Nottsgriff

I agree with that, but his record with Academia is impressive on paper (I won't pretend to have seen many of their games), and winning the Europa league as well as the league was a good achievement. He also went the whole league season undefeated with Porto, which is impressive whatever team you inherit. Like I say, I'd prefer Rafa, but if it's not to be Rafa then I'd be as happy with AVB as any of the others that have been bandied about (assuming Guardiola is a non-starter!).

And I thought it was the general opinion (i.e. not just mine) that he failed at Chelsea because he tried to get them to play a high defensive line, and a high-tempo pressing game, and the senior players weren't up to it and revolted? There would be no such problems with us - that's the sort of game that suits our senior players apart from Carra, and he's already stopped being a first choice CB this season. I'm disgusted by the whole thing, but I would be reasonably happy with AVB provided we appoint a strong DoF to sort out the wider reorganisation of the club. I'd certainly be happier with him than with Martinez, Lambert, Rogers etc. though Rafa would be my first choice.

On a net spend of £1.4m, and with a wage reduction whilst expanding the squad. He's done a great job, and I do rate him as a manager, but he wouldn't be my choice. It's one thing performing miracles on a shoestring, it's another managing a club with Champions League ambitions. http://footyfinance.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/wigan-the-will-to-survive/

Cruyff, with Guardiola to be appointed as manager. Is not going to happen, but is a nice thought that has distracted me from the thought of Lambert, Rogers and Martinez for 30 secs...

Very much doubt it's true. We were linked with Coyle, O'Neill and Hughes when Hodgson was appointed though, as well as the more recent links with Martinez. This is one of my issues with getting rid of Kenny - who are we realistically going to get in? It's not going to be the likes of Capello, Hiddink, Guardiola, AVB, Klopp etc. it's going to be the likes of these. So give Kenny another season.

"@empireofthekop Kenny is still the manager at #LFC @empireofthekop Rumours are all b******s" Now earlier, this person was tweeting about the rumours and received a message from Marina Dalglish. An hour later and they are tweeting the above with apparent certainty. Encouraging amongst the twitter s***storm.

Agree with all of that - the play has been good, we've been pretty solid at the back, a few good signings in midfield and I think we could really push on quite quickly. Even the s**** we've got there now have managed to raise it for the big games in the cup and against the big teams in the league (mostly). I reckon around 9 of our first 11 would be good enough for a top 4 side - Reina, Johnson, Agger, Skrtel, Enrique (on form to March), Lucas, Gerrard, Carroll (on recent form), Suarez. Add two or three decent midfielders to that and we'd be looking really good. Then the likes of Kelly, Coates, Henderson, Shelvey, can develop properly before being relied upon, and the others are probably OK as squad players. The main issue for me is making sure that the 2 or 3 we sign for the first team are class, and sorting out the mentality and technique of some of the squad players. Some of them are so pathetically weak-willed that they look beaten before we kick-off, whilst others keep on making the same old mistakes game after game that should be easy to rectify through coaching (e.g. Adam conceding free kicks and Spearing giving away possession at vital times in dangerous positions). Also goes without saying that we can't afford any expensive mistakes this summer like Downing. Still staggers me that he has 0 goals and 0 assists for £20m...

Exactly, pre match training schedule and pre match presser both moved back a day because game is on Sunday. Nothing to see here...

I was absolutely fuming coming out of the ground last night, but on reflection I don't think the squad is AS bad as it appears. We've badly missed all of our key players - e.g. Agger, Johnson, Gerrard, Suarez, and Lucas, for big chunks of the season for one reason or another. We're badly lacking in a couple of positions, but you don't need class in every position to finish in the top four, you need class in key positions with hard working players who can do a job around them. I'd be reasonably confident that we could seriously challenge for fourth with a first 11 that looked like: Reina Johnson, Agger, Skrtel, Enrique (was great until that Spanish squad announcement, has been v.iffy since, but has also been overplayed due to lack of alternative at left back) New RW, Lucas, Gerrard, Downing (I know he's been mainly s***, but can do a job, and I'm clinging to Friedel's assurance that he takes a daft amount of time to settle anywhere but then eventually comes good) Suarez, New Striker A creative CM for when Gerrard's out or we want to play different tactics, and a CB who can play the ball for when Agger's out, and I don't think we would be too far off provided those 3-4 new signings are top class. That 11 would still have the likes of Kelly, Coates, Carra, Henderson, Bellamy, Carroll as squad players who are all good enough for the squad. This season has been bizarre, we've absolutely battered half the teams that we lost to. If we'd only won half of those games that we absolutely deserved to then this squad would suddenly be looking a lot better - and with a decent new right winger, new striker and fit Gerrard we'll surely take more chances next year? The tough bit is that we won't get anything much for the players that are leaving (e.g. Aurelio, Maxi, Kuyt, possibly Adam and/or spearing) , so we're relying on FSG giving Kenny a decent kitty to work with.

And I don't think that Carlisle has an anti-LFC agenda at all. He doesn't have a pro-LFC agenda, clearly. But it's reasonable for him to pick Carroll's as a recent example of a high profile fall where there was absolutely no contact with the player. From what I can recall he was one of the more level headed commentators regarding the Suarez situation too, though of course he wasn't going to agree with most Liverpool fans over that one. It's not enough to award a penalty, but from their point of view it's enough not to warrant overturning the decision. It's s***, but I can understand their logic better now - how can they hang their ref out to dry when he correctly saw that there was contact and then the player fell over? No common sense or degree of judgement involved at all though.

