[Books] 2014 - The year that was - Part II

Continued from here.

Where Eagles Dare - Alistair MacLean. How have I not read MacLean before? The man is a genius. I think I started this after a couple of Forsyth novels so I was continuing the British vs Germany spy stuff. The story is pretty pacy, the narration style makes it thrilling and I imagined the protagonist (Major Smith?) as Rowan Atkinson in Blackadder goes Forth, which further enhanced my reading pleasure. There are once again, double crosses, double-double crosses, double agents, triple agents, confusing agents, etc. Such a pleasure to read spy stuff with barely any romantic content (Ian Fleming, take note wherever you are) and still exhilarating enough to keep the reader engrossed in the book. Lovely debut for MacLean (I mean not his first novel but the first I read by him) after my troubling experiences with other popular authors. 4.5/5

Ice Station Zebra - MacLean. Britain’s Artic ice station seems to be in trouble and there is barely any response to radio communication. There’s an advanced submarine being sent to rescue them but a man who calls himself a specialist doctor on human behavior in extreme weather conditions wants to be on onboard. What happened to the ice station? Is this doctor who he claims to be? Who are the moles and what’s their motivation? Can it all be resolved in time? The scientific stuff about submarine went over my head as usual but the story is thrilling like always. Don’t think there’s any female character. 3.5/5

HMS Ulysses - MacLean. If the submarine stuff in Ice Station Zebra was confusing, imagine my plight when reading HMS Ulysses. Of course, there’s no one to blame except me – whenever I pick a book from an author I never read before, I tend to go on a marathon of his/her books. My initial search of HMS Ulysses at regular spots actually gave me James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I realized only after reading a couple of pages. Then fortunately I found the one I wanted. I struggled a lot to understand the technical stuff but the story - I did get that! Book is pretty realistic and there’s absolutely no feel good factor in this. Gives you the stark narration of sailors lives aboard a war ship. Felt sorry for a few characters in the end. I can’t believe this is MacLean’s debut novel – pretty crisp writing. 3.5/5

Bapu Cartoons I & II – I was in two minds whether to include this in this list coz the books are a collection of several cartoons from Bapu. To the uninitiated, Bapu is like our version of RK Narayan – multi talented creative genius. The news of his death saddened me and I had to buy his books to go through his genius once more. Though he’s drawn several thousand cartoons, the collection can accommodate only a few of those. The cartoons contain wit, sarcasm, lighthearted humour, satire on politics, caricatures of people and of course a few from Budugu series (written by MV Ramana, his friend for 60 yrs – our version of Calvin or as his detractors refer to it: copy of Dennis the Menace). I miss the Bapu-Ramana duo :(. 4.5/5

The Prestige - Christopher Priest. I have a fascination with the books which got adapted to successful movies. I watched Nolan’s movie starring Bale, Jackman and Johansson (*drools*) several yrs ago and apart from them both being magicians I don’t remember a thing – which is good, btw. There’s very less narration from an outsider pov and the book is mostly a collection of entries from diaries of Angier and Borden, as read by their great grand kids. Ever since I read Cecilia Ahern’s Where Rainbows End (don’t judge me, I was forced into it), I have a unhealthy scare of books written completely as collection of letters or diary entries. Thankfully, it isn't that bad. But the climax was a bit iffy, details of magic work better on screen compared to narration, some parts get kinda boring and I have a feeling that the movie worked out better than the book in the end. 3/5

Foundation heptalogy - Isaac Asimov. Posted separately here. Series rating - 4.5/5.

Kothi Kommachi - MV Ramana. This is the first part of MV Ramana’s autobiography which came out as serialized in Telugu magazine Swathi a few yrs prior to his passing. I love the language he uses! It details his childhood, his struggles in Madras, his life as a journalist, his interviews with Bhanumathi R and NTR, Radio Annayya/Akkayya, his first story (during school), eminent personalities he’s met working as a journalist, his entry to movies, etc. Luckily for him, he’s worked through the golden cultural period and reading this made me want to buy all the books I’ve been wanting to read since school. And of course Bapu shadows him everywhere (they met when they were 14 and the friendship continued till Ramana passed away at 82 couple of yrs ago). Will take up the 2nd and 3rd parts some time this year. 4/5

God’s Debris - Scott Adams. I thought Dilbert Principle was the most serious of all Scott Adams’ works (I only skimmed through a few pages in a book shop). I was wrong – he’s written something on philosophy called God’s Debris. Of course I can’t say that this is completely about philosophy – I think Adams himself says that this is somewhere between fiction and non fiction. Recommended by a fellow bibliophile, I finished this book in a few hours (only 140 pages) – though it’s supposed to be read slowly allowing the reader to take in the essence. There are some fascinating points mentioned in the book, especially about free will, socializing (err, talk about people rather than ideas) and intelligence vs awareness. I have a trouble with the concept of God’s debris though. But next time someone mentions Alchemist, I’m gonna propose God’s Debris. Trying to find its sequel now – Religion War. Friendly advice: 4/5 (when sober). 5/5 (when drunk)

