Same with Hamann.
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Wow. Heard the rumours about Gerrard. Thatās low if true.
Take it with a pinch of salt though, Iām not actually sure how accurate that story is. Iām leaning towards it being more believable because it was a time when so many in the club were rather loose-lipped to the press.
Yes. The reports at the time that it was Curbs and Pardew who were being advocated for rather than Roy. You do not know what was happening behind the scenes and itās reasonable to think that even the 09 title run was done on the back of breaking/broken relationships given what happened with Alonso so I dont hold it against them for personally souring on Rafa. The steps of going to Purslow (I think that was who was in charge then) and talking about is bad. But itās who they preferred that really speaks to the limitations of their analysis.
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Nice analogy, and a good way to get out of DIY!
Iām amused that so many are slagging off Rafa for that, when Iām fairly certain I remember TIA being more than 50% in favour of selling Alonso to buy Barry. It always baffled me.
Itās just like the whole idea of Keane being misused by Rafa, when in reality, he was just absolute shite.
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I am not sure if I was on TIA at the time but I will hold my hand up to wanting Barry. Alonso had just had a very mediocre season and Barry, although a different type of player was very good at linking up defence to midfield and a lot more mobile.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Alonso had a great season which resulted in RM buying him.
Regarding Keane, he wasnāt shite, he just wasnāt the player we needed. It complicated the Gerrard/Torres partnership and the money could have been used elsewhere.
@Limiescouse do you have information to back up what you are saying? you seem very sure and state (i am not sure who to) āyou do not know what was happening behind the scenesā. Is this just a throw away remark? If not can you enlighten us further?
Yeah, that was the rationale. I loved Alonso, but often found myself frustrated that weād find ourselves attacking sometimes with 3 players with everyone else preferring to stay behind the ball. Barry for what he became in his later Everton years, was at that time pretty dynamic and got himself into the box a lot. It was one of those ideas I didnt like, but I made it make sense to myself given a faith in Rafa.
The part of the post you called out was mean to say that we collectively dont know what is happening out of our view. It looked like the side started coming apart in 2009-10, but if you told me it had already happened and the run in 08-09 was done despite relationships having already broken down Iād believe it.
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On a tenuous note, Barry moved to Man City. My brother - whom I owned a house with at the time and a big Villa fan - and I watched Liverpool v Man City, one of Barryās first games for them. During the game my brother decided to stick the last Ā£10 in his betting account on GB scoring the first goal at 12/1. Two minutes later, who should pop up and scoreā¦.yes a certain GB.
I hate the term call out and that was not my intention. The way I interpreted your post, it seemed as if you knew something. I recall a story at the time which suggested Gerrard and Rafa had a dispute, where Rafaās response was to do a cash gesture - where you rub your finger and thumb together - in response to Gerrard saying he would be sacked.
Donāt agree with Carragher on this one, and I donāt like him commentating on Liverpool, but he has a better understanding of the game than almost every other pundit and certainly most regular fans.
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Interested to know what the source is on this one as I just listened to his recent appearance on The Diary Of A CEO podcast and unless I misheard Iām pretty sure he outright denied this claim.
Like most pundits he talks nonsense at times, but I think some of our fan base have this weird complex about him daring to be critical of us on commentary in games when we are often playing absolutely shite. The same fans will then bemoan having to listen to Neville be laughably bias towards United.
Agree that it isnāt the quality we have, but do wonder if the injection of the right mentatlity into the mix would have an oversized impact.
Everything just feels stale and maybe one new head could fix that?
I dunnoā¦itās bloody disappointingā¦