The Liverpool Thread
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How do people think we're playing at the moment?
To me on Monday it looked like a 4-4-1-1 but a little asymetrical with Kuyt further forward than Meireles. That isn't too far from a 4-3-3 so certainly a bit confusing.
In the last 3 months we've played:
4-3-3
4-2-3-1
4-4-2
4-4-1-1
3-5-2 (diamond midfield)
3-5-2 (with two DM's)
4-2-2-2
We've pressed against some opposition and sat back against others. Played long ball, pass and move, had midfield runners, restricted our midfielders at times given Suarez roles on the left, right and then free roles.
If you were an opposition managers how exactly do you set up against us. Kenny is a cunning old fox.
To me on Monday it looked like a 4-4-1-1 but a little asymetrical with Kuyt further forward than Meireles. That isn't too far from a 4-3-3 so certainly a bit confusing.
In the last 3 months we've played:
4-3-3
4-2-3-1
4-4-2
4-4-1-1
3-5-2 (diamond midfield)
3-5-2 (with two DM's)
4-2-2-2
We've pressed against some opposition and sat back against others. Played long ball, pass and move, had midfield runners, restricted our midfielders at times given Suarez roles on the left, right and then free roles.
If you were an opposition managers how exactly do you set up against us. Kenny is a cunning old fox.
My friend at college is his nephew!
RIP to those who died in Hillsborough disaster.
One of the saddest day in football.
[video=youtube;MrOEheLpH7A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrOEheLpH7A&feature=related[/video]
[video=youtube;WN1P6FYoJ40]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN1P6FYoJ40[/video]
One of the saddest day in football.
[video=youtube;MrOEheLpH7A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrOEheLpH7A&feature=related[/video]
[video=youtube;WN1P6FYoJ40]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN1P6FYoJ40[/video]
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Anniversary today of the Hillsborough disaster. Instead of a discussion on this page today, I think it would be really touching and fitting if instead everyone just left their condolences for those that sadly passed away.
Rest In Peace. A truly, truly sad day. :wub:
Rest In Peace. A truly, truly sad day. :wub:
Last edited:
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iNickStuff
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Rest in peace those who died at Hillsborough. Never forgotten.
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Brumingham could miss out on Europa League due to financial concerns, meaning 6th could be good enough.
m.guardian.co.uk
m.guardian.co.uk
The truth about those Yanks...
It is very long but certainly worth a read and does show how close as a club we came to being destroyed.
Tom Hicks’ favourite camera crew was summoned to his Dallas mansion for the most repulsive PR stunt ever pulled by anyone connected with Liverpool FC.
As he sat in his cosy armchair, his wounded expression as fake as the gas-flamed fire burning behind him, back at his Formby home Steven Gerrard stared at his TV in disgust.
A year into the Americans’ reign, civil war was raging at Anfield, with fans, manager and board members at each others’ throats. And now the absentee Texan owner was calling for chief executive Rick Parry’s head on worldwide TV.
That Sky interview was the final straw for the Liverpool captain. He never wanted to look at Hicks or Gillett again.
Gerrard says: “I was thinking, ‘When is this going to end? One year? Two years?’ You could see it was just going to get messier and the people really suffering were the team and the supporters.”
In their first meeting, the Americans promised Gerrard they would restore the club to the pinnacle of European football while respecting its history.
“But that wasn’t the case, especially when they were dragging the club through the courts,” he says. “That was a disgrace. I can’t find the words to describe them. Let’s just say they had some balls. I didn’t think they’d drag the club to those lengths for some money. It just showed how greedy they were.”
At his home a few miles down the Merseyside coast, Jamie Carragher watched that same TV interview in April 2008 in despair. He recalls: “That’s when I thought it had got past a joke. To fly a TV crew over to your house, dress your kids in Liverpool tops, and start dishing the dirt on worldwide telly I just thought, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’ It was unforgivable.”
Like Gerrard, Carragher became emotionally exhausted with the Anfield anarchy.
“It was like your mum and dad scrapping. You don’t care what they’re fighting about, you just want to scream at them to shut up,” he says.
“The manager and owners might not have liked each other but they should have concentrated on letting us play football. I got sick of the rowing – it just wouldn’t stop. Everyone was playing politics with no regard for the damage they were doing to the club. I wanted to shout, ‘Can we forget about this and just play football?’”
The two local legends were also conscious that, in the final 18 months the Americans were there, the team suffered from an acute lack of investment. “We were so close,” says Gerrard. “Two European finals, finishing second – we were two or three decent signings away from competing with anyone. That was the frustration.”
Gerrard won’t say it because it would seem like an excuse, but friends say there were times when he felt that the Americans cost him the one thing he’s craved all his professional life – the Premier League. Carragher feels the same. “I want to win medals and if the owners had put their money in like they promised then I might have won more than I did. You look at other players who are winning titles and you want to be better than them. So when the transfer money dries up like it did with those two, it gets you angry.
“I’d never say they definitely cost me a League title medal as it was down to us players, but if we hadn’t had crippling interest payments like we had we could have been spending an extra £15-£20million in the last few transfer windows, which could have made the difference.
“I’d loved to have played in a new Anfield, too, but I won’t. If they’d put that spade in within 60 days as they promised, I’d be playing in it now.”
Spanish goalkeeper Pepe Reina told the pair he was amazed they didn’t go public and demand answers. Both admit the dilemma tortured them at the time and still plays on their consciences today. “I totally understand why some of the fans were frustrated we didn’t speak out,” says Gerrard. “When I’m down with England I hear stories about what big players have said at their clubs, but when me and Jamie speak we’re worried people might say, ‘Does he think he’s bigger than Liverpool?’ So it was a horrible situation as I wanted to come out and use my status to help but I was terrified of it backfiring.
