Liverpool FC Forum

[begintoend]

The guy is ambitious. He wants trophies, he wants to be competing at the highest levels.
>
He is not going to win league titles at Anfield or see us in the latter stages of the CL because we have too few excellent players and frankly a lot of dross.

>we are years away from having a title winning side. In fact we are further away today than we have been for many years.

What did he see in Chelsea?
They have the money to buy trophy replicas, certainly not win them. Get real.
SG, if you gonna go, go quickly.

The team needs to be focus on winning the league.  I really am starting to believe we will win next season. Beating Chelsea means so much more now.....

[Scottbot]

A very pessimistic way of looking at things red & blue.

We have a new manager - With arguably as good a record plus more experience than Mourinho.

We have some excellent players - Gerrard, Owen, Hyppia, Kewell, Carragher, Cisse (we all hope/assume)

Sure Chelsea have a massive squad but i doubt their first 11 will be so much better than our own. Sure, we have underperformed massively under Houllier these past 2 years but a new approach, a few astute signings and a clear out of the dead wood will see us in bloody good shape.

Owen & Gerrard can jeopardise this by leaving now for the green green grass (or is that bank notes) of Chelsea or they can give this club, these supporters and their new manager another year to prove Liverpool Football club can get back where they belong. These are two young men we are talking about here. It's not like they are in the last chance saloon.

One more year lads. You may regret for the rest of your lives if you don't

[mistyred]

RedAndBlue you are not seeing the big picture,Who cares about all this nonsense about re-building? It is gona happen with Beni in charge,I can't believe all this crud people are coming out with.
If the lad is ambitious then go to spain and play for a top team, having money to burn does not make you an historically remembered football team i must repeat chelsea are NOT a bigger team by any stretch of the amagination than LFC they have No History and No world wide fan base like any of the true historic teams.
Having money in the bank is not what most players sign on as a football players for,If you disagree look at people like ronaldiniho who most players cannot fill his socks let alone boots.
Ron was offered crazy amounts of money by the russian BUT rather than go he chose to stay at Barca who were not having the greatest time and finished fifth or six in la liga two years ago why? HIS opinion was trophy's with a trully historic club means more to a real football player than money.

[redandblue]

I take your point. And I don't think that I am being unduly pessimistic at all. The past 14 years or so have given us all a hefty dose of realism.

Winning the league next seaon? Did you actually watch Arsenal demolish teams last season? Teams whom we actually lost to? Do you really believe that with a couple of handy buys, we can be there or thereabouts with a few games left?

We are not close pal.

As I said above, Chelsea are far from certain to win the league next year. But they finished more than 15 points ahead of us and got to a European Cup semi final. If we had matched that achievement, SG wouldn't IMO be thinking of leaving LFC.

[jonnymac1979]

Last week, I was in a position to hear a conversation between two fellas.  One of them I know personally, one of them was John Aldo's business partner in that bar he runs in Town.

This guy reckons the deal is going to be announced on 1st July for £31 million pounds.  I could imagine Aldridge knows some inside information.  Bearing in mind the final of Euro 2004 is on the 4th July, if England are still there at that point, I don't know how the deal can possibly be done while he is out there in Portugal with England.  That is unless the deal has already been made.

If England go out before then, the deal theoretially could be made.  I don't blame Chelsea for all their propaganda even if I don't like it.  Steven Gerrard is one of the best players in the world at the moment.

The general word on the street points to that he will move to Stamford Bridge.  I remain on the fence.  Until I hear him comment on it I will not tear my hair out worrying over it.  Of course I want him to stay, he's simply our best player bar none. 

But if Rafa Benitez sells him, I am willing to trust his judgment.

[Scottbot]

It's not just about bringing in a few more players to add to the quality we have already. It's about the manager. If this guy is the real deal we can start feeling genuinely optimistic again. And why not? just coz Houllier knocked every last shred of confidence out of us?

The raw ingredients are there for all to see. If Benitez knows what he'd doing, and his record certainly suggests he does, then there is no reason why we shouldn't be challenging for the title and doing well in Europe over the next 2 seasons. We won't finish 15 points behind Chelsea next season. I'd bet my house on it.

[anfieldadorer]

redandblue, i think should be more red than too being on the blues.
You are right saying SG is ambitious: ambitious for money.
Else he would have gone to alikes of Madrid and Juventus so as to avoid getting load of discredits.

[begintoend]

Yeah Scott, I have no house. But my office will do eh.

We certainly will not finish that far behind Chelsea. Know why?
I think we really will finish above them next season. The only challenge I see is Arsenal.

[anfieldadorer]

We won't finish 15 points behind Chelsea next season. I'd bet my house on it.

Methinks too: we won't finish that far behind Chelsea and would bet scott's house on it

[anfieldadorer]

GERRARD WILL BE THE BET OF MADRID FOR 2005

Lunes, 6 de septiembre de 2004     

He’s the Captain of the Liverpool and unquestionable pillar of the selection of Sven Goran Eriksson. He is one of the great objectives that have marked the technical body of Real Madrid for the next season. According to AS could know, per it of the equipment of Rafa Benítez has become object of high-priority desire to reinforce the todoterreno position of midfield that at the moment Iván Helguera only occupies. 

