Liverpool FC Forum

[A.B.]

A message from LFC.tv to the fans. I find it a very good read, enjoy and happy holidays to you all.

Whether you're as local as Jamie Carragher or from as far away a place as Harry Kewell, Liverpoolfc.tv would like to wish you a very, very happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. 
Every year we thank all the supporters who make this website the most visited football club website in the world and this year is no exception. Without the interaction of you fans - whether it's through expressing your views on the message boards, voting in online polls, contributing articles, songs and pictures or even simply emailing in suggestions and feedback - liverpoolfc.tv wouldn't be half the site it is.
 
While Rafael Benitez works on returning this club to the position it knows best - at the very pinnacle of British football - we'll strive to continue to provide a website the supporters can be proud of.
 
2004's been a strange year for Liverpool Football Club. After one of the most difficult seasons in memory, the club parted company with Gerard Houllier in May. Performances on the pitch and a newfound belief amongst supporters have proved the correct decision was made for Liverpool Football Club. No matter what you thought of Gerard Houllier towards the end of his reign, no one can ever doubt he always did what he thought was best for the club. He may have left without winning the title, but during his time at the club he did oversee what many consider to one of our most exciting seasons ever - the Treble season. No Liverpool fan will ever forget the joy of being in Cardiff and Dortmund during that mad May of 2001.
 
While Gerard left with the warmest wishes of everyone at the club, it's fair to say that in Rafael Benitez the fans have now got someone who understands what they want to see on the pitch and is already instilling his attacking ideas on a team who go into the Christmas period fighting on all four fronts - semi-finals of the Carling Cup, last 16 of the Champions League, FA Cup still to come and just outside the Premiership's top four.
 
And all this has been achieved with an injury crisis that would have stretched even the staff at Holby City. No one would have blamed Benitez for putting a poor run of away results down to losing Djibril Cisse, Milan Baros, Steven Gerrard, Luis Garcia, Antonio Nunez, Vladimir Smicer and Chris Kirkland to injury but the boss never once looked to make an excuse. "Sometimes in football, this happens," he said at the time. Liverpool supporters who had already warmed to him after seeing the team's new playing style, took him even closer to their hearts. Starting with six attacking players out of a possible 11 against Newcastle didn't do him any harm either.
 
If Benitez has been working wonders off the pitch - although he'll insist he's not even halfway to getting the team to play how he wants - Steven Gerrard was undoubtedly the main man on it. He was by no means alone in terms of quality performances in 2004 - special praise must also go to the likes of Jamie Carragher, Sami Hyypia, Dietmar Hamann and Milan Baros, not to mention the rejuvenation of Djimi Traore and Igor Biscan under the new boss - but Gerrard was far and away the Premiership's most consistently brilliant performer in 2004.
 
The fact that he turned down the chance to double his bank balance on the Fulham Road because of his love of Liverpool Football Club says it all about our captain. As did his celebration after that goal against Olympiacos, a match that even David Fairclough admitted pushed the legendary St Etienne game close for drama, excitement and sheer joy. The scenes inside Anfield on Wednesday December 8th have been shown on TV stations across the world to millions of football fans and that goal, that atmosphere and that night simply serve to remind the world why Liverpool Football Club is held is such magical high regard by so many people the world over.
 
If Gerard's strike against Olympiacos was without doubt the most important goal we scored all year, liverpoolfc.tv's favourite goal came from the boot of Neil Mellor against Arsenal. His last-gasp strike - surely an early contender for Goal of the Season - won't win us any silverware this season - coming as it did in the Barclaycard Premiership - but it said a lot about the way the Rafalution is shaping up.
 
Less than six months before, Neil Mellor was told by Gerard Houllier that he wouldn't be needed at Anfield after the summer break. In danger of being farmed out on loan to Crewe despite scoring almost a goal a game for the Reserves, the future for Mellor and many of the other young players who'd come through the Academy looked particularly bleak with Houllier in charge.
 
Mellor's life, like that of Stephen Warnock, Darren Potter, Zak Whitbread and David Raven to name just a few, changed however the moment Rafael Benitez arrived in town. That's why his goal against Arsenal meant so much to those of us who'd followed his career from the day he was given a trial at the Academy after being released by Manchester City when he was just 15. No player at the club has done more for the website than Neil Mellor in recent years. Having sat on a freezing cold gantry kindly co-commentating for e-Season Ticket holders fromall over the world when he was out of the side to scoring the winner against Arsenal that sent Anfield into raptures of joy is a remarkable journey. The fact that during the madness of the greatest moment of his life with 45,000 supporters going mental, he looked up to the gantry and waived to Liverpoolfc.tv's Steve Hunter - probably his biggest supporter outside of his own immediate family - was a remarkably touching gesture. Mellor claimed the goal reminded him why he loved this beautiful game so much. His celebration and that of Steven Gerrard after his Olympiacos goal took us back to a time when footballers were just footballers - not out-of-control millionaire mercenaries making more headlines on the front pages than they do on the back.
 
No one knows what the future will bring for Mellor, Gerrard or even Benitez, but if the joy we've experience so far is anything to go by, when Rafa really gets going it could be some ride. 12 points from our next four games will do just nicely.
 
So raise a glass this Christmas to Rafael Benitez and spare a thought for Cherith Watson, the most popular member of the .tv team, who tragically passed away this year. She'll no doubt be cheering us on alongside Shanks and Bob from the big bench in the sky. We haven't forgot you girl.
 
Merry Christmas.
 
The .tv team 

[andy_g]

nice one, AB. thats a top read for crimbo eve. the guy does optimism and praise very well and i'm right there with him.

[chiggz_likes_owen]

ging

[Brit]

Nice read.
R.I.P Cherith.