Time and our convincing win over Pompey has improved my mood, at least for the time being. A victory over a team that is in even deeper shit then we are is hardly a cause for too much celebration but our form has been so poor lately that it felt like a tall glass of cold water to a man with a throat as dry as a camel’s bollocks!

Our “efforts” last week have been well covered by the other guys on the blog so I won’t rake over them again accept to say that I thought our performance at Wigan was an absolute disgrace and while we may have performed a bit better in our defeat at Lille, quite frankly we couldn’t have played much worse and we were still far from convincing in my opinion.

This has been a horrible season for us. Shanks knows we’ve had our fair share of bad seasons in the past but this one has been particularly disappointing which I think is mainly due to the expectation we all had back in August. Maybe it’s true that we over-achieved last season but it’s definitely true that we have badly under-achieved in this one.

Of course, they are a number of genuine reasons that have led to our current situation such as our idiot owners, a lack of investment in the squad, the worst run of injuries in the club’s history, global warming, swine flu and the changing migratory patterns of the African and European swallow etc, but even allowing for all of that there is simply no excuse for some of the performances we have witnessed this season.

I would obviously love to see us winning the league, the CL and just about any other trophy we could get our hands on but I know that we have no divine right to expect such things. However, I think there are certain things that we as Liverpool fans have every right and reason to expect from our team.

Even if our entire first team squad was injured and we had to field a team of reserves, I would still fully expect that at the very least they would show a little bit of desire and have the basic ability to pass the ball to somebody in the same coloured shirt. You would think that such basic stuff wouldn’t be too much to ask for but clearly it has been on a number of occasions this season such as Portsmouth away, Wigan away and both games against Reading among others, and there is simply no acceptable excuse for such displays.

To be totally honest at various times this season, I have become totally fed up with just about everything to do with the club. The media, the owners, the fickle, brain dead element among our supporters, the players and even the manager have got on my tits to some degree or another in the course of the campaign. But out of all of that, it is the players who have annoyed me most of all.

Sometimes actions speak louder than words and I’m tired of hearing some of our players talking to the media about how important it is for us to rattle off a few wins or qualify for the CL etc, only for them to turn up in the next game and play as if they couldn’t give a shit. Two of the players I’ve been most disappointed with are Carra and Gerrard.

These two have been terrific for us over the years and they are both sure to be considered legends for us in the future, but football these days is all about what have you done for me lately and the answer to that is unfortunately, not very much. For many years these two guys have been rightly considered as the heart and soul of our team, but this season they have often played as if they are the arse and hole of the team instead.

Some may think I’m being harsh on them but as the captain and vice-captain of the team I think we are entitled to expect a little more from them and even if they both may harbour some private doubts about the manager, they have a duty that goes beyond themselves to lead by example. But in such a desperate season when the manager has been under such intense pressure, it’s hard to think of a single occasion when either of them have come out and supported him by word or deed.

Quite the opposite in fact, in the case of Carra maybe the years are catching up with him but this has been his worst ever season in a Red shirt and right now I’d rate him as our fourth choice centre-back. As for Gerrard, when he hasn’t been injured or dreaming of the World Cup and has actually played for us, he’s spent too much time screaming at his team-mates and not enough time looking in the mirror in my opinion.

And he can consider himself very lucky that he got away with that insane elbow he threw into the back of Michael Brown’s head on Monday. As it happens, I think Michael Brown deserves to be elbowed in the head as often and as hard as possible but for Gerrard to indulge in such pettiness that could have resulted in him missing 3 or 4 of our next all-important games, was monumentally stupidity to say the least.

There are also some other players that we could ask some serious questions about but as Carra and Gerrard seem to take a lot of the plaudits when things are going well for the team, I don’t see why they should remain blameless when things aren’t. The same argument could also be used against the manager but that’s a more complex issue that deserves a blog of its own and as its St Patricks Day here in Ireland and I’m gasping to get down to the pub to wet the shamrock, I’ll save it for another day.

