Editor’s Note: Geoff Reid appears on WVHooligan each week. Today he’s back with his weekly look at the life of a Liverpool fan living in American. Feel free to leave Geoff your thoughts below.

This week has been a pretty slow week in football compared to previous weeks. Over in England, matches last weekend in the Premiership followed by Carling Cup during the week where most clubs gave their reserves and younger players a chance to prove themselves to the manager of their respective clubs.

With Liverpool, playing at Upton Park, east London was always going to be tricky because West Ham are a firmly established Premiership club and one of the most respected in English football due to how many great English players have come through the clubs famous youth system over the years. Players like Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and others from the 1966 England squad that won the World Cup on home soil consisted of a good number of West Ham United players. Later on, Trevor Brooking, Alvin Martin and Paul Ince have come through and had very successful careers at the highest level. The latest players to have come through the system playing at the top level include Chelsea’s Frank Lampard and Joe Cole, Manchester United’s Michael Carrick and Rio Ferdinand and Liverpool’s very own Glen Johnson. Currently in Gianfranco Zola’s squad, James Tomkins and Freddie Sears (who is actually on loan at Crystal Palace until the end of the season) are the latest famous academy products to make the first team who are touted to go to the very top. West Ham also have Illinois’ very own Jonathan Spector so it was always going to be a very tough test in east London with Zola having on of the best assistant’s in the business in Steve Clarke and play a very attractive style of football and regularly push for European football. Continue Reading…

Editor’s Note: Geoff Reid appears on WVHooligan each week. Today he returns with his weekly series on the life of a Liverpool fan in America. Feel free to leave Geoff a note below.

After four weeks of the English season gone so far, we’re already seeing some trends set in with Chelsea topping the league being unbeaten this far, Manchester City setting an interesting tone in their new spending power and with the club not competing in European competition at all it should be interesting in how Mark Hughes can balance the squad and keep everyone happy with rotating. At least the thought of European football would make it easier in that respect, but there is no doubt the blues will be playing against other clubs from the continent next season, it’s just a question of which competition.

Liverpool’s start this season has many of the red half of Merseyside wondering if this team really has what it takes to challenge for honors this season. While it’s far too early to tell what will happen, you have to be somewhat concerned with the inconsistent start. Lately, the team has won three matches in a row by beating Bolton, Burnley and Debrecen in the Champions League opener on Wednesday night. The performances themselves have not been of the highest standards to say the least, but the important thing is the team is winning games.

I felt the score line on Saturday against the Clarets was very flattering even though it was a comfortable 4-0 win in the end. The thing that stands out the most is Liverpool and the US national team have something in common: both have recently started matches very slow and lethargic. Most people agree before Rico Clark hit that beauty of a shot from distance in Port of Spain, the national team did not look good at all. It’s really amazing what a goal can do for a team. After the goal was scored, the team settled down and Clint Dempsey didn’t look as lazy once he was moved up front. The same happened with the reds this past weekend. It wasn’t until Israeli international Yossi Benayoun scored the first of his three goals, the team then started to have a new found energy about them, passed the ball better, movement off the ball was better and gave more confidence to the side as a whole. I just don’t understand why both the US and Liverpool can’t play that way right from the start. The concerning fact for me is against tougher competition if either side plays like that both the national team and the reds will be in serious trouble.

It was fantastic to see the Champions League return this past week and back at it’s finest after seeing some cracking matches like the Standard Liege vs Arsenal matchup. Watching Liverpool’s opener against the Hungarian side Debrecen was not pretty, good overall performance and it must improve before the next match away to Fiorentina in Florence. The passing was not there, a lot of common sense was missing, even Steven Gerrard was making a lot of mistakes that is rare for him. The side should have scored more goals and going forward, Debrecen didn’t look a bad side. It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on them this year. They certainly won’t be whipping boys that’s for sure.

Off the pitch, the club announced a new sponsorship partnership with Standard Chartered Bank, a London based global bank which along with the continued partnership Danish beer company Carlsburg, should give the club an increased revenue to 26 million pounds each year for the next four years with Standard Chartered to be the main shirt sponsor starting next season. It’s encouraging hearing the financial news surrounding the club these days are positive after hearing nothing but negative forecast prediction by people and the debt George Gillett and Tom Hicks had previously acquired to purchase the club outright built up. The news that the new stadium should be back on track is also encouraging when the global economic situation improves. There was also talk today of possibly a third minority owner come in and help fund the stadium to be built on Stanley Park. While Anfield has been a wonderful home and given myself and all other Liverpool fans who have been lucky enough to see matches there, the new, state of the art stadium with capacity much more higher then what Anfield currently holds (45,000) is a must to compete with both clubs from Manchester clubs, Arsenal and Chelsea. Arsenal did the same a few years ago leaving legendary Highbury for the Emirates Stadium. I’ve always described Anfield to my American friends when I was in college the English version of Fenway Park but you can easily compare Fenway to most old, English grounds.

The bottom line for the team right now is performances are starting to improve slowly.

