The Reds visit the JJB today in the hopes of staying in the hunt for the fourth and final Champions League spot. The return of Fernando Torres last week helped spur Liverpool to a victory with his goal and Steven Gerrard finally re-appeared in that match as both men scored. Every match for Liverpool from now until the end of the season is a must win as Aston Villa, Tottenham, and Manchester Citeh are all vying for fourth.
Must win, eh?
Yes, must win. No time for slipups now.
TFA, any validity to what I’ve been hearing about selling Torres and Gerrard in the near future?
Wigan: Kirkland; Boyce, Caldwell, Bramble, Figueroa; Diame, McCarthy; N’Zogbia, Scharner, Rodallega; Moreno.
Subs: Stojkovic, Amaya, Thomas, Scotland, Moses, Gomez, Sinclair.
Liverpool: Reina; Mascherano, Carragher, Kyrgiakos, Insua; Lucas, Gerrard; Maxi, Kuyt, Benayoun; Torres.
Subs: Cavalieri, Johnson, Aquilani, Agger, Riera, Babel, Ngog.
For Wigan, the future of soccer, young James McCarthy. For Liverpool, an Argentine, a Dutchman and an Israeli.
You’ll all be thrilled to know that in FIFA 10 today, Liverpool beat Wigan 3-1 with goals from Benayoun, Torres, and Sergio Canales (yes, I stole him from Racing Santander)
I read in the papers today that Victor Moses is thinking about going to the World Cup with Nigeria, unhappy no England manager will give him a look.
I hated Joe Royle when he was manager at Everton, but by gosh, he’s a good commentator.
This game is as benign as expected thus far.
Considering that lack of commenting, I’m glad that unforeseen events condemned my liveblog attempt to failure before it even began.
Sorry JT! had to restart my comp, but I’m reading lol
Maxi Rodriguez showing off the acrobatics
Liverpool’s passing is just not working at all…..
and by reading I meant commenting
Cheekly little foul by Lucas there.
I think Gerrard is just too far back…..he’s receiving the ball in his own half most of the time
COME ON YOU LATICS!!!!
/obligatory
Kyrgiakos with a mugging….The pitch is looking like Wembley’s
did you expect a good pitch, even if it’s fresh, in Wigan?
Wow, that was Lucas-esque……
Actually Keith, it’s hilarious that the rugby pitch is on par with Wembley…..great job Wigan…..horrrrrrrrrible job Wembley
good christ, we are awful. Kuyt gift-wraps the ball to N’Zogbia for no reason whatsoever.
F**k me in the mouth. What the f**k was that?
That, Mags, was the sound of sixth.
Oh, sorry. are there Premier League teams playing today?
/just being an ass
Titus Bramble: Premier League defender. Amazing.
WHY CAN’T WIGAN PLAY FOOTBALL? WHY DO THEY HAVE TO PLAY “KICK THE MAN WITH THE BALL”?
/Arsenal’d
Finally some good play from the Reds….I don’t think they’ll get shut out today
Aquilani’s gotta be on the bench thinking “It’s a good thing I’m not playing so that these f**kballs can keep their stupid f**king form.”
I don’t care about the “agricultural tackling”, Keith. I’m much more perturbed about Liverpool’s love of self-destruction. I hate this team so f**king much at times. Like right now, for example.
Do you people realize what’ll happen if that other team in Manchester gets 4th? Come on, you scouse bastards. (Offer also valid for Villa and Spurs fans.)
Jamie Carragher…..back pass extraordinaire
Oh, I know, JT. I was just noting that hard tackles happen to everyone.
We’ve got games in hand, WSR; all we’ve gotta do is win them. To connect both threads, the Villa Fightback to Fourth begins at, ahem, Stoke (where it all started going wrong last season).
Dirk Kuyt looks like William Zabka at the end of Karate Kid. And I don’t say that to make a Bill Simmons joke or anything.
@WSR: On my FM save, what happens is that Man City eliminates Man Utd in the 2015 Champions League semifinals.
TSE: So you’re saying it looks like he’s been kicked in the face?
