Folks, this is my 5th season playing the Yahoo Fantasy Football, and I have setup a Group to allow my Twitter and Blog Followers to play against my picks for this season.
The Group information is as follow:
I look forward to play with you all!
Looking back now, Owen’s motive for joining Liverpool’s biggest rival was, and has always been, to gain a spot in the 2010 World Cup squad. Now that it appears extremely likely that Owen is ranked, in Capello’s mind, after Strikers like Rooney, Crouch, Defoe, Bent, and Agbonlahor, his chances of going to next year’s World Cup as a player is slim.
In hindsight, had Owen joined Hull instead of Manchester United, in my mind, would at least give him more playing time to prove himself. Instead, he opt for a ‘brand name’ club, which happens to be, once again, Liverpool’s biggest rival. A high-level comparison between Manchester United and Hull, in my opinion, would be the lack of European football. Something that Owen has already tasted, in person, as a player at Real Madrid, and also played in various UEFA Cup appearances for Liverpool. After all, he doesn’t need ‘European’ experiences to better himself at this stage of his career. Instead, if his objective is to get chosen for the World Cup squad, what he really needs is… ‘playing time.’ (And goals, of course!) Something (Playing time) that I would guess he will get a whole lot more as a player for Hull, than Manchester United.
But just to play devil’s advocate, I tried to imagine what would Owen say when he was shopping for an employer when he had Hull and United available for him to choose…
For a full line-up of Capello’s squad for the upcoming friendly against Brazil, please click here .
Check out this Kleenex® commercial which in addition to Emma Bunton, Tom Hardy, and Sir Bob Geldof, you’ll get a chance to see former England, Manchester City, and Mexico Manager Sven-Göran Eriksson making an appearance… pretending he’s ‘letting it out.’
Considering how emotional-less he was as the England Manager, I really think they had cast the wrong person to be in this commercial. More importantly, if there’s a reason for him to ‘let it out’, it would be him getting fired more than scoring a goal.
You can also check out this behind the scene footage of the making of this commercial.
First of all, this is a very poor photo-shop of my head onto who-knows-who-that-is doing the volley!
Second, at least give me a bit of my neck back!
Last but not least, at least do me a favor my putting some red color stripes on this outfit. It looks too much like a Real Madrid outfit, and if do go, I’d prefer Barcelona, please!
I can’t believe that the Captain of Manchester United would send out such a nasty tackle! The F.A. should impose further punishment onto him!
Folks, look at it this way. Even if Torres and Myself were available to play, an Away visit to the Stadium of Lights under the new leadership of Steve Bruce was never going to be easy!
I’m not going to go into too much detail about that beach ball incident. We have all read, by now, that it is an outside agent of the game, and the goal should not be counted. Instead, I rather focus, once again, on how much we missed Xabi Alonso.
In our last season, when was a Premiership game played without Torres, Alonso, and Myself? I’m not talking about a game against lower league teams in the FA Cup, or the Carling Cup. But to my recollection, I don’t remember we played any game in the top flight without all three of us. With that in mind, I think Rafa is forced to try something new.
So Rafa put 3 in the back, 2 Wing-Backs, 2 Midfielders, and 3 players in ‘attacking role.’ A very Continental formation. His thoughts? With 3 quality Defenders, and 2 defensive minded midfielders sitting in front of the defense, it ‘should’ provide sufficient protection while allowing the offense to happen down the Wings, and maybe from the middle. The result? If you subtract the ‘beach-ball goal’, we really had a draw… technically! Was the formation a success? If you are aiming for a Draw, with the possibility of a win, then heck yeah I think it was working.
‘Beach Ball’ aside, this team shows the same weaknesses that has been in existence since the first day Rafa took charge. "Liverpool is a 1-man Team.’ However, please give Rafa some credit for transforming Liverpool from a 1-man Team to a 2-men Team these days. (It would have been (was) a 3-men Team, but we didn’t realize it until it was too late.) So from my point of view, there were 2 things that went wrong:
Obviously, there isn’t much that we can do with #1 above. Besides, any team in the world would hope that they can acquire players who are good enough to be picked by their National Team. So that’s just part of the growing pain for big clubs.
