Turkish Delight

I totally agree with the above post.

My big concern is the style of play. We were very good for most of the second half of last season by playing a short passing game and I think with a one or two exceptional signings to fit this system and a bit more steel in defence I'd feeling optimistic now. Watching the game yesterday we had one method of attack which was long ball to Downing and a high cross to Carroll. The season is very close now and this one dimensional play just won't work as it's too easy to predict. I have no problem with varying it slightly but if you take players like Meireles and Maxi out of the team for Adam and Downing it will be a significant step away from the system last season. My concern is that if this is our blueprint we will completely negate Suarez as he just won't get the ball into feet. I hope there's a lot of work done on this over the coming 11 days or I think we'll be facing a nasty surprise come the new season.

The levels of greed are already at completely unacceptable levels. If they took this step which would end any notion of competitive domestic football I would fuck it off.

Arrivaderci Roma after we knocked them out of Europe made me smile!

I like the Dalglish chant as is to be honest and think this one is too long winded and I'm not a fan of the lyrics either. The tune is great to sing when drunk so could work as a song at some point but only as a chorus that's repeated rather than with verses I reckon.

Don't agree with all this talk of left back being a must. I have no issues with with Johnson/Aurelio/Robinson on the left and Kelly/Flanagan/Johnson as options for the right. Filling this position is nowhere near as important as signing a centre half who is dominant in the air. We'll lose far more games from high balls into the box if we don't fill this position than for not having another left back.

Couldn't disagree more on that. He could sell Liverpool today and walk away with more money than was spent on buying just because we're not in a position of financial distress. Even the other two cunts had an opportunity to walk away with 100 million profit each early on but lost out due to Hicks' greed. If FSG left the club with a new stadium and a place in the Champions League they would more than double their money. By the way, as long as they do well by us I have no issue with them walking away with a profit but just saying.

I nearly exploded with rage when I opened this thread. It's a good job someone pointed out in the tags that it's dinner and not lunch!

Best off just ignoring the old cunt. He was talking about Everton being dark horses this time last year. He just likes creating a little bit of pre-season pressure in the hope the other teams blow up when the season starts and I doubt he sees us as a main threat. If he did it would have been us and not City and Chelsea he spent most of his time talking about.

Can't believe that. Copenhagen are in the Champions League next season and are therefore much bigger than Liverpool. Aren't all players looking to play for clubs who can offer them Champions League football? :whistle:

I agree with your point but Ray Harford and Roy Hodgson were not of the same calibre as Kenny and that was a very key part in their demise so we'll never know. I'm not necessarily of the opinion we will now sweep all before us but we have plenty of players who can score goals and very different types of goals too (Gerrard, Carroll, Suarez, Adam, Downing, Kuyt). My main concern is at the back as it stands. Throw a young Sami Hyypia in to the mix (if only it was that easy) and I believe we wouldn't be too far off.

In isolation the players we have signed are above average fairly steady players in terms of the level of their ability and aren't anything to get too excited about. To take them in isolation though is to miss the point as what Kenny does is create a team ethic and the players he signs are the people who will fit into that. Look at the players below he won the league with: Tim Flowers Jeff Kenna Tony Gale Alan Wright Tim Sherwood Colin Hendry Graeme Le Saux Stuart Ripley Paul Warhurst David Batty Mark Atkins Chris Sutton Alan Shearer Jason Wilcox Henning Berg Robbie Slater Ian Pearce Kevin Gallacher Mike Newell On an individual level that squad is very poor and with the exception of Shearer, Berg and maybe Batty none of them had a top level career outside Blackburn. I would definitely say that while it's a different era our current squad possesses far more talent than that Blackburn team but they won the league and we spent half a season fighting relegation. The reason they won the league is that Kenny knows how to create a team that is better than just the level of just the individuals in it and is doing that now.

A lot of people think the same on Meireles too but there's little difference in ability between them in my opinion apart from a 4 or 5 game scoring streak from Raul. Neither can tackle, both disappear for long periods of games and both have a good passing range. Only differences (which are both big) is Raul wants to be here and isn't injury prone while Alberto doesn't and is.

For sentimental reasons I'd be gutted walking out of Anfield on the last day but we need the new stadium. It would be a very short-sighted decision to upgrade to 60k with no further room for improvement. I'd compare it to decisions made by Moores with the Anfield Road end redevelopment. At best it would be naive at worst it would be a way of inflating the club's value for a future sale with minimum investment. If we go to 60k now we need to be able to increase it in future or we will still be left behind on matchday revenues.

I do have big doubts on that one. Said it quite early in this thread I didn't want him at Anfield and don't think he'll be a hit there as I've watched him dozens of times and barely remember more than the one or two good games. There was lot of talk a few pages back about how they'll be invincible with these new signings if they get Sneijder. Sneijder is a cracking player and I think he'd improve them but I remember all this talk when they signed Van Nistelrooy and Veron and when Chelsea brought in Shevchenko. I honestly think other players they have signed will add depth but don't think any of them will improve If you have a good team blend adding a host of players does not necessarily make you better and it will be interesting to see how they all fit in when the season starts. I'm not convinced they will be that great.

Sums up how I feel. We actually finished 4th the season we came close to the league after failing to beat Sheffield Wednesday (who were down to 10 men for the last 20 minutes with a striker in goal). A win would have put us second and into the Champions League. There was just a complete lack of backbone about the team and it led to calls for Paul Ince to provide as the 'final piece of the jigsaw'. We got even worse after he joined and the team naturally got broken up shortly after.

You've just read it wrong. He meant 3 players in our box at all times not the opposition box.

Happy enough with Sunderland at home to start with but considering all of the changes we'll hopefully be making I would have liked four better away games for the players to bed in than the ones we start with.

There was another thread a month or so back and I said Stoke away so I'm sticking to that!

I would say Riise. Just a shame he didn't have the accuracy to match on most occasions.

Reading the snippet about how Adam fancies playing centre half makes me wonder if Kenny sees him as a sweeper in the way he did with Jan Molby. Not sure whether that would work in the modern game but it's an interesting thought all the same.

I don't think they *actually* will but wouldn't rule out Bruce stumping up a fortune for one of their rejects at all and if Ngog is worth 7 million then why not?!

I agree on the midfielder part but in my opinion Young is a much poorer player than either Valencia or Nani. If the rumours of Nani leaving and being replaced by Young are true then I think it's a big step backwards for them. In fact if it meant we went after someone else I'd be delighted all round with it. I think Jones has a lot of potential but as with any young centre half still makes the odd mistake. When I saw him play at the back end of the season he looked a couple of stone overweight as well although I'm sure they'll get him back into shape. I'd expect him to take Evans' spot in their squad which is an improvement like-for-like and I'd expect someone like Sunderland to buy him for a similar transfer fee to the one they're paying Blackburn so it won't have cost them a penny.

This is a sign that we definitely are moving forward.

We were watching a different player from 09/10 then. I remember being at Bolton about 4 games in and everyone was talking about his lack of effort and body language. He scored that day too but that was the beginning of the end that came 18 months later for me. Too many broken promises was the initial cause although obviously this wouldn't excuse the way he went about leaving in the end.