Liverpool at Beşiktaş: the line-up

Here it is:
Reina
Riise
Hyypia
Carragher
Finnan
Babel
Mascherano
Gerrard
Pennant
Kuyt
Voronin

Subs:
Itandje
Hobbs
Alonso
Sissoko
Lucas
Benayoun
Crouch

No big surprises except maybe Crouch not starting. I could care less, after his Marseilles performance he can rot on the bench until January and then sold. We need Agger back soon as I don't feel comfortable with Hyypia playing this often. Also, what's up with Arbeloa? Is he injured? He's not even on the bench. Weird. Anyhow, boys, let's get this done.

Liverpool 2, Tottenham 2: the 'game-winner'?

Well, before I get to the actual match, once again Fox Soccer makes themselves look like a bunch of donkeys. Apparently Torres' extra-time header was the 'game-winner'. I wish, but at least it gave me a little chuckle, something I need after that pathetic display.

I don't know where to start. Our whole side played pretty poor and the worse part is if we hadn't been distracted by the stadium intercom announcer, (btw, what was that about?) we would have probably won.

Who played well? No one. Well, maybe Stevie Finnan, but that's it. It was a poor display all-round. Now teams know how to beat us, just keep trying the long ball.

I feel sorry for Reina, without Agger we look pretty pathetic at the back. We need the Dane back as soon as possible and Rafa needs to buy the best centre back as possible in the January transfer window.

Anyhow, I'm pretty disgusted by the whole affair and don't really want to get into it, but our ball movement is shoddy at best. We don't look like a team out there at all. There's no flow whatsoever, it's very disheartening. Maybe it's time Rafa brings in some kids, at least then we have an excuse for being poor.

Liverpool 2, Tottenham 2: the goals

Voronin's put-back.


Torres' 'game-winner'. ha.

Liverpool vs Tottenham: the line-up

And the envelop reads...

Reina
Arbeloa
Carragher
Hyypia
Finnan
Riise
Mascherano
Gerrard
Pennant
Voronin
Torres

Bench:
Itandje
Kuyt
Benayoun
Babel
Lucas

Still no Babel starting and Lucas on the bench. Interesting. As long as there's no Crouch.

Liverpool vs Marseille: the line-up

Here it is:
Reina
Aurelio
Carragher
Hyypia
Finnan
Leto (--------->)
Sissoko
Gerrard
Benayoun
Torres
Crouch

Bench:
Itandje
Arbeloa
Riise
Babel
Voronin
Kuyt
Mascherano

Leto to start! Can't wait. Babel must be in the dawg house with Benitez. I'm really surprised to see Sissoko start over Mascherano, it must mean that Rafa wants our attacking shoes on. This one should be fun. Cheers.

Today's Banter: Gerrard hits kid, Fearing Cisse, Fans not charged at Wigan clash, & more

- If you haven't heard yet, Stevie-G hit a kid while driving his Bentley in Merseyside yesterday afternoon. The 10-year-old is believed to have suffered a broken leg. Gerrard immediately stopped his vehicle and comforted the lad until medics arrived. Eyewitnesses reported that the boy ran out from between two parked cars and into the side of Gerrard's Bentley, leaving our captain with no control over the incident. A 'visibly upset' Stevie-G was not charged with any infraction and vowed to visit the boy in the hospital.

- Hyypia has warned that former teammate Djibril Cisse will be difficult to contain tomorrow when his side comes to Anfield for their Champions League meeting. The Finn believes the 26-year-old Frenchman will be especially eager to beat his old club and that the Reds need to raise their game to stop him from scoring. The good news is Hyypia and Carra have plenty of experience marking the Marseilles striker.

- If you were at or watched the Wigan match last Saturday, you may have noticed a ruckus in the stands shortly after Benayoun's goal. Apparently some Liverpool fans had seats in the home section and when they celebrated the goal, they were attacked by a group of Wigan supporters. Reportedly two LFC followers were badly beaten. Eight Reds supporters were arrested along with two Wigan fans, though no charges have been filed against the former.

- John Arne Riise got a shock when teenagers in the Anti-Tobacco Youth Campaign created a picture of what the 27-year-old would look like had he taken up smoking as a teenager. Obviously it wasn't a pretty picture as the Norwegian, who's father died of lung cancer, has vowed to help prevent teenagers from picking up the awful habit.

- As you can tell from the pic above, Jamie Carragher has decided to rejoin England. Just kidding. Actually Carra was back home in Bootle to help open the new Northfield Sports Association clubhouse. The 29-year-old Liverpool legend stuck around for an hour to sign autographs and talk to fans. Cheers and 'What will Rafa do?' coming up later.

Liverpool 1, Wigan 0: Yossi plays, we win

I wonder if we'll hear any nonsense about Yossi not starting today as to why we barely pulled this one off. Probably not, I figure the memory vacuum will take care of all the Rafa rotation bashing. Anyhow, on to the match.

Wigan should be commended for a well-played, well-executed game plan. We were really lucky to come away with three points as they were the better side and missed a couple of relatively easy opportunities in front of the net.

