Selamat Hari Raya!

That guy with the weird accent has confirmed it, raya is on Wednesday. That means tomorrow is the last day of fasting, the 30th day of Ramadhan.

I have never enjoyed fasting the way I enjoyed it this year. Not sure of the other reasons but working at GUP contributed towards that definitely. Leaving home for work at 10am and leaving work at 4pm everyday made it a lot easier for me.

I’ve set three targets for me to achieve during Ramadhan and I’m proud to declare that I’ve failed in all three of them. I said I wanted to quit smoking, hah, that didn’t happen. The first three days of puasa was good where I smoked less than three cigarettes per night, but that was as good as it gets. After that onwards my smoking habit went back to normal. Well I did try….

Then I said I wanted to go to as many pasar ramadhan as I can. All in all I went to six pasar ramadhans, which was not bad for me but I passed the chance to go to at least another three because I was just too lazy. I actually planned to do reviews for the pasar ramadhan that I went to but again my laziness got the better of me. So another fail for me.

Last but not least, I said I wanted to go to terawikh every night. Hmm, how I should I put it here; I have never failed so badly in anything else before. Yup, that’s about right. It was embarrassing really, I didn’t even go for the first night! I think I went to about 9 nights of terawikh. 9 out of 30 equals to 30%, a definite fail!

I’m sad to bid goodbye to Ramadhan because I know I could and should have done a lot more. This is what I feel every year, the regret of not taking full advantage of the month. All I can do now is pray to God to give me another chance at doing better next year. Ramadhan is a privilege, hopefully I will remember that at the start of it next year, not at the end of it.

Exit Ramadhan, enter Aidilfitri. I want to take the opportunity here to apologise for all the wrongs I’ve done to everyone. Wishing everyone a fantastic hari raya, the day of celebration.

And baby darling, no, I hold no grudges at all, hope it’s the same with you. Nothing more I’d like to do than dial your number, but I’m keeping my promise. It may seem stupid, but I think it is for the best. Please accept my apology for each and every wrong I did, wishing you an ace raya!

From the bottom of my heart,

SELAMAT HARI RAYA, MAAF ZAHIR BATIN…

The Season So Far

Football fans are fickle. That’s the general view shared by many, including myself, and that means admitting that I myself am fickle. Our views change all the time depending on the current situation of our teams. In a space of one week a manager, from the eyes of the fans, can change from having god like status to the absolute clueless moron. Knee jerk reactions are often the problem for the fickle minds. We will tend to say bad things right after the team loss a game. And when we won, we tend to get way ahead of ourselves, getting excited over nothing. That’s why I have learned not to say anything immediately after a game. I will always give it sometime to cool down from watching a match.

However being fickle is still a problem so I feel it will be interesting to put my views on the record from time to time so I can re-read it and have a laugh at myself. So this is what I’m doing now. I’m going to give my assessment on the team so far.

The season is still very young, just six games played so anything can happen. In general I’m happy with how things are going but I’m keeping my feet firmly on the ground because I realise it will only takes one game to change everything.

One thing that I’m definitely happy about the season so far is the fact that Rafa is sticking to his best team most of the time. He rotated less this season and that is always a good sign as it shows that he now knows his best team and has more confidence on his players.

I'm going to do this by breaking it down to three areas;

Defense
This is the one area in which I have a full confidence on. The central defenders that we have in the squad are just superb. Right now the first choice is Carra and Skrtle, and rightly so I think. They are forming good understanding and have so far played really well. Waiting for the chance to play are Hyypia and Agger, two players who would walk into any side in the world. So great strength in depth there.

The fullbacks are doing well too. Arbeloa has been in good form of late, not just defending but also reliable going forward. Rafa will never play expensive, gung-ho type of football so Arbeloa is really suited to our style of play. If he is injured, Carra can take his place on the right with either Hyypia or Agger taking the place in the center. No problem at all. I’m also content with our left side with Dossena and Aurelio playing well. Even Agger can play there if he was needed.

