Watch Liverpool

Posts Tagged ‘babel’

• Forward’s proposed £5.8m move to Hoffenheim breaks down
• Unclear whether Babel could leave as part of deal for Suárez

Ryan Babel will be staying at Liverpool for the time being, the manager, Kenny Dalglish, has confirmed.

Babel looked as though he was heading to the German side Hoffenheim after the clubs agreed a £5.8m fee. However the proposed move has broken down, with Babel earlier indicating he would prefer to join his former club Ajax.

There is speculation Ajax’s £20m-rated striker Luis Suárez could sign for Liverpool but whether Babel might be part of the deal remains to be seen. When asked about the player’s situation, Dalglish said: “He is staying here.”

Dalglish refused to be drawn on whether Liverpool will increase their offer for Charlie Adam after having a £4m bid for the midfielder rejected last week. Blackpool are believed to be holding out for double that amount.

Dalglish said: “If we have some business to discuss we will discuss it. We will try to adopt the way of Liverpool Football Club and certainly one of our ways is to be respectful of other clubs and certain players at other clubs. The most important people we have are the people at this club.”

LiverpoolTransfer windowguardian.co.uk

Roy Hodgson has followed Rafa Benítez in failing to allow his Dutch forward the opportunity to shine at Anfield

How do you prove yourself without ever being given the chance to do so? That’s the question that Ryan Babel must ask himself every night. Liverpool fought off a host of clubs for the £11.5m winger-cum-forward in July 2007 after the then Ajax player’s impressive showing in the European Under-21 Championship. Playing as a forward, Babel scored in a man-of-the-match display and inspired Holland to a 4-1 defeat of Serbia in the final. “He has the potential to be the next Thierry Henry,” said the then Holland coach Marco van Basten.

Perhaps he still does, not that Liverpool fans could say with any conviction. In 84 league appearances for the club 54 have been as a substitute, and of the 30 he has started, he has been hauled off on more than 20 occasions. The former Liverpool manager, Rafael Benítez, religiously replaced either Harry Kewell or Albert Riera at the 70-minute mark and gave Babel the unenviable task of trying to make an “impact” in inert games or ones Liverpool were chasing. Preferred on the left by Benítez he was never an inside-out winger in the mould of Ashley Young or Leo Messi. Babel’s simpler qualities make him better suited to the attacking role on the right perfected by Cristiano Ronaldo at Manchester United. Collecting passes on his wrong foot for Liverpool has taken him backwards in more ways than one.

A fleeting appearance on his stronger right-hand side as a substitute against West Ham in September last season, when he set up the winner for Fernando Torres with a delicious cross, enabled Babel to showcase his abilities as a more physical player whose pace and power could better any defender. But in the following two matches against Hull and Chelsea, Babel’s backside felt the harsh and painful reality of splinters again.

With Roy Hodgson’s appointment many Liverpool supporters thought that perhaps now would be Babel’s time to shine – particularly with Torres’s absence through injury at the start of the season. But his role has been persistently peripheral. At 6ft 1in tall with pace to burn and of stocky build, with a trick or two if not always deft touch, on the face of it he has all the attributes to be the Spaniard’s ideal deputy. But David Ngog, signed for £1.5m from Marseille as a back-up player has so far been preferred to the Dutchman with Hodgson even trying to offload Babel to West Ham for Carlton Cole in exchange.

So what is it about Ryan? Accusations about a lack of dedication and poor attitude have been the easy assumption given his interest in rap music (he had a No1 in Holland with this gem). But, so what? Providing he turns up for training and puts the effort in that’s all that matters. As recently as this Tuesday he tweeted: “Sacrificed my day off for some shooting …” and he wasn’t bagging pheasants in Formby.

A poor attitude could even be excused given the almighty knock his confidence must have taken. Lauded as the future of Dutch football and with the opportunity to impress at a club regularly performing well in the Champions League, he has kicked his heels on the bench while a succession of workaday wingers, cheap buys and players past their best, such as Fabio Aurelio, Andrea Dossena, Kewell, Riera and Maxi Rodríguez, have started ahead of him.

Hodgson’s pleas for Babel to prove his worth before the 0-0 draw with Birmingham would have seemed fair had he started the player in the right-wing slot freed up for once by a rare injury to the ever-dependable Dirk Kuyt. But he was benched. And then ignored for 90 minutes as a team crying out for pace struggled to puncture the Birmingham defence. Perhaps Glen Johnson’s propensity to leave his station at right-back as he marauds forward has dissuaded Hodgson from using Babel on that side and, if that is the case, it’s just another mouthful of bad luck for the player to swallow along with the rest.

Babel is likely to start up front on his own against Steaua Bucharest at Anfield tonight albeit with what may resemble a skeleton team around him with Liverpool’s trip to Manchester United on Sunday looming. In these situations it is easy to see why frustration sets in. To truly flourish he needs to have regular first-team players around him who can bring out the best in him.

After playing the part of an extra for three years and largely being patient, it is hard not to feel that Babel deserves the opportunity to play a more central role for once. He still has the support of many Liverpool fans and has vowed to prove himself when or if he is given the chance to. But with 4-5-1 the dominant formation in modern-day football, and Hodgson being a loyal proponent of it, it is unlikely that this will ever be the case.

It’s a shame. Babel may be the “next Thierry Henry”. But probably not at Liverpool.

LiverpoolGregg Roughleyguardian.co.uk

• Liverpool manager expects he will have to rotate his strikers
• He says Babel has not fulfilled his potential at Anfield

Roy Hodgson has challenged Ryan Babel to save Liverpool the expense of signing another striker in January after conceding he must ease the burden on Fernando Torres. Torres returns to Birmingham City on Sunday, where he was withdrawn by Rafael Benítez with Liverpool being held 1-1 last season, as the club’s only fit and proven forward after Dirk Kuyt’s shoulder injury compounded the failure to sign a new striker before the transfer deadline.

Hodgson defended that decision today as he revealed that, despite claims of a £12m transfer budget in place when he arrived, “it was only after the sale of [Javier] Mascherano that it would have been possible for me to have the money available to do a transfer at a high enough level”. He added: “Quite frankly I didn’t see the players out there that really excited me to spend the amount of money those players cost.”

The Liverpool manager must now put his faith in the improving David Ngog, Babel, who Hodgson tried to offload on deadline day, and Daniel Pacheco to provide back-up for Torres until the transfer window reopens. And, despite the furore that followed Benítez’s decision to withdraw the Spain international at St