1) Was he a pawn in a power struggle between Rafa, Parry & the Owners?
2) He wasn’t performing well enough to fit his 20-million-pound price tag?
3) Insert your own ridiculous reason here

It is a known fact that Rafa’s 1st choice target during the summer was Barry. That boy will probably be counting his lucky stars it’s not him being pushed around like an unwanted baby.

Regardless of all the conspiracy theories, I am beginning to have certain concerns.

1) With Robbo gone, we have only Kuyt as a proper striker in the event that El Nino gets injured/suspended/overworked. Egg Nog just don’t cut it. Even then, Kuyt will never be as prolific as Nando, I feel.
2) We just lost about £5m on this deal.
3) What’s with Benitez saying things to the effect of Keane’s value will drop to about £10m at the end of the season when he just signed Keane for £20m at the start of the season? Doesn’t seem exactly like a great deal to have your purchase depreciate by half after just a year! (Someone please enlighten me on this!) Is this just some excuse cooked up when he was taking a crap that morning?
4) Benching Robbo after he scored 2 in a match just isn’t giving the boy a sporting chance, I feel.

All things said and done, somehow I feel relieved that Keane has moved back to a club where he is treated as he deserves. A class act and a hero. I haven’t heard any whining or complaints about the way he was treated by the Club. A true professional.

I trust I speak for most of us when we wish Robbie all the best in White Hart Lane.

Cheers, mate!

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?

Gerrard was played following his little run-in with the law and produced yet another composed display.

Keane wasted another hatfull of chances as usual and was replaced by Torres after 73 minutes. Nando showed Keane how it’s done here in Anfield after linking up with Gerrard in injury time after Riera put The Reds up after 24 minutes.

Preston put up a good fight but in the end, Liverpool managed to secure passage into the next round, where we will meet our Mersyside rivals, Everton on the weekend of January 24/25 at Anfield. This match comes a week after a similar fixture in the League.

Personally, I’m wondering if Rafa will put as much emphasis on the FA Cup as he does in the League. Would that be spreading our team too thin? What do you think?

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!

If we hadn’t scored, I would probably started off by saying Liverpool was shite. Nando’s former club outplayed us, and though we had most of the possessions in the 2nd half, we were not able to find the net. And this, despite 2nd-choice goalkeeper, Leo Franco, spilling the ball on several occasions.

Robbie Keane proved once again he is pretty much ineffective as a lone striker and has not yet tuned in to the same frequency as the rest of the squad. Even the commentator mentioned that he “tries too hard”.

The 1st half was mostly played in the midfield, both teams giving away the ball recklessly. We had several close calls, as early as the 1st minute into the game, and on the 15th, when Xabi Alonso’s long cross to Keane was met by a volley which then miss the back of the net.

Atletico had their chances too in the 1st half, when Simao was unmarked in front of Reina, but ballooned the ball way off the post. It was captain Maxi Rodriquez who converted for the Spanish team in the 37th minute, after a sublime pass from Antonio Lopez on the right wing.

There was a couple of hand ball claims in the 2nd half. Ref Hansson just couldn’t give 2.5 shites about them. Dejected Rafa Benitez seemed to be running out of options when he surprisingly called upon the services of David N’gog, whom I might add, looked more at ease in his striker role, than the Irishman.

Man of the match for me would have to be Steven Gerrard, if not Daniel Agger. Despite losing steam in the later part of the 2nd half, he kept pressing on and had several good shots on goal, notably one on the 70th minute after a link-up with Keane. Captain Fantastic once again saved the game for us : ))

Interestingly enough, Liverpool has not won against a Spanish club from their past 5 encounters in Anfield, so this is kinda, sorta a good draw for the Reds. LFC just needs one more victory to qualify into the knockout rounds.

I wanted to take a minute to talk a little bit about Rafa Benitez. Such a great manager and inspiration he has been for this club. He’s delivered the Champions League, the FA Cup, but now faces another challenge, the league. For many clubs, his performance would be iconic, but not for a club like Liverpool.

The big four are held to a higher standard and that standard is that you must win trophies, maybe not every season, but often. Even the fans understand that a team can have a bad year, but when the year turns into years, they’ll get a little impatient. Rafa knows this. After not delivering any silverware and having to deal with a divided boardroom that tends to leak information to the press, why on earth would this manager who could be anywhere stay at Liverpool? I think it’s because he believes in what he’s doing. I think he believes in his players and knows that glory is only a short step away.

Rafa continues to build the current squad and sign young players to develop. That’s what many clubs are missing. The youth system is shoddy at best in England. Only a few clubs like Arsenal and Man Utd seem to do it consistently and have had success because of it. Rafa seems to be trying to push this ideal through Liverpool and I for one am a big fan of it. Let’s teach the youngsters how to play our way instead of signing someone from Spain or Italy and then having to wait for them to adapt to our system and the pace of the Premier League.