My Dateless Diary - RK Narayan. I was rummaging through my dad’s shelf coz my mom’s been nagging me to arrange the books neatly (“you two guys are absolutely hopeless in keeping the house clean”) and found this gem of a book gifted by my grampa to my dad during his college. Nostalgic! (of course I wasn’t there then). The back cover said it’s part travelogue, part diary and part collection of Narayan’s thoughts on his first visit to the US. It immediately reminded me of The Inscrutable Americans and Barrister Parvatheesam (“an Indian’s first visit to US and his experiences”) but of course it’s nothing like those two. Narayan’s not called a genius for nothing. The very first page itself where he details his breakfast experiences got me interested in the book and the story simply flowed after that. There’s an absolutely amazing view point on television, which I completely concur with nearly 5 decades later (TV’s a waste of space). Extras: RK Narayan meets Aldous Huxley and Greta Garbo. He also wrote the much acclaimed The Guide during this stay in US. Confession: this is the first complete book by RK Narayan that I’ve read. 4/5

Blog post continues further here.

[Books] 2014 - The year that was - Part I

85 books in total. Full list of books I read here.

Writing reviews for all 85 is taking too long. Wrote for nearly one-third for now. Hoping to finish everything by mid-Jan.

I am Zlatan - Poor translation but a very entertaining read. Don't really prefer reading biographies of players who haven't retired but Zlatan's is an exception. It details his life in Rosengard and how his career progressed from Malmo FF to AC Milano through Ajax Amsterdam, Juventus, Inter Milano and Barcelona. It's a pity the book ends before his move to PSG. Good read for football fans. 4/5

I Think, Therefore I Play - biography of Italian footballer Andrea Pirlo. I already broke my vow with Zlatan's and then another friend shared Pirlo's biography saying it's a must read. The book is short with content covering hardly 70-80 pages but what a book it was! Right from the first page, I was in tears. Probably the funniest biography I've ever read. The book doesn't include too many details about his childhood or even his playing days. It's more like sitting with Pirlo having a Scotch and cigar on a winter evening talking about random stuff that he went through. I wish he writes a book every year.c4/5

The Green Mile - Stephen King. Don't bother, watch the movie starring Tom Hanks instead. I have the terrible luck of starting a popular and acclaimed author's works with probably their most underwhelming novel. It happened with Agatha Christie (Sparkling Cyanide), Sidney Sheldon (Stranger in the Mirror), Stephen King (this), Michael Crichton (Timeline), Jeffrey Archer (Paths of Glory). Green Mile is a serialized novel with 6 parts with each one covering 70-75 pages each. I dunno how people read it back then when you had to wait for the each successive part to release after a while but when I read all 6 together, I found the story to be extremely slow paced. First part tells about a brutal crime and the criminal John Coffey getting sent to a state penitentiary. And then, not much happens in next parts. I expected it to be a racy thriller with lots of action, mystery, horror (Stephen King, after all), etc but not much stuff happens. Don't really recommend reading it. 3/5

Strangers on a Train - Patricia Highsmith. Recommended by the book club I'm part of, I took this up during a weekend but it took me nearly two days to finish it. Expected it to be an unputdownable-burn-the-midnight-oil-till-it's-dawn kinda book but I took a lot of breaks in between just to get away from the characters. Two strangers Guy Haines and Charles Bruno meet on a train and there's a plan to kill for each other so that suspicion won't fall on the respective guys (police won't be able to find a motive). Charles was constantly drunk and Guy spends more time in his head than Raskolnikov (I had to wiki his name) in Crime and Punishment. Extremely vexing read and when the book finally ended, I screamed "Hallelujah, glory be to the Old Gods, the Seven, R'hllor and the God of Many Faces!" 2/5

The Great Indian Novel - Shashi Tharoor. During the (g)olden days when I regularly read The Hindu (lost the habit now), Ramachandra Guha and Shashi Tharoor were my favorite writers. I first heard of this book during one of the Literary quizzes. Based on recommendations there, I immediately bought the book. It's a brilliant book, written in 1989, intertwining Mahabharata with the Indian freedom struggle and later national politics. So we read the Indian history from late 19th century through early 1980s like the story of Mahabharata. Constantly through the book I was reminded of Mrs. Miggins' giggle and her words in Blackadder - III: Oh you've a way with words, Mr. Shelley. Tharoor is a brilliant writer and he's so good with words that I even read the poems that occasionally come in between. Must read. 4.5/5

Govinda - Krishna Udayasankar. Like Amish fictionalized the Shiva trilogy, Krishna decided to fictionalize the Mahabharata. This is the first of the Aryavarta Chronicles and I guess the series is supposed to be a trilogy. The book deals with the start of Mahabharata (Satyavrata, Ved Vyas, Bhishm etc) till the crowning of Yudhishtir. Author tried to write too similarly to Amish and hence the book ends up with Panchali/Draupadi sounding a lot like Sati in Shiva trilogy. There are a lot of things I don't like but listing them would be spoilers for others so I'll refrain. Just one rant though, as I have to get it off my chest: I've read my first Mahabharata when I was 7 and since then, I've read several versions but in no version did I read Panchali and Krishna (neither the author nor me) being lovers. All through the book, this point was constantly nagging in my mind which didn't let me enjoy the book as much as it deserved. I only picked up as I found it lying in my room (all my roomies vehemently denied having ever owned it or even seen it) and since I ran out of books, I picked it up. Now I'll have to finish the series :|. Noticed the 2nd part Kaurava being available in flipkart for only 200 bucks but I just can't find myself to spend any money on it :/. On the positive side: the story flows smoothly. It doesn't get boring any where. 3/5

