Liverpool Banter Archive January 14 2015

14 Jan 2015 22:56:02
Hi Eds,

It seems that most rumours (apart from GK ones) end up with the response we have plenty of CBs/Mids/Fwds which is certainly a fair point given the squad size. If there is an area that need strengthening other than the ones mentioned above, where do you see that as being and if so (to your knowledge) has there been any significant monitoring and/or initial, promising enquiries for purchasing/loans for those positions

{Ed002's Note - From my perspective Leighbo I would likely hold off until the summer - and try and draw a line across. There are good players who have had a career interrupted and are now on loan around Europe. There are players that arrived as recently as this summer that are floating around in the ether. I would get the management out, talk to all players including those on loan to figure out if they want to be at Liverpool and then work it from there. I don't have the stomach for Liverpool to come 7th or 8th next season - so I might go in and sort it out myself.}

Good man, Ed! Hopefully, your proposal is part of the revamp the owners are doing are doing.

You go on ahead and do that Mr. Ed.I can't look any more grim

15 Jan 2015 07:10:01
Ed002, I think you could sort the mess out.

15 Jan 2015 07:10:27
Ed002, are you Rafa Benitez? If the answer is yes then you've got plenty of stomach ;)

15 Jan 2015 07:10:44
Go for it Ed002, If you want a useless assistant (seems to be the must have for managers -- these days) I can pass you my cv

15 Jan 2015 07:11:11
Go Ed002 - will you by trying to pursuade Torres to come back home? We all know he will automatically become world class again once he pulls on the LFC jersey!

15 Jan 2015 08:26:00
Hopefully you will ed2, finally someone who knows what they talking about.

15 Jan 2015 11:48:19
Nice one ed but please don't listen to EMS. Keep Rafa away from the club

Lionred, I think the joke flew right by you mate :/ and others apparently lol

14 Jan 2015 21:51:26
Lambert to WBA, Balotelli to Juve on loan. If this happens, surely a striker plus Origi is coming in?

{Ed002's Note - If the club start replacing loan players with purchases they are going to be in really serious financial problems.}

It gets worse Ed. Lambert and Balotelli who only signed six months ago will be loaned/sold to premier league rivals, and we will replace them by buying our own player who we sent on loan only 6 months ago to the club we signed him from in the first place only to then replace him with Balotelli, the player whom we now want him to replace. It's too late for this!

I'm going bed.

Shambles, I tell you.

EMS, if it wasn't so laughably true it would sound like fleet street BS.

I am sure there would be a young spanish forward out there at the same level as Lambert and Balotelli that we could loan in as their replacement!

But only for 6 months, Liverpres. We would then send him on loan next season, probably to a random location, where he'll do reasonably decent but then we'll declare him not good enough and trying to offload him for 1/5 the price paid.

I hear there is a decent Spanish fwd called Aspas who may be available for loan?

14 Jan 2015 18:02:30
Hope to god that the next players we buy are quality.
Not expecting any this month though.

I remember 4-5 years ago when we should have won the league but lost out to the mancs.
I looked at the squad and I thought if we buy 1-2 proven quality players that we could finally win the league.
But instead Rafa went out and wasted the lot of it on average players, pretty similar to what Brendon has done.

Again the players we are linked to (Delph, berahino, Ochoa) as so on, are not going to move this club forward.
Again where buying players that are not up to standard and that we will never get rid of when it doesn't work out(Allen).

So please if we can't get proven quality we may as well play the kids.

Agree.

Good post

14 Jan 2015 18:42:07
There's a book, I think it's called 44 months with a pair of cowboys.
It gives a lot of insight into what happened under H&G and why Rafa was not able to build on a team that came so close to winning the league.
The difference with what BR has had is amazing, yet the result is basically the same.

Although I do think Rafa would have spent the money better than Rodgers, he still made some strange buys Johnson and aquillani where both bought for over 20mil each.

Aquillani was also injured when we bought him.

Although I believe he wanted Ronaldo for 10mil and G&H wouldn't buy him.

{Ed002's Note - One of the major issues with the Benitez period was building a first team squad of more than 40 players on very high wages. It cost many millions (€5.6) just to move on El Zhar and Degen. He is far from blameless in all of this.}

I agree with you however I do rate Berahino although not sure about his attitude but of still be happy to have him

{Ed002's Note - Bit of a bonehead as evidenced by his driving issue Chris, but available to fund some rebuilding.}

Epic Swindle by Brian Reade mate it's a must.It really gives you a true insight into what went on at the club when them two cowboys where in town
BarryinLouth

Spot on ed

Didn't Degan sign when he was injured?
60grand a week and probably played 3 games in 2 years for us, or something like that.

