Premiership predictions 2009/10...

[Guest]

I think Celtic and Rangers have a competition to see who has the worst record in that competition

[daveduke007]

NEWSFLASH:

The next Liverpool Champion's League match has been moved to the Gay Adult Channel.
Apparently 11 arseholes getting hammered is too explicit for Sky Sports



Liverpool's Ground Staff were seen planting potatoes in the Centre Circle.
A Spokesman said it was so they had something to lift at the end of the Season.

[tim1212]

your right- its all gay talk if you follow man u -i.e, do you think that black stripe's a bit 2 bold,
i wish their shorts where like the early 80's,
ooh i've already bought my beach ball.
my beachballs bigger than yours!!!!!

i'm not a liverpool fan but have a few pounds on them this sunday.

[whore]

i'm not a liverpool fan but have a few pounds on them this sunday.

Money wasted. It would of been a better bet for you money for Benitez to get sacked in November. They probably looking at losing there next 2 games, with Man U on sunday, then Arsenal. The next game after that is a tricky away game with Fulham, then away to Lyon.

Benitez wasted so much money on rubbish players bar torres, alonso, beniyoun maybe even Johnson. He fansies himself to be abit of a wenger being able to find gems.

[allstar88]

(travis bickle @ Oct. 23 2009,03:22) As much as i enjoyed liverpool getting beat at home by Lyon,it was nothing compared to the sheer joy i felt as those horrible hun bastards getting stuffed at home by the part timers from rumania-so,once more the mighty rangers and their pond life supporters will make an early exit from the champions league-I cant stop laughing............

how far did celtic get in europe?

[allstar88]

(Naang Faa @ Oct. 22 2009,22:33)

(allstar88 @ Oct. 20 2009,17:42) naang faa has been quiet on the balloon story?

We all know the facts  

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/1145/2fgggx1.gif

                                                                                    x

classic

[whore]

(allstar88 @ Oct. 23 2009,07:17)

(travis bickle @ Oct. 23 2009,03:22) As much as i enjoyed liverpool getting beat at home by Lyon,it was nothing compared to the sheer joy i felt as those horrible hun bastards getting stuffed at home by the part timers from rumania-so,once more the mighty rangers and their pond life supporters will make an early exit from the champions league-I cant stop laughing............

how far did celtic get in europe?

In recent years they got to a uefa cup final against a very good porto side and they were very unlucky to meet a inform Arsenal in the qualifying rounds.

[allstar88]

(whore @ Oct. 23 2009,07:31)

(allstar88 @ Oct. 23 2009,07:17)

(travis bickle @ Oct. 23 2009,03:22) As much as i enjoyed liverpool getting beat at home by Lyon,it was nothing compared to the sheer joy i felt as those horrible hun bastards getting stuffed at home by the part timers from rumania-so,once more the mighty rangers and their pond life supporters will make an early exit from the champions league-I cant stop laughing............

how far did celtic get in europe?

In recent years they got to a uefa cup final against a very good porto side and they were very unlucky to meet a inform Arsenal in the qualifying rounds.

this season in the champions league i was refering to?

[allstar88]

(daveduke007 @ Oct. 23 2009,03:43) NEWSFLASH:

The next Liverpool Champion's League match has been moved to the Gay Adult Channel.
Apparently 11 arseholes getting hammered is too explicit for Sky Sports  



Liverpool's Ground Staff were seen planting potatoes in the Centre Circle.
A Spokesman said it was so they had something to lift at the end of the Season.

nasty but funny dave

[ciobha]

(whore @ Oct. 23 2009,06:59) Benitez wasted so much money on rubbish players bar torres, alonso, beniyoun maybe even Johnson.

I love it when people base their opinions on fucking media drivvle, rather than get the facts.

Media Myths: Rafa Benitez and His Transfer History With Liverpool Football Club

by

Jamie Ward


Jamie Ward

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Columnist Written on March 27, 2009

(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Myth: "fable, fiction, lie; a widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief."

There appears to be a trend growing amongst media outlets, €œexpert€ pundits, and rival supporters who strive to ensure a negative air surrounds Liverpool Football Club and more commonly its manager, Rafa Benitez.

It seems he can do no right in the eyes of some people€”his own supporters included€”and more false claims appear every week that serve only to derail him from his quest of rebuilding Liverpool Football Club.

As more and more newspapers churn out sensational headline after headline and "expert" television pundits spout opinion as fact; the more people are brainwashed by these stories and the further from reality a situation will get.

