I must admit I was not only very happy but also very relieved to see us get past Unirea and move into the last 16 of the Europa League. I would normally be very confident about our chances against this kind of opposition but ahead of the game I began to feel a little uneasy because it had all the potential to be yet another one of those great big banana skins that we have a tendency to slip on.

In the first leg at Anfield we managed to keep a clean sheet and give ourselves a one goal lead, which wasn’t as much as we would have hoped for but it was better than a slap in the face with a wet fish. Given the fact that Unirea would have to come out of their ultra defensive shell in the second leg there would hopefully be more space for us to exploit so I was confident we would progress.

But on the other hand I was also aware that these guys had been unbeaten in their home games in the CL so they were no mugs and when I saw the state of the pitch ahead of the game, I was really starting to get worried. For the first 20 minutes of the game my worst fears were justified as our defence turned into the Keystone Cops and we allowed them to level the tie with a very soft equaliser.

However, their goal seemed to act as an alarm call and just as I was about to ring the Samaritans, our guys finally woke from their slumber and started to play. In the end it turned out to be a comfortable victory for us and while our overall performance may not have been exactly vintage Reds, the manner in which we recovered from our shaky start, took control and saw out the game, certainly was.

It was also nice to see us scoring a few goals for a change. This was the first time we had scored three goals in a game since our 6-1 defeat of Hull back in September and the first time we had scored more than one goal in a European game this season. Mascherano doesn’t score many goals but when he does it’s always a treat to watch him celebrate and he certainly deserved it after smashing in that thunderbolt to level the game.

Benny Onion made a welcome return to the starting line-up and did very well to set-up Gerrard for our third and a goal that takes him beyond Alan Shearer as the highest scoring English player in European competition with 33 goals. But more importantly, his injuries this season has meant that this was just his 7th goal of the campaign and that’s not a great total by his standards so hopefully this strike will lead to him finding his scoring touch again in the games ahead.

Sandwiched between those goals was a strike by the man of mystery himself, Ryan Babel. He has been in one of his all too rare patches of good form recently and was one of our best performers on the night. He caused the initial confusion in the Unirea defence that eventually lead to Masch scoring our first goal and scored the second himself with a terrific first touch and finish. This guy just completely does my head in, I’ve been supporting this club of ours since the early 70’s and I’ve never seen us ever have such an enigma as we have in Flyin Ryan.

When I was a kid Subbuteo was the ultimate football game and I would spend many hours flicking those flimsy piece of shit plastic players about. But the kids these days have far more advanced football games on their X-Box’s and Playstations etc, that can do all sorts of amazing stuff. They even have one function that allows you to create a player of your own and load them up with all the attributes you think they would need to make the perfect player.

If such a function were available in the real world and you were able to load up a real person with such attributes, then the chances are what you would end up creating would be very similar to a Ryan Babel. The guy has pace, power and just about everything else you would think would be needed to make it as a top class player. But frustratingly, while all of the ingredients seem to be there, so far he just hasn’t been able to put it all together often enough to really take his game up to the next level.

I’ve written a blog or two about Babel in the past and concluded them by saying that while Babel may have been blessed with many of the skills needed to make it at the top level, he unfortunately wasn’t blessed with a brain to go with them. But while that may seem like a neat answer, I’m no longer convinced that is entirely the case.

In the games against Unirea for example, we saw him in the first leg digging out a good cross while under pressure that lead to our goal and in the second leg we saw him surrounded by burly defenders yet still having the composure to pluck a ball out of the air and calmly sticking it in the net. You can also think back to games like the one against Derby a couple of seasons ago where, with a single well-timed shimmy, he wrong-footed their entire defence and slotted home a great goal.

These glimpses of his ability have been few and far between but they do show that he has good instincts and a certain degree of footballing intelligence. So the guy remains a real puzzle to me. I’m not sure if his problem is a lack of intelligence, a lack of maturity or a lack of heart and sadly it might already be too late for him to make it as a Liverpool player.

Based on his undoubted potential, I’ve always been in favour of us persisting with him and even when there were rumours about us possibly selling him last summer, I still thought we should stick with him just a little longer. I just hated the thought of some other team benefitting from all of the time and money we have spent trying to develop him.

