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The Official Raheem Sterling Thread (Part 412)


bouncebrigade
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They signed Medel off the back of him getting relegated with Cardiff, and Podoslki (who from what I gather has been complete and utter wank there) on loan from Arsenal. It's hardly comparable the days of them signing Ronaldo or Ibrahimovic is it?

And given the wittering on here about not signing players from below us, not signing players from mid table sides and other variations I can only assume that the prospect of signing a player from Cardiff would have been met with equal derision at the time.

 

 

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Who will actually pay a lot for him though (40-50mill) and pay him 150k a week? I find that totally baffling! Maybe Citeh purely because he's English. I just can't see Arsenal buying him and Chelsea don't need him. I don't think he'll go overseas either. He must obviously have a deal tied up for him to be forcing the issue. Fingers crossed wherever he ends up he'll end up with splinters in his arse.

Would would you be arsed? Fuck me, some of our fans can be really fucking petty. Look, show little to no ambition and you're better players will move to clubs that do. That's football.

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Medel would be the best midfielder at the club. If he's "half decent" then Henderson and Allen are "fucking appalling".

 

"Deemed not good enough for Bayern Munich". Jesus christ, that would be the case for arguably every single one of our players.

 

Podolski has scored 144 goals his career, often playing out wide.

 

I think it very much does not prove the point you were making. Even if our entire transfer business for the summer was to sign just those three players it would probably be better than what we're going to do.

It really does. I haven't asked anybody to compare Inter's transfers to ours. Not once.

 

But, the fact stands, while Inter are rebuilding to an extent under Erick Thohir, they can't attract the players that arguably smaller clubs (depending on how we measure what a "big" club is) like Man City, Chelsea etc can. The Inter players mentioned are not the top level players that Inter and AC could once attract, like Crespo, Kaka, Schevchenko, Ronaldo etc.

 

If a City, Chelsea etc came in for an AC or Inter player, they'd be off in a shot.

 

Partly because of money. But also because of ambition and because AC and Inter no longer represent a chance of honours, or even regular Champions League football.

 

Just like us. Sadly.

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I'm a lot less fussed about losing Sterling than losing Suarez, that's for sure. I think we've actually gotten a bit better at spotting and bringing in young talent over the last few years, and in Ibe (and possibly Ojo) we have someone that is capable of coming in and being an adequate replacement (I actually think Ibe has a higher ceiling than Sterling, but that's for another time). Suarez was irreplaceable (even if Sanchez would have made a good fist of it), while Sterling has so many flaws to his game it's hard to understand he's already clocked 14 international apps as well as 100+ games for us. Don't get me wrong, he's still got great potential, as his quick feet and lightning pace will help any team that is willing to fork out the 40 (?) million he'll cost. I just don't feel he's going to be THAT big a loss for us.

 

The obvious (as always with us) question is of course if we're capable of spending those (say) 40 million wisely. Our priority should be getting a powerful goalscorer, a presence in midfield and a right back capable of defending and going forward. First of all though, Brendan needs to convince the players (and himself/his staff) on a way of setting up the team that will last a season. I'm all for tactical flexibility and changing it up from time to time, but we need to decide on the 3 or 4 at the back, as it's crucial to which type player we recruit for our defence and midfield. 

 

I hope we'll go for a more conventional 4-3-3/4-4-2 diamond next season, in which Sterling would thrive, but where we have others capable of doing a similar job as well.

 

 

----------------------Mignolet-----------------------

 

RB------------Skrtel----------Sakho----------Moreno

 

-----------------------------DM-----------------------------

------------------Henderson---------Can---------------

 

Ibe------------------STRIKER----------Coutinho

 

 

We have decent squad options for the RB and DM role, but even if I'm a great supporter of Lucas, we need someone of that ilk (good reader of the game, assured passer) to start our attacks (together with Sakho). If he's a bit quicker and stronger than Lucas (or Allen), that would be great too. I'm fearful that not too many of those players around will want to switch clubs for us, let's hope "the commitee" can come up with an inspired signing. I don't really rate Can in that role (even if he's not been given much a chance there). He seems like a player that thrives when he can go forward with the ball, and likes it best when he has a "clear field" in front of him. Not really what you'd want in a DM. 

