el matador

go to the ibis hotel in shipley. they have nice sofas, a decent tele and nobody else there. people are nice too.

I know but at least his gut was 6 foot wide.

not the same type of player. He's more of a creator than a destroyer that masher was. At 5 8' i dont think that physically he'd be up for the fight in the EPL but cant doubt the lads quality.

with all due respect I can state this to be a fact. Muslims will not wear liverpool tops which carry the carlsberg branding. Now that its standard chartered expect the shirts to be flying off the rails and it is. I get the bit about the protest but why expect people to give up their tickets - why not just buy the ticket but not go. This way you get to keep your ticket because trying to buy a season ticket is impossible.

the boycott of the shirt probably would have impacted if carlsberg were still the official club sponsor. Now that the alcohol related branding has been taken off the shirt, you can bet that a lot of muslims - pakistini's, banglaseshi's, thai, north africans, middle east and of course bradfordians will be going out in their millions and buying it. Therefore, it is already the fastest selling shirt of all time and any boycott is completely pointless and absurd. Liverpool football club is not confined to a liverpool postcode fellas.

fucking ace replacement for masher then

The other big thing you need to produce top players is poverty. I know its horrible to say but the lads from the estates are where the footballers come from. People like zidane and gerrard and rooney all come from council estates and their parents didnt have anything to offer them. They didnt go to school and spent all day kicking a football around the streets. They looked at what other kids had and wanted it too. you can see it in youth football. Generally the lads from the poorer areas have more desire to succeed, more desire to win back the ball if they've lost it, more desire to fight to play football. In fact at some pro academies like bradford city, the coaches look for the street kid mentality as opposed to silky technical ability. They want players that are ready to run through brick walls for you. The brazil thing is quite different as I once read a coaches perspective on brazilian players and he basically said that by the time the players sign for pro clubs at the age of 16 plus, they already have excellent technical ability and for them its all about the right fitness, and tactical coaching ie where to play on the pitch and how to integrate into the teams' patterns of play but no technical coaching at all. The lads from the favellas tend to play in 20 a-side matches and if you lose the ball easily there's a chance you wont touch it for another 20 mins. If there was ever a reason to be technically good on the ball and strong in posession then that is probably it.

if anyone wants to see the problems with our game then just go a few youth games ie under 9 or 10. see what happens there and then maybe you'll understand why there is such a dearth of creative or technically able players in the england team. in particular look at the coaches behaviour towards kids than are 9 or 10 years old. its a fucking disgrace how they shout at kids and look at the midfield areas. sky are making a huge deal about how the players look scared to play football and as soon as a lad gets the ball he's under pressure straight away and the first instruction from the coach is "get rid of it". you wont find many creative midfield players there. its all power, pace and height so its no real surprise that we're technically inferior to foreign teams. the whole system is flawed.

they are taught that the result is more important than the manner of achieving it and we play a more direct style of football throughout the whoe system from the age of 5 to pro's. you just need to look at englands midfield two of lampard and barry to see that they arent anywhere the standard of xavi, alonso or iniesta. I know they are genuinely world class players but we are england and we too should have world class midfield players who are comfortable on the ball and bar gerrard we dont. what we are seeing on the pitch is the cumulative effect of what goes on through the footballing sytem in england.

The reply to this is quite simple. The reasons for the youth players in this country being technically inferior to european or continental teams are: 1. from a young age football training is geared more towards fitness and speed than technical ability. Most of the work done is without the ball. 2. usually, the smaller players tend to be technically better than the bigger ones but because of the importance placed on speed and strength, they get knocked off the ball easier and lose confidence or arent given enough confidence to play their natural game. 3. the coaches in this country are obsessed with winning matches / competitons which mean you play your strongest team every time - meaning the strongest players are always picked - not necessarily the most technically gifted ones. I can tell you with 100% certainty that winning matches at youth level comes at the cost of developping players' all round ability and understanding of the game. There is a strong emphasis on tactical formations as opposed to allowing players to express themselves. 4. young players arent encouraged to try tricks and dribble with the ball and if they lose it they are castigated and bollocked. No wonder we dont produce decent creative players. 5. parents are a pain in the arse and put too much pressure on kids in academies to produce and play. 6. the footballing infrastructure in this country is pretty poor and the state of the pitches arent conducive to playing a passing game or improving technical ability. Add to that the shit weather and you have boggy / muddy pitches and with all due respect even zidane and figo would struggle to move the ball on them. 7. the level of coaching is also pretty poor. The FA standard for coaching kids is level 1 which is really basic and you often have people who have no understanding of the game and have never played football at any level teaching 5 year olds how to pass a ball. Basically the entire system is wrong and there is too much importance placed on results as opposed to developping players all round game. This means making your top prospects play several positions as opposed to the one in which they excel, and letting them try things on the pitch and figure the game out for themselves, asking parents to keep quiet on the sidelines and getting the right coaches who encourage players to try step overs and drag backs and dont shout at players when they lose the ball.

