Squabblefest

------------Pepe------------- Kelly---Agger---Skrtl---Enrique -----------Spearing----------- Maxi--Gerrard--Shelvey--Bellamy ---------Kuyt or Carroll-------- 4-5-1. Plenty of men in midfield and tell Spearing, (who I pray to God will be fit in time), to man-mark Silva, although I remember being sat in the Anny Road end for the Athletico Madrid game two years ago and not taking my eyes off Aguero because he's such an ingenious player that he was a constant danger who seemed to find space and time throughout virtually the entire game. Bastard. I'd fucking love to win this. Wembley and the chance of a cup. It's what we're all here for isn't it? Silverwear on the table and bellowing, "No trophies for Seventeen years", at the Blueshite next time they turn up. Fucking priceless. This is exactly the reason I spew hundreds of pounds I can barely fucking afford every year traipsing up to Anfield, just for the chance to dream of bringing that fucking cup back home and getting our name in the history books again and I can't fucking wait for tomorrow night. I'll be absolutely thrilled if we knock City out. Fuck this 'there's better trophies out there' bullshit. This one's in front of us and in a few months time if we're forth place and the League Cup's back where it should be, then this season's been a fucking belter in my eyes. Outside of Everton and United, (and with Chelsea clinically dispatched in a fucking superb performance that seems to have been forgotten now we've had a few home draws and a blip away at the Reebok), there's no other team that I'd love more to send home from Liverpool with their arses in a fucking sling than that bunch of muscle-headed mercenaries either. Take your fucking 'Stoke with a few skillful players' horseshit back to your half-empty Etihad and fucking leave winning trophies to the teams that look like they give a shit. Liverpool 2 - City - 0. (Gerrard 2)

It's a mix of problems for me. Some players haven't got the heart for a fight, some players haven't got the brains and if I'm being honest, some players simply haven't got the ability to be fucking Liverpool players. Forgive me here because usually I list the positives but it's game after fucking game now that we're seeing the same old problems, so I'm fucking frustrated at seeing just how shambolic we are in attack against these sort of teams. Kuyt and Carroll offered us nothing apart from a couple of headed chances each. Aldridge wasn't the most technically gifted of players but he was fucking incessant in harrying the defence, fighting for positions, making himself available in the six yard box, being in the right place for a cross etc. In short, doing what a fucking striker is paid to do. Why aren't these two? They're look fucking scared of shooting. They're constantly looking to lay the ball off, to pass it wide, to play a one/two in the hope of a better position. Anything but have a fucking dig. Having Gerrard on the pitch is proving to be a bitter distraction because everyone's just trying and find him instead of the fucking forwards when we're in the penalty area. Our problem is scoring goals, them two are on the pitch to get them, if they don't then we'll fucking struggle. It's not rocket science is it? And while I admire Kuyt for bombing all round the pitch and harrying their midfield players, he should be fucking single minded in his pursuit of goals, not in ostentatiously showing how hard he can work. Henderson started well and had a really solid half an hour, two stray passes, (one disgraceful lack of control over by the Anny Rd end), and he went to pieces and reverted to just getting rid of the fucking ball without even thinking. Again. A good five minutes later and he went to the bench for some water and he was still making a big show of shaking his head in disappointment. He needs to fucking man up and let shit like that go, he can't afford to retreat into his fucking shell just because a couple of balls don't come off. We need incisive passes delivered into positions that we can get goals from, not fucking sideways passes and simple balls delivered at speed to a red shirt standing three fucking yards from you time and time again. Lift your head up and look for a better ball for Christ sake. I'm confused about Adam, His delivery with his left is well above average but nowhere near as fucking good as I was expecting it to be. Either there's a hell of a lot more to come from the lad or, (as I'm starting to suspect), he looked fucking superb in amongst those Blackpool players but put him alongside Gerrard on the pitch and his range of passing is just painfully average. A couple of great passes in nothing positions simply isn't going to cut it when we've got a player who can fire in deadly pass after pass into the type of spot that can really hurt the opposition. We need to be better in the final third, and Adam really needs to start pulling his fucking weight with decent balls into the box otherwise what's the point of having him? Defensively we were fine. Our five fucking defenders smothered the threat of the occasional hopeful ball twatted in the general direction of Crouch at shoulder height as well as you'd expect five fucking defenders to do. Skrtl was as good as he's been all season, along with Lucas he's really been the epitome of the 'right place, right time' type of player and his gradual evolution into a genuinely fine player is obvious. The two wing backs, (fucking wing backs against Stoke, Jesus wept), were great although Enrique's final ball was shit, and at least the atmosphere for the last half an hour was fucking great as well. The Stoke fans were good value as too. After Andy Carroll had failed to control yet another simple ball, the shout of, "We think you. We think you. We think you might still be pissed.", was fucking funny, but what we're seeing on the pitch is nowhere near good enough in my opinion. If we're stubbornly not going to change the tactics then it's obvious that some of the players need to be fucking told to up their games or else. Henderson looks like he's got more to give if he starts using his fucking head a bit more and loses the chronic self-conciousness that's getting him to treat the ball like an unexploded grenade that's been lobbed to him, Adam needs to do some better work in the final third and Carroll and Kuyt are fucking inept as goal scoring forwards so we need to rethink or we can forget about forth place. It's that stark a choice.

