The walters step over

He used to be spikey with them first time around - I seem to him having a go at Jimmy Hill live on telly for criticising the team..Kenny said something along the lines of "Jimmy Hill needs to look after his chin and I'll look after Liverpool". As far as I can remember he's never had much time for the media.

Aye, possibly a tad optimistic.. I always do that though, at the start of every season I go through the fixtures and have us winning about 90 points..

I can see parrallells between Arsenal and what's happened to us on a few occasions over the last twenty years - talented bunch of players that look as though they're just about to do something special,don't quite manage it so players leave and are replaced by lesser players, club drops 3 or 4 places in the league and needs big investment just to get back to where they were. I honestly think we'll finish above Arsenal this year because we have a better squad with more options, Spurs are pretty much level with us I'd say. If we can average 10/11 points every five games then that should be enough for fourth - even if we don't sign anyone in Jan then I honestly think we have enough in the squad to get there.

A lot of that stuff goes on behind the scenes though, we don't know what contract increase Mereiles was promised by Purslow for instance. If he wanted 30/40k a week more and we wouldn't go that far then what can we do? Imo that may have been a case where both were in the right - Mereiles for wanting what he was promised and the club for saying that they couldn't be held to what the old regime said.

I'd say that you're probably right on this. Lack of CL has f*cked us big time, if FSG had taken over instead of the two b*stards in 2007 then we could've played hardball with selling clubs and driven prices down because we were in a strong bargaining position. Even if we hadn't signed them we would've been in for Aguero,Mata and Silva with a realuistic chance of them choosing us over anyone else. This year we desperately needed players and selling clubs knew that we weren't in a position to wait incase other clubs came in and offered the player Europe, hence paying over the odds. You would imagine that Carroll isn't on as much as Torres was, or Henderson on as much as Aquilani/Mereiles so maybe the club saw the savings in wages as a way to increase their offers.

He couldn't put a string of appearances together for us, and when he did play he looked like a technically gifted player, but also someone that struggled to pick up the pace of the British game so I don't thnk it should be so surprising that he was allowed to leave. I liked Meireles but he wanted to leave so again, I don't think the club can be blamed for letting him go. The second bit in bold I agree and disagree with at the same time, we massively overpaid for Carroll (and if you want to throw in Henderson, then we've probably spent in the region of £30m over the odds for those two players) but as for your point about competing for the top players - they wouldn't have signed for us, we weren't in Europe.If Jones and Young turned us down, why would Aguero or Mata want to join? Imo we can only really judge Kennys buying policy when we're in the CL - if he still only wants to buy mostly British then I'd be a little concerned but I honestly believe that we've looked around at who's available, who would join us and then paid whatever it took to get them before the likes of Spurs came in for them.

Players like Stam and V.Nistelrooy came out publicy and said that Ferguson showed up at their doors when they were at other clubs, trying to persuade them to sign for him, and the FA did the sum total of f*ck all. If we've done anything wrong on any deals then I'd imagine a fine is all we'd get. Every club does it, so no-ones going to point the finger at anyone, the programme will be forgotten within days and everyone will go back to giving back handers to each other. It stinks, but when clubs started paying agents to "facilitate" deals they made a rod for their own backs.

You only have to look at their programme on SKY to see the high opinion some journalists have of themselves. They have the idea in their heads that they're still King makers with the power to sway public opinion, when managers like Redknapp, Venables reinforce that they get given easy rides. Managers like Kenny and Sven, who either don't care what they print or in Kennys case, are openly sarky then they go after them. There were quite a few articles about Ferguson being childish with the press when they went through a rough(ish) period five or so years ago but because he keeps on winning they can't really go after him too much. If Kenny can build a "us against the world" mentality within the squad then it might work in our favour, maybe that's why he's so stroppy with them sometimes. It may also be just that Kennys a sarky sod who doesn't like being asked stupid questions...

