Our impressive 4-0 victory over Burnley at Anfield on Saturday was certainly a tonic for the troops and I’m feeling pretty damn good at the moment. Ahead of the game I was thinking three points were absolutely essential, a few goals were almost equally important in terms of confidence and, while perhaps optional, a clean sheet would also be most welcome and all three were delivered in a fine performance that made me as happy as a nun in a field full of cucumbers!

As far as I’m concerned our season starts here. Our pre-season preparations didn’t go at all well mainly due to the staggered return of most of our main players and unfortunately we carried our dodgy pre-season form into the start of our Premiership campaign. The varying degrees of both physical and match fitness among our players was pretty evident in our early games and our form was patchy at best but that all changed at the weekend.

As is customary whenever Liverpool win a game, people always seem to question the quality of our opposition and despite the fact that Burnley have got victories over the mancs and our little neighbours to their credit, I would agree that they are perhaps destined to be battling it out in the relegation end of the table when everything settles down. That said, there really aren’t any easy games in the Premiership anymore and, as Burnley’s early season results suggest, every side has the potential to be a banana skin if the form and the attitude of your players isn’t quite right.

We had no such problems at the weekend and even from the very early stages of the game you could tell that our players were in no mood for an upset. The balance of the side and the flow of our play looked great for the first time this season and there is no doubt that we have now come to the party and are finally up and running. I don’t think that this was just down to the change in system but also, or perhaps mainly, because the players look to be almost back up to speed in terms of physical and match fitness.

In the game itself our star man was most definitely Yossi Benayoun. He ended up with a hat-trick but could have had 4 or 5 in a superb performance which could well be an example to others. Babel and Riera had a little gripe last week about not being in the team but if they need an indication of what is required then they surely need to look no further than Sir Benny of the Onion.

Little more than a year ago you would have almost had to toss a coin to choose between the three of them but Benny made the most of his opportunities, got a regular place in the side and worked hard to consistently maintain his form to ensure he kept it. Some may say he has benefitted by having the kind of regular football denied to others but it’s one of those catch 22 situations.

I don’t want to be too hard on Babel because he may yet play a significant role in our season but I just don’t agree with those people who suggest he hasn’t been given enough opportunities. Benny Onion was in exactly the same place as Babel not so long ago, regularly on the bench and in and out of the side but he made the most of his opportunities and was rewarded with a regular place in the side. In my opinion Babel needs to do a lot more when he is given the opportunity and I think he would also do well to heed these few lines from Benny Onion’s after match interview.

“From the moment I arrived at Liverpool I told myself that I would take every opportunity to do my best and prove I deserved to be in the team.

“I have had ups and downs in the last two years here, but from the final months of last season I have showed I can play better and better when I have confidence.

“You must accept you will be on the bench sometimes, but even if you get just 10 minutes, you have to do your best and show your quality.”

And perhaps some of the premature knee-jerkers among our own supporters might also do well to take heed of his next two lines:

“It was the perfect day for me, and we have started to win matches. The season didn’t start too well for us, and maybe it has been good that people have already written us off.

“There will be less pressure. We can build our confidence slowly and when we win games like this, everyone can see we have the quality to be up there in the race.”

So a fair play to Benny but our display on Saturday was by no means a one-man show and there were a number of other very good performances, in fact everyone did well and played their part in a good victory. Gerrard returned to the centre of our midfield and had an excellent game as had young Lucas beside him.

In the Lucas/Masch central midfield partnership I think the onus and expectation tends to be on Lucas to feed and back up the attack and sometimes that burden can be a bit too heavy for the lad. But alongside Gerrard I thought he looked far more comfortable and effective. I’ve said before that in my opinion Lucas’s true role in the squad should be to provide competition for Masch and I think he is at his best when he is doing that.

Unlike most of our other players, he has had a very good start to the season and at this present moment in time if Gerrard were to continue in central midfield I would pick Lucas ahead of Mascherano to play beside him. Not that I have anything against Masch but I just think Lucas is playing better at the moment and he is improving all the time.

Our defence didn’t have too much to deal with on Saturday but they did well and the clean sheet will do their confidence no harm. Riera did alright in his first start of the season but I think he will get a lot better when he gets a bit more game time under his belt and I was delighted to see Deadly Dirk getting a goal. As ever he worked tirelessly and given a bit more time I think a partnership between him and Torres upfront could be very productive for us. So all in all a good three points and a very good performance that bodes well.

I also watched Spurs meek surrender against the mancs at the weekend, I’ve had bowel movements with more spine! It amazes me how the conduct of the manc players continually goes unchecked. Not since General Custer at the battle of Little Big Horn has a man been so hopelessly surrounded by savages as the referee at White Hart Lane. Every time he made a decision against them they crowded around and bullied him. Obviously the campaign for respect for referees doesn’t apply to the mancs, but I guess it helps when you have a club official in a high ranking position at the FA!

I also read the comments of George Gillett a few days ago when he said that our clubs finances were in “outstanding” shape. This is of course great news and isn’t amazing how a little thing like not spending any money can have such a positive effect on your cash flow! I mean our net spend on transfers over the summer was less than nothing and our spending on building a new stadium is also zero because they now say it’s not going to be built until the world’s financial markets make a recovery.

This is obviously likely to be a very long time away and I’ve heard one provisional estimate putting the completion date at sometime around 2018. Now I know that Rome wasn’t built in a day but you can be damn sure it was built a hell of a lot quicker that this bloody new stadium of ours. This supposed new arena has become more mythical than Camelot and I am certain that it will never be built with the two cowboys in charge of our club.

They say we cannot afford to build the stadium right now but I wonder if we can afford not to? While it’s certainly true that there is a definite economic downturn at the moment, I think it’s also true to say that many people and governments are taking advantage of the situation and are now pushing ahead with projects that can built far more cheaply now then they could have been at the height of the boom.

It’s a buyer’s market at the moment and building a stadium now could be 25% or more cheaper than it would have been when it was estimated about 3 years ago and if you also factor in the amount of jobs such a project would create in these difficult times, I’m sure the government would be throwing all sorts of grant money/tax incentives at us. On the other hand, if we wait for the economic situation to improve the costs will also significantly increase once again and that will no doubt lead to yet another reason for delay.

Besides this I remember reading somewhere that the increased capacity of 60,000 in Arsenal’s new stadium means that they take in £2 million more than us in every home game. Now if you take that earlier estimated completion date I mentioned of 2018 you can see that it is obviously nine years away and if we factored in say 30 home games a season it comes to £540 million in extra revenue we are missing out on. Now if we pushed ahead and aimed to have a new stadium built in half that time then by the time 2018 came around we would have £270 million in extra revenue and recovered more than half our costs.

Now those are obviously the simple figures of a simple man and should be taken with a pinch of salt but my point is that work on the stadium could have commenced 2 or 3 years ago but it didn’t happen and now despite the poor economic conditions there are also strong reasons to start building now, but it isn’t happening. This idea that they are waiting for the world’s financial markets to recover is also a total red herring because they had the perfect economical conditions a couple of years ago and they wouldn’t build it then, so why should it be any different in a few years time when they hopefully return to the same level?

Getting the money shouldn’t be a problem because a large portion of that last loan they saddled the club with was meant to have been towards getting the stadium started and with all of the money they have both recently made by selling off their interests in various American sports clubs, getting the rest of the money to complete the stadium shouldn’t be a problem. But these two clowns have no intention of spending any money on a new stadium, they will milk as much as they can out of the club and then flog it to the highest bidder.

Anyway enough of that doom and gloom stuff, our focus now turns to Wednesday and our opening group game in the Champions League. Our opponents are the Hungarian side Debreceni and like most people, I’ve never heard of them. But as they are a bit of an unknown quantity and it’s so important to get our CL campaign off to a winning start, I expect Rafa will stick near enough to the same side that did so well at the weekend.

