Liverpool FC Forum

[Ciggy]

are you serial?

Am I what?

never mind. Watch South Park

No thanx Im to old for cartoons.

[Redman in wales]

From the Offal doesnt look like rafa will be breaking up this partnership any time soon.

Rafa Benitez believes Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres are ready to get Liverpool's title push back on track after renewing their lethal partnership against Everton. 
The pair combined to create an equaliser in Sunday's Cup derby following an audacious flick from Torres.
 
Benitez believes few players in world football could have pulled off such a move.
 
The Spaniard sees the goal as proof that last season's 53-goal partnership is ready to fire on all cylinders once more after a series of injuries.
 
He said: "We know the understanding between both was crucial last season and it will be again this season now they are back together again.

Kuyt is looking tired.

(not suprising as he's played more games (joint with Carra) and he's started every single premier league game.

I say try Keane on the right of a 4-2-3-1 (or 4-5-1, whatever you choose to call it)

See how he fairs - you never know he might be a better option than Kuyt on the right....

[heimdall]

Possibly one of the major reasons why we were getting better results earlier in the season was Sammy Lee

Having just voiced my concerns about Rafa's handling of Keane, I wanted to highlight this because this is the kind of thing that really fecks me off about the chronic Rafa bashers.  Whenever something is going right, it's always someone else that gets the credit.  But as soon as we hit a sticky patch, every single detail is Rafa's fault.  If I had a nickel for the number of times I've read that Pako or Sammy Lee or lady luck have been responsible for all that's positive during Rafa's tenure... 

Not what I'm saying at all, but from the outside it seems like there was a better spirit amongst the players when Pako and Sammy were/are there as assistant coaches, not taking away from Rafa at all, just saying that the guy is good with tactics but can't man- manage.

[Ciggy]

Kuyt is looking tired.

The number 18 doesnt work on the subs board.

[Reg]

Rumour Keane could go to City.

I cant open teh link, can someone post it up please?

http://www.premiershiplatest.com/news....61.html

[GYBS]

As ciggy has said you dont know what rafas man management skills are like - maybe its keane who has the problem in all this and not rafa ? no one knows exactly what is going on so at the moment it is all just pure specualtion - for all you know most of the players may well think that rafas approach to them is great and spot on . Evans used to molly coddle players and got taken for a mug by half of them . At the end of the day there job is to do what the manager wants and in his way - they can either like it and they can perform or they can sulk and throw their teddys out of the cot .

[we all dream...]

and maybe those players need to earn the respect of the manager ? why should he just give out respect just cause they are poor little footballers being paid millions . respect should be earnt not given .

I agree with this, I feel that players shouldn't need an arm round the shoulder or praise to make them perform. BUT I do feel that it is poor man management from Rafa, he should be able to adapt his managerial style to suit his staff and get the best out fo them. He should know when to go hard ball and when not to. It is part of being a manager, people skills, no matter what industry you are in be it football or anything else. You have to know how to get the best from your employees.

Sorry but I disagree, if your manager at work is constantly ignoring you and favouring other people in your team or department although you know you are better you are very quickly going to get off and demoralised especially if you have just started a new job. I am in management myself and I know that you have to be very supportive with new members of a team at least until they have settled in and feel comfortable.

Rafa is a fairly good tactician but a terrible man manger and motivator in my opinion.  Possibly one of the major reasons why we were getting better results earlier in the season was Sammy Lee but now that Rafa is having his rant, about with his contract and being biased against Keane it is starting to affect the whole team.  It is terrible management and in most companies he would be hauled in front of the top boss and told to get his act together or feck off!

If you re read my post I was actually trying to sit on the fence, or rather I was trying to stop the onslaught on our manager.

