Liverpool FC Forum

[The Ace1983]

Ok, haven't done one of these in a while, but here goes:

1: Fantasy Rafa time. You can sign any 3 players this summer, so who would they be? Try and keep it realistic (whatever that means!).

2: Of all the players that we've been linked with already this summer (all 3 days of it!), who excites you the most?

3: Gaining talent means that shedding weight is inevitable. So is there any player (or players) in the current squad that you would like to see heading elsewhere?

4: Torres and Gerrard seem to have formed a great partnership in attack. Do you want to see a partner striker for Torres come in even if this means losing the Gerrard relationship, or do you think we can find someone who will improve the duo even further?

5: What was your favourite LFC moment from the 07/08 season? 

6: Who will you be supporting (or looking out for) in this summer's Euro championships? And do you think there are any players who are really going to shine in this tournament?

Have fun!

[hello_red]

Ok, haven't done one of these in a while, but here goes:

1: Fantasy Rafa time. You can sign any 3 players this summer, so who would they be? Try and keep it realistic (whatever that means!).

2: Of all the players that we've been linked with already this summer (all 3 days of it!), who excites you the most?

3: Gaining talent means that shedding weight is inevitable. So is there any player (or players) in the current squad that you would like to see heading elsewhere?

4: Torres and Gerrard seem to have formed a great partnership in attack. Do you want to see a partner striker for Torres come in even if this means losing the Gerrard relationship, or do you think we can find someone who will improve the duo even further?

5: What was your favourite LFC moment from the 07/08 season? 

6: Who will you be supporting (or looking out for) in this summer's Euro championships? And do you think there are any players who are really going to shine in this tournament?

Have fun!

1.
David Bentley, hes quality and hes english. Can play on the right and behind the striker in our current formation. I think he would be up there with Torres in value for money if we bought him.

Phillip Lahm, we need a left back and he is a quality left back. The fact that he can also play right back is also a major plus for me. He would fit into our system brilliantly.

Klas, he is a young striker from Holland who needs to make that step much like Torres! Would be an ideal replacement for Torres in our current formation and would be a good partner for 442.

All these buys would cost us something like 50 million I reckon. If we sell off the dead wood I think these transfers are realistic.

2.
We have been strongly liniked with David Bentley and his acquisition would be a major step in the right direction for LFC.

3.
Crouch, he is now surplus to requirements. Hes to slow, his strike record although good is not brilliant and he dosnt add to our attack as say Babel and Torres do wherever they play. Hes very one dimensional. Saying that we could get about 10 mill for this dude.

Voronin, although he is a squad player he is still not good enough. A liability in the final third. Sell on.

Riise, he is no longer good enough to make our squad. Constantly found out in defence and hasnt added anything in the final third for a bout a year now. Again he is a liability. 4 mill?

4.
Well I feel that if we got a striker in with the specific purpose of moving Gerrard back into the middle I think we would be fixing a problem that dosnt need fixing. Believe it or not but Gerrard in the middle dosnt balance the team like a Mascha/Alonso partnership does. Torres loves his Stevie and Stevie loves his Nando so why break it up? If anything we need the two wing forward positions sorting before we buy a uneccessary striker to partner Nando. If it was a striker to be back upto Torres then im all infavour as a squad needs depth! As I said before Bentley would be ideal and potentially Barry would bring a grit and tenacity to the wings.

So no we do not need  a partner for Torres, Gerrard is perfect for this and the midfield we have now is potentially the best in the world.

5.
My favorite moment of this year is against Marseille at there ground. We needed to win to go through to the knockout stages and we did by battering them 4-0 nil.

6.
Spain and Holland. I think Torres will have a superb tournament and Babel will put the experience of this year into full effect for Holland.

[The Manhattan Project]

1- Lahm, Ribery, and Danny Alves.

2- Huntelaar.

3- Crouch, because he obviously has no future with LFC.

4- I'd like to see another world class striker added.

5- The Destruction of Besiktas

6- Spain is my choice because A) the Liverpool connections and B) because I watch Revista on Sky Sports.

I think Germany will shine at Euro 2008. They are my tip to win.

[JC_81]

1.  Lahm, Joaquin, Villa.  Maybe only semi-realistic!  Lahm and Joaquin could possibly be got for 10 mil a piece and Villa maybe 20 million if you're lucky?  In total that wouldn't be far off what we spent last summer.

