Liverpool's run of back luck continued on Sunday. One of the world's best keepers clutched and stabbed at the ball but only succeeded in deflecting it back into his own goal. In the 90th minute. After his side had fought valiantly down to 10 -- and sometimes 9 -- men. Throughout the game, Reina had been a steady presence, deflecting the few shots Arsenal managed to put on target with authority. At the other end, Almunia was busy flopping and flapping at corners and generally looking like the kind of mess you'd expect from a player everyone wants to see replaced. Even his coach. If you asked all soccer fans to place the odds of an Almunia own-goal against one from Reina, I doubt even the most ardent Gooner would've plopped a single dollar/pound/euro against Pepe. But here we are. The unfortunate incident overshadowed a gallant effort in the second half from the Reds. Despite being down a man, they frequently bossed play and succeeded in disrupting Arsenal's rhythm. Kuyt and Mascherano were particularly industrious as they fought and ran from one end of the pitch to the other. And what can you say about the much-maligned David N'gog after his brilliant, forceful goal to start the half? He now has 4 scores in 3 games, a Torres-esque number. And speaking of Torres, he also made a promising appearance that provided hope for a full game from him against Manchester City next week. But the inspired second half also got in on the overshadowing game, masking the debacle of the first half. Joe Cole's tackle was stupid and reckless, but nobody (even the notoriously skeptical Wenger) seemed to think he meant to hurt Koscielny. If anything, his energy and anxiousness got the best of him and turned him into a momentary idiot. Prior to that, he'd played a nearly invisible game, but he was far from alone on that front. Liverpool looked flat and idea-less for most of the first 45 minutes -- there was no semblance of any build-up play, and the team seemed nervous, skeptical, and unfamiliar with each other. Gerrard was also frequently outplayed by little Jackie Wilshere in midfield, and all Liverpool could think to do in response was send players on runs from an offside position (which N'gog led valiantly, being called 3 times in the first 20 minutes). It was ugly, uncreative stuff -- the exact sort of play that earned Rafa so many detractors. So what now? Honestly, anyone (even someone inside Anfield) who tells you what to expect from Liverpool going forward is guessing. Will the plucky gang from the second half bring that enthusiasm for a full 90? Will the ho-hum hoofers from the first half once again send Liverpool's attack into the abyss? Tough to say. Right now, all we know is that Liverpool is capable of great and terrible things. Usually in the same game.

As a Liverpool fan who came to the game under Rafa Benitez, I'm waaay too familiar with the 4-2-3-1 formation so commonly used at this year's World Cup. It still pays dividends at the international level, where defenses aren't quite as familiar with each other or their opponents, but it feels like its time has passed at the club level. Last season was a debacle for many reasons at Anfield, but one of the key problems was the isolation of the striker. When fit, Torres was often stranded upfield, knocked about by a double-team from opposing center backs, and harassed to the point of being taken out of his game. Torres still finished with a respectable goal total for the games he played, but he never looked comfortable or happy on the pitch. When a lesser player like David N'gog filled the role, he was even easier to negate. Benitez had success with the system in the EPL up until last year because of Xabi Alonso's destabilizing effect on a defense. His ability to spray the ball to any part of the final third from midfield meant the wingers had to be constantly accounted for -- not just where they were, but where they could run to. That forced defenses to play with more spacing. Without him, though, fullbacks could simply mark the wingers by themselves and the CBs could sit on/assault the striker the entire game; no one was likely to send a long ball to the perfect spot any longer. Xabi Alonso is an extremely rare talent, and while 4-2-3-1 has worked without him elsewhere, it now feels somewhat 'solved' by Premier League defenses without his particular abilities on the field. No system should require such a tough-to-find caliber of player to be effective, and I'm hoping to see less of it at Liverpool this year. Sadly, though, Roy Hodgson is known for a 4-5-1, which is basically a flatter, more defensive (gulp) version of the 4-2-3-1. And once again, it leaves the striker all by his lonesome. Today in the Guardian, Jonathan Wilson forecasts the emergence of the 4-2-1-3, essentially the Barcelona formation which the Spanish national team also deployed with many of the same players. The key differences between 4-2-1-3 and 4-2-3-1 are: 1) the forward presence of the wingers alongside the striker, and 2) the more withdrawn presence of the central playmaker (Xavi at Barca, Fabregas at Arsenal). Wilson highlights the value of the wingers/central playmaker's ability to interchange positions and flit in and out of the gaps of the defense. Because they're farther upfield and out of the way of the withdrawn playmaker, the wingers can cut inside without killing the spacing of their attack, and this has proven very effective against a traditional back four of late. It basically provides the same destabilization as a Xabi Alonso -- because players are working the gaps more effectively, defenders need to keep better spacing, and there's room to pass and move for everyone up front. What Wilson doesn't stress is how helpful this is for the lone striker. Instead of being isolated up front in the 4-2-3-1, he's aided by wingers who stretch the D out wide but also cut inside to draw attention from the center backs. When your striker is your best player, as in the case of Liverpool, the 4-2-1-3 feels like the key to freeing him up to wreak havoc (however much a banged-up Torres struggled in the World Cup). With a front 4 of Gerrard/Cole/Kuyt/Torres, Liverpool could employ this formation to great effect. Sadly, I suspect a conservative coach like Hodgson would never dream of such radical reform. Wilson suggests Arsenal are migrating to this formation; perhaps they'll be able to show the Prem's curmudgeons that 4-2-1-3 is the way of the future. Until the next major tactical development, of course.

