October 2005
By Steve Kelly
1st October: No no no no no no! “Maybe they’re afraid of us, if they’re talking a lot it means we are doing the right things”. How the hell has Rafa got sucked into all this? The one thing we had on our side was a quiet dignity that was if anything riling Chelsea even more. Now he’s talking about Arsenal being better to watch a year ago – like that matters. Of course the hacks will ask the question, so try “they’re both great teams but we think we’re getting closer to their high standards”. Don’t stir it up when there’s another game to go. And of course journalism’s biggest Jeremiah, Derek McGovern, has got to jump in with both feet: “overrated Chelsea just don’t fool me. At 5-2 it’s logical to lump large on Liverpool”.
2nd October: I suppose the thought of Degsy unlumping large is some consolation, but it’s a small one. L 1 CHELSEA 4 saw Rafa perplexed by two traumatic events no manager could possibly foresee – Didier Drogba had a good game and Sami Hyypia had a bad one. We got picked off at the end, which makes it look worse than it actually was, but all the rubbish about their so-called fear is going to haunt us now. I’m not sure if there’s anything in the world more useless than Djimi Traore, apart from Riise’s right foot (but how would we know, he never uses it). I just hope Benitez learns his lesson. He got dragged into a war of words he should have left that to the other brat.
3rd October: “I went to shake his hand and put my thumb to my nose and wiggled my fingers. I’m an Arsenal fan and don’t like Liverpool but he didn’t see the funny side and lunged towards me. He hit me on the side of my head. I was stunned and backed away but he grabbed me and hit me again, very hard in the face”. Djibril Cisse – Man of the Year! Imagine the expression on the horrible cockney runt’s face when 6 foot plus of Neptune lookalike came steaming towards him. Why should this horrible, smarmy, ill-behaved brat get any sympathy from a right-wing press always banging on about declining standards of child behaviour? Bravo, Djibril. Of course if he played for United and leapt into the bastard’s chest he’d have a knighthood by now.
3rd October: Football seems to be about surface rather than substance nowadays, and unfortunately our man seems to be joining in. “The first 25 minutes we controlled the game but then they scored so everything changed”. ‘Control’ seems to be a hot button with Rafa, but it smacks of Houllier’s lunacy if you say, “hey we were doing great – then they scored and ruined everything”. We took a pasting, let’s not pretend otherwise, and the mark of a really good side is when it can overcome adversity. 3-0 in Turkey was dragged back – why should 1-0 on our own turf screw us up so much? Besides, I’ve done my best to blot it out but didn’t we equalise yesterday? Still, Rafa and I aren’t the only ones with selective amnesia as Fat Frank the big fat liar crows, “we are not scared of anyone, we have kept quiet and not shown any disrespect”. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Nice one, you big fat centurion. One of their players apparently said he was never so ‘up’ for a match in his life, and Chris B tartly retorts “shame you never felt that way in May”. Exactly. You have your 4-1, we’ll have our 5 cups.
4th October: The Mail is running a ‘cheat clampdown’ and has it in for Del Horno and Drogba for brandishing imaginary cards at Garcia on Sunday. I seem to recall John Terry being very high and mighty about the subject last Wednesday when he was accusing Alonso, not so vocal now of course. It seems Sami had a stomach bug on Sunday, which would explain a lot. Everyone has off days, but this was something else – he stunk the place out (so to speak).
4th October: The Real rumours about Benitez are being dismissed by his Spanish biographer. “Whereas Madrid change their coaches regularly Rafa wants to be at Liverpool for a long time and build a great team”. Good to hear. The Bernabeau is one of those places you go once you’ve decided to get out of the game. You make a success of it, all well and good. You don’t, then so what? (By the way I used a quote allegedly from Rafa in the last diary about using LFC as a stepping stone to the Real job – a friend did a Google search and could not find the quote anywhere. I originally got it from a report by Dave Prentice…………well, quite).
5th October: It’s Cisse Day, not just for the usual moan about not playing but also for the corruption investigation taking place in France. They seem very interested in the £15m we paid for him, specifically where it went. This is one of those infernal rumours that always seem to linger around our transfer deals, like a bad smell, but if we had an inquiry every time we’ve paid over the odds for a player since 1990 we’d never be out of court.
