Back at it again

So it's been a long time since I last posted. Sometimes life gets in the way. I have since relocated cities.

Now I have some extra time on my hands so we can get back into what's really important; sport. A lot has happened since I last posted and I'm not going to get into all of it. So I will be posting on some of the latest happenings in the sporting world.

Best league in the world

The Barclays Premier league is like no other league in the world. Some might not agree; the style in general is not as flashy as Spanish football or as technical as German football. The difference is that on any given day any team can beat any team. Case in point Stoke beating champions City at the weekend. Now you could say but Madrid also lost to so called weaker opposition. This happens very rarely unlike the Premier league where it could happen every week. Crystal Palace last season beat Chelsea as well as came back from 3-0 down to draw against Liverpool. This brings me to another point, if I ask you who will win La Liga this season, 3 teams come to mind, Barcelona, Madrid and Atletico. It’s the same with the Bundesliga, Bayern, Dortmund and maybe Schalke. The French league is dominated by PSG and the same with Juventus in Serie A. now when I mention Premier league at least 5 names pop up straight away; City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and United could all win it.

Then you have to look at teams that could make top 4 and fill champion’s league spots and the list grows considerably; Spurs, Everton, Southampton and possibly Newcastle could make it. That leaves you with 9 teams that all could realistically make top 4. This leads to very competitive games week in and week out. The mid table and relegation battles are often more exciting than top of the league encounters. That I think is the difference between the Premier League and the rest of the world. Yes El Classico is an amazing game to watch as well as Dortmund and Bayern but that’s about it. The lower teams especially in the Spanish league are not that exciting to watch. Even bottom of the table games in the Premier league are exciting. Not to mention them giving the so called giants a run every once in a while. Brendan Rodgers summed it up perfectly last season when he said that every game is a big game in this league. This brings me to another point, so called star players not performing in the Prem.

A lot of players have come in to light up the premier league but did they start out that way? Torres, Drogba, Suarez, Rooney, Owen, Ronaldo the list goes on of world class players that were born in the premier league. None of these players were, to my knowledge, stars before coming to the premier league. They gained their stardom playing for their respective teams. Often teams will buy players who are rated as average who end up thrilling and become stars. One name stands out though; Diego Costa was a star at Atletico and has instantly lit up the Prem for Chelsea. Ozil, Sanchez and Di Maria have not been the super stars they were for their Barca and Madrid although the latter has only played one game. The pace and physicality of the Premier league are like no other and you have to be at your very peak to shine in this league. I don’t think it will be an easy transition for players like Di Maria and Falcao who come with massive talent and expectation.

Liverpool targeting the right players?

Are Liverpool targeting the right players this transfer window? We have already made 4 signings this window and I think that these players will add depth and quality to the side but the players who are set to sign don’t really attract my attention.

 Dejan Lovren was solid for the Saints this past season but to me he is about the same level as the defenders we already have. At around 20 million, he’s not cheap. Rumors are going around that Dortmund defender Mats Hummels will make a switch to Manchester united for around the same money. To me he is currently one of the best defenders in the world, not only for his country which he was instrumental in helping win the world cup.

For Dortmund he is equally as monumental, he single handedly kept his team in the Champions league against Real Madrid, keeping the formidable BBC at bay for much of the game in which they narrowly lost out.

I understand the whole debate of bringing in the marquee signing and the opposite of bringing in a few good players instead. I have discussed that at length in the past. Hummels is just one example of the best of both worlds, a world class player for the price of an average to good player. There are others out there.

This brings up another point, the price of players. I understand that the price of players is directly proportional to their performances for club and country as well as what the club think he’s worth. Usually players are grouped into a certain price bracket according to their ability or profile. Ronaldo, Bale and Suarez are classed in the 75-100 million bracket which is the highest of anyone.

