Tottenham Set for Interesting £13m Swap, The Unknown Striker and Six Crucial Points!

Donavan Ried - December 10th, 2009 at 7:56 pm

Ryan Babel for Roman Pavlyuchenko? Straight swap I would take that

Retryboy - December 10th, 2009 at 8:03 pm

No! Babel is quality rafa just wake up drop kuyt and play him on the right!

Retryboy - December 10th, 2009 at 9:10 pm

He plays on the right looks top creates a goal never gets played there again. He scores a screamer gets dropped he is typical of the mistreated quality player under rafa. He is totally right footed and played on the left. Says it all

RyanO - December 10th, 2009 at 9:21 pm

No one will ever be able to sway you Retryboy, I applaud your loyalty, but… How many times do we have to watch Babel drop his head and run straight into two defenders with the ball? How many times do we have to try and figure out how a player can be so anonymous while on the pitch. Babel out.

redrob - December 10th, 2009 at 10:09 pm

more transfure speculation. how many players were we touted to buying inthe summer? yes we need another stricker but will rafa get rid of one of his only wingers at the club? babel i thought was injured anyway.

Retryboy - December 10th, 2009 at 10:15 pm

Ryano- don’t think many would want me lol would nobble a few players with a golf club! Bellamy would have nothing on me! If you look at babel on the left when he first came he cut inside and unleashed his shot. Epl defenders soon learnt you can’t let him cut inside. Lyon didn’t know that and we saw what happened. All epl defenders do is send him outside on his left which is weak or he is forced to clumsily bundle his way inside unlike benayoun babel hasn’t got the close control to weave his way inside and pick a killer pass its not his game. On the right he can use his pace, beat people and we saw against west ham best bit of wing play and crossing we have seen on the right since Mcmanaman. Torres sung his praises after because he would relish that sort of service. Rafa takes everything out of his game playing him on the left. Can’t use his main attribute his pace. He has only been played on the right 4 times i can remember all as sub and he has looked a totally different player. Was so frustrated with rafa after the west ham game thought he would get a chance there and next game back to the left. Even carling cup playing kuyt there everyone knows what kuyt gives you on the right why waste the opportunity to try babel there? With his pace on the break as well would get us so many goals. Would leave him and torres up when we are defending set pieces. The other team would leave 3 back and still one decent clearance and nobody would catch them. Its like Tottenham trying to squeeze in lennon and bentley by playing lennon on the left. He looked terrible as soon as Redknapp arrived he picked the one with pace and the potential to be a genuine star and played him on the right. Kuyt will never be anything special on the right babel would be given a chance. Benayoun looks better on the left too he doesn’t want to go outside a player hasn’t got the pace for it. If they have played together its been the wrong way around rafa is so annoying… Where’s my golf club!

The Matador - December 10th, 2009 at 10:16 pm

Im totally with Retryboy as I am a massive fan of Ryan Babel and if I had my way he would be one of the first names in my first eleve. I would play him out on the right as well as up front but never on the left.
I still believe he will turn out to be an outstanding player in time but also feel that under Rafa’s guidance his potential will never be realised.
On Pavlyuchenko I have to say he isn’t up to scratch and wouldn’t help move the team forward in way at all.

redrob - December 10th, 2009 at 10:54 pm

anon 10.36 a managers job is to pick the best players for the team, and all season you can see that rafa is short of a trusted left winger. how many players have we had playing there. auralio,dossena.babel,benayoun. you would think that one would have staked his claim by now. this is prob why we have failed to win the league. how many times do man utd or chelsea play 4 dif players in the same position in 1 season let alone 15 matches.

redrob - December 10th, 2009 at 10:55 pm

oh yea i forgot riera,

Warren Bloggs - December 10th, 2009 at 11:03 pm

Retryboy is spot on here, i like Pavlyuchenko but not in a swap deal for Babel.

Donavan Ried - December 10th, 2009 at 11:13 pm

Unlike Retryboy,Ryan babel is not one of my Favourite players …..BUT …. He has not been given a fair chance by Rafa. He has shown what he could do if given the chance when he came on for Torres a couple of season back and score a crack form 30 yards out pass Cech. …..His reward since that game as been to sit on the bench and play a bit part in the Liverpool squad.

