Top. 12 years ago and now.

You'll probably have heard more than a few times over the last few days about it being the first time we've been top at Christmas, and now heading into the New Year, for 12 years.

You may recall that 12 years ago at the end of December 1996 we stood five points clear of all below us heading into January 1997 as we reached our pinnacle under Roy Evans, playing some of the best football we'd played in years. John Barnes' precise long range effort at Southampton's old Dell ground secured a 1-0 win in the final game of the year and our position, given our form was not unjustified, nor is it 12 years on.

We pretty much continued to set the pace at the top or were there or thereabouts until about April or "squeaky bum" time as Alex Ferguson once labelled it. But our bums slipped off the seats and we threw it away. Most damaging in that period were home defeats to Manchester United and Coventry City that realistically ended our title hopes.

Apparently, Ferguson later admitted we were the best team that season and should have won the league. But United were the best team because they came to Anfield at a crucial time of the season and meticulously took us apart before going on to win another Premier League title.

Taking teams apart meticulously is something we're specialising in nowadays none more so than today's destruction of Newcastle United. Yes it was a shambolic Newcastle side but it was impressive from us nonetheless.

It was a performance that underlined our fantastic completion of the first half of the season and we're all delighted to have set the pace at the top but it is the next five months that will determine whether we really are a different proposition to Evans' side 12 years ago.

The two teams' styles differ greatly. Evans slightly gung-ho approach and 3-5-2 formation had us playing some amazing football but we were always suspect at the back. Benitez's more cautious but effective approach has us pretty much impregnable at the back and incisive and clinical going forward.

A lot has been said about us developing into the machine that he created at Valencia where teams were hounded out of possession and picked apart and this is becoming more and more evident as the season progresses and nowhere was it more evident than today at St James' Park.

Yet there are similarities between the two teams. In 96/97 it was our home form that was our undoing. We dropped 24 points at Anfield, not something you can afford when your going for the title.

This season we've drawn four home games against Stoke, Fulham, West Ham and Hull that we all would have counted as home bankers at the start of the season.

The anxiety amongst the Kop when we play at home is very evident. Understandably given we are at the summit and so desperate to stay there. But this anxiety creeps into the team's performances and unless we get an early lead we seem to struggle.

Put simply, our home form must improve in the New Year. There must be no slip ups. Realistically we should be looking to win every home game including those against the other big three, four if you count Aston Villa. At a minimum two home draws should be allowed given Chelsea, Arsenal and Villa have all to visit Anfield, but even that may not be acceptable. It depends on how many points we pick up on the road

Undoubtedly the side, the squad we have now is better than that in 1996/97. We have more truly world class players but then so do Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal, even Villa with the likes of Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor. The competition is just as tough now as it was then, probably even more so.

Chelsea again dropped points at Fulham today which gives us some breathing space but we should watch United below them with caution. They have three games in hand, win all three and they close the gap on us to a point with a visit to Old Trafford still awaiting Rafa's men in mid March.

What they have is experience, as do Chelsea. They know that points dropped now matter but not as much as dropping points in April/May time. United are the masters of staying in and around the top at this time of the season before pouncing when it really matters.

Traditionally we have finished strongly under Benitez. This bodes well. Our undoing last season after a good start was our mid season blip where we drew a lot of games before we once again finished strongly.

So far this season there's been no major drop in form. That said, before beating Bolton on Boxing Day we'd picked up seven points from five games but remained top thanks to other results, mainly Chelsea's similar drop in form.

It can be argued that this was our blip but you never know, worse form could yet be around the corner. We've waited 19 years for this title, in between plenty of false dawns, plenty of misguided hope just as in 1996/97 so it's better to be cautious at this stage.

I make no big predictions for 2009, that would be foolish.

Instead I have a few small ones. Mainly that Emiliano Insua will establish himself at left back at the expense of Andrea Dossena whose Liverpool career may sadly be a breif one.

Whilst Nabil El Zhar, a key player coming off the bench so far, will become increasingly important as the season progresses.

We've so much to look forward to in the New Year, top of the table, Real Madrid in the Champions League, the FA Cup. It's all in our hands, let's not have any regrets.

What a Christmas present!

I am sure that Raffa is shouting Merry Christmas to reds all over the world and rejoicing that history will prove that in the last 4 seasons the team that has been top on Christmas day went on to win the Premiership!

Now wouldn't that be nice?

I am the first to admit that we have not always been brilliant however we are on top even if it is only by the solitary point, however that is enough to win come the end of May.

While we have struggled with some teams and mainly at home I watched our performance against Arsenal and boy we were good, I still reckon, despite what their Manager said that we controlled the game for most of the first half and all the second half, a win would not have been an unfair result.

Roll on 2009!

An unlikely outcome

Two poor, poor performances and only one goal to show for it and yet Liverpool are into the next phase of the Champions League and top of the Premier League.

Yet with all that horrible booing that followed the final whistle at tonight's game you sure as hell wouldn't know it. We're top and yet we could be five points clear given the points Chelsea have thrown away in the last two weeks and that's what's troubling people.

We should be seeing off a team like West Ham as we should have done with Fulham the weekend before last. The fact that we didn't and we're still top is good but the fact we haven't taken full advantage and established a credible lead means we may have regrets come May, like we always do.

Last Wednesday's performance was pretty terrible. Once Gerrard put is in front we seemed to do everything we could to allow Marseille back into the game on top of looking pretty toothless in attack. Our progression from the group is deserved overall but we will have to up our game in the knockout stages.

It's ironic really. I could be sitting here writing about two fabulous, goal-laden performances that could produce only CL progression and joint top of the table and yet Chelsea's defeat to Arsenal on Sunday has not only helped us go clear at the top but it has raised doubts about the Blues' title credentials given they've taken just one point from games against the other big three at Stamford Bridge.

What we should be concerned about is that Manchester United may now have found form having negotiated well a difficult derby game in Sunday's earlier kick off. Equally Arsenal's inspired performance at the Bridge could be the catalyst for a renewed assault on the title but it's hard to know which way it will go for them given their brilliant win over United a few weeks ago failed to have that catalyst effect.

It all points towards a very tight race indeed and I'm glad we're amongst it even if the last few games haven't made us believe we can still be amongst it when it matters. But for now we're in the mix, we need to up our game over Christmas and make sure we are still there in the New Year.

New Stevie G Adidas Ad....

The new batch of Adidas ads features our own captain strutting his stuff pretty impressively it has to be said. Shooting balls and hitting clay pigeons with the help of Xabi Alonso. I wouldn't mind seeing Xabi have a go at this mind you...



Apparently he got it in less than ten attempts as this article explains.

This Frank Ribery Nike advert is also doing the rounds. The colour is a bit extreme though...



You won't see any pairs of them down the Sunday League.

The importance of the next two games

Two important games coming up now. Two games where we need to reassert ourselves after Saturday's inept display.

It wasn't so much that Fulham were good defensively but we weren't very good going forward. A lot has been said about the decision to play Lucas and his subsequent performance but not a lot has been said about how poor Robbie Keane was.

It's not unfair to say that he hardly touched the ball at all in the second half and when he did, he did nothing with it. Maybe the return of Fernando Torres put him off a bit and he wasn't quite sure what he was meant to be doing having been the main man up front in recent games but if this partnership with the Spaniard is to flourish it needs to do so quickly.

The rest of the league won't wait for it to click and we were lucky in that, by freak, all of the big four failed to score at the weekend. The first time in over 80 years apparently.

Marseille tomorrow should be academic and we should secure our place in the knockout phase of the Champions League. But we've made hard work of so many games this season it just wouldn't be safe to assume this will be the case.

The same can be said of Monday's visit of struggling West Ham. It should be three points and comfortably so but you wouldn't put your house on it particularly after seeing us toil against Fulham, who had the worst away record in the league before the weekend.

