lfc The Official Liverpool FC Thread

[Flojo]

I'm bringing stats and accounts of players who've played under him and you've resorted to using buuz words 'energy, vibrancy'.

He's had 6 league games, 5 European games and a pre season to show me a glimpse of his vision in terms of how he wants us to play.

Thos quotes from Fulham players are about a manager who's had even less than that yet they give some idea about Hughes' intentions.

The only opinion I've heard from a Liverpool player on Hoidgson's tactics so far is

"

Our play has changed, so I'll have to adjust a bit. But to be honest, I'm not going to adjust 100%. I'm a footballer who keeps the ball on the floor. I'm here to play, not to unload."

[Mame Biram Diouf]

pmsll @ murkz

must have been starving for the last months with no non liverpool fans biting him had to resort to taking his rod upstream to the liverpool to get some meals

he can eat for weeks of the last few pages

well played lad

[nem kid]

^^ LOL

[MEIRELES.]

pmsll @ murkz

must have been starving for the last months with no non liverpool fans biting him had to resort to taking his rod upstream to the liverpool to get some meals

he can eat for weeks of the last few pages

well played lad

Haha. Dont watch that Bane I know you wanna succeed my/lahi/ice's legacy but it just aint gonna work son. Potentials there but you dont have the cutting edge. Your trying to learn from the best though I give you that fella, all the best geez.

Its "I aint gonna bite" season to be honest

But really its a for certain man, they bite HARD but just refuse to reply cos it WILL get frustrating.

[Flojo]

*looks at calendar, sees 2010*

Some guys must be sipping Oil of Olay or have discovered the Fountain of Youth.

[Young £]

TEAMtalk | Football | Premier League News - I could quit Anfield - Jovanovic

Liverpool forward Milan Jovanovic is contemplating leaving the club just two months into the new Premier League season.

The Serb, signed on a free transfer in the summer from Standard Liege, is seemingly unhappy about his lack of playing time under Roy Hodgson and warned he is getting itchy feet.

"I am starting to find the time dragging on," he is quoted as saying by The Sun.

"I'm a fighter but if things do not sort themselves out I will change club - even though it is too soon to think about it yet.

"I'm on form, I'm working hard and I have started eight competitive games.

"But I've not been in the starting XI for the last few matches - and I've not even come on as a sub."

He continued: "I have to adapt to a new system over here. I have to defend all the time.

"Just three or four teams in the Premier league play attractive football. The others set great store by commitment, discipline and defending.

"I miss Standard and the city of Liege."

[n/a]

lol jovanovic wants out already

time for a name change murko

oh wait

[TF S4DK]

Lol.

[Rsonist]

Hahahahaha

[Black.]

:lol:

[Guest Portuguese]

He should of gone through with his threat to join Rafa@Inter.

[TF S4DK]

ROY HODGSON is at breaking point after a damning assessment of his Liverpool team.

The Kop chief has confided in friends that they are SIX players short of challenging at the top of the Premier League.

Liverpool go into Sunday's game against Blackpool in the bottom three for the first time since 1984 and pals are concerned Hodgson will not be able to cope with the pressure of transforming the team.

They have noticed a change in Hodgson's usually relaxed manner and fear the pressure of turning Liverpool around is beginning to affect him.

Last season he appeared in complete control after guiding Fulham to the Europa League final and 12th placed in the Premier League.

Hodgson will not quit Liverpool, but fears that any potential new owners are likely to want their own man in charge at Anfield.

The Kop's desperate financial situation prevented Hodgson from making widespread changes to the squad in th summer and fear it's his reputation on the line.

After holding out for the England job following the World Cup, he eventually joined Liverpool when it became clear Fabio Capello would not be fired.

He was initially convinced he could tweak the squad and turn them into a top four team again after succeeding Rafa Benitez.

Instead his conservative methods in training and on the pitch have been met by a brickwall.

The culture at the club is playing attacking football, but Hodgson wants his team to play on the counter.

