Really quite disappointed with this blog. You seem to be letting oyur emotions get the better of you Ged… did you just buy a Standard Chartered shirt with Mascher’s nameon it or something?

Someone posted this at the end of the last blog…
…perhaps now, even more important for people to read it…
http://www.anfieldroad.com/news/201008283944/mascherano-paying-the-price-for-happiness.html/

As with everything at LFC these days…
…there is far more to this deal than meets the eye…
…or we are being told.

…Ball…. bouncing…

Not your finest piece Gerry. You picked the easy target in Masch and skipped over a whole host of other issues. No comment on Roys formation, Nemeth, Aquaman, Insua, Dal la Valle etc

Masch gave it 100% every time he put on the red jersey, sometimes to0 much passion, but I would rather have that then the sulks. Yes his form did dip at the beginning of last year but that was the only time and few other big names had longer periods of no shows.

I think he deserves our respect for all the effort he out in and as the article mentions what is put out for public consumption is not always 100% accurate. He has always maintain he loved playing for Liverpool and was moving for family reasons and I can accept that and respect it.

I wish him well and we will miss him in the big games he is still one of the best holding midfielders in the world.

If the report on Anfield road is correct, then I think the worrying thing is that Roy Hodgson is either helping the misinformation that is being leaked out at the very least not putting the record straight.

I’m told that Jim Boardman is a reliable source, could anyone enlighten me one way or the other

Gerry, got to agree with Aitch and Keith, i would wait for the man himself to explain his departure preferably to some tabloid like the Liverpool Echo,
Ian StJohn is reported as calling the man a little dog, now if you read it proper-like he say,s he was like a little dog going in and biting ankles and mainly winning tackles like a terrier, but as usual comments are bent to suit the agenda, (FSism) the only concern i personally have is if Masch really refused to play against city because as has been said before, NO ONE would or should refuse to pull on the red of LFC, but what has also been said before is that the man for most of his LFC career he gave 110%, so pardon the pun but i think we should let sleeping dog’s lie.
3-0 for the boy’s today.
YNWA.

Aitch it was me who posted that link and like the stupid twat that I am, I have been posting there in the blissful ignorance that there was another blog.

I have to agree with the lads, you’re being a bit too harsh on the Mascher fella. He really only underperofrmed at the start of last season, when the argies were struggling to qualify for the WC. On top of this his wife has spent most of her time back in Argentina.

Anyway, here’s another interesting article from Jim Boardman.

http://www.anfieldroad.com/news/201008293949/11-5m-raul-meireles-signs-for-reds.html/

Like 5year, I would like to know what people think about him as a reliable source, or not, as the case maybe.

Any home-win will do for me today.

I would just like to add one more thing in defensive of Masch, he wanted to leave last year and Rafa talked him out of it. His wife was living most of the time in Argentina so it could not have been easy for him, everyone conveniently forget his commitment then. Rafa was also negotiating an increase from the 30 grand he was on. They nailed Rafa, offered him nothing (yes speculation but I cannot see them increasing his package out of the kindness of their hearts) If I was in Masch’s shoes, Rafa, the one he owed a debt of gratitude to was axed in the worst possible circumstances so what loyalty did the club show to him or those that served it. He has always said he loved the fans and playing for them, but if I was him I would have opted for the move and a better family life as well. The reports say that Roy said he was not in the right frame of mind to play against City not that he refused to play. We all know how things get twisted by the press and powers that be, the truth will come out.

fantastic ball winner and all round dogs-body every good team needs one and barca have got one of the best their is, they are gonna be amazing this year. but the game masher plays can be done by anyone with enough heart, energy and determination he was never a creative force so stick lucas or poulson in there and lets move on.
3-0 to the redmen and a lovely nando hat-trick to kick start the season.;-)

guinnessdrinker

Mascherano has also established himself as possibly the finest tackler in world football. Breaking up play with the kind of precision Masch does is a rare skill and there is absolutely no doubt we will miss him.

Meireles does have very similar strengths to his game and from what I’ve seen of him he looks like a quality player. We can’t be sure how fast he’ll adapt to the Premier League however. Even so, one have to credit whoever is responsible for sealing that deal so quickly after it was confirmed Masch was off to Barcelona.

There seem to be some kind of agreement in the media that Mascherano refused to play against Man City and should be condemned for it. It all appears to have been based on an unfounded rumour. As long as it’s not confirmed what exactly went on, I really don’t want a great player like Mascherano to be remembered as a traitor who refused to play when called upon.

As long as there is no strong evidence for that, I will remember him as one of the most talented players to have been brought to the club and man-managed to greatness by Rafa Benítez under his era.

Regarding today’s game, I really don’t expect much in terms of domination and convincing attack, but a three point would make me very happy no matter how we get them.

Monster is one of the best holding midfielders in the world. When he was in the middle of the park with Alonso and Gerrard in front it was one of the best combinations in the world. Shame he is gone. Hopefully he will be remembed as a player who gave his all when he put on the red top. Don’t believe the media about him refusing to play, not one bit. No matter how much I got payed family would always come first especially not being able to spend time with a new born child.

Anyone know if there is a reason (injury, ebola virus, whatever) why Aurelio or Insua are not on the bench?

Lurgan

There has been no reports regarding that as far as I know. Accoring to this source Liverpool have zero injuries:

http://www.physioroom.com/news/english_premier_league/epl_injury_table.php

Aurélio was on the bench against Man City, but not against Trabzonspur. Presumably he isn’t fully fit for some reason.

Insúa however, has been frozen out of the team since turning down Fiorentina, hasn’t he?

Question: When was the last time Gerrard put in a man of the match, or even a really good performance for Liverpool? He’s nowhere near is best at the moment.

Haven’t commented in ages. Being suffering from a bout of depression from my fiancé buggering off, shocking WC display from England, the spanking from Man City, the lack of investment, no new owners and what appears to be another flat performance against West Brom with only 3 shots to show for. Anyway let’s hope Torres has his shooting boots on for the 2nd half. Very happy we got Meireles who is quality.

Oh and of course devastated that Rafa left our Club. I don’t think we would have lost 3-0 against Man City, starting Agger at left back or lined up with a 4-4-2. May have avoided some of those openings with zonal marking…

YESSSS!!! You beauty!

Great goal – awful performance – West Brom can feel extremely hard done by. But I suppose the positives are that we got the 3 points and kept a clean sheet. I really think Meireles and yes even Konchesky will great improve us – that and having Joe Cole back.

Onwards and upwards!

Didnt see the game. What was the goal like? Was the performance shite? I didnt have much hope for a big score when I saw Poulsen and Lucas midfield and Agger at left back yet again. I hope signing Konchesky means Agger going to centre back.

Our first league win under Roy.

The deabte about Masch leaving, and the reasons for/surrounding his departure…
… is a seperate debate from … how we now cope.

It strikes me that with a player the calibre of Miereles coming in (shock of shocks though that may be) we’ll do alright…

… but you gotta love the fuckin revisionist history of a statement like…
“but the game masher plays can be done by anyone with enough heart, energy and determination he was never a creative force so stick lucas or poulson in there and lets move on.”

What concerns me about the Masch saga… is that statements seemingly attributed to Roy, first say one thing, then say something completely different.

This is a worrying trend, over the last month with Roy making unneccesary statements like “I spoke to the Inter president and they won’t bid on any of our players” and the very next day the Inter president saying that conversation never happened and a bid being faxed in.

Roy reportedly said he totally understood Mascher’s position and left him out of the team, then 2 days later he’s reportedly bollocking him for refusing to play.

I hope its all media bollocks, abd he’s being misquoted or fabricated, coz that’s just not on.

as for Masch…
I suggest you all try living 6000 miles away from your wife and child for 18 months… most of you wouldn’t last 18 days.

Believe me I get the whole, “he should just be happy to play for LFC” thing, I really do.
Masch was a personal fave in the squad…
… but there’s more to life than that.

If Miereles settles early, then this is actually the one signing this summer, that we can truly say is a positive step forward

Well Aitch, KeithSA etc this would be a very dull place if we always agreed with each other. I don’t read tabloids, so let’s just say that what I’ve been told and what you’ve read are obviously two completely different things. But what I would say to you is don’t believe everything you read, even if it does happen to support your point of view because PR people make a lot of money in the world of football and they work for players as well as clubs. I could say an awful lot more about this but let’s leave it at that.
Masch was a great player for us when his head was screwed on and if you chose to remember him that way, that’s great.

LB remember how angry gay taught us that alonso and maschareno starting was a defensive strategy by rafa. and how that was happily gobbled up as common wisodm by our supporters. only if they knew 2 years down the road we would have been looking at lucas and poulsen starting. i really hope this is only till cole is back.

will take any points we get this season with gratitude.

Gerry, firstly glad you came out with a new blog. It has been too long overdue already with so many hundred comments and obviously needing a new one.
Did not see the West Brom game but read that we played badly in our own backyard. Great that Torres scored as he slowly but surely come into full fitness. Cheers!

Super stuff Gerry,

I completely understand the situation Masch was in.He had his mind made up and to be fair to him,he plugged away in training and his performance against Arsenal showed his commitment while on the field of play.

However,none of us know the complete truth of the matter.

Did he,after a official bid came in over the weekend,and was subsequently knocked back,spit his dummy anf refuse to play?

…or

Did Roy,after the bid,realise the deal was close to beig done,fear Mascherano`s head was already on the plane to Barcelona,and refusede to put him in the squad.

Nobody knows,one thing is for certain,Roy has made out it was Mascherano`s decision not to play,going by the quotes in the article above.

If it is true and Masch refused to wear the red shirt,then i`d have lost some respect for him.

On the other hand if it was Roy who made the decision,then i thought he owed it to the fans to tell them exactly whats going on.

Either way,i`ll reserve jugdement on the matter until the truth is reveiled.

Didn`t see the game today so i can`t comment.

A clean sheet and three points,how bad eh..

In as far as judging Roy I think we should give him at least until the turn of the year.

We have lost a few players and gained a few and we need time for the team to evolve and new players to bed in.

If we manage to add another striker to our squad we will have 2 players for all positions.

I think the addition off another forward is crucial to our short term prospects as that was what we lacked last season when Torres was out we really flatlined in attack
I say short term because we all have to realise
that we cannot pay top dollar for players with our finances the way they are at present.

So maybe we have to give Harrods a swerve and shop at Waitrose for a while.

It is easy to denigrate new signings as not good enough but with the money available what do you want roy to do if money was no object I suspect the targets would be different.

If we all had a choice.Would you buy a Ford Focus ? or a Bentley Mulsanne saloon you have to cut your cloth accordingly.

This will only change when a new benefactor is found until then we are where we are.

Hopefully all the new signings will hit the floor running and we can race up the table.

Fundamentally we need to improve offensively and score more.

FS mentioned a couple of blogs ago what Joe Cole said about when he was at Chelsea they would always be confident of battering the smaller teams

And when they played the better teams they knew they would have to scrap for the points.

This seems a very simple strategy but we seem to treat all teams the same.

I think we need to go for the throat for the full 90 mins against the minnows and be confident that we’ll outscore them

YNWA

I say until Christmas but the reality liverpool like all top clubs are only as good as there last game in the eyes of the media.

Who some fans remarkably seem too rely on to tell them what there opinions should be.

Benjamin Franklin once said

“Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
Sound advice at present

YNWA

I saw the match today.
Very happy to take the win and see Torres score. The goal was created from a counter attack and was reminiscent of some of the goals during the 2008-2009 season Reina was the creator who threw a long ball to Kuyt and from there on swift couple of passes between Kuyt and Torres before Kuyt lays onto Torres who finishes in style.
West Brom were good value for a draw and played really well.
Our overall play wasnt great and we didnt create a lot but should improve with Raul Meireles addition. I didn’t watch any portugal games in the wc so I wouldnt know but based on the general excitement I am basing my views.
We are crying for a striker last of Gerrys hopes before he dances naked

Todays performance highlights what a poor decision it was to pack Aquaman off to Italy, who ever’s decision it was.

As a matter of interest,here`s our Europa cup opponents results over the weekend.

Steaua Bucarest 1 – 1 FC Timisoara

Fiorentina 1 – 1 Napoli

FC Twente Enschede 4 – 0 FC Utrecht

Saw only the first half today and then had to go off hang with the 2 year-old. I have to say I was not impressed with what I saw. West Brom were playing us off the park. Delighted to see we won but …. Mind you it’s better than losing isn’t it ?

Still continues to be such a strange season for me. I have no expectation and can’t really get excited about it all.

Obviously we have our best Centre half playing at left back which destabilises the defense and upsets the attacking possibilities. Torres is once more on the re-bound form injury, Stevie (I didn’t really notice today) not yet imposing himself and the lack of pace on the wings is further complicated by a cautious attitude in the middle (Lucas and Pualsen). We could do with these situations resolved.

I’m holding fire until we see what the squad is when the window is closed.

As for Mascher, in my ignorance I believe what you see is what you get with him. A great player in what he did perhaps complicated by his emotional state at times. I have no doubt he was going anyway. Remember “WE” need money to pay for the DEBT those 2 muggers have placed the club under. So he had to go whatever the story spun to us … Simple.

Roy has a lot on his plate and he needs to sort out the balance of the team pronto.

In saying that we won, as against Trabz, so fair enough. As well as that it’s still the silly season, Everton have how many points ? City and Spurs are level with us. Grand.

Thanks knight mate, although judging from some of the comments I’m not sure everyone would agree. But I don’t mind and I suspect there will be a bit more flak coming my way when people read the next one.
I gave my total support to Rafa when he was our manager and now that Roy Hodgson is the boss, he has my total support. That’s not just the Liverpool way, it’s my way.

We all have discussed about Stevie and his decline in performance since last year. I was wondering what could be the reason he is not turning up.
Perhaps
(a) The court case still haunts him (but his england performances have improved)
(b) Injury plagued season (still he managed 49 apperances more than the previous season)
(c) Lost faith with Rafa and the owners (but his performance under Roy is no different and he has commited to the club)
(d)The earlier wisdom that the Stevie of liverpool is not the Stevie of England has changed now. Seeing his recent performances in England shirt it makes me believe that Stevie of liverpool is now the Stevie of England where he drives England single handedly and is also the captain. Is he thinking too much about England and reserving his best for the country?
(e) or am I expecting too much from him to be delivered week in and week out.

or any other reasons.

My comments earlier could be interpreted as slagging off some of the tactics by Hodgson but I too am behind the manager now that he is one of us.

It will take time for Hodgson to get the players he needs/wants to impose the style of play he wants. Having said that I think we can be forgiven for being skeptical of what to expect. Especially with the scarce transfer funds and the comprehensive thrashing from Man C. Followed by very narrow wins against supposedly inferior opposition while the usual suspects are banging 6 goals like well oiled machines this early on in the season.

Anyway, I for one hoped Aquilani would step up this season and assume the creative role which we have lacked since Alonso. Unfortunately Hodgson doesn’t seem willing to take that chance nor give our natural left backs a run out.

Anyway, Konchesky and another striker if affordable may change this but I won’t be getting my hopes up yet.

It would be nice if we could discuss what is going on w/ the teams’ tactics without having the whole thing devolve into the while rafa v roy debate.
I am really concerned with how this team is presently playing. Obviously roy needs some time to get the team settled, including all the new faces. However, I think the problem is fundamentally that our team was built to play in a very specific way by rafa and if we try to change our playing style without changing the personnel the results will be disastrous.
For instance, rafa had the team playing a pretty high line, with the whole team pressing the ball and defending as a unit. This forced quick turnovers for us. Offensively we always outnumbered the other team in midfield decisively. This meant that we dominated the possession battle unless we were playing a top, top side. Yes, there were times when we didnt carve out any opportunities with our possession, but by simply holding the ball that much we made things much easier on our defense.
Now, things have changed significantly. Our defensive line is far deeper. Our players are utterly unable to recover possession in midfield as they are being spread to far apart. We were facing a shit relegation side today at Anfield and we only won possession 51-49. That is embarrassing. There were long periods of the match where west brom were playing keepaway and we could not even get a touch. The loss of mascherano was huge in this regard as he was the only midfielder we had who could recover possession efficiently. Additionally, our defense is oftentimes more exposed than before because midfielders are abandoning their positions to chase the ball. West brom created some solid scoring chances that a better team would have put away (such as the opportunity immediately before the torres goal).
Personally I am not sure how poulsen cost 4m. If he is a 4m player then lucas is 20m and mascherano is 80m. I think this was an utterly useless purchase. His tackling is poor, his passing is poor, he is essentially an inferior clone of lucas (and yes, i do rate lucas highly. the lad is now a starter in the brazilian natl team, but what would they know about footy after all?). Hopefully, once meireles settles poulsen can stick to the carling cup or something.
I think we need to start experimenting a bit. Kuyt fit perfectly into benitez’s system because of his workrate and ballwinning abilities. However, if we are going to play with a deeper line, then we need wingers with more skill who can win 1v1 situations. Kuyt and jova are not the sort of players who can do that. Recall how tottenham dominated man city despite playing 4-4-2 because gareth bale repeatedly left micah richards for dead. We need to have wingers that will pin the opposition fullbacks deeper or we will be in for a disastrous season. Obviously we cant afford to buy skilled wingers, but I think we have the personnel here to make it work. I think gerrard needs to play right wing because he has been terrible in the middle and cole should play wide left. This leaves a hole in the middle but I think either maxi or kuyt or pacheco could do a job there (obviously aqua would have been perfect there but what’s done is done).
I just want to see roy change something because when we are facing a relegation side that chelsea just beat 6-0 it shouldnt take a spectacular torres strike to win it. We did not create a single clear cut scoring chance for 90 mins.

Don’t have much time to comment on the game – other than we were piss-poor but managed (through Torres) to secure 3 points. Roy, please play Agger in his rightful position, and please will someone at the club explain why Insua isn’t in the squad?
Miereles looks a good buy – but until we seem him in the EPL, we won’t know.
Very good piece on him, and a few questions, from Rory Smith in the Telegraph…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/7969621/Roy-Hodgson-shows-forward-thinking-by-signing-Raul-Meireles-for-10.7m.html

Last season I asked a question: Is Stevie Gerrard past it? It was a serious question and not knee jerk. He’s 30 and has had many niggling injuries over the past 2 years. I’m not sure he is the player he was between 2004-2009. He hasn’t had a match dominating performance in a meaningful game in over a year. We don’t have many central midfield players that can score goals and create, which is why I thought it a scandalous decision to show Aquilani the door.

Going forward I hope Konchesky signing means Agger goes to centre half in place of Skrtle. I think Meireles will replace Lucas in the starting line up. We need a left winger. I’d play Cole out there because I think he is better coming into the middle from wide areas. I don’t rate Jovanovic at all.

People criticised the previous manager for playing 2 holding midfield players. I thought Lucas and Mascherano in the middle would struggle to break down any team. I reckon Lucas and Poulsen in the middle is even worse.

If we can’t look good at home against West Brom we have some problems.

Yoko if we would have got narrow defeats against minnows instead of draws the season before last number 19 would,ve been well and truly ours

DJGAZZA, that confuses me. A narrow defat is zero points. Draw is one point. How would narrow defeats win us the title?

YAW apologies for bringing up the simplistic Rafa vs Hodgson comparison. But you explained perfectly what I couldn’t quite articulate on my iPhone which is the stark contrast between the 2 mngrs tactics.

Perhaps the money would have been better going towards someone like Turan at all costs. It will take the team a while to adapt to the new setup, especially those that just joined. Poulsen will be nothing more than a squad player but is Plessis, Shelvey or Spearing that much worse for playing as cover??

Gerrard should carry on playing upfront with Torres. Joe Cole should move to left wing, Lucas and Meireles should start in the middle and I pray they will have a good understanding. Kuyt should stay where he is with Johnson overlapping. I hope Konchesky/Aurelio can provide the overlap on the left flank.

We will need a decent striker before the window closes in addition to Ngog to provide cover for Torres when he is either injured or rested.

It does my head in that we loaned out Aquilani who I thought will be exactly what we needed to keep the ball moving and providing the killer passes.

Anyway once it all clicks I think we do have the personnel to challenge for the top 4.

I too noticed we were playing very deep and Johnson who should be giving us that extra width is reluctant to bomb forwards as well. efence and Well Hodgson, Purslow, Or our scouts must see something in Poulsen. He wasn’t impressive at all yesterday but you can

Sorry should’ve read narrow wins lol

DJ Gazza. Yeah but we did the double over Chelsea and United then as well as scoring goals for fun that season. We were also dominating the smaller teams. We are struggling to keep possession and create chances at the moment.

I agree that Cole should play on the wing. Against Arsenal he was getting clattered and couldn’t hold the ball as a 2nd striker or attacking central MF.

If Gerrard can be freed of his defensive duties he will do fine linking up with Torres or Kuyt when he pushes fwd.

DJGAZZA, things is in 2008/09 we beat all of our rivals. Chavs home and away. Mancs home and away. Drew too many games at Anfield but our away record was brilliant. Last season we had a better home record than 08/09 believe it or not. Away from home we were awful.

What will happen this season? Already failed to beat 2 rivals (draw against Arse, embarrassed against City) and scraped a 1-0 against West Brom. Doesn’t give me confidence we’ll challenge for the top 4 but we’ll see. Things could improve with a left back playing at left back and hopefully Meireles settles in quickly and helps improve the passing in midfield.

That’s what I’m getting at, everyone was moaning that we drew to many games now we’re moaning about about only winning 1-0.It’s still 3 points.

Mascherano is a prick for what he done. Plain and simple. These are his words:

“I showed at Liverpool that I am always 100 per cent professional and nobody can doubt that,” Mascherano said.”

And in the next breath he says:

“Against Manchester City I was not right to play. I spoke with the coach and he understood my position. It was better for the team.”

Either that meant he refused to play because he was pissed that LFC never agreed to Barca’s first offer, or, he was afraid he would get injured & it would jeopardize the transfer, or his head wasnt right. (Whatever the fuck that means these days)

No matter which way you take it,

Hit the send button by mistake!

He himself came to the manager and said he didnt want to play for whatever reason.

Now you take any passionate red off the street and they would give their right testicle to pull on that red jersey. So in my mind his decision is inexcusable.

And come on, we know what type of player he was. What type of character he is. So it shouldnt be such a stretch of the imagination that he would refuse to play. So good fuck riddance if you ask me.

Well, maybe good riddance – but thank you for the good times as well, Masch. You were a Monster for us, and you must surely be the best defensive (tackling) midfielder in the game today. Lets move on…
In a nutshell (a) we need a proper LB, (b) a decent, passing, goal-creating midfielder who is comfortable on the ball (aka Aquilani?), (c) another striker as back-up to Torres & Ngog, and lastly (d) a decent winger who can skin his full-back & can put a decent cross in (Turan, Cole?).
That is what bothers me right now (besides strange tactics against Citeh) – we do not create ANY goal-scoring opportunities. In fact, I think WBA had more chances than we did?

It’s a worry when you’re a supposed big club and the only names that you can attract are ones that can’t get a game for their clubs. Mierles frozen out by Porto, Poulsen couldn’t get a game for Juve, Joe Cole offered a lower contract by Chelsea and allowed to walk on a bosman. When Rafa was in charge we were signing players that other clubs wanted, now we just seem to get the discards. I feel like we’re slipping into that zone Ged had us in where we would sign shit after shit (Diouf, Diao, Cheyrou, “Djinkin” Djimi Traore, etc.)and struggle along all season long. We can’t expect Torres to hit a wonder goal every game to get us out of trouble against relegation material opposition. God help us if he gets injured.

Hi lads just a quick post
Thanks for the new blog Gerry
Personally I love monster and wish him all the best

Im seriously disheartened over whats going on with the youngsters and how much Roy is paying attention like you Dougle I’m finding it hard to get excited about much this season

Heres an article I read earlier

Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson is hopeful that Paul Konchesky’s move to Liverpool will be completed soon. The move of Reds starlet Lauri Dalla Valle, moving in the other direction, is currently preventing the deal from being completed, according to Hodgson:
“One of our young players, a very talented young lad that Fulham have fancied for a long time, is going in the other direction and that’s holding it up a little because he has to have a medical. I’m sincerely hoping it’s just a technical hitch and that Paul will sign in the next couple of days.”

Explaining the reason’s for Dalla Valle’s departure, Roy expressed his views on the youngster:
“I didn’t have a strong opinion on him one way or another but Malcolm Elias (from Fulham’s academy) did. The lad’s got the quality to go into a first-team contingent.”

-surely if he has THAT much potential hes worth KEEPING HOLD OF!!!

Just an idea but shur what the fuck do I know I’m just another expendable fan

anyway tryin to keep the chin up lads but it aint easy

Over and out

I`m getting quite sick of Carra`s hoofing.Its costing us posession.

In fact the team seem to struggle keepig on to posession.WBA actually kept the ball better yesterday.

I think we need to get a settled team.After tomorrow Roy will have his squad and he`ll have to gel all the new players into a team.

Rafalution,Im hoping Merelies can be that midfielder for us.

I`d like to see Stevie in the hole again once merelies gets his feet under the table.Lucas or Poulson to play beside him.

Joe will have to do with a wide position on the left with Derek on the right side.

The back four also needs more balance.We need a left back,at left back.Even if it is Paul Konchesky!

Agger for me,has to be in centre half.Either with Jamie or Skrtle.

I personally would have Skrtle in with Agger.Thats not a dig at Jamie.He`s been a legend for us,and has still something to offer.

I just feel the other two need to gel a partership together as they are,hopefully the future of LFC for the next 5 years or so.

Somehow i doubt Roy has the balls to drop Jamie.

One thing i was pleased about yesterday was obviously Torres breaking his duck for the season and looking more sharper.

Hey Timmy – you aint the only one sick of the hoofing from Carra. It’s been doing my head in the past couple of years. I have the greatest respect for the guy. Great defender. Brilliant guy. LFC through and through. But he seriously needs to work on that. And just because of that reason I would take Agger & Skrtel as the central defensive
partnership at the moment.

The team is definitely in some sort of transition (call it what you like) because were playing like a group of strangers at times right now.

Looks like Konchesky is gonna be our first choice left back. Dont really have an opinion on him yet as dont watch Fulham too much. But you have a quick glance around the net you can see LFC fans are not impressed with the signing. Let the guy bed in first and then we’ll pass judgement. What is it with us and full back positions. We’ve went through about 250 of them in the past few years. Anyway, where in the hell is Insua gone? Talk about frozen out. Are the club pissed with him because he couldnt agree personal terms with Fiorentina – the situation stinks. Got found out a bit last year but he’s still a decent young player.

Anybody think playing Johnson out at right midfield might be a good idea? He’s great at going forward but can be as ropey as fook at the back sometimes. Cole at left mid cutting in from there and Johnson at right mid with Meireles and either Lucas or Poulsen in centre mid might be a decent team.

Get Stevie in the hole and El Nino up front as well and it aint half bad. Stevie cannot play in the hole with a centre mid pair of Lucas & Poulsen. They just dont seem to have the brain or skills to pick out a forward pass. And if Stevie gets no service in the hole then he’s as useless as a one armed boxer in a ring full of kangaroos.

Not sure if any of you saw this, but it killed me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJBsI7RAuvk

The shackles are well and truly off…. Thank God for Torres. The first half performance was dreadful to say the least “Poulson a really bad clone of Lucas” sums him up perfectly and if we swapped Aquaman for him I do not know how they could have approved that from perspective, sheer madness. We where crying out for someone of Aquamans quality.

The balance was all wrong and why we are sill playing Agger at left back is beyond belief. I cannot understand why Insua is being frozen out he is streets ahead of Agger at left back. Once we took off Janovic and brought on Maxi, swapped Kuyt to the left we had better balance and started to create chances.

Great comments Yanksarewanks and lets give credit to Roy he did changed it around quickly in the second half and we looked a better unit for it. A wins a win and hopefully we can build form there. I hope he sticks to this formation and leaves Gerrard in the hole. It’s going to be a long season.

New song for Harry whe he comes back to anfield…

Harr-y Redknapp is a-wheal-er-Deal-er !!

Great stuff Ger and Artful. There may be life in ye olde Kopblog yet. ‘Life’ meaning diverse opinion expressed unharrased by the thought police. But for a couple of brave souls the site had slipped into a hideous mono-cultural little brother of RAWK over the last couple of months. Good to see you back Ger, looking forward to your next edition.
#47; I’ve been singing that tune for longer than I care to remember Artful. And berated for it too, (shock!). But hopefully thats the last time we’ll be forced to endure that midfield pairing (or its like) as Meireles enters the fold. Anyway, 3pts is 3pts, bottom line and all that. We can only improve, that much is sure.

I haven’t read all the comments yet, because I have to through my two cents in…
I don’t agree with Gerry about Mascher, but I understand exactly why he said it and feels that way…
It’s because, just like all of us, the lad is a fan and logic doesn’t come into that. It’s the club before anything. So I even understand why some people turned on Rafa last season…
They love the club and want what’s best for it.
It clouds the issues. I hate to say the word because of how the media use it, but it’s the only word for it…
Passion.

It’s nuts. It’s delusional. It’s really mental at times. We are all grown men. None of us are daft. But it just happens. It bites and that’s that, you’re fucked, hooked for life and a wee bit mental for the rest of your life…
It’s the one thing Hick’s knows about football…
brand loyalty.

And if it’s got you that’s it, you’re fucked with it, stuck and acting like a lunatic at times. Mad but there it is.

Masch has gone. I’ll miss him. I loved the mental little bastard. But that’s that. Time to move on.

Same thing with Roy and Rafa. I’ve said me piece a million times. I’ll always regret what happened, but it’s done. Again, time to move on.

Having said that, it looked the same to me again as it has all season…
Us struggling. Roy not really knowing how to shake it up.

Digger you can still fuck right off you moronic bastard….
Something isn’t good just because you agree with it, and it’s not the thought police or some sort of conspiracy because you don’t…
Have you ever thought it might just be because you know fuck all and your opinion is shite, you fuckin cretin.

PS, for those that asked… apparently Jim Boardman is a sound lad. I don’t read his stuff because I only bother with 2 sites, this and RAWK. And I only go onto RAWK to chat with other fellas who I know personally. But everyone seems to think the lad’s okay.

One thing I will say, I have a little spy inside the club. He knows the ins and outs of everything. He told me himself the other day…
He knows fuck all nothing, nada, zilch. And he doubts anyone else does. There’s an iron curtain came down and no one but the inner circle knows anything….
inner circle meaning the board/owners/bankers, and they are all at it, stabbing each other in the back, feeding misinformation and all that.

It’s a bloody mess. But I tell you one thing, it was Jim Boardman that found out that the Khirdi fella is nothing but a Pizza parlour/off license owner. And whether he knows much is up for debate, but 1 thing you can’t question… the lad is a proper red and only wants what’s best for the club.

I`m looking forward to seeing Mereiles in the side.

Admittedly,i haven`t see any of him,but from what i hear,he`s a decent passer of the ball and likes to get around the pitch.

There was a lot of debate last season about where SG`s best position was.In the hole he was devastating in the second part of 07/08 and the whole of seaso 08/09.

Alonso was the primary supplier to SG and FT i those days and with Alonso gone it didn`t seem to work as well.

SG in the hole behind N`gog didn`t have spectaculer results with the absence of Xavi either.It is widly thought that with Alonso gone,we did miss him more than some people thought or in my own case cared to admit.

