LIVERPOOL WANT MILNER
NEWCASTLE winger James Milner is a shock target for Rafa Benitez in a player swap deal.
The Geordies are interested in five Liverpool first-teamers, with John Arne Riise and Jermaine Pennant top of their list.
And Benitez is ready to negotiate an exchange with 22-year-old Milner heading to Anfield.
Milner moved to St James’ Park from Leeds in 2004, and also enjoyed a successful loan spell at Aston Villa, but despite his potential as a teenager he has never made the step up many expected.
Liverpool’s interest in the wide man underlines where Benitez’ priorities lie as he looks to raise funds and juggle his squad with wheeling and dealing.
With Gareth Barry and Borussia Dortmund’s Phillip Degen also among his targets, a summer of exciting purchases does not appear to be on the Anfield agenda.
Norwegian Riise is thought to favour a move to the North East.
He held talks with Benitez last week and was told he can leave Liverpool. Riise was offered to Aston Villa as part of the Barry deal, but will consider his options.
If he does sign for us, he'll just be back up for either Valencia, Bentley or Joaquin.
Posted by: Ross | May 11, 2008 at 02:22 AM | Report this comment
No Valencia is a better player. Santa Cruz to help Torres and please Rafa do us a favour How did that Voronin end up at Liverpool
Posted by: wellaz | May 11, 2008 at 04:18 AM | Report this comment
I do not think he is the the right player for Liverpool. We have that kind of hardworking but not so outstanding player in Kuyt, Benayoun etc. Bentley will be a good addition. Crouch has improved a lot and is very sharp when given the chance. He should only be replaced by a better player not an inferior or about the same capability player. Please offload Voronin. Left & right backs and wingers should be the priority. Liverpool should play with 2 strikers and 2 wingers. Why not give Torres-Crouch partnership a chance.
Posted by: zulomar | May 11, 2008 at 09:28 AM | Report this comment
Another season of false promises. Is Milner realy going to be the player that takes us to the next level? Don't get me wrong i like the kid, decent enough player, but not the big name winger i was hoping for. Where's the Queresma link, Jaoquin, David Silva, even Downing due to fact he's left fotted. Don't need a right winger as a matter of urgency in my opinion, we need LB, LW & either another striker or a link player so we can use Gerrard as a midfielder again.
Posted by: Andy C | May 11, 2008 at 10:12 AM | Report this comment
Hhahaha what a joke, this was the funniest news I've ever read, but thanks I had a good laugh!
Posted by: Hahah | May 11, 2008 at 04:14 PM | Report this comment
Twill be good to have hick and DIC working together. i mean those dubai guys are loaded with 10s of billions and if their only input to the club is transfers then we could have like 50 mil a season. basically we need imo ...
Barry - stupid to turn it down
Silva - expensive but young
Degan - not seen him but better than finnan prob
Mancini - Getting on and should try the prem out as it is the best league and if the offers there..
to get Barry sell crouch. hes good but worth getting barry for. + Vorronin has been ijured all season and give him a solid year at playing and he'l come good and with us buying wingers kuyt can also be replacement for torres and/or the wing. silva will only come if barry doesnt cos then we'd have barry,silva and babel all going for 1 spot but cld put babel on the right.
Defence. over-achieving to say the least. with no right or left backs i'd say were doing well. in fairness though i think rafa is telling them not to push up the pitch so if u lot think their crap its probably cos benitez is telling them to concentrate on defence but we do need new attacking flanks having said that. i hear agger might go out on loan which is stupid as he is only 21 and arguably the best left footed CB in the world.
if it wer up to me id use every player linked out of the club as a make way to get playrs in. for example..
crouch - barry
pennant - Milna
Risse - silva
vorronin + benneyoon for say villa or huntelarr etc
or 1 of thse for antonio valencia
we should be able to snap up mancini for pennies if he has enough sence to move to the big time prem
I mean we should be realy good next year. were slowly forming a young,fresh team mixed with exeriance like gerrard or carra. with insua coming through and loking bright we should be ok there with aurelio there aswell. we'll have powerfull wings with barry on the left and babel on the right with kuyt and maybe som1 like silva contending (barry covering for LB aswell). in goal we could be getting back carson so we should be tight there aswell. but up front is going to be interesting.
