Class piece Gerry, I am getting that book!

Great article. Just ordered my book online.

Sorry lads, and I know I’ll be called a prick for saying it, but some of that was just downright wrong.
I also hate to have a go at a fella who’s obviously a lifelong match going Red. Judging by his O Level in 77, I’d say he’s 5 or 6 years younger than me. so, therefore, had a lot of the same experiences. But sorry Gerry, I have to object to a few things….
There was National Front members from London at Heysel. If you watch our end, just before the charge goes off, you will see a load of papers getting thrown in the air. That was a National Front supporter getting what he deserved from Kopites. And before anybody asks do I know that for sure, I will say this… I was sat in the stands, so I couldn’t swear to that in court. But I know plenty of good lads that could.
Also, on the ferry back home a young cockney lad started talking to me. After a while he told me the truth…. He was a Spurs fan and National Front member. (The mind boggles). He also told me he had gone to Heysel because he knew there’d be a kick off after the way Liverpool fans were treated in Rome the year before. Another game were I managed to duck the bricks, bottles and knives. See, I’ve never been into football violence. I was on the recieving end of it a couple of times. It was no fun. In fact, I near got a hiding off our own supporters for trying to stop them from battering a lone Man City fan. I always found it a cowardly act committed by cowards. but I had no qualms, nor do I still, about pointing out that NF goon on the ferry and seeing him start to get a terrible hiding. I walked away and didn’t watch. But eye for an eye, live by the sword die by the sword sort of thing.

Anyway, this isn’t the place to go on about them sort of events. They took place half a life time ago, and they don’t really concern people that live around the globe and just come in here out of a love for football and LFC.

Where I am a bit upset with his comments are… No media biase. Rafa having had plenty of money.

This is sort of getting long, so I will just say… I have recently just seen statistics that prove the grand total amount of actual money our great owners have given to Rafa for transfers is £15 million quid.

As for no media bias I will just say we must have read different papers and watched different telly, in the 70′s and 80′s when we were conquering Europe and Man U were either in the old 2nd division or wallowing around mid table/relagation places yet still filled the airwaves and back/front and middle pages of the papers.

No worries FS, but I do recommend that you try to get a copy of this book. In it he gives a very detailed account account of his personal experience at Heysel among many other significant events from the last 20 years or so.
I very much enjoyed reading it and found his opinions very interesting, although I can’t say I agreed with all of them, but that’s football!
As for the media, well I think you know my opinion on those guys from past blogs and from the tone of my question.
I’ve been enjoying the various debates on transfers etc on the last blog, and I hope they continue on this one and the ones to come, this place is keeping me sane!
But variety is the spice of life and I’m trying to introduce a few different topics in the blogs to hopefully broaden the discussion into other areas as well. I was well pleased to get an interview with Tony Evans and I hope you guys found it as interesting as I did.

Great interview again this Gerry, well in mate.

Cheers Gerry, always good to keep the angles going as Barry talk is getting old, considering he isn’t even a RED yet…

Anyway one point I’d like to pick up on is the whole transfer fund or the lack of funds and Parry and Moores resistance to splashing the majority of their budget on few players but ones that are of higher quality…
It’s interesting these days as Mr Evans does acknowledge that fact and yet it is true that we are not as broke as is always portrayed by many concerned Red’s fans…
Also picking up on Torres’ and more importantly Rafa’s recent comments that it doesn’t really matter how much we’re spending BUT how we’re spending our funds…
For me I’d love to ask Rafa if Parry has stopped opposing his preferred targets, whether or not his back-office is improving in regards to negotiating their targets… AND before you all start saying that it hasn’t please remember that OF COURSE Martin (cry baby) o’neil is going to be pissed his captain wants out, that we’ve completed two transfers, are close to signing Barry and are close to selling Riise and Alonso for decent fees (IF the tabloits are to be believed…). All of which seems to be happening at lightspeed compared to recent years…

Also highly recommend reading Rafa’s translation done by this site:

http://www.thisisanfield.com/columnists/2008/06/rafas-euro-column-unconditional-support/

Cheers!

Question (cant believe i only just thought of it)-Why cant Gareth Barry buy out the rest of his contract???? As far as i know, he meets all the criteria (age and time left on contract).

Someone give Parry a call and give him a heads up.

Aussie – I think you have to be 28 years old or older and have 2 years or less remaining on the contract to buy it out. Barry isn’t 28 until February.

I’ve got to agree with FS about heysel. I’m not saying LFC were lilly white but to lay the blame completley at our door is wrong. There were NF memebers there and also some of the juve fans had guns or flare guns and that’s a fact. Maybe the Juve fans were not proper fans but I do know they were Italian. Football violence is wrong. I also stood up can you belive for a chavski fan and stopped him getting a beating at the FA cup semi at castle greyskull.

As regards the media well again I agree with FS. We dominated the 70′s and 80′s and every year manure were fave’s for the league – that’s like manure dominating during the 90,s and us being fav’s for the league., ridiculous.

By the way great piece Gerry. It’s good to read a journalists point of view. Especially one that is a lifelong match going RED! I will buy the book. Unfortunately I’ve only been able to go to a few matches down the years and I was very young in the days of those mentioned events so I don’t know much about them (apart from what I’ve read about Hillsborough down the years). I’m sure the book will provde a good insight.

As for the media bias – I can’t comment on what it was like in the 70s and 80s but I must say the media do seem to enjoy it more when the mancs get glory. I do agree with Evans when he says every fan thinks the media is biased against their club.

Regards the amount of money Rafa’s had to spend. Evans says he’s had plenty. From a gross spend point of view this is correct. Approx £80m spent since July 2007.

Of course there are other factors such as how much money he’s brought in, how much money the club have made through the successful CL runs, where the money spent on players has come from (credit, loans, player sales etc). Then there is the question – how much control Rafa has on what he wants to spend the money on. E.g. if he ‘s got £50m is he allowed to spend it on 2 players or does Parry tell him he can only spend such a sum on 4 or more players?

Morning chaps.
Gerry, please don’t take me wrong. I enjoyed the blog. It was a nice refreshing change, and a bit of a coup to get the fella – same as I reckon we are fortunate to have a proper Red on the staff of The Times.

Here’s me point though, yes it’s true. We do have some backers in the media, Tony Evans himself being one of the top ones.
But seeing this country’s media is London and Manchester based, the bias has always swung to these clubs – particulary in the 70′s and 80′s when not only the club, but the city and it’s natives were seen as fair game by every prick with a type writer.
If anything, it’s probably a bit better now than it was. And I think the worst offenders are some of so called own – McMannaman, McMahon, Souness, Redknapp. Need I go one.

But, even though it’s not quite as easy for the media to call all Scousers thieves and murderers, I, for one, find it hard to forgive and forget – especially things like the disgraceful “Truth” article in the rag that can’t even be named. And the fact that the BBC and other major media outlets continue to use Kelvin McKenzie and it’s other perpatraitors.

I’m sick of being all preachy lately. I won’t to get back to having a laugh. So, here’s me last word on it… name me a manager who has to endure with the sort of shite they constantly throw at Rafa?
No media bias – bollacks, my friend. Bollacks.

As for the club not being skint, and Rafa recieving funds, my mind boggles at how many people are still falling for this. Sorry to shout lads… BUT THERE IS NO MONEY! YOU ARE STILL BEING CONNED IF YOU THINK THERE IS!

Why on earth do you think 99.99% of us want the charlatans out?

As for Heysel, I didn’t make it clear.
In my last comment, when I mentioned all the papers going up in the air just before the charge, I saw some of the papers after the game. They were NF flyers.
And when they went up in the air it was because the fellas that were trying to distribute them – Skinheads from London – were getting battered by Kopites.

And if Mr. Evans ever wanted further confirmation, I would be glad to give it. But it would take me far too long to comment on that terrible day in here. But I will say this… Heysel resulted from a number of things.
The charge and the wall collapse was the terrible end result that Liverpool fans must accept our part in and stand guilty as charged.
But it wasn’t as cut and dried as that.
And I hate to say it, but if I had been in that end – after what I’d experienced in Rome the year before and what I’d seen in Belgium for 2 days before the game – I would have charged them too.

And Kenny Dalglish legend – if you watch the aftermath of the wall collapse, you will see an Italian ultra in Arab headgear to mask his identity, run to the Liverpool end and fire a pistol into the crowd.
It turned out to be a starter pistol. But then the lad that fired it, turned out to be a nephew of one of the top bosses at FIAT so of course he was never charged with anything – as were most of the Italians who spent the 2 days prior to the match stabbing Reds and firing flares at us.
Bad times indeed.

Last word…
I’m sure Mr Evans is reading our comments on his thoughts, so I’d just like to say… My disagreements are nothing personal nor a dig. I read most of your stuff, and please keep up the good work. It’s good to have one of our own in such a position of influence. Keep listening to your kid and your mates, don’t fall for any of that London/media based shite.

Great read Gerry and it is always interesting to get somebody else’s incite whether you agree with them or not. Over all he makes some very good points, but one or two items, I think it is very much from his perspective of being there and being too close to the action to get an overall picture of what has happened. Heysel being a point in case. Yes he was there, his intentions and frame of mind evident, especially after Rome, however that does not negate what happened around him or who took part in those chain of events as witnessed by other people who were there, FS being one. What happened around him was real but was only a part of the whole picture and not all of it.

The other point I strongly disagree with him on is the media baize, I have lived in several different countries over a long period of time in terms of the 40 odd years I have been supporting LFC and I am probably the same age or slightly older than Tony and it is a world wide trend to glamorise ManU and gleefully pick LFC apart. Yes the media centres of Manchester and London play a role, but in all honesty I think it runs deeper than that and stems from our long term success, class, fans being hailed as the best in the world and dignified approach (I wish that where true today) and being held up as an example of how it should be done, again in past tense.

Today that has sadly unravelled and the English press love to tear down yesterdays hero’s. Yes he works in the media and anybody with a little bit of intelligence will admit to the class of LFC of yesteryear and what we accomplished and stood for as well as the experience of the Anfield atmosphere and profess to being an admirer. However that does not stop them putting the knife in gleefully at every opportunity. Even more so with beginning of a renaissance under Rafa because anybody with any knowledge can see what type of foundations are being laid. You have to be an idiot not to see that it is only a matter of time before we are back where we belong (again as long as these two twats don’t fuck it up)

I have been reading the comments from the last blog but have not been in the mood to play Fantasy Football at the moment so as not to be called a hypocrite after having a dig at a few of my friends for being negative I have kept quite. The three Barry, Dossena and Deggen are all good signings or will be when completed and I trust Rafa to add to that with what he can afford and according to what budget is at his disposal.

With all the indication and speculations it is looking more and more as if he does not have much of a budget and that player sales will generate new arrivals. The latest Peanut for Milner (I have not seen much of him to comment), this could be a case of us being priced out on Reira or an alternative in case we cannot match the price, Alonso for Barry etc. I hope I am wrong and that Rafa pulls one out of the bag. Remember I was a Villa fan way back and brought his name up before the transfer window opened; the Russian defence was absolute shite as well. He won’t have it as easy again.

I was not going to link this put here is the financials for 06/07 as submitted to the companies house as well a summery and explanation.

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=220943.0
You will notice that not too much damage has been done, as long as we can get them to sell. We are on a par with the other top 3 but loose 50 mill a year because of the smaller stadium. The most critical factor is having the stadium built and if Moors and Parry had had the balls, they could have done it themselves and we would not be in this position but more in the Arsenal position. We have also accomplished this by having the cheapest season tickets of the top flight clubs (LFC 900 and Arsenal 1600)
Every bit of money spent has come from the re-financing and nothing has come from their pockets. The 33 mill reported loss is a once off, it’s actually 21 mill with the other 10 odd mill repayment to Moors for Kuyt. Our actual lose would have been close to 8 mill, up from 5 mill the previous year, but for the once of payment of 10 mill odd for the stadium plans and the cost of the buy-out.
To date Rafa has spent close to 113 mill nett on players (35 odd signings at 3.2 mill each) over 3 years at 38 mill per year and you can see the recompense from player sales has gotten better each year as the squad has been strengthened. He has brought in more revenue from just the CL runs than he has spent (120 mill plus)
The down side is when LFC have to start repaying the loans the two twats took to buy the club within the next financial year or they have to refinance or hopefully sell.

FS, yes I agree the Yanks must go and yes money has been difficult at Liverpool these days… However we have spent money, this cannot be denied whether you wanna argue about net spend, gross spend blah, blah money HAS been spent and I don’t care what Manure are doing or the Chavs, even Rafa isn’t making a big deal about that… I wouldn’t have a clue what he’s got to spend now, but like everyone else I can only see what he has spent retrospectively… Like i said before would love to know how the back office is progressing, what Parry is doing, etc…

Gerry, is there ANY chance of you getting an interview with the Gaffer before the start of the next season??? Man I’d print that out and stick it on my wall for sure as I’d bet that you’d ask the types of questions we’d all appreciate an answer for…

good comments Keith…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/aston_villa/7450271.stm

Congrats on getting that interview Gerry, nice change of pace. Do you know if Tony is a kopblog reader?

It seems our bid of 15m for Barry has just been rejected because they are holding out for 18m, because that’s what we paid for Masch. Go fuck yourself Martin O’Neill… I used to have respect for you, but wake up and smell the roses. Barry is 27 and a part time England international. Masch has been a full Argentine international for years and in my opinion the equal of any holding midfielder in the world. Unfortunately I can’t see Barry kicking up a big enough stink to force the deal through – so I hope Rafa has a backup plan, coz this baby could fall through.

Just watched the replay for Portugal vs Czechs… if the Portuguese did any more diving you’d think they were trying for a spot poolside in Beijing. Fuck me, it was disgraceful at times.

Oh well, I say fuk em… Tell Barry he needs to dig his heels in otherwise we keep Alonso… The differences in the two players isn’t huge, however losing barry would be a shame…

Haha, can we still blame Parry for this one???? Haha!!!

Barry isn’t worth any more than £15m. Fuck that. Keep Alonso and buy a winger! £18m my arse – we can get a top winger from the continent for that price.

That should be the end of the interest. I hope Rafa has other options and hasn’t repeated the eggs in one basket approach that he had with Heinze.

Big time speculation about us signing James Milner. That’s embarrassing. Why spend big money on a midfielder and sign a run of the mill winger? WTF?

Totally agree LB. Fucking English players overpriced as usual. Let’s pray this deal isn’t the lynch pin for all of Rafa’s other maneuvers.

On to better and brighter things, I should be working but cannot get into it. I watched a season in review again. Rafa is such a class act, when asked why he was not jumping up and down celebrating our 8 goal demolition of the turks in the CL he said you have to respect the other team and manager and what they are going through.

Asked why he only says 3 or 4 lines at every press conference, he said if you say more there will be more headlines the next day, what is important to focus on how the team performs not what I say to the press. Maureen please take note, ditto Fungus!

He was monitoring Skertal as an 18 year old and has known of his quality for a long time, the same with Masch he was watching him when he was still playing for River Plate reserves and before he got into the Agrie team.

I have linked an article about San Jose to give you an insight into how Rafa works and what sort of data base, in terms of players, he has.

http://www.thisisanfield.com/columnists/2008/06/mikel-san-jose/

I have every faith Rafa will get it right, how soon is all about the support he receives.

So Moores didn’t buy Kuyt with his own money.

Nice blog, Gerry, and it is great that you are making a lot of effort to bring more perspective to an already wonderful place for us ardent supporters. Your winning the award will no doubt help you to stretch your arms further, so as Lancey says, maybe one day in the not too distant future we will finally get to hear the words of our gaffer directly!?

My time in England coincided with that of the Hillsborough disaster. On the other hand, I have no first-hand memories of things prior to that because i was too young, or simply wasn’t born. So I am not in a position to comment on the issues that FS is raising, but i do know a lot about the Hillsborough disaster. The bs that is thrown around is incredible and that was something that happened on home soil and due to different circumstances. Thus, I can easily imagine the lies that could come out from something that happened in another country.

And it may be true that there are a lot of Liverpool supporters in the media, but it is also true that there are just as many manc supporters. Maybe it is to do with my age, but my unbiased view is that, yes, we get the stick a lot more than other teams, even when we were succesful.
At the same time, I also do feel that some of it is down to pure coincidence of the timing our success. Football has become a lot bigger in recent times, and so has the media. If the exposure of football was as big as it is now back in the 70s and 80s, and if the media was much more extensive and exhaustive as it is now back then, we may have got as good a backing as the manncs. At least, with media outside of England, I am sure we would have had a much more favorable exposure. A down right shame, really.

As to barry, this is really becoming a bit of joke. and i bet you, if this was the mancs approaching, O’Neill and Aston Villa would be behaving a little bit differently. Poor Rafa.

I really can’t judge now since i dunno what the transfer budget is, but is Barry really worth spending 18 million on? This is going to cost more than the Alonso sale….
Oh and LB, the line-up that you dubbed as “Hyde’s feared 11″ in the previous blog is total shite!! I seriously hope we don’t look like that next season…

Andy, I’m beginning to have a different attitude towards things now. If we bid over £15m for Barry and sign fucking Milner my blood will boil! We have a strong spine so the manager and captain says – yet we are desperate to sign a fucking midfield player and linked with wingers of the calibre of Riera, Downing and Milner.

I just had a work colleague who is a Spurs fan shout out “Liverpool want James Milner!? That can’t be right?” I just shook my head.

KeithSA, as you say, Rafa is so underrated in the England media. The shit that he has to stick up with is sometimes worse than the short-minded, emotional dabble that the Spanish Media tend to come up with.

What is my worse fear is that all this transfer money crap is going to piss Rafa off, and he will desert us. it was a slightly different affair, but Rafa left Valencia for the same reason. Of course he will say that the amount of money is not an issue, and how it is spent is more important. But unfortunately, when you miss out on your top priority just because of money, and if it always happens (Alves, Simao and now may be barry), then money is the issue. We can’t always expect to find an Agger….we really are in a dump hole..

LB, the milner deal looks pretty real.
However, there seems to be 2 types of stories. one is simple swap with peanut, which in my view hardly makes any diference (maybe a slight upgrade) so I wouldn’t scream if this happened (only if we do not finish our search for a winger there and go out and sign another winger or winger-cum-striker, that is).

The other report is that we have put in about 7.5 million for him. if this is true, then I am pissed off.wtf. The same report says that liverpool “have won the race to sign james millner” err, excuse me, there was a “race” for millner?? Some teams must be really worried about the nationality quota…

LB, I’m going to let the summer play itself out – but if our NET spend when the tranfer window closes is less than £20-25m, my blood really will boil (towards the owners of course). And yet my admiration for Rafa will grow, because no other manager of a top club with high ambitions would put up with such a disgusting lack of support. Let’s see what happens anyway.

Rafa recently reiterated his commitment to the club, but look back at the reason he left Valencia – because the owners refused to back him.

Sorry Hyde, didn’t notice you’d already made that point about Rafa leaving Valencia. Great minds panic alike or something like that.

Hyde this might make you blow your top off, so be warned. The Mirror actually carries a story that it is £7 MM AND Peanut in exchange. And the race was against Aston Villa apparently.

Its all paper talk mate. Calm down.

YNWA

Guys,

I reckon rafa should come out in the press and say “we are pulling out of negotiations with villa because they have overpriced Barry” something along those lines. Hopefully that will cause Barry to get pissed off and he can demand he be sold(if he really wants to play for pool). Surely Oneill will have very little choice then and maybe give in to the 15mil.

