And So It Begins

Harry finally registered his interest in Joe Cole and with the on-off transfer of Ngog to Bolton hopefully drawing to a close, there appears to be many reasons to be optimistic about the coming season.

There was also a massive rumour going around last night that Liverpool may have won a bye into the Champions League due to the expulsion of Fenabahce.  This though was quickly put to bed when UEFA issued a statement stating that Trabzonspor would take their place.  Although if reports are true, I suspect they may also be withdrawn at some point.

We also played our first game last night in this season's Carling Cup competition and with Kenny determined to lay to rest the ghost of last year's defeat against Northampton Town, it indicated that for the first time in years the competition was not going to be treated lightly.

Kenny kept to his word and the team that arrived at the St Jame's Park stadium in Exeter was a strong one. It also included several of the youngsters who Kenny had promoted to the first team last season. These were Jack Robinson, Jay Spearing and Jon Flanagan. Exeter over the years have had some varying success in the Carling cup and with a tradition to uphold sent out the strongest team that it could.

Now most Liverpool supporters believed that this game was going to be a walk over, but within ten minutes of the game starting it became apparent that it was simply not going to be that easy.  Exeter who seem to have a habit of going on quite good cup runs, ensured that their players were up to the task. 

Liverpool started off very well with a great deal of the pass and flow type of football that we are getting used to once more, but Exeter were not afraid of tackling to win the ball which immediately led to a lot of balls being headed around the pitch. It also unfortunately led to Raul Meireles falling awkwardly and injuring his shoulder.  The consequences of which means that he will be out for at least 2-4 weeks, but on the bright side will mean that in all probability he will not now be sold during this window.

He was of course replaced by Andy Carroll and our style of play changed completely with Charlie Adam trying to ensure long balls reached him.  The only thing that appeared to happening at this point in the time was the torrential rain that began to beat down on St James Park, but then our one man goal scoring machine with the name of Luis Suarez hit a beauty and Liverpool went in at the break, one goal to the good.

A deflated Exeter re-emerged after half time knowing that they were quite possibily now already heading for a Carling Cup Exit, but to give credit where credit is due they fought on.  The Liverpool machine though was now in full swing and after Suarez sert up Maxi, goal number two was in the back of the net.  This time last year, that would have been enough for Liverpool to sit back and just hold onto the lead, but under the new work ethic that Kenny has installed in the team, they continued and any doubts that had begun to circulate once more about Andy Carroll, were quickly put to bed when he scored a thunderous goal.

Liverpool were cruising towards the next round, when a moments loss of concentration by Skrtel, gifted Exeter a penalty.  This they took with ease and had earned what I consider to be a well-earned goal.

Exeter played extremely well, and all credit to them, the team last night was played off the pitch with You'll Never Walk Alone coming from the Exeter sound system.

We are now in the next round and it will be interesting to see who we play when the draw is made on Saturday morning, but the ghost of the result twelve months ago has finally been put to bed. Hopefully it will not re-emerge when Liverpool begins its journey in the FA Cup competition.

On a none football note this week has been a momentous way with regard to the government files detailing what happened after Hillsborough.  An online petition was launched to make the government disclose these and after a massive publicity campaign that included footballers, pop-stars, politicians and many football supporters, the government have climbed down and said that yes the papers will in the fullness of time become available.

So there we have it, the 2011-2012 football season is now in full swing and with the transfer window due to close in six days' time we can all begin to breathe a sigh of relief, until of course around the middle of November when the rumours and the speculation will begin once more.  You see for some reason, the powers that be have stuck a month long transfer window in January.