Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

Racing Flat

Mr Alan wrote: »

who does Mascherano remind ye off?

Paul McGrath :pac:

mike65

Skrtel's unhappy no wait Skrtel is happy

Mike

mormank

Karmafaerie wrote: »

Anyone who thinks that Stevie is up there with Kenny (yet) is vastly mistaken.
Dagleish was unstopable.
You could put him in the premiership of today, and he'd still be as immense a player.
There are very few players who are actually unplayable on their day, and Kenny personified the term.

Any arguments of the game being harder now, can easily be countered by pointing out that Kenny played with a brick of a ball, on bobbly pitches, against players actually kicking lumps out of him, with cardboard boxes for boots.
No pristine pitches, diving players, nike pedator air puma blade super boots, or balloon footballs with aerodynamic stitching and sealed air valves!!!!!


oh and just watched the interview with masch and tevez..of these two thank god we got masch...and remember when it was a toss up of eto'o tevez and mr torres, again thank god we got orres. in rafa we trust

However, lets not forget here, Kenny was 27 when he joined us, and Stevie is only 28 now.
With the team showing some promise of pushing forward to challenge for honours again, there's a good chance that he could go on to become a proper rival, if not a successor to King Kenny's throne.

And I'd say that Dagleish would be the first to congradulate him if he did.

how many titles of any sort did kenny win with smicer and biscan in the team?? and traore, kewell etc..i think to sya gerrard has to win titles to be as good as king kevin is crazy. if we win teh title this year will gerrard automatically be a better player for it?? its a team game..big fail here in ppl's reasoning for kenny being better imo...

monkey9

Although i subcribe to the view that only when a player ends his career can you fully appreciate his ranking amongst the greats, i think it's fair to say that Super Dirk is fast becoming the greatest ever player to don the sacred red jersey of Anfield.
That heroic Dutchman should wear a cape and his pants on the outside of his shorts. Legend!

astrofool

monkey9 wrote: »

Although i subcribe to the view that only when a player ends his career can you fully appreciate his ranking amongst the greats, i think it's fair to say that Super Dirk is fast becoming the greatest ever player to don the sacred red jersey of Anfield.
That heroic Dutchman should wear a cape and his pants on the outside of his shorts. Legend!

They already have the action figure out:

spockety

astrofool wrote: »

They already have the action figure out:

Harsh. But fair.

zAbbo

Superdirk

5starpool

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/nov/21/steven-gerrard-groin-liverpool-fulham

Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard will not be fit for the club's Premier League home game against Fulham tomorrow. Gerrard, who trained alone today, is also considered doubtful for Wednesday's Champions League group stage match with Marseille at Anfield.


The captain worked away from the first-team squad at the club's Melwood base, with the aid of a personal fitness coach, as he battles to recover from a torn groin muscle.


Liverpool have this week been annoyed with the Football Association and the England set-up after Gerrard was instructed to travel to London last Sunday to be assessed by the international squad's medical experts.


Gerrard had already undergone a scan on the injury, sustained at Bolton last weekend, after which a damaged muscle was confirmed and he was ruled out by the club for the midweek friendly with Germany.


However, England wanted to assess the injury themselves, and Liverpool boss Rafael Benítez is known to be upset that Gerrard was unable to have treatment on the injury for 24 hours while making the 400-mile trip to the national squad's hotel in Watford.


England then confirmed the injury and Gerrard returned to Merseyside. However, the incident has left Liverpool feeling that their word was being doubted.


Gerrard has had treatment all week, but has no chance of facing Fulham tomorrow at Anfield and there is only a 50-50 chance that he will be fit to face the French side next week, with Benitez earlier claiming that Gerrard "would be out for between seven and 10 days".

Hopefully this shouldn't affect us too much against Fulham, but if things go on too long without getting a breakthrough or gos forbid we go a goal down, hopefully we won't miss him even then. Probably mean we go for relatively orthodox 442 unless Keane plays the Gerrard role behind Torres.

monkey9

Is the match on tv tomorrow?

copacetic

monkey9 wrote: »

Is the match on tv tomorrow?

yep, setanta sports 1, clashes with rugby though. bugger.

monkey9

copacetic wrote: »

yep, setanta sports 1, clashes with rugby though. bugger.

