shall. will. must

I shall, will, must blog again

10 out of 12

Thats the point count over the festive season. Not an actually bad return isn't it? Altho others might disagree, I think that those are really 10 good points. Nevermind the 10-match winning streak, we are now unbeaten in the last 11 league games. Nevermind Chelsea getting away with the title, we are now laying the foundations for next season (how badly I want the league, even in my most optimistic mind I don't see that happening this season). But what impressed me more was the the way the team played, like last night. How ironic it was to see Fat Sam substituted an attacking player with a defensive one, while Rafa did the opposite. Fat Sam settling for a draw while Rafa going for all 3. And this happened at the reebok, where Bolton are known to bully teams out of the park. To be frank, previously, if the team conceded early silly sloppy goals like last night, I would normally think that we can normally kiss any chance of getting anything out of the game goodbye. Instead, the team came back, twice, and even nearly managed to find the winner. It seems that nowadays, the team (read : Rafa) always sets out for a win, even while playing away, and for me, so far, that's good enough. If it was GH last night, I imagine that, instead of putting in Cisse and Luis Garcia, he would have put in Dudek as 2nd goalie.

Next, Luton away. I think that Rafa will put in the strongest team possible because he would not want the likes of Gerrard, Alonso or Carra to not play in competitive matches for the whole of two weeks. Or maybe he will play them and subs them after 60 minutes. If this is the case, I don't think that Luton will pose any problem. If not, expect Burnley and Palace again.

Oh, and happy belated new year + christmas to anybody ever bother to read my postings.

Oh oh, I stole the christmas tree pic from Mary's website (sorrrrry mary :))

Derby Aftermath

Woke up at around 340am, turned on the telly (81) and saw WHU vs Wigan..WTF...has astro fucked up again? After koreking taik mata a bit and channel-surfed further more baru la nampak the info at 82 - 3:55am (L) Liverpool vs Everton from Goodison Park, Liverpool (or something like that). Fuh..lega...tak sia2 'terjaga'...after all, during that short nap (started from the end of CSI:Miami) I actually dreamt of oversleeping, and woke up 5 minutes to the end to the score of Liv 7 - Everton 1!..punya la gelabah! I cannot possibly imagine missing THAT kind of game!!!

Then proceeded to the usual charity work, did some wake-up calls to a few usual suspects. So if anybody wants to be in my wake-up call list, kena inform awal2 lah..and this is applicable to midweek, early morning games only.

How did I approach this match? As always, with caution. Although I am a big fan, I am not a very optimistic one. Eventhough the team nowadays seems to have a bit more 'oomph' to it, it is still too early, in my opinion, to say that the team won't drop points in 'easy' games, like how Manyoo will always overrun 'lesser teams' during their reign. And I can still remember clearly the sakit hati of lompat pagar malam2 & tebalkan muka menyebok kat Cybereena to watch live matches with the help of Eddie and Sam, only to see them lose at home to WATFORD!! And Everton definitly cannot be considered as a 'lesser team', eventhough they seems to be having a bad crisis right now. As they always say, in derby matches, 'form book is thrown out of the window' (how cliche). Having said that, I believe that Benitez has had more preparation for this game as compared to last year. In came Warnock, Sissoko and Cisse for extra 'steel' to the team. I don't think the lighweight Luis Garcia and Morientes has what it takes for this match, particularly at goodison. And I guess, based on the result, Benitez's decision was spot on.

Whats next? What I don't like with this kind of run is, it builds up hope. And optimistism. And confidence. Only to be brought down to earth, sooner or later. The only thing of concern is whether it is a slow bump, or a 25,000 ft free-fall like those aircrafts in 'Air Crash Investigations'. And I definitely don't like it when people start to talk of Liverpool as 'title contenders', or 'champions in the making' or things like that. This things seems to be killing us. I prefer us to be the underdogs, just like the run to the CL last year, when people only talk of us as champions only AFTER we have actually won it. Look at what happened in Yokohama. From what I read and understood, prior to the final, or in fact even prior to the competition itself, people have been talking about how Liverpool is the favourite, how Liverpool will finally win it at 3rd attempt, blah blah...only to lose it at the end.

Maybe we need Crouch to stop scoring again. At the start of the run, the only thing that ppl talk about is how long will it takes before Crouch finally score. And that actually 'hides' our good run; and gave the team a bit freedom from the media, away from the spotlight. There were none of this '9-game cleansheet record', or 'the best run since king kenny's reign', or 'performances worthy of champions'. All they talk about is 'Crouch could not score', 'Bad in the air for a big man', etc. etc. This sorts of give the other member of the team to concentrate and focus more on the job on hand. Hence the good run. (now I am thinking like Mourinho).

If they can keep up this form, I would be very happy enough. I guess its all down to Benitez. He seems to be able to grasp what does it take to succeed domestically, after european success last term. Let's hope he can carry on doing what he is doing now, and the team can react accordingly to him. And not to lose the plot like GH.

2005 player of the year

I know this is a bit late, but let's just pay tribute the current best player in the world. I definitely have no doubt about it. I am even surprised that there are even coaches that voted for frank lampard, stevie g, or henry. I guess they must be coaches for countries that showed only EPL live matches during weekends and no coverage for La Liga. Otherwise, if they have watched Ronaldinho played time-and-again, he would have simply won it 300-vote to nil. No disrespect to stevie g, lampard or henry; they are great players in their own right, but Ronaldinho is just simply a joy to watch (i mean, his on-the-pitch performance, not anything else). He plays football like he really enjoys it. I remember earlier in this season when they played some team when the team actually performs team fouls on him. They sent one player to kick, tag, pull or anything possible to distract him from his play until that player was booked before replacing with another player to do the same. And he would just just simply breezed past them, again and again, with a smile on his face. End result? If i am not mistaken, 5 players was booked for fouling him alone, 1 red-carded for 2 bookings and he made 3 goals. If he wants to play, then there's no stopping him. And what about at bernabeu the other day? Even the bernabeu faithfuls were giving him a standing ovation. To put it simply, he is already a legend in my book.

