I must say that Liverpool were no great Sheikhs tonight.

Still to be determined whether Mascherano was on strike or not.

Question for you Saint. With Mr Mashman in all likelihood having played his last game for Liverpool who would you put in the midfield holding role on a permanent basis? Lucas seemingly can't do it.

It will be interesting to see whether Woy will do a deal with Barca (just to get rid of Mascherano) with Barca getting Mr Mashman in exchange for GBP20m (equivalent) + Hleb ? Hleb certainly wouldn't solve the midfield holding role problem Liverpool has/will have, though.

Citeh have three (although I don't rate Barry) as do we, if one assumes Huddlestone can play back there (which he can). The general trend is towards teams employing more of these types of players. I'm sure Woy is well aware of this. If he isn't, he should be.

Is Poulson not a holding type midfied player...?

Cracking performance that from City, Liverpool were poor for spells but City really made them pay.

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Doh, quite right, I forgot about him. However, I still reckon Liverpool will need two players of the midfield holding type, as many other teams have. Indeed, there is a growing tendency to play two in one game.

 

Excellent news with Sevilla going out this evening. Assuming we can beat Young Boys on Wednesday night that must increase the chances of Fabiano coming to WHL to play his Champions League football.

Harry's strikers served him well last season........dont see the need to buy or change the strikers, Defoe will be out for a month or so but there is plenty of cover. Tottenham have a very good squad possibly the only tinkering should be with the defence.

Maybe so but with Harry putting Crouch's nose out of joint by touting him to every club witha couple of quid and with the already mentioned injury to Defoe, I think a striker is top of 'Arry's list.

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Robbie Keane is probably on his way out - because he wants first team football and won't always get it. Villa looks like his most likely destintion, although Harry has been trying (so it has been reported) to offload him to West Ham in a bid to get Parker. Keane had a row on the touchline with Joe Jordan the other week after being substituted. Keane's move to West Ham may hinge upon whether Woy is daft enough to buy Carlton Cole.

Assuming we get through tonight I'm looking for Levy to submit a formal offer for Fabiano. Whether we can agree terms with Fabiano is another matter, although he reportedly wants to come to WHL.

It's getting even worse for the Glazers financially.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/24/manchester-united-glazers-mortgage-malls

 

Further details below. Not a pretty sight.

http://www.andersred.blogspot.com/

 

As has been said, Poulsen is a defensive midfielder and on paper looked a decent enough replacement - vast experience in different leagues around Europe, shedful of caps for and current international with Denmark, Hodgson knows him from years back. And yet he looks way off being ready for the unique 'qualities' of the Premier League.
 
 
I thought Lucas would have been a good defensive midfielder in the Mascherano mould, but I must have eaten some dodgy cheese when I decided that, because he's a long way short on recent evidence.
 
 
On the topic of Mascherano, if Barca had offerd £20m and Hleb, Liverpool would have snatched their hand off. As it is, those supposedly in the know reckon the deal offered was closer to £12m plus Hleb.
 
 
Liverpool were played off the park for long periods by City, which is very worrying. Liverpool to me look to have a squad with too much unfulfilled talent, but such is the scattergun way it seems to have been assembled, it'd take a genius (or bloody lucky) manager to know how to not only fit the pieces together in the most complimentary way, but to be able to coax certain players to show their best form on a consistent basis (stand up, Ryan Bable). What is clear is that Liverpool have a Benitez-installed mindset that is all about a continental (or, more accurately, Spanish) style of pedestrian-paced build-up, passing the ball around waiting for a gap to appear. There's two problems I see with this: 1) it doesn't work in the frenetic Premier League; 2) Liverpool fall far short of the skill level deployed by Spain and therefore don't have the ability to crank the pace up from 1st to 5th gear in seconds to exploit any gaps that appear.
 
 
We've increasingly relied on the individual brilliance of Torres and Gerrard these past 2 seasons.
 
 
Roy really does have his work cut out.
 
 
Looks like we can't rebuild the squad, as Stadler & Waldorf won't let go with their grubby mitts until they think any profit they leach is maximised. That means Hodgson rooting round in the bargain bucket. And we all know that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Like Paul Konchesky, Carlton Cole or Bobby Zamora. With Aquilani gone, our midfield looks threadbare (Hleb would help) and we still don't have any reliable back-up striker for when Torres inevitably misses half the season. There's talk of Hodgson wanting Trezaguet - splendid, just what we need: a player with his best days a long, long way behind him (who wasn't very good even then).
 
