Liverpool

Rafa Benitez has to show his ruthless side, and for the good of the team sell Xabi Alonso and others, it is a gamble as he will leave the team light on cover, but it is a gamble he simply has to take.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the new American owners simply do not have the cash to inject into the club that will give Benitez the same spending power as his counterparts at Manchester United and Chelsea, and to improve his squad and it does need improving to truly compete at the very top, then it looks like he will be forced to sell to bring in the players that are needed.
Some money may be given for new players, but it was clear to see against the game against Man Utd that Liverpool have still got a fair way to overhauling the Champions.
Up front Liverpool have a world class striker in Fernando Torres, but sadly he is the only striker that looks like he could turn a game on his own and that other teams really fear. Crouch if given a decent run of games alongside the Spaniard looks the most likely to form a formidable partnership with Torres, as he also has that eye for goal but maybe more than he can offer is needed to turn Liverpool into genuine title contenders, Ryan Babel could be good up front but for the moment as he develops he seems more like cover for the wings and possibly up front.
Kuyt and Voronin are very similar players, both very hard working and although its great to see strikers tracking back and helping out their teammates, their first priority is to score goals and both these players sadly lack that killer instinct and that confidence that all the great strikers have that allows them to be selfish and go for goal at any opportunity. Players like Kuyt and Voronin can be useful in some games if Benitez feels that more cover is needed for midfield but in most games the strikers should have confidence that the midfield can do their job and should just concentrate on doing their job which is to score goals, its as simple as that. Liverpool do not need two players like this and selling Kuyt is the better option as more money would be recouped from his sale.
Another striker of Torres caliber is required because he cannot catapult Liverpool to the league title on his own and Liverpool are already to reliant on him and if he gets injured points will be lost so another top class striker is needed to really threaten opposition defences and to cover in the event of injury.

In central midfield Liverpool are blessed with three world class players in Gerrard, Mascherano and Alonso. They also have Sissoko and the young Brazilian Lucas who many predict will be in that world class bracket sooner rather than later.
Gerrard has cemented his central berth so the other four players are fighting it out to play alongside him and although cover is needed, Liverpool have invested far too much of their resource’s in this position when the money could be used for strenghtening other positions which would benefit the teams progress much more. Money is needed to permanently sign Mascherano, Xabi Alonso should be sold to pay for this. Alonso is a great player with vision and incisive passing he is one of the very best, but Mascherano is better for the team, his non-stop snapping at the heels and break up of play takes pressure off the defence and allows Gerrard to attack more. Lucas and for now Sissoko will have to be enough cover.
It would be great to keep all these great players, but the simple truth is Liverpool cannot afford to.
Whatever money the owners put in, if any, and the funds raised by the sales of any other players should be spent on a long term, first class partner for Torres up front and the money from Alonso`s sale should be used to secure the long term future of Mascherano at the club. Other players such as Riise and even Crouch should be considered for sale if we need to raise the money for a second world class striker, it is that crucial to the further development of the team. Two top strikers will convert a lot more of the possession that Liverpool get into points and also make the opposing teams think more about defending the Liverpool threat taking pressure off the Liverpool defence.

Liverpool need to take a gamble, they may leave themselves light in cover in some positions but its a gamble that they need to take because at the moment the current squad is just short of what is required to make a serious title challenge and Benitez should concentrate on getting his first eleven right and then think about building cover for them.

Its a risk but its something that has to be done unless a huge amount of cash is released by the American owners, or Liverpool will once again at the end of the season be at best a top four team and that is simply not good enough for Liverpool football club.

Liverpool fans were brought back to earth by Man Utd`s victory at Anfield, but many fans, myself included were expecting too much too early from a team still being rebuilt after nearly two decades of neglect.
Much has been said recently about Rafa Benitez`s future at Liverpool, but let me lay my cards on the table now, i believe if we let the canny Spaniard leave Anfield for any reason it will set us back another two decades in our hunt for that ever elusive Premiership title.
I have not agreed with a lot of his decisions, i believe he over-rotates our players ,and as good as Dirk Kuyt is and we always hear how hard working he is, most of his hard work is defensive although we have the most formidable central midfield in not just England but in Europe so why does one of our strikers spend so much time and energy following players all the way to our penalty box and then leaving Torres all alone up front when the break does come, please have a little more faith in our defence. Torres works hard and defends from the front but he knows that his main job is to score goals and anything else is just a bonus for the team but defending from the front seems to be Kuyt`s main occupation, Crouch has his problems but he realises that his first priority is goals and he really should be playing more.Rafa does need to be more adventurous because our defence is good and we will score more goals than we concede.
Some of Rafa`s signings have been questionable, but he has always showed his ruthless side and quickly got rid of his mistake signatures at the first opportunity.
But what Rafa does give us is a clear plan. He has swelled the youth ranks from the finest that could be found from all over Europe and beyond, building up the most enviable list of young talent that can be found in England, which also signals that, given his choice he is in this for the long haul.

