By Chris Wright

Former Liverpool winger Steve McManaman has admitted that he fears star duo Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres will jump ship in the January transfer window, if the club remains under it's current rootin' tootin' ownership and the players themselves don't begin to show signs of improvement.

New Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson has assured the fans he will strengthen his squad in the coming weeks.
The former Fulham boss is adamant to avoid any repeat of the dressing room friction that forced Rafael Benitez to admit, midway through last season, that his players' body language wasn't all it might have been.

By Ollie Irish

Sir Alex Ferguson says the only way he would spend a serious amount of money on a single player would be to re-sign former Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo.

The United boss says the inflated price of players in the transfer market does not give a reflection of their true value and that he would not spend over the odds in the summer except in buying back C-Ron.

By Ollie Irish

I'm no body language expert, so see if you can spot the grumpy Liverpool player who'd rather be in Milan...

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Liverpool's Joe Cole during the training session at Melwood Training Centre, Liverpool.

So, Theo Walcott must be dropped from the England set-up immediately. He is the sole reason why England did not win the World Cup.

He can't pass or shoot and doesn't have a football brain.

It is Arsenal's fault for destroying a young talent who has clearly not lived up to his potential, he can't even control a long-range pass from Steven Gerrard.

Is Roman Abramovich about to stun the football world once again as he did back in 2003/4. Has our owner said enough is enough to Manchester City and is about to make moves for BOTH Wayne Rooney and Fernando Torres?. The difference betweeen Roman and City's owners is that he loves his football and is reportedly a massive fan of Rooney and Torres.

A trip scheduling mess up meant that when Cesc was having his pretty-weak-by-his-standards penalty saved, I was sitting on a train headed home, bored, tired and nervous beyond belief. I had to rely on texts from friends which is never an ideal situation. When my cell phone's reception was immaculate, the friends never messaged and when they did manage to send a hurriedly typed out text, a lack of service providers ensured I received its contents a good half an hour later.

I have to admit, I took it pretty hard losing to ManUtd on Monday. I got a lot of it off my chest in yesterday's post, though I really cannot remember what I wrote. Hopefully it was coherent. After being in a funk for most of the day, I decided to at least give myself some perspective to lift my spirits.

Just been watching a re run of Indonesia's first AFF Cup semi final against the Philippines and for a moment I couldn't believe my ears. One of the commentators was describing the hard work being put in by one of the Indonesian strikers. The pressure he was giving defenders, the tracking back, his movement.

A statement on Leeds United's official website confirms that star striker Jermaine Beckford wants away:

"Leeds United can confirm that Jermaine Beckford has handed in a transfer request.

"The transfer request was handed in on December 30.

"By handing in a transfer request it clearly indicates that the player wants to leave Leeds United.

Reading off the first 10 host cities for the final USA World Cup bid took USSF President Sunil Gulati almost two full minutes to accomplish on Tuesday. To most, that wouldn't be all that long, but to the attendees of the Wizards' watch party at the Plaza 810 Zone it seemed an eternity.
Need proof?

By Ollie Irish

Name: Dave Mackay

Nationality: Scottish

Position: Left-half/Sweeper

Why so hard? When old men in the corners of old-men pubs say, "They don't make 'em like that anymore", take it as read that they are referring to Dave Mackay, a real man who never wore gloves, never waved an imaginary card at the ref, never tried to break an opponent's leg, never appeared to feel pain.

Firstly, I would like to thank all of you who shared some well articulated thoughts on yesterdays post. I guess most of the rational fans agree that our problems are complex and cannot be stated in one or two off the cuff statements. I'll return to that discussion after the Liverpool game.

In Liverpool, we face another strong defensive unit and a team that has reverted to prioritizing defense after a failed and flawed attempt at attacking football in the early part of the year.

When we concede a corner or a free kick in the final third I feel a clear sense of anxiety in our defense. Similarly, when we concede throw-in's in the final third the body language of our players isn't very comfortable. I guess I am not the only one who feels this way.

