Liverpool FC Forum

by **fittemod** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:09 pm

I agree, Torres is the only class striker we have and that might be a problem going forwards. I would still like to see Bable givena proper run at striker but after that terrible miss against Pompey I'm not so sure as I used to be. N'Gog does not look good enough in my opinion and Kuyt is better suited to right midfield, he seems more comfortable there.

by **bigmick** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 7:40 pm

bigmick wrote:He is Joe you're quite right. Probably next season assuming Rafa is still the manager but really whoever is doing the job, we are very likely going to play 4-5-1 for the forseeable I should think. Given our financial plight, if such a player exists I'd have a look for somebody who can play up top as the one, or alternatively replace Gerrard as well. I say this because I think I'm right in saying we don't have a replacement for either at the moment. I say that not as a negative comment btw, I just genuinely believe we haven't, please correct me if I'm wrong/call me c... for having an opinion and voicing it or whatever.

I reckon someone like Christiano Ronaldo could do it, but he's hardly a likely signing. Rooney could do it as well, but ditto. Robin Van Persie probably could, and he might be more of a shout (although he wouldn't be cheap).

I think that's probably the answer though. Half of S@ints creative second striker, but who can also fill in for Gerrard and Torres if needs be as well. There's no doubt some players abroad who could do it, but your Arshavinns of this World are probably too specialist in their second striker roles to cut it. Arshavin could do Gerrards job, but not Torres's.

That's what I'd be on the lookout for anyway. because at the moment if either Torres or Gerrard get injured at any time, we're fecked.

Coming back briefly to this idea of next season getting in somebody who could play in both Gerrard and Torres's role, Teddy Sheringham would have been ideal for it, and Berbatov and Tevez probably could as well.

Probably the best bet who is actually even slightly realistic though in the Premiership is Robin Van Persie. I would guess they'd want 15-20 million quid for him, but I think he could do the job. He'd be on the bench if Torres and Gerrard are both fit and neither of them rotated, but in the event that either of them are, he'd be a good replacement.

The other purchases I'd be up for from having looked at it so far, are Glen Johnson at right back who would cost I think 12-15 million quid, and Micah Richards as centre half full back cover. By all accounts off the field indescretions have reduced his price a bit, so you might be able to get him for 8-12 mill'.

I suspect the three signings might be doable for around 40 million quid.

I do think also though that we need a right midfielder as well.

by **JoeTerp** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 8:49 pm

bigmick wrote:
bigmick wrote:He is Joe you're quite right. Probably next season assuming Rafa is still the manager but really whoever is doing the job, we are very likely going to play 4-5-1 for the forseeable I should think. Given our financial plight, if such a player exists I'd have a look for somebody who can play up top as the one, or alternatively replace Gerrard as well. I say this because I think I'm right in saying we don't have a replacement for either at the moment. I say that not as a negative comment btw, I just genuinely believe we haven't, please correct me if I'm wrong/call me c... for having an opinion and voicing it or whatever.

I reckon someone like Christiano Ronaldo could do it, but he's hardly a likely signing. Rooney could do it as well, but ditto. Robin Van Persie probably could, and he might be more of a shout (although he wouldn't be cheap).

I think that's probably the answer though. Half of S@ints creative second striker, but who can also fill in for Gerrard and Torres if needs be as well. There's no doubt some players abroad who could do it, but your Arshavinns of this World are probably too specialist in their second striker roles to cut it. Arshavin could do Gerrards job, but not Torres's.

That's what I'd be on the lookout for anyway. because at the moment if either Torres or Gerrard get injured at any time, we're fecked.

Coming back briefly to this idea of next season getting in somebody who could play in both Gerrard and Torres's role, Teddy Sheringham would have been ideal for it, and Berbatov and Tevez probably could as well.

Probably the best bet who is actually even slightly realistic though in the Premiership is Robin Van Persie. I would guess they'd want 15-20 million quid for him, but I think he could do the job. He'd be on the bench if Torres and Gerrard are both fit and neither of them rotated, but in the event that either of them are, he'd be a good replacement.

The other purchases I'd be up for from having looked at it so far, are Glen Johnson at right back who would cost I think 12-15 million quid, and Micah Richards as centre half full back cover. By all accounts off the field indescretions have reduced his price a bit, so you might be able to get him for 8-12 mill'.

I suspect the three signings might be doable for around 40 million quid.

