Liverpool FC Forum

by **Quadrophenia** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:13 am

Robbie Keane joined Liverpool on the back of almost a full season captaining Tottenham due to King's injuries and he's been the captain of the ROI for a while as well now so surely coming to Liverpool is a walk in the park for him as well because he's captained another club?

by **Kharhaz** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:19 am

Quadrophenia wrote:Robbie Keane joined Liverpool on the back of almost a full season captaining Tottenham due to King's injuries and he's been the captain of the ROI for a while as well now so surely coming to Liverpool is a walk in the park for him as well because he's captained another club?

Im defending the young players here ! With Robbie Keane the argument is simple. What other club, in the world, would pay £20 million for him?

I honestly think with Keane the problem is, he knows, as do we all he is simply not worth £20 million, and we are seeing that in his performances.

by **Lando_Griffin** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:19 am

Quadrophenia wrote:Robbie Keane joined Liverpool on the back of almost a full season captaining Tottenham due to King's injuries and he's been the captain of the ROI for a while as well now so surely coming to Liverpool is a walk in the park for him as well because he's captained another club?

They're hardly on similar levels dude.

At Athletico, it's more the intensity of the fans which forced Torres to grow up very quickly.

As we've seen very recently, Tottenham's fans are nothing short of idiotic.

Back to the topic, rather than the snide comments; everyone's different- one player settles instantly, and another takes 2 years.
9 times out of 10 it'sthe fans who become too impatient and communicate this to the player, thus damaging their confidence even more. It's a vicious cycle IMHO.

by **aCe'** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:23 am

Kharhaz wrote:
aCe' wrote:wouldnt quite call it walk in the park .. lucas was captain of the brazil u21 if im not wrong and brazilian league player of the year was it ? why isnt it a walk in the park for him ?

There is a massive difference. First of, as with all international games, you get the "best of" the internationals. In club football, it is totally different. You may as well compare the under 18s captains of every country with the captains of every country in the senior level. Its a daft argument. Torres had to captain his team at atletico, with thousands of eyes and players much older than him having more experience watching him. And that was at the age of 17*. So like I say,this experience at liverpool is totally different. Here he has to learn english, settle down in a new area and score goals. So really he only has to do 2 of those things, he has the experience to deal with the rest.

EDIT: age of 19 !

ugh sorry mate but i was about to reply to your post but it just dissapeared after i hit the add reply button... ah well...
you win :veryangry

by **Kharhaz** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:24 am

Lando_Griffin wrote:
Quadrophenia wrote:Robbie Keane joined Liverpool on the back of almost a full season captaining Tottenham due to King's injuries and he's been the captain of the ROI for a while as well now so surely coming to Liverpool is a walk in the park for him as well because he's captained another club?

They're hardly on similar levels dude.

At Athletico, it's more the intensity of the fans which forced Torres to grow up very quickly.

As we've seen very recently, Tottenham's fans are nothing short of idiotic.

Back to the topic, rather than the snide comments; everyone's different- one player settles instantly, and another takes 2 years.
9 times out of 10 it'sthe fans who become too impatient and communicate this to the player, thus damaging their confidence even more. It's a vicious cycle IMHO.

Absolutely, which brings up my past arguments of "Rafa has to get it right first time".

by **Kharhaz** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:25 am

aCe' wrote:
Kharhaz wrote:
aCe' wrote:wouldnt quite call it walk in the park .. lucas was captain of the brazil u21 if im not wrong and brazilian league player of the year was it ? why isnt it a walk in the park for him ?

There is a massive difference. First of, as with all international games, you get the "best of" the internationals. In club football, it is totally different. You may as well compare the under 18s captains of every country with the captains of every country in the senior level. Its a daft argument. Torres had to captain his team at atletico, with thousands of eyes and players much older than him having more experience watching him. And that was at the age of 17*. So like I say,this experience at liverpool is totally different. Here he has to learn english, settle down in a new area and score goals. So really he only has to do 2 of those things, he has the experience to deal with the rest.

