spacemonkey

Presumably he just means that the focus is on buying players who are ready for the first team now rather than inexperienced youth who will need time to develop, i.e. they're looking for a Torres or a Xabi, not a Walcott or a Babel.

And there's a cat's tail coming out the right side of the scarf.

Elia has been underwhelming for Hamburg (can definitely see the comparison with Babel). To be fair the team in general has been poor and going through one manager after another but then none of those managers has warmed to him either. Several public comments on his attitude being poor and they've been touting him around for at least a year. That said, Kompany was average for Hamburg as well but seems to have developed well (eventually) at City. Bit of a gamble and would hope he'd be one of two rather than the only wide player coming in.

German interview with his old club Translation: the "sporting director" of his club in Bosnia is talking about the impatience of the parents of young players, saying that the parents want to send their kids abroad already at age 15 and that the foreign clubs are sometimes even offering the parents a job to get them to say yes. When asked to name an example of this he names Armin Hodzic ("I think he is a bigger talent than Dzeko") whom they have just had to allow to leave. The parents found a club for him that is also going to pay the dad 3,000 euros per month. This concept comes from FIFA and UEFA. We (the club) get 40,000 - 50,000 eur compensation, that's it.

Spurs have just seemed sharper. Quicker to the loose ball. Our passing has been poor and the presence of a big man in the team seems to automatically lead to a switch to a long ball game which their defenders seem perfectly comfortable with.

Think I must have had the same tour guide (ca. 10 days ago). Not sure whether the markings on the floor necessarily mean that a decision has been made to redevelop but anyway, he was also talking about who he thought we'd be signing (Barton and Enrique) and it just came across as him drawing conclusions rather than actually having solid info. I suppose it would knock at least 10 minutes off the tour if he just answered all the questions with "no idea".

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Kelly Meireles Kuyt

Same number of away wins as the league leaders... strange season.

Was that Joe Scarborough maybe?

May have seen it wrong but I thought Poulsen had a fairly cynical shirt pull in the second half where the ref could have given him a second yellow but instead left it at playing advantage. Couldn't even give us that one

The German press (Kicker I think it was) is quoting his agent as saying nothing is signed yet and they're commenting that the agent seems pretty cagey suggesting that Babel is keeping his options open with regard to a move to Ajax. The Hoffenheim chairman had earlier as good as confirmed the transfer to the Bild but their manager later clarified that they had yet to reach an agreement on personal terms so a deal is far from done. Regarding wages, Babel was quoted this morning saying that he would be prepared to take a big cut in wages to get a starting spot elsewhere so the wages themselves shouldn't be a stumbling block but I suppose he might take his time to sign on the dotted line while he waits to see if anything materialises with Ajax.

Might be worth giving Wilson a couple of games to see how he cuts it, both at CB and LB. Skrtel is still decent in the tackle but don't think we can afford someone that weak in the air. Was hoping he'd be upgraded in the summer frankly.

Not that he's not frustrated but the English translation does also make it sound somewhat worse than the Danish original for me. Sells more newspapers I suppose. He's talking about the manager having a philosophy of playing further up the pitch and if you do that you have to play a different kind of football at the back which isn't my style. I'm not that type of player. I prefer to keep the ball on the floor and that won't change. Whether the manager then still has a use for me or not, time will tell. I need to try to change, even if I'll never be the player that hoofs it every time I get it. I will definitely fight for my chance and I think I'll get it. I know what I stand for and think the manager does too. It's the manager who decides and you have to adjust to that. That's just how it is. Some subtle differences in there but to me they put a different slant on it.

I'm really hoping that this is all a clever ploy by the club to play clubs off against each other and lower the price on the players we actually do want.

Since Johnson signed, we've lost Dossena and Aurelio. Degen will never be first choice and the second half of last season left a majority of fans feeling that Insua may be good as back up but isn't first choice material either. As a result, no point filling the bench with foreign players given the quota system so ship both of them, bring in Young and then focus on signing the next candidate for first choice left-back. Not ideal just to have Darby and Kelly as the only back-up. Suspect Darby is Championship level and Kelly seems to be a centre back who is being played at full back because he isn't yet considered to have the experience to play in his main position. Signing an ageing player for a relatively small fee who can provide experienced cover on both sides may not be edge of seat but it's also not cause for a riot.

Hardly news that (Lyon's interest I mean). Think they all but signed him during both of the last two transfer windows only for the transfer to fall through at the last minute so not sure what that's done to their chances this window. Don't know those transfers failed but he alludes to his disappointment about it during an interview I saw. Came across as a pretty smart and grounded lad in that interview by the way. Whether he'd cut it in terms of ability I haven't a clue having seen very little of him in full matches. No my name's not Roy.

So he's looking down our squad list and looking forward to playing with Fernando and obviously knows Stevie, Jamie and Jonno from the England setup, then Pepe Reina, Aquilani... Think we can take it as a given that Christian has told him that Mascher's off but encouraging if so that he clearly hasn't told him that Torres is off too.

Torres and Xabi looking rather serious given the circumstances.

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Good to see talents put to good use!