Editor’s Note: Geoff Reid appears on WVHooligan.com each week. This week he returns with his series on the life of a Liverpool fan. Feel free to leave Geoff your thoughts below.

It’s been a little while since I last posted my thoughts on Liverpool FC.  Last time out, the club had just suffered a demoralizing defeat at home to the hands on Aston Villa, and crisis mode was being pushed by the media and some fans adding fuel to the already growing fire.  Since then, the reds picked up a scrappy 3-2 win at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton before going on an international break.  So in theory, there isn’t too much to recap.

Starting with the match against Bolton Wanderers, by all means was not the prettiest match in the world and in a lot of ways it defined the term winning ugly.  If we get all the negatives out of the way first, the defending simply has to improve, it’s as simple as that.  All fingers will point to zonal marking because it’s the easiest bandwagon to jump on in times like these, yet Liverpool have had one of if not the best defense in the league the last few years.  That there tells me it works.  The problem simply is the reaction time has to be better.  If the ball is bouncing around in your six yard box, as a defender your first instinct should be to block the ball or clear it out of danger no matter what cost.  Man marking has always traditionally been the English way of defending and in a lot of ways it’s one example of why the English game was behind the times for so many years before it took foreign managers and players to come in during the latter half of the 1990’s but that’s another story for another day.

Moving onto the positives, we saw a good debut for Greek defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos who seems to be a direct replacement for Finnish legend Sami Hyypia.  Although he doesn’t look the quickest on the ground, certainly his height could be key in the coming months this season in the league playing against teams like Bolton who have a physical style about them, plus he’s already been exposed to British football by being on the books of Rangers in the SPL for 18 months so he’s no stranger to the traditional style.

Another positive was the character and determination amongst the squad after going behind twice and coming back to win.  No, it’s not a recurring theme we want, but it is comforting to know that when the team is up against it then they do have the drive to come back from the brink but then again, that’s been a trademark of this team ever since Rafa Benitez became manager in the summer of 2004 and proof of this was the Champions League final against AC Milan in Istanbul a year later.  Fernando Torres’ confidence will be higher after scoring and every striker is confident the more goals he scores.  Since this game, it looks like Steven Gerrard has come back into top form after scoring for England to help seal their trip to South Africa next summer.  Alberto Aquilani has yet to make his debut because he is still recovering from an injury he picked up with Roma at the end of last season and that still can’t get here soon enough because Lucas Leiva is not the long term answer in midfield alongside Javier Mascherano.  Lucas is another option for rotation and hasn’t performed badly, but he won’t be first on the team sheet if everyone is healthy for the biggest match of the season whether it’s the Champions League Final or a league match that is must win that would guarantee the title all Liverpool fans crave.

This Saturday, Liverpool host Burnley (9:55am, ESPN2) in what should be a hard fought match.  Expect Burnley to close up shop and hold out for a 0-0 draw, similar to what Stoke City did last season when they came to Anfield.  Once again, the question is which Liverpool team will show up to play?

On a side note, everyone should join me in congratulating our own WV Hooligan for officially tying the knot!

Editor’s Note: Geoff Reid appears on WVHooligan each week. Today he returns to us with his weekly series on the life of a Liverpool fan in America. Feel free to leave him your thoughts below.

Premiership football is back in full swing and it doesn’t feel any better does it? Well that depends on who you ask. Before Monday nights match against Brad Friedel and Aston Villa I was thinking which Liverpool would show up: the one that lost to Spurs on opening weekend being very inconsistent or the one that trashed Tony Pulis’ Stoke City the following Wednesday? The best explanation I can come up with was a mixture of both. Obviously my first reactions were a little blown up after a defeat and I’ve always been someone who gives myself 24 hours to gather my thoughts and look at things more rationally. It was the same back in my college days after we’d win or lose a match because our reactions were always different right after the match ended compared to analyzing it the following day. Continue Reading…

Editor’s Note: Geoff Reid appears on WVHooligan each week. Today he kicks off his new weekly post about the life of a Liverpool fan. Feel free to leave him your thoughts below.

So there I was just getting home from work last Sunday after nine o’clock knowing that I missed my beloved Liverpool’s season opener away against Tottenham at White Hart Lane.  I already knew the score, as I was cheekily following the live up-to-date match statistics on my phone and was well gutted, however not jumping the gun.  Once I was watching the replay on FSC and knowing the score I was still screaming at the television as if it was live.  Makes me wonder if I’m actually sane when I know the eventual outcome.  But then I also realized that nobody was around to listen to my points and anyone in my household that would have been there wouldn’t have understood what I was on about anyway.  So the thought of an online diary if you will came into my head and unfortunately for you poor people that read this will be reading my points of view and rants!

In this day and age with the millions of dollars, pounds, euros whatever the currency may be, we find ourselves having a lot more knee jerk reactions after one bad result.  Panic time starts to set in among certain fans and that is driven by the media more then anyone else.  Also in this day and age, newspapers are struggling to sell with the growth of the internet so they need stories to sell their print. Some are true and others false.  When it comes to English football, the tabloids in the UK are some of the worst.  After reading some stories in the English tabloids, you wonder if they’ve even kicked a ball in their life.

