Southampton-v-Liverpool (Will Contain Scores)

kida

Barring Alonso his transfer dealing have been to put it mildly awful.

Josemi
Garci
Nunez
Morientes(I don't rate him)

d22ontour

thats a bit unfair, foreign players have to be given at least 18 months to integrate into another culture,style of play and language barrier would probably be a problem as well

puntosporting

My patience is wearing pretty thin with some of the sighnings at this stage!
Garcia is bloody awfull he realy does not understand the english game!
Dont get me started on the 33 year old pellegrino way past his best!

d22ontour

only some foreign players make an immediate impact rvn,heinze,vieira spring to mind, look at henry and pires they took time to settle and adjust to physical football

bit of a trend there, players who can take a bit of the rough stuff compared to flair types

The Muppet

d22ontour wrote:

thats a bit unfair, foreign players have to be given at least 18 months to integrate into another culture,style of play and language barrier would probably be a problem as well

I agree players need time to settle. Pellegrino will be touching 35 in 18 months time so you would have to question that signing too. He looked very slow yesterday and that is unlikely to improve with age. I,m not convinced that the spanish players can cope with premiership. Maybe its the physical nature of it or it could be the cold but most of them just seem to be too easy to take out of a game.

kida

All signings need time -you have to question his logic of signing all players who will need time. Not making CL this year would be a disaster.

Pellegrino makes Blanc look fast

d22ontour

kida wrote:

Barring Alonso his transfer dealing have been to put it mildly awful.

Josemi
Garci
Nunez
Morientes(I don't rate him)

he wasnt in this list i would say pellagrino is more of a quick fix than a long term signing i thought would be obvious considering his age

kida

http://www.football365.com/news/story_141214.shtml

he has Hoo Hoos backing - what a laugh

PHB

This is just bull**** from Liverpool fans.

Liverpool aren't a world class team, they are barely even a CL team.
Benitz has done a fantastic job keeping them up to where they are after.

A. Losing Owen
B. Losing Cisce.
C. Losing Alonso

All players that would instantly make the first team.

Tbh I'm still amazing they are up so high, and tahts because of Benitez.
Gerrard was always going to go next summer unless Liverpool came top 3, and they havn't so hes gone, whether or not hes going to Chelsea I'm not 100% sure about that.

Maybe Chelsea, maybe Real Madrid, maybe another club.
He will be sought after highly.

Does nobody else think theres a strong possibility that Chelsea are gona get ****ed in a couple of years when Ambrovonich leaves? I figure thats always in the back of a player signing for Chelesas mind, especially when he could go to nearly any club in the world

puntosporting

If gerrard leaves which i dont think he will next season i cant see him staying in england!
I think benitez is the right man for the job and things will come good "eventualy"!
But im still dissapointed in garcia out of all the signings made!
Fact is Liverpool have a very strong history and pedigree as a football club and as a fan your are going to want success but unfortunatly you have to live with and support your club through failure!
I always will follow liverpool no matter what!

Jivin Turkey

PHB wrote:

This is just bull**** from Liverpool fans.

Liverpool aren't a world class team, they are barely even a CL team.

I dont think anyone, least of all Liverpool fans are disputing this.

Benetiz has done a great job so far. He has already shipped out (or at least bought the one way ticket for) a good lot of the dead wood. Some of his signing have failed to inspire confidence, but in Alonso and Morientes, he has signed two players that are of top level European standard. That is something that Liverpool havnt had in a while, fans have had to be content with "The hottest thing to come out of Croatia" or "The new <insert famous French player>".

Results aside, the last three performances have been woeful. But you only have to look at the team that finished the game yesterday to be able to tell why. Liverpool need to buy, and now, however I think Benetiz is prepared to let the season go and get who he really wants in the Summer (as opposed to taking his second or third choice now).

