NAMING RIGHTS THREAD: Liverpool really won't win the Premiership 2010-2011

Guessing Foster doesn't want to be psychologically destroyed Rob Green-style. So either sensible or bottler, depending which way you look at it.

pretty damning indictment of him as a player/person, imo. "i might fail so best not to try"

like...for a sportsperson you'd expect more

Hey on the plus side Ben Foster won't play for England.

I get the sense most English players just fucking hate playing for England at this stage in the game and only do it for commercial/profile reasons.

I think you'll find that he only got injured in the last game by which time you were already 6th, you fucking numbnut.

as mencap's said, bale's been crocked twice already this season (both by p neville iirc) before now.

also VDV hasn't been '90 mins fit' all season, next season we'll see if that's a WC hangover or whether he's just arshavin but with better end product i guess.

I get the sense most English players just fucking hate playing for England at this stage in the game and only do it for commercial/profile reasons.

― Matt DC

after their 3rd game, when the 'international player' clause in their contract kicks in, it's a liability

You wouldn't play for England in any sort of ideal world, you only end up hated. Managers even more so. Beckham's the only guy who ever seemed to get any joy from it, at least since Gascoigne, yet he took more shit than anyone.

I wonder if anyone hates Beckham any more? There's nothing not to love about him these days, even his missus keeps quiet I think.

always have <3 for beckham, underrated on the pitch, never all that offensive off it, except for his witch of a mrs obv

"He's got my full support. I love Carlo," Terry told The Sun.

Thought that would confuse all those people who think Terry secretly runs the club as part of his evil masterplan (even though he's really stupid obv).

By all accounts Ancelotti has a much better rapport with the players and is much more charismatic than his interviews suggest. And he won them the double last season.

i hope he stays mainly so my friends from dublin can continue to crack jokes to my dad about him looking like carlo. my dad now refers to chelsea only as "the lads" or "the players" or "my team" etc...despite being a man u fan.

Tell him to do it for Pat.

if you heard how far the "for pat" meme has travelled you'd possibly laugh for at least a few seconds...

dalglish in

That us into phase two then :)
http://shrani.si/f/2u/cm/13hcv7Fg/2uom26o.jpg

"no where near as good as thought"

no other choice really. If they appointed anyone else and we had one bad result/performance in say the first 2 months the guy would be screwed. Wonder if this put a spanner in any long term planning the owners had? They can't have expected things to have gone this well since january, did anyone?

i think for all the talk if dalglish did shit people would quickly tire of him and want him out. no fans are that charitable. it's mostly a good thing that they're so behind him, the belief and optimism at the club was utterly fucked after the yank fiasco and hodgson's charisma free junket, at least now the fans are roaring again.

so now give him a proper lash at the season, use the optimism to attract better players (this is a huge factor imo) and take it from there. even if he doesn't do well next year i think we should be able to sign some good players in the summer and the squad will be improved.

but i do think he'll do well. no reason not to think that. people talk about the pressure being off but it was anything but off when he took over first.

when i say well i mean 5th with a tilt at the cl...more than say, winning the league or whatever. they should go all out for both cups next year.

I'm fairly confident Liverpool will force one of City, Arsenal and Chelsea out of a Champs League spot next season, if not actually challenge for the title. They seem a very well balanced team at the moment, lots of goals and lots of clean sheets, some brawn, some brains, lots of skill. Every player seems to know his job.

anything but off - and some would have even thought it on

Surely City will mount a decent challenge next season? No way they won't make the Champions League spots

this is their year - liverpool 11/12

they should go all out for both cups next year.

Yes, it would be excellent to see Kenny walk at the beginning of March.

Depends what expectations are (from the board as well as the fans). Champions League qualification used to be a bare minimum requirement and I'm wondering if that'll be the case at the start of next season.

I'm not convinced that City are nailed on for the CL next season, they could well throw money at a few marquee signings that turn out to be disasters.

I think a fair few teams who've lined up against Liverpool of late have hugely underestimated them and paid for it. I'm not saying they'll be "found out" next season but there'll be fewer teams naively expecting a marginally-improved version of Hodgson's cloggers, and Liverpool could well find it harder next year. Not saying they don't have a chance, but it's difficult to gauge quite how good they are at the moment.

I know it's Liverpool fans we're talking about here, but I wouldn't expect too many of them will be looking to win the league next season

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi2qX96gGJc

It's all very confusing, this is arguably a weaker squad than the first half of the season (Suarez in, Torres and Gerrard out; some kids in, some miscellaneous professionals out) but the difference in performance is astonishing. They don't even look like the same team playing better: the structure, formation, morale, pace, style, everything's changed. I kind of assume that Steve Clarke is behind it as much as Kenny, but doesn't get mentioned as much.