Boy, Thursday came and went, dinnit? I blame my staycation, which has sapped my Kuyt-esque work ethic and left me a Diet-Coked-up FIFA 10 addict. But enough about me, let's get back to the insights of Liverpool's least hated American associate, nate! Last time, we talked about the World Cup and England's shortcomings. Now we turn our attention to the transition as a fan from the international game to the club game -- how did nate do it? Who might he recommend following at the club level from this World Cup? And yeah, we get into whatever Liverpool's become, as well. Join the conversation after the jump!

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With the World Cup in full swing, it's easy to forget that, as soon as it's over, we'll be thrust back into the cold, uncaring world of club football. Okay, okay, maybe it's not that bad for most of you, but I'm a Liverpool fan, so, yeah, it's that bad. Probably worse. My favorite soccer site in the world is Oh You Beauty, written by a man who goes by the Brazilian-esque singular name of nate. Normally Liverpool-focused, he also has some of the clearest, most insightful World Cup game recaps on the interwebs, so I highly suggest checking him out now and in the future. As the Cup semi finals loom, and with some exciting(ish) developments in the Liverpool world, I thought now would be a good time to conduct our first-ever Pandagoal interview. Hit the jump to read what nate has to say about the World Cup, England's shortcomings and more in part 1 of our interview. Part 2 runs Thursday, so stay tuned!

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...my misery will resume.

What does the passionless, uncreative, brutally underachieving Liverpool season of 09-10 have in common with the passionless, uncreative, brutally underachieving England group performance thus far? Just sayin.

I hope you're sitting down because this is totally the most shocking thing you're going to hear today or any other day for the rest of your damn life. Rafa Benitez is leaving Liverpool. I'll give you a minute to collect yourselves. As The Gaffer notes, Benitez had some major successes with the club, but this past season was not just "not as good" - it was a major downturn (as our own Marc has woefully said). They barely squeaked out a 7th place finish and missed out on all of the goals Benitez threw out there (We're going to win the league! Okay, well...we're going to win the Champions League! Okay, well...we're going to win the Europa League! Okay, well...I made some awesome peanut butter cookies! Except they're kind of stale and I forgot you're allergic to peanuts.) Obviously something wasn't working well anymore, and whether it's a manager issue or a player issue or both (I always lean toward the last option) it's not really something you can keep ignoring for the sake of sentimentality. There are injuries to contend with, there are players who seem to lose interest or ambition or ability, and rosters can be reworked and revamped. But eventually you have to make a bigger change, and I would have been quite surprised had this not come about this summer. I would honestly, though, be interested in hearing arguments against his departure, taking everything into account. The interesting bit in this news to me is the speculation that he's apparently headed to Inter Milan to take over the manager's seat, recently vacated by my fantasy Portuguese football manager husband Jose Mourinho. I have to wonder how Inter fans feel about that, the joy of the treble still fresh in their minds as they peruse Liverpool's results table.

