arrrgggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhforfuckssakearrrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhh

That was my reaction as the bitter pill of frustration once again rose and stuck in my craw.

Because once again not only have we not done it, but that pompous set of twats from along the East Lancs Road are gloating and we’ve fucking helped them every bastard step.

So dear player.

I know you are distanced from us by pay, perhaps land of birth and certainly cultural understanding. Well most of you. But I also know, or at least expect, that you know a little of our club, the way we try to do things and what we as the fans go through.

Like my teacher who said “I don’t care if we’re here til 5pm I still get paid”, win or lose, you still go home in your very posh car with a stack full of cash.

But win or lose, we go home with a different set of rewards. Perhaps infinitely more precious than a £ note, especially when we win. It’s called feelings.

And right now you are crushing my very soul and ruining those feelings, and sending me home sad, weary and frustrated at the seeming inability to do the job you’re being paid for.

I know matches go one way and the other, I know of course, its not all your fault blah blah blah.. but at the end of the match I want you to go to the dressing room knowing that you in your heart, tried your fucking 140% best to be a Liverpool player for that 90 odd minutes.

If you don’t know what that means, why are you with us. And if you do, its not much to ask is it?

So we’re waiting, waiting for the city game to kick off, for the rest of the season to kick off, for the ‘business end’ of the season to kick off (as if August til now was just messing about?).The international break where we hope our internationals don’t break anything has meant a bit of hanging about, waiting for the resumption of festivities in the pursuit of a title for us.It’s weird, as if we’ve all been given a day or two off, time for the heart to slow down, for the wallet to recover and for the mind to clear, for the weary to rest, and that’s just us… It’s like everything stopped for a bit, and now, now we’re off again tomorrow.Or rather City are off to us for a visit. Two teams who have one thing in common, we both hate the other team in Manchester, the vainglorious braggarts and pompous tosh of Trafford.Utd are waiting too. Waiting to equal our record. We’re waiting. Waiting for another title in this new costume of the Premier League. Citeh are waiting. For all those shiny nuggets plugged into the puggy (fruit machine) to reap a three bells and handsome cash reward. Or at least a trip to another foreign clime. It’s a Given that we’ll find them tough to beat, but we need to. Without Gerrard, Xabi’s beard and Robbie Keane (a distant foggy dream now…)Anyway at least there’ll be no more waiting and typing of blog’s about waiting. 

A few of us have been debating the need for an “Alonso Lite” for the squad - a player who can set the base of play for us effectively when Xabi needs his beauty sleep. So it was interesting to see Fabio Aurelio pitched into the Alonso role on Saturday.

It’s clear he doesn’t offer everything Xabi offers,  and he’s limited in some respects, but I found the performance up to the 67th minute encouraging. It’s not a long-term solution, but still, it was pretty impressive no?

Here’s a little breakdown of the two players’ contributions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/chalkboards/Mt77q98oj968my81a0J8

The big guns that used to sit at the port’s mouth protecting the town in the past, today sat on the bench and waited to fire at the Easter Island Head that is Tony Adams…

Torres, Alonso, his beard, and Kuyt of all bloody people (Dirk, a big gun?) came off the bench and won it for us. Phew…

Now there is a famous Liverpool banner which states The distance between Genius and Insanity is only measured by success, and Reeves banner was the perfect flag to fly today.

Cos if we’d have lost or drawn this game, Rafa would’ve looked mad, (he was bloody furious after the 2nd Portsmouth goal), most of us were agog at Ngog starting up front and I certainly cast my mind back to Reading last year where the team selection cost us dear.

But if we won, how clever would Benitez look at resting the weary and playing a team capable of handling a Portsmouth team abject against Fulham.

But they scored twice, Ted Nugent, belying his age (and who’d a thought a Californian conceptual rocker would’ve been an Evertonian) scored and taunted the Liverpool fans.

Well Nugent, just like your beloved blue team Evershit (Mind you, Portsmouth will soon be the closest team that play in blue to Liverpool soon) you are a small minded arse.

And I have to be honest, I could not imagine us scoring from the back pass free kick, these things never pan out, 47 players lining the goal and most of them on top of the taker by the time the indirect bit has been done, but Justin Timberlake popped up and scored a belter.

As did Dirk and Fernando.

So top of the league and a tricky trip negotiated. Meanwhile Gerrard rests, Rafa rages and Nugent can fuck off the twat.

So Michael made the Grade and did us all a favour by ignoring tactics and going for tictacs at the crucial moment and cutting away from Everton’s goal to an advert for the white mints..

I, living in Scotland, and not paying for Santana to do his magic, didn’t get the match on telly, cos STV somehow have come to some arcane agreement with Setanta to not show the FA Cup up here. So I watched it on the internet and thought how odd it should cut to a break then. Of course, flicking over to Radio 5 which was about a minute later, the goal had already been scored…

I felt like Marty McFly in Back to the Future III, with Moyes playing the part of any ol arsehole actually cos he’s a moany twat.  Yes I know there’s no clever reference to the film, but he is.

