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In local news, I'm a complete moron, so with that settled right off the top let's take a quick peek around the intertubes to see what others have been saying from a Liverpool point of view...
* Well, at least it looks like Tomkins generally agrees with me on the whole "How about we take five minutes off from desperately looking for somebody to blame" side of things, as he talks about obvious signs of improvement being good enough--and about the best that could be hoped for--for the time being. So at least I'll have something to comfort myself with the next time people start calling me an idiot. Oh, and did you hear Pacheco scored an absolute cracker in the ressies the other day? Kid's gonna be better than Messi. Or a complete failure. One or the other.
Although both games have been lost, Liverpool have at least tried to pass, move and press higher up the pitch under Kenny Dalglish. The appointment of Steve Clarke will hopefully prove a shrewd one, and there’s no need to panic after what was always going to be a very difficult start. If people thought writing off Roy Hodgson after six months was knee-jerk, then giving up on Dalglish after four days would be off the scale.
To be fair, I think most people seem willing to give Dalglish more than two training sessions to turn things around. At least those not already grasping at the evils of squad rotation, who have already begun to grumble that last night didn't see the same eleven bar Gerrard as Sunday's clash against United, having apparently learned fuck all from Hodgson's employment of a b team, or for that matter from watching the way Martin O'Neil's Aston Villa finished below less expensive squads year in and year out because he refused to rotate and it reliably led to late-season plummets in form.
A lot of effort went into the game at Old Trafford, especially with ten men, and tired minds and legs were no match late on for a Blackpool team at home, who were fresh, having been rested in the FA Cup ahead of the encounter. One thing you can’t do, if you’re Rafa, Roy or Kenny, is send out your second string against Manchester United, even if you want to focus on the league.
Of course, a bit of rotation doesn't help when the players you swap in perform poorly, but in the circumstances an unchanged squad would likely have done no better, may have done worse, and would have put the club in a tougher spot against Everton on Sunday to top it all off.
* Getting away from immediate concerns for a moment for a bit of enjoyable historical distraction, over on the club's new official social media site--which I really couldn't give a damn about because it's not like I even give a damn about regular Facebook, but it's on the club's new official social media site (synergy!), so I feel as though noting that is sorta par for the course--tells of the origin of "The Kop" and how Anfield's Flagpole Corner came to have its flagpole donated by one of the Wonders of the Industrial World. So, you know, if you want to take five minutes away from screaming at scapegoats to brush up on your LFC history, there you go. If not, well, there's always the comment section.
* In other news, now that Dalglish has been in charge for five days can we finally get back to asinine transfer speculation that will never come true and just leave us all horribly depressed when a new squad of all-stars doesn't run out on the pitch against Everton on Sunday? Unless maybe a new squad of all-stars does run out onto the pitch on Sunday against Everton. I'm sure, if that did happen, they'd have no problems clicking instantly and playing like the superstars they were, since quality players never need extended time in training to really begin to click and feel comfortable in any new system. No sir, if you're a good player you just preform instantly and perfectly and brimming with confidence. It's why all-star teams, so common in American sports, function like well oiled machines. Wait, that doesn't happen? You're telling me when you throw even the best players in the world together with only a few quick practices at most, even they usually look completely disjointed and sloppy? Even when it's in pressure free games against similarly unprepared opponents? I don't buy it, they must just fucking suck. That's the only sensible answer. Don't give me any of that crap about the "team" part of team sports being an important qualifier and that in the real world things sometimes take time.
Wait, where was I?
Oh, right, transfers: Nathan Eccleston will ply his trade with Charlton Athletic in League One for the rest of the season, and LFC.tv claims he was Charlton's #1 transfer target. Which seems as though it should be meaningful in some way. And would probably be more meaningful if it was Charlton Athletic saying he was their #1 transfer target, though in any case their chairman did say some nice things about him.
Elsewhere, most of the transfer rumours at the moment for Liverpool revolve around Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, a £10M, 17-year old wonder kid from Southampton and everybody's "Next Walcott." Argentina gets to talk about the next Maradona or, now, the next Messi. England gets the next "Well he's really fucking fast but has the footballing sense of a small boiled cabbage." Not that I'm saying Oxlade-Chamberlain doesn't have any footballing sense, just it seems a bit of an odd "next" to label people with, but in any case, Back Page Football has a fabulously thorough write up on the kid. Which means he'll probably never play for Liverpool.
And with most of the rumours dying down on everybody from Carlton Cole to Eden Hazard, an old name resurfaces on poorly sourced websites from here to Timbuktu: Luis Suarez. Not that I wouldn't approve of such a move, but at this point it seems little more than a grasping for names with few whispers as to who--if any--Liverpool's recent targets might actually be. Maybe they'll go back even farther to Ardra Turan next, even though the club hasn't shown serious interest in him since the last summer window Benitez oversaw.
In the meantime, while we try to decide just whose fault it all is and/or eagerly await the arrival of Martin O'Neil in the summer...