Let's see.... debts ballooned to £350m. Steven Gerrard played like someone peed in his Cheerios. Every morning. Fernando Torres missed another half-season with another injury, only this time he started to figure out that playing as a lone striker in the down-and-dirty EPL might be why it feels like crowbars have been taken to his legs every weekend. In other Rafa-is-a-genius news, Lucas Leiva played all season and had precisely 2 memorable moments. Coincidentally, the only link between defense and offense this season seemed to come through Glen Johnson, who did eventually bleed goals at critical times. Liverpool finished 7th. They went 0-0 with the likes of Wolves and Burnley and were arguably the worse side. They were certainly the worse side when they lost to Portsmouth. And Reading. Even when they weren't the worse side, beachballs would descend from the heavens to deflect in goals. Something like 14 players scored the highlight goal of their life against Liverpool, particularly in the first half of the season. Oh yeah, and David N'gog is still the #2 striker. Now Liverpool is out of Champs, up for sale, has a manager who can't decide if he's staying or going, likely won't spend this summer, needs a new stadium that may never come, and has one guy (Pepe Reina) who genuinely gives a crap about the shirt. 2009-2010, ladies and gentlemen: Everything that went wrong can be summed up by the lightning rod that is Alberto Aquilani. First, Liverpool/Rafa buys him knowing he's injured, but still pays somewhere between £17-£20 million for the honor of treating his boo-boos. And, surprise, he turns out to be hurt worse than expected and never settles with the team. That's okay, though, because it's totally unclear what to do with him once he's healthy, because it turns out he plays the same position as the team captain, basically, and has no business fitting the role of the man he was supposed to replace, Xabi Alonso. Then Aquilani tries to shut his own season down 'cause his widdle anky didn't feel so good, but the team and doctors insist he's fine. He must believe them, because he proceeds to go on a tear to finish the season, consistently making plays for others and scoring some great goals. What does Liverpool do with this guy? Well, despite knowing the captain he mimics might move on Real Madrid, Liverpool may offload him for £7-£10m back to Italy. To summarize, then, the wrong guy, who was hurt, was bought for way too much money to replace an irreplaceable star. He can't seem to get healthy, and once he does, it's hard to fit him in the lineup. When you actually displace the captain at the end of the year to let him shine (despite him trying to pull himself out for the year), he does well for the first time in years. Your probable decision at the end of all of this, when technically he's shown more than he did when you bought him? Sell for half. And that's just the sort of roller coaster/freefall off a cliff that is the experience of modern Liverpool fandom.

Twitter was overflowing with complaints about the quality of play in the first half of Chelsea vs. Liverpool. After some lackluster results the last few weeks, Chelsea could've tightened up in the second and given Liverpool a chance to take control of the game. Instead, Lampard and company kept their heads, defanged Liverpool with quality tackling, and kept pressing until Anelka put them ahead to stay. A team this talented can only be beaten by their own mental mistakes, but Chelsea showed championship nerves today in their 2-0 win over the Reds. Liverpool, meanwhile, answered some questions while raising new ones. The defense was much tighter -- even though Chelsea got in some shots off set pieces, Carragher and Skrtel were making a lot of plays to clear the ball and close off Chelsea attacks. But the offense completely disappeared under a pile of poor passes, tentative plays in the box, and an inability to force Hilario into a single tough save on the day. The loss will be hung on Liverpool's neck as the weight that sinks their title hopes, but the season is far from over. They remain 6 back of a team that has yet to face Man U, Arsenal, or Man City. While that negativity may be premature, calling Chelsea the class of the league is not.

