Gradel wanted by Liverpool - maybe?

[davieG]

http://www.caughtoffside.com/2012/11/29/liverpool-plan-surprise-january-bid-for-perfect-ligue-1-attacker/?

Liverpool could make a surprise January swoop for former Leeds United star Max Gradel.

Gradel, who now plays for Ligue 1 side Saint-Etienne, came through the ranks at Leicester City but established himself at Leeds, whom he signed for following a successful loan spell.

The Ivory Coast international’s displays at Elland Road lead to him being named the Fans’ and Players’ Player of the Year for 2011, and he earned himself a move to his current club in August of that year.

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers is desperate to strengthen his attacking options and the 24-year-old, who can play as a winger and as a striker, fits the bill perfectly.

SOURCE: talkSPORT

Indeed Max Gradel may well be right up Liverpool’s street. An adaptable attacker who has been a big success since his move to Ligue 1 the former Leeds United man may well be interested in a move back to England having spent five years in the country with Leicester City and then the Elland Road side where he flourished.

Brendan Rodgers will surely be looking to bring in attacking alternatives as he has threadbare options up front and is relying heavily on youngsters like Suso and Raheem Sterling on the flanks. The Anfield man has also opted to use Jose Enrique in a winger role rather than using Stewart Downing in his natural position.

Gradel helped Saint-Etienne to a seventh place finish in his first season at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard side and to a good start to the current campaign, where they currently sit in fourth spot just three points from the top of the table.

[AyewJoking]

would like to see Gradel back even if it is for those árseholes

[pSinatra]

Liverpool have a habit of spending far too much money on players that really aren't that good. Gradel would be the next in a long list

[goose2010]

There's rumours going round that sterling is going Chelsea in January as he is out of contract in the summer, so I guess max would be his replacement,

[Thracian]

Pearson might not have made the best of him but Gradel has already had considerable success in his formative years, can improve still further and - with his skills - will only benefit from playing alongside better players.

Leicester is hardly a place where wingers or strikers have flourished in recent years - in fact we've contrived to make almost every one of them look pretty ordinary most of the time...Dyer and Nugent being the only exceptions and, even then they're not dramatic exceptions in the striking sense of the word.

Vardy is the latest example. How the hell we've managed to stifle so much ability is beyond me. Beckford was another - we got sweet damn all from him, Schlupp's only hope of a relevent professional career seems to be at full-back, Waghorn's hardly prolific for all that his managing an acceptable shift in most matches - and so the list goes on.

And it's not just the strikers individually. Look at our much mentioned lack of return from corners and free-kicks. It really is embarrassing, an utter condemnation of what we've failing to achieve on the so-called training ground in that area.

Just occasionally we show a momentary flicker of invention but the flame soon dies yet we should be scoring 15-20 goals a season from set-plays and the strikers should all be benefitting from a share of that harvest. Sadly though, the crop fails year after year and from all that I can see it's simply because we don't sow enough of the right seeds.

We don't even have a delivery specialist worthy of the name which, to me, is about as bad as not starting with a recognised goalkeeper. It's like accepting a voluntary handicap. And if the manager or the scouts can't find one why not make our own...it's what coaching is all about.

But even an expert "deliveryman" is going to be neutralised without effective and practised responses but we don't actually come close. We rarely show sufficient imagination to frighten or disturb defences consistently and when we had someone here in Gradel who could have made a difference, we didn't seem to believe or inspire him to sparkle.

I don't anything changing either because the ability to improve attackers individually or collectively doesn't seem to exist.

We have many qualities without a doubt. We're workmanlike, fairly solid at the back, basically well organised, have a bit of pace in Dyer and are a goodish passing side when we're given the chance.

But we're too easily countered and, for all that we're among the leagues front-runners, we're not scoring anything like the number of goals we could and should be bagging.

Gradel, I'm sure, would have known the frustrations well.

[marko]

You forgot to mention Alan Sheehan.

[General Smuts]

I bet he still can't ****ing cross.

Stewart Downing is great at crossing.

[marko]

I bet he still can't ****ing cross.

Stewart Downing is great at crossing.

What do you mean?! I thought he was a three-way love child of Guppy, Beckham and Pirlo!

[Kitchandro]

Pearson might not have made the best of him but Gradel has already had considerable success in his formative years, can improve still further and - with his skills - will only benefit from playing alongside better players.

Leicester is hardly a place where wingers or strikers have flourished in recent years - in fact we've contrived to make almost every one of them look pretty ordinary most of the time...Dyer and Nugent being the only exceptions and, even then they're not dramatic exceptions in the striking sense of the word.

Vardy is the latest example. How the hell we've managed to stifle so much ability is beyond me. Beckford was another - we got sweet damn all from him, Schlupp's only hope of a relevent professional career seems to be at full-back, Waghorn's hardly prolific for all that his managing an acceptable shift in most matches - and so the list goes on.

And it's not just the strikers individually. Look at our much mentioned lack of return from corners and free-kicks. It really is embarrassing, an utter condemnation of what we've failing to achieve on the so-called training ground in that area.

Just occasionally we show a momentary flicker of invention but the flame soon dies yet we should be scoring 15-20 goals a season from set-plays and the strikers should all be benefitting from a share of that harvest. Sadly though, the crop fails year after year and from all that I can see it's simply because we don't sow enough of the right seeds.

We don't even have a delivery specialist worthy of the name which, to me, is about as bad as not starting with a recognised goalkeeper. It's like accepting a voluntary handicap. And if the manager or the scouts can't find one why not make our own...it's what coaching is all about.