6th October: You know what they say: if you can’t make something work, go to the experts. The conundrum surrounding Peter Crouch is solved by one paper interviewing Harry Redknapp and er Gerry Francis. Now granted the former got goals out of PC at Southampton (though check the Championship table and wonder why he can’t get anyone else to do it), but Gerry Francis? “If you can get to the by-line and get crosses in he is not just a threat making goals but scoring them”. Thanks for that, Sherlock. Rafa has clearly heeded this valuable lesson, which explains the Echo headline ‘High hopes for Kewell’. “I want to see Harry doing what he’s capable of, beating defenders and getting crosses in”. Problem solved – hurrah! The Mail features a diagram of Liverpool’s long balls (indicated with arrows) to Crouch during the second half of the 0-0 with Chelsea. Admittedly the drawing does look like a snapshot from Little Big Horn but that doesn’t excuse the tiresome “Is it any wonder it finished goalless?” Have you got a sketch that indicates how many goalkeepers Chelsea are actually allowed during any one game? I thought not.
7th October: And now they’re putting words in Carra’s mouth. “I think he’d probably be better with somebody beside him” is helpfully translated by the hack as Carragher having urged Benitez to sign Owen! Speaking of mischief, Sunderland want money off Liverpool for their rearranged fixture because of the Japanese jaunt. And while we’re at it, let’s compensate them for the inferior league position they are in because we beat them. That would solve Everton’s financial problems in a single stroke.
8th October: “Now Wayne, you really must behave on the football pitch – especially during an England game. The eyes of the world are on you and you’re representing your country”. “Yes, David – run the bath for us, there’s a good lad”. England are through to the World Cup finals despite Beckham’s usual idiocy. I blame Peter Crouch. Why not, everybody else does.
9th October: Lots of low marks for England’s stars, but only one attracts the venom of the hacks. Take a guess. Meanwhile, Van Nistelrooy has to apologise to a Dutch team mate for deliberately injuring him in training and laughing in the face of an opponent he’d just scored against. And who’s to blame for all of this? True to his United birthright, it’s everyone else. “I am always being pissed off on the field, they stamp on my toes and say nasty things to me. Then there are the ones who open my mouth and have a good look inside, the ones who give me lumps of sugar. A joke’s a joke, but the saddle was going too far” etc etc. I might have made some of that up.
10th October: Steve Curry still has our European Cup win in his system and writes a (vaguely) supportive piece on our striker – but “Just what IS the point of Crouch?” is a nasty headline. “Opinion is sharply divided on how he performed for England but when you have a freakish build you are always going to be conspicuous”. Well, you’d know wouldn’t you? Gerrard is out of action for three weeks and yet again he played the full 90 minutes on Saturday. It was clear something was wrong, but he stayed on regardless. This has always been blamed on Sven before, but you have got to wonder if the player’s priorities aren’t a touch skewed.
10th October: Prentice’s “red embarrassment detector” snuffles out a passage from St John’s new book which is spread over two stirring pages. Shankly apparently didn’t personally tell him he was dropped before a game with Newcastle……… not exactly ‘Loverpool’, but that won’t stop Prenno who derides the Shankly stories beloved of his players that are “always but always prefixed by a screwing up of the eyes and an uttering of the word ‘son’”. Unlike all those heart-warming stories about Kendall, always but always prefixed with a lurch forward and an uttering of the words “It’s Liverpool’s fault” eh?
11th October: Some more snidiness in the Mail. An item about Rafa claiming we’re not intimidated by Roman’s roubles is suffixed by the news that we’ve taken a Stockport teenager on loan “with a view to a £150,000 fee that could eventually rise to £750,000”. Then another bit from the hilarious Des Kelly about Besian Idrizaj (who he?) saying that many areas of Liverpool seem dangerous to him. “Just for the record he grew up in Kosovo”, sneers Kelly. Maybe he should leave for that sea of tranquillity otherwise known as London. Any mention of bombs going off would of course be in bad taste.
11th October: Did Prentice’s copy of St John’s book come with free tissues? He’s getting his money’s worth that’s for sure. “Houllier bought time with 3 trophies in 2001……..but I was not convinced by that surge of success and no serious judge of the game could have been”. Bully for you. Those of us not blessed with second sight (or contaminated by a virulent bitterness) were pretty damn chuffed at the time. Still, you’ve provided a few cheap laughs for the blues so all’s well that ends well, right?
12th October: Some people just don’t get it do they? Le Tallec is “fed up of being trialled at every club, I don’t want to be loaned again”. No, you must be given a first-team place automatically based merely on the vertiginous opinion you hold of yourself. Crouch meanwhile is booed onto the pitch by those endearing wags that follow the national team. The new Heskey, anyone?