2.  None of them really.  Bentley and Barry would both improve our 1st eleven but neither really excites me.

3.  Pennant, Riise, Crouch, Kewell.  Some are too harsh on Voronin imo, he's not as sh.it as most people make out and for a back-up player is ok.  Crouch I still rate as a decent player but mentally he's already left LFC imo.

4.  Happy enough with Torres/Gerrard up top, but we badly need another quality striker especially if Crouch leaves, because if Torres ever got injured we'd be in trouble.

5.  The last 10 minutes of the second leg V Arsenal.  Conceding to Adebayor and then to go up the pitch and score 2 was unbelievable.

6.  Will be supporting Spain and I think Torres will have a good tournament.  Think Van Persie could also be one to watch as he'll be hungry having been out injured most of the season.  I wouldn't be surprised if Russia have a good tournament and seeing the market value of several of their players rise dramatically.

[europian-kings]

1: Lahm, Bentley and henry

2: None that stand out but there was one rumor i heard about henry. i would snap him up regardless to his age.

3: Carson, Pennant, Kewell, Riise and crouch if the money is right.

4: Gerrard can play lovely football and parter up well with anyone who is willing to run about alot, henry and torres would be great in my opinion

5: Same as John Craig. 2-2 and going out and just suddenly returning to the game after the replys of arsenal goal and seeing babel fall in the box. 4-2 win what a night.

6: Has to be spain. They never really do well in tornaments but with el nino upfront i have to watch every game. Holland i will be looking out for aswel to see how babel is doing.

[Greavesie]

1. Lahm, Villa, Quaresma - we've been linked with all of these at some point but they would cost a fortune!

2. Haven't seen anything so far that makes me excited

3. Voronin, Crouch, Riise, Kewell, Pennant

4. Haven't really thought about this, we need cover for Torres in case of injury.

5. It's got to be the 4:2 v Arsenal!

6. I'll be supporting Spain and keeping an eye on how our players perform and come back injury free. I hope we get some players in beofre this tournament because their prices will perhaps double should they have a good one

[JoeTerp]

people I wouldn't mind us going after: Abidal, Volan Behrami, Lahm, David Silva, Ben Arfa (21 year old left winger for Lyon might be hard to get him out of there is Benzema leaves as well), Mancini, Deco, Ronaldinho,

Some youngins:
Alexis Sanchez (19 year old Chilean currently playing for River Plate, owned by Udinese who apparently want 15 million pounds),
Pablo Piatti (19 year old Argentine wide midfielder/Suporting Striker currently playing for Estudiantes)
Juan Mata (20 year old for Valencia can play wide or as striker)
Diego Capel (20 year old winger for Sevilla)
Damian Ismodes (18 year old Peruvian wide midfielder currently playing for Racing Santander)
Andres Guardado (21 year old Mexican playing for Deportivo La Corunnya ,likes to stay out wide on the left,maybe not tough enough body for the prem but same can be said for almost all of these Spanish speaking players   )

Nuri Sahin (19 year old attacking midfielder born in Germany plays for Turkey, owned my Dortmund, on loan to Feyenoord. lots of trickery)
Marko Marin (19 year old winger for Borussia Mönchengladbach, in the Germany Euro 2008 squad)

[LiverpoolMadman]

1: Fantasy Rafa time. You can sign any 3 players this summer, so who would they be? Try and keep it realistic (whatever that means!).

Garay or Vincent Kompany ( Defender ) , Quaresma or Diego or Samir Nasri , ( Attack Midfield ) , Martins or Adriano or Eto or Karim Benzema ( Strikers )

2: Of all the players that we've been linked with already this summer (all 3 days of it!), who excites you the most?

Diego.

3: Gaining talent means that shedding weight is inevitable. So is there any player (or players) in the current squad that you would like to see heading elsewhere?

Carson, Pennant, Kewell, Riise, crouch and alonso

4: Torres and Gerrard seem to have formed a great partnership in attack. Do you want to see a partner striker for Torres come in even if this means losing the Gerrard relationship, or do you think we can find someone who will improve the duo even further?

Martins or Adriano or Eto or Karim Benzema

5: What was your favourite LFC moment from the 07/08 season? 

