Football (Soccer)

[Oriphus]

Well, im off tomorrow morning, gotta get some sleep. See you guys in 3 weeks....

Chris

[admin]

Have a safe trip, Oriphus. Hopefully by the time you come back, there will actually be some more transfer news (especially for Arsenal) to talk about.

[Oriphus]

Cheers, heading for the airport now. Looking forward to coming back and hopefully we'll have bought Henry, Lampard, Terry, Robinho, Ronaldinho and a few other stars lol

See you soon
Chris

[lfcrule1972]

Is he safe to travel admin ?? He sounds dillusional to me either that or on non prescription medication lol !!

Mmm footie news is quiet at the mo - Michael Owen seems to be tarting around Chelski at the mo altho this am Real Madrid claim he is part of their plans for this season, altho that could mean "plan to sell"

Did you see the trouble at Old Trafford last night ? Ha ha I guess the brothers Dim won't be so keen to visit their "hobby" anymore ! Can't see them going to many match days to begin with either..... I wonder if Oriphus has had his shares purchased out from under him yet ?

News in brief.....

Glazers escape from Old Trafford

Owen to stay at Real ?

Robinho reveals Real preference

Brazil win Confederations Cup

So...... are Liverpool planning to sign anyone (but not Crouch) before the CL qualifiers deadline ??

[admin]

We've apparently signed Hleb, pending a work permit and medical, but that was a few days ago and nothing else has surfaced, like photos of the player holding the shirt and stuff.

Arsenal may still be after SWP, and while the Robinho interest is real, it could be a smoke screen for another player. Personally, I would prefer Julio "The Beast" Baptista over the much shorter SWP or Robinho (assuming a work permit can be obtained), although Owen and Fernando Torres could be our targets as well. Swedish goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson is also a reported target. Hoping for more concrete news soon, preferably today.

Liverpool haven't signed anyone yet, and I've heard it's because they are waiting until Chelsea finishes their transfers first.

[lfcrule1972]

We get the crumbs from the chelski banquet, nice ! I see Kirkland has gone on a season long loan to West Brom, I rate him, if he can avoid injuries he could still be a world class keeper.....

[admin]

The problem with Chelsea is that they will try to sign whomever the big teams in England are trying to sign, even though Chelsea probably aren't that interested in the player. But if you look at Chelsea's signings recently, only Cech and Robben has proved to be good ones, and Robben wasn't even Mourinho's signing. The likes of Kezman (now gone, unfortunately), Veron, Drogba, Parker, Bridge suggests that having money doesn't necessarily brings in the best players, and that Mourinho hasn't really picked out any outstanding players yet (apart from Cech, although I have a feeling he won't have such a good season this time round).

[lfcrule1972]

Yeah I agree they have the money so if any other team wants a player you can see Chelsea sniffing around.....

Heard on the radio this am and its all over the tabloids (always known for factual reporting) that Gerrard and Benitez have had a bust up and he is on his way from Anfield..... I really hope this is similar to the stur caused by the papers with Viera a few seasons ago....

Gerrard Doubts

although I could just be hoping against hope on it.....

LFC to unveil Zenden

Rooney (Shrek) not for sale Looks like Shrek 3 might be delayed a while then lol !!

[admin]

If the stories are true, then Gerrard is trying to engineer a move that makes it look like the club/manager's fault, rather than his. I don't really know what his personal ambition is, since he is already at a club that has just won the European Cup, and could have a shot at the Premiership title. He is clearly the best player at the club, and garners enormous respect from fans and players alike - something he might find harder to obtain elsewhere. If it's just more money that he wants, then he is not worth having around IMO. If it's another league that he wants to experience, then there is nothing much anyone can do about that.

[admin]

Arsenal Sign Traore. Before you get too excited, lfcrule1972, it's not your Champions League winning, own goal scoring Traore, but a youth player from France.

This very detailed article in The Sun says we are close to signing Baptista.

[lfcrule1972]

Ha ha on the day I found out that Captain Fantastic was off I knew it was too good to be true that we had sold you Traore !!

Mmm I have to say I think your spot on with the Gerrard assesment, I honestly believe he wants to win silverware, had LFC not won the CL this year he could have gone with his head held high and with most of the fans respect. However as soon as he lifted the cup we all expected him to end the rumours of will he stay/go and sign up to extend his contract. I think his agent has played a huge part in unsettling him as he will gain a huge fee for the English transfer record when it happens.

I rate Stevie v.highly, our best player without a doubt and supposedly a true red, however the way he has handled himself over the last few days lacks respect, if he wants to go to Chelsea or Real he should have just come out and said it rather than try and blame the club, it appears now that Benitez and Parry tried 3x last season to do the deal on an extended contract and Gerrard told them to wait - you can understand their confusion at the sudden speed and importance he placed on getting the deal done.

