Expectation, expectation, expectation.
With a sense of frustration following four games on the spin, the unanimous feeling around the blogs and forums this week is that tomorrow's game takes on an extra significance. Back at home (easy to forget three of the four draws were on the road) and against a side who have badly struggled on their travels so far suggests three points is a given. Click to continue reading...

The British Empire fought for this!

The Daily Mail goes patriotic after Jan Moir's homophobic innuendo and their divers perp walk. But it seems a bit fascist in its endeavour. After all, the very people they want to honour fought that scourge in World War II. And yes, it is also true that the British Empire was not welcome in many countries.

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Whilst defeats inevitably brings with it the criticism and analysis a side faces, conversely, can draws mask the problems that a side has?
Yet another point yesterday, and in the context of the game with the penalty save (more of a miss?) and wonderful and brave double save at the end of the first half from Shay Given, it can be viewed as a point gained given that we again avoided what could have been a defeat. Click to continue reading...

After the late equaliser in the Champions League game last week the manager and a number of the players went on record saying we couldn't afford to be that sloppy again. We would have to learn from the mistake we made.

Sadly for us that lesson hasn't been learned yet and while a draw away from home isn't a bad result on paper, the circumstances of yesterday's 2-2 with West Ham make the result most frustrating.

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Praise for the player likely to have the responsibility of leading the line tomorrow:

"Craig has been one of our stand-out performers. He's a great outlet for us - he shows huge endeavour and a fantastic ability to drive with the ball and take the fight to the other end of the field when you are under pressure.

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Make no mistake, todays win was an important one.
With eyes upon us, and an air of expectation around the stadium we turned in a result and performance that suggested this side could be ready to achieve something.
With a more defensive formation, we managed to combine both endeavour and an attacking threat to come away with all three points when at one stage we may well have been facing a defeat. Click to continue reading...

Unless you were a fan of Real Madrid, Manchester City or a couple of other clubs dotted across the continent, this summer's transfer window was a major anti-climax, nowhere more so than at Liverpool FC.
Glen Johnson's arrival was a welcome improvement to the squad, but this was undoubtedly offset by the departure of Xabi Alonso. Click to continue reading...

Black and white, sitting on top, doing alright! That's Newcastle United, after another win in front of the watching Sky cameras puts us in the driving seat after five games. Leicester City came to town and although The Foxes showed wily endeavour in the first half, it would be hard to argue that the result [. Click to continue reading...

So after my first attempt at this failed kind of miserably, this space is having a makeover. From now on, it will be a hub to find out about all things W-League and Australian women's soccer in Australia, Matildas, Young Matildas and every other age-group in between.
But particulary with the second W-League season just a few months away, and not much news out there at all, I will endeavour to find some. Click to continue reading...

Cracking stuff. Good performances all round, three well-deserved points in the bag, lots of wholesome goodness to report – all in all a most pleasant jamboree in the sun.

Top Marks For Hunger and Intent

Lighting a pipe, contentedly sipping on a bourbon and stepping back to deliver verdicts on the game as a whole, we at AANP Towers have been murmuring appreciatively at the general mentality of the Tottenham team today.

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Manchester City can confirm that Elano has completed his transfer to Turkish side Galatasaray.

The Brazilian joined the Blues from Shakhtar Donetsk having been signed by Sven-Goran Eriksson just before the start of the 2007/08 season. He had an immediate impact with both goals and a string of influential performances.

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It was heartbreak for hosts South Africa as Daniel Alves scored direct from a free kick two minutes from time to give Brazil a hard-earned 1-0 and a place in the Confederations Cup final.
Having only been on the field for six minutes, Alves lashed home a shot from the edge of the penalty area after South Africa skipper Aaron Mokoena had fouled Ramires. Click to continue reading...

The Cheer Up Alan Shearer Predictions League
S, another season over and the fourth season of CUAS Predictions is complete. After wins for me in season 1, the title has finally been wrestled from Shane (winner in seasons 2 and 3). An excellent performance by Swiss Toni sees him take the title this season with 253 points. Click to continue reading...

UEFA U21 Championship: England 2:1 Finland
Halmstad, Sweden - At 7,500, the Orjans Vall in Halmstad, twice a venue in the 1958 World Cup, must be the smallest venue a lot of England's team have played in for a while, but by the time of Finland's first corner in the fourth minute, the blue and white fans who had crossed the border made it feel a lot larger. Click to continue reading...

Red shirts and red faces. For the people leading the "Sons of Shankly" supporters group, it has been a very uncomfortable couple of days. Video footage was leaked onto YouTube of a singer on stage at their end of the organisation's end of season party leading a large crowd in a chant about the Munich Air Disaster.

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A Liverpool FC fans group today vowed to investigate after Reds supporters apparently mocked the Munich disaster at an end-of-season party.
Footage has emerged from the Olympia venue of a room full of supporters singing derogatory references about the 1958 air crash which killed 23 people – many of them Busby Babes. Click to continue reading...

