ajams

Cole - the usual mix of good and bad, but some great moments and always tried to make things happen Spearing - just shaded Meireles for me Maxi - poor first half, but thought he was the best player on the pitch after the break

I saw Fulham a few times last season and I didn't think they were that cautious. With the obvious exception of their performance at Anfield I felt they generally showed cohesion and willingness to pass the ball through midfield. I agree we've been pretty poor so far, but I don't think it's beyond Roy to get us playing football.

I think I prefer that defence to the one that played on Sunday.

Well yeah, if we're not doing well then his position will be at risk, but it's not a fait accompli is it? It's impossible to say what a new owner might do.

That depends on how Roy's doing Agree He didn't

It's the manager who makes the decisions on who to sign. He'll stand or fall on his signings, and that's how it should be. We needed a midfielder and a striker - failing to sign a striker was a massive f*** up, but signing a midfielder made sense. And he was £4.5m wasn't he?

He looks better than Lucas to me. Besides, we're short of numbers in midfield, so it made sense to pick up an experienced player that the manager trusts for a low fee.

Good post that, agree with pretty much all of it.

The Celtic Club in the CBD always shows Liverpool games. It'll be heaving for the United game. Bit of a walk from the MCG, but not that far.

Without wishing to tempt fate Fulham had a good record against Man U under Hodgson (at home at least)... Pig of a fixture list to start the season though really.

I'm OK with Carra's new deal, he's past his peak but he's still an important player. Totally agree about Skrtel though, cannot understand it.

Poulsen can pass. He doesn't have the vision or range of Alonso, but he's comfortable on both feet and can keep things ticking over in the Hamann role. The problem comes when he's paired with Lucas. I don't want to be unfair on the guy, he's a tryer and I'm sure he has more to his game than he's shown, but he really needs to be pushing on a lot more than he does. There were a couple of occasions when the ball was laid back/passed inside from the edge of the box for him to run onto and he just didn't move. I think he did eventually get the message as I seem to remember him getting a shot away, but bloody hell... Hopefully Meireles can come in alongside Poulsen and give the midfield a bit more drive and balance.

Thought he was OK. Decent on the ball, bit slow closing down on a couple of occasions.

I only saw the first half of the game, but I presume Reina didn't have much competition for man of the match. I can't disagree with too much of the criticism in this thread - vulnerable in defense, slow in midfield, isolated in attack. Trying to be positive I think Poulsen is slowly getting up to speed and was the better of our central midfielders from what I saw - take it Meireles was an improvement on Lucas when he came on? Horrible performance overall, but there are a few mitigating circumstances and it's another tough fixture out of the way. We need to start showing something soon though.

The only reason Torres stayed is that no one offered enough money for him.

Souness was seen as a natural continuation at the time and was very much 'coming home'. By those standards Kenny wasn't boot room, strictly speaking. For me the boot room died with the departure of Roy Evans. To that point there'd always been a continuity of some sort. Anyway I've said what I want to say on the subject - fwiw I agree with you about the divided support as a symptom of the malaise brought upon us by G&H.

Matter of opinion isn't it. Houllier had a good season with PSG and a respectable spell with Lens. He also had a disastrous spell in charge of France. I suppose being appointed manager of one of the biggest clubs in Italy twice, taking Switzerland to the World Cup Finals, taking a mediocre squad like Fulham's to a UEFA cup position and then taking them all the way to the final the following season, plus various other titles in other countries counts for nothing. And I have plenty of respect for Houllier, if that's who I'm being accused of disrespecting - though I suspect it's not. Good one. Shame people aren't so concerned about showing respect for our current manager.

No it's not. And disrespectful to who?

Yes, but we had the boot room then. That tradition died a slow death through the 90's and by the time Houllier came in plenty of people felt the time was right for a fresh approach. I remember a lot of enthusiasm for GH's appointment on the basis of his technical knowledge, experience etc. Hodgson's CV is comparable with Houllier's (at the time), arguably better in some respects.

His CV prior to joining us is as good as any manager we've appointed, other than Rafa.

Well I think it's much more likely that Roy made a calculated decision that Aquilani wasn't going to be part of his first choice line-up and was too high-profile, expensive, positionally specialised and unreliable fitness-wise to keep on purely as a squad member. (I managed to keep it to 2 lines this time...). Given the financial troubles, a decision was taken that on balance we were better off saving £4m a year in wages and maximizing his sell-on value by loaning him back to a club and a league where he would be able to perform to a high level on a regular basis. I think it's a perfectly plausible scenario and somewhat more likely than some combination of Machiavellian manipulation and incompetence on the part of Purslow, even though I agree that our de facto chief executive deserves to be viewed with suspicion.

I know I've had this discussion with you in another thread, but I'll just add this: To my mind it's clearly a combination of both footballing and financial aspects. If it's a footballing decision then fine, we all have different views on what Aquilani might have brought to the squad this year. As I've said I think the decision was justifiable in the footballing sense. He's a very particular type of player who might - might - have ended up fitting into Rafa's plans had he stayed on, but clearly didn't fit into Hodgson's. That's up to the manager. I agree with (David) Hodgson's theory about the logic behind that - I think it's plausible enough, obviously not to everyone's taste but not the act of madness that some are portraying it as. As for the financial aspect I think you'd struggle to find any Liverpool fan with half a clue who isn't pissed off at the financial situation. But frankly it's not like we need further evidence to prove we're being screwed. The fact that Aquilani was let go was clearly partly due to our money troubles, but I honestly can't see why anyone would see it as a sign that things are worse than they thought.

I hear what you're saying, but this was a transfer window of enormous upheaval and uncertainty - back in June/July most of us felt there was a real chance of losing Gerrard and Torres. For the most part the 'good' players we've lost were more than likely leaving anyway and we've managed to retain the core of the team and sign a couple of players who should do a good job for us. I know it's stating the obvious, but we're in real trouble behind the scenes and we have to be somewhat pragmatic. This was never going to be the summer for making a big step forward. The striker situation really should have been addressed, but overall to finish summer more or less even - slightly stronger in some areas, slightly weaker in others - is a reasonable outcome under the circumstances in my opinion.

I didn't say we'd had a good summer, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. Clearly we need a striker, arguably another midfielder and an upgrade at centre-half wouldn't go amiss - I don't think anyone would argue with that. We failed with the striker, which is a major problem, but we can probably get by without other improvements for now given our situation. Meanwhile we've done some good work in getting rid of getting rid of dead wood. To be fair to Hodgson that's pretty much what he says isn't it?

My own feeling is that nothing will happen until October 6th. There are many posters on here who know a lot more about business and finance than me, but as a layman it seems logical that the closer we come to RBS "repossessing" the club the weaker G&H's position becomes and the lower the likely selling price will be. If RBS do end up controlling the club their prime concern will presumably be to recover their money, so again I'm assuming that would mean a lower price. Seems to me the legal position of the owners and the rights of the 3 non G&H board members and the bank are the big unknowns. Still, if the choices are taking the hit of losing half the first team now through administration/temporary paralysis or mortgaging our assets to the hilt and ending up in purgatory for the next decade a la Leeds I'll take the first option. I stand to be corrected of course.