Liverpool Signings and General Rumours Thread

~Rebel~

PHB wrote:

Scholes - top class
Carrick - very good
Fletcher - good

Liverpool basically have (to continue the comparision) two Carricks on the wings, and two Carricks up front. Then after that they have a couple of Fletchers.
There are no Scholes' on the wings or up front for Liverpool, i.e. there are no top players up front.

To hell with the Metric system, I think you've created a replacement!

"Ill have a Carslberg please barkeep"
"That'll be 2 Carricks and a Fletcher"
"Aww bugger, do you have change of a Scholes?"






On another topic, i really hope we put in a 2year buy back clause (a la Barragan) if we sell Pongolle. If he does develop like he could would be a sickner to lose him for 4mill!

mike65

Riise bankruptcy is a technical matter.

Now lets talk some actual football!

Liverpool v Arsenal in front of the new bosses, a game which for the first time in a long time is not terribly important to either side. That said I expect Rafa to try to put on a good show for Hicks and Gilette. Please play Gerrard through the middle. Kuyt could do with a rest I'd start Bellamy and Crouch.

Mike.

PHB

To hell with the Metric system, I think you've created a replacement!

"Ill have a Carslberg please barkeep"
"That'll be 2 Carricks and a Fletcher"
"Aww bugger, do you have change of a Scholes?"

Napoleon eat your head out.

IrishMike

Tribalfootball are running two stories about Liverpools interest in Etoo and another one about Cicinho
http://www.tribalfootball.com/article.php?id=34175

http://www.tribalfootball.com/article.php?id=34176

The Etoo one i can definitely understand but cicinho?
He is talented alright but he cant defend to save his life
Buy him and convert him to a winger perhaps ?
Amazing skill and pace, a possibility perhaps

leninbenjamin

IrishMike wrote:

Buy him and convert him to a winger perhaps ?
Amazing skill and pace, a possibility perhaps

it's the only way it would make sense. Any time i've seen the guy anyway he's played like a winger who likes to come deep, although i havn't seen him play in a good while now. The only other way he'd fit into the squad i'd imagine is as an impact sub, coming on the last 20 mins when chasing a lead or something like that. i'm not sure he'd be good in the prem though, looks a bit lightweight, so i'd say its a nothing story.

el rabitos

cicinho is a joke. he was due to be shipped out of madrid just before he got injured. wouldnt fancy him in the premiership at all. next rumour please.

~Rebel~

The only way's i could see it happening are if he was used A) as a Belletti for oleguer type switch when you need a goal, like barca use, That he be converted into a winger, or C) that ge be part of a 3-5-2 lineup as a wingback with risse or aurelio on the other side and Agger, Carra and Arbeloa (if Hypia is't still there) as the back 3.


On the other story, i would absolutely love to see eto'o come in! Have watched a lot of La Liga over the past 3 years and Eto'o really is the best striker i've seen since (the real) Ronaldo's hay day. He has everything in his game. Would honestly take him before villa even. (lets keep in perspective here that our very own Sinama Pongolle has 1 less goal in 10 less starts then Villa this season!). I do rate Villa highly, and would love to see him come in, but he's not my tip top choice. Would actually love Huntelaar as well, looks a real quality player.

Does anyone know anything about Alfonso Alves? Has 26 goals in 26 starts for Heerenveen!

zAbbo

Early kickoff today, good stuff.

mike65

Corner Crisis!

According to fivelive we've had 220 corners in the league and scored 2 goals directly from them. Its worse then we thought then! :eek:

Mike.

copacetic

some hat-trick by crouchy, if he had played like this all season we'd be top!
near post sharpness, powerful header and silky skills. Might even have been left, head, right? Can't remember which foot he got on the first.
mascherano and alonso in the middle looked very solid, mascherano really stood out for me as a more creative version of momo. They totally controlled the creative arsenal midfield, although Arsenal did look a bit soft in the centre from the off.
arbeloa looked ok, very willing to get forward and take people on, gave the ball away a bit much today but could be a prospect. Looks better going forward than in defense.
Aurelio's delivery was top notch today and that was the difference for me all around the pitch, Arbeola, Pennant and Gonzalez all seemed to be on top of their game with their delivery which meant we looked dangerous every time we got forward.

gary the great

Well done to crouchy he buried all his chances its a pity he hasnt been doing that all season.

Aurelio had his best game for us so far today to, he was great.
Maschereano looks a brilliant player, that was a really good move by Rafa.

zAbbo

Good game, well done Crouch, It's hard what to make from a lazy Arsenal side who weren't overly bothered in contesting the game.

