Personally i dont feel you can draw too many conclusions from the opening game, what I can do is compare our first 11 and the options we have available to our rivals for the fourth spot. I feel it would be foolish to suggest that our main objective is fourth based on the squads and results of our direct rivals from last year. A top 6 finish is widely perceived to be a step in the right direction for us, looking at the main rivals for the final fourth spot however (for the record I believe the general consensus would be that Man City, Man Utd & Chelsea are the shoe in´s for the first three spots, with Arsenal, Spurs, Newcastle, Ourselves & Everton vying for the final spot) you cant help but feel there is a chance. Arsenal, based on last season, would have been strong favourites for fourth but they have lost RVP & Song, two of their best players last season & have plenty of new players to bed in. Spurs haven't addressed their main issue of another striker, Newcastle are the dark horses with a settled squad & you cannot count out Everton who have arguably improved the squad from last season and will have Jelavic firing from the start. Which leads me to LFC, now I must say I think we have a very good core of players with the obvious deficiencies and drains, the team & bench on Saturday had the capability to beat West Brom, personally i believe the line up could have been altered to that of one which would have got a result (Suarez out wide with A. Carroll or Borini at the fulcrum, but that is subjective) The overall squad doesnt actually need that much work & possible could be rectified this window, I believe to make us competitive over the course of a season the following needs to be actioned: * A new CB to replace Carragher & provide genuine competition with Skrtel, that would leave Coates as the fourth CB. I believe Carra is on over 80k a week, which for a CB who is definitely not first choice, is a drain, those wages could surely attract a player who will vie with Skrtel for a starting spot on a regular basis for many a season. Carra, bless his heart, has lost his pace a while ago & is now a liability with our CB´s sitting high & relatively isolated up the pitch (see Lukaku beasting) * Either play Andy Carroll as a number 9 or sell him and replace with a genuine number 9 with experience. A contentious issue Andy Carroll, is his head right ? is he even good enough to lead the line ? I am unsure on both any more but a decision needs to be made. Say what you want about Carroll but I believe both the headed efforts he would have converted. I'm not saying we would have not lost the match, but being a goal up away from home with a deflated crowd is an far better position to be in than not. If we do chose to sell him, I hope it is only if we have a replacement lined up as I would rather keep him than replace with another unknown, he has showed some worth in the closing months of last years Prem & following, the Euros. If we are to go down the route of selling, there are possible suitors with Newcastle and West ham having registered an interest in the past. There is a deal there to be done, the most sensible thing for us to do is agree a cut price deal with Newcastle that involves Demba Ba, I obviously dont know the ins and outs but i thought it was common knowledge that Demba Ba has a release clause of 7m, I cant understand why no one has tried to activate this ! there is obviously more to meets the eye there, perhaps long term fitness doubts or the fact there might not even be a clause like that in the contract, but i think it would be criminal not to try and make Ba part of ANY deal taking Carroll back to Newcastle. If someone said to me, Demba Ba plus 10 million for Andy Carroll, I´d do a Suarez on them. This is were the Newcastle valuation of Carroll & confirmation of the mystery release clause will come in play and could get messy. For the record if any potential of that deal was available, what would be the lowest amount including Demba Ba people would be happy to accept ? * An experienced Full back capable of pushing Enrique but can fill in on the right side. They do exist, David Santon is a perfect example, an attacking fullback that will not let you down and can comfortably play both sides. He was purchased for just over 5m. This would not only provide competition and cover for the left back position, but also good cover for Johnson. People will say Martin Kellys development will be stunted but he should not be the automatic first port of call is one of the fullback is unavailable which he currently is, be that a straight swap for Johnson or when Johnson is shifted left & Kelly deputises. * A genuine wide man; This is a tough one as if we play the formation I believe we should do with Suarez out wide, as well as utilising Andy as a number 9 or selling and replacing him as mentioned above, then I don't think we need to add another wideman just yet, as we will have Downing, Suarez, Assaidi & Sterling operating out wide with Borini & possibly Gerrard able to operate there. If we carry on using Suarez as a number 9 then I think it will be needed, a player such as Nathan Dyer, Victor Moses dare I say Scott Sinclair ! what ever you think of the quality of these players, they are our level now. Hell, Sincalir is wanted by Man City so potentially has better options ! They all have experience in this league & can all find the net as well as operate out wide, which if Suarez is used as a number 9, its quite obvious we will need goal scoring wide men to compensate. Ideally 3 players, possibly 4 depending on how we line up and I think we could be competitive for the final fourth spot, its obvious we haven't got cash to spend but by selling to buy and bringing in some loanees it could be possible, it will be difficult to do this by the end of this window but I have faith in Rogers, I was impressed by Joe Allan, he added something we have been missing in midfield for a few seasons now...calm & quick distribution, Borini drifted in and out for me which was expected, a couple of good balls especially the clipped one for Suarez second half, but I assumed that he would have been in Suarez position and Suarez vice versa. Realistically we may have to wait until the transfer windows shut to come to any conclusions, but on the squads as they are, I think only Arsenal and Newcastle are clearly better equipped than us, Spurs have a lack of depth also & Everton are notorious slow starters. If things stay as they are, I predict a 6th place finish for ourselves, with Arsenal 4th & Newcastle 5th. What is the general consensus with everyone ?
