Mevster

i dont get it at all?

haha great sensorship that! my father in law works in cadio recovery units so the wife is used to seeing people who dont look the best and she refered to rafa the other day. ah well if youre not worried. doesnt bear thinking about

in all seriousness, there has been times when ive seen him a bit podgy and ruddy faced and the other day he was sweating quite a bit under the (admittedly bound to be hot) tv lights and i thought. "i hope he starts taking care of himself, hes not looking too healthy" get fit rafa!!

not the news i was hoping you were going to bring us, Elisha. bugger.

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum but it does involve a liverpool player I think Mcclaren will be tempted to pick a new captain. beckham will be too old for the next workd cup and given his closeness to sven i would imagine mcclaren would want a new captain to help him make his own mark on the team. neville will be too old next time, so the main characters who also captain their teams are terry and gerrard. for me it has to be stevie. i hate terry but can appreciate his qualities although i think he doenst have quite enough pace to be the best in the world in his position. however his battling qualities are there to be seen and make up for his lack of pace to some degree and his goals are valuable. for me though it has to be stevie. he is pretty much guaranteed a place in the team, he will be at his peak at the next world cup and with his performances in the CL and FA cup final he has shown he is an inspirational leader who can change a game on his own and drag a team with him when it is needed. obviously we are a biased forum but thoughts?

gerrard was one of my all time heroes before so you dont need me to say what i think of him now. dalglish and rush were my favourites growing up, rush being a fellow welshman. but theres always been something about gerrard that has put him up there from the start. his swashbuckling, all action never-say-die attitude has always ben fantastic to watch. i also think that i was spoilt in the eighties with so much success seeming so easy. i was at uni in liverpool 1990-1993 so my days on the kop werent as great as many years so i think gerrards emergence at the end of the 90's after a relatively disappointing time made me appreciate how fortunate we are to support a team that can win trophies compared to so many people who dont even get a sniff of this kind of success. my mate is a mad oldham fan and he's thrilled if they even nearly challenge for a league two play off place. so gerrards arrival came when i was older and more appreciative of being a liverpool fan. so all our success since 2000 has been even sweeter than those earlier years and gerrard has played a huge part of that and he'll always be a huge hero because of that. when he nearly left i was gutted. couldnt even celebrate when he scored for england in 2004 euros. but hes human at the end of the day and with the last two seasons heroics he has etched himself in liverpool folklore. imagine if he brings home the league. Stevie G - i salute you. Elisha, we are all waiting for the YNWA sponsored "Evening with Stevie G" where we can tell him this in person ;-)

riise is quoted as saying that he went over to gerrard and thankhim for bailing liverpool out of the hole they were in and that he thought stevie was one fo the best players in the world (im paraphrasing) a*** kisser ;-)

for me he was flame proof from criticism before the game anyway, irrespective of his near temptations in the past. Now, he is nuclear bomb proof. salute and enjoy him whilst he plays football because we'll miss him when he's gone. our captain is a legend.

ive got the elvis version - class! yep nin asimone did one and i have a 6 and a half minute aretha franklin full on gospel one (though i dont think its as good as it sounds)

as a lot of you know, i met owen last week at an MSN bash (the second of two they threw). at the one i didnt attend the view they got from him was hed love to come back, however he supposedly suggested he would give them another season and the barcodes are trying to dangle a lot of carrots in from of him - ie put him on the shearer hero worship pedastal. He said to me he was adamant he could play in rafa's system and that there were no problems in his relationship with benitez. he also made it clear that he supported liverpool (lets not get into the "if he supported liverpool he wouldnt have run down his contract" etc. my guess is that if rafa was that keen on him it would happen, but is owen his priority? rafa plays his cards close to his chest but hes never really seemed that bothered.

i half see your point. i thought maradona was a c**t in the 86 world cup but as barry davies said after his second goal against england "you have to say thats magnificent". football as art that was.

that wasnt my arguement. with you on that one.

thank you

how anyone, england fan or not, can be pleased at on eof the potential stars of teh world cup being injured is absolutely beyond me. thats irrespective of whether theyre english or outer mongolian (although im not sure they actually qualified) youre not interested in seeing world class football at the highest level then? never mind, the championshp will be back on before you know it

michaels on the right mate

he was drinking water throughout

i wonder if he knows the full extent of the controversy he's caused?

