Take that, cynics!
Liverpool fans can walk tall this afternoon after it was proven Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres's injuries were actually genuine.
We know this because both players have been ruled out of tomorrow's trip to Sunderland; a situation Rafa Benitez has not faced in a Premier League game since the season before last.
Accusations of shady goings-on flew when the pair were pulled out of their meaningless midweek World Cup qualifiers. But the club can take a perverse sense of satisfaction in the withdrawal of Gerrard and Torres from Saturday's game.
The downside, of course, is that they will probably lose. Liverpool can more or less struggle through with one or the other, but without both? Let's face it: they're pretty rubbish.
When trading started, Sunderland's odds to win tomorrow were the equivalent of 9/2 on the betting exchanges. Now they have plummeted to 3/1, a price Early Doors could not get on quickly enough.
Seriously, it couldn't get on it quickly enough - it tried to place a bet but the odds shortened while it was depositing cash into its account.
But still. Nobody can accuse Benitez of pulling his players out of meaningless international games, and as Kenwyne Jones bundles in his second and Sunderland's fifth at quarter-to-five tomorrow, the Liverpool boss should wear a smug grin: I told you they were injured.
Never mind the fact that a fourth defeat in nine games would all but end Liverpool's faint title hopes. They have their honour.
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There was only one thing people wanted from Sunderland boss Steve Bruce in his press conference ahead of Sunday's big match: an explanation of his baffling decision to make David Beckham man of the match in England-Belarus.
Although completely irrelevant, the award provoked howls of protest from the media - not least the Daily Mail's reliably curmudgeonly Jeff Powell, who described it as "certifiable lunacy", "insulting", "a joke", "grotesque", "depressing" and "madness". It's fair to say he didn't like it.
Bruce must have thought the ITV punditry gig was an easy way to trouser a few thousand quid, but has instead found himself at the middle of a baffling furore.
"It's incredible, I have never known such a carry-on," Bruce said.
"When I was in the stadium, he came on to the pitch and let's be fair, for 50 minutes, it was dull, boring, uninteresting. That's the way I looked at it. David Beckham comes on to the scene, the whole stadium in unison rises to him and I thought, 'Blooming heck! Wow! Fantastic! Now Dave, what have you got?'.
"For me, for the 35, 40 minutes, he lit up Wembley, the way his attitude was, and I suppose that's why Mr Capello keeps picking him to go into the squad, to do something like that for him. Maybe he can't do it for 90 minutes. However, for me, he had an impact. That's the way I saw it, that's the way I called it."
The Beckham selection might have been a bit silly, but seriously who should the bubbly have gone to?
Peter Crouch scored two tap-ins from a combined distance of less than his height - a feat that, by reinforcing his reputation as a flat-track bully, actually diminished him in ED's book.
Other than that, it was thoroughly anonymous displays all round. At least Beckham was distinctive - although the only way he could have lit up Wembley was if somebody had taken a can of petrol and a match to that beard.
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