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

Arsenal 0-2 Bayern München

Just consolidating a few thoughts I had post game.
Just consolidating a few thoughts I had post game.

Apart from the two goals, München hit the post with a penalty, they should have got another penalty, Kroos hit the post in the end, a brilliant pass from Kroos over the defence to Robben saw Fabianski make a finger tip save, there was one cross from right which was missed by at least 3 players.. It wasn't just passing for the sake of passing.

What's disappointing was Arsenal not following the textbook plan of playing 10 vs 11. After the red card, they had only one chance to score which was Koscielny through Özil's free kick. Apart from that, there was no plan of stretching the München defence or shredding them with pace. Completed just 3 passes in attacking third compared to München's 242. Just 3 passes over 50 mins is mind blowingly low!

München can play through center, they can use crosses [I was kinda chuckling to see them try to beat BFG with crosses :D] and they can counter attack. Even when they were 1-0 up in an away tie, even though Pep has previously never won at Emirates, they still kept attacking in final 10 mins. Very rare for teams to do that as they could easily be caught on the counter and see the score become 1-1.

After the red card, the formation was a lopsided 4-4-1. Ozil on left and Ox on right with Sanogo keeping the CBs busy. Ox didn't get much chance in attack but he helped Sagna in defending, though München didn't really attack on that side much. Özil left Monreal on his own.

Despite some criticism, I think Sanogo more than held his own well. He constantly troubled Boateng while Ox was burning Alaba and Dante was dragged out of position several times to his left. You have to remember that Lahm has been a constant presence in midfield this season and even when Lahm wasn't there, it was usually Schweinsteiger. Martinez was not used as DM much this season and no wonder Arsenal had fun in the attacking half as their fluid attack was confusing München players. München slowly started taking control around 15 mins though. After the red card, Pep did the right thing to move Martinez to defence and bring Lahm as CM. As someone said, Lahm is the gold medalist in decathlon of footballers. Kroos had 147/152 passes :o. Alaba was helped by Götze/Thiago while Robben and Rafinha were taking Monreal for a ride. I can understand Arsenal wanting to keep it compact in the center (and hence Monreal staying inside) but Kroos kept hitting cross field passes to the right towards Robben and Monreal had to be dragged out of position coz Özil was doing nothing to help him. Even if Monreal covers Robben, then there's Rafinha who was unstopped. And to pile on the misery, even Lahm kept drifting to right. I was waiting for Arsenal to win the ball and go on counters through Ox on the other wing but Pep did his homework well. Ox was totally isolated on his side as München kept playing on the other side. With no offensive threat to take care of, Alaba was so deep in Arsenal's half. Was surprised to see Ox get subbed for Rosicky. I don't think he was that tired and he was still a great outlet on that side for the counters. I can't understand Özil's non-substitution twice!

Non-Arsenal fans try to watch the 2nd half of the game where you can appreciate the runs of München players in Arsenal's area when Kroos-Lahm were playing right wing passes to Robben/Rafinha. München constantly probed for an opening with several players dragging Arsenal defenders around. Pizzaro did the same for Müller's goal and even before that there was one header from Müller (who ghosted past as usual) which hit the standing leg of BFG and went for a corner.

PS
1. Felt weird to see Götze and Thiago play on the wing during some moments in the game. What's weirder was seeing Thiago/Kroos occasionally take the ball from CBs with Lahm ahead of them both in midfield :o
2. As soon as Müller came on, I knew he'd score a goal like that. He just ghosts past everyone in almost every single game.
3. Was shocked to see Cazorla sacrificed. If anything I thought Özil would be gone as I felt Cazorla would contribute better to Arsenal [especially in a 10 vs 11 when Arsenal are expected to increase their work load] than Özil.
4. For Özil's penalty call, he was slightly offside. Should have made his fortune count. It was like a tribute to Utd vs Sunderland game =))
5. It would be a travesty if Kroos isn't a starter for Germany in the WC [I noticed Löw in the stands]. A true world class CM who reminds me a lot of Modric [been following Kroos since his loan at Leverkusen]
6. 3 yrs ago, Robben would have mentally disintegrated when Wenger made a 'you dived' gesture to him at the side lines. Improved his mental aspect a lot under Heynckes. Thanks, Jupp!

Match Review: Feyenoord 1-2 Ajax

Now then, Ajax entered Rotterdam winless against top half sides in away games this season. They haven't won away at Feyenoord since 2010. Frank de Boer's first visit ended in a superb 4-2 victory for the Rotterdammers after Man City's on-loan striker Guidetti scored a hat-trick. My first Der Klassieker at Rotterdam was last season when Pellè's 90th min goal gave Feyenoord a 2-2 draw.