He may be tempted to make one or two changes and maybe give Aurelio and Babel a start but I don’t think he’ll do too much tinkering. At Anfield we should be too much for them but I’m hoping we might get the job done as early as possible and maybe give a couple of the fringe players a run out later in the game. Anyway I’m feeling confident after our performance at the weekend and I’m sure our players will be feeling the same so I’m predicting a 3-0 win for The Reds and on to Wet Spam.

It was great to have some proper footy back at the weekend. I never used to pay too much attention to the football in the lower divisions but in recent seasons it’s began to catch my attention and this season there are some very interesting football stories developing outside the Premier League. Barnes at Tranmere, Clough at Derby, Keane at Ipswich and Sven Moron Ericson doing God knows what at Notts County are all things I’ll be keeping an eye on this season as well as the likes of Boro and the Looney Toons trying to claw their way back to the Premiership. Every club seems to have some kind of interesting back story going on and for most it will all end in tears but for some perverse reason I seem to have developed a fascination with watching it all unfold. I thoroughly enjoyed following the fortunes of the teams in the lower leagues at the weekend but it merely whetted my appetite and now I am as excited as a priest at an altar boy convention waiting for the Premiership to kick off again in a few days time. We’ve got so many injuries at the moment that we could park our team bus in a disabled parking zone but I don’t care, I just want to get things started. I enjoyed watching our final warm-up game against Atletico at Anfield on Saturday. They are a very good side and it was a shame about the result but we had our chances and I think Rafa will be pleased with the work-out. The injury to Carra is obviously a worry but by all accounts it doesn’t seem too bad and hopefully he should be alright for the weekend. Overall, I don’t think we have been hugely impressive in our pre-season games but that’s probably not surprising given we had players arriving back at different times, injuries, the Alonso situation and various other things to contend with. Anyway it will just have to do, the important thing is that the players have had some playing time and that their fitness is at the right level to enable us to make a good start to the campaign. Lucas is regarded by most as being our best player during pre-season and many are asking if he can now step into the Xabi Alonso role in the team? Quite frankly I think the answer to that question is no and I wish people would stop trying to hang that millstone around the young lads neck. Lucas has been developing very nicely, particularly in recent months, and I think he will do very well for us this season but he is a different type of player to Xabi so let’s not burden the lad with unfair comparisons and leave him to carve out his own niche in the side. The other players I thought did well in pre-season were Benny Onion, Kuyt, Johnson, Insua and young Martin Kelly. Babel, Voronin and Ngog also did well at times but the rest were a bit in and out. Torres and Gerrard are getting there. I think they are both at about 80-85% at the moment but I’d expect they will be a lot closer when the Spurs game comes around. All teams have some problems to deal with going into the new season and while I am keeping my fingers crossed about our central defence, all things considered we are in pretty good shape. As I mentioned in the last blog, I think Rafa will bring in another couple of new faces to bolster the squad before the transfer window closes. We know he’s made some enquiries about Hull central defender Michael Turner. He played very well for them last season and also managed to score 4 goals, so maybe Rafa sees him as a good replacement for Hyypia in both boxes. However the price Hull has put on him is far more than we are looking to spend, so we will have to wait and see how that one develops but he would be my favourite among the names of CB’s I’ve heard being linked with us. My feeling is that the boss will want to tie up the signing of a centre back first and then assess what funds he has left over for one more splash. This is just a guess or perhaps a hope on my part but if he brings in a CB then I think we will be pretty much covered in all of the defensive areas of the team and ideally we could use one more option in attack. When you look at what we’ve done or seem likely to do in the transfer market then it basically amounts to us replacing Sami, Arby and Alonso with Turner/Dustbin, Glenda and Aqua Libra. The hope is that these will all prove to be upgrades but time will tell. However the one player that we have so far not replaced is Robbie Keane, unless you consider the return of Voronin as an adequate replacement. I’m not referring to Keane specifically but rather his position in the squad and I think when you look at it logically it’s pretty clear that Rafa would ideally like to have another attacker to call upon. The boss has said some nice things about Voronin recently but the truth is if he really rated him he wouldn’t have sent him away on loan last season and I think if he had the opportunity he would just as soon sell him. Obviously I hope the guy has a brilliant season and makes us all eat our words but I’m not optimistic. The controversy surrounding Keane’s arrival last year has been well documented. However the interesting thing is that Rafa did originally want Keane as well as Barry last season but when it became clear he could only have one, he really wanted it to be Barry but was over-ruled by the likes of Parry and Keane was brought in instead. Unfortunately Robbie then innocently seemed to become a pawn in a power struggle at the club but I don’t want to get bogged down in all that stuff again. My point is that when you read between the lines it’s pretty clear that Rafa would like to have another striker. Originally Voronin was brought in on a free but he didn’t fit in and was sent away on loan. Keane then came in, in controversial circumstances but that didn’t work out and he only lasted 6 months. At the start of this summer we know the boss did make some enquires to Valencia about Silva but walked away when they went public and tried to set off an auction for the player’s services. All of this indicates that the boss sees the need for another decent quality attacker to complete his squad. At the moment we are relying far too heavily on Torres in the striking department and should he pick up any injuries we will for the most part look to cover his absence with Babel, Ngog or Voronin, or perhaps we might more fittingly refer to them as our footballing equivalent of Faith, Hope and Charity! I don’t have a problem with us developing Ngog as he seems like a good prospect and I’m happy for us to take a chance on Babel but ideally I would love to see us seriously upgrade on Voronin, and truth be told I bet Rafa feels the same way too. If there were any money left in the kitty and space on the wage bill for us to add a striker of not necessarily world-class but a reasonable amount of quality, it would round off our squad very nicely. Quite frankly it’s difficult to see how the money wouldn’t be there because by my calculations we would seem to be in profit on our transfer dealings over the summer and dare I even mention the money we got from selling Keane back to Spurs which seems to have disappeared into a black hole somewhere. But as ever, we’ll just have to rely on the boss to sort it all out and if for some reason the money isn’t there we’ll just make do with what we have and hope for the best. Even if we don’t manage to bring in any more players I still think we have a great squad overall and most of them have been together now for a few years so I would imagine there is a strong team spirit in our camp. Had our home form been just a little better we would have won the title last season so there is naturally a good deal of expectation about our chances in the upcoming campaign. Personally I think we have a great chance. In my opinion there are three teams who can win the title this season and we are most certainly one of them, and I also believe we are in better shape than our rivals going into the campaign. I think the mancs are a bit weaker, not just because of the players they have sold but perhaps also because of some players that they haven’t. They will no doubt miss the Ladyboy because by fair means or foul, he often proved to be the difference maker particularly in tight games against the smaller sides, when sometimes his skill but often his antics would lead to them nicking a goal and taking some undeserved points. The chavs are always a worry. Mourinho for all of his flaws did give them a very solid foundation which they haven’t really built on since he left but while they may have an aging squad they are still very strong and very tough to play against. But while they now have yet another new manager they haven’t done much in the transfer market over the summer. Their biggest flaws in my opinion is their aging squad is now another year older and the factions in their dressing room which could cause them to implode at any time, but if they can keep it together I would fancy them to win it if we don’t. I think Arsenal will struggle to maintain a top four place this season. On their day they are capable of beating anyone anywhere but unfortunately for them they are also very capable of losing to anyone anywhere. I expected them to seriously strengthen over the summer but they are now even weaker after selling some players and not really bringing in anyone of note. Their supporters and most likely some of their players are becoming restless at their lack of silverware and backward momentum and they face a huge CL qualifier against Celtic shortly which they will be favourites to win, but should they slip up it could be the final straw. We don’t really know what to expect from Man City this season but they will certainly be a lot stronger and not having any European football as a distraction might work in their favour in the league. Besides them, Spurs, Villa and no doubt Everton will all be strong and vying for a place in the top four. So I think this is going to be one hell of a tough season but I fancy it could prove to be a very special one for Liverpool supporters. As ever we will need to keep all of our fingers crossed that all of our key players avoid any serious injuries but overall I fancy us to finally finish on top of the pile and bring the league title back to its spiritual home in the Anfield trophy room. I would be absolutely delighted with that and while I don’t want to get too greedy, I also strongly fancy us in Europe this season and have a feeling we might be knocking on the door in that competition as well. Oh what dreams may come! Anyway I’ll leave it there for now and save the Spurs game for the next blog but on a final note. From reading some of the comments on previous blogs I see donalfromthegap has set up a fantasy football league for the site. It’s set up on the Premier League fantasy football site as we don’t like to use any of those crappy tabloid ones and you can sign up HERE and then you can put your team in our private league “The Kopblog League” by using the pass code 577752-164796. I’m not that great at fantasy football but I don’t suppose I’ll need to be to beat you bunch of muppets. If any of you think that you are man enough to take me on then my mighty team “The Benny Onions” are waiting there to put you in your place. I’m hoping a good few of you will sign up and we’ll organise some kind of prize for the person who finishes second, because I am obviously going to win. I will see if the techie people to put up a league table somewhere on the site and maybe even organise a separate forum for fantasy football talk and abuse, but if not I’ll put up the latest standings in the blog. When you do sign up try to use a name that’s as close as possible to your username here at Kopblog so that we know who everybody is. Over the course of the season I’ll also do a little Q&A by e-mail with each of the managers asking them the kind of questions that you can be sure you would never hear on the likes of Sly Sports. But a word of warning, where there are winners there will also be losers and the person who finishes last will not only bring eternal shame on themselves and their families for many generations to come but they will also suffer abuse of biblical proportions from some masters of the art who frequent this site. So man up and sign up, it’s free and it should be a bit of fun.

