- Anfield Index

Based in the tiny City of Vila-Real in the Comunitat Valenciana on the East Coast of Spain, Villarreal have arguably been the 21st century’s biggest football over-achievers. With a stadium that could fit half the city’s population, the club captivated the football world back in 2006 when they reached the Champions League semi-final with a team including the likes of Senna, Riquelme and Forlan. The Yellow Submarine, as they’re known in Spain (I imagine to the delight of British tabloid …

[caption id="attachment_4479" align="alignleft" width="160" caption="Charlie Adam"][/caption] The arrival of Charlie Adam at Anfield was met, in my quarters, with an expectation of failure. His reputation for being slightly more on the rotund end of the scale in a modern game of six-packed athletes ensured many were predisposed to dislike him, and his failure to make the grade at Rangers gave them ammunition. "He's too Hollywood" they cried, "He needs to have a team built around him", yet 14 games into …

[caption id="attachment_3881" align="alignleft" width="263" caption="Maxi Rodríguez"][/caption]  Maxi, Maxi Rodríguez runs down the wing for me. Well, not this season he doesn't. The subject of one of the Kop's favoured songs and the hero of the closing games of the last season, Maxi Rodríguez has played only 13 minutes in the Premier League in 2011/12. It seems hard to fathom for someone who seemed to be so integral to the way the 'new' Liverpool played as the 2010/11 campaign wound down, …