Sometimes I think we should swap our liverbird for a phoenix, we’ve come back from the dead more times than Count Dracula! We normally reserve our biggest comebacks for the cup competitions so it was nice to see us doing it in the league for a change on Sunday and perhaps it’s another sign of where our priorities are this season. We have gained this reputation as the games comeback kings and it can be very useful sometimes.

Even though we were 2-0 down at half-time, I’m sure I wasn’t the only Liverpool fan who was still feeling confident we could come back, and if we believe it you can bet the players believe it too, they certainly played as if they did. And you can imagine the effect it has on the opposition. How do we beat Liverpool? 1 goal, 2 goals, three goals? When will these guys lie down and die? The answer is quite simply, never! The character in our side is really fantastic and it must make the gaffer’s job that much easier at half-time in such scenarios, knowing he doesn’t have to do a lot to lift the players.

We started off Sunday’s game quite well but then our passing became messy and we kept giving the ball away. Even so, we should have taken the lead but Kuyt ballooned over a sitter and then a couple of minutes later we conceded a very sloppy goal mainly due to some uncharacteristic Keystone cops defending. They then doubled their lead with a free-kick that we perhaps could have done more to keep out, but I prefer to give credit to the kicker for his well taken shot.

So although there wasn’t a lot for us to feel excited about in the first half, you just felt that we could get ourselves back into it if we could up our game in the second half and that’s exactly what happened. We should have had a penalty early in the half for a clear foul on Kuyt but the lads didn’t get too upset about it and really took the game to City. You could feel a goal was coming and it wasn’t long before Torres duly obliged.

There are some who claim that our team doesn’t have as much quality as the other big sides in the Premiership but in the last 20-25 minutes of the game as we pushed forward in search of an equaliser and a winner, the movement and quality of our attacking play was as good as you would see from any team anywhere. Every player wanted the ball and there was no sign of us just huffing the ball into the box as we’ve sometimes been guilty of in the past particularly when we had Crouch upfront. City are no mugs but the way we were pushing the ball around left them chasing shadows most of the time.

Rafa also got his substitutions spot on once again. Clearly he was right to bring Keane on but not bringing on Babel was a bit of a surprise. However, Dossena and Benny Onion played a big part in the winning goal so credit where credits due. Overall it was an exciting game, a great result and perhaps a major statement of intent. The only blackspot on the day was the injury to Skrtel but thankfully it wasn’t as bad as was first feared and he should be back by the end of the year. All of the team played the part in the victory but I thought Aurelio was a bit dodgy at left back and Mascherano didn’t have one of his better games.

As for City and their so-called superstar Robinho, for most of the game he looked about as useful as a trap door in a lifeboat! I think them having him in their side is the footballing equivalent of putting champagne on your cornflakes. They seem to have the bones of a good side but they are a work in progress and on the playing side of things he seemed to me to be a luxury they can’t afford at this stage but I’m sure that will all change when their new owners start to splash the cash in January and beyond. However from what I’ve seen of him so far, if he is worth more than £30 million then Torres must be worth more then £300 million!

So now that we’ve come to this international pit stop, I’ve spent the past couple of days mulling over the great start we’ve made to the season and on what’s ahead of us. We are now 12 games into the campaign and are still unbeaten. We are joint top of the Premiership and successfully qualified for the CL group stage where we have maximum points from our first two games and for good measure, we also got through to the next round of the Carling Cup. So far, so good!

It’s been a pretty damn good start by any standards. Our away matches at Sunderland, Villa, Everton and City are just the kind of places where we have often struggled in the past, but this time we have taken 10 points from a possible 12. At home we finally managed to beat the mancs as well as edging out Middlesborough, the only eyesore on our record so far being that home score-less draw with Stoke, but thankfully that has proven to be just a blip. One of the things that impresses me most about this beginning is that I don’t think the side has really played to its full potential as yet and I suspect there will be better things to come in the weeks and months ahead.

I just hope the players can hit the ground running when they return from this international break. Our next game will be Wigan at Anfield and we can’t afford to take them lightly. Steve Bruce has a good, or perhaps I should say extremely lucky, record against us as a manager, outside of that 7-0 thrashing we gave his Birmingham side in the FA Cup a couple of seasons back. We then travel to Atletico in the CL and then have to face the chavs at Stamford Bridge in what will be one of the biggest games of the season.

Our results so far in the league have shown that we have a side that has the potential to at least put in a challenge at the top of the league but it will be in the key games against our main rivals that will ultimately tell us if this team has the potential to be Champions. Our victory over the mancs was a great start but we will need to keep it going against the chavs. A draw in such circumstances might be a good result but I think we will also need to show enough ambition in attack to nick all three points if the opportunity presents itself.

If we can come out of that game with a good result we have a pretty decent run of games before we have to face Arsenal on the 21st December and have every chance of still being at or near the top going into the all-important Christmas fixtures.

To be honest we’ve seen so many false dawns over the years that I really don’t know if the team can keep this run going in the games ahead. Its just great to be able to look forward with a little bit of optimism for a change so I’m just enjoying it while it lasts, taking it one game at a time and we’ll see what happens. The future’s bright, the future’s Red!

Keep The Faith

I’m really enjoying this new more optimistic approach by Rafa, he is saying and doing all the right things at the moment and long may it continue. Off the pitch he has looked happy and relaxed in interviews and seems to be in confident mood. On the pitch, while the results have been largely great, the performances particularly in the early games haven’t been but the boss has kept faith with the players and the displays have been improving with each game.

Against Stoke we totally dominated the game but didn’t score, with the exception of the one the officials incorrectly ruled out, but the gaffer stuck with the same team for our trip to Goodison and again they dominated but this time got the goals they deserved as well. In midweek there was just one change to the team with Aurelio coming in for Dossena and again the team dominated and eased to a 3-1 win that puts us in a great position in the group.

There will always be a need to change a player or two here and there but I think we are really reaping the benefits of sticking with a largely settled side, with the understanding and confidence among the players growing all the time. I think the seeds for this more settled approach was sown in the second half of last season when the boss switched to his 4-2-3-1 system and stuck with it for the rest of the campaign and we finished very strongly.

Listening to some of his recent interviews, I think this is the first season since he’s been here that he is feeling really happy with the squad he has available and he seems to have made up his mind to stick as much as possible to this 4-4-2 formation. If he had been given the proper support to bring in the first choice players that he wanted in his first couple of seasons here, then we might have been in this place an awful lot sooner but there’s little point in us moaning about that now and we must move forward from here.

The gaffer has been forced to go for a gradual improvement and now the team is as strong now as it has been since the league changed its name to the Premiership. Our defence is very strong but perhaps very under-rated by a lot of people outside of Anfield. I get tired of listening to dim-witted pundits waffling on about the chavs and manc defences. They seem to forget that for the last three seasons we’ve had more clean sheets than any other team and over the past few seasons we’ve had either the best or second best defensive record overall.

I’ve nailed my colours to the wall in previous blogs about Pepe Reina, in my view he is the best goalkeeper in the league, full stop. We constantly hear the media clowns lording it over the centre-back partnerships of Ferdinand and Vidic at the mancs, and Terry and Carvalho at the chavs but if any of those players get injured who have they got to bring in? Carra and Skrtel have been pretty solid for us so far and we’ve also got Dagger and Sami waiting in the wings if we need them. I’ll admit that I would like to see more of an attacking threat from our full-backs but from a defensive point of view they are pretty solid.