13th October: Never thought I’d say this, but fair play to the Chelsea lads (and Rooney) for defending Crouch from the Neanderthals. God knows I’m not that thrilled that he’s in our team, but the reaction to him the other night was sick. Someone give him John Barnes’ phone number, or Emile’s. Hmm, anyone else detecting a pattern here? The Cisse deal is being raked over, with the Echo asking “where has the money gone”? I suspect they could offer a suggestion or two, but even with their legal backup they’ve keep it to themselves. As will I, obviously. It would be interesting to get the viewpoint of the manager who bought him of course, but that book is taking an eternity to come out.
14th October: “Those responsible don’t know a lot about football”……hmmm. I’m not going to defend the Old Trafford rabble from Rafa’s scorn, but it does raise the issue of whether Peter’s actually as good as he’s making out. There’s been a little evidence to back him up so far, but not a lot. What was right on the money was his assertion that “it’s my responsibility and if we don’t play to his needs we must find solutions”. That’s more like it, frankly. Maybe finding a solution in the summer might have been a good idea, but hey you’re the manager.
15th October: Cisse’s recent outburst about a place in the side draws the inevitable reaction from the manager. “We can win with one player or another, I do not care, only that we win. He understands this”. I’m not sure I do. The lad’s the only one of his strikers putting the ball in the net and he’s being messed about to be honest. Rafa also offers up a bizarre, Houllier-esque little factoid: “Cisse is the only player to have been in the squad for every game this season”. Well, what of it? Why are you asking a goal scorer to do his job on the bench or the wing? As if to prove a point he cracks in a fine goal today. L 1 BLACKBURN ROVERS 0 was never going to be a classic and once they were down to ten men they sat back further still. Savage never changes, and of course the red card gave Useless license to talk nonsense. There could only be one winner of this game and if Morientes hadn’t blown those late chances the score would have reflected that. If their ‘loyal’ followers want to taunt Cisse about a broken leg that’s their business. Try it with Carragher some time, cowards.
16th October: Congratulations to Neil Silver of the ‘People’ – you have written the worst match report in the history of the game. Starting with a spurious link to John Lennon who’d be 65 a week ago (!) “had he been alive” – thanks for that insight, being dead does tend to cast a shadow over your birthday celebrations – he proceeds to list a veritable treasure trove of Beatles puns, each one more toe-curlingly unfunny than the last. “Long tall Sally is yet to break his scoring duck” ………good grief. Still, wit and insight aren’t requirements for employment on that paper, otherwise God knows what urine-stained alley Paul McCarthy would end up in. It’s okay apparently for England fans to boo one of their players onto the field. He also calls Djibril Cisse a fraud. Read your article from the Sunday before Istanbul again, and then tell us who the fraud is. Hateful, hateful man.
16th October: Arsene Wenger: “I am very proud to have won 4 FA cups, not many managers have managed it”. But Arsene, don’t you remember? Anyone can get to the FA Cup final. Millwall did it last year, and who knows maybe Coventry this? That isn’t the best line though: “I am going into a situation where I have to choose between the FA Cup and the Champions League, of course I will choose the latter”. Aaaaaaah, got you now. So your dismal, hopeless CL record up to now was down to ‘choice’ was it? What happened to you? Years of sparring with the red-faced one has damaged you totally, you’re a bigger brat than he is – and not many managers have managed that either.
17th October: Not much point in blasting McCarthy when local journalists are just as petty. “Djibril Cisse’s ruthless talent for converting at least one in every five chances……” is a pretty downbeat description of a match-winner. Morientes (so profligate) and Crouch (almost anonymous) get an easy ride in comparison. Look lad, Owen’s not come back so get used to it. It’s becoming ever clearer what Rafa thinks of the player, that handshake on Saturday had the warmth of a boa constrictor embracing its next meal, but why keep booting the prone body? Why Cisse? Not even Josemi gets treated this way.
18th October: Phew. When they say former Liverpool star fails drugs test your heart skips a beat. Okay, they may not be here any more but certain players like Robbie and Paddy remain idols and you don’t want their memory tainted. It’s Xavier anyway, so you can all sleep soundly. Oh, and feel free to use that performance-enhancing line everyone in the world thought of at the same time! Speaking of obvious jokes Mick Dennis of the ‘Express’ doesn’t like the way Graeme Le Saux is never off our TV screens: “I’m seeing him more than I see my wife”. Funny, Le Saux coul- (er, a word if you please – legal ed).