Its not all that bad though, still in 5th, in the CL, and a good chance of reaching the Carling Cup final.

galwaydude

Rememeber liverpool are missing
* alonso,
* cisse
* kewell, was coming back too top form when he got injured
* sicknote kirkland


thats 4 first team players, liverpools squad is threadbare at the moment so give him a chance to sort it out.Remember he won 2 la ligas in spain so cant be as bad a coach as some UTD and arsenal fans on here are going on about.

Any word about solari, is he any good
hes a left winger at real madrid and might be joining liverpool on the bosman if we beat UTD to him

MrJoeSoap

I think I might rename this thread: "Liverpool & Their Problems: A Fans View"

So you are missing four players, so what? Let me remind you you have signed:

Jerzy Dudek - £4.85m
Scott Carson - £1m
Chris Kirkland - £6m (at least)

Stephane Henchoz - £3.5m
Steve Finnan - £3.5m (undisclosed)
Sami Hyypia - £3m
John Arne Riise - £4m
Josemi - £2m
Djimi Traore - £550,000

Harry Kewell - £5m
Luis Garcia - £6m
Vladimir Smicer - £4.2m
Xabi Alonso - £10m
Salif Diao - £4.7m
Dietmar Hamann - £8m
Igor Biscan - £5.5m

Milan Baros - £3.6m
Djibril Cisse - £14m
Fernando Morientes - £6.3m
Florent Sinama Pongolle - £3m

(not to mention El-Hadji Diouf, a snip at just £10m)

- That brings the total value of Liverpools squad, not to mention the value of Gerrard and Carragher to £108.7m)

OK so I've done the Liverpool maths, anyone care to tell me what the Everton squad cost?

Chucky the tree

MrJoeSoap wrote:

I think I might rename this thread: "Liverpool & Their Problems: A Fans View"

So you are missing four players, so what? Let me remind you you have signed:

Jerzy Dudek - £4.85m
Scott Carson - £1m
Chris Kirkland - £6m (at least)

Stephane Henchoz - £3.5m
Steve Finnan - £3.5m (undisclosed)
Sami Hyypia - £3m
John Arne Riise - £4m
Josemi - £2m
Djimi Traore - £550,000

Harry Kewell - £5m
Luis Garcia - £6m
Vladimir Smicer - £4.2m
Xabi Alonso - £10m
Salif Diao - £4.7m
Dietmar Hamann - £8m
Igor Biscan - £5.5m

Milan Baros - £3.6m
Djibril Cisse - £14m
Fernando Morientes - £6.3m
Florent Sinama Pongolle - £3m

(not to mention El-Hadji Diouf, a snip at just £10m)

- That brings the total value of Liverpools squad, not to mention the value of Gerrard and Carragher to £108.7m)

OK so I've done the Liverpool maths, anyone care to tell me what the Everton squad cost?

and your point is?

poor result. Fair play to southampton, played much better and definitly deserved the win.

You cant blame rafa for yesterdays result, he picked the best team he was able too. It would be great if we could get scot parker on loan.

galwaydude

the majority of those players u mentioned were houiller signings and what a waste of money most of them were.Im not sayiing that liverpool have the devine right to be up their at the top.Just give the manager time.Have to say i can see southampton being in the top 10 come the end of the season as rednappe is a good manager and i hear they are signing ricardo fuller too.

MrJoeSoap

galwaydude wrote:

Have to say i can see southampton being in the top 10 come the end of the season as rednappe is a good manager

Are you for real?

We're 13 points off 10th place as it is! (We'd be lucky to pick up that many points between now and the end of the season)

We've won 1 of our last 11 matches!

We still have to play Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea and Everton at St. Marys!

Chucky the tree wrote:

and your point is?

My point was simply to illustrate that Liverpool have spent over 100 million on their squad and people moan when they are missing 4 players! Everton have been down to their bare bones all season (because of their tiny squad) and still manage to do incredibly well. Blaming Liverpools problems on injuries is just ignorant.

Jivin Turkey

MrJoeSoap wrote:

My point was simply to illustrate that Liverpool have spent over 100 million on their squad and people moan when they are missing 4 players! Everton have been down to their bare bones all season (because of their tiny squad) and still manage to do incredibly well. Blaming Liverpools problems on injuries is just ignorant.