Forget the hairdryer speech at half-time; Rafa should order the lot of ‘em into the showers and throw in a couple of toasters. F**king rejects, this lot.
In other news, that Wigan goal sure did liven up the comments section, didn’t it?
@Keith: oh yes. He got crane techniqued at some point in his life, I’m sure.
Incorrect, TSE. The correct pop culture comparison for Dirk Kuyt is Sloth from The Goonies. All other comparisons are rendered invalid.
I do care about the agricultural tackling when only Liverpool is getting carded for it. But I’m sure we’ve probably been on the other end of that and I was alright with it at the time.
alright, Wigan. Don’t Reading it up out there.
Wow. that goal was horrible by the Reds (finally saw it on replay). The cross was quite nice, though.
JT, while Dirk does look slightly like Sloth, he’s no Iain Dowie.
@James T: Well done. Sloth love chunk.
Problem is, I can’t hear Kuyt yelling “Heyyyy you guys!” like Rita Moreno on “The Electric Company”
oh come on Keith, it’s not even a debate! Kuyt is Sloth (just in the face; the Dutch lad does work rather hard for the money)
I rest my case
Or, put a better way, …
MH: have you noticed how we were top (or near) the Fair Play standings last year, and now this season we seem to have more red cards than anyone else?
I’m guessing that we’re finally getting reffed fairly. Any team that has Lucas and Mascherano in midfield is going to give up a lot of fouls, not to mention guys like Carragher (slowing rapidly with age) and Kyrgiakos (Greek leaguer now playing in the EPL) shoring up the backline.
Ray Stubbs!
STOP SHOWING HOW BAD THE PASSING IS!
We are terrible.
I am officially putting my support behind Liverpool to take fourth. I decided this while taking a dump. Sort of fitting, I suppose.
Interesting fashion statement by Aquilani in the Guardian’s MBM: the crest on his hat is upside down.
@MH: it’s inside out. I’m guessing it’s too small for his head and his Italian blood doesn’t understand England’s version of cold.
F**k this garbage. I’m off to cut my hair and attempt suicide a la Luke Wilson in the Royal Tenenbaums
Ahh, Alberto Aquilani. Money well spent. To think we could have had Lee Cattermole for 1/3 of the price and maybe bought another striker with some of that. Or Niko Kranjcar!
@HL: Ehh, I want Villa in there. I want to see how they stack up against the best of Europe.
(No Olympiakos.)
Unfortunately, I’m watching through other non-ESPN means at work, so I’m getting commercials in Greek right now. On the up side, I get Martin Tyler for the game.
And yes, looking at the highlights, Liverpool are crap today.
@JT: Not only were we top (I’m pretty sure we took the whole thing), we also managed to go an entire Premier League season without getting anyone sent off in league play. I think the only person who got sent off was Lucas in replay of the Everton FA Cup match. That’s actually kind of hard to do when you think about it.
It’s either that we’re being reffed fairly (possible) or that our defense is getting caught so much that they’re pushing to get back and fouling people in the process. Insua, for instance, has commited two or three fouls like that in this game alone. I’m of the opinion that attacking fullbacks, while en vogue in Europe, don’t work for us; Glen Johnson in particular has been the cause of multiple goals (both against Portsmouth and both against Arsenal were directly attributable to his idiocy). Rather than go out and actually buy wingers, Rafa’s instead just pushed defenders up; it isn’t working now, and hasn’t worked all season. It’s also why we’re getting more cards.
Wow. Wigan should have taken that.
Apparently, Liverpool has never lost to Wigan. Ever. So we have that on our side, right?
And he blasts it over, Liverpool’s number 9!
Maurice Lindsey with his best Peter Boyle impression there.
@EF: The decision came down to who I dislike more: Gerrard or MON. The answer is MON, therefore my support goes to the Reds.
Gerrard is having an absolutely rubbish game
Yossi Benayoun is awful today. Maybe instead of shielding the 6’1″ Italian playmaker from those big physical meanies in the Premier League we should instead protect the 5’9″ scrappy little Jewish guy.
