Still At The Top?

Well...come the first week of December and Liverpool is still at the top of the BPL. Surprise surprise!! Anyway it's only a one point lead above Chelsea so nothing to shout about. Could have been much much more. Dropped points against Stoke, Tottenham, Fulham and West Ham - games that should have been won comfortably. Will these points matter towards the end of the season? We'll see...

What's different about Liverpool this season?

1. Use of width. Riera has been refreshing. Dossena looks good. But I'm still worried about the right wing...Kuyt isn't exactly a winger, though one has to give him credit for being the Duracell bunny of the team!

2. Torres. Remember that Torres has been out for most of the season. Better for him to be out now than later in the run-in. Liverpool have been playing fairly well without him - MU and Chelsea can testify to that! 

3.  MU and Chelsea. Great victories and confidence boosters. Well done lads. Notably in both matches both teams hardly got a look in at goal.

4. Xabi Alonso. After an indifferent 2007/2008 season, rumours had it that he'd be off-loaded this season. Must have shocked him back to reality - easily one of the better players around. Contributed immensely to the improved Liverpool performance. Scored the vital goal at Chelsea too!

5. Dirk Kuyt. Finally scoring goals. Not only the willing runner of the team. And able to step out of the shadows of Torres. Could see more from him hopefully.

6. Gerrard. Need I say more?

7. Arsenal. Jekyll and Hyde performances. But helping to keep Chelsea and MU off our back for the time being.

8. MU. Still the flair team, but more unstable this year than before. Keep it up!

9. Chelsea. The team to beat this year. Good all around team, playing well and winning even with so many players out injured. But they're no more invincible at home. 

Well the hectic Christmas schedule is coming up, including upcoming matches against Hull and Arsenal. Let's take it one month at a time OK?

Record-breaking...

You've got to hand it to Rafa and his merry men...it takes despair to bring out the best in the them!! Yeah, smile Rafa, smile...you've just gone into the record-books!

The question now is: how much will he chop and change for the upcoming match against Fulham? I've said before, I like the thought of Crouchie in front, preferably with Torres; maybe Gerrard would relish a role just behind them, in a 3-4-1-2 formation. With that he can have the freedom to rotate the midfield - Liverpool is full of quality midfielders (Momo aside...), so no worries there. Unfortunately that would mean Rafa going defender-shopping (which is not a bad thing, since we have lack of cover in central defence as it is) - Coloccini perhaps?

Hopefully this is a sign of better things to come...

Where to now?

OK: maybe the Merseyside derby victory didn't bring about the change in the team's fortunes. The Champions' League loss to Besiktas is shocking, leaving Liverpool rooted at the bottom of Group A. Nothing less than a clean sweep of victories in the three remaining matches would ensure qualification into the knockout stages. And tonight we face a rampant Arsenal team at Anfield; how would Rafa and his team respond?

Perhaps the roots of current troubles lie further back in time. When Rafa took over in 2005, the Liverpool team was fairly formidable: we had a tried and tested, solid defence; we had Gerrard in midfield pulling the strings; but it was the attacking aspect of the game that was lacking, from the forwards we had right down to the tactics employed. Ever wondered why Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal were successful where Liverpool failed miserably? It was the failure to use the pitch to the widest and create chances - by playing through the middle of the field, we make it easy for the opposition to stifle attacking opportunities. Of course we had Stevie G, but when he doesn't play well, there is no other player to take the lead. Well, we had high hopes for Rafa and he didn't disappoint us - taking us to the Champions' League success and then the FA Cup the next year. But the Holy Grail of English football still eluded Liverpool.

With the entrance of American sports magnates George Gillette and Tom Hicks, things were looking up for Liverpool. Maybe this year would be the year. Everyone waited with bated breath for Rafa to make his moves in the summer transfer market; and he really took a long time to do it. At one point, I was wondering whether there was anyone of interest left to snap up by the time he decided to make a move. I had really hoped that he would see the light in changing the way Liverpool move forwards and make a move for wingers and another playmaker. Well, he got Ryan Babel and Yossi Benayoun (neither enough to make you salivate) and of course, Fernando Torres. People were swooning over themselves at the purchases. I felt that we have a good enough strikeforce provided they were given enough ammunition - Crouch and Kuyt, notwithstanding Craig Bellamy, had proven themselves last season. It wasn't the players I had hoped for, and apart from Torres, I was not very optimistic of any Liverpool's title chances this season.

