Liverpool FC Forum

[redsince2001]

Here's an interesting article i came across ...yours thoughts please ....




Manchester United may have spent more, but Liverpool's new boys will make more impact

The arrival of the versatile Ryan Babel, Yossi Benayoun and Andrei Voronin gives Rafa Benitez an embarrassment of riches in team selection - and a realistic chance of the Premiership title.
'It has been a long time coming, but at last we have the players and manager to mount a serious title challenge' Fernando Torres' signing has signalled Liverpool's intention by shattering the club's record transfer fee, and  now Rafa Benitez has spent £11.5m on Ryan Babel, the 20-year-old prospect from Holland. It shows the confidence that the American owners have in Benitez. They believe that he is truly the man to end the barren spell of league titles.

And with the recent arrivals of Yossi Benayoun and Andrei Voronin, fans may be left scratching their heads at team selection, because the players he has signed are so versatile. Torres is an out-and-out striker, but Voronin can play up front or on the wing. Benayoun can play anywhere behind the front two while Babel can play up front or on either wing. This season will be even more of a guessing game as to who starts, and where.

This versatility is an advantage that Benitez will use to great effect. It's a long time since Liverpool had the option of putting out a purely attacking team, one that could kill off the lesser teams and gain three points. Rafa now has the ammunition to deal with teams putting 11 men behind the ball, something that has caused us problems in previous seasons simply because we did not have enough attacking flair to break down these defences.

People may say that Manchester United are miles ahead with their early purchases of Nani and Anderson. But these are young players to replace the ageing Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, so it's not improvement, rather maintenance. The purchase of Owen Hargreaves is an attempt to replicate the Roy Keane role but, as most people know, the closest you can get to Keane in today's world football plays for their arch-rivals and is a better player than Keane could ever hope to be.

The season should be very interesting. Rafa has shocked us in the past with his team selections but with the choices he now has, you stand a better chance of winning the National Lottery than to pick his starting 11 in their correct positions.

It has been a long time coming, but at last we have the players and manager to mount a serious title challenge. Roll on the new season!

[Sean]

I assume you mean Gerrard when you mention a player better than Keane.  I despise the mancs as much as anyone but will acknowledge that Keane was the outstanding player of his generation and only wish Gerrard was on a par.

[redsince2001]

It's not my article  ...came across it and thought it made an interesting read .... i assume the writer most probably meant Gerrard ...

[David Villa]

Hey heres the funny thing, in the last 2 season Man Utd have spent £35 million on the 2 England reject Centre Mids. Carrick £18 mill and Hargreaves £17 million. I would rather pay that £35 million on somebody like Kaka. Also Nani and Anderson that like £38 million on them two, where as we have spent £20 million on a proven goal scorer and them 2 are unknowns.

[Sean]

I see what you mean but the premiership trophy is at old trafford and thats what counts.

[redsince2001]

Hey heres the funny thing, in the last 2 season Man Utd have spent £35 million on the 2 England reject Centre Mids. Carrick £18 mill and Hargreaves £17 million. I would rather pay that £35 million on somebody like Kaka. Also Nani and Anderson that like £38 million on them two, where as we have spent £20 million on a proven goal scorer and them 2 are unknowns.

yup ... i know ...and still you find most people suggesting that with the signings they have made ..they'll be unstoppable this season .... that they already have the league just because of their "fantastic" recent aquisitions .... 

[bigmick]

I despise the mancs as much as anyone but will acknowledge that Keane was the outstanding player of his generation and only wish Gerrard was on a par.

Well they are very different players and difficult as such to compare but I would have thought that Gerrard is probably entering a stage of his career where he could surpass Keane on an individual level.

