Hi Gerry. Have not read the blog, but like a happy nun in field of cucumber, I am delighted to be first here.

The good news is Cappucino did not call up Gerrard for England. Anyone knows whether Torres is called up for Spain?

Great rant as usual Gerry. And come on reds! Notch a win and we might get a quieter 2-week period afterwards. Getting a wee bit tired with the nonsense surrounding us atm.
Anyway, did anyone hear of a certain 100m available to us in Jan and player diagnosed with cancer rumours?

I have been looking at some of the Statistics compiled by The Telegraph. Here’s one ranked by number of goals scored, where we are at No 3:

1. Arsenal 36
2. Chelsea 29
3. Liverpool 25
4. Man United 23
5. Spurs 23
6. Man City 21

But based on goals conceded we are below our rivals:

1. Burley 25
10. Spurs 17
11. Everton 17
12. Liverpool 16
14. Arsenal 14
17. Man United 12
20. Chelsea 8

ax: read in the papers that Rafa might play Torres tomorrow and then will not allow him to play for Spain next. Great if Rafa gets to call his shots.

Great blog Gerry

I know exactly what you mean about becoming numb to the taunts.
A win against Birmingham today will put us 3 points behind the Mancs and nobody is writing them off, so why not, lets be optimistic, lets not write off the league just yet.
Not one of the big teams is being consistent.
However we need to get key players back and hope that the long term prognosis of Gerrard and Torres is good.
A lot of our key personell have not lived up to their high standards set last season.
Gerrard’s performances have been insipid to be honest and he has been my biggest dissapointment, Carragher has had an uncharacteristicly wobbly start to the season and Mascherano seems to be gazing across to Barcelona a bit to much, and not concentrating on who is paying his wages.
Even Torres has looked lacking, I know he has scored a lot of goals but he looks out of sorts and his contribution elsewhere just seems lacking in confidence to me.Maybe he just isn’t able to get his fitness levels up long enough to hit peak performance.
None of this is a critisism of particular players, with the possible exception of Monster, but I wonder if all the publicity and the weight of expectation hasn’t affected the players, combined with an inability to put out a settled side we have looked disjointed at times.

We need to regain our swagger, believe in our ability and give a couple of teams a good hiding , confidence is everything at the moment and we sorely lack it.

I have high hopes for Aquaman and this break will give us time to get him up to full fitness and I believe he could be the injection we need, he seems to be a creative player and with the exception of the worlds most improved player Benny onion we have lacked that.

Lose at home to Birmingham and truly our season is over

The level of abuse being aimed at Voronin from Liverpool “fans” is nothing short of disgraceful.

Fact is, on the night, he wasn’t any worse than say, Kuyt, who hasn’t been much use at all this season, yet plays every game.

I thought our showing on the night was nothing special at all, and we can really have little complaint with the draw. But the bar has been lowered now so i guess in some fans eyes it can be viewed as a good performance.

Lyon were pretty awful themselves, and were just happy to sit back and allow us to have the ball because really, we never looked like doing anything with it. All our chances came from good luck and Babel’s goal a moment of sheer individual brilliance.

Just disappointing that, on the night, we couldn’t muster one single piece of attacking cohesiveness to cut up a poor Lyon side(who aren’t the French Champions fwiw). On the contrary, when Lyon got it down and passed they looked the far more fluid side, and we were probably lucky they eased off as the game went on, happy to take a point.

Great blog as always Gerry. Like you, I was also surprised that Voronin featured in the Lyon game, but no Ngog. It is a pity that a striker doing well for Hertha berlin last year could not perform well at LFC. His one on one at Lyon was disappointing compared to Ngog’s composure against Van der Sar.

Also Aqualung was on the bench and I was hoping he would be thrown in but obviously the Flu could still be effecting him then. Oh well, we did play well excpet for the last few minutes.
Things might have turned out better had H&G OKed Rafa’s choice for Turner instead of having to go to the basement to find Greek God.

Birmigham would not be easy. Their defence is as tight as a virgin. They are second behind Chelsea in number of goals against. Chelsea had 8 to Birmingham’s 12 (equal with Villa and Man United) and compared to our 16.

Any news if Aquaman is starting the game tonite? It is timely and a big boost to the rest of the lads if we can get a result. An optimistic 3-0 win for us!

Great blog Gerry.
We really need a good result tonight. Even a 1-0 scored off Carra’s arse would do. That said, I’m hoping the lads will get a convincing 2-0 or 3-0 win with goals shared between those who need a little confidence boost in that department…….Kuyt, Lucas, Aquaman perhaps.

About the Lyon game, I think EggNog was flu struck (wasn’t he) so although PornStar is still crap, I can understand the gaffer’s concerns about playing a sneezing and coughing EggNog.

ykleong, i expect Aqua to start on the bench and come on in the 60th min. Giving him 30min to stretch his legs and then 2 weeks of some more fitness work

In fairness Knight, I think even I would look half decent playing for Hairy Berlin and even if Eggnog had leprosy and a dose of the trots, I’d have still started him ahead of Voronin. But that’s a minor moan on my part because as a manager Rafa Benitez is still the dogs bollocks in my book.

Gerry you must really be an optimist if you think the media vultures will back of Rafa. Will not happen, they have the bit between their teeth. 12 games into the season and they need a managerial dismissal.
.
I think Aqualani should start, its now November and there is a two week break. It will be December soon and he still won’t be match fit. We need him now, not in three weeks time.
.
Hopefully a win to the reds 3-0.

Hendo I’ve only just read your post. I find it strange that you start out by saying the abuse of Voronin is nothing short of a disgrace and you then proceed to shit on the whole team.
Need I remind you that Lyon were at home with a full side out, while we were away with half a side out. So I don’t think anyone, with the exception of you obviously, was expecting a vintage Reds performance but it was a good one under the circumstances.
As for our us “not being able to muster one single piece of attacking cohesiveness”, outside of Babel’s goal, off the top of my head I can remember good chances for Torres, Voronin, Lucas and Kuyt whereas Lyon’s goal was practically their only shot on target.
But of course according to you, Babel’s goal was just down to a moment of brillance on his part while all of our other chances were just down to good luck. Presumably the Tooth Fairy put Voronin through on goal and played the ball into the other players for their chances as well.
Jaysus mate, your wasting your time in here you should apply for a job as a Sly Sports pundit!

Knight,

I thought Eggnog was unfit for the game? and should not have travelled with the team to Lyon in the first place?

I’m going to appologise before posting my next comment. As usual, I didn’t realise there was a new blog, went into the old one and posted this next comment. And I’ve only read the title of this one and the first line. I’ll read it, and the comments, right now. But having seen the title and opening line, I think this will fit…

I think you missed the point Aitch… we were talking about what money Rafa should have recieved and what he would have probably done with it if he’d got what he rightfully should.

And yes. I’d go as far as to say, had he recieved the normal 20 plus budget, the Keane money and the money from sales, we would have been in far better shape.

Funny thing is… I don’t even think we are that badly off. In fact, I haven’t really said how I see things because everytime I come in here, I usually end up countering some tantrum or another.

That’s what the dummy spitting always leads to. But if you look at it properly… how far behind all the Rafa bashers favourite team, Arsenal?

And yet they are playing sublime sumptious football well, so the media would tell us everytime they string more than two passes together. And according to them we are complete shit on a stick.

In any other industry all our problems would be takein into consideration, but of course that would mean telling some truth and jibbing the sensationalist headlines. But anyway, he way I see it is, considering how bad things have been the damage isn’t that bad.

There’s plenty of time to make up the ground we’ve lost in the Prem and even if we go out the CL I don’t see that as some huge disaster…. It means we can concentrate on the league, and it might even help get shut of the other pair. Well, at least a bit faster anyway. And I don’t even mind being in the Europa. I’d certainly still go to as many games in it as I could.

I also think that very soon some team is going to get a terrible hiding off us, and I’m also expecting us to go on a great run of games and other teams to hit their slump.

A lot of people think it’s Chelsea’s now. I can’t understand that sort of thinking anyway. But besides that, why have people forgotten how shit they were up until a couple of weeks ago and how many games they have tweaked through with late late goals?

Short memories some footy fans, eh.

And look at that game yesterday. Man U, except for Rooney, were absolute shit. I don’t think they made one clear cut chance, but the Chavs could only beat them with one rather dodgy goal.

Add to that City’s result and the fact Arsenal needed two own goals to finally break down Wolves – who then had to go for it and so they left themselves open to the counter.

But I do fully expect Man U and Chelsea to go on a bit of a spending spree in January, and I know how hard it’s going to be this season. Still I see no reason whatsoever to count ourselves out of it. And as for tantrums, I’d like to think our fans would learn to reserve them for H&G.

In fact, that is the most upsetting thing of all… The depths our support has started to plummet since Istanbul, or was it even as far back as 04?

Funny thing is, if they just got a grip and kept a bit of faith they might actually get to enjoy this season and celebrate a bit at the end when we turn it around instead of looking foolish.

Oh well, I’m going on one again. So I’ll just say, I’m very optomistic for the rest of the season. I’m really looking forward to it. And I’m certainly not counting us out of anything just yet.

PS… if Rafa had known how all this was going to turn out, he’d have probably kept hold of Keane. But even with only Vroninn and NGog to fall back on, I still don’t think letting go of KEane was a bad thing.

__________________________________________
That is cut and pasted exactly how I wrote it. And it was only an Answer to something Aitch said, but hopefully it fits. I’m going to find out now.

Well caught up and once again Gerry you’ve provided a little oasis of sanity in the madness of the internet.

As for Voronin and the Lyon game in general, I can’t really be arsed commenting now as 1: My opinion on Voronin should be well known… he’s not good enough but I don’t blame Rafa for having a punt on a proven international for free, 2: The Lyon game has gone. But I agree, when all is taken into consideration, it wasn’t that bad a performance and except for that lap of concentration at the end, things would have been very different.

I think it’s now time to concentrate on tonight’s game and then thankfully the boss, the coaching staff and the medical staff can get to work on sorting out our problems in the international break.

Quick word on Mascher, I reckon he’s coming back to his best and the effect of Argentina’s rocky qualification for the World Cup should be taken into account when discussing his season so far. And with them now being in the competition, Masch should just keep improving.

Which I think we’ll see the whole team start to do tonight. As Knight points out, Brum have a good defence record and with our problems we really shouldn’t expect to wallop them tonight. But a win of any sort will be good enough. Then we get a nice pit stop and will hopefully come out of it a changed and much improved team.

I’m a bit wary about one Benitez tonight and it’s not Rafa. We’ll have to keep a tight guard on the Brummy one. HE looks a player to me. But having said that, I think we’ll be okay and should get the 3 points.

Then after that…
Riera
Johnson, Carra, Agger/Skrtle, Insua/Aurellio

Kuyt, Masch, Lucas, Aquilani, Benny, Riera, Babel

Gerrard, Torres

…a team including any mixture of them players is more than good enough to turn this season around.

And as I said, I’m really looking forward to watching it. It’s going to be very satisfying to see some people being made to look very foolish.

FS,

A funny one stating Riera as our goalkeeper!

Like you, I’m also looking at the brighter side of things…

PS… LB, had a look at the Hines kid again this weekend. Looked to be struggling a little bit at times, but that’s only to be expceted in his first season. And I seen enough to think the lad is going to become a really good player.

And whoever mentioned the Tramp… yeah. You was right. He’s ragging yesterdays ref.

Mind you, wouldn’t take Nostradamus to guess that, eh.

Well, apart from the obvious lack of concentration right at the end of the Lyon game, I would agree that there were some real pluses to be taken from that game, especially compared to the prevoius match at Fulham (lest we forget)

It’s silly to rule any team out of anything (Leauge wise) in November, and if we can get the 3 points tonight and then turn Man.City over on the 21st we will start believing again.

With the top two due to face each other at the Emirates at the end of this month,(28th), we could go into our trip to Goodison on the 29th with our tails up and new belief running through our (hopefully by then) fully fit team. YNWA.

FS, you obviously rate Riera very highly, as you’ve got him playing in goal and on the left of midfield at the same time! (lol)

And some people think he’s slow, eh Steve

i know this has been said before and there’s no point going on about it, but i still can’t understand why rafa didn’t bring owen back to the club. if he couldn’t afford to buy anyone and had to settle for a proven international with plenty of experience going for free, surely the little turn-coat bastard would’ve been a better bet than bringing veronin back. obviously now i wouldn’t touch him with gerry’s, but it seems like a strange thing to pass up when we’ve got no cover up front. rafa’s excuse being that he couldn’t promise him a regular start. so..? he’s not getting one with the scum either.

i don’t like to criticise the boss, especially with all the shit flying around at the moment, but frankly i hold him partly responsible for the lack of strikers at the club. i don’t know how this situation has got so out of hand. i’ve been an admirer of peter crouch for a long time and i was really pissed off with the way he was treated at liverpool. we lost a great player there, another dimension to our attacks, a target man for tough away fixtures, an englishman, and …. i could go on. keane came and went. suddenly we’re facing a torres operation and only a kid and a donkey as cover. of course the owners and some apparent meddling from rick parry had a lot to do with it but is rafa really blameless for this embarrassing lack of forward options? can we have crouchy back please? please mister?

anyway. c’mon you reds!! nothing anyone can do about it now, so just looking forward to a massive game against the blues. think you’re right gerry, the only way is up!

Nice one FS . Forgot to say that fingers crossed Agger will be fit for tonight’s game to form a strong central rearguard with Skrtel in JC’S absence.

I’ve heard/read alot about who may or may not be fit for this match, and can’t wait for about 7.15 this evening to discover what our starting line-up actually is.

i envy you steve. i’ve got to set the video in the morning, go to work, avoid the result all day then go home and get the kids washed and put to bed before i can even turn it on and see who’s in the team…. flammin new zealand clocks! they’re always about 12 hours wrong!

Super stuff Gerry,

The only reason i can think why he started Davy instead of Egnogg outside illness is maybe Rafa see`s egnogg in Torres position.Like his direct replacement leading the line.Davy seems to play deeper in the hole although not that good its theonly reason i can think of.

With Aquaman,again i`m only guessing but Rafa does get all technical about things and maybe once we took the lead he wanted to leave the players on the pitch who at the time seemed to be doing a decent job defending the lead and not disrupt the balance by bringing him on.I know how you feel though Gerry we all got a taste of him at the Emirates and liked what we seen.So i guess its only natural we want more.

FS you listening to TalkSHITE.Alan Brazil says Torres might play tonight.He thins this will Anger the spanish FA and if Gerrard plays Rafa will Anger Mr Cappello!

These guys make me feckin laugh..and oh Ronnie arani thinks its going to be 1-1 tonight.That annoyed me.Not that he predicted 1-1 but the way he said it.

Complete and utter twats,but i`ll listen anyway.Thanks Fatty for dragging us to hell

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/5249/dimage1.gif

Have a butchers at this lads,look at Lampards take on it.Says it all about the cheating fecker!

Warned you Timmy. Now what you’ve got to do is learn to laugh at it. Not always easy though. Did my head in when they dileberatly wound people up into thinking LFC had insulted the poppy appeal and therefore the war dead, the serving armed forces and thier families.

They really don’t care what depth they sink to.

Sambo, not having a go, but think back mate…
Rafa was the man who gave Crouch a break when no one else would touch him. He also stood by him through that terrible barren spell he had, and when the media and every fan in this country, especially the Ingurlund fans, thought the lad was shite and nothing but a freak, as they loudly liked to let us know.

Rafa also turned the lad from a decent player into a full international, and he never did want him to leave. It was Crouch’s choice, and you can’t slag him for wanting full time football, but that leads us back to something we were recently talking about…

Crouch isn’t an automatic first choice at Tottenham. He’s often on the bench. But he doesn’t complain. Why? Well, for a start, he’s on better wages at Spuds than he was at LFC.

And the wages factor is always going to make keeping any real top class back up for Torres happy, and that’s presuming the pair of yanks would ever give us money for top class proven back up, nevermind enough wages to keep them happy.

So yes Sambo mate, there is a crisis at Anfield. But it’s in the boardroom (Well in fucking Texas and Montreal actually) not the manager’s chair.

Sambo, it wouldn’t surprise me if Owen is getting £100k per week to chill out on the bench at United. I have a feeling we couldn’t afford to take him but obviously I don’t know for sure. Just a hunch.

Timmy, stay away from Talk Shite.

FS, I didn’t see Hines play this weekend. I’ll get the update from his bro. I even missed his goal against Aston Villa.

Rooney aside the mancs looked quite ordinary against Chelski.

Any ideas what kind of side we’ll be putting out tonight? Hopefully no Voronin. Ngog looked very confident against the Arse after he scored the winner against the mancs. I feel he should play with Torres up front. Kuyt needs to step up his game as he has been poor recently. And the bloody defending needs sorting out. Who on earth is going to play at right back?

haha! love it! just wanders off while his mate convulses like a frog in a sock. dumdeedum….

9.5 for the twitching, Timmy. But I always thought the platoon-poster type sniper dive is a nailed on 10….
http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2009/09/16/1225774/649981-dtstory-didier-drogba.jpg

Oh and Owen was never going to be given another chance here. Can’t say I blame Rafa for that. The lad burnt his bridges a long time ago and just wouldn’t fit here in the way Rafa likes to play.

Would have bringing him here been a wise move? Well, considering all that’s happened, maybe. Who knows. But hindsight is always 20/20 and can’t be proved or disproved.

LB, just looks like the thing a lot of young pros go through, brilliant first few games and then level off. But you can see he’s going to be good.

Oh and the official site is usually best for injury news. But sometimes, especialy ahead of big games or in an injury crisis, they use a bit of smoke and mirrors so’s not to give too much away.

Maybe Babel could get a start LB.He`s just scored a cracker and his confidence could be up.Although he didn`t do much else on wednesday night maybe Rafa will see him as a better option than Davy.I know i would.But thats why i`m behind a keyboard and not manager of LFC.

fair enough FS, but my big issue was that after crouch got through that barren spell and hit a rich vain of form he was suddenly, inexplicably (from my vantage point of an armchair miles away from the training ground etc) left out in the cold. even when we were desperate for a goal he’s kept on the bench. i couldn’t understand it. i still can’t. as you said, rafa made him the player he is… then stopped playing him. that comeback goal at the emirates said it all for me, as did his comment “it’s nice to remind people i’m still alive”

mate, i know the crisis isn’t in the manager’s chair. i’ve got a huge amount of respect for rafa as a tactical genius who’s out-thought the best in the game time and time again. but i feel that the way rafa man-managed crouchy and it’s aftermath has contributed to a situation where we’ve got 1 decent stiker (not counting dirk). its all in the past now, but i’m stuck in the present where i’d give 2 voronins and a babel to have crouch back.

… and i don’t know about crouch being happy on the bench if the wages are right. maybe you’re right. i reckon ‘arry keeps him feeling good about himself whereas our rafa, bless im, isn’t exactly known for building players up and showering them with compliments.

anyway, like i said, i love rafa and long may he remain at the helm… with some new forwards

Nice one gerry. i’m just getting my act together here then im on a plain bound for liverpool to watch the mighty reds. Happy days,i cant wait.

come on the pool!!

YNWA

I think we’d all love to still have Crouchie Sambo mate. But once Torres arrived he was always plan B. And he wouldn’t accept it – hence some sarky comments and the wish to leave.

It’s like taking a player off. They’ll always moan about getting the hook even if it’s the best thing for them and the team. And then the media will always use it as an excuse to attack – like they did over Torres being hauled and Xabi being sold, even thought Torres has admitted he was wrong and Xabi has made his feelings about Rafa known.

It’s just malicious mischief in the media.

And I don’t want to go spreading rumour either. But when Crouchie established himself with us, was when he kopped the celebrity/model girlfriend and hit the town. I don’t know how big a factor that was, others (Gerrard) get away with it. But I think it played some part.

Same with Bellamy, I’d love him to still be here. But we needed to sell him to afford Torres, and at the time, on top of the Risse/golf club incident, he was facing a court apperance for drunkenly punching some young girl in the face outside a nightclub at all hours of the morning.

He got found not guilty and it was never mentioned at the club, but I’m sure it played it’s part in letting him go. Sadly, it also seems to have played a part in Bellamy growing up and playing to the best of his ability. Shame he wasn’t using it for us… but again, I think the yanks can be blamed for that.