EDIT: age of 19 !

ugh sorry mate but i was about to reply to your post but it just dissapeared after i hit the add reply button... ah well...
you win

by **Quadrophenia** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:30 am

Nobody (I don't even think Benitez) believes Keane is worth 20 million quid but that's what we paid for him. A price tag is no fair valuation of a players ability, it's just how much the selling club is prepared to let him go for. In this case we happened to be dealing with one of the biggest money grabbing chairman in the game who goes by the name of Daniel Levy. We would of been able to get Keane for about half of that, had a chairman with the club's interests at heart been running Spurs but that wasn't the case. We had to pay over the odds and now it's coming back to bite us.

I don't think it's fair to use his price tag as a reason for him not settling because he's had pressure (and heavy price tags) throughout his career. I don't think he's settled because he's being asked to do a job he can't which is play up front on his own. I've no problem him being put on the bench if we're gonna play one up top because that's where Keane is more use in that situation.

As for the general gist of how long does it take a player to settle? Well every player is different, as Lando quite rightly said, and in some cases they don't get as much time as they need to settle before being shipped off to their next club.

by **Kharhaz** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:40 am

Quadrophenia wrote:Nobody (I don't even think Benitez) believes Keane is worth 20 million quid but that's what we paid for him. A price tag is no fair valuation of a players ability, it's just how much the selling club is prepared to let him go for.

Of course. This isnt the players fault, but as a player you have to acknowledge the price that is paid for your service. Its not down to the player the price paid , but as a player, if a club pays that amount for your service, at such a price, the pressure is there. We as supporters know otherwise, the player knows otherwise. But because the fee has been shelled out, the pressure is there.

by **Quadrophenia** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:01 am

Kharhaz wrote:
Quadrophenia wrote:Nobody (I don't even think Benitez) believes Keane is worth 20 million quid but that's what we paid for him. A price tag is no fair valuation of a players ability, it's just how much the selling club is prepared to let him go for.

Of course. This isnt the players fault, but as a player you have to acknowledge the price that is paid for your service. Its not down to the player the price paid , but as a player, if a club pays that amount for your service, at such a price, the pressure is there. We as supporters know otherwise, the player knows otherwise. But because the fee has been shelled out, the pressure is there.

He's used to dealing with pressure though, I mean he's been the most expensive teenager in Britain when he moved from Wolves to Coventry. He became the most expensive Irishman when he moved from Coventry to Inter. He had a hefty fee round his neck on his return to England with Leeds. He had another decent fee around his neck when he moved to Spurs along with captaining them on many occasions. He's the ROI top goal scorer which proves he can cope with pressure at that level, where he's also captain.

So this pressure isn't something new to Keane. It's not like he was an unknown kid from Dublin when we bought him, he's an experinced player who has shown many times he can handle pressure. I don't know if he's the type of lad who needs an arm round the shoulder, if he is then he won't get that from Benitez, he might from Sammy Lee. He's looking out of sorts for whatever reason, my choice it's the job he's been asked to do since he arrived. He needs to be playing off a target man to get the best out of him.

by **Kharhaz** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:07 am

But thats just it. He cant handle the pressure. If he could, he wouldnt have been transfered as much. If rafa is to blamed for one thing with keane its the fee he paid for him.

by **whylongball?** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:49 am

Fo Dne wrote:People make pathetic excuses for players not being good enough. They assume they will learn things they can't do and then say things like coaching will improve their faults. It won't. It never has and never will. People also use the excuse of a foreign player moving into a new league for the reason they forget how to pass, move, run, touch a ball and do anything.

I'm sorry, when I play footy on holiday in Spain with Spanish lads I am still the same player who does the same things. I still pass the same, movement the same and run the same and have the same technique. I don't all of a sudden do anything any better or worse. Occassionally you can't communicate properly but thats not the be all and end all and ability alround is the most important things and can make up for a lack of communication as Torres shown.

Adapting to a different system and style is something that people comment on without truely understanding it. Keane is an example of this at the moment. Not Lucas and certainly not the waster that is Babel.

