Liverpool Rumours And General Discussion 2007/2008

Cyrus

mike65 wrote: »

I take a different view.

If Liverpool had beaten Brum (twice), Reading, West Ham, Boro, Wigan and City and even Villa it would'nt matter what happened with Utd, who were the only other Big 4 team to beat Liverpool this season. The problem isnt the other big 3 - its failure to squash minnows.

Mike.

cannot agree with that Mike, you cant win every week, United cant, chelsea cant, arsenal cant and we cant. To have a record thats one point worse than the champions is good enough, to lose to them twice is not.

Boggles

IrishMike wrote: »

Do you even read posts before you reply?
Seriously ........
Thats the exact point redspider, me, mr alan etc are making
You are disagreeing with it then saying the reason why is the exact same as
the reason why you are disagreeing in the first place
For crying out loud man we are saying that with 2 or 3 results going different
ways any of the top 4 could have won the premiership
We all know United won it, unlike you we can see the blatently obvious :rolleyes:

I have not and am not defending United Irishmike, why should I?

I fully acknowledge that if 2 or 3 results went differently any of the top 3 could have won the League, not the top 4 like you pointed out.

IrishMike

Boggles wrote: »

I have not and am not defending United Irishmike, why should I?

I fully acknowledge that if 2 or 3 results went differently any of the top 3 could have won the League, not the top 4 like you pointed out.

I really hope you are banned soon.
The amount of trolling you do on these forums is actually mindblowing.

Boggles

IrishMike wrote: »

I really hope you are banned soon.
The amount of trolling you do on these forums is actually mindblowing.

Are you serious?? I argued the post, I didn't have a go at anyone, stop trying to stir ****.

LuckyLloyd

Boggles wrote: »

I have not and am not defending United Irishmike, why should I?

I fully acknowledge that if 2 or 3 results went differently any of the top 3 could have won the League, not the top 4 like you pointed out.

Thats the end of that chapter.

DeadSkin

Boggles wrote: »

I fully acknowledge that if 2 or 3 results went differently any of the top 3 could have won the League, not the top 4 like you pointed out.

Take the 2 games Liverpool lost against Man Utd, now reverse the results, who would have won the league? Yes we all agree ifs & buts blahblah!!!!

zAbbo

mike65 wrote: »

I take a different view.

If Liverpool had beaten Brum (twice), Reading, West Ham, Boro, Wigan and City and even Villa it would'nt matter what happened with Utd, who were the only other Big 4 team to beat Liverpool this season. The problem isnt the other big 3 - its failure to squash minnows.

Mike.

Wins against the other top4 are worth more than wins against smaller teams, assuming we achieve the same results against smaller teams as the others, it's proverbial 6 pointers we lost against United twice which cost us.

spockety

DeadSkin wrote: »

Take the 2 games Liverpool lost against Man Utd, now reverse the results, who would have won the league? Yes we all agree ifs & buts blahblah!!!!

Chelsea would have.

But anyway, this is getting farcical.

Liverpool fans here want to see an improvement in their team, and they want to see evident signs of improvement, as well as looking at how close things really are at the top. It gives some comfort after a trophyless season, and it's a reasonable analysis.

Non Liverpool fans want to come in here and do Liverpool down. They don't do this in a very obvious or overt way. They 'come in peace', as reasoned debaters/observers. Some of them are. But a lot of the ones I used to think were, are not, in my opinion. Their words are carefully chosen and their posts carefully crafted in such a way as to make it look like they are chipping in with helpful and reasoned argument. But they are putting the knife in, they are patronising us, and enjoying it all the more because they get people's hackles up and when they're taken up on it they can take a step back and go "woah there, I come in peace, these are the FACTS, why are you going ballistic, calm down.." etc.

I'm sick of it.

IrishMike

Boggles wrote: »

I have not and am not defending United Irishmike, why should I?

I fully acknowledge that if 2 or 3 results went differently any of the top 3 could have won the League, not the top 4 like you pointed out.

Boggles wrote: »

Are you serious?? I argued the post, I didn't have a go at anyone, stop trying to stir ****.

Yes I am serious.
You are agreeing that if 3 results went differently that any of the top 3 could win but Liverpool could not.
This is despite Liverpool finishing 11 points behind, which is a possible 18 point swing.
So what other way would you view your post other than trolling?

