Many can point at ill-luck about the captain's injury but you can only prepare the eventuality and we've been left with a feeble bunch of replacements. I like Yossi and see the respective benefits of Dirk, Ngog, Babel etc but they don't add up to a £20m striker, even an average one. There's still time to get a replacement on loan but there is no obvious candidate on Rafa's list. I doubt if he has a list at all. Rumours of Saviola were mercifully unfounded as he's a man with a glorious future behind him but who else is there? Darren Bent? "Can you lend us a £20m rated player that you don't need, please?"
I'm not going to Rafa bash in this piece as it'll fall on deaf ears anyway. The man can do no wrong after Istanbul and is impervious to even the mildest criticism. The Americans and Parry are seen as the villains of the panto and the blame game over Keane can begin with the 'who controls the budget' argument. Sadly, none of that is relevant now as it's only our bench and we as fans that suffer. Gerrard's injury didn't cause the chickens to come home to roost so much as have Goodison resemble the monkey bar scene in The Birds. Do vultures roost too?
Keane's departure displays a number of problems within the club. If we were anxious to cut our losses why did we pay so much in the first place? Was it because we rated him as highly as Torres? Can a player drop £5-8m in worth because of how he was deployed? Was it because of his strike rate (7 in 28 games, most of which he barely completed)? His work effort (which, if anything, was slightly too much as he liked his bizarre runs and positioning)? His refusal to run to the press and blame others? Okay, I'm trying not to Rafa bash. He had the odd nightmare game, true. At one of the derby's someone behind me asked when he was coming on. He'd actually started the game but was barely noticed. That reminded me of Neil Mellor when we played Millwall when we were trying to work out the difference between him jogging and running.
The week began with promise. The worst Chelsea side to come to Anfield in a decade were duly dispatched with their excuse in tow. Lampard even had the audacity to suggest that they would have got something from the match had it not been for 'Alonso's foul' (copyright: Ruud Gullit) and indeed they might have done had they tried. When you see a decent team reduced to time wasting on 70 minutes you know that they're on the wane.
The derby was a kick in the teeth and it'll be hard to stomach Moyes' absolutely fantastic record of three wins in sixteen against us. Both managers wanted pens by the end as there's no shame in losing that way. We huffed and puffed but Torres sulked and Lucas was made scapegoat as usual. You'd think Fernando would be in a buoyant mood given the Chelsea game but an early kick and a shout at the crowd (his second there) clouded his mind. Before Arteta's dive at Lucas' feet the ref seemed okay but the writing was on the wall from the moment he missed Baines double pike with salko. Ah, well.
At least Rafa's priorities are confirmed. Beat Portsmouth, tether Gerrard to his couch and spend the next few days fleecing a club out of their best strikers.
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