Liverpool FC Official Thread

Carragher is power-hungry, Reina is a true Liverpool player, well worthy or being our captain. But I'm uncertain about goalkeeper captains..

No-one expected Hiddink or Mourinho to pitch up at Anfield this summer. But Pellegrini – fresh from a club-record 96 points at Real Madrid, and, as also seen with his lovely Villarreal side, a purveyor of the kind of pass-and-move football Reds have grown up on – was passed up because the club (key executives and key players) wanted to go English. Quite why, aside from parochialism and xenophobia, is beyond me.

Ah, but Hodgson was a ‘continental’, too, after such a nomadic career. Except he exported a basic, solid English 1970s approach to Scandinavia at a time when English football was strong in Europe, and he took advantage of an out-of-date fascination with the sweeper system in that part of the world. But once back in England – especially at a big club in the new Millennium – he was in effect now importing ice to the eskimos. And not even good ice at that. Meanwhile, the big clubs had moved on.

Playing like an English team from the 1970s is what plenty of struggling and fair-to-middling teams tend to do in the Premier League; although to their great credit, the likes of Wolves, Bolton, Wigan, West Brom and Blackpool are all playing a far more progressive game than that; and indeed, in the 1970s and ‘80s, Liverpool themselves were playing a continental passing game, not some basic homespun tripe. The Kop would have hated Hodgson’s tactics then, so why accept them now, when the best teams all respect a possession-based game?

If Coyle, Holloway, Di Matteo and Martinez can get humble collections of footballers playing positive, expansive football, then there’s no excuse for Hodgson failing with the current crop at Liverpool. No matter that he didn’t sign them all (though he did sign five of the first team squad and release Aquilani); it took Owen Coyle next to no time to turn Megson’s Hodgsonesque Bolton into something more Shanklyesque. By contrast, Hodgson has a squad full of stars that went to the World Cup, many of them integral to major nations, and has them chasing long balls and shadows.

Hodgson talks of a love of getting he ball quickly to the front men and midfielders then joining; in other words, pretty much the Wimbledon approach. What about passing the ball accurately into the front men having worked the ball upfield? Whatever he did at Fulham, including getting the ball up to Bobby Zamora and winning the LMA award, means nothing at Liverpool. The approach needs to be very different to a mid-table outfit. But Hodgson’s whole career has been a ‘one size fits all’ approach. It fit Fulham brilliantly. Bravo. It fits us like Fatty Arbuckle squeezing into Cheryl Cole’s bikini.

Even if he has a target-men more suited to bringing the ball down (get rid of Torres, buy Carlon Cole), being so direct will never be accepted by the Kop. This is Liverpool; this is Anfield. We don’t live in the past, and don’t expect trophies every season, but certain qualities are part of the club’s DNA.

Pass and move is one of those qualities. There are different ways to do it, but style has it been so lacking. Right now, it’s like going to a Michelin-starred restaurant, only to be served a Big Mac and charged £100 for the privilege. In Torres, Hodgson has a white truffle; the manager, it seems, would rather make use of a pickled gherkin and a ketchup sachet.

This is not to absolve Torres from blame for his sulking on the pitch, but Jesus Christ, if I’d been brought up in Spain and won every major international honour with my country, and was asked to risk blindness by staring into the floodlights to locate a snow-covered ball descending out of the haze, I’d be in a strop.

Again, I noted back in the summer that Benítez’s high-pressing style got the best out of the Liverpool no.9. In his previous two injury-ravaged seasons he was still getting a goal almost every game, even if just coming back from a six-week layoff; now we’re lucky if we get a goal a month.

If Benítez had to go, so be it. I’ve accepted that; that can’t be changed, even though we have clearly traded down.

But the longer the media continue to blame solely him for Liverpool’s woes (even though he left a team that finished with more points and more wins than the one he inherited in 2004, and had something like 15 World Cup participants), then the greater the outcry from knowledgeable fans who, whether they liked Rafa or not, know that Hodgson – with his kowtowing to ‘Sir Alex’, his disregard of the fans, his timid, gutless, artless football – is not the answer to our greatest question. No-one forces Hodgson to get so many men behind the ball, whether winning or losing. No-one forces Hodgson to have the defence sit so deep and hit the ball so long.

Mock us if you want – “they all laugh at us”, as the song says – but we know our football, and we know our club. Patrick Barclay, Paul Hayward and their cohorts may know Roy Hodgson and Fulham Football Club better than us, but we know our standards. And if such people told us that 7th place with 63 points fell below the accepted standards – sack Rafa! (they did) – then this is so far below it’s almost off the scale. Frankly, it’s an insult.

