Liverpool FC News/Gossip/Rumours Summer '15

ricero

Really hope the club shows some balls and brings in a marquee signing along with benteke

Tipsy McSwagger

https://twitter.com/footballmundiai/status/620948582963761152

JohnDaniels

martyos121 wrote: »

I couldn't disagree more with this.

Navas actually has some semblance of an end product, he's miles ahead of Sterling IMO.

Sterling's end product will be just fine alongside Aguero/Silva. I am still laughing at the fact you think Navas is miles ahead of Sterling. He will rip up the league with those two next season. If Sterling continues on his tradectory I think he will have a similar impact for City that Gerrard has for us. People who can't see the talent he has for his age should give up watching football. Yippee though we got loads of money in the bank.

klose

JohnDaniels wrote: »

Navas played 47 games for them last season. Sterling is a massive level above him. He will get plenty of a chance at City.

He will also be competing with nasri if he isint getting turfed out for being a moaney cribarse

martyos121

JohnDaniels wrote: »

Sterling's end product will be just fine alongside Aguero/Silva. I am still laughing at the fact you think Navas is miles ahead of Sterling. He will rip up the league with those two next season. If Sterling continues on his tradectory I think he will have a similar impact for City that Gerrard has for us. People who can't see the talent he has for his age should give up watching football. Yippee though we got loads of money in the bank.

If you think he'll be starting week in, week out for City, there's probably another reason you're laughing. Also, how will his end product improve alongside Aguero and Silva If he can't cross the ball into them and keeps losing it like he did for Liverpool last season. Of course he has talent, but there's absolutely nothing to suggest he'll reach his potential, his attitude is toxic.

Osmosis Jones

The club should give Ibe the number 31, just to fúck with Sterling.

martyos121

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

The club should give Ibe the number 31, just to fúck with Sterling.

Can't wait for the day Ibe earns his £150k a week contract while Sterling is on loan at Villa too! :pac:

It honestly wouldn't shock me, Scott Sinclair was meant to be the next big thing and look at him now.

Washington Irving

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

The club should give Ibe the number 31, just to fúck with Sterling.

Should be retired and dubbed the "Raheem Sterling Benedict Arnold shirt".

MightyMandarin

martyos121 wrote: »

Can't wait for the day Ibe earns his £150k a week contract while Sterling is on loan at Villa too! :pac:

It honestly wouldn't shock me, Scott Sinclair was meant to be the next big thing and look at him now.

Scott Sinclair was nowhere near the player that Sterling is. That said, him ending up at a mid table side in 3 years wouldn't shock me, as he has a stinking attitude, whereas Sinclair was just out of his depth.

Fowler87

MightyMandarin wrote: »

Scott Sinclair was nowhere near the player that Sterling is. That said, him ending up at a mid table side in 3 years wouldn't shock me, as he has a stinking attitude, whereas Sinclair was just out of his depth.

Agreed its the attitude of Sterling that will show where his career will go, i.e. Neymar vs Pato. He has the ability though to become a great player

54and56

Fowler87 wrote: »

Agreed its the attitude of Sterling that will show where his career will go, i.e. Neymar vs Pato. He has the ability though to become a great player

I think his overtly mercenary attitude (dropping QPR to chase £'s at LFC then dropping LFC to chase more £'s at MC) indicates how it's exclusively about money for him more so than most and now that he's signed his £50m contract the mercenary drive could wane. I know all professional footballers want to maximise their earnings and rightly so but I just think the way Sterling was nakedly prepared to do anything to chase the big bucks at MC might be a reflection that his sole ambition might be money. If that's the case he may not have the drive to achieve his potential. I hope for his sake I'm wrong but the laughing gas, close shaves with the law etc make the cynic in me think otherwise.

MD1990

Sterling's attitude on the pitch has always been very good tbh. Always gave his all. But that could change with the amount of money he will be earning.

~Rebel~

JohnDaniels wrote: »

Sterling's end product will be just fine alongside Aguero/Silva. I am still laughing at the fact you think Navas is miles ahead of Sterling. He will rip up the league with those two next season. If Sterling continues on his tradectory I think he will have a similar impact for City that Gerrard has for us. People who can't see the talent he has for his age should give up watching football. Yippee though we got loads of money in the bank.

