Simon will be here from about 7.30, so until then why not read this preview?
Kenny Dalglish says Luis Suárez is keen to play against Tottenham Hotspur on Monday night following his eight-match suspension for racially abusing Patrice Evra but the manager is not sure whether to throw him in at the deep end.
The Liverpool manager said of Suárez, who has not played since the 1-1 draw with Blackburn Rovers on Boxing Day: "He'll want to play, won't he? There is a lot to be taken into consideration – the way the other boys have played without him and the fact he has not played for a month.
"After five or six weeks out, it's not automatic someone will come straight back into the team. It depends on the individual, it depends on our needs; not just who we have available but who we are playing against."
To continue reading click here.
News: the fog that threatened to force a postponement just a few minutes ago has lifted. But what hasn't lifted, sadly, is Harry Redknapp's flight from London, grounded because of "technical difficulties".
Early team news: Steven Gerrard starts for Liverpool but Luis Suárez is only on the bench.
Today's teams are in!
Liverpool: Reina, Kelly, Skrtel, Agger, Johnson, Adam, Spearing, Kuyt, Gerrard, Bellamy, Carroll. Subs: Doni, Aurelio, Suárez, Henderson, Coates, Downing, Carragher.
Tottenham: Friedel, Walker, Dawson, King, Assou-Ekotto, Parker, Livermore, Kranjcar, Modric, Bale, Adebayor. Subs: Cudicini, Saha, Rose, Nelsen, Khumalo, Luongo, Lancaster.
Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland).
We had an inkling of Liverpool's line-up, but José Enrique and Jordan Henderson are the players who drop out of the team to make space for Kelly and Gerrard. Tottenham bring in Michael Dawson and Jake Livermore, in place of Younes Kaboul and Rafael van der Vaart.
Has anybody not yet seen Hugo Viana's 94th-minute 60-yard matchwinner in Portugal from yesterday? Worth a watch, if you haven't.
Redknapp latest, from Kevin Bond: "He was going to be here in plenty of time, then he was going to be here but not in much time, and now he's struggling. I'm not really sure. Hopefully it won't make too much difference to us." (If you don't know, his plane up from London, where his trial continues, failed to take off due to technical difficulties).
Fabio Capello is in the stadium. Perhaps it was the hot air emanating from the Italian's mouth that did for the Anfield fog.
The players are in the tunnel. Action imminent. Well, the Spurs players are in the tunnel, and a couple of Liverpudlians.
And they're out! There's absolutely no sign of fog, or Harry Redknapp, and football is moments away.
According to @InfostradaLive on Twitter, Liverpool have a 46% chance of winning, Spurs have a 23% chance of success, and there's a 31% chance of a draw. They may just have made those numbers up.
1 min: Peeeeeeeep! They're off!
3 mins: Three minutes played, three long-balls aimed at Carroll's head. "An intriguing development, Redknapp's plane being delayed and Spurs facing the prospect of playing a vital away match without the gaffer on the sidelines," writes Peter Oh. "I wonder does this make a difference to today's players or are they so self-absorbed as to not even notice the difference?" Interesting point. I think Redknapp surely deserves some credit for Tottenham's excellence, but it's only a matter of time before players just listen to, um, dubstep or something on their iPhones in preference to the manager's team talk.
3 mins: Then Carroll concedes a comedy corner, sliding a side-footed pass from near the half-way line into precisely the one area of the pitch where there was no Liverpool player to stop it trundling out of play.
4 mins: Gerrard's pass plays Carroll through, Dawson slides in and appears to poke the ball away from the striker as he prepares to shoot. Yet to see a replay, but Carroll's reaction (apoplexy, basically) suggests that Dawson perhaps didn't get the ball at all.
6 mins: Parker sends Johnson flying, inches outside the penalty area. And now we have seen a replay, and Dawson's tackle was exemplary. It had to be.
7 mins: The free-kick is touched to Gerrard, whose shot flicks the wall, hits a team-mate and bounces to safety. A very good shooting chance wasted, that.