I like Rafa, and feel that untill now he hasnt had a problem, people say he is cold, but a shrewd tactitial that earns respect from his players for his dedication and footballing nouse, maybe showing that Keane needs to motivate himself a bit more earn respect from the manager...

but i also said "I do feel that it is poor man management from Rafa, he should be able to adapt his managerial style to suit his staff and get the best out fo them. He should know when to go hard ball and when not to. It is part of being a manager, people skills, no matter what industry you are in be it football or anything else. You have to know how to get the best from your employees"

Basically I feel Rafa should give a little love to his players and he should be able to spot this 'needing to be loved/praised" personality in a player. (in an ideal world this is how it should work) But at the same time if you turn up to work and you have an authoritarian manger its up to you whether you sink our swim. Buck your attitude up and respect the man who manages you, do what he wants and build a relationship and crave his respect or let him get to you, lose patiance and control and therefore lose repect from the manager and lose any chance of a decent relationship, which is needed between a employer and manager in order to suceed.

This is based on personal view on man management at work and in sporting teams myself.

[Owzat]

Rumour Keane could go to City.

I cant open teh link, can someone post it up please?

http://www.premiershiplatest.com/news....61.html

Man City To Offer Keane Way Out From Liverpool Nightmare?
Submitted by Angel Fernandes on Tue, 2009-01-27 03:51. Manchester City, Liverpool Premiership Transfer News Manchester City are reportedly set to offer Robbie Keane solace from his Liverpool nightmare by offering him a route out of Anfield to the Eastlands Stadium.

Republic of Ireland star Keane, failed to make it even to the bench for Sunday’s 1-1 FA Cup draw with Everton, which angered the star so much that he didn’t even turn up to watch the match.

City have already signed a striker, Craig Bellamy from West Ham this month. However, boss Mark Hughes is known to be a keen admirer of Keane and could make another addition to his striking force at the Premier League club.

Reds manager Rafael Benitez, has also maintained that Keane has always been a part of his future plans for the club.

However, 28-year-old Keane, who arrived at the Merseyside club for £20million from Tottenham Hotspur has been substituted in all but one of the 16 Premiership games he has started for Liverpool.

[stmichael]

James Lawton: Benitez's treatment of Keane has become close to a gruesome joke

Did Keane receive any of the ego massaging that produced superior displays at Spurs?

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

...................................................................................

Whatever private uncertainties crowd the mind of Steven Gerrard they are clearly not so great that they prevent him from confirming – as thunderously as anyone in the history of the game – the truth of one of the more poignant assertions of the old pros.


It is that a football field can sometimes be not an arena but an island – a place where all the troubles and the confusions of the real world can be set aside, for a glorious interlude of 90 minutes. Diego Maradona, George Best and Paul Gascoigne proclaimed this even as they rummaged in the remnants of their talent.

When the brilliant coach Malcolm Allison, whose life as a player was both complicated and tumultuous, was told that his career was over because of tuberculosis he immediately reflected, "I'll never go out there to play again, knowing that I'm safe between the touchlines, that nothing can touch me as I do the thing I love most."

In Gerrard's case the requirement is to do rather more than hold back a worrying distraction that will not be resolved until his court appearance in March. It is to prop up, with amazing diligence and force, a football club at times so dysfunctional its close proximity to the Premier League champions and leaders Manchester United, and continued presence in the Champions League and the FA Cup, is beginning to stand logic on its head. Or, at least, that would be so if it were not for Gerrard's extraordinary ability to rise so far above both his own crisis and his club's disarray.

Gerrard, with the conspicuous help of the re-emerging Fernando Torres, has become Liverpool these last few weeks, far more, certainly, than the tetchy and eternally self-justifying manager Rafa Benitez and American owners whose attempts to turn a profit on the most successful club in the history of English football are beginning to sound as plaintive as the sales technique of Molly Malone.

A harsh verdict on Liverpool's operating technique? This is only, surely, if you can ignore the £20m scandal at the heart of Anfield – one that at the weekend became something close to a gruesome joke.

Robbie Keane's plight is, at the level of professional ambition, nothing less than a personal tragedy. It reached its nadir when he was told he could no longer claim a place on the bench. Here we had a harsh spotlight indeed on Benitez's fight for a contract that would put him in charge of all transfer dealing. Of course the manager's position is correct, in both theory and practice, as long as the best tradition of English football is maintained in the working arrangements of men like Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger and Martin O'Neill.

However, Benitez's campaign needs a lot more illumination if it is to gain any credence in the middle of the Keane affair.

