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Liverpool Thread

Re: Liverpool Thread

Fletcher has captained Scotland and is turning out to be a very important player for us (probably our best midfielder this season). Brown is ours and probably England's first choice right back. O'Shea is a regular for Ireland and has over 50 CL appearances to his name as well as scoring important goals for us and filling in all over the pitch. Evan's has been playing international football for 3 years despite only just turning 21, played a vital role in the clean sheet record we set and will be our key centre back in the future.

Hardly 'decent' players. They'd walk into most other teams in the Premier League.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

I imagine the likes of O'Shea, Brown and Evans would be similar to Kieran Richardson in playing for the likes of Sunderland to be honest.

Playing international football for 3 years at 21 isn't such an achievement when the national team is Northern Ireland either (with all due respect to NI by the way). If you said that about an Italian or Spaniard then fair enough, he's worked through some great players but NI is hardly competitive when the squad consists of players from lower leagues.

Just my opinions but I do rate them all alonside Richardson in that they're hardly players who'll win leagues or have big clubs keeping an eye on them.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

How many other 21 year old's can play centre back for a team playing at the highest level and not look out of their depth? Not many. Most young centre backs are error prone and don't start looking comfortable til their mid to late twenties.

Maybe you're right about O'Shea (he's got a reputation for being worse than he is which doesn't help) but I disagree about Brown. Richardson didn't really have the right attitude to carry on playing for United I think which is one of the reason's we let him go to be honest and why he isn't playing for a bigger team.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

Brown is certainly nowhere near Richardson. Brown played the most games out of anyone in our squad last season and was a big contributor to our double. He had big performances against the likes of Barcelona as well.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

It's all very well saying Brown, Fletch and Oshea are "youth" players but they are 29, 27 and 25 with a minimum of 9+ years (fletch) at the club and are all still bit part players. The difference between them and the likes of Richardson, Warnock, etc is that they have enough patience/intelligence to know they won't do anything at other big clubs and by accepting their roles can win trophies at Manu. Brown is a 29 y.o. defender, it's not a big deal for him to be playing the majority of the season. He's in his prime!
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

Everyone's a bit part player at United cos of the size of the squad. O'Shea's played 45 games this season, and Fletcher 35. Brown's been injured so no point including him in that but Abou already pointed out he played more than anyone else last season.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

As a student of American politics, and an interviewee of David Frost, Mr. Ferguson will be aware of the killer line in the recent Frost/Nixon movie. Pressed on his role in Watergate, Richard Nixon utters his self-serving justification that reveals his megalomania: "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal."

Let's take that theory and apply it to modern English football. How do we know when a Premier League manager is acting with arrogance and contempt? When Ferguson says he is, of course. Or, when Ferguson spots an innocuous gesture from Rafael Benitez, whom he happens to despise, towards Sam Allardyce, who has proved his unwavering acolyte. That is Ferguson's Nixon principle: it is because I say it is. And how could we be so stupid as to argue with him?

In applying the Ferguson/Nixon principle on arrogant behaviour between managers, suddenly things become a lot clearer. For instance, there was no arrogance involved when Ferguson picked Paul Scholes for a Premier League game against Middlesbrough in September 2002, having first withdrawn him from Sven Goran Eriksson's England squad. It was by no means humiliating for Eriksson to be sat in the Old Trafford stand when this took place.

Anyway, Ferguson was never contemptuous of Eriksson, especially not when he mimicked his Swedish accent and stock answers in a magazine interview in 2003. "He sails along, nobody falls out with him," Ferguson said of Eriksson at the time. "He comes out and he says: 'The first half we were good, second half we were not so good. I am very pleased with the result.'"

Arrogant and contemptuous attitudes were right off the menu when Ferguson's players and staff were aggressive, hostile, abusive and provocative in a confrontation with Chelsea's groundsmen last April. That was not my description but that of the Football Association independent commission that found overwhelmingly in Chelsea's favour in December over that incident. Presumably the QC in question, Nicholas Stewart, had not applied the Ferguson/Nixon principle. What the hell was he thinking?

It is a talent peculiar to men like Ferguson, to see things exclusively their own way. When Ferguson described Benitez's "game over" gesture against Blackburn Rovers on Friday, he said it was "beyond the pale", as if the Liverpool manager had sneakily executed a Nazi salute in Sam Allardyce's direction. At most, Benitez just looked like a harassed supply teacher trying to restore order.

Remarkably, Ferguson claims that he spotted Benitez's gesture towards Allardyce himself, which must have taken a lot of rewinding and pausing of his Sky+ as he scrutinised Benitez's conduct for something that could be considered controversial. Not since Mary Whitehouse has the television age known someone so easily offended.

The more obvious explanation is that Allardyce told Ferguson about it, largely because Allardyce is a very enthusiastic disciple. Other managers such as Mark Hughes, Steve Bruce, Roy Keane – even yesterday's opponent, David Moyes – have sought to put some distance between themselves and Ferguson. They are well aware that however chummy, if Ferguson wants something – your best player for instance – then it will be business as usual.

Perhaps the most laughable aspect of Ferguson's justification for his attack on Benitez: that Allardyce was undeserving of it because of his sound work for the League Managers' Association, as if that organisation was – at that very moment – endeavouring to solve Africa's poverty and bring peace to the Middle East. Perhaps with Big Sam in the vanguard, uniting warring factions through lectures on ProZone stats and the necessity of having a club nutritionist.