The bit in bold is the important thing imo, nobodys going to call for Kennys head on any forum - maybe a couple of looneys on 505, but no more than that - so any criticism shouldn't be taken as anything more serious than people venting. Being positive, i think we are going to be in the shake up for fourth and we can afford to lose a few more matches and still be on course so there's no need for any panic but adjustments do need to be made.

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What does this actually mean? Do you really think anyone sits there thinking "everyone's saying Carra's on the turn, I best join in with the group?". Kenny is not above criticism, and he's not more important than the club. Carra has been poor this season, Adam has made poor choices - it's an internet forum, what gets said on here has absolutely no bearing on anything except to pass the time.

I'm sorry, but that's just nonsense. If that's going to be the the response to any question then what's the point of the forum? Carra's looking like he's on the way down - Kenny doesn't think so... Adams decision making looks poor - Kenny doesn't think so.. Is Carroll actually good enough to play for us - Kenny thinks so.. etc,etc,etc.. It's early in the season but there are genuine concerns that need addressing and just saying "if it's what Kenny wants" is not a good enough response and gets us nowhere. It's starting to get like that internet theory that says if a debate goes on long enough eventually people start talking about the Nazis. Whenever Carrolls form or fee are brought up then because it was Kennys decision then the money doesn't matter somehow and I've even seen people trying to justify the fee as "actually, it's like we got a free player AND £15m for Torres, Torres is shyte now, so bargain!". In terms of Carroll, imo I can see a few problems ahead if we're going to try and shoehorn him into the team. Suarez needs to be the focal point but to give him the space to work in we need to put as many intelligent players around as possible to play the give and goes and run off the ball to provide the space for him but if we did that then I don't see how Carroll starts. Maxi,Downing,Bellamy and hopefully Gerrard have all got the ability to play the little cute passes and I think if we went 4-3-3 with Suarez as the focal point with two of the players I've mentioned buzzing around him we could do to teams what City have started the season doing, forwards interchanging and improvising with a central three as back up/protection for the defence. The width would come from the full backs and I think we'd get a lot of joy that way. I do actually think that Carroll will do alright for us in the end but as things stand I wouldn't have him starting many games.

This. To get top four usually teams lose about 7/8 games a season and mid 70's points total will be enough, today was a p*sser because had we won there would have been a little daylight between us and Spurs who are probably going to be our main challengers if Arsenal keep imploding. We've had three tricky away games and lost two, realistically looking at the squad three points isn't that far from what we could've expected from those games at the start of the season. I'm still pretty optimistic, Spurs are flakey and Wenger may well go mid season and there's no one else that will be in the frame for fourth so I don't think it's time to start panicking just yet. I guarantee that at some point in the next few weeks we'll be 12-15 points behind the Manchester clubs and someone on here will start moaning about "Titles' gone for another year" - we were never going to challenge, and we were always going to lose at least half a dozen games this season but CL is still on. In a strange way, getting spanked may well work out better for us than playing like that but only losing 2-0. We have a major problem which imo stems from having to play far too deep in defence and it needs to be addressed. It's not a witchunt against Carra because there are obviously other areas that need looking at also, but the fact is his distribution is awful and he lacks pace, if he's not actually getting in the right defensive positions then he's a liability - it's costing us and Kenny needs to do something and maybe this result will give him the impetus to give Coates a run, the lads been bought to play and we need to get him with Agger as soon as.

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Agree with this, Kennys big enough to fight his own battles. When people jump on the slightest thing (and I'm not saying this was slight, but on journalists asking reasonable questions about whether he can still do it amongst other things) it makes it look as though he needs protecting. It could start looking like we know he's not up to it so we feel the need to shield him from any sort of criticism. Kenny has shown in the last nine months that he knows what he's doing, but he should be judged and criticised like any other manager would be.He gives as good as he gets to the press and there's going to be a few of them on the receiving end of his jokes that'll won't to jab back at him from time to time. As for the pressure thing I think this journalist obviously didn't mean to draw parallels between losing away to Stoke and the pressure Kenny was under last time, he was thinking of the Everton game and Kenny walking away. It was a mistake rather than malicious imo and people should get off his case.

