Well, another match day is here and I'll get to the normal routine in a bit, but first it's time to cover what's going on in the world of all things Liverpool FC. First off, John Arne Riise is furious that one of his wageslips from last season has been made public. The 27-year-old defender is convinced the paper was somehow stolen from him since he would never just throw something containing such sensitive information in the trash.

If this gets taken down, please email me or leave a comment, I'll find others somewhere. Cheers.

Pepe Reina C+
Didn't have to do much, but got the job done and made a great save.
Fabio Aurelio C
The Brazilian made little contribution, but it wasn't required. He came off early in the second for Babel, which I'm hoping was because of fatigue more than anything else.
Jamie Carragher C+
Wasn't called-on to do much, but did what he had to.

Cooler heads will prevail. Liverpool fans need to take that statement to heart. We won nothing but a match yesterday and need to realize that. Fabio Aurelio knows exactly what I'm talking about. The 28-year-old Brazilian has pleaded with everyone to remain focused: "Winning 8-0 against Besiktas gives us confidence and we need to take that on. We knew we needed to improve after recent results and we still need to improve.

Going into today's match, it appears we're getting the same old lip-service. Gerrard wants the squad to treat it like a cup final. We haven't heard that one before, oh wait, we have, two weeks ago in Istanbul. A lot of good it did then and a lot of good it'll do now. To put it plainly, 'Talk is cheap.' I'm personally tired of rallying-calls like this, it only matters what you do on the pitch.

So far, so good. We came out with a vengeance and frankly the first thing I thought was that we were expending too much energy. In fact our attack during the first fifteen minutes or so was highly enthusiastic, but had little organization. Once we stopped pushing everyone forward, especially Hyypia and Carra, and made a couple of simple, possession passes near the midfield, we appeared to gain some composure.

I think the score pretty much speaks for itself here, don't you? I was worried that we might be tired after expending so much vigor in the opening 32 minutes of the first half, but it appears that I was the only one who was wasting energy by thinking about it. The second half was just stunning.
Seven minutes, Yossi Benayoun scored his second goal of the match on a rebound from a John Riise rocket that the keeper did his best to stop.

There isn't really much going on in the world of Liverpool Football Club, just reiterations of yesterday's headlines, so I've decided to just ramble on about a bunch of nonsense. Feel free to share your opinions below.
Before I go down that long and winding (or winded, which ever you prefer) road, there's an excellent piece on Rafa's obsession with our club and football in general by Oliver Kay at the Independent.

Liverpool 2, Marseilles 1
Anfield gives the Reds a huge advantage even with former players Djibril Cisse and Bolo Zenden on the opposing Marseille side. The French side should be better rested, but ten days is almost too long and it's not as if Liverpool played just two days ago. Four days should be adequate rest for the Reds especially since they'll infuse some players like Peter Crouch, Ryan Babel, and Steve Finnan into the line-up, none of which played on Saturday.

I just wanted to clear this up since there seems to be a misunderstanding of what it will take for us to advance. First off, our destiny is basically in our own hands. If we win out, we advance, it's (almost) that simple.
The only way we don't advance by winning out is if Marseilles has a greater goal differential in the overall group and we beat the French side by the exact score of 1-0.

The big question going into this match is what kind of part will Fernando Torres play? From what I've read, it appears that Rafa is contemplating starting the Spaniard. Apparently he's looked good in training, but I'd be a little shocked if he started. There has also been some speculation as to whether or not Rafa will start the same XI he did against BeÅŸiktaÅŸ.

Apparently, Fabio Capello was contacted by the club before the Porto match to see if he would be interested in replacing Rafa, had the position opened. No word on what his response was, but it's looking more and more likely that Benitez is here to stay. I personally wouldn't mind the former AC Milan/Real Madrid/AC Milan/AS Roma/Juventus/Real Madrid manager taking over, as he has shown in the past that he's capable of taking a squad full of players that were there before he arrived and making them champions, but in the end, Rafa staying on board is best for the club.

Two things on the front page of the official site, Liverpoolfc.tv, are giving me the chills. First, Pepe Reina looks like a cold-blooded vampire who's spotted a fresh drink of blood. Seriously, he's got crazy eyes. Also, if you click on the related article, 'Pepe proud to equal record', he thanks everyone in the defense for helping him achieve the clean sheet record except Jamie Carragher!

Here it is:
Reina
Riise
Hyypia
Carragher
Finnan
Babel
Mascherano
Gerrard
Pennant
Kuyt
Voronin
Subs:
Itandje
Hobbs
Alonso
Sissoko
Lucas
Benayoun
Crouch
No big surprises except maybe Crouch not starting. I could care less, after his Marseilles performance he can rot on the bench until January and then sold.

It's always alarming to see a referee drastically change his style of calling a match especially when an upset of this magnitude occurs, but of course, matches are never fixed, I mean, there's never an agenda to do so. Anyhow...
The referee in question, Claus Bo Larsen, prior to this match averaged about 29.8 fouls and three cards per match.

Two things on the front page of the official site, Liverpoolfc.tv, are giving me the chills. First, Pepe Reina looks like a cold-blooded vampire who's spotted a fresh drink of blood. Seriously, he's got crazy eyes. Also, if you click on the related article, 'Pepe proud to equal record', he thanks everyone in the defense for helping him achieve the clean sheet record except Jamie Carragher!

Well this is pretty much our Champions League life on the line. Anything but a win here and we'll need a miracle to advance to the knockout stages. We should be able to get the three points if we get a fairly called match and aren't sabotaged by one of our disgruntled players again. I'm specifically looking at you Mr. Crouch. Anyhow...
Here's who I would play:
Reina
Arbeloa
Carragher
Hyypia
Finnan
Riise
Mascherano
Xabi (or Gerrard)
Gerrard (or Pennant)
Voronin
Crouch
Bench:
Itandje
Babel
Lucas
Benayoun
Kuyt
Sissoko
Pennant (or Xabi)
When Gerrard starts on the right, which I think will start happening more often, we'll see Finnan instead of Arbeloa behind him since Finnan is more of a wing-back than Arbeloa.

Ha ha ha. I know Platini and UEFA have it in for us after we made them look like complete amateur donkeys at the final last year, but you could least try to make an effort that the ref wasn't debriefed before the match. Two handballs went uncalled and in fact, I don't recall a free kick the entire match. I guess the early goal negated any effort to try and to actually referee the game.

Overreaction and idiocy are probably the best words to describe some of the posts and articles in response to Liverpool's loss to BeÅŸiktaÅŸ. I won't bother addressing most of them, because honestly, you won't find a nick of intelligence in them. They don't address actual play on the field nor the fact that we're in the midst of an injury crisis nor the factions that influence the match from behind closed doors.