19th October: And finally, a little credit where it’s due. “He has done a good job, it is good that Djibril is now scoring for us, he gives us pace in attack”. Yes he does doesn’t he, and that was a great strike. ANDERLECHT 0 L 1 could have been a lot easier, but 7 points out of 9 is a great return in a group that looked tricky when it was drawn. Too much was made of how poor the Belgians are, most of which didn’t emerge when they lost 1-0 at Stamford Bridge for some unfathomable reason. You might know that Carra would get involved in a handball ‘controversy’ after everything he said about Chelsea in the previous tie – didn’t he do that in January against Norwich too? Look, when everyone said The New Henchoz that’s not quite what we meant. The Reds are in a strong position now, with Chelsea in our corner for once by battering Betis. Ah, remember when Len Capeling saw us lose at Highbury and said it would be a kindness to keep us out of Europe? Dem was der days!
20th October: Rafa may be offering kind words but Bascombe is in no mood to relent. “Cisse is effectively a slimline, athletic, Gallic Mick Quinn”. Is there any need for that? This is personal now. You can like or dislike a player, we all do it, but I wouldn’t expect that from a gimp like Prentice. A fanzine’s no place to get snooty about insulting players granted, but this is pathetic now.
20th October: Meanwhile, the golden boy himself isn’t getting in much match practise for Germany 2006. Oops, sorry. I meant “Owen can’t play for Newcastle because of hamstring problems”. Sorry for the confusion. “To say I am suicidal about the current state of affairs is not far off the mark”, says Souness. So not all bad news then. Dyer, Moore, Harper, Emre and Luque have all missed games because of hamstring trouble. The name of Phil Boersma does not appear in this report.
21st October: Cisse gets a caution for the clip around the Gooner brat’s earhole. Why? Did they run out of medals? There are some kind words for him in the Echo, for a change. “Cisse has started 9 matches and scored 9 goals. Coupled with the kind of pace that gets men sent off, it’s a statistic Benitez can’t afford to ignore”. Well put. Unfortunately, Dave Prentice wrote that. Praising him and slagging off Basco just doesn’t feel right at all.
22nd October: Two winning goals haven’t stopped Rafa from pointing the finger at the number 9 and (over) praising Crouch. It’s Heskey-Fowler all over again, isn’t it? Reina denies one up front has hindered our goals tally, says no one should question our style of play because “Benitez is the person who knows best”. Oh good, that’s very reassuring. FULHAM 2 L 0, on the other hand, certainly wasn’t. It was awful in fact. Two up front didn’t seem to give us much more impact; in fact we just weren’t at the races. The home side were distinctly average and did the bare minimum to win comfortably. Bit of a siege second half, whipped up by the fans after Rafa walked right along the touchline in front of us before the second half. Doubt he did it on the way back, but I’d left by then. There’s trouble ahead if we can’t win on one of the few away grounds where we triumphed last season.
23rd October: The vultures are circling. Paul McCarthy’s match report displays an unmistakable relish (“Fulham gleefully ripped the guts out of Liverpool”, if you please) and tags Sissoko as the worst Liverpool player ever! Nice to know people aren’t rushing to conclusions on the basis of one match, isn’t it? We really did put this swine’s nose out of joint in May. It says a lot about his powers of observation though. We were rubbish yesterday and Momo wasn’t great, but how can he be called the worst player ever when he’s standing right next to Josemi?
24th October: I love Casablanca: “this place is full of vultures, vultures everywhere”. He was obviously a journalist in a later life. Steve Curry somehow drags his fat arse out of Manchester to be at the Fulham game and can’t leave the Owen thing alone. “It is time Rafa Benitez recognised that he paid over the odds for Peter Crouch who seems incapable of hitting a barn door from 5 yards”. Two months of the season gone, and this in a report on a match in which Crouch played ten minutes! But then Bascombe compares Morientes to Bird Flu (it’s a funny quote in fairness) so Curry isn’t the only one. I’d maybe wait until we had a team creating good chances before we consigned our entire strike-force to the dustbin, but that’s just me.
25th October am: Usual big talk from Rafa about tonight’s meaningless game. “If you want to be consistent you must have the same attitude in all the games”. Uh oh – Turf Moor alert.
25th October pm: Obviously, that line about the “same attitude” doesn’t apply to the manager’s team selection. Carson, Raven, Whitbread, Potter, Warnock (crueller types would say Kewell two games in a row) and Pongo for half an hour. CRYSTAL PALACE 2 L 1 wasn’t a shock by any means, we couldn’t beat them last April either and Rafa is at least consistent. This is the Cardiff Cup and we only really bothered until the semi final last time out. Dowie’s got a nerve claiming they beat the champions of Europe of course. At least Gerrard’s back. With the CL and Japan still to come we really could do without these matches even if it’s only the second-rate (string, surely? – ed) who risk being injured or tired. Can’t escape the thought that we actually went out to win this match and couldn’t.