All that said we are still in the exact same position we were before that game. But we could have been top and it leaves that lingering feeling that we won't get many opportunities to overtake Chelsea this season, when they do come along we need to take advantage of them particularly against teams like Fulham.

We'll be playing catch up by Monday night with all the other teams having played at the weekend. Three points is a must as is the case tomorrow night.

Putting the Champions League to bed before December can allow us to focus on our ultimate goal this season and ending the long wait.

Spurs 4-2 Reds: Fringe players can stay on the fringes

What a shambles that was at White Hart Lane tonight.

The weekend was a comfortable and relaxing win and really overdue given the way we've made hard work of most of our games this season. It's been entertaining but how I longed for a game such as West Brom on Saturday night.

Tonight, however, well the less said about it the better. But it probably needs to be said that Diego Cavalieri, Philip Degen and Andrea Dossena have a lot to do to resuce their careers at this club. Granted it was only Cavalieri and Degen's second games for the club but both looked so shaky and almost out of their depth it was embarassing.

Dossena, meanwhile, has been unimpressive all season. Tonight showed him at his very worst. Defensively his awareness was poor and he offered nothing going forward, something we were told he was going to be excellent at.

Degen was much the same but in fairness should have had a penalty in the second half at 4-2 and seemed a bit traumatised after Spurs' keeper Gomes was stretchered off following a collision with the Swiss full back.

Ryan Babel was poor. He didn't show enough to merit a place in the starting line up that some have been calling for. Lucas was our best player, working hard in midfield throughout and playing some good balls that others in the team should have made more of.

None of the youngsters showed much beyond what we already knew about them. They're all very good at reserve team level and distinctly average when they make the step up.

This may change with more games but these are the kind of games they should be shining in. Nabil El Zhar had a few good moments but was in and out of the game. Damien Plessis did well to pull it back to 3-1 but Emiliano Insua was fairly anonymous when he came on and young Stephen Darby didn't have enough time.

David Ngog looked very off the pace and may go the way of other previous French imports unless he starts to show a bit more potential at least.

Torres was off the pace but this was no surprise. His departure at 4-1 was a smart move by Benitez. The game was lost at that stage. No point tiring him out with some big games coming up.

Overall it was shite, but it was only the Carling Cup.

There are more pressing matters ahead but it's not been a good night and there are certain players who are on the fringe of the first team that would want to buck up their ideas if they have ambitions to progress any further at this football club.

Take it on the chin!

The turning point for me when watching the game on Saturday, was when the big mouthed reporter stated that Raffa since joining Liverpool had never lost to a Spurs side!

Thanks for that.

What can you say about these sorts of games, we were the overall better side, the early goal had us set up for another win, but a greasy surface didn't help when Carra put through his own goal and of course the compulsory last and winning goal deep into injury time .

For most of the game we controlled the midfield, not allowing Spurs to get into the game at all, the early part of the second half is when we should have killed them off, we made the chances, hitting the bar at least 3 times and putting some good chances just wide.

In fact I still think even though we got beat it was one of our best performances of the season, especially the way we controlled midfield, which meant the Spurs attack was almost none existent.

Lets face it we are going to face games like this when the best team loses. The real test for me, is how we bounce back. Look at Chelsea, since losing to Liverpool, they have registered 2 wins 3-0 and 5-0. That is a great example of how to deal with a set back.

We have a great opportunity tonight when we host Athletico Madrid in the Champions League. A win (and a good win) not only will secure us a place in the knock out stages it will do wonders for our confidence.

Chelski 0-1 Reds: Setting the marker down

It's hard to put in to words just how monumental yesterday's win was.

There's so much that an be said about it. We've ended Chelsea's seemingly unendable four year unbeaten run in the league at Stamford Bridge, ended their highly impressive unbeaten start to the season and sustained our own unbeaten start.

We are now heading into November top of the pile and looking every inch the title challenging side we've aspired to be for the past eighteen years.

With Man United and now Chelsea already vanquished this season there is genuine belief not only amongst the Anfield faithful but amongst the football world in general that Liverpool are a force to be reckoned with this season.

The fact that both sides were seen off without our talisman FernandoTorres also underlines that Rafa Benitez now has a squad capable of dealing with the rigors of sustaining a title challenge and going for glory in Europe.

Whilst victory at Atletico Madrid in midweek would have made it a perfect week, a draw at a difficult European ground followed by a win at arguably the most difficult ground in Europe four days later shows that we can cope.

It is early days, we are only nine games in but they've been no normal nine games. They've included four comebacks including one of the most impressive you will see all season at mega rich Manchester City and at home to Manchester United without Torres AND Steven Gerrard.

And still you get the feeling that we have not played the kind of football we are capable of. A lot of our victories have been the product of hard work, hassling opponents, being clinical in attack and having belief that we are never beaten.

We have played some lovely, free flowing football at times under Benitez and with a home game against demoralised Portsmouth this Wednesday there is the perfect opportunity to show that we can add flair to an extraordinary will to win that has put us top of the table so far.

We must guard against the kind of complacency that followed the Man United win and saw us held by Stoke City but for the moment we can bask in the glory of having done something extraordinary at the Bridge yesterday. Hopefully it won't be the last extraordinary thing we do this season.

Bigger than Big!

What a game this weekend, with the last 2 unbeaten teams in the Premiership going head to head on a ground that the home side has a no loss record for nearly 4 years.

Both teams have been scoring goals, so only a brave person would predict a 0-0 scoreline, while I admit it has been left to this man to score the all important winners in the last couple of games, goals having been arriving from all positions.

Last week Chelsea fielded a weakened side and still won 5-0 away from home while Liverpool left it very late again to snatch a 3-2 home win against Wigan. Clearly missing Torres will be a massive blow, but let's not forget we beat Manure with both him and Captain Stevie missing.

My main concern is defence, with Agger only just returning after a long time away, he has yet to hit the high spots and has been guilty of a couple of blunders which have cost us dearly. Against Wigan he was clearly at fault for the first goal and in midweek against Madrid, where was he when they scored, I couldn't see him?

Otherwise we have only a few niggling injuries that should see the rest of the squad all available.

I don't claim to be the best in the world when predicting scores but I still feel that there will be goals in this game and a likely result of a 2-2 draw feels just about right to me.

Kuyt the unlikely but welcome hero

In a game where we expected Robbie Keane to fill the rather massive void left by Fernando Torres' absence what a pleasure it was to see a striker (or is Dirk Kuyt just a right winger now?) more maligned than the Irishman come up with the goods to save our skins yet again.

Yet I'm sure we all long for a basic 2 or 3 nil home win. Yes, all this drama makes for excitement and it's certainly doing wonders for our confidence whenever we go behind but really we could do without it if we are going to be sustaining a title challenge.

For starters it doesn't do much for our goal difference, which at +7 pales in comparison to Chelsea's which increased further with their 5-0 demolition of Middlesbrough on Saturday afternoon.

But all moaning aside it's good for Kuyt to be among the goals again and whilst Keane is still without a league strike the fact he has at least one under his belt in a Liverpool shirt means that monkey is off his back. And as the main man in Torres' enforced absence he should theoretically get more chances.

Albert Riera continues to impress us all and his goal was well taken. A word to for the man on the other side of the pitch, Jermaine Pennant whose chances have been fleeting but whose cross for Kuyt's winner was a peach.

The former Arsenal man was said to have no future at Anfield but injuries meant he got his chance at the weekend and if he gets a few more all he has to do is keep playing like that and maybe Rafa Benitez will change his mind.

Next up is Atletico Madrid, the game rightly and sensibly back at the Vicente Calderon. Despite our form it won't be easy and the temptation for Rafa to rest players ahead of Sunday's big game with Chelsea will be strong. A draw would not be a bad result here considering the 100% start we've had to the group.

It's important to focus on this one and keep all eyes off the Stamford Bridge showdown.

We've had good starts domestically and in Europe. Saturday demonstrated we have a squad to cope with a few key injuries, so let's keep it going.