I do think also though that we need a right midfielder as well.

not sure if Arsenal would want to sell to us, and I am not sure if RVP would want to come if he was going to mostly sit on the bench either. I could see him doing something like going to Lyon after Benzema leaves.

Don't see Citeh being in the business of selling Richards either. Unless they sign Sergio Ramos or something.

As for Glen Johnson, although I think he will be attainable (but for a price), is it top priority? certainly not as Arbeloa can do a job. and as you mentioned we have other problems in wide areas and attack.

I think our best bet is so go with the wiley ole veteran approach that can't really play every week anyway and knows his way around the box, like when we brought back Fowler. (Owen? Diego Milito? Trézéguet? Gudjohnsen? OR someone coming into their prime that hasn't done it on the big stage yet, but has potential (Ebanks-Blake? Cameron Jerome? Kenwyne Jones? Ezequiel Lavezzi? Zárate? Lisandro López?).

Obviously would prefer if we could afford someone like Aguero

by **bigmick** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 9:05 pm

I'm not against that approach Joe, but the problem I think we have and are continually going to have is that we have neither a replacement for Torres nor Gerrard. Now I accept that both are toip players and hard to replace by definition, but I think you've got more chance of getting a top player to come if he thinks he's also got a chance of playing when the attackign midfielder is out as well. Lets face it, if you know we play 4-5-1 and you watched the Keane situation pan out, you ain't exactly going to be killing yourself to come if you're an out and out striker. It might (my idea) be possibly a way of killing two birds with one stone.

by **aCe'** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 9:23 pm

surely if theoretically we manage to get Van Persie he wont be on the bench waiting for Gerrard or Torres to be rested to come on

Kuyt, Riera, Babel, Elzhar, Benny... i know who i'd rather have playing up there alongside Gerrard and Torres...

Have to add one thing though, i dont think that we should be going for more average/ not yet proven/ past it..etc players just to cover for Torres and Gerrard.. We should try to sort out our starting 11 first... our biggest priorities imo should be a right winger, a rightback and then look at adding another striker...

if we bring in a right winger then im guessing Kuyt could be relegated to the bench and be our backup striker... on the other hand, if we get a backup striker or even a quality striker (keane anyone ?) and persist with playing 1 upfront then thats money wasted in my books and the starting 11 still needing improvement despite arguably having a better squad...

by **Effes** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 9:32 pm

aCe' wrote:if we bring in a right winger then im guessing Kuyt could be relegated to the bench and be our backup striker... on the other hand, if we get a backup striker or even a quality striker (keane anyone ?) and persist with playing 1 upfront then thats money wasted in my books and the starting 11 still needing improvement despite arguably having a better squad...

Agree with you there - if we could only get one top class player in, it would be someone
to fit in at Kuyt's position in the 4-2-3-1.

by **JoeTerp** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 10:24 pm

who is/could be this mystery World Class player? Someone who can score, cross, work hard for the team, and posses more pace and a better first touch than Kuyt

by **Zidane** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 10:27 pm

JoeTerp wrote:who is/could be this mystery World Class player? Someone who can score, cross, work hard for the team, and posses more pace and a better first touch than Kuyt

There are only so many players better than Kuyt at any of those things..

by **aCe'** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 10:43 pm

JoeTerp wrote:Someone who can score, cross, work hard for the team, and posses more pace and a better first touch than Kuyt ?

not as hard as you would think believe it or not..
can think of about 30 wingers off the top of my head

and the whole work hard for the team thing is overrated.. do the best wingers in world football work half as hard as Kuyt does ? Do you really need a right winger who's best skill is off the ball tracking back and pressurizing defences ? Do you still need that given we'v got Torres, Gerrard, Alonso, Mascherano, even arguably Arbeloa who all work very hard whenever played ?

We need more flair players... players who offer different things in an attacking sense.. you look at our main rivals and as mentioned above they have many more attacking options than we do... they have impact players in different areas of the pitch and imo thats the main thing we seem to be lacking in our squad...

by **bigmick** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 10:49 pm

Strangely, although I do agree we could really do with a genuine right sided midfielder, after five years of the rafalution it is by no means whatsoever our most pressing need. That is obviously up front. We have Torres who is absoluitely World Class, then Kuyt, N"gog and Babel who absolutely aren't. My feelign is that we need at the very least one striker, possibly two and arguably three.

