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very disappointing yesterday. wexford deserved their win & forde was the main difference between the teams. they had a purpose about their attacks while we seemed clueless at times. first half showed some good signs with good movements in play and some good finishing - kelly, quinn & gallagher all pointing well. but 2nd half was abysmal - how many times did we get within 40yrds and the whole attack falls flat. too many times we ended up with only 1 or 2 forwards in their half with no support whatsoever - was like watching game v cork all over again.

sligonian, would disagree completely about brehony - thought he was very poor yesterday. their chb bossed him for the entire first half and despite a rare right footed point in 2nd half, he seemed to be hiding for the entire game. our midfield were well beaten - beirne looks very raw but is young so will improve, quinn is obviously nowhere near 100% fit, but he'll get there and will be firing on all cylinders come ch'ship. was surprised with gallagher who with kelly, were the only ones willing to take on their men.

on the positive side, we hit some good frees and i think cawleys long range effort was the only one off target. on the negatives, we still have huge problems at chb & full forward. also how many times did we allow them easy possession from their kick-outs. fair enough, their goalie was excellent with his kicks but you cant let that happen as often as it did yesterday. jordan also seemed to lack a bit of experience on the line. we had lost our entire shape in the 2nd half and he never did anything to change it - and bringing mctiernan on at chf wasnt the answer. yes, bring him on in the full forward line where's he's very dangerous.

finally, as model hammer says, there's no excuse for not having a scoreboard. that was embarrassing.

I am a Rafa fan but how the hell can he justify playing kuyt & kewell while babel & crouch warm the bench. It is getting beyond a joke. This "loyalty" or whatever it is, is his single biggest problem. We mightnt have the funds to compete with utd/chelsea/arsenal but Rafa's team selections have undoubtably cost us a alot of points this season.

I have always been a critic of Sissoko's footballing ability but nobody could fault him for effort, he always emptied the tank..... Perhaps if Kewell etc took a leaf out of his book.

totally agree. and he was excellent in his first season. but we just cant carry lads who are full of effort anymore - kuyt, another prime example. if we could get 8.2m for kuyt, i'd drive him to the airport myself.

the less said about kewell the better.

£8.2m for sissoko!!!! great news. they should give rafa a medal for that bit of business.

Arsenal 1 1 Birmingham
Aston Villa 2 0 Reading
Chelsea 2 0 Tottenham
Derby 0 1 Wigan
Everton 1 0 Man City
Man Utd 0 0 Newcastle
Middlesboro 1 1 Liverpool
West Ham 2 1 Fulham

Thank god for that, what has he actually done in club football anyway.

The media will have to find another avenue to attack Liverpool and Benitez now

yea, im happy with that news too. although im sure the media will have little trouble finding something else to attack benitez with.

news that Agger is finally coming back from injury. was scheduled to play a reserve game midweek only to have it cancelled due to weather. after 4 months out, it'll be a big boost once he comes back into the side.

Let's give the lad a chance before we build him up! We've all seen numerous players fail to adapt to English football - there is no guarantee that he'll be as important to Liverpool as Vidic is to United.

Anyone remember how poor the slovakians looked in both games against us??? So I certainly wont be building him up as the next vidic, but at that money, you'd expect a certain quality.

Reina frequently comes for crosses and balls into the box and flaps like a shot crow.  He is terrible when dealing with balls into the box.  

totally untrue. can you back that up with some recent examples please?? admittedly, he wasnt good under crosses when he first arrived, but he has been in exceptional form for the last 2 seasons and I'd have him ahead of VDS at the mo. I actually think Kuszczak could take the no.1 spot at utd next season.

No argument regarding Carra v Donkey....

you're right, dont know why i suggested otherwise......

pointless exercise this but for what its worth:

reina
finna, rio, vidic, evra
gerard, masch, scholes, ronaldo
rooney, torres

liverpool - 5, utd - 6. you could argue neville v finnan, carragher v rio & hargreaves v mascherano.

I suppose really we are both right in what we are saying and the bottom line is Liverpool need a few more quality players to compete at the level we need to be in contention for the Premiership

and this is the real crux of the problem. we just havent been buying/been giving the funds to buy enough quality players. now splashing out 6.5m on a new defender is promising and that had to be the priority considering Agger's injury & hyppia's age. sure we'd be totally screwed if carragher got injured/suspended. we need to wrap up the mascherano deal in the summer, get a quality partner for torres (either an attacking midfielder or striker) & also need a full back in the cole/evra/clichy class. then we'll be in a position to challenge and i'd be confident benitez could take that team to a PL title.

i'd put mascherano on a par with carrick or sissoko.