Steven Cohen, you might want to get a load of this. Some dynamite grist for your anti-Liverpool mill...
Spirit of Shankly? Spirit of Shankly?
Not much to add to this really. It's laughable and ironic that this band of staunch Liverpool supporters claims to uphold the good name of Bill Shankly - the very thought of singing merrily about the Munich air disaster would have disgusted and appalled Shankly. Click to continue reading...

End of Season Loose Ends Rambling, Innit
1. Champions League
Were Manchester United beaten by a much better team on the night? Undoubtedly. Are Barcelona the best club side in the world, ever? No. The reality is somewhere in between - United could have defended better but Barcelona fully deserved their win, and are, I think, a popular winner of the tournament. Click to continue reading...

This season, like most seasons in the past 8 or so years, Chelsea set out to claim a host of silverware, however, after all their hard work and endeavour all they managed to end up with was the lousy FA Cup! No seriously, that was it... the FA Cup!?
Man, if I played for the Blues this season, right about now I'd be waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out of a concealed van screaming like a pansy, then telling me this was all part of a show whilst handing over the UCL trophy instead. Click to continue reading...

All we've been reading about these past few weeks is Messi this, Ronaldo that. The seemingly never ending debate on which player is the best has granted, been a whole load of fun, yet for me it's also been tiresome in equal measure.

There can be no doubt that Lionel Messi won his individual battle with Cristiano Ronaldo in Rome but does that really make him the world's greatest footballer?

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It doesn't look good does it? Brought off at half-time whilst trailing at home to Tottenham which rather ironically then helps spark that tremendous comeback. I can understand why he wouldn't be desperate to stay behind and encourage his teammates but it was hardly the wisest of choices to make and it's difficult to defend a quite childish, sulky and rather petty reaction to yet another below-par individual performance.

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Why do a Panenka?

The penalty is the embodiment the dread of choice. As Andrew Anthony notes in his book On Penalties, "Sport is largely an intuitive endeavour which rewards honed instinct [...] With a football penalty, though, the taker is presented with a genuine decision.

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Even at this level there have been times when the cynicism of the opposition gets to you. It spoils your concentration and steals what small amount of composure you might have started out with.
The question is forever - is this just about playing a sport for the 'fun' of it, where the results don't really matter, where it's about maintaining health, weight, collective wellbeing through group endeavour etc etc. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool's Dirk Kuyt has given support to strikers Fernando Torres and Robbie Keane both of whom are looking to be amongst the goals but have been frustrated in their endeavour, as the Reds were held to a goalless draw by new-entrants Stoke City at Anfield on Saturday.
Spanish ace Torres has the record of being the most prolific foreign striker in the Premiership debut campaign following his last season's tally of 24 league goals. Click to continue reading...

While midfielder Steven Gerrard anticipates his next goal for Liverpool - which will be his 100th for the club, striker Robbie Keane is still waiting to open his account for the Reds. But former Arsenal and England centre-forward Alan Smith is sure Keane will become a huge hit at Anfield.
Robbie Keane joined Liverpool - the club he supported as a boy - for £20million in the summer from Tottenham, but his Anfield career has yet to ignite properly. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso has promised the club that he is 100% committed to their cause this season, after a summer in which he was left in transfer limbo.
Alonso began the summer as a target for Italian giants Juventus and looked set to seal a deal when he returned to Anfield after claiming the European Championship with Spain. Click to continue reading...

Okay, editing the previous post is not really going to work so well, so I will endeavour to produce one of those posts journalist-writing-about-journalists pieces that do so much to advance the sum of human knowledge. As mentioned before, William Moore's report is the best place to start. I did something for soccernet, but it [. Click to continue reading...

OK. Listen up.
With both Angela Merkel and Abdullah Gül present at last night's Euro 2008 semi Final between Germany and Turkey, our incredibly simple, yet startlingly profitable latter phase match determinator was unable to solve the outcome pre-match.
But, in our collective boredom, we have produced an even more efficient "model". Click to continue reading...

"They can play games like this, when maybe they are not the best team, and still win. That is why they are so good."
Fatih Terim, Turkey's coach, could have uttered these words tonight, but in fact it was Bruce Arena after Germany had edged the States 1-0 in Ulsan in the 2002 World Cup quarter-final. Click to continue reading...

Tory becomes my new hero....I feel dirty.

David Davis resigns over the 42 day detention

Shadow home secretary David Davis has resigned as an MP.

He is to force a by-election in his Haltemprice and Howden constituency which he will fight on the issue of the new 42-day terror detention limit. Click to continue reading...

Well, with Dynamo spread across the hemisphere this morning, the main team in Guatemala for tomorrow's opening leg of the CONCACAF Champions Cup against CSD Municipal and Stuart Holden and Patrick Ianni with the US Olympic squad playing against Cuba in Tampa tonight, I thought it an apt time to post this video of seven adopted Houstonians turning the Florida sky a decidedly Dynamo shade of orange early this morning. Click to continue reading...