火箭的原罪 by zeus

http://zeusleaveolympus.blogspot.com/2014/11/blog-post_23.html

       既然已經說了是原罪，所以也不能做什麼，寫出來自己爽而已，順便讓火箭死得瞑目一點。

            505大選後，火箭發現其在華人票的收割已經到了頂端，為了擴大其政治版圖，唯有開發新市場，而進攻馬來選票就是他們這兩年來努力上演許多馬騮戲的原因。但豬哥身為火箭的特務黨員，在公負責幫火箭在網上軍情刺探，在私也努力泡馬來妹紙騙選票，覺得有必要讓火箭諸公們知道，他們有一些永遠也解決不了的短板。

            第一是新加坡的人民行動黨。據說小新當年獨立，馬來亞支部決定和母體分裂，成立本土派的行動黨，於是有了今天的火箭。我對民主行動黨的歷史不熟悉，講錯莫怪 \(>  <) 。而新加坡卻是本地馬來人心中永遠的痛。近來有人喜歡把本地馬來人和中華膠crossover橫向比較，來研究這兩者在歇斯底里時的相似度。

            如果用中華膠的比喻來說的話，在馬來人的世界裡，新加坡就是他們的“釣魚台”。馬來亞痛失新加坡，是他們永遠的痛。這造成他們認為大馬的火箭是新加坡擺在大馬的特洛伊木馬，待機奪權。火箭奪權後，就會和新加坡的李家王朝聯合，發動偉大的“新加坡回歸祖國”大馬的計劃，再建立由華人控制的新馬來西亞。非常精彩的一個科幻故事。

            其二是火箭的社會主義背景。你說馬來人笨也好，什麼都好，因為他們會把社會主義和共產主義聯想在一起，這也是一個擺脫不了的原罪。共產主義在馬來選民裡是一個超級票房毒藥，我深入分析後，發現原因有三。

        第一個就是大家都已經知道了的原因，馬共以前在大馬的恐怖活動。畢竟這個傷害還是很大的，加上那時陣亡的警察大部分都是馬來人。當然，如果你把歷史再拉前一點，獨立前的左翼運動史等，會發現許多馬來人也是左翼運動的支持者。可惜，鄉民不是醬想，也沒有看醬遠。但馬共再壞蛋再殘暴，畢竟已經是過去的記憶，就像我們年輕的不可能像膠叔那樣莫名其妙地去恨日本人。但接下來的兩個原因，我覺得在當下的年輕馬來人心中，殺傷力更大。

            第二就是馬克思對宗教持批判的態度，讓傾向唯物主義無神論的共產主義，不可能被什麼都感謝主的本地馬來人接受。第三個原因是馬克思是猶太人。本地馬來人對猶太人的態度，你懂的。馬來社會一直認為，邪惡的猶太人在這個世界上製造了許多違反回教教義的理論，來把全人類引入歧途。如意識形態的共產主義，或經濟上的信貸貨幣制度，或自由思想的無神論、LGBT人權大於宗教等邪惡思想，都是要被拒絕的。所以馬來人認為：猶太人馬克思製造的共產主義，演變成社會主義，再被火箭接納成為建黨政綱，是不能被接受的。

            其三火箭的原罪是領導層的離地。據說深得林伯伯歡心與信任的東哥，認為吸納一些馬來人如黛安娜美眉，就是攻進馬來市場的戰略槓槓，然後就神馬典範轉移或藍海策略的。根據我多年潛伏的經驗，加上我母狗心理學在業餘界的權威，我認為火箭接納的那些馬來人，並不是能打進馬來社會的戰略高地。

            火箭喜歡玩專業人士，當年在308時打出的專業人士牌，成功把馬華民政殺到片甲不留。但醫生、律師這些專業人士，只能在見虎燒香的華人豬社會發酵，在馬來社會，效果不大。講到難聽點，馬來社會裡有種反精英的毒撚心理。黛安娜美眉代表的是高級馬來人，沒錯，包裝上看起來是專業開明的馬來人加入火箭，可以激起馬來社會對火箭的信任。可是大馬的政治氣候，加上選區劃分不公平，永遠都是鄉下包圍城市。不管黛安娜美眉多麼開明，馬來kampung裡的村民，想法還是不一樣的。“民風淳樸”的鄉下馬來人，永遠喜歡親自下場（turun padang），和他們一起gotong royong的領袖。這也是為什麼當年雞哥的爸爸，可以在當年收服各地諸侯和選票。專業人士的馬來人，對在鄉下的馬來人，是沒有親和感的。

            當年千禧年的美國總統選舉，是小布什對壘阿格爾。阿格爾雄辯滔滔，又是環保大神，形像上完爆傻頭傻腦的牛仔小布什。但一個美國老嫗被訪問她會投誰時，她說會投布什。原因是阿格爾樣子太聰明了，不知道他會瞞著我們做什麼壞事，還是投給看起來笨蛋的小布什安全一點。

        可惜火箭看不到這個核心問題，只會一直問為何豬頭般的巫統領導人繼續受到馬來社會的愛戴。當火箭繼續擺出一個專業人士的團隊，吸引馬來社會裡的精英入黨，只會越把馬來社會帶往新加坡那種精英團隊的恐怖幻想中，最後只是越搞越慘，馬來選票拿不到，連被他們自認為囊中物的華人選票也失去。下屆大選，火箭大敗時，不妨回來我這裡挖墳，讀回這一篇文章，才知道當年有特務黨員已經預言過了。

            Tokong，哥只能幫你到這裡了，接下來看你們的造化了。你也不要假假，檳城CM的位子，玩夠兩屆就好滾了，至少留下一個首長不連任超過2屆的美好傳統吧～

Why Liverpool Never Win the League By Paul Tomkins.

http://tomkinstimes.com/2014/11/why-liverpool-never-win-the-league/

One thing people always tell me is that Liverpool ‘won’t win the league with X manager’. Ten years ago I’d have gone along with this, as I still thought it football was all about having the right manager. But over the past decade it has been clear to me that Liverpool won’t win the league with any manager. I’ve written that before, but I’ve never had as much proof as I’ll lay out here. (And I’m always looking for better ways to explain it.)

The fact that Brendan Rodgers came close last season only raised the spectre of a 19th league title, and a 25-year wait. We got excited. But I believe that in this article I offer proof that Liverpool winning the title is far more difficult than when United ended their 26-year wait in 1993, or when Arsene Wenger ruled English football with his great Arsenal side. At the start of every season, no one should ever mention Liverpool winning the title as some kind of obvious possibility, just as no one mentions Nottingham Forest winning a third European Cup (although mainly because they never qualify for it anymore).

I touched upon this last week, but it’s worth making it crystal clear. Until FFP really bites, and until Liverpool have a bigger stadium, then the money the club spends on transfers will never be enough. You cannot blame FSG for living within the club’s means, and even then, they are dangerously close to the 70% mark in terms of wages-to-turnover. Years of neglect, and falling behind rich oligarchs, has left the Reds stranded. When the Premier League began, Liverpool were the richest club. By 2005 they weren’t even half as rich as the richest club (based on squad costs). Now they have the 5th-most expensive squad.

