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-- The Official Liverpool Thread
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heskeys gone to birmingham then! came as a bit of a shock as i thought that liverpool keep him! �6.25 million was it!we got cisse arriving thought and with �60 million now in the kitty possibly we can get another world class striker if owen decides to leave...
meh owen wont leave.
anybody got a list of players we are interrested in?
Well, players i heard that we are interested in are:
Cisse - who looks almost certain to move now. We all know how many goals he can score.
Mexes - quality defender for Auxerre, saw him play here in France, but Boumsong made much more of a presence and seems like a bit of a Sol Campbell player to me. Prefer Boumsong, but dont think he'd come
Joey Barton - Man City right winger, and we need on of them to fill in for Diouf..
Tomas Rosicky - been linked today, great player, only 23, but i think that hes an attacking central midfielder, do we really need that when we got Gerrard and Hamann doing great jobs? Like to see him if he can fit into the squad though.
Alan Smith - apparently were second favorites to sign him now, but if Cisse comes, he wont get in the team above Owen, Cisse and even Baros i wouldnt think.
Houllier has been sacked today. Any thoughts on the replacement?
id like benitez, the valencia manager.
but i think curbishly would be more wise descision if we are ever gonna win the premierleague again.
i just hope they still sign cisse.
Bugger, didnt want houillier to go, but thinking about it, its probably the best time as now we can get a big manager who wants to try to take the club somewhere. Should get some big names especially as we are in the champions league.
Who will they get as replacement?
Benitez (2-1 favorite) - said yesterday that he wanted to finish his contract with Valencia, so dont think he'll go.
Curbishly (5-2)- good choice. Done well with Charlton, but can he do it in the champions league, i think not.
Martin O' Neill (7-2) - my favorite. Lost count on how many times hes won the league with Celtic now, although i always felt that hed be Alex Fergusons replacement.
J Mourinho (8-1) - Porto boss, but also linked with Chelsea. Perhaps another good option, i mean hes in the champions league final!
Dalglish (12-1) - hes been linked with the job over the last 3 weeks and said hed be interested if the board come to him.. but i dont think they will
Ranieri + Mclaren (12-1) Ranieris done well with Chelsea even before the money came in, and if he gets sacked im sure the odds on him becoming boss at anfield will go up. Mclaren, dont think hes experienced enough in Europe and not a better manager than Houillier.
Didier Deschamps (25-1) hmm.. not enough experience yet
so thats the guys in the running. Take ure pick.
and Cisse i think will still come.. (although fingers crossed!)
I think expecting Benitez is a bit optimistic. He's just won the Spanish league and the UEFA Cup with Valencia, a side who have the quality to go very far in the Champions League next season. Liverpool have scraped a Champions League place finishing closer to 20th than to 1st. I think staying with Valencia is quite an easy decision.
Jose Mourinho is probably the best option out there and possibly a realistic one as well. He wants to come to England and he's taken Porto as far as they can go.
Rick Parry has confirmed that French ace Djibril Cisse will still be signing in at Liverpool on schedule on July 1 - and he predicts the Auxerre man will net 20 goals a season for the Reds
There had been some speculation the Cisse deal could be in doubt after the manager who tracked him for three years left the club, but Parry has insisted he will definitely be a Liverpool player next season.
The Reds' chief executive said: "Cisse is a very exciting player with a good goalscoring record. He has pace and power and all the qualities a modern striker needs. He is someone who we believe is capable of scoring 20 goals a season.
"I don't think you could have taken the decision not to sign Cisse just because we have parted company with Gerard."
glad to hear that.
Farewell Houllier thank you for:
2 League cups (2001 & 2003)
1 FA cup (2001)
1 UEFA cup (2001)
1 Charity Shield (2001)
1 Super Cup (2001)
and breaking the hoodoos at the Old Toilet and Stamford Bridge.
He atleast put hope back into Liverpool's hearts.
I'd want a manager who'd stay to continue success over the next 2 decades 14 years without increasing the record of 18 & 4, is way too long. Hopefully it will be next season.
New manager to be announced in 2 and a half hours from this post
10 mins
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
the
RAFAELUTION
has begun!
ahhhh wat a time for a new sig
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Good move for the club getting Benitez and Cisse should be arriving in 2 weeks! Not happy though today after hearing Rick Parry saying that Gerrard may leave to either Chelsea or United. He must stay at the club
guess what liverpool????
it looks almost certain that Gerrard is leaving now! hahahahahahaha I put your hopes of winning anything without him close to a nice big fat 0.
