Still here is Rafa in his bearded glory. If I find a full version of this press conference, I will add it into the post.

In recent weeks, it would seem as if the whole world is against Liverpool and Rafa in particular with such managerial geniuses as Ronnie Whelan and Stan Collymore (presumably taking some time off working for National Car Parks, obviously) have been quick to dismiss Rafa and his chances of winning any trophy at all this season.  In fact, the hysteria that has been written in some of the national papers in recent weeks has been nothing short of retarted genius. Particularly from Mr. Collymore. I would provide links to his recent comments but that just give The Mirror the idea that any genuinely thinks he has something interesting to say, when we know full well that he hasn’t.

No one can denying he's dogging the issue

As I said recently, I do think Rafa needs to take some kind of blame for the clubs recent troubles. However what has been thrown up in recent weeks would test anyone’s mental strength and patience to the limit.

Referee’s (and their assistants) awarding goals that should never had stood under the laws of the game; and how interesting that whole incident has been swept under the carpet so very quickly. If that incident had happened to a certain red nosed scotsman down the M62, then you would have had grovelling apologies from the referee, the PGMO, Richard Scudamore and probably Gordon Brown.

Even the Queen would probably have given him a second Knighthood as a way of saying sorry. Instead, everyone seemed to find the whole situation incredibly amusing and moved on as if nothing happened. No questioning of the Ref OR the linesman (who DID have a perfectly clear view of it) still allowed the goal to stand. But hey, it was all good fun, eh?

In addition to that, you had the weekend’s game at Craven Cottage, a halloween horror show to rival anything that John Carpenter or Wes Craven could serve up. While I’m not going to question the rancid second half performance, does anyone find it strange that before the dismissals there was only one yellow card, and that even that was for “unsporting behaviour”?

Did the game really get that ugly, that quickly that 2 players deserved to be sent off? Listening to the game on BBC Radio Five Live on Saturday and John Murray commentating seemed shocked and amazed that the red card was produced. And the fact that the replays showed that Degen actually got the ball suggests that the ref may have had some other reason for deciding to send him off.

Ok, it was only Phillip Degen you might say (I do like Degen, he has been INCREDIBLY unlucky with injuries) but the fact remains. With eleven players on the pitch (well, ten and Andriy Voronin) we could still have offered some kind of resistance and even got a draw (something we still haven’t achieved this season I might add). It just seems odd that the ref felt that two challenges, so close together warranted red cards. Don’t want to insinuate anything, I’ll just leave it there. My point, after all that, is that Rafa has no control over bizarre refereeing decisions. There are some things that are truly in the lap of the gods.

Bitterness and paranoia aside, it’s also clear that there is a genuine injury crisis at the club at the moment, with the Spanish and English FA’s not exactly helping us out a great deal on this front either.

He wouldn't have allowed SG to play, surely?

Why exactly did the English FA allow Stevie G to train when they knew he had picked an injury in the game against Ukraine? It beggars believe that they would allow this at all. Again, one suspects that if they put Rayne Wooney through a training session when he was carrying an injury which then aggravated it, the Scots Montser would be given two Knighthoods and a Highland Whisky company as means of recompense. Same with Fernando. Why exactly was it acceptable for him to play in a meaningless set of qualifiers when he could quite easily have been rested? One suspects that the next time Spain and England come calling for these two Rafa will politely but firmly tell them to va la cogida usted mismo. And if you do speak Spanish, please excuse my language.

But add in injuries to Glen Johnson, Albert Riera, David Ngog, Alberto Aquilani, Martin Skrtel, Daniel Agger and even youth players such as Martin Kelly then you have a pretty good idea of just how desperate things are at the moment. Somewhat ironically, the next international break can’t come soon enough, if only to give players the time to rest and recuperate. It’s all very well claiming that it’s the debt or the lack of depth in the squad but if even the players who are coming in are either getting injured or getting suspended then you can hardly blame Rafa for that. He does have a very good squad at his disposal, it’s that injuries have clearly been our downfall so far this season.

I wont even get into the idea of sacking Rafa. Not just because I’ve only just sorted out a header image of him for the site but also because getting rid of him would make no difference at all. The same players would be there, all carrying the same injuries, the same problems and the same issues. The argument is that removing him would simply destabilise the club even more. We all know that removing Hicks and Gillett is of more pressing concern but sadly that is much harder all together.