Brilliant. 3pm ko, i take it?

copacetic

monkey9 wrote: »

Brilliant. 3pm ko, i take it?

yep. may be checking boards for match thread from croker!

Karmafaerie

mormank wrote: »

how many titles of any sort did kenny win with smicer and biscan in the team?? and traore, kewell etc..i think to sya gerrard has to win titles to be as good as king kevin is crazy. if we win teh title this year will gerrard automatically be a better player for it?? its a team game..big fail here in ppl's reasoning for kenny being better imo...

First off, I'm guessin you made a wee mistake with that quote, as I'm fairly sure I never mentioned anything about the Masch and Tevez interview!;)

Secondly, I never said that Stevie would have to win titles in orfer to be considered great.
I said that King Kenny joined us when he was in his prime and Stvie is jst entering his now too.
With a better squad around him now, Stevie has less responsibilities, and so has more of a chance to shine.
Silverwear won has little to do with how great a player is.

spockety

Eh, BUMP.

:eek:

flanzer

spockety wrote: »

Eh, BUMP.

:eek:

As they say, no news is good news!

PiE

Hey be thankful - if Utd and Chelsea had won, we wouldn't be able to wade through the "this is why Liverpool will never ever win anything" posts.

PiE

Sweet - Ballack writes off our chances.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_4541987,00.html

We're the underdogs lads, can't possibly not win the League now.

mike65

"Liverpool are a club for the Champions League" he says yet fails to mention Chelsea in that respect. Can only mean one thing.

Mike

Boggles

To be fair to him, he is pretty much spot on and IMO will ultimately be proved correct.

Not having a go at Liverpool, so don't do your usual Pinata routine on me, he is actually just echoing the opinion of alot of Liverpool supporters on here.

The interview was taken from the Sun, so I can imagine it was heavily edited or just basically made up.

spockety

Boggles wrote: »

To be fair to him, he is pretty much spot on and IMO will ultimately be proved correct.

Not having a go at Liverpool, so don't do your usual Pinata routine on me, he is actually just echoing the opinion of alot of Liverpool supporters on here.

The interview was taken from the Sun, so I can imagine it was heavily edited or just basically made up.

*sigh*

Why bother following football at all if we already know what will ultimately prove to be correct?

Sure just saw the league trophy in two and hand half each to United and Chelsea in August.

Take Liverpool, Chelsea, and United and give them CL semi-final berths, and make every other team in europe fight it out for the fourth.

Things don't always go as expected, if they did then nobody would bother watching footie. Could anyone truly have believed going into this weekend that Liverpool, Chelsea, United, and Arsenal would ALL drop points? I'd love to have seen the odds on that.

Liverpool can win the league this year. I'm not saying they will, but they can. Any supporter on here who has already given up on that aspiration is a disappointment.

~Rebel~

to be fair all he's really saying is: "pool are going well, but chelsea and manu are still just a little stronger all round", which is a fair enough comment to make. I think we can all accept that all things being equal that is the case. What has actually changed a bit this year is that Pool are in a position to actually take advantage of any slip ups or bad luck that happens to the other 3.

Boggles

spockety wrote: »

*sigh*

Why bother following football at all if we already know what will ultimately prove to be correct?

Untwist those knickers Spockety, I simply gave my opinion, it just happened to echo what Ballick said.

monkey9

~Rebel~ wrote: »

What has actually changed a bit this year is that Pool are in a position to actually take advantage of any slip ups or bad luck that happens to the other 3.

Which is an improvement. There's no pressure on Rafa to deliver the title this season. But at least to make some sort of challenge for it which we're doing at the moment. Hopefully we're in similar position come April and May

mayordenis

Ballack is correct, it's not an exact science or fact, but it's fair to say we're 3rd favourites.

Mr Alan

I'm not agruing with you boggles, but if thats the view you have, that'll mean you'd have to concede that Rafa was the best around and a genius IF we did win the league-afterall Utd & Chelsea are obviously so much better than us.

zAbbo

We're a little bit of an unknown quantity, while United always seem to finish a season strongly, while Chelsea seem to be consistently good throughout the season.

Not sure if stats back that up, but that's what I think of them.

A win would have been great against Fulham, but it didn't happen - we don't look like we've clicked yet - which is good and bed.