on 1 side we could stick with what we have, all be it that if torres gets injured we could be praying for 1-0s all season, but is it worth taking funding from other things like the barry deal etc to be signing owen back or maybe even henry. when all is said and done this would be the starting 11 next season i think we'l be watching with the sub in brackets
RIENA (carson)
DEGAN(arbeloa)CARRA(hypia)AGGER(skrtel)DRENTHE(aur)
BABEL(valencia)MACHY(lucas)ALONSO(barry)BARRY(kuyt)
GERRARD(any1)
TORRES(crouch)
it may not include david silva/villa or mancini/aguero but i think its realistic. i hope we do get som1 big like slva but i hear our budjet is 25 mil so i built this team on that idea. also i might have contradicted myself with the first team but i had thoughts about drenthe etc. we definety need 1 of these though...
AGUERO - supporter of lfc since was young
SILVA - wouldnt turn it down,young + LEFT FOOTED!
VILLA- could come for alonso swap and then slide gerrard back to CM
AARON LENNON - willing to leve for around 10 mil so why not
BERBATOV - again willing to leave and a swap deal for 1 of our pennants etc could be a good bet.
we do need 1 big player to really chalenge and i would pick VILLA out of them.
what are your views and who would you sign?
Posted by: kopite | May 12, 2008 at 01:28 AM | Report this comment
Rafa should buy or exchange players carefully this time a round. He should be experienced enough to know which players are suitable & which are not. No more squad players, trial & error or players with limited capabilities. I would still think players with EPL experience could fit into the system faster as compared to outside players. He should start to build up the Liverpool brand again & it should start with delivering on the pitch with the EPL. Don't just buy any player. He must buy special players, not necessarily expensive but suitable for Liverpool and could bring us forward. He has made the right decision with Torres. Babel is good. But Aurelio, Benayoun, Kuyt, Lucas, Voronin are average players who could not fit into MU, Chelsea or Arsenal team.
Barry & Bentley are good additions with proven track records in the EPL.
To sell Liverpool to the rest of the world especially Asia, the shirt sponsor should be changed from liqour related brand to other brands who are more acceptable in various part of the world. Trust me, if its a sponsor like 'Candy' previously you will see more people wearing the Liverpool jersey everywhere you go.
Posted by: zulomar | May 12, 2008 at 09:38 AM | Report this comment
For me we need to sign full backs and wingers a striker better than Crouch and a decent substitute keeper. Lucas has a lot of potential give him another season and we will see him florish. We have 3 great centre backs in Carra, Agger and Skrtel so I think we are safe in that position, I think if Agger is fit this season we may see less of Carragher in the easier games, which is a show of the depth we are building, central midfield is the same we have Alonso, Mascherano, Gerrard and Lucas which is more depth than most teams in the world. Reina is great 3 season in the premier league, 3 golden glove awards.
My formation for next season in a ideal world will be:
-----------------------Reina---------------------
(Harper)
Degan----------Carragher-----Agger----------Barry
(Arbeloa) (Skrtel) (Insua)
Bentley--------------Mascherano-----------Valencia
(P Anderson) (Alonso) (Mancini)
----------------Gerrard-----------------------------
(Lucas)
-----------------------------------Babel------------
(Idrjiaz)
----------------------Torres-----------------------
(Kuyt)
I think we need to introduce some hungry young guns, for the lesser matches and to gain some good expierence for them, I think all these are realistic targets and would take us up to the next level, all of these players will be hungry to and wanting to win trophies it would also inject some much needed EPL expierence.
Out:
Pennant (7m)
Riise (6m)
Crouch (10m)
Carson (5m)
Finnan (3m)
Bennayoun (5m)
Thats 36 million to add to the kitty or to use in swap deals, if I was the gaffer that's how i'd roll.
Posted by: Scorchio | May 20, 2008 at 02:17 PM | Report this comment