Re: The Liverpool Thread

1

Thanks for posting it Clarkey. Agree with all of what he has said about zonal marking - though I don’t know enough about Liverpool’s individual games to comment on whether it has been a success for them or not, though the statistics are compelling.

Martin O’Neill’s Celtic always employed zonal marking, and other than a horror show against the Huns in his first season it was hugely successful. There was Balde, Mjallby and Valgaeren playing along the six yard box and they stood directly on that line for every corner. One covered the front, one the middle, one the back. Outside that Petrov stood in front of the near post and then Sutton and Hartson (depending on who was playing) would cover the area just outside. What it meant was that if the ball was floated into an area between the 6 yard box and the penalty spot then it was meat and drink to these guys. Anything outside this area might be a free header for them but from that distance nobody can score. They marked the arc very successfully and it was a huge part of our success at that time.

Man marking in the box is extremely difficult, especially against good movement. You are also susceptible to blockers like Chelsea have employed in the past and centre halves have to react very quickly. I’d choose zonal marking every time.

2

Very impressed with the Hillsborough protest on Saturday evening. Didn’t see the game but I watched the build-up and the first 6 minutes on youtube - very well organised and vocal. I read some criticism of it from a Liverpool fan who posts on the Huddleboard from time to time who was saying that the original message was diluted when the club got involved officially but it was certainly impressive on Saturday.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/Thetruth2.jpg

3

I’d have thought a young goalkeeper was the last thing Liverpool needed. ??? They sold Kirkland (didn’t they?) but Carson, Reina and Dudek seems enough for any club.

Padelli set for Reds switch
10/01/2007 - 10:35:23

Sampdoria goalkeeper Daniele Padelli will join Liverpool on a six-month loan deal on Wednesday, his agent has confirmed.

The Italy Under-21 goalkeeper is expected to undergo a medical on Wednesday afternoon with the Reds before starting training under Rafael Benitez.

The players agent Silvano Martina told PA Sport: Padelli will travel to Liverpool this afternoon.

The clubs have agreed on a six-month loan deal and the player is excited at the prospect of playing for Liverpool.

Padelli, one of Italys most promising goalkeepers, joined Serie B side Crotone on loan from Sampdoria in the summer with the aim of getting some first-team football under his belt.

However, the 21-year-old has merely served as an understudy to Salvatore Soviero, playing in just one league game, leading Sampdoria to cancel the deal.

4

Yup, don’t see why we’re signing a keeper at all even though I don’t rate Dudek or Carson and have some doubts about Reina. Nice to see this thread resurrected.

5

This may sound like a Kop-out but I think honestly think that if we had Arsenal’s reserve keeper in the last two games and they had ours the the scores would have been a lot different. Was hugely impressed and unimpressed with Allmunia and Dudek respectively.

I don’t know what a keeper, who went on loan to a Serie B club and didnt get his game, is going to achieve. I’m happy with Reina. He had a dodgy start to the season but if you look at his clean sheets record over the last two years then it is very good. As a reserve I would have Carson and maybe the Italian lad as an emergency - Dudek out anyway.

6

The one thing you want from a 'keeper, especially a second choice one, is reliability. If your first choice guy gets injured and you bring somebody in you want to be sure that even if he’s not spectacular, that he at least stops the simple stuff and has a decent command of his area. That’s not the case with Dudek.

I don’t particularly rate Carson either but I still think Liverpool’s priorities lie elsewhere.

I’ve never liked Alumnia - the guy is apparently trying to declare for England now. He’s a Basque from what I remember.

7

Is it not a bit disingenuous to suggest that the 2 results against Arsenal are meaningless?

Farmer mentions a good run in the league of late but Liverpool are still 20 odd points off the pace in the league and won’t win that. Hats off to them if they put Barcelona out and go on to win the Champions League again but it has to be said it’d be even more against the odds than 2005.

Bearing that in mind I think it’s a disaster to go out of the 2 competitions that were their most realistic chances of winning silverware this season in the space of 3 days. And second string side or not conceding 6 goals at home in a competitive fixture is incredibly embarrassing.

8

Interesting - I’m not in favour of any takeover

Liverpool have decided not to formally accept the 156m takeover bid from Dubai International Capital (DIC).
It is a turnaround from what had been expected and comes after a board meeting on Tuesday evening, casting doubt on the proposed buy-out.

Liverpool now appear to want more time to consider a revised offer from George Gillett, the owner of Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team.

A final decision is expected to be made by the end of the week.

DIC has completed due diligence and wants to make its formal bid, via the Stock Exchange, for Liverpool chairman and owner David Moores’ 51.6% majority shareholding early next week.

It believes Moores was in favour of a bid which would have given him 80m at 4,500 a share.

