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August 7th Deadline For Israel Tie

UEFA have revealed that they will announce their decision whether or not to move Liverpool’s away leg of the Champions League qualifier against Maccabi Haifa on Monday week, August 7th. Israel were not allowed host UEFA Cup second qualifying round games and equal measure should be applied to the Champions League given the current situation against Lebanon, cease fire or not.

Should the match get moved it is likely that Nicosia will be the chosen venue for the game to be played out on either August 22nd or 23rd. Fans, staff, and media have been calling for a change to the game’s venue, with many astonished at UEFA’s initial lack of a response to move the game, Rafa Benitez already quoted as saying the situation is “totally unacceptable”.

In fairness, UEFA should have thought about this before the draw was made in light of the situation in the Middle East.

The Israeli FA however are determined to kick up a stink about the whole situation, feeling that they shouldn’t lose out as they face the prospect of any UEFA Cup games out of Tel Aviv being moved as well as losing the financial bonuses surround the arrival of Liverpool in Tel Aviv.

Bad form out of UEFA, I feel, since FIFA had already banned international games out of Israel for a two years back in 2002 and they know that the situation presents a massive security risk for all involved. Have to say that I would be extremely disappointed, if not shocked, if UEFA decide to leave the tie happen in Tel Aviv but only time will tell, and there’s still plenty of preseason and regular season action to concentrate on before then!

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Lincoln Friendly Sold Out

The preseason friendly game against Lincoln, just three days after the Community Shield game against Chelsea, is officially sold out.

The game at Sincil Bank was arranged as part of the deal for the transfer of Jack Hobbs who found himself up against Kaiserslautern at the weekend and is the first time Liverpool and Lincoln will have played in over 40 years, so no wonder its sold out!

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Result : Kaiserslautern 3 - 2 Liverpool

So Liverpool pick up their first defeat of the pre-season campaign, going down 3-2 with a late winner from Bundesliga 2 side Kaiserslautern. Injury worries for Luis Garcia (minor) and Fabio Aurélio (possibly looking at a few weeks out of action) marred the game in one which saw Pepe Reina finish the game in midfield, coming close to scoring on two occasions.

Rafa Benitez gave starts this time to Gabriel Paletta, Craig Bellamy and Mark Gonzalez while Jermaine Pennant came off the bench in the second half. It was the second half itself that would produce all five goals with the teams deadlocked going into the half. Ricardo Villar put Kaiserslautern ahead and it took until the hour mark for Craig Bellamy to find an equaliser before Luis Garcia stuck The Reds ahead 2-1, Pennant and Bellamy combining well to set up Garcia to see the ball home safely.

Marcel Ziemer drew Kaiserslautern back into the game at 2-2 with 20 minutes remaining, Jack Hobbs forced into a defensive error to concede the goal in defence. It would be Ziemer again with 3 minutes to go to finish the game off at 3-2 getting in behind the defence to loft the ball into the back of the net.

Injury to Luis Garcia sees Rafa Benitez bring on Pepe Reina to a central midfield role, a possible help in regaining some serious match fitness and after just 2 minutes on the pitch, Reina almost put Liverpool 3-2 ahead, his low shot coming just wide of the post, before the ‘keeper blasted over the cross bar in the last few minutes.

Final score 3-2, fresh injury worries for Liverpool.

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Liverpool vs Kaiserslautern on TV

While there will be delayed video coverage and highlights from the game on LiverpoolFC.tv through the E-Season Ticket, Eurosport will be screening this afternoon’s friendly between Liverpool and Kaiserslautern in Liechtenstein. You can catch the game, live, from 4:30pm. (via Eurosport)

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Champions League Third Round Draw

A cloudy day in Switzerland and the Champions League Third Round Qualifying draw has been made as is as follows with Liverpool drawing X. The first round of games will kick off on August 8/9 with the second leg over August 22/23.

Here is the draw in full…

• Sheriff / Spartak Moscow vs Liberec
• Shaktar vs Hafnarfjordue / Legia
• Zurich / Salzberg vs Valencia
• Levski / Sioni vs Chievo
• Hearts / Siroki Brijeg vs AEK
• CSKA Moskva vs Djurgarden / Ruzomberok
• Milan vs Cork / Red Star Belgrade
• Galatasary vs Mlada Boleslav / Valerenga
• Standard Liege vs Gorica / Steaua Bucharest
• Austria Vienna vs Benfica
• Ekranas / Dinamo Zagreb vs Arsenal
• Copenhagen / MyPa vs Ajax
• Hamburg vs Osasuna
• Metalurgs / Dynamo Kiev vs Fenerbache / B36
• Liverpool vs Maccabi Haifa
• Lille vs Debrecen / Ravotnicki

Very significant draw of Liverpool, taking Maccabi Haifa in Israel. UEFA were looking for assurance earlier this week there wouldn’t be any problems for teams travelling to the Middle East.

