Why I dislike Brendan Rodger

There are many reason why i dislike Brendan Rodger.

The only reason i don't use the word Hate on him is because he is the manager of Liverpool Football Club, the club i support since 1987.

I am not the kind of person, blindly support whatever decision/action been put out by the person/club/country that i support.

Appointment of Brendan Rodger itself is one of the few decision that make me very unhappy (beside the appointment of Roy Hodgson) which made by the club.

Of course one the reason, i am unhappy is because because of this appointment my favourite Manger is denied a chance for the second coming (thinking of this, this also align with why i"dislike" Hodgson who replace Rafa).

But beside that the words from both Rodger, and Hodgson in this, perhaps the main reason i hate most. (Of course, Hodgson's team playing style contribute more of many many Liverpool supporters not to like him).

How can you as the manager of the club, not only not support but openly criticise your own player, albeit that the player might not your choice. He is now your player, you should find the way to suit him, if not keep it to yourself, don't play him. Not all the people will not affected by that kind of discouraged words from your own Boss...

To Be Continue

Brendan Rodgers' management of Mario Balotelli has backfired By NICK MILLER

http://www.espnfc.com/club/liverpool/364/blog/post/2216930/brendan-rodgers-management-of-mario-balotelli-has-backfired-at-liverpool

"There is no question over his talent -- I have played with him and I know how good he is and how good he can be. It is the job of the Liverpool coach to manage him in the right way. He needs to be loved, he needs direction, but most importantly, he needs to know that the coach believes in him."

-- Andrea Pirlo on Mario Balotelli

Mario Balotelli spent Boxing Day afternoon on the bench at Turf Moor, as his Liverpool team huffed, puffed and scuffled their way to a 1-0 win over Burnley. And according to manager Brendan Rodgers, slumped on the sidelines wrapped in a large coat is how Balotelli will be spending a good deal of his time from now on.

"It's something he would have to get used to," said Rodgers earlier this week. "If the team is going to need him from the bench then it's something he would have to become adjusted to. It's the same for every single player, not just him. When called upon, whether it's to start a game or come off the bench, you ask your players to be ready."

Against Burnley, Rickie Lambert was called upon before Balotelli.

On form, Balotelli's place on the sidelines is merited. So much so that Rodgers has come up with a formation without a recognised striker partly because he doesn't have to use Balotelli -- or Lambert for that matter -- and the tactic of using Raheem Sterling through the middle is showing signs of success. Balotelli has yet to score a league goal for Liverpool since his move from AC Milan in the summer. He has cut a frustrated figure when he has appeared on the pitch, looking exactly like a man trying desperately to break a goal drought. He's trying too hard, it seems, shooting from all sorts of pointless and irresponsible angles after coming on against Manchester United, and is thus not a massive amount of use to his manager or team.

Mario Balotelli didn't get a chance to take off his coat against Burnley on Boxing Day.

While Balotelli's form is obviously primarily his responsibility, it's perhaps not a colossal surprise that he hasn't been at his sparkiest since returning to England, listening to what Rodgers has said about him. Others would suggest a gentler touch is needed.

Roberto Mancini has echoed Pirlo's words about Balotelli, that he requires love and confidence to get the best from him. Admittedly this approach, as his erratic form under Mancini at Inter and Manchester City demonstrated, is not a foolproof strategy, but it certainly has more logic to it than the way Rodgers has approached his summer signing.

A few years ago, when "Thunderbirds" had its second wind and was one of the most popular shows on UK TV, a large model of Tracy Island was the must-have toy for Christmas and thus sold out everywhere. Some desperate parents were reduced to making their own versions from toilet rolls and sticky-back plastic. Seemingly from the very start, Rodgers has acted as if Balotelli is the homemade version of the toy he really wanted, treating him with a shrugging dismissiveness, like a consolation prize that he looks at, puffs out his cheeks and says, "Well, I guess that will have to do."

"Mario was the one right at the very end who was available for that," said Rodgers in October. "We had attempts for other strikers that didn't materialise for one reason or another, so it left us right at the end of the window with a decision on whether just to go with what we had, when experience told us we were too light, or take a calculated risk on a player who has quality and then could we get it out of him consistently?"

Rodgers continued the theme later that month: "Mario is working hard on the training field. As long as he's doing his best, that's all I can ask for. Whether Mario's best is good enough longer term, that remains to be seen."

Is Mario Balotelli really the best striker Liverpool could find on short notice?

To say, in so many words, that Liverpool were looking for someone else but Balotelli is an extraordinary way to try to motivate a player. It's possible to argue that Rodgers was trying some sort of reverse psychology, to try something that perhaps had never been used on Balotelli before and get him to prove himself, but it was a long shot that has backfired quite emphatically. If Rodgers thought Balotelli was a gamble before, he lengthened the odds even further by publicly identifying the striker as a last resort and talking down to him in a remarkable manner.

Perhaps worse than that is Rodgers' seeming lack of ideas to fit Balotelli, a potentially talented striker, into the Liverpool team. Rodgers also said this week: "We have seen [high pressing is] not really his game. Working with him for the period of time he's been here we have seen that he's probably someone who's better in and around the box. That level of intensity and pressing isn't part of his game. But you try to get the best out of the players you have and the qualities they have."

