I don't think LYP was given the opportunity to consider the Liverpool offer to begin with because Al-Hilal rejected it immediately. Al-Hilal is very keen on retaining its 4 players for the remaining part of the Champions League and won't entertain any offers until that campaign is over.
Quality of his crosses, which has always been sub-par, has never changed. He just put in more crosses during his years with PSV, particularly in his last season, because he was free to bomb the flank at will with Cocu and Van Bommel providing cover almost every time. Not to mention the fact that having 191CM Jan VoHesselink in the box helped his assist tally a whole lot.
So if you look at him on paper he really actually sucks dont he? subpar crosses, crappy shot, average to below average defender hes just technically good on the ball.
Two of our starting back four from 2002. Never imagined that they would be playing in the Saudi league back then, especially with Song showing such good form with Feyenoord in his debut season.
Plus add the fact that he has average-below average speed and is primarily right footed (while he plays on the left) and it baffels the mind how he has become the greatest FB on our national team. I say his great determination, strong technical skills and above average positional skills, made him the unconventional yet dependable FB he is today.
I'm assuming you did a quick average from the top speed figures from FIFA's World Cup stats: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/statistics/players/player=177785/distanceandspeed.html However, I could not find a description of how FIFA or its technical partner Castrol assesses this parameter. Is it via infrared or heat-map tracking or radar guns or what? There are also some software companies that have attempted to model players' motion trajectories from digital video recordings (e.g. http://ias.cs.tum.edu/publications/pdf/gedikli07adaptive.pdf) -- not sure if this was implemented for the numbers they (FIFA) have churned out for this World Cup 2010. Point being is that it seems like this kind of parameter does not exactly lend itself to being easily measurable or labeled as something like 'top speed'. Is this top speed with the ball, without, or an average? How are they distinguishing between the player's acceleration and speed? The measure seems tenuous, at best. Appropriately, FIFA adds an explicit disclaimer at the end of the statistical match reports (e.g. http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/tou.../15/19/04_0612_kor-gre_kor_teamstatistics.pdf) saying: "FIFA does not vouch for the accuracy of technical statistics compiled in association with its competition results system partner."
Subpar crosses? With Al-Hilal he makes very few crosses because his responsibilities are mostly defensive, but whenever he does put in a cross it's almost always dangerous.
When he was with the Spurs Im talking. I havent been able to see one game of his with your club. In the EPL, his poor crossing was just the cherry on top for most disgruntled Spur fans looking for an excuse. He liked bombing forward but no one would cover his ass in a lot of instances so that part of his game slowly got shut down. Maybe it was a peace of mind thing knowing someone had his back that he could actually play offensively with a little more confidence.
Just a quick update: Al Hilal are not going to renew LYP's contract at the end of the season as they have enough FBs in the team now.
Yeah if he takes a wage cut and comes to MLS to give his kids that English language education, I'd love to see him play.
You guys know I'm all for it. Thanks for the update burning_pho, and if LYP does not stay in the Middle East, thanks for the updates you provided in the past year or so to give us a glimpse of LYP's time there.
i remember there were a good number of posters on here saying that moving to Al Hilal was a bad move and actually poked fun about how he prayed to God about such a decision. all i can tell is that he made a huge impact on Al Hilal, settled in the country very well, and i even think he's just as good as he was when he left Dortmund despite his age. Kudos to all our Saudi Arabian friends who updated us throughout his stay with clips and pictures. hopefully in the future another aging Korean star can make just as good as an impact in S. Arabia like LYP
'초롱이' 이영표, 사우디 컵대회서 승부차기 실축 http://news.naver.com/sports/index....&mod=read&office_id=022&article_id=0002232455