Anfield Red

Another international break has come and gone, and with it comes the prospect of league football, as well as a critical Champions League match mid-week and the mancs next weekend.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, we need to consider the match at hand against a very tricky Sunderland club that currently sits in eight place only two points behind Liverpool. This isn’t the same Sunderland we’ve seen in years past. No, this is one that should be treated as a mid-table club with a bright future.

Whilst it’d be easy to walk to same squad out this week, I’ve got a feeling Rafa will be mixing things up a bit after defeat at the weekend against Chelsea, plus a dreadful match against Fiorentina proved that we’ve got some big holes to fill.

So let’s all assume Gerrard and Torres will make the weekend. With that in mind, I want to hear from you all on who you think makes up the best starting XI for the match against Sunderland.

Leave you squad in the comments below.

Update: Skysports is now reporting he’ll be out for four to six months. (read: most of this season)

Gerrard and Torres are already up in the air for the weekend match at the Stadium of Light. Now it looks like the club could also be without Kyrgiakos as well. Only this time it looks like he could be out for much longer that Gerrard and Torres.

Liverpool are fearing the worst on the fitness of Sotirios Kyrgiakos after the Greece defender was forced off before half-time during his side’s 2-1 win over Luxembourg on Wednesday.

Reports in Greece suggest the 30-year-old ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament after colliding with an opponent and will be out for several months. (ESPN)

Bloody hell, I swear we always end up with knocks to a couple of players when they come back from international duty. I know we’ve got Agger back in the fold, but at this point I think we can use as much cover as possible with the matches coming in waves. Sunderland at the weekend; Lyon coming mid-week; then we’ve got the match against the mancs. It would’ve been nice to have some fresh legs at Rafa’s disposal.

It looks like Stevie’s injury isn’t as bad as we all expected. Rumours were running rampant that the captain was suffering from a slight tear in his adductor muscle, and that he could miss significant time in the coming weeks.

Now it appears he could actually feature at the weekend against Sunderland. However, whilst the news is good, Benitez and the rest of the Liverpool staff have to wonder why he stayed around instead of coming back to Melwood to see the physio.

Despite initial suggestions the injury was worse than first feared, it is believed he is likely to be ready to travel with the rest of Liverpool’s squad to the Stadium of Light.

Liverpool are thought to be unhappy that Gerrard was not released from international duty after failing to complete the defeat in Dnipropetrovsk – Wayne Rooney, who finished the game, returned to Manchester United with a calf injury on the squad’s return to England – and Rafael Benítez is likely to be unimpressed that he was risked in a training session just two days later.

England insist the decision to remain with his international team-mates was Gerrard’s alone. (Daily Telegraph)

A relaunch of Anfield Red has been long over-due – we’ve had some good people come in and write over the last few months (thank you Russell, Neil and T-Bone) but the site sorely needed a reboot and with the changes we’ve made this week, we’ll have a fresh start for this season.

Since things have changed around quite a bit, here’s a list of things you should know:

Each international break brings with it a massive lull at every major club. Unless you’re Pompey and are announcing a new owner at the club or red nose defending his recent rant, the week is probably nothing to sneeze at.

But of course, there is some news coming out of Anfield this week. Namely, that Fernando Torres could be injured again, and that the club could be welcoming another set of owners to the table. Yes, there is news this week involving Liverpool players and ownership. So let’s get on with the show!

Fernando Torres picks up injury knock in training
Any story involving Torres, International duty and a possible injury knock is never a good one to begin with. Torres limped off the pitch during a training session last night, causing many supporters (myself included) to hate international matches even more. I believe Spain already had the group locked up? Sometimes I wish players like Torres were left at home for meaningless matches like this. Sure, it’s not a friendly match. But did they really need him in training?

Hopefully Vicente del Bosque leaves him on the bench where he belongs. You know Rafa would go bonkers he played any role!

After a very disappointing summer, things seem to start looking up for our Club, at least from a financial perspective.

The Stg 80 million 4-year shirt sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered is done and dusted, and the re-financing negotiations with RBS and Wachovia included some measures prone to reduce the liabilities of the Club. Therefore there is no doubt here that the finances of the Club are on a firm road to recovery. There is also talk of a possible Stg 100 stadium naming-rights deal in the offing, and this would mean that the Club would have already recovered more than a quarter of the building cost. Maybe the famous spade will finally hit the ground!