Qand I know you’re a Rafa supporter, and I hope you know that as much as I love him, I also think he gets some things wrong. I just find it hard to criticise when I don’t really know what’s behind some of his decisions. And I firmly believe he gets more of them right than wrong. I also know he knows what needs doing, so I kust hope he gets some money to work with at the end of the season cos sure as shite isn’t sugar, he won’t get any in January.

Here we go again Rafa`s bad man managment.Even though most players say he has made them better players people continue to say he`s a bad man manager.

Sambo.He made crouch a better player.Took his game up a notch.He did leave crouch out just for the sake of it.When Torres was bought,Rafa had finally got the ideal striker to lead the line in the formation he wanted to use.Crouch just didn`t fit in.So Crouch wanted a move.Rafa would have kept as he would as you said have been useful in some situations but couldn`t gaurentee him enough starts.

That should have said he didn`t leave crouch out for sake of it.

FS i wrote same time as you there.

ell, I’ve got to hift me fat arse, but I think we can all agreee this is what Rafa, and we, want from our players…

Liverpool keeper Reina has re-iterated his commitment to the Reds, despite the recent poor form which has called into question whether the team will qualify for the UEFA Champions League next term.

He told The People: “My commitment to Liverpool is 100 per cent. I would die for the Liverpool shirt.

“I don’t want to think about not being in the Champions League. If that’s what happens, OK, we’ll have to think about that next season.

“What we need is to pull the strings together. People talk all the time about bringing in more big signings, but I see a squad here of 25 good players who all want to be at Liverpool.”

These days it’s not man management that keep players happy it’s their pay cheque. Kind words from the gaffer doesn’t make a player feel good if he’s on the bench every week. Its all about getting picked and then its about the dough.

I wasn’t sorry to see Crouch leave anyway because I thought he wasn’t good enough and I still think that. And I think Rafa was entitled to believe he’d get the money to buy a striker more suited to the game plan. In fact he did. He got Robbie Keane. Who at the time I thought would be brilliant with Torres. Sadly it didn’t work out, he was sold and we were unable to replace him due to lack of finances.

I wouldn’t mind having Crouchie LB, but I do agree, not quite good enough but I still wouldn’t mind having him as back up/plan B.

Keane, I was shocked when we bought him, but done me usual, tried to work out why Rafa wanted him and see what he could bring to the team.

But I always thought it was silly money for a player that, like Crouchie, wasn’t quite good enough for us.

Bellamy is the only player/forward that I regret leaving but that’s hindsight on my part and I realise there was factors that made it impossible to keep him.

But I’m sure if the silly fucker had shown the sort of maturity we are seeing from him now, and turned in the consistently good performances he is now, Rafa would have found a way to keep him and his pace would have been devastating just behind Torres.

Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk.

Bellamy wasn’t the best of finishers and has had a lot of injuries.Kuyt hasn’t scored for a month, so he is due a goal or two.I wouldn’t mind seeing Cisse back @ Anfield, he has scored 6 in 9 in the admitedly weak Greek league this season.2-0 to the Reds.Atmosphere for a Monday night game is usually dire.

Fuck me nearly correct all round there BM, but talking about forward players Rafa had let go and I think Bellamy is the only one I’d really have back. Cisse… oh well, as I said, I reckon you was nearly right all ways round.

In my opinion selling Robbie Keane was a mistake.

I said that at the time and I don’t really want to rake too much of the past up…. I’m just saying it again because his name has crept into the debate again. How many Voronin’s would we part with to have Robbie Keane back?

We all have our theories as to why he was sold, and some of you may say that he’s not pulling up any trees at Spurs, but with the obvious exception of Fernando Torres, he’s a better, more proven striker than anyone else at the club right now.

Sambo, whereabouts do you live in NZ?

Steve, we sold Robbie Keane and then had our best run in the league for 20 years. His sale only looks like a mistake now because we have fuck all money to replace him. When Rafa decided to sell him I don’t think he realised he wouldn’t be seeing a penny of that money and would have to bring Voronin back.

My mate at work is a Spurs season ticket holder and he says Keane has been total shite this season. To be honest when he was with us he didn’t play all that much better than Voronin is now. I know he’s proven and all that but he was quite useless last season and missed more sitters than even Voronin has so far.

I’d like to touch on something Burger man mentioned. What is going on with Kuyt’s form? It’s looking like 2 years ago version of Kuyt.

I can see a lot of players being sold @ the end of the season.Aurelio, Kuyt, Skrtel, unless they improve radically.Look @ Cisse’s stats on wikipedia, ke didn’t deserve so much criticism, I prefer him to Kuyt.Kuyt spends too much time trying to cover every position and his finishing is mediocre.He is a 1 goal in 4 games player, so we won’t get 20 league goals in a season, even if he starts nearly every game.Time to cash in @ the end of the season?.

Sambo, wrap it up bud, no point mate. Criticism of any kind is futile. But some good points there. LB, wasnt it widely reported at the time that Owen was signed on a pay as you play deal? 100k a week? And your mate reckons Keane is shite? Ask him who Spurs top scorer is this year. I reckon your mates opinion is shite. And Voronin vs Keane at Anfield? How many goals did Keane get for us in 5mths? How many has Voronin in a yr and a half? Sheesh…Alright, who’s got LB? Am I in danger?!

Who will get the cash burger man? That’s the situation we’re in. Even if we sell players there is no guarantee the money will be going in the transfer kitty. If we sold Skrtle and Kuyt I am 100% sure we wouldn’t get the dough to get better replacements. As for Aurelio – we’d get nout for him. The guy is a bit of a liability isn’t he? Any time he finds some form he gets injured.

Left back has been an area that has not been upgraded. A few years ago Riise was on fire – since then we’ve struggled in that position.

“Criticism of any kind is futile.”

But I see sarcasm is alive and well.

How the fuck did you draw that conclusion Digger. Sambo puts up a comment/opinion, and one that is perfectly acceptable and nothing new. Many reds have the same opinion.

Others have a different one and discuss it. Isn’t that what this place is about?

And it’s certainly a million miles from coming in here moaning and whigeing after every setback.

Mind you, you’re right, something needs wrapping up but I don’t think it’s that.

As for Keane it’s another valid argument. KEane over Vorinin, goes without saying. But everything needs considering. But without going all over it again, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to guess, that if Rafa had known the score on transfer money – the way he did when it came to selling Voronin – Keane would have still been on the books and Voronin would have been at Hertha Berlin.

But in all honesty, even with hindsight, I don’t mind that Keane has gone. And if you stop and think about the situation, like everything else, it comes right round to the owners.

And yes. It’s perfectly legitimate to question things but shouldn’t we at least look at the whole picture when we do?

Aurelio was free as was Voronin. And to say we should sell a young promising centre back and one of our most consistent performers, depite a slight dip in form this season… well, all I can say is normal service is resumed.

Kuyt is a monster of a footballer and only when we lose him will some people be able to see that.

Cisse is a headless chicken. We’ve already got a better version that can’t get a regular place in the team.

Other than that, spot on.

Digger, don’t get me wrong I’d rather have Keane than Voronin. Fact is Keane was sold, we were too broke to replace him so got Voronin back. Shit situation. However Keane has been playing shite – that’s the opinion of a mate of mine that has seen him in every home game this season. He’s actually a big Keane fan. So I’d take his opinion over those who have not really watched him but only just looked at the goals chart for the season.

Just for the record Keane got 7 in 28 games for us. Voronin’s record for Liverpool is 8 in 33 games. What do you say about that?

Common sense has me mate. Maybe when we win a few games and your level of frustration decreases it’ll have some impact on you too.

We bought a player (Keane), he was shite, he was sold. My common sense tells me that the manager who sold him might just have thought he’d be allowed to use the cash to buy a replacement rather than having to bring back Voronin. If your reasoning leads you to believe that Keane was sold with no intention of bringing in another quality attacking option then…. Well then that is where we disagree.

I think your’e off the mark comparing Keane to Voronin LB. You could well be right about Rafa not knowing he wasn’t going to get any money for selling Keane back to Tottenham, but he would have realised he was selling him back at a loss and that was not good business sense in anyone’s book!

Tell your mate he’s lucky he is watching Robbie Keane and not Voronin. Keane can/does score goals!

What do you think the score will be tonight?

Christ LB, where did you get those Keane/Voronin goalscoring/appearances stats from?

From the horses mouth on the official site…
http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N166381091109-0842.htm

Rafa was promised the KEane money – fact.

Keane is not good enough – fact.

Keane ended up costing us 4 million. That’s less than we’d have got him on loan for – fact.

Voronin was brought in free. Rafa had him sold to HErtha for 3.5 million. He knew we wouldn’t get the money for a replacement. So he kept him rather than lighten the squad any further – fact.

Anyone think Kuyt could have had a bit of that virus?

Conjecture on my part, but something’s slowed the lad down a bit this season. Maybe it’s just that he’s feeling a bit low and short of confidence like most of the players have looked in some games or another. On top of that, he’s hardly had a settled team behind him… 4 different right backs already this season. Or maybe the lad’s just knackered.

I don’t really know, but I know one thing for sure… the lads proper fucking great, and for the life of me I can’t understand why some people still can’t see everything this lad brings to the team.

From Wikipedia Steve and I was wrong Voronin got 6 in 33 while Keane got 7 in 28. Its hardly comparing Ian Rush to Sean Dundee though is it?

‘Rafa was promised the Keane money – fact’. Really? Any links? I’m not aware of any board level verbal agreements that were or were not made, being made public. Enlighten me please. ‘Keane is not good enough – fact’. Riiight, so Robbie Keane, one of the most prolific premiership goalscorers of all time (over 150 if I’m not mistaken) is NOT good enough but Voronin and Ngog are? Mmmm….Well thats me convinced, I’m on board, glad we sold Robbie cos we’ve those premiership luminaries for when Nandos out.

HA!

I could rip that apart, but what’s the point. I’m off to see me new lad. I’ll probably get a bit more sense there.

Taty bye.

LB, ‘we bought a player (keane) he was shite, we sold him’. Oh LB, of all the people to come up with such a revisionist piece of crap, to read it under your name and avatar, to have to do a double take and check to see who wrote it…..I need a break. Yeah, he was god awful every minute he was on the pitch. Got a fair crack of it here too. Just as fair as Crouch and Kyut and Pennant. He wasnt a pawn in a political battle or anything…. Oh LB, where for art thou LB?!

To be honest with you, I would rather have Voronin than Keane; the latter was that shite for us, and he is not really any better for spurs either.

Sure, the lad may be a better finisher than voronin, but the problem I have with Keane is, he is useless as a combination, and was a complete hindrance in the build-up to an attacking move.

I am a sad, single git so I have watched all the spurs game this season as well, and he is just as horrible. If he wasnt “keane”, the fan’s favourite and captain, he would be given a right rollocking by his teammates. His positioning to receive passes is shocking– and the sad thing is, he shakes his head as if to think he cannot believe why his teammates are not passing to him. His movements are so simplistic that a crippled and aging michael owen seems like Romario.

I’m glad rafa sold him quickly; unfortunately, the money from the sales was sucked up.
Putting aside the fact that he was still a young man then, but it is no wonder why he was a shambles at Inter. His movements would have been much too easy for sly Italian defenders to track.

>Sambo, I’m not criticising you, but unless you’re Alex Ferguson, you don’t just throw on a stiker simply because your team is desperate to score goals. Don’t get me wrong, I think Crouch is a fantastic player, but there are 2 problems with Crouchy (one of them not really his fault).
First, he is not a mobile player. He is more of a hold-up, link-up player, so in situations when you need to score, sometimes you need someone with more mobility to get behind the back-line or take players on. Crouchy is not that type. Second, you can see the same thing happening with spurs, but when you have someone as big as crouchy come on, the tendency is to lob the ball at him. Okay when you want to go for power play and hope for the best, but in essence, that is not the most ideal way to go about disecting teams (unless your Fat allardyce). I think you should always keep in mind the context of the game and the type of opponents you are dealing with when considering whether putting on crouchy would have solved the problem and then using that to question rafa. Otherwise, you will really become a “couch, playstation” type whinger. And I am not implying that you are.

>LB, I concur with FS with your friend’s cousin, the Hines Fella. I think he is fantastic in fact, and he is in good hands with Zola. He definitly excites me more than when I first saw Walcott.

Digger, I know you rate Keane, but the thing is, he only works if you build the team around him and the rest of the team is subservient to him. As a team player, he is absolutely useless. Especially when he doesn’t have the ball.

This is something we will never agree on– just as we will never agree on kuyt as an incredible winger.

‘To be honest with you, I’d rather have Voronin than Keane; the latter was shite for us and is not a lot better for Spurs’. Indeed. And with that my friends, I bid ye farewell for today! No point hanging about, no way that ones getting topped!

Digger, Digger, Digger…. Give your honest opinion. Was Keane not shite for us? Forget fair crack of the whip and political pawn etc etc. Before we get into any of that. How many marks out of 10 would you give Keane that would sum up his level of performance in his 28 appearances for Liverpool? Coz in my opinion he was fucking terrible in at least 20 of those games.

I might be wrong here and my apologies if I am but it seems to me you are clutching at straws trying to vent some blame towards Rafa for our current predicament.

A more valid argument would be why Rafa bought an injured player for £17m . Or why he spent £18m on a right back if he knew funds would be tight while our squad is thin. We could have some good debate about that.

To debate this Keane/Voronin thing properly I think you should tell me if you think Rafa sold him without wanting to bring in a replacement.

I really don’t think that from the outset Rafa thought it fine to sell Keane and have Voronin back with no other attacking additions. What’s your opinion on that matter? You think Rafa sold Keane to show Parry who was boss to the detriment of our squad long term? Or do you think Keane would have been a quality signing given time and he should never have been sold regardless?

You gonna give me your opinion on these things or just continue with the sarky comments? At the moment you’re acting like a dumped chick on Beverly Hills 90210 or something. “Oh… MY GOD.. I can’t believe you!!”

I think your right about Kuyt FS. He’s looked tired and slow the last few games. Maybe the virus thats going around. Im a bit of a Kuyt converter myself. When he was first put out on the right it used to drive me mad because his first touch was so bad. Its still not the best in the world but its improved 100 per cent on what it was. Suppose he just needed time to settle into a new position. As of now i cant imagine our first 11 without Kuyt. He brings so much to the team. I’ve been watching him very closely lately and his first time passing is also something thats dramatically improved. Great lad. And would die for the cause. All though i think he may need a rest at the moment.

LB, while your’e waiting for Dig’s response to your question I’ll give you mine….. I think Keane would have come good given more time, perhaps around half the time he’s already given Lucas??

Well Steve that is a good argument. And I did think that we got rid of Keane extremely quickly. In my opinion he was poor but he did not get too long to prove otherwise.

I think we sold Keane because we got a very good offer for him and Rafa thought we could bring in someone better suited to fit into the game plan.

If we got offered a good price for Lucas it would be interesting to see what Rafa would do. And the same can be said of Kuyt when he was playing poorly a couple of years ago.

My mate and I always have this debate. He asks why players like Kuyt and Lucas wasn’t sold when they were poor. My answer is that we would not have got much money for them.

So my point is that although it’s arguable whether we should have sold Keane or kept him. The main issue considering the current state of our squad is that the money brought in from his sale was given to RBS rather than Rafa. That is why I do not consider it a mistake. Had he sold Keane and used the money to buy some rubbish striker or just kept the dough in the kitty believing Voronin was the answer then I’d be highly critical. But I do not believe that to be the case.

Quick comment I’d rather have Vorinin & 16 mill than Keane.
How much was Silva going for ?

Digger & Steve,

Remember the press saying we’re going to suffer terribly after we’d sold Keane back to Spurs? And what happened? We end up making the best scoring run for as long as I can remember Liverpool in the Premier League. The team clicked so well and played great football.

So Hyde’s comments in #62 about Keane’s need for the team to play to suit his style rather than the other way round holds water to me. If you want numbers Digger, all I can say is that you just take those that suit you, e.g. Keane’s a proven goalscorer, not (i) his real goal scoring contribution of about 7 in 28 games as quoted above, and (ii) the one that suggests that his influence on the Liverpool goalscoring charts (before and after he left the team) that seems to suggest a strong negative correlation. Proven scorers may not always work out well at a new club, e.g. (i) Shevchenko at Chavs, (ii) Rush at Juve, and Keane’s best is nowhere near the above 2 players at their prime.

I believe that great managers have a defined style & vision of how a team’s football should be played. I also believed we’ve caught a glimpse of it at the end of last season.

And Steve, with reference to Hyde’s post on #61, I believe that Crouch’s style and abilities would not suit the way Rafa had wanted the team to play its game. It’d be more like Gerrard and Torres leading the attack, and can anyone here honestly tell me that he can find a better partnership than the 2 of them?

Keane and Crouch knew they would not fit into Rafa’s first choice partnership & style of play, and that’s why (I think) they left in search of a team that better appreciates their capabilities.

And for those of you that insist on blaming Rafa for not having good enough attacking replacements, please (i) look at the $$ available to him from the borrowers, as FS and many others have already pointed out, and (ii) Ngog, Pacheco, Eccleston and Nemeth: please do not dismiss them yet.

Sometimes I wonder if some fans out here take more pleasure in seeing their prophecies of certain players becoming lousy come true instead of supporting them simply because they play for the team you love & support.

Or maybe it’s just that these people are unhappy that Rafa isn’t playing to their vision of how the game should be played and hence these folks are ever ready to sharpen their knives and attack him when things don’t go right.

As many fans have already stated (e.g. Tomkins, FS and others), we do not see the players in training, are unaware of their progress, and their physical state of health. So please give him the benefit of doubt

And if 1 Champions League, 1 FA Cup, 2 more small cups (Community Shield, Winner of Champs League vs UEFA Cup, can’t remember the name), 3 more cup final appearances (Carling Cup + Champions League + World Club Championship), together with qualifying for the Champions League every year (including the club’s most number of points for more than 20 years) is not proof that Rafa is doing a good job, I wonder what is.

These days. it just seems that some fans are more eager to want to prove themselves right and more knowledgeable than Rafa about football, just like many in the press and so called expert panels who are mostly ex-players who have not made it as managers.

Rome I have a hunch Rafa wanted to use the Keane money to go towards buying David Silva. And he probably thought that between Babel, Kuyt and Ngog we were alright up front considering we play with one striker. That’s my thinking.

Sadly we brought in over £53m in the summer and only spent £35m. So when I see Voronin missing sitters I’m looking at that missing £18m plus the £20m usually given for transfers and I ask myself what Rafa might have done with that extra money. I don’t think he’d have kept it in his pocket and welcomed Davy Crockett back.

As for the argument for Kuyt, please look at the stats for last season. He scored 15 goals in 51 games playing mainly as a right winger, compared to Rooney scoring 20 in 49 playing as a supporting striker.

And I even hear some manc fans trying to justify why Rooney is better than Torres as a striker by playing up his capabilities and workrate in helping out the defence. Kuyt is more superior than Rooney in the above 2 areas and doesn’t get the silly red cards that Rooney gets.

My point is that even the manc fans can appreciate a striker helping out the team and giving his all in every game, but why not some of our fans here? Have we forgotten about Rush as a striker who helps out the defence? Or is it the media influence again, where Rooney is always overhyped due to their preference for manc players?

Axechoice I think it may be due to the fact Kuyt’s 2nd touch is often a tackle and prior to last season did miss quite a few sitters. Rooney should score more goals I think, but he is in a different class to Kuyt I’m sorry.

axchoice, my sentiments exactly, my friend.

LB, with respect to the amount of time Keane was (or wasn’t) given, I think you are right, but I believe that it was also due to the fact that Keane was too disruptive. I don’t know about Lucas, but with Kuyt, I doubt Rafa would have sold him even when he was not “playing good” (which I don’t really believe there was) unless if it had been for a significant amount.

It goes back to what I was saying about the problem with keane. He just wasn’t a team player in substance for us (not in a psychological sense but in terms of the performance he was showing). With lucas and kuyt, sure they were making individual errors, but the errors were not to the extent that they were disrupting the flow of our play. Therefore, you had to feel that they deserved more chances and if and when they came good, the team itself would improve.
Whereas with Keane, his presence alone was choking our side, and even if he did start to score, you couldn’t picture our side winning or being effective as a team.

I don’t have much issue with a striker’s goal ratio. I never did. I don’t rate strikers just on the number of goals he scores. Which is why I rate someone like Heskey and cannot understand the level of criticism he receives.

I wouldn’t have minded keane missing those sitters if he was contributing in substance for the team. But he just wasn’t, and Nando, steven et al were having difficulty when he was on the pitch. Even lucas, who would have gladly passed to anyone in sight was always hesitant to pass to Keane.

