2BF FOOTBALL

Liverpool FC game faces for FIFA 13

2012-09-22T16:22:00.001+01:00

Reina

Kelly

Skrtl

Agger (pity no knuckle tattoo)

Johnson (Pictured just after a pass from Downing)

Gerrard (Souse Scowl is perfect)

Allen

Shelvey (LOL)

Sterling

Borini

Suarez

Suarez is the only officially scanned game face for some reason EA were supposed to scan both Liverpool and Spurs around the days of their game in Toronto but it would appear they dropped the ball on this one..

Overall he game is great though, very smooth and players now make the runs you always wish they made.

Feel free to add me on PSN: Kumack

PS. I'm really really bad.

2012-09-05T23:08:00.001+01:00

"The principles of your game are based on the players you have and there is no doubt I'll have a look at that and see if there is anyone I need to bring in to improve that."
Brendan Rodgers 6th of June 2012

For all the talk of honesty and integrity promised by Brendan Rodgers it would seem, his own ideology has changed since he made the statement above. There are few people that would disagree that Liverpool needed to bring in a few quality additions, another striker, a backup to Lucas, possibly a right sided attacker and a backup for Jose Enrique. That was it, that was all that was required, no major surgery, just a few quality additions to the squad that was already there replacing the spaces left by Maxi, Bellamy and Kuyt.

Soon after the comments made above something changed, someone at the club was briefing the media that they wanted to remove all the “English Shite” that had been brought in. And they did, or they have been trying.

Carroll gone on loan and potentially being sold for half of what was paid for him. Henderson bought for 16 million almost swapped for the value of 5-6 million. Charlie Adam may have been chauffeured to Melwood by Kenny Dalglish himself and signed for 6 million but was dispatched off to Stoke for 4m before he could even retweet someone that called their dog Charlie. That leaves Stewart Downing the 20 million pound man newly converted left back as the only English player left from last season’s signings.

Hardly basing the principals of your game around the players in your squad is it ?

Where improvement was promised, a fire sale and a wage cutting exercise prevailed. By commentating on where players didn't suit what now appears to be a very fixed template, every single player was devalued, not only that Jordan Henderson who most thought would be perfectly suited to a short passing shuffling style of play under Rodgers and who possesses a work rate most managers would dream of having in their team has, by the actions of an ineffectual incumbent on deadline day potentially destroyed any of his remaining confidence and reduced his will to fight for a manager that doesn't even see him in his plans. Why not offer Joe Cole and 4 million for Dempsey and pay half his wages? Surely that’s better than paying his full wages while he does a Darren Anderton and chills out on the treatment table.

Andy Carroll is a weapon that can be unleashed to strike fear into the majority of defenders in the league especially in Europe where there are few players that possess his attributes and against teams that have a more cultured playing style, ironically that is now Liverpool.

When Rodgers first came in everyone knew about the 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1systems he likes to use. Why then was Carroll not given the opportunity to act as a fulcrum for others to play off. One of the biggest issues Liverpool had last year was not getting enough players around Andy for his knock downs, which he was almost always guaranteed of winning, in a 4-3-3 system that extra player plus the added ability of having different options was never even given a chance to work. Instead Rodgers decided big Andy was never going to fit in his system rather than trying to create a system that got the best out of Andy Carroll. He may not be a 35m player but he could still become a 20-25 million player if used correctly and tactically gives defenders a whole different thing to worry about.

All I have been hearing after the first three games is that the style of play, pass and move etcetera etcetera will take time to work, why?

Is this not what they were doing quite successfully last year where, in the majority, they played teams off the park, only to concede on the break or by Liverpool being too stretched or missing the countless chances that were created and wasted or by hitting the woodwork more times in the entire history of football.(1992) Liverpool were unlucky, that was all, they needed no major surgery, just a couple of quality additions and a bit of luck. Instead the baby has not only been thrown out with the bathwater, the entire en suite has been ripped from its foundations and thrown Superman style into the sun.

If Liverpool are to rectify the errors that haven been made since the summer than it must try and do the following:

Talk up every player, in public at least..

Nothing can be achieved by telling the world how a player “knows where he stands within the group” Not only are they instantly being devalued, you are knocking any confidence they may still have and creating the perception in the public that they player can be gotten on the cheap. You never know, some of these “cover” players may surprise you and want to prove themselves as being capable.

Attempt to complete transfers quietly..

Apart from Assaidi, who has yet to kick a ball but was bought as quietly as anyone all summer, not one of Rogers targets this summer was a surprise. Each one was talked up, discussed and possibly even tapped up before a pen touched a contract. Not only did these mean their value increased, it also alerted other clubs to their availability. Sahin was almost lost to Wenger, and Spurs who probably don’t even have a scouting team or at least the need for one, just wait to see who Liverpool are after and swoop in at the death.

Bench Gerrard..

Now this may be drastic but he is clearly not the player he once was, nor will he ever be, but would you prefer to see a tired Gerrard trying to keep up with play in the last half an hour giving the ball away or would you prefer to see him coming on for the last 30 minutes to scare the pants off the opposition full of energy and verve giving everything he can to drag the team up to his level or even to kill games off when Liverpool are winning 1-0 using all his experience and ability. I know what I would rather, especially when Lucas comes back. Henderson and Shelvey are both decent replacements that would offer more in attack and defence from midfield anyway.

Play Borini through the middle..

Even my dead granny could see that Suarez although is world class and scorer of incredible goals is extremely wasteful. He takes more shots than anyone to score and this has been apparent from before he even joined Liverpool. Borini was brought in to help share the responsibility to score goals but he is not going to do that running to the right corner flag where he doesn't have the speed or skill to beat a man, unlike Suarez. If not do this why not rotate the front 3 every 30 mins and see what works best against each opposition, it will at least keep the centre backs guessing as to who to mark. Gerrard could also be tried through the middle, he can clearly finish and may relish the option with less defensive duties.

Back the manager..

There is no doubting that Rodgers is talented and potentially our best signing of the summer along with Joe Allen but the gamble he took in trying to force the hands of the owners on deadline day backfired spectacularly. By assuming the owners would have to sanction the deal for Dempsey by allowing Carroll to leave on loan for 1million (A month ago it was 3million and would have covered the shortfall) he believed the owners/ self appointed Director of Football John Henry would have to act, they didn't and not only that publicly laid the smack down to him in an open letter. They would not be held hostage, they would not deviate from their plan, a plan which was followed last year albeit at inflated prices and yet a year later players with potential have been removed like a crusty scab.

It is this plan that may cost Liverpool another year of Champions League football, but not only that, players like Suarez, Agger even Reina (if he ever gets back to form) all crave the larger stage, one that the plan may cost them in the short term at least. In the meantime the new top 6 all get that little bit stronger.

The embodiment of what FSG want Liverpool to become is Arsenal, a self-sustaining but continually unsuccessful club since they began the model Liverpool are now trying to copy. Surely something must be learnt where others have failed, mistakes can be made along the way as long as they are not repeated. Fans may see glad to see Carragher and Gerrard getting less playing time as their powers diminish but if FSG are at Liverpool for the long haul like they say they are then the days of stalwart players getting anywhere near the caps these two have will be lost forever. The self sustaining model that FSG crave and
apparently depend on would have seen these players sold off as soon as a decent price was reached, forget about home grown talent being brought up through the ranks of the club from the under 5's.

The one thing that is for certain is that time and patience that FSG had earned for saving Liverpool from administration is running out and faster that it should have, perhaps in January they might prove the doubters wrong. I for one hope so.

Golden Sky

2012-04-05T23:11:00.001+01:00

- Posted using BlogPress

Teeny Tiny Terry Pads

2012-03-21T18:58:00.000+00:00

I spotted these ridiculous shin pads during the Chelsea v Napoli game last week and after some googling and some fine copy and paste work check out what the future Chelsea Manager and Englands own three headed lion JT had to say about them himself from a few years ago...

JOHN TERRY has revealed his amazing list of superstitions behind Chelsea's success - and the night when he feared his luck had run out.

The Chelsea captain sticks to an incredible routine before every game - sitting in the same seat on the team bus, listening to the same CD and parking in the same spot in the car park.

And he has also worn the same lucky pair of shin-pads for the past ten years.

But Terry suffered a nightmare last season when he lost his shin-pads during Chelsea's Champions League first leg defeat in Barcelona.

He threw them to the side of the pitch after a bout of cramp and could not find them afterwards, despite getting everyone to scour the Nou Camp for them.

Just four days later he feared the worst when, without his lucky pads, Chelsea were 11 minutes from losing the Carling Cup final to Liverpool before they fought back to win in extra time.

Terry said: "Those shin-pads had got me to where I was in the game - and I'd lost them. I really felt terrible because they were a big part of my routine.

"Before the final I was having a go at the kitman even though it wasn't his fault. I was thinking: 'f***ing hell, I've had those shin-pads for so long and now this is it, all over.'

"Lampsy (Frank Lampard) gave me a pair of his and luckily we won, so they've stuck with me. Now they have become my lucky ones.

"But I am so superstitious. I've got to have the same seat on the bus, tie the tapes round my socks three times and cut my tubular grip for my shin-pads the same size every game.

"I drive to games listening to the same Usher CD in my car. It's good music to get me pumped up and relaxed at the same time.

Terry also insists on parking his car in the same space in Chelsea's underground car park at Stamford Bridge before every game - and had a scary experience before the second leg with Barcelona.

Terry said: "I always have to park my car in the same spot in the car park and when I drove in at lunchtime before the game, the space was taken and I was unsettled.

"Every hour I went back to the car park to see whether the space was taken and eventually I got one of the kitmen to move it. Two hours to move my car - he thought I was mad!

"I started off with a couple of superstitions and because we did so well, kept winning and winning, I ended up with about 50 of them. Then it was a case of remembering them for every game!"

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/john-terry-exclusive-superstitions-i-have-about-50-553632

Jim White Deadline Day

2012-01-31T23:18:00.001+00:00

The Original Inbetweener

2011-04-29T00:20:00.001+01:00

On the eve of another season defining game for Liverpool FC, a Suarez shaped cloud still sits begrudgingly over Anfield and how he has been missed. Liverpool are a very different team without Suarez as they are with Andy Carroll.

Out of the shadows though an unlikely figure has emerged. All shoulders and no neck, the snarling Welsh Wizard from Cardiff, Craig Douglas Bellamy has rode into town and while other new arrivals have so far failed to live up to their early season promise and price tags Craig Bellamy has already repaid the only thing Dalglish had to give for him, faith.

Ten clubs in 15 years, few footballers rarely get a second chance and even though Liverpool has had a few second comings over the years this one feels different, this is Bellamys heyday, his swansong to a great career one he will hopefully finish at his boyhood club, who at 6 years old feel in love with Liverpool FC after seeing a boy outside his home wearing the classic crown paints jersey made famous by a team who owned that era much like Barcelona own this one.

Like any good war veteran Bellamys body is not without it's scars, He began collecting them early and had numerous lengthy breaks during his time at Norwich (eleven months in 3 seasons) and Newcastle. It was during his time at Man City that he first met the man who would turn his twilight years into his most memorable. That man was Raymond Verheijen.

It was former Manchester City boss Mark Hughes turned to Verheijen at the start of the 2009-2010 season and Bellamy an early sceptic of his system, recorded a diary during his training in an effort to disprove the theory was in the end so impressed by the Dutchman that he now pays to work with him at his own expense.

"He wrote the diary to kill us with it afterwards," said Verheijen. "But after six weeks it was the first pre-season that he did not get injured in his career."

"In the past, I used to train at 100mph until I was exhausted," said Bellamy. "No wonder I always broke down halfway through the season. I always thought this was a logical consequence of my playing style and I even started training harder when I was not fit."

Nearly 40 years after Netherlands legends Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff unleashed Total Football on an unexpecting world, along comes a Dutchman espousing a new philosophy - periodisation. He has developed training methods which damage the body just a little bit in a responsible manner, after which the body recovers stronger.

Every one of the 4 football conditional qualities has its own specific training methods, with which a ‘overload’ stimulus can be given to the corresponding physiological process. When, subsequently, the indicated recovery time is taken, football conditional qualities will improve systematically. This in the end results in more and more explosive football actions during a match. The model is based on the laws and principles of conditioning.

If it is a concept that is unlikely to ever acquire Total Football's sexy cache, Verheijen believes periodisation - in essence a less is more approach to training - is important in allowing clubs to protect their key asset - players.

The 40-year-old Verheijen has an impressive pedigree. He worked with Guus Hiddink, Frank Rijkaard, Louis van Gaal and Dick Advocaat at three World Cups and three European Championships with Netherlands, Russia and Korea, as well as with the Korean national team at the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

Rijkaard also used Verheijen when he coached Barcelona, as did Hiddink when he managed Chelsea, while Advocaat used the fitness expert when he was in charge of Zenit St Petersburg.

"The objective of periodisation is to play every game with your best 11 players," Verheijen told BBC Sport during an hour-long interview, following a presentation at the UKSEM sports medicine conference.

"First of all because you want to win and secondly because the fans deserve to see the best players." The idea that you start every game with your best team sounds like common sense. But a look at the statistics shows that it does not always happen, even though it is estimated that up to 70% of Premier League clubs are using computer and medical analysis to measure player performance and fatigue levels.

