GWistooshort

Bascombe in today's NOTW says Stevie "has responded well to treatment" & "is winning his battle to be fit" for Real http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/sport/1775...RD-WINNING.html

Once again a Sunday paper is saying that Rafa's new contract is about to be signed Bascombe in today's NOTW "Rafa Benitez [is] expected to sign his delayed £16million contract ‘within days’. Benitez and Liverpool co- owner Tom Hicks completed negotiations last night on the manager’s new deal which will tie him to the club until 2013. Benitez had earlier rejected FOUR drafts of the deal as he demanded more control over the club’s transfer policy. And although he will still be accountable to the board for future signings, he has won many of the concessions he was asking for. An Anfield source said: “The final issues have been ironed out. It’s hoped Rafa will sign within a few days.” http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/sport/1775...RD-WINNING.html

Piece by Bascombe in today's NOTW on this, with the following quote attributed to Pepe's dad “Pepe is crazy about playing for Atletico and I will try to convince him to move as soon as possible.” http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/sport/1770...ico-Madrid.html

NOTW today reckons Inter are in for Agger as well & have already spoken to his agent http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/sport/1769...ian-giants.html

Rafa says he's not planning to bring Voronin back before the end of the season & will make a decision on his longer term future in the summer http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N...090211-0833.htm

Chelsea's latest accounts (released today) reveal they spent £23.1m paying off Mourinho & Grant http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle5723722.ece The independent article referred to on here earlier says Scolari's payoff was £7.5m So that's £30.6m in total

There we go..............

A few snippets re Liverpool & Villa from the Telegraph this morning........... "Liverpool have tracked him for more than two years" "The main stumbling block, as with Rafa Benitez's dream of a partnership with Torres at club level, is that Villa does not want to leave Spain." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/...-conundrum.html

They have to do the 3 seasons or 36 months between the ages of 15 & 21 before they qualify as “locally trained”, otherwise they need to occupy one of the 17 unrestricted places in the squad I don't know if it was originally 17 to 21 - it's certainly been 15 to 21 for all of this season at least

There's a pattern emerging here with Scolari & Adams Get beaten in the league by Liverpool & then get sacked Watch out Mark Hughes!

Premier League record Robbie Keane 5 in 19 0.263 per game Andrei Voronin 5 in 19 0.263 per game Peter Crouch 22 in 85 0.259 per game Dirk Kuyt 20 in 90 0.222 per game Fernando Morientes 8 in 41 0.195 per game Ryan Babel 6 in 47 0.128 per game http://www.skysports.com/experts/expert_st...4894588,00.html

Sunday People 8 February 2009 TOP KOP LERNERS By Tom Hopkinson Liverpool co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have bowed to Rafa Benitez's contract demands after advice from Randy Lerner. Hicks and Gillett met with the Aston Villa chairman last weekend and, having listened to their US compatriot, have agreed to most of their manager's wishes. Crucially, Benitez has been given complete control over transfers and he is now expected to sign a new deal in the next two weeks. A new £70,000-a-week deal for Daniel Agger is high among his priorities. http://www.people.co.uk/sport/football/tm_...-name_page.html

Sunday People this morning says Rafa "has been given complete control over transfers and he is now expected to sign a new deal in the next two weeks. A new £70,000-a-week deal for Daniel Agger is high among his priorities." http://www.people.co.uk/sport/football/tm_...-name_page.html

Ryan Babel: I can become new Liverpool now Robbie Keane has gone By Bill Mills sundaymirror.co.uk 8/02/2009 Ryan Babel believes the departure of Robbie Keane can finally make him a striking star with Liverpool. Holland international Babel said: "I've had a really good talk with manager Rafa Benitez. I told him I am really happy at Liverpool. "This is the place where I want to become a top-class player. Robbie has gone to Tottenham and that increases my chances so much more. "I'm ready for more playing time. Meeting the manager, and having a talk about the future, was really important." Babel joined Liverpool from Ajax in an £11million deal in the summer of 2007 but has been a fringe player since. There have been increasing calls around Anfield for the Dutchman to take some of the pressure off Fernando Torres's shoulders. Babel - who missed a sitter at Portsmouth last night - added: "I understand Liverpool is a massive club. When you play here, you know you are going to face so many matches every season. "We play in all competitions and not a single player can play all of those matches. "The manager invests so much time and energy in talking to us. He takes time with me. We talk about the system we play, about how he wants me and others to operate in his system. He has told me what my role can be in the future and what he expects of me now, if necessary as a winger. "But I have not made a secret of my big desire to become a striker for Liverpool. "That is where my ambition is and Benitez now knows that. I have told him that I have a real hunger for that position." Some Liverpool fans are beginning to question Babel's progress, but the Dutchman insisted: "I have made big progress as a player at Liverpool. "I train with the best players in the world and I feel as if I have one of the best coaches in the world. "The Premier League is heaven for a player. You see and you meet the best of the best. Every opponent has quality and is physically strong. When I used to play at Ajax I could play and win matches without having to give 100 per cent. Under Benitez, and in the Premier League, that is impossible." Babel still thinks Liverpool will win the title. He said: "Our rivals are going to drop points. They can't keep winning. It is important we show character when they make a mistake." http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/200...15875-21106661/