The LMA doubtless does much good work, but membership of it does not alone necessarily confer righteousness. It has, like any professional organisation, its own self-interest. The great irony is that the serving England manager is given the honorary title of LMA president and when all the backslapping is done, that same LMA president has to fight against the LMA's leading members withdrawing their players for international friendlies.

It is not impossible to discern why a foreign manager such as Benitez feels an element of distrust towards the LMA, especially when it is used against him by Ferguson in arguments such as the one the United manager ignited on Friday. Ferguson may have a polite tradition of writing to every new young manager who joins the profession, but that avuncular style is not exclusive to him. In the only interview he has given since leaving Sunderland, Keane singled out Benitez as a manager who had been generous with his time.

Contempt, arrogance – these are every manager's stock in trade when the moment requires it. When Ferguson refused to shake the hand of Claude Puel after United's defeat to Lille in the Champions League in 2005, the French manager might well have regarded that as arrogant. Ferguson's dismissal of Manchester City this season – "still lingering in mid-table" – was not dissimilar to Benitez's "small club" jibe at Everton.

What Ferguson is attempting to do is to isolate Benitez because he clearly senses a hardening of feeling towards the Spaniard among his managerial cronies. It also suits him to do so as the season reaches its conclusion with Liverpool still very much in the running.

It is all the familiar mind games, the usual nonsense. But let's be clear about one thing: giving Big Sam a bit of stick does not make Benitez arrogant. Even if Ferguson proclaims it so.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...m-and-another-for-those-he-hates-1671361.html
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

looking forward to tomorrow. its nice to have vital league games at this time of the year.

RVP and Adebayor out, but to be honest, whoever they play, its one hell of a tricky game, and I don't expect Pompey to trouble United unless Crouchy plays a blinder.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

You'll win pretty easily, There back four is completely messed so expect Torres to have a field day. No RVP or Adebayor meaning Bendtner will be their main threat meaning there is no threat.

3-0 Torres to get 2 of them
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

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Re: Liverpool Thread

You lot are playing us at exactly the right time.

Fabianski will have the confidence of a........person with no confidence.

Our back four is suspect at the moment, with more than half of them injured.

Our first choice strike force is also out.

You have had a week off and its at Anfield!!

If you don't beat us you are numpties!!!
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

DagsJT said:
How's Arshavin been playing, Bobby?
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his been brillient but all you have to do is mark him out of the game and the rest is history. seriously if you dont beat us i will laugh real hard.

this is probably the easiest fixture you have till the end of the season
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

wow wow wow.

Erm, not sure what to think. I expected us to draw this game, and I think we can win all the rest. I think United will drop points, but weather it will be enough?

United still have to play City, Arsenal and Spurs/Middlesborough away (usually give em a good game)

Its still on, but we just made it more difficult.

best end to a season ever?
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

From now on all your games have to be 4-4 draws, and as entertaining to watch as that.

I dearly thought Arsenal had done the job for us, and yet you fight back yet again, so I've got massive respect for the fact you are constantly able to do a rescue job this season.

And now the pressure is all on us again, in a place where historically we fuck up. Pompey might be absolutely shite at the minute, but Jamo usually decides he's superhuman when he faces us.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

The fighting spirit is still there but your defence looks shaky ATM.

Lost count of the late goals you lot have scored but a draw was a fair result in the end.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

I think I'd have taken a point before the game so not overly disappointed in coming away with the draw in that sense.

Disappointed in the defence tonight, made some VERY silly schoolboy errors and Arshavin was awesome in punishing us for them. We need to learn how to defend when we attack with that much going forward, I don't think we've quite got that balance yet and the last Arsenal goal is a good example of that.

Can't see Utd not winning at Portsmouth but the rest of the games should be interesting for both teams. This is going to go to the wire I think but if we don't learn how to defend as well as attack, it might come back to haunt us conceding those silly goals.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

matherto said:
From now on all your games have to be 4-4 draws, and as entertaining to watch as that.

I dearly thought Arsenal had done the job for us, and yet you fight back yet again, so I've got massive respect for the fact you are constantly able to do a rescue job this season.

And now the pressure is all on us again, in a place where historically we fuck up. Pompey might be absolutely shite at the minute, but Jamo usually decides he's superhuman when he faces us.
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you're at home aren't you? Keep Crouch quiet and you'll be fine.

Pompey aren't the same Pompey, but they are fighting for survival still. I can't call it.
 
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Re: Liverpool Thread

Yeah I expect us to drop points against Middlesbrough, Arsenal (they'll probably beat us) and either City or Spurs but I'm not sure where that would leave us compared to you.

We've still got 7 league games plus 2 or 3 CL games to go, whereas you've only got the 5 in the league, so you're gonna be a hell of a lot fresher than us going into the run in. We've also got Hull on the last day who potentially may need a win to stay up and they've already proven this season they can score against us.

I still think you'll win the league and we'll end the season having won just the Carling Cup. On penalties.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

jesus christ man why are you so pessimistic? surely after that performance you must feel better about our games with arsenal and liverpools chances in the run in? no arshavin in the cl to bail them out, no defense or defensive awareness. im feeling pretty good about everything right about now.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

I've been caught out being hopeful and expectant before so don't wanna fall into that trap again, plus it'll make it all better if we do win them both :D
 
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