Liverpool Signings and General Rumours Thread

Sunn

I think if kyut and bellamy are not playing saturday it will be a disgrace in terms of raffas team selection... although i could get overcrouch been in for kyut

Tusky

Sunn wrote:

I think if kyut and bellamy are not playing saturday it will be a disgrace in terms of raffas team selection... although i could get overcrouch been in for kyut

I would agree...although I think we are going to see Crouch & Garcia up front

Sizzler

Lose today at Chelsea and whats the verdict for the league?

mike65

What do you think? Liverpool won't win it (there's only a semi-chance as it is).

Mike.

Vokes

I think (hope) they'll win

Like you say mike, Garcia to score a flukey winner after cunningly play crap the previous 60mins.

Reganio 2

Kuyt and Bellamy up front and Fowler didn't travel don't know the rest of the team.

mike65

mike65 wrote:

My ideal sunday team

---

Reina
Finnan--Carra-Agger--Warnock (only for physical presence)

---

Sissoko
Pennant---Gerrard---Gonzo

---

Kuyt--Crouch

with Garcia to come off the bench for Pennant and score the winner in the 75th.

Mike.

Well I got two men wrong. Alonso in middle Gerrard wide left (ie free man!) and Bellamy rather than Crouch. Garcia not on bench nor Gonzo.

Mike.

~Rebel~

Ive mixed emotions about this squad, delighted with the first team, but disappointed with gonzalez and fowler not on the bench. Id love to know what pieces of magic zenden is doing in training. though i suppose hes a good sub in that can cover wide or midfield incase of injury..still though would love gonzo there as an impact sub

Nalz

so whats the verdict on Kuyt? I think we'll see more of the Crouch Fowler partnership from here on in...its starting to look tough for Liverpool to be in the top 2, even at this really early stage

el rabitos

another absolutely mind boggling formation and line up from rafa, which results in another loss to chelsea.

i hope he's got some grand plan for all this bullsh!t in mind because at the moment i'm wondering where rafa see's this team going.

every pundit from match of the day to rte's fools are completely boggled by him, which wouldnt really mean anything as long as his tactics were working, but their not. i'm pissed off right now

mike65

el rabitos you should explain why you thought it was a poor team line up.

Mike.

el rabitos

well, why did pool beat chelsea in the fa cup semi final?

because chelsea started the match with a diamond formation, dropped both wingers and played 2 strikers

liverpool played 4-4-2 and just tore them to shreds in the first half using their wingers.

now in every match this season chelsea havent been too great playing with that same diamond formation, where as liverpool have been using wingers in every match, until he comes up against the 1 team where using wingers will be most effective, and what does he do? he plays a really narrow formation and doesnt even opt to bring gonzalez??

maybe its just me that finds that mind boggling

Reganio 2

Kuyt has potential. I like his style its just a bit early for him to thrown in against chelsea. I am dissapointed that Rafa did not bring on Crouch earlier from the 30th minute I was screaming for him to come on and then when he came he played well and could have scored. I really don't like aurellio just missing something and was dissapointed when he came on. Pennant's crosses were ****e today played one good ball in the whole match and we should have had a peno when Lamps pushed Stevie G.

RE*AC*TOR

Poor performance today from Liverpool. Very winnable game, a lot of wasteful play.

Lacked impetous. Why is Gonzalez not getting played? It boggles the mind.

Sizzler

mike65 wrote:

What do you think? Liverpool won't win it (there's only a semi-chance as it is).

Mike.

I knew that I thought, was asking everybody else

Sizzler

Reganio 2 wrote:

Kuyt has potential.QUOTE]

Cant really see it at the moment Why did Liverpool buy him? Crouch has obviously come on leaps and bounds, Bellamy was the 'big' signing and Fowler is there as the impact sub?

Kuyt was poor today, in fact apart from Drogba's goal performances from both teams were average.

evad_lhorg

Why Liverpool spent money on Kuyt is beyond me. "potential"? so what. he failed miserably at the world cup because he wasnt good enough. and its goin to be the same at Liverpool. Both himself and Bellamy just keep seem to blame things on someone else. two knobs I think

ButcherOfNog

Alot of clueless people posting today. Pool were unlucky, restricted Chelsea to no good chances (that I can remember) tho because of that, didn't show much up front, but had 2 chances to get a draw/win. The defense made no mistakes and only a moment of brilliance from Drogba beat us. Probably our best performance against Chelsea in the League so far, but after this result we do need to make sure we beat them at Anfield later on. At least now we've got 3 home games (inc champions league) coming up, need to win all of those and get a run going.