 

None of Flanagan (after another injury setback), Wisdom (who couldn't hold down a spot at WBA) or Manquillo are good enough to go 38 games for a top 4 side. If they were the only weak spot, maybe (my mind also goes to Gary Ablett (RIP) in the 87/88 side even if it does him disservice). Anyway, we need our fullbacks to be a hell of a lot better next year than this (even if we choose to play with WBs) if we want to impose ourselves on the opposition. Clyne seems United bound, otherwise I think he would have suited us well. Can't seem to remember to have been too impresse with any RBs this season (that aren't at a top club already). Perhaps we could lure Carvajal here now that Real have brought in Danilo? Both him and Alves would have been fantastic, but again not very realistic.

 

The striker situation is the biggest puzzle to solve... Origi should be 2nd choice (if we play with a 3 up front) until Sturridge returns, we really need a clear 1st choice striker up until then. I'd actually go for Benteke, I think we need someone that is "unplayable" in one aspect or another, someone for the defenders to really worry about. Proper lazy the criticism he receives on here whenever he's mentioned, I've seen him talked about in the same breath as Lambert ffs. They couldn't be more different. He'll give us proper presence up top, and (big difference from Carroll) will be able to get on the end of crosses as well as adding a threat on set pieces with his pace and jumping ability. Perhaps not the flashiest player around, but definitely someone that will give our other players more space to work in, as well as making sure the ball sticks once we decide to go a bit more direct. 

 

If we want to go 4-4-2 there are other alternatives that are better, perhaps some of the smallish forwards from the continent (Vietto et co.). Not sure we want to go there though, particularly as the player that would benefit most from playing two up front (Sturridge) most likely won't be in full action until Christmas. For the lone striker role though, I don't think there are many better suited than Benteke (that are attainable). Look at the difference Costa has made for Chelsea this year. Remy is not a bad player, but it's night and day watching him and Costa operate as a lone striker. You need physicality as well as decent pace. Benteke has both, and even if he's not as good with the ball at his feet as Costa (or a younger Drogba), he's more than capable of keeping it and passing it for us to establish play a bit further upfield.

 

This should probably have gone in the transfer thread btw...

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2009/10 - Appearances 43 Goals 15 Assists 19

 

That is quite some non contribution.

 

As we have discovered with Balotelli, taking every set piece in the Italian league can bolster your stats quite a bit... Not saying Ronaldinho was shit at AC, but he was pretty far from the player that ruled La Liga (and Europe) for Barca...

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Tony B knows...

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/football/article4444751.ece

 

Vulnerable Liverpool are mediocre - and they know it

 

Not since buying Liverpool in October 2010 has Fenway Sports Group (FSG) endured such a chastening 72 hours. On Saturday, supporters at Anfield reacted with derision to the suggestion that the club are heading in the right direction. Then yesterday there was a vicious double whammy as Michel Platini confirmed that the Financial Fair Play rules which attracted John W. Henry to purchase the club are to be relaxed and Raheem Sterling’s camp made it known that the winger wishes to leave.

Liverpool are vulnerable right now. They are mediocre and everyone knows it. The reality is that those at the top end of the football industry have known it for some time, hence senior scouts from Manchester City and Chelsea becoming Anfield regulars this season in the knowledge that Liverpool’s best players are there for the taking in a way that they haven’t been for half a century.

For all the opprobrium – some of it just, some of it not – that will inevitably be showered on Sterling and his representative, Aidy Ward, following yesterday’s events, the reality is that it is Liverpool’s weakness that allows players and agents to act in the way that they are. One of the club’s first and most important responsibilities is to make it a place that players find difficult to leave and it would be absurd to claim that is the case.

With no Champions League football to offer, only one trophy (the League Cup) won in the past nine seasons, just three title challenges since 1991, a transfer policy that prioritises the future over the present and an inability to compete for top players, Liverpool are failing to keep their end of the bargain in terms of how a big club are supposed to behave. Expectations have been lowered, almost dumbed down, and if the supporters can recognise that so too can the players.

Thus far, the strongest argument that Liverpool have been able to muster in their attempts to convince Sterling to remain at the club is that it is the best place for his development at this stage of his career; not that if he remains at Anfield he can fulfil his ambitions, that success is around the corner or that they will pay him as much as others are willing to. It is an argument rooted in weakness and lacking in conviction.

