Rafa Benitez is a master of the second half of the season
Having failed to win a league game in 2009, many are writing off Rafa Benitez’s chances of clinching Liverpool’s first Premier League title. However, the mental Spaniard has a good record of turning things around in the second half of the season, so its unwise to write off the Reds just yet.
» After last season’s January slump, Liverpool went on to finish the season in emphatic style. They won eleven, drew three and lost one of their final fifteen, meaning that they were comfortably the best team in the league from February onwards. Over that period they averaged 2.40 points a game to Manchester United’s 2.14.
» The post-January flourish was also the difference maker for Rafael Benitez’s first ever league title while in charge of Valencia seven seasons ago. By the end of January that season they were fourth in La Liga, four points off top, having been handicapped by drawing nine of their first 22 (compared to Liverpool’s nine in 23).
» However from February onwards Valencia took eight points more than any other team in the league, winning twelve, drawing three and losing one of their final sixteen.
Presented with the opportunity to jump to second place in the Premier League and nip on Manchester Utd’s heels, it was vital that Liverpool secured three points at the JJB last night. The first half went exactly to plan, but Wigan’s brand new Egyptian forward messed with the script in the 83rd minute by slotting home a penalty equaliser.
Robbie Keane - who in recent weeks has seen less action than Amy Winehouse’s toothbrush - was thrown on as a last minute act of desperation, but even his impromptu appearance couldn’t save the game.
To make things even worse, even Alan Shearer could have made a better attempt at post-match analysis than Senor Benitez*:
We didn’t kill the game in the second half, it was a crazy game.
And when it is a crazy game you cannot control things. Why was it crazy? Because it was crazy.”
Rafa’s mental tautological thoughts aside, Liverpool have yet to win a league game in 2009, and are certainly not showing the consistent brilliance required of champions. Have they already blown their chances of securing their first Premier League trophy? Let us know your thoughts below…
*We don’t really mean that, Rafa. No one is worse than Shearer
Badly-coiffed defender sows seeds of doubt in Gunners’ minds
Each summer, everyone besides Steven Gerrard tries to figure out whether it’s Manchester United or Chelsea’s turn to win the Premier League. Gerrard, meanwhile, usually decides to humour the Kop faithful by announcing that it could be Liverpool’s year, only to sheepishly wave the white flag a few months into the season.
It looked like Arsenal were in danger of falling into the same trap when last month when Arsene Wenger announced that they would win everything in sight, but Bacary Sagna has urged caution by admitting in The Sun that the Gunners could be out of the title race by March:
“There is no point in planning ahead for next March because we cannot be certain that we will still be in the hunt for the title by then.
“Obviously, we all have regrets about last season and are hoping to improve on third place.
“But we need to learn from those lessons and that is why I don’t think it is a good idea to set ourselves a definite target for the new season.”
Are Arsenal going to struggle, or is Sagna slyly trying to lower expectations in the hope that they will mirror last season’s strong start? Let us know with a vote and comment below…
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