If nothin else I loved this quoote from ur article Keith- “He tells me that I need to be more aggressive, that if I am to play with the first team I can’t be defending like a little girl”.-Rafa to SJ

I’ve worked it out bhav… we are just competing with Villa for Milner so that we can pull out at the last minute and say “ok,ok, you can have him… if you sell us Barry first!”

I don’t know the ins and outs of things but I am surprised at the Barry affair. I can only think that because Stevie G wants him to be on the team it is continuing ad infinitum.
I must admit from afar and having lived in N.Ireland for a couple of years and liked the people there, I am amazed that O’Neil is still being obstructive since Barry wants to go (is ManU involved anywhere along the line?).
Despite all the newspaper abuse Rafa still wants to stay and that is in part due to you people and the FANtastic support you have given him.
Rafa YNWA.

Funny old game football.
We don’t believe all the crap in the papers. Then we do. then we don’t agian. Then we do. We beleive the gaffer. Then we don’t. We don’t even want a player he tries to buy. Then, when it looks falling through, we do. We don’t have the money. We won’t be pleased if we spend less than 25 million. We can’t afford Barry. But we want Simao and Queresma. Oh and why not Villa for good measure.
I don’t know about San Jose defending like a little girl. I think we carry on like them.

haha!!! I for one loved that little girl comment… Reminds me of my old man’s Girl’s blouse comments he loves to make…

bhavster, thanks for that, but no thanks!! i seriously hope it is just paper talk, but there are numerous reports on the Milner deal, some much more respectable than the Mirror. I just hope it is just one crap story that is being passed around.

FS, i think you’re being a bit too cynical.

As if you need reminding, but the fact is, the evaluation of how desperate a signing is for a club has to be taken comprehensively.

Sure, if barry is that important for Rafa, fine, but is he worth spending 18 million on?
No, I don’t think so. Even Rafa probably does not think so. If he had a good transfer kitty, I am sure he would easily have gone along with the 18 million asking price. So would I.

At the same time, we may not be able to afford barry, but that’s because there is a limit to what the player is worth. just because we don’t have the money to buy Barry, it does not necessarily mean we do not have the money to buy someone more expensive. It just depends on how much of the money should be focused on a certain type of player in a certain type of position, and how important that signing is in relation to the status of our squad.

The same goes for the milner story. If we can get him by simply swapping peanut, then I would not mind too much about going along.

I trust Rafa, but his judgment is obviously based on a balance of all the elements involved.

There are hardly any players out there that must be bought at all costs. I do not think Rafa is thinking that Barry is someone that must be bought no matter how much money is used there.

and yes, some media stories are total shite and we shouldn’t get carried away but my disgust for how our transfer has been is based on at least the last 3 years. There was never one season since Rafa’s coming that i was sastisfied with our transfer. Even when we got Torres last year, i was afraid that that was going to be the only established player transfer to happen when we clearly needed more, and surprise, surprise, my feeling came true, and we only ended up with him. The only other players were Babel, Benny and Voronin, none no where near the calibre we had been wanting. So in that sense, all the crap players that we had been linked to during that summer was substantially true in that, we only ended up with Torres.

I don’t believe everything the paper says but with prick parry still on board, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rafa had to compromise with a so-so player. I am certain that, had he the money, he would have gone again for Alves. but we all know that was impossible, so he gets Degen. Now would you expect him to say “he was not my priority and I would rather have wanted Alves, but in light of our transfer budget, Degen is the best player we can get.” I bet you that is what Rafa is thinking. So, I am trying to look at what Rafa is really thinking, and trusting his judgment in that respect, not exactly from the moves he makes in the transfer market.

i know your comments were not directed specifically at me, but i just thought i’d clear myself out and explain, because I seem to be the only one sounding like a histerical housewife, which I am not. At least, i don’t intend to be.

Well boys, weve still got a few weeks before window opens so all is not bad… Would love to see Rafa pull a few rabbits out of the bag this year, as I don’t want FS to prove himself correct, no offence FS…
I’m sure we’d all love 3 marquee signings as well as a couple of bazilian starlets signed for good measure……… What sort of odds wuld I get from betfair??? 20-1???

hah, my old man had a favourite line – hope for the best and be ready for the worst. Never knew he was talking about LFC all his life.

YNWA

Nothings impossible guys, but getting an interview with the gaffer is pretty damn close! The club’s official site and TV station etc, largely sell themselves on the basis that they have exclusivity on things like that, so little old Kopblog getting a few minutes of his time to ask him some proper questions, would be incredibly difficult.
The couple of interviews we’ve got so far, the award and the fact that thanks to you guys, people come on this site and see over a hundred comments on each blog, all helps to open a few more doors, so lets see where that takes us.

Gerry, I suppose you’ll be interviewing Pillar Caffery next.

Interesting blog Gerry.Should be a good read.

About Barry lads,i think he wants us more than we do him.Now we`ve sewn the seed of possibility in his head we shouldn`t be held to ransom.We should have the attitude “were Liverpool football club and we don`t ask twice”.
Rafa should cool the interest and force barry into a transfer request.Then we`d have the upper hand.
Time to play hardball.

You won’t like this. I don’t like it either.
But the fact remains… For this transfer window Rafa has been promised 20 million quid. This 20 million was earmarked back in January by The Borrowers, in their last bit of pimping. Will Rafa get it all? Will he get any of the extra money he will undoubtedly raise from sales? What happens when it has to be paid back?

.

Something a bit more cheerful…
http://www.dagbladet.no/sport/2008/06/11/537911.html

Part 2….
http://www.dagbladet.no/sport/2008/06/12/537990.html

Just finished reading in one tabloid that Quaresma has signed with a club already but cannot say anything yet… Does that sound as though it’s an English club because of the transfer window still being down??? I doubt that we’ve got him but then it wouldn’t surprise me as I am sure that Rafa’s got at lest one rabbit to pull out of a hat!!!
Yeah, I suppose we could only hope for the best Gerry. Anyway, I’d perfer him working on more pressing issues, rather than constant media liasons… But then 5 minutes would’ve been much appreciated!!!!

Latest Quaresma fantasy football update:

http://www.aboutaball.co.uk/footballnews/View.php?ArticleID=725

At least Chelsea are out of the race for Quaresma…

Not sure if I beleave that Benayoun is on the way out… He’s a great squad player from what I’ve seen, but maybe he doesn’t train well??? Not sure why tabloids are running that…

Barry isnt worth 18 million to us…but he is certainly worth 18 million to Villa. He is the spine of their team, he is their club captain, he is the engine of their midfield, he is their main attacking threat and he would generate more in shirt sales than any other player in their team. in all honesty, he is probably worth 18 million to them… but he certainly isnt worth that to us. Which raises the question…Do we or dont we??

Question – Where has all our money gone?? We made the champions league final last year. we wont it 2 years previous. this alone generates a ridiculous amount of cash. Add to this the stupid amount of money Sky gives us in TV rights and your left with a shitload of money…none of which we are really seeing in transfers.

its actually embaressing the way Rafa is being forced to try and to sign players at the moment. I’ll give you him, him and him for that player.

this is the quote i was looking for the other day:

“If we had a lot of money to spend it would obviously be better,” Benitez said on the club website. “But if we don’t, it doesn’t matter.
It is not about buying the most expensive players, it is about buying the right players and we can sell some players to get the others we need. We have the spine of the team and we just need others in other positions.”

Translation : “we dont have a fucking bean to spend. i have to sell or swap players i dont necessarily want to if i want to buy any players at all.”

Now, does everyone Still think we are going to be given 20 million quid, plus whatever we make in player sales?? are we bollacks!!! Lads, forget Villa, forget Quaresma, infact apart from barry (if we even get him) Dossena will be the most expensive player we sign.

But im sure people will still expect Rafa to pull a rabbit out of his arse and win the premierleague, even when teams like chelsea who are already stonger than us are going to be spending near 100 million quid. and im sure the media will still call rafa a failure after apparently matching chelsea and scums expenditure.

Fucking Parry – a google search titled “Tom hicks” would have prevented all this shit!

I’m going with what FS said in 36.

I end up reading a lot of comment in here regarding player transfers with a very wry grin on my face.
We might PLAY Champ Manager, but Rafa IS a Champ Manager!!

When you win the CL, Sepp Blatter doesn’t show up the next day with a suitcase full of bank notes.
At the beginning of the seaon, Sky don’t send a car around with a suitcase full of bank notes in the boot.
And given the wage bill (100k x2, + 80k x4, +60k x6, +40k x8, +10/20k x40 odd squad and reserve players… and that is PER WEEK, not to mention, Rafa’s Staff, the Acadamy Staff, The Scouts, The Groundsmen at both Anfield and Mellwood and a Tea Lady or Two on about 40 quid a week) we NEED those suitcases, just to stay afloat.

I’m also somewhat amused when people go off about G&H spending 160k on travel (as though all Corporate Execs don’t travel 1st Class or by Private Jet) but didn’t seem to be too overly concerned by the 33million they “wrote off” (coz I’m wondering where the fuck all THAT money went to, rather than the 100k they spent on lie-flat seat/beds on American Airways!!!)

I know the RAWK article supposedly accounts for it, but to be honest, there didn’t seem to be any real accountacy for the write-off in that article… at least that’s how I read it anyway.

its 1.6 million they spent on travel Aitch

http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEwVpWFyy3M

Hey lads this is how Parry does his transfer dealings

over and out

a_k I was just picking a number.
If you wann get specific, it wasn’t 1.6 mill.
The actual travel reimbursement was something like 750k wbetween them, the other 850k or so was for legal filings and such.

but even so, you’re response (and I don’t mean to pick on you but) it illustrates my point, which was that… 1.6 mill we’re arguing about… that’s the smoke…. the 33 mill they wrote off is hidden behind the mirrors!

We need to stay focused… as FS keeps pointingout… on what is really going on behind the scenes, rather than swallowing, lock stock and two smoking fat-fucks, all these little tidbits that keep getting fed to us from “dubious” sources!

Mate i agree with you, 33 million is fucking attroucious. i just thought that went without saying.

Man, I usaually dont give a thought to what other teams are doin but yeah I’m feeling a little concerned about our immediate future… If Chelsea if spendig 100mill on top class players, oh I doubt Bosingwa is included neither, I start to wonder if we’re going to be left behind…
I’m definately concerned about where we’ll be in five years time, thats for sure… Stevie and Carra will be gone… I wonder if we’ll hav a stadium, if not I’d be very surprised if we’re still in the CL… Also wonder if Rafa will still be here, I suppose that would depend on the conditions in which he has to work by…
Sadly I think Rafa could grant all of Roman’s wishes at Chelsea…

Hopefully we do manage to sign a few more players to give us some real hope sometime soon… Man, I hope these Yanks leave sometime in the near future…

Welcome to my world YNWAlancey. I love the understated “a little concerned,” but it’s nice to see someone is starting to realise what I have been moaning about for months. And all you thin skinned fuckers don’t start. We’ve been through all that he said I said. And I know many have also seen it also. And I appologise for being such a moaning cunt of late. Believe me, my moaning and doom saying is even driving me mad.

I also know at the end of the storm there’s a golden sky and all that malarkey.
I know the club will survive.
It always will.
But, the question is and always has been, what sort of damage will have been done to it before that pair of shysters fuck off?

I commented on Heysel lately. And over the years I have seen this club of ours go through some terrible times.
I was a kid when the first great team of the sixties broke up. So, big big drama too me, and I thought we’d never return.
Shankly retiring. Oh fuck me, we’re finished, doomed, fucked, I thought.
Shanks dying. I honestly cried me eyes out like it was me own dad. I’m not ashamed to say that. I’m getting teary eyed thinking of it now. Paisley retiring.
Heysel.
Fagan retiring.
Hillsborough.
I could go on, but I don’t want to.

But I do want to say… throughout all of them trials and terrible times nothing felt as bad as this.
Please, don’t get that wrong.
Of course, it doesn’t compare to people losing their lives, especially loved ones – 2 of which I have personally lost.
So, I’m on very thin ice here, and this is very hard to put into words.
So, I just hope you all understand what I mean. Hillsborough unified us like nothing before or since, and hopefully never again.
We grieved together and it brought us all right back into the heart of the LFC family.
Which, at it’s best, is what being a Kopite/Red is.
Heysel was different. We did grieve. We mourned for the dead, except for some lunatics. and the best of us were, and still are, terribly sorry for what we had/have done.
But Heysel also unified us in defiance. We circled the wagons and stood together as we came under attack – especially from the Thatcher government and authorities. Who still haven’t had the deceny to admit their part in that terrible event. But were forced to make some positive changes for football and the football fan.

I’m gonna shut up now. It’s early in the morning. I want to start the day cheerfully. And I’m sure to a lot of you lads overseas, my ramblings are a pain and hard to understand.

But let me tell you this, out of all the trials and tribulations I have seen as a Red, even if DIC or the fucking Tooth Fairy come to that, step in to save us tomorrow, I can see no good in this current mess at all.

Fuck me, that was a long lecture in the last one.
But, ask yourself this… would Martin O’Neil be trying to hold Rafa to ransom if our situation was different?

I think one of Rafa’s first actions in the transfer market was to show other clubs he wouldn’t be held to ransom. Think back to his dealings after Istanbul – He made that perfectly clear. He even stated it verbatim.

But actions speak louder than words. And Rafa’s actions have turned LFC from a club that lost millions in transfers under Houllier to one that actually turns a profit on them.

Who knows, he made a silk purse out a pig’s ball bag. So, maybe the man can turn water into wine. We’ll see.

PS…. Nice one Donal. Cheered me up that. I’ve never seen them before and will have to catch a few clips on youtube now. Are they just a comedy thing on RTE? I’ve never seen them here.

Meself, I always imagined Parry doing negotiations with them footballer collector cards we got as kids.
Don’t know how it went in Ireland, but couldn’t have been much different than ours…
“Got him, got him, got, got, haven’t got, got, haven’t, haven’t… ah fuck, I love him. What’ll yah swap ferrr’im den?”

Yeah. It’s Fatty Hog The Blog.
But I have just read this, and I think I really have to let you all see it…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article4124614.ece

Luiz Felipe Scolari has been presented with a list of targets by Chelsea that features Fernando Torres, Robinho and Franck Ribéry. The Brazilian, who will take over as manager at Stamford Bridge next month, will be given an unlimited transfer budget by Roman Abramovich, the club’s owner, and has proposed signing Kaká and Deco.

Chelsea, with a well-drilled defence and outstanding central midfield players such as Michael Ballack, Frank Lampard and Michael Essien, will focus on recruiting wide players and strikers this summer, a policy that fits with Abramovich’s desire for more attacking football — although he is aware that José Mourinho, the new Inter Milan coach, has made Lampard his No 1 target.

Many of the stars on Chelsea’s horizon may prove beyond their reach as they play for rivals with no need to sell, but Abramovich is confident that the sheer weight of money will convince some of them to cash in.

Torres is a case in point, with Liverpool adamant that they will not sell a striker who scored 33 goals in his first season with the club, but Chelsea hope to exploit divisions between Anfield’s warring owners, George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks.

Chelsea have been told that one of the Americans is willing to let Torres go for the right price and are planning to test Liverpool’s resolve with a bid

I am convincing myself it’s just paper bollacks. but even if it is, what a fucking mess.

Right, I’m going to wallpaper the garden and drink myself into a coma. Wake me up when it’s over.

FS, i totally understand your issues for moaning, if I am currently here in the far east. That is why i’m stark crazy with all the shit that is coming out in the transfer side. It is just a tip of the iceberg, but it is one of the most clear signs that our club could be doomed.

The only light I see is that our youth set-up seems decent.
When a company is becoming financially distressed, the first thing they do is cut down on the budget for R&D. This of course starts an even worse chain of downspiral since it means it is basically giving up on the future. In the case of a football club, the R&D department would be the youth team. T

hankfully, we have not seem to have done the worst in forgetting about strengthing the youth set-up, and that is obviously down to Rafa’s endeavors.

Other than that, i really can’t see any positives right now.

sorry, I meant to say in the first sentence “even if I am currently here in the far east”

FS,I share your pessimism about the current state of our club.
We have been living on hope for too long now concerning the two mongrels “supposed departure”.We have heard rumour after rumour.Someone knows someone connected with the club and the deal is about to be done.”My aunt cleans the jacks in some posh hotel in london and she seen foster gillet and tom hicks jr come into the hotel with a couple of arabs”.

Its all bollox and to be honest getting on my nerves.It fukin reminds me of the few days leading up to the cheltenham festival where “this fella`s,cousins,brother-in-laws,dads,boss is best friends with the top trainer in ireland and i got a lovely tip for us”.

More bollox.I`m off to bed.Just finished night shift.Off to DREAM about the torres/villa duo in the red of Liverpool.

Well it’s good to see everybody so happy, skippy and chirpy. I have an idea instead of Weeelease Wroman trying to buy Torres would it not be cheaper if he buys LFC. We have the best manager, play decent attacking football. Already won the CL and everything else that matters, have the best record, the fans don’t need little plastic flags to create an atmosphere, we can fill a 70 000 seat stadium so at the end he can make a return on his investment and I could go on. it’s got to make sense?

Girls , girls you need to read statements properly, if you did how can you turn around and say where did the 30 odd mill go to. We had a 5 mill loss in 06, which is income vs expenditure deficit. If we did not have the once of fees ie the plans and planning permission for the first stadium submission that was eventually chucked as being too expensive; 10.3 mill, the pay back to Moors for Kuyt 10.5 mill and the 3 odd mill cost for the take over in terms of professional fees, Parry’s bonus and travel expenses, there is also an extra 3.8 mill for the revised plans. At the end of the day the loss with out these once of payments would have been 8.7 mill up from the 5 mill. This would have all been acceptable and manageable with the increase in TV fees (extra 15mill), Kop TV fees, increase in ticket prices and increase in the shirt sponsorship (2 to 3 mill). So as a business everything would have been sustainable.

However our to cunts are skint and cannot afford the 350 mill loan so they need to generate profits or refinance in order to meet there payment (It was mentioned by Oct or Jan) They need the stadium to generate and extra 50 mill firstly to pay for the stadium and to pay for the initial loan. In that 350 mill was the transfer funds (some say 20 odd mill) for this window. However I think the Masch and Skertal costs have come out of it, that is why we are seeing and Indian bazaar approach to the transfer dealings. We might have the odd 10 or 15 mill extra profit to add to that from the increase in revenues that I mentioned above.

To be honest if Big Phil does take over at the Bridge with unlimited funds we can forget about the prem. He can manage unlike Maureen and Grant. The only good thing and fucking funny is that Phil is advising Wanker to leave for Real. It will be funny to see Funguses reaction to being the poor relation.

I would say bring in Barry, Deggan and Dossena and maybe swap Peanut for Milner and Crouch for Bently etc. The rest, spend on youth and build for the future as we cannot compete with Chelsea, Manu and City for fucks sake. Give Rafa and extended contract to bring these youngsters through, we already have the youngest squad in the prem and wait for the two cunts to fuck off or be forced out when they cannot pay, with hopefully Rafa delivering us a few cups along the way which we all know we can do. Until we have decent owners that can afford to back Rafa in the market we all need to be realistic in our expectations. The Russian peasant has spent twice the cost of the original purchase of LFC and with another 100mill he will have spent close to 700 mill in interest free money and they cannot even fill their stadium.

I don’t get this re-financing lark.

They bought the club

12 Months later they re-financed

and now there is talk of re-financing again.

The whole thing about taking out loans, is repaying them.

