Is Super Mario the right man for LFC?

You should know that what you’re about to read isn't going to unbiased.

I love Mario Balotelli. Have done for years. He was born in Palermo where a large chunk of my family still reside. He played for Internazionale and A.C. Milan, the two teams that most of my relatives over there support. I’m a fan of the Azzurri when it comes to the international game and I’m  also partial to an enigmatic, skilful player. Basically, Balotelli ticks all my boxes. But let’s be honest, I’m not alone here am I? Most football fans around the world seem to have a soft spot for Mario Balotelli.

The apocryphal tales of his cash handouts to the needy. Admitting to Noel Gallagher on camera that he returned home with a quad bike when his Mum sent him to John Lewis to purchase an ironing board. The fireworks in the bathroom. That t-shirt at Old Trafford. Everyone loves a bit of Mario.

That being said, ‘risk’ is a word that is going to be used a lot when people are discussing this proposed move to Liverpool. It’s fair to say that Balotelli carriers with him somewhat of a reputation, especially among the English press. His attitude on the pitch can admittedly descend into comical levels of indifference and even laziness when he’s not got his head straight and he’s not afraid of a bust up with a manager or three.

But in truth, there is little risk for Liverpool in this seemingly imminent transfer.

In the current market £16m (the fee that is widely reported to have been agreed between Milan and Liverpool) for a striker is next to nothing. Shane Long has just signed on at Southampton for £12m. If he gets 10 league goals during this campaign he’ll have excelled himself. Championship club Fulham have recently paid Leeds United a similar fee for footballing luminary Ross McCormack. Sunderland bid £14m for Fabio Borini this summer. Signing Italy’s best striker, for a few million quid more than any of those aforementioned players, is practically stealing.

Even if Balotelli flops spectacularly at Anfield and leaves next summer the reds are guaranteed to get their money back and, despite his reputation as a troublemaker, Balotelli’s previous travails have mostly impacted himself rather than any of his team mates. The commonly held notion of him being a bad egg who can disrupt an entire club simply by being is massively overplayed.

His current employers Milan are sadly a club in financial turmoil and without Champions League football these days. Last season was horrific for them as they limped to 8th place in the table. Balotelli was their one shining light during that disastrous campaign. Indeed, he’s been a shining light for them from the moment he arrived back on his home shores - no player has scored more goals in Serie A since he moved back to Italy from Manchester. The forward has netted 26 times in 43 league games for what is now a mid table club. That’s an impressive ratio for any striker, let alone one who has been tasked with saving the team he supported as a kid pretty much single handedly.

Balotelli isn’t the sulking teenager he was at Inter anymore where he fell out with Jose Mourinho (what’s not to like there?) or even the eccentric, moody young man whose relationship with Roberto Mancini crumbled in his last half season at City. He still has his off days and when he’s bad, boy is he bad, but he’s kept his nose clean since returning to Italy and he’s carried Milan’s attacking threat on his shoulders for the past year while their only other top level forward, Stephan El Shaaraway, was absent with a long term injury. He’s scored at a higher rate than he did in his younger days and also helped send England home from Brazil with the winning goal in a World Cup group match this summer (more brownie points from me). Talent wise, in this market, Mario Balotelli is a £40m striker. Minimum.

Links between the player and Liverpool have been there for most of the summer but I’d never seriously considered them to have any foundation. The main reason for my scepticism was centred around the fact that I couldn't really see how Balotelli fitted into a Brendan Rodgers team while Daniel Sturridge was still around. To be honest, current giddy excitement put to one side for a moment, I’m still finding it hard to see exactly how Balotelli is going to play regularly in this Liverpool team. That’s not to say he won’t or shouldn't, his talent almost dictates that he will, but I’m not certain of how this is going to achieved just yet.

He has played out wide in the past for Inter Milan but, at 24 years old, it’s unlikely Balotelli will be signing up to come and play on the wing much. If that is the case then it leaves Brendan Rodgers with a few things to ponder. Does he let Balotelli and Sturridge fight it out for the number nine role in a 4-3-3 formation or does he try and come up with a system that allows his side to play with two top strikers simultaneously as he did last season? Maybe Sturridge will be asked to move wide in games when Balotelli starts centrally as he did at times when he partnered Luis Suarez. Can Rodgers realistically get both of these forwards on the pitch at the same time without unbalancing the rest of the team? Will they even gel together as a partnership if they’re given the chance?