Then we have Reina between the post. He is becoming one of the world’s best goalkeeper, his form this season suggested that. Many Liverpool fans have been saying he is the best in the business for quite sometime now and it’s proving to be right. His understudy, Cavalieri, the Brazilian, is the best reserve goalkeeper we have in a long time. So again, no worries there.

Midfield
In my opinion, Gerrard is playing his best football in his career at the moment. I’m not going to go in details of what I think of him, I already did that in my Everton match report. He has been superb this season, that is as far as I’ll go here. Then we have The Chief and Alonso competing for a place along side Gerrard in the heart of the midfield. Both have been playing well and I have no problem with whomever Rafa chooses to play, but for me when we play against the obviously weaker teams we have to play Alonso as he can offer more in attacking sense compared to The Chief.

The new guy, Riera is proving to be a good buy. He is giving us genuine width on the left, something we have been severely lacking in recent times. He got a good cross in him with good touch and technique. The jury is still out on him as it is still early days of his career playing for Liverpool but I’m definitely happy with him so far. On the right we have Pennant who can do the same job Riera is doing on the left. However he is very inconsistent and Rafa seems determine to offload him, that is clear with him not getting any playing time. Pennant is playing well for the reserve though and maybe, just maybe, with him playing late on in the Everton game Rafa is starting to give him another chance.

Then we have the three youngsters who are the fringe players for the squad. Elzhar, Plessis and Lucas can all come in to the squad and do decent jobs. But I want to see more from Lucas who has been poor when he played so far. Voted the best player in the Brazilian league has got to mean something, unfortunately I still don’t see anything special in him.

Forwards
This area has been the problem this season. Who would have thought that? Torres and Keane are taking forever to click as a partnership. Keane is just trying too hard for his own good, I think. He should relax more and I’m sure the goals will come. Torres scored two in the Everton match but in truth he has been poor. Hopefully things will pick up soon. Keane supplied the assist for Torres in the first goal in that Everton game so finger crossed that will give their partnership a boost it needed.

Ryan Babel has so much potential in him so I don’t understand why he can’t play well when he starts a game. He is direct with explosive pace and shot but we mostly see that when he started from the bench only. If he continued the trend he will remain forever as a super-sub. That would be a pity as he has what it takes to be one of the world’s best strikers.

Now one striker I’m happy about is Dirk Kuyt. I’m not his biggest fan. I do acknowledge the work he puts in for the team but I wanted more from him as a striker. Now, I’m seeing his true worth. He is just excellent on the right in a 4-2-3-1 formation. At the end of last season Torres described him as ‘spectacular’ and at that time I thought Torres was just being nice. Not now though, Dirk Kuyt is spectacular and I’m not surprised if he is the first name Rafa put in on the team sheet every week.

Well looking at my assessment above will make you think that everything is rosy for Liverpool but I’m still not happy with the passing and movement of the team in general. Sometimes I just wonder what they do in training because the basic pass and move is very poor. We should be doing better in that aspect, we certainly have the players to do so. Another thing that bugs me is the fact that we are so poor in dead ball situation. Our corners in particular are atrocious. How hard is it for a professional footballer to take decent corners? Surely we don’t need Gerrard to take it all the time as he is wasted not being in the penalty box or at on the edge of it looking to score from the delivery. It is mind boggling really. Rafa, please sort it out as soon as possible.

We have a tough week ahead, a Champions League game in midweek against PSV and a tough away league game on the weekend at Man City. Man City are flying right now with the two new recruits, Robinho and Wright Philips scoring and in good forms. Even without the two new players they have a good team with Jo and Petrov impress me the most.

I expect nothing less then a win against PSV as it will be a home game. It’s the Man City game that worries me. Playing in the league away after a Champions League game is always tricky. Hope we can register another win to follow up on the great victory against Everton.

Like I said in the Everton report, we have been picking up points and playing fairly well without the strikers getting in full gears. So I’m excited to think how well we can play if the strikers were back to their best.

Torres showed sign of his old self already and hopefully he won’t look back now. I’m going to put my neck on the line and say Keane with the help of Torres will score in one of our next two games. I have a really good feeling on this.

