News, views and opinion on Liverpool FC
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers believes his side can close the gap between themselves and the top four next season.
A news article on 2013-05-10 16:38:00 from: Sky Sports
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The 32-year-old is set to go under the knife to cure an ongoing medical issue and will miss the last two games of the season as well as England’s end-of-term matches
A news article on 2013-05-07 14:30:00 from: Goal
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The 32-year-old has played every minute of the league campaign for the Reds this season, but has been doing so with an injury for “quite some time” according to coach Mike Marsh
A news article on 2013-04-24 16:58:00 from: Goal
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It’s sure to be an emotional return for Rafa on Sunday…Image: mirror.co.uk Sunday will not only be a big game for Liverpool as they search to pick up all three points against rivals Chelsea but it will also mark the return of a very special man to most; Rafael Benitez. Whatever people’s opinion of him he did a hell of a lot for this football club and I’m not afraid to admit that I love the man, I expect a very good reception for the man who brought the European Cup back to Anfield on Sunday but once the whistle is blown he and the fans both know he’ll be a sworn enemy. There are no new injury worries for Liverpool but there’s still a long list of players out including Fabio Borini and Joe Allen. Chelsea are also looking pretty strong squad wise but there are slight doubts hanging over Ashley Cole and Gary Cahill. Chelsea have lost 2 out of their last 5 fixtures in all competitions going into this game whilst Liverpool have only lost 1. Liverpool though have been on a bit of a goal drought, no goals scored against both Reading and West Ham was also coupled with a dire and very frustrating performance in both games. It appears that sides lower in the table and sides that will defend to the hilt are very much a stumbling block for us, Chelsea though will definitely attack and we always seem to come out in the big games. The last time the two sides met was in November last year. The game ended 1-1 with Luis Suarez scoring towards the end of the game to seal Liverpool’s point. Chelsea’s last visit to Anfield makes even better reading for Reds, a 4-1 win for Liverpool left the Londoners pretty embarrassed. The last time Chelsea notched up a win at Anfield was in 2010. Stat Sandwich Liverpool are 19 points better off than they were at this stage last season. Fernando Torres has scored 14 goals in 75 league games for Chelsea, he scored 50 in 72 at Liverpool. Suarez is one goal away from scoring 30 goals in all competitions. As briefly mentioned above I feel Liverpool will really come out of their shell in this game, the last two performances were frustrating and weren’t helped certainly against Reading by a superb keeper but we didn’t fail to win through a lack of chances, perhaps just through a lack of conversion. When a team is so focused on blocking you out though then that isn’t so surprising, Chelsea however will slip up in defence, all of their focus is on scoring and getting all 3 points so Liverpool will be able to penetrate gaps left and catch their defence off guard however Chelsea may do exactly the same to us. I feel as though Suarez is definitely due a goal and with the 30 land mark hanging in front of him he’ll be even more eager (if that’s possible). The Uruguayan would love a goal on Sunday and I can see him getting us off the mark. For once I’ve not actually decided on a prediction yet for this clash but keep an eye on Twitter as I’ll be sure to pop a quid on something tomorrow before kick off. Enjoy the match folks! And if you’re going, give Rafa an applause from me! Like “The Liver Bird” on Facebook – www.facebook.com/TheLiverBirdsBlog
A news article on 2013-04-20 16:10:00 from: The Liver Bird
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The TRUTH is finally out and justice WILL follow. May the 96 Liverpool fans who tragically lost their lives at Hillsbrough rest in peace and may they never walk alone. Always in our hearts & minds. #JFT96 Like “The Liver Bird” on Facebook – www.facebook.com/TheLiverBirdsBlog
A news article on 2013-04-15 08:00:00 from: The Liver Bird
