0-0 last night and a terrible game. We were shit. Pepe was one of the few to take any credit out of the match by saving a peno. We looked slow, sloppy and nervy. We can and will have to play much much better than that against Sunderland and in the second leg against Liege. This is Anfield continue their excellent Kop Star series with a feature on Gerardo Bruna. The new Messi? Read it to find out but I'll give you a hint: probably not. Reports in Germany suggest that we're after Dortmunds Polish right winger Jakub Blaszczykowski and we're going to bid €8m for him. I can't say that I know much about him. Xabi played last night which surely means that he's staying now. Only a team outside the champions league would be interested in him now and there aren't too many of those who could afford him. Looks like Barry deal is dead too. He played for Villa in the Uefa cup tonight so I can't see him signing for us anytime before next summer. I reckon our business for the summer could be done as a result of this. The BBC give a run down of our new signings here. Will there be one more before the end of the window? There's been rumours of a Joe Cole bid this week. While I think he'd be a good addition, I can't see a scenario where Chelsea would let him join us. As with most transfer stories in the summer, it's probably bullshit.

He's always been a red but now it's official. Rafa's signed a premiership star who's going to drive us crazy with his goals and passes. He wants the premiership. As Captain Picard would say, "make it so". Love at first sight. The BBC website has a video of his press conference. The money quote from Robbie's unveiling: "My whole family are Liverpool fans. I remember every Christmas asking for jerseys and tracksuits – it's great now that I get the tracksuits for free!" Good to see he's remaining true to his roots, although, there's no accounting for taste. Chris De Burgh? Jaysus.

Check out some of Keane's goals here, here, here and here.

Here's what Lawro said about Torres last summer. Now he seems unimpressed wiht the Keane signing. Hopefully he'll be equally wrong this time around. Personally I'm very excited about the signing. I think his record shows us that he almost guarantees you around 15 league goals per season. It's interesting to note that he gets as many goals away as at home. I think he'll be another match winner to add to Torres, Gerrard and hopefully Babel if he continues to improve. This added goals and attacking threat should help us to win matches we drew last year.

I listened to some of the Hertha Berlin 0-0 draw on the e-season ticket. The only real incident of note seems to be the Voronin penalty miss. You can read the Liverpool Echo report here.

Rafa continues to hoover up Spanish teens like there's no tomorrow. The latest addition is Emmanuel Mendy, an 18 year old right/left back who'll go straight in the reserves.

Here's a good Rawk article on our defence. He thinks it'll be Agger and Skrtel and I'm inclined to agree, but I'm sure Carra will get his fair share of games. He's still the best organiser and leader in the defense.

The Ngog deal was completed for £1.5m as he only had a season left on his contract. Rafa says that he'll make a contribution to the first team. I expect him to get games in the Babel and Kuyt positions last season.

The Guardian have reprinted an old interview with Bill Shankly. Fantastic stuff.

The official site had an interview with Rafa's chief scout, Eduardo Macia. Keep up the good work.

Olympiakos officials laud Liverpool loanee Leto land, as a cheap tabloid might say. So Seb is Athens bound for the year. It seems that passport problems are limiting his chances with us for now. I hope he gets some experience in Greece. He's a hard one to figure out. He clearly has talent but the end product is missing at the moment.

The pre season friendlies are under way and it started with a whimper. This was typical of this part of the season which is about getting fitness rather than performance or results. Nice to see the kids getting a run out, especially Pacheco up front. Yossi made it worthwhile with this wonder strike from the edge of the D after a pass from Lucas, but otherwise it was a walk in the (Prenton) park. Loads of subs and a relaxed tempo was the MO. I expect the Swiss games will be more of the same.


Rafa demonstrated his dance moves for Degen and Dossena at their press conference. Our new backup keeper, a 25 year old Brazilian, is called Cavalieri. He will replace Itanje, who looks to be on his way to Galatasary. While one keeper has arrived, it appears that Itanje will meet Scott Carson heading the same way as he leaves. Tony Barrett in the Echo, thankfully returned from his holidays, says that two clubs are on his trail, Stoke and West Brom, a race which looks likely to be won by Stoke for around £4m+. Villa paid £2m for his loan deal last year and £1m from Charlton the year before added to the fee for him now, will represent a sizeable profit on his £750,000 fee from Leeds. Barrett also says that Danny Guthrie will complete a move to Newcastle after a fee was agreed between the clubs of around £2.5m. He did well at Bolton last season by all accounts but it's another case of him not being good enough to challenge the first team here.

This is Anfield continue their excellent Kopstar series which focuses on the stars of the future. This time Dani Pacheco comes into focus.

