Liverpool FC Official Thread

Scott_LFC wrote:

The Zlatan wrote:Balotelli is such a huge risk for any club to take, it could turn out to be great or it could be a massive mistake that puts Rodgers under a lot of scrutiny and possibly leads to his demise at Liverpool. If Liverpool think they can afford the high stakes then why not? But the damage that could be caused by this far outweighs any success it could bring. 

He's been living off his potential for a good 5 years now, but how much longer can it carry him? Like Zzonked said, if he lives up to his potential he can be world class, but he's 24 now and people have been saying that for a long time and nothing has really come of it. Yes, he has talent but he also has never seemed to settled and he's not consistent, add to that his terrible discipline and his acquired personality and it's a bit of a car crash. 

It'll be interesting to see how this works out.

Hyperbole, much?

Worse comes to worse, we can sell him on for close to what we paid for him.

Rodgers has spoken a few times about the team spirit and what not and you'd think it's something he plans on keeping intact. I think it's a huge risk to bring in a player like Balotelli who is renowned for his bad behaviour, someone who has been branded 'unmanageable' by Arsene Wenger and more importantly Jose Mourinho and Roberto Mancini, heck, he even ended up having a fight in training with the latter. Oh, and a fight with a team mate at one point, too. Not to mention the plethora of other crazy shit he has done outside of football. To bring in a player like that could easily divide a dressing room, he could become really good friends with young Raheem and bring out the worst in him, then you have two players that'll under perform because of their escapades. And from that it can easily grow, some players will get really unhappy, some won't play to the ability they are capable of because of it, the results stop going your way, you fall down the table a couple of places, things get worse and then Rodgers gets sacked for under performing. It seems like a reasonable scenario to me. 

It's okay though because he might throw money out of his car window again while he drives around Liverpool and help 67% of the population out of poverty.  

Scott_LFC wrote:What constitutes as quiet? As if I would go into hiding , I'm one of the more outspoken members of the forum and don't shy away from anything

Yeah, but you weren't when we signed Sanchez   You were routinely mocking our transfer dealings up to that point, but as soon as we signed him you posted nothing. Only when I went into the Liverpool thread and mocked you did you reply and look at these limp, half-arsed replies

Scott_LFC wrote:I don't see how any of them are funny? No one said we were definitely signing Sanchez.

Scott_LFC wrote:I think you got the wrong idea

Scott_LFC wrote:

Keyser Söze wrote:

Praying Sanchez signs. Includes Sanchez in lineups.

Yeah, I'm sorry for getting the wrong idea.

What? That means I wanted us to sign him. I'd be an idiot not to. Doesn't mean I thought he was definitely coming.

Scott_LFC wrote:

Keyser Söze wrote:
I knew you didn't "definitely" think he was coming. I even told Glen a few days ago I thought Liverpool could sign him. That's not the point, though.

What's the point then?

Mock formations and speculation is all part of being a fan.

Look how totally dejected you sound   So subdued and trying to back out of claims.

Super Mario, baby. Cry more, Keyser.

Keyser Söze wrote:Ok, let me clarify. He's been abysmal, particularly last season for Milan.

Which Milan wasn't poor last season? Probably NDJ, that's it.

And your comment regarding Gervinho is nonsense; apparently he was very good for Lille so Arsenal took a punt on him. Gervinho has talked about Wenger being a pedophile who never gave him the confidence to perform, and that Garcia does. IIRC Garcia coached him at Lille so it's clearly a case of a player not being in the right environment to thrive. I blame Wenger's awful man-management skills.

Balotelli was playing with a bunch of teammates who underperformed regularly. And he's not the type of forward to stay on the shoulder of defenders either, he has to come deep so often just to get the ball in the first place. I wonder how that would work out at Liverpool.

Balotelli shits the bed in big matches? Must have something in common with Arsenal.

Matt Critchley @MattCritchley1 · 4h
Struggling to believe this @FinallyMario story to @Lfc but several good sources suggesting it's on. Massive gamble from BR if it goes thru

Claire Rourke ‏@clairerourke 10 mins
@MattCritchley1 you might want to watch @lfctv from 9pm tonight!!!

Gonna take that as confirmation.

But when Balotelli doesn't give a shit, he makes the team worse. Moody player who is Penaldo-esque when it comes to taking hopeful shots ignoring his teammates at times.

He did have a few games like that last season. He's inconsistent but maybe Brendão can get the fire out of him #YNWA #JFT96 #WeGoAgain

Against City, please.

