look @ Mike Parry on talksport.co.uk home page!.Could Dossena play centre-half?.

one gripe – yes there had to be one – was the amount of unnecessary free-kicks that we gave them for a 10-15 minute period in the middle of the first half.

Stay on your feet lads!!!!

2 should be enough, but get a 3rd early on and it’s over.

Pepe you beauuurtttyyyy!

..and the Manc Wanks are down 1-0 with 30 mins to go. Lurv it!

Great play by Stevie G for the 3rd Goal.

On top of this, the mancs had just been beaten by Burnley

What a difference a few hours make!

Great performance and the Mancs concede with the last kick of the game!.

BM, Burnley scored after 19 minutes but great to see all the same

MOTM: Mrs Glenda Jackson

WE’RE GONNA WIN THE LEAGUE!

Fuck it if there’s gonna be kneeejerking I might aswell have my go.

Got a bit carried away, watching 2 games simultaneously.Who won the competition?.

Totally agree FS.

Fantastic effort today. Boys didnt look completely sharp which is exciting as they can only get better. Benny played extremely well and will battle for a sport with Albert. What about Glenda’s and Kuyts understanding? Youd think they have been playing together for years.

Kopking, where are you mate? Any more “i told you so’s”?

thats the best birthday present ever. just fantastic. I’m away to bed a happy camper,when i wake my 20′s will be no more…… roll on being a cynical oul bastard!

YNWA

N’gog’s goal was really an icing on the cake :p

Amazing the way our moods swing with the first 2 games of the season and as I said earlier we are 2 points better off than we were last seaon from the same fixtures.

Johnson seems to have played a stormer. Still he can’t play every game. Do people think Kelly will get a run as cover ?

Neilob, i think Rafa will begin to sub Johnson early when games are closed out aswell as giving Kelly a run. However i think this will only occur once Skrtel and Agger are fit, as you dont want too many inexperienced players in the back line at the same time.

1st clean sheet of the season. 1st step to another golden gloves for our pepe.

Yeah well now ManU title chances have gone loosing to Burnley it will be interesting to see the press reports tomorrow.

If Alonso was playing we would have won 10-0, oh right we drew 0-0 twice with him last year. 2 points better off then the corresponding fixtures from last year, but still out of the title race, go figure.

It was pleasing to see the way we played, yes a few shaky moments at the back but what can you expect from an 18 year old. I thought he was immense, well done lad. Johnson is sheer class and with Insua we have such great attacking options that we did not have last year. Good team performance and you can start to see us clicking back into form, much better than the start last year where we struggled to look convincing but still won. Yes not perfect, but we will be much steadier when our defense is back to full strength and we still need to sharpen up a bit more but that will come with matches.

Pepe has started the year fantastically as well and must be the best keeper around at the moment. The critics have been quiet. Very mature performance from Lucas and with teams sitting deep it is interesting to see us push much higher than we did with Alosno, it worked, only Masch stays deep. Sign of things to come against the teams that come to defend. Aquilani will add to that with speed and skill, very pleased. Only hope Rafa remains cool and this does not blow up and overshadow everything that he has accomplished and will accomplish with this team. Still young as well and can only get better.

Hmmmmm…… That’s the way .. I like it …..

I don’t know how they played,
That’s the first win,
That’s one of our bogey teams whacked,
That’s a goal for Torres, he has to score regularly,
That’s confidence flowing in the camp,
Goal for Glenda, big boost !
Goal for Ngog, big boost !
One in the arse for talkshi*e

So how did they play? let’s have some good ol’fashioned kneejerk analysis please.

Missing out on some snippets over here, what’s going on with Mr B, news claims he is under pressure. What I did notice was how quick he left the field, straight into the tunnel and gone. Is something happening over their, I’ve been on holidays couldn’t catch up.
.
Now on to football, Johnson was fantastic today, 4-0 is a great score.

So moussaka all round then:

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N165487090819-2245.htm

Not sure what to make of this!

Watching games it has always struck me how much of the ball the 2 full-backs see and we did not have great attacking options in the recent past. But watching Johnson and Insua tonight, I was very excited.

We seem to have picked up right where we left off last season with that performance.

Benny is such a positive and intelligent player.

FS, I want to go on record right here, right now, as saying that I was extremely drunk at the time…
… and my mates all dared me to do it…
…And you know you can’t let them get the better of you when they dare you…
You have to do it to shut them up.

And if I could be Frank, though I’ll be Earnest if you’d rather, the experience wasn’t all that baaaaahd!

But I’ve never built a bridge, though I have watched Bridge On The River Kwai more than a few times.

Good result Lads..didn’t get the game over here.
Aitch any news on whats going on with coverage from FSC and Setanta?
They are showing the game Tomorrow night over here.I can’t find a listing for the Villa game on Monday either.?
By what I have read Gerrards ball to Kuyt for the third was a “thing of beauty”..
Isn’t great to support LFC???????

Reds game wasn’t televised here, but i did watch the 2nd half of Burnley/Scum… and loved every fuckin minute of the growing desperation!

Fungus holding his arm out and pointing at his watch, when Burley took their time taking a throw in…. at 65 minutes… pathetic red-nosed cunt… (but I’ll tell you how I really feel about him at another time.)

Rooney looking at his teammates with that “do I have to do this all by myself” look on his face… when he wasn’t doing much more than anyone else… lovely.