NOTW today (journo not credited so don't know if it's Bascombe or not) says we will be back in for Barry in the summer......... RAFA'S BACK FOR GARETH BARRY Benitez to test Kop transfer policy STILL WANTED - Gareth Barry 08/02/2009 RAFA BENITEZ will test his new powers over Liverpool’s transfer policy by re- igniting his interest in Gareth Barry. Martin O’Neill recognises his only hope of keeping the England star is guiding Aston Villa into the Champions League. But if Villa don’t finish in the top four, Benitez intends correcting the grievance he felt last summer when his board refused to splash out £18million. O’Neill said: “Gareth was true to his word that he would stay in January. If we keep the momentum going, who knows? But if we don’t qualify for Europe, things will be in the balance. “Having given this season, I don’t think anyone would begrudge him the opportunity to move.” The Liverpool hierarchy will be powerless to veto a fresh bid after surrendering to Benitez’s latest contract demands. The four-year deal on the table will ensure Benitez still reports to chief executive Rick Parry on transfers but will be granted more involvement in negotiations to buy, sell and value players. http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/sport/1690...fer-policy.html

Tony Barrett in the Echo yesterday had a snippet on Agger's contract.......... "unless the impasse over Daniel Agger's contract is resolved – he has been waiting for the club to speak to him about his future since November – the Dane could be next through the exit door as his sense of utter bemusement is growing with every passing day" http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-f...252-22873192/2/

