El Nino raids Villa

The 1-0 win over Villa was so badly needed. We played well and were the better team but an injury time winner always makes the victory even sweeter. It didn't go down well in the sky studio. Keys and Gray were sick that we hadn't read the script and had the temerity to win a match. The cheek of us.

Villa had some chances but our margin of victory should have been greater. Dirk had a nailed on peno refused in the first half. I'd love to know why the ref refused to give it. Dirk had another mediocre game. He's been off form for a long time now. Aquilani started again and was good in the first half but faded in the second. It'll be a while before he delivers two good halves. He's neat first time passes really seem to work well with Yossi and Stevie. Lucas had another good game. He shines more when Masch is out.

Check out the FT9 site for an understated reaction to our late winner. Take it handy lads. El Nino is the quickest Liverpool player to score 50 league goals. He's also the fourth fastest player to 50 premiership goals. BUt the difference with Torres is that he doesn't take Penalties. Here are his 50 goals.GloJo suffered a tear to his medial ligament which means he's looking at an extended period on the sidelines. This is pretty shit for him as he's been great for us until recent weeks when his form dropped. I hope that young Kelly is fit enough to get a few games in his absence. Niether of the right back alternatives, Carra or Degen, fill me with huge amounts to confidence.

It's the "magic of the cup" on Saturday with a trip to Reading. I expect a fairly strong team but the likes of Pepe, Dirk, Insua, Torres and Gerrard can expect a rest. Maybe we'll see our wunderkind Daniel "Paches" Pacheco get a start? If not he's likely to come on at some stage. It'll be interesting to see who starts at right back. As it's a cup game, it could be Darby or Degen. The cup has more importance than usual this year since we're out fo the champions league. As usual, it'd be great to win it, but I'm not going to cry if we get knocked out. Finishing in the top four is much more important for our future.

Dossena could be on his way to Atletico Madrid according to Sky Sports. Palace forward Victor Moses is also being linked with a move. We've held talks with him according to the Star. The Liverpool Echo says that we're quite close on a loan deal for Maxi Rodriguez. He's a really good player and would give us a quality option on the right hand side. He links well with Nando from their time together at Atletico.

Purslow reckons work on the new stadium will begin in April 2010. A likely story. Here's HKS talking about the new stadium design.

Portsmouth and Wolves

The Christmas period started really badly for the reds with a 2-0 loss at Fratton Park. I only saw highlights of this one but we looked rubbish. All of the reports I read said we were dire. Masch getting himself sent off didn't help but we were already 1-0 down at that stage. But after that we didn't really look like we could turn it around. Depressing stuff.

Thankfully we were much improved in our next match on Stephens day. We had to get things back on track at home to Wolves and we did with a 2-0 win over the east midlands team. In the end it looked safe enough but in the first half we hadn't played well and still looked nervous at the back. Once Ward got sent off, it got somewhat easier. The goals both came in the second half. First Gerrard opened the scoring with a bullet header from an Insua cross. It was his fifth of the season, a fairly poor return by his standards. Then Yossi settled our nerves a few minutes later with a close range shot that took a deflection. Pacheco came on for another late cameo. That kid has talent.

Alberto got his first league start and played quite well. He still looked rusty and will continue like that for a while I would imagine. He hit some great passes but gave it away a few times too. He's always positive and tries to play it forward, including those ahead of him in the play. At the moment he looks like a 60 minute player rather than a 90 min one. He should get more stars in the next few weeks with Javier out injured. Now our thoughts turn to Aston Villa in Birmingham tomorrow night. This is going to be really tough. They beat us at Anfield in September without ever looking as convincing as the scoreline suggested. I don't think they've a great midfield but the have a stout defence and a blistering attack which could expose our nervous defenders. If we can assert ourselves in midfield, we can go a long way towards winning the game.

Have a listen to this MP RED interview with big Jan. Molby is an absolute legend.

WTF?