It's another incredible comment, isn't it? Quite apart from talking about this Italian international as if he were a 17-year-old kid called upon in an injury crisis, if Rodgers didn't know that Balotelli isn't exactly an Italian Dirk Kuyt before signing him, it would appear that he hasn't watched him at all in the last five years. Which would make spending 16 million pounds on Balotelli as part of a plan to replace Luis Suarez a curious move at best, a move of utter incompetence at worst.

For a man so keen on talking about having a "philosophy" of football and a clear line of thinking, Rodgers' treatment and use of Balotelli suggests that in reality he has neither. I wrote earlier in December that Rodgers looks like a man managing without a plan. His comments about Balotelli only serve to further back up that view.

Sterling and Origi Cannot Score Goals? By Paul Tomkins

http://tomkinstimes.com/2014/12/sterling-and-origi-cannot-score-goals/

Raheem Sterling cannot score goals. He’s not a natural finisher, people tell me. Well, is this true?

My hunch is the Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen ruined Liverpool fans when it comes to assessing young goalscorers. (And thinking back, Ian Rush, who couldn’t score for toffee aged 19, became prolific at the age of 20, which is still pretty young.) We almost expect goalscoring to be ‘natural’ from the age of 18 now. And yet Fowler and Owen emerged in the ‘90s, before the Premier League went up a level.

With rumours of ‘low scoring’ Divock Origi arriving early in January (which I believe would be worthwhile, if it does happen, even if it’s just as a sub), it’s worth investigating the potential of young goalscorers.

£70,000 a week is peanuts for this kind of potential.

While not every prolific kid in youth team football – the “naturals” – will translate that into senior goals (see Mellor, Neil), it’s worth looking at how long it takes the beststrikers to adapt to the top level. Speaking from my own experiences in my teens, and as a spell as a semi-pro, the first thing you notice as a striker when you step up a division or an age group is how much better the keepers are. And in the Premier League youngsters will suddenly face the best in the world, rather than the best under a certain age, many of whom won’t even make a career in the game. You have an idea of what you have to do to score, based on years of playing at one level; but now you need to recalibrate, because unless you place it perfectly you’ll usually find the keeper can deal with it. Unless you can deceive the keeper, you’ll need to start finding the corners.

This is what Sterling and Origi are currently experiencing. For Belgium U19s Origi scored 10 in 19 matches; for the full national team he has a respectable three in 12, yet what is his true level? Sterling could score five in one game from the wing for Liverpool’s U18s, but he had to hoodwink a jobbing youngster, not David de Gea.

If you look at Sterling’s dribbling when he got into the first team it was not yet ‘scaled up’ to the elite level: lots of running into defenders, with the notion that he was going to do enough to beat them. But then, starting from halfway through last season, he really sharpened up, with more decisive movements, swifter body swerves, tighter touch, and so on. He realised he couldn’t just run and hope, which is what he was doing to kids his own age, such was his superiority.

With all this in mind I thought I’d look at the goal returns of Sterling and Origi in comparison with the big, proven goalscorers of the Premier League era, with one or two from overseas thrown in for good measure. It’s worth noting that these are players who featured in different positions at different clubs at different times, and sometimes in different leagues. They may have played for strong teams in weak leagues or weak teams in strong leagues. Some picked up serious injuries along the way, others perhaps played too much football at a young age, while some are still playing, and even still improving. And of course, some are regular penalty takers. So they are not necessarily comparable as ‘like for like’.

Also, for the purposes of this piece I stuck to league games and goals, because cup football is more unpredictable. (As an example, Iago Aspas has two cup hat-tricks this season, and got his only Liverpool goal against Oldham, but hasn’t scored a league goal for 18 months.)

What’s clear is that the 18 players chosen are all synonymous with goalscoring, whether attacking central midfielders, goalscoring wingers or out-and-out centre-forwards. I looked at the average goalscoring ratios – season by season, and year by year, from the age of 16 onwards – of Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Gareth Bale, Luis Suarez, Alexis Sanchez, Wayne Rooney, Daniel Sturridge, Didier Drogba, Fernando Torres, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Andriy Shevchenko, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Robin van Persie, Sergio Aguero and Robbie Fowler.

It’s fair to say that this is not a shoddy list I’ve knocked up to suit my argument; these are all elite attacking players, even if some did better abroad than in the Premier League. All of them, bar two*, have scored 20+ league goals in a single season in the Premier League,Serie A or La Liga. (*Sanchez got 19 for Barcelona last season, and Gerrard’s best for Liverpool is 16, although he has surpassed 20 goals in all competitions on three separate seasons. I think both are justifiably included.)

Before going any further I have to admit that there is also the Francis Jeffers Principle, in which a player can score almost 20 Premier League goals in his teens, and finish his career with 40 league goals in total, despite dropping down the divisions to play against inferior defences. Good teens can turn bad. So nothing I say about Sterling and Origi is supplied as proof that they will definitely become prolific finishers. However, they fare pretty well against those who set the gold standards of goals in their 20s.