So it’s on to the second leg of our Europa League tie against Lilly tomorrow and we’ll have to really go at them to overturn our 1-0 deficit from the first leg. Of course we’ve got the shadow of our game against the mancs coming up at the weekend but I think we should cross that bridge when we come to it and put all of our immediate focus into getting through this tie, advancing to the quarter-finals and possibly salvaging something from this awful campaign.

Some may disagree, but at the end of the day I think if we win and stay in the competition we will go to the mancs in a much better frame of mind then if we don’t. With that in mind and fitness permitting I think there’s a strong case for Rafa to play it again and stick with the same side that thumped Pompey and then make a few changes to tighten things up at the weekend.

I was delighted to see Aquaman and Babel scoring and playing well on Monday and hopefully they will both be given the nod tomorrow. We will obviously need to avoid conceding an away goal and this side look as if they could cause us some problems on the counter but sometimes the best form of defence is attack and if our players are in the mood we are well capable of sending these guys packing.

If we are to make a change, I wouldn’t mind seeing Hercules in our side as we’re sure to have a lot of corners and he might be just the man to do a Hyypia-like job and give them a rattle in their penalty box as well as ours. With our inconsistent form this season I am wary of every opponent we face but I fancy us to get the job done tomorrow, hopefully by a couple of goals.

I’m off now to have a pint or twelve so I’ve got to run or the lads will send out a search party for me. Happy St Paddy’s Day to you all and as ever;

Keep the Faith

It took me a long time to get used to the idea of Sunday games and while I came around to it eventually, I’ve never liked us playing on Mondays and I never will. I don’t know what our record is like playing at the beginning of the week, probably not that great, but I’ve never been too bothered by statistics, 67.5% of them are rubbish anyway!

Other that the fact that Monday would be my seventh choice as a day of the week for us to play a game, there are also more practical reasons why I dislike it. The way I see it, a team playing on Monday has that little bit of extra pressure on them regardless of the circumstance. If your rivals all win over the weekend, then your under pressure to keep up with them and if they lose your under pressure to take advantage.

As it happens on this occasion none of our more immediate rivals played in the league over the weekend but we are still under a bit of pressure to make this game count. It just seems crazy to me that we have to play this game three days ahead of our Europa League game on Thursday and then we have to do exactly the same thing again next week, with our game away to the mancs following three days later, so an extra day could have made all the difference to us right now.

Everton and Hull played earlier today and while I accept that watching both of these teams is about as entertaining as watching a dog licking his testicles, neither of them have any midweek games to worry about, so you would think it would have made more sense to have them playing on Monday. But of course, in the game these days common sense is about as rare as a Stan Collymore brain cell, so we’ve just got to get on with it.

We’ve got 10 league games left this season and we’ve really got to be aiming to win them all if we are to be successful in our “glorious” battle for fourth place and a chance to pay off our owners interest payments for another year! We travel to Wigan tomorrow and while they may currently be in 16th place in the table, they are dangerous opponents and we’ll really need to be on our game to get out of there with three points.

I like their manager Roberto Martinez. He was one of the few pundits on Sly Sports that I had any respect for and he is building up a decent reputation as a manager. Unlike our last opponent Fat Sham Allardyce, a man with a mouth so big there’s a real danger that one day he might swallow his own head, Martinez encourages his teams to play football and given his resources I applaud him for that.

I have watched Wigan a number of times this season and if I was to make one negative observation about them it would be that sometimes the football their manager wants them to play is perhaps a little bit beyond the abilities of some of their players. But nevertheless they keep plugging away and while a lot of games haven’t gone their way, they have had some very good results, most notably a 3-1 victory over the chavs.

So these guys are no mugs and we will need to be on our toes because they are well capable of catching us out. Team-wise, I’m not sure how Glenda is doing in terms of fitness but we are running out of games and it would be nice to see him starting in this one if possible, with Carra and Agger in the middle and Insua on the left. If this one is a bit too early for Glenda to start then no doubt Paddy the Greek can come in for the injured Skrtel and Carra or Masch can cover us on the right.

