Damn! lost to Man Utd at home, which is bad but not shameful. The only good thing was that the commentators were praising Bolton quite a lot and saying they deserved a point. If only they would play that well all the time.
I saw it on the telly - If it wasn’t for timmy Tourettes BWFC would have won - or at least got a draw.
Stitch that, Inmanieri.
I had trouble believing my Sky’s last night. Stephane Henchoz played a one-two and hared up the right wing like Stanley Matthews in his tangerine pomp. El Hadj Diouf was passing the ball (perhaps his boots were so surprised that they deliberately tangled their laces with Mutu’s in order to send their wearer to an early bath). And finally, a Liverpool midfielder actually arrives in the six yard box and…Christ on a subcommittee! It’s Bruno Cheyrou! He’s scored a friggin goal!
Googly-eye bought Cheyrou, Diao, Diouf and Kewell in the hope that any one of them might become a Pires or Giggs, able to orchestrate one side of the field in a patient attack and ghost into the box regularly. One swallow does not summer make, but a performance in which a midfielder scores and then the hatches are battened down effectively, all away to a top team, urges me to repeat the mantra: Ferguson took 6 years to win the league.
Mr Meat:
As a mickey don’t you look at the Liverpool team and think; Who are these fuckers?
I know we haven’t exactly got a team full of household names - but by golly there’s some obscure chaps in yours.
Do you realy want to keep on with Houlier (when fourth will ALWAYS be the highest ambition, and you will only make it one in three years), or would you rather get a Martin O’Neil type who might kick on a bit?
Sky News is reporting that we’re losing Liam Miller to Man U.
I really, really hope this isn’t true. Of all our youngsters he’s easily the most promising.
Every team, L’Arse and Scum included, have some Iain Duncan Smiths in their ranks (who the hell are Edu and Phil Neville, really?) . They only become known by playing well in a successful team. Pires struggled, faceless, for a couple of seasons - indeed the entire Arsenal team were rather a lot of nobodies until they started winning titles, and I would remind you that last night we beat the quintessential Star Team the press drooled over in summer. I would also remind you that a system can often be world-beating even though it is operated by players who are not necessarily amongst the best in their position in the world.
In any case, I think a team based on a spine of Owen, Gerrard, Hamman and Hyypia should compete with the best, and the faceless fuckers we are talking about actually comprise the two stars of the surprise team of the World Cup, the other England striker and a Socceroo who’s in Heat magazine all the time coz he’s porking someone on Emmerdale. Bruno Chey-who? is, along with Pongolle and Le Tallec, admittedly an unknown French player Houllier is hoping to turn into a Pires or Zidane, but at £3M he’s not going to break the bank even if he fizzles out like Igor Biscan or (horrors!) Bernard Diomede. £10M on Djibril Cisse OTOH- now there’s a sackable offence if he’s just another Heskey or El Hadj Doofus.
As I’ve said before, scouse loyalty is absurdly strong, such that it quite frankly bemuses other fans. But I genuinely think Houllier has done a great deal to set the club up for the future. When a prospective player visits the club, they are genuinely impressed with the set up: the training, the philosophy, the attention to detail, everything is set up to make a player feel like playing well. I sincerely believe that that set up and the current team should be winning trophies.
Perhaps, yes. Maybe the reason is essentially tactical weakness. Maybe the system is at fault. And for that, a new manager would be key. But until the end of the season, Houllier is my man. Unless we lose to Everton, in which case I would see his googling eyes sucked out like a springy pair of novelty spectacles.
The point I was trying to make is that not all that long ago most football fans could name the first choice liverpool XI - as most could do now for Man Utd, even the Molby’s were well known.
But Pongolle? You’re having a laugh.
That’s not to say that the LFC team is poor, just that it all seems a bit Netto/Lidl.
I assume there’s a reasonable amount of money at the club, so why these two-bob players?
Evening Standard today: Trapattoni’s agent confirms Spurs’ interest.
Oldham Athletic: creditors and shareholders today unanimously agreed to accept a Creditors’ Voluntary Agreement (CVA), the first step towards escape from administration.
Concern: our new owners are three twenty-something Americans, self-confessed Arsenal and Chelsea fans, who’ve already tried courting publicity with an attempt to sign Gazza.
Current favourites for new manager: Stuart Pearce, Steve Cotterill, Joe Kinnear, Brian Talbot, John Sheridan. Worryingly, Glenn Hoddle’s name has also been mentioned.