It was mostly Lucas and Masher i the middle last year and without Xavi,we did lack supply to the front two.

The reason i`m bringing this point up again is i hope Mereiles can be the supply chai for FT and SG this season.

There are many arguements for playing stevie in the middle but for me,when they click,he and Nando can be devastating.

This Mereiles could be a very sigificant signing.I`m living i hope,he can make a big difference to our play.

Timmy mate, the game yesterday was crying out for Aquilani.
I don’t know if you seen it but it was slow and turgid. The build up was very slow and ponderous. We ended up playing 442 with two solid blocks of 4. There was no movement whatsoever. I see the usual scape goat Lucas has came in for some stick again, but he was actually the one bright spark we had. He moved the ball swiftly, short and sharp and opened up for the return. It never came, especially from the defence who just wellied it long instead of picking the lad up.

Meriles, from what I’ve seen might help solve this. I don’t profess to be a student of the fella, but from what I’ve seen he’s decent. A pass and move player, who can play it long or short, can back up the attack, and tackle when needed. So, let’s hope he’s the real deal and settles well and quickly.

As for Gerrard, well, I’m sorry to have to say this. It’ll only be seen as a dig at Roy. But fucfk em. Them people have their opinion’s set in concrete and it doesn’t matter what anyone says, they’ll see it as a vendetta against Roy. But my fear is that Gerrard and Carra are turning into Lampard and Terry. I hope I’m wrong, but if that’s the case, expect Carra week in week out no matter what and expect Gerrard week in week out in central mid no matter how much the team needs him on the right or in the hole.

Maybe Roy will stamp some authority on it in January when the window shuts for the season. I just hope we aren’t in too much trouble by then.

More uncalled for abuse- this time by FS towards Digger. Now I’m sure Digger is more than capable of defending himself but I see no reason why you (FS) have to resort to verbal abuse – “fuckin cretin” ! Unacceptable in my eyes FS and you should know better. This forum has become a nasty “I told ya so ” place and comments like FS recent outbursts, lead to believe that it ain’t getting better. Respect please!

Arthur, I give respect where respect is due. That arse posts a comment in his usual “Diggaresse” taking a poke yet again, and I don’t let him off with it. And then you decide to take umbridge with me… leave it out, eh.

And if you want to know about abuse, I can give you some real examples. I can post emails that have been sent to me from people that got my email address from this site. Abuse… these kunts stooped to threatening my grandkids. So don’t tell me about abuse lad.

On top of that, these people who can take the time to email me threatening young children under the pretence that they do it out of a love for the club and have it in for me because I defended Rafa but I very much doubt they took the time to email any of the addresses I provided to try and defend the club.

Abuse…
Yeah. I agree. There is far too much of it, especially when it comes to threatening kids, and like in Digger’s case, even stooping to tell lies against the club’s manager on some vendetta/agenda of their own.

As usual Arthur, you shoot from the hip at the entirely wrong target.

FS you beaut you can be having a shit day and all you need to do is read your retort in 52 and I have not stopped laughing.

One thing I don’t understand is that Roy is not stupid, he has Sammie next to him, they would have worked out all the bullshit and the problems of last year with the injuries, why he would change the formula of a team that finished second the year before mystifies me.

All he needs to do is revert back to type with a fit squad hopefully add one or two new players and he could have a decent season. Aquaman could have been a great replacement for Alonso, his new signing another option, there was no need to bring in or do the swap for Paulson. With Aurelleo resigned, cant figure out the Insua issue but he has top be a better long term prospect than the fulham guy. Fine I will even give him that one, with Kelly as a back up, I really rate him.

Bring back Nemeth and with Jonovic, Babel and Ngog surly we had enough options up front. If anything I would have sold Babel and brought in Turan and with the sale of Masch there should be enough money for a striker

One day we will find out the reason why these things happened.

So we loan out Aquilani, bring in an inferior MF to Lucas in Poulsen, freeze out our natural leftbacks Insua with even Mawinga getting frustrated and we’re signing an older Konchesky with one of our best future prospects Lauri Dalle Valle going the other way.

Well… if we are not shooting ourselves in the foot I don’t know what we are doing.

By the way VDV didn’t even make Real’s bench in the last league game. Maybe we might try in the Jan window.

I took no poke. I pointed out how the blog had begun to depreciate and devolve into, as Arthur points out, a ‘nasty place’ of late, as a result of how certain members treat certain others. Am I to conclude you disagree good sir? Well, lets go to the video tape; last week a regular poster on here had himself and his well articulated, legitimate opinion dismissed condescendingly as ‘stupid’, ‘ignorant’, ‘petulent’, ‘childish’ ‘obstinate’ etc etc. And this in spite of the fact that this poster never treats anyone on this blog with anything other than the utmost respect. And for what awful crime should he be treated in this way by our resident thought police? His opinion does not correlate with theirs. So fuck it. Lets hammer him with insults and drag the whole discourse down with us. Yet, you disagree Fatty? Steady on Officer, at least cover up your tracks like any normal copper does.
Do me and the blog a favour Fatty and just swerve my posts. Your constant goading, abuse and distasteful delusions directed at me do the blog nothing but an off colour dis-service. If you’ve any self respect, nevermind respect for the rest of the Kopblog community, just……grow up.

Lol! And theres Leiutenant Keithsa in at #58! Yeah, have a good laugh at a grown man in his mid 50′s abusing people on an internet forum. You boys need to get out more!……..

Ya FS,it was crying out for Aqua.The more and more i think of that peice of business the more i`m convinced it was a board decision.

I find it very hard to believe Roy didn`t want a player of his calibre in his squad.What manager wouldn`t?

If Da le valle is going the other way for konchesky then i`ll be feeling sick.

He`s one of the brightest prospects we have.Even the great finnish legend Yari Litmanen said when we signed him four years ago,that we`ve got the best talent to come out of Finland since,well…himself.

Well he didn`t exactly say that but he rated the boy very highly indeed.

He has made superb progress at the club and i`ll be sick to see the back of him.

I hope Roy see`s sense here and blocks that move.

Digger you are a complete and utter arse.

If you agree with something, it’s well though out and legitimate.
If you don’t agree with something it’s nasty Fatty’s posse out to get you.

Not only is that blatantly ridiculous, it’s highly insulting. Not to me. I honestly couldn’t give a fuck what drivel you spout as it is just that… complete and utter drivel, sometimes downright lies, delivered in what you laughably call “Digaresse,” but anyone with an ounce of sense can see is really teenage Californian girls talk… and you tell me to grow up. Knobhead.

But the point is….
don’t you see how condescending and insulting it is to anyone who posts their own thoughts on here to have it dismissed as the Fatty party line?

You spent all last season stabbing our manager in the back, stooping to the absolute depths to do it and anyone who pulled you on it is now part of the “Fatty Thought Police.”

You know what lad, I know how pathetic this is, but I honestly would chin you if I could. You are the sort of person that has 30 year season ticket holders refusing to go the match. Alone, you mean very little at all. But sadly, you are symbol of what has happened at our club… you come out with shite like back the manager, while your knife is still in the last one’s back. Oh the irony.

I remember you siding up to LB and everyone else who you thought you could cosey up with. But the problem with that is, the others weren’t on some vengful little vendetta to be proven right. They were just voicing their concerns. When it became clear what was happening at the club, they changed their stance. They are all okay in my book. That’s what football fans do… talk footy, and voice their opinions. But they don’t need their opinions to be proven right if it means it’s to the detriment of the club. They are grown men. Men who can hold their hands up, say I was wrong and move on. You on the otherhand, will stoop to any level to stick the knife in and still won’t give it up because it’s oh so important for you to be proven right in, what was it you called it, “The Wonderful World of Digger” or some such shite.

Aiming full posts at me and then telling me not to read them…. FFS. Mindnumbing, ever mind boggling.

Do one Tit.

Sorry to everyone else for that. I do honestly feel quite pathetic for allowing meself to go on one like that. But I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, and I’ll never change me stance…
Tits like that are wrecking this club.

And Timmy, you are quite correct. LDV is a wonderful talent. If Roy let’s him go there will be a message in there…
Roy himself tried to get the lad from us when he was at Fulham. He approached us a few times for the kid, wanting to get him in any way he could, by loan or by buying him.

So, make of that what you will.

On top of that, and sticking to the theme of the blog…
I was not one bit pleased when Roy attacked Mascherano and Rafa in the press. He went on about the player being under contract to the club and he went on about Rafa signing a pledge not to take any LFC players.
I know he’s getting old but maybe he needs a reminder…
Fulham, contract, bought out for two million, promise to Fulham, and now we are poaching Konchesky?

I hate phonies and liars.

Rafa wouldn’t be able to sign any of our players anyway. All he can do is ask his president to sign a specific player, who really only supplies the cash. In Italy, the manager doesn’t assemble the squad. He only picks the team and decide how the play. Roy must be well aware of this since he manages in Italy, even the same club as Rafa, so I have no clue what he meant with he said.

Does Roy have any influence on our signings? Oh, yes, it would certainly seem he does have. Meireles was the last to say the fact that Roy persistently showed he wanted him at Liverpool was a key factor in his decision to join the reds.

The Aquilani decision remains a puzzling one. Most supporters seem to agree it would have been a lot better to keep him, because he clearly has the quality and precisely those characteristics we seem to lack at the moment.

It does however also seem clear that Roy wants very specific player types in his system. That’s the reason he’s let Agger play LB instead of (in my opinion) better alternatives in Aurelio and Insua. That’s why we’re signing a player like Konchesky. And that might also explain why Aquilani was sent out on loan.

Still, it doesn’t quite add up, considering how thin the squad is, considering there are other player not too unlike Aquilani in their styles, and finally considering what Roy said when Alberto left. That he was sent out on loan to get as many games as possible, in order to return to Liverpool at his best. Then there are confirmed reports that a buyout clause was included in the deal, so either Roy wasn’t telling the truth when he said he expected the player to return (presumably in order to slightly calm down supporters upset by the bad news) or he was lied to by the board. Can’t really see a third alternative there.

Ya i realised Roy had his eye on him last year.Shame if the lad goes.A loan deal maybe,he`d still be ours,then again,that could be a dangerous move.The lad is unlikely to be ready for the prem yet.

See Rafa`s response to the sky spotes fella….

“Rafa,are you denying signing a clause with LFC promising not to buy any players?”

Rafa; “I don`t buy players,i`m just the coach(QUE cheeky smile)

“but Rafa do you remem…”

Rafa; “I don`t buy players,i`m just the coach(QUE cheeky smile again!)

“but Roy hodgso said earlier that …”

Rafa; “I don`t buy players,i`m just the coach(QUE cheeky smile again!)

Still refusing to dance to their tune…

God i miss that man..

Yeah me too mate.

Sachem mate, Roy also said he was going on loan to “keep up his value.”

That to me smacks of someone being told to get him off the wage bill. Maybe Roy was even throwing us another little hint that the board/owners are at it.

I’ll give him his due, he has done it before.

In fact, this points something out… how highly insulting it is for backstabbers to play the holier than thou card now after what they done to Rafa. I really do find it highly insulting that people are being accused of jumping on some bandwagon of mine. But as I said, I don’t find that personally insulting to me. I find it insulting to the people that are being accused of this.

But anyway, to stick to the point…
Yes. The game was crying out for the sort of guile that Aquilani can provide. But like I said in the last blog, what’s concerning me is the 442 hoof ball we are being served.

And I wonder if I’m now part of the Sachem thought police because I agree…
If Roy has any bollacks he would play Insua instead of letting the kid go, drop Carra, and put Agger back in the middle with Skrtle. Carra has been a marvelous servant to the club. But his lack of pace means we have to defend far too deep and revert to whacking the ball upfield. The more mobile pairing of Agger and Skrtle means we could defend 10 yards further up the pitch and carry the ball out from the back instead of hoofing it long. Also, if we would do that then Aquilani would have been a wonderful weapon for us, either in central mid, spraying the ball about and keeping the game ticking, or behind Torres in the hole as they say.

But unlike people last season suggesting they knew better than Rafa, I hold my hands up…
I know fuck all when compared to Mr Hodgson. He’s had a 30 year career in the professional game. I haven’t. But I do understand the game and I can see patterns, etc. I’m sure Roy does, and sees it far quicker than me with a deeper understanding than me.

So why the fuck is this going on?

Arthur, if you believe nothing else I ever say, trust me when I tell you that your enemy’s enemy, in this case, is not your friend.

——-
What has concerned me about Roy has been his tendency to say one thing, then seemingly do another…or even say one thing then say the opposite.

We could draw the wrong conclusion from that.
Has he lost it?
Is he just another cog in the Anfield Heirachy “dupe us” machine?
Or are these statements intended to alert us to something not quite right.

How do you state…
“Aqualani is a talent and I am are looking forward to working with him”
then send him out on loan to… “get fit”?

How do you state…
“Insua is a nice young man and a talented player and I am looking forward to working with him”
Then state…
“the deal was initiated before I arrived. I’d like him to stay, but its out of my hands”?
then when he refuses not one but 2 deals…
…you freeze him out and don’t select him?

How do you state that…
“Mascherano had an agreement with the club and out of respect for the player I have opted not to selcet him”
…then state…
“I’m angry because he refused to play”

These aren’t rumored statements…
they’re not 3rd or 4th party statements copied from one newspaper to the other…
…these are words out of Roy’s own mouth, live on video, during press conferences over the past 6-7 weeks.

I doubt Roy is the kinda fella that would be that two-faced…
…and old he might be, but I doubt he’s senile…
…and he’s been around the block a few times, he knows how the press can be about these things…
…and even knows how rabid LFC fans are for trawling for news…
… so what explains these conflicting statement?

Wow, I’ve been writing this blog for 5 and a half years now and I think this is the very first time that I’ve come on here, read all of the comments and found that I disagree with just about all of them!
It looks like this is going to be a very interesting season on Kopblog – game on boys!

Vive La Royfalution!

Ah stop Gerry man are you still pissed over the Dubs ?

I would like to add though that like Gerry I am totally behind Roy and I appreciate he has one hell of a difficult job on his hands. As the appointed manager of LFC he has the right to do things his way.

When Rafa joined us I didn’t understand all of his methods. But I was always perfectly willing to let him do things his way without having a go at him in internet forums and the like.

I think Roy deserves the same kind of respect. I have my concerns and I won’t deny it, but we don’t know the whole truth of what has been going on around the club the last month or so. We’ll just have to wait and see what he can do with the players at his disposal. Perhaps after a period of adjusting to Roy’s approach, it will like a whole lot better than it has so far.

Having said that, I still would very much like to know the full story behind the unfortunate Aquilani affair.

Here you go lads, something from the media that I wholeheartedly agree with for a change….

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/shackles-are-off-at-anfield-so-abandon-hope-all-who-enter-2316111.html

And just to put the cat amongst the pidgeons, this comes from an Irishman. But then I usually agree with all he says and I think the lad’s a cracking red…
Tells it exactly how he sees it and doesn’t give a stuff who it upsets.

I’d be complimented to be counted as one of Mr Fanning’s thought police.

The finest article i have read in some time.

He’s boss Timmy. I love the fella. And sorry for harping on, I should just take no notice but I can’t. I find it highly insulting when people say I’m on some sort of anti-Roy agenda. No one wants the man to succeed more than me. I love this club. I want nothing but the best for it. I know Roy isn’t that. I will support him, and I want him to prove me wrong, but, like Dion Fanning, I will not lie to please anyone. That isn’t support. It’s compliance.

There are just so many things wrong with the club under the short tenure that Roy has been here.

Aqua being loaned out, some of our brightest prospects being sold for chump change and the situation with the left backs, particularly Insua I am just unable to decipher.

As I have said before I am aware that Roy hasn’t the control that Rafa had but in some ways this just makes it worse, he was well aware of the situation he would be working under and this means he was aware that the club could be dismantled underneath him.

Konchesky? seriously when we have two left backs at the club that must surely be considered better players.

While we are at it lets talk about the tactics, considering one of the sticks used to constantly beat our previous manager with was his defensive attitude, lets look at how we have faired in the league up to yet.

A credible draw against Arsenal but lets face it a display that was not good and was hidden behind the valiant 10 man battle thing but in all honesty we didn’t attack before Cole got sent off and the first half was one of the most static defensive games I have ever seen from a liverpool team.

Against Man City we lined up in what was in theory an attacking formation with two strikers but the gap between a deep lying midfield and the two strikers was so large that a 3 lane motorway could have been built on the pitch, which of course invited City to play football in it, which they did with relish and I can honestly say we were tonked, waiting until we were 2 goals down before attempting any meaningful attacks.

Finally West Brom, almost certain relegation candidates coming to Fortress Anfield who played more football and had more opportunities to score than we did, why because we played so deep that Brom had little choice but to play in the space we afforded them and grew in confidence when it became evident that we had little outlet for our strikers.

I am concerned about Joe cole being played in the hole when it is quite clear that it is not his position,is Roy buckling under pressure or did he make Cole promises before the transfer.

There seems to be an idea that we must give Roy time to stamp his particular style on the club but Roy has been here since the first day of July and it is not as if he is working with players he hasn’t seen perform before or playing in an unfamiliar league, no the problem seems to be that he has already stamped his particular style on the club but is unable to adapt to the fact that he is in charge of a prestigious club and not midtable strugglers.

His tactics seem to be those of a manager who is frightened of the opposition, all opposition, even West Brom and if we carry on in this vein we will have reason to be.

Royfalution, sorry Gerry, slow decline is all I expect and in my opinion the appointment of Roy Hodgson will only increase the speed with which we achieve that decline, a small manager with a small club mentality.

Digger you spent all your time in here attacking our previous manager with badly argued statements based on media speculation and because you find yourself in the minority, your first post in a while is an attack on those of us who disagree with you and for some reason an attack on another Liverpool Forum that has done sterling work in trying to organise supporters in the most important battle we have at the moment, getting rid of the Leeches that have put us in this position in the first place, did they disagree with you as well?

I will grant you that FS does occasionally let his emotions get the better of him, but frankly you also spent most of last season trying to get him to bite and then when he does you cry foul and whine about how hard done by you are.

For your information Diverse opinion is exactly what we have in here and I fully expect that there will be some in here who will disagree with my hard line on Roy, probably even FS and certainly others but as you can see I have tried as best as my abilities allow me to put cogent arguments behind my critisism and more importantly I will look at those posts that try to argue my points with an open mind.

One other thing call me FS’s corporal or whatever you will but I agree with him that posters on this and other forums who blindly regurgitated the SSN line and the tabloid opinions on Rafa’s reign played a large part in creating an atmosphere that allowed the club to hound out a fine manager and replace him with what I consider to be mediocraty

Too many “personalities” dominate the forum. And I think it is very telling that the author of Kop Blog has come out to say he disagrees with most of the comments he’s seen lately on here…

Like I said…telling…

Very enlightening article by the always excellent Dion Fanning. It’s both unpleasant and refreshing at the same time to read that kind of realistic take on things, because most of the stuff journalists come up with about LFC is biased nonsense.

I listened to Andy Gray’s comments during the game against the Albion and as usual he went on about the man marking, how superior it is to zonal marking, and of course he couldn’t resist having yet another go at Rafa for sticking with his zonal marking when he managed LFC. People like that make me sick. And some in here wonder why we still go on about Rafa. Well, one of the best managers the club ever had was bullied by the media muppets like Andy Gray for years, and it still goes on to this day. If you hear the same lie over and over, eventually you’ll start believing in it.

Well Arthur, at least Gerry doesn’t insist he’s right and the others wrong…

#74, there’s the rub, I agree with pretty much everything in that post. I’m not on about the personal stuff towards the end, I’m on about the evaluation of the football we’ve seen so far.

That’s what I find highly insulting…
in the last blog, I made about 5 comments on nothing but the football and tactics used against City.

People who disagreed with me, didn’t address them issues. They just pulled me up for having an anti Roy agenda. Insulting and quite stupid really.

The fact is, Roy Hodgson has used one particular method all his life…
It’s the Allen Wade model from the 70′s. It’s what we seen against City. It was fine when it was written, even revolutionary. It’s 40 years old now. It doesn’t work anymore.

As the last post just pointed out, if a team set up like City, they can basically sit there waiting for us to make a mistake, then when they have the ball they can run into them open acres and pull us apart.

Is that disrespectful?

Well, I suppose it does look like I’m trying to say I know more about footy than Roy does. But I’m not. He’s managed top clubs in top competions, he’s managed internationally in a World Cup and Euroe’s. I wouldn’t dare profess to say I know more than him. That would be downright stupid and make me as phoney as the people who attacked Rafa last season.

But what I think I can fairly say is, just like 5yearplan, I’m completely baffled by some of what I’ve seen from Roy so far. And I also find it worrying. But am I out to stab the fella in the back… am I fuck. I’d be over the moon for him to make me look like an idiot.

Oh well, that’s enough of me for today.
Night night.

75… so what are we supposed to do Arthur, not have personalities?

Oh dear, oh well…
night night

Telling of What? Arthur and what exactly is “personalities” and do I need to get one

As much as I usually like Dion, I think that article is over the top bollocks. FS your a diamond mate, but it look like you and I are going to be butting heads this season so let’s have a good clean fight with no low blows or rabbit punches.
In my opinion there is a bit of hypocrisy going around recently. Last season some fans criticised the manager and were branded traitors for doing so. Now we hear people criticising a manager who has only been at the club five minutes and these same people claim that they have the best interests of the club at heart, but didn’t the “traitors” of last season say the same?
It’s a slippery slope indeed, I guess the Liverpool Way truly is dead and I guess some people do get left to walk alone afterall!

Gerry
I must admit Masch is my favourite player so i cant agree with your opinion on Masch.
Last blog you didnt think he should play against Arsenal “his head has already left the club” i disagreed and ultimately i think i was proved right and you were wrong, like you are now.
He didnt play on Thursday and less than a day before he’s going to Barca you now think he’s a c*nt for “refusing to play”. Which is just Roys way of shifting the blame for his own incompetence if you ask me.
Roys fully aware of the reasons he got the job and he’s just “playing to the crowd” that got him the job, pick on the Argie’s thats a good ole Ingurlish tradition, poor Insua is getting left to rot in the reserves, (a threat used against Masch allegedly) while he replaces him with another old hand.
Like Aqillani was replaced with Poulsen, similar kind of threat but more diplomatic.
Rafa the Poacher/ thief its like calling someone a Wheeler & Dealer ¦ )
YNWA

PS
Digger my thoughts are my own.

Thanks rome77, I think you’ve just made my point!

Tried to kip but couldn’t. Sick about that, I’m really busy tomorrow and need to get me head down. But anyway…
I don’t mind butting heads with you Gerry. We’re both grown men and so allowed to have differing opinions.
But here’s the difference as far as I’m concerned…. there was an absolute agenda against Rafa last season, and people really stuck the knife in without stopping to think of the consequences. And, in my opinion, they stooped to some really low lows to meet that agenda.

With Roy, as I’ve said all along, I would be made up to proved wrong. I’d love the lad to make me look like a complete idiot. But I’ve seen nothing to make me feel he will, and so I give an honest opinion on that and at least try to explain why. I don’t just stick the knife in.

I could. I could go on about things like him cossying up to the media. But I’ve never mentioned that before. And I honestly hope he’s doing that in an attempt to get them on our side and get the players a bit of breathing space. But I don’t really believe that. I think he’s one of the “Good old boy” brigade.

I don’t like how he cosies up to “Sir Alex, Big Sam or Appy Arry,” either. Fuck them. I want him to destroy them not share a nice bottle of red after the game.

As for the argument amongst ourselves over this, well, I think it’s sort of ironic that the people queing up to stab Rafa – which I know you aren’t one – are now crying out for patientce and telling the likes of me that I must give Roy time. It sort of smacks of free speech for me but not for you… Hypocriscy indeed.

I also don’t think Roy is being left to walk alone. There’s plenty on his side. He’s certainly got the approval of the media and the uncommited.

Like I’ve always said, this blog is like a little microcosim of what’s going on in the big world out there. That notion seems about right on this subject too…
A lot of people are worried that Roy isn’t up to the job and he’s being used as a Patsy by the Machievellian bastards behind the scenes.

I also worry about that, but hope he proves me wrong.

As for the Dion Fanning article, well, I’m surprised you see it as over the top bollacks. I think the only bit he got wrong was the bit about the cat in the bin. Top Cat lived he’s life in one and seemed perfectly happy and at home.

Arsing about aside, Dion does have a point. There’s a nasty English xenophobia hanging all over football at this time. As an Irishman Dion doesn’t have to play that game. He can just call it as he sees it and not have to conform. I like that.

The city, as you well know, is a melting pot. It’s never been stereotypically Ingurlish. The fans go to great lengths to point out they are Scouse not English. The English go to great lengths to show how much they dislike us. I’ve got no problem with that. We’ve always been different. It’s what we was built on.

We’ve always had OOT/OOC support, it’s always been embraced up until these last few years. The club itself was never English. The first team we had was 12 jocks that John Houlding brought down from Glasgow. Sadly we now seem to be conforming to what Sky/Talk Shite want… an Ingurlush club with Ingurlush players in the top positions, picked by a good old Ingurlush manager.

There’s plenty of people that could point fingers at me and call me traitor for that view. But the fact is, I don’t give a toss if they come from Mars just as long as they do their best for the club and embrace what it means to wear a Liverbird upon their chest.

That may all seem a bit mental, but I hope you get me drift…
I don’t want our club to conform. I don’t want our manager to be part of the establishment. I want him and them to stick two fingers up to the old boy network. But most of all, I want them, the players and manager, to be succesful. I don’t want the “ship steadying.” I want the ship to plough through everything in it’s way and leave the rest in it’s wake.

If that means dropping Carra and defending ten yards further up the pitch without a huge gaping hole between two front runners and to static blocks of four, then so be it. I will say that. And you know what, if that’s what we end up with, I expect you will do exactly the same. That’s not treachery. That’s pragmatism.

But I will concede this to you…
Maybe I’m jumping a bit too early. But in all truth mate, I felt this way long before Rafa was sacked and my fears seem to be getting born out. And if it continues like this, I’ll bet you this… it’s the likes of me that will be having to defend Mr Hodgson when the pack turns on him.

But make no mistake, I take no pleasure in saying “I told you so,” and I won’t if the shit really hits the fans.

Oh well, time for Bo-Bo. Busy day ahead.
Night night for defo.

Its fair comment Gerry about the hypocrisy, I am certainly guilty of it in the sense that you mention, a paid up member of the gag on Rafa’s tackle brigade and very critical of Roy.

My belief is that Rafa fought the owners every step of the way and believed in this club, I am of the belief that Roy is cut from a different cloth.

Its so difficult to make the point I want to make, but I will try, when Rafa was pushed out of the club we lost in my opinion the possibility of a dynasty not unlike those under Shankly or Paisley, but of course even with my high opinion of Rafa I realise that the missing ingredient was decent owners and that Rafa would just have slid further away from that possibility with each passing season that they remained here.

The boards on the forums were full of talk of Hiddink and Maureen and anyone with any sense knew that these were pipedreams given our financial turmoil and Roy was slowly pushed forward by the club and the media as the most likely replacement.

My thoughts at the time were that whoever took the job would do us nothing but harm by putting
an acceptable face in front of the board, but I didn’t in all honesty think that Roy would give up a stable job at a club where he was respected and walk into the snakepit we had.

I was told that Roy was an honest man and a straight talker so when he did take the job although not understanding his reasons I hoped that he would fight to give us the best team we could have but the removal of some of our best upcoming talent, the loaning out of Aquilani to juventus and the disgraceful way that Insua has been frozen out suggest that Roy is either weak willed, complicit, or signed a very stupid contract.

The truth is I guess that I dont trust the man and despite arguing tactics and player purchases that really isn’t the height of my concerns, I watched us through the Souness years and he had all the benefits that Roy doesn’t and I still in most respects supported him, but Souness was just a crap manager my concerns go deeper and right now what this club needs more than anything is people who are going to fight for the club.

The Mascherano episode and the arguments in the press about Rafa trying to steal players go to the heart of the issue, Roy seems to be playing to the gallery,and with each utterance he makes I trust him less.

I’m sorry if you feel I have lost the Liverpool way, I cant argue the point with someone of your standing but I feel that Roy isn’t a believer in it either

Quotes from Lucas:

“I spoke with the manager when in Switzerland and he told me I was in his plans,” said Lucas. “I can’t say more than that. If the club wants to sell me, I would have to think and see if it was good offer for me. But at the moment I am staying, I am trying to do well and giving 100%.”

“Do I ideally want to stay? I can’t say that. If the club want to sell me, what can I do? I just have to wait and see what will happen. But I want to be playing. I am trying to do my best here.”

He seems to be part of Roy’s plans but is somehow aware “the club” wants to sell him. Very messy times indeed….

Very interesting article. Especially this bit:

Hodgson, it was said, brought stability. Liverpool does not need stability, it needs radicalism. Bill Shankly did not bring stability; if he had, the club would have remained stable in the second division. Hodgson needs to challenge Gerrard. When Cole returns from suspension, the manager will have to confront their failings and play them where they are most dangerous, not where they think they belong.

I must admit a lot of the fire I had burning for Liverpool is now up in smoke. I also had some issues with Rafa’s stubbornness sometimes but I knew deep down that given the right support he could have taken us to the top and kept us there but now we have Roy, whom I would also like to give time before judging but some of his moves have made me even more depressed.
I don’t know if he was brought in just to put an honest english face on what was more dismantling of the team but it seems that way and I have this feeling of helplessness that the team is going down and we are all just waiting for the bottom to hit.
On a side note, Rafa hasn’t had the best of starts with Inter. 2-0 loss to Athletico and a draw in their first league match. Hopefully he turns it round and outshines that twat Mourinho (who also had a slow start to his league campaign!!

Gonna be an interesting season in Kopblog me tells ye.

Lets put aside the Rafa V Roy debate and judge Roy on his own merits. By no means am i saying we should forget what Rafa done for us. The man should always be remembered. But lets consider Roy as a man standing on his own. Comparing him to Rafa… well there isn’t a comparison yet because Roy hasn’t acheived anything with us so far. But lets give him a chance. Maybe getting the Liverpool job is his big chance to shine. Nobody knows. But I guarantee that if King Kenny had of got the job he would have been shown a lot more respect than Roy is at the moment.

The suggestions and insinuations that Roy is sitting on the bench during games like a deer caught in the headlights is bollox. The man has 30 odd yrs of footballing experience. He is able to speak fluent Norwegian, Swedish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Italian as well as a bit of German, Danish, French and Finnish for fucks sake. Apparently he is an extremely well read and learned man.

Now forgive me. But football aint fucking rocket science. Is somebody telling me that a man of that intelligence doesnt know what to do when his team go down to 10 men. That he hasnt got a thought in his head. Well im sorry but that is completely dis-respectful to the (lets not forget) current Liverpool manager. Roy will make decisions that we dont agree with. He will make mistakes. He will make more mistakes in the first few weeks then he ever will because he’s only with the team a wet week. He probably doesnt know our best formation yet. He probably doesnt know our best tactics yet. And he probably doesnt know our best starting 11. And thats ok for the moment because he’s just started. Even managers like whiskey nose and Wenger are still making mistakes and all managers, even the best, will continue to do so till the end of time. So i think we need to let the man bed in first before taking him apart about his tactics and formations. Just because he makes a few mistakes in his first few games doesnt mean he is doomed to failure. Lets try to stay a little positive about him. We have to remember that despite the hurt over how Rafa left, defending Roy is not a slight on him.

