Liverpool must get over being Klopped
WHAT is happening to the mighty Reds? After playing stunning attacking football in the first half of the season, they have fallen flat over the past month.
While leaking goals, they managed to outscore opponents, contributing to their exciting brand of football. Since they beat fellow title rivals Manchester City at the end of last year, they have won only one of their last eight matches, narrowly defeating Plymouth.
A dreadful January saw them dumped out of the FA Cup and League Cup, both at home. Add a surprising loss to bottom side Swansea in the league and that’s three home losses in a row, the first time this has happened since October 2012. The cup competitions were their best hope of silverware this season and now that is a thing of the past.
The return to full fitness of Philippe Coutinho and the early return from Afcon of Senegalese star Sadio Mane (Liverpool will send a private jet to pick him up) should give them a boost for the balance of the season. The statistics show that with Mane in the team, Liverpool score an average of 2.6 goals a match and have a win record of 74%. Without him, they average only 1 goal a game with a win record of only 30%.
Personally, I think they should revert to two central midfielders (not three as in recent games). They need to again hound opponents as a unit, and their build-up must be faster with crisper, firsttime passes.
Yesterday’s clash with high-flying Chelsea at Anfield was the ideal opportunity to put their recent woes aside and kick-start their faltering season. The result of that match was not available at the time of going to print.
Their main target at the start of the season was a top four finish and that is still within their grasp.
The big guns made light work of their opponents in the fourth round of the FA Cup with most of them achieving emphatic victories. Tottenham Hotspurs provided the most excitement, coming back from the dead to win a seven-goal thriller against Wycombe Wanderers, the winning goal scored deep into injury time.
Blemish
Usain Bolt’s “triple triple” record has been blemished. Possibly the greatest athlete of our generation returned his 100m relay gold medal won in Beijing in 2008 after his Jamaican teammate, Nesta Carter, was found guilty of using a banned substance.
Before this incident, Bolt won gold in the 100m and 200m individual races and 100m rely in the Beijing, London and Rio Olympic games. His legacy and reputation are still intact and he has taken the ruling in his stride. Unfortunately, the “double triple and double” does not have the same gratifying ring as the “triple triple”.
The Australian Open Tennis tournament organisers would have been ecstatic with the way the line-up for both the men’s and women’s finals played out. You could not have scripted a better pairing of Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal and sisters Serena and Venus Williams battling for the women’s honours.
It was a classic in the true sense of the word, with all four champions over 30 years old and having won an incredible 60 Grand Slams between them. The Grand Slam or major tennis tournaments consist of the Australian and US Opens on the hard courts, the French Open on clay and Wimbledon on grass.
In the first match, Serena won her 23rd Grand Slam and overtook Steffi Graf as the leading Grand Slam winner in the open era. On Sunday, Federer won his 18th Grand Slam, overcoming his arch-nemesis Nadal in an epic five-set thriller. Both men rolled back the years and confirmed why their rivalry is the greatest in tennis history and sport in general.
You could see the relief and joy in Federer’s face as he shed tears at the end of the match. His last Grand Slam victory was in 2012 and many tennis enthusiasts would not have given him much chance of adding another title. As many of you may know, Federer’s mother was born is South Africa, and I am sure nobody will begrudge us if we rewrite the history books to reflect “the greatest tennis player in the history of the game, Roger Federer from South Africa/Switzerland”.