The point of a new stadium is not only the extra capicity, but the extra revenue, which surely would cover the loan repayments over a 20/30 yr period.

also remember of this 350M re-financed deal, there is 60 or 90m ear marked to kick start the building of the new stadium (i.e money not spend yet).

I said a couple weeks ago that Chelsea will get a decent manager in and have about £100m to spend on players – therefore are my favourites to win the league. Realistically we’ll be fighting for 3rd or 4th next season again. So expect another frustrating season where at times we’ll play good football and get results and other times we’ll be shite.

The loan has to be paid in January so something has to give when that time comes. The owners are skint and the credit crunch, weak dollar and recession aint getting any better before January.

Another frustrating season might at least see the 2 parrasites fuck off!! I hope so.

Back to Chelsea – I saw a mock XI in one of the newspapers of what Scolari wants:

Czec
Boswingwa Cavilho Terry Cole
Ballack Essien
Deco Kaka Quaresma
Villa

It’s not fair is it?

Moores on the advice of Parry sells the club in order to get a new stadium and compete for the world’s best players and we end up even more skint than before. Those 2 should be fucking hung! Greedy shortsighted cunts.

Donal, your at No 52 had me in stitches! I was selling some products to a company. For over a month, they deterred here and there and asked me permutations on various prices for different quantities that would even make Rafa puke.

The video is souch a classic I had sent it round to my friends to share the scenes with them.

Have A GREAT WEEKEND GUYS!

Corky – My opinion is Gillett realised he was skint and didn’t want anything to do with a new stadium, he wanted to cut and run. This made the 2 cunts fall out. It was too close to paying off their first loan so Gillett had to reluctantly sign up to the refinance package. Since then he’s been looking for a way out. Hicks on the other hand is too much of an ego maniac to realise he’s fucking skint so takes out money to build a stadium that is never ever going to be built. Pretending to build a stadium also makes the club seem more valuable so he can ask for more dough when some other investor such as DIC want to buy.

The only hope I’m clinging onto is the fact the cunt can’t find the dough to pay off the current loan – which is due for repayment in January 2009. I’m hoping that DIC are patiently waiting for this date because they are confident Hicks won’t have a pot to piss in when its pay up time.

Everything that has happened recently suggests we have no transfer budget this summer. Degen free. Dossena has had his medical a week ago but still is yet to sign. Made 3 bids for Barry £10m (mish mash), £12m, £13m. Which suggests to me we can’t spend more on Barry than we get for Alonso. Trying to swap Pennant for Milner. £15m price tag on Crouch. £10m price tag on Carson. Pulled out of the race to sign the kid Ramsey.

We’re fucking skint mate. Got to be the worst run big club in the world right now. Sickening!

Having a little skive, so ducked in here.

I know all this doom and gloom is depressing lads. As I’ve said, it’s doing my head in. But where’s Kinny?
It seems to have killed him off.
Come back Kinny mate.

Anyway, just wanted to say to Timmy, that’s exactly how it is right now.
Speak to anyone and his dog and they will have an opinion and will have heard a rumour from a really good source.

Well, what I can say for definite is… I have an old time friend, I’ve known all me life, who is very well conected within the club.
He’s the lad, I have often qouted as saying, it’s just a matter of time until Twit and Twat are gone.

And I’d love to say how he is connected to the club, give you a proper source, like. But I can’t.
So, make of this what you will….
He has no fucking clue as to what is going on, nor do any of his contacts. It seems they are all as in the dark about things as us lot. And some of them have very high standing within the club.

Wish I had better news.

As for Roman, Chavski and Big (Can’t) Phil (The Stadium) Scolari….

Why don’t the FA and UEFA do away with all the hassle, just stick a price tag on the trophies and sell them to them directly?

Someone else said that to me. Wish I’d said it originally. But no doubt I will somewhere else!
(I’ve already robbed that line from a famous Irish man).

The whole joke is (apart from the 500 000 Parry bonus and Ferrari, I might as well throw in hair style as well) is that we would have been better off if Moors and the rest of the board had raised the money to build the stadium themselves. This payment could have been deferred until the stadium was completed, restructured the debt into a loan instead of an overdraft and we would have been miles better off.

Cork a business premise can only be financed over a 5 to 8 year period as far as I know it cannot be done over a 20 year period.

The next thing that will happen the 60 mill set aside for the stadium will be used to repay the first instalment of the loan. Fuck this negativity is catching, on the bright side GG has already sold to DIC and THicks is squirming and trying to hold out for more money before he inevitable sells. His condition that it is kept out of the press until the deal is done and so he can announce it himself and put a positive spin that he is doing it for the fans while he pockets 40 odd mill of profits.

Well if you guys can play fantasy football I can dream as well.

The sad thing is that Chelsea play fantasy football for real, makes you want to throw up.

I think I am going to start a Kill Thicks fund, it has to be cheaper than the anti depressants we all will soon be buying. We can even have a competition as to who can kill him in the most novel, ingenious and most painful way.

this is so irritating– we are so bloody worried about our club but there is nothing much we can do about it. Now i know how HK felt like out injured on the touchlines. Or maybe not.

what’s so confusing to me is that we are constantly linked with big money players, but it doesnt seem that we have any money at all. 15 million for barry seems to be the only thing thats realistic.

this is what i have read so far this summer: quaresma, villa, ribery, sergio ramos, alves, bentley, mancini, and others.

it seems crazy that the press continue to link us with all these players. i just read we are to compete with utd for sergio ramos. let me just say that i think he would be an AMAZING signing for us on the right side of defense. i rate him right alongside alves, honestly. we do have the spanish connection, but his price would easily fetch about 15-20 million, and with utd in the hunt, i cant see it happening at all. they already have a team of stars and since that stubble chinned neville tit is going to retire soon and wes brown is a putz, they are going to go out and get a replacement.

oh well… let’s see what happens. its all speculation anyway. these things don’t happen overnight. if our owners even think of selling torres, they should be shot in the street.

YNWA

Alec – Sergio Ramos plays for Real Madrid and was the best right back in La Liga last season. Why on earth would either he want to leave or Real want to sell him?

Hi Keith

have you seen hostel 2? Girl kills a fella by chopping off his meat and two veg and letting him bleed to death. that’s my entry.

As regards buying players, As long as Rafa is spotting the players I feel he will get enough quality in to challenge for the title even though it’s a mammoth task. as for chavski, manure and the rest they can only buy so many top players and the ones who can’t play and have to sit on the bench will soon kick up a rumpus.

Well, the doom and gloom is spreading fast and furious. But it’s nothing new….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/5078450.stm

Check the date of that article.
I don’t know whether I should cry for how many of these things Coco has fucked up. Or be grateful that Rafa keeps identifying them.

How frustrated must he be. Years of it at Valencia only to jump out of that fat and straight into Parry’s fucking fire.

And Keith, you’re completely correct. The whole debacle should never have happened. Just think, with a decent CEO, we might have been sitting here having a little moan cos we were building a stadium instead of buying top draw players. Instead of being in this bloody mess that we find ourselves.

Oh well, I’ve got so completely pissed of with all this internet doom, that I have used it for something positive…
With Liverpool playing an away friendly at Pepe’s old club, Villareal on the 30th of July, I have just booked flights, hotels, trains and match tickets all from this gizzmo in the past few hours.
Missus Fat Scouse is made up to be going to Spain for a few days. But little does she know I’ll be spending most of me time in an alehouse owned by a Red, and leaving her poolside when I fuck off the game with a gang of other old scallies.

It all worked out amazingly cheap. So, thank fuck for the credit crunch. And thanks to the blessing of global warming, we are guaranteed glorious sunshine.
Well hey lads, living in such a cold shithole, compared to some of the lovely places where you all are, has got to have some compensations.

£12m Seville wanted at the time. Now he’s been sold for £25m.

Parry is an idiot. You’d think he of all people would back Rafa as much as possible. Was it not Parry who played a key role in recuiting Rafa in the first place?

The Simao one was worse. The player was at the airport suitcase in hand ready to check in to board a plane to John Lennon airport when Benfica phoned him to say the deal was off due to Parry back tracking on a verbal agreement.

I can’t wait for the day where we are under new ownership and Parry is sacked in no uncertain terms! I’ll be dancing in the street!!

FS – good on you with that holiday!

LB, you’re right Simao was far worse. I just dug the alves one up cos Alec mentioned him being linked to us in the press.

As for Parry getting us Rafa, this story is God’s honest truth….
When Rafa arrived at Anfield, there was no one there to greet him. Of course he should have been met at the airport and chaufereed to the ground. But anyway, when he arrived there was no one, and I really mean no one bar a few minor staff, at Anfield.
Rafa explained who he was in his very broken English of the time. Apparently no one still had a clue. Eventually some one managed to find Parry on his mobile phone. He was playing golf with some cronies, and only the fact that Rafa threatened to get on the next plane home dragged him away from the course.

Sounds too far fetched to believe I know. But you couldn’t make that up. And I will try to find the link – it’s from the horses mouth. Yes Rafa himself, told that to the Spanish press.

Unbelievable.

looks like alonso’s definitely going…

http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=734947
http://www.premiershiplatest.com/news/liverpool-5510904.html

let me just say that i will miss him, but if we get barry and a class winger i will be less disappointed. i also want to go on record as saying that martin o’neill has completely lost my respect with this saga. disgraceful.

YNWA

I know I’m hogging the blog today lads. But I have me reasons for hiding in here, believe me.
And I know what you mean alec. He is doing my head an all.
But, and I’m sure you’ll get loads of these type replies, he owes us nothing. And he’s doing his job to the best of his abilities for his club, owner and fans.
Shame we didn’t have a CEO with that sort of attitude.

Fuck. Forgot to say what I meant…
What now, if Xabi does go and we can’t get Barry?

true that fat one. i understand his feelings, but the way he is going about the whole deal is ridiculous. he’s being so pissy and moany and saying over and over how we are out of order for wanting him. whatever…

lb – i’m just as surprised as you are about ramos…but if you look, sky has coverage of him saying he’s honored by being linked to utd. another article says we will compete for his signature with them (like we can). i could see ramos going to utd and ronaldo going to madrid. i think its funny that utd is a feeder club to real. beckham, van nistelrooy, heinze, now ronaldo. hilarious.

seriously, i think sergio ramos would have to be the best right back we could look at. maybe degen will be an agger and skrtel…who knows? i know that i would definitely fear a side that has evra and sergio ramos bombing down the flanks from the back. oh well.

I hope some of you can see this…
I just saw Phil Neville on sly sports news. He was spouting off about foriegn ownership – saying what a great chairman Bill Kenwright is at Everton, “The People’s club”, and how he had the fans and clubs best interest in his heart. Which would be okay, but then he went on about how the yanks had made us into a laughing stock.
Then, without drawing breath, he said how great the Glaziers had been for Man U.

The mind boggles.

The golden sky at the end of the storm…?
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2008/06/14/red-letter-day-for-the-spirit-of-shankly-100252-21071196/

And don’t miss the Barry/Alonso story on the same page.
I didn’t read it. Couldn’t be arsed, off to bed knackered. But I skimmed it, and at the end is a great bit…
Gerrard Houlier, “Torres is a fantastic player. I wish I’d been given the money to sign someone like him when I was there.”

I like Houlier, always did, always will. But come on Ged, for fuck’s sake man – you wish you’d been given money.”

The world is truly mad.
Night. Night.

Doesn’t boggle the mind that much FS… from big arseholes, doth lots of shite spew forth!

And in that rich vein, let me continue with my earlier thread. Pet Peave #1: Player Pricing!
Prices area bit arbitrary, so I don’t understand why people have a question as to why we aren’t competing for players.
Chelski would have dropped 40 mill straight up on Torres and not bargained Atl down to 28mill.
Now I know some of you want class players no matter what the cost, but personally, I’d rather us do the bargaining down and NOT pay 140quid for the new 3rd away Jersey next season and 600quid for a ticket on a cold, rainy, Wednesday night to watch LFC play Stoke in the 1st round of the Carling Cup from a seat behind a stantion with an obstructed view!
To suggest we should just pay Aston Villa 18 million flat out for Barry, ignores the fact that he’s only really worth that because he’s their top player, Captain, coming off a good season and just Captained England. Otherwise he’s a 10 million player right now, at best! So keep bargaining with them, I say and lets see if we can get a “deal.”
Also, we can’t have it both ways. We insist that AVilla sell us Barry for 12-15 million, and not a penney more, yet insist that Juve pay us 18 mill and not a penny less for Alonso.

Pet Peave #2: Follow the bouncing ball!
Kieth I honestly don’t mean to pick on you (coz maybe you’re right, but) Just because 1 newspaper article or blogger has supposedly accounted for the 30 million loss, doesn’t mean we have any idea exactly where it went.
In those figures, 10 million was written off for the stadium design. Excuse ME? We just say, “Oh okay, that explains it” and walk away happy???
Where the fuck did that 10 million go?? Coz I’ll tell you what… I’m going back to school to learn to be a fuckin Architect right now if they get paid that kind of money! They can tell us it was “written off for the stadium design” but I’m sorry, that DOES NOT tell us where the fuckin money went!
Also, someone mentioned above that the loan is due in January. It isn’t. The first interest payment is due in January. And THAT is why they refinanced the deal.
These are not the same kind of home loan you or I would walk into a bank and get. X amount for 30 years = Y amount per month for Z months/years.
These are bizarrely complicated financial arrangements.
60 million of the refinance deal was earmarked for the Stadium. WHERE IS IT? Coz the bloke with the shovel that was supposed to be put in the ground, hasn’t seen his 10 quid per hour wages, let alone bulldozer and tractor rentals, cement contracts, steel purchases… etc.
These things are not simple and they are not cut and dry.
Kop Holdings owns LFC, but KH is owned by another company, who is owned by another company, whose Directors are G&H. If it all goes belly up, they’ll fuck off without owing a penny.
Donald Trump has done it a hundred times. Its how these types make their billions.

I know you’re a big fan FS, but this exceprt from the Tony Barrett article about SOS, scared the beejeezus out of me.

“A fortnight ago, I was invited to attend their latest gathering to observe their work at first hand and found it to be as professional as any council meeting ”

…er… he’s surely not talking about the Liverpoool City Council is he?
You know, the ones that haven’t even finished building the Mersey Ferry Dock (not to mention the myriad of other construction projects) and its already June in the Capital of Culture Year?

I do hope SOS are … er… just a bit… more competent and professional than a city council!

Well that’s a bit unusual for TIA.
Matt Ladson is reporting that Liverpool have accepted a final bid of 13m for Alonso… yet The Echo is reporting that the deal has fallen through because Juve will not meet our asking pricce and they have now switched their interest to Seba Schweinsteiger… and cites his source as an Italian Sports Newspaper.
And there is no mention of it either way on the official LFC.tv site.
Are Italian Spots Newspapers reliable sources for such a story????

(who’s the blog-hog now Fatman???)

AND… he also mantions that the price for Barry may now be as high as 20 million???

If that’s the case I hope rafa tells A.Villa to fuck off and SG that he’ll be playing with who Rafa wants and not the other fuckin way around!

20 million??????????????? For Barry???????

I’d sooner buy 5 Potential Peanuts for 4 mill a piece and hope for the best.

God, just the thought of seeing a headline along the lines of “Parry Sacked- Liverpool rejoyces” makes me wanna sacrifice a left testicle to the football gods, but unfortunately I couldn’t sacrifice the other for when those two !@#$ Yanks finally get the hell out…
Sergio Ramos, please… 30mill for a RB, I could only see two clubs able to pay that much in England… A record 8 mill for Dossena is a big deal for us, let alone 20+ mill for Ramos, I’m not even gonna dream about that…
Yeah with you Keith, I think that Rafa’s targets next year should REALISTICALLY be to win 1 maybe both domestic cups, secure CL qualification and perhaps at least a quarter-final appearance in the CL… That to me is a tough but realistic set of targets…
Why the fuk doesnt Liverpool put a stipulation in the Alonso sale along the lines of Juve comming to Liverpool to play 3 games, do the same with peanut’s sale to Newcastle? and host a mini pre-season tournament? Sure that’l make us a shit load of money… Furthermore we could take it to Asia and Massively boost our revenue…

Would be interesting to see Ronni play in the EPL, even if it were for chelsea…

Sergio Ramos is an excellent player, but we are never ever going to get him lads. When we can’t even spend 18 million on a midfielder or struggle to perpare 8 million for a defender, we can never spend 25 million on a right back which is the least that he is going to cost. doom and gloom.

i think degen has been brought in as our RB for this season with arbeloa switching in and out as well. still, i would absolutely love to have sergio ramos. i think the press just link every spanish player in the world with us.

YNWA

Hey yeah, why not link every player!!!! Raul would do nicely as 3rd choice strike… Villa second strike… And that should do us for striking eh!!!
I know Robinho isnt Spanish but he’s for Real, he’d do nicely as our starting Right Winger… Chuck Ramos in for good measure and all we’d have to do is sign off on maybe 150-200 mill… Simple!

Hey seriously guys, It’s shit that Alonso deal is falling through cause Juve are looking at Sweinsteiger!!! Man, hes my personal choice to come to Anfeild… Stuff Villa, we need quality widemen and Sweinsteiger could definatly help us out there, damn shame we cann’t compete with Juve for his signature… Any more free bargains goin around???
Villa and Sweinsteiger would be my ultimate 50mill pound signing duo of the summer… hell we could buy either viera or Davids for 5mill to fill ahole if we had to, stuff Barry for 20mill- we could go for bloody sweinsteiger instead…

As FS wisely put it… I’ll believe the transfers when I see a photo of Rafa and the player standing in front of the Kop holding a shirt with the players name on it. And likewise, when I see an ex-Red holding up some other team’s shirt.

Until then its all bollocks designed to sell papers or fill airtime… and we are so desperate we eat it up.

These deals are comlicated with huge amounts of money ont he line and very few players go for a set amount these days. The deals are usually spread in paymetns over a few seasons, with additional appearance fees and mutually beneficial friendlies to be arranged and so on and soon. It takes a whole lot of legal wrangling to work out such deals…. and that takes time.. during which, the press tells us, that the deal is on, the deal has stalled, the valuation is not correct, A is pissed off with B, someone is furious, someone is puzzled, the deal has fallen through, other targets are now the priority…. and ALL OF IT without a single verifiable, substantial source!

So to coin an oft used Scouse phrase from the past…
Calm down, Calm down!

Buy David Villa Now!!!!! Him torres, gerrard and babel up front? yes please. Sorry about not getting wide players? er no.

Sergio Ramos – he’s not all that. Rash tackles and bad positional play.

Aston villa and gareth barry? 12 million tops and no more.

i cant believe that o’neill wants 20 million for barry. we should tell them to fuck off and forget it. too bad we seem to have sold alonso, though, so it seems we might have to meet them halfway. hopefully we’ll be able to do a swap for carson + cash or something.

king kenny – villa, torres, gerrard, and babel would be ruthless. i seriously hope rafa can use his valencia/spanish/master of the universe powers and pull it off. i just cant see where the 25 million (at least) would come from.

Barry is good, but definitely not worth Stg20 million. Look to get someone else in that case. O Neil is nuts.

Meanwhile Parry is damn slow in negotiating for players we want in or sell. Infuratingly slow.We still have Crouch , Riise, Carson, Peanut to sell, assuming Alonso is a done deal.

