England's loss is the world's gain

The enigmatic and flamboyant Kevin Pietersen announced his retirement from one day & T20 international cricket earlier this week 

Well not quite, Pietersen's statement said;

"After a great deal of thought and deliberation I am announcing my retirement from international one-day cricket," the 31-year-old said. "With the intensity of the international schedule and the increasing demands on my body, approaching 32, I think it is the right time to step aside and let the next generation of players come through to gain experience for the ICC World Cup in 2015.

"I am immensely proud of my achievements in the one-day game but still wish to be considered for selection for England in Test cricket. For the record, were the selection criteria not in place, I would have readily played for England in the upcoming ICC World Twenty20."

Reading between the lines it appears Pietersen wanted to continue playing T20 international cricket for England, but what exactly is the selection policy? Hugh Morris' statement clarifies:

"The ECB is disappointed by the timing of Kevin's decision less than four months before we defend our ICC World Twenty20 title. Kevin is a world-class player and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his efforts and we look forward to his continued contributions to the Test match side.

"As the programming and planning for ODI and T20 format cricket are very closely linked we have a selection policy that means that any player making himself unavailable for either of the one-day formats rules himself out of consideration for both formats. The selectors will now replace Kevin in both the ODI and the T20 squads."

So what is the actual gain from the ECB selection policy?  The truth in my opinion is the simple fact that this is another in a long line of a series of clashes between Pietersen and the ECB.

 

Steve James hints at the underlying cause to the rift in his book, The Plan which has been serialised in The Telegraph

"The revealing chapter" claims Pietersen has never forgiven the ECB for sacking him as the Captain in 2009. We all know that Pietersen is a complex character, you either love him, or hate him. The ECB did not quite realise what it had let itself in for when making him the captain. The media was divided on whether it was a masterstroke decision, or pure madness, to select such a flamboyant character to lead the team. Pietersen's downfall was attempting to seek the removal of the coach at the time, Peter Moore. It was not the simple fact that Pietersen gave the ultimatum, it was the fact that by raising the issue with Clarke, and bypassing Morris, Pietersen made a huge mistake. There was never going to be a simple and easy solution after that. It ended a few weeks later with Clarke sacking both Pietersen and Moore. Any player is naturally going to be upset when they are stripped of the captaincy. But Pietersen is not the type of person to take the decision lightly, and has allegedly held a grudge since with the ECB hierarchy. Some will say that the ECB made the correct decision, including players like Swann who wrote in his autobiography: "There is no doubt that Kev is a good player, a really fine batsman, but he was never the right man to captain England in my opinion. Some people are better leaders of men and Kev, for all his abundant talent, is not one of those natural leaders" Fast forward to 2012, and things have taken a turn for the worse. Pietersen announced his retirement from one day international cricket, and due to the ECB selection policy he was also retiring from T20 international cricket. Some may think that the selection policy is correct, and the board is focusing on the future of the team, rather than one individual player. On the other hand, you have people like myself who disagree. I am just a mere spectator, with adores the sport. I was brought up in a family where cricket is in your blood, and if you don't like the game then you are not an Indian. When I was a child you had some real characters playing like Botham, Merv Hughes, Shane Warne, and Sourav Ganguly, that made the game interesting. Players that not only had an immense talent, but also had the ability to keep you on the edge of your seat because you never knew what they were going to do next. The ECB wants to compete with it's rivals, namely the BCCI. Who are reveling in the money generated by the Indian Premier League. But by depriving Pietersen the platform to show the world his remarkable, and unique ability, is only playing in to the hands of IPL and potentially the Australian equivalent, The Big Bash. Pietersen and these league owners know that the fans will pay to see him play, and will therefore be be willing to pay a substantial amount of money for his cricketing services. Another good example is Chris Gayle, who caused a massive frenzy in this season's IPL. Spectators were often forgetting that two teams were playing, and were attending the games to see Gayle hitting sixes. Chris, naturally obliged destroying all T20 batting records, and was the highest runs scorer. You can hardly complain when players like Pietersen, and Gayle seek the rich pickings from abroad when they do not have the chance to show their ability on the International stage (in the shorter formats of the game). England's loss is the world's gain...