As with all things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Navas isn't miles ahead of Sterling, Sterling isn't miles ahead of Navas. Sterling is more direct, will get more goals (though still needs to seriously up his 1 in 7 record), while Navas will get more assists.

I'm sure he'll have a decent impact for City, I very much doubt he will have anything like the impact Gerrard has had for Liverpool.

This move reminds me a little of Ronaldhino going to Barca. That was a move that put huge pressure on him to step up and become something more than he'd been before, and he did it. To be honest, I'm not sure Sterling has the mentality to do the same. For that you need to invite and exceed expectation. Sterling thus far hasn't tended to do that when the focus went on him, but maybe he can change.

I think he'll be a good city player, probably their third or fourth most important. Doubt he'll ever be their number one guy.

rossie1977

navas better than sterling, sinclair the same level

what are people smoking in here

mikeym

MD1990 wrote: »

Sterling's attitude on the pitch has always been very good tbh. Always gave his all. But that could change with the amount of money he will be earning.

Are you serious???

He had a good first half but when he and his agent went public over his contract he never had a decent game since and I have watched 99% of Liverpool matches last season.

DaveSuarez

It doesn't matter how much we got for him the fact is we've lost one of the brightest young talents in world football. It says a lot about where we are as a club.

Would people be celebrating if we sold Coutinho tomorrow for 15 million more than his market value?

rob316

DaveSuarez wrote: »

It doesn't matter how much we got for him the fact is we've lost one of the brightest young talents in world football. It says a lot about where we are as a club.

Would people be celebrating if we sold Coutinho tomorrow for 15 million more than his market value?

He's gone. Sign a goalscorer and we won't be long forgetting about him whatever goes on to do at city.

~Rebel~

DaveSuarez wrote: »

It doesn't matter how much we got for him the fact is we've lost one of the brightest young talents in world football. It says a lot about where we are as a club.

I mean, yeah it says where we are as a club, but is that anything we didn't already know?

We're in the second tier of clubs. Have been for a very very long time. Still right up at the top in the grand scheme of things, but if one of the monied top tier of clubs (there's maybe 6 to 8 of them) want a player from any of the infiniti of clubs below them, they'll get them.

Hollister11

The annoying thing is this transfer has cost city feck all. They have sold 40.9m worth of player, and 11 players have left, so that's probably his wages covered as well.

MD1990

mikeym wrote: »

Are you serious???

He had a good first half but when he and his agent went public over his contract he never had a decent game since and I have watched 99% of Liverpool matches last season.

It had a mixed season last year. I always felt he gave his all on the pitch though.

~Rebel~

MD1990 wrote: »

It had a mixed season last year. I always felt he gave his all on the pitch though.

Its not an easy thing to quantify I guess...I mean, he ran around a lot, but his decision making went to pot, and he totally wilted under physical pressure.

The previous year, he'd hold off player and try to actually do something...for the last six months he'd consistently run into someone and fall over. Sometimes he'd get a free, sometimes he didn't, but he got very very one dimensional.

He obviously have the technical and physical ability, the questions over him are all mental. I wouldn't be surprised to see him settle into a comfort zone - good, but not astonishing in the way he could be - in the way someone like Hazard is.

On this subject - one of the things I keep seeing to support him is his goals record versus C. Ronaldo at the same age. What made Ronaldo great was that after that point, as he matured, he worked his ****ing balls off on every single aspect of his game. He never rested on his laurels, he became as phsyically and technically sharp as he could possibly get. He was incessantly hungry to be at the very very top of the game. It's what comes next that will show if Sterling deserves any sort of comparison to Cristiano Ronaldo.

Magico Gonzalez

He is a man city player, done. Lets stop using another clubs player to attack the manager or make unrealistic (reus) transfer demands or crying and moaning to sign a one season wonder from the french league.

Charlie19

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Knex looks so cute there....

You wouldn't be saying that If the gang was with him.

