Well finally we are at the end of the International break and our league campaign continues this Saturday at 3pm when we take on West Brom away from home. If there is one welcome aspect of being out of Europe it is the return to the traditional league fixture time of Saturday 3pm which is not possible when you have played a game on the Thursday previous. While we have had recent disappointments like the afore mentioned European exit, we went into the international break in decent league form where only a defeat against the much improved West Ham punctuates our improving record. Our form over the last 7 games reads as follows W W W D L W W, our last 2 league wins were delivered with style and left us with a promise of more to come. It was said by many that the international break could only halt our progress but hopefully with some players returning to fitness, while others were in need of a rest it could serve to help us as we hit the run in. Andy Carroll has shown in recent games that he is short on match fitness so his run out, and goal, for England should help him as he acclimatises to life at Anfield while Dirk Kuyt has continued his impressive goal scoring form or recent weeks by bagging 3 for Holland over 2 games. Gerrard and Suarez were not available for International duty due to injuries of varying severity but the break means they haven’t missed any extra games for the reds. Lucas was quite impressive for Brazil in their friendly against Scotland where it seemed that a lot of their play goes through him. He even received one or two compliments from the match commentators which was a surprise! Danny Wilson also got some minutes in this game. Skrtel, Agger, Johnson, Poulson and Meireles also appeared for their national sides and each of them came through their encounters unscathed.
There has also been some news over the week, such as Ian Ayre being given the Managing Directors job at the club. Ian has been nothing but a success since being installed as Commercial Director and he was the one trust worthy voice at the club under the previous regime. He is a true red and is a local lad, Liverpool fans should be happy to have someone trusted in such an important position in the club, it brings a stability and is the final piece of the backroom picture. Once Kenny’s contract is agreed and official we will be 100% stable it seems that everything is now in place to make this summer one of heavy action! One player who won’t be involved in any summer transfer activity is Lucas Leiva who today agreed a new contract. Lucas took a while to convince most of his merits but he has finally been getting deserved recognition. Many are still to be convinced by him, I think this is mostly due to a prejudicial view of how Brazilians should play, but to me this is great news. At 24 his best years are ahead of him and i am glad to say his best days will be played in red! The only other news really is that it seems Juventus will not be able to afford the pre-agreed transfer fee to make Alberto Aquilani’s loan deal permanent. I would love to see Aqua return as i am sure he can be a success in the premiership if he is injury free and given a decent chance. His time at Juve has been a big success so i am keeping my fingers crossed on this one.
So back to Saturday and the game against West Brom at the Hawthorns. This game is of course also significant as it is Roy Hodgson’s first return to Liverpool since he was sacked in January. I don’t think i need to mark out my feelings about Roy another time, suffice to say I wish him well at his new club. In fact i will go so far as to say that i am sure he will do a decent job at West Brom, a club which is at a perfect level to match Roy’s skill set. Steven Gerrard has confirmed he is back in contention for this game, so that leaves us with a pretty strong panel to select from with only Martin Kelly and Jonjo Shelvey unavailable.
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