Red Yoda

alonso is quality , no doubt . barry will give an excellent player who can play alonso's position but you will get the added advantage of him being able to play so many other positions to the same very high standard . making him an incredibly valuable asset , just as carragher is , incredibly tallented , but also very versatile .

if the alonso deal is moving forward { reported price agreed } then surely we must also very close to the barry deal being sorted too ..................... anyone else heard any confirmation??

a fee for alonso has reportedly been agreed ............ £ 14 m

.......................................................reina .......................................................taylor????? arbeloa......................................................................................................dossena?????? degen.........................................................................................................aurelio ........................carragher............................................skrtel ........................agger................................................hyypia ........................mascherano.......................................alonso ......................................................lucas babel..............................................gerrard...................................................barry??????? kuyt...............................................________................................................benayoun ........................................................torres ......................................................________ people are commenting on wether barry will be a replacement for alonso or play as a left sided section of an attacking three behind the striker ? i think if you look at what rafa did at valencia , where he used rufete on the right in a very similar manner as to what we could find barry being used , if we do sign him . rufete was a hard working right sided midfielder , who was very steady , scored an ok amount of goals , supplied good crosses , but could never be described as a word class player . i think barry could quite easily be described in a very similar manner , but with barry you have massive bonus's that he can play , centre midfield , left back and centre back to a very high standard . of course there will be an amount of rotation , injuries , suspensions , so its all about creating as strong a squad as possible . we are getting there ................ peice by peice ......... i think we would all like us to get there very quickly , but like eskimo said , the transfer window isnt even open yet , so lets not get too wound up about things just yet .

what we need are players that will allow us to make the jump from being a very good team , to us being a great team once once more . that doesnt always mean you buy the player that has being doing it at a excellent level , but sometimes you can see albilities that will work with the team make up that you want . at valencia , rafa's squad was all about the team on the pitch being a fantastic unit , not just about being fantastic individual players . he is repotedly very quick , excellent stamina and has accurate delivery of crosses into the box . lets see what degen turns out to be within our side .

unfortunately , this is the real world . we are all talking about wether this player will improve us or not , we really cant be generous enough to pass the oppportunity by . gareth barry is a quality player , he can play four positions excellently , take quality free kicks , score goals ...... he would most def improve our squad , which is exactly what we need to do if we are to make that next step . the season which has just finished , we drew a number of games , which had we been able to convert them into wins , we would have been right in the shake up come the end of the season . improving our squad with signings like barry .... etc will hopefully take us towards where we want to be .

dont think he came onto the pitch in either of our games , so i think he should be eligible for psv .