Liverpool FC Forum

[7_Kewell]

Don't understand why players release a book whilst they are still playing - save for it a few years.

money...

[The Good Yank]

Don't understand why players release a book whilst they are still playing - save for it a few years.

money...

That along with the fact that topics are still hot items.  In this day and age, with the amount of information we have at our fingertips, it's more likely that a current player's book will be read now than 5 years after a career has ended.

Also with the amount of that comes out as rumors on blogs, or newspaper speculation and misquoting journalists, it gives the player a forum to clear the air and it's in his own words.

[mart]

and it's in his own words.

Well i hope we can at least assume they read and approve of the work the ghost writer has done.

[Aussie Style]

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The goalkeeper feels the club made the right decision to axe his compatriot in 2010 after a disappointing season, saying team was "nowhere near" where they should have been at

Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina has admitted in his new book that he thought the club were going to be relegated with former manager Rafael Benitez in charge.

Benitez departed Anfield after a torrid season in which the team finished seventh, just 12 months after pushing Manchester United all the way in a title challenge.

Reina believes the club were falling off dramatically and had to make a big change to avert a crisis because the manager had lost the support of half of the players in the dressing room, but admits that he was a fan of the Champions League-winning coach.

"When Rafa left Liverpool at the end of the 2009/10 season, I knew that it was the right time for him to go," Reina says in the book, according to The Daily Mirror.

"It hurts me to say that, but the wheels had come off by then and there was no guarantee that he was going to be able to put them back on.

"I know that I will be forever in his debt for what he has done for my football career, and it is never nice when a manager leaves or loses his job, but there are times when, for whatever reason, the methods that have been bringing a manager so much success just stop working.

"I was upset, obviously, because it is always sad when a manager loses his job, but even more so when he has been as important to your career as Rafa has been to mine.

"But I also thought half of the dressing room was not happy and so, probably, for the club if not for me personally, it was the best outcome for everyone."

The former Villarreal man insists he could tell Liverpool were going to struggle in the 2009/10 season following a pre-season friendly defeat, and feared they could even go down as some of his team-mates began to lose faith in Benitez.

"I first began to realise we were in trouble when we played against Espanyol in a pre-season friendly at the start of August 2009,” he wrote.

"They beat us 3-0 and could have scored more. When I came off the pitch there was a part of me that thought: 'If we carry on like this, we are going to get relegated.'

"It was clear that we were nowhere near the level that we wanted to be at. When there are problems at a big club and the atmosphere turns, one of the first comments to be made is always that the manager has lost the dressing room.

"In this case there were still players who supported the manager, but obviously there were others who were not too happy with him for different reasons."

Reina also believes Benitez’s failure to adequately replace stars was a vital issue in the manager’s downfall on Merseyside.

He added: "One of the problems we had was that we had lost some good players - Xabi Alonso, Peter Crouch and Jermaine Pennant - but never really replaced them.

"Signings were made with the idea of making improvements to the team, but the reality was that the ones who came in were not of the same standard as the ones who had left.

"In football, the buck always stops with the manager. If he makes signings that don't work out then it won't be long before the people who run the club are going to ask questions."

[Thommo's perm]

Yes

[maguskwt]

Reina recalls blazing Carragher row

Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina has revealed the details of an explosive row he had with Anfield stalwart Jamie Carragher, which spilled over into the dressing room after beginning on the pitch.

Reina and Carragher, both mainstays of the Reds rearguard since the Spanish shot-stopper joined the club in 2005, clashed in an unnamed game because of a disagreement about passing options.

"The veins in our necks were bulging, our faces were red with anger and neither of us were going to back down," Reina said in his autobiography Pepe, which is being serialised in the Daily Mirror.

"The row between me and Jamie Carragher started during the game - I can't even remember who we were playing against - carried on in the dressing room and didn't come to an end until we sent each other text messages apologising.

"He went crazy at me, screaming at me, and I was screaming back at him. We were like that for fully five minutes shouting at one another and getting our point across. When we got back into the dressing room the row started again and it was even rougher than it had been on the pitch.

"The other players were just totally silent, watching us giving each other hell. It wasn't even over anything major. It was just a difference of opinion over whether I should knock the ball long or [if] he should give me an angle for a short pass.

"I ended up kicking the ball out wide to where I thought Carra should be, but he wasn't there and it went out of play. He shouted at me: 'You really think you're Franz Beckenbauer and you're always trying to play short passes when you should just empty it.'

"I responded: 'If I know one thing it's that you definitely aren't Beckenbauer, but just give me a bit of support when I've got the ball so we can try and play instead of just kicking it down the pitch.'"

[The Good Yank]

If this came out a year ago, this thread would be on fire right now.

[Kenny Kan]

"I responded: 'If I know one thing it's that you definitely aren't Beckenbauer, but just give me a bit of support when I've got the ball so we can try and play instead of just kicking it down the pitch.'"

[maguskwt]

If Reina commits to LFC long term... I think he should be the captain after Gerrard...

[The Good Yank]

If Reina commits to LFC long term... I think he should be the captain after Gerrard...

Longer term than the 6 years left on his contract?

[Thommo's perm]

Is he trying to say Carra just hoofs it anywhere?

[bunglemark2]

Is he trying to say Carra just hoofs it anywhere?

Carra ? Hoof it ? Nawwwww....never..... 

[Kukilon]

Haha just love the bit about Carra hoofing it.

[maguskwt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drkyd57AXdw

[redtrader74]

I thought his save yesterday off Luiz' header was world class, not one of those lucky hit your legs save, technique, reaction and strength to push it away from the incoming terry. He was let down by the defence for Chelsea's first, and has been left exposed all season. Better than casillas everyday.