Spoke to a ref at the weekend, and he said that for the panel the only thing that would have mattered on the Derry/Young incident was "was the ref clearly wrong to award the penalty". As there was contact, however minimal, they wouldn't overturn it. The red stems from that, as once you've given the penalty you have to send him off for denial of a clear goalscoring opportunity. The fact that he was offside anyway is completely irrelevant to the appeal as that decision wasn't given. So even though it was clearly a s*** decision according to 98% of people watching the game, I can see how by their logic the decision was upheld.

Yep, probably my favourite journalist (along with Paul Kimmage for his interviews). Always gets to the real heart of the matter he's covering, whether it's non-league or Champions League. I remember he also got a load of abuse from our fans when he was one of the first to point out in detail the financial flaws in Hicks and Gillett's plans, but few of us wanted to hear it at the time.

My guess would be that they've investigated naming rights and have concluded that a new stadium would be too expensive for 15k extra seats. So unless the council either let us build bigger on Stanley Park, or allow us to redevelop Anfield, there's no new stadium. Which puts us in a very difficult position under financial fair play as others will be generating much more revenue than us. Pure speculation though.

Just lots of posts saying he's nervous/worried about FSG, hinting that he and others had uncovered some worrying info about them, followed by: "Many have made or danced around this point, but let's have it right. The current angst over FSG is about FSG, not about distraction from issues elsewhere, which are worrisome enough in their own right. Let's get the semi final out of the way and then, assuming we're still in it, we might not hear much til after the cup final. And if we lose the semi, then don't worry, things on here will get tasty. But not before - it's nice that everyone's kind of agreed on that actually." and later: "I asked sources whether they were OK with posting the info last night and this morning, and each of them said we had to get the semi final out of the way first, which is great thinking on it now. Get behind the team and the manager with all our might for a few days and then see where the land lies after that. Anyway, it's likely the info will come out in some form without anyone on here having to do it." To be honest, it doesn't read like anything concrete, just that a few people are starting to get nervous about their intentions. Journalists have recently starting highlighting the silence on the stadium issue as being worrying, it could be linked to that.

Spot on - aim for the top every year and if you end up fourth it's not a bad result. Should never be aiming for fourth as a target though.

This is it. Are we in transition, where one bad season in the league is a price to pay for a big jump in long term competitiveness? Or is the carling cup a marker of decline? In short is kenny souness or houllier at this point? To me, we are playing better football than before, have a better squad than before (though too many are being picked yoo often e.g. Henderson and Adam) and have proved a winning mentality by getting the carling cup. Regardless of finishing position I think kenny's earned a summer to turn it around, but I'm not entirely convinced given our occasional shocking performances and results. Another defining summer to come...

Yep - I reckon he'll go with Henderson instead of Adam to start though, with Shelvey on the bench instead of Maxi. Would be surprised if any of the other selections were any different.

It's all set up now for Evra to refuse to shake Suarez's hand to try and wind him up. He (and Fergie) will know that the press and all of Old Trafford would be right behind him if he did it, on the grounds that Suarez has never fully publicly apologised to Evra. Don't think it would affect Suarez at all, but wouldn't be surprised to see it happen.

Agree with that last sentence 100% - just don't think it's anywhere near as insurmountable a challenge as some are presenting it. Let's start on Saturday.

We'd have much less to argue about if they weren't :-)

Over the year's he's written some tremendous articles on Hillsborough, and was one of the few journos who kept it as a 'live' issue ever year around the anniversary, when others were hoping it would go away. For that I'll forgive him some of the s**** he's come out with in recent years.

It is, but I'm uneasy about the current modus operandi of lots of twitter users to give dogs abuse to some journos then have a hysterical pissy fit when one of them eventually snaps and replies in kind. And I'm even more uneasy about the hounding of the likes of Barrett and Evans, who seem to be expected (by some) to drop any hint of journalistic integrity and get involved in slanging matches with their colleagues as soon as one of them says anything that could be construed as an insult to LFC. Twitter is a better place for having these journos on there, and there have been some great debates on there when people have constructively challenged articles. Many may simply quit in the near future though if the current lynch-mob mentality continues, and then they'll retreat behind the curtain as Steve H puts it, free to write whatever s*** they like without challenge.

That's based on our previous fixtures though - and we've got a relatively easy run-in. Looking at those fixtures, surely it's not too much to ask to beat, say, Everton, Wigan, Villa, Fulham, and West Brom at home and QPR, Blackburn, Norwich and Swansea away? That would allow for draws against Sunderland, Newcastle, Chelsea and Arsenal, and losing on Saturday.....though in reality we'll probably win at least one or two of those five games. It's not an Istanbul-like turnaround based on those fixtures, just doing a professional job against the teams we should be beating.

70 points should do it - so 9 wins, 4 draws and a defeat would be enough. Looking at our fixtures, that's certainly do-able if Suarez, Gerrard and Carroll start to gel. Everton, Arsenal, Wigan, Villa, Fulham, West Brom, Chelsea left at home, United, Sunderland, QPR, Newcastle, Blackburn, Norwich, Swansea away. If we can't get 9 wins from that lot then we don't deserve 4th place. It's not like we need to play much better than we already have been, just need to start taking chances...mind you, we have been saying that for a while now.

I used to be in favour of this but have been persuaded by the arguments about the damage it would do to lower league football. I now think the best solution all round would be to bring back the Central League and the Combination. The problem is that reserve team footy is rubbish and they only play around 22 games a season, so why not bring back proper reserve footy where they play a full season, like we used to have? IIRC it was scrapped due to concerns that youngsters were playing too much football, but now we have the opposite problem of players not having enough competitive games, and the loan system is just as disruptive to lower league footy IMO.