To me it looked like a Chris Morris p*ss take at times, it could easily have been boiled down to a five minute slot on the news instead of stretching some very thin material across a whole hour. "We have the names of footballers who missed tests... we can't tell you who they are, but keep watching the programme just in case"

I think that's the thing tbh, when someone in the press asks a stupid question then he's not slow in taking the p*ss so it's not hard to imagine a few of them waiting to jump on his case whenever they get the chance. like someone on here said, had Ferguson said it then it's "mind games" from a psychological mastermind, managers like Kenny,Rafa and even Sven when he was England manager get accused of ranting essentially because they don't have favourite journalists and clearly don't give two flying f*cks what is written about them.

Absolutely spot on, 4th is very much achievable and this result doesn't change that, the title was never realistic because other teams are just better than we are at the moment. A couple of points do need addressing though, Carra still needs telling that actually he isn't very good at all with the ball at his feet, no matter what he thinks. He's been fantastic for us over the last ten years but age catches up with everyone and he needs to be told that his game is all about anticipating play and making interceptions, Kenny or Gerrard are probably the only two he'd listen to and they need to tell him to stick to what he's good at or he loses his place in the team. Kuyt again had a stinker and his lack of technique is glaringly obvious on days like this, Suarez needs to be able to play one touch give and goes to find space and Kuyt just doesn't have the ability to link up well with him imo. Saying that, Bellamy and Gerrard will hopefully play big roles this year and if we can get Gerrard, Suarez,Downing and Bellamy/Henderson on the pitch at the same time then potentially we could absolutely smash teams this year with a mixture of pace,skill and one touch passing. A point would've been a good result today but we've still got a lot to be optimistic about and a few tweaks to the team with players already in the squad and I honestly think that we'll finish top four quite comfortably.

It's not a bad game to start him.Stoke are going to have plenty of players on the pitch that don't know each others games yet,so they won't be playing many intricate little one-two's to get around him and we know Crouch wouldn't be battering him in the air so the likelyhood is that Coates will be facing play most of the game and from what i've read on here he's supposed to be a good reader of the game.

If the first line of your post is true then we wouldn't be able to get rid in Jan, at least not without taking a £20 -25m hit. The key word is IF, Capellos grasp of English is an utter disgrace given the money he's paid to actually communicate to people and it may well be that it's come out harsher than he's actually intended. The story of the mix up when they tried to get Scholes back in the squad was all down to him having to rely on others to talk because he can't express himself properly - this could be another one of those. Carroll will be at Anfield for years, his fee sees to that so getting rid is not even an option. If (there's that word again) there is a problem then the club have to help him. There's no point in responding to posts like that, they're just after attention and anyone kicking off just encourages them to post more shyte like that.

Agree, and to be honest, there's a decent number of journalists that have written fair and balanced articles about Hillsborough over the last few years. A lot of journalists get stick for being anti Rafa/Houllier/LFC etc but on this issue they actually do the cause a lot of good - I don't think it'd do any harm for Lawton to get a couple of e-mails thanking him for the support, or the likes of Haywood or Winter for that matter.

I'd say that Sven was a fecking good international manager. He took over a team that had been battered at the Euros and had started WC qualifying with two poor results and all the while playing utterly shyte football. He then got to 3 consecutive tournaments playing decent stuff and with qualification never in doubt, gets to the QF's 3 times having been two penalty shoot outs from two consecutive semis and losing the other to a Brazil team with three world players of the year in it. In the two tournaments before he took over England had been outplayed at the Euros and had gone out 2nd round in France. In the two tournament after him, we didn't qualify for the Euros and were utter shyte in SA and people still persist with this line about him being rubbish. If Michael Owen had been fully fit in 2002 England would've won the WC imho.

How old is he, 19? Let the lad develop first before he gets written off. Personally, I like the way the way he takes the ball and finds space for himself - he just looks like a player to me, more so than Spearing anyway.