The race for Champions League football

Sky Bet's top four odds: 1/16 Tottenham, 5/6 Chelsea, 5/4 Arsenal, 7/2 Liverpool, 16/1 Newcastle.

Do you not think that the shock at the nature of the defeat at Bolton has had a tranforming affect on the side. Other than the performance at Old toilet they've improved game on game. Last night was a good performance but more importantly the team spirit seemed to have increased tremendously. Dare I say it is a siege mentality resulting from the Suarez debacle. Ferguson's attempted undermining of the team  looks to have truely back-fired on him. The c**t.

I thought the Spurs was very winnable, but it was the same old story when it comes to Anfield in the league. We were poor at Old Trafford, but we did well to beat them in the Cup. The 3-0 win over Wolves was very comfortable, but West Brom managed to score five against that lot.

I still don't think we will get fourth. I really hope we will, and we should do given how poor Arsenal and Chelsea have been.

If we start winning more home games, we'll have a chance. A very good chance.



We have some tricky fixtures coming up. Arsenal at home will not be easy despite their recent form while Sunderland away will be a very tough fixture since Martin O'Neill has turned their fortunes around massively. Newcastle away is another tough fixture in a similar mould to the Sunderland game. Aside from Wigan at Anfield, our next four Premiership fixtures are not looking favourable.

After March, April looks a lot better for us. Villa, Blackburn, WBA and Fulham are all very winnable games, but Norwich away could prove tricky.

If we are still in the hunt for fourth come May, then the home game with Chelsea could be make or break. While Swansea on their own patch have proved to be no pushovers this season for anyone, but there could be nothing but pride to play for in that game if they avoid the relegation battle and we've either secured or missed out on fourth.

There has already been plenty of twists and turns and there's bound to be plenty more.

It comes down to improving our home form and also making sure we don't go to Newcastle and Sunderland and lose. We don't want to see Martin O'Neill drag Sunderland into the top four scrap - which could easily happen with their upturn in form coupled with the inconsistency of Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle and ourselves.

Going by the rest of our form this season, that won't happen.

I just don't fool myself with blind hope. I say it as I see it.

The basic points of our season are:

+ Excellent defensively
+ Unbeaten at Anfield
+ Solid away record
- Don't score enough goals
- Draw too many home games
- Lack quality on the flanks
+ Superb cup team

That is four positives to three negatives.

And we might even win a trophy on Sunday 

I have said plenty of times that I believe we have the right manager and the right owners in place to solve these problems. I don't, however, think that we have the right players. We have some of the right ingredients in Suarez and Gerrard, but the others aren't up to it. Bellamy clearly is, but he's only ever going to be a bit-part player due to his knee problems.

We can get fourth place, but we've got to sort out the home form for that to happen. We need to score more than an average of 1.17 goals per game at Anfield in the league.

With the the poor form of Arsenal and Chelsea, we should be ready to take full advantage, but we've let too many poor sides come to Anfield and walk away with a point. Aside from Swansea this season, we probably should have won every home game based on possession and chances. But we've only won four. Conversely, we've not lost any - which is fantastic.

From here on in we need to start taking our chances and sending teams home with nothing from Anfield - heroic goalkeeping performance or not.