Overall, we were not a top side. We seemed to lack motivation as a whole and were timid about scoring. Wigan stuffed the box when we had the best chances to score and our attempts to do so were characteristic of keystone cops. Our lack of ability to be creative, utilize the whole field, and movement off the ball was quite evident in these cases.

Individually, Yossi stole the show with an absolute class strike. I posted a video of it in an earlier post, but I'm not sure if it's working or not. The Israeli seemed to revitalize our side the minute he stepped onto the pitch, especially Gerrard.

Our defense was surprisingly appalling at times, particularly Hyypia. He talked about how he's never had pace earlier this week, but it's never really hurt his performance. Today it seemed to as Wigan quickly countered set plays which left the heavy-footed Finn well out of position. It forced Carra to make some tackles that frankly could have been called penalties, but were not.

We grinded out the win and I'm happy about that, but better sides would have at least drew us. I know I complained about Pennant not cutting inside enough, but he did it a little too much here and as a team, we failed miserably at using the entire pitch, especially the deep flanks.

Kuyt was simply not fit to wear the shirt. He really needs to dig deep and get more creative. I'm not sure what his issue was today, but he was our worse player by far. Anyhow, I gotta go. Cheers.

Liverpool 1, Wigan 0: the goal

Here's Yossi's phenomenal goal from earlier today. The Israeli saved us from another embarassing draw. Cheers.

Liverpool 0, Wigan 0:halftime thoughts

Well, I missed the first ten minutes of the match, but from what I've seen we're dangerous to score, well, at least Torres is. If he doesn't score in the second half or at least set up a goal, I'll be surprised.

As a team we seem to play well in brief stretches, but for the most part look like a bunch of unfocused eight-year-olds waiting for ice cream. Pennant has been the most baffling, at times he looks fantastic, while other times he looks like he's never played the sport. At one point, he had the ball at the top of the box and should have blasted it, instead he laid it off to Riise, who was far over on the left and had defenders in front of him.

Speaking of Pennant, when did he become Wigan's punching bag? Koumas could have probably got a straight red for trying to break his leg on a blatant attempt to do so and towards the end of the half one of the loser Wigan thugs threw a punch at him. It's ridiculous not to expect JP to retaliate when the ref is letting the Lactics get away with assault.

As for the rest of the side, Kuyt and Gerrard are invisible, though no one has played bad. I don't think Stevie-G is fully fit yet, but with Xabi out and the inexperienced Lucas as the only real option, there's little choice. I guess we could play Sissoko, but that would almost guarantee a draw.

Anyhow, second half is about to start. I think we can win this, but I won't get my hopes up. We really need a Riise belter.

Liverpool vs Wigan: the line-up

Here it is:
Reina
Aurelio
Hyypia
Carragher
Arbeloa
Riise
Mascherano
Gerrard
Pennant
Kuyt
Torres

Subs:
Itandje
Benayoun
Sissoko
Finnan
Voronin

Once again, Rafa isn't messing around. I wonder how Voronin feels about the rotation now and really don't care how Crouch feels. I'm thinking Rafa is taking the Ukrainian's age in perspective and since he played well against Toulouse, maybe the gaffer is thinking of holding him for Marseilles. Babel's also getting an extending vacation, I hope he's okay. I do recall him limping off in the last match. I'm just glad I dropped him from my fantasy team. Anyhow, I doubt I'm going to get to see this match, I have company coming into town, but I'll definitely watch it tomorrow and have a report by Monday plus (hopefully) lots of goal clips. Cheers.

Liverpool vs Reading: the line-up

Rafa looks to be taking this match quite seriously.

Here's the line-up:
Itandje
Aurelio
Carragher
Arbeloa
Finnan
Leto
Sissoko
Lucas
Benayoun
Crouch
Torres

Subs:
Martin
Gerrard
Riise
Hobbs
Putterill

I'm pretty pumped to see Leto there as well as Lucas and Torres on the same pitch with him. Benayoun and Finnan should have plenty of room to operate on the right with Sebastian stretching the side as well as Crouch and Torres worrying the central defenders. Arbeloa to get a test run at centre is interesting, let's see how he does. His pace might come in handy against Lita.

Suprised not to see Pepe at least on the bench, but David Martin should be able to fill in if something were to happen to Itandje who gets his first start for the side. I hope Putterill gets on as well, I'd like to see what he can do against Premiership quality players. Here's to a fun match. Cheers.

Liverpool 0, Birmingham 0: final thoughts

After viewing this match for the second time, with much less emotion involved since I knew the outcome, I have to say that the reason Liverpool did not get the three points is because most of the team, particularly up front, were mentally unprepared for this match while Birmingham seemed quite the opposite.

Kuyt was appalling and Voronin wasn't much better. In fact, I would have to say this is the worse match I have ever seen Kuyt play. He seemed to turn the ball over nearly every time he got possession or he took a bad shot when there was a smarter pass. Voronin appeared to just be waiting for the ball to come to him instead of going after it.