Blame it on the Boss!

I must first apologize for my tardiness in putting pen to paper over the past few weeks. My Boss seems to have it in for me, judging by the amount of work he has been pushing my way!

However during this time, our beloved team has gone from strength to strength.

I must admit those early games had me a bit nervous, while I acknowledge, that we were getting good results, we were not playing that well. The doubts regarding the partnership between Keane and Torres began to surface, should we have bought Barry, who he have made a difference?

Anyway, its now seems my rears were unwarranted, a good win against Everton, not sure what a bad win is? which followed an outstanding performance against Manure.

I just have a make a comment about "El Nino" I have absolutely no doubt that he will become if he is not already an Anfield legend and is in the same bracket as King Kenny, Owen, Keegan, Rush etc.

Just watching him destroy both Everton and Man. City and it's not just his goal scoring that is so impressive, it is his overall contribution to the team, from defending corners to making space for other players to creating goal scoring opportunities for team mates, he really is a world class player.

Truly outstanding!

Good results in the Champions League, which was followed up by, most probably our best performance, certainly the second half was, when we came back from being 2-0 down to City and scored a very impressive 3-2 win. As this game kicked off at 2.00am here in Aus, it was worth staying up for.

The concerns I had about Keane and Torres have eased but not yet gone away, while it was nice to witness Keane score his first Liverpool goal last week against PSV and celebrate in his normal fashion, I would still like to see him hitting the net on a regular basis in the Premier League.

I suppose and this is based upon our performances to date, did we/do we need Barry? I was never 100% behind Raffas decision to make his choice so visible, however in viewing results so far, I am happy with Villas decision not to let him go.

Read with interest this morning, that the reason for Juventus not buying Alonso was that he was too slow. Sounds good to me! Never wanted him to go anyway.

City 2-3 Reds: A remarkable Sunday afternoon

Following last Saturday's win at Goodison and Tuesday's impressive dismissal of PSV, the media talk of Liverpool being genuine title challengers this season was always going to set us up for a fall and that looked to be the case after 45 minutes today.

But perhaps now we really can believe because another amazing comeback and by far the most impressive this season has underlined just how good Liverpool are at the moment.

It's even more impressive when you consider that it came against the self proclaimed richest club in the world, Manchester City who some said would take our place in the top four. (It turns out to be Hull CIty who are gracing the Champions League places, taking the place of the other Manchester side.)

Granted City have been far from impressive in recent games and are not the finished article but it is still no mean feat to come from 2-0 down away from home in the league and manage to win.

My disillusionment with our first half performance meant I took my time to go and watch the second half thus missing the Zabaleta sending off and Torres's first goal.

But the qualiser from El Nino was quality. For once a perfect corner from Stevie Gerrard and a wonderful glancing header from our number nine. It's fair to say we don't get enough of those.

Skrtel's injury looked pretty bad judging by the pain on his face and we await the verdict.

But even his departure, leaving both sides with ten men, having used all our subs, could not stop Liverpool's relentless second half pressure. And it paid dividends with Kuyt's first league goal in eleven months. It could not have come at a better or later time. Three points in the bag.

Now there will be even more talk of a title challenge but with the international break coming up, we can just savour our position at joint top with Chelsea and look forward to some big games in the winter months.

It's a period that will likely determine whether or not we're in the mix at the back end of the season, as it did last season.

But it's looking good, I have to say, really good.

Blueshite 0-2 Mighty Reds: A great day at the Pit...

First off apologies for the total lack of blogging over the past two weeks but internet or lack of put paid to any updates.

But what great timing to be returning to action and toasting a fantastic victory at Woodison in the bright Saturday afternoon sunshine.

Everything about yesterday's win was just perfect. It was a great performance from start to finish and it would not be unfair to say we could have had four or five. Dirk Kuyt and Fernando Torres did actually score goals three and four only for both to be ruled out.

But two brilliantly taken goals from a back to form Torres with the help of Robbie Keane who although is still not amongst the goals played a big part in setting up both of them showed that the partnership is slowly starting to click.

Whilst last weekend's draw with Stoke was hardly ideal and the win over Crewe in midweek was uninspiring we have managed to take six points from two of our biggest games of the entire season and are joint top of the table.

With Arsenal capitulating at home to Hull City in the late kick off and Man U winning but continuing to play catch up we are taking our opportunity (Stoke aside) to set the pace along with Chelsea.

As the top two, separated only by goal difference, all going well our showdown at Stamford Bridge on October 26 should be a real indication of the progress we've made and whether or not we can really expect to be in the mix come next April/May.

Derby wins tend to get everyone carried away with themselves (Igor Biscan bossing Wayne Rooney five years ago anyone?) but this was good today and it will give the whole camp a massive lift.

A long way to go yet though and matters European next with the visit of PSV on Wednesday.

Reds 2-1 Dirty Mancs

Been a while since we've been able to enjoy a win over Manchester United and what a feeling it is!

Fantastic performance, fantastic day. Top of the league and all of that without the one man in our one man team!

More detailed analysis to follow after I've calmed down!

Get in there!

Deadline day: Berbatov, City, Finnan, Andriy, Jermaine, Riera, and the YouTube kid!

I have to say the deadline day tug of war between Manchester's United and City over Dimitar Berbatov is exciting stuff.

As I write, with just over an hour to the deadline, there is still no resolution and to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't before 12.

Afterall Cashley Cole's move from Arsenal to Chelsea was completed after the deadline a couple of seasons ago. When it's Chelsea deadlines and rules don't matter you see.

It will be interesting to see how the sale of Manchester City to a bunch Abu Dhabi businessmen pans out.

They claim to have more money than Abramovich. If that's the case then we're in for an interesting January window when they can really flex their financial muscle (assuming they don't get Berbatov which is likely in my view). But then it's one thing attracting players to an already well established London club, another to the second team in grey Manchester.

To matters Liverpool and our activity has been fairly predictable. Steve Finnan and Andriy Voronin have been off loaded with no news yet on our other unwanted first teamer Jermaine Pennant.

Apparently Pennant has been told he'll rot in the reserves if he doesn't agree to join Stoke City. The former Birmingham man is reluctant to leave his boyhood club for a probable relegation battle. I don't blame him.

I'm sad to see Finnan go. He's been a loyal and excellent servant to the club but at 32 it was obviously felt his best days were behind him. Espanyol is not a bad move though. They are a decent La Liga side and he'll enjoy the sun.

Andriy Voronin's loan move to Hertha Berlin is best for everyone. For us we have managed to unload a player very few clubs seemed to want and they'll take up a percentage of his wages. Hopefully he'll impress back in a Bundesliga familiar to him and Hertha will pay £10m to make it permanent next summer....dream on.

Albert Riera's arrival was always on the cards and it was nice that he actually got to Merseyside this time unlike Simao Sabrosa on deadline day 2005. The Portuguese winger was reportedly on the plane and ready to leave for Liverpool when Benfica upped their asking price and the deal collapsed.

Rafa's been heaping the praise on the Spaniard whose cost around £8m.

There's plenty in this country who are sceptical about him given he had an uninspiring spell at Manchester City two seasons ago. But the 26-year-old has apparently come on in leaps and bounds and was unlucky not to make the victorious Spanish squad in the summer.

There was a bit of business at reserve level as well with promising Hungarian keeper Peter Gulacsi's move from MTK Hungaria made permanent. Gulacsi will compete with Dean Bouzanis for the reserve team's number one shirt this season.

We've also signed Vitor Flora from Botafogo. I know nothing about him but I've discovered a YouTube compilation so he must be the new Pele....



We should probably fast track him into the first team given the news today of Fernando Torres' injury that will sideline him for up to three weeks.

While it's not been a particularly exciting deadline day what needed to be done has been done and now Rafa can get to work on getting the team playing properly again...after those pesky internationals of course.

What a way to start the season.