Kuyt agrees Fenerbahce deal

Liverpool Football Club can confirm that Dirk Kuyt has advised the club that he has today reached an agreement with Fenerbahce SK over a move to Turkey, and the transfer is expected to be completed in the next few days.





The ever popular Dutchman, who is currently preparing for Euro 2012 with Holland, made a reputation for scoring big goals in big games for Liverpool.

He arrived at Anfield from Feyenoord in 2006 and made his debut against West Ham United, when he came on as a substitute for Peter Crouch during the 2-1 win.

He has made 285 appearances in a red shirt, firing 71 goals.

Notable strikes include one in the Champions League final against AC Milan, a magnificent hat-trick against Manchester United at Anfield and a strike during the Carling Cup triumph over Cardiff City at Wembley in February. He also netted a vital penalty during the dramatic shoot-out victory.

Kuyt fired a late FA Cup winner against Manchester United at Anfield last season and has also scored dramatic late winners in the Merseyside derby.

Everyone at Liverpool Football Club would like to wish Dirk all the very best for the future and thank him for his contribution to the club.
LFC

Good Luck Super Dirk!

Brendan Rodgers falls for the strong emotional pull of Liverpool

Additional factors were at play when Rodgers broke down barrier preventing young homegrown managers landing the top jobs

• Paul Wilson
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 2 June 2012 23.00 BST

The way Brendan Rodgers tells it, the offer to manage Liverpool was one he simply could not turn down. "Being manager of this club is a destination," he says. "What is new about my appointment is a British manager getting a job like this. When I started in management I wanted to show that British managers can get teams to play the way continental teams do, but there's an emotional attachment here as well as the footballing challenge. My father and my grandfather were both Liverpool supporters, that's where it started for me. My mum and dad would have been proud to see me here but they both passed away recently so I'm representing them as well."

All the more surprising, then, that Rodgers did turn the job down. When Liverpool first got in touch, with what they saw as a shortlist but he described as a beauty parade, Rodgers said thanks but no thanks, he would be happier staying at Swansea. Surely, if destiny was calling, that was a bit of a risk? "It was a gut feeling I had," he says. "I wasn't crying to leave Swansea, I loved every minute there, and I wasn't going to disrespect them by seeking a move if I was only one of several candidates. So I told Liverpool that, but I thought if they really wanted me they would come back."

And they did. Meaning that after almost 20 years as a coach – injury curtailed Rodgers' playing career at the age of 20 – his managerial rise has been meteoric. He got Swansea into the Premier League in his first full season, kept them there in some style, and will now commence his second season in the top flight behind Kenny Dalglish's old desk. The Liverpool supporters were up in arms at suggestions Roberto Martínez might be offered the job, but next to Rodgers the Wigan manager is a Premier League veteran, even if he lacks one of the most significant items on the Ulsterman's CV: the experience of working with José Mourinho as an assistant at Chelsea and an ongoing relationship with the Real Madrid manager. "We keep in contact on a weekly basis, but I'm very much my own man," Rodgers says. "I had my own ideas and my own identity before I arrived at Chelsea, but what José gave me, apart from great confidence, was the opportunity to work with big players and satisfy myself that I could get my ideas across to them."

That should come in handy at Anfield, for Liverpool still have some big players, even though they are no longer in the Champions League bracket. When there was a big four, an elite of English clubs that made the Champions League every year, it was often suggested there was no way for young, ambitious homegrown managers to break in, and Rodgers's understandable pride at breaking down that barrier is slightly tempered by the consideration that Liverpool might not be such a big club any more. Money, more than anything, suggests otherwise, since Chelsea, most conspicuously, are already demonstrating their determination to bridge the gap that has opened up between Manchester and the rest.

