Liverpool still won't win the premiership (2007/08 edition)

http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2152906,00.html

pretty shit.

Defensive injury crises and managerial-board ructions are so last year...

Sky Sports are saying they've put a bid in for Juan Riquelme...

Riquelme: "They won't let that Ramos bid me."

This is really not right at all. Judging by the massive chorus of 'I love Martin Jol, Martin Jol loves me' on Saturday (before we even scored) I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Also I'm kind of reeling at seeing what I thought was a stable, well run club moving in the right direction making a decision that frankly looks like a club in panic and could backfire badly.

We'll miss you Papa Bear.

Ridiculous. Either Levy thinks Jol has been consistently underachieving by dragging Spurs up to fifth place after 15 years of mediocrity (in which case he's wrong, and anyway - why not sack him at the end of last season and let the new man handle the summer signings?) or he thinks two defeats at the start of the season are the end of the world. This smacks of Man City sacking Peter Reid.

It is silly isn't it. Jol's doing better than Alex Ferguson!!

so is it true that the real reason is the board buying bent against jols wishes?

still unexplained, the lack of creative midfielder

good news for blackburn and man city, and...newcastle....and....ARSENAL

maybe they just got bored of making "omgwtfjol" jokes

Actually the more I think about this the angrier I am - he's not even getting the opportunity to show what he can do most of the new signings, let alone a fully fit defence.

It just makes the club look ruthless and desperate, and we'll be a laughing stock when we fail to qualify for the Champions League this season.

Jol will probably lead Spurs to victory against Man Utd now.

Best performance immediately before getting fired ever? I mean, Derby are no great shakes, but Spurs could've scored 7 or 8. It's only August, you divs! If the only concern is catching Arsenal, well, they haven't started all that well either. Idiocy.

Wouldn't take it too seriously. Sid Lowe had Alves as Chelsea's right back last Wednesday, but last time I looked it was still Essien/Ferreira/Johnson/Diarra.

BBC is a sliver less certain. It is really horrible if this happens.

It would be scandalous to remove Jol now.

Onto Wednesday, however, and another meaningless friendly. Well, maybe not quite as meaningless as most. Remember the last time?

ooooh maybe maclaren will get sacked!!!

MARTIN JOL FOR ENGLAND

i suspect this is less about jol and more about the chance to get ramos, ranieri/mourinho style.

jol would be a seriously great england boss!

I would *love* Martin Jol to be England manager, but yeah I suspect RTC is correct here.

Ramos and Riquelme arriving in one week would be a pretty massive bolt from the blue. I'm not really sure what to make of all this. Can I assume that Riquelme has gone crap, bearing in mind his only options appear to be join Spurs or continue to be exiled to the Villareal reserves? Why has no one else put in a bid?

basically it's cos riquelme is a enigma fanny, and needs constant mollycoddling on and off the pitch. he's still got the skills though, but only if the whole team revolves around him.

oop haha that was supposed to be a strikethrough

where's this riquelme rumour coming from anyway? i'm not sure he's ramos' kind of guy.

what about afonso alves going to Boro...seems kinda weird, he was being linked with Liverpool and Chelsea at the start of the season for huge sums, now they're talking about Boro for 6.5m

this season is just kind of weird all round so far, perhaps thats what happens when everyone is laden down with cash and no one knows what is happening

Riquelme's agent sez Spurs have already made an offer.

Enigma Fanny would be a fairly tremendous nickname.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12876_2673635,00.html

Having big piles of cash doesn't make ordinary players any better and there aren't enough great players to go around. Clubs are now spending too much on anyone with any hint of quality because they know every other club can afford the same player (e.g. ~£9M for a goalkeeper from Hearts - 4th place in the SPL and let in a goal a game).

can't think of a more tottenham player tbh.

jol out.

but the berbatov story is bullshit.

also, to point out that contrary to reporting here it was fairly well known all summer that jol was pushing to get darren bent in against commoli's and levy's better judgement. two unbelievably inept performances against very beatable teams (and then claiming it's because he hadn't better players than tainio to put on the right wing)in light of this was always going to leave him in this position.

i'd rather gamble and run the risk of going backwards than settle for 7th-5th forever under a nice-but-dim manager like jol.

So you think the conversation went something like this?