Liverpool 4 Arsenal 2 ( CL 2nd Leg )

6: Who will you be supporting (or looking out for) in this summer's Euro championships? And do you think there are any players who are really going to shine in this tournament?

Im looking forward to the young stars for Holland, France, Spain and Germany

[PhiLFC]

1.  Henry - surely he would rather come to us than the US, I still reckon he's got so much to offer.  Ribery, realistic pricewise yes - likely no... great player.  Bentley - appears to be a good player.

2.  I really don't know the players good enough to be excited about them.

3.  I would like to see Kewell, Carson, Penant and Voronin go they don't offer anything at all to Liverpool.

4.  I wanna see Crouch play more with Torres unless Kuyt significantly improves on his strike rate.

5.  Favourite moment.... Torres

6.  Will follow Spain but hate to say this... Ronaldo will prove himself to be the best in the world.

[JoeTerp]

I would sell Riise, Pennant, Crouch, Voronin, Carson, Le Tallec, Putterill, Flynn, Lindfield, Threlfall,  Mihaylov, Roque,1 out of (Anderson, Hammill, and El Zhar)  Finnan,and  Aurelio (assuming we bring in  new fullbacks).

One question that I am wondering about is who else can play the Kuyt role if we stick with a 4-2-3-1. Can we plug someone in there with less of a work rate and more attacking talent and have the system still work well (not that we would go actively looking for a lazy player, but most pale in comparison to Kuyt).  The torres partner question is a very interesting one. Do we try and get a creative flair player that plays a bit deeper? do we try and get a goal poacher? do we leave it alone? I don't know the answer. I do know that we did play well down the stretch in the 4-2-3-1, and other than maybe the fullbacks I don't know what about it I would want to change, I would like to say that the Kuyt role could use upgrading but I don't know what type of player to plug in there, same with Babel due to his lack of left foot, but he also showed some good signs and in theory would be better next season. If we go back to 4-4-2, it seems like we have a lot more holes to fill

[JC_81]

people I wouldn't mind us going after: Abidal, Volan Behrami, Lahm, David Silva, Ben Arfa (21 year old left winger for Lyon might be hard to get him out of there is Benzema leaves as well), Mancini, Deco, Ronaldinho,

Some youngins:
Alexis Sanchez (19 year old Chilean currently playing for River Plate, owned by Udinese who apparently want 15 million pounds),
Pablo Piatti (19 year old Argentine wide midfielder/Suporting Striker currently playing for Estudiantes)
Juan Mata (20 year old for Valencia can play wide or as striker)
Diego Capel (20 year old winger for Sevilla)
Damian Ismodes (18 year old Peruvian wide midfielder currently playing for Racing Santander)
Andres Guardado (21 year old Mexican playing for Deportivo La Corunny ,likes to stay out wide on the left,maybe not tough enough body for the prem but same can be said for almost all of these Spanish speaking players   )

Nuri Sahin (19 year old attacking midfielder born in Germany plays for Turkey, owned my Dortmund, on loan to Feyenoord. lots of trickery)
Marko Marin (19 year old winger for Borussia Mönchengladbach, in the Germany Euro 2008 squad)

Joe how many of those 'youngins' have you seen play?  If you're suggestions are based on you having watched these guys over 90 minutes on several occasions then hats off to you mate, you have a better knowledge of world football (and much more spare time on your hands) than I do.

I do think that there is a tendency on here for some people to post suggestions based on having seen a player once or twice in highlights packages, or worse still base their suggestions on computer games such as football manager - not accusing you of doing this of course Joe, just curious.

[JoeTerp]

of the youngins I have seen a couple of 90 minutes or at least multiple sub appearances of Mata, Capel, and Guardado, although I wasn't specifically looking out for GUardado when I watched him play for Mexico. I watched Piatti play once, Alexis Sanchez once (plus bits of other games) in the U20 world cup, Ismodes I have seen highlight packages of and he reminds me a lot of Babel. He is certainly the shakiest one in that his reputation is not as strong amongst the South American contingent, I am guessing he would also come fairly cheap, only cost Santander 700 thousand pounds worth a punt like El Zhar (who he is 3 years younger than)

[JC_81]

of the youngins I have seen a couple of 90 minutes or at least multiple sub appearances of Mata, Capel, and Guardado, although I wasn't specifically looking out for GUardado when I watched him play for Mexico. I watched Piatti play once, Alexis Sanchez once (plus bits of other games) in the U20 world cup, Ismodes I have seen highlight packages of and he reminds me a lot of Babel. He is certainly the shakiest one in that his reputation is not as strong amongst the South American contingent, I am guessing he would also come fairly cheap, only cost Santander 700 thousand pounds worth a punt like El Zhar (who he is 3 years younger than)

Fair enough mate. 

