Paco Ayesteran is leaving Liverpool

Paco Ayesteran has been Rafa Benitez right hand man for 11 years now, starting with Tenerife, then Valencia and of course he followed him all the way to Liverpool. It's not yet known whether he has been offered another job or just wishes to return to Spain for personal reasons.

The players were apparently informed of his decision to leave yesterday. Liverpool FC haven't made much further comment regarding this, but this is bound to be a bit of a blow given that Paco was in charge of the fitness coaching and much of the player administration.

Damien Plessi signs for Liverpool

The 19 year old french holding midfielder signed from Lyon on transfer deadline day. Initially he will be added to the reserve squad, he's a big and strong player with time on his hands to improve his game and hopefully he can push for a first team spot at some point in the future. Given the wealth of talent we already have in midfield though he really has a fight on his hands.

Liverpool - Group A - Champions League 07/08

Liverpool shouldn't have too difficult a group to deal with after landing Porto, Marseille and Besiktas. Porto are a shadow of the side which won the competition in 2004. Marseille could be interesting in that Cisse and Zenden both joined the club this summer and might be returning to Anfield for that leg. Besiktas will probably end up being the whipping boys of the group.

Liverpool should comfortably win this group, but the beauty of football is that you never really know what's going to happen 'on the day', can't wait to find out ;-)

Besian Idrizaj goes on a season long loan

The 19 year old winger/striker joined Liverpool 2 years ago from Austrian side Linzer ASK (he was named Austrian young player of the year). He has yet to make a first team appearance, but is a regular goalscorer for the reserves. He will be joining Crystal Palace for a season long loan (he also had a loan spell with Luton Town last season, scoring 1 goal in 7 games).

Links

There's plenty of Liverpool FC related sites and blogs out there, and here's a list of some current ones you might want to check out. If you have an LFC blog which isn't listed, feel free to email me and I can add it for you.

A Liverpool Thing
Anfield Reds
Anfield Road
Anfield Talk
Extra Footie
Football Corner
In The Stands
Kop Blog
Kopworld LFC forum
Lala's Red World
Liverpool FC Forever
LFC Live
LFC on TV
LFC Post
Liverpool on Footbo
Make Us Dream
My Friggin' Mind
Oh You Beauty
Our Kop
Red Floyd
S.P.A.O.T.P.
That's On Point
The Red Cauldron
The Run of Play
This Is Anfield

Strikers scoring goals for Liverpool

Oh how times have changed for Liverpool FC, we now have strikers capable of scoring goals for us. Not only that but the work ethic of them reminds me of Ian Rush in his heyday chasing down opposition players.

Fernando Torres and Andriy Voronin have both settled in extremely well at Liverpool and have proven instant hits, displaying a tremendous work ethic and scoring some superb goals ;-)

Dirk Kuyt is as industrious as ever and got a brace against Toulouse last night, plus Peter Crouch despite the constant rumours about him being sold off continues to fight for his place and also found the back of the net last night :-)

Jamie Carragher collapsed lung and broken rib

It's unkown how long Jamie Carragher will be out of action, following the shocking news that it wasn't just a broken rib but he also has a collapsed lung now too. While Benitez has said it's nothing too serious, Carra will definitely miss at least a few games.

Despite Sami Hyypia having a broken nose he will be available for the match against Toulouse tonight. With Liverpool having recently sold Gabriel Paletta we're certainly quite short on defensive cover should either Agger or Hyypia get injured any time soon. Jack Hobbs seems the most likely candidate to step in and provide defensive cover.

Our 50th European Cup win at Anfield ?

Liverpool face Toulouse on Tuesday night for the second leg of the Champions League group stage qualifier. The draw for the group stages will take place at 5pm on Thursday.

Given that they were born Toulouse (sic!) we could reach yet another milestone by recording our 50th European Cup win at Anfield :-)

Gabriel Paletta leaves Liverpool for Boca

Liverpool has today confirmed that Gabriel Paletta has been sold to Argentine side Boca Juniors for an undisclosed fee.

He scored on his debut and played 8 games in total for the Reds, but I think it was a case of too much too soon for the young player, having arrived on the back of impressive performances in the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championships.

He will now get the chance to develop as a player back home and should he fulfill his potential he might end up back in Europe in a few seasons time.

As part of the deal, highly rated left back Emiliano Insua (was on loan) has made a permanent transfer to Liverpool.

A letter from Luis Garcia - can it be true !

In this day and age of millionaire footballers, and talk of many of them being little more than mercenaries who don't care much about the clubs they play for, it's soooo refreshing to see this letter which Luis Garcia sent in to the official LFC website (link).

He may have been criticised for giving the ball away at times but he also had a tendancy to conjure up some magic when it mattered most, scoring some classic and truly vital goals (Juventus and both his Chelsea goals are my favourites!). He did enough during his 3 years to become another Liverpool Legend.

Gabriel Heinze can't join Liverpool

A Premier League inquiry which lasted 2 days has ruled against Heinze joining Liverpool. The arbitration panel decided that a letter signed by David Gill didn't constitute a definitive undertaking from Manchester United to offload the player. United also claim to have made it clear both verbally and in writing that he wouldn't be permitted to join a title rival.

However, despite the procrastinations and showboating of the panel, Heinze remains hopeful and appealed to his employers, “My idea has not changed and my objective is to go to Liverpool, I will always be grateful to United, but now I hope they allow me to get my wish.”

What will happen to Rob Styles ?

It's such a shame that Rob Styles is being let off with nothing more than a cursory slap on the wrist (he has to go one weekend without officiating any games!) for his truly shocking and abysmal performance in the Liverpool vs. Chelsea game.