Rafa was in charge for 6 seasons, the first 5 of thoses showed steady progress whereby we were within a whisker of winning the league, inbetween that we got to 2 CL finals, winning 1, FA cup final and winning it, and a league cup final and loosing it.
Last season was a diaster, the think the Aqua signing and the fact he was injured backfired in terms of last season, and the impact of the transfer budget disappearing also had a huge effect.
But taking 6 seasons in account, I felt we had one of the best managers in the world in Rafa. some of the main factors in Rafa getting the push was said to be some of the senior players being unhappy with him. Phil Thompson was on Irish radio the Week he was sacked and said thats what his sources had being saying.

The whole ownership debate seems to have disappeared, which is s crying shame, and it’s in that context I can’t get too excited about Roy and what he is doing.

If this club was being run normally, Rafa would not have been sacked, if club was run normally, Roy would have a transfer budget, proceeds of payer sales and keep the really top young talent at the club.

In my eyes, all the people going to the games and buying the new kit are lemmings, and the whole debate about the ownership/huge debts/asset stripping and overall deep shit we are in, is completely over their heads.

I hate saying it, but how long is it since the “The Liverpool way” existed?

I was delighted Kenny didn’t get the job, because with all the issues I have just stated, Kenny Roy or any one else is on a hiding to nothing.
If Kenny didn’t finish, I would imagine plenty having a go and I would have hated to him damaged by the current show of shites who own/run the club.

If Kenny didn’t finish in a CL spot (i ment to say)

Artful @ 90: Fair enough mate, he is a learned, intelligent man who can speak a few languages – as was/could the previous manager. He needs our backing, because he is the manager of LFC, and we are LFC fans.
However, this blog is here to discuss things. Whenever we had a crap game last season (and there were a few), the knives were out, the game was analysed & picked apart by the learned scribes within kopblog – and Rafa got his fair amount of stick.
Now, let’s take the Citeh game last Monday night. Nobody in here – or even in the general press – has worked out why Roy played the formation he did, or why he didn’t make any changes when it was clear to every man & his dog that we were being overun & outclassed. To lose in that fashion – bending over & taking it like we did – and to lose 3-0? It doesn’t sit well with me Artful, and I just hope Roy shows us something in the season to come, because he certainly showed sweet f$*k-all in that game!

The discussion is no problem Rafa. I’m all up for discussion. But i think there’s a fine line at the moment between discussion and being highly critical of the manager. Just because certain people stuck the knife into Rafa last season doesnt mean it was right, and its ok to stick the knife into Roy. I had some criticisms last year, but I would never stick the knife into a LFC manager and nobody should. Likewise with Roy this year.

I think people are still extremely hurt over the Rafa being sacked like he was, which is to be expected, but we shouldn’t let that hurt spill over to Roy.

All i’m saying is lets not be overly critical of our manager who is only in the job a wet week. If he makes mistakes now then lets give him a bit of leeway and stop the doom mongering.

As for the city game. Well I was and am as perplexed as anyone why we played 4-4-2 and why we played with Eggnog and Nando up front. There were a lot of things wrong in that game. And i’ve seen things like FS has said that are worrying me a lot about formations, tactics, first 11 etc. But i’m trying to give Roy the benefit of the doubt. After all…. we know fuck all compared to him. That’s why he’s sitting where he is and were armchair fans.

Just wrote a long in depth post. I didn’t notice I wasn’t logged in and it got lost in cyber space. I’m only on a quick break. I shouldn’t have took all that time. I can’t to rewrite it. I’ll have me say later today.

Artful you are correct. It’s highly unfair to judge Roy against Rafa. That’s why I haven’t done that and I have made a point of saying the man knows far far more than me.

The worrying thing is, I can see some glaring mistakes. I’m sure Roy can see them and far more. I’m sure he knows how to fix him.
Nothing’s being done to do that. It’s been the same in each game, us struggling and nothing being done to shake things up. Why?

Did you see the West Brom game?

Don’t think it was last season’s problems raising their head. West Brom didn’t park the bus and defend well. After about 20 minutes/half hour, they started to play football and took the game to us.

West Brom are one of the weaker teams we will face. They could have easily won that game. I dare say a better team would have. I’ll give my two cents as to where we went wrong later. Like I said, I’m sure Roy seen that and more. But again nothing was done.

I can only comment for myself…
I find that very worrying.

I didn’t see any of the West Brom game but I saw highlights of the 6-0 they received against the chavs. Then I saw the possession stats in our game which was 51%-49%. If we can’t dominate the ball against West Brom at Anfield then I think we have problems. The games certainly will not get any easier.

I spent the 2nd half of last season criticising the players. I was told they were not playing for the manager, that they had grown tired of his methods, he had lost the dressing room. A change of manager was supposed to lift the atmosphere, liberate the players and shake off the shackles. Well I am still waiting……

I didn’t shy away from criticising the previous manager and I won’t shy away from criticising Roy. I thought his handling of the City game was embarrassing. His insistence on playing Agger at left back is baffling. The decision to send Aquilani out on loan was confusing. It’s not like we are Man City bursting at the seams in strength in depth is it? Our only impressive performance came against the part timers at Anfield. Both legs against Trabsonspor didn’t convince and the 3 PL games have not inspired my belief.

My gut feeling is that Roy is not up to it. Obviously I cannot make a firm judgment yet.

As for the Liverpool way – that died when Moores handed the keys to Hicks and Gillett.

Aint nothing worse than writing an essay like answer and seeing it float of into cyberspace FS. I usually hit ctrl+a to highlight me comments and ctrl+c to copy them before i hit the send button just in case. Its happened to me plenty of times.

I can see the same mistakes as well FS. I won’t blindly follow Roy I can tell you that. I dont think anyone should. I can’t tell you why he aint fixing the mistakes that are plain for all to see. Only Roy knows that. Maybe he’s feeling his way around. Granted he doesnt have a lot of time to be pissing about. When your in a top job like ours he needs to get things sorted pretty quickly. He’s running out of time though. But let’s give him a chance and see what he does now with this guy Meireles and a couple of other additions before the transfer window closes hopefull. Personally im hoping he brought him in to play beside Lucas/Poulsen and is going to stick Stevie in the hole with Cole moved out to the left. But what the fuck do i know. But we’ll wait and see and hopefully he gets things right.

There are certainly a lot of unanswered questions at the moment. I think that just comes with the territory when you get a new manager in. If Roy is still making the same mistakes down the line then fair enough. He’ll deserve criticism. I’m just saying we should try to cut him a little slack. Maybe its just me. Im a bollox for sitting on the fence. I take me time to make my mind up about things.

Other things I found annoying is Cole playing behind the striker and him taking a penalty when he has never taken one in his career.

Anybody see the woeful 0-0 Bologna V Inter last night? Rafa will be seeking new employment before December @ this rate.Roy has had plenty of time to line up a new striking option, without it, you can forget top 6.

jaysus bm, do you even have any knees left? what did you make of 0 – 0 mallorca real madrid?

mallorca, as i am sure you will be aware, are the club in administration and kicked out of the uefa cup.

As for the West Brom game. Nah I missed it. First game i’ve missed in donkeys. With the new nipper in the gaff i was on B&Q duty with him and the missus on sunday afternoon. Kept an eye on the commentary of the game on the iPhone walking around. How times have changed. 3 years ago I was single with no mortgage and would have been on the pish all day with the lads.

Anyway, i digress. I read the reports and I watched the highlights on match of the day 2. And they were shit. I can only imagine what the 90 mins was like. Like LB @#97 i was taken aback at the possession stats for the game. When i seen the line-up i wasnt expecting a great game to be honest. Agger again at left back. Carra hoofing the ball up front. Poulsen and Lucas in the centre mid playing like crabs. Sideways sideways and throw a few backwards passes in there. Stevie isolated up front in the hole. And Jova and Dirk on the wings with no pace and no invention. Judging from the reports I read, we got what i expected.

If it continues the anti-Rafa brigade from last year will have the knives out thats for sure. Lets see though what Roy does in the next few weeks. Judge him when he puts his own stamp on the team and signs a few players.

burgerman, what a legend. Despite the fact he hates Rafa and took every chance to stab him in the back with all those strangely brief and illogical comments, that’s not enough. Even after he’s forced out of the club and now manages a different team in a different country, bm still feels he has to take every opportunity of having a go. I just don’t understand it. Is he the incarnation of everything that’s bad with the media, or only pretending to be?

Today is the deadline Martin Broughton set out before which he expected the club to be sold. It hasn’t happened yet as far as I know, and therefore it does seem to follow he has failed in the task he was given about four months ago. That a business with the kind of reputation he holds is unable to arrange a deal in that amount of that does seem very odd to me.

I suppose it’s unlikely there will be any developments in the ownership department before October. Still, one would have expected some reports in the last couple of weeks. Since the Chinese pulled out, it’s all gone quiet. The attention of the supporters has turned to other matters; games, tactics, players coming and going.

I’m not sure how the interpret this silence. It does make me wonder though.

Just read 85 by FS
“As for the Dion Fanning article, well, I’m surprised you see it as over the top bollacks. I think the only bit he got wrong was the bit about the cat in the bin. Top Cat lived he’s life in one and seemed perfectly happy and at home”

Hilarious

Its official. We just signed Konchesky…. dont know what to make of him. Is he going to be in the KromCrap, Josemi, Degen, Dossena, Traore mould or the Finnan/Babbel mould.

well its been quite a while since i’ve posted, work work work and a little holiday in between has kept me away, however have managed to read the posts every so often.

with a dismal perfomance from the weekend well and truly past, hopefully the Euro qualifiers will give Rodge some time to blend the new players in (looks like Cole is on his way as well) and finlaise the right formation 4-3-2-1 would be mine!

C Cole, Konchesky are good premeriship players / good squad players to have on the books but are they really LFC class, me thinks not.

As someone mentioned earlier we’ve gone from shopping at Harvey Nich’s to Poundland – how times have changed.

Hamburger: by all accounts, Inter should have won by 3 goals. The bologna keeper even saved an Eto’o attempt with his head, which of course he never even knew about. Seems like Rafa’s (bad) luck has followed him? Anyway, this is a LFC blog…
Also don’t know what to make of Konchesky, besides the fact that he is a dinkum left back with Prem experience. So, does this mean that Agger can return to the centre of the defense & Carra to the bench? Let’s hope so.
Hleb gone to B’ham. He will probably turn out to be a hotshot, knowing our luck. Our next game is against them, and what are the odds that he will score against us?

Artful, Konchesky is 29 years old. What is his career highlight? I think you’ll find he is in the Degen, Dossena, Kromkamp class. Definitely not in the Marcus Babbel class.

Shopping at poundland indeed. I think Fulham just replaced Konchesky with a better player!

I agree LB, LDV is far a superior player and may even come back to haunt us in the future.

I wish him all the very best

I know that we are now in the Rodge era and Rafa is of the past but did anyone see his press conf the other night with regards to the potential signing of Kuyt – good for you Rafa, glad the press haven’t got to you and that you continue to send out messages within your answers

No striker so far. I agree Konchesky doesn’t seem to be a premier LB but I too haven’t watched him too closely. Obviously Roy rates him highly knows him well.

I was extremely disappointed about the Aqualani deal – however after mulling things over I have come to the conclusion that it is the long term health of his ankle that LFC are betting against. I know for a fact that some of the Liverpool medical staff did not want Aquaman to begin with due to the MR appearances of his ankle, and possibly Rafa went against this advice which backfired. Obviously we were never going to get our money back on aquaman if we sold him again at this point and as we know that serie A is less physically demanding than the premier league, liverpool’s upper echelon (whoever that is) decided to loan him with the hope that his ankle stays ok for this year and Juve buy him from us. Why else would we loan him out and then get Raul who will be playing in a similar position and presumably has similar wages?

I know it might be unpopular but I am quite happy seeing Insua move on, albeit on a loan deal. I think he lacked the speed needed in a quality LB, also it was almost embarrasing how left footed he was. I do however feel he is a better LB than Dagger, and can’t see why he or aurelio weren’t playing instead.

My final unrelated point is wtf is stevie still taking the corners. He is far too commanding in the air to be taking them when we have others who could concentrate on taking them such as Maxi and aurelio come to mind first…

So Lauri Dalla Valle and Kacaniklic were included in the Konchesky deal going in the other direction? It’s hard to tell if this is a good move or not.

In the youngster department at least there is some good new with the highly rated Spaniard Suso officially signing for Liverpool along with some Hungarian fella.

Very bold statement Gerry, disagree with just about all of them indeed. Let’s have some fun and put the markers down so there is no back tracking.

Roy was right to play Agger at left back even though Insua and Aurelleo were available. Moot point know that Inusa has been loaned out

Konchelsky at 29 is a better option that Insua

Poulson at 30 is a better option than Aquilani at 26

Cole position should be behind the stiker in a central role and not out on the wing. He also should take all penalties (I know you said almost all) I thought I would just throw that in.

Gerrard’s best position is in the midfield not as the in the hole player.

Roy did not make a mistake with his line up and formation against City and was right not to change it until the 70th minute

Roy was right to sell Nemeth and selling Da la Valle and Kacaniclic (sorry about spelling) for Konchelsky

I wont go into the who said what said for know lets just deal with tangibles.

In a rush so guys please feel free to add.

well what happened to the striker that we really needed?

first and foremost our number one target was for a striker and yet, unless something else filters through, we still have no back up for Torres.

this is the second season running that we have failed to land support in this area

This is disgrace – we cannot ask our talisman to find the goods for us week in week out adn expect him to deliver

so now what…is the plan to continue with Ngog, who is improving but has yet to prove his worht alongside Pacheco, who all rate so highly but has yet to be given his chance…time will tell

To say that I am disspoainted is a severe understatement.

Keith, I agree that Konchelsky is more rounded player, thanks to his contiuned premiership playing career adn that Insua is a youngster with limited experience who in time could be a solid prospect.

dont agree with your conmments re Poulsen, think we’ve gone backwards here, both him and aqua two different players – at lesat Aqua would have given us some very much needed fliar in the middle of the field

Poulsen is an older version of Lucas and at least here we have something to build on (probably one of our better performers last season)

Well, most of the points in the post I lost have been covered by you lads…
Why was Cole told to take a penalty by Roy in a vital European qualifier when he hasn’t ever taken one in his professional career?

And yes, Hodgson did instruct him to take it if we got one.

Why is Agger shunted out to left back, and why did Roy say “he is the most natural left back at the club” when we have two perfectly capable lads for that position?…
One who Roy brought back and one who Roy wanted to keep but is being shipped out anyway.

Why is Carragher not being benched and a proper back four playing in it’s natural positions… using the system they’ve been trained to use for 6 years, is proven to be the best and gave so many record clean sheets?

Why is Gerrard playing like an 8 year old again… chasing down lost causes, running round like a headless chicken, and taking every dead ball as if the only ball at the club belongs to him and he doesn’t want to give any other kid a kick or he’ll take it home?

Why is all the young talent being shipped out to bring in aging journeymen?

Why have we lost Mascherano and Aquilani and now have Jedward as our central midfield pairing?

Why? Why? Why bloody why? I could go on and on with the whys?

Nothing makes any sense to me.
I really tried to give Roy some time and credit.
I am not on some petulant grieving for Rafa.
I am worried about my club.

I gave Roy credit for things well done, especially letting us know that the board, ie Purslow, was handling transfers in and out…
Which appears to have stopped now and Roy is bringing in his own people.
I give him credit for bringing in the Portugese lad. I think we’ve got a proper player there.

But the worrying things far out weigh the bad, and they can’t all be put down to the board and the owners.

I have no link for this. But I’m not on some vendetta. I’m just telling the truth as I heard and seen it…
Pellegrini and Nemeth have both given interviews to foriegn newspapers this week, in Chile and in Hungary. Reds from them countries translated and posted them on the web…
Nemeth, had no axe to grind. He was very polite and complementary about the club and was thankful for the time he’d had here. He said, he was told the club was letting him go because “they want to become more English.”
You have to remember that that’s coming from a talented kid who qualifies as home grown.

Far worse…
Pellegrini applied for the job when Rafa was sacked and was told the decision had already been made and an English man would be installed “as the club wanted to become more English.”

Martin Broughton was asked by Jim Boardman, the fan who seems to be in the know, “Why did he let a top manager go?”
His reply… “The media didn’t seem to agree with you.”

WTF.

Now we’ve apparently let LDV go… Roy Hodgson tried to sign him from us on at least 2 occasions. He was also another talented youngster who qualified as home grown.

These are just facts I’m stating. I am not pulling anything out my arse in a childish attack on Hodgson. I’m not trying to come up with some mad conspiracy theory against the man. I’m not saying he’s in cahoots with the owners and the board. I’m not saying the senior players are riding rough shod over him. I’m simply stating some facts that have me very very concerened and worried. I haven’t even listed them all as I want to keep this as short as possible. But as a life long red, I am entitled to state my worries.

Reds in Aus,
you made the following statement…
“I know for a fact that some of the Liverpool medical staff did not want Aquaman to begin with due to the MR appearances of his ankle, and possibly Rafa went against this advice”

I’m not trying to pick a fight lad, but what is your source for this FACT you KNOW?
Are you personally associated with one of these members of the Medical Staff???

I ask because this Med Staff vs Rafa disagreement has never even been rumored…
…on here or any other forum, or news article I’ve read…
…and given how many people troll news and rumor forums as relentlessley as I do, this shouldn’t be the first I’ve heard of it, if it were an indisputable fact.

You need to back that up mate, otherwise someone in here reads it, it fits their agenda, or supports their opinion, and it gets disseminated as fact when maybe it isn’t…. or at the very least they don’t know where that statement came from.

As for Gerry disagreeing with every comment… how can that be, when some people agreed with opinions expressed in the actual blog?
Kinda weird that?

Now the WBA game…
I missed the game. Like the rest of you, I’ve read all the match reports, read all the expressed opinions in here and a few other sources.
Then last night, I got to watch a rebroadcast.

Now I missed the first 20 minutes, coz it was advertised as the Balackburn game, and I flicked it over duiring the commercials for something else I was watching, killing time waiting for another program.
But becuase I knew the result and all the opinions, and analysis, I basically studied the game from that perspective…

…and what I can say is this…
51%-49%… whoever determined that Stat was on fuckin CRACK!
LFC had far more possession than that.

The Ref had an appalling game… the kind where the FA demote him to Championship games… which is completely unfair to Championship teams, to be honest, coz he was THAT bad.

Skrtel twice dragged someone down in the box. Stonewall pens… neither given.
Don’t get me wrong, I thought Skrtel had a decent game, but he was being tested throughout and he wasn’t playing clean.

At the other end, we were also denied 2 clear cut, carved in stone pens… how he missed the handball-blocked-shot from Torres, when he was 10 yards away is staggering?

He also failed to yellow card some seething tackles early on… then sent a player off where a yellow was far far more appropriate.
There’s no doubt the WBA player dove in, and no doubt he caught Nando, but it wasn’t malicious or intentional, and not that “over the top” of the ball.
Free-kick and a yellow, but not a red.

Its fair to say that WBA had their chances… maybe 3 clear cut chances where you’d have to say they should have scored… maybe as many as 6 other decent chances…

… but at the other end, we had at least 4 clear cut chances that should have been tucked away. Torres and Skrtel’s being the most glaring.

…but we also carved at least a Dozen other decent chances,
… and had another dozen break down in the box due to a poor final ball, or mob-defending by WBA.

But perhaps the best of the best….
was Artful’s comment
“Poulsen and Lucas in the centre mid playing like crabs. Sideways sideways and throw a few backwards passes in there. Stevie isolated up front in the hole. And Jova and Dirk on the wings with no pace and no invention. ”

I’m sorry Artful but you yourself admitted you didn’t see the game, and what I can tell you is this.

Poulsen didn’t exactly excell in his performance, but he didn’t do too bad either.
He got on the end of a couple of goalbound efforts and at least half of his passes were FORWARD… not sideways and backwards.

Likewise, Lucas had yet another solid, keep it ticking over, unspectacular but very efficient game.
He also got in the box a few times, he put in a fair few ball winning tackles when they were on the break, AND more than half his passes were forward, often the beginning of a good forward move.

Kuyt not only had one of his best games in a long, long time, but he created our best chances.
And most glarigly, he BEAT his defender for PACE in creating Nando’s goal.

All in all, it was scrappy, a bit frenetic and not the controlled footy we’ve been used to… but if you want free flowing football, thats the sacrifice you make, until everyone is typing on the same page.

We had our scares at the back, but we gave them a few frights going forward.
Pen decisions aside, coz that could have tipped the game either way…
…We could easily have won this one 4-1 or 5-2 !

In conclusion… this wasn’t half as bad as it was made out to be..
Even Jovanovic looked more like he just wasn’t quite settled/up to speed/on the same page, rather than like he was just crap.

We looked a bit disjointed, but certainly not all at sea, in the way we did for the last third of the Citeh game.
I thought there was as much (maybe more) to be encouraged by as there was to be disheartened by.

A few more performances like that, and a few results where we get a 2nd or 3rd goal and finish it out a bit more comfortable… and we could well gel and kick on.

SA Kopite I’m pretty sure Keith was being sarcastic…

Although I don’t think a lot of these players comparisons can be measured at the moment i.e. the konch vs Insua arguement – it is only hindisght that provides us that luxury.
I think Poulsen is seen as the experienced depth as the important defensive midfielder that everyone loves talking about since Makelele defined it. LFC (I can’t say Roy because I dont know how much if any power he has) obviously knew we were likely to lose Masch and without him the most experienced defensive midfielder would have been Lucas, who for one I would hardly call experienced and for two is debatably not even a defensive midfielder. With fuck all money as we know we have maybe the 4mil was an unfortunate necessity to spend?

I think Raul for Aquamen is the better comparison and I think the decision was based on do we want to take a risk or due to the turmoil at LFC do we want to go for a safer option in terms of health risk. I dont think there is a right or wrong answer at this point so I don’t see how people can be overly critical one way or the other…

Of course Insua may be a solid prospect – he already is, as is The Konch. Neither are ever going to be studs IMO, as The Konch has already probably reached his prime and Insua is too slow, and too left footed. Roy obviously really likes the Konch so I can understand if in his more knowledgable position that he would prefer the Konch.

About the Cole taking the penalty. Who knows what was said. Maybe Torres was offered the penalty and he prefers not to take them? Maybe they had a trial and JC peformed best. I think it is a huge stretch to just assume Roy arbitarily said I think JC is the best for the job… but maybe that is just me.

I personally agree that I would have insua or aurelio above Dagger at LB, but that is just my opinion…

And I dont think there is a clear right answer as far as where Gerrard should play, because it depends on the team around him obviously…

I dont think our team is terrible or even necessarily much weaker than last year. Personally I think Masch is an absolute monster against great teams but is a little wasted against weaker opposition due to his propensity to pass horizontally or backwards not forwards, and I will be waiting anxiously to see if Raul can improve that.

Ideally we will be
Reina
Johnson Skrtel(or Carra) Dagger The Konch
Raul, Lucas (or Poulsen if he improves)
Kuyt Gerrard Cole
Torres
with reserves such as Babel (who I can’t stand personally but am well aware his power and pace can score us goals), Eggnog, Pacheco, Kelly, Soto, Carra, Poulsen, Maxi.
And young guys suchs as Suso, Ince, Jonjo etc.

We aren’t in a terrible position, if – and the biggest IF of the whole post – those scumbags fuck off and stop strangling us.

I don’t want to come off as a Roy lover as to be honest he was far from my first choice replacement, but having said that he is our manager and I’ll at least give him fairness, just as if everyone was giving him a blow job as the media are I would be trying to level things out with counter points…

Aitch, I don’t know that there was a disagreement between Rafa and the medical staff. I do know (and that is as far as I can say) that opinions about the ability of his ankle to fully recover were debated heavily, and I suspect that may have something to do with him leaving and us getting Raul instead. Maybe it is just as likely that Roy doesn’t rate Aquaman as highly as Raul, but I don’t think Roy has that much power and I’d be pretty sure that such a fundamental (and expensive) shift would have been overruled by the powers that be – as I said there is only a small amount I know and a large amount I have summised (sorry if it came off brash as it certainly wasn’t meant to be)

Aitch… you say we could have won 5-1 or 6-2 or whatever. We could have just as easily lost 2 nil. The football was turgid, methodical and slow enough to be called pedestrian.

You have to remember this is West Brom we are talking. Not only are they one of the weaker teams we will face, they are a team that tries to play decent football and so gives you a chance to get about them. That’s why they get walloped 6 nil by the likes of Chelsea.

The bookies had that game down as 1 to 16.
That’s how onesided they expected it to be. The bookies rarely get these type of things wrong.

Make no bones, this was Roy’s chance to get us going. It was a chance to show what we/he could do. It should have been a parade. In all honesty, it worried me more than the Arsenal and City games. Maybe you think that’s an over reaction. Let’s hope it is. And a wins a win, but I found it more worrying than ten men getting a draw against Arsenal. I found it more worrying than a kamikaze hiding at City.

#118: As for the pen… who knows?

Well, actually mate, anyone who saw the after game interview with Cole does…
The lad said, Roy told him before the game, if we get a pen you take it.

Not being sarcastic mate, but it doesn’t take much working out.

But I tell you what, Roy, like him, love him or loathe him, has some serious working out to do or we could be in trouble.

Hopefully, he’ll get it right in the coming weeks. I might not rate him as the caliber of boss we need to force ourself back into the upper reaches. But I certainly don’t think the man is some mug who doesn’t understand footballers or the game. I’m just starting to hope he has the bollacks and pride to force these players into doing what’s right by the club and their manager.

Well what an exciting ending to the transfer window. Paul Konchesky!! YEEAAAAHHHH! GET IN THERE! Number 19 on the way surely?

2008/09 NET SPEND £0.5m
2009/10 PROFIT £8.2m
2010/11 PROFIT £9.1m

Gillett: “We have invested more money than our competitors, in keeping with the history of the club”

Hicks: “Our debt is very managable…. and we never use player sales for debt service. The summer window will be big.”

FS. No sarcasm taken – but surely Cole saying Roy decided I would take the pen is pretty clear. I wasn’t saying Cole ran grabbed the ball and didn’t let anyone else have it. Obviously It was Roy’s decision, but the postgame interview certainly didn’t say how Roy decided it just said that Roy verbalised his choice before the game – well that is how I took it anyway. But surely maybe Roy did just decide that he wanted JC to get a goal so the pressure was off him a little bit?! Who knows, and that is exactly my point.

That Joe Cole penalty was almost (although not quite) as annoying as when Michael Owen used to regularly take them for us. The guy had a 50% success rate from the spot but somehow was our designated pen taker. Used to drive me crazy coz you knew it was an absolute lottery whenever he stepped up to take.

I wasn’t confident at all when Cole stepped up.

apologies Keith, still trying to get to understand peoples thoughts

Is it possible that Aquaman after arriving at a new club in a new country and culture injured.

With a great weight on his shoulders being seen as the direct replacement for Alonso who had just left for Real Madrid for £30’000’000.

And then when fit did not have the confidence of the man who brought him to the club during a period where the team were dreadful.

Then when Rafa left the club like all players who are out of the picture hope they maybe in the new gaffers plans.

Then he sees Joe Cole arrive to play in the hole and Gerrard drops back into midfield leaving only one possible place in the team for a defensive midfielder(which he aint).

Then Poulsen arrives plus the club are chasing Raul Meireles.

I think he would of wanted to move on to restart his career from his point of view the last 12 months have probably been a nightmare with missing out on a world cup squad place to add to his woes.

I love Rafa for what he did for liverpool before he came i had nearly given up on us ever competing for the big ones ie champions league/premier league we were winning uefa cups/league cups/fa cups with the people before he arrived but i don’t think anyone thought we would compete at the top table so soon.

He got us to 2 champion league finals in 3 years winning one.Which i think is a monumental achievement.And the football we played in 2008/2009 was the best i’ve seen since 87/88 if he was backed he would have dominated for years.

But the point I am trying to make is you cannot blame Roy or the board for Aquiliani’s departure.

You have to lay the blame at Rafa’s door he brought him to the club and then never played him.

I seem to remember people in here who like me supported Rafa.Not being convinced about the reasons Aquaman was not playing last season

We cannot complain about Aquaman not getting a fair go from Roy when the man who bought him did not seem to rate him or trust him to do a job in the team.

I personally liked Aquilani as a player but I think the EPL was probably a little to frantic for him especially with his injury problems.

YNWA

Aye LB. But it’s not as if it’s some sort of surprise is it. In fact, the only surprising thing to me is that, believe it or not, some of our support still don’t realise what’s happening.

I’m really really worried that somehow these carpetbaggers are going to meet the payments in October and we are truly stuffed. And even more worrying than their promises, which we all now know are just more lies, is the fact that Broughton is also playing the same stalling game as them…
promising things by certain dates, today being one of them, and then saying nothing when the date passes only to wait a while before spouting another date further down the line.

They really are just taking the piss now.

RIA: mate I don’t think it can be any clearer. Roy Hodgson told Joe Cole that if we got a penalty he should take it. I know Roy was only trying to get Cole off the mark but it was a rather silly decision. We could have easily come unglued in that game. We could have been knocked out by the odd goal. I find it strange that a man of such experience took that chance for what amounts to sentimentality. That’s really my point… I know Roy has a ruthless streak. I think he has to start flexing it. If he doesn’t these sort of things can become habit.

125: Again mate, we only have what Roy said to go on, he waxed on about him, how good he was and what he expected of him this season. Then suddenly he has to go to “keep up his value.”

My decision on that one, the board/owners wanted another high earner of the squad. He was the easiest target and it would cause least fuss as the media would slander Rafa for wasting 20 million and a lot of our support would agree.

Here you go lads. Just found this all in one little nutshell….

Tom Hicks (27 May 2010): “We have no intention of selling any of our top players and we have a substantial transfer budget in place. There’s so much misinformation about transfer spending. It’s more than doubled under the ownership of George and myself from the previous three years and we will make a significant investment this summer. It’s really about getting the right players.”

Martin Broughton (16 July 2010): “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we have no need to sell any players to pay off the debt. If we were to sell anyone, then the money would be reinvested in the squad.”

6pm 31.08.2010: The transfer window has closed and as we suspected the club has had the fans off yet again.

