My Youtube Channel

Hey all,

This is a slightly different post as it isn’t football related. I’m a bit of a singer-songwriter so I thought I’d promote my youtube channel here. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

The link is on the right and here it is again:

http://www.youtube.com/user/joedanielsmusic

Thanks!

My Take On The Premiership Pay-Offs, I mean, Play-Offs

I’m sure you’ve heard about the FA’s new idea to introduce play offs for England’s fourth place in the Champions League. It would possibly allow the teams from fifth to seventh to have a chance of playing in Europe (in the better trophy). This in turn would give them the money needed to compete for the Premiership more. Sounds like a good idea, although not for the “big four”, the group comprised of Chelsea, United, Liverpool and Arsenal.

I find it hard to believe the FA simply wants more competition added to the Premier League. This season the fourth spot has been contested a lot more than in the past. Manchester City, Spurs, Villa and Liverpool are all trying to push for fourth place (as we kopites know too well). As much as I hate it, the competition is much fiercer. So why on Earth does it need more competition?

If you want more competition, why don’t you introduce survival play offs? The bottom two teams are relegated and the next four teams up compete in a round robin to see who the third team to go down is. (You can thank my dad for that idea Mr FA).

The usual top four will obviously disagree with this whole idea. They all base their finances on earning substantial amounts from the Champions League and missing out for just one season could put the club in turmoil, just like what we might be facing in the not too distant future.

The problem is that the other sixteen teams in the Premiership are probably salivating at the thought of possibly getting into Europe’s big league. When an idea is put forward formally, which hasn’t happened yet, a minimum of fourteen teams have to vote in favour of it. I would be extremely surprised if all of the teams, bar the group I’ve mentioned, didn’t vote in favour.

Luckily for us, there are a number of problems that would have to be overcome. One is how the play off games will be put into the already bustling fixture list. It seems that as the season ends, teams start preparing for the next one. Also, these play offs would have to be played at the same time as the lower division’s own play offs. Would the TV channels just drop these and scramble for the Premiership ones instead? This could cause a massive decrease in money for the lower leagues which doesn’t really seem fair.

When you compare the Premier League to the other top leagues in Europe, you’ll find that the Premiership is possibly the most competitive league anyway. In the Bundesliga, Munich, Leverkusen and Schalke are the only teams competing for the top. In La Liga its Barca and Real, and in Serie A, it’s Inter, Roma and Milan that are leading the way. In the Premiership there is massive competition for the final Champions League slot with at least four teams going for it.

At the moment, it may sound like a good idea, seeing as how we are struggling to get fourth place, but this can’t be introduced for three years due to the TV rights already planned. In three years time, I’m hoping we are right back on track and our team is trying to win the League. At that point, we may not feel the same way.

Despite what Liverpool fans think, it may turn out that this idea comes to be reality. If that doesn’t inspire us to get our act together, then I don’t think anything will.

Where Liverpool Could Really Do With Improving

I’m sure you all realise that this season has been far from perfect. We’re struggling to reach our usual fourth place and our only hope of silverware is the Europa League, which, lets be honest, isn’t the standard of trophy we want. There are a number of reasons for this; some of which are external factors (injuries, poor refereeing, owners, etc.) that are out of our control. There are others though, that could be improved.

Tactics

All of our players have the ability to play fast, fluid football. They should be able to zip the ball around, keep possession, and then attack the opposition when the time is right. But for most of this season, we haven’t done that. We seem to either “hoof” the ball forward where it comes straight back again, or we try to pass it but are too slow and lose possession sloppily.

You’d hope that the team could remedy this themselves but they don’t seem to notice that what they’re doing isn’t working. Stevie, Lucas and Mascherano have populated the midfield for a lot of this season, but none of them have made up for the loss of Alonso. Stevie has the ability but his attitude is lacking. Granted, he has been injured for a large period but he doesn’t seem to provide the extra spark anymore. Lucas has been one of our best players, despite what a lot of fans say. He has tried his best all season and hasn’t crumbled under media and fan pressure. He is still young so we can’t expect him to be like Alonso just yet. Mascherano does a different job to what Alonso did. He hassles the opposition and wins the ball back. His job isn’t to spread passes around everywhere.

This is a big problem. With no one to feed the strikers, we aren’t going to score. Luckily, we may already have the solution in Aquilani. He hasn’t had a chance to feature much due to his injury but he does try to play in the strikers and spread the play around. Next season, when he is fully fit, he may become our saviour.