Your point illustrates nothing apart from Liverpool have spent money poorly in the past. And some of the players you listed were signed up to 6 or 7 years ago. And eight (nine including EHD) of your list were unavailable to play for Liverpool yesterday.

Everton have a small squad (like Liverpool), but they havnt had many injuries so far this year, thats why they are up so high (unlike Liverpool, even though the gap is only 7 points).

Liverpools performance this year are down to far more than injuries, a new manager, new players, a new system, amongst others, and despite all that they still are not doing bad at all, 5th place, Carling Cup semis, and CL knockout.

galwaydude

remember when strachen was manager they continuesly were in the top ten, rednapp can have the same affect.
Signing jaime rednapp was great business, have some faith as rednapp has only been in charge for a few matches.Always liked him from his west ham days.

And well spending over 100 million, that was criminal, he spent it on expensive foreighners who did little for liverpool but pick up their massive wages.Houiller was food in his day but at the end lost the plot.

Thanx 4 The Fish

Liverpool have the smallest squad in the premiership, and at the moment are carrying alot of injuries.

To say that they are not suffering from injuries is not just ignorant it is plain stupid.

galwaydude

interesting too see everton falling off their wagon now, last few matches have been very poor.They have been extremely lucky to stay clear of injuries, in saying that david moyes is a good manager.I aint making excuses mate but STOP jumping on the crush liverpool bandwagon, we have enough of people on it already.

Ye lost yesterday HA HA

d22ontour

Thanx 4 The Fish wrote:

Liverpool have the smallest squad in the premiership, and at the moment are carrying alot of injuries.

To say that they are not suffering from injuries is not just ignorant it is plain stupid.

its hardly anyones fault they have the smallest squad, is it smaller than villas?

its not like they are the only club who get injuries, they just have to deal with it like everyone else

The Muppet

It's just bad luck. They will be back next year.

Third_Echelon

galwaydude wrote:

interesting too see everton falling off their wagon now, last few matches have been very poor.They have been extremely lucky to stay clear of injuries, in saying that david moyes is a good manager.I aint making excuses mate but STOP jumping on the crush liverpool bandwagon, we have enough of people on it already.

Ye lost yesterday HA HA

I wouldnt say everton have 'fallen off the wagon'. Since they lost to spurs they have won 2, drawn 1 and lost 1 to charlton yesterday. Losing a couple of games every so often isn't exactly 'falling off the wagon'.

Utd have been on a fantastic run and have made the gap a bit more clearer by winning yesterday and everton losing. Thats how gaps appear obviously, but its up to everton now to try and close it and keep the others behind them. They play norwich at goodison next in the premiership while utd play arsenal, so potentially that could close the gap again if utd lose and everton win...

Third_Echelon

The Muppet wrote:

It's just bad luck. They will be back next year.

how often have we heard these words being muttered from anfield though???

jesus_thats_gre

Third_Echelon wrote:

how often have we heard these words being muttered from anfield though???

Your statements regarding Liverpool are so idiotic they don't even deserve responding too.. Consistent 3rd/4th finishes for 10 years and you cannot actually understand why Liverpool supporters and the club think that maybe next season will be more fruitful? Like seriously, what planet are you on? What do you suggest they do? Go into every season wondering whether they will be relegated this season.. No thanks, I will leave the relegation to the like of Everton etc..

Everton have an average finishing position of 13 or 14 during the life of the premier leage yet you are baffled as to why people cannot understand their form this year? Its proper comedy is that..


The last 3 games saw 3 incredibly poor performance for Liverpool after some excellent form over Christmas where we managed to maintain 5th place and narrow the gap on Everton and the 4th place we need to much.. The gap is now 7 points and once we can put the last 3 games properly behind us we will surely catch Everton come May..


