Always find it better to wait until the season is over before judging whether player moves prove beneficial don't you or are you imbued with some form of predictive powers ? And given the state of Liverpool's finances who knows what the future holds , no new stadium now I hear ! As for the All Ireland league I suppose there's no point in getting agitated as it's history now thankfully
You mean that that Robbie Keane is kicking himself that if only he had stayed at Spurs he could now be bottom of the table? Instead of being with a club that tied for 1st place, behind on goal difference, with a foot in the knock out stages of the Champions League? Poor dumb ol' Robbie Keane, he just never knew how good life could have been at Spurs in the '08-'09 season. I'll grant you, not staying at Spurs must be eating him up inside. Every night. Still, I read somewhere that he was supporting Obama, so you take your comfort where you find it, I suppose.
dont know if this shud go here, but kevin doyle signed an extension with reading..suprised but probably to ensure they get a big enough price for him.
I can only imagine how Keane must be kicking himself. To be into the quarter-finals of the League Cup and only out of the relegation zone by two goals or joint top of the league, behind only on goal difference and as good as in the knock out phase of the Champions League. I mean who in their right mind wouldn't want to be harnessed to a team that's in the relegation zone and the quarter-finals of the actual and real for League Cup? Well, no one ever said Keane was blessed with brains.....
Is joint top the new second ? Things going a bit pear shaped for Liverpool , according to yesterday's indo Liverpool face financial meltdown over loans repayment scandal. Anyway off to get the papers to revel in Spur's win.
Oh dearie me, is this the way you really want to take this? Well, OK then. Robbie Keane has left Liverpool after a dreadful spell of a little over 6 months. This should concern most Irish fans for a number of reasons. First off, it is a universal truth that if you are a decent player, you graduate through the ranks until you reach either the very top or the limit of your skills. Hence why you rarely if ever see Premier League standard players playing in a Sunday league. Secondly, when a player does make the grade, he needs constant pushing, constant challenging, to keep him on top of his game. No point in picking him day in, day out regardless of his on-field performances as it makes him soft and undermines those around him who are playing better. Thirdly, the take on Keane by many Irish fans has always been a goal against Finland or Malta? Sure. A goal against Spain or France? Not so much. This 6 month+ stint had done little to assuage that take. There is no doubting that Keane found himself caught between the force of mighty opposites at Anfield and was used as a pawn by both Benitez and Parry as a way of furthering their own ends. That was unfortunate and very wrong. However, had he been producing, there is no way that he could have been used as such. He had a mini-purple patch over the Christmas with 3 goals in 2 games and a number of eye catching performances. And then he had an absolute nightmare in the Cup against Preston where he missed a hat trick in the opening 15 minutes and about 3 other half decent chances. He was abysmal. But getting rid of Keane as it happened, was a bad move for Liverpool, if for no other reason, than he wasn't replaced by anybody. Keane went to Liverpool to play with the best and in Torres and Gerrard he had 2 of the best players in the world. Alonso and Mascherano would at least fit in a world class squad, if not the team. The team he went to, Liverpool, was a marked jump up in quality compared to the team he left, Spurs. Better players, better results, more trophies, better organized club. The hope was that he would thrive as he had done at Spurs. He looked ready for the next level and Irish fans had to be happy when their lead striker and captain was playing for a team in the Champions League and pushing for the title itself. Spurs, for all their bluster, are only a pretend team when it comes to pedigree. Yes, they have a big club tradition, but their heyday was 50 years ago and since then there's only been a flash here and there with a cup or two every now and again. Their biggest achievement in recent years has not been the League Cup, it has been the 'almost' of a top 4 finish 2-3 seasons ago. A gastric manifestation of spiritual problem. Anyway, Keane left that team to play for a team at an appreciably higher level because he was judged capable of it. Now for a player of Keane's calibre and being around the game as long as he has been, he had to know that as went life at Spurs, so would it not be at Liverpool. Different club, manager, system, expectations and so on. What is apparent now is that he doesn't seem to have taken well to the big fish/small pond, big fish/big pond milieu. When you're playing alongside Torres and Gerrard, you have to be very, very special to be better than them. Most players are not and neither was Keane. The hope was that he would learn. You learn from the best, not the mediocre. Now, it does appear that Keane is the type who responds better to the arm around the shoulder than the bollocking and that's fair enough. But when you are top class, when you are striving to get there, you should be able to handle all comers. Gerrard has recently said that if he bangs in a hat trick, and does 98 good things, Benitez calls him aside to talk about the 2 bad things he did. It can easily be argued that Benitez does not have too many sympathetic bones in his body and that his man-management should be better. But the truth behind this is also the painful one that Keane just does not have what it takes at the highest level. A step below, yes, but at the highest level where the inches are smaller and the seconds tiny, Keane comes ups short. And that's of concern for Irish fans. And it has to be humiliating to find himself going back to where he has already proved himself. He has done Spurs, he knows the hows and the whys, the wheres and the whens. There's nothing more for him to learn there. And in his heart of hearts, and you probably don't need to dig that deeply, like any professional, he'd prefer to be playing for the title rather than trying to avoid relegation. Spurs probably won't be relegated, but they very well might be. And what then for Robbie Keane, championship striker? I really wanted to see Keane succeed at Liverpool for a few reasons - good for Ireland, good for Liverpool, good for Keane (who at the end of the day, let's face it, appears to be an all-round decent guy and did very little public whinging about his Anfield plight). But for some foul reasons (Anfield politics) and for some fair reasons (his own inability to make it at the highest level), his time has been a bust. And now he returns to a club where he has already done duty and excelled, a club whose horizons don't lift beyond cup runs and avoiding relegation. I had thought he was better than that; for Ireland's sake, I had hoped he was.
Such obfuscation , Robbie's move turned out to be wrong for both him and Liverpool - is that the shorter version ?