The Warm-Up - Will either Bayern or Liverpool be happy? Neither?
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Updated 20/02/2019 at 18:11 GMT
Plus: Nobody is satisfied with anything really, Manchester City are essentially the Evil Empire and some other stuff
FC Liverpool gegen Bayern München: Klopp, Kovac
Image credit: Imago
WEDNESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Who will be satisfied with that 0-0? Liverpool? Bayern? Certainly not us
Maybe we built it up too much. And to be fair the first half of Liverpool v Bayern last night, while not producing any goals, was pretty good fun. But something happened in the second-half to take all the air out of the game and we were left with a disjointed, dissatisfying affair with which few can be happy. Not us neutrals, anyway.
The two teams involved might be, though. With a depleted team against one of the most potent attacks in Europe, Bayern will clearly be pretty happy with a draw to take back to Munich with them, and while the conventional wisdom is that a home team needs to stick a few goals in, Liverpool won’t cry themselves to sleep over this one either. After all, alls they need is an early goal in the second-leg and Bayern need two, which is where the panic starts.
Jurgen Klopp was…sort of satisfied:
Our biggest problem was a very average last pass in about 10 or 12 situations that looked promising,” the Liverpool manager said. “We made life difficult for ourselves with those final passes, promising moves just fizzled out. We can play better and we should play better but even if it is not a dream result it is still a good one. Bayern are a very good team and though our performance was not perfect we still have a result we can work with. Nil-nil is the best home draw you can get, after all.
…and Niko Kovac too…
It is half-full, half-empty. I can’t remember that many clubs have not lost and not conceded at Anfield and the way Liverpool played, they are a sensationally good team. My team in defence and as a whole kept everything tight at the back and played at a high level, tactically and mentally.
So in the end both teams were sort of satisfied. But weren’t really satisfied. Which makes the whole thing…fairly unsatisfactory? What an odd match.
…And Barca v Lyon for that matter, too…
There was another 0-0 draw in the Champions League last night too, as neither Barcelona nor Lyon could muster a goal between them in France, leading to…well, again, nobody really being happy.
The key concern for Barca seemed to be the lack of goals for Luis Suarez, who has scored only once in his last 17 Champions League games, not at all this season and hasn’t found the net away from the Nou Camp in this competition since 2015.
Ernesto Valverde wasn’t too fussed though:
It doesn’t worry me. It would worry me if he wasn’t getting chances, which is what you ask for from a centre-forward. And [even] if he doesn’t have chances, he creates them for his teammates. Opponents are frightened of him. He [must] be reserving himself… Football is a game of margins. Strikers have runs [of goals] and the best thing is he’s getting chances.
So as it turns out nobody is really worried about anything. Which is nice, we suppose…
Maurizio Sarri won’t be sacked…yet
History, results, relationship with the Chelsea fans and unfortunate common sense all tell you that Maurizio Sarri is circling the drain, in terms of his Chelsea career anyway.
But on Tuesday the club were circulating the word that he won’t be sacked before Thursday’s Europa League return against Malmo and won’t be sacked before the weekend’s Carabao Cup final against Manchester City, which in itself is fairly telling. Telling journalists that they won’t sack their manager this week, but no promises after that, isn’t exactly the most reassuring of things.
So what can Sarri do to salvage his position? Well, win those two games, for a start, but you do rather feel that things have gone too far now. Unless his whole squad suddenly gets it, suddenly start playing brilliantly in his style and cut swathes through teams, he’s done. Which seems pretty stupid, but that’s football for you.
IN OTHER NEWS
How far football has come, eh? From a side owned by a toilet paper magnate in the 1990s, Manchester City are now buying entire clubs in China.
Is it appropriate that the company they’re partnered with is the one that makes First Order robots from Star Wars, meaning they’re essentially in cahoots with the evil Empire? Not for us to say.
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: Jordan Henderson
For a while you were tempted to think that Jordan Henderson’s last great performance at Liverpool was going to be in that Nivea advert, in which he showed some genuinely terrific comic chops with that look to camera when the three-wheeler won’t start.
But then he goes and plays like that against Bayern Munich. Henderson did all the meat and potatoes stuff he’s supposed to at the base of Liverpool’s midfield, and then some more, playing some remarkable raking passes from deep that briefly made you think Xabi Alonso was out there. Hats off.
Zero: Jose Mourinho
Arsene Wenger got an award this week, and who better to record a congratulatory message than Jose Mourinho, the man who was so unrelentingly awful to him for the entire time both men were managing in England. Mourinho said:
There were some episodes along the road. I can only speak by myself. I really enjoyed the competition. But the real respect was always there.
So essentially Mourinho has turned into one of those rugby players who gouge your eyes on the field and grab your nether regions, but then thinks everything is OK if you shake hands and have a beer in the bar afterwards.
RETRO CORNER
It’s a very happy birthday to Jari Litmanen, a player who feels like one of those bands from the 1970s that had a couple of moderate hits, but every musician in the subsequent 40 years cites them as an influence. Here are ten of his best goals for Ajax.
HAT TIP
Nabil Bentaleb was once the future of Spurs’ midfield but is now playing in Germany for Schalke 04. He has shone there and this week he will face Manchester City – including former Spurs team-mate Kyle Walker – in the Champions League last-16 in Gelsenkirchen. “It will be an unbelievable game for us to play,” Bentaleb tells The Independent. “I am not living in a dream world, I know it is going to be very tough, We know that they are much better than us on paper. But we are there to perform and at the end of the day, in football anything can happen.”
Nabil Bentaleb, once of Spurs and now of Schalke, speaks to Jack Pitt-Brooke of the Independent.
COMING UP
It’s that Champions League again. There’s Man City v Schalke obviously, but probably a much spicier game will be Atletico v Juventus in Madrid, while there’s Derby v Millwall in the Championship and a full programme in the Women’s Super League.
Tomorrow’s Warm-Up will be brought to you by WHOOOOOOOAAAAA BLACK BETTY – Jackie Lang.
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