Thursday, 30 October 08, 08:02 PM

Thursday, 23 October 08, 08:35 PM

Monday, 29 September 08, 08:18 PM
Why are the blues so bitter? Given how easy the match was for us, the prematch comments from this chap look fairly stupid now. I can't remember a derby that was so one sided.Thursday, 18 September 08, 12:58 PM


Monday, 15 September 08, 09:48 AM

As it happened, Dirk did start, up front with Keane, and had a great match. True
he should have scored, definitely once, and maybe twice, but his movement and link up play were very good. He did really well to get his head up and pick out Babel for the winner. Despite the
fact that he can do a job on the right, he should be played up front. If he isn't going to get a game there then he should be on the bench and used as an impact sub.Thursday, 28 August 08, 09:02 PM
We don't like to do it the easy way, do we? That was too close for comfort. I thought that we'd batter them after the first leg where they were great. As it happened we were only
marginally better and they were marginally worse. Even though we had almost three quarters of the possession, we didn't do a whole lot with it. Babel did well when he came on and beat the right
full to put a far post into Kuyt who stuck it away. That's 9 goals in his last 15 champions league matches. Astounding record considering he was playing on the wing and his poor league record
last year. But it was all he did last night as he was terrible. He wasn't the only one. Most of the team was poor bar Pepe and the defence. Arbeloa wasn't great. Gerrard didn't look fit which
makes his sense given his groin op today. Honorable mention goes to El Zahr who looked lively when he came on. The ref somehow failed to give him a peno when he was taken down in the box. Between
that decision and the pen given against us which was a yard outside the box in the first leg, we didn't have great luck with the officials. But despite all that, we're through. Cheers Dirk.
Our Olympians will
return for the Villa match and we'll need them with Gerrard out for 2 weeks with a groin op. Here they are flanking scouse Olympic boxing medal winner David Price. I expect to see Javier slot in
beside Xabi for the trip to Villa Park. It's going to be a tough one, despite their shock defeat to Stoke last weekend. O'Neil will have them fired up against his number one Rafa. Young and
Agbonlahor can cause us problems with their pace. Carra at right back perhaps?Thursday, 14 August 08, 10:03 PM
0-0 last night and a terrible game. We were shit. Pepe was one of the few to take any credit out of the match by saving a peno. We
looked slow, sloppy and nervy. We can and will have to play much much better than that against Sunderland and in the second leg against Liege. This is Anfield continue their excellent Kop Star
series with a feature on Gerardo Bruna. The new Messi? Read it to find out but I'll give you a hint: probably
not. Reports in Germany suggest that we're after Dortmunds Polish right winger Jakub Blaszczykowski and we're going to bid €8m for him. I can't
say that I know much about him. Xabi played last night which surely means that he's staying now. Only a team outside the champions league would be interested in him now and there aren't too many
of those who could afford him. Looks like Barry deal is dead too. He played for Villa in the Uefa cup
tonight so I can't see him signing for us anytime before next summer. I reckon our business for the summer could be done as a result of this. The BBC give a run down of our new signings here. Will there be one more before the end of the window? There's been rumours of a Joe Cole bid this week. While I think he'd
be a good addition, I can't see a scenario where Chelsea would let him join us. As with most transfer stories in the summer, it's probably bullshit.Monday, 28 April 08, 09:53 PM

Wednesday, 23 April 08, 09:16 PM

As Unlucky Alf in the fast show would say, "oh bugger". What should have been 2-0 or 3-0 but was 1-0 became 1-1 with the last kick of the game. I'm sure Riise didn't mean it, but if only he had a right foot, he would have been able to lash
it clear rather than head it into his own net. If Aurelio hadn't got injured then we wouldn't have seen Riise at all. But the biggest if is if we had of taken one or two of our chances then it
wouldn't have mattered. If.
The guardian has Carra and Kuyt as the men of the match. It's hard to argue as they were both superb.
Kuyt battled away and used his power well, if his pace let him down a few times. He did very well to finish between Cech's legs. Skrtel was top quality too. Drogba was well marshaled between
the twin pillars of Jamie and Martin. Both Stevie and El Nino had better games but they still managed to make telling influences and either could have won the game. Cech did well to save and
I'm hoping that he's not in as imperious form next week. Both Babel and Xabi had very good second halves. Xabi was spreading the ball around like the Alonso of old and it was a joy to watch.
Babel had a lot of joy out of Fereira when he ran at him. Ryan had some bad news in his private life this week so it's a credit to the kid that he was able to keep his mind on the game.
I wasn't happy with the ref last night, and neither was Rafa. Loads of decisions, big and small, were going against us.
I don't understand how Terry stayed on the pitch. His kick on Torres's back as he law on the ground showed his Lionhearted spirit and courage. That's the man I'd want leading me if I were in
the trenches.
The off the field theatrics weren't the distraction that we had feared beforehand. Hicks was there. Prick. Just what we didn't need. Thankfully the Kop were sensible enough to ignore him and
get on with supporting the team. DIC in the form of Samir Al-Ansari, pictured here, were also sitting in the directors box, as guests of Gillett. I doubt that Hicks was impressed.
Brum away on Saturday seems like an irrelevance now. I would imagine that Rafa will rotate the shit out of the team and put the squad players and reserves out. I think that we'll see the same
team start at Stamford bridge, Aurelio apart, so we're unlikely to see many of them feature on Saturday. I'll try to muster the enthusiasm to write a post about the match sometime before the
Chelsea match.
Monday, 21 April 08, 08:59 PM
Sometimes second gear is all you need. It was all we needed against Fulham on
Saturday. If ever there was a championship team in waiting, Fulham is it. We were able to rest a god few of the first team and we still got a 2-0 win away from home. But the credit here has to go down to one man: Kasey Keller. I thought he was poor for both goals. Pennant
hit a nice strike from distance for the first but Keller could have saved it if he made an effort. Crouch managed to slip the second one between his legs which was nice. There were some notable
performers in Lucas, Pennant and the ever fantastic Mascherano, but there wasn't really a whole lot to write home about. You did get the impression that Rafa and some of the players had their
minds on other things, notably a date with Chelsea this tuesday.
If Fulham were the appetiser, then their west London rivals are the main course. Given that the first leg is at Anfield, we need to make it count. Chelsea have a superb record at the bridge so we wouldn't want to be heading there looking for a result. the fact that Essien is suspended for tomorrow is a boost as he's a fantastic player. It looks like Gerrard, Lampard and Drogba will all start. I expect Rafa to tell us to try and hit them early as we managed to do against Juve a few years back. We were in a similar situation against Inter and too a 2-0 lead into the second leg. It's going to be tough but the vibes coming out of Chelsea don't sound good which might improve our chances. I think that we'll sneak it by a goal but will have some tense moments. Expect it to be tactical, turgid and tense rather than thrilling like the Arsenal tie.
This is a terribly sad and moving story. Let's hope that Liam is able to see the banners unfurled on the Kop tomorrow.
The Liverpool Echo has a first hand account from a fan who survived Hillsbourgh. It's well worth a read for an insight from somebody who watched the tragedy unfold. The Guardian reprinted David Lacey's Hillsbourgh report from 1989.
This report from the daily mail could offer some insight into why it's all been kicking off in the boardroom. Oliver Kay analyses the Hicks spin in the Times. There is some interesting info about DIC in this article as there is here in the Independent. This story isn't going away anytime soon.
On Stamford Bridge has fallen down