Pam

Torres is a joy to watch and makes you remember what a world class striker looks like! In their era Fowler and Owen were also incredible at times and both didn't fulful their potential with us for different reasons but to start making comparisons already is daft. Torres hasn't been with us a full season - once he has been with us a couple of years and shown he can be consistently fantastic then we can make proper comparisons. Once he has won major trophies with us we can even consider comparing him to Dalglish and Rush. At the moment he is just an amazing prospect who is doing better than we could have hoped in his debut season and is bringing back the joy to what was turing out to be a miserable season for off the field rubbish and mediocrity on the field.

is that a trick question? is it not next wednesday 5th march?

i think this may be over estimated sometimes - there are a lot of people saying i'll have your ticket if you don't want it but do people who are glad to get to a couple of games a season understand what is now a slog to go to even just the home games??? - the expense - crap kick off times to suit tv - muppets in the ground slagging the players - mre muppets on the radio determined to have their often incoherent say regardless of whether they've seen the game or not Even more credit to the guys who go to all the aways as well - i'm a professional person but don't have time or money to do it. the match used to be fun - now it is not. Not just all the ownership stuff and our performances but the general game - spoilt over paid footballers, the game being run for tv, not match going fans (and ultimately match going fans also fund the tv) this playing a league game abroad is ridiculous and shows even more how the authorities want to prostitute our game to the highest bidder. these able replacements will get disallusioned as well and quite quickly the way things are going - in fact i'd say newer fans, as typified by the 606 brigade, tend to be less patient and more reactionary than the fans who've been going for years. Just an opinion and i'm sure there are lots of people on here who'd say if only they could get a season ticket they'd be most loyal fans ever but even the mancs with their fantastic exploitation of their brand are seeing there are limits. It is the emotional connection that keeps people going regardless of performance. a sense of belonging and inability to comprehend a life without that trip to see the game. As that emotional connection is eroded a football becomes just another afternoon/evening of entertainment - nice to do but if you can't make it then - so what?

he was a lovely bloke - absolute tragedy. My thoughts are with his family. RIP Alan.

i'd like to see a bit of consistency in team selection - with Agger & Alonso back from injury we should be able to field a consistent team injury permitting. let the players get used to playing with specific players in a specific system. there is no manager i'd rather have in a one off game situation than Rafa as he has proved in knockout competitions, but the teams doing well in the league tend to keep it broadly the same they have a more settled team who all know what their jobs are. our players should be able to impose them selves on the poorer teams rather than just attempting to contain them and then hitting on the counter attack. rafa looked tired & stressed in his interview on the BBC yesterday this constant speculation must be taking it's toll and on the players - i don't buy this players are professional and dont care as long as they get paid. Gerrard is one of the most sensitive players around - his career is littered with times when his head wasn't right for various football and non-football related issues and has admitted that. Can't remember who made the comment earlier in the thread but i do agree we are suffering from settling for second best in the past. Someone commented that we've just broken our transfer record for a player and a adefender so funding must be ok? We've spent £6m on Skyrtal how many years after Utd spent £30m on Ferdinand and £10m(?) on Vidic. We've spent £22m on Torres when Utd spent £28m ish on Rooney, £15m on Saha and are likely to shell out £32m on Tevez whilst also breaking our record on Hargreaves who they didn't really need already having spent £15m on Carrick the year before to play alongside Scholes and they spent a combined £35m in Anderson & Nani. Look at Chelsea who have Drogba £24m? 3 years ago?, also have £31m Shevchenko and another not inexpensive striker whose name i forget and have just splashed out on Anelka for almost 3 times what we've just spent on our great deal in this window. You can point to years of buying players who aren't good enough like Kuyt and Crouch but we seem to have been constrained in our spending o take chances on middleweight players to keep a reasonabe size squad rather than being able to invst in the game changing players. Our owners came in and said Rafa can have who he wants - snoop dog etc. this does not seem to be the case. If we are not allowed to compete with Man Utd & Chelsea financially then why should we expect our performance to be up there? Are we becoming like Newcastle - a deluded club which thnks it is bigger than it is? Goals win matches, to turn our draws into wins we need more match winners and that costs money. and before anyone starts on the Wenger has oly spent tuppence hapenny and Arsenal are better - Wenger has the benefit of attracting players to London rather than the provincial cold & Rainy North west and is seeing the benefit of his youth policy of buying up wunderkids for years as well as investing decent amounts of money. He has built a good side and he has made some great buys but he is also seeing benefit of being in post for a number of years.

