honourablegeorge

There's one foramationt that neatly accomodates Gerrard centrally - it's the one with Alonso and Sissoko in midfiled with him, two strikers up front, with Agger, Carragher and Hyppia in defence, and Aurelio and Alves as wing backs. I keep harping on about it, but I'm convinced we'll see the 3-5-2 a lot more next season, it worked very well for us away to Newcastle.

Soon as Cally goes ballistic, the Alves thread's atrocious.

Blackburn were supposedly putting a £65K a week deal on the table.

Dunno if that was officially annonced or that, but players very rarely join up before that date - no point us paying them £40K a week while they're in Barbados on holiday.

Yep. You only have to look at Harry kewell to see how Liverpool-supporting footballers undergo extraordinary changes in attitude when they join the club.

He was asked that in an interview, it's nonsense. Same as that photo supposedly of Gerrard in the Everton shirt as a kid.

The immature side of me couldn't resist a snigger at the post title....

Correct me if I'm wrong here - did Figaro post earlier this week that we'd agreed a basic £8M fee for Alves, but that various addons werebeing negotiated up to the £12M mark, one of them being a "contribution" from Liverpool towards Alves' contract payoff? Does this most recent story indicate that Alves has asked for a move, thereby waiving his right to a payoff? Am I clutching, here?

Fair point, things may well be proceeding behind the scenes - I guess I'm just using Arsenal as my marker again. As someoen said above, they were wll into the build when they got around to sorting out naming rights, etc - we seem to be sorting all the details before a brick is laid. Maybe we're takign a less risky apporach, maybe we're faffing about, maybe neither - but i do ge the impression this has been talked about for a hell of a long time, but with very little actually happening.

Cool. I dunno whether to be more to less worried - on the one hand, they wouldn't be faffing about if investment wasn;t a real possibility - equally, I'm thinking that they're faffing about because it's simply not viable without investment.

So there's nothing stopping us from getting started, other than the hope that we might land ourselves a sugar daddy, who'll knock a few quid off the mortgage with an cash injection or sponsorship of some sort? And as you say, we're playing this off agaisnt the lost revenue of millions per year for every year we delay, plus the rising costs......presumably because a club with a £150-£200M mortgage is much less attractive to investors?

One thing that's always puzzled me about the stadium thing - The whole point of the stadium, I'd have thought, is that it GENERATES money, not costs money. Arsenal have been able to build a £400M stadium, because it'll be self-financing. The extra money generated bu the ground will cover the loan repalyments and interest, while still generating a profit, and after 20 years, or whatever, it's all paid for. Surely ours will be financed on the same principles? We design it, take out a loan, build it, fill it, and pay it back? It wouldn't make sens to build it in any other way. I'm sure i remember Parry using the phrase "self-financing" more than once. All this talk of £190M, and not being able to find the money - there's no way we're expected to stump up £190M in advance, though presumably there's a down payment, startup costs, etc. - but they can't be more than 20-25% of the total, and we're due plenty of grant money. So, can anyone tell me - where are we with this? Are we having trouble stumping up the initial funds? Or are we in a position where we can't borrow the money? Are there doubts about us beign able to fill the stadium? Is the increase in capacity too small to make it worthwhile? Or am I being, in financial terms, a moron?

I am, of course, pulling the £12M out of the a*** end of the internet, rather than any cold hard fact.

I'd prefer Bent to Bellamy, all thigns being equal. But Charlton price Bent at £12M, and Bellamy's supposed release clause is half that. And Bent, whatever way you cut him, isn't twice as good.(He's half the prat, mind....)

Hope Cisse's preference for Marseilles doesn't make itself an issue here - Lyon will have the funds, Marseille won't.....

Chelsea fourth? BALLS. 95% of them supporters woudl have been following United/Arsenal/Rugby World Cup/Pop Idol six months ago.

Our three most expensive signings - Cisse, Heskey, Diouf. There's the three biggest reasons for shopping in the bargain bins you'll ever see.

This Pepper fella, he sounds like a seasoned pro....

Ditch an entire year's transfer planning in favour the hope Juve get releagted before thw window shuts and that we might be able to outbid Chelsea/Milan/etc for players that may or may not leave on clauses they may not even have? Aye, that'd be better. Sound logic.

You can say that again. Oh.

Perhaps not quite the equal of Bergkamp, but he has fantastic ability on the ball, in terms of the little threaded pass, the vision, etc. He's got huge ability, but he's only stagnated at Chelsea. Gudjohnsen, playing football every week as a first choice striker, would be a revelation, I think. I'm not quite sure who we'd pair him with, but I'd LOVE to have him.

Gudjohnsen is probalby Chelsea's best striker. He's criminally undererated and underused. He could be our Bergkamp.

True. His lack of a first touch, almost total inability to pass a ball, his lack of composure, his pirouetting roundhouse backflip own goals, his being HOPELESS in the air, his error-prone nature and his general crapness do, though.

I remember reading somewhere, round about the time Sammy left Liverpool, that he really wasn't/isn't much of a coach at all - that he wasn't particularly highly thought of at Anfield in that role. Any truth in that?

The last time I was this excited about a potential signing, it was Cisse. Gah.