Our Hungarian quotient has increased with the arrival of another teen from MTK in Budapest. Zsolt Poleskei, a 17 year old midfielder, is joining on a season long loan. He shouldn't find it hard to fit in with the likes of SImon and Nemeth here already.

News just in - Pepe is superloco. I can't say that I'm too surprised.

In the mood for a wildly speculative transfer link? Here you go. He has gone on record a few years back as saying
"I have been a Liverpool fan for as long as I can remember and it would be a dream to play there. I watched the Champions League final and celebrated every goal as if it was for Independiente."
Rafa did try to sign him before he left Argentina. He would cost a fortune but would be a phenomenal signing. Can't see it happening, even with Xabi in part exchange. Expect him to go to Utd when Ronaldo goes to Real. I think that the Robbie Keane rumours are much more likely. He's a red and wants the move so I think that one will happen.

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.

It's time to take stock, a stock take if you will. It was a mixed season. In one way we made progress in the league by finishing with a points total of 76, just 11 points behind the winners. This is well up on what we had last year and but for a bit of luck, some bad decisions and results like the brum draw where we didn't care, we could have been a lot closer to Utd. Utd won the league with 75 points in 1997. On the downside, we dropped a league placing from third to fourth, with Arsenal overtaking us. We had a good run in Europe and could have made the final. But injuries cost us domestically and in the champions league. As usual we had a bad spell, this time it was in Jan rather than our traditional November slump.

The defence performed well in Dagger's absence. Sami rolled back the years and Carra was great in Europe but not as good overall as he has been. Skrtel came in and did superbly. Insua made another impressive end of season cameo. More of that kind of thing.

In midfield the Monster Masch was monstrous. I wouldn't swap him for any midfielder. He is the best in the business at what he does. The solidity of our spine owes a lot to Javier. Himself and Xabi formed a solid base for Stevie to break from. This worked superbly well in the second half of the season and I expect us to continue in this formation next year.

The forwards were a mixed bunch. Babel was superb at times, like his Arsenal cameo, but looked a bit lost at others. A good debut season to build on but I would expect him to deliver on a more consistent basis next year. Kuyt started really badly after the death of his father in the summer. But since Christmas he improved playing the right sided role and scored crucial goals against Arsenal, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Everton. I love Kuyt but I fear we need somebody better in that role if we want to challenge for the title. When he's good, he's great but when he's bad, he's shocking.

Last summer we were blessed with the arrival of El Nino. He came to us form sunny Spain, he got the ball and scored again. And again and again and again. For a fee of £20m he proved an absolute bargain. He broke Ruud Van Nistelroy's record at Utd of scoring the most goals in a debut season with 24 league goals. Amazing. He went onto score 33 goals in all comps. Phenomenal. Give that the kid has just turned 24, there are many years left for him to improve. I think that the stability of coaching under Rafa has helped him improve his game. At Atleti he had a different coach every few months or every season which can't have been fun.

Where do we go from here? With a couple of decent buys this summer we might be able to put a title challenge together. But as long as the boardroom farce continues, I can't see us being focused on getting the right investment in the squad together. Utd and Chelsea have invested massively and we need to do likewise to get our first team and squad up to their level. So if Hicks is still with us in August, which looks likely, it'll probably be another season of third/fourth.

Player of the year: Torres, without doubt. The kid has been astounding. He's changed Liverpool, as you can see here.

Young player of the year: Babel did well for the first team but I'm going to go for Nemeth for the contribution he made to the reserves winning the league. I hope to see him getting a run out for the first team next season. This kid is going to be a star.

Game of the year: The champions league quarter final 4-2 win over Arsenal at Anfield. As dramatic as it gets.

Goal of the year: Fernando v Marseille. Watch and learn.

Best moment of the year: The comeback v Arsenal at Anfield. The ability of the youngsters and reserves to get a draw at the Emirates in the league was impressive. Beating Everton twice was good too.

Worst moment of the year: The Riise o.g. against Chelsea. Other than that I think we'd have made the final for the third time in four years. Thanks for the memories John. The "penalty" that Rob Styles awarded against us in the Chelsea match at Anfield in August was a sickener. The 3-0 loss to Utd at Old Toilet was terrible as was the 1-0 defeat to West Ham at Upton Park.

Signing of the year: Again with the Torres. The future's bright with the kid on board.

Our summer signings have begun and Phillip Degen, a 25 year old swiss right back, will be signing for free on the first of July.

Andreas Dossena of Udinese is being linked with filling the other full back birth. Apparently Capello rates him highly. The fee being talked about is somewhere between £6m-£8m.