I was confident before Christmas that Everton would suffer from tiredness and loosing some key players to injury (a transfer will do) and this seems to be happening going by recent results. However, the injuries to Alonso etc have somewhat dented my optimism, I am still pretty confident that we can just do it..

Just to put Saturday's game into context, we had the following team available for selection:

---

Dudek

---

Carragher

---

Hyypia

---

Pellegrino

---

Warnock
Luis Garcia

---

Gerrard

---

Hamann

---

Riise

---

Baros

---

Morientes

---

Raven, Pongolle, Carson, Biscan and Traore on the bench.


While that is not exactly an underpar team, it is a very limited squad to chose from considering the number of fixtures we have had in the past 4 weeks.. Realistically there is a number of players missing from that list that would have made the team and another 2 playing out of position because of injuries..

The Liverpool team has been blighted by injuries to key players throughout the whole seasons..

Kirkland - Always crocked forcing Dudek to be picked
Finnan - Injured at the moment but dont know much about it
Josemi - Injured at the moment but dont know much about it
Gerard - Missed two months
Alonso - Alonso scheduled to be out for 3 months
Nunez - Done himself in during his first training session for 3 months
Kewell - 5 weeks now, how may more?
Baros - 4 weeks pluse
Cisse - Whole season

That list includes 9 players who will nearly always make up Liverpool match day squad.. Benitez has done an incredible job to manage with the remaining players he has and anyone who is critical of his job so far needs their head examined..


Going ahead for Liverpool.. I am happy for Baros and Gerard to be sold to Barca and Chelsea respectiively. That should net anything between 40 and 50 million for Benitez to drastically overhaul the squad during the summer..

kida

Injuries, Injuries same old excuses from Anfield. Why did they not buy players in August and why not buy them now? Even get some loan players. The buck stops with the manager and up until now there is no proof he is any better than Hoo-Hoo. This is the first time in 6 years that they have lost 3 games on the bounce. The only differnce I see between the 2 is the nationality of the crap players that are coming on board.

PHB

Have a look at Benitez record as a manger and see if you think hes as good as Houiller, you're shortsightedness is only overshadowed by your arrogance

WhiteWashMan

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Your statements regarding Liverpool are so idiotic they don't even deserve responding too.. Consistent 3rd/4th finishes for 10 years and you cannot actually understand why Liverpool supporters and the club think that maybe next season will be more fruitful? Like seriously, what planet are you on? What do you suggest they do? Go into every season wondering whether they will be relegated this season.. No thanks, I will leave the relegation to the like of Everton etc..

Everton have an average finishing position of 13 or 14 during the life of the premier leage yet you are baffled as to why people cannot understand their form this year? Its proper comedy is that..


The last 3 games saw 3 incredibly poor performance for Liverpool after some excellent form over Christmas where we managed to maintain 5th place and narrow the gap on Everton and the 4th place we need to much.. The gap is now 7 points and once we can put the last 3 games properly behind us we will surely catch Everton come May..


I was confident before Christmas that Everton would suffer from tiredness and loosing some key players to injury (a transfer will do) and this seems to be happening going by recent results. However, the injuries to Alonso etc have somewhat dented my optimism, I am still pretty confident that we can just do it..

Just to put Saturday's game into context, we had the following team available for selection:

---

Dudek

---

Carragher

---

Hyypia

---

Pellegrino

---

Warnock
Luis Garcia

---

Gerrard

---

Hamann

---

Riise

---

Baros

---

Morientes

---

Raven, Pongolle, Carson, Biscan and Traore on the bench.


While that is not exactly an underpar team, it is a very limited squad to chose from considering the number of fixtures we have had in the past 4 weeks.. Realistically there is a number of players missing from that list that would have made the team and another 2 playing out of position because of injuries..

The Liverpool team has been blighted by injuries to key players throughout the whole seasons..