Luckily, malaysia, represented by our captain, also voted him. Btw, anybody has ever heard of a captain named Paozh Saari?

Wakakakakakakkakakakaka

One of the best posts! Thanks to eddie!

(padanla nampak saspek je url tu.....takkan letak kat geocities je?)

Kantoi on the last hurdle

Sao Paolo 1 Liverpool 0.

That was the final scoreline yesterday. To make the matter worse, we definitely played well and dominated throughout. Only a defensive lapse and a rabun linesman decides the outcome of the match. Well, what can you say, this is football. Just like when AC totally outclassed us (except during the 6-minute spell and the shootout) in the final last May, we absolutely battered them, except on that 1-minute spell.

Why do we lose? I think that the main reason was that, Liverpool really cannot break teams down (OK, we did put the ball in the back of the net 3 times, but those don't count). When SP plays with 9 ppl at the back, we just could not break them. I address this to the inability of Xabi Alonso to perform. I don't know whether ppl notice or not, I think that Xabi is still not at his best, after his injury. Maybe this is the case of not match-fit? I dunno. To be fair to him, his performance last season was definitely outstanding and it would be such an acheivement even to match that again this season. Frankly I have not seen any of his defence-splitting pass this season. Erm let me rephrase that. He can still produce his trademark passes (like the one for Garcia against Anderlecht) maybe once or twice in a whole game, but he hasn't done it CONSISTENTLY. Like how he tear Norwich apart at anfield, and how he bossed the mid at Turin. There are nobody to unlock defences, like Deco at Barca, Ballack at Bayern or Ahmad Shahrul Azhar at Perak. Gerrard used to be able to do that, but he now seems to be more of the 'runner', the one that gets the whole team going.

OK lets put that match behind. What's next? A fixture-pileup looms. Newcastle home on boxing day and Everton away 2 days later. Followed by West Brom home 3 days after that and Bolton away 2 days later. Pergh. 5 matches in 13 days? Malaysian players would have simply revolted after the 2nd game. Can we cope with that? I can easily see us drop points at goodison (although they are not in good form nowadays, nothing can be an indicator for a derby) and at reebok (even 1 point would be great). Lets hope that Rafa can re-conjure his magic after losing them at Yokohama.

Lets just hope that Santa drops by at Anfield this year (not that I believe in santa claus or anything)

Oh, I am joking about the Ahmad Shahrul Azhar piece

How long has it been? 1++ month?

Yeah..how fast does time flies..before you know it, it is nearly 2 months since my last post. Not that I don't wanna do it, but, well, with the career-moving decision and all (alasaan)......

But the most surprising thing is that I RECEIVED A FEW NOTES (ok, only 2) asking me to update this. Wah, I am totally overwhelmed. Dunno that I even got audience. Hahaha..

Oklah...what happened for these last few months?

1. As of today, Liverpool is on a 10-match unbeaten run with clean sheets in all competition. Well, that's quite impressive I would say, and from what I remember, the last time we went through this kinda spell is during the second-last season of GH's tenure when they went into 11-unbeaten spell or something before collapsing after christmas..so, how do I look into this current form? With caution I would say. However, it is definitely an improvement, and while the teams that we face during this spell is not really the heavyweights, we have also won games that we 'normally' lose, like ManC away, Sunderland away and Boro home.

2. Nicol David has done it again. Currently she is the BEST WOMEN SQUASH PLAYER IN THE WORLD. How often can we say that for a malaysian? Well done Nicol. No matter what ppl say, I believe she deserves all the apartments and all the moneys. Hopefully, just hopefully, she will not follow the path of Hafiz Hashim. Will she? Honestly I don't know. Just lets hope and pray that she won't.



3. The world cup draw. THE group of death, in my opinion would definitely be group C, with the Argies, S&M, Dutch and Didier Drogba. A tricky group this one, and must be between the Argies, S&M and the Dutch. I don't see Didier Drogba getting past this group. My choice of the grouping stage (in 1st & 2nd order), A: Germany & Poland, B: England & Sweden, C: Dutch & Argies, D: Mexico & Portugal, E: Italy & Czech, F: Brazil & Ozzy, G: France & Swiss, H: Spain & Ukraine. Remember that this is only an armchair-supporter's opinion. I cannot be held responsible if you bet on this opinion and lose bigtime.

4. Pool versus Deportive Saprissa tomorrow. This would be a very interesting game. Deportivo Saprissa, a Costa Rican team, is the current holder of the CONCACAF (Northern American) Champs League. Their win was also a bit surprising since normally it is the Mexican clubs that dominated the CONCACAF cup. There's not much also that I know about them except that I should say that they were quite lucky to win their game against Sydney FC coz they were really battered during the 1st half. And they are also quite good in playing counter-attacking football. Which is a bit worrying, since we seems to be not doing so good against counter-attacking teams.

5. M-League has started

6. M'sian fans clashed with Myanmar fans at Stadium Cheras

What else..hmm I dunno...

7. Oh, I am now a father :).