Kop idols.

Well we don't like going it the easy way, do we? 1 point after 3 matches to leave us looking at expulsion from the champions league, or a fate worse than expulsion - the UEFA cup. But we invoked The Spirit of Istanbul™, and we pulled 3 wins out of the bag with our backs to the wall. Second in the group with 10 points after Porto. It'll be a tough draw against one of the winners on Friday but it's a hell of a lot better than facing the refuse in the UEFA cup. El Nino wants Madrid. He'd be fired up for that one alright.

4-0. Only 4-0? Sack Rafa. That should have been 20-0, at least. According to the pundits, Marseille were a good team, much improved under the new manager, until we beat them. Just like our other champions league opponents. Funny, that. I know that I shouldn't rise to the bait of idiots spouting crap for a living but I can't resist sometimes. All of the rotation comments get very tiresome very quickly especially when the evidence shows that Fergie and Jose rotate as much as Rafa. The zonal marking debate is also a red herring. We have the second best defence in the league, had the second best last season and we concede less goals from set pieces than other teams do. But don't let the facts get in the way of a media lynching. Tim Sherwood, the twat on Setanta, said that Liverpool's season would be over if we lost to Marseille. Apparently we're out of the title race because we've lost one match this season to Reading. Are Arsenal out of it as they lost to Boro? Are Utd out of it as they've lost twice to City and Bolton? I don't know how fools like Sherwood get paid to talk crap on tv. Surely knowledge and intelligence are not job requirements. Rant over.

But back to the match itself. It was a great result but not the best match that we've played this season. Rafa paid a pretty attaching line up with Monster Masch the only defensive player outside of the back four. The team worked really hard and pressurised Marseille who had most of the possession. They couldn't do anything with it and we made our chances count. Gerrard got an early peno to take the pressure off after a few mins. Then Torres displayed his genius with a goal of amazing beauty. It was phenomenal. I don't think that I'm exagerating when I say that he's looking like the best striker in the premiership. I wouldn't swap him for any of the other ones. Some people said that he was over rated when he signed him but £20m is looking like the steal of the century now. The ease at which he went around the Marseille defenders was magical. The kid is a genius.

Dirk Kuyt scored with a nice finish in the second half. Harry did well to pick him out with a great ball and he escaped the offside trap with some good timing. He showed a good strikers finish to wait until the keeper commited himself. Babel came on and did his usual thing of tormenting a tired defense. Again it paid off and he helped himself to the final goal. Nice one my son.

Cara reckons a victory over Utd will be worth more than 3 points. Technicly he's wrong. We will only get three points. But I get what he's saying, we haven't beaten them in the league in a few years and it'll be a huge result if we can do them. The last few games at Anfield have seen us dominate but lose to flukey goals by pricks like Ferdinand and O'Shea. That's a bit unfair as O'Shea isn't a prick but he does play for Utd so he's guilty by association. I will be sick if one of them scores an undeserved winner on Sunday. I predict a score draw. No doubt Tim Sherwood and Andy Grey will be saying sack Rafa if we lose. Tools.



The Times had a great article this week where they got Kenny and the kid together. Brilliant idea. Two reds, one a legend, the other well on his way, in one room. Congrats to Messrs Ballague and Marcotti.

Who's going to be pissed off on Sunday evening? I think that bother teams will as a draw isn't great for either team. I hope that I'm wrong, we win and Fergie's face goes purple.

Whoops. That was a bit of a slip up. I have to say that I was quite confident going into this one and was expecting it to be a handy 3 points. A 3-1 defeat wasn't in the script.

It would be easy to moan about the ref giving a peno for a foul outside the box, not giving us any for our two penalty claims and the fact that we hit the post twice. It could have been different. But I think Reading played well and a draw would have been a fair result. We've played a lot better recently but on Saturday we didn't deserve to win. Nice goal by Stevie though.

The fact that both Utd and Arsenal have lost matches in the last week make this loss slightly easier to handle. Next weekend sees Utd visit Anfield and Arsenal play Chelsea. Que rubbish from Sky telling us that whoever loses these "title deciders" will be out of the race. Showdown/Grandslam/Ragnarock/ Sunday will be worth looking at.

