Liverpool FC Forum

[heimdall]

I think you guys are getting me a bit wrong, I rate Xabi very highly and he is very important to the team but I genuinly feel that Barry would give more of a cutting edge but maybe I'm being a bit simplistic as Xabi does do a hell of a lot of the donkey work for the team, with a lot of elegance I might add. I just wish he'd chip in with a few more goals, that is my only criticism of him,with Mascha I can forgive him but I have always felt that Xabi should bag a few more goals for us.
Bad Bob you can't say that Barry would not add to the team, he is as versatile as Stevie and would certainly be a huge step up from Lucas and give Rafa lots of options.

[bigmick]

I'm probably (and totally unsurprisingly) in the camp which says we slightly overrate our players from time to time. I mean we all have our favourite players, but can they all be quite as good as we all say they are?

If you look through various parts of the forum and listen to opinion, you'll read that Steven Gerrard is one of, if not THE, best player in the World. You'll also get convinced fairly quickly that we've got the best goalkeeper in the Premiership, and the best striker in the World today. Read on a bit more and you'll see we have one of the best holding midfielders around today, and the best passer of a football in the Premiership if not the World. Throw in the second best right midfielder in the Premiership and you're already asking yourself how comes this team is in serious danger of not winning a trophy for three seasons running? Are the rest of the players that bad, is the manager useless or are we slightly over-egging our assets?

Well we do have a couple of weaknesses, and the manager does make the odd mistake, but essentially I think we slightly over estimate how good our players are as well sometimes. Kuyt is a definate case in point IMHO, as is Skyrtel and it could just be from reading comments on here that Alonso may be in that bracket as well. He's a top player no doubt, and I've already said he'd be my player of the season if it's not going to be judged by who's the best player, but 50 million quid  I know the pounds not as strong as it was, but an offer anywhere near half that would see him gone IMHO, and I have to say I'd agree with the sale at that price.

Out of the last three seasons, Xabi has been outstanding in one and some way below that in the other two. I still see his partnership with masherano as something of a work in progress in our all new attacking style, and while I'm certain he will continue to adapt and improve even on this season, the idea that you'd consider selling one of them for huge money isn't ridiculous. Perhaps Rafa feels that if we are going to be more expansive, then perhaps you should keep the one midfielder who has the mobility to both get forward and back (Masherano) and bring in a midfielder who offers genuine and sustained threat going forward. I'M NOT SAYING THAT'S NECESSARILY MY VIEW, I'M SIMPLY SAYING I CAN SEE SOME LOGIC IN IT. I mean, say for istance Gerrard played alongside Masherano and you had an Anelka/Van Persie/Arshavin type playing where Gerrard does, I'm fairly certain Gerrard would still score a bucketload of goals playing there simply because he offers a whole lot more going forward. He's probably get back better as well but lets leave that side of it out of the arfgument for now. You could say thaty it's unfair to compare Alonso to what Gerrard could potentially bring, but I think if Rafa goes down the Barry route, he will be doing so because he feels that Barry will offer more going forward that Alonso, and in truth he probably will.

If none of it comes to pass and we keep Xabi, then fantastic. My guess is though that if we do actually NEED to sell someone, out of our better players he is the one Rafa may have earmarked. If he stays, I'd like someone to show him some video of Jan Molby, another legendary Liverpool midfielder who lacked mobility. Even in his more rotund days however, Molby seemed to barrel his way into the oppositions box with unerring regualrity, scoring some vital goals into the process. Xabi has come this far, he only needs to step on another few paces to get there.

[aCe']

I'm probably (and totally unsurprisingly) in the camp which says we slightly overrate our players from time to time. I mean we all have our favourite players, but can they all be quite as good as we all say they are?

If you look through various parts of the forum and listen to opinion, you'll read that Steven Gerrard is one of, if not THE, best player in the World. You'll also get convinced fairly quickly that we've got the best goalkeeper in the Premiership, and the best striker in the World today. Read on a bit more and you'll see we have one of the best holding midfielders around today, and the best passer of a football in the Premiership if not the World. Throw in the second best right midfielder in the Premiership and you're already asking yourself how comes this team is in serious danger of not winning a trophy for three seasons running? Are the rest of the players that bad, is the manager useless or are we slightly over-egging our assets?

