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.

Whisper it softly, but Liverpool are on the march. Another good victory, another four goals and another clean sheet. We had two efforts cleared off the line which could have increased the margin. No doubt we'll be told that Bolton are rubbish, but didn't they beat Utd 1-0 last week? We're picking up wins and playing well. It couldn't really get any better at the moment, unless Fulham could beat Utd tonight.

Hyypia opened the scoring after a Gerrard free kick. Sami is doing fantastically well in recent games. I really feared for him when we were going through our bad patch. But since then the international break he's looked much better and not as past it as I'd feared. It now sounds like Dagger won't be back this side of Christmas. While we'll miss him, Sami's resurgence alongside the impressive cameo from Jack Hobbs yesterday when Carra came off, makes me less worried than I was a few weeks back.

It could have been different if Anelka had of put away a chance when he had an open goal in front of him. Carra had run into Reina and taken him out of it. Anelka was clean through and only had to slot it in to level the match to 1-1 but he put it wide. I don't know how the hell he managed it but I was thankful. Maybe he's still a red at heart.

Torres goal was the pick of the bunch for me. Gerrard sent an amazing ball forward and the kid latched onto it as he drifted between two defenders. He accelerated and went one on one with big Jussi in the Bolton goal. He deftly chipped the keeper with a sublime finish. It was the type of goal that Owen used to score when he was the one latching onto Gerrard passes. I think that Torres has more to his all round game than Owen and while his finishing isn't quite as clinical yet, I think that he'll go on to be one of our greatest strikers of all time.

Gerrard had a stormer as he did against Newcastle. He set up two goals and scored a peno. He's now scored 8 in 9 games. His combination with Lucas worked well in the centre. We're often told that he doesn't play well in the centre. Not on this evidence. I've no problem with him playing on the right but he's well able to perform majestically in the centre of a 4-4-2.

Babel came on and helped himself to a goal. He showed good strikers instincts to make sure he was on hand to pounce on the rebound from Dirks effort. He is being used as an impact sub by Rafa at the moment. He comes on when his pace and power can stretch a tired opposition. It's working quite well, thank you very much.

It'll be a Royal Rumble when we visit Reading on Saturday. Copell's teams are always well organised and usually do quite well at home. But in the form we're in at the moment, I fancy us to win this one.

One of the members on RAWK posted a translation of an interview with Torres. Anybody who doubted his talent is having those doubts shoved down their throats. His fee of €26m (£18m) now looks like a bargain. The more I read about him off the pitch, the more I like the kid. He's humble and down to earth despite his incredible ability. We have a star on our hands.

Paul Tomkins has a good article on the press reaction to the results so far this season. I tend to go along with what he says even though it might sound a tad paranoid.

Daniel Carvalho, a Brazilian attacker at CSKA Moscow is being linked to us at the moment. His contract is up in 6 months and there is some speculation that he is one of the players that Rafa was trying to get in on a free. Let the trial by youtube commence.

The Rafa getting sacked story seems to have died down a bit now. The Sunday tabloids still reckon that he's a dead man walking. I think that it's blown over for now. Parry was coming under fire from some quarters last week and it doesn't sound like he helped the situation. Foster Gillett's return to Merseyside should help as will the face to face meeting next month. But I still reckon that he'll walk or be let go in the summer. I expect Rafa to have a similar row with the Americans over finance and communication come the end of the season. I hope I'm wrong but I think their relationship has been badly damaged, probably irreparably so.

Four items on the agenda today.

1. Very well done today. Another 3 points in the bag away from home. Our away bag is now the fullest in the league. Long may it continue. 3-0 at St James' Park is always a good result. The press tomorrow will say that the Toon were shit, and they were. But we played very well and we could have had a lot more goals.


Gerrard answered his critics, and the Toon fans booing him, in style. He hit a superb free kick to open the scoring and had a hand in the next two goals. Stevie played in the middle with Lucas and Momo alongside him. This is an effective away from home tactic and has worked well for Chelsea in the past. Lucas had a great game bar a dip just before the end of the first half. He passed and tackled superbly. He sat a bit deeper today which let Momo move forward to hassle the opposition and Gerrard pull some strings. Lucas will be a great alternative for Xabi in times to come. A really impressive first Premier League start from the young Brazilian. Momo was poor again. He hassled and harried as he does and was as effective as ever without the ball. But his touch and passing were as bad as they have been in recent times. Great to see Harry manage to play 55 mins. We'll need him in the weeks ahead.

