David Hodgson

Thanks Neil, that made my day. Perhaps the post of the year.

You say 'elbow' ,I say 'shrugging him off'. It's not clear from any of the footage, and it (Luis's elbow) certainly didn't do Mullins any harm. Let's put it another way. If that's a sending off, then there should be 3 or 4 of those every match. What Mullins did was black and white in terms of the letter of the law. I'd like to see it again. Anyone get a link to footage of the incident ?

Well I haven't seen enough of Diarra to comment, but I do know Viera hasn't suddenly gone from being more or less the world's top player in his position to redundant overnight. It's not as if he's 38, or that sort of age.

Absolutely. Luis did nothing wrong. He didn't assault anyone. He was merely trying to shrug Mullins off. In no universe was that violent use of the elbow. As for 'going down' : he had a right to, as he was clearly attacked. It's plain to me that the problem is the Mullins case. The FA don't want to be seen to recind one red card, but not the other, lest they get accused of bias. They can't repeal the Mullins red card because it is so obviously 'violent conduct', so therefore Luis has to take the fall with the West Ham man.

People can scoff at Viera all they like but how are they going to fill if and when United sign him, to plug their 'gap' ?

No offence,but you are on drugs if you think Robbie can hold the ball up better than Heskey. I'm not saying Heskey's all round game is even comparable to Fowler's, but one asset he did have was his hold up play. I agree. Common sense says we've got Robbie for at least another year for no signing on fee, and I presume reasonable wages, and he's happy just to be at the club. Better to keep Robbie as a squad striker than spending over 5m on another one who'll kick off every time he's not picked.

And our beloved Robbie 'text abused' Houllier according to his autobiography.

Well we don't know that do we. I strongly suspect it's up to one person - Rafa Benitez. If he wants Owen, he'll get him. Either way, I don't overly care what fans think of him, or whether he'd ever play for ManYoo one day, or loves England and money too much. I care that LFC do the best they can in the transfer market with the given funds, and if Rafa's going to have over 10m-ish to spend on a pacey goalscorer then I think Michael Owen really does fit the bill. We can debate how much Owen wants to play for Liverpool all day long, but I'll guarantee you he's got more Anfield red in his heart than Jermaine Defoe or Bent, or ANother striker. It's just THAT simple.

Sorry, is it 4 ? Pedant.

Did I hear right last night, that we're a game away from a clean sheet record ? Of all time ? the prem ? LFC history ?

How injured is Kewell ? Is he in danger of missing the final ?

I'm confused about this. Is Gonzalez joining us in the summer nailed on, or are we genuinely at risk that he may not get a permit again ?

Spot on. I particularly liked Wenger's quotes about how irritating it is when stupid people are successful, in reference to Mourinho. Ol' Jose is a deeply stupid individual, working in an industry not blessed with intellectual giants. Fortunately, most footballing folk go about their business using their brains for what they're best served doing - playing football. Mourinho thinks that because he can 'head work' a genius like Frank Lampard, or impress with his 'wit', hacks like Martin Samuel and his ilk, that he truly is all things to all men. He's a poor man's Brian Clough at best. A motivator of morons, but little else. He will be increasingly found out as time goes by.

Jesus, I must have been really really drunk yesterday. All I can remember is wildly celebrating the goals, and thinking to myself 'didn't notice Kewell do much today'. Just goes to show, kids, drinking isn't big or clever. I'm off to watch the re-run.

He is very consistent, but his level is definitely not 'world class'. Looking back through our right backs, I think Steve Nicol and Rob Jones were far better than Finnan.

I think a world class player is one that any side in the world would want/have in their team, more or less every week. I think that means, from LFC, you're talking Gerard, Alonso and possibly Carragher. There's a case for Reina and Hyypia, but I don't think the wider football world would accept them as being 'world class'. I think Momo is going to be 'world class'. Yep. Beat me to it.

Yes, but we weren't overly gracious to the opposition either. Paisley was a bad loser, as most good winners are. I remember him being critical of us in victory, but he would rarely waste any time commenting on how well the opposition had done. It's one thing Heighway being magnanimous, and rightly noting City's fine performance, but he went way over the top. He did everything but say we had no right to win that trophy. I thought it was a very poor interview. I could understand him going back into the dressing room and telling the lads that they were rubbish on the night, but in front of the media he should have focused on what a proud achievement it was for LFC, and how his team should be judged over the whole competition and not just on one match. He might have noted that Man City was as good as they were poor at Anfield. I thought it was interesting that he went to throw his shirt off 'in disgust', but stopped himself. I thought that showed restraint and partially redeemed him. I thought the City team looked big. They were physically far maturer. The reason our full backs kept getting laced was that they were totally unprotected by the wide men. To me that looked atactical mistake rather than the fault of Anderson and Barrett.

Surely we're not going to turn our noses up at Norwegians ? We've been linked to political pariahs the world over, and finally we get some squeaky clean scandoes, and people still aren't happy.

'a fantastic squad player' !!!...as opposed to the top class 'first 11' player he has proved himself this season ? Whatever you may think HK should be, the player that we actually have, as witnessed this season, is a really top class performer, who is always one of the first names on Rafa's team sheet. We've had a spate of agreements lately, and i think it's time to stop it getting out of hand. Hope this helps.

'He's football heaven' is the gayest line ever in a football song. So, let's go the whole hog, with a full-on, quegged up tribute : 'Luis Garcia, He isn't queeer, he looks a bit girleee, but he's a boy, he's 5 foot seven, Ooh he's football heaven, but please don't call our Luis a gay....' * I apologise for an homophobia implied in the above, but some songs just write themselves.

Look Stevie, I'm sure we've been through this before. I happen to have seen Joaquin on telly as much as THREE times, so I think you'll find I know what I'm talking about. He's good. Really good.

I meant in a going forward sense. FWIW Hyypia's my player of the year (if we discount SG's 19 goal season ).

Whilst it's obvious we are still not seeing the Grade A version of Kewell, this re-habilitating version (lest we forget he is still recovering from an injury), has been incredibly important to us this season. Gerrard aside, I struggle to think of another player as consistently influential . Of course we all want the version of HK that had it in him to be the next John Barnes, but let's not let those dreams distract from the fact that the player we actually have is simply a very very good player. He may not score enough (yet) and he may not have the pace to beat his man at will, but he makes things happen for us, and links our play, all over the pitch. I'm a big Kewell fan (because he's a great player), but will be delighted if Mark Gonzalez is THAT good that he routinely keeps Kewell on the bench.

Comparison with Steven Wright would be even better. There is clearly a camp of people who want to believe that anything we put in the team, born with a 20 mile radius of the ground, is a good thing. I'm sorry, but you've got to be a good footballer first, last and always to play for LFC. Most of the legends of our history were not scousers. Warnock is a really ordinary player, who is no kid with years of improvement ahead of him. He's pushing 26 and is not suddenly going to come on in leaps and bounds. FWIW, it should also be noted that the biggest critics of Carra, a few years back, were not on forums such as this, but in the ground itself.

I wouldn't trust me at all, I just make these things up to make me look big and clever. Actually I'm lying (there I go again), I am telling the truth, but I'm still doing it to look big and clever. Just a word of caution to the good souls who have chosen to believe me, I have at no stage said or implied that, aforementioned 'new Maradona', is 'nailed on' to sign for Liverpool. I've said he's here (or certainly was yesterday), and that we're one of the clubs he might sign for. I don't think that makes it 'Woo', or indeed 'hoo' time, just yet.