2007: A look back

[liverpool4ever]

The guys at the Roma forum had a 2007 thread, thought it was a good idea , hope my selective memory helps me recalling the highlights of this year!

- The takeover fiasco with the DIC taking ages to audit the club's papers and then the yankees showing up from nowhere to wrap up a deal in a short space of time
- Reaching the champions league final for the second time in three years (That's more than the whole of London's clubs combined, isn't it?)
- Signing Torres, and him proving to be a big success thus far
- Carra rightfully quitting England, hopefully he's made up his mind forever
- Being dumped out of the domestic cups in the first 10 days of the year by Arsenal
- Rafa and the team getting all sorts of crap for the above two defeats. one being a bad 3-6 home defeat, only for Arsenal to be literally out of all competitions by Feb or March
- Beating Arsenal and Chelsea in the league at home, dominating them throughout with Crouch scoring a hattrick vs. the gooners
- Everton coming to Anfield and drawing 0-0 after defending with their whole team in the box... Playing to their strengths my ass
- After being written off as soon as we were drawn with Barca, on the back of Riise and Bellamy's childish incident in the training camp and just when it seemed that we'll be eaten alive by the team top of the La Liga and winners of their domestic league and the european cup last year, we record a famous victory in the Nou Camp with the two culpirts providing the goals!
- Brushing aside PSV in the QF of the CL (minus Alex though )
- Putting another nail in Jose Mourinho's coffin as Chelsea manager by making sure he doesn't win the missing trophy as a Chelsea manager, Zenden playing his best game at Anfield then and actually scoring from a penalty, Agger's goal celebration was pure class , especially after he was at fault for Joe Cole's goal in the first leg game...
- The historic defeat to Marseille at Anfield , thankfully we made up for our horrendus start in the CL by winning our last three games
- The ongoing spats between the owners and Rafa towards the end of the year
- Record setting win vs. Besiktas at Anfield in the Champions League
- Gerrard scoring in 8 or 10 games in a row this season

What else? I know I probably forgot many major events and memories!

[Fernando Torres]

Its been a so-so year, could have been much better, could have been much worse.

[Alter Ego]

The awfull truth

Quote:

The ongoing spats between the owners and Rafa towards the end of the year

As long as there is no more money to sign Mega Players like Manchester Utd, Chelsea, Barca and Real Madrid do every year, we wont win the league or the Champios League in the near future.

You guys need to learn to live and accept with this true.

Rafael Benitez is not a ****ing magician and the day he feels tired of these fukcing tight americans @ssholes and he leaves Liverpool for good we ll go back 10 years.

[Mohamed]

I think this notion that Benitez needs more money to compete is wide off the mark. €185m spent on players in the last four seasons is hardly peanuts, you know? Sorry, but when you're spending €13m on Kuyt, €9m on Pennant, €9m on Bellamy, €8m on Sissoko and €10m on Crouch...you have to wonder if it is a case of spending money unwisely or is it really a case of Rafa not having enough money to spend?

I think the jury is still out on Babel and Benayoun, who cost a total of €20m...but they could easily fall into the bracket of nearly men who were ultimately not good enough to compete for the title.

[Alter Ego]

Just take a look at the Champions buy in the last 6 years, and take in consideration they ve already had a good player base.

Ferdinand £29M
Vidic £7M
Evra £7M
Hargreaves £18M
Carrick £18M
Anderson £17M
Nani £17M
Ronaldo £12M
Tevez soon to be £25M
Rooney £28M

they might add Lahm or Veloso or any other player SAF be interested to that list, Chelsea i just dont even need to list their signings because
its insane.

We use the money from Bellamy and Cisse to sign Torres and we might have to sell Momo and maybe Crouch to raise funds to sign Mascherano.

one more thing all the Bellamies, Crouch, Pennant and Babel of the world we not Rafa s first choices players.

They are nothing but left overs.

He wanted Simao, Villa, Etoo, Malouda, SWP, Vidic among may others

[Mohamed]

Of course, Man Utd and Chelsea are in a league of their own as regards spending power in English Football.

I just think Benitez could have done better in the transfer market over the last few season with more shrewder purchases. I mean, Berbatov only cost Spurs €2m more than you dished out for Kuyt.

[Alter Ego]

Quote:

Berbatov only cost Spurs €2m more than you dished out for Kuyt.

the day the man can see the future its the end of the P League competition, We lll be eternal Champions.

[Alter Ego]

Quote:

I just think Benitez could have done better in the transfer market over the last few season with more shrewder purchases.

Utd had a nucleus of a squad for the best part of a decade that meant they only had to add quality to it and could afford x amount on 1 player.

Man Utd also bought Veron for £28M, Nistellroy for £20M

[nEEbz]

Still in my opinion Rafa had enough of money to atleast come up with some decent players.

None of Benayoun, Crouch, Bellamy, Kuyt, Babel, Penant, Voronin, Momo etc are good enough players. They were just good in bits and parts.

Simao hardly is a world beater. And same goes for Quaresma who you guys are dying to sign.

[Fernando Torres]

And we had to buy players for a lot of positions, it wasn't easy.

[Fernando Torres]

We are dying to sign Quaresma? lol!

