4-0 and all's well. Goal number 1, a right footed half volley from a Kuyt cross. Goal 2 was a looped header over Green with Kuyt the provider again. Goal 3 was a close ranged effort coolly slotted past the keeper after Riise flicked the ball on. The boy done well. And to think, that he had a bug which caused him to miss training this week. Rafa said that he was unlikely to play. Gerrard wrapped it up with a strong run from midfield and a powerful finish to make it 4-0. Job done.

Babel did alright and had a few shots on target. But compared to the the Bolton match he was average. His touch let him down on a few occasions. Kuyt did well and got two assists. He may not be the long term solution for us on the right but can cross the ball with both feet and has done a good job there over the last half dozen games. Skrtel was great at the back alongside Carra. His pace and passing give us what we've been missing since Agger's injury. He made one superb run from defence where he beat a couple of players. I was hoping that he would take on the shot but he misplaced a pass to the right instead. I thought that it would be a copy of Agger's first goal for the club. A polished performance all around.

It's a slog on the tyne at the moment. Poor Kevin Keegen isn't proving to be the second coming so far. It's a great opportunity for us to put three points between us and Everton who are now in fourth. Newcastle still have some decent players but are thoroughly devoid of confidence at the minute. Let's hope that we can capitalise on it this Saturday afternoon.

The DIC/Gillett/Hicks saga drags on and on. DIC are in negotiations with Gillett to buy his half. I'm hoping that this will happen but there's no concrete news as yet. I'm sure that you're as bored with this as I am and want a solution asap.

Not a classic. While I didn't think it was as terrible as some have said in the media, it could be that my emotional involvement in the match makes me more exited than a neutral would be. I thought we played ok without being brilliant. We made a few chances and restricted Chelsea to very few. It was a much better performance that I had been expecting beforehand. With Torres out I didn't think we had a prayer of a draw. As it happened, I think we could have won it. But given that nobody has manager that at the bride in around 4 years, it's not that surprising that we weren't able to, in our blunted state.

Crouch had a few chances, especially a header and a shot after a good pass from Babel in the first half. Babel himself had a good match but looked fairly knackered in the second half. He always gets subbed but usually looks wrecked after around 60-70 mins. Maybe our fitness coaching isn't as good as it was since Pako left. Mascherano was great again. It was between him and teenage mutant ninja Sktrel for man of the match. I thought himself and Carra were superb at the back. The defence has sorted itself out again now after looking really dodgy for a while there. I fear for Carra once Agger returns. I'm writing him off just yet, but he's going to find it very hard to compete with Skrtel and Dagger. The young lads have pace and passing ability which he lacks.

It's the back to the magic/romance/cliches of the FAmous cup at the weekend. The mighty Barnsley are waiting in the long grass. Do football teams wait in the long grass or is that just a GAA thing? Torres may be fit but I doubt that he'll be risked. I would imagine that he'll be kept in reserve for Inter.

Another Finnish midfielder is on his way to Anfield. This chap is called Simon Scrabb and is only 13. He's highly rated and will make a few trips to Liverpool per year for now and will move over full time when he's older.

There was bad news in the form of an announcement from Barcelona that they are going to sign Garay from Santander. I thought that Rafa might make a move for him in the summer. Our loss is their gain. I think he's going to be a world class player.

I made my annual pilgrimage to Anfield on Saturday. It was absolutely freezing and I was with my dad so I didn't hang around for the protest afterwards. But I made sure not to spend any cash while I was inside. Better one DIC than two and all that.
Back to matters on the pitch. If I were Sven I would say "first half bad, second half better". Thankfully I'm not Sven and I still have my hair. But it was indeed a case of a poor 45 mins. We struggled to create a genuine chance. While we had the vast majority of possession, we didn't do much with it. But it was a win, three points, three goals and a much needed shot in the arm ahead of the Chelsea.

