No player named Lucas will be on the pitch for Liverpool by the end of January. Though by this time next year there could be two Lucases (Luci? Lucai?) regularly in the starting eleven. And maybe even one Luis Suarez, assuming the English FA doesn't manage to drive him and Liverpool Football Club into the Irish Sea like some unwanted nation state by then…
* Next to the FA's treatment of the whole Luis Suarez/Patrice Evra/racism affair it seems downright reasonable. Visual evidence? Check. A punishment that's at least not laughably disproportionate coming from the football institution that goes to bat for Wayne Rooney when he gets in trouble for perpetrating violence on an opponent at the international level? Check. Cucumber sandwiches and pats on the back all around? You better check-ing believe it.
So, ban Suarez for one match against Newcastle and call it a day. Which all sounds perfectly semi- reasonable until you put the visual evidence side by side by side (by side) of Suarez telling off the Fulham crowd in a way that was only captured by a photographer and not the television cameras compared to similar acts by Ashley Cole, Wayne Rooney, and Gary Neville. All actions which, of course, went entirely unpunished. Then it's a touch more grumble-inducing. Though if you ask Paul Wilson, the man helping to drive the anti-Liverpool agenda at the Guardian in recent months, I'm sure he'll tell you it's just your persecution complex talking.
* According to the agent of Sao Paulo starlet Lucas Moura, aka Other Lucas, Liverpool has made a firm offer to acquire the player's services. Though he also makes it clear that Sao Paulo won't be selling him in January no matter the offer. Or I could just let him say all that himself:
I received three offers for my client from Chelsea, Inter, and Liverpool, but the club will not sell Lucas at this stage and will turn down every single offer. They made it clear that Lucas won’t go. However, in June we will talk about that again.
Thoughts? Well…
1: There are direct quotes.
2: But they're from the player's agent, and player agents are usually lying when they open their mouths.
3: And the quote is probably translated from Spanish to Swahili to Hindi to Spanish and then to English using Google Translate.
4: Plus the quotes only seem to pop up on known transfer-monger sites, with nobody acknowledging an original source.
5: So that original source might be Bob on Twitter.
6: But since the whole thing sounds rather more reasonable than what agents usually say that then gets regurgitated without referencing sources on transfer mongering sites, it's arguably worth passing along.
7: Though that makes it kind of disappointing, since in the end it means Liverpool don't have a shot at Other Lucas in January.
8: But of course, asking a young starlet from Brazil to settle immediately in January and lead Liverpool to a top-four finish probably wouldn't be all that sensible a hope in any case…
* With rather more dubious rumours that Andy Carroll is unofficially officially for sale—or perhaps officially unofficially; I can never keep that straight—swirling and the player under pressure to perform for Liverpool nearly a near after he arrived, Kenny Dalglish has once again found himself answering questions about the English target-man's ability and lifestyle choices:
Every week there’s questions about Andy Carroll. This time it’s understandable I suppose because he’s playing against Newcastle but I don’t understand the rest of the stuff. Someone has got some furtive imagination there about the lifestyle that big Andy leads compared to the one that we know he leads.
For us, he’s come here and gone about his work very well on and off the pitch and he’s adjusted to life at a new club with new philosophies and a new way of playing. I don’t think self-belief is a problem for Andy Carroll and I don’t see why it should be. I don’t think there’s any evidence there to say that he’s short of self-belief or any evidence to see why he should be. The perception [of him] struggling to deal with the move has never come from anywhere other than someone’s imagination.
He’s here, he’s adapted well to the change and we’ll keep working with him because fortunately for Andy, we’ve got a much greater belief in him than some people that write about him.
Right, well, that's us told, then. About him adjusting to new philosophies and a new way of playing at Liverpool, that is. Not so much about the boozing and barstools, since we've never been big on bringing up those aspects of his life that by all accounts are now ancient history. Plus if common sense fails we have our own occasional troubles with boozing and barstools to shame us into playing nice on that front.
In any case, it's one of Dalglish's most robust and impassioned defences of the player to date, and no matter your opinion on the his long-term prospects it certainly doesn't sound as though the manager or club is ready to give up on Carroll and send him along to some mid-table side at a 60% discount.
We'll be back with any breaking news as the day moves along, but in the meantime, try not to drink too much. Or to flip off opposing fans in a manner similar to what others have been allowed to get away with in the past. Especially if you're a striker at Liverpool…
(note: moderate language warning)