Extraordinary Swindle

€26.5M over three seasons is a bargain for Torres.

If it's in the fine print of the loan deal.

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It was Everton.

Phil Jagielka

Yes - they pay the fee and his wages. It's the reason Man City pulled out of trying to sign him: £2.5M plus wages to take him on loan for the season or £12M to buy him. Presumably if Villa want to sign the player at the end of the season the £2.5M comes off the transfer fee.

Would explain the Cichino rumour! And there's also Lucas.

Defensively they'll be a bit suspect without Sorensen but Martin O'Neill will set them up to be hard to beat anyway. I wouldn't be surprised to see them line up with 4-5-1 and try to hit us on the break with the pace. Result : 1-1.

Elisha will win it hands down.

Who are Chelsea trying to fool? Blues get Alex clearance March 2007 Quotes from Alex

Chris Kirkland Christian Ziege Phil Babb Rigobert Song Stephen Wright Mark Kennedy Paul Ince Salif Diao Bruno Cheyrou Sean Dundee Djibril Cisse Brad Friedel Torben Piechnik Carl Medjani Dominic Matteo Vegard Heggem Mark Gonzalez John Welsh Phil Charnock Richie Partridge Paul Stewart Anthony Le Tallec

There was a quote from a La Liga player similar to that about Rafa's Valencia team. I can't remember the exact quote but it goes along the lines of "If you frustrate them, they batter you, if you let them score, they leave you alone for a while."

Or it could be the players struggling from the effects of the physical pre-season training. "Liverpool have been transformed into one of the fittest squads in Europe, but there have been observations the benefits are more noticeable from the middle of the season onwards, with some players struggling earlier in the campaign." If the players are struggling physically then the rotation policy will help them to cope.

There's a game on Friday against Shanghai Shenhua and another on Sunday against Feyenoord.

Rafa experimented with the side for the last few games of the season but that is of no significance when we had already secured the Champions League spot and were preparing for the final. The fact remaind that the team throws away points at the start of the season, it wasn't a one off either, we have done it in each of the three seasons that Rafa has been manager of the club. 2006/2007 : 14 points from a possible 30. Sheff Utd 1-1 Liverpool Liverpool 2-1 West Ham Everton 3-0 Liverpool Chelsea 1-0 Liverpool Liverpool 2-0 Newcastle Liverpool 3-0 Tottenham Bolton 2-0 Liverpool Liverpool 1-1 Blackburn Man Utd 2-0 Liverpool Liverpool 3-1 Aston Villa 2005/2006 : 16 points from a possible 30. Middlesbro 0-0 Liverpool Liverpool 1-0 Sunderland Tottenham 0-0 Liverpool Liverpool 0-0 Man Utd Birmingham 2-2 Liverpool Liverpool 1-4 Chelsea Liverpool 1-0 Blackburn Fulham 2-0 Liverpool Liverpool 2-0 West Ham Aston Villa 0-2 Liverpool 2004/2005 : 17 points from a possible 30. Tottenham 1-1 Liverpool Liverpool 2-1 Man City Bolton 1-0 Liverpool Liverpool 3-0 West Brom Man Utd 2-1 Liverpool Liverpool 3-0 Norwich Chelsea 1-0 Liverpool Fulham 2-4 Liverpool Liverpool 2-0 Charlton Blackburn 2-2 Liverpool In order to mount a challenge for the league title we have to change that trend. Under Mourinho, Chelsea have always hit the ground running on the first day of the season. Last season Man Utd matched Chelsea point for point at the begining of the season and when Chelsea suffered their blip due to the injuries to Chech and Terry, Man Utd were in a position to take advantage. Chris Bascombe's "Pako Hill" article shows that Rafa and his team recognise the early season form is an issue and have adapted the pre-season training to deal with it.

I don't think it's that significant as our poor start accounts for the majority of the goals conceded. We conceded 12 of the 20 away goals in the first 6 away fixtures, at the same time we only scored 1 goal and that was a dubious penalty in the first game of the season. At Anfield we conceded 3 goals in the first 6 fixtures and scored 13. The early season form is what needs to be sorted - last season we were 11 points behind both Chelsea and Man Utd after 10 games, the previous season we were 10 points behind Chelsea after 10 games. That is where the points gap needs to be made up.

If Craig Gordon is worth £8/9M then Scott Carson is certainly worth more than £6M.

Sporting Lesbian

One should be enough ... Ronnie O'Brien - Time Magazine's Person of the Century.

There was no fee paid to West Ham to activate a clause in January. The third party agreement between West Ham and MSI allowed the player to be moved on in any transfer window if MSI chose to - effectively MSI could 'recall' the player from the loan to West Ham in any transfer window. The first hurdle to Liverpool getting him was the fact that it would have meant that Mascherano would have had three different clubs in a 12 month period. Juventus didn't want to contest the rule so it left Liverpool as the only interested club. The £1.5M fee paid by Liverpool secured the loan of the player for 18 months, i.e. MSI could not 'recall' him in one of the transfer windows during the loan period.

Scheiße schießen FC

That was an interview where he was directly asked about signing Trezeguet from Juventus and he joked about looking at several options in Italy, Luca Toni was the other player he mentioned. I don't think Rafa was ever really interested in any of the players mentioned he was just toying with the journalists - it goes back to a comment he made about if a journalist asks him about a certain player as a potential target and he answers the question directly then the following question will be about another player as a potential target.

We were absolute rubbish at the start of last season and our initial away fixtures didn't do us any favours. Sheff Utd : 1-1 Everton : 0-3 Chelsea : 0-1 Bolton : 0-2 Man Utd : 0-2 Arsenal : 0-3 There's 12 of 20 goals conceded accounted for! Another 3 were conceded by the second string teams that played the final few games of the season. Portsmouth : 1-2 Fulham : 0-1 When the team found their feet the opposition were battered. e.g. Wigan : 4-0 Charlton : 3-0 The problem was that in some games the ball refused to go in to the net. e.g. Newcastle : 1-2 Middlesbrough : 0-0 Blackburn : 0-1 Man City : 0-0 Signing Babel and Benayoun and the return of Kewell should resolve the lack of creativity we experienced in the final third of the pitch and improve the quality of the chances created for the forwards. And the signings of Voronin and Torres should sort out the getting the ball in the back of the opposition's net when a chance is created. The most important thing this season is that the team needs to start well. 2006-07 : 10 points from the first possible 21. 2005-06 : 10 points from the first possible 21. 2004-05 : 10 points from the first possible 21. That's the damning statistic of Rafa's reign, by the end of September we've been out of the title race the past three seasons and that has to be put right.

No ye dyslexic bar steward!

Just have to secure the left side now.