“Should I say something? Would it make a difference? Who are we to criticise our bosses? They were the questions I kept asking myself and at times they were on the tip of my tongue. But if I’d wanted to speak to the owners I couldn’t, they were never there. It was a mess.”
Carragher agrees: “Maybe me and Stevie should have come out when we had the power and said something, but we’re from here. We love the club and never like saying anything negative about it. It’s what we believe in. So whatever is thrown at you, you feel you have to take it.
“It’s like if someone in your family does something wrong you’ll still stand behind them even if you want to slag them off.”
The pair’s major worry was how the fans were suffering. Gerrard says: “The lowest point was when the Kop were holding sit-ins to protest. I was thinking, ‘Let’s get them out, enough is enough, the sooner these are out the better.’”
It got to Carragher so much he stopped reading newspapers. “I switched off. I wasn’t reading about football, it was backbiting and ******** and plots and people slagging each other off.
“The game wasn’t played on the pitch but off it. Political games. It became a bad soap opera. I wasn’t just thinking about my game. I was thinking, ‘Whose side should I be on?’ I wished I could do my training and think about nothing else, but it became impossible. I was taking it all home with me.
“In the end I was so pleased the Americans walked away with nothing as they had their chances to sell the club and make their profit but chose not to. They didn’t care about Liverpool – they just cared about themselves.”
Read more: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/blogs/mirror-football-blog/Brian-Reade-An-Epic-Swindle-44-Months-With-A-Pair-Of-Cowboys-Read-extract-of-how-Liverpool-was-dragged-to-its-knees-during-the-shambolic-reign-of-US-owners-Tom-Hicks-and-George-Gillett-article725227.html#ixzz1JvNheYl7
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As George Gillett digested the words he was reading, the blood drained slowly from his face.
Surely there was a misprint in this report about Steven Gerrard marrying his long-term partner Alex which completely changed its meaning.
He read it again but it came out the same, so he phoned his co-owner: “Tom, there's something you need to know. Our team captain is gay.”
A bemused Hicks asked for the evidence and when Gillett read it to him, in between guffaws, he explained that in England the term “partner” can refer to a member of the opposite ***.
Their captain wasn't tackling for the other side. Alex was a woman.
It was just another example of the The Madness of King George, typified by him pulling a fistful of dollars from his pocket and claiming there was no limit to how much manager Rafa Benitez could spend. He could sign “Snoogy Doogy” if he wanted.
“He just sat there chuckling away looking like one of the Muppets,” said Jamie Carragher. “It only needed Hicks next to him and we'd have had Waldorf and Statler.”
Gillett’s favourite phrase, when Benitez tried to pin him down on his transfer budget was: “I'll give you £50million plus whatever we get in the draft”, which was so nonsensical it almost had Benitez butting walls.
He answered one transfer budget request by telling Benitez he’d spotted a new running machine in America, and perhaps if he got one it would improve the players he already had.
As someone who saw the Benitez e-mails remarked: “They looked like they'd been sent from the funny farm.”
The irony was that Gillett confided in more than one journalist that Benitez had serious mental problems. He even coined a name for the condition. Rafa, he would say, is a “Serial Transactionist.”
Not long after Robbie Keane signed for £20million, Gillett breezed into the hotel restaurant on the morning of a game, shouting “Hey, where's Keane? I gotta see this Keane.”
Keane piped up: “I'm Keane.”
To which Gillett replied: "Jeez, you're not very big for all that money we spent on you, are you?"
He was on true eccentric form when Liverpool travelled to Fiorentina.
Ten minutes into the second half, he disappeared inside the stadium only to return laden with Cornettos, Magnums and choc ices, which he handed out to everyone in the directors' box. At 10pm. With winter around the corner.
A senior figure tells of the comical nature of one of the early board meetings.
Halfway through, Gillett stood up and announced he and his son Foster were leaving to watch the players train at Melwood.
There was an embarrassed silence as the pair left and a decision was taken for the entire board to climb into cars, zoom off in pursuit of the Gilletts and re-convene the meeting in the Melwood dining room - a scenario made even more surreal by Gillett constantly leaping up to wave at players.
Whenever he was at his Colorado ski resort and heard a footballer was visiting surgeon Richard Steadman’s nearby clinic he would ingratiate himself with them.
He once cornered Robbie Fowler, phoned a senior figure at Anfield, and said: “You'll never guess who I'm with out here in Colorado. Let me put him on.”
When Robbie said “hello,” the Anfield man asked: “Are you as embarrassed about this as I am?”
Robbie replied: “Far more embarrassed” and was told: "OK, just turn the phone off, hand it back to him and pretend you lost me.”
But a hard-nosed operator lurked behind the avuncular exterior.
One morning, Gillett burst into the office of commercial director Ian Ayre after suspecting he’d been conspiring against him with Tom Hicks and unleashed a tsunami of abuse: “You f***ing *******, you've been trying to sell my f***ing club from under me. This is not the f***ing way to do it. I'm going to make sure this is the last f***ing day you work here.”
He swore and threatened for three minutes, veins popping out of his skull, sweat dripping from his brow, slaughtering a man who'd been in his job less than a year but who was already turning around the club's finances.
When he stopped, Ayre explained himself, and told him: “If you've got nothing else to say to me, then I've got nothing else to say to you.”
To which Gillett replied: “Anyway, what's going on in our club?”
***
As the din from the fans protesting outside the boardroom grew louder, Tom Hicks sidled up to a senior club figure and asked what the **** was going on.
“You can't have it both ways,” he was told. “When I asked you why you bought Liverpool you said one of the reasons was the fans who are so engaging and loyal. You can't expect them to be those things then sit back and take it up the a**e when you're giving it to them with both barrels. That's why they're out there.”
