Some news and notes to clean up today.
-As you probably saw earlier in the week, Luis Suarez had committed to Liverpool for next season and beyond. While that's always nice to hear, these things tend to mean jack and his friend shit when big money transfer offers come rolling in. I don't expect Suarez to leave in the summer, but I do expect the club to have to rebuff an offer or two from some teams in the Champions League. PSG is one, I can't help but feel like there'll be on Italian team making noises too. Either way, Liverpool are going to have next season and that's it to get back in the Champions League to assure a long stay from Suarez, because you can be he'll be looking around in the summer of 2013 if Liverpool can't offer him Europe's premier competition.
Suarez is also making noise about playing in the Olympics. Sadly, Liverpool can't bar him from doing so, as FIFA recently declared that clubs had to release players for that competition, which hadn't been the case before. However, someone should get in Suarez's ear about his form in the fall after playing for two straight years, and how some beach time in the summer might be what the doctor ordered.
-Andy Carroll has spoken of his desire to start more games and how he feels that will benefit his game. Couldn't agree more, and it also makes for an interesting juxtaposition with Dalglish's comments that Liverpool are "still a work in progress."
That phrase hints at a sort of rebuild, or at least building of a team from near the ground up for future challenges. If that is indeed the case, then sitting Carroll for long stretches, as has been done, is counter to that. When you're "a work in progress", you're basically taking the time to find out who can and who can't help you when it comes time to be in the big time again. It's not as if Carroll was sitting in favor of another hot shot prospect who had just outplayed him. Generally it was in favor of Dirk Kuyt, who's over 30 and might only have a year at most left at the club. You've already gotten the best out of Kuyt.
So either you're the finished article ready to challenge for fourth, or you're building a team that can do that and then grow into something more. Not playing Carroll would suggest the former, but we know that's not the case now. It seems they've been forced into the latter, which might end up being more beneficial to the club.
-A word on last night's Champion's League Semifinal. It seems that Bayern Munich always have a striker, who then plays for Germany, that when you see his scoring record on paper, you almost have a stroke. Mario Gomez has 78 goals in 82 appearances for Munich. That's just an insane return. But then you watch that striker play, and you're sort of in shock that he can run five feet without falling over himself. Because Mario Gomez is pants. And he's got stupid hair. I don't know how many chances he missed, and then he bags the winner on a chance he did everything to fuck up, but even he couldn't get his back leg out of the way after he had mishit with the foot he was sliding in with.
Before him it was Klose and Podolksi, and on a non Munich side it was Kuranyi. And there have been a few others. And yet, they throw on the Germany shirt and suddenly they can't stop scoring. Well, Kuranyi never did but you get it. But I saw Gomez at Euro 2008, and he was just beyond awful. And he was awful last night, but still scored. How on Earth did he bag 78 goals?
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