Lucas Leiva – You Can’t Put a Price on Him

''The thing about Lucas Leiva is people don't realise how good he is." These were the fewest, perhaps most befitting words that former Liverpool manager, Rafael Benitez, once used to describe one Lucas Pezzini Leiva after the Brazilian was booed by the club’s own fans following a disappointing barren draw against Fulham in the 2008-09 Premier League season.

Lucas was experiencing a tumultuous period in only his second season in the energy-sapping Barclays Premier League having made a £6 million move from Gremio. He was signed as an attacking midfielder then, with Benitez saying "I am looking forward to seeing him score goals for Liverpool in the future.”

The goals were not coming and the impatient fans were calling for his head vociferously claiming that he was not good enough to don a Liverpool away kit, let alone the legendary all red home kit. Some called him the worst Brazilian ever to grace English football. All manner of jokes and mockery was labeled at him in a manner that would have sent any player back to his country to play football in the streets.

Benitez nevertheless stuck to his blonde Brazilian, even highlighting to all the naysayers that Lucas had been captain for both Grêmio and his national youth team. But the haters and boo boys wouldn’t listen. Never mind he was competing for a place in a midfield that had the fantastic Steven Gerard, the pass master Xabi Alonso and the tough-tackling Javier Mascherano.

A brilliant performance in Liverpool’s 5-1 thrashing of Newcastle earned him plaudits thanks to that Xavi-esque through ball to Gerard to score one of the goals. But a game later, the then 21-year-old gave away a penalty that drew Wigan level and was then sent off against Everton in a cup tie loss. That undid all the right things and the critics were back roasting Leiva’s ass again.

Surely, he was never going to make it. Or was he?

At the beginning of 2009-10 season, Liverpool suffered the loss of Xabi Alonso, a midfield linchpin and the master of long range inch-perfect passes. The exit of the Basque player to Real Madrid opened the floodgates for Lucas to make his mark in the first team. Playing alongside Javier Mascherano, Liverpool evidently struggled, finishing a lowly seventh and missing out on the UEFA Champions League.

Benitez, Lucas’ apparent guardian was fired and rumours went round that the Dourados-born playmaker was finally going to exit Anfield for a club as mediocre as his skills with the ball.

But that never happened. What happened is; he won some doubters, and for some reason, stayed at the red half of Merseyside. 

The 24-year-old’s status as a fine footballer rose last season that saw him named Liverpool’s Player of the season. Then came Kenny Dalglish and the Liverpool number 21 became an irreplaceable man in the midfield, both for club and country. Brazil. You read it right. Lucas Leiva is a regular in the ticking Brazilian team. He’s got samba feet. Lucas, Lucas, Lucas.

If anyone still doubts the 2006 Brazilian Footballer of the year’s talents, fast forward to the away game at Chelsea a fortnight ago. Manning the Liverpool midfield with Scot Charlie Adam, Lucas scuffled any attempts by Andre Villas Boas’ men to make forays into the Liverpool penalty area.

His performance was as effective as it was eye-catching as Liverpool won 2-1 at Stamford Bridge. If you thought he was top class against the Blues, you won't find a superlative good enough to describe his performance against table-topping Manchester City.

Sheikh Mansour's Manchester City have been scoring goals for fun in the Premier League. Going into the Liverpool match, they had scored no less than two goals in all EPL matches including a 6-1 humiliation of rivals Manchester United. Their midfield have been instrumental. But against King Kenny's side, Lucas and his partner Charlie Adam marshaled the midfield the best way they know how.

Despite the Brazilian’s relatively small built as compared to his antagonists in the middle of the pack, he dealt with the guile of David Silva, the beastly physicality of Yaya Toure and usurped the energy of James Milner. Samir Nasri must have gone for some energy packs after his substitution.

Silva has been simply unplayable for most part of the season. He leads the premier league assists table with 8 and has scored four goals. But the Brazilian with Italian descent made him look ordinary. He shut down City’s heartbeat and never put a foot wrong as he made timely interventions and swift passing, spreading it left, right, forwards and sometimes even covering at centerback.

The Citizens’ custodian Joe Hart was named man of the match after pulling one stunning save after another and ensuring City left with a valuable point. Lucas should have won it.

Nothing says more about his workmanlike effort than these statistics from Anfield index:

Pass Accuracy: 92.2% Tackle Win: 100% (7/7) Ground Duel Won: 81.3% (13/16) Aerial Duels Won: 100% (4/4)

Just over a year ago, his ability to play at the top was questioned by countless critics who must now be eating their humble pie and scratching their heads at just how good the Brazilian has come. Consistency has been his strength and it’s hard to identify a premier league player who has improved with every passing game as Leiva.

He was named the Standard Chartered Fans player of the year last season and with bossy performances against top sides Chelsea and Man City, he looks certain to be named Liverpool FC player of the month, an award that Luis Suarez has won for the last three months, something the Uruguayan has termed 'embarrassing'. Well, it won't be embarrassing no more as El Pistolero won't get the accolade for November.

It’s about time people gave Lucas the respect he’s earned. You simply can’t put a price on him because you just don’t know how good he can get.

Walk on Leiva.

And That's thesteifmastertake!!

Who will Thrash Manchester City?

With 119 matches played and a total 356 goals scored at the time of writing this article, the Barclays Premier League continues with its cutthroat competitive nature that sees only seven points separate second-placed Manchester United and 7^th placed Arsenal.

