Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 11/12 MOD POST #1130

ShamoBuc

Francie Barrett wrote: »

Coates still has time to improve his game and iron out the mistakes. Skrtel is at the stage in his career where he is unlikely to improve much.

Don't think he really has to. More of the same quality defending next year will do nicely.

Tusky

monkey9 wrote: »

This is not true, imo!! Skrtel was absolute quality when we first got him, straight into the first team! He then went a bit sh!t, but he's turned it around last season.

Indeed. I remember being extremely impressed with Skrtel when he first arrived. Played a similar level to how he was in season just gone.

missingtime

Linked with Gaston Ramirez again. 18 million sterling.

Slattsy

missingtime wrote: »

Linked with Gaston Ramirez again. 18 million sterling.

I'd rather we held onto sterling. Could we not do 18 million and Adam?

monkey9

Tusky wrote: »

Indeed. I remember being extremely impressed with Skrtel when he first arrived. Played a similar level to how he was in season just gone.

I'm not quite sure if it was his first season, but i suspect it was when we played Arsenal in the Champions League quarter final. He was a rock at Anfield!! A rock!!

Ganymede Glow

Gylfi Sigurdsson WILL join Liverpool, but not before he has offered Swansea the courtesy of meeting their new manager.

The Iceland international, who made such an impact on loan at the Liberty Stadium last season, has made clear his desire to go to Anfield following the appointment of Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers as the new boss.

But he wants to show respect to to the Swans by meeting their new manager first, to explain his situation.

Swans chairman Huw Jenkins has been busy looking for Rodgers' replacement and is expected to unveil a new manager within the next week, with former Denmark star Michael Laudrup the overwhelming favourite.

Rodgers, meanwhile, has been busy drawing up a list of transfer targets since arriving at Anfield.

Midfielder Momo Diame, a free agent now his Wigan contract has expired, and Uruguay midfielder Gaston Ramirez of Bologna have both been the subject of inquiries

The attacking midfielder had all but agreed a permanent £6.8million move from Hoffenheim to Swansea at the end of the season, but didn’t sign the deal as it became clear Rodgers was being courted by the Merseyside club.

Sigurdsson confirmed last week that he was having second thoughts about a move to Wales from the German club.

Now he is set to link up again with Rodgers, becoming his first Liverpool signing for a fee similar to the one that would have taken him to Swansea.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/gylfi-sigurdsson-will-join-liverpool-after-880025?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Looks like he's coming to us

mike65

Gaston Ramirez then....c'mon someone tell me all about him!

amiable

missingtime wrote: »

Linked with Gaston Ramirez again. 18 million sterling.

I can't see Sigurdsson and Ramirez being signed this summer.
I reckon Man City will buy Ramirez.

missingtime

amiable wrote: »

I can't see Sigurdsson and Ramirez being signed this summer.
I reckon Man City will buy Ramirez.

Press in Uruguay have said that Liverpool are most likely ;)

More gossip here...

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-sport/eljero-elia-what-liverpool-need-to-know-about-the-juventus-winger/

mike65

Elia sounds from what I've read like a non rapping Ryan Babel, talent is there but not remotely consistent. All promise no product

missingtime

mike65 wrote: »

Elia sounds from what I've read like a non rapping Ryan Babel, talent is there but not remotely consistent. All promise no product

its funny you should mention babel as when that article went up on twitter a bunch of people made that comparison.

However, a bunch of other people have said he won't turn into babel 2.0.

Gbear

amiable wrote: »

I can't see Sigurdsson and Ramirez being signed this summer.
I reckon Man City will buy Ramirez.

I can't really see them making that many signings. How much better can they get?

At this stage changing players would be more or less the same end product.

They have as near as makes no difference the best player in the world in most of the positions.

Jesus Wept

Gaston Ramirez has a superb name, I think he'd be great.

He has also indicated that he is willing to learn Scouse and talk to Carra during meal times.

kingshankly

Andy Carroll wrote: »

Gaston Ramirez has a superb name, I think he'd be great.

He has also indicated that he is willing to learn Scouse and talk to Carra during meal times.

It's his mrs that has to be able to talk to carras mrs now this will be the deal sealer

Vicxas

Sorry if its old news, But its going around twitter all night;

Rumours are that Siggurdson will sign for LFC on July 1 but will give Swansea the courtesy of meeting their new manager first.

Dickerty

mike65 wrote: »

Elia sounds from what I've read like a non rapping Ryan Babel, talent is there but not remotely consistent. All promise no product

And very much not what Rodgers seems to be about. He wants players who can hold the ball, use it smartly, and look for that killer ball at the right time. Elia (and the also mentioned Krasic) seem to be far more direct - run at the defence, have a wild shot, or lose the ball, and don't track back. Both look like bad fits.