But in contrast, Ajax were on a good run of form coming in to this game, having stayed unbeaten in Eredivisie since Nov 2013. March is when Ajax under Frank de Boer go up a notch - they only lost 1 game in the spring time [March-May] in last 4 yrs. Ajax were also on 3 match winning streak vs Feyenoord, with the recent 3-1 win coming in KNVB Cup quarter finals.

Daley Blind move to LB and Poulsen started as DM in center along with Klaassen and Serero. Feyenoord started the match aggressively in front of their own fans - no away supporters are allowed in the matches between these two sides. There were very few chances created by either side in the game. Apart from the goals scored, there was one header by Immers straight to Cillesen while Siem de Jong replied in kind with a header [very similar to the one Pelle scored] straight to Mulder. Some points I noted elsewhere:

- Joel Veltman has to learn the art of defending. He reminds me a lot of Pique and I want him to become a Vertonghen - someone who can pass well but can also defend well [my fav EPL defender last season]. Veltman has let Pelle win the ball several times which would have given a heart attack if I were watching the match live.

- Kishna got his first start for Ajax and provided the assist for Sigthorsson's first goal. Glorious change of pace to go past Bruno Martins-Indi and deliver the cross.

- This match was part of three epic clashes between former legendary players last weekend. Simeone vs Ancellotti and Seedorf vs Conte are the others.

- When Blind moved to LB, the midfield has lost a bit of control. Feels weird to say this but Blind at DM was working so well at Ajax. After Duarte came on, he was exchanging the LB-DM slots with Blind occasionally. This worked well vs AZ, failed spectacularly vs Red Bull Salzburg and did decently well vs Feyenoord. I think Blind/Duarte will need more time to develop an understanding for the exchanges.

- Bojan is one of the most technical players I have ever seen. If only he was more clinical. He had a glorious volley from edge of the box blocked on the line vs Feyenoord. Last I checked, he tweeted saying he'll be back soon from injury. [Got subbed off after 35 mins vs Feyenoord]

- Not all players go out on to the pitch to injure opponents but players do kick out occasionally. Not to injure anyone maybe, but usually out of frustration or as an act of retribution. Pelle intentionally elbowed Veltman twice in the face as he felt that referee didn't award him a foul previously. Clasie kicked out at Poulsen as he felt referee didn't previously award a foul when Poulsen and Immers went for the ball and Poulsen was late to the challenge [obviously, Poulsen is ancient]. te Vrete went so late into Cillesen that his goal kick was already across halfway line in the air. Players do it sometimes, yes. Depends on what kind of a ref you get. I prefer the teams to respond to the kicking in kind. I like Bergkamp for this.

- Poulsen gave a 20 yard through ball with his left foot. That is all.

- Pelle has been stripped off the captaincy for his recent transgressions and Clasie will now be the new Feyenoord captain.

- Ronald Koeman is no longer the Feyenoord coach

Ajax now have an 8-pt lead over 2nd placed Twente [who could only manage a draw in their game] and considering Ajax's unusually good form during the run-in mixed with easier set of fixtures [6 of their 8 games are against bottom half sides], Frank de Boer can become the first Ajax coach to win four Eredivisie titles in a row.

Stats courtesy Opta Johan and this.

Match Review: Ajax 4-0 AZ

It's always AZ Alkmaar, isn't it? Seems like almost every game against them is a memorable one. Ajax won a gritty 3-2 game in Alkmaar last season. AZ took revenge by winning 3-0 in Amsterdam in Dutch Cup semis which they followed up by beating PSV in finals. Ajax beat them 3-2 in Dutch Super Cup this season. Then AZ took revenge by beating Ajax 3-2 in Alkmaar in the first league game. But they don't have Verbeek anymore. Around Christmas, AZ were in terrible form losing 6 games in a row but under Dick Advocaat they picked up their performances. They won 5 of their last 8 before visiting Amsterdam on 23rd Feb.

Ajax were coming off what was arguably De Boer's worst loss as Ajax's manager [not the scoreline but the performance]. Red Bull Salzburg won all 6 of their Europa League group games and there's also the small matter of beating Pep's Bayern München 3-0 in a winter friendly last month. And they showed why they should be taken seriously in this year's competition. They pressed Ajax relentlessly, broke all the attacks before they even started and took 3-0 lead after 35 mins, the 3rd one a glorious goal from near halfway line by Soriano. Yet another year, Ajax are doomed in EL. After such a performance, the side needed to bounce back and they did in a glorious style.

With Serero and Boilesen injured, the usual midfield of Klaassen-Blind-Serero, which never got beaten in Eredivisie so far was replaced with Klaassen-Poulsen-Duarte. Ajax were brilliant in the first half and could have scored 8 if not for AZ's keeper Boer and some tame finishing. Once again, Bojan was good without scoring goal. Siem de Jong opened the scoring and Ajax were never troubled.


And like many of Kafka's stories, this ends here abruptly.