Hicks muttered “gimme a break” and sauntered away with the noise ringing in his ears.
The billionaire Texan didn’t take to people threatening his power.
At the initial 2007 press conference, although he had only been involved in the deal for weeks, he demanded the running order be changed so he spoke ahead of Gillett, who had been working on it for six months.
There was never any doubt about who was the alpha male in the partnership.
Gillett would bad-mouth Hicks and vow to stand up to him but, time after time, he would cave in.
A classic example came in the spring of 2009, with Rafa Benitez's proposed new five-year contract. He swore to a senior Liverpool figure he would never sign it. Three days later, it came back signed.
When they rowed, Hicks swatted Gillett away like a mosquito.
A typical scenario would be Hicks dismissing him with a put-down and Gillett playing the injured victim asking: “What have I ever done to you?” To which the Texan would reply: “What have you ever done?”
An Anfield insider who saw one row unfold said: “Hicks looked at him like he was a sad little man. He made reference to the meat-packing deal which brought them together and said: 'When you were a minor shareholder you acted like you were in control. Now you have parity you are insufferable.’”
Anyone who challenged Hicks was bullied into a corner.
Only days after buying the club, he decided to ditch plans for a new stadium and get his architects in Dallas to design something bigger.
“We ain't building that stadium,” he said to project manager Martin Jennings, “it’s not big enough. I'm going to get new designs done.”
When Jennings told him the architects had allowed for an option to expand the planned stadium to a 70,000 capacity, Hicks snapped back: “Are you f***ing listening to me? Are you with us or against us?”
To which Gillett rode in on cue: “Martin, we ain't building that f***ing stadium.”
They didn't build that stadium. Or their own one.
***
Whatever happened, Hicks always seemed to come out on top.
Seven minutes before kick-off of a 2007 Champions League against Barcelona, Gillett demanded someone get him a scarf, intending to show the world how much he loved the club.
A senior club figure told him: “This is Liverpool. You don't wear big scarves, especially if you're a director.”
A peeved Gillett then took his seat in the directors' box, only to find, standing next to him with the biggest, reddest, shiniest Liverpool scarf resting on his shoulders, Tom Hicks - and a cameramen clicking away at the pair of them.
Hicks with scarf, Gillett without. He wasn't happy.
George Bush’s Texan buddy, on the other hand, never sought anyone's advice and cared little about tradition or taste.
How else do you explain him walking into the Anfield boardroom before one game and hitching up his suit trousers to reveal a new pair of cowboy boots bearing the Liver Bird crest?
Worse still, he told everyone he had summoned to admire his leather masterpieces, that if they wanted a pair he could get them a good price.
It is very long but certainly worth a read and does show how close as a club we came to being destroyed.
Tom Hicks’ favourite camera crew was summoned to his Dallas mansion for the most repulsive PR stunt ever pulled by anyone connected with Liverpool FC.
As he sat in his cosy armchair, his wounded expression as fake as the gas-flamed fire burning behind him, back at his Formby home Steven Gerrard stared at his TV in disgust.
A year into the Americans’ reign, civil war was raging at Anfield, with fans, manager and board members at each others’ throats. And now the absentee Texan owner was calling for chief executive Rick Parry’s head on worldwide TV.
That Sky interview was the final straw for the Liverpool captain. He never wanted to look at Hicks or Gillett again.
Gerrard says: “I was thinking, ‘When is this going to end? One year? Two years?’ You could see it was just going to get messier and the people really suffering were the team and the supporters.”
In their first meeting, the Americans promised Gerrard they would restore the club to the pinnacle of European football while respecting its history.
“But that wasn’t the case, especially when they were dragging the club through the courts,” he says. “That was a disgrace. I can’t find the words to describe them. Let’s just say they had some balls. I didn’t think they’d drag the club to those lengths for some money. It just showed how greedy they were.”
At his home a few miles down the Merseyside coast, Jamie Carragher watched that same TV interview in April 2008 in despair. He recalls: “That’s when I thought it had got past a joke. To fly a TV crew over to your house, dress your kids in Liverpool tops, and start dishing the dirt on worldwide telly I just thought, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’ It was unforgivable.”
Like Gerrard, Carragher became emotionally exhausted with the Anfield anarchy.
“It was like your mum and dad scrapping. You don’t care what they’re fighting about, you just want to scream at them to shut up,” he says.
“The manager and owners might not have liked each other but they should have concentrated on letting us play football. I got sick of the rowing – it just wouldn’t stop. Everyone was playing politics with no regard for the damage they were doing to the club. I wanted to shout, ‘Can we forget about this and just play football?’”
The two local legends were also conscious that, in the final 18 months the Americans were there, the team suffered from an acute lack of investment. “We were so close,” says Gerrard. “Two European finals, finishing second – we were two or three decent signings away from competing with anyone. That was the frustration.”
Gerrard won’t say it because it would seem like an excuse, but friends say there were times when he felt that the Americans cost him the one thing he’s craved all his professional life – the Premier League. Carragher feels the same. “I want to win medals and if the owners had put their money in like they promised then I might have won more than I did. You look at other players who are winning titles and you want to be better than them. So when the transfer money dries up like it did with those two, it gets you angry.
“I’d never say they definitely cost me a League title medal as it was down to us players, but if we hadn’t had crippling interest payments like we had we could have been spending an extra £15-£20million in the last few transfer windows, which could have made the difference.
“I’d loved to have played in a new Anfield, too, but I won’t. If they’d put that spade in within 60 days as they promised, I’d be playing in it now.”
