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!