I think it's high time that there is room for intervention during a game based on video evidence and also to overule blatantly incompetent referrees.

The time don't fit the crime, accountability would be more along the lines of a successful class action lawsuit against Styles by the tens of thousands of Liverpool supporters who bet money on the game or to win the league (and no I didn't bet myself).

While it's good to hear that Rob Styles apologised last night and offered a public apology to the club, should those 2 points lost for Liverpool end up being enough to cost us the Premiership trophy at the end of the season, what are the odds of some extremists taking 'justice' into their own hands and taking their frustrations out on the man !?!

Gerrard breaks his toe .... so what*

Scans today have confirmed that Steven Gerrard has a hairline fracture on his toe. He'll be allowed to play against Chelsea this Sunday but after that will require 1 to 2 weeks of rest which means he'll miss the meaningless England versus Germany friendly.

Just a few years ago Gerrard getting injured would send shockwaves throughout the media about Liverpool being in trouble (ironic thing is Liverpool has a better record when Gerrard doesn't play!).

With the squad depth we have these days I wouldn't be even slightly bothered if he ends up having to sit out the Chelsea game. That's the great thing about Liverpool these days, in virtually every single position we're spoilt for choice, so when one player goes down, along comes another top class player to take his place :-)

*As an addendum to this post and in light of his performance against Chelsea, I think I'll take back the 'so what' part, was great to see him dominate the midfield against a top tier side :-)

Charles Itandje joins Liverpool, Carson out

Despite earlier commiting himself to Liverpool, Scott Carson has decided to join Aston Villa on a season long loan so as to further his international career. Although Benitez might claim he has a big future at Anfield, I can't see him ever displacing Reina as number one and I reckon the only reason they wouldn't allow Aston Villa to purchase him was because they want him to get the extra years experience and hopefully do well at the European Championships in order to raise his transfer fee.

24 year old Charles Itandje has been signed for an undisclosed fee as backup for Reina, the former French Under-21 international has had 170 appearances over the last 6 years for Lens and is probably more highly rated for his rythmic dancing to put off strikers than anything else I'm currently aware of.

Plans revealed for Liverpool's new Anfield Stadium

New details have emerged regarding Liverpool’s new Anfield Stadium after the 23 documents for it were made available for public viewing at Liverpool City Council.

Although it doesn’t explicitly state how they plan to expand from 60,000 to 78,000 seats in the future, a little bit of logical deduction reveals the most likely way it will be done.

Other cool features of Liverpool’s new Anfield stadium are that it’s likely to be the ‘greenest’ stadium (carbon neutral and also a wind turbine!) in the Premiership and also that it will have a “skywalk” at the top of The Kop which will offer views across the city through to Wales.

At present the planned capacities for each stand is as follows :-

The Kop will have 18,000 seats in a single tier over 95 rows. The East Stand will have 25,000 seats in two tiers over 108 rows. The West Stand will have 12,000 seats in 3 tiers over 97 rows, with a further 1,000 seats in corporate suites. The North Stand will have 4,200 seats in 28 rows.

Some simple math and a brief look at the plans combined with common sense would indicate that upon further planning approval the West Stand will be a 22,000 seater and that the North Stand will have 12,000 (either a 2 or 3 tier stand).

Pepe Reina to score a hat trick !?!

People always go on about strikers scoring a hat-trick but what about a keeper ?

Pepe Reina has won the Barclays Golden Glove Award 2 seasons in a row and who would bet against him making it a third season in a row ! He's already managed to keep 39 clean sheets out of 67 league games so far.

But this season we've got a very settled and experienced backline and midfield (both I'd rate as being world class, except leftback), whereas in the last few seasons they were always a work in progress having to break in new players, this season our new players to break in will be wingers/strikers and they've all had a good pre-season which bodes well.

Hopefully this will all add up to more clean sheets and more goals, so Reina can have his hat trick and more importantly Liverpool can have it's hands on the Premiership trophy :-)

Crouchie's robot origin's revealed

Peter Crouch has revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail that his robot dance started during a televised charity bash (David Beckham's World Cup Warm-Up) which caught him dancing like a robot.

It was only ever intended as a joke with Jamie Carragher, when he said "I'm going to do something stupid on the way to the toilet. So I did the robot, which was something I used to mess around doing as a kid – and meanwhile Carra tapped the cameraman to get it on tape."

Thanks to Prince William requesting a private rerun on the training ground, the incident ended up being reported around the world, and its escalated from there.

However Crouchie has now vowed to only do it for special occasions and insists he has a repertoire of tricks up his sleeve, with Benitez claiming has a part to play in his plans this season, hopefully we'll get to see some more goal celebrations !

Unwanted Genius heading for Liverpool exit

Labelled a prodigy as a youth player who excelled at numerous UEFA & FIFA youth championships, Anthony Le Tallec was signed alongside his cousin Florent Sinama-Pongolle for a combined fee of £7m back in 2002.

The anfield faithful had high hopes for both players and while most people would think they failed to live up to the hype, I much prefer to look back on the impact both players had on Liverpool.

Their contribution to Liverpool winning the European Cup back in 2005 deserves to be remembered. Pongolle come on as a late substitute against Galatasary and opened the scoring for us to qualify for the knockout stages of the competition. Against Juventus in the quarter finals it was the sheer genius of Le Tallec that tore a hole through Juventus for Luis Garcia to score.

Pongolle has faired quite well since leaving Liverpool last summer (joined Recreativo) and I hope the same for Le Tallec whoever he ends up with (Sochaux being the current favourites for his signature).

More view's of the New Anfield Stadium

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO EXPAND IT TO FULL SIZE

As far as I know this is all the official images available of the new Liverpool / Anfield stadium and I felt compelled to post them online ;-)