They are gonna get more of these results this season without Winker to bail them out and they are going to get increasingly frustrated… its gonna be glorious to watch!

I wonder (only for a moment though, coz I don’t really give a fuck about them) if their fans are calling for Fungus’ head and talking about their title callenge being over?

Well lads I’ll admit I’ve come in here to gloat, I was lucky enough to score a ticket to the game tonight. FS just to let you know, your mate sorted me with a ticket but I gave it back to him (no issues, someone else took it) because Dan Agger came through with the goods and I got a seat in the players’ family box instead! I still owe you a pint for helping me out though mate.

So I swear to god I just watched the game sitting next to Pepe Reina’s missus Yolanda (who is smoking hot by the way), and my mate tells me I was also sitting behind Torres’ father Jose, who asked me (in Spanish) if it was true that Man U were losing at half time!

Anyway I’m obviously pretty happy with the night’s proceedings. But onto the game. Johnson is rightly getting plaudits for a great game, but full credit also should go to Lucas, Benayoun and Kuyt who were all fantastic too. Actually when you win 4-0, everyone tends to be fantastic don’t they!

It looks like our right side is going to be very strong attacking this year. Kuyt and GJ will forge an even greater understanding and we should keep hammering them from that side. The challenge is on for the left side to try and step up too. Benayoun was brilliant, but as usual most of his good work happens inside, not so much out wide, so Insua is going to have to work with that.

Not liking the sounds of these Rafa rumours but having heard them after the 4-0 win I’m not going to let them ruin my mood… my gut feeling is that Rafa is not the type of guy to walk out during a season, but it perhaps wouldn’t look good for the end of the season as you’d have to ask, what promises would he stick around for now?

Redscouse, I’m playing it by ear mate.

I kept my Setanta subscription over the summer, in the hopes that after they got bought out, it’d be business as usual. (and coz I sorta got hooked on Aussie Footy when I was in Melbourne last Spring)

The opening weekend was pretty much business as usual, with every game televised between FSC and Setanta, but it seemed like the UEFA games took priority in midweek.

But I just found this link today, so hopefully that’ll help us stay on top of things.
ttp://www.livesoccertv.com/competitions/england/premier-league/

Well there you go, bloody mancs. But no, the media fails to report anything about it but to say a shocking win for Burnley.

Andy, you lucky sod!!! How the hell did that happen? Need to get meself a plane to the UK sooner or later….

“Benitez quipped: ‘We are at the top of the table now with 23 stitches. Carra, Torres and Skrtel. I haven’t seen how many Torres has but I can guarantee you it’s 10 or more.’ ”

CLASSIC!

Redscouse- the match will be aired on Thursday night at 8pm Eastern time on FSC. I haven’t seen any coverage of the Villa match on Monday. I don’t have the Setanta package so I’m not sure if it’s there or not.

I gotta admit, the FSC coverage of these CL qualifiers is much better than what ESPN offered. They’ve showed 6 of the qualifiers over the past two days. We never got a qualifier from ESPN.

Rumor has it that all the Prem and CL games on FSC will be shown in HD after the New Year. Can’t wait.

Andy-what a dream night you had at Anfield. Was it you first visit?

Your experience watching the game couldn’t have been cooler than mine. I sat at my desk pretending to work while sitting next to my boss and keeping updated on an internet forum. Who really had the better experience?

I have to admit, I’m quiet envious of you evening.

Reports of the demise of Liverpool’s title challenge has been greatly exaggerated.

Why don’t the media go an analyze what a disaster it has been for the Scum with the lost their penalty scoring Wanker? And how this means the beginning of the end for them? They can still win penalties, but they can no longer score them, even against the likes of Burnley.

Fucking hypocrites these media hacks are.

Oh and Kopking, sorry but I just couldn’t resist, where are your oh-so-wise words of wisdom now about how our season is going down the drain? (In respect to the Scum as well, whom we’ve now overtaken by goal differences. ) Next time, stop making such idiotic “I-told-you-so” statements or even I will have to join the rest in going medieval with you.

Let this result be a warning to all those who dare contemplate parking their bus when playing against Liverpool – RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

That’s the demons of those two undeserved draws against Stoke half-exorcised for now.

Aitch : I am up in Wyoming on Business and was channel surfing, I came across ESPN2 showing the Galaxy.v Chicago game . they said that they are showing English prem games on ESPN this season.
They went on to show that they will be showing the Liverpool Villa game live on Monday..
Let’s hope they don’t use American Commentators though.

I wonder what all the doomsayers are thinking now…

4-0 to us…and the mancs lose…

Really – some people have taking overreacting to an all time high…

No doubt they will all be saying were champions already…

HEY LADS THE KOPBLOG HEAD TO HEAD LEAGUE WILL START THIS WEENEND

SO ENTER YOUR TEAM UNDER THIS CODE

577752-280448

Sorry for caps

Over and out

Seeing a lot of people are wondering how the media/press will react to last night’s results, I thought we could have a little quiz….
Mancs 6 changes from Sunday’s team that had a rather fortunate 1-0 win against a newly promoted team.
Owen first ever game with Rooney.

Will that go down as
A:Rotation?
B:Experiment?
C:Doom and Gloom?
D:Fergie lost the plot, doesn’t know his best team?
E:Blip?

No prizes for getting that one right.

