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20 července 2008/2009 Season Review Part OneFirstly, allow me to apologise for the inordinate amount of time it has been before performing any sort of activity on my blog. It has been a long, long time! I have had some ideas for new blog entries, some serious (with a bit of my humour thrown in, don't want my readers to go and commit suicide or nowt, for instance, the Credit Crunch) some satirical (for instance, the Credit Crunch) to the downright ridiculous (for instance, the Credit Crunch).  In all seriousness, not all my blog ideas involve the credit crunch, but I may make reference to it once in a while, and for pure spite, just how useless the Government really is! However, this blog entry is the long awaited Season Review for the 2008/2009 season, I finally feel it is time to unleash it on a poor (even poorer now thanks to a certain governments policies) and very unsuspecting public. Allow me to start (I will say more about it later on) by saying thank you to the media and press for not being anti-Liverpool (or pro-Manchester United) in any shape or form whatsoever. (That sentence should give you a marker on how sarcastic I may be in the following paragraphs, and trust me, that was sarcasm!) The level of journalism this end of season has hit a new low with regard to Liverpool, probably because they are pooing themselves at the thought of there darlings not having it there own way. By the way, when I say media darlings there is only one club I am talking about, and that is Manchester United. Having said that, and I will attempt to do an analysis later on in the entry, I think that Manchester United are not just the darlings of the media, but also the FA and Premier League (not to mention Sky!). More on that later. I know it sounds bitter, but hey, maybe I am. I will say things how I see it though. I am also going to attempt something new this end-of-season review, which will increase the size of this entry 10-fold, and give a reasonable account of other teams as well. Something I have not done before, but I will try. And you will be surprised at who I say I was most impressed with (outside of Liverpool FC, of course) considering who I support, and it's not Manchester United, they had enough help to not have to be any good to win the league.... oops, I said I'd leave that until later.... just sharpening the old "pencil" for a good old character assassination, not only on a certain club, but also the authorities and their handling of said club in comparison to others.
I will start, in earnest with the Summer (and January of 2009) of 2008 and the transfers both in and out (I must admit, I have copied the tables from Wikipedia, why re-invent the wheel? Transfers In (source: Wikipedia)
Transfers Out (source: Wikipedia)
Loaned Out (source: Wikipedia)
Looking at that transfer list there are a fair few names that immediately stand out for varying reasons, and we will start at the top, with Philipp Degen. He may have been free, but through a massive amount of misfortune has probably cost the club a fortune in physiotherapy! Not since Michael Owen and Jamie Redknapp has the club had such a good subject for the physiotherapists and club doctor to practice on. Now, for me, Degen came with a half-decent reputation for being a good right-back, who can also play at left-back, with a fair amount of pace behind him and good at going forward. Degen has the dubious honour of not playing in the Premier League for Liverpool and, if I am right, making two appearances on the bench for Liverpool in a Premier League match, away to West Ham and at home to Tottenham Hotspur. In both of games he remained unused though. I suppose Rafa thought he couldn’t afford to replace a sub with a sub Mr Degen did make one or two appearances in competitive cup matches, but, perhaps overly-inevitably seem to get injured in them. He played two competitive matches during the whole season, 3rd round of Football League Cup against Crewe Alexandra in which he broke two ribs and punctured a lung in an unfortunate collision with Sami Hyypia! Talk about being unlucky and injury prone, should just place a neon-flashing light above his head saying "Injury prone, tackle me and take me out the game"! The other game was against Tottenham Hotspur in the Carling Cup in which he broke his metarsal. Very close to the name of another bone in the foot that was made famous by a certain Mr Beckham (after which his bone made another name, Loos I hope he is less injury prone in the 2009/2010 season but fear with the signing of Glen Johnson, and especially if Arbeloa stay’s, his chances may have diminished some what. That is unless he is any good at left-back, but with Insua coming through quite nicely and Aurelio seemingly being able to string two consecutive matches together without also ending up on the physiotherapists bed it looks like his chances there could also be very limited. Which brings me nicely onto Dossena! Yes, he is a left-back, yes, he is a footballer, yes I think he is great, even if it was for putting the icing on the cake of the win at Old Trafford (I always want to type Old Toilet at that point but have refrained from doing so at this juncture). Wow! I actually mentioned a match