Early Doors - Your morning briefing blog

To look on the bright side, at least we have been spared a repeat of Andy Gray wailing "Oooooooh yoooooo beeeeautaaaaaay!!" after another dramatic Liverpool comeback. Liverpool are out of the Champions League after their 1-0 win at Debrecen was rendered academic by Fiorentina's victory over Lyon by the same scoreline,...More

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As you are no doubt aware, Liverpool face a do-or-die, or-at least mortally wounding, Champions League tie this evening. However, as there are already enough rants and opinions on the continued travails of Rafa and co (see below), ED will instead focus on more trifling matters, its own particular niche.With...More

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Rarely has the phrase 'must-win game' been so overused at such an early stage of the season as it has with Liverpool this term.The Chelsea game was a 'must-win' following the defeat at Fiorentina, the Sunderland game was 'must-win' in order to recover from that loss at Stamford Bridge and the...More

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Alex Chick, Reda Maher and Tony Mabert try - and fail - to work out just what Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez is playing at.  ...More

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Early Doors is sad to report that certain players continue to drag the good name of football through the mud. Four days after Thierry Henry's handball shamed a nation, Wigan's badger-headed utility man Paul Scharner showed a duplicitous side befitting a man with two separate haircuts (above, left and right). During yesterday's game against Tottenham, the Austrian...More

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When news broke that a huge match-fixing ring had tried to influence 200 matches around Europe - including three Champions League games - it was clear what everyone would be talking about this afternoon. Thierry Henry, obviously. After a solid two-day diet of moralistic platitudes, Early Doors needed a good blast of Roy Keane shake...More

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Cheatgate, day two, and the sheer scale of the plot to deny Ireland a place at the World Cup becomes ever more apparent. There are so many guilty parties, a millipede would struggle to point the finger at all of them. Blame Thierry Henry for handling the ball then refusing to fess up (but didn't...More

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A day on from Ireland's shocking World Cup play-off elimination in Paris, and the after-shocks are still being felt. People as diverse as the Irish justice minister, french school teachers and PRs at Gillette are all wading into the quagmire of controversy that is Thierry Henry's extra-time handball.But, unfortunately, it...More

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And to think, some call Thierry Henry a big-game bottler. Last night the France captain set up the equaliser for William Gallas that saw France win their play-off against Ireland and reach next year's World Cup finals.The Barcelona forward used all of the speed, guile and cunning that won him...More

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Just a (very) quick post this afternoon - after all, there's football to watch or follow in live text form. - - - Craig Burley has stuck up for his dad George who was sacked by Scotland: "I'm not shocked at all. Wales was a disastrous result. It's not as if we were playing England or Brazil or...More

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