Some months ago I wrote (a bit tongue in cheek I must admit) that Liverpool would stay at Anfield, but would upgrade the turnstiles. Now I believe those words are coming back to haunt me!

The situation goes from bad to worse and while we have those two American idiots (not that you have to be an American to be an idiot) I am now of the opinion that we will never move away from Anfield.

DIC who many fans see as our saviour from this holy mess, appear to be distancing themselves from the situation, so it is hard to see who or how we will get out of the hole we now find ourselves in.

That is off the pitch, how that reflects on the players and their performance it is hard to say, however fair to say, we are not exactly setting the world on fire with performances on the pitch.

3 games played, 2 wins + 1 draw = 3 pretty poor performances and slip in between a last minute winner in the champions league and we have a very shaky start to the season.

Then - look on the bright side, we are unbeaten, second in the League, through to the group stages of the Champions League and a new left sided player about to sign, could things get better.

It has always been said, that the sign of a good side is winning games, however the sign of a great side is winning matches when you are not playing well!

That is certainly Liverpool at the moment.

It can (and will) only get better!

A word on the stadium debacle

Of course the big news over the last few days is not the draw at Villa nor the imminent arrival of Albert Riera although we'd sure like it to be. No, instead the biggest news concerns matters off the field and those two losers who own our club.

I doubt many were surprised by Friday's announcement that the stadium building on Stanley Park has been "delayed in the short term" as the club so eloquently put it on the official website.

What was even more pathetic was the attempt to save face by claiming they would use the period productively be seeking ways in which to expand the capacity to 73,000 seats.

Ah of course! Because when costs are spiraling and you can't afford the initial development, you take a break and come back with a plan to make it bigger and even more expensive. That is sound business practice.

Christ almighty.

I mean seriously, do they think we're idiots? Obviously it's that or else the two of them, particularly Tom Hicks, have their heads so far up their own arses they have no idea what's going on around them.

This is a distinct possibility with Hicks who denied any talks with DIC last season when everyone else knew otherwise. He later admitted to talks and looked like a fool.

The Texan also consistently maintained that Rafa would have money for signings and that money was in place for the stadium even though Benitez has had limited spending power this summer (underlined by the ridiculous Barry saga) and everyone knew that the money available for the new Anfield would start a stadium but probably not finish it.

But of course George Gillett is just as culpable in all this. It is he after all who made the infamous "shovel in the ground in 60 days" comment when they bought the club 18 months ago. Yes that's right, 18 MONTHS AGO!

The whole thing goes beyond a joke because this is actually Liverpool FC, and it's very existence we're talking about here. As long as there's no new stadium we will continue to lag behind Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea (Who have all the money in the world if not the stadium) off the pitch and probably on it.

And I'm certain that as long as Gillett and Hicks have control of the club, a new stadium will never be built. What that means for the future of Liverpool Football Club? Well I wish I knew, I really do. because these are worrying times.

Villa 0-0 Reds: When the luck runs out.

Well it would be a bit harsh to insinuate that we had fluked our way to three straight victories before today's game but nothing seemed to go right for us at Villa Park today and there was no late drama to secure another win.

The loss of Fernando Torres after 15 or so first half minutes to a hamstring strain (and we hope it's nothing more) forced Rafa to change his game plan which had already been altered pre match by the loss of Steve Gerrard.

Young David Ngog was thrown in at the deep end, given his first competitive outing for the club.

The 19 year old Frenchman acquitted himself well enough and could have scored a spectacular debut goal late in the first half after nice work by Robbie Keane.

Keano himself seemed to play better once moved inside from an unfamiliar left wing position and should have scored in the second half. He was again substituted late on and is still without a goal for the club, it will be playing on his mind now but hopefully it won't be too long.

But aside from Ngog and Keane chances were few and far between and this was yet another below par performance from Liverpool.

Villa we're pretty poor too and it made for a fairly awful game but then none of our games to date this season have been particularly enthralling affairs, save for the late drama against Boro last weekend.

It's clear that the lack of width has become a major issue. Ryan Babel needs to play more. If Javier Mascherano and Lucas could be expected to play 90 minutes today then I don't see why Babel, whose been back from the Olympics longer, couldn't. Instead Lucas was playing left wing after Keane moved inside and looked very uncomfortable.

The idea of full backs bombing foward is nice but Arbeloa and Dossena seem reluctant to do so on a regular basis. They did get forward now and again throughout the game and Dossena put in one or two decent crosses.

But all too often today and in recent games when an opportunity for an overlapping run was on they were stationary and instead the ball was moved inside to a crowded midfield and the attack broke down.

The sooner Albert Riera signs the better but we would be foolish to believe he will answer all our problems.

If we start playing Babel again regularly and maybe go with the formation we finished last season with, sacrificing Keane for the time being, perhaps we will return to the kind of form we showed back then to finish strongly.

I know plenty will disagree with the idea of shoving a £20m forward on to the bench for a few games but I think it's something Rafa should consider so as that the rest of the team can start playing the football we know they can.

The good thing is that unlike last season we haven't raised expectations by playing out of our skins and going top just before the September international break. Instead there are huge questions marks over our ability to challenge for the title when our play seems so limited at present.

Now that does sound a bit mad but Rafa knows the problems we have and he will look to sort them out while the international players go away. When we return, expectations won't be as high in the press as they were after our superb start to last season.

All that said. It's not been a bad start to this campaign by any means. We are second in the league and in to the group stages of the Champions League. So there is an awful lot to be positive about when the Reds return after the World Cup qualifiers.

Reds face Crewe in the Carling Cup

The draw for the third round of the Carling Cup has just taken place and has pitted us at home to our old pre season buddies Crewe Alexandra of League One.

This shouldn't pose Rafa Benitez and his side too many problems and it's more than likely that the fringe players in the squad will get their chance.

Having seen the likes of Diego Cavalieiri, Stephen Darby, Jay Spearing, Kristian Nemeth, David Ngog and even young Dani Pacheco impress in pre season it will be interesting to see how they fair in a more competitive environment if they are given their chance.

Undoubtedly this cup comes fourth in our priorities this season but with an excellent record in the competition, Benitez will hope to go one better than he did in the 2005 final and bring the cup back to Anfield for the first time in six years.

The tie will take place on either 23 or 24 September.

CL draw and Villa present tough tests

The less said about the other night the better.

Thank god we got through but I suppose as a punishment of sorts for making such hard work out of the tie with Standard Liege we've been handed the Group of Death.....or Group D as most of you may know it.

I have to say I think there is some injustice that the most successful English side in the competition over the last three or four seasons gets the hardest group of the four Premier League teams.

Whilst Chelsea and Man United get the bloody Romanian and Danish champions respectively we get four big hitters from three of the top European leagues including dark horses Atletico Madrid who are easily the best of the fourth seeded teams and probably better than most of the third seeded lot.

The other teams in the group, PSV Eindhoven and Marseille, are well known to us from recent seasons.

PSV were seen off at the group stages and in the quarter finals en route to that awful night in Athens two seasons ago whilst Marseille secured an unlikely late victory at Anfield before they were dispatched with ease in the final group game of last season's tournament.

As Rafa said, it's a tough group but we'll just have to get on with it.

Our form is not great at the moment as we all know and we've done the bare minmum to scrape six points out of two games in the league and tumble into the group stages of the Champions League.

It's been a well used line over the last few weeks about how a good title challenging team always gets results even when they play poorly but we had better start playing better and soon.

Villa away this weekend provides a much sterner test than anything we've faced so far and with all the furore over Gareth Barry, an extra element is added to this match up.

An even better sign of a real title challenging team is getting all three points from places like Villa and that's got to be the aim on Sunday afternoon.

In praise of our Olympians

The Olympics drew to a close in Bejing today after an incredible two weeks of sporting action.

We witnessed the greatest ever Olympian Michael Phelps destroy world and Olympic medal records in the pool and Jamaican Usain Bolt raise the bar for all sprinters.

