When you write about Barcelona, there aren’t enough words.

In describing a great game by them, you have to be careful with your adjectives and stack them in little rows, like pats of butter or razor-blades. In the first few minutes, perhaps there had been an exquisite Messi dribble, followed by a perfect Xavi pass, then an effortless one-two. In the next few minutes the same sort of thing happens; and your superlatives are already gone. The best thing to do is to presume that your readers know how Barcelona play and use no adjectives at all…

…there is all football in a game by Barcelona, and they play as it is sometimes shown in dreams.

In the play Amadeus there is a scene where the highly talented and very hard-working court composer, Salieri, is shown to have produced a good piece of music after considerable labour. His young assistant, Mozart, comes into the room and Salieri plays the piece of music proudly for him. Mozart smiles and praises it but then wonders whether it might be improved by just a few modifications. Mozart goes to the piano, plays the piece, tries this and that, then says “What about this?” And he plays the piece changed forever by his genius. Salieri’s hard-won composition has been transformed into one of the world’s immortal melodies.

Most football teams, even the best, are Salieris. And then Barcelona comes along and says, “What about this?”

Follow Spurs in the Champions League with these lovingly curated tweets on Tottenham Hotspur’s foray into the Champions League:

After another two dropped points, this time away to Birmingham City, Liverpool’s chances of finishing fourth remain as firmly rooted in the hypothetical as they have for most of the season.

The most baffling thing is how the manager Rafael Benitez seems determined to undermine his own team.  Today he withdrew star striker and only remaining world class player, Fernando Torres with fully 25 minutes to go.

Torres’ reaction was one of bafflement.  Gerrard’s was of exasperation.  Or not.  Judge for yourself here:

Fernando Torres is substituted by Rafael Benitez

No matter how you read it, their reactions speak volumes for Liverpool’s chances of ’success’ this season.

West Ham manager Gianfranco Zola has reportedly ‘banned’ co-owner David Sullivan from the dressing room and team meetings.  Following a ‘bust up’ at the training ground the relationship between the under-fire manger and owner appears to have broken down which can only be good news for Hull, Burnley and Wigan.

The question the management will now be asking themselves is which will cost them more points; hanging on to a manager who is clearly not good enough for the job or the indeterminate length of turmoil following his dismissal and the appointment of a successor.

One thing is for certain, if the relationship has broken down then Sullivan will be working hard to limit the length of that turmoil.

So you’re a highly-rated winger currently plying your trade in one of the best leagues in the world and gaining International recognition.  What would be a bad career move?

Going to Liverpool, under the guidance of the serial player-destroyer-in-chief, Rafael Benitez is arguable top of that list.  However when Albert Riera moved from Espanyol to Liverpool, most thought it was a shrewd move for both.  They spoke the same language, Riera was just the sort of player Liverpool needed.

Things however, did not go to plan.  For Riera at least.  A promising first few games were followed by the typically Benitez tactic of removal from the team and the well-trodden path to career-obscurity was soon the only road ahead for Riera.

Today he has spoken out at Benitez.  There are the usual complaints about Benitez not talking to his players, not giving them any reason for their not featuring in games – in short all the things everyone else already knows and criticises the Liverpool manager for.

Particularly cutting was this line,

“He thinks he’s in charge and everything else falls on deaf ears. His dialogue with the players is practically nil.”

Just as they’d turned the corner too…

You heard it here first.  Or at least you heard it here – Internacionale’s Brazilian midfielder, Sandro Ranieri appears to be on his was to Tottenham Hotspur.

Already learning the language and already at a club with close ties to his future suitors, it looks like Harry Redknapp has finally found someone to complement Wilson Palacios.  Or replace him should he go to Real Madrid as is being rumoured…

With the latest ignominy of losing to out-of-form, relegation candidates Wigan Athletic, Liverpool now stand not only on the precipice of being ousted from their perennial Champions League spot but a malaise that threatens to last a generation.

The troubles at Anfield run right the way through the club and show no sign of abating.  With the likes of Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur and particularly Manchester City better placed and playing better in the league, Liverpool’s grasp on their status as one of the elite clubs in England and Europe looks to have been terminally loosened.