Many lazy debaters claim their opinion to be a pragmatic truth whilst they simply recycle misleading newspaper propaganda as their own knowledge or belief.

Biased supporters who choose to jump on the slander bandwagon when it involves a rival team are common place, and this only adds to the ever-growing ideology of a story perceived as fact.



Ideology: €œa system that derives ideas exclusively from sensation or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant group of a society to all members of this society.€

€œOrganizations that strive for power will try to influence the ideology of a society to become closer to what they want it to be. Organizations and other groups (e.g. Media Outlets) try to influence people by broadcasting their opinions.€

One such myth which seems to have appeared recently has been the same tired line about Rafa Benitez and his transfers since his time at Liverpool.

You will hear people claiming things like:

€œA larger proportion of Rafa's signings have been expensive and poor.€

This does of course depend on how a person interprets the words expensive and poor€”the latter obviously being down to their personal opinion of a player.

If someone wants to use the barometer of anything over a million pounds to be expensive and any player other than Messi or Ronaldo is considered poor; then anyone will struggle to argue against that logic€”me included.

We can easily address the €œexpensive€ part of this particular argument:

(Numbers in brackets are players still at the club)

£20+ million: 1 (1)

Torres

£15-20 million: 2 (1)

Mascherano, Keane

£10-15 million: 2 (2)

Babel, Alonso

£5-10 million: 14 (9)

Dossenna, Riera, Agger, Skrtel, Reina, Benayoun, Leiva, Kuyt, Pennant, Crouch, Bellamy, Sissoko, Morientes, Garcia

£0-5 million: 47 (36)

Degan, Cavelieri, Ngog, Plessis, Insua, Leto, Itandje, Voronin, Arbeloa, El Zhar, Aurelio, Palletta, Fowler, Kromkamp, Barragan, Nunez, Zenden, Gonzalez, Carson, Pellegrino, Josemi, Martin, Antwi, Hobbs, Miki Roque, Gulacsi, Padelli, Anderson, Poloskei, Crowther, Hansen, Saric, Ayala, Weijl, Blanco, Flora, Mendy, Ajdarevic, Simon, Bouzanis, Nemeth, Pacheco, Palsson, Brouwer, Durán, Huth, DomÃnguez.

It is easy to see that the majority of Rafa€™s signings have been below the £10 million mark and nothing like the fabrication that he has bought mostly €œexpensive€ signings. It is also interesting to note that a large proportion are teenagers bought for the future of the club and may not be on alot of people's radars.

With 49 of his 66 signings still at the club, it means the selling on fee cannot yet be properly forecast and it is near impossible to fully determine if the original fee paid for each player is expensive.

Here are some more comments and claims made about Rafael Benitez:

€œHe has bought 53 players for £190 million and sold 56 for £108 million, clearly a loss of £82 million proves he doesn€™t have a clue in the transfer market.€

I think the easiest way to explain this would be to just show you a full rundown of Rafael Benitez€™ signings since he joined Liverpool in June 2004:

Players bought in by Benitez: 66

Players still at the club: 49

First Team: 18

Alonso, Reina, Agger, Aurélio, Kuyt, Arbeloa, Mascherano, Lucas, Torres, Itandje, Benayoun, Babel, Skrtel, Degen, Dossena, Cavalieri, Ngog, Riera.

Reserve Team: 22

El Zhar, Insúa, Palsson, Brouwer, Durán, Huth, DomÃnguez, Pacheco, Nemeth, Plessis, Hansen, Saric, Ayala, Weijl, Blanco, Flora, Mendy, Ajdarevic, Simon, Bouzanis, Crowther, Poloskei

Out on Loan: 9

Andriy Voronin, Jermaine Pennant, Sebastian Leto, David Martin, Godwin Antwi, Jack Hobbs, Miki Roque, Peter Gulacsi, Paul Anderson



A figure of 49 players bought by Rafa are still playing for the club with the majority (29) bought as youth players for the reserve team€”with the idea for future revenue if they perform to their potential. It will also save the club a great deal of money if they turn out to be superstars worth a large transfer fee.

From that 49 figure, there are 18 still playing for the first team and contributing to the clubs success on a very large scale€”with the majority of them being priced by many as a greater figure than when the players were initially bought by Rafa.

From the nine players out on loan, only two are established players with the other seven being young reserve players gaining experience at other clubs€”with the hope of either returning to Liverpool€™s first team or making a profit to invest in future transfers, a policy utilised by many big clubs.