There are many question marks that this Balotelli deal presents. But every one of those question marks can also be viewed as an additional option for Brendan Rodgers. A squad with Balotelli joining Sturridge in it is better than a squad without the Italian forward. Yes, Rodgers will have a real balancing act on his hands and it will be a job and a half for him to keep the plethora of attacking players at his disposal happy and motivated but, compared to the alternative of having only Daniel Sturridge and Rickie Lambert as senior strikers this term, that doesn't seem so bad, does it?

If this transfer deal is concluded - as now seems likely - then the bottom line is that Liverpool will have added significant quality to their squad. They will have an equally talented alternative (or partner) to Daniel Sturridge in their ranks. Forget the headlines and the hyperbole that will inevitably go into overdrive if and when Mario and Brendan pose for pictures with a red scarf, what matters most is what happens on the field and Liverpool are apparently on the brink of bringing one of Europe’s very best strikers to the club.

For £4m more than Shane Long.

Lucas and Gerrard - Just Say No Brendan

Accentuate the positives, eliminate the negatives. 

That’s exactly what Liverpool did during the second half of last season. We all know that Brendan Rodgers’ team was far from perfect during 2013/14, but crucially, as the season went on he got them focussed on what they could do rather than what they couldn't. They imposed their will on games with an attacking brand of maniacal, front foot football regardless of the opposition. Whether it was top sides like Everton or Man City visiting Anfield or middling teams like United and Southampton away from home, Liverpool played their way and asked opponents ‘Can you deal with this?’. The vast majority of teams couldn't and that’s precisely why we ended the season so close to being crowned champions. 

It was curious and more than a little frustrating then, that on Sunday we abandoned that philosophy. Rodgers set his team out against Southampton in a way that didn't get the best out of his players. Two deep defensive midfielders worked great under Rafa Benitez when those lads were the mobile and tenacious Javier Mascherano alongside the serene and canny Xabi Alonso. With an ageing Steven Gerrard and an ailing Lucas Leiva though? Not so much.  

You can easily get bogged down in the numbers game: 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3, 4-1-2-3, 4-1-2-1-2, blah blah blah. People switch off in the face of that stuff and understandably so. The fluidity of modern day football renders such reductive terms as almost meaningless anyway and I have no desire to start banging on about numerical systems here. But if last season illustrated one thing it was that this particular incarnation of Liverpool does not require a babysitter for it’s captain regardless of the physical limitations being enforced upon him by mother nature and father time. Whatever the system, the reds don’t require two defensive midfielders on the pitch simultaneously these days.  

Lucas Leiva should play as a holding midfielder when Gerrard isn't available. Partnering them doesn't work. It rarely has in the past and it shows no sign of doing so in the future. It doesn't help either of them as individuals - one need only look at the amount of criticism they've taken this week, the Brazilian in particular - and it certainly doesn't help the players around them like Jordan Henderson and Philippe Coutinho as we saw on Sunday. So why go with it in the first place against the Saints? 

Well, perhaps the manager decided to pair them up in front of the back four against Southampton in an attempt to add solidity to a team that conceded too many goals last term. Maybe he saw Lucas as a more physical alternative to Joe Allen and decided that was what was required against the imposing midfield duo of Morgan Schneiderlin and Victor Wanyama. In theory, I get that. In practise though, Liverpool were no more secure with Lucas holding Gerrard’s hand than they were when the shape eventually changed and Joe Allen and Henderson played in advance of the skipper. The only team whose threat was diminished by the presence of Lucas and Gerrard appearing in tandem on Sunday was Liverpool. It meant one less body breaking forward. It meant one less attacking player offering for the ball when we had possession deep in our half. The high pressing that became the calling card of this team last season was conspicuous by it’s absence.  

I realise the season is only 90 minutes old and I'm in serious danger of exaggerating the faults with what was ultimately a crucial opening day win, but we've seen this Lucas/Gerrard approach in the past numerous times from Rodgers and it concerns me a little that a manager who has generally demonstrated an acute ability to learn from his mistakes continues to revisit this particular aberration. 

I'm certain I wasn't the only one who groaned a little when the team was released prior to kick off and my dissatisfaction wasn't just down to the absence of the immaculately coiffured Emre Can. It seems to me that almost everyone knows that pairing Gerrard and Lucas together in midfield isn't the way to go these days. It’s a negative tactic in my mind that shows we are more concerned with our flaws than with our qualities. The contrasting fortunes against Arsenal and Everton last season are perhaps the best examples of why seeing Lucas line up next to Gerrard unsettled me on Sunday.  

