All work and no Liverpool news make Noel a dull boy.
Things continue to be quiet. Oh, sure, there are whispers that Galatasaray's new manager hasn't taken to Emiliano Insua and that it opens the window to a January return for the left back should a new Liverpool manager arrive, but there are no whispers out there as to whether a new manager is actually more or less likely to arrive. There's no news on back room appointments. There isn't even much out there in the lead up to the match on Sunday against Bolton.
Roy's not even saying anything daft in the press this week to ridicule. From a fan's perspective that's a good thing. Sitting here trying to find something to blog about I can't help but find that a part of me is somewhat disappointed at the lack of an easy target to take a couple of shots at. But I'm like some kind of Liverpool-article-finding superhero, and so I've still found a few crumbs to keep you entertained...
* Hodgson has come out fairly strongly against the Reina rumblings talked about yesterday, saying, "We have heard nothing from Manchester United and, more to the point, we don't want to hear anything from Manchester United." At the very least he gets points for saying the right thing this time around, unlike when rumours about Torres to United were floated the other week. He also says a couple of things to make you squirm a little bit, but at least he's showing some signs of learning on the job. Which probably shouldn't be the situation he and the club find themselves in, but that's another story altogether.
* In player news, Glen Johnson isn't likely to feature this weekend, though a slim chance of him reaching full fitness by Sunday does remain. Meanwhile, Dirk Kuyt is ahead of schedule as he works towards recovering from his ankle injury suffered in international competition, and while he certainly won't play against Bolton, the Dutch attacker could still feature against Chelsea next week. Said Roy Hodgson: "He shouldn't be as far advanced as he is with his ankle but he's looking good." Which, really, is what we've all come to expect from Kuyt.
* It's from earlier in the week, but over on the official site there's video from a "Seeing is Believing" bit the club did, in partnership with an organization of the same name, for the benefit of said initiative against avoidable blindness. Yeah, that seems a bit much to wrap your head around to me, too, but it's video of Carragher, Torres, Pacheco, and Wilson trying to play a bit with blindfolds on. And they don't do all that well. So it's good for a watch in any case.
* Looking at the social movement that took place around Liverpool Football Club as fans and supporters around the world came together to coordinate the attempt to push Hicks and Gillett out, Doreen Massey takes the wider view and asks if a template for such popular uprisings and collectives of like-minded individuals the world over in areas beyond sport may have been formed in those recent struggles.
The ownership of football clubs, writes Martin Kettle, does not matter. The ownership of Liverpool Football Club, in particular, ranks among those things "about which one does not care and which don't matter either". I don't care whether or not he cares, but it does matter.
Right, so I guess it's time for followers of LFC to band together to crush the various unsavory followers and descendants of Thatcherism? I mean, now that we've helped get Hicks and Gillett out...
Words to live by. Words. To. Live. By. Oh, and today's phrase of the day of the day is... let's say... "How to eyeball vodka without going blind you dumb bastard."