Players Sold On by Benitez: 56

Players Bought by Other Managers and Sold on by Benitez: 39

Players Bought and Sold on by Rafa Benitez: 17



For me, this is the key point from which poorly informed debaters€™ opinions collapse. Most propaganda articles or rival supporters will wildly claim that Rafa has sold "56" players and made little money in return.

They claim the €œmajority€ of the "56" players the Liverpool manager has sold on have been at a loss and €œproves€ his failings in the transfer market. This is such a misleading statement to make that I really don€™t know how people can still get away with it, let alone acctually believe it.

For starters, Benitez has sold 39 players bought by other Liverpool managers.

Benitez cannot be held accountable for selling a player at a loss when; Benitez was not the one who identified the player as a target in the first place; sanctioned the over-inflated transfer fee when the player was first purchased.

You can only really judge him on the players he has bought and sold since he has been at the club and this brings the true figure down to just 17 players.



Profit: 7

Carson +2.25, Barragan +0.43, Sissoko +2.6, Crouch +4.0, Gonzalez +2.0, Bellamy +1.5, Nunez +0.5

Loss: 6

Garcia -2.0, Morientes -3.3, Palletta -0.8, Josemi (swapped for) Kromkamp -0.25, Idrizaj -0.19, Keane -3.0 (could be even less depending on contract triggers)

Even: 4

Pellegrino, Zenden, Fowler, Padelli (all four players were brought in and moved on for a free transfer)



So the true extent of Rafa€™s failings in the transfer market is just six players from 17, coming with a loss of just under £10 million within four and a half years€”the most expensive loss being just £3.3 million; nothing like the losses achieved by other established Premier League managers who manage to avoid the media abuse storm.

Hopefully that is one media myth that's now been eradicated.

[whore]

I dont buy into any newspaper propaganda, for one reason only, I dont read the sports in newpapers. Infact over the last couple of years, the only newspaper I have read is the sunday times and I wouldnt even read the sports in that.

What I said about Benitez is my opinion alone and I stand by it. Nearly all those players named in that copy and paste article are shite and a waste of money. Bar the ones I have already mentioned. Look at what they had on there bench the other night against Lyon and there considered to be one of the "top four".

Benitez getting sacked in november is a great bet. In my opinion there looking at losing 3 maybe 4 of there next 4 games, and if the owners dont sack him after that, it will just show they know nothing about football and should stick to ice hockey.

[geezer]

Personally I'd love for Rafa to sign a 10 year extensions to his contract. Show me a rafa must stay petition and I'd happily sign it. It's probably one of the only things that unites most people on this thread.

[allstar88]

liverpool are in that much debt they can not afford to sack rafa
i still think they will finish in the top 4 but are a long way off the league

[ciobha]

(whore @ Oct. 23 2009,23:09) What I said about Benitez is my opinion alone and I stand by it. Nearly all those players named in that copy and paste article are shite and a waste of money. Bar the ones I have already mentioned. Look at what they had on there bench the other night against Lyon and there considered to be one of the "top four".

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I respect that.
However it would be totally unfair to say that other than the 4 players you mentioned, everyone else has been shite. What about Mascherano, do you really think he is shite? Reina is one of the best keepers in the premiership. Agger, when fit is very good centre half.Aurelio cant be considered shite.
The truth is , Benitez first choice eleven, when fit, are as good as anyone. The problem lies in the strength in depth.
Benitez has bought a lot of average players, because that is all he can afford.
When you look at that "cut and paste"article, as you correctly point out it is, the point is to to see the truth in how much has been spent.
Benitez has benn slammed for buying average players, but they didn't cost that much, in today's terms, and he has quickly moved them on.
What about Ferguson, don't forget some of the less than fantastic players he has spent A FORTUNE on, and Chelsea for that matter.Ferguson spent the better part of 50million on Nani and Anderson. Those two have hardly set the premiership alight. What about Veron?what was it 28million worth of dung.
The difference is the aforementioned players are good players, but still only squad players. Man U , Chelsea and now City have been able to afford a lot of money buying good squad players, while Liverpool have to settle for the ones who are average at best.
I am a critic of Benitez myself, and some of his decisions and transfer deals have baffled me to say the least, but it is unfair to lay Liverpools whoos totally on his doorstep.

[BlueBallz]

You look at liverpool and they are deffo WAY OVER RELIANT on Torres and Gerrard. they dont have replacement for their brillance. Liverpools problem is also a lack of depth. If torres and Stevie G dont play, they are fucked. Its like they dont know what to do. Also Carragher is aging and might be losing a bit. Combine all that with the strides City have made and they could be in a bit of bother.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!!!