épieur

I think it can. Look at the players coming out of barca's academy. They have this stuff drilled into them. And for a more isolated case, look at Drogba. He came to England as a battering ram who wasn't all that prolific and only a decent awareness of the players around him. The past two seasons, he's been battering ram, creator and goalscorer extraordinaire all rolled into one. I don't know where he found the extra space in his mind, but he clearly has greater vision of the pitch, more time in his head and the options in his mind to do it all these days.

No disagreements there. Not sure he was that much better for them, but at either rate I don't think he was a lesser player for them. Macca was outstanding for Real Madrid.

Not too sure about that. There was a fair while for Real Madrid where he was basically running games for them from the right as good as any central midfielder, Mendieta-at-Valencia-style

let's be fair, we have no f***ing clue what kind of personalities these players are off the pitch. Guesswork based on their character on the pitch provides at best a highly fragmented picture. Goosebumbs again. Stop it, Kenny. Just give this man an extension now. The man is a visionary. Really really really hope he gets the results to earn one. There is so much with him that is just right in the way it can't be with anyone else.

whoa, nelly. It wasn't a bad call, but I think the standards for genius are a bit higher than picking Spearing over Poulsen.

Warnock on loan is not too bad, provided we can actually sell Konchesky this window and lighten our wagebill. We get in a better backup for the much absent Aurelio, he gets half a season to prove himself back with his boyhood club. And then in the summer we can look at whether we want to keep an always injured Aurelio as backup, or if Warnock is reliable enough to stay on as backup. We'll need to sign a reliable first XI leftback at any rate.

time to call in the big guns. Can't let our newfound ability to rally for a cause go to waste. Bring out the internet terrorists. Time to get digital on their ass until they accept our offer.

I think Hodgson genuinely thought he was signing a player good enough to be a first-team regular.

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in fairness, he is way better than Pandev.

make that potential leader. I'd love it if he started showing it, and I am hopeful there's a leader in there waiting to come out, but on the pitch he doesn't show it often enough.

I think the best way to do that is top down. Ie, move on the bottom rung players in the squad, sign players better than our current starting XI and relegate our firstteamers to squad players. Players like Kuyt should be that, and so should Maxi if we want to be competing for the top 4. If Cole doesn't step it up and show he's good enough to at least be close to a starting berth, he should be sold. Makes no sense to have someone on his wages making up the numbers.

Tbh, I don't think Rafa was entirely wrong in making such an assessment at the time, without the benefit of hindsight. Nevertheless, it was a patent mistake to try and swap him for an obviously inferior player like Barry. And replacing him with a player who went straight to the physios when he signed wasn't particularly inspired either. But it always seemed to me that, irrespective of whom he rated higher, Rafa simply plain liked the type of player Mascherano's is and wanted to make him a key player from day one. In fairness, there is something wrong with this team for it to suffer so much from Alonso's departure. Just like there was something wrong with our inability to play fluent football whenever he was out of the side when he was still here. You look at the players, what they can do do on the ball, the balance of the team and it all looks good. Those players should have been able to do more without him than they did. Buggered if I know what went wrong without Alonso though. His absence is the obvious, and a major, cause but I think there was more to it than that.

Better than Reina Johnson-Skretl-Carra-Konchesky Meireless-Poulsen-Gerrard-Cole Kuyt The Sahara desert Torres

It happened a couple of times in-game when Masch or Alsonso were taken off and the other wasn't playing. I thought it was alright tbh. Weird balance to the team and a waste of Gerrard to play him there, but it was alright. Strangely, Stevie looked more at home distributing play in the actual holding role than he sometimes does in the more advanced midfield role.

I give up. It's all yours. . If only they were saying that.

Johnson at lb and Kelly at rb > Aurelio at lb and Johnson at rb? madness. And when have we seen evidence that Kelly actually is excellent defensively? I've seen him be decent, maybe even be good defensively on the odd occasion. But excellent? Keeping top players on their game in his pocket? He's not even been properly tested yet and people are already taken it for granted he's up there. The last time he did come up against a top player, Giggs was MotM.

Truly a momentously wrong statement. Effenberg, Muller, Bierhoff, Klinnsmann, Voeller, Hassler, Matthaus, Kohler, Riedle, Hamann, Babbel, Ziege, Sammer, etc. etc. Just about anyone who was actually really good was up for leaving the bundesliga and try their hand at a foreign league. The only real exceptions I can think of were Scholl and Kahn. And they still are. Ballack, Ozil, Metzelder, Khedira, Metzelder just off the top of my head.

I know it's a big if, but if Aurelio is fit there is absolutely no way Kelly should be starting at fullback (assuming of course Johnson is also fit and not moved to RM or something). It's nice to see him doing well and I hope he keeps it going and does play well enough to force himself into the starting lineup, but at the end of the day you have to play your best players. The bigging up/glossing over whatever may be missing Kelly gets on account of being a young local lad is getting out of hand.

Not true. Sissoko may be stronger and a better tackler, but he has nowhere near Mascherano's positional sense. Sissoko looks great out there winning tackles and does it well, but there is a reason why he was never actually trusted in the holding role by Rafa. In fact, even on the rare occasion he was paired with Gerrard in central midfield, it was Stevie who took up the deeper-lying position. He doesn't have to get nasty. Just has to realise 'feck it, I'm better than anyone else on this pitch at what I do. I'll run this game, me'. And learn to hit the target. I thin k there is a world of improvement waiting for Lucas if he can develop some leadership qualities and start scoring a few goals to boot. And that's besides the fact that I think he is a good player who is steadily improving regardless.

man, muppet lineups really coming out in full force now. Kelly is not gonna waltz into the starting lineup ffs. And certainly not ahead of either of Carragher or Agger. Nor is Warnock, if we are at all signing him, ahead of Aurelio. Meireless is not ahead of Lucas in starting XI either. I know this is novel, but we still don't even know what plans Kenny has for our formation for next week. How about we wait till they are signed, see how Kenny uses our new signings before throwing out ideas of how they are best used?

Good to see.

According to Agger's agent, Daniel had a meeting with Dalglish where he told him that whatever preparations there may have been to sell him under Hodgson are now called off as Kenny rates him highly and wants him to stay. Good news.