We're all racists now Ed. Haven't you heard? We can forget the decades of Liverpool multi-culturalism both on and off the field. The unalloyed support of John Barnes through the dark days of the late eighties/early nineties. The fact that Liverpool's always been a port and has had a massive Irish/American/Scandinavian influx throughout it's history. The fact that we've got the longest established Chinese community in Europe and the site of the first Mosque in England. None of that's worth shit any more. Now that Suarez has referred to a black man as a 'negro' and that it's alleged that some fucking prick, (amongst the literally hundreds of thousands of fans that come to Anfield every season), has maybe shouted racist abuse at an opposing player then that's enough to condemn us all. You're a racist Ed and I am too. Pure and simple. You've got a black girlfriend? Couldn't care less. Black friends? Fuck you, the Daily Mirror has spoken. Never judged a fellow man by the colour of his skin? Not fucking interested mate. You're forgetting that the tabloids have got nearly three whole incidents of racial abuse now and we're all fucking racist scum. Get with the program eh? If there's a couple of instances of racial abuse over the last forty years, Y'know, two instances over an entire fucking generation of fans, then obviously that's enough for the tabloids to extrapolate from that and conclude that we're all racists. I mean, why wouldn't they? I know a Man City fan who does Morris dancing, (genuinely), so now it's obvious to me that all City fans are fucking middle-class boffo's prancing around like pagan fannies isn't it.? Every single one of them. I don't know how those hundreds of thousands of fans up and down the country manage to sleep at night. Fucking fairies. I mean, you might say that racism is a problem that afflicts the whole of society. That even though racism is being fought throughout the country it does still exist in certain unenlightened pockets of humanity and that while the average football crowd is made up from that society then it's almost inevitable that racism will occur and that it's just as inevitable that it will be immediately and unequivocally condemned as abhorrent by every right thinking person who has witnessed it. But since when has subtlety, nuance and context been used by the gutter press when discussing Liverpool fans?

"Hi. I'm black Hitler, obviously. And whilst perusing this thread I noticed Baz1969's trenchant opinion and just wanted to add my weight to his no way ridiculous and ill informed comparison. I'm not racist but I honestly feel that all black people should be shipped back to Africa and if there was some sort of fund I could pay in to to facilitate this, then I would certainly give up some of my hard earned cash. Except for Daley Thompson obviously. He can stay."

Right. So according to Glenn Roeder, if he works on his right foot, his positioning, his ability to control a football and his ability to dribble when he's actually got the ball then he's going to be a fucking great player. GR : "He's big and jumps high." Jesus. Fucking thanks for that Glenn.

