twigs

Forgot to add, purchasing a ticket automatically enters you into a draw for a chance to line out with the Legends team, there are two spots up for grabs. Don't make me go all stereotypical .... too late ... shur, the craic will be mighty what with all the spoirt/spóirt going on ... Damn.

Hey all, this is mainly for the Irish listees - apologies to everyone else - but there's a sporting and entertainment festival taking place in Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland during the August Bank Holiday weekend, and the centre-piece of the weekend is an exhibition match involving the John Aldridge Legends team. The ex-Liverpool pro's confirmed are John Aldridge himself, Jason MacAteer, Rob Jones and John Wark. Other ex-pro's from other teams taking part too including ex-Celtic and ex-Man U players, but I've named the 4 highlights! Details were in today's Examiner: Soccer legends to tog out for town’s fundraising efforts | Irish Examiner If anyone's interested in tickets for the game, or the concerts in the evening, just drop me a line or you can contact us at the following: spoirtfest AT gmail DOT com. Thanks, eamonn

The players have adopted the same approach as the fans this season, we're all playing a wait-and-see game ... That being said, this game will be different and I'm pretty confident of a very decent result. If Blackpool attack like Holloway says they will then I think this will be like Burnley last season, and I also feel (hope?!) Torres will get three. Of course, I'm expecting Gerrard to be fit to play!

Robbie says in his book that he suffered his worst injury, the hip injury, whilst at Leeds so make of that what you will. If he'd still been at Liverpool, and the politicing and all that subsided, then who knows how a maturing Robbie would've performed. Gerrard's on-field maturity really kicked in from the age of 26, 27. I was absolutely gutted when we sold Robbie and I felt very strongly it was the wrong decision. Might've been also to do with Robbie being my favourite player alongside Kenny. Some people say Owen was never loved in the same way because he had taken Robbie's place in the team, but I always felt that Robbie and MO could easily play together, and I couldn't believe someone like Heskey was getting into the team ahead of Robbie. I was delighted when Houllier joined us as he was exactly what we needed at the time, but his treatment of Robbie turned me completely off him, I couldn't wait for him to go after that.

Steve Clarke is a highly respected coach, is he staying or is he gone as well? Might be a decent number two for Rafa, a new Pako, certainly doesn't come across as a yes man ...

In Ireland it's live on 3e and it's also being broadcast live on Europa League - TV3 Uh, just to warn ye, the commentary won't be the best ... !

Fiorentina should be kicked out of Europe. Who finished 3rd in their group? Come on Purslow, work your magic ... !

Just confirmed lads, Dossena and Voronin are gone and we got over £5m for them!!!

A theory on that actually: he thought he was emailing Steve Hunter of the official website, and at 4am, he didn't realise it was Steve Horner he was emailing!! If true, this might explain why Nash and Ayre were copied in, he was hoping to get Hunter into trouble. Wonder if Hunter has been making Hicks Jr's life a misery??! :)

I'd take that theory and add a conspiracy angle to it ... anyone else thought 'groundshare' when reading that article? I wouldn't put it past our two shysters.

Nothing wrong with that? In 15 year's time when he decides to retire from Liverpool FC, he'll want to completely get away from it all with Montse.

One for the admins to mull over ... from what I know of the TLW site though, we (users) aren't allowed to upload anything, correct? We just link to sites/pics, and that too goes for people's avatar's? Flash Origin Policy Issues Flash flaw puts most sites, users at risk, say researchers Specifically from the 1st article: How many web sites allow users to upload files of some sort? How many of those sites serve files back to users from the same domain as the rest of the application? Nearly every one of them is vulnerable. To be sure, any server that allows unvalidated uploads of contents will let an attacker upload html pages with cross-site scripting or other attacks, but SWF files do not require a .swf extension or special content-type headers to execute. This means that poorly validated image upload features will be vulnerable.

