Morning Roundup, 02/18/09

• Good news for Liverpool fans (and Xabi Alonso, apparently): Steven Gerrard is poised to return from injury sooner than originally anticipated. [BBC Sport]
• In other Liverpool news, Real midfielder Lassana Diarra's pre-match comments have spawned the following amazing headline over at Goal.com: "Liverpool will be hard for Real Madrid." Maybe Diarra should just carry around a recorder and tape his conversations, like Tobias in Arrested Development. [Goal.com]
• It looks like Landypants won't end up with Bayern Munich, after all. Somebody cue the sad trombone. [UF]
• And the Beckham saga continues. [Guardian]