Overall we lacked intensity as a side, save Carra and Mascherano, who more than made up for his poor performance in Portugal last week. You can blame Rafa for not starting Torres all you want, but Kuyt should have been more than capable of getting the job done. If Dirk played for Birmingham he would easily be their best player.

I do have a problem with Rafa's subbing though. I feel as if Torres should have been brought on for Kuyt and if Babel needed to come off for one reason or another, then Finnan could have been brought in, Arbeloa pushed over to the left and Riise pushed up to midfield. Kuyt should have been taken off at the half in my opinion as he had no business wearing the shirt that day.

You can say that Birmingham played solid defense, but the truth is, Kuyt had plenty of opportunity to at least be the catalyst in scoring a goal and he messed up time and time again. His head clearly wasn't in the match.

The funny thing is, if we were Man United, we would have won this by at least a goal. Case in point, as the first half was coming to a close, Carra made a brilliant pass to Kuyt in the box who controlled and turned to shoot. Just as he was about to do so though, the ref blew the whistle to end the half. Apparently only Man U gets extra time to score the goal they need.

Also, Torres should have had a penalty late in the game. After being set-up by a nice pass from Pennant, he faked out Queudrue in the box and the Frenchman not only clearly obstructs El Nino's forward movement, but also grabs his shirt to prevent him from continuing play. If Saha's dive was a penalty, then there's no question that that was one as well.

Some other points, Babel wasn't at his best, but he by no means cost us the match. He needs to work on his corners a little bit though. Speaking of set plays, the few we got, we were abominable, except for maybe the last corner where Gerrard found Crouch's head with a perfect pass, though the latter couldn't finish the job.

Defensively, Arbeloa had his second lackluster performance in a row and I think it's time he get a game off. If he starts against Reading tomorrow, I'll be surprised. Riise seemed to lose steam as the match wore on, but I wouldn't characterize his performance as anything less than average. Carra and Hyypia were adequate if anything.

As for our skipper, I've seen him play better, but for the most part he just faded in and out of the match. I'm hoping the week off gets him back into preseason form. If he was so fatigued though, I wonder why Rafa just didn't let him and Mascherano switch up and make Stevie-G the holding midfielder?

Birmingham said they were going to focus on Pennant and most the first half they did. It allowed Babel more space, but the Dutchman still preferred to go inside instead of out, which sort of took away the space he would have provided had he gone wide. I can't really complain about Pennant's performance as he was hounded throughout the day and when they finally let up, he became more of a threat and created a few chances for us.

My man of the match is Mascherano, though I've seen him play much better. In fact, with Hyypia and Carra sitting so far back the entire match, Masche certainly could have gotten more involved on the attack. He did towards the end, but it was too little too late. He was tackling was on point per usual and he was without a doubt a menace to the Blues the entirety of the match.

I guess Birmingham does deserve some credit for executing their game plan, but in truth, it was just a poor, insipid performance by Kuyt and Voronin that cost us. Maybe if Babel stayed to the left more, Dirk and Andriy would have had more room to operate, but what's done is done and all we can hope is that he learns from it.

Reading next and I'm think why Carra and Hyypia were basically planters was because we'll probably need them to do the same tomorrow at the Mad Stad. I'll have my 'What will Rafa do?' up soon. Cheers.

Liverpool 0, Birmingham 0: embarassing

Well, it looks like our old haunt of not being able to finish has returned. Kuyt couldn't kick the ball into the stands if he wanted to. All his tireless effort seem to just get him tired and I hate dogging on the kid, but gees, I feel like I'm watching Toronto FC out there at times.

This is the third straight match that I've disagreed with Rafa's selection. Torres should have started. What? Is he saving him for Reading and the Carling Cup? Rubbish. I have no problems with his tinkering, but for Christ sake, if you're going to do it have the guts to do something different.

Do you want to know why we are such a dreary side? It's because Rafa is afraid to really mix things up. Play a different formation, play Babel up front, put Voronin on the left, do something. The only critics who would be against it are old men living in an old world and they can go piss off.

Nobody is buying that we are any different from last year nor the year before because we aren't. We've reverted back to the old ways despite the new faces. Nobody eats stale bread because they know it's stale. They just leave it on the table to be thrown away.

I'm fully convinced we lost the league today and the only bright spot was we didn't give away a penalty. Ugh. Okay, let me calm down. I'll be back later.

Liverpool vs Birmingham: the line-up

Here it be:
Reina
Riise
Carra
Hyypia
Arbeloa
Babel
Mascherano
Gerrard
Pennant
Voronin
Kuyt

Subs:
Itandje
Finnan
Crouch
Torres
Sissoko

Interesting having Mascherano in there. I thought for sure he'd be given the day off to think about his performance against Porto. I guess Sissoko will play Tuesday. Kuyt and Voronin is interesting as well. I know they've played together, but I believe this is the first time they've started alongside one another in a match that counts. Rafa means business today. Here's to Pennant wreaking havoc. Cheers.

Oh, yeah, also Robbie Fowler has a brace so far for Cardiff today.