Faking News: Liverpool's Future & Barca's Treble Valuation

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It’s time for Another Prick In The Wall to report some sensational news which probably isn’t covered by any of the bigger news sources for fear of fan backlash or litigation. But being brave and challenging the accepted norms of society comes naturally to APTW, and hence without bothering about the consequences, APTW exclusively reveals two startling nuggets of information here:

Chip & Dale

John Henry’s plans for Liverpool FC

John Henry talked to the fans of the club he recently took over from the beleaguered previous owners Hicks & Gillett – making them look like Chip & Dale in the process – and while he said that NESV had big plans for Liverpool Football Club, he carefully refrained from outlined what exactly those plans were.

However, based on inside information from a source high up with NESV, Another Prick In The Wall confirms that John Henry plans to start Liverpool Football Club in place of er…Liverpool Football Club, the word Football being key. As the insider who quoted to APTW, “Note that John Henry never said Liverpool Soccer club, he said Liverpool Football Club”. Based on this valuable comment, APTW assumes that starting from the short term, John Henry plans to retain Roy Hodgson and the current crop of players, who he feels are much more suited to playing football the American way (Rugby, for those who're not bright). “The possibilities are endless”, our source tells us, “NESV, in the long term plan to start the NESV’s English Premier League which will feature all those clubs who are owned by sugar daddies who don’t give two hoots about football [the English one], are on the path of either going bankrupt or being thrown out by the insufferable English FA, and are open to being bought out by caring owners like us who are willing to give them a facelift and an entire sportlift”

For full quotes by the insider at NESV, click here.

Comic Look Alikes?

The True Valuation of Barca’s Pep Team

Summer 2009-10, a very confident Xavier Sala-i-Martin had announced that for € 65 million, Barca could buy the entire team that took the field in Rome for the Champions League final of 2008-09. Not minding the hypocrisy – Barca splashed roughly the same amount on Zlatan Ibrahamovic in the same summer – it turns out that poor Xavier was wrong after all.

The latest investigation carried out by Barca’s comic Mascherano look-alike president Sandro Rossell (the Mascherano signing is finally explained, don’t you think) seems to suggest that the true valuation of the Barca team that took to the field in the 08-09 final is at least € 102 million; the rather debatable 65 million of Senor Xavier and an extra, hitherto undisclosed € 47 million splashed by ex-president Joan Laporta on Rolex watches, caviar, champagne, for players and “refreshments” for all the fat turds that sit in the VIP box, and the likes. If there’s such a benevolent president who gives away freebies per game, I’m sure even Levante can have the motivation to do a treble. The full findings will be published in the civil court where Joan Laporta has set out to get screwed…er…sued. So, stay tuned for the end game and remember you read about it first on Another Prick In The Wall.

A Triple Sundae

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Unstoppable Quartet

Alright the title is a bit misleading since it covers matches that were played on a Saturday, but then the matches served up were comparable to the joys derived from eating the famed dessert and it was one of the most enjoyable weekends I’ve had because of two reasons: Firstly, it was a weekend featuring club football after 2 long weeks and secondly any match involving Real Madrid is “Special” (pun intended) these days.


Atletico Madrid vs Getafe

Moving on to the first match, Atletico vs Getafe was a brilliant, entertaining match and had me and my dad on the edge of our seats. Now, my dad isn’t a football follower, but stayed up to watch what I was serving him on the telly, and surprisingly he enjoyed it. I had originally expected this match to be a high scoring one given the fact that Madrid derbies are generally high scoring; and it sure was end to end stuff but minus the goals. That being said, Getafe looked uninspired in the final third and it was no wonder that De Gea was hardly tested in the Atletico goal. On the other hand, with due respect to Atletico, I’m beginning to think that that popular parlance of Atletico being only as good as Forlan and Aguerro together are, is true. In their absence, Atletico apart from some cameos by Reyes, Simao and Valera (for the final goal) looked out of ideas while finishing moves. Fran Merida in particular, had a forgettable night and was duly subbed out by Diego Forlan on the 66th mark. Simao netted the first goal from a wicked free kick, while Valera made a very fine overlapping run on the flank and squared the ball in to Diego Costa who put it in from 3 yards out for the second.

