Sad but true: We live in a world where Sunderland star John O' Shea - former of Manchester United - has five more league titles than Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard. O'Shea spent twelve successful years at Old Trafford, during which time he won eleven major trophies, but if things had gone differently, he could've been a Liverpool player, and ended up with nothing (!)
In an interview this week, O'Shea revealed, as a schoolboy, his Agent, Kevin Moran, and his mother, advised him to reject a move to Liverpool. he told the Daily Mail:
"She [the mother] was saying “listen, take your time and don’t be rushing”.
"Kevin said that if they [Liverpool] are interested now why wouldn’t they be in a year’s time? I took a few soundboards on that and thankfully came to a good decision"
If O'Shea had signed, he would've worked under Roy Evans, and at that time, young players regularly got chances in the first team, and quite a few - including the likes of Fowler, Redknapp, McManaman etc - became consistent fixtures in the first team.
Clearly, though, O'Shea - who cost Sunderland £5m - made the right decision. If he'd signed for Liverpool in the mid-90s, he probably wouldn't have all the trophies he has now, and I doubt he would've lasted until the Benitez era, when the Reds won the Champions League.
Prior to joining Sunderland, Kenny Dalglish was reportedly interesting in signing O'Shea, but given the rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United, there's just no way that deal would've happened (!)
Despite spending 12 years at Old Trafford, I can't for the life of me remember anything significant about O'Shea's impact on United, or his style of play, and to be brutally honest, I doubt he had much personal impact on the club's success during his time at the club.
Perhaps I'm doing O'Shea a disservice, though. After all he made 367 appearances for Man Utd overall (an admirable feat), and every team needs loyal, dependable, unspectacular players who do a steady job week-in, week-out.
A loss for LFC...?
Author: Jaimie K
In an interview this week, O'Shea revealed, as a schoolboy, his Agent, Kevin Moran, and his mother, advised him to reject a move to Liverpool. he told the Daily Mail:
"She [the mother] was saying “listen, take your time and don’t be rushing”.
"Kevin said that if they [Liverpool] are interested now why wouldn’t they be in a year’s time? I took a few soundboards on that and thankfully came to a good decision"
If O'Shea had signed, he would've worked under Roy Evans, and at that time, young players regularly got chances in the first team, and quite a few - including the likes of Fowler, Redknapp, McManaman etc - became consistent fixtures in the first team.
Clearly, though, O'Shea - who cost Sunderland £5m - made the right decision. If he'd signed for Liverpool in the mid-90s, he probably wouldn't have all the trophies he has now, and I doubt he would've lasted until the Benitez era, when the Reds won the Champions League.
Prior to joining Sunderland, Kenny Dalglish was reportedly interesting in signing O'Shea, but given the rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United, there's just no way that deal would've happened (!)
Despite spending 12 years at Old Trafford, I can't for the life of me remember anything significant about O'Shea's impact on United, or his style of play, and to be brutally honest, I doubt he had much personal impact on the club's success during his time at the club.
Perhaps I'm doing O'Shea a disservice, though. After all he made 367 appearances for Man Utd overall (an admirable feat), and every team needs loyal, dependable, unspectacular players who do a steady job week-in, week-out.
A loss for LFC...?
Author: Jaimie K
A good pro. The kind of man who makes a talented team a winning team. Del Bosque said the most important players in his Real Madrid squad were Geremi and McManaman because the kept the squad together. I'd wager hat O'Shea had a similar impact at United.
ReplyDeleteA nice article about O'Shea, but I saw your last 2 paragraphs and I remembered something, so I couldn't resist posting this.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/6392443.stm
Just a bit of banter Jaimie. I'm not a Liverpool fan but it look like you have a good website here.
for every o shea we lost ,think of a carragher .look every body's gain is someone's loss same applies to all the alonso,torres,suarez ,fowler 's we ever had, period!....now how the heck didnt we sign SALAAAAAAH!!!
ReplyDeletehello JK .. i have a question
ReplyDeleteif the players was sold in Jan ... does his fees count as revenue for the next season ?
like balotelli was sold in last Jan and city didnt use his fees in same window ... does he count as revenue for the next season ?
Mido and Amr Zaki were both hyped about too but both failed in England so Salah may just follow them.
ReplyDeleteGuess we will have to wait until Salah plays which might be an issue for him as he will most probably be finding himself on Chelsea's bench often.
Johnson out indefinitely ? his contract runs out in a few months - that definitely looks like a good deal for him and bad management buy us.
ReplyDeleteIt looks to me like Rodgers was sending a message to the transfer committee by saying I don't want squad players - as if they are wasting time on this type of player and missing on the team ready players we need.