I remember one season he must have bought 7-8 players with 60mil he was given

An epic swindle 44 months with those Cowboys is excellent.
I'm half way through it at present.
I thank Waro for pointing me in this direction with one of his posts.
A must read for every Red out there.

When is the epic swindle on DVD lol.

14 Jan 2015 21:29:11
One of the best books I ever read if you want to know how truly bad things were under them twits then read this book unbelievable how bad things were run.My only question is how did Moore's not think to ask we're they taking loans out against the club to finance their takeover r buying of players simple questions I'm sure in due diligence.

14 Jan 2015 22:34:46
Bang on post. Sadly our club will never Learn.

14 Jan 2015 22:56:25
@ LAVERS. Degen actually was fit when he signed, but got injured on his debut. And then got injured on his comeback from injury. Then he got injured again more or less immediately after recovering from that one. Somewhere along the line he strung a couple of League Cup starts and sub apps in the Premier League together, finally started a Prem match and got sent off.

Aquilani was the one we signed injured, and even after he was fit, he cried off if he so much as stubbed his toe.

Lavers, we had the chance to sign Ronaldo awhen houllier was manager not Benitez. Apparently Phil Thompson was putt onto him by ex man city player Gary Owen but the word is he wasn't completely convinced about Ronaldo and the club was not prepared to pay the signing on fee for such a young player that was requested, not sure but think it was £1 million, I stand to be corrected by the the Eds if that is not correct.
Tommy Irish red, if moores would have asked H&G any questions they would have just told him what he wanted to hear and the dumb arse would have believed them, moores only had to googled Tom Hicks and all the info about leveraged buy outs would have been in front of his face, moores was a greedy thick ***t.

Nothing wrong with signing unproven talent. It's the scouting and career planning that needs improvement.

Alonso, Agger, Mascherano, Reina, Arbeloa, Torres, Kuyt, Suarez, Henderson etc were all signed for fairly standard transfer fees at a time when nobody really considered them to be household names. Gerrard, Carragher, Owen, Fowler, McManaman etc all came from the academy.

You don't need to spend big to achieve big. You just need to buy the right players and manage them properly.

Look at City. Hart, Zabaleta, Sagna, Demichelis, Kompany, Clichy and Kolarov were all cheap/unknown etc. Mangala and Nastasic were expensive and they've been awful!

There will always be bad examples, but the best teams to look at for me are Dortmund and Ajax who seem to buy nearly every player for bargain prices and then turn them into stars. Southampton also seem good at this!

I guess my point is, yes you want to sign quality players; but you don't necessarily have to break the bank to do that.

I bet in the last 15 years our academy has cost over £100m to run. Who have we got to shpw for it? Flanagan (Sterling was bought at 15). That may well become a bigger list in the not too dostant future but what an absolutely atrocious record!

There are ways of building qualoty teams without spending big. It'd be nice to go out and sign a top player every so often, but we simply cannot afford to throw money at our squad like City have in the last 5 years. It isn't sustainable.

You're right though, we need to improve on the success rate of both our transfer businessand our aacademy so we can start filling the squad with quality rather than quantity. Don't just assume that cheap players are squad players though :)

Rafa was terrible in the TW if not worse than BR. He was playing the law of averages with transfers. How? The more he bought, the better chance od players working out. He bought over 70 players and only about 10 panned out. That is a disgusting and horrendous record. Worse, he bought players like Aqua, El Zahr, Degen, Kronkamp and so on for serious money and on stupid wages and they didn`t even play 20 hgames for the club. Aqua was the worst because he was lazy, useless and was nEVER interested inplaying for us and was content just feigning injury, whining, bitching and collecting his stupid wages. If BR is terrible in the TW then Rafa was just dreadful and was even there longer which made his case worse. The cowboys were aweful and were nothing but leeches. However, absorbing Rafa of any blame in the issue a a grave misunderstanding of the events because IMO, he was never the solution BUT was a huge part of the problem. Personally, I wanted ALL of them gone and thank God, my wish was granted.

Yes - we replaced Alonso and Arbeloa with Aquilani and Johnson. What a shambles. I blame the whole thing on Martin O'Neill for not letting Gareth Barry leave Villa to come to us the season before. He was still a big step down from Alonso, but a hell of a lot better than Aquilani.

15 Jan 2015 07:09:45
Ed002. Should we not blame the board rather than Rafa?
Look at Harry Redknapp, he would buy every player in the whole wide world if he was given licence to.
A strong hierarchy would not allow overspending on mediocrity.
I am not trying to pass the buck but surely every manager works within the parameters set out by the board or am I wrong?