cheers will, i knew i was trying my best to remember but wasnt 100% ok im still pretty darn miffed then! i agree. people talk about bellamy as soon as they hear theres supposedly a £6m release clause and hes actually fit for a change and scored some admittedly really good goals lately. but as i say, his fitness record isnt exactly flawless and he a malingering little c*** by all accounts, so why add that to the mix? stick owen in with stevie g and carra and didi and the rest of his mates and watch morale rise. michael also pointed out last night that he's had experience playing with crouch and he proudly said he'd played with stevie from as early as 9, so get that partnership resumed. you also have more english players in the liverpool team and before we know it happy feckin days. lets not look back, lets look forward at get that title

[ Don't wanna turn this into another Robbie vs Mickey type debate, I love the both of them (For different reasons) and would love to have the both of them, end of story my thoughts exactly. i really wanted to ask about his partnership with robbie as i always felt michael almost stole his thunder slightly and in my amateur opinion thought robbie avoided passing to him at times. i especially remember a cup final v newcastle that went to extra time and owen scored virtually the first time robbie passed to him. i didnt get a chance tho :-( i dont begrudge you your opinion either i just trust rafa. if he thinks he is worth £12m then i trust his opinion. if he thinks owen can feck off at £8,000,000.01 then im with him on that too. he's worth what the top managers are prepared to pay for him. i'm more mad at liverpool buying diouf for £14m and selling him for £3m

his website says its unlikely though you can never say never he seemed to think it was typical bad luck for him that there had been striker injuries in madrid that would have given him more opportunities this season. a kind of "just my luck" element. from all ive read it sounds like he did miss the premiership but I wonder if hed been one of the main men there (and maybe if it hadnt been world cup year) would he have stuck it out one more year. im sure elisha would know.