He believes as many as 80% of injuries are preventable, arguing that fatigue due to overtraining is the cause. "World Cup players start the pre-season fit but fatigued," stated Verheijen, whose football career was cut short by a hip injury. "So there is no need for fitness training in pre-season as this results in even more fatigue and, eventually, injuries due to a loss of coordination and control.

"People make training so important that it is like survival of the fittest and at the end of the week when you have a game you see who is left and say OK we will play with these 11 players."

Verheijen, who has a Uefa A coaching licence, and was Gary Speeds number two at Wales and although heralded as the reason behind the teams upturn in form may soon find himself on the fringes if Chris Colemans comments about coaches walking around thinking they are managers does not bode well for Verheijen, Bellamy, and Wales.

He argues that too many fitness coaches are not from a football background and do not fully understand the sport and its relationship to training and preparation. "Coaches should take the games as a starting point and build training sessions around them so players can fully recover and start the next match fresh, they are afraid their team will not be fit enough for the start of the season. However, with this 'high injury-risk' training regime - subconsciously - they make fitness development more important than team development."

Periodisation has been around as nearly as long as Total Football.Developed by Russian researcher Leo Matveev, it is an approach designed to prevent overtraining and result in peak performance. Most clubs would claim that their fitness regimes are designed to achieve that aim, but Verheijen suspects it is not happening enough.

"If football is an intensity sport, then less is more and you have to focus on the quality of training instead of the quantity," stated Verheijen, whose bête noire is double-training sessions.

"Doing two sessions a day in pre-season...I really I don't understand, because all you are doing is exhausting your players," added Verheijen, who believes different types of players - young players who have just joined the first-team or experienced defenders - should each be following specialised training plans.

"By doing one session a day with maximum intensity, when you come to November and December your players will be much fitter and fresher than they are normally are with the traditional approach."

Both Bellamy and Carlos Tevez were vocal critics of City manager Roberto Mancini's insistence on weekly double training sessions last season. Although their reasons were probably very different.

Within 10 days of Mancini taking over from Hughes in December 2009, Joleon Lescott, Sylvinho, Roque Santa Cruz, Stephen Ireland, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Micah Richards and Nigel De Jong all picked up injuries.

"That was amateur stuff," said Verheijen.

"You take over a team that has the best statistics in the Premier League in terms of work rate - the most sprints - and you have the best injury record, based on a quality approach: one session a day, with maximum intensity that is no longer than 90 minutes.

"Then you take over and you start doing two sessions, each session two hours long, which is totally the opposite."

Verheijen, who has also studied exercise physiology and sport psychology as well as taking a one-year Science in Football course, is not without his critics. Craig Duncan, head of human performance at Sydney FC, argues a reduction in training is not always positive.

"A problem is that there needs to be more corrective work to decrease the risk of injury through faulty movement patterns," Duncan commented.

"Specific strength training also needs to be incorporated as does flexibility and I have also had positive results from yoga.

"This is all supplementary work to work completed on the pitch. Recovery strategies also need to be enhanced so we don't necessarily have to train less just train smarter."

Other critics of Verheijen argue that his almost injury-free record is distorted by primarily working with international teams and also as a consultant.

Verheijen admits it is more difficult being a consultant but still firmly believes his methods are better than those employed by most coaches.

"A lot of coaches treat all the players the same way, whatever their age, whatever their body composition, whatever their injury history, whatever their playing position - everybody is doing the same training," Verheijen said.

"The culture in football is you either train or you don't train and there is nothing in between."

Craig Bellamy is the inbetween.

Steve Evans: Football manager, convicted criminal.

2011-02-19T18:10:00.001+00:00

Crawley Town's are currently 1-0 down against Manchester United in the FA Cup. The competition is famous for the romance, magic and all that jazz.

There's a lot of people wanting Crawley to fail miserably though, apart from being sponsored by the Sun (#dontbuythesun) and basically buying their way out of the non leagues, which I have less of a problem with as that's how the beast of football works now, if it is to be achieved in the short term. I didn't really get it, till I read this:

http://www.twohundredpercent.net/?p=8698

At Broadfield Stadium last night, Crawley Town beat Bath City in the Blue Square Premier to move up to seventh place in the table after four matches. A crowd of 1,252 people turned out to watch it – hardly, one might think, a ringing endorsement of the “Project Promotion” that the club has put in place since new owners decided that money was no object in buying the club a place in the Football League.

Perhaps the people of Crawley aren’t quite as excited at the prospect of “Project Promotion” as those running the “project” might have hoped. Should they continue to win, the likelihood is that crowds will increase, but the wider reputation of Crawley Town remains low. There has been some degree of distaste at the way that the club has been throwing its money about, but even this has palled at the continuing involvement at Crawley Town of one of the biggest bête noires of modern football: Steve Evans.

Why, though, is Steve Evans so despised? It’s easy, from a distance, to assume that the ongoing antipathy towards Evans is an antipathy like any other. An abrasive “larger than life” character will always stir up negative emotions in the supporters of other clubs, but Evans seems to strike something baser – a raw nerve that provokes florid and colourful streams of abuse, something that makes others desperately hopeful to see him fail.

There may be an element of truth in this interpretation of the dislike of him, but it seems likely that much of the hatred of Steve Evans is based on something more tangible. Because Steve Evans is a convicted criminal, part of a scam that took a club from the middle ground of the non-league game into the Football League and, moreover, for many non-league supporters, he is also the man that, in spite of his criminal record, for many people, got away with it.

After an average playing career in his native Scotland that was cut short by a knee ligament injury at the age of twenty-eight, Evans briefly pitched up at Corby Town as chairman in 1994 before moving on to Stamford FC. After four years at Stamford, he was given a managerial leg-up when he accepted the managerial job at Boston United – a club frequently described at the time as “sleeping giants”, in non-league terms at least – in 1998. Two years later, they were promoted into the Football Conference as the champions of the Southern League, and after a further two years, following a neck and neck race against Dagenham & Redbridge, he took his club into the Football League on as slim a margin as goal difference. Both of these title wins, however, would come to be regarded as fundamentally tainted by the revelations that followed them.

Within weeks, the FA’s then-compliance officer, Graham Bean, had launched an investigation into the financial irregularites at Boston United, and, July of that year, the club was found guilty by an FA disciplinary committee of systematically lodging false contracts for players. The ploy was a simple one. Players signed contracts that were worth a fraction of the value of what they were being paid. In one case, Ken Charlery was recorded as being paid £120 per week when he was actually being paid £620 per week and had received a £16,000 signing on fee for the club, against which no tax had been paid. In another, the former Liverpool defender Mike Marsh was contracted as being paid £100 per week when he was actually earning £1,000 per week. The difference was paid through “expenses”, against which no tax was payable.

The club was fined £100,000 and docked four points for the following season, a decision that enraged Dagenham & Redbridge, who had missed out so narrowly on promotion to Evans’ club. More notable than this, though (at least from the point of view of this particular story), was the fact that Evans and the club’s owner at the time, Pat Malkinson, were both found guilty by the FA of having, “”facilitated a payment of £8,000 to a witness to attempt to mislead, impede and frustrate” the FA’s enquiry into the scam. Malkinson was fined £5,250 and suspended from football for thirteen months. Evans was fined £8,000 and suspended from football for twenty months.

Evans may have been banned from football, but he wasn’t out of work for long, taking a job working for a recruitment company owned by a Staffordshire businessman called Jon Sotnick. Sotnick (who went on to act as Chief Executive at Darlington and was linked with a take-over of Sheffield Wednesday in 2008) was persuaded to put money into Boston United and Evans returned as the Boston manager in February 2004. By this time, though, the mere bans of the FA were the least of Evans’ concerns. A criminal investigation had been launched into the goings-on at Boston, and in September 2005 he and four other people connected with Boston United (including former Boston chairman Pat Malkinson) were charged with – and denied – committing fraud at the club between 1998 and 2002.

Meanwhile, on the pitch, he was earning himself a reputation for the levels of abuse that he threw around when decisions didn’t go his way. In February 2006, for example, he was escorted from Grimsby Town’s Blundell Park by the police after verbally abusing the fourth official. After the match, Sotnick (by then the Boston chairman) claimed, with regard to the police’s involvement during the match, that, “There seems to be a conspiracy at work. At every game Steve seems to be singled out for extra attention from the police – and I’m determined to get the bottom of this”. Perhaps the choicest quote of all from Sotnick on the matter, however, was this, which needs no further comment:

Steve was thrown out of the ground with no money, no mobile phone and was left to fend for himself.

Sotnick resigned in June of 2006 to take over as the Chief Executive of Darlington, and sold his shares to director Jim Rodwell for a nominal sum. The trial of Steve Evans, Pat Malkinson, et al, meanwhile, reached trial at Southwark Court in September 2006. The court heard evidence regarding the contracts from Ken Charlery, and the total amount that had been creamed off by the club through fraudulently failing to pay tax and national insurance contributions on the wages of Boston’s players was confirmed at £245,188. While two of the other defendants were acquitted by the judge and one more had his case thrown out, though, Malkinson and Evans changed their pleas to guilty at the last minute. Malkinson was given a two year prison sentence, suspended for two years and ordered to pay back the money that the club owed in tax plus just over £100,000 in interest. Evans received a one year suspended sentence.

The one common thread of the summing up of Evans’ trial is how much sympathy many concerned seemed to have for him. His defence counsel, Jim Sturman QC, for example, stated that, “If your honour sends Steve Evans to prison today he will lose his job again. It has already cost him £140,000 in legal fees, fines from the FA and loss of income. I ask for tempering justice with mercy. Is it worth sending Steve Evans to overcrowded prisons? He is terrified of spending one day in prison… There has been the stress and anxiety over four years. He has not slept. His family have not slept. He is terrified”.

Diddums. To the fury of Boston supporters, who had seen the name of their club dragged through the mud by the whole affair, Jim Rodwell announced that, “I think Steven has been working under incredibly difficult circumstances and it’s been a struggle for him”, and kept him in his job.

Evans resigned his position as Boston’s manager in May 2007, shortly after a by then financially-crippled Boston United were relegated from the Football League after a last day of the season defeat at Wrexham. Boston were demoted straight into the Blue Square North in June 2007 and then demoted again into the Premier Division of the Northern Premier League a year later, but Evans landed on his feet. Two days after his resignation, he took up the managerial position at Blue Square Premier club Crawley Town. Crawley’s financial problems since then have been well documented (they were fighting off a winding up order from HMRC earlier this year), but they ended up under new ownership and the club paid off all of its debts at the start of this summer.

Since then, the club has been on a spending spree that is unprecedented in recent years. They have, to date, spent £330,000 on new players (without taking into consideration the burden on their wage budget) and have been looking at plenty of others as well. Their attempt to sign Wimbledon’s captain, Danny Kedwell, on the eve of the new season, however, was less successful, with Kedwell himself saying:

“Crawley are trying to buy everyone and I’m flattered but I’m captain of this club and hopefully next season we’ll be in the Football League instead of them.”

Boston United beat Bradford Park Avenue in the play-offs in May to secure promotion back into the Blue Square North. The legacy of Evans’ time as their manager is that they had fallen so far in the first place. Crawley Town supporters have had three years of Evans and do not need to be told about his past and they may well not give a damn about the moral aspect of Evans’ past if their team does manage to get promoted into the Football League at the end of this season, but the story of Steve Evans is a story that stands being told again as a reminder of chronic mismanagement and one of the most clear-cut examples of what has come to be known as “financial doping” imaginable.

Ultimately, whatever else Evans achieves in his career will be tarnished by his past and whichever club employs him will be tainted by his involvement with them. Promotion is one thing, but respect can’t neccessarily be bought.

Gattuso headbutt on Joe Jordan

2011-02-15T22:13:00.001+00:00

YouTube Video

Meow.

Stupid Banner owner revealed

2011-02-06T19:09:00.001+00:00

We seen their shit rug and banner complete with Shankly Gates here :-

Now it's possible owners have been revealed.

Zexy.

Dance Daddy Dance

2011-02-06T18:08:00.001+00:00

YouTube Video

This guy showed more movement than Torres today.

Breakable

2011-02-06T12:56:00.001+00:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Torres Who ?

2011-01-30T17:09:00.001+00:00

Has the Buck ($) just been stopped ?

2011-01-28T13:01:00.000+00:00

This morning saw the news that many Liverpool fans have been concerned about ever since Torres's first prolific season in the Premier League. His stock has fallen slightly over the last two but they were also ravaged by injury and a very poor World Cup although his team won.Since the arrival of FSG (NESV) we have heard of their love of all things Arsenal and we all know the basis of Arsene Wengers approach is to run the club as a business, don't spend to much and if you have to sell, sell big and at the right time.

Is this the right time to sell Fernando Torres ? For me the answer is no. We are a club short on confidence and as Kenny has said dozens of times in the past few weeks it is a time for this club to stick together. The sale of Torres to a club struggling just like Liverpool especially during the middle of the season could have a huge detrimental affect on all parties. He is the tip of our attacking arrow, and despite his poor form in recent months, much of it down to the serious lack of support he was receiving, he is beginning to look like the player we all fell in love with.

