Tallaght tyro turns up trumps

There'll be a party in the square in Tallaght after that goal. What a way to open your account for your boyhood club? Fantastic instinctive finish, the type Robbie excels at. Good man yourself Rob. I hope that he goes from strength to strength now he's got the monkey off his back by breaking his duck. It's worth noting that he set up Torres on Saturday and El Nino returned the favour with a great cross after a strong run and pass from Kuyt. I think the two of them are learning each others games and a promising partnership looks to be forming. Hopefully Rafa will nurture it to maturity and it'll bear fruit and a bounteous harvest will be reaped by all.

It was Dirk who opened the scoring after 4 minutes. Kuyt has now scored 10 goals in his last 16 Champions league games. Can anybody else in Europe compare with that? Somehow I doubt it. He's proved time and again that he's a must pick in the champions league. Not bad for a player who's a donkey according to Eamonn Dunphy on RTE television. He also called Mascherano a donkey on Wednesday. It's a pity because he used to be a decent football pundit a few years back but now he's just a parody of himself. He was so sure that Liverpool wouldn't win in Istanbul that he promised to retire if we did. Unfortunately, he's not a man of his word.

Gerrard put the icing on the cake with a second half free kick. It was a noteworthy goal for the skipper as it was his 100th. The Times has a feature on 5 of Gerrards best goals out of his ton. Some crackers in there. It's some achievement for a midfielder at the age of 28. Of his 100, 72 have been scored under Rafa as detailed here in the echo. Hopefully he'll go on to score another 100.

It's time to visit Middle Eastlands this Sunday at 3. This will be a test. City are a decent team if a bit unpredictable. We seem to be improving every game at the moment and this is the kind of game that we need to win if we want to challenge this year. Given that Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd all have winnable games, we need to keep up the pressure at the top rather than falling behind and playing catch up like we do most seasons.

Afellay didn't play which is a pity as I would have liked to see him live. He looked good for the Dutch team in his cameo during the Euro's. Rafa is a fan too.

Rafa has revealed that he wants to see more from Babel on a 90 minute basis. He only got a few minutes to display his wares last night. If we qualify for the champions league knock out stages after 4 games, which is possible, then we might see a few starts for Babel.

The "A Liverpool thing" website has a good feature on Lauri Della Valle. The young Finn signed a professional contract this week and is very highly rated within the club.