The Zlatan wrote:Balotelli is such a huge risk for any club to take, it could turn out to be great or it could be a massive mistake that puts Rodgers under a lot of scrutiny and possibly leads to his demise at Liverpool. If Liverpool think they can afford the high stakes then why not? But the damage that could be caused by this far outweighs any success it could bring. 

He's been living off his potential for a good 5 years now, but how much longer can it carry him? Like Zzonked said, if he lives up to his potential he can be world class, but he's 24 now and people have been saying that for a long time and nothing has really come of it. Yes, he has talent but he also has never seemed to settled and he's not consistent, add to that his terrible discipline and his acquired personality and it's a bit of a car crash. 

It'll be interesting to see how this works out.

Only £16m and £90K a week. If it's true that Arsenal pulled out then that's quite disappointing since he's already better than Giroud. What's the risk? That he won't turn world class? Even if he doesn't live upto his potential, he is still a very good player to have.

vel wrote:

Keyser Söze wrote:Ok, let me clarify. He's been abysmal, particularly last season for Milan.

Which Milan wasn't poor last season? Probably NDJ, that's it.

And your comment regarding Gervinho is nonsense; apparently he was very good for Lille so Arsenal took a punt on him. Gervinho has talked about Wenger being a pedophile who never gave him the confidence to perform, and that Garcia does. IIRC Garcia coached him at Lille so it's clearly a case of a player not being in the right environment to thrive. I blame Wenger's awful man-management skills.

Balotelli was playing with a bunch of teammates who underperformed regularly. And he's not the type of forward to stay on the shoulder of defenders either, he has to come deep so often just to get the ball in the first place. I wonder how that would work out at Liverpool.

Balotelli shits the bed in big matches? Must have something in common with Arsenal.

That's bullshit if anything Wenger gave Gervinho more than he deserved. He was clearly not suited for the BPL but Wenger still gave him countless opportunities to perform, he even played him as a striker a few times in important games.

It should be interesting, no matter what.

His work rate will probably infuriate you at times. He can be as bad as Berbatov sometimes.

Monday might be too soon btw. City signed Mangala on the 11th and he wasn't even ready for the bench by the 17th. Even if Balo signs tonight that's only maybe like 1 proper day of training with the team.

Keyser Söze wrote:

Scott_LFC wrote:

Or he was just doing a Mourinho.

Will be able to tell when he's questioned about it in his next press conference. If a smug smile emerges, or a wink, that'll say it all.

What? He said that Balotelli comment with a straight face 3 weeks ago. Anything he says now will be him trying to cover his ass    He's not exactly going to say "Yeah, we failed in the pursuit of a number of targets during the last three weeks so I've just decided to settle on a player I didn't want at all three weeks ago"

When has Mourinho denied wanting to sign a player, shopped around for 3 weeks, trying to sign multiple targets to no avail and then signed said player and acted like it was his plan all along?

Saying he wanted Balotelli would have put Milan's price up and also alerted other teams. Rodgers isn't a moron and doesn't air everything to the press like Wenger

Grenade wrote:

The Zlatan wrote:Balotelli is such a huge risk for any club to take, it could turn out to be great or it could be a massive mistake that puts Rodgers under a lot of scrutiny and possibly leads to his demise at Liverpool. If Liverpool think they can afford the high stakes then why not? But the damage that could be caused by this far outweighs any success it could bring. 

He's been living off his potential for a good 5 years now, but how much longer can it carry him? Like Zzonked said, if he lives up to his potential he can be world class, but he's 24 now and people have been saying that for a long time and nothing has really come of it. Yes, he has talent but he also has never seemed to settled and he's not consistent, add to that his terrible discipline and his acquired personality and it's a bit of a car crash. 

It'll be interesting to see how this works out.

Only £16m and £90K a week. If it's true that Arsenal pulled out then that's quite disappointing since he's already better than Giroud. What's the risk? That he won't turn world class? Even if he doesn't live upto his potential, he is still a very good player to have.

I've outlined the risks in my posts. It's far more than him not living up to his potential.

If they can afford it and they're willing to make the gamble then they might as well, but I wouldn't be happy if we were signing him regardless of how good or bad Giroud is in comparison. I'm happy Wenger never took up the offer from Milan.

Eriksen wrote:

Keyser Söze wrote:

What? He said that Balotelli comment with a straight face 3 weeks ago. Anything he says now will be him trying to cover his ass    He's not exactly going to say "Yeah, we failed in the pursuit of a number of targets during the last three weeks so I've just decided to settle on a player I didn't want at all three weeks ago"

When has Mourinho denied wanting to sign a player, shopped around for 3 weeks, trying to sign multiple targets to no avail and then signed said player and acted like it was his plan all along?

Saying he wanted Balotelli would have put Milan's price up and also alerted other teams. Rodgers isn't a moron and doesn't air everything to the press like Wenger

I don't know if he was expecting to resort to Balotelli, Leo.

The Zlatan wrote:

Eriksen wrote:
Saying he wanted Balotelli would have put Milan's price up and also alerted other teams. Rodgers isn't a moron and doesn't air everything to the press like Wenger

I don't know if he was expecting to resort to Balotelli, Leo.

I doubt he was, but he knew he was an option. There's hardly any better forwards available at a realistic price right now anyway. Falcao and Cavani was never going to happen

If I was an Arsenal fan watching Giroud I'd certainly be jealous of Liverpool signing a striker like Balotelli. He's a quality player regardless of the controversy.

The Zlatan wrote:

Grenade wrote:
Only £16m and £90K a week. If it's true that Arsenal pulled out then that's quite disappointing since he's already better than Giroud. What's the risk? That he won't turn world class? Even if he doesn't live upto his potential, he is still a very good player to have.

I've outlined the risks in my posts. It's far more than him not living up to his potential.

If they can afford it and they're willing to make the gamble then they might as well, but I wouldn't be happy if we were signing him regardless of how good or bad Giroud is in comparison. I'm happy Wenger never took up the offer from Milan.

He can't really cause much damage to the club though really. Sure the media will always be on his case but as a person he can't really create some sort of disaster within LFC like you're making it out to be. Unless Wenger manages to sign a striker as good as Balotelli or better then he's fucked up on letting LFC sign Balotelli instead. How can you be happy at the prospect of having Giroud as Arsenal's main goal scoring threat this season LOL.

vel wrote:

Keyser Söze wrote:Ok, let me clarify. He's been abysmal, particularly last season for Milan.

Which Milan wasn't poor last season? Probably NDJ, that's it.

And your comment regarding Gervinho is nonsense; apparently he was very good for Lille so Arsenal took a punt on him. Gervinho has talked about Wenger being a pedophile who never gave him the confidence to perform, and that Garcia does. IIRC Garcia coached him at Lille so it's clearly a case of a player not being in the right environment to thrive. I blame Wenger's awful man-management skills.

Balotelli was playing with a bunch of teammates who underperformed regularly. And he's not the type of forward to stay on the shoulder of defenders either, he has to come deep so often just to get the ball in the first place. I wonder how that would work out at Liverpool.

Balotelli shits the bed in big matches? Must have something in common with Arsenal.

So Gervinho was good in Ligue 1, a tinpot league, and Serie A, another tinpot league, but not in the vastly superior BPL   Yeah, my claim was nonsense.

Eriksen wrote:

Keyser Söze wrote:

What? He said that Balotelli comment with a straight face 3 weeks ago. Anything he says now will be him trying to cover his ass    He's not exactly going to say "Yeah, we failed in the pursuit of a number of targets during the last three weeks so I've just decided to settle on a player I didn't want at all three weeks ago"

When has Mourinho denied wanting to sign a player, shopped around for 3 weeks, trying to sign multiple targets to no avail and then signed said player and acted like it was his plan all along?

Saying he wanted Balotelli would have put Milan's price up and also alerted other teams. Rodgers isn't a moron and doesn't air everything to the press like Wenger

The same Wenger that when asked about buying Santi Cazorla denied even knowing how he was? Wenger hardly ever says anything to the press, in fact he's notorious for it.

Grenade wrote:

The Zlatan wrote:

I've outlined the risks in my posts. It's far more than him not living up to his potential.

If they can afford it and they're willing to make the gamble then they might as well, but I wouldn't be happy if we were signing him regardless of how good or bad Giroud is in comparison. I'm happy Wenger never took up the offer from Milan.

He can't really cause much damage to the club though really. Sure the media will always be on his case but as a person he can't really create some sort of disaster within LFC like you're making it out to be. Unless Wenger manages to sign a striker as good as Balotelli or better then he's fucked up on letting LFC sign Balotelli instead. How can you be happy at the prospect of having Giroud as Arsenal's main goal scoring threat this season LOL.

I think it could happen, with Manchester United challenging for the top 4 again this season it's more likely that Liverpool could drop back out after losing their best player. It's highly unlikely that they'll finish above 3rd so that would already make it a regression. He could very easily help make it worse with his antics. 

I don't think he would be fucking up by not going after Balotelli and not improving on Giroud. I think he would be fucking up if he were to go for Balotelli.

I haven't said anything about being happy with Giroud as our striker.

Keyser Söze wrote:

vel wrote:
Which Milan wasn't poor last season? Probably NDJ, that's it.

