Puskas

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They just did. It's going to be too expensive. Or did you mean 'cost it first'? That wouldn't have been too much to expect really. Our owners are not winning a lot of new friends at the moment by the looks of things. Announcing that the stadium plans will have to revisited just after our annual home defeat to 'them' is not the best timing either - someone should have informed our owners that we always lose to Man U at home. Hopefully they will realise that this stadium reverse plus the recent disagreement with Rafa will mean that they need make a gesture or two to get the fans on side again - during the transfer window maybe? Here's hoping! I'd like a Mascherano-shaped gesture please...

They are not building it (apparently) because it would cost a lot more than 400m. Got f*** all to do with raising funds, it's got to do with how much the thing will cost. What would rather have - the star trek stadium with 70000 seats for 700m, or something a bit more modest with 70000 seats at 400m?

Well, I'm pretty sure the architects would have been told the budget. If you're in a finger pointing mood then start with them. I haven't heard. At least they found out now rather than after the actual building work had started.

Whereas carrying on with a stadium plan that (allegedly) would have cost £300m more than originally planned would be the work of complete blithering idiots, so I - for one - am very glad to see that we're not doing that. I would have been happy with the star trek stadium if it could have been built within the budget. As it can't well - no loss. We need 70'000 seats, and we'd very much like a single tier kop. If we get those two things then job done.

Gillett backs the manager, and says some nice things about the supporters: and I predict that some will only pick up on the line about transfers GEORGE Gillett gave Rafa Benitez his unequivocal backing after Liverpool’s American owners held clear the air talks with the Reds boss at Anfield. Benitez met with Gillett, co-owner Tom Hicks, Foster Gillett and Rick Parry for three hours following the 1-0 home defeat to Man United and the outcome was positive with all involved agreeing to bury their differences and work together for the good of the club. And Parry today told the ECHO the club is still totally committed to delivering a stadium which the fans can be proud of, despite having to axe the futuristic design launched in the summer because of rising costs. In an address to the Liverpool Former Players Association at a city centre hotel - just hours after talks with Benitez - George Gillett spoke of his regret over the fall out with the Spaniard but insisted his immediate future at the club is secure. He told an audience of Liverpool playing legends: “This wasn’t supposed to happen, but it has happened, and now the focus has to be on finding a common platform to continue our co-operation. “Rafa is the one we want as a manager further on, and we have faith in him. “I’ve been married over 40 years and have first hand knowledge about how to solve an argument! “We concentrated on getting an overview over the situation, and I felt we accomplished that.” Gillett was guarded about the imminent opening of the transfer window but spoke again about his role as a custodian of the club. He added: “The transfer window opens soon and we might use the option that gives us, or we might not. “Liverpool is a great club. We are well aware that we have something very valuable on our hands. “Liverpool is not our club, it’s your club. The supporters’ club. It’s always been that way, and it will always be that way.”

I'd prefer that the club didn't go massively into debt myself. 70000 capacity with a single tier kop ticks all the boxes, I don't give a rats ass what it looks like.

I'd be very surprised if Torres and Gerrard start against Reading. I expect they will be on the bench, just in case.

Agree with this. Guthrie looks good in Bolton's midfield. Lucas looks good in Liverpool's midfield. And there lies the difference between the two.

The Rafa goals conceded column is also the best of all our managers (only 0.77 per game on average), which doesn't actually surprise me in the slightest. That Goals Scored divided by Goals Conceded column is quite revealing there - although it looks like our goal record under Rafa isn't that good in the league, it's the difference between the two figures that really counts. Rafa is behind Dalglish, Paisley and Fagan by that measurement and miles ahead of Souness - although having said that... so far in the league this season we have scored 1.86 goals per game and conceded 0.43, which is pretty outstanding. If we can keep that up...

No, just the totals, sorry.

I wanted the stats to be relevant and statistically significant. So no.

I found some stats in wikipedia up to april this year, and manually added up the matches since then to get Rafa's total.

