Lee Ping Loon

Tom Hicks and George Gillette, take your filthty money and get lost please. Stay away from the club and thanks for nothing!

Not to see you both again.

Lol. We should be seeing this coming for a long time now and finally it happened! It was a grave mistake to appoint Steve Mclaren as the England manager in the very first place. He was poor as a club manager, despite spending like the big guns, his club, Middlesborough were always poor and even got relegated! The persons who choosed him as the England manager should also be sacked as well in my opinion, they are just as clueless.

At least Mclaren leaves after breaking record of some sort; the shortest reign of an England manager at 18 months and just 19 games in charge. I still vividly remembers the smirk on his face when he was first introduced as the new England manager in May 2006, as if telling us “hey, i got the job, you suckers!”

Fast forward 18 months, and we get the chance to wipe that smirk off his face and tells him loud and clear “hey, you lost the job, you sucker!!!!”

Notice i havent mentioned much about England going out despite the title? This is because i couldnt care less about them not making to Euro2008. In fact, it is better they didnt make it so the Liverpool players get more time to rest for the new season.

Happy Day.

—————————————————————————->>> This way out!

Whenever i hear this, my blood boils. When he was first signed from Valencia and the first 30 odd games he played he was being hailed as the real thing, the real Next-Viera. Everybody was excited about him and everybody praised him. He would be one of the first players on the starting list for most of the fans then.

However, one night in Turkey he received a serious eye injury which almost ended his football career. Momo battled back and returned to football quicker than expected by the doctors, his determination and recovery is phenomenon. Momo came back wearing the protective specs in games and he still was the boss in the midfield, majority of the fans still agree. His eye problem doesnt affect his good footballing engine or stop him from doing what he does best on the pitch.

Disaster however, strucked again. Momo received his second serious injury in his short Liverpool career, he dislocated his shoulder after landing awkwardly on the field and he was out for another 3 months. At the same time of the injury, Rafa managed to pull off a stunning coup and signed Javier Mascherano. Javier started in Momo absence and played well after a few games. That also signals the beginning of the nightmare Momo is going to get when he comes back from his latest injury.

Some of the Liverpool fans have taken very well to Javier and and “forgot” the contributions and impacts Momo made for us before his injuries. Some of them were so eager for us to keep Javier and see Momo as a threat to their new found hero. When Momo came back from his second injury, he suddenly became some of the fans’ worst player ever to don a Liverpool shirt. This is what made me mad. These so called Liverpool fans, either have a very short memory or they know very little about football at all. Momo still does what he does best, defending in midfield and disrupting the opponents’ attacks. His distribution was off after his injury but that doesnt make him a terrible player overnight! Momo still bosses the midfield and won a huge majority of his tackles. So what are all these fans whining about and judging him as a not-good-enough Liverpool player?

They should first judge themselves if they are good enough football observers fit to pass judgements on players. Do they even know what is Momo’s duty on the pitch? What is his role? Some of them judge him as if he is a midfield playmaker and want his every pass to be pin point accurate. They simply overlooked Momo’s ability to stop the opponents from playing their game. This is a difficult task and only a few players in the world can do it well, Momo is one of them. I am very sure Momo will make his doubters look like fools in the very near future. Boss it, Momo!!

…it is not an excuse for not getting 3 points at home. The team’s display was still as boring as last season and there is no creativity upfront at all. Our records against the top 3 team continue to look awful. Torres’s goal was an excellent individual effort but he still can improve a lot. Ryan Babel looks like a dud so far, his first touch and control were awful, but he does packs a powerful shot. It is still early to judge the new players though, they need more time. Voronin must be wondering why he is not even on the bench having scored a wonderful goal earlier in the week. Unfortunately this is Rafa’s style, that’s the way you get treated when you are not his favourite player. 

The referee was very biased, probably a few thousands quid richer after giving away the dubious penalty but he did it in a smart way. He gave the big decisions to Chelsea and make it less obvious that he is biased by giving decisions to Liverpool in non-important area of the pitch. He should have sent off Ben Haim for 2 bookable offenses but instead he took the attention away from the ignorants by showing a yellow to John Terry for protesting. Hats off to the referee, he was biased towards Chelsea, helped them, but did so cleverly and hid them from most of the fans.

Another aspect i hate about the team is their attitude in the dying minutes of the game. There is no urgency at all to attack even when it is only a draw! They keep passing the ball sideways and backwards instead of launching it into dangerous area of the pitch, which is the Chelsea penalty box. Maybe they are very satisfied getting a point from this game, in fact i would say a draw is a fair result given that Chelsea looked the more dangerous of the two and created much more chances. Liverpool need to improve soon if they are serious about finishing higher in the table, with manchester united dropping points left, right and center, they must capitalise on this and win more points, but knowing Liverpool, it might be a too tall order to ask of.