Heard this on the radio this morning, it's got something to do with the FAI/RTE/whoever messing around a French TV station in relation to the first leg. Apparently, we sold the rights to the first leg to some independent French TV crowd, which pissed off the main TV guys in France who have rights to all French matches, so they are getting their own back on us now.

We are currently 11 points behind the leaders. Come the 3rd round of the FA Cup at the beginning of January, it would be great to have reduced this by 4 or 5 points if possible. Big ask I know, especially as there's no chance of doing that if Chelsea win all their games! In reality, and to contradict myself a little I guess after what I said above, we have to actually focus on one game at a time. We hear the manager and players say this a lot but sometimes I don't think they're actually believing what they're saying? One game, 3 points, nothing else should matter. Repeat.

There were two interesting articles in the Sunday Independent over here in Ireland yesterday, and whilst they are written about GAA (Irish sports), they could be talking about almost any team sport. Well, I think they're worth a read! The first one is Some players need mirrors, not a change of manager. The second one is Tipp's happy camp shows advantages of a head start. The last paragraph in the 2nd article stands out a bit: "I think the management have enough with 34 or 35 lads dealing with their hurling needs. It is very hard for a hurling manager to look at the psychological side because he genuinely does not have time. " Perhaps a full-time psychologist (or 'performance coach' as referred to in the article) is needed at the club?

There's a few of them lining out here ...

To be honest, I'd love for them to play that team against us, I think we'd handle them. Ireland is way out of position there, the game would pass him by. He needs to be in Tevez's position and either Robinho or Tevez should be on the bench. At home they may go 4-1-3-2 with those 11 players and beat a few Premiership teams, but away from home they'd struggle big time with that 11. As for that back line, it's completely over-rated and I can see a number of teams taking them apart, especially as Barry will be over-run in midfield away from home if there's no-one alongside him. It's been mentioned already on this thread but that backline was badly exposed quite a few times in the second half against a poor Portsmouth team. If De Jong/Kompany is put in there to support Barry then that would solidify them, but they'd be sacrificing an attacker. Wright-Phillips and Robinho/Tevez won't track back all the time to help Richards and Bridge out.

Football forums are bad for football.

I'd say it's up to 4 weeks to fully recover from the surgery, and then perhaps 4 more weeks to get his fitness levels back to where they should be. After that, he's gonna need match sharpness. When did the clock start ticking on this 4-8 weeks? It's always weird that after a period out with injury, a player's first match back is going to be his best for the next few weeks, probably due to the rush/buzz of coming back and the adrenaline keeping one going. All being well, it'd be ideal to start him against Burnley and for him to experience a home game, then perhaps spring him from the bench against West Ham and Hull, before starting him again at Chelsea.

Pacheco and Nemeth are in the Liverpool XI squad for the match in Ireland tomorrow against Dunmanway.

There was a squad listing in the Irish Examiner this morning, can't find an online version of it though. Squad is: Bouzanis, Brouwer, Bruna, Darby, Eccleston, Hammill, Hansen, Irwin, Kacaniklic, Mavinga, Mendy, Nemeth, Pacheco, Palson, Simon, Weijl, Kohlert, Tushingham, Hargreaves. Anyone seen the last 2 or 3 players listed, play before? Are they trialists or U-16/U-17?

Steer clear lads, pears are known to have laxative effects, so who knows what effect pear cider will have on ya!!

Well, from the match reports on the reserves during the year, and in various articles in the fanzine to do with the players at the Academy and Melwood, Huth was one of those that people felt weren't going to make it here. If that's the case, then the decision to let him go is the correct one so that he can make a career for himself at another club.

Sorry Sandman, but how is that article giving a more reassuring take on things? Conn says that the bulk of the money they've/we've borrowed is practically gone and we're still nowhere near having a new stadium. I can't see any reassurances there!

You're more optimistic than I am, I was thinking 3 months what with the transfer window not closing until the end of August!