So I admit that the season started off positively - the mauling of Derby County was the highlight of the season. Unfortunately everything went downhill from there. Many blame it to the chopping and changing by Rafa; in a way that could have been a contributing factor. Rafa's reason for keeping the players fresh doesn't really hold water - why on earth would you want to disrupt a team who has started off well, scoring goals and playing brilliant football? You certainly don't see Wenger, Sir Alex, or Jose doing it - and their teams are winning games! Perhaps he has to relook the rotation policy. Top players need to play!

In his eagerness to strengthen the attacking aspect of the team, he has neglected the one area of the team that has served Liverpool so well over the last few seasons - the defence - and shockingly we do not have a defensive cover for either Agger or Carragher apart from Sami Hyppia. Poor Hyppia, having already scored two goals in his last two starts - at the wrong end of the pitch. And I really thought he would have gotten rid of Momo Sissoko at the end of last season - he looks really shaky. Babel, highly-touted as he was, hardly got any first starts. Bennayoun looks out of position as well at the left end of the field, and Gerrard must still be seething from his shock substitution last weekend. We have four strikers, but no combination has been wholly successful. It's about time to look at a Crouch-Torres combo. Perhaps the 4-4-2 formation is not the best for this current set of players; I feel that a 3-5-2 or 3-4-1-2 would be a more suitable alternative. As a whole the team has not been playing well - perhaps the rotation policy is causing more harm than good.

Or like some would like to believe, maybe Rafa hasn't found his best team yet. He is still looking for his best eleven. Hello, it's already ten games now, and I can tell you the team that should start! Reina, Finnan, Carragher, Agger, Arbeloa, Riise, Alonso, Gerrard, Babel, Torres and Crouch. He is under some pressure to perform - the departure of his long-time assistant could have been a contributing factor, or contributed to the team's decline. Whatever it is, he needs to pull the team together before all title hopes, be it domestic or in Europe, slip from his grasp even before the halfway mark.

Merseyside Success!

Watching Liverpool play nowadays can give you a real heart attack! Firstly, you never know what team Rafa will start with; and even if you do, you never know how the team will play. Secondly you have players which are really worrying - Momo for one. And thirdly, since everybody knows how Liverpool tends to play, you will be left wondering how the goals would come. This evening's match against Everton is no different - a Merseyside derby with much pride at stake.

As usual, Rafa confounds everyone by choosing a peculiar player choice - Kuyt to partner Voronin, Momo and Mascherano with Gerrard over the right, Bennayoun on the left; what formation is it? No one knows. Apart from the first ten to fifteen minutes of the first half, Liverpool never really threatened. They didn't play too bad; it's just that things didn't work out in midfield. And the funny formation tried allowed Joleon Lescott acres of place to threaten the Liverpool right flank. Expectedly, they went behind at the break; unexpectedly it was a Hyppia own-goal, and one he would want to forget.

What did Rafa do at the break? Nothing that I could see. It was a show of faith in his players - and it paid off with Voronin clearing the lines and threading a pass to Gerrard to run into the Everton penalty box before Hibbert tugged him down. Well, it appeared that Gerrard's remonstrations convinced Mark Clattenburg to send Hibbert off for a professional foul. Anyway, Kuyt levelled the score, and it was Liverpool's game to lose.

And that they nearly did. Rafa again made the confounding choice of changes - first Bennayoun for Babel and then Gerrard for Lucas Leiva. Everyone could see the consternation and surprise on the skipper's face!! Also on the supporters' faces!! He actually took out the two playmakers of the team at a time when Liverpool was stuggling to breakdown the resolute Evertonian defence! Liverpool continued to miss a host of chances to win the game, while Everton looked they would score when they got forward; a single goal would evidently decide the match. Fortunately for Liverpool, it was Phil Neville who got the marching orders for a acrobatic save on the line (with his hands) to hand Kuyt his second goal from the penalty spot in added-on time. There was further drama at the death with Carragher appearing to pull Lescott down in the penalty box - well, it was worth a second look in my opinion, but the ref waved it away before blowing for the end.