Hodgson's relationship with Fernando Torres is already strained and the World Cup winner has yet to respond to his new manager.

Impact

Liverpool will attempt to turn their season around at home to Blackpool on Sunday after a dreadful start.

They have won just once in the Premier League this season and Hodgson is struggling to make an impact.

Three of his signings - Paul Konchesky, Christian Poulsen and Raul Meireles - have yet to impress.

Hodgson has privately assessed the Liverpool squad and has conceded they are a long way short of Manchester United and Chelsea.

Many of his influential players are struggling to adapt to his training methods and want Hodgson to be more attack minded to satisfy supporters.

Hodgson has other changes in mind, but fears a backlash from supporters if he drops some of Liverpool's influential stars.

A close friend said: "We're worried about Roy, he's not the same person.

"Last year he thrived as the underdog, but he doesn't like criticism and doesn't enjoy people questioning his methods.

"It's too early to say he regrets taking the job, but it's dawning on him just how big it is. He's not a quitter, he's carry on."

[Mr Q]

I bet I know what paper that is from.

LOL, imagine Hodgson had taken the England job.

[TF S4DK]

Of course you know, your favourite Sunday paper.

[The Infamous]

HODGSON OUT

[The Infamous]

http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/rafas-record-at-anfield-2362664.html

Sunday October 03 2010

Liverpool honours

UEFA Champions League: 2005

FA Cup: 2006

UEFA Super Cup: 2005

FA Community Shield: 2006

Season-by-Season Record

2004/05

Premier League: 5th (58pts)

Champions League: Winners (beat AC Milan in Final)

FA Cup: 3rd round (lost to Burnley)

League Cup: Runners-up (lost to Chelsea)

2005/06

Premier League: 3rd (82pts)

Champions League: Last 16 (lost to Benfica)

FA Cup: Winners (beat West Ham in Final)

League Cup: 3rd round (lost to Crystal Palace)

2006/07

Premier League: 3rd (68pts)

Champions League: Runners-up (lost to AC Milan in Final)

FA Cup: 3rd round (lost to Arsenal)

League Cup: Quarter-final (lost to Arsenal)

2007/08

Premier League: 4th (76pts)

Champions League: Semi-final (lost to Chelsea)

FA Cup: 5th round (lost to Barnsley)

League Cup: 5th round (lost to Chelsea)

2008/09

Premier League: 2nd (86pts)

Champions League: Quarter-final (lost to Chelsea)

FA Cup: 4th round (lost to Everton)

League Cup: 4th round (lost to Tottenham)

2009/10

Premier League: 7th (63pts)

Champions League: Group Stages

Europa League: Semi-final (lost to Atletico Madrid)

FA Cup: 3rd round (lost to Reading)

League Cup: 5th round (lost to Arsenal)

Liverpool under Benitez

P W L D

Premier League: 228 126 47 55

FA Cup: 17 8 5 4

League Cup: 17 10 6 1

Europe: 85 48 20 17

* Broke Bill Shankly's record of 65 European matches as Liverpool manager.

* Recorded Liverpool's biggest win at Old Trafford for 72 years. It was also the first time four Liverpool players scored at Manchester United in the same game.

* By lifting the FA Cup in 2005, he became the first manager in the club's history to win a trophy in each of his first two seasons in charge.

* In the 2006/2007 season, he recorded his 50th league win in just 93 games -- a record bettered by only two Liverpool managers of the previous 57 years, Kenny Dalglish and Bill Shankly.

* He won 81 of his first 150 league games in charge, surpassing Shankly. Only Kenny Dalglish (87) won more.

[The Infamous]

Murknotsureifserious

Wag1

---------------------------

unday October 03 2010

'Football is a lie.' Anybody who has spent any time with Rafael Benitez will have heard these words. There are a million lies in football, a hundred thousand ways for the flimflam men and the bullshitters to prosper.