It's my fault. I have to hold my hold my hand up and accept responsibility for the 3-1 defeat to Villa. I had Johnson, Gerrard and Torres in my fantasy football team. You'd think I'd learn after all these years. When I have Liverpool players in my team, we play shit. You'll pleased to know that I"m going to revert to my usual tactic of not picking any LFC players and loading up with Rooney, Rio and the lads.

Here's a surprisingly balanced report from Football 365 on the result. We created a load of chances in the first 20 minutes but didn't take them. We went behind to a freaky deflected goal and were chasing it after that. That suited Villa who sat back and hit us with pace on the counter. In fairness to them, they did quite well in that kind of game where the onus was on us. Quite a few of our players had off games. Gerrard and Torres both had poor games, El Nino not helped by receiving some elbows to the head. But it was a shitty performance once we went behind. I'm always wary when we play teams who haven't won in ages. They often turn it around against us, ala spurs last season.

Bolton on Saturday gives a chance for revenge. I know it's very early early but we can't afford to slip to far behind and trying to catch up every week. We should batter Bolton but they are the kind of physical team that often causes us problems. If we score first we could batter them like the Stoke game. If we go a long time without scoring then we might start to fret like we did last night.

Babel had want to watch it according to Rafa. He's running out of last chances. His display against Spurs was so pitiful that I'd happily see him leave this summer. Aurelio is back in training. He'll have a job getting his place back from Insua.

Hungarian kid Nemeth is on his way to AEK Athens on loan for a season. It'll do him well to get some first team football on a regular basis. He looks a good finisher but could bulk up a bit as he's not blessed with pace.

Man Utd have shown a bit of class in relation to a fan getting a Hillsbourgh t-shirt printed and are to be commended for it. I would hope that Liverpool would respond similarly if one of our fans got a Munich t-shirt printed. I have no time for those appalling chants and two wrongs never make a right in that regard.

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.

The new deal

Rafa has signed on until 2014. Long live the Rafalution. He's the best man for the job and is improving us every year that he's at Anfield. Some people will say they were won round in the last 2 weeks but there was never any doubt for me. Rafa is boss.

5-0 was a flattering score, for Aston Villa. If only we were more clinical, we could have achieved double figures. This was a really dominant performance from what I saw. I missed the game live but watched extended highlights. Great to see us thrash teams again. Villa were competitive up to a point and Pepe made some great saves but collapsed after the second goal. Riera's was the pick of the bunch but Dirk showed good striking instincts and technique for his. The captain stepped up to show how it's done with his first ever premiership hat trick. Well in Stevie lad.

I'm hoping that Villa will recover over the international break as they play Utd in their next match. It was joyous to see Utd lose the match and their discipline against Fulham. That coupled with Chelsea losing has put us in a great position in the table. 1 point off the top with a better goal difference is much better than we could have dreamed two weeks ago. We still need Utd to slip up again but if other teams like Villa, Arsenal and others can take points from them then we're in with a shout. We need to maintain our own from though. If we draw against Fulham on Saturday week then it's all been for naught. We have the belief but we need to show it in every game from here to the end of May. I still think that we'll probably come up short but I was wrong before. Agger could well be back fit by then which is a massive boost. I'm hoping the kid signs a new deal now that the boss is on board.

Gerrard sounds happy with his position at the club and his current form certainly reflects that. He should start contract talks on an extension in the summer.

Martin Samuel has a piece in the Mail praising Dirk. There is a lot to be said for his versatility and lack of ego.