i've felt much better this week for avoiding this site/ the internet in general and newspapers. maybe ignorance is bliss afterall. 5 minutes back here and the same old speculation and rehashing of old arguments starts to get me down again. maybe the answer is just to watch the game and ignore everything else!

- the owners have destroyed their initial credibility over funds for players & the stadium - one of the best managers in Europe is being undermined by the owners/club hierarchy despite two Cl finals and an FA cup win - Rafa is a legend and deserves more - an increasing number of our supposed most knowledgable fans in the world are an embarrassment both at the ground and spouting rubbish to the media - the financial cost of going to the game to watch overpaid primadonnas who are so far removed from ordinary fans that they may as well live on the moon!) - the drama created by SKY/media in attempts to extort further cash from us fans - constant personal (and a lot of the time unwarranted) abuse aimed at players/ manager - beyond wit/a bit of fun Liverpool was always supposed to be different - we aren't any more. i've lost all enthusiasim for the game, it is not the same. It is not just not challenging for the league, i've only seen us win that once in my time but i used to feel i belonged and was proud to be a Liverpool fan - now i'm embarrassed at the antics of my club and the views spouted by "fans" on radio phone ins who claim to speak for Liverpool fans. we can all see things aren't right on the pitch but the current situation isn't helping as it must be affecting the players. the owners need to put up or shut up. Back Rafa to do his job or sack him.

i'd like G&H to do what they said they'd which is back the manager. They should do this both financially and formally through a statement saying they believe he is the right man for the job and he is going nowhere and there is no ongoing move to replace him regardless of where we finish this year as they accept we are still a team in transition. This should at least start to end the ongoing farce that has become the public face of our club. If they want to sack Benitez they should do it and accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions bad or good. At the moment it just looks like they are waiting for an excuse or hoping if they provoke him enough he will leave of his own accord. If they are unwilling/unable to do this then they should be reconsidering their position because they have done immense damage to the soul of our club in the last year and we are in danger of becoming another Newcastle with a soap opera of a string of managers and ignorant impatient fans who turn on players and each other. If G&H did go - I don't know enough about DIC to comment on their suitability/credibility to move us forward and i doubt there are many here who do either - potentially they could be worse - i suppose they could be better. We don't know. However another change of ownership opens us up to more transition/uncertainty and could be even more damaging.

i like Rafa and desperately want him to do well. I'll be gutted if he is sacked for non footballing reasons. He deserves another year and some additional financial support to trade up some players like Crouch/Carson/Riise , we have some good squad players but need more proven match winners and they don't come cheap. Now in the days of impatience some of our fans are an embarrasment and seem to have forgotten how to support. Loads of muppets regardless of whether they actually witnessed a game want to have their say on the radio. The abuse rained down on our own players is reaching unbeliveable levels and the football experience is not as fun as it used to be. Even through the relatively barren years pre Rafa it has not been as bitter and twisted as it is now. I'm fed up of arguing with not just Utd & Everton fans but our supposed fans who think that eveything would be ok if we stopped zonal marking, rotation, got rid of Rafa and played Crouch every game. Despite the fact zonal marking got us one of the best defensive records in the league and every manager rotates! I don't like Mouriniho, he is not a Liverpool manager -he is an egotistical, tactically limited control freak. Call me naive but if the club sacks Rafa then we will set ourselves back at least 3 years. We will have lost a bit more heart & soul and i will be reconsidering what to do with my season ticket.