As I’ve said before, Rafa is not entirely blameless in all this; far from it in fact. However, to suggest that everything will be solved by getting rid of him is nonsense of the highest order. Not that this is going to stop the national press having a field day and whipping up a crisis where there isn’t one. In a months time, they’ll be somewhere else *cough* Hull *cough* and this will all be old news. And if there is one good thing about six teams being in for the title it’s that they can all take points off each other. Which is just as well really….

Long week at work and some RL things that needed sorting this week, added to the general feeling of smug satisfaction after the Utd game meant that the blogging for this week was low down the list of things to get done. Things with the site are moving along slowly but surely and I think over the next 2-3 days you’ll some new content up around here.

So, with that in mind and in an effort to keep my eye in around here I present some lovingly embedded Youtube clips of Rafa’s pre-match press conference ahead of this weekend’s game at Craven Cottage. As is seemingly the way with almost every press conference Rafa does these days, the first matter of course is the state of Steven Gerrard’s groin and the latest injury news.

It’s clear from watching the end of the clip that Rafa was, and still is, unhappy at the way that Stevie was treated while away with England. In fact, it amazes me that they claim that he picked up the injury and that they weren’t going to play him against Belarus and then put him through a training session two days later which aggravated the injury. I’m sure the fact that England’s head physio is also Arsenal’s head physio had absolutely nothing do with decision at all. Nothing. Whatsoever.

Aquilani being out is hardly a loss given his current situation (he was only ever going to be a sub anyway) and the loss of Johnson wont be felt quite so keenly if Phillip Degen can reproduce the performance he turned in against Arsenal on Wednesday night.

That’s all ITN has for us today, so here is the full Rafa courtesy of The Liverpool Echo.

Five years ago, Gerard Houlliers reign at Anfield was slowly falling apart around him. The man simply wasn’t the same after his heart attack; the passion was gone, the squad had started to ignore him and his tactics and we were regularly losing games against teams that we should have been dispatching with relative ease such as Sunderland and Aston Villa.

And perhaps more crucially, Houllier had focused so much of his team around two players that he couldn’t see past them and if they weren’t in the team, then they simply fell apart. Those two players were Michael Owen & Steven Gerrard, our World Class forward and equally World Class midfielder.  It’s now five and a half years since Houllier moved onto pastures new and in many ways the club, seemingly, hasn’t gone anywhere fast. Or so it seems.

What is never mentioned in alot of the articles being written about Benitez and how little success he has achieved is just what a mess the club was when he took over. No serious youth setup; Houllier was too keen on a cheaper option from over the channel than nurturing young talent. The footballing equivalent of a booze cruise, you might say; Players that wanted nothing to do with the club and would be happy to leave on the first contract out and a backroom team that had about as much passion for the club as he did.

Which makes the situation as it stands now all the more worrying. Benitez is a manager who builds his team around a World Class forward and a World Class midfielder, has squandered money on poor transfers from his home country and has a team behind that can’t seem to stop arguing amongst themselves. If time really has become a loop, then lets examine how and why we’ve (seemingly) come back to where we began back on June 16th 2004.

STEVEN GERRARD AND FERNANDO TORRES

These two are quite good, aren't they?

Houllier was rumoured to be very lenient towards Stevie and Michael in his latter years at the club, quite happy to let the two essentially have their own little clique and leave the rest of the squad to do their own thing, which obviously did morale a whole world of good. Ignoring the fact that Michael wasn’t anywhere near the same player that he was in 2001 (much like his manager in fact) and Stevie was still arguably something of an unpolished diamond at the time, it showed how one-dimensional Houllier had become. It was his downfall and it was arguably Rafa’s first big decision in standing up to Owen’s megolamania. Yes, the club may have been struggling for money and Rafa may well have shot himself in the foot but the club was in such a state that they were quite happy to give him the time to turn things around.

Rafa gave Milan Baros, Djibril Cisse, Fernando Morientes and Craig Bellamy their chances to become Rafa’s preferred number 9 but due to arrogance, inability to run with a football at his feet, an inherent lack of pace and a golf club all convinced him otherwise. It wasn’t till the start of his fourth season that he finally “stumbled” on his solution. As Sid Lowe pointed out in a recent World Soccer article, buying Torres was hardly a gamble (he was scoring regularly for Athletico Madrid every season) but he was very much the figurehead for Madrid, the boy wonder who had the hopes and dreams of a club on his shoulders at a club which could give Newcastle fans a run for their money in terms of unrealistic expectations. The move liberated Torres and in his first season he was unstoppable, as I think we all know by now.