Kirkland - Always crocked forcing Dudek to be picked
Finnan - Injured at the moment but dont know much about it
Josemi - Injured at the moment but dont know much about it
Gerard - Missed two months
Alonso - Alonso scheduled to be out for 3 months
Nunez - Done himself in during his first training session for 3 months
Kewell - 5 weeks now, how may more?
Baros - 4 weeks pluse
Cisse - Whole season

That list includes 9 players who will nearly always make up Liverpool match day squad.. Benitez has done an incredible job to manage with the remaining players he has and anyone who is critical of his job so far needs their head examined..


Going ahead for Liverpool.. I am happy for Baros and Gerard to be sold to Barca and Chelsea respectiively. That should net anything between 40 and 50 million for Benitez to drastically overhaul the squad during the summer..

hey, welcome to the premiership.

before when teams like villa spurs and charlton were suffering from depleated squads through injury, it was all excuses according to the pool fans, who were still waiting for thier glory days.
next year it will be champions league and cups galore.

face it, your team is built around one man, and when he leaves at the end of the season, you will have a team full of foreign wasters.

jesus_thats_gre

WhiteWashMan wrote:

hey, welcome to the premiership.

before when teams like villa spurs and charlton were suffering from depleated squads through injury, it was all excuses according to the pool fans, who were still waiting for thier glory days.
next year it will be champions league and cups galore.

face it, your team is built around one man, and when he leaves at the end of the season, you will have a team full of foreign wasters.

If you go back to the second page of this thread and read my post, you will notice that I criticised Liverpool's performace but did not make any excuse for the performance...

My more recent post resulted from the premature criticism of Benitez's ability as a manager..

Some final points.. We are waiting for a return of our glory days again.. We are not a team of one player.. Like every other team, we have our best player, our good players and our poor players.. Like every other player, we depend on our good players to shine when we need them...

Finally, who do you support?

Jivin Turkey

PHB wrote:

Have a look at Benitez record as a manger and see if you think hes as good as Houiller, you're shortsightedness is only overshadowed by your arrogance

Thank you PHB saved me some typing.

Jivin Turkey

WhiteWashMan wrote:

before when teams like villa spurs and charlton were suffering from depleated squads through injury, it was all excuses according to the pool fans, who were still waiting for thier glory days.
next year it will be champions league and cups galore.

face it, your team is built around one man, and when he leaves at the end of the season, you will have a team full of foreign wasters.

I dont think Ive ever labelled any reasons from Villa, Spurs or Charlton fans as to their performances as excuses to be honest. I havnt seen any Liverpool fans do so either, as their performances (in particular Spurs or Charlton) are generally of no relevance to Liverpool.

And as JTG pointed out, almost every side has their players that their team is built around. Liverpool dont depend on Gerrard as much as you would like to think. During the period that he missed they had a record in the league of 4-1-2, one of the loses was to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. They also won in La Coruna in the CL, and advanced two rounds of the Carling Cup.

Third_Echelon

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Your statements regarding Liverpool are so idiotic they don't even deserve responding too.. Consistent 3rd/4th finishes for 10 years and you cannot actually understand why Liverpool supporters and the club think that maybe next season will be more fruitful?

Idiotic eh... Same old reteric every year. Nothing ever changes. Shouldn't they realise now that perhaps 'next year just might not be their year again'? You can see how other people would say that, this is what they hear every year from liverpool and the same thing happens... All huff and puff but no title eh...

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Like seriously, what planet are you on? What do you suggest they do? Go into every season wondering whether they will be relegated this season.. No thanks, I will leave the relegation to the like of Everton etc..

Earth. Of course every team has goals for the season and every team wants to win the league etc, but it gets a bit boring every year with liverpool thinking that they are better than they are or used to be. Face it, they are no longer a title contending team and haven't been for a long time. Coffee.Wake Up. Smell.
What's liverpools fortunes got to do with Everton? We are talking about liverpool here... nothing to do with everton. Just because i support everton doesnt mean that you have to compare all liverpools shortcomings and compare them to evertons... thats just childish

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Everton have an average finishing position of 13 or 14 during the life of the premier leage yet you are baffled as to why people cannot understand their form this year? Its proper comedy is that..