But our own Javier Mascherano made a little bit of history in the searing heat of the Bird's Nest on Saturday morning when he became the first Argentinean to win two Olympic golds as the footballers retained their gold from Athens four years ago.

While 'El Jefe' took gold Lucas Leiva took bronze with Brazil who beat Belgium in the third place play off. It was the Argentineans who ended Brazilian dreams in the semi final earlier in the week.

Unfrotunately for Lucas his Olympics ended on a sour note when he was red carded in the semi final ironically for a tackle on Mascherano but we're sure there's no hard feelings.

Ryan Babel didn't finish among the medals and was back with the Reds yesterday, coming on as a sub against Middlesbrough after his Holland team fell foul of the Mascherano's men at the last eight.

Well done to our trio of Olympians, particularly Masch in light of the disappointment he suffered in 2006/07 for club and country, but we'll be glad to seem them back in the Liverpool team shortly.

Reds 2-1 Boro: Doing it the hard way

Sometimes it's nice when run of the mill league games turn into epic late dramas that see the Reds prevail, often thanks to their talismanic captain.

Yesterday was one of those games and just as it may have shown Liverpool's shortcoming in wide areas it equally demonstrated their ability to win games they don't necessarily deserve to and that, as we well know, is an important quality for all sides with title aspirations.

The frantic finish was all a far cry from the bright opening from the home side which suggested this might be an easy day. But the good attacking display and the glimpses of Torres and Keane linking well produced no goals.

Bad finishing let us down and ultimately lead to the second half mediocrity that saw Mido put the visitors up front. After that we were srambling to get back into the game.

Ultimately it was the Scouse heart of the team combined with a bit of luck that got us over the line with three valuable points.

Jamie Carragher's goals are rare enough and this one, his fifth in eleven years, was easily his most important. And there's no taking it away from him either no matter how much of a deflection there was off Emmanuel Pogatetz.

From there we pushed on but as the game drifted into the 93rd minute a winner seemed unlikely. However with Steven Gerrard you can never be entirely certain of a result until the final whistle.

A screamer, in the vein of that goal against Olympiakos nearly four years ago, sent Anfield wild. We hardly expected to be celebrating in such a manner in just our second league game but that is how it turned out and few will complain when the most important thing, three points, were secured.


Now being honest there's been little to be encouraged about overall by our last two performances, three if you count the crap in Liege nearly two weeks ago but we've gained six points without playing anywhere near our best as Gerrard pointed out yesterday.

And in a league where your opening six games can be just as important as your last six that represents an encouraging start to a season where much is expected.

Mackems 0-1 Reds: Spaniards make the difference

This game showed us a couple of things. Why we should never write off Fernando Torres even when he does nothing all game and why Xabi Alonso needs to stay at Liverpool.

The two combined brilliantly late in the second half, Alonso setting up Torres who did all the hard work to fire home Liverpool's 83rd minute winner that got us off to a winning start in the Premier League.

It's all the more important with Arsenal beating West Brom earlier in the day, Chelsea crushing Pompey on Sunday and more importantly Man United dropping points at home to Newcastle in Sunday's final game.

Saturday's late kick off at the Stadium of Light threatened to go the way of Standard Liege last Wednesday based on a pretty abject first half performance.

But we stepped it up in the second half and the introduction of Alonso for Damien Plessis undoubtedly contributed to that. A win like this, however unimpressive is so crucial.

Seemingly heading for a draw, Alonso dictating the play from the middle of the park and the sheer class of Torres proved to be the difference and secured a vital three points on the road.

And in Alonso's case, hopefully not for the last time this season in a Liverpool shirt.

Here we go again!

It's incredible to think that it is only 10 weeks since the last Premiership game and we are starting over all over again and in between we managed to squeeze in a European Championship.

Clearly the expectations are high (as usual) for Liverpool, in fact in one report I read it claims that if Liverpool don't improve over the 4th position from last season, Raffa should be expecting to be sacked. Lets face it there are some teams that have never ever risen to be in 4th spot so that sort of media bullshit is way out of order.

Raffa had made a number of changes to the side, the signing of Robbie Keane was clearly the stand out, while a number of the 1st team squad have moved out. Crouch and Riise being the main ones there. I have no problems with Crouch going, him and Torres never seemed to be the correct mix, while Keane and Torres looks to be far better. There was some slight regret in relation to Riise, he was a very honest player and somehow seemed to fail out of favour with Raffa. I sincerely hope that we all remember the good point about Riise and his very positive contribution during his 6 years with Liverpool. The highlight (and there were many) was his stunning free kick that left the bald headed French prick of a goalkeeper for Utd grabbing at fresh air! Good on you John and all the best for the future!

There have been a number of other positions covered, in particular both full backs roles while a return from injury by Aggar is almost a s good as a major signing.

The real big talking point and it seemed to drag on for months was Raffa s chasing of Gareth Barry, which in itself was a god thing, it was the issue of selling Alonso that got a whole bunch of Liverpool fans offside. That I would never attempt to cast doubt over Raffas ability to buy and sell players but this one has got me beat. Alonso is Mr. Midfield, there is nobody in the Premiership that can pass a ball like he can and he is a bit of a tough nut to go with it, but Raffa seemed determined to move him on. Personally I hope he stays, but judging by the official statement and the fact that Barry last in the UEFA Cup last night appears to have killed off this move happening.

Anyway this weekend, its an away game at Sunderland, which will not be easy, but they are not supposed to be easy.

I think we will just get this over the line by the odd goal in 3!

Standard Liege 0-0 Liverpool: Lucky to be still in it

That was pretty appalling stuff in Liege last night as Liverpool escaped from Belgium with a draw that thankfully still leaves them in a good position to finish off the job at Anfield in a fortnight.

But they will have to step up several gears from this performance from which I struggle to recall any meaningful chances on goal from the visitors.

Thank god for Pepe Reina's penalty saving skills and for some poor finishing from the home side. 2-0 to Liege would not have been unjustified and Rafa knew it afterwards.

There were few positives to take from this performance. Reina was outstanding but then he rarely isn't. Keane and Torres didn't click but we know that will take time. Andrea Dossena looked nervy but got better as the game progressed. Damien Plessis was okay but still has a lot to learn.

It's another away game on Saturday, a difficult one at Roy Keane's Sunderland. A performance and a result like last night's or worse will have the knives out straight away.

What's imperative this season is to start well just like last season and then continue that form through the winter months unlike last season when we stuttered.

Last night wasn't encouraging stuff but we'll put it down to rustiness and hope that the real Liverpool show up at the weekend. They'll need to.

Barry saga opens up new Yanks/Rafa rift

It's strange that following a quiet summer on the ownership front on the eve of the new season The Echo yesterday and today The Guardian, The Independent and The Times all report a new row between Rafa Benitez and George Gillett and Tom Hicks.

It centres on the summer's most tedious transfer saga (at least the Ronaldo one is now over) as Benitez looks to secure his number one target Gareth Barry. The owners are apparently reluctant to part with the £18m that they have secured in a loan that would seal Barry's transfer from Aston Villa.

They question the wisdom of signing a player whose sell on value will be significantly less bearing in mind he will be 31 at the end of a proposed four year contract. Now what's strange is that the Yanks may have the fans in some ways agreeing with them on this one.

Now that's hard for anyone to admit bearing in mind the shit they've pulled with our football club. But I personally have been very skeptical about the whole Barry affair all summer and there was plenty of audible support for Xabi Alonso, who at one stage was set to make way for the Villa captain, in last night's friendly win over Lazio at Anfield.



However, the chants of "You can stick your Gareth Barry up your arse" by some sections of the support were less appreciated. Whatever about showing support for one player it's not the Liverpool way to be so disparaging and abusive towards another potential new signing.

Similarly the booing of Andriy Voronin upon his entrace last night wasn't on and fair play to him for shushing those supporters with a smashing late winner.