10 mins: Tottenham have yet to do anything of note. Kelly has just ended a long spell of Liverpool possession by miscontrolling and letting the ball bobble out of play.
11 mins: There's a cat on the pitch. It's currently settled in Tottenham's penalty area. Not a fox in the box, but not too far off. "After the Manchester United game Carroll said that Kuyt had shouted at him to knock the ball down for him to run on to it. Which he did. To great success," writes Phil Sawyer. "And then carried on doing during the Wolves match. Had it not occured to Dalglish to mention this tactic in the previous 12 months, or have Carroll's travails at Liverpool been because he's really really hard of hearing?"
13 mins: The cat has now been removed, quite gently, by a burly steward. Carroll celebrates this with a couple of tasty touches.
16 mins: "Would it be unfair to say that the stray cat has already shown more awareness in the penalty area than Andy Carroll?" asks Michael McCarthy, not alone in comparing the two. It showed a good turn of pace and its movement was decent if unconventional, but it also showed a very limited grasp of the offside law and offered limited aerial ability. I'm giving Carroll the nod here.
17 mins: Walker loses the ball to Charlie Adam. Pretty embarrassing, but if there's one player it's OK to lose the ball to in these circumstances it's Charlie Adam: by the time the Scot runs two paces Walker has covered the five yards that separated them and stolent he ball right back again.
20 mins: Before kick-off Gary Neville named his favoured England starting XI. It was interesting to see Gerrard in it, while Lampard (for example) was not in his squad. Andy Carroll was in there too. Perhaps his hatred of Liverpool is waning?
22 mins: Liverpool continue to dominate, buy Tottenham are impressively alert around their own penalty area and are proving hard to break down. "Re: Carroll's tasty touches (13 mins), Maybe Carroll was celebrating the fact, that it was the cat who was taken off, not him!"
24 mins: Finally Spurs do get the ball into Liverpool's box, and with Adebayor only a couple of paces away Reina and Skrtel have a you-take-the-ball-no-you-really-it's-all-yours-no-you-simply-must moment, before the keeper eventually picks it up.
27 mins: Liverpool are suffering from a lack of width here, with Kuyt playing pretty centrally when they've got the ball, and Bellamy quite often leaving his post on the left as well. Tottenham's defence requires a bit of stretching, I think, and I'm not sure Kelly's the man to do it.
29 mins: Carroll is fouled near the half-way line, on the left wing. Adam plays a brilliant curling ball into the penalty area, which Kuyt unaccountably heads wide. No matter; he was a yard offside. For those asking for Neville's England XI, from memory it was: Hart; Walker, Jones, Smalling, Cole; Gerrard, Parker, someone I've forgotten; Sturridge, Rooney, Oxlade-Chamberlain. Can anyone fill in my gap?
31 mins: Kranjcar forces Reina into his first save, with a low, hard shot from distance which the keeper collects at the second attempt.
32 mins: Good play by Liverpool fiunally presents Spearing with a decent shooting chance, from which he produces a decent shot. It curls just wide of the post from 20 yards. "I'm worried about Spurs tonight," frets Russell Hope. "In away games against rivals we have a habit of playing this type of containing game and, as in the City game, often don't attack properly until we're behind. Very frustrating as, if we just WENT FOR IT, we'd probably have more of the ball, carry more of a threat and we've got a solid defnce to rely on IF things get hairy.
34 mins: "The cat can expect an appearance in court tomorrow morning, a fine and a lengthy ban," suggests Gary Naylow. "It may not be fur but it's a paw show from the cat and we can't just scratch it from the record, after all, a number of claws in the stadium rules were broken. Why didn't it just flea?" Um, because it wanted someone to whisker it away?
