Liverpool Rumours And General Discussion 2007/2008

mike65

Well if the Echo is willing to report this something is happening.

Mike.

zing

Same here - just everyone seems to be jumping the gun on it saying it's a done deal.

Tusky

The best thing to do is not believe ANYTHING in regards to the sale of the club until its been completely finalized. There have literally been 100s of articles posted up here over the last couple of months about DIC buying the club. 90% have been completely false.

Mr Alan

i believe everything i read

IrishMike

Mr Alan wrote: »

i believe everything i read

Everyone enjoys how you reply to every second post in this thread :)

Mr Alan

glad to hear that!

Tusky

IrishMike wrote: »

Everyone enjoys how you reply to every second post in this thread :)

ooooo! burn.

monkey9

SKRTEL INJURY GIVES RAFA HEADACHE
Jimmy Rice 14 February 2008

Martin Skrtel is a major doubt for this weekend's FA Cup clash with Barnsley after picking up a calf injury in training.
The news comes as a blow to Rafa Benitez, who will now have to decide whether to risk the returning Sami Hyypia.

With Daniel Agger still recovering from a metatarsal injury, it could also mean a place in the squad for Spanish starlet Mikel San Jose, who was on the bench at Chelsea last Sunday.

Tusky

monkey9 wrote: »

SKRTEL INJURY GIVES RAFA HEADACHE
Jimmy Rice 14 February 2008

Martin Skrtel is a major doubt for this weekend's FA Cup clash with Barnsley after picking up a calf injury in training.
The news comes as a blow to Rafa Benitez, who will now have to decide whether to risk the returning Sami Hyypia.

With Daniel Agger still recovering from a metatarsal injury, it could also mean a place in the squad for Spanish starlet Mikel San Jose, who was on the bench at Chelsea last Sunday.

****ing hell. Thats Agger, Skrtel, Hyypia, Arbeloa & Aurelio injured. I bet Riise is doing it on purpose to keep his place in the team.

yom 1

Tusky wrote: »

The best thing to do is not believe ANYTHING in regards to the sale of the club until its been completely finalized. There have literally been 100s of articles posted up here over the last couple of months about DIC buying the club. 90% have been completely false.

I agree with you 100%. The constant rumours are past being funny at this stage.:(

missingtime

Bring on the mikel san jose for the craic rafa.

didn't i read somewhere that he had an injury boost - that arbeloa and aurelio were fit again.

prendy

****ing hell. Thats Agger, Skrtel, Hyypia, Arbeloa & Aurelio injured. I bet Riise is doing it on purpose to keep his place in the team.

lol ya that must be it.

thats a lot of defenders out.any club would suffer with that many injuries in one position.

zing

Huth would be another option for Sat. Means Carra is almost certain to start though - was hoping he'd get a rest

kaimera

Riise must have been out with the golf clubs

missingtime

I knew i wasn't going mad.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11669_3145601,00.html

"For Inter, Torres will be okay," Benitez told the club's official website. "We will have to check before Barnsley."

Benitez has also been boosted by the return to fitness of defensive trio Sami Hyypia, Alvaro Arbeloa and Fabio Aurelio.

monkey9

Fernando Torres says that he is happy at current club Liverpool but is not ruling out the possibility of a future move to AC Milan.
The Spanish striker was linked with a transfer to the
Rossoneri last summer, however he eventually signed for Liverpool from Atletico Madrid.

"Relations between Atletico Madrid and Milan have always been excellent and there was talk about the possibility of going there, but I never received a precise offer from Milan," Torres told Italian newspaper La Stampa.

"I don't know if I will eventually play for Milan. At this moment, no, as I am happy in Liverpool and the Premiership and I want to stay for a long time.

"But you can never say never."

Torres has been in superb form for The Reds this season, and next week will be hoping to display this in the Champions League clash with Milan's city rivals Inter.

The Nerazzurri travel to Anfield next Tuesday, before the return leg at San Siro on March 11.

The two European giants have only met once competitively in the past and
that was in the semi-final of the European Cup back in 1964/1965.

In a classic tie, Liverpool won the first leg 3-1 at Anfield, only to lose 3-0 in the return leg at San Siro and exit the competition 4-3 on aggregate _________________________

PHB

It's Barnsley, you could play me in defence and you'd probably still win.

