I don't think so. It's good for marketing, will open up opportunities in the US, and places like China too that are basketball mad. Found an interesting post on RAWK:



Interesting insight.

Short of wearing a Liverpool tracksuit to and from games, I don't think it's going to make that much difference for us.

Yeah... but it could have an impact on FSG which will then be beneficial to us.

IT would have to be a significant corporate impact to make any real difference tbh. And I can't see that happening. I mean, I'm hopeful that this could be a big marketing play in American markets for us, but I just can't see it happening.

Gerrard out for the rest of the season.

Yeah, saw it on LFC. Disappointing.

Hopefully he moves Meireles back into the middle. Our best football under Roy was with a Meireles-Lucas partnership, and I think they are a fantastic duo together.

I'm far more concerned about the backline :lol: With Kelly, Johnson and Dagger out, it's not good reading.

He might play Carroll and Suarez up top, Kuyt on the right, Meireles and Lucas in the middle, and then Cole or Maxi on the left. Who knows at the back.... probably Fabio-Skrtel-Soto-Carra. So bereft of pace :lol:

They're dropping like flies at the moment. First Kelly, then Agger and now Gerrard all out for the rest of the season.

Fortunately we've got Aurelio coming back into things, but I'm still not filled with confidence at our lack of defensive options. Kuyt as a right wingback so that Carragher can play at CB with Skrtel? Every time I see Soto on the team sheet I wince.

Yeah, and I also heard that John Toshack is coming back as a second choice goalie.

You say that, but he's got a decent tackle on him, and I'd rather have any percieved weakness out on the right side there than at the center of defence with Soto on the park.

Just like the Arsenal fans. Earlier in the season, you guys were praising him saying what a machine he is, now he is a waste of space.

Which one is it? I agree with your current evaluation of him.

I personally wasn't. Soto played some good games, but any side with some pace to their attack is going to rip him apart. He played well in the european clashes against mediocre sides. That's all. He was adequate cover for the last 20 minutes of a game. He's NOT the kind of guy you want in your defence for 90 minutes.

I wasn't aware that a player plays at exactly the same level at every stage of the season? He was in great form early in the season, and now he is in shit form. We wanted him to play then, we don't now. What is wrong with that?

Obviously as a United fan it's hard for him to differentiate the change from "He's terrible. Sell him...oh wait, he scored, HE'S A CLUB ICON AND HERO!" and the change from "He's playing quite well, might have been a good signing there. Oh wait, he's out of form and playing like crap atm, I'd rather we didn't have to resort to him".

Just weird, when they have a good game they are praised (rightly so) but then after a bad game, they are the worst defenders ever. Every club has a lot of fans like that, none more than some of ourr glory hunters but you guys are better than that.

On another note, I am going away for a bit, as the anniversary of Hillsborough is coming up, thought I would drop in and pay my respects as I won't be online then.

RIP to everyone involved and all other footballing tragedies.

I'm a little bit surprised that we're not playing on the anniversary date tbh.

TBF for most level headed fans it's not just after one game, it's after repeated shit performances. I know it's like that with most Arsenal fans regarding Squillaci at least.

Squillaci would be a lot more effective in europe than in the EPL probably.

We all know Soto's shortfalls, and it's a shame he was exposed so badly against WBA. He is great in some situations and good as a backup, but with so many injuries it's a shame we HAVE to play him, even if it is against an opponent he will struggle against.



Cheers for that mate.

In Soto's defence, he did to a quality job on Berbatov against United. But any striker with any rudments of pace is going to make him about as useful as a school boy, as we saw with Odemwingie. Unfortunately our upcoming opponents are going to be trouble.

v City, Tevez.
v Arsenal, Walcott.
v Spurs, Defoe.

He might be ok on Zigic and Zamora when we play Birmingham and Fulham though. Fortunatley Best is out for Newcastle too.

We should have Johnson back by the spurs game anyway.