I find it hard to even discuss football with people who don’t know the kind of things contained within this article; the kind of things I’ve been discussing for years now. Do Spurs fans say “we’ll never win the league with this manager”? They could have Pep Guardiola and they still wouldn’t. Do Everton fans still think they stand a remote chance of what Howard Kendall gave them? They could have the ghost of Dixie Dean and they still wouldn’t. Do Aston Villa fans think it’s still 1981?

Liverpool won lots of titles when football was the way it was; and then football changed. As they say, timing is everything.

The modern way.

Now, last season I said there was no way Liverpool could win the league, even when they led the table at halfway, and yet they nearly did. But ultimately the reason I said they wouldn’t was probably behind the failure; i.e. City had a massive squad with great depth, and Liverpool had a smaller squad, with cheaper players, and couldn’t replace key men. Once Jordan Henderson was injured there was no one close to his level (as it was then) to put in. It could have been Suarez or Sturridge who got injured or suspended in the run-in, and the lack of depth would have been exposed. (Oh, and City had the experience of having been there and done it.) You can talk about bad defending and slips by players, but great attacking got Liverpool into a position that was above expectations.

The fact is, since Roman Abramovich arrived in England – and allowing for one season of investment before it really kicked into gear – only three clubs have stood a chance of winning the title, based on our TPI model. Those three clubs are Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City. Indeed, between 2005 and 2010 there were only two clubs with the wherewithal, and those were Chelsea and United. City became ‘possibilities’ in 2011 according to our TPI model, and guess which three clubs have won all of the titles in the past 10 seasons?

For the purposes of this piece I’ve updated the graph from last week, and added another, to make it apparent how teams win the league. And it’s crystal clear that Liverpool and Arsenal are mere also-rans. At first glance the graphs may seem complicated, but take a moment to let the information sink in. I’ll go on to explain what it all means.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

The yellow dots represent the title winners. If you look at Manchester United in 1993, you can see that they had the most expensive £XI (the £XI is the 38-game average cost of the starting line ups, after inflation is applied. All teams are shown in 2014 money.) At this time, teams contained more ‘free’ homegrown players – so even when converted to 2014 money the teams were cheaper – but even though United had the costlier £XI, Liverpool’s squad was more expensive; indeed, the most expensive in the land at the time. (Thanks, Graeme: both Riley for creating TPI with me, and Souness, in irony, for such bad spending.)

The costliest squad will provide the title-winners roughly one-third of the time. The costliest £XI will provide the title-winners half the time. In 1993, compared with Liverpool, United had more of its expenditure in the team, less on the bench (or injured). We call the £XI the “Utilisation”: how much of the spending ended up on the pitch.

However, for the first eleven Premier League seasons the differences in squad and £XI costs were fairly minimal; it was an era when there was no clear financial heavyweight miles ahead of the rest.

When Blackburn – the Man City of that era – won the title in 1995 they also had the costliest £XI, but like United, not the costliest squad. Even so, the cost issues were less marked than they are now; theoretically the richest four clubs, along with Newcastle (who aren’t on the graph) could claim to have a fighting chance. It’s a neat cluster, with teams interchanging ranking positions all the time.

When Arsene Wenger won his first title in 1998, Arsenal also had the costliest £XI. But it was close. Back then, everything was close.

The Title Zone

If you look at the two graphs, there is something I’ll call the Title Zone, shaded in green. Since Arsenal won the title in 2004, no one outside of this zone – either in terms of squad cost or the average paid for the XIs – has won the title. Liverpool got vaguely close to entering the zone in 2012, but at no point before or after were they even close. Even in 2012 they were still a staggering £80m adrift in terms of the average cost of the XI after inflation is applied (£XI). In other words, they were still a third of the money short.

You can see Manchester City building up from 2007 onwards, with real acceleration from 2008, and they only won their first title after two years in the Title Zone. Their squad got a fraction cheaper in that second year, but their £XI actually rose by a decent amount. For whatever reason, they were getting more of their expensive purchases on the pitch.

If you do not have an £XI in the Title Zone, or a squad cost (again, after inflation is applied) in the Title Zone, you won’t win the title. That may sound simple, but that’s how it works. Or at least, how it’s worked for the past 10 seasons, and how it appears to be working again this season.

If you take nothing else away from this piece, then please consider the next two paragraphs.

- No team with an £XI lower than £210m has won the Premier League in over a decade. Liverpool’s current £XI is £138.9m, over £70m short of the minimum. (And indeed, it was £95m short of City’s last season.)

- No team with a squad that cost less than £397m (after inflation) has won the title in over a decade. Liverpool’s current squad cost (Sq£) is £293, over £100m short of that minimum. (And indeed, was a whopping £140m short of City’s last season.)

Any time I analyse football I do so with these kinds of figures in mind. It doesn’t tell me that Liverpool must give up; it tells me that unless Liverpool can be extraordinarilyclever, as well as lucky, then in any given season they are unlikely to beat all three of the clubs in the Title Zone. Think of it like breaking into a high-security bank: you may get past the first security system, if it’s faulty, but your chances of making it past all three diminish with each new challenge.

As Liverpool are working within their budget (as a percentage of turnover), it’s hard to say that spending more is easily done. City, Chelsea and United stocked up on great players for big fees before FFP bit. In fairness, Liverpool tried a version of this – Big Spending Lite – in 2011, but it was lower in scale, and made with an awareness of FFP looming. For all the naivety of David Moores, and the rank dumbness of Gillett and Hicks, the Reds probably never stood a chance of competing anyway. Liverpool missed the boat by not ‘monetising’ at the start of the Premier League (when United pulled away), and then they missed the next boat – or rather, yacht – when it came to billionaire benefactors.

Given that roughly half of all transfers end up not really making an impact – as shown by our TPI work – you can say that the Reds’ four big-money signings of 2011 were, as you’d expect with the law of averages, a 50/50 hit/miss ratio. Carroll was a flop; Suarez a success. Downing was a flop; Henderson a success. Carroll and Downing had gone by the time Suarez and Henderson helped Liverpool in a title challenge. As I noted last week, in terms of instant success, perhaps only one in four big-money signing has an excellent first season, and it works here too. Suarez was extremely good at first, then sublime. Henderson was hesitant at first, and then, last season, a key player.

Equally, Liverpool only got back approximately a third of what they paid for Carroll and Downing. Richer clubs can more easily write off such losses. Under Graeme Souness, Liverpool paid big money (£20-30m fees, TPI), but got precious little back from those investments. Equally, Gérard Houllier bought some good defensive players, but the club recouped very little from sales of those he bought. People sneer at ‘resale value’, but if you buy a house you want to be able to sell it years later; if you lose it for nothing, you can’t afford a new house.