As for the Rafa rumour…
I heard it early afternoon yesterday, but said nothing. I only decided to post it when it looked like something had happened and I thought I’d best let you good people know, but I still said it sounded like kack to me. Since then, this is what I’ve been told…
Rafa did kick off on the yanks yesterday afternoon and he did storm out of Anfield.
A famous ex-player (Not naming him) let the cat out of the bag. 2+2 got put together and the rumour started flying round Liverpool. Once word got out, a few people threw big bets on Rafa losing/leaving his job. This led bookmakers to close the book on Rafa losing/leaving his job. Micky Quinn got hold of it, and he broke the news on Talk Shite, but also said he didn’t believe it.
Paddy Power (The famous Irish bookie, and yes BM, the Manc loving knobhead) came on Talk Shite gloating. This led to the rumour growing like wild fire, and I thought it was time to let you lads know what was going on.

But now Rafa has even said himself that there is no problem. So, hopefully, that is the end of it.

QUIZ ANSWER: All wrong. Nothing happened at all. In fact, it all didn’t happen, normal service has been resumed at British Media HQ.

PS: Nice one Andy

Can you believe on the main site they are slating Lucas, what does this lad have to do to get a fair deal. They expect killer passes of every ball, sometimes the simple ball, keeping it moving, keeping possession is the way to break teams down instead of trying the killer passes at every opportunity and giving possession away. Kuyts goal was a prime example of that moving it around until an opportunity presented itself. The intelligence and expectations of some fans is beyond dumb at times. The watch too many highlight packages and expect the game to mirror that. Fuck it irritates me.

Thanks for the update FS

Hope this is true and the focus can be on getting #19.

http://www.espnstar.com/football/premier-league/news/detail/item309408/Benitez:-I-am-not-quitting-Kop/

Fuck all the doom and gloom. Take a look at this…
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=feed&id=656860650#/group.php?gid=119938629470&ref=nf

Harry is a wonderful human being and I am proud to be able to call him my friend. Sounds a bit mushy that, but it’s true. Harry is a cracking lad.

Hope that’s the right link. For Marina Dalglish’s charity, Harry is riding a moped to every club that is in this season’s Champion’s league.

He’s a lovely fella, but mad as a bag of monkey’s.

Keith, you can thank Sky, The Premiereship, the internet and good old greed for that… 75% of people now “support” a football team. Each one of the dozey fucker’s has an opinion, a divine right to air them and thanks to the internet a way of doing so.

All you can do is laugh at them or ignore them.

Anyway, this might be a better link to see what Harry’s up to now…
http://www.appealmobile2.blogspot.com/

Just saw the MOTD highlights

they’re bigging up Glenda bigtime
and rightly so he’s been class

Im gonna download the full game before I make more comments on it

Apparently Liverpool in for Van der Vaart
maybe the yanks are gonna fork out for him to make Rafa happy
I think he’s a class player ………..we’ll have alot of attacking Midfielders if we get him

Looks like the Greek lad will sign

Good luck to him

Well done to Mark Cambron for a good start in the Fantasy league

Over and out

BTW it was only MOTD but Insua looked like he put in a good performance yesterday

Any insingt Andy seen as you had a birdseye view of the game or were you too busy looking at Pepe’s missus’s tits?
Yeah ……………Im jealous

Over and out

Glen Johnson will be an excellent addition for us and to be honest although everyone says his defending is suspect, do we really want him or will we need him to be defending? We want him attacking. That’s what we said Arbeloa lacked. Lucas had a good game, the guy on the main site is talking out of his backside. Danny Ayala impressed me as well he was excellent, and nice to see business resumed with Kuyt, Benny, Nando and Stevie G. His turn for the 3rd goal was sublime and if it was winker we’d still be hearing about it and watching it on Match of the Day credits for years to come. Another thing that pleased me was four different goalscorers, that’s what we’ll need to do this season, share the goals around.

Yes I’ve been to the university and got my diploma for stating the bleeding obvious.

Even better the manure got beat. Can’t use the first game shrek n the boy wonder have started together as an excuse didn’t they used to partner each other up front for ingerland?

lads,
only seen a few different highlight packages on line, but I was impressed with what i saw!! one point regarding lucas, he had a very well controlled, scholes like, shot from the edge of the box, ball broke out and he hit a hard half volley which the keeper struggled to save even though it was nearly straight at him. something we all agree was missing from xabis game was breaking in to the box and having these sorts of efforts. More of the same please lucas.
Johnson looked great, as did insua, he sprinted the full length of the pitch in a break and he did miss his chance badly, but he defo adds pace to the left wing in breaks, I really think the two full backs will make a big difference this year againstthe bus parkers.

Rafa’s took 5 years to get to this stage. It’s been part of the plan from day one, and if he hadn’t have been handicapped by that pair of robbing conning bastards, he would have probably got there quicker.

Sadly, it’s still not the finished article. But all the years of upgrading have led to this… a Valencia like machine.

While we’ve all been screaming wingers for season’s, he has slowly but steadily worked his way to this – a side that doesn’t need wingers, defend from the front, attack from the back.

Johnson’s defence frailities won’t be that much of an issue with Kuyt in front of him, and Kuyt’s defincies (dribbling, crossing, getting to the by-line) will be negated by Johnson’s attacking play.

Check out some old Valencia games from Rafa’s days in charge. You can see what we are becoming.

As for the Manc quiz…
Apparently last night’s defeat to Burnley was a blessing in disguise, the kick up the arse they needed.

I knew if they was given the time, they’d come up with the answer.