First of all, look at the combined average graph for all of the players, which gives a great idea of how it takes time to peak, and that 25 is the ideal age for a striker. While individuals can still be prolific after 25, it’s probably worth being wary of signing anyone over that age, not least because the fees are usually higher (you’re paying for what they’vedone, rather than what they will definitely do). And, of course, it’s still a gamble; both Torres and Shevchenko were ‘perfect’ strikers who bombed for Chelsea.

Next look at Sterling and Origi compared with Henry and Sturridge: all quick players who have played both wide and centrally. Of these, Origi has probably played in the worst team as a teen. You can’t say that the green and yellow lines will shoot up in keeping with the other two, but what you can say is that Origi and Sterling are no less natural as goalscorers than Henry, who was probably the best striker this league has seen in the past 20 years, and Sturridge, who is Liverpool’s new gold standard with the departure of Suarez. Even Alan Shearer, who never played wide, had an unremarkable goalscoring record before he reached 22.

(For the record, I left out some prolific strikers; for example, Andy Cole didn’t even get a 2nd Premier League goal until he was 22; he got just one with Arsenal before dropping down to Bristol City and 2nd-tier Newcastle, with whom he went on to get his next 54 Premier League goals. I also didn’t include Michael Owen, who, unlike Cole, was an early starter. While I may go back and add more players, this collection seemed enough for now.)

Non-Strikers

I then looked at Cristiano Ronaldo, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Gareth Bale and Alexis Sanchez separately, as players who, like Sterling (and indeed Origi), were not out-and-out forwards (although Ronaldo and Sanchez have ended up there). Again, you can say that there is no cause to worry with regard to the two Liverpool youngsters, in that their careers as finishers are as ‘on-track’ as most of the mightiest were at 19 or 20.

 

Conclusion

The ‘proof’ I offer in this piece is not that these players will go on to emulate the greats, but that you cannot look at the scoring record of someone at 19 or 20 and say they are notgoing to become hugely prolific. Indeed, Didier Drogba wasn’t even playing anywhere before the age of 20 (from which point he was a lower-league player in France for a few years), and Ruud van Nistelrooy, up until the age of 21, had a poor scoring record with the unremarkable Dutch club FC Den Bosch in the Eerste Divisie (the 2nd tier in Holland).

Look at all of the aforementioned players in this table of their teenage scoring ratios, for evidence that Sterling and Origi are perfectly natural performers for their age.

What seems clear is that the average scoring rate of someone at 20 (0.35 goals per game) ends up doubled by the time they are 25 (0.70). The big rises in prolificness tend to start happening around 21/22, although Robbie Fowler peaked at just 20. Lionel Messi averaged 0.34 – or a league goal every three games – in his teens, but since then has averaged 0.96 (or virtually a goal per game). Cristiano Ronaldo’s league goalscoring record in his teens was exactly the same as Sterling’s: 0.14; yet since then it’s been an astonishing 0.84. It took Steven Gerrard until his 20s – more than 50 games – to register his second Liverpool goal. Since then he’s scored a further 176. His scoring record as a youngster didn’t suggest he’d get more than four goals in his career, yet the way he took that first goal against Sheffield Wednesday was indicative of his potential greatness.

So we need to give players time to find their goalscoring knack. These could indeed be players on the verge of very big things.

被趕下聖壇的聖人 - 鄭丁賢

http://opinions.sinchew.com.my/node/34999?tid=42

2014-12-14 11:04

朋友從台灣來吉隆坡，聚餐上談到台灣日前的選舉，我感慨說道：“政治上，台灣人是很殘酷的。”

桌上眾人不解，疑惑的看著我。

“馬英九以前不是聖人嗎？清廉，誠實，正直，有學問，還長得帥；是上天賜給台灣的最大恩典。

“現在吶，綠的罵他，藍的罵他，街上任何一個人都在罵他，選前罵，選後也罵。

“問題是，以前是聖人的馬英九，和現在是罪人的馬英九，還是同樣一個人啊。他或許沒有更好，但肯定也沒有變壞呀，至少不像陳水扁變得貪腐呀！”

朋友回應：“但是，他能力不行，沒有政績。”

“台灣的確有很多民怨，經濟沒有突破，房價太高……但是，這些不都是陳水扁，或更早的李登輝時代就存在？

“在我看來，馬英九其實還做得不錯。

幾年來，兩岸關係改善了，省籍對抗淡化了，台獨氣焰降低了；以前台灣人到海外不易，現在可以免簽證到100多個國家了。這些不就是政績嗎？

“他沒有貪污，連政敵都承認；他非常公正，連鐵票公務員的福利都被他取消，讓他們含淚不投票；他以務實遠見而改善和大陸關係，卻被指為親共賣台。

“對馬英九，台灣人還不算殘酷嗎？”