Last November we went to Goodison Park and played with two defensive midfielders to negate the threat Everton posed between the lines - particularly that of the inform Ross Barkley. Gerrard and Lucas never got near Everton’s young star that day. Barkley drove at and beyond them time and time again. The Blues created enough clear cut chances to win five derbies but somehow we got out of dodge with a point. In the return fixture at Anfield in January, we lined up against an Everton team who many saw as favourites on the day with only Gerrard as a deep midfielder. Plenty of people I've spoken to since have admitted that they shared my personal concern before kick off that Barkley’s athleticism would once again expose the (in theory) isolated Gerrard in our defensive third. We needn't have worried. Everton’s young star barely got a kick because Coutinho and Henderson pressed Everton’s midfield high and cut off the supply line. We decimated Everton and Gerrard strolled through the game. 

Now let’s go back to November again. The reds travelled to north London to take on Arsenal who included Santi Cazorla, Aaron Ramsey and Mesut Ozil in their side on the night. In other words, three players who excel at playing in that gap between the opposition's midfield and defence. To combat this, Rodgers again deployed the Gerrard/Lucas axis. It was no use. Arsenal tampered with us like a cat who has cornered an injured vole. Mikel Arteta ran the game from deep as no one was closing him down and Ramsey and Cazorla bagged the goals in a comfortable 2-0 win for the Gunners. Fast forward to February when Arsenal came to Anfield. They were top of the league and had the best defensive record in the country. We all know what happened next. Philippe Coutinho was put in central midfield alongside Jordan Henderson and the pair of them bullied Arteta, Jack Wilshere, Ozil and co mercilessly. Arsenal could barely muster an attack because every time they tried to play through midfield Coutinho and Henderson were in their faces. Gerrard was left alone to patrol in front of his centre halves and he barely broke into a sweat as he ran proceedings. 

It's important to acknowledge that Gerrard is no specialist defensive midfielder. He didn't grow up learning that craft and his best days were spent as an attacking force, yet Rodgers' ploy of pairing two mobile lads (whether it was Allen, Henderson or Coutinho) ahead of him in midfield meant that it barely mattered as last season progressed. The two players in front of him masked his deficiencies. You don’t need Gerrard to have legs when Jordan Henderson is running a marathon for your team every week and Coutinho or Joe Allen is snapping at the heels of the opposition like a hyperactive jack russell. Gerrard’s influence as a match winner that we relied on for so long wasn't required in the latter stages of the previous campaign. He was free to concentrate on building play from deep rather than having to put out fires all over the pitch and bang in crucial goals from open play. No donkey work for him, just the ball at his magical feet and options ahead of him. It worked spectacularly well. Again, it was accentuating the positives and hiding the negatives.  

We go to the Etihad on Monday and there is no tougher fixture that we will face domestically all season. Last time out we played brilliantly there against City on Boxing Day and came away with nothing. That could easily happen again. They’re a bloody fantastic outfit who can beat anyone on their day. My hope ahead of this match is that, regardless of the eventual outcome, Liverpool go to Manchester and do exactly what they did in that defeat last season. Lucas played the holding role alone in Gerrard’s absence that day while Henderson and Allen went toe to toe with City’s midfield in front of the Brazilian. They created chances, we created chances. It was a thrilling, open game that could have gone either way and demonstrated to the rest of the league that Liverpool could meet the best squad in the country head on and come out looking formidable, even in defeat.  

The worry this time around for me is that we redeploy the same shape we utilised against Southampton. City are great between the lines, with Silva and Nasri wreaking havoc in particular, but I hope that fact doesn't persuade Brendan to start Lucas again. I’d much rather see Jordan Henderson and Emre Can (providing he’s fit) or even Joe Allen going toe to toe with Yaya Toure and Fernando (or little Fernando who happens to be the older Fernando) as was the case in both of those wonderful games against City last season. Sure, such an approach plays to their strengths as much as it does ours and would almost guarantee goals at both ends, but the alternative is to be cautious and full of worry about what they can do while simultaneously significantly reducing our own attacking abilities.  

This Liverpool team hasn't been constructed to eliminate the threat of others by being defensive. It’s been built to attack opponents and it challenges them to be good enough to deal with what we offer. Most can’t. City are a team that can overcome us even on our better days because of their quality, but to my mind we stand a much better chance of being successful if we approach Monday’s game, and the season as a whole, in the same proactive manner we did from December onwards last season. 

It’s time for another throw down between the two best English teams of 2014. It’s time to abandon the caution of Sunday and go back to doing what we do best. 

