While one Rafa bagged the Australian Open title, the other Rafa scored a league double against Chel$ki, a feat last achieved in 1990. After drawing way too many games, dropping points unnecessarily and culpable of not finishing off weaker opponents, the Reds finally conjured their first win in 2009 and as blasphemous as this might sound, we have that bald, yellow-card lovin’ prick Mike Riley to thank, after he sent off Frank Lampard, whom in my opinion, had an anonymous game, up till that dubious “tackle” against Xabi Alonso at the hour mark. In all honesty, Lamps doesn’t deserve the card, not that I’ve suddenly become a Chel$ki lover overnight. Instead, he could have shown it to Unabrow Bosingwa for that harsh kick to Benayoun’s lower back near the corner post, in front of the Kop and the linesman!?! Fact?

Remember August 2007? The day El-Nino opened his goal-scoring account in a Liverpool jersey, and what better way to haunt Chel$ki than to end his 8-month goal drought at Anfield with a brace in the 2nd half. Though Alex, arguably Chel$ki’s best player yesterday, managed to stop several goal attempts when all Petr Cech could do is spill the ball, Liverpool’s number 9 superbly headed in the ball from a Fabio Aurelio cross on the 89th minute. His second in the match came during injury time when Benayoun was dispossessed by Cashley, giving Torres the opportunity to slot in a rebound. Seems like all those Japanese cooking lessons are paying off.

Now before we could go on gloating about this lucky win (yes Liverpool did play well, but c’mon who are we kidding), let’s not forget we are still trailing Manures by 2 points and the Red Devils still have a game in hand. Things are still pretty much unsettled in the dressing room. Rafa has yet not signed his new contract; Agger is not being offered any. Keane, after being repeatedly snubbed, is probably in London waiting for medical examination at the Spurs training ground, as I’m typing this. We have to face our Blueshite neighbours (AGAIN) for a FA Cup 4th round replay…please, not another draw :\

On the bright side, Chickendinner thinks Liverpool will do just fine from now on. Comments?

Rafa finally learns how to pronounce ‘dilemma’, some Marseille fans are morons and clearly, we have a goal-scoring crisis

CSD was spot-on when he predicted a narrow score-line for Wednesday’s Matchday 5 encounter with French side, Olympique de Marseille. Nevertheless, this “scary” win qualifies the Reds to the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League tournament for the 5th successive year – a perfect record for Benitez. Back from groin injury, Captain Fantastic showed us why he hearts scoring against Marseille with a 23rd minute emphatic header from a Xabi Alonso cross, making him joint top scorer with Barca’s Lionel Messi. Though seriously we should all give thanks to Bakari Koné for hesitating to man-mark Steven Gerrard in the penalty area.

Erik Gerets’ men won at Anfield the last time they visited, so they were probably confident of stealing a victory at our fortress again. Niang, Zubar, Taiwo and pink-lovin’ Ben Arfa came close, but all failed to beat the awesomeness, that is, Pepe Reina.

2nd half was a one-sided affair with the Ligue 1 team surging forward, hoping to level the game to at least guarantee them a UEFA cup placing, ahead of PSV Eindhoven. The introduction of Andrea Dossena to replace injured Fabio Aurelio, exposed the left flank, and the Italian proved he lacks the pace to keep up with feisty Ben Arfa, and was even guilty of making foolish tackles, that could have resulted in a penalty, if not for Portugese ref’s leniency.

Milestones

This game was Benitez’s 66th European game in charge of Liverpool and the win marks his 39th victory, equaling Bob Paisley’s record. Steven Gerrard’s cracker was his 30th goal in Europe.

Marseille fans

So some charitable Marseille fan decided to throw a lighter at Stevie G, while he was about to take a corner kick during the 1st half. That’s not cool. I don’t think Stevie was going for a smoke break either, but anyways, unlike Drogba, MBE was professional about it and chose not to retaliate.

And what’s with that poof holding up an Everton scarf?!?

Again?

News has it that Torres might be suffering from a relapse of the hamstring injury that has been plaguing him. Just when the Gernando partnership was about to take off…*sigh

Other news:
Inter lost to Panathinaikos (imagines puppet Jose going “shuttup Panathinaikos”)
Chelsea’s latest achievement: Frank Lampard sent off for 2 bookable offence. Keep it up people!