But back to the Barry saga and I find it strange that from our opening offer of £10m back in May we are now suddenly prepared to pay nearly double that for the England international or at least Benitez is.

This certainly hasn't been the way Benitez has behaved in previous pursuits of the likes of Daniel Alves or Simao, calling those pursuits off when the clubs quote ridiculous prices. I certainy think £18m is a ridiculous price for Barry but the boss is clearly very keen on the player and perhaps we should trust his judgement on this given his track record with big money signings (Mascherano and Torres for example)

But I guess it's just that nagging feeling that having seen Barry week in week out in the Premier League it's hard to say he's worth that much and it's that loyalty to Alonso, a fans favourite whose obviously very keen to be staying at the club and has been terrific in pre season, that gives us cause to doubt the boss.

Ultimately it would be ideal if Barry arrives and Alonso stays and Rafa finds a way to accomodate both in already crowded looking midfield.

But to achieve that it appears he may now have to overcome another sticking point with the owners. At least on that front Rafa has our support and that may be vital in attempting to wrangle the money out of their hands and ending this tiresome affair.

Leto gone (but hopefully not to be forgotten!)

You've probably heard that Sebastian Leto was denied a work permit again.

The 21-year-old left winger made a couple of first team appearances and was a regular for the reserves leading up to Christmas last year but then mysteriously disappeared from the scene.

This was apparently because the Italian passport which allowed him to move to Anfield from Argentinean side Lanus without needing a work permit was dodgy and was subsequently revoked.

He was denied a work permit to play in England earlier this week much to the annoyance of Rafa Benitez and so he has been sent on loan to Olympiakos for two seasons with the hope that after this he might qualify to play in England.

We'll keep an eye on Leto, who showed some glimpses of his talent in his brief stint at Liverpool, and hope he does not suffer the same fate as the eternal loanee Alou Diarra.

Trio heading for the Anfield exit door

Tonight's win in Norway was notable (well probably not a lot of people noticed) for the absence of Steve Finnan, Jermaine Pennant and Andriy Voronin who were all apparently left behind in Liverpool as all three are rumored to be on their way out.

Finnan has featured very little this pre season and there was talk of a move to Aston Villa as part of the ongoing Gareth Barry transfer but nothing has yet materialised on that front as we all know.

Pennant is a target for new Blackburn boss Paul Ince who has money to spend and is in need of a winger following the sale of David Bentley to Spurs.

Pennant is keen to stay as far as I know but Rafa is keen to offload after two disappointing seasons in which good performances from the former Birmingham man were all too sporadic.

Whilst Voronin, well he featured early on in pre season and scored a couple of goals but it's unlikely he'll feature much this coming season (we hope!) with the likes of Keane, Ngog and Kuyt as well as Nemeth and Pacheco coming through.

Add to that the fact that he just looks plain rubbish whenever he plays and never looks entirely arsed unlike a certain other mediocre striker who came from Germany and at least gave a shit when he was on the field. Yep, I'm talking about Erik Meijer.

We'll be glad to see the back of Andriy if, as rumoured, he goes back to Germany.

Valerenga 1-4 Liverpool: Finding our groove as new season looms

This performance along with that at Ibrox on Saturday shows that the Reds are finding their feet in pre season with the Champions League qualifier against Standard Liege now exactly a week away.

Valerenga were no great shakes and we didn't expect them to be either. But this was a fairly clinical unravelling of the Norweigan side in front of their enthusiastic home support and the thousands of Norwegian Reds delighted to get a rare live glimpse of Rafa's men or - as it turned out in the second half - boys.

Once Torres and Benayoun had put the game to bed, it was only Pepe Reina, Sami Hyypia and Daniel Agger who had any first team experience of those remaining on the field.

The rest was the pick of Gary Ablett's title winning reserve side and the once again impressive David Ngog whose form in pre season means he'll more than likely be lining up at Anfield and not at the Halliwell Jones this coming season.

Xabi Alonso's first half strike was sublime after a smart lay off from Robbie Keane whose just itching to get amongst the goals but was unlucky again tonight.

Alonso has really looked backed to his old self in the past two games, pre season they may but there seems to be a real desire from the Spaniard to show he's worthy of remaining at the club. I really hope he stays, whether or not Gareth Barry eventually arrives.

After the home side pulled level early in the second half, Fernando Torres produced a typical Torres goal, scorching past a defender before a low sidefoot into the net.

Yossi Benayoun, another player rumoured to be on the way out but equally as desperate as Alonso to stay and showing his best form this summer, scored a peach of a goal, skillfully weaving past two defenders before a delightful lob into the far corner.

That was the cue for Benitez to get the youngsters out.

Jay Spearing had already been on the field since early in the first half after Stevie Gerrard came off with what looked like a recurrence of his groin problem.

But Wirral born Spearing wasn't any great shakes tonight, he gave the ball away a couple of times and made some silly tackles. He's a game lad, but he just doesn't seem to offer much more at this level.

Kristian Nemeth was the brightest of the youngsters I thought. He was unlucky with a header and a fierce strike on goal. The Hungarian should hopefully make some inroads on the first team this season.

But it was Ngog who takes the plaudits with another fine goal after holding off the defenders down the left hand side and finishing it off with a cool, low strike into the far corner.

That's eight goals in two games for the Reds. Granted the opposition weren't up to much in either of the games but after a slow start to pre season, the Reds are amongst the goals, the new boys are all impressing and the youngsters are staking their claim. It's looking good.

Villarreal 0-0 Liverpool: Another useful run out

With work, various personal commitments and the price of liverpoolfc.tv's e-season ticket denying me a chance to see a full 90 minutes of pre season up to now it was awfully nice of Sky Sports to screen tonight's friendly at the El Madrigal.

The game apparently was part of the deal that saw Pepe Reina move to Anfield from Villarreal in 2005 and in typical Sky Sports fashion they were building it up big time even tough it was the home side's first pre season outing and Rafa took the piss with extensive changes that made for a fairly tepid affair.

With a full squad at his disposal minus the Olympians of Lucas, Mascherano and Babel but including the four Spanish Euro 2008 heroes Benitez gave all 23 players that travelled to Spain a run out.

In the case of Steve Finnan and Kristian Nemeth it was only 25 or so second half minutes as they made way for Alvaro Arbeloa and Fernando Torres respectively.

Diego Cavalieri, who got 80 minutes before being replaced by Villarreal legend Pepe Reina, already looks a damn sight better than Charles Itandje as understudy to Pepe with some excellent, competent saves and good catching throughout.

Casting the eye over the first half team, at right back Stephen Darby has been earning rave reviews and justifiably so.

It's not the most eye catching position on the field but he looked comfortable, pushed forward when he got a chance and his goal saving block towards the end of the first half definitely caught the eye

Skrtel and Hyypia were no nonsense in the centre.

Andrea Dossena looked a bit shaky defensively, still no doubt adjusting to how things work in the Liverpool back line. But he was excellent whenever he pushed forward and was able to beat Villarreal players at will, something that troubled John Arne Riise in his latter years.

On the wings Andriy Voronin and Yossi Benayoun interchanged throughout the half. Voronin looked distinctly out of place on either side and while he made some nice passes he made some crap ones too. At the end of the day he just doesn't look good enough for this club at the highest level.

Benayoun was pretty quiet but he almost set up David Ngog for a debut goal after some lovely footwork.

In the centre, Steven Gerrard was in territory unfamiliar to him given the position he found himself playing for the majority of last season but as ever he was looking to create stuff.

His partner in the centre Damien Plessis played 70 minutes and was excellent, covering lots of ground with competent tackling and passing.

In the absence of Lucas and Mascherano, he may find himself involved heavily with the first team in the opening weeks of the campaign just as he was towards the end of last season.

Ngog and Robbie Keane up front were obviously still finding their feet but both had chances to open their account.

