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| Jamie Carragher; Player Thread | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 30 2008, 01:06 AM (969 Views) | |
| Ste_Macca | Oct 30 2008, 01:06 AM Post #1 |
I'm hungry. Where's the jam?
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 Position: Defender Date of Birth: 28/01/1978 Height: 5'10 Weight: 12st 4 1st team games: 532 1st team goals: 5 International caps: 34 International goals: 0 Birth Place: Bootle The legend that is Carra. A boyhood blue, who soon changed to a red when we signed him up. Jamie Carragher is Mr Liverpool. He is also our vice captain who wears the liverbird on his chest with heart and passion. Roy Evans gave Carra his debut Carra's against Middlesbrough on January 8, 1997. He also wears the number Robbie Fowler made famous, 23. His heroics in the 2005 European cup final will always be remembered Mr Liverpool also has a book out, and is a really good read..... 
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| chrome | Nov 24 2008, 02:28 PM Post #2 |
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JAMIE CARRAGHER today admitted that having shown they can beat the best, Liverpool are going to have to show they can also beat the rest if they are to challenge for the title. The Reds stumbled to a disappointing goalless draw against Fulham at the weekend, on a day when all the big four drew a blank. Though unhappy with Liverpool’s failure to take advantage of their rivals slipping up, Carragher insists no-one at Anfield should allow themselves to become demoralised at Saturday’s result. He also believes Rafa Benitez’s side should be concentrating on their own form and nobody else’s as the battle at the top of the Premier League becomes increasingly tense. “Of course you want to win these games. But when it doesn’t happen you can’t afford to get too downhearted because it’s a tough league. “ I’m sure there are going to be plenty of games like that between now and next May,” said Carragher. “We haven’t played well and we realise that but if you look at the Chelsea result I’m sure they would have been expecting to win their home game as well. “The most important thing is our own results though, because as this stage of the season we should just be concentrating on ourselves and our own form.” WEBLINK I fully agree with what Carra has stated, there is no point beating the top teams if we can not win against the so called lesser teams. Come the end of the season, i hope we dont need to look back and think, well maybe those draws at Anfield cost us the title. |
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| redstar | Nov 24 2008, 02:30 PM Post #3 |
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Yeah, true. Come the end of the season, these draws will effect us so much, we have lost enough points already with these silly draws. Hope they all get there heads together and start a winning streak and get us into 1st place. |
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| emzy | Nov 27 2008, 11:34 AM Post #4 |
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Jamie Carragher insists Liverpool will go all out for top spot in Champions League Group D even though it might not secure an easier second round tie. The Reds booked their place in the knockout stages courtesy of a 1-0 win over Marseille on Wednesday. They go into the final group game with PSV level on points with Atletico Madrid and knowing top spot is still up for grabs. In theory this would ensure an easier second round tie. However, last year Liverpool were drawn against Italian champions Inter Milan after winning their group. One year on, Carragher claims professional pride - not the prospect of an easier draw - will motivate him and his teammates in Einhoven. "I don't know what the manager is going to do for the last game, but we want to try and finish top of the group," said the defender. "The most important thing is going through, but whatever league you are in with Liverpool you always want to be the best in it. "It doesn't matter who you play next. It might be slightly easier in the next round if you get a second-placed team, but you never know. It's hard to say because all the best teams are in the Champions League." Steven Gerrard helped Liverpool overcome Marseille with a 23rd-minute header during a scrappy affair which wasn't easy on the eye. Carragher added: "Sometimes you have to give them credit. They are a good side. We've played them a few times now, they beat us at home 1-0 last year and they did very well this time. "We seem to find it easier against them away from home, but here they've caused us a few problems and you've got to say how well the opposition played." Link |
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| redman | Nov 28 2008, 12:45 PM Post #5 |
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The Pool
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Ah, Mr Liverpool himself. Thank god he seen the light and turned red, and not a blue. He is a legend already here at Liverpool, just score a few more goals will you Carra :D |
| Liverpool Football Club, My Team, My club, My Soul. Come On On You Mighty Liverpool. | |
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| emzy | Dec 2 2008, 05:57 PM Post #6 |
