Watch Liverpool

Posts Tagged ‘bosnia’

Today’s tell-all is wet, wet, wet

For the Mill, this has been a wavering, indecisive kind of January window, full unanswered questions and a sapping, deathly kind of lassitude. Like some wheezing, burbling flu-ridden insomniac, looking up towards dawn and seeing, finally, light at the edge of the curtains, the Mill senses it’s all very nearly over. And so many questions have yet to be resolved.

Questions like, does it really matter if a player who doesn’t really play much but instead just talks a lot about playing somewhere else begins suddenly to talk about talking about playing somewhere else somewhere else and not where he currently no longer plays much any more? This at least is the thrust of Robinho’s announcement this morning that he is finally really properly physically leaving Manchester City. In a bit maybe.

“I am going through a bad period,” Robinho said yesterday, slopping around in tracksuit trousers holding a pillow while eating muesli and occasionally crying at nothing in particular. “The directors all agree it’s better to send me out on loan,” he added, drawing a picture of the directors and explaining that they only come out at night. Robinho would like to go back to Santos because it’s his “home”.

Liverpool’s co-embarrassment Tom Hicks has sold his baseball team for £310m to a group of people that includes a lawyer called Chuck Greenberg and a pitcher called something that should relate to the law in an amusing fashion but unfortunately doesn’t. Rafael Benítez won’t get any of the money.

West Ham are about to “end James Beattie’s Stoke hell” by buying him for £3m. “I’d be hugely disappointed if we did not bring in a striker before the window closes,” David Gold whispered yesterday, putting a hand on your knee. Aston Villa have said they won’t loan Curtis Davies to Celtic. “We may well need Curtis. Things happen,” Martin O’Neill shrugged, making an “Iunnno….” noise.

In The Mirror Manchester United have been wandering around all day muttering “we buy any car. Any make any model any dum de dum. We buy any car. We buy any car” after finally working out a way to pay Wayne Rooney £150,000 a week so he doesn’t move to Spain. Sam Allardyce wants Bosnia winger Senijad Ibricic of 1970s European Cup nostalgia vehicle Hajduk Split. Morten Gamst Pedersen is off to Fenerbahce. And someone called Junior Hoilett is refusing to sign a new contract.

David Moyes is training his unblinking red-raw peeled-eyeball stare on Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and making him hum things to himself and pretend to be reading a newspaper. Spurs, Liverpool and West Ham are also interested. Marco Ruben is on his way to Wigan for £7m. Ruben plays for Villarreal reserves, but also scored on his debut for Argentina recently.

Marlon Harewood won’t be re-signing for Newcastle after breaking his foot in an undisclosed “freak training ground accident”, perhaps involving a misunderstanding with a celeriac, or falling backwards off his flimsy 1970s sun lounger while invisible people laugh uproariously like in the opening credits of Terry and June.

In The Mail Dynamo Moscow want to buy Yossi Benayoun from Liverpool for £7m. Standard Liége striker Milan Jovanovic could pass him heading the other direction after turning down a £3.5m-a-year move to Birmingham because he “wants a higher profile club”. Manchester City could be about to add Roma defender Marco Motta to their thriving new-build small town of random loanee travelling minstrel aces.

Arsenal really are going to sign Fulham reserve centre-half Chris Smalling for £8m. Smalling is 20 and used to play for Maidstone United in the Ryman Premier League. Lens striker and spell-check nightmare Toifilou Maoulida wants to play in the Premier League. West Ham, Wigan and Stoke are scratching about on the periphery looking urgent and friendly and trying to make decisive eye-contact. “I am in favour of the Lens project but the situation is complicated,” he said, sounding a bit queeny and fey and like he might be wearing some kind of beret. “The English league has always interested me.”

In The Times Galatasaray are performing a drunken version of the running man in front of Giovani dos Santos and hoping he’s kind of laughing with them. Birmingham City have held talks about signing Aruna Dindane, who is on loan at Portsmouth. David Moyes is keen to unwrap the waddling Swiss enigma Philippe Senderos. And Leeds United have agreed a fee for the blind Jewish New York jazz pianist of the 1950s and Leicester City winger Max Gradel.

