Vulmea

guess it explains why some of you dont get/like/rate benitez - he follows the total football school of footie - players need to be capable of both attack and defence - the team attacks as a unit and defends as a unit - there's no room in that for players that just do one or the other - thats the 'theory' anyway - they need to have the football intelligence he's talks about - Amoo, 100m school champ wasn't he ? he's going to blow most opposition away in the stiffs with pace alone - he also looks to have good balance and looks good with the ball at his feet - not sure he has a clue in terms of teh team though - and if the team is supposed to work as a unit that will stick out like a sore thumb -

going forward maybe - defensively worse than Babel and I never thought I'd get those words in a sentence

I thought this kid signed a 3 year deal last year? In which case why are we offering him a new one? I've been wrong before mind but if we are offering a new one I can't think it would be worse terms than what he's on - so an extension maybe - in which case he's probably spot on waiting to see whether he's been given a chance in the next year or so.

think there are better examples of players he has developed Biscan, Traore he actually got decent games out of somehow Carra - became a top drawer centre back Baros had one sublime spell when he lifted his head off his chest before he put it back down again Finnan was on his way out before Rafa turned up he's also failed notably with Cisse, Morientes, Babel, Keane, Dossena, Paletta. strong throughout a season - no evidence of that for me - always a major slump which follows us 'being out of the title race' or oddly enough 'top of the table' still didn't use the beach ball as an excuse nor pretend Ngog was a penalty - plenty would have - think he has a lot of dignity - lost it at Spurs though - maybe he could see what was coming

could be because he's 3 inches taller and part psycho just guessing though......

Is my memory gone or did we used to have one player on one post, with the keeper covering the other? Is that player now doing a man marking role? I presume you can't just extend a players area because you'd increase their chance of not making the ball, getting cut/blocked off etc. A man on the post is 'zonal marking' isn't it? so are we actually asking for zonal marking rather than man marking?

Think now we only have the one academy things should begin to settle down but I dont see the squad size getting much smaller. Two full squads of 25 is probably based on what rafa is used to in spain, effectively two separate teams but here we have the senior squad and an U21 squad. Wouldn't surprise me to see the Premier League create an U21 league in the future should bring in even more mmmoney. Hopefully the way it will work is rather than bringing in squad fillers we should start to trust the qaulity of kids coming through So next season the likes of voronin, degen, kyrgiakos, el zhar, carvalieri 'should' disapear and pacheco, ayala, eccleston, gulacsi, take their places - the owners should be happy as it'll save them transfer fees, signing on fees and high wages but the squad size will probably stay roughly the same.

Dont think it is about an early goal think its about having the confidence to batter the shite out of them for 90+ minutes - setting us up for a run of results through to Christmas which if other results go our way could see us back challenging - Chelsea have a few tricky games coming up, so do we

Interesting - who was or is it so marginal it shifts about?

How many of the current squad would you keep ? For me there are just 8 who need to go sooner rather than later- Dossena - not settled Babel - too inconsistent Voronin - has not worked Plessis - not going to be good enough Reira - not strong enough El Zhar -oldest youngster in world football Degen - no explanation needed Kyrgiakos - we've already played Bolton away The rest (16) can do a job. As for the 'others' our reserves actually look very decent at the moment (well apart from Flora, Brouwer, and Weijl) hopeful more than a couple could be added to the squad next year especially Mavinga, Ayala, Pacheco and Gulacsi could save us a shed load of money

christ my minds going - I just thought clemence was bob wilson trying to think of a mistake

Dida has to be one of the most over-rated doesn't he - never seen him have a good game. Never liked Shilton too slow Clemence was a complete sweeper-keeper and incredibly agile but he still made some high profile gaffs - Banks was good but would never make it now - there was alittle fella about as well then Green I think his name was - in fact there were a few little guys who were great - no chance in todays game Jennings was fantastic hands like dinner plates -if he'd been engllish he'd have been number 1 For individual saves James is unbelievable - shame about the rest of it Schmeichel and Southall and for me to think they were the top they must have been absolutely fantastic Reina (brilliant and taken keeper distribution to a new level) still to prove it in big games though for me bit like Clem if he's going to make a rickett its normally in a big one - FA Cup final, Cl final, united at old trafford, CL last year

look I know I'm really dense , I'm probably senile as well but if we finish 5th why is it a disgrace? Is it because we are Liverpool, because Benitez should be doing better after 5 years, because we've sent 200 million, all of the above or something else?