But the fact remains, that even after all the good that Rafa has done and continues to do, he must deliver something this season. The ultimate goal of course is the league. If we don’t get it, we’ll probably get close. There’s no other team in the league who has more motivation to capture it than Liverpool. You might say that Arsenal will be hungry for it after being so close and having it slip away in the final weeks, but I just don’t see them having the leadership to seal the deal.

To go from being one of the big four to being a champion, you need leaders on and off the field. You need players that thrive on the sound of fans screaming “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at the tops of the their lungs, drowning out the home crowd at an away game, but above all, you need Rafa.

We know Rafa was given a current budget of £20 million from Hicks and Gillett to use on summer signings, and so far, Rafa has splashed the cash (I use that term lightly) on free transfer Phillipp Degen. So for all we know the tranfer kitty is still full.

With all the transfer rumours flying around recently, I thought it would be interesting to see where everyone thinks Liverpool will end up when the summer is over.

My proposition to you is this: First, figure out who on the current squad will actually get moved this summer. I know we all like to hope and pray that Voronin has a valuation of £25 million, and that some team would pay. But to be honest, we both know he’s probably worth a couple pairs of boots and an old kit or two.

For instance: If you think Crouch is going to be sold this summer, figure out how much he would really go for on the open market, and then add that final transfer total to the current £20 million budget.

After you’ve figured out who is going this summer, then take the final transfer kitty (£20 + whoever you sell this summer) and figure out what your transfer budget will end up being, and who you’d realistically go after this summer (and how much you’d be willing to spend on each transfer target).

What I’m trying to figure out is, based on our current transfer funds, plus the money you get from selling players, do we really have a chance to bring in some top class talent this summer?

Could we really sign Quaresma, Bentley, Dossena and Barry? I think we can. But I’d like to see how you think Rafa can make it happen.

As Parry is trying to patch things up with Rafa, Liverpool’s boss is rumored to be lining up some major transfers for this summer. Gareth Barry from Aston Villa and Michael Johnson from Manchester City top the list. The rumors are also brewing that Rafa, who has quit over board problems before, might be looking at leaving the Reds at the end of the season.

So why on earth would Rafa want to boost a lineup if he has no intention of being around? Leverage; and so far, he has plenty of it. Sure, the Reds sit in 4th, but he’s the guy that brought in Torres. He’s the guy that led the club to a Champions League victory not so long ago and have them right back in the semi-finals. If Liverpool wins the Champions League this season, look out.

Any transfers that Rafa would like to make have to be approved by the board which basically means that Hicks, Gillett, and Parry have to agree on something. By leaking who he would like to go after, Rafa can setup a huge fan backlash against the board if those transfers do not happen. That creates an incentive to give him what he wants, and then if he sticks around next season, he has the team he wants.

If the Reds win the CL, it will create a nightmare for the board. Everyone will look at them to take care of Rafa. If he’s denied a transfer or if he’s mistreated, then you will really see some protesting. Our love for Torres and thirst for another sip out of the Champions League cup will erase any pains we had over winning the league. Rafa’s recent request to meet with Parry to clear up some unresolved issue about the Jürgen Klinsmann row reminds me of the many episodes of I Love Lucy where Ricky declares, “Lucy, you got some ’splainin to do.”

The board definitely does have some ’splainin to do and the worst thing right now for them is to have to ’splain it to a manager who has just delivered another big piece of silverware to the club.

As far as injuries go, Torres should be fit for the match. Tim Cahill will more than likely be out for the rest of the season for Everton and they will also probably be missing Andy Johnson. Mascherano will definitely miss this match, serving a suspension for his red card debacle last week. Hopefully, this will be the only match he has to miss.

Coming off of a routing by Man Yoo, LFC will be looking to redeem themselves and the derby at Anfield is the perfect place. All pressure will be on Everton who trail the Reds by 2 points on the table. If they somehow manage to pull off a win, their hopes of the Champions League next season will be kept alive. This seems unlikely though because if they couldn’t win when Liverpool were struggling earlier this season at home, they definitely will not get the job done at an away game. This is the match that Everton do not want to play.

The DIC takeover rumors simply won’t go away. The latest speculation is that George Gillett will sell his share and that will put pressure on Hicks to give up his end. That seems a much likelier possibility as Gillett has been embarrassed by Hicks and reports a few weeks ago were that Gillett’s son, who was in Liverpool to oversee the club, had packed his bags.

Adding more fuel to the DIC fire is the speculation that they are already looking for a replacement for Benitez. Names like Jose Mourinho and Frank Rikjaard have been floating around, but the one rising to the top is Martin O’Neill. The interest stems from his ability to get the most out of players with a limited budget. Is he capable of managing a top club and performing in Europe? That remains to be seen.

The rumor mill has spat out a ray of hope. Supposedly, after the loss to Barnsley, Rafa informed the team that the rotations will stop and that the strongest XI will take the pitch from here on out. Maybe he had a moment of clarity. Maybe he sees the writing on the wall. Or maybe, like so many other rumors, it’s just bullshit. I, for one, hope that it is true. The boys better be hungry this afternoon and able to take out some anger on Inter. We need to put up some big numbers before going to the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in a match where we could very likely be without Gerrard and Carragher.