[nEEbz]

I read that somewhere

[liverpool4ever]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nEEbz

I read that somewhere

We were kind of trying hard to sign him in the summer, but once Babel and Torres were confirmed, there was no way we'd have been able to get another 10m+ pound player

[Alter Ego]

Quote:

there was no way we'd have been able to get another 10m+ pound player

According to Joshua he s worth 4 x that

[Carson35]

01/01/2008 03:51

Liverpool Mid-Season Review: Title Contenders Or A Club In Crisis?

With 2008 nearly upon us and the first half of the Premier League season over, Goal.com reviews the season so far for Liverpool.

zoom - galleria With two Champions League Final appearances in the past three seasons, the holy grail for the Anfield club remains the Premier League. The elusive 19th English league title has eluded the Reds since 1990, and with the investment of the summer, many fans and pundits were predicting that this could at last be Liverpool’s year.

However, the Merseyside giants find themselves a little off the pace with Arsenal and Manchester United looking more likely to be crowned Premiership Champions come May. Allied to that, there appears to be cracks forming already in the relationship between new owners Tom Hicks/George Gillett and Rafa Benitez.

Has The Dream Turned Sour?

The arrival of new American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett was heralded as the new beginning for the Anfield club and just what was needed for the Reds to finally be able to bridge the gap between them and the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea.

Five months later and the dream seems to have turned a little sour with public signs of discontent between manager Rafa Benitez and the new owners. The Reds are currently 10 points off the pace in 4th place. Liverpool also had a terrible start to their Champions League campaign before rescuing the situation with two vital wins over Porto and Marseille.

The two Americans stumped up the funds at the start of the season for Benitez to go out and buy Fernando Torres, Ryan Babel, Yossi Benayoun, Lucas Leiva, Sebastian Leto and Charles Itandje.

Since his arrival from Atletico Madrid in July on a £20 million plus deal, Torres has set the domestic and European stage alight with 15 goals in 22 matches in all competitions. The young Spaniard has become an instant hit with the Anfield faithful. The jury is still out on the others although Benayoun and Lucas in particular have shown promise.

The Reds got off to an impressive start to the season which culminated in a 6-0 demolition of Derby at the start of September which saw them top the table. Only an abysmal decision from Rob Styles denied Liverpool a win over Chelsea in the first home match of the season.

Unfortunately that run of form didn't last although Liverpool did remain unbeaten until going down to a 3-1 defeat to Reading on 8th December. A 1-0 loss to Manchester United at home and elimination from the Carling Cup at the hands of Chelsea followed to see the year ending on a rather sour note.

Too many games have ended with a single point, when a team challenging for the title really should be looking to take all three. Home draws with Birmingham and Tottenham spring to mind.

Results in Europe were however more inconsistent with shock defeats away at Besiktas and at home to Marseille. Those results left the Reds needing to win their last two games to ensure qualification. A 4-1 home win over Porto at Anfield was followed by a 4-0 win in the Stade Velodrome against Marseille to confound all the doom mongers.

While all this was going on, relations between Benitez and Messrs Gillett and Hicks were highly strained with the manager's frustrations boiling over in his weekly pre-match press conference in late November prior to the trip to face Newcastle. The point of conflict was Benitez’ desire for further funds to strengthen the squad with the owners insisting he would have to stick with what he had following an already hefty financial investment in players.

Benitez was very abrupt with his answers to all the questions posed to him by reporters. Sensing that Benitez was disgruntled, the assembled journalists probed him about what funds would be made available to him from the American owners in the January transfer window to which Benitez replied, “As always I am focused on training and coaching my team.” When asked if he'd had any assurances on the situation, Benitez repeated his original answer. For the remainder of the press conference variations on his initial response were uttered.

Their post-match meeting with Benitez after the 1-0 defeat to Manchester United at Anfield, arranged to repair relations between co-owners and manager after mixed signals from both parties, appeared to be highly positive with a statement on behalf of the owners, Benitez and chief executive Rick Parry.

George Gillett actually said that the meeting was positive and also that: “Rafa is the one we want as a manager further on, and we have faith in him.”

So going into 2008, Liverpool find themselves off the pace as they chase that elusive 19th domestic title. The ingredients are there with the right manager and enough top players needed to match Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea, it just remains to be seen whether the Reds can push on that little bit further to become a real force in the title race come May.

Mathew Burt

goal.com

[The Infamous_LFC]

Mathew Burt you are a top cvnt never heard you name ever before but I hope you choke on your cereal tomorrow morning.

Don't die because that would be too harsh

[Jefecito20]

The West Hams and Southamptons of this world know that we need players and they're not going to make it any cheaper for us to get them. We simply cannot compete at the moment with Man Utd and Chelsea, we don't have the funds. The only reason we signed Torres was because no one dared to take the risk. He wasn't exactly proven material playing in a team where his talent was vastly under-utilized (or wrongly utilized I should say). We were able to get Mascherano because he was having a horrible time at West Ham and Rafa acted quickly and wisely. Agger and Alonso were unproven potential that paid off, many times they don't even for Man Utd and Chelsea. We won't be able to get the Villas and Silvas of this world until we spend big, outbidding the big clubs.