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electrifyingNeilD

Listed below are comments made by electrifyingNeilD between Monday, 18th May 2009 and Wednesday, 2nd December 2009.

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Spain can end Europe's historical failure 09:57am on 02 Dec 2009 25. At 10:16am on 01 Dec 2009, Wilcito wrote:

"No mention of Marcos Senna here, Spain's best player in the Euro Champs 2 years ago, and the equal of the mercenary Xabi Alonso."

I'm absolutely baffled by this comment. Ity couldn't be more inaccurate. As a Red I can't understand for the life of me why anybody would consider Xabi Alonso, a player who gave us five years great service, a mercenary. Does wanting to join the biggest club in the world and the most successful club of all time back in your homeland and return with your family and daughter to Spain make you a mercenary?! When the year before your manager was willing to sell you and you owe him, the club or its fans nothing? Alonso left with the best wishes of all true Reds - we didn't want him to go and the team is worse without him, but when he returns to Anfield it will be to a standing ovation for a man crucial to our success under Benitez, specifically our fifth European Cup.

Xabi Alonso is about as far away from a mercenary or the archetypal modern footballer as you can get.
Anfield's day of destiny 11:56am on 24 Oct 2009 I find it hilarious that so many people who clearly know nothing about the manner in which Owen left Anfield have commented here that he doesn't deserve any abuse this Sunday - even some suggesting he would have stayed if Rafa had offered him a new contract or that he would have come back had Rafa wanted him!

Owen lied and lied and lied - promising he was nearer to signing a new deal and getting closer to signing and insisting he wanted to stay at Liverpool, despite us puting several offers on the table from 2003 to 2004, all the time running down his contract and worth so when we had no option but to sell him 12 months before he could leave on a free we received just £10m for him - at least half his market value.

Then when his spell in Madrid failed Rafa offered him the chance to come back to Liverpool and offered £10m, what we had received, in return. Madrid wanted the £16m offer from Newcastle and Rafa asked Owen to play hardball and say Liverpool would be his only destination. Fearing his England career could suffer if a move didn't come off and not having the balls to force a move or wait until January Owen did what he always does and put his international career first, joining Newcastle for higher wages but less chance of success. And we all know how that turned out and what happened to his World Cup aspirations.

Owen snubbed us twice and showed no loyalty, love or affection for Liverpool long before he joined United. He'll get what he deserves tomorrow.
Arsenal will not miss Adebayor 12:49pm on 17 Jul 2009 "Alexander Hleb has proved at Barcelona that Wenger got that call spot on"?

Not at all - just because he has failed at Barcelona doesn't mean he wasn't a key player for Arsenal. His creativity was sorely missed last season - ask any Arsenal fan and they will tell you that.

Arsenal will miss Adebayor's goals, his strength and ability to hold the ball up and bring others into play and the option he gives them to go long and direct at times when their Plan A pretty football fails.

Unless he is replaced with a top striker they will struggle for goals without him.
Barry gets England talking 3:35pm on 03 Jun 2009 Barry probably wasn't interested in playing on Liverpool's left wing and sometimes at LB, beacuse that is what Rafa had in mind and offered him. Benitez had no real intention of selling Alonso last summer, he just wanted to motivate him to get him back to his levels of 2004-06 and it worked - he was Liverpool's best player last season.

There is little chance Barry could have asserted himself in the centre at Liverpool ahead of two infinitely superior players, Alonso and Mascherano, and that would have harmed his chances of starting in midfield for England come the World Cup.
Man Utd are worthy champions 6:04pm on 18 May 2009 Post number 19 - what an embarassment.

Most of Benitez's poor or stop-gap signings he has sold on at a profit and then improved the side with the money.

The lack of credit you give good players like Benanyoun, Kuyt, Aurelio and Arbeloa shows your lack of knowledge and bias.