The Owners

Most fans will point to the takeover of the club and the consequent saddling of debt to be the point where Liverpool entered its decline.  Certainly the siphoning off of revenue to pay for debt and interest repayments will have had an impact on their ability to compete financially, however another club – the one in Lancashire, you know the one – has been saddled with even more debt while still giving their manager money to spend with which they have won three league titles in a row.

The real problem with the owners is that no company can prosper when its decision makers do not act in concert.  For all the supposed evils of the Glazers, they have a company that is working towards common goals (even if one of those goals is debt repayment).  The same cannot be said of Liverpool and while there is such a schism at the very top of their management structure, their fortunes simple cannot improve.

The Manager

The man shouldering the lions share of the blame for the on-pitch decline is – and should probably always be – the manager.  Rafael Benitez does himself no favours however.  He is at best stilted and terse in his press conferences, sometimes his performances are farcical and other times a combination of both which actively undermine his team’s chances on the pitch.

In recent months, he has become more and more bizarre and it is looking that finally, the man who bought in practically the entire squad and has enjoyed the support of arguably the most loyal fanbase in football, has lost his grip on both.

Comments of corners being turned and reactions required are being duplicated and no longer having the desired effect.

And what is there to grasp hold of?  Liverpool are not even playing football that is fun to watch or imbued with any sense of ambition or flair.  Benitez has spent (and recouped) a huge amount of money yet his only real successes in the transfer market have been a goalkeeper, a striker with fitness problems, a defensive midfielder and a ball-playing midfielder who he sold to be replaced with a bench-warmer who is never fit (or it seems, good enough).

What is worse, many of the players who were bought in to make the team more adventurous have faded into obscurity almost immediately – where some managers improve players, Benitez almost uniformly, destroys them.

While he clearly manages to galvanise his team for the biggest games, the fixtures you would ordinarily expect them to win have huge question marks against them.

All the evidence points to Liverpool finishing outside the top four this season.  Indeed finishing above any of Aston Villa, Tottenham and Manchester City would be a surprise suggesting they will not have the distraction of any European football next season.

With his very vocal guarantee of a fourth place finish, the question is (and probably has been for some time) how the upper management can get rid of him.  Obviously the ideal would be for a club to buy him out of his contract, removing the managerial albatross and netting the club a profit.  Second best would be Benitez accepting he has reached the end of his tenure and taking either minimal or no, compensation.

Most likely of course will be a sacking followed by a protracted and expensive payout.

Worst of all, he stays.

The Players

Benitez has had five years to shape a squad to his desire yet it now comprises a mixture of the injury-prone, the ageing, the under performing and the overrated.

The players of genuine quality are Reina, Johnson, Agger, Mascherano, Gerrard and Torres.  Of these, only Reina and Mascherano have been consistently fit and playing this season.  Gerrard has had more injuries this season and has suffered an alarming dip in form.  For an all-action midfielder soon to turn 30, who relies on his energy levels so much, there is every chance that this dip in form could be permanent.  He has to decide whether to change his way of playing (and with it his position and the make up of the team) or to accept the waning of his influence.

Agger has played in 15 league games this season and has only once played more than 20.   At 25, time is on his side but if he wants to prove that he has the body to play an entire season, he had better prove it soon.

Torres whose stellar first season has been proceeded by a steady decline in output both in games played and goals scored per game and a steady increase in time spent injured.  How long he will remain at Liverpool without Champions League football or any real support from his team is a question they really don’t want to ask.

The problem for Liverpool has long been their creative reliance on Gerrard and Torres.  Now that one is in (probable) decline and both are suffering regularly from injuries, the squad simply doesn’t have the quality to cope.

In fact this current squad with so many regular injury worries, under-performers and transfer candidates (Torres, Mascherano) are arguably far weaker than any of the other teams going for fourth place.

One player they simply cannot rely on any more is their stalwart central defender Jamie Carragher whose passion has long been put into the shade by his decreasing pace (from a low starting point), increasingly suspect decision making and commonplace errors.

