Oh boy, what a week!

Nothing can get me down at the moment.  Liverpool's dominance over the teams of Manchester has done wonders for my disposition.  Granted, there are still major cracks - evidently I'm not the only one to gripe at Carroll's lack of pace or the pointlessness of Henderson's general presence - but in this past week, our play has been much improved.  Most notably, the KOP is rocking once more.  Dare I say it, I feel as if we've turned a corner.  Boom.

Just quickly though, I'd like to get something off my chest if I may...  

I've not written too much about the racism scandal of late.  Deliberately so.  Between you and me I am getting tired of hearing we're a racist club.  I can say in all certainty that I did not, nor would not, ever boo Evra (unless he fouled Stevie G of course).  Kenny's tolerance of what went on yesterday is not okay with me.  In order to shake this reputation we're developing, our gaffer needs to stop defending this sort of thing.  I am certain that those doing the booing (ironically) represent a minority of Liverpool fans - our club should be doing more to drive this point home.   

Thankfully our results are starting to speak for themselves again and the media agenda is shifting back to our performances over off pitch politics.  Let's hope this trend continues... 

Another team doing their talking on the pitch this week were Pakistan.

The quality of their cricket is indicative of a true strength of character.  Given the year of turmoil they've just experienced, I certainly did not expect such a compelling performance from them as a team.  They dealt with (albeit fleeting) allegations in the first test with grace, and went on to silence their wider critics in the most dignified way possible - on the field of play.  It must be a relief to Misbah-ul-Haq that he'll no longer be bombarded during press conferences with questions solely on corruption.  It seems that they too are entering a new phase. 

From an English perspective, the issues are glaringly obvious.  We underestimated the opposition.  We can't deal with spin and we don't have enough spinners.  Plus the fact that we've had some unfortunate injuries.  There are remedies for all these woes and I'm confident that Strauss and Flower will be able to address them swiftly.  They'd better - if I'm to stop losing money anytime soon!