I’ve just returned to Kopblog HQ after my few days away in Kerry where I enjoyed some of the best scenery in the world along with some of the best beer in the world and had a great time. Before I left on my trip I got the news about the verdict in the court case involving Steven Gerrard and I was delighted for the lad. It was great to see him being cleared and I never had any doubts about his innocence in this matter. The coverage he received in the media during the trial was bang out of order with all of them failing to see that he was in fact the victim in the alleged confrontation. The CC TV footage of the incident clearly showed our captain being viciously head-butted in the fist on three occasions by that nasty manc DJ thug!

.

Seriously though, I think the skipper might have caught a break and I’m glad it’s now over with and behind us. However one good thing that may have come out of the situation is that the bond between our manager and our captain seems to be stronger than ever. Rafa has been a constant source of support to Gerrard throughout this ordeal.

It’s even been suggested that his now famous press conference in which he hit back at the mancs earlier this year, was designed with the dual purpose of rattling Alex Fergiescum and also taking the spotlight off the skipper. If that was the case it certainly succeeded and if there is now a stronger bond between Stevie and Rafa it can only be beneficial to us going forward.

Over the weekend it was also great that Gerrard had a good run out and scored for our reserve side in a game against John Barnes Tranmere. On the other side of the world we had a very good 5-0 win over Singapore with the best performance of our pre-season so far and some very good individual displays. You can now start to see a gradual improvement in our form in these games and I’m looking forward to our next one against Espanyol on Sunday.

But of course the big news at the moment is on the transfer front. Arbeloa is now definitely on his way and it’s looking increasingly likely that Alonso and Dossena won’t be far behind. I will be sorry to see all three of them go but that’s the way it goes in football these days and we’ll just have to get on with it. However, departures will almost certainly mean arrivals and we will all anxiously wait to see what new faces Rafa will bring in, but we will come back to that subject in the next blog.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I much prefer to avoid veering too far away from the football side of things, but there are unfortunately some occasions where it is unavoidable and this is one of them. I’ve noticed in the comments section of the last two or three blogs that there has been a lot of talk about an American TV presenter by the name of Steve Cohen.

This joker has an intense hatred for Liverpool Football Club, its supporters and it seems even the city itself. Under normal circumstances this wouldn’t cause us to lose any sleep but the problem with this clown is that he, for want of a better term, is a “sports journalist” who works in the US media and he contaminates the airwaves over there with his hate filled comments, filth and downright lies at every given opportunity.

Some of his lowlights include:

• Showing a total ignorance of the facts, he has constantly claimed ticketless Liverpool fans were to blame for the Hillsborough tragedy.

• He has attempted to link Hillsborough to Heysel by claiming, in relation to Liverpool fans, that “a leopard doesn’t change its spots.”

• On various occasions he has referred to Liverpool fans as Nazis, anti-Semitic and anti-American.

• Has on occasion worn anti-Liverpool t-shirts on air such as “I had my hub-caps stolen outside Anfield” etc, not really a big deal but are you beginning to notice a theme here?

• Questioned the need for us to hold a 20th Anniversary Memorial for Hillsborough and called on UEFA not to support our petition to have our CL game with Real Madrid moved to avoid it having to be played on the same day.

• As a Chelsea fan, he proudly told his listeners that while attending a game between ourselves and the chavs a couple of seasons ago he joined in with the chanting of “Murderers” towards the Liverpool fans.

There’s more I could add to that but I think you get the picture and if you want to hear any of this stuff you can get most of it on You Tube.

Basically this guy is a parasite trying to make a name for himself by using the lowest form of self publicity and what he may lack in intelligence he more than makes up for with his lack of human decency. His verbal attacks on our club and our supporters have been cowardly and on several occasions he has been forced to apologise for his comments but each time it wasn’t long before he reneged on those apologies, which is a good indication that he also suffers from a lack of integrity.

Recently he has also been whining about receiving some death threats from Liverpool fans which is something that cannot be condoned under any circumstances, but his whining does sound to me to be a little like a guy who sticks a pointy stick into a hornet’s nest and then wonders why he’s been stung! Even his own club Chelsea have distanced themselves from him and stated they don’t want to have anything to do with him, for which they deserve great credit.

Thankfully the North American branch of Liverpool supporters had all they could take of this clown and organised a boycott which received support from all over the world and has been a great success. Just as he attacked our weak spots, they adopted a similar policy and bombarded his sponsors with an e-mail campaign.

This was a very successful strategy and quite a few sponsors pulled the plug and disassociated themselves from him and yesterday I was delighted to hear the news that he had been sacked as the host of the Fox Football Fone-In show. So I guess now he has something that he can genuinely blame on Liverpool fans!

Normally I would be very sympathetic about anyone losing their job, particularly as I am currently in the same position myself, but this moron abused his position to abuse many innocent people with his hate-filled vendetta and deserves whatever he gets as far as I’m concerned. But while this boycott and e-mail campaign has been successful so far, it’s not over yet. This joker still has a radio show and other avenues to vent his lies and we cannot rest until he is permanently off-air.

Many thanks to FS for taking the time to bring us all up to speed on this situation in the comments section of the previous couple of blogs and to NigeriaKopite for also providing us with some e-mail links to this guys sponsors. Below this blog I have a suggested e-mail template and a list of e-mail addresses to companies still sponsoring this guy and equally important there is also a thank you e-mail template and a list of e-mail addresses of those who have chosen to support the boycott, which I have taken directly from the NYC LFC supports website. Check the comments section here for any updates.