From Tony Barrett in the Echo yesterday - confirms that Rafa wanted to stop the Keane deal until after Barry was signing, but Parry said we couldn't........... Family at war - Liverpool FC deserves so much better Feb 7 2009 by Tony Barrett, Liverpool Echo 1 2 next » WHEN Robbie Keane signed for Liverpool last summer one of the first things he told the ECHO was how delighted he was to be joining the club he supported as a boy. He couldn't have been any more wrong. The Liverpool Keane followed as a youngster growing up in Dublin was a club where unity was a watchword and where boardroom politics never had a negative effect on what was happening on the pitch. The Anfield Keane walked into last July was – and still is – a place torn apart by civil war and internal strife where only the bravest souls dare to tread. The Liverpool family has become so dysfunctional that it should be the adoption agency not the Premier League which rules on whether or not they can add to their number. But Keane was blissfully ignorant of such issues when he completed his "dream move". A brief conversation at the Malmaison Hotel which was his temporary home after moving north was the first indication the Irishman had that Liverpool FC was not what it once was. Advised by one associate not to get involved in the internecine politics which has plagued the club for far too long, Keane asked exactly what such comments meant. Another associate was less cryptic, telling him that Liverpool "is not one club, it is actually two or three in one". Keane soon came to know what that meant as he became an unwitting pawn in the ongoing power struggle between Rafa Benitez and Rick Parry. It has been inaccurately suggested in some places that the Liverpool manager never wanted Keane and that he was in fact signed by the club's chief executive. This is not the case as not only had Benitez confirmed his interest in Keane long before he actually signed, he had also consulted with several figures at Melwood about him. But – and this is a big but – by the time Keane came to sign on the dotted line to seal a four year contract at Anfield, the Reds boss had already tried unsuccessfully to halt the £20.3m deal. Gareth Barry was Benitez's number one target and it was the Englishman and not the Irishman whom he wanted capturing first. Benitez's fear was that if Keane signed before Barry it would diminish his chances of bringing in the Villa star. Parry's argument was that Villa were not budging on their prohibitive value of Barry and that the proposed Keane deal was so far down the road that there could be no turning back. To paraphrase a Benitez-ism from his Valencia days, he asked for a table and a lampshade but in that order. When the lampshade was unloaded at the Shankly gates with no sign of the table the Spaniard was far from impressed. Wholly innocently, Keane had become Benitez's lampshade and he had also unwittingly got himself caught in the crossfire between Anfield and Melwood. To this day, Benitez believes his chief executive worked harder to sign Keane than he did on the Barry deal in keeping with his own personal football judgement, an accusation Parry emphatically denies. Only those involved know the truth of the matter but what is not in any question is that the saga shows no-one involved in a favourable light. Keane may claim he was never given a fair crack of the whip but equally he never looked like setting the world alight during his short spell at Anfield. Statistics do not always give the complete picture where humans are involved but the fact that the partnership between Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres produces a goal every 74 minutes - while with Torres and Keane it was every 245 minutes and Gerrard and Keane every 231 minutes- tells its own story. It is hard to recall a game where Keane did not look like a big fish in need of a much smaller pond, one which only the likes of Spurs can provide. Similarly, Benitez should not take any pride at identifying a target, failing to get anything like the best out of him and then returning him to whence he came without having a replacement lined up. Parry should also be asking himself whether he could have done more to deliver Benitez's transfer targets in the order he had requested them because in not doing so he helped create a situation which resulted in the manager demanding total control of the buying and selling of players because he feels he cannot trust his chief executive. And yet more accusing glances will be cast in the direction of Tom Hicks and George Gillett for sanctioning a £20.3m deal for a 28-year-old, a fee which most observers thought was grossly exaggerated, at a time when they would not back their manager's judgement that £18m was a price worth paying for Barry. Liverpool's co-owners have been guilty of the most alarming dereliction of duty and have quite literally fiddled while Rome burns. They have had it in their gift to impose a chain of command in which each link is connected by trust but have singularly failed to do so. What's more, the Americans have actually made things worse by playing Benitez and Parry off against one another in their quest to rid the club of one another when they should have been looking for ways to make the relationship between manager and chief executive work better. The whole situation stinks to high heaven and it is Liverpool's reputation which has taken the biggest battering. Robbie Keane's dream move was doomed to fail from the very start, now Liverpool must return to the values which made them the team to support when the Irishman was a boy or else the newly installed Spurs skipper won't be the last victim of this ongoing civil war. In fact, there is already another one waiting in line because unless the impasse over Daniel Agger's contract is resolved – he has been waiting for the club to speak to him about his future since November – the Dane could be next through the exit door as his sense of utter bemusement is growing with every passing day. The same could be said of Liverpool's fans who deserve better. So much better. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-f...00252-22873192/

Peter Crouch's take on Keane's time at Liverpool.......... Portsmouth striker Peter Crouch agreed with Keane's view that Benitez did not feel the need to explain his selection policy to his players. Crouch said: 'I feel sorry for Robbie Keane. He didn't get a fair crack of the whip under Benitez. Rafa doesn't give a lot away and he's been a very successful manager, but there were times when I used to try and second guess him to work out whether I would be playing. 'I was usually wrong, so in the end I just gave up. The big one for me was the Champions League Final against Milan when he played one up front - Dirk Kuyt - and left me on the bench. I was desperate to get on because you never know if you will ever play in a European final again.' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/...ss-Benitez.html

"When I signed, Rafa told me I was going to be his second striker with Fernando Torres, but sadly Torres was injured for a lot of the season and we only played a few games together. "I was playing as a lone striker, and everyone knows I'm not a target man. And sometimes I was out on the left wing, which isn't my game either, so it's clear for everyone to see I was played out of position. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/200...15875-21103793/ A video of some of the press conference is available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...pur/7875795.stm