What made the situation even worse was that keane was an “established” premiership player. Therefore, the lad had a sense that he “deserved” to be on the pitch and that his past records were enough to warrant a good amount of playing time regardless of how well or bad he was playing. He didn’t really realise that he needed to “earn” his status at the club. And I don’t mean to say that the lad wasn’t trying and wasn’t professional.

If the media had ignored Keane being sat on the bench, Keano may have been given at least until the end of the season, but the exterior pressure and Keane’s own sense of injustice was probably disrputing the morale of the team as well.

Add to that all the political fiasco surrounding the initial transfer, and Rafa had to let him go, and as soon as possible.

The bottom line is– what do we want?

Do we simply want a striker that can score goals or do we want a team that can score goals.

Preferably both, but for me, the ultimate choice is pretty clear.

Nice, civilised debate…. Ahh its good….. Digger, bring your ass back here and join in!

Where’s Timmy? I finished reading McGrath’s book the other day and I’m now reading Banco.

Interesting article from Paul Tomkins
http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/NG166394091109-1109.htm

And more fodder fro the media bias debate… and this is from the fuckin Echo for fucks sake…

Headline:
RAFA BENITEZ today challenged Yossi Benayoun to inspire Liverpool F.C.

actual quote from Rafa in the article:
“Yossi is a key player for us,” said Benitez. “There was a time before when people had some doubts about him but we knew he always had quality.
We knew he could have an influence and change a game. He is intelligent and players don’t know what he is going to do the next time he gets the ball.
That’s a big difference and when you don’t have Steven on the pitch, it’s important we have Yossi and we hope he will keep doing that in this game.”

I`m in LB was out all day with the little people.I take it you`ve enjoyed the Mc Grath book.

Hyde you are right about Keane in his role in the side.He used to be more in the way than anything else.Financially Rafa did the right thing selling although he was screwed up the ass by H&G.If he stayed until the summer we might not have went on the run we did.But we`ll never know.If he did keep him and tried to sell him in the summer he`d have got peanuts and would have been slated.

I`m not saying Vorinin is better but Rafa believed he had the Keane money or at least a large percentage of it to buy a better striker.

And no Digger i don`t have direct link to that conversation but i think its common knowledge that H&G said Rafa`s funds will have to come from sales and the last time i checked Keane to Spurs was err…a sale!

I`m off have to work tonight so wont see the game but here`s for a 2-0 win.

Where can I see a decent stream of the match? I cant be arsed going to the pub…

LB am on http://livoo.tv/en/file.php?f=1

come on you REDS!
YNWA

Good morning from Shanghai
I am on this..

http://www.0dian8.com/play/tv2/264.html

Nice smooth stream

Eggnog!!!!!

Darn,

Benitez scores against Benitez’s team against the run of play….sigh..

Fuck that analogy is gonna fucking annoy me cause the media will milk it

and his first goal for the club as well…

we should have scored…

The defending is getting on my fucking nerves now. What the fuck are they doing on the raining ground every day?

Hammy gone for Riera…
Gerrard on…

and another Birmingham goal…

OMG…..this is getting better every minute

Their first goal shouldn’t have happened. We had to ein at least one of the 3 headers in the middly of our box. Jerome’s goal was just freaky, the ball virtually dipped at a right angle.
I really like the look of ngog. Good technique. But his movement and positioning is well below par, but he can learn that.

We’ve had our chances and should be 3 up I feel. But the lads really have to work together now.
Fatty any news on the torres prognosis? Doesn’t look good does it?

Sorry for the poor spelling in the last post. Quick typing on the blackberry doesn’t always yield good results

The vultures already harping on the departure of the boss if we lose again tonight.
Oh dear…

Johnson is immense tonight, but it was him who let Benitez onside for the first goal.

Kuyt has been very quiet in the first half

..and so are our supporters in the stadium….

Come on come on………….go and for the equalizer. When Aguaman will come on? and for who?

Ngog and gerrard… we are level.
Lets go for the kill now.. come on come on come on

ps: was it a dive?

Swan lake, but who gives a fuck.

Another injury to another key player..
Riera gone… and now Benny is gone as well
oh dear

Oh well….

That’s a 2-point loss… and incredibly our first draw this season.

Good to see the captain back in the team again. Not to mention Aquaman.

The downside however..
we dominated possessions… was let down by a set piece goal and a freaky goal. 2 SOT, 2 goals…

we fought hard. what is killing me is the goals we are conceding. rubbish defending on the first and a ridiculous shot on the second. jerome will never hit another shot like that in his life. its driving me mad. very tough to take the lack of luck. injuries, etc, we have to be the unluckiest team on the planet right now. except man united, they are so unlucky with referees…

we fought hard????????????

what on earth is wrong with u??

this was birmingham for god’s sake

our seasons over already.what an absolute shame!! n if you’re denying that , you’re highly delusional

Agree Alec – Reina is going through a bad patch IMHO and Hart made some great saves.
I must add that the commentater on Setanta made many comments about Eggnog’s penalty was’nt one-to me it was. The TV replay showed no contact BUT Ngog jumped to avoid injury.
Poor old Rafa-nothing is going right for him,and now Benny is hamstringed to add to the many injuries.

yes smith. we did fight hard. this WAS birmingham, the same birmingham that barely lost to united at old trafford. the same birmingham that should have beaten city last time out.

that said, we should have won the match – and i think we did enough to win. i stand by the fact that we deserved to win the match. if youre denying that, i think you are highly delusional.

our season is over…please smith. oh well, at least there are 19 other premier league sides – that way you can support a team that has something to play for. oh, and there’s other leagues too with lots of other teams that have over 2/3 of their season left.

I don’t think this has anything to do with reina. We gave away srupid possesion and noone put a tackle on jerome, plus he fluked a shot that virtually dipped 90degrees.
The first goal was poor because they had 3 free headers inside the box.

I get frustrated that teams have 1-2 half chances and score, and we pile drive the other team and get no reward.

Very impressed with ngog, smart player all round, just has to learn positioning and runs, but that will come.

Really liking lucas atm aswell.

We have two weeks to re-group and hit the ground running

The positives, at least we have stemmed the losses, now we’re turning frustrating losses into draws.
.
akka, you must have a different TV to me, Lucas’ shooting is juvenile at best. He has had numerous opportunities in the last few weeks and still looks no closer to a goal.
.
Aqualani looks more of a defensive type midfielder, I think it may be time to get SG back out on the right. Lucas, Mash and Aqualani all appear to be defensive type midfielders. Aqualani certainly did look assured.
.
Defensively we are probably looking sad due to our fullbacks both being asked to attack. Johnson is our best attacking asset at the moment. Riena is going through a bad patch, he should have swallowed up the ball from the first goal. Maybe his authority isn’t what it should be so it’s costing our defence.
.
All in all a powerful display of running football by the reds without much penetration where it counted. I think the stats were 35 shots while only 7 were on target.
.
If anyone Aqualani is going to replace it would be Lucas, unless stevie goes out wide, then Kuyt is out of a job. Personally today he was ordinary. However Johnson done enough work for both of them over there.

Swan lake! Lol! Classic Akka, never a peno but as you say fuck it, the way things are going for us we’ll take it. Agree on Reina too as it happens. He’s been keeping the shit to shoe level for 3mths now, almost single handed at times. Cant blame him for tonight. Player of the year so far says this observer. As for todays debate, would love to have stayed but working for the man and all that. Wanted to continue tonight but given that result think I’ll leave well enough alone. Resume wednesday perhaps.

Ps, how gutted did Riera look when he pulled his hammy. Boy I felt for the guy then. He was broken, I thought he was having a very good first game back. Does anyone think something might be wrong with a training techniques, injury wise.
.
Harry Kewell went to Gala and has hardly missed a game in two years. Meanwhile are injury rate is going through the roof, just like last season. Just a thought for debate.

Yet another fine example of “Shit Happens” and it happens to us.

How on earth did we not win that game? Even setting aside the poor defending for the first and the amazing strike for the 2nd (come on now lads, no “it was a fluke” … if that had been one of our lads, we’d be praising his genius with the ball,) the fact that we didn’t put one of the other 4,265 attempts on goal into the back of the net is amazing.

My only complaint today would be that we let a little bit of anxiety prevent us from doing the simple things and resorted to a bit of overelaboration at times… but I guess its to be expected given our situation, so I won’t be too harsh about that.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I was frustrated as hell and my blood pressure was sky rocketing, I might have really enjoyed that as a game of footy!

Gaz I’m liking lucas’ tackling and distribution. Can’t even remember lucas giving away a stupid free kick today in and around our (or the past few games).
Never mentioned the lads shooting.

Speaking of shooting, I think the whole team has something to answer about that.

Hopefully the international break will do us some good. Good to have Gerrard back. Think Aquaman was asked to stay back so we don’t leak at the last minute. Two lost still a point gained. At least we arrested the defeats.

Gaz, great comment, turning losses into draws.

Another frustrating night, two more injuries (Benny and Reira), and more dropped points. I like to say we can’t catch a break, but I guess we did on the PK.

5 points out of our last 27 in all comps. Who would have guessed a run like that over the summer?

Two weeks off, and three massive games once we get back at it (Citeh home, Debrecen away, Everton away). Hopefully we can get through the international break with some luck on the injury front and find a way to get three points against Citeh. That one’s developed into a true 6 pointer in our battle for 4th.

Keep the faith…

akka, I seem to remember Lucas giving a the free kick that led to their first goal. I’m not doubting his effort, it’s his shooting. Late in the first half, his shot from 15 yards out didn’t even make the 6 yard box.

Well we reduced them to 2 shots in 90 minutes and they played 10 man
defence so apparantly they deserved the win because Ngogg dived ESPN.
If it had of been me i’d of stood on his kneecap, he wouldn’t be lunging in
again and i’d of got the pen.
Should he risk a injury and take the foul ? No
Can a penalty be awarded for intent ? Yes
Is it a penalty when Kuyt was tripped ? Yes
Is it a penalty when they handle the ball in their area ? Yes
Is it a free kick if Monster touches or pushes a Brum player ? Yes
Is it a free kick if Jerome touches or pushes Monster only moment later?No
and then he scores with their last shot of the game.
Inconsistent ref to say the least,More bloody injuries,both hamstrings but thats
what you get playing on cold winter nights.
LB@ 70 All summer long i was convinced Silva was coming with the Keane
money which is why i mentioned it.
The moment you take the money made from transfers and not re-invest it in
other players,is the moment you become a feeder club.
YNWA

PS
Breaking news Ferguson has been sacked

Aitch # 106 couldn’t agree more with ya mate..If I wasn’t so wound up yelling at the Telly.I think I could have enjoyed that as a Football game.
If it wasn’t for bad luck we wouldn’t have any luck at all.
Glad for the International break.which I usally hate.
Let’s hope we can get Stevie G and Fernando up and running after the break.
I some some positives in that game
Masher is getting back to his best, Lucas played well, especially in the first half ( other than his shooting).
Johnson needs to work on getting up for the ball in the box.
Let’s hope Benny Onion’s injury isn’t too serious.
The ‘Little Man ” is playing well for us right now.
Ngog deffo a penalty, Carsley was going to pull him down, Ngog jumped over the tackle.Deffo Intent.
Kuyt Penalty. That ref was shite..
I like the little bit I saw of Aquaman, I think he will be one for the Future.
Keep the Faith , Lads..It’s not as bad as the Press would have you believe..

Rome, Redscouse, stop it lads, ye’re embarrassing yourselves. If a player for any other team done that to us ye’d be screaming from the rooftops ‘you diving cheating disgusting female genatalia’. Rome given the way you cry about refs and luck and such things you’d have a fucken aneurysm!! I hear the stewards are still searching the Annie end 18yd box for land mines!! Penalty indeed, behave!

Digger read my post again i didnt say it wasnt a dive i said he shouldnt take the
foul and risk a injury.And yes intent can be cited as a reason to give a pen.
and if you want to look again you’ll notice the words “because Ngogg dived”
fucken aneurysm!! indeed .
Got to ask Digger WTF is up with you ?

It is my understanding that there does not have to be any contact for a foul to be given…if a player avoids the tackle but is still impeded then its still a foul…

Now you may call that soft – but I believe that is the way the law is written – can anyone confirm or contradict that…

Rome77 – Saw exactly the same thing…Masch wins the ball in a way that is usually never pulled up…then the Brum players proceed to hack our midfield to pieces and get away with it all game…the lack of consistency and ability to apply the rules of the game accurately really are beginning to piss me off…and on top of that as soon as a player in a LFC shirt argues he gets booked…but the fucking chavs and mancs can swear at the ref all day long and nothing happens…the FA and EPL are just about the most corrupt organisations on earth…

Was a lovely dive.

Rome the only intent Carsley had was to intercept the ball and he missed it by a fraction. Ngog should have been booked for simulation. I thought he’d come off a diving board! And I’m fine thanks, just curious as to what your reaction would have been lets say if Rooney did that to us 2wks ago and got utd a draw? Riiiight….Aneurysm time!

Gaz, just to clear it up, it was Monster who gave the free kick away for that first goal.

akka – no it was lucas, he had his arms over jerome’s shoulder contesting a head ball. that was the free kick that lead to the first.

thats the not the problem though. the problem is how birmingham city won 3 headers in a row in our penalty box…

akka, think you’ll find it was indeed Lucas, though it was a bullshit call.

And Digger, I don’t agree with you much these days, but I can’t agree with you more on the Ngog dive. It WAS a dive… and almost as good as Stevie G.’s dive a few minutes later… behave!
And yes if it’d been done to us, we’d be calling the fucker every name under the sun.

You could see he was a bit embarrassed about it actually. Ngog knew Carsley was coming through him, but the daft lad never even trailed his leg to insure contact. All very silly…. his first goal was a fuckin belter though, so we’ll call it even!

The pen was just about the only piece of luck we’ve had for ages though.

As far as intent goes… if you can be booked just for intent, then how do the Chavs and Scum finish most of their games with 11 men on the field?

you know the press and everyone is going to have a field day with this…just like with eduardo. after ngog played a great game, scored a great goal, and had just built up great confidence on the back of several good performances, they are going to try and cut him down and kill him off for good with pressure and disdain.

this is why i was really surprised that rafa did not back him more in the post match interview. i remember slur alex making outrageous claims that fouls on ronaldo were warranted when there was no contact because of momentum and all sorts of bollocks. but there was never a questioning of it. i remember a penalty utd won that ultimately won them the game against boro a few years ago where ronaldo literally leaped over schwarzer but fungus face supported ronaldo all the way for it.

i know rafa doesn’t advocate gamesmanship at LFC (unlike mourinho and fungus and others), but i think it might do ngog a little better knowing that even if he made a mistake, he had support from his manager (even if rafa didn’t necessarily believe it was a foul). does that make sense?

i worry for the lad is all im saying. i think he could be a future great striker, he’s already looking an absolute bargain for a million pounds…i just worry he is going to get absolutely slated for this. thank god there is an international break…but he is going to get singled out for several months now, just like eduardo did.

YNWA

Having watched the penalty shout again..have to say it probably wasn’t one.But the way our luck has been going I will take it..
I.e the beachball goal that shouldn’t have been given.
“swings and roundabouts”
I see Rooney and Fungus face have gotten off again with a wrist slap by the F.A.
What a joke the F.A. has become.

I wouldn’t worry alec, I think the lad handled himself pretty well.
He certainly didn’t look like he needed any protection from anyone, the way he kept getting stuck right in, following the incident.

I have to say, I thought his yellow was a bit strange. I mean he walked away, it was Carsley and the rest of the Brums that were having a go at him, and I thought there were a few Brum players that could have gotten booked there, but I think the ref realized at that point that he’d fucked up and tried to even things out, by subsequently waving every appeal away and giving 50/50 fouls in their favor.

Maybe it was lucas. But I swear masch gave away a free kick (bump from behind/side on jerome) in a similar possie.

All I’m saying is lucas is playing well. Sure his shooting is cack, but besides that he has come leaps and bounds.

Johnson also impressed, that lad comes back and gets straight into it

akka, Masch did indeed give away a free kick at 1-1-1, in almost the same position… it was a 50/50 ball with Jerome and should never have been called a foul… but that effort got sliced over the bar.

And yeah… the lad couldn’t shoot his way out of a wet paper bag, but aside from that Lucas overall performance was flawless today. The call for the free kick on him, that led to the goal was nonsense.
He friggin bossed that midfield with Masch today and we actually lost our shape a bit when he was subbed off.

… but yeah… he needs to learn to shoot… though he isn’t the only one… our shooting in general is woeful… but having said that Masch is usually terrible and he put 3 efforts on target today.

we’ll finish out of top 4 , no doubt about that

well smithy, here’s what u can do if we finish out of the top 4:

1. call for rafa’s sacking.
2. support another team.
3. watch rugby.

That’s the spirit Smith, keep the positive vibes going!

I am confident we can finish in the top four.

It is only less than one-third of a long marathon. Once our injuries are healed and the team starts clicking together, then the results will come our way.

Morning lads, dive, and not a very good one. And he was lucky the lino and ref were in the positions they were or he’d have been booked. Do I like that from an LFC player?
No. Of course not. But it’s part of the modern game. And seeing I’m sitting here listening to a young kid getting absolutely savaged on the radio, while Dropba is called a consumate pro on the same station… Well, I’ll support ours like I always do.

But there’s much more to say than that… You could feel the anxiety coming off the crowd and it got into the players. So a nice early goal was what we needed and I was chuffed when it went in. I was hoping it would settle the nerves and push the lads on. Sadly, it didn’t take us long to show the fragility we’ve been showing all season.

You can see that in the shooting. Not that Mascher or Lucas will ever win any prizes for it, but that’s pure anxiety you’re watching, when you see them cracking in ridiculous shots from stupid distances while there are so many more options available.

Like I’ve been saying for ages now, there’s a cloud, or as LB says a jinx, hanging over the club. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it…. 4 minutes added on at the end of the first half. We absolutely pannel them. They score a wonder/fluke goal in the dying seconds of the half.

Call it luck. Call it a cloud, jinx, whatever… 2 hamstrings pinging, goal concedeed from the only real attack, goal conceedeed from a wonder strike. It’s not the norm. But there’s no point in making excuses. And there’s only one way out of it… Hard work.

That’s not to say all the players just running around like fuck. In fact, it means the exact opposite. Rafa has to steady the ship. He has to get the players confidence back. HE has to get them playing their normal game without nerves and anxiety.

Did anyone see the move where the ball rebounded from their goalie straight into the path of Benayoun. He was wide open, close in, with a gaping net in front of him – Gerrard busted a gut to get to the ball, thumping it wide.

Had he let that go, it was a certain goal. These are the small details Rafa speaks of and as the manager it is now his job to sort these things out.

He has to know get these lads to believe in themselves and get that sort of panic out of their play. We are better than that. If you look at the stats for most of our games this season, we have controlled possesion, and had about a billion more shots on goal than the opposition. In fact, we have probably had more shots on goal than any other team, and, off the top of my head, we are only behind Arsenal in goals scored.

It’s hard to criticise our defence, when it hasn’t been settled from one game to the next and we all know how good it normally is. And sorry lads, but none of that is down to Pepe. He’s been fantastic and we would have been far worse off without him. But having said that, Rafa now needs to get the lads believing and to cut this sort of thing out.

But how anyone can just slate the manager, the players or the coaching staff is beyond me. A blindman on a fast horse can see the problems we are having… fuck me. 2 more hamstrings on 2 players we really need, and at a time like this.
It truly is mindboggling.

Could say alot more. But what’s the point. When the lies of the owners are being believed over Rafa, I truly give in.

The problem the team (and Rafa in particular) need more than anything now is a win.

N

I started so I’ll finish………… As I was saying……… we need a win to get them off Rafa’s back. Not the owners but those horrible fucking bastards that FS was talking about the other day……. yep, the Media. We all know they have Rafa in their sights now and despite what anyone says they have got more and more LFC fans calling for Rafa’s head. He really needs to beat Man.City to buy some time before our CL fate is decided for another season.

Nervousness, the jitters, bricking it, call it what you want but as FS says, it was there for all to see last night and it is a real shame to see it from a Liverpool team but that is what our current run of form is doing to our players, the feel good factor after beating the Mancs on 25th October has long since evaporated, just a distant memory now and that’s a shame too.

All we can do is look to the next game. We were all hoping that we would have more players back from injury by the time we play City, and what happens? We lose Yossi and Riera will probably be out for 6 weeks now.