The Fans

Many clubs can lay claim to having great fans.  Newcastle United’s fans really do embody the full word, ‘fanatic’.  Tottenham’s fans give fantastic away support and fill their ground even on a cold evening for an early round, cup reply.  West Ham’s have put up with more disappointment than most of the league put together but still willingly turn up week in week out.

There is probably no set of fans more intelligent or loyal than those at Anfield, however.  They have put up with the poor results and terrible football months after life would have been made unbearable for Benitez at any other club.  but it has never been with the blind fervour that characterises other clubs; Newcastle support to the exclusion of rationality.  Spurs will never let their club settle for anything less than their scarcely met expectations.  But Liverpool supporters (and they are more that than they are fanatics) maintain a perspective that other fans can only muster after the act of winning and even then, only rarely.

The Anfield fan has a knowledge of football like no other; as a collective they instinctively know the immediate and long-term value of loyalty.  They support their players who have never performed in the hope that they will, one day.  They cheer their team in spirited defeat.  And it seems, regail their managers successes long after he has outlived his tenure.  In short, they are the fans any manager and player would want because they are just.

What is happening to their club from the owners to the players is far from just, and far from what the supporters deserve.  But this is football and it is business and the little man rarely gets what he deserves.  Such is Liverpool’s fate.

Without any prospect of a change at every level of the club, it is a fate that looks like being cemented for some considerable time.

With depressing predictability, the Premier League chairmen who constitute the League’s board have voted not to continue with the Champions League fourth placed play-off.

We at FI were very much behind the idea as a way introducing some form of ‘competition’ back into the League but the backlash was swift and predictable.  Less predictable was the ire it drew from some quarters of the press and it seems that they have had their way.

Back to the predictable Top 4 I guess (please substitute “Liverpool” with “Manchester City” in future).

How sad.

Much has been written about John Terry and the impact his actions have had on his, wife, best friend, club and country and for the most part, he has been insulated from the criticism both by the bubble all footballers exist in and his lack of exposure to the public outside Chelsea’s biased and (in their display of contempt for Wayne Bridge), distasteful fans.

On that last point, it should be noted that there where many Chelsea fans who applauded Bridge and are having a hard time maintaining their support for the team’s captain, sadly however, they were the minority.

In recent days – particular in light of the farcically covered and unobserved non-handshake between Terry and Bridge – the argument has finally shifted to the perhaps the pure essence of the issue for the two people most involved; if they can’t play together, who should quit the team?

As we mentioned in this previous post, in any normal, morally-guided part of society it would be John Terry who would be forced to relinquish the favoured position.  So far that has not been the case and Wayne Bridge knowing this, felt he had no alternatiuve but to remove himself from selection.  Indeed had he sought to force Capello’s hand by privately telling him that he wants to be in the squad but cannot play while John Terry is included, the moral question that has little ambiguity outside the win-first mentality of football would have arisen then and not now.

Of course had Bridge done that, not only would Capello have felt pressure to remove a more important player from his squad in favour of a less important player but Bridge himself would have realised that as soon as it had come out that Terry’s withdrawal, or the pressure to remove Terry at came Bridge’s instigation, Bridge would have been in many fans eyes the prime reason for England’s likely failure at the World Cup.

The way it has now worked out is ideal for Bridge and perhaps slightly better for Capello as well – Bridge is absolved of blame for creating the pressure on Terry (as he should be) while highlighting the moral disparancy between football and the rest of the world while Capello can point to public pressure and outrage as another reason why John Terry might not merit a place in the squad.  That’s to go on top of his not being good enough, being out of form, being in the wrong frame of mind, upsetting his team mates, costing the squad a member and creating a massive distraction that shows no signs of abating a mere 100 days before the start of the tournament.

So the question remains; should the England fans boo Terry?  Are they in the mood to forgive for the greater good of the team and their chances of winning?

The clue perhaps comes from the presence of the story itself.  On the continent there is bafflement as to why England would undermine their chances of victory for something so trivial.  In England however we hold everyone to a higher standard – pious but true – especially those with the most responsibility and the most visual role models.

