Yet more misery

Just when I thought our luck might turn, we hammered Birmingham but only came away with a point from our 2-2 draw at home. The team was still patched up, Torres didn't make the bench but Aquilani and Gerrard did.

Just because it finished 2-2 with us getting a dodgy peno doesn't mean we got lucky. We destroyed them. Gerrard hitting the post and Riera and Yossi coming off injured wasn't lucky. Stats here. Johnson tore them to pieces down the right again and again. Hart made some good saves and our finishing could have been better. If Torres or a fit Gerrard had played it would have been a landslide.

N'Gog took his goal well but spurned a few other chances. I think he's rapidly developing into a good player. His touch is still inconsistant but his holding up of the ball, movement, awareness and strength have come on greatly. A steal at £1.5m. Somebody said he has the best goals per minutes in the league but I don't know if that's right. I do feel that N'Gog was theatrical in going down and don't approve of it but this kind of thing happens all the time, it's nothing new. Why was there an outcry this week but not so much when Rooney or Ronaldo did it over the last few years? I don't remember Keith Hackett coming out and commenting on those dives.

Man CIty visit Anfield in the first game after the International break. The phrase "must win" is overused but every game we play now is going to be one. The fact that City will be vying with us for a champions league spot makes it even more important. They, like us, are not in great form and neither team is defending well. I think it could come down to which team has a better day in defence. Carra coming in for Skrtel might help us to tighten up at the back.

Tony Barrett in the Times lists 5 areas in which Rafa can help the team to get out of our current slump.The latest injury news isn't good either. Both Yossi and Riera have done their hamstrings and are looking at the best part of a month on the sidelines.

The daily mail reckon we're in for Krasic, the CSKA right winger who impressed against Utd at Old Toilet last week. Another winger, Adam Johnson of Boro, is being linked with a £7m move in January. Given his nationality and age, I think he'd be decent at that price. But I severly doubt we'll be spending £7m on him or anybody else when the window opens. Dossena wants out according to this.

If you're interested in the transfer fees and record of the Boss, have a read of this. It details all of the ins and outs and comes to a net fee of £83m since his arrival. If you divide that by 6, with this being his sixth season, it comes to £13.8 per season. The worrying side of it is that his net spend in 08/09 was £2.5m and this season it's just £10k.

Paul Tomkins employs logic in his defence of Benitez, a much underused tool when it comes to Football writing these days. Here's a great quote:

Apparently Benítez doesn't buy well under £10m, but Reina, Agger, Benayoun, Kuyt, Skrtel, Riera, Insua, Crouch, Garcia, Sissoko, Lucas, Aurelio and Arbeloa all cost less than that amount.

Spurs suffer

And so another season draws to a close. A 2-0 win away from home has to be taken in the context of the fact that neither team had anything to play for. Voronin got a rare goal. Torres scored again to make it 24 goals in the league. Other than that there wasn't too much to mention. It was good to see Insua make another start. I'm hoping that he is going to get a go next season what with Riise heading off in the summer.

Torres goal haul deserves some praise. In scoring 24 league goals in his debut season, he's surpassed the previous record held by none other than Ruud Van Nistelroy. Let's hope that he can improve on it next season. You can see all 33 of his goals scored in all competitions here. Torres says that the fans and the players have helped him to adapt to life in England. The Echo confirms what we already knew, that the Chelsea bid is bullshit. Never believe a story that originates in Marca.


Sammy Lee is in talks to take over as Assistant Manager.

Gerrard wants a title challenge. He's not alone there.

Lawro thinks that it's about time that we sorted out the ownership saga. It's not often that I agree with him but I'm going to change the habit of a lifetime here.

I'm going to do a season review post sometime soon but I won't be doing many post for the next while. If there are major transfers then I'll have a look then but I'm going to try and avoid doing the transfer roundups every five minutes.

Enjoy the good weather.

Big bucks?

The new away kit was released today. I can't say that I'm overly impressed with it. The last white kit was much better.

Some interesting transfer rumours here. If these are to be believed then we're going to break the bank for Simao/Malouda, Tevez, Alves and Milito. I have to say that I can't see us spending that much money. I don't have any sort of inside info or source, just what I read on the net and that leads me to believe that we'll spend cash this summer but not £70m. Chris Bascombe in the Liverpool Echo today says that Sami is staying at the club. If Hyypia is staying then maybe that makes a move for Milito less likely. Bascombe is pretty reliable for getting the inside line from Anfield. He reckons that Tevez will be too expensive at £30m. I too doubt that Rafa would be willing to spend that much on one player.

The news that Rafa has been reassured after talks with the chairmen is satisfying. They seem quick off the mark to get in contact with Rafa when needed.

Our continued interest in young European talent shows no sign of finishing. This week we've signed Alexander Kacaniklic. He's a fifteen year old midfielder from Sweden and he impressed the staff after a twelve day trial in February.