No wonder things began to get ugly on the Kop.

Article I found on the Official Liverpool FC Forum, great read.

FootyFanaticLFC wrote:I can assure you he would not go over 20 million. Yes, i do watch La Liga regularly, and not just matches consisting of Real and Barca. Real have been linked with so many people recently and its not a surprise their linked with Llorente, wont happen though.

Agree to disagree then, but I'll be sure to remind you when he does go for over £20m.

Why would they use a White truffle in a Mcdonalds?

I want Scott Parker at the club

Stab Collymore is an unadulterated pleb, on Talksport today he repeatedly spouted shit about how Liverpool fans should basically shut up and support Hodgson.

Dean wrote:No-one expected Hiddink or Mourinho to pitch up at Anfield this summer. But Pellegrini – fresh from a club-record 96 points at Real Madrid, and, as also seen with his lovely Villarreal side, a purveyor of the kind of pass-and-move football Reds have grown up on – was passed up because the club (key executives and key players) wanted to go English. Quite why, aside from parochialism and xenophobia, is beyond me.

I was fearful that Pellegrini would replace Rafa in the summer.... still am really

Jamie wrote:Twitter is good if you know who on it is reliable.

I don't though, so don't bother using it.

http://twitter.com/thisisanfield

http://twitter.com/JimBoardman

http://twitter.com/neiljjones

http://twitter.com/bensmith_times

http://twitter.com/danroan

http://twitter.com/pkelso

http://twitter.com/rorysmith_tel

http://twitter.com/RBuxton_LFC

http://twitter.com/paul_tomkins

There the most reliable ones to follow on twitter.

Dean wrote:Superb ball that from Stevie.

Steven Gerrard is running this Football Club.

twos a superd half volley lob. gave me a hard on. shame he plays for you lot down the road.

Apparently we approached the Dortmund manager but got turned down

Jay.Davies11 wrote:Apparently we approached the Dortmund manager but got turned down

Don't blame him

Jay.Davies11 wrote:Apparently we approached the Dortmund manager but got turned down

Bullet dodged then.

We don't need unproven managers like Klopp or Coyle. We need managers that are proven at the top level of football.

Preferbly a man-manager with 30+years experiance to steady the ship.

Why on earth would we want Roy to go anyway? He's a nice chap, offered me a smint the other day.

Jord wrote:Why on earth would we want Roy to go anyway? He's a nice chap, offered me a smint the other day.

Scouser_Dave wrote:

Jord wrote:Why on earth would we want Roy to go anyway? He's a nice chap, offered me a smint the other day.

No one liked my would you like a smint picture

Joe has many talents.

Scouser_Dave wrote:

Someone got me a Match annual and something like that was in it.

Just heard we are interested in Per Mertesacker.

Please make it happen

isn't he like 6 ft 4? Agger and Him wow!

Would LOVE Mertesacker to come to Liverpool. But, don't see that happening as his likely destination would be Arsenal, they have been chasing him for a bit now. He is an immense defender, got a great header, not to shabby with his feet when i watched him playing for Werder in the Champions League.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO4YPfDDI6Q&feature=related

Click it, fast forward to anywhere and press 7 .

NGreat wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO4YPfDDI6Q&feature=related

Click it, fast forward to anywhere and press 7 .

How do you make it do that?

SBSP_FIFA wrote:

NGreat wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO4YPfDDI6Q&feature=related

Click it, fast forward to anywhere and press 7 .

How do you make it do that?

I didn't. It works with every video.

Try it with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbobBCe5-kU

But press 9 instead

NGreat wrote:

SBSP_FIFA wrote:

NGreat wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO4YPfDDI6Q&feature=related

Click it, fast forward to anywhere and press 7 .

How do you make it do that?

I didn't. It works with every video.

Try it with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbobBCe5-kU

But press 9 instead

Oh I see. Didn't know that.

Scouser_Dave wrote:

Jay.Davies11 wrote:Apparently we approached the Dortmund manager but got turned down

Bullet dodged then.

We don't need unproven managers like Klopp or Coyle. We need managers that are proven at the top level of football.

In fairness, Klopp is doing wonders at Dortmund - playing some beautiful stuff as well, and he's brought in a few players himself that have torn the league apart. Might not be he most experienced, but he's the better of a lot of people we could get.