Theatre of dreams finally lives up to its name

Sir Bobby Charlton, Wayne Rooney, Mick Hucknall, Roy Keane, Eamonn Holmes, Lady Ronaldo, Eric Cantona, Gary Neville. Alex Ferguson. are you listening? Alex Ferguson, your boys took a hell of a beating.Here are the facts.
Fact no. 1: Liverpool scored 4.
Fact no. 2: Utd scored 1.
Fact no. 3: Liverpool have taken 6 points from Utd and 13 out of 16 against top 4 opposition.
Fact no. 4: The ref sent off Vidic and gave us a penalty. Yes, at Old Toilet. Wonders will never cease. Maybe Rafa's so called rant about ref's at Old Toilet had an effect.
Fact no. 5: Torres is the best striker in the league.
Fact no. 6: Utd will still win the league.
The last is a most sobering thought. While Saturday was superb, it would take a catastrophic defeat for Utd to drop more than 7 points and us to take maximum points from now on. It's a big ask, too big. I can't see the teams that they will play taking too many points from them. We'll run them close but I fear it will be an ultimately futile chase.

But for now, let's bask in the glory of this. I had the interesting experience of watching the match in a bar in downtown Seoul with my mate Eoin. He pointed out to me that the Korean viewers voted Park Ji Sung man of the match. When we went a goal down, I feared for the worst. I wasn't convinced about the peno but you see them given. Don't think it was stonewall but wasn't up in arms about it. But we managed to get our shit together once Vidic decided to show why he should be player of the year. He shat his pants once Torres left him for dead and beat Edwin VDS at the far post. Beautiful. Where would we now be if he'd been fit all year? Nearer the summit if not top.

Then on the stroke of half time, we got a really soft peno when Evra took down Gerrard in the area. Stevie promptly dispatched it and we went in ahead at the break. Our domination continued in the second half. Torres was turning and tearing their defence at will. Gerrard was playing between the lines expoloiting the space that Torres made. Kuyt and Riera ably assisted on the wings. Utd had a short period of pressure but their much vaunted attack of Tevez, Rooney and Ronaldo did very little. Arbeloa was injured in the warm up so Sami started in the heart of the defence and Carra went to right back. As usual Sami slotted in perfectly.

When Vidic took down a Gerrard who was through on goal, he gave the ref no choice but to send him off. The straight red means he'll miss 2 games. Hs pulled Torres in the box earlier which should have been another penalty but he got away with that one. He's been getting away with that kind of blocking and pulling all season but not this time. The excellent Aurelio swung in a superb free and VDS didn't even make an effort to save it. He is so far past it. Can't understand how people were praising him to high heavens a few weeks back. He's an average keeper behind a good defence, nothing more. Dossena added the icing on the cake with a injury time lob over VDS after a Reina kick out. 2 goals in 2 matches for the italian full back.

Poor Xabi wasn't fit enough to make the squad so javier started alongside Lucas in the midfield. It's high praise for the young Brazilian to say that Xabi wasn't missed. Carrick and Anderson weren't given a minutes peace and made mistake after mistake. They were made to look decidedly average by out south american combo. Mascherano has been immense this week. His will to win is staggering. Richard Williams in the Guardian argues that Mascherano rather than Torres represents Benitez's best signing.Now it's time for Villa. They're in shit form. I fancy us to do them as they're confidence seems to have drained. They have the pace to trouble us, especially if Arbeloa isn't back. But if Gerrard and Torres can continue their present form, who can stop them? Real and Utd couldn't. Can Zat Knight and Carlos Cuellar do better? We'll find out on Sunday afternoon.

Zidane recently labeled Gerrard the best player in the world. Gary Mac agrees so who am I to disagree with the two of them? Johan Cryff reckons that Europe fears us. Despite that, I don't really want to get Barcelona when the champions league draw is made on Friday.

Ins, outs and goal droughts

Despite the media hype before hand, there weren't any fireworks on the pitch or off the pitch at Villa Park on Sunday. Rafa and O'Neil, the mortal enemies since their Gareth Barry tug of love, managed to shake hands without stabbing or head butting each other. The game itself was without major incident too. Both defences were on top and once Torres came off we looked a lot more toothless. On the plus side, our full backs Dossena and Arbleoa did well in keeping the pacy Villa attackers Young and Agbonlahor quiet. Keane did well enough and linked well with N'Gog and the team. He could and should have done better when he was put through on Friedal. He waited slightly too long before taking his shot which gave Reo Coker time to get back and tackle him. On another day he would have gotten a peno for it. I think that his confidence is lacking somewhat and once he gets a goal or two he'll be putting chances like that away again without thinking too much about it.