someone said that purslow let it slip during phone calls with irrate fans that we have done a deal for toure. Im not saying its true.

im sure platini would find a way around it for real madrid, barcelona and juventus

i dont think it would be fair to carra to chuck him into the deep end. There's absolutely no reason why he has to go and manage somewhere else ie in the lower leagues to get some experience. He can handle the reserves or learn his trade under our first team manager and step up in 2 / 3 seasons. Pep Guardiola did it and im sure carra could have the same impact. He's been under souness, evans, houllier, benitez and a host of england managers. Tactically he will exceptionally strong and everyone says that he's a proper student of the game. 1 seasons with reserves, a couple seasons as jose's understudy should give him the confidence he needs to take this job on. There wont be a single complaint from any true liverpool fan because carra is lfc through and through.

im not o'neills biggest fan. For me its got to be mourinho - even with a restricted budget he would get more out of what we have then benitez did. If we cant get mourinho then i still wouldnt look at o'neill, mark hughes, guus hiddink (we could buy his contract out with turkey i think) or even pellegrini from real madrid will be out of a job come may. Hiddink or mourinho would be good choices but mark hughes has proved that he knows how to manage in the EPL and has a winners mentality.

I coach under 8's football. You can coach almost any player to hit the ball correctly so that technically they understand how they must approach the ball, balance themselves and then follow through with the kick. It doesnt mean that every kid can get the shot right because as the others have said, some kids are naturally better at it than others. It has a bit to do with gait, balance co-ordination and finally power. Some kids are just born able to hit the ball really powerfully and its not always down to size although bigger lads tend to have the advantage when it comes to power. Just getting the technique right can add to the power. The smaller players tend to be better technically and although may not have the power they have the accuracy. But by this age, you generally tend to know which boys are better at powerful shots and or placements than others.

i dont think its quite as straight forward as raising £100m for a 50% equity stake in Liverpool Football Club. Proof would also have to be given that the new stakeholder also has the resources to part-finance the build for the proposed stadium and put in further revenue into the club for the day to day or transfers. The total amount needed would probably be somewhere in the region of £250 - £300m. I still dont think its beyond share liverpool but they need to canvas opinion immediately because reports suggest that time is running out.

it was reported that pep guardiola was also looking at him when he first became 1st team coach of barcelona and said that on his day he was the best left winger in europe. He needs confidence and when he's on form and fully up for it he can be a real handful. Just ask daniel alves whom he tore apart during an espanyol v sevilla game

Ive seen the poster he's on about. Its just off the deansgate in manchester and its fucking hilarious - its not small either. It is a right royal piss take but a little underhand and cheeky but cos its united its funny. Now if Everton did that to us i'd be fuming.

i dont think its going to be straight forward for united to replace him because their entire team was built around Ronaldo - £80m to spend or not. Rooney was played out of place to accomodate him, other forwards like tevez and berbatov have been utilised only when it suited united to move ronaldo deeper. They will need to find a new way of playing and its not going to be easy. The man they probably thought could fill his boots has also gone to Madrid (Kaka) and there's no one else available who is probably worth 20 or so points a season. They might go back to the old united that used to take teams on from all angles as opposed to the cautious united that we have seen in recent seasons. Relying on a strong defence with ronaldo to nick one for them in the big games. Whatever they do, they wont be able to replace him and those 20 points a season that they are going to be worse off without him. Even if they get a couple of top class players in who are worth an extra 15 points combined it might not be enough. Messi apart - there's no one else out there that could cause the kind of damage that ronaldo could and they wont be getting him.

I would have thought that RBS were probably already 'presiding over an orderly sale' phase and that they had 'this is the last chance saloon' meeting last time when the loan was extended. RBS were probably the most relaxed bank when it came to corporate lending and some of the stuff you hear (and experience) is just a complete and utter joke. We need to put this into some perspective. If it suited our owners to put us into administration then they wouldnt hesitate in doing it - after all the administrators would protect the owners and their club from RBS, any payments for players due to other clubs, wages for players and any other cost associated with operations. In brief, it is a short term tactic to keep the business going for the immediate future whilst the administrator works with the owners to resolve the solvency / debt issues and to see if the business can be sold as an ongoing concern. If RBS said to Hicks and co, we want our money in 31st december 2009 at midnight or face re-posession, and they hadnt sold us or found another investor, you can bet that come 31st december 2009 at 11.50pm or whatever we would be in administration. that's the major worry, that if we're having a good season and the ownership issue isnt resolved it might be for nothing.

a business normally goes into administration to 'seek immediate protection from its creditors'. If RBS / wachovia called in the entire loan and hicks and gillett couldnt pay it or sell the club quick enough - they would have no hesitation in putting us into administration. I would do the exact same thing.