But there comes a time when a player has to start delivering on their potential and I must admit that even my patience with Babel had run out this season. There were reports of Birmingham offering £9 million for him in January and if I didn’t know that this money would have disappeared into the same black hole as the money from the Robbie Keane transfer last year, then I would have been in favour of us cashing in on him.

However now that his hit another little bit of form, I find myself wondering once again that maybe, just maybe this caterpillar is finally about to turn into the butterfly we all know he is capable of becoming. The evidence of the past strongly suggests that this most likely won’t happen but what a huge asset he would be to us if Rafa could somehow finally crack the enigma that is Ryan Babel and get him to deliver to his potential on a consistent basis.

Anyway we’re now in the last 16 and will face Lillet’s in our next monthly cycle in the competition and it’s sure to be an interesting period of our season. The other good news from the Europa League in midweek was seeing our wee neighbours Everton being thumped 3-0 by Sporting Lesbian.

I took some perverse pleasure from that result because I have a few mates who are lifelong Evertonians and I enjoy telling them that even though we are having one of our worst seasons in years, we are still a class above them. I don’t think they are too happy with me at the moment, particularly as I also sent one of them a pair of Liverpool FC designed curtains at Christmas and told him that I figured it would be the ideal gift for someone who enjoys living in our shadow. That didn’t go down too well, but sometimes you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do.

So we’re back to Premiership action this weekend and the resumption of our epic battle for a place in the top four. The only good thing I can say about our drab 0-0 encounter with the biggest team in Manchester last weekend is that we didn’t really lose too much ground and might well have played our part in discovering a brand new cure for insomnia!

Man City were a top eight side who spent £200 million and yet still look little more than a top eight side to me. If we were closer to firing on all cylinders I reckon we would have taken the points fairly comfortably but personnel and performance-wise we aren’t at our best yet so we had to content ourselves with a share of the spoils and move on.

We now face a decent run of three games with Blackburn at home, Wigan away and Portsmouth at home. We all well know by now that we can’t take anything for granted but we’ve got to be aiming to take all 9 points from these games. This would not only improve our position but also take a little bit of the pressure off us for our trip to the second biggest side in Manchester at the Theatre of Illusions next month.

It all starts with our game against Blackburn at Anfield on Sunday and while I don’t have a problem with them as a club, I have a real problem with their manager who I think can best be described in cockney rhyming slang as a cupid stunt. Big mouthed Sham Allardyce is nothing but a Fergie lapdog as he showed last season by aiding the manc boss and playing his part in a childishly contrived co-ordinated attack on Rafa Benitez after Liverpool had beaten his side in the same fixture last term.

His accusations, which suddenly occurred to him several days after the game, that Rafa had made a “game-over” hand gesture to our players after we scored our second goal were clearly false and Allardyce was as guilty as a nun in a cucumber field. I didn’t like this clown before that incident and I completely despise the over-rated arsehole even more now. So while it’s important we win the game regardless of these circumstances, I will take some extra pleasure if we beat this knob-heads team again on Sunday.

Team-wise I expect there may be 3 or 4 changes from the side that started against Unirea. It was a real shame that Skrtel picked up such a bad injury in that game as he had been in good form in the centre of our defence and I hope he won’t be sidelined for too long. In his absence and given the fact that Paddy the Greek is still suspended, Carra will no doubt return to centre back and I’d like to see Martin Kelly coming in at right back.

In midfield, while it may seem harsh to drop Masch or Lucas after they both played well on Thursday, I think we’ve got to start giving Aquilani more time on the pitch and this might be an ideal game for him so I think he might start alongside Masch. In the wide areas I’d like to see us sticking with the killer B’s, Benny and Babel. I’m not sure if Torres will be ready to start the game but if not I’d like to see Kuyt coming in for Eggnog with Gerrard as ever in support.

Hopefully we can carry the positives from our win in Bucharest into this one. A victory is a must and I don’t care how we achieve it but I’ll put my money on a 2-0 win. As a little bit of karma, I hope that whatever goals we do manage to score are hugely controversial and make Big Sham’s blood boil so much that the two-faced bastard ends up back in the hospital.

