As I write this, Liverpool would finally be waking up from the nightmare, or should I say the dream that has ended up in a nightmare.
Starting out last season, Liverpool’s attacking football with pace, style and panache blew the premiership away.
Add the Suarez – Sturridge – Sterling partnership to the mix and Liverpool could concede as many goals as they liked with their brittle defence, they would still hurt you upfront. And so they continued to live happily ever after, winning games upon games as the British public and the whole world watched the Kop dream continue; would this Liverpool team bring back the days of European dominance?
I had my doubts. First because the defence was as porous as any basket, tasked with the job of keeping water in it (in this case, keeping the goals out) and I knew they would ALWAYS concede against any opposition.
Secondly because Suarez had openly courted “BIG” (I’m assuming that is how he sees some of them) European teams for the past two seasons, I always knew he would end up at the Bernabeu or the Nou Camp at some point.
Add Sturridge and his frequent injury problems, then throw in Mourinho’s protégée who dared to be different, playing his football by throwing caution to the wind – and openly voice his difference and criticism to his master, albeit in a nice and friendly way- and who in my opinion doesn’t altogether get it right in the transfer market, I knew this ship was another Titanic, waiting to hit a rock at some point.
Kudos to Brendan Rodgers and his Liverpool team last season, they gave us a league title fight to savour, but you always knew there was going to be a twist to their Hollywood tale;
Enter Suarez and his teeth. Sturridge and muscle problems. £117million on average players. Add Super Mario to the mix…… And nightmare begins at the Kop End.
Why did Liverpool buy Mario Balotelli? Origi? Lambert? Can? Lallana? Moreno? markovic?
You may wonder Why I am
asking: Liverpool were playing the most important game of the season yesterday and of all the names I mentioned above, only Lambert started the game and was hauled off after 45 minutes.
Did Liverpool not do their homework? Surely they were not planning ‘only’ for the future when they spent money in the transfer market?
Did they not see what happened to Chelsea? Lukaku, DeBruyne, Moses, Van Ginkel, Atsu, kalas, Hazard jnr, Romeu,Bertrand, Kakuta, Chalobah, Marin, Pasalic, Torres, Banford, omeruo, Jamal…… 26 players out on loan at one time!
There are not many teams who can “buy for the future” in this age of competition, so again I suspect that Liverpool bought quantity over quality (let’s get many players as we would need them for the many games we would be playing every 3 days in the champions league)
Well, they’ll need them for the games every 3 days now, but it’ll be in the Thursday league and not the Champions League.
Of all the players Brendan bought in this summer, only Loveren and Lambert started yesterday night (and he was hauled off after 45 minutes) 4 were on the bench; Lallana, Chan, Moreno, markovic. Were they not good enough to start yesterday?
Just as Liverpool mesmerised us last season with their scintillating displays, they have dumbfounded us with their extremely disappointing performances this season, and yesterday night was another episode in this their uneventful soap opera.
Not good enough on the night.
Not good enough throughout the whole season: you can’t get a better group in champions League debut season (after a few years absence) Ludogrets? Basel? Nah…. They fluffed their lines, and they did it woefully; 2-2 to Ludogrets away, head to head with Basel losing 0-1 away and 1-1 at Anfield. They could have been 4 goals down at half time yesterday, and to think we were going to herald them as Champions elect last season!!
Only one win in 6. Outclassed and dominated by Basel! Poor and clueless going forward, Basle finally put them out of their misery yesterday night.
I think whoever is in charge of transfers in Liverpool needs to be quizzed and quickly replaced before they commit more blunders.
They have managed to sign square players into round holes and round players into extremely tight squares, not just this season but since 2012.
Borini, Assaidi, sahin, yesil, Texeira, Alberto, aspas, llori, Moses (loan), Sakho, Toure, and the jury is still out on Lambert and Balotelli.
Tabloids blame Balotelli (why? Why not those who signed him? Did they not do their homework? Did they not know what they were getting?)
I think their wasteful spending habits or should I say frugality has been exposed the more in 2014 by the departure of Luis Suarez.
If Suarez was still scoring goals, Liverpool would be winning and those transfers would again have been swept under the carpet.
Thy didn’t really strengthen the core of the team, they just bought quantity to strengthen the squad, just as Tottenham did when they parted with Bale. Pity we don’t learn from history.
The worst chapter of this script?
Liverpool will now play in the Thursday league!!! Late games on Thursday evenings, overnight travels, hotels, then weekend games!
I hope Brendan Rodgers can now finally go into the Mourinho book and do what his master always does to motivate his players: it’s us against the world; they’ve written us off and want to make stories and spectacles out of us so let’s show them what we are made off.
If he does that, he can keep the loyalty of his players and Liverpool can change their fortunes, but if he does what he has been doing since; dropping his best players at the Bernabeau, criticising some openly, avoiding the managerial land mines at the expense of player criticism, I’m afraid the worst is yet to come.
Arsenal’s disastrous 45 minutes against Anderlecht may now cost them dearly in the round of 16 draw..
They won decisively yesterday but they should have won this group hands down; Dortmund have been extremely poor this season (they were pummelled by Sanogo at the Etihad)
Dortmund are 1 point off the relegation place in the Bundesliga
They have already lost 8 league games out of 14 played this season!
Arsenal needed to have topped the group.
But kudos to Wenger, at least you always know what you’ll get with him; NO TITLES, but Champions League football. Sorry Arsenal Fans.
As for me, I’m off to the Bridge now.
Oops! I’m at the Bridge. Chelsea vs Sporting Lisbon