ReplyDeleteRingo o'shea
ReplyDeleteSorry, but obviously you did not read my post. So I more chance:
ReplyDeleteIn your mind, did the agent behave as 1 or 2 above?
I don't care about Salah, he may turn out to be another over hyped waste of money, but I do care about the way LFC conduct themselves during the transfer window. I feel there is a strategy of deliberately leaking rumours about who we are interested in, this is to unsettle the player and hopefully he puts in a transfer request or makes it clear to his club he wants to leave. We continue with these rumours for a few weeks and then we make a derisory offer, which is rejected, we seem to deliberately take a long time again hoping for the player to make things harder for his club. We dont negotiate we make low offers. We dont treat other clubs with respect and thats why we are continually shafted in the transfer market. Ayre should stick to commercial deals and lets bring in a real football CEO to negotiate for players.I have supported LFC all my like but I am ashamed and embarrassed about the way we conduct our transfer business.. I know that sometimes agents are leaking info to the press, but the press are always aware at the start when we are interested in anyone, months before we make an offer, I have also never seen any club linked with as many players as we are.
ReplyDeleteYep he's a really good player and is just what we need. If he is truly over his injury concerns he would be a great buy. I'm sure he will fight like hell to be in the Brazil Squad for the world cup. If LFC are interested I would suggest the medical will tell them what they need to know. Talent wise we already know about him.
ReplyDeleteYes should have sold him when Arsenal inquired beginning of the month. He has no value now and will walk away for free end of the season. Absolutely bad management.
ReplyDeleteA decent and reliable defender, nothing special, he just fit in well and was part of a very good team for many years. Well done to him for getting that chance. He might have played all those games for us but I'm not sure he would have been a club legend. We've had better defenders over the years, notably big Sami and JC.
ReplyDeleteI think worst case scenario is that we miss out by a few points. Oddly enough I also thinks it's the most likely scenario. It will still be a clear progression from last year and if we don't spend this window then Suarez will leave and we'll go massive in the summer, a bit like what Spurs just did.
ReplyDeleteHowever don't discount the team possibly continuing to grow, even with these injuries. We'll almost certainly sign one player now, it wouldn't be possible to not do so and have a normal and competitive squad. Whoever we sign will make an impact so we'll still be the same quality team we've been so far this year and hopefully a bit better. Why would we suddenly start playing badly?
Where have these sensible sounding people come from? Who are you? What are you doing on the internet?
ReplyDeleteBetter move fast on Romulo before Wenger nicks him. Been looking at him on the net especially his game for Brazil vs Argentina. This guy is class go get him LFC. He's hungry to prove a point as well as he needs to cement his place in the world cup team. He's like an energiser battery so hard working and tough but clean ball winning tackles. Good disciplinary record doesn't attract yellow cards like Lucas because of his timing and strength in the tackle. I would be over the moon if LFC can get him. Pure class and heart.
ReplyDeleteNot a loss but I think he scored two winners against us in his time so at least that might not have happened :-)
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't quite say that the Salah deal is over yet. Yes Basle have accepted Chelsea's offer but Salah hasn't agreed yet. Pretty sure his preference is LFC because he won't fancy sitting on the bench at Chelski. If LFC can tickle the offer slightly we could still get him. I note that BR hasn't given up hope yet on Salah. Jaimie give it another 24 hrs before finally saying we lost him.
ReplyDeleteThat's his whole point though isn't it. We topped the league this season and we have some really good players. We also know we don't have a squad as strong as many other teams so we needed to strengthen this window and we didn't. And this has been what has been going on at the club for years now but especially under FSG and Rodgers. We're always so close and then we don't capitalize. The second half of last season we had a great run and everyone thought that if we strengthened in the summer, we might do well this season. And what did we do? We bought Aspas, Alberto and ilori never to use them, a so so goalkeeper to replace our world class goalkeeper and a benchwarmer for PSG for 20 million. Then, by the grace of the players already at the club before last summer, we top the league at Christmas, all it takes is two top class signings and what do we do? Not only do we look for players in the wrong position,, AGAIN, but we also fail to sign them, AGAIN. Why? Because allow deals to collapse on two or three million without having anything that even looks like a backup plan.
ReplyDeleteSeems obvious that BR identifies players he wants and others go about the job of trying to get them. Seems this committee is full of accountants.
ReplyDeleteHe hasn't chosen Chelsea Basle did. Salah hasn't signed yet and I'm sure he would rather be at LFC where he would be a first team pick instead of bench warming at Chelsea. Salary would be pretty much the same between the 2 clubs. It's Basle being greedy and it's always been the way they have done business. Frankly who can blame them.
