It’s always great to beat Chelsea

Yesterday’s game between last season’s winners of the Premiership and the FA Cup ended with more silver in the trophy room at Anfield Road. Liverpool beat “Chelski” 2-1 and thus became the Community Shield Champions 2006.

A game like this is nice to watch since you can see how your team’s new players are doing. So far, I really really like Daniel Agger (central defender) and Mark González (midfield, left-wing). Craig Bellamy (forward) has been very good in the two games I have seen him, and hopefully Liverpool has found a player who will convert easy chances into goals, and serve Peter Crouch chances he just cannot miss (like yesterday).

I have to see players like Fabio Aurelio, Gabriel Paletta and Jermaine Pennant play more games before I can make up my mind about them. The good thing is that Liverpool finally seems to have two good players at each position on the pitch. As for now, this is the starting eleven I would prefer:

Reina

Finnan – Carragher – Agger – Riise

Gerrard – Alonso – Sissoko – González

Bellamy - Crouch

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I spent Friday evening celebrating the birthday of Emil Högberg, a good friend, skilled politician and fellow blogger. At the party I ended up in discussion about a fantastic blog post that Emil once wrote about the Moroccan long-distance runner Hicham El-Guerrouj. If you haven’t read it, do it now. This is why blogs are great; you learn a lot when your friends share their thoughts.

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And talking about long-distance running: Alan Sillitoe’s “The loneliness of the long-distance runner" is British working-class literature at its best.