This is really bad news. Given Torres hamstring and Gerrard's groin, I think we're going to struggle badly against Utd at Anfield. I would be very surprised if either of them are fit in time for the game.
The Mirror provide some trial by youtube evidence on Albert Riera. He flew to Merseyside on Friday for a medical and it was tied up today before the transfer window deadline for an initial £5.5m. Given that Parry is in charge of negotiations, I was a bit worried that there might be a last minute hitch. Ballague gives a rundown of Riera's abilities on his blog. A lightly less high profile is 18 year old brazilian striker Vitor Flora who has signed from Botafogo. Cue many margarine puns. I wouldn't stoop that low (low) on red in Dublin.

As expected while there were arivals, there were also departures. High fiving Riera and Flora in John Lennon airport were Steve Finan and Andre Voronin. Finnan leaves for the sunny catalan climes of Barcelona as he's signed a 2 year deal with Espanyol. I hope he enjoys a beautiful city and does well for it's second club. I really like Finnan and he gave us great service over the past few years. But he fell down the pecking order towards the end of last season and was told he could leave this summer. Most reds will be happy to hear that Voronin is off to Hertha Berlin on a season long loan. Despite a few stunning goals in pre season this year and last, he wasn't of the level required for LFC. One player who won't be leaving is Xabi, despite a late £14m bid from Arsenal. We would be mad to sell him considering that we didn't get Barry. It looks like Pennant will be staying too as he didn't fancy a £5m move to Stoke. Maybe a loan deal will be agreed at some point.

The stadium news was as disappointing as it was predictable. If the banks won't give these fools anymore money then surely their game is up? If they can't borrow to build the stadium, and don't have the cash to fund it either, then their project is dead in the water. They have no chance of getting the £1billion Hicks wants without a complete stadium. I hope this all hastens their departure and the arrival of DIC and the Sheikh.

Dirk delivers

We don't like to do it the easy way, do we? That was too close for comfort. I thought that we'd batter them after the first leg where they were great. As it happened we were only marginally better and they were marginally worse. Even though we had almost three quarters of the possession, we didn't do a whole lot with it. Babel did well when he came on and beat the right full to put a far post into Kuyt who stuck it away. That's 9 goals in his last 15 champions league matches. Astounding record considering he was playing on the wing and his poor league record last year. But it was all he did last night as he was terrible. He wasn't the only one. Most of the team was poor bar Pepe and the defence. Arbeloa wasn't great. Gerrard didn't look fit which makes his sense given his groin op today. Honorable mention goes to El Zahr who looked lively when he came on. The ref somehow failed to give him a peno when he was taken down in the box. Between that decision and the pen given against us which was a yard outside the box in the first leg, we didn't have great luck with the officials. But despite all that, we're through. Cheers Dirk.


Our Olympians will return for the Villa match and we'll need them with Gerrard out for 2 weeks with a groin op. Here they are flanking scouse Olympic boxing medal winner David Price. I expect to see Javier slot in beside Xabi for the trip to Villa Park. It's going to be a tough one, despite their shock defeat to Stoke last weekend. O'Neil will have them fired up against his number one Rafa. Young and Agbonlahor can cause us problems with their pace. Carra at right back perhaps?

The Riera deal isn't done yet but I expect it to be completed shortly according to what's knocking around in the media. An initial £6.5m will be followed by £1.5m in add ons depending on appearances and success. This is a lot better deal than the £16m they had been looking for earlier this summer. Everton bid close to £12m which was turned down because the player only had eyes for us and would you blame him? On last nights evidence, maybe.

Gareth Barry to sign a cut price deal next summer perhaps? He's staying at Villa for now but won't discuss a new contract for 12 months, at which point he'll only have a year left on his current deal.