The problem was, in hindsight, that Torres’ first season was TOO good. Other teams had got wise to him and while injury didn’t help, he wasn’t anwywhere near as successful as in his second season as in his first. And by his third season i.e. this one, all that teams have needed to do was mark him out of the game and BINGO! Attack denied. Villa and Chelsea had this down to a tee and they walked away with three points each. The same is said for Stevie, too. In fact, we’ve come full circle. Where Houllier put Stevie and Michael at the fulcrum of his team, Stevie and Fernando are the fulcrum of Benitez’s. The partnership is so successful that Benitez now seemingly knows no other setup for his team.

The difference between Benitez and Houllier is that while Michael and Stevie were expected to win game by themselves AND given free reign to do whatever they liked Rafa, while basing his team around two world class players, HASN’T allowed them the freedom to do whatever they please and has them play as part of a team rather than just expecting them to do all the work and have everyone else make up the numbers.

The other crucial difference is that this time Rafa has built up a squad of genuine internationals around them to help balance the workload. Which leads me nicely onto….

THE REST OF THEM

You lot, especially in the front row

Comparing the squad from 2004 and the one now is almost pointless. The difference in quality of player between then and now is simply remarkable. There was a lot of deadwood in Houllier’s squad; the fact that it wasn’t until the summer of 2008 that Rafa was done clearing it out when he finally managed to get rid of Anthony Le Tallec (and if one player summed up Houllier’s transfer policy, then he was it) showed just how much rebuilding he needed to do. Yes, a European Cup helped bring players to the club but adding the likes of Dirk Kuyt, Javier Mascherano, Ryan Babel, Glen Johnson, Daniel Agger and Pepe Reina have all improved the squad immeasurably. And while it is easy to pick apart Rafa’s poor transfer choices, let’s not forget some of the Red nosed Scots worst transfers. Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba, David Bellion, Massimo Taibi to name four at the very least. But that’s not what we’re discussing here.

While the aforementioned players have been added to the squad, we build so much of our game around Fernando and Stevie that the rest of team now don’t know what to do if they aren’t playing. Less maybe that they don’t know WHAT to do, more that they don’t know or believe that they can’t cope without one, the other or both of them playing. You only had to go back to the game against Lyon on Tuesday to see that for yourself. After Stevie went off, it was clear that there was a feeling amongst the team as if to say “What do we do now?”. This is no excuse and the fact that both Javier and Fabio have both come out and said they are more to blame than Rafa for the last month’s performances. Hopefully there is some much soul searching going on amongst certain members of the squad right now as they need to buck their ideas up.

Though some of Rafa’s decisions and handling of said players has hardly helped either. Which leads me nicely onto….

RAFA HIMSELF

Sorry I asked.

Let’s be honest, Rafa has not done himself any favours with certain decisions. His continued treatment of Ryan Babel has hardly done him or the player any good (though Babel himself has not exactly done himself many favours either in his time at the club) his almost flat out refusal to play Dirk Kuyt through the middle has taken alot of the edge out of his game (no-one can doubt his energy, no question); playing Fabio Aurelio in central midfield, his demotion of Riera to the bench, his suddenly tactical inflexibility particularly without Stevie and Fernando in the team. If there was one thing that you could say about Rafa in his first few seasons at the club it was his ability to change a team around and get a result when it mattered. Now, it seems that it’s one way or bust. No using the squad to the best of his ability, no tactical out manouvering just 4-2-2-1-1 and nothing else, even if we don’t have the right players to flourish in that formation.

But arguably the most bewildering of the lot is the decision to replace Alonso with a player who he knew wouldn’t be available until three months into the season is probably the most bewildering of the lot. Not the decision to sell him though, he would have left regardless or for stalling/haggling for more money either. Understandable given the circumstances. Rafa can complain all he wants about not having enough cash but if he spends it on a player that he KNOWS is carrying an injury, then he can hardly blame anyone but himseld. But then of course he felt that he had enough quality at his disposal to cover until Aquilani came back, so we come back to what I said earlier. The players he picked should have raised there game enough to compensate. And they didn’t.

But despite this, he should have been given cash to strenghten the team again further. Which leads me nicely onto….