FFS, are you for real???

Mascherano hasn't turned out to be as polished as i'd expected. as good as he is at breaking up play, his capacity to keep posession has disappointed. hargreaves was the better option for the same money.

i rate Mascherano and for me, the jury is still out on whether hargreaves is the better player or not. However, when Utd signed hargreaves, was there any question about the player being too expensive?? of course not - they simply wanted the player and payed the price. and thats the mentality that the Liverpool owners need to get - Mascherano is a quality player and they should pay up. simple as that.

It's the Big 3 because Liverpool have never won the Preimiership whereas Man U, Chelsea & Arsenal have all won it more than once.

exactly. and we havent come within an ass's roar of winning the top league in 17, going on 18 years. When I say the top 3, I mean the only 3 teams capable of winning the PL. Yes we won the champs lge in '05, and took big scalps along the way, but looking back on it now - with the likes of traore, kewell, smicer, biscan & cisse in the team, i still cant believe we won it.

The top 3 have invested heavily for many years now and we are playing catchup big time. Is benitez the man to bring PL glory?? I thought so originally but Im becoming less & less convinced. It was his tactics/selections, and not funding, that cost us vital points againt Portsmouth, Reading & Wigan - could easily have got an extra 7 extra points from those matches and be right in contention.

The only thing is - if Rafa got the boot, could we be in danger of losing reina, alonso & torres???

and Juve interested in sissoko. things looking up...



Juventus declare serious interest in out-of favour Sissoko


Paolo Menicucci Milan and Louise Taylor
Tuesday January 8, 2008
The Guardian


Juventus's coach, Claudio Ranieri, has admitted an interest in signing Liverpool's out-of-favour midfielder Momo Sissoko. "I had the pleasure to coach him at Valencia and I like him a lot," the former Chelsea manager said yesterday. "I know him very well. He is a great player."
Juve are third in Serie A despite the disappointing performances of their summer signings Tiago Mendes and Sergio Almirón, and Ranieri is eager to bring in reinforcements. Sissoko, 23 this month, has appeared nine times in the Premier League this season, 12 times in all competitions. Internazionale had also expressed an interest in the former Auxerre player but have turned their attentions elsewhere, to Atlético Madrid's Maniche.

Interesting this as if Benitez was going to get the bullet either now or in the Summer you imagine he wouldn't be getting any money to spend.

Liverpool prepare to splash record £6.5m for defender Skrtel
Jan 7 2008


Martin Skrtel

LIVERPOOL are set to break their transfer record for a defender by paying £6.5m for Slovak international centre back Martin Skrtel.

The Zenit St Petersburg star arrived on Merseyside last night ahead of a medical today and the club are confident the deal will be finalised within the next 48 hours.

Chief executive Rick Parry thrashed out a deal with Zenit officials during talks in Russia at the weekend.

Skrtel is rated as one of the most promising defenders in European football and Liverpool have had to beat off competition from some of the continent's top clubs to set up the deal.

Should the transfer go through as expected it will mark the end of Rafa Benitez's search for a new centre-half that began with the ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of Gabriel Heinze and which became increasingly urgent in recent weeks following injuries to both Daniel Agger and Sami Hyypia.

Skrtel is a 23-year-old full Slovak international with 15 caps to his name.

He joined Zenit in 2004 and has gone on to make more than 100 appearances in the Russian league.

Standing 6 ft 4 ins tall, Skrtel has a reputation as a no-nonsense defender who does not shy away from the physical side of the game.

With Agger – who was named Denmark's player of the year at the weekend – still not ready to make his return to first team action after suffering a metatarsal injury last September, Benitez has been short of cover at centre back for several months.

That situation worsened recently when Hyypia picked up an ankle injury at Derby County on Boxing Day, leaving Benitez with only Alvaro Arbeloa, a full-back, and teenager Jack Hobbs as his options to partner Jamie Carragher in the centre of defence.

Benitez will be keen to see the deal for Skrtel tied up as quickly as possible so he can be added to the Liverpool squad, possibly even in time for the trip to Middlesbrough on Saturday.

This sounds promising. Let's hope Utd dont hijack this lad from us, like they did when they signed Vidic at the 11th hour - he was just about to sign for Liverpool at the time.

Anyway, by the sounds of Skrtel, it's still essential Agger gets back asap - he's the only Liverpool defender who can play the ball out of defence with real purpose. His absence has really hurt the team.