Jol: I'd like to sign Darren Bent please.

Commoli: No, we don't think so, he's not very good and we already have lots of good strikers.

Jol: Oh go on go on go on go on go on.

Commoli: Oh okay, here's a CLUB RECORD TRANSFER FEE.

Jol: Excellent, thank you. Now I will put him on the bench.

In other words, nah.

jol out.

but the berbatov story is bullshit.

also, to point out that contrary to reporting here it was fairly well known all summer that jol was pushing to get darren bent in against commoli's and levy's better judgement. two unbelievably inept performances against very beatable teams (and then claiming it's because he hadn't better players than tainio to put on the right wing)in light of this was always going to leave him in this position.

i'd rather gamble and run the risk of going backwards than settle for 7th-5th forever under a nice-but-dim manager like jol

^^ this is the spurs we all know and love. this stability and consolidation lark just hasn't seemed...right somehow

This _is_ Spurs we're talking about, though.

xp

its good to have them back

Commoli: Oh okay, here's a CLUB RECORD TRANSFER FEE.

i don't think thfc decide the transfer fee of players they want to sign? it seems very likely that charlton and spurs would have negotiated that after spurs decided to make a bid for him.

and i'm not sure what it means when jol leaves a player on the bench. certainly it doesn't seem to have anything to do with their quality relative to the players he picks for the first team.

he shurrre ish a niyesh guy though. letsh keep him.

Bent's first goal for Spurs is the worst first goal for your new club i think i've ever seen.

i'd rather gamble and run the risk of going backwards than settle for 7th-5th forever under a nice-but-dim manager like jol

You're talking as if 5th-7th is somehow beneath Spurs, but they haven't finished higher than 5th since 1990, and they haven't managed back-to-back top five placings since 1984. Jol has lifted Spurs out of mediocrity to the point where they might finally be on the verge being one of the top teams in the country again. To sack him a week into the season on the back of a 4-0 victory just seems insane. Like I said before, it reminds me of City sacking Peter Reid in almost identical circumstances and look where that got them.

i agree with the point about sacking him now. he should have gone in the close season, early.

4th place was available for any team with a bit of consistency in the last two years. spurs aren't any closer to really achieving anything. basically, jol is a bottler leading a team of bottlers. if they were expected to finish 7th, they'd probably manage 8th.

"i'd rather gamble and run the risk of going backwards ending up in League One in and out of administration with a big points deduction and owned by Ken Bates than settle for 7th-5th forever under a nice-but-dim manager like jol."

Okay, I am being a little overdramatic and it won't happen to Spurs, but still. Essentially, this is Big Clubbism gone mad, look what happened last time any club through enormous sums of money at gatecrashing the elite as if it was the be and and end all, rather than trying to achieve it sensibly.

Ugh lack of proofreading.

if you could bottle jol how many of us would drink it?

he's more of a barrel really

Meanwhile Gabriel Heinze has lost his appeal and been told he can't join Liverpool, so god knows where that leaves him. Booed by his own supporters, possibly. This season is turning out to be even more lurid and ridiculous than predicted.

spurs should sign him, obviously.

with heinze and ramos we will win the league for sure.

he's going to lyon innit

I always like Heinze's brand of defending (i.e. tackle/foul like a nutter, take tackles/fouls like a nutter, smiling all the while - especially if it really hurts, occasionally kick a ball). I'm kind of disappointed he's become a want-away-force-a-transfer-chase-the-cash-talk-to-my-agent kind of guy.

be fair, he was dropped during an injury, and rednose now considers evra a better left back. which is just crazy. heinze is good enough to be first choice at a big european club so why should he settle for understudy to a joke?

but evra is tremendous!

Heinze was great when he first arrived, but he's not been the same since he came back from injury. Evra is definitely better, and when Heinze got a run in the team at the tail end of last season (when United's entire defence were injured) he was shite. I would happily take £6m for him, but I think it's funny that the hatred between United and Liverpool seems to have taken on an official dimension ("Thou shalt not move from Manchester United to Liverpool").

when Heinze got a run in the team at the tail end of last season (when United's entire defence were injured) he was shite.

Wasn't he played out of position at centre half though?

I think he played a mixture of positions depending on just how many were injured, but he never impressed.