Liverpool FC Forum

by **Reg** » Mon May 11, 2009 2:34 am

I guess the journalists need something to put on teh back page - from today's Telegraph........
++

Liverpool's Xabi Alonso linked with £18m move to Manchester City

Manchester City have been linked with an £18 million move for Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso.

By Telegraph staff 10 May 2009

The News of the World reports that City manager Mark Hughes could land the Spain international for the right price as Rafa Benitez concentrates his efforts on bringing Gareth Barry to Anfield from Aston Villa this summer.

Barry will cost Benitez at least £12m and a large offer from City for Alonso is likely to be accepted.

A source close to Man City is quoted as saying: "Alonso has proved this season that he is the type of player Mark Hughes needs.

"He is totally at home in English football, has great experience and he would fit straight in.

"City do need strong characters. It's down to the player. There are other clubs looking but financially Liverpool and Alonso will not find a better deal."

An Alonso move to City would depend on Liverpool being successful in their efforts to sign Barry, but the News of the World claims Benitez is determined to get his man this time round and avoid the protracted wranglings of last year.

Alonso may not be the only Liverpool squad member departing during the close season as Benitez looks to raise funds to improve his team.

Ryan Babel, Andrea Dossena, Andrei Voronin, Charles Itandje, Philipp Deggen and Sebastian Leto are also likely to be sold.

by **Sabre** » Mon May 11, 2009 8:11 am

If Alonso goes to manchester city for 18M, I'll eat my own testicles, my díck, and I'll comeback to newkit as anti Rafa eunuch.

by **Festy** » Mon May 11, 2009 8:25 am

Reg wrote:I guess the journalists need something to put on teh back page - from today's Telegraph........
++

Liverpool's Xabi Alonso linked with £18m move to Manchester City

Manchester City have been linked with an £18 million move for Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso.

By Telegraph staff 10 May 2009

The News of the World reports that City manager Mark Hughes could land the Spain international for the right price as Rafa Benitez concentrates his efforts on bringing Gareth Barry to Anfield from Aston Villa this summer.

Barry will cost Benitez at least £12m and a large offer from City for Alonso is likely to be accepted.

A source close to Man City is quoted as saying: "Alonso has proved this season that he is the type of player Mark Hughes needs.

"He is totally at home in English football, has great experience and he would fit straight in.

"City do need strong characters. It's down to the player. There are other clubs looking but financially Liverpool and Alonso will not find a better deal."

An Alonso move to City would depend on Liverpool being successful in their efforts to sign Barry, but the News of the World claims Benitez is determined to get his man this time round and avoid the protracted wranglings of last year.

Alonso may not be the only Liverpool squad member departing during the close season as Benitez looks to raise funds to improve his team.

Ryan Babel, Andrea Dossena, Andrei Voronin, Charles Itandje, Philipp Deggen and Sebastian Leto are also likely to be sold.

Liverpool's Lucas Leiva linked with £70m move to Manchester City

Manchester City have been linked with an £70 million move for Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva.

By Telegraph staff 10 May 2009

The News of the World reports that City manager Mark Hughes could land the Brazil international for the right price as Rafa Benitez concentrates his efforts on bringing Bryan Hughes to Anfield from Hull City this summer.

Hughes will cost Benitez at least £45m and a large offer from City for Lucas is likely to be accepted.

A source close to Man City is quoted as saying: "Lucas has proved over and over again that he is the type of player Mark Hughes needs.

"He is totally at home in English football, has great experience and he would fit straight in.

"City do need strong characters. It's down to the player. There are other clubs looking but financially Liverpool and Lucas will not find a better deal."

A Lucas move to City would depend on Liverpool being successful in their efforts to sign Hughes, but the News of the World claims Benitez is determined to get his man this time round and avoid the protracted wranglings of last year.

Lucas may not be the only Liverpool squad member departing during the close season as Benitez looks to raise funds to improve his team.

Liability midfielders Steven Gerrard and Javier Mascherano, Jamie Carragher, Pepe Reina, Daniel Agger, Dirk Kuyt and out of favor striker Fernando Torres are also likely to be sold for a total sum around £12m.

EDIT: Feck off Telegraph :veryangry

by **stmichael** » Mon May 11, 2009 11:47 am

Selling Alonso would be pure madness. If you go back to last summer, Rafa was looking to sell Alonso because he was greatly underperforming. He wanted to replace him with a player who has combined well with Gerrard on the international level. Since then Xabi has since had a fantastic season and Benitez even joked that he should threaten to sell all his players if it makes them play so well.

Therefore Alonso is not performing poorly anymore. Therefore we won't be looking to sell him this summer.

And, unless we get a stupid offer, he won't be sold imo.

by **Reg** » Mon May 11, 2009 12:47 pm

You can understand City´s need to buy in experience and maturity though.

by **Alex G.** » Mon May 11, 2009 1:14 pm

If Alonso goes to city he is absolute crazy. I don´t think so. Alonso is a clever person.

by **tubby** » Mon May 11, 2009 1:17 pm

He has been our best players this season and it would be crazy to sell him. It would be ever crazier to sell him for just 18Mil. I think Rafa may sell him if we get a big offer but we should not sell him to a rival club. That would be like selling Torres to Chelsea or Utd.

by **bunglemark2** » Mon May 11, 2009 1:50 pm

Festy wrote:Liverpool's Lucas Leiva linked with £70m move to Manchester City

Shouldn't that be a Turkish Lira currency symbol instead of a £ symbol in front of the 70

by **Festy** » Mon May 11, 2009 1:57 pm

bunglemark2 wrote:
Festy wrote:Liverpool's Lucas Leiva linked with £70m move to Manchester City

Shouldn't that be a Turkish Lira currency symbol instead of a £ symbol in front of the 70

You never know with News of the fecking world :no

by **aCe'** » Mon May 11, 2009 2:26 pm

heres a not so crazy idea... Could Rafa be thinking of selling Alonso to help finance a deal for a class forward like Villa or something and changing back to a 4-4-2 ? bring Barry on as a less expensive but still useful backup to a Gerrard-Mascherano midfield pairing ?

Personally, i wouldnt want Alonso gone for any reason... also, i dont think we need a change in formation, not now we dont . But that would explain a fair few things atleast to me... I dont think Barrys a bad player, far from it really... hes not 'miles' behind Alonso but he isnt going to be an improvement on Alonso thats for sure... Going by what Rafa has been doing year in year out, i wouldnt be surprised if we end up selling Alonso and bringing on 4 new players who arent good enough to start, but would provide us with options all over the pitch... The sissoko thing all over again perhaps ? Anyways, i think our formation at present with some of the players we have gives us a good balance all over the pitch, perhaps we just need a few quality additions in some of the forward positions and maybe a little bit of defensive cover and we'r good to go... heres for hoping anyways...

by **Owzat** » Mon May 11, 2009 2:36 pm

bunglemark2 wrote:
Festy wrote:Liverpool's Lucas Leiva linked with £70m move to Manchester City

Shouldn't that be a Turkish Lira currency symbol instead of a £ symbol in front of the 70

Nah, it is a £70m move - WE PAY THEM £70m to take Lucas :laugh:

by **NANNY RED** » Mon May 11, 2009 7:34 pm

Sabre wrote:If Alonso goes to manchester city for 18M, I'll eat my own testicles, my díck, and I'll comeback to newkit as anti Rafa eunuch.

ill join yeh Sabes ill become a nun, mind you i wont be sacrafising much, :;):

by **Octsky** » Tue May 12, 2009 12:50 pm

Alonso must stay. barry can play left back or left mid. i dont see why we cant have both of them in the team. alonso has been instrumental to the team. he is our 3 musketeers in midfield.
if he is to go to the overpaid pussies in Madrid, nothing less than 40 mil pounds (inclusive back payments for owen and macca).

by **Sabre** » Wed May 13, 2009 8:17 am

The info regarding Madrid's dealings in the market has a lot of leaks of information and the last ones are a bit worrying.

According to this rumours, in a meeting between the Americans and Benitez it was agreed what would be the Alonso going out price: 30M.

What's even more worrying is that this selling has a lot to do with the limit economical situation of our club, and it will be apparently quite a lot of players of the first team which are going to see the way out.

Let's see what's the truth in all this, but I'm worried.

by **Toffeehater** » Wed May 13, 2009 9:22 am

aCe' wrote:Im not sure that Alonso (given his role and how we setup) not scoring so many goals a season is that big a problem... I mean we have the best oalscoring record in the league this season and we seem to have little trouble scoring once we get going... Our main problem seems to be breaking down the smaller teams that park the bus and quite honestly i think that given the way we setup the bigger share of the blame needs to lie on the shoulders of the attacking wingers and our manager..
We've been having the same problem and it has been pointed out yet and again for around 3 years now yet we still dont seem to do anything about it.. We are too darn predictable more often than not... Alonso has the ability to provide/create great attacking moves from his current position but the problem is that we dont seem to have enough players around who can comeup with the goos in the final third of the pitch... we have very limited options in the final third and that extends beyond having only one striker or Kuyt not being able to beat a man..etc etc

In this league... you win the league if you win more games than the next team... its not about not losing, its not about having the best defense, its about getting as m,any 3points as you can.. the most effective way of doing that is giving yourself as many quality options when going forward as possible..

wingers who can run at fullbacks, forwards who can come deep and drag their markers out of position, players who work hard ina and around the box, wingers that can cut the ball back... people who attack the ball from the edge of the area...etc etc...

More often than not, we do very little of that when teams park the bus against us... Its the good same old routine of passing the ball around looking for Gerrard, Torres, or (only recently) Benny who can actually carry the ball forward and look for an incisive pass or an attempt on target... failing that we just hoof it up for the opposition backline to clear it with little trouble...

Back to Alonso... Ill say it again, if we have better attacking players around, hes a must keep in my books... Hes great at finding players in the attacking third and if we have better quality upfront alongside Gerrard and Torres im pretty sure that with his passing ability and the added impact of such players we would have too many outlets when going forward for other teams that park the bus to deal with... Despite his brilliant season Kuyt remains a liability in many games against the smaller sides... Rieras impact is almost nullified when you have 2 wide opposition players dedicated to closing down the flank and leaving little room fir the pass and go he seems to do so well...

To sum things up im not sure that changing the way Alonso plays his game at present would really change the way we look when going forward against the teams that park the bus all that much... Id much rather have him playing where he is with better quality brought in to complement his style rather than ask him to change his style (by pushing him further up or further back) to try something that will most probably have little or no effect in such games..

Liverpool FC Forum

The Alonso Thread - hands in transfer request

Who is online