Washington Irving

Terrible attitude

https://twitter.com/mamadousakho3/status/621029497157091328

marklazarcovic

i cant understand how anyone can be critical of the club over this transfer all things considered . we have done brilliantly off a player wanting to leave,a player of potential only,we cant compete in deals of that magnitude.

Iused2likebusts

Apart from pace and dribbling ability what is it that has people thinking sterling is going to be a world class player.

~Rebel~

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

Apart from pace and dribbling ability what is it that has people thinking sterling is going to be a world class player.

The thing that stood out the season before last was his game intelligence. That seems to have gone a bit backwards in the past year though.

Harry Palmr

~Rebel~ wrote: »

The thing that stood out the season before last was his game intelligence. That seems to have gone a bit backwards in the past year though.

Probably indicates his actual level, its easy when you're winning.

monkey9

It's mad that some fans are trying to claim Sterling will just be another Scott Sinclair and fade into the Man City reserves before dropping down the league.

Sterling is clearly of a higher quality. His quality was evident when we paid the money we did to bring him to the club as a fifteen year old. I'd never heard of him but i genuinely was excited by the signing because he must have had something about him.

I saw him in the underage sides including the NextGen series and he just stood out. It was no surprise when Kenny gave him his debut at such a young age and not just a token appearance, it was a serious and genuine intergration into the senior squad. He was very good at first and then went off the boil for a bit, unsurprisingly for someone so young.

As far as i can recall, his re-emergence as the player he is today came when Rodgers started him in the five nil win over Spurs at White Hart Lane just before Christmas 2013. I think he may have been in and out of the team up to that point in the season and i was very surprised when he started, i certainly wasn't too happy about it.

But he had an absolute stormer of a game, back to the way he was when he first broke into the team and he never looked back after that when he was a huge factor in us going as close as we ever have to winning a nineteenth title.

He started last season off well but gradually got worse until the last few months when he just became a waste of space.

But he's so much better than Sinclair or Rodwell. He's an England international starter, played in the World Cup and the Champions League and has that experience of challenging for the title.

He must be Man City's record signing and they are going to give him every chance which i think he'll take.

It's a pity the way things have worked out. I'd much rather a fully committed Raheem Sterling giving his all for the club and wanting to be there instead of selling him for fifty million.

But that wasn't the situation and in the circumstances, i'm delighted with the fee we have received for him.

Hopefully it's put to good use.

BorneTobyWilde

Sterling The Musical

At theaters near you soon

With such original songs as

'' You're Standing Too Close''

''It's NOT About The Money''
&
''You're Once , Twice, 3 Times A Liar ''

And much much more

Book Now

garra

martyos121 wrote: »

If you think he'll be starting week in, week out for City, there's probably another reason you're laughing. Also, how will his end product improve alongside Aguero and Silva If he can't cross the ball into them and keeps losing it like he did for Liverpool last season. Of course he has talent, but there's absolutely nothing to suggest he'll reach his potential, his attitude is toxic.

His attitude on the pitch has always been faultless imo, always brave enough to get up and keep playing after getting kicked about, shielding the ball with more tenacity than his size would suggest, showing more grit than some senior players.

Off the pitch, not so good. Chose the wrong people around him but still has the potential to be a great player if he gets his head together.

brevity

Losing Suarez and Sturridge being injured had a big effect on him imo. Perhaps Gerrard leaving as well. I think he found himself in a situation he wasn't comfortable with.

Either way, I don't really blame him for leaving. There is no loyalty from either side anymore. The club would drop him like a hot **** if it was in their best interests. As it is, leaving Liverpool is most definitely in his best interests.

Harry Palmr

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Probably indicates his actual level, its easy when you're winning.

Or indicates he had a manager not really getting the best out of him.

Playing him on his own up top for quite a chunk of the season and he held his own.

Not to mention not exactly playing with great players.

Hilarious people dissing Sterling. We are worse without him, simple as that.

Good luck to him.

kippy

DaveSuarez wrote: »

It doesn't matter how much we got for him the fact is we've lost one of the brightest young talents in world football. It says a lot about where we are as a club.