If you haven’t already done so, please take a few minutes to e-mail these people and spread the word to others. There are a couple of other more pleasant items both myself and Mr Jack Hill would like you to lend your support to, but I don’t want to get them mixed up with this stuff so I’ll keep them for the next blog.

On a final note, you may feel curious and want to tune into this guy to hear him for yourself but please don’t do that as you will only help to boost his already flagging ratings. This clown is just a useless wart on the arse of humanity and he isn’t worth your time. If you do find that you have a desperate desire to hear the demented ramblings of a clueless moron, why not go to an Alex Fergiescum press conference instead!

Keep the Faith

Email to sponsors of Steve Cohen:

To whom it may concern,
You advertise on either or both of Steve Cohen’s shows on Fox and Sirius. Steve Cohen has, and not for the first time, told lies about the deaths the 96 fans at Hillsborough, claiming that Liverpool fans were responsible for killing their own, amongst other lies. Is this the type of person you want representing your company? Steve Cohen has done this before, apologising when the outrage grew too large. Clearly, he will not stop, so our objective is to see him being put off air permanently.
I urge you to reconsider your purchasing of advertising.
I will be boycotting all your products and services until your support for Steve Cohen and his lies ends.
Thank you,

Jack The Lad
Gary Allen
Sales@jackthelad.us and garyah63@msn.com

Press Display
Alex Kroogman
akroogman@newspaperdirect.com

PSG Sports
Nick Roberts
nickr@psgsports.com

Cartan Tours
Cartan Tours Info
info@cartan.com

We Speak Wine
We Speak Wine Customer Support
support@wespeakwine.com

Objectivo T-Shirts
Matt Lengkeek
matt@objectivo.com

The Fix
Declan Hill
declanhill2002@yahoo.com

VIP Communications
customerservice@joinvip.com

Email thanking the sponsors supporting the campaign:

To whom it may concern,
I would like to congratulate and thank you on supporting the ongoing boycott of Steve Cohen for spreading lies about the 96 Liverpool fans who died at Hillsborough. It is wonderful to see such corporate responsibility these days.
Whenever I have the chance, I will buy and recommend your products and services as my way of showing support for your company.
Thank you,

World Soccer Daily Shop
Jeff Stephens
JStephens@365-inc.com

Four Four Two Magazine
Ollie Stretton
Ollie.Stretton@haymarket.com

Who Are Ya Designs
Moki Williams
moki@whoareyadesigns.com

Sporting Glory
Michael Coyle
michael.coyle@lawdit.co.uk

Ruffneck Scarves
Jeff McIntyre
Ruffneck Scarves

Seattle Wolves FC
Alexander Caulfield
acaulfield@seattlewolvesfc.com

Heineken
Heineken Customer Relations
Heineken

I had hoped that by now we would be a lot clearer on the future of Xabi Alonso but things are still about as clear as mud and the whole situation still has me as confused as a hungry baby in a topless bar! Quite frankly I have become very tired with reading and writing about it and at this stage, regardless of the outcome, I just want to see an end to it and all of our focus to be totally on the season ahead. I’m not sure where Alonso’s heart and mind is at the moment but I’m a little disappointed that he has avoided nailing his colours to the wall so far and chosen instead to keep his options open, which has allowed this endless press speculation about his future to run and run. We all love Xabi and I think it’s fair to say that we would see him as a good honest pro, but I think it’s also fair to say that he is beginning to test our patience. If this thing can be sorted out in the short term it will be great for all concerned but if things continue to drag on and he waits for another couple of weeks to suddenly come out and tell us how much he loves the club and never wants to leave, I think some of our supporters will find it a little hard to take, I know I would! On the plus side, I’m delighted that we have Rafa Benitez in our corner. If Alonso stays with us I’m certain the boss will get his mind right for the season ahead but if he is to leave then I’m equally certain the boss will ensure we receive the maximum price for his services. Real Madrid have managed to screw us in the past and it must be very upsetting for them to be no longer dealing with the moronic Rick Parry who would all too easily cave in to their demands. No, this time they are dealing with a man who is not afraid to call their bluff and if we are forced into to selling the family jewels he will ensure that they pay through the nose. While the Alonso situation continues to overshadow everything else that’s happening at the club at the moment, at least as far as the press is concerned, I’ve actually been far more interested in following the progress of our team in the couple of pre-season games we’ve had so far. The results of these glorified training sessions really aren’t important but it’s just good to see the players, particularly the young ones, getting a run-out and building their fitness. As is to be expected at this stage the performances haven’t been great so far but these will gradually improve so that hopefully we will be in the peak of condition for our opening game of the season at Spurs. One thing I’ve noticed recently is that just as the team have begun their pre-season, my mind has also started to go into pre-season mode. Over the summer we’ve only really had all of the usual speculation to mull over but now that the lads are back in training I find that my mind is now turning to the more practical questions about the team as we head into the new campaign. There are many such questions of varying degrees of importance buzzing around in my head at the moment and they cover every area of the team. In fact there is probably enough material for a dozen blogs but there are five such riddles that have been on my mind recently and I thought I’d start off our Kopblog pre-season by throwing them in the meat grinder. Benny Onion: He may seem a bit lightweight and there may even be more meat on a butcher’s pencil than there is on our Yossi, but he is a great player. What he may lack in terms of stature, he more than makes up for with his silky play and his very impressive game intelligence. The guy was super for us in the latter half of last season and there are often times when he reminds of Peter Beardsley. To my opinion he definitely deserves a place in our first eleven but the problem I always have with him is trying to figure out where he should play in our current set-up? He is the gypsy of our team, capable of playing anywhere across the midfield or attack but as yet he doesn’t have a set position that he can call his own. His versatility means he will always get plenty of games and perhaps he is just destined to be the guy who always fills in for others but if he can continue the form he showed at the end of last season, he will be a big asset to us in the campaign ahead. Riera: I think the best description of his debut season is Jekyll and Hyde. When he first arrived I thought it was terrific the way he slotted straight into the side and provided us with a lot of extra width on the left. However, in the second half of the season he faded badly and some of his performances were actually quite annoying at times. The question is which one was the real Riera? Perhaps it was just a case of him joining us late and without the benefit of a full pre-season, the rigours of the Premiership eventually caught up with him and he will hopefully be better prepared this time. Maybe his poor finish to the season is still too fresh in my mind but I have my doubts about him and wonder if he can give us the consistency we will need in the next campaign. Voronin: He returns to us after a fairly successful loan spell in Germany and Rafa has been talking him up a bit lately, which is to be expected, but the truth is if he were really much good he wouldn’t have been sent out on loan in the first place. The guy shows some good touches at times and seems to have a bit of a footballing brain but I just don’t rate him as a top level player and I don’t think he has the quality to be in our team, in fact the last time I seen him he looked about as much use as a milk bucket under a bull’s bollocks! However, this time last year I said pretty much the same thing about Arbeloa, minus the milk bucket bit, and he proved me wrong so hopefully Voronin will do the same. Let’s face it at the moment it doesn’t look like we have the funds to bring in anybody else so I think we are just going to have to make do with what we’ve got and hopefully Voronin or maybe one or two of our younger players can emerge and make a worthwhile contribution to our attack. Lucas: He’s another player I have had my doubts about but he endured a tough time last season and I admire the character he showed to come through it and he put in some decent performances at the latter end of last season. One way or another I think this could well be a make or break season for the young Brazilian. So far I think he has pretty much demonstrated that he can be a competent and tidy player in our midfield when we need him but if he is to really make it at Liverpool he is going to have to do more than that. Perhaps he has been instructed to do so by the boss, but up to now we have often seen him taking the safe option of a short pass to the likes of Alonso or Gerrard etc. Maybe I’m being a little harsh but I view that type of play as not just passing the ball but also passing the responsibility and I think Lucas is now at the stage when he has to start taking on some of that responsibility himself. I think he has the capability and next season I would like to see a bit less of him just making up the numbers and a bit more of him taking control and making things happen, it’s time for him to step it up. Babel: I’ve kept the best until last because I think Babel is the ultimate enigma. This guy has so much potential it’s untrue. He is the fastest player at the club, outstripping even Torres for pace in training. He also has plenty of skill, an eye for goal and his work rate has improved a lot over the last season or so. But while the lad has often proved very useful to us as an impact player from the bench, he has so far seemed incapable of imposing himself on a game for 90 minutes and we’ve seen little sign of him really developing enough pitch smarts to make the most of his talents. That said, I’m glad we are going to hang on to him for at least another season. There are a couple of reasons for this, firstly we paid a lot of money for him but what we really bought was his potential and as he hasn’t so far lived up to it so we would be unlikely to get back even half of what we paid. That and the fact that we have already put so much time into him may be good enough reasons by themselves why we may as well soldier on with him a bit longer. But the main reason why I am happy we are hanging on to him is that if, and I know it’s a bloody big if at this stage, Rafa and Co can find the key to Flyin Ryan he would really be a huge asset to add to what we already have. I know that maybe I’m being blinded by the player he could be rather than the player he is and I accept the fact that sometimes you’ve just got to cut your losses, but I just think this kid could really be a star player one day and I would hate to see him come to fruition somewhere else after we’ve done all the groundwork. Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that he is now very firmly in the last chance saloon and this will be his final opportunity to really deliver on his potential in a Liverpool shirt. I hope for his and our sakes we see a significant improvement from him this season and perhaps the lure of next year’s World Cup finals may provide him with that extra bit of incentive to deliver. No doubt the season ahead will give us some answers about these and the rest of the players in our squad and it will also provide us with the answer to the ultimate question that’s gnawing away in all of our minds. For too many years we’ve have gone into each season with the big question in our minds being, is our team good enough to be Champions? Now for the first time in about 20 years I think we can go into a season already knowing beyond doubt that our team is now good enough to be Champions but the big question now becomes, can they prove it?