Rodgers is under no illusions. "There used to be a top two, then a top four, and now you are looking at eight massive clubs," he says. "If you haven't got the resources of a Manchester City you have to try to do things in a different way, and I think we showed last season how you can be tactically different and prosper.

"City are where they are because they have bought quality. Their challenge now is to sustain it. There are no guarantees any more but that's the challenge for me. The supporters here are world class, the best in the world, everyone knows that. But the team has maybe slipped a little, and that's why I've been brought in."

Rodgers cannot carry on in this vein for long – he even stresses at one point that football is a simple game that should not be overcomplicated – without reminding his audience of Bill Shankly. "Don't even go there," he growls, as if already aware the comparison might be made. Shankly was unique, a one-off, a spectacular example of the right person being in the right place at the right time. Rodgers may be all of those things too, but even if he is Shankly got there first. So when he comes out with lines like: "I don't want to train footballers, I want to educate them; training is for dogs," people are always going to wonder whether he has merely been influenced by the great man, or whether he is consciously imitating him.

Rodgers has always been quotable – he is Irish, after all – but he seemed to have a few one-liners saved up for his first day at Liverpool. "Everyone wants to play like Barcelona but you quickly find out not everyone wants to work like Barcelona," for example. Or, more Shanklyesque: "What I want to do is inspire the city, that's the overall mission. I want every Liverpool supporter worldwide to be proud of the club, and for us to be successful we have to make it the longest 90 minutes of an opponent's life when they come to Anfield. And not just the players either."

Well, we shall see. For the moment, Rodgers has confirmed that he would be interested in signing Gylfi Sigurdsson should he come on to the market – ie not take up his option to complete a transfer from Hoffenheim to Swansea – because, like most people, he could see from a distance that Liverpool could do with a few more goals. No Hulk or Eden Hazard yet, but as even the Americans at Anfield on Friday were keen to emphasise, this is just the start of a long-term process. And it is one that happily will be built around a young British manager. "I've been given an opportunity," he says. "For a number of years maybe Brendan Rodgers has not sounded as nice as someone from Spain or Italy, but ultimately it's about the quality of your work. I know the owners spoke to some managers in Europe, but in the end they went for a Northern Irishman."

GuardianSport

Per Ardua Ad Astra: "Through adversity to the stars."

