liverbird04

I went ona sociedad forum and asked what some of them thought ,one of them said 'Mark Gonzalez has brought life to our left wing. We needed badly someone for that wing. When he arrived he was not on form but he´s improving physically and he´s getting better and better. He´s fast,strong, maybe not as good technically but he knows his limitations... he´s got a strong left foot and his right foot is not bad too." I watched him against barca and he looked their main threat but I am not going to go overboard .I'm sure rafa will make him a better player though.

so thats gerrard off to milan and riise off to fiorentina ,anyone else we should know about ?

that sounds worrying , this is a stupid question but why have we waited around so long ? simply becos we can't afford to build a new stadium ? there was the other reason of rising steel costs as well. I would think missing out on deadlines for grants and extra money won't help thats for sure.

just been reading some posts on rawk and it was mentioned we have just achieved our second highest ever points tally in the premiership. More points than Souness ever scored in a single season, more points than evans , more points than houllier ever scored bar one . Not bad for a manager only his second year I really hope we can continue to kick on and improve, summer transfers window will be crucial ,last time we threatened to kick on we had a summer of madness and bought diouf ,diao and cheyrou and that was our chance gone.

I don't want arsenal to win it ,don't want any other english club to win it except liverpool. Wenger has pissed me off by being a hyocritical b*****d ,would be slighty amusing if they finish outside the top four and went out in the semi finals ....

graeme souness 'Bellamy has been a disruptive influence from the minute I walked into this football club with his attitude to the coaching staff, to me and to his team-mates,' wrote Souness. 'On the Friday before the Arsenal game I met the press at St James' Park and when I later arrived at the training ground Craig was taking off his boots in the boot room. 'I asked him "What's the problem?" and he told me his hamstring was tight_ I then went on to the training ground where Dean Saunders said to me: "You'll never believe what he's just done." 'Dean said Craig had told the players prior to coming out on to the training ground that he was going to feign an injury, and that is exactly what he has done. 'From that moment, I had an almighty problem. When we finished training I said in front of the players: "Craig, you and I have got to go and see the chairman." 'By 1pm we were in the chairman's office. The first thing the chairman asked was "Craig, did you feign an injury this morning?" and Craig said "Yes" to that. 'I asked what had brought things on, and he said it was all the speculation about bringing new players in and him being a make-weight in a transfer. " charming isn't he. Bellamy is a good player but seems better as a big fish in a small pond grabbing all the headlines at blackburn than being just one of many high profile players at a club like liverpool ,could you imagine the fit he would throw if he wasn't in the team??

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if rafa thought cisse had a bad attitude ,bellamy would take things to a whole new level ,just doesn't make sense to me.

Bolton Wanderers manager Sam Allardyce has reopened his feud with Rafael Benitez ahead of Sunday's game at Anfield by accusing the Spaniard of turning Liverpool into a team of hard-hitting giants. Benitez has angered Allardyce in the past by hitting out at Bolton's apparent strong-arm tactics during clashes between the two north-west teams. The pair meet with memories still fresh of their bruising 2-2 battle at the Reebok Stadium in January when Steven Gerrard and Mohamed Sissoko escaped red cards for controversial challenges on Kevin Nolan and El-Hadji Diouf. Allardyce, reported to be on a Football Association shortlist to succeed Sven-Goran Eriksson as England coach after this year's World Cup finals, admitted his team must be ready for a physical encounter if they are to end a run of three straight defeats and revive their bid for European football. "You have to expect a big, strong physical challenge when you play Liverpool because they are a big, physical side," said Allardyce. "With the players he has bought, Benitez wants to make his side more physical. "But they are a huge side and they remind me of the Arsenal team we used to come up against when we first came up to the Premiership. "Everywhere you look throughout the spine of their team, they have players at 6ft 2in and bigger from Jamie Carragher to Peter Crouch. "So you have to adapt the way you play against Liverpool to cope with the challenge. "Yet when we played them at the Reebok earlier this season, they played the sort of 'over-zealous' football that Benitez has accused us of playing in the past. But it seemed that his team were at it more than us when we last played them." http://www.espnstar.com/epl/epl_newsdetail_1672492.html

sounds like a bit of wimp ,is he going getting chased benny hill style all round aintree ,bloody hell I would pay to see that.

this has been going on for too long now ,apparently rafa hasn't done anything tactically different and we are unpredictable although we sit in the league with 67 points....my head hurts.