There is absolutely no question that at his peak, Keane was the best midfield player in the Premiership with only latterly Vierra able to challenge him, and it is my view that Gerrard is comfortably the best around right now. It could in fact be argued that Gerrard is further ahead than Keane was of his immediate rivals as in all honesty, there isn't a midfield player in the truest sense of the word (ie not a winger) that could be realistically mentioned in the same breath as our captain at the moment. I would suppose that Fabregas is in the early stages of developing into an absolutely fantastic player, but he is alone on the horizon of challengers to Gerrard in my opinion anyway.

[David Villa]

Yea i agree mate there is not a better centre midfielder in the world at the moment than Steven Gerrard, the only player that comes near to him would be Fabregas but he is not a strong in a tackle, or could hit one from 25 yards out like Stevie. I also think if you had Roy Keane and Steven Gerrard at the same age and a both of them at there peak, Gerrard would all over Keane, in my honest opinion.

[66-1112520797]

Here's an interesting article i came across ...yours thoughts please ....




Manchester United may have spent more, but Liverpool's new boys will make more impact

The arrival of the versatile Ryan Babel, Yossi Benayoun and Andrei Voronin gives Rafa Benitez an embarrassment of riches in team selection - and a realistic chance of the Premiership title.
'It has been a long time coming, but at last we have the players and manager to mount a serious title challenge' Fernando Torres' signing has signalled Liverpool's intention by shattering the club's record transfer fee, and  now Rafa Benitez has spent £11.5m on Ryan Babel, the 20-year-old prospect from Holland. It shows the confidence that the American owners have in Benitez. They believe that he is truly the man to end the barren spell of league titles.

And with the recent arrivals of Yossi Benayoun and Andrei Voronin, fans may be left scratching their heads at team selection, because the players he has signed are so versatile. Torres is an out-and-out striker, but Voronin can play up front or on the wing. Benayoun can play anywhere behind the front two while Babel can play up front or on either wing. This season will be even more of a guessing game as to who starts, and where.

This versatility is an advantage that Benitez will use to great effect. It's a long time since Liverpool had the option of putting out a purely attacking team, one that could kill off the lesser teams and gain three points. Rafa now has the ammunition to deal with teams putting 11 men behind the ball, something that has caused us problems in previous seasons simply because we did not have enough attacking flair to break down these defences.

People may say that Manchester United are miles ahead with their early purchases of Nani and Anderson. But these are young players to replace the ageing Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, so it's not improvement, rather maintenance. The purchase of Owen Hargreaves is an attempt to replicate the Roy Keane role but, as most people know, the closest you can get to Keane in today's world football plays for their arch-rivals and is a better player than Keane could ever hope to be.

The season should be very interesting. Rafa has shocked us in the past with his team selections but with the choices he now has, you stand a better chance of winning the National Lottery than to pick his starting 11 in their correct positions.

It has been a long time coming, but at last we have the players and manager to mount a serious title challenge. Roll on the new season!

A bias article me thinks.

[Sean]

In October 1998, Roy Keane was the exact age Gerrard is now.  By that stage he had already had won three league titles, was on the verge of being the main man in a team that would win an unprecedented treble that season and was captain of club and country.

Gerrard has another year or two to reach his peak but I just do not think he controls and dictates the pattern of a game like Keane used to do.  Gerrard is better goal scoring threat but I reckon Keane bullyed his team mates into winning titles at the scum.  His influence was enormous.  I just wish Gerrard could acquire that domineering presence.

[bigmick]

On the question of United signing "unknowns" and Owen Hargreaves, it's probably worth remembering that based on last season they are already a very good team and therefore even if they didn't sign anybody would go very close.

Ferguson seems to have worked out also that in order to win the league you can't afford to give Chelsea a ten point start so it's reasonable to assume they'll hit the ground running at the start of the season. He also has wised up after a flirtation with squad and formational rotation for a couple of seasons and has stumbled upon the revolutionary theory of by and large picking his strongest team in most games. I guess if he dropped Ronaldo for a few games, maybe tried him on the opposite flank now and then, dropped Rooney to the bench while he was in the middle of a purple patch and spent the first seven or eight games fecking around with the team every week it might give us a chance to get a ten point lead on them this time, but I would not hold my breath on that one. No, regardless of who they have signed I think they'll go very close to retaining their crown.