Thanks to Dirk we made it through to the CL draw today. Unfortunately we got a pretty tough draw. We drew arguably the easiest team possible from pot 2 in PSV but 2 of the hardest teams from pot 3 and 4 in Marseille and Atletico Madrid. PSV we've beaten comfortably in the last few seasons and I'd expect us to do so again. Marseille gave us loads of problems last year and beat us at home. We made up for it by dominating them in the Velodrome in the final group match. Atletico Madrid will be difficult. In Sergio Aguero they have one of the most exciting young talents in the game, one who Rafa tried to sign form Independiente. I would imagine that El Nino is glad that he gets to make a homecoming and I'm sure he'll receive a hero's welcome. I reckon it'll be a bittersweet victory for him if we win in the Calderon.

Villa vindicated

Well it finished 2-2 but you won't see a more one-sided match. We battered them for 70 mins and then they scored 2 goals, the second of which was a flukey deflected OG. But it's been a recurring theme this year that we dominate teams, but don't turn our chances and domination into goals. We need more top class players to do so. Kuyt had a great first half but was dire in the second. Yossi did well for his goal and had a decent match. We were so in control at the start of the second half that it seemed a question of how many would we win by. But then the defence seemed to go to sleep and Harewood hooked one in after the ball was headed back across goal. It really shouldn't have been allowed to happen and I'd imagine that Rafa went apeshit when he saw it. The second goal was a freak occurrence when a shot rebounded off Aurelio and went in past Pepe. The team were in shock for a minute but then stepped it up again. Skrtel came on for the injured Arbeloa and did well enough. Crouchie came on and put himself about. He did well to finish from a cough angle, through a crowd of players. Well done big man. He obviously had his nachos.


Javier Mascherano was immense last night. Stevie had something of a quiet night but El Jefe made up for it and was the driving force in midfield. At times it looked like Villa couldn't get past him, no matter what they did. He is absolute quality and was always available. We really need to buy this guy in the summer. But given the current board situation, I wouldn't hold out too much hope.

The mighty Havant and Waterlooville visit Anfield on Saturday. My pulse is definitely not racing. Hope we see some of the kids getting a run out. This would be one to watch with the sound down to avoid the endless cliches of magic of the cups, David v Goliath, Giantkillers etc.

The boardroom saga rumbles on. Dion Fanning had a fantastic article on it in the Sunday Indo. Talk over the weekend suggested DIC are about to launch a bid for somewhere in the region for £350-500m. But then Hicks said that he doesn't want to sell his shares. This may mean that Gillett will decide the future of the club. Al Ansari, the CEO of DIC is a lifelong Liverpool fan and often attends games at Anfield which is a good sign, I suppose.

It looks like we've failed with a £400000 bid to sign an 18 year old Croatian player called Vida. He's decided to stay in Croatia and play for his club rather than sit on the bench with us. Fair enough. Sure he might change his mind in a year or two.

Of interest to Irish reds is the news that Steve Finnan is to retire from International duty. I suppose that it's good news for Liverpool as he won't be going away during international breaks and will get more rest. It is definitely bad news for Ireland though.

There were rumours that Leto and El Zhar might be on their way to Racing Santander for the rest of the season. It now appears that they will both be staying here. It's hard to know if either has a future with us in the first team. Probably not.

Let's get DICed.

Luton lamped

The sky generation might say "easy, easy", but it was fairly handy in the end. 5-0 makes the garden look a lot rosier this morning.

A Stevie G hat trick was added to an opener from Ryan Babel and a header from Sami. Babel had a good game and hit the post early in the match with a fine curling shot. But he was the go to guy just before half time when el Nino played him in on the right. Ryan unleashed a superb shot which left their keeper with no chance. That made the second half a lot easier. Stevie got on the end of a Crouchie header across the 6 yard box to head into the bottom corner. His second was a side footed finish. But his third was the pick of the bunch, a long curling shot from the edge of the area. Fantastic. After a spate of draws, I was happy to see us get a win and some goals, albeit against poor opposition. It was good to see Babel and Pennant do well on the wings. More of that kind of thing.

