*TWEET* Everybody into the 'Pool!!!

Greetings, gentle readers.
And so it's October, and that means time for naughtiness with pumpkins, the beginning of the onslaught of the Canadian winter, my impending 31st birthday, and the first report of the season for the greatest club side ever in football. The greatest assembled TEAM ever would obviously be Brazil 1970, and that's not even a question. No, we speak of Liverpool - who have won the most top-division honours, the most league cups, and the most European Champions' Cups of any English side. And England created the beautiful game, so it stands to reason that is the club with the most unassailable pedigree. Set the Wayback Machine to 1892, Sherman.
I'll quit preening now.
St. Michael is gone. And in his absence, Djibril and Milan are asked to perform similar things - win games by scoring hatfuls of goals. Somehow, at Anfield, both feel comfortable with assuming responsibility for this, as the fans on the Kop lose their bottle and start naming first-born children after blokes who are scoring braces against West Brom.
The worst imaginable has happened, as talismanic (I'm going to use that word until it becomes completely cliché) Skipper and leader Stevie G is out for another six weeks with a broken foot. Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia, two of the Spanish Armada to make it past the scrutiny of immigration officials and stupid training-ground injuries, have suddenly made a defensive 4-4-1-1 formation able to switch into a 2-6-2 that swamps teams when they have the ball.
But at this point of the game, here's how things look. Team Captain: injured. Debilitating, but not fatal. Lead Scorer: Owen: Transferred, but he's gone to Réal Madrid where they use him as a water boy. Might do an Ian Rush and return because he has to fight past Raul, Morientes and Ronaldo for a spot on the team. Réal are obviously total swine for cup-tying Morientes for the Owen deal. Liverpool did not play Owen in Europe, because they wanted to deal. Réal, dishonorable monkeys that they are, promptly played Morientes in their next game to ensure that he could not play for another team in the same competition. Bastardos.
In short, the managerial staff of Réal have revealed themselves to be contemptible faggots because they deliberately scuppered a striker-for-striker-plus money deal for a deal that Liverpool would be forced to accept, like a makeweight player - i.e. Nunez, who immediately showed his mettle by getting injured in his first training session.
Chelski and Arsenal both have unbeaten starts to the season, although Liverpool has a perfect record in all competitions thus far this year at home, which is something. The away record is a bit dodgy, but we'll see how the team does with that.
So the news, as we approach the eve of the conflict at Stamford Bridge, is as follows:
Alonso and Garcia have so far proven to be the real deal versus crap opponents, but have been invisible against strong teams. They're potential Kop heroes, but only when they, and the team around them, begin to play with more consistency. Kewell and Finnan haven't proved that they're the real deal on the flanks yet, and Cisse and Baros have got to get their offside trap-springing sorted. The defence is not a crisis, with the Hyppie and Carra covered by Semi on the right and Riise on the left. Except during set plays. The Rafael Benitez "zonal marking system" on corners has thus far proven disastrous. Both goals scored on the Dude at Old Trafford came from corners. And they were scored by Mikael Silvestre. That says something right there. When a rubbish full-back puts two corners past an international keeper with two headers, the team is not dealing appropriately with the situation. The most reliable, consistent performer in the team thus far, exempting the always superb Stevie G, is Didi Hamann. Playing almost as a sweeper just in front of the back four, Didi tackles, blocks, takes possession, creates link play, and distributes the ball with precision. I'll be looking for him to be the defensive key to stopping Arsenal when we play them, and to stopping the high midfield players at Chelski like Robben and Cole from getting the ball up to Kezman and Drogba.
The team is coming together, and the potential for some fantastic results in the not-too distant future is definitely there. But we'll need to see how we fare in London on Sunday before we can start to draw some significant conclusions about the development of the Rafa-lution.
Back soon,

-mARKUS

Justice for the 96.