Aquilani – Worth It?

Finally, Benitez signed a player as soon as Alonso was sold of to Madrid. Mind you, was hoping he would stay but then no one is bigger than the team. Even Ronaldo left for Madrid. Speaking of Madrid, they spanked Toronto FC 1 – 5.

Back to the point: Alberto Aquilani. Signed with us for a 5-year contract but is out for at least 2 month, undergoing rehab after an ankle injury.

Well, I didn’t expect that. Thought he was injury-prone, not injured. I guess we have to wait for him. At least he will train for abit with the reserve squad. Able to see what the English way of playing football, mind you it rather rough compared to the Italian and Spanish leagues.

I hope he fits in quickly. I was hoping Benitez was going to add more players to the squad, to tweak it further. Alonso left for Madrid, I guess we are starting again from scratch. Alonso was literally an unknown to us 5 years ago! But my God, was he a remarkable player. I admit, he was treated like shit by Benitez last season. Inside scoop is that Alonso fell out with Benitez (vice-versa) when former assistant Paco Ayestaran was axed by Rafa. Alonso and Paco are good friends. More info here… Nevertheless Alonso is gone… we can’t keep crying about it.

YouTube videos of Aquilani paints an impressive player. Is he up to the mark, to play in the EPL? Will he get injured easily? Can he handle rough English defenders? The fast paced game? I don’t know.

Liverpool were strong for the title challenge last season. We were really poor knocking out the teams who parked their double-decker bus in front of the goal. Is the purchase of Aquilani and Glen Johnson enough to split those defenses? I really don’t think so. We need another player with flair at least. Maybe two of them. A winger and a good back-up striker to Torres. David Silva comes to mind. Does LFC have enough cash to pry away this agile player?

Anyways, enjoy the Aquilani video below. I did.

Xabi Alonso

The protracted saga between Liverpool and Real Madrid has been rather boring these past few weeks.

Alonso wants to leave Liverpool. Yes. That is true. He’s been a great servant for Liverpool, especially when the year before, he was gonna be sold of to buy Gareth Barry (Now in Manchester City) from Aston Villa. Whether Barry is in City for the money, we don’t know (He says Not!) .

Back to Alonso. I hate to see him leave. But he seems disinterested to play for Liverpool. Rafa, a great manager, but if reports are to believe, he didn’t treat Alonso with respect as much as he should be with the Barry saga last season. Alonso nevertheless played with such high professionalism last season I have so much respect for this guy.

The recent Liverpool Asian tour where Alonso played against Singapore (they got thrashed 5-0!) , a friend said that Alonso stepped back away from the photoshoot with his Liverpool teammates. Guess he really wants to leave.

Okay Alonso, you can go. Thank you for giving us Liverpool fans such brilliant times with your range of passing and spectacular goals. And thank you for the Champions League 2005.

If you do leave to Real Madrid, please tell Perez to give us 30million for you or 20million plus either Hunteelaar, Van de Vaart or Sneidjer. Haha

Daniel Agger to leave for AC Milan?

This is one rumour that I hope is not true!

Rumour is his agent is in talks with Milan representatives now trying to get our defender there. Agger’s got a £7 million pound release clause it seems in his current contract. That runs out in 18 months. I mean, it would definitely be a great loss to Liverpool as this guy is top quality but has been injured quite a bit last season. Now that he is returning, he’s very integral to the squad knowing that Carrager and Hyypia are already in their 30s. He and Skrtel would be an awesome at the back but selling him for £8.5 million abit ridiculous even if he leave. This guy is worth at least £15 million in my opinion.

I do hope this is not true.

Silly team selections!

The draw against Stoke (January 11, 2009) was unbearable to watch.

Rafa’s team selection was unthinkable. Yeah Torres is still recovering from his hamstring injury but Keane was completely left out again! Paid quite a sum for this guy and as the commentator says in the game, Keane’s not so sure what he did wrong to deserve his place on the bench!

Stoke were seriously difficult to play against. Long throws by Delap (because silly chances were given by Liverpool)  game them good control over the game all the way thru. Furthermore, Lucas was unbearable to watch. Poor passing and possesion. Final third distribution is awful. Gerrard was kept quiet mostly albeight two chances that hit the post, especially towards the finals minutes.. Xabi Alonso, the man Rafa wanted to sell Barry was sorely missed. I am sure that we wouldn’t be this far up the table if Alonso was gone. Riera was the most dangeroes player on the pitch with good crosses into the box from the left but Kuyt wasn’t the man to pounce on it. Simply woeful. Skrtel was very shaky I believe. Too soon to put him in the team. Agger would have gelled better in the squad. Since the defense was shaky, Reina was flapping away all night.

Stoke deserved the draw. Actually deserved to win.

Mr (Sir) Alex Fegurson is laughing in his shoes now. I’m sure he’s thinking his mind games are getting to Rafa now. Chelsea will have it difficult against United tonight as I don’t think they can be trusted to win against United.

I still believe that Liverpool is not strong enough to win this year’s EPL. Sorry for that. United is still the stronger squad to win simply because Rafa is not that gung ho to win.

Hot Chick!

Need I say more?

Let see how many of you guys comment here!

Recap: Fernando Torres….

Fernando Torres is back again after being hamstrung with a hamstring injury!

Looking back at the 17 goals he scored last season makes me a rather happy guy. I hope to see more class from this striker!

And yes, here’s the video.. where Rafa takes a dig against Sir Alex Ferguson…. with facts. Quite astonishing coming from Benitez himself. Facts he says.

Now I wonder how Ferguson would reply.

last.fm and iPods

You like music? Listen to your mp3s everyday? Why not open up an account at last.fm. Been using mine since 2006, since the days of my iPod mini, now recently acquired Nano.