Torres played very well but his finishing was slightly off. He could have had four or five goals if he was on top form. He was unlucky to see one effort on half time hit the post but the keeper was out of the way so he really should have scored. Kuyt had a mixed game. He was doing his usual workhorse role supporting Torres from behind and out wide. He didn't do too much for his goal beyond being in the right place. But they all count and he has three in the league now. It was a definite improvement on some of his recent form but there is still a long way to go before he's back to his best. Babel came on in the second half and ran Newcastle ragged from the right. Rafa seems to prefer using the Dutch kid as an impact sub for now. It's working well and he gave the home defenders a nightmare. He combined superbly with Gerrard for the third score. It was a sublime goal and the pick of the bunch. I'm a big fan of Babel and hope that he keeps improving at his current rate.


The defence did what it had to do, which wasn't much at all. Martins was well managed by Carra and Sami. There wasn't a huge amount of threat from them anywhere else. Arbeloa had another good match at left back. Between him, Aurelio and Insua we will be able to cope at left back if Riise is sold in Jan.

Utd dropped 3 points against Bolton today was an unexpected bonus. I really didn't expect that to happen. It looked to me like the big four teams all winning before the matches began. We're now three points behind Utd and two behind City, with a game in hand, which is a decent situation. Unfortunately, we're still 6 points behind Arsenal without games in hand. They could do with slipping up and letting us back into the race. That's not too much to ask for, is it?

2. The board v Rafa battle rumbles on. I was hoping that we had left this behind when it all kicked off in the summer. This is a really bad situation and I'm very worried. Rafa came out in the press conference on Thursday and made it clear that he's not happy with the Hicks and Gillett in relation to transfer plans. They seem to have told him to concentrate on training and managing the current players. I hate to our dirty laundry being washed in public. Things seem to be slightly better after the match today and Rafa said that the row wasn't serious. Hopefully this is the case and both parties can move forward. Unfortunately I fear that Rafa will walk away from the club sooner or later over the boards conduct of transfers and lack of speed. The plan in the summer was rumoured to be that Foster Gillett would be based on Merseyside to work with Parry and Rafa on transfers. It now appears that we went back to US after the Arsenal game and hasn't been back since. I think that they will be able to sort this out short term but I can see this row erupting again in 6 months and Rafa walking in the summer. It'll be a sad day for the club is he does leave as he's a superb manager and the perfect man for the job. His resignation would set us back around 3-4 years in my view.

3. The Porto match on wed night is huge. We're in much better form than we were when we played them in Portugal. But they're still a good team and will cause us problems. We have to win and will be going for it from the start. If we don't score early, I can see the sitting back and trying to hit us on the break with the likes of Quaresma. An early goal and it mightn't be too bad. But we'll have to go for it as we're out if we fail to win.

4. AOB. Javi Martinez has been linked to us recently. He's another young creative midfielder, who plays for Athletic Bilbao, so I don't really see where he fits into the plans at the moment. Rafa then came out on the official site and said that we aren't interested in signing him now. We have more than enough central midfielders at the moment though. Maybe he'll be a target if we sell Momo.

Until Wednesday. Anfield awaits.

It's that rotation policy again. Rafa takes Gerrard off and brings Lucas on, who wins the match winning penalty. When will he ever learn?

It was amazing. I'm still a bit horse. Memories of the Gary Mac derby in 2001 came flooding back. To win the Derby is sweet. To win the Derby in injury time after being 1-0 down is even sweeter. To hear David Moans and the rest of the bitter blues giving to is the icing on the cake. No doubt the conspiracy theorists will be out in force now. But while the Lescott penalty shout at the end looked legit, we had an offisde goal chalked off that should have been given. Veronin also had a penalty claim early on. We were by far the better team and created loads of chances. They only had one effort on target all match. I think that if Torres was playing we would have won handy enough. Voronin had a couple of chances where he would have done better. Riise had a superb chance where he blazed over the bar. Momo had a fantastic chance with a few minutes to go. Overall I was much happier with the performance than in recent games.