Well I just don’t know what to make out of the situation with Xabi Alonso, is he coming or going? The whole thing has got me as confused as a blind lesbian in a fish market. One day he seems almost certain to be on his way out of Anfield after supposedly telling the boss that he wants to leave, and the next day he seems certain to stay with us after Real have supposedly given up on trying to sign him. I don’t know what to believe at the moment but I do know that I’ve got a great big pain in my arse with this ongoing saga. If Xabi does leave it will be a major disappointment but we’ve had plenty of those over the years and as ever we’ll get over it. No matter which way this thing goes, I just hope it gets sorted out as quickly as possible so we can focus on our preparations for next season. A few words from the man himself wouldn’t go amiss and hopefully we’ll hear something from him when he joins up with the squad this weekend, if not before. There’s no doubt losing Alonso would be a blow, he is one of our best players and would be very difficult if not impossible to replace but if he’s made up his mind to leave then it’s best to let him go and try to salvage something by getting the best possible price for him. To be totally honest, I’d be more than a little pissed off if he left us at a time when we finally seem to be on the verge of achieving things, but he’s a player I’ve developed a lot of respect for over the last five years so no matter what happens I certainly won’t be throwing any flak in his direction. However, it is annoying to see the media vultures using this situation as yet another stick to beat up on Rafa Benitez. During his time at Anfield we have regularly seen him being criticised in the press for his tactics, team selections, transfers, conduct on the bench, arrogance etc, etc, etc. Rarely if ever do we see the likes of Alex Fergiescum subjected to such constant critical analysis but it seems to be open season when it comes to our boss and anything goes. Now it appears that they are blaming his poor man-management skills as one of the main reasons why we may lose Alonso and just like much of the other crap they write, that is complete and utter bollocks! This is typical lazy journalism based largely on the fact that Xabi was nearly sold to Juventus last summer and to read some of the reports you would think Rafa had tried to drag him away at gunpoint. But this is clearly ridiculous and you only have to look around at what’s happening in the transfer market at the moment to see why. In the modern game the powers of the players and their agents seem to be increasing all the time, while the powers of managers and clubs seem to be diminishing. It makes me laugh when a player signs a new contract at a club and it gets greeted with headlines about them “committing” themselves to the club for the next 4 years or whatever. Contracts mean very little these days and regardless of their length it appears that players can walk away pretty much whenever they choose, and often do. Alternatively they can also sit on their arses, run down their contracts and refuse to move on even when it’s clear they are not in the manager’s plans, as we seen recently with Peanut. So my point is that had Alonso moved to Juve last summer, the player and his agent would have been very much involved in making it happen and he wouldn’t have been forced to go anywhere he didn’t want to. Besides this if Xabi was feeling so unsettled about what went on last summer, as the press claim, then it’s strange that he went on to have his best ever season for us and as recently as just before the Confetti Cup he was saying how very happy he was at Liverpool. So all I’m saying is that if Alonso does end up moving on to Real Madrid there is no way any blame should be placed at Rafa’s door. I don’t think the boss can do any more to keep the player then he’s already done. Time and again he has publicly stated that Alonso is an important player for us and he is not for sale, the club even released an official hands-off statement and let’s not forget the player still has three years remaining on a fat contract. These are hardly the actions of a manager trying to supposedly force a player out of a club, as some media morons claim. The reason why the boss has placed such a large price on the players head is simply because he doesn’t want to sell him but if he is forced into it, he wants to ensure that the club is amply compensated and has enough funds to bring in a couple of quality replacements. My intention here is to counter some of the crap that’s been in the press recently and I’m not trying to have a go at Xabi, but it has to be said that if he does move to Madrid it will be down to the efforts of him and his agent not Rafa Benitez. Anyway, like just about every other Reds fan I know, I’m just totally pissed off with all of this crap and I just want to see it sorted out as quickly as possible. Thankfully we’ve got a little game against St Gallen tonight and even though it’s a pretty meaningless friendly, I’m looking forward to seeing a little action. This is a very small first step in what will hopefully be a very memorable season for us and it will be particularly interesting to see Glen Johnson in action for us for the first time and some of the younger players getting a run out. Apparently Rafa intends to give all of the 24 players he has available, some time on the pitch. According to the official site our starting eleven will be Cavalieri, San Jose, Degen, Insua, Carragher, Spearing, Gerrard, El Zhar, Babel, Voronin, Nemeth and in the second half we can expect to see the likes of Martin, Darby, Skrtel, Johnson, Kelly, Plessis, Pacheco, Benayoun, Lucas, Ngog, Gulacsi, Ayala and Kuyt. The LFC TV station is available free for the next couple of weeks or so and they are showing a delayed transmission of the game at 9pm in this part of the world. So I’ll be having some of that and I’ve got some ice cold Stella waiting in the fridge, life is good! I don’t care too much about the result but just give me a few goals for The Reds and no injuries, and I’ll be as happy as a pig in shit!