I imagine that Gerrard will play behind Torres once again in our attack but our midfield is a lot trickier to call. With most of our injured players now available again, Rafa finally has a lot of options to choose from in midfield and it will be interesting to see how he will use them. The only player I’m pretty sure about him starting with is Rodriguez.

Maxi is getting better with each game and he was particularly good in our last game against Blackburn Kingston Rovers. So that plus the fact that he is ineligible to play in our Europa League games, I think means he will be pretty certain to start tomorrow. The likelihood is that Kuyt will play on the other flank but Benny Onion must also be a serious contender with Riera as an outside bet and no doubt Babel will be on the bench.

But it is the centre of our midfield that has left me as confused as a blind lesbian in a fish market. With so much often unfair negative criticism being thrown at the boss this season, I’ve normally tried to focus on the positives in this blog which is why I’ve avoided delving too deeply into the situation with Aquilani. It’s possible to make both positive and negative arguments about the player but to be perfectly honest I just haven’t got a Scooby Doo what’s going on with this guy and I’m beginning to wonder why we signed him? Obviously we’ve been getting results without him so I’m not going to complain too much but I’m just confused about his role.

Potentially he is too good a player and he cost us far too big a chunk of our meagre transfer budget last summer for him to be merely used as a back-up. I don’t think any of us can truly judge at this stage whether he is good enough because he simply hasn’t been given enough time on the pitch. There have been some games where I could perhaps understand him not being in the team but equally there have been other games where I’ve felt sure he’d be given a run-out and he wasn’t even brought on from the bench.

Some may say that we’ll see the best of him next season but we didn’t pay £15-£18 million for a player for next season so if he has something to offer the side we need to be seeing some of it now and we’ll hopefully build on it next season. But if he couldn’t get a regular place in the side when we had so many injuries it seems even less likely now that we don’t.

We’ve now got five games coming up with just three days between each of them bar one, so Rafa is no doubt going to have to dig into the squad as much as possible and surely Aquilani must start in at least a couple of them. If not, I think we’ll just have to conclude that the boss just doesn’t think he’s good enough.

The reason I bring this up now is because I think Aquaman might be a useful player for us to have on the pitch against Wigan tomorrow because they play a more open game that might well suit a player of his ability. But we’ll see what happens because each time I’ve expected him to play in the past, he hasn’t and tomorrow will probably be no exception.

Anyway, picking up the win tomorrow is the most important thing and I think Wigan may give us a few problems to deal with but I’ll put my money on us taking the points with a 2-1 win.

Keep the Faith

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

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

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

Yet another transfer window has come and gone without the manager being given the necessary backing to add some much needed extra strength to the squad. I suppose that shouldn’t be much of a surprise given what’s gone on before but given the teams current position, a couple of decent quality new faces coming in would have given everyone an extra lift and improved our chances of climbing back into the top four and having a good go at the Europa League.

But once again the club’s balance sheet has taken precedence over the team sheet and this seems to have become standard practice at Anfield since the club became saddled with our two lying American owners. For the most part, Rafa Benitez has always really been in a position where he has had to sell players to buy players but he almost always managed to make a profit from his sales and through this method he has been able to gradually upgrade the side over time.

However recent evidence suggests he can no longer even count on the money he makes through player sales to strengthen the side. During last January’s transfer window we sold Robbie Keane back to Spurs for somewhere between £12 and £15 million. The question we all had back then was who would be brought in to replace him but we soon found out the answer to that question was no one!

When you consider how close we came to winning the league last season it is tempting to think that had we used that cash to bring in a quality replacement last January, it might well have helped us to get those extra few points we needed to win it. Still, we hoped that the money from the Keane sale would turn up during last summer’s transfer window to help the boss really strengthen the squad and build on what we had achieved in the last campaign.

