Preview: Leeds United v. LFC

LFC travel to Leeds on Sunday for a Premier League football match.  Leeds is managed by the legendary Argentinian Marcelo Bielsa. They are, in my opinion, the most fun team in the Premier League to watch, outside of the so-called “Top Six.” They press intensely, using unusual “man-marking” principles (i.e., man-to-man defense), and their off-the-ball movement offensively is both unusual and …

Naby Keïta Theory

I really was not expecting Harvey to start against Chelsea.  Obviously, this is a sign that the manager believes the Kid is ready. And, I still think there’s a good chance that we had come up with a tactical tweak that we tried out in the Burnley match, in an effort to attack/overload Chelsea’s weakest defensive link the following week …

Sayonara, Xherdan Shaqiri

The European champions are coming to town, for an exciting, early-season top of the table clash.  But, before we get into the Chelsea preview, I wanted to talk about two recent developments with broader implications. First, Xherdan Shaqiri left this week for Olympique Lyon in France. He spent three years as a Red. By all accounts, he filled his position …

Champions League Draw

UEFA conducted the Champions League draw yesterday.  Liverpool landed in Group B, which most have dubbed this year’s “Group of Death,” with Atletico Madrid, Porto, and AC Milan. I haven’t gone back and looked, but it feels like we’ve gotten an every-other-year Group of Death draw. For example, in the year we won the CL, our group was Napoli, PSG, …

Burnley Notes

No word on how Fabinho’s father died, but at least one report suggested that the death was sudden and unexpected. If so, then it was unlikely to have been COVID-related.  I took a bit of a research dive into Brazilian players’ travel.  There’s a lot of uncertainty at this point, but it looks like none of our Brazilian players are …