Oh and while I’m on the subject of Manc bias… Sammy Lee has been charged for bringing the game into disrepute.

Great result last night, best tonic to get my mind off the boardroom crap. I didn’t see the game, only the goals. May it continue!

Donal, Van Der Vaart’s wife is in Germany getting treatment for breast cancer. I believe he wants to go to a German club so he can be nearer to her and look after her. I doubt the rumours linking him with Liverpool are true.

LB, I’ve lost your email address… click on this, [email protected]

A good strong and determined performance last night, and a fully deserved 4-0 victory.

Glen Johnson showed why Rafa bought him. He is as good as any right sided winger in my opinion.

Stoke didn’t cause us too many problems and there will be much more sterner tests to come and then Johnson will have to do more defending but he showed he will get forward whenever he can. Great signing.

S

Great stuff last night. As LB said just the tonic. Man was I depressed Sunday and add to that yesterdays bruhaha and I was reaching for a double dose of Diggers anti-depressant – Miller Genuine Draft! Well done to the lads last night and well done to Rafa for standing up to them 2 fucken parasites.

Watch out for that MGD Digger. It used to give me more runs than Freddie Flintoff.

Max Munton has writen a very good article on the main site today about what Glen Johnson brings to this Liverpool side. Well worth a read.

Fabulous result for Burnley too. It’s always a pleasure to see the Mancs lose and hopefully they will be feeling the heat ahead of their trip to Wigan at the weekend.

Right lads after watching the game in full I’ll off me humble opinion

Pepe/ class when called upon and Andy reckons his missus is hot so fair play

Insua/ for me excellent performance both going forward and defending (It goes to show what a bit of confidence can do)

Alaya/ Excellence performance did all the simple things well great in the air and will benefit from some confidence

Carra/ His Marshalling gave Alaya great confidence in his play overall great maturity and good job as vice captain

Glen/ excellent going forward and seems like he gives us the ‘Ronaldo factor’

Benny/ showed far more inventiveness than Babel did in that position and was commited as always, excellent 2nd half performance

masg/ Was a ball magnet and passing improved 100% from Spurs

Lucas/ Solid performance, I’m looking forward till this guy’s confidence rockets and see how good he is going forward

Dirk/ Solid again not exceptional but I think his hard work was one of the reasons for Glens great display. He missed a sitter but scored a real strikers goal

stevie/ Class act and still doesnt look at full whack cant wait for the next few games

torres/ same as stevie but deserves extra credit for trying o win headers with 9 staples in his eyebrow seems like the ball sticks to his foot like a magnet also and great to see him getting on the score sheet

Subs

Riera/ looked hungry and sharp
Voro/ was everywhere and did well
N’Gog/ this kid seems to have the knack of being in the right place at the right time and therefore im hoping for more

Over all not great performance but very tidy result

Babel seems to be in the dunce corner unless he gets his finger out but hopefully Rafa has him pegged for a striker

Sorry to hear that LB but hopefully we still sign the lad

thats the craic she said

Over and out and roll on Villa

I like the old rolling rock myself.

Donal, what are we supposed to be doing about this fantasy football melarkey?

Is it only on the days/nights when there is a full fixture list that are we supposed to do anything – predict scores, pick players?

Pre match prediction…
Fatty will walk before Rafa.

Fatty

You make your transfers and predict your scores each game week

for example last weekend was a gameweek as was this midweek
so this weekend is gameweek 3 (start of kopblog head to head)

so before 11:30 bst you change your team accordingly for game week 3

It should send you an email for ewch gameweek nut usually its each week

so make your transfer on Saturday morning ya daft bastard!!

Over and out

Fucked that rah up then mate

If anyone things we our knee-jerk in here you should take a butchers at republic of mancunia site lol its brilliant they are going ballistic they’ve even resorted to slegging each others children. great stuff. truly a class act:D

I only say the highlights so my comments might not reflect how the game went as a whole.
Obviously Johnson was brilliant, but I thought Yossi was equally so. Surely he should start most games from now on. He gives us that something different that no other player on the team does.

Insua was very unlucky not to score his first goal, it was just a fraction outside the post.

Would I be correct in saying that Johnson now has two assists and one goal which equals what Arbeloa
got in all of last season?

Just reading that Agger is going to have back surgery next week and could be out until October? The source is the Danish National Team page, so I’m thinking it’s legit.

http://www.dbu.dk/news/newsShow.aspx?id=251781

That leads to my next question, are we still short of cover at CB even with our newest signing?

Skrtel is most likely out Monday night against Villa, so will we see one of the kids or Kyrgiakos?

Has the Kyrgiakos deal been done?

What the heck is that main site article on about Lucas being ordinary? It’s already a given fact that Lucas is no Alonso, yet he expects Lucas to make all sorts of wonder pass in order to prove himself.

Also, it is exactly behind-the-scenes efforts like these that need Rafa’s pat on the back more so than the stellar performances of the likes of Gerrard and Torres (and now Johnson), to let them know their contribution is never neglected and forgotten.

lvcjmac:

My Danish is a bit rusty, but doesn’t it just say Agger can’t be ruled out for the internationals in October? As far as I know, it’s still unknown for how long he’ll be out. I’ve heard about estimates of 2-3 weeks, but I suppose back injuries are among the most intricate to deal with for physio’s.

I think Rafa has been well impressed with Ayala at CB, and the lad has certainly not done his chances of playing against Villa on Monday night any harm.

