americanscouser

i don't think it says he's rolling his ownership in us under that umbrella, more that he's using that group to do some of the work for each of the clubs. if its a marketing agency it could well be that he's using it do sell the sponsorships for all those entities etc instead of hiring individual staffs to do it. just an example, but i do remember another article that said hicks was consolidating the ticketing and merchandising staffs of the stars and the rangers together because it made more economic sense to have them running everything with how the seasons ran timewise. plus its cheaper for him and makes him more on the bottom line. add in that the sports marketing portion of that business could easily be used to schedule our overseas trips during the summer etc and he's basically outsourcing parts of the clubs business to his other businesses.

i'm not on the defensive here, nationality or not. all of the past 2-3 days has been based on reading into comments made by all parties, most of which we've gotten from a press conference, a few newspaper articles and quotes from people that at times appear cryptic and others appear to be very clear. i've literaly pointed out that i think its dangerous what he's doing. Knox next time i'll make sure to type "winner" like so in quotations. rafa is clearly using the press to tell his side of the story. hicks, in a fit of petulance, decided to use the press to defend himself (regardless of whether it was right or wrong, although i think he's daft for doing what he did and the inaccuracy of some of what he said just made it worse). its been reported before that gillett and hicks were upset with the way rafa went off after athens. they all talked and things appeared sorted. now its happened again. they now appear upset about it again. all things reported about go betweens, lack of communication, parry in charge etc all point to the problems you rightly point out. but in the end G&H run the club. they may be stupid and not understand things, but that's not going to stop them from sacking him if they tire of it. in america the firing of managers/coaches happens quite often. its pretty rare here for coaches to go off about ownership in the press, and when they do most don't keep their jobs. since the owners are american, i'm not expecting their perspective on this to change just because the team is in England. if what is out there is true, then again its completely correct to characterize rafa as having his hands tied but it won't change the way he went about tellling them. i've mentioned this elsewhere but i'll mention it here, not only does there appear to be a communication issue going on, but i believe a sporting cultural issue as well.

why hasn't he yet then? he's obviously been extremely unhappy. so much so that he's now trying to win games for "his supporters", he just threw Rick Parry under a transit bus with his latest comments, and basically called the owners idiots for not understanding how the transfer market works. its not like its the first time either. Athens was a long time ago. so the undercurrent has been there for some time. if i read that all properly, it appears he's been lacking in support for quite some time. my point is simple, if any of us walk into work on monday and slag off our bosses multiple times in front of other employees, there is no question who is and isn't going to be there on tuesday, regardless of whether the beef is legitimate or not. rafa is playing a dangerous game with the ownership. if all this happened behind closed doors i don't think his job would be in jeopardy at any level. but the gamesmanship of using the press to air the laundry, and subsequently embarass the people he WORKS FOR, has seriously affected that relationship as well.

there will only be one winner in a war of words in the press. and no matter who you think is right or wrong in the matter, if rafa keeps yapping about it in the press, there is no doubt in my mind that he'll get the sack. and i think you'll find that NYR isn't being partonising at any level, more trying to "prevent" the above situation from happening by asking him to do it behind closed doors.

the youngsters are making up our new look reserve team. they serve a two fold purpose. first, we bring them in pretty cheap and if we don't think they are going to cut it, we sell them off at a small profit. if you sell of 10 players at a profit of say 250k, you can help fund future signings. 2nd, we hope that maybe 2-3 make the grade, say a hobbs, guthrie or anderson and finally break their way into the first team. they are given chances based on how they train, how they play in the reserves and finally how they perform in the carling cup. i think rafa has done a great job with the youngsters so far, even if he's bought like 10 keepers and 20 centre backs....

freddy is like 5'7" but i don't think he'll be getting any bigger

whether you liked him or not, he played a part in us winning the champions league in 2005, so to only "remember' what you hated about him isn't redeeming.

don't know what ya got til its gone...

cant compare US sports and liverpool. the closest comparison would be american football for passionate support but even then its not really the same. the teams aren't old enough and most common people are being priced out of tickets to normal sporting events here anymore. and the years the rangers had high payrolls it wasn't like they were especially successful. baseball is based on pitching. most teams in the league, when they want to rebuild, slash payroll, stockpile young players and then when they are good together again they then splash some money and increase payroll. but you'll find that most fans here want to win and that they equate winning with a high payroll despite the statistics that prove the opposite in a number of cases

all bascombe has done is copy what rafa has said. that sounds more like a column from a supporter than a journalist. american sports are nothing like football in europe. there is a salary cap in hockey. each team is allowed to spend the same amount on players. in essence the success of a team is more down to the coach and general manager and what they do than money being pumped into it. the canadiens are a small market team where gillett has done thing with the stadium and marketing to increase revenues. he can't directly control the success of the team. the only way he could do that is to hire the right people to do the job. if he's hired bad people he should get stick. hicks' dallas stars have won a stanley cup championship. in actuality he has proven in the past that he'll spend money on his baseball team the rangers unfortunately to utter failure. he authorized the 252 million dollar contract for alex rodriguez that crippled his team financially, so it goes a bit to explain how he might be a bit gun shy in spending a ton of money on one player. all that said, every one of these accusations, complaints etc goes away the minute we sign a world class player. the question is when and is he world class. congrats to the mancs for overspending 5million pound when nani had a 12 million pound price tag. i'll be waiting for a few weeks before i freak out about signings not happening yet. oh wait, that's right, we signed a brazilian u20 international a few weeks ago and there were no complaints about the money for that.

