Liverpool Thread - Premier League Champions* 2019/20

No doubt the best team won.
United a bit lucky to finish with 11. Nani could have got a couple of yellows.
If Hicks pulls off this refinancing deal......
All a bit sad really.

As much as I hate losing to the Scum my feeling towards Hicks right now make United look a charming bunch.

That must be the toughest opening 5 games of the league we've ever had over and done with. Hopefully the next 5 games will see a clearer picture of where we're heading this season.
I'm not too worried that we're sitting down at 16. If we'd won it we would be at 5th spot. Such is the nature early in the season. We ain't out yet.

Thanks for nothing.

You guy see what was happening on the LFC.tv forums?? Huge boycott, screeds of new threads all called boycott and other random headlines. Mods couldn't delete them all and the forums went to hell. They should have just turned the forums off...

Hicks will be sitting there thinking....... As long as I can sell Stevie, Pepe and Torres

I more in the thinking that Carragher is now passed it. He was never fast, one the strongest or athletically gifted and now it seems the Premier League is too high a level for him.

On the corner goal, that showed the weakness of man marking, as well as Torres inability to get position on Berbatov.

Have to praise Berbatov for that performance though, for someone that gets so much stick he really performed today.

Torres would have been better off if he wasnt wasting his time trying to hold Berbatov around the waist.

First goal looked like konch was directly behind Reina, if he was positioned on the post Berbie's header probably would have hit him in the chest?

Also having similar thoughts about Carra. Love the guy to bits and that's probably blinded me for a while but he does appear to be struggling. Can't bear to see him out of the side though...

I just don't understand how we lost? Gerrard in the middle, man-to-man on corners, English manager and fullbacks.. Its that fking rotation, isn't it? El-Ni�o2010-09-20 16:48:58

My biggest problem with Roy so far is that he appears to be making all the stubborn "mistakes" Rafa made. He makes odd substitutions and looks hellbent on playing his players.

I can not for the life of me understand the tactical failures of those substitutions today. Taking Meireles off (although I think someone mentioned he picked up a knock) for Jovanovic, putting Agger in for Konchesky and Ngog for Maxi. Changing the entire left flank of our team when we are weak there to begin with, but at that moment had the upper hand. They were stunned, all we had to do was go for the jugular. But he breaks up the (then) winning formula and completely offsets the balance of the team. Since he took off Meireles he should've stuck Lucas in and moved Gerrard up front with Torres.

And if there ever was "Babel time" that second goal was it. They were ours for the taking, they were looking shaky at the back and we needed to attack them directly, which just so happens to be Babel's only capability.

Now I'll support our manager, but I won't do it blindly. I have nothing to base it upon. Hodgson was brought in under the worst circumstances. Replacing the man that brought us European glory and title challenges and who was a big favourite, after reports that managers like Pellegrini, Deschampes and Hitzfeld were, up to a certain point, interested in the job. And biggest of all the undisputed King of the Kop wanted the job. Credit to Hogdson and all that, but when you are bottom on an (alleged) 5 man shortlist it's hard to strut along confident that the decision made was a purely footballing one.


I can accept that I may just be a head-in-the-sand ignorant, spoiled fan living on former glory and if so there's not a lot I can do about that and there sure as hell is a lot less that any of you can do about changing that. And I really don't give a sh*t if I am that unoriginal in bringing Rafa into it, but even at the absolute worst of times we always, always had something to look back on to find confidence.
When he first came here the only thing most people knew about him was that he won the league dominated by Real Madrid and Barcelona for the last half a century or so. And he was the man that came to Anfield and whose team, at times, made Liverpool look like an average Sunday league team. He was the man that brought us victories (some of them against all odds) against Chelsea, Arsenal, the Mancs, Juventus, Inter, AC Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid. Who brought us 2 European finals in 3 years, an epic FA Cup final and many, many, many memorable wins against just about every team.
Even after a horrible, horrible game we could look back, with confidence, at the time we won at the Nou Camp, when we ended Chelsea's home streak, the 2 weeks where we scored 4 against Real Madrid and the Mancs and won Aston Villa 5-0 knowing deep down he was the man who could bring us back to that regardless of team sheets and odds.

Now we are in a situation where we stand on the brink of financial oblivion with a manager who has not won away since August 2009 (read that somewhere, if I'm wrong I stand corrected) and when he has been challenged so far as boss, failed tactically.