And your comment regarding Gervinho is nonsense; apparently he was very good for Lille so Arsenal took a punt on him. Gervinho has talked about Wenger being a pedophile who never gave him the confidence to perform, and that Garcia does. IIRC Garcia coached him at Lille so it's clearly a case of a player not being in the right environment to thrive. I blame Wenger's awful man-management skills.

Balotelli was playing with a bunch of teammates who underperformed regularly. And he's not the type of forward to stay on the shoulder of defenders either, he has to come deep so often just to get the ball in the first place. I wonder how that would work out at Liverpool.

Balotelli shits the bed in big matches? Must have something in common with Arsenal.

So Gervinho was good in Ligue 1, a tinpot league, and Serie A, another tinpot league, but not in the vastly superior BPL   Yeah, my claim was nonsense.

He won the double in 2010-11, Arsenal lost in the Capital One Cup to Birmingham in 2010-11

Eternal Witcher wrote:I've got no doubts about this, the YNWA spirit has been waiting for him all his life. Wouldn't be surprised if he breaks down in tears the first time he hears the Kop sing his name. Our squad hasn't looked this good, not for decades.

Roll on this season.

Arsenal fans

vel wrote:

Keyser Söze wrote:

So Gervinho was good in Ligue 1, a tinpot league, and Serie A, another tinpot league, but not in the vastly superior BPL   Yeah, my claim was nonsense.

He won the double in 2010-11, Arsenal lost in the Capital One Cup to Birmingham in 2010-11

What's that prove?
That Birmingham team would have beaten Lille.

Scouser_Dave wrote:

Arsenal fans

lovely piece of business

Scouser_Dave wrote:

Lucas and Agger should scrape up around 10% of the fee needed to get Insigne

Keyser Söze wrote:

vel wrote:

He won the double in 2010-11, Arsenal lost in the Capital One Cup to Birmingham in 2010-11

What's that prove?
That Birmingham team would have beaten Lille.

Eden "potential to reach Messi and Ronaldo" Hazard would have torn them apart, mate.    

The Zlatan wrote:

Scott_LFC wrote:

Hyperbole, much?

Worse comes to worse, we can sell him on for close to what we paid for him.

Rodgers has spoken a few times about the team spirit and what not and you'd think it's something he plans on keeping intact. I think it's a huge risk to bring in a player like Balotelli who is renowned for his bad behaviour, someone who has been branded 'unmanageable' by Arsene Wenger and more importantly Jose Mourinho and Roberto Mancini, heck, he even ended up having a fight in training with the latter. Oh, and a fight with a team mate at one point, too. Not to mention the plethora of other crazy shit he has done outside of football. To bring in a player like that could easily divide a dressing room, he could become really good friends with young Raheem and bring out the worst in him, then you have two players that'll under perform because of their escapades. And from that it can easily grow, some players will get really unhappy, some won't play to the ability they are capable of because of it, the results stop going your way, you fall down the table a couple of places, things get worse and then Rodgers gets sacked for under performing. It seems like a reasonable scenario to me. 

It's okay though because he might throw money out of his car window again while he drives around Liverpool and help 67% of the population out of poverty.  

Not sure if serious..

1. We already had a player who was renowned for being trouble. Luis Suarez. Rodgers was able to keep him tame for a whole season. As soon as he was out of Rodger's reach, he went back to biting people. Also, what Luis Suarez did last Summer (beg for a move to Arsenal) is something that could have divided the dressing room, too, but it didn't, so I see no reason why Balotelli would cause it to happen. Baloteli didn't divide the dressing room at City. In fact, he won a Premier League with them. He hasn't divided a dressing room anywhere he's been, so what makes you think he will suddenly divide the Liverpool dressing room?

2. Being branded as unmanageable by previous Managers is only going to look hilarious in hindsight, when Rodgers gets the best out of Super Mario.

3. Balotelli's off-the-pitch escapades are overhyped. He said in an interview that some of the things he reads about himself is entirely untrue, and the stuff that's true is often exaggerated quite largely.

4. Your "reasonable scenario" is fucking hilarious That is clearly not going to happen. Rodgers doesn't take any shit. If Balotelli plays up, he'll be dropped. Suarez was made to train on his own when he disrespected Liverpool in the press and would only be let back into the group after apologising to everyone. Also, it's come to light that there will be behavioural clauses in the contract.

Biting an opposition player doesn't divide the dressing room, begging to leave the club doesn't divide the dressing room. Having physical altercations with two teammates and your manager will.

He divided the dressing room at both City and at Italy during the WC.