Extraordinary Swindle

My translation: Coach Ottmar Hitzfeld has officially communicated his departure from the German football record masters(??) Bayern Munich at the end of the season. "I already communicated my decision to the association three weeks ago that I will step down in the summer. I will still try to be successful and win as many titles as possible in the next half year. Then I will withdraw ", said myself Hitzfeld. For his further future he has two options: Swiss national team or a punditry job on television. With it ends his second period at Munich previously there from 1998 to 2004 the 58 year old coach's contract ends on 30 June 2008. Hitzfeld had succeeded Felix Magath on 1 February 2007. During the holidays Hitzfeld had met the Swiss national team delegate Ernst Lämmli in Lörrach, in order to discuss a commitment for after the EM 2008.

Won a free kick against Man Utd - Result 1-0. Paid for the transfer fee there and then.

Just spat coffee all over the keyboard and monitor.

You didn't get to the best bit ... 'LADYMAN'

About time he fecked off, the Egg headed numpty. If he got his way the Premier League teams would be a globetrotting circus - "Let's move the big Premiership games to the U.S. and milk the cash cow."

If Mascherano is injured then Kuyt could be dropped to accomodate Sissoko and Lucas. Reina Arbeloa Hyypia Carragher Riise Sissoko Lucas Benayoun Gerrard Kewell TorresThe trio of Benayoun, Gerrard and Kewell can interchange to cause the Manc defense problems. Babel and Crouch to come on after 60+ minutes to grab the token goals.

December 21st - Friday of next week.

It was pure comedy, what do you expect with Peter Collins in the hot seat. Their script went out the window when Liverpool went 2-0 up in the first 11 minutes and they had nothing to bitch about except that the team closed out the game and didn't let Marseille have a sniff of goal. Liverpool didn't dominate possession - only had 34% of the ball and won 4-0, this is a bad thing because Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea would have kept the ball better and made Marseille work for it. Dunphy for feck sake : "Remember Peter I qualified my prediction earlier by saying IF ..."

What Toshack has said makes sense.

Pepe Reina Daniel Alves Alessandro Nesta Daniel Agger Philipp Lahm Lionel Messi Steven Gerrard Kaka David Silva Francesco Totti Didier Drogba Coach: Rafael Rafa

I was talking to a Dutch fan recently and he said that Kuyt began his career as a wide midfielder at FC Utrecht. He was moved up front because of an injury crisis and he banged in 20 goals before PSV snapped him up. He also reckons that the death of Kuyt's father in the summer has had a major impact on the player and is affecting his form.

I made a point of watching the coverage on Sky because I knew RTE would be pure drivel. The mood of the RTE coverage is lead by the tabloid headlines. As an example if the British tabloids are harping on about the lack of quality English players in the top teams guess what the team playing in the featured game is going to be criticised for. This week the big story in the British media was the supposed falling out between the owners and Benitez, so it was no surprise that the RTE studio was going to regurgitate the story with vitriolic cherries on top. If there is no story in the tabloids to give them their cue they are much better. As a panel John Giles is the only credible pundit. Liam Brady will flip flop between alternate realities, one minute "Benitez is a lucky manager", the next "You don't win the Spanish league against Barcelona and Real Madrid, then move to another league and get to two European Cup Finals in three years with two different sets of players by being lucky." In one post match instance Liam Brady contradicted what he himself had said at half time and when the host Bill O'Herlihy called him on it, Brady denied he ever said any such thing and then shut up for the remainder of the program. During lucid moments Brady will talk sense but usually it's to bring the discussion back to a equilibrium when Eamon Dunphy has gone off the deep end and is heading for Alpha Centauri. Dunphy is there to generate controversy on the panel, often Bill O'Herlihy throws him a bone to get him going... "Eamon, what do you think of what they were saying in the papers about ..." etc. Dunphy is a tool. He loves hard men in football Giles, Keane, Souness etc. (He crawls up Souness's crack every time he's in studio and licks every inch of his colon clean). He doesn't like flair players like Ronaldo, Ronaldinho etc. But he loves watching Arsenal/Brazilians play the beautiful game like it was meant to be played. He's a general know nothing but on very rare occasions he gets it right. As a tv panel they are far more critical of the game/players/managers than anything seen on UK based tv and it's the one thing in RTE's sports coverage's favour. The downside is that you can experience the likes of last night, but on such occasions it's great to have the option of flicking over to the plastic studio presented by Sky.

Radish!

He had an agreement with Valencia that he wouldn't come back and poach players - Patrick posted about it at the time. The Sissoko transfer was different, Valencia had agreed to sell the player to Everton, Liverpool then offered the same transfer fee and Momo Sissoko chose to follow Benitez.

The word used was "focusing"!

I'm curious as to how you would describe the build up to Fernando's goal against Fulham last weekend? Or his goal against Chelsea for that matter?

In fairness so did all the defenders that night.

Houllier certainly was a fan of attacking fullbacks - Marcus Babbel, Christian Ziege, John Arne Riise, Steve Finnan were all signed by him. Didi Hamann sat in front of the centre halves, the wide midfielders tucked in and the full backs went forward. When the system didn't work the team was in trouble because there wasn't a creative wide player to open up defenses and the midfield were devoid of ideas. To say Houllier never grasped the overlapping full-back concept is ridiculous, it's the only system his team really achieved anything with. Guillain-Barré Syndrome robbed us of the best of Babbel but during the treble season he was phenomenal going past the midfield to provide the extra width. Ziege was constantly going forward the problem was the fecker didn't think he needed to defend. Riise and Finnan were both attacking fullbacks before they came to Liverpool.

According to a journo friend, Venables was being lined up as the manager last time round until the Dream Team made an appearance.

PLTBT

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He chose to leave Liverpool and will have to live with that decision, I can't see Rafa ever signing him. Given his injury record since leaving, it would not be worth the risk - if he was to put up the money for the fee himself and accept a pay as you play contract then it would be worth it.

Agger allows the defense to play alot further up the pitch, with him out of the side the back four are 20 yards from their own goal, with Agger in the side we can push the defense closer to the half way line and squeeze the game in the opponents half. Without Agger in the side the opposition are given an extra 30 yards of the field to play in which is a very bad thing when we don't retain possession of the ball like we should. Alonso keeps things ticking over in the midfield area, we don't have another player who does this, possibly Lucas Leiva but he hasn't settled in and is unlikely to be given the role this early in his first season. Without Agger we need Alonso in midfield to get us keeping the ball, it's hard to explain but when Alonso plays the team pass the ball better. People bitch about him when he's off the boil and some think that with Mascherano in the side we don't need him but the fact remains we keep the ball better with Alonso on the pitch. Personally I think it's a confidence thing - Agger and Alonso can both pass the ball and it rubs off on the other players. Rafa touched on it in an interview recently when questioned about the effect of the absence of Agger. He said it shows the importance of having players in the centre of the team who can pass the ball and bring the other players in to the game. Can we still win the league? Yes but we have to start grinding out victories now.

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