Sorry FS but- yes Reina does make mistakes as well as some blinding saves,just not enough of the blinders right now.

Steve mate, if you only look at the last 3 games, Fulham, Lyon, Brum, it’s blatant… nerves have completely taken over.

And another thing them 3 games had in common… they all played rope a dope. Sitting back, letting us come at them and hitting us on the break.

Shame Lucas gave away the free that led to the goal. He had a very good game last night. My heart was in my mouth when he chased after Benitez in our box. I was sitting there thinking, Oh fuck. A pen. But Lucas hunted him down, got a perfect tackle in, nicking the ball right off he’s boot, and also got away from him to not only clear his lines but set Johnson off another run.

I don’t know why so called Liverpool supporters have turned out like some we see in here, just sitting, waiting, biding their time to attack the team and manager at every opportunity. I’m ashamed to be connected to them in any way. It’s not only treachery. It’s bloody ridiculous. But as someone commented earlier… it’s just part of the age we live in – a perverse need to be proved right rather than see the team succeed.

But you’re right, one win could be enough to blow all this away and send us on a run. It’s just a shame that we live in this blame culture. I’ll never understand why people need to do that at every opportunity instead of taking a breath and looking at things clearly.

But sadly, that’s how it is. In fact, it’s that bad that people are prepared to re-write history in a pathetic attempt to be proved right.

Yes. We have problems at Anfield. Yes. Rafa is the manager and as such it’s his job to put them problems right. But when did become a supporters job to get on his back at each and every opportunity?

Fact is… we absolutely battered Birmingham last night. Another night we could have ran up a rugby score. And if more of our support acted like sport and not vouyers, we may well have done.

And before someone has a go at that, yes faith can move mountains. I’ve seen it happen many times at Anfield before, but sadly it seems them days have gone.

Jack mate, I honestly think Pepe has been great. And I think things could have been far worse without him. I thought he was going to knock someone’s head off last night. After their first goal went in did you notice how he wouldn’t trust the defence to deal with set pieces and threw himself into the punch rather than let them deal with it.

This is the sort of thing that has to be cleared up in training – and if ever we get a full squad into training, I’m sure Rafa will get it all worked out.

We know what this team and these players are capable of. They haven’t just turned to cack overnight and all will come good. I just wish the supporters would back them more and they might even be pleasantly surprised by the results of actually supporting the team.

And before anyone in here takes umbridge, I’m speaking about the people actually at the games.

Anyone here ever worked for an organisation where the top brass is in turmoil?
You get on with your day job professionally and do the best you can, but after a while (years) it starts to get to you and the organisation starts to really suffer. Last night’s ‘nerves’ really felt the same to me. And it looked like there’s just enough doubt in the back of the mind, for example, to make a poorly timed tackle or hit the outside of the post instead of the inside or place shots within reach of the keeper instead of a yard either side…
But, yeah, it’s Rafa’s job to soak up the boardroom crap and protect the players from all the negativity and speculation and let them get on with their job – winning games.

That’s about as negative as I get so I’m off to take a chill pill.

We all know we should have won last night…
Matt Busby sold his soul to the devil.

Oh and Lucas was my motm last night for the first time.
Apart from a couple of times in the second half when he dithered and got the crowd anxious he was fantastic.
Some great headers (and he’s not the biggest lad), great tackles and a couple of key passes.
I won’t mention his shooting as nobody mentions it when Masch let’s one off or Skrtel…
Boy done good.

McrRed, why are some of our players getting caught in possesion like that?

I seen it with a few others besides Lucas, and then there was that Gerrard moment when he charged to get ahead of Yossi and fucked up a chance that could have easily been a goal.

I know some of the players are intimadated by Gerrard sometimes, but it seems to me like it’s as basic as a “mine,” or “Man On” call.

Really annoying.

So much change in the brothers in here! now Akka and Knight believe we can finish in 4th position? why was that Samonth guy(sorry mate if i mispelled ur name) and Burgerman getting stick for saying something like that? u guys should hang ur heads in shame!!!!

Well,at the start of the season i wished we could finish in the top 4,but the way things are going on right now,things could get worse..we have managed 1 win in a whole 9games in all competitions! seems like our season hasnt kick started yet,its more like pre-season to me!

The problems that were present in pre-season are still there.Lucas giving away silly free kicks that lead to a goal, inability to consistently defend set pieces,Kuyt’s lack of goals.Aqua will score no more than 6 league goals a season, he plays too deep.We needed to get a midfielder who can play in the final quarter of the pitch, Murphy,Overmars,Petit,Berger etc.
1-1 was the most probable score last night and few are surprised that the Reds didn’t win.Another of Taggart’s proteges have outsmarted Rafa.No win V Brum in 8 Prem games!.Time to cash in on Dossena and Aurelio-they have done zilch this season.Ngog and Torro look far more dangerous than Kuyt.

Trying to keep positive but fuck me its hard-

Couldn’t see the game last night – that steaming is shite – so can’t really comment on performances – but let me guess dominated but struggled to score – where have I heard that before

League is out of our hands now (all we can do is hope and pray other teams fuck up – just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it can’t)

Sula – you seem happy that things are going bad for us – you should hang your head in shame !!

On the positive note maybe these injuries will convince the board to release some funds – what with Hicks saying we are now earning money with the deals Purslow has done (pinch of salt anyone)

An Lin Rafa has been promised funds by both Hicks and Gillette for January… Can we start a book on what the excuses will be when he gets none?

BM… you should be a scout, but hopefully not for LFC. Aquilani 30 minutes or so on the pitch and…
“Aqua will score no more than 6 league goals a season, he plays too deep.”

Incredible stupidity or knowledge?

Start a book on that, and I know where my money’s going.

Sula, you are a joke. Comparing yourself to Akka and Knight…
Well, that’s probably your funniest yet.

Fatty, check out Aqua on wikipedia, he scored 6-7 league goals for Roma each season.Knowledge, baby.I couldn’t be any worse than some of the scouts who work for LFC and earn booze money for their opinion..Dossena,Paletta etc were hardly genius purchases.I remember you saying during the summer that you thought the Reds would win the title this season!.We will finish 25 points off the pace, we finished 19 and 30 points behind the Mancs and A in 2003 and 2004.Normal service resumed.How many will AQua score this season, if he stays fit?.A very big if.

Ohh and BM if you didnt realise, FS meant 30min all season. The lad had 8min against Brum FFS, what do you want him to do, take on all 11 players, then go back and take them on again before scoring.

Sula what are you on about. Ofcourse i think we can finish in top 4, in fact, i dont evem think the season is over.

BM seems one of those clowns who never manages to watch a game (or stream the odd game) but relies on Sky for his match reports.

Lucas was MOTM mate in my book, and in alot of the red supporters, so just get over using him in your stupid arguments.

Aurellio done zilch BM? He has been injured you knob.

Ohh, BM go support united aswell. Ohh wait, Slur Alex hasnt managed to beat Rafa in the past 3 occassions (scoring 3 and conceeding 8?)

BM you have no knowledge. Aqualani has been injured most of the past 2 years.

You also love to move your goal posts. You were complaning that Rafa sold Alonso and didnt get a replacement. Are you forgetting where Alonso played? Deep!.

Also, lets blame Rafa for having 10 first team players out injured/virus etc. On top of that having no transfer kitty.

I dont even know why i bother replying to BM

Just to finish off about Aqualani.

The lad has been injured for the past 2 years and constantly rushed back from injury cause thats how highly rated he is.

Not only to be rushed back, but also to play from the bench makes it hard for anyone to score.

2007/2008: Appearances 14 (13 as a sub)

2008/2009: 17 appearances (11 as a sub)

Compare that to someone like Gerrard who playes 55+ games for liverpool with 1-2 sub apperances.

“We will finish 25 points off the pace,”

‘kinell. That’s hilarious. Once I stop laughing, I’ll phone Mystic Meg and tell her the job is safe.

Aqua played 147 games for Roma and scored 15 goals.Aurelio spends 2/3 of every season injured/recuperating.Lucas gave the free kick that led to the first goal, not the first or last time.Until Rafa learns how to beat the likes of Brum, he will be as far away as Evans and Houllier were from winning the title.
Beat that Baby!.

I’d love to know when the world changed to this. Was it a big bang moment, or did it just slyly slip by me?

I remember going to school with no soles in me shoes and going to bed hungry. I can’t remember anyone moaning and whingeing like this.

Call me all the names you like, but I am flabberghasted by the things I see and hear nowadays. And to be honest, I find it quite disgusting. And I mean that about life in general, not just football. The need to point fingers, scapegoat people, blame people and spit the dummy when something is demanded and not delivered immeadiately is something I will never understand.

And the thing I find completely baffling is the fact that people who carry on like this have the absolute conviction that they are right and nobody else counts.

I am more than willing to be proved wrong. I’ve stated many times that if someone could give me an intelligent fact based reason to believe Liverpool FC would be better off without Rafa, I would be first to call for his head.

But all I see is childish tantrums, constant goal post moving to try and prove some none point, history being re-written, revisionism, ridiculous generalisations, sad time biding to attack, and probably worse of all, absolute downright nonsense pulled out like of nowhere with no basis in fact whatsoever.

Dear me. Sad times, indeed.

There was a bit of intelligent debate going in here for a couple of days. Shame I knew it wouldn’t last.

burgerman – I think you’re 25 points off the pace

“Beat that Baby!.”

Oh dear, this really is ridiculous now. I can honestly see why some of my old friends gave up their season tickets, want to end up in the Championship and won’t go until we are rid of these great “Supporters,” we have now Baby!

The defending is a disgrace. At least 2 proper fuck ups every game. It’s like watching Piecnic, Kvarme, Ruddock and Babb all over again. Rafa has got to get this sorted out. We’ve been shite defending set pieces all bloody season. That first Birmingham goal was a joke. If we can’t deal with basic deliveries into our penalty area we’ll struggle to finish in the top 6. Birmingham looked a poor side to me with a couple of journey men up front yet they get 2 goals at Anfield while playing defensive football. It seems so easy for teams to score against us. Fuck sake.

At the other end of the pitch, the final ball is invariably poor. Glen Johnson and Benny were our best attackers. Only these 2 show any kind of composure going forward. The others just panic – including Gerrard!?! How on earth he missed that header I don’t know. Some of Kuyt’s decision making when under pressure leaves a lot to be desired. I think it says a lot when the right back can beat the defender but the right winger can’t. Did he play above himself last season? I’m starting to wonder. The crossing from everyone was terrible all night. We have 2 midfield players who can’t shoot for shit. Is it me or is Insua carrying too much weight? Riera was pants. He doesn’t even stay wide anymore. Drifts inside every time he gets the ball and ignores the overlap from Insua and tries to shoot from 40 yards every fucking time. I wouldn’t mind if he could shoot but he’s another one who couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo. Their keeper didn’t have to pull off any great saves. We just huffed and puffed, crossed and shot the ball into blue shirts and eventually ran out of ideas. Very disappointing.

Now we have our first choice back four fit we need to sort out the fucking defending. Maybe the problem is that there is nobody in the squad capable of putting in a decent free kick so the defenders don’t get any proper practice defending them in training. Do we miss Hyypia or what?

I think Hart (i think thats his name) had a descent game in goals. Pulled off some fine saves. The 3 saves before Ngog scored and a few others on the goal line. Not to mention tipping Monsters great shot over the bar with virtually fingernails.

LB it was Riera’s first game back to be fair, I dont think he played too badly actually, but was a tad hungry at times.

On Kuyt, he actually beat their defender numerous times.

One last thing I will add before I depart from this blog for a few hours at least.

Do you do all your research on wilkipedia BM?

If you used the same logic you used on Aqualani and you were the manager, we wouldnt have Torres at the club. I love how we have these so called “expert supporters” who play their crappy games and think they are the shit when it comes to tactics/transfer market etc.

burgerman,
have you ever supported LFC?

Return of the mack!!

Boy that was such a let down. Great blog Gerry just been too busy to comment. When I read some of the comments it makes me wonder why I bother. It just seems we cannot get a break at the moment and that is the truth.

For the real fans, the bright side of this display, without Torres and Gerrad, is that we really looked good. The possession was great, the movement was great and we created some very decent chances. The team looked fluid and gelled really well. Johnson’s display was just sublime and he impresses me more and more. Lucas is getting better and better with each match, Ngog he same. This was a young team and the injuries have given the youngsters a chance to gain vital experience.

We are no where near as bad as people are trying to make us out to be. We will click and go on a run, I just hope it happens sooner rather than later. We are unsettles and shaky at the back and conceding too many goals, ye their second was a Hail Mary and that can happen but their first was tentative defending from both Agger and Skertal they failed to attack the ball.

We missed a few very good chances, Gerrads header in particular. How Aquaman can be judged on 8 mins is beyond me. It was a game on any other day with our confidence high we would have won at a canter. It does sem that the fates are against us at the moment with both Reira and Benny out. It will change, we need to stick with the team and support them more than ever. They are a good team and a good squad. For me 4th spot is not even in doubt, I still think we have a shout for better this season. Keep the Faith.

The penalty was for intent, if he did not dive (beautiful swan one at that) he could have ended up, knowing our luck this season, with a broken ankle. I will take all the gifts we can get at this point. The lad should have dragged his leg to make it look better as most pros would have done. Its nothing less than we deserved on the night. Hell we deserved more. I thought Kuyts was a legitimate shout.

LB, got to say it mate… I find that comment a bit disapointing. Normally, even back when we first crossed swords, you didn’t just lash out. You saw a problem, said it as you seen it and backed it up with an argument. And I’ve really enjoyed chatting with you lately as you’ve been looking beyond the obvious, finding reasons for this bad run, and explaining things calmly to our kneejerkers.

Not that it’s your fault or that you have anything remotely in common with them, but they look to you for some sort of credence to their tantrums. I’ve found it dead funny that they are getting upset because they haven’t had your backing. Fuck me. You even had Digger qouting Romeo and Juliet. He felt so forelorn to have lost his leader.

Did you go the pub or did you watch it on a shitty stream?

Honest mate, you look at it properly. It wasn’t the disaster you seem to think it was.

These other managers are no mugs. They know quite well, that we are suffering on many fronts and they have come up with the a way to frustrate us, 10 men behind the ball, work like fuck and sit there waiting to pounce.

It’s not mensa stuff but it’s effective. No doubt if we had a full fit team/squad we’d be brushing them and this basic tactic aside. But they know we haven’t and they know they will get a chance if they work their bollacks off, hold the line, and then pounce when we are stretched.

But mate, to just come out with stuff like…
“Riera was pants. He doesn’t even stay wide anymore. Drifts inside every time he gets the ball and ignores the overlap from Insua and tries to shoot from 40 yards every fucking time. I wouldn’t mind if he could shoot but he’s another one who couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo.”

Well, I hope that’s just frustration from a fella with enough football knowledge to know the lad is very rusty and isn’t fully fit. Not to mention how we’ve now probably lost him for another 6 weeks.

I’m not using that to have a go at you. I could have pulled other points. But that is not my point… I’m not having a go at you. I just hope that it’s frustration because I credit it you with more than that.

When people come out with shit like…
“Aqua played 147 games for Roma and scored 15 goals.Aurelio spends 2/3 of every season injured/recuperating.Lucas gave the free kick that led to the first goal, not the first or last time.Until Rafa learns how to beat the likes of Brum, he will be as far away as Evans and Houllier were from winning the title.
Beat that Baby!.”

…I don’t even consider them worth listening to nevermind answering. And I’m certainly not comparing you to any of them. I wouldn’t even be answering you if I had that sort of opinion of you. As I say, I’m just a bit disapointed that you are condeming without analysis and giving the likes of them bullets to fire.

Return of the mack!!

I’m not actually sure what that means but I suspect it’s just proved me point.

Oh well, got to go.
Tatty bye.

“beat that baby”….. sorry HELLO. How old are you? 12? Actually that would be doing 12 year olds a dis-service. Your the absolute antithesis of what a liverpool supporter is renowned for. Is that Andy Gay or Richard hairy arms i hear the background. Next time, when i want your opinion i’ll give it to you…..

Yeah course it has, everything proves your point dosent it Fatty? Oh and to suggest anyone other than you is my leader is simply untrue. In Fatty I trust.

You dont live in NZ do you digger?

Im guessing not, lucky that, too many sheep living in NZ anyway. Then again, its not uncommon for people around the world to follow the likes of Sky like sheep

I’m a Sunderland fan, known to a few in this parish because I run http://salutsunderland.com and Gerry did a great beach ball preview for me which was reproduced here.

Diving’s a huge debate.

Darren Bent on Saturday, Gary McAllister at the Stadium of L/S years ago (easily the most dramatic I’ve seen in too many decades of watching football), Eduardo of course. And now poor Ngog. No worse than many others I’ve seen but pretty bad.

But I’ve more than a little sympathy with the Liverpool fan, Damien, heard on TalkSport today, who essentially said “what’s the problem?/win some lose some/it makes for great banter afterwards”.

Morally, though, he’s wrong. Cheating’s terrible and I’d like to see it eliminated. But I suspect it’s the unwritten part of every player’s terms of employment that he should cheat if necessary, and Reds therefore have no special need to beat themselves up over last night. They’re all at it.

Gerry will remember my “Eduardo question” on this issue. I pose it to every fan of an opposing team who previews a game against us. On balance, I won’t be changing its name to Ngog (or Bent).

FS, I watched it on a stream. To be honest Riera has been annoying me with his play for a while. I don’t think his performance was down to rust. Fact is lately he’s not been staying wide (I realise he switched wings after a while) he is drifting inside more. At times that is a good thing because it creates space for the left back. However 9 times out of 10 he ignores the left back and tries to shoot from 35 yards through bodies. He does this time and time again. Before his injury and last night. More often than not he chooses the wrong option. Does it not do your head in?

Yeah we battered them – but in the second half the final ball was poor. Very panicky.

As for Digger quoting Romeo and Juliet. That was quite funny! My language was a bit more industrial last night.

The defending is indeed very very poor! There are indeed reasons for this. We’ve had injuries in the back line. However now they are fit I don’t think it unreasonable to see some improvements asa bloody p!

Oh Akka….dearie me…bit of a stretch but you got there in end. Good attempt though, keep it up lad, with a bit of hard work who knows? Cutting witicisms may become your forte yet.

FS @ 150 – blame our society – everything now is instant access, nobody waits anymore – they look at clubs like Chelsea who won the premiership with Abraomvich’s money and want our club to be like that.

Well except for Burgerman who I think is Paul Merson in disguise

That should read I don’t think it unreasonable to EXPECT to see some improvements asap.

Goodness me I just expect to see the ball end up in the back of our net anytime a team attacks us now.

At least Voronin wasn’t playing. Ngog looked good – so I hope that means no more Voronin.

As for Ngog’s dive. So what – it happens and always has. I don’t mind diving. It’s feigning injury that annoys me. So nice one David.

well the boys and girls have come out to play what aload of shit they say,

these same people were raving about the team and rafa last season, but its gine a bit wrong for us call it luck, bad kuck, curse or what ever we are suposed to be suppotrters. well its about time we started to do some supporting.

yes have your say but give it some real substance and less of the bull shit.or support some one else.

LB Got to agree with you about the defence of late but as far as Riera goes i
havent seen him play lately,and it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing him any time
soon.
Digger After your Shrek scenario resulting in Aneurysm time! as you put it
it occurred to me that you dont really know me.Football doesn’t really anger
me maybe because ive had 20 years of crap refs to get used to it.
Just as i dont really know you for example i didnt realise that cutting witicisms
was your forte.For us less enlightened what does”return of the mack mean”
is it sarcasm ?because you know thats the lowest form of wit.
YNWA

Didn`t see game as i`m on middle of night shifts but by all accounts it was a smash and grab job for birmingham.I seen some stats and one was with 10 mins to go we had over 500 passes comopleted to their 50(not exact figures).I also heard we had 37 attempts on goal.

Our defefnse seems to be a concerne now.We cannot get a settled back for together for a run of games.Saying that the injury list has to be taken into consideration and the reason for this.

We just need to ride through this bad period we`re having.The two week break is good news for us.

And smith if you think we cant finish in top four thats your opinion,better do it back at your own forum in red cafe with all the knee-jerk mancs.

“Beat that baby”…yep Burgerman IS Eamonn Dunphy.

Oh no Digger. You have something with me but it certainly isn’t trust. Not to worry just stick to your forte. To be honest, your reasonable attitude over the last week or so was quite disconcerting.

