Taking Sides: Liverpool vs Everton

"The Bobfox, did you realise that 'Johnny Todd' (track 6 on disc 2 of 'A Tree With Roots' is the Z-Cars/Everton song?)
-- Mooro (david.moore9...), May 1st, 2005.

8< snip >8

Mooro - no, I have not noticed that, on the CD!"

I like their 'Folsom Prison Blues'!

I am listening to the CD (II) now, you see. It is 'See You Later Allen Ginsberg'.

After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that
domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took
the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have
custody of him. After two recesses to check legal references and confer with
child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to Everton
Football Club whom the boy firmly believes are incapable of beating anyone.

Everton 1-1 Chelsea

I was impressed by Shearer's belligerent refusal to shake hands and subsequent interview.

- You've played against some great centre-halves in your time, some real bruisers... what was the difference this time?

- Well, he wasn't great, for starters...

Liverpool 2-0 West Ham

Well done, the scouse teams.

(Sorry I didn't see you on Saturday, Pinefox; Ava wasn't happy and we really had to go...)

Fine strikes in an emphatic win. Well done, the Reds!

Villa's Premiership points tally of nine has never before been in single figures after the first 11 matches, but if they held Liverpool they would become the first club ever to register 150 Premier League draws.

It worked!

I do note that Moyes has "not ruled out" buying back Gravesen in January, seeing as we get first refusal at mates' rates or something. No one's ever as good second time around, of course - David Johnson, Andy King, Howard Kendall, Duncan Ferguson...

There's not exactly a world of difference between these 1-0s and the 0-1s; I think Boro had the best of it and we hung on a bit. Van der Meyde/Beattie combo starting to come good, like Dave Thomas and Bob Latchford.

Peter Crouch finally has a use, I see - wrestling defenders in such a clumsy way it looks like he's the one being fouled. Neat trick. Dalglish used to do something similar with his arse.

Liverpool on verge of record-breaking run

Everton take battling counter-attack point from crumbling Old Trafford, and rise to season's high of 15th

Christmas comes early, for both halves of Merseyside!

PS / somehow it was wrong, wasn't it, on SPoftheYear last night, that George Best was celebrated with 'In My Life'? Should have been something by Them or solo Van, surely; or even the Undertones. But it also made me think: the Beatles always get associated with LFC - but never with EFC. I mean, would a Dixie Dean or Adrian Heath retrospective get 'Hey Bulldog' or 'Across the Universe' played over the top?

'some scent of the old seaport about us'!

And the rest!

Jamie Carragher and Sami Hyypia, pale and gaunt with the legacy of a 15-hour trek around the globe, had to wade through frenzied crowds of autograph hunters at their hotel here yesterday.

'Legacy'!

Celebrity status for the linchpins of Liverpool's defence is guaranteed these days yet, once the adoring masses had dispersed and the centre-halves could turn their thoughts to breaking one of Liverpool's most impressive records, a sense of proper perspective soon sunk in.

Should the European champions beat Deportivo Saprissa - the Costa Ricans having edged past Sydney FC 1-0 yesterday - on Thursday in their semi-final of the Fifa Club World Championship, then an 11th consecutive clean sheet would set a new club record. Kenny Dalglish's title-winning side of 1987-88 registered 10 successive blanks, though there the comparison with that great team ends. "The thing is, players like Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson won championships and Liverpool around that time had won all those European Cups," said Carragher. "Statistics are nice and it's great to break records, but the main thing is to win the silverware."
Should Liverpool beat the Costa Rican side they will have an opportunity to flourish where their predecessors floundered, against Flamengo and Independiente in 1981 and 1984, by winning the final, which takes place here on Sunday. For the centre-halves, though, it is domestic success which must prove their legacy.

Legacy, again. But also - only today have I learned about those 1980s defeats. It seems that ZICO was heavily involved! Mike, any memories?

It may be 924 minutes since the Merseysiders last conceded, with Rafael Benítez's side currently Chelsea's most coherent challengers in the Premiership after seven straight wins, but the sense remains that this Liverpool side will not rest until a domestic championship has been won for the first time since 1990. "Those past players had won more than we have," said Hyypia, "but we still have time to match them in terms of the silverware we win for this club."

"Those players won titles with the club and that's the aim of everybody here at the moment," added Carragher. "Of course we'd like to beat their record - we've done well even to equal it - but our aim is very much to be as successful as that side in the future. It's about winning games, not just about keeping the clean sheets going. When we were playing Middlesbrough on Saturday, at 0-0 I started thinking it would be great to claim another clean sheet with the record in mind, but I'd have rather we'd won 2-1 than drawn. In the end we got the best of both worlds and it makes me proud to be involved in this defence, but we have to keep progressing."