According to Goal.com Harry Redknapp has offered scampering goal-gnome Robbie Keane to West Ham in an attempt to lure Carlton Cole to White Hart Lane. And Bayern Munich like the look of Steven Pienaar and his flapping judicial wig-style braids. Pienaar could be the man to replace the departing Franck Ribéry, who seems to have been departing for a really long time now, without doing any actual, real departing.

LiverpoolEvertonDynamo MoscowManchester CityVillarrealArsenalBolton WanderersManchester UnitedWest Ham Unitedguardian.co.uk

Lyon’s Bosnian midfielder Miralem Pjanic has breathed new life into the French league leaders. Photograph: Paul Ellis/Getty Images

The good news for Liverpool is that Lyon, their Champions League opponents tonight, lost on Saturday, going down 2-0 at Sochaux. The bad news is that it was their first reverse of the season, and the team against whom they must try to get their season back on track after three straight defeats is top of the French table, looking rejuvenated after a summer clear-out.

“Liverpool is always Liverpool,” said Miralem Pjanic, Lyon’s Bosnian playmaker, “and you always have to talk about that club with dignity and respect. But I think that this year they do not resemble the team from last season. Then they played harder and stronger. They seem to have big problems and I just hope they don’t solve them in the game with us. We have a real chance.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fitness of Steven Gerrard, above, and Fernando Torres is vital to Liverpool’s fortunes. Photograph: Tony O’Brien/Action Images

Liverpool are facing a critical week in their season with fitness doubts lingering over Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, as both leading talents remain plagued by injury problems sustained on international duty.

The Liverpool captain and the side’s leading goalscorer sat out training at Melwood today to add to Rafael Benítez’s concerns ahead of Saturday’stomorrow’s testing trip to Sunderland, a Champions League tie with the Group E leaders Lyon next Tuesday and Manchester United’s Premier League visit to Anfield on Sunday week. It is understood Gerrard and Torres were advised to rest their injuries, rather than risk aggravating them, but their inactivity continues to overshadow Liverpool’s preparations nevertheless.

Gerrard withdrew from England’s victory over Belarus with a groin problem and scans have confirmed slight damage to an area that hindered him last season. Torres was an unused substitute in Spain’s 5-2 win against Bosnia Herzegovina, with the coach Vicente del Bosque admitting he would not use the striker if an adductor injury suffered in training persisted.

Benítez’s preparations will also be disrupted by the late return from South America of Javier Mascherano and Lucas, with the Argentina captain and Brazilian midfielder not due back on Merseyside until tomorrow. The summer signing Sotirios Kyrgiakos provided another injury headache when he damaged a knee during Greece’s 2-1 defeat of Luxembourg. Initial reports claimed the central defender had suffered a cruciate ligament injury and would be out for four months. Liverpool officials, however, have since spoken to Kyrgiakos in Athens and are hopeful his injury is not as severe as first feared.

The Greek international has made only two appearances since his £1.5m arrival from AEK Athens but his absence would leave Liverpool light in defence, with Daniel Agger yet to appear for his club this season although he played in Denmark’s two World Cup qualifiers this week. Dirk Kuyt is continuing to receive treatment on an ankle injury suffered on international duty with Holland.

Liverpool said: “Sotirios Kyrgiakos will be examined by our medical staff when he returns to Liverpool later this evening. Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres will not train with the rest of the squad today but will continue to receive treatment and will be assessed again tomorrow.”

Liverpool’s co-owner George Gillett, meanwhile, has denied that Prince Faisal bin Fahd bin Abdullah is close to purchasing a stake in the Anfield club. The American has been in Saudi Arabia this week as part of Liverpool’s plans to sponsor football academies in the region and his own interest in extending his Nascar franchise. That has encouraged claims that Prince Faisal will become one of the new investors in Liverpool that Gillett and his co-owner, Tom Hicks, are under pressure from the banks to find, with the prince’s company, F6, promoting that prospect.

But Gillett said: “I can categorically deny that we have had any conversations along those lines. The purpose of my trip to the Middle East was to talk about Liverpool football academies and stock car racing.” He refused to rule out an investment from the prince completely, however. “We may discuss that at some point in the future.”