Simply put Barry is not worth 20 million, in fact he’s not worth 15. Milner is not worth anything, alas though he’s desperate to leave the Toons, wonder why Mr K.
.
Silva and Villa are both extremely effective players, sadly though they are both out of our league unless a deal has already been done.
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Villa is making hay while the sun shines and it’s shining on him right now.
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It’s interesting all the dilly and dallying with speculation galore, but no-one seems to rushed with buys yet this summer.
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I’m sure Rafa has something up his sleeve when he comes back from holidays. Well if we look on the bright side, Degan’s teams out, Dossena didn’t make it, no English player is at Euro, Babel’s broken downm so realistically we should nearly have a full squad for pre season.

Gazz, No full team. Don’t forget Masch, Lucas and Insua-all midfielders- will be at the Beijing Olympics.
Of course we still have SG, Babel and Ben-onion and youngsters Plessis and Nameth

Atich the figures and expenses claimed are not sucked out of the air but are from accounts submitted to Companies house and can be scrutinised by all and sundry. Every Public Ltd liability company has to have audited accounts by independent auditors, so the manipulation and evasions are down to a minimum.

It also does not matter how many front companies H&G have gone through the fact remains that they signed personal surety for all but 100 odd mill, so you can say what you want they cannot just walk away. The 60 odd mill for the building works will also have to be accounted for as that was the criteria for raising the loan. The only decent thing Parry and Moors have done is to stop them loading LFC with the entire debt, then they could have asset stripped and walked away, this way they cannot. If they misuse the funds for personal gain, or enrich themselves at the company’s expense and the company goes into liquidation they can be held liable in their personal capacity and be charged with mismanagement.

As for the 10.3 odd mill for the stadium plans they are very realistic figures, architects charge 5% of the building cost, that is standard world wide. This 5% is normally structured in 4 stages the total fee will be in the region of 17 mill and they would have had to complete at least 2 stages in order to submit for planning permission ( stage1 concept design and floor plan, stage 2 working drawings, the biggest stage +/- 3%) which works out to 10.5 of 350 mill.

I have taken a more philosophical approach to the transfer market, Rafa will bring in the best available players with the budget he has. If he thinks Milner is the answer and what we can afford then so be it. As FS said the papers know fuck all let alone the price that we have to pay. I will believe it when the figures are released. Torres has cost us anywhere from 18 mill to 27 mill for example. We just have to trust Rafa to get the best out of what he has got to work with and hope he gives us a pleasant surprise.

Spot on Keith… I suppose some of us have post season blues, hoping for some earth shattering news just so that we’ve got something to talk about…
Sucks how Villa is using the media to try and induce Liverpool to come and buy him…. Damn, he and Torres could be our strike force for many, many years to come… I’d love to see how Rafa would use them, would he deploy villa out on the right or would he drop a DM and go with two strikers up front? If he dropped a DM then why on earth would he be spending so much on Barry? Wouldn’t Davids or Viera represnt suitable cover whilst costing only a fraction of what Barry’s fees would?
Villa would have crazy permutations for our team!!! Not the least make us pretty well feared by every other team in the premiership- who needs width if your direct play is superior to any defence in the league? Two world class strikers and gerrard right behind them would be worth the admission for sure…. Plus a growing Babel and a resurgent Kuyt…
At least Dreams are for free…

first time ive seen torres answering in English. surely he’s been learing the use of ‘fantastic’ from rafa.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2008/spain/7371204.stm

If Villa did want to come to Liverpool he can hold out for the move even if Chelsea bid more for him, that is more or less what Torres did, turned down ManU and Arsenal. If Villa refuses to agree personal term and digs his heel in we could pick him up for the low to mid 20 mills. Valencia would not risk him running his contract down or buying out his contract.

For argument sake (O.K. I am playing fantasy football I swore I would not, but a report from the Mail on Sunday says team mate Carlos Marchena says Rafa has convinced Villa to come to LFC so let’s speculate)

Barry 15mill
Dossena 7mill
Deggen Free
Villa 25mill
Milner 7mill (worst case)

Total 54 mill

Alonso 14.2 mill
Crouch 12 mill
Peanut 6 mill
Finnen 2 mill
Guthrie 1.5 mill
JAR 5 mill
Carson 6 mill

Total 46.7 mill

We can either structure the payments in instalments over 3 years to make up the balance or Rafa has and extra 10 odd mill to spend on top of the money he gets from player sales. So yes it is feasible and I suppose time will tell, but I won’t get too exited until I see Rafa shaking the players hand at Anfield.

Kieth, I’m not here to argue with you. Pretty much everything you say is “fact” on paper.

The thing of it is, that paper has multiple pages to it and clauses within clauses, so its not quite so cut and dry.

The loan was NOT secured against G&H personally. It was secured against Kop Holdings, which is a multi-tiered company (and probably registered in someplace like the Cayman Islands… though I don’t know that for sure, it wouldn’t surprise me.)
The PRIMARY reason these businessmen create multi-tiered companies is to evade taxation and personal liability.
G&H’s personal liability in th eownership of LFC is 20 million each, secured against personal assets containing liquid funds at the time of the loan deal… (You can pretty much bet those liquid funds have been relocated since… just as anyone who’s ever borrowed money off a relative to secure a loan to buy a house has done a million times around the world.) … not the full loan. THAT is secured against KH which is essentially the club and all its assets, (players, Anfield, Melwood, Academy, etc.)

The funny thing is, Hicks has already done this sort of deal with Corinthians and walked away, so why you think he can’t do it again to us, is beyond me.

These guys have more ways to make money legally disappear than you or I could even imagine. I’m not speculating there. The reason I have used Donald Trump as a reference a few times is because I have a very good friend who worked for a company that had dealings with his company.
At one point he flew me and 3 other mates, business class, to a 5 star resort in Lake Tahoe for an all expenses paid 5 day skiing trip. It was insane, I’m talking private booths in clubs apre-ski, next to P-Diddy’s private booth and free top-shelf drinks all round… the works.
His company had their own travel agency (as an offshoot) that bought all this stuff at discount and then resold it back to the parent company marked up to standard rates. That division alone made the company 4 million per year… basically money skimmed off the top of their dealings… that’s why they encouraged their employees to fuck off with their friends on such junkets.
(Frankly, I was a bit miffed we didn’t do more of it!)
He would often tell me of the creative ways his company and Trumps had found to skim money of various deals in a similar fashion.

Oops sorry, that was supposed to be 14 million per year.
And again, that was just some little intercompany employee travel agency thing.

I should add that when Trump bankrupted one of his companies, that 14 million was accounted for on the books as a legit travel expenditure… but in reality, it was sitting in another acount held by him, offshore in the Caymans.

I don’t KNOW that G&H are doing this kind of stuff… so you might be right… I may be way off the mark… but I reckon its pretty likely that they are based on what I’ve read about them, particualarly Hicks…. (in Texas they call it shuckin-n-Jivin?)
… but, maybe I’m just a cynic!

Hi with the Euro’s on and the usual analysis going on, guess these guys are taking the piss out off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hmv4AifPyM&feature=related

Alright Lads.
Really knackered. Worked me bollacks off this weekend. So, I wasn’t going to come in here, but I found this…
http://www.sportinglife.com/football/premiership/liverpool/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=soccer/08/06/15/manual_125522.html&TEAMHD=liverpool&DIV=prem&TEAM=LIVERPOOL&RH=Liverpool&PREV_SEASON=

Thought I’d post it before I get me head down, as it would get a few of you’s licking your lips.

To be honest, just pisses me off that he isn’t already wearing a liverbird on his chest as he’s been saying these things for months.
But apparently he’s still at it. So, who knows.

But it looks like the usual story…
1: Pulling power of Rafa.
2: Parry turns up for negoatiations, in a car that explodes and squirts water from a flower on his big yellow and green checkered coat into the agent’s face.

Best not hold our breath then, eh.

I’d expect 8 mill for crouchie… Also I doubt we’ll get much for peanut, maybe 4mill if we’re lucky as I think he’ll probably be a make weight… Perhaps Carson maybe given to Villa along with Finnan just to push Barry’s deal through…
I’m thinking Milner is a long term squad player. Very young with good potential and liverpool need to make sure we have enough natives on the feild to keep the Uefa happy…
I suppose now that Barry is demanding that Villa accept liverpool’s offer the next few weeks will probably be focused on selling off as many players as possible… Alonso’s deal is probably waiting on the Barry deal. JAR seems set on Roma for a decent 5mill fee… I’d like to see crouchie move on sometime soon, although 10mill for him would represent a great peice of business for both teams should he go…
All in all I’d think that Villa’s move to Liverpool will be dependant on whether Rafa has been given any funds by our owners as I highly doubt Rafa will be able to raise 25mill ontop of covering the expenses for the other aquistions… Should we manage Villa’s transfer, which luckily the bidding war hasn’t started yet, Degen’s free would be looking like a godsend to me… I seem to remember Rafa saying that it’s very rare for him to snare a target that he himself has been tracking for years on a free. Furthermore, Rafa was saying that Degen’s free meant they could use those funds else where…

Keith, the article i read said Carlos Marchena said Rafa COULD convince Villa to come to Liverpool. Not, had.

i hate press speculation as much as the next guy, but i would be over the moon if we could land villa. i wont hold my breath though. the only hope is that hicks feels bad about pissing us all off so much (ie, he really wants to continue to own the club long term and win trophies – not bloody likely) that he wants to make a marquee signing. of course, where does gillett stand on all this? maybe they are sitting in their living rooms watching spain play and getting all excited watching torres and villa light it up.

no, they are probably sitting in their living rooms watching baseball and nascar.

IF we signed Villa (which i dont think we have even the slightest chance of doing), i think Villa would spearhead our attack, with torres playing in behind him.
Villa doesnt seem to like to do all the dirty work that torres does when he plays for spain. Torres seems to do all the hard work and Villa plays off him by being in the right spot at the right time.
I think the formation would go something like this:
Villa
Gerrard Torres babel
Masch Barry
Deagen Agger Carra Dossenna
Reina

as i said, no chance of that happening, but if we’re playing fantasy footy, i think that is the formation we would play.
Fucking quick and very potent front attacking four too isnt it?!?!?

anyway, im getting sick of all this speculation, the end of the transfer window cant come quick enough. i hate no knowing whats going on. and i have absolutely no idea who we will be signing.

MON is acting like an out and out cunt. he is going to get to a point where no one wants to do business with anymore if he carries on like this. his statement the other day was ridiculous, he was counting Barry as an England captain cause he wore the arm band for about 15 minutes in their last match. he is clucthinc at straws. i hope we dont sign him and then he buys out his contract in a year and MON gets 10 million less than he should do for him. Fuck it martin, hold on to your player and watch him play like shit all year cause you’ve acted like a pork chop and thrown your toys out of the pram.

Speaking of throwing toys out of the pram. how good is it watching fergusons head nearly explode over this ronaldo caper. And ronaldo continues to purpossly wind him up. i love it. Fegie says he is going to switzerland to talk to ronaldo. ronaldo tells him to piss off and leave him to concentrate on the euros. then he says the other day when portugal wore their white strip “i really love playing in all white” HAAAAA. love it.

“the end of the transfer window cant come quick enough”

Crikey a_k, the fuckin thing hasn’t even opened yet. (but I know where you’re coming from:-)

And as far as VVilla goes.
I can see Torres being willing to play 2nd fiddle to him to play for Spain, but I can’t really see him… especially after his phenonemal debut season… wanting to play 2nd fiddle to him, week in and week out for us.
Unless Rafa plans on playing 4-4-2… and we all know how he loves his 4-4-2, I can’t see us going for Villa.
The lad is a talent, but we need someone who would be willing to play 2nd fiddle to Torres, not someone who would require us to pull our most potent attacking option back to accomodate.

Mind you… Rafa has been experimenting with a back 3 and has the personnel to do it now, so maybe 3-5-2 could accomodate Torres and Villa as out and out strikers?
Fuck me, even Fungus would wet em!

why would either play second fiddle Aitch??? Its usually called a strike partnership. Its whether or not the two can play together thats the major concern, obviously they can…
wouldn’t a 3-5-2 make us even more narrow? we’re not even sure how effective our new fullbacks are going to be yet…

i don’t agree aitch. None of them would be 2nd fiddle. The front players would be fluid and interchangeable a bit like manure only better he he he our plan for world domination will soon be complete. torres, villa, gerrard and babel would all be intelligent enough to give enough movement. That front line would scare the pants off me if i was a defender. as a fan it has me purring with delight. only 1 snag we haven’t signed villa yet. any way torres and villa certainly seem to get on well and it looks like they enjoy playing together.

one can only hope.

Before Villa started lighting up the Euros, he just might have been a target. Now, we might still want him, but he’s out of our price range, whether he wants to come to us or not. I can’t see him digging his heels in and insisting on a move – all he’s done is basically suggest he likes the idea of playing for Liverpool. I’m sure he also likes the idea of joining Real Madrid or Barca, or joining Scolari at Chelski on 140k a week.

If we even get to the stage of expressing interest, we’ll be competing with those clubs for his signature, which means there is no competition – we’ll lose. Chelsea will throw 30mill at Valencia without even blinking; Real Madrid will probably also turn to him as their star signing if they can’t get Ronaldo. And Barca will do some rebuilding and probably look to bring him in to replace Eto’o.

Yep, the worst thing Villa did for us was have a good Euro (and fuck it we’re only talking about 2 games!).

Aussie you are right could not had. Rafa can still stick to a 4 3 3 with Babbel, Torres and Villa swapping and interchanging. Interesting report stating that a lot of old LFC legends and staff at Anfield are saying the H&G have sanctioned a move for Villa.

How knows what is truth at LFC these days. I would love to see it happen, but I won’t hold my breath just yet, but why not it is a possibility?

It does not matter what the other clubs do or offer, if Villa wants to come to LFC he can force the move. Can you se another club wanting to take him when he says no I want to go to Liverpool.

Lads couple of things to mention.
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When Flabagasted was interviewed after the recent EURO win, he blipped by saying I can’t wait to play against Villa. Now either he’s moving to Spain or Villa is moving to England, however is Cesc is talking about playing against him he aint going to the gunners is he.
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Heaps of rumour sites claiming the deal was done prior to EURO’S.
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Lastly in regards to Barry why the fuck are we the only top 4 team after him. My personal belief if he was good enough for the top 4 he’d already be playing for them. Which as we all know he’s not.

lads the fixture list is out: http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N160240080616-0959.htm

Barry was to play in CL, as gaz said it looks like the top 3 are not looking to sign him, so sitting tight would seem the best option here.

Realistically Villa will go to Real or Barca. He has said he would prefer to stay in Spain – that he is not motivated by money. He’s also an admirer or Rafa and says he has friends at Liverpool. This leaves Real, Barca and LFC as realistic destinations. If its a bidding war with those 2 clubs we can forget it.

Chelsea can forget it as well because he was quoted as saying: “Money means nothing. Of course everybody works to earn money but if you are not happy then material things mean nothing. My only target in life is to get better at my job”.

fixture list looks pretty good.

It does smell like something has gone on in the backroom doesn’t it? I mean we’re all used to Rafa complainning when he hasn’t gotten what he’s wanted, however he’s been stone quiet… Strange if you ask me, unless…
He has done a deal for Villa (or someone else) as there seems to be too many murmurs indicating Villa’s move…
Why not cling to that hope? It’s much better than the Barry link, even if barry turns out well….
Anyway I’m sure we’ll find out in a couple of weeks once the transfer window opens…

Yeah, I agree Aussie it looks o.k., however the CL qualifiers are still to be added in there…

I hope LFC are exploring other alternatives if we cant get Barry. I dont think we should pay any more than £15m. Would be better to get someone else in who just plays in midfield for around £8m and use the extra cash to strengthen the attacking options. (Villa or Silva)

Imagine spending £20m for Barry and seeing Barca get Villa for £24m or so. That would be moronic.

With Bently now touting himself, what would people prefer see,

Keep Xabi and buy Bently or buy Barry?

Can’t complain about that fixture list – all the toughest games nicely spread out through the year. CL games will complicate it a little but you can’t complain about being in the CL.

YNWAlancey, I wouldn’t gauge anything on how little Rafa is saying. I’m sure he learnt his lesson from last year, so regardless of whether he’s got money to spend, he’s reverted to the Liverpool Way and is keeping it all behind closed doors. Good on him, even if it does mean we are stuck with more and more pure speculation! He’s a smart cookie though, I’m sure he’s taking care of business. If Villa was available pre-Euros and we had the money, maybe Rafa did stitch the deal up. That’s without considering the Parry-the-Clown factor of course.

if a deal was done with Villa, there is no way it would have been kept quiet

The way I look at it, it is only a matter of time before Barry arrives, they will be forced to accept 15 mill with 3 mill add on’s, as Barry is slapping in a transfer request. To me that is a fair price for a player that we need to fill a certain role, left sided, as well as an upgrade on Alonso. This does not mean Alonso is shite but that Barry will gives us more and is better suited for the Prem, our stated ambition. With Gerrard and Torres combining so well in Europe the value of Alonso there, is not as apparent or critical, hence Rafa bringing in Barry for him. For me the right and best decision for Liverpool. This coupled with Dossena (again if Rafa has paid 6 mill with add on’s taking it up to 8mill then he must have seen something that he liked so I am happy with that, because that is in the Skertal, Agger mould) as well as Deggen. Yes a free but Rafa tried to sign him when he was at Valencia so he must have seen something that he liked so lets give the lad a chance. With Agger back in defence (like a new signing) and these three plus some youngsters coming up we are a lot stronger than we where last year. Yes the other team will strengthen, but it was not in the goal scoring department that we failed last year it was the silly goals that turned victories into draws that did us in. We have addressed that problem already.

Next the attack and wide areas. Babbel will be better and stronger and I watched a couple of game in the seasons review and Vorronin played some good football. It went pair shaped for him when he got injured and all the shit with the owners cropped up. I will be interested to see how he copes in his second year, so lets give him a chance. Kuyt has settled in, in his role on the wide right. We got a good return form him in that position. Most of his shockers came from him playing the second striker role, so with the death of his father behind him and having found a role in our set-up that we get the best use out of him we are going to be that much better as well.

Nemeth is a youngster and will be given a chance. For Abblet, who is conservative by nature compares him to a young Kenny the boys has got something. I have seen him on a few occasions and he does look like he has got what it takes. So I will be interested to see how he develops. Plessis we have all seen, Insua as well and they will pick up experience in the first rounds of the carling and FA cup. Lucas, again there are some people who are not seeing the bigger picture. In the seasons review I watched him closely and toward the end of the year he was playing some very good football. In fact he out shone Alonso with his vision and dfence splitting passes. We have to take into account he is not a holding midfield player, the role he has played the most last year. He is more the attacking midfield player, a box to box Gerrard type and I expect good things of him in only his second year.

As I said earlier if we swap Peanut for Milner Rafa will have seen something and we will have to wait and see, so I will get behind him and give him a chance. If that is all that comes in we will be stronger and better by far than last season. However if Rafa does manage to spring a surprise and a Villa arrives I will do back flips and really start to believe that we are in with a very good shout, but if not and a Bentley arrives don’t right us off, because we are still very much heading in the right direction. Another year in the reserves and Pacheo and Bruna will be pushing for first team places. Yes it will take more time but for me the priority is keeping Rafa and getting rid of the two twats. If we can accomplish that this year it would have been a very good year indeed. Oh yes, as well as the small little thing that constitutes the building of a new stadium that will give us an extra 50 mill in income, which was the whole reason they sold the club in the first place.