Both Chelsea and City discarded expensive players at quite shocking levels on their way to the top, although in fairness to Chelsea, their buying in the past couple of years has been outstanding. Their wealth has helped them focus on the here-and-now, but also tie-up a load of promising youngsters.

Whenever anyone says Arsene Wenger is now out of touch, and way below his old standards, look back on the graph to his three titles (in reverse order, 2004, 2002 and 1998). Wenger hasn’t necessarily got worse; quite simply, the landscape was set to change, and even began to do so during his last really successful season.

Look at the upward projections in blue before Chelsea’s success, and United, in black, responding to the big spending. Then look at the similar sharp rise at the lighter blue of City in the second half of the last decade; getting ready to attack, like a shark rising to the surface. Indeed, City never quite hit the “expense” heights that Chelsea managed, but their investment was over a shorter period of time (bar that one massive upward swing in squad cost in Abramovich’s first season).

All the data shows that Arsenal and Liverpool are miles adrift from the ‘big three’. Not only is there a chasm between the average cost of the XIs each season (including2014/15), there’s a chasm between the squad costs, too. None of this is to say that Arsenal should be 8th and Liverpool 12th, of course. That is not good enough. But equally, Liverpool did miraculously well last season, and Arsenal, to date, have managed to hold onto a place in the top four every year, which, according to the model, is about all they can ever hope for. Maybe Wenger could have spent more, and is therefore in some way culpable, but to me the haven’t realistically stood a chance of the title since 2004. They are at least investing in the XI, now that their stadium is reaping greater rewards from ticket revenue, but the gap to close remains large.

Arsenal’s squad costs have risen, to overtake Liverpool’s for the first time since 2006. The exact same rise is true of their £XIs, although they are still just behind Liverpool in that regard (if Ozil was fit he’d tip them ahead, but even having two c£40m players would not push them into the Title Zone).

The evidence in this article shows that the bigger the squad you have, the more you can “put on the pitch”. It is happening in Spain with Barcelona and Real Madrid, whose squads get bigger, and in Germany Jurgen Klopp’s Dortmund have been scavenged by Bayern Munich.

The Premier League ‘rich three’ are so tightly grouped that the title will come from one of them; but it ultimately comes down to whose manager gets the most out of their talented collections, and who has to overcome less bad luck. Is one team bogged down in Europe? Is one team defending the title, which comes with different challenges? Are key players missing? But when it comes to mere standard injury issues they usually have the strength in depth, as shown by the squad cost.

You can beat the odds if one of the big three has a bad season; United stumbled badly in 2013/14. But what are the odds on United, Chelsea and City all having bad seasons at the same time? – and with Arsenal, the other possible challenger, also failing to match Liverpool (when it almost looks a 50-50 coin toss as to who will finish higher, based on wherewithal)? Chelsea had a ‘bad’ season last year and yet finished with 25 wins and 82 points. Prior to the advent of the Title Zone, 82 points would win you the league half the time. The über-squads with world-class managers have raised the bar.

I stated time and again last season that we were seeing a freakish over-performance from Rodgers’ men. When I said that the Reds would not win the title I noted that it would be one of the great achievements if they did. They failed, narrowly, but rather than thinking we need to build on it, push on again, keep up the momentum, etc, the reality was that a fall was fairly inevitable. Teams don’t really buck those odds twice in a row. Again, look how far adrift the Reds were in 2009 in terms of wherewithal, and how close they came. Look at the similar ‘decline’ a season later. It’s almost as if everything goes into one extraordinary push, then collapses in exhaustion.

My feeling is that whatever Liverpool did this summer, they’d still be seen as in some kind of decline. An injury to Sturridge made life harder after the sale of Suarez, and the signings aged between 24-32 haven’t settled immediately into the team. (The investments in a handful of reasonably-priced high-potential 19-22 year-olds makes perfect sense to me.)

Rodgers’ tactics have been called into question, and there are probably some very valid criticisms of his methods (although some of the criticisms I made last season were overridden by an 11-game winning streak). The team is playing very poorly. Right now, Rodgers is not getting the most out of the players at his disposal, and therefore questions need to be asked. (Some of which I cover here.)

But even though it’s easier said than done right now, just two wins would put Liverpool back to the weight they should be punching. The problem is that two more defeats could put them into the relegation zone.

See www.paultomkins.com for my non-football writing.

Time To Sack Rodgers? By Paul Tomkins

http://tomkinstimes.com/2014/11/time-to-sack-rodgers/

“Retweet this if you want Rodgers sacked” came one Tweet. Well, I didn’t; because I don’t. Equally, this season has been such a car crash that, even after last year’s miracle, I wouldn’t be able to say that the manager’s job should be totally safe.

This is a quick 2,000 words after the defeat to Crystal Palace, and I’ll try and write something more measured for the site’s subscribers tomorrow. But this season seems like another one of those that tailspin from the start.

Rafa’s final season; Kenny’s final season; Roy’s only half-season: the all felt like this, in some ways. They all showed how quickly fortunes can change: Rafa’s brilliant 2008/09 side falling apart just one season later; Kenny’s wonderful impact in 2011 dulled once he got the job full-time; and Roy Hodgon’s … well, I’ve nothing more to say on that debacle. Gérard Houllier’s final two seasons were hard to sit through.

I must reiterate, as outlined in this transfer piece, that Rodgers oversaw a miracle last season. The club should have been vying for 4th with Arsenal, based on wherewithal (the same as this season). But it came within a whisker of the title. That raised expectations to dangerous levels. And when that happens, the pressure can get to players (and fans).

As good as last year was, the Reds had no right to be there; it was pure overachievement. Equally, the team should not be in the bottom half with a negative goal difference as December approaches, playing some quite dreadful football. I’ve seen some bad defending in my time, but even in this era where defending is often neglected, it’s hard to recall worse performances from the majority of the back four. It says a lot that Skrtel’s best challenge of the match was on Lovren, and vice versa.

I think Liverpool spread its summer transfer money sensibly in some ways – players for the here and now, players for the future (who can also play now) – but the individuals purchased seem questionable. Part of the theory was sound, but the practice was flawed.

The Southampton trio have their merits (let’s not pretend that Lovren wasn’t praised last season), but they are all rather slow. Lambert had his best game today, but that’s not saying much; he’s an honest pro with decent technique when he hasn’t got the yips, but he should be 4th-choice at best. Lallana produced the pass of the match for the assist – he has ability – but otherwise he was ineffectual and lightweight. And I described Lovren’s role in the second Palace goal as “crumpling in a heap like an upended sumo wrestler”. He and Skrtel make Phil Babb and Bjorn Tore Kvarme look like rocks. Admittedly they have no protection, and Steven Gerrard resembles an ice sculpture slowly melting in the Sahara.