Instead of this more players were sold on at a profit and a chunk of that profit along with the money from the Keane sale disappeared, presumably into other areas, and certainly wasn’t put back into the team. And this past January has been more of the same with almost £7 million coming in through player sales and just £1.5 million being spent on our one signing Maxi Rodriguez.

Now considering all of that it seems to me that our club has become unique in the history of football. Throughout all the years going back as far as the foundation of the game, the board of every club existed to provide funds to support the team but at our club these days it seems the reverse is true and it appears that it is the team that is being used to provide funds to prop up the board and it’s a bloody disgrace!

After our game against Bolton on Saturday Tom Hicks, on one of his rare visits to Anfield, was kept inside the ground by security for his own safety for a couple of hours as a few hundred Liverpool supporters protested outside of the ground. These supporters should be heroes to us all and they let Hicks know exactly what they thought of him and his partner and they both should count themselves lucky that these people simply want them to leave, because if it were up to me I’d be pushing to have the pair of them publicly flogged as well!

Anyway, at least football-wise things are going well and we seem to be moving in the right direction. We conceded too many soft goals this season and they have cost us dearly so Rafa has clearly decided to go back to basics and focus on making us hard to beat again and it seems to be doing the trick. Our 2-0 win over Bolton at the weekend means we’ve gone six league games unbeaten and have kept five clean sheets.

Defensively this is a world away from our early season form and obviously a lot of credit must go to Pepe and the rest of the defence as well as Masch and Lucas but I must say I’ve been really impressed by Kyrgiakos. This guy has really taken me by surprise and I think he has been superb in our last three games.

He’s been almost like Sami Hyypia with a bit more pace. To be honest I think the guy is a bit of a thug who almost seems to intimidate the opposing forwards which I think is great, and I’d pay good money to see him take on Drogba. But besides all of that, he seems to be a really good defender and a much better player than I thought.

Dagger is fit again and it won’t be long before Carra can move back into the centre of our defence so Rafa will have some tough decisions to make, but on current form I would definitely like to see Hercules stay in the side particularly in our upcoming game against our wee neighbours.

But while we have been defensively strong, our attack is still not firing on all cylinders and that isn’t too surprising given the fact that most of our creative department is either injured or finding their way back to fitness. Torres, Benny Onion and Glenda are big losses to us on the attacking front and to a lesser extent I think Dagger is also a bit of a loss to us in an attacking sense because of the way he carries the ball into the opponents half instead of hoofing it upfield like the rest of our centre backs.

Of the players we have got available, Aquilani is getting better with each game but he still needs time, as does Maxi. Riera has done well since returning from injury but I still think there’s more to come from him and then we come to StevieG. Form-wise and injury-wise, this has been a difficult season for the skipper. He has hit bad patches of form before in his career but I think this season has probably been his worse spell in a Liverpool shirt. It seems like every time he’s looked like he might be getting back to form, he’s picked up an injury and we have most definitely missed him.

He came through for our youth system and has spent all of his career at the club and I think because of this sometimes we are all a little guilty of taking him for granted but he is a massively important player for us, more important even then Torres. We have shown plenty of times in the past that we are capable of winning games without him, but it’s a damn sight easier with him.

Gerrard is a real difference maker for us and if he can get his fitness and form back it will dramatically increase our chances of achieving what remains of our goals this season, without him it will be a lot tougher and I think that’s the way Rafa sees it as well. After our disappointing 0-0 draw at Wolves some people gave the boss a bit of stick for playing Gerrard for the full 90 minutes and not playing Aquilani but I’m sure that had we drawn or even lost to Wolves with Aquaman in the side, many of these same people would have also given the boss just as much stick for not playing Gerrard, sometimes it’s seems like he can’t win!

