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Interesting article about Rafas coaching methods

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard believes Rafa Benitez operates on a 'different level' to other managers after revealing how he has adapted to his boss' methods. Former Valencia chief Benitez arrived at Anfield in 2004 and has since guided the Reds to UEFA Champions League glory and an FA Cup win, while also transforming a struggling side into genuine Premier League title contenders.England international Gerrard has been an inspirational on-field influence throughout the Spaniard's five-year tenure and has risen to a status as one of the best players in the world.But the Liverpool skipper confesses that he found it difficult to adapt to Benitez's meticulous methods before realising that his manager's dedication is what is required for success."Even after five years with Rafa, I still feel I want to please him, that I want to impress him in every game I play," Gerrard told the Daily Mail. "The great managers are like that. There are a handful operating on a different level and I am lucky enough to play for two of them, Benitez and (England boss) Fabio Capello. "It is when you see what they put in, some of the little things they spot, that you realise how hard they work. Rafa will make a point, and you'll be thinking, 'has this guy not got a life?' because it seems so minor, but it is what sets him apart."I can have a good game - tell you what, I'll be big-headed, say I've had a fantastic game - we've won 2-1 in the last minute and I've scored both. "I come back into the dressing-room and I'm buzzing, bouncing off the walls, thinking, 'I feel good today', that is when Rafa comes up and starts talking about a throw-in when they changed the play and I pressed far too late. He'll say, 'if you want, we'll go out there and I'll show you'. "Or you'll have a run of 10 games when you're in form and flying and he'll pop you a DVD of your recent play and it's broken up into sections good and bad. And you're thinking, 'hang on, bad? I didn't do anything wrong'. But you'll watch it and you're out of position in one match, or you pressed late or you let a man go at a set-piece. You wonder when the guy sleeps. "At first when he did things like that, I'd be asking, 'has he not watched my last 150 games for Liverpool?' There is a danger that you think he has it in for you because he pulls you so much. "When he arrived, he would keep saying to me, 'left foot, left foot' or I'd shoot and he would say, 'hit the target' and I'm thinking, 'look, mate, I'm trying to hit the target'. "I would say to people, 'I'm 26 - if he doesn't think my left foot's working now, it's never going to work' but then a few weeks later I scored with my left and he came up with a little smile and said, 'lucky goal today, left foot and it hit the target' and then the penny dropped. "Finally, I realised it was the way he helped push you on and as a player, you either recognised it or fought it and, with these guys, if you fight it there is only one winner."
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Reports on investors are picking up..

Liverpool co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have confirmed that they want to attract outside investment for the club.The American businessmen took over at Anfield in 2007 after buying out former chairman David Moores in a deal worth an estimated £220million.Hicks and Gillett have been criticised during their ownership, with some Reds fans disappointed by their level of investment in the Premier League outfit.The recent announcement that plans to build a new stadium are on hold because of the worldwide financial recession has earned fresh condemnation.But hopes may now be raised following Hicks and Gillett's confirmation that they are eager for investors in Liverpool.A statement read: "The owners have jointly retained Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Rothschild to evaluate the possibility of new investors injecting equity into LFC."However, the process is at an early stage, there is no agreement with any party."Sports investment firm F6, which is chaired by Saudi prince Faisal bin Fahd bin Abdullah, has said that it had signed a deal with Gillett to begin the process of examining Liverpool's accounts.
And apparently there has been some investments in academies...
F6, the Saudi Arabian sports investment company, has confirmed that it has reached an agreement with Liverpool to establish a number of football academies in the region.The deal was signed with George Gillett Jr, the Liverpool co-owner, and will seek to set up two exclusive academies in Saudi Arabia and two in North Africa while also extending the interests of the American’s NASCAR franchise, Richard Petty Motorsports.“The memorandum of understanding will establish an exclusive partnership between F6 group, Liverpool FC and Richard Petty Motorsports team,” a statement released by the company read.“His Highness Prince Faisal [the F6 chairman] stated that the partnership with George Gillett’s group will be a good addition to F6. This partnership will provide a lot of investments in football, racing and sports media in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.”RELATED LINKSSaudi interest comes as a surprise to LiverpoolMascherano and Benayoun miss trip to ItalyTorres shows class with majestic hat-trickPrince Faisal confirmed that the deals were done following Liverpool’s 6-1 defeat of Hull City at Anfield on Saturday, a game he attended as a guest of the club. “We have signed several contracts with Liverpool after visiting the club and attending the match with Hull City in the Premier League,” he told Al Riyadh daily newspaper. “The contracts are basically sports investments, which also include establishing football academies that will definitely help the future of Saudi sports in the future.”Prince Faisal has claimed that he is closing in on purchasing a 50 per cent share of Liverpool, for a price of between £200-£350 million, but Gillett views the reports as premature and is holding talks with a number of interested parties.
