Liverpool FC Forum

by **Kenny Kan** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 4:01 pm

For years many Liverpool fans have argued the to$$ from a neutrals point that Liverpool 'aren't a 2 man team' when people said if Torres and Gerrard aren't playing you're fecked.

As it turns out, sometimes the case with Gerrard we weren't as ''fecked'' as they made out. Deep down I think most Liverpool fans would realise that we did indeed rely heavily on these two players in particular.

When Mascherano and Xabi were here before then, and Carra in his pomp along with Reina and the ageing (I think he was still around) Hyypia we had a solid core of players, that year we finished second in the league if I'm not mistaken.

Since then though it was really the Nando-Gerrard show and with the team being disassembled around them and nobody coming in thanks to the epic yanks, we've fallen way behind.

The squad is littered with s.*i*e, and its time to put the sentiments of ''the lad works hard and he's really improving'' rhetoric to bed. Many, bless em will always look on the positive side of things, for example: Lucas and Kuyt, they (their most ardent of support) look at what these players do bring to the table as opposed to the weight of averageness they also bring. Then after backing the lads' corner for so long they actually believe what they are saying is right - morally it's correct to back them, after all they play for the club, this is opposed to consequentialism where the theory of 'the ends justify the means'. In other words removing some of our sentimentally loved average Joe's from the side and replacing them with better - justifies the means. I can't believe for one minute any Liverpool fan would disagree with this.

Steven Gerrard down the years has been nothing short of spectacular and will probably go down in LFC history as one of, if not THE best player to ever play for the club. And what a shame that a player of his calibre may hang up his boots without winning a premier league medal and a coupe more FA cups. There are, and will be various reasons to this but when all is said and done he never had the quality around him that he needed (although he did when Mash, Xabi & Momo were still here) to help his side when the prem. 1 man, 2 men of world class ability are not good enough to win you titles and trophies and if the last few seasons haven't shown this, then I don't know what does.

Now we have Luis Suarez, what a fecking player he is! Will his career end at Liverpool with him being this decades Steven Gerrard? A player, like Gerrard who in his prime will offer Liverpool football club the services that are needed to make em great again. He can't and won't be able to do it all alone, it'll be another nearly career like Gerrards and it'll be a fecking pity if this happens-again. I'm obviously foregrounding myself here and alluding Gerrard to retire without a prem winners medal.

It's seriously time for our owners to pull out the money and heavily invest in this squad. A current squad of mostly deadwood. They (our owers) cannot feck around with this NET spend shabite because it'll be harder to flog off the possible likes of N'gog, J.Cole especially, Maxi and others before we're allowed to re-invest in the side. We're not going to get 50M for them and it will take time for some club mugs to take them off our hands. NESV or Fenway sports now have got to get liberal with the money and Dalglish ruthless with the squad.

I hope come the summer we build a team to support our new KOP idol Suarez and the ageing Gerrard (he still has lots to offer). We don't want that tag again ''one man team'', it's time we produced through wallet and acadamy a team of winners, not what we've currently got which is 5 or 6 players go hiding where their backs are up against it and come out of their shells when all is well and good.

Squad players for next season for me would include:

Kuyt, Lucas, Carra, Skertel, Wilson, Carroll

Team players who'd get a regular line up in my book:

Reina (if he;s still here), Gerrard, Suarez, Johnson, Kelly, Carroll possibly, Meirieles (if used properly) and that's about it, shocking really.

This is all down to personal opinion ^^ and I'd look to sell N'gog, Agger (as good as he is, he's Harry Kewell in defence and just not reliable enough) Aurelio, Cole (i've had enough, a player I rated), Maxi, Soto (it was a toss up between him and Skertel who is only worthy of a squad place, but he's younger and I reckon he'd be happy enough on the bench, I don't think Agger would be though) who else is not all that, ah Spearing and Poulsen, they can do one neither are good enough.