HICKS AND GILLETT – THE WORST A CLUB CAN GET

"George spotted a Saudi prince and decided to make his move"

Aaahh, how could we ignore Cheech and Chong when analysing what has gone wrong for us this season? The financial aspect of their running of the club has been known for some time (and I could do with putting all the additional information that has come to light since my original article into a new article/rant about them in due course) but the relationship between the two of them is what is now poisoning the club more than the money ever did. On a basic level, a Canadian and an American from Texas was always going to be a fracturous relationship at best but with the almost constant squabbling between the two, you have to wonder how and where it is all going to end.

Well, one is Gillett’s courting of a Saudi prince. While on the surface it may seem as if he is taking the money and running, I think this is more a calcualted move to get rid of Hicks who has always come across as the more fat-headed of the two, though that is a bit like deciding who is the bigger fascist, Nick Griffin or Oswald Mosley? But it’s this relationship that is putting off any new suitors. In fact, Prince Faisal-al-Saud has stated that he isn’t going to act as a marraige councellor between the two of them. And I don’t blame him. Even if he has got Saudi Arabia’s oil billions behind him, he isn’t going to want to act as either Tom or Georgie’s personal banker/therapist.

The relationship between the two is clearly very broken; the fact that neither of them have been seen together at the same game for months should probably tell you everything you need to know about how the two feel about each other. Someone needs to do the honourable thing and fall on their sword. Cause they are becoming a distraction to all concerned.

While all the talk recently has been of Anfield going into meltdown (hyperbole at it’s very finest), there are definitely some issues at the club that need addressing. Players not pulling their weight (and openly admitting to it); a manager who’s started to lose his sense of perspective; owners who hate each other and make investing in the club difficult and off putting and a team that is too narrowly focused to two individuals. All concerned with the club need to sort themselves but also need to keep a sense of perspective.

The media are obviously spinning this for various reasons, chief amongst them to keep the little Scottish whinger on their side next time they need an exclusive but also to string out the narrative that they have created for themselves. And frankly, if there was a time to bring this act in the play of Liverpool Football Clubs history then 2pm on Sunday afternoon is probably as good a time as any.

Surprisingly, there were no bits of paper and no statements of fact this time, so instead we were left with a boring Q&A session. Though I will say one thing, Rafa clearly looks far happier during this conference than he did on Tuesday night. And given that this is probably the most important press conference he’s had to do in months, if not years, then it’s even more remarkable.

Here is from earlier in the week….

Calm, measured, relaxed. But no bits of paper and certainly no facts this time.

Hmmm, fairly to the point though as I said above, he’s clearly more relaxed than he has been for a while. Perhaps he saw Utd’s game on Wednesday evening and realised just how far they’ve fallen without Bronzed Ronnie in the team. I know I did.

Still, watching that those did make me hanker for the good old days, where facts and bits of paper were all the rage at Rafa’s press conferences. Aaah, this is more like it….

There are lots of reasons for the poor run of form and I’ve got quite a few ideas as to why that is, some of which I will try and get out of my system over today and tomorrow. Though hopefully more the former than the latter.

I should probably offer some explanation as to why I suddenly disappear. Partly it’s to do with laziness and partly it’s to do with my gaming addiction. Alright, addiction is perhaps stretching it but I can get into a good game in the same way that someone gets into a good book. And having a panchant for open-world RPGs (in particular Fallout 3) doesn’t really help that. So, there we are. If you wonder why I suddenly disappear for a while, there’s your answer.

Twitter updates have still been going through and if you’ve signed up for those then thank you so much, please remember to check back here for blog posts when they are announced. And as ever, the Delicious page is up for those who fancy a good read. Nearly 2000 bookmarks now. Slightly proud of that. Could do with 2000 posts here to match it but there we are.

Should probably work on that bit really.

Was very tired yesterday evening and also had some kind of virus too, so both of those added together made me feel less than brilliant. Anyway, enough about me. Yesterday was hardly a busy newsday LFC-wise either, so things kind of worked out OK in the end.

Today is, of course, the biggest game of the season and for a start lets hear what Rafa had to say in his pre-match press conference on Friday.

YouTube – Pre match conference: Chelsea FC v Liverpool FC

If you believe some parts of the press coverage, then our bid for the league ends today, if we lose. So it’s nice to see Rafa telling everyone to calm down. I could repeat the statistic of what happened last season but I think that is becoming increasingly irrelevant, if it was even relevant in the first place.