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Those first two defeats really bothered me; this latest one didn't. The key was to get some wins under the belt after losing two out of the opening three, and that happened; otherwise the hole could have got quite deep. But now, the table is still so tight that a couple more wins in quick succession can easily change things. I do get sick of the “yes they can”/”No they can't” guff that surrounds every big team after a win or a defeat. It's a manic depressive state of analysis. Viewed dispassionately, it's ludicrous. Six points off the pace at this stage is not ideal, but equally it's nothing to panic about, particularly with Chelsea and United able to drop points cheaply, as they have at places like Wigan and Burnley; and with United's squad looking weaker than last season, and Chelsea due to lose almost half a team to the African Nations. I'm also curious to see how Chelsea's ageing team copes come the spring, especially as they have for once escaped injury problems to their major players (which helps them very much for now, but could lead to burnout for the thirtysomethings.) Of course, the Reds will still need to be in the mix, but I think that's easily possible. I felt that Liverpool were marginally the better team at Stamford Bridge, but Chelsea were more clinical in front of goal. On that score, they will argue that they deserved the points, and that argument always carries water, but they didn't impress me as much as they have in the past. I felt they had all the luck. Unlike the Fiorentina game, this was a match Benítez's men didn't deserve to lose, and had a penalty been awarded at 0-0 for a foul by the unusually upright Drogba on Skrtel, the table might look very different now. Unusually wayward misses from Torres and Benayoun summed up the day in the final third, but on the whole there was much to be encouraged by, particularly from some of the less-heralded players, and the return to form of both centre-backs (even if Carragher did get beaten for the second goal). All last season we were told that draws cost the Reds. Draws draws draws. Doesn't matter if you gamble and lose, but avoid the draws. Well, there have been no draws this season. We were told that it's not beating the big teams that counts, it's beating the little ‘uns. So is that no longer true? Going into the Chelsea game, the Reds were actually a point up on the corresponding fixtures from 2008/09. That's fairly remarkable given the criticism that's been aimed at Liverpool since the summer. The Chelsea game shows that season-to-season comparisions cannot be totally trusted, mainly because the order of the games affects the momentum, and run of the ball can affect any single result. But Liverpool still have plenty of 2008/09 draws to turn into wins, to get back on course for more than 86 points, if such a high tally is needed this year. And take a team like Arsenal: Liverpool could afford to lose against them this season, but if they win the other they'll end up with more points than from the two draws last time. And anyway, how many teams win at Chelsea two years running? For the last 20 years, any kind of victory there has been a rare event. Defeat in Italy and defeat at Chelsea are a million miles away from the results that unduly bother me. And October was always going to be a hellishly difficult month. Remember, Liverpool have gone to two of the current top three sides in the country. That is far from a balanced fixture list, and that provides me with a calming optimism. There are far tougher games still to be played at Anfield, but it was the supposedly easy ones that caused problems last time around. There's no denying that Liverpool have contributed to some of their own reversals this season, but there are other issues, too. I have to say that I haven't been too impressed with the refereeing this season, and had mentioned the timekeeping issue even before United got their inexplicable never-ending injury time to avoid what should have been two more dropped points, in the Manchester derby. Liverpool just don't get those unfathomable decisions in their favour. Liverpool failed to get even the allotted added time at Spurs to claw back a point, and conceded the crucial second against Villa when there was no earthly reason to go beyond the one added minute. Penalty decisions aren't going the Reds' way either, with about four stonewallers waved away, and lesser offences, like Carragher's shoulder barge on Zavon Hines less of a foul than the clattering of Voronin at Spurs, where the Reds were poor but could have scraped the kind of lucky draw United got at the weekend. Meanwhile, Skrtel was pushed over by Drogba and nothing was given, yet the Chelsea striker has an air ambulance on standby every time he sneezes. While I don't believe that these things even themselves out (after all, that would