Alot has been made of Liverpool's transfer activity over the summer, some saying they add nothing whilst others can see what Kenny's trying to build. I think Kenny's been very shrewd in his purchases, by players of a certain age, with proven ability in the premiership. He's acquisition of Enrique, now gives us two full backs who can attack at pace and deliver high quality balls into the box. Adam gives us a midfielder who is lethal on set pieces and has a fantastic range of passing. Henderson will challenge Kuyt for the right hand side of midfield, he's got a great engine and can deliver great balls into the box. On the other side Downing is vastly underrated, but is quick, intelligent, has a great engine and will get his share of goals. With Suarez and Carroll up top, Kenny has built a team that will be fluid in attack and resolute in defence. The new signings all have three things in common, premiership experience, proven performers and a great team ethic. Can Liverpool win the league? Not so sure, but 4th spot is well within are reach. Questions remain in the center of our defence. But you'll see a team that play as that A TEAM, work for each other and won't stop trying.
Molby Pass master. It will be an extremely hard to beat unit mixed with the brilliance of Luis Suarez. Is it good enough to win the title? I'm also unsure, I'm still convinced that we need possibly 3-4 more squad additions to be champions. With Arsenal imploding left right and centre, heres chance to take advantage. Top 4 is within our grasp as is the domestic cup double.
all i can say is there is no way anyone could do any more work in one transfer window than this. example; how long did it take to get city into the CL, and how much? We've done as well as possible, more than that the squad would look to be releatively well balanced, we are not lacking out wide or in the middle. really its the quality of striking reserve and centre back reserve that worries and everyone is well tired of speaking to that. this is out best squad since 2008 when torres arrived... as we know that side finished 4th... the year beofre it was in a cl final, the year after finished 2nd... and it only took 2 years to all fall apart. Arsenal COULD be in for a very rude awakening if both transfers go ahead. Then we should see a period of forming up the best unit out of the options and some guys need to move on and that could be tricky and noisy. Aquilani, poulsen, kyrgiakos, n'gog, degen ... if we can move on these guys (or in the case of aquilani his agent shuts up and he plays for us with heart) Hopefully by this time next year we'll be talking about a squad thats fully complete and scaring the pants off the other sides
Moreinjuredthanowen. We've got a good mixture. We've got the energy of Kuyt and Henderson,we've got the Downings natural width. Plus when we need to be,we can be brutal. We can rough it up and thats what Andy Carroll is for. We don't have to play nice all the time. If anyone wants a scrap, we'll give them one. Try picking a fight with this side and you will get bounced back to your own ground with your tail between your legs.
It's also the interchangeability that excites me. We have players who are comfortable playing on either side of the pitch - Johnson, Kelly, Kuyt, Suarez, Cole, to name but a few. If we get it right, the opposition won't have a clue who they're supposed to be marking and the opportunity to drag defences totally out of position will be massive!
Kenny likes to implement that too. Suarez being the interesting one, he won't stay still long enough to mark. So how on earth do you mark him? He also has the ability to dribble through the tightest of angles. His close control is astounding. He makes the impossible look easy.
Look at the team Dalglish created with Aldo,Beardsley and Barnes as the spearhead, backed up with McMahon, Whelan and Houghton. There are a lot of similarities in this current team to them. Under Rafa I think at times we where very predictable, very workman like, designed to grind out results. This team looks totally different on paper. Like Jonesy said "interchangeable" They'll pull teams all over the place, and attack from both side's and through the middle.
If we can keep a settled defence that will be our foundation for success. Everything else will fall into place. I do not after this summer think we are actually all that far away from being champions. My prediction is still on course to be fulfilled that we will be champions within 3 years.
settled defense is the key point. johnson after his first year has become more and more injury prone. that will be somewhat important but kelly is very good so i hope he can play and be fit too. Agger is a huges issue, if we get 5 games in a row out of him it'll be good. skertl is his cover. one game a week for carra could be vital. he normally stays fit. enrique and auerlio can play well at left back for us. i think if we keep the goals out then the rest can come together as if you've an outlet like suarez and a guy like caroll added to danger from frees etc you've always got a chance. I'm as of today putting us in 4th rather than 5th.
I think the key KPR is getting back into the champions league. Extra revenue, plus a more attractive option for players. Little by, little is the right way to go. I look at Chelsea, Terry,Lampard,Drogba,Cech all getting older, Roman desperately wants the C/League..How much of a force will they be in three years? Man Utd will always be there or there abouts. Big factor will be when Alex leaves the building, whoever comes in has a hell of a job to step out of the shadow he's created. Man City, will the arabs stay in for the long haul? Or is it just a very expensive toy they'll get bored with? Arsenal, could go one of two ways. Rise to the top if Wegner takes his stubborn attitude and realises he needs steel to go with the silk. Or if Wegner stays and refuses to change they'll struggle.
