The sky generation might say "easy, easy" but I won't. But it was fairly handy in the end. 5-0 makes the garden look a lot rosier this morning.

A Stevie G hat trick was added to an opener from Ryan Babel and a header from Sami. Babel had a good game and hit the post early in the match with a fine curling shot. But he was the go to guy just before half time when el Nino played him in on the right. Ryan unleashed a superb shot which left their keeper with no chance. That made the second half a lot easier. Stevie got on the end of a Crouchie header across the 6 yard box to head into the bottom corner. His second was a side footed finish. But his third was the pick of the bunch, a long curling shot from the edge of the area. Fantastic. After a spate of draws, I was happy to see us get a win and some goals, albeit against poor opposition. It was good to see Babel and Pennant do well on the wings. More of that kind of thing.

It now means that we'll be facing Havant and Waterlooville in the next round. Fair enough. Should be a great night for them at Anfield, with the magic of the cup etc etc. Get ready for loads of David against Goliath guff in the press.

It was Jamie Carragher's 500th game for Liverpool last night. He received a guard of honour at the start of the match which was well deserved. He's been a fantastic servant for the club over many years. He may not have been up to his incredibly high standards this season, but Agger's injury has left him a little more exposed. I hope that Jamie will form a decent partnership with teenage mutant ninja Skrtel when he's match fit. Carra still has a few years left in the tank and could well end up on the coaching staff when he finishes.

Our next match is Aston Villa on Monday night. This is going to be tough. They are in decent form and Young and Gabby Agbonlahor look dangerous on the wings. I would worry about what they might do to Riise if he plays. We've had far too many draws recently, especially at home so it'd be great to get a win against a good team like Villa.

Guillem Ballague of sky sports and the times has a good piece on the Hicks and Klinsman debacle. There is a lot of speculation that Hicks and Gillett will not get their refinancing deal which will leave them open to a takeover from DIC or somebody else. It's a case of wait and see, I suppose. I fear that they will not sell and will sack Rafa in the summer despite what we achieve or win this season.

This might say that Lauri Della Valle has signed for Liverpool but I need to brush up on my Norwegian to be sure. I've heard talk about this kid on the forums for the last few months. Apparently he's the greatest talent to come out of Finland since Jari Olavi Litmanen. A friend of mine has had Finnish colleagues raving raving about him. He was at Inter last year but didn't settle. Hopefully Sami will make him feel at home here.

Yanks out, Dubai in.

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.

1-1 and we were lucky enough to get a draw. It was a terrible display from us and a draw was the least that Luton deserved. The tie will now go to a replay at Anfield, probably on Tuesday 15th. Nobody came out of the game with much credit bar Itandje who made a couple of saves and Crouch who took his goal well. The rest of them were poor enough. The tackling and effort was often sub standard and the passing was well below what it should have been given that we had a the likes of Lucas, Alonso and Yossi in the team. Definitely one to gloss over and forget very quickly.

It's a trip to Teeside to face the might of Midlesboro on Saturday at 3. They are a pretty crap team but given how poorly we're playing at the moment, I expect them to cause us problems. I'm hoping that the likes of Torres, Gerrard and Aurelio will be back. Still no sign of Agger making a first team appearance. The sooner he returns to the team, the better.

A 17 year old Ghanaian defender Daniel Opare is being linked with a move to Anfield. I don't know too much about him but he plays full back and did very well at the u-17 world cup last year. He's been on trial with us already apparently but there are some work permit issues are Real Madrid are sniffing around him now.

Venezualan attacking midfielder, Juan Arango, is being linked with a move from Real Mallorca. He holds a Spanish passport and doesn't have too long left on his contract so he might be a cheap option.

Bring on Boro.

While I was away in Barcelona, I only got to see bits of the City and Wigan matches. Given Cities home form, I don't think that a no score draw was that surprising or that bad a result. They've already had good home results at home against top four clubs. But the Wigan result was terrible. It was another match where we created a good few chances but were unable to finish the opposition off. Torres scored a superb goal after some great build up from Finnan and Gerrard. But Kirkland pulled off some great saves to deny Gerrard, Mascherano and others, to make sure that we were vulnerable to a sucker punch like the one delivered by Titas Bramble with 10 mins to to go. Sickening.

I don't know why our home form has been so bad this season. Part of it can be explained by the lack of key players at vital times. Agger and now Sami missing, we aren't half as resilient at the back. In previous years we would have beaten Wigan 1-0 by shutting up shop once we took the lead. I think that Agger's return will bring a bit of stability and confidence back to the defense which has been a bit panicked of late. Xabi is back now and he should also bring some stability and passing penetration to the attack. I know that he wasn't at his best against Wigan but I think that his passing sharpness will return with game time.

It's the "magic" of the FA Cup 3rd round on Sunday when we face lowly Luton We have to travel to Kenilworth road to face Kevin Blackwell and his hatters. Like the Carling cup, this is a good competition if you win it but doesn't matter all that much otherwise. I wouldn't be unhappy to see some of the youngsters play on Sunday even if they get beaten.

Goran Pandev could be on the move. He's done pretty well for Lazio over the past few years. I don't know how much he'd cost but he might be a good option if we're looking to offload Crouch who's only 18 months left on his contract.

There has been some online chatter that we are looking to buy Ezequiel Garay from Racing Santander at the moment. He's a 21-year old Argentine central defender who can also play at right back. He also has an impressive record of scoring free kicks for a defender. The fee being mentioned is around £8m which would be a bargain.

Fulham are looking to steal a march on Bolton and others by lodging a £3m bid for Danny Guthrie. He's done well while on loan at Bolton and Roy Hodgson sees him as the man to inject some life into Fulham's bid for survival.