Actual Liverpool News

I know, I can't believe it either. But let's get to it.

-The fixture list came out, but due to some strange and what I'm sure is an uber-greedy law, I can't exactly just reprint it here. That's all in the courts and stuff. Not that I should have to, everybody plays everybody twice and it really is just a matter of order. What might look tough now might not be then, and vice versa. But still, it's nice to know where you'll be when, or at least kind of as European fixtures and TV will kick things around a bit. So we'll just go over some of the highlights and interesting factoids.

• The season starts at Steve Clarke's new team, because really why should you wait for the story lines to kick in?
• The first home game the next week is against that team there that scored twice in injury time to win the league, because why wait?
• The Red North London team comes in after that, and playing them very early in the season seems to be tradition now.
• Liverpool don't play Scum after an International break, which if it hasn't been the case in recent years certainly felt like it was, so that's nice.
• The first Derby is the weekend of October 27th, and it's there.
• Scum and The Red North London team are visited on back to back weekends, so make sure you have the antacids stocked for that stretch.
• Nate at Oh You Beauty did the ground work on this, but if Liverpool do get through to the group stages of the Europa League, and I think we all want them to if for no other reasons than to provide more matches to get other players at least a look, the games following those Thursday night dates are - home to the Gallagher Brothers, home to Gunners, home to Scum, home to that team that likes their throw ins, across Stanley Park, away to where Drogba isn't, away to where we just got our manager from, and away to that team we beat in the FA Cup Final in 2006. Seems like squad management is going to be paramount. Good thing Rodgers dealt with that at Swan....oh, bugger.

-Gylfi Sigurdsson has been given until next week to make up his mind where he wants to go. Usually transfer stories are filled with such smoke and dust, but there's a feeling about this one where I think he'll be a Liverpool player. That's based on nothing but intuition, but after years of this you get a feel for them.

-Apparently Salomon Kalou is also on the targets list. Pardon me while I barf up some stomach acid. I can't tell the difference usually between Kalou or Florent Malouda, as they're both pretty useless wingers for Chelsea who were usually first to greet Drogba after he scored. Maybe if you combined them you'd get....a still pretty useless winger who would basically be Joe Cole 2. And we have Joe Cole 1 to deal with as it is.

-Speaking of which, Rodgers says he'll give Joe Cole 1 a chance in preseason to earn his place. If this were five or ten years ago, you would think Rodgers's style would actually be pretty perfect for one of the better technical players England has ever produced. But judging by what my receding hairline looks like in the mirror, it is not five or ten years ago.

-And of course, we're still waiting for Aquilani to officially tell us all to fuck off.

Right then, Euro thread will be up in a couple hours.