LIVERPOOL: “HELLO, IS THAT IAN RUSH?”

LIVERPOOL: “HELLO, IS THAT IAN RUSH?”

ON this day in 1988, Ian Rush returned to Liverpool for £2.7m after just one season at Juventus. The Welshman added 139 goals to his Liverpool tally in his second spell, finishing his Anfield career with a club record 346. So for most Reds then, the name Ian Rush...

LIVERPOOL: WHAT NEXT FOR ADAM LALLANA?

LET’S start with the things Adam Lallana can’t do. I’m happy to mention those things. Adam Lallana can’t run really fast. Adam Lallana can’t win endless physical battles with giant centre-backs. Adam Lallana can’t… no,...
MERSEY PARADISE LOST: A LESSON FROM HISTORY

MERSEY PARADISE LOST: A LESSON FROM HISTORY

IT might be the dullest smartarse pub quiz question in the world. Which professional club’s ground is closest to the Mersey? Astonish your friends by revealing it’s Stockport County. Then look deep in their eyes and realise how little they can stand you. But Edgeley...
LEARNING AND UNLEARNING

LEARNING AND UNLEARNING

SOME people have never recovered from June 2010. Barely a year since Liverpool’s most ferocious title challenge in years, five years since Istanbul, six years since a period which brought us trophies, belief and Luis Garcia – it was over. At the stroke of a private...

WHAT IS IAGO ASPAS?

During the Anfield Wrap transfer committee special there was one thing both groups agreed on (actually there were a few, but let’s pretend otherwise). Iago Aspas had to go. In the case of the committee I, as a blag Dave Fallows, sat on, it wasn’t necessarily because...

TAW’s And What? – 18/07/2013

So he’s staying then. Maybe. Is he? Brendan Rodgers, barring a careful caveat about certain people not being bigger than certain clubs, seems pretty set on the idea of Luis Suarez being a Liverpool player next season. Arsenal’s bid was ‘nowhere...

TAW’S And What? 12/7/13

TODAY I’ve come over all Walter Smith (please don’t transpose any of the words in that sentence). The great Everton manager apparently had a Damascene moment after a few too many goes on Championship Manager, deciding the legendary Ibrahima Bakayoko...

THATCHER: NOTHING TO CELEBRATE, PLENTY TO MOURN

Forget silences, flowers and front pages. They’ll last a minute, a week, a news cycle. The policies, the ideas, the acts – many will live longer. Mining communities won’t return, while large-scale renationalisation (except of our brave financiers) seems a...

MISSING: A FAMOUS ATMOSPHERE

ATMOSPHERE is one of the trickiest, most slippery concepts in football. It’s at once fundamental to the game’s success and appeal, while all the while being threatened by its global reach. It’s subjective, your perception essentially pivoting on whether you think a...