November 2011 Archives

Last night, was one of those nights that should have been played out in an entirely different way.  It was the night that Liverpool met Chelsea once more at Stamford Bridge.  This time, it was to see, who out of the two teams would enter into the next round of the Carling Cup draw, which takes place this evening.

There had of course been many hours of interviews and media reports around the fact that, Liverpool would have to play this game, 48 hours after their league clash with Manchester City. This led to a large section of the media wondering if in fact, it would be a bridge to far for Liverpool, who are classed as a team in transition.  Enter a certain Kenny Dalglish, who just assured everyone, in his own wonderful way,  that Liverpool would do the best they could and under an unexpected emotional cloud, that is exactly what they did.

Sometimes though, certain things happen, that put kicking a ball around the pitch onto the back-burner.

This morning the world of football was rocked by the death of Gary Speed at the young age of 42.  As everyone from his former colleagues, his friends within the game, the media and indeed us the supporters were coming to terms with the awful news, further details began to emerge that Gary, a man with the world at his feet, took his own life.  Why, we will probably never know and we must all remember the man that played for Leeds, Newcastle and Everton and began his managerial career as the Manager of Wales - a team that he was pulling out of the doldrums and into one that could make a serious challenge in any of the competitions coming up.  Sadly he will never see the result of all his hard work but I am sure that Wales will do everything they can in their power to ensure his legacy lives on.

So on behalf of all supporters, can I please offer my sincere condolences to Gary's wife and two young boys, who will need the help of support of everyone around them at this awful time.

That Older man of course is Kenny Dalglish, A manager who apparently had been out of the game for too long before his return in January.  He has of course set a revival in place and although stuttering at times, it certainly moving in the right direction.

The Younger man is Andre Villas Boas, who is also going through his second spell at Chelsea.  The first was as an assistant to Jose Mourinho, but he is now back as the Manager and his remit is to win the Premiership and nothing more.  Unfortunately Roman is very fickle and it looks as though this young man's career at Chelsea is already in question.

Today although the match was an important one, everyone's thoughts were elsewhere due to some very sad news that reached us all yesterday.  Liverpool's reserve goalie Brad Jones's little boy Luca had lost his brave fight against leukaemia and the team wore black armbands in the little boys honour. At the end of the game, the result would also be dedicated to Luca and his family, who are going to find life very tough for the foreseeable future.