People can say what they like about Kuyt, whether we're 1-0 down, 3-0 up or it's 2-2, he's the only guy out there still running his heart out at 89 minutes.

Without a doubt re Carra and Kuyt - bottle their grit and make some others drink it LOL.....

Strip changes are becoming ridiculous - like fashion nowadays got to have something new all the time but I do like black tuff it just may muscle up Lucas once he gets it on !

The new away shirt looks tops, but why do we need a new one EVERY SEASON?! Fucking hell. It reminds me of the 09 one...but without the high neck.

About the only players in the side who don't suffer from this problem are Carragher and Kuyt.

KK has made good decision blooding in the young 'uns at such a key game v's city.
They did veryvery well and great for the Kop as they would get behind them which builds their confidence even more - KK smart !
I am disappointed we didn't put a couple more away 2nd half though.

I know some here will flame me but I'm still not over the line with Lucas - sure when we have the rythem and possesion like the city game he looks good but I'm still not convinced when the chips are down, he gets pushed off the ball, gets intimidated, we need a solid midfielder so as SG can work mostly on attack but thats my view.

By the way nice kit though a little more red wouldn't have gone astray.

That is the best kit I have ever seen!!!

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/latest-news/revealed-2011-12-lfc-away-kit

I'm a fan. Watch the vid too, you can see the colours better.

Worth noting that Skrtel is the only outfielder to play every minute of every game so far and barring injury and suspension he'll probably play all 38 games.

Lucas has really made a name for himself this season and he'd be up there as one of the most improved players in the league.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/9455648.stm

Good interview with Lucas after the game

And speaking of our super #21:


Lucas Leiva has made more tackles in the Barclays Premier League than any other player this season.

Eight challenges against Manchester City took the Brazilian's total to 139 for the 2010-11 campaign, according to Opta stats.

That's an average of a tackle every 16.7 minutes.

\:d/ Had a brilliant season. He'd be my player of the season tbh... Meireles his only serious challenger. Kelly and Agger would've been in it but just injured too often. Skrtel has done well as has Kuyt, but Lucas and Meireles the top 2. Lucas gets my vote. :)

How does that even happen?!

Double post 9 mins apart. Impressive :lol:

First of all, why would you bother replying to him? Second of all, why would you bother replying to him?

Andy Carroll's value can't only be assessed on his solo performances but also what he brings to the team to bring out the best in Suarez. And while Suarez might not be as prolific as he was in the premier league, Carroll provides a target for his mazey runs and this is almost invaluable.

First of all, why would you bother replying to him? Second of all, why would you bother replying to him?

Andy Carroll's value can't only be assessed on his solo performances but also what he brings to the team to bring out the best in Suarez. And while Suarez might not be as prolific as he was in the premier league, Carroll provides a target for his mazey runs and this is almost invaluable.

I don't recall saying that, but I may have in the heat of all the transger action. It's too soon to tell either way tbh. He may turn out to be worth more, or maybe less. I can't predict his luck with injuries, etc. But the early signs have been very promising. Great left foot too.

I read this on ESPN. Apparently it's for 15m. Seems a bit rich.

Hopefully none. I don't know why he'd leave Porto now anyway. He's just won the title though... They've been reporting for weeks that Henry is in negotiations with Kenny to give him the job long-term. Perhaps grooming a successor?

We had to face up to the fact that the squad made a title tilt and then went backwards. It was time to clear out the dead wood and bad eggs and start over. Sometimes that means missing out on Europe. But with the right investment over summer and a little more cover coming in to prevent the cursed injury problems we've been experiencing this season, this won't be an issue again for a very long time. Right now I think we're in a better position than either of Man City or Spurs going into next season given taht we know what needs to be done to strengthen the side, we've got a solid squad to build off, we've re-established that hunger and squad harmony and we've got people in charge who knows what it takes to be successful and win trophies.

I saw seriously had posted in here and cringed. I'm not even going to bother.

Great win by the lads this morning, Lucas and Meireles bossed the midfield and the hunger from the lads was great. Flannigan was superb on debut and Kenny playing him was a huge slap in the face to Soto but necessary and a huge pledge of faith to our youth prospects. Even Spearing didn't look too out of place which is saying something...as for Suarez and Carrol, there aren't enough superlatives to do their partnership justice.

Apparently hes not worth 35 million according to imno.

Hes a modern Viduka in his pomp. Very Rare these days. Great hold up, heading and strength. Wished he stayed at Castle. The only thing i havent seen him do is the visionary flick ons that Viduka managed in his time. But im sure he will develop the knack for it.

Now you need probably 2 defenders and 2 midfielders. Greek boy and Lucas of Mesopotamia need to go. They are not up to the quality of a top 4 side.

Just hoping we actually get a good striker to replace Carroll. Gervinho seems like a start.




Edited by seriously: 12/4/2011 11:33:50 PM

Edited by seriously: 12/4/2011 11:34:36 PM

afro you make some good logical points re the Reds but I can't agree about europe.
Yes tough luck we weren't good enough this season but as a supporter no I'm not happy eating further down the chain and thinking yer we don't need it either.
We are at a big rebuilding stage finally and to be honest to be at least playing in the europa comp this would have been an added bonus with a lot of expected new personel on board but alas we will have to wait till end of 2012 season that I'm sure we will be back UP there.

Great result City game this morn - many more chances not taken advantage of but sweet it is !

sydcro - re read your vanPersie sig :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.

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:

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

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.

Have been impressed with him at Newc. Good signing.

Reports linking us with Villas-Boas..

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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