Hello everybody. Welcome to your post- Christmas, Blood Red, podcast. I'm Andy Kelly and today I'm joined by a triumvirate.

We couldn't quite describe the most of the Three Kings, but they're here anyway. We're joined by our full-time The Three Kings, but they're here anyway.

We're joined by our full-time Liverpool reporter,

both home and away.

James Pierce, by Echo Scribe Extraordinary, Neil Jones, and by one of our digital gurus Paul Gourst making his pod debut.

We're here obviously to look back on a successful outing against Stouke and look ahead, principally to sit up also with a nod towards

Sunderland in what is a pretty busy patch for the Reds. James felt like it feels like a sort of three game trilogy were embarking on.

We just had the first leg at Anfield the other night.

It started off as a tough game but by the end the Reds were they

declared really at four hadn't they? Yeah they did yeah I think the last 20 it

certainly felt as if they were kind of conserving energy

head of the Man City game. I think it could have been anything they wanted to be

honest once it went to four but just controlled the game and saw at time I

think on Clops orders it was very comfortable in the end I think you know it was

interesting the way Stoke approached it I think it was pretty clear when you saw the

team sheet you know left out the likes of Bojan and Shaquiri and obviously had gone with Walters and

Crouch and you know played a lot of long balls look to look to get at

Liverpool and they had a degree of success but I was still a bit baffled by Mark Hughes's comments afterwards about how

You know that that's some kind of blueprint for teams going to Anfield now because you know it was four one could easily have been six or seven

And you know even the goal they scored

was you know a gift really you know real comedy of errors with Marney slicing the clearance

Lovrin not alert enough it is near post, Minule beaten too easily.

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