PLAYERS OUT 2010 (£42.65m)

08.01.2010 Andrea Dossena Napoli £4,700,000
10.01.2010 Andriy Voronin Dinamo Moscow £1,800,000
04.02.2010 Nikolay Mihaylov FC Twente £1,500,000
19.05.2010 Mikel San José Domínguez Athletic Bilbao £2,600,000
01.07.2010 Fábio Aurélio released Free
01.07.2010 David Martin MK Dons Free
02.07.2010 Yossi Benayoun Chelsea £6,000,000
23.07.2010 Albert Riera Olympiacos £3,300,000 *
23.08.2010 Diego Cavalieri Cesena £3,000,000
25.08.2010 Krisztian Nemeth Olympiacos £1,000,000
30.08.2010 Javier Mascherano Barcelona £17,250,000
31.08.2010 Alex Kacanicklic Fulham £750,000 *
31.08.2010 Lauri Dalla Valle Fulham £750,000 *
31.08.2010 Damien Plessis Panathinaikos £ UNKNOWN FOR NOW

PLAYERS IN 2010 (£25.55m)

12.01.2010 Maxi Rodriguez Atletico Madrid Free
10.05.2010 Jonjo Shelvey Charlton £1,700,000 *
08.07.2010 Milan Jovanovic Standard Liege Free
19.07.2010 Joe Cole Out of contract Free
21.07.2010 Danny Wilson Glasgow Rangers £2,000,000 *
31.07.2010 Fabio Aurelio Out of contract Free
12.08.2010 Christian Poulsen Juventus £4,550,000 *
18.08.2010 Brad Jones Middlesborough £2,300,000
29.08.2010 Raul Meireles FC Porto £11,500,000
31.08.2010 Paul Konchesky Fulham £3,500,000 *

(* indicates additional payments may be applicable)

PROFIT ON TRANSFER DEALINGS IN 2010: £17.1m (the “substantial transfer budget in place” appears to have gone missing – again).

http://www.scousenotenglish.co.uk/?gclid=CKfB8b3L6Z4CFU0A4wod1nXaIQ#/todays-news-3/4540928104

Oh Wow I did not think I needed to explain myself. I was trying to have some fun after Gerry’s statement that he disagreed with almost everything that was written in the comment section. So I decided to make a list that Gerry agrees with so I can bake him a big humble pie at the end of the season when it proves otherwise. That’s the list above, things Gerry agrees to and disagrees with what most of us have written. Not what I agree to. Mine is the opposite.

Until we get rid of the parasites and the top management it is going to be difficult to have a decent footballing discussion. What is happening, for most parts, has got nothing to do with football and all to do with balancing the books and spin doctoring. Getting rid of high wage earners, promising youngsters, bringing in free transfers so the sale of the club from a profit and loss perspective looks more attractive to potential buyers. Hence bigger profits for a going concern.

The risk is that we slide down the table and our revenue drops. As long as we stay in the top half of the table they won’t give a fuck. They have already realized that they have fucked any chance of us getting back into the CL spot with out serious investment, the last three windows put paid to that. They have axed the only Manager that might have stood a chance of getting us back in because it was more important to balance the books and sell of assets and cut costs from a wage perspective. By bringing in Roy they feel he will keep us semi competitive, hence the lack of concern that they are letting talented youngsters go because they wont be here much longer. Bring in players at the end of their careers; hence a total wipe out from a resale perspective is not their concern.

So until the club has been sold there is no point in getting too worked up we are playing against a stacked deck. For all those people who say give Roy a chance it won’t make one jot of difference I just cannot get excited about Liverpool under him. He will be gone the minute we get new owners and we will start another 5 years of rebuilding or 2 to 3 if we get a sugar daddy

The worrying aspect of the young talent being sold off is maybe Rafa would have held onto them thinking he was gonna be around for years and they may bear fruit down the line.

Where I think Roy maybe sees this as his last hurrah and is not looking to the future just the here and now.

Ps talking about young players I would really like to see more of David Amoo players with that sort of pace are always worth chucking on in the last 10 mins,a tired fullbacks nightmare

RafaM you have missed the plot entirely. The problem with Aquaman was that he has always been rushed back to quickly hence the long term injuries. Rome, know in administration, have an even thinner squad than us. Rafa said on many occasion, we have bought Aquilani for 5 years not 1. He did not have a preseason, it took longer for him to become fully fit, not match fit. To throw him into a struggling team was not the best introduction from a confidence point of view. Whether this was right or wrong was the manager’s decision to make. I would have loved to see more of him, but we don’t know the in’s and out from a medical perspective. Maybe they where being extra careful after a disastrous season why risk his recovery. I would have loved to see a fully fit Aquilani in our midfield pulling the strings the way he did for Rome at his best, earning him the nickname the little prince, and more valuable that Tottie. Very big accolades indeed. Time will tell if it was a mistake to let him go and how big a mistake it will be.

I dont mind a bit of debate and discussion but what I do mind is someone trying to be a fucking smart arse.

But perhaps the best of the best is Aitch’s comment…

…We could easily have won this one 4-1 or 5-2 !

I find it more disturbing that you actually watched the game and came up with your own “match report” that was the complete antithesis to every other report and what actually happened.

“The Reds were too pedestrian and predictable and seemed unsure in possession as opposed to a West Brom side who grew in confidence as each of Liverpool’s forward forays continually and harmlessly broke down.”

“It will, naturally, take time for Liverpool to find a comfortable stride under Hodgson’s guidance but, even still, you would have hoped for better against a side whose record in these parts borders on the lamentable – 1967 was the last time the Baggies were successful at Anfield.

There was no verve, wit or dynamism, no passages of play that captured the imagination; Torres was too often left an isolated figure, while those who stood alongside Gerrard in Liverpool’s engine room failed to tune in to his surges forward.

Every time a move broke down, you could feel the crowd become a little more concerned that it was going to be one of those days; those fears, further more, were exacerbated whenever the visitors broke themselves, every shot at goal increasing palpitations.”

“Concern about Liverpool’s form since the opening-day draw against Arsenal did not abated here. Despite Torres, Steven Gerrard, Daniel Agger and Milan Jovanovic all returning after missing the Europa League play-off win against Trabzonspor, Liverpool started as poorly as they had done in Turkey. Ponderous, disjointed and overly reliant on the long ball, Hodgson’s side invited the pressure that duly came from the composed , intelligent visitors, for whom Youssouf Mulumbu shielded his back four expertly while James Morrison and Graham Dorrans took the game to their hosts.”

“The goal came after more than an hour of abject toothlessness from his team-mates. When Liverpool had the ball, their play had no direction. It almost came as blessed relief that Roberto Di Matteo’s disciplined side deprived them of it for so long.”

“Meireles will have understood immediately why Hodgson moved so quickly to secure his services. Liverpool lack urgency, impetus. Too often Gerrard, way below his best, is isolated in an advanced position as attacks choke and stall 30 yards behind him. Torres spends much of his time as an observer. Both grew visibly frustrated with their roles.”

Like i said. I didnt watch the 90 mins. But i read every fucking report on tinterweb and i watched the highlights on match of the day. That performance was shite. It was nothing to be proud of. And it certainly was no springboard to better results ‘to gel and kick on”.

31.08.2010 Alex Kacanicklic Liverpool to Fulham £750,000 *
31.08.2010 Lauri Dalla Valle ~Liverpool to Fulham £750,000 *

31.08.2010 Paul Konchesky Fulham to Liverpool £3,500,000 *

Where’s me wallet I had it a minute ago

Aitch, I reckon you’ve been reading so many tabloids recently that your even beginning to adopt some of their tactics.:)

You write – “As for Gerry disagreeing with every comment… how can that be, when some people agreed with opinions expressed in the actual blog?
Kinda weird that?”

When what I actually posted was – “I think this is the very first time that I’ve come on here, read all of the comments and found that I disagree with just about all of them!”

It’s a very subtle change leaving the “just about” part of that sentence out but it changes the meaning so that it fits into the point you are trying to make.

This is nothing against Aitch but I just think it is a small scale example of what has become a large scale problem among supporters this days. People seem to focus in on things that support their particular point of view and conveniently leave about the bits that don’t. Or maybe I’m getting too deep?

KeithSA, did you hit your head or something mate? Again you seem to be listing off things that I haven’t even said anything about yet and I made absolutely no comment about Joe Cole taking penalties, or am I missing some other point that you are trying to make?

Sorry Reds in Aus, but you did NOT say
“I don’t know that there was a disagreement between Rafa and the medical staff. I do know (and that is as far as I can say) that opinions about the ability of his ankle to fully recover were debated heavily,”

What you stated was “I know for a fact that some of the Liverpool medical staff did not want Aquaman to begin with due to the MR appearances of his ankle, and possibly Rafa went against this advice”

So WHAT IS YOUR SOURCE?

And if you are now backing that down and saying it was just a debate and not the medical staff’s opinion of the scans….
Then WHO debated those opinions?

I know a lot of fans did, but none of them are privy to the medical reports…. so frankly their opinions aren’t worht a damn, coz they are not basedon fact as you initially did more than suggest.

rafamuffin… you say…
But the point I am trying to make is you cannot blame Roy or the board for Aquiliani’s departure.
You have to lay the blame at Rafa’s door he brought him to the club and then never played him.

Sorry, but that’s 2 different arguments.
Rafa didn’t play him coz he wasn’t fit.
Roy stated in Switzerland that he was fit and that he was looking forward to workjing with such a talented player.
Then, bang, he’s gone.
You most certainly can blame Roy and the board fro Aqua’s departure… there is no one else to blame… it was their decision.

His performances fro Juve will tell us if he was or was not fit.

As for what we now have…
Poulsen, Lucas, Miereles
or Aqua, Lucas, Miereles

On paper, I know which 3 I’d pick.

…though in fairness, as I said earlier, I didn’t think Poulsen looked that bad against WBA…
…but that’s the problem……
… a “paper” selection, and not using WBA as the benchmark…
…the benchmark will be Scum, Chavs, Spurs, Arse, Citeh.

And FS, I concede that WBA could have beaten us. I did in what I wrote above.
They had the early shouts for pens, and if given, we’d have been in trouble.
but we had far more possession and efforts on goal.

but I completey disgree with your description of the game as pedestrian…
… on the contrary what I watched last night was fuckin frenetic.

I’m not saying that’s a good thing…
Frankly, neither is really what you want.
You want to see some control in a fast paced game, which was lacking… but I saw some encouragingg signs.

Again, I watched it with hindsight…
…knowing the outcome and the match reports and opinions…
…so I was analysing the game from that perspective…

… rather than watching it, eagerly hoping we’d win and disappointed with every misplaced pass…
… so it was definitely a different perspective.

Siiiigghhhh…
Sometimes i just wonder why do i madly follow a club being run and ruined by a bunch of liers and arseholes!

Aitch, as I said medical people did heavily debate, and some suggested his ankle was a long term liability. To be honest I shouldn’t have gone further than common knowledge but I did, so either take it as more heresay if you wish or take it as a slip of the tongue, your choice. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.
Having said all that again the decisions made – as anyone could summise – are based on risk. Rafa and LFC were willing to risk it a year ago with 30 mil from alonso coming in (maybe he feared rightly so that G&H would steal the money anyway), but a year later Roy and LFC aren’t willing to take the risk and hence have bought Raul instead. Also in terms of the 3 comparison players i think it is more likely (due to our financial restraints aka theiving owners)
Poulson, lucas and raul
or
Poulson lucas and aquaman (with his injury problems).
Masch forced our hand with poulson IMO. Unfortunately because of G&H intent on skinning us of everything we were never going to have the ideal – masch, raul and aquaman…
We were never going to end up with aquaman and Raul.

artful, you cal me a smart arse, but by your own admission, you are gbasing your opinion on someone else’s words and 10 minutes of highlights.

I read all the match reports and read all opinions in here, I then watched all but the first 20 minutes of the game… with those reports in mind.

I wasn’t at all anxious or hopeful when I watched it… coz I knew the outcome, and was specifically looking for all the negatives and the few positives that had been pointed out.

I think its possible my opinion of wacthing 70 minutes is far more valid than your opinion of having watched 10… no?
At least in so much as you don’t have the right to call me a smartarse, since you didn’t fuckin see it yourself, and are adopting someone elses opinion… which you gleefully quoted above.

I didn’t express an opinion on the game before now, because I didn’t see it until last night.
And as I further defined that opiinon… it was coming from a different perspective than those who saw it live.

I’m trying to understand the negativity with which that game was reported?

I get that they are “just WBA” and are “most pundits relegation candidates” and all that,
but off paper… for the 90 minutes of football (well the 70 I saw)… they got about us and played some footy.

as FS said, they could have beaten us.

But we could also have racked up a higher score.

Yes they outplayed us in patches, and created some good opportunities.
They put our defense under pressure and harried our midfield and closed down our forwards.
But we did all that to them as well.

And Ged, my apologies, next time I’m throwing out a bit of irony, I’ll stick a smiley there

Deep breath needed here I think lads.

I think we all agree on one thing… it’s the owners that are the main problem.

While we are under their “custodianship,” we are basically hamstrung before we start.

I think there’s pretty much agreement on the manager. Some just want him to be given time before we start drawing conclusions. That’s okay. In fact, it’s nice to see a bit of the old loyalty. It is part of the old Liverpool way. We don’t turn on ours like others turn on theirs. It’s a shame we forgot and let the last fella get shunted out the door. And I stand by all I’ve said on both Rafa and Roy. But that’s just honest worries. I’d like to give the lad some time and I’d love him to prove me wrong. But at the end of the day, I think we all know he’s basically screwed anyway. And I can only speak for myself, but I reckon even his biggest supporters don’t really expect more than Ship Steadying in these circumstances.

As for the playing side, I’ve had my say…
I do suspect senior players have too much influence. I feel the tactics and formations have been all wrong for every game and, I don’t think I’m being unfair by saying, what I’ve seen is mid-table football.

I think the difference is some people are more willing to give Roy a bit more time and want to see if things might still “gel.” That’s fair enough.

So maybe we need to wind ourselves in a bit or this blog is going to look like downtown Beirut before Christmas.

Sorry Reds, I’m not on a personal quest to prove you wrong… honestly…
but does anyone else remember this great debate you are referring to?

I ask only beacuse I don’t…
I don’t recall there being a great deal of debate regarding Aqua’s ankle when we bought him.

He underwent scans… they were not conclusive, so he was sent for a further scans, and as I recall the medical team responsible for making these determinations, reported that he’d be out for 6 to 8 weeks.

Is that NOT how it happened?

Now I’ll grant you, later, when he didn’t recover in that time, there were additional tests and a debate then ensued about how long it would take for him to regain fitness…
…with that time being constantly and repeatedly revised…
…but that was AFTER the intiial diagnoses proved incorrect and well past the time we’d stumped for him.

You’re making it sound as though Rafa ignored warnings that he would not be fit, and just did what he wanted… you know “stubborn Rafa” ignoring medical experts, and all that….

Am I being guilty of revisionist history here?
What say you all? LB, FS, ….hell, even Arthur (just kidding… about the “hell even”, not wanting you opinion the wanting your opinion part)
Am I just misinterpreting the point you were making?
If I’m doing either, then I’ll apologize, but that is how I remember events unfolding re Aqua.

So Insúa will go on loan to Galatasaray for the rest of the season. I must say I feel relieved. Not because I didn’t want him to remain with us, but because I’d hate to see a good prospect go to waste by being frozen out of the team and unable to play. Maybe he’ll never be a top class LB, but at least he’ll now get an opportunity to prove his critics wrong.

Aitch, West Brom always try to play football. I actually admire the club for it. It’s seen them yo-you up and down over the last few years. But it is admirable. They at least try to entertain their fans. When they’re in the championship they are one of the better teams and regularily batter opponents. When they come up they take the beatings off clubs with better players, well, bigger wage bills.

We really should be battering them. Here’s something… the first 20 minutes that you missed was probably our best time of the game.

But watching it it was pretty obvious. Like I said earlier, our football was slow, turgid and very frustrating to watch. In fact it was pretty much like it’s described in that report that Artful posted. I just couldn’t see how we was going to get through. And once West Brom realised that to they started to play. A better team would have probably beaten us.

Which ever way you look at it, or try to paint it, it wasn’t confidence boosting to say the least.

I’ve gave my reasons for this. I can see exactly why it’s developing like this. I’m sure Roy can too. All I hope is his pride gives him the bollacks to make the changes that are blatantly needed.

And in Galatasaray Insúa will be teaming up with players like Milan Baros and Harry Kewell. Don’t think he ever played with them before, but even so.

It’s the pace of the Premiership Insúa struggled with. Had he gone to Fiorentina and the Serie A I think he would have become a star, considering John Arne Riise is arguably the best LB in that entire league. The quality of the Turkish league is even lower, so I think the lad will probably dominate his flank over there.

Is anyone confident we’ll beat Birmingham?

sachem I think its a good move for Insua, not so much for us.
but everyone will have their opinion on that.

And FS, I don’t argue that we “should” be battering WBA, or argue anything you said about the way they’ve played and conducted htemselves.

To some extent I understand you view of the game… if I’d watched it live, I may have drawn the same comclusion. But I didn’t.

I saw the 10 minute hihglight package that artful saw, and I wasn’t impressed…particularly after reading about the game.
But like I said, what I saw was 70 minutes of frenetic footy… not pedestrian footy.
I’m not suggesting it was “great football” just not pedestrian or slow.
The match reports suggested we didn’t string much in the way of attacks… but we just DID.
…maybe not beautiful, dominating, attacking football, but we had the ball in their box a lot.

I just wonder if you had a chance to watch it a 2nd time, with the benefit of hindsight… which as I said is how I viewed it, as opposed to live…
…if you would have a slightly different … and don’t take this the wrong way big lad… but less emotional view of it?
And again… don’t go off on me, I don’t mean that as a slur… we can’t help but view it emotionally when we watch a game live…
…I do myself, no matter how much I try to be analytical… but in hindsight its a bit easier, coz you are a bit more detached from the frustration that would happen watching things develop live… that’s all I mean by my use of the word “emotional”.

But I’ll say what I find more disturbing is that artful actually DIDN’T watch the game …and came up with someone else’s “match report” to dispute me…
… but I’m the smart-arse? Really?

I’m the smart arse for formulating my own opinion basedon 70 minutes of the game…
but… you aren’t for swallowing someone else’s opinion, hook, line and sinker, then regurgitating it based on 10?
Really artful?
That does not jive with you’re past posting history.

I don’t care if I’m right or wrong, I just want the goalposts to stay in the same place.

Not if we play like we have been LB.

I’ve purposely not said this. But fuck it, for a laugh before bed, nevermind the bin, here’s a cat lashed right in amongst the pidgeons…
People rave about Roy’s last season/job at Fulham. But the last really big job he had was Blackburn Rovers. Okay. They’re no monster, but they’d recently won the league and had some very good players in the team. Roy was sacked by Christmas after winning only two games.

How’s them onions, Burger Man?

Gerry i think your point about hypocrisy is a valid one and i am guilty to some degree especially as i argued with countless people last season for crimes similar to what i commited last night.
Main reason, bitterness, which is a horrible thing to be doing but yes mea culpa.

But its not like freedom of speech has been restricted by the thought police, people have argued against my opinions and i welcome it.
Which may sound like hypocrisy to Arthur after the Aqillani inquest,but i made a couple of valid points which contradicted his statements, he doesnt get back to argue with my point, but he repeats the original statement a couple of days later.
Wondering does he even read my comments or his he ignorant ? well yes he replied to a little dig within minutes. That was frustrating Arthur

I will try to play devils advocate myself by posting alternative theory’s and i wont post anything as fact nor will i repeat a claim that as been “proved” unlikely by the vast majority.
YNWA

On paper, we have the players to do it LB…
…but Brum on their patch, is no easy task.

I was encouraged by what I saw against WBA…
…not overjoyed…
…not “we’re gonna win the league”…
…just encouraged…

I thought it a better display than I saw against Citeh.
SG played better, Carra played better, Agger played better. Kuyt was miles better.

That’s not to say there isn’t huge room for improvement… or need for it.

If I was betting I’d put the money on us for a narrow win …based more on the hopes… than solid evidence… of the above mentioned players and a few others all playing well.
We should easily come out of it with a draw… though I don’t think a draw is enough to set us up …confidence wise… going into Scum the following week?
We need a win.

I’d go for a 2-1 win.

No, Aitch. Frankly I couldn’t have sat through it a second time.

I saw 20 mins or so of us probing and poking, huffing and puffing to very little effect. West Brom seemed to suddenly realise they could have a go at us. They started to come back at us. We looked like the same team we did against City…
two banks of 4 with Gerrard chasing round like an 8 year old trying to do his Superman routine, (Roy has to stop that. The legs won’t last the season), the huge gaps stopped us creating anything, resulted in us hoofing a lot, West Brom waited for us to make the mistake, lose the ball and they flooded into the holes.

It was all pretty easily spotted.

It’s all pretty easily solved…
Drop Carra, play ten yards up the pitch, have one sitting player close by, pass and move, play that high tempo pressing game we played at our best. If we defend higher up the pitch with defenders that have the legs not to get caught out as easily as Carra, we can press the ball when we haven’t got it without worrying about being so exposed. We can win the ball back high up the pitch whenever we lose it. We can get support into and around the box quickly. Torres won’t have to be dropping deeper and deeper. Gerrard won’t be isolated and having to charge up and down the pitch. We can keep the pressure on teams like West Brom and start to pick off the easier teams.

It’s a simple game for simple people. Roy knows all this.

W Brom game was a proper old fashioned English game the ref let all sorts go and it could of gone either way.
Ultimately Roys subs did change the game Kuyt switching wings when Maxi came on did the trick, which is nothing new but it worked and 3 points are in the bag.
Have these “shackles” been released ? I think not.
LB
For Birmingham i think it will be a draw or a narrow low scoring win Torres to save the day.

Happy for Insua that he got loaned out, no point letting him rot in the reserves, the lad hasn’t done anything wrong by anybody and has been treated very poorly since Roy arrived. Who knows maybe when Roy gets sacked at the end of the season we can get Insua (and maybe even Aquilani back) in the team. Just on Aqua, do you think he’s one of those players that the less he plays the better he seems to get in the eyes of us supporters? Hopefully he proves Roy wrong and has a blinder of a season and we take him back next year.

P.S. What happened to signing a striker? I heard we were linked with Carlton Cole, and Mario Gomes the useless German/Mexican striker but in the end, as usual, nothing.

Rome mate, I said weeks ago all won’t be doom and gloom. I think we’ll see some really exciting battles against the likes of Mick Mcarthy, Fat Sham, Fat Heed and so on. Lots of people will settle for that and enjoy it. Meself, I’ll miss the tactical battles against top European teams, but there is something to be said for the other sort of games.

We have been spoilt rotten. Our record under Rafa is something most supporters can only envy. But loads of people enjoy watching the likes of Brum and Fulham. We might aswell learn to live with it.

I’m not sure how the media will report it with Roy in charge. I tend to think they’ll give him a break and start reporting proper facts. It wouldn’t surprise me though if they reported that we’ve spent 25 million during the window, but fact is… that’s another 17 million profit in transfers.

Apparently, none of it’s gone to the banks. I can’t confirm that. But this is supposedly substansiated fact…
By not selling today on the deadline, it enacts the penalty clauses and the debt has just risen by another 20 million quid today because of the clauses and deadlines attached to the last refinance and proposed sale.

As for the striker Arman, it’s being reported that all the targets were too expensive and so Roy offered Lucas and Babel for Cole but it was too late to strike the deal. I’d like to think that’s just a rumour with no basis.

Oh well, I’m off to bed, only so much disapointment a fella can take in a day.
Night night.

FS
The old fashioned game was more down to the ref allowing some 70′s tackling and shirt pulling. If i want to watch that kind of football i’ll go to the park and watch some pub team battling it out on a Sunday morning.
When Ladyboy f*cked off i noticed the FA all of a sudden started letting all kind of “physical ” football go unpunished and i see much the same thing this season.

If my figures are right thats roughly 50 mill thats been ASSET STRIPPED from the squad in just over 12 months.
But like Arman23 has pointed out Insua & Aquillani may be back next year.
Then again untill something drastic changes with the ownership there’ll be no point in them coming back. And we’ve got to ask who’s next ? how much more ASSET STRIPPING will take place in the next 12 months?

From Tony Cascarino:

Speaking to the Times, Cascarino suggested Konchesky was the ‘Signing of the week’’, saying: “Not because he’s a great player but because of what Liverpool buying him represents.

The left back is a good, solid performer who will help solve a problem position for the club but he’s not someone the other top four contenders would ever have considered buying.

He’s not Champions League quality. How Liverpool have lowered their sights.”

I seems also that Liverpool fans have lowered their sights, as LB has mentioned before.

Oh but Arthur says it’s not asset stripping until torres and gerrard are sold!

What a laugh. Fuck, after the world cup you would think we would be trying to get LESS english, not MORE? I’m predicting that within 3 gms we will see last yr’s stevie G–the one who was hanging his head and slating his teammates while doing fuck all himself. Eventually the media will notice and start asking what is wrong, is he past it, etc. This media campaign will convince the supporters that it’s time to sell him. We will sell him to Real M in january. Then he will suddenly rediscover his form and play like a fucking beast.

LB, you asked if stevie is past it? I dont think he is. I went back and watched the man shitty debacle again, and I must say, offensively he was fairly excellent. He was making some great passes and some great runs that were utterly wasted. Defensively and positionally he was a complete fucking mess, a huge liability, and he really cost us. It was like watching someone play 5-aside, just running wherever he pleases. Mourinho will get rid of that nonsense immediately, and pair him with alonso. He will thrive, I have no doubt.

Aitch, if you thought that game could be 5-1, you must be fucking high. A 5-1 WBA win maybe. Yeah it would have been 5-1 if gerrard had hit that volley from 40, and if skrtel had hit his volley from 25 as if he’s andres fucking iniesta. We were completely dire. We couldn’t get a touch for a good 15 minute period where WBA dominated possession 80-20. That should never ever happen against a relegation side. A fair scoreline would have been a 2-1 WBA win (the 2 skrtel pens and the handball). The torres shot was more or less a miracle shot. We shouldnt need miracle shots to beat relegation sides.

I am really hoping that meireles makes a significant difference in the side. We desperately need him to settle immediately. Paulsen is nowhere near good enough for the prem. It is shocking how bad our midfield tackling is now without mascherano. I almost want blind sissoko back.

What a difference a year makes. A year ago we could have been playing anyone in the world-barca, real, inter, whoever–and we would really fancy ourselves over 2 legs. This year we know we would been in for a thrashing (not that we’ll get to face those sides anyways). I’ll let you guys decide why that’s the case.

Fuck, maybe it’d just be better if we would get relegated, then we’d finally get rid of these yank bastards, as well as all these Sky-sucking fans. The club would lose enough value so that the ShareLiverpool venture would finally work. I might really start hoping for this–it will be painful to endure the Man U fans’ taunts, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Axe, I said it earlier, we stopped shopping at Harvey Nichs and are now emptying the coffers at Poundland – and have been since those C***TS took over.

Konchesky is a good premeirship/squad player – he is not good enough to play for us (I hope he proves me wrong) but is certainly a better option than playing our best centre half at LB.

Hi Gerry.

I have only recently began fully appreciating what fans of ex-giants like Ajax or Juventus, and in England, Newcastle and Villa feel everytime they check the news for mention of their clubs. Depressing doesn’t begin to render any justice to fan feelings.

A history lesson here, and the rise and rise of Liverpool FC, from John Houlding’s revolution that left him with only one Scot, to the search for a name to call this club (Everton is rejected by the English FA and the club names itself after the city in which it plays), to relative mediocrity, to promotion and relegations, to a certain Shankly and his Boot Room, to Rafa and now to Hodgson.

Regardless of how strong our feelings are, and they are, G & H are unfortunately part of our history – and so is the moving trash talker, the Incredible Sulk Mascherano. They form part and parcel of our stories, both at a downhill level and will be part of our rise from the ashes like the phoenix we truly are.

There’s an African saying that once you understand where you’ve been (history), will the where you’re going ever make sense. The Kop Nation has worked its collective buns off to preserve and remember. We might be “has beens” according to the skeptics, but like our eternal flames we never forget. That forms a core part of Kop strength.

At present we have a squad that isn’t where we need (or feel) it should be, but it remains the squad we have. Rafa’s beloved 4-2-3-1 may never come back as he envisioned it, the likes of Alonso-Masche-Arby are no longer with us. But boy, do we still have a team!

One true winger in Maxi, a glut of strikers currently deployed as midfielders, two creatives in JC and Meireles, a fantastic keeper in Reina and plenty of defense men at the back, and we have a team.

What is most important is securing this legendary institution’s future, and October is fast approaching when payments will have to be sorted out. My fervent prayer is that the Toxic Twins fail to do so and just leave. That cannot be said enough times.

What is being Kopite? Is it the wins we have, evidenced by our impressive trophy haul? Is it the red shirt we so adore? Is it where we’ve been and the personnel who’ve taken us there? Is it our humble beginnings as the dregs of a previous club? Is it our low moments like Heysel, Hillsborough and even falling out of the Big Four? It is these and many others.

A body’s made up of disparate parts; just like a journey is comprised of sadness sitting alongside cheer, gloom, failure and triumph. There is indeed no triumph without the “try” and “umph” bits.

This road is long, the pain seemingly never ending, but it’s a very necessary road to our rise again.

Again from history, looking at teams like Leeds and Parma, which shone like novas before burning out, our road in contrast might be long but at least we HAVE a road! Might not seem like much but we haven’t been put under receivership, merged with another club or been forced to change our identity. That means we still live to fight another day.

YN(Ever)WA(Ever)!

Babel was in London last night, as I believe Roy was trying to offload him to Wet Spam for C.Cole. Not sure if I’m happy or not.
I agree with RedsinAus: WTF is Gerrard still taking the corners? When last did we score from one? Gerrard is far more valuable in the box, with his heading prowess.
Those transfer figures make worrying reading. It would be nice to post them on the worldwide web, so that Winter, Cascarino, Gray (I won’t include Redknapp, as he wouldn’t understand it anyway) & all those Sly-following/posting fans could see the truth about the Yanks & Purslow etc.

Interesting read…aat least it seems he is still happy(ish)?
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2010/09/01/fernando-torres-new-owners-fundamental-to-liverpool-fc-100252-27178515/?

I read that Babel was in Merseyside the whole of yesterday and did not go anywhere near London.

It’s funny that we made a £15m profit in the transfer window but couldn’t afford a striker. That must have gone towards the penalty of Broughton failing at his job.

Remember during the summer of 2008 when we had Riise and were crying out for a top class left back. What would you have said if I told you “Lads, in 2 years we’ll be buying Paul Konchesky as our first choice left back”. You’d have run me out of here right? Or laugh to yourself “LB is having a right laugh init?”.

Dear oh dear. You know we are in trouble when Aitch is encouraged by a lucky 1-0 win at home against arguably the worse side in the division. Standards have well and truly plummeted. This time last year we were demanding the title. Now we’d be happy with 6th.

It’s got to the point where I will be pleasantly surprised if we beat Birmingham.

We are indeed doing a Newcastle. The similarities are unnerving.

I think I need some of what Aitch was smoking during the West Brom game to improve my mood.

Roy,as with Rafa has his hands tied also as he is orking under a similar regime.So with that said i`m willing to give the man a chance,now he knows what he has hopefully he can gel a side together his way so i`m willing to give him ample time.

Lads the reason WBA played some nice footy and could have got something from the game imo is because we let them play.We so far,have seemed to play with a very lethargic tempo to our game as well as lying deep.
When we play high up the pitch,pressing from the front with a high tempo to everything.Quick throw-ins,free`s,always on our toes and up for the fight.

I could`t see WBA living with that kind of attitude if it were applied.

So i think lads,your giving WBA more credit than they deserve really,i think we made them look good.Our passing was slow.The movement was no existant.

We made a few chances after the goal,with Torres unlucky not to add to his tally.

To answer LB`s question,yes i think we can beat Birmingham but that place has been a very tricky ground (minus the 7-0 FA cup win) for us.

Once all come back from international duty free from injury,that would be a good start.

Yes LB remember the CBC coming in here slating the management when we were fighting for the title?

How far away are the days when we won at the Bernabau,San Siro,Nou Camp and notable home wins against Real and Arsenal,god what a night that was.