Spanish goalkeeper Pepe Reina told the pair he was amazed they didn’t go public and demand answers. Both admit the dilemma tortured them at the time and still plays on their consciences today. “I totally understand why some of the fans were frustrated we didn’t speak out,” says Gerrard. “When I’m down with England I hear stories about what big players have said at their clubs, but when me and Jamie speak we’re worried people might say, ‘Does he think he’s bigger than Liverpool?’ So it was a horrible situation as I wanted to come out and use my status to help but I was terrified of it backfiring.
“Should I say something? Would it make a difference? Who are we to criticise our bosses? They were the questions I kept asking myself and at times they were on the tip of my tongue. But if I’d wanted to speak to the owners I couldn’t, they were never there. It was a mess.”
Carragher agrees: “Maybe me and Stevie should have come out when we had the power and said something, but we’re from here. We love the club and never like saying anything negative about it. It’s what we believe in. So whatever is thrown at you, you feel you have to take it.
“It’s like if someone in your family does something wrong you’ll still stand behind them even if you want to slag them off.”
The pair’s major worry was how the fans were suffering. Gerrard says: “The lowest point was when the Kop were holding sit-ins to protest. I was thinking, ‘Let’s get them out, enough is enough, the sooner these are out the better.’”
It got to Carragher so much he stopped reading newspapers. “I switched off. I wasn’t reading about football, it was backbiting and ******** and plots and people slagging each other off.
“The game wasn’t played on the pitch but off it. Political games. It became a bad soap opera. I wasn’t just thinking about my game. I was thinking, ‘Whose side should I be on?’ I wished I could do my training and think about nothing else, but it became impossible. I was taking it all home with me.
“In the end I was so pleased the Americans walked away with nothing as they had their chances to sell the club and make their profit but chose not to. They didn’t care about Liverpool – they just cared about themselves.”
Read more: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/blogs/mirror-football-blog/Brian-Reade-An-Epic-Swindle-44-Months-With-A-Pair-Of-Cowboys-Read-extract-of-how-Liverpool-was-dragged-to-its-knees-during-the-shambolic-reign-of-US-owners-Tom-Hicks-and-George-Gillett-article725227.html#ixzz1JvNheYl7
Sign up for MirrorFootball's Morning Spy newsletter Register here
As George Gillett digested the words he was reading, the blood drained slowly from his face.
Surely there was a misprint in this report about Steven Gerrard marrying his long-term partner Alex which completely changed its meaning.
He read it again but it came out the same, so he phoned his co-owner: “Tom, there's something you need to know. Our team captain is gay.”
A bemused Hicks asked for the evidence and when Gillett read it to him, in between guffaws, he explained that in England the term “partner” can refer to a member of the opposite ***.
Their captain wasn't tackling for the other side. Alex was a woman.
It was just another example of the The Madness of King George, typified by him pulling a fistful of dollars from his pocket and claiming there was no limit to how much manager Rafa Benitez could spend. He could sign “Snoogy Doogy” if he wanted.
“He just sat there chuckling away looking like one of the Muppets,” said Jamie Carragher. “It only needed Hicks next to him and we'd have had Waldorf and Statler.”
Gillett’s favourite phrase, when Benitez tried to pin him down on his transfer budget was: “I'll give you £50million plus whatever we get in the draft”, which was so nonsensical it almost had Benitez butting walls.
He answered one transfer budget request by telling Benitez he’d spotted a new running machine in America, and perhaps if he got one it would improve the players he already had.
As someone who saw the Benitez e-mails remarked: “They looked like they'd been sent from the funny farm.”
The irony was that Gillett confided in more than one journalist that Benitez had serious mental problems. He even coined a name for the condition. Rafa, he would say, is a “Serial Transactionist.”
Not long after Robbie Keane signed for £20million, Gillett breezed into the hotel restaurant on the morning of a game, shouting “Hey, where's Keane? I gotta see this Keane.”
Keane piped up: “I'm Keane.”
To which Gillett replied: "Jeez, you're not very big for all that money we spent on you, are you?"
He was on true eccentric form when Liverpool travelled to Fiorentina.
Ten minutes into the second half, he disappeared inside the stadium only to return laden with Cornettos, Magnums and choc ices, which he handed out to everyone in the directors' box. At 10pm. With winter around the corner.
A senior figure tells of the comical nature of one of the early board meetings.
Halfway through, Gillett stood up and announced he and his son Foster were leaving to watch the players train at Melwood.
There was an embarrassed silence as the pair left and a decision was taken for the entire board to climb into cars, zoom off in pursuit of the Gilletts and re-convene the meeting in the Melwood dining room - a scenario made even more surreal by Gillett constantly leaping up to wave at players.
Whenever he was at his Colorado ski resort and heard a footballer was visiting surgeon Richard Steadman’s nearby clinic he would ingratiate himself with them.
He once cornered Robbie Fowler, phoned a senior figure at Anfield, and said: “You'll never guess who I'm with out here in Colorado. Let me put him on.”
When Robbie said “hello,” the Anfield man asked: “Are you as embarrassed about this as I am?”
Robbie replied: “Far more embarrassed” and was told: "OK, just turn the phone off, hand it back to him and pretend you lost me.”
But a hard-nosed operator lurked behind the avuncular exterior.
One morning, Gillett burst into the office of commercial director Ian Ayre after suspecting he’d been conspiring against him with Tom Hicks and unleashed a tsunami of abuse: “You f***ing *******, you've been trying to sell my f***ing club from under me. This is not the f***ing way to do it. I'm going to make sure this is the last f***ing day you work here.”
He swore and threatened for three minutes, veins popping out of his skull, sweat dripping from his brow, slaughtering a man who'd been in his job less than a year but who was already turning around the club's finances.