Dickerty

One additional benefit of the Sidurdsson thing - Rodgers would know what salary they agree on, so we only need to offer the same, or a little more. We won't get held to ransom like we usually do...

Dickerty

I was just looking through the Euro Draft thread, and I really want one big signing. When we signed Alonso, Torres and Suarez, we knew there was a risk (compared to let's say Johnson, Mascherano or Kuyt), but it was a risk worth taking.

I want us to put our money where our mouth is and convince a star name that we are on the way up, and that CL football will be back next season. Someone like Hamsik or Jovetic, or maybe Ramirez is that player?

SlickRic

Jovetic is rumoured to be gettable too.

missingtime

God I hope this summer is good to us.

Captain Morgan Freeman

Id love if we got Jovetic. They had a bad season finishing 14th so he might be willing to come to us. It would cost a lot of money though and they do love him there.
Is Ramirez a winger or an attacking midfielder? Not much point in us going for him if Sigurdsson plays in the same position.

monkey9

The Echo are talking about Kalou!! He'd be my new Poulsen if he signs!! Just stay the hell away from Anfield, Solomon. Stay away!!

Dickerty

SlickRic wrote: »

Jovetic is rumoured to be gettable too.

I don't think he's blossomed as was expected 2/3 years ago, but he did miss all of 10/11 season with his cruciate, but he managed 14 goals and 6 assists in 26 league starts this season.

Stories suggest Napoli are sniffing around, they will have the Lavezzi money to play with, seems like he's off to PSG...

Kess73

Captain Morgan Freeman wrote: »

Id love if we got Jovetic. They had a bad season finishing 14th so he might be willing to come to us. It would cost a lot of money though and they do love him there.
Is Ramirez a winger or an attacking midfielder? Not much point in us going for him if Sigurdsson plays in the same position.

Jovetic is best in a support striker/CAM slot, pretty much the same positions that Suarez and Sigursson play best in.

Mind you, if Suarez was taken up one of the wide position in a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3, and a quality striker was coming in to be the main finisher for the team, then a player like Jovetic would make since with his close control and ability to play well with players capable of similar close control and one touch football.

Jovetic playing as a support striker to a CF like Carroll would be a disaster imho as Carroll is simply not capable of the clever quick football that Jovetic plays as Jovetic needs players with similar qualities around him in the attacking positions to do his best stuff.

whatawaster

Kess73 wrote: »

Jovetic is best in a support striker/CAM slot, pretty much the same positions that Suarez and Sigursson play best in.

Mind you, if Suarez was taken up one of the wide position in a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3, and a quality striker was coming in to be the main finisher for the team, then a player like Jovetic would make since with his close control and ability to play well with players capable of similar close control and one touch football.

Jovetic playing as a support striker to a CF like Carroll would be a disaster imho as Carroll is simply not capable of the clever quick football that Jovetic plays as Jovetic needs players with similar qualities around him in the attacking positions to do his best stuff.

Can I ask what you saw in Carroll a year ago that you don't see now?

If I recall correctly you thought he might outscore Suarez last season. Obviously it didn't work out for him, but you obviously thought he had some qualities.

Personally, I think to say he is "simply not capable of clever, quick football is way off the mark." He showed he is well capable at the tail-end of last season.

If he played like that every week and scored more goals then he would be an amazing player, and one that players like Suarez would thrive playing with. The fact that he hasn't doesn't mean he is not capable of it. He clearly is. Whether he is capable of it on a regular basis remains to be seen.

Carroll did not have a good season, but I think there are a number of mitigating factors at play:
- £35 million price tag and the massive pressure that comes with it. He's not the first player to struggle under the weight of such expectations.
- Playing in a team that did not play to his strengths imo (and no, his strengths aren't simply fielding long balls all day). Dalglish's Liverpool played ten yards too deep and didn't get enough support players around Carroll, leaving him frequently isolated.
- Age - he is still young, and is likely to improve.
- Suarez - as much as Carroll deserves criticism for not always being on the same wavelength as Suarez, Luis was also terrible imo at reading Carroll's play, particularly his flick ons.
- The above factors combining to result in a huge loss in confidence.

Gbear

Someone just pointed this out to me.




Where's Glen?








Oh right, he's a gob****e.:P

monkey9

Gbear wrote: »

Someone just pointed this out to me.




Where's Glen?








Oh right, he's a gob****e.:P

I actually thought you were pointing out that Wellback hasn't his arm around Terry!

barone

Oooooooooo

Boom_Bap

That gif of Johnson running away reminds me of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSTMsfiZLAY

Dickerty

Story in Corriere della Sport today that Aqua is to buy out his contract and be a free agent. That's one problem solved.