DeadSkin

D'oh the bait was laid and I jumped on it, shakes fist at Boggles:pac:

Jazzy

Boggles wrote: »

No he didn't he applied Fantasy results to the league, which ended up with Chelsea winning it and Liverpool on 78 points. There is no need to do that, the league and gaps are there to be seen.

Liverpool are 11 points behind United, 9 Behind Chelsea and 6 behind Arsenal.

I could do the exact same thing with Arsenal and they would have been crowned champions.

i think wat redspider was saying was that if u compare the home form of last season to this season u can see where chelski and liverpool have slumped a bit and if they had kept the same form in their home games things would have been different.
either u didnt get that due to lack of reading properly or ur trolling... has to be one of those options, which is it i wonder?

and he was quite clearly using if's and buts.... isnt that essential to analyse where ur clubs season went wrong? "if we had kept the same home form" "but if X incident was a penalty" etc.
do u get offended by ifs and buts? is that wat caused u to have a song and dance?

leninbenjamin

spockety wrote: »

I'm sick of it.

report posts then. too much backseated modding here.

I agree with redspiders analysis to a degree. there has been progress. i'm not sure it was enough to be overly optimistic about. I mean in hindsight it's far enough to say if we sort this out then we can win x,y,z. but that ignores the fact that all other teams around Liverpool will also focus on bettering themselves, negating what progress Liverpool can make over the preseason to some extent. i don't think you'll be mounting a full on championship contest next year.

then again i could be wrong. we can only see what transpires over the next few months. i'd be slightly concerned at Rafa saying he's not going to buy until the 6+5 is resolved, but i'd say t could be as much deflection tactics as anything else.

Karmafaerie

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Over a 38 game sample size I think it is perfectly reasonable to look at a couple of close results and imagine what might have been if the small things went a clubs way. Yes, every team could do this - so in Utd's case we could think about the injury time equalizer at Spurs and Wigan's smash and grab at Stamford Bridge?

Utd won and deserved it over the 38 games. That is not up for debate. But I think it is perfectly reasonable to look at our season and focus on where points were lost and what is required to get them next year rather than just shrugging and going "we lost, here's hoping for next year". We are allowed to analyze the season gone as a fan and attempt to draw conclusions on what we didn't do that the other 3 did do.

However, in my opinion a 38 game stretch is not as conclusive a sample size as people make it out to be. The bounce of the ball and refereeing decisions balance out over years but certainty don't over a single season. I think it is reasonable to say "what if?" about this and that if one is inclined.

Good post.

spockety

leninbenjamin wrote: »

report posts then. too much backseated modding here.

I have reported plenty of posts on here, thanks.

I agree with redspiders analysis to a degree. there has been progress. i'm not sure it was enough to be overly optimistic about. I mean in hindsight it's far enough to say if we sort this out then we can win x,y,z. but that ignores the fact that all other teams around Liverpool will also focus on bettering themselves, negating what progress Liverpool can make over the preseason to some extent. i don't think you'll be mounting a full on championship contest next year.

Actually I think most people on here are pragmatic enough to realise that other teams will also be strengthening, as well as being realistic about the resources Rafa has had to work with since he arrived. When your record defensive signing cost 6.5 million, you know you are up against it when the champions spent 25m+ on theirs.

Going into this season nobody expected a title challenge from Arsenal, never mind a good assault on the top 4, and look how that prediction turned out.

It is closer at the top than fans of the champions like to make out.

leninbenjamin

spockety wrote: »

Going into this season nobody expected a title challenge from Arsenal, never mind a good assault on the top 4, and look how that prediction turned out.

I did actually . I'm saying i don't see the similar potential in this Liverpool squad as i did with Arsenal last season. maybe the summer will give reason for me to believe differently, but i've been optimistic about Liverpool previously under Rafa (which i know you'll probably find difficult to believe), but with all the schenanigans i just can't see the stability.

edit; having said that though, i wouldn't be surprised if Pool break the top three at the expense of Arsenal again. things aren't exactly thrilling me there either at the moment. but all these opinions are provisional mind you.

mike65

spockety wrote: »

When your record defensive signing cost 6.5 million, you know you are up against it when the champions spent 25m+ on theirs.

Ferdinand was bought for a stupid amount of money (it was nearer 30 million) when things had gone a bit mad at Old Trafford spending wise. Its lucky the board can say it was a good buy. Skrtel on the other hand was a January buy prompted by the realisation that Agger was not going to be fit any time soon. If he had then any defender bought as cover would have been in the 2-3 mill bracket I'd say.

