Baggies burst

A 2-0 over the baggies marked their demise from the league and an end to our away campaign with just the spurs match to go. West Brom were clearly more "up for it" than we were and started the match at a ferocious pace. Not surprising given they were fighting for their lives. It took us a while to get up so speed but a gift from the home defence allowed Gerrard to pounce and score yet another league goal. It got easier after that. Dirk added the second after a fine pass from Stevie. Dirk has been in superb form this year and this was his 12th goal, equalling his best ever league haul. Even more impressive is the fact that they've all been from open play. Dirka dirka. Lucas put in a good shift in the middle with Xabi starting on the bench. When Javier came off injured the basque took his spot.

The fact that Utd had wrapped up the league yesterday did make this something of a damp squib. Arsenal took points from them but alas it was too late to matter. This did have the feel of a dead rubber but with Chelsea winning we had to make sure of second and the extra cash that we'll receive for it. Second place gets 30% of champions league revenue while third place only gets 15%. Big difference.

Carra explained that his bust up with Arbeloa was over trying to keep a clean sheet, with the aim of securing yet another golden gloves award for Pepe. Some people might be pissed off with it but it never bothers me seeing players have a go at each other. He shouldn't have raised his hands as he could've been sent off but I've no problem with keeping high standards through fear. Keane used to regularly bollock players at Utd, Gary Neville was on the end of one particularly savage tirade. It's been a great week for Steven Gerrard who was named Footballer of the year, the first Liverpool player to win the award since John Barnes in 1990. Here he is celebrating the 4-1 win at Old Toilet this season. He said in an interview today that he's matured in recent years and it's been obvious this year. He does appear less selfish now. His conversion to an attacking midfielder has helped to make the most of his qualities. John Giles said he was a worthy winner of the award. Much better choice than Giggs who won the PFA award despite barely playing or scoring. His 16 goals and 9 assists are a fantastic return. If only himself and Torres had been able to start a few more games. 13 starts together wasn't nearly enough.

Piet Hamburg is leaving the Academy this summer. This has been expected for a while as he seems to have been Rick Parrys man. He will be succeeded by Jose Segura who previously worked at the Barcelona academy. In other staff related news, Rafa has been praising Sammy lee saying he is close to perfect as a number 2. Is that because he no longer has ambition to be a boss after his failed attempt at Bolton?

Dossena is returning to Italy with Milan the likely venue according to channel 4. David Silva's agent says that there is interest from clubs and there are reports that we've offered £15m for the Valencia winger. Xabi's agent says he's going nowhere which must come as a great relief to us all. I still fear that he might be off if we receive a massive offer from Real Madrid or somebody else. Hope I'm wrong. Cadiz youngster Jesus "Suso" Fernandez is on his way to Anfield for talks according to the Mirror.

How would you feel about going to watch a match in the Carlsberg stadium on Stanley Park? While there might be emotional issues surrounding naming rights, the financial reality of our predicament means that we're going to have to sign up some partner for the stadium. Carlsberg have been decent over the years and wouldn't be a bad choice. Given the international money markets, it's a moot point at the moment.

Irons flattened

With a start like this, it was a pretty easy game. Gerrard gratefully accepted a through ball from Torres to open the scoring when the game was less than 2 minutes old. He added a second with a penalty after El Nino was taken down in the box. Rob Green did well to save the initial peno but Stevie made sure with the rebound. Babel came on as a sub and made it an emphatic 3-0 from a Kuyt cross. This was only the 12th time this season that both Gerrard and Torres were fit to start in the league. How different would the season have been if these too had been fitter? It was a run of the mill performance without too much fuss. The defence made one or two mistakes but thankfully West Ham weren't up to taking advantage. Lucas slotted in for Xabi who wasn't fit.