As I mentioned on Friday, today’s game has a few nice spices in the pot and it’s nice to see Benitez and Ancelotti are adding whatever they can to the mix. And well done Rafa for not calling Ancelotti’s bluff. He’s clearly trying to deflect attention away from Chelsea’s own flaws (flaws that they aren’t going to able to solve by throwing money at the problem, like they have before, remember). Having Petr Cech suspended I think is probably going to help us more than any others, though with both sides having defenders, in Jamie Carragher & Ricardo Carvalho going through poor runs in form, the game is setup nicely, particularly when Ancelotti talks of hoping to break us down. Hoping to break down a team is hardly the words of a man bristling with confidence about his own squad, which probably explains his comments. Add in the fact that the Chairman has been at the training ground this week suggests that everyone fears a less than favourable result.

Though I really hope Benitez has more up his sleeves than simply copying wigan. I hope he does, anyway. As long as it doesn’t involve playing Aurelio and Lucas together in central midfield, we should be fine. I do agree with John Aldridge though when he says that Javier Mascherano needs to have a big game today. As does Jamie Carragher. Though if Dirk Kuyt has his way, he’d be out fishing, but that is another matter entirely. Lets hope he comes back from his game against Australia next week safe and well.

So, Ancelotti Vs. Benitez; Torres Vs. Drogba; Gerrard Vs. Lampard. All interesting aspects to the game, though I think it has more going for it than a debate on zonal marking.

Rounding things up, Benitez is looking to trade Ryan Babel for a winger from Germany and Fernando has an appetite for success, neither of which is particularly new or interesting but hey, it’s in todays papers so it’s here.

And finally, can we just run all added-on time requests through Fergie from now on. Preferably about six minutes would work as The Ure can only seem to play football properly for six minutes at a time and they seem to always be at the end of the game.

Bookmarks are added during the day and are posted to the site’s Twitter account. A full archive of bookmarked Liverpool FC news stories can be found at Delicious.com/TSABlog. Got any thoughts on today’s stories? Got a site or blog that you think I should be following? Or just want to get something LFC related off your chest? Then why not leave a message below. Your views and comments are more than welcome.

If get the reference, then you're welcome here

Nothing from me today, suffering from usual weekend illness of Lazyarsecantbearseditis, something that afflicts me on almost every Saturday. I’m genuinely feeling a bit under the weather having had a busy few days, so I will catch-up with news and such tomorrow before the game. Straight after I catch up on sleep.

So that’s it. A busy day tomorrow for me, which includes a game I’m feeling strangely confident about.

A young Carlo Ancelotti, not in shot.

Aaah, I love the feeling of a Friday. That realisation that a footballing weekend is ahead of you and the joy, hope and promise that it brings. And it’s fair to say that this weekend is something a tiny bit special.

It’s been two and a half years since Rafa and Carlo last met and that time, there was more than a hint of revenge in the air. I don’t think any self respecting fan needs to be reminded of the events that led up to the events in Athens three summers ago, so the chance for the two managers to do battle in the confines of a league game is mouthwatering in the least. Though of course, Milan shouldn’t technically have been in the Champions League that season having been caught up in the Moggigate scandal that swept across Italian football the previous summer. They were initially denied a place in the Champions League after being deducted points; that was reduced on appeal which meant that they technically finished fourth and, well, the rest is history….

So, the first league meeting between two of the biggest of the biggest names in club management and it’s nice to see that Phil McNulty has decided to focus his usual friday article on the history between the two. As ever with Phil’s articles, it is a very interesting read.

Other pre match build-up has focused on the other two big names involved, namely Barclays Player Of The Month Fernando Torres & Didier Drogba. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I see Fernando as being the premier striker of the two; younger, faster (both physically and mentally) and overall a far cleverer player than Drogba. Not that I wouldn’t want Drogba in my time given the chance, despite all the baggage that comes with him. In other pre-match news, Javier Mascherano is a doubt, Dirk Kuyt isn’t worried about Chelsea, Rafa offers another warning which I’m pretty certain is the same warning he offered earlier in the week and why Alberto Aquilani won’t be rushed back, and why Ancelotti is just 90 minutes away from becoming Big Phil Jr., which is an interesting theory and something that crossed my mind earlier in the week. Another spice to the pot that is Sunday’s game.