The white interest by Gerrard is not new. Of the Forest a pair of information elaborated already before leaving Madrid warning that this spiky and blond steering wheel had the ideal qualities for the center of the field. Its versatility, the power in their incorporations to the attack (it classified to the Liverpool for the Champions when the marking both goals of his equipment in Genk) and their spread reunites the conditions dreamed by Camacho. 

It can seem in a moment, but in Madrid they know that Gerrard will be more within a year one of the pieces coveted by the great ones of Europe in view of which its projection does not have limit, guaranteed by its youth. In fact, Gerrard rejected two months ago offer from Chelsea. Roman Abramovich got to put on the table of the Liverpool 45 millionaires, what it had turned it the most expensive draftee of the year. But Rafa Benítez convinced to the chaval and reds renewed to him until 2007. 

In addition to the Chelsea, the Arsenal put its eyes in Gerrard when the march from Vieira to Madrid seemed inevitable. David Dein, its vice-president, it communicated to the Liverpool that was arranged to pay more than 40million euros. And in Madrid there is a phrase that already is respected as if it was a Maximum: Player to whom he puts the eye Wenger, player to whom there is to file because it always guesses right. 

Mascherano still is the December option Madrid not to duer itself tome. Gerrard is the objective for the next summer but while that moment arrives, the club has more names in its agenda. If the things do not march well in the next weeks and makes lack reinforce medular, the first name that handles the technicians’ madridista is the one of Javier Mascherano, the young person midfield of River Plate that dazzled with its selection in the last Olympic Games of Athens, in that it obtained the gold medal.

The fundamental problem that it would imply his draftee (in case that Madrid wants to go to by him) is that Mascherano does not have the communitarian passport. The good news is that it would not take much in obtaining it, since it has Italian ancestry and it could obtain the double nationality in just a short time.

translated by my machine from spanish

[anfieldadorer]

Anybody knows why Madrid doesn't want Biscan or Traore instead? I think there's a chance Rafa will allow them to leave.

[JBG]

It wouldn't surprise me if Madrid were interested and Owen, Beckham and Woodgate will be raving to their bosses about Gerrard, but it is nothing to worry about at the moment as Real are regularly linked to all the top stars and there's nothing concrete yet.

[A.B.]

I agree, I will worry about it once January comes which is a long way from now

[anfieldadorer]

It worked when Rafa chased him to Portugal, perhaps now he should chase him to Poland
Gerrard loves to play international hide and seek

[anfieldadorer]

Introducing the best midfielder on the planet...


IN LIFE as in sport, sometimes it is easy to focus on the negatives. By concentrating on what is wrong with something, you can miss out on seeing just what is right.
That is the case with Liverpool at the moment, where everyone is looking for where Rafael Benitez can improve the team - who can he buy, who is not playing well and so on.
I worry that is blinding us to the amazing form of Steven Gerrard (pictured), or that we may be taking his performances over the last season-and-a-half for granted.
He is turning himself into a special player and I would say he is the best player of his type in Europe and possibly the world.
Gerrard was always a good player, but it took being dropped by Gerard Houllier after Liverpool were defeated by Basel to begin the next stage of his career.
He had a bit of criticism and a few games out and I am a great believer that taking time in the stand allows a player to recognise just what his role and influence on the team should be.
Since then he has taken on board his role as the driving force of this Liverpool team with a passion to become the central figure at the club - shown by Houllier having the intelligence to make him the club captain - and he is rapidly on the way to doing the same thing at international level.
I think that Benitez has recognised now what a player he has on his hands and is looking to add that one or two per cent that can make him even better in games.
In my time at Liverpool, I played alongside some truly great players - people like Ian Rush, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness and Alan Hansen. When you look around the dressing room and see someone like that alongside you, it can't help but give you confidence.
That's because you know that in most games, and especially the tight ones against the other good teams, someone like that is capable of producing that moment of magic and making a difference.
The biggest compliment I can give to Steven Gerrard is that he would have been at home in that team and alongside those legends. Can you imagine a central mid-field partnership of him and Souness? It would have been frightening.
He showed his worth against West Brom on Saturday when he created the first goal from very little and when he drives forward from mid-field, he is unstoppable at times.
I also believe he is capable of lifting the people around him because of the level of his own performance.
Liverpool have some good players in the team - Harry Kewell is talented, Luis Garcia has done well so far, and Djibril Cisse has shown flashes of what he is capable of.
I believe that with Gerrard as the example, one or two of them will progress and develop to get near to his level, and if that happens then you are talking about a special team.
Of course, somewhere in the background is the ever-present worry that Real Madrid may come along in January and poach Gerrard away. Given the way he is playing at the moment, their admiration is unlikely to wane.
With that in mind, it is up to Benitez and the other players to begin that improvement as quickly as possible so that when January comes around, Steven Gerrard will find the thought of what he sees happening at Liverpool more exciting that moving to Spain and becoming a galactico.
There are not many people who turn down Real Madrid, but if Gerrard can see that Liverpool are on the rise again, I think he could be one of them.