I have been thinking today about the serious possibility of David Silva joining Liverpool this summer. Many of you may think that I am barking up the wrong tree and that there is no way we can sign Silva. But look at it this way; Valencia for one are in financial trouble and need to sell their top players to get some cash. Their most prized assets would be David Villa and David Silva. They may sell one or sell both, but I certainly see one of them leaving this summer. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that it looks almost certain that Gareth Barry will be remaining at Aston Villa, where does that leave us? Firstly, there are still some reports this morning that the Barry deal is still on and Barry will sign in the next 24 hours! I have realised that you can not believe anything until you see the player at Melwood training. So for now I have accepted that Barry will not be joining us. This now means that Alonso is most likely going to be staying on. Good or bad? You can decide for yourself. Personally, I am a great fan of Alonso. Yes, the last two seasons he has not been that great but he still can do a decent job for us if he gets his act together.

On the other hand, in Barry not arriving, this could signal an opportunity for Lucas or Plessis to make the central midfield position their own. They are both very talented youngsters with a bright future. I would not mind seeing Lucas play more games. He was not named Brazil’s best player for nothing. He even showed glimpses of what he can do last season. I will not forget the Merseyside derby at Goodison when he came on and played a very good game. Read the rest of this entry »

I hope this run of draws in pre-season is not a sign on things to come when the real action starts on 16 August. Tonights result against Villarreal was Liverpool’s third draw in a row in pre-season. A bit worrying was that we failed to score but on the other hand we did not concede any. The night seemed to be more about debuts than anything else. Firstly, Liverpool were debuting the new grey kit which just brings back memories from 1990 when we wore a very similar looking kit sponsored by Candy. We were an awesome team then and I hope this grey kit brings us the success we had back then. Read the rest of this entry »

Can they make up their mind about this? I am sure I am not the only one who is not happy about this whole Gareth Barry saga. Just a few hours ago, we were led to believe that Villa and Liverpool have agreed a deal for Barry. But now, a statement on the Aston Villa website is saying, “This evening, Aston Villa can announce that Gareth Barry will be staying with the club following the interest from Liverpool over recent months. During discussions in the past few days, a final deadline to conclude this episode was set that all parties were aware of and agreed to. This deadline has now passed and so Gareth will remain with Villa.” Read the rest of this entry »

If you are to believe reports this afternoon, it is said that Liverpool and Aston Villa have agreed a 19m deal for Gareth Barry. Reports from The Insider state that Liverpool have agreed to pay 17.5m cash plus Steve Finnan to acquire Barry. This comes as a surprise to me as Rafa had made it clear that he would have to sell first before he can buy anymore players. If it is true that the Barry deal has been agreed, where has Rafa gotten the money from?

Maybe the club owners have decided to give Rafa some cash from their pockets but I seriously doubt that. I am sure if this deal has been struck, Liverpool will do all they can to sell Alonso inorder to recoup the cash they will spend on Barry. From a teams perspective, it makes sense to get Barry in as quickly as possible so he can start training with is new team mates. I am sure we will find a buyer for Alonso and even Pennant or Voronin. It will however not look great if we sign Barry and are not able to offload other players to finance the deal.

I just hope this news is true and we can look forward to having Barry in our midfield and taking over the number 6 jursey. Who knows, we may even see him play against Rangers on the weekend.

Tonight Liverpool take on Villarreal in a pre-season game in Spain. This will be the first pre-season game where Rafa will have a full compliment of players to choose from now that the Spanish contingent is back in training after winning the European Championship. Krisztian Nemeth is also back after playing for Hungary in the European Championships for Under 19’s.

Pepe Reina has however left the team in Spain and gone back to England to be with his wife who is expecting their second child. Depending on the events, the Liverpool goalkeeper may still rejoin his teammates and take part in tonights friendly, which has been organised as part of the deal which saw Reina leave Villarreal for Liverpool two years ago. It would be a shame if Reina misses out on a game which was meant for him. Read the rest of this entry »

Liverpool wonderkid, Krisztian Nemeth has turned down an offer to join Leeds on loan for this coming season. The 19 year old Hungarian striker has spent most of the summer with the Hungary Under 19 team competing in the European Championships but is now back at Melwood and ready to go for the upcoming season. For me it seems a 50/50 decision. It would have been great experience for Nemeth to be part of a team such as Leeds for an entire season and get some experience as a regular player. On the other hand, I believe Nemeth is a quality player and could just try force his way into Rafa’s first team. Read the rest of this entry »

I have come across very few managers in all my years of watching soccer who conduct themselves in interviews like Rafa does. I will not forget the interview he had when there were problems with the owners and he was just saying, “My job is to coach the team.” I think ever since that time, we have all wondered what next can Rafa say in his interviews.

I was listening to his interview today after the signing of Robbie Keane and yet again, he was not answering questions directly. You have to just love Rafa for the way he seems to dodge a question and come up with an answer no one was expecting. Pretty crafty I would say. Today he was asked, “The media is speculating that the Gareth Barry deal is dead. Is that true?” Rafa answered, “I think that today we need to enjoy being able to welcome Robbie Keane here. So we will try to enjoy today.” Then he was asked, “Is the Barry deal something that might happen?” Rafa’s response, “Keane is here and I am happy.”

You can not seem to get a straight answer out of Rafa!

That seems to be the order of operations over at White Hart Lane these days.

After reading the quotes from Daniel Levy about how the Keane deal “wasn’t a transfer deal” and that we had forced them to sell against their will lead me to a few thoughts:

1. Keep your finances in order - Let’s assume for a second you didn’t blow 16.5 million on Darren Bent and various other stinker deals. Now we’re looking at a team that doesn’t need to sell players to balance their books quite so desperately.
2. Get some results on the pitch - Instead of sacking your manager and buying worthless players, how about contemplating getting it together to push at least into the UEFA Cup via the Premeirship and not relying on a Carling Cup run. You’re telling me that with their squad last season they couldn’t achieve a better league place? What that tells me is that there weren’t enough players there interested in putting it all together over an extended period of time. Anyone can get lucky in a cup competition like the league cup, but real quality is shown in the league. (Burnley anyone?) Anyhow, the point is the fact that the Carling Cup isn’t the Champions League, it’s not even the FA Cup. There’s a reason none of the top sides put out a full strength squad for the majority of the competition.
3. Have some balls - If you’re that concerned about us forcing your players to our club, how about you try a novel approach and tell us no? If you don’t need the cash, tell us just where to take our 19 million and what to stick it in. The fact that he is our player and our moneybags are currently flooding into your bank accounts tells me that in fact you did want to sell the player. I’m not stupid, and neither are your supporters. Have you heard of Cristiano Ronaldo? I’m pretty sure you have, and where did he go this summer? Oh that’s right…… back to Old Trafford.

Anyhow I just found myself angered by the idiotic comments Tottenham have been spewing forth, and hope that Daniel Levy never wins another trophy. I don’t believe in behaving like a child, even if you do have millions of pounds floating about. Grow up and accept the fact that your running of the club has led you to sell your captain “against your will”.

It certainly wasn’t against your bottom line.

It may be a bit too early but we certainly need to come up with a song for our new signing. I am sure Robbie is going to bag a couple of goals for us and how great it would be to have a song for him belted around Anfield. It would be so easy to just go with the ‘There’s only one Keano’ song that was heard at Old Trafford during the Roy Keane days but there is no way we can sing the enemies song.

Please feel free to leave you suggestions. I have come across two potentials already: Read the rest of this entry »