With Nando now having finally left the building, it seems as if The Streetmap is trying to follow him out of the door as quickly as possible.
Personally, I think this is a great shame but if the relationship between him and Rafa is poor then there is not much you can do than let the player go. I just hope he goes to Lyon and shows us all what he’s capable of. Still, he will leave with winners medals for the European Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the FA Cup , so it’s not as if he’ll leave Anfield with any sense of failure. Better players than him have left Anfield with nothing to show for it, so I think he’ll be relatively pleased with his “legacy”, for want of a better word. At least he wont be remembered in the same bracket as Dundee and Meijer, unlike a certain Mr. Morientes.
There is still the chance that he’ll stay but I think that’s as minute a chance as any in the history of professional sport. So good luck for the future Djib, you deserved more from your time with us but some things just aren’t meant to be.
Monthly Archive for May, 2006
There was one thing I forgot in my prediction before the FA Cup final. That is that it was a final and whenever we get to them, we never seem to be able to win them with either comfort or ease.
It’s a credit to West Ham that I truly didn’t believe we’d one the cup until Jose “The Hood” Reina managed to save Anton Ferdinand’s penalty. If Marlon Harewood had been able to stand properly, then the Hammers would be blowing more bubbles than Michael Jackson. As a red, I would argue that West Ham got very lucky. An Own Goal; a perfectly legal goal that was wrongly ajudged offside; a goalkeeping error and a mishit cross that managed to find it’s way into the back of the net. I’m not trying to make excuses (for god sakes, we’ve won the thing) but at the same time, you have to ask yourselves one thing.
No updates this week, mainly due to the lack of real LFC news, but next week will be the First Annual TSA Season Review. I was going to do that this week but due to a quickly taken editorial decision (I’m lazy) I decided that this should be done the week after the last competitive game of the season.
That and I’m lazy. Anyway, look forward to that next week.
Also coming up soon will be far more games and music reviews than previously posted. Got alot I want to get written so plan on getting that done before the World Cup starts. There is a four week gap between the end of the season (today) and the start of “Footballs Greatest Tournament”, so the plan is to get a dozen or so reviews done in that time.
As for “Footballs Greatest Tournament”, the policy of this blog towards that event is very simple. Any game that features a Liverpool player, either present or future, will get written about here. Which should mean the games featuring Spain and England at the very least.
So it wasn’t meant to be. Not that I’m really surprised. Charlton have been a thorn in our side all season. If we hadn’t lost to them at The Valley, then we might have pipped Man Ure to second regardless of the result today, though it’s pointless going too far down that road because you could spend your whole life doing it.
What if we’d taken more than one point against Charlton? What if Thomas Myhre (a former Everton player, no less) hadn’t had the game of his life and not saved practically every shot hit in his direction?
What if Xavi Alonso hadn’t been given the most scandalous red card of the season against Arsenal at Highbury? Would we have gone on to win the game against what was then, a very fragile Arsenal side.
What if we’d made a better start to the season? If we’d won our early season games against Spurs, Man Ure and Boro that would have been 6 more points we’d have claimed on Chelsea.
So, Rayne Wooney has picked up the injury that no-one wanted him to. Despite playing for Man Ure, I must admit that for England as least, we are going to miss him. It’s not like we are Brazil and we have an abundance of talent in his position.
Put it this way. The Brazilians lose Kaka, they replace him with Ronaldinho; we lose Rooney, we replace him with Joe Cole.
Moving on in many different senses
With one season put to bed, another one slowly starts to reveal itself. Frankly the longer it takes to get here, the better. Having spent 10 months following my team through thick and (very ocassional) thin this past year, I’ll be glad of the break. and at least this summer I should get one.
Last year, there was barely 7 weeks between us winning in Istanbul and the new season starting. Even with an FA Cup final appearance extending matters by a week, there is at least a guaranteed three month break from all things LFC related this time around. Well, that’s the idea anyway.
Already the planning for next season is taking shape and with the news that Fernando has left for Rafa’s old managing ground, the busy close season has got finally got started. In a way, it’s no great surprise and with us picking up about £3M more than I estimated for him, the right option has been taken. Nando now has to join the likes of Erik Meijer and Sean Dundee as great Anfield striking failures, which is not something I thought I’d be writing about him when he joined or indeed left the club.