FS was right,we were spoiled,spoiled rotten and its oly now its hitting home.

Reading in between the lines.

Torres: “If no new owners come in to take the club forward I want out of here!”

He left his boyhood club who have gone onto win the UEFA cup and Super Cup while he has won fuck all with Liverpool. When he speaks to his friends and family back home he must wonder what on earth he is doing at Liverpool. He certainly didn’t come here to languish in mediocrity. I think he’ll do an Alonso. Play great for the shop window and hope an attractive offer comes in for him.

Timmy, I know we CAN beat Birmingham. Do you think we WILL beat them?

Aitch: The match report I quoted above is actually not just one report. It’s excerpts from about 6 different reports on the game. Now i dont always believe everything i read, but when i read a myriad of reports all alluding to the same way the game developed and i watch highlights that back up those reports then its reasonable to assume i’m going to form the opinion i did. Its also just as valid an opinion as your own. All though, I wouldnt be so high and mighty as to tell you my opinion is more valid than yours, its not about “my opinion is more valid than yours”. This aint the playground.

Have your say, have a bit of debate, discussion and disagree with me, people, whoever. That’s what the blogs all about. You can do it without being a smart arse and sarcastic. If you had of left out the incredulous but belittling “But perhaps the best of the best is Artful’s comment….” i would have taken your points more seriously and maybe we could have had an interesting debate about it. There’s just no need for it.

Hey but maybe i’m being a bit sensitive! But I come from an area in Dublin where you dont take no shit from no one. Especially when someone has a go at you unprovoked. So when you get ratty with me you’ll get it back as good as you give it if not more.

I despair sometimes. I really do. Sometimes I wonder whether the blog is bickering or debate.

Me heart says yes LB but if i`m to be completely honest,taking into consideration our form of late and our record there,i`ll think it will be 1-1.

Well lads, the only good thing I can say from the blog perspective is…
We all seem to be reading from the same page as far as our dire situation goes.

I know to Arthur, GD, even Digger and a few others, it must seem at times, that I’ve been on a petulant get Hodgson crusade because of my love for Rafa. But I think most of them, will understand what I’ve been saying now.

Hodgson isn’t too blame for any of this. I don’t think he’s complient and just letting the owners asset strip the club. I don’t think he’s happy with what Purslow is doing with the squad. I don’t think he’s happy with the influence some of our senior players have. As I’ve said all along, he’s not some mug.

I’m not going to lie to defend him. And I don’t think he’s a top shelf manager. I think he’s exactly what most of us expected, and even sadly accepted…
A stop gap manager to try and keep us ticking along until this mess is solved one way or another.

That’s why I think the people calling for a bit of patientce and understanding are right in that regard.

I only wish the idiots who helped do for Rafa would have realised all this… and yes, I will keep telling I told you so, because
1: I did.
2: I will never forgive them for what they have done.

But having said that, we will become an absolute joke if we – especialy us who defended Rafa- start calling for Roy’s head….
There is no alternative.
No Hiddink or Maureen are going to come riding along to save us.
Roy is probably one of the best we could expect under such circumstances.
And he’s here now.
He’s the manager of LFC, I’d like to think some of us still have the Liverpool Way inside and we defend and support our own.
And in all truth, just like Rafa, he’s our only hope right now – well, at least on the playing side of things.

And hopefully, somehow out of all this mess, he can forge a Europa League finish in the league, and maybe even do well in that competition and the FA Cup.

It’s okay us screaming about Insua going and Konchesky coming in…
but again, the out’s aren’t down to Roy.
It’s Purslow we can thank for them.
And as for the ins, well it’s not as if we was going to get Maicon is it.

As I said in my last couple of posts, we best get used to this. It’s what we’ve got to face for the immeadiate future maybe years.

It saddens me to say it, but it’s true. This is the reality of LFC under H&G. It is not Roy’s fault.

I hope the man has too much pride to let the players run the club, but, again, that’s how things go nowadays. Let’s face it… Rafa should have dropped Carra long ago. It’s not an easy task controling these spoilt rotten own legend/hype believing multi-millionaires.

I stand by all I’ve said. My worries are still there. But then, they were there since Rafa’s job was offered to Klinnsman. Imagine if that would have happened. We would have probably been in the Championship by now.

As I just said, I will never forgive the likes of Digger. But as for the rest of us, it’s time to start accepting reality, or like I said, this blog is going to soon look like downtown Beirut at the height of the troubles.

FS, any more news from your man at RBS?
There has hardly been a peep re the takover for 10 days or so now, ever since Huang pulled out. We (all in this blog) could do with a bit of a lift right now.

PS… As for Torres. Well, I’m honestly not trying to score some stupid points to make meself look smart. Looking smart on an internet forum is no comfort to me. But LB is right. And I did warn you to expect this, if they manage to somehow refinance in October and hang on to the club, Torres will be looking for the first train out of Liverpool in January.

When you contract a terminal illness too early in life, or unfairly loose a loved one way before you should, they reckon you go through a series of emotions…
Denial, self pity, anger, rage and finally acceptance.

Don’t get my posts, wrong. I’m still raging proper fuckin raging, but sadly I’m pointing out realities an all.

FS, lets have your thoughts on Carra…. Your opinion on his performance and also influence on and off the pitch. Whether it is negative or positive.

168: last time we spoke mate, it was the same news…
No one but the inner circle has a clue what’s going on behind closed doors.

The moment I hear anything I’ll let you lads know.

But if you have a look at a few things, it’s easy to see some, not all, of what’s happening…
H&G put in phoney bids to delay and stop the sales process.
They are desperately trying to refinance with yet another bank.

Our friend is still adamant… RBS have had enough and will pull the plug.

The frightening things are…
will they get the refinance?
What exactly are Broughton and Purslow up to?

Frightening times mate.

Well said FS…it is a sad situation we find ourselves in, H&G has fucked us, and boy, did they fuck us good, but then again there is a little thing called karma, the bastards will get what they deserve, eventualy. After all the hype that cunt Broughtman and his pussy licking CEO, promised us, they should just go hang themselves.

LB: Carra’s a bench player now, and a good squad member. His influence is huge. He loves the club and means well. But he’s really not helping things.

It’s like old boxers mate… they ignore all the signs, they ignore their own true feelings and thoughts, they fight on way best their best.

Let’s just hope Roy has the bollacks to throw the towel in for him.

I don’t think Roy will leave out Carra. It’ll take some woeful performances for that to happen. Imagine Carra was benched and we began conceding goals. Roy would get slaughtered by the fans. I do not think he has a pair that large. I could only see Roy dropping him if he had to play against Drogba every week. We all know that Drogba makes Carra look like a GM Vauxhall Conference centre half most of the time.

Make no mistake about it FS. The Rafa out morons are starting all ready. Had a quick look in the comments section on the Liverpool Echo this morning and the idiots were off all ready complaining about how Roy has totally screwed up the transfer window for us and its not new players we need but a new manager. It would be laughable if it wasnt so depressing.

I’d like to think that these idiots were 12 year old kids sitting behind a keyboard and playing the internet warrior but the absolute sad cases i’ve seen supporting us over the last few years would lead me to believe these are grown men, brain washed by the sly sports generation no doubt.

Tried to post this yesterday but got lost in the either. However the old CTL+A, CTL+C trick did the job. Looks like I missed the boat though:

-0-
Aitch, I watched the WBA game, albeit online, and I have to say that your post #117 was far more interesting that the game itself.

Simply put, we were pants. Also, from my point-of-view, the 51-49 possession stats are not misleading at all. For sustained periods we could not get the ball from them. WBA had some decent chances as well and if their last ball had been decent… Anyway, you get the drift. With a bit of luck they could have had a 1 nil away win or more.

The defence as whole are too deep and as a result isolating the attack. Is it a surprise that the goal that we scored was a typical ‘Rafa’ goal? They nearly score and then Pepe quickly distributes the ball and then it’s onto Kuty who then in turn lays it back Torres for a great finish.

All in all, I thought that we were pretty toothless.
-0-

Have to be quick here. I have nothing against Roy but what did he think he was getting when he took the job?

Surely, again, he was not so stupid to think that everything would be great and rosey. Also, he is contradicting himself in different interviews (Inter made a ridiculous offer for mascher, followed swiftly by Rafa had an agreement with LFC not to sign players)

It’s all very confusing but again, maybe that’s the way it is meant to be.

When we are uder pressure and our backs to the wall FS,Carra is the first man i`d have in there.

Only thing is,he dosen`t have much pace in him any more.He was caught a couple of times in the world cup.If he gets isolated out wide 9 times out of ten a young fit forward willl do him for pace.

We do seem to be holding a deep line and with Carra calling the shots there,maybe he dosen`t trust himself to hold the line high.

So therefore in that case it would seem he is sacrificing the teams welfare for his own reputation and ego.
But to blame all our form on Carra would be wrong.I`m not sayig anyone in here is.As much as he hoofs the ball back to the opposition,we also have stevie trying the killer 40 yard pass that when comes off,looks amazing but he more often than not dosen`t.Maybe 20-30% of those balls come off.(i`m probably being generous here)

Also we have players at the moment who are struggling to keep the ball for more thn 3 or 4 passes before giving it away.Our ball retention at the moment is shocking.Even with our problems off the field,our players we do have,at this level should take care of the ball a lot better.

LB: he’s that bloody slow not that any nippy striker can make him look the GM Vauxhall Conference centre, nevermind centre half.

He’s great at the last ditch tackles, but like I said it’s like watching an old great boxer struggle and then landing the odd haymaker.

What you have to bear in mind is…
these lads are multi-millionaires from a very young age, but they all come from modest, at best, beginnings. They don’t sit round reading philsophy. In fact, they don’t read. They play football – end of. They get no education, and if they show promise as youngsters they are spoilt rotten from a very early age. Is it any wonder they believe in their own hype, blame others instead of looking in the mirror, and kneejerk when they aren’t getting their own way?

Makes me sick when grown men stick up for petulant footballers over the men who are trying to do what’s right for the club/team.

But that’s the way it is now. Men like Ian Callaghan, who was born and brought up in poverty striken Toxteth, learnt manners as much as how bend a ball. They were grateful for the living they made from doing what they loved. They knew they’d escaped the factory floor. They knew they’d end up with a few bob and maybe a little business. They knew the realities of life. They were taught it by men who had it far worse. Men like Shanks from dire poverty. Men like Paisley who’d fought on the front. You could trust and even idolise these people.

This fuckin lot now… oh dear.

I was thinking of this the other day, what the fuck is the xenophobic media going to do when this generation of English managers finish?

There won’t be any new ones. Why would people like Wayne bloody Rooney, even if he wasn’t as thick as pig shit, want to manage a football club?

Can you imagine the likes of Terry or Cole one day managing Chelsea?

Too busy shagging it up in LA or somewhere. Not that that’s a bad idea. But it doesn’t give Talk Shite much too look forward to.

Aitch: You are taking a right pasting re your analysis on the WBA
Best you take it on the chin mate, and accept that you were (a) watching a rerun of another game, (b) had a few jars in you, (c) were babysitting & thus distracted, (d) your missus posted on your behalf or (e) you were under the influence of a banned substance.

I missed your post typing Timmy and I’ve got to go now, but I think me last post answered it really.

If we are to stand any chance this season, Roy has to ring the changes. I hope he will want to save his own reputation above anyone elses. And I also think old cuddly Roy does have a mean ruthless streak. He wouldn’t have been in football in the position he’s got to without having one.

Our only hope in my opinion, but as many others have said, is…
Reina
Johnson Konchesky(now)
Skrtle Agger,
Poulson(oh dear)
Kuyt or Maxi, Mieriels, Cole
Gerrard
Torres.

The back line has to play further up, pushing up constantly even if we have the ball or not. We have to press every pass. Win the ball high up the pitch, get the ball moving forward at pace, get men in and around the box fast, to back up Torres.

Cole and Kuyt or Maxi, have to fight like fuck. The fullbacks have to be supported, and they have to bomb on. Gerrard has to tuck in behind Torres, not acres away from him, and stop making the Superman runs and passes. The legs will go before Christmas if he isn’t controlled. Poulson has to be the yard dog, but not an idiot wrestler. Mierles has to spray the ball about, short and long, keeping the momentum and pushing his forward. From what I’ve seen and know, he can do this.

If we play like that… the way Rafa wanted us to, the way we did at our best, we stand a chance. If we keep up this shite we’ve seen so far we are in nearly as much trouble on the pitch as we are off it.

Right got to go.
Later folks.

I also think Skrtle’s game has gone backwards. There looks to be a fuck up in him in every game these days. My first choice centre half pairing would be Kyg and Agger I reckon. Carra would always be my first choice but that was until the Man City launch fest. It really got me down.

There is either a huge gap between our midfield and back four or a huge gap between the attack and midfield. This needs sorting.

Gerrard’s form needs sorting as well. There is always an excuse for him. Too isolated or others not giving him the ball enough. We’re not allowed to say he played shite? When was the last time he had a man of the match performance for us? I mean played really well? When? And I don’t mean “by his high standards” I mean by anyone’s standards. It’s my opinion that he has done sweet fuck all since he signed that massive contract. It is also my opinion that we have only one world class outfield player at the club at the moment. Gerrard is living off his reputation. Kuyt never was the best passer of a ball and Jovanovic is not exactly Robert Pires, add Poulsen and Lucas to the mix and it’s no wonder we can’t string 5 passes together at high tempo. This is why I was so fucked off with the Aquilani situation.

I watched the mancs in the first 20 mins at Craven Cottage the other week and I thought to myself that I haven’t seen us pop the ball around like that for a long long while. Spurs play some lovely football at times. Chelsea just destroy teams under Ancelotti. We look bloody ordinary in comparison I have to say.

Rafalution, I’ll wager it was (e).

ROY HODGSON yesterday failed in his attempts to bolster Liverpool’s forward line before the transfer window slammed shut.

The Anfield outfit were in discussions with four different clubs about signing a striker but were unable to finalise any deals.

Instead, confirmation of Paul Konchesky’s signing from Fulham was the only significant incoming as a number of fringe players exited the club.

The 29-year-old left-back has penned a four-year contract at Anfield in a £3.5million deal that has seen youngsters Lauri Dalla Valle and Alex Kacaniklic move in the opposite direction.

Konchesky will replace Emiliano Insua who, after moves to Fiorentina and Genoa both hit the buffers last month, has signed for Turkish side Galatasaray on loan with a view to a permanent transfer.

However, the news that Hodgson has been unable to provide further backup to Fernando Torres will be greeted with disappointment by supporters.

Interest in PSV Eindhoven striker Ola Toivonen waned over the weekend when Hodgson declared the player did not possess the “profile” Liverpool were seeking.

The Anfield outfit remained keen on bringing in German international Mario Gomez on a year-long loan, despite Bayern Munich having stated they would not contemplate any temporary deal for the player.

Hodgson also made enquiries about West Ham United striker Carlton Cole, with Hammers manager Avram Grant confirming Ryan Babel had been mentioned as a makeweight.

“I think Liverpool were interested (in Cole) at the last moment, they tried to do something,” said Grant. “I don’t think it was an offer. (Babel) was one of the suggestions to do or not to do.”

There was further speculation Babel was offered to Tottenham Hotspur as part of a deal to sign Peter Crouch, although Spurs manager Harry Redknapp claims that his own move for the Dutchman was rebuffed by Liverpool.

“We were interested in Ryan Babel,” he said. “He has got pace, he is lighting quick and he was a player we made an enquiry for, but we never got that close.”

Later yesterday afternoon, Babel – who last week spoke of reviving his Liverpool career under Hodgson – used his Twitter account to reaffirm his commitment to the club.

“I’m going nowhere,” he wrote. “LFC all the way. YNWA!!! (You’ll Never Walk Alone).”

Liverpool are also believed to have sounded out the possibility of a loan deal for Manchester City striker Roque Santa Cruz with the Paraguayan’s slated temporary move to Italian side Lazio having collapsed.

Following Insua out yesterday was Damien Plessis, with the 22-year-old French midfielder joining Greek side Panathinaikos for an undisclosed fee.

Plessis arrived from Lyon in the summer of 2007 but failed to make the required impact at Anfield, making just eight appearances and scoring one goal.

He joins a number of former Liverpool players at Panathinaikos, with the Greeks already boasting Luis Garcia, Djibril Cisse and Sebastian Leto.

Another departure was 24-year-old winger Nabil El Zhar, who has joined Greek side PAOK Salonika on loan until the end of the season, while young Dutch winger Vincent Weijl has completed a transfer to Spanish outfit SD Eibar.

The only other incoming signings were a brace of youngsters as Liverpool look to bolster their Academy set-up.

Spanish midfielder Suso – full name Jesus Joaquin Fernandez Saenz De La Torre – has completed a transfer from FC Cadiz on a scholarship agreement.

The 16-year-old impressed for the reserves during the summer to such an extent he was given a late run-out in the senior pre-season friendly at Kaiserslautern.

Meanwhile, Hungary Under-17 international Adam Hajdu has arrived from MTK Budapest on a temporary transfer until next June. Both transfers are subject to international clearance.

Liverpool’s Carling Cup third round tie against Northampton Town at Anfield will take place on Wednesday, September 22 with an 8pm kick-off.

This one is for Aitch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5dgAszVslA

Think we’ll beat Northampton?

Should be okay with it being a home game.

But arsing about aside, I don’t think there’s really that much we argue about on the footballing side of things in here. There’s the odd thing, like Aitch having his red tinted glasses on. I don’t mind that. It’s only the lad’s loyalty and hope.

And I think he’s right in the fact, that, despite all the shit that’s just happened, there’s still the spine of a really good team there and the others are not complete and utter garbage.

The future, oh dear. But there here and now, well, that’s down to what’s been said in a few posts this morning.

Does Roy have the bollacks to make the changes that need to be done?

We all see them. So don’t kid yourself, he doesn’t.

And LB, I agree about Gerrard. But again, this is down to Roy to do what he’s been brought in to do…
get the most out of this set of players as he can.

Well, all the people that wanted the change of management had one thing in common, they thought Rafa had lost the dressing room and we needed a man manager not so much a tactician.

So, Roy was unveild as the mighty motivator. Now he’s got to perform.

Far as I’m concerned, man management isn’t wrapping an arm around a shoulder or kissing arse, letting them have what they want.

It’s employing every trick in the book to get the play concerened into giving his best and doing what’s best for the team.

If that means the occasional kick up the arse, so be it. If that means putting a few noses out of joint and forcing players to play in their best position, not the position they like, so be it.

We just went on about the Cole penalty. I hope Roy learnt from that. Yes, I understood his motives – give Joe an early goal in his career, get his confidence flowing, get the team behind him.

But in my book that was highly dangerous sentimental claptrap. It was a vital European qualifier. We needed every advantage we could get. It was silly to risk that. It was even stupider to risk alienating other players by showing Joe favouritism.

And that’s me whole point really, he isn’t here to be there mate or keep them happy. He’s here to get as much as possible out of them. Not an easy task with this bunch of spoilt bastards who seem to believe their own hype just a wee bit too much.

Mind you, we’re not as bad as the NFL yet. I just heard some footballer over there has just insured his flowing locks for 1 million dollars.

I’d have shaved the pounce’s head if I was the manager.

And that’s it, in my opinion what we need right now. Forget the owner stuff for a second, I’m just talking football…
Roy has to name a 25 man squad today. It has to be registered by tommorow. He should have them all sit down in Melwood today, explain exactly what he needs from everyone in that squad. Then a personel metting with every player in the squad, wrap arms round shoulders that like that sort of thing, even kiss arse where needed, boot it if not heeded, and lay on the line who is boss, and what is expected or they can fuck right off. It’s the only way.

PS… I agree, Skrtle is looking more and more like an NFL player with each passing game. But it’s much more easy to straighten that out than it is to put pace in old and tiring legs.

FS,i personally don`t think the Joe Cole penalty decision was all that of a risk.

I`m not talkig in hindsight here,obviously because he missed it but lets face it,although he never took a peno in his senior career i didn`t take much of an issue with Cole stepping up.

The lad looked like he was up for taking it.You could see that from the way he ran and grabbed the ball.So Roy obviously,didn`t have to put a gun to his head.

In my eyes,if a footballer,and a pro at that,who has played at the highest level for a while now,is confident in taking a spotter,we should have no reason to doubt he can stick it from 12 yards.

In hindsight was it the wrong decision? yes,he missed it.

But if he`d scored we`d have hailed it as good management from Roy,giving joe back some confidence from the sending off against arsenal.

But he didn`t so in hindsight,Roy your a shit man manager.Don`t you ever try a trick like that again you idiot

But Timmy, Cole did indeed miss the pen. Not sure why he grabbed the ball with such confidence to take the kick. Why has he not done that in the last 16 years playing football?

Read my post LB i said i wasn`t talking in hindsight.

Maybe he was bursting to score his first goal in front of the Kop,no?

No Timmy. You’ve missed the point…
We are in for a tough season. Roy knows that. One of our hopes is going far in the Europa. We had a right bananna skin of a game. We was going to face a really tough return in Turkey. We needed to rack up a decent win and go there with not too much to do as we faced a hard game when we got back.

Despite all of these factors, Roy told Joe Cole to take a penalty if we got one.

I know why. It’s was bloody foolhardy.

I hope he’s learned from that lesson. I’m sure he has. Nevermind any other motives, we need to go into every game giving ourselves the best possible chance of picking up the best result we can. If we start fucking up and plummeting to far too quick, we risk losing Torres for a starters.

If Roy plays his best possible game. I think we stand a chance of sort of staying afloat at least and hoping the mess in the back is soon sorted. If Roy fucks about like that, we risk losing too many points at the beginning of the season, the heads to start dropping, us to start dropping down the league like a stone, getting knocked out of the cups early doors… and Roy even being sacked like he was by Blackburn before Crimbo.

Roy needs to start thinking about his own reputation before cow-towing to any single player or players. If he does that… we’re fucked.

Summary of main transfers for the current window

Out In

Insua Konchesky
Mash Polson
Aqua Meireles
Yossi Cole
Riera Jovan

Agreed FS,roy can`t cosy up to players and give them what they want.

You cannot do that at Sunday league level nevermind the top.

But all i was saying was,at the time of the peno was given,when i saw joe taking it i didn`t stick me head in me hands.What was your reaction when you saw joe stepping up?other than the obvious eanting him to stick it.

Who was the alternative anyway,was Derek on the field?I think he was rested by Roy along with stevie unless i`m mistaken.

Wanting!!

Ger any edit button around?

Timmy my reaction was “Cole to take it? Don’t think I remember ever seeing him take one.” Then as he was waiting for the ref to whistle I thought “He’s going to miss this”. It was a dreadful penalty. Now I know why he hasn’t taken them before. He is shite at them.

Corky, not exactly an improvement those transfers.

I didn’t know Joe Cole took his last penalty at the age of 13. I’d have been horrified if I had. Maybe Roy never either, but I’m not being paid to know these things. Maybe Joe should have said, I’ve took one professionaly boss.

But which ever way you look at it, it was a decision based on stupid sentimentallity. I think Roy’s cleverer enough to take a lesson from that, and not just add “No pens for Joe” into his notebook.

I honestly don’t expect much from Roy. I’m not going to go screaming for his head. I understand the situation we are in and his own position. But I do expect proffessionalism and him to do his absolute best by the club. His job is not too please the players. And the fact is, if you do that, you don’t please the players. You make alienate the ones who feel unfavoured and form cliques inside the playing staff.

As I’ve said before Timmy, Roy knows all that. He wouldn’t have been around the top end of the game for 30 years by being a mug. So, it’s now down to him…
Does he take the big decisions, no matter who it pisses off, and by doing that protect his own reputation, or does he bottle it?

I’d like to think, he’ll do his best. I’d like to think he’s learnt a lot in the last few weeks. I’d like to think he’s already got it all sorted now in at least he’s own head. But time will tell. So that’s were you, Gerry, Aitch and all the others who want him given some time are right. He needs and deserves at least that. But as I said, I want lie. From what I’ve seen I’m very worried but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And let’s face, like I said earlier, there’s no alternative. He’s here now. No one is going to come charging to our rescue. So we need to show the man some support.

Not at all LB, but the net effect assuming the loan deals become permanent is a profit of £22m+

Thats what I call asset stripping!!

Corky, you hit the nail on the head there. I think Hicks and Gillett got the idea from Richard Prior in Super Man 3. Prior’s character found a way to hack into the bank account of every citizen in the United States and take $1 from each account. Nobody noticed and he pocketed a cool $250,000,000.

People might notice (and I emphasise the word might) when we sell Torres for £70m and replace him with Peter Crouch for £10m + Pacheco.

I know we are harping over spilt milk but it is important in the ongoing evaluation of our new coach. I too will support him until blue in the face – mainly because I know we have no other options until we get new owners.

Anyhow FS who would you have had take the Pen instead of cole? Torres – when was the last time he took one? Jovanovic? Poulsen, Lucas, Maxi, aurelio, Carra, Soto? Kelly? I don’t remember having seen any of them except Carra take a pen. Personally I would have told Torres to just put his boot through it but I son’t think there was a clear best option, and so in light of any option being a risk Roy may have decided to help JC get off to a start after seeing people like Crouch struggle to get off the mark and hence the media giving them a heap of pressure.

Also next home game can someone make a huge banner telling stevie not to take corners as we need him in the air?!?

I’d had given the pen to Pepe!

Well Aurelio takes every other set piece when Gerrard isn’t playing. Why not him?

The club should have a list of pen takers.

1st choice Gerrard
2nd choice Kuyt

And so on… fucking hell how many coaches and members of staff do they need to get that prepared? During that prep that’s when you find out that Cole hasn’t taken one since he was 13.

Red in Aus,

I think Aurellio should take the corners when he plays.Rafa said he had the sweetest foot in the club bar Alonso.

Even outside Stevie being a good ariel threat from a corner,he could take up a positio at the edge of the area so he coud strike on to ant ball that breaks down.

I wrote same time as you there LB.Aurellio would be a good shout.

Anyhoo it might seem a small detail i the dressing room but that small detail cost the mancs two points at fulham two weeks ago.

When Nani missed an 85th minute peno at 2-1 up,it cost them because fulham equalised late on.

When the tramp was asked about it he wondered why Nani took the peno,when Ryan Giggs who scoerd twoo high pressure penos at OT last season against spurs,was on the field.

The point is lads…
Professionalism, every detail needs to be fine tooth combed, every thing on the playing side has to be running at the top of it’s game, or, like I said, we’ll soon have as many problems on the pitch as off it.

And I still think the points being missed… I’m not arsed about the pen now. It’s in the past and we tweaked through. We won’t keep getting lucky. Roy has to be ruthless and on top of his game or we are knackered.

is there really an argument over who took a peno in europa league qualifier that we won two weeks ago!!!!! ffs the lads a 29 year old professional footballer give him the ball let him take it if he misses he misses if he scores great. jaysus lads if this is the type of nit picking thats going to go on the man is doomed before he starts. lets not forget rafas first 4 months in charge shall we, we hardly set the world alight did we? no we scraped through the group stages of the champions league and we got knocked out of the cup by burnly.in fact we had a shocking league campaign with 11 defeats i think and the bluenoses finished ahead of us. the season was saved by our european run.

“If he misses he misses if he scores great.”

I see.

GD,your right there pal.

I never want a shite season like 04/05.

Only the european cup to show for it (rolleyes)

I am trying to break the monotony of the discussion around Joe Cole. Trying to focus on Barrys statement in press today.

I was reading Barrys statement on BBC regarding Capello and how the team was fully behind the manager. Does a manager need a stamp of approval from his players?
Is it a cultural thing we expect our players to come out and say this although it should be the other way round, a manager selects his team and the team doesnt select the manager?
Doesn’t statements like this dilute the power of the manager and make the general viewing public feel a manager is at the mercy of his players?
The other part if the media who tries to get these statements out of the players and the players fall into the trap knowingly or unknowingly. Isn’t everyone culpable the players, the media, and we? I didnt mention manager since I was placing this in context to Barrys statement but managers also play to the gallery.
As long as everyone realizes their roles and responsibilties and try not to comment on things which they are not responsible. Yes it will be dull but a far better place.
I understand as human nature we like to feel important, be noticed, remember the things that went wrong and when we get a chance to speak our maturity lets us down. We dont realize folks are taking advantage of us and we could feel so stupid later.
This happens continuously nowadays everyone wants to give a statement and most of the time its difficult to know who is right and who is wrong because its their own perspective. Sigh….

To be fair to Barry. I guess he realised Capello is under pressure. The public think there was mutiny in the dressing room during the world cup. He is trying to put the record straight. Barry probably had a mic shoved in his face and asked “So Gareth are the players behind the manager?”

The media have it in big time for Capello.We all know once they sink their teeth into someone,its cutains.
Capello was better off leaving after the world cup.The media now have made their mind up about him.Oliver Holt i heard somewhere that he wrote Capello should be sacked after the qualifing games coming up,regardless of the result.

Even if Capello turned it around they still wouldn`t stop until they drove him out.

I wonder if it had been one of the good oul fashioned Ingerlish mangaers here,he`d certainly be given some time.

Rafa had a terrible time with the leeches to say the least.He never played their game.He had different methods,mehtods that were alien to the English,but they were advanced methods,the football of the future.

It just wasn`t english.

So they`ve made this man,who had already before he came to LFC a better CV than the whole alex ferguson ass kissing club put together,they made him out to be some dummy,who didn`t know what he was doing.

They lambasted his formation,until five or six years later when every successful team in the World cup in south africa played the same system.No its the best thing since the sliced pan.

Now they do it to Cappello.One of the greatest managers of the last twenty years.They are making him the muppet now.

No matter what,the johnny foreigner will never have the same playing field as the homegrown managers.

The media will use quotes,twist them what ever way they can,to suit their agenda,until they`ve achieved their goal.

And its sad to say,they always do.

Forgive the War&Peace missive, but let me clear a few things up here.

I never said the performance against WBA was Great. Go read my posts again.

What I said was that I had read the match reports, read the comments in here and watched the 10 minute highlights package.
So I wasn’t at all encouraged by it.
I had looked for a rebroadcast, but one was not advertised, then completely by accident, I came across the game, 20 minutes in… what I saw did not match with what I’d read.

I’m have not said, nor am I saying that it was a great performance!

I have also clarified that when you watch a game live, you are filled with anticipation and anxiety.
When you play a team like WBA, as a Liverpool fan you naturally expect that to be a game we should win, and arrogantly expect it to be one that we should win comfortably.
If the Chavs can tonk them 6-0, then we should be doing so as well.
Having read all the reports and opinions I watched the game completely detached from those emotions.

If you saw the game live, I have no problem with you disagreeing with my opinion.
But let’s be clear what that opinion is… coz some of you are putting words in my mouth.

We didn’t play great. But we didn’t play as badly as reported.
The reported possession stats were not accurate.

Yes WBA could easily have beaten us 2-1, or 3-1, maybe even 4-1…
… but as I said, we carved enough chances to do the same.

Games change on moments.
Sometimes a 3-0 tonking is just that… and sometimes, a game is even-stevens and a goal changes things and a team runs out 3-0 winners, but that scoreline is not a reflection of how even the game play was.

Again… I saw the game tape-delayed, devoid of any emotion…
…I formulated an opinion of what I saw… and in part, that opinion was based on what I perceived to be a not terribly accurate “description” of the game…
If you watched the game live, your experience was fundamentally different than mine.