當然，我用“殘酷”二字，聽起來有點誇張。

只不過是拾人牙慧。邱吉爾在二次大戰時，領導英國和盟國，打敗了納粹德國，不但救了英國，也救了自由世界。

然而，之後的英國大選，在國內的民怨之下，他領導的保守黨輸掉政權。

邱翁有大功於英國和世界，卻連一次選舉也贏不了，情何以堪！

畢竟是偉人，他沒有說負氣話，而是留下名言：“對政治人物殘酷，就是偉大民族的象徵。”

真是一流的人物。被人民的選票遺棄，還能歌頌人民偉大；這才是真正的政治家。

無怪乎，當年勝選的艾德禮，如今少有人記得，而敗選的邱吉爾，永垂不朽。

至於馬英九，慘敗之後，他也沒有說過一句難聽的話，還是謙謙君子，也負起責任，辭去黨主席位子；即使如此，外界的罵聲和嘲諷還是不停。

馬英九肯定不是邱吉爾，不會成為偉人；但是，日後的歷史評價，馬英九應該不會是個爛人。

至於台灣人，他們當年想要一個聖人，結果上天給了他們一個馬聖人；只是，他們把聖人從聖壇上趕了下來。

x x x

這就是民主，特別是今天快速流轉的民主。它的快轉速度，可以快到上一分鐘支持的對象，支持的政策，在下一分鐘就自我否決，成為反對的對象和政策。

我總覺得，變的人不是馬英九和國民黨，變的其實是人民自己。

當人民喜歡一個政治人物或政黨，會不自覺的美化他們，對方即使不是那麼好，人民也會把他們粉刷得非常好；對方即使犯了錯，人民會故意看不到他們的錯誤，或為他們找尋美麗的藉口。

但是，政治人物無須自我陶醉太久。一旦人民開始厭倦他們，則移情別戀的速度也很快。不管政治人物做了甚麼，即使做了好事，也要被吹毛求疵，大加撻伐；乃至欲加之罪，何患無詞。

於是，政治失去了中間，也沒甚麼理性。喜歡就好，不喜歡就壞，而且是大好大壞。

大馬政治的兩極化，何嘗不是如此！看看網絡上的言論，就可知如出一轍。

這種現象，空有民主門面，卻缺乏民主內。民主還真的是要學習的。

(星洲日報／星期天拿鐵‧作者：鄭丁賢‧《星洲日報》副執行總編輯）

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The End of the World (and I Feel Fine) by Paul Tomkins

http://tomkinstimes.com/2014/12/the-end-of-the-world-and-i-feel-fine/

By Paul Tomkins.

Some of this season’s problems I was able to foretell – plenty of which were obvious, but a few of which followed patterns and trends most fans don’t seem aware of. Others I didn’t see coming, or was just plain wrong about.

A quick check of Twitter this morning – and believe me, it was only safe to be brief – tells me that Liverpool should offload 5-10 players this January; that last season was all down to Suarez; that Rodgers was sacked from Reading for a reason; and so on.

Looking back, you were probably able to list the foreseeable problems behind the team’s woes without too much trouble: Suarez was world-class; the defence – or rather, defending as a team – wasn’t good enough; the extra burden of European football; the arrival of Mario Balotelli; and so on. These weren’t guaranteeing that Liverpool would fail, but if Liverpool did fail, they would be the obvious issues to point to. You can add the failure to buy a ready-made defensive midfielder, although that falls into the defending as a team category, and you can bemoan the lack of striking cover, although that is included in the Balotelli dilemma.

I will always believe that Liverpool were right to sell Suarez, once his latest ban for biting was added to his increased desire to go to Spain (if he stayed and bit someone again, and got a longer ban, everyone would say he should have been sold). He would always be difficult to replace; indeed, nigh-on impossible. We can go over and over the reasons behind not getting Alexis Sanchez, and other big names who were bid on, but Liverpool are a club with a grand history and a chequered recent past, who can’t afford to pay the really big wages. (If you haven’t read my piece that shows just how far adrift the Reds are in financial terms, please do.)

The most surreal solution I’ve heard was Martin Samuel repeating his claim on The Sunday Supplement that Liverpool should have gone to Manchester City and offered £60m for Sergio Aguero. Presumably City, so short of cash, would have been only too eager to sell their best player to the team who were their closest rivals last season, while the player himself would have jumped at the chance to join an inferior side and have his wages lowered. Quite what this would have achieved beyond wasting everybody’s time is beyond me. It makes less sense than Arsenal thinking they could get Luis Suarez last season for £40,000,001, and didn’t result in the Gunners being taken seriously by the media.

People will say that Liverpool needed a world-class replacement for Suarez, but Daniel Sturridge scored 21 league goals last season; having a fit Sturridge would have gone a long way to obviating some of the problems. He’s had injury problems in the past, but never like this.

Equally, how many league goals have Suarez and Falcao scored this season? Very different situations of course, and they’ve only played a dozen or so games (itself an issue), but the combined total of two of the very best finishers in world football is the same number as the tally of Sturridge, who has only played three games. The ‘obvious’ solutions don’t always work; at least in the short-term. In all competitions, Mario Balotelli has as many goals this season as Suarez and Falcao combined. Falcao is a great striker, but his injury record didn’t make him the ideal alternative to Sturridge. Divock Origi seems a great buy, in that he’s young, absolutely outstanding for his age, and cheap at twice the price. We just have to wait on him. (Which doesn’t mean he’ll be a surefire hit, as no one ever is, but he has the pace we miss in Sturridge’s absence.)

