Down But Not Out

Well Blackburn was a gutter of a result. Same mistakes from our defence we've seen too many times already this season, namely a soft cross coming in from our left and the defence getting sucked over, leaving a man spare. Didn't help that Pepe was out of position, but I count three errors in their goal, and not one of our back five came out smelling of roses.

We should have done enough afterwards to take the game back, but we didn't unfortunately, which leads to our next problem, which is our conversion rate. At around 7%, we're apparently something like 17th in the league on this stat.

At least Bellamy is off the mark, but from the moment the fixture computer did it's dirty work, very little seems to have gone right for us this season.

I refuse to believe our challenge is over, but we've got a lot of hard work to do and will have to exceed the two runs last season if we want to keep it alive.

Hopefully we can repeat what Arsenal did and start a run against the Mancs. Otherwise we may end up looking to qualify for Europe and take some silverware in another competition. Eleven points would be far from insurmountable, but we are making it hard for ourselves, and if we come away with a loss then the pressure will really be on.

I've not been one of those who has said we will definitely win the league this season: I think we need to overtake the Mancs first and close the gap on Chelsea as a platform to challenge them, but at this moment we are staring down the barrel a bit. Never say never though, as stranger things have happened.

Let's not forget Bordeaux away first. I wouldn't be surprised if Rafa picks a weakened lineup, looking for an away draw, so we can concentrate on the game at Old Trafford. Let's hope that doesn't bite us in the arse if I'm right, as I would hate to drop the ball in Europe and then not make up for it in the following fixture.

Bordeaux will be defensive even at home, and they will be looking hard at our left-back area for an advantage. I think we've got the quality to get a result, whatever lineup Rafa picks, but the next two games could prove crucial and we have to start taking our chances if we want to take something from this season.

Lack of Updates and Bellamy's Form

Apologies about that. I've had a monster flu, and been busy at work as well. Not to mention the disappointment of letting in two in the second half against Galatasaray and then losing to Bolton. Combine that with International week and I'm not a happy Zig.

Something has managed to lift my spirits though, and it's Bellamy's assist and goal for Wales. Not that I give a stuff about Wales. I'd usually rather them lose, but Bellamy has looked short of confidence in a Liverpool shirt of late, and when Wales got roundly trounced in his first game as Captain, I thought it could only get worse.

I watched the Wales game tonight, and he looked sharp and grew in confidence as the game went on. Blackburn's defence are in a different league to Cyprus, but playing against his former club, on a high from todays showing, hopefully he can net one at Anfield on Saturday and get on a run of form.

I wasn't exactly keen on the signing of Bellamy. His scoring record, apart from a purple patch last season, has always been woeful. In mitigation, that has coincided with perpetual injury, but he played quite a few games last season, and if he stays uninjured and finds his rhythm, I can see him getting fifteen to twenty goals for us this season.

What I've found to like about him since he joined the Mighty Reds is his willingness, his pace, his game intelligence and surprisingly his attitude, which has been little short of exemplary on the pitch. Perhaps he needs to bring back a bit more of the nasty streak, without losing his rag, and perhaps under Rafa he can improve his understanding of the offside trap, but there's potential there and I think he could well turn out to be more important for us than Cisse at less than half the price.

I hear you saying that Cisse scored nineteen goals last season, but to be frank I never felt he was likely to score playing though the centre, and apart from his goals he rarely gave us what we needed on the right wing. The jury is still out on Pennant in that position, but Bellamy looks a better bet than Djibril as a striker to me.

Hopefully Blackburn will be the game where he rids me of my pre-season doubts completely and finds his feet for LFC.

Newcastle Undone

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million. So I won't spend too many trying to describe the major incidents of the match against Newcastle when you can watch them instead:



Video courtesy of Youtube.