With nine changes at the break there was a chance to see Dan Agger and Jamie Carragher reunited at centre half. Agger is definitely more vocal these days and reports from training indicate that he is in better form that ever and that's good news. Being out for so long can sometimes change a player and not always for the better.

Emiliano Insua looked competent and settled at left back. Hopefully he will provide a real option to Rafa should he not be able to call upon assumed first choice Dossena.

Dirk Kuyt covered the ground and put in a shift as usual.

On the other side, Jermaine Pennant is trying his best to prove he can still do the business for Rafa but there was one shocking cross that summed up his career so far, great work down the wing but poor end product.

In the centre Jay Spearing may have height against him but his heart is admirable. He almost scored a stunning goal at the end with a piledriver after Alonso's corner was cleared.

I'm not sure what to make of Spearing and just what his future is at the club. He's hit the heights at youth and reserve team level now. Insua and Plessis have shown they can make the step up. But I'm not so certain with Spearing. We'll see.

Daniel Pacheco like Darby, has been earning rave reviews and had lots of tricks in his bag but was sometimes too keen to pull off the spectacular. In particular when he broke free and could have squared to Pennant for a certain goal, he took it himself and finished poorly. But at 17 he'll learn and he's definitely an exciting prospect.

Finally, our hero El Nino had 20 minutes at the end and showed plenty of the running and dragging around of defenders we are used to. New season but hopefully same old Torres.

All in all a fairly rubbish game as most pre season games are but a valuable look at the extensive options available to Rafa this coming season.

With Rangers, Valerenga and Lazio still to come there will be time enough for the boss to fine tune a side for the Champions League qualifiers and the opening game at Sunderland.

Keane and Ngog bolster the frontline

Apologies for the lack of posting in recent weeks. It has turned out to have been quite a busy time in the transfer market for once in a summer in which the talk appeared to be solely on our failure to sign Gareth Barry.

Our attempts to seal a deal for Barry remain fruitless but we have significantly bolstered our attacking threat which was needed in the light of Peter Crouch's departure. Robbie Keane is an excellent addition. Costly but entirely worth it. 

It's come full circle for the boyhood Red. He wisely chose to move to Wolves from humble beginnings at Crumlin United in South Dublin at 15. There he felt first team opportunities would be more readily available than at Anfield where he was also offered an opportunity to join the Academy or youth development scheme as it was then and it was a smart choice.

From Wolves he's been to Coventry, Italy with Inter Milan where managerial circumstances worked against him, Leeds United, Tottenham and now Anfield. In between he's become Ireland's greatest ever goalscorer and captain and been influential in the stop start success at White Hart Lane these past few seasons.

Under Juande Ramos, Spurs fans justifiably believe that they are heading in the right direction and I would have hoped that they and the Spurs board wouldn't begrudge Keane his dream move.

Disappointingly from the board at least this hasn't been the case. Daniel Levy has unnecessarily thrown his toys out of the pram over the whole affair But it smacks of double standards given their dealings with Crystal Palace over John Bostock.

Anyway, Keane will be great for Liverpool and Liverpool will be great for Keane. He's a superb striker, capable of the sublime and will hopefully strike up something great with Torres. Although where that leaves the Gerrard - Torres partnership that worked so brilliantly towards the end of last season I'm not sure. But I am certain Rafa knows what he wants to do with the trio in the long term. It is a long hard season with many games after all.

His intentions for our other striking recruit, David Ngog are less clear. The 19-year-old Frenchman arrived from PSG last week and is apparently ready for the first team but we know little about him.

His record at first team level saw just one goal scored in 20 games last season. Now there are of course mitigating circumstances in all this - his first season at senior level and so on and I'm not going to write him off just because of his goalscoring record.

Benitez believes that he is ready for first team action. With the new seven substitutes rule, I would expect Ngog to come off the bench at least in the beginning with maybe a few starts in Carling Cup games. It will be interesting to see how often he plays and indeed how well he plays.

At the end of the day we've paid just under £2m for an unknown quantity but seemingly quite a talented player and at 19 he will only improve. It's good that he hasn't arrived in a blaze of publicity. That's what happened to fellow Frenchmen Florent Sinama Pongolle and Anthony Le Tallec and we all know what happened there.

With Keane we expect, with Ngog we hope.

Either way it's nice to finally have some serious business done in the transfer window. I'm not pushed about Barry, I'd like to keep Alonso. If Rafa leaves it at that then it's been a good summer's work and we can look forward to the new season with optimism.

Did they really play for Liverpool?

I stumbled across an interesting article on the Setanta Sports website today about some of the more obscure footballers to don the famous red jersey over the last two decades or so.

The list is somewhat disparaging to the likes of Titi Camara who had a brilliant if extremely brief spell as our main man in attack in 1999/2000 scoring some spectacular goals as Michael Owen's young hamstrings caused him problems and Robbie Fowler seemed to be forever on the treatment table.

Titi arrived from Marseille in 1999 as Gerard Houllier's Anfield revolution got underway and certainly endeared himself to the fans with his performances and commitment epitomised when he played and scored against West Ham in a league game on the day he learned his father had passed away.

And yet his spell in the spotlight seemed to last less than a season. When Emile Heskey arrived in March 2000, Titi found himself sidelined and was eventually offloaded to West Ham the following season.

I feel too that Pegguy Arphexaddoes not deserve his place in the side alongside the likes of Sean Dundee considering he was exemplary whenever called upon (albeit just six times) and seemed to be a good luck charm in that he picked up six winners medals in the six finals he was an unused sub for while at the club.

The list got me to thinking about some of the other more obscure players to have graced this great club.

Anyone remember Jorgen Nielsen? The Danish goalkeeper was signed from Hvidovre (who produced the great Peter Schmeichel) in 1997 and was even touted as a possibility for the Danes' '98 World Cup squad.

But poor Jorgen never even played once in five years at the club even though he often appeared in promotional shoots for new kits.

Whilst Nielsen never managed to grace the Anfield turf with his presence, his number 26 shirt did in the Merseyside derby in 1999 but on the back of Steve Staunton who was forced to go in goal after Sander Westerveld was sent off and the Reds had used up all their subs. The 37-year-old stopper now plays in the Danish first division.

Then there was Leyton Maxell who has a 100% goalscoring record in a red shirt that would be the envy of most.

Trouble is the Welshman only ever played once for the Reds. He scored on his debut at the Kop end no less in an early round League Cup win over Hull City in late 1999. But he now plays for Caernarfon Town in the Welsh League, a fall from grace for sure.

The French international contracted to Liverpool who never even played for the Reds.

Finally for now, most avid fans may remember Alou Diarra, a French defensive midfielder (the new Viera perhaps?) signed in the summer of 2002 from Bayern Munich.

He played all of 45 minutes in a pre season friendly in Le Havre and was never seen again in a red shirt. A series of extremely successful loan spells back in France followed.

He impressed so much back home that he was earning caps at senior level for France while still on Liverpool's books without a single competitive appearance in a red shirt to his name. He was sold, at a profit, to RC Lens in 2005.

His career stats will show a three year spell at Liverpool, but you wouldn't have guessed it.

While Diarra's case is rather unique, it's fair to say that we've had our fair share of obscure players down through the years and there will probably be many more in the years to come. You need only look at the likes of Daniele Padelli and Gabriel Paletta in the last two years alone...

Farewell to RoboCrouch

As cult heroes go Peter Crouch will rightfully take his place alongside the likes of Joey Jones, Erik Meijer and Igor Biscan but as well as being loved by the fans, Crouch could and definitely still can play a bit.

It looks now inevitable having agreed terms with Portsmouth that the 6ft 7" striker, who would be an even richer man if he had a penny for every article that mentioned his height, is on his way out of Anfield after three years at the club in which he has established himself as one of the best strikers in Europe.

Now laugh you may at that statement above but Crouch was one of the top scorers in the 2006/07 Champions League and has an excellent record at international level having hit 14 goals in 28 internationals, a goal every other game at that level is not something to be sniffed at and he's proven himself against some of the best defenses in Europe.