{Ed001's Note - Rafa had fought to get control of that area of the club, along with everything else.}

EMS

I know where you're coming from and i'm not for saying to spend big on players, because like you say we have seen many expensive players not live up to the price tag.

I just feel we have enough young talent and players with potential, we just need to add that bit of experience into the squad.

Doesn't always mean you need to spend big.

14 Jan 2015 17:06:24
Schneiderlin lacazette and ter stegan are the three player liverpool should be looking to land in the summer. Watched schneiderlin against the mancs on Sunday and he was brilliant. Ter stegan is a young and talented keeper and also has that physical presence that all goalkeepers should have. Lacazette is an excellent finisher and is lightning quick which would suit our style of play. Add these three and we have a team capable of challenging for top honour for the next 5-10 years. Would appreciate my fellow red men and eds on which three players they would like to sign realistically

14 Jan 2015 17:38:45
It isn't going to happen tho is it. We should've got top players LAST summer, instead we blew it. Good 3 players though

14 Jan 2015 14:28:27
Lacazette reminds me of a complete striker which could be obtained at around 20-25 million pounds due to his goal and all round contributions in Lyon. If we try waiting till summer we would have several competitors and we know our current transfer team have issues on getting deal done immediately. Lacazette and a solid goal keeper of ter stegen ability will take Liverpool into top four which is within our reach and we have several covers as we progress in form. YNWA. I will also like to tell the Eds that they are doing a lovely work.

The lyon owner already claimed that he is better than bale . So whether it is winter or summer he will cost no less than 35/40 tbh.The chance of getting him is gone for good !We should brought him last summer ! Maybe berahino this window ? He will also cost close to 30 in the summer if he scores some goals in coming weeks !

I think LFC fans would like Lacazette at LFC, but at the moment we are being investigated for breaching the FFP rules. The number you mention is most likely far off what Lyon wants for him. You also have to include agent fees, all sorts of taxes etc. Also Lyon are not interested in selling him, as they are the leaders of Ligue 1.

It seems unlikely that LFC will be buying players this transfer window.

I think it will be difficult to get him without CL. he is going to be very expensive regardless. We should have looked at him last summer, but the Transfer Committee dithered.

14 Jan 2015 16:12:07
Dithered after making all those early signings?

14 Jan 2015 17:06:43
I agree completely with denydavito (both comment), i think that the summer priorities must be a proven GK and a young proven striker (if we can't buy anyone now) . We need just those 2 buys to be competing high in EPL.; if we move lucas (hopefully not) also add a CDM. The rest of the team will look far more solid that this year's now that most of the players may know better between themselves, after a year working.
I will risk for Lacazette too if he cost something similar to 30M, unfortunately I think that to buy him in 2015 will be almost imposible, so I will turn to Luiz Adriano (shakhtar), Aubameyang or Berahino if his price is around 20M. As GK i will try to sign Cech, if not I will try Begovic or Cillesen. IF Lucas lives, my only choses will be Schniderling, Gundgogan or Song. I think that a good part of this deals could be funded by the club sales

No, dithered when it came to making interest in him into bids.

LFC signed Balotelli instead.

If its Lyon then don't bother.
They want 20 million per leg.

14 Jan 2015 12:50:52
I know this might be a premature/irrelevant to talk about, but as I understand BR will most likely not be the manager at LFC at the end of the season.

Frank de Boer has been mentioned as a possible manager, I just wanted to know if anyone has been following Ajax, who could tell me what kind of football they are playing. As far as I have seen they play some beautiful attacking football, but have not seen more than a couple of matches.

Another perhaps more important thing is, does the likes of Teixeira, Ibe and Flanagan have a future at LFC. As far as I know their contracts are running out in the summer.

Ajax play to a philosophy called total football.

It is a philosophy Brendan has tried and fialed to replicate.

The idea is that every player on the pitch can play in any outfield position so that in position the team becomes free flowing as opposed to rigid and predictable.

The idea is to keep the ball in your possession but to keep it progressively. Basicaly, pass it around but make sure you're still going forwards, not watching Skrtel and Gerrard play one-two for 85 minutes. The idea is to get the ball to your midfield players (the players deemed the most techncially gifted and composed) as quickly as possible and keep possession there.

The free flowing formation is supposed to give these midfielders options gonig forward due to constant movement in behind from both the wing backs, the forwards and the wide midfielders.

