Mark Lawrenson

On Wed, 6 Jul 2005 21:14:49 +0100, " + Padre Ted XVIII - V +"

"Mark Lawrenson: Football's No. 1 Expert

BOTH SIDES WILL END UP AS WINNERS

Both sides have got what they wanted with Steven Gerrard saying he wants to leave Liverpool. The Reds will have £30m which they need to rebuild the team and Gerrard will get his move to Chelsea. But Liverpool have manipulated the situations in the same way they did with Michael Owen last summer before he went to Real Madrid and they wanted to keep their options open. If they had really wanted to keep Gerrard then why three or four days after winning the CL final in Istanbul did they not pull him in and ask him how much he wanted to sign a new deal when he said he wanted to stay? Why did they not offer him this £100,000 a week then? Money has never been a problem with Gerrard and they could have had the whole thing sorted out then and everyone could have gone off on holiday happy. But Liverpool didn't do that and that was because they wanted to hedge their bets. The problem Liverpool had - and it's become obvious as the summer has gone on - is that manager Rafael Benitez does not have a mbuttive amount of money to go out and buy new players. He's only bought in a Spanish goalkeeper, a free signing and a player on loan. Now when they sell Gerrard, they will get £30m and Benitez will want that money straight away to go out and buy three or four new top-clbutt players. The club's view will be the king is dead, long live the king and Gerrard looks the villain of the piece because he's the one asking for a move. In the supporter's eyes, if he doesn't want to play for the club then they will think he should go, but I think people will be able to read between the lines here. The sad thing is that apart from Jamie Carragher, Liverpool have hardly any local lads left in the side and they are losing the identity of the team. Chelsea, for all their foreigners, still have an English spine, and that will be strengthened when Gerrard joins. Sadly for Liverpool, even if Benitez goes out now and buys four players with the money, they still won't finish any higher than fourth. As we saw last season, a lot of the foreign players don't hit it off straight away and some can take six months or longer and that won't help Liverpool's cause. Winning the CL was an unbelievable achievement, but Benitez can't take the team any further and I can't see them breaking into the top three. Gerrard's probably looked at it, thought they won't do any better than fourth next season and decided to go. I'm off to wank over Chelsea some more now."

--

Random Witterings