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Coutinho celebrates…Image: mirror.co.uk Liverpool fell to a 3-1 defeat at St Mary’s on Saturday afternoon and there’s no hiding from the fact that sloppy defending and an all round poor performance led the Reds to their fate. Southampton were perhaps underestimated in the run up to this fixture but with Liverpool on such good form it wasn’t hard to expect another 3 points, Southampton though were dominant and took full advantage of their ease in breaking through the Liverpool defence. The Saints first goal came very early into the game, just after the 5 minute mark Liverpool found themselves trailing after a Schneiderlin goal from close range. It was an unexpected start for Brendan’s side but with so long left to go nobody was panicking yet. The first goal though highlighted a similar story for the rest of the game. The newly returned Martin Skrtel would play a part in a rather sloppy defence, don’t get me wrong, I’m a Skrtel fan but it annoys me when people are quick to slate his counterpart Jamie Carragher just because he’s burning a few more candles, in my eyes Carragher has proved he’s still got what it takes and going on Skrtel’s performance on Saturday afternoon, the number 23 will probably be back in the starting XI after the break. Another talking point was the starting of Joe Allen over Lucas Leiva. A decision apparently made because Lucas picked up a niggle left fans wondering whether that was the real reason because we all know full well Allen himself is awaiting a shoulder operation. Either way, despite Allen’s less than effective performance he wasn’t as big a scapegoat as some people would have you believe, nevertheless for me, Lucas is always the preferred option. Southampton found their second just after the half hour mark and it’s safe to say Liverpool had offered little trouble in return. This time a goal from Liverpool fan and Southampton fan favourite Ricky Lambert to the bottom right of goal meant his side had extended their lead leaving the visitors with a lot of work to do. Daniel Sturridge had a few half chances in the first 45 minutes but it was fair to say that himself and the influential Luis Suarez were a lot quieter than usual. It fell to Phillipe Coutinho to put Liverpool back into the game. An original effort from Sturridge didn’t find its way to the back of the net but the rebound fell kindly to an awaiting Coutinho who confidently scored Liverpool’s first and only goal of the afternoon. It was a good time to score but Liverpool would need to ensure their defending in the second half was ten times better if they were going to get anything from this game. The second half saw manager Brendan Rodgers make an immediate substitution replacing Joe Allen with Lucas Leiva. The defensive nature of Lucas should aid the Reds ability to block out the Southampton attack and whilst it helped it didn’t quite complete the full equation. A free kick from Suarez after the hour mark saved by Boruc meant Southampton were still safely holding on to a well earned 3 points. Liverpool had been stronger pushing forward in the second half but it wasn’t good enough. With 10 minutes left to go Southampton found themselves a third goal and this was probably the most embarrassing of the lot. You’d think after the first two goals our defence would have at least been on a higher alert but apparently not. Skrtel looked as though he was scared to even make a challenge and quite frankly it was frightening how easy it was for Rodriguez to get through. His goal from inside the area sealed the win for the home side and Liverpool would now have a lot of reflecting to do on that last 90 minutes. It always amazes me how we can go from such a well oiled performance to a terribly shoddy one. It’s clear consistency still isn’t our forte and until we find a bit of repetition we won’t be challenging to get back into the real part of Europe. This game is definitely one to forget and perhaps the two week break has come at a good time for Liverpool next up for the Reds is Aston Villa away, another game you would think before kick off would be a 3 pointer for the Reds but with Villa in a buoyant mood after this weeks result and them needing all the hope they can get, who knows what might happen. Like “The Liver Bird” on Facebook – www.facebook.com/TheLiverBirdsBlog
A news article on 2013-03-17 00:45:00 from: The Liver Bird
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Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers says teenage winger Raheem Sterling’s slump in form is ‘to be expected’, insisting he will not rush the youngster’s progress.
A news article on 2013-02-27 07:35:00 from: Sky Sports
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The Reds boss believes the 18-year-old’s recent dip is down to the club’s busy fixture schedule and highlighted the need to “nurture” the youngster’s prodigious talent
A news article on 2013-02-27 07:22:00 from: Goal
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It is not true that before becoming a popular football manager Brendan Rodgers was a tantalising stand-up comedian, whose best joke went thus: “A man with a slightly disconcerting habit of patting interlocutors on the cheeks while staring them in the eye with a blend of friendly earnestness and deranged confidence walks into a bar and says: ‘Hello, I would like an orange juice please and something to take home for my pet’. The barman asks: ‘What type of pet do you have?’ The man replies to this question.”
