Liverpool FC Forum

[maguskwt]

Top class. Who would have thought we`d have the captain of Argentina......  on our bench.

 

[Dundalk]

Look whos back

[Toffeehater]

thank god , at least he's back . I think he will stay masch , wears his heart on his sleeve , very passionate about LFC

[Bammo]

Cavalieri looks like he's going to kill Sammy Lee in that pic

[roberto green]

I think Mash will stay too,I think Benitez would of reminded who come and got him out of the reserves at west ham and brought him to be Argentine captain

Good to see him back.Lets hope Alonso next.

[maguskwt]

Actually I'm disappointed with him this off season... he was all liverpoolf before this... like he'll repay rafa this and that... and then this summer when he was linked with barca he didn't say he's happy at liverpool or whateverl he says somewhat along the lines of ohhhh it's great to be linked with such great teams... blah blah blah... he kinda reminds me of these bullshitting-not-so-intelligent players like diouf who would say "gaffer I'll play for you in a heartbeat" this and that blah blah blah... disappointed... and he's one of the players I really do like mind you...

[roberto green]

Actually I'm disappointed with him this off season... he was all liverpoolf before this... like he'll repay rafa this and that... and then this summer when he was linked with barca he didn't say he's happy at liverpool or whateverl he says somewhat along the lines of ohhhh it's great to be linked with such great teams... blah blah blah... he kinda reminds me of these bullshitting-not-so-intelligent players like diouf who would say "gaffer I'll play for you in a heartbeat" this and that blah blah blah... disappointed... and he's one of the players I really do like mind you...

Yeah but saying its grea to be linked with big clubs like Barca and Real does'nt mean Im off if he gets a bid. it just means a compliment knowing he must be playing well.

[Bammo]

Wasn't it his agent saying it rather than him? Agents obviously speak on behalf of their clients but they don't always consult them first.

See Arshavin's ex-agent for a good example

[ElNino9]

I always knew Alonso would be the 1 to go and seeing those pics makes me sway even further towards Alonso. I doubt Xabi will train with the squad again.

[Toffeehater]

An old article i've found , still a fecking good read .


Why Mascherano, not Torres, is the real Benítez masterstroke

The Argentine rivals Claude Makelele as the best exponent of an art to which too little importance is attached
Not often does the person sitting at home see more than the spectator in the stadium, but it happened on Saturday when Liverpool beat Manchester United at Old Trafford. A couple of minutes before the kick-off, while the television camera was lingering on the teams lining up in the tunnel, something happened that gave a fascinating portent of the upset to come.

We had just learnt that Alvaro Arbeloa, the Liverpool right-back, had tweaked a hamstring during the warm-up and would not be playing. Rafael Benítez had reconfigured his defence, moving Jamie Carragher from centre-back to fill Arbeloa's position and bringing in Sami Hyypia alongside Martin Skrtel. In the light of the lengthy preparations that would have gone into a fixture of this magnitude – not the match of the season, perhaps, but a very important one to both sides – this represented a serious adjustment.

What the roving camera in the Old Trafford tunnel showed was a little huddle at the rear of the Liverpool line. At the centre of a group of defenders Javier Mascherano was delivering an impassioned speech, complete with heated gesticulations. It was the sort of thing one might have expected to see from Steven Gerrard, the team captain, or from the vastly experienced Hyypia, his predecessor. Two hours later, however, Mascherano had given a display confirming my belief that he rivals Claude Makelele as the best exponent in modern British football of an art to which, even now, too little importance is attached.

Gerrard and Fernando Torres, who ran the United defence ragged and scored a goal apiece, won the battle of the headlines. But it was Mascherano who carved out the space and time in which they could play, as he had done the previous Tuesday night when Liverpool produced the second of their great performances of the season in routing Real Madrid. The first of those great performances came at Stamford Bridge in October, when Liverpool's midfield squeezed the life out of Chelsea and ended the west London club's run of 86 home league matches without defeat. The third came, of course, on Saturday – when, significantly, United took the field without an equivalent player. Mascherano's excellence was a thread running through all three games.

I first saw him in 2004, when he was 20 years old and winning an Olympic gold medal with an Argentina squad including Carlos Tevez and Gabriel Heinze. No one in Britain pays much attention to the Olympic football tournament, for the simple and patently inadequate reason that there are no British representatives. Other nations, however, take it extremely seriously, making it a good opportunity to see young talent on the way up. In Athens, Mascherano, who had made his senior debut for River Plate less than a year earlier, sat in front of the defence and controlled the traffic with a calmness and technical excellence reminiscent of Barcelona's Pep Guardiola.

Four years later in Beijing he was doing much the same thing, this time as an over-age player in a squad including Lionel Messi and Sergio Agüero. The impression was the same, and so was the result: another gold medal for a man who by this time had moved from River Plate to Corinthians in Brazil and thence to England, first to West Ham – where Alan Pardew saw fit to give him only seven appearances in half a season – before finding a home at Anfield.

Most people would probably claim that Torres is the best of Benítez's many expensive acquisitions, and the coltish striker is undoubtedly a wonderfully compelling performer who adds a sense of possibility to any match in which he takes part. But my choice would be Mascherano, a player who rose above a set of tangled transfer dealings and above the inability of his first English club to understand exactly what it is that he adds to a team. Benítez could see what Pardew failed to spot, and spent £18m on a player whose contribution is proving to be priceless.

In the absence of Xabi Alonso, his usual partner at the base of midfield, Mascherano's tackles, his interceptions and his distribution laid the solid foundation for Saturday's tumultuous victory. His competitiveness and his footballing intelligence were on full view as he fetched and harried with marvellous humility and unfailing relevance. Nobody writes poems about such players, but they should.

[tubby]

Great read that mate. I am sure he will stay now with Barca having forked out all that money on Zlatan.

[Reg]

Actually I'm disappointed with him this off season...

Me too..... one step forward and three steps back. He's gonna have to demonstrate he's got Liverpool in his heart to me... honest I'm really upset with him. No Liverpool player walks in the middle of a contract for no reason.

[tubby]

It all started badly tbh with him going to the Olympics when he should have just stayed with the squad. After that he needed rest ect...

[ElNino9]

Liverpool Midfielder Javier Mascherano Maintains Barcelona Desire – Agent

The player's representative has reportedly again expressed his client's wish for a move away from Anfield...

22 Jul 2009 09:22:13

The agent of Argentinean midfielder Javier Mascherano has reportedly reiterated the player's wish to leave Liverpool for Barcelona.

Walter Tamer, Mascherano's representative, was the man who initially revealed his client would be open to a move to Spain over the summer.

Reds manager Rafael Benitez was quick to dismiss any talk of the Argentina international leaving Anfield as the holding midfielder is central to the club's future plans.

But more quotes attributed to Tamer have emerged, citing personal reasons involving Mascherano's family for the player's apparent disillusionment on Merseyside.

"Barcelona is the easiest deal to set up as Javier wants to go to Spain. He is tired of life in England," Tamer said, according to South American website Infobae.com.

"His wife has not been given a permanent visa. She has to go through an odyssey each time she wants to go [out of the country].

"Liverpool refuse to sell, [but] this can be overcome with an extraordinary offer."

Barcelona are yet to make a concrete offer for Mascherano.

Jamie Dunn, Goal.com

[we all dream...]

When is this blue barrage of goal.com dribble going to end?