'

i'm sure you'd be creaming your pants at the sight of that strike force david...

forlan and torres :p am i right in saying it only lacks suarez? :p

GET ON IT HODGSON!

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=830147&sec=transfers&campaign=rss&source=soccernet&cc=3436

Roy's nightmare not over yet
Published by Early Doors Mon Oct 04 08:49AM

Early Doors, like almost everyone else, likes Roy Hodgson. How could you not?

His calm, avuncular demeanour is a soothing presence in a Premier League managers' union populated by tantrum-throwing, gum-chewing Scots, paranoid Gallic conspiracy theorists and crafty schemers with delusions of grandeur.

So hopes were high that Uncle Woy would bring a degree of order and sanity with him from west London to Anfield when he made the move north this summer.

However, with Liverpool's 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Blackpool - whose earlier trips to Arsenal and Chelsea saw them ship 10 goals without reply - even Hodgson's sturdy psychological defences, built up over 35 years of management amassing a CV broader than Stephen Fry's, have taken a hefty knock.

After his gamble in playing Fernando Torres backfired after just 10 minutes, the rest of his 'players' contriving to put in an insipid 'performance' and his home fans so utterly resigned to their club's demise that many applauded their tangerine vanquishers off the pitch, Hodgson looked and sounded like a broken man.

"Their great result is our nightmare result," he said. "It is a very bad day and there is nothing I can say.

"At the moment things look bleak and really bad and it is difficult for me to put a bright face upon it. There are 31 games left but when you are in the relegation zone you are in a relegation battle."

Indeed they are in the relegation zone, going into the international break in the bottom three for the first time in 46 years. The last time they won just one of their opening seven league matches, in 1953, they went down.

It was all very well falling back on the fact that at least they got meetings with Arsenal and Manchester United out of the way early, but that means little if you lose to Blackpool and Northampton in your own back yard.

And, with an international break fraught with injury peril for his players to negotiate before they travel to Goodison Park - two days after the debt payment deadline that could well see the club taken over by RBS, no less - Roy may not be waking up from his nightmare for a while yet.

Hodgson's success at Fulham which landed him the Liverpool job was built upon drilling a strong, committed nucleus of players into a system that made them hard to beat, but that takes time to set in. Just look at how the Cottagers clicked into gear at the end of Hodgson's first season there, when they avoided relegation on the final day.

This season has long since been written off as a restructuring exercise, theoretically giving Hodgson the time and space he needs to build a new era at the club freed from the restraints of over-ambition that will remain unfulfilled under the ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

ED fears, however, that he won't be given that time. Whoever eventually takes over at the club may want to bring in their own man, and the less they know about the game, the more precarious Hodgson's position. They way things are going at the moment, RBS may even exchange him for shamed former chief executive Fred 'the Shred' Goodwin.

Liverpool fans should keep their fingers crossed that Liverpool's eventual new owners will rightly see Hodgson as a key component in the club's revival, rather than a reason for its demise.

Reina's always welcome at the Emirates:lol:

Reina's always welcome at the Emirates:lol:

=I wouldn't be too surprised to see Torres and Reina leave in the January transfer window.

Wont work for a large number of reasons that I am too concussed and in to much of a rush to explain but quite simply it will not work in England.

Aren't Barcelona in massive amounts of debt? :-k

Hey how about Liverpool take on that policy that the supporters run the club? I'm sure there's enough of them to get good money in and then no one can boycott buying anything just because of the members. Don't laugh at me for saying this, Barcelona is owned and operated by it's fans and it's sure working well for them.

Hey how about Liverpool take on that policy that the supporters run the club? I'm sure there's enough of them to get good money in and then no one can boycott buying anything just because of the members. Don't laugh at me for saying this, Barcelona is owned and operated by it's fans and it's sure working well for them.