Post rumours, facts and outright blatant lies here:
My tfk Wexford sources have confirmed Kevin Doyle to Aston Villa for 8m is a done deal. You heard it here first.
Spurs are apparently sniffing round Gareth Bale of Southampton. Although he’s a left back I’ve seen him play and think he could be easily converted to a left midfielder. I reckon Liverpool should launch a bid for him perhaps using the overrated Stephen Warnock as a makeweight. Would like if we pursued Daniel Alves again but I think his reputation has grown so if we weren’t prepared to stump up the cash in the summer it’s unlikely we’ll pay more now. Would be disappointed if we let Crouch go.
Get Crouch out - he simply is not good enough. That said he did score a fantastic goal today but he cant tap it in from two yards out. Talk of 12m for him. I would shake Newcastle’s hand off. But Benetiz wont sell him until the summer if he sells him at all.
This Bale lad seems to be linked with everyone - dont know anything about him. I still think Arsenal payed way over the odds for Walcott - 12m for a 16 year old does not make any sense imo. Liverpool linked with Masscarano and Lucas Neill. Neill is not nearly good enough for Liverpool - a distinctly average Premiership player who had a good World Cup. Anyone remember Gary Breen?
Talk of 20+million for Micah Richards to Chelsea - has the world gone mad?
Read somewhere that Celtic have agreed a deal in principle that will see Ronaldinho move to the club at the end of the season - could be lies
We’re pretty well covered in wide areas so I’d only take him if Maloney leaves.
I think Crouch is decent enough but I’d gladly take 12m if I was Benitez.
Lucas Neill is not of Champions League or league winning standard.
Some of the prices discussed above are really ridiculous.
Have to say I’m a Crouch admirer and think he’s unlucky not to be in the side. Has scored 5 Champions League goals this season and hass scored consistently at international level over the last year or so. Gives us a different dimension too and neither Kuyt nor Bellamy have been prolific. 12m seems like good value but who could we get to replace him for 12m? Nobody that’d be any better. Even if it part funded a move for D. Villa I’d be dubious. Players come with big reputations and flop all the time, par exemple, Cisse and Morientes.
Agree with you there Clarkey and I do think Crouch scores plenty of important goals. That said I think for 12m you could be looking at Huntelaar or Amauri, Fred, Klose, Pizarro etc. with some chage to spare. I think English players are overvalued in the EPL because there is a perception that Johnny Foreigner can’t cut it there so people spend bigger money on “known quantities.”
Cisse was always going to be a risk and Liverpool panicked and bought him too quickly when he played well at the start of the world cup. Morientes has obvious qualities but it was equally obvious that he hadn’t convinced Real Madrid and it was the likes of Spurs who were competitors for his signature.
Out of the players named I’d welcome Huntelaar and Klose but for the fact that both are CL tied. Don’t think the former would come with change to spare. I think your assessment of Morientes is harsh - he was an excellent player with excellent pedigree and fantastic strike rates in La Liga, CL and Internationals. Spurs think they’re bigger than they are and the other big European clubs were fairly sorted for strikers when Morientes was available. Broad generalisation I know but I suppose my point is simply that Morientes arrived at Liverpool as a proven world class player imo. And flopped.
Yeah I suppose I’m not really saying that they are definite immediate replacements for Crouch but they are the type of guy available for that price. I made a bit of a mess of my last post - meant to say you could get Huntelaar or one of the other lads with change to spare.
I think people judged Morientes an awful lot on what he achieved in the Champions League with Monaco. He was very average for them in the league (10 goals from a full season). His form with Real had been decent a few years before but he was on the wane a bit by then. Anyway that’s obviously super easy to say with hindsight.
Crouch is nowhere near good enough. He missed an absolute sitter yesterday with a header towards the end but everyone will remember his wonder goal I will never forgive him for Benficas last year when he missed a sitter in the first half while it was still 0-0. That is when you need your strikers to come up trumps but he failed. As for these important goals - I cant remembr any. Except maybe against United in the cup last year when we pissed on them for 90 minutes but only won 1-0
Extra dimension argument is a load of shit. The primary function of a striker is to put the ball in the net. And anyway he cant head the ball
I can somewhat see Clarkey’s view on the danger of splashing the cash on David Villa given the Cisse and Morientes disasters. It is true to say that there are not many top class strikers out there but I would take anyone ahead of Crouch
All strikers have missed great chances - some of them sitters and some of them crucial. Did you forgive Aldridge his penalty miss against Wimbledon? I remember Larsson missing a penalty against Boavista in the UEFA Cup semi-final which was galling. I’d never speak about “not forgiving” a player for a single error. Caldwell messed up badly for two goals away at Benfica but I’ve no problem forgiving him for knuckling down and getting on with things.
Moving on, there is far more to the role of centre forward than scoring goals. It’s such a silly cliche to talk about forwards being judged by the number of goals they score. To choose another Celtic analogy Chris Sutton was superb player for us. He wasn’t a prolific scorer but he battered their defenders, created chances and worked his socks off.