It now means that we'll be facing Havant and Waterlooville in the next round. Fair enough. Should be a great night for them at Anfield, with the magic of the cup etc etc. Get ready for loads of David against Goliath guff in the press.

It was Jamie Carragher's 500th game for Liverpool last night. He received a guard of honour at the start of the match which was well deserved. He's been a fantastic servant for the club over many years. He may not have been up to his incredibly high standards this season, but Agger's injury has left him a little more exposed. I hope that Jamie will form a decent partnership with teenage mutant ninja Skrtel when he's match fit. Carra still has a few years left in the tank and could well end up on the coaching staff when he finishes.


Our next match is Aston Villa on Monday night. This is going to be tough. They are in decent form and Young and Gabby Agbonlahor look dangerous on the wings. I would worry about what they might do to Riise if he plays. We've had far too many draws recently, especially at home so it'd be great to get a win against a good team like Villa.

Guillem Ballague of sky sports and the times has a good piece on the Hicks and Klinsman debacle. There is a lot of speculation that Hicks and Gillett will not get their refinancing deal which will leave them open to a takeover from DIC or somebody else. It's a case of wait and see, I suppose. I fear that they will not sell and will sack Rafa in the summer despite what we achieve or win this season.

This might say that Lauri Della Valle has signed for Liverpool but I need to brush up on my Norwegian to be sure. I've heard talk about this kid on the forums for the last few months. Apparently he's the greatest talent to come out of Finland since Jari Olavi Litmanen. A friend of mine has had Finnish colleagues raving about him. He was at Inter last year but didn't settle. Hopefully Sami will make him feel at home here.

Yanks out, Dubai in.

Cometh the hour..

This is what we've been missing. Isn't it great to have the season back? The famine is over and the feast is upon us. Here's hoping that Liverpool are sitting at the top of the table at the end of it.

For those of you that missed it, we ran out to a deserved 2-1 victory at Villa Park on Saturday. There were some great performances, notably Torres and Kuyt who looked great together. I'm very optimistic about their partnership after this. Their vision, movement and link-up play was a joy to behold. I hope that I'm not putting the mockers on them here but I predict a bountiful partnership from the lads. Rafa was delighted with El Nino's performance. Me too Rafa.

Gerrard was superb in the middle alongside Xabi. It was looking like another dissappoiting opening day draw when Stevie stood up and fired in THAT free. Astounding. There is a lot of guff written in the press about him playing in the middle but I think a more important factor here was that he's had the summer off and a full pre-season behind him. I'm sure that he'll play games on the right this season. If he plays like this, it won't matter what position he's playing in.

Riise wasn't great at left midfield but Arbeloa did ok at left back. Finnan was caught out by Young's pace a few times but he might have have had more protection with someone other than Pennant in front of him. Babel looked really good when he came on in the second half. He has that combination of pace, power and control that makes players dangerous. His directness and willingness to run at defenders is something that we haven't seen too much of around Anfield in recent times.

The team flew out to Toulouse today for the champions league qualifier tomorrow. I reckon that this should be fairly straight forward. It's going to be very hot at 3.30 in the afternoon but we should have enough to get at least an away draw if not a win. All I have to do now is figure out a way to get off work early.

Rotterdam review and season preview

Rotterdam review

Our pre-season finished with the port of Rotterdam tournament over the weekend. First of all we played Shanghai Shenhua which we won 2-0. Fernando Torres scored his first for the club with a well taken chip over the keeper when one on one with him. Yossi provided a lovely through ball in the build up. I'm happy to see him score his first goal and enjoyed the manner in which he scored it. Not since Michael Owen have we had a striker who was both quick and good at one-on-ones. Gerrard scored the second goal with an audacious lob. Fine goal from the captain. Leto also got his first run out in this match and played quite well by all accounts. It'll be good to have some competition on the left wing this season.