The fact of the matter is that whatever you might think about Benitez, I think we can all agree that he is knows all there is to know about the fitness of players, he’s almost obsessive about it. He will have known exactly where Gerrard was in terms of physical and match fitness ahead of the Wolves game. As it turned out Gerrard didn’t play very well against Wolves and he also didn’t play well in the first half against Bolton but in the second half he started to play like his old self again.

I know he would have been helped by the fact that Bolton took off the guy who was man-marking him but even before that guy went off Gerrard was starting to play with more confidence and having a bigger influence on the game. So the net result is the captain will now be raring to go in the Merseyside Derby this weekend and in the other big games we have coming up this month and that is thanks to some good management by the boss.

Had he not gotten the 90 minutes against Wolves under his belt, he wouldn’t have been as ready for our big game at the weekend as he is now and we are going to need him at his best against Everton. So maybe some people should hold off on their caustic criticisms of the boss and his decisions every time a result goes against us and accept the fact that he might know just a little bit more about the game than they do.

The fact of the matter is that the only thing that was disappointing about our game against Wolves was the result. Had we snuck in a goal and took the points, nobody would care about the performance and there would be no criticism of any of the boss’s decisions etc, and that’s one of the things that really bugs me about these people who only seem to come out of the woodwork to spout their shite when we lose or don’t get the result we’re looking for.

I think if you’ve got a valid point to make about the manager, a player or the team in general, that point should stand up whether we win or lose, not just when we lose. It would also help if many of these opinions weren’t so stupid and illogical. I heard a typical example on the radio after the Wolves game as some clown phoned in and moaned about Rafa not playing the same side that beat Spurs the previous weekend and then in his next breath he said, “ and what the hell was he thinking playing Lucas and Mascherano together in the centre of midfield.”

Obviously he had failed to notice or remember that Lucas and Masch had played together in the side that beat Spurs the previous weekend, the very same side he was complaining about Rafa not playing in the first place. But that and similar such rubbish is the kind of crap we seem to hear these days after every bad result and it’s extremely annoying to say the least. I’m not sure what these so called “supporters” are seeking to achieve with all of their piss and vinegar but it seems to me it’s not just our American owners who are set on ruining our club and I wish the whole bleeding lot of them would piss off.

Anyway, on to our game against our wee neighbours at the weekend and I’ll keep this short because I’ve already gone on long enough. Fitness permitting, I think Rafa will go with the same side that beat Bolton on Saturday although he might be tempted to throw Dagger back into the side.

As I mentioned early, Hercules has been playing very well at the centre of our defence and so has Skrtel but Dagger is a lot better at playing the ball than the both of them and in a tight game, as this is sure to be, having an extra player on the pitch who can pick out a pass might just make a difference and may see him getting a start. The other selection dilemma for the boss will be deciding between Lucas and Aquilani.

If we were playing away at Goodison I’d be certain he would go with Lucas but the fact this game is at Anfield means he might just decide to stick with Aquaman who is improving all the time. He did very well to get that header to Kuyt for our first goal against Bolton, just as he also did well to assist Kuyt for the first goal against Spurs. So it will be interesting to see which way the boss will go with this one but I suspect if we are going to try to outplay them it will be Aquaman but if we going to try to outfight them it will be Lucas, who is a terrific battler for us in midfield.

Overall this is obviously going to be a really tough game. Everton are in a bit of form at the moment and we’re not doing too badly either. I suspect the bookies might be favouring a draw but my money’s on us nicking the points with a hard fought 2-1 win.

Keep the Faith

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

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

After the terrific football we played in the second half of the last campaign, we started this season with high hopes. While it’s true that we were all disappointed the manager wasn’t given enough funding to significantly strengthen the squad over the summer, I think it’s fair to say that we still felt confident that this could be a memorable season for us. But here we are in January, barely half way through the season and it’s all turned to shite!

It really is very hard to take. I can acknowledge the fact that we have had the most unbelievable run of bad luck, particularly with injuries, that I’ve ever seen. Our luck is so bad at the moment if we bought a cemetery, people would stop dying! But bad luck, lack of confidence or any of that other stuff is no excuse for the dreadful, half-arsed performance of our players on Wednesday.