Fiorentina 2-0 Liverpool. The result is hard to think about, much less talk about. Given the chance to build their confidence against bad teams the last few weeks, Liverpool did so in style. Given the chance to capitalize on that confidence against a tough opponent, Liverpool shat themselves. After the first half, the players managed to wipe themselves off, and they seemed quite pleased after the game that they'd managed to look slightly more respectable in the second. My first reaction to their reaction was shock, and I chased it with a shot of anger. How can Liverpool be pleased with a goal-less second half behind 2-0 in a Champs group stage game? But then I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this team still doesn't understand what they are. They used to be a tough-minded counter-attacking team that played 4 strong defenders behind a physical central midfield with excellent long-range passing abilities. Now they're a free-wheeling attack that pushes upfield with excellent movement/passing from the wings to set up oodles of scoring that makes up for a slow, leaky defense. Liverpool is +12 in goal differential, tops in the EPL. But that's because they've blasted home a whopping 22 goals -- nobody else in the league even has a whiff of 20. They've also conceded 10 goals, almost entirely from set pieces, putting them closer to Wolves and Portsmouth than Chelsea and Man U in the defense department. It'd be great to expect them to revert to a more stout defensive form, but the pieces don't seem to be there. Unless Danny Agger's the second coming of Franz Beckenbaur, nothing can compensate for Carragher's lack of pace and Skrtel's inconsistency. And while Rafa has kept Glen Johnson back in defense more the last couple games, that 1) doesn't play to his strengths, especially as he looked like our best player going forward the first few weeks), and 2) hasn't stopped the bleeding one bit. While Benayoun is a joy to watch in the attacking half, he's also a defensive liability that makes Insua's life on the left very difficult. Aquilani could be more of the same. To top it all off, Mascherano looks unfocused and has been mistake-prone -- don't be shocked when he's transferred in January. So Liverpool's top 11 features a ton of firepower, even from the midfield and backfield. The defense is bad, could be getting worse, and will almost always be giving up a couple of goals per game. This is not the Liverpool of 2008. But the 2009 model can score on anybody, and if Benitez and the squad commit to a wide open fast-break mentality, they can also beat anybody. What they can't do is keep trying to stuff themselves into the shoes of recent seasons. Unfortunately, they seem to be the last to realize it.

I can see why everyone's making a fuss about Prince Faizal bin Fahad bin Abdullah al Said's visit to Anfield, especially after he claims to be close to injecting a third of a billion pounds into its veins. It seems that every club in the Premiership bemoans and detests the flood of foreign money into the game.. except and until their team has a chance at the lottery, at which point everyone goes weak in the knees for a sugar daddy. Liverpool, it seems, is in dire need of such support, because the Independent reported that the LFC loan documents contained the following revelation:

"Management believes that the normalised long-run level of new net player capital expenditure is £20m." The accompanying data suggests "long run" means the next five years.

£20m is the annual cap not only for transfers, but also new player contracts. So if Benitez wants to bump up Torres a few mil, management will take that right out of the transfer budget. That seems like huge news -- it basically slams the door on the Reds bringing in a major impact player over the next 5 years. Sure, the document suggests that the transfer number might rise as TV dollars rise, but as the Independent points out, domestic TV dollars are expected to drop over that time. So where's the furor? I haven't seen this story picked up on any other major football site, even those running the Saudi Prince stories front and center. No elite footballer costs less than £20m now; even fullbacks are going for that much and more. David Villa and David Silva are priced at £40m+ each. If it's true that Liverpool management will not do more than add spare parts every year until at least 2014, that is more devastating to the Reds than the transfer ban is to the Blues.

The Liverpool squad battling Leeds features Argentina's captain and world class players for Spain and the Netherlands, and that doesn't include a starter who's rumored to be very good (Jaimie Carragher). Yet they are clearly getting outplayed by a League 1 outfit through 55 minutes, particularly in terms of pace. As I type this, Beckford should have drilled one home for Leeds but for a brilliant dive to his right by Cavalieri. This season has featured two 4-0 blowouts for the Reds and every other game, win or lose, as featured massive stretches of being dominated. Nearly every corner kick has given Liverpool fits. Whether or not zonal marking should work, it's failing once again, this time with an almost completely different roster than the one that's bled from set pieces all year. If Rafa were less stubborn, I'd expect a change eventually, but it's one of the pillars of his system, and he has yet to give up any of the philosophies that got him to this point. Mascherano and Carragher are two of the worst players on the pitch today, and with Philip Degan and David Ngog out there, that's quite a diss. But both regulars are struggling with controlling the ball and have been beaten multiple times. At this point, Carragher is more than a disappointment. He's a liability. This is probably his final year as a regular, and I would prefer that he lose the job immediately upon Agger's return. As for Masch, his performances won't help draw interest from Barca. And if he isn't careful, Benitez will play Lucas as the holding midfielder once Aquilani is healthy. Maybe no one cares about the Carling Cup, but I'd hate to lose to Leeds. I'd like to take this chance to pray to whatever gods favor Albert Riera and Ryan Babel for mercy and a goal. No one wants to say they were the team that gave Leeds the confidence to climb all the way back to the Premiership.

