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.