Jerzey Dudek is set to leave the club shortly as he's out of contract. While it is definitely time for him to go, with Scott Carson waiting in the wings, he will be missed. He will be a legend for what he achieved in Istanbul, but has tarnished his reputation somewhat with a string of poor displays since then, notably the Carling and FA cup this season. But the character of the man can never be in doubt. Here he is at the end of the match in Athens, comforting a distraught Reina. I hope Jerzey goes on to do a good job elsewhere and has a happy twilight to his career.

It's all kicking off

The boardroom situation is reaching boiling point. By all accounts, Rafa has had enough of Rick Parry and his incompitence and indecisiveness. It now looks like he wants someone else to come in and do Parrys job with more authority to make quick decisions and sign off on players. Foster Gillett seems to be the man that will take the job but he is having work permit issues at the moment. Where this leaves Parry, I don't know. Rafa is on holidays this week and seems to think that it should be sorted out to some degree by the time he gets back. I hope he's right. He has said that we need to spend money now or else we'll only ever be contenders for third/fourth spot in the league. It seems that he has two deals lined up now that need signing off on to go through. These are rumoured to be Simao and Gabriel Milito. We've seen when Rafa was at Valencia that he walked when he didn't recieve the backing he needed. I fear that it might be the same situation here if he doesn't get what he wants. That would be an absolute disaster for the club.

In trasnfer news there's been a few bits and pieces. Bellamy wants his future sorted. I don't blame him but I do think he'll leave to go to one of Villa, Blackburn or West Ham. Marseille want to do a permenent deal on Cisse. I hope that we get a decent price for him. Momo isn't happy with his current status. As I've said before, I can see him being sold for the cash. Samuel Eto'o made some very positive comments about us over the weekend. If he does move, I can see us getting involved but I would imagine that he's more likely to stay at Barca and he'd be very expensive anyway. Florent Malouda seems to be an option for the left wing. Finally, we've signed two Hungarian kids, called Krisztian Nemeth and Andras Simon from MTK Hungaria. Nemeth is highly rated and played well in teh uefa u-17 competition last year.

City stalemate

A most unremarkable match, all things considered. I feared that our league season might go out with a damp squib rather than a bang and that now appears to be the case. Given that Bolton failed to beat Arsenal yesterday it looks like the top four will remain as is and all qualify for the champions league. Whether we finish third or fourth isn't going to make a hige ammount of difference in the long run. Both spots mean that you have to pre qualify for the group stages and the champsions league TV money for each spot is 15% of the total for England.

I was surprised that Crouch didn't start given his recent good form. When he did come on, it was a bit late to make much of an impact. Kuyt did ok and put in a hard shift as usual, but didn't threaten that much. Pennant had a good first half but I feel he might have done better with Crouch to aim his crosses at. He had the beating of the left back Ball and gave him a torrid time. Roose didn't offer as much on the left and maybe Gonzalez would have been a better bet to try and stretch the game with his pace. Mascherano had another good game doign what he does best.

Anfield will entertain Boro on Wed night. Boro aren't a particularly entertaining team and I could see them being happy with a point away from home and playing a defensive 4-5-1. Given that we don't seem to be pushing ourselves in the league, with one eye on Chelsea in europe, we can expect another dour 0-0.

Tomorrow sees the first leg of the FA youth cup final between us and Utd. It would be amazing if we coudl retain the trophy, becomign the first club to do so. Doing it against the mancs would even more special. I would like to see Ryan Flynn do well as I met his dad before in Liverpool.

Lots of transfer rumours doing the rounds, as usual. We've been linked with Eto'o again and he might be up for the deal. He's been making a lot of favourable comments about us recently but it's still unlikely that he'd want to swap Barcelona for Liverpool. Plus he would cost a fortune and I don't know if Rafa would be willing to spend that much on one player. I think Barca may sell one of Ronaldinho/Eto'o, but not both. Alves continues to be linked and I do think that we'll make a serious effort to get him this summer. Ribery has been liked to us a lot and would do a good job on the left in my view. But it's probably more likely that he'll go to Arsenal.

Enjoy the sunshine and the remainder of the weekend.

West hammered

Put your hands up for Dirk Kuyt, he loves this city. Great goals last night and an important three points in our push for second. We played much better in the second half and Kuyt scored within 10 seconds of the kick off. 9 league goals now for Kuyt. Crouch scored on his birthday with a superb goal. The passing and movement for it were reminisent of Rafa's Valencia team. I like the looks of this 3-4-3 formation against the lower teams. This was practicaly the same team that played v Watford recently. Riise improved on his recent form in a slightly more forward position on the left of the midfield four. We're now only 2 points behind Chelsea with them playing tonight. I think that we've a good chance of catching them but I still can't see us catching Utd.

It's the visit of the bluenoses on Sat morning. Rumour is that Momo should be back for at least the bench and Bolo was an unused sub last night. Some talk that AJ might be on the bench for the toffees and if so I can see him coming on for a big finale if they're behind. He gave us lots of problems earlier in the season when we lost 3-0 at Woodison. I think that we'll have revenge on our minds and should be able to win this. After that we have the Toon away, Sheffield Utd at home and then Man Ure at home.

