As with Karl, I can only apologise for how quiet things have been lately – various reasons have meant that we just haven’t been able to give the site the proper pre-season focus that we would have liked. BUT! Never fear, because in the coming weeks the site will really kick into gear as the season gets underway, and we’ll be talking about our hopes and dreams for the season, and our thoughts on its opening salvos.
But in the meantime… well, I never got round to talking about the European away kit, did I? And I probably should, since – with Standard Liege sporting a red home kit – our boys will probably be wearing it tonight. And, well… I quite like it. But then, anyone who reads F1 Colours will know that I like green – and the much-maligned ’91-’92 away shirt is probably my favourite LFC kit of all time (not the horrible shiny centenary one that followed it, though. Ugh.). So anything that harkens back to that is, in my books, a Good Thing. Not hugely keen on the navy collar, but apart from that, it’s a solid kit. Better than last year’s, anyway – which, while dramatic and stuff, never quite looked right as an onfield kit (except when El Nino was dancing through the Marseilles defence, of course).
The other thing I’d wanted to pass comment on was squad numbers. It was apparent from pre-season friendlies that Benayoun was going to sacrifice a first-eleven number for his preferred 15 now that Crouch has left (I’d actually predicted last summer that he’d take that, and Crouchy would get #11), and that Emiliano Insua, Damien Plessis and Nabil el Zhar would enhance their first-team credentials by taking numbers 22, 28 and 31 respectively, and so it proved. If I’d not been in Ireland (and, er, been on the ball at any point) I could have posted that and looked all cool and prescient. The other main “promotions” are Jay Spearing (26), Kristzian Nemeth (29) and Stephen Darby (32), all given numbers that suggest they’ll feature regularly on benches and in Carling Cup games. Somewhat surprisingly, Daniel Pacheco doesn’t make the cut just yet, despite impressing in pre-season – clearly Nemeth remains ahead of him in the queue at the moment. I’m not hugely impressed, either (although I’ve liked him on the pitch so far), by new left-back Andrea Dossena taking #2 – that means we now have a left-back wearing 2 and a right-back wearing 3. It’s WRONG, I tell you.
Of the first thirty numbers, then, only #6 and #11 remain available (demonstrating how fucking huge our squad now is compared to, say, Arsenal). The former, of course, is clearly being kept warm for someone who already wears it at his current club (and if he doesn’t sign, then it should be Skrtel’s next year – none of this #37 rubbish, unless he’s a Clerks fan, in which case I love him even more), while #11 is nicely primed for that winger that EVERYONE BUT RAFA KNOWS WE STILL NEED ONE MORE OF. Although that said, it’s clearly Babel’s future number for years to come. You heard it here first.
And now that I’ve bored you all (well, I would have done if we had any readers yet) with that, I’ll bugger off. See you for Standard Liege post-mortem, and/or Exciting Sunderland New Premier League Joy Joy Build Up!
(Seb Patrick)
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