It was great to see Kuyt get off the mark, and we'll gloss over the small matter of the Newcastle defender getting the last touch on the ball, as Kuyt's initial touch had ensured it was goalbound anyway. The Dutchman has already proved popular with the Anfield faithful for his workrate and attitude, and now he's in the scoring my bet is that he'll go from strength to strength.

Alonso has hit efforts from his own half with either foot within the space of nine months, and must now hold the world record for the most distance travelled by the ball in two consecutive club goals (his last effort being the left-footed strike against Luton from his own half).

Most of all though, it's great to see the team getting a scrappy three points. We didn't play well: we regularly squandered possession and looked far too nervous. But after a run of bad form, it was just what the doctor ordered, and with more of our team looking like they're returning to form and fitness it's a good time to face two more home ties against Tottenham and Galatasaray.

If we can get a run of form going, hopefully it will snowball into the kind of form we saw in two great runs last season. If that happens then our season will have started a week or two earlier than last term. Progress of a kind.

If we can avoid the mini-dip we suffered after new year as well then we will undoubtedly be closer to the title than last season. Whether that will be enough remains to be seen, but looking at our last seven fixtures compared to Chelsea, there is still a slim hope ...

The End of the World As We Know It?

Much has been said of Liverpool's league season being over, but when all of the three sides mooted as title challengers have lost one game, with Liverpool only having lost two, it seems a silly statement to be making after just four league games have been registered, in a season where we have brought in six new players after a nearly twelve month run of games for some of our players who featured in the world cup over the summer.

As far as yesterday's game goes, and it's hard to be definitive with Chelsea playing forty minutes with just ten men, it was our best performance in the league against Chelsea in the Benitez reign. Still something was missing, and we seemed to lack drive and confidence. Chelsea were willing to run at us with the ball and create far more movement, whilst we seemed to want an extra few seconds on the ball during our attacks, and often looked bereft of ideas with Chelsea getting nine or ten men behind the ball after they went one up through a Drogba wonder goal.

Our finishing still appears to be suffering from the same malaise as in previous seasons, but with two new forwards trying to gel into the team this was perhaps to be expected at this stage. Still, on another day Gerrard might have taken another touch or sidefooted his best opportunity past the keeper, instead of blasting it straight at him, Kuyt's sizzler might have crept in under the bar, Crouch's header might have been two foot either side of the keeper, we may have been handed a penalty for Lampard's shove on Gerrard in the box, and we would not have such hysteria in the press or from Liverpool fans.

To the same extent that we handed Chelsea six points on Sunday, we could take those six back at Anfield on the return fixture. With Man Utd dropping points to a struggling Arsenal, perhaps their run has also been overhyped against weak sides this season.

I don't see anyone tipping Pompey for the title, so perhaps we should take it like we did in the old days pre-Sky, and wait until ten games have passed before pronouncing judgement on the season.

We have now played two of our hardest away fixtures, and though the results have not been encouraging, there is still time for this side to click and go on another unbeaten run like the two last season, especially with two notionally easier home games coming up where we can hopefully pick up maximum points and make our league position look more realistic.

p.s. for fair comparison, here's my reaction immediately after the match on RAWK, which has been tempered somewhat since through time and alcohol:

When Drogba scored, my reaction after the initial disappointment was "at least we'll have to have a go at them now". When Ballack was sent off, I thought "ok, so now we can really attack them". Ten minutes later I was still waiting for it to happen. We had our chances, and on another day we might have scored. But I never really felt that we attacked them with urgency.

That's what has disappointed most. We didn't really unsettle them with pace and movement for me, even when we went one man up. I think it's probably the best performance we've seen at Stamford Bridge in the last few seasons, and perhaps our best performance this season, but it was still some way short. People will say our finishing let us down, but I thought it was our drive. Every time they got the ball they ran right at us and moved it, whereas I felt we always paused for a second or two when we regained possession.

Gutted after that because I felt we had a real chance to take at least a point. Time for a drink.

YNWA

This is an absolutely outstanding montage. A must watch:



Youtube