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JLC

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Ye of little faith - In Rafa we TRUST

The money paid for Pennant seems a little rough especially when you consider Duff was only £5 million. However i guess the fact is when smaller clubs are dealing with bigger clubs they will ask for the little bit extra.

It would be good if Kuyt was the final signing so fingers crossed

jlc
 

Lowie01

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Pennant.....if we're prepared to pay that much for a hack like him, why weren't we prepared to spend the necessary cash on Alves? Worst signing of Rafa's tenure, and Pennant will just about have to make team of the season to make me change my mind.

The worst thing is, about 1.5 million of that fee goes straight to Arsenal. :mad:
 
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i have a great deal of apprenhension about bringing Pennant to Anfield. This signing is either going to be a masterstroke of epic proportions or it will be an unmitigated disaster like the sinking of the titanic...
 

Cooldude

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If we sign Alves, we mightn't be able to sign a new striker, which is probably a higher priority

Pennant has talent, his problem is his brain, which I doubt even Rafa can straighten

6 mil for him is just ridiculous, mind
 

jeka

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I'm more concerned about his off-field reputation than his on field ability. IF he can keep his head straight then he will be a useful addition to the squad.

Far from world class as a RW, but we currently do not have a winger to play on the right. This is one of the reasons we've not been able to get our other targets, Simao, Alves. The selling clubs know we are/were desperate for a right winger and as such the price goes up, and up. As a club we are far from poor, but we do not have the spending power of a Chelsea or a Man U of previous seasons.

Look at this way, we've spent £6 mill Bellamy, £2million Palletta, Free Aurelio, £6.2 million Pennant. £14.2 mill in total, for 4 players who will in all likelyhood get a good number of 1st team games this season. Chelsea spent £16million on Obi Mikel who probably won't see a single 1st team game. Financially thats where the two clubs are at.

Perversely, if Pennant has a good season, it will be easier to get a RW of superior quality as we won't be seen as desperate for a player in that position.
 

Cooldude

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Our chances of signing Alves and/or Kuyt practically was almost impossible after Cisse broke his leg, the funding we would've gotten from offloading him would've helped big time

Plus the fact that no one have showed interest in our hacks

Pennant is at least a genuine wide right player which we haven't had, Gerrard will most likely spend another season playing lots of games on the right.

Guess signing Pennant ain't so bad if we buy a good striker to go along with it.

Don't think Rafa would give up on Alves though, have been a target last season, too. We'll probably go back in for him next season
 

jod23

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Geez it's been reported it is 6.7 up front with a further 300k on appearances. That is a WAY too much money to be spending on another twat. It's really lucky I trust Rafa otherwise I might be a little more ****ed off.

He did put the most crosses into the box last season though so that's encouraging but I just dont know how were gonna line up. I know Rafa LOVES to play Gerrard, Alonso and Sissoko in the same midfield. But if we play a 5 man midfield, we surely must play Crouch up front alone. So we bought Bellamy to sit on the bench? Obviously the formation will change throughout the season and depending who we play but more often than not Rafa loves to play those 3 together in midfield.

It's nice to finally have an out and out right winger but that's a lot of money on a gamble type player IMO. I hope this works out.

Good to see Carson and Anderson sign new deals, Carson in particular as there were a few clubs after him. He will no doubt be understudy to Pepe with us still trying to move Dudek.

I think we will still see some departures though with Dudek the obvious one and also Kromkamp, Diao and Traore all been sold. Apparently Charlton are in for both Diao and Traore with a lot of interest in Traore and Ive heard it will be about 2 million for both of them. Id snatch their arm off if that offer came up.

Oh and apparently were close to signing some young greek striker named Lazaros Christodoulopoulos who is on trial with us. He has a release clause of 130k and were offering a three year contract. He was spotted by our chief scout, Eduardo Macia and apparently the kid was in awesome form for his Greek club, PAOK Salonika. So who knows with that one, probably be confirmed one way or the other in the next couple of days.

Now that we have Pennant... :( All we need now to conclude our signings is another striker.
 

JLC

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Yup £6.7 million is a lot to pay - lol at least he is no longer wearing his electronic tag ;)

They are dipping Kuyt again and have tried to use Kronkamp and Dudek as leverage. Daio and Traore may be sold to Charlton to raise a few more pounds.

Overall given the resources available Rafa has done ok but i guess the proof will be in the pudding.

jlc
 

moomba

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JLC said:
Overall given the resources available Rafa has done ok but i guess the proof will be in the pudding.
There seems to be a "poor old poverty stricken Liverpool" attitude going on at BF, AFAIK they have spent more than anyone bar Chelsea this off-season.

Anyway, the Diao move to Charlton is off. Failed medical apparently.
 

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moomba

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Scousers lost 0-2 to Grasshopper.

