As you all know Rafa is fast approaching his 100th consecutive game with a changed starting XI. In honour of that feat LFC Vancouver is starting a ‘Guess the Starting XI Contest’.

RULES:

• Only open to paid LFC Vancouver Members.
• You list the names of the players you think will start the next LFC match.
• You must submit your list to lfcvancouver [at] gmail.com at least 12 hours before kick-off.
• This contest will include every match that LFC plays this season. Starting with Blackburn.
• The member(s) that correctly guess the starting XI will be awarded 5 points.
• At the end of the season the player with the most points will win the prize.
• What is the prize? It is a surprise!
• The standings will be included in each week’s newsletter.

You can send comments or questions to the Andy [at] lfcvancouver.com.

YNWA/JFT 96,

Andy Neumann

By LFC Vancouver member Steven Speed, 08 November 06.

Another win and decent performance on Saturday against Reading and a place in the quarter final of the League Cup represents another good week for Kopites. This was almost a perfect week with Chelsea and Arsenal getting beaten in the Premiership and Man Utd hilariously got knocked out of the cup by Southend.

The only negative to spoil it is the injury to Momo Sissoko on Wednesday night. We will really miss him as he is expected to be out for three months and every one of us will be wishing him all the best for a speedy recovery. Fortunately in Steven Gerrard we have the best central midfielder in Europe ready to return to where he is most effective.

Saturday’s game was Jamie Carragher’s 300th league appearance for Liverpool. He celebrated this fantastic achievement with our third clean sheet in a row. Carra barely put a foot wrong all afternoon, just as he has done throughout his career and I can’t recall Reina having very much to do all afternoon.

It wasn’t a game with many incidents or talking points and it was nice to again not feel stressed during the second half.

The Kuyt and Crouch partnership came up trumps again as Crouch assisted Kuyt for both goals. In my opinion there can be no doubt now that this is our best striking partnership, the proof is in the statistics.

Unfortunately Craig Bellamy is having a tough time since his arrival in the summer. He started well with a debut goal against Wrexham followed by a goal in the Champions League qualifier. You cannot fault his commitment and efforts and he’s been in goal scoring positions but just not having any luck with the final finish. I was hoping his goal against Blackburn would start him on a run, like with Crouch last year, but unfortunately an injury halted him. His performance against Birmingham in the week was pretty bad, I was very angry when he took the ball from Fowler for the penalty and then completely messed it up. That will not help his cause with breaking up the Kuyt and Crouch partnership for the Arsenal game this Sunday. We all know that Craig is tremendous player and has proved this many times at the highest level for the last few years and I think he just needs something to boost his confidence.

Another clean sheet against Birmingham was another massive positive and Daniel Agger once again showed his potential to eventually replace Sami Hyppia. He has got to grips with the English game with barely any problems and can be relied on to grab important goals too, his finish for the goal certainly put Bellamy to shame.

Next up is Arsenal away this Sunday and I fancy us to get a win. I don’t think that Arsenal have looked that impressive at the Emirates Stadium this season and if our players can show some passion and get stuck in we will cause them a lot of problems. Our defense seems to be coming good at last and as I mentioned earlier we don’t seem to be having problems up front at the moment either.

I haven’t felt this positive about the Reds since the Charity Shield and it makes me feel so good when we are playing well, long may it continue.

What do you think? Give Ste your comments at steSpeed [at] lfcvancouver.com.

Standings as of 10 November 06.

Rank	Member	Points
1	Glenn Whyte	0
1	Ste	0
1	Lance	0
1	Keith	0
1	Quentin	0
1	Andy	0
1	Dave Curtis	0
1	Dennis	0
1	Mark Ashton	0
1	Glenn W	0

It has been seven matches and no winner yet! The contest is not as easy as one would hope, don't forget to email your starting XI for the Aston Villa game.

To enter the members contest see the rules above.

By LFC Vancouver member Lance Litwin, 10 November 06.

We are Liverpool FC and even when things are going well, there is always a grim veneer attached to our success. So, I give you a small rant on the short comings of Referees.

I do not expect every call but it seems that referees tend to forget one simple thing: Teams (and Players) live and die by their influence. A shoddy off-side call that represents that second goal; or the referee's own ineptitude to show consistency with the rest of the officiating world by handing out a red card for a two footed, elevated, tackle. Both of these incidents happened and were not handled properly last week. Chelsea's second goal was called back and Tottenham went on to win (Thank the maker!), and the latter, when Mehdi Nafti made a horrible, late, two-footed lunge at Bolo Zenden which resulted in a yellow card. Twenty-three thousand people were able to deduce that a red card was incoming. However, a yellow 'caution' was raised over the prone form of Zenden and the recalcitrant Nafti.

How does a Howard Webb (above) not make the proper call on such a standard incident? A player who makes that tackle simply knows the red card is incoming. Unfortunately for Liverpool FC, Momo Sissoko, and the fans around the world, Webb pulled the wrong colour card and we paid dearly for it. Just twelve minutes after Mehdi's horror tackle, he managed to stick his foot between Sissoko's legs and send him into one of the most awkward falls that this football fan has ever watched. The pain etched clearly upon his face when he made impact with the pitch. A second yellow did not materialise and Mehdi Nafti had the audacity to seem frustrated and angry when he was removed from the pitch.

A small twist of fate and one of our most important players, this season, is injured. However, Momo's injury is not one of small consequence because his dislocated shoulder is was so damaged that it will require surgery and keep our man down for over three months. It is not the first error from the officials to cost Liverpool FC and I am positive it will not be the last...

What do you think? Give us your comments at webmaster [at] lfcvancouver.com and we’ll make sure Lance gets them.