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Jamie Carragher insists there are plenty of reasons to be positive after the Reds went one point clear at the top of the Barclays Premier League with a goalless draw against West Ham United at Anfield. Despite missing the opportunity to go three points clear of Chelsea at the summit, the vice-captain believes Liverpool can take confidence from results going in their favour. "I think the positive thing to take is the fact that we have qualified for the next stage of the Champions League and we are top of the Premier League. To do that when we are not playing well and going through a rough patch is really positive," Carragher told Liverpoolfc.tv. "You are always disappointed when you don't win your home games, and obviously in the last three games at home we have not played as well as we could. "We would have liked to get the three points and we certainly tried to get that but normally when you are not playing too well you go down the league. Instead we are going up the league when we are not at our best." Rafael Benitez's side created the best opportunities to score on the night but came up against a Hammers goalkeeper, Robert Green, in great form. "We put them under pressure which is what you expect, but that's happened for years - goalkeepers having good performances at Anfield," Carragher added. "In saying that, it's up to us to do a little bit more." The Reds number 23 is hoping he and his teammates can get back to winning ways at Ewood Park on Saturday, when they will be backed by their largest travelling crowd of the season with an away allocation of over 7,000 Kopites. "We normally take a good crowd down to Blackburn which is a local game for us and hopefully we can get a result," said Carragher. "They have had a few bad results lately and it's the type of place that we normally do okay. Hopefully that will continue." Besides a reunion with Stephen Warnock and a certain Robbie Fowler, Blackburn are managed by former Reds captain Paul Ince, who had a big influence on Carra's early days at Anfield. "Paul was one of the players in the team when I first started and he was a great help to me," revealed Carragher. "He gave me a lot of advice and he was someone I looked up to when I started to become a footballer. Hopefully he does really well after Saturday." Link |
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| emzy | Dec 3 2008, 08:27 PM Post #7 |
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Jamie Carragher admits Liverpool need to find goalscorers all over the pitch if they are to stay at the top of the Barclays Premier League. Rafa Benitez's side sit one point clear of Chelsea - a gap that may have been wider but for a spate of missed chances leading to three goalless draws at Anfield. With the hamstrung Fernando Torres sidelined for at least another fortnight, Carragher knows the rest of the Liverpool team must start contributing in front of goal. "We all need to step up, not just the strikers," he said. "It's important we spread it around. It's something we have got to do, we can't just rely on the strikers to score. "You have to defend as a team but you also have to attack as one. Even if you win games 2-0 or 3-0 you're still going to miss Fernando Torres. "Scoring goals is something we all have to sort out together. We are going through a bad spell and have to keep showing character." Carragher accepts he and his teammates have not been at their best at home this season but dismisses any notion that they are feeling the pressure of playing at Anfield. "I love playing at Anfield and I'm sure we're going to have more great nights there but we have got to do more," said the centre-back. "It's not as if we don't want to play at Anfield. We have just got to overcome this spell. "It's probably a full season now since we've been beaten at home. Our record at Anfield has been very good over the last 12 to 18 months but we've got to start turning these draws into wins." Liverpool have drawn three and lost two of their last eight games. Carragher admits there has been a blip, but points to the fact the Reds have improved their league position in this time as proof they have the wherewithal to mount a sustained title charge. "I'm sure our fans will realise as well as anyone that we're not playing well at the moment but we've gone top of the league," said the 31-year-old. "Chelsea are probably going through a little bit of a rough patch themselves over the last three or four games and that's something that's happening to us as well. "But, while Chelsea got beat in the Champions League and have still to qualify, and went down a place in the league after losing to Arsenal, the good thing is that we've not been playing well but have qualified from our Champions League group and have just gone top of the league. "Don't get me wrong, we would love to have gone three points clear, but I'm going to stay positive and say I'm delighted with where we are. "We're going for the league and we're in the knockout stages of the Champions League despite not playing well, so they're positives you have to take." Liverpool travel to Blackburn on Saturday before entertaining Hull and facing Arsenal at the Emirates. But Carragher said: "We won't be thinking about Hull when we go to Blackburn. I've been here 10 years now and all everyone says is, 'Oh, you're next few games you can win.' "It's the biggest load of nonsense I've ever heard. You go out to win the next game, that's it. "It's stupid even talking like that - you never know what's round the corner. "You might get a load of injuries in two or three games' time. The next game is always the one." Link |
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| elnino | Dec 3 2008, 08:31 PM Post #8 |
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Keane, Babael should be scoring more, Keane needs to sort hi head out and Rafa should be playing Babel from the start. |
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| Kopite7 | Jan 25 2009, 10:55 AM Post #9 |
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Well worth a read. Interesting article about Carra: THE FEAR THAT DRIVES MR LIVERPOOL The Guardian 24 January 2009 As an avid student of football, Jamie Carragher has read every line except one. "There's one thing I've never seen in a paper. Jamie Carragher linked with this or that club," he says. "I'd never want to leave. It would kill me, break my heart." Carra, or Mr Liverpool, as the club's website calls him, exists in his own no-go zone of fidelity to the great institution he has represented 555 times. The whole game knows it, so rival talent-snatchers never punch his number. His red shirt has become a second skin. But there is a hidden dimension to his deep sense of belonging. Torment, self-reproach, a daily churn of fear. Carragher lives in terror of being denied the kind of exhilarating test that awaits him in tomorrow's FA Cup fourth-round tie against Everton: the second of the week's Merseyside derbies, following Monday's 1–1 Premier