Gillett’s original offer had been rejected before Christmas, but last week he submitted a new offer by letter to Moores which upped the bid to give Moores 88m for his holding

9

Why is Moores selling up farmer?

10

Looks like he’s not

Dubai International Capital has pulled out of proposed takeover bid for Liverpool.
The announcement follows the failure of the club’s board to formally accept DIC’s bid in the wake of a second offer from American George Gillett.

11

Does he want to retire or what though?

Why is he inviting bids?

Is it just one of those ‘I’ll only sell if it’s in the club’s best interests’ type things.

12

I see Liverpool have agreed to a takeover.

I still don’t know if this is good or bad for them. What do the 'Pool masses on here think now?

13

It difficult to be for or against it at this early stage but I am not happy with the future of Liverpool being in the hands of two Americans. I feel that the club needs a new stadium but this may be possible without massive investment (like Arsenal) and I feel that Liverpool have sufficient money to spend every summer. I don’t think the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks

14

The boys who write this stuff are class. From today’s Fiver:

THIS IS PIZZA HUT PARK

The purchase of assorted Premiership clubs by ridiculously rich
foreigners in recent years has provoked much scorn among Liverpool
fans. “You can’t buy 50 years of tradition,” they’ve whined
incessantly, until stopping abruptly this morning when it became
apparent that, actually, you can. Today the club announced that the
seven-times League Cup winners had agreed the terms “of a recommended
cash offer” worth GBP218.9m made by Kop Football Limited, a
consortium led by two Americans: former bankrupt George Gillett Jr,
and Texan crony of warmongering despot George W Bush, Tom Hicks.

Liverpool’s board revealed several key factors in their decision to
sell the club, among them the consortium’s intention to build a new
60,000-seat stadium as soon as possible, not to mention their
commitment to an annual budget for the EPL draft. During their
official unveiling, Gillett and Hicks were quick to assure all
present that they would not undermine the great history that
Liverpool fans never tire of harping on about. “This is the most
important club in the most important sport in the world and what a
privilege we have to be associated with it,” yee-hawed Gillett,
making all the right noises. “Owning this franchise is special,” he
continued, before calling his new team the “Liverpool Reds”.

“It was not a question of money,” added Hicks, before his partner
stuck some sand in the Vaseline by hinting that it was. “If the
naming rights are worth one great player a year in transfer spending,
we will certainly look at that as a serious option,” declared
Gillett, conjuring up images of Peter Crouch ducking to avoid a “THIS
IS FUJI McDONALD’S MASTERCARD BRITANNIA ADELPHI PIZZA HUT PARK” sign
on his way up the tunnel. But while message boards will be humming
with saccharine-sweet tub-thumping about how “it will always be
Anfield in our hearts”, there is some continuity for fans of the
new-look Merseyside Redskins to cling to. Chief executive Rick Parry
will continue to run the club, chairman David Moores will become
honorary life president and they still won’t have won a league title
for 17 years.

15

Fucking idiots - that’s all I have to say about them

16

I knew that would get your ire up farmer.

They’re funny, funny fookers though.

All in all a great day’s arguing here today.

17

Not sure why I’m posting this because it’s a shit article. I hate to see journalists dig out non-stories for their newspapers.

How Hicks became the bearer of bad signings

Tom Hicks may be keen to buy great players for the Reds, but if history repeats itself his deals could be disastrous.

Dave HanniganFebruary 7, 2007 12:10 AM

Facing the English media yesterday, George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks certainly made all the right noises, talking about Liverpool’s history and announcing that Rick Parry would continue to run the business. It may have convinced the red half of Merseyside that the American duo realise they have bought something worth far more than dollars and cents, but the denizens of the Kop should note that, whereas Gillett has earned a reputation in Montreal for not interfering with the on-ice affairs of the Canadiens, Hicks’s hands-on involvement in the worst trade in modern baseball led one American newspaper to dub him “Tom Dumb”.

His promise yesterday to make funds available if a great player was on the market should make Liverpool fans sit up. In the winter of 2000 he lured Alex Rodriguez, the best player in baseball, to the Texas Rangers with a 10-year, $252m (128m) contract. The largest in the history of the sport and slightly more than he had paid to buy the entire club from a group fronted by his close friend George W Bush three years earlier, the deal had several problems. No one else had been willing to pay within $100m of that sum for A-Rod’s services, so Hicks ended up spectacularly outbidding himself. Worse still, in emptying the coffers for the 25-year-old short-stop he neglected to budget for the wages of the 24 other players who make up a squad.

“I like to win. I like to build things, whether it’s a $2bn corporate acquisition or a chance to win the World Series,” Hicks said back then. “This is a chance for our team to win a World Series and leapfrog into an area where we’ve never been before.”