I never ever ever remember everton claiming that 'this is gonna be our year' or 'next season we'll show ya'.. etc etc etc. They just get out there and get on with it and dont worry about any other teams form or past history etc. Liverpool seem to have this chip on their shoulder about their greatness and the old 'we should be winning titles' argument. They are not good enough to beat the likes of chelsea, arsenal and man utd to the premiership, and by the looks of things from this season they wont be for a while yet.. Maybe next season eh???

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

I was confident before Christmas that Everton would suffer from tiredness and loosing some key players to injury (a transfer will do) and this seems to be happening going by recent results. However, the injuries to Alonso etc have somewhat dented my optimism, I am still pretty confident that we can just do it..

So we lost 2 games in the past 5.So what teams lose games. Thats the nature of football. You cant win them all. Even chelsea have lost this season to man city.

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Just to put Saturday's game into context, we had the following team available for selection:

---

Dudek

---

Carragher

---

Hyypia

---

Pellegrino

---

Warnock
Luis Garcia

---

Gerrard

---

Hamann

---

Riise

---

Baros

---

Morientes

---

Raven, Pongolle, Carson, Biscan and Traore on the bench.

And what exactly is wrong with that team in your opinion? Surely the great liverpool can field great teams no matter what their injury situation is?

While the back line leaves a lot to be desired, from their up i can see nothing but international, well experienced players... I dont see the issue here...

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

The Liverpool team has been blighted by injuries to key players throughout the whole seasons..

Kirkland - Always crocked forcing Dudek to be picked
Finnan - Injured at the moment but dont know much about it
Josemi - Injured at the moment but dont know much about it
Gerard - Missed two months
Alonso - Alonso scheduled to be out for 3 months
Nunez - Done himself in during his first training session for 3 months
Kewell - 5 weeks now, how may more?
Baros - 4 weeks pluse
Cisse - Whole season

That list includes 9 players who will nearly always make up Liverpool match day squad.. Benitez has done an incredible job to manage with the remaining players he has and anyone who is critical of his job so far needs their head examined..

Every team has to deal with injured players. Every team has dealt with it in the past and will do in the future.

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Going ahead for Liverpool.. I am happy for Baros and Gerard to be sold to Barca and Chelsea respectiively. That should net anything between 40 and 50 million for Benitez to drastically overhaul the squad during the summer..

So you are willing to lose 2 of your 'best' players? Surely liverpool have the finance to buy without selling?

BolBill

Liverpool don't have a penny to spend really. So they must sell in order to buy. The reason they are broke rests with one man, David F-ing Moores. He did what any chairman should do, he backed his manager in transfer dealings. What he didn't understand (or cop on to) was that Houiller was buying complete cack, see Cheyrou (The New Zidane my F-ing arse!), Diao, Diouf, Biscuits to name but a few. So to get out of the rut he could have sold off his share of the club and allowed Steve Morgan to buy in and give Rafa some money to buy players, but Oh NO, Moores just doesn't wanna let go. As long as he is there, Liverpool won't win anything of importance.

WhiteWashMan

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

If you go back to the second page of this thread and read my post, you will notice that I criticised Liverpool's performace but did not make any excuse for the performance...

My more recent post resulted from the premature criticism of Benitez's ability as a manager..

Some final points.. We are waiting for a return of our glory days again.. We are not a team of one player.. Like every other team, we have our best player, our good players and our poor players.. Like every other player, we depend on our good players to shine when we need them...

Finally, who do you support?

what exactly does who i support have anything to do with this?
does it impact my abilty to hold na opinion, or perhaps my opinion becomes invalid if i support certain teams?

im just sick of listening to liverpool fans telling eveyone every season how they are league contenders, how they should be up there, and how they should be getting into the CL.

liverpool are not great. they are not league contenders, and they only got in last year, becuase everyone else was so appalling.

liverpool have spent an incredible amount of money over the last 5 years, and now you complain about squad sizes. well, perhaps your managers should buy some decent players?

oh, and perhaps a decent physio if your players are always injured?

like i said, welcome to the problems that every team goes through. try not to mistake thast for areason for liverpool fans to whinge about how unfair life is.