Well we do have a couple of weaknesses, and the manager does make the odd mistake, but essentially I think we slightly over estimate how good our players are as well sometimes. Kuyt is a definate case in point IMHO, as is Skyrtel and it could just be from reading comments on here that Alonso may be in that bracket as well. He's a top player no doubt, and I've already said he'd be my player of the season if it's not going to be judged by who's the best player, but 50 million quid  I know the pounds not as strong as it was, but an offer anywhere near half that would see him gone IMHO, and I have to say I'd agree with the sale at that price.

Out of the last three seasons, Xabi has been outstanding in one and some way below that in the other two. I still see his partnership with masherano as something of a work in progress in our all new attacking style, and while I'm certain he will continue to adapt and improve even on this season, the idea that you'd consider selling one of them for huge money isn't ridiculous. Perhaps Rafa feels that if we are going to be more expansive, then perhaps you should keep the one midfielder who has the mobility to both get forward and back (Masherano) and bring in a midfielder who offers genuine and sustained threat going forward. I'M NOT SAYING THAT'S NECESSARILY MY VIEW, I'M SIMPLY SAYING I CAN SEE SOME LOGIC IN IT. I mean, say for istance Gerrard played alongside Masherano and you had an Anelka/Van Persie/Arshavin type playing where Gerrard does, I'm fairly certain Gerrard would still score a bucketload of goals playing there simply because he offers a whole lot more going forward. He's probably get back better as well but lets leave that side of it out of the arfgument for now. You could say thaty it's unfair to compare Alonso to what Gerrard could potentially bring, but I think if Rafa goes down the Barry route, he will be doing so because he feels that Barry will offer more going forward that Alonso, and in truth he probably will.

If none of it comes to pass and we keep Xabi, then fantastic. My guess is though that if we do actually NEED to sell someone, out of our better players he is the one Rafa may have earmarked. If he stays, I'd like someone to show him some video of Jan Molby, another legendary Liverpool midfielder who lacked mobility. Even in his more rotund days however, Molby seemed to barrel his way into the oppositions box with unerring regualrity, scoring some vital goals into the process. Xabi has come this far, he only needs to step on another few paces to get there.

good post and pretty much what iv been trying/wanting to say about Alonso in this thread...

one thing that needs noting though... why would Rafa chose to sell Alonso ahead of Mascherano ? out of the 2 i'd say that Mascherano is the more overrated... Sure he's a class defensive midfielder that many teams would love to have in their side but comeon now... the guy is so overrated by our own its absolutely unbelievable... Again, this needs to be put in perspective because im pretty sure many arent going to like what im saying very much... we play 2 holding midfielders...Both usually sit pretty deep and when we have most of the possession (which is 8 out of every 10 league games or so) they try to push forward a little but realistically offer very little besides springing the ball around and wasting possession (in mascherano's case)... very slow buildup and rely heavily on getting the ball to the few impact players we have to make a difference in the final third of the pitch...

If we do end up bringing Barry... which for the record i dont think we will or should... id rather have him partner Alonso than Mascherano... Between them, i reckon, they'd have the defensive end of the deal covered quite comfortably and going forward, they'r bound to offer more than say a Mascher-Barry or mascher-alonso partnership would...

One last thing... if we are going to end up bringing in a top class winger in the Robben or Silva bracket, then i beilieve keeping Alonso should be made a top priority by Rafa... we obviously need better players down the flanks and i think that if Alonso has better players looking for the pass down the flanks then he could use his passing range and his ability to control the game's tempo far more effectively than he is doing at present.. he has the ability and he certainly has it in him to perform at the very highest level consistently, but one of the things that can be noted about Alonso's play imo is that in many occasions he's as good as the players/ level of performance around him...

[Bad Bob]

Bad Bob you can't say that Barry would not add to the team, he is as versatile as Stevie and would certainly be a huge step up from Lucas and give Rafa lots of options.

Reality check, mate.  No one is as versatile as Gerrard in that Gerrard is actually world class in just about any position you could care to name.  Barry, on the other hand, will undoubtedly be able to 'do a job' in a few positions.  As for improving on Lucas I don't disagree but I was talking about Barry getting into our starting eleven--a place where young Lucas has only spent some time when those ahead of him in the pecking order are unavailable.  If Alonso, Masch and Gerrard are all fit and available, Barry simply doesn't get into the team for me.