The season has barely been short of goals as only ten barren draws have been recorded so far. Surprisingly though, the scoreless draws have come between the relatively small teams, bar the 0-0 draws for Arsenal versus Newcastle and Chelsea against Stoke.

More startling though has been the string of high scoring matches that we have witnessed among the top six teams, who you would expect to have watertight defences. It all started on August 28 when Manchester United ran riot at home, hitting six past Arsenal who were arguably experiencing a tumultuous period after the exit of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri. Wayne Rooney scored a hat-trick as the Red Devils trounced 8-2, a result that remains the biggest home win, the widest winning margin (tied with Fulham’s 6-0 win over QPR) and the highest scoring match of the season thus far.

The same weekend saw Manchester City batter Tottenham 5-1 at White Hart Lane with Edin Dzeko scoring four goals. These two big wins seemed to have opened the floodgates for goals.

Since then, we’ve seen Tottenham win 4-0 against Liverpool, Manchester United experience a 6-1 karma at the hands of Manchester City at Old Trafford and Chelsea lose 5-3 and 3-1 to Arsenal and Manchester United respectively.

The only team that is yet to experience an ignominy of goals is Manchester City. The Citizens, though struggling in Europe, have been in impeccable form back at home in England. Roberto Mancini’s side have conceded the least number of goals in the premier league standing at 11, same as Liverpool and Newcastle.

They have not conceded more than two goals since the season began. The big question however is whether they can maintain their rich vein of form and will they find a side lethal enough in attack to hit them where it hurts.

Liverpool provides the opposition this weekend and the Merseyside club will go into the match brimming with confidence after dismissing Chelsea 2-1 at Stamford Bridge. It will be a matchup of two clubs with the meanest defences.

Both teams won 3-0 against each other in their own backyard. Can Liverpool give the Sky Blues the beating this weekend? Never say never.

And That's thesteifmastertake!!

Man City on the Brink of Elimination, Man United Labour, Madrid Cruise

Napoli's Edinson Cavani heads the opener against Manchester City

Manchester City’s progression to the Champions League knockout stages no longer lies on their hands after their 2-1 defeat away to Italian side Napoli.

The Citizens went into the match knowing that doing an Italian job over the Partenpoei will secure them a spot in the knockout stages. However, Edinson Cavani’s brace condemned the English Premier League table-toppers to a defeat that could see them drop into the less-fancied Europa League should Napoli win against bottom side Villarreal in a fortnight.

The two teams stretched each other in the opening minutes and it took 20minutes for the hometeam to reward the over 57,000 fans who turned out at the Stadio San Paolo. Edinson Cavani capitalized from some poor defending from Man City as he raced to head in the opener from near post.

Napoli decided to sit back after the goal and were duly punished in the 33^rd minute with a defensive error of their own. Salvatore Aronica’s poor clearance inside the box fell to David Silva in the box and the Spaniard saw his shot parried by Napoli keeper Morgan De Sanctis into the path of Mario Balotelli who had the easy task of tapping the ball into the net to make it 1-1.

Napoli got the winner after the interval. Former Liverpool defender Andrea Dossena sped on the left and cut the ball back to Cavani who calmly side-kicked the ball past Joe Hart to elicit raucous celebrations from the capacity crowd at San Paolo.

Roberto Mancini's side tried to pull the goal back but to no avail. The win puts Walter Mazzari’s fate into their own hands and should they repeat their earlier 2-0 win away to Villarreal on December 7, they’ll progress to the last 16 and see Roberto Mancini’s side kicked out of the Champions League in their maiden appearance.

In the other Group A match, Bayern Munich clinched qualification into the knockout rounds with a 3-1 win over Villarreal at the Alianz Arena. Franck Ribery scored a goal either side of Mario Gomez’s strike in the 23^rd minute to secure the Bavarians the group. Jonathan De Guzmán scored the consolation for the Yellow Submarines.

In Group B, Inter Milan confirmed their status as group winners despite drawing 1-1 away to Trabzonspor. Ricardo Gabriel Álvarez smashed the Turkish side into the lead after 18minutes but Halil Altintop drew level for the Italians in the 23^rd minute as the match ended 1-1. Vasili Berezutski’s own goal in the 49^th minute and Moussa Sow’s 64^th minute strike gave Lille a 2-0 win over Russia’s CSKA Moscow at the Luzhniki Stadium.

The race for second place in the group is wide open. The final group matches will see CSKA travel to the San Siro to face Inter Milan while Lille will welcome Trabzonspor in a winner-take-all match.

Meanwhile Manchester United continued to labour in Group C as they fought to a 2-2 draw with visiting Benfica at Old Trafford. A Phil Jones own goal and Pablo Aimar’s volley in the 61^st minute saw the two teams share spoils for the second time and take the qualification right to the wire. Dimitar Berbatov and Darren Fletcher scored for Sir Alex’s side. In the other group match, Otelul and Basel served the fans with a five-goal thriller match with Basel edging out the hosts  3-2.

Man United travel to Basel while Benfica welcome Otelul Galati in the final group matches.

Real Madrid hit six past Dinamo Zagreb at the Estadio Bernabeu but not before conceding two goals, the only goals they let in so far in the competition. Karim Benzema and Callejon scored a brace each while Gonzalo Higuain and Mesut Ozil scored the other two as the La Liga giants maintained a perfect winning record in the group. Fatos Beciraj 81′ and Ivan Tomecak 90′ scored for Dinamo but the match was already won within the first 10 minutes of the game. Ajax and Lyon shared the spoils.

And That's thesteifmastertake!!