I think though that if the Kyrgiakos deal is done in time then he will partner Carra on Monday, assuming Skrtel misses out through injury again.

Ayala will be called on again this season I’m sure but it is a good thing to have ample cover. Dagger seems to be a bit unlucky with his back but it’s better he stays out long enough to get it sorted rather than rush back too early and put himself back to square one.

We could well have Dagger and Aqualani ready for the first team around the same time.

Even if Kyrgiakos is signed and is available to play on Monday, I would still go with Ayala.

It takes a bit of time for new signings to understand the various defensive systems that Rafa likes to play and their part in the system.

Ayala has done well since called upon and is used to Rafa’s tactics. So I see it as a bigger risk to include the Greek lad straight off the plane.

Watched teh highlights of teh match today and must admit, lucas sent a strong message to his critics including me … I just hope he is consistent with this performance and only improve it in next matches .. we really need our midfield to come strong out of alonso’s departure …

What a difference a early goal not getting disallowed makes, if last years goal
would have stood it would have ended 4-0, but the refs often get it wrong.
I thought Insua looked like a true world class LB in the making ,
Johnson is definitely bringing something special, outstanding goal
Ayala looked really nervous but coped quite well and got plenty of encouragement from the fans.
Torres still not looking sharp but still managed to score.After the cut i didnt think
he’d be back untill the 2nd half. Just when the Stoke defence think their going
to make it to half time, he’s back to unsettle them, which would have helped
with the goal.
Roaring Red i looked on that site ,1 guy is going to “knock Carrick out and
sodomise him ” another wishes he was dead so they can collect on the
insurance. The name Scum definitely apply’s .
YNWA

…and if we beat Villa on Monday we’ll be 4 points better off than the corresponding fixtures last season.

Just watched the game and thought we did very well… big improvement over Sunday… and we really only played at about 75/80% of what these players are capable of.

Keep the fiaith… this is the first of many such results.

Ayala did more than enough to keep his place against Villa… I think it would be harsh in the extreme to replace him with a new player. The spot is his for the Greek fella to win off him, as far as I’m concerned… the way it should be!

Imagine this:

Both Kyrgiakos and Ayala are available for the game against Villa and Rafa has to pick one of them to play next to Carra. As always Rafa calculates the upsides and downsides extremely carefully and finally decides to give Ayala the confidence (there are other reasons for his chose, but none of us know about those when the starting XI is picked). Ayala does well, but unfortunately the ability and physical presence of players like Emile Heskey and Ashley Young among others proves too much to handle for the young defender in a few instances. Villa manage to equalise twice, we get our first home draw of the season.

The media is going to blame Ayala and murder Rafa if this happens. The same thing might of course happen if Kyrgiakos is picked, but he sure seems like a tough player who’s good in the air and that’s why I’d rather see him start against Villa. The best thing would obviously be if Škrtel was available.

I agree Aitch
Alaya did very well and just look what a bit of playing time did for Insua
I think the lad looks class and Aurelio will have a job to do if he wants his left back position back when he returns

Over

Sachem

Alaya looked more than comfortable in the air against a Stoke side that like to bombard teams in the air

Over

So agger will have a back op next tuesday and should be out for a further six weeks. Hopefully this will be the last setback for the dagger lad!

Stoke only played one player up front for the most part. I think we can expect Villa to be a tad more attack minded.

Stoke went looking for a point, and we got an early goal which set the tone for the evening.

We beat Villa at home 5-0 last season but I’d settle for 3 points and a clean sheet right now. We played Villa at Anfield in March (our best month last season) and it may take time to hit those heights again, but it will come.

I think the sensible route will be to go with Ayala and bring the new lad on with 20 minutes to go or sooner if Ayala cannot cope with the physical approach of Heskey, though I thought he cope very well and was better than Carra in the air. I think he has a great future once he matures. It takes time to settle, remember Skertals first game, and he needs a week or so with the squad to understand that dreaded zonal marking system. Yes the same slated system that has won us 3 odd golden glove awards. So to throw him into a match against a good Villa side might be too much of a risk but I am sure Rafa will make the best choice once he has had a look at the lad and worked with him.

What’s going on with some of the articles on the main site? They in my opinion have gone rapidly downhill. The one on Benny Onion – “Rafa is at best an average spotter of a player” “Shunning Benyoun is counter-productive” Eh? What’s this guy on about. The same manager who bought benny, the same manager who has got us into the position were we genuinally have a reason to believe we can win the title. the same manager who has managed to spot these players that have got us into this position.

Up your game please main site. Have a word Gerry please. Maybe we’re spoilt with your insightful blogs.

Yes we are Kenny,this site is one of a kind pal.Credit to Gerry and all the decent posters in here.

Paul Tomkins has written another article its on the official site so Kopking have a butchers at it i think its right up your ally.

Actually,here it is;

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/NG165495090820-1147.htm

I still haven`t seen the game but by all accounts the lads did well.It was just the response we were looking for.

Great article from PT.

Kopking, take timmy’s advice and spend 5 minutes reading it.

SG_Koppite-not to bust balls, but if we beat Villa Monday we’ll still only be two points ahead of last year’s pace.

We won the home fixture against Villa last season, so we need to win the home fixture to maintain our pace.

Now if we beat Villa away in the second half of the season, we will be 4 ahead of last season’s pace.

