May 2011 Archives

Liverpool FC's Martin Skrtel hails 2010/11 as his best ever season

MARTIN SKRTEL says 2010/11 was the best season of his career - and believes he's proved the doubters wrong who claimed he didn't have the quality to play for Liverpool.

Raul Meireles leads the assister act for Liverpool FC

FOR the first time since records began (or at least since the Echo started keeping count of these things), Liverpool has a new name at the top of their assists chart.

Liverpool FC's Lucas Leiva thanks fans for player of the season award

LUCAS LEIVA has been voted Liverpool Player of the Season for 2010-11 by the club's supporters.

Steven Gerrard praises Liverpool FC fans after Aston Villa awayday

LIVERPOOL skipper Steven Gerrard got some first hand experience of the value of Liverpool's fanbase, when he sat with the away fans at Villa Park on Sunday.

Last week was the week that every Football supporter in this country dreads.  Not only was it the final week of the football season, it was also the week when most clubs announced their annual ticket price increases and Liverpool were one of the first to do so.

I sat down as I suspect most of you did and studied the announcement that was put onto the club website and began to try and work out if the rise was justified or indeed well thought out.  This left me with many answered questions, so rather than write about it straight away, I decided to monitor various websites and debates to gauge the feelings of fellow supporters.

Wherever I looked the answers seemed to be the same, some agreed with the price rises, some did not. Why, because the speed of at which the game is being taken out of the hands of the working man is now gathering pace and very soon we will see stadiums full of corporate clients only.  This of course is something that must not be allowed to happen.

Today was the day that became known as survival Sunday because of the amount of clubs at the bottom of the premiership needing points to ensure that they did not drop down into the Championship. We could easily have been amongst them if the plans the previous administration had put into place had come to fruition.

This time last year, Rafa Benitez was still our manager and we finished the season lying in seventh position in the league.  There was also disquiet in the boardroom with all the different factions beginning to fight amongst themselves. The club, having been deprived of investment and funding was also on its knees and needed to be sold quickly.

Rafa Benitez at this point in time according to the previous administration became a liability and after a serious of short discussions it was announced that he had left the club.  The search for a new manager began and a short list was drawn up.  Now this short list was leaked very quickly and the name of the man at the top began to set the alarm bells ringing.  That name of course was Roy Hodgson and although most supporters, myself included realised he was the wrong man for the job, we decided to give him a chance.