Despite the recent loss to the fiercest enemy of all Man Utd, Liverpool under Benitez are heading in the right direction and are improving all the time under his stewardship and will only get better and better when the new players signed in the summer get more settled. Football changed the day Roman injected his Rubles into the game, now there are no quick fixes to winning the Premiership, Liverpool are basically outgunned by the financial muscle of Chelsea and Man Utd so we have to follow Arsenals`s blueprint for success in buying young players and letting them come through the ranks and then spending our money on top quality to get a blend of players that makes us true competitors once again.
For a team to win the Prem for a consistent period of time a winning mentality is built up in that squad and as players get older that mentality is passed on to the younger players so at the beginning of the season they actually believe that they will win the league and only by some mishap they wont. Man utd have that mentality, Liverpool were their fore bearers, but when Graham Souness sold the spine of the Liverpool team, he also sold that winning mentality and we have never been able to recover it.

Given time Rafa will accomplish that `WE WILL WIN´thinking into the Liverpool camp but he needs time, he is at an disadvantage because of the other clubs financial clout, but he has not held up his hands and said that its too much of an uphill battle, instead he has staked his reputation on transforming every level at the club, starting with the youth to provide a decent chance of producing our own gems and maybe just maybe by buying a few of the best and mixing them with our own prospects we may just get that winning mentality back again, and once again bring the league back home but it will not be easy and patience is needed, but without patience we may just lose the one man that can go against all the odds and money that the other clubs have and lose the chance to once again put Liverpool Football Club at the pinnacle of English football.

honestly speaking, i would rather the team play well and lose instead of scrapping a draw in every match. we are awful during the first half. we cant even string more than 3 passes together and the players look like headless chicken running aimlessly on the pitch. the defence was pathetic and Arbeloa was completely useless. we do not have the desire to win the match right from the very beginning.

newcastle was woeful, liverpool was ordinary. that about sums up the match. we nv move out of 1st gear…din really need to do that as well. newcastle was kinda toothless in front of our goalmouth. and during the first 30 mins, we practically camped in their half. gerrard scored a beauty. caught the replay of that freekick numerous time and i think he did really well to curl the ball in, despite

caught the game at 1am local time last nite and tbh, i almost knocked out on a few occasions only to be ‘revived’ by the caffeine in my body. we were woeful. totally toothless up front and seriously lack of creativity. nobody noes what to do next once the ball is out of our own half. everyone just passes the ball around, not willing to take the responsibility to initiate an attack.

kuyt was shit

While Dunk slept — sorry, waited to hear confirmation from the Anfield Mole — the few remaining members on KopTalk started to make rather a lot of noise. Where was the update they’d been led to expect? Who was the ‘high profile’ agent Dunk’s contact had revealed would visit Melwood?
They found out in time, but […]

You wait an age for Dunk to tear himself away from LiveVideo long enough to concoct some bullshit, then he belches some out twice in a weekend. Having had my fill of the Sunday papers’ weekly quota of rubbish, I logged into KopTalk and found the following gem:
#168190 - Sun Feb 10 2008 02:48 AM […]

I’ve been very busy lately, with work commitments somewhat curtailing my opportunities to write here, and other contributors have also been distracted by various issues in their real lives. However, this isn’t a blog about us; it’s a blog about KopTalk, a site that trades off the good name of Liverpool FC, and exploits unwary […]

It’s almost a year since Dunk created the account GGLFC for George Gillett and claimed he had paid for the membership with his personal credit card. After being told by Gillett to cancel whatever membership he may have had on Koptalk, Dunk finally deleted the account a few months later. http://koptalkinsider.wordpress.com/2007/05/25/george-gillett-cancels-his-koptalk-membership/
Today Dunk has opened a […]

As the festive season fades back out, we all stock up on sale bargains, and we’re still consuming far more food and drink than is healthy (unlike some website owners, who do that all year round). Many of us also tend to become quite retrospective, looking back over the year that’s about to end and […]