Keep the Faith

After our disappointing defeat against Arsenal last week, I decided to take a break away from football for a few days. I’ve just become so fed up with hearing all of the usual kneejerk nonsensical crap that seems to follow our every setback these days. Most of it from ignorant morons who clearly know as little about the game as a hedgehog knows about crossing the road, so I decided to give it a miss for awhile.

As I said in the last blog, I thought it might have been worth starting Babel upfront and I was surprised Riera wasn’t in the side but other than that and given what we have available, I wouldn’t disagree with the team or the tactics the manager employed. Overall I thought we deserved at least a draw and our performance while not great, wasn’t half as bad as some people make out.

Obviously (or at least it should be obvious) given the fact that we are missing the likes of Torres, Benny Onion, Glenda and even Aquilani and also considering that Gerrard is only now getting back to his best while Riera and Maxi are still regaining match fitness, it’s understandable that we are lacking on the attacking and creative side of things at the moment. But there is at least a lot more steel and resolve in our performances recently that we just didn’t see enough of a couple of months ago and that will give us a strong platform to build on when these other players return.

I’ve heard some people moaning and saying the manager was playing for a draw but that’s just bullshit. To play an open game of football against Arsenal in their own backyard is about as dangerous as going bareback on a five dollar whore! Keeping things tight and playing them on the counter was definitely the way to go and it almost worked for us. We had several chances and had we stuck one or two of them away, we would have been praised for grinding out another result but we didn’t take our chances and the Gooners managed to put away one of theirs, end of story!

We’ve had a decent break since that game so all of our available players should be fully fit and firing ahead of a couple of big games for us this week. The first of these comes on Thursday when we face Unirea at Anfield in the first leg of our Europa League tie. This wasn’t a competition that was on any of our agendas at the start of the season and even now some people continue to sneer at our participation but I believe that for many reasons this could be a really important piece of silverware for us to go after and I’m still dreaming of a silver lining at the end of this difficult season.

Finishing in the top four has become our main priority this season but this needn’t be a case of either/or and I don’t see any reason why we can’t go for both. Firstly, as a supporter I would be very happy to see us finish in the top four but I would be even more delighted to see us pick up a trophy as well. The Europa League gives us an opportunity to pick up some silverware and I want it, and if we were to win it then next season we would face off against the winners of the CL for the European Super Cup and while that is just basically a European version of the Community Shield, it’s another piece of silverware and I want that too!

But even more important than my selfish desire for silverware is the fact that most of the players in our squad have never won anything in the game and for them to pick up a winners medal would be a huge boost to their confidence. For our players to get a taste of success can only be beneficial for us going forward and it is often the case in football that success breeds even more success.

If we were to win the Europa League this season it might well be seen in the years to come as a breakthrough moment for this side, just as our UEFA Cup win in 1976 was seen as a breakthrough moment for the side back then. After that success we went on to win the European Cup in ’77 and again in ’78, as well as league titles and just about everything else.

So basically, while I wouldn’t see the Europa League as our ultimate destination, I would definitely view it as a sign post that we are on the right path. I know we face a dogfight between now and the end of the season to retain our CL place but at the end of the day I would much prefer to see us finish in fourth spot with a trophy than for us to finish in third spot without one.

It may seem premature to talk about winning a competition that we haven’t even started yet and if there’s one thing we’ve learned this season it’s that we cannot take anything for granted but you’ve got to think we’ve got a very good chance of winning this competition if we take it seriously. We face Unirea first and if we come through this tie we will face the winners of the tie between the Lilly’s and the Fannybashers.

We are well capable of beating these sides and if we do so we would find ourselves in the quarter-finals with hopefully all of our main players available to us again. There are other big sides in the competition but nothing we haven’t faced before and nobody we should fear. So in my opinion it’s all there for us if we really go for it.

But of course we’ve got to get the balance right between this and our battle for fourth place. I believe we have enough to successfully fight on both fronts but as ever we’ll need to take things one game at a time. That said, this week Rafa will obviously need to have one eye on our big game at Man City on Sunday when deciding on his team to face Unirea on Thursday.

As I see it there are two ways he can play it. He could use the squad and play Diego between the sticks and have Aurelio come in at left back to give Insua a break. Paddy the Greek is able to play in this so he could come in alongside Skrtel and I would prefer to see Kelly again at right back, if not him then Darby but not bloody Degen who is about as much use as a trap door in a life boat!