You can call me whatever you want. Doom monger, naysayer, ignorant, pessemistic, unsupporting or any other unoriginal thing you want. That's the way I see it, that's how I feel and there's not a single thing related to Liverpool Football Club at the moment that's telling me that it will change any time soon.

I'm not criticizing Hodgson because he was brought in by this board - I'm only suggesting that he doesn't get the automatic support that I gave other managers because of it. That's not something I can explain, it's just my own personal feelings. I've personally been against many decisions that the board and the owners have taken. It would take something special for me to line up unquestioningly behind one of their decisions, because their track record is, frankly, sh*t.

Like I suggested, and you picked up on, Hodgson's football results on the pitch may take me from "uncomfortable observer of Hodgson's appointment" to "outright proponent of the Hodgson Way". So far, he's really given me little to suggest the change was for footballing reasons, that we got a superior manager in the footballing sense for the 11.5 million quid we spent to upgrade managers. But football's an afterthought.

Business wise, the direction is alarming. The squad is getting older in a hurry due to the age of his recruits and the age of the Rafa-era players that Hodgson has chosen to keep, and the money's running out. We'll have to replace Konchesky, Kuyt, Gerrard, Carra, Maxi, Cole, Poulsen, Jovanovic, Kyrgiakos, and Aurelio within the next 3 years. Even Torres, Meireles and Johnson are the wrong side of 25. Even if this flock of players starts bringing in results, we're gonna be f**ked soon. We don't have any Patos or Messis on our team. The youngest player who has a claim to the word "starter" is Lucas, and he's the most picked on member of this team, and I don't expect him to be around for much longer. Insua is gone. Ayala is on loan. Mikel San Jose starts for Bilbao. Two kids were swapped for Konchesky. Nemeth is in Greece. The Riojas bought for 2015 are being popped without any thought to Best Drinking Date.

But getting back to Rafa - I disagree with your statement that "we" thought he should have gone for the jugular when he "settled" for something less. Rafa had the right approach - first become dead hard to beat, then worry about converting the draws into wins. Everyone bitched about the draws in 2008/2009 - well I'd give my left arsecheek for that many draws every season. Every season Baz. I would take that many draws every season. Let me say that again so that there is no confusion. I would take that many draws every league campaign.

You know why? Because Rafa had it right - with that many draws, and taking something like 14 points from top 4 teams (that's sick) we still had the most points that any second place team ever had. If we did that every year, we'd be within shouting distance of the title every season. Most of us just cannot wrap our limited intellect around the fact that it's not about one hand; it's about getting to the final table. Just because you create chances to see a flop, it doesn't mean you go all in every hand. It's a campaign. f**k going for it every minute, instead be hard to beat and consistent. Take the points from home/away matchups against top opposition. That's it, djes. You don't need to go for broke against Stoke. Most times, Kuyt's opener counts, and Gerrard's shot goes in off the post. Meanwhile, you accumulate a war chest from Champions League revenue, and spend a percentage of it on a lot - a lot - of cheap, promising kids.

Instead, we did what Rafa always said not to do. We pushed harder than we should have in 2009/2010 when we didn't really have a chance at winning the hand, lost when it was obvious we weren't gonna win, took that as an indictment of Rafa and the whole f**king system, and then tilted madly. Victims of emotion. Pathetic really.

I can't speak for most people, Baz, but my discomfort with how we look now isn't about plucking random results and comparing them. It's about the entire tournament, indeed, the entire portfolio, not an isolated case by case comparison. Rafa made it so that you didn't give a sh*t which f**king ball emerged of Platini's jar. On any given day, Rafa's Rojas - a portfolio full of individual results that may look questionable in isolation - looked like something I'd put my money on. On any given day. You can't say that now. Would you fancy something out of an away trip to Inter Milan right now? Would you f**k. He'd f**king rip us to shreds, then look at his watch, the fat f**k.

Whether he bought Alonso for 10m or sold him for 30m, whether he bought Mascherano or sold Sissoko, whether Crouch fired blanks or became prolific for England, whether he swapped Josemi for Kromkamp (sp?) or Dudek for Reina, whether he played Gerrard on the right or off Torres, whether he "went for it" or "settled for a draw", whether he won in Istanbul or made 2 finals in 3 years, whether he stuck with Bellamy or bought Torres, on or off, whether his team conceded 4 to Arshavin or hit Chelsea for 4 at the Bridge - Rafa earned my respect, and my support because the longterm results were overwhelmingly positive. Random decisions and results mean nothing.