I must confess that Piatti is the only one of those guys I have heard of, and in fact that is only in football manager, so really I haven't heard of any of them in 'real life'.

With the scouting network being cast far and wide, I wouldn't be surprised to see a few youngsters from South America, Africa or wherever being brought in this summer.  However unless any of them are 'wonderkids' who adapt magically well to English football, we probably wouldn't see them in the first team for a season or two and even then they may take more time to adapt.

Our reserve team is coming down with potentially talented youngsters, and while I agree we need to keep recruiting them, I do feel we do need to slow down a little in that respect and focus in finding the right 2 or 3 players that will improve the first team in the immediate future.

[Effes]

Ok, haven't done one of these in a while, but here goes:

1: Fantasy Rafa time. You can sign any 3 players this summer, so who would they be? Try and keep it realistic (whatever that means!).

2: Of all the players that we've been linked with already this summer (all 3 days of it!), who excites you the most?

3: Gaining talent means that shedding weight is inevitable. So is there any player (or players) in the current squad that you would like to see heading elsewhere?

4: Torres and Gerrard seem to have formed a great partnership in attack. Do you want to see a partner striker for Torres come in even if this means losing the Gerrard relationship, or do you think we can find someone who will improve the duo even further?

5: What was your favourite LFC moment from the 07/08 season? 

6: Who will you be supporting (or looking out for) in this summer's Euro championships? And do you think there are any players who are really going to shine in this tournament?

Have fun!

1. Arshavin (Zenit), Bentley (Blackburn), Miguel (Valencia)

2. Think we've been linked with naff - Bentley the best of them.

3. Crouch, Riise, Carson, Pennant, Xabi (if it meant we could spend more)

4. Find someone who excels in the Babel/Kuyt position.

5. Marseille away - esp. Torres's goal.

6. Spain - Arshavin may have a great tournament for Russia.

[LFC2007]

1) Tough to decide, however: David Silva, Andrei Arshavin, Dani Alves.

Whilst Alves might cost a fair wad, he's top quality. Arshavin would fit in well as a second striker or anywhere in a front three. Silva is a young, cultured left winger who offers a lot of quality. I think the latter two may cost £10m each, possibly more, but if we wheel and deal a bit, it may be feasible.


2) We've been linked with plenty, but of those who've been linked with us quite strongly, I'd say Bentley's about as exciting as they get. Barry next.


3) Realistically, Riise, Voronin, Finnan or Arbeloa, Kewell, Voronin, Pennant should go. To a certain extent it depends on who we intend to sign, and who we are able to sign. Questionables are Crouch, Kuyt, Benayoun, Arbeloa, Finnan and Aurelio. In an ideal world, we'd have better quality, but as it is, Crouch is a pretty good striker and a very good option to have, Kuyt is a decent back up who'll always work his b0llocks off, Arbeloa is a decent back-up, Aurelio when fit has shown the ability to play to a high level, Finnan is always a fairly solid defensive option, and Benayoun can provide a bit of guile now and then.
In an ideal fantasy Rafa world where money is no object, quite a number would go however, incl. most of the questionables.


4) Moving Gerrard back to a conventional central midfield role doesn't necessarily mean losing the relationship with Torres. A top quality second striker would aid the link between midfield and attack, such a player would be able to provide for Gerrard and for Torres, and also link our wing play better. I'm torn between a 4-5-1, or changing to a 4-4-2. Ideally for me, it'd be the latter*, but again it depends on who we are able to sign. Arshavin, or a player of his ilk would be ideal.

*Although I'm unsure as to whether a team can win the league without a midfield trio, esp. without great, yet solid, quality throughout the team.


5) Arsenal tie, UCL.


6) I can't say I'll be supporting any one team, but it'd be nice to see some entertaining football, esp from some of our lads. Looking forward to seeing Croatia, Russia and Spain.