The trouble with overachieving in a season is that if you don’t get off to a good start the next season there’s a greater sense of disappointment than is fair and logical. Like a team who are promoted a year too early, and aren’t ready for the Premier League, Liverpool weren’t ready for the Champions League (although should still have won more than a single game). The jump from 7th to 2nd was fun, but some of our helium balloons were always going to pop.

If Suarez is the sole reason for Liverpool’s successes last season, as I see so many fans saying, then what about Everton? They’ve only racked up just over 60% of the points they picked up after 15 games last season; 18 compared with 28. They didn’t spend fortunes in the summer, but they also didn’t lose by far and away their best striker (indeed, they secured him for £28m after a loan). I’d argue that expectations were raised too high, and the Europa League sapped the extra 20% of energy needed on the weekends in the Premier League.

If adding a world-class striker to your team is the solution, why are Arsenal, who have done just that with Alexis Sanchez, currently 6th, when after 15 games, without one, they were top last December? They qualified easily from their Champions League group, but they don’t have the resources of City, Chelsea and United, and as such they are perhaps like Liverpool under Rafa Benítez, in that they can’t easily handle both Europe and the Premier League; and that in most seasons they’ll be clearly better in one than the other. Only the übersquads do well across both, as I’ve been saying for years. (The one exception of recent times being Atletico Madrid, with possibly Dortmund a second example, although they’re having a nightmare season in the league, to show that good things can go badly wrong.)

As I’ve noted before, I spent the first half of last season feeling unconvinced by Brendan Rodgers; so much so that I was told, quite clearly, that I had no right to enjoy Liverpool’s late blooming in 2013/14. But once he/his team achieved something only done four times in the Premier League era – winning eleven league games in a row in the same season – I came down in favour of him and his methods. I might not necessarily agree with them all, but it was the best season in years.

Right now I could trumpet about how right I was all along, and that he never was good enough, but that seems hollow – and I’m sick of people who only ever point out what they got right while sweeping what they got wrong under the carpet. He’s made some bad mistakes this season (some of the signings, the crippling lack of pace in the side, etc), but also had some bad luck: Sturridge’s injury woes (worse than usual); some shocking refereeing, where, after the furore of last season’s ‘penaltypool’, his team no longer get valid penalties (and contrast some of the tackles put in on Liverpool player’s at Newcastle with the ‘violent conduct’ of Lazar Markovic last night); and the fact that his team looked superb at Spurs before injury issues mounted and more than two or three of the new buys were going into the team at once. He hasn’t helped himself in recent weeks by omitting Borini from the squad, which I find as baffling as playing Sterling for 120 minutes versus Boro in the League Cup. Those are two big mistakes, but we can always point to managerial mistakes; with a different manager we’d just be pointing out his (or has there been a manager in the past 20 years who we haven’t moaned about in some way or other?).

But a lot of this goes to prove that it’s tough being in Europe whilst simultaneously getting results in the league. It’s not just the tiredness after Champions League matches, but the physical and psychological drop-off the weekend before a big game. Some players will always have an eye on preserving themselves for Real Madrid three days later. I’ve seen this time and again, for 12 years now. Cup football damages your league health: of this I have no doubt. Not every single time, but more often than not.

Teams who overachieve often drop violently in the next season. They’ll regress to the mean. Newcastle did it under Pardew, after they finished 5th; Everton after they finished 5th last season. (Perhaps the reason Southampton haven’t is because they lost all expectations after a painful summer.) Before they steadied to a decent level under David Moyes, Everton were up near the top one season then down near the bottom. While I’m not Moyes’ biggest fan, he wasn’t as bad as his worst season suggests, if also not as good as his best season would have you believe.

Over the past two seasons Liverpool’s TPI £XI (the inflated average cost of their league XIs, which closely correlates with finishing positions) has ranked 4th and 5th. Average out the league position of last season and this (if the Reds were to finish 7th, say) and it’d just about be right: 4.5. The trouble is that last season felt like a rocket firing into the sky on all cylinders, whereas this feels like the return module falling limply towards the sea. The alternative – to just finish 4th every season, ‘on par’, and escape the Champions League group – sees Arsene Wenger being harangued like a serial killer walking from police station to armoured prison van. That’s modern football for you.

Rodgers is making mistakes, but last season his attacking philosophy broke records. It’s not working this time, due to injuries, poor purchases (on the evidence to date) to replace Suarez, and various other little things that are going wrong. The especially quick players – Moreno and Markovic – were either playing quite well but making bad mistakes (Moreno) or looking overwhelmed (Markovic). Markovic finally started looking like a £20m bargain last night, until he brutally and savagely dangled some limp fingers in the direction of a Basel player. As much as you can blame Rodgers for the terrible first half, you have to say that, having made two positive changes at half-time, he was unlucky with having to face an underrated team for 30 minutes with 10 men.

