Official Liverpool 06 - 07 Thread - The Official Pedant thread!

[new]

Originally Posted by movaado

I'd lay money that Carson can be recalled at short notice if injuries necessitate such a thing

As said above, Carson won't improve warming his rear on the subs bench

If its a season long loan & there is a re-call agreement he can only be recalled while a transfer window is open.

[movaado]

You sure? I can recall quite a few times when premier league clubs have recalled players loaned to championship clubs outside of the transfer window (such as Paul Gallagher last season going back to Blackburn in April after spending most of the season at Stoke). Or is this just between premierleague clubs?

[Guest 1554]

Great piece from the inimitable James Lawton in today's Irish Independent:

Handshakes or not, Liverpool's evolution is getting right under Mourinho's skin

It has been clear for some time that in style and good manners, and the refreshing capacity not to mistake even the most important football match for the outbreak of the Third World War, Rafa Benitez is a better man than Jose Mourinho. No doubt Mourinho could scarcely care less. Any man who has to ask, "Does it really matter if we shake hands?" - as he did at the weekend after a second successive refusal to extend the most basic of courtesies to the victorious Benitez - is not in danger of being weighed down by fresh charges that he is the worst of losers.

But here is a question that might just go under his skin as deeply as Benitez's lengthening list of Cup triumphs - and tactical tour de force - over the wealthiest club in football. It asks: does Mourinho take defeat by Liverpool so badly because it nags at an unspoken fear? Does he worry that Benitez is on his way to completing a body of work that will come to shine quite brilliantly beside his own increasingly laboured manipulation of infinitely greater resources?

It would be madness to attribute too much significance to Liverpool's win in the Community Shield, a curtain-raiser with a notorious reputation for falsifying the season's prospects, but then equally who could deny the possibility that at the very least it is was part of an unfolding pattern?

Benitez couldn't dream of acquiring players like Andrei Shevchenko and Michael Ballack this last close season, but he could, at a fraction of the price Mourinho paid for his two latest superstars, continue a reshaping, indeed a reclamation, of the team on which Gérard Houllier lavished so unavailingly more than £100m. He could tighten his defence, provide new width, draw from players like Craig Bellamy and Jermaine Pennant unseen levels of performance from outstanding but largely unrealised talent.

In two years Benitez has re-cast his team, won the Champions' League and the FA Cup - both at the expense of a Chelsea desperate to widen their aura beyond the trenches of the Premiership - and, now, at the dawn of a new season he has taken on a Chelsea of Shevchenko and Ballack, Lampard and Essien, Terry and Robben and drawn from Mourinho rather more than another unedifying display of gracelessness. He has, it is possible to suspect, provoked at least a small shiver of fear.

Benitez has suggested that maybe he has indeed found the measure of Mourinho's Chelsea and their stockpiling of the best available talent. Maybe he has noted that in Mourinho's coaching armoury there are many strengths - but not the most important one of all, the ability to mould a team over the years into a force of rising skill and confidence.

Yes, we know Mourinho exploited prodigiously the modest potential of Porto, led them to an unlikely Champions' League triumph. Yes, he powered Chelsea to their first Premiership title with a largely inherited team. But can we say that, with each megabuck signing, Mourinho's team have moved up a notch? Have their options increased? Have they exploited the width promised by the once luminous Arjen Robben, the scampering Shaun Wright-Phillips and the now departed Damien Duff? Has Michael Essien looked half the player for Chelsea he was for Ghana in the recent World Cup?

We also know that Mourinho's patron, Roman Abramovich, wants so much more than the merely efficient annexation of the domestic league. He was aghast at a second successive failure in the Champions' League, especially in the way of it. He winced as his hugely expensive team were not only beaten but outclassed, subjected to the game of a Barcelona that was made to look like a fantasy.

Abramovich wanted at least a little glamour for his money. So Shevchenko and Ballack came to Stamford Bridge, galacticos amid the infantrymen. Mourinho has to make it work; he has to provide new impetus, and genuine balance. With Ballack, Lampard and Essien all pure central midfielders, that last imperative will not be so easily met.

Meanwhile, the team of Mourinho's Cup-tie nemesis, Benitez, grows in confidence - and depth. Momo Sissoko was the man of the match at the Millennium Stadium, recalling the early, overwhelming days of Patrick Vieira at Arsenal. Sissoko has been groomed carefully by Benitez, who first signed the 21-year-old for Valencia.

There were times last season when Sissoko might have been christened "scissors-feet". His tackling was wild and when he had the ball it was more of a embarrassment than a prize, but his leg-span and his heart were enormous and Benitez insisted that soon enough he would be a major force in a new league in a new land.

There was more than a hint of this against Chelsea at the weekend. He will almost certainly never emulate Vieira in creative terms, but he has great potential to be a force of nature on the football field.