For Liverpool to prosper, it was concluded that Benitez would have to leave. His exit, it was said, would lead to an explosion of joy among the ranks of the players who had been worn down by his obsessiveness, his relentless demands and his cold, cold heart. The club, it was said, needed a break from his plotting. Things could only get better.

Today, as Benitez's Inter Milan face Juventus at the San Siro, Liverpool play a team one point above them in the Premier League: Blackpool. Before the game, the supporters will be marching in the streets in protest against Tom Hicks and George Gillett whose duplicity Benitez did so much to expose. The chief executive Christian Purslow, brought in to sell the club, is still there, still looking for owners, still reassuring the key players that all will be well. Within days, Liverpool could be in administration but, for many Liverpool fans, the possible nine-point penalty (there could be a loophole which allows Liverpool to avoid it which would almost certainly lead to a legal objection from Liverpool's challengers) is preferable to Hicks and Gillett refinancing. On the pitch, Roy Hodgson, the man Purslow appointed, appears to have made things worse.

And all it took was the removal of Benitez to bring the feel-good factor back.

Many ignored the complexities involved in managing a club owned by leverage kings while Benitez was in charge. Only now is the extent of his achievement becoming clear.

His refusal to play the media game or to back down or to be pragmatic in any way alienated those who form opinion. For a long time, nobody listened to their opinions at Anfield. In the last year, they did.

"Did we make mistakes? Obviously," Benitez said last week. "But 82, 86 points, four trophies, three more finals in a difficult time when the owners were changing, when the chief executives were changing. A lot of things were changing. Now people can see it, no? It was a big, big problem."

Benitez took the hits but held the club together. If he was shunned by the opinion-formers, it wasn't because he wasn't political. In the last year he went, as one ally puts it, "to war". He always felt there was a better way to do things

Benitez wants to look forward to his challenge at Inter, it is how he has persuaded himself a football man should be, but he cannot shake the sadness about his departure from the club and the city he and his family love. Those who know him well say he is more relaxed now than he was during that draining final twelve months.

After three hours in his company on Wednesday, I could see why his friends want him to talk to the media more often. David Conachy, the Sunday Independent photographer, was surprised by his warmth and wit, having expected a brooding, more explosive, presence.

But Benitez is wary too. Football is a lie and he has observed how some use the media to promote their versions of the story. At one point, he jumps from his seat, refusing to pose in a certain way because it is, he says, the kind of picture one of his enemies would sit for. Above all else, he is wary of being a phoney.

Liverpool, it was said, needed a manager who would put his arm around a player's shoulder. But they can't hug out their problems, as Hodgson is discovering.

"Everybody has weak points and I have weak points for sure," Benitez says. "People say I don't put my arm round the shoulder. It's not true. I am talking to the players every day. I like to know about them but my priority is football."

His priority has always been football. "I have been doing this job all my life," he says and it is barely an exaggeration. "Always in my head I was a manager."

He talks about his childhood in terms of football. His father was a commercial director of a hotel -- "he didn't like too much football" -- and a busy man so "I remember my mother taking me to the Bernabeu for training".

His career as a player was ended by injury but he was ready. Managing is his lifetime's work. He sleeps a few hours each night and he is always thinking of ways to be better. He may think too much.

"I think the manager is eternally dissatisfied because he wants more and more and more. I'm this kind of manager. I like to improve, to do better every time. Some times you know that you will need more time so you have to be calm but still you have to improve."

Does he ever look back on his great nights with pride and contentment?

"I have notes of everything, every single season, every single day. What I did this, or how I changed my approach to a player. One hundred per cent, I am analysing and I am always talking to my staff."

It's hardly The Time of Our Lives with Jeff Stelling. Benitez couldn't act clubbable. Last month, Jamie Carragher gave an interview in which he talked of the need for Liverpool to get back to traditional values.

"We've had situations like Martin O'Neill and Steve Bruce criticising Liverpool and they were right," Carragher said. "We shouldn't be getting involved with stuff like that. Everyone else should look at Liverpool and say they have dignity, class. I mean, like the way people look at Arsenal."