Oh, goody. Glen Johnson’s warming up. F**k him.
My feed just stuttered, and I thought for a second that it had died, and I wasn’t entirely disappointed.
This is just getting more and more brutal as it goes on. Carragher with the wrestling takedown!
I want to go back and correlate all of the matches this season that’ve ended in extreme tackles and find out how many of them involved Andre Marriner. Because it seems he’s always the ref for these kinds of games.
WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU GUYS PLAYING AT?1/!?
in theory, Andre Marriner should ref games involving Arsenal, because he loves dishing out cards for zesty tackling.
cheer up, fellow Scousers. At least it’s a short trip back from Wigan. Hop on the M62 and voila. The same cannot be said of what’s surely a dangerous fixture traveling to Fratton f**kin’ Park next Monday night.
Is this like “see how close to an own goal I can get without actually scoring an own goal” day? Because I’d prefer they try something less risky. Like autoerotic asphyxiation.
Jesus. How many bad tackles can one match have.
And James, you’re right on about Gerrard today. He looks like a zombie out there.
lovely. The only way we can get the ball to Torres is if he drifts miles wide.
Mascherano’s the only one who’s still interested in this game.
Nuke this team, I say. Let us fall into administration, and let’s build again with FC Anfield, gaining promotion to the English Barclays Coca-Cola Premier Super League II in time for the 2022/23 season. Son of Gerrard and son of Dani Pacheco will lead the team to glory against New Sunderland Rovers.
@Mags: That’s exactly what Liverpool fan* Michael Hutchence once said.
*may not be true
JESUS F**KING CHRIST, ANDRE MARRINER!
Dirk Kuyt: terrible passer of the ball
I will say that those folk who think Aquilani is the answer to this mess are insane. No one player can salvage this scrapheap.
HL: How can you hate MON? Just look at his joyful exuberance at left!
Let’s play “Guess Rafa’s Next Sub!”
I’m going with Riera for Maxi in the 70th.
and here’s your song, JT
@Keith: I love MON. He’s like if you gave the Lucky Charms leprechaun a coaching license.
@James: I blame the crap Wigan pitch for the horrible passing. No way they can…
What’s that you say? perfect? Brand new?
Nevermind.
In better news for Liverpool, Wigan have been stuck in their own half for a bit….
What really sucks about this entire season is that the players who f**ked it up will immediately want out because they’re not playing in the Champions League…when, really, they’re only not in the Champions League because of performances like this one.
Good one, Keith. I hope Ashley Young, Richard Dunne and John Carew all suffer broken ankles
MH: you think? Let ‘em leave then. This squad has been built on shaky foundations for years now. Needs a good cleanin’
Wigan have their defense and midfields perfectly organized in banks of four and five, barely 15 yards apart. Content to slide from left to right in pursuit of the ball and block all possible passing lanes.
JT: As I said, we’re playing Stoke at the weekend, so there is that chance.
And anyway, that would just clear the decks for Davies (who was a colossus at Anfield), Albrighton and Delfouneso.
I think that you’d lose someone, yeah. Not sure who’d leave first, but I can see two or three making noise about wanting out.
JT: sounds like foosball tactics.
Fernando Torres has not really been the same since that hat trick against Hull back in October. That was the last game I remember something really special out of him…most of his season this year has been frustratingly similar to that whiffed bicycle kick he just tried.
What the hell is going on? This is funny to me, except that West Ham falls deeper into trouble if this result stands.
When does Rafa get fired?
Martin Tyler quote of the night:
“The so-called Spanish Revolution at Liverpool might well become the Spanish Inquisition if Rafa Benitez can’t win tonight.”
Nobody expects that. BRING ME THE COMFY CHAIR!
Well played, TSE. Well played indeed.
Ryan Babel on…..let’s see what he brings….either uselessness or a f**king amazing goal…..or a dive
Gerrard should/could have gotten a straight red for that.
MH: if he didn’t get the straight red, he should have gotten a 2nd yellow immediately for flipping the two-fingered salute right in Marriner’s face.