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.