Agger played really well today again, looking like a great signing.

Sunn

it wasnt that bad of a performance.. and people slating kyut ARE cluless. He worked his socks off and almost got a goal and against psv he was our best player. It was never going to be easy for bellamy and kyut up front today..

On another note i dont understand why gerrard was on the left..

pennant didnt have a good game..saw lots of the ball though.

and like it was already stated, where was gonzalez?

Alot of out bigger players from midfield went missing today..alonso and gerrard(when moved central position) for most of the match. what little chances we did have we didnt take them.

Tbh it was an awful match..one of the worst i've seen in a long time.

I dont think we are out of the title race but we need to pick up the pace double quick. A slow start really cost us last season and it seems to be repeating itself.

Dr. Nick

WHY WHY WHY didn't Rafa put SG on the right when it was so obvious so early that Pennant
a) was going to get lots of the ball and
b) wasn't capable of using said possession to any effect

Positives: Agger. What a player this lad will be
Negaives: We're too negative! All you have to do is look at Arsenal's performnce today. In a very similar situation, they were positive and fantastic.

Vokes

ButcherOfNog wrote:

Alot of clueless people posting today. Pool were unlucky,

I wouldn't agree with that. For example, yes, Gerrard was unlucky not to get a peno but on the otherhand Sissoko was very lucky not to get sent off, plus Kuyt's crossbar-hit shot wasn't unlucky - it was just badly hit.

el rabitos probably said it best - it seems strange that 'Pool having played really well with wingers against Chelsea a few weeks ago, would then play with only one when up against a similarly wingless DM x 2 / AM x 2 midfield.

Disapponting tbh

RE*AC*TOR

The problems are this:

Alonso is not pulling his weight at the moment. He's not getting on the ball and making things happen. The best passing in the game came from Agger, not Alonso.

General lack of composure. Too often the ball is played long. Goes out of play, or goes to the opposition's goalie. This signals to me a lack of creativity. In the absence of that, we play the same balls over and over.

Sissoko gives away the ball too much. Yes he contributes in other ways, but when he's on the ball, he doesn't know what to do. He is a liability in that part of his game.

Gerrard is not a left midfielder. He never will be. We could have Gonzalez, Kewell, Aurelio, Riise, Zenden - all capable in that position (i know some of those are injured at the moment). Benitez needs to be able to drop one of Gerrard / Alonso / Sissoko - or play one up front. Its absurd that we have such depth on that wing, yet are playing Gerrard out there.

Anyway on the plus points, Agger is looking an excellent player. The speed he adjusted to the level is phenomenal. He has slotted in like he always played there.

Kuyt I think has looked excellent. He's eager, and strong and good in the air. Lets remember he hit the crossbar. I am very confident he will get loads of goals.

Pennant is slowly getting better. Maybe a little slow for my liking, but he's starting to impact games more.

Newcastle on wednesday. A good performance and a win would go along way. Spurs next Satruday (another ****ing early kick-off).

Reganio 2

I believe Kuyt will be good for us. Call it wishful thinking or whatever you like if he gets a few games under his belt and a goal or 2 he will be great and what was Gerrard thinking when he was 1 on 1 with Cech the whole goal to aim at and he hits it straight at Cech??

mike65

My selection would have won that game!

Whats the story with not even having Gonzo and Garcia on the bench, if things are'nt going well you need players who can change a game.

Mike.

Shaque attack

Don't want to repeat what's already been said but... gerrard on the left really didnt work and pennant was very average on the right. I would really like to see rafa revert to the 4-5-1. Its the system that works best for liverpool.

My two cents: Bring back the 4-5-1 and put stevie in the centre. Oh and its not all doom and gloom, lets see how the next three matches go.