Fixture list look godd from our point of view, the Gunners will be screaming they end off with PortSmith, ManU, Chelsea and one other. I am glad we have ManU earlier and at home, it about time we got a good result against them.

…unless everyone was distracted by the Barry deal taking all the headlines…

haha just playing. It’s all pretty useless conjecture isn’t it. We should probably spend this effort finding ways to get those 2 fuckwits out of our club.

well, at least our only hope is that Villa has kept on saying, and recently more explicitly that he wants to come here.
although i do have a comment about the interchangability, though. IT is true that I am sure Torres and Villa can play together, and sometime we might go for the 3 strikers with a Babel/torres/viila or Kuyt line-up. But what happens if torres and villa get injured or lose their condition. The whole purpose of finding a super second striker was so that we could keep on alternating with Torres and the other super player, so we will not become worried if one breaks down either mentally or physcially. It would be nice to see them play at the same time, but I would only want to see that happen if we further have someone as good as these two on the bench. Other that, using Torres and Villa in the line-up aimultaneously all the time is too risky in my opinion. Which is why we just can’t compete with the mancs or chavs.

Hyde – Berbatov and Keane played all season every week last season. Didn’t do them any harm. If we had Villa then him and Torres would have to start together. Both can play a loan role so if one got injured, tired or lost form you’d still have a lethal goal threat with the other. We shouldn’t be going into the market to buy a striker so that Torres can have a rest from time to time. Rather buy the best striker you can get and if that happened to coincide with you being able to rest Torres then great – thats a bonus.

The whole point in us buying a striker is the simple fact that we only have one that can be considered top class. Out of all the top clubs in Europe we probably have the worst strike force (Torres aside).

Simply put though we dont have the money to get David Villa. We’ll have a slight upgrade on Crouch I think. A bench warmer.

LB & others – genuine question, if we hypothetically had 25 mill to spend after taking care of things in the defense and centre midfield, how would you prefer it spent?

eg 25 mill on Villa and make do with what we’ve got? (including possible Peanut-Milner trade)

or 15m on a winger + 10m on a striker?
or 25m on a winger? etc… and all assuming we basically pay the right/fair price for a player.

Don’t ask me where the 25m is coming from, I did say it was hypothetical!

Hyde I can’t understand your logic don’t buy villa a top class striker because him and torres might get injured. what if they don’t get injured and score 50 goals between them?

of course that’s providing we even buy villa which we probably won’t.

if we do I’ll drive up from london go and see rafa and give him a big kiss.

Andy- I’d vote 25mill for Villa. Partly because he’d be an investment for the future and also because of his desire to ply his trade in Anfeild….
I say pass on width if we could snare Villa, we could just play the best direct football in the league and try to blast our way through Manure…

If Barry comes I’m sure our set peices will improve for sure…

Andy, I’d spent the whole lot on Villa. He’s very hard working – as much as Torres. He can play just behind while Gerrard goes to the right if we play 4-2-3-1 or can player as a striker in the 4-4-2.

My mate has been saying for months that Villa can play anywhere in the top 4 attacking positions in the 4-2-3-1 formation and has always said we should just stump up the cash rather than buy a mid range winger and mid range striker. I believe him now.

I also sure SG wouldn’t mind the “graveyard” shift if Villa and Torres were playing in the center

Another question, If Villa joined, you ye sell Kuyt and get a winger?

If Villa joined I’m assuming we’d have sold Crouch. Keep Kuyt. Fund a winger some other way. Such as Pennant, Guthrie, Voronin, Finnan and the likes.

Regarding Gerrard moaning about the grave yard shift. If the team is winning every week he nor the media will be complaining. Remember 2005-06. Gerrard right wing = 23 goals and we were the most consistent team from October to May that season. Nobody uttered a word about Gerrard’s position.

4 years to the day since Rafa has been at Liverpool. This, from his first official interview:

It was like a dream because, in Spain, when you think about the Premier teams in England you always think about Liverpool. Sometimes Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United, but always Liverpool. Everyone who knows their football in Spain knows about the history of Liverpool Football Club. We know about the Beatles also!

“For a football professional like myself, Liverpool is the most important club in England. I am a very proud man because never did I think that one day I would be sitting here today talking to you as Liverpool manager.”

“What I want to say to the fans is that I need time,”

“But I am very, very happy and excited to be here. For me it is a challenge and one I will relish. As I said in the press conference, I haven’t come here to learn English, I’ve come here to win. I think it’s important that myself, the club, the fans and the players share the same spirit.”

Beautiful that bhavster.
It takes me back to Shanks… “I had a dream, a dream to turn Liverpool Football Club into a bastion of invincibility that would last for decades and make the people happy.”

VIVA RAFA BENITEZ!

4 years to the day Coco was playing golf!

My 2nd fiddle comments were in regards to someone else suggesting that Torres would have to drop back into the 2nd striker position in our preffered 4-5-1.
Personally 4-4-2 with both of them up front would be far more effective, especially if the midfield was Barry, SG, Masch and Bentley (with Babel as a rotational replacement for either Barry, Bentley or either of the Spanish lads.) But Rafa isn’t known for playing a 4-4-2… amybe its been a personnel issue? and this is his solution?

Also, I doubt SG would be too happy being marginalized on the so-called “graveyard shift” if Torres and Villa were grabbing all the goals, headlines and glory! I know some will disagree with that, but thats my opinion.

I see the fantasy football still going strong in here!
Aitch,if we signed barry,villa and bentley i wouldn`t think stevie would be on the wing in a 4-4-2.I`d say he`d be central with mash,bentley right and barry left.

It does seem now that rafa is steadfast in using the 4-2-3-1 system so i think he`ll sign players to fit to that system.

Is the window only opened on july 1st?

I thought it opened on june 1st.Maybe explains the lack of movement.

Harry redkapp was quoted as saying he liked to get crouch for the right price.

straight swap for Kranjkar anyone ??

Straight swap would be very good, but looks like rafa needs money to buy someone else!!!

Get Villa, go all the way. Damn, he is good and he did say he likes Liverpool,Rafa, Spanish friends, etc. And Torres, Villa & Gerrard (the TVG team will score 55 goals between them), plus 30 more from Kuyt, Babel, Ben-onion and Barry and others should land the Premiership. (plus the fact that there will be a lot of Chelsea and Arsenal players moving in and out will likely weaken, not strengthen them. (Possibly Out: Drogba, Lampard, A Cole, Helb,
Flamini) and also Ronaldo possibly leaving Manure or better still,put on the bench-ha ha).

Aston Villa had agreed to sell Barry for Stg14 million- from one of the papers. Fair price, as most of you also think. They have cancelled Barry’s testimonial match due to that. Surely that confirms the deal, doesn’t it?

Middlesbrough boss Gareth Southgate has issued a hands-off warning to Liverpool over Stewart Downing, saying the England winger is “not for sale”.

…no problems there Gareth. Gladly!

Apparently we’ve sold Riise to Roma for 4 million.
not a bad return considering he hasnt been in the best of form.

We could buy David Villa’s elbow with that money.

IF we bought Villa i dont see why we would need SG out on the wing. Youd have the back four. Masch sitting in front of them(DM). Gerrard In the middle of the park (CM). Babel on one wing and even Kuyt on the other (Now that we apparently have attacking full backs they will boost the work of those two). Villa slightly behind Torres (AM) and Torres up front (S).

Villa and Barry aquistions would make us title threats for sure… Perhaps, we’d be a wide man short, but Kuyt is resilient, Benny onion is quality enough to cover the right as is Gerrard… Left is a little thin with just Babel and Barry, but aurelio could cover if he wasnt injured…
So, if we miraculously get Villa I’m sure we’d be able to cope out wide, we’d just have to stretch our squad over the course of the season…
too bad we couldn’t afford Bentley as well… We could always upgrade him next year…

Hey lads

Haven’t been able to comment much recently as I’m changing jobs.

Its curious to see when Villa scored his hatrick he ran straight to Torres on the bench!

An when Torres scored he nearly started humping him!!

It kinda reminds me of when Torres was caught with the ‘You’ll never walk alone’ tatoo

Just a thought

Anyway I think this lad needs to have a word with Ronaldo, Drogba and Wenger

http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=unkIVvjZc9Y

Have a laugh lads

over and out

By all means, get Villa if we can. I am not saying we should not. What I am just trying to say is if you think our problems will be upturned by getting villa, then it is wrong. Look at chavs, whether you rate them is another matter, but they have Dogbreath, sheva and analkiss.
Tottenham managed to get thru with only Berbatov and keane because first they were lucky not to get injured, and second, they were not invovled in high a profile game as us (the UEFA cup is shite nothing compared to the intesity of the CL).

My logic is not that we should not go and spend for Villa for fear of injury. I am just saying that getting villa alone is just not enough. If we can get a winger who can score or create goals on a high consistency along with villa, that is only when I feel remotely safe that we might just be able to aim for the EPL. Get Silva and Villa, and then I would feel calm. Still keep Kuyt. Perhaps sell Crouchy, but in truth I would want to keep him as well. So for me, Torres, Villa, Kuyt and Crouch would be the best striker squad for me. but we don’t have the money to do this. Crap isn’t it, our budget.

Lads, a though…what do we all think of Michael Johnson???
i rate him highly. very highly. More highly than Gareth Barry infact. I think at the moment, they are about equally as good as each other (barry possibly a little better), but Johnson has loads more potential to as he is young and barry is in his prime now. He’d be cheaper and free up funds for a descent winger??

thoughts???

actually, forget that. its hardly upgrading on Alonso is it.

Honestly I think Barry and Villa would represent an excellent off season of recruiting to be honest… I don’t think that we need to invest heavily in the striking department once crouchy leaves as we’ll have (in order): Torres, Villa, Babel, Kuyt, Voronin and Nemeth as strike options…
Next season we could look at wide men as we would’ve truly solved our striking problems of the past (thanks to Rafa!!!!). Perhaps we’d have an over-supply if Nemeth really comes on…

I doubt any wide men aquired this season will be long term prospects, my belief will be that Rafa will look to off load at the end of the comming year, perhaps making a marginal profit and trading in to upgrade…
I’m very curious as to what player Rafa could unearth after the a full season scouting one perhaps just one position… Surely he’d only really need one winger and maybe further upgrade the fullback positions… We really are close to a complete first team, just hope we get Barry and Villa…

thats all well and good, but how many seasons are we going to continue to say “we need wingers”. its getting beyond a joke. Every season, we seem to say, oh well, we’ll get some next season. i dont think we can go another season without descent wingers.
Id prefer to see us get a top shelf winger than a top shelf striker.

Isn’t today Rafa’s 4th season in charge and we’re still no closer to wingers.

Ps did anyone notice Queresma playing for Portugal, what a surly wingeing fuck he is, he spent the whole game walking around berating his own players. SG can do that on his off days so why do we need that lazy fuck.

haha!!!! Thats so funni!!! The cry used to be we haven’t got a 20 goal a season striker!!! Now that we have a 30 goal a season and potentially second one we’ve written off the good fortune we’ve had in aquiring Torres and the even greater fortune to snare perhaps the best strike pairing in club football…
Wingers are easier to find than strikers, I believe Rafa will sort our wings out. But we’re not that bad as babel and now Kuyt are good players in their own right….
We’re on the verge of a partnership capable of 60+ goals a season, and that’s not just speculation…

yes the cry use to be that we dont have a 20 goal a season striker. AND, now we do.

We dont have wingers.

i actually think there are more good strikers around than wingers to be honest. look at the good strikers in the EPL – Tevez, Rooney, Torres, Drogba, Santa Cruz, Adebeyor, Van Persie, Anelka etc.
now look at the good wingers. Ronaldo, Joe Cole, Bentley, Um…ummm….ummm……

Petrov, Arteta, SWP, Hleb, Walcott… To be honest I do feel wide men would be an easier problem to solve than striking and possibly cheaper…
It’s not surprising that there isn’t many true partnerships in the EPL. Tevez and Rooney? Hardly a prolific striking combo…Anelka and Drogba don’t play together, nether does Shevchenko warrant a place in any of Chealsea’s starting line-ups… Oh, and Adebayor wants out of Arse…. Berbatov and Keane are probably the only effective combo in the EPL and Berbatov is a crying winge bag wanting to cry on SAF’s shoulder… So, I do feel as though we’ve got the opportunity to make a real point of difference to what the other teams are doing…

Our strike force is almost complete, second to none, as with central mid feild, central defence and Goal keeping (although we do need a back up)… Full backs have potentially been upgraded and we do have international class wingers… I know we’re probably short 1 class winger, but Babel and Kuyt do still have potential to grow…. Villa would represent a massive coup as ManU’s strike combo pales in comparision…

But, Villa isn’t ours yet, so I suppose it is all just speculation…

We don’t need out and out wide men. We need players who know when to offer width. instead of a la benny onion moving inside all the time and jamming up the centre. IF we got Villa then torres, villa, babel, gerrard or kuyt would provide guile,speed, intelligence and WIDTH.

Question: What defence could stop Babel, Gerrard, Torres and Villa attacking the goal? Who could stop Torres and Villa looking to break through the defensive line? Width is all very well and fine, but outright firepower and conversion is even more essential… I doubt Manure and Chelsea will be able to contain our team to be honest- Mash could become our absolute key to our challenge. Much like Makelle, he will be our rock because we will be vulnerable due to our attacking nature…

I find it incredible that some people would forgo Villa because we need wingers. He can play wide right, or left as Babbel did, as Kyut did the whole of last season to great effect. Playing with 3 strikers would be dynamic, interchanging, drifting left, right, centre all the time would create major problems for any defensive, especially with their technical ability and speed these three would have. We would then have Kuyt, Benny Onion, Vorrinon as well as Nemeth to come in as option to freshen things up. This is more than enough options for the front.

Secondly we have attacking wingbacks in Dossena and Deggen to overlap and create width as well as strong options in Aurelleo, Arbaloa and Insua. Both Barry and SG can give us an option on the left and right in certain circumstances. If Peanut goes Rafa will bring in another wide option, maybe Milner because Kuyt will be for the right.

As far as I am concerned if we get Barry, Dossena, Deggen and by some miracle Villa I will be ecstatic. The way the Dutch play as well as the way we played toward the second half of the season is the way to go. Look how effective van Persie was on the right (a striker) and Schiender(cant spell) left (another striker). I would wet myself if we had Babbel Torres and Villa as our options.

Lets not get ahead of ourselves lads, YNWA what team would stop Babel, SG, Torres, well Barnsley come’s to mind, not to mention any team Steve Bruce coaches, then we always seem to have trouble with Blackburn, Bolton, not to mention the other big 3. All in all we can’t break down the little teams because we lack width. I’m with Aussie we need wingers. Yes I’d love Villa but I just don’t think it will happen.

1) we haven’t got Villa
2) What happens if Villa or Torres get injured? Let’s also not forget that they both play for the same country. What happens when both get selected for a meaningless friendly??

I think people are mistaking my worries. I am not talking about the lack of width. I am all for getting Villa if we can ever afford him. I am just saying that only getting Villa will not solve the fundamental problem– the depth of our squad. With a 4-2-3-1 line-up, the front four would only be “safe” as a top team if we have say a selection of Torres, Villa, Gerrard, Aguero, Babel and Kuyt to choose from for those positions. Then the rotation will work. Let’s not get too carried away. It is almost like last season when some were thinking that getting Torres would save us. He is never going to play every single game, and neither is Villa if we get him.

Morning chaps.
Well, I’m off to Wales shortly, so you’ll be getting a few days without the doom and gloom.
But before I go, fuck it, here’s a wee bit more…
Do you know Tottenham, Spurs, Aston Villa and even fucking Sunderland have more of a transfer budget than LFC.
FFS, even Everton have 20 million quid to spend and that’s without them selling anyone.
In fact, despite how skint Everton are supposed to be….
Who do you think is on more money?
Rafa or What’s he’s face, The Lord Of the Rings fella from Goodison?
No.
Moyes and Rafa are on exactly the same wages.
So, how the fuck we are supposed to compete with Chelski, Man Ure, the Arse or any of the big European clubs?
1: we’ve got a genius at the helm.
So, I will wait and see what he comes up with. As for Villa, well, if there is any chance of him coming to Anfield, I’d say the deal would already have been done.
And knowing Coco’s track record, and going by what Villa is saying, I think we can safely write that one off.
Anyway, all this global warming is making me thirsty. So, I will see you in a week or so when I have sobered up. Hoping for better news by then.
Tatty bye for now.

Love the debate guys!!

I see both points of views. In some ways I agree with Hyde and Aussie and in other ways I agree with the rest of the lads.

Hyde, I understand where you are coming from. Chelsea and the mancs have massive squads with quality back up in all positions. And you think we need to have the same to compete for the PL. I agree however if its not possible to develop such a squad due to a smaller budget than these 2 clubs then what we have to do is vastly improve the first team. Buying Villa would do this – whether it would be enough to win the PL would remain to be seen. In theory we would be closer by the simple fact we’d have a better goal threat. We’d need to be lucky with injuries as well. Last season Torres got injured and missed a few matches, in those matches we missed him. In that situation I’d rather see Villa and Kuyt up front than Crouch and Kuyt – my point is the squad would be improved in terms of quality not so much quantity or depth. Over all it would be an improvement on what we have at the moment so in that sense you’d have to be pleased no? Simply put we dont have the budget so have to do it step by step. As long as we improve every season and take tangible steps forward I wont complain.

Aussie, you are dead right – we need a f*cking winger. However we also need another good striker because Torres alone is not enough. IF we were in a position to get Villa I dont think it could be turned down. The opportunity to have Europe’s best strike partnership doesn’t come round too often. If we kept the same wingers we have now but had Villa we’d pose a bigger goal threat but would still have the problem of creativity in wide areas. Hopefully the more attacking fullbacks and improved form of Babel and Kuyt would improve our effectiveness out wide. If we had to wait yet another season to get a top quality winger then so be it. I’ve waited this long, I can wait an extra year if it means I get to see Villa and Torres in tandem wearing the red shirt!

The above is all hypthetical of course. I don’t see where the £25m+ for Villa is coming from but hell why not fantasize!

Hyde – where I disagree with you is this:

You see the fundemantal problem being lack of squad depth. I agree its a problem but not the fundamental problem. In my opinion the fundemental problem is not having enough top quality attacking players. 13 draws we had last season. You’d imagine at least half of these would have been wins had we had another top quality striker or winger in the team.

Look at Arsenal last season, not a massive squad but quality first team and they finished 4 points behind the champions. They could have won the league with a bit of luck with injuries (Rosicky, Van Persie, Eduardo) and a bit more bottle.

Sort out the first team first and the squad depth should be the second objective. That’s if you dont have the funds to do both at the same time.

Gaza, you forgot that i mentioned villa, and i seem to remember an out-of-form Alonso screwing up against Barnsley… To be honest that result sucked, but who were in the semi finals of the fa cup? Its a cup competition, hardly our highest priority, I really wouldnt make too much of it…
Villa Babel, torres and stevie G tucked in behind is pretty scarry for any team…

Torres and SG didn’t play against Barnsley either. Anyway Portsmouth beat the mancs and Chelsea with their massive squad also lost to Barnsley.

Petrov – apparently doesnt like winter. good in first half of season, shite in 2nd half.
Arteta – pants
SWP – horrible touch. wouldnt want him
Hleb – good player, but not en EPL player anymore
Walcott – potential to be good but not quite there yet.

