goodrobotusses

Aye, it was kinda hard to make the point I was making about him using sorts of strikers when he had GH's leftovers when he got here.

And the fact that Crouch helps knit together our attacking play in the final third, by working with his back to goal as a pivot from which other players can join the attack. Trezeguet - great finisher though he is - offers nothing in terms of team play, much like a Van Nistelrooy or a Pippo Inzaghi or a Michael Owen (though he at least tries). Of course, you can't turn your nose up at players with the kinds of goal stats they have... unless you're Rafa, of course. It should be pretty established by now that Rafa likes his forwards to be part of team play, not just someone to wait in the 6 yard box for a tap-in. Look at all the strikers he has bought and used over the years, at both Liverpool and Valencia. He's never used pure finishers in his team, unless you count Cisse, and we've seen what Rafa thought of his contribution.

Sign Mario f***ing Jardel. Honestly, we're talking apples and oranges with your comparisons here. Bent is a runner, a poor man's Cisse. He hangs on the shoulder and runs onto balls over the top. That's it. Great finisher? Check out his miss vs. Arsenal earlier in the season. Crouch is a 100% different sort of striker, unlike any of the others we have. He's a different option up top, and that's why he's useful - far more useful than Darren Bent would be. I'd love to see him up against a packed, deep defence when teams come to us looking for a 0-0. My guess is that he'd be about as much use as Cisse wasn't. You need to stop looking at the numbers and actually watch the f***ing sport (cue: "I have a Sports Science degree!").

No and no.

Samuel probably still outdoes him on the front. Phil 'The Power' Taylor's long lost brother. Ugh.

Voronin is a hugely intelligent forward - takes up great positions, plays clever passes, links things up nicely. Terrible in front of goal though. Babel looked good. He's only showing glimpses of his talent, but you can just tell its there. Can't wait to see him keep developing. Torres is just bloody amazing.

Weird comparison, that. I'd have had Carrick down as a poor man's Xabi Alonso. Which he is.

As long as there is no movement around him he's always gonna get trapped on the left, because he's always looking to get the ball on his right foot. He has lots of ability, but our whole approach to attacking play (give the ball to a player surrounded by defenders; offer no support or movement around them; expect miracles) means he's just running down blind alleys in the hope of making something happen. At least on the right he's likely to go down the outside one-on-one, where he'll have a greater chance of getting past and making something happen.

I have to admit it was weird to see one of our players moving after passing the ball. Doesn't happen very often, that. Hopefully a few more defensive drills in training will set him straight.

He really is a massive massive c***.

Is a favourite trick of Strachan's, that. At Southampton he always played Fernandes on the right, as he does with Nakamura at Celtic. I guess it works for him, as those two were/are among their team's most potent attacking weapons. Neither is a flying winger, mind, so I guess that they work better as wide playmakers, who can either cut back and put the ball in, or drift inside to effect play that way. On the left I guess they'd have to stick to playing it Beckham-style - too slow to beat a full-back, therefore reliant on their own full-back to take the man away before crossing from deep.

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N...071017-0947.htm Sounds very promising.

I get the feeling Redknapp is only getting named because he's recently been linked with Chelsea as a possible replacement for Clarke. If so, it might be worth taking the cynical angle on that one and wondering how much that might have to do with buttering up Lampard and getting him to sign his new contract.

Mendy hardly played at right-back for Bolton, 'cause he couldn't really defend. Was fast as buggery though - played on the right of their front three and seemed to do pretty well in the end, though he decided he wanted to go back to France at the end of his loan. Of course, this was years ago now - he was just a kid then. I'd hope he's developed a bit in the meantime. Mancini I'm not convinced by, but we do need a winger and he's one of the better ones that we'd actually be able to get (people who rant about Quaresma forget Porto sold Anderson and Pepe for big money this season, so won't need to sell). Alves I know nothing about other than he's scored a lot in Holland.

He's such a showman, building our suspense like this.

To be fair, Babel is Dutch. He should be pretty used to team mates throwing girly strops.

"I asked for a table and they brought me a lamp" I'm about as big a fan of the system as Rafa. It's a surefire way of pissing away money on players you coach may not want, or pissing off your coach when he's pressurised into using players he didn't want or need. If you have a system where your coach and director can agree on transfers every time, then great. But surely that's not too different to having a manager tell a chief executive what he wants, and the chief exec go and deal with it.

Ooh ooh, I want to join in! I have a degree in Audio Visual Media with Film & Media and I work in a theatre box office and a book shop, do Rafa? Everyone, feel free to contribute.

Yeah, it's like proudly stating "I am stupid and ignorant about football".

I'm just looking forward to seeing more of them flying tackles go into him. He's well within his rights to use the little party trick, as long as he's willing to take the punishment. The little s***.

I think the whole parking the bus thing is a legitimate tactical thing - we've done it ourselves many times. But the whole Sky myth about the Premier League being football valhalla is b******s definitely. In terms of footballing quality, outside the top four and the odd Spurs-level team on a good day, the standard of play is s****. Tried to watch Newcastle v. West Ham yesterday and I just couldn't last beyond the first half hour - it was absolutely dire, embarrassing. Then I watched one of La Liga's lesser lights, Valladolid, play Real Madrid off the park later on. Not through dogged physical play, but by actually playing football. But I guess this all stems back to English youth development, history, tradition, etc. The majority of English players and English teams have woeful technique, because the nature of the game here is so high-tempo and 'blood & thunder' that players don't get the chance to do anything constructive with the ball, and panic in possession. And that happens from our youngsters, through the lower leagues and into the Premier League. Only the very, very top end players (usually foreign imports) have the ability to technically manipulate the ball as they like while thinking quick enough to do anything with it before they get clattered. Yeah, the pace of football here makes for great entertainment at times - end-to-end football and lots of goals - but often that's more attributed to poor team organisation defensively when team's lose the ball halfway up the field and are totally open to quick counter attacks. Hence parking the bus, I guess.

Who's idea was it to make John Barnes co-commentator? He must have some kind of long, impregnable contract at C5.

That Niall Quinn, what a rotter.

I believe the thinking behind Benayoun is - assuming Garcia was always likely to leave - we wouldn't have another player (Gerrard aside) who would cut in from the wings into that #10 position in the hole, linking with our forwards with short, sharp passes that can cut defences open. We've been looking at wingers to get behind the outside of defences, and we've signed a couple of forwards who will drop off the front and link play (as well as Kuyt and Crouch already), but I think Benitez (rightly) likes to mix up his options going forward. No sense having a bunch of strikers who will drop and link play if there's no one to link with and run in behind them. Bear in mind here that Rafa likes to play with two centre-mids who generally don't run beyond the forwards. I'd still be very happy to get Benayoun if the price is low enough. Definitely a good option to have.

My Stoke supporting mate reckons he's "the Claude Makalele of The Championship". Ugh.