The walters step over

If the fact that we had new players was the only problem then we wouldn't have played well in the first half then got worse in the second, would've been the other way round, surely? Where would you have played Kuyt or Raul? Dirk has shown time and again that his technique isn't up to it and he hasn't got any pace so playing him on the right of a four would be a defensive move (I can see a case for us doing that against Arsenal though). Start him instead of Carroll and we still would've had the same problems in the second half - perhaps more so because Kuyt would've no doubt dropped very deep tracking back and left Suarez isolated. Meireles maybe could've started instead of Adam, but again in a 4/4/2 Meireles can only realistically play alongside Lucas unless we drop Suarez and play Raul in the hole. four points out of the next two games and we'd have made a decent start and have something solid to build on and things will look a lot brighter - especially if we bring in another defender and/or striker.

Kenny has got to get a hold of Carra and tell him that his hopefull punts up the pitch do absolutely nothing to help us, for a player that's hailed as a student of the game the fact that he still hasn't noticed after all these years that he's just giving the ball away cheaply time after time, game in game out is bloody annoying. All in all not a great start but certainly not a disaster, and I think it's encouraging that Kenny looks as though he's going to stretch the play with width at home to the teams we'd expect to do well against - when everybodys settled I think we'll see a few teams battered this season.

Just been looking on a Newcastle forum..Can anyone explain the animosity that a lot of their fans have towards us? Has there been a load of kick offs between fans in recent games that I've missed or do they actually see us as being in competition with them? Anyone else think Enriques signing means that we may well see a lot of Glen J. on the right side of midfield this season when we play 4-4-2? Quite like the thought of having natural width on both sides of the pitch.

I don't understand posts like this at all. The thread is "realistic ambitions" not "what would you like to happen" - we haven't won the league in two decades, we haven't qualified for the CL for two years so "LFC are not 4th place FC" means absolutely nowt. There's a good chance that by Sept 1st nearly half of our regular starting line up will never have played for the club before this season and will need time to bed in and I've said this a few times but teams finishing 5th/6th/7th one season then having a proper title challenge the next almost never happens. Realistically we will probably be a bit inconsistant until the team settles down and becomes comfortable with each other, and we could well drop a few points at home to teams we'd expect to beat. Saying that, City may be distracted by their first go at CL football and Wenger could well leave mid season if things don't start well for him so imo 4th is a very realistic aim.

Shelvey will be seen as an essential part of the team by January, taking Adams' place as the natural partner for Lucas for the second half of the season.

Start the season > couple of weeks off after the internationals in Oct whilst the CL and league cup games takeover midweek > couple of weeks training in Nov to get back up to speed > flying for the xmas period and the rest of the season.

I'm agreeing with you all, ultimately it was the wong choice!!* All I'm saying is that i can see why he made that choice - personally, I thought the big mistake was getting rid of Rafa if he didn't have someone lined up and ready to sign.

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Hodgson had done well with Fulham, he was overhyped by the press because they wanted someone to take over from that know nothing foreigner Cappello, but he had recent success. I can see why Purslow made that choice given what was going on at the time, it was the wrong choice, but I can see why he made it. That clearly wasn't the point I was making. The club was in an utter mess, appointing someone that hadn't worked for so long would've been a huge gamble.

Probably gonna get my head chewed off but I honestly don't see how Purslow can be criticised for going with Hodgson over Kenny. Nobody can argue with the turnaround in the second half of the season but he hadn't managed for the best part of a decade and Hodgson was highly thought of by people in the game. The club was in a grim state and it'd have been a hell of a risk to appoint Kenny at the time. Purslow took what he thought was the safest option, I honestly don't have a problem with his choice.

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I suppose they could be thinking that if the right player isn't available at the right price then four decent centre halves should be enough to get us through a 40 (ish) game season. I agree with you though, there's a lot of potential for our CBs to lose form and fitness and I think it'd be a risk not to bring someone in.

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A player is much more likely to get the wages he wants if the buying club thinks that he has other options, every agent would do the same. When we get in the CL, that's when we can fairly start to look at what other clubs are doing and ask "why weren't we in for him?". When City were in for Kaka pretty much everyone on here said that a lack of CL football would be a factor in him not joining, it's the same for us now.

What if we'd been in touch with both Aguero and Mata and had the knock back? We can only sign the players that are willing to join us and yes, we paid over the odds for Henderson,Carroll and Downing but we're not in a position where we can just sit back and let other clubs sweat - we have to be pro -active in the market and do deals as quickly as possible to prevent being beaten to players by more attractive clubs. It's pointless comparing the two sets of deals because if Mata or Aguero only want to jon clubs in the CL then it doesn't matter what their fees are if they won't join us, so therefore we have to pay whatever fees are necessary for the players that will.

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You're probably right, we need to fill other positions first, but I hope Kenny has something hidden up his sleeve in terms of an attacker. We desperately need more pace in the squad.

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He left because he thought that he'd have a better chance of winning the big trophies with Chelsea then he would with us, he would have also thought that he'd be playing CL football every year he's there and you couldn't say the same for us. The politics, financial situation and what goes on behind the scenes of a club mean feck all to any player if they think that they can still compete for the big titles and play regular CL football.