It could also be argued that it is flawed given that Sterling, a creative player, has spent the past 12 months playing in a team without a forward. It is all well and good playing regular first-team football but doing so in a dysfunctional team that stymies your best qualities is hardly developmental.

The reality is that Liverpool’s problems – their failure to finish in the top four, their struggle to hold on to their best players, the lack of supporters’ faith in the club’s direction and the pressure that is building on the Anfield hierarchy – are symptoms of the same cause: a flawed transfer strategy that it is causing untold damage. Signing potential rather than proven talent is undermining everything that Liverpool are supposed to stand for. It has reached the stage where one of their better young players is not prepared to hang around to see if their inferior young players will improve.

For all the accusations that Sterling is going the wrong way about forcing a move (and many of these are wholly legitimate), Liverpool are at the mercy of the ambition of others because they are either unwilling or unable to match their rivals’ ambition. That situation is only likely to become more severe now that FFP is about to be watered down. As Henry himself conceded recently, without FFP it becomes “very difficult” for Liverpool to compete. The established football food chain, ordered according to owners’ wealth, leaves them exposed. Rival clubs, avaricious agents and even their own supporters know this only too well.

FSG’s model is failing. Whether that is because it is fundamentally flawed or poorly executed is a moot point but what is not in question is that Liverpool’s entire football operation is in need of urgent evaluation. Until the things that are going wrong are put right, then Raheem Sterling won’t be the last to believe the grass is greener elsewhere, he’ll just be one of a number in an ever lengthening line who view Liverpool Football Club as a stepping stone rather than a final destination.

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Medel would be the best midfielder at the club. If he's "half decent" then Henderson and Allen are "fucking appalling".

 

"Deemed not good enough for Bayern Munich". Jesus christ, that would be the case for arguably every single one of our players.

 

Podolski has scored 144 goals his career, often playing out wide.

 

I think it very much does not prove the point you were making. Even if our entire transfer business for the summer was to sign just those three players it would probably be better than what we're going to do.

Medel would be the best midfielder at the club yet he couldn't get a game there for Cardiff, he's nowhere near good enough on the ball to play for us there.

 

Podolski is shite and has only ever done it at a small club and while Shaqiri may be decent we could have got him if we really wanted.

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As we have discovered with Balotelli, taking every set piece in the Italian league can bolster your stats quite a bit... Not saying Ronaldinho was shit at AC, but he was pretty far from the player that ruled La Liga (and Europe) for Barca...

 

Did he contribute?

 

Is he evidence than Ancelotti makes shit signings?

 

I obviously wasn't arguing that he was still the best player in the world that he was 3/4 years previously, but responding to the utter loon trying to talk down the managerial ability of a man that has won three European cups.

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Tony B is up Sterlings arse and I've noticed he's been backing him up ever since Raheem followed him on twitter.

Maybe,but Alonso, Mascherano, Torres, Suarez and now Sterling enforce the general thrust of the article.

 

Although, I disagree with the part criticising the signing of potential over established players.

 

We've signed players who you can't really class as young potential such as Allen, Lovren, Mignolet, Lallana, Lambert, Balotelli etc.

 

I think it's more a problem of signing shite and the repeating of the midfucking phenomenon largely unique to Liverpool of finishing second and then, instead of pushing on and buying well, totally spunking millions on shite.

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There's no one out there who can do what Joe Allen does, apparently.

There is clearly a problem with your guys memory, I've been going on about how fans can't remember what it was like before BR took over but fans can't even remember the owners comments from decemember and I haven't said either of those comments about Allen.

 

I said he was irreplaceable man for man and that LFC could not sign a player who can do what he does not that he's indispensable or that's there's no one who can do what he does.

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FSG aren't prepared to compete with FFP let alone with it being even more relaxed. We are fastly becoming midtable fodder if we are lucky. A 20 year old who has done fuck all now thinks he is too good for us and Rodgers is shite he has all the pull of a push button and almost every grand statement he makes back fires. FSG under promise over deliver. what next from their mouths, tighten our belts, all in this together, austerity measures youve never had it so good. bollocks to em, your plan is worse then fuck baldrics.

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Did he contribute?

 

Is he evidence than Ancelotti makes shit signings?