Can't wait for Thursday!

Everton vs Liverpool

Result : 0 – 2
Scorer : Torres (2)
Red card : Tim Cahil
Man of the match : Steven Gerrard

Steven Gerrard is a Superman. He is the only player in the world who can be the hard man, as well as the heart of the team. No one works harder than him and at the same time supply the creative spark. He is good with the ball at his feet, pass really well, good dribbler, the best tackler around, got brilliant football brain, explosive shot, very good header, has perfect technique, good pace, amazing energy and stamina, good strength, moves well off the ball; HE CAN DO ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!

Why oh why am I drooling over Gerrard tonight? He played better at Marsille and I didn’t even pick him as the man of the match for that game! Well tonight he gave the perfect captain performance. It was a derby game and for a local lad like him it was very easy to lose his head but he didn’t. If anyone remembered last season in this fixture he was subbed off by Rafa because according to Rafa, he played too much with his heart. That didn’t happen tonight. It was more amazing when you consider that he was looking for his 100th goal for Liverpool. To reach that landmark in the most famous of derby would be one great story to tell his grandchildren, but he didn’t go for that glory. Instead he absolutely played for the team and gave a real captain performance. Well done Stevie!

Obviously I picked Gerrard as the man of the match. He was just superb. One particular incident in the game that explains why I liken him to Superman was when he ran forward with the ball skipping past a few players. He was then tripped and lost his balance but seeing he wasn’t getting the foul, as he was falling over he tried to thread the ball to Torres I think it was. But the pass got cut off and Everton broke forward quickly with their danger man Cahil on the ball. This was where Gerrard showed his Superman effort. Most players would have had their hands in the air, staying on the ground complaining to the referee about not getting the foul. Not him. He got up from just a few yards away from Everton’s penalty box, out-ran everyone to get to a few yards away from Liverpool’s penalty box, got the tackle in on Cahil, won the ball and ultimately stopped a very promising break for Everton. Amazing!

Ok enough about him, I’m not gay enough to dedicate the whole match report to him.

I’m not sure in what formation we played in. Was it 4-2-3-1? What made me confused was the absence of The Chief. Playing that formation without him, and then pairing Gerrard and Alonso in the middle was very unlike Rafa. I didn’t watch the pre-show so I’m not sure what happened. Was he injured? Or did Rafa really choose not to play him? Kuyt and Riera played way too forward for the formation to be a flat 4-4-2. If it was indeed a 4-2-3-1, Rafa deserved a big pat on his back because it was a very big and brave decision and he got it spot on. We controlled the match form the word go.

Though we had all the possession in the first half, the game remained scoreless at halftime. I was worried because noticeably there was a shade of the Stoke game in the first half; lion share of possession with no real meaningful chance created.

But it all changed soon enough in the second half and the man responsible for it was no other than Torres. He is back. It hasn’t been the best of times for Liverpool’s strikers, Torres included. We wasted a lot of chances this season and the strikers were to blame. But he scored, finishing off a great move with a well-taken volley. The relief on his face was clear for everyone to see, big pressure of his shoulder, and from that moment on, the old Torres was back. Suddenly he looked comfortable on the ball, running at defenders, with good close control. Confidence is key to every player in particular young player like him and that goal gave him his confidence back. Sure enough few minutes after scoring the first, he scored another one. Then he scored his third only for the goal to be disallowed by the referee for a non-existing foul. It was a bad call and Torres was denied a hattrick by that bad call. But the important thing is he got his confidence back and we will see the best of him from now on, I’m sure of it.

Another important thing to note is how good our central defense is this season. Carra and Skrtle hardly put a foot wrong since the start of the season. One look at the bench and we can see the imperious Hyypia and the excellent Agger just waiting to be given the chance to play. Carra, Skrtle, Hyypia and Agger; how many teams can boast talents like that in their squad?

We have been picking up points without the strikers playing well, but now with Torres and Keane look to have developed better understanding, exciting times are just around the corner. It is a good season so far, and we have a really good squad right now. I don’t think we are good enough to win the league yet but we should certainly put up a better challenge for the league with the players that we have.

