Blaine Tulley

It's tempting to heave my piling anger, frustration, pain, and total bewilderment on a red beach ball. It's tempting to lament the many injuries my side picked up while the players were dispersed for the international break. But after watching Liverpool lose their third and fourth matches in a row, their worst losing streak since […]

"Who pays the players when they're on international duty?" asks Doug. Here in the football wilderness that is the states, I find more and more of my friends, neighbors and coworkers growing curious about the beautiful game. The "football-curious" we'll call them. And since they know me as somebody who's fanatical about the sport, they […]

How did it come to this? I'm resting my hopes for Liverpool's season on an injured Italian midfielder who remains unproven in the Premier League. Alberto Aquilani, bought this summer for £20m to replace Xabi Alonso (if that's possible) came to Liverpool a broken man. Hints that he's been training and we could see him […]

I find myself asking it all the time: how old is that player? My last such quandary was over Arshavin (older than I would have guessed). Before that it was over Jovetic (younger than I would have guessed). When I' m looking up a player's age for an article or to settle a bet or […]

Facing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge is never easy. But with Petr Cech suspended and with Liverpool's knack for playing well against the London giants, I felt optimistic going into yesterday's match. And with Liverpool dominating the first stretch of play, I felt a goal was inevitable and a win was feasible. I was stumped by […]

Dear Sir/Lord/Baron/Chairman/Sheik/The Donald: Thank you for your interest in our beloved club: ______ City/Town/Wandering Athletic Rovers/United/FC. If you should chose to purchase us, we believe this will be an invaluable experience for all parties involved. To be honest, our club has had its ups and downs over the years, most notably the recent ban/fine/bankruptcy/relegation/tell-all Channel 4 […]

After Liverpool comfortably dispatched Hull this past weekend, I went into the Fiorentina match with soaring expectations. I tucked all of Liverpool's defensive and central midfield problems under the carpet of Torres' hat trick adorned with Gerrard, Babel and Riera's collective fuel for the goal-momentum fire. Fiorentina (whom I knew little about) would be no […]

My distaste for Manchester City's business model has been well-documented on EPL Talk, but watching City host West Ham United yesterday, I am starting to begrudgingly accept it: City have arrived. Last season, poor away results and hit-or-miss form proved while City could spend on the top players, they couldn't will consistent chemistry into their […]

Or the title I prefer: Fan Diary #9: The Goal Fest; Torres Leaves Me Speechless; Poor Defending, An Infant Scouse-American; Was It A Cross Or A Shot?; Niall's Wife; Meryl Streep; Has Ryan Babel Finally Embraced Being Super-Sub; And Are You Drunk Or Did You Forget Which Side Jozy Altidore Plays For? A tight match […]

I work with a man from Edinburgh. He's a Hearts supporter. More importantly to me: he's the one guy at work who will talk football. He'll talk about any aspect any match any controversy any player you like. He keeps up with the English Premier League and though he's never shown allegiance to any English […]

The Independent reported today that documents have been revealed "which suggest Liverpool's net summer spending will be locked at £20m until 2014". This is slated to include player pay raises and not just transfer fees. This story has also appeared on Sport.co.uk and in the Daily Mirror. While this might explain why Liverpool weren't particularly […]

I don't really hate anybody in my immediate world (except, of course, my old landlord, Dick Dumont – yeah: he knows what he did). But it's easy enough to drop the word hate into conversation. "Oh, I hate that" and "Don't you just hate him/her?" We do it all the time, but do we truly hate […]

Going into the West Ham match I asked for a brace (minimum) from Fernando Torres and boy did he deliver. This calls for some pondifercating on The Football Genius. Well, maybe Torres isn't at Genius Status yet. But of all the players playing in England he's got to be among the biggest contenders. But before […]

Before yesterday I knew about as much about Debreceni VSC as I know about the Faint Object Spectograph on the Hubble Telescope. They are among the "new kids" in the Champions League and not knowing anything about their club (or their league) forced me to underestimate them greatly. I assumed this would be an easy […]

Before the season started, I knew little about this Burnley side. I like to see former top-flight stalwarts come up and Burnley – one of the orginal 12 sides in the Football League – haven't been up in 33 years. But apart from that, I knew no reason why they shouldn't be on track to […]