Agree on the part the player is the same wherever you are. But if you are a defender and asked to play as striker you are f.ucked. Basically, its all about playing to one's best strength mate
As for adapting, 6 months are more than sufficient to adapt to the system if you are really good. (and of course you are played to your best position)
Thats imho is one of the problem with Benitez

by **bigmick** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:07 am

On the case of Keane, now we've actually bought him I think his price tag is largely irrelevent until we decide to sell him again. Admittedly we may get a nasty shock then, but if he can firstly get a game, and secondly pull his finger out of his erse and help us to win the Premiership, it won't seem like such a bitter pill to swallow when that eventually comes to pass.

All this "he isn't worth 20 million" stuff is neither here nor there really. When you look to buy a player, the selling club sticks a price on his head, and you decide whether or not the player is worth that amount of money to your club. That's why I could never understand all the anti-nonsense towards Martin O'Neill over the Gareth Barry transfer. O'Neill said he wanted 18 million squid, and it was simply down to us to decide whether or not we considered it worth it. In the end we decided it wasn't (not Rafa, the board) so to my minfd that's the end of it. Bleating about it at the time is the same as walking into Tesco's and demandin that they sell you a loaf of bread for 50p less than the price on the shelf. If you think the breads too expensive or not worth the money, you don't buy it and it's that simple really.

Now in the case of Keane we decided he was worth 20 million quid. Regardless of what form he is in now and has been so far, if he finds some form and is instrumental in winning us the league, he probably is. This for me is what is so frustrating at the moment, Torres is injured and we haven't got another striker who is proven in the Premiership, this should be PRECISELY what we bought him for.

If he and Rafa though can't sort out whatever is the issue, to my mind they both are deserving of a kick in the b0ll0cks. This is far too important to the club to let two stubborn feckers get in the way of our success.

by **Kharhaz** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:28 am

If he and Rafa though can't sort out whatever is the issue, to my mind they both are deserving of a kick in the b0ll0cks. This is far too important to the club to let two stubborn feckers get in the way of our success.

Only one who is stubborn, and he helds all the cards. Its not looking good.

by **Quadrophenia** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 1:05 am

Kharhaz wrote:But thats just it. He cant handle the pressure. If he could, he wouldnt have been transfered as much. If rafa is to blamed for one thing with keane its the fee he paid for him.

Sorry mate can't agree with that at all. My guess is all of his English selling clubs (maybe minus Leeds) would have wanted to keep hold of Keane but couldn't because the transfer fees were so big.

Wolves knew they had the latest sensation on their hands but with them being in what was Division 1 at the time they also knew they couldn't keep Keane. So in came Coventry and by moving to Highfield Road it showed Keane was ready to handle the pressure by making the step up to the Premiership. He then showed he was ready to handle pressure by going abroad at such a young age, which is never easy. It didn't work out for him over there for whatever reason, some blame the manager being sacked soon after Keane's arrival. Which ever way you look at it, it shows he's prepared to tackle pressure. His return to England was to the Chelsea of the day, the big money spenders which again adds pressure when you're playing for such an ambitious club which Leeds were at the time. Then onto Spurs, who got Keane because of the finicial state Leeds found themselves in. Leeds had to sell at the time and Keane was of their best sales in terms of value. Then us, we've bought him to try and fix that missing piece of a drop off forward.

So just because he's moved around a little, isn't really a fair justification of him being unable to handle pressure in my opinion. I think when you see what he's achieved personally both domestically and internationally shows more clearly if Robbie Keane can handle pressure or not. I think he can, but I don't think he can play up front on his own. And as I've said elsewhere on these boards if we're to persist with this 4-2-3-1 malarky then Robbie Keane shouldn't be on the pitch. If we're to change and use a formation that involves two forwards, then Keane has to start at all costs in my opinion.

by **heimdall** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 2:00 am

It's simple, intelligent players can adapt whilst stupid ones find it harder.

It is the same in the real world. I've had jobs in various countries and yes it is tricky getting used to a new place especially if you don't talk the lingo but it's never affected my work. Sure each new place you need to get used to the systems and procedures, much as a new player at a new club does but at the end of the day you are asked to do a job and the smart ones can do that whilst the other less flexible and more dimwitted ones find it harder.

I would give any player who shows effort and even slight gradual improvement a season.

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