Sammy Lee is thrilled to back working at Melwood. I think that he could be one of the most important signings we'll make this summer. Some of the older players were at the club when Sammy left in 2004 and he seems to be well respected. There is no doubt that Pako's departure last autumn cost us in terms of stability and planning.

Tom Hicks has been hit by the credit crunch. Does that mean that he'll be more likely to sell to DIC? Maybe not. I fear that we'll be stuck with this fool for sometime yet.

As Unlucky Alf in the fast show would say, "oh bugger". What should have been 2-0 or 3-0 but was 1-0 became 1-1 with the last kick of the game. I'm sure Riise didn't mean it, but if only he had a right foot, he would have been able to lash it clear rather than head it into his own net. If Aurelio hadn't got injured then we wouldn't have seen Riise at all. But the biggest if is if we had of taken one or two of our chances then it wouldn't have mattered. If.

The guardian has Carra and Kuyt as the men of the match. It's hard to argue as they were both superb. Kuyt battled away and used his power well, if his pace let him down a few times. He did very well to finish between Cech's legs. Skrtel was top quality too. Drogba was well marshaled between the twin pillars of Jamie and Martin. Both Stevie and El Nino had better games but they still managed to make telling influences and either could have won the game. Cech did well to save and I'm hoping that he's not in as imperious form next week. Both Babel and Xabi had very good second halves. Xabi was spreading the ball around like the Alonso of old and it was a joy to watch. Babel had a lot of joy out of Fereira when he ran at him. Ryan had some bad news in his private life this week so it's a credit to the kid that he was able to keep his mind on the game.

I wasn't happy with the ref last night, and neither was Rafa. Loads of decisions, big and small, were going against us. I don't understand how Terry stayed on the pitch. His kick on Torres's back as he law on the ground showed his Lionhearted spirit and courage. That's the man I'd want leading me if I were in the trenches.

The off the field theatrics weren't the distraction that we had feared beforehand. Hicks was there. Prick. Just what we didn't need. Thankfully the Kop were sensible enough to ignore him and get on with supporting the team. DIC in the form of Samir Al-Ansari, pictured here, were also sitting in the directors box, as guests of Gillett. I doubt that Hicks was impressed.

Brum away on Saturday seems like an irrelevance now. I would imagine that Rafa will rotate the shit out of the team and put the squad players and reserves out. I think that we'll see the same team start at Stamford bridge, Aurelio apart, so we're unlikely to see many of them feature on Saturday. I'll try to muster the enthusiasm to write a post about the match sometime before the Chelsea match.

Sometimes second gear is all you need. It was all we needed against Fulham on Saturday. If ever there was a championship team in waiting, Fulham is it. We were able to rest a god few of the first team and we still got a 2-0 win away from home. But the credit here has to go down to one man: Kasey Keller. I thought he was poor for both goals. Pennant hit a nice strike from distance for the first but Keller could have saved it if he made an effort. Crouch managed to slip the second one between his legs which was nice. There were some notable performers in Lucas, Pennant and the ever fantastic Mascherano, but there wasn't really a whole lot to write home about. You did get the impression that Rafa and some of the players had their minds on other things, notably a date with Chelsea this tuesday.

If Fulham were the appetiser, then their west London rivals are the main course. Given that the first leg is at Anfield, we need to make it count. Chelsea have a superb record at the bridge so we wouldn't want to be heading there looking for a result. the fact that Essien is suspended for tomorrow is a boost as he's a fantastic player. It looks like Gerrard, Lampard and Drogba will all start. I expect Rafa to tell us to try and hit them early as we managed to do against Juve a few years back. We were in a similar situation against Inter and too a 2-0 lead into the second leg. It's going to be tough but the vibes coming out of Chelsea don't sound good which might improve our chances. I think that we'll sneak it by a goal but will have some tense moments. Expect it to be tactical, turgid and tense rather than thrilling like the Arsenal tie.

This is a terribly sad and moving story. Let's hope that Liam is able to see the banners unfurled on the Kop tomorrow.

The Liverpool Echo has a first hand account from a fan who survived Hillsbourgh. It's well worth a read for an insight from somebody who watched the tragedy unfold. The Guardian reprinted David Lacey's Hillsbourgh report from 1989.

This report from the daily mail could offer some insight into why it's all been kicking off in the boardroom. Oliver Kay analyses the Hicks spin in the Times. There is some interesting info about DIC in this article as there is here in the Independent. This story isn't going away anytime soon.

It's been described as a modern day classic and it's hard to argue with that. 6 goals and some incredible football from both teams, along with a cracking atmosphere gave us a night to remember in Anfield. This is going to go down in the history books alongside the victories over Chelsea, Olympiakos and Juventus. Thanks Rafa.

