JFK-1

We will get better while they are what they are. It’s the Clark strategy again and they will make it difficult for anybody who plays there. In the meantime perhaps we should be throwing in one of our match winning options to get the second goal which could seal this..

Two Killie strategies. Route one park the bus. If that doesn't work route two get Morelos riled up and red carded.

My confidence stems from the differences in comparison to last season squad wise. Gerrard is a man who with his vast experience must know a player when he sees one and recognise character when he sees it on the field too. I'm trusting his squad will deliver a large improvement on last season and when you break it down maybe we don't even need a large improvement. Just two matches going in the other direction last season could have given us the title. We have strengthened and currently the yahoos have not. At best they have replaced outgoings in defence with similar quality while I would argue we have increased the quality in more than one department. We have strengthened the defence while we have young dynamic midfield options I think could dominate them to an even greater degree than the times last season we were most dominant in the middle. The match at Kilmarnock is crucial in the sense that everyone including the media have built a real title race scenario for the first time in a long time. Those expectations may evaporate by around 3:20pm Sunday if we don't produce some sort of performance to make our mark despite the fact day one doesn't lose a title. But with all the evidence at hand despite the unpredictable nature of the game I see now way Killamrnock could beat us. I will be surprised if they score and surprised if we don't score at least 2. We will see.

I despise them for everything around the SC final but this is is good business for the club in more ways than one. As you pointed out he would strengthen them to be more capable of taking something from direct rivals while being weakened against us and we get a young player developing in SPL first team football. I would rather he went there than Holland. The biggest drawback would be that a segment of their support wont accept him and that's evident on their forums right now. I have faith in his ability but he would have to perform a class above to win them over quickly. A bad start with a few games not on the boil would be a nightmare for him there.

I’m thinking we wouldn’t be too concerned if we were playing St Johnstone at home. They’re not even going to be top 6 But somebody up there likes giving us more taxing opening days.

I’m about as impressed by the yahoo win today as I was by the thrashing of St Joseph’s. St Johnstone were dumped out of the league cup after losing to both Forfar and Montrose. Two sides I would expect St Joes to beat thus not impressed at all when St Johnstone are thrashed.

I'm sure that even more so than last season Gerrard with a years experience in hand will ,outside any fitness concerns, have already decided on a team and strategy. Kilmarnock will pretty much be the same team of last season and i'm confident they wont be much different approach wise. The way I see it we have 2 good players for every shirt and I would say we have the strongest first 22 in the league right now. I realise there have been glimpses of an old problem but that isn't concerning me at the moment. It's been a gelling squad who haven't had a stable line up across the 8 pre season games but that will change. The 8 games produced 24 goals for with 1 against and some of those games were against sides containing multi million pound players of a high quality. There is so much potency in attacking scope available to Gerrard with a strong defence behind them. That suggests to me that against the relative journeymen of Kilmarnock on Sunday we will see a probably a physical struggle by the outclassed to contain it. Their first tactic will be niggling fouls to break up play which we can only hope will be quickly dealt with by a few yellow cards to let some football break out. I see no way they can live with us providing our players perform as they can. I think we can beat them 3-0

After some time to think about it I’m now not so concerned about the result on the night. It would appear they were sent out to simply keep it tight, not giving anything away, and take any chances that come along. As it went on and Progres showed no ambition at all to make a game of it one description I have heard seems to sum it up. We had one team who didn’t need to go for it and didn’t while the other did need to go for it but wouldn’t. I don’t expect to see such a lack of intensity on Sunday.

We’re holding all the aces for Sunday. No one would argue that we don’t have better players in every position and we know exactly what Killie will do. On the other hand our potential line up and strategy is nothing like so clear to them. I will be expecting a 2 or 3-0 win with hopefully an early goal which would go a long way towards rendering their expected spoiling tactics pointless.

Kent might take a loan till January if that’s all we have on offer but what he really wants is the full season.

Latest reports suggest the asking price for Kent is around 7 to 8 million. Still too much for us but to my knowledge still no prospective buyers.

Ideally i'm looking to be at least 1-0 ahead on the night inside the first 15 minutes which should kill it off and let us settle down to play it out.

Might turn out to be a typical example of the massed defences we're going to be facing through the season. In this instance though they have to come out at some point and try something.

And given how little time is left it has to be fast approaching a point where they have to do something and this loan he desires may be the only option that keeps him developing and maintaining an 8 figure price tag.