The reserves died because the first team squad kept being extended - those players then couldn't play in the stiffs the quality therefore went down - the first team squads were extended because the game became dominated by the rich clubs, more subs benefits only the bigger teams -players became assets - just another factor for success in football being more about money than anything else

sack Hughes - he's had 245 mil to spend, all his buys are shit, he can't build a squad.....wait a moment..............

really dont get why you want to be so argumentative. I said Wilshere was the bollocks in my reply, then you lecture me on him. Wenger has been there 13 years and you are talking about 2 players that have not yet made it. He buys fantastic youngsters - Van Persie(19) after two seasons in Holland, Fabregas(16) debuted after a month, Toure(20), Clichy(18), Song(19), Diaby 20 after 2 years in french league, Vela from Mexico at 16 and shipped out on loan for 2 years, Traore(17)- Monaco, Merida(16) Barcelona, Ramsey - Cardiff 5 million, Walcott - Saints 12 million............ I've said he is brilliant at what he does but the 'arsenal youngsters' tag is a joke. Again not sure why you are so angry. The Arsenal team has no one from the academy - Gibbs isn't a regular - he has exactly the same look as Traore his predecesor, who's now disapeared after an avaerge loan spell at Portsmouth, Clichy is clearly first choice and yes Gibbs played in the CL and was mullered giftiing United 2 goals - - he's a kid with talent and yet to prove himself. discount the first few years because those kids would already have been in the system when he arrived name the list of arsenal academy graduates from the last 10 years..... pretty short list

again I agree hardwork should be a given but plenty of players in the top sides dont deliver it - but there are also players who's industry exceeds whats is expected _ all of the top 4 have and do use that type of player Kuyt is a player who is not technically the best but tries to compensate for that with 10 or 15% more graft than the rest and even in our title winning teams we had those players - renowned for industry over ability - Johnstone, Houghton, Cally as he got one all notably down our right side and not to provide football by the numbers its about balance, when he first arrived we had Garcia operating from the right, he's also tried Pennant and Benni in that role and most successfully Gerrard - its not a fear of creativity - at Valencia he used the same balanced approach attacking left sided player and hardworking right sided player -

yes I am for real - how many players has he brought through from the Arsenal academy? How many in the curent first team - None - he buys in the talent and then polishes it - he's had 13 years and they've produced ashley cole.......... What he is fantastic at is spotting great young players on the fringe of stardom - but you can't claim he 'developed' Fabregas - bought at 16 debuted at 16 one month later. Clichy had completed a season in French league 2 before Wenger signed him at 18, Song cost a million again after a season in French league 2 19 years old, and was chased by Inter, United etc the list goes on and on - Arsenal have a wage cap yet are the 4th highest wage payers because they attract the very best young talent in the world and pay them big bucks - the 'Arsenal academy' have produced very little of their ownl - Wilshere does look the bollocks though because they are young and unknown does not mean arsenal developed them

I see what you are saying but its your idea that he was supposed to improve us as opposed to be good enough to do a job until we had the funds - he cost 2.5 mil and we already had Finn the implication is he was bought in to strengthen the squad not improve the first team - he was good enough but not top drawer