It's one of those ones where it seems churlish to talk about individuals. There were many star performers. Torres scored an incredible goal after a flick on by Crouchie. I hope that he got his nachos after that. The of Carra, Sami Skrtel and Aurelio all made telling contributions. Sami trumped the others by scoring our first goal with a towering header when he lost his marker, Senderos. The midfield, and indeed the whole team struggled initially but started to assert themselves after the Sami header. Mascherano was immense and tackled anything that moved. He still had the energy to make bursting runs late on in the second half. Alonso was only ok as was Gerrard but he did show balls with a great peno. Kuyt was a colossus. He passed the ball forward for Babels goal but his contribution over the course of the game was huge. It was one of those nights where his touch was good and that makes a big difference. This allied to his movement and game intelligence makes him a very useful player. When his touch is off, he's not half as effective. Babel was a match winner when he came on. He wasn't fit enough to start but won the peno and scored the winner with a superb breakaway goal. Fantastic cameo. He needs to build on this in starts over the next few games and moving into next season. This boy is going to be a star when he puts it all together on a consistent basis.

The belief and character that this team has is amazing. To come back from being behind in the tie twice, against a team we're told is superior to us, is a superb feat. But it's nothing new. We've seen these kinds of displays numerous times since Rafa's arrived. So while the character of the team is nothing new, the skill and verve on display is something new. The likes of Torres and Babel have given us an extra dimension this year to hit teams with pace and flair. Add this to the talents of Gerrard and Alonso and we're a match for anyone. We've been inconsistent, but when it's worked, like it did in the second half last night, it looks pretty good.
Rafa was impressed with the crowd at Anfield. I know that it's become something of a clice about Anfield on the big European nights but they were in fine voice again last night. Souness was talking about it on RTE beforehand saying that nowhere in Britain compares, with the possible exception of Parkhead and Ibrox. I know it can be a bit flat for run of the mill league games, but the fans, like the team, seem to be able to raise their game in Europe.

As John Nicolson said in his fantastic piece on football 365

Liverpool winning a big European game with the crowd singing at 130 decibels and the yellow glow of the floodlights illuminating an ink-black, rain-strewn, north-western sky, means all's right with the world, somehow.
While I can't buy into his urging for us to support all English teams winning in Europe, there are some great memories and sentiments in the piece.
Away from the first team, there was mixed news this week. Sean Highdale, a 17 year old at the Academy was involved in a car crash which killed two other passengers in the car. He is expected to make a full recovery which we can be thankful for. On a more positive note, the reserve team beat Blackburn with a goal from Nemeth, to win the reserve league North. It's mainly composed of young imports and academy graduates rather than mature has beens who're no longer able to get a first team place. The likes of Nemeth and Insua are very highly thought of and will hope to follow Pelssis into the first team sooner rather than later.

The BBC have an interesting interview with Rogan Taylor on Share Liverpool. It sounds like a great idea but I don't know if it will ever happen. I would love to get involved but I doubt that I'll have a spare £5000 for a few years. Maybe they will be able to sort out a minority shareholder system with one of the Americans or preferably DIC.

Ballague suggested in the times podcast that we have deals lined up for one senior player for the first team and two youngsters from South America lined up. This had led posters on the forums to speculate on who the youngsters might be. Two names being put forward are Diego Buonanotte from River Plate and Pablo Piatti from Estudiantes. This report from goal suggests De La Red is heading back to Real in the summer. There was a lot of speculation linking us to him in the past and he would be an obvious candidate to replace Xabi if he does move back to Spain this summer.

We can look forward to Blackburn match on Sunday with slightly less pressure on us. They've given us problems in the past but we should be able to beat them at Anfield considering that they don't have much to play for. We can't really afford too many slip ups with Everton breathing down our necks. In the longer term it's going to be two more games in Chelsea to look forward to or not. These games are not in any way enjoyable and have to be endured. It's going to be really tense.

Until next time.

If you're feeling down after the Utd defeat then have a look at this. It tells the real story of what happened at Old Trafford. I wasn't too confident going into this unlike previous years, and thought that a draw was the best that we might have gotten. I thought that we looked nervous and a lot of our big players didn't perform. We probably would have been beaten anyway as Utd were the better team on the day but once we had 10 men it was a question of by how many.

