honourablegeorge

Imagine if Benitez had said that there were only two teams in Liverpool, Liverpool and the reserves, or that if Everton were to play in his back garden, he'd draw the curtains. f***in' whinging bitter knobs.

Saddens me to say it, but I'd much rather have him as an option than Fowler. I wasn't too pleased to see Robbie come on on Sunday.

Ballack's proven class. Mascherano's got it all to prove. I'm stopping here. I'm not going down a "praising Chelsea" route. It already feels dirtier than the time I found that magazine in that hedge.

We never cease to amaze. We even managed to play the World Club Champs without dropping out of the FA Cup.

You could argue that Lampard, Ballack, Makelele and Essien are a match for that four. And that technically, Zenden is one of our four, but Mascherano isn't.....

Is that definite, Kev?

"If Max Clifford is so good at PR, why does everyone think he's a c***?" (from Viz)

Dunno if it's in any way relevant, but according to this article, Steve Morgan shares Gillett's "vision of the future". http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2004344,00.html

Attendances mean millions. United make a £2M profit (source - me mate, so don't hang me here) on every home game. That's £60M plus every year. I'd love to know how our match income compared. Not very well, I'd imagine. Arsenal wouldn't have put up a £400M stadium if match incomes meant nothing.

There's loads that doesn't hold up. I'm pretty sure I read earlier in the week that both DIC and Gillett representatives attended the board meeting on the Monday.

If we wanted to be stupidly positive about it all, you could take the view that they did all that bigging up of DIC because it was a really, really good deal. But they then ditched it, for an even better deal.

And more from Bascombe http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0500liv...-name_page.html

"You must be mad" say DIC http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0500liv...-name_page.html

Chief executive Rick Parry told the ECHO today: ?While we have always had a good relationship with George Gillett, it?s clear the involvement of Tom Hicks adds another dimension and considerable strength to the bid, and was a very significant factor in us looking afresh at the proposals.? http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0500liv...-name_page.html

The fact that this Hicks bloke has appeared is a major factor, surely? He's totally changed way the Gillett bid is financed and structured, I'd imagine.

Snippet about West Ham, from some forum or other, I got it via mail: "Someone I know was speaking to a West Ham player (both parties shall remain nameless on here - but the player is somebody who has largely been above criticism) last night. The player can't believe what is going on at the club. After the game, he spoke to Reo-Coker who was determined to go out on the lash. Our man questioned the wisdom of this what with the Liverpool game on Tuesday only to be told "I don't give a f*ck!" The player reckons that Reo-Coker was a disgrace yesterday and has a s*** attitude generally. Like many of us he believes that there are five players who have formed a clique in the playing staff that is completely disruptive. Nobody will be surprised when I name them as (in order of disruptiveness): NRC, Ferdinand, Cole, Mullins and Harewood. So upset is he at what is going on, he promised to be going in to see Curbishley about it "

They apparently didn't realise until they had all the documentation, according to the article above. I increasingly get the impression that football is entirely run by these weird mumbling blokes in suits that keep walking into walls and falling over.

Not 100% sure if that's true. I was told that, mind. In any case, the rulign refers to third parties being in a position to demand the transfer, etc - there's presumably a whole bunch of contractual arrangements behind the scenes - I'd imagine West Ham couldn't suddeny decide to sell him for 50p, and equally, if someone bid £10M, it'd be MSI's decision, not theirs, etc.

At least West Ham can take comfort in the fact that they lost every game in which Mascherano has played.

If he comes in, pays for the stadium, clears the debt, gives us £200M for plauyers and then sells the club to Kenny Dalglish for forty quid, then SOUND.

If Abramovich walked away, they'd collapse instantly. Shevchenko's wages alone would pretty much account for their gate receipts for the year. Kenyon talked about a plan for being self-sufficient by 2010. That was two years ago. They're about ten years further away from it now than they were then.

I see what you're saying, but I think he'd be less back to goal with two ahead of him, if you follow me.

I dunno, a free role behind two strikers would suit him nicely. Free role behind one striker less so, certainly. We haven't seen him deployed behind Kuyt and Bellamy in this 3-4-3 (3-4-1-2 if you like). I'd very much like to.

I suppose we could always make do with Gerrard, eh?

Aimar's career is on the downslope, I think.