This thread gets worse -he's bought in 48 kids between 15 and 18. 20 or so of those were 16 or younger. In the last 10 years the adademy produced Warnock.............but yet great coaches brillient blokes but producing one decent player since they were set up is a bit of a pisser Wenger brings in kids by the bucketload - how many of Wengers wonders in their first team? How many academy graduates? That would be 0. How many in his 13 years? Benitez is adopting teh same policy bringing in good kids - like Wenger has done with Clichy, Fabregas - those just on the edge of breaking through - Benitez is it for peanuts compared with Wenger buysing Walcott, Ramsey, Denilson for over 20 million. In terms of buys Arbeloa was brilliant - plucked from nowhere - comes in plays leftback and marks Messi out the game in Barcelona - to suggest he's a failure says it all really the deck being ever so slightly loaded He came is as back-up to Finn originally thats why he cost peanuts and as Finn lost his pace and consistency he replaced him - Another issue with that list it assumes everybody is supposed to come in and be a good first team player - they aren't - because we are strapped for cash they are there to do a job - Carson was a back-up keper for a million kid with the chnace of being a big hit - he wasn't but did ok as back-up and then was sold - that is a success - he's not a great player but he came in and did the job he was bought for.

firstly the club goes on - no demise I'm aware of - think w are ranked 3 in europe second we dont live in tabloid land - there is no one reason for us no longer being as successful as we were Hillsborough, Managers, Sky TV, Uefa and their ridiculous rules, Abramovich, Ferguson, athleticism, they have all played a part in taking the game form being about football to finances, from a working class game to a middle class entertainment - its as much about how the game has changed as anything thts happened on the pitch or with LFC.

Kuyt consistently works hard - it doesn't always produce results - but his off the ball contribution however headless chicken it is can be relied on regardless of his touch, goals etc. If the choice is Babel or Kuyt its pretty easy to see why Rafa would select Kuyt - you may not get the flash of brilliance we saw from Babel on wednesday but you will get hard work, team shape and discipline which can provide a platform for one of the others to provide that spark.

The policy? What buying players? If you need about 20 players you should expect to go through about 30 to get there on if you are any good. Not trusting the academy? We saying that actually the likes of Barnett and Lindfield would have been good enough if given the encouragement?

when benitez arrived he had a core of decent players but out of a squad of 30 players 20 or so where not good enough If you accept we need a decent squad of 25 players then he was missing 15+ players. In his first year he brought in just 5 for the first team if you include Cisse but Murphy and Owen were sold. The next year he brought in 7 but again other players left. Th third year another 9 - if he'd have got them all right we'd have had a full squad by then - he didn't - but whats the expectation 50% right, 75%? Either way he was still well short. So the next year it was 9 in again but we were also shipping out players even so - we finally had a decent squad. The next year, it went badly wrong - those players he brought in weren't good enough - and we lost a lot of players - for the first time the quality of the squad went backwards - we finished 2nd because the squad strength wasn't severely tested - but it showed in all those draws. The start of this season was the chnace to remedy the mistakes - ship out the dead wood - but the finances were cut from under us - we've now only got 2 of Geds core players left - and we replaced 6 players with 3 - the squad went backwards although the first 11 looked to be maintained. Those players that didn't work out are still around stinking out the squad. So if its true he needed to bring in 20 players to start -how many players should he have signed? 20? 30? 40? Since then he's also needed to replace the 8 or so decent players Ged left behind - again how many buys 8? 12? 16? If you look at the pro's he's signed and ignore the kids - he signed 40 players not 70 odd, 40. If you dont want to ignore the kids he's signed 48 of them including 20 16 years old or younger - our academy could have trained 96 in that same period. And despite the exageration nobody knows what they've cost they are generally on deals based on appearances and progress. In terms of quality as many of those have debuted in the first team as academy graduates and many more are rated highly.

I don’t think ‘money’ is the issue as much as what the player was brought in to do. To judge all players as needing to be a major success in the first team to be successful is missing the point of some of the buys. Carson for example – was brought in as a back-up keeper with the potential to become top drawer - - - he wasn’t goof enough for top drawer but he was decent back-up – however being back-up was no good for him and rather than have an unhappy player we sold him (for 3 times as much) – he must have been a ‘success; because his value actually rose – i.e. he was a better player when he left than when we bought him - - so he was a success on and off the pitch. The likes of Zenden, Carvalieri were brought in not for the first team but to provide balance – should somebody like Zenden have to perform like Ronaldo to be a success?