My feelings on the sending off are that Bennett was a disgrace all match and was as blatant a homer as you're likely to see. That said, Javier should have stayed away from him after he had received the first booking and not risked getting a second. I can understand his fury as Torres booking was a disgrace given the kicking he was receiving. But Mascherano should have been mature, calm and professional enough to know that by getting involved and getting a second yellow he let the team down. Whatever slim chance we had went at that point. Rafa says that Masch knows he made a mistake. By not leaving the field he faces the prospect of an extended ban. But I think that if it had been Rooney, Terry, Neville or Ferdinand in the same situation they wouldn't have been sent off. How often have we seen them crowd and abuse the ref? Terry even stopped the ref from taking out his yellow card this season. Ferdinand was trying to talk the ref into booking our players on Sunday. Rooney berates refs every match he plays. How come they don't get sent off? There is an an awful lot of leverage allowed for England players. Gerrard can be guilty of it too, especially at Anfield but by and large I don't think that we crowd and abuse the ref en mass like some of our rivals. Maybe we should as it didn't seem to do Keane at Utd any harm.

David Pleat makes the point that it was long balls over the top which caused us problems. Rooney targeted Carragher knowing that he had the beating of him with pace and trickery. Carragher was poor and could have given away a peno for a challenge on Rooney. The ease at which the defence was being torn apart had a knock on effect on Pepe who missed some punches which was costly. His distribution, which is normally superb was poor on Sunday too. But I can't remember the last time he's had a poor game for us and he did make some super saves which prevented us from losing 5 or 6 nil.

According to Sky Sports Torres is unlikely to play for Spain tomorrow which is great news. Unfortunately, it means that he's a doubt for the derby. We're definitely going to need him against a very up for it Everton. They are in poor enough form having taken 1 point from 6 but they always raise their game for the derby. Given we've a superior goal difference and 2 more points, a draw mightn't be too bad a result. But if Torres is fit and the fact that they're missing a few players, we really should be able to win at home.

The BBC gossip page yesterday said that we will bid £12m for David Bentley in the summer. I think that it's a position that we have to look at in the summer as Dirk is only a stop gap there. Bentley is decent but I think that we can do better for a £12-15m winger. He'd give us a lot in terms of set pieces, crossing and goals but he doesn't have the pace that we need out wide. Another player linked to us on the forums is Gareth Barry of Aston Villa. I think that he's another good player but again we can do better. If we're buying him for left back then I think that he'd be an improvement. I hope that he's not being bought because Xabi wants to go back to Spain. It looks like David Villa wants to leave Valencia in the summer and we're one of the clubs being linked with him. I know that Rafa tried to sign him when he was still at Zaragosa and he is a top quality player. But I don't know if he would fit into our current 4-2-3-1 system. I think that we could spend the large amount of money that he would cost, on more pressing needs.

Everyone's favourite saga continues to rumble on and on and on. This article suggests Hicks is in financial trouble and DIC could reap the rewards. Let's hope it's accurate.

Another professional win and another 3 points v Reading. Monster Masch got off the mark with a stormer of a strike from outside the D after Matejovsky had opened the scoring for the visitors. It took a free kick from Gerrard and a far post header from El Nino to seal the deal.

I don't think that it was our best performance but we would have lost or drawn this game had it been played when we were in our bad patch in Jan. We stuck to the task in hand after going behind to an early goal. Torres had a 1 v 1 with the keeper and Babel had a couple of dangerous shots. Kuyt was fairly poor and neither of the full backs covered themselves in glory. We should have scored a third to calm the nerves but we didn't and then sat back which let Reading come back into it at the death. Thankfully we held out.

We have a full week off until Sky's big hype Sunday when we play Utd in Old Trafford. I am a bit worried about the game but we're in great from. They struggled a bit against Derby and weren't convincing against Portsmouth or Lyon before that. In El Nino we have the most exciting player in the league at the minute. I think that we're good enough to get a draw but they have a very good home record. The fact that Everton were beaten by Fulham yesterday takes the pressure off somewhat. The derby at the end of the month is still going to be massive though.

The champions league draw was made on Friday morning at 12, or was it? This article suggests that it could have been leaked beforehand. I was a bit suspicious but have a look at this forum. The poster has the draw correct at 10.28. The odds of guessing correctly are 191-1 apparently. Arsenal is a really tough draw. We're going to be playing them three times in the space of a week. We do have the experience of going all the way in the comp which they lack. The fact that they seem to be falling out of form is also promising. Let's hope that it continues until next month.

Dion Fanning in the Irish Indo had a good article on Rafa and rotation at the weekend. The more the facts are getting printed, the better.

This is bad news. I had half suspected that he wouldn't be back this season but it's still a blow to have it confirmed. We've really missed him but hopefully Skrtel can come in and fill the gap for the next few months. What's more important for the player in the long term is that Agger gets this problem sorted once and for all. The news that Kewell is heading off to an Australian training camp is less disturbing.