I don't see us bringing in 2 CB's like I'd like to see and shipping out Agger and Soto. And still bringing in a LB, wingers and possibly another striker too along with a quality CM. All I do know is Fenway Sports need to get the money out and Kenny has got to get the right players at the right price, 35M for Carroll was probably 27M too much.

by **stmichael** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 5:54 pm

This summer will be our most important summer in living memory imo. Now we've got the situation sorted off the pitch and got the King back it means that we can concentrate solely on revitalising the squad and nothing else. I don't think any supporter is kidded into thinking that we'll see anything other than a major overhaul with several high earners leaving the club. From a personal point of view I wouldn't shed a tear if any of Skrtel, Aurelio, Maxi, Cole, Jovanovic or Ngog left the club. I really hope that Reina stays but I won't hold my breath.
We need a top quality left back, a top quality centre half and two out and out wide men at least.

by **Greavesie** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:14 pm

I agree with your sentiments, when people called us a two man team I used to get well annoyed (they were key players but every squad has them), the general quality of the team that finished second was pretty good, bar wingers (STILL WAITING!!!)

of the current lot we still need Carra, regardless of his age our defence is notably more organised with him in it. If Agger could stay fit I'd keep him as well. We need a Sami type player, tall and commanding imo and a left back, its been a problem position for ages and needs sorted in the summer.

I don't agree when you say Carroll will be a squad player, no way would our owners pay £35m for a player to not be in the team week in week out. Though to accomodate him properly and eliminate the long ball sh!te we need wingers, that's another area we need to address, maybe a creative midfielder

It's a massive summer ahead, loads of business to be done. Shipping out some of the cr@p and replace it with better than what we let go

I think Reina's off tbh which would be a shame (though he might wait until close to the end of the window to see how much business we do and assess his position based on that). We already know who the dross is, what's important is to let the ones go we either know won't make it, or just aren't good enough.

Players lke Kuyt, for all the stick he gets, has been good to the club and is more than decent back up

by **The Good Yank** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:23 pm

I agree that this coming summer will be a very important one in terms of revitalising the squad. I do however, bellieve that it will be over the course of this coming summer, and then with possible Champions League football in the 2012-2013 season where we will see the major strengh added.

For this summer I'd expect about four true first 11 players to be brought in, and not much of consequence heading out. At that point I would fully expect a big push (likely without European distractions) for the top four or even higher. It is after this that I'd expect a major overhaul of shipping out some deadwood and attracting the true quality and in depth to allow us to challenge both domestically and in the Champions League.

by **ethanr** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:48 pm

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, tho I would switch some players in and out of what you have suggested.

We need to be realistic on spending, our owners won't put in 100 million in one summer. If other clubs knew we had that much cash, they would just run the price up. We can't spend too much because of the fair play rules as well.

So realistically, look at the players we could sell:

Cole, Maxi, Poulson, Koncheskey, N'gog, Insua, Soto, Skrtel, and Aqualani. Realistically, we should be able to recoup 25-30 million for these shouldn't we? Aqua alone is 14, Insua is young and Skrtel would be a great addition to some other teams for 4 or 5 million. Cole could be a few million as well.

I would keep Agger because I think he's been our best CB this season. Even tho he's injured half the time, he could still be what we consider depth in the squad. Players we have left over for our starting lineup:

Reina, Kelly at RB Carra at CB,
Meireles and Gerrard in the center, JOHNSON AT RM? kind of surprised we haven't seen him there at all? He's a good player but if we need a lb and we have Kelly as a good rb then what do we expect out of him?
Suarez and Carroll up top.

That's 8 starting players. We still need a CB, a LB, and a LM. We keep Agger as depth, Lucas as depth, Kuyt as depth, only because I think he wants to stay and he deserves to stay if he wants to. If we get a great offer for him, ya sell him, but if we don't get much for him then I'd say he's worth it to keep since he works hard and plays rm or striker. Spearing could be depth as well.

We need 3 players for starting spots:

CB- Simon Kjaer. 21 years old, very talented, and Wolfsburg have already said they will let him go for about 10 milion.
LB - Fabio Coentrao- 22 years old, Ashley Cole type player, we have at least 3 Portuguese speaking players to help with the transition.
LM- Ashley Young- 25 years old, English, fast, talented.

Maybe buy more depth as well. I still want Charlie Adam, and I can see him pushing Meireles to the bench or taking over Gerrard's spot within the next 2 years. Maybe another CB as well, somebody like Samba or Shawcross could be an investment worth looking into.

If we were to sign 4 players:

Coentrao- 20 million
Kjaer- 10 million
Young- 15 million
Adam- 10 million

That's 55 million. If we sold our dead-wieght and got 25-30 million, we are looing at a 25-30 million pound investment this summer, which I'm sure our owners would be more then willing to do.

If they decide to invest more, then we could see the likes of players like Alexis Sanchez or Jesus Navas coming to the club, and that would be fantastic.