I love the idea of what’s your favourite tunes, and how they rank. Even after playing several tunes on my iPod, the last.fm application will loads up which tracks you have played on your player and add it to your account online.

Best of off, you get to add friends online, and hear what music they have listened too.

Go try it.

Anyways, you can check my account here….

More to come…

Yes… have been .. but not for long ..very quiet. Been busy.

More to talk about:

1. Twitter (add me… guntherfurlong)
2. Liverpool (yay!)
3. Sarah Connor Chronicles
4. Heroes
5. Stargate Atlantis

Back soon…!

Why So Serious?

Managed to catch The Dark Knight with my brother and some friends last night. Got surprisingly good seats right smack in the center on the THX cinema knowing for a fact it would be crowded!

Not to overhype this movie.. I think everyone should watch it and then tell me really what they thought about it.

Needless to say, I am definitely gonna give this a very (very) positive review. Iron Man and Hell Boy 2 (no.. haven’t watched the Hulk yet).. can’t be compared to this movie as Christopher Nolan has taken the Batman to the next level.

Heath Ledger. A shame such a young actor that had so much potential even before his role as the Joker. He died of accidental drug overdose, basically mixing alot of mild sleeping pills together, which in effect caused a major side effect which led to his death early this year in February 2008. Lots of talks about him online with regards to his portrayal of the Joker in the Dark Knight. Jack Nicholson did wonders with this role in 1989’s movie Batman. We need to give respect to Nicholson’s as he did a good job in that film. Fast forwarding to the Dark Knight…. with the general concensus online…. everyone, including myself was blown away by Ledger’s interpretation of the Joker. He looked scruffy, less make up… just a white mask, a scar on both side of the cheeks to elongate the angle of his mouth…. rhythmic, rather erratic protrusion of his tongue made him one the best villains so far. I can’t remember when the last villain stole the show. Ledger’s body language in the Joker was so convincing.. a mad man.. with no self consciousness or empathy at all for other humans. Oh and the laugh…. gave me the spooks. I don’t wanna meet this man in person ever!!!

Below is an excerpt taken from WikiPedia, about Ledger having problems sleeping during and after the shooting of Dark Knight. Retrospectively he should have gotten professional help, but who are we to judge that….

In a New York Times interview with Sarah Lyall published on November 4, 2007, Ledger stated that his recently-completed roles in The Dark Knight and I’m Not There had taken a toll on his ability to sleep: “Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. … I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” At that time, he told Lyall that he had taken two Ambien pills, after taking just one had not sufficed, and those left him in “a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing.”

Prior to his return to New York from his last film assignment, in London, in January 2008, while he was apparently suffering from some kind of respiratory illness, he reportedly complained to his co-star Christopher Plummer that he was continuing to have difficulty sleeping and taking pills to help with that problem: “Confirming earlier reports that Ledger hadn’t been feeling well on set, Plummer says, ‘we all caught colds because we were shooting outside on horrible, damp nights. But Heath’s went on and I don’t think he dealt with it immediately with the antibiotics.… I think what he did have was the walking pneumonia.’” … On top of that, ‘He was saying all the time, “dammit, I can’t sleep”… and he was taking all these pills [to help him].’”

In talking with Interview magazine after his death, Ledger’s former fiancée Michelle Williams “also confirmed reports the actor had experienced trouble sleeping. ‘For as long as I’d known him, he had bouts with insomnia,’ she said. ‘He had too much energy. His mind was turning, turning turning always turning.’ “

Talks about Ledger winning Oscars for his villanous role got me thinking. Are people actually feeling sympathetic after his death that they want to acknowledge his acting? With all the makeup (I would say minimal) on…. would this be justified. My answer… a resounding YES. Go watch the film and I don’t wanna spoil your perceptions of the whole movie but I actually felt really disturbed and at the same time humoured with Ledger’s Joker. He stole the show with quirky yet appropriate jokes and Bale’s Batman took the back seat here. Lots of twists and plot here… and the arrival of Harvey Dent Two-Face made it all so special.

The Joker played a big role in this film, with his brilliant mind… he swindled everyone and just caused mass chaos.

Check out the Rotten Tomatoes review too..

Superb. Rest in peace Heath Ledger.

Spanish Armada!

Russia was supposed to have mounted a better challenge against Spain when they met two days ago. Alas… that was not to true! With Arshavin as in-the-hole striker/forward… the Spanish defense was supposed to be tested by him and Palvuchenko but the Spanish defense stood strong. Arshavin was a no show.. completely marked out of the game.. I hardly heard his name being mentioned by the commentators… so that shows how much he really got the ball. And when he did, he wasted whatever chance came to him.

Spain were delightful going forward. David Villa injured himself in the first half. I thought that was gonna be bad… but the introduction of Cesc Fabregas caused alot of chaos for the Russians. His brilliant passing and movement… tormented the opposition defenders. My man-of-the-match. Torres was left up front on his own… had a couple of good chances but failed to nail the coffin. His role is somewhat different from what I see… he seems to carry the ball to either wings… not playing his normal central role as what he does for Liverpool.

The 5-man Spanish midfield were delightful. Xavi, Iniesta, Silva, Fabregas and Senna were so composed… so skillful. They toyed with the Russians. Quick succession of passing just caught the Russians out.

Needless to say, the 3-0 scoreline is impressive, especially against a renewed charged up Russian team.

Germany on the other hand were quite lucky to get through the finals. The Turks were unlucky this time but I felt they were the better team. They should have won.

I have a funny feeling that Germany will somehow or rather play really badly against Spain in the coming finals… but will just nick it to win the game. That how the Germans would do it and that’s how they’ve been playing all this Euro.

Players to watch in the finals:

Germany: Schweinsteiger, Podolski, Ballack, Klose

Spain: Fabregas, Silva, Xavi, Torres