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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep the Faith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep the Faith

Well it’s been awhile but I make no apologies for that because I’ve just been having too good a time to allow the depressive goings on at Liverpool to spoil my mood. At the end of May last year I was made redundant but after a frustrating year of countless wild goose chases I’ve finally managed to secure another position, and it’s a damn good one. So I’m as happy as a priest at an altar boy convention, my missus is happy, my goldfish Billy Bob Kenny Torres the third is happy and the share price of Stella Artois has suddenly started to go through the roof!

Off the pitch things are as messy as ever but congratulations once again to the Spirit of Shankly guys for yet another successful demonstration. I hear their 4th of July Independence Day rally had a massive turnout that will no doubt keep the heat on our American owners. I would also like to say a big thank you to our old friend Leo, aka Fat Scouser, for all of his time and effort he has spent rallying the troops here at Kopblog and to the many visitors to this site who have joined and supported the Spirit of Shankly supporters union, largely thanks to his efforts, but more of that in a later blog.

For now, in light of recent developments and as my mood is good and my bet on Germany to win the World Cup is looking pretty good right now, I want to focus on the football side of things. I was hoping we would get a bit of good news on the playing side of things and I believe we’ve finally got that with the news that Roy Hodgson has been appointed as the new Liverpool manager. Don’t get me wrong, Hodgson was actually my third choice but I’m pretty pleased we’ve got him all the same.

My first choice would have been to give Rafa at least one more season to turn things around but obviously that is no longer possible. There has been a lot of speculation a few conspiracy theories put forth as the reasons behind his departure but for once I would tend to lean towards the official explanation of mutual consent. I don’t really give a crap about the possible reasons of the bunch of muppets we have in our boardroom but looking at things from the Rafa Benitez side of things, I think the guy was worn down by the goings-on at the club and had become fed up, and who could blame him?

From day one he had the media on his back and they never gave him a break. Besides that, he was at a club that expected him to achieve champagne results with a lemonade transfer budget and also had to contend with an increasing minority of loud-mouthed “supporters” largely consisting of media clones too stupid to think for themselves.

A couple of months before the end of last season he was still sounding fairly positive and looking to the future as he echoed the sentiments of Torres and Gerrard in saying we would need to make 4 or 5 quality additions to the squad over the summer. After that he seemed to get a bit quiet and most particularly after he had his first meetings with Martin (I’m the chairman when things are going well but not really the chairman when they aren’t) Broughton.

My guess is that those meetings told him he was going to have to continue with the penny-pinching wheeling and dealing in the transfer market as was the case in the previous several seasons, and would of course be the one left carrying the can when things didn’t work out. So all of that and the fact that his appointment at Inter Melon seemed to be sorted out so quickly would seem to indicate that he had, had enough and while I was sorry to see him go, I can’t blame him for leaving.

As I said in a previous blog, with Rafa gone my second choice would have been King Kenny to take his place. Now I readily accept that this was an opinion that I reached with my heart rather than my head, but in my defence I would say that we football fans often allow our heart to rules our heads. I was aware of all of the arguments that were against Kenny returning as our manager and to be honest I even agreed with some of them but he is my all-time ultimate hero and the thoughts of him returning to our dug out and perhaps even leading us back to some of the glory we enjoyed when he was last in charge, rang louder in my head then the alarm bells.

So with Rafa and Kenny out of the picture you’ve got to look at the other realistic candidates for the position and for me Roy Hodgson was the one who was head and shoulders above all of the others. It’s always a gamble when you appoint a new manager but you’ve got to try to load the odds in your favour as much as you can and that’s why I think Hodgson was by far the best choice.

He is hugely experienced throughout Europe and knows all about what’s needed in the Premier League. He is well used to working with a smaller budget, is by all accounts a very good man-manager and the fact that he speaks 6 or 7 languages can only be a good thing. I think each of the other candidates would have been much more of a gamble and at the very least Hodgson is a much safer pair of hands.

