Cottage calapse

Balls. When I saw the team sheet on Saturday I got very worried. 3-1 was the final result after a 1-1 draw at the break. We actually played well enough in the first half and things might have been different if Yossi had of scored rather than hit the bar in the first half. The defence we started was Insua, Carragher, Kyrgiakos and Degen which has a combined cost of £2.5m. Insua is having a poor time of it now and didn't cover himself in glory here. None of them did at the back. Degen was unfortunate to see a red and it may be rescinded on appeal. Then Carra went for a second yellow and we were down to 9. Laughable stuff. The only bright point was a stunning strike by El Nino.Lyon say that they're wary of the Liverpool threat. That threat has been lessened by the massive injury list we're suffering. The latest news is that GloJo and Aurelio aren't fit enough to travel. They will join Gerrard, Skrtel, Kelly, Riera and Dossena in the physio room. The more positive news is that Agger, Aquilani and David N'Gog have travelled. The big questions for me are who starts at right back as Degen isn't registered and dare we risk and Aquilani start? Darby may have to fill in for Johnson. It's either that or play Carragher there which hasn't worked at all recently. Starting Aquilani would be a big risk and I suspect it will be a case of him coming on for 20-30 mins at the end if he's needed. I'd love to see him start but I doubt he's ready for it. I'm really worried about this one. I think we'd win with our first team but we're far from that. A draw might be doable but I can't see us winning.

Dossena is being linked with a Jan move to Napoli. He's not playing much and will want to get some game time in to secure his world cup place. I wouldn't be too surprised to see him go if Rafa is assured he'll get to reinvest the funds. Spanish defender Mikel San Jose looks like he'll return to the Kop after a pointless spell on loan at Atletic Bilbao. We could be looking at a boost to our Hungarian community with Vladimir Koman who's currently playing for Bari. He's 20 and plays on the left wing and could cost us up to £4m.

Johnson's magic

It's hard to remember a better debut than Glen Johnson's last night. He scored one goal, was instrumental in others and kept a clean sheet. If he can do that every week, we'll have some player. He himself said it was a perfect night. He was good against Spurs but this was a whole new level. £17m is starting to look cheap. We've found ourselves an English Danny Alves after Rafa failed to buy the Brazilian one when he was at Seville.

4-0 was a decent way to get our Anfield account off to a flying start. Lucas was good in the middle again, El Nino opened the scoring and looked a little sharper. It may take him time to get back to full fitness after a short summer off. Yossi was vastly superior to Babel and should be there every game for now. Himself and Riera will scrap it out for that spot on the left but the Israeli gets my vote for now. Gerrard was pretty deadly and the build up to Kuyt's goal was a great team move, but a sublime touch from Gerrard capped it all. Young Ayala did nothing wrong at the back and kept it simple. It will have done him the world of good to have that clean sheet under his belt.We've a few days off until the Villa match next Monday night. It won't be easy as they've had a mediocre start to their season and will want to show the league that they're still contenders for a European spot. Skrtel should be back in action then, maybe wearing a mask. Riera could be in contention for the left midfield but that would be really hard on Benayoun. I'm expecting our injury crisis to ease in the near future.

Former Rangers defender Kyrgiakos is on his way to L4. I can see this happening as he'll be coming in as a cheap 4th choice centre back who's good in the air. A Sami replacement for those games where the ball is bombarded into the box. We'll need him as Agger had surgery on his back and will be out for 6 weeks. Leaving on loan will be Mikel San Jose who's off to Bilbao on loan for the year. Fair play to you boy.

Tony Barrett in the Times raise the slim possibility of a bid for Van Der Vaart from Real Madrid. He's a player that we've been linked to in the distant past but I can't see us having the cash now. The only way it could happen would be a loan deal with an option to buy next year. He'd give us great cover in the attacking positions. I don't see it happening in reality.

Lucas laments at Latics late leveler

LUCAS! What was he thinking? I was mucho pissed off when he conceded the peno last night. It finished 1-1 because yet again, our inability to score a second goal gives the opposition hope and let's them throw everything at us in the last few minutes, know that a point is there for the taking. We must have no toes left after shooting ourselves in the foot so often.

Yossi did fantastically well to score from such a narrow angle after beating the keeper and had a good game all round. In fact, he could and should have had a second when he made mince meat of the defence but couldn't beat the goalie. I was glad to see him come into the team as Dirk has been at nothing in recent weeks.