Lots of comments from Keane in the Spurs pre-match press conference yesterday.......... Robbie Keane has admitted he was ­"baffled" by his treatment at Liverpool by Rafael Benítez and he believes that he would have been a success at Anfield if another manager had been in charge. The Republic of Ireland striker, who is now back at Tottenham Hotspur as captain and is preparing for tomorrow's north London derby against Arsenal at White Hart Lane, painted a picture of Benítez as resolutely non-communicative. He said that the Spaniard did not explain why he had omitted him from the squads that faced Everton in the FA Cup and Chelsea in the Premier League towards the end of last month, and that he had not even told him why he had decided to sell him back to Tottenham on ­Monday. Keane's stay at Liverpool, the club he supported as a boy, lasted 189 days and was pock-marked by the frustrations of being played out of position and substituted. "I never regret anything I have done," said Keane. "Never, ever. It wasn't a mistake for me to go there, it just didn't work out for whatever ­reason. I didn't fit into the way that Rafa plays football. With a different manager there, maybe it could have worked. I was doing everything I possibly could to play football and do well for the team, which is the most important thing. I wasn't going there to do well for Robbie Keane, it's about the team. "I never had one bad word to say about anybody there, I didn't have a problem with the manager, I never had a fall-out with the manager ... I was never late for training, I trained every day and I worked my socks off. It's as simple as that. You're probably as baffled as I am." Keane was asked directly whether Benítez had shown the guts to tell him that he was jettisoning him, even though he would not sign a replacement striker. "I said before that I didn't speak to him," Keane replied. "Get the train up to Liverpool and ask him." Keane has swapped a title challenge for a battle against relegation and, ironically, he could yet collect a Premier League winners' medal and go down in the same season. Any medal which may yet wing its way down from Merseyside in May, however, would feel wholly unsatisfactory. "It would not mean anything at all," he said. "The way I look at it is ... if I was there [at Liverpool] and in and out of squads, it probably wouldn't mean as much to me because as a player you want to be a part of it. When you are left out, sometimes you don't feel a part of it." Keane is cup-tied in the Carling Cup, courtesy of a three-minute cameo as a substitute against Crewe Alexandra in round three and, consequently, he will miss Tottenham's showdown with Manchester United in the final on 1 March. But he added: "It would mean more to me if Spurs won the Carling Cup [than if Liverpool won the league], even though I won't be playing at Wembley. I am a Spurs player now and Liverpool is gone." What would he do with a Premier League winners' medal this season? "I've got displays, my brother is a Liverpool fan so I'd probably give to him," he said. "Actually, he's a Tottenham fan now." It was clear that being dropped from those two match days squads, with the unproven youngster David Ngog being preferred on the bench against Everton, represented the breaking point for Keane. "I've never been left out of a squad, ever, in my career," he said. "I think I've proven over the years that I'm quite capable of doing a job and scoring goals and no disrespect to anybody but if you look at my record compared to most of them, it's probably a little bit better." Benítez has suggested that Keane was not up to the challenge of playing for a club of Liverpool's prestige. "That's up to Rafa to say that," replied Keane, biting his lip hard. "I am not getting into a feud with anybody. I am too big for that. I have too much respect for people." Keane now simply wants to prosper under Harry Redknapp, and get back to being the player he was when he left White Hart Lane. "Harry has a record of having a great relationship with his players," he said. "He speaks to the players and when he gets a player in, he certainly gives them an opportunity and that's something I'm relishing. Obviously, I feel fresh and that's a fact. You don't become a bad player overnight and I believe I could have brought a lot to that [Liverpool] squad. But it was the manager's choice. With a different manager, it probably would have worked." http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/fe...nitez-liverpool

Some more comments today from Keane........... "Things happen for a reason. I went there and it didn't work out and now I'm back here. "I never regret things I have done in football. I am back here now at a fantastic club with a fantastic manager. "When you are in and out of the team it is never easy. You need to play regularly to get your sharpness but sometimes a manager just doesn't fancy you. "I found it difficult to take to be left out of the squad but I worked every day in training and I have moved on now and I am looking forward to the challenge at Spurs. "Sometimes the grass is not always greener on the other side and I have really enjoyed coming back. http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11669_4901711,00.html

Reds eye Barca wonderkid Liverpool hoping to beat rivals to Deulofeu By Francisco Acedo Last updated: 6th February 2009 Liverpool are planning a move to lure Barcelona wonderkid Gerard Deulofeu away from Camp Nou to Anfield. Deulofeu is regarded as one of the best young prospects in European football and scouts from a host of clubs have been tracking his progress. Chelsea and Arsenal have both been strongly linked with the 14-year-old, but Liverpool are hoping to steal a march on their rivals by bringing him to Merseyside. Liverpool scout Paco de Gracia has recommended the youngster to Reds boss Rafa Benitez as they look to pull off a similar coup to that which saw Daniel Pacheco make the move from Barcelona to Anfield. Reports emanating from Spain claim are now ready to firm up their interest in Deulofeu by making an offer for his services. http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11827_4901644,00.html

Rafa says Xabi took a knock on his ankle against Everton & might not be able to play against Portsmouth Decisions on him & Torres (tiredness) will be left to the last minute http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N...090206-1346.htm

Rafa says Xabi took a knock on his ankle against Everton & might not be able to play against Portsmouth Decisions on him & Torres (tiredness) will be left to the last minute http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N...090206-1346.htm

Not yet unfortunately There was some discussion about it in another thread - see http://www.ynwa.tv/forum/index.php?showtop...p;#entry2310244