I’ve been really impressed with our midfield so far. First and foremost I think Gerrard has been excellent in the more traditional central midfield role he’s been playing. Defensively he has shown that he is as good as any. In attack he is obviously excellent but playing from a deeper position his performances have been a lot more disciplined and it seems to be better suited to both him and the team. Playing in an advanced position means he has to rely on others to find him but playing behind the ball gives him a chance to pull the strings and also allows him to time his runs into the areas where they will be most effective. Playing in this position may mean that he won’t score as many goals as an individual but it may mean that we will score more goals as a team.

His partner on Wednesday was Alonso and it has to be said, I don’t think there’s been such an impressive comeback since Lazarus! I don’t want to be disrespectful to him because he is a player that I have a lot of time for but he really seems to have rediscovered the kind of form he hasn’t shown consistently for a couple of seasons and it makes me wonder if his much touted departure over the summer may have served as the kick in the backside that he needed.

A caption came up during our game on Wednesday showing the amount of ground covered by players during the game and while I would have expected to see Kuyt at the top of our list, I was surprised to see that it was actually Alonso. I’m sure many of us would expect to see Mascherano return to the side for our game against City tomorrow but Alonso’s recent form has made this a little less certain then would otherwise have been the case and I thinks it’s brilliant that he is giving the boss the kind of selection headache all managers enjoy.

In the wide areas, it’s still too early to judge Riera but so far his arrival on the left seems to have given our midfield a lot more balance. I’ve been impressed with him so far, but I guess only time and games will tell us how good he is. On the right, I think Kuyt has been having a great season so far but I think he might be a good subject for a separate blog to keep us occupied during the forthcoming international break so let’s keep our powder dry on that subject until then.

Upfront the Torres and Keane partnership is starting to bear fruit. The fact that we have made our best start to a Premier league season and our best start in the CL without these two really hitting their top form can only mean that things will get far more exciting for us when they do. The signs in recent games is that this is now starting to happen. Keane played a big part in Torres’s double at Goodison last weekend and Torres of course played a big part in Keane finally getting off the mark in midweek.

I was obviously delighted to see Keane bag his first goal and let’s hope it’s the first of many for him in a Red shirt. It was also great to see Gerrard scoring his 100th in front of The Kop, but what pleased me almost as much is that both of those milestones are now out of the way. We all knew they would happen eventually but the longer they went on the more of a distraction they may have become. We’ve all played the game at some level and will know what it’s like when you try to set your mate up for a goal. You often end up taking the wrong option with the ball and lose your focus, so it’s good that these things are now done and dusted.

There’s no doubt things are looking good for us at the moment and I think it’s a case of play it again Rafa in this Sunday’s game at Man City. It will be a difficult game for us but I’m hoping the boss will stick with the 4-4-2 formation that has been serving us well. I think he will and, barring any injuries that I’m unaware of, I think the only change he’ll make from the team that started in midweek is to bring in Mascherano for Alonso. It would be brilliant for us to win this game and go into the international break on a high and perhaps even on top of the table.

I fancy Villa might just be able to do something against the chavs tomorrow. They have a few injuries to important players at the moment and while none of us like to see players suffering serious injuries, I tend to make an exception when it comes to Didier Dogface. I seen him being stretchered off in their midweek CL game and when a player like him who often spends a lot of time feigning injury when he plays, I can’t help but think of it as a kind of footballing karma when he picks up a real one.

So a victory for us might well put us clear at the top and while it is sure to be a tough game where we’ll really need to do our stuff, I fancy that we will and my money’s on a 2-1 win for The Reds.

Keep The Faith

Derby games are normally very tense affairs and I normally find them difficult to enjoy as I’m usually on edge throughout. However I felt very relaxed on Saturday because we totally controlled the game and never really looked in any danger. I know they had a couple of half chances during the first half but over the entire 94 minutes, Reina didn’t have a save to make. I don’t ever recall seeing an Everton side playing at Goodison Park in the Merseyside derby not having a single shot on target but while they may have their problems, I think a lot of the credit for that has to go to the way we played.

Full credit to Rafa Benitez for sticking with his 4-4-2 system, he has often been accused at being a little too defensive at times but this was an offensive formation and perhaps indicates a slight change in his strategy, a welcome change in my opinion. They played with five across the middle in an attempt to gain control of the midfield but they hardly got a sniff. Gerrard and Alonso were excellent as they dominated the middle of the park, Kuyt turned up everywhere and was also excellent on the right and even though Riera may have had a relatively quite game in comparison, his presence on the left seems to have given our midfield a much better balance.

Upfront we saw the first real signs that Torres and Keane are beginning to click as a strike partnership. Nando appeared to be getting very frustrated as the game went on but as soon as he scored you could almost see his confidence come flooding back. His first goal was great, his second was a very clever finish and what would have been his third was a world class finish that was unfortunately ruled out by a world class idiot. Torres has stated that he is aiming to beat his 33 goal total from last season.

That’s a tall order but in an attempt to find something to criticise him about, some pundits last season did mention that he scored the vast majority of his goals at Anfield but wasn’t as effective for us on the road, so it’s a good sign that his three goals for us so far have all come away from home. Keane had his best game for us so far. He set up the first goal, was heavily involved in the second and was a general pain in the ass for the blue’s defence throughout. All the guy needs is a goal to get him started and if he and Torres can hit some kind of form, things could get very interesting indeed.

Our defence was as solid as ever. Carra and Skrtel have formed a very good partnership in the middle and the competition for places in that area has helped to ensure that their performances have been very consistent. I admit I had my reservations about Arbeloa as our first choice right back but he has made the position his own and I think we’ve seen a gradual improvement in his performances as he’s got more games under his belt.

At left back I really can’t choose between Aurelio and Dossena, both are good or at the very least good enough. I would slightly lean towards Aurelio at the moment because he is the more accurate passer and crosser of the ball but I have a feeling that we haven’t seen the best of Dossena as yet and he will eventually emerge as the regular first choice.

The other thing I was impressed with at the weekend was the strength of our options on the bench. Bearing in mind that Mascherano wasn’t available, we had Babel, Agger, Aurelio, Hyypia, Lucas and Pennant on the bench. That’s a good bunch of players that could have provided us with some game changing options had we required them and who would make it into the first team of most sides, I’m sure Everton would have had them all in their first team on Saturday if they had the chance. We could perhaps use another experienced striker but overall our strength in depth has certainly improved this season.

That to me is perhaps the most pleasing aspect of the position we are in now. In each of our games so far we’ve had what we would consider to be key players missing and we’ve also had our two main strikers not quite hitting their best form as yet and still trying to develop a productive partnership. These things may have provided us with plenty of excuses if things weren’t going well but Rafa and the team have overcome these difficulties and here we sit unbeaten and joint top of the table, and we haven’t even hit our top form as yet.

There also seems to be a bit of a love-in going on at Anfield at the moment. I read recent reports with Gerrard thanking Rafa for making him a better player, Torres praising Keane, Kuyt hailing Torres etc, etc. We certainly seem to have the happiest and most focused dressing room of all the top sides with no Ronaldo’s, Drogba’s or Adebayer’s upsetting the apple-cart. I think that is also very important and when you consider all of the rubbish that’s been going on in the boardroom at the club, you’ve got to say that it is excellent management by Rafa and his staff.

So things are looking good for us at the moment but we just can’t afford to get too carried away. There’s no doubt we’ve made a very good start but that’s all it is and there’s an awful lot more work to be done. Last season we also got off to a very good start but it all fell away on us and we ended up with nothing. If we are to be successful we need to get back to the old Bob Paisley way of doing things and take it one game at a time.

If Rafa is guilty of anything over the last few seasons it is that he sometimes tried to plan too far ahead and would sometimes rest players in certain games to keep them fresher for what would be deemed to be tougher games coming up later. I just don’t think you can afford to do that and this has caught us out in the past. I grew up during the Paisley era and while the game may have moved on since then, there are still a few lessons that can be learned from the most successful manager of all time that are still relevant today.

He coined the phrase, “one game at a time” and this is what he practiced. To him the toughest game was always the next one and the one after that was a problem for another day. As his record proves, that is the mentality of a champion. All managers these days say that they are focusing on the next game but saying it and practising it are two different things and I think it’s a mindset that we truly need to adopt if we are to maintain our challenge this season.

Speaking of our next game brings me neatly around to our CL clash with PSV on Wednesday. This is an important game and if we can win it we’ll be well on our way to qualification for the next stage and have six points on the board before our double header with Atletico Madrid, who are a bit of an unknown quantity to us. So I don’t think the gaffer will make too many changes to the side. In football, as in life, you never give a sucker an even break so I would expect to see most if not all of our big guns lining out in this one.

Besides this, there is little point in resting players when after our game with Man City at the weekend they will all be heading off on international duty. The last time we played them in the group stage at Anfield we beat them 2-0 and my money’s on a repeat of that score-line on Wednesday and I am going to sacrifice a chicken (no offense to any chickens or indeed any member of the poultry family that may be reading this) in that hope that Robbie Keane scores at least one of them.

On a final note, some of you may have noticed that I have refrained from making any defamatory or snide remarks about our little neighbours and have treated them with respect over these last two blogs. We must of course be as gracious in victory as we are in defeat and besides this I happen to be very popular among Evertonians at the moment. So much so that they have even invited me along to their end of season party and I fully intend to be there because after checking my diary I found that I happen to be free on the 28th October!

Keep the Faith

They may have lost some of their magic in recent years, and they may no longer be the first matches that most Liverpool fans look for when the fixture list is released, but I still love these games. When I went to these matches as a kid there was an intense but friendly rivalry between the supporters but there’s no doubt there’s a lot more of an edge to things these days. I’m not sure if it’s the game or the people that have changed but something seems to have been lost along the way.

I’m sure most local Reds fans would still regard these fixtures to be the most important of the season because outside of the obvious history between the sides, they are living in a city where they are constantly rubbing shoulders with blues fans at home and at work so winning the bragging rights is very important to them.

However for much the same reasons I regard our games against the mancs and the other members of the big four to be of more importance to me. Here at Kopblog HQ in Dublin I know a grand total of 2 Everton supporters and I rarely even see them but there are manc supporters everywhere and also a good number of arse and chav supporters as well. These are the people that I am rubbing shoulders with everyday and who fill up my phone with petty little text messages whenever their teams manage to get a result against us. I’m sure it’s pretty much the same story for other overseas supporters.

Still, even if I do regard those other games to be of more importance, I always find the Merseyside derbies to be the most fascinating. I know it’s an old cliché but form really does go out the window in these matches. There have been times over the years when I’ve seen Liverpool going into these games in great form but still end up being beaten and equally I have also seen them go into these games in poor form and coming away with a win. It’s this unpredictability that makes these encounters so riveting.

For once I find myself in agreement with Alex Fungusface. Tomorrow’s match is sure to be an intense battle with plenty of tackles flying around and this is why I think it’s crazy that the Premier League have appointed Mike Reilly as the referee. This clown has handed out more cards than Hallmark and he could end up ruining the game if he doesn’t tone it down. It used to be said that the best referees were the ones you didn’t notice but that seems to have become lost in the modern game.

The likes of Reilly, Bennett and a lot of the others seem to love the limelight being on them instead of on the game. Week after week we are left debating the absurdity of some refereeing decisions almost as much as we are talking about the game and yet we constantly see the same old faces being put in charge of top games. With Reilly in charge of the Merseyside derby there is a very real danger that this card happy idiot could ruin the game by sending players off. I’ve no problem with players being showed a red card when it’s deserved but if they are dismissed for receiving a couple of soft yellows, then it’s just ridiculous.

I just hope he can exercise some restraint and let the game flow and not be rushing to his pocket to produce cards every time there’s the slightest contact between players. Whatever the result of the game tomorrow, let’s hope at the end of it we are talking about the football instead of the bloody referee.

Anyway on to the game itself and I was a bit worried to hear that Mascherano may not be fit. He is an extremely important player for us particularly in this type of game and I really hope that he makes it. It is good to see us going into the game on the back of our midweek win in the Carling Cup. I didn’t see the match so I can’t comment on the performance but a win is a win. Still I don’t expect that anything he saw in that game will radically alter Rafa’s game plan for this one.

I expect we’ll line up with Arbeloa, Skrtel, Carra and possibly Aurelio returning to our defence. In midfield it will most likely be Kuyt, hopefully Masch, Gerrard and Riera, with Torres and Keane upfront. That’s the team I think he’ll go with but it’s possible that Rafa might consider reverting back to the 4-2-3-1 system for this game that worked so well for him last season. If he does that then I hope he leaves Keane on the bench and doesn’t try to play him in a wide position because that role doesn’t suit him and we have better options in those areas.

It’s sure to be a tough physical battle but we should be well able to cope with that and my money’s on us getting back on track with a 2-1 win, and wouldn’t it be wonderful to see Gerrard celebrating his 100th goal against our little neighbours.

Keep the Faith

I watched the game on TV and as soon as the final whistle went I switched off the set and even though there were other big Premiership and La Liga games on over the weekend, as yet I still haven’t switched it back on. I also haven’t read a newspaper report nor have I even visited any footy websites or even read the comments on the last blog (although I will when I post this one). I just didn’t have the appetite for it and it is only now that the dark clouds are beginning to lift.

It’s amazing how football can so drastically affect your mood but I’ve been here before, we all have, and it’s a feeling we’ve become all too familiar with. Saturday’s game was the same old story, all of the hard work and effort over the past few weeks to get ourselves into a decent position and just when we are beginning to gain a little bit of confidence, the team goes and shoots itself in the foot, assuming of course that any of them could hit it!

In such situations it’s sometimes useful to have a scapegoat to direct your frustrations upon but unfortunately Jermaine Pennant wasn’t even in the squad and to be honest, other than not putting the ball in the net, I can’t really see anything that the team did wrong either collectively or individually. I think we’ve just got to put this one down to sheer bad luck. There’s no doubt we rode our luck a little in some of the earlier games but Lady Luck can be a fickle mistress and she certainly turned her back on us at the weekend.

I was happy that Rafa put out such a strong side and I thought he got the line-up right, with one possible exception. He was totally right not to include Mascherano in his starting line-up as this wasn’t a game where we really needed to play the world’s greatest defensive midfielder, but for much the same reasons I don’t think we needed to start with Kuyt on the right and I would have preferred to see Babel starting on that side.

I’m not being wise after the fact because I did suggest that ahead of the game in the last blog. Nor am I having a dig at the Dynamo as I’ve made it clear on many occasions that I think the guy is a diamond. I’d like to see him in the side for our next two tough away games at Everton and Man City as those are the type of games where he is most effective but for last Saturday’s game I felt we would need more guile rather than graft, and Babel may have been the better choice. That said, I still wasn’t majorly concerned as I thought we had more than enough quality in the gaffers line-up to get the job done.

As for the game itself, we got off to a dream start with Gerrard scoring his 100th goal for the club after just three minutes and I think we might well have gone on from there and ran up a cricket score against them. Clearly there was nothing wrong with the goal but the half-witted linesman ruled it out for reasons best known to himself and once again demonstrated the need for the Premier League to introduce a minimum IQ level for its officials! I actually thought I saw that guys name on a loaf of bread in my local supermarket today, but when I looked again it actually said ‘Thick Cut’ ”

But there’s no point in us spending too much time moaning about that because we still had over 87 minutes to put it right and very much should have done so. Quite frankly I still find it astonishing that we couldn’t manage to score at least one bloody goal against them. It just totally mystifies me how a team such as ours with the players we have available can have so much time and space on the ball, have enough shots to start a war and more corners then Starbucks, and yet not only did we fail to score a goal but we also failed to fashion a single clear-cut opportunity that I can recall.

Our build-up play was as slow and predictable as a Dan Brown novel. I remember one sequence that was typical of the match, Dossena received the ball on the left from Carra and then passed to Riera who passed it back to Dossena then it went to Gerrard in the middle, then to Alonso who passed it to Arbeloa on the right, who passed it down the line to Kuyt, who played it back out to Gerrard and then it ended up back with Dossena who eventually lost it to a Stoke defender.

This kind of thing was happening all the time, an endless amount of passes that most of the time ended up with us losing the ball or hitting a deplorable cross into the box that went nowhere. All of the “chances” we did have were either long range, mostly wayward, efforts or half-chances that invariably ended up being deflected by some part of a Stoke player’s anatomy.

Anyway, I’m getting another headache just thinking about it so let me wrap things up by saying that I found the outcome of the game inexplicable and the only thing I can put it down to is a combination of bad luck and a bad day at the office. Another fairly obvious conclusion we can draw from the game is that we badly need Keane to start scoring soon and both Gerrard and Torres need to regain their full match sharpness rapidly. These three are to be our main source of goals this season and we badly need them to be firing on all cylinders if we are to seriously challenge in the Premiership.

On the bright side of things, I look at the Premiership today and see that as things stand at the moment, we are 6 points ahead of the mancs, level with the chavs and one point behind the gooners. So while our result at the weekend was a very disappointing missed opportunity, we are still in a very good position. We will obviously need to be beating the other sides as often as possible but ultimately I believe our fate as potential challengers or champions will be ultimately decided by our results against the other top sides, so we need to put this setback behind us and move on.

Next up for us is our Carling Cup match with Crewe at Anfield. That competition has been good to us over the years and while it may be the least of our targets, it’s a piece of silverware and I’d be happy for us to take it if we get the chance. It is also a useful competition for Rafa to give some of the fringe players a chance and the further we go in the competition the more chances they’ll get.

The gaffer will quite rightly take the opportunity to give most of our first teamers the night off and will dig into his squad for this one. The boss is a very busy man so I thought I’d give him a hand and pick his team for him. My team would be Cavaliera, Degan, Dagger, Sami (capt), Insua, Peanut, Plessis, Lucas, El Zhar, Eggnog and Nemeth or Pacheco. That side should be good enough to get us a result, but there again I thought the same about our line-up on Saturday so we’ll see what happens.

Keep the Faith

They say 10 points is usually the target and now that we’ve got our first three in the bag and a home game against PSV next, we could be well on our way to that figure soon. An early qualification for the next round would allow us to put our entire focus back on the Premiership all the sooner and perhaps allow us to ease up a bit in the last one or two group games, which could be important in the big scheme of things, but of course I’m sure Atletico and the other teams in the group will have a thing or two to say about that.

As for the game itself, I was also pleased to hear both Rafa and Gerrard giving an honest assessment of our performance afterwards by saying there was plenty of room for improvement, instead of trying to gloss over things. It’s refreshing to hear such straight-talking in the modern game and while we would all agree that the result was the most important thing, there’s no disguising the fact that it was another below par display.

It was really a game of two halves. I thought we did well in the first. After falling behind to a sloppy goal, once again the team showed its character to fight back and equalise with a magnificent strike by Gerrard and then take the lead with a well retaken penalty by the captain. That got us to the break with our noses in front and you felt from there we just needed to see the game out in the second half and maybe pick them off on the counter, the kind of thing we’ve done so often in the past that you would think we would be able to do it in our sleep.

However, we made really hard work of it. Maybe there were a few tired legs after our efforts against the mancs and we also had Gerrard and Torres still recovering their fitness, but there’s no doubt many of our players just weren’t at the races in the second period of the game. It was very frustrating to watch us inviting danger by constantly giving the ball away and making Marseille look like a better side then they actually are, and in the end we had Pepe Reina to thank for us escaping with all of the points. I was surprised that Rafa didn’t bring on Alonso at some stage as he would have been an ideal candidate to put his foot on the ball and get us some control in midfield, particularly when Gerrard went off, but at the end of the day we got the win and that’s the important thing.

Outside of our defence and Gerrard, I thought Babel had a very good game. I know he missed a couple of chances to wrap the game up but I still think it was one of his better games and I was impressed with his tracking back and willingness to help out the defence, which is a good sign that he is developing nicely. The rest of the team was pretty average and one player that certainly doesn’t seem to be developing nicely is Lucas.

As I’ve said before on this blog, I think any player, particularly a young player, deserves to be given a season before judgement is passed on them. In earlier blogs I noticed some people had already expressed some doubts about the young Brazilian and I’ve got to say, I share their concern. I’m not writing the lad off just yet and of course we all hope he will develop into a star player in our midfield, but it has to be said there’s been precious little evidence of it so far.

I think Liverpool fans are extremely patient with new players, especially young ones. But even so, we all like to see a performance or at least a few glimpses here and there of what they might be capable of in time, for us to hang our hat on. We’ve seen plenty of these signs from Babel and some of our other young reserves when they’ve been given a chance but I can honestly say I’ve seen nothing from Lucas as yet and he’s certainly been given plenty of chances.

Tuesday’s game was another opportunity for him and again he didn’t deliver anything of note. As a defensive midfielder, I haven’t seen that he is particularly adept at breaking up the play or winning the ball from the opposition and as an attacking midfielder, I don’t recall seeing anything particularly exciting about his passing or shooting either.

As I said earlier, obviously we all hope the lad will come good and I’m certainly not trying to make a scapegoat of him but I made a point in a blog over the summer that still bugs me and I think it’s still a valid one. Last season we loaned out Danny Guthrie, a young central midfielder from our reserves. He played a full Premiership season in a struggling Bolton side and earned a lot of plaudits for his performances, in fact I think he was one of their best players. This was a young English midfielder that really tried to make the most of his opportunity and I honestly don’t think the lad could have done any more to impress. And yet we tamely sold him for 50p and a funsize Mars bar to bloody Newcastle, a club that seems to be in an even bigger mess then we are, in fact what’s been going on there has been such a Carry On, I think they should rename their ground Sid James’s Park!

For me, Guthrie is hardly the finished article but he has showed a lot more promise in his performances for Bolton and now at Newcastle, then anything Lucas has shown in his many opportunities for us so far. As a back up to our first choice central midfielders I know which of the two I would have preferred. However in fairness to Rafa, he was given assurances that Gareth Barry would be joining us as an option but then the owners and Parry refused to back his judgement. So as things stand it looks like Lucas is our cover and it’s high time that the lad started to fulfil the manager’s faith in him with some decent performances. Time will tell!

In other matters, I read an interesting report yesterday which said that since our defeat at Wet Spam last January we have won more league points than any other team in the Premiership. I must admit that I wasn’t aware of that but it is yet more evidence of the fact that we always tend to be a lot stronger in the second half of a season. In previous years it has always been our slow starts to a campaign that have cost us dearly but thankfully we have stated this one well and have an opportunity to keep it going when Stoke come to Anfield at the weekend.

Stoke have certainly come a long way in recent seasons. I remember going to a game at their old stadium the Victoria Ground years ago. I wouldn’t say they were a small team back then, but I remember spending ages looking for a crowd to follow and walking around the ground trying to find the entrance until I finally found this old guy outside and asked him where can I get in? He told me to head around the next corner and there would be two queues, a long one and a short one. And just as I started to walk away he said, “make sure you get on the short one, the long ones for the chippy!”

But times have certainly changed for Stoke and they have started the season pretty well. Even though this fixture should bring us another precious three points, we can’t afford any complacency and I think Rafa needs to play all of his big guns to ensure the victory and he can then rest them all and bring on the tea-ladies for our Carling cup tie with Crewe next week. Stoke present us with a different type of challenge then we have faced in our games so far.

They are likely to be a team that will try to park their team bus in front of the goal to try to keep us at bay. It’s these types of games that have occasionally given us a lot of trouble in the past and it will be interesting to see how our current side will go about the task of opening them up. Riera has looked promising in his couple of appearances so far and if he is to be the answer for us on the left, this might be an ideal game for him to show us what he can do. As much as I like Dynamo Dirk, I think we might be better served playing Babel on the right in this one and use our pace on the flanks to carve them open.

Their most effective weapon in attack is the incredibly long throw of Rory Delap who can put the ball into the six yard box with a throw-in from almost anywhere inside an opponent’s half. So I think this might be an ideal game to bring Sami Hyypia back into the side as our most effective header of a ball, to counter this threat. I’d also keep a close eye on Fuller who can make the most of any opportunities that come his way and Carra will need to be on his toes to keep him under control. But all things considered my money’s on us getting through their defence and winning this one 3-0.

A quick word on the other big game of the weekend between the chavs and the mancs. I notice the vast majority of people have voted for a draw in this one on my site poll on the right of the page and I agree. I think the worse result for us would be a manc victory. They have started the season slowly but a victory at the weekend would restore a lot of their confidence and they have a good run of games coming up afterwards. A chav victory wouldn’t be the worse result for us as it would do serious damage to the mancs chances of equalling our record number of league titles. But I think a draw would be best as it would leave the mancs 8 points behind us (assuming we win our game) and it would also give us a little bit of breathing space ahead of the chavs, so I’ll go for a 1-1 draw in that game and I’m hoping for lots of lovely heavy challenges and red cards!

Keep the Faith

To be honest I’d have been more than happy to take any kind of jammy old win against them, similar to the ones they often get against us, but we totally outplayed them with a great team performance and thoroughly deserved all three points. This was made all the sweeter because our so-called “two man team” did it without either of them in our starting line-up and I think Rafa Benitez has to be given a huge amount of credit for that.

I would have expected him to have at least one of them in the team and you can bet that had this result went against us he would have been given a lot of stick for not doing so. It was a brave decision but it paid of big time. Like just about everyone else, one of my big worries going into the season was how we would cope if Torres, Gerrard or God forbid both of them should be out injured for any length of time. Well my worries were eased somewhat yesterday as all of the team stepped up and gave a very accomplished performance in their absence.

I must admit I was very worried about our chances in the early stages of the game. Conceding a goal against them after barely more than two minutes was bad enough, but for about 10 or 15 minutes after that they seemed to be winning all of the 50/50 balls and looked dangerous every time they attacked. But if there is one thing we have in our team that is head and shoulders above our rivals, its character. We soaked up the early pressure, kept plugging away at them and by the end of the first half we were well on top and went on to dominate the second.

This was not only our best performance of the season so far but also our best display for a very long time with every player playing their part. Other then the goal we conceded, our back four was excellent and very well marshalled by Carra. Mascherano may have been one of the culprits that led to us conceding an early goal but he certainly made up for that in the rest of the game and I thought both he and Alonso were quite brilliant in dominating the midfield and it was a toss-up between those two for our man of the match.

And what about this guy Riera? He seemed totally un-phased at making his debut in such a big match for us and I thought he had a great game on the left. He linked up well with Aurelio and always made himself available for the outlet ball and made good use of it when he got it. I also thought he mixed it up very well, sometimes staying wide and sometimes coming inside which shows he has a good understanding of the game and to cap it all off, it was his presence that caused the panic in the manc defence that led to our equaliser. Obviously it was only his first game and you don’t like to rush to judgement but I think you can already see he is a very good player and I look forward to seeing more of him in the future.

Benny Onion also looked far more comfortable on the right than he has on the left in recent weeks and had a solid game on that side with some clever runs that gave the manc defence a few problems. Keane and Kuyt worked tirelessly for us upfront and each of them had a couple of chances that they might have done better with. The sooner Keane gets a goal the better.

There’s no doubt he’s working very hard but he’s snatching at things at the moment without his usual composure in front of goal. Throughout his career he’s always tended to score his goals in patches. Last season he didn’t score his first goal for Spurs until late September but still finished the season with 23 in total. So I think he just needs to keep plugging away and I’m certain the goals will soon come.

The other player that deserves to be saluted is Ryan Babel. Once again Rafa kept him on the bench and unleashed him into the game at just the right time, and once again he made an impact by scoring the winning goal and being a general pain in the ass for the manc defence to deal with, just when their legs would have been tiring.

Flyin Ryan scored seven of his ten goals last season as a substitute so clearly he is a very useful weapon for us to have on the bench. His pace is a real headache for tired defences to deal with late in a game and I’ve no complaints about that, but for him to take it to the next level he really needs to become a 90 minute headache for defences and hopefully we’ll see a bit more of that from him this season.

This result is worth more than just three points to us. Not only have we got that monkey off our backs by beating mancs but our victory was a convincing one and the manner in which we achieved it is sure to have given the players a lot of confidence and belief, just as it has for the supporters. What that will mean for us this season I guess only time will tell but as we’ve seen in the past, a Liverpool team with belief can be very dangerous indeed.

At the most basic level we have met one of our biggest rivals and come out of it in an improved position and made their’s a lot worse and that’s what you’ve got to do when you get the chance if you’re going to be a contender in the league. In our next league game we will face Stoke at Anfield and we certainly can’t afford any complacency in that one, but should we take those points the mancs will travel to Sham-ford Bridge under the enormous pressure of being nine points behind us and even at this early stage that’s a lot of ground for them to make up.

Provided we win our own game, we can sit back and enjoy that one because any result would suit us. Should the mancs lose it would put a big dent in their prospects of equalling our record number of league titles this season but should the chavs lose it would give us a bit of breathing space ahead of them, but maybe the best result for us would be a draw as it would see them both dropping a couple of points.

Anyway that’s a problem for another day, next up for us is a trip to Marseille on Tuesday in the first game of our CL group stage. It’s always great to get off to a winning start in these group games otherwise you put yourself under immediate pressure. I expect there will be a few changes to the side from Saturday with Gerrard and perhaps Torres returning.

Maybe Dossena, Dagger, Peanut and the invisible Degan will also make an appearance. Although we suffered a home defeat against them after a dreadful performance at Anfield last season, we had a comfortable victory over them at their place and I’d expect us to get another one on Tuesday. My money’s on us coming away from there with a 2-0 victory and if he plays I would dearly love to see Keaneo scoring at least one of them.

Keep the Faith

Saturday is a red letter day and an early test of our credentials as a serious contender in the Premiership this season. I always try to be optimistic about our chances in these games but given our past record against them, I find it hard to feel too confident about our prospects of taking all three points. I support Rafa and think that he has done a great job for us overall, but there’s no doubt that the biggest black spot on his record since his arrival at Anfield has been our results against our main rivals in the Premiership, most particularly the mancs.

In the eight league games we’ve played against each of them since 2004, our record against Arsenal is 50/50 as it stands at 3 wins - 2 draws - 3 defeats, against the chavs we’ve got 1 win - 2 draws - 5 defeats and against our biggest rivals the mancs, our miserable record is 1 draw and 7 defeats. While our results against the Arse may be in the OK range, our results in the league against the chavs and most definitely the mancs up to now have been clearly pathetic and not nearly good enough for a side with aspirations of challenging for the title and I think it’s high time for the boss to adopt a different approach to these games.

This need not be a radical change of approach but it certainly needs to be a more positive one. Our goals at the Bridge in last season’s CL semi was the first time we’d managed to put the ball into the chavs net in 8 or 9 visits there over the past 4 seasons and in our 8 league games against the mancs, home and away, the only goal we’ve managed to score against them was a bloody OG! These facts are a big fat clue about where we are going wrong. Clearly the over-cautious and defensive approach we usually take in these games is not yielding results and it’s time to loosen the shackles.

What pisses me off the most about our poor league results against these sides is that we’ve regularly shown in the cup competitions that we are well capable of competing and usually beating them and that’s the approach we’ve got to start bringing in to our league encounters. A cup-tie is a winner take all situation and in such one-off circumstances Rafa’s game plan is usually spot on. In those type of games the team normally remains defensively sound but still manages to attack and get a goal or two. Of course, we don’t always win our cup games against the top sides but our record in them is a damn sight better then our league one.

In the league there is a subtle but very important difference in our play. Unlike in cup games, in league games there are two prizes available. If you win you get the top prize of three points but if you don’t win and are also able to prevent the opposition from winning, then you get a consolation prize of one point and that seems to be the root of our problem. If we were playing the mancs in a cup game tomorrow I’d be more optimistic about our chances but when it’s a league game we seem to be far more negative in our play.

In these games we often seem to be more interested in stopping the opposition from playing than we are in playing ourselves. Our focus tends to be more towards us taking a point than it is toward us winning all three and, as our past record shows all too clearly, when you set yourself up like that you run the risk of finishing with nothing.

If we are serious about truly challenging for the Premiership then we’ve got to put more emphasis on attacking these teams and doing everything we can to ensure we take all three points. If we are ever going to be champions than we’ve got to have the attitude of champions and a draw against any team anywhere should always be viewed as two points dropped never one point gained.

Reports ahead of tomorrow’s game say that Torres and Gerrard are fit enough to play which is a big boost for us and now that we have a fully fit squad there should be no excuse for us not to take the game to them. I think our defence will be pretty much the same as ever, the only argument being whether Aurelio or Dossena will start at left back. At the moment there isn’t really a lot to choose between them.

Dossena has been improving with every game and I just have a feeling that he will turn out to be a very good player for us, but he is a bit of a fiery character and was apparently sent off five times last season in Italy and as he would be likely to be up against ape boy tomorrow, who of course can never ever be sent off any more, things could get a little tasty. So, I think I’d opt for Aurelio as he has a calmer head and is also the best crosser of a ball we have, which could be useful when he comes forward.

But it’s our midfield and forward line that is the most interesting as there are a number of different options we could go with. In an ideal world I would like to see Gerrard and Masch in the middle, Riera on the left, Babel on the right and Torres and Keane up top, but I don’t think Rafa will be so bold. Assuming everyone is fit, I think we can be certain that the boss will play Kuyt on the right and we know Gerrard and Masch will be in the middle but then things become less certain.

He could play Alonso and revert back to his 4-2-3-1 system of last season with Torres upfront on his own and Keane on the bench but I’d prefer us to keep that option until we play them at their place, so I’m thinking/hoping he will go with the 4-4-2 and give their defence a few more problems to worry about. The only question that would leave is who will play on the left?

I really hope he doesn’t go with Benny Onion again, I like the guy and think he might have a role to play in our squad but not on the left, any time he plays out there he has a nightmare. So for me it’s got to be Babel or Riera. I realise it would be tough for Riera to make his debut in such a game but I’m curious to see what he can do for us on the left so I’m hoping he gets a run out and Babel comes on as an impact sub later in the game.

A win tomorrow would be huge for us. It would not only bring us three points but also boost the confidence and belief of the players and the supporters, which could be just as important. Even at this early stage of the season, a victory for us would put enormous pressure on the mancs. It would leave us 6 points in front of them and our next game is at home to Stoke while they have to travel to Stamford Bridge so that gap has the potential to become a lot wider.

However, to be totally honest I can’t get some of our past performances against them and in our recent game at Villa Park out of my head. So if I had to put my money down, my head is telling me this is going to be a 0-0. But my heart is telling me Robbie Keane is going to ram Ferguson’s words back down his throat by nicking us a goal in a 1-0 win, either way I confidently predict none of us are going to have any fingernails left after this one!

Keep the Faith

On the pitch and in regards to our game against Villa at the weekend, I think that if the club is really struggling for finances than maybe they should try to bottle our performance in that game and sell it as a miracle cure for insomnia, they’d make a bloody fortune! If we don’t play well in a game but still manage to win than I’m happy to focus on the positives and if we do play well in a game but don’t manage to win than I would also tend to focus on the positives, but when we don’t play well, don’t win and don’t even manage to get a shot on target, then I can’t really see anything to feel happy about.