I also believe that unlike most of the other candidates we heard mentioned, he doesn’t view coming to Liverpool as merely a big pay packet or a CV enhancing ego trip, I think he sees it as a big opportunity to perhaps round off his career and while it remains to seen if he will be successful at Anfield, I am certain that he will do his very best and give it everything he’s got and I don’t think we could ask for more than that.

Those were pretty much my thoughts when I heard he’d been appointed as our new boss but since then I must say that I have been impressed with what we’ve heard from him in his various media interviews. I’m glad he didn’t come in claiming to be a secret lifelong Reds fan, making half-baked promises or any other such bullshit, instead he has spoken calmly and clearly, and has sounded every bit the wily old fox I hoped he would be.

I was also particularly impressed by the ringing endorsement he received from former Red, Danny, the manc killer, Murphy who is as straight a talker as Jamie Carragher and his words mean a lot as far as I’m concerned. As I said in previous blogs, I think Hodgson is a decent bloke and I have a lot of respect for him. So overall I think we’ve got a good man in charge but whether he is a good enough to manage us through perhaps the darkest chapter in our history, remains to be seen.

He’s got a massive job on his hands. Benny Onion has already left to join the chavs of all people, which I thought was a big disappointment, and no doubt one or two others will also be on their way, but no doubt we’ll see a few new faces before too long.

The new gaffer will really have to hit the ground running because our first competitive game of the new season is coming up fast with the first leg of our Europa Cup qualifier on the 29th of July and the anti-Liverpool virus in the Premier League’s fixtures computer has once again kicked in and has us kicking off our new league campaign against Arsenal and this is quickly followed by a trip to Middle-Eastlands to face Manc City. So no pressure there Roy!

I know our club is facing into the abyss right now and perhaps sometimes I sound like that guy playing the violin while the Titanic is sinking, but I am first and foremost a football supporter and in that regard I must admit that Hodgson has got me curious and I’m looking forward to seeing what moves he makes in the weeks ahead. At this point I’m not sure if we’re at the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning but I guess we’re sure as hell going to find out.

So I’ve got a new job, we’ve got a new manager and will no doubt soon have a few new players, all I need now is a new owner to come in and my life will be complete!

Keep the Faith

I was very sad to hear the news yesterday and I am gutted that Rafa Benitez is no longer our manager. Some people say football is like a religion and it’s easy to see why. Take Rafa for example, he arrived as a saviour, performed a few miracles, was betrayed from within and then was crucified alongside two thieves!

It all sounds spookily familiar and it’s just a pity he couldn’t have done the old loaves and fishes trick with the measly transfer budgets he was given to work with. He wasn’t perfect and there’s no doubt he made a few mistakes along the way but as I’ve said many times before on this blog, in my opinion his strengths far outweigh his weaknesses and I thought we would do well to stick with him for another while longer and at least give him next season to turn things around, as he has turned things around in the past.

I honestly believe that had he been given the right sort of backing from the start he would have delivered the title at least once or twice over his six year tenure. His spending has always been a contentious issue and the subject of much false reporting and meaningless comparisons in the media and on certain false flag webshites. Yet another example of lazy journalism for lazy “supporters” who can’t seem to think for themselves.

I’m not exactly a genius and just like the other 117% of the population , I’m pretty useless at maths! But it only takes a little bit of common sense to see that you just cannot make any fair spending comparisons between Benitez and any of the other top bosses. The reasons why should be obvious to most people but for those lacking the necessary grey matter, let me try to explain in the simplest possible terms.

Back in 2004 when Rafa arrived, the mancs and the arse had been pretty much sharing the title between them in the preceding years so they both had already built up strong squads and were in a position where they only needed to add one or two new faces here and there to freshen things up. As for the chavs, if memory serves they had just finished runners-up in the league and got to the quarters or semis of the CL before the Special-needs One arrived, so their squad was also pretty much in place even before he spent another £200 or £300 million on them.