I think that, in time, we’ll be very happy with the signings of Moreno, Markovic, Can, Manquillo and, when he arrives, Origi. These are astute buys, even if it’s unlikely that they’ll all mature as expected. But it’s harder to justify the performances of the more experienced new arrivals.

Changes

At the start of the summer I said that Liverpool shouldn’t be in a hurry to sell its decent older players: namely Lucas, Agger and Johnson. If you sign eight players, then the law of averages states that at least half won’t make an impact, especially immediately. Lucas, for example, isn’t what he was, but he’s proved very valuable in recent weeks (as has Toure, unexpectedly) in keeping the goals-against column more respectable.

Players like Aspas – who just weren’t at the races – could be offloaded without any impact, but you need a stable core of Steady Eddies. It’s interesting how Alex Ferguson hung on to so many unremarkable players for so long (Butt, Phil Neville, Wes Brown, John O’Shea, Fletcher, Gibson et al), because he knew they’d do a job. If they were at another club those fans would say “we’ll never win the league with him”. Between them they must have about 20 league winners’ medals. (Martin Kelly fit into this category at Liverpool, but was never fit.)

I have also spent a couple of years warning about buying too heavily from the Premier League, as I just don’t think there’s any evidence to suggest superior success rates; just a price tag that’s too high. While I have no major objection to the purchase of Adam Lallana, Southampton replaced him with a better player at half the price. The lesson from buying Andy Carroll should have been that the transfer fee can be too big for the player to carry.

One thing I can’t easily measure is the blend of characters and nationalities that makes a side successful; when it goes wrong you’ll probably end up with separate cliques of Brits and the rest, but having lots of French players at Arsenal in the early 2000s, or lots of Spanish at Liverpool a few years later, was far from a hindrance.

Rodgers appears to be on a mission – based on his owns statements – to prove that English players are better than perceived. I’d personally rather he just went for the best players that the club’s money (which isn’t tons, when wages are factored in) can buy.

So, some of this was foreseeable. And some of it – Sturridge missing virtually the whole of the first half of the season, Balotelli not even registering a single league goal, the relative short-term failure of all of the new signings, the lack of protection afforded to Raheem Sterling by referee’s, the total failure of Steven Gerrard in the role he excelled in during the first half of 2014 – was unforeseeable; certainly to such severe degrees. If you asked even the most cynical Liverpool fans to bet on how many games Sturridge would start, how many goals Balotelli would get and what percentage of the new signings would make a clear immediate impact, you wouldn’t have seen responses as pessimistic as what turned out to be true. I thought we’d probably finish 4th at best this season, but maybe 5th at worst; right now the Reds are 9th.

So it’s not about jettisoning the Steady Eddies in January, or buying another half a dozen new players, or sacking the manager, or ditching Steven Gerrard, or promoting five kids because there’s nothing to lose (except their confidence and careers). Some of these things may need to happen next summer, but things have a habit of changing. As I noted earlier in the week, humans have been proved to have a poor capacity to predict change: how things are right now feels like how they will be.

Players will get fit again. Some of the new signings will prove their worth. A striker will go on a run of scoring goals, having not bagged any for ages. Someone unexpected will pop up from the youth team. We saw in early 2013 the impact made by just two new arrivals, who turned the club’s season on its head. We saw in early 2014 that a team that hadn’t won more than four league games in a row under Rodgers suddenly won eleven. We saw a player bemoaned for his profligacy become as good as anyone in the world. We saw a teenager written off as “not good enough” in late November become a key player from December onwards. We saw Gerrard reinvented in a new role, and Henderson blossom into a vital cog in a well-oiled machine. Conversely, things that are working can also start to go wrong, of course, as we saw with Gerrard’s effectiveness in the holding role. (The ‘good news’ is that nothing is going right at the moment!)

If I thought things were going to stay like this under Rodgers I’d accept the clamour to see him sacked. If this is truly his ‘level’, then get rid. But while I’m not convinced he’s in the top echelon of managers, he and his team are better than this. Even if things don’t get better by the summer I wouldn’t say he had to be sacked, but equally, if things get no better it becomes ever harder to say the club must stick with him.

Why I hate Jose Mourinho - Part 1 (No offend to the Chelsea's Fan)

Say this last year when your "little pony" (which is ridiculous if you see their players) played at Anfield. Who is playing wasting time here and there to counter Liverpool way of play?

I am ok with it if you say it is a tactic, and i also agreed that it is Liverpool that cannot alter their's to get the result. (Of course, like many people thinking, i think it is Gerrad's slip that cost us the game, and ultimately the title last year.)

But when your team now is good, and other team doing the same thing as you, you start complaining, can i say this is hypocrite?

This is one of the many reason i dislike, or even hate Jose Mourinho, he is perfect, all the faults because of others.

And now he even get the Mourinho Time, what else you want?

