The second coming, part 2

He has come again. God walks among us once more. But lucky for us, even God couldn't prevent Cardiff from going down 2-1 at Anfield last night with his heir delivering the fatal blow.



As expected, it was a fairly young team and we got to see some of the youngsters in action. Jack Hobbs, Charles Itandje, Nabil El Zhar, Seb Leto and Lucas all started. It was also notable in so far as two of our oft injured players got game time in Aurelio who started and Kewell who came on in the second half.

Hobbs did quite alright at the back and he did have Carra beside him, giving tips and bollickings if needed. Itandje made a couple of smart saves, notably from a Fowler free kick. Leto didn't have a great game. It's hard to know what to make of him. I've seem him play very well for the reserves on LFC TV but it doesn't look like he's ready for the step up to the first team yet, if ever. Lucas played very well in the middle beside Stevie but he did seem to tire towards the end and gave the ball away a few times. Up until then he had been superb. I think this lad can do a job for us in the Xabi role while we're waiting for the master to return from injury. El Zhar opened the scoring with a cracking strike from distance. It was a superb goal but again I don't think that he's ready for the step up to the first team. He still looks a bit lightweight.

Yossi cam on and did fantastically well to set up Stevie for the winner. I would like to see Yossi get more game time now that Pennant is out. He's an intelligent player who has pace, great control, good link up play and an eye for goal. He gives us something different to what we already have. I think that he's been underused so far but I'm hoping that will change now.

Blackburn away is going to be really tough. They are in great form at the moment having won their last few games. We have good domestic away form but this will be our toughest journey so far this season. The news that Bently and Mokoena should be out is good for us. It sounds like we won't have our spine of Agger, Xabi and Torres back for this one, in fact, it could be another two weeks before we see any of them. I wouldn't be surprised to see Momo start this game if he's recovered from his illness as Rafa likes him for these kind of games. I predict an away draw. A win would be great but I think Blackburn have enough to take 2 points from us.

Fordies had an interesting post last month saying that we are going to try and bring in three players next month. He reckons these are James McCarthy from Hamilton Academicals who we've been linked to before, John Cofie a young midfielder from Burnley and Samir Nasri from Marseille. He reckon that we've built up a good relationship with them after doing business over Cisse and Zenden. Nasri would be expensive, around £11m according to Fordies. I haven't seen much of this lad but he's destined for great things by all accounts.

Let's make Ewood park threewood park tomorrow. Sorry, that was terrible.

A bridge too far

I was hoping that I'd be writing about "the joy of six" today. Alas it's "seventh heaven" for AC Milan. But I don't feel devestated. We gave it everything we had but it wasn't enough and luck was against us. These things happen in football. We lost 2-1 having put on a really good display. It's not like we were spanked 3-0.

The first half was great and we played some good stuff. Pennant in particular pinned Jankulovski back on our right wing. Rafa wanted us to go at them from the off. We were in the ascendency and had a few chances. Unfortunately, as has been the case many times this season, we couldn't make it count and failed to put any of the chances away. But the Inzaghi goal was devestating. It was a bad position to give away a free but Pepe had it covered until it took a deflection off Inzaghi's arm. 1-0 down at half time after dominating the half. Sickening. Inzaghi scored again in the second half after recieving a pass from Kaka. Milan were much better after the break, they play well when they have the lead. Crouch came on and did alright but the ref penalised him for being tall. Kuyt scored at the death but it wasn't enough. The ref blew up early but it probably wouldn't have mattered. Milan took their chances, we didn't. At least we got a good match with some good football, unlike the FA Cup final last Saturday. John Giles described it as "enthralling from start to finish".

Javier Alejandro Mascherano was brilliant. Man of the match for me. Kaka had very little influence on the game until the chief was taken off. He might have stayed on and closed Kaka down for the second goal if he hadn't been booked.


The papers are full of players on the way out today. We know that Robbie, Jerzey and Bolo are on their way as they're all out of contract. It now looks like Mark Gonzalez is on his way to Real Betis. I feel a bit sorry for the lad but it didn't seem to be working for him here. He had a few decent games but by and large was underwhealming. I had high hopes for him coming into the season as he was incredible for Sociedad in Spain last year. Sometimes players don't fit in or adapt here and Mark could be a case in point. I hope we get a good fee for him, rumoured to be £5m+, and that he does well for Betis.

So where do we go from here? It's clear that we need more talent in attack. Left wing is a problem position. Kewell is injured too often, Garcia is great in europe but not as effective in the league and isn't a real winger anyway. Aurelio started to look really good before he got injured but he has a bad history of injuries too. Leto is coming in but I don't know if he'll be ready for first team football. I think we're ok on the right wing given that we've Pennant who had a great second half of the season. Gerrard can also play there and do a good job. It looks like Bellemy will be sold although this hasn't been confirmed. I'm hoping that we invest in a top striker. I'd love Tevez or Villa but I don't know if either is likely. I'm sure we'll have a summer full of speculation. I hope that Rafa doesn't sell us all a dummy and sign Darren Bent.

I won't be doing as many posts over the summer as there are no matches. I'll try to do a roundup of transfer news every so often and might do profiles of some players. Onwards and upwards.

God bows out

Anfield's last game of the season was a bit of a party. It wasn't the most amazing game but there were two goals from us and it wasn't a defeat, unlike our last few league games. Plus there is the small bonus that it means we stay ahead of Arsenal and finish third.

The big news of the match that it was Robbie's last hurrah at Anfield. Rafa subbed him off with a minute of normal time remaining which enabled Robbie to get a standing ovation from the fans. Unfortunately it meant that he couldn't score the penalty we were awarded a minute later. Harry put it away for his first goal of the season. Robbie is a red legend of the highest order but everyone can see that he can't cut it at this level anymore. I'm going to do a separate blog entry about him over the next week or two.



So out with the old and in with the new. The new in this case is Lucas. This is one to get excited about. He's the Brazilian under twenty captain, a central midfielder and was voted player of the year in Brazil last season. This deal seems to be agreed and he'll join us in July after the copa Libertadores. The fee is rumoured to be around £5m or so. Rafa has said that he tried to compete for top class young signings like Denilson and Walcott at Arsenal but was financially unable. Hopefully this means that the Hicks and Gillett investment is starting to pay off.



We're also being linked with Alexandre Pato. "The Duck" is an eighteen year old Brazilian striker and is being tipped for greatness. I would be surprised if this happens but we are interested in him apparently. Check out the mad skillz.

With Athens not far away, it reminded me of this quote from Cruyff. "There's not one club in Europe with an anthem like You'll Never Walk Alone. There's not one club in the world so united with the fans. I sat there watching the Liverpool fans and they sent shivers down my spine. A mass of 40,000 people became one force behind their team. That's something not many teams have. For that I admire Liverpool more than anything." Dutch legend Johan Cruyff after Istanbul. Only eight days to go. Good video on the chelsea match using an audio montage from radio merseyside.

I was in Barcelona at the weekend and we visited Camp Nou for the Barcelona v Betis game. Good match even though it finished 1-1. Barca scored early and played some great stuff in the first half and could have easily been 2-0 or 3-0 at half time. But Betis came back into it and scored in the last few minutes. The locals got restless and the white hankies/sheets of newspaper came out which added to the entertainment. I hope that Barcelona can turn it around but it's not looking good considering their form and Madrid are now top of the league.