Across the middle we could go with Riera and Maxi in the wide positions with Aquilani alongside Masch or Lucas. Then upfront we could partner Babel with Eggnog or maybe even Pacheco could be given a run out. This would be a reasonably strong side and would also give us the benefit of resting Reina, Carra, Agger, Insua, Gerrard, Kuyt, Lucas or Masch and possibly the returning Benny Onion, for the game at Middle-Eastlands on Sunday. But we would have these players available on the bench if we need them on Thursday.

The other option is that after an eight day break since our last game, the gaffer could decide to put out one of his strongest sides and try to blitz Unirea on Thursday, carry that momentum into our game on Sunday and then rest some of our players for the second leg of our Europa League tie.

Both options have their merits and I wouldn’t really mind which approach he takes but it would be obviously easier for us to get our goals in the home leg of our tie then it would be in the away one. So I would favour a strong side on Thursday and try to get most of the job done at Anfield and make the second leg less of a task. In any case I’m looking forward to the game and my money’s on a 2-0 win to send us into the City game in confident mood.

Keep the Faith

Well I’ve just recovered from celebrating our absolutely superb victory over our wee neighbours at the weekend. All things considered, I think our display in the game has to rate as our best performance of the season so far. There have been occasions over the years when we have beaten the Toffees far more convincingly but rarely have we had a victory over them that has felt so satisfying!

I was unfortunately stuck in traffic when the game kicked off and so I had to listen to the entire first half on a crappy radio reception in my car. So I can’t comment on the Kyrgiakos sending off as I didn’t see it and still haven’t. The commentators on BBC Radio Five were definitely of the opinion that his red card was well deserved but from past experience I’ve learned that their opinions are normally about as much use as a three-legged greyhound, so I tend to take what they say with a healthy grain of salt.

But whatever about the rights and wrongs of his dismissal it certainly turned out to be the turning point of the game. As near as I could figure from the commentary I had to rely on, it seemed up to that point that Everton were just about having the better of things and the sending-off should probably have cemented their superiority but ironically it seemed to have the opposite effect.

Our players gained an extra resolve from the dismissal, our manager showed once again why tactically he is simply the best in the business and our supporters also played their part in lifting the team and were magnificent. I finally reached my destination by half-time so I was able to watch the second half and it is a real testament to our performance that it wasn’t until about the 80th minute that I actually remembered we only had ten men on the pitch.

David Moyes showed his and his teams limitations by not being able to figure out how to make the most of their numerical advantage and in the end we dealt with them quite comfortably. Last season we won several of our games after a member of the opposition was sent off and as a result the pundits on each occasion dismissed our victories as lucky. But Saturday’s victory showed us that playing against 10 men can still be a very tough task unless you have a manager clever enough to make the most of the advantage, which clearly we do and others clearly do not.

I had a lot of fun with my Evertonian buddies afterwards. Normally when I’m taking the piss out of them after a Liverpool victory, they fall back on their old argument about our manager having more money to spend than theirs. But in a game where they had an extra man for almost an hour that argument became null and void, and it’s amazing how quickly they then turned on their manager and their players. Mind you, we seem to have a fair few like that among our own supporters these days so perhaps we better not laugh too loudly!

Deadly Dirk had one of his best ever games in a Red shirt and was our man of the match in my opinion. Just when we needed him most, he’s come up with four goals in four games and must be giving Rafa a little food for thought as he contemplates the return of Torres in a few weeks time.

If we can get Maxi up to speed between now and then, maybe he and Riera can do a job for us on the wings and a Kuyt/Torres partnership might work well for us in a 4-4-2 formation, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Outside of Kuyt, all of our other players were terrific with the possible exception of Rodriguez who did alright but the game did seem to pass him by at times. However, he is a quality player and I’m sure his performances will continue to grow as he improves his match fitness with more games.

Overall it was a terrific team performance full of grit, determination and some nice football at times. For one reason or another, it’s taken us far too long to hit form this season but with a 17 point return and six clean sheets from our last seven league games it seems we are finally on our way. That said, our form and confidence may still be a little fragile so we can’t afford to get too carried away and must continue to take things one game at a time.

Let’s not forget that our wee neighbours went into Saturday’s Merseyside Derby on the back of a nine game unbeaten run and were full of confidence before it all fell apart and we put them back in their place. So we must maintain our focus as we now head into two massive away games against Arsenal and Man City in the league that might well have a big impact on the direction of the rest of our season.

First up we travel to the Emigrants stadium on Wednesday evening and our away record against the Gooners is pretty crap to say the least. We haven’t beaten them away in ten years, our last nine visits resulting in four draws and five defeats. Of course such stats won’t make a blind bit of difference once the game kicks off but they do show that we have found them to be a tough nut to crack at their place and even a manager as tactical astute as Benitez hasn’t yet managed to mastermind a single victory over them there.

However if we could somehow break our duck and muster a victory over them on this occasion it could be potentially huge in terms of the rest of our campaign. Arsenal have struggled in recent weeks and now sit only 5 points ahead of us so a win would have us breathing right down their necks and make third place a realistic target for us. It would also have the beneficial effect of dragging the Gooners back towards the pack that are currently snapping at our heels.

So the prize for a victory would be significant to us but it will obviously be very difficult to achieve. Speaking after the Everton game, Rafa Benitez said he was a little surprised, given their numerical advantage, that the Toffees continued to play direct, long ball football which we found easier to deal with then we would have done had they tried to play through us, which might have caused us more problems. Well you can be damn sure that Arsenal will be trying to do what the Toffees failed to and they won’t be humping too many easy long balls for our defence to soak up.

The key to this game can be summed up quite nicely. Arsenal will try to control the ball. get into a rhythm and play their football but we’ve got to stop them, and remember to play football ourselves when we get the chance. We will need to show the same kind of grit and determination that we showed at the weekend if we are to come away with some kind of a result.

I would leave Aquaman and Maxi on the bench for this one. I know they both need games and I’m sure they’ll get plenty in the weeks ahead, particularly with the Europa League coming up, but I’m not sure that either of them will be ready to start in this particular game. This is a game where we’re really going to have to dig in and probably try to grind out a result and for that we will need to have our best battlers on the pitch.

So I would have Dagger and Skrtel in the centre of defence, the Carra/Kuyt partnership on the right and the Insua/Riera partnership on the left. Lucas and Masch in the centre of midfield might well turn out to be our two most important players in this one and will need to be at their bruise brothers best to ensure we win the all-important midfield battle.

I’m sure Gerrard will play a little deeper and give them a hand but also keep his eye out for an opportunity to hit them on the counter. Eggnog would seem to be the obvious candidate for the lone striker role but I wouldn’t rule out Babel. I’ve pretty much given up on him at this stage and he didn’t really do himself any favours when he came on at the weekend but if we are going to play on the counter, that pace of his might just be a very useful asset against their defence.

On our travels recently we’ve been extremely good defensively but we haven’t exactly been a John Terry when it comes to scoring away from home! However if our defence can continue the run of solid form they’ve shown recently, then one goal just might be enough for us and I really don’t care if it comes from the penalty spot, a free-kick or goes in off the referees arse.

This is one of those games where my head is telling me it will be a draw and my heart is telling me we could nick it by a single goal. But when it comes to Liverpool I always follow my heart so my money’s on a smash and grab result and us pinching the points with a nerve wrecking 1-0 or 2-1 victory. Fingers crossed and I’m off now to sacrifice a few chickens!

Keep the Faith

I was feeling as depressed as a turkey on Christmas Eve over the weekend watching all those FA Cup games because I still feel a bit bitter that we are no longer involved in the competition, especially when I look at the teams left in it. Had we got our game together just a little bit sooner I think we would have had a great chance of going all the way, but there’s no point in crying over spilt milk.

The only reason I drag up our lame FA Cup exit is because the lingering disappointment of it distracted me a little from our recent league form which has actually been pretty good, or perhaps I should say results-wise it’s been pretty good. While there has been some improvement in our play lately we are still by no means firing on all cylinders.

I still think that even with the players we have sidelined at the moment we are capable of performing a lot better, but there has been a definite improvement recently and we have managed to take 10 points out of 12 in our last four games which has put us right back in the frame for a top four spot. We were very unlucky to drop two points at Stoke but that’s still a damn fine return particularly in our current circumstances and the players and manager deserve great credit.

Tomorrow we go dancing with Wolves at Molineux and it’s a game we must win, let’s face it every game between now and the end of the season is a must-win for us now. Under normal circumstances a trip to Wolves wouldn’t be particularly a daunting task for us but if there’s one thing we’ve learned this season, we can take nothing for granted.

In fact even history tells us we must be on our guard. I was checking some stats recently and was very surprised to read that our last five trips to Molineux have resulted in three defeats and two draws, our last victory there came in 1979 courtesy of a rare Alan Hansen goal. I know those stats won’t mean a damn thing tomorrow but maybe Rafa should pin them up on the dressing room as a little word of warning to our players ahead of the game.

Our options for the game have been boosted by the earlier than expected return of Steven Gerrard from the hamstring strain he picked up against Reading. However with our “two man” team performing very well in the absence of those two men in our last couple of games, I don’t think the boss will feel under as much pressure to rush back the skipper. I suspect he may keep him on the bench and give him some time later in the game to get him ready for our next game against Bolton.

So I think that, depending on fitness, he might well go with the same team that did so well against Spurs and hold off on starting both Gerrard and Rodriguez until we face Bolton. As far as Wolves go, they have found goals difficult to come by and have only scored 17 in their 21 league games this season, and haven’t scored any in their last three. So let’s hope they don’t start tomorrow and Hercules and Co can continue their recent good form at the back and get us out of there with another clean sheet. Any type of win will do for me but my money’s on a repeat of the scoreline when we faced them at Anfield, 2-0 to The Reds.

In other matters, I’ve been keeping up to speed with what’s been happening on the transfer front. There seems to be a certain amount of interest in Ryan Babel and a transfer fee in the region of £9 million has been reported. At the start of the season I argued that we should keep Babel, my reasoning being basically because we had already spent so much time and money on developing him that it would be a shame to see another team reaping the rewards of our efforts.

However I’d now be happy to see the back of him. The guy is obviously a complete moron and now seems to be more hassle then he’s worth, so provided Rafa is able to use the funds from his transfer fee to fund a replacement, I’d be very much in favour of him going. I actually think Maxi was brought in to be his replacement whether it be during this window or the next but I hope it will be this one and the gaffer is able to use the cash towards bringing in a striker.

With Torres out for six weeks we badly need more cover in attack and it can’t wait until the summer. Kenwyne Jones would appear to be one of the main options being looked at, at the moment with Rafa confirming that Christian Purslow is having talks with Niall Quinn. I notice some people are already debating whether this guy is good enough for us but as far as I’m concerned that’s up to the manager to decide. Only he will know what type of player he is looking for and if he thinks he’s good enough, that’ll do for me.

Keep the Faith

Get in there you beauty! After all of the gloom we’ve suffered in recent weeks, our terrific 2-0 victory over Spurs on Wednesday left me as happy as Harry Redknapp in a brown envelope factory!

At the weekend, it was disappointing that we didn’t manage to get the three points we deserved in our game at Stoke, thanks in no small part to a referee who is clearly depriving some poor village of its idiot, but we did get some consolation from the facts that other results largely went our way and the team finally showed the battling qualities and spirit that has been missing in too many of our games this season.

I had my fingers, toes and everything crossed that we would carry that performance into our all-important game with Spurs and I was well pleased that not only did we do that, but we also managed to step it up another notch or two. Not bad for a two-man team that is missing its two men! A lot of our games this season have been determined by the players we haven’t had available to us but Wednesday’s game was determined by the players who were, and it was a great team performance by our combination of first, second and third string players. Here’s how I rated each of them.

Pepe Reina: Had a little spell in the game when his normally excellent distribution was a little wayward but overall it was another fine performance by our superb goalkeeper. 8/10

Carra: A leader with or without the captain’s armband. He doesn’t particularly enjoy playing as a right-back but he got on with it and put in a strong and committed performance. 7/10

Hercules: He must have taken note of the nickname I’ve given him because he was certainly a colossus at the back in our last two games. His strength and aerial ability, not to mention his goal, have been Hyypia-like in the centre of our defence. He has made the most of his first team opportunities and gone from being a cheap but useful extra bit of defensive cover to now become a serious option for us in the games ahead. 8/10

Skrtel: He had a bit of a dodgy spell this season but now seems to be returning to form and had another good game on Wednesday. He always seems to me to be a player who is better when he’s busy. He tends to have his best games against the better sides when we have a lot of defending to do but sometimes against lesser sides his concentration can slip. 7/10

Insua: Did well overall and seems to prefer having Riera in front of him but I still think the young lad would benefit from a little break. 6/10

Degan: While I would commend his attitude, I’m just not a big fan of this guy and why the hell didn’t he take on the shot that Kuyt put on a plate for him? 6/10

Lucas: Steady as ever. 7/10

Aquaman: This guy is slowly but surely getting better with every game and I firmly believe he will go on to become a key player for us in the rest of this campaign and in the seasons ahead. He linked up very well with Kuyt for the opening goal. 7/10

Mascherano: Once he has his head together there’s no questioning this guys fighting spirit. The man’s an absolute monster for us in the centre of the pitch. 8/10

Riera: A super return from a player who we have definitely missed. He took almost all of our free-kicks on Wednesday and was very keen to get stuck in and be involved again. He was actually supposed to be substituted earlier than he was but I’m told by someone who was within earshot that he wanted to stay on and asked the boss to give him another 10 minutes. Welcome back Albert. 8/10

Kuyt: Deadly Dirk is back! A great finish for the first goal and he showed nerves of steel when forced to retake the penalty for our second. He also had a number of other chances and on another night might easily have had another couple of goals, but at least he was getting himself into the right positions to take on these chances. 9/10

Eggnog also did well and made an impact when he came on later in the game. Overall it was a very good team performance that brought us a well earned victory against a strong Spurs side that was on a six game unbeaten run. Let’s not forget that we still have more than our fair share of injury problems and the likes of Gerrard, Torres, Agger, Johnson and Benny Onion were unavailable and while players of their calibre will always be missed, we coped without them thanks mainly to the great attitude and effort shown by the players we were able to put on the pitch and let’s hope they can keep it going in the games ahead.

But the real heroes on Wednesday evening were most definitely our fans. Many hundreds of them turned up outside the ground long before the kick-off to show their support for the manager and the players as they arrived in the team bus, and inside the stadium they sang their hearts out. And that show of support did make a difference. Here’s a little of what Sammy Lee said about it afterwards.

“There is not enough praise for our supporters. To see them showing their support when we arrived was massive.

“Everybody played their part in this victory.”

When so many of our fans come out to show their support for the team and most particularly for the manager, in the midst of what seems to me to be a most disgraceful media witch-hunt, it makes me feel so proud to have the privilege to be a supporter of this club.

Shanks knows this has been a very frustrating season for us all and it hasn’t been easy to keep the faith. At times it has seemed like just about everything that could go wrong for us, has gone wrong. But at the end of the day, we are where we are and all we can do is try to get through this season as best we can and live to fight another day.

Like everyone else, I had high expectations for us at the start of this campaign but it became clear from early on that I would have to revise my expectations and I’ve been revising them ever since. All things considered, right now I’d be extremely happy to see us finish the season in the top four along with a good run or maybe even a win in the Europa League.

They say it is only in bad times that we find out who are friends truly are and for a football club it is only in bad times that we find out who the real fans truly are and thankfully there was a lot of ours inside and outside of the stadium on Wednesday, and they made a difference. We are all entitled to have our opinions and to piss and moan from time to time but as supporters our first duty is to support, in the bad times as well as the good.

I’d like to think that our victory on Wednesday might be just the spur we needed to kick on from here and really do our stuff in the rest of the campaign, but we can’t allow ourselves to get too carried away because we are by no means out of the woods yet. Just like a good team doesn’t turn into a bad team overnight, bad form doesn’t turn into good form overnight either.

I suspect there may yet be another ice berg or two ahead of us before we get to clear water. So let’s take it one game at a time and hope for the best but whatever happens, let’s treat the media with the disdain they deserve and continue to support our team and our manager as best we can. Some people these days are far too quick to jump to conclusions, but let’s not forget that a conclusion is the place you get to when you stop thinking.

Keep the Faith