Rafa on the other hand inherited a squad full of deadwood that had to be almost entirely rebuilt and just over 3 years later only three players remained from that original squad, Hyypia, Carra and Gerrard. So you just can’t make any meaningful spending comparisons over a five year period between a team that is starting with a strong squad and one that doesn’t even half of one.

Anyway that just one example of many media myths written by the gormless and believed by the brainless, almost all of their stories have been as fake as Katie Prices tits!. Of course nobody should be above criticism (unless of course you happen to be the manager of the mancs!) but as soon as he arrived at the same time as Moaninho, the media seemed to hail Jose as a hero and set Rafa up as the villain of the piece.

The man was completely hounded by the press almost from the first moment he arrived. The squad rotation myth, the zonal marking myth, the spending myth and the man management myth as well as constantly having his words twisted by the press in almost every interview he gave them. For one example of many you only have to remember back to the early stages of last season when in an after match interview he said he was looking for more from the senior players which seemed a reasonable statement but the press spun it into him directly criticising Gerrard and Carra.

That’s not to say that he is completely blameless but the guy has had more knives in his back then Julius Caesar and in many ways I suppose he never stood a chance. The media seemed to have some kind of agenda against him, he was let down by the board, let down by a certain section of our “support” and, in my opinion, let down by some of his players.

I find it interesting that at the time of writing this, only the great Pepe Reina has come out and thanked the boss for what he did for him and said how sad he is to see him go, and he is also the only one who has firmly nailed his colours to the wall in terms of his own future and stated that he will be carrying on at Anfield regardless. I really welcomed Pepe’s words yesterday which for me show that he is not only a great goalkeeper, but also a great man and I suspect it won’t be long before The Kop bestows him with Legendary status and perhaps even a song or two!

But where are the rest of them? Pepe’s World Cup preparations didn’t prevent him from taking five minutes to reassure our fans but what about the others? Where are our “heroes”, our so called “dyed in the wool” Reds when we need them? Nowhere!

No doubt we’ll hear some dribs and drabs from some of them in the days to come and I’m sure many of them are busy discussing the implications of this news with their agents and PR consultants and they will get around to us peasants eventually! Some may wait to see who the new manager will be before committing themselves but surely it shouldn’t make a difference to them who the new man is, afterall they are all sitting with fat contracts in their back pockets so surely, if they do actually care about the club, it wouldn’t be asking too much for them to give the new man at least a season regardless of who he is. Players in the modern game really are pathetic aren’t they?

Anyway we could argue all day about the rights and wrongs of the situation but the fact is Rafa’s gone now and we’ve got to try to move forward. I’m doing my best to remain positive and telling myself that maybe it was time to freshen things up, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough. It’s difficult to see how this mess is going to work itself out but apparently the quest for a new manager has begun.

In all honesty, I had hoped to be really clever here and put forward a name that nobody else had suggested yet but with one over-riding exception, I really haven’t got a Scooby Doo who they should appoint. I’ll get on to my choice shortly but I’m hoping the other guys on the site can bail me out once again with a few more creative choices.

I would suggest that if anyone is hoping for Gus Haddock or Louis Segull, they should forget about it because I doubt managers of their ilk would touch us with a barge pole given our uncertain future and lack of meaningful transfer funds. Dropping down a level to some of the other names suggested such as Moaning O’Neill, Alex Macbeth and Roy Hodgson. Of those three I only like Hodgson.

At 62 and on a one year rolling contract at Fulham, he would be available and I think he would jump at the chance of possibly finishing his career on a high note at Anfield. He has bags of experience at all levels and might be a safe pair of hands but while I don’t wish to be unkind to a man I have a lot of respect for, I’m not sure he is the type of name who will really inspire confidence in some of our players and fans alike.

