September 2007 Archives

Rumour has it a certain Spanish striker will be in Liverpool's starting eleven tonight.
Can't work that one out for the life of me.
The League Cup is hardly our priority and it was only recently that Rafa Benitez was complaining about the pressures being placed on his top players, many of whom he fears are playing too many games.
So for our star striker to start a game of precious little significance after sitting out most of a crucial league game on Saturday flies in the face of common sense.
Unless........Torres wasn't rotated against Birmingham, he was dropped for playing so poorly in Porto the previous Tuesday.

Say what you like about Rafa Benitez's rotation system but you could never accuse the Liverpool manager of not being single minded.
While pretty much every single Liverpool fan and every media commentator (expert?!!) is calling for Fernando Torres to start each and every league game, Benitez has stuck to his guns, tailoring his team selection for the needs of each particular game.
In fairness to him, it's not as if his philosophy has let him down since he took over the Anfield hot seat. One European Cup, one FA Cup and runners up in last season's Champions League is anything but a record of failure.

Well, let's face facts, that's pretty much what's happened to poor old Jose.
On two separate occasions he was denied the chance to make his position as Chelsea manager pretty much 100% secure and on two separate occasions he was denied - by Rafa Benitez.
Make no mistake about it, if Chelsea had won a European Cup under his stewardship Mourinho would not be spending this morning signing on at the job centre on Kings Road (that's if they even have such a thing in West London).
The European Cup has become a holy grail for Abramovich and not winning it meant he could dispense with the man who has brought him two league titles.

Right, let's get a few things straight.
1. Jermaine Pennant is a very good footballer who has improved dramatically for Liverpool over the last 12 months.
2. Last night he worked incredibly hard and, along with Dirk Kuyt, was one of very few Liverpool players who did so, despite the fact that he did not perform anywhere near as well as he can.
3. Pretty much every other member of the team, Steven Gerrard included, was dreadful.
4. The Porto players were hitting the deck at every opportunity and their gamesmanship/cheating was a disgrace.
5. The referee was not allowing players to get stuck in.
6. Jermaine Pennant did not stop Liverpool from winning last night. The performance of the entire team made such an outcome highly unlikely from the outset.
7. Jermaine Pennant should therefore not be made a scapegoat for us failing to win.

You're playing against a team whose players hit the deck if you so much as breathe in their general direction, with a referee officiating who has decided that football is a non-contact sport.
So what do you do?
Do you:
(a) Stay on your feet, refusing to dive in to tackles which could earn you a yellow card
(b) Pick and choose the challenges you make in the knowledge that at some point during the game you're liable to pick up a booking and you don't want it to happen too early
(c) Make stupid tackle after stupid tackle, antagonise the ref and get yourself sent off, leaving your team with ten men?

Does anyone know what happened to that legal action Big Sam threatened the BBC with?
Apparently those nasty television people told lies about nice Mr Allardyce.
If anyone knows which courtroom his case against the Beeb will be heard in can you let me know please.
The wheels of justice don't half seem to be turning slowly on this one. Maybe Big Sam will tell us how he's getting on when he does his next interview on Match of the Day.

If anyone could ever be accused of having intelligence in inverse proportion to the size of their head it would be Big Sam Allardyce.
Today's xenophobic rant about nasty foreigner Rafa Benitez pretty much sums up a man who talks like a Daily Sport reader and looks like Bully out of Bullseye.
The day after his own team were beaten by mighty Derby County, the Newcastle manager was quoted as saying: "Being a foreigner, Rafa doesn't understand it's supposed to be Premier League first and Champions League second."
Really? Being a "foreigner" hasn't impeded Jose Mourinho or Arsene Wenger from coming to that conclusion so what exactly does country of birth have to do with this?
And how would big Sam know anyway? When exactly did he have to prioritise between the Champions League and the Premiership?

Liverpool have sold all of their tickets for tomorrow night's Champions League game in Porto but there is absolutely no chance of the away end being full.
All 2,500 tickets were snapped up but if 2,500 Liverpool fans make the trip to Portugal it'll be the biggest shock of the season.
In fact, I'd expect no more than 1,000 to make it over with most choosing to sit at home and watch the game on TV with their £36 ticket sat on the sideboard gathering dust.
The ones who have bought tickets but don't go are, to use a euphemism, "playing the system".
They pay the price of the ticket and get another credit to their name; a credit which will then go towards entitling them to a ticket for more glamorous games should Liverpool progress in the competition.

Four games, three wins and one draw. Ten points on the board and Liverpool are top of the league for the first time since the days when El Hadji Diouf and Salif Diao "graced" Anfield.
Starts to the season don't come much better than this. Not unless you go back to the 1987-88 season when Liverpool went 29 games unbeaten before losing at Goodison Park of all places.
So far, we have seen Aston Villa beaten at Villa Park (something I can't see many other teams doing this season), Sunderland battered and comfortably beaten at the Stadium of Light and Derby County thoroughly demolished at Anfield.
Only Chelsea have taken any points off the Reds and that was only because Rob Styles went all Mr Magoo on us and gave them one of the most ridiculous penalties you've ever seen.

ON Saturday 9 August 2003 Liverpool played a friendly at Anfield against Spanish side Valencia, who were managed by a certain Rafa Benitez.
The game was significant for two reasons. First, it marked the debuts of new "edge of the seat" signings Harry Kewell and Steve Finnan. And, second, Liverpool could not get the ball off their opponents.
And when I say couldn't get the ball off them I don't just mean the Spaniards enjoyed long spells in possession, I mean they literally could not get the ball off them.
We had seen plenty of crack European sides at Anfield prior to this game, of course, but there was something different about this and the home fans knew they were seeing something truly special.