Weekend Wrap

Not much going on in the way of Liverpool news until Thursday, so I thought I'd just peruse whatever is rattling around the few functioning neurons I have left about what happened this weekend.

-Arsenal are the definition of insanity, in that they keep attempting the same thing and expecting different results. For at least the past two seasons, and probably longer than that, ManUre let them have possession in the middle and basically Rumble In The Jungle them to victory. Arsenal again and again try and go through the heart of the defense where there's a mob not unlike the papparazi waiting for them to steal the ball and hit strife through their slow midfield on the counter, where their dodgy defense can't hold them out. Football365 has a pretty interesting read on just how slow Arsenal have gotten, and the opposite used to be their trademark. Against lesser teams they can mesmerize with their passing, they'll get by. But having no Plan B kills them against the bigger teams. And even when they do try and cross it from the wide areas, they're not blessed with great aerial finishers, especially when Chamakh isn't playing. Van Persie's ok in the air, but usually is feeling pretty lonely in the box as no one else rushes up to join him. And we have to get behind this lot to keep #19 from washing up where we least want it. It's infuriating.

-Do you think when Andrei Arshavin is at the bar, he tries to weasel his way through the crowded middle area to get a drink every time instead of just moving out to the end, where there's no one?

-Man City are far more boring than Mourinho's Chelsea teams ever were. At least there was a threat of a counter attack with Chelski. But they're not here to entertain, they're here to win, and they do that enough I guess. Apparently this semifinal lines up on the same day as the London Marathon and Arsenal v. Liverpool, so that should be tons of fun for the North London police. Here's a match that really should be played on the moon. And that might even loosen the chains a little, because you know these games while full of passion and voice are about as easy on the eye as the baseball bat scene from Casino.

-If you caught any of the second half of Sevilla-Barcelona yesterday, your weekend was better off for it. When a team can genuinely get at Barca for the few seconds they don't have the ball, it makes for a thrilling, end-to-end, speed binge of a match. Iniesta nearly won it at the death with a Thor's Hammer of a drive that left the crossbar in tears. But Freddy Kanute and Negredo were constant counter attacking threats along with the wonderful Jesus Navas (a player who would start for any other national team in a heartbeat) joining in. Truly a spectacle.

-Nani's back in training. Huh, interesting.