The 'where are they now?' files

[Yozza]

**** 'em - they always acted like a ****house pub team against us when Fat Sam was in charge....

[Rich]

**** 'em - they always acted like a ****house pub team against us when Fat Sam was in charge....

It isn't just Bolton though is it? Spearing is being prevented from plying his trade. Really in this kind of situation there should be some way of sorting it out to the benefit of both clubs.

[The_weatherman]

It isn't just Bolton though is it? Spearing is being prevented from plying his trade. Really in this kind of situation there should be some way of sorting it out to the benefit of both clubs.

Just defer it, maybe so it's due after 40 games or something like that, hard on Spearing like you say.

[meffin]

They should give us that Clough kid and we'll call it even

[Shaggy]

It isn't just Bolton though is it? Spearing is being prevented from plying his trade. Really in this kind of situation there should be some way of sorting it out to the benefit of both clubs.

Call me naive but I think it's pretty ****ty of LFC to refuse to budge over the £100k thing. **** all to us that, and Bolton are on their knees.

[dww]

It makes you wonder if it is about something else - I really can't see it having been worth our while not compromising over such a relatively small amount. Although as they have new owners we might have thought they were good for the money and just taking the piss I suppose.

[Rich]

Call me naive but I think it's pretty ****ty of LFC to refuse to budge over the £100k thing. **** all to us that, and Bolton are on their knees.

It makes you wonder if it is about something else - I really can't see it having been worth our while not compromising over such a relatively small amount. Although as they have new owners we might have thought they were good for the money and just taking the piss I suppose.

Perhaps it is more to do with it setting a precedent than it being £100k and Bolton. If we waive what we're owed will other clubs try it on with us?

I agree on the surface it seems really hard-nosed by us when you look at the state Wanderers are in.

Surely, some agreement where we have first dibs on their academy players or similar is worth more to us than the £100k.

[dww]

Perhaps it is more to do with it setting a precedent than it being £100k and Bolton. If we waive what we're owed will other clubs try it on with us?

I agree on the surface it seems really hard-nosed by us when you look at the state Wanderers are in.

Surely, some agreement where we have first dibs on their academy players or similar is worth more to us than the £100k.

I don't think we would necessarily have to waive it - we could have set a more long term timetable. Maybe we offered though.

[Yozza]

From the Academy to Hungary: The Nathan Eccleston story

It's not perhaps the goal Nathan Eccleston dreamed of scoring when he joined the Liverpool Academy at the age of 14 or when he made his first team debut away at the Emirates as a substitute for Rafa Benitez in a League Cup tie as an 18-year-old in 2009.

But just over a week ago, he rounded the Paksi goalkeeper and slotted in his first goal for Békéscsaba, the bottom club in the Hungarian league.

It is the latest stop-off in a career which has taken him to many clubs both on loan as he tried to make it at Liverpool and since he departed Anfield.

“I didn’t play a competitive game for seven months, so I’ve got to get used to playing again. I got my first start as a striker on Saturday and scored in a good win against the team who are sixth in the league. Wins have been few and far between here this season so it was good to get on the scoresheet and help the team win,” said Eccleston in an interview with ITV.

The 25-year-old striker made just one start at Anfield, in a dead rubber in the Europa League under Roy Hodgson against Utrecht with another eight appearances as a substitute, perhaps best summed up by his penalty miss in the infamous defeat to Northampton Town in the League Cup in September 2010.

Eccleston had loan spells at Huddersfield, Charlton and Rochdale before a permanent move to Blackpool on the last day of the transfer window in summer 2012.

The briefest of loan spells to Tranmere was interrupted by injury before time at Carlisle in 2013 and Coventry in 2014.

Next it was the Scottish Premier League with Partick Thistle from August 2014 until release the following February. He stayed north with Kilmarnock, scoring once in 10 appearances but there was no deal on the table for this season, hence his move to Hungary.

Eccleston explained: “One of my former team-mates at Liverpool and Kilmarnock got approached by an agent asking if he knew of any players who wanted to move abroad. It’s something I’d wanted for a long time, so he got in touch with the guy and he made me aware there was interest in me from a team in Hungary.

“I did some research on Google and looked up the team to see what I could find out about them, and it was better than the other options I had at the time, so I thought ‘why not’?

“I think a lot of people were surprised, even my only family were. I’m the type of person who thinks life is for living so if the type of opportunities come about and I think I can benefit from them, then I take them.”

Eccleston has been with his new team for six weeks now and has played in the two games since his opening goal, one a narrow 1-0 loss to table-toppers Ferencvaros although he was substituted after 41 minutes yesterday.

“The people at the football club have made me feel very welcome. It’s completely different way of living from back home; they don’t have some of the luxuries we take from granted, but I’m adjusting pretty well, I’d say. I’m enjoying it.

“I’ve had a long time off and I’ve started thinking about football differently. I’m not the same nine-year-old boy who played in the park with no responsibility - this is people’s lives. It got to the stage with me and football where it wasn’t making me happy; I’d train Monday to Friday and it would come to the weekend and I wouldn’t always start so my game time wasn’t regular, which was frustrating.

