WHEN we’re walking away from Anfield – for my gang down Sleepers Hill and Walton Lane, heading back into the bowels of Liverpool’s North End – a sole variable structures the conversation. Have Liverpool won? Seldom do we ask ourselves, have we been entertained? After...
LAST-minute change of plan. I was planning to write about the returning Phil Coutinho this week but someone has got there before me. However, I can’t let it pass without a mini lecture for the hypersensitive. When the errant Brazilian rascal reappears in red, treat...
THIS summer’s transfer window – at home but maybe even more so in Europe – was bonkers. For the first time in a while, Reds fans weren’t quite so rude about Sky Sports’ Jim White or so sniffy about the whole affair as Liverpool participated in the madness right to the...
LIVERPOOL FC and Anfield made sense to me on Wednesday night. I didn’t enjoy myself last Saturday against Crystal Palace. I had a whale of a time when Hoffenheim were our midweek visitors. Of course, there is something extraordinary about Europe, the Champions League,...
THE midweek defeat of Hoffenheim lifted many of the early season storm clouds brewing over Anfield. An impressive and crucial 2-1 win in Germany has all but secured Liverpool’s imperative target of Champions League group stage qualification after an eventual...
IF you still love your football, the first weekend of a new season holds a special charm. One of my favourite books, Hunter Davies’ The Glory Game (written about Tottenham Hotspur during 1971-2) brilliantly evokes the pre season sense of renewal; the excited chatter...
IF at first you don’t succeed, then try, try again. This could be a motto for Dirk Kuyt’s efforts over six, supercharged years in a red shirt. Perhaps his finest individual Liverpool moment – a goal in a winning cause against Cardiff in the 2012 League Cup final at...
I MUST admit to a slight envy of Manchester United this week. Seeing them carry off the beautifully crafted former UEFA Cup, by dint of winning the undervalued Europa League put a real gloss on United’s hitherto uninspiring season. Jose Mourinho’s manic escape from a...
ROY Keane has never been shy of courting controversy. Furthermore, it seems his inadequacies as a manager – in contrast to a decorated playing career – convince him of the need to pipe up every now and then to stay relevant. However, his recent observations on...
LIVERPOOL’S newly acquired habit of winning ugly, predominantly away from home, in the recent tussles at Stoke City, West Brom and Watford has coincided with a form of redemption for Simon Mignolet. The goalkeeper, much maligned by fans and pundits alike throughout...
