LIVERPOOL 4, DORTMUND 3 : FIVE POINTS WE LEARNED FROM THAT NIGHT (Part One)

Hiya, it’s been days since the moonstruck Thursday night at Anfield. It was an ecstatic night indeed, considering there were little – if not zero –people who genuinely thought we didn’t stand any chance to play Dortmund, notwithstanding the fact we had advantage from our first outing and we played at Anfield that day.  Eat a dick humble pie, we won, Liverpool  4 Dortmund 3.

So here i am, trying to help mop the thick dust and remove spiderwebs from our  blog, trying to be relevant again by writing my FIRST ORIGINAL PIECE since whenever fuck in the 2015. The moment’s fitting, we had some crazy moment last Thursday, so why not to make the writing out of that? Not a bad timing at all for the beginning of my semi-comeback, let me start.

I’ve made assessment from that night, five things that you might notice, or that you might don’t – five things that could move your thoughts, or things that only have you yawning there and muttering “Yeah, so?. Expect no tactical-savvy whatsoever though, it’s only a light-weight piece i made, you may take this in disdain or at the very least – just leave it, it’s just waste of characters i put on internet - nothing but a very few of readers beckons, and my best guess is that you’re likely on your toilet – taking a dump – while reading this. Though this provides you a much better reading than ingredients list at the back of your shampoo bottle.

Ehm, without further ado, here are five things you can take from that night vs Dortmund :

1.      
    1. Goals down? Chill, We Got This

We’ve been watching much of Klopp’s Liverpool games, haven’t we? How many of them –are  the moment we were goal(s) down- and we came out  to save the day? Say some - Kazan, Chelsea, Saints in League Cup. A draw, a win, a spectacular win, those are only small chunks of them. 

The most iconic one –so far- has to be 5-4 at Norwich, we were two goals down for first 60 minutes and we came out as victors in the end. This one too,  giving away two goals for first 45, showing a sign of life, bounced back, conceded again, before we finally ended them by scoring three more goals and thankfully, no more concedings – final score : Liverpool 4, Dortmund 3.

Klopp has got that right, the “doubters to believers” thing really worked its charm, message delivered.  So, we may now calm the moaning whenever we goal(s) down, cos maybe it won’t be going really, really bad in the end.

Though so far Watford on December has been the exception, but look – expect everyone in Reds is on their good health, we don’t play Martin Skrtel  at defence, and our goalkeeper is not Adam fucking Bogdan – we’ll likely be just fine, cool.

We’ve shown elite mentality, chief.

2.  The James Milner Cases

2.1 He’s Shit at Playing as CM

Well, who would’ve thought?  James Milner is –according to some – a half-decent player who’s very half-decent at playing on his half-decent position that is as a right-sided midfielder.

That day he played at the centre of the park. How awful was it? Those who actually watched the game would get why.

His passing was erratic, his locomotion is bang average, he –at the most times- treated the ball as if he kicked a fucking active grenade. Hardly not CM materials, are they?

It doesn’t need to take an expert view to conclude that he’s not built to play as CM. I, who is on my  early adulthood, and have received an opinion before on why I shouldn’t be giving pundit-like views about football because of my ANIME enthusiasm(seriously i don’t get the correlation to be honest, and i must say @wpdnn won’t be liking this at all) – can conclude that James Milner is never a central midfielder type of a midfield player.

Though I admit, he went gradually better when we brought Joe Allen on – switching to three-man midfield – so there’s a hope that  Jimmy Milly could fare much better as CM if we swing that way. Not in two-man, but in a three-man instead.

2.2 James Milner? More Like Hamez Milrez, Amirite?

Ah, can’t honestly think the better words to start this section. But no kidding, according to stats James Milner is our most creative player by the number of end products he created (goals & assists) : 7 goals 12 assists.

And fact has it that he holds the most number of assists with 9 as for a player from Premier League. One of the most as for players among the top five leagues in 2016. Above him? Of course those football demigods from La Liga.

Just in case you’re going to use stats as agenda to support/against certain player, for Milner’s case – that works like a double-edged sword.

3. Divock Masterclass

Seriously i’d like to always praise this fella, he’s still at his 20 but you can see on how he’s been revelation so far. I remember the”Fuck us, we signed someone wrong again”  feel upon knowing that he was on –according to respectable French football source, L’Equipe- one of the worst players in the 2014/15 Ligue 1 season and he was upfront for that “Worst XI of The Year”.

I don’t think you need me to summarize how he was under Brendan Rodgers, for a man who was once regarded as youngster’s best friend, you might wonder why The Broge didn’t seem interested  at  developing him in the first place – you saw that-day Divock liked to wandering at no man’s land of opposition’s defence, couldn’t even get near the 12-yard box, nothing more but a pace merchant.

But, as an attacking player and is only in your 20, your career isn’t over yet just because you don’t dance past five players and score a rabona flick, setting the new Nostradamus-esque standard to either decide whether someone’s successful enough as a young footballing talent or the probability of success in the future because of someone’s extraordinary on his 20 or less (ps : The 20 year-old Gareth Bale played left-back and fought the position with Assou-Ekotto at Spurs). Lionel Messi is something else. Fuck him for being too good in football, fuck him for being such a dick of a role model for that, seriously.  (Hey, i’d like to credit @Kolology for this)

Young Div slowly proves us why we’ve been wrong of chatting shit about him, safe to say he’s been having the last laugh.  