When it all boils down if he doesn't want to play for us anymore we just need to get it done, get the £35+ million and rebuild without him. He would do well to remember that most if not all fans are fans of Liverpool Football Club NOT Steven Gerrard, yes he will be adored at Stamford Bridge or the Bernabau but I think Liverpool deserved better treatment from him than this...

[admin]

A week of celebrations, and then followed terrible confusion and sadness, it's good to try and get back to normal as soon as possible. If you can call the Gerrard situation normal, that is. How strange was this Gerrard Saga? Confused about the club not wanting him? Emotional phone call? Sudden turn around? Sounds like the storylines of a soap opera, and a bad one at that.

Now that the Gerrard Saga has prematurely ended, the media wants something else, so it's back to the old Vieira to leave Arsenal stories, this time Juventus instead of Real Madrid.

Apparently, Arsenal didn't want to sell Vieira to Madrid for £25m, but are desparate to offload him to Juve for £14m. All this without the vice-chairman or the manager being informed (or even in the country, for that matter - cue story about the split in ranks between Dein/Wenger and the rest of the board). Then Vieira says he wants to stay at Arsenal, Arsenal says they don't want to sell him, and Juventus proposes a little less money for him every day (£6m plus Appiah or some other player depending on which paper you read). All this while the papers claim that the swap deal involving Appiah interests Arsenal because we lost Edu and so we want a replacement. Well, if we really want to replace Edu (Hleb anyone?), perhaps it's best that we don't sell another midfielder in the meantime, and the captain to boot. I reckon the people from Juventus are taking a holiday in England, and pretending it's a "business trip" by making stuff up, so they can charge the club for the expenses.

Then there is the story about Arsenal tapping up Baptista, even though the person who made the claim (the president of Seville) says that what Arsenal did was "on the margins" of FIFA regulations (so technically legal then, right?). There are now even stories about an FA investigation. This is all assuming the tabloid story about Baptista meeting Wenger is true - Wenger was in Brazil, but he was there with Dein to finalize a feeder club deal with Atletico Mineiro.

Continuing with the trend of the media making up stuff, stories about Chelsea really really wanting to buy Ronaldinho (who doesn't) and apparently have agreed terms with the player - all this without Barcelona knowing anything about it - isn't that tapping? Barcelona hates Chelsea after the CL fiasco, so I would expect them to sell Ronaldinho to us for £500,000, rather than sell to Chelsea for £50m.

[lfcrule1972]

Yeah bloody emotional week your right, football pails by comparison to the weeks events in London.

Obviously I am pleased Stevie G decided to stay but for the second successive summer he has put LFC and the fans through turmoil and then deciced to stay - I think he really is on his last chance now. We have him until 2009 which really means 2007 in case we have to sell so two more years to win the premiership.

I don't think it will happen this year somehow - Chelski are still too far ahead and we haven't the team to live with Man Utd or yourselves but maybe we can be more consistent and build for 2006/07 !

I saw the papers had moved onto other cobblers to publish, the Vieira thing looks like more bo##ocks to me too, I can't see Arsenal being any keener than LFC to lose their captain.

As for Chelsea well their apparent inability to sign a decent striker amazes me - perhaps the best players are worried about the amount of games they would get there ? Who knows...

Have a good week !

[admin]

No idea what's going on with the Vieira situation at the moment. It feels like the club is trying to get rid of Vieira as quickly as possible for some reason, or it could all just be made up. Real Madrid were willing to pay £26m last season, but according to reports, we are about to accept a bid that is only half of this amount (mainly because Juve can't afford any more), even though Madrid are still interested and could offer more. And all this after the Arsenal board saying that they will have a meeting to discuss the Vieira offer, which I'm not sure has even gone ahead yet or not, and that the likely conclusion reached in the meeting would be that we want Vieira to stay.

It's all very strange. But I trust Wenger will make the right decision in any case.

[admin]

Well, it's official:

Terms agreed with Juventus for transfer of Patrick Vieira

Still find it odd that we didn't want to do business with Real Madrid (perhaps they got sick of the Vieira to Madrid stories as well), and also the relative speed in which all of this was wrapped up, and with a lot of encouragement from the club as well. Perhaps Wenger has a replacement lined up already, as he seems pretty relaxed with this whole situation (and would have been his idea to sell in the first place). It might make more football sense for Vieira to go and play in Spain (since he came to us from Italy after having problems there with racism), but as long as he is happy I suppose. He has been with the club for 9 years already, and that's a long time for most modern footballers, and despite all the problems with wanting to leave, he has put in a lot for the club and I'm sure it will work out for the best for everyone involved.