Look, i can definately see the other side of the coin. Yup, Villa would be amazing and would be hard to turn down. theres obviously arguments for both sides to this argument. no one is right and no one is wrong (except that on this occasion i’m right ). I just personally would prefer a top shelf winger. My reasons…well, mainly because i think Babel is going to tear a new arsehole in the premiership this season as a striker and im tipping him to outscore torres. i think kuyt is gonna re-discover his feyernod form, and i dont think voronin is as bad as everyone in here seems to think he is. i think he will do a job. i think torres will be as good if not better than last season and Im happy with Nemeths progress. im really really happy with our strike force at the moment, and for years we’ve been needing wingers…so lets bloody well get some eh!

Haha love your optimism Aussie… Torres will be as good or better than last season, and yet Babel will outscore him – that should mean a tidy 70 odd goals between them! Bring it on!

LB – good comments in 171 & 172, make plenty of sense.

Aussie the winger in question would have to be pretty damn good to sign him instead of Villa in my opinion. John Barnes quality. A goal threat and a creator. That’d be nice. I’d have to be confident that Kuyt is indeed going to show the Feyenord form because as of now he squanders too many chances for my liking and doesn’t pose enough of a threat. Babel can finish, is strong and has pace. Why he hasn’t played up front more I dont know. I think Rafa missed a trick there. As for Voronin I just think he is shite. Even when he scores it looks like a fluke.

and carra will get into double figures. bahahaha

Oh, and as usual I’m definately erring with your point of view LB… Our first team is getting so close to completion it’s getting scarry!!! I am in total admiration of Rafa, what he’s done with our limited but presitgous team is a marvel… I seem to remember Wenger saying that the reason why he’s been able to survive this long at Arse was because of his immediate success at the club. Rafa seems to have emmulated that success to a large extent and in my view sits firmly as a peer to Wenger and SAF at a similar point in their respective careers, perhaps even at this present day…
Yeah, I agree about us needing another wide man,there is no doubt that we need one, however Kuyt IS a good player, as is Babel… You know I really do think that Villa could play out on the right hand side… If given the freedom babel, Torres and Villa could have a lucid structure… Not to mention SG doin whatever the hell he wants to do (which would surely make defending a nightmare for opposing team…).

But Stg 20-25 mill seems as impossible as lotto… Which makes Villas press statements all the more depressing… But we could still hope and if not Villa maybe Arsenal castoff Bentley will make his way here (ala Peanut)…

LB wingers in my thoughts need pace and skill, I don’t see either of these in Kuyt. He’s a honest hardworking grafter but that’s IT. Top class wingers leave players like Kuyt in their wake.
.
I also think your comment on Voronin is a bit harsh. We can all comment on these new attacking fullbacks, but lets face it one didn’t make the squad and one sat on the bench. And both squads are looking like absolute shit at the moment.
.
I would love Villa no end but I still want attacking wingers. There is no better player than one that allows you to get behind defences, they are very rare. Babel doesn’t do it, Speedy never did, Kuyt doesn’t, SG doesn’t, their a very rare breed, I think Silva does but then the names get thin.

Gaz, Babel has got behind defences a few times. It would be easier for him if he had an attacking fullback overlapping him to take some defensive attention away from him and give him more space. Granted Kuyt is no great winger. Believe me I want to see a top class winger, but apart from Ronaldo there are none out there at the moment who I’d sign before David Villa. If you gave me a choice of one signing out of Villa, Silva, Quaresma, Alves, Mancini, Bentley, Ashley Young…. I’d pick Villa all day long because he’s a cut above the others in my opinion and already has a great partnership with Torres.

As for the fullbacks not making their international squads. Its not as cut and dry as that…..

Degen has missed a lot of football recently and is not match fit so has been on the bench. It’s not often a manager will substitute a right back for another right back during a game or tournament for any reason other than injury or dramatic loss of form.

Dossena missed out because players like Grosso and Zambrotta (who plays both sides) have big time experience and world cup winners medals. You can’t judge Dossena from not being picked for Italy. France left out Flamini for an injured Viera and an old Makele. They also had Evra on the bench with Abidal in the team and left Clichy at home. Now I know you wouldn’t class Clichy, Evra and Flamini as sub standard.

Lads,i`m with LB on the Vorinin thing.I don`t think he`s a player with enough quality to play for our club.Don`t get me wrong,when he puts on a red sirt and plays for us i`ll support him 100% but theres no time for sentiment here as is the case with risse,finnan,peanut etc.

My blood boils to hear that we are still strongly linked with milner.I`m taking stick in work over this possible move for an average EPL player off by all people 2 westham fans.
Why waste 7m on millner when we could probably get bentley for maybe 12-13m since non of the other top 3 seem to want him.
I know he`s not everybodys cup of tea in here but the lad can play,scores double figures in goals,can cross and is miles ahead of millner or peanut for that matter.
He would improve our squad.

I don’t see us getting Villa, so it’s a wide player we will be signing.

We play one up front, so our choices there will be Torres and Bable & Kuyt as cover.

I see us spending 10-15m on a winger, I have a hunch it’s going to be Bently.

If that is the case the summary of the transfer activity would be

IN
Dossena 7m
Barry 15m
Bently 15m
Degan Free

OUT

Xabi 14m
Crouch 10m
Carson 8m
JAR 5m

NET Spend NIL

This will be consistent with what alot of people believe, that there is no extra money available.

I can’t argue too much Corky. Just like being fanciful and talking about Villa.

I also doubt we’ll get that much for Crouch or Carson.

More like JAR £4m Crouch £9m and Carson £6m

I know LB, and if things were anyway normal, then signing Villa wouldn’t so fanciful.

Guthrie and finan for 2mill a peice shuld balance those figures…

LB. I totally agree with your point about us not having enough attacking players of the highest calibre being our main problem. And if we had turned just half (lets say 6) of our 13 draws into victories, we would of won the prem!

I send me bird the shops cos I fancy a prime steak and a few Stellas.
She get’s there, looks in her purse, and comes home with a nice chop and a few Carlings.
Not exactly what I wanted but it’s get the job done.
IRWT.

See you in a week or so.

Did you guys see Arjen Robben when he came on for the Dutch against France the other night? He was absolute mustard, worried the lives out of the French and got a stunning goal as well.

We should offer Alonso as part exchange for this guy, who also has premier leauge experience lets not forget. The Alonso swap idea could be a non starter though, I believe his move to Juve is imminent. Villa and Robben, thats my wish list.

What do you guys think?

Nice one FS, however James Milner signing for us would have been more like Mrs FS coming back with a packet of crisps and a coke.

Have a good one!

Robben has loads of talent, but has being a bit injury prone in the last year or two.
Is he also a bit moody, Rafa wouldn’t fancy that.

Steve, I watched Robben when Holland played Wales just before Euro 2008. He was not only mustard – he was different gravy as well! I dont know if you guys remember how well Robben played between 2004-and 2006. F*cking wicked! The only problem is he is injury prone big style!

You know who would be worth a look at? Royston Drenthe! He can play left back, left wing and midfield, would be much cheaper than Barry and is a lot younger.

All this talk of food is meaking me hungry again!

I cannot believe we are wasting time and effort on signing Milner, he is at best an average Premier League Player.
I agree with all of you that say ‘Let’s go after
Villa’
What we need is another World class Front Man.
As some of you have said here if we had won just half of those draws we would have won the League.
I fancy Babel to come good this season.
He has so much talent, and with that first season out of the way I think he will get more confident on the Ball.
Kuyt is still a bit of an Enigma to me, works his socks off, but he can be frustrating with his ball control.
I hate this time of the year , when nothing is going on and rumours are swirling around about players we are going to sign.
Roll on August.
Well I’m off to play a little golf.
Keep up the Blogs Gerry, I read everyone of them,
I don’t always comment but I thoroughtly enjoy them

I have seen Drenthe play, and I would agree he certainly looks like a well committed player, and the versatility that LB mentioned would cetainly appeal to Rafa.

I know Robben has had some injures but they dont seem to have slowed him down any!

He looks like he is in his forties, but amazingly he is still only 24 or 25.

We need a shit hot winger, Robben on the left, Babel moving to the right, Torres and Villa in the middle. Doesent sound too shabby, does it?

They cant shoot us for our dreams!

Drenthe has only just been snapped up by Real and hes playing first team football, so I’d doubt hes anywhere near obtainable… But I agree hes a great talent and its unfortunate we cant get him…
Robben was also a major target for Real, so I’d also doubt hes obtainable…
Robinho is probably the one star for Real that is available for purchase… But he’d have the same price as Villa, would be a nice aquistion for us as he’d slot into that right wing quite easily…

Robben is a cunt. i dont care how good he is, he isnt fit to wear the liverpool jersey. Remember that dive he took when Pepe touched his face?!?!? absolutely no way do we need to soil our club with a player of that mentality. Some things are more important than winnning, class and dignity. Robben has neither.

Well said aussie. Robben has no place at LFC.

Haven’t commented for ages, but still printing off all your comments to read on my commute… keep it up, everyone, I’m sure I’m not the only one who needs Kopblog to keep me sane…

Can everyone stop talking about us getting Villa, though, because you’re just making me dream – he’s not coming to Anfield, so please let’s stop talking about it, it’ll only make me sad when Chelsea get him.

Let’s just accept that we’re in the shit and that Rafa will get whatever he can scrape up, same as every other year (Torres excepted). Anything else is just going to make it worse when we end up spending 22M on Barry and 8M on Milner…

T57

meant to say, “some things are more important than winning. Class and dignity for example”

Here, here!
Robben is a Cunt of the highest order … and so say all of us…
(er… well except that is for all the people who were calling him a cunt when he played for Chelski… and wanted to bite his nuts off when he got Pepe sent off… but now seem to want him in a Red shirt? Not sure I get that???)

Frankly I’m a bit sick of all the Villa and all the rest talk too. He’s a talent for sure, but I’d really rather not see us turn into a team of hired guns!

My dream would be that…
Peanut rediscovers some form and escalates… I don’t really rate the lad, but I’d be willing to give him until January to see if that happens.
Same for Vorronin.

My dream is that…
Kuyt shows the touch he showed in the last month and not the previous 8 months of the season and shows up in August looking like a new man! (and I predict that will happen, coz I do rate him!)

Unlike many of you, I am yet to be convinced by Babel. Don’t get me wrong…A potential talent for sure, but honestly, he misses more shots than he nets, most of his goals have been icing on the cake in games that were already in the bag, he too frequently shoots from impossible angles when others are better placed, he shows little width and tries to get inside more frequently than the big bad wolf… oh and his lazy John Barnes style makes him look very sloppy at times.
As I said, I think the lad has talent and IF he can step up (pity he missed the Euros) and raise his game a bit, I think he really could be the next John Barnes… but that is by no means a certainty! He is an unproven quantity in terms of people suggesting he is the answer to our 2nd stiker problem. He might be and my dream is that he eventually will be… but at the moment he surely ISN’T.

I thik the reality is we’ll wake from our dreams in August, likely having ended up with the DD boys, Barry, maybe Bentley (and hopefully not Milner) a back-up keeper and that’ll be it. That’s gonna be a big disappointment for many and, a nod and a not bad from some.

I do find it interesting that there was a lot of talk on here at the beginning of last season about how the Scum, Arse and Chavs had good teams, but we had the best squad… now we only have a good team but a weaker squad?

LB, I totally agree with your points to my comments. Well said.

But lads, I thought i was the one wishing for Santa Claus and so I had been shutting me gob–but what the hell is all this talk with Villa, Robben and Drenthe!? you are getting me depressed because as much as these guys will completely save us, we are never going to get them. Perhaps the best possibility is Drenthe. For all the good player that he is, he seems to be shunned at Real, and so may become tempted to move. He has a real stocky stature to him, and looks like a tank!! Definitely suited to the premiership. The players that Corky listed are probably the most realistic and if that was our line-up next season, we will probably struggle to even keep 4th position. Everton, Tottenham, Aston Villa and possibly Portsmouth are looking pretty close to coming to the same level as us. DISGUSTING what the owners have done to us.
Other than Milner and Bentley the other winger that we may be able to afford is Mitea at Ajax but he is injury prone and shite 80% of the time. But that’s the kind of player we seem to be able to afford.

SHIT.

i’ve been trying to stay out of here for the recent times because of all the speculation nonsense. right now, there is nothing anybody knows for sure, and no one knows how much money we have, or what targets we are looking at. the only confirmed target is gareth barry. i am certain we will not pay more than 15 million for him, which to be honest, is fair in todays market. he’s english, a national team player, versatile, captain of his team, and a better player than carrick who cost more. 20 million like MO is saying is ridiculous. is he on this planet?

while speculation is fun, it can become tiresome and frustrating. while i have not commented in a while, i have read all the comments, and it seems to go from optimism of rafa pulling a massive signing out of the bag, to us getting peanuts and rubbish players. let’s just try and wait it out, fellas. maybe a fresh blog would be beneficial… so long as it doesnt focus on transfer speculation.

YNWA

Remove the razor blade from your wrist Hyde!!!

I dont think anyone is realistically throwing around Villa, Robben etc as potential signings are they?? its all just abit of fun playing “if our owners werent fuckwits who could we sign”. Well, thats what im playing anyway. i expect nothing.

Milner would make a good sqaud player…but we dont need another squad winger. and certainly not at the quoted 9 million. Id be prepared for a straight swap for penant, as although pennants crosses are usually better, Milner is younger and has more potential. and certainly has more get up and go thatn pennant. then again, my left toe has more get up and go than penant.

Aitch, i agree with most of your comments there mate. Especialy about Babel. He is most definately unprooven and at this stage plays with a big question mark over his head. i have a funny feeling that this will be his season though.

Oh Hyde, by the way mate, you forgot to add Sunderland to the list of teams who will be spending more money that us. Thanks for selling us out Parry. Hope the Ferrari was worth it you clown featured twat.

FIFA have told united to jam their Real Madrid complaint.

United should now be fined for wasting FIFA’s time. Everyone knew it was a bullshit complaint, so now they should be punished for it.

aussie mate, I think milner’s crosses are slightly better than Peanut’s. but both are crap.
In any event, I do not think i wud be needing the razor blade– my ulcer is already bad enough!!

We are firmly lodged in the top four i’m not worried about slipping out for the bitters, pompey or spurs, what i am worried about is challenging for the title. It’s obvious we haven’t got a sackful of readies but with some shrewd buys from rafa I think we can put in a decent challenge. We have two full backs who have a reputation for getting forward that’s a good start. Barry would be a good aquisition. I haven’t lost hope of getting Villa, he wants to come to LFC so I’ll cross my fingers. I do think Rafa has the nouse to know what we need and as I’ve said before as long as they are quality I don’t care if they are well known or not.

as regards us having the best squad? eh! I don’t know anyone who thought that last season.

I think with our best 11 on the pitch we can beat anyone on any given day but the problem is the league is 38 games and consistency is our problem due to a lack of quality in depth.

Aitch, your comments about Babel are fair enough. But just before them you indicate that Pennant, Kuyt and Voronin showed more potential last season and therefore your more hopeful of them producing the goods next season? Pennant and Kuyt have been here for 2 years, are both in their mid 20s and still the jury is out. Voronin is 29 next month, averaged a goal every 3 games for Leverkusen and has scored 6 goals in 51 games for Ukraine. I don’t see where any big improvement in his game is going to come from.

I’d say the cameo performances from Babel suggest there is a lot more potential there than with the other 3 players mentioned. Whether he steps it up next season is another matter though.

Another thing – it doesn’t really matter what blog Gerry writes, after 10-20 comments its going to come back to transfer speculation and possibly boardroom misery etc. Just the way it will be in this close season.

just to put Babel’s first season into a bit more perspective, these are the number of goals scored by Wanker in the Premiership in his FIVE years with the Scums: 4,5,9,17,31.

Isnt instant gratification a sweet thing?

Bhav, any perspective for Voronin?

Dont really expect much from Voronin. Free transfer, surely not on high wages. Gets a few goals in and i am happy. Though did chuckle when you said that even when he scores it looks like a fluke goal.

Indeed Bhav!

Question – which current LFC players are you confident when they are through one on one with the goalkeeper?

I am a little bit mystified at the Babbel comments. This is a youngster (20) in his first year, who hit double figures playing wide left when he is a striker. He is getting to know the demands of the Prem, being eased in by Rafa on the left to gain experience, has admitted he is not strong or fit enough for the Prem, has shown us all what he can do, power, pace and a shot most people would die for. Single handily saved our bacon against Arsenal in the CL with a penalty and gaol and the verdict is still out.

I loved the comment that he comes on when most games are wrapped up! Yes in the first half of the season, but he still put the ball in the back of the net and against some very decent opposition, Arsenal and Chelsea to name put a few.

Just because Torres has hit the road running, a massive exception to the rule (captain at 19 as well as a Spanish international) we have to be realistic in what we expect from our youngsters as well as our acquisitions that are in their first year. It takes time to settle in, new team mates, new coach, style of play, positions, expectations and in some cases a new country. I think our new boys did exceptionally well and will be that much better for a decent first year in their second year.

Taking out Sammi (who will not play as much next year) and Finnen we will have the youngest squad in the Prem. All those experts that have been saying year after year that Arsenal are a work in progress and Wenger( the genius that is and still has not won anything in 4 years and counting) need time for his youngsters to gain experience, mature and gel. What Rafa has accomplished in 4 years is astonishing, with 7 regular new first year team players and another 3 (Insua, Hobs and Plessis) who have also played in the first team.

We do not have the luxury of buying seasoned and world class established internationals (Torres the exception, but he had not set the world alight before he came to us) so we have to relay on exciting young talent and give them time to adapt and gain experience. We have to be realistic in our assessment and expectations. This team will get better and better, stronger and stronger with time and experience. We have already filled in the gaps that where our weakness last year (wing backs). It was not the lack of gaols that fucked us but conceding the silly and odd goals that put us out of contention. The injury to Agger being a major contribution to this and it was not a coincidence that when Skertal arrived we went on a great run of results. The score draws, 3 at home (Chelsea not included that was a ref blunder) and the defeat against the Mancs when Benny Oinion (first year) did not clear the lines and Tevis scored from what should have been and off side position. Conceding goals from set pieces, again down to new combinations having to get used to each other in our zonal system.

What ever happens from here, with Barry, Deggen and Dossena coming in we are going to be that much better with settled combinations and less people to integrate and more people in their second year.

My intent in throwing in Wankers stats was to prove that Babel hasnt done too bad in his first season. Didnt think there was any other way to read that, but thought i’ll just clarify.

LB – Risse, when he is one on one with Pepe.

I’m a little mystified on the hatred for Arjen Robben. He dived, rolled around and got a player sent off? He’s hardly got the copyright for that act.

I must say I’m less bothered by a player’s personality than a lot of the lads in here. As long as he performs I’m happy with that. Within reason of course. Joey Barton and guys of this nature are a disgrace. However not every top talent can have a humble honest attitude like Torres.

LB, we dont need mercenaries… Romaldo wants to fuk off even tho he’s only just started a new contract… Anelka doesnt understand what loyalty means… If Rafa is going to build for today and tomorrow he doesnt need people that are going to disrupt our changing rooms, hell Crouch is our worst culprit and personally I’d like him gone!
As for the rest of our squad I’ve hardly heard a peep from them, apart from how they want to make that starting team…
I like how Rafa is after people of good character! If we cannot realistically throw blank checks at other clubs for their best players we need to find a team that works for each other… That is how I’m seeing Rafa construct our team…

Most players are mercanaries. We are lucky with Torres. Most top players want to play for the best teams and earn big money thats just how it goes. Only player that nearly left us in this situation during Rafa’s era was Gerrard and he only stayed because he is a scouser. When you have big players there is the chance that they might f**k off – it happend with Keegan, Souness, Ian Rush, Owen and Mcmanaman. That’s how it goes. If Rafa is only looking for characters who swear alleagance to the LFC cause for life then he will be signing mainly mediocre players.
We’ll know about the characters Rafa has signed when some big clubs put in offers for them. If Real put in a £25m bid for Masch next week don’t you think he’s head would turn?

