Alright, rabble rousers, settle down. Considering that almost every comments section descends into a cacophony of Aston Villa v. LFC mud-slinging, I expect this to be no different.
It's my beloved Liverpool's turn, and this transfer season is already rather insane.
First, we have the Gareth Barry saga. What a soap opera this is turning out to be. Both sides playing the PR game and sticking to some seemingly useless guns as his price tag rises incrementally with every passing day.
I've seen Brett Ratner storylines that are somehow more fulfilling than this. - LFC offer 10m or so. Villa say no. - Villa say LFC offered only 4m plus a "mish-mash" of players. Scott Carson weeps at the thinly-veiled insult, for his family knows his gloves are no mish-mash, no sir. - LFC offer 12m. O'Neill tells 'em to fuck off. - LFC offer 13m. O'Neill doesn't answer his phone and keeps playing My Little Pony instead. - LFC offer 15m. O'Neill rolls his eyes and goes back to eating stem cells on dry wheat toast. - LFC offer some cash plus Crouch, Finnan, and someone else to make the total cash value somewhere close to 15 or 16m. O'Neill yawns, gives the finger, then settles back down on his couch made of human bones to watch Dream Team re-runs. - O'Neill remarks loudly that it's 18m or sod-all for Gareth Barry. Rafa cries, moans, begs, wonders whether the club can stump up the cash. Meanwhile, he plots how to offload Crouch and Xabi for enough dough to seal the deal. Somewhere near Birmingham, O'Neill laughs maniacally in his underground bunker, and Randy Lerner seeks young boys online with whom to commit sexual atrocities. Outside of that, we've finally shipped off Harry Kewell to Turkey, a move that's upset a number of people considering he's now playing for the team whose fans were involved in a stabbing that killed 2 Leeds United fans when he still played for the Yorkshire club. Oops. Forgot about that one, didn't you, Harry? John Arne Riise is off to sunny AS Roma for 4 million, and the Xabi-to-Juve talks are quickly becoming as protracted as the Barry will-he, won't-he debacle. So the thought goes, we need to sell Xabi and Crouch in order to finance a move for Barry and/or others, so let's see what happens. Oh, and Anthony Le Tallec's finally off the books for good, to Le Mans for 1.1 million. There have been rumours about Bentley, Downing, Espanyol winger Albert Riera, David Villa, David Silva, and a whole slew of others. So I pose to you: what's the deal? What's going to happen, and which rumours are absolute pants? Who will be in Liverpool red next season, and who'll be stuck somewhere else wishing they were? Have at it in the comments.
My attempt at a simplified timeline:
(Did I do alright with this timeline? I think I managed to successfully avoid personal bias)
In successful transfer news, we have signed Philipp Degen on a free, a Swiss left/right-back who played exactly 0 minutes in Euro '08, and the impressive-looking Andrea Dossena, a left-back from Udinese who has been playing well in Serie A and will prove to be very, very useful in that backline. And don't forget 17-year-old Danish striker Nikola Saric!
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12 comments:
neither villa or silva make sense in my opinion. with two attacking fullbacks coming in its pretty clear he is going to stick with the 4-2-3-1. with gerrard in the middle of the three and babel/yossi on the left. i dont see silva as much of an upgrade there.
personally i think yossi is terribly underrated, but i think those two are the answer on the left. on the right, well pennant sucks ass, sorry bout it. if kuyt keeps his form up then he should get that spot. but an attacking right sided midfielder is the one position i would like to see brought in. im not as worried about crossing ability now as the fullbacks will be counted on for that. the ideal move in my opinion would be to bring in van der vaart. because then pretty much every one of the three could move around as they see fit.
stick masche and barry/alonso/whatever behind them and youve got a rock solid midfield.
need a backup keeper too, there have been rumors of that brazilian guy coming in, hes supposedly pretty talented. but as long as he can keep a clean sheet against non league teams ill be happy.
Didn't LUFC bring in a backup keeper recently? I thought I read that somewhere and am too lazy to google.
Barry's going to Anfield, no doubt. O'Neill, however, needs the transfer money to be big in order to bring in new players.
there were reports saying the deal was done. some cat named like capliveri or some shit, i dont know.
itandje was garbage though and fucked off to turkey with kewell.
its all just a matter of time until dean bouzanis takes over the backup spot. an australian playing for the greek national team, youve gotta love that.
LB-
You're right close, but it's not Lerner looking for little boys. It's Wenger- always and forever. As for O'Neill's viewing habits, it might have been Footballers Wives and not Dream Team-- but I'll check my sources.
Latest is that we're willing to accept 15 mill plus Finnan and a pledge not to pursue David Bentham.
And Carson's gloves are inded no mish-mash, as a mish-mash would at least stick to things like crosses and free kicks.
Knock on wood...at least we aren't hearing the owners snipe at each other. Now, if we could only get some more dough out of them for the stadium and to buy some decent wingers and a good support striker.
i think that would be a good move for everyone. finnan probably lost his spot because of his injuries last year, but if he gets close to his form of two years ago thats a great pickup.
but if deggen is any good he will play over arbeloa (he was coming off an injury thats why he didnt play for the swiss, apparently). if he isnt, and the central defense stays healthy, just move carragher over to the right. i really hope agger isnt the odd man out if hes healthy, cant see him being left out over skrtel but who knows.
support striker as in a backup or support striker as in someone to play behind him? who would you push out of the lineup for another striker?
im welcome to the idea of putting gerrard on the right again personally. i think its no coincedence that liverpool's highest point total ever came from a season that saw him out wide
both, i suppose. somebody to play off of torres to take some of the attention away from him and somebody as a capable deputy. kuyt is good in the support role, but is not good enough to be his deputy. i also like kuyt as an outside midfielder, although i think only in the 4-5-1 formation.
essentially, torres can't have everything on his shoulders and can't play every match. if a deal could be made for Santa Cruz or Keane that would be ideal, but i don't think the funds are there.
i think it would be good to push gerrard out wide at times, especially with barry in the middle.
You mean Crouchaldinho and Voronin don't work well with Nando?
I had no idea.
i dont think youre going to be able to find an established striker like santa cruz who will be willing to play second fiddle. i think if you want to roll two strikers you use babel and then put barry on the left or yossi. truth is a lot of these guys are damn versatile, and scoring goals wasnt really the problem last year, it was keeping leads. plugging holes in the defense god willing will solve that problem.
No, we need a support guy, unless the 4-4-2 is suddenly coming back to Anfield. Torres alone up front is alright but not ideal. He gets isolated and defenses push him all the way up to the half-way line just to get the ball, thus making him rather useless when he finally does collect.
As far as I see it, wing-backs were a priority, but so is that right wing. Another quality midfielder would be nice, and Torres needs a friend to help cause chaos up front.
Other than that, so far, so good.
I'm not overly worried about the money just yet, as we will sell a few decent price tags this summer. However, we do need another big name or two, simply to keep up with what's already looming above us.
In regards to the secondary/support striker, why can't Babel take this role? He's fine on the left, and can play out front, or as a backup. As already mentioned, Yossi can play on the left, so if Babel had to be moved, he'd have good cover. Personally, I'd like to see Nemeth or Pacheco get a shot somewhere on the field this year, even if only in Carling Cups and whatnot. If Rafa's willing to spend the money on young talent, he should be willing to play them.
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