The Times is reporting that Agger could be out until November? We’ll have played 11 league matches by Oct. 31st, or close to 1/3 of the season without him if that’s the case. Hope Skrtel and Carra can stay healthy.

Daniel Agger, the Liverpool centre back, is to have surgery to resolve the back problem that has troubled him for several months. The Denmark defender has travelled to France, where he will be operated on next week, and it is likely that the recovery period will see him ruled out of action until November at the earliest. Agger has missed Liverpool’s first two matches of the Barclays Premier League campaign having failed to recover from the injury that has plagued him since March.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/liverpool/article6804996.ece

The Mancs have similar problems in the back right now. Vidic looks like he may start this weekend, but the Times is reporting that Ferdinand looks like he’s out for the next month.

HOME FORM

Beat 16 teams outside top 4 = 48 points
Draw with the other 3 = 3 points

AWAY FORM
Beat bottom 10 teams = 30 points
Draw with mid 5 = 5 points
Lose against top 4 = 0 points

TOTAL POINTS = 86

Change any scenario if you feel 86 will not be enough.

YNWA

lvcjmac. My apologies. I’m not too sure why I thought we’re at Villa Park this weekend. Brain fart I guess, or the winter cold in Melbourne is getting to my old self.

November at the earliest? We would really need a player like Agger for a whole season for once. He has some rare qualities for a central defender that can really make the difference. It’s a sad thing his career up until now has been so hampered by injuries. Otherwise I think he would possibly have been regarded as the best CB in the league by now. We will just have to hope this operation clears things out for him. He’s really in a very similar situation to Aquilani. They have both shown great potential in their respective teams, but most people would be regarded as world class players if it wasn’t for all those injuries.

If one tries to see the positive side of this, which is usually a desirable thing to do, we would still be a very strong team this season even if their injury troubles continue when they return. But should they both be available fit and ready to go from let’s say December onwards (counting in a couple of months of adaptation for Aquilani) then we will probably turn into a fucking bastion of invincibility for the second half of the season. If that is the case then I don’t mind if we get to see one or two mediocre performances these early days, or even grab a few undeserved points.

Let rephrase: They have both shown great potential in their respective teams, but most people would regard them as world class players if it wasn’t for all those injuries.

Time for some beer I think.

Friday evening, definitely beer time.

Is it too late to sign up for the match prediction, managers yokeythingamagig ??

If not can somebody tell me how to sign up ???

Neilob it’s not too late to enter the prediction thingy. You will be starting at a disadvantage against (most of) the others but it should be still doable, if you choose wisely, unlike me.

So go to here and register yourself:

http://iknowthescore.premierleague.com

Take a bit of time to read the rules and then enter your predictions.

To join the kopblog league, go to the mini-league screen and enter this code – FB63B-YTT – and the jobs a good’un

Welcome aboard.

Just realised that there has not been a draw yet in the league. Must be a first!

Just checked the league..looks like i`ve the strongest squad lads,so strong i`m holding up 95 teams!

Anything for the wooden spoon donal

Is head to head starting this week Lurgan?

I have learnt in the last few months that being young causes troubles to the old in many ways. Obviously, I should make this clear that old is not being referred to just Fat Scouser. Apparently, this term is for all the people on this blog who are older than me.

The first game of the season came as a shock to me, as I am sure it must have been to you guys as well. After that, as you all know very well, I overreacted. Now, I want to make this clear that I never wanted to abuse any one here on this blog.

My first post on the game after the start of the season didn’t contain any bad language. It just had my views. I was totally frustrated. After reading rome77′s replies with foul language, I just got carried away. Obviously, I thought to myself later that I could have just stopped myself from writing anything that I did, but it wasn’t to be.

You all can call it whatever you feel like, be it my little ‘I said so’ or whatever. But for me it was just my view, my frustration with you guys.

If in any way you guys would have thought that I ran away from all your arguments, then I would like to tell you that you were wrong. It was my heart that stopped me from writing any more shit and create a bigger argument. I am writing now after days to show that I never had any intentions of abusing any one on this blog. I took a deep long breath. It just took some time.

I wouldn’t make any justifications to my earlier views on the match nor I would want to change it. I want you all to know that I believe what I wrote there(#40).

You all guys think that I am totally negative. I’m happy that I have a view, be it negative or positive. I live around people who are mostly Chelsea fans or Manure fans. The thing is that, these clubs have gained a lot of success in the past few seasons. I get influenced by their hunger for trophies. I see them cheering their teams every season in the final of a tournament or their teams’ victory in the League. This makes me feel what our teams lack and what their teams gain. I am not saying that I am the only one feeling this. I don’t think that I am wrong. And surely to run a forum there should be people with different views. Obviously these views should not escalate into rifts, fights or disputes with foul language.

I apologise for my overreaction.

I am no glory hunter. If I would have been one, I would have been supporting Chelsea or Manure.

It’s nice to see that a lot of people here are remembering me. Be it for a laugh or two.

Don’t know where Fatty’s at, but I guess I’ll steal his thunder. Steven Cohen is in the midst of his last broadcast on World Soccer Daily as I type this. The show will no longer exist after today.

Kudos to all who played a part in showing this arse that someone out there will hold him accountable for spreading his lies.

He amassed quite a following in a little over six years, and it took less than four months for the boycott to remove him from the airwaves. I must say, I really am impressed at how well the campaign was run and the support Reds worldwide have given.