Forget loyalty. When a player plays poorly he gets dropped or sold against his wishes. When he’s playing well and bigger clubs want him and offer more money he’ll more often than not want to leave. It goes both ways.

Looks like Riise is off http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/7461405.stm

I must admit I am enjoying the “Ronaldo Gate “ saga. You can just see Fungus spitting nails. I would love him to bench the wanker for the entire season then sell him.

Agreed Robin is a complete tosser and I would not like to see him at Anfield.

Behav I did not see your post until I posted, but it was not about your comment, it backs up what I said, but about the general censuses that the verdict is still out about Babbel and that people are not sure he is going to work out or make it. Again not everybody, but I was reacting to what some people feel and could not understand why they feel that.

Get Villa!! Sell, sell, sell and the book balances. PHEW!!

Sale:
Alonso: 14 mill
Crouch : 9 mill
Riise : 4.5 mill
Carson : 6 mill
Finnan : 4.5 mill
Peanut : 6 mill
Guthrie : 2 mill
Kewell : Free
Voronin : Free
Total 46

Buys:
Dossena : 7 mill
Degan : Free
Barry : 14 mill
Villa : 25mill
Total : 46 mill

Why buy Villa when we have Kuyt and Voronin?

This is Corriere dello Sport article that I found. Translated on babelfish. You’ll get the gist!

In English

ROME, 18 june – John Arne Riise has arrived to Rome. The player of the Liverpool, candidate to dress the mesh giallorossa in the next season, is disembarked – second how much has been learned – in morning all’ airport of Fiumicino with a flight of line from Oslo. Yesterday the Liverpool had given the free way to the Rome for dealing with l’ agent of terzino the Norwegian left. MEDICAL VISITS TO VILLA STUART – After a short visit to Trigoria, the Norwegian has headed to Stuart Villa in order to support the medical visits. To edge of a dark machine (with dark glasses), Riise was with to Tempestilli: the organizational director is accompanying giallorosso it in this first day in Happens them. Except dramatic turn of events, the soccer player will be between little hours ufficilamente a player of the Rome. For terzino the left of the Liverpool, disembarked in the morning in he happens them, speaks itself about four-year contract give approximately 1,8 million euro to season. SPALLETTI TO VILLA PACELLI – L’ trainer Luciano Spalletti accompanied from the Tamara wife, has been received this afternoon to Pacelli Villa from Rosella Senses where he has discussed about the future strategies with the leaders giallorossi. L’ encounter is lasted un’ and now average

Funny! I was looking at some of the comments on Corriere dello Sport under the article, and most
seem to feel that Riise is a great “acquisto”. They even have youtube links for goal clips and spell
out their dream team with JAR in it.

Just like we do when we get whiff of a new signing.

First of all, I’ve just reread what I wrote and I don’t see where I was ambiguous.

My analysis of Babel’s season was pretty accurate, but at no time did I suggest he crap. My issue was in regard others in here suggesting that if we played him all the time, up front with Torres as a 2nd striker all our woes would disappear.
Again, I’m not suggesting this isn’t a valid idea. If we tried it, it just might work… but… his performances so far only suggest it MIGHT, not that it WILL FOR SURE!
And so that there is no misunderstanding, I also think that it is more likely he will improve this season, than not.

Now LB…
“just before them you indicate that Pennant, Kuyt and Voronin showed more potential last season and therefore your more hopeful of them producing the goods next season? ”
I never said that, so let me clarify. What I said is that I’m largely unimpressed with Peanut, but that rather than trade him in for Milner or some other run of the mill player, I’d be willing to give him until January to see if he can pull his finger out of his arse.
Trading him in for Bentley… sure.
Trading him in for Milner????

I also didn’t say that Vorronin has more potential than Babel. What I said was that unlike some others who think he’s shite and should be shipped out sharpish like, that I’d also give him until January to see what he’s got to offer.
Some have already made up their minds about the guy. I was moderatey impressed with his pre-season last year and had high hopes for him, but after the first 3-4 games, he faded, got injured and never got back in the groove.
All I’m suggesting is that we give him until January.

And finally, Kuyt.
This guy sparks more deabate than most, it seems. Some have suggested he is complete shite and has little skill and no touch and only offers us huff and puff and I completely disagree with that assessment of him.
For sure he has been frustrating this season. At times the ball has bounced off him more regularly than it used to bounce off Heskey for fucks sake.
But if you look at his form in the final 4 weeks of the season, he was receiving 50 yard Stevie G. missile passes, on the friggin sideline, and trapping it dead with one touch, and then creating goals for the likes of Torres.
I think some also haven’t allowed for the mental trials he’s had to endure this seaosn. I personally sympathize with the lad here. It took me a year (and my wife would suggest at least 18 months) to really get over my Father’s death. Not all will understand that, as not everyone has that sort of tight daily relationship with their dad, but I get it and I get how it can affect your work and all other aspects of your life.
In short I think this past season was a rough one for Kuyt and based on what I saw from him in the final weeks and what I’ve seen so far in Euro 08, I expect him to surprise a lot of people next season.

I don’t expect everyone will agree with my assessment of Babel.
I don’t expect everyone will agree with giving Vorronin until January.
I don’t expect everyone will agree with my assessment of Kuyt.
And I don’t wanna sound to preachy, I just wanted to clarify my position.
(beats banging on about hopefully buying 40 million rated players?)

so riise is gone to roma. let me be the first to say that while i know his form has dipped in recent time, he has been one of my favorite LFC players during his tenure at the reds.

i think it is definitely his time to move on to pastures new, but for some reason i have a sinking feeling about losing him. he has a lot of experience, is strong in many aspects of the game, knows our defensive system well, and works like hell for the team. still, like i said, i think it’s his time to go. his goals have become a thing of the past and his man on man defensive ability has been questionable recently.

in the end, i have to wish all the best, John Arne. thanks for all the years of hard work you have given us. thanks for the 30 yard screamers. thanks for the tough tackles. thanks for the cross that led to our first in CL 05′. YNWA

My sentiments exactly alec_the_red! I hate losing him, but accept it at the same time. There were
good players I couldn’t give a toss about, such as Garcia, Barmby, Westerveld and Collymore. But JAR is different.

A player we should be after is Arshavin. He is just the type of link-player we have been missing for
years. He’s kinda like Dalglish, Beardsley and Mascherano in one. He made Russia come alive tonight.

have had a think about Villa and to be honest, im not confident he’d make a good EPL player. He’d get booted all over the shop. Unlike Torres he wouldn’t like it. You see him in La Liga when he gets kicked, he goes missing and you dont see him for the rest of the game.
Also he’s been very poor in the league this season. Had 3 good months at the end of season. At Christmass he’d scored a total of 6 goals and hadn’t scored in open play for months and months. He ended up with 18 in all competitons. Besides all that I’d be shocked if he left Spain.

Riise was always a player I had a bit of a soft spot for. But to be honest, I was surprised we didn’t sell him last summer and even more surprised we didn’t in january.
At his best he was awesome. But we haven’t seen him at his best for at least 2 seasons now, so it was really only a matter of time and unfortunately that time has come.
I hope he rediscovers his form and with more time and space on the ball in Serie A, lights the fucker up. (er… just as long as we don’t meet them in the CL of course!)

Good Luck Johnnie lad and Here’s to one of your 35 yard lightning bolts knocking Scum or the Chavs out of the CL!!

Also, RAWK says we dont get payment for Riise until 2010….another example of Stella negotiating by Rick Parry. Well done Rick, get back to licking windows you idiot.

Yup agree entirely Aitchy!

I’ll always remember his dead-ball thunderbolt against Chelski in ’06, knocking them out of the FA cup, classic!

I hope he does well in Serie A, hopefully he’ll get more time on the ball. I don’t see why he can’t re-capture his pat form, especially in much nicer climate!
Must say I think Roma have gotten themselves an absolute bargain, 4mill for a young, vastly experienced player is an excellent peice of business…
Can’t help but feel that he and Alonso have just been left behind by Rafa and the team. It’s obvious that both are still great players, they just no longer fit into our system and style of play- the game passes too fast for both of them…

cant believe that eh aussie! hardly pays for Dossena does it?

Well lads good luck to JAR, he was erratic and frustrating, while at times being brilliant, but most of all he was all heart and all LFC, good luck with your new team.
.
4 million, not bad for a player who could walk away on a bosman in January. Paying in installments, they all do that. Shows one thing though, we musn’t be as skint as people think if we are happy to take the money later.

a bit disappointing that Riise is much cheaper than Dossena. Riise: establishhed international, had been a regular for Liverpool, and played many CL games. and he cost only 4 million?

Ah well, better something than nothing, but still we could have asked for more if Roma wanted him. even possibly a swap with Mancini or Mexes.

Bit different playing for Norway then Italy though Hyde. Cant really compare the international football standard of the two. Riise wouldnt make the Italian squad either. And im sure Dossena would walk into the Norway squad.

That’s the frustrating thing about player valuations isn’t it?
One player’s supposed worth has no bearing on another player’s supposed worth.
Its all so arbitrary and overinflated and down to whatever can be negotiated at the time… wish I worked in such an industry.

We just have to hope that Dossena proves good and that Aurelio doesn’t become the next Harry Kewel.

aurelio didnt have nearly as much hype and ability as kewell did. so i doubt that will happen. but i know what you mean, regarding his injuries.

i wouldnt be surprised for us to get mancini now. remember with garcia going to atletico before we got torres…i bet it was discussed between the clubs. while he hasnt been linked with a move for a while (let alone to us), i could see it happening. he has very little left on a contract, and has refused an extension from roma.

i’m sure we put a first refusal in the riise deal for mancini…i think that would be great, especially considering that report saying he could come for as little as 4-5 million. seems impossible, but riise out for 4-5 and mancini in for 4-5 seems like it would be one hell of a deal.

ynwa

Hard not to dream bout that move Alec. Who knows who the hell is on his way here… Personally if Villa isn’t comming I’d like Bentley, oh and that’s assuming we’ve got Barry of course…
We need barry for left sided dead-ball play- especially as Riise is now gone! Bentley would solve our right sided dead ball problems as well…
I’m not saying that we couldn’t find a better player than Bentley, just that we do NEED more english players for our CL squad… Bentley and Barry offer us options to our squad, which is what Rafa desires…
Alonso can’t be far away either, I reckon 2 days after Spain crash out of the Euros he’ll announce his departure from Anfeild… I’m half expecting an Italian upset of Spain…
What a shame Rafa doesn’t have a warchest to play with this year… But then again it is probably forcing him to really refine his squad and re-focus liverpool… Sometimes less is more and I think a slight reduction of our squad coupled with upgrades in critical positions could well work wonders for us… Much will rest on Dossena’s ability to adjust as Arbeloa will take the right full back position… And who knows when Aurelio will break down… For me if dossena fails expect to see Barry move to LB (should we get him)…

Man its boring, thank goodness we start preseason very soon as the 1st of july will only confirm what we already know…
Does anyone know if the Gaffer has gone on holiday yet?
Surely that’ll give an indication as to where we are with our transfers…
I’d think that everything should be in such an advanced stage by now that he could squeeze a week or two on a nice sunny beach… He sure as hell needs a few Margarettas and some R and R after our shitty year last year…

Lads Good Morning!

One week away from the end of Euro. I guess most of our transfer targets would be finalized before the pre season starts.

I would like to ask one question to all of you. How much of a title winning squad Liverpool are going to have? Sadly i dont see much of a change. We have Degen(yet to prove his class in top flight football),Dossena(Based on one good season in Italian league which is not as fast paced as EPL). Barry might replace Alonso(I personally think that Alonso has lot to offer).
What benitez is trying to do is buy a player who can play both in midfield as well as a winger. Why not leave Barry and buy a world class winger? Why not give Alonso the chance to come back to his best(Remember he was injured for a large part last season & i hope all of u saw last night’s match against Greece)?

We need players who have the composure on the ball. We need big match players,ones who will rule the game even when they play at Old Traford.

Sorry to say this but with this transfers the core of team is not improving.We are buying and selling mediocre players.

My pick: Drop Barry bid if Aston Villa continues to throw tantrums and go for David Villa and Silva. both are excellent. Devid Bentley would be good on the right side and a straight swap for pennant(Milner) looks good.Thats it. We can become much better.

In a part answer to your question Somna- I’d rate us as the best direct-attacking team in the EPL. Torres and Gerrard attack the goal straight down the middle, which Chelsea cannot match, let alone Manure… So to a large extent we are extremely dangerous and is why we punch way above our weight in the CL… But that probably isn’t good enough to win the EPL as Counter-attacking is so well executed by all teams and is where we we’re nailed so many times last year!!!
My opinion is that hopefully our fullbacks start to provide overlapping runs and let Babel, kuyt and Benny Onion cut in and attack that goal. Gerrard is devasting as a supporting striker… Like I said before Dossena looks like he’s been given alot of trust already by Rafa selling Riise…
I hope Rafa ditches the 4-2-3-1 for a 4-1-4-1 as I think Mash can seriously handle the lone DM position by himself. Also I’d like Mash to push as far up as he can, allowing DAgger and Carra to pull our defensive line up as far as possible… I’m confidant that we can annilate most teams with our directness, only we’ve had far too many weak links in the past for Rafa to trust his back 4 and DM… Alonso never could dominate the feild in a defensive capacity, Mash can and competently play the ball..
The Dossena aquistion is going to be interesting as Aurelio is never going to nail down that RB position as he’s always getting himself injured… Rafa has a great track record with his defenders and Dossena could very well follow that trend…
So, for me we’ve got a dangerous, young and courageous team Somna… I’m sure we dealt a massive kidney blow to Arsenal last year and they aren’t about to forget the serious damage we did to them…
3rd place would be realistic next year, any higher would not surprise me as we have so many players that could explode and tear appart other teams (not including Torres and Gerrard)… Babel, Nemeth, SJ, Kuyt, DAgger, Mash, Lucas all have what seems like another level or two that they could ascend to- thus potentially terrifying to the opposition… Not to mention Plessis who looked impressive, almost regal in his debut against Arsenal, although I feel he’s too slow for the EPL…
I know we all look at other teams and feel cheated but we all know the work that Rafa has done is no where near completion and continual improvement has been a mainstay of his time at Anfeild… Expect progress next year…

its strange how last season alot of us (me included) expected us to compete for the title. Taking into consideration ALOT of new faces, not knowing if Torres would adapt to the EPL and being weak down the flanks this was probably unrealistic expectation. Coming into the new season, we have strengthened our squad somewhat and have addressed some issues, we know what Nando can do etc, so we are in a better position than we were this time last year. but this season everyone seems to be abit more realistic in knowing that in all probability we will be competing for 3rd or 4th again this season.
hopefully this takes abit of pressure of the lads so they can perform at their best.

Did anyone see Alonso last night against the greeks? I know they had nothing to play for but some of his shooting was awesome, I’d forgotten that about him, nearly scored from inside his own half again. If we don’t get Barry then keep alonso and the fifteen million could go towards villa. I don’t buy the thought that we need out and out wingers. I think a team needs pace, itelligence and movement. The attacking players need to know when to give width but the front line for me should be all about skill, fluidity, pace and intelligent movement.

and of course goals, goals and more goals.

JAR was an excellent player for 5 years or so, but his performance levels droped hugely last season.
We are getting 4m, which is pretty good considering the season he has just had.

well he cost us a few quid for the own goal against the chavs but i also have some very happy memories ie; screamers against manure and the chavs. keep alonso!! put the money for barry towards silva/villa/ or an other class player.

YNWAlancey :

I agree with you on almost everything you said.But whatever u said is on paper. We didnt get the result we wanted to. I too agree with you tht this spine is as good (if nt better)as the other big teams. But think about a Silva on the left side and bentley on the right side in addition to Dossena,Deggen. That would make us even more dangerous and David Villa would be the final piece in the EPL jigsaw. But even if we dont get Villa(which is certain as per the newspaper reports) i would like us to have better supporting striker than Crouch or Voronin. Coz without Torres we are no where upfront.

Someone like Santa Cruz or a Saha perhaps.. i mean someone who is ready to sit on bench and at the same time effective enough when called. Same goes with Milner thing..i think as a squad player he will be better than peanut.

Kenny I came on here to say the same thing about Alonso – the match against Greece was just a reminder of the sheer CLASS he has. I know it was “only” Greece, but Alonso had his old swagger back and did as he pleased most of the game. We lose Alonso, and to me we lose our composure on the ball. Masch hasn’t really got it, SG doesn’t, Barry has a little bit but he’ll be surrounded by players he doesn’t even know.

I guess the flip side is that maybe his performance against Greece will make Juve willing to pay a bit more for him, if he must go.

What about Obafami Martins as a squad player?? has a pretty shit first touch i’ll admit, but isnt too bad a striker at all. seems to have a good attitude and provides some flare. He definately knows where the goal is. no one has been linked with him recently either. I reckon with Toon tightening the purse strings, we could get him on the cheap. reckon we could get him for 7-8 million.

Am sure he isnt on the radar at all, but its fun to play virtual manager.

Id be interested to hear what people have to say about my previous comments about Villa not making it in the EPL, hiding when he gets kicked and having a shite season??

Donal – loved the Ronnie Johns/Chopper “harden the fuck up” link. that bloke cracks me up. Ive been watching those things for about 18 months now. i never get bored of them.

And Andy, wouldnt it be nice to tell MON to jam Gareth Barry and his 20 million up his arse. then watch barry with a serious dose of the shits that he has been priced out of “a dream move” buy out his contract in a years time and MON loses an extra 8-10 million on the deal.

as per every other one of my comments – KEEP XABI!
I’d rather Bentley than Barry.

p.s. forget all my previous comments on Mario Gomez being the next big thing. ABSOLUTE MUCK!!!!!!

Thanks Aussie

I was waiting for someone to comment on it-I know chopper but never seen this guy and thought it’s a funny distraction in these seriously boring times.

I’ve even upgraded my Fantasy Team and am ready for the final furlong.

As for Villa I haven’t followed him in Spain but remember Torres only got 14 goals there last season.
If you’ve seen him and think he shy’s away from the hard tackle then fair enough but he always seems committed and pretty tough to me.

The one thing about Alonso is that he really doesn’t want to leave Liverpool and as always I like his Class (but he needs to step-up more often)

Over and out

Check out the Chopper one where he does the art auction Donal. its fucking cracker!!! where he reads the weather aint bad either.

not talking about Villa’s goal average so much as how he hides when kicked. Torres is as tough as coffin nails…Villa isnt. Playing in spain is a walk in the park compared to having the likes of Sobbing Jill Terry and Rio sniff, snort ferdinand kicking lumps out of you week in week out.

Donal, your muck savages need to lift their game a bit. Hope you’ve drafter Guus Hiddink in as your manager, you’re gonna need him!

I’m gonna be pretty pissed if we end up spending more on Barry then we get for Alonso. Barry wouldn’t even make the Spanish squad, and that includes even if the Spanish squad played in the EPL!

How much of a joke is our negotiating power, by Coco the Clown. Held to ransom on Barry and selling a highly-regarded left-back for 4m quid. Parry needs to harden the fuck up alright.

