MickeyDocs

Quality!

ciao Juve

Juve, Pompey, Newcastle and City have all expressed an interest in Crouch - enough to suggest we get 8-10 million.

This really would be the only way that the suggested outgoings and incomings would make sense: Out - Carson (6m), Crouch (10m), Finnan (2m), Pennant (5m), Riise (4m), Voronin (2m), Xabi (15)m = 44m In - Degen (free), Dossena (8m), Barry (12m), Riera (8M) = that's 28 million but leaves us short a striker and a goalie. 16 million left over without touching the kitty (if there is one) which means there should be enough for a top attacker, preferably one that can support the attack and add 10-15 league goals.

Personally I think Chelsea will be the team to beat next year. They changed manager and lost alot of players to the African Nations back in January, yet they were just 2 points behind utd, and were the better team last night.

Drenthe is a quality player and well worth taking a look at. He can play left and right, and is clearly a forward rather than a back in the Alves mould

For some reason I think it is Ljunberg due to the impressive cv.

We need 2-3 quality players... sounds like we will get 6-7 extremely mediocre players. I hate to rephrase Lawrenson, but this time he is right, we need match winners not squad fillers. I have this horrible feeling Voronin will still be here next season, and he will be joined by others like him.

Lucas has already shown plenty of quality, has had a few assists, a goal, and of course a few low key games. He still needs to adapt to the pace and stop getting robbed of possession, but so far so good.

So possibly Pennant, Arbeloa, Crouch, Riise, all gone. That's quite a cull. Add in Carson and Kewell and you've almost got yourself a 7 aside team. I think everyone will be pissed off if Voronin is still at the club next season.

So who are the 3 players we've signed?

Riise is not good enough for our side. He still has enough of his reputation in tact to land a place in a good side, but not in a top side. Rafa has not put a new contract in front of him. There was plenty of talk about Riise to Villa in January. Well Riise to Villa would be a good move for all concerned as it could pave the way for Barry to join Liverpool.

Reade is a big Liverpool fan. He is making a relevant point that we won the champions league, yet we know our first team and squad is a little bit behind Chelsea and United, the top two teams in the league this season.

Barry is as good as either of Carrick or Hargreaves and is currently ahead of them in the international pecking. £10 million is about right, however the stupid prices for Carrick and Hargreaves messes up the market somewhat. Rafa normally doesn't make such a bid without some information with regards to the intention of the player (unsettle no), so I for one am confident the player has given some indication that he wants to play for Liverpool. BTW I look forward to LFC doing to Portsmouth what they did when we wanted to sign Crouch!

The media haven't waited long to put the boot in. Strange they haven't done the same with Wenger now that they've gone four seasons without a trophy. And what if Chelsea win nothing... will they be as snide in their report on the world's most expensive team.

We have a skeleton for the next five years at least and probably longer. We have good quality starting to come through the academy (compare this back to the last days of the Houllier era). Hicks is running out of time and should be gone. We have a great manager, some great players, some good squad players, and a great future! We need to add two good fullbacks, and another great attacking player, and possibly replace Xabi if he wants to go. Hairy is trying his best to put us down right now.... Souness is fighting our corner... it's great to like Souey again!!

We got close to the CL yet again, not as close as last year but there was a time when we were in dreamland at the semi-final stage. We have almost come to expect it. We have a great skeleton young skeleton to our team, and we are building towards something special. This is a key transfer window for us. We need to add quality full backs, decent backup for our keeper, and another top level attacker. I'm very optimistic for next season. Onwards and upwards.

Gutted but proud. We were the better team over the two legs and no amount of sky commentary can tell me different. The loss of skittels affected us big time in the first half.

Bulls***. Over the two games we were the better team, had more chances, more possession, and should have been out of sight in the first leg. They got lucky. They played well first half tonight, we played well second half. We could have won it tonight.

Money raised by stealing from the Russian people laid the foundations of their success. Good luck in the final Chelsea, you are just about the lesser of two major major evils in the cl final.

Just because Sky want it to be onside doesn't mean it is... there were three players offside. I'm gutted... but we will win the league next year.

The best home shirt in years. Pity we will have to wait for g&h to piss off first.

I know the xfer season is still a little way off, but I was wondering if anyone else is concerned that we look to be repeating past mistakes. Most of the players we seem to be linked with (Degen, Bentley, Rodriguez) seem to be good players that will add strength in-depth. But are they much better than Arbeloa, Pennant, Benayoun? This is the summer when we should add 2 quality players, a proper number 7 and a real number 10, players that cost 15 million and are worth their price tag. Players that will put the fear of God into defenders and will complement Gerrard, Torres, and Babel in attack. I know I should be patient, and rafa may be playing a very clever game, but I can't help but feel concerned that we will add quantity again rather than quality.

We had four good chances with the team and formation we played with. We should have won this game. We must be positive and believe we can win. Let's keep changes to a minimum. Finnan at rb, Albert to lb... and that's all.

What's great about Babel is that he has talent and the willingness to learn and improve. IMHO he provides great back up to Torres and as soon as we can get quality players for lm and rm we can use Babel as both back up and as a replacement for Torres late in games.