LB Riera is not a chalk on the boots type of winger. He hasn’t got the speed, but at his best, when he gets regular football, when his brain and feet are working to full capacity, and both on the same wavelength, he’s a very decent player to have in the squad. He’s also one of our better strikers from range. And surely you have to take rust into account after all the lads hardly kicked a ball in months.

Having said, would I like someone better? Of course I would. And if Rafa had more than the 8 million he spent on him, he’d have probably got someone better an all.

In fact, there’s a deal already arranged for a younger better model, Arda Turan, but will Rafa ever get the money?

I don’t want to go rehashing all that though, as I really have had enough of going through all that everytime a point is being made about the squad. And surely by now we should be past all this nonsense and able to take into account our real problems when commenting.

As for the defence, well you’re right that it needs sorting out asap. And I’m sure all the players and coaching staff are desperate to sort it out. As one of our more knowledgable commentors LB, you know that. And I know that you also know this is a result of many factors, but mainly 2… nerves, lack of confidence, etc and the freak run of injuries we have had.

And as a more knowledgable commentor, I expect more from you than Improve it asap.

I know that sounds like a dig. It’s really not. I just know you know better. My main concern with the defence at the moment is Agger. I’m really starting to worry about this lad’s back. It’s a really tricky thing the back, and if it’s not sorted properly, it leads to constant other injuries and can proper fuck up a defender… look at Ferdinand over the last couple of seasons. I’m convinced all his woes stems from his dodgy back.

But I don’t give a toss about him, and the Agger situation is not what I want to comment on now…. The defence as a whole is a real concern. Like yourself, I commented on Insua bulking up recently. But he’s not carrying lard. I know for fact, that the lad hit the weights big time and I think the extra muscle might be slowing him down a bit, sort of like we seen with Owen.

But if you add all these things together, injuries, unsettled line up, constantly seeing new partnerships, loss of form and so on, this is the result. To compound it, we’ve been the victim of some real freakish events, not just the beach ball. And there’s always the constant gnawing away by the media. And yes. It does have an affect even if the players try to ignore it. Throw a few bad results and goals on top of it, and a crowd that is shitting it self everytime we give away a corner or free kick in our own half and this is what you are left with… a defence that is full of uncertainty. And just like the fans, they start expecting to leak goals.

Then on top of that, you have teams like we’ve seen in the last three games, who know this and are determined to exploit it. Watch the last 3 games with out the emotion. Analyis them properly and you can see it… Teams are sitting back, playing rope a dope, hoping to hit us on the counter and really piling forward at set pieces. They are not daft. They know how fragile and vunerable we are right now and they are setting about it to exploit it.

You can’t blame them for that. That’s football. But it’s a vicious cycle. And we are slap bang in the middle of it, but it’s not an unbreakable circle. We all know how good this defence can be and has been. And it will return to that. I have no doubt about that whatsoever. But it’s a question of when.

All the players and staff can do is keep working hard to put it right. But I have the sneaky feeling we are going to get that bit of luck we haven’t been getting and the ball will bounce outside instead of inside our posts. Once that sort of thing happens, our defence will get back to it’s best… stopping everything thrown at it and becoming a springboard for the attack. And mark my words, one of these teams is going to pile forward for a corner soon and the ball will be in their net within seconds. And that is all it will take to see this turn round.

I’m convinced of that because I’ve seen it before.

There’s only one thing

Hi,

I would certainly agree that our luck is not favouring us right now. Benitez scores his first goal.Jerome scores another beauty which probably he wont score again. So lets face it..we are up against it. Forget Rafa, even the world’s best coach (Whoever that is)cant do anything about it.

When we lost to Aston Villa, i said two things:

1. As a fan i will be glad if we finish 4th. I told that keeping in mind that Rafa’s project is a work in progress. People here ganged up and started branding me as anti Rafa. Anyway i dont want to start that again.

2. I said that perhaphs what Fergusson told(we probably reached our pick last season getting 86 points) is true.

The sell of Xabi Alonso was a body blow to us.If Steven Gerrard can devastated by it then we common supporters have got no right to debate on that point. I remember posting here even before the season started stating that after what ManUtd,Chelsea have done in the trasnfer market, if we can keep Xabi with even the sole addition of Glenn Johnson i would consider us to be the biggest winner.

No point digging up the past and i do realize that. So lets hope that we are ready for another testing week ahead.

I dunno, maybe i am wrong …

I saw the whole match.. and i felt that Ngog actually had an embarrassed look on his face wen penalty was given … but having said tht i also feel that he had no other option or else he wud just have clattered into the defender and mite have added into the growing list of injuries…

Yes, i wud have cried my ass off if that wud have been the ronaldos or drogbas but then again, they always have the PROUD look of having conned teh ref, but not this guy… and he has even mentioned post-match that it was not a penalty..

And two guys who were nearly on my nerves were the commentators on ESPN … How on earth can brmingham be UNLUCKY to have lost 2 points … they were LUCKY not to lose by 5-6 goals.. Are they effing blind, dumb or wat… 30 shots compared to 5 .. 80% possesion against 20% … Really cant believe how ppl can talk that much nonsense and that too on live tv …

Post got cut off there but fuck it. I actually came in here to say this…
The media witch hunt for NGog has been a real disgrace today. Yes he dived. But the hypocrisy of the attacks has really hit a new high.

I don’t know if anyone in here watched it on ESPN but it was incredible… immediately after the match, they had Lee Carsley then a couple of minutes later Alex McCleish in the post match interview, standing in front of a huge plasma television, showing the incident over and over and over again, from every possible angle, in super slow motion.

Then it really started… the egging on, the cajolling, the almost bullying into slamming NGog and the ref. Give both their due. They refused to slam the ref, and McCleish was even tempered about Ngog. But the reporters wouldn’t give it up and eventually pushed Carsley into saying… He has a family to go home to. I would be ashamed if I had to face mine after I’d done that.

Then the witch hunt really began in the papers, on the radio and on television.

Okay. He dived. But the referee said he gave it for intent, not contact. And considering everything that goes on week in week out, the way they have treated this incident and the lad is nothing short of disgraceful… and all this right after they hardly said a word about Alex Ferguson not only kicking off on the ref yet again, but actually man-handling the fourth official, and his yard dog Rooney spitting 12 men directly into the camera.

And as far as I can remember Rooney makes a regular habit of this diving melarkey. But then again, I expect no different from the media when one is a Manc, one is an LFC player, one is Johnny Foriegner and the other is one of England’s young lions. So I don’t even know why I’m bothering telling how bad it is… any Red worth his salt should know how our players are treated. And in my book that means they should only want to support them, especially at times like this, all the more.

@FS

The british media is just nuts. Its upto you guys to explain why is that the media is anti-Liverpool F or anti Rafa.

Samath07,

As long as i`ve been in here the lads explain on a daily basis why the media is anti-Rafa/LFC.

Don`t you read the comments on this blog.

@TimmyTorres

First you learn to type names correctly. Then i will bother replying to you.

As far as reading comments is concerned, i do go through the blog and some of comments which makes sense. I dont have time to sit and read long crap posts day in and day out.

And one more thing, if you are so willing to start a fight everytime i swear this time, i will tear you apart. So stop fucking around.

@timmy Torres

One more thing. Either you dont comment on anything i post here or stop picking up fights.

At the end of the day we all are here to support LFC. The sooner you understand that the better it is for you. That is the time when you will start understanding others point of view coz you will know that it is coming from another LFC supporter.

Lets just stop fighting amongst ourselves. On my part i apologize for my post #179 to you.

@Somnath97in

i am glad you apologised as we need to be togther as much as possible. there are enough out there against us with out doing ourselves.

this blog is normally a rational site, we should all be able to have our say, but lets try to deal in some sort of fact.

sorry should be 07 not 97 got big fingers and i mean big

Somnath …

I dunno where u from .. probably india or something… But i wud like to tell you that as long i was in that subcontinental part of the world, i used to think that its just our (liverpool fan’s) loyalty for teh club that makes us feel as if the media is against us…
But since i moved to this part of teh world, i have seen wid my own eyes and even have been subject of abuse for supporting this club. How do u think this hate has crept on teh streets.. Even the corner shop guy refuses to be polite since i entered his shop wid my liverpool shirt on.. He very clearly said “NO SCOUSES ARE ALLOWED IN HERE” … thats in london.. and not manchester…

I meet a fair number of ppl everyday and guess wat, they can ONLY use teh same phrases and vocabulary and logic thats being mouthed/aired/written by media.. i cant knock sense into them but i do try to defend my club by FACTS … they cant even phucking think on there own anymore..

I must admit, i had my reservations abt Rafas.. u know why?? cos i was ever-reliant on SKY SPORTS website and that shitty Shebby singh and co. on Football Focus for my daily/weekly dose of news and “EXPERT” comments.. If u are continously hit by anti-ANYTHING, u do start to doubt and think otherwise..

But as a fan, at times like these i will stand by Rafa.. Ofcourse he is no GOD and makes mistakes but who doesnt… i can bet my ass that if this all (injuries/flu) wud have been happening to anyother club, the manager wud have been crying his eyes off complaining abt it… have we heard RAFA moan abt anything ?? NO… and thats why he is earning respect in my eyes… he is not complaining even wen everyone can see wats going arnd..

As long as ur pointer to alonso is concerend, well, its no hidden fact that Alonso himself wanted out… So, as FS mentioned earlier somewhere, again,its the media who hails Moyes to b a genius in selling “want-away” Lescott on a profit, whereas Rafa’s lost his marbles for selling alonso… and thats where some of us get distracted.. thanx to media..

FS, I have ignored the Ngog media witch hunt. Like the Eduardo dive these things get blown out of all proportion. I’m glad he dived coz it meant we got an equaliser. I remember once when Drogba admitted he dived. “Yes I dive” he said. He probably wasn’t aware of the shit storm that would come his way. However they really went after him and then he eventually said that he was misquoted. Its cheating but so what. A player blatantly kicks the ball out of play and then claims a corner or a throw in. Is that not cheating? A defender deliberately hand balls in the goal mouth to prevent the goal. Is that not cheating? What about when I defender blatantly fouls a striker from behind when clean through on goal? Is that not cheating? As far as I’m concerned Ngog helped us get a point and I couldn’t give a shit whether or not he was fouled or dived. Fuck the high horse honest game bullshit. This is professional sport where people do anything to win. If a defender scythes down a forward and the ref doesn’t give it will the defender go to the ref and say “Ref, I actually fouled him, I think that was a pen”? Nope.

Regarding Riera – I just think that his head and feet are not on the same wavelength a lot of the time. Its a long time since he has had a good game for Liverpool in my opinion. When he strikes a ball I’m not confident put it hat way.

I expect the defending to improve pretty sharpish. Agger is looking solid. Back injury aside his performances have been really good. Skrtle is a worry. Carra will be back and Glen Johnson is now fit. So I’m expecting improvements. Agger’s back injuries remind me of Gerrard in his younger days. The physios should be able to get it sorted. I’m not sure it was wise for Insua to bulk up. Fullback is a position you can afford to be small in stature. To me he looks less mobile than he was last season and when Riera plays we have 2 slow players on the left. Most things good last night came down the right.

I think Ngog deserves to be 2nd choice striker. The boy is confident and playing well. He should be in front of Voronin and Babel in the pecking order for striker now I think.

Glen Johnson is out of the England squad due to injury. Good news I say.

Brilliant news. I wish they’d all just tell England to FO. But I really do hope after the next world cup Gerrard retires from international football. But he won’t.
I expect what will happen is, the usual… England will get knocked out in the quarters or there about. The players will get the media backlash and then the build up to the Euros, and soft lad Gerrard will think they can win it and go for one last chance of national glory. Can’t blame him, I suppose. But I wish he’d twig on and try to extend his LFC career.

I have a feeling NGog is going to become a top top player. Not sure if Rafa will get the credit for finding him though. I think he’s a bit to like Torres to be that effective playing together but I’m happy to see the lad as our second choice, and that doesn’t mean they can’t play together. For ages they said that about Drogba and Anelka, but that seems to have been forgotten now that they’ve proved they can.

I honestly think the defensive thing will just sort of click and that will be that… normal service resumed. In fact, come the end of the season I can see us all scratching our heads and trying to work out why this happened and fucked up the early part of the season.

And though it’s really hard to defend this statement and it will get shot at by the idiots, I’m going to say it anyway… Don’t count us out just yet.

We are showing signs of recovery already. When you hit a slump as bad as we did, it’s never going to end with a bang. It’s going to take hard graft and a few hard won wins to put it right. Then a run might just fall into place and gather momentum. Injuries might be sorted and performances will go up.

I want to say more, but I’ll keep me powder dry and wait for that to be shot down before showing me own ammo as to why I think we can still win it.

Oh and as for the diving… I wish you could have all seen the way ESPN went about it. Never in my life have I seen anything like it. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that’s the first time anything like it has ever happened in this country. The only thing I can think of that comes anywhere near it is when I saw the Mancs being shown a replay of their goal against us in the 1977 FA Cup Final. It’s sticks in me mind because it done me head in. But never have I seen a player plonked in front of a huge telly and goaded on like that. Maybe it’s a Yank thing and normal over there, but I really don’t want to see it creeping into our footy.

No doubt though, a prescedent has been set now and it’ll become the new gimmick.

@somnath07in your a idiot.Please correct me on my spelling cause i don’t want to cause offense
YNWA

@somnath07in There are support groups out there for people like you who talk through their problems in group therapy.When you are invited to speak to the group i suggest you say to them.My name is somnath07in and i’m a idiot i first realised i was a idiot when i posted this on kopblog.
@TimmyTorres

First you learn to type names correctly. Then i will bother replying to you.

As far as reading comments is concerned, i do go through the blog and some of comments which makes sense. I dont have time to sit and read long crap posts day in and day out.

And one more thing, if you are so willing to start a fight everytime i swear this time, i will tear you apart. So stop fucking around.

Just back from liverpool,havn’t caught up in the comments yet so gonna try an do it now. Had an amazing time and although the result was very disappointing it was a excellent match to watch and on another day we’d have put in about five.Highlights for me were lucas playing another good game an glen johnson……. he was fantastic i cant believe there’s people out there that cant see how good this guy is. So glad he’s playing for us and expect a few more goals from him this season.

Riera was my low point really pissed me off and seemed to always take the wrong option but he’s only back from injury and then goes an does himself again so think we may be looking at a sick note there. Also bit disappointed with some of the fans i actually felt like a bit of a dick singing the anthem as there was only about five other people singing it round me. It seems there’s only a small portion in the kop keep it going the whole game,in saying that there was loads of good vibes and enthusiasm throughout the match.
Ah well hopefully this international break lets us get our house in order.

Since when did spelling have anything got to do with supporting LFC?

So some people make a few spelling errors but for the love of shanks what has this got to do with supporting LFC? Zero! Fuck all!

I remember when the spoilt children in here cried last year when we got drawn Chelsea, again, in the 1/4 final of CL last year. Oh it sooooo boring, we got drawn against them AGAIN.

Since when did the 1/4 finals of the CL/european cup become boring FFS?

Now we will probably miss out and everyone and his dog will be saying ‘Uuuugggh, I don’t want to play in the the Europa cup’.

Everything is relative and we have not become a shit team overnight. The problem is not with the team or the coaching staff. Just look a bit higher up.

At risk of repeating myself, last Christmas after my daughter got her bike from Santa, she asked where her Nintendo DS was. She got a swift slap and maybe some of the people in here need to remember where we are at and should be grateful for it.

YNWA

Sorry for the preaching but thought that it was necessary.

The media witchhunt against Ngog does show that the bastards are out to hammer LFC for anything that they can. If diving was such a big deal to them then they would be focusing on Drogba every week?

FS back to #139
I think one of our problems is we know how good we can be. We know no-one wets their pants in the media but the pace, creativity and style that LFC play with matches anyone (ANYONE) at its best.

But sadly, there’s a complacency that goes with this. As underdogs, we know wer’e up against it and you know the result is usually favourable.

But as soon as we’re favourites it all goes to pot.

After Wash’s goal – and with the open door policy that Birmingham employed on the right – we could feel another 6-1 kind of night. Go on admit it, we’d scored early and Birmingham might get a consolation but they were being well and truly hammered.

Complacency set in.

Suddenly we’re behind at half-time and no-one knows why. Then we come out second half and the jitters remain. (Injuries to key players didn’t help). And everyone’s thinking this just isn’t going to be our night. And guess what? 40,011 people thinking that (plus millions at home) is enought to make it true.

I remember oonce hearing a player talk about the difference in mentality between a good player and a poor one. The poor player isn’t that far behind the good one: say the difference between 99/100% and 85/95%.
If a team of good players all play at 90% for whatever reason (cockiness, injury, illness) and a team of ‘poor’ players play at 100% guess what the result will be. That’s why FA Cup upsets happen.

Anyway I’m rambling, it’s far too late for me. I’ll return to this when I feel I can make sense.
Night all.

I am hearing the “lets not lower ourselves to play in the Europa Cup competition.” it on nearly all the common sites. I say lets not devalue a competition of any kind. Especially one which still contains, Rapid Vienna, Spurs, Fulham, all teams who give us a dust up this year.
.
If we end up in the bloody thing, give it a fair dickum go.
.
In regard to the Ngog penalty, where was the lad supposed to go, how many free kicks are given against Mash for intent. Fucking heaps.
.
LFC is it’s own worst enemy with the media. As if the club couldn’t see it was going to be a shit storm. Cancel all interviews with Sky, then let them squirm. Or better still send in the fucking tea lady to do the honors. “So what did you think of the penalty decision today. “I don’t know, I didn’t see it, I was making tea.”
.
THere you have it live from Sky, even the Anfield tea lady couldn’t bring herself to watch the situation, back to you in the studio.
.
The team played well, they just didn’t win again. It’s hard to even point a finger of blame when you have 80% of the play and 35 shots.
.
Ps I read somewhere Hicks just missed a major payment to the bank, I guess that takes the Jan sales out of the equation.

Well, I’m off to bed now, but just popped in to see if anyone had had a go at me yet for saying it’s still possible. Oh well, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander… so I’ll bide my time an all.

Night. Night.

Oh and Gaz, Hicks excuses are like a bus… give him time another one will be along very soon.

Too fuckin right Gaz, I bet all the people bitching about what a shit competition the Europa Cup is, were giving all their Manc mates a veritable shitstorm for months after we won it as part of the Cup Treble under Houllier…. fuckin worthless Carling Cup and all for that matter.

Of course we’d rather be in the CL, (and we’re not out of it yet) but to suggest we fuck-off any Cup is just insane.
These same people would be showing up in droves if we were to actually make that final, wearing their brand new Red kit and cheering as though they’d never said a word against it.
…..

And FS, what the fuck kinda crack are you on? You know we’re nothing but relegation fodder this season
If only you knew something about footy! You know, like let’s say for instance, if you’d actually played it and coached it, at a competetive level, on several continents.
Perhaps instead of following the Reds for 40+ years, you’d have been better served just having a life for 30 of them, and then just recently watching Sky Sports more often and doing a bit of Wiki research… then perhaps your opinions wouldn’t be so misguided

Makes yer larf dunnit?

Lads, I’m sure you read about the German goalkeeper.

Absolutely shocking. RIP.

Liverpool wiil finish in the Top 4 this season..
Aquaman has “Class written all over his Boots”

I can’t wait to see him in the side with Gerrard and Torres.

Somnath07,(that ok?)

I wasn`t picking a fight because it was you.In fact i wasn`t picking a fight at all.You said the guys in here should explain the media bias in here.All the lads have been explaining the media bias against the Reds for a long time.You should know that by now.

And as for this.. “At the end of the day we all are here to support LFC. The sooner you understand that the better it is for you. That is the time when you will start understanding others point of view coz you will know that it is coming from another LFC supporter.”

Thanks for the advice.I`ll take it on board.I see you`ve aploigised for saying you`ll “tear me apart” so i`ll leave it at that.

PS,

Heard about the german keeper.Tragic news.

Wow. I am finally commenting here, wonder why it took so long. This is the my first post. I have been following Gerry’s blog and the comments from the supporters and the “so-called” supporters. I hope I know what it takes to support this great club of ours.

In Rafa we trust.

Rather unhappy with the Brum result and not reading all the comments. here is an article from Tony Barrett. he seems to have a point about Kuyt not being as effective recently. Too many games perhaps? Should he be rested? Let others, say Babel, take his place? What you you think about that.