It’s not a very good joke, is it? When all is said and done, it is badly let down by the lack of a punchline. The buildup was fine, you might even go so far as to call it promising, but ultimately you have to conclude that it was a non-gag. A flop. Downright irritating, if you want to be frank. Feel familiar, Liverpool fans?
Liverpool’s season and style of play seems sadly bereft of certain crucial components, such as reliability in front of goal, reliability at the back, basic toughness and positive results, all of which means the club are currently three points and two places worse off now than they were at this stage last season and, of course, out of the Cup after being bullied by mighty Oldham Athletic.
Still, the campaign has also had some highs, of course: indeed, at one stage Liverpool were threatening to play so well that Rodgers predicted they could storm up the table and finish in second place – that was right before they lost at home to Aston Villa; and several weeks later they looked so close to getting their act together that Rodgers predicted they could storm up the table and finish fourth – that was just before they lost at home to West Bromwich Albion. Rodgers wisely refrained from declaring Liverpool imminent Euro Vase champions before last night’s first leg in St Petersburg but he unwisely opened his mouth afterwards to baffle listeners with talk of “a near-on perfect away performance” after Liverpool were deservedly beaten 2-0 by Zenit.
There is no shame in losing to a team as talented and expensively-assembled as Zenit … unless you then try to convince people who actually saw the match that the loss was some kind of unjust anomaly and that, if we overlook trifles such as appalling finishing, patchy interplay and feeble defending, the losers were moral victors. There is, of course, something even more basic than defending and attacking effectively and even easier to get right: talking.
And yet previous Liverpool managers have failed even on that front: Roy Hodgson alienated the few Anfield regulars who were prepared to cut him some slack when he started babbling about sides such as Wolves and Birmingham being fearsome opponents and Kenny Dalglish lost his messiah status when he began guffing about conspiracies everywhere and trumpeting advertising deals as major honours. After those two flops Liverpool fans have been prepared to give Rodgers time to repair years of neglect and ineptitude, and some even maintain that Rodgers’s recruits such as Fabio Borini and Joe Allen will yet prove inspired hires, but it is hard for anyone to be convinced that Rodgers knows what he is doing when he persistently spouts blatant bull.
“I’ve finished training absolutely disgusted. I can’t just sit and take that, the fans need to know. They pay his wages and what he dished up is the worst effort I’ve seen in 25 years of professional football. The absolute minimum is to give everything every single day. Is it because he hasn’t been starting? Is that what you do? Down tools and stop trying? The football club deserves more, the fans deserve more. Nikola’s future is up to him. There’s been no shouting match or bust-up, it’s all up to him” – Birmingham City manager Lee Clark manages to sound quite a lot like there’s been a bust-up with striker Nikola Zigic while denying that there’s been a bust-up with striker Nikola Zigic.
“May I be one of 1,057 pedants to suggest that surely if Petr Cech wanted to protect his broken finger as per yesterday’s ‘comedy tin’ he would pick a player guaranteed to score against him in training and not a woefully-out-of-form-for-three-years striker like Fernando Torres when he would have a much better chance of saving his shots and hurting said finger? Just sayin” – Ronan Heffernan.
“By Martin Dickson’s logic (yesterday’s letters), if the Fiver was looking for love then the optimum number of cards to send out would have been 713,710″ – Haydon Bambury.
“If the Fiver was a racehorse (Fiver passim), it would surely be appearing in the Tesco freezer section by now” – Simon Baker.
Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. And to placate certain readers, the Fiver awards prizeless Fiver letter o’ the day to: Simon Baker.
We keep trying to point out the utter futility of advertising an online dating service “for interesting people” in the Fiver to the naive folk who run Guardian Soulmates, but they still aren’t having any of it. So here you go – sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly romantics who would never dream of going out with you.
