One mistake, changes the game.

Yeap, losing 2-0 to Chelsea has always and never been easy. Looking back at the game, both teams evened out. I felt a mistake is needed to be made before a goal came about.

Unfortunately, that mistake fell to Mascherano. He dabbled on the ball. Chelsea players got onto it and subsequently scored with a quick shot by Anelka.Assist by Drogba by the way.

Second goal came from Drogba powering and pushing away Carragher before teeing up Malouda to score the second.

Overall, honestly, out attack impentus was poor. Only did we bring Bennayoun on and Babel did things liven up. Bennayoun, I am sorry, but I just don’t know why he is regularly on the bench rather than starting most games. I feel sorry for this lad. This guy gets rotated so often while he still sticks to the likes of Lucas. Lucas, didn’t have a bad game. Played well, but offered nothing to get the ball up front. Again missing Alonso.

What particularly annoys me is Drogba. Great player. Someone I wished Liverpool had in the team. But this guy FAKES every tackle like it’s the end of the world. Big fella but pretends to be in pain so badly that it annoys everyone (except Chelsea fans!). How many times have u seen him fake it on the pitch last night?

Anyways, here are the player ratings from this match, courtesy of goal.com .

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.

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.

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…!

Mascherano.. the only thing going for Liverpool?

Finally, Monster Mascherano, signed a 4 year deal with Liverpool. The saga is over!

 

As much as I am delighted with him signing on… I’m still not so sure about the quality of the Liverpool squad. Mascherano has been brilliant in midfield… a hard tackler… even displacing Xabi Alonso from the midfield these days. Lucas Leiva is waiting round the corner to give both Alonso and Mascherano some competition. These days, even Leiva is playing better (if not more games) than Alonso.  Speaking of Mascherano, again… he been brilliant in the midfield. Stops alot of attacks but I feel he doesn’t bring much forward in terms of attacking. I think Alonso excels in that department. In some sense, it was a good thing Sissoko left for Juventus… (Will he be a flop there?)he was brilliant in the few years in Anfield, tackled hard but he was even worse in terms of passing and going forward for the team. A negative factor here.

So who shall partner Gerrard in the center. So far Mascherano is chosen ahead of Leiva and Alonso. But knowing Benitez, he will still put his rotation policy into action at any point of time. It’s pointless to discuss about that now, although Benitez does say he’s gonna stop rotating the players now. What’s the point when we’re so far ahead from the top teams in the league??

On another brighter note, Daniel Agger is back in action. He and Alonso played a full match against the Manchester United reserves. Liverpool reserves won 2-0, with both Kewell and Alonso scoring. Skrtel, was also playing too. We need a tighter defense. Agger provides that and he can attack too!!

Watch the reserves match highlights below..

Torres hits his first hat trick and Eduardo’s horror ankle injury…

Liverpool beat Middlesbrough 3-2. Although Torres scored his first hat trick, Middlesbrough gave us a lots of scare here and there. I was thinking it was going to be another draw.

Thankfully, we had Torres’s pace, power and intelligence to see us, er trying to secure the 4th spot!

If you missed the match, the video below tells it all..

 

On another note, Arsenal’s striker, Eduardo is out for the rest of the season, maybe for 1 1/2 years or so with a horrific ankle injury. Looks bad really. But, this is the nature of the game. I don’t think it was a malicious tackle, but the Birmingham player, Taylor got sent off with a straight red card.

Watch the video and you’ll see it…

 

Is it me or does everybody hate international friendlies??!!

Bad news. Not something I wanted to read early morning but our main striker, Torres limped out after 23 minutes on the pitch during a friendly match with France. No doubt these international friendlies help the teams gel together but they’re are a pain in the arse!

I hate to admit it, but without Torres, Liverpool can’t score even if their lives were threatened! We don’t have other quality players to score for us. Meeting Chelsea this coming Sunday isn’t something I’m looking forward too so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Another note, Ryan Babel also seemed to have picked up a knock in the game in a friendly game too.

What luck!

Good but not convincing…

Liverpool beat Sunderland 3-0. Good for morale. But I didn’t find the win to be convincing enough. The only thing I liked was that Crouch was superb – makes me wonder why Benitez don’t play him much. Skrtel was immense in the back four.. promising indeed.

Honestly, if Liverpool play like this against Chelsea next weekend, they better shift up to 6th gear or so to get things going. Chelsea – a very strong team, even after Mourinho left the team. Avram Grant has done a splendid job to get the team going. Mind you, their African players are away but they still keep churning out wins after wins.

Till next week.. have a great weekend…

 

Videos:

Crouch’s goal..

Torres’s strike..  

 

Things are really depressing at Liverpool

Looking at the recent events happening at Liverpool FC… I can’t really pin point why the team is not doing well. Pre season, the team seems to have good quality players. Doing well in the first few games but it slowly the title aspirations just faded away.

We’re the best … at drawing. We don’t lose many games, we don’t win either… we just fracking draw!!! The last game against West Ham was poor. West Ham deservedly won. We were poor in defense, midfield and attack. We don’t have the creativity to go forward, especially when opposing teams put up a 5-man midfield like West Ham did. Except for Gerrard who works his socks off every game, the others players… none of them could provide a quality ball forward forward for Torres to score. For Torres to score is another problem. Kuyt is just annoyingly depressing up front..He cannot partner Torres for shit (mind my language.. )! Too slow… not creative enough! Works hard though but he plays too deep in the midfield. Well, Kuyt is not good enough.. even for the Dutch national team! It bugs me why Crouch doesn’t play more often or Babel is partnered up front with Torres. Rafa is just too negative in my point of view. And that’s why I feel the team doesn’t kill off opposing teams even though they have the majority control of the game!!

The only thing that came good out of the West Ham game was Lucas Leiva. He was composed with his passing and had two good chances at goal. Needless to say he didn’t score. The game opened up abit when West Ham decided to go with 2 strikers up front. We dominated abit more but no more than that. I decided to head to bed by the 90th minute. Didn’t see the penalty Noble scored but I knew for a fact Liverpool would either draw or lose in the last minute.

Reasons for poor performances? I’ve gotta few choices to pick from…

1. Rafa’s rift with the Yankie owners
2. Pako left the team
3. Not enough quality with the squad

Those are the points I could think of for now. Liverpool have a  long way to go to catch up with the likes of United, Arsenal and Chelsea.

Today Sunderland’s game will most likely be a benchmark. If the draw again… I dunno. Being 17 points away from the league leaders is not something I’d like to be reminded off….