Okay four reasons for this post.

Number One – Apology.  Who the shitting hell stole the last three weeks? Oh well it’s not like we missed anything important is it.  Oh wait, pre-season.  Oh hold on two new strikers.  NEW £20 million signing.  NEW NUMBER SEVEN!  Oh, and the Barry-saga which was on, off… and as of about half an hour ago back on again.  Thanks MON we knew you always loved us really.  Of course by this time tomorrow he’ll have probably signed for Arsenal, but at the moment it’s looking promising again.  Anyhow, yes – we’ve missed far too much so apologies.

Number Two – We stuffed FOUR past Rangers and I really wanted to use that headline.  Okay it’s only a friendly, but after the mostly reserves outings against lower league teams and middling european sides we’ve now hit pre-season proper.  Today’s performances was impressive. Great to see Torres back in the old routine, positive to see our other new striker, David Ngog, show great confidence for the 2nd goal and also a personal highlight getting to see us in a silver away kit again.

Number Three – To push my last post and it’s stupid amount of tags from the top of our hymn sheet.

Number Four – Barry. Keane. Ngog. Pacheco.  Four potential new names for the first XI.  With the new season now in sight we’ll run through our expectations for each of them for the coming 12 months.  Apart from the one that will probably be staying at Villa/poached by Arsenal/Announcing he’s Shergar’s lovechild (delete as applicable) by the time I’ve finished this sentence.

Karl Eisenhauer

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. 

Already we’ve signed three new first team players, two new coaching staff and added a handful of Europe’s finest young talent to our reserve and youth team setups.  Despite all this a number of unanswered questions are slowing grinding down my usual optimism.

Concurrent with the new signings has been the biggest morale sucker.  The Gareth Barry saga.  I genuinely don’t know now whether to admire MON’s steadfast refusal to budge from his £18million valuation (or £17million and Steve Finnan as it’s now meant to be) or be angered by his pig-headed valuations of not just Barry, but now Finnan too.  I guess it’s a mixture of both.

A bigger worry was confirmed on Thursday, when Rafa more or less admitted that we were skint, and in order to buy the one or two big name signings (It’s always one or two we’re missing isn’t it?) that we need he would have to sell first.   In my purest footballing dreams this is actually how it should be, managers wheeling and dealing with only a bit extra earned in prize money swelling there coffers.  Yet with the rest of the top four able to spend, spend, spend and even Villa supposedly having substantial backing available, as a Liverpool fan I’m left with a mix of fret n’ fury.  Just over a year ago we were assured of substantial Yankee Dollar.  Twelve months on and Snoogy Doogy has most definitely left the building.

Then there’s the new signings themselves.  Degen, Dossena and Cavalieri. All three come without any real national reputation and so for now have to be placed in the squad player (read Stop-Gap) signing pile under Rafa that includes the likes of Arbeloa, Bellamy, Benayoun, Kromkamp,  Pennant and Luis Garcia.

A major frustration is that when Rafa has been given the money to secure his first choices those players have become core to our first team and rarely let the side down.  Agger, Skrtel, Masch, Torres… successes so far everyone.  Given that Dossena has cost a Liverpool side watching the pennies a whopping £7 million perhaps we can expect a similar return, but unlike those four he lacks for International experience and at 26 years old is a couple of years than those players too.

There are one or two glimmers of hope however.  Rafa’s remarkable candour in press interviews for one.  Merrily confirming names such as David Villa and Robbie Keane were on his shopping list and confirming that there would be at least one new striker to replace the outgoing Crouch.  I’m taking it on faith, but surely a manager so passionately backed during our blackest hours last season by the Kop faithful would not be foolish enough to chase a Villa and deliver another Voronin?

Most intriguingly of all there’s the Fab four.  Insua, Plessis, Nemeth and Pacheco. Who?  The four stand-out young stars from last season’s title-winning reserve side.  Sure we’ve been here before – Besian Idrizaj, Le Tallec, Linfield… only this time there’s just that little extra buzz.  This time Rafa seems more willing to take a gamble.  It’s been a long time since we saw Carragher, Owen and Gerrard breakthrough.  With Torres and the Spanish lads still on leave post-Euro 2008 and Babel, Leiva and Masch heading off to Beijing in chase of Olympic Gold pre-season offers up a golden chance for new stars to be born and it all starts in just a few hours against Tranmere!

Karl Eisenhauer