The Soccer Blog: Thursday

Showing posts with label Thursday. Show all posts

Friday, 14 January 2011

Transfer Roundup, Giving Time, and Other Thursday Notes

By: Noel | January 13th, 2011
Tweet Killer Monkey

In local news, I’m a complete moron, so with that settled right off the top let’s take a quick peek around the intertubes to see what others have been saying from a Liverpool point of view…

* Well, at least it looks like Tomkins generally agrees with me on the whole “How about we take five minutes off from desperately looking for somebody to blame” side of things, as he talks about obvious signs of improvement being good enough–and about the best that could be hoped for–for the time being. So at least I’ll have something to comfort myself with the next time people start calling me an idiot. Oh, and did you hear Pacheco scored an absolute cracker in the ressies the other day? Kid’s gonna be better than Messi. Or a complete failure. One or the other.

Although both games have been lost, Liverpool have at least tried to pass, move and press higher up the pitch under Kenny Dalglish. The appointment of Steve Clarke will hopefully prove a shrewd one, and there’s no need to panic after what was always going to be a very difficult start. If people thought writing off Roy Hodgson after six months was knee-jerk, then giving up on Dalglish after four days would be off the scale.

To be fair, I think most people seem willing to give Dalglish more than two training sessions to turn things around. At least those not already grasping at the evils of squad rotation, who have already begun to grumble that last night didn’t see the same eleven bar Gerrard as Sunday’s clash against United, having apparently learned fuck all from Hodgson’s employment of a b team, or for that matter from watching the way Martin O’Neil’s Aston Villa finished below less expensive squads year in and year out because he refused to rotate and it reliably led to late-season plummets in form.

A lot of effort went into the game at Old Trafford, especially with ten men, and tired minds and legs were no match late on for a Blackpool team at home, who were fresh, having been rested in the FA Cup ahead of the encounter. One thing you can’t do, if you’re Rafa, Roy or Kenny, is send out your second string against Manchester United, even if you want to focus on the league.

Of course, a bit of rotation doesn’t help when the players you swap in perform poorly, but in the circumstances an unchanged squad would likely have done no better, may have done worse, and would have put the club in a tougher spot against Everton on Sunday to top it all off.

* Getting away from immediate concerns for a moment for a bit of enjoyable historical distraction, over on the club’s new official social media site–which I really couldn’t give a damn about because it’s not like I even give a damn about regular Facebook, but it’s on the club’s new official social media site (synergy!), so I feel as though noting that is sorta par for the course–tells of the origin of “The Kop” and how Anfield’s Flagpole Corner came to have its flagpole donated by one of the Wonders of the Industrial World. So, you know, if you want to take five minutes away from screaming at scapegoats to brush up on your LFC history, there you go. If not, well, there’s always the comment section.

* In other news, now that Dalglish has been in charge for five days can we finally get back to asinine transfer speculation that will never come true and just leave us all horribly depressed when a new squad of all-stars doesn’t run out on the pitch against Everton on Sunday? Unless maybe a new squad of all-stars does run out onto the pitch on Sunday against Everton. I’m sure, if that did happen, they’d have no problems clicking instantly and playing like the superstars they were, since quality players never need extended time in training to really begin to click and feel comfortable in any new system. No sir, if you’re a good player you just preform instantly and perfectly and brimming with confidence. It’s why all-star teams, so common in American sports, function like well oiled machines. Wait, that doesn’t happen? You’re telling me when you throw even the best players in the world together with only a few quick practices at most, even they usually look completely disjointed and sloppy? Even when it’s in pressure free games against similarly unprepared opponents? I don’t buy it, they must just fucking suck. That’s the only sensible answer. Don’t give me any of that crap about the “team” part of team sports being an important qualifier and that in the real world things sometimes take time.

Wait, where was I?

Oh, right, transfers: Nathan Eccleston will ply his trade with Charlton Athletic in League One for the rest of the season, and LFC.tv claims he was Charlton’s #1 transfer target. Which seems as though it should be meaningful in some way. And would probably be more meaningful if it was Charlton Athletic saying he was their #1 transfer target, though in any case their chairman did say some nice things about him.