From day one the signing was doomed. With no funds available for quality pitchers, the bedrock of every good side, the Rangers at one point had the seventh-highest payroll and one of the worst teams. “Hopefully, when it’s over,” said Rodriguez at the time, “they won’t be calling Mr Hicks a fool but the wisest man in baseball. Only time will tell. I plan to pay him back and win him a few championships.”

Time eventually told. By the end of the 2003 campaign everybody realised that Texas badly needed to trade Rodriguez in order to build a more balanced line-up and become competitive again. Even that process was fraught. After a long-drawn-out negotiation with the Boston Red Sox which came to nothing, Hicks appointed Rodriguez club captain and told fans his star player would see out the full decade of his contract. “A side benefit of Alex now being the official leader of our team is that our fans are now confident that Alex is going to be here,” said the owner. “If we don’t win, the fans are going to be mad. But we’re going to win.”

A couple of weeks after delivering that guarantee he traded Rodriguez to the New York Yankees in embarrassing circumstances, paying the richest club in baseball to take the player off his hands. Having blamed the Rangers owner for inflating all baseball salaries with the original deal - the highest-paid player before Hicks picked up A-Rod in December 2000 was on $17.5m a year - many in the sport sniggered at the terms of the deal. With $179m still owed to Rodriguez, Hicks paid him $67m to persuade him to leave, allowing the Yankees to sign him on a bargain $16m a year. Added to the money he had already earned in Arlington, Rodriguez had had $140m from Hicks for three futile seasons - not the best entry on the owner’s CV.

18

This is a better article on the new owners from the Guardian as well.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/02/06/liverpool_fans_must_watch_thei_1.html

Liverpool fans must watch their new owners like hawks

George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks’s intentions for the club may appear benign, but this is not the time for trust or blind loyalty.

Scott MurrayFebruary 6, 2007 04:37 PM

It’s one of the great lies constantly peddled in football: fans are fickle. But whichever way you spin it, that’s not remotely the case at all. Yes, fans laud then lay into the clowns on the pitch, in the dugout and in the boardroom all right, but one or two brave exceptions apart - when the line was well and truly crossed at Wimbledon and Manchester United - fans remain steadfast to their club no matter the disgraces visited upon them.

Fans couldn’t be less fickle if they tried. Which is why everyone with an emotional commitment to Liverpool Football Club needs to stay on their guard right now. For while there’s nothing yet to suggest George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks will ride roughshod over years of tradition like a Winkelman or a Glazer - and indeed the arrival of the American businessmen could turn out to be the most epochal (if slightly less romantic) event since someone or other pitched tent in 1959 - nobody can possibly currently know what their intentions are. This is not the time for trust or blind loyalty.

There’s no point asking David Moores or Rick Parry for reassurance: when Parry was asked how he felt about the deal, he replied that he was “very excited”, while scratching his face, a classic psychological anxiety tell. “Very nervous about a massive punt which could go either way,” would have been more honest, and he could have kept his hands firmly on the desk. So it’s up to fans to keep asking questions of the men behind Kop Football Limited (nice nod to the Houllier era there, chaps).

So what are their priorities? The first five minutes of their valedictory press conference contained: one mention of the “Liverpool Reds”; two mentions of the Stanley Cup (but no mention of Stanley Park); and a big shout out to the Royal Bank of Scotland, Rothschild and a legal firm called Allen and Overy.

How often will they be there, and will they be hands on? Hicks was at pains to mention his large family, and that “one of us” will always be at Anfield, while Gillett spent half the conference explaining that his son Foster is a “real fan”. Anyone spot the figureheads? At the end of the press conference to announce their takeover of “the biggest club in the biggest sport in the world”, the pair buggered off at speed so they could jet back in time to watch some ice hockey.

Will they rename the new stadium, to be built “very soon”? “If it means we get one great player per year, we’ll look at it.” But is this what fans want? If it isn’t, can they stop them? Will there be affordable tickets for local fans in this new pile? And do the majority even want to move from Anfield? The only evidence ever presented about that is anecdotal - and not everybody buys into the dubious received wisdom that it is absolutely necessary to move from a historic old stadium to compete at the top these days, anyway.

Will they be co-chairmen? “Yes.” (Does nobody remember the Evans/Houllier experiment?)

And how much money is available for transfers? Suffice to say, the pair reacted to this question with so many facial giveaways that it made Facescratcher Parry look more inscrutable than Kaiser Soze in The Usual Suspects. They were not happy at being pressed on the matter. At all.