As for #2 above, instead of immediately point my finger at Rafa, I instead chose to look at our rivalry, Manchester United. The fact that both Giggs and Scholes still play a role in a somewhat regular manner, tells me that Sir Alex’s purchases in the recent past years didn’t fare too well either. Valencia, Anderson, and Nani, all couldn’t hold down a regular place like Ronaldo, Lampard, Frabegas, or Myself does, which tells me that even with lots of money, finding/buying an ‘automatic pick’ is really NOT that easy. Now if you have even less money to play with, which has been our situation all along, it makes things even more difficult.
So with limited amount of spending money, my next chain of thought is… do what Arsenal did… get the youngsters when they are very young, and cheaper. Wait a minute! We did take that approach! We have Babel and Lucas!
Babel did not perform as expected during the game against Sunderland. Babel’s starting position is Forward, partnering Kuyt. He was later shifted to the sides, and eventually gotten substituted. During the game (and I’m going to exaggerate a bit here), he failed to complete passes and he failed to finish his dribbles. It was extremely frustrated watching him play… when I KNOW that this boy has got plenty of talents!
Lucas, in my opinion, did a decent job during Sunderland’s game. My general-criticism of him is his passing and (long-range) shooting. But hey, Mascherano can’t shoot either!
As if our Formation isn’t confusing enough, Rafa threw in another wild card… the debut of Jay Spearing. I wasn’t perfect when I first started, but when Arsenal can put up a team of ‘minors’ to play with decent results, I have to hope that our youngsters are at least at par against theirs. Unfortunately, looking at the performances of Babel, Spearing, and Lucas, I couldn’t say the same.
To continue my effort to find someone to blame, I have to look to the Training. Here we are with so many ‘wonderkids’, why aren’t they performing? I would bet that had Babel joined Arsenal, he wouldn’t be one of the most lethal Attacker in the Premiership. Why is Lucas’ passing and shooting so poor? Why did Spearing looked so out of space when playing a team like Sunderland?
YES! I’m afraid! I’m not saying that they should bare full responsibility. The Players and the Manager, by defaults, must own up to their share of responsibilities. However, in my opinion, the Coaches now need to step up and find a way to make these Players to perform at a level where they are capable of.
We need these players, with or without, Gerrard and Torres!
I saw this banner before the game today and I thought they’ve made Rafa’s face way too chubby. I’m glad that someone took a picture of it.
[Source: 101 Great Goals]
I mentioned in the earlier post but I want to mention it again, today’s formation of moving me back to Alonso’s position has been called out on this blog 10 days ago! I have to admit that I was expecting to partner Mascherano, and not Lucas, but that’s totally fine. I just came back from England duty; I scored 2 goals, and I’m red hot! And before the game starts, I told Lucas that he better not disappoint me because I’m NOT going to sit back there, with him, to help defending. He didn’t disappoint. I have to assume that I brought out the best of Lucas today.
Reina – 7 – Hardly challenged all day. I wanted to give a 6, but hey, a clean sheet is a clean sheet!
Skrtel – 7 – Just like Reina, he didn’t have much to do today either. There were a few defending runs and he didn’t get caught out. His jaw looks strong as usual!
Carragher – 7 – Again, rarely challenged. Clean sheet! That’s good!
Insua – 7 – On a day like today, playing against a weaker side, I was hoping to see more of the attacking side of him. But with Glen Johnson bombing forward on any given chance all the day, we do need him to stay back to help out.
Johnson – 7 – Should we ever need a defensive minded Winger, he’ll be playing in that spot. Come on, Glen! It’s time to improve your defensive skills further. I’m afraid you’ll get targeted when we play against teams with a strong Left Winger.
Lucas – 7 – Just avoid the attacking! Otherwise, you did a much better job today to provide the much needed coverage to the defensive line.
Riera – 5 – I’m not impressed my your performance today. Babel should have played today, instead of you. But he suffered a mouth and tongue injury!
Benayoun – 10 – Hat Trick! Lots of dribbling! Enough said.
Torres – 6 – It’s cool that you get tightly marked all day long. Guess what!? You’ve freed up Benayoun!
Kuyt – 7 – You did okay for trying to be me. But you know you’re not me, right? Congratulations on your goal!
Me – 7 – I think I did well. It’s been a while since I played in Alonso’s position and I still prefer to go forward and attack.
Degen – 6 – Premiership debut! Congratulations!