To this, we can add our general anxiety when defending a lead in the final few minutes.

Portsmouth's well documented, if not bizarre, troubles over the last few years have given few Pompey supporters reason for optimism.

It's a lot more likely that drinking has risen drastically on the South Coast. From the high of winning the FA Cup, to the gradual, at first, selling off of players, to Redknapp leaving again, to Gaydamak announcing he would no longer fund the club, to first one, then two Arab billionaires without any money, to a Hong Kong businessman who seized the club for non-payment of debt, yet still claims the debt, to a winding up order, to administration, yet not really administration because the points have not been deducted, to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs challenging the voluntary administration, to another possible winding up order.

It's wall to wall football here these days.
Everton v West Ham today.
A good match, although at times you feel as if West Ham is a team with it's head hanging.
Confidence is an issue I would say.
And my interpretation of Zola's body language is that he is part of that.

Arsene Wenger has made three slight adjustments to his side following key defeats in the league, one of them pushing Cesc Fábregas higher up.
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Oscar Wilde once wrote, "experience is simply the name we give our mistakes" but following the defeat to FC Porto in the Champions League where two errors gifted the tie, Cesc Fábregas has had enough of experience.

As a football fan, as opposed to a Man Utd fan, I have to confess to feeling some sympathy for the Liverpool faithful right now. As loyal, knowledgeable, good humoured and expectant a group of fans as you are likely to find, how many more kicks in the gut can they be expected to endure before things get better at Anfield?

With my recent post with quotes from both camps before the game tomorrow it seems to me that Rafa (can I take your order) Benitez's body language and quotes signal the time has come for him to leave Liverpool.
Let's face it, their season has been a complete disaster. We all have to admit it whether we like it or not, after finishing 2nd in the Premier League last season we all expected Liverpool to make much more of a challenge for the title and thats just me being honest but something went wrong.

Too little, too late, obviously, but it's a positive nonetheless. The first time we've beaten a league opponent by more than two goals since December. The first time we've scored 4 goals in a league match since January. And the first time we've won a match in any competition in over a month.

I didn't see the match I was busy freezing my ass off watching the other sports team that's my love/passion/bane of my existence, the New York Mets, lose a late-inning game.

Carlo Ancelotti hailed a "great season" for Chelsea after the club sealed a Premier League and FA Cup Double after a 1-0 win over Portsmouth at Wembley.
Didier Drogba's free-kick proved enough in the FA Cup final, although Petr Cech will also get the plaudits for his penalty save from Kevin Prince Boateng.

by Walter Broeckx A few days ago I wrote an article on punishing certain types of behaviour of players on the field. Someone pointed out that it also should be done for referees. If players could get a yellow card after the game because of their body language or anything else that needed judging later, the [.

The consensus at the moment seems to be that Aston Villa's Emile Heskey will partner Wayne Rooney in attack against the US.
Intriguingly, Heskey will have the number 21 on his back. Another famous forward once wore the very same number for England during our one and, so far, only successful tournament.

With practices open to the media only for the first 15 minutes, and news conferences usually restricted to manager Bob Bradley and a select player or two, gauging the mood of the U.S. team is often akin to reading tea leaves. Amid the usual platitudes, words are parsed and body language is interpreted for any hint of what the players are really thinking.

In a sentence

France make attacking look very difficult against an extremely beatable Uruguay side.

Where are France's creators?

Ribery did little. Gourcuff did less. Other players under-performed but France would have cruised to victory if this pair had created the chances that they should have.

One of the many criticisms against Almunia has been that he is not an international keeper i.e. doesn't play for his national team. I've never seen any sense in that argument and going by the performances in this World Cup, can anyone really claim there is a correlation between the quality of a keeper and being an international?

Thursday 17 June
12.30 Argentina v South Korea, Group B, ITV1/ITVHD
South Korea's display against Greece was one of the best from the first round of fixtures. However that was at sea level and this one is almost 6,000 feet higher. The Argentinians have already played at Jo'burg's other venue, Ellis Park, beating an obviously ill-prepared Nigeria but respecting the conditions (no doubt mindful of recent altitude defeats to Ecuador and of course the 6-1 drubbing lowly Bolivia gave them).