Me too. If Kent is coming which I would like I want a loan not a large multi million splash. While keeping Morelos.

Have to alter the stance at some stage if it continues running on as it has.

Me too more or less. I'm trusting there are people at board level who have sufficient business acumen and who armed with the best legal advice have made an informed decision that this is the best route to take for a favourable end result.

Yes I can see it now. Some aspiring 'Bugsy' like character in a kids club will corner the market in free tickets and begin a racket. And just in passing if they gave one away to me I still wouldn't go.

You may be right but watching it I thought I could see room for different interpretations of what he said and how he presented it. His irritation about being questioned on Kent in a pre match presser can't have been simply because Kent was one he really wanted for this crucial season and that there was now no chance of it happening. I feel he may have been irritated because he still hasn't given up on Kent and didn't want to talk about this at a delicate stage of what is for him still an active objective. What he then said came across to me as merely politely respecting Liverpool's current public stance on Kent. If they say that sale for 8 figures is the only option then he respects that. That would put Rangers out of it he agrees. But that simply cannot be the only the only possible end result in this long drawn out saga. There's now little more than a week to go for a resolution while throughout the entire pre season Kent has apparently been sprinkling little hints around regarding his desires for next season all of which included being at Rangers one way or another. One way it's now being conceded isn't a possibility for Rangers so the only way Kent could be at Rangers is by another way. Yes Gerrard is respecting what Liverpool say is their stance but what's next if they have a player on their hands for whom they still have no offers matching their valuation regarding which i'm unaware of any offers far less offers into the 8 figures they're reportedly asking. There is now only a week for Liverpool to resolve this but let's say that no one even matches their valuation what next for Kent? What are they going to do with a young player they're trying to punt for 8 figures? They have nothing below that first team he isn't going to get into where they can rationally put a player like that without either potentially hindering his development or at best stalling it when can then damage that 8 figure sum which is their desired end point. The best possible solution is obviously to give him what he wants for this season, let Rangers increase his value again then punt his rebellious arse next season for even more money. For the above reasons I think there may still be some twists left in this

I don't think Gerrard admitted a final end to the Kent pursuit. Among other things he said when questioned about the Kent deal was initially a somewhat irked retort of something like and 'what does that have to do with this match?' I thought it was a total slapdown and he wasn't going to talk about it but he then said "Where we are right now, yes" meaning basically nothing more to say beyond that but he worded it in such a fashion that there could still be some twists to come.

I'm hoping Aribo may be one answer to the troublesome sieges we have encountered and are going to encounter again many times. Been recently looking at any available footage I can find of him and there may be a possibility this could be our 'Dembele' moment. He's a big strong boy with pace and athleticism who is utterly tenacious challenging for the ball when his team are out of possession. When winning it back he's then well capable of going into an extended run which very often takes him into or close to in range area. From there as he has already proven he can very quickly take just a brief touch or two and accurately slot a ball into the net through a narrow space he saw fleetingly open up. I think we will get goals from him but likely even more assists because that's another facet of his skill set. As he approaches that in range area of the siege wall on a run more often than not he will make a pass. His approach all on it's own sets the siege wall in a more fluid state and others begin to find themselves in a more favourable spot. A Defoe as an example who can then receive the incoming pass. I think the boy may have it all and now finding himself amid better players at an infinitely more high profile club he's going to be feeling that he has something to prove before he could have any chance of moving on to top end EPL heights. I would wager his agent convinced him this was the best option for him and now you go out there and run riot in that league and I will get you the mega bucks. This boy is going to be mega motivated and his sheer youthful excitement about this new adventure taking him into Euro competition will drive him on too. Who knows. If Alfredo stays this season perhaps this time next year Aribo may be our most valuable asset and we have him on a 4 year contract.

https://thekoptimes.com/2019/03/29/the-best-liverpool-fc-players-of-all-time/

Sure.