Maschereano was quality, but again against a poor arsenal team

I like the look of the formation though, we really need to keep Gerrard through the middle.

Vokes

mike65 wrote:

Corner Crisis!

According to fivelive we've had 220 corners in the league and scored 2 goals directly from them. Its worse then we thought then! :eek:

Mike.

Reason could be that Sami aint playing as much as he used to and one of our few good corner takers (Garcia) is out injured a while

zing

copacetic wrote:

arbeloa looked ok, very willing to get forward and take people on, gave the ball away a bit much today but could be a prospect. Looks better going forward than in defense.

Looked like a player who's used to having a bit more time on the ball before having players all over him - that's just something he'll have to get used to and adapt to.

Great game all round - sure arsenal were far from their best today - but it was great to see so many players on top of their games today and linking up well.

I see passport control in Speke wouldn't let Gillet through unless he gave his word against ground sharing

PiE

Massively better performance than the Villa game, but not much better than we usually play. Just this time we had the end-product. Fair play to Crouch, he's taken a fair bit of criticism over the last coupla months so I'm happy for him.

As mentioned, hopefully he'll keep banging them in so we can 'upgrade' in the summer. He's gotta start against PSV now though. Drop Kuyt I say, he's not done much lately.

el rabitos

really good win today, just based on the highlights there arbeloa looked good and agger made up for his mistake in letting baptista in by taking his goal well. suprising scoreline though. hopefully the win kicks in some confidence for the push towards securing 3rd

KdjaCL

Pongolle scored again for Recreativo.

10 for the season now.


kdjac

mike65

4 million? We must get 10 at least!

Mike.

zing

mike65 wrote:

4 million? We must get 10 at least!

Mike.

Well the more he scores the more interest there should be from other clubs and that should driver the price up (uinless of the loan deal with Recreativo has a fixed buy out amount). Will be sad to see him go as I think he's got loads of potential but can understand why he would want to move on - plus we need someone with more than just potential up front.

~Rebel~

If it is only an amount as small as 4mill we'd be crazy not to include a buy out - as it is its daylight robbery. They cant afford much more then that so im sure they'd take the offer and hope we dont bite in 2 years time or whatever. As it is they can only afford him since they're selling their other striker Uche. Or else we can hope someone else shows an interest and just cut all ties now, for a decent price.

As mentioned its a massive shame, wouldn't have won either the champions league or the FA cup without him. he was quite unfairly treated i think, not getting a run especially after he saved us against Luton.

Did a quick search for some of his goals;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEO_Qub7tQQ Vs Real Madrid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X68fFD6BCZU Vs Betis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8kFRt6eU78 Vs Celta (1 min 5 secs in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksX83_aswNE Vs Villareal (3 mins 38 secs in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlw78hBwUwU Vs Athletico Madrid (pen)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xQQUeOoZcg Vs Levante (pen)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQPuh_WiS-Y Vs Valencia


And here's a blast from the past!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jexmB-WAeXM "French Gems Pongolle and Le Tallec"
Pongolle comes out lookin an awful lot better then le tallec! Though i do remember they played really well together, the rare few times they both came on, particularly le tallec, looked much worse without pongolle.

PiE

I had high hopes for Le Tallec when he first arrived. Pity.

Pongolles doing well, but there must be something about his game that Rafa doesn't like. He's not an idiot, if he was better than our current strikers surely he'd be playing. £4m is way too low though, not worth selling for that price.

el rabitos

god knows if he wasnt a liverpool player and liverpool were trying to buy him based on his form this season, recreativo would be looking for stupid money for him. so why liverpool should do them a favour is beyond me.

time to get ruthless. they cough up more money or i'm sure someone else will

~Rebel~

Heres his goal from the weekend;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS-vCZ6pKPU

I think one more and he'll have scored the most goals in a season in Recreativo history!

mike65

The stadium work starts in May!

Mike.

leninbenjamin

mike65 wrote:

The stadium work starts in May!

Mike.

have they decided what attendence it will be or are they still "reviewing" it?

~Rebel~

At the minute it still seems to be 60,000, but they're looking to get allowances to expand, within the planning permission, if they choose to. Hopefully if they do get permission, they'll just implement it now.


http://home.skysports.com/list.aspx?hlid=458270&CPID=8&clid=14&lid=&title=Gillett+wants+expansion+capacity

gary the great

I think Pongo is as good as bellamy but he has a lot more potential were as I beleive Bellamy is as good as hes goin to get. Espeically with Villa knocking on the door for bellamy with a 7m offer.

obviously Rafa sees/knows something that we dont

jesus_thats_gre

gary the great wrote:

I think Pongo is as good as bellamy but he has a lot more potential were as I beleive Bellamy is as good as hes goin to get. Espeically with Villa knocking on the door for bellamy with a 7m offer.

obviously Rafa sees/knows something that we dont

Crazy talk!!