 
My prediction of a 5th-place finish now seem to be very optimistic.

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I couldn't agree more. I never rated Trezaguet when he was at his so-called peak. Quite why managers around Europe  coveted him as a player - then and even now - is a mystery to me. TBH, if I had to choose between him and Carlton Cole I'd choose Cole because maybe, just maybe, his best days are ahead of him.

Oh, and conrats to Spurs on reaching teh group stages. I've been impressed with your early season form.

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Ta muchly.

Question for you again Saint (or anyone else for that matter), not that it's of relevance unless you are a Spurs fan.

Every article I've read this morning keeps referring to Luis Fabiano as being cup-tied. Now I reckon they're talking horlicks and it's just lazy journalism.

By my reckoning he is not cup-tied due to a change this year in the CL rules.

The rule as I understand it stipulates that a player can transfer from one club (in this case Sevilla) to another, so long as

1- The player's original team has gone out at the preliminary stage.

2- He transfers to another team (also in the preliminary stages) before the Sept 1 window closes.

I haven't got a clue. The ECL is but a distant memory to me...

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Well here's some good news for you.

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/3276/serie-a/2010/08/26/2088663/agent-confirms-lazio-and-hercules-are-ahead-of-premier

I realise this is generally about the top of the table teams and not us guys in the bottom half but both Niall Quinn and Steve Bruce have said we will not be signing any more players. So why sell Kenwyn Jones? He was lazy and childish when off form and could win you a game single handed on his day. If Bruce thniks that Welbeck can replace him then he is sadly mistaken. Sorry for going almost off topic;-)

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Do you ever go on the SAFC board?

I go on there less than I did once over, I can't get my head round the "fat Geordie Bas*$%d" types. Sure Bruce is not my cup of tea but he is a better manager than any of the last 3. Why do you ask

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Ian, it's only generally about 'top of the table teams' because they just happen to be the teams that the people most active in this thread support. I'd much rather more people were regulars on here, supporting a wider range of teams, and I'm sorry if anyone feels a bit pushed out that's the last thing I (or, I'm sure, Merc Gooner, FiO, etc) would want.

I also think you need another striker if you're to improve on last year's showing. I never rated Jones, though. Like you say, talented enough to turn a game, but so annoyingly inconsistent. We were reported to be after him a year or so ago and, like so often, I was thinking "no, no, no".

Are you glad the derby's back this year? Or did you prefer laughing at the Toon?

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Sorry Martin, I was being a little tongue in cheek with the comments, I enjoy the banter on here and even though I don't post as often as I should I erally don't feel pushed out.......just nothing much to say about Sunderland very often

Jones needs to feel loved and wants to be number 1, his nose got pushed out when Bent arrived but the season before that he was pretty unstoppable in a number of games, I just think that we would have been better served keeping him is there is to be no replacement brought in.

As for the derby game, I would happily take relegation on the chin this term providing we take all 6 points off the filthy, deluded skunks down the road.

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Because I do a lot of reading on there. Hugely entertaining. It seems to me there is no CoC except - God forbid - you say anything nasty about Celtic.

 

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Useful piece of analysis on SAFC this morning regarding the possibility of Keane going up to the North East to team up with Carroll.

Quote:'We're fu%&%d'.

I'm pretty sure that Newcastle will be safe unfrotunately. The side that went down was a good side in a bad rut of form and were being dragged further down by the off field circus. They then came back with ease and didn't ever really get troubled in that league. If they do get Keane to play alongside Carroll they will get goals, but I'm still unconvinced with their back 4, so hopefully Bent can get a couple

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Regarding Keane it will be interesting to see how Levy plays this. He wants to get rid of him to make way for Fabiano or Huntelaar. I don't think he'll be interested in a loan deal with the Mags. On the other hand he won't want to sell Keane cheaply either.

Sevilla have apparently quoted a GBP30m figure for Fabiano this morning - or double what he's probably worth, given he only has a year left on his contract. I think Sevilla are playing a dangerous game. I would expect this figure to come back down to around GBP15-18m.

As for your lot, I'm intrigued as to why everyone up there loves Bent so much. He's improved as a player but I still wouldn't have him back.

The two key players IMO are Cattermole and Mensah - just so long as Cattermole stays on the pitch and Mensah avoids injury. A big ask in both cases.