Having lived in Hamburg now for the past couple of years, it's been interesting to see the moderating influence, even control, that the St. Pauli fans have managed to exert on the direction of the club. Sometimes they overstep the mark as they did this season when they protested against erosion of fan rights by somewhat too physically blocking access to the South stand for the first 10-15 minutes of the match against Rostock (equivalent to the kop staying empty to protest against the Everton fans getting too few tickets for the Merseyside derby). On the whole though, the fans have worked well as a coordinated unit and have as a result been successful in fighting the introduction of a stadium currency (too commercial in the eyes of the fans - and fought off via a total boycott of the drink sales at the stadium) and have also made the idea of selling the naming rights to the stadium a complete no-go area for the management. The message is clear: we want to be successful but not at any cost. Despite that, the club is now back in the Bundesliga after two promotions in four years and two of four stands have been knocked down and replaced in a really distinctive and traditional design. Up top between the new corporate boxes (and with a fantastic view of the pitch) they're building the world's first child daycare centre in a football stadium - brilliant idea and great for the local community too (there's a serious shortage of daycare spots here). It's things like this that have drawn me and many others to St. Pauli even when they were in the third tier, rather than to HSV, the much bigger local rival where giving back to the community never seems to stretch beyond the odd autograph session or attending a school football training. Liverpool is in danger of losing those sorts of values and to be fair that's probably true of most of football these days. Looking at action that we can take, there's the aspect of fighting the current owners and getting at them through RBS and then there's the aspect of, if we succeed with that first bit, how do we try to steer the club in the right direction from there. Fan ownership is one obvious approach but it's a massive ask and realistically no doubt best not to pin all our hopes on that. The other approach that has been broadly mentioned is boycotting games and/or merchandise or food/drink at the stadium. I'm not sure that boycotting games is so good, especially when it's people who've paid for a season ticket - where's the financial hit on G&T there?! The shirts and food/drink though should be obvious, with apologies to those employed to sell them. In terms of the shirts, though, people still want to show their allegiance to the cause so how about giving them an alternative to the official shirt? The general consensus seems to be for a simple Liver bird instead of the current crest and handily, I think I'm right in saying that there's no copyright protection on that. There's protection on the crest for sure, but not on the Liver bird and not certain about the Liver bird in combination with any mention of the club (e.g. "Liverpool FC" or "LFC") - anybody know? In terms of a message for the shirt, while I'm all for attacking the owners, I'm not sure that hate necessarily sells shirts. How about something that works both as a message against the regime as well as towards other teams, e.g. "Liverpool Fan Block", "Buck Stopper", "No Pasarán"... Something that will capture the imagination basically. On the back, we could then promote a worthy charitable cause with all profits from sales of the shirt going to that cause. This presents a choice of paying 15 quid for a shirt where the profits go to a genuinely good cause or pay three times as much to line the pockets of Tom & George and sustain the RBS interest payments. Provided people respond, the drop in shirt sales would with a bit of luck also bring pressure on the owners from Standard Chartered. It would also help to maintain/enhance the reputation of the fans themselves while we go about the slightly more risque activities like creating a "Ring of Fire" around those effigies. An example of the sort of thing I mean is this (though it's missing the element of defiance): Viva Con Agua shirt Viva Con Agua is a foundation set up in 2005 by then 24 year-old St. Pauli player Benjamin Adrion (whose career was cut short by injury at about that time) to secure clean drinking water for people in places like Ethiopia, Rwanda, Cuba and Cambodia - 50,000 people now have their drinking water thanks to VcA projects. He raises money from various football-related events but also sells these shirts which have a link to the club (through the colour and the words "Sankt Pauli") but the profits all go to the charity. In his case of course the club has embraced his efforts and is more than happy to cooperate with him. Wouldn't be quite the same for us, at least not with the current ownership. The shirts themselves are produced by "Do You Football", a Hamburg-based football kit manufacturer established with the goal of providing good quality at a much lower price than the big boys. Those shirts go for 18 euros off DoYouFootball's website so much cheaper than the official kit but still of a quality that you'd be happy to wear out and about as opposed to only when painting the house. That's important because you don't just want these sitting in a cupboard. An encouraging point to note is that back in 2003 when St. Pauli were in the third tier of German football, they were on the verge of bankruptcy and some fans got the idea of producing a t-shirt that said "Saviour" on it with the proceeds going to saving the club. The new president at the time gave the idea his full support and within 6 weeks they'd sold 140,000 shirts on the street, at the fish market and concerts and music festivals, raising 900,000 euros. They remain highly popular today.

Burn a rainbow flag as well for good measure.

I was actually going to say exactly the same as passater. Think he meant spitting at people as opposed to spitting in general - think Diouf. Having grown up outside the UK, the reaction on here to those spitting incidents caught me by surprise. Was obviously expecting him to be criticised for it and rightfully so but was surprised at just how much disgust it provoked in people, seemingly almost regardless of whether he actually hit the target or not. Having also lived in the US, seems that the Americans have a similar issue with the flag. In both cases, you could argue that the emotion goes beyond the rational but that's how it is. Personally I wouldn't want to be associated with flag-burning of any flag because I simply can't reconcile it with the claim that the act is only targeting two people from that country. I do think it is way too easy to draw the conclusion that there's a general anti-American sentiment when people are burning a US flag, whether true or not. It's a shame that nobody has the skill and pride in their work to create proper effigies these days - would presumably have garnered at least as much attention and avoided the "collateral damage".

Just went on the official site and "created" a custom shirt like the one in the photo and the price quoted was 54 pounds. Same for Gerrard 8. Not saying they're not offering Gerrard 8 cheaper in the actual shop - maybe they are - but not sure that this is necessarily the sort of blatant profiteering that someone needs to lose their job over.