Tony Barrett 8 Comments
Recommend? (3) The international break means that Rafael Benítez has ten days to work out what is going wrong for his underperforming team.

Eleven points behind Chelsea in the Barclays Premier League and facing elimination from the Champions League, the Liverpool manager has a lot on his plate. The Times has identified five things he must do to get their season back on track.

Perform a balancing act
Last summer, Louis van Gaal, the Bayern Munich coach, was musing on the Premier League managers whom he admires most. “Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafael Benítez have their own style and implement their ideas on the pitch,” the Dutchman said. “You can see the influence of the coach in the way their teams play.

“It’s not easy to get top players to play the way you want them to. I’m not very entertained by his defensive style, but I admire how Benítez makes his mark on the club. You can see the team play as he thinks they should.”

Related Links
Benítez mired in state of disbelief at Anfield
Gerrard’s penalty rescues point for Liverpool
Cascarino: don’t let the culprits go to ground
What Van Gaal makes of Liverpool now is anyone’s guess.

The conservatism that once characterised Benítez’s teams has been sacrificed. Liverpool carry a much greater attacking threat thanks to the thrusts of Glen Johnson, in particular, but the number of goals they have conceded in 18 games this season — 25 — indicates that the team’s balance is not what it should be.

Hold a summit meeting with the club’s medical staff
Yossi Benayoun and Albert Riera are the latest players to suffer muscle injuries. Johnson, Martin Skrtel, Fábio Aurélio, Andrea Dossena, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres have had similar problems this season.

Unless the injuries are brought under control, the chances of Liverpool being able to close the gap on the league leaders will be minimised. One of the most telling statistics of the campaign is that, approaching mid-November, Benítez has yet to be in a position to field his strongest team.

Injuries are part and parcel of the game and every team has to cope with them, but that Liverpool are suffering from so many different muscle strains has to be a concern. A solution needs to be found.

Get the players’ heads right (part 1)
After Monday’s draw with Birmingham City, Riera admitted that there could be a psychological element to Liverpool’s travails. “Our problem could be mental,” the Spain winger said. “Because we — I don’t like saying this — are untidy. I don’t like to use this word, but it’s true we are not used to being in this position.”

There is undoubtedly a pressure that comes with being a Liverpool player. After 19 years without a league title, a couple of defeats is all it takes for crisis talk to emerge and at times in recent seasons such anxiety has been all too evident, particularly when they play at Anfield.

Benítez has often spoken of the need to manage such expectations, but it is questionable whether some, if not all, of his players have the mentality to be able to do this. A sports psychiatrist could be the pressure valve that the Liverpool manager requires.

Get the players’ heads right (part 2)
The furore about the zonal marking system has not helped Liverpool’s biggest problem when it comes to set-pieces: in defence and attack, they simply are not good in the air.

Having lost Sami Hyypia, Peter Crouch and Mohamed Sissoko, three towering presences, in recent seasons, they have become much more susceptible to crosses. Birmingham’s equaliser on Monday was a case in point, with Liverpool losing three headers before the ball ended up in their net.

Liverpool’s players are found wanting when it comes to attacking the ball and this weakness is costing them at both ends of the pitch. Benítez may not be able to make his squad any taller, but training-ground drills could help them to become more aggressive in the air.

Consider dropping the previously undroppable
Having been converted to a right-sided midfield player, Dirk Kuyt has earned his place as a regular starter thanks to a series of consistently diligent displays, not to mention a knack of coming up with crucial goals.

Last season he created more goals than any other out-and-out wide player in the country and finished joint sixth in the Premier League goalscoring charts. This time around, though, the Dutchman is struggling for form and far too many of Liverpool’s attacks are breaking down at his feet.

The 29-year-old’s days as an automatic starter may be numbered. Kuyt still has a role to play owing to his faultless attitude and commitment to the cause, but should he continue to struggle, it may be that he will have to become more of a squad player.

Refreshing comments from a writer in “The Mirror”

Rafa Benitez won’t get the sack this Christmas – and that’s a fact
By David Maddock

Published 11:30 10/11/09

It is fashionable at the moment to use the word ‘fact’ when denigrating Rafael Benitez and all things Liverpool.

So rather than repeat the lame joke doing the rounds about the fact behind the teams they have lost to, I thought I’d try to offer a little bit of perspective to all this ridiculous, ill-informed knee-jerk nonsense currently being spouted about the manager’s position, by presenting a fact of my own.

Here is a real fact for you.

In their 117 year history, Liverpool have sacked precisely no managers while a season is underway. Let me repeat that figure. None. Zilch. Zero. Nada. In fact, during all that time, Liverpool have actually only ever sacked two managers, Gerard Houllier in 2004, and before that Don Welsh in 1956, and both at the end of the campaign.

So, when you hear the latest ‘expert opinion’ that Benitez will be sacked if Liverpool go out of the Champions League in two weeks, or that he has until Christmas to turn things around or he’s out of a job, just pause and think of that fact for a moment.

They have never been, nor ever will be, a sacking club. And they will never sack a manager during a league campaign, no matter how miserable things become, nor how loud the calls are for the axe to be sharpened by those so-called experts.

I have to admit, I have come to despair about some elements of my profession in recent weeks, because they don’t seem to even know how to spell perspective, never mind use it.

When they talk about Benitez being replaced, by Kenny Dalglish or uncle Tom Cobbley as a stop-gap for the rest of the season, before Jose Mourinho or Martin O’Neill can fill the role permanently, then they are exposing their complete and utter lack of knowledge about the workings of the Anfield club.

Indeed, if you read any story about the manager going between now and Christmas, then stop reading and dismiss the writer as an idiot who is exposing his ignorance. Because, for all the hysteria surrounding Benitez’s position from the outside, I can assure you that there is no such focus from within the club.

Christian Purslow, the new Managing Director, has already gone on record to guarantee that the manager will be judged only at the end of the season, with the perspective of a full campaign, and all that that entails.

Even the American owners have confirmed that for all the talk of dire consequences should Liverpool fail to reach the knockout stages of the Champions League, the reality is that they have budgeted only to reach the group stages, and recent commercial successes have actually put the club in a strong position financially.

If Liverpool do go out at the first stage, they could lose some money, but then they may just as well make more, because they will have the chance to go on a long run in the Europa League, recouping those losses.

And even though they have now won just one of their last nine games, and were again disappointing against Birmingham on Monday night, they are still only three points off the benchmark position of entering the top four in the Premier League, which is the real test for any Liverpool manager.

Now, that’s not to say that everything is rosy at Anfield – it clearly isn’t. Benitez has admitted to mistakes this season, many of them, and he also accepts that he must act quickly and decisively if he is to turn things around.

But he has been without 14 players at various points in the campaign so far, including his three most valuable stars – Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard and Glen Johnson.

Gerrard and Johnson returned to give the team a lift against Birmingham, and Torres should be back soon after the international break is over in a fortnight’s time, when Liverpool entertain Manchester City, in a game that will say much about the likely make up of the top four this season.

It is actually making me angry, to keep hearing this uninformed nonsense that Benitez could be sacked before the season’s out, because if he is, then it will go against almost 120 years of Anfield history, and believe me, not even the club’s American owners are that stupid.

Benitez has had problems, big ones, but he may well be through the worst of those now, and he will have until at least the end of the season to prove that the quality squad he has built is still progressing, and can develop into genuine title contenders.

I’m not going to fall into the trap of wheeling out more facts to support Benitez like some of his allies do, because statistics about a winning record better than Paisley or Ferguson, and being voted the number one team in Europe over the past year, are completely worthless unless backed up with trophies.

Benitez knows that. He is a keen student of that proud 117 year history of the club, and all that has been achieved in that time. He is fully aware that he has at least until the end of the campaign to prove his understanding of that fact.

And if you hear anything different from an imposter claiming to know what’s going on at Anfield, then you have my permission to scream.

Do you agree with Mark Lawrenson that Rafa should have bought a striker for Stg18 million instead of glen Johnson? Most of us have lamented the lack of a good width player at Liverpool. When he came he was well thought off. On reflection and with the wisdom of hindsight, would you buy another striker or Johnson ? Here’s what he said: “Another good and different thing about Liverpool is that Torres and Gerrard are loyal and committed. They won’t up and leave at the first sign of trouble. Can you honestly say that about every player in the top four or aspiring clubs?

But Benitez is still a source of frustration. He will know he’s made mistakes. His biggest was to buy Glen Johnson when he already had Arbeloa. Johnson has been outstanding, was exceptional against Birmingham.

However, Benitez spent £18m on a right back when he needed another striker to either support or provide back-up for Torres. People say you can’t sign strikers who are just cover or back-up. Well, the other clubs manage it!”

Typical lazy opinionated ex-player bollacks from Lawrenson there, Knight. Some sense in the other pieces but I think Maddock is being a bit to kind to the yanks. He seems to forget, if they had their way they would have sacked Rafa by now. On top of that… they know nothing of our history, or the Liverpool Way.

I’d go as far as to say, if they could even bring themselves to speak to each other and agree on anything, they’d certainly show Rafa the door. He’s far to troublesome for them. And Hicks has a history of sacking other succesful coaches at his other franchises once they started to become too ingrained in the actual running of the club.

In all truth, the only reason I think Rafa hasn’t been sacked by now, and won’t anytime soon, is money. It would cost them a fortune to get rid of him.

And why our idiot fans think they would then go and spend another fortune on getting in another top coach – paying compensation to the club they get him from and then a huge new contract – is completely beyond me.

Rafa’s job is safe for one reason – money. And like Maddocks said himself, a top four finish and even a decent run in the Europa if we got the CL, is enough to meet Hick’s model for success… and we all know that doesn’t mean success on the pitch but brand loyalty.

But he’s right about one thing… most of his colleagues in the English sporting media are idiots as can be seen in the amount of understanding of the situation, in Lawrenson’s piece.

Knight Mr B made a blunder when he bought Aqualani because he thought he would get the rest of the Alonso money for a striker. A striker sadly needed if only to assist Nando through times of injury.
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No I know I’m throwing my head on the chopping block but a blunder is what I think it was, and still do. Blunder in the sense he seems to be the only person who has any belief in the owners sticking to their word.
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If it was me or any other outsider involved in this club, I would have snapped a striker up straight away and then haggled for a midfielder. Why because I wouldn’t trust dumb and dumber to lie straight in bed. I know Rafa signed a new contract with gaurantee’s but who did they come from, the used car, weetbix salesman. Slap another banana skin in the gearbox and that will keep him quiet, until the warranty runs out.
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However, I would still like to see Johnson and Aqualani running around in red shirts.

Oh but you can bet your bottom lip some of our kneejerkers will read Lawrenson’s piece and that will be another stick for them to bash Rafa with.

Arbie wanted to leave so we needed a right back – we also needed attacking width. Johnson fit the bill perfectly. I think at the time a right back was needed more than a striker. We were kind of forced into selling a right-back and a midfield player. An already thin squad meant both needed replacing as a matter of urgency. Also take into consideration that we didn’t actually part with £18m when we bought Johnson. Portsmouth owed us a chunk of that from the Crouch deal.

The only question mark over Rafa in the last transfer window was buying Aquilani. That was the gamble. The guy has had lots of injury problems over the last couple of years and has already missed a third of the season. Could we have found a quality midfield player for £17m that was fit and ready to go? That’s the question and a credible point for debate I think.

Another striker instead of Johnson – I wouldn’t knock the idea straight away

IF we could have kept Arbeloa (wasn’t the best but certaintly not the worst) and got a decent second striker which is what we’re crying out for the team wouldn’t be in such bad shape now that Torres and Gerrard aren’t fully fit

You’ll probably find though that that was Rafa’s plan all along but after he bought Johnson (he even said the price was too much) he wasn’t given the money to get the second striker

What would everyone have? 1 world class striker and 1 world class right back? Or 2 top strikers and 0 right back?

There isn’t an ‘IF’ about Arbeloa. He was going it’s as simple as that.

FS sorry to have a brass neck but would it be possible to get tickets for the fiorentina game at all?? Dont mean to be a pest but my sources at the supporters clubs over here haven’t came through?

FS and LB, well said! I posted the notes at the office and whist driving home (now at home) reflected that Johnson’s purchase was to tarde off for Crouch which was only partially paid. But yes, I had forgotten about Arbie wanting to leave for home..OK, in summary, Johnsons’ was a good decision. No arguements here.In fact, one other point is that he is also English, to help boost the local numbers in our CL’s team.

Gaz, yes, Aqualung was a gamble. Bit of a poker play that, despite Riise’s text message that we got a good and talented player. However, he took a longggggg while to recover, must against the medics estimates. Should have consulted our well educated Kopblog team instead through an online survey. We might get a better result than LFC’s medics. Although I understand the Stg20 million was to be paid in part over the years, the total sum could have been high considering his frailty with injuries. A bit too early to say perhaps because he featured in less than half an hour so far. And so far he has been impressive. Good passer. Denied a penalty from the bicycle kick. May turn out to be good, hopefully.
FS, I take your point about Lawrenson. But he did make the point about Jphnson should not have been bought over a striker and so I thought i should raise it here. Good points so far to dispute Mr Lawrenson, wouldn’t you say?

I never bothered going through the reasons why Johnson became an essential buy LB. You’d think our supporters should know that.

But whenever knobheads like Lawrenson talk about Liverpool players/Rafa’s buys and team formations, they… well, to put it in a nutshell they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about.

That’s a bit unkind really. As in all truth, I wouldn’t know why a lot of (well most) decisions are taken at other clubs, because I don’t study other clubs. But there again, I’m not paid money to give my opinions on them and if I was, just from a proffessional point of view and stop myself looking like a complete tit, I would do a bit of reasearch and try my best to talk a wee bit of sense.

The fact is, Rafa has a vision of how he wants the club to play – Aquilani is a big part of that plan. Here’s my take on it…

Rafa showed that plan at Valencia, but he has said on several occasions that he considered Valencia an unfinished project.

What Rafa actually wanted to build there and now here, was/is his version of Sacchi’s AC Milan. I’ve read many articles where Rafa he says this and waxes on and on about Milan/Sacchis. And it’s common knowledge amongst fans – but not lazy journos – that the Milan team of the late 80′s is Rafa’s favourite ever team.

When we are at our best, like the end of last season, you can see Rafa’s Valencia and Sacchi’s Milan in our play. And I firmly believe had Rafa been backed instead of handicapped the Liverpool team that finished last season would be the norm that we would be seeing week in week out.

I know it’s the defence that is lacking this season, but if you think about the run we went on at the end of last season, we sacrificied a bit at the back and leaked quite a lot of goals then.

It was no problem as we just overpowered the opponents and scored more. In fact, when we was playing that type of “Fuck it, you score. We’ll just score more than you” football the only league game we didn’t win was the 4-4 with Arsenal.

Which just shows up another lazy press myth, Rafa the defensive minded coach. We mightn’t be the Milan team of Van Basten, Gullit and Riejkard. They were an absolute machine. But any team containing Torres, Gerrard, Johnson and Aquilani is going to start soon giving out some serious thumpings and show exactly what Rafa has in mind for this club.

Sadly, the knobheads in the boardroom, the media, on the terraces, internet and phone ins might just stop him from ever fullfilling his plan.

But I’m going off on one. So, I’ll just say Aquilani is the man who Rafa sees as providing the springboard between Masch and Gerrard to Torres, the man who will provide that link from defence to attack and allow both ends to concentrate more on their own duties. It fits perfectly with Insua and Johnson providing width, and this turning too long so… Rafa is trying to build that sort of machine, with completely interchangble parts, with plenty of options as to style and formation – a sort of total football machine. And he sees Aquilani as a very important cog in that machine.

Gamble, yes big time. But remember Rafa was informed by independent medical inspectors that the injury would be cleared up within a month/6 weeks. So, he showed faith in Lucas and took a punt on the best player he could find to fulfill his vision within his price range and the it seems most people think if the lad had been fit he would be a 30 million quid buy.

In a nutshell… it looks like a rick. The press will continue to leather him for it. But I think both Rafa and Aquilani will make some people look very silly in the long term.

All of us, Gerry included, do not know what Rafa has been told by G&H or had to face. Rafa could have been promised money and later G&H argued and did not agree. Or that G&H found out they owed too much a dn could not afford to give him the money promised earlier for a top striker. So all we do here is to speculate at best. So far, Rafa have been a gentleman and has not even mouthed a moan about the lack of funds, has he? He did not say G&H promised to give him the funds and they recinded on their promise, (supposing they did, as we all thought the sale of players will go to buy new players which was not true) did he?
So kuddos to Rafa for that, a Gentleman. But results (so far) have not helped his cause. Even LFC fans are lamenting and criticising here in this forum like they were fans of rival clubs. Sigh!

Good post FS, I am going to look up that Milan team and see if I can find a formation.

What about Barry? What was his role likely to be? The same as Aquilani’s?

FS, we have not really seen Aqualung yet, have we? I mean you and I had more time drinking beer in my short time with you at Anfield than Aqualung had been on the field over two games mind you.
And yet in that short time, that guy has impressed quite a lot of people, inlcuding Mr Hill and myself.
Hopefully he recovers fully and inject some real venom against the opposition and in turn shut up the press.

Knight mate, I have all the time in the world for Lawrenson when it comes to him talking about our ownership woes. He just gives it to H&G both barrells point blank. Good lad.

And he was a fantastic player for us, and I really do mean a fantastic player. And he’s certainly not a Whelan type ex-player who just ignores everything to go on his own little crusade – therefore making a name for himself and a few quid for himself from ridiculous sensationalism. So I will never slag Lawro, but he does my head in when he starts to waffle on like this.

He’s just bloody lazy, spouts any shite, probably down a mobile phone from the golf course and picks up his cheque.

If the club and Parry would have listened to Rafa and done what he wanted, we would have had Barry last season and spent the summer looking for a second striker – probably with the money back off Keane.

Why people can’t see that Rafa is the lad with his finger in the hole in the dyke is beyond me. But I wish they’d just stop making more and more holes for him to plug up. He’s got enough to contend with.

LB, for Barry I see a lot of positives: good mid-fielder, good passer, has vision, , can take penalties, can defend and tackle well, leader material, great with free kicks, good with corner kicks. The latter two frees up Gerrard -who otherwise have to take those shots- to pounce on shots and hit at goal.

At the time of wanting Barry back in July/Aug 2008, he was to replace Alonso who was crap the previous year. In fact I had also called for him to be sold then, to be replaced by Barry. In fact I dug up a lot of statistics on Barry: his passsing rate, his defence and block rates, etc. Alonso turned to produce one of his best performances only last season.

I missed your comments lads, writing me own. Go to get going and leave it that for now.

Nice to talk some proper footy though for a change though eh.

And the hole rafa had to put his finger in was made by G&H in the first place. Boy, sad that a lot of people still do not see this. Pity!

Milan ‘Dream Team’ as they call it – 1987-90:

Galli
Tassotti, CostaCurta, Baresi, Maldini
Rijkaard, Ancelotti
Colombo, Gullit, Donadoni
Van Basten

Is it true that the Reds hired 2 fitness coaches from the Geordies over the summer?.The answer to why we are having so many injuries?.The Milan team of Capello went 58 games unbeaten in Serie A in 94.As good as Valencia?.

Was that the side that slaughtered Barca in the final?

Desailly and Albertini in midfield. Rafa’s approach is a bit like that system as well. 2 holding midfield players, workman like wide midfield players with attacking fullbacks. One main centre forward with an off the striker ‘number 10’.

Rossi
Panucci, Baresi, CostaCurta, Maldini
Albertini Desailly
Boban, Savicevic, Donadoni
Massaro

I forgot how wicked Savicevic was!

Good point there FS – we would have had a second striker already if we had the funds

LB – I’d rather have one world class striker, one decent english striker, one world / european class rb – point being you could of got all that for the 18m

Plus you have to ask youself are the problems we’re having in defense due to Johnston not being in position – e.g. we keep conceding over on the left is that because the two centre backs have moved over to cover the gap left by Johnson and that leaves Insua covering a centre forward

Yeah Savicevic was a fantastic little player. Who can ever forget his goal against Barca in the final? Van Basten was one of the best ever, what a player, cursed with injuries though. Hopefully no parallels with someone I know! On that issue, question for medically minded in here; why dont our experts just diagnose Nando and send him for his op? Am I wrong in assuming that a hernia is a breakdown in the muscle wall that only an op can fix? Whats 2 wks rest gonna do? Get him through til x-mas? Thoughts?

