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Listed below are comments made by SportsSportsSportsBS between Wednesday, 11th November 2009 and Tuesday, 8th December 2009 (58 Minutes Ago) .

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Relief all round as Silverstone secures British GP 09:53am on 08 Dec 2009 Mr Benson,

The financial picture you paint is worrying, especially when considering the difficulty of obtaining credit in the current market for anything, let alone extravagant projects. If Mr Phillips and Mr Hill et al have a solid business model, it might be better for them to reveal it, and divulge their 'creative' capital generating plans sooner rather than later to try and instill confidence in this project. I think F1 fans and potential investors or lenders need to have confidence in the feasibility of this project because the Donington failure has shown how difficult this will be, also there is no Government guarantee as you have made clear, and we should not forget that credit markets and the British economy remain troubled.

I sincerly hope this will be a success.
Can history be made in South Africa? 7:37pm on 30 Nov 2009 I think it's entirely possible that an African country goes far in 2010, I think one from Ivory Coast, Ghana or maybe Cameroon could reach the semi-final stage.

I'm not saying they'll necessarily win next year, but Spain are currently the best team in the world, and I see them as favourites.
Benitez under spotlight after Champions League exit 2:23pm on 25 Nov 2009 #150 OWENISARED,

Must I explain every little thing to you?!?!

I know where Park Ji Sung plays, I mention him because he a fairly limited attacking player, yet he usually plays in the big games for exactly the reason I mentioned.

Also, this is not my theory, this is the theory of various football writers and managers, guys called Ferguson, Benitez, Mourinho etc.

Re Kuyt, I do think it is a good tactical use of him, yes, again, for the reason I mentioned.

What you're essentially saying is you think he should be played up front, alongside Torres. The first point is that Torres on his own with Gerrard and Benayoun playing off him tends to be effective, the second is that if Liverpool were to play two up front, I'd want someone better than Kuyt (and N'gog or Voronin for that matter) to do the job. Kuyt is quite a limited attacking player, but he is a workhorse, therefore using him as more of an extra man than a focal point in attack, and using him defensively to negate the threat of the opposition left-back is a more productive use of him than playing him as a striker.

I do not believe playing Lucas above Aquilani is a good idea, not sure where you dreamt that one up. That Aquilani is not starting yet is the most frustrating thing about Liverpool's predicament, and Lucas is something of a liability.
Benitez under spotlight after Champions League exit 1:02pm on 25 Nov 2009 #90 MrBlueBurns,

I agree that Liverpool's squad isn't good enough, that is what my first comment was about if you remember.

You seem to want to make every thing about Chelsea, so I'll indulge you just this once, yes, they are very good, they have to be favourites for the league this year. However, people talk about Liverpool being a two-man-team, Chelsea are, to an extent a one-man-team, Drogba is phenomenal, he is so important for Chelsea. You can point to winning against Wolves without him or winning in the Champions League with him suspended but that doesn't fly with me, look at last season, he didn't turn up under Scolari and Chelsea were terrible, Hiddink got him playing and then Chelsea were excellent. So the danger for you will be when he, and Essien, miss a month and then come back injured/exhausted, we'll see......

#91 OWENISARED

'Benitez doesn't understand tactics, he doesn't even know what his squads best positions are. Take Kuyt, a hard worker yes but we paid over 10 million quid for him as a striker, not a winger.'

You have just proved that it is you that doesn't understand tactics - In football, formations and tactics are all about finding and exploiting space on the pitch. These days teams tend to have strong defensive midfields to stop the opposition playing, consequently one/two of the few players on the pitch that get space and can join attacks as an extra man is the full backs.

In order to counter this, managers deploy attacking players out wide that can also do a job defensively, this is why Kuyt plays on the right, and Park Ji Sung plays for Man Utd in their big games, and indeed why Rooney was used out wide quite a lot last season, or why Chelsea often play Lampard, Ballack, Essien & Mikel across the midfield.
Benitez under spotlight after Champions League exit 11:46am on 25 Nov 2009 MrBlueBurns, and a few others that have also commented,

'Liverpool's first 11 is arguably the best in the league'.

I did qualify the statement with, 'arguably', so we'll continue our argument.

Last season Liverpool scored the most goals in the league, had the best goal difference, beat Chelsea & Man Utd twice each (including a 1-4 hammering) only losing twice in the entire campaign.
Johnson for Arbeloa, Aquilani for Alonso would be the only changes to their best 11 now, while Man Utd have lost Ronaldo and Tevez and brought in Valencia and Owen!?!?

