SO, how did the season go for Liverpool’s Lionel Messi? Who he? Steven Gerrard told us on August 10, 2010?

“[Lionel] Messi can do some amazing things, but anything he can do Joe can do as well, if not better. He used to shock us in training by doing footy tricks with a golf ball that most players can’t even do with a football.

“I really fancy Joe for the [player of the year] award this season.”

How’s Barcelona’s Joe Cole getting along..?

Read The Anorak.

                          

By Ashley Norris

An iffy start to the season might mean that the Premiership title is beyond Liverpool, but the Red half of Merseyside is at least top of one league: the country’s top footballing tweeters. Barclays has analysed Twitter traffic using Sysomos’ Media Analysis Platform (MAP) to see which teams and which cities were the centre of the Twitter-sphere throughout January, and found that when it comes to expressing themsleves in 140 charactars or less, the Scousers came out on top.

There were apparently one million tweets about the Barclays Premier League and its clubs in January with Liverpool FC as the subject of nearly a third of those tweets (301,169). In second place was Arsenal (110,901), which is something of a surprise given the club’s lack of transfer activity. Chelsea (97,655) and Manchester United (86,249) ranked third and fourth.

                          

By Ollie Irish

Who is about to make Stevie G an offer he can’t refuse?

Previous answer: Roger Johnson was hiding behind Jessica Alba

                          

By Ollie Irish

Those cheeky Scousers, they don’t really mean it…

March 2003: Spotted in the Liverpool end at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium during the 2002-03 League Cup final – political banners at football matches are rare indeed. The Iraq War began less than three weeks after the final. I guess George W didn’t see this one.

Liverpool bombed Man Utd on the pitch (ahem), winning 2-0 with goals by Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen.

                          

By Ollie Irish

Duncan Oldham, the editor of Liverpool fansite KopTalk, has attracted a lot of attention for posting an article which encourages Liverpool fans to “put the frightners [sic]” on unloved owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The ill-judged piece, titled ‘Get the baseball bats and ski-masks ready!’, implores Liverpool fans to exact vigilante justice on the American duo:

“If George Gillett and/or Tom Hicks remain in control of Liverpool Football Club come the end of the season, I will be calling for such action to take place.

“I will be urging every passionate Red out there who has a ‘set’ and who is capable of donning a ski-mask and waving a baseball bat in a menacing manner, to step up to put the frightners [sic] on these two and everyone they associate with – including any companies that support them.

“I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about petitions and email campaigns. While the efforts must be applauded and acknowledged, the only action that I believe will work is militant.

“Disruption, especially to financial institutions, is what they are scared of. And on a personal level, there’s nobody in the world who’s arse wouldn’t collapse if someone peered over their bed in the middle of the night armed with a Texas Rangers baseball bat or two.”

It reads like the sort of rant he wrote late at night, whilst encouraged by a jar or three. I can’t condone such aggressive militancy and neither should any self-respecting fan.

Oldham’s piece concludes:

“They [Hicks and Gillett] are playing with the lives of so many people and it hurts me to see so many of my fellow Reds and fans so upset and destroyed. It has to stop and it will stop. I can’t sit back any more.

“I won’t sign petitions, I won’t send emails to journalists who don’t care, but I will get stuck in via other methods best not written about.”

This isn’t journalism, it’s dangerous and irresponsible rabble-rousing. There’s no place for it in football, and I say that as someone who fully sympathises with the intense frustration of Liverpool fans.

                          

By Ollie Irish

Photos: PA

As crazy as it may seem after a handful of games in charge, Roy Hodgson’s tenure at Liverpool already carries with it the stench of death – several Liverpool fans I know have been discouraged by the way Uncle Woy has gone about his business, and whilst it’s only fair he gets a full season, at least, to prove himself, there are vultures up in the air.

                          

By Ollie Irish

Emotions obviously run high after a big match such as Man Utd v Liverpool, especially when you lose, but Agger seems calm enough and this appears to be the first obvious sign of a rift between Liverpool’s new manager and the Dane, who I think is a far superior footballer to Martin Skrtel and should be playing more in his natural position of centre-back, or at least as the sweeper in a three-man central defence.

                          

By Ollie Irish

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Manchester United's Nani (left) and Liverpool's Paul Konchesky battle for the ball

Photos: PA

Hi folks – you well? I’m back after a long weekend away in Cork for a friend’s wedding, during which time I consumed too much Guinness and sneaked into a pub to watch Sunday’s big game – the All-Ireland football final, in which Cork overcame a dismal first-half display to roar back and beat Down by the narrowest of margins. Up the Rebels!

Anyway, I digress a little… before that I watched Manchester United beat Liverpool, or rather I watched Dimitar Berbatov beat Liverpool. Berba has really come of age in a United shirt now – at this rate he must be judged as their No.1 striker, especially as Wayne Rooney is more versatile and therefore liable to be moved around into whatever round hole is going spare (Wazza finished Sunday’s game on the left wing, specifically in the corner wasting time and wasting it rather well too).

The Bulgarian’s hat-trick was very special, with a stunning overhead kick the jewel in between two expertly taken headers. Is it too far-fetched to suggest that the Theatre of Dreams just found a new Cantona? Yeah, almost certainly, but there’s no doubt that Berba has the X Factor that Rooney plainly lacks.

Liverpool fans should not kid themselves either – their team deserved to lose and were rather lucky to lose by only one goal. United thumped them for 80 minutes but couldn’t take their chances, whilst Liverpool simply capitalised on a purple patch. Again, I have to feel a little sorry for Steven Gerrard, who is just a class above most of his team-mates; it can’t be any fun trying to play a one-two with Paul Konchesky, for example.

                          

By Ollie Irish

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Liverpool's Fernando Torres stands dejected

Photos: PA

Keep calm and carry on, Liverpool fans – a point away from home against a comparable rival is a perfectly decent result. I wrote yesterday about Fernando Torres’ body language, so won’t bang on about it here. Suffice it to say that it’s far too early to judge Roy Hodgson, even if some (mental) Liverpool fans are already grumbling about Uncle Woy not being up to the job – quite why, though, I have no idea. I suppose they think that men like Christian Poulsen and Paul Konchesky aren’t fit to play for one of the biggest clubs in the world. Time for a reality check, methinks.

As for Birmingham, Big Eck seemed happy enough with the result too, so, er, everyone’s happy(ish). Except Torres. D’oh!

                          

By Ollie Irish

An Anfield insider tells me that Liverpool’s dressing-room leaders – Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, in case you didn’t know – are fast losing faith in Fernando Torres.

Sky Sports fuckwit pundit Jamie Redknapp, who claims to be a big fan of Torres, described Nando’s admittedly lethargic display at Birmingham City on Sunday as ‘terrible’ and ‘diabolical’, and it seems there’s a growing feeling that the Spaniard has fallen out of love with Liverpool, if not the fans who adore him. He was pretty rubbish at St Andrews, appearing like a man going through the motions, and with some reluctance to even do that – Torres doesn’t smile much these days, does he; his body language is obviously that of a discontented man.

In defence of Torres, he signed for what he thought was a much bigger club than Atletico Madrid (Liverpool were sold to him and his people as the Barcelona or Real Madrid of England – that went well, eh) and in 2007 perhaps that was true of Liverpool – but the fact is, he has ended up at another second-tier club, trying to win games almost on his own (along with Gerrard, of course). Torres came to Liverpool to win things and further his career, not to be the leader of a team struggling to qualify for Europe, as he was for Atleti. Back to square one then.

In the light of his undoubted ability, Torres is refreshingly free of Zlatanesque ego, and I think it’s very harsh to criticise a player who has given more than his pound of flesh to the Kop. But I suspect he’s still pissed off that he was injured during the summer transfer window, and so couldn’t get a move away from Anfield.