I believe there's an announcement of the manager appointment around 10am tomorrow with the press conference on Friday.

Good! Let's just hope it isn't (after all this) someone like Big Sam!

I will seriously be glad to see all this done and dusted now.

This is becoming a frequent theme over the last day or two. People who admitted to being big admirers of Klopp in the past now suddenly doubting his ability. John Cross from the Daily Mirror is another who's done a 180.

Creating butthurt and agendas is a journos bread and butter.

John Cross is the worst there is. That guy is a joke would be creaming in his pants if Wenger left and Arsenal got Klopp.

Getting Klopp is a massive coup for Liverpool, quite incredible in fact. However there are a lot of question marks about him that will be fine when all is going well but will be trotted out quick smart if things are slow to catch fire.

Klopp's Kop has a certain ring to it much like Arsene's Arsenal.

That's about par for every manager though, when they're good they are very, very good, but when they're bad they're horrid. The media live and breathe with baited breath for the latter - when they turn into something from The Walking Dead looking for blood.

His weakness isn't just ball skills - much more important is that he is very weak in the air - he doesn't command the air at all - and more often than not has to punch - which is risky - and can lead to conceding a goal - eg Norwich.

Yes I agree his shot stopping is his strength - it is good - but it's not outstanding.

Good example was West Ham's 3rd goal a few weeks ago - nobody said anything as we had lost anyway, but it was a very poor goal for him to concede - it was a routine save for any world class keeper.

I too would agree that his shot-stopping isn't outstanding, but it's better than "good" imo. It's what basically makes him worth having around. The Naismith/McCarthy saves last Sunday highlight this. Not every goalkeeper makes those saves, they were absolutely brilliant.

A good thing about it happening at this time is that the new manager can settle in and also get to know hendo in the process

If we had a defence like Hyypia and Henchoz I think Mignolet would be alright for us.

This is a bit off at a tangent but I did this on a FB page I go on and would be interested to hear some of you others guys respond. Basically the task I set myself is to name LFCs best eleven since we last won the league - with no players with league medals allowed to be picked so that rules out Barnes and Rush for instance.

I went for
Reina
Rob Jones Sami Carra JAR
Mascherano
Gerrard Alonso McManaman
Suarez Torres

Those who came near to being picked included
Friedel
Babbel Henchoz Agger Aurelio
McAllister Hamann Berger
Litmanen
Fowler Owen

Its interesting to me that none of our present squad were rated by me as in the best 22 players we have had in the past 26 years - the only one I thought of was Sturridge and as we are well blessed with strikers he did not make it. One day Coutinho may be good enough but at present for me he lacks consistency and I did consider Lucas as a DM but really altho he does a good job imo we have had better.

Its interesting too that most of the best 11 were in Rafas reign and also to a certain extent Houlliers - they were both good managers weren't they!! - since then we have slipped in terms of the level of players we have had - whose fault? - owners? choice of recruits by successive managers? - who knows but it is certainly true if you look for instance at how well we can compete in Europe. Under Rafa we almost always got to the last 16 of the CL, now we do not get into it or if we do we are nowhere near good enough to be competitive (see last season)

I do hope tho that Klopps arrival (assuming it happens) will be the start of the long road back to the top - or at least near enough to the top to be mentioned in the same breath as the clubs seen as being the best in the PL.

Torres over Fowler? I respect that but it's shocking.

I will name mine later on it needs some thought.

i would think Liverpool were one of the highest payers in the league or at least we're not dwarfed by others when it comes to wages. Now the likes of Utd, City, Arsenal and Chelsea can pay more than we can.

Remember houllier and Rafa never had to compete against both city and Chelsea,

You would have to forsake playing with a high line though. Both lacked pace plus not the greatest ball playing defenders.

Quality defenders no doubt though

Klopp is about as exciting a signing as manager as any team could get right now... I think the slight unknown about him as opposed to the more established big names and trophy winners like Pep and Mourinho and Ancelotti adds to the anticipation ...

I would go for
Reina
Gerrard
Suarez Torres Fowler Owen Sturridge Litmanen McManaman Luis Garcia & Emile Heskey for plan B.

I like my attacking football.

I am one of FTs biggest critics in terms of his attitude later in his spell at LFC and the manner of his leaving - but I do think at his best (the first 2 seasons) he deserves to be in and stick by my choice - as you rightly say it's all about opinions and we both have the right to ours!!

Fowler? - again awesome in his early LFC career (late 90s) but after injury was never the same and so when we had him, MO and Heskey he could not get in the team (and I felt that was correct as the other 2 were playing better). At Leeds, City and in his second spell with us he never got back to his early levels. What I do love about Robbie tho is his love of LFC which is up there with our best ever legends and if Klopp gave him a coaching role I would be all for it and I think he would do a good job.

Misawa? - in Rafas reign CFC were already in their mega bucks period with Jose at the helm - once he left Porto it is clear that he is never going to work for a club without mega bucks!! - so for us to have the quality of players we had (Masch, Torres, Alonso ...etc) was good managing by Rafa especially in terms of recruitment (the Spanish link helped) but I do accept he bought a lot of duds too.

The 2008/09 squad that Rafa built was the best we've had in the last 20 years or so.

GK - Reina - at the time was top quality
FB - Arbeloa, Finnan & Aurelio - Finnan and Aurelio were great going forward, all 3 were terrific defensively and Arbeloa could play on both sides.
CD - Hyypia, Skrtel, Agger and Carragher - Again, 4 great centre backs. Who can forget that 1-4 game at Old Trafford when Hyypia came in at the last minute and gave an almighty performance
CM -Alonso, Mascherano, Gerrard and Lucas - 3 world class midfielders and at their peak years, was a midfield almost every team would have wanted at the time.
F - Kuyt, Riera, Babel, Benayoun and Torres - Only Babel didn't live up to expectations, although he did score the winner against United at Anfield. Riera and Benayoun were brilliant, Kuyt was Kuyt and Torres was the best number 9 in the world at that time.

It was a real shame that by the next season we had lost Arbeloa, Alonso and Hyypia. Finnan, Riera and Benayoun seemed to fall out favour for some reason. Mascherano's heart wasn't in it anymore - it just went to pieces.

McAllister and O'Driscoll have gone.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...ed-duties.html

Looks like the Klopp deal is very close to being announced, congratulations if that is indeed what happens, that will be a huge step up from the standard of your recent managers.

This will put you eventually back amongst the big players once again I think. (Funny now if Big Sam walks through the doors! )

Question is if klopp does come will he get the money to improve the squad?

I think he'll see what he can do with this lot first and then perhaps look to plug any gaps in January before finally getting the players he wants in the Summer.

Although saying that this squad on paper looks good. Just needs to get the best out of them.

Needs to sort out the defence first, the defence is like keystone cops at times.


The announcement is some time later today now, could be late night announcement.