It's not the pace, because he has relatively good awareness and positioning - it's the clumsiness that's the problem, combined with the tendency to be far too physical that gets him marked out for being a dirty player. Oh, and the passing accuracy is shit. There's nothing wrong with him as a centre half, if, for example, you removed every other aspect of being a central defender - like fouls, dribbling and short passing. But he has a tendency to be either clumsy or rough, which gets him marked out by officials for fouling like Nani gets marked out for diving. He needs protection, but with Stevie G out there's an issue with the second line. We don't have anyone good enough to sit back there with Lucas, and Lucas isn't so good that he can sit back there on his tod.

He has good awareness, so he can put himself where he needs to be; he can clear a ball with his feet and with his head; and he can stick a decent head on a ball from a corner.

But that's not enough to be in our first team, so unlike Roy, who made him first choice on the basis of a couple of decent headers, it's fairly obvious he's not first choice under Kenny and wasn't ever going to be. And let's get this right - he wasn't ever planned to be first choice under Rafa, just like Ngog wasn't ever planned to be first choice.



Nah. This is the problem - neither Skrtel nor Kyrgiakos had much to deal with in the Man U game. Carra, Johnson, Gerrard and Lucas did the bulk of the defensive work. Very few tackles needed to be made by the other two because of the work by the others. However, when our midfield is as depleted as it is, especially defensively, then we end up relying on the CHs. And if they're not up to scratch because the first choices are on the physio table, their inadequacies end up being really stark.

Skrtel isn't on form either, and he makes far too many mistakes. He doesn't appear to have direction if he's not paired with Agger or Carra. Paired with Sotos, he really struggles.

We can survive with Sotos and Skrtel back there, but not with the rest of the squad in its current form.

Out of interest, what do you guys think will be the ramifications of not making Europe this season? I was discussing this with Imno before, but I thought I'd open it up to all 'pool supporters. It seems pretty likely now you'll miss out, so what do you think will happen? Are there any players you think will want to leave straight away?

I don't think anyone will be aching to leave simply because we don't have European football - I think there's a whole bunch of players who won't be staying because they'll be replaced with better ones.

We're entering a season of consolidation, that's all. We've had a rough go of it of late, many changes, infighting, and that's what's made people want to leave. Torres was mental blaming the club for his own poor performance - we can see that now - and although European football is nice, it's not the day-to-day business of club football. That'll be winning the league.

This is the only thing I disagree with. I think Skrtel has been in top form - but I think it may have been because Danny had a rare period of fitness. I'll be interested to see how he does alongside Soto.

+1 on what you said re: Europe.

It's cause and effect from lacking the pace, whether it's speed of decision making or physical pace, he doens't have it and you saw that time and again against West Brom. He's not just clumsy, his man got past him way too many times and he didn't have the know-how or drive to change his game up. He's the source of a lot of turn-overs as well. He just isn't geared to work in the premier league defensively.

We needed a season to just sit back and focus on the domestic front, re-build the squad and push again. Every club has to go through a rebuilding phase sooner or later. I liked what John Henry had to say about it "Someone was saying that people weren't happy here, but I think that since that person has left people are much happier here." No doubt he's referring to Fernando Torres. The fact taht he hasn't scored since January 22 says there's something very wrong in the lads head, I mean he's played over 8 hours of football at Chelsea alone without scoring. At the end of the day it was a good deal to move the lad along.

Obviously we need to strengthen more than a few parts of our squad, we need a decent fourth CB, we need another midfielder, we need an attacking playmaker/winger. And that will all be a part of the summer overhaul. Unfortunately, I think we could find ourselves being held to ransom because of the new owners.

Phil Thompson has apparently told Norweigan TV that a deal for Newcastle left back Jose Enrique is "done"

Have been impressed with him at Newc. Good signing.

Reports linking us with Villas-Boas..

Yeah there was something I was reading yesterday where it apparently had a quote from him saying he had a pre-agreement with Liverpool. It was translated so don't know how much truth there is in it.

Yeah. I'd like Kenny to stay but this guy seems to be a great young manager too.

Hey guys since our next home game is against you and you don't want United winning the title, do you think you could do us a little favour ;).

It's to bad Gerrard isn't playing, seemed happy to help Chelsea last season :lol:

Smashing win lads! Great goals from Andy and a top performance. Shame we couldn't play like this against WBA.

Huge game on the weekend now.