FS says he refuses to watch the game a 2nd time. No offense lad, but I don’t get that really.
I respect your opinion, coz I know from post-history that your footy experience is similar to mine.
30 odd years playing competitively, a bit of youth coaching…
…neither of us are mugs who adopt the Sky-Party-Line… so I actually find it interesting we differ so much on this one.

I’ll actively seek out another rebroadcast… and if I find it, I’ll watch it again and try to determine where the discrepancy is.

Has anyone in here watched a rebroadcast, or watched it a 2nd time? I’d be curious to know if those people think I’m that far off the mark. (LB, you accused me of smoking… that’s okay, I take the joke, but didn’t you yourself say you didn’t see it?)

Anyway, like I said, words are being put into my mouth.
I never said I was overjoyed with the performance, what I said was, I was encouraged by some of what I saw.

I pulled up Arthur for rating Poulsen higher than Lucas based on seeing him once.
This was my first viewing of Poulsen… I don’t rate him as a very good signing… I’m not gonna change my mind based on this one performance…
…but I’ll tell you what, his performance wasn’t bad.

That’s not to say he was great.
He’s no fuckin Mascherano…
…But he wasn’t bad.

In this regard, I’m “encouragement” by what I saw. That’s not to say I think that he’s gonna be the biz for us….
Just that it wasn’t a great signing.
Some would rate him as the next Salif Diao…
…its only one game, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s gonna be the next Diao.
That is (very sadly) encouraging.

So when I say I was encouraged by what I saw… it is only in regards to having been NOT encouraged much by anything I saw vs. Citeh.
Its called context and perspective people.

Likewise, Gerry, for the record, I never said I disagreed with the blog. What I said was that I was disappointed.
I thought the blog was very emotional.
I completely and totally get that.

Though I’ve played everywhere, as someone who was primarily a midfielder, I loved Masch and I’m sad he’s gone.
I’m just as sad at the manner of his exit…
…but I live in a country not my own, I lost touch with family because of it, and I’ve lost good friends because of it.

I’ve also spent large chunks of time away from a very understanding wife because of my job.
She made that easy on me, she could have made it very hard…
(and in fact all my coworkers were shocked by her decision to “let me go”, and said they couldn’t do it, and repeatedly asked me how things were going, during that time period.

Masch picked up a “slight knock” 7 days before the end of the transfer window, and a game 3 days before the end of that window, could have jeopardized a transfer dependant on a successful medical.

When you take the emotion out of the equation, and put yourself in his shoes… I understand his position, no matter how disappointed I might be with it.

Guiness Drinker, put down the bottle and step away from the black stuff…
If you take a look at the comments, you might just get the drift…
For us to have any chance whatsoever, Roy has to be on top of his game and cut out any mistakes that he can – his own and the players.

Yeah. Something similair that Rafa Benitez done to win us a European cup in his first season, or as you put it, our european run.

The day has been spent on here with people trying there best to get away from this argument. The group concensus, even between the biggest Roy doubters, is that we need to do our job an all… support the manager and team, just as much as they need to do theirs, or we are all bollacksed.

But hey ho…
let’s just attack Rafa for that terrible first season – just like the media did by lambasting him for “disrespecting the cup,” when he played a weakened team against Burnley. Nevermind the mancs didn’t even compete in it. Nevermind that we narrowly got beat, by a Traore goof, by a good team that was pressing promotion, and of course let’s forget Istanbul…
The fat spanish waiter disrespected the cup and finished down the league all for a european run. How dare he.

Let’s just keep attacking him to show our support for Roy.

Mindboggling indeed.

Fuckinell Aitch… give it up. We were crap against a crap team. It happens. The trick is to try to stop it from keeping on happening.

Isn’t that the point?

The only post mortum that needs to be done now, is by Roy.

He needs to identify the problems. He needs to stop them sharpish. Which he’s more than capable of doing, but if he doesn’t we are bang in trouble.

Chelsea won’t give us 3,4,5,6 or however many chances you want to name.
Man U won’t miss the amount of chances West Brom created.
Neither will any of the top clubs we’ll meet in any of the competitions we are in.

This is honestly, getting frustrating now. There’s a lesson from the mistakes against West Brom that Roy needs to fix. There was a mistake made by giving Cole a penalty in a vital qualifying game.
There was lots more in the Arsenal and City games. Arguing the intracicies of two moments really isn’t the point.

We need to perform to our very best in all departments. As Rafa was found of saying, the difference is in the small details. If we pay attention to them and get them right, we may have a chance of stopping this situation we are in from turning into a catostrophe on the pitch as well.
If we don’t get these things right, we will be in for a long trying season and, nevermind Beirut, I can see this blog imploding before Crimbo.

I’d like to chime in on the penalty debate too if I could.

When I was a kid, my Dad used to emphasize two things… learn to use your left (I was right footed) and practice pens.

By the time I was 16, and this is gonna sound like bravado, but honest to god, I shit you not, I could coolly, calmly dink the ball in off the right (as I faced it) post, up high, right where it meets the crossbar.
“Its as far away form the goalie as you can get and still be in” my Dad used to say.
(suffice to say he never prescribed to the low and hard mantra.)

Now don’t get me wrong… I put in years of hard work and practice to be able to do it.
But from the time I was 18 until I was 37… I never missed a pen… I was designated pen taker on every team I’ve played for and I always put it in the same spot.

Now I’ll grant you, had I ever made it professionally, I’d have had to change my game coz coaches and goalies watch tapes… and University/Amateur coaches/goalies never had that luxury.

Because of the hard work, the practice and the confidence of scoring in the early years, I never once felt the least bit of pressure taking a pen… not in the 90th minute with the score tied, or in a cup game, or in a pen-shootout… coz I always knew where it was going and there was fuck all the keeper could do about it.

There was also one occasion, at 20, where I had a trial with a pro outfit…
…part of that trial involved the 20 candidates for 4 spots taking 5 pens against a first string starting goalie.
I hadn’t done well in the trial, honestly, I was out of my depth, and this was the last thing we did that day.
Most of the trialists didn’t do too well… the best of them managed 3 out of 5.
I was the 3rd last to go… and feeling cocky the goalie actually poked fun at me to his teammates, who had been sitting off to the side, watching this all unfold, cheering and jeering, as I lined up.

I popped the first 3 into the top right corner, and as I was lining up the 4th, I saw him shifting to his left in anticipation, so I actually did something I never do…
…I took a chance and twatted it low and to the left. It could have gone anywhere, coz up to that age, I’d never done anything but try slow and steady for the top right, but I figured it’d make him think twice about my fifth. As it happened, I struck it clean and the fucker karranged off the base of the post and in

He looked like a right tool, coz he’d walked to his left thinking it was gonna be an easy save coz he knew where I was gonna put, and all his teammates started laughing at him.
He was right pissed off, but didn’t quite know what to do now, so to add insult to injury, I chipped the 5th in off the top right post again.
He was ready to knock my block off, but couldn’t coz all his teammates rushed to me to congratulate me.

Just so you don’t think I’m trying to big myself up… I had done quite poorly in my trial, but based on my pens, I was one of the 4 players chosen for trial… but I was nowhere near the required grade and was cut 3 weeks later!
(But it’s a fuckin great memory to have innit? )

Now bear with me for a bit more “memory lane”… there really is a point to this rambling….

A few years ago I coached a school team.
We had a tournament scheduled in pre-season, then another tournament scheduled towards the end of the season.
During our pre-season, I had everyone taking pens.
I took notes on who looked comfortable, who looked nervous, who had a routine, who just closed their eyes and twatted it.
I picked my top 5, and regularly ran them through a penalty drill, separate from the others, twice a week towards the end of practice.

During the first tournament we won the semi-final 5-3 on pens. (we then lost 0-1 in the final)
(… but it was the first final in the school’s history… and that 2nd place trophy the schools first “soccer trophy”)

During the 2nd tournament we won the Quarter Final 4-2 on pens.
During the season, we won 2 games as a direct result of scoring a penalty.

During my 2nd season… we were in the Quarter Final of the pre-season tournament…
…one of my 5 was missing, so I was going to go with my first alternate, but one of my other players begged me to take a pen.
I refused him, but he persisted, and his teammates got on board and begged me to let him take one.
He was a decent player, but very inconsistent when it came to pens.
We had a good keeper and I was confident he would save at least 1… usually someone will miss… so against my better judgement, I acquiesced…
…and here…
…finally you long winded bastard…
…is the point…
…of course…
… he missed… and we got knocked out on pens.

I knew it was a bad idea, a bad decision, but I made it anyway… coz he was a nice lad.
Those kids missed out on another cup run, not because that player missed, but because I let him take it.
That loss was entirely down to me, coz the percentage was far more likely had I gone with my alternate, than let him take it…
…and I knew that, and went with sentiment.

These things should never, never be arbitrary decisions. Every fuckin pen matters.

You never… never… bow to sentiment… (unless you are 4-0 up, then let the lad take it coz its his last game, or he needs “the confidence” or his dog just died and he needs cheering up, or whatever… but even then, only if you’re 4-0 up… and come to think of it, even then, only if you have 4 minutes left coz no one had ever scored 4 in 4mins at the end of a game)

As a manager it is your job to know who can and cannot take a good pen…
…it is your job to have 5 written in stone names for cup runs,
…and the best 3 …in order… designated to take them in regular play.
It is truly inexcusable to NOT.

FS, it is exactly the small details I’m trying to analyze.

Collectively we were crap against a crap team. I don’t argue that. But you are suggesting that there was nothing to be encouraged by. Nothing.

I was encouraged by some small details against WBA… you weren’t. I accept that.
What I saw, gave me SMALL encouragement for our trip to Birmingham.
Not enough to say to LB we WILL beat them… but enough to think we can.
After Citeh, I thought we were fucked and would have 1 point out of a possible 15

I am NOT suggesting that I am at all encouraged enough to think we’ll even hold our own against Scum the following week. We’ll need to step up 8 gears for that, let alone the proverbial one or two.

You don’t need to tell me how we’ll fair against the Scum and Chavs… I completely agree… its likely to be Citeh all over again.
Both teams are on form and in full flow…. We are far, far from that.

We can predict or forecast that we won’t do well over the season.
Based on performances we must reassess that… either for the positive, or for the negative.

One small detail…
I was not at all pleased with the Poulsen signing. I don’t rate him.
But he didn’t look half as bad as some suggest against WBA… again, just my opinion.

Was his performance good enough to combat Scum or the Chavs? … Hell No!
Was it good enough to combat WBA, Stoke, Sunderland etc? …. Maybe.

Whether he improves on that performance remains to be seen. I’m judging the one performance, not our season ahead prospects.

At this moment….
I am not encouraged enough to think we’ll claw our way back into the top 4.
I’ve seen nothing to indicate that… in fact the opposite is the case… our performances so far indicate to me that we’ll need to improve to compete for 7th.
If the performances do improve slightly, I think Roy can arrest the slide and prevent us from slipping further down the table… that’s all I’m encouraged about right now.

Let’s see a few more games and then we can reassess that.

Aitch, I still contend that on our day, we have a team good enough to beat anyone.

The trick is getting them all to be our day.

Of course that is not going to happen. But if we get everyone firing to the best of their ability we can we reduce the bad days to an absolute minimum.

And wasn’t that why Rafa was let go – not getting enough from the team/squad – and Roy brought in – to get this team/squad performing to the best of it’s ability?

That was one of the main reasons the board used for forcing him out. That was one of the main reasons the media force fed our fans. That was one of the main reasons our fans who turned on Rafa gave as their reason for wanting him out.

Well, it’s happened now, and I think it’s time to move on from the Rafa v Roy debate. Roy has the job. It’s now his mandate and duty.

Before we got bogged down on the pen and last game debate, I think pretty much everyone of us in here had spotted the errors we are making and came up with the solution.

None of us know as much as Roy. So we can summise he’s seen the problems we have and even more. Now it’s down to him to put them right.

That is my whole point.
It’s pretty easy to understand. I’m not being snotty or sarcastic but I’m getting tired of making it now.

I’m sure others could add different things to the debate…
ie, if Roy doesn’t make the changes, he’s trying to get us to play in a different way. That may be the case and, from the tactics so far, it seems to be that.

If you look at the Arsenal game, we continued with our normal zonal marking except we put one man on the post at corners. And we played our usual formation. In the first Trabzonspor game we seemed to use a mixture of zonal and man to man, but we continued with our normal formation. By the time we played City we were playing pure man to man marking with two men on the posts for penalties and most dead balls within shooting range and, obviously, we played a full on 442. It didn’t work.

We need to get it sorted. Roy needs to do it sharpish, and from himself on down we need everyone at the top of their game. And as I keep saying, if we get that sorted we stand a chance of a decent league finishing position in or around the top four with good cup runs. If we carry on like this, we are bollacksed. But like I keep saying, we need to give Roy some time to get this all sorted.

PS… I’m sitting here with the news on. It’s just been announced alcohol related deaths have shot up in the North West of England… is it any bloody wonder.

Ooops men on both posts for corners!
Now there’s a peno cock up for sure… men on both the posts, eh.

It could always be worse lads…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJBsI7RAuvk

Hilarious when a sore nerve get’s pressed, eh.
What a prick.

Men on both posts for peno`s ?

Aitch would still cling it

I watched the City game in te boozer so i couldn`t help noticing Martin Tylers monkey`s new piece of technoligy..

A patch of grass.Yes you are reading right.Andy grey now uses a patch of grass to epxplain his favourite theory.

Why man marking is the only way to go.And why zonal marking is only the brainchild of some foreign dummy.

Ya,e spent ten minutes on the subject.He even had the Gorrilla in the patch wit him,showing him how to mark,man to man.

It made me laugh if nothing else.

The game went on.Man city used the zonal,(i know,another foreign numpty,watch out Manini,when they`re finished with Capello,your next!).They comfortably dealt with every set piee we threw in there.

We used man to man.Concieded from a corner.

I`m not saying man to man is better or worse than zonal.Both systems,if carried out correctly,are effective,but it all depends on the moment of play.

Grays ignorance to the zonal was because it wasn`t “the oul british way”.

He picked out clips to promote the loonacy of the system.Although one could also pick out clips to promote how effective it can be.

Same goes for man to man.

Its just crap analysis at its best.

Don`t ya just love oul `Arrry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRZTna7tRHk&feature=more_related

“Aitch, I still contend that on our day, we have a team good enough to beat anyone. The trick is getting them all to be our day.”

Mate, I said that all last season and all through the summer
IN SPITE… of what the Borrowers and their Minions have done…
IN SPITE… of “downgrading” our manager…
and
IN SPITE… of downgrading the squad …

We still have a squad good enough to …
a) maintain “our position” and not slide any further down the league…
b) actually improve on “our position”
c) perhaps improve on “our position” and maybe get back into the top 4 (our rivals have all dropped points)

it is by no means a given…. and will as you say, depend on all hands manning the pumps efficiently.

Actually as big a tit as he is, I love ‘arry’s reaction in that first clip FS.
Wish Rafa would have done that, more than a few times!
I also fuckin love the way Holloway is treating the press in his Blackpool interviews.
If the press ask him anything even remotely stupid, he sets them right straight.

And in the 2nd clip, you gotta love the quip at the end… “no wonder he’s palying in the fuckin reserves”
…Needs to be said to more than a few “big money signings”

The thing that is bothering me about RH is whether he is one of us or one of them. He was the first LFC manager to be recruited by the thieving bastards, so why should he, or shouldn’t he for that matter, tow the G&H party line.

As has been discussed in here, ad infinitum to a degree, is why RH is making these weird team selections, formations. Getting used to new surroundings?

Maybe, but then why is he doing feck all about it when it’s clear to any man or beast that something is badly wrong and needs addressing. However he does nought.

If someone can explain this to me, excluding burgerman, then I will be fully on-board.

So to change the subject a bit….
…over the summer…

Yet another chapter of Liverpool’s History has been put to bed

And a “brave new dawn” reared its head over Anfield.

And as the transfer window has slammed shut…
…the first warming rays of that “new dawn’s” light…
… have quite frankly…
…kicked us squarely in the balls!

Gone are the arguments over the Pro’s and cons of Rafa (though people will insist on blaming him for things out of, or beyond his control, so no doubt the subject will still linger)

Gone are the arguments about who is best to take us forward… its Roy, deal with it.

Gone are the arguments about who we should buy, who we should sell and how much if any money we will have to spend.

What we are left with is the following…

For the 2010-11 season, top-flight clubs must register a squad of up to 25 players for league games, which must include at least eight ‘home grown’ players and no more than 17 ‘non home grown’ players.
Home grown players are defined as those who irrespective of nationality or age, have been affiliated to the FA or Welsh FA for a period of three seasons or 36 months prior to their 21st birthday.

With that in mind, Liverpool Football Club has submitted its 21-man squad to the Premier League (This squad list applies to Barclays Premier League games only.)

Home grown players
Jamie Carragher
Joe Cole
Stephen Darby
Steven Gerrard
Glen Johnson
Brad Jones
Paul Konchesky
Jay Spearing

Non home grown players:
Daniel Agger
Fabio Aurelio
Ryan Babel
Milan Jovanovic
Dirk Kuyt
Sotirios Kyrgiakos
Lucas Leiva
Raul Meireles
Christian Poulsen
Pepe Reina
Maxi Rodriguez
Martin Skrtel
Fernando Torres

Clubs can supplement their squads with an unlimited amount of players under the age of 21, meaning Roy Hodgson will also be able to call on the services of:
Peter Gulacsi, Martin Kelly, Daniel Wilson, Jonjo Shelvey, Daniel Pacheco, Nathan Eccleston and David Ngog for Barclays Premier League games this season.

So this is what we are dealing with for our season… 28 players, listed (more or less) by position.

GK: Pepe Reina, Brad Jones, Peter Gulacsi

Defense: Carragher, Johnson, Agger, Skrtel, Kyrgiakos, Konchesky,
…with… Aurelio, Darby, Kelly, Wilson

Midfield: Lucas, Poulson, Spearing, Shelvey
…and… SG, Cole, Meireles, Kuyt, Jovanovic, Maxi, Babel

Striker: Torres, Ngog, Pacheco, Eccleston

“…At the end of the storm, there’s a golde… errr… “
It’s a Brave New World!

Aitch,
Let’s
Decipher what’s good
Or bad about this
Unadulterated,
Seamless,

Hypocrisy that G&H have cast
Upon us and how our, now
Xenophobic,
Liverpool
Evergreens always say
Yes!

It’s a ‘brave new world’ indeed.

Great book BTW.

FS #210 & Timmy i wasn’t belittling istanbul at all, but in the context of a first season for any manager not everything is gonna be brilliant is it? it wasnt for rafa and it wont be for roy but im prepared to give him some time before i make any judgements, and by the way i never asked for roy to be the manager what i did do was question what was going wrong in the team from the pompy game in december onwards.

Hi gang -

Just looking through the squad I made a quick run through of whom I would call “topline players” then “back-up players” and then “the rest”…

Here is my take on it:

Topline -

Pepe,
Jamie C, Glenda, Agger,
Lucas, Raul M, Maxi(?),
Joe Cole, Stevie G, Kuyt,
Torres.

Back-up -

Konchelski, Aurelio, Kygiakos, Kelly, Skyrtl, Wilson (?),
Poulsen, Shelvey (?),
Babel, Pachego, Jova,
Ngog.

The Rest -

Jones,
Derby, Spearing, Eccleston, Gulacsi.

Some players I have not seen (Wilson etc).

A reasonable first eleven (by coincidence). Nothing really (presently) very exciting in the back-up tho’. There is the possibility of good progress with the youngsters Ngog, Kelly and Danny P as well as Wilson and Shelvey. Who knows what Jova and Babel will bring to the table and that’s about it for me.

I can see 2 major possible weaknesses for us, 1 if Torres gets injured and 2 in centre mid if Lucas/Raul M have injuries or just don’t cut it.
I don’t rate Steve G nor Poulsen as an all-round centre mids.

How come Spurs sign Van der Vart for £8m while we had our thumb up our arses?

The other thing I wished to comment on was what team Roy would play now that the window has closed.
Starting with Birmingham this weekend.

For me (He) will go with

Pepe,

Glenda, Jamie, Agger, Konchelski

Poulsen, Raul M

Kuyt, Stevie, Maxi,

Torres

Bench

Jones,
Kelly, Skyrtl (Defense)
Lucas,
Pachego, Babel, Jova (or 2 from 3)
Ngog (Torres)

The one thing I will say for having Konchelski on the left is that at last it is a balanced (fit) backline and this should settle the team as well as giving Brum less of an obvious target to aim at.

Tho’ Raul M is only just arrived I reckon he’ll go straight in and Roy’s inate conservatism should see Poulsen in the trenches.

I think he might go with Maxi over Jova and switch kuyt to the left ?

It then depends on whether we show up or not. There is still the potential of Torres, Stevie in the right part of the pitch (for me) and Maxi-Glenda attacking down the right which could be very effective.

Any thoughts ?

LB – VDV cost 8 million thats about 7.5 million reasons why we didn’t buy him.

and …. he is a current Dutch international with a high rep and wages ???? There’s a few more reasons why we didn’t buy him. To boot we just got rid of a “foreign” expensive midfield creator. That’s where we’re at my friend.

Interesting

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/columnists/david-maddock/David-Maddock-column-Why-Liverpool-fans-deserve-to-be-told-the-truth-by-Martin-Broughton-and-Christian-Purslow-after-another-depressing-transfer-window-article569783.html

Interesting… LB my mate, that is the biggest understatment I have ever seen in here.

I’m off to bed now, but that is just nuts. Thanks for posting it.

I can’t get me head round this just yet,and I’m certainly not hiding anything from you lads, but I can’t say anything right now and I’ll comment in the morning properly.

Fuckin weird that, and all I can say for now is, remember…
Maddocks has always been Purslow’s media mouthpiece.

Strange shenanigans indeed.

Dougle #226 – That starting line-up is good. But my worry is there aren’t any game changers in the subs (perhaps Pacheco in due time will become one). We missed an opportunity by releasing Aqua and not adding a striker. We could have perhaps helped our cause little bit and still made profits to our dearest owners.

However the worry for me is we are on bare bones and god forbid any injuries to our key players.

I remember in years past we would oftentimes debate who from our squad would make it into the other top sides’ first 11. Generally speaking it was usually around 4 or 5 players. If you do the same exercise now, on current form, it really is pretty depressing.

Chelsea – 0 – Honestly can’t even see torres cracking their lineup on his current form and with drogba in the middle torres would not be as effective out wide like malouda/anelka.

Arsenal – 2 – Torres and reina.

Man City – 1 – Torres. Maybe glen johnson as well since i think micah richards is awful.

Man U – 2 – Torres and gerrard. Mostly because I hate that fucker scholes.

Tottenham – 4 – Gerrard, johnson, torres, reina.

I have a question about Roy and Insua, now I may be wrong here but didn’t roy say that he couldn’t keep Insua because the deal with Florentina was already done before he arrived, and at the same time I believe he praised the lad and said he wanted to keep him, and yet it seems we have effectively sold him to Galatasaray.

As he has only a year left on his contract this loan is effectively selling him.

He was frozen out of the first team,not given a shirt number and got out of the club anyway possible, and yet there seemed to be no indication that he wished to leave, so does Roy have absolutely no say in what happens in which case my question is why did you take on this job, or he talked a load of crap to us and went back on what he said.

You see this is my problem I see Roy as a puppet, which means he is actively helping these bastards do this to us.

LB 239: That’s a very good read. Never go to the Mail website myself due to Maddocks, but this is a top article. He makes mention of the fact that Liverpool have made a profit in all of the last 4 transfer windows (scary shit!), but he neglects to mention that Rafa was manager for 3 of those ‘windows’.
I thought he was Purslow’s puppy, but nice to see him having a dig at him & Broughton. The silence from those 2 fuckers is deafening, and all we want – as fans – is to know why we aren’t competitive in the market, why are we selling & not buying, why the asset stripping? I know, we know the answers but it would be nice coming from the horses’ mouths, so to speak.

234: I’m going to have to talk to some people before commenting on that Maddocks article. Not that I’m hiding anything, or know anything… that’s the point, I’m going to have to find out. I’ll let you know what I come up with, but I’m busy today so it will probably be later on tonight.

233: Roy did indeed, say he didn’t want Insua to go. He did praise the lad, and he took the opportunity to let us know that Purslow was handling the transfers.
So I don’t think he’s in cahoots with them.

Roy’s a footballing man. I’m sure he doesn’t want to oversee the demise of LFC. I’m just afraid he’s powerless to stop them.

But as for transfers, well Poulson, Miereles and Konchesky will all be names that he handed to Purslow. And I’d bet my bottom lip, there was at least a striker on the list too but that would have been the most expensive item on the shopping list so Purslow convieniently forgot to pick one up while he was at the shop.

Anyway, I’ll see if anyone knows anything and get back later.

FS, are you saying there is something sinister about the article? Like, what made Maddocks write it?
Ok, I know we are divided in the Masch saga. But you cannot deny the fact that he is (probably) the best defensive midfielder on the planet. Hell, even that tonsil Henry Winter stated as much. So it’s nice to see read the following comments from Monster, even though he accused LFC (the board, not the fans) of lying.
Mascherano was plucked from West Ham’s reserve team by ex-Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez, who had wanted to take the midfielder to current club Inter Milan.
And the South American has praise for his one-time boss, adding: “Rafa taught me tactics.
“He’s one of the coaches who have taught me the most in my career and I’m very grateful to him.
“He was fundamental. He gave me the chance to join Liverpool. He had confidence in me at a time when, perhaps, nobody would have dreamed of giving me an opportunity. I’ll be grateful to him all my life.”

Well, it’s obvious Maddocks has fell out with Purslow big time… probably with the leaked info drying up, he fells like a patsy and has turned on him.

I’m trying to get hold of the Kopfaithful lads to find out what’s going on. One of the lads I’ve been doing the Save Liverpool things with is in contact with them. We’ve been trying to co-ordinate a few things with them. So, I’m just trying to find out what I can and I’ll let you know when I do.

As for Mascher mate, he’s never made any bones about it. He loves Rafa. I was made up with some of the things he said, and just wish a few more of them would have been as loyal. We might have avoided all this shit if some of them would have realised where their loyalties should lay. Mascher’s alright in my book. I don’t blame him one jot for bailing out.

Well this is interesting if true FS,

http://www.lfconline.com/news/tmnw/mascherano_blames_liverpool_lies_554348/index.shtml

Supposedly these would be the same feckers who promised Torres a change in owners and a new direction for the club.

Tony Evans is adamant that that is the only reason that Torres stayed this summer and there’s a good chance that he’ll be off in Jan.

This is a complete mess.

Torres: “Hasta la vista, baby”

The suitcases are already packed mate. Cab booked with Delta. One look at Konchesky in training and its speed dial to the agent.

Can anyone confirm if this is the last year of Insua’s contract?

And when/if Torres leaves, you can picture those ignorant, juvnile ‘fans’ saying: ‘feck off, you foreign git! Where is your loyalty? I blame Benitez for him leaving!”. Something like that, but in worse grammar with spelling mistakes all over the place – much like Timmy
But at the end of the day, would you blame him for leaving? I wouldn’t…

…and the above post has nothing to do with or against Roy. It has to do with the 2 tumours, and Broughton and Purslow. In case anyone accuses me of negativity towards the new manager!

Speaking to Match of the Day magazine, Gerrard said: “Messi can do some amazing things, but anything he can do Joe Cole can do as well, if not better.
“He used to shock us in training by doing footy tricks with a golf ball that most players can’t even do with a football.
“I really fancy Joe for the [player of the year] award this season.”

Known fact Nando only stayed because he was promised allsorts… new owners, new investment, top class players coming in.

I’ve been saying it all along, if we’re in the shite come Crimbo, he’s off. Only thing that could halt that is him being cup tied and no club having the big bucks. Chelsea and Man City would have him regardless, but I don’t think he’d join them.

He’s a very loyal young man. I reckon if they come up with the money, it will be Barca or Inter.

Can’t get hold of no one at the minute, they’ll all be at work, where I should be. Still stuck here with the grandkids when I should be out doing a bit. But at least, it gives me chance to check in now and again. I’m not saying there’s something big happening. But that’s a huge shift from Maddocks, if we can get him on our side… well, that might just be a right little coup.

As I said, I’ll let you know.

FS, I don’t think Inter or Barca have the readies… I could see him going to Chelsea. I think he’d go to city if they looked like seriously contesting the title. It sure would hurt watching him in the blue kit.

So it really looks like the 6th October 2010 really is our doomsday/liberation.

How ironic is it that when I put in a search to find/confirm this date, I got this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/6263268/George-Gillett-blame-Rafael-Benitez-for-Liverpools-failings.html

That would be exactly one year to the day. Well they say that a week is a long time in football. Fast forward one year and, oh dear.

Gerrard can be such a prick at times, eh. But I suppose there’s nothing wrong with bulling Joe up. We need him at his best. To be honest, we need him at his best on the left, but it’s probably not going to happen.

This is what I went on about all day yesterday, not bloody pens or crap games that have been and gone and we actually won.

I suppose Roy has to be given time to find out what his best options are, but that’s the problem, I don’t think he’s got time.

So, unless he get’s these on pitch problems sorted sharpish, the best I can see for us is a europa league place battle with the likes of Villa and Everton. And if this ownership melarkey isn’t solved soon, I honestly fear it could well be a relegation dog fight next season.

That’s not panic mongering. That’s not I told you so’s. It’s not even my opinion. It’s the reality that’s facing us.

I just can’t see it LB, and I’d be shocked if he did go to any other English club. But as you say, there’s the question of the readies… Chelsea or Man City could well be the only clubs in the world that can afford the lad.

Oh bloody hell, I wish the girls would get home and get the kids. I can’t face a day of this. It’s too bloody depressing.

I do believe Torres will be saying adios in january if RBS refinance with the tumours.

Who could blame the lad?

Same goes for any other player.

I`m afraid it will take that for the majority of LFC fanbase to wake up to the reality of the situation.

Interesting article from Maddock.I don`t always agree with his piece`s but i can`t disagree with that.

And Rafalution,

Hoo doo yoo tink yoo ar tacking te pizz owt off mi spelly an gramma

To all you faithful, if you go to the matches regularly or live in Liverpool, something drastic has to be done to save the club. You have to manhandle those 2 cunts, Broughton and Purslow when they are entering Anfield… Someone should hijack one of Hicks’ or Gillett’s sons.
WE MUST FORCE THEIR HANDS… if Liverpool is a latin club, it would never have come to this.
Latin mentality is different to English with all due respect.
‘If you hurt someone or something close to my heart, you’re history.’
That’s the motto and temperament of Latin people.
Our beloved club is almost ruined… do something while there is still a club worth fighting for.

M/scouser,
unfortunately the advice you are giving us is against the law in this country.

251: You’ve obviously never encountered many Scousers mate. Or know their moto… Eh, Bollacks, I’ll fuckin do you!

Believe me, I know plenty of people, women included, who’d gladly do time if they could get their hands on any of them.

When was the last time Hicks and Gillette at Anfield…
Oh yeah, that’s right. They got forcibly turned away from their own ground, and had to run under police escort for their own safety. And then when they snuck in for another match, they couldn’t leave until it was safe to sneak out a back door, again under heavy police escort.

What makes you think there’s any chance of anyone getting anywhere near Broughton or Purslow even when they go the match?