There’s no great pace in the side, and no great steel either. Gerrard and Lovren don’t mind a meaty tackle, but only if they can catch their opponent. Javier Manquillo is the only defender who can defend, and none of the midfield can destroy opposition attacks. Players who did well in Madrid a few weeks ago were once again left out here, as Rodgers persisted with the labouring Gerrard and Johnson, and the hapless Skrtel and Lovren. It tells you how bad Lovren has been that most Reds want to see Kolo Toure in his place. And although Joe Allen played well – and the Reds lost the lead when he was injured on the touchline – Emre Can couldn’t get a game even with Henderson’s illness; and nor could Lucas Leiva.

Of course, this was a team low on confidence and lacking it’s two best strikers – even if one of them can’t score in the league – as well as its midfield legs (Henderson). But it was a quite dreadful display, particularly defensively. Liverpool clearly hit a wall last April, and that ‘downer’ was taken to (and home from) the World Cup, then added to by Suarez’s departure. I maintain that the Uruguayan pretty much had to be sold, as he wanted out and was becoming a liability with bans (that were getting longer each time), but the rebuilding did not help repair the team’s damaged morale. (And where’s Dr Steve Peters? – not that he can work miracles.)

My worry is that, after his excellent coaching last season, Rodgers had more say in transfers, hence more overpriced Premier League purchases, although I may be unfair here if he wasn’t the driving force behind the Southampton trio. It’s also true that I had no particular problem with any of the summer signings in isolation, but when you put them all together it wasn’t a “wow” window. Alexis Sanchez was pursued, and presumably the club made a fair offer, but he chose Arsenal. That happens. The rest of the summer seems less forgivable, now that we’re seeing how Rodgers is handling them.

Indeed, the best new arrivals have been Can, 20, Manquillo, 20 and Moreno, 22; all from overseas, with no prior Premier League experience. None has excelled, but they’ve all done pretty well, all things considered. (And while Divock Origi hasn’t arrived yet, you can see the massive potential in a fine athlete and skilful footballer. Bringing him here early would put him under some pressure, but it’s not like he’s going to let the team down if he struggles; they’re all struggling. At the worst it would give him five months to bed in, so that he’s no longer a new player next season.)

And while buying from the Premier League is not a problem in itself, I just don’t believe, based on years of data, that it is a sensible strategy. Give or take the odd exception, Liverpool’s best buys over the past 20 years have almost all come from abroad, and been around the age of 22 at the time. I’d guess that 99% of the world’s footballers play outside of England, so why limit yourself to the 1% on the misguided belief that prior experience is required? Southampton sold their players within the Premier League and then improved their team by buying outside of it. You still have to base judgements on the individuals in question – there are some great Premier League talents – but better value certainly seems to come from abroad.

Of course, Liverpool couldn’t afford to pay big fees and big wages whilst also increasing the net squad size; the wages-to-turnover ratio was already at 63% for the last accounts, with 70% being the UEFA-decreed danger zone. An increase in income with the Champions League may only be temporary; indeed, it’s starting to look that way. Maybe the Reds could have speculated to accumulate – bought big to finish in the top four – but that’s what Leeds United did; they banked on it, and they had to offload everyone in a fire sale. Now you run the risk of not only going broke, but falling foul of FFP.

Even so, it doesn’t look like the money that was spent is reaping enough dividends right now, even if it is usually the exception if players hit the ground running. The new players haven’t been helped by joining a struggling team, although maybe the team is struggling because they joined. (Chicken/egg.)

Liverpool’s longer-term future looks promising with almost 20 first-team squad members aged 24 or under, many of whom are top quality for their age. But of course, you need to take care of the here-and-now too. And while that was clearly attempted in the summer, particularly with the Southampton trio (aged 25, 26 and 32, but also Balotelli, 24), it just hasn’t worked. Bar the Italian, the “experienced” players were actually very low on international and Champions League exposure. They were, just like Paul Stewart and his ilk, players who looked good briefly in the Premier League (and Stewart cost around £23m according to our Transfer Price Index). Either the Southampton trio were on an upward curve, or just waiting to regress to the mean.

In fairness, Rodgers has had his work cut out without Suarez, who was on another planet last season, and Sturridge, who was almost as good. Gerrard also had a purple-patch that may have been the burning bright before the dying of his light. Just six months ago, Henderson was on top form, and Sterling was firing on all cylinders. But since Rodgers gave Henderson the vice-captain’s role (more pressure) and since playing Sterling for 120 minutes in the League Cup (utterly pointless*), the two young dynamos have looked broken.

(*Liverpool don’t exist to win trophies; the club exists to try and win meaningfultrophies. Who wants to win the old second division or the Johnstone Paint Trophy?)

With the best players either sold, injured or off form, the rest aren’t able to be carried with the flow. Or rather, they are: just in the wrong direction, downstream. Players who look good in a good side now look bad in a bad side; or, at least, a side woefully off form.

My sense is that Rodgers needs to be given time to sort this out, and that you don’t sack managers after they’ve just achieved the club’s best league “results” for 20 years (finishing 2nd, taking the title to the last day). It’s not the Liverpool way to react hastily, although it is the way of the modern fan, of any club.

What’s damning is that Liverpool look like a confused side right now, bereft of ideas, and with no identity and little pace. While I don’t believe that doing the same things over and over in football is a sign of madness – you can always get different results from game to game by setting up the exact same way – it is hard to fathom how the creaky core of Lovren, Skrtel, Gerrard and Johnson are all remaining in the side. Skrtel has had some fine seasons, but is inconsistent, while Gerrard and Johnson were excellent players whose legs seem to have been lost on Liverpool’s pitch. Maybe a solution could be found incorporating one or two of these players, but all four make it seem like a liability. Adding other plodding players isn’t helping.

Still, things can quickly change in football. Alan Pardew was the most-sacked-manager-ever-who-wasn’t-actually-sacked earlier in the season; suddenly the Geordies are beating everyone. Rodgers needs a similar kind of turnaround to get fans back onside, although some seem beyond accepting him. Weirdly, Mauricio Pochettino looked like a star manager last season, but Spurs look just as bad as Liverpool right now. Just two weeks ago Jurgen Klopp’s Dortmund were bottom of the Bundesliga, and yet he’s no idiot. Teams can slide badly without the manager being a waste of space.

My main concern remains the transfer activity, and whether or not the team behind the scenes was united on these decisions. As I’ve noted before, buying another expensive left-sided centre-back and getting in two small attacking players for £20m+ seems a little lopsided in terms of thinking. The good news is that the younger players have time on their side, and, for the most part, something good about them.

If Rodgers was responsible for the signing of the flops in the summer,  then his grip on the job should be slightly more precarious. If he was given most of these players, then I have more sympathy. Either way, I’d give him time. But I wouldn’t be unduly shocked if he wasn’t afforded that luxury. He’s in a hole, and he needs to start digging his way out – not further down.

