GARETH Roberts told me he had access to accounts and documents around Heysel. He had spoken to a senior lecturer at Manchester University, Geoff Pearson, and Geoff had said we could come over and have a look at everything. We turned up and were surprised by the amount...
In our book about last season I discussed mad results. That mad results were a thing these days. It was in the context of Spurs 0 Liverpool 5. Villas Boas got sacked after that game. Rightly. My argument was that some sides have mad results in their DNA and others...
YOU turn up vaguely unsure. Because it is a football match and it is an occasion. Football matches are occasions you believe but this is different. The occasion and the match are separate entities. The occasion will be the occasion regardless. Despite not because. You...
TERRY’S header hits the net and Steve Graves turns to me and says: “What next?” What next indeed. What the hell next? What could be next? A wrecking ball sweeping through the boozer. A personalised rainstorm like in The Truman Show following you...
COUTINHO swings it in and he rises resplendent, red resplendent, and he nods it across goal and it is there, it is there, and we are there and I surge forward and fall backwards and I am seven and I am just in awe of this hero; of this man who has gone and done the...
I *LOVE* Rafa Benitez. I love the bones of him. I’m willing to bet I’m in the top one percent of worldwide Rafa lovers. There are basically his kids, Montse and Antonio Nunez that I’m prepared to acknowledge might be ahead of me. It’s important...
IT OCCURS to me that this is an example of a game where a match review might need to be that bit more of a match report. We have a non-televised game in the UK where around half of Liverpool’s travelling support have chosen to stay away in protest at ticket...
I’M in a car with five men (or I was, then my phone battery died). Gibbons is in Lisbon with his wonderful wife. Laura really is brilliant. Like if she wasn’t I’d gloss over this like a snide. Make it go as quick as I can. Instead I want to dwell and...
HEY! Hey! Everyone! The Reds are impotent again. Impotent. All the ball. Endless ball. The Reds are mooching round the hill boys. They all laugh at us, they all mock at us, they all say our goals are numbered. Our goals are numbered. In the car on the way home. 212 is...
RIGHT. Dreadful collectively. A reminder that this is: a) Subjective. And 5 is alright. b) Done in the immediate aftermath of the game and all I’ve seen is in the ground. c) Not a discussion of formation(s) or set up but just the 12 lads who played more than...