If Rafa were a fund, I'd invest in it. It looks like it would feature consistent performance, profits, and dividends - possibly boring, but those are usually stellart investments. I didn't disagree with any single individual thing Rafa did, especially not f**king subs or silly sh*t like "going for it" because I knew that over time, I was in the right hands. Day to day decisions may have indeed been random; but the long term results were on an upward trajectory. In his sh*ttiest year, he came within minutes of a European final. That's long term results smoothed out for ya.

Unfortunately, some of us sound like folks who sold a longterm winner at the first sign of trouble, hopped onto a risky stock, and are now peering intently at the price over the last week, while alarm bells are ringing on the one year chart. "Oh it'll be alright, Rafa lost at Trafford too, it's not so bad," they say.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

A bit of irony in Ferguson labelling Torres a cheat after Nani's display.

Both a couple of soft cocks.

So... Northampton aye?

imo thats how crap carra is playing atm! He got dominated all day by him! Berbatov's 2nd goal Carra drifted off berbatov and gave him far to much space. We need to have agger and skrtel in the middle.

Deffo good news on Hicks! Yet another charade of his to force potential buyers out before the deadline and cough up the dollars. If Hick's can't refinance he's sunk. There is hope.

Agger speaks out:

Liverpool defender Daniel Agger has revealed his frustration at new manager Roy Hodgson's style.

Agger, 25, has struggled to seal a starting spot under the ex-Fulham boss this season. After being shunted out to left-back, the arrival of Paul Konchesky saw him confined to a late substitute's role in the 3-2 defeat to Manchester United yesterday.

Speaking to Sporten.dk, the player - who has been compared to ball-playing Liverpool defensive great Alan Hansen - declared he was struggling to adapt to the current regime.

He said: "The manager's philosophy is that we play football in attack, but not at the back. That's not my style.

�I'm not that type of player. I like to keep the ball on the ground, and that's what I'll keep doing. Time will show if he [Hodgson] doesn't want to play me because of that.

"I'll try to change myself, but I will never be a player who offloads the ball at every opportunity.

"I'll fight for my chance. I know what I stand for, and I think he [Hodgson] does too."

Can't say I blame him...

Do you wonder how much of the rumours/ news re the takeover is true? The last we have heard from Broughton is that there were numerous (up to 5 if my memory serves me right) offers on the table. Surely that is still true?

I don't think anyone apart from the 5 in the boardroom really know. While I don't believe there were 4 or 5 offers there may well have been some "interested parties". We know Kirdi was one and that was a Gillet smoke screen. We know Huang was one but that appeared to be a PR stunt. The Sahara group were interested "but not at the moment". The Rhone group was "intersted" in April and a mystery group lead by Keith Harris. Of all these I'd say Sahara is the closest thing to real/potential group who 'could/maybe/possibly/crossfingers' make a move but they won't do anything until RBS have control and the price drops. All speculation of course.

Anyone sent any of these emails to all and sundry at RBS yet?

Screw it. I sent some emails. I want my club back.

You're a good man. It does look like that he isn't goping to be able to re-finance huh?

I certainly hope not. I guess I won't believe it until he's forced to hand over the keys to the Shankly Gates and he's sent running down Anfield Road with the locals kicking his arse out of Liverpool.

I sent the emails too! Its a good feeling when you get results like him not being able to refinance. Gives you a real sense of hope and pride.

There was some crazy report that the Blackstone staff, mainly the chairman, received 7000 emails on the weekend. Way to kill an inbox!

Edit:
Most my emails got returned which is actually good too as it means they've had to delete some major corporate email addresses. That's a real hassle, especially for CEOs, directors etc. Funny enough, H&G emails didn't return. Happy reading fellas.
TheKop2010-09-21 16:16:05

