Charanjit Chana

I had a blast this past Saturday. After taking my sweet time getting out of bed and out of the house, we made our way up to Liverpool around 10.30am. I tested out the possibility of twittering with my mobile so that I could micro-blog throughout the day.

The first part of our journey was pretty easy, making a stop just before Birmingham. We didn't stop again until we were maybe 70 miles from Liverpool. The Roadchef services we visited was a little shit to say the least, but I just needed to stretch my legs. I checked in with the friend I was meeting there and once we knew where he was, we made the rest of our journey. It wasn't too long after we left the motorway that we found ourselves looking at the slightly visible roof of Anfield from less than a mile away.

After parking up, we made our way up Anfield road and were soon outside Anfield.

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Pure bullshit from the Juventus manager.

I wonder Alonso would rather be?! 2nd in the faster Premier League or 11th in the slower (my opinion) Serie A? As much as I love Italian football, English football is at the very top right now and Liverpool are lucky that Juve didn't want him.

A quote from Paul Tomkins in his latest column on the official Liverpool website.

The game against Villa was quite poor and the injury to Torres a pure nightmare, but sitting second, only on goal difference is some achievement so far.

Two weeks off and then we're off to Old Trafford for what will hopefully be a match where we have everyone fit. If we have Torres, Gerrard, Babel and Agger(?) back, I'll be in a far more confident mood about our chances of snatching some points!

Once again, Fernando Torres got a goal for Liverpool, but overall the team was well below their best. It was a performance similar to the one we saw a few days ago against Standard Liege. 1-0 was an improved scoreline from the one we got in midweek, and I hope it leads to more confidence and composure.

The big talking point was always going to be the new partnership between Fernando Torres and Robbie Keane and we saw more of the same from midweek. They certainly did have clearer sights at goal but it's early days and there is no reason that in their preferred roles that they won't be successful together.

The biggest plus from this game was Xabi Alonso, man of the match despite playing just 45 minutes. He distributed the ball in a similar manner to when he first joined. He took yet another shot from his own half and only missed by a yard and most importantly, got the assist for the winning goal. Plessis was far to conservative for me and constantly passed the ball just a few yards, never looking for a way through the Sunderland defence. That may have been a result of his back injury, but in my opinion Liverpool already have 4 key midfielders and Plessis has some way to go before he can consider himself in real contention.

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Every team has made it through their group stage fixtures and we're now facing the knockout faze.

I've been really happy with the tournament so far, thanks in no small part to England's inability to qualify. Pre and post match nonsense is kept to a minimum and I don't have to trawl through article after article on the England team's breakfast menu in the morning papers to see how other teams have been performing and the latest summer transfer gossip.

I wanted Spain to win, but I think Holland and Croatia have been the two most convincing. Spain's last two matches ended with lucky second goals, but a win is a win and you often need a bit of luck to make it to the winners podium. The group stages haven't produced any real surprises, but that means that we've got some great fixtures to look forward too:

• Portugal vs Germany
• Croatia vs Turkey
• Holland vs Russia
• Spain vs Italy

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