If FSG are here to get LFC back to the top then selling one of our best players to one of our major rivals will not exactly endear themselves to the Anfield faithful. Not only that Torres replica shirts outsell every other player in the world so from a marketing perspective it makes even less sense to sell him now without a big name player(s) to replace him. With the hopefully imminent arrival of Suarez lets hope this isn't another case of being another what might have been season. How different would LFC's season been had Kenny been installed as manager from the start. The £10 million spent on Konchesky and Poulson plus the £9 or so million spent to pay off Fulham for Roy and his staff and the further £3.5+ million spent on paying him off with his P45 all of which could have been spent on players at the start of the season to fill the gapping holes that are still present in the team with only a few days left in this transfer window.

If reports are to be believed and FT's head has been turned by Chelsea, whom he single handedly destroyed during his period of poor form, we must play hardball. If he wants to go, let him but we must get what we deserve and the players to replace him before he is sold. Having £50 million + to spend is a bad position to be in when we are trying to buy players at a decent price ourselves.

This has been one of the most testing seasons for Liverpool FC and for Fernando Torres in years but the supporters have stood with them, defending them both in the face of a biased media that would prefer LFC to just go away. We wont, and we never will. We are an entity one much greater than the sum of its parts, and one bigger than any player even Torres or Gerrard. Players have come and gone, thats football, the one positive thing a Liverpool supporter can take away from a player of Torres's kwality leaving Anfield is that the money we receive will not be going to service debt, it will be going to a man who has spent over a year travelling around England and Europe scouting the worlds top talents and we all know he has an eye for a player that up to LFC standard, something the previous manager certainly didn't.

Our style of play has improved dramatically under Kenny and Clarke, indeed the 31 pass goal against Wolves would be something Barcelona themselves would be proud of, it would seem we are finally on a train heading in the right direction, its up to Fernando Torres to say if he wants to stay on it or not. Whatever his decision is, it must be respected, thats who we are, that doesn't mean we have to like it..

Another side to this whole sorry story is that it could simply be an ultimatum and one that we have heard before from the Spanish Armada at LFC to ensure the owners put their hands in their pockets and buy players of the caliber Liverpool desperately needs, and the fans desire, if it isn't and its all about the money and a London address then he can take his dodgy knees and groin wherever the hell he wants ! ! !

Is Van The Man to make everything AA-Okay?

2011-01-08T04:15:00.001+00:00

He may look like a Dutch Steve Bruce and at 59 years old he's hardly the man many would have envisaged as a successor to Roy Hodgson at Liverpool but there are whisperings coming Germany that he may have already been approached about replacing Woeful Woy.

In his first season with Bayern they won the Champions League and in his second they walked away with the Bundesliga but were this time beaten in the finals of the Champions League by Jose's Inter Milan. There is also a very modern feel to their style of play and a look through the team reads like a checklist of fashionable tactical apparatus. They play with overlapping full-backs (particularly Philipp Lahm on the right); a centre-back capable of stepping up into midfield (Martín Demichelis); ‘inside-out’ wingers (Robben and Franck Ribéry); and multi-faceted forwards (Müller and Olić)

There is nothing magic or particularly flamboyant about the way Bayern play and the manner in which they dominate games and not even particularly entertaining. They are just supremely fit, hard-working and very difficult to beat. Typical Germans, you might say.

The following might also suggest that he is ready for a new challenge since his hopes of becoming the Dutch national team coach for Euro 2012 took a bashing by the success of Bert Van Mar wijk in South Africa.

From http://www.bundesligatalk.com/van-gaal-explains-germany-world-cup-exit-announces-national-team-desire/1234

Van Gaal also spoke about his desire to become a national team coach after his contract expires with Bayern Munich, which will not be some thing Die Roten fans want to hear after all the success he has been bringing to the club.

“My contract ends next year and I am not going to sign a new one before then. I won’t sign in the autumn or in the winter. I want to be a national team coach. I should really quit Bayern now because now is the time when national team coaches are being appointed. Therefore, maybe I will extend my con tract here by one year until 2012 and then take over a coun try (after Euro 2012). I am going to be at the next World Cup. I think so. I hope so.”

He also doesn't mind selling off star players, when last November he suggested that Bayern sell one of their biggest assets in Bastien Schweinsteiger.

Van Gaal backs Schweinsteiger sale
21 Nov 2010
German Bundesliga

Bayern Munich head coach Louis van Gaal has suggested that his club should cash in on midfield general Bastian Schweinsteiger, rather than trying to persuade the Germany international to sign a new contract.

The 26-year-old is out of contract at the end of next season and a host of top European clubs are believed to be tracking Schweinsteiger, including Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Chelsea.

That has prompted van Gaal to call for Bayern to follow the example of his former club Ajax and sell up.

He told the German media: "I think that Bayern Munich is a business and if it is true that 30 million euros have been offered for him, then you cannot just ignore that kind of money.

"I would do it differently - my clubs have always listened to what I have said and my clubs have always earned a lot of money."

His methods come straight from the school of Ajax and further philosophies can be seen in the following few images.

Extract from http://j.mp/

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It's all just a bit of history repeating

2011-01-06T01:15:00.001+00:00

Everything in football is cyclical. In a few years when we are toasting Leeds winning the European Cup, marvelling at their meteoric rise back to the precipice of footballing glory many might ask the question how long does it take? The answer it would seem is 13 years and two months as thats when Roy Hodgson last found himself in a similar position as he is tonight but will he do the honourable thing or repeat history and be as "arrogant" as he ways back then ?

On the 21st of November 1998 Blackburn Rovers owner gave him the chance to resign honourably, but he refused to do so, leaving the club with no option but to sack him: "To Blackburn's honour, Jack Walker wanted me to resign, he wanted to still pay for the rest of my contract. He said, 'Why don't you resign? You've had enough, it's not working out.' I refused to do that, arrogant of course as I was in those days. I thought if they stuck with me I'd save them from relegation. I do think that the players were very much still with me, so I couldn't resign because that would be a suggestion that in some way I was doing something or something was happening which I didn't see to be the case or the truth. I gave him no choice but to sack me.."

Roy Hodgson
December 1998

Saturday, November 21, 1998 Published at 19:26 GMT

Hodgson quits as Rovers hit bottom

Blackburn have struggled since winning the Premiership title in 1995

Blackburn Rovers 0 Southampton 2
Roy Hodgson has parted company with Blackburn Rovers after the club hit rock bottom following a humiliating defeat at the hands of relegation rivals Southampton.

Hodgson wrote in his regular Saturday newspaper column only hours before the game: "The way a manager behaves in times of crisis can often be the decisive factor in determining whether a team pulls through or slides deeper into trouble."

Rovers fans will hope his decision to quit will not be the decisive factor leading to their relegation.

Two wins this season

The club, who won the championship only three years ago, have won only two Premiership games this season. Roy Hodgson has thrown the towel in.
Ironically, Hodgson had been touted as the next England manager and angry Blackburn fans were mockingly chanting "Hodgson for England" towards the end of game.

Hodgson failed to appear at the post-match press conference, and instead, chief executive John Williams announced that he had left the club.

A club statement said: "Following the run of recent poor results, Jack Walker and Roy Hodgson have agreed that Roy will be leaving the club.

"The club are disappointed at this outcome but feel the decision is inevitable and in the best interests of Blackburn Rovers."

Few would have expected Hodgson's Ewood Park career to end in such circumstances after he joined in a blaze of glory from Inter Milan in June 1997.

The former Switzerland coach had a CV which was the envy of most coaches and he was one of the hottest managerial properties in Europe.

He enhanced his reputation in his first season by leading Rovers into Europe.

He was even contacted by the German FA when they were searching for a successor to Berti Vogts.

Spending spree

Since the end of last season he spent £20m on strengthening his side, but instead of challenging for the top, he found his team battling against relegation.

It is expected that Hodgson's assistant Tony Parkes will be asked to take up the managerial reigns again until a successor is found.

The side's captain,Tim Sherwood, felt Hodgson had paid the price for the poor sequence of results.

Sherwood, who had his rows with Hodgson this season, said: "We had no inclination that this was going to happen.

"I think it's harsh to put sole blame on Roy Hodgson, but at the end of the day, results speak louder than words, and we have not been getting them.

"You have to respect Jack Walker's decision because the buck stops with the manager. It's Jack's club and Jack's money, and as a player and captain of this club, I respect whatever decision he makes."

New Item from 1998

ROY HODGSON was sensationally sacked last night after Blackburn Rovers had been dumped on the bottom of the Premiership.

The pounds 1million-a-year boss has presided over a run in which Rovers have taken just five out of 33 points and owner Jack Walker had had enough.

The news was announced by chief executive John Williams who read from a prepared statement.

He said: "The manager will not be coming up to speak to the press.

Following a meeting between Geoff Walker and Roy Hodgson, it has been agreed he will be leaving.

"The club is disappointed but the decision was inevitable and in the best interests of Blackburn Rovers."

Hodgson did not make himself available after seeing the 2-0 defeat by Southampton, their fellow strugglers.

And after the shocking loss, Rovers were booed off the field.

Hodgson, who was just a year into a three-year deal worth pounds 3million, came with an illustrious reputation.

He was highly thought of as Switzerland's national boss and came direct from a spell with Inter Milan.

In his first season, Rovers looked as if they might emulate Kenny Dalglish's achievements and win the championship.

But since the New Year results have been poor and despite a huge financial outlay, Hodgson has failed to stem the slump.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Football%3A+Blackburn+sack+boss+Hodgson.-a060651472

"I thought I was doing quite a good job there."
Roy Hodgson, on being sacked as Blackburn's Manager
http://www.pedwards.co.uk/mouth.htm

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"Should you be working for the long-term good or trying to get an extra result or two for Roy Hodgson?"

2010-12-24T04:09:00.001+00:00

It's rare enough that you find someone with an ego large enough to refer to themselves in the third person but if anyone had doubt the strength of Roy's resolve you need not worry. No one can blame Hodgson for his massive gamble taking charge of one of the biggest clubs in the world, after all he has been trudging around Europe for more than half his life, being "reliable and consistent" and even filling in for his mate at Inter when was required, before that no one had ever heard of him.

The strange thing is even after all the poor football, poorer comments and piss poor player relations I still can't hate the guy. Somehow he has managed to talk his way out of trouble, unfortunately this is what Roy does best, talk. He rarely shakes off a question that can give him an opportunity to share some of the blame around, or call out under performing players who no doubt are already too aware of their lack of form. Recently we have seen a slight change in attitude towards Roy by some sections of the media and even some ex-players, only last week Tony Cascarino lambasted Roy Hodgson’s managerial reign at Anfield, suggesting the under-fire Liverpool boss is failing the club’s rich footballing traditions.

The former Republic of Ireland international claims the results under the ex-Fulham manager have not been good enough, but even more alarmingly for the club’s fans, are the manner in which these poor results have been achieved.

Cascarino told the Times: “Any Liverpool manager has a duty to play with a certain style: fluent, attractive, attacking, passing football.

“Roy Hodgson is not only failing with the results, he's failing in his duty to the club's traditions and to the fans, and that's a pretty serious combination. If you haven't got style, you at least need results.

“The goalless draw against Utrecht in the Europa League on Wednesday confirmed that Hodgson's cautious tactics and conservative attitude have permeated the whole squad: because he picked a second-string team and the football was as unambitious and unexciting as it is when the first XI take to the field.

He continued: “Nine away games, one win and six losses is dreadful. That's relegation form, and even if you could argue that Liverpool no longer have a squad good enough for the top four, they ought to be challenging for the top six.

“It's not a new problem for Hodgson. With Fulham his record was: 2008-09, three away league wins; 2009-10, one away league win. It has to be the manager's tactics.

“Hodgson has quickly turned Liverpool into a bigger-budget Fulham: they go out, away from home, not to lose. They should be going out to win.

“Imagine Manchester United or Arsenal playing such dull football, given their reputation and past success.

“It wouldn't be tolerated. Nor should it be at Anfield even if the club isn't the force it once was.

“That's no excuse for failing to entertain and failing to act like the big team Liverpool still are.

He added: “Hodgson remains inflexible, conservative, old-fashioned.”

Is the tide turning on Hodgson? Since the innocuous comment from John W Henry during the live phone in about how "unacceptable" away form has been some sections of the media are starting to open their eyes to the truth even if his old chums may continue to give him an easy ride and why wouldn't they, if there is a gift horse in football journalism it's Roy Hodgson.

It's no secret that Roy was taken unawares by the recruitment of Comolli and even though many fans are yet to be convinced by Comolli many more are happy that theres less chance we might see a few more players that are of similar standard to Poulson and the Konch. January could be career defining month for Hodgson and it will also show if he has the full support of Comolli and NESV by what sort of signings a made. If there isn't any it may show that NESV don't have full confidence in his ability although that may already be apparent with Comolli's appointment.

The Independant

I will not spend in January for the sake of it, says Hodgson

By Chris Brereton
http://bit.ly/gJsdgP

Roy Hodgson does not expect to be a busy man when the transfer window opens next month. The Liverpool manager has had discussions with Damien Comolli, the clubs' director of football strategy, about strengthening his squad – and there are funds available – but believes there is little value in any mid-season scramble for recruits.

Hodgson takes his side to Blackpool on Boxing Day – weather permitting – and does not expect the team he fields there to alter much over the coming weeks despite the temptation to try and spend his way out of trouble

"I could do that, but that begs the question of when you get a job like this at Liverpool, should you be working for the long-term good or trying to get an extra result or two for Roy Hodgson?" he said. "I'd like to think I am big enough and confident enough to take the long-term view even though it might work against me. I would be very disappointed if I went out in January and spent a lot of money on the wrong players and then, come the summer, we are no better off.