I really enjoyed the game. The atmosphere was much better than it has been over the last few games and that was almost as important as the result to me, you could feel a change in the air and I really hope that it's going to continue. We played just as well as we have at Anfield all season, (solid in defence, reasonably mobile in midfield and mediocre to above average in the shooting stakes), with the big difference being Gerrard. This team we've got is really good. With Gerrard on the pitch, this team we've got is superb. We seem to lose the hesitency and the aimlessness of our approach play, which to me has been our biggest problem this season. His crossing is genuinely world class and you could see the difference in our energy levels last night as we had player after player busting a gut to get on the end of his fucking superb balls into the box. I'm hoping that this'll be the end of us failing to finish teams off. I'm also hoping that this is going to give the other team far more to worry about that just Suarez's dribbling and I fully expect Henderson and Downing to get more space because Gerrard's ingenious play causes havoc and rips spaces open for the rest of the team to , (hopefully), take advantage of. Carroll remains a concern for me if I'm being honest. He's just not doing what truly great strikers do. He should be a constant menace, spending every second harassing the defenders, pulling them wide, stretching the play, sniffing out chances, incessantly making space for himself and fighting for the best positions. And he just doesn't do these things well enough, quite frankly. He's not bad at these things, (although his ball retention needs some serious fucking work), but he's not great either and it's right that he should be questioned. But I'm not finishing on a downer, Skrtl and Agger were great, Bellamy's our best free signing since McAllister, (no higher compliment in my opinion), Enrique is every bit as good in his position as Pepe is in his, Henderson linked well with Gerrard and showes he's continuing to mature, Downing was better than he has been in the last few home games and we won without Suarez. Job done. And the fact remains that you can certainly argue that we look a far better outfit than that aging and disjointed Chelsea squad currently do and that you'd put money on a Liverpool team with Gerrard getting more points than a spineless Arsenal team forever teetering on the brink of yet another psychological collapse, (and that's even with Van Persie remaining injury free). Happy New Year everyone.

Darren Bent.

I'd like to see us get the goals that our play deserves. Simple as that really. I expect Suarez to be the best player on the pitch by a country mile, our defence to be pretty much solid throughout, Enrique to be as good going forward as he is rock fucking solid in defence, Adam and Henderson to keep improving and Pepe to just carry on being Pepe. I'm hoping that Downing will impose himself more, (or just fucking score from one of those darting runs and superb shots that he does at least once in almost every game), that Adam's completion rate for his passes and dead balls will get a bit better, that just a couple of the ten or so chances that we will doubtless create in the fisrt half hour will actually hit the fucking net and that the referee isn't a hopeless shithouse who doesn't seem to have even a rudimentary understanding of the game. Although obviously I reckon we'll be ace all game but still left shitting ourselves for the last half hour as we cling on for a 1-0 win, their keeper will be imbued with the spirits of Gordon Banks and Ray Clemence and that we'll hit the fucking woodwork once every ten minutes. Obviously.

I was more talking generally about the season as a whole in that bit mate. Last night I thought we were strangely lethargic in midfield for a good few stretches of the game, (although equally direct in others, first twenty minutes especially). I was trying to say that the decent play seems to be the rule these days and not the exception.

Same old story. Defensively we were solid, the midfield were fluid and inventive, (although strangely passive for a few periods, which is not like us), and we were painfully wasteful in attack. I was sat in the stands with my wife, (she's a local), and when Adam stepped up I said, "We're about to miss another penalty here. Will it be a miss or a save?", because hey were genuinely the only two options I had in my mind. Strangely, I've got more confidence in us scoring from bloody free kicks than penalties these days. Weirdly, it seems that the players are so concerned with hitting the woodwork that we've started blasting our shots almost dead centre of the goal. Henderson and Adam were the worst offenders last night and it's a crying shame that our creativity in midfield and attack and our defensive solidity is going unrewarded. This is a fucking great Liverpool team to watch. An aubsolute fucking joy when were flowing. I'm paying my £40 a game and not once have I regretted blowing my hard earned on this Dalglish team. I've been pissed off with some of the results, sure, but the shape of the team, the desire to get forward, the pressing, the interplay, the gradual evolution of players that I was unsure of into performers of genuine quality have all been a pleasure to watch. We're 80/90% of a genuine fucking force of a Liverpool team, I feel. Probably a couple of transfer windows and a small handful of players in and out if I'm being honest. And I know that last nights result was bitterly disappointing but at the same time it's yet another confirmation, (for me anyway), that we're firmly on the right track and that it's just a few tweaks here and there, (player and positioning wise), and we're likely to be ready to challenge again.