So I’ve been trawling through some of our ex-players hoping to find an inspired choice but there’s not a lot there. We all love the likes of John Barnes and Gary Mac but their managerial records don’t make for pretty reading and please don’t even mention Keegan, a man who has left more posts than a retired mailman!

So for me, I just can’t see anyone who ticks as many of the boxes as my all-time hero King Kenny. The big negative against him is that he has been out of management for so long but on the other hand he has been back at Anfield for the last year, so he will be familiar with everything and he would also have Sammy Lee to help bring him up to speed on team matters etc.

The other big plus point about King Kenny is that he is a hugely respected figure in the game, in the media and among players and fans alike at Anfield, not to mention the fact that he is well able to deal with the likes of Ferguson and the like, in fact those of us of a certain age will no doubt remember that there is no love lost between them. So overall I think he would have a lot of good will if he took the role and how long that good will lasts will depend on results.

I’m not sure if Kenny would even want to be getting back into management at this stage of his life but I think there’s little doubt that he is the one appointment we could make that would give everybody a lift. I know I’m a bit old to be believing in fairytales and in football you should never go back but wouldn’t it be fantastic to see King Kenny in our dugout again?

I’m sorry that I can’t think of anything more inventive than The Return of the King but if I was to put my money on a real long shot then what about Thommo? I remember when he took over during Gerard Houllier’s serious health problems and while he was in charge we went on a long unbeaten run and he won two Manager of the Month awards. Obviously he stepped back down again when Houllier came back but if you’re looking for someone who’s Liverpool through and through, he would certainly be the man.

Anyway guys, all we can do us keep our chins up and hope for the best because no matter what the future holds we’ll all still be here, pissing against the wind and doing our best to cheer the team on, or at least most of us will!

On a final note, I just want to say thank you to Rafa Benitez. For that magical night in Istanbul, for that great FA Cup final against Wet Spam, for the other trophies we picked up, the other finals we got to, the terrific football we played at times particularly the season before last when we came within a whisker of winning the impossible, for making us the number one ranked team in Europe and for getting rid of Harry Kewell! But most of all thanks for always doing your best and keeping us afloat in the most difficult of circumstances. Thanks Rafa and all the best in the future, YNWA.

Keep the Faith

God, I’m fed up. It’s been barely more than a couple of weeks since the season finished but already I’m as bored as a midget in a theme park! Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see the end of our miserable campaign but at the same time, even if the team is in poor form, there’s nothing quite like the buzz of having a Liverpool game to look forward to. So just like a lonely housewife who has run out of batteries, I’m missing my buzz!

There’s so much doom and gloom surrounding the club at the moment, it would make a Samaritan feel suicidal. I used to think football was a good way to escape from life for awhile but over this past season I’ve been using life to escape from football. It’s been depressing to say the least.

As ever, the media parasites are doing their best to make a bad situation worse and are like vultures circling over a troubled Anfield. For the most part their stories are the usual mix of wild rumours and downright lies. If you were dumb enough to believe most of the rubbish they write, and unfortunately it appears a lot of people are, it would seem like everybody is leaving Liverpool this summer.

Benitez, Torres, Gerrard, Benny Onion and Masch among others are all apparently on their way out at Anfield according to various reports but despite the crap in the media, I’m confident they’ll all still be with us for the next campaign. In fact now that we’ve got that miserable season out of the way, my mood is gradually improving and I’m starting to feel a little bit more positive.

Our club anthem says,” when you walk through a storm keep your head up high”, but it’s been difficult to do so because even allowing for global warming, this has been one hell of a long storm we’ve had to endure. Up to a couple of months ago things looked pretty bleak indeed with the club more than 6 Kaka’s in debt, our two parasitic owners bleeding us dry and the team playing shite, but perhaps now we are starting to see a spark of light at the end of this tunnel and maybe even the beginning of some little Red shoots of recovery.

