ion

What gives me hope that this is a sign of better things to come from Lucas is that he's not having any freak games, like a couple of bits of blinding skill or a couple of top corner screamers. He seems to be doing exactly what he's always done, or tried to do, but better and more consistently. He's moving the ball quicker and better, he's not dawdling so much, he's tackling more sensibly, he's making the occasional penetrative pass, and he's still making the odd burst forward when the chance arises - such as for the goal against Napoli and against Chelsea when he was fouled. I particularly liked that latter one, as he did something which too many of our players have forgotten to do in recent years - when pursued from behind, cut across the run, don't try and "run away" from the pursuer in any old useless direction while trying to keep hld of the ball...Schoolboy stuff, sure, but something we've not been doing. If he can nick a goal or two in the next month that could really push him on, as it will make other teams and players change the way they play against him and us as well. Let's hope the support and will to succeed he now gets can match the intensity of the criticism he got before.

As I remember it, the first murmurings against Rafa were when we were a few points clear at the top of the league and the perception was that his lack of adventure was letting it slip with too many draws. There's clearly a certain validity to that view, but Rafa's a long-termist and will always stick to his plans as far as I can make out. I think things reached a peak at Middlesborough, as it so often seems to, shortly before things suddenly clicked against Real Madrid and the Mancs. At the end of the season we were of course all cursing those draws.. but that's the thing with Rafa. He's never been judged on what seems to be mammoth effort, planning and juggling money and politics to get us there in the first place, - and with the same patience and planning perhaps further - but only on the one thing that everyone can so easily identify. "Play him, instead of him", "play him here, not there" etc... Rafa gets slaughtered for Aquilani, but how many players of that value and more have the clubs we're expected to compete with - and have competed with under Rafa - had sitting on the bench or in physio rooms for years on end or loaned out or sold on? ie Aquilani-like mistakes? The margins for error for Rafa were minute, and so magnified a billion times. That's why net spend is important - it shows you how much in mistakes a given manager has been allowed to get away with. I reckon we pretty much overachieved in every year with Rafa, except the last in which we slightly underachieved under circumstances the club hadn't seen the like of in my lifetime.

"mastermind"

"I don't think you go from being as feted as I was in May to losing any ability three months later," he said. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/oct/05/roy-hodgson-liverpool-manager-faith This is his problem, and why nothing's going to change - he believed the hype and is utterly convinced that he's the man. What that should have read is: "You take the plaudits when you win, so you take the criticism when you lose", or any number of other similar cliches, that are used for good reason. He's blamed everyone except himself and anyone not connected with the club. He's had a go at the fans and the players, the latter individually and collectively, and particularly the younger ones who need all the encouragement they can get. He's even had a go at one of ours when he was prompted to be positive - "Shelvey only looked good because they were tired", or some such - if that's what he says about players in public, I dread to think what he says to them in private, or behind their backs. The Shelvey coment was the last straw for me, not just because of the spiteful, small-minded nature of it - which for me put to bed the "nice guy" impression we'd expected to resort to for comfort when mediocrity hit - but because it gives a glimpse into his wider thinking, which he repeats for us in daily doses it seems, as yet again with the "feted" comment above. He was more worried about being asked why Shelvey wasnt on earlier or from the start than he was about giving a boost to his player, his players, the team or the club. That thinking is exactly the opposite of what we need. It's the opposite of what anyone needs, whether they're at the top of the table or the bottom.

This is on a site in a few years' time: May 2050 Liverpool are, quite simply, the best. Winning the European Cup for a record 20th time last week meant that they cannot be caught for at least 10 years, while their record tally of league titles stands unassailable for 20. It would seem as good a time as any to reflect on where it all went right, and terrace consensus points to the turbulent events of 2010 as the catalyst for it all. From 2005 Liverpool Football Club, long since a spent force domestically, were brought once again to preeminence on the European stage in Rafael Benitez's first few seasons, but league challenges were few and far between. The fans were fiercely supportive of the manager, who had had previous league success in Spain, believing that his tactical renown would bear out at home, and that appeared to be the case when Liverpool finished 2nd in 2009, with a few famous resounding victories over some of the world biggest clubs along the way. In 2010, however, it looked like the rails were coming off. A lack of funds and injuries to key players were blamed for many on-pitch woes, but by mid-season the fans showed signs of a split. Whatever the troubles upstairs, many remained baffled by Benitez's changes on the pitch, a perceived failure to bring the best out of a squad that contained three or four genuine world class players, and a lack of commitment to the kind of varied attacking football that would combat teams seeking only to stop them play. Every game became a struggle, and every defeat and victory seemed to signal either terminal decline or a bright new dawn. The words "turned a corner" had echoed around the corridors of the club for over ten years, but this time it seemed it was at not so much a corner, but a junction offering only radical changes of direction. Known still at that time as a club very much reserved when it came to changing managers - preaching patience as a proven mantra - even the most outspoken of the manager's Kop critics felt a sense of outrage and extreme foreboding when the chief executive of the club appeared unannounced live on television the morning before a crucial league game in January to say that Rafa had been dismissed. That the club's owners of the time were reviled figures did not come into play. It was just not, fans said, "the Liverpool Way". Fortunately, the club was still of sufficient standing to attract a queue of leading lights in the managerial world willing to take on the challenge of restoring the club to greatness while famously "not dining at the top table" in the transfer market, and once players and manager and fans were again fit and united, the top table instead wanted to dine with Liverpool Football Club. The rest, to every other club's regret, is history. Despite that history, however, the move still rankles with some old time supporters even today, and many maintain that the following years – and over a dozen managers - were merely the result of Benitez's groundwork, and there may be a small degree of truth in that. But for many at the time immediate succour was found in the former dug-out idol's disastrous 6-month spell in Italy, although later tempered by his three consecutive titles in Spain. After that, his achievements at a handful of top and middling outfits brought only modest success. By that time, however, Liverpool were already well back on the path to unrivalled domination of England and Europe. ** Just wanted to display the other side of a rather pointless coin.. Personally, I'm firmly on the fence at the moment. I think it's all left to emotions now as the arguments have all been made, but I'll state my main beef with Rafa and it has been for a long time, and I'd love it if someone had a decade or so to work out the statistics I'm after. It's that when he has "rotated" over the years, he has also changed players' positions, such that any player coming in to any given position will either have different players immediately around him, also because of rotation, or the same players but in different positions and so on. Injuries have also forced changes to compound the problem, but I honestly think this has made it really hard for players to form partnerships and build up patterns of play. I would love to know – for example – how many times Benayoun has played in a single position – say left wing – with the same left-back, same two midfielders, and same striker. When you put players in different positions it's like having a different player, and I get the feeling that for a lot of our players over the last five years it may have been like playing in a new team for 10 or even 20 games a season. I think it has made it difficult for players to get in their stride, feel they're really part of the team, take responsibility and demand the ball. As I say, I'd love for someone to do the calculations.. Having said all that, I'd love it like everyone else I'm sure if Rafa can just find whatever he needs in him to turn it right round, cos I love the guy, which is what makes all this at the moment so sad.