Agree with you there rock. An absolute joke to say that a forward is simply there to score goals. Does a midfielder have only one function too? And let me a guess, a defender is there to stop the other team scoring goals. Oh and by the way, Crouch is Liverpool’s leading scorer this season.
Aldridge’s goals were the primary reason behind Liverpool’s success in the late 80s
Larsson was one of Celtic’s greatest ever players
So to make comparisons there is pointless
Crouch has never delivered for Liverpool. Where are the important goals you speak of? The miss against Benfica was one in a long line but was one too far. When we really needed him he simply could not deliver. If he is put through on goal I have no faith in him to score
And yes the primary function of a striker is to score goals, as it is for a defender to kep them out. Crouch may be top scorer but he has missed many sitters…
The point being that you said you could never forgive him for a single missed chance last season. I was merely wondering if you were as consistently harsh in your treatment of other strikers - it appears not. You are judging them on their overall contributions and not condemning them for one chance missed.
Aldridge’s goals were important to Liverpool and he was an excellent striker. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say they were the primary reason behind their success at that time. I agree on Larsson.
The reason I’m making the comparison as I said above is to point out that it’s unfair to condemn Crouch on the basis of one miss, but not to hold others to the same standard. If you want to make an argument for poor play over a period of time then do so, and use the Benfica game as an example. But speaking of one chance missed as unforgivable is unreasonable in my opinion.
I don’t honestly watch enough EPL to talk about Crouch’s crucial goals but he has 5 goals in Europe this season which is impressive.
I think Crouch does a decent job for Liverpool. I wouldn’t sell him given that the only other strikers they have are Bellamy and Kuyt even though 12m is an excellent price. They would need to have somebody of the quality of those mentioned by rocko lined up as a striaght replacement, otherwise they’d be very threadbare up front. I watched Pool yesterday and they were very good, especially Pennant and the front 2. That said I don’t think Pennant is Pool class and Gonzales hasn’t settled. If I was gaffer of Pool I’d be looking to strengthen in the wide areas (both flanks) and maybe 1 more defender.
Yeah, I agree with the notion of strengthening the flanks above anywhere else. Pennant was excellent on 1 Jan and if he can produce that consistently he’ll be a great player but I’m dubious as to whether he’s right enough in the head to produce consistently. Left wing is a big problem area - none of Gonzalez, Riise, Aurelio, Garcia are good enough imo. Having said all that I think we’re strong enough to do well in the cups this season and the league is already out of sight so there’s no point in panic-buying a stop-gap player. If we bring someone in they need to be top class. Don’t see any merit in signing Ashley Young for 4m. Perhaps we should save money for the summer and build on an already strong squad. Beginning to think our full backs aren’t dynamic enough too - both are solid and consistent but don’t really do enough going forward. Wish we’d picked up Trabelsi and I like the look of Bale too.
Before I got hooked on arguing the merits of corner forwards in soccer (a role Riordan played to some effect on Saturday) I used to complain about how pointless full backs were for Celtic in the SPL. We played wing backs under O’Neill and dominated most teams but Porto discovered we were vulnerable to a 4-3-3 in the champions league one season and Rangers copied them and all of a sudden we needed to change to 4-4-2. The problem was that the full backs were often redundant in games we were dominating. Agathe as a right back against a good team was a great option because he could overlap brilliantly and track back very well. Against a weaker team who are standing off a bit he was useless because he couldn’t get behind their guys so he was just a guy standing out on the right who couldn’t pass the ball. It was frustrating.
Anyway the whole point of the above is to say that I’ve changed my thinking on full backs and certainly Strachan uses them very effectively as attacking weapons. Wilson showed great promise when he came into the team last season - completely changing our threat on the flanks, and Naylor has done the same and more this season. A guy like Naylor playing left back for Liverpool would make a huge difference - particularly to whoever is playing in front of him. He would not have been a Liverpool target obviously but there are definitely some classy full backs around who maybe don’t shine because of the system they’re playing in.
Chelsea are set to tempt Manchester City with an 18m bid for Micah Richards according to the Guardian.
Apparently they were going to bid 10m-12m to start the process but now with the injuries to Terry and Boulharouz they just want to finalise it asap.
City would be foolish to turn that down. Wonderful player though Richards is going to be you could buy more than half a team with that cash. It’s complicated by the fact that Distin’s on a Bosman so City might still try to hold out until the summer to see what his intentions are.
They didn’t exactly conquer the world with the money they made from selling SWP did they? When Everton sold Rooney they panicked and bought Beattie because they’d nothing lined up. All managers should have fall back plans at the ready - one thing O’Neill never mastered.
I read Distin wants 50k a week. That’s outrageous.
Guardian are saying Collins John will be joining Watford for 2m - I’d have thought he could do a job for a better team and isn’t bad value. I don’t watch much EPL though so I might be completely wrong.