Guy:Incognito

Trilla wrote:

so whats the verdict on Kuyt? I think we'll see more of the Crouch Fowler partnership from here on in...its starting to look tough for Liverpool to be in the top 2, even at this really early stage

I'd like to see Bellamy/Fowler together. Although I think Bellamy is an awfull whinger who seems to have spend large portions of mathes moaning at refs, but i think the few bits where I've seen them together has been encouraging. Fowler is just so clever with a ball and has great skill, I could see him linking very well and setting bellamy up for a lot of goals. I also thing Fowler does great link up play with the midfield (Gerrard for the pen V Sheff Utd) and he also does a lot of running ( he done noticably a lot more than bellamy when they were together, tracking back and the like.


Seriously, whats the deal with crouchs heading, I knew he was poor in the air but it's not even funny anymore. His defencsive header 2 yards out from the chelsea goal took the biscuit. It's excusably to not be great in the air (although with his height youd think he'd be putting massive emphasis on heading training) but he is nothing short of atrocious.


Not a big fan of Kuyt, think he lacks awarness of others, very and doesnt see some runs and movements of others. Also think he took the wrong option when he hit the bar, there was no need to try and kill someone with the shot, a high sidefoot to the top corner and cech was buried.

Dissapointed with Gerrard in front of goal to. He had a few goals at this stage last season, the miss he hit cech in the legs with after working really well to get in the position was nothing short of criminal (why try to drive it stevie, why?) again a lifted instep or sidefoot to the far post was the order of the day.


Missing heaps of chances in games is becoming all too common an occurance. It's getting to the stage of about 60 mins where you know they're just not going to score.

Refs should just book Sissoko in the tunnel and get it out of the way. It's almost at the stage where you have to allow for the fact that he'll be missing every 6 games (it's 5 cards for a 1 game ban is it not?)

mike65

Crouches problem is that he is "too tall" seriously! He fears that he'll simply nod it over rather than be able to meet a ball side on and blast it past the keeper. It can be worked on but its a psychogical thing for him.

Mike.

Guy:Incognito

mike65 wrote:

Crouches problem is that he is "too tall" seriously! He fears that he'll simply nod it over rather than be able to meet a ball side on and blast it past the keeper. It can be worked on but its a psychogical thing for him.

Mike.

Maybe but it still doesnt account for what amounted to a defensive heade when going in on the goal. I've seen him do that a good few times, he's attacking the ball for a header buit ends up ahead of it and it hits him in the back of the head, it's really basic stuff that he's making look very difficult.

kinaldo

Stekelly wrote:

also thing Fowler does great link up play with the midfield (Gerrard for the pen V Sheff Utd) and he also does a lot of running ( he done noticably a lot more than bellamy when they were together, tracking back and the like.

Very suprised to hear this - one of his biggest assets to the Newcastle team was his willingness to run his socks off for the full 90 minutes. I always considered him to be him one of the hardest working players around. Even when he was playing poorly there were never any complaints regarding his effort and commitment.

~Rebel~

Bellamy; I think he does run a lot, its just not working out for him at the moment, am glad he and kuyt are getting a few game together to try and make a partnership

Kuyt; Someone said he lacks awareness of others, to be honest i think he has absolutely fantastic awareness of others and if anything other people are a bit slow to react to his passes. He used a few fantastic touches to sneak the ball into areas where you'd really expect a good forward to be running into but nobody's noticing in time. Has shown this in a few games (setting up bellamy twice in debut) This will obviously be rectified by time and getting to know each other so no worries there really. Would like to see him next to fowler maybe for a go, 2 intelligent footballers who are good at linking off people. I see a lot of good in this guy, once it comes together with the team think he'll be a very good player for us.

