Liverpool have been dumped out of the FA cup by premiership strugglers Reading. Liverpool lead for almost the whole game through a Steven Gerrard goal which went in through a deflection.

Rafa was then forced to take of Torres for precautionary reasons because of his knee. Liverpool played on but never really looked to take full control of the game.

Reading had a few chances but also didn’t look like they were going to take the game. Another blow came for Liverpool at half time as Gerrard who had scored the goal had to be substituted again at the time for precautionary reasons.

In the 92nd minute of the game Reading scored to make it 1-1 and send the game into extra time. 5 minutes into extra time and it was Reading again who took the chances and slotted the ball past Liverpool’s second choice keeper.

This defeat will only put more pressure on Rafa as his team this year have now been dumped out of the FA cup the League cup and the Champions league. They are 12 points behind Chelsea which in today’s game is a near impossible points difference to recoup but not impossible.

The only thing Liverpool have to fight for now is pride in the premier league and the Europa League but with the type of performance they are turning out at the moment i wouldn’t count on that being an easy ride no matter who they end up playing.

I have just read on Football.co.uk that spurs may be ready to make a bid for Chelsea’s Joe coal. Joe has been a regular in Chelsea team and has shown some good England performances. He has however had a long period out of action due to injury.

In this time Ballack has been playing in the role and since the new manager has come in a new formation is being played.

Now Harry is said to be monitoring the situation, this must show that there is an opportunity to strike as there is very seldom smoke without a fire.

Spurs are said to be thinking of balancing the books by selling Roman Pavlyuchenko, who is said to be linked with Zenit St Petersburg.

Robbie Savage has shown his trademark fiery character by arguing with a reporter on BBC Derby over rumours that the backroom staff are not up to the job.

Audio Source: BBC Sport

Savage reacted to a football phone in after his team lost recently. The radio show suggested that the staff at Derby are not up to the job of running the club properly. Savage got in touch with the show and argued against the opinion stating that he is there week in week out working with these people. He has full confidence that the staff in place are able to and to perform their job correctly.

Personally i say well done to Robbie Savage. There are a lot of football phone in shows on the radio and the people who host them often think they are god like with their knowledge and they can often be quite scathing about people. Maybe this is part of their job to encourage debate, after all its a show that depends on discussion. however they can really get stuck into some people and i don’t think any consideration is given to there actually being a real person they are talking about.

Emanuel Adebayor could be back playing for city by the weekend if reports by the Sun are to be believed. He has recently appeared on African TV wearing an Arsenal top  ( link: http://j.mp/4P0M8X) talking of his ordeal.

Fifa have declared that it is up to the Togo national team what the players can be released to go back to their domestic clubs after their team bus was ambushed killing three people. Rumours are that Adebayor could be back at Eastland’s by the weekend and ready to play. I hope he remembers to take his arsenal shirt off before he gets there though!

Reports on the BBC this morning are suggesting that Sol Campbell is set to re sign for Arsenal. Campbell left Arsenal in 2006 to play for Portsmouth, He had a great time at Portsmouth being successful. He then took a two division drop to go to Notts County, This was mainly due to Sven Goren Erickson holding a roll at the club which enticed him there on a five year deal. However, only one month into the contract he left the club.

Since then, he has been a free agent and he has been training with Arsenal to keep himself fit. Last night he played 45 minutes for the reserves team before being substituted. Now it has emerged that in the next couple of days he will be signing for the Gunners again. Sol has been quoted as saying that Arsene isn’t stupid and wouldn’t sign him if there wasn’t a roll for him.

The signing comes in the light that there is interest from other clubs including Newcastle and Hull, however Arsenal would always be Number 1 for for Sol as it is were he spent the best of his days.

Togo have been disqualified from the African cup of nations. On Friday they were subject to an attack by rebels in Cabinda who opened fire on their team coach killing 3 people and seriously injuring their substitute keeper.

Naturally after the shock of it all the players were taken back to Togo to mourn the dead. However despite all this and in a brave show of defiance, the team were hoping to return to Angola to compete in the tournament to honour the dead. Its a very courageous statement for the players to make as at the end of the day who would want to risk their lives for the sake of a game?

However, the African FA seem to have taken an extremely hard line with Togo. Togo requested that their first game be postponed so they could mourn their dead and then return to the tournament and compete. it would have been the storyline of a blockbuster movie had they returned and won but this was not meant to be. On Monday Togo didn’t play their first game of the tournament because the African FA rejected their plea to re arrange the group games. The result of this was that the team were officially disqualified from the tournament.

A very hard line to take in my opinion and shame on the organisers to make such a hard lined decision in the wake of such an attack.