The supporters of this club are fantastic, and as corny as this may sound, we truly Never Walk Alone.

JFT96

Nice one Ivcjmac,great news.

The best thing about the whole thing is this has not only got him off the airwaves but it has sent a message out to anybody else who ever intends going down this route of spreading lies and hatred that this will not be tolorated anywhere.

Kopking,there is nothing wrong with being frustrated.We all get frustrated when the reds lose or drop silly points but most of us post in here with a lot of thought behind what they say.This is what makes this forum different from any other i`ve looked at.
This is not an exclusive forum for older guys just reasonable people with reasonable comments.You might be young and that could be the reason why you overeacted to the result but sometimes you need to take a step back and read some of the comments in here by the regulars.You`ll learn a thing or two by doing that.

KK-I speak for myself on this and not everyone on this forum, but I do not wish for you to disappear from this blog.

I could care less if you’re 18 or 80. I come here for well thought out opinions and the banter that goes on here.

This blog is a safe haven for fellow Liverpool fans to discuss the issues of the team. We all don’t agree with one another, but we treat each other with respect. Your post #40 was not respectful to your fellow members in my opinion (and yes, I know what opinions are like).

If I want to read post filled with Rafa lost the plot, Lucas sucks, Voronin sucks, Torres sucks, Carra sucks, etc I have other forums I frequent regularly that I can visit. I love this site because it generally doesn’t contain all the negativity that’s found elsewhere.

I was also upset Sunday following the match, but the last thing I would do is take it out on people in here. I give myself some time to calm down and I try to take away my emotions before posting.

Sorry to sound so condescending. I think we’re all after the same goal here, seeing sweet #19 finally arrive (and what the hell, #6 wouldn’t be so terrible either!).

Thanks for the update lvcjmac. So I guess that I will not be receiving any emails from my ‘new’ pen-pal. Well, shit happens but I think that I can live with it.

KK, your post #40 was complete nonsense but that is history now. Just don’t make it a regular thing.

Anyway, at least you had a set of nuts to come back in here and, after a bit of consideration, apologise for your comments. KUDOS to you!

Take this as a lesson in life not just football – sorry for sounding like an OAP here but it’s true!

Timmy, I am pretty sure that the head-to-heads start this weekend. Personally my master plan is working a treat, keeping at the back of the field and pounce in the run-in

I`d try that too pal but my fitness could let me down!

Timmy, off topic somewhat, but I received an email from ‘you’ asking for some ridiculous things.

I think that someone has hijacked your email mate. They said that you were in dire trouble and needed a few shillings. I cottoned-on when they said that you were in London. What the fuck what you have been doing there

Need to close that account down mate.

Thanks for that lurgan that happened a couple of weeks ago too.

The answer is no i take it?Some friend you are

What should i do just shut it down and start a fresh one?

KK First off you asked what FFS stood for, so i told you and calling you a tw*t
& pr*ck was something i shouldn’t have done. But i stand by everything else
i said, in all the time you have come in here i cant remember reading anything
you’ve written that’s respectful to LFC.@ 40 was very respectful to Spurs whilst
been abusive to our manager,our forwards and Lucas ( who has just been called up for Brazil ahead of Anderson ) Then your attack on fellow fans who have taken their time to try and educate you about what been a liverpool fan is all about, was to quote a drunken tramp” beyond the pale”.And lacked the respect you showed for Spurs .
The fact you still standby everything you said mean’s ill just try and ignore any of your comments and won’t bite like i did with the previous Kopking whose comments were very like your’s but much more abusive.

Those reports about Agger being out until November seems to be complete bollocks. Not even The Times is trustworthy these days, what is the world coming to?

Anyway, Rafa says he won’t be gone for long, “maybe a few week”. And since those Mr. Ferguson facts Rafa presented in January I am bound to regard everything he says as facts.

Timmy You probably have a Trojan horse virus on you’re computer which steals
all your log in details. I got one when i downloaded a Sopcast program to watch
the game wednesday night. Ive just had to spend £60 on Norton to get rid of it
apparently It originated in malaysia
I think you’ll also have to change all your passwords.

On everything Rome?

Thanks pal.

Anything that has login accounts which you’ve visited since you got it.
Thats if it is the same virus, have you checked for a virus?

Haven’t read all the postings but boy, this must be one of the longest postings in between blogs. Time for a new blog then, Gerry?

Great news that Ivjmac, and for anyone who thinks putting this person out of business is harsh, here’s a little reminder of why this man had to go…
ttp://www.metacafe.com/watch/3170513/steven_cohens_hate_speech_and_lies_brought_to_you_by/

Add the h on the front and you’ll realise what a truly awful man this fella is.

I can’t even feel sorry for the American people who’s soccer coverage has been affected. They deserve better than that, and knowing what I know about America and American’s it won’t be long before someone fills the void Cohen has left – hopefully someone with a far better knowledge of the game than that nasty bastard.

He has no one to blame but himself. But no doubt, he’ll already be blaming “Terrorists” like your good selves. You reap what you sow.

Oh well, back to the footy…
I’d like to go the rest of the season without losing another game. But if we do come straight in here Mr King Of The Kop. Your after match “thoughts,” was the only laugh I got out of the whole thing. In fact, there’s a vacancy in America you opinions and analysis might be suited to.