The Great Train Robbery - Michael Crichton. Book describes in detail the audacious train robbery of 1855. There's also a movie starring Sean Connery & Sutherland based on the same book. This is everything the Green Mile is not - a pulsating page turner. There's not a single chapter where I felt like skimming the lines. I could hardly relate to the story as it was set in Victorian times but Crichton doesn't bore with too many unnecessary details. He keeps the narrative strong, builds each character and leaves a little something after every chapter which makes you look forward to the next. It was so good I finished it in just two nights. When I started reading, I was slightly put off with the Victorian details but the story kept flowing and I couldn't simply put the book down. 4/5


Blog post continues further here.

Series Review: Foundation by Isaac Asimov

My first tryst with Asimov’s work was back in school and the only thing I remember from that story was “consider all the view points before taking a decision” and that stuck to me ever since. Years later a benevolent friend lent me the first part of the original trilogy – Foundation. Back then I knew neither it was a trilogy nor it won the one-time Hugo best all time series awards ahead of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Though the book was good, I had trouble imagining the world and I felt that the book lacked a proper context. Who’s the old man Hari Seldon? What’s all this about council? Why does his apparition visit after 50 yrs? What exactly is this psycho thingy? (editor note: psychohistory). Questions for which I didn't really get satisfactory answers – which made the experience not as pleasant as it deserved.

Asimov started the original trilogy when he was 21 and finished it around 8 yrs later. It was initially published as a series of short stories in one of the science magazines in the '50s and the books were released only a bit later. The original trilogy was supposed to deal with 1000 yrs of psychohistory that Hari Seldon developed but the books encompassed only 300 yrs of that. As the series seemed to lack a finish, (and after strong persuasion from several readers), Asimov wrote a sequel in 1983, which won another Hugo award to no one's surprise. He "finished" the series with a 5th book in late 80s and that seemed to be, err, that. But for Epsilon-Minus Semi-Morons (readers of Brave New World will get the reference) like me, the first book still lacked context as it talks nothing about development of psychohistory by Seldon. So he wrote two more prequels for the intellectually challenged (yours truly) and that made it a heptalogy.

*minor spoilers ahead*

1. Prelude to the Foundation: (prequel #1)
This book actually deals with Hari Seldon's early life (err, if 30+ is early) and how he became a psychohistorian. It’s several thousand years since the First Galactic Empire was in place with the imperial seat at Trantor. During the reign of Cleon I, a 32-yr old mathematician named Hari Seldon from a distant world Helicon visits Trantor to attend Decennial Mathematics Convention. His theory that the future behavior of a sufficiently large number of people can be predicted using mathematical formulae attracts the attention of the Emperor and his (supposedly evil) First Minister Eto Demerzel. Hoping to take advantage of this theory, Cleon meets Hari Seldon and asks him to tell the people that his psychohistory predicts a peaceful reign under Cleon. Hari refuses saying that his is still a theory and the mathematical formulae weren't really designed yet. Hari meets someone called Chetter Hummin, who warns Hari about Eto Demerzel and takes him away to Streeling University because the Imperial Forces (who can coerce Seldon) do not enter educational institutions. There he meets a historian called Dors Venabili, who becomes his guardian.

Though Hari Seldon is skeptic about developing psychohistory – it takes more than one’s lifetime to come up with all the equations – he works towards the initial development of the said science. He has to find the customs of early history and apply his budding formulae and see if they predict the current situation. (The present is known and if the past can be retrieved, the formulae can be verified by checking if they predict the present from the past – sound logic there). During this course, he meets his future adopted son Raych as well as his future project assistant Yugo Amaryl at Dahl sector and later visits Mycogen, where people hold dearly to their old traditions. Mycogen presents a fascinating argument regarding women’s place in society and the class divide between religious leaders and others. Class divide is evident even in Dahl sector between "normal public" and Billibotton-ers (thugs) and workers of heat sinks.

2. Forward the Foundation: (prequel #2)
So Hari Seldon is hopping from sector to sector on Trantor trying to find historical information, gets into dangerous situations where he's saved by Dors Venabili – who seems to have inhuman power – and manages to somehow survive Mycogen's Sunmaster 14 thanks to Chetter Hummin. Eto Demerzel resigns as First Minister (disappears?) and Seldon is chosen as the next one by the Emperor Cleon. This book has only 4 chapters I believe, each dealing with a specific character and the slow progress of psychohistory – Cleon I, Dors Venabili, Rayach, Wanda Seldon (daughter of Rayach). Yugo Amaryl works himself to death (let that be a lesson to all the workaholics). Hari Seldon gets old and sets up two Foundations – both on the opposite sides of the galaxy – to continue the work.

Though they’re not part of the original trilogy, these two prequels setup the context for what psychohistory is all about and why two Foundations were setup.

*minor spoilers end *

3, 4, 5 – Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation (the trilogy) –
So a Foundation is setup on the distant planet of Terminus which has all the super genius physicists. Hari Seldon (his image) visits them during the times of crises – the dude predicted the crisis situations using his formulae, remember – and tells the people that with careful planning, only one solution exists to prevent each crisis and that is the path they must take. If there's one flaw in psychohistory, it is that a single individual can create chaos to the theory by going against the prediction. That is why he had to ensure that only one solution exists to each problem and that solution is what was included in psychohistorical analysis to predict the further events.

So what happens when a single individual goes against the norm? What if he's all too powerful for the super genius physicists of the Foundation? Can a Foundation be *holds breath* defeated? These form the basis of Foundation and Empire. And what of this Second Foundation anyways? It was supposed to be setup along with Foundation at the opposite end of the galaxy. Though everyone’s heard of Foundation, nobody – including Foundation members – have any clue what this Second Foundation is and where it is setup. Once they find out about Second Foundation, what are they gonna do about it?

6, 7 – Foundation’s Edge, Foundation and Earth (sequels) –
6th book is where the Asimov’s genius ends. The final one is a tad boring, tedious and a big part of it is really unnecessary. But we get some very interesting conversations between Janov Pelorat (historian) and Golan Trevize (Foundation councilman, space pilot). They provide a very interesting argument throughout the books about individualism vs collectivism. And we visit some weird worlds during the hunt for the red* earth (ha!).


Overall, a very satisfying read. Intelligent people can read the trilogy and be content. Those who really want the context of the trilogy’s start can read the prequels (they are very well written) too. Those who are adamant to finish all 7 or who want to read a bit more on the individual vs collective (collectief – as us Dutch say) can read the sequels. Asimov’s a genius, I’m planning to pick up his Robot series sometime before I die.


* - original Earth was supposed to be destroyed due to too much radio activity.

Le Carré vs Fleming

I read the following books by the two authors, frequently called the masters of spy novels.

John Le Carré:
A Murder of Quality, The Looking Glass War, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, A Small Town in Germany

Ian Fleming:
Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker and another book, the name of which I didn't even bother to remember.


Le Carré:-
Murder of Quality is a bit like Agatha Christie. There's no spying stuff involved, though it has George Smiley as the detective. Quiet village town, someone gets violently killed, Smiley is there by chance and he has to investigate the murder. Includes both Hercule "little grey cells" Poirot and Miss "family and stuff, emotions, little village people" Marple type case solving. A decent read for a debut novel.

The Looking Glass War is about two different government agencies against each other and it has so many details about training a spy to go beyond enemy lines. You feel sorry for the one chosen to be the spy, hate the cunning plots of higher ops, despair at how selfish some can be and pray that somehow everything is okay in the end.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold may possibly be the best spy novel ever. The way the plot twists and turns is incredible. It mixes good writing with great bit of drama. The final few chapters are worth reading several times (and that’s not because you didn’t understand them first).

I watched the movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy a few years ago but thankfully I forgot what happens in the end. It is possibly one of the most complex spy novels. It involves a lot of threads, there are moles, double agents, a possibly fake triple agent who may not be fake and one person (with help from a couple of trustworthy colleagues) to identify the mystery mole who brought down Control, the head of Circus. I'd usually recommend this for others but this needs very very slow reading as the plot gets confusing quite a number of times. Better to read the book mentioned above and fall in love with Carré's style first, before taking up the huge project of reading Tinker Tailor..

Fleming:-
So what happens in Fleming novels is,
Some Communist power (East Germany, Russia, Cuba, etc) is hatching a plot that can cause severe damage to Britain/US (or there's an independent agency/agent who developed the world's most destructive device). Bond is paged and he goes to the respective location. There's a bludy beautiful blonde ready to fall into his arms, who may either be villain's subordinate or villain's prisoner or even Bond's fellow agent. The villain doesn't like his presence, comes close to killing him and our Bond is left with nothing but socks on him. He somehow escapes the villain, plots revenge, makes elaborate plans, gets super cool gadget stuff from M/Q and beats the villain to a pulp in the end.

Throw in a few romantic scenes, terrible writing, long descriptions of bland stuff, few possibly supernatural stuff, few unrealistic gadgets, lady-how-can-you-fall-so-easily-for-anyone incidents and a bit of racist/chauvinist/misogynist stuff.

For a long while, I compared Fleming's Bond to Christie's Poirot before trying to form a concrete negative opinion – I mean, they are a bit similar if you look at it in a way. Bond wins in the end, Poirot solves every case. I can appreciate the way Poirot solves a case so I must be able to appreciate the way Bond works to achieve something though we all know how the two sets of novels are going to end. But I just can't take any Bond stuff. It rarely is about spying and is too much of super hero stuff. You're not cool, man. Only Sean Connery made you cool. (but then only one cooler than Sean Connery is Morgan Freeman, who we all know is God)

Novels of Carré are about spying, which instantly makes him a better spy novel author compared to Fleming. Coz Fleming’s novels are mostly about super cool hero who can never die in the end and wins easily whatever may happen through the course. Sorry Fleming, you can't hold a candle to Le Carré. Not my cup of tea, no sir. Shaken, not stirred – fuck me sideways.


This is possibly the greatest rant of the year. After reading it, I was mumbling to myself: Carmen, let us marry and be angry together.

Adios US: Man Utd 3-1 Liverpool

United XI: De Gea; Jones, Smalling, Evans; Valencia, Herrera, Fletcher, Young; Mata; Rooney, Hernandez.