----

On Mick's point about dropping Gerrard back into the engine room and bringing in an Arshavin type to play up with Torres, I think that's just about the only scenario that might make selling Alonso seem like it has at least a shred of logic to it.  But, let's be honest--it's a huge gamble.  IMO, the Gerrard-Torres tandem has proven itself very effective over the last calendar year and deciding to break that up should not be done lightly.  Of all the varied and heated opinions about the Keane saga, the one thing that most people agreed on is that we seemed to lose our way a little bit when we decided to shoehorn Keane into the side alongside Torres.  I'd feel much more comfortable leaving Gerrard where he is and looking to improve on the flanks.  Stevie has been in cracking form again this season and seems to be relishing that role so let's leave him to it.

As I've said a few times now, I'm not a fan at all of tinkering with a formula that largely works.  We're in the title hunt this season and Alonso's been a massive part of that so, IMO, looking to cash in now would be madness.  Sure, the money he raises will undoubtedly give us a shot at buying quality for other areas of the pitch but nothing is certain in football.  Suppose we sell Alonso and get a wedge of cash in return, only to find that the top target(s) we're looking to sign aren't available?  Suppose we bring in someone of quality and they fail to bed in?  I'm all for improving the team but I think we should be looking for ways of doing that which don't require us to sell our key players.  As an object lesson on what could happen if we get a little carried away with tinkering in the midfield, I wonder if Wenger would still be so quick to cash in on Flamini if he had to do it all over again?

[Bad Bob]

I'm probably (and totally unsurprisingly) in the camp which says we slightly overrate our players from time to time. I mean we all have our favourite players, but can they all be quite as good as we all say they are?

Meant to comment on this point as well...

I won't disagree with you there (the Skrtel one especially) but I also can't help but notice that sometimes some people overrate our rivals' players a little too much.  The likes of Darren Fletcher, Park Ji-Sun, Anderson, Nani, Jon Obi Mikel, Solomon Kalou, the "Arsenal Kids" ™...Gareth Barry--they're good players, no question.  But, to hear some people tell it, these lads would walk into our side no bother--as if some of our lads were just there to make up the numbers.  I disagree but I suppose it's part of the yin and yang that makes Newkit interesting.

[Festy]

xabi alonso has a case for being the most valuable player in the world at the moment. truly irreplaceable.

you live in a tiny tiny world my friend !

[tonyeh]

I've never been truly convinced by this Barry business and thought last Summer's extended nonsense made Benitez look like a bit of a chump.

What's worse, though, is if Benitez is championing a sale of Alonso again this Summer after the season that Xabi has put in, he'd be a fool. Sure, the season before he had a pretty anonomous shift (I can't remember the season before that to be honest    ) But this season showed up the "sale" for the folly it was.

I've watched a few Villa games, this year, especially at the early middle of the season (cos I was expecting them to move into 4th) and didn't find Barry to be all that, IMHO. Maybe that was because of all the crap in the Summer and the bad taste it left in Villas mouth, I don't know.

What I do know is that Barry has never been a player to make me stand up and go, "I want him at Liverpool".         

If what Nan says is true and the Barry deal is done and dusted, well then so be it. But I hope Alonso stays where he is and in our more attacking style that Benitez has finally adopted, a Barry/Alonso midsection might work.

[kazza]

you live in a tiny tiny world my friend !

You know what they say, it's a small world























But I wouldn't want to paint it 

[Sabre]

Just to comment that these opinions are being very interesting, and amusing I may add.

I particularly enjoyed Mick's post as usual. I was curious about his current valuation of the player because I had read him that Alonso's improvement had been "unmeasurable". Which translated comes across as absolutely huge. His current valuation of 25, makes though the improvement measurable. Exactly 1.7 times better than his previous valuation of 14.

I have to say in all seriousness that just as I thought Alonso was underrated last season, this season he's a bit overrated in these boards. While I think the likes of Barry and Carrick are half the players Alonso is (and explains why England is far from being a top team even if they have the best midfielder of the World, Gerrard), I don't think that losing Alonso would be a major disaster if we're paid a lot of money and signed properly.  But that's a big if, and it implies not to makes mistakes like Keane.

Difficult yes, big gamble yes, but I wouldn't say Rafa would be necessarily a mug if he did that.

