good buy for liverpool i think
Raul Meireles
- Thread starter jgraham
- Start date
Fair enough. I think he's well suited to the Premier League. Only doubt is he didn't have a great season last year, but he may have been going stale at a club he was expected to leave earlier in his career.
There's precious few all-round 'box-to-box' midfielders out there, as the position is increasingly divided between specialists in 'holding' and attacking/creative types. In the absence of any real Essiens on the horizon*, players like Meireles who is in the very good rather than outstanding bracket are still valuable assets.
*apart from Rodwell who will develop into a remarkable player
Great signing for a top four chasing side* and might mean they abandon the attempt to return Gerrard to CM. Very impressive stuff from Hodgson, feeling pretty comfortable about predicting they'll finish ahead of City, even with the result the other night.
*I'm not being snarky, I wouldn't have minded him here, especially for that price.
*I'm not being snarky, I wouldn't have minded him here, especially for that price.
Bleh - how did they get him? It definitely improves the from what little I've seen of him - better than Lucas and will allow for Gerrard more freedom.
Wouldn't have minded if he came to us to help somewhat help fill shore up on the defensive type mids.
Wouldn't have minded if he came to us to help somewhat help fill shore up on the defensive type mids.
I think it will be hard for them to aquire him so late in the transfer window, Porto wants to regain their way into the Champions League, and they would find it hart to replace Mereles. He would be a great signing for Liverpool if it were to happen though. £12m sounds awfully cheap for a playmaker of his class... if it were to happen, it might be a potential great signing, but he would struggle as he would get a lot less time in England than in Portugal.
Source? Haven't seen this reported anywhere.
Good signing for Liverpool, I imagine he'll slot into midfield alongside Poulsen with Gerrard going back to playing off Torres and Joe Cole moving to the wing.
Seems like the Source is the Guardian.
Liverpool move fast to sign Raul Meireles from Porto for £10.7m | Football | guardian.co.uk
We have some sensitive souls on here, no idea how this makes him "a bitter little twat".
Cause he is lashing out now cause of Fergies comments this morning. His tweet is a pathetic attempt to ridicule us. We were linked with probably 100 players - so what if they signed elsewhere - DT is just upset cause he got called out.
Good infact very good singing for the scousers.
Because he's signed for the club united detest the most and we'd been "interested"? There is a bandwagon against DT and people will attack him whatever he says.
Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
don't get me wrong. Plenty of Liverpool players are united quality. Pepe, Torres, Gerrard, but this chap isn't. Don't let the WC fool you, nobody was talking about him a year ago and while he's a good bet to do well for liverpool given their thin squad he wouldn't be an improvement on Carrick or even Gibson.
Where were the tweets regarding Balotelli, J. Cole etc that we were "interested" in? This latest one is an obvious snipe cause got a major *** today.
If there is a band wagon against him it's cause he has been really stupid over Bebe and other crap.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that DT has a grudge against the club, him and his snidey little tweets should be ignored though. He wants to get followers and like a little ant he figures the best way to get attention is to pick on a big target. The mans a feckhead, and we should just turn a blind eye to his attempt to bait us.
It's hard to believe we made an offer Meireles and he chose liverpool. So in my mind, we looked at him, and he didn't stack up. So Liverpool came along and offered him sloppy seconds which the tattoed freak was only glad to accept.
feck DT, Meireles, and the club the signed him. United will finish the season above them all.
It's hard to believe we made an offer Meireles and he chose liverpool. So in my mind, we looked at him, and he didn't stack up. So Liverpool came along and offered him sloppy seconds which the tattoed freak was only glad to accept.
feck DT, Meireles, and the club the signed him. United will finish the season above them all.
He played football before the world cup too. I personally don't rate players based on their world cup exploits.
So? They never talked about a Hernanadez back then either. That is no way to judge a player as United quality or not.
He is currently miles better than Gibson. He is an older version of Fletcher.
I dunno about "bitter" but that's a pretty stupid comment. If we really do have this policy of not signing anyone >26, then all this paper talk about us wanting to sign him must have been bullshit in the first place.
I mean, what's he implying? Fergie had him scouted, prepared a bid, told Gill to get in touch with his agent then suddenly thought "Ooh, wait, someone find out his age for me, 'cause you know, we've got this policy..."
Not a bitter comment though. If he wanted to be bitter he could have implied we wanted the player but couldn't afford him (which is, to be fair, more likely)
Strikes me that people only started wanking over meireles when we got linked with him. My reaction was very much meh, and a starring performance in a 7-0 win ovr dprk doesn't change that. He's a second tier player and not up to united first team standards.
Ozil, Meireles, Van der Vaart ? Looks like we are not going to sign anyone. But we already have Fletcher, Carrick, Scholes, Giggs, Anderson, Gibson, Hargreaves, Cleverley. More than sufficient you would think. But when you consider that for consistent reliability over an entire season, we can only rely on one, Fletcher, then it puts a different perspective on it. For different reasons there are question marks over the others. Midfield remains an issue.
Quickly, we have to hide Giggs. Anderson just stood there and stared.
Now he has come to UK to finish...
Now he has come to UK to finish...
Looks to be confirmed, tons of places is writing it now... Great signing for Liverpool, a man with the potential to replace Xabi Alonso. Mascherano is already sort of replaced by Christian Poulsen, not quite as good, but a lot cheaper. Looks like Hodgson spending his money wiseley. I think their chances of batteling their way into the top four is still slim though. But the foundation is a lot better next summer.
