O Striker Where Art Thou?

photo by SuperFantastic	via PhotoRee

 

 

Correspondent Scott with what can only be described as a rather deseprate plea for help:

A stench that can only be described as a mixture of nausea and déjà vu envelops me like a gaseous, suffocating blanket.  With my ears still ringing from air horns blaring transfer rumors, I shakily lurch for the remote and thumb into darkness the high definition cesspool of disappointment before me.  Was it real?  Did I really make Luis Suarez captain of my fantasy team? 

Oh sure, Manchester United can pull two goals from their Van Puckered rectum in the closing minutes to pilfer another three points.  But can Liverpool win a game at home when they have more possession, create enough chances and consistently play the ball out of the back?  Of course not because this isn’t Kansas anymore – whatever that means.

So before I have to bust out in multiple, cathartic nursery rhymes again, would someone please remove the garden shears from my nape by telling me Brendan Rodgers has another striker where Van Pucker keeps his goals?  Or at least tell me that Raheem Sterling is, pound for pound, worth his weight in silver?  After all, he did look dangerous, if you’re related to Emily Post, and also managed to hold off an oafish defender or two while not fouling as often as last week.

That Andy Carroll is hamstrung at West Ham is of little solace to me when Fabio Borini is overlooking passing options in order to shoot like a drunken grandma with a bent BB gun.  And Daniel Agger’s return from suspension, while adding depth to the back line, does nothing for my smarting scruff when he misses a wide open header from Captain Steven Gerrard's corner.

A glass house, indeed, would said talismanic captain be were he to cast aspersions at the slippery-headed Dane.  Bad touches in the 16^th, 28^th, 31^st and 56^th minutes, to name but a few, when added to those of recent campaigns, and despite what the pundits proclaim, may harbinger that sad, inevitable decline of a legend.  Please let it not be so.

But were the mighty to fall, and even if he doesn’t, Joe Allen could be the heir-apparent.  He repels defenders like bug spray with his dizzying, outside-of-the-foot dribble circles before unleashing yet another pass so well-timed that Rolex and Tag Heuer are fighting for his endorsement deal. 

In any case, I can confidently say that the malik-apparent will not hail from Turkey.  Underwhelming would be a charitable description of Nuri Sahin’s debut at Anfield, having passed the ball like a bewildered belly dancer.  And should you question this perfectly sober reporter’s judgment after a ½ bottle each of Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah, you need look no further than the 53^rd minute in which said Turk anticlimactically laid the ball off at the top of the box when wide open and the ball at his feet.  In unrelated news, a certain misfiring Italian striker is reportedly converting to Islam.  And a soccer-writing heathen has been punished for his bacchanal behavior and sacrilegious similes. 

Not to mix religion with goal keeping, but Pepe Reina should consider some sort of spiritual conversion.  While in previous games he was flailing and failing in the air, he has now regressed to falling and failing on the ground.  Only another "6" on the clock could have appropriately marked Santi Cazorla’s beastly 66^th minute score under the plummeting portero’s paunch. 

Satan may yet be vanquished and good may triumph over evil.  And hope may even spring eternal.  But Liverpool could really use a striker with goals.

 

This is farlieonfootie for September 6.