Start selling the tickets like they do at the Echo Arena or whatever. Make sure that if there's 10 of you going then all of you are sat together. The match is a far more 'social' occasion than going to a gig or something and you wouldn't dream of having a drink with your mates and then all splitting up once you got in a gig but most of us have to do it every second Saturday. Why exactly? I know it'd be far harder to organise and that the club hate having to put themselves out on our fucking behalf but sticking mates in the same fucking seats together has always struck me as a good idea. Sticking all the 'daytrippers' together as well might help. (I fucking hate the term 'daytripper' because it's pejorative but you know what I mean). If you've only got two of three matches on your fancard every year then you go in one bit of the stand, if you're getting to almost every game then you can go in another, (if you want). Over the years, we all get to 'know' certain faces, (I've never had a season ticket so I know that it's different for them), but at least then us fancard holders aren't going to be surrounded by strangers every game and people might let themselves go a bit more.

Wayne Rooney: "And I always thought it was Bebe stinking the place out." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Alex Ferguson: "I'd just like to confirm that with Fletcher gone, Anderson is now the shittiest midfielder we've got."

Alex Ferguson: "The press are saying it's our worst squad in years. Let's take stock. Who's good in the air.?" Mike Phelan: "Well, there's Vidic. Ferdinand's alright and Hernandez is handy." Alex Ferguson: "And who's shit on the floor?" Mike Phelan: "Fuck off. I'm not falling for that one." ------------------------------------------ Copyright Jimmy Tarbuck circa 1976..

And even if there was a war on I'd still want Torres to be sat on the fucking bench.

Spoken like a true Norwegian.

I'm with Code. I hope Chelsea pull 3 points further away from us, that United go that bit closer to winning number 20 and that Torres gets a boost as well. It's fucking win/win.

wiziwig.tv is up and running again. Hunt around the 'live sports' link and stuff and you can always get sopcast links.

Swansea was pretty rotten as well. Made even worse by the fact that their fans were fucking bouncing. The Kop eventually sparked into life for a corner about half an hour in and immediately the away end started chanting, "We forgot. We forgot. We forgot that you were here."

There's one on Pirate Bay mate, I've PM'd a link.

It's almost like a bloody checklist at Anfield these days isn't it? Ton of chances created? Check. Tiny proportion of them converted? Check. Suarez best player on the pitch? Check. Defence utterly fucking solid except for shaky fifteen minutes after opening goal? Check. Woodwork cracked at least once? Check. Henderson and Adam continuing to improve? Check. Enrique continuing to be best left back we've had in fucking years? Check. Referee's decisions ranging anywhere from 'Strange' to 'Utterly Nonsensical'? Check. Oppositon goalkeeper transformed into one part Ray Clemence and one part Stretch-fucking-Armstrong for this game only? Check. Same old, same old. Really enjoyable game to watch, (when it wasn't unbearably tense), only this time we got the result our overall game deserved.

You've made a fair point about Rodellega, (I did try to qualify my opinion by saying I haven't seen a massive amount of him), and I was more thinking that we look strangely bereft of ideas once we throw the final ball in. The approach play is great, a majority of the crosses are decent but the shooting is woeful. Utterly abject at times. At Anfield yesterday I sort of felt a malaise is starting to set in amongst the midfield and that the shooting situation seems to be getting worse. The amount of times that we were going for 'one more pass' to try to make a goal more certain was getting daft and it seems to suggest that the players are just as worried as we are. The exasparated screams of , "Just fucking shoot will you?!" around me seem to bear this out. When I say 'a focus point' for the team, I don't mean a target man in the old fashioned sense, I just meant a forward that'll give the midfield something to focus on and to aim towards. If Carroll needs time to adjust to the pass and move and breaking in numbers game that we're playing then we desperately need someone who can just fucking hit the target to capitalise on our, frankly outstanding, approach play.

