Most of the senior team players who were not involved in an internationals after the season ended, reported back to Melwood this morning already preparing for next season. The likes of Carragher, Finnan and Hyypia were amongst the players to return today. Other players such as Gerrard who played for their countries but not in Euro 2008 have been given an extra week off. The Spanish hero’s have been given three weeks off. They need it after a hard fought tournament.

Reports on the weekend in The News of the World suggest that Rafa may be after Tottenham’s Robbie Keane. The report suggests that Rafa will spend £20m and possibly add Crouch to the deal. When I first saw this report I laughed it off. Firstly £20m is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on Robbie Keane. At most Keane should be valued at £10m. Secondly, I can not see Keane wanting to leave Spurs. He is their captain after all and I wonder if he will be a regular starter if he comes to Liverpool?

The plan would be for Keane to play just behind Torres. It could work but I still would rather see Gerrard play in that role. The transfer ’silly season’ is really kicking in now as every player is being linked with a new club. You just do not know who to take seriously anymore. There were even suggestions that Ronaldhino and Eto’o will be coming to Liverpool next season!

Congratulations to Spain for winning Euro 2008. It was about time Spain won a major honour and I am glad that a Liverpool player fired them to victory. Torres has to be the best striker in Europe in my opinion. He may not have had the best of tournaments but he scored the all important goal and what a peach of a goal it was; it showed his strength, pace and killer instinct in front of goal. Read the rest of this entry »

Martin has decided to tell Liverpool:

£18 million or no deal.

Villa Park are now also implying that Gareth has been lying about not making their views clear to him. It certainly seems that these bridges are burned and he’s going to be on his way out. But will they go as low as 15 million quid, or will we be forced to turn our eyes elsewhere?

The saga continues….

Harry Redknapp has openly admitted his pursuit of both the usual Peter Crouch, but now also has added Yossi Benayoun to the mix.

It seems to me that the heightened pursuit of Benayoun may lead to his fee escalating to the point that we simply cannot turn it down. As I’ve posted before he’s a clever player, but not one who will crack the first team of a Premiership winning side in my personal opinion.

Stay or go, it should be win-win. Starting and starting for a lesser side or sticking with a larger club for the promise of silverware? Has to be a difficult decision and one I’m sure we all wish him the best with.

Well in the transfer story that won’t end, and no I’m not talking about the Portuguese Olympic diving team captain Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Barry has come out and had some rather scathing remarks about his current and longtime employers Aston Villa. His opinions of Martin O’Neill were no more positive.

His comments:

“Villa kept saying they wanted me to stay but I have not heard from the manager for weeks.”

“It’s seven weeks now since the season finished but while the gaffer’s found time to be a pundit for the BBC at Euro 2008, he hasn’t found the time to speak to me.

“Have Villa offered me anything to try to persuade me my future is at Villa Park, not Anfield? Not a thing.”

“There’s no going back, it’s time for me to move on. I’m desperate to play Champions League football and that’s why I have to leave Villa.”

It looks as though he has fired the shot we were probably waiting for all along. After the initial leak reports and MON exploding about it to the press, it has been fairly inevitable that we wouldn’t cave to Villa’s demands and this would get ugly. I certainly hope he makes his way over here after all this, as we have all but ripped their Gerrard straight from their arms.

The agent of Yossi has come out and said that even were the club to wish to sell his client, he would insist upon staying. Apparently he sees his future in a Red shirt, and who can blame him? He’s a clever player who brings something special at times against tired defenders. He’s also an excellent selection for our squad games in the League.

All in all, I stay good show to Yossi and wish him well this year.

Reports this morning suggest that Rafa is lining up a shock £10m deal for Middlesbrough’s Stewart Downing. When I read this article I was in shock. The first question that raced to my mind was, “Why Stewart Downing of all people?” Downing is not exactly the worst left winger in the game but he is not world class. He may be young, being only 23 so maybe he will mature as time goes on.

I am not too sure about Downing at Liverpool. I have seen him play on a couple of occasions for Middlesbrough and for England and he impressed me on one or two occasions. I feel Downing would just be another average player at Liverpool and thus we should not pursue signing him. On the other hand; maybe Rafa is planning ahead for the proposed 6/5 rule which states that there have to be 6 English players in the starting line up for a team.

Congratulations to Spain for making it through to the Euro 2008 final by beating Russia 3 - 0. I have just come from watching the game and I must say the first half was terrible. The rain did not help and I guess loosing David Villa to an injury did not help the Spanish. But then in the second half they started to play well and were fully deserving of their win. Looking closely at the game and paying a lot of attention to David Silva, I wondered to myself, is Silva really the kind of player we are looking for to add width to our team? Read the rest of this entry »

Liverpool Football Club today welcomes two new members to its ranks One to the first team, the other to the Academy/Reserves.

17-year-old Denmark wonderkid Nikola Saric made his move to Anfield offical today despite interest from other clubs such as Tottenham and Barcelona. Rafa made the trip to seal the deal personally on this occasion, and let’s hope for another gem out of that country.

Also today, Andrea Dossena’s £7 million move from Udinese was confirmed on the club’s official site by Rick Parry.

The Italian captured his first national appearance last term, and will contend with Aurelio at left back. I haven’t seen him much myself, but from what I’ve heard from those who have, he should provide us a decent option at this position.