ReplyDeleteRomulo
ReplyDeleteMourinho is a cult of personality. I've never liked the way he sets up his teams to play and I like less his smarmy attitude. I wish he would piss off from football and become some crap talk show host or something. Can't wait until the mad Russian sacks him again. Double dose of humiliation. Those are 2 personalities that can't work together I think.
ReplyDeleteinstead of new players how about Moses and Cissokho regaining some of their old form. They were both fantastic players a couple of years ago. Cissokho is showing glimpses he's maybe getting back to like he was. Watch him in games he's really trying hard now. If only Moses would get a dose of the same attitude.
ReplyDeletemaybe Salah is a smoke screen so Chelsea won't gazzump us on the real target. Romulo? or another. Mourinho has spent his gazzump allowance now. Arsene hasn't watch him gazzump us in the Romulo negotiation.
ReplyDeleteNews has it that Sakho and Allen have not traveled with the squad vs Bournemouth so one can only assume they have been given time to fully recover for the Everton match.
ReplyDeleteMy team for today would be
---------------Mignolet---------------
Kelly-----Skrtel----Toure-----Smith
Hendo-------Gerrard--------Alberto
Ibe------------Aspas----------Moses
No point in risking Sturridge or Suarez so have them on the bench should the match go tits up. Flanno is also back but doubt he will start having just returned to training.
We might see a surprise today though, Jordan Rossiter to make his first team debut?
I heard a few days ago Allen was still out, who knows if thats true and to what extent. As you say, hope it's just extra healing time, we need him and Sakho.
ReplyDeleteI also like your Rossiter idea, I'd definitely give him some time, maybe even start him instead of Gerrard/Hendo. Gerrard's form is underwhelming so he shouldn't play twice in a few days IMO. Jordan Lussey is also a decent young midfielder who has trained with the first team.
It's a shame Ilori got loaned out, ironically he may have seen some pitch time today.
Good choice...i think Sturridge will play gain more match fitness..
ReplyDeleteMoses Stur Aspas
I think loaning Ilori out makes perfect sense especially to a club in Spain. Playing time is what he needs and with Skrtel, Toure, Sakho and Agger ahead of him it was going to be difficult for him to make the starting eleven.
ReplyDeleteNow we will be able to see how what Ilori is made. Ilori will get valued experience in Spain and pretty sure the condition of the loan is to give him regular first team action just like we have seen with Suso is at Almeria.
We cannot afford anymore injuries. This is not going to be an easy match. Bournemouth are going to give it their all.
ReplyDeleteRisking Sturridge who has just come back from injury is not the best idea.
Wait n see
ReplyDeleteIt was telling that Mourinho said that salah had spoken to him and said he would sign but it seems BR has had no contact with the player. If I was thinking about working for someone it would matter to me that my potential manager found the time for a little chat
ReplyDeleteStrikes me that BR is trying to act Blase about the loss ( all part of the normal process etc) and to put some distance between himself and the failure to sign him. I fancy if there really was a chance of getting him BR would have the good sense to keep schtum - or at least I hope he would.
ReplyDeleteI know, it's obvious, I'm just saying he's unlucky because today would have been a chance for him.
ReplyDeleteOur transfer committee does seem to operate like most management Boards I've sat on in the past - a whole lot of chatter back and forth, but very few decisions arising from the chat and even less actual action...
ReplyDeleteI honestly think that another forward is just as much of a priority as anything else.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why we seemingly are being encouraged to wait until the summer to strengthen the team when the required players are available to help us in the here and now.
As far as I'm concerned, there is no good reason that we shouldn't look to pick up 3 new first team players right now.
Confirmed #LFC team v @afcbournemouth: Jones, Kelly, Toure, Skrtel, Cissokho, Gerrard, Henderson, Coutinho, Moses, Sturridge, Suarez
ReplyDeletesubs: Mignolet, Alberto, Aspas, Sterling, Ibe, Flanagan, Sama
Strong team, Rodgers is taking the FA Cup seriously!
Sorry Jaimie but this comment is really quite strange. First of all, any idea that we were linked with Salah is exactly that...An idea, how many players have we been strongly linked with over the years? Just because the story is carried my more than one press outlet how do we KNOW it's true? Basing an argument on an assumption of viability from press 'Sources' is pretty weak in my opinion, again, this is just my opinion. The club have chosen not to announce their targets for good reason, they don't want to let fans down. Second of all, saying 'We don't know what goes on behind the scenes' is in not a cop out, its a point of FACT. If you think otherwise, fine but again, my opinion is that unless you have valid internal sources or proof of who we are trying to sign, any information we have on signings is generally ALWAYS led by media 'speculation'.
ReplyDeleteseem BR make no resting for 15 and 7
ReplyDeletePlastic.
