Liverpool Signings and General Rumours Thread

PHB

What I was talking about was the reason Van Bastan came under criticism was because he brought Kuyt and Babel ahead of Huntelaar, not because he brought Ruud ahead of Huntelaar.

el rabitos

Bellamy is a done deal

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N152689060622-1524.htm

DaBreno

Tis official : Craig the Headbanger is now a Liverpool player.
Good signing.

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N152689060622-1524.htm

Edit : Beaten to the punch!

Táck

think we've done all the talking there is!

welcome Craig, may we, as a club and a player, help each other prosper! u bring us goals, we'll bring u medals!!!

shatners basoon

Huzah, great signing, well we'll see whether he gets the liverpool curse or not but it looks promising anyway!

PHB

Did Liverpool make a statement on it, and say whether they were going to buy another striker? All I can find on Sky is from Bellamy.

shatners basoon

Being on the liverpool website, i'd say its pretty good confirmation.

PHB

Yeh I know, I was wondering if Benetiz has said anything about it, and within that, say whether he was going to sign another forward or not

LizardKing

Yay .. lets hope he behaves and can be the 20+ goal a season striker Rafa has been waiting for ....

Zapp Brannigan

Whoo finally our first signing. Now lets hope he does the bizzness!

el rabitos

i cant see pool having the funds in place for kuyt unless theres significant income generated from selling traore and warnock and a couple of others, plus any money from marseille for cisse wont be in place untill january

if another striker comes in i would expect it to be rikki from malaga, pool were linked with him in the past and malaga slapped a 4 million price tag on him the other day, he'd be more within liverpools current price range, considering a right winger is needed and alves

shatners basoon

/PHB
No he hasn't to both those questions as far as i know. There'll be some statements later i'm sure.

shatners basoon

Can't say Kuyt has done much for me so far in the WC, certainly not enough it increase his value too much. Then again he seemed to play better in the centre than on the wing tho so thats promising.

I'm thinking of the players that may be sold from this Italy scandal, kinda hope Fiorintina are hit bad and have to sell Toni

Vokes

Kuyt is been playing out of position on his wrong side/foot.

herbieflowers

Kuyt doesn't fir into that Dutch system anyway, he's an out-and-out striker, he was playing on the left for some time yesterday - he's no winger! Why do Pool need another striker anyway? They just signed Bellamy!

Táck

LizardKing wrote:

Yay .. lets hope he behaves and can be the 20+ goal a season striker Rafa has been waiting for ....

yeah one he signed and not ged

shatners basoon

herbieflowers wrote:

Kuyt doesn't fir into that Dutch system anyway, he's an out-and-out striker, he was playing on the left for some time yesterday - he's no winger! Why do Pool need another striker anyway? They just signed Bellamy!

If fowler can stay fit i'd say there'd be no need, perhaps even FSP could be called back if necessary though i'm not too gone on him. I guess the idea is 2 strikers out - 2 strikers in.

Yeah Kuyt's too tall to be a winger! Haven't seen enough of him to really judge but for the askinig price he'd wanna be better than just good! (I'd still hold out for Toni )

Zapp Brannigan

el rabitos wrote:

if another striker comes in i would expect it to be rikki from malaga, pool were linked with him in the past and malaga slapped a 4 million price tag on him the other day, he'd be more within liverpools current price range, considering a right winger is needed and alves

Riki played for Getafe and now Deportivo have just bought him. Check on skysports.com they got him for 4 mil euro.

herbieflowers

Yeah I suppose Fowler hasn't got too much left and then there's only Crunch and an injured Cissé (who will probably leave anyway)

el rabitos

Slurms wrote:

Riki played for Getafe and now Deportivo have just bought him. Check on skysports.com they got him for 4 mil euro.

my bad, mixed up getafe and malaga. well thats him gone then. not many other cheap options for another striker around

herbieflowers

How much do Liverpool have to spend anyway? (does anyone know, approximately)

shatners basoon

very little!

herbieflowers

Hehe! Maybe they'll sell Gerrard and Alonso (to Chelski, they're a bit short in the midfield department alright) to fund a move for Drogba!

el rabitos

herbieflowers wrote:

How much do Liverpool have to spend anyway? (does anyone know, approximately)

well given that rafa signed a new contract, i reckon he must have been assured of a decent amount of cash to work with, somewhere between 20 - 30 million maybe, then theres cash from offloading some players

there still some significant deadwood at the club that needs to go

le tallec
cheyrou
medjani
salif diao

then theres the others not up to standard

mellor
pongolle?
kirkland
potter
warnock?

i'd like to see all those players gone, save maybe pongolle

DaBreno

Id doubt we would get that much for any of those players. Id imagine we would even give free transfers to some of them purely to get them off the books.

