Left feeling blue as team and Big Phil outfought and out-thought by the Clarets

I NEVER did like the Carling Cup anyway, it’s a Mickey Mouse competition; I’m glad we’re out, it means we can concentrate on the league — have I covered all the cliches yet?

Of course I’m gutted to be out of the Cup and embarrassed that we were outfought so completely by a so called inferior team and that Phil was out thought by a so called inferior manager.

I should have saved myself the time and the heartache of staying for the penalty shoot-out as I can’t ever see us winning one again. Especially when we put Mikel in to take the crucial spot kick with Alex available. Mikel is a great player, but, like Makelele, shooting is not his forte — whereas Alex can take aim from almost anywhere on the pitch and have a half decent chance of bursting the net.

Then, just to top off a crappy night, we have “CoinGate”.

Drogba seems to go from one controversy to another and most of us have had enough. When we bought him I wonder whether in amongst all those medical tests, someone actually checked whether there was a brain rattling about in that head. What did he think was going to be the outcome of throwing a coin into a crowd of people?

That said, someone needs to redress the balance on how the Burnley fans behaved too. The papers would have you believe that they were innocent onlookers who came under an unprovoked attack by Drogba the Terrible; the truth of the matter is that he threw back one of the many, many coins which were rained onto the pitch from the claret and blue end. And let’s not even get started on what those fans were chanting to Lampard.

I am not defending Drogba, but he’s an easy target isn’t he? Banning him is fair enough but let’s put a bit of effort into finding the morons that started it?

Meanwhile I don’t like this recent fad of players no longer playing reserve games. How else is a player meant to keep match fit and keep a competitive edge unless he plays regularly? So it bruises their ego — so what? The much maligned Winston Bogarde played regularly in the reserves and at the time I went to a lot of these matches and you know what, he gave 100% every time despite being booed by a large majority of the crowd.

He had been given a contract to play football, a very generous contract. The fact that the management then didn’t want him was hardly his fault. The fact that the contract was so generous that he could not get it matched by any other club was also not his fault. As a punishment (I presume), he was required to play in the reserves week in and week out and he did so, with no complaint. Now you may argue that he lacked ambition, but how many of our present “reserve players” would play in such games and give 100%? If they did, I think we’d have easily won that game against Burnley.

But what is done is done and who am I to question the great and the good.

Another week, another record broken — most consecutive away wins, yet there were gripes that we didn’t score more goals. Will our fans ever stop moaning? My concern is our injury list. As players return to fitness, others immediately replace them on the medical table.

Liverpool, like chewing-gum on the bottom of your shoe, are resolutely hanging on in there with us at the top. Our goal difference is worth an extra point, but we do need to start pulling away to get my nerves back in control as the Scousers winning the Premier League is unthinkable.

This weekend is one of those rare events, a Saturday three o’clock kick off home match. There are no excuses for the best supporters in the land not to drag their Geordie bodies down to the capital, but I’m sure they’ll think of one.

I don’t say this very often but I expect us to win. Newcastle are a mess, and we, despite our injuries, are superior in every way. The only way they will beat us is through a lack of effort on our part which is not acceptable even with a now tricky game against Bordeaux and then Arsenal looming.

Phil you have been warned.

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