"All we would be doing is adding a few more players who we don't think are good enough to the roster. I can't guarantee it won't happen but it is not my intention."

Hodgson and Comolli are in constant discussions about who are the right people to try and bring in and Hodgson is confident that Liverpool's New England owners will fund his desired choices if the perfect match can be found.

"There's no doubt I and Damien Comolli are pushing the owners to back us if we come up with the right people and I think they probably will," he added. "We are targeting players who clubs don't want to let go even if we offer them good money. I think our supporters need to understand that and they will understand that."

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Where has it all gone so wrong ?

2010-12-20T11:04:00.001+00:00

As we approach what many see as the defining part of the season for any club I thought it would be therapeutic to share a few thoughts on what I feel is going wrong at Anfield.

Tactics

"What do you mean do my methods translate? They have translated from Halmstad to Malmo to Orebo to Neuchatel Xamax to the Swiss national team. So I find the question insulting. To suggest that, because I have moved from one club to another, that the methods which have stood me in good stead for 35 years and made me one of the most respected coaches in Europe don’t suddenly work, is very hard to believe. "

We've all read by now what's wrong with Roy Hodgson's tactics and how they have failed to work thus far at Liverpool depending on what you deem to be a good performance. For Roy that seems to be to contain the opposition and keep our shape until we get the ball back. In attack there seems to be two approaches used.

Starting at the back, Reina acting as a sweeper passes out to Lucas, he then passes to Raul who depending on his position, turns and plays it to the wings, or plays it back to Lucas and moves to create a gap for Lucas to play it through to one of the frontmen, more often then not it's into feet so they must either turn with the ball or lay it off for the other striker or one of the wingers.

Maxi who has flourished in this role in a number of games where he has been given space and time, Kuyt on the other hand has had a poor season thus far but this may be down to his two best traits, incredible energy and ability to close down the opposition being curtailed by Roys instructions to keep shape. If a guy like me can see this technique used it doesn't take a tactical genius to work how best to play against it and how to take key player out of the game.

Plan B seems to be a ball hoofed to the opposite channel to one of the strikers, held up or headed on to the strike partner and when this is usually 2 v 4 or 5 it can lead to very frustrating results. Torres playing as a target man now has to leave himself open to elbows, head butts and other dirty tactics as the opposition has been briefed to rough him up early as it seems to always affect his game. PR photos of happy players in training are appearing every few days in recent weeks even a very odd one of Roy shaking an obviously frustrated Torres's hand while both preserved icy facades. After all he didn't join Liverpool to dog it out mid table.

One interesting piece of information from the training photos is the grid lines painted on the pitch. Dividing the space this way ensures that each player has an allocated space that's theirs to fill, if needs require them to leave that space and enter another teammates area, they must fill in the space left behind by the player with the ball. Not only does this keep the shape of the team it also shares the space on the pitch between the outfield players, especially with the two banks of 4 in their own half while they don't have the ball.

This also reduces the amount of ground certain players have to cover namely the centre backs, which can only help players whose pace has long since left them and favours an older team compared to Rafa's whose required a high rotation of squad due to it high intensity pressing style of play, players find this style difficult to sustain in a season approaching 60 games. Roy's system is one that Carra enjoys as it's virtually identical to one employed by Gerrard Houllier, whose time at Anfield Carra has recently said he enjoyed the most.

Coaching

When Rafa left he took his fist team coach Mauricio Pellegrino, Goal keeping coach Xavi Valero and in came, drum roll please...

Mike Kelly

Born in 1942, Mike Kelly First Team Coach at Liverpool FC is 68 years old. A brief wiki of his career shows very little in the way of achievement and having travelled with Roy Hodgson on and off since the early 80's. This is actually his second stint at Anfield having previously worked there during Graeme Souness'stenuous reign as a freelance Goalkeeping coach 2-3 days a week and we know how that period at LFC ended.

From the LFC website -

Mike Kelly reunited with Roy Hodgson at Liverpool in the summer of 2010.

The first-team coach followed the boss from Fulham to Melwood to continue a long-standing working relationship and friendship that stretches back in excess of 40 years.

"I first crossed paths with Roy in the late 1960s," he recalls. "Roy comes from Croydon and he, his friend Bobby Houghton and myself were members of the Surrey Coaches Association. We'd meet once or twice a month and from there we became close friends."

After obtaining his coaching qualifications in 1965, Mike enjoyed a playing career that saw him represent Wimbledon, QPR and Birmingham, as well as a year-long spell in America with Minnesota Kicks.

It was during his stint at St Andrews that Kelly became a player/coach and he would later take up a managerial berth at Plymouth and assistant roles with Crystal Palace and West Brom.

Specialising in training goalkeepers, Mike worked with the England and Swiss national teams, as well as a whole multitude of domestic teams putting stoppers through their paces.

He was the Three Lions' custodian coach for two World Cups as well as Euro 96, while he worked alongside Hodgson for Switzerland at USA 94.

In 2007, Mike moved to Fulham in an assistant manager/first-team coach capacity after Hodgson was appointed as the Cottagers' boss - and the pair helped the Londoners enjoy some of the most successful seasons in their history.

"I'm like a golf bag - I've had more clubs than Jack Nicklaus," he chuckles.

"I got the coaching buzz early in my career when I was around 19/20 years of age. I qualified in 1965, so I was actually a qualified coach before I became a full-time professional with Wimbledon.

"The first time I worked with Roy was in the early 1980s later at Bristol City. After that he went to work in Scandinavia, then in 1990 he got the job as Switzerland boss and I worked alongside him.

"Because I have worked with him over a period of time, I know how he likes to operate. I understand how I can fit into my role without being a nuisance to him.

"It's the familiarity factor - I know the way he works, where I can step in and where I have to step out in order to help him.

"Roy likes to work with big groups and that is difficult for one coach to do as you've only got one pair of eyes, so it's always handy to have an aide.

"Sammy Lee is heavily involved as well and it's like a jigsaw - Roy does the bulk of it and then Sammy and I do our bits and between the three of us it is a good organisation."

Mike's summer switch to Liverpool is actually the second time he has worked for the Reds he was hired on a freelance basis by then-manager Graeme Souness in the early 1990s.

"I've worked at Liverpool before for nine months as a freelance goalkeeping coach under Graeme Souness for two or three days a week," he explains.

"I'd done some work with Graeme at Glasgow Rangers, and he invited me to come and work at Melwood with Bruce Grobbelaar, David James and Mike Hooper as they didn't have a goalkeeping coach at the time."

Having worked with so many of the game's top stoppers over the years, what qualities does Mike look for in a goalkeeper?

"The main characteristics I look for in a goalkeeper are good technique, eye-to-hand coordination, athleticism, strength and mobility," he reveals.

"Temperament is also important at a club like this. The stadium is packed out for every game, so you have got to have a strong mentality to handle that every time you play."

Despite having represented a whole host of clubs across Europe, Mike believes there is something unique about Liverpool and admits the chance to follow Hodgson to Merseyside left him thrilled.

He says: "It's a good feeling. This is a special club and when I worked here for Graeme you could sense that. To get the opportunity to work here at a high level is something some people will never get in their lives."

"On his return to England Kelly was appointed reserve team manager of Plymouth Argyle. When manager Tony Waiters resigned, Kelly took his place, himself resigning after nine months with the team seemingly heading for relegation. He went on to assistant manager roles at Fulham, Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion.

He was England goalkeeping coach from 1984 to 1990 and worked with the team in two World Cups, then performed a similar role with the Switzerland national football team until the 1994 World Cup. At club level he worked with many clubs in England and abroad, and in December 2007 he joined Fulham F.C. as goalkeeping coach and assistant manager under Roy Hodgson, with whom he had worked at club and national level."

An email has surfaced on LFC fan site Red and White Kop reportedly of an email from someone connected to the coaching staff. I'm sure many of you have seen it as this stage and I don't believe it to be true but here it is for you to make up your own mind.

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Sounds like civil war within the coaching staff.

• The flip-chart from the players meeting is 100% genuine – it wasn’t in a Newcastle hotel as it was here before they left.

• Someone who witnessed the meeting said it was the most amateurish team meeting they have been in ever.

• Kelly spent his time swearing and urging Kyriagos and Skrtel to ‘rough up’ Andy Carroll – the players are used to more detailed information such as which foot he favours etc. The swearing, as fackin this and fackin that, doesn’t go down well in a professional environment with the players

• Before the Blackpool game the scouts reports (the guys who go and watch the opposition) all outlined that if you stop Charlie Adam then you stop Blackpool – he needs time and space to dictate the play and he pulls the strings for the Blackpool front 3 – Roy basically ignored them and in the briefing meetings when he was advised to close down Adams he said ‘Why? My teams don’t do that’. He then went out with his regimented 4-4-2 and wondered why Blackpool out passed us and destroyed us in the final third of the pitch.

• Roy was presented with scouting reports of recent Newcastle performances in a meeting with scouts and Damian Commolli (oh and the swearing big, old, fat cockney Kelly). Roy actually commented that he had never seen reports with so much detail and specific information about each of the opposition players and how they played. But then said ‘But what do you want me to do with them?’

• The reports started off by highlighting how the Newcastle full backs play higher up the pitch and leave spaces in behind them to exploit. Roy said ‘so what’. It was suggested to him that the wide players may wish to get men and the ball in that area and look to get crosses in to the box – ‘We don’t play that way!’

• They showed how Newcastle launch attacks from the high up fullbacks aiming diagonal balls into Carroll. Roy was urged to get his wide men to push on the full backs and not allow them the time to get their arrowed balls into Carroll – We don’t play that way!’

• At this point Commolli quietly urged the scouts to leave it and not push it any further.

• Hodgson and Kelly have built up a serious and nasty hatred for Torres and Reina – it has all come one way but has now started to return from the Spaniards.

• Mike Kelly spends his time slating the players and doesn’t have a good word to say about any of them

Hodgson is feeling that he is not getting anywhere near the credit he should be 'for guiding this squad so easily through the Europa League'.

He has tactically took a group of young players and also rans and sailed through against full strength sides.

'Facking ell, facking ell - no one is giving me the credit I deserve for the European efforts'

He is also not happy that John Henry is in many discussions with Commolli and not Roy.

Big arguments between staff brought in by Hodgson and those already at the club about footballing philosophies.

Ex Fulham coach on the virtues of their methods and Liverpool coaches desperately trying to tell them 'but we are not Fulham'

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Psychology

In a game of football where so many different factors of chance come into play, it is impossible to know exactly what the outcome of a match will be. However there are certain boxes that must be ticked by a manager and the ethos he brings to a club. As we have seen during his time at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and now Real Madrid Josè Mourinho is a manager that can elevate players to levels few others ever reach. A man management style, psychology and winning mentality when coupled with an attention to detail to tactics and research he prowls around the touch line the ultimate alpha male oozing confidence and charisma few can match. Not only does this serve is ego but it also seems to fortify the team by drawing the attention away and creating an us against them mentality. For every Master there is an Apprentice and after 34 unbeaten games in all compitions with Porto, Andrea Villas-Boas seems to be exactly that.

"What seems to make Villas-Boas special is that he has many of the same attributes of Mourinho. He has an obsession for researching the opposition and started off producing scouting reports for then Porto boss Bobby Robson in the 1990s while still a teenager. Famously, while at Stamford Bridge, his scouting reports included personalised DVDs for each player, outlining their opposite number's strengths and weaknesses.

Villas-Boas has also shown himself to be a superb psychologist. The Dragoes coach has managed to convince, and sound sincere even to the sceptics, that everyone is special at Porto, allowing him to get the best out of both the established first-teamers and fringe players, such as summer signing James Rodriguez.

"Every player in the squad is an important player. They all have a place," said Villas-Boas last week. "I have praised both Andre Castro and Ukra (Andre Monteiro) publicly and privately. I don't want to lose them. James has incredible potential and I intend to make him realise it. He will have opportunities (in the Portuguese Cup and Europa League) against Juventude Evora and Sofia, which will be good opportunities for him and they won't be his last, that's for sure."

James responded to the public pat on the back with two outstanding games, scoring Porto's final goal in their 3-1 win over CSKA Sofia in the Europa League on Wednesday.

A 4-0 win over third division side Juventude de Evora in the Portuguese Cup on Saturday also set a club record of 34 unbeaten matches in all competitions, taking into account the end of last season. It consigned to history the previous best run, achieved when Mourinho was at the helm.

Ever since their 5-0 thrashing of current champions Benfica in November - after which Villas-Boas publicly tore apart the tactics of his opposite number Jorge Jesus and told him how and why Benfica had been beaten - talk has been rampant about the possibility of Porto going through the season undefeated, at least in the league."

Extract taken from Phil Minshull at the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/philminshull/2010/12/villas-boas_makes_porto_the_to.html

Compare this to Roy Hodgson's comments relating to his players-

Glen Johnson : "He's not performed -- very often at least -- to the level I'd expect of him" (Johnson) is the England right-back and, if he plays like that, one would expect him to come back in when he's fit. But then he'd have to play like the England right-back and up to now, to be quite frank, he's not performed - very often at least - to the level I'd expect of him. You would have to ask him 'do you think you're playing at top form and are you playing like the best right-back in the country for your club?' If he says yes, obviously we will have to agree to differ and if he says no, then you'd have to ask the question 'why not?