No use playing the internet warrior mate. There are good people, loads of them, doing everything they possibly can to get all of these bastards out of our club.

Have you helped with anything?

In fact, right now, behind the scenes there are plenty of things going on… some I’m involved in. Do you think everything can just be blurted out on the net where our enemies can get hold of it?

I’m hiding nothing. I can’t say everything in here, as much as I’d like to let these lads know what’s happening. I’ve chatted with them for bloody years. They would be the first people I’d inform. In fact, they are whenever I can.

And before any of you start building up your hopes, don’t. It’s nothing earth shattering but there is a few things being done.

On top of that, I know there’s plenty going on that I’m not privvy to. There’s no way anyone can know everything, or even should. There has to be some things kept quiet.

And I’m not being a twat mate, I’m really not. But before coming in here, or anywhere else, telling other people what they should be doing, and even worse making out no one is doing anything, I suggest you have a look at yourself and ask “What can I do to help?”

FS,
that’s why my comment was short and sweet, i could’nt believe 251 “the temperament of latin people”, i think its more down to the mentality.

I come across it all the time mate. That was the mild end. I have one twat emailing me, and I wouldn’t put up the shit he writes. It’s disgusting. Funny how they never show their faces though.

But anyway, I understand the lad’s frustration. I’d honestly go to jail for a bit of gbh meself. Really wouldn’t bother me. In fact, I’d quite enjoy it. But there’s realities to face here…
It’s the pen not the sword that will win this.

Seem’s LFC have been down this road Stevie, mind you a bet Roy is pretty pleased with his skipper,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1308498/No-English-boss-better-Fabio-Capello-roars-England-stand-skipper-Steven-Gerrard.html

as FS may say “dear oh dear”.

Thanks for the link redman and the hypocrisy of it all and this quote in particular.

-o-
‘It would be a knee-jerk reaction to sack a manager after one bad tournament, then think everything will be rosy when you start with a new guy and we’ll go on and win the Euros.
-o-

Just replace ‘tournament’ with ‘league campaign’ and ‘Euros’ with ‘EPL’

To be honest, I’ve nearly had enough of this bullshit. He should have sold him and his ego to the highest bidder. Is it possible to buy yourself in the EPL?

‘Who out there, that’s an English manager, has the c.v.Rafa has got?
‘It would be a knee-jerk reaction to sack a manager after one bad season, then think everything will be rosy when you start with a new guy and we’ll go on and win the Prem.
‘That’s crazy. It’s crazy to think it’s as easy as that. I wanted him to stay. I have a lot of belief in him. To be honest, I don’t know if everyone’s totally 100 per cent behind him because I can’t control what’s going through every player’s mind, but I’ve not seen or heard anything to make me think they’re not.
‘People talk about tactics and stuff, but there’s only so much a manager can do. The players have to deliver and the players never delivered last season”.
 

PS
Sorry lads was thinking of becoming a journalist and thought i better get some practice at twisting peoples words. ¦)

“I wanted him to stay” I think thats called leakage.
Cappello as gone nowhere who are you really talking about Stevie?

What an unbelievable CUNT!
I’m sorry but that interview has me seething…

“It’s important Fabio is still given a chance,’ said Gerrard, in response to a suggestion that an Englishman should lead the national team.
Pity he couldn’t have said that about Rafa.

‘Who out there, that’s an English manager, has the c.v. Fabio Capello has got?”
Hmmm… pity he couldn’t have said that about Rafa.

‘It would be a knee-jerk reaction to sack a manager after one bad tournament, then think everything will be rosy when you start with a new guy and we’ll go on and win the Euros.”
Hmmm… pity he couldn’t have said that about Rafa… you know… the man that gave him “the best night of my life as a Liverpool player”
…anyone notice a pattern here?

‘That’s crazy. It’s crazy to think it’s as easy as that. I wanted him to stay.
Hmmm… pity he couldn’t have… well you get my drift…

‘Everyone’s desperate to put things right together. There’s a lot of blame going towards the manager but it was the players who underperformed out there at the World Cup.”
I’m sorry, but I just have to repeat that quote…
“There’s a lot of blame going towards the manager but it was the players who underperformed out there at the World Cup.”
Yeah, there was a lot of blame going toward another manager too mate… for whom you were performing far below the performance you gave Capello in S.A….but you didn’t speak up on his behalf did you?

‘People talk about tactics and stuff, but there’s only so much a manager can do.”
REALLY… D’YA THINK STEVIE???
Would have been nice to hear you saying that loud-n-proud last season!

“The players have to deliver and the players never delivered in Africa.”
Yup… didn’t at Anfield neither, but you were pretty schtum about that, weren’t you?

Aitch, I see the irony wasn’t lost on you then?

Not LB, when I’d just read… not 2 minutes before coming in here and reading that load of tripe… that FIFA had just named him “most influential player for England at the World Cup”

Methinks we have another John Terry in the making?

Aitch,

You’re certainly not referring to stealing team mates’ partners ?

Such a coincidence that I was thinking about Stevie and his performance (post #29) and how players and media in this country undermine the role of a manager (post #206) by making statements that may seem pretty harmless and on the contrary seem to look like they are giving the manager strength but they do more harm than good as it gives us the impression on who is in charge and reduce the managers powers over a period of time.
Step in the player power. Good job Stevie you are doing a great job and say after sometime you lose few games as a captain. Sure you will not make these statements then right? as you would be hiding somewhere protecting yourself from the media glare and let the manager be vilified then.. You feel now is the time since you had a couple of good games in an England shirt and right time to build some goodwill and indirectly show to the public who is the boss..
Actually I am quite against to making any statements that your role doesn’t allow. Stevie doesnt select the manager so why does he comment on his performance good or bad. There should be strong censure (gag order) against this from the board. I don’t think this will ever happen though. I am living in a different world.

Aitch #260,

Could it have been Rafa’s refusal to sign Owen whom both Gerrard and Carragher strongly recommend?

Hi everyone, I’m sorry if I offended anyone with my previous comment. In fact FS I have a lot of respect for you and for what you stand for.
To tell you what have I done, I joined the Spirit of Shankly the moment it was formed not when you came here urging fellow reds to join the union.
I work hard, many times more than 12 hours a day so that I could be able to come to Liverpool twice yearly, yes twice yearly. It costs a lot of money… and I have a few scouse friends also.
I was there from August 24 to August 31 for the West Brom match and the Matthew Street Festival. I came with my wife and my daughter who is more nuts than me about anything connected with Liverpool.
I was also in the City in February with 3 other male friends this time. And I tell you this, if I saw one of them cunts when I was with my friends (because when I’m with my family I cannot do what I want) we would have given them a good hiding believe me.
The time for reason is gone, it is time to take action… if we want this fandom we have to remain intact.

Calm down chaps. If you have a look practically the whole of the England team are coming out in defence of Cappello. That’s good. The man needs the backing. He’s taken an awful hammering over here.

I don’t know why, but there’s a terrible xenophobia running through the English media for the last couple of years. Maybe it’s to do with what’s happening in the wider world. Terrorism, mass immigration, etc. But if it is, I think it’s only something in the back of their tiny minds. It’s much more likely that it’s just lazy fat arsed drunken journos, and pig shit thick ex-player pundits that are too lazy to come up with anything rather than roll along on the current bandwagon. It’ll probably go away as soon as the next trend comes in.

As for Steven, yes, he’s a twat at times. And I can be his biggest critic, but lad’s let’s not forget what he’s done for us. He could have had sheds full of medals had he gone elsewhere. So, it must be hard approaching 30 and realising time is running out and the one thing he still wants more than anything – a title medal – has probably disappeared.

We are in danger of becoming Newcastle fans in here. It’s not good the way people have been turning on our own lately. We are LFC. We don’t do that. Well, we never did. But we are rapidly seeing all our old traditions disappear and I don’t like it. Changing isn’t always progress.

I tell you what’s worrying me more than Gerrard not being able to see how that statement will look…
what the fuck is happening with these transfers and contracts?
We are shipping out young promising footballers, that have every chance of becoming the “Home Grown” stars of the future, or at least making the club huge profits, in favour of old journeymen.
And not only that we are putting these fellas on long and very lucrative contracts… Cole a 4 year deal, Konchsesky a 4 year deal, Carragher about to sign a 3 year deal. How long is Poulsen’s contract?
I haven’t checked. This is just off the top of me head and what is worrying me right now.

The only thing I can see to possibly justify it is… Roy is setting up an old brigade for a dog fight for the season.

But even if that’s the case, I still can’t see any sense in it.
H&G obviously don’t give a fuck as they have made their few bob from this window and won’t be around to pay these wages for the next 4 years, to what will then be old crocks, unable to play often and with no resale value.
We know H&G don’t give a fuck about the future.
Broughton, well, he’s supposed to sell the club and fuck off.
So, that leaves Purslow. What the fuck is he at, allowing these deals to take place?

Every fucking day it’s just getting worse and worse.

266: I understand your frustration mate. I said so in my answer to you. And from what you’ve just had to say, you know quite well there are thousands of people who would willingly go to jail for causing these people physical damage.

But let’s face it…
It’s not going to happen. They don’t just go walking round Liverpool to the likes of The Matthew St Festival. They are unseen and untouchable.

And let’s say one of us had the good luck of bumping into one of them, and gave them that good hiding… what would that achieve?

Nothing.
In fact, it would damage the cause as the media would love to fill the pages and airwaves with stories of Scouse savagery and so on.

And, as I said, I certainly understand what you’re saying and why, but little tip…
saying it just sort of looks foolish.

Just go to some of them nice churches in Malta and light some candles that they don’t meet the repayments on October 6 and find financing again. If they do, I guarantee we’ll all be feeling suicidal nevermind homocidal.

I emailed David Maddock and he replied. Here is the trail:

Dear David,

Bravo on this article. It is about time the national press made noises about this! For too long the club has been slowly but steadily asset stripped while the media’s only focus has been on zonal marking, 2 holding midfield players and Gerrard’s best position. Maybe more people will finally wake up although I won’t hold my breath.

Regards
Joseph – Liverpool fan

Joseph,

Thanks mate – I’ve been trying for some time to get this on the agenda, but it’s hard work. Time has come for fans to get together and put real pressure on banks and board. If that happens, millions of fans around the world joining in, then things would change overnight. Even the mere thought of it would focus the rbs.

Cheers

Dave

Nice one LB. I still can’t comment, but believe me there’s things going on with this in the back ground.

I hate looking like Mr Secret in The know, behind the scenes melarkey, big un.

Honestly lads, it’s not a case of that, and it’s no earth shattering big deal O’Neil secret. It’s just a little something that’s going on and you lads will be first to know.

In fact, it’s going to be time to get your emailing fingers working again.

FS,
i too am grateful for the time’s SG has given us all, but honestly mate only a moron or someone with the IQ of a rocking horse would fail to see the irony of his statement.
Like in previous blog’s and i think you where one of the lads in here that commented “why is there no comment by SG” on a man who nearly took us to greatness (if he had the SUPPORT and the money) who by his own word’s (SGs) he has made me a better player, why not a mention of a man who only had LFC on his mind 24/7 and fuck the tabloids, skysports and talkshite and all the other vermin that is called the media in this country.
Like slim pickins said in Blazing Saddles “I AM DEPRESSED.

I had a job interview today and noticed that right next door to where I will be working is talk sport HQ.

Good Luck LB… I just had one that might require me to move to Arizona… you know… where they just LOVE their immigrants! (urgh)

FS, just to be clear.
I am not bollocking SG for WHAT he said.
It needed to be said.

Capello has been treated horrifically by the Brit Media.
He was the 2nd Coming going into South Africa in their eyes… then he “betrayed them with a kiss” after.
Fuckin idiots wouldn’t have a clue what to write, if the direction of the wind didn’t tell them!

Where I have the problem is that SG wasn’t repeating this for large parts of last season on Rafa’s behalf.

England’s 2 week World Cup was a microcosm of our past season… the direct comparisons are staggering.

It needed to be said even more…
… since a season is a helluva a lot longer for players to be “slumping” than 2 weeks in South Africa!

And ax…
… since when is it SG and Carra’s job description to be “recommending players”
When did they become Chief Scouts?

Does your boss ask you for hiring and firing recommendations?

Their job is to play football. It is to play football in whatever position, and alongside whomever their manager chooses.

… is their a clause, we are all unaware of, in SG’s last contract that gives him “yay or nay” on team selection, or even player transfers?
Maybe this was the conflict all along?

From what I know on the outside, having read biogs and articles about this mess…
…and yes its an outsiders perspective… I suspect at some point down the road we’ll learn the truth….

This all started when Gerrard Houllier “consulted” SG, Owen and Murphy on team selection during his final season.
They’ve gotten too big for their boots if you ask me.

I think Rafa slapped all that down, and put it to pasture…
…but when G&H came in and did the whole Klinssman thing, they opened the door for this whole “lack of confidence in the manager” thing and undermined his position…
…and as things began to go sour on the transfer front… and we weren’t signing a Torres in every window…
…well… Here we are.

Last summer Murphy and Owen tried to come back, both failed.
Do you think they tried getting back without consulting Gerrard first ? I don’t.
Rafa certainly wouldn’t want a couple of rebellious elements in his dressing room.
When Roy took over i though Murphy would be his first signing but he seem to be trying to get players who are loyal to him Koncheski & Poulsen both fit this criteria.
So maybe Murphy is either coming in Jan or Roy doesnt want someone whose loyal to Gerrard before himself.

LB
I dont suppose you was in the area on the morning of Friday the 17th of October 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/17/utv-commercialradio ¦ )

Did anyone see Torres first goal for Spain? Looks like he is on the way back! Absolute class finish.

By the way I got the job

Lads, of course I know what you meant. But more than defending our Steven, I was making a point… we can’t keep turning on our own. It would make us no better than the Geordies.

But eh, how about that then….
We’ve got our LB on the spot now. When the shenanigans start he can go chin Brazil and Parry and Collymoore and that.

Mind you, come to think of it better not. He’d only end up with stupid, ugly, fat, knobhead knuckles.

PS… Rome mate, Danny Murphy was one of the first to turn crook on Rafa. Micheal Owen wasn’t far behind and that shitehawk asked for a transfer.

I was going to say nothing about this, but fuck it…
I had an invite today, to the testimonial melarkey, Freebie, ticket on the Kop, ticket to the black tie do at the Echo arena tonight, everything thrown in, all buckshee. I told them to stick it right up their arses.

Get this… I would have been sat on a table with the new Tory MP for Liverpool and some “local dignitaries”…
I’d rather be in the Albert, sinking a few pints and singing a few songs with you rag arses.
They can fuck right off!

Eh up…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1303119/JAMIE-CARRAGHER-EXCLUSIVE-On-England-Capello-Liverpools-foreign-owners.html

Aitch, don’t read it. Your head will probably explode.

Aitch #273,

I know where you’re coming from. Like you, I’m not happy with Gerrard’s non-response last season as compared to his vocal support for Capello.

If the player power thing is true, then we’re really sliding down like Newcastle, e.g. Gerrard-Shearer.

The nightmare scenario will be Roy getting the sack in a few months followed by manager after manager, and then we slide into administration like Pompey or Leeds

Ax mate, and if we keep slagging off our own we soon turn into Geordie’s an all.

Okay, well as I said, there’s a few things going on in the background with the Save Liverpool FC lads and the KopFaithful boys that Maddock mentioned.

But I can’t be arsed waiting around, so I took this into my own hands…
http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=262808.0

Don’t take that wrong. I’m not slatting anyone. I can’t praise them lads enough. But I thought fuck it, why wait for the iron to go cold again.

So let’s see if we can get Maddocks to publish these while he’s got a cob on with Cecil.

And what I can tell you is this…
we, SaveLiverpool and KopFaithful, have been working on trying to turn the Kop black. Like it’s in mourning sort of thing…
Black flags, black scarves, the alternative kit, etc.

It’s not an easy task. So many tourists nowadays, but we are trying. We’ve had a whip round, and we have a few backers with a few quid. We are getting a huge crowd surfer made, and a few wavers, all in black, all with the message on.

The surfer will cost 3grand, so, understandbly, people don’t want it to be in there for one game and banned. So that won’t have a message on that can get it banned. But the wavers will. They’ll be full of anti-G&H messages and hard financial facts… 110k a day in interest sort of things. We’re also trying to get around as many match goers as we can to have them make their own.

I agree with Maltese Scouser that shooting them would be easier, but you can only work with what you’ve got.

FS that is a fantastic idea. Just dont give stewards any excuse to confiscate any banners.

Possible quotes:

“Standards compromised” (huge banner)
Lies: Hicks, “The summer window will be big”
Lies: Gillett, “We’ve outspent our rivals”
Truth: “Turned profit in last 4 transfer windows”
Truth: “£110k per day in interest”
Truth: “£70m in interest in last 3 years”
Lies: “The club will not be purchased with debt”
Truth: “£350m in debt”

“RBS ACT NOW!”

No “yanks out” banners as it is perceived as xenophobic. In fact I think the word “yanks” should just be put in the cupboard. The facts and the Black says it all.

Would be good if we could do this for all home games for a while not just a one off.

Even hand out cheap black t-shirts for free at the gates by the Kop. I’d love to see the entire in Black.

Entire KOP in Black.

So Dave Maddock is now rallying the troops, after he discovered we need to band together and then get world wide support, fuck of Maddock, your sounding like Baghdad Bob.
.
What happened the regime cut your allowance. Sorry lads but I think he’s been over the line and shouldn’t be allowed back. If are plan of attack is to use him as an tool of which he is then so be it, but its most definitely a step back, not forward.

Gaz, regardless of Maddock’s motives if we can get our message into the Daily Mirror it would be a good thing. Telling him to fuck off is like cutting off our nose to spite our face.

FS, your list of questions. I think the football/finance/transfer money (lack of) should be the ones to use. Maddock will need to convince his editor to put it in the paper. They like simple messages – headline grabbers. So I fear your first 6 questions will get cast aside. I would use question 7 and 8 and some of Lyndsey’s questions. And questions about £110k per day. Whats going to happen October 6th. Where are the 4 other bidders we were told about? Was it nonesense? Do they believe the fans deserve the truth about their own club?

The Echo should be printing this on its back page every week! I am very dissapointed in their journalism recently. Actually it’s been shite. Nothing but sound bites from current and ex players. Nothing investigative or useful to help the cause at all!

Also should spread the word about the Black campaign I reckon.

Are their any Black Liverpool scarves?

We’ll look like Newcastle fans but fuck it.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Liverpool-FC-Original-Liver-Bird-Black-Fashion-Scarf_W0QQitemZ290463035151QQcmdZViewItem?rvr_id=134427528048&rvr_id=134427528048&cguid=c3a0b62b1290a0aad5a2b362ffdee300#ht_500wt_928

Like that?

http://www.kapoww.co.uk/liverpool-youll-never-walk-alone—black-t-shirt-3124-p.asp

T shirt like this saying

LIVERPOOL
£110k per day

My favourite

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww304/royhendo/Flyer_Front.png&imgrefurl=http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php%3Ftopic%3D261392.0&usg=__Yw5X55etzE6zqaoRHwbbIqx0BFU=&h=672&w=1024&sz=331&hl=en&start=0&sig2=8X0w_8kDss3bFtDJqZkfqQ&zoom=1&tbnid=aKesiJhcU4sO-M:&tbnh=113&tbnw=172&ei=JByCTJ2KA4HKOPz2pZoO&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dliverpool%2Bstandards%2Bcorrupted%2Bshirt%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D683%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=810&vpy=338&dur=1124&hovh=182&hovw=277&tx=144&ty=83&oei=JByCTJ2KA4HKOPz2pZoO&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:0

LB: we’ve been working at it on the sly since the beginning of the season. We’ve got the shirts out now, and people are wearing them to the match. And we’ve had a few small blag flags on the kop.

But there’s plans afoot for the Sunderland game. Kitster the lad who does all the designing is now working on the crowd surfer. That huge Liverbird one is his, so it will be good. The lad is a great artist.

We also have leaflets being handed out for the Sunderland game. These will be covered in financial facts and on the back there is instructions to fold them into paper planes and throw them towards the pitch at kick off.

I know this all seems rather tame when people would prefer murder, but, if we can pull it off, the visual impact will be good and something sky can’t ignore or doctor like they did with the Roy banners.

As for Maddock…
Gaz, I understand the sentiment, but you have to look at the bigger picture.

He’s already answered the emails. And, whatever he did in the past, the fact is, he’s onside now.
Should we tell him to fuck off?

I’ve been in contact with Tony Evans (The Times), Rory Smith (Telegraph) and Brian Reade and Oliver Kay (The Mirror) throughout all this. They are all good lads. Well, Kay’s debatable. But even though they have been on our side, no one has used anything of ours. Maddock might just be the one to get us into the nationals…
Fuck him off – nah. Not a smart move that mate.

PS…
LB, you’re just a racist and fancy a bit of black!

Thought I’d best throw a smiley in there for our more PC sensitive people

FS if it were up to me we’d all be chanting this on the kop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFY2kJ96jNY

I’d better throw in the smiley as well

Oh and LB, I agree entirely on the questions.
I was going to have the fella who wrote them update them to fit what’s going on. But then I thought about it a bit more…
In line with Maddock’s last article – which only focused on the KOPfaithful movement and ignored everything that has been going on – I thought it best if we sent the originals. The hope being… he could write a follow up article, saying some LFC fans have been trying to corner Purslow and get some answers from him for a long time.

And as for Lyndsey’s questions…
I’d rather just set her loose in the boardroom.
She’s a cracking girl her mate…
season ticket holder for many years, letting her seat go empty for every game because she’s on a personal boycott.

If we had 50 of her on the side, we’d have them out in no time.
A crackin girl.

FS if it were up to me we’d all be chanting this on the kop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFY2kJ96jNY

I’d better throw in the smiley as well

Oh you bloody kids. I go back to this mate…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmD3bK00FMo&feature=fvw

Black, Irish, Scouse… what a bunch we are, eh.

I love it.

FS if it were up to me we’d all be chanting this on the kop

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFY2kJ96jNY

I’d better throw in the smiley as well

Bloody kids nowadays.
LB, I go back to this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmD3bK00FMo&feature=fvw

Black, Irish and Scouse… I got the lot mate.

I love it!

That’s quite educational FS. When I was growing up in the 80s, seeing a load of skinheads in Dr Martins and tight jeans meant either legging it or preparing for a fight. Seen the film ‘This is England’?

Clearly late 60s and early 70s it was more of a reggae and Ska culture.

But yeah I was really impressed with Lyndsey’s questions. Summed up my feelings perfectly.

I was 12 when Skinheads came out mate. Me and all me mates – black and white – were skins. It was a twotone thing.

We were all soul boys mate…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImCSOFLu1KU

I haven’t even looked at that video. I know what’ll be on it. Amphetamines, soul, busting a move. Thing’s got hijacked in the 80′s mate. National Front fucked it all up.

Seen This is England…
funny how it’s set in Yorkshire but the baddy turns out to be Scouse, eh?

Mind you, he’s a crackin actor that lad. So, I suppose they can’t be blamed for using him. But funny if they want a snide, a scruff, a skaghead, a scrubber, a shitbag… it’s find the Scouser time, eh.

And yeah, Lyndsey’s a boss girl. She’s nuts mate but dead sound.

FS, I think you’ll find he is seeing the last desperate gasps of a failing regime, and therefore has switched sides so he gets himself cutie points with the next owners. Long live the media pundit self interest. What sort of journalist would he be to have only just realised things are pear shape and cooked.
.
Use him and fuck him off. He has lately been the mouth piece of all things Hicks and slime. Lets not roll over and have our bellies scratched.

Without a doubt Gaz. We know quite well it’s only self interest, but…

Many ways to skin a cat mate. We have to use them all.

Here you go LB, a better one…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv0iidBrj6o

Bloody old people, eh…
these would all be about 55/60ish now.

PS… The scouse lad’s didn’t wear the big Burmo kecks… they was for woolybacks.

Ha Ha,
that’s a beaut FS, i tried dancing like that with a girl in the Montrose (remember that yard) and nearly broke my fuckin neck she said i moved like eddie canter funny as fuck, Burmo neck’s and woolybacks fuckin hilarious.

Yeah. I know the Montrose mate. Me bird’s from Bootle. We still stop there when we go home. The nearest to us is the Jawbone. It’s still a good old pub. Not many of them left. I just go into town when I’m home, do the cheap pub crawl, Punch and Judy, Yatsie’s, Globe, Cooper’s and the rest and then fall into a taxi and back to the jawbone for a nightcap. Ribs from the chinkie’s across the street, fuckin lovely, and wake up hanging…
Getting home sick. I best go do some graft. I’ve left me neice on the stall, I’ll get back to no money and no stock.

#275 : Absolute gem of a goal. He is indeed coming back to his old self.

You weren’t fuckin kiddin FS…
I like Jamie. In a lot of ways he really seems to have his head screwed on straight with this whole fame-n-fortune malarkey.
But I think he’s lost a bit of that recently.

“I just think that when we {England} get the ball we try to score every time. Sometimes there isn’t that spell of keeping the ball, just slowing the game down. To be honest, I watched in the first game and we got a free-kick just inside our half. John Terry knocked it long for Emile Heskey into the box and I was thinking: You wouldn’t have done that for Chelsea. You’d have passed that straight to Ashley Cole and just started playing again. Is it the fear? I don’t know. I can’t explain it, but that wouldn’t have happened at Chelsea”

How do you say that shit with a straight face?
I mean seriously… Mr., no Captain, no Lord Admiral High Chancellor Hoof-n-Thumper has the audacity to say that?

Someone needs to sit him down and make him watch tapes of …well… pretty much every Liverpool game he’s played for that last 18 months!

As for…
“I loved him,” he says, hopelessly out of touch with the fashion. “To be honest, he could have done anything for me and I’d have still liked him. I’m a bit like: That’s his CV, so whatever he does, we can’t say that’s wrong and that’s right, because it’s what he does. People are criticising him and some players are saying: I didn’t like this and, He was a bit cold towards us. Well, I think he was fine. I’d had Rafa (Benitez) for six years!”

Even if he meant that with the largest slice of Irony that has ever existed, it’s a pretty shitty thing for a guy who had a part in his dismissal to be saying.

——————-

But on another note… what has my blood boiling and my head exploding even more…

While we were all watching the pretty bird in the sequined gown…
…the Magician has just pulled this one out of his hat…

Liverpool FC trademarks the Liver Bird
Sep 4 2010 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Echo

LIVERPOOL FC has finally succeeded in its bid to trademark the Liver Bird.
The club caused uproar two years ago when it emerged it had applied for the rights to the city’s world-famous symbol.
After talks with Liverpool council, the Reds agreed to abandon the bid.
But it has now emerged the council and the football club made a deal whereby they both applied for different trademarks of the famous birds.
The club was granted a trademark by the Trade Marks and Designs Registration Office of the European Union (TMDREU).
The council is seeking its own trademark through the UK’s Intellectual Property Office. Council officials said the deal would mean the club was free to crack down on counterfeit football merchandise.

The article goes on, but essentially what that means is this…

The “Standards Corrupted” shirts now violate Trademark Law coz they have the Liverbird on them.

As do those black scarves LB posted…

Which means any of that “black merch” planned for the protest… if it has a LiverBird on it… they can be confiscated at the gate at Sunderland… or anywhere else…

Well lads, on my holidays with the bird in Spain but been checking in on our beloved forum and I see the negativity levels are as high as ever. In fact now we have people calling our captain a “cunt”! His crime? Oh yea he didn’t come out and support Rafa. Here’s a thought Aitch, perhaps he didn’t wanna come across as a complete hypocrite! Obviously I’m speculating but as I believed last season, many players (Gerrard among them ) had enough of Rafa. Plain and simple. It’s still amazes me how people think we’d be any better off with Rafa than we are with Roy. All i’ll say is the real enemies lie in the boardroom. Not in this forum and not at our players feet! Are any of you guys ever gonna move on with regards to Rafa? It’s unhealthy. And terribly fuckin boring

You should all read this…
http://kopfaithful.org/anfield_regeneration.html

No Arthur. I tell you what’s fuckin boring getting constantly lectured by you. Why don’t you just admit it. Your own knife was out for Rafa.

Oh that’s right…
you was prepared to give him one more season. I wonder if you would have given Shankly that. But there again, he went 7.

This is what’s wrong with our support nowadays. The loss of our traditions. It’s called Liverpool FC Arthur. We have our own way of doing things. Stabbing men who fought tooth and nail for us is not one of them. You should pay some respect to that. It’s what us to be European Cup winners. We had no right to be any bigger than the Sheffield or Bristol clubs. We became what we are because of how we are as people. We don’t stab our own.

And I don’t see any of these lads leathering Roy. What I see is a gang of decent loyal lads who realise what they have lost and are still trying to adjust to it.

If I wanted to leather some of our players and Roy, believe me, I could. I have the ammo. But I don’t think that’s what we need as a club. But lecturing people for showing a bit of loyalty… not on that.

PS: Don’t just have a look at the link. There’s things on that site that you can help with.

Right back at ya FS! Your self righteous pontificting posts are so tedious, I almost forget you and I follow the same team. Here’s a wake up call for you: I have just as much right to speak about Liverpool and the direction it’s going in as you. Oh and by the way the only one “lecturing” here is you!

That is depressing FS, having to read all those ill’s again but i know we all have to (well not all of us), lest we forget.
Watched Carra’s testimonial on LFC tv (wonder how long that channel will be able to broadcast), you could’nt really give any of the players score’s out of 10 as it was a friendly, but that boy Shelvey look’s the business did you see the free kick he scored with for the England under 21s a beauty curled over the wall what a cracker.
Well off to bed now i’ve got the grandson staying so the missus sleeps in the spare room (she has work tomorrow) while me and Benjamin read well he tries as he’s only 5, so gnight (the backs of my legs are still smarting).

Seems like Shrek has been cheating on his wife. Damn, what’s wrong with these footballers. Hopefully means Utd would have a shit season cos he carried them last year.

Arthur the blog can’t be that boring. Your on hols and still can’t stay away.

LB & FS,

You’re infringing on Arthur’s right to freedom of speech

Doesn’t that sound familiar?

LB::-) FS: i’m sorry I don’t mean to insult you. But I suppose we just have different views on our club these days. But I would like you call you up on your Shanks vs Rafa comparison. Yes Shanks went 7 years without a league win but that is such a simplistic argument, in my eyes. We had won 2 leagues, 1 fa cup, runners up in another final and all that after he got us out of 2nd division limbo. You cant compare the two. Shanks made us who we are, who we became. Rafa was a very good manager. But I defy anyone to argue with me when I say, had Rafa not won Big Ears in 05, we’d be arguing his departure so vehemently

Anyones posts gone wider than the screen, something going on again, I have to decrease the screen size to read the posts, and at my age thats difficult. My only other option is get the kids to read it for me, or worse the WIFE. Help.

LB & FS
Watching the clip of that dancing, i kept thinking they was going to start breakdancing at any minute.
Anyway dont matter what you started listening to you were always going to end up listening to this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT1Sa91N75E
Or this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ_qgKf3-YI&feature=relate

Not that it matters but This is England was filmed in Nottingham but the new one 1986 was filmed in Sheffield

“Come see the violence inheriting the system. Help, help, I’m being repressed”

Arthur, do you honestly not see the irony in supporting one manager accused of being cold and aloof and not supporting the other.

