I've got some good news and some bad news. Only the good news is probably neutral at best from a Liverpool point of view. But for some people it's probably good news. So that's something. Mostly for other people, though…
* Kicking off with the relatively benign, the club take a break from their attempts to extend geographic market share dominance through the synergistic integration of bleeding edge social media (aka. pimping Pinterest) to take us all a little further down the rabbit hole with a rather odd offering entitled "Doni won't let us down," the crux of which follows:
Alexander is a great person and a great goalkeeper. I am sure he will do really well.
He perhaps hasn't had an opportunity because obviously we have Pepe, but I think he will do well.
I think he will make the most of every opportunity that's given to him. He is a great teammate and we all wish him well.
Taken on its own merits, that paint-by-numbers pabulum doesn't actually seem out of place on the club's official website given Reina's red card and with Doni expected to start against Aston Villa. What does make it a touch strange is that the man talking about Doni not letting the club down is Sebastian Coates, a player who's been at the club as long as Doni and hasn't played all that much more than him. But perhaps Jamie Carragher was too busy screaming at people and worrying about how he'll help Liverpool win the league in 2015 to comment.
Odd as the choice of commentators is, though, it's probably a better direction for the club to head in than talking about how the last time Doni started a competitive match in England he gave up seven goals.
Though in the end, none of that actually tells us more than the video from yesterday to help predict how Doni's likely to perform on the weekend. But at least it helps pass the time during a slow news week with discussion of actual recent events fairly unpalatable. So something something Doni something is it Saturday yet?
* This week in "The Numbers Are Really Fucking Depressing," Liverpool have now dropped to a painful 0.67 points per game in the second half of the 2011-12 Premier League season. This leaves the club 19th on form since January began, just edging out last place Wolves and their 0.5 points per game.
At the current pace, Liverpool will end the season with 47 points, equating to 1.24 points per game over the entire season. None of the bottom five clubs in the league are on pace to finish with more than 39 points, though, so that might still count as a kind of good news.
Less encouragingly for those waiting for the plan allegedly put into motion last summer to start showing signs it actually exists, with eleven points to show for the stretch including the second half of the season and December 30th's victory over Newcastle, Liverpool need 14 points—or two per game in the seven matches remaining—to avoid ending on a worse 20-game run than Roy Hodgson led the club to. In related news, typing words about Liverpool isn't fun right now.
* And as if that wasn't bad enough, word has leaked from the Hawthorns that Roy Hodgson has been handed a £3M per year deal to stay at West Brom. If he has any sense he'll take the money and run instead of holding out hope for the England job. Still, it's nice to see him faced with the very real possibility of having to choose between a club willing to pay well over the going rate to keep him around and the job he's always dreamed of a year after Liverpool fans thought he'd never get work again.
Or maybe it's the opposite of nice. Unless that's just my incredulousness at the deviating trajectories of Hodgson and Liverpool Football Club a year on showing. And also my bitterness.
We'll be back in a little bit if something happens and we can work up the effort to care. In the meantime, while you contemplate waving the white flag on this whole damn season…