Johnson came back in his first came after injury and ran the show against West Ham from right back, scoring the first from a corner and after replied "I didn’t need to hear it from the boss to know that I hadn’t been playing at my best, I’m an honest man and I know how well I can play, so it was nice to get a goal today," he told ESPN.

After the apparent success of his mind games with the under performing Johnson worked he turn his attention to the other cockney rude boy Joe Cole to see if his magic could work again as he returned from injury. It didn't.

"He isn't a naturally confident character. He suffers when things are not going his way. Everyone at the club has worked hard to make sure he doesn't take it too hard and take too much on himself, because he's quite happy to take responsibility. Sometimes those players can take too much on themselves and push themselves even further down.

Then in response to the resounding criticism against him after the Newcastle game he turned on the remainder of the squad.

"Unless there is a major influx of cash into the club and the team is going to be changed from one moment to the next, then whoever takes my place will be doing a similar job with similar players.

Hardly a resounding endorsement of your team is it?

The quotable Roy Hodgson, six months in by Brian Kettle

http://www.thisisanfield.com/2010/12/the-quotable-roy-hodgson-six-months-in/

So where does that leave us. A recent article by Brian Reade (http://bit.ly/BrianReade) seems to suggest that there are good arguments against sacking Roy and getting someone else in. he believes Roy is the Ronnie Moran of our time simply a short term stop gap and that the owners need time to find there feet in a sport that they have zero knowledge of. I agree with that point but what he fails to mention in his article and as LFCPool has posted in the comments section summed up mine and so many others thoughts so succinctly I thought I would repost it here. ~

"Brian,

Good article and I can see your point about being careful. However, sacking Hodgson immediately would not be as destabilising as you claim.

Simply for the reason we have an immediate temporary replacement waiting in the wings - Dalglish. He wanted the job initially, and is ready to take over at a moment's notice.

Why would this be a good thing? For a number of reasons:

1. It would lift the spirits of the fans, and reunite the holy trinity (fans/manager/players) that is now broken.

2. He would not do a worse job than Roy, and even without a trophy or top 7 finish it would not be because we didn't try to play quality football.

3. Dalglish would know he was caretaker only, and the pressure would be off him completely. At present Roy is fighting for his job and reputation and that is leading to desperation.

4. The owners could then take their time, without going behind anyones back, to find the right man to come in next season. It could be done "in the open" and allow potential suitors to come forward without feeling they are stepping on the current manager.

5. The squabbling would end. Kenny will not come out and make noise about lack of funds, poor players, blaming Rafa, and all the other nonsense Roy is vociferating. Dalglish will know he simply needs to get on with it, make the most of it, and let the dust settle until the new manager takes over long term.

Brian, the positives of replacing Roy immediately easily outweigh the negatives. Many think that by doing so the owners are simply bending to the will of the fans. Well, so what if people think that? What matters is doing the right thing because it is right.

And it is obvious to anyone who has an interest in Liverpool, that Hodgson is simply the wrong man."

Enjoy the rest of Roy's famous Quotes, you may feel like furiously rubbing your face after.

So here it is in chronological order. Sit back and watch six months fly by:

4 July: "I like a high-tempo passing game"

All the things I’ve always liked are the things Liverpool were famous for in their heyday. Pass and move, always move it quickly and once you lose it get back in to position. That was the mantra which took Liverpool through their great years. I like a high-tempo passing game. I like players to work hard, I like players to get back in position. Those are my principles. I was influenced by the Liverpool team which dominated the 70s with all its great players and playing the football they played.

5 August: "Look into the mirror rather than look for excuses elsewhere" (On player complaints about squad quality)

As a player you have a chance to change things. If you don't think the team is doing as well as it should, as a player you can do something about it. If you are a big player, maybe you will. My attitude is that we want our big players because they will help the team to win. Now if they are not playing well and not helping the team to win, I will be advising them to look into the mirror rather than look for excuses elsewhere and blame the owners for not having spent £500m.

9 September: "Unbelievably overstaffed" (After beating West Brom)

We were unbelievably over-staffed when I came to the club and, if the truth be known, we still are over-staffed. It was just as big a job making sure some of the players who never feature for the first team move on and that we limit our squad to players who are either in the frame to play first-team football or who have a bright future who are still anxious to play academy and reserve team football.

9 September: "He's a good player and he's the right man for the job" (On Konchesky)

There aren't many quality left-backs around in the world, never mind in England - so to find an English one who can go straight into the team without any adjustment problems is a big advantage. He is a player I know, a player I have worked with and he knows the way we try to play and the things we try to do. That's another little advantage, but the main reason for bringing him here is because we think he's a good player and he's the right man for the job.

10 September: "We'll have ample quality to see us through" (see also 30 October)

I preferred to put my weight behind David Ngog and Ryan Babel, who's never really been given a proper chance at centre-forward at the club. We have Fernando Torres, we have good players who can play behind a lone striker. I'm hoping that between now and Christmas we'll have ample quality to see us through that period. And in the meantime we have chance to do thorough scouting so that if the money is available, we could look into the situation again. I will be using David Ngog and Ryan Babel in certain games to give Fernando Torres a rest and it's up to them to prove to me that there's no need to look further than them.

20 September: "It is very early for me to make very strong judgments about where his best position is" (On Meireles)

He had two training sessions and played on Thursday night and he played again on Sunday so it is very early for me to make very strong judgments about where his best position is. The work we do on the training field will show me how best to use him. He actually went out wide right late in the United game and did okay there also. All I can say is he has a lot of qualities and I'm sure we'll get a lot of use out of him.

23 September: "These players have to accept responsibility" (After the defeat to Northampton)

These players have to accept responsibility. I accept responsibility for changing a lot of players in the team, I did it because I honestly thought the players I put on the field were good enough to win the game and they weren't. The obvious conclusion to that was I shouldn't have changed that many players but we should have been strong enough to get a result. We must all take our responsibility. I am just bitterly disappointed that the team I had so much faith in did not repay that faith this evening with the exception of one or two performances.

24 September: "The protest does not help"

The protest does not help but it is something I have had to live with since I came to the club. I, like everyone else at Liverpool, would be very happy if the ownership situation was clarified and in particular if we got a very good owner that could help us move forward. It is a major issue for a group of people who are very much anti the owners and anti the current people who are trying to solve the situation. I knew the situation existed before I arrived and it doesn't help. But it is often the case that when things are conspiring against you there is always an extra thing to come in and make it that little bit worse.

25 September: “I didn't think it was necessary to say it" (On not responding to the Torres "diving" accusations, six days prior)

I didn't think it was necessary to say it because it was insulting people's intelligence. For me, it was one of Alex's inflammatory little digs to make his victory even sweeter and our defeat even harder and that's part of the game

3 October: "From Halmstad to Malmo to Orebo to Neuchatel Xamax..."

What do you mean do my methods translate? They have translated from Halmstad to Malmo to Orebo to Neuchatel Xamax to the Swiss national team. So I find the question insulting. To suggest that, because I have moved from one club to another, that the methods which have stood me in good stead for 35 years and made me one of the most respected coaches in Europe don’t suddenly work, is very hard to believe.

3 October: "I don't understand questions about Liverpool and Fulham players being different types"

I don't understand questions about Liverpool and Fulham players being different types. At the moment arguably one or two of the players that are suggested as being very different to the Fulham players maybe aren't playing any better than the Fulham players played. So maybe people should be having a look at that.

18 October: "As good as we have played all season" (After the woeful loss to Everton)

That was as good as we have played all season, and I have no qualms with the performance whatsoever. I only hope fair-minded people will see it the same way.

21 October: "We will cross that bridge when we come to it" (On rumours of Torres to Manchester United)

I think we will cross that bridge when we come to it. There will always be speculation. When a great player like Wayne Rooney is looking to leave his club, then you know Manchester United will be in a position to target a lot of players around the world. I don't think Fernando will be the only striker they target - and I don't think we will be the only club worried that their striker is in their sights. I am not naive enough to believe that there won't be any danger and we will never lose a player like Torres. I understand these things can happen. I don't believe we will lose him.

29 October: "It's all to do with how good your scouting and your eye is"

I think you can pay an awful lot of money for poor players and you can pay not very much money for very good ones – it is all to do with how good your scouting and your eye is. There are a lot of things here that the club has got to get right. We have got a lot more expensive failures on our list than good players that we have brought in for next to nothing. Free transfers don’t necessarily mean that you have got a bargain. My experience of them has been very mixed. You need to be sure that the player you get can do the job you want from him.

30 October: "They can't all be wrong and we aren't that stupid either"

A club like Liverpool shouldn't have to rely on non-specialists like Dirk Kuyt or Ryan Babel ‘doing a job’ up front when they are primarily wide players. ...The first thing people say when I walk down the street is ‘We need a front player’. They can't all be wrong and we aren't that stupid either.

30 October: "That's what he's good at" (On Dalglish)

He is doing a great job alongside us and we involve him in our scouting while he still works at The Academy and plays an ambassadorial role. That's what he's good at.

31 October: "A famous victory" (1-0 at Bolton)

Today was a famous victory because we hadn’t won more than once away in the whole of 2010. When you’re down the bottom, and keep being reminded you’re down the bottom, anxiety kicks in.

31 October: "He was here in name but not allowed to set foot in Melwood"

When they wanted me for the job, I made it clear to Kenny that he would be with me - not like with Benitez, when he was here in name but not allowed to set foot in Melwood and it was 'we don't want anything to do with you

12 November: "He's not that bad on the ball"

Unfortunately I can't do anything about the fans, but he's (Poulsen) had one or two games in front of our crowd where he's not played well and he knows he hasn't. He is devastated by that and the crowd, who aren't stupid, know he's not played well. It's a fact of life. He can only keep working hard and when he gets his chance he has to get on with his job. He had a job to do against Wigan and without his introduction, with a very tired Maxi Rodríguez and Dirk Kuyt, who knows we could even have lost the game. But he's got quality, he's a good defensive midfield player. He's not that bad on the ball, but let's not beat about the bush and try to disguise the fact – he's had a bad start.

13 November: "He's not performed -- very often at least -- to the level I'd expect of him"

(Johnson) is the England right-back and, if he plays like that, one would expect him to come back in when he's fit. But then he'd have to play like the England right-back and up to now, to be quite frank, he's not performed - very often at least - to the level I'd expect of him. You would have to ask him 'do you think you're playing at top form and are you playing like the best right-back in the country for your club?' If he says yes, obviously we will have to agree to differ and if he says no, then you'd have to ask the question 'why not?

14 November: "I didn't realise I had been accused of criticising him"

It amazes me that when you make a statement of such obvious veracity people want to make headlines out of it. Everyone is saying what I am saying. I hope I am honest and I hope the players are honest. I didn't realise I had been accused of criticising him; I don't normally criticise my players and I'm sorry if that has been suggested.

26 November: "We won't need to do too much in the January transfer window" (After beating West Ham)

I have a very clear picture now of what we should and need to be doing and the squad is stronger and getting stronger. It was probably stronger than I realised at certain stages in the early part of the season when we were losing games. Hopefully that will mean we won't need to do too much in the January transfer window

2 December: "He isn't a naturally confident character" (As Joe Cole returns from injury)

He isn't a naturally confident character. He suffers when things are not going his way. Everyone at the club has worked hard to make sure he doesn't take it too hard and take too much on himself, because he's quite happy to take responsibility. Sometimes those players can take too much on themselves and push themselves even further down.

9 December: "I don't know where the stories came from" (After Brukner said Gerrard could be fit, on 30 November)

I don't know where the stories came from that Gerrard would be fit for Newcastle. We have always been thinking he would be fit to face Fulham the following weekend, it would be much too early to consider him for Newcastle.

10 December: "He has been the first to recognise what a good job it was that we didn’t do these things" (On not letting Babel, Lucas et al leave)

Christian (Purslow) was here for two years and is a big fan with strong opinions about players. He fed me the information. I listened, of course, but made it clear I was not going to act on it. To be fair, when we’ve spoken or texted he has been the first to recognise what a good job it was that we didn’t do these things, because the boys have turned out well.

14 December: "Unless there is a major influx of cash into the club..." (After losing to Newcastle)

Unless there is a major influx of cash into the club and the team is going to be changed from one moment to the next, then whoever takes my place will be doing a similar job with similar players.

14 December: "I can't work harder and I can't work better"

The owners have made it perfectly clear they are in it for the long term. They realise it is going to take time. They realise we can't turn things round overnight and they also realise the team I am working with is not the team I put together. It [the speculation] doesn't bother me because I can't do more than I am doing. I can't work harder and I can't work better.

15 December: "A bunch of also-rans"

I don't know if I would have considered using Fernando had David Ngog been fit. But he isn't and, having had a chat with Fernando, I think he'll enjoy it. It's not as if he'll be playing with a bunch of also-rans. I'm not asking him to play in the reserves.

15 December: "They made me see sense"

I thought it would be a nice game for him (Torres) and a chance for him to get his confidence back. But I also had a talk to our fitness people and they made me see sense that it wasn't the wisest thing to do. And of course it would be very bad for us if he picked up an injury. The same applied to Pepe Reina. They made me see sense, I listened to the reason around me and I changed my mind.