Elsewhere, most of the transfer rumours at the moment for Liverpool revolve around Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, a £10M, 17-year old wonder kid from Southampton and everybody’s “Next Walcott.” Argentina gets to talk about the next Maradona or, now, the next Messi. England gets the next “Well he’s really fucking fast but has the footballing sense of a small boiled cabbage.” Not that I’m saying Oxlade-Chamberlain doesn’t have any footballing sense, just it seems a bit of an odd “next” to label people with, but in any case, Back Page Football has a fabulously thorough write up on the kid. Which means he’ll probably never play for Liverpool.

And with most of the rumours dying down on everybody from Carlton Cole to Eden Hazard, an old name resurfaces on poorly sourced websites from here to Timbuktu: Luis Suarez. Not that I wouldn’t approve of such a move, but at this point it seems little more than a grasping for names with few whispers as to who–if any–Liverpool’s recent targets might actually be. Maybe they’ll go back even farther to Ardra Turan next, even though the club hasn’t shown serious interest in him since the last summer window Benitez oversaw.

In the meantime, while we try to decide just whose fault it all is and/or eagerly await the arrival of Martin O’Neil in the summer…

Some Related Liverpool Posts:Roy The Unsackable, and Other Thursday NotesGerrard and Agger Fit, More on Rafa, and Other Thursday NotesHodgson Rumours, Poll Wrap, and Other Monday NotesHas Anybody Said “Return of the King” Yet? RoundupMonday News Roundup

Category: Team News

Tags: Causes of Alcoholism, History, Kenny Dalglish, Knee Jerks, Luis Suarez, Nathan Eccleston, Noel's really a bit of a dick, Overcompensated Drama Queens, Paul Tomkins, Team News
Tweet « Dalglish Signals His Intent | Home | Mental Health Break, Kenny Dalglish Edition »NoelWell, so much for that whole Well, there's the transfer stuff that I have to sneer at, and this week has seen a higher than normal incidence of people calling me names, and the whole snap judgment stuff is a little annoying if I'm perfectly honest and here's a good Tomkins article on it, so the whole piece would probably end up seeming a little mildly annoyed no matter what... but mildly annoyed just isn't funny, so let's try going way over the top instead thing.

Oops, I suppose, as the kids would say.Jakehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Check the move/goal starting at 0:50. Holy bananas!NoelThanks for that.lfc4eternityLooks like he's off to Arsenal, they need someone to replace the old Walcott...Liverpool in for Sarah Jessica Parker from Sex and Man City.NoelPerhaps they're hoping that Mk.II will have had a few of the kinks worked out and won't just run straight past the end line half the time.blog comments powered by Disqus

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Thursday, 23 December 2010

Gerrard and Agger Fit, More on Rafa, and Other Thursday Notes

By: Noel | December 23rd, 2010
Something Different

It’s a hat. Look at it. Look. At. It.

Yippee ki yay, it’s almost time for uncomfortable conversations with in-laws or morosely sitting and wishing you had in-laws to have uncomfortable conversations with. Either way, the liquor companies win. And meanwhile nobody knows what the hell is going on with the Boxing Day match against the Seasiders, stuck as they are by the blustery North Sea or Black Sea or Salton Sea or whatever. Usually being by a large body of water moderates temperatures at least slightly. Unless you’re right up next to a cold current, which won’t be the case for England until the Gulf Stream reverses one of these years and everybody’s playing their footie beneath the frozen dykes along the Meresy as a son waits for his father to save him from the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Right, where was I? Chrsitmas? Blackpool match still a coin-flip? Drunken holiday stream-of-consciousness rambling? Bruce Willis set to star in the summer flopbuster of 2012? Wait, no, they already made that one, and he wasn’t in it. Whatever, it still sucked. And now for something completely different…

* Because Rafa equals hits (and people yelling at me in amusingly idiotic fashion), let’s start with a bit of this: “Rafa Benitez may not have conquered, but he continues to divide.” It’s a good headline, I suppose, though it could use five or six exclamation marks to really drive things home. But anyhow, the article: Over in The Telegraph, Rory Smith looks at Rafa’s continuing legacy amongst Liverpool supporters even as his nascent empire is falling apart around his ears in Milan, and though some of the passages seem tailored to draw a reaction from one side or the other, on the whole it’s an interesting diversion. And also RAFA RAFA RAFA RAFA RAFA!!!!!

