Its been a great week for Liverpool, we have encountered another one of those Roley Poly Brazilians, a Dutch manager losing the plot, an English manager losing the plot a lunatic Sheffield defender and nearly met a big fat ego from Cameroon.
Two great wins against, first of all the current champions of Europe in their own backyard, and then on Saturday overcoming the usual European hangover to totally mow down the Blades. Liverpool have had more trouble than their main contenders in England adjusting to the premiership after midweek euro clashes, and Sheffield Utd are not the type of team you want after a tactical battle in Europe.
Rafa Benitez made seven changes for Saturdays game at Anfield bringing in a lot of game hungry squad players eagar to impress and win a starting place on a more regular basis, and maybe this is a good option against these battler teams whose main objective is not to be relegated and survive another season so they can strenghten their club on the wealth of the Premiership.
Neil Warnock was incensed by the referees decision to give Liverpool a penalty following a foul by Rob Kozluk on Gerrard for holding in the penalty box, what made this such a stupid foul is that 20 seconds before the referee had warned Kozluk about the same thing and when play resumed stupid Kozluk stood one metre in front of the ref and ignored the refs advice and committed the exact same foul again, Gerrard made the most of it but who would not capitalize on such stupidity. How Warnock can complain about his player been penalised for such stupidity is beyond me.
The most interesting decision made by Benitez this week is his handling of Javier Mascherano, the Argentine was on the bench at the Nou Camp and made his full debut against Shefield Utd, even though he has only just moved to Anfield and had only played one game for his former club West Ham since his move at the start of the season. Benitez is showing amazing faith in a player who has had virtually no playing time in the last six months. The reason for this is because Benitez knows he has a truly world class player on his hands and for whatever reason has had his confidence knocked for six by West Hams reluctance to give him a chance. Benitez has tried to regain some of Mascherano`s confidence by instantly including him in the squad for the Barca game and at the Sheffield game gave him his first start. In the game itself Mascherano in the first half was a spectator whose only contribution to the game was to quickly take a free kick only to belt it against an opposing player with no Liverpool teammate in sight, it was a clear sign of a player with zero confidence trying to impress, but he did improve in the second half and showed some nice touches and probably will return to the player he showed us that he can be at the last world cup, but Rafa has a lot of work to do.
And then there was that little matter of the game at the Nou Camp, Liverpool Fc once again overcame the odds to create another historical European night for the Anfield club but that is exactly what it is, one night, this tie is only half over.
And Barcelona are more capable than any other team in the world of overturning the decifet from the first game.
Barcelona have had a much harder time from the media, with the latest reports saying that Ronaldhino has followed his compatriot Ronaldo into a need to spend a week or two at fatcamp. Funny how the media has suddenly noticed that he is fat just as Barca are having a bad time. What is it with Brazilians and paella.
But Barcelona will be a totally different animal when they face Liverpool at Anfield.
Rijkaard has handled the Samuel Eto'o saga poorly, this whole thing should have been sorted out before the Liverpool game and away from the media glare.
Samuel Eto'o has been included in the Barca squad for this weekends La Liga game so it looks like Frank Rijkaard has forgiven his big ego striker, and a Barca team with
Eto'o trying to prove a point is a Barca team to be wary of. If you also look at the way the Barcelona players have rallied around their Roley poly Brazilian play maker then it shows exactly what Liverpool will be up against at Anfield.
Despite Liverpool having to battle the fat Brazilian and the ego that is Eto'o, the scoreline cushion from the first leg should be enough to see us through, after all this is Fortress Anfield as Man Utd are about to find out next Saturday
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