If it happens, it will be another indicator that Benitez has another gift of the best coaches, the power to teach. To be fair to Mourinho, there is no doubt Joe Cole, along with Lampard and Terry, has flourished under his command, but there is a point when a coach's motivational powers become less important than his knowledge of how to integrate individual talent properly.
This now is the huge challenge of Jose Mourinho. Mind games, however arrogantly conceived, are not likely to work too well with players of the authority of Shevchenko and Ballack. They have their contracts - and their reputations.

They have come to London to play in a coherent team, and if Shevchenko did benefit from one beautifully delivered pass by Lampard he will not have been overwhelmed by his experience in Cardiff. Liverpool had more balance, more unity, more ideas. They looked like a team who might just be about to leap forward. True to form, Benitez made no great claims for himself or his team. You couldn't project the course of a season on one charity game, he said. But you could see how hard Jose Mourinho took defeat and you could wonder, optimistically, about how many more times your hand would go unshaken.

[stu_69]

Originally Posted by Ronan

Great piece from the inimitable James Lawton in today's Irish Independent:
...snip

Too right. Maureen is a mouthy ********, Rafa is a coaching legend.

This season will be Chelsea's downfall and come May next year LFC will be standing on top of the pile

[LouBarlow]

Originally Posted by stu_69

Too right. Maureen is a mouthy ********, Rafa is a coaching legend.

This season will be Chelsea's downfall and come May next year LFC will be standing on top of the pile

Won the charity shield? Might as well crown you champs right now then

I think you'll find Mourinho is pretty much as successful a coach as Benitez too, and he didn't refuse to shake his hand either - according to reports Rafa blanked Jose' the classless *****!

[Deron]

Originally Posted by LouBarlow

Won the charity shield? Might as well crown you champs right now then

I think you'll find Mourinho is pretty much as successful a coach as Benitez too, and he didn't refuse to shake his hand either - according to reports Rafa blanked Jose' the classless *****!

Yeah right...Benitez who hasn't fallen out with any other managers or been involved in any slanging matches, and has just won a game...refuses to shake the hand of Mourinho...

Er...yeah that makes sense. What was he upset that his team only won by one goal...?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/4789899.stm

[TigaSefi]

I see LouBarlow still blinkered as ever. Everyone can see Liverpool have great rhythm this year in one match alone. When the fitness levels rise even further, the team could be devastingly awesome

[MartinC]

the fact Lou has to post in here means he is worried.

thats enough for me.

plus its lonely in the Chelsea thread. ahhh.

[Guest 48579]

I do hope you're not all building yourselves up for a spectacular fall.

Yes, it was a good result. yes, I hope it was us putting down a marker.

But lets not be too confident just yet, eh?

[saltysam]

i agree with *******-losing 5-0 in a friendly last week didn't mean we were going to be relegated so equally winning another friendly 2-1 doesn't mean we'll stroll the league the performance was encouraging,nothing wrong with being confident but let's not get ahead of ourselves

[AdamBrunt]

Originally Posted by LouBarlow

according to reports Rafa blanked Jose' the classless *****!

Erm, according to reports, Jose said "Rafa blanked Jose"

[Deron]

Not me...

Once Mourinho works out how to fit everyone in properly and all of his injured players are back, they'll be stronger than ever.

It's going to be a tighter league this season. Lots of team have made shrewed buys...

As it stands I'd say certain teams are slightly weaker than before, but 'if' Man U get a defensive midfielder and perhaps a work class striker, they'll be very strong.

I think Arsenal need a defensive midfielder too and a central midfielder. When Cole goes, I expect them to go shopping too.

Only thing I responded too was Lou calling Benitez a classless ******. Any neutral watching the two managers in their 2 years here would easily be able to spot who's got more class.

Poor Lou, you're normally better than that...didn't expect you to come clip clopping over Stamford Bridge like that...

[Hood]

Originally Posted by Deron

Only thing I responded too was Lou calling Benitez a classless ******.

Maybe it's just me but I think the made it quite clear he was joking.

[Deron]

I stopped at the and jumped on my proverbial high horse to dispense my righteous anger...

[Hood]

Originally Posted by Deron

I stopped at the and jumped on my proverbial high horse to dispense my righteous anger...

[hezzer]

Don't know if this has already been mentioned but just got the new home shirt for £31.49 from Sports Soccer. They are also taking pre orders for the yellow away for the same price.

[riz1]

Originally Posted by AdamBrunt

Erm, according to reports, Jose said "Rafa blanked Jose"

Have to admit, from the interviews both gave, I had also interpretted it this time as Rafa blanking Maureen

[john316]

Who cares?

[riz1]

quite the opposite - I was glad happened like this

[Pisces Iscariot]

One of the news programmes last night (Granada Reports?) said something about Rafa claiming that he didn't blank Jose but he didn't make an effort to go and shake Jose's hand after he was blanked in the FA Cup semi. He said he was willing to shake Jose's hand if Jose had made an approach.

It's all rather childinsh from both of them.