 He didn’t –of course- dance past defence of Martin Skrtel and left Virgil van Dijk leg-twisted in space of weeks on September to prove the world football that he’s proper masterclass. He only made a mockery out of everyone’s heartthrob of a centre-back – a charming prince in a German-manufactured automobile- Mats Julian Hummels, for like twice – in both fixtures.

Saying he’s GOAT, worldie and other terms that can be considered as eulogisations because of that is a bit too early, though I believe he’s destined for something big in the future (and I don’t mean his muscle-mass nor is the amount of testosterone he spouts every week in every gameday).

Klopp genuinely rates him, you may have heard the story on how he –during his Dortmund days- worked his best to bring him to Westfalenstadion long before the scouting guys from LFC heard of Young Div. But he thought he was too pricey as a teen so he signed Ciro Immobile instead, and the signing of stat-padding Italian contributed to his nightmare penultimate season at BVB and eventually led him to resignation in 2015. Well, blessing in disguise.

It’s nice to see a manager who gives such a huge confidence to a young player, and he doesn’t even need to play that young attacking talent at right-fucking-wingback to prove him what he’s made of. Like Klopp once said, we were going to have loads of fun seeing Young Div plays.

Love Divock, hate bastards.

(Well, I genuinely don’t know this could be an over 1000-word piece, there are still two parts more but I think i’d keep them for its second part. See you later folks!)

Written by : @IndoLiverpoolfc

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Review West-Ham United V Liverpool FC: Momo Diame dan Jordan Henderson

Kemenangan beruntun pertama musim ini berhasil kita raih dengan sebuah gaya, kemenangan come back setelah sempat tertinggal walaupun sempat unggul duluan karena gol luar biasa dari Glen Johnson dan dibalap oleh tim rugby London yang menurut saya dengan Stoke City semestinya bermain di liga rugby daripada di liga sepakbola. Well, it was an effective way to terrorizing our defender for an hour more, tidak, tidak setelah seorang monster yang awalnya berjibaku dengan Raheem Sterling mengalami cedera hamstring, Momo Diame.

Untuk sebagian orang yang mengukuti perkembangan jendela transfer window Juli-Agustus sebelum Kenny Dalglish keluar pasti pernah mendengar bahwa Liverpool pernah mengejar pemain yang di dapat West-Ham dari Wigan secara gratis ini. Dengan melihat bagaimana ia memperlakukan Joe Allen, Lucas Leiva dan Steven Gerrard dengan semena-mena sepanjang masa permainannya. And It could be very disrespectful jika saya mengatakan bahwa tindakan Raheem yang hendak melindungi adalah sebuah keuntungan besar yang kita dapat karena itu adalah awal sebuah bencana bagi seseorang, tapi ketika itu awal dari 3 poin yang berharga saya kira itu masih dalam batas wajar.

James Tomkins yang sejatinya adalah seorang bek tengah tidak mampu menggantikan peran Diame, lalu Joe Cole yang sejak masuk di caci maki karena lebih sering menghabiskan waktu di meja rumah sakit daripada berkontribusi dilapangan meneruskan umpan terobosan Raheem yang setelah melakukan umpan-umpan mudah dengan Downing melihat pergerakan Joe yang jelas terlambat ditutup oleh Wiston Reid maupun James Collins terlebih lagi oleh James Tomkins yang membiarkan lubang menganga di depannya terbuka. Karena, Jonjo Shelvey yang menurut saya bermain baik walaupun out position di gol terakhir memperlihatkan bagaimana anak muda memperagakan dummy running di goal kedua dimana ada 3 orang pemain yang memusatkan perhatiannya kepada ia seorang.

Cara Brendan Rodgers menarik Lucas Leiva juga perlu diberi kredit besar, kenapa? Karena West-Ham dengan gaya permainan mereka yang tidak pernah menyerang direct kedaerah Lucas mengakibatkan kehadiran Lucas disana sedikit menjadi kurang efektif selain karena kurangnya tekanan di daerah dan bermain kurang menyerang. Brendan menarik keluar Lucas diganti dengan Jordan Henderson pada menit 71, membuat Allen kembali bermain sebagai jangkar di depan Skrtel - Agger, Jordan lebih menyerang dari Lucas dan itu benar, sebuah umpan tariknya mampu membuat Shelvey dan Collins berjibaku lalu membuat gol bunuh diri lob yang luar biasa membuat kita kembali melompat membuka mata dan kembali bernyanyi. Menit 73, Diame mengalami cedera dan gaya rugby yang lebih membuat sibuk Skrtel-Agger dan Pepe Reina jadi tersumbat karena tidak ada lagi monster yang berjaga di area sekitar penalty box kita, saat itulah baru kita bisa bermain dengan irama sendiri, menjadi diri sendiri. Apa hasilnya? Dihalaman pertama klasemen dan berjarak hanya 4 poin dari tetangga kita si Biru.

Hal positif lain yang mampu kita ambil dari kemenangan ini adalah pertama-tama pemain-pemain muda kita sekarang ditambah Joe Cole mempunyai mental yang pas untuk terus maju meraih 3 poin kedepannya. Dan poin kedua yang menjadi wabah kritikan ataupun ejekan diluar sana yang sampai ke telinga saya bahwa kita pasti tidak akan bisa berbuat apa-apa tanpa Luis Suarez pun bisa kita bantah.

And last but not least, we can't score and win without Suarez they said, ah, how ironic.

@indoliverpoolfc

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