we do need some more clinical players - we can't rely on Torres & Gerrard all the time to score the goals. Our midfield (excl Gerrard) and whichever support striker is playing are not scoring enough goals to keep us up with Arsenal/Utd/Chelsea who seem to share the goals more. Buying one world class player in the summer does not make up for years of relative under investment.

but according to accepted opinion Voronin is rubbish and Gerrard can't be substituted without a national enquiry!

city are no mugs at home - only two points dropped all season. we contained them well and had most of the play. on another day we could have scored a fair few goals and we'd all be buzzing. lacking a key centre defender, after crowded christmas schedule and with Crouch stupidly suspended stripping us of alternatives i thought we did ok. We are certainly not out of the title race yet and i'm not sure Rafa could have done much better today short of running on the pitch and breaking Dunne's leg himself!

- nobody on the pitch being able to vary the tempo of the game - we lack do intelligence sometimes - Riise running at goal and 99% of the time you just know it is going to end up in the back of the stand! - our supposed fans who think that calling our own players lazy ****s or shouting f*** off back to (which ever country is applicable!) is a form of support - Alan kennedy's inability to stand up to Mickey Thomas on the Century phone in - get a back bone! - the team working hard to get into a good position only for the final ball to go directly out for a gaol kick.

it is a sad state of affairs when people are unable to remain silent for a minute regardless of who it is for, however all it takes is one person noisily coming through the turnstiles from outside and a chorus of shushes from people inside the ground to disrupt a silence.

a minutes silence would never have been observed - one idiot could spoil it and make us all look bad. I'm not sure about the z cars bit - i could never imagine YNWA being played at Goodison but maybe that is the point. This has been a senseless tragedy which has affected the whole city - not just the blues. What is wrong with a bit of unity to say that we all believ it is wrong to gun down an innocent boy? There is a minute's silence these days at the drop of a hat - this tribute is something different and unique to Merseyside.

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Parry denied it on Radio 5 yesterday morning as the interviewer was trying to lead him into saying Owen would come back one day. I still think we are injury to Carragher or Agger away from serious defensive problems. Hyypia could do a short term job but if we lost either first choice centre half for more than a couple of games we would struggle. a bit of experienced additional defensive cover is needed.

does Keane want to be the new Mourinho as he seems to be perfecting a "mean and moody I'm pretending to ignore the cameras but secretly want to make sure everyone is paying attention to me" look..... 3 points dropped for Spurs

this would be the logical team but given we will have a potentially draining european game midweek in the heat of afternoon sun in France and then Chelsea on Sunday - who knows with Rafa! We have so many possibilities........

i think he just cuffed him round the head. could of been a few players suspended there if the ref had been a bit more picky!

to not have our interest in the League over before Christmas and to show some more clinical finishing. Last season we dropped points when we dominated games but couldn't score to finish off the opposition. Part of this must be down to mentality, when you watch the Mancs or Chelski you can never write them off and often you can see that the have the belief that they will score regardless and they grind out results in injury time. We seem to lack that belief in the premier league especially away from home. I believe Benitez is a cracking manager and will only get better and he has bought class additions but a lot of other teams have also spent large sums of cash and there won't be that many easy games this season! if we are still in with a shout come March then anything can happen but we can't afford to start slowly again as Chelski & Utd (barring catastrophic injuries) won't drop too many points.

i logged in about 20 past two and the picture has been fine since the program started!

the guy owns half the terrace houses in Manchester so surely doesn't need the money! he should go out on a high and retire. it would be weird to see him back in another club's shirt again being a shadow of how we remember him. If he wants to play on he should go to Scotland or the US where his class would be enough to mitigate for his legs going.

Benitez isn't one for sentiment, just look at Bellamy. Pennant probably knows if he doesn't make an impact this year he will be out of the club and his only way is down (or possibly west ham on a huge contract!)

where is the match abandoned after mass brawl with huge fine and suspensions option....... As a football I want to watch the FA Cup final and have ingrained desire for Manchester Utd to win nothing but it would be amusing if Chelsea for all their money won nothing more than the League cup!