Moving on from the weekend, it’s nice to see Fernando come out and say that he’d never join Man Utd, which I don’t think is THAT much a shock but is at least reassuring to know that the support we’ve given him is appreciated; Ryan Babel is ’scared into action’, apparently due to him being dropped by the Dutch national team. I must admit that in the last few weeks, he has looked a different player since his little outburst. The problems with Ryan’s development probably need more than a few sentences here but I think the crux of it is that everyone is to blame. Too long to explain here, so look out for my full explanation over the weekend. Looking even further forward, someone called Michael Owen might be playing against us in a few weeks time. Never heard of him, myself. Is he any good? Apparently he’ll be playing because Wayne Rooney will be attending the birth of first child with his wife Princess Fiona Colleen. And as I said a few days ago, can I just say what good value for money this was, though I didn’t expect to get results quite SO quickly….

Mopping up, someone has dug up an interesting fact that Bill Shankly once apologised to Everton, which means that he’s gone down in my estimations EVER SO, EVER SO slightly. And speaking of the third best team in Liverpool (good work Bill), I must admit that I’m glad someone else managed to get a cheap laugh out of the Toffees opponents last night. REALLY glad, in fact.

Bookmarks are added during the day and are posted to the site’s Twitter account. A full archive of bookmarked Liverpool FC news stories can be found at Delicious.com/TSABlog. Got any thoughts on today’s stories? Got a site or blog that you think I should be following? Or just want to get something LFC related off your chest? Then why not leave a message below. Your views and comments are more than welcome.

If there is one picture that clearly sums up Tuesday nights performance and all the talk of Rafa clearly losing his rag, then I think the one to the left is pretty much it.

I don’t think we needed Fabio Aurelio telling us that Rafa lost his temper, I think that was clear from his expression at the end of the game. Though it was partly Rafa’s fault for playing Aurelio in central midfield. It seemed odd, though I suppose the alternative (of playing Jay Spearing) alongside Lucas was hardly ideal either.

It does show though just how important Javier is to the system that we employ and that has been so successful in the last six months. Still, I do think Spearing would have fared better than Aurelio did.

Though personally speaking, the most disappointing aspect of the result on Tuesday is that it gave the press the oportunity to essentially rehash a lot of the old bollocks from earlier in the season.

In particular, the supposed five reasons to be fearful, to which my answers would have been;

1. Sorry, what are you talking about?
2. He would have left anyway
3. Upfront yes; everywhere else, no
4. No, he’s having to “play for two” because of Skrtel’s poor performances
5. By going out to win

Of course, no one mentioned Chelseas laboured performance in Cyprus last night and the loss to Wigan was almost forgotten as soon as it happened. Not wishing to accuse the press of bias again BUT…

One thing that is inescapable though, if the opposition decide to single out Stevie and Fernando then some of the other players in the squad need to “step up to the plate” and put in the performances. And I suspect that this is what Rafa was getting at with his comments about us not being a two-man team, and I really hope a few things change at the Bridge on Sunday. Things though are poised nicely though, as John Terry admits.

Still, to suggest that somehow the next month of hell will make or break boss Rafa Benitez is over the top to say the least. But then this is the Daily Mail here, so I guess we know on what level we are starting at to begin with. One thing is for certain, Rafa is certainly in nowhere near as big trouble as The Ronseal Man himself, Phil Brown. Who is clearly The Most Deluded Man in Britain.

Still, at least we can collectively say that we aren’t Portsmouth? If the press really want to focus on a club that is genuinely in a crisis and not some mocked up one designed to keep a certain red-nosed scotsman on side, then they could do with focusing their attentions on the south coast. I don’t have alot of time for Pompey myself, they’ve always been a major pain in the backside for us when we’ve played them (much like Middlesbrough before them), but you at least like things to be fair and even and to see a club that was 2 minutes away from beating AC Milan last season so spectacularly implode is not an eddifying sight. Say what you like about Hicks and Gillett but at least they do seem to have ACTUAL money as opposed to the Peter Kay lookalike they have down there.

The only other bit of relevant news from today is that we are linked, along with That  Manchester Team, with a young striker I’d never heard of. Which means that his agent is clearly looking forward to a Merry Christmas…

Bookmarks are added during the day and are posted to the site’s Twitter account. A full archive of bookmarked Liverpool FC news stories can be found at Delicious.com/TSABlog. Got any thoughts on today’s stories? Got a site or blog that you think I should be following? Or just want to get something LFC related off your chest? Then why not leave a message below. Your views and comments are more than welcome.