Digger, my cousin is a physio and always says an op is the last resort and even then there is no guarantee the problem will be fixed. The op isn’t a magic wand – the only thing it will guarantee is he’ll take longer to recover than he would if he’s able to heal without the op.

How many ops has Gerrard had on his groin? Would you say its fixed?

In fact I just texted my cousin asking him about Torres and he replied:

“No, dont need an op just some deep tissue work in the right region”

Rafa must have been reading our latest comments of a need for a good striker upfront. Here’s the article from today’s Daily Mail. Carlton Cole has a good strike rate, is tall, English, young, strong physically, has good experience with the EPL and generally is quite a good finisher, IMHO:

WEST HAM BRACED FOR KOP COLE RAID
Daily Mail 11 November 2009

Liverpool are among the clubs planning a raid on West Ham to sign Carlton Cole in January.

Cole’s outstanding form has generated interest from a number of teams at home and abroad, all of them encouraged by the financial problems at Upton Park.

The Hammers fought off bids for their top players in the summer but are braced for more pressure when the transfer market opens again.
Cole, who is 26 on Thursday, has scored six times in 11 Premier League games this season, including one against Liverpool in September when Rafa Benitez was impressed with his all round performance.

The former Chelsea striker has made enormous progress in the last 12 months, with Gianfranco Zola helping to transform his great power and huge potential into consistent form.

He has played in four England games this season, taking his total of caps to six, although a hamstring injury has ruled him out of the squad for Saturday’s friendly against Brazil.

Cole believes he would have been fit for the game in Qatar but he missed West Ham’s home defeat to Everton on Sunday and Fabio Capello operates a strict policy whereby he will not call up a player if he was not fit enough to take part his final club match before international duty.

Cole should be back to lead the line for his club in the vital Premier League game at Hull, a week on Saturday but his days in the claret and blue of the Hammers may be numbered.

Benitez is anxious to boost his firepower. With Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard struggling through injuries, the manager has been forced to rely more heavily than expected on back-up strikers David Ngog and Andriy Voronin.

That it is not just a story cooked up by Daily Mail, The Independent also ran the Cole Story as well. Hmmm. Offload David Crockett (DC) and buy CC instead I say.

Do we have dough?

That Milan side was fantastic.
As was the barca side that got thrashed by them in the final.

None of this over-hyped arsenal or current barca team.

They were the dogs bollocks.

As was our side during that time.

For me, those three teams will always be the benchmark.

It shames me when some of our own fans forget that rafa is trying to emulate that AC milan albeit a little bit more modern, and brand it defensive. He is slowly finding the right pieces for it to click.

Just wait, when that happens (and really, I am starting to worry that our gaffa will not be given the time), we’ll be witnessing a true machine of a team. Total football at its best with hyper workrate.

BTW, one of my all time fave players is Baresi. Sad to think how shit the Italian CBs have become now.

Dough =Sell 1.Voronin to Hertha Berlin (Stg3.5 million), 2. Babel to AJAX( Stg 11 million) and 3. Dossena to the Italians(Stg 6 million). Total dough = Stg20.5 million.

Right, my cousin has come back to me with more information regarding the hernia injury.

The are 3 types of strains.

Type 1: Is not bad. No fibers have been torn, just some mild inflammation which resolves with ice and massage.

Type 2: Is a partial tear that needs 3 weeks to heal, along with deep tissue massage, ultrasound, ice, electrical currents, light exercise and strength work etc.

Type 3: Is a full tear that can take 6 to 12 weeks to heal.

As Torres has been playing through the injury I suspect he has a type 2 strain.

Knight, I admire your positive outlook. Ajax to spend £11m on Babel? Wow!!

That Milan team was,as Rafa would say “QUAALITY”.

They WERE a machine.Carra mentioned in his book that Rafa showed the team footage of that Milan side when he first came and wanted his team to play like that.

It was too bad that Kenny`s side(`87-90) never got a crack at them it would have been some rivalry.

As for our team today i`m confident once we finally get our full quota,well there or thereabouts we will start to see some wonderful football like the last quarter of last season.I think its difficult for Rafa to find the right balance just yet when he`s forces to chop and change week in week out.It will take some more time to get it absolutely right but i`m sure he will.

Once we click it will be very exciting with Aquaman,Gerrard,Benny,Johnson and Torres in full flow.

Here’s the little I know regarding muscle tears and operations…
1: An op will fix the problem far faster than the natural healing process. The problem being, an op will leave scar tissue. Scar tissue just means weakend tissue and it will break down again eventual… ala Gerrard.
2: Natural healing takes a lot long but the fibre of the muscles knit together in a way that actually leaves the affected area stronger than before it broke down.

Addmitedly, I’m no expert and I know that the little I have learnt about this is definetely a simplification.

But it seems to be about right, and leaves Rafa with a choice… does he give Torres the time needed or rush him with an op and gamble on it holding up?

Don’t know what you lads think, but I’d give NGog a run and gamble.

If we was at the business end of the season and pushing for it, I’d say give him the op and rush the lad back. But in our situation, fuck it, let the lad heal and take the chance to give the kids a run.

In a nutshell…
From all I know, an op on a groin muscle tear, can have a player back on his feet and playing within 12 days.
Natural healing takes at least 3 weeks and probably more.
An op, is sort of like sticking like sticking a patch on an exhaust… will hold up for a while but eventually blow out.
Natural healing, doesn’t guarentee it won’t happen again but it does actually strenghten the muscle.

And it really doesn’t matter what we think. It’s pretty obvious what option Rafa has gone for.

And so what if the lad is out for a month… Nothing to really lose except dough that H&G will just swallow up anyway.

As for the Milan comparison…
I should have probably mentioned it in here before. As a defence… I’ve only been coming in here for about 5 years. But arsing about aside, and trying to nutshell things…

Can you see that in the Liverpool team? Can you see that in Rafa’s strategy and planning?

It’s what the man is striving for. He’s what he nearly completed at Valencia. It’s what he’s building at Liverpool. Obviously it won’t be a carbon copy and a fella like Rafa will always give it a twist of his own. But it’s sort of the blueprint.

But here’s the part where you have to take a leap of faith…
Is Rafa capable of pulling it all together?

To my mind, it isn’t even a question. I firmly believe that had the man recieved the sort of backing he expected when abandoning Valencia for us – he would have already completed the mission.

Sadly I know see it as a race against the clock… dickheads v Rafa.

I just hope and pray Rafa wins the race.

PS… if the media is to be believed (Am I going mental) it looks like Rafa is about to stick another plaster on the exhaust… Carlton Cole.

Good player, but I’m getting absolutely sick of Rafa having to do this.

For example, Riera has been getting a bit of stick lately. But remember Riera was only a last minute, stop gap buy by Rafa. Looks like we could be getting forced into another one. And as much as I rate Carlton Cole, I don’t want to see him in an LFC shirt.

FS, the natural healing process leaves scar tissue as well but that is if it’s not treated while it is healing. Deep tissue massage allows the muscle fibres to knit together without bunching up into scar tissue. Obviously being a pro sportsman an injury will be treated by physios throughout the natural healing process so that means no scar tissue.

If Torres has a type 2 tear it makes no sense for him to go for an op in my opinion. Take 3 weeks off working with the physios and come back healed. That is what it looks like Rafa is suggesting.

As for Carlton Cole FS, if he leaves util mean more starts for Hines.

@Timmy Torres

Yeah i was sorry coz that was an instant response.

@Rafamuffin

You dont know ht background of that outburst.So pelase dont just form an opinion.

@Dizzy

I totally agree with you. The media which we are able to access is against Rafa and it is so clear to see that. I have not seen a single article apart from Tomkins who hav supported Rafa.

I think Mata of Valencia will be a great addition.

LB, I’d rather take Hines.

What is it about Cole you dont like? Seems to do the business on the pitch these days. Personally I dont see where we are getting £12m from so I’ll believe it when I see it.

LB, read what I said… I rate Carlton Cole.

I’m just sick of stop gaps along the way of what Rafa wants to build and I want to see at LFC. But as a fill in for now along the way I would grab Cole at a heartbeat and maybe even keep him.

But I think it’s a moot question anyway, as we won’t have two bob come the january sales.

Quote of the Week:
Andy Proudfoot – Liverpool Daily Post
“Ulrika Jonsson can remember more clean sheets than us at present, and the twang of hamstrings at Anfield on Monday made it sound more like a Country and Western concert.”

NICE!

Hines is good. (just ran rings round Carra the last time out) But he is short. Knowing Rafa, he prefers tall(er)and stronger players. In which case, Cole would be preferred.

Muchos gracias for the hernia info lads. Your cuz sounds like he knows what he’s talking about LB so lets hope he’s right – 3wks rest and treatment and we get a fit and healthy worlds greatest striker, sounds like a good deal to me. Timmy can you imagine a 1988 European cup final between Liverpool and Milan? I know, believe me, the mouth waters! I think we’d be on 7 now and Barnes would have got at least 1 Ballon D’or. As for Cole; No.1 we’ve no money and No.2 its the daily mail.

I also heard that Cole is a bit of a party lover, clubber type. Dunno if that’s true, but I’d be pissed if joining a big side again will make him start to love himself a bit too much. Hopefully, rafa won’t let that happen if he does end up joining us.
However, I can’t see the hammers letting him go in January, let alone us not having enough dough to persuade them to part with their top striker.

Knight, I’m not so sure about that, you would hardly call Mash, Benny Onion, Lucas, Riera, Insua or Johnson tall athletic type players.
.
I would dearly love to see someone with real geniune out and out pace. Alas though my expectations are zero seeing as we have to rely on the owners opening their lost treasure of Atlantis. Or maybe they invested all the cash in the Bank of Alantis. BOA, bugger of already.
.
Good to see us back talking about football issues.
.
Ps Pennant and Bellamy were’nt exactly tall either.

First thing I noticed about Aquilani, he’s tall. Think it makes no difference in his case though, can’t see him winning many headers in defence or attack.

If anything, that is our achilles and teams know it and are playing to it. Idiot press goes on and on about zonal marking. Fact is, we just aren’t very good at winning headers and if we went to man to man marking we’d probably be even crapper at defending set pieces.

Having said that, I wouldn’t want to turn into Stoke.

Pelegrini just has to get them attacking the ball in the air. You don’t have to be giants to do that.

Initially when I saw COle… I thought it was Joe Cole that we are rumored to sign. Ha ha..

If it was Joe Cole,
Then we can move Babel into the role of supporting striker. This would induce the speed that we need. He is really hapless in the left wing position.

Joe Cole would love to play for Liverpool. He’s said it many times. He loves the club and the fans. But like Thiery Henry, no way would it ever happen.

I’ve got Carlton Cole playing upfront with Torres in my fantasy league team…. have you seen our league position?

Any news on Aurellio? With Benny and Riera out, it would be handy to have Fabio playing in front of Insua.

Had to say this, I’ve just been on the phone with our kid, the bluenose. Yeah. He picked the wrong one as a kid, but other than that, he knows his football. And we just got round to talking about it, the way you do.

Here’s more or less what he said verbatim… I hope to fuck you shower get Rafa sacked before he cracks it.

Straight up, not just saying it, even he bloody knows it. I can’t print it word for word, but he more or less said, Rafa’s the best manager we’ve had since Paisley and thank fuck for all our troubles or he’d already be bringing home titles.

He then started calling Liverpudlians spoilt whinging bastards, the way the bitters do and said, the only joy he’s had this season is watching our troubles and seeing us moan about it. He’s also hoping it all comes to a head with Rafa walking and the team falling apart before he can finish it.

And yeah, he was on a wind up. He always bloody is, but he also meant it. I could tell he is honestly worried that we are on the verge of something special again and he’s desperate to see it all fall apart before it happens.

Bitter bastard, but he does know his footy.

Your #255 comment seems good FS-hope it’s true,we need some good news at present.

Is it just me, but I think the “touchline ban” imposed on Fungus has no substance whatsoever. Wouldn’t he be able to sneak into the dressing room?

I reckon he should be banned from the stadium itself in matters like this. Otherwise, the ban is useless.

I’d have liked him shot Hyde mate, but at last they’ve at least made it clear that they are sick and tired of his bully boy tactics.

Jack, it was really funny actually,and I can’t think of a higher compliment for Rafa than our kid wanting him sacked.

FS Your brother sums up the reason why most of the media want Rafa sacked
they dont support Liverpool so why should they care, Is it fear?
If Fat Sam was in charge of the Mancs and they had a bad season would we
care enough to try and hound him out of a job ? No because it makes our
job easier .
Just read Coles price has just gone up 8 mill to 20,cant see that happening.
Maybe Lavezzi would be better as Dossena seem to be heading to Napoli.
Then again “Pigs might fly”.
YNWA

Sad bastard that I am, I’ve just been checking the injuries. It’s dire. I honestly can’t ever remember anything like this. Looks like Aurelio is going to be out for quite awhile and Yossi and Riera could be out for a month.

That leaves Babel or Dosenna who can play in that position. All I can say is, other teams will be really out to kill off our season now.

I know footy has changed but in 1977 when we missed the treble by beating in the FA Cup final we used 14 players all season.

We`ll have to just get on with it FS.Rafa no doubt,will have the same attitude,its bad luck but lets not moan and do the best with what we have.

Maybe Babel will get that run in the side now.A lot have their reservations about him.Others say he needs a run of games to get his confidence up.This is chance to prove he`s worthy of the shirt.

I`m one who had doubts about him.Yes he is capable of doing outstanding things like in Lyon but can he do it consistantly?I`m not saying goals like that cosistantly,but consistantly good perfromances.At the moment no.But given the chance,he could prove me wrong.Hopefully he proves me wrong.

I don’t see it timmy. I’d love it if he proved me and all his doubters wrong, but I can’t see Babel getting back into gear unless he moves to a new environment.
And that comment doesn’t really have anything to do with his playing ability.

On the bright side, all those people screaming in preseason for Rafa to be giving the kids a chance, are getting their wish, aren’t they?

So far we’ve seen: Darby, Ayala, Kelly, Spearing, Plessis, Ngog, Eccleston… with Insua and Lucas becoming regular starters!
Arsene Wenger eat yer heart out!

I have said it before and i’ll say it again i would like to see babel down the right hand side.I dont think the lad has the best football brain so with him i think imho you have to keep it simple.(1)Attack the full back and get crosses in (2)Track back and help out your right back(3)Keep possesion look for the simple pass(4)Your not lionel messi stop trying to beat several players at the same time(5)Get shots in when the right situation arises(6)The team comes first its not up to you to do something special everytime you get the ball(7)Die for the team the supporters will love you if they see you putting in a good shift and will back you thru the hard times(8)Dont stop seeking advice on how you can improve(9)You are playing for the best club in the world stop looking so miserable there are thousands of people who would swap places with you in a heartbeat(10)Keep doing all the above and with your talent you will become the player a lot of people no you can become.
YNWA

Voronin for 2.5m, babel for 5m, Dossena 4m if we were lucky. All told about half of what wet spam would be looking for CCole.
Anyway it’s not going to happen as we would be losing 3 players who (theoretically) can play in about 6/7 positions and picking up one who only plays in the role where Torres, when fit, would always be chosen ahead of him. No way.

Babel for me has lost his confidence and really does not know how to play in this team. He reverts to type, head down and charging past … more often into whoever is in front of him.

I’m happy that the fans by and large have stuck by rafa because if he is forced out were fucked.The managers that have been suggested as his possible successor don’t inspire me mourinho was given a blank cheque book at chelsea to achieve the success he had.When the russian withdrew the chequebook cracks appeared.He’s a good coach but the money was the deciding factor.Martin o’neill is also a good coach but tactically i don’t think he is at the same level as rafa.We have a tactically astute and dedicated coach who loves the club and the fans with a proven record for excellence at the highest level.Who is working with a restricted budget in comparison with our rivals.Even spurs and man city are outspending us.I think expectations are unreasonable and unfair.Man utd have spent nearly £100 million on three players over the years rooney/ferdinand/berbatov.Chelsea & manchester city have been spending money like a drunken sailor on players.rafas been working on a very tight budget due to the fact our owners are unwilling to invest in the club.these people have been living off rafa and his teams hard work and genius in keeping us competitive against obvious restraints.Does anyone think rafa would not have a better squad if he had been given the support by the owners.The fact that he sent voronin away to berlin last season suggests he doesn’t rate him.But without the funds to buy a silva/villa he has to cut his cloth accordingly.I am very shocked that he hasn’t said fuck you too the bosses and taken the chances he’s been offered.but im happy he hasn’t because he’s our biggest asset.he will dominate the english premier league if given the backing he deserves.He is the best manager we have had since paisley.and i have mentioned this in quite a few of my previous posts To no objections
YNWA

a couple of good posts there, rafa…no objections from me!

Some reports indicate Eccleston rejecting a new contract.

Is this true?

If so, I am bit pissed off because I liked the look of the fella. Hopefully, a revised contract will keep him here. We need all the players we have at the moment just to get thru the season. 14 players will definitely not be enough in 2009….

To Share a good piece from soccernet from Norman Hubbard.

*********

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=697392&sec=england&root=england&cc=3888

The truth behind Benitez
By Norman Hubbard
(Archive)
November 12, 2009

He has won the Champions League, but only one of his last nine fixtures. He still appears adored by many on the Kop, but is derided by still more on messageboards and phone-ins. He is one of the most divisive figures in football. But how many of the criticisms commonly levelled at Rafa Benitez stand up to analysis?

TonyMarshall/Empics

Rafael Benitez: Always on the touchline

1. Benitez practises a rotation policy

Once this was unarguable. The 2-0 win against Fulham in November 2007 was the first time in exactly 100 games that the Liverpool manager named an unchanged team. Now, however, the picture is very different. Jose Reina, Lucas Leiva and Dirk Kuyt have started every Premier League game this season. Emiliano Insua has only missed one. Glen Johnson and Jamie Carragher were ever-presents until injury and suspension respectively ended their runs in the team. And few question the places occupied by Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres in the manager’s plans.

2. Benitez prioritises Europe over the Premier League

It was an allegation voiced by the former Liverpool midfielder Ronnie Whelan recently. It is another that had some truth initially. In the last 18 months, however, there can be little doubt that Benitez’s views have changed and there is a recognition that his reputation depends in part upon winning the Premier League. The weakest side he has fielded this season, at Fulham, had far less to do with the proximity of the trip to Lyon than injuries and illness that ruled out Gerrard, Johnson, Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel, Albert Riera, Fabio Aurelio, Alberto Aquilani and Martin Kelly.

3. He has signed a lot of players and too few have succeeded

That is definitely true. In total, 76 have arrived at Anfield during his five-and-a-half years at the helm. Of those, 38 – in this observer’s estimation – were not initially signed as first team players. A few, such as Insua, have become regulars; others – Dani Pacheco, Krisztian Nemeth, Daniel Sanchez Ayala, Mikel San Jose, Peter Gulacsi – are sufficiently young that they may yet emulate the Argentine. Many more of those 38, however, have already left Anfield, often as anonymous as when they arrived (Godwin Antwi and Besian Idrizaj, for instance).

The other 38 include 19 members of the current first team squad. Of those who have come and gone, five – Xabi Alonso, Luis Garcia, Alvaro Arbeloa, Momo Sissoko and Peter Crouch – justify being called successes. A further four – Scott Carson, Robbie Fowler, Craig Bellamy and Jermaine Pennant – produced mixed returns. The remaining 10 – Antonio Nunez, Josemi, Fernando Morientes, Mauricio Pellegrino, Bolo Zenden, Jan Kromkamp, Mark Gonzalez, Gabriel Paletta, Sebastian Leto and Robbie Keane – can safely be said to have failed. However, Benitez is entitled to argue that he made profits on several and that only Keane and Morientes ranked as expensive additions.

4. He has spent a lot of money

In the wider scheme of things, that is certainly correct. A total of £229 million is certainly substantial. It is, however, less than Manchester City’s outlay in the last three transfer windows and little more than Chelsea’s expenditure in the first 13 months after Roman Abramovich’s takeover. It also excludes the money raised by selling players: around £118 million, meaning that, in six summers, his average spend is under £20 million. Whatever George Gillett and Tom Hicks insist, Benitez made a £12 million profit in January while his summer dealings only cost £2 million after the proceeds of the sales. In assessing the biggest buys, there is invariably the question of where the line is drawn, but of the 10 costliest, two – Aquilani and Johnson – are too soon into their Anfield careers to assess; three – Keane, Ryan Babel and Andrea Dossena – have disappointed; and five – Torres, Mascherano, Alonso, Crouch and Kuyt – have flourished.

