Liverpool and that Fat Spanish Guy

By: Corey | December 19th, 2008

So we drew Liverpool in the Champions League, in what was a bizarre draw in my opinion. Take a look for yourself:

Ties to be played February 24/25 & March 10/11
Chelsea v Juventus
Villarreal v Panathinaikos
Sporting Lisbon v Bayern Munich
Atlético Madrid v FC Porto
Lyon v Barcelona
Real Madrid v Liverpool
Arsenal v AS Roma
Internazionale v Manchester United

Vilarreal vs. Pana, Atletico vs. Porto? Give me a break. The two weakest teams in the competition get two of the teams with the least past experience at this stage? Tell me this wasnt fixed UEFA….

Good news is that we should see two Spanish teams progress for sure. Barcelona will be tested against Lyon for sure, people underestimate their abilities all the time, and even though I am a secondary fan of Lyon, I find that to be the best tie of the round.

Inter vs. Man U? I guess its a good tie, but wouldnt you want this a little later on? Oh well, it will clear the way for us I guess. Cant wait to see the pathetic press tidbits Mourniho and Whiskey Nose throw at each other to gain a “psychological” edge.

Chelsea vs. Juve will be so god damn boring I might just fall asleep during it, because I am sure the tards that work at ESPN will play it. But who knows, we may get to see Pool vs. Real.

Arsenal vs. Roma is interesting because its two teams that play good football but dont win consistently. I can see Arsenal winning this one as Roma dont exactly travel well when the destination is England.

And finally, Bayern will walk against Sporting, they cleaned up last year in the a group with them, and both have essentially the same team.

What Mijatovic had to say, even though we all dont care:

“We will go into the tie feeling confident. Up until now we have done well against English team and I think we are capable of doing well in the competition this season and there is plenty of time to prepare for these games,” he told the club’s official website.

“At this level there are no easy teams and if we want to go a long way then the more difficult the opposition the better.”

“Nobody reaches this stage of the competition without having great quality. Liverpool have been doing very well in recent seasons, unlike us, but I believe that the time has come to change that.”

“We have had a lot of bad luck with injuries in the past few months, but now things will improve and we will be able to have those players back and to add to the squad in January,” he added.

“I think the team can play two very good games and go through to the next round. We all want to do well and are excited by playing in the Champions League.

“Our players may lack some experience in this competition, but we should be optimistic.”

Fair enough. Liverpool is a good team, but only when you look in the context that they are ultra defensive and rely so heavily on Gerrard or Torres to score something out of nothing. I find Gerrard to be a quality player of course, but I have a feeling keeping him quiet in the Bernabeu wont be as difficult as many think. Especially if we do indeed sign Lassana Diarra.

Torres is an interesing case too. He does not have the best goal scoring record in the Bernabeu, and that must surely be on his mind. If Gerrard is his “strike” partner, then Pepe and Canna will have to be on their toes, but I am pretty sure that we wont see such an adventurous side in the first leg.

Their defense is fragile in an area that we do not have a player to take advantage of. Their left back situation is just decent, with Dossena an absolute flop and Fabio Aurelio is an adequate player, but in reality is one of many squad rotation players Benitez uses from time to time.
Right back is a little better, with former Castilla player Alvaro Arbeloa set for a return home. Philip Degen has not even played in the Premiership this season and is not a CL quality player, so Arbeloa is desperately needed to stay fit. We will need to attack the wings to beat them, but we will need a right winger to help Robben do that. Palanca will hopefully emerge as more of a talent by then, while it seems worth a shot to try Robben or Drenthe on the right in order to move Marcelo further forward. As long as we can get alot of width and quality crossing, we can beat Liverpool.

So what are your thoughts on the tie? Can we win this game or will we be victims of Liverpool’s CL tactic chess game where boring 1-0 wins are grinded out no matter what the situation? Let me know what you think?

P.S. No Valencia preview, we are having a blizzard here and I need to get outside and start shoveling and plowing.