I think the next league game is Chelsea and we will see just how good the team actually is in that game.

Farcical GUP

Today is the last day at work before Raya and I’m not going to do any work at all. I’m so far up my Raya mood that all I can think of right now is where to get good lemang from. For me there is no Raya without lemang. There was one Raya morning my dad forgot to buy lemang after I have repeatedly reminded him to get it, so I merajuk and went to my room and slept without taking my breakfast. Absolutely no Raya without lemang!

Another reason I’m not doing work is because I’m on a mini strike.

You see, two weeks into Puasa I made a request to my boss for the whole office to get our pay cheques earlier. By earlier I meant the same day as the normal payday for the whole freaking world, which is on 25th.

We get our cheques at 28th every month because ‘it complies with the labour law of the country’. So in the event of our payday falling on weekends, hell has a better chance of freezing, compared to our payday to be brought forward. We will have to wait until the next Monday to get our cheques. And then we will have to wait 3 working days for our cheques to be cleared which is really ridiculous if you asked me. So basically we will get our money at 3rd or 4th or 5th every month.

So to avoid being broke during Raya I made the request because 28th for this month will be on Sunday, which means we will get our cheques on 29th, the next Monday. The problem is I will already be on leave and even if I got my colleague to bank in the cheque for me it will only be cleared the following Monday because Wednesday and Thursday are public holidays. So obviously I’m not going to let that happens because being broke during Raya is sad, and I don’t like being sad.

And my boss said ‘no problem’ to the request. So I was happy all through out Puasa thinking I will get my money earlier. And then earlier this week (Monday I think) my boss came to me and told me that the whole office will get their cheques on Wednesday so it will be cleared by the next Monday. Doubly happy. The sooner the better.

It sounded too good to be true that they will give us our cheques even earlier than we requested and guess what, turned out it really was too good to be true; we only got our cheques today, one day later than we requested.

Now if we were lucky it will probably be cleared on Friday, 2 days after Raya. If we weren't lucky, we will get our money on Monday, the day all of us back at work.

So yeah on a mini strike I am, with a very valid reason to do so…..

Liverpool vs Crewe Alexandra

Liverpool played Crewe in the third round of Carling Cup. I didn't watch the game so I'll use the match report written by Dave Usher, the owner/founder (or whatever you call them) of the best Liverpool FC independent website, The Liverpool Way.

Dave Usher is an excellent writer by the way....

Scorer(s) – Daniel Agger, Lucas
Half Time - 0-0
Venue - Anfield
Date - Sat 20 September 2008
Star Man – Sami Hyypia

We won. That’s about the only good thing I can say after this. Next year when the auto-cup scheme form comes through the post, I may well just leave the ‘League Cup’ box blank. I’ve been in two minds over going to these games anyway, as I’d rather not give the leeches that own our club any more money than I have to, but against my better judgement I ticked that box that said ‘League Cup’ so I’m stuck with it for this season.

Given the performance I witnessed last night I can’t see me having to fork out too much more, as the first decent side we get will beat us if Rafa keeps picking that team.

The performance was poor, but in all honesty I expected no less when I saw the line up that had been picked. It looked unbalanced, and lacking in goalscoring options. Daniel Agger opened the scoring, and a look through that side tells you that he was always likely to be one of our best hopes for a goal. He might be a centre half, but he does get goals. Apart from Babel, Agger and Sami would have been our most likely goalscorers when you look at that starting eleven.

I reckon Rafa had the same concerns I did, which was why he made sure he had Alonso, Keane and Torres on the bench in case things went wrong. He knew there was a good chance they wouldn’t get the job done so he made sure he had his insurance policy on the bench. The fact we had to put Torres on with 25 minutes left says it all. Keane would have had 20 minutes as well had Degen not gotten injured, and the only surprise for me is that Gerrard wasn’t on the bench as well.