need a conscious decision by some omniscient being), you have to hope that the Reds' luck improves in line with that of their rivals. While on the subject of luck and fairness, I have total sympathy for Lucas Leiva in terms of the press he gets. The whole team plays poorly in Italy, yet he gets singled out. While I felt he really struggled in the first half of last season, I see no such problems this time around. But still the stigma remains attached. There are probably reasons for this. If he was English, he'd be lauded for his workrate, feverish closing down and generally very good (if unspectacular) use of the ball. Because he's Brazilian, he has to fit a stereotype. That doesn't sit easily with people with no imagination. I've seen some idiotic comments in the press like he's “the most un-South American player I've ever seen”; as if, as a Brazilian, you have no worth unless you're a stepover king. At Stamford Bridge, Liverpool actually won the battle of the midfield, and Lucas played a massive part in that. The Reds lost largely because Chelsea's strikers had a better day in front of goal, and not because of the balance of play (dictated by Lucas and Mascherano) or chances created. As a psychology student helpfully pointed out to me during a discussion on my new website: “The ‘truth effect' comes when a message is repeated enough, then the receiver of the message will accept it as fact.” Lucas made many positive contributions to the Hull thrashing, with two forceful, direct forward passes leading to goals two and five, as well as getting to the byline for the sixth. But along with not being stereotypically Brazilian, he is criticised for not being Xabi Alonso. Which, to me, seems grossly unfair. Liverpool had their best-ever scoring start to the season, so how can Lucas, a league ever-present, be to blame for a “lack of creativity” that clearly isn't there? I thought Liverpool were creative against Chelsea, too, without ever tearing through them, but then this is a world-renowned defensive set-up, at home, and by the end, forced to defend in great numbers. Liverpool were no worse than in the fixture a year ago, but crucially, Chelsea were much improved, and the Reds didn't have that crucial slice of luck. I therefore believe that the ‘truth effect' to be very much in evidence with Lucas, as it so clearly is with zonal marking. Watch Liverpool defend a set-piece, and count the times ‘zonal marking' is discussed in negative terms. Watch a team defend man-marking, and you'll only get “great run/great cross/great header” if the ball goes in. I've been saying this very thing for years, but almost collapsed when Gordon Strachan pointed this out after the Sunderland vs Wolves game. Then again, he's managed at the top level using both man-marking and zonal, and he said that both work equally well, and that it just depends on what your players are comfortable with. How dare he talk such sense? Against Chelsea, I noticed that after every excellent Mascherano challenge or even just harrying, there was a positive mention from the commentators, but Lucas, who made loads of excellent contributions was only mentioned after mistakes. Go and watch the game again, and you'll see this to be true. The truth effect: bear it in mind next time you find yourself being told something time and again, its message driven into your brain like a hypnotist's mantra.
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REVEALED: Two surprising new facts about Javier Mascherano and Lucas LeivaOPTA’s latest statistics have revealed some surprising facts about the effectiveness of two of Liverpool’s key midfielders.According to OPTA, Javier Mascherano is the top passer in the Premiership this season, with 547 completed passes and an accuracy rate of 87%. Chelsea’s Michael Essien has the same accuracy rate but has completed a lot less passes.That’s a fantastic result for Mascherano, and I must admit I would never have guessed that the Argentinean would be right at the top, ahead of the likes of Steven Gerrard.OPTA has also revealed that Lucas Leiva is one of the Premiership’s most effective tacklers, with a 69% success rate! Hard to believe, but the stats don’t lie, and given the fact Lucas has been playing a more defensive role this season, that’s another great result.Even more impressive is the fact that Lucas is seemingly more effective than Mascherano when it comes to tackling. Food for thought.There are few positives to take from Liverpool’s current run of form but those stats are very promising.
SNMMasskerano > _./LMAO @ Insua being immense. Only lahi would come with them talksAurelio > Insua will ever be. Come like a Figo at LB. Has the best tekkers of any wing back of our generation
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Hamann is doing some coaching with the u16. Who would you rather have had Hamann at his best or Javier?!