As to what to expect, no idea except that I do think this is a permanent shift to a higher level than the preceding eighteen months rather than just a blistering run of form. New players in the summer will be interesting, though I'd like a handful of pacy, top performers and not a squad-filling exercise. Mentions of Ashley Young good, mentions of Charlie Adam not, basically. Though I do stress that I don't really have any particular idea of who or even what positions are really needed - again, the fact that they look like this now is near-inexplicable after what was being served up before.

Obviously I'll be voting for 'first' in the poll, it is May after all.

I'd like a handful of pacy, top performers and not a squad-filling exercise

agreed. we've traded down for too many years and it's been our biggest prob, you end up swapping one okay player for another. i also don't want us within an asses roar of gary cahill or similarly overpriced english defenders. if we want a defender let's find a good value one in europe...we need creativity first and foremost.

Five into four for the Champions League next season. Only see Man United as being a definite top four finish. Liverpool are still a long way from a title challenge.

do not see utd as a definite top 4 team - big summer coming up

Anyway, shouldn't you all be listening to Blue Is The Colour in Czechoslovakian?

http://greatwenlondon.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/blue-is-the-colour-versions-from-around-the-world/

Spurs' stock has sunk too far, too fast

i like the idea that our okay squad players going forward will be academy graduates. no point in buying your poulsens and konchesky's etc if you've got spearing's and flanogan's. Should be looking at players who would go straight into starting eleven ie meireles, suarez. If we do as well over the course of a whole season as the last half season I'd be more than happy, even if that means 5th cos I'd expect chelsea and city to improve although spurs are there for the taking imo.

Not sure about arsenal, arguably should have won the title this year so not sure I expect them to drop out of top 4 next season. Feel like this season is the tipping point for the gooners, but have no idea which way they'll tilt!

arsenal have more or less been on a plateau for years, but get such frantic attention that their minor peaks and troughs are magnified

United would need to drop about 20 points from this season to finish outside top 4 and Liverpool make up a similar amount to win title. Can't see either happening.

'i like the idea that our okay squad players going forward will be academy graduates. no point in buying your poulsens and konchesky's etc if you've got spearing's and flanogan's.'

This is one of those things Alex Ferguson has got right for the past decade or so. O'Shea, brown, neville, Evans - they're the players that win the titles in some ways.

the level will probably be a lot higher next season....a lot of lax performances from the top four this year, so i cold see top 4 qualification requiring 75+ points

y'nahtid still going to be there tho

/could

lolling at Little Pea FULL Song

hodgson's charisma free junket

hodgson vs rafa vs dalglish for charisma? between them they wouldn't fill a shitpot.

i like the idea that our okay squad players going forward will be academy graduates. no point in buying your poulsens and konchesky's etc if you've got spearing's and flanogan's.

only arsenal and utd have managed to achieve while doing this, as far back as i can remember? everton manage it for half a season tbf.

Nothing new here, but a good article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/8511127/Manchester-Uniteds-owners-the-Glazers-are-monumental-leeches-growing-rich-on-a-golden-age.html

kenny has way more charisma than hodgson or rafa. at least he's smiling and joking.

I rarely read it, but the Telegraph's football coverage is pretty much always good when I do (was directed there this morning looking at Neil Lennon stuff, which seems to have pressed a few wrong buttons though I thought it was alright).

I've said this before, but United operating as a plc in a way invited this on themselves - they should've gone private if the intention was ever to operate within their limits, they made themselves too juicy a target and no way to fend a predator off. In retrospect, do you think Utd got lucky that the Sky bid was scuppered essentially by a deus ex machina, or would Sky have been a less-bad option?

kenny has way more charisma than hodgson or rafa. at least he's smiling and joking.

Charisma is not something I associate with Kenny Dalglish, or perhaps it's just not obvious to me. He doesn't say much but he has got a sly sense of humour and a bit of a twinkle, very Glaswegian.

Kenny is pretty good in interviews.

(xp) I'm glad the Sky bid was successfully fought off, but I think it might have been a less-bad option (which I appreciate is probably logically inconsistent). Less-bad for United, but probably worse for football.

Were Mike Phelan to do the same with Javier Hernández these days, he would be obliged to pick out the software engineers from Singapore, the human resources managers from Oslo, the hedge fund directors from Prestbury.

hate when this xenophobic stuff kicks in. yes feel free to lament locals not being able to afford to go to games, but why "singapore" and "oslo". can't somebody from singapore be allowed to watch a football match without being deemed to be some kind of human sized tumour

x-post kenny's press conferences have all been fairly funny...