As an avid Liverpool fan myself for many years now, I too cannot resist looking at various media sources on the internet to see if there have been any advances made by Liverpool towards their targets. This summer more than others, this has become quite a test on the most patient of people. You have your favoured sources that you tend to trust more than others, but even the ‘reputable’ mainstream sources seem to churning out what can only be described as ‘media trash’.
Just as at the moment the latest rumour doing the rounds is Liverpool’s interest in Cristian Chivu. Now despite John Henry coming out and stating on Twitter "Speculation on players shouldn't include those of a certain age" we still get linked to a 30 year old Romanian who is most definitely coming towards the twilight of his career. So if the principal owner of Liverpool FC stating in a nutshell that he and we are building for a prosperous long term future and are looking to youth and not aging players is not enough for the penny to drop with some journalists, what else can be done to prevent what can only be described as ‘lazy journalism’.
In the same vein, a more ridiculous transfer rumour emerged that we were interested in John O’Shea. This irritated me more than any other article with the fact that we were not only being linked to what would be described as a below average defender at best, but buying off the team from the wrong side of the M62? Something that has not happened since Liverpool bought a player called Phil Chisnall in 1964! Nothing but ‘lazy journalism’ again! With most if not all households and offices having access to the world wide web nowadays, is it that difficult for these people to actually do some research on their intended stories?
But even some Liverpool ‘fans’ are writing stories now questioning whether Liverpool fans have placed too much trust in Kenny Dalglish! Their rationale for this scandalous comment? Transfer rumours started by again, you guessed it, ‘lazy journalism’! Kenny Dalglish did everything for our beloved club as a player, a manager in his first spell and let’s be honest performed a post Christmas miracle even the most religious would be proud of after the lows of the Hodgson era. I saw yesterday an interview with King Kenny after he received an honorary degree at the University of Ulster yesterday where when asked about summer transfers he said “There has been plenty of talk in the newspapers and if you read them and believed them, we’d have a squad of about 300 next season!” Absolute legend! Before all these managers came in who didn’t appreciate ‘The Liverpool Way’ of doing things it may have been common practice to talk about other club’s players but Kenny is re-installing the ethics that made us the household name we are today. To question his motives is very naive in my eyes.
Some are talking about the 4 players we ‘missed out on’. Connor Wickham, an unproven Championship striker with a price being touted that would get you a current international with a proven track record. Sylvain Marveaux, an unknown quantity with a dodgy groin which may or may not come back to haunt him over and over again. Phil Jones, granted a very good prospect, heavily overpriced and wouldn’t offer us an immediate option better than Carragher, Agger or Skrtel. Finally Ashley Young, probably the pick of the bunch but tends to drift in and out of games never seems to perform consistently over the course of the season and can go missing a lot. We should not be held to ransom over these players’ demands and if Ryan Babel showed us nothing else, we cannot expect ‘potential’ to be enough to keep a player’s wage on the books.
Damien Comolli still has to prove his worth to the fans as it’s of no interest to us what he did for Spurs or Arsenal or who he signed. Personally I am not a big fan of having an intermediary in between the manager and the player and we have seen when players are brought in without the manager’s consent, things tend to go pear shaped as this creates disharmony within the club. I know that Dalglish’s new contract did stipulate that he has the final say, but if he is telling Comolli what players to look at, doesn’t that just make him a scout? I’m hoping though that he does prove his worth and adds some real quality and depth to our squad as it is much needed if we are going to push for Champions League football let alone challenging for titles.
As for the journalists writing about intended signings or targets, well they are turning their respective profession from sports writer to fictional writer and I truly wonder whether J.K.Rowling has anything to worry about. It begs the question how they can have the audacity to collect their wage at the end of the month and what actually differentiates them from the people who write in forums where we read near deadline day........................’just saw Lionel Messi @ Norwich Airport apparently meeting to discuss straight swap deal with Grant Holt’. Either way, it is safe to say until you see them stood in front of that Liver bird, in the red of Liverpool, ignore it all and get on with your life.