Anyway Gerrard wanted to nip home and build a snowman, and Torres isn’t back to his best and Xabi’s beard is influencing his passing in a bad way and we had Lucas the liability once again turning a match on his own… The boy from Brazil astounds me with his ignorance of the game, talented yes, but clueless too. Wigan and Everton… any team ending in n frankly, he fucks up in…

Anyway we’re out the cup and Gerrard wants 3 weeks off and we’re playing up Pompey early evening Saturday. Should be enough time for ITV to work out how to switch the auto advert machine off. Though they did me a big favour last night…

So Rafa wasn’t keen, and there goes £5m as Liverpool continue to follow the example of Newcastle and be a club that looks ridiculous. Honestly, our owners watch the games in wide screen (one sat at one end, one at the other) Rafa fights big Phil for the beard of the month and Bosingwa seems to get off with using Yossi as a ladder…

I had high hopes for a proven Premiership goalscorer coming to play at ours, but always thought he was overpriced. So did, it turns out, our manager and Spurs’ manager too…

How fucking bizarre…

Anyway we beat Chelsea 2-0 and I didn’t even know Lamphead was on the pitch til he was sent off. Being a red, I thought it was a red. If I were a blue, I would’ve gone blue in the face…. But then again, Phil was trying to play card swaps by trading off Bosingwa’s mountain climb against Lamphead’s admittedly weak tackle…

but anything that makes John Terry grab the ball and stomp off is ok with me. Meanwhile there was Robbie sat in the stands pretending not to be bothered that his boyhood team didn’t want him as a man.

Well see ya mate. take care, was a shame but hey ho, onwards and upwards. Unless you’re Spurs, in which case, its onwards and hopefully not the other way.

News is breaking that Rafa has declined the terms of his latest contract offer from the club. Here’s Tony Barrett’s piece on the Echo website:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2009/01/16/no-deal-stunner-as-rafa-benitez-rejects-anfield-contract-offer-liverpool-fc-latest-100252-22708319/

Now… I can’t claim to have ever played poker to any kind of level (beyond squabbling for 2p pieces in the School common room), but anyone who’s played a high stakes game of this kind will be pulling their chair up for an interesting exchange of bluff, counter-bluff, and ongoing brinkmanship from one of the shrewdest political operators in the business.

Anyone who’s been in any doubt over Rafa’s motives in managing Liverpool Football Club should take note. It’s not the money that in question. It’s not the duration that’s in question. It’s the fact that an ambitious manager wants authority and empowerment to take decisive action when he needs to in the pursuit of his footballing vision.

It’s the long-term project that our manager cares about most, and it’s that more than anything else that we should count ourselves grateful for in a time when the motives and competence of other key stakeholders at the club have continually been called into question.

Rafa’s not scared of losing his job - he’s prepared to hold his ground and be brave to get what he needs, and by extension what we all need for this club in the long-term.

Interesting to see the mass media swallow the Ferguson mythology whole and somehow attribute him with Jedi powers… thankfully Rafa’s not so gullible.

 

Before the press feast on the supposed ‘losing the plotness’ of Rafa (stoked by our dismal frustration at Stoke) i’d like to point a couple of things.

Firstly as has been noted by a few commentators, Rafa was stating what most managers have wanted too for a long time mainly Fergie is a hypocritical manipulator of the press and the FA.

Now personally I would’ve waited til after this weekend cos the timing could’ve been better, we should’ve won at Stoke and irrespective of the Man Utd Chelsea victory, I can only imagine he wanted to remind the ref in that match about Fergie’s antics.

But his list and careful statement, passionate for Rafa, was miles away from a manager ‘losing it’ - witness the fantastically cruel ‘Mr’ Ferguson, the bullet points and calming fact that he’d written it.

So Man Utd beat Chelsea, and we drew to Stoke (utd nearly did btw), we’re still top and Rafa has made his points. Fergie, doubtless will be gloating at home at the percieved mind game victory, but I think Buddha Benitez has already let it go, and isn’t bothered by it anymore, he has landed his blows and has moved on. Anyway when you look at what he said, he was right.

So ignore the petty press and frenzied arse licking of Fergie, cos most reporters are still frightened of him. Fergie has no honour and no elegance at all. Look at his regular tapping up of players only to cry out loud when Ronaldo talks to Real… Rafa, well in mate.

He should’ve played Torres and Keane mind…

So, we are to play the Real thing.. the galaticos, the men in white, ‘the most famous club in the world’ according to some UEFA official.

Well, it was about time. If the Champions League is about big teams with real pedigree and history meeting each other, you can stuff utd, and Barca, they don’t come bigger than this.

But dear Real, here’s a word of caution for you.

We play at yours first. At big scary stadium in Spain, ooh… But wait, what’s this… you have to come back to ours. To Anfield. You think you’ve got atmosphere? You think you’ve got noise? Wait til you show up. No matter what the first leg score, no matter how much you think you know football grounds, no matter what people tell you, you are gonna be blown away by the noise when you walk onto our pitch. Our pitch.

This is Anfield. This is real support. Ask John Terry. See you there.