Formation; I suppose its a hard one for rafa, its chelsea so he pretty much has to play gerrard, sissoko and alonso +1 unless dropping a striker, and he obviously wants to keep up 2.. personally for chelsea away id have gone with

---

alonso--sissoko---
pennant----gerrard----gonzalez/garcia

---

kuyt/bellamy

I think his formation would have been ok if alonso had played better. Dont know whats going on with the guy, but at the moment we're really missing his range of passing, he was a shadow of himself yesterday. The way it should work is sissoko gets the ball gives it straight to alonso or gerrard who do something productive with it, but its just not working. Id like to see gerrard and alonso together for newcastle on wednesday with more responsibility on alonso then to do some ball winning and midfield work, might shake him out of the lull he's gone into with sissoko doing all the tackling

Reganio 2

Anybody notice the ex Liverpool goalkeepers popping up around the premiership. Westerveld at Pompy (not sure if he is still there), Carson at Charlton (Playing v.well is he on loan or permanent?), Kirkland at Wigan (Playing v.well also. Loan or permanent?) Fridel at Blackburn (Playing well. Beginning to see a trend.) and clamity James at Pompey (well there's 1 we can do without)

Necronomicon

Reganio 2 wrote:

and clamity James at Pompey (well there's 1 we can do without)

That calamity who is the only Premiership goalkeeper yet to concede this season?

Stky10

I can't remember when we last had a rock steady keeper you could always depend on. It probably goes back to Clemence and I never saw him play so I can't be sure of it. Dudek did very well in his first year, and Reina did pretty well last year as well, but I'm far from confident in either despite the trophies they've won.

As for Friedel, he did ok when he had a chance but didn't seem to have the experience and/or temperment needed. I remember him playing at Old Trafford and having a mare, and after that he was left out and then sold on. Calamity has been the same for all his career, and a spell where pompey beat all before them isn't going to change that. Carson seems prone to lapses of concentration, and Kirkland can't stop a shot from a girl without injuring himself.

Back in the day of Souness/Evans/Houllier it was always Big Joe Corrigan the keeper coach who got the blame for turning silk into a pigs ear, and having been to Anfield and seen the warmup routine he was responsible for I could begin to see why. Things haven't improved since Rafa got rid of him though so there must be more to it than that.

Looking around though there doesn't seem to be an outstanding candidate to go for if Reina was shown his cards (which he won't) other than getting a Russian Billionaire owner and taking Buffon off the hands of Juve. Look at the problems ManU and Arsenal have had....

Oh, and slightly off-topic, but if you haven't seen it yet

http://koptalkinsider.wordpress.com/

Reganio 2

Necromomicon wrote:

That calamity who is the only Premiership goalkeeper yet to concede this season?

It's a matter of time first shot on him will go under his arm and cost pompey 3points mark my words;). I have to agree with you about Kirkland great keeper just injured every 3 weeks. I like carson he is only young and will concentrate more with exp. I wonder are we getting like united with a new keeper that does great for 1-2 seasons then vanishes, seem's to be turning out that way (Westerveld, Dudek and now Reina)

mike65

Rafa lays down the postional law

from guardian

Indeed, Benítez believes the central midfield partnership of Xabi Alonso and Mohamed Sissoko will serve to liberate Gerrard. "How many years has Steve played here in the Liverpool first team? Eight? And which was his best season? Last year, when he scored 23 goals from the right-hand side," said the Spaniard. "He's a central midfielder, and I promise you I'd like to play him in the middle, but I cannot now. You need to find balance and it's better for the team to play him where he is.

Mike.

~Rebel~

Sometimes Rafa does throw out some very strange teamsheets but as a rule do people think everybodies just jumping on the "rotation policy" bandwagon? Im not sure he's had enough crazy teamsheets to be labelled as this infernal tinkerer. yeah he's gone 93 or whatever teams with none of those unchanged, but as far as i can recall, the first 85 or so seemed to do the job pretty well! In reality its only this season where he's been chopping and changing a bit and even still its only the midfield that really gets the abuse as the defence needed to be changed due to injury and bedding in Agger. Most of the midfield problems have come from playing zenden more then people would expect and dropping gerrard more then onewould expect. Thats it really..So its gone from massive team changes to 2 oddities. The weirdest one was probably PSV away, but at the same time, the result they were clearly going for was an away draw at worst and seeing as Zenden is a former PSV player his inclusion isn't so crazy and with chelsea the following weekend, resting gerrard and alonso is'nt so crazy..

I just feel even though theres been a few weird ones, i dont think it quite merits the abuse in papers, phone in's etc of his changes. Its like a few papers said it so everyone thinks its this massive problem and that rafa's gone crazy. Seems a little bit of perspective and a glance at his CV to date might be required. Im sure things will steady up a bit more after he's had enough of a look at his players to see who will suit what particular oppisition best.