its a combination of no international tournament, players all going through preseason together as opposed to half at the beginning and the rest for the last couple of weeks, and finally not making many signings at all. our problems at the beginning had more to do i think with trying to integrate the new players with the current squad. you can tell everyone knows there job now which is why its easy to rotate. keep that going at the start of next season and maybe those initial season results turn into more positive ones.

comcast is carrying it on PPV at noon for those in the midatlantic area.

to Shout, by Tears for Fears Kuyt, Kuyt You're in with a shout yours are the goals we can't live without come on score at the kop end come on (waits to get mocked )

i have to say that bellamy has gotten off quite easy with that miss. misses a sitter, the ball is live, he puts his heads in his hands and misses the chance to be a part of the play. i wonder just what was expected of bellamy by some when he came here. i think we've gotten exactly as advertised. work rate, works channels well, tenacious, gets under other teams skins, will chip in with some goals. i'm sure he'll hit his patch where he scores a bunch, but i don't think he was ever a 20 goal scorer. if he get 15 for us this season in about 45 games i'll be happy. kuyt is the true goal scorer on the team and i think that's what rafa always had planned.

as an fyi. espn made an annoucement yesterday that they will be streaming all champions league games on their website www.soccernet.com for a fee of 9.95 a game. i watched the world cup games on that site and the quality was good and was rarely interrupted for buffering purposes. for those of us in the states who rarely see a champs league game, having the option to watch them is a positive, though the cost is a bit much. but i'd rather pay the 10 bucks then miss out on one of the deciders...

he looked much more tactically aware this evening then last season. most times he was in good position, read the game well and cleaned up when need be. got in some good tackles and never looked stretched. it could be a one off, but i thought it was the only thing that was holding him back was the ability to play together as part of a very cohesive back 4

it would be different if Tommy Smyth was just against Liverpool and the players. But the man is just ignorant about the game of football. thought his "analysis" of Dirk Kuyt was fantastic if you are going to spout your useless opinion, at least back it up with why. the other chap at least thought Kuyt's mobility and pace would cause defenders problems. thought Kuyt showed very good hold up play tonight and has done for some time since i've watched him play.

gerrard is an all action midfielder. and i would agree that xabi exhibits some didi like tendencies in that he breaks stuff up by using his brain but to suggest he's almost at didi's level i think is a stretch. xabi has gotten much better in the last year, but didi was the master of his craft. don't think momo and gerrard leave the back 4 in trouble as much as xabi gerrard does but that's a debate we could go round in circles about. you make fair points.

i wonder what's going to be the opinion of most when bellamy misses a sitter because he was too busy moaning at the ref. is the "i love that about him" going to apply at that point too?

there are so many permutations and systems that rafa shouldn't have much trouble finding a way to get all 3 games, but the only system where i think all 3 fit very well is a 4-4-2 where gerrard is on the right only reason i say those two is that you sacrifice slightly xabi's passing range and ability by taking him off but gerrard is close in that respect, plus has far more mobility, penetration and finishing ability.

cable tends to be better and faster than most DSL's mate. all you need to sort out from cablevision is the number of MPS your service is. the higher the number the better.

the answer is that if we bought alves, we'd have cover at both right midfield and right back. much like aurelio on the left. can play either position well and comfortably. only "problem" with pennant is he can only play right wing/midfield. not a complaint as he's looked decent enough for us and solves one of our major problems from last year. we could have sold KK for a few extra quid and maybe with that money have brought in another centre midfield player as covers. ifs and buts surely, but don't think we can have any complaints with rafa and parry's offseason work.

think its just like last season as said above. he's always taken time to get into it. sure the world cup and starting preseason late isn't helping him as heavy legs do affect his passing game. he started to adjust by october i think it was last year and it was pretty much xabi of old. would agree with as posted that he'll be slowly brought along once we're healthy in the middle of park. all that said, still think that stevie and momo are the best choice for centre midfield.

i'll just be one of those who say a quick thanks to all those passing along all this great info. i've been kind of torn about which way to go get a dish or that box or just suck it up and do neither. obviously 'neither' isn't a legitimate option so all the news coming from fellow reds has been really helpful. cheers to all.

think we might be a bit ahead of ourselves on this one. its easy to say that 87 group was one of the best since we've got hindsight to lean on. all the players in this summers group are largely unproven either with a top tier team or in a top tier league. i'd say bellamy has already proven his worth, but the others i'd take a wait and see approach. i vaguely remember how much i liked josemi when he made his preseason debut for us in the states..