With a quarter of the Premier League season wrapped up, the unavoidable reality is that Liverpool hasn't performed up to the level that many fans had hoped they would. They haven't seemed especially poor perhaps, but clearly they haven't hit the sorts of highs they did in the second half of 2010-11 that had fans talking about the squad being a few tweaks away from legitimate contenders after finishing out the season with the third best record—and very nearly the second best up until stumbling through their final two matches—in the league under Kenny Dalglish.

Afterwards, opinions ranged from Andy Carroll having finally shown something of his worth as more than a target for long clearances to him having done nothing in particular to rewrite the gargantuan failure narrative he's been saddled with since arriving at Liverpool for £35M in January. Sometimes those wildly divergent opinions even came from the same pundit.

After a sitting down for a chat before the Sunderland match lead to an ultimately disappointing result while Arsenal turned out much better when taking the week off, there was some obvious trepidation when it came to our chat with Matilda of the Bolton Offside. But when Tea and Crumpets heard that fillet steak simmered in red wine, garlic, and vegetable sauce was an option at the Reebok and that we wouldn't be stuck eating hobo stew out of an old tin can, we figured we might as well cross our fingers and take a shot at trying to better understand these Wanderers that don't do a whole lot of wandering any more.

Today's post is courtesy of Sam from Anfield Asylum.

Once again my cheerful nature leads me to tackle a wonderful subject, this time about just which player wasted the most time and money we'll never get back. The fact that there are so many contenders for this award on Liverpool alone this season lets you know just how bad it was at times.

The Liverpool Offside has it on good authority that The Chelsea Offside will soon release another story concerning the possibility that the club they follow might make a serious effort to capture Torres with all of three days left in the transfer window. Meanwhile, Twitter's going insane over a new Times article that's behind a paywall so that almost nobody has seen it.

On Saturday morning I woke up hungover and not expecting any news on Roy Hodgson until Monday (that's today!) at the earliest. Coffee seemed like a chore and I figured Ed wouldn't have the preview up for a couple of hours, but hey, it was about time for La Liga matches to start popping up so why not turn on the computer and HOLY SHIT ROY HODGSON'S BEEN FIRED AND ED'S IMPLYING I'LL SAY SOMETHING BEFORE THE PREVIEW RUNS AND OW MY HEAD.