Mascherano 18m - one of the best defensive midfielders in the world
Arbeloa 2.6m - an absolute bargain for a good international defender who can play all across the back line
Lucas 6m - a decent fee for a player with a lot of potential, a lot cheaper than Anderson who shows no more promise than Lucas, a current Brazil international
Voronin free - stopgap squad cover
Leto 1.85m - young player now on loan gaining experience
Torres 20m - many thought he wasn't world class, but he was a bargain at £20m, much better than £30m Berbatov and arguably now the best striker in the world thanks to Rafa
Benayoun 5m - bargain for a player who has had a brilliant season
Babel 11.5m - a flop, who we will probably lose at least £4 or £5m on
Aurelio free - very good defender with great technical ability had a good season
Pennant 6.75m - awful buy and overspend
Kuyt 9m - works hard and has scored 15 goals and got 10 assists this year and been one of our best players - more league goals than Rooney
Palletta 2m - rubbish
Bellamy 6m - stopgap sold at a profit
Agger 5.8m - one of the best defenders in Europe, injuries have kept him sidelined this year but an absolute snip
Keane 20m - not good enough for a top club, thankfully sold at only a £4m loss
fowler foc - stop gap
Kromkamp - stop-gap sold at a profit
El zhar - decent youth player
Crouch 7m - did a good job then replaced by Torres and sold at a big profit
sissoko 5.8m - did a good job then replaced by Mascherano and sold at a big profit
Gonzalez 4.5m - flop
Barragan foc - youth didn't fulfill potential
Reina 6m - Great signing, one of the world's top keepers an absolute steal
Zended foc - gone
Carson 750,000 - cover sold at a profit
Morientes 6.3m - an unexpected flop sold at a £3m loss

Overall Rafa's transfer dealings have been excellent - and you haven't even mentioned Skrtel a good buy, the highly promising Insua, Xabi one of the best midfielders in the world a bargain at £10m or Luis the man who won us number five a great flair player who scored 30 goals in 1209 apps for just £6m
Benitez must blank out Ferguson 5:00pm on 18 May 2009 Why on earth should Rafa congratulate a man who attacked him so vehemently just three weeks ago making up that 'beyond the pale' nonsense with his pal Allardyce? It was a calculated attack based on lies and one none of us have forgotten.

Benitez has nothing but contempt for MR Ferguson and rightly so - he was not gracious in defeat when we thrashed them 4-1 - instead he moaned about Sky and refused to face the cameras.
My teams of the season 4:52pm on 18 May 2009 I must have missed all these goals Reina punches in his own net. In his entire time here he has only made three or four howlers while his clean sheet records speak for themselves. I forgot to add he is a penalty specialist.

Rob Green is an average keeper at an average club who makes far more mistakes than Reina, VDS, Cech or the likes of Schwarzer or Howard. He is no better than David James or Shay Given - perhaps he would just make the country's top ten keepers.
My teams of the season 4:50pm on 18 May 2009 If it wasn't for Reina Liverpool's Champions League campaign and title challenge would have been over by September.

Anybody thinking he is dodgy or a weak link needs their head examining - along with Gerrard and Alonso he has been our best player this season. He is a great shot stopper, strong, tall, agile, commands his box, sweeps up and snuffs out chances before they develop playing as a sweeper/keeper rushing off his line and rarely makes mistakes - ony one all season at Stamford Bridge springs to mind. His distribution is amazing - he has two direct assists and a couple of indirect assists from brilliant kicks and throws and his decision making is impeccable.

He has been brilliant all season and is heading for his fourth consecutive Golden Gloves award for the most clean sheets.
My teams of the season 4:39pm on 18 May 2009 Van Der Sar ahead of the country's best keeper Reina?
Man Utd are worthy champions 4:14pm on 18 May 2009 It cracks me up when bitter Mancs jealous of our five European Cups try and come up with reasons why it was easier to win the European Cup in the past. Suggesting that old European Cup wins shouldn't count as much as wins under the new format is pathetic. As for the introduction of the backpass rule making the league harder to win now - what a joke.

In the Champions League format you can lose several group games and still qualify for the knockout stages. You can be poor for the majority of the games until Christmas, lose three or four games and still reach the knockout phase. In the old format if you lost one game early on by a bad defecit you had blown the tie and would be eliminated unless you turned it around two weeks later. This competition is set up deliberately to favour big sides and ensure over several games (more guaranteed games = more money) the big sides progress.

Also back then you had to be champions of your country or reigning holders to enter the competition (a very difficult feat in itself). United wouldn't have even been able to compete in the competition in 1999 under the new rules.

As for the standard being so much higher just take the example of Chelsea last season. Chelsea reached the final of the CL last season (and were a penalty kick away from winning the trophy) by beating one - ONE - top side, Liverpool, in the semi-final. Before that they breezed past relative minnows Fenerbahce and Olympiakos at the knockout phase and conquered a group made up of Schalke, Rosenborg and Valencia - all average sides at best.

It can very easily be argued that neither the new CL format or the old European Cup format are any easier than the other.

18 + 5 . 18 + 3. FACT. No matter how you dress it up.

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