during the season! This match may get mentioned once or twice throughout the blog post, probably because it proved a massive point and I will use a quote I saw in the Liverpool Echo (later, when I eventually get around to talking about the actual matches throughout the season). To be fair, I think he also looked quite good at times, and you wouldn't mess with him, he is one big man! A name which should have worked out, but didn’t on the evidence of the fact he appears twice, is Robbie Keane. He also appeared to have helped be the final nail in the coffin for a certain Mr Rick Parry as, apparently, Robbie was more a Rick signing as opposed to a Rafa signing. Talk about being Rick-rolled….. I’ll get me coat I had high hopes for Robbie Keane, unfortunately it turned out that he just did not seem to fit in to our team. Oh well, these things happen, especially when the CEO is more responsible for the signing than the manager. Yes, Rafa got Robbie when he actually wanted a Gareth, of the Barry flavour (ooh, that was close to another get me coat moment)! Ah, yes, Gareth Barry. After what appeared to be a circus at best with how it was handled, he stated he wanted to come to Liverpool to get European football and it wasn’t about the money. He ended up staying at Villa only for a season later to leave for Manchester City for what seems a small fortune of a wage. Hang on! He wants European football, and it isn’t about the money, yet leaves Villa (whom have European football) for Manchester City (who do not) with a massive increase in wage (I think it is anyways)? What a lying little ……..! And what a massive kick in the teeth for Aston Villa fans! I actually feel quite sorry for them. I am very disappointed to have seen John-Arne Riise and Steve Finnan leave but I am not the manager, and Rafa obviously has his reasons for allowing them to leave and by the looks quite possibly was right to do so. Finnan was getting a bit old for a footballer and we needed to make some money for him, whilst Riise had what could only be described as a disastrous season the season beforehand. I was also a bit disappointed that Peter Crouch got sold, he added something different to the rest, and at 6 foot 7 inches, you would bleeding well hope so as well! Albert Riera was also a much needed change, until then we did not have an out-and-out left winger, someone whom would allow us to stretch the play. I suppose we did have Harry Kewell, but he was so injury prone, and seemingly completely incapable of playing a final, that he ended up being a waste sometimes. Kewell was capable of the sublime, however, he failed to produce on so many occasions that Rafa decided to let him go, even if it was on a free. Kewell’s wages, by all accounts, were quite large, so when he left that got rid of a fair amount of the burden on the budget. Back to Riera after that slight detour. Riera also provides a fair bit of trickery which down the flanks in recent years we have struggled to find, and whilst not the fastest of players, he could beat a man, go outside or on the inside and provide that much needed width as I pointed to above. One name you may find synonymous with the word potential that you see in the departure list is one Anthony Le Tallec. Messrs Le Tallec and Pongolle were both brought in by Gerrard Houllier who described them as the next big things to come out of France, and whilst never living upto those reputations, both (Pongolle had gone earlier) provided their moments. The Matches (follows below tables) The Premier League Table (source: Wikipedia)
Liverpool Football Club 2008/2009 Results (source: Statto.com) Cup Results
League Results
The Cup Matches European Champions League Of recent years, we have normally been very, very good in the European Champions League and this year was no exception. Unfortunately, due to the fact we failed to finish in the top two league positions in the 2007/2008 Premier League, our season started early again, which wasn’t helped by the fact that a lot of our players had extended seasons by playing in the 2008 European Championships which, of course, included our Spanish contingent of players, Pepe Reina, Alvaro Arbeloa, Xabi Alonso and Fernando Torres all of whom had the longest to play since they helped Spain win the competition. They (Spain) are simply awesome, despite that blip in the Confederations Cup against the USA. It seems I have digressed a bit! I really must try to keep track of where I am up to here! Anyways, the European Champions League got off to what I would call a reasonably shaky start from my point of view with a 1-0 aggregate win over Standard Liege, and it took extra time to do that! Now, for me, I am afraid after this performance I was not looking forward to the season ahead (oh how first impressions do not last, these two games in comparison to the rest of the season prove that)! I have to say, we were not very good, I will not go as far as saying woeful, I am leaving that for later on (in this section, I might add, that’s to come). However, as soon as the qualifying stages were over (thank God! What a relief! It was like realising that you weren’t going to get that lobotomy after all, because trust me, watching that match is as close as I ever want to be to having one… but, worse