~Rebel~

the last thing we've heard about rafa on the matter was that he saw a place for Pongolle in the team next year so we'll see. If pongolle does come back, he should be treated much fairer, given a clean slate pretty much since how much he's developed this year.

mike65

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFbHvBGdoiU Liverpool 4 - 1 Arsenal done the South American way. Goooooooooooooooooooaaaaal!

Bellamy is staying put if you can belive the papers today. Kuyt certainly is'nt going, Fowler replaced by Voronin so er......Crouch stays and we buy no strikers!

Mike.

Vokes

A Singing Comentator ....brilliant

Guy:Incognito

~Rebel~ wrote:

As mentioned its a massive shame, wouldn't have won either the champions league or the FA cup without him. he was quite unfairly treated i think, not getting a run especially after he saved us against Luton.
.

TBH I was never a fan. He did it in flashes but thats abou tit.

We wouldnt have won the CL without Neill Mellor either, he scored one and set up the 3rd against *******kos, but there was no real issues with him moving on. I think we are looking at him with tinted glasses. He was never really great (pongolle i mean)



Whats that all about ?


******* kos. Why is O L Y M P I A a swear word?

leninbenjamin

i think if you look at the videos the slower pace seems to suit pongolle, and there seemed to be pretty poor defending for the headers. I think he's a good player, but i don't think he's suited to the pace of the premiership.

PiE

Stekelly wrote:

Why is O L Y M P I A a swear word?

Because of the "don't mention MCD or anything to do with them" ban. That venue is pretty much owned by them.

GuanYin

Stekelly wrote:

******* kos. Why is O L Y M P I A a swear word?

If you used their proper name it wouldn't be a problem: Ολυμπιακός

Raskolnikov

Agree with stekelly, he's a decent enough player, he's probably looking good at Recreativo because they've set the team up to suit him.

~Rebel~

They only started playing to suit him after he started scoring though. Always just played with one big striker, who he started replacing. Just took his chances when he got them.

I do agree totally that he was never more then potential at Liverpool, but he certainly seems to be rapidly improving. And i know im kinda looking through rose tinted glasses but all the same, he did look class at times, and id love to see him get a proper chance. Not sure if he'd suit the premiership, but the same can be said for villa who has; 1 extra goal, in 10 extra starts, and will cost 25extra million+. Now i know villa is a far better all round player and im only really playing devils advocate. Just very worried about a big money flop. Eto'o for me is still the one goal guaranteer out there, with villa and huntellaar also good possibilities.

Dying to find out more about this Alfonso Alves chap, has his form of this year come from nowhere or what? http://home.skysports.com/player.aspx?plid=53628&clid=318&cpid=9

edit, just did a wiki search. finished top scorer in sweden the 2 previous years.

Chucky the tree

Liverpool vs Man united in the youth cup final. Should be tasty.

Kimbot

So talks in the papers are that Rafa has £40 Mill in the kitty for the summer!!

Eto'o for £25mill
Alves for £10mill

Leaving 5 mill over!! Must mean that the Cisse money of 8mill is coming in this transfer window and rafa is getting to keep it!! When the yanks bought the club they would have paid that money for Kuyt as part of the debt owed etc!!

Should be a good summer for us!

woodyg

If it is 40 million sterling it's not a bad kitty to have 59,148,632.98 EUR should give us some options to purchase a player or 2!

As for tonight it looks like 2 up front with Gerrard on the right and Masch and Alonso in the middle with Rise on the left. The back 4 picks it self and the front 2 will be Kuyt and Bellamy harsh on Crouch but Rafa likes having pace up top for away games.

PHB

I just don't understand how you can't play Crouch after his hattrick against Arsenal, especially when foreign clubs have no idea how to deal with a player that tall. For the first ten minutes they try and figure out how to win a header against him, and once they do, he can just use his quick feet to get past them as they focus so much on his height.

griffdaddy

PHB wrote:

I just don't understand how you can't play Crouch after his hattrick against Arsenal, especially when foreign clubs have no idea how to deal with a player that tall. For the first ten minutes they try and figure out how to win a header against him, and once they do, he can just use his quick feet to get past them as they focus so much on his height.