When he stopped, Ayre explained himself, and told him: “If you've got nothing else to say to me, then I've got nothing else to say to you.”
To which Gillett replied: “Anyway, what's going on in our club?”
***
As the din from the fans protesting outside the boardroom grew louder, Tom Hicks sidled up to a senior club figure and asked what the **** was going on.
“You can't have it both ways,” he was told. “When I asked you why you bought Liverpool you said one of the reasons was the fans who are so engaging and loyal. You can't expect them to be those things then sit back and take it up the a**e when you're giving it to them with both barrels. That's why they're out there.”
Hicks muttered “gimme a break” and sauntered away with the noise ringing in his ears.
The billionaire Texan didn’t take to people threatening his power.
At the initial 2007 press conference, although he had only been involved in the deal for weeks, he demanded the running order be changed so he spoke ahead of Gillett, who had been working on it for six months.
There was never any doubt about who was the alpha male in the partnership.
Gillett would bad-mouth Hicks and vow to stand up to him but, time after time, he would cave in.
A classic example came in the spring of 2009, with Rafa Benitez's proposed new five-year contract. He swore to a senior Liverpool figure he would never sign it. Three days later, it came back signed.
When they rowed, Hicks swatted Gillett away like a mosquito.
A typical scenario would be Hicks dismissing him with a put-down and Gillett playing the injured victim asking: “What have I ever done to you?” To which the Texan would reply: “What have you ever done?”
An Anfield insider who saw one row unfold said: “Hicks looked at him like he was a sad little man. He made reference to the meat-packing deal which brought them together and said: 'When you were a minor shareholder you acted like you were in control. Now you have parity you are insufferable.’”
Anyone who challenged Hicks was bullied into a corner.
Only days after buying the club, he decided to ditch plans for a new stadium and get his architects in Dallas to design something bigger.
“We ain't building that stadium,” he said to project manager Martin Jennings, “it’s not big enough. I'm going to get new designs done.”
When Jennings told him the architects had allowed for an option to expand the planned stadium to a 70,000 capacity, Hicks snapped back: “Are you f***ing listening to me? Are you with us or against us?”
To which Gillett rode in on cue: “Martin, we ain't building that f***ing stadium.”
They didn't build that stadium. Or their own one.
***
Whatever happened, Hicks always seemed to come out on top.
Seven minutes before kick-off of a 2007 Champions League against Barcelona, Gillett demanded someone get him a scarf, intending to show the world how much he loved the club.
A senior club figure told him: “This is Liverpool. You don't wear big scarves, especially if you're a director.”
A peeved Gillett then took his seat in the directors' box, only to find, standing next to him with the biggest, reddest, shiniest Liverpool scarf resting on his shoulders, Tom Hicks - and a cameramen clicking away at the pair of them.
Hicks with scarf, Gillett without. He wasn't happy.
George Bush’s Texan buddy, on the other hand, never sought anyone's advice and cared little about tradition or taste.
How else do you explain him walking into the Anfield boardroom before one game and hitching up his suit trousers to reveal a new pair of cowboy boots bearing the Liver Bird crest?
Worse still, he told everyone he had summoned to admire his leather masterpieces, that if they wanted a pair he could get them a good price.
Here's a question - where were the 'club insiders' and the press with these stories when it could have made a difference when those who were protesting against the owners were getting shouted down for protesting and being told by some that everything was ok? Why did the Spanish lads in the squad come out and say things but Gerrard and Carra didn't?
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Liverpool today announced they are to play a pre-season friendly against Valerenga in Norway this summer.
The game will be played in the national Ullevaal Stadium at 6pm (UK time) on August 1.
The news follows an announcement on Thursday that Liverpool would tour Asia in July for games in China, Malaysia and Korea.
Liverpool last played Valerenga in 2008, prevailing 4-1 in a pre-season friendly.
The club's manager, Martin Andresen, said: "Even though it is a friendly match, it is an important match for Valerenga. We get a good test against an opponent that plays in one of the best leagues in the world, and that will help develop Valerenga further.
"We are very happy with this game and we're looking forward to playing in a sold-out stadium."
Liverpool have a strong support in Norway.
Pal Moller from the LFC Supporters Club Scandinavian Branch said: "We really appreciate that Liverpool comes to Norway to play for all the Norwegian supporters.
"This is an important match in Liverpool's pre-season. They get an opportunity to test out the squad and to get a feeling of playing in a sold-out venue. I know the club looks forward to the match."
Any Valerenga Fans here?
Oh yes, I'll be there. Hoping it'll be a **** sight better than the ***** team Barca turned up with.
Steve*
Y.N.W.A.
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Players we have been linked with today:
Steven Defour
Pablo Armero
Jose Enrique
Ashley Young
Mamadou Sakho
I like the look of Armeno from what i have seen. Not sure about Ashley Young,id rather see Arda Turan or Alexis Sanchez as they are better on the wing.
Hopefully this will be a busy summer for us with 2 or 3 quality players coming in.
Steven Defour
Pablo Armero
Jose Enrique
Ashley Young
Mamadou Sakho
I like the look of Armeno from what i have seen. Not sure about Ashley Young,id rather see Arda Turan or Alexis Sanchez as they are better on the wing.
Hopefully this will be a busy summer for us with 2 or 3 quality players coming in.
We're being linked with EVERYONE at the moment; most of the transfer speculation will, of course, turn out to be absolute bollocks. We'll only see some solid links with individuals emerging in the week before the July transfer window kicks in. Suggest taking everything with more than a pinch of salt until then.
I agree with you about Ashley Young; he's not a dedicated winger IMO, as he cuts in far too much - I reckon he'd turn out to be a reasonably more effective Ryan Babel, & who we require next season are guys who are going to give us width, hit the deadball line & ping over crosses for The Beast in the middle. Young is a cross between a forward & a winger - & doesn't truly excell at either. IMO.