In defence of Lee Chong Wei by Dr Lim Heng Hong

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/in-defence-of-lee-chong-wei-dr-lim-heng-hong

World No. 1 badminton player Datuk Lee Chong Wei’s B Sample that was tested at the Universiti Olso Hospital in Norway on November 5, had tested positive for ‘Dexamethasone’, a banned substance. — File picCOMMENT, Nov 13 — It was in the mid-80s when I first got involved with dope testing in sports. When I was first instructed to test a group of bodybuilders for using performance-enhancing drugs, I headed off to the library to learn how to go about it.

With a little rudimentary knowledge, I sent a letter to a professor at St Thomas’ College in the UK for some radioimmunoassay kits that he sent back to me in quick time. With the help of the radiochemistry department at our Institute of Medical Research, I began this interesting journey into the world of dope testing in sports.

That journey took me to several foreign lands, and many competitions over 20 or so years. I was doing the most altruistic work one can imagine, to catch those who cheat in sports.

I was involved in doping controls in SEA, the Asian and Commonwealth Games and a few other world championships.

Let me say also that the work of a doping control officer is very detailed and simple mistakes can lead to very grave consequences.

In 2005 I threw in the towel realising that there are more pitfalls in dope testing in sports that one can imagine.

Now after two decades, I have realised that I was involved with something that appears fine on the surface, but in reality flawed to the core.

The whole thing about dope testing in sports is nothing more than a giant publicity exercise on the grand stage of world sports, not unlike many of the NGOs in existence fighting for all sorts of imaginary causes and costing millions if not billions of dollars.

Everyone talks about how dope testing helps to weed out the cheats and deter athletes from ruining their health. However, not many people know that there are pitfalls in the entire dope control mechanism. I will enumerate some of these pitfalls.

Pitfall No. 1

If an athlete wishes to represent his country, it is incumbent upon him to be aware of the hundreds of banned substances including things like foods which he takes on a daily basis such as coffee and supplements.

Medical personnel including coaches looking after the athlete have to know everything on the list and to advise accordingly.

It’s absolutely impossible to remember all, unless one carries that list with him at all times. Even if he does, he may inadvertently take supplements with banned substances not listed on labels. Asian athletes with their penchant for taking traditional medicines are especially at risk.

Pitfall No. 2

There are possibilities of sabotage by other competing athletes by spiking food and drinks with banned substances and though often difficult to prove, it can potentially occur in highly charged rivalries in some sports.

Pitfall No. 3

The whole chain of custody requirements is in itself a monumental task to prevent tampering and getting the samples to the testing laboratory in pristine condition. To give you some examples how things can go wrong.

The testing official if unknowingly or accidentally touches any of the paraphernalia used in dope testing such as the urine collecting bottles, the results may be disputed as the athlete can complain of possible tampering.

If the forms are filled out incorrectly, and the athlete is not briefed adequately by the doping control officer or if the athlete notices some irregularities pertaining to procedures, the athlete can sign the forms in protest, and this in itself can lead to arbitration. What I’m saying is that athletes can trick officials into committing mistakes.

Pitfall No. 4

Often personnel like chaperones and other assisting officials are hurriedly coached and I have personally observed that many are ill-prepared to do doping controls. A cheating athlete can easily produce a sample of urine, not his own, but by sleight of hand.

To the unsuspecting chaperone, the athlete can produce a sample from his bag, from an accompanying official or even scoop water from the urinal in front of him.

He can produce a sample from a pouch inserted in the anus and connected by a catheter leading to the underside of the penis and I’ve personally caught one athlete doing this.

Chaperones and officials can be bribed right there in the toilet and I had the experience once, of an athlete who was so desperate to win, he offered me a monetary bribe. I declined.

Pitfall No. 5

Positive results can sometimes not be announced and kept in total secret by irresponsible and conniving officials especially when they involve their own athletes. This usually occurs in regional competitions involving the lesser-known sports.

Pitfall No. 6

There are all manners of masking or taking masking agents in spite of some masking agents on the list of banned substances.

Pitfall No. 7

There is blood doping, gene doping and the use of designer drugs that are not in the list of banned drugs. Designer drugs are continually being produced in many underground laboratories and are difficult to expose.

Pitfall No. 8

Growth hormone is said by some to be even more powerful than anabolic steroids and cannot be adequately tested and it is believed that many professional athletes are using them.

Irreparable damage

Until such time when all these pitfalls are plugged, dope testing in sports is merely appearing to do good but in reality, a poorly disguised public relations exercise doing untold harm to those who are genuinely not out to cheat.

Over the years, so many have been penalised for testing positive for banned substances and many of these substances actually do nothing to help in their performances.

For those who really plan to cheat by taking substances that will indeed help in their performances, it is an open secret that these cheaters will find a way to cheat no matter what, and many have succeeded without getting caught especially those who apply some of the tactics I just pointed out.

Our own athlete, Datuk Lee Chong Wei was inadvertently given a banned substance by sports medicine doctors to treat a medical condition.

Assuming the doctors felt that the drug would have “washed out” of the athlete’s system before his next competition, it must be remembered that “washed out” times depend on several factors namely, the dose given, the size of the athlete. Also different people have different metabolisms and hence excretion rates.

Chong Wei was given a substance that has no performance enhancing ability, indeed a substance that is disadvantageous to his sport as it weakens muscles and chronic use causes muscles to waste.

For this misadventure, he has to suffer irreparable damage to his reputation for the rest of his life.

In hindsight, the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) should have tested him before he left for the tournament.

Indeed they should have also filled up a notification form allowing for certain banned substances to be used for therapeutic purposes to be handed over to the doping control officer at the time of testing.

These are some of the lessons that all concerned should learn. I personally hope that this commentary reaches those involved in the arbitration of Chong Wei’s case and if he is to be penalised, it should rightly be just a warning and not a ban.

* Dr Lim Heng Hong is a former international sports doping control officer. 

- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/in-defence-of-lee-chong-wei-dr-lim-heng-hong#sthash.iAgt9zfN.dpuf

November Spawned a Monster: Liverpool’s Woes By Paul Tomkins

http://tomkinstimes.com/2014/11/november-spawned-a-monster-liverpools-woes/

As the age-old English refrain reminds us at this time every year, as effigies are lifted onto pyres and fireworks are sent fizzing and popping into the sky, Remember remember … when Liverpool were good.

Alternatively, as Morrissey once put it (as he tugged on a half-open silk blouse in the middle of Death Valley), November spawned a monster. This season has been ugly, in stark contrast to the beautiful poetry (in motion) of 2013/14.

Obviously there’s a lot going wrong right now, but I will leave others – not least this site’s Mihail Vladmirov – to discuss tactical issues, as I focus on where my knowledges rests. A big issue this season has been the money Liverpool spent, and what they got in return. (To go through every issue and mistake this season – in detail – would take until next summer to write.)

The transfer spending of 2014 has proved fairly disastrous thus far, but it’s still early days for the players (albeit, with each passing week, increasingly less-early days). The problem is not that some have failed to impress – as that happens – but rather, that none has clearly succeeded. You expect the former; you cannot get by with the latter.