That, though, is Benitez: few managers, few characters in football divide more than the Spaniard. He is, to some, the winner of the Champions League, the UEFA Cup, two Spanish titles, the FA Cup and, most recently, the Club World Cup, the first manager to win major trophies with sides from Europe’s three big leagues. He is a tactical innovator, adept at maximising minimal resources to maximum effect. He produces sides – Valencia and the Liverpool of 2009, most notably – who play powerful, quick, effective football. He is warm and personable, possessed of a common touch.

Damn right, Rory! Preach it, brother! Wooo!!!!!

To others, he is cold and calculating, a Macchiavellian plotter of almost compulsive belligerence. He is never happier than when he is at war with someone, something. He alienates players, chooses baffling systems, tinkers persistently. He thinks he is cleverer than he is, he is evasive and arrogant. His sides are stultifying, his success down to the spending of vast amounts of money he had at Anfield or the incompetence of others, as at Valencia. 2010, his annus horribilis, in which he lost two jobs – one by text, one by email – was simply the year his luck ran out.

You wrong-headed bastard! I’m blocking your Twitter!

* Meanwhile, on the front that concerns the players–the players front, if you will, certainly not to be confused with the rather unsavoury player’s front or, somewhat confusingly, the players’ front–it appears as though both Gerrard and Agger will be fit to return against Blackpool. If there’s a match against Blackpool. Which we still don’t know if there will be or not. And it doesn’t seem likely that Agger will return in any case, really, does it? I mean, quite an extended lay-off plus being out of favour with the manager when he got injured plus at best sub-par conditions assuming the match is played at all, but… right, I’m rambling again. Nevermind.

* So, the next few days will be busy for most. But still, one imagines you might have a spell of downtime–or just damn-well need a spell of down time, however you can manage to get it–and if that’s the case, then the LFCTV interview and Q&A session with John Henry and Tom Werner from last week has been released as a free podcast on the official site.

I know, free. I always do like the sound of that, and there you were having missed it when it first ran and you were always curious but it just seemed like too much trouble to track down the details or clips or whatever. But then you’re probably saying: Podcasts a week after the fact? What is this, 2006? And where the hell does that leave you, Noel, with just your antiquated little tappety-tappety-tap-tap over there on the keyboard? Eh, where’s that leave you, you smug bastard?

Well, in light of that last bit where you got all pissy with me when I was just trying to be helpful, I’m almost tempted to consider thinking about not including a clip with today’s news roundup, but since I already had the embedding code cut out and all that, I suppose you can have it anyhow. So here, have a helpful little guide on how not to be seen by those you might rather wish to avoid over the next couple of days. Bloody ingrates…

Some Related Liverpool Posts:Daniel Agger, Dani Pacheco, and Other Friday NotesRoy Blames Squad, Rafa on NESV’s Radar, and Other Tuesday NotesThursday MiscellanySteve Gerrard, Agent Fees, and Rambling IncoherenciesTorres’ Form, Year End Polls, and Other Friday Notes

Category: Team News

Tags: Blackpool, Daniel Agger, I Can't Feel My Face, John Henry, Rafa Benitez, Steven Gerrard, Team News, Through the Looking Glass
« Looking Back at 2010 on the Liverpool Offside | Home | RedLiverbirdFCHow Dare you make such a crack about the omniscient Bruce Willis??!??!??!???!??Holloway for President!Right, then. Blackpool. Besides the fact that most of Boxing Day should be spent trying to recruit Ian Holloway as our new manager, our current manager need not look for a post-Holiday sale to buy a clue.