Third_Echelon

WhiteWashMan wrote:

what exactly does who i support have anything to do with this?
does it impact my abilty to hold na opinion, or perhaps my opinion becomes invalid if i support certain teams?

According to JTG it does. My opinion is never valid because i support Everton. I'm not biased. I dont hate liverpool. I just like to see everton do better than them, thats all and thats natural as they are rivals, but i can still comment on them and make valid arguments and opinions without being biased...

Ardent

BolBill wrote:

Liverpool don't have a penny to spend really. So they must sell in order to buy. The reason they are broke rests with one man, David F-ing Moores. He did what any chairman should do, he backed his manager in transfer dealings. What he didn't understand (or cop on to) was that Houiller was buying complete cack, see Cheyrou (The New Zidane my F-ing arse!), Diao, Diouf, Biscuits to name but a few. So to get out of the rut he could have sold off his share of the club and allowed Steve Morgan to buy in and give Rafa some money to buy players, but Oh NO, Moores just doesn't wanna let go. As long as he is there, Liverpool won't win anything of importance.

His loyalty to Houllier, while admirable, is regrettable. 10 point something mill on virtual unknown Diouf? You can't ask for better backing than that!

Know what you're saying though, he has presided over a period where we have made the transition from perennial Champions to penniless Euro-hopefuls. I think he has taken us as far as he can, time to sell his stake in the club and give someone else a shot.

uberwolf

WhiteWashMan wrote:

and they only got in last year, becuase everyone else was so appalling.

and that's whhat we're banking on again.

WhiteWashMan

indeed. but i think the standard has risen this year, and any number of clubs are really pushing for a top 6 finish. i dont think you can count on 17 clubs out of 20 to be unable to put a decent string of wins together.

teams like spurs, bolton, everton, charlton and boro can easily put 5 or 6 games unbeaten together. last year, absolute inconsistancy amoung the bottom 17 made the league scrappy and messy and any team who could actually just not lose 5 games in a row, was practically handed a spot in europe.

jesus, millwall got into europe for gods sake! what does that tell you?

Ardent

WhiteWashMan wrote:

indeed. but i think the standard has risen this year, and any number of clubs are really pushing for a top 6 finish. i dont think you can count on 17 clubs out of 20 to be unable to put a decent string of wins together.

I disagree. I think apart from the top three, the standard of football in the top flight in England is appalling, and I'm including Liverpool in that. The league is so weak that the top three run away with it every year.

It's getting boring at this stage.

The Muppet

Ardent wrote:

His loyalty to Houllier, while admirable, is regrettable. 10 point something mill on virtual unknown Diouf? You can't ask for better backing than that!

I agree with you but the Liverpool Fans have to take some of the responisbilty for Houliers reign lasting as long as it did. It was blatenly clear that he was tactically naive and his signings were very poor for quite a while but they the stood by him. I suppose the sucess he had in his early years clouded the issue and may go some way in explaining how he lasted so long.

BTW. I think Liverpool have turned the corner now.

uberwolf

The Muppet wrote:

BTW. I think Liverpool have turned the corner now.

on what basis?

Ardent

The Muppet wrote:

Ardent wrote:

His loyalty to Houllier, while admirable, is regrettable. 10 point something mill on virtual unknown Diouf? You can't ask for better backing than that!

I agree with you but the Liverpool Fans have to take some of the responisbilty for Houliers reign lasting as long as it did. It was blatenly clear that he was tactically naive and his signings were very poor for quite a while but they the stood by him.

There was a lot of booing after home games last season but, I agree, there were even more sheep with a perverse, misguided loyalty to Houllier, jumping down the throats of anyone who questioned the French man's ability. "Allez Allez" my arse.

kida

He should defintely get more time but what appart from signing Alonso has Benitez done (at Liverpool not before hand) to warrant the expectations that Pool fans have of him.