In the second half, Finnan came on for Aurelio who wasn't good at all. Even though Finnan was playing left back, he added a different dimension to our attacking play. But it was Carra, rampaging forward from the right back bearth who set up the first goal. He's played there in the past but not much since Rafa arrived. Rafa said that he wanted to have some good height at the back to counter Jones and co. It seemed to work as they didn't get too many headed chances.

Skrtel impressed me on his first league start. I know that he was a bit shaky in the cup but that was his first game in a few months since the Russian league needed. He looked a lot fitter and composed on Saturday. He looks to be quite fast and is a big lad. His passing was good but he did put a few astray in the second half. We've lacked good passers from defence so I'm hoping that he can help us in bringing the ball out of defence, like Agger does.

Lucas started on the left side of midfield, tucking in to support Javier and Gerrard. I think that Aurelio was supposed to provide the width, coming forward from fullback. But it didn't work for either player. Lucas has looked great in recent matches but looked out of place on Sat. We tried it, but it didn't work so I'm hoping that we don't see him there again. Yossi did well when he came on there in the second half.

Mascherano was superb yet again. I would go as far to say that he's been our best midfielder this season. He's a winner and a leader. If Gerrard or Carra aren't playing then he should be our captain. He's hoping to have a permanent deal sealed this week. I hope so too.
Crouch had a good match. He linked well with El Nino. He scored the first with a header and flicked on for Torres goal. He nearly scored with a scissors kick. I think that he did more than enough to warrant a start on Sunday. Torres did well with his finish. He now has 12 in the league. It would be great if he could get 20 for the season but he's done really well regardless. He wasn't at his best on Sat, or in recent games for that matter. But he still was sharp enough to take on his man and beat the keeper. Pennant had a decent match and put the left back under pressure. Gerrard struck a peno for the third to wrap it up. Could have been more but 3-0 is acceptable given how badly we've been doing recently.

Keane was pissed off with Rob Styles and felt they should have had a peno with the scores are 2-0. Style robbed us of 2 points against Chelsea earlier in the season with an imaginary penalty so maybe Keane has a point and Styles was trying to even things up. Rafa, unlike Keane, was happy with the result. Boss.

We face a daunting trip to Stamford Bridge this weekend. Finnan says he's ready. Chelsea haven't lost at home since Ranieri was the manager. The fact that Lampard, Drogba, Terry and Essien are out or away is good news. Given that, we should be able to get something from this but we're not in great form so I reckon the best we can get is a draw. I fear Joe Cole and his fluky deflected goals. They got the rub of the green with their Ref invented goal earlier in the season. Maybe we are due some of that back. I would gladly take an imaginary peno if it gave us the three points.

Lucas and co visit Dublin this week to play in Croker. I would have liked to have gone to this one but my bank manager advised against it what with my visit to Anfield for the Sunderland match last weekend and a trip to Paris for the Rugby this weekend. Two sporting trips per week is my limit now.

There was a hint of some good news on the investment front over the weekend. The Echo had a story saying that DIC could join up with Gillett to buy out Hicks. Wait and see. I don't expect anything to happen soon with this.

Let's give Chelsea the blues.

While the media might have us believe that the greatest upset of all time was close yesterday, I don't know if the result was ever really in doubt. I heard some of the match on the radio and saw highlights today. While they gave us problems in the first half, I think that we were always going to crush them in the end, and rightly so considering our relative positions. But fair play to them for putting it up to us for 45 mins. Some of the fringe players who had a chance to impress didn't do themselves many favours which is a bit disappointing. Lucas had a good match form what I saw and scored a cracking goal. If Momo does move, I hope and expect to see him play a bit more. He looks to have a good future ahead of him. Yossi got his second hat trick of the season. He seems to be filling the Garcia role of drifting inside and scoring. I don't know if he'll ever be a nailed on starter but he's a very useful player to have in the squad. Always good to see Crouch score, even if it was offside. Pennant put in some nice crosses from the right but Crouch and later Kuyt didn't really make the most of them. Skrtel made his first start and had a nervous first half but made some nice passes and improved in the second. You can read a full match report form Dave Usher of TLW here.


