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liverpool watch:

wah .. its almost a month since i last posted (or blogged)

its been 15 goals scored in 5 games. took out TNS, Kaunas,Olympiakos and first leg up on CSKA sofia. Gerrard on form. Cisse is avg one goal one game.

the negatives are prolly the 5 goals conceded. And, the dependence on Gerrard.

well tom is the big kickoff. A trip to riverside. A test to see how well Benitez has learned from his debut season.

steve mclaren will prolly clog up the midfield n use downing on the flanks to counter. Garcia din do well on the CSKA game - too easily passed n he isnt that willing to chase back. Guess its something liverpool have to watch out.

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liverpool watch:

well well... the first leg wen fine with a 3 nil win and the leverkusen game was also a 3nil win.

the 2nd leg is tonite, hopefully there will be new faces. a nice margin like 3 goals and a clean sheet will help maintain a good momentum.

baros n dudek looks to b going off with their exclusion from the line-up.

had a thought that since SWP has gone to chelski, we are free to bid for joaquin. except for the fact that we dun have a russian sugar daddy to pay for things.

once more kewell is injured. My fren from my old army days once said if a person has no interest or desire, he can fall easily to sickness n injury. I wonder how much of that applies to kewell. mabbe australians have that stereotype that people are quick to blame on them and he has been pigeon-holed.

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liverpool watch:

what a pre-season! after abit of a lull, first gerrard wanted to leave and did a mother-of-all-u-turns to stay wif the club.

reina, barragan, zenden and gonzalez are all announced. and at the end of the week, sissoko is confirmed. though sissoko is subjected to a medical, i m not concerned but i m more worried abt gonzalez, hes injured and still subjected to permit.. but hes on a years loan so not tat bad.

the team is beginning to take shape - reina,dudek and carson at GK, finnan will be backed by barragan and raven at RB, with zenden, kewell and gonzalez LM looks settled, riise will prolly drop back to compete with traore and warnock at LB, sissoko and hamann backs gerrard and alonso in CM

wods left is .. a choice of milito/upson/gallas looks to join carra and hyppia at DC, figo(???) joining nunez and garcia at RM, finally crouch/kuyt to join moro, cisse, baros at SC...

another factor on how the team will line up is prolly rafa deiciding to go for a 442 or a 4231. my guess is he will alternate between the 2...

the frenly at wrexham looks dodgy with the 4-3 scoreline. at least its some warmup for wednesday CL game with TNS...

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liverpool watch:

reina looks confirmed. milito and barragan for defence look very likely.

in midfield, while not dream team material, stelios and zenden probably add numbers to the squad, at least they would be offer more quality in attack compared to nunez n riise. would like to have joaquin and vicente though, too bad abramovich is not our chairman.

but if we get dirk kuyt /and luque, both can play wide or as strikers. but the possiblity of luque seemed to have died off.

another i like to see is aimar. a true fantasy player. but it seems hard to get him.

the outfield players that rafa is getting would probably b the youngsters or players that are flexible to play in a few roles. He probably feels he needs the numbers with such a long season coming up. This is pretty evident with the signing of a fitness coach from La Liga and hes talk about getting the players fitter.

it would be better to have one pre season game before facing TNS, but seems that rafa is ramping up the team's fitness and going straight at TNS....

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confeds/world youth cup watch:

busy weekend. Are south americans teams relli that strong? WYC: spain were quite disappointing against the argies.

the way they let in the goals suggest they are not mentally ready or prepared. same for the way they attack, opting for pretty moves instead. llorente the tallest fella on the pitch but hes not quite prepared to challenge for the ball. and that juanfran looks like hes 30. haha.

the eagles look like a bunch of quarterbacks. they simply won every one on one challenge with the dutch.

liverpool watch:

its day one of pre season training. aiii. still no new players, but teamtalk says reina is aredy in town to sign. but is he worth 8m?

rumoured target milito played in an unfamiliar anchor role in the game against the mexicans. it shows and not surprisingly hes the first to b subbed out. Hes left footed. aint that tall n physical compared to coloccini n heinz. Milito was assigned to stay back when argentina goes upfield for corners - mabbe hes a good marker/passer/pacy or poor wif headers (not good). he shd b better than pellegrino though.

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world youth cup championships:

its quarter final time. relli want to check out the argies and spaniards. Juanfran seems like the new figo. Rafa originally wanted him instead of the lawyer nunez in the Owen deal. perhaps we can get him instead of joaquin.

it would be quit funny if we can buy the whole spanish and argie u20 teams. ok Barca probably wun release Messi, ditto for Arsene over his Fabregas.

the dutch seem to have some exciting talent coming up, they r up against the eagles. Perhaps its a contest of strength vs technique then.

the other qtr match pits argies against spaniards. the "final" of the tournament. hehe.

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liverpool + premiership watch:

looks like emre is going to st james after all. anyway, i dun relli think he can fit well into the liverpool team which will either b a 442 or 4231. Hes more of a no 10 but garcia taken that role and is a more versatile player at that.

which makes me wonder how is he going to fit into newcastle's midfield that is aredy crowded. Is he going to fit onto the left? hes not a wing player that can receive the ball n stretch out defences, hes more towards threading thru balls in the central area. unless souness "i-doing-it-my-way" decides to play a narrow 4 man midfield or even ditch his 442. so theres parker, jenas in the middle... dyer "play me centre" taking right and emre left.

is jose goin to add SWP and Essien into moneybags FC? The russkie tzar is making his team his own CM5 first XI. at least it leaves us onli madrid to contend with for joaquin..

we are linked with another youngster after antonio barragan. surprise surprise its an English player, Jack Hobbs who is onli 16. planetfootball puts him as a stopper, which prolly means a DC.

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liverpool watch:

another week has passed and still no player signed. However, the kid from seville looks like hes coming and so is Dirk Kuyt (or is it Kujit?)

we got ourselves a trip to wales. from the looks of things, it seems like a formality to us. but i m not that comfortable that the first leg is at anfield instead of their ground.

the second round is drawn out too, either a trip to faroe island or lithuana... hmm... lets concentrate on the wales trip first.

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liverpool watch:

totally not good. still no players. while forum people at liverpoolfc.tv are saying any new players will be unveiled when transfer window opens/pre-season training resumes, but cynics sayin that potential targets are being priced out of the market.

my take is that the board and parry are too slow. mabye lack of financial muscle? but the transfer window for chmps lge is looming closer every day. and the negotiations over gerrard is wasting time that is better spent on negotiations over potential targets.

hope everything ends well.

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Confederations Cup Watch:

* End of the grp stages and Mexico is the star performer. They have been praised even before the start of the confeds - own clubs doing well in libertardores (spellin?), strong domestic league, blah, blah.

* emergence of the playmaker of the team. or rather playmakers. After zidane, now there is a new host of playmakers. Not that they jus made their debuts but rather its the way they took centrestage. Japan actually uses 2, nakamura and nakata, brazil use the ronaldinho-kaka tandem, but the no.10/fantasista of the confeds has to be riquelme.

besides having all the vision, control, blah blah - requistes for a playmaker - senor riquelme is physically strong enuff to shrug off challenges, unlike teammate aimar or some1 like nakamura and with that, can take his time to pick out his defence splitting pass.

* brazil - Kaka and JarJarBinks are probably jus as strong. They are also more pacy. but it seems that brazil doesnt seem to have that much people making runs or getting positions to receive the ball compared to Argentina. this is probably why the absence of carlos n cafu is made all the more obvious, with their overlapping runs.

first post

yipee

first post

what shd i put in?

decide later