The season is winding down and I think we'll keep pushing Utd all the way even if it will ultimately prove fruitless as they don't appear to be dropping any more points. Regardless of the title, I want to see us finishing as close to them as possible by beating West Brom and Spurs. We owe Spurs from the game in London earlier this season where they mugged us in a crazy game. If we win our remaining games we will finish on 86 points which is good enough to win the title more often than not. We've the best goal difference and have scored more goals than everybody else. So much for Rafa being a negative manager. I'm hoping that this is the practice run and we'll go a step further next season to finish on top.Pranjic of Heerenveen is being linked with a summer move by sky sports. Another Eredivise attacker, Luis Suarez of Ajax, could be a Benitez target this summer. He wouldn't be cheap but would be exciting, if a risk. A winger leaving this summer is Gary MacKay-Steven whose contract is expiring and Fulham are sniffing around him. Andrea Dossena reckons he's going nowhere and is adapting to life in England. I expect he could well be sold back to his homeland this summer. Almeria striker Alvaro Negredo has been linked with a move to L4 in recent weeks but the player himself reckons a return to Real Madrid would suit him better. Tevez is on the move and wants to stay in England. Maybe he wants to play beside Javier who's going nowhere. I'm a huge fan but I don't think we can afford him and there is the question of where he fits into our best XI.

This is worth a read and a few emails if you have time.

Dublin double downs Bagies

Robbie's happy. Rafa's happy. The fans are happy after watching this. Back on top of the league and all is rosy in the red half of Merseyside.

Well done Keane lad. It's been a long time coming but two quality strikes from Robert gave us a glimpse of what's to come from him. We all knew that the talent was there and that the goals would follow sooner or later. It was a little bit later than I'd have liked but he had been playing well and setting up goals for others, while not scoring himself. He looked really up for it on Sat, even before he scored. Once the first went in, he got hungry for more. Gerrard fed him with a beautiful ball for the first goal. I would imagine that he was slightly disappointed to be subbed when on two goals but Torres needs game time and we know team comes first for Rafa.

So we're back on top with Chelsea. I had hoped that Blackburn might take something from them but that was always unlikely I suppose. Utd betting beaten by Arsenal was great news. They're 8 points off the top now which is significant, but not insurmountable.

It's Carling cup this week which always gets the pulses racing. Spurs will be up for it to try and maintain the momentum they've built up in the league. I expect we'll see some of the kids on reserves on display so we might be heading for a beating. As is always the case with the domestic cups, to win a bonus but to lose is never a disaster.It appear that Torres and Babel were busy while they were out injured. They've both opened business in Clapham, south London. Fine entrepreneurs.

Alonso is once again being linked with a move, this time Valencia are said to be the club sniffing around. He's been superb this season so I hope that Rafa decides to keep him at Anfield.

Dossena is unhappy with his own form. I do think there is room for improvement there but he has being showing signs of a gradual upturn in recent weeks. The left back spot is up for grabs now if he or Aurelio can put a consistent run of form together.

Rafa thinks Maradona will make the correct choice in giving Mascherano the armband. The legend himself visited Melwood on Fri and all of the players got their photos taken with him. No sign of those snaps anywhere yet.

El Zhar scored a fantastic goal for the reserves in a 2-1 defeat to City this week. Nathan Ecclestone scored a hat trick for the u-18s when they beat Bolton 5-0. Their next game is against City.

Kerrison, the young Brazilian striker, is being linked to us again. I don't know anything much about this kid bar hearing Tim Vickery talking about him on the BBC 5live world football phone in.

Just deserts?

A late goal which turns a loss into a draw can feel like a win. That was the case here. We couldn't make our early dominance pay, they scored and we god lucky with the equaliser. It keeps us joint top of the group which is the bottom line. If we can out score them in the remaining matches against PSV and Marseille, we'll go through as group winner. Either way, it's going to be LFC and Atleti.

The ref had a bit of a stinker. Besides the controversial penalty at the end, he missed two earlier hand balls which could have made it a lot easier for us. But these things happen I suppose. Atletico had a few claims of their own. They were very lucky that we didn't hammer them in the first match so maybe the luck evened out a bit here with us getting a soft peno.

