Liverpool's start to the Premiership season has not been the one we all expected. Some idiots are ringing in the phone-ins already complaining that Rafa should go, but these are not the bread and butter Liverpool fans we all know.

But the next 9 Premiership matches taking us up to Christmas are 9 matches that the reds SHOULD be very confident of victory in.

They include SIX home matches against:

West Ham, Portsmouth, Wigan Athletic, Middlesbrough, Newcastle and West Brom

The three away matches are against:

Aston Villa, Man City and Everton

No great travelling involved to any of these clubs after 'important' European fixtures.

Liverpool have developed into a consistently good European side, there is no doubt about that and winning the European cup was an amazing achievement and the memories will live with us all forever, but take another look at those 9 matches above. In my opinion, the Champions of Europe should certainly win 7 of those, if not 8 or all of them.

And that is why this upcoming spell of matches is so important to the reds, if the reds are not well placed in the Premiership by New Year after that spell of games, then we could be in trouble for qualifying for the Champions League.

Chelsea look very strong, but the reds must start to compete. Morientes and Cisse are proven goalscorers, they may well be low on confidence but as professional footballers they need to keep trying, and we need to get behind our club, our European Champions.

Rafael Benitez will sort things out, and I am confident that things will turn around, hopefully starting today against West Ham. The next 9 Premiership games are crucial. Poorly performing Premiership players should be dropped from the Champions League matches. The next 27 points are up for grabs.

Come on you reds.

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