Do you honestly not see the irony in publicly stating support a manager whom 80% of the National public fanbase had turned against…
… yet not supporting a manger whom only 50 percent (at best) of the Club’s public fanbase had turned against?

Do we have a completely different definition of “complete hypocrite”????
The parallels between the statement he made FOR one manger and didn’t make for the other… in identical situations…are staggering.

What he said in fact MADE him sound like a complete hypocrite so if, as you claim, he didn’t want to come across that way, then he failed miserably!

As for “moving on” I can’t speak for others, but I’ve moved on.
Rafa is gone…. For better or worse…
Roy is here… for better or worse…

I don’t get where people think you can discuss the beginning of Roy’s tenure without reference to Rafa’s.
You couldn’t do that with any of our Manager’s in their first season.
Ged’s final season had an effect on Rafa’s first season… just as
Evans’ final seasons (alone and combined) had an effect on Ged’s first seasons (alone and combined) …just as…
Souey’s final season had an effect on Evan’s first season….etc throughout our history…

Rafa had negotiated final say on player transfers. Purslow could not sell or buy without his say so. That’s about as plain and simple as it gets.
Roy has been hired to steady the ship… period… that too is about as plain and simple as it gets.
If you can’t see the difference, then you’re not half as smart as I continually give you credit for.
So yeah, I reckon we might just have been a bit better off if Rafa had stayed… but we’ll never know will we… its one of those unprovable hypotheses that you can only speculate on… and fuck it… he’s gone, so it only matters where it affects today.
Where you and I differ is you think the moment he left his influence was over and it was all about Roy… I know otherwise.

Beacuase today we have Players who’s attitudes got rid of one manager, who’s replacement had to “court” those same players to get them to stay.
Pretty plain and simple, that.

But let’s move on…
the transfer window is now closed… and Purslow can do no more damage to the Squad until January …
…though there are still plenty of shenanigans going on in the boardroom that could affect things on the field, especially between now and October 6th…

… the squad has been announced and that’s what Roy has to deal with.
We’ve got Birmingham and Scum up next… those two games should tell us quite a bit…

As for negativity… feel free to enjoy your vacation and come back all refreshed and positive and rosey-tinted glasses…

… me… I’ll continue to be concerned by things the players say, or don’t say…
… I’ll continue to be concerned that some players seem to play better for their country, than they do for us… and a new manager hasn’t yet changed that (what the fuck IS that about?)
…I’ll continue to be concerned that G&H are still our owners…
… at a time when they should be looking to sell the club, they’ve just bought the rights to the Liverbird for fucks sake… (seriously, I’ve got Liverbirds coming out my arse, its on everything I own from my car to my computer to my watch… one of my mates has one on his left arm, another on his leg… we’re all in violation of their Trademark laws!)
… you can call that negative all you want….
I see absolutely nothing positive about it…
In fact… that one move… already pre-empts the newly planned protests, coz anything protesting them that bears a Liverbird can be confiscated at the gates because it infringes their Trademark Rights…

… you go right ahead and call it negative lad, I call it keeping my fuckin eyes open and alerting others to the fact that the magician is using mirrors and has an ace up his sleeve!

And again Arthur, the comparisons are pretty obvious if you want to look.

The Cups Rafa won are tangible yes… but what is not so tangible are the changes he made behind the scenes… for the long-term benefit of the club.
Those changes are largely fucked now…
The overhaul of the Academy and Youth systems… that have seen us make a profit on one youngster after another over the last few years… and have a half dozen lads in, or poised to break into the first team.
Its similar to the Arsene Wenger model… but now that Rafa is gone we won’t see the benefit of it… coz someone else is in charge now with different ideals.
Rafa’s were to develop young players that would make the First Team and Squad stronger and allow us to compete… and profit on those that couldn’t…
Without him, now all those players exist solely to be sold for profit.

Arthur I’m sure you do find my post boring and tedious. You know how to solve that.

I find your’s to be a mixture of disloyal, self pitying as if you are some sort of martyr who is being attacked for being in the right, if only we’d all just agree, and sometimes quite funny in an ironic sort of way, and most times downright nastily daft towards a man who gave you the best times you’ve ever seen as an LFC fan.

And you know what, I can’t even be arsed pulling them last few posts apart. I’ll let the lad’s judge for themselves.

Despite cup wins, we’d spent decades in the doldrums. We suddenly, and completely by accident, finally found a man who could possibly put us back on our perch. He lead us back to the top table of European football. He dragged the club – kicking and screaming into the modern age, upgrading all aspects of the club. He won us trophies and attracted the best players in the world back to the club. He didn’t always get everything right, but no one does. And he had to achieve all this while being constantly stabbed in the back from all angles, sadly, even some of our own “Support.”

I could go on, but I’ve honestly been trying not to dwell in the past. I’ve even “lectured” lads in my pontificating way how they need to back Roy now.

But I understand why some lads miss Rafa, why they are worried about the future, why they can’t be enthusiastic over a team that is shipping out talented youngsters to bring in old journeymen on huge contracts. I find it all worrying meself and there’s far more I could go on about. Believe me, there’s things I could say.

But I tell you what, I’ll finish on this…
No one had even mentioned Rafa when you went on one and told everyone, They had to just move on.
Maybe it’s you who needs to move on lad, because it seems to me, everytime you have a bevvy, the truth comes out and you start on Rafa. I don’t know why the need for the vindictivness. It’s a shame and certainly not a good thing in a person. It says far more about you than it does Rafa.

319: yeah it’s happened to me an all Gaz.

Arthur, he did win ole big ears though didn’t he? What’s your point?

Anyway everyone here is talking about how to get rid of the owners and the irony of Stevie G’s comments and Carra’s.

Let me tell you this, I’ve idolised Stevie G and Carra for the last decade but if it’s got to the stage where they are undermining Roy(i don’t know that of course)and picking the/influencing the team selection and tactics then they have to go pure and simple. That cannot be good for the team. Spain have some magnificent players and some huge stars/names but they were a proper team and so even if they weren’t firing on all cylinders they won the world cup. The USA on the other hand have no stars/big names but they were a team and outshone England at the world cup who lets face it have big names/stars but were not a team.

Now someone’s record in football that cannot be questioned is Fabio Capello’s. He has won just about everything but the media are questioning him. Now England have been crap for the last 50 years. Is that down to too many Johnny foreigners in the english game? is it down to Johnny foreign managing the team? I don’t think so, England have had every type of manager and it still hasn’t worked.

Back to LFC. What is going on there? is last season’s malaise down to Johnny foreigner Rafa Benitez? Well if it was it should be gone by now because he’s no longer there but it hasn’t, we’ve started this campaign in much the same way, We’ve now had 5 or 6 games and I don’t see any sign of improvement at all.

How do you explain that?

Kenny

I would say we are worse, I know Rafa was accused of being negative, but he was never this negative even on his bad days

I’ll explain it mate…
There’s a fucking huge cloud hanging over our club. Everyone chose to ignore that and blamed it all on Rafa. The man worked absolute miracles under the circumstances. But unfortunately this is the world we live in now. The media went for him from the moment “He disrespected the magic of the FA Cup.” Slowly but surely over the years, they chipped away and away and away at him. Had we won the league in our best year it might have stopped, or at least our “support” wouldn’t have fell for it. But sadly the team came up short – two goals short. Yes. That’s how close he got us, even with everything he had to contend with. So move on a season and things start going worse. No investment meant the team couldn’t keep up the huge effort from the season before. Legs were a season older, bodies were more fragile due to the exertions of the year before and the investment we’d been promised never materialised. The media pounced. Some of the support and the players fell in line – sadly people nowadays like to point fingers and blame others instead of havin a bit of loyalty and asking what they can do to help.
And so that was that. All the progress was lashed out the window. And now we are standing in the rubble trying to salvage what we can.

Some people are still in a sort of mourning stage. But the funny thing is, everytime they start to move on someone like Carra or Arthur rips the scabs off the still healing wounds and off we go on another round of pointless, self-defeating arguments.

I actually have far better things to do with me time. But I’m not going to stand by and be lectured and have fingers pointed at me. I’d much prefer to spend me time doing the little I can to help the club, and I actually had a great result yesterday and this morning. I can’t say too much right now, but keep an eye on Dave Maddocks columns over the next few weeks.

And in the meantime, make sure you check out that link to Kopfaithful…
Because I’m warning you now, if we stand by and let the yanks get refinanced from somewhere, we really are fucked. Proper Fucked. And there’s nothing you, me, us, Rafa or Roy can do about it.

There’s proper important things happening out there. Internet spats aren’t going to change them.

We’ve been talking about protests, campaigns, ways of saving the club, reggae skin heads, and ironic articles from Carra and Gerrard and we get lectured on being negative and not moving on from Rafa. Fucking cheek of it.

If I’m on holiday with my bird and I don’t like the way the blog has gone of late I sure as fuck would not be coming in here reading all the comments, signing in and posting a couple of my own.

I am not sure how on earth one can drop the negativity and move on anyway. We’ve not seen any good football from our team in ages and none of us have a clue as to what the future has in store for the club.

I’d like Arthur to list some things that I should be positive about. Come on Arthur – inspire us.

The truth is all the fans that thought a simple change of manager would lift the negative atmosphere from the players are realising that they were fucking wrong. They won’t admit it yet. They’ll say Roy has only been in the job 5 mins, give him a chance. But deep down they know they were wrong and can’t stand to see comments that indicate this is the case.

Move on my arse. We’re still deep in the shit.

Inspire this motley crew LB? Impossible. It’s amazing how after 3 league games, not 3 months, 3 games Roy’s regime has been written off already. Incredible! Oh and apparently we’re more negative now than Rafa? Huh? What? Can we just give the man at least ten games and see where we are? Unbelievable

Yes after 3 years this regime as been written off, And if we give Roy 10 years it won’t make a difference untill the parasites are gone.
PS
Still didnt get back to me on those points i raised Arthur i was beginning to think you’d just moved on.

We dont play 2 defensive midfielders anymore, and our new man marking system isn’t conceding nearly as many goals as that horrible zonal system that won Pepe so many clean sheet records, Gerrard is playing so much better now that Roy has put an arm round his shoulder and watching Carragher make those incisive passes to our forwards now we are playing with so much verve and passion since the nasty spanish man went to the European champions just fills me with unbridled joy.

If it hadn’t been for that pesky Man City getting those lucky goals and West Brom sticking ten men behind the ball for ninety minutes so that we had to spend all match camped in their half trying to pass our way through a resolute defence I think your viewpoint would be obvious to everyone Arthur, but dont let that discourage you mate I’m sure the truth will out, lets just give him 10 matches or maybe 20 at the outside

Who’s written him off Arthur?
You make all these accusations, but LB is entirely correct in what he said…
No one talked about Rafa or Roy yesterday. We talked all about all sorts of shite and the only thing remotely regarding that situation that Aitch didn’t like the player power that seems to be raising it’s head at Anfield.
Guess what…
not many of us do, and we don’t want to see Roy suffer from it either. His job is hard enough as it is.

The fact is Arthur you dived in yet again, bollacking people over loyalty… bit ironic to say the least that.

And I’d love to go on, but I suppose I should stop being tediously patronising though as I have better things to report…
Okay. I’ve had a conversation with Dave Maddock. He’s going to help. Can’t say much more than that for now, but it’s all good and if we start getting into the national papers it can only get better.

RBS are having an open day at their headquarters in Edinburgh on the 25th and 26th, just over a week before a decision is made on the refinancing. We will have people there reminding them of their duty towards us – the public, their bosses – and the club. Again I can’t say too much but, believe me, they will be left in no doubt as to how people feel about this.

On the legal side of things, the RBS man has been onto me again this afternoon and he’s still adamant that RBS will not be refinancing. In fact he went as far as to say, this is now a complete impossibility for Hicks. I haven’t got all the info off him, it was just an assurance.

On top of that, one of the lads has just dug up some financial news on Gillette, and it appears he’s in really deep shit yet again. I’m not too clever on these matters but I’ll dig up what he said and post it later.

But even though it all seems rather promising on that front, please remember to look into the Kopfaithful website. They need our help. It only takes a few minutes and it’s pretty easy to do.

As I said, there’s real things happening. We haven’t all just gave in. In fact, some people are more determined than ever to keep on fighting. And I know it sometimes feels like pissing into the wind, but we have to keep trying. We do keep getting little victories along the way, and it’s the little victories that eventally win the war.

Last word…
Apparently quite a few of the alternative shirts turned up at Anfield yesterday and they had the desired effect. I know a few lads who went in them and they said loads of people kept approaching them all day asking where they could get them from. So, it’s starting to get around and the black banners are being worked on.

So, it’s not all doom and gloom. And I know there’s only a few of us lads in here. But so what. Every little helps and you’ve all been great at supporting the cause so don’t give up now…
Get in the Kopfaithful site and give what support you can.

In case you missed the link…
http://kopfaithful.org/anfield_regeneration.html

For the record…
This whole idea of “giving Roy 10 games” is complete and utter bollocks.

It is what got us here in the first place…

Personally, I find it rather ironic in the extreme that… as predicted… it’s the anti-Rafas and the “get over it” brigade that are calling for Roy to be given 10 games “before judgement is passed”

Roy is the manager of LFC for the season, not 10 games… the entire season people!

The entire season… All 38 games. Plus Carling Cup games, plus FA Cup games and plus Europa Cup games.

Then and only then can he be “judged”!
…otherwise we become Newcastle, appointing Phil Thompson in January, then firing him with 6 games left in the season and appointing Kenny Dalglish to “save us from the drop”

With each passing game, we’ll analyze what’s working and what isn’t.
As we should do…
…but we should be blaming poor performances on the players… not the manager.

If a manager gets his tactics all wrong… but the players play out of their skins… then you can blame the manager.

But whether its 4-4-2, 4-5-1, or 4-2-3-1 or whatever…
…If supposed pros can’t complete simple 10yard passes to a teammate…
…it isn’t the fuckin Manager’s fault… there is something else going on…

Analyze for sure…
…But… and this is for everyone in here…
…“judgement” of Roy needs to be reserved for next May…
…otherwise we are ALL just part of the problem.

Don’t hold your breath on the ten yard passes Aitch. Get ready for lots of hoof ball out of defence and Hollywood balls from Steven and Joe.

Lucas is brilliant at playing them short little pass and move balls. He’ll be lucky to see the bench.

The gap between defence and midfield will be immense. Poulson will sit like he’s another defender. Carragher won’t lay the ball off to him. He’ll welly it towards Gerrard and Joe.

Torres will drop deeper looking for the ball and have to bust a gut to get up top when we’ve got it.

Konchesky and Johnson will charge up field. It’s the way both play. They’ll get caught out upfield a lot if we keep the deep back line we’ve been playing.

That’s not a stab at Roy. It’s an honest prediction based on what I know of the man’s methods and the players he’s got.

I said it before we kicked a ball this season. It’s what I’ve seen so far. It’s a fair guestimate. And like I also said, get ready for some really open exciting games against the other English managers. Get ready to chasing the ball for 90 minutes against the top teams an in Europe.

But more than anything get on that Kopfaitful site and start helping out with the emails. We really need to help these lads. They’re doing a great job and getting some good results. They need a hand.

That’s all I come in to say really. So have a look around the site and do what you can…
http://kopfaithful.org/anfield_regeneration.html

Night, night.

Arthur you come in and start accusing, people come back at you with points and questions, you refuse to answer them, you ignore those points you accuse again, then you wonder why people get irritated.

stats don’t mean everything but there’s an interesting comparison between our latest and our last left-back here:

http://www.microlfc.com/index/2010/09/insua-v-konchesky/

guess who comes out on top? you couldn’t make it up!
(and i actually like konchesky)…

oh and seeing ged’s joy at being back on the anfield bench yesterday actually brought a tear to my eye…good luck at villa, pal…

Rome77 – apologies I must have missed your questions…what were they again and I’ll get back to you

McrRed… the media knives are out for old Ged already. I had the radio on yesterday, subject of the day all bloody day…
Should Villa have a British manager?

They ploughed on with it all day and didn’t matter that the majority of Villa fans I heard all agreed on one thing, they just want the best manager available no matter where he’s from.

I didn’t listen to it very long, I just flicked it on every time I was in the kitchen. I go in there quite a bit. Everytime I put it on it was the same thing and it was again this morning. So, no matter how much shit people say this is, no matter how many people say just ignore it, the fact is…
It reaches millions. It’s constant, 24/7 and it’s influence is huge.

The hypocrisy is quite amazing…
I turned it on and they was talking about Cappello. When asked what they all wanted – A British manager. When asked who – Roy Hodgson.

They then went on about Roy’s great credentials, the fact that he was at a big big club, how he he’d had all the big jobs and succeed in a long very long distinguished career, but when Houllier got mentioned, the same people said “he’s too old and he’s a failure.”

Now the loyalty brigade will no doubt jump on that as a tedious patronising stab at Roy. It’s no such thing. It’s here as an answer to McRed and it’s here to show what the current situation/atmosphere in this country is like.

Wayne Rooney can go bonking cheap prostitutes. It’s not the boy’s fault and no one cares. He’s just a hot blooded English boy. Of course he should go to Switzerland. Terry, Cole, Ferdinand, Gerrard, pretty much all of them can do whatever the fuck they want and be crap on the pitch. It get’s them a couple of days gyp in the media and they’re the Golden Generation/The Three Lions, the whatever bollacks they can come up with. Cappello on the other hand…
You get my drift. I just wish so many of us would stop falling for it.

3 million quid at least to Fulham, 3 promising young footballers lost to bring in a 29 year old Ingerlush fullback on a 4 year contract worth 45k a week…
Great business that.

Ah fuck it, remember to go in here and have a route around the site. Some good stuff in there and they need a hand…
http://kopfaithful.org/anfield_regeneration.html

Same old bullshit, Arthur. It is precisely posts like yours that I’ve been taking a sabbatical from Kopblog. I come back and see what everyone is up to and I find this same tired old argument from you.

When the majority here clearly sees that the problem lies with the two American cunts, with well-documented facts and quotes, you bury your head in the sand, and then accuse everyone of pontificating at you, when you yourself are no less guilty with that holier-than-thou statement on #75. You might as well say the world is deluded in not joining you in believing the Earth is flat.

This will not all go away with a magic wand once Roy takes charge. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, Roy will just be as undermined as Rafa was, his biggest advantage over Rafa is that he’s not foreign, hence the media will cut him some slack and allow the moderates (those who were indifferent to Rafa – don’t really hate him, but don’t mind that Roy’s now taken over) to finally realize this truth.

And to think you post regularly on TTT, you ought to have known better.

To the American Cunts, it’s already September now, where the fuck is the “big investment this summer”? Why the fuck are you two still doing here!? GET. THE. FUCK. OUT.

Aitch: I know you shouldn’t judge a manager after 10 games, but you can’t hide the fact that Rafa was last season – not really by those in here, but certainlty by the xenophobic media. I’m not saying it’s right, but I think it would be fair if his tactics after each game are analysed, scrutinised & then commented upon. This will happen, and unfortunately there will be those that are calling for his head (maybe?) after 10 games.
I hope I’m proven wrong, and that we go on a fantastic run, scoring 3 or 4 goals every game – but judging from the 5 games we’ve played thus far, well, let’s just say that I’m concerned already.
Also – and there have been a lot of comments on the subject already – some of the ‘targets’ of Roy’s have left me incredulous and speechless. Maybe it has been the limited kitty at his disposal, and the orders from above to ‘spend before you buy, and reduce the wage bill while you’re at it’ would (maybe) not have helped his cause, in the pursuit for ‘Liverpool quality’ players.
But are these not the conditions that the previous manager had to work under? Not much sympathy for Rafa from some of the bloggers in here, and certainly not ANY from the British press & dillusioned LFC fans elsewhere?

I have to laugh at this don’t judge melarkey, whether it’s after 10 games, 20 games, 30 games, a full season.

The judgement’s I’ve passed have been based on a 30 – yes 30 – year career.

There’s no secrets with Roy. We know what we are going to get.

Does that mean we shouldn’t support him, does it fuck.
Does that mean we should be stabbing him already, does it nothing.
But it does mean we can give an honest analysis on the man, his tactics and his career.

Or are we supposed to lie, or kid ourselves into thinking Roy is suddenly going to change into a coach/manager who is going to sweep aside the oppostion and return us to the heights?

Let’s have it right…
Roy’s a decent experienced manager. He’s here to keep us afloat through these very treacherous times and he needs our support to do that. Anything else is a bonus.

Yeah FS, I suppose that is what I was trying to say – just with a few additions.
And if anyone in here is critical of Roy, it doesn’t necessarily mean we/they are not behind him. We are still LFC supporters, FFS! But we can express opinions, and voice our concerns on tactics or players!
You wear your (previous season’s) shirt to the shops or boozer, and fellow reds come up & exchange opinions. “So, what do you think of the new manager”? Without hesitation, I always reply with the well-used but very true “well, we traded in a Ferrari for a Ford Escort”. And then you end up reminding the other bloke what Rafa achieved during his tenure. Easy!
But you keep on getting the same old shit on the forums: ‘why aren’t you backing Roy / give Roy a chance, etc etc’. Well why the fuck didn’t you give Rafa a chance? And at least we aren’t being personal & insulting to Roy – no ‘fat Spanish waiter jibes’, which sicken me to death.
Anyway, I suppose we are on about the same old thing here. But it is not easy to move on.
All we have left to look forward to (?) is getting rid of the tumours, and (hopefully) seeing the All Black campaign taking hold & showing an appearance on the telly and in the press (printed & internet).

Kinny:

What are you on about?? I disagree regularly with the likes of FS, Rome, Aitch – but c’est la vie.

When did I ever say all our ills will disappear with the appointment of Roy?

All along I have been saying the number 1 enemy is the people at boardroom level. The main gist of my arguments are as follows:

1) We should give Roy a chance to see if he can mould something out of the squad that he inherited and the few player he brought in

2)If we had Rafa this season, we’d still have faced the same financial restrictions and possibly (of course this is speculation on my behalf) the loss of our two best players in Torres and Gerrard

3) We should cease the mourning for Rafa. If H&G get the re-financing they so desperately seek (and let’s all pray to Christ they don’t) we’d be just as fucked with Rafa as we would be with Roy. Rafa had a certain amount of influence yes (youth academy) but when it came to being able to force H&G’s hands over transfer budget etc – it proved to be a task too far.

A forum like this Kinny is a melting pot of theories, opinions and varying allegiances. I think it’s safe to say most of the regular posters on here were big Rafa fans. Although, I of course acknowledge his success and his genuine love for the club, I was never a huge fan of his style of play and some of the various managerial decisions he made throughout his career.

That’s not to say I wanted Roy instead – but that was out of all our hands – despite what other people say.

Not sure what you mean by me “burying my head in the sand” I have regularly stated the main problem is with H&G.

If I seem stubborn it’s because I vehemently believe in what I’m writing as much as you, FS, LB and others do. I wont be bullied into the status quo – diversity is the spice of life and all that

Arthur this is where your argument falls down, you keep saying things like we would have lost Torres…
Why?

It’s known fact, the lad loves Rafa. It’s known fact, he has nothing but gratitude and loyalty for the men. He has said it himself on many occasions, the last being about a month ago when he likened Rafa to a second father who has had the biggest influence on his career and made him he player he is.

Even Steven and yes, Carra himself admitted that much.

And I could go on, but I’m just about done with this now…
I have more important things to do.

But here’s a clue Arthur…
we all know Rafa has gone.
It’s a bit ironic that you should be telling us to be loyal to Roy.
Yes. Some of us are in a sort of mourning. We realise what we have lost – one of only 3 men to ever bring us big ears and take us to the pinacle of European football.
We know why we lost him.
We know our own support helped in this.
It’s a bit strange when some of them very people – yes yourself included – then tell us to just stop being upset about it and move on.
And the worst thing I find about it all…
From your age, I know quite well, that Rafa Benitez gave you some of the greatest times and football you have witnissed as an LFC fan, but far from showing any gratitude to the man you display nothing but vindictivness and constantly bollack people for being grateful.

Personally, I will always hold Rafa Benitez with the highest of regard, and gratitude. I will always think of him as a wonderful man, who got us as a club and a city. He was one of us. He fought for us. He drank with us. He gave us success and our pride back in our club. He gave us a foundation that can carry us on into the next era if those in charge don’t destroy it as they seem to be doing. Fuck he even gave us back the money he was paid to walk away.
A top top man in my book.

And as I’ve said before, Arthur to me, your attitude towards all this says more about you than anything it does about Senore Benitez.

Roy… he’ll probably do exactly what he’s just said he’ll do. Well, I hope he will. And I take my hat off to him for saying this a few hours ago… I am here to keep things steady until new owners can be found.

I thank Mister Hodgson for his refreshing honesty. I like his style for saying it. And I even hope he is being a bit sly and intends to do far more than that. And personally I’ll do whatever I can to back and support him. It’s what proper Reds do… we don’t turn on our own.

And hopefully that’s my last word on the subject. It’s wasting time and energy I can put to better use elsewhere.

Lads, please look in the Kopfaithful site. It’s reaching the 11th hour. Some of us are working hard on things behind the scenes. Some good things are getting accomplished, but we need help out here too.

Just get in there and do what you can. It doesn’t take a minute. It all helps.

I don`t think anyone in here Arthur is being bullied into the status quo..

In fact i find it quite an insult to me and the other posers in here.

We all speak our own mind whatever the subject may be,based on the facts at hand.

You stated there in points two and three…

2)”If we had Rafa this season, we’d still have faced the same financial restrictions and possibly (of course this is speculation on my behalf) the loss of our two best players in Torres and Gerrard”

3) “We should cease the mourning for Rafa. If H&G get the re-financing they so desperately seek (and let’s all pray to Christ they don’t) we’d be just as fucked with Rafa as we would be with Roy. Rafa had a certain amount of influence yes (youth academy) but when it came to being able to force H&G’s hands over transfer budget etc – it proved to be a task too far”

If you believe this to be te case then why Arthur did you continuously deny having it in for Rafa and always had the stance that you wanted him to have another season?

FS

I’m a bit short on time at the moment. Had a quick look on the kopfaithful website the other day, but couldn’t figure out what to do then. I managed to find the email addresses and letter this time though I’ve done my part on that now. If there’s anything else I can do to help, just let me know mate.

FS: – a quote from my last post “and possibly (of course this is speculation on my behalf) the loss of our two best players in Torres and Gerrard”

I state quite clearly that I’m speculating i.e. I’m not sure – it’s a possible, a theory. Take it or leave it kind of thing.

Timmy: I didn’t have it “in for Rafa” He did bring us the European Cup of course, a fantastic night – I just wasn’t a huge fan of his Premier League approach – I thought it was on the whole overly-cautious and tended to play into the hands of the lesser teams. I’m not knocking the man’s character or anything. As I first stated way back when I first started commenting in here – I do not see anything wrong with questioning the manager, especially when (and here we go again) I potentially felt he had taken his squad and team as far as he could go. Just my opinion.

Anyway here’s to the 6th of October -a huge date in the history of our club

Oh and I’d just like to add a line from Paul Tomkins lastest post – seeing as I’m sure many regard him as a true level headed Red…

“Now, many of us, myself included, have now come to the conclusion that Rafa had run his course. For him to stay, he’d have needed to get rid of those players who were fed up with him, the key executives with whom he was at war, and the useless American owners – whose lack of money prohibited any of this from happening.”

So not alone in my thinking, that’s all

Want Torres to score another couple of goals for Spain. Important for us to provide him good service from midfield. He often gets isolated.

A fit and firing Torres will be the difference between shit or icecream for us this season.

Shit = 8th or lower in PL. Early exits from cups.

Icecream = Top 6 and successful cup run(s).

Timmytorres is right we are all a bunch of posers in here

Well, Arthur, it should also be pointed out that Paul Tomkins has a completely different view of Rafa’s Premier League approach than the one you describe in the post previous to the quote. Quite the reverse of your opinion, one may argue.

It seems to me you are merely clutching at straws here, as you have been for quite some time now.

When Roy jointed first, there was a bit deal made of the fact he had a meeting with the likes of Carra and Stevie and then meeting up with Nando in Spain.
All this was done so Roy could outline “his plans” etc.
Thankfully all but mash were convinced, but I did wonder what Roy had up his sleeve!!!

And today I read this:-

Hodgson told the LMA’s magazine The Manager: “The club is up for sale and nobody knows what direction it will take if and when new owners are found.

“A few years ago when the situation was far more stable, the money to buy new players was available.

“I hope the situation will change when the club is eventually sold and owners who are prepared to invest in the club come in.

“Furthermore every season we see teams not expected to win titles winning them.

When Roy Joined first (I ment to say!!!)

But I wouldn’t blame him for Jointing up!!

Sachem, it’s probably easier to access everything from these links…
ttp://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=262366.0

ttp://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=261222.0

ttp://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=262874.0

ttp://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=259237.1160

You just need to add the h on them all. I took them off to stop the post getting filtered out.

I’ve probably been even busier on this in the last couple of days than I have since it all started. We are trying lads, and there’s some good things going on. But, obviously, something’s have to be kept quiet because the enemy really do have spies trawling the boards and forums. But believe me, there is some good stuff going on.

But having said that, I’m not going to start giving false hope. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a phoney. And in truth, it’s a bit worrying right now…
D-Day is fast approaching, and although we’ve had assurances, I’m not convinced these bastards won’t manage to cling on yet again.
And if they do, nevermind Rafa or Roy, it might aswell be Rab C Nesmith..
no one’s gonna stop them if they aren’t stopped from getting more time and money.

So lads, do what you can…
If you can, send letters.
If you can’t, send emails.
And spread the word as much as you can.
One final push on the banks and we might just stop this.

Artur,sorry pal bt you didn`t quitw answer my question again.

Ok i souldn`t ave phrased it as you having it in for Rafa,so i`ll ask the question again.

You previously posted the two following points.

2)”If we had Rafa this season, we’d stil faced the same financial restrictions and possibly (of course this is speculation on my behalf) the loss of our two best players in Torres and Gerrard”

3) “We should cease the mourning for Rafa. If H&G get the re-financing they so desperately seek (and let’s all pray to Christ they don’t) we’d be just as fucked with Rafa as we would be with Roy. Rafa had a certain amount of influence yes (youth academy) but when it came to being able to force H&G’s hands over transfer budget etc – it proved to be a task too far”

If you belive or speculate this to be true,why did you earlier on in the summer rather Rafa had one more season?

Rafamuffin,what are you on about mate?

When did i say we were a bunch of posers???

In 346 Timmy,

” if fact i find it quite an insult to me and the other posers in here”

LOL my friend, i thought you were complimenting all us good lads in here.

Fuck me i’m getting as bad as you Timmy that should start “in fact.

Oh fuck it just twigged that there Redman!

Jesus i feel a bit of a tit now.Sorry Rafamuffin..please ignore #358

Me bloody keyboard is in its twilight years so to speak.I`ll have to invest in a new machine i think.

Or better still read over my post before i “say it”

Have to get rid of this dyslexic tag i`ve gathered lately

Thats right Timmy “A good workman always blames his tools” ¦ )

#336 McrRed some good stats on Insua & Koncheskis but the biggest worry i have is resale value in 4 years one will be at the end of his career and the other will be playing in the semi’s ( at least ) of the WC for Argentina.
Some good stat on Masch & Lucas aswell, very little difference apart from intercepted passes which comes with experience no doubt.
YNWA