37 mins: Gareth Bale gets a rare touch of the ball. Skrtel takes full advantage, clearing ball and player into touch with maximum muscularity. "Actually, if Carroll fails to recapture his Newcastle form and ends up having to find a life outside football, Carroll's Tasty Touches does sound like a potential range of cat treats," suggests Phil Sawyer (see 13 mins).
37 mins: Liverpool win a corner from another Kelly cross. I think he's had most of their crossing chances, and hasn't beaten a defender with any of them. He also quite likes to whip a low cross into the box, which kind of misses the main point of Andy Carroll. Anyway, nothing comes of the corner.
39 mins: Another edge-of-his-own-area foul from Parker, on Gerrard, earns him a yellow card. Nice foul that. Miles away from the ball, but importantly one-footed.
40 mins: Bellamy hits this free-kick, also straight into the wall. For all that Liverpool have been the better team here, Reina's been the only keeper to have a save to make.
40 mins: Johnson cuts in from the left flank and curls in a right-footed cross that would have crept in at the far post were it not for Friedel's late and desperate stop.
42 mins: Walker gets the ball on the right of the penalty area and drives in a lowish cross which Bale backheel flicks goalwards. Nicely done, but there's no pace on the ball and Reina just catches it.
43 mins: Spurs are having their first period of controlled possession. At the end of it Walker benefits from a lucky break off Johnson and flies into the penalty area, but Agger deflects the shot wide. Gary Neville's missing player (see 29 mins) responses: "Must be Beckham," offers Andrew Austen. "Must have been Scholes," identijokes Simon Ward. "Wilshere," matter-of-facts Andrew Whittaker. Yes, that's the lad.
45 mins: We'll have a single minute of stoppage time.
Half-time: Johnson's low shot is pushed clear by Friedel, and that's half-time. This match is not living up to its billing. This is the second time of late that I've seen Spurs play without Lennon, and though the chap on the other wing gets all the good press, they seem to really miss him. "The half-time message from Kenny will be to stop pussyfooting around and sling it high to Andy Carroll, or Andy Cee as he's probably known in England-squad circles," suggests Justin Kavanagh. "And the message from Big Joe Jordan won't really matter because none of the Spurs players will probably kin what he's on about."
Still half-time: But not for long – the players are coming back out right now. "Despite the usual published emails about Carroll being useless, aside from the comedy corner his touch has been excellent tonight and he's finally looked fit in the last few games," writes Anthony Hulse. And he's right – Carroll's looking pretty good. "The one decent ball he's had in the box his first touch was perfect and would have created a chance out of very little but for an unfortunate slip. The player who should be getting slagged off is Dirk Kuyt, whose every touch has been horrific and takes any momentum out of every attack that goes near him."
46 mins: Peeeeeeeep! They're off! Again!
49 mins: Bale has just popped up on the right for the first time, which suggests 'Arry's been on the blower at half-time.
50 mins: Walker loses the ball and Johnson carries it forward, up against an out-of-position Dawson on the left wing. Options here for Liverpool, but Johnson just keeps running in a straight line until he runs out of pitch. Goal kick.
53 mins: Bale, still on the right, cuts inside and unleashes a low, hard but off-target attempt from 30 yards. The pattern of the first half (the game basically hovering somewhere between not-that-bad-really and I-wonder-what's-on-ITV) has continued thus far.
54 mins: FIGHT! Excitement at last as Bale goes down under Agger's challenge and everyone gets exercised. A bit of mild pushing and shoving ends with Bale – who actually wasn't touched, and then gave Agger a proper shove – getting booked.
57 mins: Spurs have improved since Bale's booking. Walker crosses from the right, Adebayor turns the ball back into the centre and Bale, right-footed, miscues his volley wide. "I'm a bit surprised that the cat wasn't taken off by the felinesman," puns the terminally late Matt Cast.
59 mins: Kelly, who has finally tired of sending in poor crosses, cuts inside and lets fly from 25 yards. It was on its way in at the near post as well, but Friedel saved at full length.
61 mins: An hour gone, nothing happening. Is it time for a certain Uruguayan to start warming up?