We're well capable of getting fourth, we're as good or even better than both Spurs and Arsenal. Arsenal are toothless and Spurs are a joke. They for the last 3 seasons are possibly the luckiest team ever. Their luck is going to run out and thats a certainty. They are a top 6 side at best, Everton who are a well drilled and organised side are just as good as them. Should Everton start their season in August rather than January, they will push Spurs all the way for a top 6 place. Newcastle are a very good side with very good players, but they leak goals.
i think our best hope is top 6 to be honest, love to be wrong but we only have about 5 players the rest would have of ours who are in the top4. our squad is based on a spine which is as good as anyone elses and potential. look at the dif in the benches between ours and the rest who we think make up the top 6 say, we would have to do an RVP say and have a lot of luck with injuries to key players all season to stand a chance of pushing the top4, our backup is too poor compared to other teams though. think 4-5 players off of top 4, but problem being most need to be first team players and an improvement and they get pushed to squad players. i know we should wait until window closes to say for def what we think will or wont happen,but i don't think it will make much dif to be honest, we know(or certainly looks that way) we have to sell to buy, unfortunately we don't have many options, they are, Agger(stupid to get rid end of) Carroll, not sure to be honest, if we get £20 mill think we should take it as Brendan needs to buy his own players for us to fairly judge him,not an ex managers player who he is stuck with who has a huge price tag that isn't justified,Spearing not worth much and Adam who are not worth much, so who do we sell to buy the players we need to improve the areas we need. its going to be a long season for those who think we will get top4 to be honest
so could this be summarized as we're miles off 4th cos we need ANOTHER 3/4 players? just asking..... bascially stuff happens... their first goal was just plain good technique and a bit of bottling the black by johnson turning his back on it. After the half i felt we stopped covering each other and basically agger needed up totally exposed but i was disappointed he didn't at least let pepe make a save cos at 0-2 down and making chances i'd rather have 11 men then you push a guy over clearly. Disappointed in that thinking but then how we fell apart was shocking. I am not sure if we just lost it or went 3-4-2 or something cos we totally just fell apart in tactical discipline. who's to blame is unclear but i'm definitely disappointed in the senior pro here. anyway... nothin in that game changed my mind on where we'll finish and certainly nothing in the gomel game did either.
lol potentially ! I didn't quite know how long it was until i posted ! but more to the point, I just wanted to see what the general consensus was on how far we are away from 4th spot, in terms of personnel we have compared to our rivals. I mentioned the 3 /4 players as I personally think that's what we need to be competitive for that spot, but that's why I threw it open, as I wanted to get others perspectives. Just because I think we need 3 players doesn't mean others will or even that it is correct. For the record I believe we are closer to our rivals (squad wise) than we were at the end of last season, which can only be a good thing. where do you think we will finish ?
If LFC are looking for a more prolific striker than Carroll, you used Ba as an example, why would any club swap a more prolific striker plus any amount of money for Carroll? Or did you mean Carroll plus money for a more prolific striker.
IMO, we are not going to be challenging for fourth this year. I have predicted us for sixth but even that is questionable depending on how Newcastle perform. We have a good side that will be able to mix it up and hold their own but the cutting edge that exists between top half and top four sides is missing for us. With one or two appropriate signings we could be up there but at the minute we lack that something that makes the difference. the obvious missing link is a goalscorer, but I also think we lack a creative pacey attacking player. We have Assaidi who I know zero about so he come come good, I doubt it when he only cost £3m (why wasn't anyone else interested at that price?) but he could prove to be a bargain. We also have Sterling but he is still maturing and progressing. The pass and move tactics only work if every member of the team is able to do quick one or two touch passing. The ball needs to be moved around quickly to disrupt the opposition creating the space to exploit. If one player slows the passing down then it completely undermines the point of the movement in the first place. This is where you need a player like Suarez or Sterling, someone that can conjure a bit of genius to unlock a tight defense but more than one along with someone that can actually finish! At the minute, teams playing against us know that if they keep things tight at the back then they will probably get at least a point because we can't hit a barn door from two yards!
I was using the presumption that A) Liverpool value Carroll at over 13m, based on the fact they turned down an offer from Newcastle widely believed to be around that region & B) Demba Ba has a release clause believed to be around 7m, note I use the word presumption, I do not know if any such clause exists, but i think it was Harry Redknapp who first spoke of this (I think), in which case any potential deal involving Demba Ba would be plus cash, i´d assume.
Why would United pay £20+ million for a player who has spent more time on the physio's bench than on the pitch for his former club?
I believe there was a clause but there was also a deadline date of 31 July 2012 for it to be activated. Of course, I am only going by what I have seen/heard in the media so it could be complete bollox
Because he was last year's top goalscorer and is the current player of the year? I agree with your sentiments though
What has that to do with this thread moron? If you are just bitter that for 20mil we bought the league`s top goalscorer then fair enough, but, do try and keep to the topic in the thread. There`s a good boy.
Seems strange that not Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea or Liverpool did not try their hand if thats the case. Probably most likely a whole load of bollox in the first place, regardless we either need to play A.Carroll or replace him, as a number 9 is THE most important player in this Liverpool team that creates but cannot finish.
I don't think you're a million miles off the top four, but what you do need is a system that will get the best out of all of your good players at once. Every time I've seen Liverpool for the last year it seems like your team aren't all on the same page. Like against West Brom you put some great crosses into the box with no decent header of the ball. Suarez looked like he was thinking "what the **** am I supposed to do with these?!". Ping, ping, both miles off target. Then when you have Carroll on the pitch you end up threading through balls and he falls over them. Adam plays the Hollywood pass...no one to receive it. I don't know if you need more players as much as you need to to work out what to do with the ones you have. If you look at the successful teams, Barca pass teams to death then Xavi plays the killer ball, Utd counter at pace with Valencia and Nani, Chelsea defend and organise well and nick goals on the break, Real have Ronaldo and Di Maria running onto Ozil's passes, City have Yaya, Silva and Aguero linking up through the middle. Liverpool almost seem to be trying to do all of this all the time, every game. Imo you need to focus on one or two reliable ways of using the right players the right way to score goals and win games and stick to them.