It was business as usual for our men in Red, as they wrapped up this late-kickoff match with a 3-nil victory over newly-promoted, West Brom Albion. Now unlike Stoke, West Brom actually took the game to Liverpool, and looked like the more promising side in the first 20 minutes.

However they lost confidence after Robbie Keane broke his league duck when he drove home a slick through-ball from Captain Fantastic in the 34th minute. The last time the Irishman scored in the Premier League was against Reading last season.

And the Liverpool no 7 didn’t just stop there. 3 minutes from half-time, Fabio Aurelio sends a long pass to Keane who smashes it past former Liverpool goalkeeper Scott Carson.

While the 1st half was a one-sided affair, West Brom managed to stifle the Reds in the 2nd half, and we were unable to convert, even after the introduction of Fernando Torres (yay he’s back). It almost looked like a boring end to the 2nd half, until the most unlikeliest person added the icing on the cake in the 90th minute with a top-corner goal. Kudos to Alvaro Arbeloa…he deserves to score after all his hard work as a full-back.

This marks Rafael Benitez’s 150th triumph as a Liverpool boss, (and coincidentally Rafa is being offered a new contract). Because Pepe Reina kept a cleansheet, West Brom has not been able to score against us for the past 23 years, and additionally, they have not yet won at Anfield in 41 years.

MOTM: Keano! He actually looked like he’s enjoying himself. It’ll only be a matter of time before he starts becoming a goal scoring machine. Loved that no-look backpass in the 24th minute.

5. We didn’t sign another keeper
Surely six or eight or who knows how many Rafa has in his back pocket isn’t enough for him.

4. Gabriel Paletta was sold
Though happy it happened, I was still a bit surprised when it did. I really thought Rafa was going to hold on to Paletta as long as possible, hoping that the Argentinian would wake up one morning and all of sudden be a Premiership quality centre back.

3. We signed a French midfielder
First, this is surprising because Rafa is not known for his affinity for French players. Sure, Momo is technically French, but he plays internationally for Mali and has learned the ropes under Rafa in Spain and now England. Second, I’m going to guess that Damien Plessis, the kid we signed, didn’t speak with Anthony Le Tallec nor Charles Itandje nor even Djibril Cisse beforehand. Which brings me to my next one.

2. Anthony Le Tallec is still a Liverpool player… for now
There’s still a little over three hours remaining and he can always be sent out on ‘emergency’ loan at anytime, but as of this moment, he’s still a Liverpool player collecting dust in the reserves. Maybe Plessis was brought in to keep him company. Wouldn’t it be ironic that one of our many, many heroes of the 2005 Champions League run would be needed once again to suit up for us this season? He’s without a doubt the most likely to be gone by the time Big Ben (doesn’t) strikes midnight.

1. We didn’t sign a defender
The only thing I can take comfort in is the fact that we have players like Xabi and Mascherano who are intelligent enough football wise and disciplined enough to possibly play centre back and also we’ll have Carragher back after the international break and Aurelio returning not too long after that, but it would have been nice to sign even more insurance.

The only other negative from this is that it exposes our backline even more. We’re probably going to have go out and buy someone or bring up Stephen Darby and/or Emiliano Insua from the reserves. The latter I think is ready, but I’m not so sure about the former.

That brings up some of the best news I’ve heard in a long while. Seems like Rafa has come to his senses and sold Gabriel Paletta to Boca Juniors. That’s one nightmare I can stop having. Paletta was just not disciplined enough for the Premiership. He had all the other tools, but got caught out of position way too many times. It’s a shame he never worked out and I wish him all the luck in Argentina where he should be fine.

Also Fabio Aurelio has returned to training early and could be ready to go as early as after the international break in mid-September. He could also be a huge boost to our backline problem, providing cover at left back for Riise and freeing up Arbeloa to cover the centre and right back spots.

In other good news, we won. That’s twelve matches undefeated including preseason, not bad. I’ve watched the match a couple of more times and pretty much got it spot on the first time. I’m going to do player grades in a little bit as well as a ‘What will Rafa do?’ for the Toulouse match.