A bit of a stat attack (disclaimer - please note that these statistics are only numbers that can be interpreted in any number of ways!) (second disclaimer - I think these stats are accurate - however some of them are from fydsipedia, so don't blame me if they are wrong!) Rafa has been in charge for 203 competitive matches. He has won 115 of these, drawn 40 and lost 48. This means that Rafa has won 56.7% of his matches. Comparing this record with our other managers (starting with Shanks, I can't be arsed going further back than that), there is only one manager who has won a greater proportion of his games in change and that is King Kenny (60.6%). Bob Paisley is third in this list (won 56.1% of matches). The main difference (I think) between the stats for these three managers lies in the number of games drawn and lost - Benitez has lost 23.7%, Dalglish just 13.8% and Paisley 18.6%. These stats are for all competitions, not just the league. (Just for comparison's sake, we've only had one (full time, sole) manager since Shankly that has not won more than half his matches - Souness. Newcastle have only one manager in their entire history who has won more than 50% of his matches in charge - Keegan.) As a few have mentioned, times have changed a bit. These days you appear to need between 26 and 29 wins to win the league (i.e. you need to win between 68% and 76% of your league matches) based on the last 4 or 5 seasons. We have only once won the league with this kind of percentage of wins (in 78/79, won 30 out of 42, 71%). So (my interpretation!), what Rafa needs to do to bring the league title home is to convert some losses to draws (particularly against the other 'challengers'), and raise the win rate to match that of the best ever league season we've had in our entire history - or higher (!!!). This season our record in all competitions is: played 23, won 14 (61%), drawn 7 (30%) and lost 2 (9%) - this is substantially ahead of Benitez's record so far (if we win at the weekend our league win percentage will hit 60% as well). In other words we are winning at a higher rate and we have converted more losses to draws... However, we probably still need to raise that winning percentage even higher in order to win the league... Once you've finished you can make of these figures what you will

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before the match: 'will christmas come early for Rafa/Fergie?' someone scores or penalty is awarded: 'early christmas present for Rafa/Fergie' after the match: 'christmas has come early for Rafa/Fergie'

No partner. 4231 with Torres up front on his own.

Fernando never forgets to finish what

It's strange. Rafa is a brilliant manager who is going nowhere and has my complete support. I for one don't (usually) back the Liverpool manager every other sentence. Rafa is a brilliant manager who is going nowhere and has my complete support. I'm not quite sure why people are expecting others to do this. Rafa is a brilliant manager who is going nowhere and has my complete support. Maybe if we all did it, it might catch on, and stop complete f***wits on the internet from asking why it's not happening? Rafa is a brilliant manager who is going nowhere and has my complete support. What do you think, should we all give this a shot? Rafa is a brilliant manager who is going nowhere and has my complete support.

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Fernando Torres is so good that the Anfield Curse has learned to swear

If Fernando Torres went to Iraq the country would have it's first ever weapon of mass destruction

Gerrard was pretty raw at 19/20. I'm just observing that Lucas looks much more polished already at the same stage of his career. I'd like to see Lucas playing alongside Mascherano with a bit of license to get forward before making that call. He apparently can play the box-to-box role (edit: as jimmylibel just said!) and also packs a whallop with his long range shooting. I reckon he'll grab a headline or two before the end of the season

Jeez Louise. You're the one who posted the above less than an hour ago. I agree with your second post however, the less time spent talking about the credibility-free-hack otherwise known as Bascombe the better.

I'll happily give a moments thought to information contained in a proper newspaper, although I'll take that info with a large pinch of salt given the parlous state of 'sports reporting' in the UK (there's also been a recent tendency in the broadsheets to parrot sensationalist nonsense from elsewhere as well). However the NOTW isn't a proper newspaper, it's a tabloid. It's only use is as toilet paper, and it's not very good as that either as you end up with newsprint on your a***. There's a large body of evidence that demonstrates pretty strongly that tabloid 'journalism' is sensationalist crap, designed purely to sell more tabloids. Therefore, using any tabloid as a source of information is not actually a particularly intelligent choice, in my opinion. I can't believe you're trying to defend Bascombe over his reporting of 'the Forlan debacle'. There was page after page of nonsense in here in the summer about "Bascombe's contacts" and people worrying that we'd miss out in our summer targets, all on the say-so of one Chris Bascombe. And what happened? We only went and bought FERNANDO TORRES. The man is a joke. So - who to believe? Rafa (I have no problems with the owners)? Hicks (it was just a misunderstanding)? Or 'respected journalist with a great track record who writes for a reputable newspaper' Bascombe (Rafa's about to be fired)? Let me think about that for a nanosecond.