Couldn't care less if he leaves. His attitude since the turn of the year has been nothing short from disgraceful. He should have taken a leaf out of Suarez's book after we didn't let him leave, he went on to have possibly the best season of his career individual wise. Sterling's acting like a ****ing ******, and even more annoying, he's getting some snidey agent to do all his talking for him.
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Jesus, Aaron Lennon's face is really wrong all the time, not just when he realised he'd signed for ****e. Miserable looking cunt.Originally posted by Shaggy View PostComment
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Vulnerable Liverpool are mediocre - and they know it
Tony Barrett
Last updated at 10:53AM, May 19 2015
Not since buying Liverpool in October 2010 has Fenway Sports Group (FSG) endured such a chastening 72 hours. On Saturday, supporters at Anfield reacted with derision to the suggestion that the club are heading in the right direction. Then yesterday there was a vicious double whammy as Michel Platini confirmed that the Financial Fair Play rules which attracted John W. Henry to purchase the club are to be relaxed and Raheem Sterling’s camp made it known that the winger wishes to leave.
Liverpool are vulnerable right now. They are mediocre and everyone knows it. The reality is that those at the top end of the football industry have known it for some time, hence senior scouts from Manchester City and Chelsea becoming Anfield regulars this season in the knowledge that Liverpool’s best players are there for the taking in a way that they haven’t been for half a century.
For all the opprobrium – some of it just, some of it not – that will inevitably be showered on Sterling and his representative, Aidy Ward, following yesterday’s events, the reality is that it is Liverpool’s weakness that allows players and agents to act in the way that they are. One of the club’s first and most important responsibilities is to make it a place that players find difficult to leave and it would be absurd to claim that is the case.
With no Champions League football to offer, only one trophy (the League Cup) won in the past nine seasons, just three title challenges since 1991, a transfer policy that prioritises the future over the present and an inability to compete for top players, Liverpool are failing to keep their end of the bargain in terms of how a big club are supposed to behave. Expectations have been lowered, almost dumbed down, and if the supporters can recognise that so too can the players.
Thus far, the strongest argument that Liverpool have been able to muster in their attempts to convince Sterling to remain at the club is that it is the best place for his development at this stage of his career; not that if he remains at Anfield he can fulfil his ambitions, that success is around the corner or that they will pay him as much as others are willing to. It is an argument rooted in weakness and lacking in conviction.
It could also be argued that it is flawed given that Sterling, a creative player, has spent the past 12 months playing in a team without a forward. It is all well and good playing regular first-team football but doing so in a dysfunctional team that stymies your best qualities is hardly developmental.
The reality is that Liverpool’s problems – their failure to finish in the top four, their struggle to hold on to their best players, the lack of supporters’ faith in the club’s direction and the pressure that is building on the Anfield hierarchy – are symptoms of the same cause: a flawed transfer strategy that it is causing untold damage. Signing potential rather than proven talent is undermining everything that Liverpool are supposed to stand for. It has reached the stage where one of their better young players is not prepared to hang around to see if their inferior young players will improve.
For all the accusations that Sterling is going the wrong way about forcing a move (and many of these are wholly legitimate), Liverpool are at the mercy of the ambition of others because they are either unwilling or unable to match their rivals’ ambition. That situation is only likely to become more severe now that FFP is about to be watered down. As Henry himself conceded recently, without FFP it becomes “very difficult” for Liverpool to compete. The established football food chain, ordered according to owners’ wealth, leaves them exposed. Rival clubs, avaricious agents and even their own supporters know this only too well.
FSG’s model is failing. Whether that is because it is fundamentally flawed or poorly executed is a moot point but what is not in question is that Liverpool’s entire football operation is in need of urgent evaluation. Until the things that are going wrong are put right, then Raheem Sterling won’t be the last to believe the grass is greener elsewhere, he’ll just be one of a number in an ever lengthening line who view Liverpool Football Club as a stepping stone rather than a final destination.Thanks very much for being ‘This Mornings’ Farmer’Comment
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I reckon a new deal will be signed with a compromise amount reached, with an agreement between the clubs that he'll be allowed to go next summer. That way he's getting a pay rise, not missing out on an extra £65k a week for a full calendar year and the club will have the immediate positive of seemingly keeping him for the future.
But he'll be gone!Comment
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If he really wants to leave he will hand in a transfer request, it's not about the money he's just a boy that wants to play footballOriginally posted by Marvel View Post
Last edited by Exiled_red; 19-05-15, 01:03 PM.The only gracious way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can't ignore it, top it; if you can't top it, laugh at it; if you can't laugh at it, it's probably deserved.Comment
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Does he want to win trophies though?
Or does he want to be handed them on a plate by his teammates? Because nothing suggests to me this year that he has the hunger to go out and WIN anything. He might want a nice trophy collection to look back on but really he hasn't stepped up to the plate at all this year when it came to competing.Vive la FranceComment
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Alright Jamie?Originally posted by Robbie-9-Fowler View Post
I saw a dead fish on the pavement and thought "what did you expect?"
There's no water round here stupid, should have stayed where it was wetComment
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You mean white Aaron Lennon or the Aaron Lennon that looks like Jason Puncheon?Originally posted by Paddy View PostWas muß, das muß.Comment
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And what's with all this bollocks finger pointing and bullhorns crap?Originally posted by Paddy View Post
Yo, I is gangsta innit...Was muß, das muß.Comment
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I think Carragher makes a good point, it would be one thing if Sterling had been the clubs stand out player for a number of years and we weren't close to winning anything (think Le Tissier at Southampton), but neither of those were true, Sterling hasn't stood out in a fairly average LFC side this season, and in his two years in the side we challenged for the title last year and made 2 cup semi finals this year, so we have been there or there abouts.
If some of our better players had stood up to be counted we might have had a trophy this season.The only gracious way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can't ignore it, top it; if you can't top it, laugh at it; if you can't laugh at it, it's probably deserved.Comment
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I agree to an extent.Originally posted by Robbie-9-Fowler View Post
Sure, there's more satisfaction to win a trophy with a club without the riches of say Chelsea, City or Utd, however, I think we're giving too much credit to players of today if we think they'll value or even recognise that.SakhoPotatoesComment
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Can't really argue with much in that. I think its spot on.Originally posted by Shaggy View PostSakhoPotatoesComment
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Brutal truth from Barrett - our transfers have been shocking.
All season without a striker FFS
Hopefully the relaxation of FFP and new stadium will equal filthy rich owners.Comment
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