saco-indonesia.com, Setelah sempat hanya menjadi penghuni papan tengah dalam beberapa tahun terakhir, musim ini Liverpool akan bangkit dan berhasil dalam menunjukkan performa terbaik mereka. The Reds saat ini telah memuncaki klasemen Premier League berkat keunggulan selisih gol atas Arsenal.

Terkait pergeseran peta kekuatan di papan atas, fullback Glen Johnson telah mengemukakan alasannya. Ia juga menyatakan bahwa pergantian manajer yang telah dilakukan oleh sejumlah penghuni big four telah menciptakan keuntungan tersendiri yang mampu dimanfaatkan oleh Liverpool.

"Biasanya ketika klub telah mendapatkan manajer baru, musim pertama berjalan tidak sesuai dengan keinginan mereka. Baru pada musim kedua segalanya akan terasa lebih baik," ungkap pemain 29 tahun ini.

"Musim ini adalah masa transisi bagi banyak tim, jadi kami telah memiliki keuntungan persiapan tersendiri. Jika kami akan tetap fokus dalam menjalani laga demi laga, Liverpool bisa menjadi sangat berbahaya."

Jika melihat pada urutan klasemen, perkataan Johnson memang benar adanya. Dua tim teratas saat ini, Liverpool dan Arsenal, adalah tim yang tidak bisa melakukan pergantian manajer. Lain halnya dengan sejumlah tim big four musim lalu seperti Manchester United, Manchester City, dan Chelsea yang semuanya telah ditangani manajer anyar.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

BEIJING (AP) — The head of Taiwan's Nationalists reaffirmed the party's support for eventual unification with the mainland when he met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of continuing rapprochement between the former bitter enemies.

Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu, a likely presidential candidate next year, also affirmed Taiwan's desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank during the meeting in Beijing. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and doesn't want the island to join using a name that might imply it is an independent country.

Chu's comments during his meeting with Xi were carried live on Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Television.

The Nationalists were driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong's Communists during the Chinese civil war in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between the sides. Chu, who took over as party leader in January, is the third Nationalist chairman to visit the mainland and the first since 2009.

Relations between the communist-ruled mainland and the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan began to warm in the 1990s, partly out of their common opposition to Taiwan's formal independence from China, a position advocated by the island's Democratic Progressive Party.

Despite increasingly close economic ties, the prospect of political unification has grown increasingly unpopular on Taiwan, especially with younger voters. Opposition to the Nationalists' pro-China policies was seen as a driver behind heavy local electoral defeats for the party last year that led to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou resigning as party chairman.