'Forget Fergie time, that's Mourinho time!' Alan Pardew slates SIX minutes of added time after Newcastle beat Chelsea 2-1

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2863515/Forget-Fergie-time-s-Mourinho-time-Alan-Pardew-slates-six-minutes-added-time-Newcastle-beat-Chelsea-2-1.html#ixzz3LC9ULybe _________________________________________________________________________________

Jose Mourinho accuses ball boys of wasting time after Chelsea are beaten by Newcastle

• Chelsea suffered first defeat of the season at St James' Park on Saturday
• Papiss Cisse scored both goals as Newcastle claimed three points
• Jose Mourinho critical of ball boys at St James' Park
• Chelsea manager was unhappy with how long it took to retrieve a ball 

By SUNNI UPAL FOR MAILONLINE 

PUBLISHED: 16:18 GMT, 6 December 2014 | UPDATED: 21:11 GMT, 6 December 2014

 
 
 
 
 

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Jose Mourinho criticised Newcastle's ball boys and accused them of wasting time after Chelsea's 2-1 defeat at St James' Park on Saturday.

Mourinho, who is yet to taste a league victory at Newcastle in his two stints as Chelsea boss, felt his side were unfortunate to lose and suggested the Magpies employed time-wasting tactics to get over the line.

Papiss Cisse came off the bench to score both goals in the second half, and Didier Drogba's late header wasn't enough to prevent Chelsea from falling to their first defeat of the season. 

VIDEOS Scroll down to watch

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Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho remonstrates with fourth official Robert Madley 

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Mourinho lets off a rise smile as his team were beaten for the first time this season on Saturday

Jose Mourinho says Newcastle were lucky and blames ball boy

'No complaints. Unlucky,' he said. 'We had a lot of chances to score in the first half, we didn't. In the second half again we had chances, we didn't (score).

'They defend and the first time they were there (in attack) they score a goal. After that, everybody (got) behind (the ball) against a team that tried everything and a team (in which) every player went to the last seconds.

'We wanted to play more football but it was not possible because a few things I thought didn't belong any more to top-level football but still belongs - the ball disappeared, the ball doesn't come, another ball comes, the ball boys run away - these kind of situations that unfortunately are still part of the game. But no complaints.' 

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Papiss Cisse came off the bench to score both goals for the home side in their win

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Chelsea fell to their first Premier League defeat in 15 games this season

Sportsmail's Big Match Stats: Newcastle 2-1 Chelsea

Nemanja Matic could make an immediate return after suspension for Chelsea's Champions League clash with Sporting Lisbon on Wednesday.

Chelsea boss Mourinho allowed Matic to enjoy a 'holiday' while forced to sit out Saturday's defeat.

Serbia midfielder Matic lost his record of starting all Chelsea's Barclays Premier League games after picking up his fifth booking of the season in the 3-0 victory over Tottenham.

Mourinho could well rotate his squad for Sporting's Stamford Bridge visit, with Chelsea already assured of top spot in Group G and safe passage to the last 16.

+5

John Terry looks on helpless after Cisse scores the second goal for Newcastle

'He has a little bit of a holiday, a free weekend that he deserves very, very much: and he will come back stronger,' said Mourinho of Matic.

'If one player has a free weekend for example, obviously he is ready to play again three or four more matches in a row.

'I keep saying that I think it's very, very difficult for a player to play every game in December.

'So if we have eight matches, I would say the maximum a player can play is seven.' 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2863499/Jose-Mourinho-accuses-ball-boys-wasting-time-Chelsea-beaten-Newcastle.html#ixzz3LC5g2NQp
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Selfies of the Year 2014

Time Magazine choose their's Selfies of the Year 

I choose mine

马来婚礼华人文化

希望报章报道多一些类似的报道。

多一些的正能量，对宗族的和谐作出努力。

如果马来报，英文报不登，华文报登多些吧！总的有人开始的。

鳳袍馬褂‧醒獅助興‧友族華人婚禮成佳話

（吉打‧雙溪大年3日訊）一對年輕馬來夫婦選擇華人傳統禮俗完成人生大事，吸引各族觀禮，成為地方上的佳話。

• 艾曼夫婦給長輩敬茶，讓長輩親友體驗不同的婚禮。（照片由受訪者提供）

採用華人傳統迎親禮俗的，是從小接受華文教育的諾花拉欣（25歲）與丈夫艾曼（22歲）。

婚禮上的許多用品，包括馬褂及鳳袍，都是由新娘從中國北京買回來。

諾花有華人血統

住在雙溪大年麗雅花園的諾花在小時候父母離異，她與華裔穆斯林母親傅茲雅同住，有一名哥哥及一名姐姐。

諾花在雙溪拉蘭中華小學畢業後，進入新民國民型中學完成中學教育，畢業後獲得政府贊助，到中國北京外國語大學深造，修讀華文科系，目前在一所國小擔任華文教師；艾曼則是一名警察。

