BookableOffense

I seem to recall about two (maybe three--I'm not much for stats) years ago him completing the highest percentage of crosses in the Prem. I think he's usually an excellent crosser of the ball--that's not particularly my concern with him. He even showed a little willingness to run at his man in Athens. It's a shame he was injured because he appeared to be in good form and was doing very well for us. However, I'd like to see him score a few goals, and I'm not particularly optimistic about that happening. BUT I'd rather him simply look to put in a decent cross than he take godawful shots left and right--one JAR is enough. Long term, I think that Pennant is a decent contributor, but I'd really rather see Gerrard out on the right, though I can only imagine all the complaining he'll do out there.

At least the Bitters can no longer claim to be "The People's Team." Not until their players get real jobs, in the real world, amongst the people... That should make me feel better about the whole thing. It doesn't. It's 11 AM here. I think that a few drinks are in order.

Thinking outside the box here: in order to declare them simultaneous losers, maybe we can find a way to have them relegated to the MLS? Sooner rather than later, I hope.

Plays himself in every role? They've clearly got him mixed up with Tom Cruise. Did you try telling them Clooney's not much of a Scientologist? Remind them it's Cruise who jumps on couches in public shouting about this or that. That should clear up any confusion.

I'll raise my glass to that. The soundtrack is indeed excellent. I got the chance about a year ago to see Dan Tyminski in concert, the guy who sings for George Clooney, and he is a fantastic singer, in addition to playing the mandolin. I tend to see this movie as taking a stab at everything right with southern culture, which is quite a relief in an age of ... well George Bush and the lot of them Texans.

I certainly hope he sticks around a little longer. The man's shown he can do something when he's not working on a shoestring budget--Torres was the absolute ideal player to bring in, in so many ways. I hope to see Rafa given a few more years and the chance to exchange some of our mildly talented players for a couple more of those ideal players. He's proven to be just what the club needed to turn things around. However, should he never manage another game for us, he's certainly earned the thread title: Respect.

That was absolutely sublime. Cheers.

Yes but, funnier still (so long as you're feeling appropriately sinister):

In response to some heavy-handed pessimism: Believe me, I've been frustrated of late, but still we're not the laughing stock of the football world. A better candidate might have lost 6-0 to the Mancs today... When Alexi Lalas becomes our new manager, that's when I'll concede we are the laughing stock of the football world (God forbid that ever becomes more than a joke). So until then, I'm going to look for things to be relatively optimistic about. We've a new centre-back who looks like he has some promise. We have one world class striker and another with great promise [albeit, not as a winger], we still have a very strong midfield, to which we need only add a little width to claim to have the best midfield in the world, and we've got some players coming back from injury. Most of all, we are LFC, not the Shite. Therefore there is reason for enough optimism to temper the current frustrations. Thoughts of replacing the manager certainly do have a place in football, but January is not the time for this.

I agree with DomL. Pennant showed some promise before the injury. Alonso and Agger coming back too should give us a good boost. It seems that when Rafa feels he has the money to spend, he does an admirable job of finding enough quality players to offset the ones that don't turn out. He's no Wenger, but he's not got an awful eye for talent. I certainly believe Rafa has his limitations, but they are certainly mitigated when we can bring in players like Torres and, perhaps Babel as well. I'm still a little baffled as to why we haven't seen Babel starting a run of games along side Torres, but that's not enough in my mind to warrant talk of Rafa's departure. The recent form of the club has been beyond frustrating, but I'm still not sold that Rafa being gone will help all that much.

Well, there's a lot of debate about whether we need to keep Mascherano or not. However, it is entirely beside the point when manager and player have decided that the player has a place on the team and wants to stay, respectively. A separate thread can be created for the merits of the decision to keep him. However when our owners are refusing to keep a world-class player like that who seems to want very much to stay at Liverpool there is an enormous problem. Does anyone remember how the match against Milan went last year? A freak accident on a free-kick was the best their attack had mustered until Mascherano was taken off Kaka and out of the game. If his fee is the 17m over the whole 5 years, this shouldn't be a huge problem. Whether it is or isn't, Rafa says he's got a place on this team, so the owners should be singing the same tune. That is where the problem is.

What I want from both the owners and the players rests on the idea that there is a Liverpool Way of doing things. I want to see us put together a side that is talented at doing the little things, the simple things that it takes to play this game well. I am just as happy with a goal, however it comes, but when the whole team is firing on all cylinders, it is beautiful to watch. If we won every game and I was forced to acknowledge it was on account of a whole lot of diving, laziness and cheating, the victory becomes hollow. I bitterly hate losing, but that's because I know the feeling of watching the team build a beautiful attack from the ground up and put in a legitimate performance on the pitch. Similarly, when an owner (or owners in this case) promises a lovely new stadium then send their little worm out to tell the press that we're not only not going to get what was promised but that he expects us to be happy with it, I have pause. I agree, ultimately, that a new stadium is more revenue, which helps the club, but the way these guys have conducted business irks me.

To be totally honest, I don't think it's such a romantic notion. I don't think they'd score beautiful goals, but what I'm really getting at is that I trust whatever internal stuff Carra's got to look an opponent in the eyes and find a way to beat them. Lots of people are competitors, but very few people have got what that guy's got. Maybe he's no Rio Ferdinand, and maybe what everyone was saying this past weekend about his distribution is legitimate, but there is no question who we all want to see back there for us. He makes me proud as all hell of this club and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.

I'm not saying I don't like watching talented footballers, but I still believe that you don't have to be an awful cunt to have success at the highest level. If you offered it to me I'd take a team of Carraghers in a heartbeat.

I dunno. I just get baffled when I see the things they say in the press, when I see their chubby smug faces beaming under their raised red scarves... And I just don't get why these two want to buy a football team. I certainly don't feel like Americans shouldn't love and support Liverpool--a club that certainly represents universal values in football--but these two seem to have no particular interest in it. Maybe they've got too much money on their hands, but if that were the case, locking up everyone's favorite Argie would be well in order. However, I disagree with everyone bringing up the lowpoints of the club. So long as the likes of Carra, Sami, Dirk, The Chief, I'm okay. Pardon me if I sound like an Evertonian, but I'd rather watch my team play like men at the end of the day than root for certain Portugese prettyboy wingers...So I'll say that these owners might frustrate me, but I certainly haven't lost hope.

Would it be better to have the current ownership, who think like businessmen first, or would it be better to have somebody like Abramovich who seemed at least to care about the kind of football his team played? I really wonder about that sometimes...they both seem to make unreasonable demands of their managers and ultimately trip over their own feet when it comes to furthering their clubs...