“There were times where I was under contract at Blackpool and my two previous clubs where I considered not playing and that’s coming from the heart. I was there doing something I loved but at the end of the week I wasn’t playing. There are players who are happy to pick up their wages when they’re not playing, but I’m not that type of person, I’m very ambitious.

“Being away from it has allowed me to re-evaluate my life. Even in times when I’ve had offers I was still going to play five-a-side with my mates, people I went to school with, putting in your five pound to play, as I’ve always loved football.”

Eccleston seems to have rekindled his love for the game in a professional sense in his new environment, some three hours from Budapest, and is hoping some of the coaching at Liverpool will help him settle in.

“As a youngster there were a lot of foreign coaches and managers at Liverpool, so we were often taught how Spanish and Dutch players were taught, which should help me now playing in Europe.

“I’ve come here to play here to play football, as once you’re not playing no amount of money can bring you that feeling that football brings you, the feeling you had as a kid on the park.”

[RedReet]

Read that earlier. Fair play to him.

[Tribute]

I don't think we would necessarily have to waive it - we could have set a more long term timetable. Maybe we offered though.

...like £100 a week for the next 20 years.

Reminds me of buying a digital calculator watch from the Littlewoods Catalogue when I was on 10p a week pocket money...

[brightred]

From the Academy to Hungary: The Nathan Eccleston story

It's not perhaps the goal Nathan Eccleston dreamed of scoring when he joined the Liverpool Academy at the age of 14 or when he made his first team debut away at the Emirates as a substitute for Rafa Benitez in a League Cup tie as an 18-year-old in 2009.

But just over a week ago, he rounded the Paksi goalkeeper and slotted in his first goal for Békéscsaba, the bottom club in the Hungarian league.

It is the latest stop-off in a career which has taken him to many clubs both on loan as he tried to make it at Liverpool and since he departed Anfield.

“I didn’t play a competitive game for seven months, so I’ve got to get used to playing again. I got my first start as a striker on Saturday and scored in a good win against the team who are sixth in the league. Wins have been few and far between here this season so it was good to get on the scoresheet and help the team win,” said Eccleston in an interview with ITV.

The 25-year-old striker made just one start at Anfield, in a dead rubber in the Europa League under Roy Hodgson against Utrecht with another eight appearances as a substitute, perhaps best summed up by his penalty miss in the infamous defeat to Northampton Town in the League Cup in September 2010.

Eccleston had loan spells at Huddersfield, Charlton and Rochdale before a permanent move to Blackpool on the last day of the transfer window in summer 2012.

The briefest of loan spells to Tranmere was interrupted by injury before time at Carlisle in 2013 and Coventry in 2014.

Next it was the Scottish Premier League with Partick Thistle from August 2014 until release the following February. He stayed north with Kilmarnock, scoring once in 10 appearances but there was no deal on the table for this season, hence his move to Hungary.

Eccleston explained: “One of my former team-mates at Liverpool and Kilmarnock got approached by an agent asking if he knew of any players who wanted to move abroad. It’s something I’d wanted for a long time, so he got in touch with the guy and he made me aware there was interest in me from a team in Hungary.

“I did some research on Google and looked up the team to see what I could find out about them, and it was better than the other options I had at the time, so I thought ‘why not’?

“I think a lot of people were surprised, even my only family were. I’m the type of person who thinks life is for living so if the type of opportunities come about and I think I can benefit from them, then I take them.”

Eccleston has been with his new team for six weeks now and has played in the two games since his opening goal, one a narrow 1-0 loss to table-toppers Ferencvaros although he was substituted after 41 minutes yesterday.

“The people at the football club have made me feel very welcome. It’s completely different way of living from back home; they don’t have some of the luxuries we take from granted, but I’m adjusting pretty well, I’d say. I’m enjoying it.

“I’ve had a long time off and I’ve started thinking about football differently. I’m not the same nine-year-old boy who played in the park with no responsibility - this is people’s lives. It got to the stage with me and football where it wasn’t making me happy; I’d train Monday to Friday and it would come to the weekend and I wouldn’t always start so my game time wasn’t regular, which was frustrating.

“There were times where I was under contract at Blackpool and my two previous clubs where I considered not playing and that’s coming from the heart. I was there doing something I loved but at the end of the week I wasn’t playing. There are players who are happy to pick up their wages when they’re not playing, but I’m not that type of person, I’m very ambitious.

“Being away from it has allowed me to re-evaluate my life. Even in times when I’ve had offers I was still going to play five-a-side with my mates, people I went to school with, putting in your five pound to play, as I’ve always loved football.”

Eccleston seems to have rekindled his love for the game in a professional sense in his new environment, some three hours from Budapest, and is hoping some of the coaching at Liverpool will help him settle in.

“As a youngster there were a lot of foreign coaches and managers at Liverpool, so we were often taught how Spanish and Dutch players were taught, which should help me now playing in Europe.

“I’ve come here to play here to play football, as once you’re not playing no amount of money can bring you that feeling that football brings you, the feeling you had as a kid on the park.”

[brightred]

What an ego.

What a waste.

[Fernandinho]

Waste? He was never that good surely...

[RedReet]

Ego???