At half time I predicted a draw so I was thrilled when we won. Notable performers were Kuyt, Yossi for a time and Lucas when he came on. Dirk has been getting a lot of stick from some fans, as they see him as a new Heskey in so far as he tries hard but doesn't score enough. I don't agree. I've been a big fan of his since he arrived. Put your hands up for Dirk Kuyt. He was our top scorer last season and 5 in all comps so far this year. He had a really clever and unselfish game yesterday. He showed bottle to take his two penos and could have had a hat trick of assists if his team mates had finished better. Gerrard was much improved too. Some knobs in the press, like Andy Grey, will try to make a big deal out of the fact that he was subbed. I think it was more a case of him having played two England matches and we have two important matches coming up this week. Lucas changed thing when he came on and would have won the match for us if it hadn't of been for Nevilles "save". It's a pity for the lad but we got the result which is the main thing. Seeing Neville and Hibbert walk was a bonus.


It's a pity that our rivals, Arseanal, Utd and Chelsea all won. After the Besiktas match on Wednesday, we face Arsenal at Anfield. They are playing well at the moment, better than us, but we've a great home record and hammered them 4-1 at Anfield in March. I was at Anfield that day and it was very one sided. Crouch was amazing and the best player on the pitch by a mile. Even though he's not playing much and seems to be out of form, I wouldn't be that surprised to see him play for this one. Van Persie is out which good news for us.

Alan Stubs cleverly got a dig in before the match. Good motivational tactic from him.

Tony Barett of the Echo had a good article on rotation reprinted on the official site. So it seems to me that when Fergie rotates his squad it doesn't count. It remind me of the Brass Eye episdoe about good aids v bad aids. It seems that Man Utd practice good rotation while we practice bad rotation. Rotation is a stick used by the press to beat Rafa when we're losing along with zonal marking when we concede goals and Cup/Lucky manager because we haven't won the league. It seems that it's not very hard to be a journo or pundit these days. Just use the same old tired cliches and misconceptions and you'll be hailed as a genius.

There has been a good bit of talk linking us to Fernando Amorebieta of Athletic Bilbao. He's a versitile young spanish defender, the kind of player that Rafa finds hard to resist so expect him to be on his way here in January.

The echo had some good news in relation to a fall in football related arrests at Anfield despite a rise nationwide. It goes against the percieved wisdom in some sections of the media.

Will Buckly in the Observer had a good article on the inane punditry on Sky. Offside doesn't count if it's Rooney apparently. How does Jamie Redknapp have a job?

Three and easy for Torres. It was a great performance from the new signing and a good team performance all round. Yossi opened the scoring the first half with an amazing individual goal. Nice to see him get off the mark and show his skill at unlocking a defence. Then it was time for Fernando to take the stage. Good work for Seb Leto set up Torres for the first goal. He held off the attention of the defender and slipped it under the keeper. His second came after a nice delivery when Riise got past his man on the left. El Nino finished from just inside the area with a shot to the corner which gave the Reading keeper no chance. His final goal was the result of a fantastic through ball from Stevie G. Torres was 1 on 1 with the keeper and showed great composure to shoot beyond the goalie. Rafa will be disappointed that we conceded two but the first goal was offside. The second was poor defending and our new keeper didn't cover himself in glory. Lucas wasn't bad in the midfield but did fade somewhat as the match went on. Overall a very satisfying night.

It's a visit to the JJB tomorrow. Wigan have done better than I've expected this season. I was tipping them for relegation in August but they're looking like they will stay up if their form continues. Heskey has been doing well for them but he's not fit for tomorrow which is good news. He has his critics, and deservedly so, but when he's on form he's a nightmare for defences. I expect us to win this one. We've taken 7 from 9 points away from home so far and 10 from 12 would be a good boost to our title aspirations.

Crouch praised how Torres has settled in here. Gerrard reckons that he could be a modern day Ian Rush. High praise indeed.

LFC TV has launched officially now. I've watched a few programmes but have yet to see the John Barnes chat show. I'm looking forward to that one as I'm hearing good reports.

Some great old photo's from the BBC here. The bootroom one is special. Bring a tear to the glass eye. Have a look at these for some great photos of Liverpool in the 80's.For those who've been to the city recently it's interesting to see how different it looked 20 years ago. Some changes.

Until next time.