Jürgen Klopp has finally managed a “first” in his Liverpool career. No, he hasn’t won a trophy, but he has won the first two games of a new season for the first time since joining the club.
The fact that Liverpool were rather fortunate in their victory over Crystal Palace, who hit the crossbar and had a player wrongly sent off, is irrelevant and Klopp won’t be too worried about mere details such as these.
The 0-2 scoreline was also rather flattering as the second goal was scored, as is often the case, in the dying seconds of the game when Palace were pushing for an equaliser with Sadio Mané running half the length of the pitch before stumbling past the goalkeeper to score.
This added to James Milner’s first half penalty so, as you can imagine, it was hardly a convincing performance.
Still, ours is not to reason why and all that kind of stuff. Suffice to say that Liverpool will have to play a lot better than this if they really want to be considered serious contenders for the title.
Over in Manchester…..
José Mourinho will be a happy man this morning. Not only was he recently given the backing of the Manchester United board, (a vote of confidence all managers crave), but he will have watched the Monday night football on Sky and heard Gary Neville also support him in his job.
Neville, quite rightly, pointed out that, having extended Mourinho’s contract back in January, they then had to back him in the transfer market which, of course, they didn’t.
We all know Mourinho manages for the here and now and isn’t particularly worried about what happens next year or the year after and, with this in mind, he tends to want experienced players also for the here and now.
The two main men, supposedly, on Mourinho’s summer wish-list
This is what he was looking for in August when he wanted Toby Alderweireld or Harry Maguire or both.
Where we have a little sympathy with the board over this one is that United already have two English centre-backs, an Argentinian, an Ivorian and a Swede all of whom are internationals and Mourinho wanted another one! Bear in mind also that he had bought two of the aforementioned players.
The feeling is that the board would and have backed Mourinho for positions in the team which are crying out for improvement, such as full back and the wide areas but these were being neglected for yet another centre back.
So it is not quite as simple as Gary Neville suggests when he says that the board should back the manager, not in this particular instance anyway.
Another £60 million? On another centre back? What if Mourinho is wrong about this one as well because he certainly seems to be suggesting that his purchase of either Lindelof, Bailly, or both, was a mistake?
Meanwhile darn sarf…..
Unai Emery will need a couple more transfer windows to get his Arsenal team anything like he wants it.
At present he is trying to get players to adapt to his methods and, in some cases, it just isn’t working. So what’s the answer?
Well, Emery adapting to the players at his disposal is not going to happen so players wishing to stay at The Emirates must quickly work out how they are going to approach the coming months.
Joe Hart at Manchester City, for example, didn’t fit the Guardiola way of thinking so, after a couple of loan spells with other clubs, he is now gone. The same applies to the old full backs, (so beloved of José Mourinho), that he inherited.
Unai Emery is no different. He achieved his relative success by adhering to a certain philosophy in which he believes and the sooner the players buy into it the better it will be for them. Just ask Mesut Özil!
And finally…..
Wayne Rooney – Has made a few doubters think again since landing stateside
Wayne Rooney may not be the average Premier League player he once was but he certainly seems to be having the desired effect with DC United.
Since he moved to Washington Rooney’s new team have risen from bottom of the MLS eastern conference where they had won 2 of 14 games, to within 6 points of a play-off place. They are also unbeaten in their last five games, which coincides with him being given the captaincy.
He has managed to change a few opinions, particularly those of people who thought he was a bad signing, only going for the big money and someone who would bring nothing to the team.
He seems to have brought plenty to the team.
As a publication which has never been a big fan of the treacherous Liverpudlian we wish him well in this venture as he seems to be putting everything into it.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 