Of course you then have Messi who is probably priceless but is rumored to have a buy-out clause of around 200 million. The newest player to maybe get into that elite group is Colombian James Rodriguez; talks are that he will be sold to Real Madrid for around 70 million. Purely based on his performance at the world cup his price sky rocketed.

There was a comparison recently with Toni Kroos and Adam Lallana who were both sold for around the same amount. And even being a Liverpool supporter there is no way that they are worth the same. Not taking anything away from Lallana, he is a great player but not in the league of Kroos who is world class at the moment.

This brings me to my next point; players in England have inflated prices. Why I have no idea, if you had to buy Lallana from a club outside of England he would have gone for around 12-15 million instead of around 20 million. Sunderland are wanting to buy Borini from us for around 14 million. Again from any other club outside of England he would be 7-8 million.

We bought Coutinho for that kind of money and he is class and could turn out to be a world best one day. He certainly has the potential. Liverpool only paid 22 million for Suarez who turned out to be the best striker in the world this past season. So the price of players doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with their ability. Gareth Bale would be an example of price equals performance, he was bought for an astronomical fee and he has proved he was worth it by helping Real Madrid to “La Decima” their tenth European Championship.
The best thing for Liverpool to do is to find players like Hummels that will give you huge amounts of quality while not costing you an arm and a leg, mind the pun.

When do players really peak?

There is a huge debate surrounding about when players reach their peak. Most people believe that a player reaches their peak at around the age of 26 to about 28. There is a lot of evidence to back this up, Messi, Ronaldo and Suarez arguably the best players in the world are all around that age.

You can’t really argue with that but what about all the other data? Paul Pogba(21), Eden Hazard(23), Raheem Sterling(19), Romelu Lukaku(21), Koke(22), Philippe Coutinho(22) and James Rodriguez(23) all well below the so called ‘peak age’ had outstanding seasons for either club or country and for some both. You might say some of these players haven’t proven themselves yet over a few seasons. To that I will say: Toni Kroos(24), Mario Gotze(22), Marco Reus(25), Thomas Muller(24) and Gareth Bale(24). All proven players some who have just won the world cup, in particular Gotze scoring the winning goal.

Now you might even say that these players are still young so it is easy to perform at the highest level as compared to someone who is 27 and been playing for a number of years. Then you would have to look at Phillip Lahm(30), Steven Gerrard(34), Andrea Pirlo(35) and Gigi Buffon(36) who all competed at the recent world cup, Lahm captaining the winning Germany. If you’re still not convinced I would just like to point you to a one Miroslav Klose who at the age of 36 became the all time record goal scorer in world cups.

So if the sentiment is true that a player only reaches their peak at around 27, then the world better be ready for a wave of world class players in about 5 years.

Players surplus to need?

I am not someone who is “win at all costs” I do however like to win and when I see Liverpool lose I’m not too fond of it. I do understand that it was a friendly fielding a very young side and that Rodgers was testing out young and fringe players to see who would stay and who would leave. There were still some worrying signs in the game against Brondby last night. The defense was non-existent when the last goal was scored which happened way too often last season. I therefore don’t understand Rodgers thinking playing Agger who has been very shaky in defense over the last season.

 Skrtel who has been great going forward and scored more goals last season than any defender in the Premier league but who also seemed fragile in defense at times. You sort of have an idea about what they have to offer, I would rather have given the likes of Ilori and Wisdom more of a chance to show what they can do in a red shirt. The only other explanation I can think of was that Rodgers wanted to give Agger a last chance to prove himself before making a decision to sell him.

I agree with building the squad for the more competitions this season and I fully back Rodgers and his vision. I do not however agree with just having players for the sake of making up the numbers, I feel we have too many anonymous players in our overall squad. Watching the game I hardly recognized the team I’ve supported my whole life. Most players remained anonymous apart from a few that stood out who were regular first team starters. Allen, Lucas and Flanagan had a solid game as usual and could easily slot into the first starting team at any time. The stands out players for me were Coutinho and Ibe who really put up their hands and you could see they were a cut above the rest. I think they will definitely be in Rodgers plans going forward well Coutinho at least, I hope Ibe gets a chance because I think he does deserve it. Suso and Borini tried really hard to impress as they are fighting for survival I believe.

