Just like the renegade master, I'm back once again.

Andrea Dossena is thrilled to be signing for us. He declares that we're a great team and who am I to argue. I think that he'll do well this year. Capello rates him highly apparently. Riise is thrilled to be signing for Roma. While he should be remembered for this and this and this, he'll probably be remembered for this. While one player has arrived, it looks like another is rapidly nearing the exit door. Xabi will be taking his raking passes and Mark Walburg looks to Turin by the looks and sounds of it. It seems more and more likely that we'll be exchanging basque pintxos for birmingham curry in the near future. I'll be sad to see Xabi leave and will moments like this and this. I think that Barry is a bit overpriced at over £15m, but that's the english player tax striking again. He does seem to link up well with Gerrard as we've seen for England. I'm hoping that what we lose in Xabi's long range passing, we'll gain in increased physicality, pace, set pieces and goal threat from Barry. I would expect that he'll play a little higher up the pitch than Xabi did, somewhere between Javier and Stevie, rather than sitting beside Javier. Charles Itandje looks to be on his way out with 26 year old Brazilian keeper Cavalieri replacing him.

Some media reports have linked us with a big purchase like Quaresma, Ribery, Silva and Villa. It sounds like they will all be on the move this summer, with the possible exception of Ribery. To be honest, I can't see Rafa having the cash to compete for a signature of this magnitude. Any of them would be superb and would improve our attacking play enormously. Ballague suggests that we haven't made contact with Valencia for Villa and that he'll probably end up at Real, Chelsea or FCB. He goes onto say that Rafa isn't interested in a striker while we still have Crouch, but for how long will that remain the case? Reports today suggest that Crouch will be on his way to Portsmouth on Monday for £10-11m. Given that he's only got a year left on his contract, I think that it's a good price for him. I'll miss him but he wants to play every week and he's not going to get that here with El Nino ahead of him. Thanks for the memories rampaging super spider. How about Crespo on a free to replace him? Ballague also has a great interview with El Nino which you can read here. Check out this footage of the artist as a young Nino.

This is Anfield have a great article on Nemeth. It'd be great to see him get a chance from the bench this season. He looks quality. Speaking of the youngsters, it seems that we've signed a few more. Vincent Weijl is a 17 year old dutch striker who's arrived from AZ Alkmaar and Nikola Saric, 17 from Denmark, was signed ahead of Barcelona and Spurs apparently. A german kid called Buchtmann has signed from dortmund. He plays left back or left midfield according to setanta.

Rafa's also been adding to the backroom staff. Mauricio Pellegrino will be joining us from valencia where he was doing some coaching. He played a minor role for us in 05 on the road to Istanbul. While his performances were mediocre at best, it did enable Sami to get a rest and make sure that he was able to perform heroics alongside JC. This appointment coupled with the addition of Sammy Lee recently should help to fill the Pako sized hole that we had this year. Hicks says that a shared stadium isn't back on the table. I am inclined to believe him in this regard even though he has a history of half truths and broken promises since he stepped through the Shankly gates.

Updates will continue to be sparse but if there are major moves, i.e. Barry, then I might put a post together. Otherwise it's the skeleton crew until the friendlies get underway.

I'm very late with my post this week. The weather in Dublin has been great and I got a bit distracted by the sunshine and sights of the city. Maybe my passion for football was drained somewhat by the champions league exit. This is the first time that our season has been effectively over by the end of April under Rafa. Hopefully it won't happen again.

The city match was our last game at Anfield this season. As is the case on these days, the players take their families with them on a lap of the pitch. The funniest part of the day was seeing the two young Carraghers chase each other from end to end. With that kind of work rate and courage, I say stick them in the first team next season, alongside their Dad. The team of Carraghers that we all dream of may not be that far away. The game itself was nothing spectacular. We played some nice football in the second half and could have scored a couple more. Kuyt was unlucky to hit the bar. Babel could have helped himself to a few. Hart made a great save from a Gerrard strike. When it did come it was courtesy of Torres. He latched onto Dirks flick and beat the defender before slipping it between the keepers legs. Another Fernando classic. That makes it 23 in the league now. Not bad for a player who was said to be unprolific. It was good to see Insua get his chance at left back. It's Spurs at White Heart Lane this Sunday. Niether team have anything much to play for so I expect it to be fairly drab, as the city game was. We may get to see some more of the youngsters which might make it worth watching. It would be great to see Nemeth get a few mins after the class he's shown with the reserves this season. Gary Ablett's reserve side won the league final 3-0 against Villa. It's a great result for them and is even more pleasing given the fact that they are such a young team. We've seen Insua, Lucas and Plessis make first team appearances this year and maybe we'll see Nemeth We've launched a £10m bid for Gareth Barry according to to the liverpool post, but we're facing competition from Arsenal who're trying to replace Flamini. Crouch may go the other way but wages are an issue. Does Barry mean that Xabi is on his way back to eSpain, or maybe Italy? One website has him linked with a move to Juve. But Rafa says that Xabi's going nowhere. Rafa's going to have to add to the back room staff as Alex Miller is off to Japan. Sammy Lee is the front runner at the moment. We are being linked with a move for Aaron Ramsey of Cardiff. Steve Claridge is a fan but he's an idiot so I wouldn't take much notice of that. Spurs and Utd are after him too apparently. We tried to sign him for £1m last summer but no dice. A young Polish defender called Lukasz Kominiak has been on trial with the club for the last few days. Rafa does love to sign a few 18 year old centre halves every summer. This is a fairly shameful story, but it's hardly surprising at this stage. I always liked Pongolle and I think that he could have been a good squad player and impact sub for us. But he wanted to play every week and has done really well for Recreativo Huelva over the past two years and is linked to a move to Valencia and Atletico. On this evidence, I doubt he'll be choosing Atletico.