Yes i would swap him for Pavlyuchenko…. BUT …. I would only do this becuase i believe that Babel will never get much playing time under Rafa……

So would be a waste of time keeping him

Donavan Ried - December 10th, 2009 at 11:15 pm

In truth, If Arsenal would swap Babel for Gibbs I would have that all day

Retryboy - December 10th, 2009 at 11:35 pm

Redrob he plays all those names on the left not because none of them stake their claim but because all the creative positions in his team are already taken in a rafa team you have CF-torres ACM-gerrard RM-kuyt and LM is the only other position he has left for a creative player. So they all get the odd game nobody gets a run in the team 4/5 players feeding off scraps. I don’t have any belief that aquilani will make him make room for another creative player or that he will stop seeing kuyt as an automatic choice. Lets face it he could have had aquilani fully match fit a month ago only reason is because he loves 2 defensive midfielders in there. Wants to control every aspect of the game by keeping it so tight. What the best managers do is organise the defence and let the quality attacking players do what they do best.

redrob - December 10th, 2009 at 11:52 pm

retryboy.
what i mean to say is left mid is one of the only position in the team that we dont seem to have any players who gives rafa no choice but to play him there. dirk kuyt, for what ever reason seams to play on the right every game, but nobody on the left will say put me there. the fact that they are not creative, is irrelevant, but i get your point about the tightness.

baggins09 - December 11th, 2009 at 12:19 am

i agree that babels not been given a fair crack on the right but he never will be so i’d go for the pav swap,

babel swap for pav
dossena (never been given a chance) 6m
voronin 4m
kuyt 10m-15m

buy bale for 5-6m
bastos 15m
sack rafa and get mancini/hiddink/anyone capable of managing and play

————————————————–reina/cav———————————————
————————carra/skrtl/kelly————————agger/ayala———————–
darby/johnson————————————————————————–bale/insua
———————————————-masch/lucas——————————————–
————————————————————————————————————
johnson/gerrard———————–aquilani/gerrard————————bastos/yossi
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————-gerrard/yossi/pav—————————————–
—————————————————torres/pav——————————————-

Aquaman - December 11th, 2009 at 12:36 am

Here’s my latest thought on Babel. Yes he may be playing out of position, but the position that he’s desperate to fill is a vital one. When Gerrard first started playing, he wasn’t put in the engine room (midfield). He played on the right and made it his own. Then, once he’d proven himself, he was moved into the more important midfield position.

The same is true of Darby and Kelly. As far as I’m aware, they both play centerback quite frequently for the reserves, but only play at fullback for the first team.

If Babel was willing (or able) to put in that extra bit of effort and look as if he wanted to make the left his home, then he would be trusted with the more important positions. After all if a winger has a bad day, then there’s still another wing, but if your solo striker can’t cut it then you score nothing (sound familiar Kuyt?).

Again this is not so much about what position he plays in as whether he is willing to put in the grind to make whatever place he is granted his own.

baggins09 - December 11th, 2009 at 1:00 am

i get what your saying but surely the lw is no less important than the rw so surely you’d be better getting him to take to a more natural role on the right as he is one footed and get someone (bastos) to make the left his own.

he’d be better putting babel on the right for 4-5 games and dossena on the left so we’d be more balanced if they both fail to impress then get rid of them kuyt and voronin and get bastos,bale and pav/adriano

Retryboy - December 11th, 2009 at 1:26 am

Doesn’t matter how hard you try or what you do with rafa sometimes or in kuyt or lucas case how little you offer. Plus rafa makes his decision on a players best position and won’t change it no matter what the evidence to the contrary. Guarantee if he does go to a manager like Redknapp the last place you will see him will be on the left then he will become the £30m player he should be all because of Rafa’s stubborness and favourites.

baggins09 - December 11th, 2009 at 10:22 am

totally agree mate, he’s after diego capel for the left anyway so babel will definately be going on the right either rw/rf.
i wonder if he’d be intrested in swapping bentley for kuyt? atleast he can cross!