By definition it’s unlikely people will hear much about promising youngsters before they start playing - bit harsh to label Pongolle as “two-bit”. Who’d heard of Rooney before the start of last season, or Darren Fletcher this season, or Andy Reid this season?
Can’t disagree about some others - Cheyrou, Diao etc - but every team has their share of those players. The day anyone can work out who Danny Boshell is is a long way off.
In all honesty you could do a great deal worse than Hoddle. He has only one blemish on his managerial record - and that was in pretty exceptional circumstances. He did very well with Swindon.
Just don’t let him bring John Gorman with him. (I have been told by someone who knows him that he’s hoping to pick up a well paid job abroad eg coach of Australia, Quatar etc, which makes sense (also he still thinks he’ll get another chance at the England job. He is talented, just “differently sane”).
Of the rest of those Kinnear would be probably the best choice.
There’s a shameful lack of ludicrous speculation in this morning’s papers about transfers.
Except for this small matter on the beeb site:
“Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy has confirmed his interest in attracting Italy coach Giovanni Trapattoni to White Hart Lane”
- I think I might have a panic attack; I think this is good but . . . bear with me . . .
p.s. Good going Oldham!
I can see why Trappatoni would come (money - and lots of it). But Hughes? I would imagine he would keep the Wales job (Like Hughton does for Ireland), but I would have thought he may be a bit more ambitious than that.
Perhaps a little bird at Old Trafford has told him to keep out of club management for a couple of years?
January 19th is coming up fast (it’s when Leeds’ Standstill Agreement with their creditors runs out) so courtesy of the intermaweb thingummy here is a rundown of Leeds’ spending etc that has been doing the rounds. Seth Johnson - priceless.>>>>>>>>>>>>
On January 1st 2002, Leeds United were top of the Premiership. Two years on, Leeds are slumped in the relegation zone after defeat to bottom-of-the-table Wolves.
Worse still, they are saddled with record-breaking debts that could make them the first Premiership club ever to go into administration. At last week’s AGM, shareholders were promised a full inquiry into the management of the club over the past five years.
Among the figures the inquiry may focus on:
£81m – The amount Leeds currently owe in debt.
£20.3m – The amount Leeds have to repay their debtors before June.
£49.5m – The amount Leeds announced in October that they had lost in the last financial year, an increase from the previous year’s loss of £34m.
£952,000 – The amount Leeds lost every week in the last financial year.
£25.4m – The amount Leeds would have lost in the last financial year if they hadn’t taken into consideration the losses on players (Robbie Fowler, Lee Bowyer, Olivier Dacourt and Robbie Keane) sold for less than their valuations.
£21m – The amount Leeds owe to a Channel Islands company through which the club bought players on a ‘hire purchase’ scheme.
£60m – The amount raised by a 25-year bond secured against season-ticket sales and gate receipts.
£2.5m – The amount the Leeds coffers received from the sale of Harry Kewell to Liverpool in the summer. One month before, Arsenal and Manchester United had reportedly bid £8m for the Australian.
£100,000 – The amount received for the services of Lee Bowyer from West Ham after his transfer last January. It represented a shortfall of approximately £10m on the figure Liverpool had offered for the player six months previously.
£20 – The amount spent, per month, on leasing goldfish for chairman Peter Ridsdale’s office.
£600,000 – The amount Leeds were paying for a fleet of 70 company cars for the club’s directors. That figure includes £70,000 on just one car alone.
£70,000 – The amount spent in a single year on private jets for the club’s hierarchy.
£70,000 – The total expense of headhunting a senior management figure at the club who then departed Elland Road within six months.
£300,000 – The amount Leeds gave to charity each year.
£11m – The transfer fee of Robbie Fowler when he joined Leeds from Liverpool in November 2001.
£6m – Fowler’s transfer fee when he left Leeds for Manchester City 14 months later.
6 – The number of league goals Fowler scored for Leeds.
£500,000 – The amount Leeds will continue paying Fowler in wages for the next three years despite his departure.
£3.78m – The estimated total amount Fowler will receive by June 2006 from Leeds for his ‘services’.
£1.5m – The amount said to have been paid in fees to agents for players signed by Peter Reid who are currently not in the first team.
£380,000 – The amount former chairman John McKenzie was paid before his resignation in November. A basic salary of £80,000 was supplemented by a £100,000 wage for his non-executive position and a further £200,000 for ‘consultancy’.
£300,000 – The amount, as stipulated by his contract, the good professor was also paid in advance until September 2004.
£10,000 – The amount Seth Johnson is said to have earned a week at Derby before his transfer to Leeds.
