Defensive mid backup

He thought that the ball was still in play. He didn't know that the ref gave West Ham a freekick. In fact if you watched the replay the ref didn't signal for a free kick, instead he walked up to Adrian whilst everyone else was retreating from the box and said something to the keeper probably telling him to take a freekick.

Reports coming out of Portugal claim Manchester City are set to win the race for Porto midfielder Fernando. Manchester United and Liverpool have both been strongly linked with a move for the 26-year-old, but now it has emerged that City are favourites to capture the Brazilian. Portuguese daily Record claims Porto chairman Pinto da Costa has decided to cash in on Fernando after he turned down a new deal with his current contract due to expire in the summer. Porto. Porto are thought to have asked for young City starlet Marcos Lopes on loan as part of the deal for Fernando.

Looks like the end for Javi Garcia and Jack Rodwell at City.

This post has been edited by Cloud0890: Jan 30 2014, 03:53 PM

Yes and no. Yes you can't judge how good a player is based on clips but you can probably tell what type of player he is. All I'm saying is Kono is better on the ball and Salah is better off it. It is also based on a handful of matches that I've watched of them mainly Basel's CL games against Chelsea and Ukraine's qualifier game against England.

They have apparently sold/loan Holtby so now they want Kono to take his place on the bench?

Use Lamela ffs! I still believe he is worth the money and will be one of the best in the world in time.

Spurs is also linked with a loan move for Nani with Chadli leaving.

are you sure it's not his face photoshopped over downing's?

LOL seriously dude?! NO to BOTH puhhhhlease........

Mitrouglou 12.5m pounds though, could end up being a very very costly flop especially for a team fighting relegation. QPR anyone?

Let's be fair here, the transfer committee are the people who scout players and make the decision of who to go for. Rodgers himself is in this committee and why not blame him? It is simply because he is not responsible for the transfer negotiations, that part is down to Ian Ayre. The rest of the committee have done their job and it is now Ayre's turn to do his!

So true! Hopefully missing out on Kono means we have a bigger budget this coming summer window for someone more proven like Shaqiri hopefully? And that is assuming we qualify for the CL because no big players wants to join a mid table team.

Kono's deal isn't really Ayre's fault but you could argue that it is partly his for missing out on Salah in the first place or not going for Kono much earlier in the window. Maybe the Ukrainian billionaire didn't want to sell from the get go and was just stalling us. Maybe he was willing to sell but refused to later on because Ayre was lowballing and it wasn't possible for them to get a replacement anymore.

It's also Stoke's first win against United in over 30 years.

Oh well more pressure on us tomorrow. Hope the lads are up for the fight.

Midfield was non-existent. That is the problem with Coutinho playing in the middle, he doesn't do as much defensive work compared to Allen. Even against Everton we had less possession but we managed to score from counter attacks.

Sturridge is too isolated upfront today. Seems like he is getting greedier the more he scores. He needs to drop deep to help out the midfield more and draw the defence out to give Suarez space to run into.

There was no midfield with Coutinho in the middle. Every time our defence clear the ball out the midfield area there's no one to pick it up or play passes to. And Coutinho wasn't working hard enough to recover the ball everytime possession is lost. Of course it is not helped by Sturridge being isolated upfront and refusing to come deep to help.

Also wanna add that if we lose next Saturday it's back to 5th spot for us. The 4th spot is ours to lose and we only have ourselves to blame. BR stresses on the importance of focus all the time and I don't see that yet. Extrememly positive exciting play at times and littered with inconsistent lethargic displays in between. We don't even have European games to show for. It's gonna be hell IF we do qualify for CL or even Europa and the squad not strengthen considerably.

This post has been edited by Cloud0890: Feb 3 2014, 12:30 AM

http://www.thisisanfield.com/2013/06/liver...ttee-explained/
This is our transfer committee by the way for those who aren't clear.

Rodgers refused to lay the blame at the door of the defender.

"Defensively, we were very, very good," he told Sky Sports.

"I'll never criticise players for trying to play football but Kolo probably shouldn't have received the ball under pressure and his pass was misplaced.

"But for me, it's the bravest place on the field as we look to build our play from behind. That has won us many games this season.

"We like to build the game and construct play from behind and sometimes it will cost you and today was unfortunately one of those days.

"Kolo Toure has been brilliant since he's been here. He's been a real leader, an outstanding professional and, unfortunately, it was a mistake."

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11..._medium=twitter

He also blamed the pitch.

Seydou Keita says he turned down Premier League side Liverpool to sign for troubled La Liga club Valencia.

"When we received the call from Valencia, talks with Liverpool were at a very advanced stage," Keita said. "But then I told my agent we were going to Valencia. I did not doubt for a second.

http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/1704216/...alencia?cc=4716

Liverpool have kept just one clean sheet in their last 11 trips on the road and conceded 21 times in those matches.

Liverpool have made 29 errors leading to a goal or an attempt at goal this season, more than any other team.

Liverpool have won just two of their last nine Premier League away games.

Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge have played 11 Barclays Premier League games together this season and the only team to stop them both scoring is Arsenal.

Santi Cazorla has scored in two of his three Barclays Premier League appearances against Liverpool.

Arsenal v Liverpool has seen five hat-tricks scored; the most trebles of any fixture in Premier League history.

Liverpool have won just one of their last 13 Premier League games against Arsenal (W1 D7 L5) and none of the last six at Anfield (W0 D3 L3).

Arsenal have trailed in five of the last six Premier League games against Liverpool at Anfield and come back to win two and draw three of those five where they fell behind.

Arsenal have won six and lost none of their last seven Premier League games and netted exactly two goals in each of the last five.

The Gunners were the last team to stop Liverpool from scoring in the Premier League (Nov 2nd 2013), with the Reds netting 41 goals in their 14 games since.

There have been four 90th minute or later goals in the last five Premier League meetings between Liverpool and Arsenal at Anfield.

Only Arsenal (6) have conceded fewer goals on home soil than Liverpool (8) this season in the Premier League.

Wojciech Szczesny has kept more clean sheets than any other goalkeeper in the Premier League this season (11).

If PL games ended at half-time, Liverpool would be top by one point. However, if PL games only included the second half, Liverpool would be 8th and 19 points off the top.

Think we will score first which we have a tendency to do so this season. Arsenal will come back with 2 or 3 goals against our leaky backline. Maybe even a late injury time winner.

We might not realistically be in the title mix but we can have a big say with City and Chelsea still to come.