Van Gaal said before the game that a lot of players would get 90 mins as it's the final match of the tour. Welbeck's unfortunate injury vs Madrid on Saturday meant he didn't start as a precaution. I was eagerly anticipating Sterling vs Valencia as they had a bit of fracas the last time they met (Eng vs Ecu). Liverpool kicked off and they passed amongst themselves for first 2 mins with Utd forwards not pressing them. This was the first shock of the match for me – we have pressed every team so far high up the pitch which led to several chances for us in the previous games. But in this game, especially against Skrtl and Sakho, who are known to panic under pressure, we have not pressed them at all. Only reason I can think of is that we didn't want to get caught high up the pitch when a long ball from them can see Liverpool going on counter through Sterling. Bale caused problems a couple of times like that in the prev game. First chance of the match was through Young on the left wing when he beat Kelly and crossed into the box only for Hernandez to hit the ball away from goal from 5 yards (bonkers, I know!). Sakho (or Skrtl?) cleared the ball before it reached Rooney 3 yards from goal. Valencia felt something in his leg and left the pitch before 10th min. Young moved to right and Shaw came on the left. (Van Gaal said later that he advised his players before the game to come off the pitch if they think they're injured as he didn't want the players to carry on playing with injuries especially after playing only 2 days ago in a high pressure game vs Madrid).

After that, the match was mostly played between the two boxes as both sides rarely caused any trouble inside the penalty area. But one Sterling's run into the Utd box saw Jones lunge wildly and foul him. Gerrard took the penalty, De Gea dived to the wrong side and Liverpool were up 1-0 after 14 mins. It was interesting to see Utd's response as we led in almost every game and were untroubled for most of the tour. And what did we do? We panicked. Fletcher forgot how to pass. Evans, the most reliable passer of our defence, was struggling with passes. There was one moment when Evans was under no pressure initially after receiving the pass from De Gea but he dawdled on the ball for far too long, a Liverpool forward ran to press him and Evans misplaced a 3 yard pass to Smalling who was standing right next to him. Reminded me of Rio in his final years. We defended well on the wings but when players kept running through the middle, we lost our shape and composure easily. Shaw barely broke a sweat while I felt Young could have helped Jones more on the right side. The thing with 3-5-2 is, when Sterling-Lambert-Coutinho (drifting wide) are pressing high up the pitch, then all 3 CBs are occupied and if any one attacker can beat his marker, he'll have a free run towards goal. It happened a few times with Sterling-Jones in this game and Bale-M.Keane in the Madrid game. So we’ll have to tell our wing backs when to attack and when to fall back in defense. Of course the system is new for everyone and Young never even played in defense before so I'm willing to excuse this for now.

Van Gaal replaced Fletcher with Cleverley and Evans with Blackett at HT. So your team is kinda struggling in defense and what do you do? Replace the sole DM with a CM and replace the most experienced CB with the youngest CB on the tour. But hey, it's Van Gaal – he doesn't care for reputation or experience. There were a couple of iffy moments for our defense when Sterling's shot deflected off Smalling (good block though) and missed the net while a Coutinho's shot was well saved by De Gea to his low left. And a weak pass from Herrera saw Gerrard win the ball in our half and pass it to Lambert who shot very weakly straight to De Gea. Our keeper could have gone out for roasted peanuts and still come back on to the pitch to save that shot. We slowly started coming back into the match. In the 55th min, Herrera escaped 3 markers in midfield and passed the ball to Hernandez to the right edge of the box. Hernandez drifted to his right and crossed the ball to Rooney who was running away from the goal to escape Skrtl and still put the ball into the net using his left foot. A brilliant goal that was! Within couple of mins, Cleverley played a cross field ball to Shaw (who was awesome) and his pass found Mata on the edge of the box. Mata's shot took a deflection off Sakho and wrong footed Mignolet before hitting the net. Within couple of mins we went from 1-0 down to 2-1 up. Except for the penalty, our chances were kinda similar – Sterling shot deflected out, Mata shot deflected in; Rooney shot into the goal, Coutinho shot saved by De Gea.

Rodgers replaced the assistant referee Gerrard (dafuq is wrong with this guy? We went on a counter attack once in the first half with Mata chasing the ball, Gerrard was in front of him and without any contact just fell to the floor and grabbed the ball. Ref gave us free kick for handling the ball. Bizarre player this Stevie Me) with Lucas. Emre Can and Ibe also came on. And we got a bizarre goal when Ashley Young beat Glen Johnson on that wing and gave a high cross which hit the bar and came back into play for Rooney to slot into the goal in 65th min. Ref initially awarded us the goal but after consulting the linesman, he called for a goal kick. Right call that was, as the ball hit the stanchion outside the pitch and then came back in. Would have been lovely to see the Scouse tears :D. During all this good phase for us, there's one thing common – our forwards were pressing high so Liverpool defenders panicked and kept hitting the ball outside the pitch (throw ins for us) or hitting the ball in random directions only for Utd players to receive those passes. So anyway, we kinda controlled the game since then and then we replaced Herrera with Lingard. This diminutive player was good for us in last preseason playing as winger and striker. He was good vs Madrid as right wingback and now he was coming on to play in a two-man midfield partnering Cleverley. I was scared at that, we were only 2-1 up! But we never looked out of control and Liverpool barely threatened us since our first goal. It's like all their energy was spent in high pressing during the first hour and they could barely walk after that. Lot of subs also didn't help them. We replaced Mata with Kagawa and Hernandez with Nani.

