Liverpool vs Bolton

This is Colin Britton here, resident Liverpool fan. Tomorrow the Red's will travel to the Reebok stadium to take on Bolton Wanderers. First off, the Red's obviously have not had the best of starts to the season, losing two of their first three, to Spurs and Villa, with a good victory at Stoke sandwiched between. For me, the Tottenham game was not a surprise, we hadn't been showing good form in the preseason and i figured we would start out a bit slow, especially away at White Hart Lane against some tough opposition. We played much better at Stoke our second game, resulting in a resounding win and confidence restored into our title challenge. Then came Villa at home, and fixture i assume we would win handily. Obviously that was not the case, early chances wasted by the Red's followed by two Villa goals before the break doomed the Red's to their second defeat in three games.

What all this means is that tomorrows game will be seen by the media and pundits as a must win. If Liverpool fail to take away three points then our season is surely over, we will be battling it out with Man City and Tottenham for fourth. Right? Of course this is wrong and those who will keep a level head will realize there are no do or die games before December at least, especially for a team of Liverpool's quality. Last year, United got 5 points from their first 4 games. That is correct, the champions got had five points at the stage we will be after the Bolton game. But last year there was nobody writing off their challenge at that point. My point is, have some faith, this year the teams are much more even, Spurs, Villa, City, and who knows maybe even Everton, will be taking points off the top four. Hell, even Burnsley beat United, but this has been lost with all the Rafa has lost the plot articles recently. So what I am saying is, even if Liverpool somehow lose tomorrow, it is still not the end of the world, the race will be much tighter this year and we will still be in with a shout come May.

As for tomorrow, i expect Rafa to stick with the much maligned Lucas in the center of the field, paired with Mascherano. In the back it will be the very impressive Glen Johnson out right, Carragher and Martin Skrtel center, and the equally impressive Emiliano Insua on the left. Kuyt, as ever, will be on the right wing, Yossi Benayoun will be out left, although it is troubling to see Albert Riera still on the bench, he had a very impressive summer and could be in for the start tomorrow, even though this might be the game where we will need Benayoun's creativity around the box, and Insua will provide the width down the left. This is opposed to the sort of game such as last weekend, where Insua could not get forward enough and we ended up lacking width in the final third, which is something Riera would have brought us. This game however, is crying out for Benayoun's creativity and skill. Up top we will have per usual Stevie Gerrard and Fernando Torres. this is a game where Gerrard and Torres need to get back to their best, a game which will be easily won if even one of them is on form, something that hasn't happened yet this year, not even in the Stoke game. Both have started the campaign somewhat slowly, even with Nando's two goal haul. If they can get back to form tomorrow morning then it will give us much more than the three points; it will give us back our belief that with a Gerrard and Torres machine firing on all cylinders we can win the title. Come on you RED's!!

Colin Britton