These were his initial tweets after the press conference. Not very snipey at all in my opinion but I'm sure you'll point out how he's really having a go.
No shock there, although I do hope they go through with the Konchesky signing; he is a terrible, terrible footballer.
Yeah that confused me too but I think the only explanation could be we were priced out of it and it wasn't to do with his age. Don't see how £11m for a Portuguese international midfielder is too much though or how we'd expect him to be any cheaper.
Surely a more likely explanation is that we were never interested?
Well i'm working on the basis we were interested for arguments sake but yeah that is certainly another option.
Good price for us, and thank God he's gone. A new cycle begins.
Why do you say that mate? bad attitude or what?
Yes, bad attitude, he didn't want to be here anymore, and if we didn't manage to sold him he would probably be set aside until January anyway, so it was kind of a relief that we got rid of him for a very decent price.
Contingencies of supporting a non top-tier club, as soon as anyone makes a decent season they expect to be sold to an European giant, and if that doesn't happen we have to deal with tantrums the whole year. Him and Bruno Alves were in that situation last season (in which we sold Lisandro Lopez, Lucho and Cissokho - so they were forced to stay) and both had a terrible year, not only in performance but in attitude as well. Alves was already gone, so we were anxiously waiting for Meireles to go as well, so that tranquility is back to our locker room.
What else would you call them? Educated well thought out tweets from a supposedly respected journo?
We were linked prominently to him by reports from goal.com and some random tweet by ManUtdPortugal? Really?
He took some random bit about us being linked to Merieles and tried to make it an issue about our spending / transfer policy - quite a lame attempt if you ask me.
Well I bet Hodgson are aware of the fact that that he has not been really good the past couple of years for Juventus, because if he kept his Schalke form he obviosly would not depart Juve for only £4m, he did ok in Sevilla too before departing for Juventus. Poulsen were really cheap. Tonight however, they are linked to a far better man than Poulsen, according to goal uk they are after Lass Diarra whom are believed to be avalible for £9m.. The Lass that left Pompey were class and not that far behind Mascherano.
Aquilani was never going to be a proper replacement for Xabi Alonso; Meireles can be just that, and it would not surprise me Lass Diarra would do just as well of a job in 4-4-1-1 as Mascherano did for Liverpool. If they get both Lassana Diarra and Raul Meireles they have close to the same squad that managed to get 2nd two seasons ago. If Liverpool were to manage to aquire those two before the end of the transferwindow, I think Hodgson has done a uncomfertably good job this window with limited resources. Especially if Liverpool are lucky enough to see Aquilani go through this serie A season without injuries to make Juventus pay the 16 million euro clause for him.
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896...-race-to-sign-tottenham-target-lassana-diarra
Hopefully I'm wrong. Doesn't happen often though.
How so? You think Meireles is a playmaker in the same way as Alonso?
He is not worth more than 6-7 million
Quickly, we have to hide Giggs. Anderson just stood there and stared.
Now he has come to UK to finish...
Anderson is shocked
My brother saw Porto live last season, he said it was one of the best players he ever saw. Reminded him of Roy Keane - his words, and he spoke very highly over him when he was linked to us earlier this season. I've only seen him at TV but it is clear that he has a good eye for a good pass. However, doing that in Portugal and in the Premier League is two completley different things, and at 27 he might struggle to adapt to the difference of tempo and room. But he is a man with a hell of a potenial if he handles that.
If he fails he would not surprise anyone, but Meireles might be the man to replace Alonso, Aquilani never was.
He's a decent passer, but his main quality is strong running to support the attack. If Liverpool ask him to hold next to Gerrard or something they wont even see the best of him. He'd be average at that task.
I don't know why Aquilani is getting slack... I've watched Liverpool again and again, the problem isn't Aquilani, it is god damn Lucas...
What does he contribute to that fecking team ? I rate him less than Gibson... I can't believe he's a regular at a top 4 squad... Not even Blackpool quality for Leiva...
Can't pass forward...
Can't keep the ball...
Shite work rate... ( Apparently only tried really hard verses us )
He was shocking and if you watched last nights match, Westbrom *cough* were all over them and the culprit was Lucas for getting the ball... passing it backwards or just standing still after the pass...
He adds nothing to a team and I'd even prefer Rio Ferdinand in MF than Lucas
What does he contribute to that fecking team ? I rate him less than Gibson... I can't believe he's a regular at a top 4 squad... Not even Blackpool quality for Leiva...
Can't pass forward...
Can't keep the ball...
Shite work rate... ( Apparently only tried really hard verses us )
He was shocking and if you watched last nights match, Westbrom *cough* were all over them and the culprit was Lucas for getting the ball... passing it backwards or just standing still after the pass...
He adds nothing to a team and I'd even prefer Rio Ferdinand in MF than Lucas
I think everyone knew from the start he wasn't an Alonso replacement in position - Aquilani said in his first interview he doesn't like to be compared to Alonso, he plays further forward - so I agree on that, but I still don't see any closer similarities with Alonso.
If like your brother said he's like Roy Keane in style then wouldn't that make him very different to Alonso anyway? That's what I'm not quite understanding with you here, stylistically he seems more like Fletcher than Alonso.
Granted I've not seen a lot of him which is why I'm not quite sure how good he is, but you get a good idea of a players' style after 6/7 games, and it seems hugely different to Alonso.
I must say I'd be shocked if he really was that good though, because I generally trust Arruda's opinion on all things Portuguese and he doesn't seem quite as impressed by him.
Wouldn't the fact that he started for Brazil in Menezes first game imply he's at least a decent player?