TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2014 SPORTS Liverpool looks to do better without Suarez LIVERPOOL: Back in the Champions League and scorer with 31 goals last season, was sold to There is also the fear among some pundits that games, and has adopted an attacking style that is back in the Premier League title conversation, Barcelona for $130 million, leaving a huge hole in Liverpool could go the way of Tottenham, which fun to watch and overwhelmed many opponents Liverpool has come a long way in a short time under Liverpool’s squad. brought in a slew of players on the back of selling last season. Brendan Rodgers. Rodgers has spent the proceeds of Suarez’s sale Gareth Bale to Real Madrid last summer but failed to He also has the backing of the fans and his club’s Yet, to satisfy the lofty expectations of one of on a string of signings - Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren find the right mix and balance. Avoiding falling into hierarchy. “We will improve,” Rodgers said after the England’s two biggest clubs, it’s time for Liverpool to and Rickie Lambert have arrived from Southampton, that trap will be one of Rodgers’ biggest tasks. final game of last season. “We’ll be ready to fight make the next step. And that means winning tro- exciting winger Lazar Markovic joined from Benfica In a sense, Liverpool had it easy last season. There again. Now we’ve got the belief.” phies. After finishing eighth in 2012 and seventh in and holding midfielder Emre Can moved from Bayer was no European football to clog up the schedule Captain Steven Gerrard has retired from interna- 2013, Liverpool made a giant leap last season by Leverkusen. With Belgium striker Divock Origi join- and the team was eliminated early from the two cup tional football and can devote all his energy to pushing Manchester City all the way in the title race ing from Lille for 10 million pounds ($17 million) but competitions. The Reds could concentrate on their Liverpool, where he starred in the midfield quarter- and coming up just short, two points behind in sec- spending this season on loan at the French club, league challenge, playing just one game a week and back role last season. And attacking midfielders ond place. And it could have been so much better - Liverpool’s outlay is almost 100 million pounds getting away with having a lack of depth in their Philippe Coutinho and Raheem Sterling should only the team held a five-point lead with three matches ($170 million). squad. That won’t be the case this season. But in get better. There is much to be excited about among remaining, only to stumble with a first champi- Yet, Lambert will be the only new striker in the Rodgers, Liverpool has one of the brightest man- Liverpool fans - not least a return to the Champions onship since 1990 in reach. squad and, at 32, is hardly an adequate replacement agers in English football and he has done nothing League for the first time since the 2009-10 season - Going one better this season is the aim, but it will for Suarez. It means most of the attacking burden but impress since taking over in the summer of but losing Suarez, and failing to replace him with a be tough - especially with their best player no will be placed on Daniel Sturridge, now England’s 2012. He is tactically astute, changing formations to player close to his ilk, is likely to prevent them mak- longer around. Luis Suarez, the Premier League’s top No. 1 striker but prone to injuries. great effect from match to match as well as during ing that step up to title winners. — AP MAN United set to begin new era under Van Gaal MANCHESTER: Fom the gloom and constant disap- pointments of David Moyes’ tenure to hope and antici- pation under new manager Louis van Gaal, the mood at Manchester United has shifted dramatically heading into the new Premier League season. Order appears to have been restored at Old Trafford after United’s most tumultuous year in a generation, when Moyes turned the club from English champions into something of a laughing stock in the space of 10 months. And it’s all down to the appointment of Van Gaal, the kind of charismatic, authoritarian coach United should really have gone for in the summer of 2013 to usher in the post-Alex Ferguson era. It’s barely been a month since he took over after his World Cup duties Arsenal’s French manager Arsene Wenger (right) gives instructions in this file photo. with the Netherlands and it’s always hasty to make judgments based on preseason results, but things are After trophy drought ends, already looking up for England’s biggest team. United is yet to lose under Van Gaal, beating Arsenal sets sights on EPL Liverpool and Real Madrid on the way to winning a preseason tournament in the United States, and looks to have warmed to the tactics and change of forma- LONDON: For nine torturous years the playmaker Mesut Ozil. Having sustained tion (to a 3-5-2) of the Dutchman. Players like Wayne absence of a trophy eluded Arsene top-four finishes while funding the move Rooney and Juan Mata look energized. “He’s a tough Wenger. That burden was lifted when to the Emirates Stadium in 2006, Arsenal is manager but he’s been great since he came in,” Rooney Wenger celebrated in May after clinching in financially sound position and sure it said. “He’s given us all a different way of looking at the FA Cup. can now retain top talent rather than it football, which we haven’t had before.” It was a joyful moment, but still tinged being picked off by rivals. “We are less vul- It’s a huge contrast to life under Moyes, who never with what-ifs. Arsenal spent longer than nerable now, that is for sure,” Wenger said. garnered the respect of the squad due to his lack of ANN ARBOR: Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney (left) talks with Jonny Evans in this file any side at the top of the Premier League “In the last two years we bought Ozil and top-level experience as a manager. photo. — AP but still ended up in its familiar fourth Sanchez - five years ago we would have Van Gaal has coached - and won league titles - in are likely to be more incomings before the transfer Evans, Phil Jones and Chris Smalling aren’t in the same place after struggling against its title rivals. lost Ozil and Sanchez.” Spain, Germany and the Netherlands and has the grav- window shuts on Aug. 31. It will be a strange season class as Ferdinand and Vidic - but the same was said of A Champions League spot for a 17th suc- Striker Robin van Persie, and midfielders itas to take on the rebuilding job at United that proved for United, which failed to qualify for any European Van Gaal’s Dutch team at the World Cup and it reached cessive year was a minimum achievement - Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas were too much for his predecessor. Already, aging defensive competition for the first time since 1990 after finishing the semifinals, only missing out on a place in the final how Manchester United would take such among the players to exit the Emirates trio Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand and Patrice Evra have in seventh place last season - 22 points behind Premier on penalties. Even if United fails to bridge the gap to predictable consistency now - but still prematurely after being sold at their peak. been moved on and Van Gaal has signaled that some League winner Manchester City. title favorites City and Chelsea, fans at Old Trafford still Arsenal is without a Premier League title Although captain Thomas Vermaelen was fringe players will be jettisoned. That could include the But United will have noted how Liverpool benefit- are likely to see that kind of attractive, expansive, since 2004. allowed to join Barcelona for $25 million likes of Nani, Anderson and Javier Hernendez, as well ed last season from no European involvement to finish attacking football that had become commonplace “The only thing we need to improve is last week, frugality no longer appears to as Marouane Fellaini, who has flopped since joining second, and it would be foolish to write off the team’s before Moyes’ troubled reign. our away record against the so-called big- be Wenger’s philosophy. “We have more from Everton for 27.5 million pounds (then $43 million) chances of regaining the title. Van Gaal’s likely front With Ryan Giggs retired from playing and now in last summer. ger teams,” said Aaron Ramsey, whose money available to buy today than we had line of Rooney, Robin van Persie and Juan Mata is one the dugout as Van Gaal’s assistant, this will be the first The only signings have been left back Luke Shaw of the strongest in the league and Herrera brings ener- season without a member of the famous “Class of 92” intelligence and influence in midfield was five years ago,” Wenger said. “We can com- and Spanish central midfielder Ander Herrera for a gy to the midfield that was lacking last season. in the squad. It’s certainly a new era for United - and in a defining dynamic of last season. “If we pete better. For years we have lost top combined 50 million pounds ($84 million) but there Defensively, United appears vulnerable - Jonny Van Gaal, it has a proven winner to kick it off.