"CHAZ SMASH! CHAZ SMASH! CHAZ SMASH!" Hang on. Why is no-one else chanting?

Rodellega from Wigan might be a decent shout. We're looking a bit aimless in the final third in my opinion. We absolutely need a fucking focal point of the attack that the midfielders can aim for time and time again. I've not seen a massive amount of him but a couple of mates are Wigan fans and say he's a really decent player when he's not distracted and he seems to just be running down his contract at their place.

He played the best pass of the game on 19 minutes as well, (I'm just glad someone's decided to wrestle that title off Suarez for once!). 15 yards from his own penalty area he smacked a fucking beautifully flighted 30 yard ball with just enough spin on it to slow it down after the first bounce right by us lot in the main stand. Fucking stunning bit of play for, (I think), Downing to run on to. A genuinely outstanding moment in a decent all round display. Best pass I've seen at Anfield this season outside of Suarez's 20 yard flighted ball in to the penalty area with the outside of his right foot against Sunderland, (I think?).

If I can just play devil's advocate for a minute here and try and defend the referee's role.. I honestly think that their job borders on impossible. On Monday we were asking a reasonably fit man, (the ref) to keep up with professional athletes for a full 90 minutes. I'm reasonably fit and healthy and I'd fucking seriously struggle with that. We're asking him to sprint almost in line with those athletes whilst simultaneously remaining outside the field of immediate play yet remain in position to have a decent view of wherever the ball may end up. On it's own, this is a fucking difficult thing to do, I'd say at best you could expect him to be in the optimum position to view an incident only a small percentage of the time no matter how hard he tries, and this is only the first step in what we're asking him to do. Next, we're expecting him to be able to rationally and level-headedly sum up each and every case on it's own individual merits whilst simultaneously following the letter of the law to the finest detail. All this whilst in the middle of a fucking cauldron of noise, almost literally being unable to hear himself think, probably exhausted, out of breath, the adrenaline will be pounding through his veins and he'll have the crippling self-conciousness of knowing that his every decision will be second-guessed around the country and within the stadium. Then, we're asking him to make a split-second decision whilst under this intolerable stress, about an event that he quite probably didn't have a decent view of in the first place. I feel, given these circumstances, that there's fucking no chance of a referee getting every decision right. In fact, I'll go one further, I suggest that we can't even expect him to get a majority of his decisions right. I think that during any game a huge amount of mistakes will inevitably get made. The system of relying on one man, overcome by adrenaline and cortisol, who's no doubt stressed and exhausted; probably didn't have a good view of whatever event he's being asked to judge anyway, under immediate pressure from grown men literally screaming into his face, under intolerable pressure from outside the immediate game, (managers, chairmen etc), whilst simultaneously expecting him to make a fair and level-headed split second decision is fucking doomed to failure. Bad decisions will be made. Time and fucking time again. We can expect nothing else. We all know that stress, the inability to concentrate due to powerful emotions and the fear of punishment will reduce flexibility of thought and that that in turn will lead to irrational behaviour. I'm arguing here that this is what we're currently witnessing in the Premier League. I genuinely don't think that we're seeing endemic corruption. I think we're seeing decent men making fucking dismal decisions due to intolerable conditions. (Although it's no wonder that it's almost impossible to tell a piss-poor performance from a criminally corrupt one. It's pretty obvious that the two things will look almost exactly the same!) With this current system we are going to have men erroneously sent off, we are going to have good goals disallowed, we are going to have serious fouls go unpunished, (both for and against) and we are going to win games dishonourably and lose other games undeservedly. And this horse-shit that it'll all level itself out over the course of the season is fucking nonsense. Dalglish is right to fight our corner and to try and sway the odds of human error and justifiable human inconsistency in our favour because it's obvious that the pressures referees are under are only going to increase with every passing year. Things are bad, really bad right now. But as footballers get fitter and faster and decisions get harder to make, as the financial rewards for clubs keep on increasing and the pressures from within and without the game increase on the referees, as the crowds get more partisan and the stress and pressures crank up year on year then things are only going to get worse. And just how fucking terrifying is that?