What Liverpool Need..

2010-12-15T01:18:00.001+00:00

#465636
The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
Posts: 8146

posted 14-12-2010 00:10

What Liverpool need is a youngish manager, full of drive and energy, with a track record of domestic and european success. Someone who can rebuild the club from top to bottom. Overhaul the entire squad, kick out the bad apples, start from a new beginning. Be brave enough to make the big decisions, operate on a budget that is within the clubs means. Overhaul the club's youth system, and be brave enough to rebuild the squad around young players which will allow the club to concentrate their expenditure on a few key signings that improve the team, while keeping the cost of the squad as low as possible.

They need him to be a good man manager, to be able to throw an arm around a player who is struggling and act as a father figure, or be able to make the player fear for their physical safety if the situation arises, and be able to tell when it's appropriate to hug or punch a player.

They need him to be able to make the occasional signing that can completely transform a team, and they need him to make relatively few mistakes, yet be able to recover from them. They need him to be blindly devoted to the club, see it as an extension to himself, and be prepared to crush anyone and anything to achieve success for the club in an industry populated exclusively by shark-vulture chimeras.

Find a manager like that and I'm sure he could win the league within six or seven years. Now where could they find someone like that?

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A few moments later.....

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Holmgang

posted 14-12-2010 03:32

Quique Sánchez Flores checks all the boxes:

1. Fairly young (45)

2. Good European record with Atléti (and was knocked out by a very good Chelsea side in Quarterfinals of CL with Valencia)

3. Has followed Benitez into a new, so he knows what he'll find there

4. Decent-ish domestic record in Spain, and seems to know how to sacrifice league performance to win cups (could've won Copa del Rey vs. Sevilla, won the Taca da Liga with Benfica, won Supercup vs. Inter)

5. Is used to a hysterical press and a better club in the same city (meaning he won't panic if Liverpool don't beat Everton regularly).

6. Better-looking than pretty much anyone likely to manage LFC in the near future

Thanks to @kenearlys for the link.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Dein of a New Era at Anfield

2010-12-01T13:42:00.000+00:00

If reports linking David Dein to Liverpool are true then NESV may have just made a signing bigger than any other seen at Liverpool in recent history. Within days of Martin Broughton stepping down as chairman paving the way for Tom Werner to take up the vacant chairmans position, Liverpool are again batting their eyelashes at Arsenal and are being linked with ex arsenal alum David Dein.

It's no surprise really, NESV have made no secret of their admiration of everything Arsenal and if there is one man other than Arsene Wenger that can take some credit for the success of Arsenal then it has to be the man who selected him as manager.

Dein was behind the appointment of the then little known Arsène Wenger to the manager's job in 1996 following the dismissal of George Graham in February 1995 he tried to convince his fellow-board members to appoint Arsene Wenger as manager. They seemed reluctant to bring on board an unknown Frenchman managing in Japan and opted instead for Bruce Rioch. Who like Hodgson was seen by fans as an uninspiring choice.

Following the dismissal of Rioch a year later, Dein again suggested that Arsene Wenger should be appointed as manager. His efforts proved successful 2nd time round and Arsene Wenger was appointed manager of Arsenal in October 1996. It was David Dein who introduced Arsene Wenger to his fellow board members and convinced them to appoint him as manager. No one denies that without Dein, Wenger would never have been appointed manger. under Wenger Arsenal have won the FA Premier League three times and the FA Cup four times, and Dein strongly backed him and his transfer wishes throughout.

He was also influential in the transformation of Highbury into an all-seater stadium. Following the Hillsborough stadium disaster a report by Lord Justice Taylor called on all Premier League clubs to introduce all-seater stadiums. Dein was behind the introduction of a bond scheme to finance the redevlopment of Highbury's North Bank and Clock End terraces into all-seater stands.

David Dein’s legacy at Arsenal cannot be overstated. Alongside Arsene Wenger he has helped to transform the club both on and off the pitch. Today Arsenal is seen as an example of a leading club in world football and is admired around the world. David Dein has been instrumental in transforming Arsenal into what it is today and his success in recruiting Arsene Wenger as manager in September 1996 is enough to ensure his legacy in the history of Arsenal. Together they spent the next decade transforming the club and helping it join the elite clubs of European football.

Dein believed that English football was falling behind other European leagues and was not embracing a forward-looking plan to improve. He saw Arsene Wenger as the man to help push Arsenal forward embracing new methods to achieve this. Dein also believed that Arsene Wenger would change Arsenal's style of play which was seen as dogmatic and one-dimensional to one based on technique and speed more attuned with the approach adopted by teams from the continent. (*cough Barcelona cough*)

He was also instrumental in convincing some of the world’s biggest talents to join the club. In September 1991 he helped Arsenal sign Ian Wright from Crystal Palace for £2.5 million. In June 1995 Dein flew to Milan “and returned with the signature of, for the first time in Arsenal’s history, a true international superstar” Arsenal bought Dutch International Dennis Begkamp for £7.5 million from Internazionale.

Over the following years, Dein was also responsible for recruiting players such as Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit, Marc Overmars, Thierry Henry, Davor Sukur, Robert Pires, Sol Campbell, Gilberto, Gael Clichy Kolo Toure, Cesc Fabregas and Robin Van Persie. All were to contribute heavily to the success of Arsenal.

On 18 April 2007 it was revealed by Arsenal that he had left the club with immediate effect after "irreconcilable differences" between himself and the rest of the board. It is thought that he was in favour of a possible takeover of Arsenal by an external benefactor seeking to invest money into the club. Arsenal had invested heavily in the development of their new stadium which forced the club to take on heavy debts which meant the club was in need of new revenue. The other members of the board were said to have signed a contractual agreement that they would not sell their shares for a year, and they jointly expressed their intention to retain their shares in the longer term.

His departure from Arsenal was met with a strong reaction from key figures at the club. Arsene Wenger described David Dein’s departure “as a sad day for the club”. Following his departure, Wenger was believed to have asked Dein whether he wished him to resign from the post of manager in support for his friend. Dein told Wenger that he should not leave Arsenal as the club would suffer greatly from his loss as manager if he descided to leave.

Arsene Wenger stated "It is a huge disappointment because we worked very closely together, David has contributed highly to the success of the club in the last 10 years and even before that as well. Red and white are the colours of his heart."On another occasion said “David Dein is needed in football because this guy has revolutionised this club and also English football. He is top quality."

Former Arsenal hero and mouth, Ian Wright described David Dein’s departure:

"I know the players aren't happy. I know Thierry Henry's not happy. We're talking about a man who goes into the dressing room after every single game, shakes every player by the hand and who knows all the youth team players." and "I know this for a fact that the manager and the players are 100 per cent behind David Dein and I can see real repercussions coming off the back of this."

Thierry Henry claimed that David Dein's departure as vice-chairman had dismayed him and left him in no doubt that it was time to move on.

Dein was also one of the major architects of the formation of the Premier League in 1992, which would re-shape the structure and finances of English football. He was determined to help football's metamorphosis from struggling sport into a multi-million pound industry. "I felt football was really a sleeping giant and had a long way to go," He also showed his admiration at how American sporting empires were shaped for success. "After seeing how the Americans operated their sport, particularly American football and baseball and basketball, I felt we were light years behind. "We had so much more to give as an attraction."

Since his departure from Arsenal David Dein has continued to remain active on the football scene. He attends all of Arsenal’s home matches and is present at most international tournaments as a guest of UEFA and FIFA. He continues to provide his views on the future of football around the world be it in media interviews or at conferences and many public speaking engagements. Topics that he has addressed include foreign-ownership of clubs, club finances and levels of debt within the game, goal-line technology (of which he’s a strong advocate), youth development and the development of women's football.

Dein has had a number of beefs most notably with Chelsea. He complained about Chelsea "tapping up" Ashley Cole, which resulted in Cole, Chelsea and José Mourinho all being fined by the FA. José had already questioned Deins dual positions in the FA while also at Arsenal. He was later accused of making a "covert" approach for Gilberto Silva that was similar to Chelsea's approach for Cole, while Gilberto was at Atlético Mineiro. Dein denied this, saying he had made his approach known to Atlético; the president of Mineiro, Alexandre Kall, confirmed Dein's account and said that Arsenal had complied with all the rules.

In 2006, during the search for a new England manager to replace Eriksson, Bolton Wanderers manager Sam Allardyce questioned Dein's role in the FA, saying: "I don't know how much power David Dein has but he obviously has a great influence at the FA", and alleged that Dein had shielded Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger from the selection process.

Within the football world, Dein is also renowned for his lively sense of humour. In February 2010 Dein was appointed International President of 2018 World Cup bid. At a recent presentation to key football administrators in which he was given just 12 minutes to make the case for the bid, Dein joked that "the last time I did it in 12 minutes i was 18 years old".

Dein lives in Totteridge . He's been married to his wife Barbara for 38 years, has three children and is the grandfather to 4 grandchildren.

David Dein's son, Darren, is a solicitor, and was Thierry Henry's best man.

VavaVoom.

YOUR CLUB NEEDS YOU !

2010-11-25T12:30:00.007+00:00

John W. Henry is a very clever man. When I was still suckling in 1981 JW Henry was establishing his own company and within 10 years had two offices and one of largest commodity brokerage firms in America and was /is considered an extremely gifted commodities futures trader.

The firm's management methods are in making mechanical, non-discretionary trading decisions in response to systematic determinations of reversals in each market's direction, with the explicit intention of precluding not only human emotion, but also any subjective evaluation of such things as the so-called fundamentals, to trigger each decision to be long or short each market, or not.

It seems the man likes to take a gamble with high stakes and has a track record of winning since you don't get to spend 300 million on one of highest investment risks in business otherwise. Pretty canny if you ask me. A club with a global fan base and annual profits of around £40 million a year was a snip at £300 million not only that it can afford to pay you a tidy salary that makes up only a percentage of your annual income.

You may have only heard the names NESV is paired with, Red Sox and its ground Fenway Park, and various properties surrounding the stadium, Henry's Fenway Sports Group bought a 50% stake in the Jack Roush's Roush Fenway Racing stock car racing team it also owns 80% of New England Sports Network (think LFCTV with loads more money behind it) and Fenway Sports Group, a sports marketing and management firm, one that will no doubt be able to make NESV an even prettier penny.

Since arriving at the club JWH has made huge strides in repairing the damage and mistrust felt by supporters about the previous shambolic regime. He has met with supporter unions, council chiefs, management, players and one person in particular, Paul Tomkins. Critically acclaimed, Tomkins is hailed by Liverpool fans as one of the most established and talented writers outside of the national media. Pauls website Tomkins Times and the pieces he writes, as well as ones from contributors provides the reader with analytical observations backed up with cold hard data that mainstream media are either too afraid or not capable of attempting.

With his followers on twitter and subscribers to the site growing by the hour. Not to mention his new book "Pay as you Play" receiving critical acclaim Tomkins has a credibility that few would argue with, even fewer would even try as opinions based on facts are very difficult to disparage. Who better then JWH, a man who has built up a multibillion dollar empire using the philosophy " with the explicit intention of precluding not only human emotion", to have a man like Tomkins at his disposal, a fan who above all else wants Liverpool FC to be the greatest.

All of these steps contain one very important facet, one which the previous owners failed to realise and one which is central to any club being a success. Acceptance. If LFC are to move forward and reap the rewards financially and the awards its long suffering fan base wish for so dearly, NESV need the backing of the fan base. No longer does this mean the red half of Liverpool and a large contingent of Irish supporters born during the LFC heyday, Liverpool FC is a global brand with an ever increasing fan base, thanks to generations of emigration and the weekly television soap opera that the EPL has become JWH holds the keys to a billion dollar ATM machine.

This depends on one thing, keeping the supporters on his side and to do this he has to contend with a number of issues :

The Manager

The start of Roy Hodgson's tenure at LFC has been difficult viewing for everyone. His style of 9 men behind the ball and two up top is one supporters are used to seeing being used by the opposition not by a team that once prided itself on attractive attacking "pass and move" football. Roy's near omnipresence in the media has made supporters groan on an almost daily basis and it seems Roy, who has already said he's beginning to feel like a superstar with his amount of media presence since coming to Liverpool enjoys the limelight and the sound of his own voice since he tends to use 400 words to reply to a question hardly worth 40.

The Spanish Armada

In a year where Spain has become one of the few teams to hold both the World Cup and the Euro's at the same time few could argue that when it comes to football right now Spain is where it's at. The style, skill and grace that can be seen in the Spanish national team and by the majority of teams in La Liga has to be admired. So why now does a club that contains some of the hottest young Spanish talent available (Suso, Pacheco, Ayala all brought in by Benitez who convinced them not to join some of the biggest teams in Spain) Pacheco a mercurial talent has already climbed through the ranks at Anfield and now finds himself on the periphery due to Roy's bullyboy tactics and his wish to punish the players involved in the Northampton defeat, even though Pacheco arguably brings as much to the table as Joe Cole but has the pace JC has lost and an ability to tackle rather than standing bent over in front of an opposing player (watch JC in the next game, he loves the feeling of his knees so much he has to keep touching them with his hands..)

