Actually… ZING! I would really like someone to walk me through the statistical analysis of his physical performance this season, compared to previous seasons. I’m getting the feeling that he’s slowing down a bit but I can’t help the feeling it’s fatigue rather than age. Then again, there are a few left backs of different variety who turn into prime Maldini when they are facing him (Ait-Nouri and Robinson are definitely two of them).
They remind me of me when I was playing five-a-side or six-a-side - a teammate would bet me that an opponent will score quite a few goals against me or tell me that he heard them make some rather belittling comments about me and then I’d spend the rest of the game marking them out of it, while doing absolutely nothing else. It worked for me, it seems that someone else (aside from Rodgers) is using the same motivational techniques on these two!
On the topic of that chance, while I did direct quite a few expletives at Salah, where I even angrily mentioned that he looked so obsessed with scoring no. 200 that he would likely do it in February, I was actually more disappointed by that neither-shot-nor-cross-but-it-looked-more-like-a-shot he took in the first half, with Diaz waiting to pounce at the far post.
I love Salah, he’s quite often a victim of his success and standards he himself set but I’m a simple football fan, goals and assists are the same thing for me if they help my team win the game. Now, I’m off to Diaz thread to dish out some more criticism.