Mike.

whatawaster

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/NG159906080513-1135.htm

Great article. Puts things in a little perspective for the Rafa doubters out there.

Boggles

spockety wrote: »

Chelsea would have.

Non Liverpool fans want to come in here and do Liverpool down. They don't do this in a very obvious or overt way. They 'come in peace', as reasoned debaters/observers.

As far as I am aware Spockety as a member of the football forum you are allowed post anywhere you want, as long as you adhere to the rules.

I don't argee with these "Team Getho Forums' where if one person says something that is not positive about a certain team he is accused of trolling, winding up, baiting etc.

I have done no such thing.

spockety

Boggles wrote: »

As far as I am aware Spockety as a member of the football forum you are allowed post anywhere you want, as long as you adhere to the rules.

I don't argee with these "Team Getho Forums' where if one person says something that is not positive about a certain team he is accused of trolling, winding up, baiting etc.

I have done no such thing.

By and large people who come in here do stick by the rules per se, that was part of my point.

Edit: I have nothing more to say on this.. I've given my opinion on what I believe is going on, I'm sure some people will disagree, fair enough.

Mr Alan

Lads,maybe this is the place to discuss that..

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055201194&page=8

5starpool

I don't think breaking the top three would be much of an achievement though considering we finished there the last 2 seasons before this. What needs to happen next season is what everyone has been saying for the last few years - we need consistency. The run this season that killed us totally was that sequence of draws at the turn of the year. It was impossible to recover from that. I agree with redspider that there are small things that if they go our way we will be much closer than before.

I certainly don't subscribe to the theory that Rafa rotates far more than the other managers, but I think there is a bigger gap between Uniteds top 18 and our top 18 compared to the first 11 which is closer imo. There will be times when Torres needs to be rest (or god forbid, injured). This is why we need another striker that can deliver unlike the godawful voronin or the industrious Kuyt. Crouch will be leaving I'd be fairly sure, so someone that isn't Darren Bent or someone similar.

Getting another top class striker in though would create it's own problems with formation, etc, but if the right personnel is brought in wide and up front that looked like it had good potential I would be happy enough to give it time to settle, although it would not be good to write off another season in September.

It could all be a moot point though if Rafa doesn't get the funds to spend......

Mr Alan

anyone have Voronins goals per minutes played for the year? I'd imagine its quite good

IrishMike

Short of Ferguson being replaced by Neil Warnock, Arsene Wenger switching to manage Arsenal ladies and Roman Abramovich donating his wealth to a short-sighted squirrel sanctuary, all Benítez can do is continue to steadily improve this young team. After that, we can only wait and see.

Made me laugh.
Nice article Alan

Cyrus

Boggles wrote: »

As far as I am aware Spockety as a member of the football forum you are allowed post anywhere you want, as long as you adhere to the rules.

I don't argee with these "Team Getho Forums' where if one person says something that is not positive about a certain team he is accused of trolling, winding up, baiting etc.

I have done no such thing.

course you have, and again plead innocence like the rest

Boggles

Cyrus wrote: »

course you have, and again plead innocence like the rest

???

Malice

5starpool wrote: »

The run this season that killed us totally was that sequence of draws at the turn of the year. It was impossible to recover from that.

It wasn't impossible to recover from that, had we beaten Chelsea even once or only lost once to bloody Man Utd things would have been closer at the top of the table.

Mr Alan

IrishMike wrote: »

Made me laugh.
Nice article Alan

I didnt post it.

Good article. Tompkins is a goat though.

IrishMike

Eeeeek sorry whatawaster thanks for posting the article

Boggles

Jazzy wrote: »

i think wat redspider was saying was that if u compare the home form of last season to this season u can see where chelski and liverpool have slumped a bit and if they had kept the same form in their home games things would have been different.

Chelseas home form was identical to last year, Liverpool home form which does flucuate quite a bit this season have been 4 points worse off - not a major catastrophe.

Jazzy wrote: »

either u didnt get that due to lack of reading properly or ur trolling... has to be one of those options, which is it i wonder?

Argue the point and don't resort to **** stirring and shouting troll, it got boring a long time ago.

Jazzy wrote: »

and he was quite clearly using if's and buts.... isnt that essential to analyse where ur clubs season went wrong? "if we had kept the same home form" "but if X incident was a penalty" etc.
do u get offended by ifs and buts? is that wat caused u to have a song and dance?