Our final pre-season game was against Feyenoord on Sunday night. This ended up being a bit tasty and was feistier than our previous friendlies. Drenthe opened the scoring for the Dutch team. Then Kuyt had a legitimate goal disallowed before Gerrard scored again after fine work by Babel. Pepe had to save a penalty after an Arbeloa handball. There were a few handbags thrown at the end of the match. Nice to see the chief put a reducer in on Drenthe. So the match finished 1-1 and Porto won the tournament. Big swing.

The Champions League draw was made on Friday and we were drawn against Toulouse who finished third in France. I reckon that we should be able to win that handy enough over two legs. I don't know a huge amount about them other than the fact Elmander plays for them and they only just scraped into third place.

Gerrard stated his happiness at having more time in the centre this season, according to Rafa. I think that this is a bit of a media hobby horse and I've no problem with him playing on the right hand side of midfield and I would imagine that we'll still see him play there a lot this season.

Season preview

Every August, I convince myself that this year will be the one where we finally win the league. Where do I start? Where did we finish - third. Where will we finish? Hard to answer. Many experts seem to think it'll be as you were at the top with the same top four as last season. The guardian have us down for third spot. On the other hand, Henry Winter thinks that we'll finish in the top two and that it'll be the three horse race. I would be happy with that as long as we are involved in the title race at the business end of the season. I suspect that Chelsea and Utd are still slightly ahead of us squadwise, but if we could split them and contend the league I'd be impressed.

The defence required the least work and so it was. With the possible addition of Heinze, it's as you were. We performed well defensively last year so there was no need for drastic surgery. Riise is still a weak link sometimes but Heinze might challenge him to improve. There is some speculation that Carson might be on his way out, maybe to Man City or Villa on loan, to be replaced with Charles Itandje from Lens coming in as back up keeper.

In midfield we have improved the flanks which needed a lot of work. Babel, Leto, Benayoun were bought to add to Kewell, who is now back from injury, and an improved Pennant who looked quality after Christmas. I think that this was the one major area of the team that needed addressing. I'm much more confident of our ability to break down stubborn defences with penetration from the wings this year. Lucas came in to challenge the status quo in the middle. The only problem there is that we have too many good players chaasing too few spaces now.

Our attack has evolved. Out went Bellamy and Fowler for Torres and Veronin. As mentioned above, I think that Torres pace and verve will greatly enhance our attack. Veronin looks a clever player in pre-season and I now think that he'll challenge Dirk and Crouchie, rather than just making up the numbers.

Improvements have been made to many areas of the squad by buying some new talent and shipping those who weren't performing and were out of favour. The remaining issues and questions are

1) We've added to the attacking options and quality in the squad but is it enough? Will we score enough goals? We scored a lot less than the rest of the big four. There were many games where we dominated teams and had the majority of possession but we didn't create enough chances and didn't score enough of the chances that we created. We will have to commit more men forward when we are putting pressure on teams to make this work. The additions of Torres should help somewhat with the goalscoring but we need goals from all over the pitch. Our midfield will have to up it's scoring rate as only Gerrard has a proven history of scoring. I would expect Babel, Alonso, Kewell and Benayoun to chip in with a few each. Pennant only scored once last year and could do with working on that part of his game.

2) Can we perform in the head to heads against our rivals? We had the worst record of the top four teams last season. We were mugged in the last minute by Utd. I'm hoping that we can improve on it this season and get some impressive results against the other big teams.

3) Can we improve our away from? Last season Utd scored one more point than us at home, 47 to our 46 points. The difference came on the road. Utd took 42 points compared to our 22. This is where we need to get our act together. I reckon that our new additions will help us to break down packed defences plus the added pace or Torres and Babel will help us to hit teams on the break.

4) Can we start the season brightly? We had a terrible start last season and were realisticly out of the title race by November. We can't let that happen again. We will have a game in hand by week three due to the champions league qualifiers when we play Chelsea. This will give us a chance to state our credentials with an early blow. The fact that Terry and others could be out is a bonus. We need to establish our credentials early as a statement on intent.