left foot you could use to flay sinners He had a decent scoring record against the Mancs, didn't he?

I liked Paddy, had a lot of good qualities. He's the player Aquilani reminds me of the most. There's a certain erratic grace, the angled pass and the shot. Berger was never a left winger though, he was always an attacking midfielder if memory serves, but for me went by the wayside like so many good players in the last decade or so who were bought for certain qualities in certain positions and then the manager failed to have the confidence to play them in those same positions for any length of time. Sticking him on the left for the sole reason he was left-footed and not defensive enough seemed to negate virtually every single quality he had.

Chelsea's club accountant is Japanese?

Someone mentioned Wright and Saunders.. anyone remember long, excruciating afternoons watching Saunders get caught offside 20 or 30 times a game? I remember whole games when all the players of both teams seemed to be squeezed into about fifteen yards either side of the half way line..

It seems to me that we're starting to feel about one or two others the way the vast majority have felt about us for years... It's fine that we can spend 20 million here and there on whoever, but as soon as Man City start doing the same it's time to bring in UEFA rule changes/salary caps or whatever... How dare they?! We're going to have to get used to it, and compete accordingly. London clubs will most of the time be more attractive to a lot of people than Midlands or northern clubs, while Mediterranean clubs may be more attractive to many than London clubs, for example. Everyone has to use what they've got - money, environment, history, winning potential, fanbase etc... It seems to me that things are starting to even themselves out a bit. And we don't like it.

A sincere question: at what point do we decide that we're taking it all – and ourselves – too seriously?! Capello chose to lie low. “You're going to get a call from someone at the FA in the next half-hour,” Branchini told Pierfilippo. “Keep your phone on.” Pierfilippo's phone rang and the words “private number” flashed on his mobile. Thus, against the wintry backdrop of Istanbul's Hagia Sofia, first contact was made. “OK, then. For the next ten to fifteen days you won't hear from us. Then, once we know what the situation is, we'll call you.” Upon reflection, Capello had no way of knowing whether the voice on the other end of the phone was genuine ...spotters were dispatched to each of London's five airports. Any flight from Malpensa, Linate or Bergamo airports in Milan would be scrutinised. Capello designed his trip carefully. He would fly from Malpensa to Zurich and then, from there, take a Swiss Air flight to London City Airport. They tried to figure out what arguments would resonate with each of them, what each FA representative's priorities might be and they tried to anticipate every possible question. Thus, on Wednesday, December 12, Capello set off from Malpensa, switched flights in Zurich and landed at City Airport just after noon. Whatever spotters were staking out the arrivals lounge evidently didn't notice him (or, more likely, were too intent on flights from Italy) and he easily slipped out and into the waiting car Barwick was quickly convinced, some of his advisers less so, but they soon came around. Especially because whatever fears they may have had of a “foreign invasion” were soon allayed when Capello's plans for a “mirror system” flashed on the screen during the presentation. For each backroom position occupied by one of Capello's Italian assistants, he envisaged an English “mirror” or “shadow”, who would work alongside them. It was a crisp sunny morning as he got on the motorway. Was he heading to Malpensa airport? Or was he off to some secret meeting…? Realising he was being followed, Capello exited the motorway and headed towards the outskirts of Varese, some 25 miles north of the city. He knew these roads well, having lived nearby in Legnano when he was at Milan. He made a series of turns, then doubled back, then took a variety of side roads. When he looked in his rear-view mirror, they were gone. Satisfied with himself, he headed for the border, crossing over into Switzerland and arriving at the Lugano offices of the Studio Severgnini, the Milanese law firm… Select the most appropriate from the following headlines: a) How One Man Changed the Course of the Second World War. b) Citizens Enjoy E.U Border Freedom Ruling c) Bloke Hired to Train Footballers FFS. (Disclaimer: This post is in no way directed at the original poster, but instead the journalist and football in general)

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I completely agree, though I think the only word relevant to the price argument is the first one. If the argument is who is better/preferable at this time out of Momo or Hargreaves, I'd go for Momo, purely because of age.

Hypothetically, if we didn't have Momo now, would anyone be happy spending 17M to bring him in?

Silver lining - at least it'll annoy the hell out of "Sir Alex Ferguson" when he and "Sir David Beckham" are mentioned in the same sentence.

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bloody forum! Always one extreme to the other!