I know a lot of people may say that as we were without Steven Gerrard and we also lost Fernando Torres early in the game, and that the game was at a tough ground like Villa Park, so maybe we should be happy to get out of there with a point, but I don’t agree. I can’t help feeling that this was a missed opportunity for us and I just hope we don’t end up regretting it. The chavs drawing with Spurs earlier in the day, I thought would have provided us with an extra incentive to really push for the three points and open up an early lead at the top of the table.

I know it’s still very early days in the season but these teams just don’t drop that many points and on the rare occasions that they do I think we’ve got to be doing everything we can to take advantage of the situation, particularly if we are aiming to seriously challenge them at the top. That’s what disappointed me most about the game, even without Gerrard and Torres in the side I still think we are extremely well capable of beating Villa at their own ground, but we just didn’t do enough on the day to earn the points.

I’m full of admiration for Rafa and all of the great work he has done and continues to do at this club under very difficult circumstances, the man is a diamond, but even diamonds have their flaws. On this occasion I thought he overcooked things on the tactical front and we were a bit too over cautious in our approach. With all due respects to Villa, I would expect us to adopt this kind of approach if we were playing an away leg at the Nou Camp in the CL but playing at Villa Park, tough and all that it is, I would have expected us to open up a bit more and take the game to them.

My main frustrations in the game all centred around Ryan Babel. When Torres tweaked his hamstring early in the game I felt certain that Babel would be brought on and Keane would move into the centre, so I was more than a little surprised to see Eggnog coming on. Then on the hour when Kuyt was withdrawn, again I felt certain that Flyin Ryan or even El Zhar would be brought on to spark a bit of life into our attack but instead of this we brought on another bloody defender!

I was surprised to see Keane taken off with 15 minutes to go but again I was certain that Babel would finally make an appearance, but alas Benny Onion was brought on instead. It’s not that I think Babel has reached superstar status as yet, but it’s difficult to see the logic in not bringing him on in a game where we were struggling to create any meaningful attacks because even if he’s having a stinker he is always likely to do something that can change a game, just as he did when he dug out that cross against Liege in midweek.

Still, I suppose 7 out of 9 points is a pretty decent haul for us to start the season with, especially considering how stale our early performances have been. On the plus side, defensively we looked as solid as ever and Mascherano looked to be in good shape and had a great game. So there’s all to play for when we meet the mancs at Anfield in our next game and fingers crossed that Gerrard and Torres make it in time.

In other matters it was great to see us finally completing the signing of Riera on the last day of the transfer window and hopefully he will prove to be the answer to our problems on the left wing. However, my happiness at this signing was overshadowed by my concern about the events at Man City. The fact that they have now been taken over by a middle east consortium that is estimated to be 50 times richer then Robbing Abrahmovitch, is very worrying indeed.

Judging by the events on the final day of the transfer window they are clearly not afraid to splash the cash. Other then managing to secure the signing of Robinho for £32.5 million, they also reportedly put in another five offers of more than £30 million for other players including a £50 million bid for our own Fernando Torres that was thankfully turned down.

Apparently every time the price of a barrel of oil increases by $2, these guys make an extra £500 million and with that kind of wealth they are set to turn the whole game on its head. When you consider that Rafa had to offload 2 or 3 players just so that he could bring in an £8 million winger it’s clear to see that we are mere paupers in comparison. We may not see the full effect of this development this season, although the January transfer window should be very interesting, but by next season these guys should have bought in enough big guns to be competing at the very top of the table.

Suddenly the “big four” has become a big five. These are changing times and we are now in real danger of dropping out of the CL places in the not too distant future if we don’t change with them. Things are bad enough for us at the moment, not only do we already have an uphill battle to catch the teams in front of us but we are also being regularly outspent by some of the teams coming up behind us. And with all the debt our American idiot owners have saddled the club with to enable them to build a fence on Stanley Park, we need the money from CL qualification just to make the payments on it and should we fail to qualify just once it could have disastrous consequences.

We are all relieved that the new Man City owners failed in their £50 million bid to buy Torres but I wouldn’t get too excited about it just yet. I’ve no doubt they will make a fresh bid for him when the January window comes around, and January also just happens to be the same time that this massive loan we’ve been saddled with comes up for renewal and should these guys start waving about £60 million under the noses of Hicks and Gillett, then who knows what might happen.

But perhaps this takeover of Man City might also work in our favour and help to accelerate the departure of these two clowns. Clearly the money these guys are capable of splashing around will drive up prices in the transfer market and with the two American clowns in charge of our club we just don’t have the financial muscle to compete with them. So if things stay as they are I think it’s likely we will drift out of the top four and without the revenue from the CL we might be lucky to stay in the top ten and then our revenues will continue to fall and so will the value of our club. So if these guys have even half a brain between them, which is debatable, then they should see that now is the optimum time for them to get out.

In an ideal world I would love to see the Share Liverpool Scheme succeed in their efforts to buy the club but I just can’t see it happening so I think the best solution for us is DIC. Despite having plenty of other options they are only interested in owning Liverpool and have spent the last two years trying to make it happen, which has to be a good sign. Apparently their offer to Hicks and Gillett still remains on the table and it’s an offer big enough to clear the outstanding debt and allow them to walk away with a £75 million profit.

Despite being continually frustrated in their efforts to take over the club they have continued to work in the background. Their plans to put a fan on the board have been well documented but I have also heard of meetings with some legendary names from the clubs past as well as local businessmen, the plan seemingly to not just regenerate the club but also the area around the club.

These are sound business people who would bring some much needed stability to the club and also provide the kind of financial clout that would enable us to truly compete with the other top clubs on a level playing field for a change.

Football has certainly changed an awful lot from the game I watched as a kid, and not for the better as far as fans are concerned. The game seems to have lost its soul and things such as honour, loyalty and common decency have become meaningless words from a bygone era. The majority of players, managers, chairmen and governing bodies at the top level in the modern game are nothing but a bunch of greedy, lying, cheats.

The despicable conduct of Ronaldo over the summer and the disgraceful actions of Ferguson and Berbatov on Monday are prime examples. The sport and the media should properly vilify them for their behaviour but instead of this they are held up as role models and heroes, and a blind eye is turned to anything to the contrary. To ordinary fans the shameful conduct of these players and club officials is really quite stomach churning at times, but that’s the game as it is today.

For us to survive and compete at the top level of this quagmire, we need to have people in charge of the club that have the financial means to properly back the boss, the team and get this bloody stadium built. For me the only way for us to achieve this is with DIC at the helm. With them in charge I can see a bright future for us, but without them I can honestly see us heading towards a downward spiral that there may be no way back from.

Keep the Faith

Wednesday night’s game turned out to be a long hard slog and fair play to Standard Liege for their performance which pushed us to the very limit. I must admit that at the end of the first half I was starting to feel a bit nervous because although we started the game brightly, they grew in confidence as the half went on and seemed to be getting on top of us.