Special praise to Shaw, who never looked in trouble throughout the game even though his senior partner Evans looked piss scared in possession during the first half. And once Blackett came on, Liverpool barely got anything from that side as Blackett was very composed in possession, harried the Liverpool players in his range and connected well with Smalling (CB next to him), De Gea and Shaw on that side. There was one run from Ibe starting from that side of the pitch and our defenders calmly blocked his passage and ushered him into crowded center where Smalling, Jones and Herrera were present to deal with any danger. Oh also there was another run from Ibe (I think) into the box when Blackett did the very opposite of Jones and calmly blocked the player forcing Ibe to take a Valencia-style shot to the defender’s shin from close range. The ball harmlessly went out for our goal kick. So Liverpool were barely getting anything in attack, our defense looked good and my nerves were settled. In the final mins of normal time, Young went on a run on his right wing, easily beat his marker Glen Johnson (who was unsurprisingly crap) and crossed into the box right to the feet of Kagawa whose iffy touch let the ball run behind him but at that exact position was Lingard making his run from midfield (can you imagine a Utd midfielder making runs into the box to finish off the chances? :o) and his thunderous (hehe) shot went low to Mignolet's left and hit the net. 16th goal of the preseason from Utd in 5 games. We easily saw out the remaining time and won the ICC trophy. Nice to see Luke Shaw winning his first trophy beating his former club Southampton :p

Some last min additions as I can't bother to put them in those paragraphs:
- Sterling and Coutinho were good for Liverpool. Lambert was barely involved.
- Only advantage Hernandez has is that he's extremely clinical. So it's frustrating to see him missing simple chances (2 vs Madrid, 1 vs Liverpool). We can't afford that in competitive games when creating chances would be at a premium.
- Sterling dived more in one game than Young did in entire tour. Makes me laugh so hard!
- Shaw improved a lot after his first two games and did well vs Inter, Madrid and Liverpool. The special fitness program helped him to play well in both defense and attack throughout the game.
- Nani – Heaven know how much I love this guy. But he barely looked interested throughout the tour. Even Zaha performed more than Nani. Van Gaal wants his players to give their all but Nani was half arsed throughout. I fear he'll be sent away from Utd and I cannot even say that it's unfair.
- Rooney won the player of the tournament and Van Gaal said Rooney was the best player as he provided lots of goals and assists. Van Gaal also said that our defenders also did well throughout the tour and that any of them could also have won player of the tournament.
- 5 games, 16 scored, 4 conceded (3 penalties, 1 from 65 yards). Barely any similarities with the clusterfuck of last season’s tour where we ended with 2 wins out of 6 and then proceeded to lose to Sevilla at Old Trafford.

Thus endeth the US tour.

LA Galaxy 0-7 Manchester United: The Chosen Van cometh

As a follower of Ajax and Netherlands, I'm familiar with Louis Van Gaal and how well he's done in his career. He was a breath of fresh air after the disastrous end to Bert van Marwijk era, with Netherlands losing all three group games in Euro 2012 for the first time in their history, Van Gaal came in, gave a clean slate to everyone, brought a lot of young players into the side, focused a lot on possession play amid pressure and got Netherlands playing good football again.

Despite getting drawn into a difficult group for the World Cup, Van Gaal took Netherlands to a surprise 3rd place with memorable victories like 5-1 over Spain and 3-0 over Brazil. So I was looking forward to how he'd do at Manchester United, where he became the first foreign manager (well there's Frank O'Farrell from Ireland) in their history. So how was the first game under him?

Match summary is split into two parts as Utd played two different teams pre and post HT (Fletcher changed position and only Herrera played for 90 mins in a single position)

First half:
Utd started in a 3-4-1-2 formation, similar to how Dutch played in the World Cup. Starting XI: De Gea; Smalling, Jones, Evans; Valencia, Herrera, Fletcher, Shaw; Mata; Rooney, Welbeck.

Last time I remember Utd playing a 3-man defence, we got murdered 3-0 at Cottage. Our famous back three from that game: Ritchie De Laet, Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher. Thankfully, today’s back three actually had 3 CBs. From the first 10 mins, it was evident that the players are new to the formation/system and as Van Gaal commented post game, 10 players used today weren't even training with the club last week. Mata and Herrera started brightly and Fletcher was trying to keep up with the speed of their play. Shaw did not know what to do when there's no one in front of him to overlap with. Valencia is Valencia (no left foot, miscontrolled an easy pass once). Herrera had a shot from outside the box tipped over by the LA keeper. Welbeck shot straight to the keeper a few mins later after good build up play. LvG advised Welbeck in the pre-match training to go for the corners of the goal and Welbeck must have recollected the advice a short while later when Mata's pass found him 25 yards in front of the goal. Hit a powerful shot towards the corner of the goal which went in off the post right of the keeper. Fletcher slowly started growing into the game, Jones played as a sweeper and did a fine last man tackle on Robbie Keane and Shaw kept the left side tight (very rare for Utd).