I can't sing or dance so I will ignore that.

There are 100's of more factors that determine where a season could have went wrong, no manager over simplyfies things by saying well, if we beat the top 2 twice we would have a better postion in the league.

zing

Mr Alan wrote: »

anyone have Voronins goals per minutes played for the year? I'd imagine its quite good

1 goal per 224 mins in the prem
1 goal per 262 mins in all comps

based off the figures here: http://www.football.co.uk/liverpool/players/andriy_voronin_24173.shtml

5starpool

malice_ wrote: »

It wasn't impossible to recover from that, had we beaten Chelsea even once or only lost once to bloody Man Utd things would have been closer at the top of the table.

Realistically though I think we took near as many points as we were ever going to take from Feb onwards. Obviously, if we had done this that etc, we would be closer, but there were too many teams to overtake at that point to make it more than remotely possible to happen.

raven136

think i might avoid this forum till late july sometime,too much sh#t being talked here.We lost the league due to an inability to win games against weaker teams.In general despite no trophies it has been a decent season,not great just decent and im resonably optimistic.We scored more,have found a formation that gerrard can work in while not trying to do everything.
We still lack width but hopefully we can fix that with two wing backs and one,possiby two wingers.
United deserved the title and fair play to them but im not jumping up and down about their stlye of football,who cares how boring we are(despite a record goal haul),its winning that matters.I dread to think of united as 18 times champs and thats why we need to get our game right.
We are not far,maybe Gerrard is right and we are just 4 signings away.We have our wing abck signed already and 2 more kids i think.hopefully bentley or a similar type player wont be far behind.
here's to a summer where the cowboys go home and we sort out the boardroom quickly.Hopefully no more drawn out transfers either

joe123

raven136 wrote: »

.We have our wing abck signed already

Who what wing back? First I heard??

~Rebel~

joe123 wrote: »

Who what wing back? First I heard??

by all accounts Phillip Degen will be a pool player next year on a free.

Wikipedia getting a bit ahead of itself on him though!

Degen signed a pre-contract agreement with Liverpool FC on May 10, 2008, and linked up with the squad, when his contract expired on July 1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Degen

Reading random reports around the place, he seems to be an "attacking but strong RB who can also play on the left if needed". He's also played right wing at points in his career which is handy, and is a Swiss international so hopefully we'll get to see more of him in June.

spockety

raven136 wrote: »

think i might avoid this forum till late july sometime,too much sh#t being talked here.We lost the league due to an inability to win games against weaker teams.

The spread of this falsehood has to stop. Man Utd got 74 points from 'weaker' teams (ie non top 4 opposition) this season, Liverpool got 72.

Man Utd are champions because they took 13 points from Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea. Liverpool took 4.

THAT is where the difference lies, and that is what must be improved. Liverpool have to start beating the teams competing for the title, in order to, er, compete for the title.

Tusky

~Rebel~ wrote: »

by all accounts Phillip Degen will be a pool player next year on a free.

Wikipedia getting a bit ahead of itself on him though!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Degen

Reading random reports around the place, he seems to be an "attacking but strong RB who can also play on the left if needed". He's also played right wing at points in his career which is handy, and is a Swiss international so hopefully we'll get to see more of him in June.

Hes not even first choice RB for Switzerland. Reports are that he is not very good.

Thanx 4 The Fish

I have heard a bit about him but not much positive.

Kimbot

Then there is the reason we got him on a free.....

I would expect it to be to provide cover. Arbeloa hasn't been the same since he got an injury earlier on in the season but hopefully with a good preseason he will be grand for next season.

leninbenjamin

I think perhaps with both United and Chelsea having been both on the hunt for a good RB that Rafa felt a relatively cheap alternative was needed to offer cover just in case they fail to find a suitable replacement for Finnan who doesn't cost an arm and a leg. just speculation on my part mind.

Tusky

What it does tell us is that we arent going to have a top right back next season. A combination of two from Finnan, Arbeloa & Degan will most likely be used. Not really up to scratch.

Kimbot

Tusky wrote: »

What it does tell us is that we arent going to have a top right back next season. A combination of two from Finnan, Arbeloa & Degan will most likely be used. Not really up to scratch.