Pretty typical friendly. Pennant did OK without really creating anything. Bellamy showed the odd moment, but a pretty non descript game. Gonzales was poor, as was Paletta (shocking backpass for their second as well). Hobbs and Anderson played the first half and neither really impressed (Hobbs in particular looked shaky at the start before running out the rest of the game a bit better).

Of the senior players, Sissoko looked good, but thats about it. Back 4 as a whole were hopeless on set pieces, and they better pray that Carragher never gets a serious injury.

Second half Liverpool looked a lot better with the likes of Gerrard, Crouch, Carragher coming on. Created lots but nothing really came off.
 

JLC

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Yeah i watched the game on TV although had i known what a **** poor crowd it would be i would have made the trip to Switzerland but the Liverpool website had it reported as a sell out. Perhaps they need to look at the allocation of tickets.

Anyway on to the game. This is how we lined up

Reina, Paletta Hyypia Hobbs and Risse
Anderson on right, Zenden more as holding midfielder, Sissoko more attacking and Gonzalez on the left and Pennant and Bellamy up front.

Reina - Disappointing as did not know whether he was coming or going but perhaps we can put that down to being rusty and not being used to playing with the back four.

Paletta - Disappointing and directly contributed to the second goal with a blind pass back to Reina. Hopefully he gets better from here.

Hyypia - Was ok

Hobbs - Apparently was sloppy against Kaiserslautern but looked ok in this game and was far from our worst player.

Anderson - Quiet

Zenden - OK but will struggle when Alonso, Kewell and Gerrard line up

Sissoko - Thought he was great. Time after time he takes on 2 or 3 players and wins and tackles and does all the hard stuff. Could be a massive year for Momo.

Gonzalez - Knows how to take a free kick and has a powerful left foot. Was not helped by only having Bellamy to cross the ball to.

Pennant - Was creative with his passing and ran the ball fairly hard but perhaps too unselfish and needs to pull the trigger on occassions

Bellamy - Created chances but failed to put them away which was disappointing. However when Crouch came on they seemed to combine well.

Subs

Gerrard - Took the game to another level and the only part of his game which was rusty was his finishing. Could have easily had 2 goals.

Crouch - Good first up effort and his touch looks to be getting even better and did some nice link up play with Bellamy. That will be our starting combination for sure.

Traore - Not our worst player but still does the odd sloppy piece of play which against better teams would get punished.

Carragher - We all know about carragher.

The result 2-0 was disappointing and not a fair reflection on the game as we created more than our fair share of chances. We will need to improve for our Champions League Qualifier and the Charity Shield but will players to return and gaining match fitness we should be ok.

jlc
 

jod23

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Not really concerned with the pre-season friendlies. It's like the Wiz-Fiz cup a the start of the AFL season. It means nothing.

Cant wait til the start of the season.
 

malcolm

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4/8

Rafael Benitez is still hoping to sign Dirk Kuyt before the start of the new season.

Liverpool have already had one offer turned down but the Reds boss is preparing another bid, estimated to be just under £10million.


"We're continuing to work," said Benitez. "Maybe it's too late for the Champions League qualification round, but there is one month left and that gives us the time to sign the player we need.


"I think we still need an extra striker, just in case. I'm happy with the strikers we havebut I think we need another and I'm confident we'll sign one."
 
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is dirk kuyt even any good? i don't see much of the eredivisie but he was bloody ordinary in the world cup for holland... though to be fair he was played on the right flank when he's more of a centre forward, then again the dutch are all about total football.... can anyone give a decent analysis of the bloke?
 

Lowie01

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Result from last night:

Mainz 5
Liverpool 0 :eek:

Three losses from three on tour. I normally pay very little attention to pre-season results, but I hope they snap out of this quickly.
 

JLC

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They started off with a strong team and at half time was 0-0

Rafa made some subs n the second half not sure who though and bang we lose 5-0

Must regroup very quickly before championsleague qualifier this wednesday - fingers crossed i can get tickets to go lol

jlc
 

JLC

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Ok i got a ticket for Wednesday which is good news. Hopefully it is safe and obviously that we win.

jlc
 

JLC

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Daio came on as a sub in that game so the papers have reported that as Rafa hoisting up the white flag lol

Our new kit is being launched this week. I went down to Anfield today to pick up my ticket for the Charity Shield game ( I dont think it will be a sell out) and they were fitting out the shop. The green strip that we have been wearing in our practice games i am sure is our away strip for the Champions League. The home strip i think looks pretty smart so it looks like Adidas have done a good job.

jlc
 

jod23

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2 days to go... How does everyone think we will line up. It's on on ESPN 3am Perth time thursday morning. Ill be watching.

I think we will go...

Reina
Finnan, Carra, Hyypia, Riise
Pennant Gerrard Alonso Kewell
Bellamy Crouch

But really it could be anyone, is Kewell fit? If not it could be Gonzalez with a debut or Aurelio playing further up or Zenden. Fowler is in good form so may get the nod to start. Sissoko will surely see some time as will Garcia. Which defenders will Rafa take as backup? Agger or Paletta?
 
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