redrob - December 11th, 2009 at 10:40 am

i have been a liverpool fan for as long as i can remember. i like rafa, and although i dont agree with everything that he does. but he does do what he has to.
ok think about this. you are the manager of liverpool,

you see you have;
reina.. the best goalie in the pl
mascherano.. the best def mid in the pl.
steven gerrard.. the best player in the league
torres.. the best striker in the league.
amongs these. carrager agger, johnson all at the top of the list in their position.
aquilani waiting for match fitnes.
that makes 7 players. 8 including aqilani.
now you have to find a left back, two wingers. and the other player take your pick, depending on players available. what managers do is look at the likes of kuyt, auralio,insua,reina,ngog,babel benayoun and place them in the team. this is a good squad 15 players. but in the premier league it is behind trhe other 3 or 4 squads.
rafa has to make this team gell and get ahead of the four mentioned in the league. failure would result in your team not making the champions league next season. loose millions of pound through revenue from the league, yet you still need to improve your squad, with £30/40 mil down. therefor sell one or two of you star players. what do you do
we have no money to buy 2,3,or4 new players in specialist positions like wingers or a striker, because this will take plenty of money. you can play good reserve team players or play those seasoned players who can do a job for your team. reserves can come in but if you need to start to win 70% of your remaining matches, and remain almost undefeated in the other 30%.
i would go for the seasoned pro choice. things need to happen now, i could put in young players or injured players into the team, but would you do this from the begining when so much is at stake?
i have not even mentioned injury, or dips in form, which will happen to every team.
rafa knows that we need to play with width, and yes we do need to be compact but all our players play better from the middle.
rafa is still one of the best at his job. yes we have had a terrible run, unjuries to key players. but do you realy think a new manager would make a dif. i say stick with rafa give him till the end of the season to pick things up. if the worst happens then bring in a new manager, who will bring in their own backroom staff, have their own targets and break up our team. the next 6 months is the future of liverpool fc. lets get behind them.

baggins09 - December 11th, 2009 at 11:59 am

they won’t break up our team they’ll do what rafa should have done and get rid of the shite to fund better players and cut the squad size,

we could have an awesome squad if he used his head

if we got rid of aurelio 4m, dossena 6m, degen 2m, greek 1.5m, plessis 2m, el zhar 1.5m, voronin 4m, kuyt 12m, riera 9m it would give us 42m

bought- bale lb/lm 5m, bastos lw/lm/lwb 15m, richards cb/rb 10m, van der vaart cam/lw/rw/ss 12m =42m and most positions covered with quality

if masch wants to go thats 30+ so buy de rossi for 20m leaving 10m change

swap babel with pav or bentley, if we get pav put the 10m plus any from the yanks towards buying bentley, if we get bentley get adriano for nothing and put the 10m change from the masch deal towards somone like lavezzi/hamsik/giovinco and get the yanks to put in the extra 5-7m

redrob - December 11th, 2009 at 12:35 pm

baggins
i admire your enthousiasam with the players worth that much money. but other than masch and at most kuyt i dont think we would get that amount of money. so if we sell masch and kuyt we would get 42 mil from your valuation. aquilani and de rossi were stars in at roma, but will they be willing to lose both of them considering we got aqua in the summer. i doubt he will cost any less than 20 mil considering they would know how much we need to replace masch. his price could easily reach to 30 mil. which i dont think rafa would fork out. already that is one player of the team from my last post.
all that said i believe that if our squad have no more injuries and recover quickly to 100% we can beet anybody. sooner or later we will smash somebody out of sight. did you see the players reaction to the defeat on wed. they were gutted. i fully believe that gerrard, carra, and torres will react positively, because that hurt big style.
as i think aquaman said in onther post, rafa will not come out in the press and say that our team is playing awful, he also knows something needs to change. he did in jan last year. he bit the bullet and let fly with his selection the shackles came off. regardles of the result on sunday, he will keep it tight. but then let fly. this could still be a great season for us. obviously not winning the league, (but funnier things have happened). but we need a financial boost for next season, or we will fall further behind.

redrob - December 11th, 2009 at 2:37 pm

anon 12;13
it is realy spineless to write on here if you cant put a name to the comment.

Warren Bloggs - December 11th, 2009 at 7:14 pm

Transfers? Again…….my favourite topic. Ryan Babel makes me want to slit my wrists sometimes….ok slightly over the top but you know what i mean. At the end of the day, Rafa is manager of the team and so Babel will not exaclty play, and in all fairness to our spanish chief he has given Ryan plenty of chances to prove himself. Sadly, it looks like he is on the way out.

I know Rafa will not do this but for once i am going to put my ‘transfer’ views forward of players i would sign (realistically). Right…….well we are not going to get any transfer funds from the owners so i would sell Voronin to Hamburg for around £3.5m, Degen to Aek Athens for £2m, Dossena to Roma for £5m and Babel to any suitors for no less then £8m, thus making £18.5m. If Mascherano also pushed for a move then i would let him go for around £35m. So i would use the window as a ‘clean-up’ period seeing as we are not fighting for honours, get new faces in, players who would get us that 4th spot and then work towards winning silverware next season. Therefore, i would have: £53.5m.

