Close encounters of the Parry kind

First of all another apology for the lack of blogging recently. I always write a recap blog after weeks of inactivity with the grand intentions of making sure I update this more regularly but I inevitably don't. Mostly because of laziness, but also I tend to forgot the thing even exists which is an awful shame.

I often wonder though if anyone is actually reading what I'm writing and if anyone is even interested. Perhaps if your reading this you might leave a comment just to acknowledge your presence on this blog, your avid readership and your disappointment that it's not updated more regularly....go on!

Anyway I felt compelled to update it now because the other night I happened to be walking back from football, up Myrtle Street, just past the Philharmonic Hall and across the street from Liverpool Community College when who do I see only Rick Parry, our esteemed chief executive, complete with suit and silly tie along with about half a dozen other suited middle aged men.

They were walking and talking and looking business like. I was in my football gear, Liverpool top included, I caught his eye, gave him a nod as I passed but all he could muster was a quick stare and then back to looking at his feet. Shame? Fear? (I'm 6ft 5 and rather scary looking or so I've been told) Who knows...

In any case it was all a bit surreal. When I told my Liverpool supporting friend later he wondered why I hadn't called him a twat to his face.

I wonder what our esteemed chief executive was up to? I didn't recognise anyone else in his posse so I can't report any secret meetings with Jurgen Klinsmann or whoever. Nor did they look foreign, of the Arab variety, so no new developments on our protracted Far Eastern takeover.

Since my last blog a fair bit has happened. Our FA Cup exit at Everton was no surprise given the way the night panned out. Our captain off early in the first half, our star striker clearly not fit and our much maligned Brazilian midfielder getting himself sent off.

The team at Portsmouth ten days ago was a bit of a shock as was the scoreline heading into the last five minutes but thank the lord for Dirk Kuyt and El Nino, keeping our hopes alive...

United can go five points clear tonight with a win against Fulham at Old Trafford which is pretty much a given. Worse still they are at home to Blackburn on Saturday evening before we host Manchester City on Sunday afternoon. By which time Fergie's lot could be eight points clear, a major psychological boost to the quintuple (a new word to the footballing lexicon this week) chasing side.

Still all we have to do is keep grinding out wins like we did at Portsmouth the other week and look to take three points at Old Trafford which may prompt sighs of disbelief among many but it looks increasingly as if this will be the only way we can seriously pull off this league winning lark.

Keane, Chelsea and another derby day

My issue is not with the selling of Robbie Keane.

Things just did not work out for the Irishman here. The situation was obviously so desperate, he obviously was not fitting in and the overriding feeling amongst all at the club was that Benitez (whether or not he bought him which is a whole different story) had to cut his losses. The stories I've been hearing about Keane's social exploits could hardly have done him any favours in the eyes of a man who expects a high standard of professionalism.

But to not find a replacement even something short term leaves the boss quite rightly open to criticism. Furthermore if we are not to land number 19 in May many, in fact everyone, in the media will most likely point to decision to sell Keane right at the end of the transfer window and not replace him as having led to our downfall.

David Ngog is no Fernando Torres, he's not even close although there is potential there. Dirk Kuyt's appearances up front have been few and far between since he switched to right wing last season whilst Ryan Babel has regressed so much that his Liverpool career may not last beyond the summer.

That said we saw the best of him towards the end of last season, the expectation being that he would progress further this term. That's not been the case and whilst we shouldn't write him off just yet we've got to be realistic, he really hasn't performed this season and it would take a remarkable turnaround form him to produce the form we expect and need from him.



The importance of Fernando Torres was underlined by his late double in Sunday's monumental win over Chelsea at Anfield. The Spaniard will now hopefully hit the goal trail which has been sorely missed even with our march towards the top of the table.

That is the one bonus perhaps, that we've survived for a large part of the season without his goals and now, with him back, things can only be better.

Better though is almost perfection from now until the end of the season. There can be no slip ups in the league and if there are we must hope Manchester United follow suit but they are wise old dogs in positions like this and they won't surrender many points between now and May, if any...

Keeping our confidence intact is important and that means getting a good result at Goodison in the cup tonight. I'm confident merely because our away form is better than that at home this season but it's a derby, it's the cup, it's a night game and they will be up for it. But if we're not then there's something seriously wrong.

Sunday was hopefully a turning point, let's kick on from here and show that even with a shortage up front we can do great things in the next three months.

Derby double does little to inspire

Two unsatisfactory but probably fair derby results that does little to improve our league position, gives us another fixture headache and perhaps most tellingly confirms we've hit a slump.

Five draws in our last eight games is not the form of title contenders and three draws in our last three is a worrying predicament when all around us particularly Manchester United are grinding out wins.

Everton understandably and predictably shut up shop in both games and took their chances when they came. We on the other hand seemed to spent 180 minutes and particularly yesterday passing across the edge of their box unable to make any inroads and were saved only by the class of Steven Gerrard and of course Fernando Torres whose flick for the skipper's equaliser was a beautiful thing.

It's good to have Nando back and although he's not found the scoresheet in the last three he's shown flashes of his brilliance that indicate it won't be long before he's on the goal trail again.

That's in stark contrast to Robbie Keane who is rumoured to have walked out of Anfield yesterday after being told he wasn't in the squad. Benitez this morning confirmed that he'd not spoken to Keane since announcing he wasn't in the 18 for yesterday but shed no further light on the matter.

It does little to dampen the constant speculation that has surrounded the Irishman almost from the day he arrived at the club. He has not been an abject failure but he has failed to live up to the expectations we had of him and his perfomance in Monday's derby was anonymous and that's not the first time that's happened this season.

With a week left in the transfer window the rumours are unlikely to go away. Keane won't be sold, of that I reckon we can be pretty certain but if he continues to be in and out of the side and in and out of form then Benitez may look to cut his losses in the summer.

Of course it all depends where we are in the summer. We could be champions, we could be runners up, we could have scrapped the last Champions League place.

It's hard to know now where we are headed because we are in unknown territory. We set the standard and led the way since the beginning of December. Now, knocked off the top we face a challenge and it is a mighty one where every game counts starting with Wednesday's trip to Wigan where three points is an absolute must.

Rafa's rejection is another headache

I don't think many of us were surprised that Rafa Benitez rejected the contract offered to him by the club given the stories that have been coming out ever since negotiations began that he wanted more control over transfers.

This simple yet important demand (it's not as if he's asking for a blank cheque book) isn't surprising given the time it takes for us to actually sign players and lord knows how many we've probably missed out on seeing as Rafa has to email Tom who has to talk to George who then both have to talk to Rick. This, I can only presume, is the standard procedure although it could be far more complicated.

Either the way the situation doesn't look good despite the rosy picture some are painting. Hicks latest media assault saw him give a "reassuring" interview to Sky Sports News insisting this was only a little bother and that it would all get sorted. Which is great, I mean it was a decent interview only for the fact that I and many others do not trust a single word that emanates from that man's mouth.

I trust Rafa who is just as keen to get things sorted as Tom insisted he was but it really is another unwelcome distraction as we head into a defining part of our season already disturbed by Steven Gerrard's antics in Southport at the end of last year.

Both sides have seemingly decided to put it on the back burner for football's sake which is good but all the while Rafa's contract runs down and he wouldn't be short of offers elsewhere. Of course he's dedicated to the club but he really is being tested by the antics of our American friends.

Benitez comments and bad weekend add more pressure

It was almost inevitable as soon as the words came out of Rafa Bentiez's mouth that they may come back to haunt us.

And so it transpired this weekend as we inexplicably dropped more points against a probably doomed Stoke City yesterday evening and United narrowed the gap by destroying Chelsea this afternoon.



Benitez today stood by his comments made in the above video. Which, by the way, I found very entertaining and very funny as someone finally told Fergie where to stick it and there was a certain sense of pride to be taken from a detailed and well thought out put down.

Yet I also knew that the media would make a massive deal out of it and now even more so given the way the weekend's panned out.

To drop four points to Stoke home and away and not score a single goal is not the form of title contenders. The form of title contenders is United's demolition of our hitherto closest challengers Chelsea at Old Trafford.

Fergie's complaints about fixture congestion which Rafa so eloquently addressed in Friday's press conference are, as the Spaniard pointed out, not really valid given the fantastic run in they now have. They face ourselves, Arsenal and Aston Villa at Old Trafford with the destination of this year's title very much in their hands.

Equally a win at Old Trafford coupled with identical results in the remaining 17 games puts the title in our hands but it's a bit too early to be talking like this.

The perceived wisdom is that points will be dropped by all sides chasing the league between now and May but there won't be many, certainly less than ten I would imagine.

It makes slip ups like yesterday's all the more damaging. Furthermore the comments of Benitez heaps further pressure on him and the team to maintain the form that has seen us lead the pack since early December.

Needless to say the derby on Monday week takes on even more importance now.

Everton league game more important than cup showdown

The draw for the fourth round of the FA Cup rather fittingly pits us against Everton in this the 20th year of the Hillsborough disaster.

Coming six days after our league meeting on January 19th and two days after Steven Gerrard's appearance at Sefton magistrates, it is sure to be an eventful week on Merseyside.

How we emerge from it may determine the course of our season. I'll put my neck on the line now by saying I'm more concerned about the league game then the cup one.

Of course there is a lot of emotional involvement in the cup tie given the year that's in it. As well as this it's our first cup meeting the Blues since 1991, when an epic three game marathon included a 4-4 draw at Goodison that would ultimately lead to the resignation of Kenny Dalglish and the end of 20 years dominance of English football.

Ironically here we are, 18 years on, top of the league and on a run that many now feel could end the lengthy 19 year wait for a league title.

This is why I'll take three important league points at Anfield over progression to the fifth round of the FA Cup even if there's an added incentive to winning the competition this year as acknowledged by Jamie Carragher, a man who invests more emotion than most Scousers in a Merseyside derby having experienced both sides of the increasingly bitter divide.

Gerrard's court appeareance in between the two games will not help matters. Everton fans are already putting the finishing touches to vile chants about our captain to go alongside the awful vitriol they spew about his family.

It is two derbies that would be of high intensity in normal circumstances but the surrounding factors are likely to ensure an extra bite both on and off the pitch later this month.

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.