Following the England v Slovenia game, the following are the chronological comments on the game from the esteemed panels on both BBC1 and RTE.

Funniest thing I have read for a while!

Hansen: "Once England got the goal the confidence levels surged, they were excellent.

It was hard to put my arms around the idea that the World Cup was over for the United States after a 2-1 overtime defeat to Ghana in the round of 16.
Paul Kennedy of Soccer America reports on the lost opportunity for the United States, and about the future for the US team.
The overwhelming sense you got after the USA fell to Ghana Saturday was that it was an opportunity lost.

At only 25 years of age, Bastian Schweinsteiger has represented Germany 78 times, among other exciting accomplishments. But it seems that the Bayern Munich midfielder still has his head firmly resting on his shoulders. According to him, that is something Germany's quarterfinal opponents Argentina lack.

At least we can't be sure that it is. We can't even be sure what it is.

It's tough being football fan nowadays. It has become more and more demanding. Not just do we need to watch and then read a football match, to decide whether the result was fair, deserved, lucky or the death of football as we know it, we also have to complete a long list of extra tasks.

Barcelona won 3-0 away to Racing Santander this weekend and. As Ian noted, it was a nice opening statement. However, I'm starting to get a little concerned about Andres Iniesta. Take a good long look at his second goal, above.

Something is wrong here, and I think it's Iniesta's body language.

PETALING JAYA: The domestic league may see the return of foreign players next season. Though a formal decision is yet to be made, this speculation has been rife since the FA of Malaysia announced their new sub-committees on Aug 23.

Local competitions committee head Datuk Hamidin Mohd Amin is focused on bringing back the fans to the stadiums.

After a successful, if occassionally indifferent 4-0 win over Bulgaria on Friday, England have won 11 successive home games. Before this game, the British tabloids were ready, knives sharpened, to cut England's manager to pieces. In his England-Bulgaria preview last week, titled ‘Fabio Capello has lost his players and now he will lose his job', The Mirror columnist Oliver Holt cites Fabio Capello's body language as proof that he has given up.

By Ollie Irish

An Anfield insider tells me that Liverpool's dressing-room leaders Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, in case you didn't know are fast losing faith in Fernando Torres.

Sky Sports fuckwit pundit Jamie Redknapp, who claims to be a big fan of Torres, described Nando's admittedly lethargic display at Birmingham City on Sunday as 'terrible' and 'diabolical', and it seems there's a growing feeling that the Spaniard has fallen out of love with Liverpool, if not the fans who adore him.

By Ollie Irish

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Liverpool's Fernando Torres stands dejected

Photos: PA

Keep calm and carry on, Liverpool fans a point away from home against a comparable rival is a perfectly decent result. I wrote yesterday about Fernando Torres' body language, so won't bang on about it here.

"Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words." Dr. Joyce Brothers

Such is the reluctance of society's subjection to the temporality of nature, there will always be a string of institutions and, as a result, individuals, who lag behind, cast asunder in its wake.

By Ollie Irish

This is just a hunch, but I am about to bet real money that both Didier Drogba and Fernando Torres will be playing in the sky blue of Manchester City next season, with Emmanuel Adebayor (definitely) and Carlos Tevez (possibly) nowhere to be seen at Eastlands.

Liverpool forward Dirk Kuyt thinks that teammate Fernando Torres just needs time to heal from his current drop of form, and that Torres is happy in Anfield.

Scoring only one goal this season and poor body language in his last few games, Torres has worried the Liverpool fans, and has been thought to be a negative sign for what is to come later on in the season.

We are yet to set foot in the month of October, yet it's already feeling like an incredibly emotional season. After last minute muggings on Merseyside, disappointment in West London, a borderline farce against the champions of Scotland, and a huge opportunity lost against Bolton, I'm not sure how any of our hearts are gonna take all this as the games come thick and fast!