Voronin – 5 – You still haven’t improved your shooting; nor did you improve on your runs. You continued to run into positions where I would go.
Ngog – 5 – He didn’t play long enough
Where were you? Oh, I forgot! You pissed off Rafa! Today’s game is against Burnley. While you were at home watching the game with your girlfriend, I bet you noticed the formation that Rafa put out today, is exactly what I called out 10 DAYS AGO! Rafa has been asking me to play Alonso’s role. (I just didn’t expect my Midfield partner is Lucas.) So today, I played Alonso’s position. Who filled my position? Kuyt. More importantly, who filled the Left Side attacking position? Riera! Did he have a particularly good game? No! Could you have done a better job, especially against a weaker opponent while playing at Anfield? Quite possibly. But what did you choose to do? And what is your end result now?
You should have kept your mouth shut!
(Post Match Review to follow right after this post.)
The President of UEFA looked more like a KGB Agent in these pictures. These pictures made him look (at least in my opinion) so sad, lonely, and hard-working. The one picture standing in the snow really makes me want to go hand him a hat or an umbrella.
Click on the image below for additional pictures.
“As long as I have a drop of blood left, I will fight to get Argentina qualified. We’re not out of the World Cup. I’m not afraid of criticism. I’m not afraid of anybody. I’m going to continue no matter who criticises me.” - Diego Maradona.
But your blood is tainted with drugs from years of drug abuse!
Yes, the trick is simple! And I blame the Goalie’s positioning.
I did a shot like that when I was 7 years old. But still.
I was extremely pissed off when I read about what Babel’s whining on the Internet this morning. First of all, he needs to just shut his mouth! Second, he needs to start using his brain more, and start using his footballing skills even more.
Look, Babel, you sucked! I asked Rafa to give you another chance to prove to the world your talents. But all you got to show, when I passed you the ball, was with your head down and dribble unsuccessfully. How many times have I told you that you are NOT Stevie G! You’re not me in terms of 1) skills, 2) the captain of this Liverpool team, and 3) born and raise by Liverpool. When you have the ball outside of the box, pass the fucking ball after 2 dribbles, would you? You know what you remind me of? Milan Baros! And you know very well how his career ended up!
Also, when I said you don’t have a brain, you really didn’t make it difficult for me to prove it. Look at our squad! Let me make it a bit easier, just look at the 3 + 1 positions in Rafa’s 4-2-3-1 formation. You will never ever replace Torres as the first choice in that ‘1’ up front. Rafa has been assigning you to play on the left side in those ‘3’ Attacking Midfielder positions. Also playing in that position could be Riera and Benayoun. If you look to the right side, there’s Kuyt, and usually Benayoun is his backup if needed. (We all know El Zhar is not ready yet!) So including yourself, we are looking at 4 players fighting for 2 outside positions. Was it that bad for such a World Class football club, with so many games to play in a season? (I hope you have enough of a brain to figure out that the central Attacking Midfielder role is forever mine, but more on that later.) I know this is a ‘World Cup season’, and you want to be certain that you’ll get picked for the World Cup. But had you keep your mouth shut, I would have fought for you for at least some Carling Cup games, if not FA Cup’s too! But no, you want to open your big mouth to ‘tell Ajax to come bail you out!’
Now, back to my central Attacking Midfielder position. Please take a good look at Lucas’ recent criticism! Rafa has been begging me to play in the ‘Alonso role!’ I didn’t play in that position during our last game against Bolton because Rafa thought Lucas could handle Bolton’s midfield. Should I have to play in Lucas’ position, I see either moving Kuyt to partner Torres in a 4-4-2, or to have Benayoun trying to be me and remain in 4-2-3-1. If this is the case, we are now suddenly looking at the same 4 players fighting for 3 positions. Was it that tough?
This team need creative attacking players… like me. Although there’s only 1 me, we still need all the talents available to last an entire ‘title challenging’ season. Normally, I would just ask Rafa to send you back to Ajax. Instead, I’m demanding you to make a public apology to Rafa, and to the team, and to tough it out for the rest of this season. We need you!
Now go shut the hell up and honor your contract!
I watched this game today. I truly believe that Leonardo wouldn’t last through September. This Milan team is way too old. It’s literally the same team as the 2005 team that I played against in Istanbul.
Posts
All Comments