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was more bothered about the article mentioning paco herrera , his future isn't settled ,seems like he is going back to spain ?

if we sell morientes in the summer we will get at least some money back ,one more year and nothing will be comign our way plus I think his contract is only 3 years anyway? .All depends on rafa of course and the money situation as always ,another question to ask is what can morientes do that fowler can't ? is there much between them ?....both have had recurring injur problems.

really good read I thought. Hellraiser hath no fury any more By Oliver Kay Life continues to get better for the Liverpool defender described as the perfect professional by his manager THAT OLD TALE ABOUT GEORGE BEST and the bellboy who asked where it all went wrong as the footballer-turned-playboy cracked open a bottle of champagne with Miss World, bundles of cash all around them, could do with being revised for the modern age. On an away trip, a hotel waiter brings a couple of bottles of mineral water for Jamie Carragher to find him surrounded with football magazines as he studiously watches a mid-table Spanish game on the television. ?Jamie, Jamie, where did it all go right?? It is a question that came to mind during an hour in the defender?s company at Liverpool?s training ground last week. Carragher, ?the perfect professional?, according to Rafael Benítez, winced as he contemplated what the Spaniard might have made of him had he arrived at Anfield a few years earlier. He recalled being ?a little bit of a hellraiser?, cringing in his recollection of his misdemeanours on and off the pitch, not least the coin he threw into the crowd at Highbury, and generally gave the impression of a man who has rediscovered contentment by committing himself to the game as he did in his more innocent youth. Like any self-respecting Scouser, Carragher was ?a bit of a scally? as a child, but such antics are not the abiding memories of growing up in Bootle. It was a childhood of Panini sticker albums, of reading Shoot and Match cover to cover and playing in the street until dark. It was by no means idyllic ? his father, Philly, spent time in prison ? but football gave the young Carragher a focus and a dream that, to his continuing wonderment, he is fulfilling as a European champion with Liverpool. ?I just love football, really,? he said and, while that may sound like a statement of the obvious, he added that there are alarming numbers in his privileged position who do not. ?I hate that. They?re only playing the game because they?re good at it,? he said. ?If they didn?t have a talent for it, they would have no interest at all. With some players, you talk about big teams in Europe and they don?t even know the team. I?m not criticising them ? well obviously I am by saying it ? but I just can?t understand it. That?s just the way some players are.? Similarly, some are preoccupied with image. Carragher? This is a man who has had the same haircut since he was 12 and, mocked by his friends when he produced a wallet on a night out ? ?just a normal wallet? ? will carry his spare change in his pocket for the rest of his life. Bling is not his thing and nor are film premieres. ?It does my head in seeing all that,? he said. ?It?s up to them what they get up to, but going all these places and wearing suits? All them haircuts and gel? I hate even dressing up. I just like to be casual and wear my jeans and trainers. ?I like to play football, go home, go for a drink at my local pub. Yes, I?ve got a few quid and I?ve got a nice lifestyle and a nice house and nice car, but that?s enough for me.? So the yellow Corvette attracting covetous glances in the car park is not his, then? ?No. I?ve got a Range Rover. That?ll do me. It?s a classy car, but it?s not flashy, is it?? On the contrary, it says everything about its owner: classy, yes, but above all robust and utterly dependable. So much so that Liverpool supporters have come to sing that they ?dream of a team of Carraghers? to the tune of Yellow Submarine. But it was not always thus. He recalls a period, barely three years ago, when they saw him as expendable, when he was attracting such derision in the Liverpool Echo letters column that his father (?my biggest supporter?) began to look up those critics in the telephone directory and give them a piece of his mind. ?It was in a period where the team wasn?t doing well,? Carragher said. ?It was after the treble in 2001 and then we?d finished second and then for the next two years under Gérard Houllier, it didn?t go well. At the time Arsenal were flying and Real Madrid were flying in Europe and I think our fans looked at Ashley Cole and Lauren and (Michel) Salgado and Roberto Carlos and thought, ? That?s what we need, an attacking full back. We don?t need Carra no more.? And I was never going to be an attacking full back.? It seems that Houllier, whom he cites as a huge influence on his career, felt the same. ?He brought in (Sami) Hyypia and (Stéphane) Henchoz when I?d been playing centre back and that forced me to become a right back,? Carragher said. ?Then he brought (Markus) Babbel in, so I moved to left back, and then he brought (John Arne) Riise in and I ended up going back to right back, and then (Steve) Finnan arrived. It was the same every season. I?d still end up playing, but I think that was just through my enthusiasm and dedication.? These days, under Benítez, Carragher is so accomplished at centre half that he need not worry about the arrivals of Daniel Agger, who came from Brondby in January, and Gabriel Paletta, who will join from Banfield, the Argentine club, in July. ?It?s probably only about now where I feel comfortable with my position,? he said. ?Not comfortable in a bad way. I just mean where I?m not worried about what the manager?s going to do in the summer.? A devoted husband and a proud father of two, he is almost unrecognisable from the tearaway who had one sole aim on his nights off as a youngster. ?When you?re a young lad in Liverpool and you?ve got a few quid, what do you do after a game on a Saturday when you haven?t got a girlfriend?? Carragher said. ?You go out with your mates, don?t you, and do what they do. But then I got to that age where probably not just footballers but people in general start to grow up. You settle down, you have a baby and, well, you can?t go out as much, can you, but you don? t even want to. ?I?ve changed, but I think the game has changed. I think most of the lads went for a drink after the Everton game last week, which isn?t a problem because we won and we didn?t have a game for a week, but then training last Tuesday, it just didn?t feel right. I cringe when I think what I used to get up to, going out for a couple of nights on the run and getting away with it. I don?t know how I did it. There?s no way you could get away with that now. ?It all goes back to something I think Gérard Houllier said about Stevie (Gerrard) a few years back. ?Don?t go out to nightclubs. When you retire, you can buy a nightclub when you?ve finished.? ? And if Carragher does, it will probably be The Grafton on West Derby Road ? rough and ready, far from flashy, but gloriously, unmistakeably Scouse. CARRAGHER HAS DOUBTS OVER MANAGERIAL FUTURE TO HEAR HIM ENTHUSE ABOUT football and footballers, about different teams and systems, one would think that Jamie Carragher is certain to become a manager, but he is not so sure. He and Steven Gerrard have taken the first steps towards gaining their coaching qualifications, but even this dedicated student of the game, unnerved by the obsessive approach of Rafael Benítez, wonders where the next generation of managers will come from. ?Some of us have started our coaching badges,? Carragher said, ?but I?m not sure about it at the moment. It?s so 24/7. Having worked under Gérard Houllier and Benítez, you wonder how they can have a life. People say I?m obsessed by football, but he (Benítez) is unbelievable. It?s just football, football, football. ?I?ve never spoken to him about anything other than football. Not that I mind that, but with the lack of sleep and the supporters and the press, it?s so difficult to do that job now because if you want to be the best, you?ve got to do it as they do and have no life out of football. ?It scares you at times how hard they graft. And I think more and more it will be people like that who become top managers because I don?t think players will want to put that work in after their playing careers, because they?ll feel they?ve had their career. ?People like them and (José) Mourinho are obsessed and I think partly what drives them is that they haven?t been top players and this is the only way they can get the career they want. When you realise how much work you?ve got to put in to be a coach or a manager, it puts a lot of players off because we?ve had an easy life playing.? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,27-2116296,00.html

