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What are your thoughts on 4th place? Should surely be aiming as high as that now Dave? Possibly 3rd?

That's the thing you see. Liverpool are the catchable one of the four as things stand, so a defeat for them, coupled with a win for us against Fulham will put us in a very strong position.

The top three are probably out of reach but fourth is definitely up for grabs, not just for us but for Spurs and Villa too.

For once, the Premier League season looks to have excitement in it across the board with a degree of unpredictability about Champions League, Europa League and the relegation places.

Quote ="Saint Viper"A very good read about Mr Benitez tomkinstimes.com/2009/10/my-day- ... t-benitez/'" To be honest, I don't like reading a lot of Tomkins, or a lot of things in the media about Liverpool, simply because it's hard to find unbiased stuff. He raises some good points with regards to the signing of youngsters and so on, he also makes some very good points about negotiating fees. From what I understand, the sale of Xabi Alonso was the first sale where Rafa was actually fully involved in negotiations, setting the fee and raising/lowering the demands. To think Parry would have let him go to Arsenal/Juve for £13m is a frightening thought, to be honest. But yeah, Tomkins is a little biased for me, but he does his best to use facts to back up his arguments. I rarely read his stuff tbh.

Quote ="Saint Viper"A very good read about Mr Benitez tomkinstimes.com/2009/10/my-day- ... t-benitez/'" To be honest, I don't like reading a lot of Tomkins, or a lot of things in the media about Liverpool, simply because it's hard to find unbiased stuff. He raises some good points with regards to the signing of youngsters and so on, he also makes some very good points about negotiating fees. From what I understand, the sale of Xabi Alonso was the first sale where Rafa was actually fully involved in negotiations, setting the fee and raising/lowering the demands. To think Parry would have let him go to Arsenal/Juve for £13m is a frightening thought, to be honest. But yeah, Tomkins is a little biased for me, but he does his best to use facts to back up his arguments. I rarely read his stuff tbh.

LIverpool and United fans trying to take the pressure off with a

[i"you'll win" [/i

[i"no, you'll win"[/i conversation. Show some balls lads!!!

2-1 Liverpool. Lucas and an Owen og for us.

*That last sentence may contain some untruths.

Is that the liverpool based Tomkins who makes up transfer fees or a different one? Not being ty, just not sure.

The only way we'll win playing one upfront is if we scab a 1-0 towards the end. Can't see him starting Owen with Berbatov and Rooney is pretty much out, so a Liverpool side that is there for the taking will be encouraged by Utd's negativity. However, I'm pinning all my hopes on Owen coming of the bench to steal the above mentioned 1-0 win.

I think you are mistaking Liverpool for a team who can defend.

I can understand Liverpool fans doing it but this in an uncharacteristic show of non-arrogance from the rags.

If United play to anywhere near their potential, they will win. Even if Gerrard and Torres play, they will only be half fit and without those two, Liverpool are a medicore side.

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/8316379.stmRooney could miss Liverpool clash[/url

They didnt have the blonde girl last year and still beat us.

I dunno, he does talk a lot about transfer fees. Not sure how much of it is made up, though, he doesn't exactly have official sources, so he usually goes by the most popular figure in the rags, I think.

IIRC Gerrard got about 15 mins and his only contribution of note was to gift Ryan Giggs a free-kick from 20 yards out, probably United's best chance of scoring in the second half.

To the causal observer, a list of Liverpool’s troubles right now would probably begin with an unusually cruel injury list. Next would be their manager’s inability to purchase any useful players since Fernando Torres (some may argue the case of Johnson, but 18 million quid?), and then a close third would be Rafa’s failure to produce a single young player of note since he arrived (is Insua that really good?).

So no prizes for guessing what 10,000 Liverpool fans will be taking to the streets to whinge about on Sunday afternoon - the owners of course. “They haven’t built our new stadium” - although most fans want to stay at Anfield. “They don’t give Rafa enough money” - well they gave him £40m for Dossena, Keane, Babel and Riera so would you shell out any more in their position? “They must sell up now” - the Americans are trying their hardest to shift the club.

Still, why let a valid argument get in the way of a good afternoon’s whining up at Anfield? Walk on indeed…

Where'd you copy and paste that from?

You keep saying this failure to produce a single youngster, but we said the other day, Insua has come through under Rafa, there will be more within the next year or so IMO, as we have some exceptionally talented players who are either too young, or just lacking the experience.

But yeah, you don't half come up with some smack at times. Skrtel has been a quality buy, Riera has been decent and we'd make a profit off both if we sold them, furthermore, we have Aquilani to come in. Sure, the manager has made some pretty poor signings, but if you cared to look through that Tomkins article, you'd clearly see you can't blame the whole thing on the manager, before you jump to conclusions and put words in my mouth, Rafa has signed many poor players in his time here, as well as a fair amount of quality players which have transformed our club for the better, however, things like poor scouting and players not adapting to the country cannot be blamed on the manager. He watches videos given to him by his scouts of whatever player playing, then decides. Take Robbie Keane, for example, a player of massive experience in England, a player who seems to work with whatever striker he plays with, a player with an exceptional attitude and a decent enough scoring record for a player who isn't naturally a goalscorer, it seemed a no-brainer, but he just couldn't fit in at the club. As has been said, he didn't negotiate the fees, he even says in the article that he's been surprised by some of the fees payed when compared to original enquiries.

The Spoiler.
You'd call Aquilani useful? He's been injured and hasn't played a first team game yet


Apart from that you name Skrtel and Riera. If that's the best you've got you're in more trouble than you thought.

Skrtel
Riera
Benayoun
Mascherano (permanent)
Johnson

Just because he's been injured doesn't mean he's sh'it. Is Owen Hargreaves a sh'it player? What about Rosicky? Eduardo? Arjen Robben?

Anybody who's watched Roma when he's played will tell you he's an extremely talented player. At least wait for him to play before you throw him in the bracket with the garbage players.

I'd be interested to see who we've signed since Torres came, the bad ones I'd say are:

Babel
Degen
Dossena
Keane
Kyrgiakos (obviously will be poor)

he was trying to say Fergie had spent more than Rafa (net) a few years back, and made up loads of fees i.e including us paying £32 million for Tevez and many more were incorrect, massively biased mate.

Who said he was ? I didn't class him as a useful player because Benitez hasn't been able to use him at all. Calm down (no pun intended) and read the post. I remember us talking about Aquilani when he signed and I argued that he'd be too similar to Gerrard and that I thought Alonso was probably a better player. Anyone who can be compared to Gerrard and Alonso is anything but garbage.

He is biased. I haven't read the apparent article, so I don't really know what was said.

Well if a player isn't useful, what is he? I'd say the opposite of useful is useless. Useless, IMO, is another word for sh[ii[/it. I'm cool, I don't get worked up by forums, it just makes me cringe when I see lazy 'journalism'.

I think Aquilani will surprise everybody when he gets fit and into the groove of things, I hope he hits the ground running, but with him having no pre-season and having been out for the best part of what, 6 months? It's unlikely he'll come in at top form, however, I do believe he'll give us so much more than Lucas, even if he's half-cooked.

In your opinion, not mine.


For what he cost I think people will be more surprised if he doesn't play well when fit. Personally, I think he'll change your season and help get you into the top four.

Got to disagree with you there mate, Hargreaves has been useless over the past year for us. He is by no means sh[ii[/it, but he has been useless.