Of course, it may be that Liverpool signed good players who are being dragged down by the despair surrounding the club, as they entered a team still shellshocked from last season’s late collapse, with some tired from the World Cup, and everyone feeling like their superhuman powers – maybe from a radioactive bite – had just boarded a plane to Barcelona. Add Sturridge’s injury, the extra Champions League games (which is why I think the League Cup should be avoided), and you can probably find more legitimate reasons for the Reds’ struggles than you can for, say, Manchester City, who have a top manager, who are not integrating a load of new players, who didn’t lose their best player in the summer, and who haven’t lost their second-best player to injury.

Perhaps City just aren’t very good at defending titles, although that doesn’t explain their woeful Champions League form. Both clubs who gave the most to 2013/14 – who scored over 100 goals each, and played great football – look emotionally spent this season. None of which is to say that their managers are getting everything right this season. But is Pellegrini now an idiot? Are all those City players no longer any good?

And while we’re at it, how did Jurgen Klopp, who I’d have taken in a heartbeat in 2013 at the expense of Rodgers, end up at the very foot of the Bundesliga with Dortmund? (They are 18th out of 18 as I write this. I know – it’s insane.) They also lost their best striker, of course, but so did Atletico Madrid (along with a whole host of their other stars), and they are still doing well. Given that Liverpool aren’t as rich as Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal (whose wealth is partly stadium-based), it makes sense to follow the model perfected by Dortmund (who are dwarfed by Bayern Munich) and Atletico (whose resources are a mere fraction of those at Barcelona and Real Madrid).

Yet if you say that Dortmund and Atletico have an approach to aspire to, how do you explain one still doing brilliantly and the other having a nightmare of a season? Canideologies be correct, but shit still happens?

Do you say that the Lyon model, which set the template over seven or eight consecutive years of French domination and diamond-polishing, was genius because it lifted them to incredible heights, or say that it doesn’t work because they eventually fell away? Isn’t it still better to have been a Lyon than a big-spending-followed-by-big-sales Monaco over the past decade? If buying the wrong players is unhealthy, so too is overspending on big names who are just there for the money (no one goes to Monaco for the atmosphere inside the ground).

With Liverpool the main criticism from the slump comes back to the buying. And yet several years ago I wrote that if Liverpool did win the league (so it must have been 2009 or before), I’d expect them to defend the title poorly, on account of the effort it would take with a smaller squad, and the emotional release involved; which, after decades, would be immense. In some ways that has happened without winning the league, because the team went so close. It was emotional. (I know other Liverpool fans with chronic illnesses who were wiped out by the run-in; I imagine that healthy fans and players found it tough, too.)

We can retrospectively say that the buying in 2002, when the club finished 2nd, and in 2009, when the club finished 2nd, and in 2014, when – you guessed it – the club finished 2nd, was to blame. But perhaps part of the reason Liverpool dropped to 5th, 7th and (currently) 8th respectively was the effort – emotional, physical, psychological – that went into the previous season. It might not be the buying – or just the buying – that’s to blame.

Maybe this is less of the case in 2002, when the Reds were some distance behind Arsenal – I don’t recall it being a title challenge – although it was the first season in the Champions League since the old European Cup had been rebranded. No matter how you slice it, Diouf, Diao and Cheyrou proved to be appalling buys. (Running the figures through this site’s Transfer Price Index inflation model, that £20m investment twelve years ago works out at £24.4m for Diouf, £9.8m for Cheyrou and £12.2m for Diao; £46.4m in today’s money for three players.) And in 2009, while Alberto Aquilani (£31m TPI) proved a costly mistake in replacing Xabi Alonso, there was also the issue of Gillett and Hicks cutting positive spending, and backing out of deals on a much-needed striker. So it’s not like you can put any of these situations down one simplistic cause.

Irrespective of who signed off on them, I think there have been moments of promise from most of the summer’s new arrivals. However, as yet, they have never been consistentlygood, nor all had their good moments in unison.

So, for example, Emre Can was very impressive in two big games this week, but Adam Lallana’s one really good game was a while back, at home to West Brom. Lazar Markovic had his best game in Madrid, but otherwise is taking his time to settle. You can see the obvious potential in Manquillo and Moreno, but as you might expect for young full-backs new to England, both have made mistakes. Mario Balotelli has actually been quite goodoutside the box, with good skill and hold-up play, but has been totally ineffective within it.

Right now, if I’m being kind to Balotelli, just two players stick out like sore thumbs. Rickie Lambert has failed to do anything of note, as hard as he is trying; indeed, yesterday he was trying so hard to run fast he actually just fell over (which sums up his time back on Merseyside). And Dejan Lovren has been like the proverbial bull in a china shop, only, after that bull had just snorted a twelve-foot line of cocaine whilst having his testicles stroked by several Colombian dairy cows. Liverpool seemed to need more aggression at the back last season, but if anything, Lovren has been too aggressive in trying to win the ball in every single situation and ends up dragged hither and thither. In trying to anticipate danger he is causing chaos.

It’s also important to remember that some of the buys weren’t designed for immediate impact. That is not to say that they were bought with the knowledge that they weren’t yet good enough, but when people talk of nine new signings and £110m/£120m, they have to acknowledge that it includes three 20-year-olds, plus a 19-year-old who doesn’t even arrive until next season. With six or seven players from last season pretty much guaranteed a start if fit – Mignolet, Skrtel, Gerrard, Sterling, Henderson and Sturridge – you don’t sign nine as definites for the XI, unless you’re planning on switching codes to Rugby Union. (You can argue about whether or not Gerrard should still be in the team, but that’s another issue. Ditto if Mignolet is good enough.)

Some of the new buys were expected to spend a bit of time bedding in, in the way that Liverpool paid relatively big fees (at the time) for Ian Rush and Steve Nicol when at similar ages, and gave them a year or two to develop. You can argue that Liverpool neededhere and now signings, but with the rabid now-now-now of modern football you canalways say that – fans, caught up in the moment, rarely think about the long-term. The fact is you have to focus on a range of ages when signing players. You need those to impact now, and those to filter through. Liverpool’s problem is that none of those bought for the here and now have succeeded so far.

I actually feel fairly optimistic about the signings aged 22 or younger; the ones who are older represent more of a worry. Rumours persist about schisms between Rodgers and the transfer committee, and people are blaming one or the other, depending on their viewpoint (or agenda).

Historically I would have sided with the manager, but the way all big clubs operate has changed, and we can’t keep harking back to old models, just as I don’t want to hear what Bill Shankly would have done (because Shankly was an innovator, and using his ideas from 40 or 50 years ago would not be innovative; if he were alive and still managing, he’d be trying to innovate for the modern game, not the game from 1965. I mean, it’s not like signing Scottish players is still the way to win things, is it?).