Nice to see most of our players back in training again and it’s hard to believe that in just over a week’s time we will have our first pre-season game and can finally get back to some real football talk instead of just endlessly speculating about speculation. I look forward to these pre-season games not only because they give us a chance to see how the team is shaping up ahead of the new campaign but also because they give us a rare chance to see some of our young prospects getting a run-out in the first team. Our youth system is very important to our future and it’s got to start delivering some talent through to the first team squad. Rafa has already splashed out the majority of his transfer budget on Glen Johnson and, assuming we have no high profile departures and if he can get them at the right price, he may bring in one or two more new faces on the cheap. That’s about it really and finance-wise this is likely to be the level of transfer spending we can expect for the foreseeable future, which is why I think it is vital that we start producing a few players of our own. Despite the tightness of the clubs finances, a lot of money has been spent in recent years on bringing in promising youngsters and developing The Academy, but up to last season it had delivered very little. Last term Insua did a great job establishing himself as a first team player and El Zhar made 22 appearances in the first team and looks a useful member of the squad, but that has been the exception rather than the rule. Between that and Gerrard making his debut about a decade ago, you could count the amount of genuine first team players who have come through our youth system on the fingers of one finger. Unless I’m overlooking someone, Stephen Warnock is the only one that springs to my mind and he’s now at Blackburn. Other good prospects have gone through our system but haven’t made the grade and for the most part have gone on to make careers for themselves in the lower divisions. Clearly this ratio must be improved upon going forward and this is why I think Rafa is now taking a more hands-on approach. For the last 2 or 3 years he’s had his scouts identifying and recruiting some of the finest young talent from around the world because you just can’t produce anything if you haven’t got the right raw material, and that appears to have been stage one of his plan. Stage two came this summer when the powers he gained from his recent contract negotiations allowed him to undertake a major cull of the background staff, many of whom were involved with the youth set-up. It’s never easy saying goodbye to staff that have given the club years of service but at the end of the day football is a results business, and results in this area haven’t been good enough so tough decisions had to be made. It’s all well and good winning FA Youth Cups and the like, but the youth system exists to produce players for the first team squad and for whatever reason this just hasn’t been happening at an acceptable level and changes needed to be made. Stage three is now well underway with Rafa recruiting a new set of coaching staff to oversee the development of what we all hope will be our stars of the future. The icing on the cake of this recruitment drive has of course been the return of King Kenny. I can’t tell you how delighted I was to see this absolute Legend back at the club. He is without doubt my all-time hero who I had the privilege of seeing play many times and for me he was our greatest ever player, followed by Barnes and StevieG making his way into my top three and closing fast! But Dalglish isn’t just back to make up the numbers, he has been given an important role at the club and part of that role is to oversee the youth system, which just shows how seriously the development of these young players is been taken. Yet again I think you’ve got to give huge credit to the boss for some great work in this area that could potentially benefit us for many years to come. As for our current crop, I try to watch our reserves play whenever I get the chance and there’s no doubt we’ve got a talented group of young players at the moment. Players like Pacheco, Nemeth, Spearing, Darby, San Jose among at least half a dozen others, all look very promising but are now getting near to that critical stage where they will need to deliver on that promise. The odds are most of them probably won’t make it as Liverpool players but given the right guidance there’s a chance some of them might. If our system could produce an average of just one player a season good enough to play an active part in the first team squad it would be a very worthwhile endeavour that could potentially save us millions. So it will be very interesting to see in the coming seasons if Rafa’s hands-on approach and this new restructure of the coaching staff delivers better results than the regime that proceeded it. But in other matters it has been another former graduate of our youth system who has been making all the news recently. I think it’s fair to say Michael Owing has well and truly burned his bridges with any Liverpool supporters who might still have had any affection left for him, now that he has committed the ultimate treason by signing for the mancs. While I will admit that seeing the puke inducing pictures of his smiling face as he posed in their shirt was a little bit surreal, to be honest I really couldn’t care less about him or the mancs. In fairness, Owen gave us 6 or 7 years of great service and his goal-scoring record for us speaks for itself but I lost all interest in him after the way he left us. Not only did he lead the fans on but he also led the club on as he ran down his contract and then flew off to join Real Madrid as soon as they fluttered their eyelashes at him, the fact that we were embarking on a new era under a new manager meant nothing to him. This guy has more faces than a second hand clock shop, the kind of guy who wears mirrored sunglasses with the mirrors on the inside! How his move to the mancs might be received by Liverpool supporters won’t have even entered his thinking. Apparently he had a choice between joining the mancs and joining Hull City, which shouldn’t have been any choice at all. One club tries to play good football with honesty and integrity in the finest traditions of the game, the other one plays at Old Trafford! I would normally genuinely wish any of our former players well when they move on to other clubs, but certainly not in this case. He may have once been a Liverpool player but he is now a manc and I despise everything about that club at a genetic level. Since leaving Liverpool, Owen’s career choices have been one disaster after another and I’ll be very happy if this one turns out the same way. I have little sympathy for the guy because Owen has only ever cared about Owen and seemed to view supporters as a necessary nuisance. Even at Newcastle he was initially welcomed him like a new messiah by the Loony Toons, but he had little interest in living up to their expectations. On the rare occasions when he was actually fit enough, he would fly into training by helicopter and fly off again as soon as it was over with no interest in mixing with his team mates or supporters. At Liverpool he scored a lot of goals and gave us some great memories, but he was always a cold fish who often seemed to treat playing for Liverpool as a stepping stone to playing for England and despite his goals and his ability he never really bonded with The Kop. When you think about it, he was a product of our youth system who went on to become one of the best strikers in the world at one time, so all of the ingredients were there and if he had, had the right mentality he might well have gone on to be one of our greatest ever players. But Owen was always far more interested in becoming the next Bobby Charlton then he was in becoming the next Kenny Dalglish, so maybe it’s appropriate the he is now with the mancs!

As a Liverpool fan, it’s been more years than I care to remember since I’ve had so much enjoyment watching our team than I had during the latter part of last season. In the final quarter of the season we pushed the mancs all the way in the league with a great run of consistently impressive performances containing lot’s of exciting attacking play, plenty of goals and terrific football by our players. Some of the football we played was at times as good as I’ve ever seen by a Liverpool team. Although we finished the season without any silverware I’m feeling very positive about the future and I’m looking forward to seeing what moves, both ins and outs, Rafa will make in the transfer market to strengthen us for the next campaign. So, at least as far as the playing side of things are concerned, I’m feeling pretty damn good about our prospects at the moment. That said, for football supporters there is no such thing as perfection and like every other Reds fan, I can always find things to moan and worry about. During the close season this is particularly evident because with little to occupy us but transfer speculation we have too much time on our hands to mull over things and it’s amazing how quickly any little seeds of doubt we may have can take root and grow into great big acorns. That’s the situation I find myself in currently. I had this little concern niggling away at the back of my mind towards the end of last season but I was enjoying the football too much to give it much attention and now that I don’t have any games to keep me occupied, it’s bugging the shit out of me! However, thankfully I’ve got Kopblog to keep my sanity intact so I thought I’d throw it out there and get the opinions of the many geniuses on this site. Let me start by simply saying that I think Rafa Benitez is brilliant. I am not qualified to judge whether he is the best manager in the world but I think I am somewhat qualified in judging him to be by far the best man to manage Liverpool Football Club. He seems to be a perfect fit for our club and I have total respect for him both as a manager and as a person. For example yesterday I read these words from him; “When I decided to sign a new contract I did it because Liverpool Football Club is more than a club. “It is the heart of the city. It is our life and for the people here it means so much. I thought I had to sign. We have to fight, we have to do it. “Every single year, every single week and every single day when you talk with a fan he is supporting you and supporting the team. “You can see the passion and it makes a massive difference. “Our fans are amazing and when I talk with people in Spain they all say the same. We will see it again when we go to Asia in pre-season. “I receive a lot of letters from people talking about the club. And as I said before this is more than a club.” I mean how can you hear words such as this and not feel so damn proud that he’s our boss? Anyway, I wanted to start by clarifying my position in regards to the gaffer in case anyone might misinterpret what I’m saying in the rest of this blog. There are some people who can be quite sensitive about any hint of criticism directed towards the boss, just as there are some people for whom it seems that he will never be able to do anything right. But in either case I’m not about to go Rafa-bashing, I’m merely expressing an opinion about a slight concern I have about next season. So I think I’ve made it pretty clear that as far as I’m concerned Rafa is a great boss but unlike some people I don’t expect him to be perfect. There have been times in the past and no doubt there will be more in the future when he will occasionally make a mistake or a bad decision etc. Thankfully these have proven to be rare occurrences but they are bound to happen from time to time and I’ve no problem with that, it’s human nature. In many past blogs I have gone over what I deem to be the pro’s and con’s of our manager, and don’t worry I’m not about to go through them all again, but on each occasion I have consistently stated that I considered his biggest weakness to be that he can sometimes be a little too cautious in his approach at times. Now I realise that may seem a little bit laughable given the way we finished the season, but bear with me. When we look back over last season at the games that possibly cost us the title I think the most obvious ones for us to pick out would be the ones against the likes of Stoke and Hull etc. And while it’s true that we should certainly have beaten those sides, we didn’t actually do a lot wrong in any of those games. In each of them we dominated possession, created lots of chances and had enough shots to start a war. We were perhaps a little unlucky not to have taken all of the points in those encounters but while they may be the obvious place for us to start looking at where we dropped some all-important points, they were not the only games that proved costly to us in the end. Which brings me back to that little concern of mine. The games against the likes of Hull and Stoke were indeed maddening and we certainly well deserved to have won them but at least we had a little consolation in the fact that our players had given it absolutely everything and we had done just about all we could to get the points, all that was missing was just a little bit of luck in front of goal. However while those games were indeed costly the two games that I found the most frustrating of our season were our away trips to Villa and Arsenal in the first half of the season. At Villa we drew 0-0 but in the last 15 minutes or so they were there for the taking. At that stage they seemed to have settled for a point. They were showing little appetite to attack and were dropping deeper and deeper trying to hang on. Basically we had them on the rack but then we seemed to take our foot of the pedal and let them off the hook. We cruised to the final whistle and picked up our point but I was disappointed because I felt had we continued to press them would might very well have taken home all three. I was also disappointed with the outcome of our game at the Emigrants just before Christmas. That game is probably best remembered for Robbie Keane’s superb equaliser for us just before half-time but I remember it more for the fact that the Gooners were reduced to ten men when Adebayor was sent off with 30 minutes to go and we just never took advantage of the situation. Again we seemed to sit back content to take a point and despite the fact that they were down a man, it was Arsenal who continued to do most of the attacking. Those were two games that annoyed me so much because I felt we could have done more and had we been a little less cautious and a bit more adventurous there’s a very good chance we would have won them both, and had we done so then even allowing for our slip-ups against the likes of Stoke we would now be Champions. It may be a good idea in certain games to keep things tight and make sure you take home at least a point, but you’ve got to judge each game on its own merits and if in the course of a match an opportunity presents itself where a slight adjustment of tactics or focus might improve your chances of taking three points, you’ve got to go for it because that might just be the difference between being champions and being runners-up. I’m pretty certain that if we had played those games in the same manner and mindset that we displayed in the final quarter of the season we would have taken all the points, and therein lays my little mental dilemma. As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I thought we played some great football at the back end of last season but we played this football when we had little left to lose. We knew that draws or defeats were not an option and we had to win every game to keep our title challenge alive. So Rafa loosened the shackles and sent the team out focused on attacking the opposition, which was for the most part a successful tactic and terrific to watch. But the questions buzzing around in my mind is what happens when next season gets underway? Will we continue from where we left off at the end of last season , or will revert back to the more cautious but steady approach we showed at the start? I wonder to myself if is Rafa a leopard who will be unable to change his spots and if that’s the case can we be ultimately successful playing a bit more cautiously? Or did he see enough in the latter end of last season to convince himself that a more attack-minded approach might now be the way for us to go, and if so can that approach be successful for us over the course of a full season? I suppose these are typical of the type of questions that run through the mind of a fan with no football to watch and too much time on his hands. Perhaps the signings Rafa makes will give us a good indication of the direction he wants to take us but obviously I would prefer us to continue in the attacking mode we displayed so brilliantly at the end of the last campaign. In football the only thing you can be certain of is that there are no certainties but it is usually the case that fortune favours the brave. If we started next season in the same frame of mind in which we finished the last, with draws like defeats not being considered as options, we may run the risk of losing one or two more games but I’m pretty sure we would draw less, win more and ultimately be a lot better off. But it’s always easy to shout such things from the sidelines. As ever Rafa will take a more pragmatic approach and I will support whatever he decides because I trust his judgement, even if I do reserve the right to have a little moan about it from time to time. On a final note, I mentioned the Hicks and Gillett situation briefly at the end of the last blog and even though I see that there has been a lot of discussion about in the comments section, I am still only going to give them a brief footnote at the end of this one. If you look up the word scumbag in the dictionary, the chances are you’ll see a picture of Tom Hicks. This guy is such a toe-rag that I heard when he was a kid his mother tried to hire someone to take care of him, but the mafia wanted too much! And as for George Gillett, the only good thing I can say about him is that as he’s the shorter of the two there’s a little less for us to despise, but in fairness he only lies when his lips move! There’s a lot of positives for us to focus on with our team at the moment and I’m not going to waste my time on those two clowns. Basically the fact that the interest payments on their loans has put the club over half a Kaka in debt and they pose a very real danger to the future of our club, shouldn’t really be news to anybody at this stage. There are certain groups attempting to do what they can to oppose them and whether or not you chose to support them is up to you, I’ve no more to say on the matter. Keep the Faith

 Steven Gerard

Born in Whiston, Merseyside, Gerrard started out playing for hometown team Whiston Juniors, where he was noticed by Liverpool scouts. He joined the Reds' youth academy at the age of nine.Gerrard then had trials with various clubs at fourteen, but success wasn't immediate - Gerrard never made it into the England Schoolboys team. Gerrard's trials included Manchester United, which he claimed in his 2006 autobiography was "to pressure Liverpool into giving me a YTS contract.". He signed his first professional contract with Liverpool on 5 November 1997.

Gerrard made his Liverpool first-team debut on 29 November 1998 in a match against Blackburn Rovers as a last minute substitute for Vegard Heggem. He made thirteen appearances in his debut season, filling in the midfield position for injured captain Jamie Redknapp and playing on the right wing, but he scarcely contributed in the short on-pitch time he received, due to nervousness affecting his play. Gerrard recalled in a November 2008 interview with The Guardian, "I was out of position and out of my depth." The Liverpool hierarchy nonetheless remained convinced that he would improve. Gerrard saw himself as a defensive player primarily, looking to make key tackles rather than push the team forward.

Gerrard partnered Redknapp in central midfield for the 1999–00 season. After starting the derby match against Everton F.C. on the bench, he replaced Robbie Fowler in the second half but received his first career red card for a late foul on Everton's Kevin Campbell. Later that season, Gerrard scored his first senior goal in a 4–1 victory over Sheffield Wednesday. However, he began to suffer from nagging back problems, which sports consultant Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt later diagnosed as a result of accelerated growth, coupled with excessive playing, during his teenage years. He was then beset by groin injuries that required four separate operations.

In 2000–01, he made fifty starts in all competitions and scored ten goals as Liverpool won the League Cup, FA Cup, and the 2001 UEFA Cup. Gerrard replaced Sami Hyypiä as Liverpool captain in October 2003, as manager Gérard Houllier said that he recognised Gerrard had demonstrated leadership qualities early on, but needed to mature. He chose to extend his contract at the club, signing a new four-year deal.