At the time of roy evans we had a great set of youngsters coming through ,doesn't mean it was down to him just that these things come around in cycles. The academy at kirkby was set up when houllier was manager wasn't it ? so how can he have left the youth set up in a worse state .

doesn't matter anyway the lack of a quality defensive midfielder like hamman, or makelele is what will ruin englands chances ,I certainly don't think either carrick or parker are the answer ,I would rather see carragher doing that role than either of them two .

what is it with alonso and his lucky hopeful long ball punts up the field? he did the same when we played sunderland away ...sheer coincidence ( although if the lad is english then he meant it and his name is frank...)

gera looked dangerous ,we were linked with him in the press anyway last season was it ?.

very interesting ,time for more wild speculation, woohoo just can't help thinking kraft are still in the picture ,but it makes sense by what we know already 1. They are open to investment opportunites they have said that themselves. 2. krafts have experience in stadium develeopment 3 .they have the potential to set up a deal like chelsea have done with LA galaxy,liverpool with new england revolution 4. we know there have been meetings between them and that they have gone on for a while is kraft the type of fella who has key contacts, and is able to pull potential investors together to form one whole package ?I think the answer is yes and he's done it before hasn't he ?

I have march 31st stuck in my head as well for some reason ,liverpool echo said this yesterday I think "Liverpool has until mid-April to get the funding together to finance the stadium or face losing financial support from Merseyside's Objective 1 programme." funny cos in november 2005 the date for the funding decision was february now its april these things never seem to come to a head ,they get pushed back all the time. whether this is how the deadline from the NWDA works I don't know but probably?

anyone know when the time to panic is ? considering we have the deadline coming up this friday for the grant decision ..... don't believe rick parry one iota saying 'nothing has changed' or whatever it is ,something is going on ...it has to be. http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/li...rticle354432.ec andy hunter (pleb)"Time running out for Reds in race to satisfy Benitez's lofty ambitions is the title of it."

better than skipping along with len capeling ,prentice and andy gray and having a go at those nasty foreigners.

nothing likea bit of bias towards liverpool ,I enjoy reading chris Basecombe's match report now ,under houllier however I used to dread them ,was a rant time and time again.