So why did the board of LFC feel the need after one relatively poor season to return to a more English style, and have the feeling that the club needs to take its heritage back, which was put into words by Jaime Carragher last season, which also begs the question, how do one or two players find themselves in a position to dictate what direction the club should be taking ? Then again that's now a Frenchman's job.

The Moolah

As the January transfer window approaches the some media outlets and certain gullible fans believe that NESV are going to splash the cash, unfortunately for some the days of signing players worth £20-30m are over. J.W Henry has already outlined his admiration of Arsenal and the system of buying stars of the future for a competitive price, getting their best years and selling them at their peak or hopefully right after for a decent profit. This is how most financially viable clubs on the continent sustain a decent cash flow into their books and gives them the reputation of blooding stars of the future, which in turn can only help them capture more talented young players that have other options. (Comolli has also said this is where he see's Kenny Dalglish playing a role in bringing talented youngsters to the club)

The downside to this is that we may never see the likes of the talismanic Steven Gerrard grace Anfield for an entire career as it makes very little commercial sense, unless their marketing value through shirt sales and sponsorship outweighs the cost of keeping them at the club. Had NESV been at the club a few years ago there would be a very good chance we would be seeing Stevie G lead Chelsea out at Stamford Bridge for the last few seasons before being sold to Real Madrid. A system of selling established stars may be disliked by the fans initially, however it could be a useful tool in nipping the growing player power at the bud.

The Media

It doesn't take a genius to see that Roy Hodgson is a reporters wet dream. He gives them what they need most, Content. Roy has a willingness to entertain every question with an long exhaustive retort as long as it's not a negative question aimed squarely at him, when it is his responses are mono syllabic and prickly at best. The time and patience being shown to Roy by the media is astounding considering the performances and results being so poor are only highlighted when you see the media reaction to Roberto Mancini and Man City even though they sit in the top four have four away wins only matched by Arsenal and have shown some great 90 min performances compared to the odd decent 45 min Liverpool have managed to muster. It is this reason that JW Henry et al must be careful about their decision on Roy's future. Any sacking to an English manager especially one that fortunate enough to find himself at one the world's biggest clubs and one who has many old pals in the media could be a can of worms NESV are not willing to open, yet.

You never hear Defend Defend Defend going into battle do you?

2010-11-12T17:15:00.006+00:00

Since NESV are embracing the systems that work(?) in NFL & MLB "building a team" and with the arrival of a "Football Strategist" Camolli, the plank Roy was walking on seems to have been replaced by one cut from a giant redwood sadly.

We know Roy works on shape, where to be when we don't have the ball and what to do when the opposition are in certain positions in the pitch, that's fine if that's his thing, but we are so disappointing when we go forward, and the lack of goals or even chances has been soul destroying.

It looks like Roy isn't going anywhere anytime soon. As the song goes a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Dr. Roy gets to do his dull thing of positioning and defence, and bring in Willie Wonka, an exciting attacking coach, one that details weaknesses in opposition and has new ideas with regard to positive attacking football when we have possession.

Obviously in the NFL there are different players on the pitch depending on who has the ball but why not try it in football? Roy gets the back 4 plus midfield setup while we don't have it.

Mr Wonka gets midfield, wing backs and strikers. Not only would it take more power from Roy (sadly give him even more excuses) it would also give Torres who I imagine doesn't enjoy the unrelating defensive positional training he currently has to endure a better outlet to improve and gain similar knowledge about weaknesses in his opponents that he had gotten so use to under Rafa.

The fact that Reina is being taught methods from the 60's is an absolute joke, you only have to look at the England team to see how few good keepers come up to the highest level in England and that's purely down to coaching techniques.

Is it surprising he would want to leave if he feels that staying is having a detrimental affect on his career (getting into the Spanish first team) and his goalkeeping abilities.

As John W. Henry has already said "Any unhappy players can leave" may set up a mini exodus next summer since its doubtful any world class players would want to hang around battling for Europa Cup qualification and a mid table finish, would you?

Will he be the future Captain that we had all envisaged or the sports car we had to trade in to buy a family wagon and a mid table position.. Depressingly it's all in Roy's hands.

For now..

I have notes of everything, every single season, every single day. What I did this, or how I changed my approach to a player. One hundred per cent, I am analysing and I am always talking to my staff."

2010-11-10T18:47:00.002+00:00

Dion Fanning author of the piece below talks about his meeting with Rafa with The Off the Ball team on Newstalk106. Its paints a pretty clear picture thats for sure. If we didn't already know how massive player power has become in the game and just how much fan favorites Jaime Carragher and Captain Fantastic were in the ousting of a world class manager to one stuggling to find his own class off the pitch and get his team to show some on it.

Luckily for Liverpool fans (myself included) we are seeing a number of players stepping up to the mark and salvaging games, against what has to said and I'm including Chelsea in this, have been pretty poorly performing teams.

It seems Liverpool now have the ability to make the opposition play even worse then they are. Goals are being scored finally but mostly from individual flashes of excellence or sheer determination rather than bone cutting incisive football that had been fortunate to witness at Anfield in recent years once the A-Team was fit and up for the game. Unfortunately for Rafa neither seemed to occur simultaneously during the last 9 months of his Liverpool reign.

The audio scratches the surface, but do yourself a favour and read the article attached below, if you haven't read it already.

Thanks to @kenearlys from The Off the Ball team for the audio. Download the daily podcast and thank me later.

Dion on Rafa

Sunday October 03 2010

'Football is a lie.' Anybody who has spent any time with Rafael Benitez will have heard these words. There are a million lies in football, a hundred thousand ways for the flimflam men and the bullshitters to prosper.

For Liverpool to prosper, it was concluded that Benitez would have to leave. His exit, it was said, would lead to an explosion of joy among the ranks of the players who had been worn down by his obsessiveness, his relentless demands and his cold, cold heart. The club, it was said, needed a break from his plotting. Things could only get better.

Today, as Benitez's Inter Milan face Juventus at the San Siro, Liverpool play a team one point above them in the Premier League: Blackpool. Before the game, the supporters will be marching in the streets in protest against Tom Hicks and George Gillett whose duplicity Benitez did so much to expose. The chief executive Christian Purslow, brought in to sell the club, is still there, still looking for owners, still reassuring the key players that all will be well. Within days, Liverpool could be in administration but, for many Liverpool fans, the possible nine-point penalty (there could be a loophole which allows Liverpool to avoid it which would almost certainly lead to a legal objection from Liverpool's challengers) is preferable to Hicks and Gillett refinancing. On the pitch, Roy Hodgson, the man Purslow appointed, appears to have made things worse.

And all it took was the removal of Benitez to bring the feel-good factor back.

Many ignored the complexities involved in managing a club owned by leverage kings while Benitez was in charge. Only now is the extent of his achievement becoming clear.

His refusal to play the media game or to back down or to be pragmatic in any way alienated those who form opinion. For a long time, nobody listened to their opinions at Anfield. In the last year, they did.

"Did we make mistakes? Obviously," Benitez said last week. "But 82, 86 points, four trophies, three more finals in a difficult time when the owners were changing, when the chief executives were changing. A lot of things were changing. Now people can see it, no? It was a big, big problem."

Benitez took the hits but held the club together. If he was shunned by the opinion-formers, it wasn't because he wasn't political. In the last year he went, as one ally puts it, "to war". He always felt there was a better way to do things

Benitez wants to look forward to his challenge at Inter, it is how he has persuaded himself a football man should be, but he cannot shake the sadness about his departure from the club and the city he and his family love. Those who know him well say he is more relaxed now than he was during that draining final twelve months.

After three hours in his company on Wednesday, I could see why his friends want him to talk to the media more often. David Conachy, the Sunday Independent photographer, was surprised by his warmth and wit, having expected a brooding, more explosive, presence.

But Benitez is wary too. Football is a lie and he has observed how some use the media to promote their versions of the story. At one point, he jumps from his seat, refusing to pose in a certain way because it is, he says, the kind of picture one of his enemies would sit for. Above all else, he is wary of being a phoney.

Liverpool, it was said, needed a manager who would put his arm around a player's shoulder. But they can't hug out their problems, as Hodgson is discovering.

"Everybody has weak points and I have weak points for sure," Benitez says. "People say I don't put my arm round the shoulder. It's not true. I am talking to the players every day. I like to know about them but my priority is football."

His priority has always been football. "I have been doing this job all my life," he says and it is barely an exaggeration. "Always in my head I was a manager."

He talks about his childhood in terms of football. His father was a commercial director of a hotel -- "he didn't like too much football" -- and a busy man so "I remember my mother taking me to the Bernabeu for training".

His career as a player was ended by injury but he was ready. Managing is his lifetime's work. He sleeps a few hours each night and he is always thinking of ways to be better. He may think too much.

"I think the manager is eternally dissatisfied because he wants more and more and more. I'm this kind of manager. I like to improve, to do better every time. Some times you know that you will need more time so you have to be calm but still you have to improve."

Does he ever look back on his great nights with pride and contentment?

"I have notes of everything, every single season, every single day. What I did this, or how I changed my approach to a player. One hundred per cent, I am analysing and I am always talking to my staff."

It's hardly The Time of Our Lives with Jeff Stelling. Benitez couldn't act clubbable. Last month, Jamie Carragher gave an interview in which he talked of the need for Liverpool to get back to traditional values.

"We've had situations like Martin O'Neill and Steve Bruce criticising Liverpool and they were right," Carragher said. "We shouldn't be getting involved with stuff like that. Everyone else should look at Liverpool and say they have dignity, class. I mean, like the way people look at Arsenal."

It was unfortunate timing as Arsene Wenger then spent the next month fighting with everyone, including match officials.

"I didn't see his quote but I like Carra as a player and he has to keep focusing on doing things well for Liverpool. Maybe he has an opinion but I don't think Shankly would agree with him. For me the manager of Liverpool Football Club has to defend the club and his players against everyone. The name of the other manager doesn't matter. If you know the story inside you will understand why these managers are talking and I think for our fans it's very clear.

"If you see the friends that these people have you will understand why. It's obvious that there are people who are close to some people and they like to protect each other."

Benitez was apart and, equally as dangerously, became convinced of his own separateness. Again, it is the way he believes a manager has to be.

"When you work hard and you have an idea and you want to carry on with your idea people say 'oh you are stubborn'. I think you have to have a conviction when you work with the players, when you know the players and when you talk with your staff. It's essential if you want to convince them. All the managers have the same idea."

He was a physical education teacher and one of the ways he sees himself as different to his predecessor at Inter, Jose Mourinho, is in his approach to footballers.

"I like to teach them. I am sure if they learn they will know things for the rest of their lives. If you can win in one year with the best players, saying we have to win this game, this game, the next game that's one way. But when you teach them the way and you ask them how to do things, it's different. At the end, they will know and they will remember all their lives."

He is trying to change things at Inter while keeping the things they did well under Mourinho. Before he arrived in Milan, he read in the Spanish press how Mourinho could control everything from his manager's office at the Angelo Moratti Training Centre. There was a window with a panoramic view that allowed him to see all that was happening on the training fields. During my time in Benitez's spartan office on Wednesday, I couldn't see this window. Football is a lie.

Mourinho's achievements cannot be disputed but Benitez would not be the man he is if he didn't think he could do more.

"The players are happy because we are trying to play more football, more on the floor, the passing is better. They were doing good things in the past and especially in the transition, the counter-attack, they were quite good. Now we have more possession but it takes time to adjust. It will be almost impossible to win more trophies in one year, we know that, but at least we will try to win some of them with style."

Inter are top of Serie A but one defeat is a crisis in Italy. He has the squad that won the European Cup, but he may have liked to have new faces to challenge the players who achieved so much last season.

Benitez is not going to rest on somebody else's laurels. On Wednesday night, Inter beat Werder Bremen 4-0. It was an important result but again perhaps football lied as it was not a performance that merited 4-0.

Inter suits Benitez too. He looks to Turin, to Juventus and sees the questionable powerbase of Italian football. He looks to the south, to Rome and sees the capital with its influence and he looks to Milanello, AC Milan's famed training camp and he sees Silvio Berlusconi and his authority. Italy is the kind of country where a man can collect enemies.

His friends from Liverpool are still around. They are thinking about Inter now but they form a government in exile, always aware of what is happening at the club they love.

He has changed, he says, everybody changes. The former Real Madrid manager Luis Molowny, who died earlier this year, once told him that it is important to be patient. Molowny's name is written on a piece of paper pinned to his office wall so his advice is on his mind. He says he is more patient now than he used to be.

The signings that didn't work out at Liverpool might be among the things he'd change. "I'll say it again, we made mistakes. But people are talking about players who were not good enough, if you put five or six of these players together, the cost would be five million. It's not easy to wheel and deal and at the same time to win and sign players like Torres, Reina, Mascherano, Aquilani, Skrtel, Johnson, Lucas Leiva, Agger or Kuyt."

These are the players he left behind. "I was very clear that when I left we had a better squad than we had in the past, and a better team. We knew we had to bring in better players. We left a good team, a very good team. A lot of people are talking about the legacy but the legacy is fantastic. When I left the club, Mascherano, Benayoun and Riera were there, along with Carra, Gerrard, Spearing, Darby. Insua, Cavalieri and Shelvey. They cannot talk about legacy when Purslow and Hodgson signed seven players. They have already changed the squad."