Barry

Tusky

Ive really enjoyed us being on top and getting results but I still dont think we have been all that impressive. We have shown great team spirit and determination and on occasion played some good football...but something is definitely lacking. Chelsea, Manchester Utd, Arsenal, Aston Villa & Manchester City have all scored more goals than us. Were on 21 from 14 games, equal with Hull. I think that shows that more often than not, weve done just enough to win...where as Chelsea have been hammering teams all season.

Rafas summer signings haven't exactly turned out great either. During the summer I said that we needed two new full backs and a right winger. He didnt buy a right winger and the new full backs definitely havent worked out (thus far). I still think this is our best formation, which is what we had last season.

---

Torres

Babel

---

Gerrard

---

Kuyt

---

Alonso----Masch

Riera has been a surprisingly good signing, but I think if Babel got as much game time as him, he would score/create more goals. Babel got 10 goals and about 6 assists last season, mostly playing from the bench. I reckon Riera will play plenty more minutes this season than Babel did last, but wont match that.

Regardless of all this, the team is playing with a lot of belief and confidence, which wasnt there last year. Kuyt, Alonso, Carragher, Skrtel have all improved on their performances last year and the return of Agger is definitely a bonus.

I'm muchly enjoying the season so far but not sure how long we will stay on top. I still expect us to finish 3rd.

mike65

4-2-3-1 is bombproof if its Gerrard behind Torres, if its anything else we stutter.
Keane was a bad buy, wrong player for too much money, we shudda got another big man to play Torres off when 4-4-2. Still we're stuck with him so Keane has to knuckle down and improve - a spell in the reserves might not hurt if Rafa can show him its for his own good.

Meanwhile Markus Babbel has just been made senior coach at Vfb Stuttgart so well done to him.

Mike

NabyLadistheman

mike65 wrote: »

Keane was a bad buy, wrong player for too much money, we shudda got another big man to play Torres off when 4-4-2. Still we're stuck with him so Keane has to knuckle down and improve - a spell in the reserves might not hurt if Rafa can show him its for his own good

Mike

Are you serious? a spell in the reserves - that will do wonders for his already brittle confidence. Keane needs to get a shlobery aul goal to win the match - that will do his confidence wonders and believe this only possible if he's gettin game-time. I tend to agree with your view though, Liverpool struggled las year until Rafa stumbled onto the above formation - it's just strange that he spends €20 mill on Keane when he knows that realistically he is not really in his plans if everyone is fit.

Just hope to god he gets a couple of goals coz these sitters he's missin are gonna cost us

Tusky

mike65 wrote: »

4-2-3-1 is bombproof if its Gerrard behind Torres, if its anything else we stutter.
Keane was a bad buy, wrong player for too much money, we shudda got another big man to play Torres off when 4-4-2. Still we're stuck with him so Keane has to knuckle down and improve - a spell in the reserves might not hurt if Rafa can show him its for his own good.

Meanwhile Markus Babbel has just been made senior coach at Vfb Stuttgart so well done to him.

Mike

I agree about Keane, good player but its kind of a square peg in a round hole. People say that he was brought in as cover for Torres. Well, he cant play the same role as Torres. Also, I think Torres plays better when up front alone. Bringing Keane in has disturbed the Gerrard/Torres partnership and also means dropping one of Masch or Alonso when we play 4-4-2.

I think Rafa should have spent the money on quality full backs and a top quality right sided attacker to replace Kuyt (even thought he has been v.good thus far).

~Rebel~

torresistheman wrote: »

Are you serious? a spell in the reserves - that will do wonders for his already brittle confidence. Keane needs to get a shlobery aul goal to win the match - that will do his confidence wonders and believe this only possible if he's gettin game-time.

I dont know about that..everyone said that until he got his CL goals, then everyone said the same about his league goals, till he got his brace...still no great improvement...

Mr Alan

torresistheman wrote: »

Liverpool struggled las year until Rafa stumbled onto the above formation

stumbled onto it? isnt it the formation he used at his Valencia side? to suggest he "stumbled" onto it is insulting to the man tbh.

Tusky wrote: »

Bringing Keane in has disturbed the Gerrard/Torres partnership

Are Gerrard & Torres not doing very well this year? Both have been disturbed this year with injuries but are still regularly scoring/assisting

Tusky wrote: »

and a top quality right sided attacker to replace Kuyt (even thought he has been v.good thus far).

So why oh why would you want to replace our player of the year so far?

