We all know that luck and fortune has to smile on a certain team for them to win a title, especially in a tight race. I was thinking that more than a few lucky stars have aligned for us this season. I rank the Top Ten strokes of luck thus: 1- Real and Barca too consumed by Bale and Neymar to make an offer for a sulking Suarez during summer 2- Ferguson retiring and United's wheels unexpectedly coming off their title hunt thanks in part to their clueless new driver 3- Wenger's parsimony in keeping his club's 150 millions nice, warm and idle in their bank account, rather than splashing proper for Suarez or another good striker. 4- Chelsea and City applying new personnel and visions, not being quite settled, operating short of potential 5- No Europa league to mess our focus 6- More than nicely surviving via 1-0 wins and ugly 5-3-2 formations during Suarez's suspension 7- Bar Sturridge, attacking players not suffering injuries 8- Lucas's injury upon Gerrard's return from injury; hence accomodating Gerrard in a better role for him at this stage of his career 9- 93d minute penalty at Craven Cottage 10- Tottenham's bungled team and clueless form cooperating to give us a huge statement win Stars aligning, but we may have to do the last bit ourselves. I think we can win it, as we've already been given a nice inspiring lift by a smiling fortune. The beauty is, even if we don't win it outright, 3d place would make everyone extatic nonetheless, whilst 4th place gets a big thumbs up. We'll nick it though
Suarez getting banned in a season when we were rebuilding anyway, so the hype machine moved on to Bale who moved to Real. The only other Suarez bid coming from Wenger whose ridiculous penny pinching sabotaged themselves and let Henry be the hero.
We're the only team that has cruised near their potential. Arsenal: injuries to Ramsay and Walcott ravaged them. City: weirdly inconsistent away form esp in the first half of the season Chelsea: Mourinho tinkering unsucessfully until he decided to go back to basics and park his bus. Spurs: United:
The run in will be interesting we may slip up at some point but so will those around us, our reaction to that slip up may well be the decider.
My stars today say I'm going to be a league winner....my fantasy form's gone to **** and we all know who's going to win the prediction league so it must mean the Reds are winning the Prem
Our bad moments in the league: Losing at Arsenal Drawing at 10 men Newcastle Losing at Hull Losing two in a row at City and Chelsea Drawing at home with Villa Drawing at WBA All of them were followed by big wins and some very emphatic showings. Responding like that to bad moments was key. Shows that lessons were learned. Bodes well too.
arsenal game was got tactically wrong. Newcastle game came right after an international game but we should haven been a ot better I would add drawinf away to sanwsea to this I think losing two in a row away to top 2 was close and disappointing as v cheslea we woz ref robbed but i would't put it as a bad moment Drawing to villa was very bad Away to west brom? a lot of sides have done that. I think think there are more factors than simply following other performances.
Well, it shows that we did learn our lessons. Losing at Arsenal - We discarded the 3CB formation after that. Drawing at 10 men Newcastle - That convinced Rodgers to look to Sterling again this year. Losing at Hull - That reminded Rodgers of Coutinho's importance and Moses's lacklustreness. Losing two in a row at City and Chelsea - The only lesson here was self-belief, though it may have caused Allen's last starting appearance for a while as Rodgers moved to two in CM - a system which would result later in our smashing counterattacking wins against Everton and Arsenal. Drawing at home with Villa - Must have convinced Rodgers that Gerrard needs the tracking back of Hendo & Co if he is to succeed in the DM role. Drawing at WBA - Along with the lucky win at Fulham, it emphasised our latest lesson: that on the road we are better off with an extra CM in Allen. Now, hopefully there are no more major lessons to be learned and we can cruise through.
I've got issues with most of those points to be honest. We didn't want to sell Suarez to Wenger, and weren't going to, no matter what. They made a £40m bid and it failed so they backed off. Good, strong leadership and management from the boardroom, nothing to do with luck. Not quite sure how Man City & Chelsea changing managers makes us lucky. Chelsea had 55 pts after 30 games last season, this season they have 66. Man City had 56 points after 27 games last season, this season they have 60. We started well because we had a fantastic striker to cover for Suarez when he was out and had bought a brilliant shot stopper in the summer who won us a lot of points with saves he was bought to make. More good management from Rodgers, not luck. Avoiding injuries isn't really luck. Its just a matter of watching after your players and making sure they aren't tired and are given enough rest to avoid injuries. Gerrard was played in the holding role at Stoke with Lucas further forward and also against Aston Villa, with Lucas on the bench, before his injury. Plus Gerrard & Rodgers have spoken publicly about how he saw Gerrard's future in a deeper midfield role. We've been winning penalties all season due to our willingness to get men into the box and our players having the confidence to make defenders uncomfortable with their movement in the box so in what way is winning a legitimate penalty lucky? And Tottenham were unbeaten in 5 going into our game. And they only lost 1 out of 7 after our game. We are doing really well and we have been no more lucky than Man City, Chelsea & Arsenal this season.
As for the stars aligning. Last night, on my way home from work, I bumped into a very dear old friend who actually got me starting to attend matches at Anfield back in the early 80's - and the last time we went out together was the 1996 Cup Final. The first thing he said to me was "David Moyes is a football genius" So if that's not an omen, I don't know what is
Worthy of a near-religious type discussion this divergence of opinions on luck. A mate of mine, quite well-off in the finance game, dislikes to attribute things to good fortune - he loves using his preferred expression "grabbing the opportunity" or its opposite "had it coming" even in occasions such as winning at gambling or being killed by a lighting bolt. "Had it coming, why should he be outside in a thunderstorm?" There's a significant element of luck in all my points I believe. Whether luck is the minor element and managing risk and opportunity is the majority - that is up for discussion. I do believe Suarez would have been determined to leave if Real or Barca made a good offer, and would have been allowed to. Or if Arsenal bid 65M. I believe City and Chelsea after spending 100M each have a higher potential than currently showing. I also believe the penalty on the 93d minute was due to Reither's brainfart more than anything. Also, I've said elsewhere that Gerrard and Lucas cannot co-exist. At Stoke we were all over the place and allowed them to score three.
the last time we won the league the berlin wall was coming down this time the russians are putting up a wall in Crimea its in the stars I tells ya
and ding dong TWID... T'is the first season after her death... we've been released from her spell, cast upon us in the fall of 1990 when she left office. Superstitious starry-eyed monkeys the lot of us .
I'll sort the Corrie posts. [video=youtube;ZNV_Hh5ZWaE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNV_Hh5ZWaE[/video]
