Today's Banter: Carra praises Hyypiä & Reina, Bayern wants Benitez, Javi responds, & more

With all the time he's got on his hands these days, Jamie Carragher has decided to give somewhat of a state-of-the-club address with particular praise for his centre back partner and Pepe Reina. Carra makes a good point that taking eight points from a run of Goodison, Arsenal, Ewood, and Fulham at Anfield is a decent string of results. He then goes on to point out how Hyypiä has raised his level of play recently, something that hasn't gone unnoticed, but also adds that it seems when the Finn plays well, the whole team appears to follow suit. That's something I haven't really recognized, but come to think of it, he may be right. Finally, the man from Bootle calls Pepe Reina one of the three best keepers in the world along with Petr Čech and Gianluigi Buffon, as well as the best he's ever played with. Good call, Carra, way to schmooze your teammates so close to Christmas and all.

Apparently Bayern Munich wants Rafa to replace Ottmar Hitzfeld at the end of the season. I won't even address such rubbish, Bayern is no where near the club they once were just six or seven years ago and Rafa is investing too much time and energy to be lured away by what's frankly a lesser club.

Moving on, one of our transfer targets, Javi Martínez of Athletic Bilbao, appears to be open to a move to the Premiership, but wants to do what's best for his club and himself. Sounds to me as if he's going to go elsewhere, he wants his current club to make a substantial financial gain for doing so. I've got to wonder that if he's not a true winger or can even be effective on the flank, do we really need another central midfielder? I think not, unless Rafa has something up his sleeve like selling Momo, but I doubt it.

Finally, we have a delusional and ill-informed Man U fan trying to compare their debt issues to ours. Sorry, but as usual, a Man U failed to do the actual work and tried to pass half-assed biased opinion for fact. The Red Devils (not Reds, mind you) have a current debt of at least £660m, stemming from the Glazers refinancing in July of 2006, so it could actually be more than that, especially if you consider the amount they spent on players this past summer and that the Glazers will probably do their best to keep the fans and media in the dark about financial matters at the club due the negative light it tends to shed. Liverpool's debt currently sits at around £300m, but the owners are will have to refinance soon to fund the building of the new stadium. At most it will increase to around £520m, which is still well less than the Mancs. I realize that misery loves company, but I refuse to be dragged into the hell of ignorance that epitomizes the typical Man U 'fan'. Cheers.