I would sign two new wingers: James Milner and Juan Mata.

James Milner would cost approx £15m
Juan Mata i could get i beleive with £15m plus Riera (who wants a move away)

I would then sign Juan Vargas for £15m as a ‘left back-left wing’ solution

and finally…………………..a striker, Rodallega for £7m.

The i would revert back to a 4-4-2 style formation:

…………………………………………….REINA……………………………………………
JOHNSON………………..CARRA………….AGGER……………….VARGAS
MILNER……………GERRARD…………..AQUILANI…………………..MATA
……………………..RODALLEGA……………..TORRES………………………….

Subs: CAVALIERI, SKRTEL, INSUA, LUCAS, BENAYOUN, KUYT, NGOG

Oh and bring Nemeth and San Jose back we could possibly sell Kyrgiakos etc etc.

Then come summer we could sign Martinez, Shawcross and Pandev etc.

redrob - December 12th, 2009 at 12:44 am

anon 5.45 the boy who goes onto a page to try and put down a supporter of the most success club in english history and cant even be man enough to put a name to the jelous post which he made.
‘Torres best striker in the premier league (always injured)
Drogba or rooney for me’. give up toss pot. drogba who falls and cry’s at the ref when a player so much as looks at him in the wrong way. and rooney the scouse reject who cant play with desire and tempo in a big match without getting sent off. torres can dribble, turning defenders left and right and shoot with power. score headed goals always injured? we’ll see at the end of the season who is top scorer. you put a name to your comment then i will praise you if drogba or rooney score more.

‘Gerrard best player in the premier league that is a possibility but is he really as good as maybe 2 years ago?’
you said it yourself ‘that is a posibility’. pillock
Caraggher top of the list of centre backs?

retard meaning that he is one of the top players not the top granted i would have jt in my team if he got off his high horse and realized liverpool are a bigger club. but vidic. we all remember what torres did to him at old trafford last season.when he gave him 5 yrds head start the out muscked him and slot pasted the best defence at the time.
Maschrano or essien ? I would have essien and he is not a gobby idiot that thinks the whole world is against him because he is not english, are you sure two peas in a pod if you ask me..

pompy fan haha. more skint than we are, with even less potential to pull out of it

still, chear up you are a selling club who cant be sure weather they will have a manager to sell their players to raise enough money to pay the teams wages. if only you had a history to dream over, or even hope of a top four slot rather than bottom four.

give up and support your team not slag others.

Retryboy - December 12th, 2009 at 2:57 pm

Anon…think you have enough problems at pompey to keep you busy don’t you? Our problems would be your wet dream! Torres=best striker in the world Drogba=top ten in world aged 31-6 years older than el nino. Gerrard best player in the premier league? Would go further myself best all around player in the world name one more in the world that can be the most potent attacking force and tackle like mascherano too. On to the argentine, essien is better all round but in the makelele role mascherano is the best not a better protecter of the back four in the world and he is 2 years younger than essien too. Thats the first time i have ever heard anyone call jamie carragher overrated! You have to be having a laugh. The other players you mention terry, ferdinand, Vidic. Terry is the only one who has performed consistently at carraghers level for years. Vidic is massively over rated. Carragher had 2 bad games this season and mugs like you jumped on the bandwagon he is an absolute warrior and probably the most underrated player in epl history outside of the club. As we are onto history how can you even talk about history past or recent? You support pompey lol although your comments are more plastic flag jed style chelski bolox! Enjoy the championship won’t you!

Donavan Ried - December 12th, 2009 at 3:29 pm

Retryboy – December 12th, 2009 at 2:57 pm Hi there mate, sorry rgoing out now but wanted to say hi before i go, speak tonite? …see ya

Retryboy - December 12th, 2009 at 4:34 pm

Afternoon donovan… Done my liver damage for the weekend last night…well until game time tomorrow lol so will be on 2nite the excitement is starting to build like sam i love the arsenal games, so refreshing when you get open games now and we play so much better at a high tempo and against arsenal you don’t have a choice but to play fast. Its an ideal game for us really. We have to be on the offensive though but with our attackers if we expect the full backs to provide the width we will be in trouble and mascherano is gonna be massively important with not only fabregas to worry about but arshavin working in between midfield and attack thats why i think we need gerrard in midfield and aquilani/yossi behind torres.