Ultimately it is unfortunate that Crouch happened to be around when Liverpool have on their books the best striker in Europe and possibly the world in Fernando Torres and a system that involved just one striker with support from midfield in the shape of Steven Gerrard.

Crouch proved an able and goal scoring deputy when called upon last season and Rafa wanted to keep him but ultimately he was not content with playing a bit part. That's fair enough given his astonishing progress since arriving at Anfield from Southampton in 2005 for £7m a fee that raised eyebrows at the time.

But no one is aruguing with the £11m Harry Redknapp is now shelling out for the man he worked with at St Mary's.

Crouch leaves Anfield with the best wishes of the fans who have backed him all the way even in those difficult first few months where a much publicised goal drought spanning 19 games would have got the better of lesser men. But he eventually found his goal scoring touch and had a decent debut season that ended with a successful (on a personal level it has to be said) World Cup with England and the adulation of fans who fell in love with his robotics.....



Hard to believe the same England who lauded him for his goals and antics were the ones who booed him in his early outings in a white shirt.

Crouch finished top scorer in all competitions in 2006/07 including a memorable hat trick against Arsenal and scored 11 last season as a bit part player but we shall not forgot the contribution he has made these last three seasons and will forever remember goals like this...



Good luck big man.

Do we need Diego Cavalieri?

It appears the Reds are close to securing the signing of little known Brazilian goalkeeper Diego Cavalieri from club side Palmeiras in what I must say is a surprise move.

It undoubtedly means that Frenchman Carlos Itandje's Anfield career is over after just one season and seven appearances. The supposedly extrovert goalkeeper never looked convincing between the sticks (Havant & Waterlooville and Barnsley anyone?) and his departure is not surprising. Galatasary, now home to Harry Kewell, may be the destination.

But Cavalieri's arrival is surprising in that we have still to offload Scott Carson after he returned from his loan spell at Aston Villa.

While in the reserves David Martin acquitted himself well in their title winning season and has been on the first team bench on numerous occasions but the 22 year old isn't being considered as a credible number two to Reina.

Considering Benitez has used his extensive scouting network to recruit the likes of Nikolay Mihaylov, Martin Hansen, Peter Gulacsi and Dean Bouzanis from far and wide it's surprising that he has decided the oldest of the lot, Martin, whose been at the club over two years now is not yet capable of at least deputising for Pepe.

Cavalieri will arrive from Brazil to a new country, new culture, new language, new style of football for £3m, a sizeable amount in these financially tight times.

And yet one wonders whether he might go the same way as Daniele Padelli and Itandje before him, one season of fleeting but less than impressive appearances before being shipped out again as the likes of Martin continue to wait in the wings.

A tale of youngsters past and present

Slightly ironic that in the week that two youngsters of the Rafa Benitez generation sign on for another three years - Paul Anderson and Emiliano Insua - another of the Gerard Houllier era departs.

Anthony Le Tallec brought to an end five seasons on the books but by no means physically at Anfield by joining French outfit Le Mans on a four year deal after he made 22 Ligue 1 appearances in the club's most successful campaign to date last season.

When Le Tallec joined the Reds in 2003 along with cousin Florent Sinama Pongolle, the duo were hailed as the world's brightest young talents having helped France to win the U17 World Cup in 2001.

At the time there was much excitement amongst the Anfield faithful of the prospect of seeing the duo in red shirts and yet it was hardly acknowledged at the time that no players who ever emerged as stars from the U17 World Cup ever amounted to much at senior level.

Both featured sparingly in Gerard Houllier's final season in charge but showed plenty of promise. When Benitez tookover Le Tallec's attitude in pre season and his expectation that he be a first team regular did him few favours as he was shipped out on loan to St Etienne.

He returned mid season and played a starring role in the Champions League quarter final win over Juventus as we went on to win the European Cup that year.

But the following season he endured a miserable loan spell at Sunderland who were relegated. He returned to France at Sochaux and then last season he starred for Le Mans as they finished a best ever ninth place, making 22 appearances and scoring five times.

His departure along with that of Florent Sinama Pongolle last summer to Recreativo de Huelva in Spain (Flo Po is incidentally subject of interest from Atletico Madrid) would underline that neither were good enough at the very highest level expected at this club.

Of course there is a debate over selling Pongolle and bringing in Andriy Voronin as happened last summer but there can be no question that Le Tallec, while very talented, just wasn't good enough at this level when given a chance, one or two performances aside.

And so to the latest crop of bright young things at Anfield and the three year deals signed by Anderson and Insua would seem to underline that Rafa sees a future for both at the club.

Insua has made five senior appearances, all coming at the back end of the last two seasons. The departure of John Arne Riise opened the door for the Argentinean U20 star but the expected arrival of Andrea Dossena from Udinese may have closed it again but not indefinitely.

Anderson's departure to Nottingham Forest on a season long loan will offer him valuable first team experience at Championship level having already impressed at Swansea last season.

I would have high hoeps for both players. Insua has already proven himself competent at first team level while Anderson has been hugely promising in his loan spell at Swansea.

One would hope that neither end up leaving Anfield having missed out on a chance of fufilling their dream as sadly has been the case for Pongolle and now Le Tallec.

The kid with the world at his feet (and the keeper with the future career in stand up)

Sure we would have preferred that he be holding aloft the Premier League, the European Cup or indeed any trophy in the Liverpool red at the end of this season but it's a beautiful sight and a wonderful moment for Fernando Torres.

He certainly deserved it, even more so when you consider how badly he took our Champions League exit in May and how much he has won the affection of the Kopites this past season.

And one wonders from the evidence of this video just what we might expect when Pepe Reina wins something big at Liverpool...



Click here for a bit of background on the video.

I look forward to a warm summer night in perhaps the not too distant future when Reina, on the steps of St George's Hall, entertains the masses!

Worthy Winners

Now I accept that Spain was the adopted team for this web site, however even the most one eyed supporters would agree that they were worthy winners and deserved to be crowned Champions of Europe.

The fact that Torres scored a most wonderful goal was icing on the cake. He has really elevated himself to the point of being considered amongst the best strikers in the world.

Throughout the whole tournament, Spain were quite outstanding, winning every game, which included putting 7 goals past a good looking Russian side. The string of wins was made even better by knocking out the current World Champions Italy, which really got people focused and agreeing how good this Spanish side is.

Besides Torres we had Alonso who played some really outstanding footballs, this was particularly highlighted when in the final he came on and replaced a tiring Fabregas, he then shored up the midfield and played a major role in ensuring Germany never got into the game.

Got to honest, really can not understand why Raffa appears to be so keen on moving Alonso out to bring Barry in?

While Barry is a very good player, not sure if he is in the same class as Alonso. Me, personally like to see Alonso stay and get Raffa to look another striker, assuming that Crouch goes to ???????????? any number of clubs that seemed to be interested in him.

We'll believe it when we see it

It was with some surprise that we learned earlier this week of enabling work beginning on the club's new ground on Stanley Park.

Contractors Laing O'Rourke removed a few shrubs and set down the bollards in preparation for the building of a stadium we were once promised we'd be playing in two seasons ago.

With Tom Hicks and George Gillett apparently on talking terms again and Gillett doing his best to woo the fans with personal appointments the Americans may feel they have weathered the storm of discontent and anger towards their ownership among fans. We certainly hope that's not actually the case.

In his meeting with a Reds fans holidaying in the States, Gillett apparently was adamant that the stadium would be complete by the beginning of 2011/12 and insisted that discussions with Jurgen Klinsmann last year were only regarding football, not replacing Rafa (Yeah George pull the other one for fucks sake!)

The builders may be in but the stadium is far from built and the money is far from available to get it built. As the man from SOS said: “We will believe it when we see it, when the new Kop is there in front of us.”

Spain to beat Russia tonight. Torres finding his goalscoring touch to put Villa in the shade!