fred milne

I'd forgotten quite how outstanding our away record was in 2001-2 season. Its on the road where we've missed Owen the most.

Sorry. My mistake.

I'm not sure comparisons are that meaningful, as Fabregas strikes me as being a different type of player to Alonso.

I'm not sure that's their biggest problem. After all, Pallister was a decent footballer, as is Ferdinand these days (although he's not as good as he think he is.)

That's not right at all. We were playing with 2 centre-halves (Yeats & Smith and then Lloyd & Smith) well before 74/5. The Red Star Belgrade tie was key in that it led to a greater emphasis on building up moves patiently from the back and roughly coincided with Hughes & Thompson starting to play at centre-back. Eh?

You might want to re-think that team.....

If that deal had gone through (and I'm glad it didn't), I would have preferred it to be with Thaksin in his capacity as a private investor, rather than with the state of Thailand.

What exactly did he do? (The papers were suggesting it was a particularly bad foul - even by his standards).

Clemence 70's Lawler 60's Hansen 80's Lawrenson 80's Nicol 90's Callaghan 60's Gerrard 00's Souness 70's Barnes 90's Dalglish 70's Rush 80's Benitez 00's

I don't follow.

I thought Fabregas was dire at Anfield.

Is he qualified to provide any coaching/training?

Eh?

You could argue that Aldo's was a short LFC career - January 87 to September 89.

Talking about him being a consummate professional, the way he has just got on with his game after being stripped of the captaincy is evidence of that.

I largely agree with this. Keegan was the idol of the Kop until he announced at the start of 76-7 season that he was leaving at the end of the year. Only then did attitudes towards him start to change.

That's an interesting question. He certainly got some competition - Yeats, Smith, Hughes, Thompson, Hansen and Lawrenson.

Didn't Rioch buy him?

And we didn't with Stevie either.

I think that's right. He is easily amongst the best 5 attacking midfielders in the world right now. Play him at RM with a licence to cut in-side and swap wings with Kewell. The key point is to leave the tasks of controlling the play and breaking up opposition attacks to Alonso and Sissoko respectively and let Gerrard concentrate on making things happen in/around the opposition penalty area.

Makalele is closer in style to Hamann than Sissoko in that he sits in front of the centre-halves.

That's probably the main reason why he's in the side ahead of Didi. The comparisons of his control and passing with Traore's are way off-beam in my opinion. His control is fine and when he keeps his passing simple his distribution is effective enough. Now Traore IS someone who is just an athlete and not a footballer.

In fairness, after a barren start to his LFC career in terms of goals, hasn't he scored something like 12 in the last 24 games? If he can keep that kind of form up then he may yet be a first choice option up-front. What is clear that is we need competition/cover for him as the target man. If that player (Kuyt?) is more mobile and a greater goal threat than Crouch then all the better. I still think that Rafa may prefer pairing Crouch with an Aimar-type, rather than an Owen-type. I don't reckon either Fowler or Garcia are quite up to being first choice options for that role. If it came to a choice as to which one to keep as competition/cover for that position then I would expect Garcia to get the nod. At RM, if Rafa is happy continuing to use Gerrard there for the majority of games (and I would be) then I think all we need is better cover for him. Someone like Malbranque wouldn't be the worst shout.

Blimey scoring 40 odd goals in 47 games during 2001 and winning the 2001 European Footballer of the Year award is "decline". You must have high standards.....