MikeEgerton/Empics

Rafael Benitez: A man under pressure

5. Liverpool haven’t improved under Benitez

Benitez is entitled to argue that he started from a lower base than their three principal rivals. In Gerard Houllier’s final season, 2003-04, Liverpool amassed 60 points (30 fewer than Arsenal, 19 less than Chelsea and putting them 15 behind Manchester United). In Benitez’s first year, they took 58 (37 behind Chelsea, 25 less than Arsenal and leaving them 19 adrift of Manchester United). It supports the argument that he inherited a substandard squad overloaded with deadwood. Last season, Liverpool ended with 86 points. That indicates a considerable improvement. However, with 19 points from 12 games thus far this campaign, they are only on course for 60. Does that mean they have progressed and then regressed?

6. Benitez fails as a man-manager

Separately, Torres, Gerrard and Carragher have all said that they struggle to think of conversations with Benitez that weren’t about football. It suggests he is only interested in footballers as players, rather than as people. Alonso’s departure this year can certainly be attributed to Benitez’s attitude during his attempts to sell his fellow Spaniard the previous summer. Yet if Benitez’s methods do not make him the next Harry Redknapp, the moaners have generally been those who did not feature regularly and many of his players, past and present, have produced the best form of their careers under him. And they include, in Gerrard, Torres, Carragher, Alonso, Reina and Mascherano, the leading players at Anfield in that time.

7. His interference harms players

It was a complaint voiced by Pennant, who said he was frustrated by his manager’s continual presence on the touchline, forever conveying orders. Benitez could respond that his attention to detail has been responsible for some of his tactical triumphs and that tinkering with his players’ positions has had benefits. Under Houllier, Carragher was normally deployed at full-back and Gerrard was sometimes the deepest man in midfield. Converting both to new roles has been justified.

8. He is a poor judge of a striker

It is an argument that gathers weight every time Andriy Voronin is on the pitch and one that is used against Benitez whenever Crouch, Keane or Bellamy scores. Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that the two Tottenham forwards made their exit in part because the success of the Gerrard-Torres axis limited their opportunities, a fate that might have befallen Michael Owen had Benitez opted to bring him back to Anfield. Bellamy’s exit, which has been lamented rather more in the past two months than during the previous two years, helped finance the signing of Torres. While there have been striking failures, notably Morientes, Benitez moved for Torres when others appeared unsure of his quality.

9. His is a two-man team

Liverpool did beat Manchester United 14 months ago in a match that neither Gerrard nor Torres started, but they slumped more recently at Sunderland when both were absent. Players of the calibre of Carragher, Kuyt, Reina and Mascherano could dispute that oft-heard analysis. What may be truer to say is that when Liverpool’s captain and top scorer are missing, there is a reliance on Yossi Benayoun for invention. And what is probable is that most teams, to some degree or another, are dependent upon their two premier attacking talents.

10. Benitez is a defensive manager

It is another one to irritate the Liverpool manager. His preference for two holding midfielders, which was apparent from his time in Spain, is well known and helps account for Gerrard’s berth further forward. But whereas there was a time when Liverpool were far from prolific – they only mustered 57 league goals in the 2006-07 campaign, for instance – they outscored Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal to end up with 90 last year.

11. The team miss Xabi Alonso

Gerrard has admitted it and few would dispute it. But until Aquilani is available on a regular basis, it remains to be seen just how much Liverpool will miss the Basque playmaker in the long term.

Hyde mate when I mentioned us nearly winning the treble with 14 players it was really only to illustrate how football has changed over the years. We use that for most matches nowadays.

And it also sort of illustrates what Rafa is up against… we have 1977 type expectations just because we are LFC. But as Raffamuffin has just said, our expectations are unrealistic and unfair. Imagine Tottenham fans had seen their team win what we’ve won under Rafa?

I’ve said that many times. But the problem is we have to expect, want and demand the best. Once we don’t that is the day we slip into what Hicks sees as a good business plan/success… on field mediocrity living on brand loyalty.

As for Eccleston refusing to sign a new contract, that’s just another thing that’s shown the bind Rafa is in…
The kid gets a chance round the first team simply because of injuries and immeadiately wants more money. I think it’s a greedy agent in the background giving the lad bad advice. But whatever it is, you have to remember H&G have made it plain that all wage increases will be taken from the transfer (if we have any) kitty. That has huge implications.

Can’t be arsed going on about them now. But the people who don’t need it explaining to, can see what a situation Rafa’s in. And remember he left Valencia for far less. Not saying that’s what he’ll do now. I just wish the anti Rafa brigade would wake up and see things clearly instead of just spitting the dummy and throwing tantrums.

If Masher leaves in Jan, how about signing Viera for 18 months?.

Viera,ya why not and we can sign Kenny back on as a striker too.

Now, now Timmy…

God i hate international breaks.This particular break is to our advantage but it is always a downer when you go into a break after a bad run or result.You just want the next game to come around ASAP.

Little teaser for ye lads..

Who was the only player to score at wembley in three different games in the same season?

All three goals were against the same goalkeeper,who was the Keeper?

I know LB,i should know better than to bite.

I have one criticism of Rafa. He has kept a huge first tem squad: 41. Only Arsenal has more, 46. but Man United has 38, Chelsea 36. Why do we need such a big squad? I prefer to have a smaller squad, say 33 players but of a better quality type. this frees up salary to pay for better players.
I noticed this when I went to the Sunderland game and saw in their Programme that Sunderland has 22 names in their squad to our 38.
Why do you think we need such a huge squad?

Kenny is 20+ years older!.How is the remedial maths coming along Tiny Tim.My 5 year old son has a better grasp of numbers.Gary Mc wasn’t a bad signing @ 34.

TT, it was Anelka. he scored three times against Pamela Andersson who allowed all three easy goals?

In case you hadn`t noticed BM i was being sarcastic.Viera is past it pal even you should know that.

TT, lads, on a lighter note, I thought that you would find this funny.

http://irishsoccerinsider.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/french-and-irish-fall-out-over-box-incident/

BM, why do you have to be so condescending to everyone on this forum? Does it give you a cheap thrill?

LK, it was Tiny Tim who made the first smart remark .

You said it first.
No I never you did.
No you never I did and my dad can fight your dad.

Oh dear.

FS, I’m telling!

What a bunch of babies! Did big ol bad Burgerman hurt your feelings Lurgie wurgie?!

FS, Be careful mate!
Burgerman’s daughter can count and so can he. You better watch out.

Gerry, a new blog please. I can tell we are getting bored. Thanks, mate!

Digger, no hurt feelings here and in fact #285 cheered me up no-end

BTW, in the link that FS posted a few weeks ago, for the manure win in the NY bar, are you the big fecker standing in front of the exit door to the left?

Burgerman’s daughter can count? Christ, is there no end to the list of abilities in that house?

I’m going Wembley tomorrow to see England U21s. Freebie We’ll see if Hines can put ball in net this time

SRT, eye ham sur hat BargerMun well corrict hou hat tit wis a buoy hand snot a ghirl.

You been on the piss Lurgan?

Just had a double cheeseburger!

BTW, there is a message in there somewhere!

Heh heh! Good on ya Lurgan. If its a 6′ 2” red headed irishman with a budding beer belly and a Torres jersey its me!

Read that last night Lurgan,a buddy linked it to me dunno if its a wind-up or not.

Wouldn`t surprise me though.

Digger, couldn’t see your fat belly, only your fat head

Anyway, I will keep the abuse level, to you, down a notch or two from henceforth, ye BIFFO

Did he look like this Lurgan?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_idji-TjZwPo/Scog3GLTl0I
/AAAAAAAAADA/4ZEna78uTiU/s200/biffo+portrait.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_idji-TjZwPo/Scog3GLTl0I/AAAAAAAAADA/4ZEna78uTiU/s200/biffo+portrait.jpg

If I had his money I’d burn me own!

nothing much to say on the LFC front but I have been looking up some old Rep Ireland footage. This one is not bad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSJVL74OlQk&feature=related

Which linked to this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzEKOhBNlSM&feature=related

Rivetin readin lads

chelsea have lost droba lampard and terry throuh injury

thems the breaks

over and out and co’mon Ireland

are those letters real ? if so that Bill lad is a legend

Lads, I’ve just read that LFC have been linked with a January loan deal for Tottenham striker Roman Pavyl…… Pavyle. The Russian striker, whose name I evidently can’t spell (should have written it down while I was reading the article!)

What do you guys think? Could be a goer?

Prem experience, playing for a World cup place with the Russians. Could be good news us.

No real footie today so watched the rugby what a waste of time that was, roll on next week. see how many we have to pick from, rafa probly have to leave it late before picking team.If we can scrape a win would be good, 1-0 do then we can face the blue noses with something of a fighting team. hears hoping.

@Steve the red

Yea hes not a bad player but evey time a striker is wanting away from a club we will be linked to them.
But he wants to leave because he cant get into the spurs side and it is the world cup next year so he will be looking for regular lineup. but when torres is fit his ops will be limited maybe,but could be good back up.

We could do with someone as i it is obvious that you need four strikers when in the champions league and the other cups to compete and allow some guys to have a rest.

I know we used to do it with only 13 players but them days are well gone times have changed.

Good to hear from you Jim, I was beginning to think that everyone had gone to the moon!

Pava would relish the chance of joining LFC I reckon, and would be busting his balls to impress not only because of the World cup but also in the hope of securing a permanant move. Could be interesting.

Yea Steve i think veryones gone on vacation.

I think it would possibly help the caus, we all know it would have to on loan,and if he is a sucess then Haarie would up the fee.

It could be just paper talk as you know the media like to wind us up.Then theres the two wank owners,who seem to be magicians could they make money disserpear beeter than me misses can and see can get through some i tell you.

This international break is boring the hell out of me not to mention the long wait for a new blog. All I read in the sh*tty tabloids is Craig Johnston thinks Rafa has lost the dressing room, Mascherano has agreed personal terms with Barcelona e.t.c…. Is there any basis of truth for the latter? Given that it is looking likely that Lucas will eventually supplant Mascher as our regular DMF if this happens or maybe a deal incl. Yaya Toure even…?? It seems like our club want the cash seemingly as the 36 million is being bandied about.

Then we have more speculation on the exit rumours of Dossena and Babel to raise what little money we will get for the Jan. transfer even though Rafa had supposedly been promised a budget.

Anyway hopefully the internaional break will give the injured enough time to recuperate and a portion of our decimated squad will be fit for the Citeh game. We can only hope!

The international break is killing me!!!!! Have been resorting to other blogs most notably Liverpool-Kop by Jamie Kanwar which I find it amusing and full of crap. Anyone out there know who this guy is? I’ve the impression he’s a fan in disguise and to top it all, he’s the king in “goal posts moving”. Just try reading his replies……Gerry, new blog please!

Jamie Kanwar is an up himself cockhead who shouldn’t be mentioned on this blog. He hates all things Rafa.
.
Now apparently Mr B has come out stating Torres is not for sale and he would quit if Torres was sold. Why would he bother commenting on this non event unless there is some fucking truth in the sale part. What the fuck are our owners up to now.
.
No Manager would say he was going to quit if there was never a possibility of a sale in the first place. Just my take on things. What do you lads think.

And now we wait for the reaction from Dumb&Dumber. Will they come out and give a statement of assurance that Torres will not be sold OR see Rafa’s ‘I will quit’ statement as a challenge and say something that will blow the whole thing out and make things worse than it is.

Dumb&Dumber: Of course we will not sell our biggest asset in Torres. Moreover Rafa is in charge and he should make the decision.
OR
Dumb&Dumber: Rafa is just the manager and should just concentrate on the pitch! We will decide, and the club finances is the best in the world but sometimes our credit crunch gets worse, not as bad as Chelsea’s, and we might not have a choice sometimes to sell our assets to stay afloat. We will buy back Torres in 2013.

Gaz, this is the first I have heard about this story, but I have to say it worries me. No smoke without fire springs to mind.

Is this the Yanks way of getting Rafa to walk the plank? Who knows? I suppose we will have to wait and see and hope this is just Media generated. If there’s any truth in it then we should all be very worried indeed.

Gaz, LFC Selling Torres and Rafa saying he will quit if they did. Well, I dunno what to say. I am as Dumb-founded as Dumb and Dumber.
Here’s the link, which came in just minutes ago:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/rafa-benitez-torres-gerrard-aquilani-liverpool-anfield-legacy-premier-league-rafael/Article/200911315455372

And he’s the article from Tony Evans interview with Rafa in The Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/liverpool/article6919543.ece

Knight, Lads… The article is from an interview with Tony Evans, sports editor of The Times and a massive, and I mean massive LFC fan. And after reading it, I think it’s just Rafa manipulating the media, like he has in the past, to warn us supporters of what is truly going on at the club. I think it’s also Rafa sticking a couple of fingers up to the rest of the English media – telling it how it is, hoping people, mainly our shite fans, will see it how it is and stop taking notice of the bullshit they are force fed by the likes of Talk Shite, Sly Sports News, The Daily Manc, etc.

But watch what happens now… The other papers and the rest of the media will twist it inside out until it becomes… TORRES SOLD, RAFA QUITS.

Man City have already thrown come to bed eyes at Nando on a few occasions. There’s been rumours of them making sly bids from 80 up to 150 million. Of course the pair of twats in America will listen to anything like that and I’m sure it’s been discussed in the boardromm. So I think it’s Rafa just getting in his retaliation first and, at this moment, I’m not really bothered about either leaving.

I think it was more about Rafa warning people what is going on and what could happen. But sadly, the wonderful knowledgable “Support” we attract nowadays will miss the whole fucking point and the phone ins and forums will be full of the usual shit… Rafa out!

And that might seem like small beer amongst everything else that is going on, but it’s something I really do see as a great danger to our club. We all know Rafa has more than enough to deal with. In fact, I don’t think there is another manager – including Wenger – who could deal with all the pressure he is under and keep the club where we are.

The facts are, Rafa’s record both on the field, and on the business side of things are fantastic. FFS the man has brought us trophies and finals and constant top four finishes. He has turned LFC from a loss making club into a profit making club (Last season’s profits were are biggest ever). HE has turned us from a club that leaked money on transfers like a sieve to a club that actually makes a profit on transfers. On top of that, he has completely revamped and modernised our youth development, academy and scouting departments. And he’s done all this while being hamstrung by the owners.

Sadly though, I see the warnings falling on deaf ears – you’ll get proof of that in here shortly. But I don’t think it’s time to panic just yet.

PS… To all Johnny Come Lately post Istanbull/Rafa Out support…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/3765515.stm

Does that seem familiar?
No. bit before your time I suppose.

But if anyone wants to see what life is like after Rafa, read that article and look at Valencia now.

And if that doesn’t get through your thick fucking heads, have a quick look at Newcastle or even closer to our situation – Leeds.

PS.. to the proper lads. Have a look at Rafa in that old link. You can see what the pressure is doing to the lad. It only makes me admire him all the more. As I said, I can’t think of any other man who could or would go through all this shit when he could walk into Europe’s top job – Real Madrid – tomorrow morning.

When are these fucking idiots who have attached themselves to LFC ever going to wake up, see the real situation how it really is, and realise the damage they are creating.

I think recent judgements have shown that he could have a case for constructive dismissal if key players are sold without the manager’s ‘permission’.
I’m hoping that the financial implications of this will be enough to stay Dumb&Dumbers’ hands and not sack the best manager we’ve had since teh good old days (pre-2004!)

There is a precedent Mc, Keegan had to be compensated by Newcastle after they done the same thing… bought/sold players without the manager’s go ahead.

I think the same thing happened with Curbishley. I can’t remember it exactly, but I think he had to be compensated after walking over the same issue.

Don’t think it’s come to that though yet mate. I don’t even think there’s anything new in the article/interview. The knives are out, so it’s just Rafa using Evans to get some Fact stated instead of the usual shite we are served up. But like I said, you watch this get magically twisted by the vultures in the rest of the media.

Crying shame some of our fans not only fall for it but actually aid the bastards in their witch hunt.

Fuck I always do it… come into say one thing, read a comment and forget what I meant to say, but…
If you click on the article, there’s a few links in a box at the left hand side. You should read them. Looks to me like Rafa has had enough of the media agenda and the “fans” falling for all the bollacks so he’s had a word with Evans and is putting things right.

But as I said, it will fall on deaf ears and the media/phone ins and forums will turn it on it’s head and just use it as another weapon in the witch hunt.

Jaysus, apart from the photo FS, just the mention of Alan Curbishley being in contention with Rafa for the LFC job brought a chill to my spine.

You can bet if Rafa does call it a day we will end of with some clampet like that at the helm. Doesn’t bear thinking about.

Lurgie mate, we’d be lucky to attract a limpet nevermind a clampet.

heh heh…

Aaron Ramsey for 2 million… then the deal got scuppered… WTF?

Just goes to show that even with 24 hour news coverage and the internet, there is still a LOT we as fans don’t know about what is going on at the club… but will that cause people to take pause before sharing their “knowledgeable” opinion????

And what’s up with Arshavin telling Russian fans to be more like the Kop?
Is he unhappy with his playing time at the Arse?
Has he realized his mistake?
(Digger are you soiling your armour at the very notion? )

David Ngog breaks his nose while playing for France Under-21s!

Fuckin typical that!

Hate to say this Aitch, really don’t want to be the smartarse, but I said ages ago about Rafa wanting Ramsey and them refusing him the money. It was the same with Walcott and seeing you mentioned him… the same, well sort of the same, with Arshavin. We made an offer. It got knocked back. Arsenal came in with a better offer. He came to England to discuss terms. Arsenal fucked about, leaving the lad stranded at Heathrow. Rafa tried again. Arsenal jumped in and got him.

This is the sort of thing that drives me mad. And as if losing out on these players isn’t bad enough, then our Mensa dodging supporters leap in spouting off about all the money Rafa has wasted on shite players.

And yes, Arshavin has realised a mistake, but it wasn’t that. He went fucking nuts when he realised he had to pay taxes on his wages. Thought he got the whole gross bunce that’s on his contract.

Oh well, role on Saturday. I’m going up there, and with the way things are going, I might just dust off the old boots. You never know.

FatScouser in Jack Boots???
I’ve just wet meself and I’ll be sitting in the corner, rocking back and forth, chanting “go to a happy place, go to a happy place” until late Saturday!

I knew about Walcott and Arshavin FS, but must have missed your post about Ramsey, I’d never heard/read us linked with him before. Pity coz the lad will be a major star if he avoids any early injuries.

As for wages… the Premier League is a bit like the American Housing market of 2008… riding a wave crest.
But what happens when all these big names start jumping ship for Euro Leagues where they get to keep more of their dosh?
(and you can bet Platini is already scheming for ways to make that idea even more attractive to the players… he’d love nothing more than to poach them and see the collapse of the Premier League)

Gaz – Jamie Kanwar is a total cunt…he knows less about football than your average american…but it gets worse – the stupid arse fucking prick actually thinks he knows all there is to know about football (and economicst to boot)…so spends his time writing total and utter shite based on made up figures gleaned from his deluded brain…this is the type of mother fucker that FS goes on about that is destroying the club…he presents his brain dead fantasies in just the right way to seem credible enough to the massed morons…he thinks hes a Tomkins…but he doesnt have a quarter of the IQ or any of the understanding of the game (or economics for that matter)…its dangerous little wankers like this that need to be stopped…

I personally think hes a puppet for Dumb and Dumber…

Kiwi mate, I’ve never heard of this Kanwar fella, and I’m starting to sound like some deluded conspiracy theorist, but it’s been proven that H&G planted loads of their cronies on the net.

They were going into fan sites, sticking up for their bosses, planting lies, trying to get support for The Borrowers and generally gauging how fans were taking things. A good few got sussed out and fucked off. I never came across it after that, about the time of the Klinnsman fiasco. But I have no doubt they’ll be back if the forums and phone ins keep getting filled up with the sort of shite you see some “fans” spouting.

Aitch, with the tax rate here, Arshavin actually earned more money in Russia. It was funny when it all came out and he was actually pissed off that he’d ended up signing.

As for the boots, I meant I might just dust the old Umbros off and get a game with all the injuries. But you’re probably right… I’d be better off dusting the aul DM’s down and going looking for H&G.

Oh well, night night. Roll on Saturday. I believe we are playing the tea lady up front rather than Voronin… she’s got a more manly haircut anyway.

FS – Youre lucky – if you had read one of his “articles” you’d have had an anurysimn by now…