Liverpool is in a bad way. Sure, it's relative (Newcastle is Number 1!), but Liverpool needs help if they don't want to be first out of the Big 4 at season's end. Although only a handful of matches in, it appears that 2009 Liverpool may well turn into the equivalent of a PSA. Sorry, Marc, but the Reds are a mess.

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With the news today that Xabi Alonso admitted he decided he was going to leave Liverpool last summer, my first (not serious) thought was that Real Madrid should fake-try to sell him in January. Alonso put together the best campaign of his career last season, staying healthy and dominating the center circle. Maybe takes him getting mad and/or auditioning for other clubs in his mind to unlock his best performances. My second (more serious) thought was that I wanted to look at the difference between having Alonso on the pitch and having Lucas Leiva on the pitch. Since last season was a dominant one for Alonso, that didn't seem a fair comparison. But what about a younger Alonso in a less memorable campaign against a similar opponent? I promise I won't be turning this into The Chalkboard Blog, but dadgum that tool is fun to use. The top chart below shows the first 25 minutes of passing activity from Xabi Alonso against Aston Villa at home from the 06-07 season. The bottom chart shows the first 45 minutes of passing activity from Lucas Leiva at home against Aston Villa this year.  by Guardian Chalkboards First of all, anyone who isn't counting impaired can see that Alonso had a much more dramatic impact on the game in 25 minutes than Leiva did in 45. Xabi controlled the center circle while generating significantly more passing traffic. Even more damning for Lucas, notice the lateral passing from the current midfielder compared to the successful bombing of the ball to the wings from Alonso. When people talk about Xabi's deadly long-range accuracy and key to the counter-attack, this is to what they're referring. In 25 minutes, Alonso lobbed 5 long-range balls from the center circle far upfield and wide to the wings, and every single one hit their target. In 45 minutes, Leiva basically kicked the ball sideways or backwards to Mascherano. Looks like my first thought about him needing to be angry was wrong. Even 3 years ago, Alonso was dominant from midfield with passing acumen that isn't easily replaced. Keep him happy, Real; you won't find many like Xabi.

Having scored their first two goals of the season and toting a 2-1 advantage up and down the pitch, Bolton was riding high for about 55 minutes on Saturday. Then Sean Davis clipped Lucas Leiva in the heel, picked up a second yellow, and everything fell apart. This was hardly a clear-cut cardable offense. Yes, David tapped Leiva on the heel, no, Leiva wasn't "slowing down" just to pick up the foul as suggested by Bolton's boss, but I've seen much worse from carded players that kept them on the pitch. An underdog going down to 10 men against Liverpool would be bad enough, but for Bolton it was devastating. Fabrice Muamba was given the job of man-marking Steven Gerrard the entire game, and he was doing a fantastic job. Using the interactive chalkboard feature from The Guardian (problem solved!), I made a couple maps of the action. The first chart below shows Gerrard's passing activity in the first 55 minutes. The second chart shows his activity after the send-off, when Bolton had to pull Muamba off of Gerrard. With Gerrard as uninvolved as he was in the first 55 minutes, it's no wonder Liverpool could only generate a goal from Glen Johnson's long range blast. It'd be easy to say the increase in activity came from the inherent possession advantage of facing only 10 men. However, Liverpool already had the ball for 79% of the first half and Gerrard still only touched it about once every 3-4 minutes. Clearly, Muamba had him completely locked down. If Bolton had been able to continue to wall off Gerrard from the gameplan, it's hard to imagine Liverpool would have been able to win, or even tie. How many times have we seen two second half goals from the Reds without loads of activity from their captain? This game wasn't just about losing a man, it was about the loss of a brilliant defensive tactic. Perhaps Bolton should have stuck with it even down a man, eh?