As for Carroll, you also have to remember that he provides a lot of focus for defenders. If you are playing City, he ties up Kompany, likewise Terry v Chelsea. That creates a lot of opportunity for good players to provide from the space that creates...

mike65

Kess73

whatawaster wrote: »

Can I ask what you saw in Carroll a year ago that you don't see now?

If I recall correctly you thought he might outscore Suarez last season. Obviously it didn't work out for him, but you obviously thought he had some qualities.

Personally, I think to say he is "simply not capable of clever, quick football is way off the mark." He showed he is well capable at the tail-end of last season.

If he played like that every week and scored more goals then he would be an amazing player, and one that players like Suarez would thrive playing with. The fact that he hasn't doesn't mean he is not capable of it. He clearly is. Whether he is capable of it on a regular basis remains to be seen.

Carroll did not have a good season, but I think there are a number of mitigating factors at play:
- £35 million price tag and the massive pressure that comes with it. He's not the first player to struggle under the weight of such expectations.
- Playing in a team that did not play to his strengths imo (and no, his strengths aren't simply fielding long balls all day). Dalglish's Liverpool played ten yards too deep and didn't get enough support players around Carroll, leaving him frequently isolated.
- Age - he is still young, and is likely to improve.
- Suarez - as much as Carroll deserves criticism for not always being on the same wavelength as Suarez, Luis was also terrible imo at reading Carroll's play, particularly his flick ons.
- The above factors combining to result in a huge loss in confidence.

Carroll did not show towards the end of last season that he was capable of quick clever football. He put in some damn good performances towards the end of the season but clever football was not something I saw from him. Before last season started I thought that Carroll had a better touch that he has, I thought that he was not blessed with pace but that he was good in terms of positioning, and I also thought he was a bit of a poacher goalwise.

I was proven badly wrong on all three over the course of the season. His positioning player, for a centre forward, is generally very poor. He takes up a striker's position a lot rather than that of a centre forward but he simply does not have the pace to play in a striker role. He does not have the touch, pace, or guile to play in a deep lying forward role but game after game after game he wanders to that position and when he does all he serves to do is slow down any attack as he is unable to play the same kind of quick clever passing game that the likes of Suarez, Maxi etc can do. I had also given him credit for having more game smarts than he had.

If one looks at what Carroll did over the course of the entire season rather than just over the small number of games in which he played well, it would seem that the good games are the exception to the rule for him in a team that wants to play the ball rather than play the percentages.

Said this a number of times but Newcastle were the perfect example of how a team needed to be set up to suit a player of Carroll's limited mobility and game intelligence, and Newcastle are also a perfect example of how much such a team can improve when they decide to turn the team into a ball playing team rather than a % playing team by removing Carroll and the support team Carroll needed to be effective.

Carroll is simply not a good enough centre forward to warrant a similar set up being built around him at Anfield.

He is not mobile, he has a very average touch, and no real pace. Now these things could easily be overcome had he well above average game intelligence and above average positioning, but he showed for most of last season that he is very weak on that front.

If we are looking at players like Jovetic, Sigurdsson, Ramirez etc., then we are looking at players who like to recieve and pass the ball quickly, players who move around a lot and need other around them to be able to move around a lot to be effective. Carroll showed with Suarez and others, more often than not, that he is simply not able to play quick pass and move football and unable to read what clever players will do.

You say that Suarez was unable to read what Carroll was going to do, I remember lots of games last season when Suarez would get the ball, turn quickly to pass it on, and there was Carroll lumbering behind Suarez and not trying to get into the box. Suarez needs a player or players with pace, mobility and positional sense to get the most out of his skillset, Carroll is not one of those players.

Carroll playing like he did in the second half of the cup final or as he did in the last home game of the season is a beast of a player who uses his build to cause chaos in the box. Carroll playing like he did for at least half of the season is a slow moving player who retards play 30 yards or more from the goal and helps give the other team time to regroup.

Sgt Pepper 64

I feel your pain already!

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/7810439/

Go get him Buck!

mike65

Hard to see why or what Kalou would add, if Sterlings development is going to be stymied
it should at least be due to a top level winger getting the gig (sorry Stu!)

Dickerty

Please note: Kalou's AGENT says he'd be interested. Yes, Rodgers would know him from his Chelsea days, but that's the extent of the story. He's on a free, so of course his agent is going to talk up every big club why is linked with him...

Dublin_Gunner

donfers wrote: »

quite a bold statement seeing as there is so much competition

CHAD
keane
cheyrou/diouf/diao
pennant
poulsen/konchesky

but yes he's definitely right up there, it's between him, downing, keane and diouf in my opinion and cole's wages too in terms of money wasted

Keane wasn't necessarily bad business. He scored a good few goals and we got most of the cash back. Strange business, but not too bad.