Brendan Rodgers urges Liverpool to join him on journey to the stars New manager makes a good impression as he lays out his template to take Liverpool to the top of the Premier League
Andy Hunter The Guardian, Fri 1 Jun 2012 22.30 BST
Four words on a whiteboard in the manager's office at Swansea City encapsulated the club's revival under Brendan Rodgers. Per Ardua Ad Astra: "Through adversity to the stars." The board may be wiped clean this summer but the motto will resonate. It has been the story of Rodgers's rise from Reading youth-team coach to Liverpool manager in under a decade and will be the instruction his new players cannot ignore if, as John W Henry wrote in his welcoming address, they wish to follow a course that "will lead to Premier League championships".
In fairness to Liverpool's principal owner, who has clearly learned from last season's admission that failing to qualify for the Champions League would be "a major disappointment", there was a heavy and welcome dose of realism to Rodgers's unveiling at Anfield on Friday morning. Henry's full quote read: "We do not expect miracles overnight, nor should anyone else. But we firmly believe that the direction the club is heading in will lead to Premier League championships. We will embrace the unconventional, build the right way and together set a bold, exciting course for this historic club."
On day one, and more than two months before his first competitive game as the Liverpool manager, the 39-year-old from Carnlough appeared a smart, inspiring choice for Henry's template. Open, honest, captivating even, Rodgers resembled a man who believed Anfield represented his natural calling, not one struck by his historic surroundings after one season as a Premier League manager. That approach evidently impressed Fenway Sports Group enough to compromise on the dynamics and personalities, if not the structure, of the new management system they want for Liverpool. Rodgers cut through the business speak of Ian Ayre, Liverpool's managing director, to reveal that he had scuppered the idea of a director of football, sporting director, call it what you will.
We have been here before, of course. Two years ago Roy Hodgson made a positive first impression after the internecine politics of Rafael Benítez's final months in charge. But Rodgers promises to be different, and not merely because of their respective ages and outlooks. One comment showed why.
"This is a club that is historic for the identity, style and DNA of its football," he said. "They are an educated group of supporters at this club and, OK, there might be watered down versions of the style of play, but you can't come to Liverpool Football Club and play a direct game of football, lumping-it style. It is going to take a bit of time. That's the reality of it. It is going to take a lot of hard work to play that way. It took a lot of hard work to get that at Swansea, to get the tactical structure of the team and the possession and the position. It took a lot of hard work on the training field. That is why I am here."
Rodgers spoke repeatedly of feeling "blessed" to be Liverpool manager. He called Steven Gerrard on Thursday night, left a message for Jamie Carragher on holiday in Dubai and revealed he had received texts of encouragement to take the job from his old Chelsea mentor, José Mourinho. Now he is his own man at a top club and from Gerrard to the emerging Raheem Sterling, through to youngsters in the academy, all must embrace Rodgers's philosophy as they did at Swansea, or it will be goodbye.
"I think every player will tell you they would love to play the way we did at Swansea," he said. "The question is, does every player want to work that hard to play that way? It is hard work. For me, a lot of our game is based on pressing. Our game at Swansea was talked about a lot and lauded in relation to the football. What people didn't recognise is that to have the ball for 65%-70% of the game you have to get it back very, very quickly. So our transition in the game and positioning on the field to get the ball back became very good and that allowed us to beat Manchester City, to beat Arsenal, should have beaten Chelsea and to beat Liverpool. Big players want to play football. It's the other side of the game that will be the important factor."
He added: "My idea is to win the ball higher up the field so you are pressing higher and you are in better positions. You win the ball higher up the pitch so you are closer to goal, and when you do that you need people with good skills. If you win it and you can't attack, you recycle the ball and you then go and play. I don't think it's a case of the players here working any harder because this is a demand anyway, it's an obligation. For me it's not a choice. Do you come in every day and do you work hard or not? No, that's the obligation. It's the tactic that the manager gives to that which determines how hard you work, how hard you press and what your identity is as a team."
Swansea were applauded off the pitch after a goalless draw at Anfield last season but it is the memory of Chelsea's 2005 Champions League semi-final defeat, when as youth-team manager he watched Liverpool advance on Istanbul through a wall of noise, that enthuses Rodgers about the mammoth task ahead.
"The Chelsea players said they had never experienced support like that night," the Liverpool manager reflected. "That was ultimately what won the game and that is what I want to do here. I want to use the incredible support to make coming to Anfield the longest 90 minutes of an opponent's life. That's the idea. I want to see this great attacking football with creativity and imagination, with relentless pressing of the ball. I know what it's like because I had a team like that at Swansea. When people came to Swansea it was probably the longest 90 minutes of their life. So after 10 minutes when they hadn't had a touch of the ball they are looking at the clock and seeing only 10 minutes had gone. It's a long afternoon."

Redevelopment of Anfield

Rumours are circulating on Twitter that FSG have informed Liverpool City Council that they no longer wish to build a new stadium on the Stanley Park site, and are looking to redevelop Anfield.
What are your thoughts on this if it is true?

Brendan Rodgers agrees terms and management structure with Liverpool

Brendan Rodgers agrees terms and management structure with Liverpool

• Rodgers insists on appointing his own backroom team
• New manager will not submit to a director of football

Andy Hunter The Guardian, Thu 31 May 2012 21.22 BST

Brendan Rodgers is due to be unveiled as Liverpool's manager on Friday having agreed to work within the new management structure that Fenway Sports Group has planned for Anfield.