£20,000 – The amount Johnson reputedly hoped to be offered by Leeds, per week.
£30,000 – The amount Johnson was reputedly told to ‘take or leave’ in preliminary ‘negotiations’ with Peter Ridsdale.
£37,000 – The amount he said to be offered 24 hours later. Presumably open-mouthed, he took it.
10 – The number of times (including substitute appearances) Johnson played for Leeds in the Premiership last season.
88 – The percentage of Leeds’ turnover that is spent on wages.
21 – The percentage by which Leeds’ turnover fell in the last financial year.
£64m – Leeds’ turnover last year (down from £81.5m the previous year).
£56.6m – The amount Leeds spent in wages last year.
£7.2m – The amount spent by Leeds in the last financial year on compensation.
£5.2m – The amount spent compensating Terry Venables and David O’Leary following their dismissals. O’Leary was just 18 months through a five-year contract.
£850,000 – The amount Peter Reid will now receive in compensation following his sacking.
£300,000 – The amount paid in compensation to Eddie Gray when he was sacked as assistant coach in March (Brian Kidd is believed to have received a similar fee after his simultaneous sacking from the coaching staff).
6 – The number of months between Gray’s sacking and his return as caretaker manager.
£450,000 – The amount Peter Ridsdale was paid per year in his position as Leeds chairman.
£300,000 – The reputed annual compensation now given to Peter Ridsdale, the current chairman of Barnsley.
£1m – The estimated amount Leeds have to spend per year compensating Ridsdale, plus former fellow directors Steven Harrison and David Spencer.
£500,000 – The salary paid to Trevor Birch, Leeds’ ‘current cost-cutter-in-chief’, chief executive, and instigator of the inquiry. It’s an amount which dwarfs the wage of Professor McKenzie and makes him the highest-paid director in the history of the club.
Indeed, Liverpool operated at a profit of $4m last year, the third best financial shape in the Prem. But Pongolle and Le Tallec have actually been followed by Houllier for several years since their youth in Le Havre and their devastating partnership in the French U-17’s. As with Cheyrou, at an estimated £3M for the pair one might argue they are a shrewd gamble if their potential is realised.
Flops-so-far aside, I think Kewell was a scoop and with, hopefully, Cisse on his way for £10M in the window, the only real regret I have personally in terms of missing out on available quality players was the case of Steed Malbranque - I think Ged should have tried his very best, perhaps even overlooking Finnan.
I think the real reason why the personnel have been swapped so aften this season is due to injuries and, occasionally, utter losses of form so bad that being dropped was the necessary last resort (Riise and Heskey in particular).
An in-form, non-injured Liverpool would likely be:
Kirkland______
Carragher, Henchoz, Hyypia, Finnan
Kewell, Gerrard, Hamman, Riise
Heskey/Baros, Owen__
with players like Diouf, Murphy, Cisse and the 3 musketeers pressing to become essential fixtures (which Vlad Smicer, love him, will never be). I suggest that this is not by any means a faceless team, and has simply not yet been available this term.
And perhaps the very best way to inspire utter, fanatic loyalty to Houllier is by getting your mate to say this.
As for Leeds, God what a mess. What were those “ransom strips” you spoke of a while ago? They sounded really quite fiendish.
A ranson strip is a small strip of land around a larger piece that hems it in and controls access. It means that if the owner of the larger piece wants to use his land he has to buy you off.
It’s a well known property speculator trick. The thing is that ANY half way competent company doesn’t let it happen.
I’ve had you tentatively marked down as a West London Estate Agent for several months, Owl.
Barnard Marcus ? 
I wil have you know that I am over 21, do not posess a Curruti or Top Man suit, and do not hanker for a green Foxton’s mini. Nor do I talk loudly in restaurants or use a mobile phone on public transport. The Missus is not an identi-kit blonde with an alice band, more teeth than tits and a pearl necklace (well not a permanent pearl necklace knoworrimean?).
Estate Agent indeed.
I’m a Vulture Capitalist IRL. Got any assets you want stripped guv? I’ll give you a nice shiny goldfish for them.
Smoked out!
Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane can blow goats in hell.
Twisters, old cock - Quite, as ruadh mentioned, it’s a trifle unfortunate. But didn’t Celtic just do the exact same thing to Motherwell ?
Isn’t it just all the footie food chain in all its raw glory ?
btw Owl - Saw this elsewhere. I imagine you saw this in the Telegraph; excellent explanation, from our old favourite Mihir Bose, of what Levy is up to with regard the share issue: