Liverpool FC Forum

by **ConnO'var** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:21 pm

GYBS wrote:Does Rafa rate Lucas over Xabi and masher and gerrard ? no he is back up to them .

Last season Rafa wanted barry in after barry had a great season and xabi has a quiet one - this summer its different - xabi has been outstanding where as barry his normal decent self . Its just paper speculation that we are in for barry yet he keeps saying he wants xabi to stay - The words of Rafa mean a lot more than any c.rap in the paper .

True... but surely Rafa, in his infinite wisdom, knows that old chestnut... "class is permanent, form temporary"....

Or is this just another example of his mastery of man management? Knowing full well that this was just the kick up the behind that Xabi needed? I'm telling you.... the man knows it all, dude!

by **GYBS** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:27 pm

well if it was a kick up the backside it worked - if he thought xabis time was up in the prem last season and wanted barry at the time not many people would of argued with him - i would of cause i dont rate barry where as always rated xabi .

whatever his reasons for wanting barry last season dont seem to have surfaced this season and all he is talking about is keeping xabi - so hopefully that means no barry near our club and the 10 mil can be better spent elsewhere

by **akumaface** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:30 pm

Before Last season, didn't see Barry much but after the famous non transfer, I started to notice Barry more and watch him play whenever Villa was on. Actually, he played quite well and fairly good defensively. He really worked hard in tracking back and his passing was decent. But to suggest him better than the Alonso of this season, the gap is still far. If Barry comes cheap, we should get him as he is miles better and more versitile than Lucas. OUr game would not drop off as much if either Alonso or Mascher needed a rest or is out. Again, we didn;t have the depth of either Man U or Chelski and the depth of the bench is the differences in the slim margin of couple points between the champion and 1st runner up this year. I think next year would be tougher as Chelski and Man U will load up again and also, it would be very difficult to repeat our performances this year against the big four. Of course, I would be more than happy to be wrong in this but only if we can get more points from our draw. They should be more than make up for the potential drop in points against the big 3 next season.

by **ConnO'var** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:42 pm

GYBS wrote:well if it was a kick up the backside it worked - if he thought xabis time was up in the prem last season and wanted barry at the time not many people would of argued with him - i would of cause i dont rate barry where as always rated xabi .

whatever his reasons for wanting barry last season dont seem to have surfaced this season and all he is talking about is keeping xabi - so hopefully that means no barry near our club and the 10 mil can be better spent elsewhere

We really need a sarcasm smiley. Would have tagged that on the end of my last post!

by **GYBS** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:43 pm

by **Fauxy** » Fri May 22, 2009 10:17 pm

It just popped up on sky sports news that Rafa wants to keep Alonso :;):

by **tubby** » Fri May 22, 2009 11:23 pm

I wouldnt get so happy. That could just be Rafa making Real bump their bid up higher with Rafa pointing out how long is left on Xabis contract. Remember they need big stars and Ronaldo has just turned them down so dont expect them to just go away so easily.

by **Effes** » Sat May 23, 2009 1:49 am

ConnO'var wrote:
GYBS wrote:well if it was a kick up the backside it worked - if he thought xabis time was up in the prem last season and wanted barry at the time not many people would of argued with him - i would of cause i dont rate barry where as always rated xabi .

whatever his reasons for wanting barry last season dont seem to have surfaced this season and all he is talking about is keeping xabi - so hopefully that means no barry near our club and the 10 mil can be better spent elsewhere

We really need a sarcasm smiley. Would have tagged that on the end of my last post!

That's the sarcasm smiley mate, veryone says what you say, but for me, that's the one.

by **SupitsJonF** » Sat May 23, 2009 1:55 am

Effes wrote:
ConnO'var wrote:
GYBS wrote:well if it was a kick up the backside it worked - if he thought xabis time was up in the prem last season and wanted barry at the time not many people would of argued with him - i would of cause i dont rate barry where as always rated xabi .

whatever his reasons for wanting barry last season dont seem to have surfaced this season and all he is talking about is keeping xabi - so hopefully that means no barry near our club and the 10 mil can be better spent elsewhere

We really need a sarcasm smiley. Would have tagged that on the end of my last post!

That's the sarcasm smiley mate, veryone says what you say, but for me, that's the one.

Always felt the same way too.

by **Effes** » Sat May 23, 2009 2:02 am

Maybe Im going against the grain here (mostly), but if we could get very good money for Xabi, then I wouldn't
be too gutted.

None of us know how much we've got to spend this Summer; but I have a feeling that if we are going to splash any
cash on a top attacking player, then we will probably have to sell one of our top players.

I dont think we can sell ALL of our players who seem to struggle to make the grade (Dossena, Babel, Lucas),
as I think the squad would be very threadbare.

Xabi is a great passer of the ball, he plays in the middle very well; but I think people tend to go
a bit overboard on what they think he brings to the team.

It looks like Rafa is weighing up his options, Barry is a very competent player in the middle.
For me, we wouldn't miss Xabi that much if we did get Barry.

I think we need to look at the money we could get for selling him, and what we could do
with that to improve our attacking options

We need to put those home draws to bed - a top attacking player would enhance our capabilities greatly.

by **Reg** » Sat May 23, 2009 2:26 am

I rather like the idea of buying in Barry to replace Lucas.

by **maguskwt** » Sat May 23, 2009 9:52 am

Effes wrote:Maybe Im going against the grain here (mostly), but if we could get very good money for Xabi, then I wouldn't
be too gutted.

None of us know how much we've got to spend this Summer; but I have a feeling that if we are going to splash any
cash on a top attacking player, then we will probably have to sell one of our top players.

I dont think we can sell ALL of our players who seem to struggle to make the grade (Dossena, Babel, Lucas),
as I think the squad would be very threadbare.

Xabi is a great passer of the ball, he plays in the middle very well; but I think people tend to go
a bit overboard on what they think he brings to the team.

It looks like Rafa is weighing up his options, Barry is a very competent player in the middle.
For me, we wouldn't miss Xabi that much if we did get Barry.

I think we need to look at the money we could get for selling him, and what we could do
with that to improve our attacking options

We need to put those home draws to bed - a top attacking player would enhance our capabilities greatly.

imagine stepping back 2 steps and trying to jump forward 3 steps... it's counterproductive... it can work but most likely we would go backwards so why risk it? as we have seen throughout our purchases it is very hard to tell which players do well in the premiership and which not.

what we should be doing is to keep our best players, sell the fringe players like babel, lucas, voronin, dossena and add more quality.

stevie and torres partnership works so well because of alonso. Without alonso, our football won't be as fluid. He controls the midfield and at the same time he turns defence into attack because of his passing. Mascherano alone can't do that. Mascherano and lucas midfield is terrible. So that means stevie has to go back to midfied and so we have to look for a second striker to support Torres the way Stevie did. There goes the tried and tested (and so far best) partnership that worked in premiership for us.

Now why would we wanna do that? Instead ADD a quality second striker and we still have the option of reverting back to the tried and tested Gerrard/ Torres/ Masch/ Alonso backbone.

by **dafurf** » Sat May 23, 2009 8:23 pm

Alonso a a fantastic mid field general but with himself and Mascher not chipping in with the goals it might be time to look at a MF like Barry.

by **Bad Bob** » Sat May 23, 2009 9:23 pm

dafurf wrote:Alonso a a fantastic mid field general but with himself and Mascher not chipping in with the goals it might be time to look at a MF like Barry.

We've scored the most goals in the league, mate, yet people always seem concerned that Alonso and Mascherano don't score enough. It's a strange one.

by **Number 9** » Sat May 23, 2009 9:40 pm

Alonso has been at his best this season,for me Barrys form took a slight dip!Whether its because his heart is not with Villa or not remains to be seen.
Last season Id have swapped Alonso for Barry in an instant but going on how he has played for us this season,no fuc'king way.He has been fantastic and he fits our team and the way we play like a glove!No chance we should sell him and replace him with Barry even if we do get £10m left over from the deal..NO WAY!!

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