Also, if we went for Taiwo instead of Coentrao and got him for free, obviously that's a lot of money saved. There's plenty of options, but I could see something like that more realistically happening (Maybe not those exact players, but players along those lines).

by **metalhead** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 7:21 pm

Good post,

don't agree with some of the players that should go, but I agree with the overall sentiment that we must dig deep and get quality players into the squad. It is funny that people say Liverpool a ''one man'' or ''2 man team'' when other top teams in the premier league, you remove a world class player from their first team they struggle to get results, for example when Chelsea lost Lampard and Terry due to injury, they struggled big time. Arsenal, without Fabregas struggle to dictate the game, so I find it funny how the media brands Liverpool a ''one man team'' when other top team also rely on 2 or 3 of their top players.

However, I do think that in order to compete on all levels we need top players in main positions. The season we finished second we had one of the strongest midfield in the league, even when Gerrard got an injury, Mascherano and Alonso did their job and we did not struggle. Lets hope we invest in 6 players with quality that will improve our starting XI

by **stmichael** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:36 pm

Greavesie wrote:when people called us a two man team I used to get well annoyed

the most hilarious thing about that was that alonso was never mentioned when he was here, it was all about torres and gerrard (despite the fact that we beat united at home without both of them for example). then as soon as alonso left the team was struggling because alonso he's gone despite the fact that the two men who made up our "two man team" were still here.

by **jacdaniel** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:55 pm

stmichael wrote:
Greavesie wrote:when people called us a two man team I used to get well annoyed

the most hilarious thing about that was that alonso was never mentioned when he was here, it was all about torres and gerrard (despite the fact that we beat united at home without both of them for example). then as soon as alonso left the team was struggling because alonso he's gone despite the fact that the two men who made up our "two man team" were still here.

Always found that hilarious meself. They were key players in a top squad. But as we've since found out, they didnt do everything by themselves.

by **Kenny Kan** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:12 pm

Since Alonso left we were prodeminantly reliant on Torres and Gerrard even though there were a couple of games where the side did well without them. But we (should) know as well as most that, that side without Torres and Gerrard for a whole season wouldn't have been anywhere near where they were without them. They couldn't have sustained good form throughout the season, hence why I DO think we relied on those two, too much. Fair enough every team has their match winners but we only had two for a few seasons and now with Torres gone and Suarez in and an ageing Gerrard I don't want to see this Liverpool team (again) rely on the likes of Luis and Gerrard to pull em out the s.hitta. We need more game breakers, Maxi, Kuyt (once in a blue moon), N'Gog, Cole (anymore) and even Lucas aren't game breakers, quite the opposite infact. Which is why we need a couple more signings in the offensive third who don't just rely on ''hard work'' to keep them in the team but rather an ability to win you matches.

by **metalhead** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:11 pm

Kenny Kan wrote:Since Alonso left we were prodeminantly reliant on Torres and Gerrard even though there were a couple of games where the side did well without them. But we (should) know as well as most that, that side without Torres and Gerrard for a whole season wouldn't have been anywhere near where they were without them. They couldn't have sustained good form throughout the season, hence why I DO think we relied on those two, too much. Fair enough every team has their match winners but we only had two for a few seasons and now with Torres gone and Suarez in and an ageing Gerrard I don't want to see this Liverpool team (again) rely on the likes of Luis and Gerrard to pull em out the s.hitta. We need more game breakers, Maxi, Kuyt (once in a blue moon), N'Gog, Cole (anymore) and even Lucas aren't game breakers, quite the opposite infact. Which is why we need a couple more signings in the offensive third who don't just rely on ''hard work'' to keep them in the team but rather an ability to win you matches.

I don't think its necessary to have 3 or 4 ''game breakers'' as you like to call them

, however, I won't complain if we bought 3 or 4 of them! we need to invest in quality players who give balance to the starting eleven and compliment each other in the field. After you get that team you need a good enough squad who are solid players and can step up when one of our key players is injured, so the likes of Kuyt, Lucas, Aurelio (if ever fit), Cole and Aquilani are options and good squad players.

I like whats going on with how the two Spanish blokes are doing with the youth system and Kenny taking more interest in bringing some talented youngsters into the first team. Kudos to Rafa for revamping the youth system and bringing Segura, Borrell and McParland. Barca relied on their youth, for example Messi, Xavi and Iniesta did not cost a penny. We should try to do the same but with our own philosophy and create our own ''Game Breakers''. However, it will take time for it to happen, so in he short term we need invest heavily into our team

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