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Liverpool should show class, the farcical Bundesliga and more from Adrian Durham

Adrian Durham is back with his views and if you disagree, then comment below. He reads every one of them.

 

Nein zur Bundesliga

You can only sit back and admire what Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich did in the Champions League this week.

However, for all those saying German football is on the up, take a closer look. Bayern have already won their domestic title and they’re 20 points clear in the Bundesliga. They’re signing Mario Gotze from Dortmund, and they’ve apparently already agreed terms with Robert Lewandowski.

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The Bundesliga is a farce, not a force.

Jurgen Klopp has put together an unbelievable side and the fact that Real and Dortmund were in the same Champions League group as Man City puts the failure of Roberto Mancini's side into perspective a little bit. But Dortmund will always sell and though the club are having a fantastic spell, it won’t last too much longer. Beyond Dortmund and Bayern is the Bundesliga really that strong?

There are some good German players, but defender Mats Hummels was Dortmund's weak link on Wednesday, Arsenal's Per Mertesacker isn’t special and Lewandowski is Polish. There were a few Germany internationals in the Real side who didn’t look special either.
So let’s all calm down about the Bundesliga and German football and remember that in the past 10 years Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea have all reached the Champions League final.

Bayern Munich are strong. Not the Bundesliga.

 

Move on

I thought people were too clever to be taken in by those who insist the FA or Branislav Ivanovic are to blame, or the referee was at fault, or that the media should shoulder some responsibility.
Sadly the debate over Luis Suarez's 10-match ban has shifted into all sorts of nonsense areas, but the reality is if the striker didn’t bite anyone in the first place, then the FA would not be put in a position where they have to defend him.
Show some class, Liverpool, accept the ban, educate your player and move on.

 

Mata is the man

I’ve got a lot of admiration for the Chelsea players this season. They’ve played some great football while the fires have been burning around them – Di Matteo sacked, the fans going mad, Rafa appointed, the fans going mad, Torres being useless, Lampard’s future in doubt, Terry dropped etc etc. Even decisions in games have been absurd. Against Liverpool, Suarez bit Ivanovic, stayed on the pitch, then scored to rob Chelsea of a win, and there was that ridiculous penalty in Basel, too.

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My player of the year is Juan Mata, who has been consistently brilliant in a difficult season, and at times the Spaniard has been a total joy to watch. Eden Hazard has also been superb, I love watching David Luiz, while Ramires is one of the best performing midfielders around and a little shout goes to Cesar Azpilicueta. He already looks really accomplished at right-back, less than a year after joining from Marseille.

Managed correctly, with the fires around the club extinguished, Chelsea could become the best in the country and they are still European Champions, of course.

 

An impossible job

How much is Harry Redknapp to blame for the imminent relegation of Queens Park Rangers?

Clearly he hasn’t done well enough. He arrived at the end of November when the club had yet to win a game and since then QPR have managed to win four, so Redknapp has improved them, but that improvement hasn't been good enough.

When he arrived in west London he found Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora out with injuries, and Djibril Cisse up front. Redknapp knew he could get Loic Remy, so he got Cisse off the wage bill and brought the Marseille man in for £7m, knowing they could easily recoup that and more if they were relegated. Remy has improved QPR, no question.
Redknapp’s biggest dilemma, though, was at the back where it was easy to see Anton Ferdinand and Clint Hill were struggling, Jose Bosingwa looked disinterested and then the bombshell news that the best defender at the club and leader at the back, Ryan Nelsen, announced he would be leaving to manage Toronto.

Taking Nelsen out of that already vulnerable back four would destroy QPR and finding a good enough replacement with Premier League experience willing to join a struggling club in January was virtually impossible. Chris Samba was about the best the club could get. He cost a lot, was on high wages, but they were asking him to play alongside Clint Hill – a replacement was never going to come cheap. Apart from 45 minutes of headsgone defending at Fulham, Samba has improved QPR and there will be no shortage of buyers if they have to sell him, so I can’t see that being a problem financially.

From watching defeats at Fulham and Aston Villa, it’s clear Redknapp got it tactically correct and individual player errors let him down. The same applies to the two dropped points against Wigan, a result of Zamora’s inexplicable red card, Mbia’s ridiculous foul and Taarabt’s pathetic bottle job in the wall, all of which tore the heart out of Harry. Heads dropped and relegation was confirmed in my eyes after that.

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I was at Loftus Road for last week’s defeat to Stoke and Harry looked like he’d run out of ideas. He couldn’t motivate the players, so in that instance you can question the manager. In his defence, though, he walked in on an awful squad who were without a win, he hadn’t worked with them in pre-season, therefore Mark Hughes deserves a huge amount of blame for that. Since then players like Andros Townsend on loan and Remy have been good signings.

However, having inherited a shambolic mess heading for certain relegation, Harry Redknapp simply hasn’t done enough. It's hard not to admire a manager who created history at a club like Spurs when he guided them into the Champions League for the first time, but having been forced out after once again securing a top four place, he could have played golf, taken the pundit’s pound, or been a director of football. He could have nicked a living, but didn’t and took on an impossible job, which has shown just how totally unachievable it is.

I wonder if the manager who finishes fourth this year will get sacked.

 

We are staying up?

I’ve been feeling sick all week without knowing why. Then I realised it’s because Posh v Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday is a huge game.
Peterborough United have never stayed in the second tier for more than two successive seasons, so this would be history for our small club if they stay in the Championship. I’ve been predicting relegation all season, but now it’s coming to the crunch I desperately don’t want to go down.

I fear Crystal Palace will be too strong for us on the final day, so beating Wednesday is absolutely vital. It kicks off at 5.20pm for which I am grateful because if it was during Matchday Live I would simply be unable to concentrate.
Come on you Blue Gods!

Listen to Adrian every weekday on Drive between 4pm and 7pm

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