Reports this weekend suggest that Real Madrid may be set to offer us £100million for Gerrard and Alonso in the summer. This comes off the news that Zinedine Zidane is going to become the sporting director at Real Madrid in the summer when Florentino Perez becomes president of Madrid again. Zidane said last week that he believes Gerrard is the best player in the world so it is no surprise that he may want to get Gerrard to Madrid. I can not see Gerrard wanting to leave Liverpool and go play for Madrid. I am not too sure about Alonso. It is no secret that Alonso and Benitez did not see eye-to-eye last summer when Benitez wanted to sell Alonso to fund the purchasing of Gareth Barry from Aston Villa. But for me, Alonso has probably been our best player this season and I hope we do not let him go in the summer.

Of the £100million, it is suggested that £80million will be for Gerrard and £20million for Alonso. That is quite a lot of money and we could do with that kind of cash. But cashing in on two of the players I believe form the spine of our team would be a disaster.

We need to keep these two players if we are to challenge next season. Gerrard has made it clear that he wants to spend the rest of his career at Liverpool. I do not think the same holds for Alonso. I hope Alonso has kissed and made up with Benitez and Alonso decides to spend a couple more years with us.

It comes as a huge relief to know that the injury Xabi Alonso picked up on the weekend against Preston is not as serious as first thought. Initially I had feared the worst when I saw the Spaniard hobble off the pitch at half time in that match, I thought it could be a recurrence of his broken foot. But all is well now as Alonso did not break his foot again and just has seven stitches in his foot. Whether he will play this weekend against Stoke, only time will tell. He trained normally and it is just a matter of waiting now to see if he can fit into his boots come Saturday and be able to kick a ball.
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January is just around the corner and that means the transfer window will be open again. I expect there to be quite a bit of activity during that time. Not so much at Liverpool but with other teams in the Premiership. But it is not going to surprise me when we get bombarded with a lot of bids for Xabi Alonso. With the form Alonso has been showing this season, it is only natural that clubs are going to want his services especially since they know that there is some tension between Xabi and Rafa.
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Praise must go to Alonso for scoring the winner on Sunday against Chelsea. It may have been a deflection but Xabi has rightfully claimed the goal as his shot was goal-bound. Xabi was very unlucky not to get a second as his brilliant freekick came off the foot of the post. Here we have a player who was on the verge of leaving Liverpool in the summer but now, according to me, has been our best player so far this term.
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Are these a bit of sour grapes from the Juventus coach? Ranieri has come out and said that the reason he did not sign Alonso in the summer was because Alonso was too slow to play in the Juventus midfield. He goes on to say that at Juventus the likes of Mauro Camoranesi and Pavel Nedved do not track back to support the midfield like the left wingers, Kuyt and Riera do. I think this just goes to show that Ranieri is not a good coach. If you have someone like Alonso in your midfield surely you can instruct your wingers to track back if need be. I think Ranieri has just come up with a poor excuse and he should have just kept his mouth shut!

I for one am glad Alonso did no got to Juventus as he is now showing some of his best form for Liverpool. I think Ranieri is now just upset that he did not get Alonso in the summer as he has seen how well the Spanish international is now playing for us. I bet you there are little voices at Juventus asking Ranieri why he did not sign Alonso and now he has just come out and thrown the ‘too slow’ excuse to us!

Well we had a large group of meaningless international fixtures today clogging up the middle of the week for us today.

Of note, Xabi Alonso scored twice as Spain beat Denmark 3-0. Agger was present in the opposing line up, and Fernando Torres picked up an assist on one of the goals.

Everyone’s most anxiously awaited goal scorer this season decided to pick up a goal for his country as well in Robbie Keane. Hopefully that’s a preview for the weekend when he gets his first chance to open his account in front of the Kop.

He stretched his Irish career goal scoring record to 34 goals.

The transfer drama at Liverpool this summer looks set to continue and take a new twist. I think this is going to make a good show one day! Now Steven Gerrard picked up a knock in last nights win over Valerenga and he was substituted off in the first half. Reports today suggest that Gerrard will not be fit for the first leg of the Champions League qualifier next week. Now where the plot thickens; if Alonso plays in the qualifier, he is going to be cup-tied for the Champions League and thus if he leaves Liverpool and joins a team playing in the Champions League, he would not be allowed to play in the competition. This means that any potential ‘big’ team would not want to sign Alonso if he is not able to play in the Champions League for them and on the other hand, Alonso himself would not want to leave Liverpool and go play for a team not in the Champions League. Read the rest of this entry »

Just a few quick notes about today’s friendly:

1. Robbie Keane showed the kind of vision we are expecting out of him with his backwards flick onto Alonso for his beautiful curling opener. I think perhaps Xabi is quite eager to show he belongs at Liverpool and only good could come of that.

2. David Ngog, who is this guy? Another quality finish, and again showing decent touch on the ball. I think we may have a steal on our hands if he can keep his composure in the league as well as he has thus far. Only being 19 though, he has a good ways to go yet in terms of development, so score one for Rafa and the scouts.

3. Not to be negative Nancy, but we certainly can use some tightening up at the back in terms of concentration and positioning. Usually the pillar of our defense, the most likely guilty party throughout the match was Carra. I think he is having to cope with having lost a step, and needs to turn to Big Sami’s book of Anticipation. Let Agger or Skrtel do the running and provide that last line of defense that he always has. I have no worries about Jamie though, he’ll have it right for the beginning of the campaign.

I had to bicker about something, but four more goals in a sea of Red in Norway was an impressive display nonetheless. Thanks to all the supporters up there for showing our boys such a fine reception. Hopefully we can all now begin to enjoy a run to the title together.

Up next : Lazio @ Anfield

Reports this morning are suggesting that Arsene Wenger would be interested in signing Xabi Alonso but only if Liverpool lower the £18m valuation to £10.5m. Now I have two issues about this, firstly, why should Liverpool lower the valuation of Alonso to £10.5m? That is daylight robbery! Alonso is not worth £10.5m, he is much better than that. In fact way better. If we are going to sign Barry for £18m then Alonso should be in the same price range. I do not see Rafa agreeing to let Alonso go on the cheap. I guess Arsenal are just trying their luck. If they were serious about wanting to sign Alonso they would come in the an acceptable offer. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the longest transfer sagas of the summer is set to take a new twist. It is suggested today in The Mirror that Turkish side, Fenerbache have made a bid for Xabi Alonso. A bid of £12m is said to have been made and I think Rafa is going to accept this deal and use the money to get Gareth Barry. It look likes all that may be left to conclude this deal is to see if Alonso himself accepts to move to Fenerbache. It is no secret that Alonso would not mind staying on at Liverpool but Rafa clearly has his mind set on selling the Spanish midfielder.

We ran a poll on this website asking whether you think we should sell Alonso or not and the majority of you wanted Alonso to stay. The question may finally be answered very soon if the move to Fenerbache goes ahead and then hopefully another saga regarding Gareth Barry will come to an end.