After reading the posts I have a feeling kopKing thinks we have lost the PL.
I came to this site to read the banterings about LFC. I love the Club and became endeared to them not because they were the Champs but for what the Club stands for. Tradition, decency, fighting spirit, progressive and humility.
Losing the game to Spurs in our first game at WHL is no shame. It is disapoointing sure. But for the heroics of Reina, Robbie Keane sould have put in a one or two more for Spurs. So we wwere not perfect. We lost. The first match. We did not play well. But then you take the good and the bad when you are a fan. Are you? The players are to blame here, not the Manager. The players did not step up their game. And that’s a problem. Which has been corrected if you take the Stoke game into consideration.

KopKing, I think you critise everything about LFC when we lose. Why come in here then? You are obviously not a firm fan. I love the banter and exchange of opinion in this site. Good or bad, provided it is well argued and sensible. This site delights me. Except when I read your postings. I think it is about time you leave this site as it pollutes the very reason why I come in here.

HA! What did I tell you…

ttp://www.zazzle.com/ball_stand_up_to_terrorists_bring_back_world_s_tshirt-235091148006885843

Not only is he a totally deranged and nasty vindictive specimen, he’s completely see-through.

Far from lessening America’s soccer coverage, this is actually a service performed for the decent soccer loving people of America.

I coached AYSO out there volluntarilly for many years. I absolutely loved it. It was an absolute pleasure to teach them kids. They were some of the nicest, polite young people, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Kids like them don’t deserve to have their minds filled with the sort of hatred and posion this man attempted to spread.

Give yourselves a little pat on the back, everyone who acted against him.

KK if you’ve upset a gentleman like Knight, you really do need to consider what you are saying – and more importantly, what that says about you yourself.

I don’t think you should leave though, or change your views, or stop having a go at me. Unlike Knight, I am not a gentleman. In fact, I’m a bit of an old bastard. So, I rather enjoy it – especially when you are calling me an old fat bastard.

I have just listned to the last World Soccer Daily show. Well, I listened to as much as I could stomache.

Oh so predictably, Cohen chose to blame the show’s demise on Liverpool fans threatening to harm his children. I thought even he was above such lies, but apparently there is no depths this coward won’t delve to.

He has been spouting his bile about Hillsbourgh, the dead, their families and friends and the JFT96 campaign for over 3 years. He had been forced to appologise for his actions and comments on 3 different occasions. Each time he went back on the appology and even stooped as low to mocking the dead. Then, when the boycott was finally arranged after all his disgusting actions, he bragged on air of “Taking on the Terrorists” and shouted loud for all the hear… “Bring it on!”

Well, bring it on, they did. Which, when sponsors and advertisers decided to leave, then led to Cohen spouting a new set of lies… One of the worst was him saying he had recieved Anti-semetic hate and death threats form sources that were “Officially linked to LFC” the club itself.

He was offered the chance to produce these articles. And maybe there was a few hot heads who went over the top. But when LFCNY ccontacted the FBI and asked them to look into the matter, with a view to prosecuting the perpatraitors, Cohen suddenly went all coy on the matter and refused to send the offending emails/letters and threats to anyone – including the police. What does that say?

To me… it was just more lies coming from a rather twisted man. And it seems the Israeli branch of LFC Supporters clubs agreed as they also joined the boycott and condemned Mr Cohen.

He was also disowned by Chelsea FC, to the point that they even released a statement condeming Cohen and saying they didn’t want him attached to the club in any way shape or form.

I won’t put in a link to the show, as it is quite sickening. But if you need to listen to it, you can find it on the web. But be warned – it’s rather disgusting.

Cohen wraps himself in the Stars and Stripes and try’s to portray himself as the victim. In fact, he makes himself out to be some sort of heroic figure who has lost his livelihood as he alone stood up to Terrorists, Ant-Semites and Racisists.

Sadly, some people in America will be fooled by this. But make no bones about it, this is a victory for right minded people over a public spewer of lies and outright hatred.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Oh well, like I said, back to the footy…
ttp://www.iraqgoals.net/ch1.html

Fowler’s playing in this one, and I miss the lad, so I’m just watching it now. Pretty good tream an all.

As for us, I’ve been told that both Agger and Aqualani should be fit and well pretty soon. And it seems like both lads might finally be able to put their fitness troubles behind them after having proper opperations to finally put them right.

This should be very good news. We all know what Agger is capable of, but I’ve been reading a bit about Aqualani. His leaving of Italy has not been taken well over there. In fact, in Italy he is considered to be in the Kaka mould. Yes, they rate him that highly. And letting him leave Italy for Liverpool is being compared to an act of national treachery by Roma.

I can’t wait to see him slotting in behind Gerrard and Torres. If all I’ve read is true, we will be an incredible attacking force. And it’s now my turn to say “I Told You So!”

Not having a go at anyone, I’m just gloating a bit prematurely. But when people were calling us Cack on a Stick, I kept appealing for patientce. And although it’s still an ongoing operation, I think we will now start to see the type of football everyone has been wanting.

We got a wee look at it at the end of last season. And, despite all the trials and tribulations since, Rafa has kept relentlessly dragging our club forward. And it’s starting to look like, despite being ham-strung, he is finally building the team/squad/club into all we want it to be… a title winning side.

Okay, Chelsea are a formidiable foe. Arsenal might just surprise us all and manage to get through a full season playing winning football. Don’t write off the Mancs just yet either. And to discount City would be foolish. Even Spurs might put in some sort of challenge this season. But I don’t see anyone we need to fear.