When you are at a loose end, it pays to surround yourself with friends and few know that better than Dietmar Hamann.Normally at this point in a season, when the second international break comes along, the German midfielder would be catching his breath after negotiating the first, chaotic weeks but preparing himself for bigger challenges to come. For the first time in his career, however, Hamann finds himself without a club; though there have been offers and proposals since his contract with Manchester City expired in July, nothing permanent has transpired.Some footballers in a similar position would inevitably find themselves panicking now, fearing that there hopes of enjoying one last hurrah had been extinguished but Hamann, clearly, is on good terms with himself. No wonder. Rather than sit around feeling sorry for himself, Hamann has taken steps towards preparing for the future and that has enabled him to come back to the place that was his home for seven years. With ambitions of one day becoming a coach, Hamann phoned Liverpool's Academy Director Frank McParland a couple of weeks ago and asked whether it would be possible to gain some experience – a positive response was never in doubt. So now Hamann, who sat a coaching course at Keele University in May, is working with the Reds' under-16s and will be on the touchline when they face Bolton today; playing might be the pinnacle but this, certainly, is the next best thing. "It's nice to have this involvement," he said. "They are a good set of lads and there are some very good players. I'm enjoying it. I always said that I wanted to go into coaching at some stage, so with nothing having come up in terms of playing, this has been ideal. "I'd spoken to Frankie and he had told me that the boys would be happy for me to come down and talk to them about one or two things. I'm enjoying working with (under-16s coach) Stevie Cooper. In many ways, it's been like coming home again. "I get on with everyone here, it's such a great club and you never pass up the chance to return; I've not spoken with Rafa yet but I've seen Kenny (Dalglish) and a lot of people are still here from my time." After his deal expired at Eastlands, there were suggestions of moves to Hull, Preston and Notts County, while clubs in Germany – notably Stuttgart, coached by another old Red Markus Babbel – also made tentative enquiries but, as yet, nothing has come to fruition. "The longer it goes on, it's not ideal but I'm still doing my best to keep myself in shape and I hope the right offer comes along," Hamann explained. "But I'm keeping myself busy and I'm not having any sleepless nights. "You've just got to try and carry on as normal, keep yourself busy. If someone had an offer for me, I'd be delighted to listen but I'm enjoying what I'm doing at the minute and we'll just have to see what happens."One of life's more laid back characters, it should not surprise that Hamann is unruffled by not having a club to play for because, as those supporters who watched him serve Liverpool with such distinction from 1999, little could knock him out of his elegant stride. So it is just as significant to hear his views about Liverpool's quest to win the title; rather than getting carried away by losing to Chelsea last weekend, Hamann is confident that Benitez's men will once again find themselves in the thick of the action. "It's early days," said Hamann, who cost £8m when Gerard Houllier signed him from Newcastle. "Okay, we've lost more games so far than we did in the whole of last year but sometimes that's not a problem if you are not putting draws on the board as well. "It was a difficult game at Chelsea, they look pretty solid at the minute. But you have to remember that the league is very compact and the top teams will be taking points off each other all the time; I can also see Manchester City getting involved, as they look strong. "But once Liverpool find the right balance, they will be fine. There are a couple of big games coming up but Glen Johnson is a good addition to the squad and once (Javier) Mascherano finds his form, they will be right back up there." He might have left Anfield three years ago but there is no disguising the affinity Hamann has for the club and he jumped at the chance to pull on a Red shirt again for a cameo role in the spoof film '15 Minutes That Shook The World'. That night in Istanbul, of course, was arguably the night Hamann produced his defining Liverpool performance, helping lay the foundations for that unforgettable comeback against AC Milan and scoring a penalty in the shootout; it was the zenith of his spell. "It was a good laugh and I was only too happy to help because it was for a good cause," said Hamann, whose 283 appearances yielded 11 goals. 'It certainly brought back memories. It's nearly five years on and you still get reminded about it all the time. "I had a fabulous time with Liverpool. I came at a point when we were in transition but not long after everything seemed to click into place; we had great home-grown talent in Stevie, Carra, Danny Murphy and Michael (Owen). "At the back, the partnership of Henchoz and Hyypia was as good as there had been in years; it wasn't an easy time at first for the club but after it clicked, we enjoyed some great success. "Liverpool will always be in my heart, I enjoyed my seven years here, met some outstanding people and had such a great time; it would be great to come back in the future and be able to work here in some capacity. That's the dream.
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Good read fella.

ALBERTO AQUILANI has taken a huge step towards making his Liverpool debut now he has started kicking a ball again for the first time in six months.Rafa Benitez reported last week that his £20m midfielder was making good progress but erred on the side of caution as to when Aquilani might be seen in a Red shirt.However, the Italian was given the green light to start doing some ball work again late last week and has continued to work on passing and shooting in the last couple of days.There is a growing sense of anticipation amongst supporters about Aquilani, who was drafted in to fill the void left by Xabi Alonso’s move to Real Madrid.But there is no chance of him launching his career in the cut and thrust of a potentially pivotal clash against Manchester United on Sunday week.Benitez will be looking to ease Aquilani in gradually as the 25-year-old has not played a competitive game since Arsenal beat his old club Roma in the Champions League in March.The reserves have a game against Sunderland at home next Wednesday but it could be that Benitez waits a further seven days before pushing him into the frame.That would open up the prospect of Aquilani getting his first taste of English football in the Carling Cup fourth round clash at Arsenal on October 28.
ZNM.
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Pissed they are both out I have livepool in my pool at work and if they win i stand to win nearly 2 billsthey aint gonna win>>>>>>>>>>Betting/fantasy leagueAlways f*cks up your mindHow can I be hoping for a liverpool win?

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