To finish above them someone is going to have to regularly go to lesser teams and bully them into defeat on their own patch. They are going to have to have the ability to come back if they conceed a goal, to attack with verve and conviction. It is my opinion too that they are going to need to have a spirit, a togetherness, a familiarity and a fluency which comes from playing together regularly. You know for a fact that next season there will be two teams that not only posess those qualities, but are also given the license by the management and the opportunity to realise their goals. Hopefully with our new signings and a change in management policy, we can make that group of two into a group of three and go on to win or at least contest the title.

[aCe']

they didnt sign many big names because they already have all their positions pretty much figured out (a striker short of a brilliant starting 11 imo)...
the needed cover for midfield and the wings and they signed some pretty good youngsters imo...
paid over the odds but when you hae so much unneeded money to spend i guess you get to do that...

point is... even if they had not sined any player this season... and given all the signings we made... they still have more quality in their starting 11 than we do...
this is something i always do but... picking a starting 11 if u combine both sets of players u get something like this:

                           Reina

Neville       Carragher       Ferdinand      Evra

Ronaldo      Gerrard         Scholes       Giggs

                 Rooney       Torres

thats 4 liverpool players and 7 manutd players...maybe finnan instead of Neville...not much between the two...
anyways i think that the players we signed will def. improve our squad and overall ability but until we sign 2 or 3 worldclass players we wont be able to say that we have a better squad than the mancs do...

hope rafa figures out our best starting 11 soon and plays them whenever fit and ready... no more rotation just for the sake of it plz...even with all the options we hav now !

[David Villa]

Keane had alot of good players around him to help win the league where as Stevie hasnt he has had the likes of Biscan, Zenden etc. Gerrard does dictate games aswell look at Olympiakos, West Ham, Ac Milan 2005. Gerrard v Keane winner Gerrard eady.

[cuppatea]

Man Utd signed exactly what they needed, which was a top class striker (Tevez, assuming he goes), a good defensive midfielder (Hargreaves) and longterm replacements for Giggs and Scholes (Nani and Anderson). Now unless they sign an absolute superstar for a huge fee, I'm not sure what Man Utd could do to improve their team anymore than they already have. They are, like Chelsea, well covered in every area.

Our situation is different than theirs, in so far as even our strongest XI has notable weaknesses. Personally, I think we needed proven quality upfront and on both wings; players who could come in and do a job from day one. Unfortunately, I think only Torres fits that description, and so we go into the season with a first team (and squad) some way short of our rivals in terms of quality.

[redmikey]

Man Utd signed exactly what they needed, which was a top class striker (Tevez, assuming he goes), a good defensive midfielder (Hargreaves) and longterm replacements for Giggs and Scholes (Nani and Anderson). Now unless they sign an absolute superstar for a huge fee, I'm not sure what Man Utd could do to improve their team anymore than they already have. They are, like Chelsea, well covered in every area.

Our situation is different than theirs, in so far as even our strongest XI has notable weaknesses. Personally, I think we needed proven quality upfront and on both wings; players who could come in and do a job from day one. Unfortunately, I think only Torres fits that description, and so we go into the season with a first team (and squad) some way short of our rivals in terms of quality.

covered in every area ?with smith, saha ,ole gonna get anyolder   o'shea, flecture, etc etc  i would say they were thin as far as cover goes

but they do have old red face who i wish would retire or die (not bothered which, but i do feel he is one of the great managers of all time, and at a time where lfc where stuck on there boot room mentality , manure went and got a young successful manager from scotland,even though they nearly sacked him)

we need to click early this season and rafa has seen our shortfall in scoring chances last term and has hopefully addressed it

lets see what august brings