 

I obviously wasn't arguing that he was still the best player in the world that he was 3/4 years previously, but responding to the utter loon trying to talk down the managerial ability of a man that has won three European cups.

When I was talking about contributing I was referring to the clubs goals, seeing as he was poor there and Milan finished lower then the season before they had him I would count that as a bad or pointless signing.

 

Lambert and Balotelli have contributed at times this season but that doesn't mean they weren't bad signings.

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Tony B knows...

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/football/article4444751.ece

Vulnerable Liverpool are mediocre - and they know it

Not since buying Liverpool in October 2010 has Fenway Sports Group (FSG) endured such a chastening 72 hours. On Saturday, supporters at Anfield reacted with derision to the suggestion that the club are heading in the right direction. Then yesterday there was a vicious double whammy as Michel Platini confirmed that the Financial Fair Play rules which attracted John W. Henry to purchase the club are to be relaxed and Raheem Sterling’s camp made it known that the winger wishes to leave.

Liverpool are vulnerable right now. They are mediocre and everyone knows it. The reality is that those at the top end of the football industry have known it for some time, hence senior scouts from Manchester City and Chelsea becoming Anfield regulars this season in the knowledge that Liverpool’s best players are there for the taking in a way that they haven’t been for half a century.

For all the opprobrium – some of it just, some of it not – that will inevitably be showered on Sterling and his representative, Aidy Ward, following yesterday’s events, the reality is that it is Liverpool’s weakness that allows players and agents to act in the way that they are. One of the club’s first and most important responsibilities is to make it a place that players find difficult to leave and it would be absurd to claim that is the case.

With no Champions League football to offer, only one trophy (the League Cup) won in the past nine seasons, just three title challenges since 1991, a transfer policy that prioritises the future over the present and an inability to compete for top players, Liverpool are failing to keep their end of the bargain in terms of how a big club are supposed to behave. Expectations have been lowered, almost dumbed down, and if the supporters can recognise that so too can the players.

Thus far, the strongest argument that Liverpool have been able to muster in their attempts to convince Sterling to remain at the club is that it is the best place for his development at this stage of his career; not that if he remains at Anfield he can fulfil his ambitions, that success is around the corner or that they will pay him as much as others are willing to. It is an argument rooted in weakness and lacking in conviction.

It could also be argued that it is flawed given that Sterling, a creative player, has spent the past 12 months playing in a team without a forward. It is all well and good playing regular first-team football but doing so in a dysfunctional team that stymies your best qualities is hardly developmental.

The reality is that Liverpool’s problems – their failure to finish in the top four, their struggle to hold on to their best players, the lack of supporters’ faith in the club’s direction and the pressure that is building on the Anfield hierarchy – are symptoms of the same cause: a flawed transfer strategy that it is causing untold damage. Signing potential rather than proven talent is undermining everything that Liverpool are supposed to stand for. It has reached the stage where one of their better young players is not prepared to hang around to see if their inferior young players will improve.

For all the accusations that Sterling is going the wrong way about forcing a move (and many of these are wholly legitimate), Liverpool are at the mercy of the ambition of others because they are either unwilling or unable to match their rivals’ ambition. That situation is only likely to become more severe now that FFP is about to be watered down. As Henry himself conceded recently, without FFP it becomes “very difficult” for Liverpool to compete. The established football food chain, ordered according to owners’ wealth, leaves them exposed. Rival clubs, avaricious agents and even their own supporters know this only too well.

FSG’s model is failing. Whether that is because it is fundamentally flawed or poorly executed is a moot point but what is not in question is that Liverpool’s entire football operation is in need of urgent evaluation. Until the things that are going wrong are put right, then Raheem Sterling won’t be the last to believe the grass is greener elsewhere, he’ll just be one of a number in an ever lengthening line who view Liverpool Football Club as a stepping stone rather than a final destination.

I agree with Barrett.

 

It says a lot, though, when views like this are coming from people like him - not prone to hyperbole, broadly supportive and from within the establishment.

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This fucking Sterling saga is going to define this window, Every fucking time it's some want away cunt setting the agenda . I despair of ever having a summer again where we go out and sign a couple of top players that actually want to play for us . FSG , Rodgers , Sterling can all go and fuck themselves . Death by a thousand cuts

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