Gerard Houllier said he left a legacy too, claiming that in Istanbul the players told him it was his side that had won the European Cup. "I didn't see Houllier on the way to Istanbul or at half-time," he said sardonically. "After the game, I gave him permission to come into the dressing room and we couldn't get him out, even with boiling water! That's a Spanish expression."

Among Benitez's mistakes were Robbie Keane and the alienation of Xabi Alonso in one crucial summer. Keane was, he says, a "good player and a fantastic professional who needed a target man with him". But, crucially, Gareth Barry was Benitez's priority. "Barry was the first but I was not doing the business and I couldn't control it. The timing was a problem. I thought we had the money and it was obvious we didn't have the money."

Benitez had rumbled Hicks and Gillett before this but as they scrambled and failed to find the money for Barry, his plans unravelled. The collateral damage was significant too: Xabi Alonso was lost.

"In the last season Alonso played his best season for us. That is the reason people are talking about him. It was his last year when he gave us his best."

In Alonso's last season, Benitez drove his team towards the title. Liverpool finished second, a stunning achievement given his resources and the apocalypse that was heading Liverpool's way thanks to Hicks and Gillett and the recession caused by men like them.

Benitez's handling of the attempted sale of Alonso the year before alienated the player and ensured he would go. But Benitez planned to replace him with Alberto Aquilani and the Montenegrin Stevan Jovetic. The sale of Alonso was a controversial and ruthless decision and, as so often at Liverpool, he wasn't allowed full control of the solution.

Instead he was given half of what he asked for. Suddenly the money disappeared, as it tends to when working for the indebted. Benitez's last season began with Liverpool as many people's title favourites. But the manager couldn't conceal the club's problems anymore.

"It was a long time, it wasn't just one thing," he says of the process that wore him down. "The feeling was that something was wrong, we couldn't do what we wanted to do. We were preparing the signings and the sales but we could see that we have some targets and we didn't do it."

Christian Purslow was the new chief executive. Rick Parry had infuriated Benitez with the pace at which he got things done but he insists there was nothing personal. "I had a very good relationship with David Moores and Rick Parry but the only thing I wanted to do was to do things quicker because we didn't have too much money. To be fair, sometimes we were doing good business without big money and sometimes we lost players. After the Americans arrived, everything changed. I thought it would be easier the first year, we signed Torres and everything was going well but little by little we had some money problems and all the decisions were subject to the money issues."

It is the most understated way of describing the meltdown. The last season became attritional. Stories filtered out about an unhappy squad, how Rafa had lost the dressing room.

"It's not true that I lost the dressing room. It was obvious that maybe some players were not happy but the majority of the players were very good professionals who were surprised by these stories in the same newspapers by the same journalists. Who was leaking them?"

He wasn't looking to be loved but he believed he would stay at Liverpool.

Last week Christian Purslow remarked that "Rafa's exit was about as clearcut a case of mutual consent as I have ever been involved in in my life. Both sides thought it was time for a change, both sides said so at the time, if you go back and check."

Benitez saw his comment. "I read that he said this -- I was preparing for the next season but after the meeting with Mr Broughton and Mr Purslow I realised that I had to accept the offer they made. I was very sad and my family were devastated when we realised after these meetings that we would leave. I knew I had to go."

He will not be drawn on what changed but after a couple of summers being denied the money he thought he was getting, it's not hard to conclude that his transfer budget and the money he would get from player sales had something to do with it.

He remains attached to the place. He is aware of the protests against Tom Hicks and George Gillett but doesn't want to talk too much out of "respect for the fans and the club". All he knows is that the club is still looking for investment a year after being told the cavalry was on its way. Christian Purslow is nobody's idea of the cavalry.

Benitez spent last year waiting for the investment, meeting with potential investors. Now he has a new challenge while survival is Liverpool's.

But Liverpool is a part of him. It is the place he and his wife call home.

"I am monitoring carefully everything that's going on there. I have a lot of friends there and I received a 'Justice' scarf from the Hillsborough families group that is in my office at home. Again out of respect I think it is important that I talk a little bit about the past but especially about the future. For me, at this moment, that is Inter Milan. I keep my house there, we are based in Liverpool and in the future we will be there again."

Right now, he thinks about Inter and the challenges but he knows more than most what football can bring and how he might return.

"You never know, football is football. It could be in five years' time, ten years' time, two years' time. We have two years of a contract here, we are really pleased here, the people are very nice, the fans are very similar to Liverpool fans, with passion, so everything is going well."

But Liverpool is home? "Yeah-it's the only house we have. Liverpool is my home and I will come back."

In his last year, he fought many battles in pursuit of victory in one war. He wanted the right to do things as he wanted to do them. He wanted so much, he always did, and he always wanted more.

Those close to Benitez dismiss Purslow as a man who thought he knew too much about too many things. It is a criticism many have thrown at Rafa too. They saw him as a political animal and he was unwavering in his belief that his way was the right way.

But they underestimated him too, they always have. They concluded that he was cunning. He wasn't cunning, he just wasn't as pliable as some expected.

With his dishevelled appearance and his lack of personal vanity, Benitez is football's Lieutenant Columbo. And he is always looking for 'just one more thing'. The obsessional pursuit drove him mad and brought him into dangerous conflict with the powers that remain at Liverpool. But he knew no other way. He didn't ask for much: only perfection.

On Wednesday, David Conachy was pushing Rafa for more pictures. He doesn't like having his picture taken or, more precisely, he doesn't like having a certain type of picture taken. Dave wanted to take every type of picture.

"Just one more," Dave said to him several times.

"You always say just one more," Rafa smiled, looking at his watch, as he tried to get away.

"He's a perfectionist, Rafa, you can understand that," I said.

Rafa looked at me. "I didn't say it was bad. It's just dangerous."

Sunday Independent

"We couldn't possibly hire another foreign manager could we??"

2010-11-07T02:17:00.001+00:00

If we have learnt anything after the recent interviews with the new owners of Liverpool FC there is one name that keeps popping up as to where the new owners want to go and how they plan on getting there.

That name ? Arsenal FC.

No surprise there since they are the third most valuable club in world football* and are an ideal model of how to get results on the pitch without spending too much money off it. Not only that but as the team has the youngest average age in the Premiership, Arsenal won't be experiencing any of the problems that have been experienced by Liverpool and are not too far away on the horizon for Manchester United, but more on that another time.

Management is no doubt a major issue for the new owners. Their "building a team" off the pitch and already begun the changes with the appointment of Damien Comolli. If they're looking at Arsenal for inspiration then why not look towards their management success also.

Economics Masters recipient Arsene Wenger has been very successful, leading a top 4 team every year since the 96/97 season, winning 3 times but at 61 years old and already a living legend at Arsenal he wont be going anywhere else before he starts collecting his pension.

So where might NESV find the man that could replicate the success at Arsenal ? Well the the search may not have to be as large as once thought. There has been much discussion about sabermetrics, and its ability to be utilised in the world of soccer since NESV's successful use of Billy Beans ideologies at the Red Sox. They need a man who believes in long term goals and the ability of youth. Looking at managers that have been succesfull in the last 10 years they have all had a similar trait, one that can be judged fairly easily looking a managers ability to change the course of a game. A master tactician is whats required.

Two players who would probably agree is Torres and Reina, their glowing reports on the notes Rafa Benitez would give them detailing their opponents tendencies and weaknesses and how they could be exploited were so detailed that they helped Spain on their course for World Cup glory, Reina telling Casillas exactly where Cardozo's penalty was going to be directed. So the recent whisperings of disenchantment from the same two about the techniques currently being employed do not come as much of a surprise. Two players hitting there prime also World and European Cup winners are not the quality of player you want to be leaving any squad, especially two of arguably the best in their respective positions.

Liverpool need a man who not only can command respect from players, communicate with each of them, bring through youth and actuate a style of play that the fans can be proud of again.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Boro Primorac.

Below is taken from a magazine article :

Boro Primorac has been one of the keys to the Arsenal manager's success wherever he has gone, says Wayne Veysey AFTER shaking hands with opposite number Ronald Koeman and a quick exchange with one or two players, Arsène Wenger's first port of call in the wake of tonight's Champions League clash in Eindhoven will be a post-match debrief with Boro Primorac.

The big, bald Bosnian's routine — both at half-time and when the final whistle blows — is to scurry down from his seat in the stands to offer any tactical or technical observations to his boss and long-term friend.

Pat Rice may sit alongside Wenger on match days and assume the public role as No2, but there is little doubt that the mysterious Primorac — who many diehard Gunners fans would struggle to recognise — is the French general's most trusted lieutenant.

A rugged central defender who captained the former Yugoslavia during his playing days, Primorac possesses the sort of physique that could earn him extra-curricular work as a nightclub doorman — and a vigorous handshake to match — but in English football his profile is minute.

He shuns interview requests with a self-deprecating shrug: "Why would you want to speak to me? I'm not important." The evidence, however, is to the contrary.

The 52-year-old is a highly-valued tactician and Wenger's chief sounding board on players, tactics and team selection.

"Boro is an encyclopedia of world football," said Arsenal great and former goalkeeping coach Bob Wilson. "Name a player and he'll know his height, weight and which foot he favours. He watches tape after tape on football, channel after channel.

"He's Arsène's ally and they share the belief that the three most important things in the game are technique, technique and technique."

Armed with stopwatch and whistle, Wenger personally runs all Arsenal's training sessions himself with the precision of a Swiss clock.

However, according to one Ashburton source: "If Arsène delegates anything, he delegates to Boro. He is the man he trusts most."

Wenger and Primorac's friendship was borne out of adversity.

They first became acquainted at Cannes in the early 1980s, where the Frenchman was an assistant coach and the Yugoslav a player, and then became rival managers in the France Championnat in 1993 — Wenger at Monaco and Primorac at Valenciennes.

But it was Primorac's role in the 1993 French football scandal that resulted in the jailing of Bernard Tapie, the Marseilles president, which was to secure their bond. The fallout from the crisis also resulted in Marseilles being stripped of the Champions League title.

After being told by one of his players, Jacques Glassman, that he and two team-mates, Jorge Burruchaga and Christophe Robert, had deliberately thrown an end-of-season game against Marseilles, Primorac bravely ignored Tapie's attempts to buy his silence and his evidence in court was crucial to the club president's conviction.

After bringing down Tapie, Primorac became something of a scapegoat in French football. At 39, his top-flight managerial career was effectively finished.

"Many people felt Boro broke the code of silence in football," remembers a Valenciennes source. "He suffered a traumatic time giving evidence against Tapie. He was personally threatened and Valenciennes got rid of him.

"The results weren't brilliant at the time and he never had great success as a manager, but Boro was robbed of his career by the scandal. He had taken great personal risk in giving evidence against Tapie and was to pay a huge price."

Wenger's Monaco suffered the most because of Tapie's corruption and the Arsenal boss had been impressed by Primorac's courage and integrity.

The Frenchman had publicly supported the man who was to become his long-serving accomplice and eventually offered him a coaching job after moving to Grampus Eight in Japan in 1994.

They have been comrades ever since and when Wenger moved to Highbury two years later, Primorac naturally went with him.

"If Arsène Wenger was to leave Arsenal tomorrow, Boro Primorac would go with him. Pat Rice wouldn't," observed former Arsenal midfielder Ray Parlour.

"Boro is clearly Arsène's right-hand man but it is hard to say how important he is to Arsenal's success.

"They are all important — Pat Rice, [physio] Gary Lewin. But at the end of the day, Arsène picks the team and his neck is on the block."

Those who have worked with Primorac at Arsenal talk of a charming, highly-intelligent individual whose language skills — he is said to be fluent in eight languages (Serb-Croat, French, English, Japanese, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian) — puts even Wenger and the multi-lingual Philippe Senderos in the shade.

"He is a lovely bloke," adds Parlour. "He is a big practical joker and very popular. He is probably closer to the players than Arsène Wenger because he has been there and done it as a player."

The man without portfolio has a wide brief at Arsenal, from assessing players to everyday tasks such as conducting the pre-training warm-ups, stretching, sprint sessions and shortsided games. Former Arsenal goalkeeper John Lukic refers to him as the BBC man, revealing: "He was only in charge of balls, bibs and cones, because Arsène does everything.

"But he has a far more important role as Arsène's eyes, ears and sounding board. And he is a fully qualified coach who did put on sessions when the boss was away."

Another ex-Gunner Paul Merson also sings his praises.

He said: "Boro was a football nut who was a great help to me when I was coming back from injury. I remember thinking, 'this bloke knows his stuff '. He was also very easy to speak to and more accessible than Wenger."

The Arsenal boss has admitted to sometimes signing players — such as Portuguese winger Luis Boa Morte, now at West Ham — purely on Primorac's recommendation, evidence enough of Wenger's faith in his most trusted adviser.

* (In April 2010, business magazine Forbes ranked Arsenal as the third most valuable football team in the world, after Manchester United and Real Madrid, valuing the club at $1.181bn (£768m), excluding debt.)

Source : http://arsenal-mania.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28937

John Henry words say one thing body language something else

2010-11-06T23:03:00.002+00:00

YouTube Video

2 Be Fair I hope I'm kinda hoping I'm right about this one.. When John Henry is asked about the future of Roy Hodgson his lips say one thing while a mini negative head gesture tells us he thinks the opposite. Reading too much into it ? Maybe.Although I have watched enough Lie to Me at this stage to spot these mini-tells of the subconscious.