Rooney stayed strictly up top instead of running around and defending at left back (which he does around 3 times a game). Welbeck was the one who sometimes ventured deep into the Utd half to tackle/intercept and put pressure on the LA players. 2nd goal came from a penalty after Valencia’s cross hit someone's arm. Pretty good penalty from Rooney, into the left corner of the keeper. And the 3rd one was simply terrible defending. Welbeck's cross (on the ground) into the LA box was missed by their sole defender who magically found an invisible bar of soap (it couldn't be seen on tv) and though Rooney's lob was initially saved by the keeper, Rooney was there to slot in the rebound. Good half of football – comfortable in possession, quick passing, lot of inter play, limited chances to opposition.

Second half:
Same formation, different players. Playing XI: Lindegaard; M. Keane, Fletcher, Blackett; Rafael, Cleverley, Kagawa, Reece James (hence to be referred to as Ricardo Hamez); Herrera; Nani, Young.

Nice of Van Gaal to switch to false Nani formation (credit to someone else on the internet) to further confuse the poor LA defenders. He probably forgot to tell Rafael it's a friendly. Rafael went into blood-and-thunder challenges every 2 mins. Him and Jones – they find every possible way in every single game – regardless of the competition, regardless of the opposition – to get injured. It wouldn't be a Utd game if there weren't many players playing out of their natural positions. More than tinkering, I think Van Gaal wanted to see how players adapt to certain positions he thinks are more suitable (the famous examples of converting Schweinsteiger from winger to midfielder, Alaba from midfielder to left back). So Kagawa played deeper than Herrera – I wonder what the @evilkagawa made of that. 20-yr old Hamez (:p) can play as CB and LB – he was deployed as LWB. Blackett who I remember from his youth days as a left back – played as CB, Fletcher moved from midfield to defence, taking on the role of a sweeper. What was interesting to see is that the team mostly moved as a whole. So there was hardly too much vacant space between defence and midfield as well as midfield and attack. Herrera did a box-to-box role with him tackling the opposition in front of Utd's box and then popping up at the edge of Nani's crosses in LA's box.

Fletcher is too weak to aerially challenge players but he did well. Had plenty of help from Michael Keane who's a very good defender. Hamez took to his new role well but Blackett struggled as 3rd CB. Cleverley and Kagawa are good ball players but they're not really favorites to win personal duels. So LA had decent openings in their midfield and the match was mostly even between the sides till 70th min. Hamez got his first goal during this period and if I remember right, the sequence was like this – Keane shrugged off 3 LA players and passed it forward to Herrera who was near halfway line, Herrera carried the ball and released a pass to Young on the right, whose cross across the box (on the ground) found Hamez making a run into the area from LWB position and Hamez sidefoot-ed the ball into the net for the 4th goal. Herrera went rogue for final 10 mins when he kept playing through balls like on play station. Must have played more through balls in one game than our entire midfield did for the whole of last season. His through ball in the 84th min found Young and whose shot was saved by the onrushing LA keeper but Hamez was there to put the rebound into the net (looked like a beautiful shot tbf). Another through ball released Young again and when keeper went into Neuer mode rushing outside his box, Young somehow kept the ball and shot into the empty net ahead of two defenders running back to cover the goal. Another through ball from Herrera saw Young beat the LA keeper (who stayed in the box this time) again with a powerful shot. In between all this, there was a swift counter attack by Utd where Nani avoided 4 LA defenders trying to stop him and released Kagawa on the left but Kagawa's shot from the left of the box didn't have enough curl to go into the goal.

After starting the last season with a loss to Singha All Stars XI (I hope that was the name of our first opponents), it feels nice to start with a 7-0 win this time. Not reading too much into the performance but the playing style, tactics and the way players adapted is very good to see. Didn't conceded too many chances to the opposition, controlled the midfield and created loads of chances – can't ask for much.

Most of the players ranged between okay and very well. Cleverley-Kagawa axis needs more time and especially a lot of help from up front (if it's Herrera, it's good; if it's Mata, then not so much helpful). Not pining for world class players to join the club because to be honest, Van Gaal made Ron Vlaar look world class out there. So it'd be nice to see players + tactics instead of relying too much on world class players to pull us out of trouble frequently (of course it's nice to have awesome players to save your arse when the tactics don't work but I'd be happy if there's not too much reliance)

PS
Smalling is a very good defender when he actually plays as a CB. Strictly decent passing skills but he can tackle well and has tremendous pace to handle a lot of strikers. When he plays on the right, he can't seem to trap a bag of cement but when he plays in center he does okay. Only problem is his propensity to get rid of the ball quickly by hoofing it up field but he didn't really do that today. Underrated defender, a bit like, ermm, Cahill? (and Smalling is more injury prone. You can't play in Utd defense if you're not injury prone. Except the humanmachinoid Evra of course)