Barcelona vs Valencia

The second match of the night started as soon as Atletico wrapped up the 3 points and I was looking forward to the usual “Barcelona attacking, opposition defending with 70+ % possession in favor of Barcelona, but finding goals hard to come by” thingy. However, Unai Emery’s Valencia did pull out a rabbit out of the hat. In the first half, they led in all aspects: possession, shots, corners and more importantly goals. In fact, Valencia totally “outbarca’d” Barcelona in the first half; Pablo Hernandez finished off a wonderfully worked move from Mathieu on the left flank and was unlucky not to have scored another. With 45 minutes to go, the Asturians hit the showers for a quick breather, while the Catalans hit Pep’s spit shower. By Pep’s own public admission, he pisses perfume and I presume the spit too has some invigorating effects because it was a different Barca that took the pitch once the game resumed. Suddenly Valencia started getting pegged down, the possession counter shifted balance and World Cup Hero Andres Iniesta scored a trademark goal from 6 yards out; that of ghosting in through the defence, latching on to a Xavi final ball and slotting it past the keeper. While Valencia tried their best to figure out why Iniesta was not flagged down for offside, Xavi sent in a lobbed ball which Puyol brutally headed past Cesar Sanchez who until then was man of the match given the number of times he’d denied Barca a goal. At 2-1, Barca kept rolling the ball with their famed horizontal passing and saw out the match to become level on points and joint leaders with Valencia, at least until Madrid's game.

Malaga vs Real Madrid

After two entertaining matches, I was very apprehensive when Ferreira’s Malaga welcomed Real Madrid at La Rosaleda. Malaga had a piss poor home record but they have played a 4-3-3 this season with two pacey wide men in Rondon and club hopper Quincy, who drift in and could pose a threat for Marcelo and Arbeloa. Malaga, until then, also had the best goal scoring record of La Liga with 12 goals, but had a goal difference of zero. I didn’t expect Real Madrid to keep a cleansheet, rather I hoped they outscore Malaga. And exactly that happened. With the International break, everyone had read a lot about Ronaldo’s selfishness, but what they saw against Malaga was his selflessness. Around the 30th minute mark, instead of choosing to the cut outside the left back and go for glory like he generally does, Ronaldo lobbed a ball instead to the far post and Higuain slotted it past Galatto from an angle of roughly 3 degrees sending La Rosaleda into rapturous silence. The party tricks were on after that as the attacking quartet of Ronaldo, Higuain, Ozil and Di Maria meshed into a single entity allowing Malaga absolutely no respite. Ronaldo scored a penalty won by Ozil, before slotting in another one from open play, the pass created again by Ozil. Soon he sent Higuain through for the team’s fourth and Higuain’s second to finish with two goals and two assists himself. The best scene of the match was Mourinho gesticulating to a petrified Pedro Leon asking him to get his ass at the byline and start warming up, thereby quashing a lot of talk about fallout between the two. The best comment of the weekend was from Mourinho after the match when he immediately said that he was unhappy that Madrid had conceded from a set piece yet again. No doubt, The Special One will be working on some counter solution for that.

Fan Squeal: A Strange Fixation

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Fan Squeal: De Jonged!

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Poll: What do you think about Sergio Ramos' Andalucian Joke?

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Credits: Bharanithar

Another Prick In The Wall is also interested to know why you think what you think. So it would be swell if you can drop your choice and the reason for choosing in the "Comments" Section below.

Oh and In case you dont have a clue about what this Poll is talking about, you can read it by clicking on this link: Sergio Ramos' Andalucian Joke

Talking Points

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The crowd's already clapping at Roy's Liverpool Swan Song

As football leagues around the world ground to a temporary halt allowing the ruthless International Break train to plod on, Another Prick In The Wall took a look back at the last few weeks to garner some talking points for football fans to chew their brains on, which are currently devoid of any club football thoughts…

Roy Hodgson

The man of the moment is undoubtedly Roy Hodgson. Fulham’s last season’s success meant that Roy Hodgson was full of hope while taking over Liverpool. But his Mersyside dream has come crashing down like the Twin Towers because of a combination of his tactical naivety, shaky foundations, lack of fresh blood in the squad and general pessimism and off the pitch going-ons. While Kenny Dalglish is waiting outside his office with the disposition of Jesus taking back the black sheep into his flock, Roy’s days are inevitably numbered. Oh, and Pellegrini stands a chance of being on a job once more, subject to the will of God, of course.