After Liverpool lost to Spurs on opening weekend, these reactions were already happening with certain pundits saying Rafa Benitez hasn’t replaced Xabi Alonso, Lucas Leiva isn’t up to that responsibility and Liverpool’s title hopes are finished.  All this after one match!  My favorite Liverpool writer Paul Tomkins has a very interesting take on knee jerk reactions when it comes to this sort of thing.  Is Lucas a suitable replacement for Alonso?  No, of course not, that is why Rafa bought Alberto Aquilani from Roma right after Alonso was sold to Real Madrid.  The problem is, Aquilani is injured for another six weeks at least, until late September at earliest.  Already though, some former players turned pundits are getting on Aquilani’s case.  Former Arsenal defender Lee Dixon was quoted as saying “They have brought in Alberto Aquilani to fill that space but until he proves he can be the chief supplier then they are going to have problems.”  So how can he prove himself when he is still injured?  And as for Lucas, all the criticism he got after his performance against Spurs, he was actually one of Liverpool’s few bright spots along with new signing Glen Johnson in an otherwise poor overall performance.

The first half against Harry Redknapp’s side, the reds looked very flat, as did Spurs to a point and being the first game of the season, it was to be expected somewhat.  The clash of heads between Jamie Carragher and Martin Skrtel summed it all up.  That incident should never have happened and should have been avoided.  It comes down to  the basic art of defending, one of them has to put a name on that ball and call for it, especially when there was no pressure from a Spurs striker.  Just goes to show, even the very best who play at the highest level can make mistakes.  There was also other basics that were lacking like simply putting a few passes together, movement off the ball all of these simple things that made Liverpool top scorers in league play last season.  It’s been a tough pre-season with different players starting at different times.  For example, the Spanish contingent started their pre-season later because of Confederations Cup duties.  Even Fernando Torres was getting unfairly criticized with pundits saying he looks like a shadow of his former self.  Well if that’s the case, he might as well pack it in at the age of 25 because he’s already reached his peak and he’s past it.  Because England didn’t take part in the Confederations Cup, not many English people even knew it was on or what it was therefore had no idea some players like Torres had a late start to pre-season training.

Overall, I can’t argue with the 2-1 defeat in north London.  Spurs were the better side through the 90 minutes and all I kept thinking was we need to improve and fast.  Yes, the reds should have had another penalty when Andriy Voronin was barged off the ball by a Tottenham defender when clearly he never meant to play the ball.  Another shout for a handball came only a few minutes later but that was only ball to hand.  Putting aside the late penalty claims, the defeat was what Liverpool deserved.

The home opener was only three nights later versus Stoke City and already it was a must win game, with all crazy rumors of Rafa Benitez quitting over supposedly not being given any more transfer funds by the owners.  To be quite honest, I wouldn’t mind these rumors starting every week because whenever they seem to start Liverpool win by four goals!  And it happened again against the potters.  The question now is who is the real Liverpool?  The side that beat Stoke 4-0 on Wednesday evening or the one that was second best against Spurs?

Editor’s Note: Geoff Reid appears on WVHooligan.com every Monday with his take on the game. He returns today to preview the second leg of Champions League matches this week. As always feel free to leave Geoff your comments below.

FC Bayern Munich (GER) vs FC Barcelona (ESP) at the Allianz Arena on Tuesday, FC Barcelona leads 4-0 on aggregate

I think it’s fair to say my prediction for this tie is completely out the window because it’s now anything but tight and the Catalans have a more then comfortable lead. Kilinsmann, who will be out of a job by the summer recently said its important to play for pride. Inside the dressing room he will be reminding his players about the AC Milan and Deportivo La Coruna tie earlier this decade at the same stage of the tournament when the Italians beat the northern Spaniards 4-1 at the San Siro only for Deportivo to win the second leg 4-0 at the Riazor and win 5-4 on aggregate. I can’t see that happening again and although I think Bayern will get some goals, it ultimately won’t be enough and Barcelona just simply have too much quality throughout and they proved that at the Camp Nou last week. The Bavarians defense got exposed too often last week and at least that part of my prediction was correct! Continue Reading…

Editor’s Note: Geoff Reid appears on WVH every week. Today he is stepping out of the MLS box and is previewing the UEFA Champsions League. Feel free to post your comments to Geoff below.

With the last eight teams in Europe locking horns this week I thought it would be appropriate to throw my predictions out there. Before I do, I will mention firstly I am as big of a Liverpool fan as you can get so if I at all sound bias I apologize. I like to think I am one of the most moderate football/soccer fans around so I’ll try my best to give my opinion right down the middle. As always if you agree or disagree with my thoughts please feel free to leave comments.

Villarreal CF (ESP) vs Arsenal FC (ENG): First Leg at Estadio El Madrigal on the 7th, Second Leg at The Emirates Stadium on the 15th Continue Reading…