Liverpool FC Forum

by **JBG** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:54 am

As to woof's, Stu's and BigMick's comments:

1. Liverpool got the market value for Owen when they sold him. For a guy who could have signed a pre-contract agreement with a foreign club the following January, selling Owen for £8million plus a squad player at the end of August represented good business. Liverpool offered Owen a HUGE contract to stay, but Owen wanted to go. It was not satisfactory, but thats the reality of it. Had Michael Ballack wanted to leave Munich in August, the best Munich could have expected for him was £5million or so, even though his market value if he had a few years left on the contract is probably about £14m or £15m, given his age. We can argue until the cows come home about Owen's transfer to Madrid, but the fact of the matter is that Liverpool offered Owen savage money to stay, but Owen simply wanted to go. We cannot all blame Owen either: he could have sat on his contract until this summer and left. He would have been perfectly entitled to do so. Instead he stuck to his word and left with less than a year to go, allowing Liverpool to get a transfer fee. Thats the reality. We ourselves benefited by signing Marcus Babbel for free when he was probably a £10m player at the time, and had Rafa wanted to sign Bolo Zenden from Boro if he was in mid contract, we would have had to stump up £3m or £4m. Thats modern football economics.

After having Owen leave, it would have been bad business to resign him for £17million. You don't sell a car for £5,000 and then buy it back a year later for £10,000. The same goes for football.

2. I think Cisse has his flaws, but he reminds me a lot of Samuel Eto when he was at Mallorca. He is a rough diamond, with the proper coaching, could go on and relaise his potential. We have signed plenty of players in our history who were far from perfect and then moulded them into good players. Sadly, I don't think there is a role for Cisse at Benitez's Liverpool. Cisse needs to either play off a big man in an orthodox 4-4-2 or as a sole front man in a counter attacking side, where he hangs on the half way line and sprints onto clearances from deep. Benitez' Liverpool play a pressing game high up on the pitch, and this does not create space for Cisse to run into. Cisse is an ordinary player when he has a line of defenders sitting deep in front of him but potentially an extraordinary player when opposing defences are high on the pitch.

by **bigmick** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:00 pm

As ever a well tought out and thought-provoking post JBG. I personally never saw E'to play for Mallorca but think he is a fantastic player based on what I have seen at Barcelona. If Cisse reminds you of him then either E'to has improved by a very wide margin or I take my hat off to your talent spotting skills mate because for me, Cisse will never ever be able to be mentioned in the same breath.

by **stmichael** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:02 pm

JBG wrote:2. I think Cisse has his flaws, but he reminds me a lot of Samuel Eto when he was at Mallorca. He is a rough diamond, with the proper coaching, could go on and relaise his potential. We have signed plenty of players in our history who were far from perfect and then moulded them into good players. Sadly, I don't think there is a role for Cisse at Benitez's Liverpool. Cisse needs to either play off a big man in an orthodox 4-4-2 or as a sole front man in a counter attacking side, where he hangs on the half way line and sprints onto clearances from deep. Benitez' Liverpool play a pressing game high up on the pitch, and this does not create space for Cisse to run into. Cisse is an ordinary player when he has a line of defenders sitting deep in front of him but potentially an extraordinary player when opposing defences are high on the pitch.

Personally, I think Henri Camara of Wigan is a better player than Cisse.

Cisse doesn't have a good first touch, sure he looks like blasting the cover off the ball 9 times out of ten instead of picking his spot in regards to his finishing...

But I still believe if we gave him an extended run in the side as a STRIKER, the team would score more goals as a result.

As much as we all admire Rafa and his record, it does not mean we cannot be critical of him if he makes a mistake and things go wrong, like it did on Sunday.

Rafa has my total support and I will back him all the way, but in my opinion some of his tactical moves in the Chelsea game were a tad puzzling.

I hope Cisse can get a chance to play to his strengths, but I don't think he will. It would seem that Rafa has decided that he is not good enough for LFC.

by **JBG** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:10 pm

bigmick wrote:As ever a well tought out and thought-provoking post JBG. I personally never saw E'to play for Mallorca but think he is a fantastic player based on what I have seen at Barcelona. If Cisse reminds you of him then either E'to has improved by a very wide margin or I take my hat off to your talent spotting skills mate because for me, Cisse will never ever be able to be mentioned in the same breath.

I think Eto is an over rated player (all things are relative) but he's still a damn fine one.

I first watched Eto are Mallorca when Houllier was interested in him a few years ago. He was very fast (although not as fast as Cisse), had an inconsistent touch and was best at sprinting on to fast counter attacking ball.

However, he was hugely inconsistent and I remember someone a few years ago as describing him as La Liga's "Emile Heskey". What that person meant by that was the guy had incredible physical potential, but was falltering to decieve.

When he went to Barcelona he started realising his potential, principally because Barcelona's style of play suited him. When Barca play in the Nou Camp (which is a big pitch) they set up attacks very quickly. All of their players are fast and skillful and they counter attack extremely quickly. They also have three players - Ronaldinho, Guilly and Deco - who draw defenders to them because they dribble a lot. This suits Eto as it creates openings, and Ronaldinho et al are so skilful they can draw defenders to them and then release the ball quickly to Eto into space.