The question is who is gona be in defence for the Inter game?

Thanx 4 The Fish

As long as Djimi doesn't play there we should be okay

Racing Flat

Sad to hear Gerrard say yesterday that 'we must not drop our standards' ie we must finish 4th and not 5th. Whatever about standard, how expectations have dropped. Only a few months since people were talking about winning it. Just to challenge this season (ie still be in with a realistic shout with 4-5 games to go) would have been enough for me, but to think we might actually do worse than last year is very disheartening. So it looks like our standards have dropped and our expectations have dropped even lower...

jesus_thats_gre

Racing Flat wrote: »

Sad to hear Gerrard say yesterday that 'we must not drop our standards' ie we must finish 4th and not 5th. Whatever about standard, how expectations have dropped. Only a few months since people were talking about winning it. Just to challenge this season (ie still be in with a realistic shout with 4-5 games to go) would have been enough for me, but to think we might actually do worse than last year is very disheartening. So it looks like our standards have dropped and our expectations have dropped even lower...

Would you prefer that he said that we are still in with a chance of finishing second? I certainly wouldn't as it would be dellusional...

Thanx 4 The Fish

I am of the same opinion jes, at least now we know where the team is focussed now.

walshki

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

Would you prefer that he said that we are still in with a chance of finishing second? I certainly wouldn't as it would be dellusional...

I think he's commenting on the lamentability of the situation rather than whether Gerrard was right - then again on second reading maybe not. Sure he can speak for himself.

Anyway lets be positive. Two good performances in a row and a nice takeover announcement and things will be looking a lot brighter. Power of positive thought. 4th is the most significant target for the league. We're not going to win the league so the value of the difference between 4th and 2nd is relatively low and far less than the difference between 4th and 5th.

Racing Flat

I'm just saying that you can go from - 'we can win the league this year' to 'we still have a chance to win the league' to 'we can get a top 4' to 'if we drop our standards we won't get top 4' quite quickly. Not blaming Gerard, more lamenting. Now that we are battling to finish 4th, if we do it will be seen as a success, when in reality as we initially wanted to win the thing, 4th should be seen either as a massive failure or unrealistic expectations. All I wanted was to 'challenge' this year, we were progressing well I thought, so I think we have gone backwards and Gerrards comments just highlighted how the expectations have changed (albeit realistically, but unfortunately).

PHB

In all fairness, I think its to the rest of the team. Gerrard is a winner, I think he expected to challenge for the league. But now he's gotta pick the rest of the team up as much as possible, so while it may be dis-heartening, it's realistic and important.

Tusky

To put it plainly, this season has been terrible both in Europe and in the league. Its been a mixed bag of mediocre performances with the odd awful or fantastic one. We made things as hard as possible in Europe, just about qualifying and we are making things even harder for ourselves in the league.

I think our defense hasn't been as tight as it usually is and our attack just hasnt been up to scratch. At the start of the season we were playing some great attacking stuff but it was more of a tease as we couldn't keep it up. It really comes down to substandard attacking players and some top players on bad form. Voronin is not good enough. Kuyt, Kewell, Pennant & Benayoun at best, should have places on the bench.

If Rafa can bring in some world class attackers and keep the amount of transfers to a minimum I think we will do well next year. The amount of players coming in and out of the squad over the past few seasons cant have had a good effect. I would hope for two, maybe three high quality transfers at most during the summer.

The off field problems have obviously had an affect on the players also although thankfully, it seems to be diluting as time goes on.

Dub13

Irishkop gave away our all expenses trip for two to Liverpool v Middlesboro game today.We raised a nice few bob for the Ray Kennedy Fund cash is still coming in so I will get back to you all with a final amount.

We are also having a quiz night on friday 29th Feb in The Tram on James street,all are welcome.

Racing Flat

Tusky wrote: »

If Rafa can bring in some world class attackers and keep the amount of transfers to a minimum I think we will do well next year. .

Is that not what we said last year? How many chances do we give him?

~Rebel~

Racing Flat wrote: »

Is that not what we said last year? How many chances do we give him?

Well he did give us Torres and Babel before the purse strings were tightened on him. I think even if he had been allowed push on for Malouda it could have made a pretty big difference to us.