Bundesliga Match Day 25: 2013-14

The Borussia derby
'gladbach haven't won in Dortmund since 1998. They were on course for challenging for 4th CL spot till a few weeks ago when Schalke suddenly decided to consistently win instead of throwing away their challenge. The first half was similar to the previous game where Freiburg prevented Dortmund from mounting any serious attacks. Though Lewandowski returned to the side, Mikhi, Kuba and Reus are still unavailable. Hofmann played in the hole with Aubameyang and Großkreutz on wings. In addition to stopping the Dortmund attacks, what 'gladbach did better than Freiburg was to go on counter attacks. The combination between Kruse, Raffael and Herrmann was really good. Raffael ran with the ball in the first half and was slightly lucky that the ball bounced back into his running path after a couple of tackles, gave it to Herrmann and moved into the box to get the return. Herrmann's cross found Raffael 6 yards from goal but Raffael's first touch was so bad that the ball went into the goal when he only wanted to take an extra touch before taking the shot. 1-0 to 'gladbach. Hummels went on one amazing run after intercepting the ball at halfway line and could have scored if not for a last ditch tackle. After another attack, Aubameyang hit the bar with a powerful angled drive. But the next goal was scored by 'gladbach when Max Kruse dummied twice to beat Piszczek and Weidenfeller to score the 2nd. Gif here: http://giant.gfycat.com/ImperturbableDependableBarasinga.gif

2nd half was fairly unadventurous till around 68' or so when Nordveit got sent off for 2 yellows within a minute. His first was when he kicked the ball away after ref's whistle. It wasn't even that bad and it happens routinely in almost every game but I haven't seen ref give yellow for such things in a while [may you spend a night in room full of black adders if you reference RvP's sending off at Camp Nou]. His 2nd was for a 50-50 foul and after being down to 10 men, it was mostly 'gladbach defence vs Dortmund attack. Jojic, the man with the golden leg, reduced the deficit when his shot took a critical deflection off 'gladbach player and wrong footed ter Stegen. Jojic scored another around 88th min but ref called a foul on Lewandowski for hitting ter Stegen in the face with his arm (right call too). Klopp got sent off when ref whistled for 'gladbach throw in when he felt it should have been Dortmund's (looked like 'gladbach throw in to me). 'gladbach held on for a famous victory in Signal Iduna Park.

The revenge of the München
Bayern München were on 49 game unbeaten streak in Bundesliga. After Dortmund's loss, they had a chance to increase the lead to 23 pts over 2nd placed side. Last time they lost was against Bayer Leverkusen. Last time they scored less than 2 goals in a game was at Bay Arena this season (before Arsenal managed the same at Allianz last week). So München had every right to consider the game as important and go for a win. What they did though, was put players like Thiago, Lahm, Ribery, Alaba, Martinez on bench. It was Rafinha-Van Buyten-Boateng-Contento back line with Schweini-Kroos double pivot. Götze-Müller-Robben played behind lone striker Mandzukic. As expected München had a majority of the possession but they had no meaningful chances. Except for Kießling, Bayer defended with 10 men and München found it difficult to play from either through the center or deliver from wing. Kroos almost always stays outside the box. Schweini didn't have enough space to make runs. Götze and Robben are too short to cause havoc in the box. So it was mostly Müller and Mandzukic in the box whenever the crosses came in. Easily dealt by the Bayer defence.

Bayer could have easily taken the lead when Heung-Min Son inexplicable missed the target from 8 yards after a great counter attack. Kießling could have scored when he was one-on-one with Neuer with no defender in sight when linesman wrongly flagged him for offside. In both the cases it was Boateng playing the wrong line. But with their first meaningful shot on target, Mandzukic rose above everyone to head past Leno from a Schweini cross. After half time, München quickly increased their lead after a glorious free kick from Schweinsteiger. As the inverted wingers plan was not working out, Pep switched Robben and Götze at HT and I think the free kick came on left wing after Robben got fouled. Rolfes almost scored a golazo when his 40-yard shot was brilliantly saved by Neuer. Ribery came on for Robben, Kroos got replaced by Thiago and Shaqiri came on for Mandzukic so that Götze moved central finally and Shaqiri went to wing. Shaqiri had a good chance to score but missed in the end. There were some nice saves from Leno as well and Kießling inevitably scored in injury time but that was not enough to stop München going 50 not out, overtaking both Arsenal and Juventus in the process.

Pep has been trying the 4-2-3-1 formation ever since the winter break and I think the change came about after they were beaten 3-0 by Salzburg when the home side took full advantage of Pep's single pivot 4-1-4-1 formation. It looks like only Lahm is suited to play the single pivot and everyone else (Thiago, Kroos, Schweini, Martinez) need someone along side them to excel. The double pivot formation with two very wide players (Robbery) creates very less chances though. Götze is also suffering as a result as he's forced to play too wide while he usually thrives in center. He was amazing for Dortmund when he was exchanging places constantly with Reus. Götze can do well as a wide player if he can go on counter attacks, thereby taking advantage of his pace. But if you ask him to play wide in a game you enjoy 75%+ possession, he is going to struggle.

If both München and Dortmund win next week, then the gap would still be 23 pts with 8 games left. If Dortmund drop points, München can win the title with 2 months to spare. They currently have 71 pts and have scored 74 goals in 25 games. Already into DFB Pokal semis and CL quarters. Been great so far.


PS
Hoffenheim took 2-0 lead and then Mainz stormed back to win 4-2 with 3 goals in 7 mins and move up to 5th place now. Favre with 'gladbach and Tuchel with Mainz have done amazing job so far. Hunter is back for the crucial period and his goal helped Schalke win on Friday night at Augsburg.

Some top saves last weekend from ter Stegen, Neuer, De Gea and Cillesen