But even an expert "deliveryman" is going to be neutralised without effective and practised responses but we don't actually come close. We rarely show sufficient imagination to frighten or disturb defences consistently and when we had someone here in Gradel who could have made a difference, we didn't seem to believe or inspire him to sparkle.

I don't anything changing either because the ability to improve attackers individually or collectively doesn't seem to exist.

We have many qualities without a doubt. We're workmanlike, fairly solid at the back, basically well organised, have a bit of pace in Dyer and are a goodish passing side when we're given the chance.

But we're too easily countered and, for all that we're among the leagues front-runners, we're not scoring anything like the number of goals we could and should be bagging.

Gradel, I'm sure, would have known the frustrations well.

What makes you say Vardy has 'so much ability' when he can trap it further than I can kick it?

He works hard and he's scored goals in non-league but ability at this level is probably the thing he lacks. I mean, he is 25, how much more developing does he need from our coaches?

[Guest MattP]

Liverpool have a habit of spending far too much money on players that really aren't that good. Gradel would be the next in a long list

Spot on.

[definitely not finners]

MAX GRADEL IS A MAGNIFICENT ANIMAL.

That's not racist cos Thracian said so hahaha

I might be drunk.

[The Blur]

http://www.caughtoff...ue-1-attacker/?

Liverpool could make a surprise January swoop for former Leeds United star Max Gradel.

Gradel, who now plays for Ligue 1 side Saint-Etienne, came through the ranks at Leicester City but established himself at Leeds, whom he signed for following a successful loan spell.

The Ivory Coast international’s displays at Elland Road lead to him being named the Fans’ and Players’ Player of the Year for 2011, and he earned himself a move to his current club in August of that year.

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers is desperate to strengthen his attacking options and the 24-year-old, who can play as a winger and as a striker, fits the bill perfectly.

SOURCE: talkSPORT

Indeed Max Gradel may well be right up Liverpool’s street. An adaptable attacker who has been a big success since his move to Ligue 1 the former Leeds United man may well be interested in a move back to England having spent five years in the country with Leicester City and then the Elland Road side where he flourished.

Brendan Rodgers will surely be looking to bring in attacking alternatives as he has threadbare options up front and is relying heavily on youngsters like Suso and Raheem Sterling on the flanks. The Anfield man has also opted to use Jose Enrique in a winger role rather than using Stewart Downing in his natural position.

Gradel helped Saint-Etienne to a seventh place finish in his first season at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard side and to a good start to the current campaign, where they currently sit in fourth spot just three points from the top of the table.

That explained it why he was getting loads of chances recently. I was wondering about that.

[Ric Flair]

I would love it if Gradel came back to the Premier League, i'd make him captain every week of my fantasy side. YES!!!!!!!!!!

[Fox92]

Liverpool's standard of players has really dropped, even in recent years. They spend too much money on players that arn't good enough, and like above, Gradel would be one of them.

[Thracian]

You forgot to mention Alan Sheehan.

Haha - at least we got some goals from set plays when Sheehan took the kicks. It was the last time we did it with any kind of consistency and if any of our players could deliver with the same pace, spin and precision we'd maybe improve some.

[Adster]

That explained it why he was getting loads of chances recently. I was wondering about that.

.

Same here. I've noticed on Match of the Day for the last few weeks he's had bucket loads of chances, and an offside goal which I thought was harshly ruled out.

Probably better than downing though!

[absolutelegend]

Haha, Liverpool and indeed Rogers are a joke.

I wonder if they have realised yet that they got the wrong man from Swansea - it was Martinez who built that team and developed it's style of play, yet for some reason they went for Rogers.

[Thracian]

What makes you say Vardy has 'so much ability' when he can trap it further than I can kick it?

He works hard and he's scored goals in non-league but ability at this level is probably the thing he lacks. I mean, he is 25, how much more developing does he need from our coaches?

If he doesn't have "ability" it's a harsh condemnation of our manager's judgement of an attacker.

But when Vardy arrived he was forever threatening both from central and wide positions, grabbing an acceptable portion of goals, and finding himself in position to take other easy or relatively easy chances. He did it all by being sharp off the mark and off the shoulder of defenders.

Some of that seems to have gone - some of it wasted on too much chasing down - and my impression is that he's also trying too hard to be a team player and not being selfish enough to focus on scoring as his first requirement.

There's a balance to be found, of course, but times I've seen Vardy in excellent shooting positions only to see him square the ball across goal or try to feed it off to a colleague who's no better placed than he is.

This is where the manager and coaches come in for it is they who are paid to get people in the right frame of mind to act ruthlessly and, above all, to believe in their own ability to make things happen.

We didn't do it with Gradel at first team level and we haven't done it with Beckford, Vardy, Waghorn, Schlupp or a host of others before them.

It all sounds condemning but other areas aren't too bad at all.

But there's no way we're getting the most from our strikers, we're not getting anything worth mentioning from corners and free kicks (for countless reasons) and haven't done for far too long.

Our early season commitment to fast closing down and attacking in numbers seems to have been modified and It's like we drag a ball and chain behind us bearing the label "Restraint" in capital letters.

Too often we seem to voluntarily try to contain the opposition before actually getting at them...Watford and Leeds being glaring examples - and when that happens our wide players and strikers spend too much of their time defending instead of attacking and they can't do that for 90 minutes - any more than Gradel could when he was here - because specialist attackers need to be sharp off the mark. It's what makes them effective.

[DB11]

Could only do better than Downing