After the distraction of the cup it's back to the "bread and butter" of the league. The cheeky chappies, the 'appy 'ammers are our opponents on Wednesday night. It's clear that we're in shit form at the moment and it's not the easiest ground to travel to. Given that, I wouldn't be surprised to see us draw yet again. Our away form has been better than our home form so maybe we can break our drawing streak but I wouldn't bet against the points being shared.

Tom Hicks was on the excellent BBC Sportsweek programme on radio 5 live. He was saying that the club and his shares aren't for sale. Gillett is notable from his absence this week when the announcement about the refinancing deal and the 71000 seater stadium. The Daily Telegraph reckon that the DIC deal is still on the cards. Duncan Castles in the Obeserver has similar observations about the lads from Dubai. Christ Bascombe in the NOTW says that Parry and Moores could be in danger of being removed from the board by the Americans. Foster Gillett has cleared his desk and left Liverpool to return to the states which may be significant. Some of the reports during the week said that Mascherano would now be signed to show the faith that Hicks has in Rafa. Pablo Aimar was also linked in some papers. AImar is a genius and one of my favourite players but he's 28 now and has been injured a bit in the last few years. He's currently out for the next two months so I'd say that this link is just press speculation.

I'm going to Anfield next weekend for the Sunderland match and I don't have any tickets as yet. I know it's a long shot but if anybody reading this has two spares, I'm more than happy to take them off your hands. Any help greatly appreciated.

I hate Boro. They are a sad, small time club who play stupid music when their team (occasionally) score. This makes it even more galling when they manage to hold us to a draw. I've nothing against Southgate but I don't think he's doing a great job. He'll be happy enough with how he did against us.

I didn't get to see the match yesterday but saw highlights. From what I saw and read, we were fairly lethargic until we scored and we launched a late barrage. But it's another case of too little, too late. We should have been at them from the off, rather than giving them the impetus to get a goal in front and have them trying to hit us on the break. The goal wasn't great from a defensive point of view and looks like it should have been dealt with.

But yet again that kid Torres gets us out of jail. He decided that he wasn't going to take being beaten by a rabble like Boro and ran at them before unleashing an unstoppable shot. That's 11 league goals already. There is some talk that we are too easy to stop offensively as our goal threat lies only in Gerrard and el Nino. There is some truth in that but I'm hoping that Babel will start to add to the threat. He went close a few times yesterday. But it is a point that we do need to spread not only the goals, but also the attacking threat around a bit more.

Rafa says that he's going to pick his strongest team against Luton on Tuesday night. I was hoping to see the likes of Insua and maybe Nemeth get a run out but I would imagine that Rafa is trying to get back to winning ways first. As I've said before, the domestic cups are nice competitions to win but don't matter much if you lose.

It now looks as if Momo will not be going to Juve. But the same article from Sky Sports has quotes from Mancini at Inter who seem to be interested in him too. I like Momo but he hasn't been the same since his injury and I would be in favour of letting him go if we get a good price.


Rafa has signed Martin Skrtel from Zenit St Petersberg. He is big, strong, young and quick according to Rafa. These are qualities that we could definitely do with in our defense. The fee has been debated and it's either £4m or £6.5m depending on who you listen to. I don't think that we'll be doing any more purchases this month but we may see Momo leave.

There has been some speculation in the observer and some other papers today that Hicks and Gillett are having problems refinancing their debt and they may sell up. DIC from Dubai, who failed to buy the club last year, are rumoured to be interested in buying them out. The DIC rumours have been bubbling under on the forums for the last few months so it's nothing new. I'm not going to say too much about the boardroom wranglings because, frankly it bores me.

Let's twat the hatters.