Torres looked off form and never really got into the game. Despite that, he did manage to put a header onto the post and had a few shots and half chances in the first half. He did nothing in the second and looked knackered again at the end. It may be a while yet before he can contribute 90 mins. Gerrard had a half volley near the end and a free kick before half time that were close. Babel didn't do much but Lucas had a decent match until his moment of madness. There was no need for that penalty to be conceded as the Wigan player wasn't even going towards goal.
Chelsea on Sunday sounds pretty daunting given our inability to score and win a game now. They were wobbly themselves for a while but seemed to have steadied the ship with their last two or three matches. We'll need to see more from El Nino and our Captain than we saw last night. Big game for Javier too, but it's the kind of occasion that he loves and thrives in.

Sky are reporting today that Keane is a Spurs target and they've sounded LFC out over a possible return. I think that any deal could only be in the form of a loan. To be honest, I would be surprised if this happens now. Even though he doesn't fit into our best XI, I doubt Rafa would be willing to let anybody leave the squad at this stage without a suitable replacement. But the Keane experiment has been a failure and I think he should be shipped out in the summer. We could do with a quality match winner for our right hand flank to chip in with goals, threat pace and movement from the right hand side. Dirk has his qualities but doesn't have much in that regard.

More evidence of why Parry must go, courtesy of Anfield Online. We risk losing Agger for a pittance due to procrastination.

Both Gabriele Marcotti in the Times and a Man Utd blog called stretford-end.com examine the zonal marking system we employ and discover that the myth doesn't match the facts. Andy Gray and co could do with reading these articles. Here's an extract.Quite frankly, that Liverpool are poor at defending set pieces has become the biggest falsehood since it was claimed that Chesney Hawkes was the future of music.
The truth is that Liverpool only conceded from two corners all last season, both coming in Premiership games (Chelsea away and Everton at home). In total the Reds faced 137 corners in the league, meaning Benítez's men conceded on just 1.5 per cent of them. Only one team, Chelsea, were able to come even close to that, allowing three goals from 127 (2.4 per cent).n terms of goals conceded from free-kicks delivered into the box, Liverpool also allowed only two in the Premiership all season, again one less than Chelsea. So the Reds conceded one-third fewer league goals than the next-best team when defending set-pieces.

A spate of youngsters have left on loan in the last week and Mikel San Jose is the latest to join them. The 19 year old centre back is going to Atletico Bilbao for the rest of the season. Those who watch the reserves regularly like this kid so it should be a good opportunity for him to prove he has the quality to step up to the next level with the first team in August. The official site have a chat with Spanish kid Daniel Pacheco. He is one of the youngsters who is tipped to make an impact here.

Charles Itanje wants to leave Anfield. I don't think that anybody is going to stand in his way. Cavalieri has looked far superior to the French keeper this season.

"El Nino" stays in the picture

It's official. There's a new kid in town and his name is Fernando. Rafa has sent out the call and "Towers" has answered. I haven't posted a blog entry in a while as I was awaiting some concrete news. It's arrived with a bang, not disimilar to the sound of castanets being snapped.

I'm very excited about our new number 9. Fergie has been chasing him for years so I'd imagine he's pissed off that he spunked £53m of his summer budget already. Jose and Chelsea held talks with his agent last summer. Both Ballague and Hunter have reported the fee as being £20m rather than the £26.5m being quoted in the press. The Echo also quotes the fee at £20m and says he took a pay cut which is a good sign.

Luis Garcia is heading in the other direction for a fee of around £4.5m. I'm sorry to see little Luis go but he wanted to return home and he's only got a year left on his contract. He's off to Spain to drink Sangria, as the song says. Here's my favourite of his many goals which came against Juve. Watch out for the mad music on that clip.

Cisse appears to have gone to Marseille on a permanent deal. This isn't much of a surprise but we still haven't got any confirmation of the price. I'm sure it won't be what we would have hoped had he not broken his leg twice.

Momo has signed a new deal at Anfield. I thought that there was a chance that he'd leave given the signing of Lucas from Gremio. Does this mean that Stevie is going to be playing mainly on the right this year?

The youth recruitment drive shows no sign of letting up and time soon. The latest Spanish (could be Basque) starlet on his way to L4 is Mikel San Jose. He's 18, a centre back and has signed from Atletico Bilbao.

Dani Pacheco is also on his way out of Iberia. Barcelona have lost quite a few young players to the premiership over the years. Now we've poached one for ourselves. Pacheco is a 16 year old striker who is nicknamed the killer. He is half Czech and half Catalan, a Czechalan if you will.

Bulgarian midfielder Mihail Alexandrov will be winging his way here from CSKA Sofia in the near future. I can't say that I know too much about him but he's 18 and another "one for the future".

There is considerable talk that Gabriel Heinze is going to leave Utd for Liverpool. I thought he was a superb player until his injury but hasn't been the same since. He would be more reliable than Riise at left back but I don't think he'd offer us the same going forward. Either way, I can't see Slur Alex letting this happen unless Heinze buys himself out of his contract.

Mañana.