The owners of the Club, Gillett and Hicks, seemed to be awkwardly in hibernation during the summer months where manager, players, club officials and fans worldwide pleaded for more cash to get the best players and bolster our squad. In exchange, we had Christian Purslow who, we are told, in conjunction with Rafa, planned a summer transfer campaign which was meant to be conservative in the sense that the income generated from outgoing players was to make up for any incoming players and also the significant increase in salary cost due to fresh contract re-negotiations with our top players.

It now seems that Gillett is taking some initiative, because he is smelling money, big money! Not taking into consideration the broken promises and statement denials during the course of their one year tenure, there seems to be a fresh lifeline for the Club in the form of Prince Faisal bin Fahad bin Abdulla Al Saud who could well be our saviour!

At this stage we just have to sit tight and watch for developments. Both Hicks and especially Gillett will deny their desire to sell, but that’s just business tactics. What we do know for a fact that the Prince, either through his Fama Group or the F6 Sport Investment Firm, is more than willing to enter the fray, and reading between the lines pronounced by the people that represent him, he means business!

The January transfer window is still a long ways out, so it would be a bit rash to start predicting where the club will be by that point. However, it’s never too early to start predicting potential targets to acquire at the beginning of next year.

Rumours are being reported that Rafa will be given £12 million to spend on new talent in January. With that in mind, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the biggest needs for the club, and who you think would fit with the current squad.

Have at it in the comments section and spend the £12 million wisely!

The bitter pill of defeat is always a tough one to swallow – and that’s usually before you add two humiliating defeats to Fiorentina and Chelsea in the same bloody week.

I’m not quite sure if the international break will be the perfect elixir for what’s been ailing us, or if the time off will only allow the players to think about how dreadful they were last week. Two matches. Two defeats. Zero goals.

It’s not hard to see there’s something wrong with that equation. Whilst it’s still early in the year, every support around has already been questioning what this season really holds for us less than three months into what could be a grueling year for the club. With title aspirations hanging in the balance well before the January transfer window, it seems like the club is already packing up shop with regards to their league title aspirations.

The loss of Xabi Alonso was a difficult one to begin with. But our poor play early on has just magnified the hole he left in the squad when we walked away from Liverpool and into the waiting arms of Florentino Perez and Real Madrid.

Alonso’s replacement, Alberto Aquilani, was supposed to be the “new Alonso.” A little more forward and full of guts and guile, Aquilani was a piece we desperately needed if we wanted to make a run at Manchester United and Chelsea. Ankle surgery all but shelved the former AS Roma star for the first couple of months.

Now it’s being reported that he’s still weeks away from even making a return to the pitch. Which means he’s probably about a month out from really making a difference.

Injuries and tactical miscues have been the norm so far this season. And the news that Aquilani won’t be back any time soon should come as no surprise. Whilst I’d love to see him on the pitch, the fact is he won’t be any use to us unless he’s at full strength.

When he does return to the pitch, I’d imagine the hopes and pressure would be at a fevered pitch. It’s hard to put so much on a player from the start, but Liverpool are getting desperate. They really need Aqualiani at his best.

But will we see that from the start? Probably not. He’ll need at least a couple of weeks at least to get acclimated to the speed of the Premier League, as well as the rough play. So is it even practical to expect something great from him this year? I’m not really sure.

I’ll I do know is that we need him more than ever at the moment. Hopefully in the end the rest and physio works gets him in the best shape possible, because chances are pretty good that he could be stepping into hotly contested league race and Champions League tilt from the first day his foot hits the Anfield pitch.

George Gillett has come out recently denying that he said the new stadium work would start within 60 days of them completing the takeover LFC; but here is a video of the first press conference where he says “the first spade has to be in the ground within 60 days.”

This video was taken by the Liverpool Daily Post:

Here is George Gillett’s most recent comment about the stadium where he denies saying what is captured on video above: “Whether you see the value is a different issue. Where have we lied? Where’s the lie, for Christ’s sake? In those 60 days, what happened to the world? I didn’t say that. Hicks was the one who said. 60 days? Bulls**t. That was not me. It’s wrong. I have never talked about that.

“I think that what happened was that Hicks was convinced we were going to start to move dirt on the foundations within a 60-day period. In the period of time, the world credit market collapsed and he had big egg on his face, not living up to what we said. I don’t talk about absolute dates when we’re talking about credit markets”

Looks like more protests like this are needed:

Rafa Benitez and Sammy Lee have been spotted dancing in a local disco to unwind ahead of Liverpool’s clash with Chelsea. Watch the video to check out their moves!

The stories that Rafa spends all his time thinking about football are clearly unfounded; watch Rafa roll back the years with some Travolta style moves:

Disclaimer: This is intended as a joke, in no way would i envisage Rafa wearing such a hideous shirt or go out partying!