Why? Because here's a few. Simple as they may seem, we must remember, this is Blackpool, not Real Madrid. Seeing as how we beat the latter lot 4-0 before it really, really, really should not be all that difficult.

First off, 4-2-3-1. Reina, Aurelio, Skrtel, Agger, Johnson, Meireles, Lucas, Cole, Gerrard, Rodriguez, Torres.

Subs: Jones, Kelly, Kyrgiakos, Konchesky, Jovanovic, Babel, Kuyt.

Tactics Moving Forward: From the back, look to the flanks and get Meireles on the ball if possible. With Aurelio and Johnson bombing forward, and Cole and Rodriguez moving inside and Agger's ability to dribble up the pitch our options should remain fluent and open at all times. So what if teams maybe figured out Gerrard and Torres? Lest we forget, Cole and Rodriguez are more than capable of scoring and after all are full-fledged internationals. No hoofing please.

Tactics For Defending: Instruct the front four - Cole, Gerrard, Rodriguez and Torres - to press high-up the pitch. Run your balls off. Don't give them a second and don't worry because the Portugese and the Brazilian are right behind you.

Special Cases

Joe Cole - Instead of Dirk Kuyt? Why? Because fuck it, let Cole have a go. Blackpool like an open game and let's see what Joe-Joe is capable of and Dirk needs a rest. The Dutchman's only on the bench this time around because his grin is distracting to other teams.

Fabio Aurelio - You haven't scored from a free kick in, like, forever. Please do.

Rotation - Throughout the game - Maxi, Gerrard and Cole - mix it up in the middle of the park. Switch positions. Be confusing. Be creative for the Love of Pepe. All three are able to play behind the striker and moving them about throughout the match might be the key to unlocking the front four's oh-so-obvious-but-currently-non-existent threat.

Raul Meireles - Seriously though, this guy is great. Switch positions with Gerrard every so often. A bit closer and Raul is bound to nail a belter every now and then. Furthermore, Gerrard is as equally effective as one of the defensive midfielders - the one who goes box-to-box, that is. His surging runs from deep have been missing of late so let's try that out.

Steven Gerrard - You haven't scored from a free kick in, like, forever. Please do.

Substitutions

Milan Jovanovic for Fernando Torres (65') - Because if 'Nando hasn't bagged a hat-trick by now, he probably isn't going to. Also because this Serbian chap can actually play, but he's a striker not a winger (Roy, repeat this 3 times).

Ryan Babel for Joe Cole (66') Because if Joe-Joe hasn't bagged a hat-trick by now, he probably isn't going to. And most-likely didn't. But hopefully, he had an influence on the game. But if he didn't, here's some pace to run at tired legs. Also, please continue switching positions with Gerrard and Rodriguez (because everybody wants to play behind the striker and you, Sir Babel, are no goddamn different).

Paul Konchesky for Maxi Rodriguez (78') Because by all rites we should be up by about 5-0. But just in case we're 1-0 up and hanging on for dearest life, Paul can't hurt. At least, he can't hurt as long as Aurelio is still on the pitch. I know, his mum upset everyone and right now you're thinking 'Fuck That Guy!' but just think - he might get injured!

Oh, and don't get confused Roy - just tell Babel and Gerrard to spread out right and Aurelio to move up the pitch a tad.

Not to worry, Roy, it's still a 4-2-3-1. No need to get fiesty, now.

If (and that's a big fucking IF mind you) we still end up pooching this match while using my supremely tactical (play the same style as before, except better) and mind-bogglingly creative (move around the pitch and stuff!) game plan - just move right along to Plan B.

Get Martin Skrtel to put on his yule time baklava and kidnap Mr. Holloway. We'll bleach the jerseys orange and Ian won't know the difference come New Years. And to all a good night.
JakeSo.. you like Rafa?NoelWell, not in an intimate sense.blog comments powered by Disqus

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Friday, 14 January 2011

Transfer Roundup, Giving Time, and Other Thursday Notes

Thursday, 23 December 2010

Gerrard and Agger Fit, More on Rafa, and Other Thursday Notes