There has been a good bit of transfer activity recently with the window about to close. Alvaro Arbeloa has come in for around £2.6m from Deportivo. He's a Spanish right back and centre back who used to play for Real Madrid. Can't say that I know much about him but the deportivo fans are annoyed that he's leaving on the cheap as he's been very good for them this year. Francis Duran has joined on loan from Malaga. He's 18 and a cnetral midfielder. The long and drawn out Javier Mascherano laon deal looks like it will be completed at some stage today. FIFA have given us the all clear and West Ham don't want him. The involvement of MSI will make it less straightforward. At first I wasn't that pushed but I now think that he'll be used as an alternative to Xabi and will mean Bolo will leave which is a good thing. Here's a goal that he scored for River Plate and here he is playing a central role in one of the greatest goals ever.

Watford wilt

What a great way to get back in form and silence the critics? It was the perfect game to follow our two cup defeats really. Rafa decided to play a 3-4-3 formation which had the "experts" scratching their heads and crying rotation and tinkering before kick off. He was rewarded by three goals from the three strikers and some great attacking play. It must be said that the opposition weren't up to much and posed little threat.

Chelsea next Sat will be an entirely different story. There is some talk that Cech will be back for this match, which would be a real boost for the under fire Jose. Terry should still be out though which is good news but don't rule out a miraculous recovery in time for Sat. They'll also be missing Joe Cole who's out for the season so he won't be able to get his usual deflected goal against us. I fear Drogba as he can give our defenders a hard time given the form he's in. I expect Sami to sit this one out as Drogba can take him apart.

The senior team could do worse than follow the lead of our underage team in the Youth cup who managed to beat Chelsea. It would be a great achievement if they managed to retain the cup after winning it last year. I have to admit that I don't know too much about any of the players but I know that a lot of them are highly thought of within the club.

The news of the takeover talks has come back into the limelight this past weekend due to an interview that Rick Parry gave on BBC fivelive's excellent Sportsweek programme. He said that he expects the DIC deal to go through shortly. I don't think that this means Rafa will be splashing the cash before the end of the transfer window but it bodes well for the future of the club. Hopefully work on the new stadium will begin shortly.

We've signed three youngsters this past week. Leto, a 20 year old winger, has come from Lanus in Argentina but won't join up until the summer. Astrit Ajdarevic, a 16 year old striker, has signed from Flakenburg in Sweeden. Finally Daniele Padelli has signed from Sampdoria. He's 21 and a talented 'keeper. Could be the end of Jerzy if we can find someone to pay his wages or part of them.

Deja vu

On the fan scale there are two extremes. At one end we have the knee jerkers. After a result like tonights in the Carling Cup, they call for Rafas head. There was one in the pub that I was watching the game in tonight. At the other end of the spectrum we have the superfans. They won't hear a bad word said against the manager, no matter what. I feel that I am somewhere in between. You won't hear me calling for Rafa's head but I do believe that he has made mistakes along the way. Being knocked out of the Carling cup isn't a disaster but the manner of the defeat at home was terrible.

The defence was as amatuer as a primary school team. Again we tried to play football, again we defended like children and again Arsenal picked us off with every attack. I have no problem with trying to play football but we have to be able to defend too. Paletta doesn't look anywhere near ready yet. Sami suffers when playing against pace. Aliadiere, a player I don't really rate, and Baptista, a player I rate very highly, tormented Sami. There is no point in playing him against teams like Arsenal. He is fine for matches like the Bolton one where the danger is primarily in the air. Peltier looked exposed as not yet ready for this level. Warnock was probably our best defender on the night but he still isn't of the required level for a premiership title. Dudek was poor again. Thanks for the memories Jerzey but it's time to go.

Arsenal's youngsters and reserves were much better than our youngsters and reserves which wasn't a major surprise. I think that this is something that Rafa is trying to change with his purchases. Wenger has a great eye for talent but he has had to pay a lot for his young stars. Our transfer policy seems to be changing from just local talent to include young prospects from abroad like Antwi, Astrit Ajdarevic, Insua and an Argentine winger called Leto who is currently being linked to us. If we can couple these young signings with local British and Irish talent like Jamie McCarthy, we should be able to build a strong team for the future. Rafa has said that he wanted to sign players like Walcott and Denilson but couldn't compete for price with Arsenal. Hopefully our investment will come off and we can sign the stars of the future too.

Both Garcia and Gonzalez came off injured. That leaves us a little short of left midfield options. It will probably be one of Riise/Warnock/Aurelio for now. The Lucas Neil transfer should go through in the next seven days according to the Lancashire Telegraph. I think that he'll be first choice left back for the moment if he does sign.

I think that it's time to refocus on the league. I hope that the team can forget about these last two results and concentrate on Watford away. This should be very winable. A good three points will get us back on track. A clean cheet would be a bonus after conceding nine in two games.

The Italian league comes back from it's winter break this weekend and Roma travel to Messina. In Spain Barca have to go to Espanyol hoping to bounce back from a draw last week. Good luck to both.