It was unfortunate timing as Arsene Wenger then spent the next month fighting with everyone, including match officials.

"I didn't see his quote but I like Carra as a player and he has to keep focusing on doing things well for Liverpool. Maybe he has an opinion but I don't think Shankly would agree with him. For me the manager of Liverpool Football Club has to defend the club and his players against everyone. The name of the other manager doesn't matter. If you know the story inside you will understand why these managers are talking and I think for our fans it's very clear.

"If you see the friends that these people have you will understand why. It's obvious that there are people who are close to some people and they like to protect each other."

Benitez was apart and, equally as dangerously, became convinced of his own separateness. Again, it is the way he believes a manager has to be.

"When you work hard and you have an idea and you want to carry on with your idea people say 'oh you are stubborn'. I think you have to have a conviction when you work with the players, when you know the players and when you talk with your staff. It's essential if you want to convince them. All the managers have the same idea."

He was a physical education teacher and one of the ways he sees himself as different to his predecessor at Inter, Jose Mourinho, is in his approach to footballers.

"I like to teach them. I am sure if they learn they will know things for the rest of their lives. If you can win in one year with the best players, saying we have to win this game, this game, the next game that's one way. But when you teach them the way and you ask them how to do things, it's different. At the end, they will know and they will remember all their lives."

He is trying to change things at Inter while keeping the things they did well under Mourinho. Before he arrived in Milan, he read in the Spanish press how Mourinho could control everything from his manager's office at the Angelo Moratti Training Centre. There was a window with a panoramic view that allowed him to see all that was happening on the training fields. During my time in Benitez's spartan office on Wednesday, I couldn't see this window. Football is a lie.

Mourinho's achievements cannot be disputed but Benitez would not be the man he is if he didn't think he could do more.

"The players are happy because we are trying to play more football, more on the floor, the passing is better. They were doing good things in the past and especially in the transition, the counter-attack, they were quite good. Now we have more possession but it takes time to adjust. It will be almost impossible to win more trophies in one year, we know that, but at least we will try to win some of them with style."

Inter are top of Serie A but one defeat is a crisis in Italy. He has the squad that won the European Cup, but he may have liked to have new faces to challenge the players who achieved so much last season.

Benitez is not going to rest on somebody else's laurels. On Wednesday night, Inter beat Werder Bremen 4-0. It was an important result but again perhaps football lied as it was not a performance that merited 4-0.

Inter suits Benitez too. He looks to Turin, to Juventus and sees the questionable powerbase of Italian football. He looks to the south, to Rome and sees the capital with its influence and he looks to Milanello, AC Milan's famed training camp and he sees Silvio Berlusconi and his authority. Italy is the kind of country where a man can collect enemies.

His friends from Liverpool are still around. They are thinking about Inter now but they form a government in exile, always aware of what is happening at the club they love.

He has changed, he says, everybody changes. The former Real Madrid manager Luis Molowny, who died earlier this year, once told him that it is important to be patient. Molowny's name is written on a piece of paper pinned to his office wall so his advice is on his mind. He says he is more patient now than he used to be.

The signings that didn't work out at Liverpool might be among the things he'd change. "I'll say it again, we made mistakes. But people are talking about players who were not good enough, if you put five or six of these players together, the cost would be five million. It's not easy to wheel and deal and at the same time to win and sign players like Torres, Reina, Mascherano, Aquilani, Skrtel, Johnson, Lucas Leiva, Agger or Kuyt."

These are the players he left behind. "I was very clear that when I left we had a better squad than we had in the past, and a better team. We knew we had to bring in better players. We left a good team, a very good team. A lot of people are talking about the legacy but the legacy is fantastic. When I left the club, Mascherano, Benayoun and Riera were there, along with Carra, Gerrard, Spearing, Darby. Insua, Cavalieri and Shelvey. They cannot talk about legacy when Purslow and Hodgson signed seven players. They have already changed the squad."

Gerard Houllier said he left a legacy too, claiming that in Istanbul the players told him it was his side that had won the European Cup. "I didn't see Houllier on the way to Istanbul or at half-time," he said sardonically. "After the game, I gave him permission to come into the dressing room and we couldn't get him out, even with boiling water! That's a Spanish expression."

Among Benitez's mistakes were Robbie Keane and the alienation of Xabi Alonso in one crucial summer. Keane was, he says, a "good player and a fantastic professional who needed a target man with him". But, crucially, Gareth Barry was Benitez's priority. "Barry was the first but I was not doing the business and I couldn't control it. The timing was a problem. I thought we had the money and it was obvious we didn't have the money."

Benitez had rumbled Hicks and Gillett before this but as they scrambled and failed to find the money for Barry, his plans unravelled. The collateral damage was significant too: Xabi Alonso was lost.

"In the last season Alonso played his best season for us. That is the reason people are talking about him. It was his last year when he gave us his best."

In Alonso's last season, Benitez drove his team towards the title. Liverpool finished second, a stunning achievement given his resources and the apocalypse that was heading Liverpool's way thanks to Hicks and Gillett and the recession caused by men like them.

Benitez's handling of the attempted sale of Alonso the year before alienated the player and ensured he would go. But Benitez planned to replace him with Alberto Aquilani and the Montenegrin Stevan Jovetic. The sale of Alonso was a controversial and ruthless decision and, as so often at Liverpool, he wasn't allowed full control of the solution.

Instead he was given half of what he asked for. Suddenly the money disappeared, as it tends to when working for the indebted. Benitez's last season began with Liverpool as many people's title favourites. But the manager couldn't conceal the club's problems anymore.

"It was a long time, it wasn't just one thing," he says of the process that wore him down. "The feeling was that something was wrong, we couldn't do what we wanted to do. We were preparing the signings and the sales but we could see that we have some targets and we didn't do it."

Christian Purslow was the new chief executive. Rick Parry had infuriated Benitez with the pace at which he got things done but he insists there was nothing personal. "I had a very good relationship with David Moores and Rick Parry but the only thing I wanted to do was to do things quicker because we didn't have too much money. To be fair, sometimes we were doing good business without big money and sometimes we lost players. After the Americans arrived, everything changed. I thought it would be easier the first year, we signed Torres and everything was going well but little by little we had some money problems and all the decisions were subject to the money issues."

It is the most understated way of describing the meltdown. The last season became attritional. Stories filtered out about an unhappy squad, how Rafa had lost the dressing room.

"It's not true that I lost the dressing room. It was obvious that maybe some players were not happy but the majority of the players were very good professionals who were surprised by these stories in the same newspapers by the same journalists. Who was leaking them?"

He wasn't looking to be loved but he believed he would stay at Liverpool.

Last week Christian Purslow remarked that "Rafa's exit was about as clearcut a case of mutual consent as I have ever been involved in in my life. Both sides thought it was time for a change, both sides said so at the time, if you go back and check."

Benitez saw his comment. "I read that he said this -- I was preparing for the next season but after the meeting with Mr Broughton and Mr Purslow I realised that I had to accept the offer they made. I was very sad and my family were devastated when we realised after these meetings that we would leave. I knew I had to go."

He will not be drawn on what changed but after a couple of summers being denied the money he thought he was getting, it's not hard to conclude that his transfer budget and the money he would get from player sales had something to do with it.

He remains attached to the place. He is aware of the protests against Tom Hicks and George Gillett but doesn't want to talk too much out of "respect for the fans and the club". All he knows is that the club is still looking for investment a year after being told the cavalry was on its way. Christian Purslow is nobody's idea of the cavalry.

Benitez spent last year waiting for the investment, meeting with potential investors. Now he has a new challenge while survival is Liverpool's.

But Liverpool is a part of him. It is the place he and his wife call home.

"I am monitoring carefully everything that's going on there. I have a lot of friends there and I received a 'Justice' scarf from the Hillsborough families group that is in my office at home. Again out of respect I think it is important that I talk a little bit about the past but especially about the future. For me, at this moment, that is Inter Milan. I keep my house there, we are based in Liverpool and in the future we will be there again."

Right now, he thinks about Inter and the challenges but he knows more than most what football can bring and how he might return.

"You never know, football is football. It could be in five years' time, ten years' time, two years' time. We have two years of a contract here, we are really pleased here, the people are very nice, the fans are very similar to Liverpool fans, with passion, so everything is going well."

But Liverpool is home? "Yeah-it's the only house we have. Liverpool is my home and I will come back."

In his last year, he fought many battles in pursuit of victory in one war. He wanted the right to do things as he wanted to do them. He wanted so much, he always did, and he always wanted more.

Those close to Benitez dismiss Purslow as a man who thought he knew too much about too many things. It is a criticism many have thrown at Rafa too. They saw him as a political animal and he was unwavering in his belief that his way was the right way.

But they underestimated him too, they always have. They concluded that he was cunning. He wasn't cunning, he just wasn't as pliable as some expected.

With his dishevelled appearance and his lack of personal vanity, Benitez is football's Lieutenant Columbo. And he is always looking for 'just one more thing'. The obsessional pursuit drove him mad and brought him into dangerous conflict with the powers that remain at Liverpool. But he knew no other way. He didn't ask for much: only perfection.

On Wednesday, David Conachy was pushing Rafa for more pictures. He doesn't like having his picture taken or, more precisely, he doesn't like having a certain type of picture taken. Dave wanted to take every type of picture.

"Just one more," Dave said to him several times.

"You always say just one more," Rafa smiled, looking at his watch, as he tried to get away.

"He's a perfectionist, Rafa, you can understand that," I said.

Rafa looked at me. "I didn't say it was bad. It's just dangerous."

Sunday Independent

[Mr Q]

Haha, was just about to post that.

Kills a lot of people orffff. He wanted to sign Jovetic as well, smdh at our owners.

[MEIRELES.]

Torres injured

Who do we have as backup that will need to replace the best ST in the world??!! NGOG

Who do we have as NGOGs backup? Amoo

Great transfer dealings aint it *claps hands hard and slow*

Embarassing. Not only do we have an inept sqwad we also have a gradual confirmation of an inept manager. Downhill since 2009 and we continue to fall.

[Flojo]

Q you're being kind with average.

Hodgson is openly mocking Liverpool supporters right now, if the performances and lack of tactics aren't bad enough he compounds it by saying the most bizarre things in his post match interviews.

/

This article is so on point it hurts

http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/in-six-months-the-benitez-era-will-seem-like-a-golden-age-2173371.html

/

I'm considering a bet on Blackpool for Sunday. I'm serious.

[Mr Q]

f*ck our lives.

f*ck our f*ck*ng lives

Hicks, Gillet, Purslow, Broughton and Hodgson need to go!L

[n/a]

25 Reina

02 G Johnson

16 Kyrgiakos

23 Carragher

37 Skrtel

04 Raul Meireles

08 Gerrard

10 Cole

28 C Poulsen

(Ngog 10)

18 Kuyt

look at tht team is anyone surprised they struggling

i aint

liverpool fc one of the great institutions of this country

its bad to see them in this way

[Mr Q]

TELL ME f*ck*ng HODGSON IS A GOOD MANAGER AGAIN!

[Afroman]

Boooooooooy..

[King Poetic]

Torres injured

Who do we have as backup that will need to replace the best ST in the world??!! NGOG

Who do we have as NGOGs backup? Amoo

Great transfer dealings aint it *claps hands hard and slow*

Embarassing. Not only do we have an inept sqwad we also have a gradual confirmation of an inept manager. Downhill since 2009 and we continue to fall.

Defend your man Murks. Or is it Rafa's fault we are being tonked at home to Blackpool, the same Blackpool Chelsea and Arsenal put 4 and 6 past earlier.