I agree with you about Ashley Young; he's not a dedicated winger IMO, as he cuts in far too much - I reckon he'd turn out to be a reasonably more effective Ryan Babel, & who we require next season are guys who are going to give us width, hit the deadball line & ping over crosses for The Beast in the middle. Young is a cross between a forward & a winger - & doesn't truly excell at either. IMO.
What an absolute farce!! The next segment:
Brian Reade’s new book An Epic Swindle: 44 Months With A Pair Of Cowboys is the riveting inside story of how Liverpool FC was dragged to its knees during the shambolic reign of US owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. After revealing how Hicks and Gillett appalled Jamie Carragher and how Gillett thought Steven Gerrard was gay , here's our third day of extracts:
A meeting between Rafa Benitez and the owners was scheduled for midnight at the Pentelikon hotel in Athens.
The arrangement was that, regardless of whether Liverpool won or lost the 2007 Champions League Final, they would sit down and hammer out plans for the Americans’ first transfer window - aware that their rivals were already doing business.
But then Tom Hicks and George Gillett took a private jet straight back to America after the game, leaving Benitez, already drained and deflated after losing football’s biggest club final, incandescent.
The Spaniard started to walk the streets of Athens alone, a trek which lasted all night, even when the rain began to fall.
He saw no point sitting in the hotel bar with the players talking about what might have been, or with his staff, talking about what might be next season, because he didn’t have the answers.
On he walked, the turmoil growing in his mind, until breakfast.
After a few hours' sleep, he sat before the world’s media and unburdened all the frustrations that had been building in his head.
“I’m tired of talking, talking. We talk and talk but we never finish, I want things to be done,” he said, openly attacking the owners.
The boil had been lanced and nothing would be the same again.
Texan Hicks' first instinct was to throw on his Stetson, pull out a Colt .45 and pump Rafa full of lead.
The problem was, with two European Cup finals reached in three years, he was about as unsackable as a panda in a Chinese zoo with a secret stash of ******.
Nevertheless, both Americans agreed that their manager had to go.
Six months later, on a cold December night, I met Benitez in the house of a mutual friend.
Within minutes of staring at his pale, drawn features and listening to him bare his soul, it was clear he was feeling besieged and betrayed.
“The truth is, they’re killing me,” he said, sitting on a couch, a leather briefcase between us, from which he would pull flow-charts and dossiers to back up his arguments.
“I deal in facts. Only facts. I know they’ve talked to Jose Mourinho, Fabio Capello and Jurgen Klinsmann about my job, but what can I do?
“These people need to remember that in a European sense we were the same as Atletico Madrid before we won the Champions League. Without that win we’d be nothing in Europe, nothing.”
He talked of his frustrations working with chief executive Rick Parry:
“I wanted Florent Malouda last summer but Parry wouldn’t pay the signing-on fee, so he went to Chelsea. He brought in Ryan Babel and paid £2million more than we wanted to. He paid too much for Jermaine Pennant and Yossi Benayoun and made a big mistake with Javier Mascherano’s contract because he allowed him a get-out clause, which ended up costing the club more money.”
His frustration was tangible, his paranoia rampant.
He was worried the fans might believe the poison that was being spread about him and lose the faith:
“Some may believe it without knowing the facts. Here is the truth: I am driving an old BMW while Ferguson and Mourinho are driving Ferraris. I have to swerve and cheat to beat them. I can do that, but I need the money and the back-up to beat the Ferraris.”
Meanwhile, all he seemed to be getting from the Americans was flattery, which he saw through instantly:
“I don’t like people telling me: ‘You are brilliant, you are great’. I hate that. I know where I come from. I know my limitations. I wasn’t a great footballer but I worked hard on the technical side. I am proud of what I have done but I know myself. I hate these sweet words. I like actions.”
When asked why he didn’t just walk away from Liverpool if it was so much hassle, and take up one of the regular offers from Real Madrid, he replied: “I love the club too much and my wife loves living here. This is my home.
“Also, if I go, Reina, Arbeloa, Mascherano and Torres would all leave too. Xabi Alonso will go anyway, because he wants to go back to Spain.”
I asked why some of his players said he didn’t show them enough love and he said that most players don’t need it, but some, like Steven Gerrard, did.
He added that throughout his managerial career he played bad cop while his assistant, Paco Ayesteran, was the good cop. It kept them on their toes.
But Paco had gone. Why?
“He needed to go. He betrayed me.”
Benitez’s words simply backed up everything I was seeing, hearing and fearing less than a year into the Americans’ reign…
Anfield was riddled with empire-building, poisonous briefings, distrust, disloyalty and back-stabbing.
It had become a nest of vipers.
***
When Benitez’s job was offered to Klinsmann, Hicks’ PR people claimed the move was all down to Gillett.
Their version was that Gillett had introduced the German to Hicks and was saying “we gotta hire this guy” while the Texan was lukewarm.
But that’s not how a senior Liverpool figure remembers it.
He says that once Hicks met Klinsmann, he was desperate to make him his manager. He invited the German and his wife to a Thanksgiving dinner at his second home in California.
As they talked, Hicks liked what he was hearing and, in typical style, took the bull by the horns.
The idea of working at Anfield was put to Klinsmann, with conditions such as Benitez could still be there for a while but that he shouldn't worry about it.
One Liverpool player’s agent was asked to sound out his client about the prospect of having Klinsmann as his manager. The player couldn’t believe what he was hearing and told him to transmit back words to that effect.
The deal eventually stalled. Klinsmann began to harbour misgivings, lost interest and went back to Germany to be Bayern Munich coach, leaving Hicks furious.