In Rafa We Trust

Dont be at yourself

And as Carragher pointed out recently, the benefits of this policy will hopefully be felt after Christmas, when other teams are tiring and Liverpool have their squad comparatively fresh!

zAbbo

Will Rafa break the chain of 92 games without fielding the same 11 in succession, the tinker man !

el rabitos

i'm more worried about the building of a new stadium than i am about the rotation policy

should know in the next week or so if it will be going ahead. i'm not holding my breath though

LizardKing

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

And as Carragher pointed out recently, the benefits of this policy will hopefully be felt after Christmas, when other teams are tiring and Liverpool have their squad comparatively fresh!

No point being fresh as daisies and 20 points off the top of the league though... I think RAFA needs to find a happy medium between tinkering and playing the inform players ...

Zapp Brannigan

LizardKing wrote:

No point being fresh as daisies and 20 points off the top of the league though... I think RAFA needs to find a happy medium between tinkering and playing the inform players ...

Exactly! I mean how often do you see Chelski resting Lamps and JT? Never! And yet they've still won the league 2 years in a row.

The Rooster

There had to be tinkering done given the arrival of Bellamy, Kuyt, Aurelio, Pennant, Gonzalez and you could also add Zenden and Agger who missed most of last season through injury. Finding your best team was always going to be hard.

The only mistakes Rafa has made in my opinion is playing Zenden in centre midfield more than once. Twice more he did it when he should have played Stevie in the centre. That cost us points on both occassions.

It also should be remembered that we outplayed Chelsea at the Bridge. We should have won that game. We had by far and away the two best chances of the game (Kuyt and Gerrard). A bit unlucky to lose in fairness. A win would have put us right back in contention.

Now we've big games coming up against Newcastle and Spurs. We're under huge pressure and we're going to be nervous. I think we're going to need a bit of luck to get us going and build up confidence. Hopefully it comes against Toontown tonight.

We really are very close to playing well, but we just need to click. IF we do click, then we'll have the best first XI in the Premiership (IMO!).

Tusky

I think people are being too hard on Rafa... we have lost two games we shouldnt have & drew two games we should have won. Hardly the end of the world. For example, over a course of a season we would settle for 2 points against chelsea...if we beat them at Anfield the defeat at stamford bridgebridge wont have been too important.

I think Rafas main problem has not been rotating, but rotating TOO early in the season. IMO he should have started pretty much the same team for the first month or so and then begin to rotate as players get tired etc. That way, we could have got some momentum going and players would be slotting into a team rather the whole team changing every week.

Also, Zenden & Fowler should NEVER start unless the others are injured or seriously off form.

redspider

Rafa is chopping and changing quite a bit. That is ok in itself as long as he is changing the formation/players for each position to put out the most appropriate team for each match. It doesnt have to be the best team for each match as we know that there are too many games for the players to be at their peak for each.

However, the only thing he has to avoid is playing players in matches that they want to play in and that suits them. Fowler v Everton may have been such a selection, or indeed Zenden v PSV.

I see Gerrard came out today to support Rafa's selections and there is other support. But clearly the toungues must be wagging on merseyside and on the talkshows.

Lets see what the selection is tonight and the result. My fingers are crossed.

Redspider

GuanYin

apparently, he is set to name an unchanged team tonight. I don't believe that for a second!

seabee

emergency meeting tomorrow to discuss potetial investment/takeover...

zAbbo

Another early kickoff tomorrow v spurs, we're at home again, which is nice.

Hopefully the win v Newcaslte, will kick start the reds.

Midweek is Europe, next saturday early v Bolton(Away at the Bungbok Stadium)

3 wins, anything less and we have an uphill struggle

HashSlinging

Going to the spurs match tomorrow, I hope the lads can put in a good performance. Should be a good match. Jol cant pick anyone good at the moment out of his 45 mid-field players.

el rabitos

spurs are one of our dodgy teams, they'll probably scrape a draw out of it

Dub13

On a side note anybody looking for tickets for Pool games check out the link in my Signature,we are in the process of setting up a new system for buying and selling tickets.