If they do sell Gerrard to Chelsea they will get silly money for him though. Imagine what they could do with that?
| quote: |
| Originally posted by evil_bastard If they do sell Gerrard to Chelsea they will get silly money for him though. Imagine what they could do with that? |
why on earth do people just cave in to that this man is loyal, he hasnt even given the new manager a chance.
hes been apart of the kop before he started playing.
he wont just up and leave cause the papers say so.
and if he does leave he will be forever look upon as greedy bastard in my eyes.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by S_madis guess what liverpool???? it looks almost certain that Gerrard is leaving now! |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Xavier Is this the same S_Madis who was certain that Kewell would sign for Arsenal around this time last year? |
I don't doubt that Chelsea want Steven Gerrard (who wouldn't?), and that they are using the media to unsettle him; I do, however, doubt that Stevie G wants to leave Liverpool Football Club.
The questionable nature of such rumours is best summed up by the first report about him leaving, which said Gerrard was unhappy that Liverpool hadn't appointed an English coach (Curbishley), so he was upping sticks... to play for Jose Mourinho! To suggest that Gerrard favoured an English manager is barmy - he's only ever played for Houllier (who he is indebted to) and Eriksson (ditto). Oh, my apologies - I'm forgetting a brief spell under Kevin Keegan's disastrous, directionless stewardship of England. So when the stories start out like that, you know there is some serious straw-clutching going on. Gerrard simply wants to play under a top manager; Benitez fits that bill. His origins matter not.
While there is never any smoke without fire, in this instance I feel it's just Peter Kenyon playing with matches like a naughty schoolboy. And before we panic, let's remember that at Chelsea Kenyon has rarely got his man: Eriksson was the first choice for manager and Wenger was also coveted, and in the last year Henry, Viera, and Walter Samuel have all turned him down. Arsenal, despite being short of cash, said no to the sale of Henry for �50m. Henry didn't want to leave either. We have to hope Gerrard feels as loved as Henry does, and as capable of challenging for honours as Arsenal are.
Gerrard's comments were made at the end of last season. He told Rick Parry he was unhappy - and rightly so (who wasn't unhappy?). Where's the news in that? Who wouldn't be hacked-off with having out-played so many of his own teammates, many of whom didn't appear to be trying? Who wouldn't have had concerns about a manager - however much he liked and respected him - whose tactics appeared confused, and who had bought too many sub-standard players in recent seasons? Gerrard was right to wonder if Houllier was past his best.
What has changed since then?
Lots - quite clearly:
- Heskey, the perennial under-achiever, has been replaced with the most coveted young striker in worldfootball. This is just the first piece of transfer activity. The club means business. It realised that the time had come to be ruthless.
- Rafael Benitez, Valencia's own King Midas, has arrived as our new manager. This is the man who spent next-to-no money in winning the best league in the world not once, but twice in the last three years. Oh, and the Uefa Cup. Now if I was Steven Gerrard, I'd be pretty damn excited about the prospect of working with him. Wouldn't you?
- The finances will be boosted with a massive investment on the horizon: money still from Thailand, but now from a better source, it seems. Of course, it's not the bottomless pit of cash that Abramovich possesses. But it's enough money, if spent wisely. After all, Cisse - 30 goals in France last season - cost the same as Chelsea are paying for a Portuguese full-back.
- Also different from last season is that Liverpool are in the Champions League (qualifier permitting).
The joke is that one newspaper described swapping Anfield for Stamford Bridge as Gerrard's "dream" move. What is there to dream about? Am I missing the point here?
At Liverpool he is the club captain. Captain of the most successful British club ever, no less: domestically, and in Europe (a team still respected and loved worldwide, unlike Chelsea). The team he supported as a boy. His roots are Liverpool Football Club. And now we're being told by journalists that he'll walk away for a big pile of money, when he already earns more than he knows what to do with. Rick Parry said it's not about the money - it's about medals. And with the top players, that is true. But excuse me - how many trophies have Chelsea won lately anyway? Haven't we won four since their last success? If Gerrard wanted to join Arsenal or Man United, I could understand that *to a degree*, as they are "proven" - they have won all the major trophies in the last five years (although no-one whose opinion should betrusted has said he wants to go anywhere ). But Chelsea? They are still just an unproven theory; it's all "what might be". They are still only an experiment - not yet a great football club.
Rafael Benitez has already proved his class over this issue. Yes, he wants Gerrard, and will do all he can to keep him (as will Parry). But he is not worried; Benitez wants to build a team, not a collection of individuals. Gerrard is the perfect central component for that team, providing he wants to play for the club. (And I still believe he does). Gerrard is part of Liverpool's cultural core, in a way he never could be in London. He is both the soul and the heartbeat of our side; not just another expensive adornment to be tossed aside if injury or poor form strikes, or the latest hot property takes their fancy. Liverpool is his home. In every possible sense.