Was lamenting again in work today, about Pongolle. I know he wanted to go for 1st team football, but i just cant help thinking how a front 3 of Babel, Torres and Pongolle could have looked. Great pace and feet and a garcia-esque nack of getting important goals.

yayamark

Tusky wrote: »

To put it plainly, this season has been terrible both in Europe and in the league. Its been a mixed bag of mediocre performances with the odd awful or fantastic one. We made things as hard as possible in Europe, just about qualifying and we are making things even harder for ourselves in the league.

.

QFT

but i thought we werent allowed negative posts around here or else people give out

Tusky

yayamark wrote: »

QFT

but i thought we werent allowed negative posts around here or else people give out

I still think we will win the champions league...we will stumble to the final!

tonc76

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/

Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill is planning a £9m summer swoop for Peter Crouch but Liverpool have opened contract talks with the striker to ward off interest. - admittedly from todays Mirror but

Does this not seem strange that we'd open talks with the big man when imo he hasn't been getting a fair crack of the whip this year at all??

missingtime

tonc76 wrote: »

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/

Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill is planning a £9m summer swoop for Peter Crouch but Liverpool have opened contract talks with the striker to ward off interest. - admittedly from todays Mirror but

If you look above that, Daniel Alves has said that he's ready to quite Sevilla.

We should be looking at him. Chelsea will throw a load of money at them tho.

Mr Alan

He has been ready to quite Sevilla for years. Mystifying how it has never happened. Think he may be more likely to be able to go to Chelsea, might be a little out of our price range since 2005. Especially with G&H running the show. Although when/if DIC come in they might be wanting to make a statement by signing him.

~Rebel~

I've been shiteing on about 4-3-3 the last few weeks, but what i would also Really Love is;

---

Reina
---Skrtel--Carra--Agger

Alves--Masch--Alonso--Lahm

---

Gerrard

---

Villa----Torres

Pretty tasty system with the right players. Evra would be great in that LWB position as well. Damn you Rick!

monkey9

Rafa Benitez admits it could be too much of a risk to select Fernando Torres against Barnsley on Saturday.
The club's leading scorer is back in training after recovering from a hamstring injury sustained on international duty, and he is expected to feature against Inter Milan on Tuesday.

With that game in mind, Benitez believes it could be dangerous to select the frontman in this weekend's FA Cup fifth round clash.

The boss said: "It could be too much of a risk to play Fernando against Barnsley. We have Hyypia, Arbeloa, Aurelio and Torres that we need to check on Friday so we can see whether to risk them.

"Every player is important to us, but Torres has been scoring goals so we have to be careful. The key for me will be to see how the player is after training."

Another injury blow for Benitez is a calf strain sustained by new boy Martin Skrtel in training this week.

The Liverpool manager added: "Skrtel felt something in his calf the other day. He only mentioned it after training, and after speaking with the doctors we realised it could be a risk for the weekend. We need to check, but I don't think he will be available for the Barnsley game."

Meanwhile, Daniel Agger will miss both games as he continues his lengthy rehabilitation from the broken metatarsal that has kept him out for more than five months.

Benitez said: "Agger is improving and was training today and playing football. He is better than before but he will need time. It depends if he feels something or not.

"Sometimes when a player is injured for a long time, they need to understand they will feel something. So it depends on the player and we will also speak with the doctors."

monkey9

Marca claims that Barcelona have been offered the services of Liverpool midfielder Javier Mascherano in order to shore up their central line for next season...
The blaugrana hierarchy are apparently giving serious
thought to a move for the Argentina international.

With Deco said to be on the verge of moving on, there is a vacancy about to open up in the Barcelona midfield, with the young West Ham midfielder said to be tempting the club's technical staff.

Mascherano, 23, is currently on loan at Liverpool from West Ham United, although that is not the full story of his status. Like compatriot Carlos Tevez, much of his contract is owned by Media Sports Investments (MSI), which runs Brazilian club Corinthians.

Liverpool are said to be eager to land the player on a permanent basis, and were indeed rumoured to be close to doing so in January, but for now, he remains registered with West Ham but the property of MSI.

Carloz Tevez changed hands to Manchester United for £2m from West Ham United, but Mascherano would no doubt cost a great deal more, given the complexities of the deal. As such, Barcelona are content to adopt a "wait and see" policy for now.