"at 0-0 I started thinking it would be great to claim another clean sheet": "at 0-0" = during the first minute of the game!

Success in Japan would maintain momentum for the weeks ahead and help to nullify the effects of the 12,000-mile round trip, albeit only psychologically. Steven Gerrard admitted yesterday that there were "slight concerns" that the physical exertions could catch up with the Liverpool squad, although the focus remains on adding the world crown to the European Cup claimed in Istanbul in May. Already, a stodgy start to the current campaign, which saw the Champions League winners languishing in the lower reaches over the first few months of the season, has been forgotten.

"I've not been surprised at the way Rafa's turned things around," offered the chief executive, Rick Parry. "We're very pleased, not surprised. There's a hunger and an ambition within the club which is shared by the supporters, the players, the manager and the board of directors. We're pleased with the way things are going this year and delighted with the way things ended last season, but we're not finished yet. The aim is to go on, win a league title or two and maintain this progress. We've some way still to go, but we're delighted with the job Rafa's done and the way the players have responded this year."

Just one, or two. That'll do.

It made me think, this report, about how things can turn round. European Champions Liverpool seemed in a rut only a few weeks ago; now they seem like real contenders. I am happy for them and their supporters, though not all will be. But it is odd how the mood of all the boardroom million-pound stuff comes down to whether they let in goals or not, during a few games in November and Deccember. The contingency of football, hingeing on the pitch, even when it seems driven by megabuck flows. But perhaps I am wrong.

And made me think of the days when even "working class" men didn't have to support a football team (let alone the middle classes)

Only the earlier of the two - Liverpool losing on a yellow, barren pitch in a match played in the middle of the night British time. I have stronger memories of Liverpool beating Keegan's Hamburg 6-0 in the Super Cup a few years earlier...but not, strangely, of whether KK played in the Anfield leg.

I must try harder to recall these Liverpool defeats.

No, do tell.

Riise's medal sold on eBay says The Sun. Apparently they have footage of Riise and a friend kissing the medal and saying they'll sell it on eBay.

eBay confirmed it was a genuine 2005 Champions League Winners Medal.

Liverpool rubbish Riise Champions League medal sale reports says Tribalfootball.

Item here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Liverpool-Champions-League-Winners-Medal_W0QQitemZ8731695585QQcategoryZ68295QQtcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Went for £1500.

http://i9.ebayimg.com/02/i/05/8e/ec/03_1_b.JPG

A Liverpool-supporting friend has seen the video and it is as described in the article. He thinks it looks like they're just having a laugh, but that it all looks a bit too suspicious to write it off as such, particularly in light of the size of alleged gambling debts incurred by a certain ginger Norwegian.

Tacky-looking thing, isn't it? The ribbon in particular makes me want to barf.

This bit confuses me, in relation to the Chumps League final in Istanbul:

"Even before the story was out properly they had diagnosed me and decided I had quit," he added.

"Do people know I was the number one penalty taker on the pitch that night in Istanbul?

"So why would I want to walk off in a game when I had a real chance of getting on the scoresheet?"

Eh? Doesn't that only make sense if Liverpool intended to play for penalties FROM THE KICK-OFF? Although I suppose if that is your strategy then going 1-0 down (as the score was when Kewell left the pitch) might put a dent in your plans.

It's odd, though, that anyone would think that any player would choose not to play in the biggest match in European football. I don't really understand that theory.

He's not blown it with me, but he's certainly on probation. I do want him to succeed in a Liverpool shirt, but I'm not sure what chance he'll get.

Everton midfielder Mikel Arteta:
"The defeat by Bolton should never have been anything like 4-0, we were really disappointed and sad."

Sick but not stumbling-about-in-a-daze sick. Defeat was expected and the manner of it was close to anticipated too. There have quite a few 3-1s over the years where we've looked, for a 15-20min spell at least, to be likely to get something from the game but by the end seem comprehensively beaten (Anfield 10/00, Goodison 9/01...Christ, there's loads...Goodison 3/82, Anfield late '81...curse my memory).

There's usually a "turning-point" or somesuch hindsight-enriched moment of relative inconsequence that bitter Blues obsess over - this time it was the disallowed Beattie header. It was significant only in the sense that 1-2 with 8-10min to go to the break would've been a lot tastier than 1-2 with 3-5min to half-time, especially in the light of what happened on 46:14.

At 0-2, there was that queasy feeling that we hadn't really been inferior in any department other than finishing yet, from here, we could very quickly be four or five down and no one would be terribly surprised. The Everton response was admirable if, in a footballing sense, fairly half-arsed.

We're just not very good and we need van der Meyde back very quickly. Liverpool are superb defensively but Gerrard remains the only attacking player who genuinely scares me when he's on the ball.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/e/everton/4701024.stm