On top of that, I’m not sure that Rodgers has the transfer record to justify abandoning the club’s policy in order to go with one man’s vision, but he did do enough last season to suggest he’s a good coach.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure which players were his choice and which were at the committee’s behest, but we do know that the signings of summer of 2012, bar Assaidi, were down to him, with the January 2013 signings down to the committee; and that from then on the perceptions of who is a ‘Rodgers signing’ has been down to who gets a regular game (which obviously falls down when talking about Daniel Sturridge, who Rodgers may not even have wanted, but who he has come to love and trust).

Logically, you can guess that the younger players scouted from abroad are the work of the committee, given that Rodgers won’t have been as aware of Can, Manquillo and Origi (pre-World Cup) as those the club pays to watch foreign football; with Markovic and Moreno more widely known as full internationals at big clubs who contested the 2014 Europa League final. You sense that Rodgers is keener on Moreno than Markovic, but Markovic was injured at the start of the season and not fully match fit when introduced to the side.

Logically, you can say that Lovren, Lallana and Lambert were Rodgers’ work, because you’d expect a Premier League manager to covet Premier League players, given the amount of time he will spend studying them. But that may be unfair on Rodgers, who speaks Spanish and watches La Liga too, amongst, you suspect, other international leagues broadcast to this country. Rodgers has also had stick for sidelining Sakho in favour of the hitherto hapless Lovren, but as much as I like Sakho, it’s not like he hasn’t had his critics or made his own mistakes (or proved injury-prone).

I’m not even entirely sure that Rodgers is favouriting his own signings, as suggested in some quarters. I think he has been fair to plenty of players who were not his signings. People berate him for marginalising Daniel Agger, but Agger himself admitted to struggling with Premier League football as he approached 30. Then there’s Jordan Henderson, who was almost ‘given’ to Fulham for £4m by Rodgers, but who, after winning the boss round, was one of the best players in England last season.

(As an aside, Henderson’s form this season seems to have dipped with the pressure of being vice-captain, in that once you’re in that position you tend to take on the burden of the entire team’s struggles. In cricket, England always tended to appoint the best batsmen as captain, and then his form would evaporate; and while Henderson isn’t thefull captain, he is known to be someone who is very conscientious. Strangely, sometimes the best captains are arrogant, self-centred bastards who want to win at all costs, but often as part of some personal glory. I mean, did John Terry care about ‘betraying’ Wayne Bridge and Rio Ferdinand?)

Rodgers has ‘overlooked’ Assaidi, Aspas, Alberto and others, and aside from an aversion to surnames beginning with A, I’m not sure any of them merited a run in the team (although they might argue that they never got the chance). Fabio Borini hasn’t featured much, and he’s an undisputed Rodgers buy. Rodgers seemed to be behind the Nuri Sahin loan, but quickly gave up on him.

Perhaps Liverpool should have spent bigger, but on fewer players. And yet everyone said the club needed quality and quantity (last season was built on the back of a small group of players; pretty much every pundit noted this). The trouble is, that’s probably the hardest thing to do in the transfer market, and in recent times has only probably been seen done successfully by Chelsea a decade ago and City a few years later. They did so by paying massive fees and massive wages – in today’s money dwarfing the outlay by the Reds, given that the average price of a Premier League player has risen markedly (a £20m player now was a c.£12m a couple of years ago, and about £6m a decade ago). They had so much money they could cast off expensive flops as if they were free transfers, knowing that the five or six who made it would make all the difference. They had billionaire benefactors and there was no FFP.

Chelsea, who outplayed the Reds this weekend (but rode their luck with a ludicrous late refereeing blunder), spent brilliantly in the summer: a handful of absolutely top-class players with bags of experience. But let’s not forget the size of their squad last season – which was already big and experienced and expensive. And let’s also not forget that they have been hoarding precocious teens and 20-year-olds for a few years now, loaning them out and then, as seen with Courtois, bringing them back when they finally want them. I don’t blame them for playing the system so well, but at times the system sucks.

Liverpool have to work differently. According to the recent Ian Ayre talk given in Europe, Rodgers identifies the positions that need improving, the committee draw up a shortlist and the manager takes his pick. If this is true, it suggests a sensible way of working. It needs Rodgers to correctly identify the problem areas, the scouts to find and report on good options, and Rodgers to pick the one he fancies. Of course, if Rodgers is blind to the weaknesses in his side, the committee then recommend the wrong players and Rodgers chooses the worst option, it can go horribly wrong.

Perhaps the greater question is one of unease over the spread of the spending. Why do Liverpool now have two left-sided centre-backs who cost almost £40m between them? Why was £45m spent on two players who, it seems, would rarely be in the same team together (Lallana and Markovic)? Why did the Reds start the season with Lambert and Borini as third and fourth choice strikers? Also, as a more topical point, why didn’t Liverpool make a move for any South Americans (beyond Sanchez), given that they tend to have the rare combination of street-fighter hunger and great technique? Is Rodgers losing sight of the challenge due to wanting to prove how many English players he can get in the side, or is he right to bank on homegrown talent?

Clearly the summer, as well as being defined by Suarez leaving and some ‘duds’ arriving, was also about what didn’t happen. First, Alexis Sanchez chose Arsenal over Liverpool. We can debate whether Liverpool should have offered Barcelona more money, or promised higher wages, but if Sanchez preferred Arsenal (and London) then it’s hard toforce him to join your club. Newcastle effectively did that very thing with Michael Owen, who desperately wanted to return to Liverpool in 2005, but the Geordies effectively became his only option. He had a terrible time there, perhaps partly because he never wanted to be there. As a basic requirement you probably want to have players who are happy to be at your club. (Which, along with the potential of a two-year ban for a fourth bite, is the reason Suarez was sold; let’s not overlook how much he wanted to go to Spain.)

Next, Origi, the bright young star of the World Cup (alongside Raheem Sterling), and recently described as a future great by teammate Simon Kjaer, was already lined up, but Lille refused to sell unless they could have him back until 2015. Again, maybe Ayre and co. could have offered an extra £10m, to sweeten the deal, but then suddenly Origi would become another £20m youngster, with that added pressure, and talk of paying too much for players would arise.

Finally, Fabio Borini wouldn’t leave. Here was a £12m asset determined to stay, and fair play to him if he wanted to fight for a future at Anfield. But if he stayed it probably wasn’t wise, or feasible, to bring in another striker, and maintain a wage bill that fits within the limits imposed on the club. If you can’t get rid of players it becomes harder to bring new ones in without suddenly finding yourself critically overstaffed.

My overall sense is one of all not being well in terms of the transfer committee and Rodgers, in that even if there is no tension (and some say that there is), there were weaknesses that either weren’t addressed, or weren’t addressed adequately. Some of the signings seem at odds with some of the other signings. That’s a concern.

But at least the international break has come at the right time. It’s a chance to get Daniel Sturridge fit for first team duty, and for Rodgers to do some work on the training ground with those around for the next fortnight. If some of the older players are tiring and not jetting off with their countries, it gives them a chance to rest. Whatever happens, it’s a chance to regroup, and for the coaching staff to get their thinking caps on. It’s also time for the transfer committee to work with the manager to identify solutions in January.

