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I'm angry. So I don't want to say anything I will probably regret. But Fernando, Fuck off. Your team mates are not beneath you, this club is not beneath you. You need to put a shift in, because for all your goals, you've achieved sweet fuck all at this club, and if you are going to achieve anything you're going to have to put in 100 times more effort than you are doing now. Have a word with yourself.

Martin Samuel: Why David Beckham should run English football at the FA | Mail Online Anfield hit by a great divide There will be 7,000 Liverpool fans making the trip to Blackburn Rovers tonight. The club still commands fantastic away support, but increasingly its various factions are walking alone. A further legacy of the era of Rafael Benitez, Tom Hicks and George Gillett is divided loyalty. One club executive, a Liverpool man through and through, told me this week that his greatest fear is of the civil war once played out in the boardroom shifting its location to the Kop, with outspoken groups increasingly divided on the way forward. One theory is that the mocking 'Hodgson for England' chants which could be heard during the defeat against Wolves originated in the part of the ground occupied by the Spirit of Shankly pressure group, and the commotion that followed was in part dissenting voices offering support for the manager. This may be wishful thinking as Hodgson is running out of allies fast. It would be logical, however, that even on a night of great disappointment, Anfield would not be unanimous in its views. Support for Benitez was far from universal, no matter how history is being rewritten. The legacy of that tumultuous time is a fan base that has been encouraged to think the hated previous owners were removed by a grass roots uprising, not the hard-nosed practicality of the Royal Bank of Scotland. This makes for a lot of noise, but not all of it helpful and certainly not of one voice.

This email is cathartic for me, so bear with me. I had intended to post it on Sunday but the site went down. It's still timely though, until the next game anyway! I've held a board meeting with myself today as I promised I would after the Newcastle game. This arrangement was made after the defeat at Stoke, and not as a reaction to Saturday's defeat per se. I said in the aftermath of the Stoke game that we shouldn't make rash decisions when we're down about a poor result, and hence I set the Newcastle game as a reasonable time to judge where we are; bearing in mind that if things were not good enough then we would have a chance to bring in a new manager in time to make good use of the transfer window, if necessary. So in my desparation to make some sense of this mess I've crunched some statistics so that you can all be convinced of my insanity. The perception has been that we have improved recently and moved gradually back up the table (prior to our knockback Saturday). To an extent that is true: after 5 games we were 16th, after 10 games we were 12th, 15 games and we were 10th, even after yesterday, after 17 games we are 9th. So yes there has been a gradual improvement. Surely therefore if you project that trend forwards we end up fourth before the end of the season? Wrong. After 5 games we were 3 points off 4th spot. After 10 games we were 5 points away. After 15 games we were 7 points off. Now after 17 games we are 9 points of 4th place. So in respect of that specific target, we're actually going backwards. So where is it all going wrong? I think everyone is well aware that this is as a result of our away form. Over the last 17 games we have gathered 70% of available points at home, but only 19% of those available away. This gives us an average of 43% in total, both home and away. If you look across the weeks, the overal total fluctuates around 45% (i.e its down today, but if we win against Fulham it will go up again, drop points against Blackpool and its back down again). So 45% is our level of performance at the moment and has been over recent weeks. If you project that forward over the whole of the season, this equates to 52 points in May. What are 52 points worth? Last year that would have got you 9th place. On a good season it could get you an 8th place finish, and on others, 10th. Over the last 10 years of the Premier League, the average position is 9th. That's 2 places below Rafa's worst finish, which got him the sack. So clearly this can't go on. So how many points are required to finish 4th? Last year it was 68 (Spurs actually got 70, but 5th place was only 67). In 2003-4 you could have finished 4th on 57 points. So over the last 10 seasons the average for 4th spot is 68 points. That's 60% of available points over the season. So for us to finish 4th we need to aim for a 60% return, and I remind you that as of now we are only on a 43% return. So how realistic is that? If we maintain our home record at 70%, we need to get our overall away form upto 50% from the current 19%. That means we need to get 24 points from the 10 remaining away games. We can only afford to drop 6 more points away. If you think Hodgson can deliver this, then we could be ok! What about if we improve our home form slightly (or rather continue with the more recent form) and get the season long average upto 75%? That would mean the away form only needs to rise to 45%. That would mean we could afford to drop another 7 points at home (one defeat and two draws) and upto 9 points away from home (three more defeats). If we bumped our home form up so that we got an 80% average, we only need to raise away form to 40%. That equates to 4 more points dropped at home (one defeat, or two draws) and upto 15 points dropped away (5 defeats, or 3 defeats and 3 draws). I'd suggest that one of the last two options could be within the manager's capability; if you accept that the home form recently has been good, with Torres and Cole yet to become sharp again, Agger, Carragher and Gerrard yet to return from injury, and possibly a decent signing or two in January. And if you also accept that the last two away games have been more attacking in principle, but lack the proper execution, and that that execution can be improved upon. The Blackpool game on Boxing Day is therefore the next real milestone. If you want to take a more short term approach with a view to potentially rushing through a decision at the beginning of January if things do need a change, then you can take a look at the raft of games that come in quick succession over Christmas and New Year. There are 5 fixtures now between next weekend and the first week of January. Some of these fixtures pit competing teams against each other. If we maintain a strong home form and can get 4 points from 6 away (a sharp improvement in itself) then we could pull in 13 points. Over the same period you could realistically predict City only getting 8, Chelsea getting 11, Bolton only 7, Spurs only 11, Sunderland 7 and Newcastle 7. That would then move us up to 6th and we would be 7 points of 4th spot again. A move in the right direction. With an unbeaten run in the Europa league behind him, a clear will to develop young players from within, an improvement in home form over recent weeks and a more positive playing style away from home (yet still poorly executed), plus a reluctance to become a club that turns over managers on a regular basis, the Board (i.e me) has therefore decided to give Hodgson a vote of confidence and to review performance again after the Blackburn game in January. Now I will do something more constructive with my time - but I do feel slightly better. (This is were you now all neg me and tell me to get a life....)

Im gonna go for January 3rd 2010. I'm an optimist.

Even the Internet wants rid of him.