Luckily, we only have to wait until tomorrow night for a chance to get our shit together. The Marseille match was huge but is even bigger now. A draw will be enough for Marseille but we need to win unless Besiktas beat Porto away, which isn't going to happen. I expect us to go for it from the off. If we lose it the calls for Rafa's head will surface again. Gillett should be at the match which is good to hear. Keep an eye on Nasri if he plays as we've been linked with him a few times.

Talk on Wednesday.

That was terrible. I haven't been able to bring myself to write a post on it until now. As Rafa himself said, that's as bad a performance as we've put in at home since he arrived. We were unlucky to see El Nino hit the post at the end but it would have been unfair on Marseille who were by far the better team. We were shocking.

Only Pepe, Finnan and Aurelio can come out of that with any credit. Only for them we could have lost by a few more. Momo was awful. I really like Momo but he's been shit this season. But he's not the only one. Our entire midfield was useless on Wed night. I think that the lack of Agger and Alonso has hit us hard. We haven't passed the ball well since they got injured. I'm hoping that they will be back in training once the international break is over. We'll need them badly for the Everton and Arsenal matches.

El Nino revealed that he's a bit manic to the official site. Fair enough. As long as he keeps scoring, let him continue with his rituals.

Rumour has it that Crouch may be on the way in January. I don't claim to have any inside track here, I'm just reporting what I've read on the forums. Word is that he is pissed off with his lack of games so he'll be sold with Klaas Jan Huntelaar as his replacement. I've been a big fan of this kid since I saw him fillet Ireland in Lansdowne road last year. While I"d be sorry to see RoboCrouch go, I'd be happy to see us replace him with pure Klaas. Think of all of the crappy puns I could come up with if he signed.

Spurs match tomorrow should be interesting. They're in worse form than us, which is handy. Robinson in goal could be our ace card. Rafa should tell all of the midfielders and strikers to shoot on sight. This guy is one of the worse keepers in the league and can't save long distance shots. Their defence is quite porous so I would expect Torres to be able to take them apart. A moral boosting win is needed after the debacle of Wednesday night. A win here would set us up nicely going into the international break. I'm hoping that we'll come back from it refreshed and rejuvenated. The last break really fucked us up as we were flying before it but haven't played well since. I'm hoping that this one will have the opposite effect and put us back into form. I was hoping that Spurs didn't lose last Monday as Jol might have been sacked. They drew 4-4 and he kept his job. If we win tomorrow, he might lose it. If we lose, I might lose it.

That was close, and it shouldn't have been. Wigan aren't very good but we made hard work of it. But maybe it's time to look at the table and saw we picked up another 3 points on the road (10 from 12) and we still have a game in hand. We're not playing great, but like Utd, we're getting the wins. If we can keep this up for the next few weeks until Xabi and Dagger return I'll be happy enough.

We did create a lot of chances but didn't put any away. Nando had a good chance in the first half after he was put through on Kirkland. Our former keep did well in coming out early and saved well. The rebound came off Torres and went narrowly wide. Gerrard had a few shots and Kirkland made a few more saves.

It was looking like the game was headed for a third successive premier league draw when Yossi stuck his oar in. His turn and dribble reminded me of Bergkamp against Newcastle a few years ago. Yossi's goal wasn't quite of that quality but was hugely impressive nonetheless. He has a fantastic ability to drift effortlessly past defenders and the ball control skills to embarrass even the toughest of opponents. He's a joy to watch and is pushing hard for a starting place after his goals here and against Reading in midweek.

Wigan pushed us hard until the final whistle and had a few chances. They will complain that they didn't get the rub of the green or any favourable decisions from the Ref. Maybe we're cashing in our Karma from the Chelsea match. Our defence wasn't what it usually is. Riise didn't have a great match. With Sami in for Agger, we are sitting deeper to compensate for his lack of pace. Added to that is the problem that our distribution out of defence is worse and Sami doesn't carry the ball out the way Dagger does. We miss the kid and the sooner he comes back the better.

Champions league returns this week and Marseilles visit Anfield on Wed night. Given the law of the Ex, expect to see Cisse have a stormer and score a few. In reality, I don't think that they're up to much and are doing shit in Ligue 1. They recently changed their manager so it might be good time to play them.

Gerardo Bruna - remember that name. He's a 16 year old Argentine player that we've signed from Real Madrid. They were expecting great things from him and were angry at losing him. He's already been dubbed "the new Messi" (is the old one old?). Not placing any pressure on him then.