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| Monday. Glorious, glorious Monday. |
Papering over the cracks seems to be the phrase of the day, and as Ed talked about yesterday, the result against Bolton was hardly the sort of performance to build a classic campaign around. Even if it was an improvement over some of what was seen early in the year, particularly on the road where Roy hadn't won in 442 days previously (bet that's the sort of streak nobody following the club would have ever expected their manager to be the proud owner of), there were still worrisome signs. Not least of which were the puzzling substitutions late in the match that conceded the midfield battle and any semblance of width.
But anyhow, on to a couple of links and whatnot to start the week off...
* While it's true that most watching were pleased by the three points and a few solid performances amongst the squad-members, Paul Dalglish noticed the official site going a bit overboard in their attempts to channel post-Trabzonspor Hodgson and
roll out the red carpet in celebration of the famous victory:
Click to embiggen. Because I know you want to see Bolton away put on a pedestal with league and cup victories.
* Moving away from a .tv dressed up as Pravda for Halloween, Paul Tomkins went ahead and did what Roy asked:
Judge me after ten games, Roy Hodgson said earlier in the season. Well, it’s a damn sight better than it was after eight games, so he had a point. That said, it’s still only three wins in those ten games.
I doubt I'm alone in feeling as though it took an eternity--and a rather painful one at that--to get up to ten, what with international breaks and dull European nights sprinkled amongst the scintillating league performances.
* On the player front, Joe Cole will get his hamstring scanned later today and we'll find out if it's your standard "ten days to two weeks" strain that would see him miss the Chelsea match, or if it's something more serious. Hopefully it's the former, and if Kuyt can make it back to full fitness by the weekend it might not even have an impact on the best eleven when the blues come to town, even if having Cole as an option would obviously be preferable.
* And on a final note, last week's poll on preferred defensive pairings ended with a very narrow victory for the Agger-Skrtel pairing over Agger-Kyrgiakos by 30.71% to 29.05%, with third place and 17.38% going to the Kyrgiakos-Skrtel pairing we've seen the past two matches. Breaking it down individually, player by player, gives you the following:
74.05% of LFC Offside readers want to see Agger starting;
51.43% would have Kyrgiakos on the pitch;
50.95% selected a pairing including Skrtel, and;
22.15% see a roll for Carragher in the top defensive pair.
In any case it seems as though people are pretty settled on who they think the first and fourth center backs are.
I'll be back to bother you again later. In the meantime, Happy Monday, motherfuckers. And don't forget that Maxi, Maxi Rodriguez, runs down the wing for me...