What a win against Udinese could bring

So here we are, 5 hours to kick off in a game which, if we dont win would see us eliminated from a competition that many people didn’t want us to be in in the first place.


Things have changed since we first qualified for the competition. Most Liverpool fans I have spoken to want us to qualify from our group and make it to the knock out phase of the competition. The first time I noticed the shift in how people felt about this competiton was walking out of Anfield after we had allowed Young Boys a share of the spoils in a game where we had been sitting comfortably. The disappointment and in some cases anger on the faces of the Kopites showed that suddenly, this competition mattered.

The Europa League, to put it bluntly, is not a pretty competition. It is the uglier, slightly plumpier sister of the beautiful, slinky Champion League. It cant offer us prestige, it cant offer us vast amounts of money hell even if we win the thing we will have made significantly less than a team who made it through the group stages of the Champions League. It does have its uses though. It can offer us experience. Our younger players are getting a crash course in life as a professional footballer this season. They are experiencing highs and lows, games you are expected to win and games you find impossible to win. This will make us, and the players themselves, all the more stronger next season and even the season after that. the Europa league is something else though., it is European competition. Our young lads are going to experience something most of them have not had before, a do or die 90 minutes on foreign soil. Its not just the players either, when it comes to European experience our young manager is also operating at novice level. To win games like this breeds confidence and teaches players how to win. Its not just for this years competition that we need to win, it could be for the experience our players can bring into next seasons Champions League....

Liverpool 1 - 0 Southampton (Talking Points)

Liverpool got back to winning ways with a decent win over a struggling Southampton at Anfield on Saturday. It is a difficult game to some up, we played very well at times, should have put the game beyond the struggling Saints, didn't manage to score the 2nd goal and so ended the game with a nervousness which was not becoming of our stylish play throughout the game. There there were plenty of positives to take from the game not least of which being the simple fact of getting 3 PRemier League points at Anfield for only the 5th time in 2012. As ever there were some negatives too but overall i felt a lot more positive about how we may go forward from here after the game.

Now we fu*kin' love him:    
The return of Lucas to the starting line up was the most welcome surprise I got that day, (until later Saturday evening when I walked into my own surprise 30th birthday party arranged by my beautiful wife and nearly jumped through the roof) We had known of course that Lucas was in contention for a place in the squad but I think most presumed that he would be entering the fray from the bench. While we all have to be careful not to expect that the return of the great Brazilian stopper would be the end to all of our troubles, it was nice to see that some of the things I felt he would help us achieve were clearly evident in his 86 minutes on the pitch. Not only did he perform impeccably himself even though it is simply not possible that he is fully match fit after only 45 minutes for the U21 side, his return immediately lifted the performance of others who had had to temper their own games to make up for his absence. Joe Allen and Steven Gerrard were able to take up much more advanced positions which came much more naturally to them than the roles they had been asked to fill over the last few weeks. In fact the shape of the entire team looked a whole lot more balanced with Jose Enrique returned to his preferred full back position, and Glen Johnson returned to his natural spot at right full, it was clear to see that both felt much more comfortable travelling forward to support attacks, safe in the knowledge that should the ball be lost there would be some cover making its way to fill in. Lucas is quite simply the best defensive midfielder in the league and while it's clear that he will never be the man to score the goals that win the headlines, his very presence on the pitch can be enough to provide an attacking impetus to the side.

Its only Southampton:
Of course this is true, but at this stage of our development these are exactly the kind of games we have to be winning. In fairness, to give it your all and beat one of the top 4 gives you a great feeling and it can lift the optimism of fans and players not to mention the luxury of the bragging rights but until we can consistently beat the teams we are expected to beat, once off wins against the big boys will not make that much difference to our final league positions. The hard fact is that the fixture computer did not give too much leeway to Brendan Rogers at the beginning of the season. We had a run of games which meant it was clearly going to be difficult to put together a huge amount of points unless everything clicked immediately. We all know that that did not happen, although we can also accept that had it not been for some tough decisions and some bad luck without doing too much more, we could easily be 5/6 points better off from even the most difficult of those games. As we approach Christmas, and its run of games which comes thick and fast we have a number of games from which we can realistically hope for a high number of points. And with this in mind, Southampton was a great dress rehearsal and a great result to start off with. whisper it quietly but if we can manage to rack up a number of wins in succession it could feasibly become realistic to start targeting top 4. As of right now we are only 7 points behind Tottenham, which is certainly not an insurmountable gap.

When he scores a volley or when he............. uses his hand:     
OK, so its a pity that the 5th yellow card which leads to a one match ban for our favourite Uruguayan was received in such a silly and utterly avoidable fashion but what is done is done. For what its worth, I honestly think that this was a simple reflex action which was driven by the insatiable desire to win we all know he possesses, much like the other hand ball he is famous for was. Its difficult to know what BR is going to do in this situation, it could be an opportunity for a youngster to come in and stake a claim, but from watching the Europa League it doesn't seem like there are any of the deputy strikers which BR deems ready. If he had his eye on any of them I think they would have started more games in that competition so i think its unlikely they will come in. It's a pity because I've liked things i have seen in both Yesil and Morgan but to be fair to BR he has shown that he is to be trusted completely when it comes to the progress and the state of readiness where the youngsters are concerned so I would not questions his decisions there.. One Europa League experiment could be given another try however with Jonjo moving into the striker position as he did against Young Boys at Anfield. It seems that BR likes him in this advanced position although I am not totally convinced just yet. Although I am pretty sure it won't happen I would really like to see Steven Gerrard get the nod up top. Although I’m sure iI don't need to describe how good of a finisher he is, to me it makes perfect sense. Perhaps BR see's a forward role for Jonjo as something which will be more frequent in his future and if thats the case this provides a perfect opportunity to familiarise him further. For my money though, if someone is going to be on the end of a chance I would much prefer it to be Stevie rather than Jonjo.