Would people be celebrating if we sold Coutinho tomorrow for 15 million more than his market value?

Sometimes reality hurts. In a world where you can't possibly improve that reality all you can do is make sure you get as much as you can and try improve things.
Liverpool did well out of the deal. Its all about how well the money is spent. Losing Suarez, Gerrard and Sterling in the space of 12 months is a major blow but what can you do?

Zapp Brannigan

Is Reus being unveiled tomorrow?

NukaCola

Time was we would be disappointed if we didn't get a title challenge or didn't get further in the CL, now our manager, and many agree with him, think 5th is par. This is acceptable now and is a reality. Standards have slipped so much.

I think we just have to accept that we will continue to lose our best players year after year. If they are good enoug chances are they will be sold, so enjoy them while they are here.

Unless there is a fundamental change in the club from top to bottom we will continue to falter in the league and fail to win trophies. I'm not saying change is easy or even have a strategy but its plain to see our strategy, throughout the club, is a tier below where we want to be. We are outside the top 4 in every aspect.

I'm not trying to knock the club, but at some point we are going to have to either spend big on quality or find a few gems or get lucky with our academy and maybe we'll need to do all 3 to get up to a standard where we can compete for major trophys or we are going to get left behind.

Grayditch

Sterling will be savage. I hope he's brutal though. I love when people with a poisonous attitude fail. I'm not bitter about him wanting to leave, even though it's some cheek at the age of twenty, but it's the way he went about it. You won't get a classy response from me on this one. I hope he's dirt.

Unlikely.

brevity

NukaCola wrote: »

Time was we would be disappointed if we didn't get a title challenge or didn't get further in the CL, now our manager, and many agree with him, think 5th is par. This is acceptable now and is a reality. Standards have slipped so much.

I think we just have to accept that we will continue to lose our best players year after year. If they are good enoug chances are they will be sold, so enjoy them while they are here.

Unless there is a fundamental change in the club from top to bottom we will continue to falter in the league and fail to win trophies. I'm not saying change is easy or even have a strategy but its plain to see our strategy, throughout the club, is a tier below where we want to be. We are outside the top 4 in every aspect.

I'm not trying to knock the club, but at some point we are going to have to either spend big on quality or find a few gems or get lucky with our academy and maybe we'll need to do all 3 to get up to a standard where we can compete for major trophys or we are going to get left behind.

This is it for me. We have to do all three.

~Rebel~

monkey9 wrote: »

It's mad that some fans are trying to claim Sterling will just be another Scott Sinclair and fade into the Man City reserves before dropping down the league.

Sterling is clearly of a higher quality. His quality was evident when we paid the money we did to bring him to the club as a fifteen year old. I'd never heard of him but i genuinely was excited by the signing because he must have had something about him.

I saw him in the underage sides including the NextGen series and he just stood out. It was no surprise when Kenny gave him his debut at such a young age and not just a token appearance, it was a serious and genuine intergration into the senior squad. He was very good at first and then went off the boil for a bit, unsurprisingly for someone so young.

As far as i can recall, his re-emergence as the player he is today came when Rodgers started him in the five nil win over Spurs at White Hart Lane just before Christmas 2013. I think he may have been in and out of the team up to that point in the season and i was very surprised when he started, i certainly wasn't too happy about it.

But he had an absolute stormer of a game, back to the way he was when he first broke into the team and he never looked back after that when he was a huge factor in us going as close as we ever have to winning a nineteenth title.

He started last season off well but gradually got worse until the last few months when he just became a waste of space.

But he's so much better than Sinclair or Rodwell. He's an England international starter, played in the World Cup and the Champions League and has that experience of challenging for the title.

He must be Man City's record signing and they are going to give him every chance which i think he'll take.

It's a pity the way things have worked out. I'd much rather a fully committed Raheem Sterling giving his all for the club and wanting to be there instead of selling him for fifty million.

But that wasn't the situation and in the circumstances, i'm delighted with the fee we have received for him.

Hopefully it's put to good use.

