Anfields5thKing Fri May 27, 2011 4:47 am
Lukaku and Neymar are the most likely signings for Chelski. Aguero won't want to play with Torres again. Kaka has said he won't be going to a London club and Tevez wants to leave England so you can rule him out. Lukaku will replace Drogba, Neymar will replace Malouda and you'll still have Torres as the odd man out. Can't see Roman paying 14mil to buy out Villas-Boas either. Pellegrini has apparently been approached. His teams play great attacking football which would fit what Roman wants to see. Problem for Chelski is that they still believe Lampard can do the business over an entire season. Unless he quits the England set up, I don't think he can. He needs to take a page from the Giggs and Scholes guide to mid-30s premiership success. Just focus on club football, take a rest when the manager offers you one, and don't try and carry the team by yourself when you have better players around you.
Top two next season will be City plus 1 other. City have the best squad in the league and they're going to be able to attract big players this summer. That team with another year together and one or two key signings will be in the top 2. They're my bet for the title.
I think you're going to be in for a big surprise next year though. I think Chelsea will struggle to mount a challenge and could end up 4. If Roman goes and buys players and then gets a manager in, that's a recipe for disaster. He needs to focus on filling the vacancy first. Either way, Chelsea will have to adjust to a different style of play next season. New system and possible a bigger influx of players than they've had since Mourinho was there. It's been a fairly settled team for the last 4 years. There could be a lot of players leaving. Drogba, Malouda, Anelka to name but 3.
I'm hearing the Friedel deal is done. He was considering retirement, but he's happy to take a back-up role and bring his career full circle back to his first english club. He doesn't want to move his kids to London and he has lived in Liverpool(well, just outside) since he first came to England.
With the squad we had for the second half of the season, and Kenny in charge for the full year, we'd have made the CL this year. No doubt. We had a horrific year injuries wise, but Hodgson fucked us. We were 3rd bottom going into November. 12th when Kenny took over. Over the second half of the season we collected the second most points of anyone. With the right signings, I have no doubts we can challenge next season. We'll have Gerrard fit, Carroll fit, Kelly fit and Agger fit. Those are 4 of our best players. We didn't have the depth to cope with the injuries last year. We will have next season. And we'll sign a couple of big players to add to the first team.
Pete, after we were first linked i made a point to download and watch every Newcastle game from Xmas onwards and not once did he really impress me and make me think he could be good enough to play for Liverpool. He's very poor positionally, awful in the air, he's got no ability to read the flight of the ball and he's extremely weak. He is quick rather than fast. Covers ten yards well but over 30 he lacks real pace. And he does time his tackles well when he's in a position to make them but defensively I'd rate him as no better than Glen Johnson. And every top winger I saw against him tore him apart. His performance at Anfield was the single worst performance I've seen by any player this year. He was horrendous. Actually, I'm wrong. His performance against West Brom on the last day of the season was worse. Going forward he looks comfortable on the ball but he produces nothing. 1 assist all season?? When he played with Carroll for half the year?? No thanks. Comolli and Dalglish have both expressed extreme doubts over his defensive abilities according to the talk around Liverpool. And apparently Carroll has told Dalglish not to sign him. I think he'll go to the french league or a mid-table spanish club to be honest. Left back is probably the weakest position in the league and aside from the top 2 guys - Cole and Evra, I can think of at least 5 i'd want over Enrique. Leftback is also the one weak spot in the spanish national team and he's never even had a look in. Zero caps. He was never even first choice at U-21 level. Capdevila has never been great but he's never had to worry about losing his place to Enrique. And Nacho Monreal isn't great either but he'll eventually take the role and I don't see Enrique challenging him either. The three most worrying things about Enrique though are that he's got no heart, no loyalty and he's lazy.
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