Uncertainty

It was a relieve to finally win a game.

There has been much uncertainty over the future of Rafa over the last 2 weeks. The fact that the yanks approached Klinsman surely did not go down well with the Anfield faithful. However, I must confess that I was somewhat excited about the prospect of having a certain Mr Jose Mourinho take over as manager. Although I hated him as a Chelsea manager, I feel he has what it takes if we are single minded about winning the league title after 18 long years. For too many seasons, we lacked the tenacity and stamina to last the full season. It was either we started badly or we would drop off the race somewhere after the new year. Like what a friend of mine once mentioned, we need our foreign players to understand what it means to be playing in a Red shirt. Is it reasonable to expect them to feel the passion of a Gerard or Carragher? I am not sure. I guess even if that's not a realistic proposition, we must at least be assured that these highly paid people give their 110% week in and week out. Unfortunately, we have not seen that yet. Just have a look at Carra and read what he is saying on the website! If only these players emulate half of Carra's spirit and passion, I am sure we will go on to win a lot more games.

However, I must admit that one foreign player did impress me during the game against Luton. And he is non other than Ryan Babel. Just to put on record, I have always felt he is quality and he will be a very important player for the team (I made this point in my previous blogs). Not only is he good as a winger, he is deployable on either side of the pitch as well. The break through came about shortly after he swithced over to the right side. He can play as a supporting striker or even play up front with Torres. He is much better than Kewell, who has been injury prone and one dimensional. He is better than Pennant who has been ineffective for most of his games. I have mentioned previously before that both Benayoun and Babel should start for all our games from now. We are 12 points behind the leaders. We need to win every game from now and hope to get a result when we travel to the top teams. Let's stop monkeying around. I know Rafa is probably trying to ease Babel slowly into the english game in order to prevent an early burnout for the 21 yr old. But come on!! He is a strong young lad and I am sure he will manage. Because of his age, I feel we can afford to stretch him a little more. As far as I am concerned, the team that started against Luton should be the first XI. The Crouch-Torres partnership needs to be nurtured. They need to play a lot more together. For me, they are the partnership upfront. I don't know what's the relationship between Rafa and Kyut but as far as I am concerned, this other dutchman needs to go. He is useless. Both Babel and Benayoun will probably score more goals than Kyut this season.

Enough of the team. I also feel the Americans Hicks and Gillet need to sell the club back to the arab group DIC Investments. I admit I was impressed by their enthusiasm in the beginning. What I am afraid now is that we might end up like Leeds United. Letting the club bear more debt is certainly not the way forward. There is always that danger of things going really wrong and we end up in administration. I believe these arabs have deeper pockets and we certainly would welcome that extra bit of cash to buy better quality players. And also to build that world-class stadium we have been promised. My intention is to visit Anfield either this season or the next. It's my last chance to return to the club one last time before we move to the new grounds in 2009.

Now that we have a full week of rest, I don't think Rafa will have any valid excuse not to start the home game against Villa with the exact same team. I will be disappointed if he tinkers this time.