Joe Cole

[TURKISH]

Many people wanted him and can you imagine if we got him on 90k a week? Its funny how things turn out, who would have thought when he snubbed us that VDV was gonna happen?

Crazy stuff, we deserve some luck for once hopefully these good times get better.

COYS!!!


Oh enjoy Liverpool and your wages Joe.:ciao:

[Indianspur]

Heard he was poor yesterday! glad we didnt get another injury prone player no matter how good they can be. We need stability and a strong first 11!

[Antilokhos]

I certainly was among those who wanted to sign him, but he made it pretty clear that he was interested in money over football (which is fine). Obviously VDV is a better player, and I think had you given anybody the choice in July that we could have one, the choice would be VDV. I think Sneijder is the only player in that role I'd rather have.

[Gino Ginelli]

Someone in the Standard wrote that Cole should have signed for us instead. And like you said, we wouldn't have ol' Rafael now would we? As much as I was excited at seeing Joe here, I can thankfully say in hindsight, bullet, dodged.

[TURKISH]

I wasn't sure on Joe but would have been excited with his arrival if he was able to rediscover his best form. Just funny how things turn out, I hope he went for football reasons and not money because karma just turned up at his door.

[Shelfside]

If Joe Cole and his advisors had sat down and talked about this properly,they would have come to the conclusion that yes,Liverpool's wage offer is very attractive but the club is in turmoil on and off the pitch.However it appears that both Cole and his agent decided to ignore this and go simply for the money.
I hope that he enjoys his relegation battle and I would laugh my nuts off if he got burgled as well,as is the tradition for Liverpool players.

[Shuggie13]

I watched the Everton match and to be honest it is impossible to judge Cole's performance because Liverpool are atrocious at the moment. Gerrard was even misplacing passes and giving it away. They really are that bad.

It goes without saying that if Cole came and VDV never happened is a bullet dodged, however Cole playing to his Chel$ki form and VDV would have been very enticing.

[Gino Ginelli]

Cheeky bid for Torres in January?

[Shuggie13]

Paper speculation is that Torres replacing Rooney and Rikjarrd, sacked yesterday, replacing Hodgson.

[Gino Ginelli]

Paper speculation is that Torres replacing Rooney and Rikjarrd, sacked yesterday, replacing Hodgson.

Bloody hell, the new owners are going to shove ol' Roy out already? That's shocking!

Can see Torres at Manure actually.

[Shuggie13]

It's all paper speculation and sensationalism. From what I've read over the last week NESV seem to be pretty sound in how they run their sporting ventures and wouldn't kick out Roy at this moment. I still watch Pool and think who the F is that player, Rafa left the club with a gift-wrapped box of turds.

[Antilokhos]

NESV rebuilt a baseball franchise that was often quite good, but seemed jinxed when it came to winning anything. They've been able to bring in a lot of money and field a succesful team while competing against the biggest spenders in the game (think City, but with Liverpool or ManU's history). They've turned the franchise into a very stable operation and I would expect that to happen with Liverpool as well.

Additionally, they embraced the statistical approach to player evaluation that has seen them be able to identify quality players who may be over looked. It has given them an advantage in bringing in new players. It is an approach that I would think they will attempt to use in England as well.

[Gino Ginelli]

Stats only tell half the game however. Otherwise Luka Modric would be considered quite shite, and Roman Pavluchenko would be our most accurate goalscorer based on goals per game since Gary Lineker.

[Shuggie13]

Stats only tell half the game however. Otherwise Luka Modric would be considered quite shite, and Roman Pavluchenko would be our most accurate goalscorer based on goals per game since Gary Lineker.

Antil's point is that NESV took an extremely proffesional, astute way to rejuvinate the Boston Red Sox. The stats point is extremely relevant to Baseball to evaluate players.

[Gino Ginelli]

Antil's point is that NESV took an extremely proffesional, astute way to rejuvinate the Boston Red Sox. The stats point is extremely relevant to Baseball to evaluate players.

Oh yeah, I'm not disputing that. Was just saying that it's not always the best way to evaluate a footballer is all.

[Antilokhos]

Well, the traditional baseball stats do not accurately evaluate a baseball player either. Starting in the mid-80's baseball fans began trying (as a hobby) to find ways to statistically measure players, and over the past 25 years that has evolved to the point where it is very highly educated people whose career it is to develop better and better statistical analyses of the game. Granted, baseball is probably one of the easiest sports to measure in a way that lends itself to stats, but the process has begun and is going even faster with American football. I would expect that when the process hits football, there will be many ways of determining value that were overlooked.

Personally I would start with the approach that is being used in basketball right now, it probably has the closest parallels to football of all the major American sports where such studies exist.