Aitch – regarding your comment #226, well explained. Its all fair enough really.

Regarding Kuyt, we’ll just have to see how he gets on next season.

The first thing people need to remember with Riise’s valuation is that he could sign a pre-contract for another club in January for absolutely free! This affects value a lot. We should have sold Riise last summer really. We probably would have had we signed Heinze.

I’m not sorry to see Riise leave but I do thank him for the great memories of some wonderful goals and assists down the years! His defending has never neem strong, I believe he’s always been the weak link in our defense. Gets caught out of position a lot and plays other attackers on side a lot as well. However going forward he was fantastic. Sadly though even his attacking play has gone down hill in the last 18 months or so. Good luck to him at Roma, wouldn’t surprise me if the move gave him a lift. I hope so coz I like the lad, have even spoken to him briefly in a night club and he’s very down to earth and just one of the lads really.

Regarding Alonso’s performance against Greece. I didn’t see it but from what I’ve read he played very well. However consider the opposition. Greece. And a dejected Greece who were already out of the tournament. I think when Alonso has time and space on the ball he is a great player. But in the last couple of seasons he’s been denied that space and has struggled. Against Arsenal at Anfield in the CL while Flamini was on the field we couldn’t keep the ball for love nor money. Flamini went off injured and the pedestrian Gilberto took his place and that’s when Alonso began to pull the strings.

I agree though that replacing Alonso shouldn’t be priority at all. Wingers/creative midfield players or a striker is what we need. Most of us agree on that. God knows if we’ll get any.

I’d rather we keep Alonso and buy Bentley than go all out to get Barry. Pennant plus cash. Tell Aston Villa to do one!

Question – why has Dossena not officially signed yet?

Spot on lancy in 242.

Agreed LB, yes Alonso had a great game last night, but he always does when he gets time on the ball. The problem is that in the Prem he does not get that sort of time. That is why his best’s performances come in Europe where the tempo is slow and he can dictate and measure his passes. In the prem everybody is up and at you all the time and he doesn’t get the time he thrives under.

It is so slow and boring at the moment and I am so tired of all the speculation of who is and who isn’t coming to Liverpool. I would also like to wish JAR well with his move to Roma, decent player but the time is right to move on. I cannot wait for the preseason to start and the transfer window to close so all this speculation can stop.

Get David Villa, I say, only at Stg25 million, not Stg 30 million or more:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/06/19/sfnvil219.xml

I see some people saying that Xabi Alonso performed agaisnt a uninspired Greece. So what? He was afterall playing an international match.

And i have also heard people talking about good business by selling Alonso before his valuation goes down.

Gimme a break. We are talking about Xabi Alonso. Rafa Benitez’s liverpool has some players who are the corner stones. Xabi is one of them. Do u think of making profit by selling Gerrard,Torres,Carragher? No coz they are your hearbeat. They are the ones who will inspire others to win. They are ones who will make others feel what it means to play for Liverpool.
So there is no question of profit by selling our hearbeats. And talking about Alonso’s form..i can tell u all this is bullshit and Xabi Alonso is very much in his best form.
Gareth Barry is more work man like but sadly we need players with that magic touch,with that extra bit of winning important matches..someone who can intimidate others..Gareth Barry is not one of them. We have Macha,Gerrard who are on the same bracket.

Please Rafa think again and bring the charismatic players!!

Somnath, I am not too sure what you have seen over the last two years but Alonso has struggled to dominate in the Prem or come anywhere near the form he shows in Europe or the first 2 years he was with us. Most of the Prem managers have worked out how to stop him dominating, by not giving him time on the ball. Rafa clearly has identified this as one of our weaknesses when it come to the Prem and has or is trying to rectify it by bringing in Barry. I personally agree with him but that aside I think Rafa knows a bit more then us so called armchair experts so even if I did not agree I would back his judgement over mine or anybody else’s for that matter.

I would not even go as far as to call it a weakness, lets rather call it an upgrade in terms of what is needed by Liverpool to compete as Rafa has done throughout the time he has been with us, slowly but surely upgrading each position year in, year out within his means.

We would all love the so called charismatic players (not too sure if that is the right description, also not too sure why Barry, Captain of Villa and an English international does not fall into this category) but it all goes about the budget Rafa has too spend. We would all love the idea of us chasing the Villa’s, Messi’s and Kakka’s of this world but when you can only have the Milner’s of this world budget you have a problem.

Sorry mates, I am still for Barry. At Stg 15 million or so, not 20 million. He is versatile, can pass, tackle, shoot, behaves himself, is a team player, can lead and is a class player.

LB – you will surely agree that Xabi was fantastic when he first arrived. Now you, among others, are saying he is too slow for the Premiership. Tell, which of the following do you think is true then?

1. The Premiership has gotten faster and he can’t keep up.
2. Xabi has gotten slower
3. He had 2 injury-ridden seasons, lost form and game-awareness, which makes him look slow.
4. He played above himself in the first few seasons and is now settled to his true form.

It’s clear which I think is true – #3. He isn’t any slower. He lost some form, but largely due to injuries (and outside of injuries, every player has dips in form). Every out-of-form player looks slow; but Alonso more so because it isn’t his style of play to rush things. It’s also fair to say that almost every player loses form when injured. So why so harsh on Alonso? Do you honestly think that #1, 2 or 4 above are true?

Keith, looks like I’m talking to you in my last comment too!

I agree with you Andy and if the villa are not prepared to do business at a sensible price then tell them thanks but no thanks and keep Xabi. Spend the money on a wide midfielder or on Arshavin he looked class and has done every time I’ve seen him play. However Xabi needs to recapture his form. I also agree it’s no surprise we came into form when he came back into the team.

if Rafa wants Barry and we can get him for a decent price then we don’t need barry and alonso it makes sense to sell him.

Agreed Somna, however that sounds like what Kuyt is currently doing… He’s doing the hard work and is always there to give it his all whether on the bench or on the feild…. Hopefully he continues his current form into the next season… I’m happy with him in our long term plans…
It will be interesting what Rafa goes for in his wingers over the next few years, width and crosses (ala Petrov fron ManCs) or direct, goal attacking wingers like Babel…
We do have a great draw for the up comming season…

Sorry Kenny and Andy, I’m of the firm opinion that Alonso just no longer fits into our style of play anymore… He obviously does not combine with Mash as Mash just takes over the mid-feild and Alonso isn’t agile enough to push further up the feild… He just no-longer fits our team anymore…
However, I do think he’s a class player and is going to be an absolute bargain for any team that buys him for less than 18-20mill…
It’s a shame we couldn’t swap for the likes of Robinho…

Andy I still think Alonso is a class player, if you remember correctly in his first year he dominated in Europe, especially when SG was band for the game against Juve. However he also had average players around him so in terms of a Liverpool side he stood out. Sissoko was the terrier, but had two left feet and as good as he was at breaking up the play he was equally bad at distribution. There was no Agger to carry the ball out from the back etc. So yes Alonso was the fulcrum of the team, even more so with SG wide right. With the team evolving and getting stronger in every position so Alonso has fallen back into the pack or norm for want of a better word. Masch is as much a terrier as Sissoko but can also play and pass the ball decently (getting better all the time) there is also Lucas who has vision and great ability. With Gerrard being given the more central attacking role, (it is his vision and passing that has become the fulcrum of our attack) suiting our style of play and getting the best out of Torres, Alonso influence on games has diminished. Not because he has become a bad player, but because we have evolved as a team, getting quicker and quicker on the break and relying on fast movement off the ball. This does not suit, or maybe a better word does not play to Alonso strengths. Defensively he gets caught out because of his lack of pace. Taking everything into account Rafa has decided that Barry would give us a better return, faster, more attack mined and importantly left footed and versatile in terms of positional play. You could not see Alonso playing wide anywhere or fill in at the back because of his speed limitations. For me Barry is the sensible choice as we evolve as a team and play to our strengths.

YNWA, how can you say that when we went on a great run of games towards the end of the year, with Masch alongside the returning Alonso in the midfield? Do you think it was a coincidence, or that we were winning in spite of Alonso’s presence rather than because of it in any way?

err, lads, I thought we covered the Alonso-Barry debate !!!
You know my answers.
1) I want and think we need both.
2) Would rather keep Alonso and use whatever money to buy wingers.
3) However,since we do not seem to have the money without selling someone with value, would just about accept the idea of selling Alonso as long as the money is used wisely on wingers.
4) Would only accept the buying of Barry at 15 million max.

To change the perspective of the issue, if we end up in a situation where the Alonso sale is done first, and wanker MON insists on 20 million, do you know who I would really want?
Tom Huddlestone. He is one hell of a player. Bloody hell, if he keeps on improving at this rate and does not go back to his laziness, he will probably be the best English holding midfielder. God, I like him.
Massive guy with a devastating shot exactly imaginable from his stature, but intelligent, and with such a soft touch and good pass. He has so much power that he doesn’t really need to “kick” the ball to make side changing balls. Damn, he’s amazing. I think we can get him for less than barry, so I would actually go for him if we had to sell Alonso. Some may think he is slow, but it doesn’t really matter because he has a good positional awareness.

Andy mate, Alonso had 2 injuries last season I’ll give you that but the previous season: 2006-07 he made 32 league appearances. That’s hardly an injury ravaged campaign (considering his first season he made 24 PL appearances thanks to Fat Lampard). In the 2006-07 particular season he was very dissapointing. That said I maybe the injuries have taken a toll on him. The cunt Lampard broke his leg, and he then broke the same foot twice. The game certainly isn’t getting any slower but I don’t think the pace has increased that much.

I think other teams have realised that its Alonso that often makes us tick while Gerrard is in more advanced positions, they then put Xabi under a lot of pressure not allowing him time on the ball. In 2005-06 teams tried to do this but Alonso would ride tackles, get away from the opposition player and play a good pass quickly, spin away receive it again and play another first time pass. Now he seems less mobile, can’t escape the opposing player, dwells on the ball and then sometimes gives it away or is muscled off the ball. I dont know if the mentioned injuries have made him less mobile or if its a lack of confidence but for too long now he’s been performing under par. How much time do you give a player to rediscover his form?

I dont agree that Masch is more dominant or that Alonso no longer suits our style of play. The Alonso of 2004-2006 would be fucking ideal right now. The Alonso of 2 years ago is a better player than Mascherano is right now. But that is talking in past tense. Rafa can’t watch DVDs of the 2004-5 season and hope Xabi comes good. He will be watching him in training every day and make a decision as to whether or not he’ll ever be that player again. It looks as if Rafa’s made up his mind on that one.

As for Barry – he makes Villa tick, everything goes through him, he’s their leader and takes most of the set pieces. You can’t blame Villa for trying to get as much money as they possibly can get for him. We wouldn’t sell Gerrard or Torres for a reasonable price would we? Even if they asked for a transfer.

LB I did not say more dominant than Alonso, I was comparing him to Sissoko and how the team is evolving and getting better as each position gets upgraded.

Lancy I have become very philosophical about who Rafa will bring in. We have been linked to just about everybody, at this stage it would be easier to list the players we have not been linked to. I see another one has just popped up, Olic, the Croatian left footed striker, wide player. Again we were linked to Reira and had reportedly put in a bid but to be told we have to up it to 16mill if we want him. Reports know say that a bid for 7 mill has just been lodged but it was not LFC. I think 99.9% of the reports are all a pile of crap. I can see Rafa going for Milner, young up and coming, but he won’t pay 9 mill for him. 5 – 7Mill or a Peanut swap yes. By us offering all types of swap deals shows that Rafa has fuck all to play with. Lets hope he can unearth a Petrov type player that can be an upgrade on Peanut or Kewel.

The more I think about it the more pissed off I get about Kewel. If only we had the fit and motivated Kewel with a spine that played for Leeds, we would be looking pretty good right know, instead of the 4 years of total apathy we put up with or as he put it, the 4 year break will help me prolong my career attitude.

I still think a Lennon or SWP type wide player for the right price would be worth a gamble, but I cannot see Chelsea selling to us firstly and Ramos would be crazy to let Lennon go. I also see those initial reports saying that he was surplus to requirements have gone away. Our fast counter attacking style would suite these types of players. That is why I cannot get excited about Bentley.

For me its simple. The lad is no longer the player he was. Masch can’t control a game and as stupid as it sounds neither can Gerrard. Dont get me wrong Gerrard can grab the game by the scruff of the neck with his direct and penetrative play. However a team needs someone to make every thing tick with short give and go passes long and short, its how you keep the team moving, move the other team around and how you dominate possession. Scholes does it for the mancs, Lampard for the chavs, Fabregas for Arsenal. Alonso used to do it as well as if not better than these but not any more. Not for a while. Rafa has identified Barry to do this job in my opinion.

Bentley although not quick is very good with the ball, and we need this type of player. We dont have enough players that are good with the ball at their feet. Too many players who run up blind alleys. Babel direct with pace on one side, Bentley with guile on the other side and Torres in the middle who has both would be good. Unless we can find a player good on the ball who is also quick that falls within out budget.

How good is Petrov in general play? My memories of him are when Man City catch a team on the break and he is running away from the play. How would he be when Middlesbrough have 11 men behind the ball at Anfield?

I completely agree with you LB, the only difference being i still think Alonso should be given one more year.
In the sense you mention, Petrov cannot be relied upon, LB. He is not as intelligent as Stoickov. He is good when he has another maestro near him, aka Elano.
If you are looking for guile, then (although I am against his buying) Kranjcar could be for you. He is a good controller of the game, and has the “guile” you talk about. Iniesta and Xavi are also brill but, we can’t afford them!

Again, I personally think Huddlestone could turn out to be that player.

Hyde, for me Huddlestone is not mobile enough and is too ponderous. I wouldn’t rate him higher than Lucas right now so buying him would be pointless in my opinion. You are right about Iniesta and Xabi, I also used to like Ivan Dela Pena. He was class a few years ago. Deco does this as well but he can also dribble.

There is something about Kranjcar I don’t like. He takes too long to decide what he is going to do with the ball. Keeps it far too long and seems to want to look stylish all the time. He’s a bit too deliberate. I like players that do it quicker. Get it, give it, spin off, get it back, pass long or short, protect the ball like a drunk protects his whisky. You can’t get near players like Scholes and Fabregas when they are on top form. Remember Fabregas at Anfield in the league match? I was drooling!

Next time you watch Croatia compare Modric with Krancjar and you’ll see exatcly what I’m talking about.

Portugal out.I love it.Winkers face is priceless!

Gutted, I wanted Portugal to beat the Germans. They played some lovely football but if you can’t defend a basic freekick forget it.
Boswingwa is great going forward, not sure about his defending though.

Germany must be the luckiest team in the history of international football.

i must say that i really like bastian sweinsteiger. i’ve been following him for like 3-4 years…i would love to see him in a red shirt. big, strong, quick, good passing, great shot. he can also play many positions: wide right, centrally…i remember in the 06′ world cup when he played on the left side of midfield, even. i cant see bayern selling him though…

oh well. i’ll just keep buying him on my LFC pro evolution soccer game, as i have for the last 4 video games.

Liked ur comments there LB…

Andy mate, firstly im going to say that I do think Alonso is class and that he’s an absolute bargain should Juve sneer him for 14-15mill….
But I feel our good run had next to nothing to do with him. I remember always yelling at the tele for him to a) stop bloody backtracking b) Loittering on the ball c)no movement with the ball, leading to rash and wasteful passes (i’d harzard a guess that he had very few assists last season) d) Mash cleaning up defensively on his side of the feild (granted it is a team sport)… Although he wasn’t that bad he was
far from the heights we’ve come to expect from him…
As for the run? Kuyt in my books gets a huge amount of Kudos… Rafa’s Formation takes a good porportion as does Gerrard’s and Torres’ continual combination… Skrtyl and Hypiia also performed at LEAST a level or two above what we’d expected from them… And Babel was being used with more effect by Rafa… Also remember Lucas’ role in that 1-2 with Gerrard for what was one of better goals of the season…
I’m sorry but Alonso in my opinion hardly warrants any mention for any of our games last year (unless you’re thinking of Barnsley- which MAYBE unfair), granted he had an injury ravaneged season…
But just to reiterate I think he’s in the same boat as Riise, hugely valuable to many teams and WILL flourish in any other league in the world… And yes I’ll miss him as he always shows flashes of absolute brilliance, but I want our team to succeed not grasp at the past…
Hmmm, LB I think you’re onto something there about not having that Fabregas type of player- someone to constantly channel everything through…. Obviously I don’t see Alonso as being able to carry out that function any more… And I don’t see Rafa targeting that untill Stevie and Barry are close to moving on….
But I’m not convinced that isn’t what suits us at the moment, fast, powerful of the ball runs seems to get us ticking not build up play… Shots on target play into SG’s element of one time strikes from bad clearances… The question for me is whether Rafa has a team now that he can trust and play a more open formation on a more regular basis…
I do take the point about transfer talk being pretty pointless, but the way I see it is that it helps to try and see what options Rafa will be looking towards for next season… His first priority was clearly fullbacks. The next was/is barry. then the third stage is/was to sell off to pay for the aquistions… The question everyone has really been asking by talking so much about Villa AND Bentley is which of the two positions does Rafa see as critical to making an immediate impact on our squad…
It looks as though he’s almost completed his off season work, I’m hoping like hell it’s done the trick!!! I for one cannot wait to Smash the Cats to kingdom cum!!!

Sorry LB cannot agree with you on Portugal.
I don’t want the Germans to win the Euro’s,
But I am overjoyed that Pricks like Ronaldo and Carvalho will not be in the Finals .

The Team that’s playing Lovely Football right now are the Dutch.
I am Hoping that Either the Dutch or the Spanish Teams win the Euro’s.
It would be nice too see some of our lads come back to Anfield with a Winners Medal.

Hi guys, I was just reading an article on the times website which contained a player I think would be a good target for us as a winger/striker. According to the site Javier Saviola has only played 11 games for Real Madrid in 2 years as the manager doesn’t like him, and there’s talk of him going to Newcastle. Surely he’d fit in with a fellow Argie like Masch and with the Spanish players and staff around him. He’s still only 26 so could have a long career ahead for us…depends how much he likes our winters though. What do you think?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/european_football/article4116568.ece

FFZ lads if we are hoping for guys like Milner and Huddlestone, then we will be in a constant battle with the bitters for 6-7 spot.
.
Huddlestone is horrendous, he is not even first choice at spurs. WTF. Thank goodness Rafa’s buying the players.

Lads no doubt you’ve read or heard the latest Gilette interview on Canadian Radio, last night. Really didn’t say much but did make some interesting comments. Those being him and Hicks are back communicating and things have picked up.
.
Also asked whether the club is still up for sale, he said he couldm’t make a comment. He also said they were committed to Rafa in the latest transfer market.
.
Now I know we all look at different comments but was it not DIC who said they would pull out of negotiations until both parties were communicating again.
.
So are we or are we not, well he didn’t say no and that’s a 1 word answer.

Lads, calm down, I was just pinpointing english guys cos for some strange reason, barry seems to be the first choice to replace Alonso! and gaz, Huddlestone WAS horrendous but was superb this season once Ramos took over. Look again at this season’s tottenham and you’ll see. He’s not mobile but that’s just not his playing style.

LB, I too don’t rate Kranjcar that high, but he does have guile. I know what you mean though about the type of player you are thinking about, and in that sense, I don’t think Barry is that quick either. I hate his guts and his not exceptional, but Anderson at Manure is also a bit like that as well.