Liverpool FC

Did I talk about the Twin Towers? While Roy is one, the club itself is the other tower that’s going down, and fast. Liverpool FC is trending worldwide on Twitter for all the wrong reasons. That reminds me of one of the tweets that I read last night which went something like:

Brought to Fame by Shanks and then to Shame by Yanks…Saved by the Bank of yet another Yank

Pretty much sums up the situation I’d say, though I have my reservations about the “being saved” part as Hicks and Gillett seem adamant to fight off any attempt to sell the club without their authorization. Stay tuned for a long, drawn out court battle. This year, Liverpool is the world’s favorite circus!

Wayne Rooney

Lately, Shrek has been appearing in the news for all the wrong reasons. But after all the various drops the poor guy had to endure, a rise in number of mentions in tabloids is quite justified. Dropped out of the World Cup without a single goal scored, dropped by the hooker whose performance standards he could not meet while cheating on his then pregnant girlfriend, dropped from the United starting line-up due to lack of goals (“To protect Rooney”, says Fergie), dropped from Coke’s marketing campaign, on the verge of being dropped from the English NT, things aren’t going too well for big Wayne. The tabloid mentions might just serve as a light at the end of the tunnel.

Marouane Chamakh

The Arsenal striker looks upon Zinedine Zidane as his god and not Didier Drogba, by his own admission. While it’s good to harbor such feelings, he could do taking a leaf out of Drogba’s book and start scoring. Looked upon as an idol or not, Drogba has never failed to shine against Arsenal and the 2-0 states that Chamakh could do with switching loyalties for the time being and take some pointers from the man from Ivory Coast. Talking about Arsenal, they’re once again in their rebuilding phase and their number of titles is far lesser than Alisher Usmanov’s many chins.

Jose Mourinho

After being lauded as Jesus’ second coming and Satan Reincarnated at the start of the season by Marca and El Mundo Deportivo respectively, Mourinho has kept the sound bytes flowing. From labeling Pedro Leon to be the very anti-thesis of Zidane and Maradona to his fabled press walk out post the UEFA Champions League match against Auxerre and finally asking young Juan Carlos if he was shitting himself during Madrid’s demolition of relegation contenders Deportivo la Coruna, the Spanish press has had quite a bit of Mou-bytes this summer, while Barca have had enough of his squad which just doesn’t seem to lose, home or away.

Real Madrid CF

While Real Moudrid hasn’t lost a game so far this season, it hadn’t given fans much to cheer about. Of course, the fickle madridistas don’t cheer 0-0s and 1-0s, which is precisely what a Mourinho coached team sets out to offer its fans (at least that’s the popular parlance). I have to admit, I’ve been waiting for the Mourinho death watch (a term familiar amongst Madridistas as they’ve gone through so many manager death watches and subsequent sackings) to start sooner or later. But instead, I was shocked when the Santiago Bernabeu erupted into a chant for Mourinho…yes you heard it right…a chant for Mourinho. I was reminded of a cule who had once quipped, “It takes little to please the Bernabeu these days”. The chant is enough input to make the fairly accurate deduction that Marca has been the largest selling sports daily in Spain.

FC Barcelona

Talking about the Bernabeu and Marca, it is only logical to move on to the self importance of Catalunya, where everything is self proclaimed to be not just good, but world class. However, subpar performances have blighted the happy summer in Barcelona. Stadium attendances are mediocre, the team has only 17 first team outfield players and with Pedro and Xavi injured, things aren’t too rosy at the Pope’s favored club. Catalans have their excuse ready and still continue to trumpet about their famed La Masia rather than looking inwards and analyzing the obvious fact that their game has become predictable and easy for teams to get a point at their stadium.

Goal of the Month

Now that I have exhausted all my limited facilities and poured out what little I know in yet another drawn out article, it’s worth mentioning that there are so many talking points around you to keep yourself occupied with till the insufferable international break ends. This goal for instance…

Fan Squeal - Faking It!

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Two-Face Series: Ronaldo

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With the ball, CR7 is a glorified ball hog with the exception that he's the world's finest ball hog. But give him a make up kit and he resembles an overdressed pretty poodle.