26th October: At last, the blues get a chance to hit back. Having suffered the humiliations of Villareal and Bucharest (“in for a week, out for ten years”!) and poor league form, the Echo can finally get some digs in at ‘the other lot’ - that’s the team that bears the city’s name, spread its fame worldwide and gave the paper its highest sales figure, in case you were wondering. The front-page headline reads “7th best team in London 2, Champions of Europe 1”. How sly is that? Of course Everton’s own exit will worry them not one iota, they’re used to failure and misery so why not live vicariously through Liverpool’s not-quite-so-numerous conquerors? The match report can’t bear to even mention Crouch, though at least it isn’t Cisse’s fault this time. It usually is. Just because he’s not even on the bench………
27th October: The Mail’s up to no good as usual, printing diametrically opposed views of Tuesday’s game from the manager and the captain complete with obligatory “calm down calm down” caption. Actually that’s funny by Daily Mail standards – usually the words “rather” “jab” “fork” and “testicles” come to mind. We’re back to the usual Steven Gerrard Is Utterly Brilliant And Not Responsible For Any Defeat mode if this morning’s St John quotes are anything to go by. It’s funny how even a Kewell-hater like Chris B gave Harry man of the match the other night, though. Garnering all the credit, dodging any of the blame – it’s nice work if you can get it.
28th October: “Hoodoo strikes as bruised Kirkland s-”……… you don’t really need any more, do you? Oh okay then. “Medical experts insisted on a complete rest for the on-loan keeper”. About 16 years ought to do the trick.
29th October: Mourinho doesn’t want to be hated y’know. No, honestly. “One day when we lose maybe it will be a national holiday, but we are ready for that”. Me too. We can have May Day Monday and Tuesday, to commemorate the glorious day Chelsea lost on May 3rd 2005 – but I keep forgetting, you have banged on for 6 months straight how you didn’t lose that game, and after your recent Carling Cup exit you said you didn’t lose that either. I can’t understand why you’re hated………
29th October: It’s better, let’s put it that way. You can grumble about L 2 WEST HAM 0 on a number of counts. We’d be in a terrible state if the ’ammers ever beat us at Anfield and they never once looked like changing that. Our finishing has got to be the worst in the division though and panic did begin to set in towards the end. Until Zenden scored, and what was that cupped ear all about? If he’s saying he hasn’t had the appreciation he deserves, he’s one cheeky bastard. You try coming up with a song for that name (Zenden The Clowns, perhaps). We played quite well but it will come to nought if we can’t provide the finish the moves deserve.
30th October: That said the match report in the ‘Mirror’ is a complete farce. Clearly written before the game took place, its obituary tone is well out of order. Garcia 4/10, Morientes 3/10 – what match was this pillock watching? “The Liverpool manager knew he wasn’t fooling anybody” – that goes double for you, Manc. How did your lot get on yesterday by the way? That’s right, thrashed 4-1 and struggling in the CL. You want to be a vulture, there’s a bigger carcass 35 miles down the road.
30th October: Silly me, United is actually the place to be. For Steven Gerrard that is, according to Ian ‘Houllier for England manager’ Ridley. It must be difficult to write without a dignified bone in your body. The dickhead virtually tells Ferguson to make an illegal approach for Gerrard to replace Keane. Small point, but if he wasn’t prepared to join the new force in football what makes you think he’d join a spent one? When you totally kiss arse like he did for years and then turn 180 degrees on the next manager, your words are worthless. Ask Ian St John.
31st October: Xabi Alonso is one of the better players and seemingly a good guy, but we can do without the “we hurt just as much as the fans” routine. “You should have seen the dressing room after the Fulham game”……… well, I’d have quite liked to but since I hadn’t brought my flamethrower it would have been a wasted opportunity. This is the kind of crap Jamie Redknapp used to come out with on a regular basis and it wears off very, very quickly.
31st October: The Echo match report talks about fans wanting Rafa to pick his best side. “Benitez agreed with those sentiments, and the players he trusts filled ten of his eleven positions”. I don’t think you really need to know who number 11 was. This has become personal now and though he didn’t play well Cisse wasn’t the worst man on the pitch – and yet the local newspaper is singling him out game after game after game. It’s all very well showing support for Crouch when he’s under attack from outsiders, but for another player Bascombe is not only joining in but he gets the first kick in every single time. It’s just wrong. Imagine if he hadn’t got into double figures……
|