He's clearly miles better than the likes of Sinclair, but I remember exactly just how incredibly exciting Shaun Wright-Phillips was - he had everything, until he just didn't anymore. i think that's the best comparison for what could happen imo. Equally gigantic move (over 20 million, 10 years ago).

It's entirely up to Sterling how good he becomes. He's already gotten the money (far too early in his career imo), so he's going to need something else to spur him onwards. He has the tools to be great, but it'll take a lot more than ability, it'll take a fantastic mentality. We'll just wait and see, it's totally up to him.

monkey9

NukaCola wrote: »

Time was we would be disappointed if we didn't get a title challenge or didn't get further in the CL, now our manager, and many agree with him, think 5th is par. This is acceptable now and is a reality. Standards have slipped so much.

I think we just have to accept that we will continue to lose our best players year after year. If they are good enoug chances are they will be sold, so enjoy them while they are here.

Unless there is a fundamental change in the club from top to bottom we will continue to falter in the league and fail to win trophies. I'm not saying change is easy or even have a strategy but its plain to see our strategy, throughout the club, is a tier below where we want to be. We are outside the top 4 in every aspect.

I'm not trying to knock the club, but at some point we are going to have to either spend big on quality or find a few gems or get lucky with our academy and maybe we'll need to do all 3 to get up to a standard where we can compete for major trophys or we are going to get left behind.

You're right though, we are outside the top four. We're just underneath trying to break through every now and again.

Some fans really need to grasp this reality. It's the 21st century. Normally Man City and Chelsea wouldn't be up there, but they are now and are there to stay due to the billionaire owners. They're only going to grow. That's a couple of Champions League spots gone straight away.

So it's either get the Arabs in or buy smartly and build up the academy. This is why i want to give Rodgers every chance. If we don't have the billions (and we're not exactly paupers in fairness, we're one of the biggest clubs in the world), i want a philosophy at the club from top to bottom where we can grow something.

Now before the Rodgers haters hop on this, if Rodgers isn't the man, then fine. But i'm not in favour of sacking managers every few seasons, i want us to build something. We can't compete with Man City and Chelsea when it comes to transfer fees and wages. Even Man U are having to go mad with the money to keep up with those two clubs seeing as their own dynasty is over.

Mr.H

NukaCola wrote: »

Time was we would be disappointed if we didn't get a title challenge or didn't get further in the CL, now our manager, and many agree with him, think 5th is par. This is acceptable now and is a reality. Standards have slipped so much.

I think we just have to accept that we will continue to lose our best players year after year. If they are good enoug chances are they will be sold, so enjoy them while they are here.

Unless there is a fundamental change in the club from top to bottom we will continue to falter in the league and fail to win trophies. I'm not saying change is easy or even have a strategy but its plain to see our strategy, throughout the club, is a tier below where we want to be. We are outside the top 4 in every aspect.

I'm not trying to knock the club, but at some point we are going to have to either spend big on quality or find a few gems or get lucky with our academy and maybe we'll need to do all 3 to get up to a standard where we can compete for major trophys or we are going to get left behind.

No surprise you have another person who agrees with you

Issue is that we are/where the 5th highest for wages last season iirc. I think that is teh reason this "on par" thing came about with finishing 5th. If you spend the most on wages you should finish the highest. Thats the theory, but we know thats not reality. If it was then "in theory" if we paid Sterling 200k a week then he would go on to score 20-30 goals next season. Of course thats ridiculous and disproves any "theory".

But to a degree it does make sense. Maybe we do need to start spending bigger.

We did this whole thing of paying players on merit. Paying modest wages to start and uping the wages on performance. Great idea that should be kept on. BUT............ If a special talent comes along ie: Higguian or Rues, then maybe we should splash the cash and pay them a "marquee wage". It should be easy to explain to other players in the squad that having a marquee name will only help them to perform better therefore potentially increasing their wage through performance.

Last year we where maybe the 5th/6th best team to be fair. We where not better than the top 4 and we where equal with Spurs. We finished where we deserved to finish.