Monday is the time to once again start accentuating the positives and eliminating the negatives. 

On a Ming and a Prayer

That is why Pepe Reina isn't here anymore.

Simon Mignolet can be criticised for many things. The continued lack of improvement in his kicking is infuriating. His unconvincing juggling of crosses jangles the nerves. The lack of presence he exudes compared to his predecessor is obvious to everyone. 

I recently wrote about how sad it was to see Reina finally leave Liverpool and mentioned in that piece how many supporters still argue that the Spaniard remains a better all round keeper than Mignolet. It’s a view that I can understand, but for this team and for this time, Mignolet, not Reina, is the right man for the reds. That shot from Morgan Schneiderlin? Pepe doesn't save that. I loved Reina, always will. But he doesn't save that. Not many keepers do. It was little more than a fingertip that resulted in the most minute deviation of the ball’s flight. It was minuscule. But it won us three points. It was massive.

It's already obvious to me that we’re going to concede plenty of goals this season. Hopefully not quite 50 like last time round, but you can be sure we will ship our fair share. Promising new full backs and the signing of Dejan Lovren aren't suddenly going to turn this team into a clean sheet machine. You could put Vincent Kompany and Pablo Zabaleta in red shirts this season and we’d still give up plenty of chances. When a 34 year old is your primary defensive midfielder and he’s occasionally ‘helped out’ by an increasingly beleaguered Lucas Leiva you’re never going to be watertight defensively. What you need then, is a keeper who wins you points when opponents inevitably carve out their opportunities. Simon Mignolet, for all his faults, does this very well.

He proved he could do it early on last season. Jon Walters and Kenwyne Jones against Stoke - 3 points. Christian Benteke at Villa Park - 6 points. Clean sheet against United - 9 out of 9. Momentum was built from those three gritty, uninspiring 1-0 wins that Mignolet starred in. That momentum ultimately carried us close to the title. The same early season pattern emerged on Sunday.

Let’s be honest - we were pretty awful for most of our opening game. Lucas and Gerrard as a partnership didn't look any better than it did when Arsenal tore us apart at the Emirates last season. Coutinho was marginalised playing as the ten in front of them. Glen Johnson continued to be Glen Johnson. Two moments of attacking quality ultimately won us the three points, but the only reason Sturridge and Sterling’s goals were decisive was because of the Belgian at the other end of the field.

Mignolet made two crucial saves in front of the Kop in a second half where Southampton largely dominated proceedings. The first was a simple chance for Steven Davis. Yes, he fired it too close to the goalkeeper and with a lack of conviction, but it still required a smart stop low down to Mignolet's right. He held on to it, too. The second save was so good that most inside the ground and even those watching on TV won’t have even realised he touched the ball until they managed to catch a slow motion replay. After a spot of pinball in the box, Schneiderlin unleashed hell with a close range half volley that sped towards the roof of the net. Mignolet somehow reacted in a matter of milliseconds. Amazingly, he made the faintest contact with the ball which then crashed off the underside of the bar and out to the relative safety of Shane Long’s head. At that moment, Mignolet punched the air, Anfield breathed a heavy sigh of relief and Southampton knew the game was up.

Raheem Sterling may have returned home with a bottle of Sky champagne for his efforts and Daniel Sturridge will grab the headlines for his goal, but it was Simon Mignolet who was Liverpool’s match winner against Southampton, just as he was on the opening day last year.

And that is why Pepe Reina isn't here anymore.

Pepe Reina - A Sad Farewell

It was a sad image that will linger long in the memory. A brooding scowl lay upon the face of a man who sat motionless in a resigned slump behind his manager. Watching the football. Not playing it. Predictably, it went viral immediately on social media. It will probably be the final defining memory of a Liverpool career that really deserves to have ended in a much more celebratory manner.

Alas, there will be no big send off. No final game in front of the Kopites whose goal he defended so diligently. Pepe Reina’s exit was a forgone conclusion and, in reality, the only real possibility on the table this summer, but it doesn’t make the manner of this any more palatable.

Yes, the Spaniard effectively signed his own death warrant when he issued that letter last year but it takes a man with far less sentimentality than I possess to not feel a little bit saddened by the eventual departure and the surrounding circumstances of arguably the best Liverpool goalkeeper since Ray Clemence. To leave after essentially trailing his team mates around the U.S.A and watching them from the stands just doesn’t sit well.

