Liverpool FC Forum

[Cool Hand Luke]

There are not 15 relegation teams but 5, Aston Villa, Leeds, Wolves, Portsmouth, Leicester.

[Owzat]

There have been a fair number of uninspiring teams so far this season, I count six relegation contenders - Wolves, Leicester, Leeds Utd, Everton, Aston Villa and arguably Portsmouth. I think it is the mediocrity of the Premiership that pushes the likes of Fulham and Charlton into the top half of the table rather than the strength. Fulham and Charlton have done well but ought to be behind Liverpool, Newcastle, Man City and Blackburn at the very least. If the Premiership were that strong would Charlton have a decent away record?

[JBG]

Houllier will blame it on injuries but last season Man UTD lost Keane, Scholes, Solsjaere, Butt, Brown and Gary Neville for long periods of time and still won the league.

Scholes played 33 league games last season and banged in 14 goals. You've probably been listening to too many know-nothing mancs

Yeah, but UTD lost Scholes in October/November last season when they went through their bad run, as well as having a few others like Keane out.

Scholes and Van Nistlerooy won UTD the league with their performances after Christmas last season.

I was merely arguing that Man Utd can lose a lot of their best players to injury and still struggle on, whereas Houllier starts making excuses as soon as Michael Owen's hamstring gets a bit tight.

The Premiership is definitely the weakest of the top three leagues, but it is not as weak as it was four or five years ago. Arsenal and Chelsea both picked up four goal wins on their travels to Italy last month.....not bad eh?

However, the Premiership's biggest weakness is the amount of games teams have to play. Teams like Man City and Fulham can get bogged down in the Carling Cup as their squads are too thin to see them through.

[Owzat]

All Premiership teams lose a player for spells in a season, it's long term injuries like Henchoz and Hamann that cut deepest into resources. I'd certainly say a player has to be missing for half the league season for it to be really damaging, even 20-25 games is a fair whack. Scholes has missed a few games this season but if he plays the rest then manu will have got lucky - again. About time rvn hit another injury......

[JBG]

Losing important players like Hamman and Henchoz for long spells is a terrible blow, but Houllier was given buckets of money to buy squad players and yet he ended playing a converted defender and failed midfielder as Henchoz's replacement while he never picked his backup for Hamman - Salif Diao - in Hamman's position at all!

Liverpool have spent more than squad players than Man UTD, but UTD get far greater milage from their fringe players than we do.

[Owzat]

manu have built a structure way better than Houllier. They sign quality players and fill in the gaps in the team with youngsters coming up through the ranks. Just look at the players they have as support for their "stars" - O'Shea, Brown, Neville & Neville, Scholes, Butt and Fletcher. They may not be the World's greatest but they compliment the stars around them and do the job required. Ferguson then has plenty of cash to fill the important roles and find a real superstar in the youth team if he's lucky. We sold Wright, Thompson and Fowler in favour of Finnan (£4m), Diouf (£10m), and Heskey (£11m), money which could have been better spent (though we did get £11m for Fowler) Our best two players are homegrown - Owen and Gerrard

[JBG]

I agree Owzat. And personally I would have preffered if we held onto Matteo, Wright and Thompson as these were three passionate homegrown players who look better than some of the rubbish that replaced them (Biscan, Troare, Smicer etc), although letting Fowler go was correct, as Gods awful fall from grace has proven.