Anfield Red

Liverpool’s difficult season has kept a number of important reserve players from making their mark in the senior squad, one of which is Jay Spearing.

The midfielder, who made his senior debut against PSV in the 2008, has been given very little chance to prove himself in Rafa’s squad this year. It’s been a while, since the Sunderland match of 2009 to be exact, that we last saw the 21-year-old.

Instead of playing the season out with the reserves, Spearing has been given the chance to play some proper football with Championship side Leicester City. There’s a chance he could feature at the weekend when the club plays against Reading.

“Jay is a great signing for the team, a player that should be a big help to us between now and the end of the season,” Leicester chairman Milan Mandaric told the club’s official website.

Drastic times call for drastic measures, and that sometimes means offloading a player at even the most inopportune time in the season. With team looking for a bit of stability in these less-than-stable times, Rafa Benitez figured it made sense to offload the ’sinking ship’ better know as Albert Riera as soon as possible.

With almost every transfer window closed this late in the season, Benitez still found a way to make sure the club’s biggest wart could be removed and shipped away to Russia before Liverpool embark on what is surely the most critical set of matches this season.

Liverpool and CSKA Moscow have reportedly agreed to a deal that would ship Riera off to the Russian club for £6m. The move allows Rafa to bolster his transfer funds to £12m after moving Voronin and Dossena earlier this season.

Admit it: you’ve always wanted to be a world-class footballer. Playing in the Champions League, winning league titles, driving £100,000 Range Rovers and having your pick of WAG’s is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the life some world-class footballers lead.

But instead of the WAG’s and trophies, you’re saddled with a bird that just won’t stop going on about your trips to the pub for another pint, as well as a broken-down jalopy that won’t start on even the best of weather days. Such is the life of a writer at Anfield Red you lead, fair reader.

So how DO you get the lead the life of a footballer without actually having the bank account of one? Buy a license that makes people believe Steven Gerrard is really behind the wheel of that Leyland Mini Clubman!

And the debate for fourth rages on, this time with Jamie Carragher expressing his belief that Liverpool still aren’t out of the race for the final Champions League spot.

The defeat on Sunday left Liverpool in sixth place, four points behind Spurs for the last slot. The problem is, is that Liverpool have played one more game that Spurs, and two more games than fifth-place City.

Even still, Carra has keeping the faith that Liverpool can get the job done with a mix of good results and a little luck to go along with it.

“We have just got to recover from this as quickly as possible and get on a run of victories,” said Carragher in the Liverpool Echo. “Of course we believe we can still close the gap. They (Liverpool’s rivals) will have difficult spells and we have got to make sure we take maximum points when they do.

Another match refereed by Howard Webb, another match Liverpool get robbed of at least a point. To be honest, I’m getting tired of watching his name flash across the telly right before we take the pitch. But honestly, my beef isn’t with Webb this time around, but rather it’s with scum player, Antonio Valencia, and his diving antics that gave the mancs an undeserved penalty.

29 goals. If you want to look at a reason why Liverpool have struggled so much this season, you needn’t look any farther than that number right there. The figure is of course Steven Gerrard’s goal tally for the 2008/09 season. Whilst Fernando Torres played an ever-critical role for the reds last season, it was Gerrard who seemed to stir Liverpool’s drink — pushing them to the brink of their 19th league title.

Whilst it all seemed to be roses and lollipops from the outside, there were some on the inside who thought Liverpool had pulled off a miracle by making it as far as they did with their squad. Countless injuries and a couple of internal bust ups later, it’s easy to see that those pundits may have been right.

After Sunday’s defeat to United it would be easy to point the finger and blame Rafa Benitez for Liverpool’s problems. But next to the manager there’s another player who needs to take a portion of the blame, and that’s Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard.

The line up to face Man Utd at Old Trafford has been announced; with Maxi Rodriguez replacing Ryan Babel in the starting 11.

What I find increasingly funny whenever I read the papers each day is how much they continue to try and portray Liverpool as the club where the sky is always falling.

We lose a match and our entire team is set to be shipped off to Chelsea for a couple quid and an amber nectar. The same could be said about the ownership saga and the battle between Benitez and the board. Sure, we know the club has issues at the moment but if they really think the players aren’t rallying around this talk, they’re fooling themselves.

All this talk of Fernando Torres moving on to Chelsea this summer is pretty absurd. News flash: he’s not going anywhere. And if you need a little bit of reassurance, Steven Gerrard is here to provide it.

The Liverpool captain was effusive in his praise of the Spanish striker after Liverpool’s dismantling of French side, Lille, just last night. Gerrard said we should all expect Torres’ brilliant form to continue — especially as he nears his top form after dealing with some injuries earlier in the year.

Sammy Lee came out earlier today and gave an update on Alberto Aquiliani’s fitness ahead of the big match against United. After missing the match against Lille with a virus, Lee remained cautiously optimistic that the Italian could be ready to feature in the match.

“Alberto did some light training for us today so hopefully he will be ready for the weekend,” said Lee after Liverpool’s training.

“We don’t know at this moment in time if he will be available but we have still got 72 hours to the match so hopefully he will be ready for us.”