That’ll do for starters. But is this far too cynical? Perhaps. Actually, yeah, probably. After all, Gillett and Hicks made good noises as well. “Respect for Liverpool’s tradition and community is top of the list for us, as is winning,” said Gillett. “The development of young players is vital,” opined Hicks. “We are custodians, not owners,” they chorused. (And please, let’s not pick Gillett up on his repeated use of the word “franchise”. It’s an Americanism. He’s an American.)

But a dose of cynicism is perfectly healthy. Whatever happens, the arrival of Gillett and Hicks marks the end of an era - but with only the barest of facts and the cheapest of soundbites to currently go on, there’s no way of judging whether the new dawn will be delightful or disastrous. For that reason alone, it’s the duty of every right-thinking Liverpool fan to keep a close eye on events just in case - and cry foul long and loud if they don’t like what they see. Meanwhile, it’s incumbent on Gillett and Hicks to work hard at earning everyone’s trust - if their intentions are true, they won’t mind anyone keeping tabs on them at all.

After all, if they don’t like it, they can simply sell up and walk away. Football fans might not be fickle, but businessmen sure are.

19

Just got sent this:

From football365.com

Scouts have prepared a guide to the Liverpool Reds’ squad - including Craig Bellamy, who has ‘switched franchises several times in career amid rumors of all-star level jackassery’. It’s all here…

Jose (Pep) Reina

Netminder with an impressive 19 shutouts this regular season. Save average of .854 in last five outs. Replaces New Jerzy Dudek as first-choice goaltender after veteran’s series of high-profile handling errors. Nicknamed after Pep Le Pew, the cheese-eating surrender skunk.

James ‘The Minister Of Defense’ Carragher

Captain of defense and native ‘Scouser’. 2963 minutes of field time with powerplay change-up stats of 5-6-3. Awesome displays in penalty zone versus aerial offense plays. Awesome displays at club Christmas parties. Distribution ranked only 245th in EPL. Note: communication may be difficult as James does not speak English.

Steve O’Finnan

Defensive cornerback/outside linebacker ranked six in division for forward offense running plays. Highly-rated change-up, groundspeed. 245 defensive tackle ratio. Proud Irishman: merchandising opportunities with millions of east coast Americans who are 1/64 from Cork. Vital cornerman, new shorts.

Sam Hyypia

Veteran centerblocker famed for aerial rebound ability, composureability, although lacks change-up, questions over groundplay v forwards with nimbleness quotient. Radical air with headbombs from special plays ensures a conversions per season tally average of six. Hails from Finlandland, a country in Europe that is part of the ‘Axis Of Pleasantness’.

John-Arnold Riise

Cornerman who regularly features in goalshot of the month sweeps with a left peg rated in top five nationwide for sweetness. Rookie, sophomore seasons raised expectations of possible Hall of Famer status but recent semesters have seen the person of redly-challenged hair demoted to bullpen on occasion. 7-6-8.

Gerrard Steven

Team MVP, captain and midfielderman famed for power running, pass accuracy, assists. Has dressed as center, right wingerbacker (offensive and defensive) and even as secondary power forward. Can rush goal or sit back in the pocket. Career high came in Pro-Ball showdown against the Milan Tumblers in Istanbul (believed site of WMD).

Craig Bellamy

Controversial wide receiver/goal forward rated division’s third most likely player to face red card takedown in grudge slams. Lightning fast in joggy work down winglines, although critics question net targeting infield. Has switched franchises several times in career amid rumors of all-star level jackassery.

Robert Bernard Fowler

Veteran strike attacker and all-time Liverpool Reds Hall of Famer. Once considered league MVP for shotzone rebounds and accuracy in the paint. Famously flagged on field for displaying his tight end to opponent Graeme Le Saux, and for calling into question The War On Drugs.

Xavi Alonso (ITA)

6-5-7, 12, 468, 0.43, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 98632548, 1, 1, 0 (?), 0, 1. 0.3.

Jermaine Pennant

Wide receiver/running forward has rushed for over 1,000 yards in Liverpool Reds rookie season. Crossfields delivery success rate well into point-seven-ohs, play action, sprinty, jigglebomb, DUI. 6.662. Off-field activities saw him given bum’s rush from Steve Bruskowski’s Birmingham Brums. Only soccerplayer on roster with a sensible sportsman’s name.

Peter Crouch Jr

Power forward who could have potential if consortium moves into NBA. Noted for headbomb assists, ganglyhole, salmon leap, robotics. 0.673, runners batted in, three points. Traded several times early in career but has flourished under head coach Benitez at the Anfield Taco Bellodrome.

Alan B Tyers III Junior

20

I see when Liverpool went 2-1 down the other day Benitez brought on Arbeloa, then Guthrie and then Crouch after 86 minutes. That defies any logic whatsover. What’s his thinking here then?