諾花通過也是任職警察的姐夫認識艾曼，戀愛近一年後共結連理。

她說在北京唸書時，因接觸華人的中華傳統及文化，再加上擁有華人血統，與丈夫商量後決定進行華人傳統結婚禮俗。

希望留下甜美回憶

諾花在籌備婚禮時徵求母親意見，希望婚禮能給丈夫及自己一個美好及甜美的回憶。

諾花與艾曼的婚禮是於今年11月29日進行，目前兩人在浮羅交怡島度蜜月。這場婚禮獲得男方多名親友特從雪州巴生到雙溪大年觀禮。

這場婚禮除了請來新光學校的醒獅團助興，也舉行給長輩敬茶禮。

母：通過女兒婚禮
讓友族瞭解中華文化

傅茲雅說，我國是多元種族國家，各族都應互相瞭解各傳統風俗習慣及文化，這次通過女兒的婚禮，可讓友族瞭解到華人傳統文化。

她說，國內領袖近期不斷發表種族性言論，或破壞種族之間和諧，因此女兒的華人傳統迎親禮俗，可說是一種突破。

（星洲日報）

马来婚礼现华人传统，画面上看到raja sehari的一对马来新人在亲友的陪同和祝贺下进行婚礼，旁边高摆大大粒金字‘迎亲’大红牌匾，面前有活灵活现的华人舞狮，看上去让你我眼前一亮，不相信是国内马来甘榜正进行马来婚礼参插着华族的热闹文化，还以为是拍电影剧情所需的情节。 

不过，据图片旁白，那并非是戏里的情节，而现实生活里出现在离开霹州皇城江沙不远的马来甘榜，一对马来青年大喜日搞出的噱头，礼聘华族舞狮助兴，并依华人古代传统婚礼方式，有人扛着迎亲牌匾到新娘家迎亲，吸引众多村民争相围观。 

媒体记者把那难得一见的马来婚礼华人化的精彩片段，形容为华巫一家亲最佳写照！

 话说江沙加地甘榜德拉一对马来新人利查与努鲁阿紫玛拉埋天窗举行传统婚礼，新娘的哥哥为了让新人留下最美丽的回忆，特邀邀请狮团到场舞狮助兴，祝福一对新人永远相爱。 这家居住马来甘榜的新时代马来家庭，原来与华族有着相当的情感，新娘的哥哥在一家华裔老板的树胶店工作，由于思想开通，接触到一些华族传统的习俗文化相当感兴趣，对于华人百行孝为先、尊老爱幼的观念，以及华人新年热闹的舞狮文化，都有相当深刻的体验。

趁着这趟妹妹结婚大喜日，征得双方的同意和家长的认同，决定邀请舞狮为她的婚礼助兴，使到村內的马来同胞有机会近距离接触华人优秀的传统文化，让村民眼界大开，间接促进种族和谐。 

如此精彩的马来婚礼加插华族传统迎亲风俗，就算在你我华人社会的新时代，也未必有机会让人大饱眼福，何况居然出现在马来甘榜，所引起的轰动确是空前。 

国内近来频频因宗教课题和文化冲突引发破坏各族和谐相处的争端，让国家领袖为补镬而伤透脑筋，媒体这则令国人深感兴趣的马来婚礼华人化的戏码，着实给了大家不少灵感，以传统文化在民间不分彼此的相互交流，其实何尝不是最佳的改善各族民众和谐相处的好主意喔！ 

http://jalong.blogspot.com/2014/06/blog-post.html

数十年不变的滋味 by pingjinn lim

有 人是十年不变叫做好，另一种感觉叫找新鲜的食物来吃。对于我两种习惯都有，不只是数十年不变，而是数十年坚持下来的老味道与饮食习惯叫做“古早味”，也就 是以前老人家在甘苦的年代，怎样喝，我们现在也能尝试到这样得滋味，这样的心情是怀古的，也是透过文化与生活习惯，去理解一个社区甚至是一个城市，到底有 什么魅力？因为咖啡店代表这里，尤其是一个数百年的城市，咖啡比肉骨茶更早，开始普及，所以，我特别重视这些数十年都不改变的咖啡滋味。就这样，他们历久 不衰，就成了“名家”。

位于巴生永安镇瑞生茶餐室就是一个例子，是与陆月，中国酒店，昌和，悦茗居，華園齐名的传统咖啡名家。

当 然，来到这里吃的都是老马识途的顾客。也只有这样几家老咖啡店找到过去。瑞生茶餐室的咖啡或许一些人不喜欢，觉得有焦焦味道，但是是该店特色，可能是加牛 油以外，有加沙糖去炒吧？来这一里一般是吃生熟菜园蛋与喝咖啡，一般很多客人，一天只守一咖啡店，而且是一守就几十年，这是现代人办不到的。这点也蛮有趣 的！

除此传统知名的面粉粿汤，烧腊档的叉烧也好吃！

http://pingjinn.blogspot.com/2014/06/blog-post_19.html

人生贵人 (转载）

人生中的七个贵人

 欺骗我的人，增长了我的见识。 

绊倒我的人，强化了我的能力。 

中伤我的人，砥砺了我的人格。 

藐视我的人，觉醒了我的自尊。 

斥责我的人，助长了我的智慧。 

遗弃我的人，教导了我的独立。 

伤害我的人，磨练了我的心志。

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