I suspect the club does have a few bob knocking around but it makes sense to plead poverty and avoid clubs like Seville demanding way to much. If we want to raise more, some better players will have to be sold like Kewell or Riise or maybe even Sami.

MonkeyTennis

hold your horses on Medjani!!

Stky10

MonkeyTennis wrote:

hold your horses on Medjani!!

Yeah, give the lad a chance. Saw him play pre-season last year and he looked decent enough. Saw him play the Toulon youth tournament for France as well and he looked pretty good, if perhaps slightly small to play centrally (mind you, he's probably as tall as Carra). I'd possibly try and keep Pongolle and Le Tallec as well. More Pongolle than Le Tallec because he's got a better attitude and application, but they're both very skilled and hopefully its just a matter of time before they show it.

But yeah, there are the obvious ones listed by El Rabitos (plus Traore) that will have any half decent offer accepted, and there'd be some other players like Kewell, Garcia (poss), Zenden, Kromkamp and Dudek that could be sold if we get a decent offer.

el rabitos

MonkeyTennis wrote:

hold your horses on Medjani!!

i've only heard good things about him, but rafa obviosly isnt convinced, palletta and agger are both going to be pushing for places next season, so i dunno if medjani will be kept around

Jivin Turkey

el rabitos wrote:

well $hit, excuse me, "one of" the best attacking midfielders in the world. if you dont think gerrard is "even nearly" the best in the world right now, then i dont know what football you have been watching. he's one of the most complete midfielders around.

I wouldn't call Gerrard an attacking midfielder. As you say yourself he is more of a complete midfielder, good at both attacking and defending, without being "one of the best in the world" at either. He is one of the most complete midfielders however IMO.

When I think "attacking midfielder" I think Zidane, Kaka, Ronaldinho, Riquelme, Messi, Ballack etc, all of whom attack better than Gerrard.

el rabitos wrote:

and i know they "had to" deploy gerrard on the right, my point is, if there was a good right winger, or any right winger at the club, gerrard wouldnt be playing on the right.

I guarantee you if Alves or whoever is signed, you will still see Gerrard deployed on the right plenty of times next season. Do you think it's a coincidence that we have seen him put in his best season this year while playing large portions on the right?

Teams that play with four at the back must keep a very rigid shape, so playing on the right gives Gerrard plenty of chances to drift inside and lose his man, because if his man goes with him he leaves a gaping hole for a full back to exploit. That has allowed Gerrard to reach the tally of goals that he has this year. It has also allow Liverpool to become a more solid team because Sissoko and Alonso are more than a match for anyone in midfield.

Lemlin

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/5097454.stm

Bellamy has signed.

MonkeyTennis

ehm....we know

mike65

Lemlin had to post himself just to confirm in his own mind that the worst had happened!

Mike.

galwaydude

Good signing for liverpool.Lemlin you must be sick at the loss of one of blackburns best players.

Now lets hope alves is the next in the bag.His agent says he will sign for liverpool next week.

Lemlin

galwaydude wrote:

Good signing for liverpool.Lemlin you must be sick at the loss of one of blackburns best players.

Now lets hope alves is the next in the bag.His agent says he will sign for liverpool next week.

Sick at the thought of him leaving isn't the word. And to make matters worse it's to Liverpool, half of whose supporters didn't want him to go to them and reckoned they didn't rate him last year on here.

I think they'll rate him when he bangs in 20+ goals this season. I'd at least like him to be going somewhere where he's wanted though. Is it the general feeling of 'Pool supporters that he isn't wanted?

It could be worse anyway, we could of got Flo-Po as part of the deal I think Hughes saw to leave him where he is after the loan deal.

futuredeath

nope couldnt be happier with the signing wanted to sign him from newcastle before celtic,
also wondering if they'll give him cissé's no.9?

Jazzy

i wanted him too.
a proven premier league scorer ? isnt that what liverpool have failed to sign for the past 10 years ?

TheMonster

Jazzy wrote:

i wanted him too.
a proven premier league scorer

for 1 year - btw crouch was before you signed him too;)

zing

AS claiming we've pretty much agreed to EUR 15m for Alves - 12m up front and a further 3 based on appearances, etc..

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=es_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.as.com%2Farticulo%2Ffutbol%2Finsistencia%2FBenitez%2Facerca%2FAlves%2FLiverpool%2FdasftbA00%2F20060623dasdaiftb_9%2FTes%2F

shatners basoon

Lemlin wrote:

Sick at the thought of him leaving isn't the word. And to make matters worse it's to Liverpool, half of whose supporters didn't want him to go to them and reckoned they didn't rate him last year on here.

I think they'll rate him when he bangs in 20+ goals this season. I'd at least like him to be going somewhere where he's wanted though. Is it the general feeling of 'Pool supporters that he isn't wanted?

I'd say he's well wanted, i'm certainly delighted to have him anyway. Had a fantastic season and i do rate him very highly from what i've seen of him last season. Very hopeful for him next year, probably the deal of the summer maybe? Provided this 'attitude' thing isn't more than just alot of smoke.

The Monster wrote:

for 1 year - btw crouch was before you signed him too

I though Crouch had a pretty good season and he scored pretty much the same this year as last year didn't he?

Kimbot

Well I think Bellamy is a great capture for the price!!

6.5 Million
Budget (Lets say Max) 30Million

Left: 23.5 Mill

9Mill (Not too sure but roughly that up front) for Alves.

Left: 14.5

THat 14.5 Mill to get another Forward and getting rid of the deadwood aswell brings in 8-10 Mill you got a few more players to come in!!
Could be a very interesting transfer window for Liverpool!!

zing

Budget generally seems to be in the 20 -> 30m mark alright and no indications that it would be less this year - although maybe the relatively early exit from the CL will have an impact on this. Given the injury to Cisse the club are definitely playing down the amount they have available and that makes a lot of sense - the more other clubs think we have to spend the more they'll look for us to cough up.

I do expect another significant signing after Alves in the same price region but who knows.. (assuming Rafa can find the right player for that kind of money)

However I'm not as optimistic about 8 - 10m from the 'deadwood'

Kimbot

Well I am thinking that would be the max, thats if we sold Kewell aswell for about 5 Mill!!

p.pete

Kewell's worth more than 5mil - we've nursed him back to health and he's having a reasonable world cup. Don't mind keeping him tbh though he possibly will be more of a squad player.

Lemlin

And what of my old friend Jivin Turkey? He's remaining remarkably silent on the subject. I remeber him slagging off not just Bellamy's attitude but his fitness record too.

Wonder what he thinks now that his beloved Liverpool have splashed the cash? Not that I think they have, 6 million is a steal.

I wish Bellers all the best and hope he does well at Anfield. Just don't score against Blackburn!

zing

p.pete wrote:

Kewell's worth more than 5mil - we've nursed him back to health and he's having a reasonable world cup. Don't mind keeping him tbh though he possibly will be more of a squad player.

iirc HK only has a couple of years left on his contract so unlikely to be able to demand too high a fee for him if we were to offload him.

PHB

Kewell will go for 6-8 million I'd say, but only if you find a buyer. I'm not sure you could find a buyer.

p.pete

PHB wrote:

Kewell will go for 6-8 million I'd say, but only if you find a buyer. I'm not sure you could find a buyer.

The price sounds about fair - but really I don't think we're looking for a buyer, it's not even a rumour apart from being mentioned here. Benitez was very happy with his season, isn't talking about selling him and hopefully next season will be better than this.

Though there's definitely merits to an offload given the wages he's likely on, if he weren't to be first choice next season...

jesus_thats_gre

Bellamy is a great signing. I do not understand how anyone could be unhappy considering the fee involved and some of the players we have signed in the past for considerably more than that.

Kimbot

But with Gonzales, Kewell, Zenden and Garcia able to play there would we be better to get rid of one of them??

If so only likely option is Kewell cos Gonzales is only coming in, Zenden was injusred all last season so will be given a chance and RB already said Garcia is going nowhere!!

Hobart

Kewell is going nowhere. He is worth more than 6m to Liverpool and I suspect that his value will only increase if he continues to get back to form. Bellamy is a good signing and it will take no time for him to fit into the 1st team. I could not be happier with this signing.