English Clubs

You're abroad: a different language, a new culture and altogether different customs. You've been gathering up courage, repeating the appropriate local phrase over and over again in your head. 

This is what traveling is all about. You make eye contact with the waiter and let that silver tongue loose. You're a cosmopolitan now. 

Suddenly, the momentary pride you feel is replaced with a sinking sense of horror as the curveball arrives. Your prepared statement is returned back to you in the form of some unintelligible question. 

I like to imagine somewhere in Merseyside this week, Brendan Rodgers and Jurgen Klopp met at Liverpool Lime Street, at the train station, and had a cup of coffee. In my head the conversation was light and mostly not about soccer. Something like this:

Klopp laughs a shushed laugh at one of Rodgers’s stories about Jose Mourinho from his time at Chelsea, and then there’s a natural pause in the smooth, flowing conversation. This is uncomfortable for both men.

Rodgers: “This is a really good club, you know.”

It was a rocky three-year-long marriage, but Liverpool finally parted ways with Brendan Rodgers. Now, the Reds are keen on hiring a high profile manager to lead the club (most notably former Borussia Dortmund man Jurgen Klopp), and the immediate start of the search has seen Liverpool contact Klopp and Carlo Ancelotti. 

Former Liverpool favorite John Aldridge would like to see the Italian manager commanding the club.

It seems that hat tricks are already a piece of cake in modern soccer. Now the fashion is to score five goals within a few minutes of a match, as Sergio Aguero did for Manchester City this weekend.

On September 22, Robert Lewandowski did it in nine minutes in the Bundesliga, and now Aguero has emulated Bayern Munich’s forward in a 6-1 win over Newcastle in the Premier League.

If you have ever seen someone in the middle of a crisis, Jose Mourinho’s post-game interview after his Chelsea side lost 3-1 to Southampton will at be once inspirational, unbelievable, and familiar.

Chelsea were the 14/15 Premier League Champions. Now they are sitting just four places above dead last. His team has no identity; it is in full crisis mode, and so is Jose Mourinho. Losing to Southampton made that crisis unignorable, and forced Jose Mourinho to finally address it after the game. 

Liverpool FC have announced they have fired Brendan Rodgers. The sacking is effective immediately following the club's lackluster 1-1 draw with Everton. The "Rodgers Out" cries sounded far and wide on Twitter.