I don't know. Its weird but for a while I've been thinking that rafa might pull off the following formation soon:

---

Reina

---

---

Skrtel----Carra----Agger

---

RWB

---

LWB

---

Masch--Alonso

---

---

Gerrard

---

Babel---

---

Torres

---

He seems to like his wing backs and Gerrard/Babel like coming in on the inside so 2 wing backs overlapping would be a decent formation to adopt if the players are right for it that is.

Tusky

jonny24ie wrote: »

I don't know. Its weird but for a while I've been thinking that rafa might pull off the following formation soon:

---

Reina

---

---

Skrtel----Carra----Agger

---

RWB

---

LWB

---

Masch--Alonso

---

---

Gerrard

---

Babel---

---

Torres

---

He seems to like his wing backs and Gerrard/Babel like coming in on the inside so 2 wing backs overlapping would be a decent formation to adopt if the players are right for it that is.

Seems to like his wing backs...where did you get that from ? He has shown no indication that he wants to play a formation like that...ever.

Kimbot

Alves was on the list and so were a few others. Aurelio's play is more suited to LWB role.
Can't think of the other wing backs but even at valencia if I remember rightly he was always linked with wing backs.

Tusky

jonny24ie wrote: »

Alves was on the list and so were a few others. Aurelio's play is more suited to LWB role.
Can't think of the other wing backs but even at valencia if I remember rightly he was always linked with wing backs.

Hes been here four years. People have been saying that he would start playing 5-3-2 or 3-5-2 or whatever you want to call it, for years. If that was his intention he would have tested it out a few times or bought some wing backs.

From my memory we only played with wing backs (& 5 across the back) once for the last 15 minutes of a game last season.

If his intention is to start playing with 5 across the back and two wing backs, Degan is not the answer!

leninbenjamin

this opinion i have is probably formed from football manager than anything but i've seen journalists in the times before express similar;

modern wingbacks do not necessarily mean playing a 5 - 3 - 2. by and large most modern 4 - 4 - 2 we see the fullbacks play more akin to wingbacks than fullbacks in the traditional sense of the word. think Gary Neville and the Beckham partnership in their prime. Gary win the ball, Gary pass it up the wing to Beckham. cross delivered, fullbacks job done, sit back. in contrast the likes of evra, clichy, Sagna all bomb forward, overlap to much greater degree than a traditional fullback and also at times cut inside. effectively wingers. The difference between playing a 4 - 4 -2 with wingbacks and 5 - 3 - 2 is the role of the necessary defensive cover. in past it would have been primarily a sweeping CB who dropped off, however these days teams press a lot more, so the sweeping is done by the DMs, who get in front of the CB to offer protection. so in essence the traditional 5 -3 - 2 and modern 4 - 4 - 2 (or rather 4 - 4 - 1 - 1) are quite similar in the deployment of full/wingbacks. So to conclude Rafas fondness for wingbacks has nothing really to do with wanting to play a 5 - 3 - 2, if anything it is to do with the fact he prefers to employ 2 DMs as opposed to one. thus attacking options elsewhere on the pitch are a higher priority.

zing

The Independent reporting (very vaguely of course) that Gillet didn't quite dot all his 'i's and cross all his 't's somewhere in his dealings with Hicks & DIC and that the expected imminent sale of his shares to DIC won't happen until the end of the summer at best. If true then it presumably means the 90 days has to start all over again.

Could he really have been that stupid ? Considering who he brought in as a business partner then I guess he could well be..

Hopefully TB will rubbish this article tomorrow - fingers crossed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/benitez-left-in-limbo-after-gilletts-oversight-extends-liverpool-turmoil-827576.html

Dub13

John Barnes/Jan Molby Legends night

This Saturday 17th May 8pm,SUBMARINE BAR CRUMLIN.



Due to the move to the bigger venue we still have a few tickets left for this,PM me if you are interested.These are great nights and I belive LFCTV will be there on the night.

Stky10

Those who don't learn the mistakes of others from history, usually repeat the same mistakes themselves.

Wingbacks are a very difficult position to fill correctly, as shown by the Roy Evans era. Difficult because its very rare to find a player who's both very good at going forwards, and defending. I'd be more than happy to just get purely functional full backs, who are good defenders and decently confortable in possession. Anything else is a bonus. Let the wingers and forward players worry about the rest.

mormank

torres is class. that is all

IrishMike

mormank wrote: »

torres is class. that is all

OFT!