Hopefully this Martin Broughton guy will be able to keep the Americans in check and at least prevent them from making our situation even worse, and with a bit of luck it won’t be too long before he is able to get some new owners in. There also seems to be a lot of success happening on the commercial side of things now that Prick Parry has gone, which just shows how completely useless that clown was and why he was given such a huge pay-off, I’ll never know?

But it’s the football side of things that we’re all interested in and now that the season is over, Rafa will have a chance to patch up the squad with whatever finance he is given to work with. He probably won’t get a lot of cash but quite frankly anything he can do to get more bodies into the squad will be an improvement. With everyone fit we can field a first eleven that is capable of beating anyone but our overall squad is dreadfully thin in comparison to every other top club in England and the rest of Europe, in fact it’s even weaker than just about every other club in the top half of the Premiership.

There’s always a bit of deadwood in every squad that we’d prefer to see the back of, but you can’t just keep selling these guys on and not replacing them. For example, last summer we got rid of Leto and Peanut and while it may be true that both of them were about as much use as a windscreen wiper on a goats arse, the fact of the matter is we didn’t replace them in the squad and bring in a replacement until Maxi joined us in January.

Also in January we sold Dossena and Voronin and I don’t think anyone would have had too many arguments about that. But forget about how good or bad they were, the fact of the matter is we took a striker and a left back out of our already thin squad and didn’t replace them, and as it happens these were exactly two of the positions where we were badly lacking cover in the latter stages of the season.

I’m not suggesting this is down to the manager because I’m sure he has been just as frustrated as the rest of us that he wasn’t even being given the money he raised through players sales to fund replacements, in fact it almost seemed like he was in the position where he had to sell two players to buy one. I would imagine that’s why he refused to sell Babel in January. I think under normal circumstances he would have taken Birmingham’s offer but if he wasn’t going to be given the cash from the sale to fund a replacement there was no incentive for him to lose another player from the squad.

But things are perhaps starting to look up a little in that regard. The recent signings of Shelvey, Jovanovic and possibly the promising young Rangers defender Danny Wilson are certainly welcome. All three will obviously need to prove themselves but at the very least they will provide us with a little extra badly needed cover in defence, midfield and attack.

These aren’t exactly the kind of signings to get us dancing in the streets but it’s a start and better than a slap in the face with a wet fish! We will obviously need to get more in and let’s hope theres one or two big names among them. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not a big fan of rumours but there might be something to the recent ones about Simao. We were very close to signing him in the past and he is apparently available and wants to play in the Premiership so it’s a possibility. I know he’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I’ve always liked him and I wouldn’t mind seeing him on our left wing.

On the outgoing front, it looks like we are going to release Aurelio and I’ve no problem with that because the guy is just far too injury prone. I’d also like to see us get shot of Degan but I think the player we’d all most like to see the back of is Riera, a guy so two-faced he’s got two pages on Face Book! He is an out and out scum bag and the ironic thing is that if he had managed to keep his mouth shut there was a strong chance he would have got a few games under his belt in his former position at left back. I also think Babel might go if the price is right and assuming the boss is given the cash to fund a replacement.

There’s no denying the club is in dire straits at the moment, but it’s always darkest before the dawn. The wheels are turning on us finding a new owner and over the summer the gaffer can trim some of the dead weight in the squad and bring in a few new faces so I’m going to hang on to these small crumbs of comfort and hope for the best. Things are bad but we ain’t dead yet so as ever I’m going to keep the faith.

Anyway, at least we’ve got the World Cup coming up this summer to take our minds off things and I’m looking forward to it. I think Spain would be most people’s favourites but there are a number of teams who could win it so it’s pretty wide open in my opinion and I’m just hoping we get to see some cracking games and no serious injuries to any of our guys.

Joke of the Week: (A new feature to cheer us all up, although given my recent output of blogs it will probably turn into joke of the month!)

Question: What would you do if you saw a manc staggering around in your garden?
Answer: Reload!

Keep the Faith