If it was a one-off bad day at the office you could probably accept it but we were just as bad in the first game and equally as awful in our game at Pompey a couple of weeks ago, and that’s just totally unacceptable. As usual it is our manager, a man with more back stab wounds than Julius Caesar, who is left carrying the can and suffering all of the slings and arrows in the media etc.

Even allowing for all of the off field rubbish that he has to put up with at our club, as the boss of the team it is right that he should carry a certain amount of the responsibility for what’s been happening on the pitch and I don’t think he or indeed anyone else would suggest otherwise. That said, I certainly don’t think he should have to shoulder all of the responsibility.

Once the players cross the white line there’s little more he can do and as far as I’m concerned, some of those players have let him, us and themselves down very badly this season and Wednesday’s game was just the latest example. Torres had to leave the pitch early after picking up an injury that we now hear will keep him out for another six bloody weeks and other than his part in the goal, Gerrard was almost non-existent in the first half but we now know he had also picked up an injury, so I’ll leave them out of it for now and here’s how I rated the rest of them.

Cavalieri: The lad did his best I suppose but rumour has it that Rafa has now placed an armed guard on him with orders to shoot to kill if anything happens to Pepe Reina! 4/10

Insua: A good lad with a bright future but lately he’s looked as if he’s in need of a rest. On Wednesday he played like a snowman, he melted when the heat was on. 3/10

Degan: Made a couple of decent forward runs but overall he’s about as much use as a milk bucket under a bull’s bollocks. 2/10.

Carra: Huffed and puffed as much as ever but sadly he’s beginning to look like a fading force in our defence. 5/10.

Dagger: Not one of his best games by any means but I thought that he was one of our better players on the night. He had his problems in defence like the rest of them but at least he showed a bit of endeavour and pushed forward to try to help the attack whenever he could. 6/10

Kuyt: In dreadful form at the moment. Has all the heart of a work horse but all the finesse of a clothes horse. 3/10

Lucas: Gave it his best as usual. Some may argue if his best is good enough but it’s certainly better than anything that’s around him at the moment. 6/10

Aquilani: I like this guy and was impressed, given his fitness level at the moment, that he kept going for 120 minutes. Slowly but surely he’s getting there. Positionally he’s very good and there are positive signs that he possesses a good footballing brain, but it might still be some time before we see the best of him. 6/10

Benny Onion: He’s been one of our better players this season but was pretty poor on Wednesday and missed a golden opportunity to level the game in extra time. 4/10

Babel: What a waste of talent. 3/10

Eggnog: As useless as a windscreen wiper on a goat’s arse! 3/10

Maxi Rodriguez: Our new signing was introduced to the crowd before the kick-off and while he didn’t actually play in the game he did more to lift the crowd in those few seconds than most of his new team mates did for the entire 120 minutes. Let’s pray he can do something for us in the games ahead. 10/10

That’s about it really, overall complete crap.

Now I know that by now there will be a few smart arses getting ready to tell me that Rafa is the one who signed these players and if they aren’t good enough then it’s down to him. And that may seem like a good point but there is one fatal flaw in this argument, it’s complete and utter bollocks!

This team is indeed good enough. With one or two exceptions it is the same team that was playing the best football in the country in the second half of last season and was ripping the tits out of most other teams. Of course, if you happen to be one of those people who believe that the whole team/squad has turned to shite because Xabi Alonso left, then good luck to you and it’s nice to know your getting such good value from your Sly Sports subscription!

So what’s the difference between now and then? Well I’m very confident that Rafa Benitez is working every bit as hard now as he was then but can we say the same about the players? Rafa is certainly the man who has to find some way to get these players back into form because whatever he’s done up to now, doesn’t seem to be working. Desperate times call for desperate measures and a different approach is needed.

This could be a change of formation or a change of tactics but personally I think it’s time to throw in a few kids because at least they will show some desire and play as if it means something to them. It was bad enough losing to Reading but we’ve now also lost our three best attacking threats Torres, Gerrard and Benny Onion to injury so maybe it’s time to try something different.

We face Stoke away in the league this weekend and that’s a tough place to go at the best of times but we have to find a way to win. Normally in such games we start off by playing it tight and hope that we get a chance to pick them off during the game and if we don’t we then make one or two attacking changes in the last 20 minutes or so and try to pinch the points.

But maybe it’s time for us to reverse this strategy because we have to start scoring goals and winning games again.Let’s start off by attacking them and get them on the back foot from early on, try to grab a goal or two and then switch to a more defensive set up later in the game. I think it would be certainly worth trying because our defensive game isn’t working too well at the moment and sometimes the best means of defence is attack.

Thankfully Pepe will be back between the sticks for us but the make up of the rest of our defence is more difficult to call. As I mentioned earlier, I think Insua needs a break for a couple of games so we could go with Aurelio on the left. I wouldn’t mind seeing Darby or Kelly (if fit) at right back but I suspect that given Stokes fondness for the long ball we might see Rafa opting to have three centre backs on the pitch with Carra at right back and Dagger in the middle with possibly Hercules beside him for some extra height.

In midfield I would like to see us throw Rodriguez in straight away on the right, thankfully Masch will be available again in the centre and alongside him will be either Lucas or Aquaman depending on which of them has recovered best from Wednesday’s game. On the left I think we’ve just got to gamble on Babel because we need some pace in the side, so throw him in there and hope for the best.

Upfront I would expect that Kuyt and Eggnog would be strong favourites to start but I’d like to see us getting back to the days when bad performances were punished with a spell on the sidelines. So if it were up to me I’d like to see us try something really different and start with Ecclestone and Pacheco in attack and let’s see what they can do with the opportunity. But whatever team Rafa puts out they’ve got to show far more desire then we saw in midweek and fingers crossed we can get any kind of a win by any means necessary.

Keep the Faith

Watching the half-arsed efforts of our team in recent months has been so painful at times, it’s been almost the footballing equivalent of having your nipples pierced with a knitting needle! Our FA Cup tie at Reading last Saturday was another perfect example. Sure, there are legitimate arguments we could make about match fitness tiredness and all that other stuff, but those excuses are beginning to ring a bit hollow.

As far as I’m concerned there really is no excuse for a Liverpool team to perform so poorly because at the end of the day you don’t need fitness or form to show character and a little bit of desire. Our CL exit and stuttering league form has made the FA Cup one of our main targets this season but it seemed to me that some of our players last week just couldn’t be arsed, I’ve had bowel movements with more spine!

You couldn’t really argue with the team the manager put out, it should certainly have been strong enough to get the job done but once again some of our players just didn’t perform on the day and in the end we were lucky to get away with a replay. Aurelio was so non-existent that I wasn’t sure if he was playing for a new contract or auditioning for the role of the invisible man.

Insua also didn’t have one of his better games but in fairness to him he got precious little cover from his more experienced colleague ahead of him. Reina, as ever, was great, Carra screamed like a madman and Skrtel played like one at times but together they kept us in it. Kuyt and Gerrard combined for our equalising goal and looked interested for about 10 minutes after that but in the second half they joined Aurelio on the MIA list. Torres ran his little cotton socks off and at least showed a desire that seemed sadly lacking in some of his team-mates. Eggnog partnered Torres in attack. I thought I better put that line in there in case some of you didn’t notice.

I was surprised to hear some fans being critical of Darby and Lucas because I thought they were two of our better performers on the day. Darby did well in the circumstances. It’s always difficult for a young player taking their first steps into the first team but it’s even tougher when the team is playing as badly as we are at the moment. If he hoofed the ball upfield a few times it’s understandable. As a young relatively inexperienced defender his first duty is to defend, the attacking side of things will develop as he gains confidence and experience just as it has done for Insua.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised to hear Lucas being criticised as he seems to be destined to remain a scapegoat in some people’s eyes but I thought he was our best player last week. We were outnumbered in midfield but he battled away almost single-handedly at times. I think the problem that Lucas has is that, subconsciously or otherwise, some people continually make comparisons between him and the likes of Gerrard, Masch and Alonso, and as these are three of the best players in the world in their relative positions there are few players who could live up to such comparisons, least of all a young midfielder who is still developing.

You’ve got to judge each player on their own merits and to be critical of Lucas because he doesn’t pose the attacking threat of Gerrard, the passing ability of Alonso or the battling qualities of Masch at his best, is extremely unfair. However, what I will say about the lad is that while at this stage of his young career he may be behind these guys in the areas I have mentioned, he could certainly teach all three of them a thing or two about consistency.

In my opinion, Lucas, Reina and Benny Onion have been our most consistent performers this season. While it’s true that our campaign has been pretty crap so far, I think our situation would be an awful lot worse right now if it weren’t for these three guy’s and Lucas for his part deserves a lot of credit in my book.

Woo hoo, while I’ve been writing this I just got the news that our game has been postponed. That’s a nice result for us and continues our fantastic unbeaten start to 2010! When the game gets rescheduled I fancy us to beat them 5-0 with goals from Rodriguez, Heskey, Van Nostril-hair, Cheryl Cole and Handy Henry.

So now that we don’t have a game we can focus on the transfer window and I’ve been doing some calculations here at Kopblog HQ. Like the other 109% of the population over here, my mathematics isn’t the greatest but with our £4.5 million sale of Dossena and the possibly imminent sale of Voronin, I reckon this will give the boss a total of £4.500, 001, a packet of Opal Fruits and a fun-size Snickers bar to play with in this January transfer window so far.

With this “massive” war chest of cash we could easily afford Lionel Messi’s toe nail clippings, David Villa’s left testicle or possibly even the nasal fluid of Kaka but while these things might come in handy if we were to install some kind of cloning device at Melwood, they probably wouldn’t enhance our chances of climbing back into the top 4 and perhaps picking up a bit of silverware this season.

So it looks as if Rafa will once again have to do a bit of bargain hunting in the January sales with whatever loose change the board allow him to spend, if our squad is to get any much-needed strengthening during this window. Our possible signing of Maxi Rodriguez seems to be getting closer all the time and if we do finally manage to bring him in it will be a very good start by the boss.

Rodriguez may not have been in the Atletico team recently but he is an experienced top quality player with the added bonus that he knows all about playing with Torres and is a good friend and international team mate of Mascherano. The challenge of moving to the Premiership and gaining a place in Argentina’s World Cup squad might help him to reproduce his best form and if he can do that, he could be a very nice asset for us in the remainder of the season.

Even with Johnson out for a month, I think we should have enough cover in defence but as I’ve said in previous blogs, we really need to bring in another striker. It’s great that Torres seems to have regained his fitness but with the battering he seems to take in every game we play these days, it might only be a matter of time before he’s injured again and we badly need more cover.

As usual plenty of names have been linked with us in the press but most likely there isn’t a grain of truth in any of them. Personally, if are planning to bring in another striker I would prefer to see us going for experience rather than potential. We have a number of promising young players in the first team squad who we all hope will develop into stars in the future but another experienced player might be just what we need right now, even if it’s only on a short-term basis.

I don’t normally suggest names but I was reading today about Eidur Gudjohnsen looking for a move back to England. I always liked that guy and according to reports he could be available from Monaco for a mere £1.5 million. He’s 31 now but considering our lack of funds and the fact that he knows all about the Premiership and wouldn’t need any time to adapt, someone like him could be ideal for us. But no doubt Rafa has his own targets and it will be interesting to see what develops in the coming weeks.

Keep the Faith