One strong theory on Merseyside is that the summer preoccupation of Benitez was Gareth Barry and the push to sign Keane was stronger elsewhere – and not least in the office of the chief executive, Rick Parry. Could this really be so, and if it is, could it possibly condition the appalling treatment of Keane, a player of accomplishment, even overachievement at Tottenham, who came to Anfield wearing his devotion to the Liverpool cause on his much-travelled sleeve? His short Liverpool history is more than anything a study in humiliation. It's true his early performances, his failure to relate to the game of Torres, sent out an almost instant warning that £20m had been misspent. But who was the author of the mistake, and what serious efforts were made to rectify it?

Did Keane receive any of the ego massaging that produced superior performance at Tottenham for Martin Jol and Juande Ramos, neither exactly kid-glove specialists? The evidence is to the contrary. Keane has indeed played poorly at times, but not with a consistency that would make his relentless fate of substitution seem any less a kind of open-ended grinding down of his spirit.

Typically, the Dubliner threw him himself into training yesterday and if sometimes his body language this season has touched, perhaps understandably, a degree of despair – especially on the loneliest trek in football after your number has been called – he is at pains to stress that his non-appearance at Anfield on Sunday for the Cup tie against Everton was at the suggestion of the club.

The inference has to be that the Keane situation has become so embarrassing that Liverpool were in no mood to provide gratuitous picture opportunities.

A huge part of the problem, no doubt, is that just as Keane and Torres failed to establish a natural rapport, the one struck up between the Spaniard and Gerrard is at times nothing less than sublime. We saw that in Gerrard's equaliser against Everton, a move that carried a beauty and a purpose which were scarcely nullified by the fact that the goalkeeper Tim Howard should have got down to smother the shot.

Keane's agony is Gerrard's glory – and perhaps, it needs to be said, Benitez's point of redemption in a season so littered with confusion. The Spaniard has never accepted the myth that Gerrard is a great, controlling midfielder, but rather a superbly equipped attacker, almost a force of nature when his power wells up so inexorably as he goes forward, with, for example, the irresistible timing which inspired the breathtaking service from Torres on Sunday.

This is part of the football landscape Keane is never likely to tread, a point made scornfully by Sir Alex Ferguson when he questioned his £6m move from Wolves to Coventry. Such a judgement, however, was no deterrent to a career which boasts the distinguished landmarks of Elland Road, San Siro, White Hart Lane and Anfield. It is a journey which deserves a more satisfactory climax than his desperate experience.

Of all the victims of Liverpool's bizarre season of politics and corporate doubt and off-field controversy, Keane is surely No 1. Gerrard? For a little while at least, he has created his own world – one he rules absolutely.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport....27.html

[GYBS]

If Gerrard playing outstanding and forming a great partnership with torres means no keane then i know which i would prefer.

[Judge]

well if keane is training like a demon possesed then that is great news all round for everyone and that to me shows the player is going to fight for his place and if rafa is impressed then hopefully we will see nothing but positives from keane now which once again is great for us . Maybe rafa thought keane was lacking a little fight or something so dropped him to see a reaction from him - if keane reacts in the right way (and if that report is right he has ) then great news.

Its just been on the radio that he maybe going to Celtic on loan 

are you serial?

she is not mate, but she does like not-made-from-wheat-but-made-from-oats-instead-a-bix

[Reg]

Yeah but he wasnt bought because G&T had a great partnership.........

(Thanks Owzat for the post.)

[GYBS]

yeah he was mainly bought as someone to back up torres and on occasions work alongside torres . Hence why i think we should of spent around 10 mil on someone like podolski or pavlyuchenko and use the extra ten mil to buy a quality attacking creative player .

[mistyred]

yeah he was mainly bought as someone to back up torres and on occasions work alongside torres . Hence why i think we should of spent around 10 mil on someone like podolski or pavlyuchenko and use the extra ten mil to buy a quality attacking creative player .

That would have made better sense than the
farce that has followed mate.

[GYBS]

its what i kept saying throughout the summer mate - get pavlyuchenko and silva instead of keane and reira - now those two would of improved our attacking abilities 100% more than keane and reira.