Pennant? Are you off your rocker? Pennant did pretty alright for us. Was never gonna set the world alight, but he played well most of the time, and delivered many a good cross for Crouch to latch on to. people are way too critical of him.
We got to the champions league final with him in the team ffs.

How you don't have Cole in that list is shocking.

opr

Talk that Man City's head scout David Fallows is joining Liverpool.

Opr

Lawrence1895

Gbear wrote: »

Someone just pointed this out to me.




Where's Glen?








Oh right, he's a gob****e.:P

Looks like, he needed to drain the spuds before the match starts

Dickerty

opr wrote: »

Talk that Man City's head scout David Fallows is joining Liverpool.

Opr

Isn't his job just to get the latest version on CM every year and filter by "Value: £10M+" ??

Dublin_Gunner

opr wrote: »

Talk that Man City's head scout David Fallows is joining Liverpool.

Opr

Man City scouts job:

Look at tele.

Pick the best, big name player that is likely to move.

Pay for him.

Repeat.

It'll be a bit tougher on Merseyside I'd imagine.

Francie Barrett

Kalou? Thanks, but no thanks. We've already been burned with one Chelsea reject.

G.K.

opr wrote: »

Talk that Man City's head scout David Fallows is joining Liverpool.

Opr

If he was involved with bringing to City the likes of Suarez, Reikik, Guidetti, Abu, Assulin it looks a good signature.

missingtime

G.K. wrote: »

If he was involved with bringing to City the likes of Suarez, Reikik, Guidetti, Abu, Assulin it looks a good signature.

Immediately thought of him when Opr mentioned Fallows.

Grayditch

I thought Kalou had a good season, the one before last. He's very inconsistent, but hardly think he'd be a signing nightmare.

doc_17

Reckon Kalou would be a bad signing. Would prefer sturridge

~Rebel~

Grayditch wrote: »

I thought Kalou had a good season, the one before last. He's very inconsistent, but hardly think he'd be a signing nightmare.

Have to say i'd be in this camp too. Would he be worth 10 million or something? No.

If he was brought in on a free, without being bent over a barrel on wages, he might be quite a good signing. He can be absolutely fantastic at times when he has a run of games, and certainly offers something we don't have. He is still only 26...

The key thing really is his cost.

Really, there aren't too many complete players in the wing forward positions we're going to be able to sign - it's one of the most expensive positions to fill. They will either have to be out of favour where they are, inexperienced, or on a free (and even then they'll likely select champions league teams).

Of the ones in this catagory to fit Rodgers style, I'd like us to take a serious look at Krasic. Technically, he's excellent. Has a huge workrate, can beat a man and come inside, or put in a decent cross, and has plenty of pace, and can score a goal - WHEN his head is right. When it's not, he looks like he has done a lot of the time for Juve. I think it'd be worth the staff chatting with him and seeing what they think. If he was up for the change - really up for it, not just money - he'd be worth a punt I think.

Also, Elia is a lot better than Babel.

noodler

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

Keane wasn't necessarily bad business. He scored a good few goals and we got most of the cash back. Strange business, but not too bad.

Pennant? Are you off your rocker? Pennant did pretty alright for us. Was never gonna set the world alight, but he played well most of the time, and delivered many a good cross for Crouch to latch on to. people are way too critical of him.
We got to the champions league final with him in the team ffs.

How you don't have Cole in that list is shocking.

I am sorry if I have not bactracked enough into the thread for better context on this discussion but Aqualani is the worst Liverpool signing ever in my eyes.

doc_17

Yeah Aquilani was terrible business. Very surprised that Rafa bought him for that money.

~Rebel~

doc_17 wrote: »

Yeah Aquilani was terrible business. Very surprised that Rafa bought him for that money.

I believe he's said since that when we sold Alonso, that he was limited to buying from clubs who owed us money so we wouldn't have to pay cash.

It's a weird one regardless though. He's not a flop because of his ability. It seems to be his mentality that has let us down, which is a much harder thing to identify beforehand. Especially when a guy has never had the experience of leaving home before, so there was nothing to point at to say "we should have known this would happen".

How it's been dealt with since is what is particularly embarrassing though. We should have either forced him to play, or gotten rid. These loan deals have just been a joke.

D'Agger

noodler wrote: »

I am sorry if I have not bactracked enough into the thread for better context on this discussion but Aqualani is the worst Liverpool signing ever in my eyes.

Would agree with that - the price, the amount of games played, the bizarrely stupid loans to AC

Everything about it was disastrous.