We could and should have won it given the amount of chances we created. Agger alone could have had a hat trick. Robbie Keane had a good chance following an amazing Alonso pass but his shot was wide. Robbie also had a good opportunity when 1 v 1 with Franco. Riera had a lovely volley which went narrowly wide. But our finishing was poor and they made us pay with a fantastic goal from Maxi, a good player, who we've been linked to in the past. After they took the lead, it was easier for Ateltico to sit back and hit us on the break with pace, like they did for the opener.

Rafa's happy enough that it was a peno. I'm not convinced. I think that there was contact but Gerrard definitely made the most of it. If it was given against us I would be pissed off. I can understand why Stevie did what he did but I don't condone it.

King Luis was looking forward to the match beforehand. He got a few minutes at the end and got to say a proper goodbye to the Kop, which he didn't get when he went to Atletico. The old song got a run out - Luis Garcia, he drinks sangria.
West Brom give us a good opportunity to get over the Spurs loss when they visit Anfield on Saturday. We really need a win here to get back on track. We may even have El Nino back. He was in the squad here but didn't make the bench. I think Rafa is right in not taking a chance on his fitness. Let him take his time and get properly fit.

Do these comments from Gillett sound like he's ready to sell or is it just more guff? The latter I fear.

Jorge "shit on a stick" Valdano says that Mascherano is possibly the best midfielder in the world. I love Javier.

New deals for Dirk and Agger. Andy Hunter in the Guardian has written an article on Kuyt's upturn in form this season. He didn't have his best game last night but by and large, he's been very good this year and deserves his place in the team.

White heart pain

Ouch. That's gotta hurt. It does. Now I know how gooners felt after the 4-4 draw last week. Fairplay 'Arry and all that but we should have had this in the bag long before the end of the match. We hit the woodwork three times but didn't get the vital second goal. We aren't great at finishing teams off this season. By not establishing a 2 or 3 goals cushion, we give the opposition a chance to make a comeback. That was what happened here. I feel that if we had El Nino fit, he would have put at least one or two of the chances away. We were always going to suffer a poor result on the back of our best player being out. As it happened, we've managed to go on a fantastic run without him for most of the season so far.

Let's take stock. We're still joint top of the league, having beaten our two main rivals without our best player. That's more than almost every red would have hoped for at the start of the season. We've lost one game, not the league. Our next four games are West Brom, Bolton, Fulham and West Ham. Novembers have been black for us in the past but I'm hoping that we can move beyond that this year and get maximum points from those games to remain joint top, or better if Chelsea slip up.

Redknapp admits that they got lucky after being under the cosh for so long. I can't argue with him but it's a lot easier to be magnanimous after winning.

On the plus side, Torres should be back soon and we have a handy run of games coming up. Dossena had a good match and is slowly improving his form, although he should have done much better for the second goal. He has underwhelmed us so far but I hope he'll kick on to show us his Udinese and Italian international form in time. It was good to see Robbie and Dirk link up well for Dirks goal. He's scoring a lot more regularly this year which is great. Robbie still looks a little goal shy and seems reluctant to take on a shot at times. I know he was carrying a knock and the lone striker role doesn't suit him that much. Fernando back should help him by creating more space for him to exploit.

Let's see how the team can turn themselves around after the first defeat of the season, starting with Atleti on Tue. If we can beat them, which we should be able to, we'll be safe for the second round and almost guaranteed to top the group. Hopefully we'll see EL Nino get a few mins.

Oliver Kay in the TImes has a piece loking back at the team Rafa had on his first premiership game in charge against Spurs, over four years ago. The Guardian got five legends of yesteryear together to compare their teams to Rafa's.

Rafa wants to talk to Hicks and Gillett about a new contract. Don't blame him. Get it sorted you pair of pricks.