But onwards and upwards. Tough season ahead and we need to hit the ground running. I expect big things from last years recruits or else their career high will be short lived

Iused2likebusts

Just watched the John Barnes life stories I recorded a few weeks back. What a player brought back some great memories that goal against qpr and some bad ones losing the league when he should have brought the ball to the corner. Hard to believe he was the first English player to get wages of 10k a week and the outrage it caused when you look at the wages being paid now.

Pepp1989

Re sterling - my reading of it is that people aren't celebrating the loss of him as a first team player but rather getting a huge price for a player who disrespected the club and wanted out.

kippy

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

Just watched the John Barnes life stories I recorded a few weeks back. What a player brought back some great memories that goal against qpr and some bad ones losing the league when he should have brought the ball to the corner. Hard to believe he was the first English player to get wages of 10k a week and the outrage it caused when you look at the wages being paid now.

Wages are still outrageous.

Vicxas

Pepp1989 wrote: »

Re sterling - my reading of it is that people aren't celebrating the loss of him as a first team player but rather getting a huge price for a player who disrespected the club and wanted out.

Very few people are upset that he's leaving. His attitude has been toxic for the best part of a year.

T-K-O

Vicxas wrote: »

Very few people are upset that he's leaving. His attitude has been toxic for the best part of a year.

Funny that those who are really upset also want BR gone, strange that.

murpho999

Vicxas wrote: »

Very few people are upset that he's leaving. His attitude has been toxic for the best part of a year.

Seriously how do you know that?

Based on one interview with the BBC a few months back?

Before that he did nothing wrong, no public outbursts, no strops on the pitch. No fighting with manager, club or team mates. You can't judge him by his form as the whole team was sh1te and his head was turned.

Only negatives during the last season has been that stupid 'gas' episode, the ill advised interview and his agent. Then last week, calling in sick etc. (However we wouldn't mind so much if a player did the same thing to get a transfer to us).

I think the club got great money for him, but City haven't paid so much money just to get an English player on their books as many argue, plenty of them out there. They know he's quality and made a major investment. They are not idiots.

Liverpool have got a lot of cash in the bank but at present our team and squad is weaker. I would have loved to seen him stay and progress with us but maybe it's a wake up call to all, including the club that big players don't see success coming at the club and that is worrying. I hope I am wrong.

EDIT: I'm seeing him now on SSN in the blue top and scarf above his head and it's not nice to be honest, no matter how much we got. As players now see Liverpool as a stepping stone to join Man City when for years it was always the reverse.

NoelJ

murpho999 wrote: »

Seriously how do you know that?

Based on one interview with the BBC a few months back?

Before that he did nothing wrong, no public outbursts, no strops on the pitch. No fighting with manager, club or team mates. You can't judge him by his form as the whole team was sh1te and his head was turned.

Only negatives during the last season has been that stupid 'gas' episode, the ill advised interview and his agent. Then last week, calling in sick etc. (However we wouldn't mind so much if a player did the same thing to get a transfer to us).

I think the club got great money for him, but City haven't paid so much money just to get an English player on their books as many argue, plenty of them out there. They know he's quality and made a major investment. They are not idiots.

Liverpool have got a lot of cash in the bank but at present our team and squad is weaker. I would have loved to seen him stay and progress with us but maybe it's a wake up call to all, including the club that big players don't see success coming at the club and that is worrying. I hope I am wrong.

EDIT: I'm seeing him now on SSN in the blue top and scarf above his head and it's not nice to be honest, no matter how much we got.

I do like him as a player last year but just looking at the BBCs report on comparing him to Messi, Ronaldo and Rooney. They were all big players internationally for their countries and were making a serious impact at club level at his age. I really just can't see Sterling doing that and really think its a good idea by the club. I'd be shocked if he reached their levels.

8-10

murpho999 wrote: »

Only negatives during the last season has been that stupid 'gas' episode, the ill advised interview and his agent. Then last week, calling in sick etc. (However we wouldn't mind so much if a player did the same thing to get a transfer to us).

I didn't think much of his pulling out of playing for his country because he was "too tired"

murpho999

8-10 wrote: »

I didn't think much of his pulling out of playing for his country because he was "too tired"

Couldn't care less about that, nothing to do with LFC and probably benefited them.