Malaysia’s challenge in the World Badminton Championship ended this afternoon with our last doubles pair Chong Tan Fook – Lee Wan Wah sent packing in straight games by young indonesian pair. It has been very disappointing outing for the Malaysian contingent in this competition, playing at home court, but could not at all capitalise on the advantage with the huge crowds cheering them on. They were the last hope when all our other participants fell tamely, especially our male single players, which were so lame. The worst of all was Lee Chong Wei, who blamed everyone but himself for losing to a nobody!

Malaysia highest ranking badminton players, world no.2 Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong cracked under pressure and lost to unheralded no.16 seed japanese pairing of xxx and yyy in last night’s quarterfinal. Look, i dont even know what the japanese players’ names were, how could they lost to them, at home???? It’s nothing short of embarrassing! Tan Boon Heong, the usually more steady one, was not his usual self at all and kept making unforced errors and mistakes. They were playing so nervously you would have thought they have mistaken the 15,000 odd crowds supporting them as keris wielding mobs wanting to bath their kerises with their blood should they lost. Sorry, this is no UMNO assembly, no weapon is allowed into the stadium!

I remember a few months ago they were labelled as the world’s best and will dominate for years to come. They won the All England championship and were showered with cash, gifts and even became ambassadors for MCA travelling the country and becoming “mascot” in a by-election!! We all know what happened afterwards, dont we?? Their form dipped and their “invincibility” were ended. This is typical Malaysia attitude, of rewarding too much too soon, with politicians rushing in to bask in the glories of our heroes, getting a bit of the limelight themselves in the process. Our young heroes easily losing their way with the sudden wealth and attention, forgetting that the journey for domination in world sports is long and to become legends, you have to be consistently good, not just sporadic successes or flash in a pan once-in-a-twilight victory here and there.

I hope this is a wake up call for them, that there is still a lot of hard work to be done and keep their feet firmly on the ground. They should concentrate fully on what they do best, thats to play badminton. Leave the politics to the politicians, dont be used as publicity machines. They should also be prepared and aware that when the next big title comes, another horde glory hunting politicians will come their way to use them to gain in their own political milage. Take their money, but do nothing else except to train harder and play harder for the next trophy. Come on lads, you can do it!

Formula One racing 2007 enters its 3 weeks break a few days ago. I suppose all team members will use this time to recharge their batteries for the final onslaught in the last 6 races of the season. The drivers and constructors championships are still up for grabs between McLaren and Ferrari, they are really hotting up. In fact, things are getting burnt here and there because of the many controversies surfacing in the first season of Michael Schumacher retirement.

Alonso, 2 times title winner, thought he would have it easy this season in the fastest car and with fierce nemesis Schumacher having already retired, but he could not have been more wrong. Rookie teammate Lewis Hamilton embarrassed him with his superb performances and leading him in the points standing. Alonso himself is also creating a fuss within the team until the bosses are getting so fed up and they are comtemplating in releasing him at the end of the season.

His teammate Hamilton was the big surprise. He had already won 3 races in his debut season coupled with a few pole positions. This kid is insanely quick, consistent and he is constantly getting to Alonso’s nerves. Its no joke when a 2 times world champion is beaten in the exact same car by a teammate who had just started in formula one, its a big insult indeed. If Hamilton can keep his head down and with some luck, he would win this year title and many many more in years to come, he is going to be bigger than Jordan in the NBA.

Ferrari and the drivers have been disappointing this season. Not only that their car secrets information have been stolen (by Mclaren), they themselves have also been struggling with reliability problems all season. I have never seen a Ferrari breaks down so often for a long time now. Raikonnen seems to be bringing bad luck with him wherever he goes and Massa proves that he is not world champion material at all. Ferrari needs to buck up and fast, with 6 races to go, they cant afford anymore mistake. I think a change of personnel is needed, i would put Heidfeld in place of Massa, i am sure he would do so much better!

Talking about Heidfeld, BMW have been surprisingly good this season. They have nicked a couple of 3rd places and have been consistenly the fastest cars after McLaren and Ferrari. In Heidfeld and Kubica, they have 2 very consistent and stable drivers. Kubica survived a horrifying crash and put on some amazing performances, sometimes even better than his more senior teammate. BMW should be able to clinch 3rd placing the constructors standing without much problem and if they can keep up the development of the car, they might be able to post a challenge in the title fights in future seasons.