I hope (with all my heart) that it doesn't come to having to sell him; as it will confirm Liverpool FC as a second class footballing institution for the first time in my lifetime. We've been out of the title race and in the doldrums, but we've never had to sell our best player to another English club. If Gerrard wants to leave (for argument's sake), then you can refuse to sell him, but then you have an unhappy player on your books (whose value starts to depreciate). So you sell him and make a lot of money; but you strengthen your opponents in doing so and possibly kiss goodbye the chance of ever overtaking them. Let him go, and it sends worrying signals to the other players. It says you can't compete, and perhaps lack ambition.
If Everton want to sell Wayne Rooney, then, to me at least, that makes sense. They need to rebuild an entire side, and could buy eleven �4m players to do so. Liverpool need only new direction (from Benitez) and three or four new faces at most: but top quality ones, not squad men. Liverpool need to be adding quality, not quantity. The trouble with getting �31 million (add another �40m to make it realistic, in my eyes) is that you could buy six decent players with that money, and none of them improve the first team. (See Diouf, Diao, Cheyrou, et al, when Houllier last had a large amount to invest). And the value of anyone we wanted to buy would double overnight. So while Benitez might be able to fashion a better team with the money, he would also be running the risk of merely bolstering the squad. Look at Man U: while Ronaldo might end up adequately replacing Beckham, it looked for 95% of last season as though they had bought five squad players who weren't up to the task; Ferguson couldn't play all five in Beckham's place. They added depth to the squad - but weakened the side. And Gerrard is twice the player Beckham is.
When a player like Gerrard leaves, he is irreplaceable. You won't find a replacement who is like five players rolled into one. Not only does he do the job of five people, he also works harder for the team than anyone else; he is not a fancy soloist who you might be better off without, for all his skills.
I'm still struggling with the idea that Gerrard is "dreaming" of playing for Chelsea. What does Chelsea Football Club have to offer that we don't, money aside? It is a club with no tradition, and no self-generating finance; if Abramovich got bored and walked away, then the club would implode.
What players do they have that Gerrard would dream of playing alongside? They've made a lot of expensive signings, but no Zidane, no Henry, no Ronaldinho. Would you want to swap Duff for Kewell? Not particularly. Or any of their strikers for Owen? Has any Chelsea player (or target, such as Deco) come even remotely close to playing to the level of Milan Baros during Euro2004?
Have they signed anyone as exciting as Djibril Cisse this summer? I can tell you no, they haven't. Lots of Porto players eager to leave a weak league; to me, Porto were a well-organised team who, like Millwall in the FA Cup,had the breaks which are part of doing well in cup competitions. (Monaco knocked out the better teams, for example; and then Monaco lost their best player, Guily, early in the final). Is Deco quality? Sure. But would you join a club just to play with him? No. Meanwhile Chelsea's training ground in Harlington is a disgrace. The new Anfield will easily overshadow Stamford Bridge.
So maybe it's the manager? Is Mourinho better than Benitez? I'd certainly argue that Valencia played better teams in the Spanish League (the best in the world, in most people's eyes) than Porto met on their way to the Champions League final; and a league is almost 40 games, not 13. If you win one of the big four leagues, you are a quality manager. Do it twice, like Benitez (and with no money as well), and you are proven top quality.
I hope people don't start turning on Steven Gerrard or the board over pure speculation; otherwise it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: he leaves as he feels unwelcome, when up to then he'd wanted to stay. We should be getting behind him, and not believing any of this; nothing has been said by either him or his agent. Until it has, then we must ignore it all - as hard as it is.
I'll sum up by saying: why would he leave Liverpool at such an exciting time? The answer is: he won't. I'm not 100% sure, of course, but close enough. Gerrard is still young; just 23 when the last season ended. He said he didn't want to be 35 at Liverpool having won none of the major honours. Fair comment, in my eyes. But that's eleven years away. Surely he has to give the new man at least two years of his service? Does he not owe that to himself, the club, and the fans? He will be only 25 at the end of 2005/06. If Liverpool haven't progressed in that time, then he can leave with my (reluctant) blessing.
But not a moment before.
I don't think he'll go either but if Chelsea offer him massive wages compared to what he's on now and a realistic chance of holding a League or Champions League title to his name, who knows. Maybe in January or next summer if things haven't gone right under Benitez, he'd seriously consider it.
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