Interestingly, in the summer of 2004 Barca signed Eto. However, when Cisse joined Liverpool and Gerard Houllier departed, some people in Spain thought that Benitez would not use Cisse as he was not a Benitez player, and Barca enquired of us whether they could sign Cisse on loan. They obviously rated the chap, arguably more so than Eto.

by **stmichael** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:21 pm

agree about eto'o. i remember watching him a few years back for cameroon and he couldn't hit a cows ar$e with a banjo. now he's absolutely lethal infront of goal. i wouldn't be surprised if chelsea are sniffing around him again soon, especially as barcelona have already come out and stated that thierry henry is their number one transfer target.

by **Judge** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:21 pm

LIVERPOOLANYTIME wrote:
woof woof ! wrote:
sithlord wrote:OK, so he's not worth the ridiculous transfer fee Houllier paid for him, but not good enough? Where are these other strikers that we have who are so much better than him? He has pace, power and scores goals. And currently he is the ONLY striker on our books that you can say that about.

You're not wrong mate , Crouch looks as close to scoring as as a eunuch in a monestary , Morientes seems to be saving himself for an eventual move back to Spain and Pongo just tries to do what he's told .

WE HAVE NO F'KIN STRIKE FORCE Cisse is a proven striker at domestic and international level BUT for whatever reason Rafa doesn't want to utilise him .

Fu.cking spot on wooly!!

woollys said fuck all in those statements

i see woof and sithlord only

by **hawkmoon269** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:47 pm

Judge wrote:
LIVERPOOLANYTIME wrote:
woof woof ! wrote:
sithlord wrote:OK, so he's not worth the ridiculous transfer fee Houllier paid for him, but not good enough? Where are these other strikers that we have who are so much better than him? He has pace, power and scores goals. And currently he is the ONLY striker on our books that you can say that about.

You're not wrong mate , Crouch looks as close to scoring as as a eunuch in a monestary , Morientes seems to be saving himself for an eventual move back to Spain and Pongo just tries to do what he's told .

WE HAVE NO F'KIN STRIKE FORCE Cisse is a proven striker at domestic and international level BUT for whatever reason Rafa doesn't want to utilise him .

Fu.cking spot on wooly!!

woollys said fuck all in those statements

i see woof and sithlord only

Maybe it's a woof in sheep's clothing

by **Judge** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:53 pm

stmichael wrote:agree about eto'o. i remember watching him a few years back for cameroon and he couldn't hit a cows ar$e with a banjo. now he's absolutely lethal infront of goal. i wouldn't be surprised if chelsea are sniffing around him again soon, especially as barcelona have already come out and stated that thierry henry is their number one transfer target.

i suppose practising scoring goals rather than spanking cows ar'ses with banjo's did the trick for eto'o

he's good, but dont we remember titi camara, and how fast he was, that didnt work either.

also get rid of garcia. can we not compete and buy quality players, rather than squad players. garcia was on the bench at barca, and now he plays for lfc every week, and loses the ball more than any other player in lfc history. why wasnt he subbed on sunday :angry:

by **woof woof !** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:09 pm

JohnBull wrote:Back Up what statement ?
YOU name a great African TEAM player in any sport (and don't go down the cricket line )

Eusebio , Great portugese player often mentioned in the same breath as Pele . Was born in Mozambique which at that time was a portugese colony .Although the undoubted star of the national side and his club Benfica he was very much a team player.

by **stmichael** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:42 pm

Judge wrote:also get rid of garcia. can we not compete and buy quality players, rather than squad players. garcia was on the bench at barca, and now he plays for lfc every week, and loses the ball more than any other player in lfc history. why wasnt he subbed on sunday

a bit harsh judge. :oh:

i agree that he's not playing well at the moment and should be dropped but getting rid of him would just be madness. he always seems to produce his best in champions league games.

i almost wish we still had murphy. :oops:

by **Judge** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:46 pm

ay, bring back murphy, at least he kept the ball, plus he scores more goals

garcia = waster

by **josip84** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 2:33 pm

JBG wrote:I think Cisse has his flaws, but he reminds me a lot of Samuel Eto when he was at Mallorca. He is a rough diamond, with the proper coaching, could go on and relaise his potential. We have signed plenty of players in our history who were far from perfect and then moulded them into good players. Sadly, I don't think there is a role for Cisse at Benitez's Liverpool. Cisse needs to either play off a big man in an orthodox 4-4-2 or as a sole front man in a counter attacking side, where he hangs on the half way line and sprints onto clearances from deep. Benitez' Liverpool play a pressing game high up on the pitch, and this does not create space for Cisse to run into. Cisse is an ordinary player when he has a line of defenders sitting deep in front of him but potentially an extraordinary player when opposing defences are high on the pitch.

I agree with every point of your analysis. And for those of the fans who doubt Cisse's technical skills, I'd like to add that a technical move is all the more difficult as you have to perform it at 200mph, i.e. Cisse's average speed on the pitch. Cisse' s technical skills are not to be questioned.
You said : Cisse is a rough diamond who could release his potential with proper coaching. Well, mate, you said it all : in the treatment of Cisse's case, IMO the man to blame is much more Benitez than Djibrill.

by **sithlord** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 2:52 pm

African players aren't team players? Do you watch Liverpool play at all? Probably our best player this season has been Momo Sissoko!

by **Judge** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 2:55 pm

sithlord wrote:African players aren't team players? Do you watch Liverpool play at all? Probably our best player this season has been Momo Sissoko!

it would help if you could quote who you are directing that comment at

by **JBG** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 4:07 pm

Judge wrote:
sithlord wrote:African players aren't team players? Do you watch Liverpool play at all? Probably our best player this season has been Momo Sissoko!

it would help if you could quote who you are directing that comment at

I think he means John Bull.

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