So can we win it? Yes. Will we win it? Probably not. I expect us to challenge but in the end I think that Utd will probably win the prize. I hope that I'm wrong and we call in number 19. It all starts against Villa on Saturday. If we win it, people will be saying "it's on". If not then we'll be written off. Check back here every week for updates. Click here for an good article on rotation from Paul Tomkins.

Bring it on.

Bore draw

The Villa game on Sunday was one of the worst games that I've seen in a long time. I feel sorry for anyone who had to sit through it. Reina had nothing to do and the only real save that Sorensen had to make was from Fowler's header at the end. Our defence had nothing to do but our attack was incapable of getting through Villa's five man midfield. As has happened a lot of times this season, we've struggled to break down a team with a deep defence and a massed midfield. Xabi coming on earlier might have helped if he could have played a ball in behind for Bellamy. But the Villa defence were sitting so deep that there wasn't too much space in behind. As I've said in previous posts, we lack the top quality wingers needed to break down a massed defence. I'm hoping that we buy a top class winger this summer, preferably for the left so that we can stretch the play and make the difference in tight matches like this. Luckily for us, Everton managed to beat Arsenal so we gained ground on them in third and there is only one point in it now even though they have a game in hand. At this stage I would imagine that they will probably finish thrid as it means more to them. Their season is over while we still have the champions league to play for.

I head Andy Gray was bleating on about Gerrard playing in the centre again on Sky the other night. Gerrard hasn't been as good this season as last year, no matter where he has played. I didn't hear Andy complaining last season when Gerrard scored 23 goals, mainly from the right.

No game until Arsenal visit Anfield on the 31st. I hope that our attacking play has improved by then. Remember that you can send me on any spare tickets that you might have for this match as I'm going over and I need two.

Well done on the youth team who beat Newcastle 3-1 in the second leg to go through 7-3 on aggregate to the FA youth cup final. They will play either Utd or Arsenal in it. It would be a great achievement for them to retain the trophy.

There has been a lot of talk this past week about extending the capacity of the new Stanley Park stadium. The original plan was for a 61k seater stadium but this is now under review and we could end up with of 70k or more. I'm not that surprised by it considering that we have around 56k fans on our season ticket waiting list. I hope that it does mean that it will be easier to get hold of tickets as it's currently very difficult to get tickets if you are going over on a day trip.

Quarter final delight

All things considered PSV is about as good as it could have got for us in the quarter final draw. I wanted to avoid an English team and Valencia if possible so I was happy with the way that it panned out. We were able to beat them 2-0 on agg over the two group matches and I don't see any reason why it should be any different now. Koeman is a competent, if unadventurous coach. He did manage Benfica who put both us and Utd out last season so we must be wary. It won't be a walkover but we have every chance of going through. The fact that Alex and Kone will probably be out makes the task easier. If we do get through it may be Chelsea in the semi. It would be a fitting end to Joses english career if he were to come full circle and get knocked out at the same stage by us in the Champions League. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Of the other matches, I am really looking forward to Roma v Man Ure. I feel that Roma are capable of doing it given their attacking talent. But they also have a soft underbelly and a lack of discipline. So we can expect them to win in Roma but self destruct in Old Toilet with Totti getting himself sent off and Utd going through. Chelsea v Valencia is a tough one to call. It'll probably be Chelsea but it's not beyond Valencia by any means. I fancy Milan to beat Bayern and go through there.

So to Villa park and Aston Villa in the league this Sunday. Villa are down in 13th and don't really have much to play for. I would always expect an O'Neil team to be competent and steady, if unspectacular. Probably won't be a blinding match but we should have enough in our locker to get a 1-0. We beat them 3-1 at home and I would be thrilled if we could manage something similar this time around.

Finally, I'm going over to Anfield on the 31st of March for the Arsenal match and don't have tickets as of yet. If anyone has two spares I would be eternally grateful.