61 mins: After all, what are all the journalists going to write about if he doesn't?
61 mins: Adam's corner from the right goes just over Carroll's head and Agger, clearly surprised that it reached him in the first place, sends his free header wide.
62 mins: And Suárez is stripping off.
64 mins: Carroll flicks the ball on nicely to Kuyt, on the right-wing, who waits for a while and then produces a ball which was midway between pull-back and clearance. Adam's resulting 25-yarder is charged down.
66 mins: Dirk Kuyt comes off, Luis Suárez comes on. Tremendous ovation.
67 mins: Suárez's first involvement could very easily have brought him a goal, but Parker is alive to the danger and comes across to clear.
70 mins: Parker is rolling around in apparent agony. I think he's alleging that Suárez kicked him. And the referee agrees – Suárez is booked. And so do the replays – clearly accidental, but a boot in the balls is still a boot in the balls.
71 mins: Louis Saha comes on for Emmanuel Adebayor.
72 mins: Skrtel's headed clearance falls at Gareth Bale's feet, and the Welshman skips off towards the penalty area before shooting narrowly wide. Liverpool bring Downing on for Bellamy.
74 mins: MISS! The best chance of the game, from a terrific Kelly cross. It looks like Agger will head it at the near post, but when he misses the ball bounces into Carroll's stomach, and falls perfectly for a half-volley, which he sends very high from about eight yards.
75 mins: Skrtel goes in late, high and wild on Bale. It's not a good tackle, but it's one-footed and so he's only booked.
78 mins: Spurs give the ball away to Suárez, whose pass to Carroll sends him a bit wide. He could still have had a shot, perhaps, but instead he turns into trouble and the ball is whisked away.
80 mins: CHANCE! Johnson gets away from Walker on the left and crosses towards the near post. The ball seems to curl away from goal at the last moment, enough to befuddle Carroll, who adjusts but sends his header wide.
83 mins: Over on Twitter, @AnfieldCat already has 5,872 followers. "At this rate it will be me on the back of the Echo tomorrow, I won't be using that to line the bottom of my litter tray," it tweets.
84 mins: I don't know what they teach in biology lessons up Liverpool way – the Anfield crowd seem to claim handball every time a Spurs player touches the ball in the penalty area with anything that isn't a foot.
85 mins: FANTASTIC CHANCE FOR SPURS! A long ball finds Bale suddenly racing clear, in absolutely loads of space. Reina comes out decisively and rapidly to narrow the angle and the ball is eventually hacked clear.
86 mins: AMAZING CHANCE! Liverpool send the ball into the area from the left wing, and Suárez wins a free header six yards out but sends the ball straight at Friedel. Come on, give us a ruddy goal you useless lot.
90 mins: Another chance! Gerrard's long ball forward, Carroll's excellent knock-down and Suárez controls, turns and shoots at goal, but the shot is blocked. That one actually might have been handball.
90+1 mins: We're going to have four minutes of stoppage time.
90+3 mins: Spurs keep giving the ball away here. If only Liverpool could find a decent ball into the box, they might get somewhere.
90+4 mins: Johnson floats a ball over everybody's heads and out of play. Bah!
90+5 mins: Liverpool find Carroll in the penalty area, the referee finds a foul somewhere. No idea where. Spurs free-kick.
90+5 mins: Peeeeeeep! It's all over. And, frankly, thank heavens for that.
Final thoughts: Not a terrible game, but certainly not a very good one and not one that showed either side in a very good light. Liverpool at least tried to score occasionally. Tottenham had some injuries, but no ambition. One chance for Bale, albeit a very good one, was as good as it got. They're having a wonderful season, but they didn't look like potential champions tonight. Liverpool did OK, but seem in very desperate need of a decent winger, someone to stretch an opposition defence, bring more pace to their attacks and cross the ball towards Carroll's forehead.
This match will be remembered because of a cat. This is not the mark of a good match.
guardian.co.uk