“Shame on us all,” he wrote in an email to Gillett and Parry.
“The idea that Tom Hicks was an innocent party in the Klinsmann saga is a joke,” said the senior figure.
“I know that he kept in touch with him, because when we were doing the deal for Martin Skrtel in the January he emailed Klinsmann to ask if we were spending too much.”
***
Rick Parry does not believe selling Liverpool to the Americans was the major failure during his time as chief executive.
Two bigger regrets are not winning the Premier League or building a new stadium. But surely he’s suffered sleepless nights recalling how he sold the family silver?
“I don't think anyone looks back with anything other than regret at that sale, but hindsight is much easier than foresight,” he said.
“I wish David Moores had decided not to sell because no-one cared more for the club than he did. We could have borrowed the money to build the stadium but if we'd had a bad year on the pitch, there'd have been no headroom to buy players. This wasn't a risk David was prepared to take.”
What about allegations that Parry sold to the Americans purely to feather his own nest?
“I find it pretty offensive that people suggest I favoured Hicks and Gillett because I had a good offer from them, not least because there isn't a shred of evidence to support this.”
So how did you end up selling to a leverage buyout king in Hicks? Did you and Moores take him purely on Gillett's word?
“Effectively, yes. We'd known George for six months and thought we'd got a decent feel for him. So when George said: 'Trust me, Tom's a decent guy', we thought: 'Well, you obviously know him far better than we do, you've decided to give him 50% of the club, so you must have done your checks.' That's essentially what we relied on.”
Brian Reade’s new book An Epic Swindle: 44 Months With A Pair Of Cowboys is the riveting inside story of how Liverpool FC was dragged to its knees during the shambolic reign of US owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. After revealing how Hicks and Gillett appalled Jamie Carragher and how Gillett thought Steven Gerrard was gay , here's our third day of extracts:
A meeting between Rafa Benitez and the owners was scheduled for midnight at the Pentelikon hotel in Athens.
The arrangement was that, regardless of whether Liverpool won or lost the 2007 Champions League Final, they would sit down and hammer out plans for the Americans’ first transfer window - aware that their rivals were already doing business.
But then Tom Hicks and George Gillett took a private jet straight back to America after the game, leaving Benitez, already drained and deflated after losing football’s biggest club final, incandescent.
The Spaniard started to walk the streets of Athens alone, a trek which lasted all night, even when the rain began to fall.
He saw no point sitting in the hotel bar with the players talking about what might have been, or with his staff, talking about what might be next season, because he didn’t have the answers.
On he walked, the turmoil growing in his mind, until breakfast.
After a few hours' sleep, he sat before the world’s media and unburdened all the frustrations that had been building in his head.
“I’m tired of talking, talking. We talk and talk but we never finish, I want things to be done,” he said, openly attacking the owners.
The boil had been lanced and nothing would be the same again.
Texan Hicks' first instinct was to throw on his Stetson, pull out a Colt .45 and pump Rafa full of lead.
The problem was, with two European Cup finals reached in three years, he was about as unsackable as a panda in a Chinese zoo with a secret stash of ******.
Nevertheless, both Americans agreed that their manager had to go.
Six months later, on a cold December night, I met Benitez in the house of a mutual friend.
Within minutes of staring at his pale, drawn features and listening to him bare his soul, it was clear he was feeling besieged and betrayed.
“The truth is, they’re killing me,” he said, sitting on a couch, a leather briefcase between us, from which he would pull flow-charts and dossiers to back up his arguments.
“I deal in facts. Only facts. I know they’ve talked to Jose Mourinho, Fabio Capello and Jurgen Klinsmann about my job, but what can I do?
“These people need to remember that in a European sense we were the same as Atletico Madrid before we won the Champions League. Without that win we’d be nothing in Europe, nothing.”
He talked of his frustrations working with chief executive Rick Parry:
“I wanted Florent Malouda last summer but Parry wouldn’t pay the signing-on fee, so he went to Chelsea. He brought in Ryan Babel and paid £2million more than we wanted to. He paid too much for Jermaine Pennant and Yossi Benayoun and made a big mistake with Javier Mascherano’s contract because he allowed him a get-out clause, which ended up costing the club more money.”
His frustration was tangible, his paranoia rampant.
He was worried the fans might believe the poison that was being spread about him and lose the faith:
“Some may believe it without knowing the facts. Here is the truth: I am driving an old BMW while Ferguson and Mourinho are driving Ferraris. I have to swerve and cheat to beat them. I can do that, but I need the money and the back-up to beat the Ferraris.”
Meanwhile, all he seemed to be getting from the Americans was flattery, which he saw through instantly:
“I don’t like people telling me: ‘You are brilliant, you are great’. I hate that. I know where I come from. I know my limitations. I wasn’t a great footballer but I worked hard on the technical side. I am proud of what I have done but I know myself. I hate these sweet words. I like actions.”
When asked why he didn’t just walk away from Liverpool if it was so much hassle, and take up one of the regular offers from Real Madrid, he replied: “I love the club too much and my wife loves living here. This is my home.
“Also, if I go, Reina, Arbeloa, Mascherano and Torres would all leave too. Xabi Alonso will go anyway, because he wants to go back to Spain.”
I asked why some of his players said he didn’t show them enough love and he said that most players don’t need it, but some, like Steven Gerrard, did.
He added that throughout his managerial career he played bad cop while his assistant, Paco Ayesteran, was the good cop. It kept them on their toes.
But Paco had gone. Why?
“He needed to go. He betrayed me.”
Benitez’s words simply backed up everything I was seeing, hearing and fearing less than a year into the Americans’ reign…
Anfield was riddled with empire-building, poisonous briefings, distrust, disloyalty and back-stabbing.