The 39-year-old's move from Swansea City to Liverpool was unable to be ratified on Thursday as the two clubs agreed a compensation package that extended to members of Rodgers' backroom staff at the Liberty Stadium. Respective club officials then had to attend a Premier League meeting in London. Personal terms had previously been agreed between Rodgers and Liverpool and he is expected to put pen to paper on a three-year contract before taking his public bow as Kenny Dalglish's successor at Anfield on Friday morning.

Swansea were entitled to around £5m in compensation for Rodgers because of the three-and-a-half year contract their former manager signed in January. Terms were also agreed for three members of the Swansea backroom team after Rodgers insisted on bringing trusted allies with him to Merseyside, illustrating that, while Liverpool's owners are overhauling the management system at Anfield, the manager selects his own staff and will not be subservient to a sporting director.

Rodgers will, however, be the lead part in a sporting director-type model at Anfield and accepted that framework during talks with John W Henry and Tom Werner, Liverpool's principal owner and chairman respectively. Damien Comolli's former duties as director of football are expected to be fragmented into three new roles and further appointments are scheduled for the coming weeks.

Liverpool's new manager will retain a say on transfers although, having paid excessive fees for the likes of Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson, FSG does not intend to allow one person to have overall control on transfer policy and fees. A new executive team, headed by Rodgers, will take on that responsibility.

FSG does not see the traditional British-style manager as the way forward for Liverpool but appears to have compromised on the authority between Rodgers and the sporting director figure. The former Watford and Reading manager's insistence on appointing his own backroom team may prompt the departure of Steve Clarke from Anfield and has also scuppered Louis van Gaal's prospects of joining Liverpool.

The Dutchman met Liverpool officials to discuss the sporting director role and also the managerial vacancy but, as talks progressed with Rodgers and Roberto Martínez of Wigan Athletic, both of whom were reluctant to work with van Gaal, FSG backed away from that appointment. Liverpool's owners considered several candidates as manager, including André Villas-Boas, before settling on Rodgers. Martínez was never offered the Liverpool job. Clarke, assistant manager to Kenny Dalglish, offered his resignation in the wake of Dalglish's sacking but that was rejected. The Scot has worked with Rodgers previously at Chelsea but tendered his resignation two weeks ago out of loyalty to Dalglish.

Rodgers is expected to bring his assistant Colin Pascoe, conditioning expert Glen Driscoll and chief match analyst Chris Davies with him to Anfield. He may also attempt to hijack Swansea's £6.8m deal with Hoffenheim for Gylfi Sigurdsson. Swansea agreed a club record transfer for the Iceland midfielder earlier this week but Sigurdsson has yet to sign a contract, though remain hopeful he will do so. Joe Allen, Scott Sinclair and Ashley Williams, who all excelled under Rodgers in the Premier League last season, could also be of interest to the next Liverpool manager.

The Northern Irishman is prepared to give all Liverpool players the chance to be part of his long-term plans, a policy that will extend to Joe Cole and Alberto Aquilani in the absence of any tempting offers for their permanent transfers this summer. Cole spent last season on loan at Lille while Aquilani did likewise with Milan, but did not play the required 25 games to trigger his £6.5m compulsory purchase.

"I'm waiting for Liverpool to decide the name of the new coach, then we will meet in order to understand their plans," Aquilani said on Thursday. "Only then will I be able to make the right decision. It is important that I have the opportunity to make a contribution, to be able to play well and play regularly. I need to understand whether there are conditions for an agreement that satisfies everyone." Swansea, meanwhile, have held internal discussions over who will replace Rodgers at the Liberty Stadium, having begun to prepare for their manager's possible departure when he was linked with Tottenham Hotspur in February. The former Swansea assistant manager Graeme Jones, the Brighton manager Gus Poyet, Blackpool's Ian Holloway and Birmingham's Chris Hughton and former Denamrk international Michael Laudrup have all been linked with the vacancy so far.

Brendan Rodgers will bring freshness and drive to Liverpool |Guardian

Brendan Rodgers will bring freshness and drive to Liverpool | Richard Williams http://gu.com/p/38xqb