Those who will coldly proclaim that Reina’s best years are way behind him and that he showed a lack of respect to Brendan Rodgers have obvious merit to their arguments. That said, it should never be forgotten that while others were fleeing the good ship Hicks/Gillett/Hodgson, Reina stayed aboard and did his best to steer Liverpool through choppy waters. While the iconic Benitez spine of Reina, Carragher, Alonso, Mascherano, Gerrard and Torres was being torn apart, our goalkeeper remained alongside the local boys. A fat contract will no doubt have helped persuade him to stay true to the cause but it’s not like he couldn’t have made a pretty penny elsewhere during that period. After all, he was undoubtedly one of the best and most sought after keepers in Europe between 2006 and 2010.

Reina’s Liverpool career deserved more than a solitary F.A Cup, a League Cup and a European Super Cup. He was a genuinely world class performer during his first few years on Merseyside. The mistakes that slowly but surely became more frequent in his game and the year on loan in Italy have apparently eroded those memories in the minds of some. They shouldn't.  

The penalty saves in the second Chelsea semi final and the unbelievable stop in the dying moments of the 2006 Cup final against West Ham should never be overlooked or downplayed. Nor should the fact that Reina provided genuine stability between the sticks for Liverpool for the first time in decades. He redefined what we thought of goalkeepers and how they use their feet. He was a dominant force who would gladly risk lamping his own team mates (ask John Arne Riise) if it meant keeping a clean sheet. He felt Liverpool. He laughed with us - as demonstrated by his celebration so beautifully in his reaction to David N’Gog’s clinching goal against Man United in 2009. He cried with us, too. No one was left more visibly distraught by individual errors than Pepe. He set high standards and when he failed to meet them he wasn't happy. Lamentably, we saw more scowling than smiling in his later days.

Sadly, after the departure of Rafael Benitez, Reina’s game suffered. His one season under Brendan Rodgers began poorly and, despite some improvement in the second half of that campaign, his new manager brought Simon Mignolet in to challenge/replace the Spaniard depending on whose account you believe.

Support for Reina unsurprisingly remains strong among certain sections of the Liverpool fanbase. Some will argue until they’re blue in the face that when he does eventually depart for good this summer - Bayern Munich have reportedly had a bid accepted for his services today (August 5th) - Liverpool will be ridding themselves of the best keeper on their books.

And yet, while those fans will continue to argue the case that Reina was Liverpool’s true number one to the last, plenty of others will view his seemingly imminent transfer as a logical and justified move. Ridding the club of huge wages and an ageing player who hasn’t impressed in the Premier League for a long time while also receiving a fee of any kind will be seen as good business. The debate will likely rage on well into next season and possibly beyond.

Whichever side of the Mignolet/Reina argument you come down on, memories like Cardiff ‘06 and Chelsea in ‘07 should never be forgotten. Neither should the commitment and years of consistency and stability that Pepe Reina gave to this football club.

Personally, I shall try my hardest to erase that picture of Reina’s glum face that was sent around the world in seconds and instead remember the good times he contributed heavily to during his years at Liverpool. Fortunately, there are many to choose from.

Sky Go is gone (At least for Xbox users)

Are you someone who watches Sky television via your Xbox 360? Well, if you are you probably aren’t any more.

The Sky Go free app that allows Sky customers to use two devices such as iPads, iPhones and games consoles has now been taken away from Xbox 360 users. The option to watch Sky through the console still exists but it now requires users to sign up to Sky Go Extra for an additional price of £5 per month on top your existing Sky bill. The Sky Go app is still available free of charge on iPad and various other devices but for whatever reason Sky have deemed it necessary to revoke the free app from Xbox 360 consoles.

Speaking from personal experience as someone who uses the Sky app regularly on the console, this is somewhat of an annoyance. I was only alerted to the changes while unsuccessfully trying to watch Sky Sports on Wednesday night. A quick search on the internet led me to the disappointing information that I really didn’t want to see: No more free Sky Go on Xbox.

The move to make Sky Go a paid service hardly come as a shock, but the fact that the app remains free on other mediums seems perplexing.

Plenty of people that I know myself use the accounts of family members or friends to utilise Sky Go free of charge through their own devices, therefore eliminating the need to personally subscribe to Sky at all. This always seemed to me like something Sky would crack down on eventually and the only surprising part of this news is that Sky Go remains free of charge on tablets and phones. This leaves people who previously used the service through an Xbox free of charge with two options:

1) Either pay Sky £60 per year for a service that was free until a few days ago to keep watching or;

2) Buy a cable to hook up a device that still has the free Sky Go app installed to link with their television for a one off fee of around £20.

Seems like a no brainer to me.