It had become a nest of vipers.
***
When Benitez’s job was offered to Klinsmann, Hicks’ PR people claimed the move was all down to Gillett.
Their version was that Gillett had introduced the German to Hicks and was saying “we gotta hire this guy” while the Texan was lukewarm.
But that’s not how a senior Liverpool figure remembers it.
He says that once Hicks met Klinsmann, he was desperate to make him his manager. He invited the German and his wife to a Thanksgiving dinner at his second home in California.
As they talked, Hicks liked what he was hearing and, in typical style, took the bull by the horns.
The idea of working at Anfield was put to Klinsmann, with conditions such as Benitez could still be there for a while but that he shouldn't worry about it.
One Liverpool player’s agent was asked to sound out his client about the prospect of having Klinsmann as his manager. The player couldn’t believe what he was hearing and told him to transmit back words to that effect.
The deal eventually stalled. Klinsmann began to harbour misgivings, lost interest and went back to Germany to be Bayern Munich coach, leaving Hicks furious.
“Shame on us all,” he wrote in an email to Gillett and Parry.
“The idea that Tom Hicks was an innocent party in the Klinsmann saga is a joke,” said the senior figure.
“I know that he kept in touch with him, because when we were doing the deal for Martin Skrtel in the January he emailed Klinsmann to ask if we were spending too much.”
***
Rick Parry does not believe selling Liverpool to the Americans was the major failure during his time as chief executive.
Two bigger regrets are not winning the Premier League or building a new stadium. But surely he’s suffered sleepless nights recalling how he sold the family silver?
“I don't think anyone looks back with anything other than regret at that sale, but hindsight is much easier than foresight,” he said.
“I wish David Moores had decided not to sell because no-one cared more for the club than he did. We could have borrowed the money to build the stadium but if we'd had a bad year on the pitch, there'd have been no headroom to buy players. This wasn't a risk David was prepared to take.”
What about allegations that Parry sold to the Americans purely to feather his own nest?
“I find it pretty offensive that people suggest I favoured Hicks and Gillett because I had a good offer from them, not least because there isn't a shred of evidence to support this.”
So how did you end up selling to a leverage buyout king in Hicks? Did you and Moores take him purely on Gillett's word?
“Effectively, yes. We'd known George for six months and thought we'd got a decent feel for him. So when George said: 'Trust me, Tom's a decent guy', we thought: 'Well, you obviously know him far better than we do, you've decided to give him 50% of the club, so you must have done your checks.' That's essentially what we relied on.”
f.u.b.a.r.
Steve*
Y.N.W.A.
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I agree with all that you have said. I dont take much notice of who we have been linked with yet but Young,Enrique and Turans names keep popping up every few days. Id be hoping that we have around £50M for transfers in the summer and any extra revenue we get from sales so maybe £60M.(this would be a realistic enough amount as its the last chance for us to evade FFP as our accounts are published later in the year).
Out of that possible money id love to see us sign a quality winger,a left back and a center back. I believe the rest of the team is stronger and we have youth prospects.
My suggestions would be...
Winger:
Alexis Sanchez £25M,
Arda Turan £10-£13M or
Dirgo Perrotti £15M
Left Back:
Concetrao £15M ish
Jose Enrique £10-£13M or
Taiwo on a free would be great
Center Back:
Dont know about a price but somebody like Scott Dann, Ryan Shawcross or Sakho.
There just the types of players that id go for. I guess a lot will depend on us getting Europa League next season.
I'd love to see Sanchez & Coentrao at Anfield but realistically they'll be going to either of the Spanish giants - we can't even offer CL football as an incentive & if Barca or Madrid come calling we'll have no chance. Sadly we'll have to focus on 'good' players as opposed to'great' ones - at least until we're back where we want to be ie: the season after next (unless Comolli pulls of a masterstroke or two that is).
I expect KK to quietly build a solid squad with a sprinkling of gold dust on it capable of challenging for the top honours again; we've already got Reina (please stay Pepe), Lucas, Suarez & Carroll. Stevie G is, I fear, getting past his best now & increasingly physically fragile. We can no longer rely on him to drive us forward. Finding a suitable replacement for him will give Kenny nightmares; just how do you replace the irreplaceable ?
This next transfer window is going to be a frenetic one for LFC. I expect at least five new QUALITY players, capable of going straight into the first team, to come in - possibly more, given that the likes of Poulsen, Jovanevic & Cole will be getting moved on. We'll require more than £50 mil in transfer funds. £75 mil would be nearer the mark. I hope FSG are as ambitious as they come across.
I expect KK to quietly build a solid squad with a sprinkling of gold dust on it capable of challenging for the top honours again; we've already got Reina (please stay Pepe), Lucas, Suarez & Carroll. Stevie G is, I fear, getting past his best now & increasingly physically fragile. We can no longer rely on him to drive us forward. Finding a suitable replacement for him will give Kenny nightmares; just how do you replace the irreplaceable ?
This next transfer window is going to be a frenetic one for LFC. I expect at least five new QUALITY players, capable of going straight into the first team, to come in - possibly more, given that the likes of Poulsen, Jovanevic & Cole will be getting moved on. We'll require more than £50 mil in transfer funds. £75 mil would be nearer the mark. I hope FSG are as ambitious as they come across.
Last edited:
Steve*
Y.N.W.A.
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Yeah i know i said about £50M but if we flog Aquilanni,Agger,Poulsen,Brad Jones,Jovanovich and a few more players that could be up to £25M extra aswell. I wouldnt look for more than 3 players to go straight into the starting 11 as it could take them a while to settle in and we really need to hit the ground running in august 