I quite like Borini and I think he could offer support to Sturridge and Lambert or whoever else Rodgers beings in to the team. I also like Suso and think he would be a great squad player in cup games etc. I would like Ilori to get more game time to see what he has to offer because I think he could be a great player now and not only in a few years. I think we should follow Mourinho in selling players surplus to need and focus on the players we need and bring in others who can add to the group not just take up space.

Suarez a flop at Barca?

The star players that have left Liverpool in the past include: Michael Owen, Fernando Torres, Xabi Alonso and most recently Luis Suarez. In the case of Torres, his stardom decreased rapidly after his move to Chelsea and has never seemed to pick up again. 50 million pounds effectively got them a very average striker who on various occasions missed open goals. After Michael Owen left Liverpool he never reached to heights that he did at Anfield. Alonso having moved to Real Madrid did not have such a major drop in form because of the quality that surrounded him. However he did not regain the quality he possessed at Liverpool playing alongside Steven Gerrard. Will Luis Suarez follow suit and become a flop at Barcelona? I think that it’s a 50/50 call because he has been in such great form recently and he can usually make something of nothing all by himself. But on the other hand at Barcelona he is no longer that main man, playing alongside the likes of Messi, Neymar, Xavi, Iniesta and the list just goes on. He will have to find his place amongst these huge stars of the game who have almost won everything there is to win in world football. So will he cope not being the centre of attention anymore? I don’t think so, as with many strikers he is very selfish at times and I don’t think this will fly at Barcelona but I could be wrong. In the 2010 world cup he was very instrumental to a lot of Diego Forlan’s goals. So he might surprise me and become a very important part of their team. At the end of the season, Suarez was linked with many clubs including Real Madrid and Cristiano Ronaldo that he would not be happy about Suarez moving to the club. He said that the ‘BBC’ combination of Bale, Benzima and Cristiano was working well and that if Suarez came it would throw out the balance. What he probably meant was that it would be a bad idea to have too many selfish players in one team. Players seem to always want to move to a ‘better’ club and many times it doesn’t quite work out the way they expect.

star team vs star player

It’s all fine and well having a world class player in your team but it can also end up being a disadvantage. If you rely on him to carry the team and he has a bad game for some reason then you’re quite screwed. On the other hand it can be quite good because you can build your team around said player in order to maximize their abilities. On the other hand, having a team full of stars can also be a bad thing because maybe not all of the team are stars. Then they might have more pressure on them to be at that same level. In the example of Argentina where Messi is the main focal point of the team, immense amounts of pressure are placed on him to perform and most times he is marked so heavily that he can’t do what he normally does. The Argentinean team is not short of stars however, with players such as Angel Di Maria, Sergio Aguero and Gonzalo Higuain they should be able to offer support to Messi. In teams like this a great tactic would be to use Messi to commit players to defend him and then allowing the other players space in which to create chances. The opposing team may catch on and then spread their defenders but so doing will allow Messi more space, so either way you have chances. Liverpool used this tactic so effectively this last season because Suarez was so heavily marked it allowed those players around him like Sterling and even Sturridge to score some great goals. In a team like Germany who in my opinion have world class star players from 1 to 11. This might not be the case however because of the way they play, they play as a unit. A well oiled machine and every part (player) knows what they have to do. No matter who plays it’s the same, whether it be Ozil, Muller and Kroos or Gotze, Shurlle and Shweinsteiger the style and system remains the same. This is key because if one player is not having a good game or gets injured they can be changed with the knowledge that there will be no drop in quality. So the star team will face the star player on Sunday in the world cup final and we will see who comes out best.