1.He has signed Josemi,Garcia,Nunez and Pellegrino
2.Has started to play long ball forward to Morientes
3.Has allowed it to develop such that he has a very small squad - sign players on loan - FFS - This is the 2nd transfer window he has had
4. Got in wrong in FA Cup

The Muppet

uberwolf wrote:

on what basis?

On the basis that sarcasm is just lost on some people and I can't help myself from prodding the pool supporters.


But to be serious its much too early to be writing Benitz off as another Houlier. I'm not sure its a good idea for Liverpool to be buying so many spanish players but on the other hand they are the players Benitz knows best and possibly that was the intention when the board appointed him . Wenger did the same with French players when he moved to arsenal and it worked for him.

Nobody can deny that the Pool have been very unlucky with injuries and while a squad should be able to cope with the odd one they have had more than their share.

Benitz has made mistakes like with the FA Cup but I do believe that he has and will continue to improve the team .The time to judge him is in a years time when he has settled in the premiership and is fully aware of the standard of football needed and the quality and attributes of players available to him.

uberwolf

The Muppet wrote:

On the basis that sarcasm is just lost on some people and I can't help myself from prodding the pool supporters.

so I left myself open to that but I'm just so desperate to read positive suggestions re: this season from just about any source.

I can take losing, I accept transition, and I curse the injuries. The nature of the losses gets me most. Toothless defeats at strugglers like southampton are really difficult to understand.

The Muppet

uberwolf wrote:

so I left myself open to that but I'm just so desperate to read positive suggestions re: this season from just about any source.

I can take losing, I accept transition, and I curse the injuries. The nature of the losses gets me most. Toothless defeats at strugglers like southampton are really difficult to understand.

Sorry old habits die hard for me, but I honestly do think Benitz has showed signs that he can do a good job at Anfield. I saw them play early season and there was definite signs of improvement , Lately they have not been too good but IMO injuries have played a major part in that. To be realistic he needs to build a new squad and thats not going to be easy to do without hugh investment but given the resources I think he will prove himself.

yop

"what exactly does who i support have anything to do with this?
does it impact my abilty to hold na opinion, or perhaps my opinion becomes invalid if i support certain teams?

im just sick of listening to liverpool fans telling eveyone every season how they are league contenders, how they should be up there, and how they should be getting into the CL.

liverpool are not great. they are not league contenders, and they only got in last year, becuase everyone else was so appalling.

liverpool have spent an incredible amount of money over the last 5 years, and now you complain about squad sizes. well, perhaps your managers should buy some decent players?

oh, and perhaps a decent physio if your players are always injured?

like i said, welcome to the problems that every team goes through. try not to mistake thast for areason for liverpool fans to whinge about how unfair life is."

Excellent post, it is very true that every year for the last 15 we have listened to pool's supporters going on about how next year they will be there, pushing for the title, from what I can remember once in 15 years they have been there.

Maybe for once, and I add that there a good number of pool fans who can see, that it will not happen this year, probably not next year and definately not for the next 4 or 5 years if ye lose Gerard in the summer.
Out of the current pool squad Alonso and Gerard would make it into the Chelsea, United or Arsenal teams, the rest of them would not get a look in.
Until pool replace up to 10 "players" with lads who can and will play for the club and not the money then I am afraid next year will never happen because United, Chelsea and Arsenal will continually be ahead.

Also who you support as said does not mean the person has not a clue what they are on about. I notice here if a non pool supporter posts up some sensible comment they get slated.


"Originally Posted by The Muppet

BTW. I think Liverpool have turned the corner now."

You ape

yop

"Originally Posted by uberwolf
so I left myself open to that but I'm just so desperate to read positive suggestions re: this season from just about any source.

I can take losing, I accept transition, and I curse the injuries. The nature of the losses gets me most. Toothless defeats at strugglers like southampton are really difficult to understand."

Ya spot on, that is why that team of muppets will leave you like that for a long time to come

Thanx 4 The Fish

Of topic a long time ago..

Closed.