ReplyDeleteWho knows, Aspas Alberto and moses might come good by the end of the season. In most cases it takes a season for a player to settle into a team. The keeper is having a dip in form but overall he has done ok. I like the look of sakho and im sure that our players on loan will come back next season ready to make an impact in the squad.
ReplyDeleteThe Downing and Carroll deals has affected the transfer F.S.G process but i'm sure that we will get the right players for the club. I think our squad is good enough to get us into the top four but I wouldn't be surprised if we pull a signing out of the bag next week.
So What!!!!
ReplyDeletei would prefer Mvilla and rakitic in the middle,or maybe reges.and our midfield is set.and i would make solid bids for moreno,or luke shaw,on the left and montoya on the right.these additions will no doubt be costly but it would put us right in the mix to winning things again,not just hoping to make top 4.
ReplyDeleteAs far as this rumour and the Shaqiri one i cannot see either moving after a short time and if they do cant see it being Liverpool.
ReplyDeleteAlderweireld is not strong enough or quick enough to cut it also not good enough for Athletico so why bother.
Sorry but I am glad that Liverpool stuck to their guns.
ReplyDeleteHis price raised twice and Chelsea spent 20mil, not 11mil.
All the reports are that we went as high as 13.5mil + 5mil in add'ons and Chelsea bid a straight 20mil.
What more do you want Liverpool to do Jamie?
BR is wholly to blame...mediocre manager at best who consistently finds it difficult to identify and attract genuine quality as proven by his past dealings of. Aspas, Alberto, Borini, Assaidi, Allen et al. You simply cannot blame FSG. It begs the question now, why is BR still in a job??
ReplyDeleteVery true!! Liverpool has been consistent over the past years in making horrendous decisions in crucial ares like transfers and managerial appointments. This is why we are where we are. Incompetency is rampant at Anfield at the moment that it is becoming a bad joke.
ReplyDeleteOn current form, Coutinho is now looking every inch the misfit £8 million bargain buy the Inter where only too willing to get rid off. Moral of the story is that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!
ReplyDeleteLISTEN PAL, HAVE YOU SEEN COUTINHO PLAY LATELY...THIS SEASON. THE KID IS TERRIBLE. YET ANOTHER BR DODGY SIGNING IN THE MAKING.
ReplyDeleteTrue
ReplyDeleteMvilla, Luke Shaw(dreaming I know) or a very good LB and Shaquiri. Two of the above will be awesome. All three, well FSG all is forgiven ;-) Top four here we come. Unfortunatley, I do not think that any one in the club even knows what a quality player looks like and most likely we will be getting more £7m million bargain basement buys like Aspas and Alberto for the 'future' and to 'help the group'. ;-(
ReplyDeleteYou mean just one success in Sturridge because truly Coutinho is bug standard average, at least he has been this season.
ReplyDeleteSo true! It doesnt help that he plays every single game despite being substandard previously. He has no motivation to be better because regardless, he will be rewarded. Why doesnt Rodgers bench him for a few games to give him a kick up the backside?
ReplyDeleteI don't get why some people are blaming BR. i am by no means a supporter of BR's signings but i think that the reason he is spending on these players is that fsg simply won't give him a lot of money to spend on 1 signing so he has to get these young players and gamble on them. the root of that problem is that FSG made the mistake of signing off on the carroll deal and so to combat that they appointed the transfer committee and issued an ultimatum that rodgers can't spend alot of money on 1 player because it was clear that he wanted salah but the transfer committee wouldn't budge above the valuation therefore i am lead to believe that rodgers tells the transfer committee the players he wants and then leaves it to them to negototiate. i doubt that alberto and aspas were rodger's first choice but the committee probably said no to his first choices because their resale value is not "high enough"
ReplyDeleteWith respect, Rodgers could've spent £21m on one top class player over the summer, but he chose to spent it on Aspas, Ilori and Alberto, who've made zero contribution to the cause. He could've spent €19m on a midfielder/attacking player, but he spent it on Sakho, who wasn't even needed. BR is the problem here, not FSG (IMO)
ReplyDeletei undestand where your coming from jaimie, i'll give you an example. Rodgers wanted mkhitaryan in the summer he had a valuation of around £20 million , this was before aspas and alberto were liverpool players so we had the money available but the transfer committee wern't prepared to spend the money so they waited and tried to lower the price thoughout the whole summer until dortmund came and took him so liverpool bought alberto who was rodger's second or maybe even third choice to satisfy the fans.
ReplyDeleteGood pint. But the negotiations have got to get to a certain stage with the selling club before they can actually speak to the player. I don't really know what stage we got to.
ReplyDelete