The Only Football Blog

Bayern Munich may not be showing spectacular performances the past two seasons, but they are serious in improving their position by strengthening their lines. Among the things they need, Oliver Kahn stated that the most important thing Bayern Munich needs right now is a world-class goal keeper. Bayern Munich finishes second in the 2008/09 Bundesliga after losing the league’s championship trophy to Wolfsburg, while their performance this year is not quite improved just yet; they are now in third place.

Kahn continues his comments by stating that throughout his career with Bayern Munich, from 1994 to 2008, the weakest link in Bayern Munich’s strong chain is the goalkeeper. It is definitely the toughest position to fill. Although experts are considering Kahn’s job at keeping Bayern Munich’s goal safe was spectacular, the team doesn’t have a worthy replacement yet.

The current Bayern Munich goalkeeper, Hans-Jorge Butt, is not performing as well as anyone would expect. He is often found being replaced by Michael Rensing who is also not a superbly performing goalkeeper. It is obvious that Bayern Munich needs to improve their last defense by adding a strong and reliable goalkeeper to the mix.

Rensing is probably too young to be the first goalkeeper of huge team such as Bayern Munich, while Jorge Butt is simply too old to be as reliable as the team need. According to Kahn, several viable alternatives include Gianluigi Buffon and Petr Cech. Although Kahn personally opts for Buffon, the final decision would be in the hands of team management.

It is a great weekend for Liverpool, scoring a spectacular v2-0 victory against Tottenham Hotspurs and climbing up the Premiere League rankings gradually. Liverpool has been showing positive improvements this past couple of weeks; the team is looking pretty solid and we can expect more victories from them for sure. They now scored 37 points and are in sixth place. Spurs, on the other hand, remains in the fourth position with 38 points.

Without Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, two of Liverpool’s best players, the team entered the match without too many expectations. However, the team’s manager Rafa Benitez used Liverpool’s usual formation (4-5-1), placing Dirk Kuyt as the team’s sole striker while Alberto Aquilani act as a supporting attacker for Kuyt. Phlippe Degen, Liverpool’s fullback, was placed at the centerline to help create movements and set the game’s pace.

The strategy worked out beautifully, with Kuyt scoring the first goal of this match after a mere six minutes into the first half. Kuyt showed a spectacular teamwork with Aquilani before scoring a beautiful goal for Liverpool. Spurs tried to return the tide by pushing forward and pressing Liverpool’s defense line intensely, with several great opportunities including the one where Martin Skrtel made a high-powered attempt against the goal and missed by a couple of inches.

Spurs continued to press forward during the second half, but their attacks were not good enough to break Liverpool’s solid defense. At the very last minute, David Ngog was tackled roughly inside the penalty area; Kuyt did a great job executing the penalty.