On the basis of all this, and names like Gerrard, Torres, Mascherano, Benayoun, Aquilani, Agger, Johnson, Reina it is not ridiculous to make that claim, for vic777 to suggest that Everton, Villa, Man City & Tottenham have a stronger first 11 than Liverpool is ridiculous however, unless they are written by a 10-year-old.

However, I would say that Chelsea probably do have the strongest first 11, and that Liverpool have the second strongest. In terms of squad stregnth, Man Utd easily have the strongest, with Chelsea and Arsenal battling for 2nd strongest, Liverpool though, are nowhere.

Also, Twirlip, read the rest of my post before commenting, unbelievable!
Benitez under spotlight after Champions League exit 10:35am on 25 Nov 2009 'happyfishcity'.

This guy is insane, and clueless.

Liverpool got passed Chelsea (under Mourinho), Juventus (before all their players left after the scandal that saw them relegated), and Milan (at their peak, Maldini, Nesta, Shevchenko, Kaka, Gattuso, Pirlo, Crespo) to win that tournament, you'll struggle to find a more deserving winner of the tournament given the teams they beat.

Re The Chelsea 'goal', what Jose Mourinho chose to ignore, was that the decision to give the goal hugely benefitted Chelsea, giving the goal was a cop-out by the referee - because if he didn't give the goal he would have had to give Liverpool a penalty and send off Cech for his challenge on Baros.

Also, in the final their 3 goals came in about 6 frantic minutes, if you do not know about these matters, as you clearly do not, why humiliate yourself by commenting..................?
Benitez under spotlight after Champions League exit 09:52am on 25 Nov 2009 I've been a big critic of Phil McNulty's blogs in the past, but on this occasion I completely agree with everything he has said.

I'm not happy with Hicks & Gillett, and my preference is for them to see the club and be confined to Liverpool's history, I cannot see how this deal was a better option than the DIC deal?! However, what we've seen on the pitch this season (and it has been embarrassingly bad) is almost entirely the fault of Benitez.

Phil McNulty's comments on Aquilani are spot on, terribly flawed transfer policy by Benitez first in marginalising Alonso with the failed, and ridiculous pursuit of Barry, then in signing a player for £20 million who still has not started a game, and we're almost in December! Wesley Sneijder left Real Madrid for Inter this summer, for £7 million less than Aquilani, he could have been included in the Alonso deal and he would have at least been able to pass a medical! Furthermore, Aquilani played 15 minutes in the Carling Cup against Arsenal a month ago, how can he still not be match-fit!?!? His services are desperately needed because Lucas' weakness is unacceptable in a key position like central midfield.

This is indeed Liverpool's problem, their best 11 is arguably the best in the league, their second 11 is one of the worst - Lucas, Kyriagos, Voronin, N'Gog, Babel, Insua, Dossena, these players are just not even close to being good enough.

We can get angry about the American owners but the fact is that Babel, Lucas and Dossena were signed by Benitez for a combined fee of £23.7 million! If that had been better invested Liverpool wouldn't be in this horrible position.
Will South Africa 2010 produce a new Pele? 09:51am on 24 Nov 2009 Mr Vickery,

I am on the whole inclined to agree with your claims that we have not seen a great World Cup since 1986, the group stage in 2006 was very good but really lost it's way in the knockout phase, 2002 was poor for a number of reasons as you mentioned, and while 1994 was ok you certainly couldn't call it, 'great'.

However, 1998 was a superb World Cup - the only disappointment being Brazil's pitiful performance in the final.
Changed Haskell finds perfect Paris match 12:51pm on 12 Nov 2009 'I don't do any media, I don't talk to any PRs or anything - my focus is just on the rugby.'

He says this while doing an interview with the BBC!

Also, Fordyce, this is at least the 2nd blog you've written about Haskell....... Just watch out, he may have befriended you to get access to favourable sections of the media so people start writing blogs like, well, like this one.....
Phil McNulty Q&A 3:57pm on 11 Nov 2009 'Xabi Alonso's departure has hit Liverpool hard, but I am not so sure it is as big a factor as people say. There appears to be a malaise running through the whole team, with or without Alonso.

Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres have been injured, while Liverpool's defence has not looked secure as Jamie Carragher goes through a rare period of uncertainty.'

Can you not see that Alonso's departure has had a direct effect on Liverpool's defence, a strong midfield of Alonso & Mascherano provided excellent protection for the back four, Lucas & Mascherano is a notably weaker partnership. Central midfield is too important of a position to have a passenger playing there, and while the criticism of Lucas may have been slightly harsh, the drop in class from Alonso to him is just too great.

Do you not get sacked for getting your pre-season predictions so badly wrong?

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