Roberto Mancini has hit out at suggestions he could be sacked if Manchester City fail to beat Nasty Leeds in the FA Cup. “If Manchester City should sack me, the other 20 teams in the Premier League should be without a manager,” he said, inventing a mysterious 21st top-flight side.
David Moyes will not decide on his Everton future until the summer. “I won’t make a decision until the end of the season. So you can ask me every week, but I’ll probably give you the same answer,” he said, providing football hacks with the perfect opportunity to file the same story every Friday and disappear to the boozer early.
Beleaguered Blackeye Rovers fans have suffered yet another indignity: David Bentley has returned to the club on loan from Tottenham.
Arsene Wenger has said he doesn’t regret missing out on Gareth Bale’s signature and ending up with Theo Walcott instead. “If I tell you the number of players we did not sign who we should have signed, you would be amazed,” he said to no amazement from Arsenal fans.
And Bondz N’Gala, Chiro N’Toko and Dani Lopez have all joined Barnet in a bid to provide them with the most exotically named squad in League Two.
AC Jimbo + a big piece of cake + various European rags = this week’s European football papers review.
Having more $ex + finding God + joining the Barmy Army + moving into engineering + running away with the circus + a few other oddities = the Joy of Six on peculiar reasons to give up football.
Cristiano Ronaldo + an 78cm leap = an inadvertent tribute to the outlaw art of heading, reckons Barney Ronay.
Eight FA Cup fixtures + one Premier League game x 1.111111111111 = 10 things to watch out for this weekend.
Oldham + Everton + a common denominator = a no-win, no-lose Cup tie for Joe Royle, calculates Andy Hunter.
And Luton + Millwall = uncomfortable memories of their infamous 1985 quarter-final, writes Sean Ingle.
A news article on 2013-02-15 16:11:00 from: The Guardian
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Coutinho could feature for the Reds against West Brom…Image: guardian.co.uk Liverpool welcome Midlanders West Brom to Anfield on Monday evening as ex Reds assistant Steve Clarke looks to lead his new side to a result against Brendan’s boys. Liverpool though have produced some brilliant displays and were almost hard done by only picking up draws against both Manchester City and Arsenal. Liverpool are leaving the decision on Daniel Sturridge’s fitness until the last minute after the forward suffered a thigh injury. Other than that there are no new injury worries for the Reds and positively Liverpool are now able to call upon new signing Coutinho. West Brom are without Popov after the player spat at Kyle Walker during the Tottenham game, a disgraceful thing to do. He begins his 3 match ban. Also available again for the baggies is Peter Odemwingie, it will be very interesting to hear the response from their fans should he get the start on Monday. The last time the two sides met was in September last year in the League Cup. Liverpool won the game 2-1 with Nuri Sahin finding both goals for the Reds. The meeting before that was in August where Liverpool fell to a 3-0 defeat at the Hawthorns. Surpirisngly West Brom also won the last time they made a visit to Anfield, Odemwingie finding a winner for the away side in the 75th minute. Stat Sandwich In all of Liverpool’s last 10 Premier League games there have been 3 or more goals. West Brom haven’t won in their last 6 league games, they’ve never had a run of 7 without a win. Lucas Leiva if chosen will make his 200th appearance in a Liverpool shirt. Despite West Brom’s recent poor run of form they still find themselves 9th in the table and only 2 points behind Liverpool who are in 8th on 36 points. Liverpool going in to this game have to feel pretty confident though as they’re the one’s pulling off the performances. Steve Clarke has done a brilliant job with West Brom but the baggies appear to have hit a bit of a rut and I personally can’t see them getting themselves out of it at Anfield on Monday. Suarez and Sturridge have been immense and the Reds are bound to find goals against West Brom, I’m going to punt for a 2-0 Liverpool win. Enjoy the match folks! Like “The Liver Bird” on Facebook – www.facebook.com/TheLiverBirdsBlog
A news article on 2013-02-10 13:27:00 from: The Liver Bird
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de0dde0dde0dde0dde0dde0dde0dde0dde0dde0dde0dde0d house viewing went well to say the very least !! Exciting times for me I hope
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