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2 Liverpool Transfer Stories that have me slightly baffled

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It’s been another busy week in football but for once the attention has been on a handful of Liverpool’s rivals for a change. Particularly on Arsenal as their long, drawn-out decline has steadily continued since the weekend, with Fabregas leaving and Nasri looking as if he’ll be following him to Manchester City in the not too distant future. Coupled with the suspensions of Arsenal’s new star Gervinho and Alex Song from their midfield and the Gunners are looking to be in a bit of a tough position for the next few games, at least.

The obvious way in which this affects the Reds is that we roll up at the Emirates at the weekend, and as one or two former players have said this week: there is no better time for Liverpool to play Arsenal. The boys will have got the disappointment of last Saturday’s draw out of their systems and will have had an extra week to build up the fitness levels that were sorely lacking toward the end of the second half on Saturday afternoon. With the players that have left Arsenal and those that will be suspended, it was reported today that Wenger will have to turn to three of his young stars to fill the gaps and Liverpool should go for the kill from the off.

The Gunners are likely to go with the following line up on Saturday morning: Szczesny; Sagna, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Jenkinson; Frimpong, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Walcott, Van Persie, Arshavin, whilst the Reds are likely to go with: Reina, Enrique, Kelly, Agger, Carragher, Adam, Lucas, Downing, Kuyt, Suarez and Carroll. Just to err on the side of caution, I expect Carroll to start as the lone striker with Downing, Kuyt and Suarez assisting when going forward and packing out the midfield otherwise. Of course, as we’ve seen since Kenny took over in January it’s next to impossible to predict who will start but whoever we line up with there can be no doubt in any Liverpool fan’s mind that at 12:45 on Saturday afternoon we will be sending out a much stronger team than Arsenal for the first time in a long time and a win over one of our top rivals for a top 4 spot could have a huge impact on the confidence of the squad.

Elsewhere, there are rumours today that David Ngog is almost certain to join Bolton by the weekend. Depending on where you find that particular story, it’s either £4 million plus additional fees or just a basic fee of £4 million. Either way, it’s a profit of over double what we paid for him and he can leave with his head held high, after doing the job he was signed for. However, there are a couple of confusing aspects of this transfer for me: 1. that the proposed transfer isn’t being used to strengthen Liverpool’s position in any potential signing of Gary Cahill and 2. the supposed ‘replacement’ for Ngog is Wigan’s Hugo Rodallega.

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I'm a 32 year old Liverpool fan, living in the heart of the City Centre. I've supported the club since the day I was born and have been writing articles for L4L for over 3 years, writing close over 350 articles in that time. My favorite player of the past generation is Sami Hyypia.

I am the current editor for L4L, with my day job being in R&D for the NHS.

4 comments

  • Read the replacement is Ryan Boudabouz ? Agree with your story, Hugo is a step back not forward with Ngog replacement.

    IF, we bought a top CB, Right Winger and a good striker we would be almost complete.

    Cahill
    Mata
    Higuain

    This would give a chance of more than 4th.

    • blaine says:

      ohh man Cahill, Higuain and Mata would be just amazing I highly doubt it would happen but would it ever be phenomenal !!
      the only problem is i rate all three of these players as better then what we already acquired and i doubt KK would wait this long to make moves for all three if they were to be our marquee signings !!

  • Drew says:

    I believe the deal for Cahill will go through and that N’gog will be a part of the swap. As for Mata I think we’d have already gotten him if we were going to. And as for a striker back up I would bring Raheem Sterling on or send him on loan in the PL, not championship league! Then maybe Beckford in as back up striker as Toffees seem to be letting him go. I’ve read we are looking at Paddy McCourt as our other winger, from Celtic. It’s hard to tell what KK and DC are going to do. I too would be happy as long as we get Cahill… To me he is our must sign as of now.

  • Mick says:

    If Ngog goes we need another striker, somebody who can run the channels and offer penetration in the final third. Although Kranjcar’s a good player, the midfield clearly isn’t the area where we need to add another player.

    On Ngog vs. Rodallega. A good chunk of Ngog’s goals were scored in the Europa League against pish opposition. In the last two seasons in the Premier League he has 7 goals in 49 games, which is 1 in 7 – admittedly a fair share of those appearances were as substitute, but it should also be remembered that a share of them were with him coming on and getting the 3rd or 4th goals in a rout. In the last two seasons in the Premier League Hugo has 19 in 74, which is better than 1 in 4.

    You also have to factor in that Ngog’s all round game is not great and he lacks strength to compete with defenders. Rodallega is superior in this respect and while he may not be a great goalscorer, he is a scorer of great goals and can have that spark, that unpredictability that we need in tight games. He can also play on the wing too, which Ngog cannot as far as we know. For a £5m outlay i believe it would be a good deal to bolster the forward line.

    I don’t think we’re interested in Gary Cahill though. If we went for Cahill he’d need to walk into the side for the wages he’d demand, and we would need to drop Carragher pretty abruptly. I think we’re looking for someone younger with lower wages who can replace Carragher gradually over this season or the next. Like we wanted Phil Jones.

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