AC Milan are only provisionally in the draw as well while UEFA debate their European fate and face the possibility of making a trip to Ireland to take on Cork, should Cork be able to reverse their current 1-0 scoreline against Belgrade in the return leg.

Exciting clash ahead for the Reds!

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Liverpool Draw Maccabi Haifa

Liverpool have been drawn against coming out in the second last pick from the drum, kicking off at home agains Israel’s Macabi Haifa. Politically challenging game given current circumstances in Israel but a great encounter on the horizon

Arsenal will likely play Dinamo Zagreb of Croatia, tricky away match for their first game.

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Champions League Draw This Morning

Liverpool will learn their third round qualifying fate this morning with a meeting of UEFA and club officials in Nyon at 11am to announce the full draw for the third round of Champions League qualification.

AC Milan, who have been allowed back into this year’s Champions League following the football scandal in Italy, are among the seeded sides - including Liverpool - meaning that we avoid Milan, Benfica, Ajax and Valencia to name but a few.

With second round qualifying still taking place and not concluding until mid next week, a total of 46 teams will be in the draw, 28 of whom will have their fate decided on Wednesday while the 18 third round teams enter the drum this morning. Third round games take place over August 8/9 and August 22/23.

We’ll have the full draw here on LiverpoolAccess.com after it has happened.

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Diao? He never left!

Looking at match reports and team sheets for the Charlton defeat against Hibs on Tuesday night I thought, “ah maybe he’s just settling in and he’ll get a game against Valencia”. This being Salif Diao, who was reportedly on trial at Charlton for all of this week, due to line out against Hibernian Tuesday night and Valencia at the the weekend.

Word has it now of course that he didn’t actually leave the club for the trial and cancelled it to stay on working with Liverpool. Having put in two decent performances against Wrexham and in the first half against Crewe at the weekend we’ll have to see if he lines up against Kaiserslautern at the weekend for Liverpool now that everything is still up in the air!

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Jermaine Pennant Signs 4 Year Deal With Liverpool

Rafa Benitez will consider this the solution to the right wing problems ahead of the coming season at Anfield, but you won’t find this author over the moon about today’s transfer dealings.

Jermaine Pennant, formerly of Leeds, Arsenal and Birmingham has inked a 4 year deal with Liverpool after passing a medical at Melwood and will now travel to Switzerland to hook up with his new clubmates ahead of the weekend’s friendly against Kaiserslautern.

Speaking to LiverpoolFC.tv shortly after signing this afternoon, Pennant said

I’m over the moon. I’ve dreamt about this since I was a little boy so to actually be here and to be able to wear a Liverpool shirt and play at Anfield is a dream come true.

I always wanted to come to Liverpool. This is the only club I would have wanted to sign for. There’s always a doubt in your mind as to whether or not it will happen because you don’t know if the clubs will agree a transfer fee but I just stayed positive and believed it would happen for me. It was only yesterday when I found out the deal was on and that it was going to happen.

I don’t think it has sunk in yet and it probably won’t until I’m out in Switzerland with the lads training in a Liverpool jersey.

No official word on the fee but it is reported to be around £6 million give or take, possibly even higher, a figure bandied around over the past few days, with 25% of that going right into Arsenal’s coffers as well. Pennant has been handed the number 16 jersey for the coming year and is our fifth signing of the summer.

Interesting fact about Pennant…. he stuck more crosses into the box than any other Premiership player last season, a grand total of 497. Surely to God Peter Crouch would be able to get up and meet one or two of those!

In summing up his interview, available here, Pennant also said

I’ve come here to be successful and it’d be a great feeling if I can win trophies as a Liverpool player.

Only time will tell. Hell, maybe I’ll even come around to the idea. Though with landing Pennant at this price, one would wonder where the possibility of a striker comes in, with Dirk Kuyt again rumoured to be in the pipeline at a fee in the region of ten million. Seems like a lot of cash for Pennant!

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Traoré Heading On Loan

A week after unconfirmed reports of Djimi Traoré signing for Charlton it seems that Traoré is almost out the door at Anfield today, according to SkySports this lunch time.

Accoring to Willie McKay, Djimi’s agent, talks with Charlton are now “at an advanced stage”.

“Djimi is close to a move to Charlton. It is a loan move with the option of a permanent deal. I have had talks with Iain Dowie and Andrew Mills about Djimi. Iain is very keen to sign Djimi and we are hopeful that it can be pushed through this week so that he can make his debut against Valencia this weekend.”

If this is true then Traoré will be lining out alongside Salif Diao who has been given permission to play against Valencia. Diao was cleared to play against Hibernian last night but didn’t feature in Charlton’s 3-2 loss to Hibs, having gone 2 goals up, the Senegal man training with The Addicks this week in view of a transfer.

Busy week this for Liverpool, those Anfield doors just seem to be swinging….

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