I know some people view it as a cardinal sin to mention Arsenal and their youngsters, but I look at what they did last night, and I compare it to the fucking dross that I saw at Anfield, and it depresses the fuck out of me. I had a quick look on the forum and saw some people getting tetchy because others were asking how come Arsenal can not only give their kids a run out, but they can go on to put six goals past a Championship team.

It’s a valid question though. Rafa has spent a fortune on bringing in youngsters from all over the globe. In addition to that, we have a group of players who won the youth cup back to back, and who last year won the national reserve title. Yet the sum total of all that is that only Insua, N’Gog, Plessis and the oldest ‘youngster’ in town Nabil El Zhar were involved last night.

Jay Spearing and Stephen Darby should go in today and ask to be put on the transfer list. That’s not being knee jerk or melodramatic, they really should do. Having done so well in pre-season, the reality of their situation must surely have hit home now. If they can’t get in an 18 man squad when we’re playing a League One side at Anfield in the League Cup, then they are never going to chance here and they should stop kidding themselves that they might do. Get out lads, get out while you still can as you deserve better than this.

I remember Rafa campaigning to be allowed seven subs, his argument being that it would allow him the opportunity to put a couple of youngsters on the bench. I said at the time that even if he was allowed seven subs the young lads wouldn’t feature and it’s been proved right, as apart from the Liege game when Spearing was named on the bench (due to the absence of Lucas and Mascherano and serious doubts about whether Gerrard would be able to get through the game before he underwent surgery), none of the reserve squad have even had a sniff of a Premiership or Champions League squad.

However, Rafa outdid himself last night. Crewe at home, League Cup, seven subs named and the likes of Spearing, Pacheco, Darby, Kelly and San Jose still miss out. Seriously, what’s the point of them being here? At Arsenal, 16 and 17 year olds get their chance. At Liverpool, even 19 and 20 year olds are still deemed too young. I can see the logic behind the starting eleven, and a case can be made to justify every one of them getting a start ahead of any of the youngsters.

I’d like to have seen more of the kids in the side, but I understand that people like Hyypia, Agger, Pennant, Lucas and Babel needed a game. So as much as I’d have loved to see some of the lads get a game I’m not criticising Rafa for the team he picked. It’s the subs bench that really angered me.

Selecting Keane, Torres and Alonso on the bench was definitely an insurance policy in case we needed a cavalry charge late on, but having Carragher, Skrtel and Dossena on the bench smacked of just wanting to avoid giving any of the reserve squad a chance. It’s an absolute fucking joke. Did we really need to have Carragher AND Skrtel? There was no way in a million years Skrtel was ever going to get on that pitch unless two of the back four were injured. Could Darby and San Jose not have taken Skrtel or Dossena’s place on the bench?

Surely Jay Spearing was worth at least a place on the bench? A strong case could even be made for him starting, as based on what he showed in pre-season he would probably have given us more than either of Plessis and Lucas did. Plessis is a completely defensive type of player. He doesn’t have any attacking qualities whatsoever. He’s good at what he does, which is keep it simple and protect the defence, but did we really need that against Crewe? Damian looks to have gone backwards to me since making such an impressive debut at Arsenal. Hanging around town with Charles Itandje doesn’t seem to be doing him any good.

As for Lucas, don’t let that winning goal mask how mediocre he was. Those at the game will know, but with this match not being televised it’s easy for people to think he must have done ok seeing as how he scored. He didn’t. He was hardly involved, and contributed very little of note other than a few decent tackles (some of which were him winning it back after he’d lost it through poor play) and the goal.

Credit where it’s due, he made a good run into the box for the goal even if he did get a bit lucky with the header, which appeared to hit a defender and loop over the keeper. But come on, this lad is the former Brazilian player of the year, he’s a current Brazil international and he’s meant to be a potentially great player. You’d think he’d have shown us something by now. He really hasn’t though.

If he didn’t have such an impressive pedigree, everyone would be wondering just what the fuck he does and why the hell we spent £6m on him. As it is, there are plenty who do think that but there are still others giving him the benefit of the doubt. There comes a point where the argument ‘he was the best player in Brazil and he’s in their national squad, he must have something’ starts to sound a little hollow. The word ‘Kleberson’ springs to mind.