What's the email addy? You guys rule

'stephen.hester@rbs.co.uk'; 'jon.laycock@barcap.com'; 'gngillett@bcmgt.com'; 'ian.ayre@liverpoolfc.tv'; 'philip.nash@liverpoolfc.tv'; 'thicks@hicksholdings.com'; 'tohjr@hicksholdings.com'; 'martin.broughton@ba.com'; 'mhicks@hicksholdings.com'; 'ross.mcdonald@rbs.co.uk'; 'tommy.mclean@rbs.co.uk'; 'ellen.alemany@rbs.com'; 'postmaster@rbos.co.uk'[email]jhill@halcyonllc.com'; 'thirschfeld@halcyonllc.com'; 'ir@halcyonllc.com'; 'lfink@blackrock.com'; 'rkapito@blackrock.com'; 'swagner@blackrock.com'; 'tlevart@dkpartners.com'; 'sleviant@dkpartners.com'; 'rchase@dkpartners.com'; 'emedina@dkpartners.com'; 'mbrancaccio@stonetowercapital.com'; 'jberger@stonetowercapital.com'; 'mlevitt@stonetowercapital.com'; 'fundinfo@americas.bnpparibas.com'; 'wsheoris@stonetowercapital.com'; 'awong@stonetowercapital.com'; 'maria.guetta@trimarancapital.com'; 'jay.bloom@trimarancapital.com'; 'info@trimarancapital.com'; 'investorrelations@trimaranadvisors.com'; 'david.shaw@deshaw.com'; 'jaranson@centerbridge.com'; 'info@centerbridge.com'; 'stephen.schwarzman@blackstone.com'; 'info@blackstone.com'; 'info@beachpointcapital.com'; 'cgoldsmith@beachpointcapital.com'; 'lgoldman@beachpointcapital.com'; 'droerig@beachpointcapital.com'; 'sklein@beachpointcapital.com'; 'tboyack@beachpointcapital.com'; 'jrothman@beachpointcapital.com'; 'kwolfe@beachpointcapital.com'; 'kchoi@beachpointcapital.com'; 'mhaynes@beachpointcapital.com'

I just focussed on RBS, LFC mainly but I might do the lot again.

George: 'gngillett@bcmgt.com'
Tom Jr: 'tohjr@hicksholdings.com'

Those stuck!

Oh and I used this letter:

Dear all,

Following an article in the Guardian dated 20/09/10, there have been
reports that RBS would not exercise their legal rights under the
existing finance agreements -

"It is understood that RBS is reluctant to take the "nuclear option" of
taking full control of the asset when the refinancing deadline passes
and could yet "roll over" the debt to allow Broughton and his board more
time to find a buyer. But at the same time RBS is keen to maintain the
pressure on Hicks and Gillett to stand aside."

I would just like to pass on my sentiments as both a Liverpool supporter
and as one of the taxpayers who helped fund the government backed RBS
bail out, that strict enforcement of the existing agreement with Hicks
is the only way to remove this toxic debtor permanently from the books
of RBS and is the only solution acceptable to the campaigners and
supporters of Liverpool FC.

I trust that this is the only option that RBS will take. It would be
nice to actually get back to supporting my team rather than join the
various campaigns against companies that we have had to in order to rid
ourselves of the liars and bad debtors who own us.

However, I think I can speak on behalf of the many thousands of
Liverpool supporters who will happily keep up the campaign and boycott
of any companies that ally themselves with either Hicks or Gillett until
they have sold up and headed home.

Yours faithfully,

John Houlding


Note the name I signed it with

Should I send it from my work email....maybe not, Government workers and all that

I've got an old gmail account I don't use anymore. Except for saving clubs that is...

I like this reply tbh

Mate, I'm enjoying this. Just sent another to everyone on the list. Don't add a "read receipt" to the email. That's what caused the returns I had. Only one came back so far and one out of office.

Should be greeting Mr Hester and others as they arrive at work in the UK. Hope you have a fantastic day. YNWA.

For El-Ninos info, no I was not taking the piss.
Reina should have taken the ball before it got to the strikers head, it was not a driven ball just a lob without much pace. The keepers job is to go and take those balls or at the least see his defender has any miss match in his favour.
Reina saved us against the Brum but has cost us 4 points in 5 games and a draw with the scum, but no we have a loss and a manc hero.
We get Jones as a reserve keeper.
He's going to put pressure on Reina for a start in the EPL. yeah right.

It is not as if the ball was in the 6 yard box.

To be fair to reina, that cross was put in the good old corridor of uncertainty. You can see that he started to come for it then stopped as it was probably a wee bit too far to get to. How many times do you see that tactic used!!

Speaking of Yanks!

Hicks just spotted outside Deutche Bank in New York about an hour ago. He eventually went in after he called the Bank's guards about the guy taking his photo. Doodums Tom. BTW, get out of our Club!

http://twitpic.com/2qof7z

Northampton:

        Jones
Kelly Soto Agger Wilson
   Poulson Shelvey
Babel Spearing Pacheco
        Ngog

Roy's all but confirmed Jones, Soto, Agger, Wilson, Ngog, Babel and Paheco.