The Best Liverpool Players of All Time

There's definitely a different feel to the prospects of the upcoming season than there has been in recent times with I suspect a bit more optimism than for sometime. I have noted that even the opposition fans of the usual mocking entities have themselves slowly but surely come to believe what I believe. I believe we have already moved on to another level in this window and we're not even done yet. Gerard himself has commented that we could still be looking at two more incoming and with one of those rumoured to potentially be a relative marquee player. Yes we played some weak opposition in pre season and in Europe too but we did throw in two games against two Championship sides both littered with multi million pound players and a Ligue one side littered with multi million pound players. In those games we were still largely dominant and looking extremely potent while just as importantly looking more solid at the back. And I feel the Derby game in which we were the better side again is a demonstration of the new level we have moved on to just in terms of the SPL. As previously mentioned Derby are a side littered with multi million pound players and a side who so recently just narrowly missed out on promotion to the EPL and playing their last game before their season begins. Traditionally the last game of a pre season is against the strongest or at worse strong opposition and Derby opted to play Rangers before their season begins. How many sides in the SPL are going to be fielding any multi million pound players far less a team littered with them? Only one and that one wasn't the reason we didn't win the title last year. The reason was the hubz and killies and sheep and more. As far as I can see at this point that's going to change in our favour because I see no way the SPL outside that one can very often survive. One of the relative failures of last season was losing goals against these let's say lesser sides yet we still finished with the second best defensive record in the league as well as being highest scorers. At the back we have McGregor and now a host of quality CB's while just in front of them we have a frankly in SPL terms awesome variety of options before even mentioning the Morelos Defoe front line. If the back line performs as well as it appears they could I feel confident in predicting this team will hand out a number of thrashings both home and away. Regarding the yahoos we got the better of them on at least 3 occasions last season and can I feel take points from them again. Getting back to moving on to another level I have to speak of Steven Gerrard and why I think we have the right man at the right time to pull it off this season. Steven Gerrard has relatively recently moved to the top of lists of the greatest Liverpool players which had previously been occupied for decades by Kenny Dalglish. A point I want to highlight is the reasoning provided by an example site for Gerrard taking the number one spot while Dalglish goes down to number two. "2. Kenny Dalglish Usually the favourite pick when naming the greatest Liverpool player. It is hard to argue, but he was part of a world-class ensemble, his genius as an individual flourishing in a team already Champions of Europe when he signed in 1977" "1. Steven Gerrard A contentious choice ahead of Dalglish, but the context in which Gerrard won his trophies – in consistently reshaped teams and alongside many average players - edges him into top spot." So Steven Gerrard was a player who spent his career at a relative fallen giant for whom past domestic glory was harder to come by. And that in a new environment where many teams in the top half had better players than them and greater resources too. In that environment he played in Liverpool sides with which he still won 6 domestic honours and 3 European honours. The miracle of Istanbul an obvious classic example where he dragged that team to one of the greatest if not the greatest European cup/Champions league final comebacks of all time. Gerrard first became captain of Liverpool under Houllier at just 23 years old and was 25 in Istanbul. Houllier explained the promotion by saying that despite being so relatively young he recognised Gerrard had demonstrated leadership qualities early on, but needed to mature. At 23 he was captaining one of Europes biggest most honour laden sides during a period of relative decline in domestic success when compared to historic domestic achievement. And that's exactly the same situation he's in with us right now except this time he's manager and not a player. He's a man who has been in this very situation with one difference being that during his playing career the domestic challengers facing him were far greater in many ways than face us in the SPL. And he still prevailed though never got the holy grail of their first title in decades. He knows how to win even in situations when the opposition appear to have financial and playing advantages and that's why he may be the perfect man to have in charge at this crucial point. Aside from his experience of leading in a scenario such as that described above I feel the vast experience of such an all time great who has played at every level will have given him an eye for a player and a knowledge of how to then construct a potent side. To me this is his first real transfer window. When he came in last June what followed was a rush to build a team with little time for in depth research and analysis and for that reason some mistakes were made. The January window arguably somewhat better and now this window which he has had a whole year of experience in Scotland to contemplate. He now knows exactly what Scottish football is all about has been to all of the grounds and knows what they're all about. All of that alongside what I would say is a major strengthening of the team means to me that we are now looking at a season immeasurably different from the last few. In the last few we have been the team in turmoil with managerial changes and constant mass overhauls but now in the mix is the fact it's the yahoos who are in relative turmoil with what has to be perceived as a massive downgrade in managerial quality. We're the strengthening team with some managerial stability and though I know many fans are still wary of false dawns after our recent experiences there just feels to be a whole different ambiance so to speak. Everyone including the haters and the media are at worst tacitly conceding that we have moved on to another level. We now have so many quality options that i'm convinced we're going to find a way to break through any stubborn resistance most of the time. I feel Joe Aribo and Sheyi Ojo are going to be a revelation with both being up there amongst our high scorers. Keep it close at the back and we will be putting a distance between us and the also rans by the end of the first quarter. There is at least some credible evidence to suggest that this time could be the time.