It was a lucky win, but a win nonetheless. Coming on the back of some lacklustre performances and poor results, it would be morale-boosting. Praise to the team as a whole but Rafa is playing a dangerous game here with his rotation system, formation and choice of substitutions. On the bright side, let's hope that as Rafa puts it: a win here might change everything and give a major boost to the players' confidence. With Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United all coming up with results, we can't afford to drop points in the title race.

Watch out Besiktas and Arsenal!

Rob-bed!

I guess this must be the buzz word of the day on Merseyside!!! Shocker of a decision by referee Rob Styles denied Liverpool a deserved victory over Chelsea...I dare anyone to defend the penalty decision. Certainly a game of that magnitude, which hitherto was dominated by Liverpool, should not have deserved such poor refereeing! And to top that off, he nearly gave a double yellow-card to Essien, which led to some amount of confusion towards the end of the second-half. In all fairness Liverpool should have finished Chelsea off with a host of chances in the second half, but alas it was a victory not to be.

But we take heart from Liverpool's performance - perhaps a sign of better things to come? Keeping my fingers crossed!

Athens Ho!!

We did it again!! Overturning a 1-0 deficit from the first leg, our Anfield heroes made it a night to remember with a spectacular display of football to book our place in the Champions' League finals.

Chelsea were the odds-on favourites but at Anfield anything could happen. The defence marshalled superbly by Carragher and Agger thwarted any form of Chelsea aggression - leaving them with only one chance from Drogba which Reina easily saved. Joe Cole, so often the nemesis of Liverpool, hardly had a look at goal; Lampard was his usual unremarkable self.

Liverpool needed to score and Agger scored a striker's goal in the 22nd minute. There was a time where Chelsea threatened towards the end of the first half, but came to nought. In the second half, Liverpool had all the attacking play and chances - two saves from Cech and a Kuyt attempt ricocheting off the crossbar; clearly Liverpool were the better team but still no goals.

Went on to extra time with little difference as we were the hungrier of the two teams - a harshly disallowed goal from Kuyt and a last gasp save at the death from Cech ensured a nailbiting penalty decider: in the end Reina made two great penalty saves while we scored all four!! Appropriately my man-of-the-match Kuyt scored the winning penalty (that guy deserved it, he worked his socks off!!)

As usual the 'Special One' was all sour grapes as he claimed the better team on the night lost - come on, even the blind could see who the better team was; Rafa rightly praised our 'special ones' for our victory - the fans who waved, shouted and sang the team to victory!

So who are we going to meet in Athens? For now we don't care...because we can beat the best - bring it on!! But I have a sneaky feeling that we will have a repeat of the 2005 finals come end of this month...

Red Storm Rising?

Well here goes the football season. By that I mean the English Premiership season 2006-2007!

The Community Shield match started off this season's proceedings: the game between the Reds and the Blues were up to expectation. As expected Liverpool won the match 2-1, with Crouch and Riise scoring the goals. Rafa tried some new players in new positions while resting the old; Chelsea came with their strongest squad. Yet that was not enough. Sissoko was a rock in midfield, while the Carragher-Agger pairing akward as it was, held firm against Schevchenko and Drogba; Zenden, Riise and Gonzales terrorised the Chelsea defence; Crouch and Garcia could do no wrong. But it was 1-1 only at halftime. Rafa injected some urgency into the Reds attack bringing on Gerrard, Alonso and Bellamy into the attack: this paid off with Bellamy producing the cross of the match for Crouch's winning goal. Chelsea were in tears...but in all fairness Mourinho was outsmarted by Rafa, and his team outplayed by resurgent Liverpool.

So what will we expect of Liverpool this season? More of the same I hope. Consistency is the key. Sisoko should hold the fort ala Hamann; Alonso, Gerrard, Gonzales, Pennant and Zenden rotating in midfield; but the attack pair of Crouch-Bellamy should provide the punch lacking last season. Defence? Carragher and Hyppia would be the rock they were the last two seasons, and with Paletta, Agger in the wings, Liverpool finally has the depth they lacked so much.
Liverpool would be the team to watch.

Next week, Sheffield United. We wait for the storm to come ashore...