~Rebel~ wrote: »

I dont know about that..everyone said that until he got his CL goals, then everyone said the same about his league goals, till he got his brace...still no great improvement...

starting to get a little worried myself about him, but remember he has had some exellent performances this year already, Everton & Utd spring to mind.

monkey9

Tusky wrote: »

and a top quality right sided attacker to replace Kuyt (even thought he has been v.good thus far).

Leave Superman alone

~Rebel~

Mr Alan wrote: »

starting to get a little worried myself about him, but remember he has had some exellent performances this year already, Everton & Utd spring to mind.

Thats true, but i more meant that I dont think its as simple as "once he gets a scrappy goal he'll be sorted".

herbieflowers

I've seen Keane play a few times this season for Pool. Tbh, his effort and movement cannot be faulted, and he has had chances so I wouldn't worry about that end. But I think he needs a man to play off of, he seems isolated up front on his own.

LuckyLloyd

Tusky wrote: »

---

Torres

Babel

---

Gerrard

---

Kuyt

---

Alonso----Masch

Oh dear.

el rabitos

for some reason when i think of keane, craig bellamy springs to mind.

if we hadnt paid so much for him i couldnt see him lasting more than a season

i just cant see him being happy to be shifted around trying to accomodate gerrard and torres and then being brought off after an hour or so most games.

Tusky

Mr Alan wrote: »

So why oh why would you want to replace our player of the year so far?
.

Alonso has been our best player in my opinon, but thats besides the point as Kuyt has been fantastic this year also. In the long run, I still think we should be looking to replace him with someone better.

Mr Alan wrote: »

stumbled onto it? isnt it the formation he used at his Valencia side? to suggesSo why oh why would you want to replace our player of the year so far?

I think hes referring to the fact that he only started using the formation half way into the season.

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Oh dear.

What ? You cant judge Babel on his performances this season. He hasnt had a single start in the league and is usually brought on with 20 minutes to go. Any player, including Torres, Gerrard or anyone else, would struggle to impress while getting irregular games. I really thought there was a notciable improvement in Babel before this season and would love to see him start 5 or 6 games on the trot.

Lets not forget, his last 3 goals were against United, Chelsea & Arsenal.

Malice

According to here, Liverpool are being linked with Adriano of all players.

Brazilian striker Adriano has been a square peg in a round hole at Inter Milan for some time, and his future at the San Siro is not being measured in years. But is he the sort of player who would fit into Rafa Benitez's title-chasing Liverpool squad?

It seems unlikely; yet that is what some sections of the Italian media are speculating this morning.

The question of the looming January transfer market is exercising the media, and according to Italian radio, Liverpool are ready to enter the race for the 'Emperor' with an £8 million bid.

Leaving aside whether or not Adriano is the 'right' player for the Reds at the moment, given the excellence of Fernando Torres and the summer's heavy outlay on striker Robbie Keane, there is the issue of Liverpool's apparently strained finances.

The club's American co-owners may succeed in getting a six-month extension on their debt repayments, which some sources say could make some £20 million available for the transfer kitty. Adriano, though, would swallow up a hefty chunk of that when his wage demands are factored in. After all, the lifestyle he has to support is not exactly that of a monk.

Still, Inter clearly want to offload him, and it is claimed that at least five clubs are interested, including Chelsea, Manchester City and Real Madrid.

However, it is understood that the relationship between Inter coach Jose Mourinho and Adriano means a quick sale could be concluded, with the striker having the casting vote on which club he joins.

It still seems unlikely that Liverpool would be sufficiently interested to enter a bidding war. Then again, stranger things have happened...

Now, while Adriano and Torres up front might work on Pro Evo, I don't think there's much chance of it happening in reality. He doesn't strike me as a Benitez-type player and Inter would surely want silly money for him. If the gossip generator had thrown out Man City instead of Liverpool I'd believe it .

~Rebel~

Tusky wrote: »

Alonso has been our best player in my opinon, but thats besides the point as Kuyt has been fantastic this year also. In the long run, I still think we should be looking to replace him with someone better.

Maybe not replace, but we could definately do with top class competition for him.

On Keane, yeah thats true Herbie, he has been unlucky in that he's been on his own up top - a role which he is simply not equipped for. Id like to see how he is after, say, 5 games with Gerrard in midfield behind him and Torres making runs in front of him.