was to come, oh God save me!) things pretty quickly picked up in the good old (new-ish?) Champions League. We did struggle in the games against Atletico Madrid in the group stages were we could only manage 1-1 draws in both the home and away games, as it turns out though, we did not need to win them, luckily! Of all the groups stage games, though, I must say, I expected us to find PSV the harder opponents of the other two, but Marseille gave an extremely good account of themselves. We pretty much did as much as we needed to in those games, which is all we needed to do. A worrying game to play, but it all turned good, but it was going to get better. After the group stages, I must admit I was a tad worried about the draw, and whilst I got a nasty shock when it was revealed whom we got, it wasn’t as much of a shock as I suspect our illustrious opponents got when they played us. I am, of course, talking about Real Madrid (both legs coming before a certain tiny game (nee, demolition) based at Old Trafford). I heard a great saying, I cannot remember where it is from, but it went something along the lines of “At the Bernabeau, Real Madrid lost at chess, at Anfield, Real Madrid lost at football.” I had the pleasure of witnessing that match, and a pleasure it was! The whole team ran absolute riot at Anfield (I won’t mention the game at the Bernabeau much as whilst an excellent example of how to play away from home in a cup match, it was not a great spectacle) and special mention must go to Torres. I believe he was playing through the pain, but you couldn’t tell! At The Bernabeau, Rafa’s meticulous tactical nous and brain came into great working as he showed how to go away to one of the most fearful and hardest grounds in World football, stifle and win. A game we won through a goal by Yossi Benayoun in the 82nd minute. I will say now, and probably repeat later This brings me nicely onto the 2nd leg against Real Madrid at Anfield. Let’s put it this way, Cannavaro and Pepe probably supplied Vidic and Ferdinand with the names of some good sleep deprivation specialists for those who have issues with nightmares. I will shy away from waxing too much lyrical on any individuals at the moment, that will come later when I attempt my player rating’s section, but oh boy, Torres! It wasn’t only Torres though, it was the whole team, we were faster all over the pitch, stronger, sharper. We went at them from the very first whistle. I honestly think Real were shocked with the ferocity at which we went at them, we, after all, did not need to win this match. I think, though, that Juande Ramos probably learnt a brilliant lesson in how to not give the opposition a good team talk, his comments after the 1st leg probably spurred Rafa into letting the players off the leash. Not only were we off the leash though, I think we played like a pack of rabid dogs! I must say, I was very impressed with Arjen Robben, he managed to not fall over that many times. I really must also mention a mate of mine, who is a Manchester United fan, at this point. He said to me that if we went at them like that at Old Trafford that they would destroy us. Well, he was half right, we went at them and there was a destruction at Old Trafford, just not exactly how he expected. In the end, through some absolutely tremendous football and brilliant players mixed with excellent tactics, we beat Real Madrid 4-0 on the night and 5-0 on aggregate to cruise through to the Quarter-Final. Oh well, maybe with them spending stupid money to rebuild the Galacticos we’ll only beat them 4-0 on aggregate next season? Ah, the Quarter-Final which turns out to be our annual meet with Chelsea. The 1st leg at Anfield was a horrible experience, one to forget, they managed to be beat us 3-1, how I am not sure, but they did. It all started just as the script was meant to go, with Torres giving us the lead on 6 minutes, but with some new found frailty at the back, Chelsea’s Ivanovic equalised on 39 minutes and scoring to make it 2-1 on 62 minutes before Drogba secured the win on the night (and to be fair the tie) by scoring Chelsea’s third on 67 minutes. I must say though, that Essien played brilliantly to stifle Gerrard. How I am not quite sure? I know people will disagree with me on this, but I think Essien is over-rated and personally think Gerrard was having an off day. An unfortunate time to have one, but all players do, I just thank God Gerrard does not have many of them. Personally, the one single biggest problem in this match is the fact we had to swap Mascherano for Lucas. Now, I am not really one for ripping into our own players, but the gap between the two is not so much a gap as a chasm! This all help to set up a brilliant 2nd leg. One in which we completely outplayed them but got very unlucky and ended up drawing 4-4 on the night. Knowing that we had to pull something out of the hat, we went at them this time exactly how we went after Real at Anfield, and, again, it all started well enough. Chelsea were shell-shocked! How dare a team go to Stamford Bridge and have the audacity to pummel Chelsea and pull them too pieces, but that’s what happened, especially in the first half. At the half-time whistle, we were leading 2-0 thanks to goals from Fabio Aurelio (19) and Xabi Alonso (pen 28), Stamford Bridge was hushed into a silence and the travelling Kop were singing their hearts out, as always. The hairs were standing up on the back of my neck! Could we really do this? Could we really have another brilliant come back from many during the course of this season (more about the others later)? Alas, it was not to be. Yet again, Chelsea get lucky. Not only due to a wicked and cruelly floated ball which caused Reina to handle the ball over his own line, but also by the fact that I have never seen any single player before Drogba (well, okay Cristiano Ronaldo) make so many miraculous recoveries from so many career ending injuries during one single match! It was like watching miracles occur right before my eyes! He truly is blessed! Once Chelsea got this goal, though, they got there act together and started How on Earth Drogba (or whoever) got away with that is anybodies guess? Whilst we chased the game like possessed banshees, we played right into Chelsea’s hands by allowing them to play there natural football, sit back and play hoof ball. Lampard scoring a goal to put them in the lead on 76 minutes, but we were not finished with Lucas equalising on the 81st minute, and then Kuyt regaining the lead on the 84th minute! Awesome! However, we still had to chase the game needing more goals, and whilst we went at the Chelsea backline like a bunch of Veyron’s with ever increasing ferocity, the ferocity of Chelsea’s hoof ball became ever so increasingly desperate and they eventually managed to kill the tie by Lampard getting Chelsea’s fourth goal on the night. I was so proud of the lads. It was hard to be annoyed, we gave such a great account of ourselves. C’est La Vie. One point I will make about the 2nd leg, that was all without Stevie G! Incredible! Whilst this was panning out, Manchester United carried on winning, beating Porto in the quarter finals despite not exactly playing brilliant football. This setup an interesting Semi-Final against Arsenal, whilst Chelsea got the eventual winners, Barcelona! I do have one question, we (Liverpool) go away to Real Madrid and win 1-1 yet get described as awful and boring, yet Chelsea go away to Barcelona, play even worse and more defensively and only manage a 0-0 draw yet get described as playing a brilliant tactical game by some media outlets. Why exactly? Even at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea played the same way and managed to even scrape a goal and then held on and held on. With minutes ticking away, I kept thinking to myself if only Iniesta had taken a shot from outside instead of trying more and more trickery maybe Barca would have been in a better position? And then it happened! He shot from outside the area and scored! Stamford Bridge hushed so much you could hear a pin drop, there was absolutely no time whatsoever for Chelsea to score another goal. One thing I must say is Drogba’s antics at the end of that match was an absolute disgrace! Maybe he was hard done by with some decisions, but at they say the chickens came home to roost and his reputation proceeded him and his team mates. Arsenal had a similar problem to Barca in that they tried (as always) to walk the ball into the back of the net (unfortunately for Arsenal they have far inferior players to Barca). This helped in them being humiliated by Manchester United. This meant that the final was to be Barcelona versus Manchester United. Lets make no bones about it, Manchester United played well. Okay, they did for the first ten minutes and then Barcelona found there feet and it was hard to find the opposing team after that, with various jokes coming out afterwards, some of which I may list a little bit down below. On ten minutes, the reason Barca found there feet was because the brilliant Samuel Eto’o scored! He tormented the United backline all game, but not quite as well as Torres did, then again, Torres is the best striker in Europe (if not the World) at the moment so that is hardly surprising. Being 1-0 down does not mean any team is out of the game, but all of a sudden it was as if United’s entire gameplan had gone out of the window, but to quote Tony Barrett of the Liverpool Echo, and one of my favourite quotes, “Barcelona played United the team, not United the reputation and won with ease, just as Liverpool did at Old Trafford.” Oh, how very, very true! United were eventually put out of there misery by a goal from the ever-brilliant Messi who made it 2-0 on 70 minutes. How it managed to only be 2-0 I do not know, but that’s how it finished. Other sayings mentioned were things like, “For the first time in recent weeks, the United fans did not sing Are You Watching Merseyside? Funny that because Merseyside was watching....one of the most one-sided European Cup finals in living memory.” If Alex Ferguson ever wants to watch a final were a team can make a massive comeback against a team with a massive reputation, I could quite happily point him to one of the best European Cup Finals ever, a certain 25th May 2005. Unfortunately, that would mean him watching two big clubs as opposed to a big club playing his own. Sorry, sometimes I just cannot resist the odd dig, I have Manchester United fans as mates and don’t want to upset them, much!