ok i had planned to write a beautifully articulate, nostalgic and yet informative piece about last nights dinner with michael owen but im snowed in work and i want to report back to you all, so (thankfully, im sure youll think) i'll trim it down. By the way, i am a huge michael owen fan and want him back at anfield so i didnt go for hard line interrogating or offer any kind of sneering contempt for his actions, but i thanked him for what he did at liverpool and the memories he provided and expressed a hope that he would come home. he was extremely friendly and gracious, signed anything, posed for photos and completely charmed the entire room. he was painfully shy at first. i was the first one to spot him and make a bee-line to him and he could barely look me in the eye and after a few questions about his foot he just didnt seem to want to talk to me, so i sloped off feeling hugely embarrased and self conscious. once he was in a larger group he warmed noticeably and we had a longer and more two sided conversation both one to one (well with his agent chipping in too) and in the more formal Q and A later on. So to be honest i was completely chuffed at how it went. SO the goss....... First the second hand goss that was passed on to me by the organisers who had done a similar event last week at st james park. that had gone one much longer as he didnt have to get his helicopter home like he did last night (london - newcastle by copter 1hr 10 and lands literally in his back garden). At that bash theyd been really surprised at his honesty. the gist was that he would definitely come back to liverpool, he felt brazil were favourites for world cup and he was finding it a struggle to mentally get used to running with a pin in his foot. his wife louise had been there and had been really charming. seemed to imply that posh was VERY different to her. nothing then really that new. oh, and he was really hurt by his reception at anfield. in the first awkward chat about his foot he said he could start on saturday (sunday?) if he had to but why risk it. he's now sprinting and doing everything. he never mentioned to me the mental issue with the pin, he said he was used to it now. later when i recovered from the initial embrassment and fear he'd now try and avoid me all night, i asked him my planned question about whether he felt he could fit into benitez's style of play as it didnt always seem to match his prefered style. he gave the most adamant answer i heard him give all night. he didnt pause and said "Definitely. defintely. you adapt." he had no doubt at all so i was pleased with that reply. another liverpool fan asked if he thought wed see the best of moro next season and he gave his second most adamant answer of the night - "no" and the further intimation was that he'd be off next season. id mentioned that i thought wed be closer to chelsea this season if wed had a finisher like michael in the team. the aenct definitely agreed and he subtly indicated that he thought that too. figaro, i said about saldago saying he was missed and he looked a bit non-plussed. i asked if he was bored taking the helicopter to work (ie fancy coming home) and he didnt get it. there was a debate about should gerrard or lampard play in the england team, assuming we needed a holding player and assuming stevie isnt better than anyone else would be in that role, and he agreed that it made sense for gerrard to play as the two of them have played together since they were 9 so surely its best to play to the main strikers strengths by using the man who knows how to find him best. hes also playing better than lampard now anyway. at the q and a session i asked for a two parter: first i asked if there was a problem with his relationship with rafa in that liverpool missed out 2 transfers involving the pair of them and the fact that owens book seemed to imply he was a bit put out by rafa focusing on stevie on his trip to the england camp and that hed made no mention of discontent at liverpool in the book which must have literally been finished just before he left liverpool. the second part was could he then shed light on what happened on each transfer. now i know some of you will debate if his answer is true, thats not for me to say as im not connected, but this is what he said. first of all, absoutely no problem with his relationship with rafa at all. another vehement answer. second he claimed that madrid came out of the blue, his agent called him with the news and faced with what could be a once in a lifetime chance to play at a club like madrid and experience life overseas he went for it but was almost as surpised as anyone. he listed off the names of the players in that side and basically said its hard not to be excited about having the experience of playing with them. as for newcastle he said he wanted to go to liverpool, felt he was honest and made it perfectly clear that was his choice. he said newcastle just kept trumping liverpool's offer like an auction. liverpool went £8m, newcastle went £10m. pool went £10m, Newcastle went £12m. Liverpool went £12, Newcastle went £15m. so to me the imlplication was that liverpool werent half hearted - they went back several times. newcastle were just on a trophy hunt and threw money at it. he said the clock was running down and he did have to think about the world cup and in the end that was just how it went. basically transfers are tricky things and events can make them go either way. i tried to sneak in a cheeky third part and say "so shall i have a flutter on your coming home" and he smiled, winked and said "you had your two parts", which got a round of applause. what else? ummmm the agent said stevie was really really happy, it was all going really well for him. he felt - surprise - that agents had a bad rep, it is not in an agents interest to force deals on players because you can lose their trust and then youre screwed. michael defended his scoring record in madrid and bemoaned the fact that having been on the bench so much he had to leave madrid then have a lot of striker injuries. then the last liverpool related news i can remember (i ll throw in more if i remember) was someone asked him who he supported as he was supposed to be an evertonian until he was 11. he said his dad (who was downstairs throughout but too shy to show his face) was an everton player but supported liverpool and hed initially anyway had been kind of an evertonian cos of his dad but soon became red. he says liverpool are in his heart, they are the club he supports and thats that. he was there in instanbul as a fan. his best memory is the fa cup final. he was asked if hed swap it to have played at instanbul. he said he wouldnt swap to have simply played if it meant they didnt win. but he implied that of course you want the CL. he was asked if he could only have one of winning the world cup, having a horse that won the grand national or winning the open, what would he chose? he said the world cup, big round of applause and then with good timing said "now if youd said the epsom derby...." so i guess nothing revelatory other than he clearly thinks he could play with benitez, has no problems with him and would love to play with liverpool again. oh yes, the previous week he apparently said that he'd probably give newcastle another season and they were offering to put him up on shearers pedastal. now obviously if liverpool come in for him that could easily change. what i'll take away from it is that he is a really decent, down to earth guy and clearly loves liverpool and that if it wasnt for the murkey world of transfers hed probably be back in red and who knows, one day he might be. whatever people say about the circumstances of him leaving and not coming back, i personally think the claims that he maliciously and intentionally screwed liverpool are simplistic. im more than happy to give him the benefit of the doubt. lifes to short to be bitter. leave that to everton. oh, and im worried about his foot for the world cup. i didnt feel inspired with confidence in his fitness. svens setting up some b games for all the crocks. hope that was worth the effort for you guys. mev

didnt get a chance to ask about mancs though i wanted to. apparently the previous week he seemed to indicate that hed give the geordies another year but what does that mean if the pool come knocking? apparently newcastle are giving it the full "new shearer godlike status opportunity" but thats no surprise is it?

right, back from a top night, bit pissed, will give the nutshell answer and expand more in tge mroning. great bloke, apparently on last weeks night and now tonight, the staff whove organised it couldnt be more impressed with his friendliness, patience and openess. in fact shocking honesty, not what youd expect. the quick version is that having spoken to him one on one and as part of the wider q and a, the most adamant answer i heard him give all night was that he could work within benitez's style of play. " definitely, definitely. you adapt" didnt even pause. when asked which team was in his heart the answer was "liverpool". when question about his early everton aliegence he was adamant it was liverpool. at the q and a i asked him a 2 parter about his relationship with benitez given two unsuccessfull transfers with him and the story behind each transfer. i ll say more tomorrow, but neither failures was due to benitez. when i followed up with "so should i bet on you coming home?" he winked and said "you've had your two questions" which got an applause i ll expand tomorrow but he was a gent, signed everything for everyone, very shy to start but you couldnt fail to be impressed. so i know there are cynics and well connected people wholl dispute what he said etc and thats up to you. but to michael, all io can say is (although technically i cant say that)