Line-Up

Rafa loves the 4-5-1 formation with Stevie having a free role behind a lone striker. Then we have two almost defensive midfielders behind Stevie to mop up behind him. The trouble is, Stevie tries to go everywhere (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) but it means our lone striker is often left without support. This is one of the reasons we are finding it hard to score. Also, we don’t tend to play with any width. We’ll play the ball out to either side but then it’ll come back to the centre, when the winger could just run down the line and cross it in.

I think that Rafa should be more open to changing the formation a little. Perhaps a 4-4-2 would allow us to be more attacking and give us more chances of scoring. The players on the wing need to become more confident in taking people on and providing support to the strikers.

Money

This problem is widely recognised by everyone with an interest in football. It is such a big problem that rumours are flying around that we will join with United scum to campaign against owners. I don’t think any of us want to be owned by Hicks and Gillett (and their debt). I really hope that Purslow manages to get us new owners soon. That’s the only way we could get enough money to buy better players and really compete for some silverware. To read more on our owners, check out this article: Hicks And Gillett: The Laurel And Hardy Of Business

Players

Another major problem is that the players that do get on the pitch don’t seem to try as hard as they can. As previously mentioned, Stevie just isn’t up to his usual form. This is bad, not just because he’s a vital player, but because the rest of the team almost mimic his performances. When he plays well, the team usually follows, now that he’s playing badly, the rest of the players follow suit. No one wants to run, no one wants to score, we aren’t playing like a team that wants to get into the top four at all.

External Factors

Of course, these four problems aren’t the only things that are wrong at the moment. We have has a terrible injury record with two of out best players, Torres and Gerrard, out for quite a long time. I also believe the referees hate us; we never get decisions our way. Just look at all the penalties we should have had but that weren’t given. Our owners have been mentioned in the “Money” section but I will put them in the list of external factors as well due to how difficult they are proving to be removed. None of these factors can be easily improved or improved at all.

So this is why we’ve had a below average season this time round. However I firmly believe that if we address some of these issues before next season, we will improve by a long shot. “You’ll never walk alone” has never before been so important a phrase.

*Can I just say that it would be great to subscribe, follow me on twitter, and become a fan of the facebook page (links on top of the right hand side). Thanks.*

Hicks And Gillett: The Laurel And Hardy Of Business

Pretty much every single Liverpool fan has the same mind-set towards Hicks and Gillett, our money grabbing owners. We all want them out. They refuse to pump any money into us and just hope they can make a profit. They refuse to sell any of their shares to someone who is willing to put in time and effort. They even refuse to acknowledge the fact they are failing.

Now I wouldn’t call myself an expert when it comes to business, I’m quite the opposite, but I do have a bit of common sense. I feel that our owners have completely the wrong idea about how to run a football club. I may be wrong, but surely if you put in your own money, you end up getting more out? Even if H and G couldn’t care less about the welfare of the club, you’d think they’d at least try to make money out of us.

We know, and they know, that they have plenty of money to spare. If they put some of that money into buying great players, then we will become more successful. If we become more successful, we make more money which the owners will get a lot of. That isn’t hard logic, it is simple, yet our owners can’t seem to work it out. If they even had a brain between them it would be obvious.

They say that a new stadium is on their agenda. Whilst I’m surprised they know what an agenda is, I wouldn’t be surprised if we never got our new stadium. If they aren’t willing to give Rafa some money for transfers, they’re not going to fork out a load of money on a stadium. They should realise that the football comes first, the stadium later.

The interesting thing about this pair is their backgrounds. Gillett co-owns a NASCAR racing team, Richard Petty Motorsports. This racing team hasn’t won a single championship. He also tried to create a Montreal franchise, but, and you won’t be surprised, the bid had to be rescinded due to financial reasons.

Gillett however, is probably the better of the pair. Hicks has actually failed at owning a football club before. He bought Corinthians in 1999 and things got off to a good start, winning the FIFA Club World Cup. However things soon began to go a little pear-shaped. Hicks and his co-owners promised fans a new stadium (ring any bells?) but due to financial trouble, the idea simply remained an idea. After angering fans by introducing corporate sponsors, making poor financial decisions and even changing the club’s colours, Hicks and his team sold up. Corinthians had been relegated and were left in a much worse state than before.

So it seems like failure all round then, and it looks like we’re stuck with them. But despite this pessimistic rant, I think we can pull through this and weather the storm. We all just need to stick together, and maybe all put in some money to buy our owners some sense. They definitely can’t afford some themselves.