Molby. Arsenal are in serious trouble of going further back than we ever did. They lack steel, at least we had some of that. Now they are in serious danger of losing their silk. Arsenal are there for the taking. I'm even more convinced that we must take advantage of their misfortune. I always thought that if Arsenal signed 3 heavy-weights and kept their existing players they would walk away with the title. They haven't and they aren't keeping their existing players. They are not going to finish in the top 4.
KPR my dad's a lifelong gooner..for the first time in 30 years he isn't renewing his season ticket..why? Because in his words" There's more chance of Alan Sugar getting voted on the board, than Wegner changing his approach" He's had enough of this pretty football with no end result.
Actually Rafa was as much about versatility as Kenny. Switching wings? Kuyt and Benayoun did it all the time. Versatility was one of Barry's big attractions for Rafa.
MFG. Theres two points here. Kenny is less cautious than Rafa, Kenny allows more players to get into the box when we're on the attack, the movement between players around the pitch is excellent, also retaining that overall steel. Rafa's sides had that steel. However Kenny has one advantage, Kenny has been given money to sign additions and not replacements. Rafa more often than not had to sign replacements. He had to weaken the squad to strengthen the team. Kenny is doing the opposite, the squad apart from centre back and up-front is formidable and the strongest its been since 2008. I'm still convinced that those two areas will be added to to finish the squad strengthening whether it be January or next summer. As I said on a previous thread,this for me is only phase one. I don't think we've seen anything yet.
The trouble with Rafa was although he liked versatility you never really got the impression his teams would play all out attack.This was shown,certainly in the last couple of seasons,when we played bottom half teams at home and didn't win.There was never enough on the bench to change a match.I think his attitude dragged the players down,remember the incident at Birmingham (i think) where he took Torres off and he and Gerrard were stood there with 'what the **** ids going on' expressions. Compare that to now where we have excellent options all over the pitch,Kenny's attitude is light years away from Rafa,owners who are constantly talking up the clubs future then I think that ,maybe not this season, we will win the title within the next 3 years. Other peoples negative attitudes towards the new signings may be because they are worried,Liverpool are without doubt a sleeping giant and the likes of Chelsea ,Arsenal and City can never compare to our history or fan base around the world.They are worried!! I think the only question mark over our signings may be Henderson but only the price paid.If we had bought him for say £7 million nobody would have said a thing.The price we pay is irrelevant though because it does not change the lads attitude or ability.he will either be good enough or he wont. I am so looking forward to this season but we must give the team time to gel and not expect us scoring 5 every game (nice though).Its almost hear you 26 hours to go!! YNWA
MFG. Yes Rafa had a couple of options to interchange. But Kuyt and Benayoun swapping wings isn't the same as the options we have now. I'm not knocking Rafa, he was brilliant for the club and did alot of good in testing circumstances. but as already pointed out, he was negative sometimes.
I hate to bring this up, but the stats (stop groaning) for the end of last season with Kenny in charge put us second behind Chelsea on form. As long as we start the season without any shocking **** ups I reckon we're in with a chance. Going forward, the academy has some interesting players in it and having Kenny back seems to have raised everyones morale. Our PR has improved massively now we've got the New York Times on the board. We just need to avoid a Redknapp style Club Captain balls up with Gerrard hanging round on crutches, not spunk all of our money on **** midfielders and make sure Carragher gets walked into coaching rather than being thrown on the scrap heap. kph103 makes a good point about Rafa, he never looked like he'd go balls deep, there was always a reservation in the way his team played. Kenny has always fielded teams that looked like they'd crawl down your throat and rip your spleen out.
iliveinasewer. kph103 makes a good point about Rafa, he never looked like he'd go balls deep, there was always a reservation in the way his team played. Kenny has always fielded teams that looked like they'd crawl down your throat and rip your spleen out. Now thats a brilliant asessment. The longer the second half of the season went on, I felt the more aggressive we got and this was more evident in the away games. Okay we ran out of juice in the last too games. We were short on players. However look at the game against Fulham at the Cottage, that was aggressive, that had to be for me the best away performance of the season apart from our win at SB. All the players were on the same wave-length. I don't think there is any side in Europe that would have been able to live with Liverpools tenacity that night. And that is not an exaggeration.
