Liverpool FC Forum

[Ciggy]

Oh little bit of info for you - I know someone who works at villa(and no not a tea lady) and he has confirmed it to me that City were the only team who made any approach for barry . No 11th hour bid from anyone .

Really? GazBaz's brother said other wise..........

We did make a last ditch attempt to bring him here, the reason he didnt want to come is because he would have been used as a utility player and not his favoured position and with the WC next year, he chose City instead.

[GYBS]

And its strange in what way ?

Explained my views on all the players 

Explained how i believe that Liverpool didnt make a bid for barry

And commented on how once again you brought up same old arguments about rotation - namely towards the very hard done by crouch and keane - who have both shown Rafa what a mistake it was to let them go - havent they ?

[GYBS]

Oh little bit of info for you - I know someone who works at villa(and no not a tea lady) and he has confirmed it to me that City were the only team who made any approach for barry . No 11th hour bid from anyone .

Really? GazBaz's brother said other wise..........

We did make a last ditch attempt to bring him here, the reason he didnt want to come is because he would have been used as a utility player and not his favoured position and with the WC next year, he chose City instead.

Oh well my source informed me they were getting Heskey before they did - also told me about Laursen having to retire before it came to light - also informed me that a spanish club and english club have made bids for  carew - also told me that last summer Barry was that confident he was leaving he packed his locker away and said goodbye to lots of staff but O Neill upped the price and then took away the captaincy due to his actions .

[Ciggy]

also told me that last summer Barry was that confident he was leaving he packed his locker away and said goodbye to lots of staff but O Neill upped the price and then took away the captaincy due to his actions .

You didnt need a source to tell you that FFS.

[GYBS]

also told me that last summer Barry was that confident he was leaving he packed his locker away and said goodbye to lots of staff but O Neill upped the price and then took away the captaincy due to his actions .

You didnt need a source to tell you that FFS.

I did before it came out in the press 

So when did you speak to Barrys  Brother ?

[GYBS]

There is also Inter enquiring about both Young and Agbonlahor during the january window ? Or Villa also tried to offload Nicky Shorey. They also asked about Babel as part of a Barry transfer ? Last summer wasnt the first time Rafa enquired about Barry - looked at him before going for masher

[bigmick]

Look. Lets assume everyones sauce is a similar strain of HP for a second, lets disregard the fact that Ciggy has been right about 173 times so far on her pronouncements visa vis Liverpool, and just look at the probabilities.

We tried to sign him last season for a shed load more money than he was now available for. He has retained his form and his place in the England team. Both of our central midfielders are the subject of sustained transfer speculation. Gerrard said the day before he signed for City that we should get him, presumebaly he and the manager do exchange views on such things from time to time.

All in all, as I said I'd be staggered if we weren't in for him.

[GYBS]

The word that sticks out in that whole thing is SPECUALTION - which so far has been wide off the mark and doesnt mirror what is coming offically out of the club . The press know we were in for barry so there is a nice easy storyline for them - just rehash last  summers . Last summer Rafa tried to sell Xabi - Perez says he wants to signhim- there is another easy storyline for them again . All totally different to what our manager is saying

[bigmick]

The word that sticks out in that whole thing is SPECUALTION - which so far has been wide off the mark and doesnt mirror what is coming offically out of the club . The press know we were in for barry so there is a nice easy storyline for them - just rehash last  summers . Last summer Rafa tried to sell Xabi - Perez says he wants to signhim- there is another easy storyline for them again . All totally different to what our manager is saying

Look, it's the closed season and it's the job of newspapers to "speculate". It keeps everyone interested. The alternative is, we all switch off our computers and our minds to football, and turn up game one next season. Then we can say "feck me who's that new goalie we've signed who's on the bench" (we normally do pick up a couple of goalies each Summer), "who's that new left back from Italy, HOW FECKING MUCH!!!!!" etc.

Now in "speculating" the papers talk quite a lot of b0llocks. That's Ok though, quite a lot of people on here including me talk quite a lot of b0ll0cks too, and we don't even get paid for it like they do. You hear wild rumours, but occasionally rumours become "speculation". They become speculation by virtue of the type of journals which talk about them, who says them, what quotes are included etc.

  Now both the transfers of Masherano and Alonso are no longer rumours, they are speculation. I think it's fairly clear that Ral Madrid wouldn't mind signing Xabi, but also fairly clear that Rafa wouldn't overly fancy selling him. Equally and ditto fashion with Masherano and Barcelona.

This is where people like you get a bit silly though GYBS. Now because it's bad form and it would push the price up, neither Barcelona nor Real Madrid come out and say "we want this player at all costs". Because it would push the price down and would be bad form, Rafa doesn't say "I really want to sell this player". And because it would be bad form and he'd run the risk of being hated by the fans, players don't say "I'd really like to feck off from this place and go play somewhere else".

So you get quotes from Madrid along the lines of "Xabi Alonso is a fantastic Spanish player, and of course we'd like him to play for us but it seems unlikely that Rafa Benitez would want to sell".

You get Rafa saying "Clearly Xabi is not for sale, clearly we know he is an important player".

You get masherano saying "Of course I am very flattered to be spoken of by a top club like Barcelona, but I am under contract to Liverpool and I'm happy here".

Now anyone with any sense, knows the real meaning behind all the statements. Some numpties though sieze upon them, and say "Aha!!, told you!!! It was all specualtion".

It may end up not coming to pass, but there is at least a possibility we could lose a central midfielder this Summer, time will tell.

Can you when you answer this one GYBS make it a) longer than one line, and b) coherent. The reason why I called another post "strange" was that it made no sense to me at all. When you went off on that bit where you asking questions and then answering them yourself, none of which related to the actual discussion I thought you'd finally lost the plot completely. "Is Crouch better than Torres? No he isn't" and all that sort of thing. Had me worried for a bit there.

[GYBS]

Well you started talking about crouch being rotated(rested ) etc when he was actually just a back up to torres when torres arrived so even if he scored a few goals in a row he was always going to go back on the bench due to the understanding that developed between Torres and Gerrard. Im sorry my posts are so short - i would rather  just make my point instead of making people read 4 page novels with rehashed opinions about rotation etc keane etc etc etc

[bigmick]

Don't be sorry about the posts being short, in fact this last one would have benefitted from being 87 words shorter 

[GYBS]

wow did you really take time out to count the words Mick ? my god thats dedication to the cause

[bigmick]

To come back to Crouch being rotated/rested out of form though just briefly. This was before Torres arrived. It was during that period, that excrutiatingly long, painful and barren period when we were going through the "but I just can't understand why he can't score, he looked sooo good in the Dutch league" stage with Kuyt. Eventually we realised that it was mostly because he never had a shot, but it took us a while. After that of course we cottoned onto the fact that in terms of deflecting it in with various parts on his anatomy, his knee, his shoulder, his back, his b0ll0cks etc he was actually quite prolific in that particular discipline. Unfortunately though, such is the nbature of the game that no amount of flexibility, bravery and unpredictability as to which part of his body would make contact with the ball before it flew into the net could make up for the fact he was garbage up front. The nature of football is you score more goals with shots and headers than you do with "knee ins", so Dirk was hoisted by his own patard to some extent.

Course since then we bunged him out on the right where he runs around a lot, and bizarrely scores more than he ever did while playing up front. Just shows you, although I'm not entirely sure exactly what it shows.

[bigmick]

wow did you really take time out to count the words Mick ? my god thats dedication to the cause

I did, but you obviously did afterwards to check  . I don't know who's sadder (although I'll concede it's probably me    ).

[GYBS]

No idea mick - i didnt count to be honest - took your word for it