English FA Cup Liverpool’s involvement in the FA Cup was very short lived when we got knocked out by our illustrious neighbours, Everton. The FA Cup campaign started well enough winning (with all due respect to them) at ease away to Preston North End, although they did give us a few heart-in-mouth moments. Then we drew at home to Everton setting up an intriguing away leg at Goodison Park. However, watching the replay was one of the very few moments during the 2008/2009 season that I wished I was getting a lobotomy instead, or pull my finger nails out with a pair of pliers! How about sticking a red hot poker up a hole, I am sure that that would have been more enjoyable than watching this woeful (their you go, got the word in) excuse for a game play out to its bitter end. Picture this, if you will, I was in a pub with a gang of Liverpool fans, we were waiting with massive anticipation at the spectacle that was about to start. And then it started, not exactly with a bang, but more like the whimper of a fly being trod on. Everything about the match stunk, and I mean stunk. The football was basically non-existent, our free-flowing attack-minded football decided to meet us in the pub instead of being on the pitch with the team, and I was bu**ered if I was gonna buy it a drink. Everton, of course, went on to be defeated finalists by Chelsea, but they knocked Manchester United with that match producing one the funniest football related sights in recent memory (press play, you know you want to)…
English League Cup In reality, there is not much that I can say with regard to the League Cup apart from against Tottenham Hotspur I am surprised we actually turned up at all. Yet again, Liverpool FC showed that we do not like to do things the easy way! We eventually put ourselves out of our misery by losing 4-2 away to Spurs. I know it sound’s disrespectful, and I have always said that the League Cup is not a worthless cup, but I suppose if you are going to have a really bad game or blood some of your youngsters then the early stages of this competition is the point at which to do so.
The Premier League A Bit Of The Media And Authorities Right *cracks knuckles*! It’s time for some home truth’s and it’s time to face facts. Before I start on any mini-reviews of any games I want to get one thing off my chest, and that is the best team did not win the league! In fact I would go as far as saying that they did not play as good football throughout the season as anyone else in the top four! And that includes Chelsea. No, by far the most pleasing to the eye and attack minded football was ourselves. Also, we lost the least games and scored the most goals and had the best goal difference. What really did not help us was the period we went through when we couldn’t win at Anfield and had a series of draws, that is when Manchester United caught us up and overtook us, although having watched them play I do wonder how. I’ll go into how, well as I see it, and I apologise if I upset anyone in advance, but I think the authorities (the FA and Premier League) played a massive hand in it. I watched games involving Manchester United and I have to say some of the decisions they got were at best ridiculous, no other team would have got them awarded and the only other place those sort of decisions would exist is in one of Drogba’s wet dreams! They have always been the fave with the authorities, you just have to look at all the times Alex Ferguson has gotten away with some of the things he has done. Let’s put it this way, Rafa’s (non) rant against Alex Ferguson was apparently going to be looked into and punished by the authorities! Hang on! That is nowhere near as bad as some of the stuff Ferguson has come out with in the past that has been completely overlooked. I wonder how much of a hand David Gill (no conflict of interest there then?) had in this state of affairs? Here is what I think, which I must say I had influenced by someone else, someone who could very well be reading this (you know who you are It is also the media. The media have this ingrained (I won’t go as far as saying hatred) dislike for Liverpool Football Club, especially, seemingly, Sky who are so in bed with Manchester United as well it needs an X-rated certificate. You only have to look at how the media are constantly trying to unsettle our players this summer to see that as well. They even had a ridiculous situation were the media tried telling us that Manchester United are going to offer to buy Torres. LOL, yeah right. Not only that, but seemingly we are selling our entire midfield, with Alonso going to Madrid and Mascherano going to Barcelona. Well, I don’t think they are true, but despite Rafa coming out categorically coming out and saying they are not going anywhere the media continually go on and on about it. There is definitely something not entirely right with that situation (I mean the media coverage). This is how I see things, I could be barking up the completely wrong tree, but as they say, opinions are like a*se holes, everyone has one! Komentáře (2)Chcete-li přidat komentář, přihlaste se pomocí účtu služby Windows Live ID (Používáte-li účet služby Hotmail, programu Messenger nebo webu Xbox LIVE, máte současně k dispozici účet Windows Live ID). Přihlásit se Nemáte účet služby Windows Live ID? Zaregistrovat se
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knowing the minute Degen gets a sniff of a competitive matches pitch he breaks down with a serious injury. The proverbial Mr Glass? I don’t think so, that title still belongs to Darren Anderton I am afraid, Degen as yet has not managed that level of consistency.
).
, Rafa showed another side this season, a side to his tactics which will come into play even more in the 2009/2010 season, basically pummel the living bloody daylights out of another team! Something which happened a fair bit throughout the 2008/2009 season.
). When the Premier League was due to start the authorities decided that Manchester United would be there flagship club and that they could no longer have Liverpool as the most successful club (which we still are by the way, still on our f*cking perch Alex) in England. You only have to look at how Man United’s profit and turnover increased compared to everybody else’s the first Premier League season. However, it does not stop there.
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