Mr Alan

Tevez cost £2million to United?! Ha Ha Ha

i dont think so.

Chardee MacDennis

man utd paid the hammers two million to transfer his registration. he cost a lot more from MSI though.

mike65

monkey9 please include the links. The value of whats posted can often be judged by its source

Mike.

~Rebel~

mike65 wrote: »

monkey9 please include the links. The value of whats posted can often be judged by its source

Mike.

Judging from the reports yesterday, i wouldn't be too worried. The vast majority were "Rafa is very confident of landing masherano and the deal is closer to completion, despite reports of him being offered to Barca".

e.g http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11669_3146289,00.html

Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez insists he is edging closer to completing the permanent signing of Javier Mascherano despite fresh reports linking the Argentinian with a move elsewhere.

"We are closer than we were one week ago but I don't know how close," said Benitez.

event

aye i think they just mean that united have only paid £2 million so far, thats just for the loan

rebel, Villa, alves and lahm, you dont want much do ye

~Rebel~

event wrote: »

aye i think they just mean that united have only paid £2 million so far, thats just for the loan

rebel, Villa, alves and lahm, you dont want much do ye

i know i know, but i did say its what i'd love!

Really just using those players as an example of a system that could be played. Would need very good attacking LWB's to really work though.

We have the 3 at the back sorted, aurelio could even be used as LWB and then bring in Alves and a striker.

Mitch Connor

event wrote: »

aye i think they just mean that united have only paid £2 million so far, thats just for the loan

rebel, Villa, alves and lahm, you dont want much do ye

nah - as far as I know we have paid more then that. from memory it is something like 3million per season for 2 seasons, then whatever teh agreed price to sign him is. That money goes to MSI.

The 2million refered to is what was paid to West Ham to get them to stop acting the jerk and let Tevez move (note -they were acting the jerk because their assertation that they owned Tevez, and were thus entitled to money for him, was a lie, as evidenced by the report the FA released and was posted on here at the time)

PHB

Wasn't 2 million the fee per year for the loan, but it was 5 million a year including wages or something? That said, the fact that the article implies that Tevez cost in total 2 million says it all you need to know.

However, this was always going to happen past January, other clubs are gona be interested in him, and unless Liverpool act quickly, he could move on.

~Rebel~, the thing about Lahm and Alves is that they are going to cost an absolute ****load. They could well the most expensive fullbacks ever if they move. Liverpool needs to find an Evra or an Abidal, and get him, only Chelsea can afford Alves for what Sevilla want for him I think, maybe Madrid maybe.

When was the last time a team played 3-4-3 with wingbacks providing the width, and were able to challenge effectively in a league? I can't see it being Rafa's long term goal.

~Rebel~

PHB wrote: »

When was the last time a team played 3-4-3 with wingbacks providing the width, and were able to challenge effectively in a league? I can't see it being Rafa's long term goal.

i dont think so either, just think it would be cool!

Pool are so retarded for not getting Alves when it was almost in the bag. Just imagine if we'd gotten him, Evra and Villa when we were in for them. Ah well. ce la vie.

yeah no chance of those 2 coming anyway unless the Sheik himself decides to go nuts!

PHB

You really shouldn't focus upon players missed. Ronaldinho was in the bag, but then we didn't get him, and got Ronaldo instead :P I'd imagine if you had gotten Villa, you wouldn't have Torres.

~Rebel~

PHB wrote: »

You really shouldn't focus upon players missed. Ronaldinho was in the bag, but then we didn't get him, and got Ronaldo instead :P I'd imagine if you had gotten Villa, you wouldn't have Torres.

Thats true, but when you're languishing just above mid table, its hard to ignore the "what-ifs".

on Villa, at the time we were interested he went for around the same price as we spent on Kuyt 2years later so we could still have gone for Torres. But yeah, its a sure fire road to depression to mull on these things.

To The Future!

Actually whats Cicinho up to these days? Did he move on from Real or is he still there?

missingtime

~Rebel~ wrote: »

Actually whats Cicinho up to these days? Did he move on from Real or is he still there?

It seems he's with roma now. Some stats:

Dub13

The Sons Of Shankly

New logo/pic...

Link

Thanx 4 The Fish

Nice logo dub. GW