Kopfaithful

zenden agger gonzalez

he had a crystal ball :-)

are these quotes not the ones that were flying round when rafa was pressing the board for assurances for money before signing his new contract? there's nothing to say these quotes are valid quotes but taken from febuary or so this year.

I thought rafa had just signed a contract until 2010?

He was from a standing jump because he hadn't noticed campo had checked his run - he had him marked quite tightly at the edge of the box and totally mis-read the cross imo. it was poor defending in my book - although one isolated incident is hardly a reflection of form, I don't think he was playing too well. I think his passing was very poor earlier in the season and he looked not quite up to it, almost heavy legged at times (and not the only one in the team either). That seems to have improved in recent games - although the quality of the opposition has gone down, so perhaps he's just finding things easier.

I'm not saying Houlliers time was all bad. Far from it - we only need to think back to the treble season (which has to be my most enjoyable season ever), to know that. But from his heart op onwards, he didn't seem to make decisions in quite the same way. As an example, players like titi camara, eric meijer, JM ferri and even to an extent Christain Zeige, came in and were pushed out of the club pretty quickly when they either didn't measure up or better players were available - not too disimliar to how Rafa is now. But the end of his time at LFC, he stopped doing that and that contributed to the side going backwards in the last 2 years. For instance when it was obvious diouf wasn't going to make it as a striker, he didn't try to get rid and get a new striker, he just tried to justify the 10m spend by playing him as a right winger. he will always be remembered as much for what got him sacked as the good times from earlier in his reign. As for him making revolutionary changes - imo, he only made the changes the club (and some senior players) weren't ready for that Souness wanted to make. It took the Souness and Evans years to make the club ready to move on from the Shankly way of doing things.

I don't think it is just a question of what they cost financially (although that is obviously important), to me it was houlliers pigheaded attitude when he knew players were failing, rather than just get shut, he'd somehow either just keep playing them (like cheyrou) or attempt to find a new niche for the player (like igor at centre back) - it was as if he thought if we offloaded at a loss it someone suggested he couldn't judge talent, when we all know every manager gets some wrong. Rafa seems to get someone in to do a specific job and if he doesn't measure up, is pushed out the door pretty quickly. We lost on Morientes, but for me what is more important, is we decided to cut our loses, ship him out and replace him with Kuyt. That type of decision making is what will move the team forward - and is also fairer to the player as well imo. imo, if cisse hadn't broken his leg we'd have signed bellamy, kuyt and alves. the loss of a immediate fee for cisse priced us out of the alves deal.

That's the key for him as a ref to me. I don't know how many times in a game you always end up saying to your mates "what's he given that for?". As has been mentioned by many on the thread - it's not that he's biased or anything either way, there just seems to be little in common in what happens on the pitch and the game he refs. He always manages to p iss players and fans off from both sides in every game, which is quite an achievment really.

To be fair, we were 3-0 down when his contribution ended in that game. The most positive spin you could put on that, is it allowed rafa to bring didi on.

i don't really see that as an argument. riise is more than good enough to play in a title winning side. you don't need 11 world class players to win the league, it's about having good players in all positions with few world class players about the team. in the past we won the league with full backs like alan kennedy, who was very similar to riise, without riise's finishing ability. over recent years arsenal won the league with lauren at right back and chelsea won the league the last 2 years without a decent left or right back - although on occasion gallas was more than decent cover, he couldn't play 2 positions at once. Our problem putting a run together at the start of this season has been idenitcal to last year. we got a load of new sigings and playing them along with the increased rotation rafa seems to use early in the season means it takes time for the side to settle. it's no coincidence imo, we have look most comfortable in the last 2 games, where 10 out of the starting 11 were regulars from last season. given time to integrate slowly, without pressure on them to be "world class" from their 1st kick, i think 4 out of our 6 signings will work out and if that's the case we can be very happy.

i actually wondered if picking the same side was to help bury the noel white story - that had broken for around 30 minutes, when all of a sudden "rotation" or lack of it was able to come to the top of the media's agenda again and the noel white thing was almost forgotten about.

I got one right and one wrong then! so he's on a bosman this summer.

i was wrong about kewell, he was a 5 year Offal Link . I'm struggling to find anything on Zenden!

I was pretty sure they signed for 4 and 2 years. I'll see if I can find out.

Unless Warnock gets in and plays a ton of games i can't see him wanting to stay. He's at an age where he really needs to be playing, he's not a kid anymore.

Isn't the same true for Zenden and Kewell?

i saw him on parky or something years ago and he said he wasn't really a rsed about football - he likes to see both teams win, but if he had to pick on it'd be everton.

it's incredible that Gerrard has out sold them all put together. I'd have thought Rooney would have topped the list. Has Gerrards book been out longer than the rest?

the other difference is players like sounes would be sent off 10 times a season now. we were harder than most teams in those days. yes we could play, but the secret was we could hand it out with the best of them. that style of football doesn't exist anymore. bolton, although they're deemed physical is nothing on how football was when whelan was playing - al they do in comparision is just close the ball down a lot and make it difficult to play. they are all fit enough not to run out of steam in 60 minutes too. that was why we hated wimbledon in the late 80's - they were the 1st team that could hassle sides for the entire 90mins of the game and wouldn't just "give up". since then, just about all sides (including our own) have that work ethic and fitness to play for the entire game.

i'd bet it's nobody off that list and if it is, it's that c**k end noel white.

the .tv thing is a different trading company. iirc, granada paid all the start up costs for the operation and paid about 20m (certainly a figure in comaprison with what they paid for their 9.9% stake) for a 50% stake in LFC.TV. I'm not sure location is that big a handicap for this sort of thing these days - an awful lot of the people who would be able to afford to chip in use the internet. However, I'm sure if the club seriously thought they could raise 300m from fans, they would have gone down this route.

if you're that convinced that the money is there from other fans, why not start your own share club/share trust and ask LFC fans about how much they would be interested in contributing. If and when you got close to a figure of around 300m, like you think you can get, put a formal offer to the club. Lots of people are always going on how it would be great for the club to be run by fans, yet none of them who advocate this are prepared to put the effort in to follow this idea or plan through - why don't you do it if you think it's feasible? Personally, I don't think there's a cat in hells chance of getting 300m from LFC fans - especially if you're putting in a top limit on how much one fan can own.

spot on that and it's the reason i didn't sing it. i have no problems with it being sung to be quite honest, i've sung it before and i'm sure i'll sing it again - but as you say, i'd sooner just do it rather than allow those c unts get the pleasure of thinking they goaded me into it.

Jerzy isn't suspended till next week is he? That's what TLW claims anyway ... http://forum.liverpoolway.co.uk/showthread.php?t=38530

and that's what you get for a 4th choice midfielder. i don't understand what people expect of him. he is just about as good as it would get for a 4th choice player. yes he's average, but if he was more than average he'd have bigger aspirations than being a small part player. people make comments on why didi was allowed to leave - didi chose to go because he wanted to have more than the 8 or 10 starts a season zenden will get. zenden is unlikely ever to be "inform" as he'll never get the run of matches the likes of alonso, gerrard and sissoko do - so even when he plays, we probably only ever see a rusty off-form zenden. personally i don't want to see him in the team, but that's more to do with not wanting the 4th choice player to play. i don't buy into this idea that you can have 24 players in the squad of just about equal quality, which is the main problem with the rotation system imo. however, the lad gives 100%, doesn't complain and does an average job, so when you've 2 players out like gerrard and Sissoko, it's what you've got to put up with imo.