Accordingly, the England fans will let Terry know how they feel.  Were Bridge there, he would no doubt experience the polar opposite of what he so shamefully received at Stamford Bridge.  He won’t be there however and that fact will add to the expression of outrage and distaste that practically all football fans (and some, genuine Chelsea fans) feel.

Whether Terry can overcome that and recover his form remains to be seen.

Fourth place in the Premier League – and with it, Champions League football – has never been more keenly contested.  We take a look at each of the contenders and present the case for and against their claiming the final place at football’s richest table.  Following Liverpool, here is the case for Manchester City.

With their money, Manchester City are going to be a force in football come what may

To say Manchester City are a rich is a bit like saying that Portsmouth are in a spot of bother.  They have already spent more since their change of ownership than any other club and it is clear that the spending is not going to end there.  Indeed as soon as they can offer Champions League football, the level of player they will be able to attract will increase along with that spending.

One way or another, the near-limitlessly funded club are going to be regulars in the Champions League, they might as well sow up that position now.

The Counter:

The Premier League already has one club monopolising a Champions League place because of funding outside of their natural means, having a second can’t be good for a league that has unnaturally funded clubs through inconceivably rich benefactors (Chelsea, Manchester City) or inconceivably large debt (Manchester United, Liverpool) dominating those clubs who are managed within their means (Arsenal, Tottenham, Everton, Aston Villa).

It’s about time someone broke up the top four

Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool.  It is the same story every season – those four clubs are the most attractive for players because they can offer the highest wages and Champions League football.  Their reward is 20 to 30 million extra every season which in turns ensures they qualify for the Champions League.  This is demonstrably anti-competitive and creates a tiered structure in the league where 16 of the teams effectively have zero chance of actually winning the competition.  With their wealth and ambition, Manchester City have the best chance of breaking into, and ending this self-perpetuating cartel.

The counter:

There’s no counter for the basic argument – Manchester City replacing one of the existing top four (Liverpool probably).  However all it will do is to replace one team with another that has far greater resources to stay there.  Indeed Manchester City don’t need the Champions League money – they need to be in the competition to attract the best players.

City will also be able to challenge for the title

Why stop at breaking into the top four when you can break up the top two of Manchester United and Chelsea who have dominated the competition for the past five years?

The counter:

If they were to break into this top two at the expense of one team, it would almost certainly be Manchester United whose squad is surprisingly weak (for a team who have won the competition for the last three years).  So at the top of the game we would have two teams funded by private wealth and operating far above their natural means.

City will also be able to challenge for the Champions League

The more teams we have competing in the final stages of the Champions League, the better English football we be, the higher our coefficient will be, the better off we will all be.  Manchester City stand the best chance of the challengers for fourth place of competing with the best of Europe.

The counter:

Liverpool – and especially Benitez – have already proven that you need more than just a squad packed with quality to compete in the Champions League.  In fact Benitez has proven you don’t need a squad packed with quality at all…  Even Jose Mourinho who seems most likely to take over at City next season hasn’t been able to bring the Champions League at either Chelsea or Inter.  Liverpool have the experience, knowhow and track record to compete with the best of Europe.

Conclusion

Long-term, Manchester City are almost certain to nail down one of the four Champions League spaces and the remaining contenders will be competing for fourth with either Arsenal or Manchester United.

There is plenty of scope for short-term disruption of this plan however.  It is likely that City will not finish fourth this season because of all the teams around them, they have neither the best attack nor the best defence and their manager is under the most pressure (with maybe the exception of Benitez).  Assuming they don’t get fourth this season, another change of manager will be preceded by another round of £100m+ spending on players who are motivated more by money than achievement or glory.

Hence the importance of City bringing in Jose Mourinho – a coach of such renown that players may move there simply to play with him (and the near-guarantee of future success).

As for this season, maybe it would be nice for a team whose long-term membership of the hallowed top four is far less than guaranteed to have a chance to pit their wits against the best Europe has to offer.