That said, I do not want that to happen and I'd disagree that move, and I've always suspected that if Rafa was ready to replace him last season, he'd be ready this season. Because I never thought Rafa underrated ALonso. Even when people pretended here that nobody wanted Alonso and more or less Rafa wanted to offload him at any cost, Rafa talked about Alonso as a big player. Rafa was the man to bet on Alonso, a player who played in a humble club, to bring him to one of the best of Europe. We do not need to tell Rafa how good is Alonso because he knows better than us.

I'd still trust Rafa if he sold Alonso, but only for the right price. If he sells Alonso for 25 when the rest of the World tries to rip Real Madrid off (Arsenal is asking 60 for Cesc when it's common knowledge he wants to be back in Spain), then yes, he'd be a mug.

[aCe']

xabi alonso has a case for being the most valuable player in the world at the moment. truly irreplaceable.

you live in a tiny tiny world my friend !

get a grip ffs... and stop quoting every post i make...

[tubby]

I think with this sell on clause for Real Socieadad if Rafa does sell him it has to be in the 28 - 30Mil region.

[Sabre]

I think with this sell on clause for Real Socieadad if Rafa does sell him it has to be in the 28 - 30Mil region.

Yep, that would be his "normal" price, as in the thing you could expect from buying a player for 11, watching him develop and improving, and selling him when he's 27 year old. In that sense, yours and Mick's valuation is spot on.

But, are the other players of the league have the same reasonable valuation? That's the problem I see to replace Alonso. It's not impossible, but there are not many players better. People mention Xavi and Iniesta, but those players are not, won't be and haven't been Xabi replacements, it's different roles!

People mention Essien, and I admire his physical strenght but not his football to be honest. But even if you admit he's better than Alonso, how much would he cost? that's the problem I see. The market is "mad", and if everyone and the next mate tries to rip off the top clubs, we should be no different.

[stmichael]

Just ran the show again the other day, even without the beard.

[Festy]

Just ran the show again the other day, even without the beard.

Aye.. I'm pretty sure I saw Alonso with beard that day. 

[bigmick]

It's metamorphasised a few times has this thread, and it's current incarnation is quite good. Just to revisit a couple of points, on Bob's one that moving Gerrard back would be a mistake. I actually agree mate and although it wasn't that clear in my original post, I wasn't actually advocating doing such a thing. I very much go along with your theory that if we really haven't got any money, lets just keep what we've got aside from obvious fire sale players (Dossena and the like) and just go for it again next season. I definately wouldn't be up for breaking up the Torres/Gerrard axis, I was simply making the point that neither Masherano nor Alonso offer any goal threat to speak of. If Gerrard did play there, or a similarly attack minded player, they would score more goals than either Masherano or Alonso. Funnily enough, I had in my mind the old Valencia player Barrago or whatever the feck he was called (I swear I've got alzheimers or something, I can't remember feck all these days). He was a central midfielder who seemed to have the art of providing a goal threat pretty much perfected, he certainly did whenever they played against us anyway. My point was that even though Barry isn't as good a player as Alonso, he definately would provide more goal threat IMHO. Once again not saying I'd necessarily be up for the swap (and I wouldn't without a financial kick for the experience) but if the manager changed it on that basis, I'd understand it. there is the other option which Ace alluded to, which is changing Masherano for a more attack minded midfielder, and dropping Xabi back into the pocket. I personally don't like either element of that idea though.

The other thing was Sabes and his looking at my valuation of Alonso. I had him as "low teens" last season (13-14 million) and fortunately for us, so did all the other managers in World football as none were prepared to pay the 16 million which Rafa wanted. Now I think it's fairly clear he has improved out of all recognition, but he is a year older, his contract is a year more used up and the like so there are many factors to take into consideration. Now when a player gets more expensive the money kind of becomes less relevent, in that you wouldn't quibble about paying an extra 2 million over your ideal price for Robinho whereas if you were buying Dossena and had 3 million in mind, you'd hardly get stretched to 5 without a tussle. As such, the more expensive a player is the more difficult it is to put a sensible valuation upon his head. kaka clearly isn't worth 100 mill or whatever silly price Man City bid, but when you don't give a feck about money anything is possible. My feeling is that Alonso's form has somewhere near doubled his value, despite the aforementioned contract/age issues. This represents a significant improvement in anyones language, but anybody who compares his perfromances this season with the previous two would be hard pressed to disagree I think. I guess there is a possibility that someone would go absolutely crazy and bid over 30 mill, but based on carrick at 19 mill, Barry at 18 mill, I'm farly happy to stick to my valuation on Xabi of mid twenties.