Lucas really needs to up his game and show us exactly why he was so highly regarded, because up to now he just hasn’t done it, and last night he didn’t look any better than the two lads who were in the middle of the park for Crewe.

The other big disappointment for me was Babel. He says he’s a striker, but whenever he’s played up front he’s been woeful. Had he performed, then we would have won this game at a canter because he could have destroyed Crewe on his own. The game would have been easier for N’Gog too had Babel offered more of a threat. I felt sorry for N’Gog, as he got no service whatsoever and struggled to get into the game.

He looked promising in pre-season and scored a couple of very good goals, but since then he’s shown very little. I’m struggling to think of anything he actually did against Crewe, I can barely remember him having a kick.

As for Babel, he may well be the most frustrating player we’ve ever had. I can’t work out if he’s a potential superstar, or just a Ronny Rosenthal type supersub. The evidence so far points to the latter, I just hope he can prove otherwise.

The only players to come out of it with any credit were Hyypia and Agger at the back, the returning Pennant on the wing, and the keeper who did nothing wrong. Actually you can add Degen to that, as I liked some of the things I saw from him and I feel extremely sorry for him after that horrible injury he suffered.

Given his track record, I expected the Swiss full back to spend a fair proportion of this season on the sidelines with various injuries, and when he picked up a groin injury in pre-season I thought ‘here we go, another Aurelio’. It would be really harsh however, to use this latest injury as a stick to beat him with, as it could have happened to anybody.

He had a few unconvincing moments defensively, but what I liked about him was how keen he was to go on the overlap. Any time Pennant was running forward with the ball, Degen would run flat out to try and overtake him and make an overlapping run. Arbeloa for example would be hanging back in support, and only when the winger stops would he then make an overlapping run. Degen was like a fucking madman though trying to get ahead of the ball, not always with the best of results but that is to be expected as his team-mates need to get used to how he plays and vice versa.

I liked his enthusiasm, and it’s a shame he’s picked up what looks like a serious injury that will keep him out for a while. It may open the door for Darby to play in the next round, but I take no pleasure in that and feel genuinely sorry for Degen as he showed enough against Crewe to make me think he might have been an asset in those games at Anfield when teams park the bus.

Pennant was excellent in the first half, and was clearly determined to take his chance with both hands. He was direct, he got some good crosses in and he even managed a shot, which isn’t like him. I’m a fan of Pennant’s, and I still think he’s the best option we have the right wing, especially in a 4-4-2. I’d like to think he’s played his way back into contention, but time will tell. He faded a bit in the second half, understandable given the lack of football he’s had in the last couple of months, but he still managed to create the winning goal and almost had another assist when Torres met his cross with a header that was well saved by the keeper.

Cavalieri had very little to do, and had no chance with the goal he conceded. In fact, he’d made a brilliant save to keep out the initial header from Zola – unmarked from the corner kick – and was very unlucky that the ball fell at the feet of O’Connor. The goal was against the run of play, but you always get the feeling we can let one in from a set-piece, no matter who we are playing.

Crewe never looked like scoring in open play, at least not until the last five minutes when they began to throw some men forward and had two great chances to equalise. By and large, we controlled possession and were comfortable at the back, but their keeper had very little to do and that is unacceptable. It was a poor performance, and it’s a good job we weren’t playing stronger opposition.

Hyypia was my star man due to Pennant fading a bit late on. Sami was just imperious, and won everything all night. Agger was flawless too, and scored a brilliant goal. He’s got a fantastic shot on him has Daniel, and if he’s in the side I’d let him have first crack at any free-kick we have on the edge of the box. The problem of course is getting into the side, as that’s proving to be difficult at the moment. His chance will come though, and when he gets in he’ll take some shifting.

Team: Cavalieri; Degen (Carragher), Hyypia, Agger, Insua; Pennant, Plessis, Lucas, El Zhar (Keane); Babel, N’Gog (Torres):