Houllier quit after a trophyless 2003–04 campaign, and Gerrard was linked with a move to Chelsea F.C. during the offseason. He admitted he was not "happy with the progress [Liverpool] has made," and that "for the first time in my career I've thought about the possibility of moving on." In the end, Gerrard turned down a £20 million offer from Chelsea to stay with Liverpool and new coach

بسم الله الرحمان الرحيم. يوم الجمعة وأنا أشاهد برنامج رصد الدوري الإنجليزي على قناة showsport1 لفت انتباهي قول أحد المحللين الرياضيين "علي الزين" خلال كلامه عن دوري أبطال أروبا حين قال "خلاص نصف النهائي حسم بين تشلسي والبارصا" وكأن التأهل يحسم في لقاء الذهاب و الذي جعلني استعظم قوله هو أن السيد "علي الزين" دائما ما يشهر أنه من أنصار ليفربول لكن وبعد كل نكسة "تعادل أو هزيمة" يشهر سكينه ويبدأ بالطعن في المدرب تارة و أخرى في المسيرين، لكن أنا ومنذ مدة أتابع ليفربول وقد زاد اهتمامي منذ أتى " رافاييل بنيتيز" للعارصة الفنية ألاحظ أن هذا الفريق قد تغير جذريا مقارنة بالفريق الذي كان يدربه "جيرارد أوييه" وأصبح آداء الريدز أكثر إمتاعا و تنظيما و تميزا. لكن نحن و بالعقلية العربية الإنهزامية لابد وبعد كل نكسة أن نصب جام غصبنا على أشخاص معينين ربما لعداء شخصي بيننا "شخصي لا أقصده مشاجرة ولكن ربما كره عن بعد". إذا تكلمنا عن هزيمة ليفربول أمام تشلسي في دوري أبطال أروبا فالهزيمة كانت حتمية لغياب ماسكيرانو وعدم قدرة لوكاس على القيام بدوره في خلافة ماسكيرانو.النتيجة كانت لصالح الفريق الذي عرف كيف يستغل الوضع، لكن هل يجب نحن كمشجعين أن نرفع الرايات البيضاء؟هل نعلن الإستسلام؟ أنا أسأل الأخ "علي الزين" الذي أحبه كثيرا هل بكلامه هذا كان علي المشجع أم علي الصحفي المحلل؟ إذا كان المشجع فأنا أقول له من يشجع ليفربول لا يمكن أن يكون حياديا أو منطقيا. من منا كان يتوقع فوز الريدز على الميلان عام 2005؟ من منا كان يتوقع فوز الريدز على مانشستر 4-1؟لا أحد من منا كان يتوقع هزيمة الريدز من تشيلسي؟لا أحد. من منا يتوقع انتزاع الريدز تأشيرة التأهل في ملعب تشيلسي؟ أنا أتوقع ذلك وبقوة،لوأن المباراة انتهت بالتعادل أو فوز الريدز بفارق هدف لكنت أكثر المتشائمين لكن،و أن النتيجة كانت 1-3 فهذا يعني أنا على الريدز إظهار كل ما لديهم للعودة من تشلسي بالتأهل و هو ما سيحدث أو ما أتمنى أن يحدث. في بداية الموسم سئـــــل معظم لاعبي ليفربول عن ماذا ينوون تحقيقه هذا الموسم فكانت إجابة كل من سؤل الEPL لكن رابطة الأبطال لها نكهتها الخاصة. أنا أتمنــــى أن يقرأ "علي الزين" مقالي هذا و أن يعلم أنـه لا حياد عندما تكــــــون مشجعا لفريق اسمه لـــــــــــــيــــفــــربـــــــول.و ال خوف عـــلى اللــــيفر مادام هناك مدربا اسمه"RAFAEL BENITEZ""رافايـــيل بنـــيتــــيز". و السلام عليكم. أبق ثقتك في الليفر. Norine1977.

Dear oh dear, the chavs beat us so badly on Wednesday that even I’ve got bruises! In fairness they played great, probably the best I’ve ever seen them play and they deserved the win but that said, I don’t think we did ourselves any favours with our display. Considering how well we’ve played in recent games and the confidence we appeared to have going into this one, our performance left me as baffled as Adam on Mother’s Day! Everything seemed to be going well for us initially as we pushed forward with a purpose and got the early breakthrough after some great build-up play was finished off superbly by Torres. As we look back at the game now in hindsight it appears that our problem may have been that we scored too early. Once we got the lead we sat back a little with the intention presumably to soak up some of their pressure and pick them off on the counter. That seemed to be a pretty good tactic and we did manage to create another couple of half-chances that might have allowed us to extend our lead. The problem was that we weren’t defending well. They were getting at our defence too easily and had a few good chances to score even before they got the equaliser. They looked dangerous everytime they came forward and seemed to grow in confidence where as we began to look more and more nervy and unsure, particularly in defence. You could see their equaliser coming long before our poorly defended corner handed it to them and I was relieved to hear the half-time whistle. I was hoping the break might give us a chance to sort ourselves out for the second half and we did start the half more brightly but it wasn’t long before more sloppiness at the back allowed them to score a second and then a third, in fact we were very lucky that they didn’t score more. With plenty of time on the clock and shooting into The Kop, you hoped that we might rally ourselves and score at least one goal to improve our faint chances in the second leg but too many heads had dropped in our team and we were well beaten long before the final whistle. Losing to the chavs was bad enough but I thought the manner of our performance on the night was the most disappointing thing of all and I’m sure the manager feels the same way. Even when results haven’t gone well for us in the past, I have always been impressed by the grit and determination of our side but we saw little of that character on Wednesday. We had so many passengers in our team on the night that I thought we had done a sponsorship deal with British Rail! Riera has played very well recently but was very poor on the night and did little to trouble their makeshift right-back. Aurelio was also below par and error-prone as was a lot of our defensive play, in fact at times it seemed that we were employing our famous doughnut defence, the one with the big hole in the middle! As he has taken a lot of unfair stick this season I’d like to be kinder to Lucas and the truth is he wasn’t our worst player on the night but I was nervous every time he got the ball and I just thought he looked a little out of his depth and we really badly missed Mascherano. Even Gerrard by his own brilliant standards was virtually anonymous although we now know he was carrying an injury. Of the rest I thought Pepe did well, Alonso did his best as did Arbeloa and Torres did well in the first half but had little to work with in the second. The problem for us now is that we have to somehow get this result and performance out of our system and get back on track against Blackburn at Anfield tomorrow. The defeat against the chavs was bad enough but if we slip up in this game as well it will only make a bad situation infinitely worse. In the circumstances, Carra has called this the most important league game in his career and its easy see to why. While the odds are still well and truly with the mancs in terms of the Premiership this is still the best chance we’ve had since our league drought began and certainly the best in Carra’s career. A win will put us back on top with 6 games to go for at least a couple hours depending on how the mancs get on at Sunderland but a defeat would be a disaster. It won’t be easy because we know Fergiescum’s mate Allardyce will try to get his team to kick their way through us and will no doubt be sent a magnum of champagne from his buddy if they are successful. If we play anything like we can then we should have no trouble but if half of our team doesn’t turn up like the other night then we could have problems. I would normally think that the players wouldn’t need any motivation to go out and do their stuff in this one but I thought the same ahead of Wednesday’s game and that didn’t turn out too well. The other complication is Gerrard’s injury and whether he’ll be available, so Rafa has his work cut out to lift the players and mastermind a victory. As ever, I’m optimistic and I’ll predict a 3-1 victory for The Reds and hope that Sunderland can do something against the mancs. We also have another £20 voucher available for you to buy one or two of those great t-shirts from the good people at Soccerprint T-Shirts . So using the same format as last time, predict the time of the first goal, the score-line and the goalscorers and post it in the comments section to be in with a chance to win. Good luck everybody and a Happy Easter weekend to you all.