Roarcelona

What if we signed a player for 50m and they caught covid and developed longer-term health issues? Would de-value them very quickly and assume insurance wouldn't mitigate. Not like its an unlikely/low risk either given recent reports of players catching it and people generally having mixed recoveries. It's a risk I'd be considering, especially given how little we know about long term impacts of covid. Combine with revenue downside risks and sell-to-buy seems somewhat prudent to me - as much as I'd like to see some new players to keep things fresh.

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On 70 points we currently have more than double 5th placed Man Utds points total of 34. Crazy...

Your summary is pretty accurate. Also very good at distributing the ball quickly to start counter attacks and is comfortable in possesion so would suit us. He is very young (22), but has already won goalkeeper of the year awards in the A league and Belgian league. He is also Australia's number 1 keeper already (about 4 to 5 places ahead of Brad Jones in the pecking order!). Will be a top goalkeeper, but whether he is still too young to move to Liverpool is a fair question. He did also struggle a bit at the recent world cup but has performed very well for Aust since.

Is that how you would line them up?! Why wouldn't you just put everyone in their best positions and go Downing left, Hendo right and Suarez just behind Carroll exploiting the space.

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This can't happen soon enough. It will be majestic. Salvation, redemption, a hero returning from exile, the usurper and last remaining puppet of the tyrants overthrown. The return of Liverpool FC.

I don't get why H&G claimed in the texan injunction that RBS were only willing to sell to people who would ensure no return for H&G... surely they just want their money back. Although I guess its good PR for them (on the back of our campaign) if they are seen to have helped get rid of H&G

It's Moores and Parry (looking for redemption) + others trying to get the club on the cheap. They know they have to go anonymously through Mill as there is no way Hicks/Gillett would sell to them (unless it was for a significant profit on H&G's part) and would also not be preferred by the board (it would mean the end of Purslow for a start and track record would indicate they are not the best custodians). Therefore they have had to use a front (Mill) as the acquirer with nobody knowing they are behind it. Disclaimer: I have completely made this up!

Yeah we were 3rd best defensively, which is pretty good given Insua's difficulties. Konchesky is experienced and would expect him not to be worse. The question is how much will losing masch cost us defensively. Looking at last seasons table our problem was clearly scoring goals, which just makes our failure to get cover for torres even more frustrating. Could've lived with an average left back if we got that cover. The flipside is of course having an average defence costs us because we sit deeper and become more stretched making it harder to play. So our poor defence (in performance last season, not stats) contributed massively to our poor attack... Which is fairly obvious

I am trying to take confidence from the fact that Fulham were pretty good defensively, and Konchesky played a part in that. Argument that a lot of that was down to Schwarzer and Hangeland but even we showed last season that having a great keeper and good central defence isn't enough if one of your players can be targetted. Having played under Roy hopefully he can just slot straight into our system and will be able to deal with being targetted. I'm clutching at straws really though.

I live close to Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane where the game was held, and saw lots of people going in their Liverpool jerseys, presumably to 'cheer' for Neville & co. Probably would've gone had I not got a concussion (and a lip the size of a balloon) actually playing earlier in the day!

Journalist should get his facts straight. Riddled with errors, obvious one (being an Aussie) is it was the 2nd world cup Australia had qualified for (a quick google should've ensured the journalist got this fact correct). Then neglects to mention how he did with PSV second time around. Fails to also mention the context in which his victories were achieved and his failures occurred. Amusing that the journalist mentions lazy journalism, then fails to get his own facts right... Hiddink is a good manager, but like anyone, not without flaws. The fact that most of his failures date back >10 years ago suggests that he has learnt from his mistakes and is a better manager for it though. He is definitely one of the better managers going around at the moment, but also not quite the genious some make him out to be.

Funnily enough he earned rave reviews after having to play there in the first game after one of Gala's defenders got sent off. Bizarre. http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/socceroos/k...ve-role-176993/

Well I was mainly thinking of Pele, Beckenbauer, Stoichkov, Cruyff and Matthäus. edit: Why does it matter post 70's?

Better players than Fowler have ended their careers in the US. I just don't think its that much of a "fall". If a club in the premier league were after him, then sure, but Cardiff and Leicester? Might as well go to Australia where he'd be fantastic and revered than play in the lower leagues in England.

Seriously? I'd love for him to sign for Sydney so I could actually go watch him play. Why don't you want him to sign for Sydney?

Reinaldo was terrible last season. Did you go to the match against the South African club team? He played really well in that, was actually quite surprised. They were pretty awful mind. The new guy Marcinho looks pretty good. Next season should be interesting. I thought Lynch looked decent at the start of last season before he got injured so will be interesting to see how we go. We haven't really lost anyone either apart from Vidosic and Dilevski. Dilevski has never really looked any good anyway though despite the fact he's been at Feyenoord and Tottenham. Anyway, would be great if Sydney signed Robbie. Would be fantastic to actually see him play in person.

Kewell is hardly money grabbing. He came to Liverpool for less money than was offered elsewhere. Also, in a recent interview on SBS in Australia, the interviewer (Craig Foster) brought up the fact that any money Harry earns from interviews goes to charity. This is actually quite significant because for a while Kewell was basically only giving interviews exclusively to one station (Channel 9) and so I presume the money from that was going to charity.

My guess is that the top players we were after just don't want to come here. It doesn't matter how much money we have if people don't want to change clubs. The amount of money we could offer Eto'o in wages, for example, isnt going to be dissimilar to what he's on at Barcelona, so he will make his decision based on other factors such as lifestyle, climate and where he feels he is most likely to be successful (amongst others). The clubs which own players like Eto'o also aren't going to be pressuring these players to leave either, so if the player doesn't want to leave no matter how much money is offered to the club the transfer won't happen. I think what happened is that Rafa has been told he has money to spend (which is why we heard about the possibility of big signings a few weeks back from the owners) but we haven't been able to convince any of our top targets to come here, or in the case of Malouda for example, they are still weighing up their options. Similarly, for Spanish players, why would they decide their futures before their season has finished? We didn't finalise and get our players to sign new contracts until after the season finished. I'm prepared to believe G&H as I believe Benitez wouldn't stick around if he was told by the new owners he had money and then subsequently found out later that he didn't.

I agree with those that say Rafa got his tactics right. I just think Kewell should've started instead of Zenden. Had we not conceded that goal just before half time I still believe we would've won though, especially considering the options we had on the bench.

I noticed this. Twice Kewell beat his player only to be brought down and a freekick not given. From then onwards everytime Kewell got the ball they were doubling up on him. If he'd been brought on earlier Milan wouldn't have been able to do that as it would've created too much space for our other players.

Probably our best player today. Fantastic game.

Totally agree. If Milan didn't get that lucky deflection just before half time...different game.