Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the updates

Some words from our captain.

Too right, Mr Gerrard sir! Ultimately it doesn’t matter how we beat United this Saturday.  All the matters is that we beat them.  However before we get all fired up about what’s just about the biggest game in the domestic season over the next few days expect a few updates.   For the sake of completeness, belated reviews of the Middlesborough and Villa results and then a bit of a heart on sleeve rant and round-up about the last couple of weeks as a Liverpool fan.

Karl

D-List

UEFA Champion’s League Draw

So then PSV, Atletico Madrid and Marseille.  Ouch! That could have gone better!

Initial reaction is that we should qualify, our European pedigree in recent years suggests that on our day we can take all of those sides.  What’s a little worrying is that all three will believe they have a genuine chance of qualifying, not to mention unique motivation to take some revenge on us.

Marseille deservedly beat us at Anfield last season, but a Torres masterclass tore them apart in the final group game.  It put us through, but let’s not forget cost Marseille a place in round two.

PSV we played four times in the 2006-2007 campaign – winning both group games before a majestic 3-0 away win in the First Leg of the Quarter Final followed by a drab 0-0 back at Anfield.  On that form we’ve nothing to fear, but a closer look at PSV’s Champions League record will show a team who’ve reached the last eight twice in the past four seasons and only once failed to qualify from the group stage.

Finally there’s Atletico.  Obviously the big focus here will be on Torres.  We took away their hero and whilst his armband proved he was a red,  for the previous decade he was the golden boy of the other Madrid.   Imagine Gerrard or Carragher turning out against us? It’s going to be an emotional night at the Vicente Calderón Stadium.  What’s more it won’t just be Nando in line for a reunion.  Little Luis Garcia and Florent Sinama-Pongolle are both ex-reds in the Atletico squad.

Karl

Albert docks

New signing! New signing!

Well almost.  It’s going to happen though, I’m sure of it.  After all, Liverpool missing out on their prime summer targets and then blowing the best part of £10 million on second or third choice targets just a few days shy of transfer deadline day.  I mean that’s never happened before has it?

I admit, I’m being a bit harsh on Senor Riera here.  I’ve never seen him player, I know very little about him other that he’s not in Spanish national side and once had a unsuccessful loan spell at Manchester City.

What’s wound me up here is the same old, same old situation.  We’ve had these kind of signings repeated over the last few years.  They’ve not worked before, so it’s hard to believe that it’ll be any difference this time.

I’m also not entirely sure where Albert fits in.  He can’t operate as a left-back or as a defensive midfielder in the way Gareth Barry could have.  So to make things even more depressing it looks like we’ve shot £9 million on a squad player.  Yes, we do need width and decent wingers, of that there’s no doubt.  I just find it difficult to believe that Riera is anything more another stop-gap signing.

Plus what of our youngsters and reserve options.  People like Paul Anderson and Adam Hamill. Signings like this have the knock-on effect that everyone else gets knocked one-step further down the pecking order.  Instead of looking forward to some young vibrant motivated youngster appearing down the flanks in the early rounds of the league and F.A. Cup’s we can expect to see the likes of Yossi, Voronin and all the other squaddies making us squirm against Lowerleague Albion.

*sigh* Oh and to make it worse Villa have just signed Milner and our new stadium has been delayed yet again!  Has being joint-top of the league ever felt so depressing!?

karl

Well it probably is Deja-Vu. It sounds like it.

Fuck off.  Fuck off.  Fuck off.

A quick summary of last week.  We’re all set to sign a player, the team is playing well and Rafa is happy.  Enter stage left Parry, Gilette and Hicks to spoil the party by refusing to stump up the cash for Barry.  So inevitably we now have disharmony between manager and board and what little confidence we’ve managed to muster as fans stripped bare all over again.

Oh and look here’s news of Rafa’s potential resignation (or in this case a denial of it).  I give it a week before one of the tabloid’s publishes a story about DIC launching a new takeover bid.

* * *

Now it’s dead in the water, I feel genuinely embarrassed by how the club handled the entire Barry affair.  Hopefully all Villains will welcome him back with open arms.  It seems the majority of Liverpool fans didn’t want him anyway, so he’s surely better off at a club where he’s a living legend than as a squad player at a club run by the three stooges.

(Karl Eisenhauer)

Reasons to be Cheerful?

The off-season for me is usually a period of blissful optimism.  Back in the Roy Evans era I would regularly check the gossip line headlines on teletext several times a day anxiously waiting for the “£10million superstar linked” rumour to turn into a new signing.  Last season it was message boards and transfer rumour blogs, but the feeling was the same.  That excitement that comes with new signings and the blind faith that this time it will be your season.

This year, however, it’s really hard to know what to think. 

If I go there will be trouble…

Now then.

It’s all becoming a bit unsavoury.   I’ve very mixed feelings about the Barry transfer largely due to two of our closest friends, and creators of our excellent sister*-blog ‘Oh, It Must Be! It Is!‘ being ardent Villa fans.

Having your club captain (and fan favourite) openly criticise your manager and publically state his intention to join a rival team cannot be easy reading, and given the paper printing the story he’s hardly endearing himself to Liverpool fans either.

Karl Eisenhauer

* – I say sister.  I mean more like an anorexic junkie, slapper, half-cousin obviously.

Nunca Caminaras Solo

So, 42 years after we were last represented by the winner of a major international tournament, the Euro 2008-winning Spain squad contained four Liverpool players (jointly “donating” the most players to the squad, along with Valencia), all of whom saw match action during the tournament. We’ll finish the “Eurowatch” roundup of our various players’ (and ex-players’) fortunes early in the coming week, but for now, I just wanted to say congratulations to Jose Reina, Alvaro Arbeloa, Xabi Alonso (even if he does bugger off to Juve shortly) and final-winning goalscorer Fernando Torres! Let’s just hope it’s some kind of omen for the season ahead…

(Seb Patrick)

Playing spot against the walls of Anfield

“You can’t play with your ball here”.

The word’s spoken by a faceless exec, after some friends and I had purchased a ball from the club shop and began an impromptu kick-about.  Kind of sums up the Parry-era doesn’t it?

Goodnight John Boy

So that’s £139,634 off the monthly wage bill.

New away kit

Football Shirt Culture (pretty much the best site out there for collating leaked kit pictures that float around fan forums, bookmark fans) have posted scans of a leaflet that would seem to confirm our new away kit for 08/09 as being a fetching grey and red number…

EDIT 19.06.08 – The kit is now available to pre-order, with some proper pictures now up, in the online shop.