The title – always a long-shot – is well gone, but the race for the top four is still wide open.

火影忍者

我是漫画迷，所以这么经典的漫画我怎么会错过呢！

火影的結束就好像下面的作者写的，雖然後期水平大不如前，但還是讓人感覺蠻傷感的。

也许是读者，也许是作者，好一些好的作品後期都是差强人意的。特别是结局特别难令人满意。

期望岸本的下一个作品可以一样令人难忘。

还有，难以免俗的，岸本老师谢谢你。

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://zeusleaveolympus.blogspot.com/2014/11/blog-post_7.html

火影結束之感想

            《火影忍者》昨天完結，一代人的集體記憶就從此終結。雖然《火影》後期水平大跌，從故事和畫風都知道岸本要么意興闌珊或身不由己，但故事結束了，還是讓人感覺蠻傷感的。其實我看《火影》的時間不久，雖然在06-07已經知道有這部漫畫的存在，但到大約2009才開始開始看，只追了5年多。

猥瑣的岸本

            我覺得岸本的《火影》對日本文化最大的貢獻，是把日本歷史裡的忍者面罩脫下，讓他們光明正大地守護著自己心愛的人，堅持貫徹自己的忍道。 當年帶土那一句：
『居然無法完成任務的忍者是廢物，但丟棄夥伴的忍者比廢物還不如』，讓我感動。曉組織的出現，木葉眾小強小組靠配合打敗實力變態的曉小組，讓我看得非常過癮。雖然我認為《海賊王》的故事比《火影》好看很多，但我還是喜歡《火影》，原因主要還是戰鬥方面的描寫精彩。岸本自爆小時候頭腦不好，成績在班上吊車尾，但卻可以寫出這麼細膩的作戰方案，以弱勝強等，作家的腦袋還不是開玩笑的。

            我最喜歡的一幕是一向怕麻煩又懶散的鹿丸，卻因實力弱爆的老師阿斯瑪被曉殺死後，為了報仇而變得有擔當。鹿丸用他聰明的頭腦，活用看起來不是很有用的豬鹿蝶秘術，強大的削弱了擁有不死之身的殭屍二人組，非常精彩。

            據說岸本大叔當年想畫一部關於煮拉麵的漫畫，結果被編輯部踢掉，無奈之下唯有畫忍者，唯一的補償是讓鳴人愛吃拉麵。岸本說明年夏季他將有新作品推出，不知道是否是拉麵漫畫？這讓我想起經典電影《教父》三部曲的導演Francis Ford Coppola，當年一心想拍一部水平很高的藝術電影，但苦於沒有投資者。過後勉強接下《教父》這部商業電影，他打算先拍《教父》賺一些錢，自己有了錢後再拍一部心目中理想的藝術電影。結果這樣一搞，《教父》三部曲卻是他一生中藝術水平最高的作品。

            《火影》裡的的和平追求，一直有兩大分叉。一是鳴人那種大家和平啪啪啪，另外一種是長門那種互相都知道痛，大家有尾獸的恐怖平衡下的和平。我軍情刺探馬鏟界這麼久，看到馬鏟界不停地維護一些如煽動法令的惡法。馬鏟說，為了國家和平，要有內安法令、煽動法令。我一直覺得，會這樣想的馬鏟是不曾受過惡法的傷害。他們不知道就是因為說了一些話而被無審訊就被抓掉的痛，而只是站在握有權力的那一方來考慮惡法的必要。一直以來有權力抓刀刺人的，永遠不會明白為何被插者對刀有這麼大的反應。我國各族一直處於不融合狀態，主要原因不是政客故意分而治之，而是華人豬和馬鏟的世界觀、政治高度、對國家機關造成的感受，有著不平行的經驗。

            鳴人那一種和平，大家啪啪啪，是建立在強大的武力基礎上的。他先敬你一杯敬酒，說：我們和平搞基啪啪啪吧～如果閣下不給臉，擁有九尾、仙人模式等力量的他，完全可以毀滅任何敵人。這個我說了很多次，有武力選擇不動用力量是和理非非，沒有力量卻讓人爆頭是被欺負。像小唐說的，弱者連怎樣死的權利都沒有。大馬許多蠢人，自己沒有力量卻和當權者玩和平，這種沒頭沒腦的和理非非，見木不見林的東施效顰，只會把我們帶去荷蘭。或者，我們都已經在荷蘭了。

            火影現在的和平，在戰爭英雄鳴人死後和經歷過戰故的老一輩死後，忍界又會再一次起戰亂。我始終認為人性是犯賤的，唯有在武器的恐怖平衡，或有外星人等外界敵人威脅下，我們才會和平相處。

            鳴人和雛田的結合，和眾多人中只有寧次一個人死，我覺得除了狗血的劇情需要，應該是岸本要讓鳴人的內部改革之路容易走一點。一開始就講要廢除的白眼家族『宗家』與『分家』的制度，在鳴人當了白眼宗家女婿、加上火影之影響力，分家的寧次也死後，改革應該才可以被通過，廢除這個不人道的制度。嗯，可能是我想太多。

            古有短袖之癖，如今岸本把基情提升一個程度，變成斷手之戀。你的姓氏我的名字，你的右手我的左手，多麼基情。阿修羅和因陀羅的轉世不停對打，直到鳴人和佐助這一代才完結。鳴人的兒子和佐助的女兒（感覺之前好像沒有見過女孩子的宇智波一族）日後會啪啪啪，用愛化解掉這兩大神的千年詛咒。《火影》也讓我覺得這是一個拼爹、甚至憑轉世投胎的世界。鳴人如果沒有一個影爸爸，沒有九尾查克拉的政治遺產，甚至不是因陀羅轉世，那他再怎麼努力都不會成功。沒錯，他很努力很努力地修煉，但沒有這些背景，他根本不能站在今天這個高度。日後木葉不知道會不會流傳：『鳴人成功人士對年輕人說的10句話』？

            木葉的火會繼續燃燒，凱哥說凋落的花會化成春泥更護花。《火影》的完結，也表示我的青春告了一段落，開始走向大叔的節奏。也希望華哥的菊花凋落後，會化成大馬民主之花的春泥，為我們醞釀出更美好的未來。

    岸本，謝謝你這麼多年來讓我每個星期有所期待，祝你身體健康，心想事成。我真的認為，世界因有日本而變得更美好。

PS：不知道為什麼，我一直想像鳴人和雛田間的房事。比如外表純情但內心可能淫蕩的雛田mm對鳴人說：鳴人君，人家今晚想玩一些刺激的。。。然後鳴人就發動影之分身術，接著就來玩hardcore gangbang。。。

PS 2：下一次《海賊王》結束時，我應該是大叔了吧？希望不會變成膠叔吧。> <