Premier League Review

Hi guys,

Yes, I AM FINALLY BACK AGAIN, to fill your life with more entertainment haha. Yes, I know one of my buddies will probably slap his forehead saying, oh gosh, NOT ANOTHER football blogpost BUT i can't help myself. I thought I could blog at least a little bit during the short semester but I just couldn't do it and so now here I am. A month after the holiday started and things are ok now but I was already bored out of my skull after the first weekend passed. I shall talk about my final day of this semester in the next post.

For now, welcome to the Barclays Premier League Review blog post with me, well who else could it be. Now the norm would be for me reviewing each week's matches but this post will be a little different. I'm going to be doing a performance review of Liverpool's season thus far.

As many of the pundits had said, last season which was the 2008/2009 Premier League season was one of Liverpool's closest chances at winning the Premier League. Despite their greatest efforts and only sustaining 2 losses in the Premier League in total, both away from home, they still did not win the title. One very good reason for this being is due to the number of draws they sustained. It was a thrilling race between Liverpool and Manchester United but somehow or another, the Red Devils kept managing to grind out results week after week, on quite a number of occasions winning by a thread to snag them the 3 points. It's a big dissapointment for me but I can proudly still say that Liverpool performed brilliantly last season.

As for this season, the scenario is very different. As Spencer Robinson, one of the pundits on Football Focus with John Dykes mentioned last month, it is hardly November already and Liverpool have already been hit with 5 defeats. Their worst run in over 2 decades is painfully unfolding. This excludes, the Champions League where they have lost 3 matches and the Carling Cup where Arsenal's young guns won against our youth team but a narrow 1 goal margin in a 2-1 victory. Hopes of winning the Premier League title this season are slipping away again and personally I, as a Liverpool fan am getting very frustrated. I've seen Liverpool lift the Champions League, the Carling Cup, The FA Cup and even the Community Shield but I have yet to see them win the Barclays Premier League. They began a good run of form at the beginning of the season but recently it all started to go horribly wrong with Liverpool spiraling out of control with consecutive defeats. Perhaps now would be best if they focused on the other tournaments and see to their immediate priority which would be to bring silverware to the Anfield trophy room. They can still get some grace if they absolutely give it their all in the FA Cup as well as the Europa to partially quench an incurable thirst for Premier League glory that so many have longed for.

Despite this, I am not simply going to support another team just because they have a better capability of winning championships however I want to make myself heard that Rafael Benitez has indeed made some big mistakes in regards to the players he has cost the club. Liverpool are now suffering from a shortage of high impact strikers, Fernando Torres being the best of them all. We have Andriy Voronin, David Ngog and Ryan Babel but they aren't the best strikers in the world although quite promising. We are currently also having a major injury crisis with possibly 10 players suffering physical disabilities through injury although the number is slowly going down. Also now that Alberto Aquilani has recovered from injury, he is not sufficiently being used enough and agreeably he does not have enough experience yet but the question then arises, how does a player acquire experience if he's not being used to begin with? Lucas is slowly improving but still not a promising replacement for Xabi Alonso.

The following list comprises some of the biggest losses Liverpool F.C. have encountered in the recent past

1. MICHAEL OWEN- Despite his proneness to injury, he is never the less a good striker and could provide a respectable number of goals. Rafa did not sign him back given the recent second chance he had. Owen was out of a contract and Liverpool had a financial crisis in their hands so an out of contract striker also meant a FREE transfer but it was not done. So what happened, Ferguson having a HUGE bank balance after unloading Ronaldo took him on board.

2. PETER CROUCH- A promising prospect, who kept improving season after season and has rescued Liverpool from a number of messy situations and has added to Liverpool's aerial threat factor, he should have not been sold off.

3. JERMAINE PENNANT- A fantastic winger which could provide very good penetration against tight defences and could score goals as well

4. ROBBIE KEANE- Not using him was a big mistake, he should have been played match after match till he got used to playing with Liverpool's squad. He was totally underutilized and it cost us one very good striker.

5. XABI ALONSO- No doubt one of the biggest losses Liverpool has encountered last year. Benitez's obsession to replace Alonso with Gareth Barry cost us a solid and world class midfielder that had the capability to fill in Steven Gerrard's role in his absence during injury or suspension.

6. SAMI HYYPIA- Another very huge loss, I didn't see Ferguson selling off Rio Ferdinand who is one of his oldest defenders. Sami Hyypia was still at the top of his game and due to underutilistation and few starts, he was forced to take his career elsewhere.

7. LUIS GARCIA- He had a magic touch as well, something similar to what Yossi Benayoun possessed. I understand he needed to be traded in order to get Fernando Torres but perhaps another financial route should have been taken to get Torres into Anfield.

If these 7 were still in the squad, Liverpool FC would with absolutely NO DOUBT been twice as strong as they are now. Let's see the replacements that Rafa has gotten. Fernando Torres was brought in to replace Michael Owen but we still have a shortage of good strikers so not taking back Michael Owen when he was a free transfer before the start of the season and to top it off, losing him to our fiercest and bitterest rivals was simply inexcusable. Peter Crouch, one of our aerial attack forces and a good striker has not been replaced. Robbie Keane, another good striker who has the capability of performing has not been replaced as well. Ryan Babel actually is a good striker but even he has limitation in his ability to perform. Jermaine Pennant somewhat similar to Yossi Benayoun provided double the penetration as well as creativity when they both played, unfortunately we lost one, Garcia also being a loss in this context. Alberto Aquilani was supposed to take Alonso's place BUT it is a big place to fill and I am still not to sure about him as I have yet to see him play. Alonso was a like a tank, able to come back match after match but Aquilani seems to be the exact opposite being quite prone to injuries. Xabi also had cannon like shots and pin point accuracy to pick out players with his breath taking long range passes and lobs. Finally Sami Hyypia; I don't think there is a Liverpool defender who had the Aerial prowess Sami Hyypia possesed especially in set piece situations. There was always more than a 95% chance he would win the ball if he was there. Benayoun is filling Garcia's role but it would still pay off to have one more good and creative player.

Also in our youth squad, Ryan Flynn had been sold off and Krisztian Nemeth is on loan who are 2 of Liverpool FC's star youth players and they are not where they are supposed to be right now.

Although we have lost these players and if I had every chance to bring them back into the squad, I would most certainly bring back them back if I could but the sad fact of reality remains that nothing can be done to do so and I can only hope and pray that Liverpool gets some outside investement to help make them a strong and formiddable team and not sacrificing so many good players. We would have been a much stronger team to contend with against other teams and practically for most purposes, 2 good full squads.

There season has been going on quite inconsistently and although I am happy with their recent 2-1 win over Wigan Athletic at Anfield, I was hoping for so much more this season for Liverpool. They were so close to winning the Premier League title last season and tripped up simply because they conceded far too many draws. Another important key factor I hope to see revived in Liverpool's squad was the hunger they possessed last season when they played every game. They gave it their all in almost all games and did quite well. Now I hope to see them give it their all in EVERY game next season in order to win the Barclays Premier League. For now I can only hope that Liverpool achieves Champions League qualification for next season and maybe bring back the FA Cup and Europa League trophy to the Anfield trophy room.