De Boer (under Cruyff's guidance) implements this philosophy fantastically which makes Ajax a free flowing, attacking tam who dominate games and spread the goals throughout their team. They place a great deal of importance on technically gifted, intelligent players who can adpat their game throughout the 90 minutes based on which zone of the pitch the ball is in.

It is very difficult to get right, but virtually unstoppable if it is done correctly with good enough players. The reason why player need to be versatile is so that if the centre back progresses forward with the attack, any player on the pitch can cover for him.

I have to say that excluding Bayern Munich, Ajax are the most enjoyable team to watch in Europe. It is a shame the Dutch league doesn't have as much financial muscle as England or it'd be phenomenal.

The only question marks over De Boer for me are A) could he adjust the style to work in a different league and B) can he do it without Cruyff to help him!

Thanks EMS, your opinion is always appreciated.

I think it would be difficult to implement such a system in the PL. It will definitely take time and probably more players to come in and some to be sold. Then there is the "right to play" thing where other teams (West Ham, West Brom from this season) will make it difficult to play football.

Wenger has been trying to do something similar with mixed results in the past and poor results now.

No one has played total football since the 80s EMS.

Ajax are fairly disciplined in certain positions- their holding midfield rarely leaves much distance between the CBs and other central midfielders have clearly defined roles.

What it is fair to say though is that teams like Ajax (and Barcelona following Cruyffs input) have continued to make sure that through youth level players gain an understanding of all positions and how they link.

This may include strikers having coaching time with the GK coach to learn how GKs play the statistics in covering certain areas etc or midfielders understanding how defenders see the game when passing from the back to stop "hospital" passes etc.

This is hardly specific to "total football" though, and most intelligent players (and certainly most good strikers) take time to build their game around input from the entire coaching team

EMS, great post

It's just a modern adaptation Forza, but you are correct. It's slightly different to the initial philosophy from the 70's.

It's still based on the same principles though. Many teams have adapted it in the past; Barcelona being the most successful adaptation in my lifetime.

Cruyff is the main driver behind it since his mentor passed away. Rodgers is jusy a disciple to the philosophy but he doesn't seem to understand to theory behind it as he thinks simply retaining possession will be enough. Possession without penetration is like a car without an engine though. Boring, static and pointless!

The total football philosophy changed modern football though as you quite rightly say and components of it are used globally by all.

Absolutely! I will go one better. A lot of teams possess the ball. Man City for example, possess the ball very well because they have a way of moving the ball swiftly and with quick passing especially w/ the FB`s providing width which stretches the opposition`s backline. As a result, the opening always comes and they have strikers who can finish.On the contrary, BR`s idea of possession footie is like a car who`s engine is still running but its hand brake has not been released. Moral of the story? The car runs out of gas and hasn`t moved an inch. Kind of like us in the first half of the season.

14 Jan 2015 10:15:19
Ed2 do you think Liverpool made the correct decision in expanding anfield to 54k and then up to 58k ?
Thanks

{Ed002's Note - As opposed to what? I am not sure the question is specific enough.}

Ed2? Building and extension to anfield instead of building a new stadium in the city!?
Increasing capacity may be good for the short term but in the long term will it be good enough?
Is Ian ayre correct in saying phase1 of the expansion will bring in and extra £25m per season?(including naming rights)
Thanks

{Ed002's Note - Where would the club get the land in the city or the money to build a new stadium? People generally overstate the additional revenue gained from expanding the stadium and fail to take account of the additional costs associated with the expansion. If the circa 10k seats in the first phase all went on season tickets at £1k each then the revenue before costs would be £10M. Some of the seats will go that way and some will be corporate boxes which have the potential to raise more money than the equivalent season tickets, so the figure before deducting additional staffing costs, policing costs etc.. will be perhaps late £M teens per season. Mr Ayre is well aware that corporate hospitality at Liverpool will fetch far less than it would do for London clubs. He also knows with every bit of sponsorship, match day tickets go from the number available.}

Thanks ed2!
Do you think Liverpool will be able to close the match day revenue gap significantly on arsenal giving time?
Thanks

{Ed002's Note - Not unless Arsenal move up north.}

14 Jan 2015 09:10:28
Levezzi rumours gathered a lot of pace over night.
Any change eds?

{Ed002's Note - It was under the cover of darkness that ...}

Not happening mate

With sturridge, sterling and lallana to come back into the starting line up it wouldn't be wise to purchase Lavezzi. Though we definitely should replace Lambert with Origi.

{Ed002's Note - I agree Haych - it makes no sense.}

I don't get why people want the Carlos Tevez wannabe