However, I felt a bit more comfortable in the second half and in extra time because even though we weren’t creating any clear cut chances, we were controlling the football a lot better and looked to be the team most likely to win it. While our overall performance wasn’t great it was another improvement on what we’ve seen from the team so far this season and I was impressed with the fact that even though the Liege players made this a very tough match for our players and allowed them little or no space, their heads never dropped and they just kept battling away.

Although we did have a couple of dodgy moments in defence our back four did well overall, even Arbeloa who clearly responded to my brilliant motivational tactics in the last blog! Alonso and Gerrard worked hard in midfield and eventually got the upper hand. Stevie didn’t look right in our past couple of games and now we know why. It turned out his groin strain was giving him a lot more problems than he and Rafa had let on and he’d been playing through the pain.

I also hear the Standard Liege supporters have been full of praise for him as he apparently stayed behind for a full 30 minutes signing autographs for them and didn’t leave until every one had been signed. I must admit that I haven’t always been convinced by his leadership abilities but I think it’s time for me to revise that opinion because it looks like we’ve now got ourselves a great captain both on and off the pitch. Let’s hope he makes a speedy recovery from his groin op and is back in time to face the mancs.

Up front clearly Torres and Keane haven’t clicked as yet and although they put a lot of energy into the game, they both seem to be lacking a bit of their sharpness at the moment that hopefully won’t take them too long to rediscover. Our real problems were in the usual areas. With Dynamo Dirk and cul-de-sac Jack playing on our flanks we simply had no width.

I’d like to be able to compliment Liege for doing their homework on us but in truth there wasn’t a whole lot of homework required. Our attack pretty much resembled a bottle neck and once they had blocked us from getting at them through the middle, they knew they had nothing to worry about from us on the wings. Babel didn’t improve things much when he came on but El Zhar did make more of an impact and we really should have had a clear penalty for the foul on him in extra time. This lad looks like he is ready to be starting some games, but I’m not sure about those blue boots of his!

Still we came through in the end thanks to a very good cross by Babel which Kuyt did very well to get on the end of. He may not be prolific and he may also frustrate the life out of us all at times, but he does seem to have developed a knack of scoring some very important goals for us and it was good to see him receiving some adulation from the fans for scoring yet another one on his 100th tireless appearance.

However, although Kuyt got the headlines for his goal, the real hero of this tie over the two legs was most definitely Pepe Reina. Without his brilliant saves in both games we would have been dead and buried, and even leaving those saves aside I thought his general play was excellent and it must give our defence an extra bit of confidence knowing he’s behind them.

So we eventually made it into Thursday’s draw for the CL group stage and I must admit that throughout that day I didn’t give it a lot of thought. I’ve long since given up hoping for us to get a handy draw in the CL as past experience has shown us that such things seem to be reserved for the likes of mancs and chavs. Besides this, as thanks mainly to the heroics of Reina we were spared the prospect of Thursday night matches against such opposition as Kkrvqrbvkrk the outer Mongolian Champions, I was content for us to meet whatever teams the draw threw at us.

I watched the draw live online and thought everything was looking rosy for us when we were drawn with PSV and Marseille, we just needed to draw one of the minnows from Pot 4 and things would have been comfortable for us. But then that axle grease headed, shirt-lifting ladyboy drew out Atletico Madrid and suddenly our group became an awful lot tougher.

Don’t get me wrong, I still fancy us to qualify for the knock-out stage but unlike the other English teams there are no soft touches in our group and I don’t think we will have too many opportunities to rest any of our players for any of these games. Anyway we can cross that bridge when we come to it but if we are to get to Rome next year it looks as though we’re going to have to do it the hard way, but what else is new?

At least now we can put our focus back on the Premiership this weekend and our experience in these CL qualifying matchs have shown us that these games are getting tougher and tougher, so now more than ever we really need to be pushing for a top two finish so that we can avoid them. Maybe we have rode our luck a little in the two wins from two games we have had so far but there’s no doubt that if we are to keep things going we will need to perform a lot better in our toughest test to date at Villa Park on Sunday.

It’s a tough place to go hunting for points at the best of times but we will go into the game most certainly not firing on all cylinders and without our captain Steven Gerrard, so it may seem like a daunting task but I’m feeling quite positive about our chances for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I think our performances are slowly but surely improving game by game and while there may be a few tired legs after our efforts on Wednesday, the confidence among the players should be pretty high after the victory. While Gerrard may be missing, we will be boosted by the return of Mascherano. He is a very important part of the teams spine and there’s no doubt we’ve missed him, so it’s great to have him back.

Alonso will also have a big role to play in the game but he has often played some of his best games for us when Gerrard isn’t in the side. In such circumstances he tends to play a bit further forward and with a little more freedom than is usually the case. That’s the role he played last season when we played Derby at Anfield and we won that game 6-0, and if memory serves I think Xabi got two of the goals that day. Now granted Aston Villa are no Derby County and they are at home but nevertheless Alonso can be very effective in this role, assuming of course that Rafa will play a 4-4-2 formation.

There’s also the fact that the Torres and Keane strike partnership is going to click eventually and it might very well be on Sunday. I haven’t watched any of Villa’s games so far but I know that they have conceded two goals in their victory over Man City and three goals in their defeat by Stoke, so it would appear that their defence is not all that it should be and maybe our attacking duo can take advantage of that.

However, in order for them to do some damage they need to be receive some quality balls preferably into their feet and Rafa has really got to do something about our lack of width. I really can’t see him dropping Kuyt especially in this game but Benny Onion has had a nightmare in our last couple of games and needs a spell on the sidelines. Babel certainly hasn’t pulled up any trees in the two substitute appearances he has made so far but at least until this signing of Riera is tied up, he is the only one who offers us any kind of width on the left and has got to return to our starting line-up.

I’m assuming the gaffer will stick with the 4-4-2 formation he has been using so far but it’s possible he might revert to the 4-2-3-1 formation he used last season. In such circumstance he could perhaps consider playing Keane in the Gerrard role or maybe bring back Lucas and leave Keane on the bench. I would prefer it if he stayed with the 4-4-2 but Rafa usually favours a more cautious approach to such games and just might be tempted to change things around.

It would be a huge boost for us to go into the international break with our 100% start to the season intact and would certainly have us full of confidence going into our Premiership clash with the mancs at Anfield on the other side of the break. I believe that we will and in a tight game, my money’s on a repeat of last season’s score line, a 2-1 win to The Reds.

On a final note, I’ve noticed that the club’s official site have announced that there will be yet further delays in the construction of our new stadium. They really shouldn’t waste our time making such announcements because I think that even the dogs in the street realise that this stadium is nothing but a white elephant and it will never happen while these two American clowns are in control of our club.

I also noticed that they made a pathetic attempt to temper this news by adding that they will use this extra time to revisit the possibility of increasing the capacity of this mythical stadium to 73,000, but an extra 20% of nothing, is still nothing. Do these morons seriously expect us to believe that if they can’t finance a 60,000 capacity stadium, they are somehow going to be able to finance a 73,000 capacity one? I am totally uninterested in hearing anything these pair of knob-heads or their spokespeople have to say. The only official announcement I want to hear from them is that they are leaving and hopefully that they are taking Parry with them!

Keep the Faith