On Adriano, i've heard he's turned things around in relation to his depression and alcohol abuse. For 8mill i would have taken him above keane at 20 in a heartbeat tbh. An absolutely awesome player when his heads right.

mayordenis

I think any striker will say the same thing,
you have to worry if your not getting chances.

I know some of the sitters he's missed have cost us big time but a striker does 80% of the work in getting in the right place to score the goal, the other 20% is tapping the ball into the net, if you're getting the harded 80% right week in week out the goals will follow.

mayordenis

only going to catch the first half of the reserves game tonight, but Nemeth is back in the squad (not starting, but expected to get 20 or so minutes).

Jazzy

as far as keane is concerned i would have much rather we pocketed the £20m from his transfer and the £8m from reira's and bought someone like Ribery or Schweinsteiger instead. schwein... isnt worth that much and neither is ribery but it would have been nice to have that sort of clout.
means we would have had to find someone to cover torres. whos that lanky striker scoring loads for pompey ? seems decent

i know i know, he wanted regular football which he wasnt guaranteed at anfield.
maybe go for £20m on ribery and then buy reira as well. means no kuyt in the first XI tho

Dub13

New Club Shop In Dublin


Link

Premier League contenders Liverpool FC are to open a merchandise shop in Dublin. The celebrated football club is understood to have hired CBRE's London office to source a shop of between 3,000 and 10,000 square feet in Dublin city, with the northside the favoured location.


The club is owned by US businessmen George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks, but reports in Britain suggest that Merrill Lynch has been hired to find possible buyers. Deloitte has ranked Liverpool as the eighth-richest club in the world, with income of nearly €200m in the 2006-2007 season.


The club will hope to outperform Manchester United's merchandise shop, which closed after 18 months in 2002 due to poor sales. Most of the retail space it occupied is still empty six years later.

PiE

Yeeeea I imagine that won't last too long either.

spockety

PiE wrote: »

Yeeeea I imagine that won't last too long either.

It might if they have open a ticket shop inside...!

Wishful thinking.

Dub13

spockety wrote: »

It might if they have open a ticket shop inside...!

Wishful thinking.

They cant even sort out the ticket office in Liverpool.

~Rebel~

Dub13 wrote: »

They cant even sort out the ticket office in Liverpool.

indeed, they'd probably charge us for the privilage to enter the shop to give us the opportunity to buy the tickets in the first place.

Mr Alan

Jazzy wrote: »

as far as keane is concerned i would have much rather we pocketed the £20m from his transfer and the £8m from reira's and bought someone like Ribery or Schweinsteiger instead. schwein... isnt worth that much and neither is ribery but it would have been nice to have that sort of clout.
means we would have had to find someone to cover torres. whos that lanky striker scoring loads for pompey ? seems decent

i know i know, he wanted regular football which he wasnt guaranteed at anfield.
maybe go for £20m on ribery and then buy reira as well. means no kuyt in the first XI tho

Poor aul Rafa can't win, he picks up Riera at a bargain price-Riera excels in his time with us so far and looks like a smashing player.

we're joint top of the league having beaten Utd & Chelsea in the process BUT rafa shouldnt have bought him or Keane and should have bought Ribery or Scweinsteiger instead? And kept Crouch, a player who didnt want to play for us?

Ribery was bought by Bayern for around 20m, what on earth makes you think they'd sell him for that considering his stock has risen quite a lot since he moved there?

Keane was bought for 19m-20m, basically we got rid of Riise,Crouch & Carson and bought Keane with the cash that raised, and we are paying him with Kewells wages-how are people not happy about that when its so obviously a trade UP and we're doing well in the league?

also, why do people keep talking about the need to replace Kuyt? he was one of the best players in the Euros, and been one of the best players in the league so far this year? wat more do people want?

When we do win number 19 do people expect us to win by 15 points? smashing every team we play? never gonna happen, the league is so competitive now, even top teams are always gonna drop points.

~Rebel~

Mr Alan wrote: »

also, why do people keep talking about the need to replace Kuyt? he was one of the best players in the Euros, and been one of the best players in the league so far this year? wat more do people want?

agreed, replace - No. But maybe find decent competition for after pennant leaves. Would have liked Anderson and El Zhar to have a shot at this between them, unlikely Anderson will get recalled from his loan though. (speaking of which anyone know how he's getting on this year? as successful as last year?)