I'd be in total agreement there, if that performance against Arsenal doesn't earn him a start against PSV i don't really know what Rafa expects him to do. I'd play him and Kuyt up front, Pennant and and Riise/Gonzalez on the wings and then Gerrard in front of Mascherano and Alonso, floating around behind the front 2 like a big aggressive scouser version of Luis Garcia. I'd encourage the wing backs to get forward a bit as well, the only real danger to Liverpool tonight is showing PSV too much respect, if i was Rafa i'd be telling the team to go out and try and tear them to shreds with constantly attacking football, it couldn't backfire too badly with the defense we have, and the next leg being at anfield. I'm gonna go with a 0-2 or 1-3 to Liverpool on this one.

~Rebel~

griffdaddy wrote:

I'd be in total agreement there, if that performance against Arsenal doesn't earn him a start against PSV i don't really know what Rafa expects him to do. I'd play him and Kuyt up front, Pennant and and Riise/Gonzalez on the wings and then Gerrard in front of Mascherano and Alonso, floating around behind the front 2 like a big aggressive scouser version of Luis Garcia. I'd encourage the wing backs to get forward a bit as well, the only real danger to Liverpool tonight is showing PSV too much respect, if i was Rafa i'd be telling the team to go out and try and tear them to shreds with constantly attacking football, it couldn't backfire too badly with the defense we have, and the next leg being at anfield. I'm gonna go with a 0-2 or 1-3 to Liverpool on this one.

do you mean play Pennant as a wing back? cause otherwise you've got an extra player on the pitch! Would be a great team if we could get away with it though!

i agree it would be incredibly harsh not to play Crouch. He's got 4 champions league goals as well so far, so really is worth playing. He tends to score in runs so should play every game till they dry up a bit. He's in my fantasy champions league team too, with totti and Villa, so he better play!

PHB

He's in my fantasy champions league team too

Mine too, my motives become clear

woodyg

PHB wrote:

I just don't understand how you can't play Crouch after his hattrick against Arsenal, especially when foreign clubs have no idea how to deal with a player that tall. For the first ten minutes they try and figure out how to win a header against him, and once they do, he can just use his quick feet to get past them as they focus so much on his height.

I'd agree that Crouch should get a start tonight especially with his record in the Champions League this year. But the partnership of Kuyt and Bellamy has done well away from home this year so Raffa will probably stick to that

~Rebel~

the deadline is open till 19.30 anyway so hopefully Rafa will have released his team by then so can make speedy changes if required!

zing

40m is a made up figure by the press - there's no way Rafa or Gillet/Hicks would have made such a figure known to anyone. I very much doubt if a firm figure was even put on the table. It would have been about Rafa saying we need players of the quality of X, Y or Z who are likely to cost us whatever and Gillet/Hicks pledging to support him. Whether or not they come up with the readies will remain to be seen but I suspect they will have to spend big to show us punters that they mean business

woodyg wrote:

As for tonight it looks like 2 up front with Gerrard on the right and Masch and Alonso in the middle with Rise on the left. The back 4 picks it self and the front 2 will be Kuyt and Bellamy harsh on Crouch but Rafa likes having pace up top for away games.

Which back 4 would that be ? A couple of months ago the back 4 would have picked itself (with maybe Agger & Hypia swapping from game to game) but now you can throw Aurelio & Arbeloa into the mix (as both seem to be playing well) and you've got 7 decent defenders to choose between.

Rafa resting Bellamy & Kuyt at the weekend does suggest he was keeping them for tonights game but given that PSV are without the likes of Alex in defence Crouch could be the perfect option in there. I'm expecting PSV to be very defensive tonight - based on injuries and comments from Koeman about a 0-0 draw being good - so I'd half expect to see Bellamy & Crouch to cater for counter attack & set pieces alike.

A 3-5-2 formation for us might be even be worth the risk with Alonso, Mascherano along with Risse/Aurelio & Finnan/Arbeloa supporting the back 3 leaving Stevie to support the front 2. That formation could very easily switch to 4-4-2 with Agger moving to LB & Stevie moving to RW should the need arise.

event

jonny24ie wrote:

Eto'o for £25mill
Alves for £10mill

eh, £10 million?

was his asking fee in the summer gone by not £12 million?

how do you reckon it has gone down, considering he may well win a league medal, and will more than likely get into the champ league

Kimbot

Reports on Sky Sports say Liverpool and Chelsea are in for the £10 Million rated player Daniel Avles!!

So that is an approx cost!

Lex Luthor

cson wrote:

Ah, the prospect of the quadruple over Liverpool on Sat brings a bit of interest to an otherwise useless season. Hopefully Baptista will play. Then he can feck off back to Madrid.

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