Scotland lost yet another World Cup Qualifier – their first under new manager Gordon Strachan. The approach remained the same, with a few personnel changes. For most of the first half Scotland played deep and narrow and were pegged back in their own half for a majority of the starting 45 minutes. Many were…
Yet again Arsenal narrowly was knocked out of the Champions League ruing their poor performance in the first leg. Bayern’s approach of slowing down the game to kill it off nearly cost them the tie. Bayern started with a 4-2-3-1 looking at dominating possession. Bayern were without Ribery, Schweinsteiger and Jerome Boateng. Arsenal started with…
Gulf Cup holders Kuwait faced rivals Iraq in the second match of the Gulf Cup. Both teams were coming from victories in the previous match and the winner would qualify for the semi final. Iraq looked like the stronger and fitter of the two teams and it started very aggressively with the full backs…
Over the past one month, Liverpool has shown more fluency and it seems that they are finally playing according to Brendan Rodgers’ vision. But there is still work that needs to be done – on every Sunderland corner, the team struggled against the corners worked at the near post. The team is still vulnerable to…
A debut for Rafa Benitez – Chelsea was setup very defensively. Torres did have a couple of half chances but was woefully out of form, maybe someone should sprinkle some fairy dust on him to help him fly. Milner and Toure were given a lot of time on the ball, with Milner even getting in…
Liverpool dominated possession and created several chances, but yet again they failed to translate that into a defining victory. Rodgers started Gerrard, Allen and Shelvey in a midfield triangle. Sterling was given another start and Downing was left on the bench. Sunderland came out with a setup to play on the counter with Fletcher,…
After the disappointing match against Serbia, changes were expected in the Scottish line-up – especially after the impressive cameo by Mackie and Rhodes. Levein opted to give a start to Mackie instead of Naismith upfront, Maloney instead of Adams in midfield probably to add some pace and guile to the midfield and Forrest instead…
Mancini was disappointed after Manchester City’s performance against Liverpool. Clearly unhappy with the number of goals conceded, Mancini reverted to a more functional 4-4-2 with the full backs pushing forward all the way. Mark Hughes on the other hand had a different dilemma – he was starting 7 out of the 12 new faces…