The Warm-Up: Paulinho's weird move, and Liverpool face reckoning
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Updated 15/08/2017 at 07:20 GMT
Plus: Lord Bendtner lives up to his noble status...
Paulinho of Guangzhou Evergrande and Rhayner Santos Nascimento of Kawasaki Frontale
Image credit: Getty Images
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Barcelona sign Paulinho, world not sure what to make of it
In England, we have a tendency to write off players who haven’t quite cut it in the Premier League. Diego Forlan, Jon Dahl Tomasson, even someone like Nikola Kalinic: all regarded as something close to a punchline because they weren’t much good on our shores, never mind their achievements elsewhere. Paulinho was another example of that, a midfielder who struggled with Tottenham but who has managed to get himself back into the Brazil team, despite playing in the supposed wasteland of China.
All that said, it is a bit weird that Barcelona have signed him now. The Brazilian arrives at Camp Nou for something like €40m from Guangzhou Evergrande, not exactly the most inspiring transfer for a team who have the Neymar money still burning a considerable hole in their pocket.
“Losing Paulinho is a loss for Evergrande, but it is a good thing for Chinese football,” said Guangzhou boss Luis Felipe Scolari. “It proves that the world’s leading clubs are paying attention to the Chinese Super League.” And he’s right, too: that league can now no longer be simply written off as a money pit, a place players go when they’re at a loose end in order to top up not just their own pension pot, but those of their children too.
Still, while all of that is true and it’s silly to write Paulinho off because he wasn’t much to look at in the Premier League…this is still pretty funny…
Liverpool face Champions League reckoning
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Liverpool's coach Juergen Klopp
Image credit: Getty Images
At one point in the summer, it was all looking quite good for Liverpool. Mo Salah’s signing was wrapped up nice and early, Virgil van Dijk looked to be on the way and none of their key men seemed like they would be going anywhere. But now Philippe Coutinho is sulking, Van Dijk remains a Southampton player and the same old woes were exposed in the 3-3 draw to Watford on Saturday.
And now, with this minor state of flux to deal with, they must face Hoffenheim in the Champions League qualifying playoff. And Jurgen Klopp felt the need to prepare the ground for possible disappointment before the game.
“This is the strongest qualification round,” he said. “England play Germany and you can go out against Germany. We were both fourth last season, both in strong leagues, but that does not increase the pressure. We want to go to the group stages. That was our target for the whole of last season and now we have two steps to go – but they are the most difficult steps. That is how it is.
If anybody thinks because they don’t know about German football or the quality of Hoffenheim – and a lot of people only know two names [Bayern and Borussia Dortmund] – it is clear we have to do the job. I am really positive and looking forward to the game, even when I know it is really difficult. That is no problem. That is how it should be in the Champions League, where all the games are difficult.
All of a sudden, there’s quite a lot of pressure on Klopp’s men, and the season hasn’t properly started yet.
Bergkamp’s spin voted the best ever
Because society has an incessant need to rank absolutely everything, and because anniversaries are things to be taken seriously, BBC readers and viewers have chosen their favourite goal from the Premier League era.
Naturally, this being a poll on the internet, Arsenal won it: specifically, Dennis Bergkamp’s spin and finish against Newcastle in 2002, when he sent Nikos Dabizas for a sandwich before gently side-footing home.
Still, we do like to think that the people who voted for the Dutch master just did so to wind all those people up who think he didn’t mean it. Let the whining commence!
IN OTHER NEWS
Banter! Social media banter! But also a honking great humblebrag from St Johnstone here, casually bringing the nascent Scottish Premiership table to our attention in the name of Twitter lolz.
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: Nicklas Bendtner
Say what you will about football’s least appropriate lord, but that’s a peach.
Zero: Jonjo Shelvey
Admittedly, it is perhaps harsh to put Newcastle’s erstwhile captain in the ‘zero’ section for the second day in a row, but if the secret to great comedy is timing, then Shelvey is Richard Pryor, Billy Connolly and Daniel Kitson rolled into one. Shelvey conducted an interview with the Daily Mail on Friday, not published until Monday, in which he explained at length how he was a changed man, and didn’t go in for silly losses of temper anymore.
Look, sometimes I just need to rein in it in. I need to just shut up and stuff, walk away. But sometimes I can’t help it. It’s like any walk of life. If you are driving and someone cuts you up you are gonna want to start shouting. It’s probably normal but it’s something I need to nip in the bud…I started to see a psychologist and it’s been really good so far. But it’s an ongoing process. I want to be competitive but I need to smooth some of the edges or I will be the one who suffers. Sometimes I can lose my head and it can’t keep happening can it?
Ah. Yes. Well.
HAT TIP
Would Van Dijk help solve this? A little, maybe, but the issue seems more systemic. As Carragher rightly pointed out in what became quite a heated debate, teams defend set-pieces, not individuals. Van Dijk, whose messiah status on Merseyside grows with every day his transfer saga rumbles on, cannot do it alone.
Mark Critchley, writing in the Independent, looks at why the signing of Virgil van Dijk won’t be the silver bullet that Liverpool need to shore up their honking defence.
RETRO CORNER
Twas 25 years ago this very day that the Premier League, for better or worse, barged into our collective consciousness. We could show you some of the red hot highlights from that first day: Brian Deane scoring against Manchester United; Teddy Sheringham lashing in the first goal on Sky; Alan Shearer punting home a brace on his Blackburn debut. But no, instead have Sky’s first glossy advert, featuring Anders Limpar being brought breakfast in bed, Paul Stewart driving an absurd car and Andy Ritchie taking a call on an jumbo-sized mobile phone while running on a treadmill. A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME.
COMING UP
Liverpool looked a tad shaky, to say the least, in their opener against Watford, but those shakes will have to be fully chucked out of the window in their Champions League qualifier against Hoffenheim tonight. Elsewhere, there’s a job lot of Championship fixtures, the picks being Reading vs Aston Villa and Leeds United vs Fulham. Football!
Wednesday’s Warm-Up will be brought to you by Alex Chick, who actually still has one of those phones modelled by Andy Ritchie.
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