Probably everything else will have to wait until we've sorted that. This obviously applies IMHO regardless of who the manager is.

by **Zidane** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 10:52 pm

I disagree Mick, we need a class right sided midfielder more than anything imo. If we had that like someone posted earlier Kuyt is a decent enough option as a 2nd striker off the bench and would be a great squad player for us.

by **aCe'** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 11:07 pm

bigmick wrote:Strangely, although I do agree we could really do with a genuine right sided midfielder, after five years of the rafalution it is by no means whatsoever our most pressing need. That is obviously up front. We have Torres who is absoluitely World Class, then Kuyt, N"gog and Babel who absolutely aren't. My feelign is that we need at the very least one striker, possibly two and arguably three.

Probably everything else will have to wait until we've sorted that. This obviously applies IMHO regardless of who the manager is.

gotta disagree with ya there mick... what u seem to be suggesting is adding another striker to our bench ?
we can do this in one of two ways..
Bring in :

1) a cheap option: either a veteran or a youngster or an unproven talent or just another average squad player

2) go out and buy a top quality striker and pay big bucks:
in which case it would be an absolute waste of money having the 20.3mill or whatever striker on the bench whenever fit and ready.. add to that the fact that most top strikers wont be happy being benched, played out of position..etc etc

What im suggesting is this... we already have Tores whos an absolutely top class striker... we play 1 upfront and that position is pretty much sorted whenever he's fit and ready..
Elsewhere, we seem to be lacking a bit.. Right wing is obviously a problem... Rightback is another problem (Arby has done well but we can most certainly do alot better)..

Solution: We go out and buy a top class right winger... leaving us with an undoubetably better starting 11 when all are fit and ready... we also have Kuyt on the bench as backup for Torres who despite all thats said about him is still better than N'gog, Voronin, and probably most of the other cheap options we could opt for (bar owen but lets not go there)...

I agree however that if Torres gts injured at any point (with Kuyt there as backup or not), we'd look pretty poor in that department...Never a good sign for any team regardless of their ambitions going into a season with one recognised quality striker... However with all the talk about us being low on funds (dont know where that is coming from but if you choose to believe whats said then there you go) i'd much rather us go for improving on our starting lineup rather than yet again improving on the squad with players who might or might not end up having a big impact on our season... You'd think the whole Keane situation taught us a thing or two about how such things work out..

by **JoeTerp** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 11:13 pm

Joe Cole, Schweinsteiger, Cazorla, Maxi Rodriguez. Can we afford any of them?

by **bigmick** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 11:14 pm

Well I think if we spent big ona Van Persie, yes he might be on the bench a bit. that said, if we wanted to replace Kuyt with Gerrard occasionally (which I must admit I do nearly always to tell the truth), van persie could fill in for Gerrard and Bob's your uncle. Similarly, if Gerrard was injured/supended/rotated he could fill in as second striker/attacking midfielder, and the same with Torres if he was out.

I just think that if we have serious aspirations to be a top team we absolutely have to have at the very least one top class striker in reserve, in case Torres or Gerrard get injured. I know Kuyt annoys the erse off people (me included) but I really don't think that's our most pressing issue. Just my take anyway.

Whatever and wherever, I think after five years of the rafalution there are too many pressing issuea to be totally comfortable. That was the point of the thread starter.

by **Sabre** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 11:18 pm

We do need someone upfront, we probably needed one when Keane was here, we need one even more now. It's a pity Crouch left the club for not playing enough because I've thought of him more than once this season, I wish he should have sticked around. I'm sure he's enjoying more minutes in his new club, but I'm sure aswell he would have liked to be challenging for the title this year. I can't help but thinking that was a big loss. In that case it seemed to be the player's decission.

I agree the Ace aswell, because I think we need someone for the right. I'd happily buy an Arteta from the bitters, I know he'd change his loyalties fast, but I guess he's too expensive.

When it comes to signing ups, CB and left side do not need attention IMHO. Riera is in a bad moment, but a normal up and down of a good player is not enough to find solutions in the market for my taste. He's not world class, no, but is he any worse than the guy that represented the nation of England in Seville? that Downing guy?

No, I would ask Riera to work hard, but I wouldn't buy a player for the position. I think CB's future is secured with Agger and Skrtel, but I hope Agger stays for that, that contract worries me, I want it renewed. We have done a lot of work with Agger, and I don't want someone else picking the results of that job.

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