League draw at Anfield. Holding his place in the starting XI is one daily obsession. Another is his inability to forgive himself when he commits defensive errors. The best measure of his extreme and often painful sense of duty is that he pulled out of presenting a prize at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in the city last month because he was too ashamed to show his face after his own goal in the 2–2 draw with Hull. "I couldn't get out of the house, couldn't look at anyone," he recalls. "I said: 'I'm so sorry, I just can't go there. I can't put on a front, I feel so bad, I can't go on the telly in front of everyone.' "My dad thinks there's something wrong with me. He said: 'What are you talking about?' "I was thinking: 'Let me get another game out of the way.' The next one [after the Hull match] was Arsenal. I just needed to get to that and do all right so [the own-goal game] wasn't my last one. You're counting the days, thinking hurry up, hurry up. Longest weekend of my life." From the stands it was always evident that Carragher drives himself harder than just about any front-rank Premier League player. An abiding image is of him jackknifed with cramp in the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul but rising again to thwart Milanese attackers. This demonic intensity stems, you soon learn, from a reservoir of insecurity. A major reason for his retirement from the international game, he admits, is that he thought staying behind to train at Liverpool would give him an edge of freshness over the club's other centre-halves when they returned from trips. An inspiring presence and perhaps English football's best model of self-improvement, Carragher can watch the January transfer frenzy knowing it will never impinge on him, unless Liverpool buy a defender and Steven Gerrard's fellow talisman has to fight off another threat. The Rafael Benítez years have afforded him greater security, but only retirement will fully spring him from his wheel of fire. "A couple of times when they kept buying players in my position I'd be thinking there was no reward for giving it all in training every day. Obviously you're still getting paid – but there's no recognition. Sometimes I think: 'There's another one gone, who's coming in next?' I see some of my own teammates as challenges. Another one who's come to take my place. "Sometimes I can't wait till I've finished, in a way, so my head's not worrying about my place. Because I think about football all the time. Even now, you might say: 'You're one of the main players at Liverpool,' but I still worry badly about my place in the team. That's why I don't miss many games. I could never miss a game when I wasn't quite 100 per cent." A few words of reassurance about the high rank he occupies in the game's affections bounce off him, because he has conditioned himself to struggle, to fight, to renew his vows to the club with every kick. More than Gerrard, even, he is the high priest of the Anfield dressing room, and is sufficiently confident in his own judgment to say: "I see players linked with Liverpool and I think: 'He's crap, him.'" With his encyclopedic knowledge and his love of comedy and pranks, Carragher, who hits 31 on Wednesday, is not solely definable by his masochistic streak, but his devotion to the cause of ending Liverpool's 19-year wait for a league title is a good antidote to the hostility aimed at modern footballers for supposedly earning way too much. As Carragher showed the way to an interview room at Liverpool's Melwood training complex, Benítez hobbled across the foyer calling to him: "English lessons?" "Yeah, English lessons," the Bootle boy responded, conceding the joke. Perhaps the most Scouse of recent Liverpool legends, Carragher is also the most curious, thoughtful and unassuming. To the neutral he's an automatic Liverpool selection. But not in his own head. "I've probably had that under Rafa but I've still had that doubt in the back of my mind. And it's mad really. At the start of this season we had [Martin] Skrtel doing really well and [Daniel] Agger coming back and I had fans coming up to me and saying: 'Do you think you'll play next season?' or 'You might play full-back.' "You just have to say: 'Oh, we'll see what happens.' I'm thinking: 'You cheeky ********.' But you can't say anything. It's as if they forget everything you've done. "Football's so important to me. If I wasn't playing it would just destroy me. I'd always tape every Liverpool game and watch it when I got home, looking for my mistakes. Then I'd think – what am I doing that for?" Asked why she kept on writing novels, the author Fay Weldon replied: "To make amends for the last one." That workaholic's self-defence leapt to mind when Carragher confided: "Sometimes I do think: 'Am I good enough to play in a team that wins the title?' I think about that all the time. But then I look at other teams who've won it – no disrespect to them – and think: 'He's won two or three leagues, and he wouldn't get in our team, or he'd only just about get in.'" Liverpool have won all the cups since 1990 but no league championship. Sir Alex Ferguson's suggestion that they would "get nervous" if they maintained their current elevated position was an arrow fired at Liverpool's craving for a first Premier League crown. "Will we get nervous? I haven't got a clue," Carragher says disarmingly. "I'm not going to put an act on and say no, because I've never been there. It's only January. It's embarrassing, really, that I've only been in this position once, with Gérard Houllier [in 2002, when Liverpool finished second]. I'd be made up if every league game mattered. Even being involved in the mind games is a good thing. We've always been on the outside looking in, something we're not proud of. "I was an Evertonian as a kid, but I've never hated Man United. I've always had respect for them. They're a proper club, like us, and they should have respect for us as well. Man United aren't blasé or big-headed. I think Chelsea are, or have been in the past, a little bit. At Man United, there isn't a player who you think: 'God, I hate him.' They're all good lads, aren't they? Hopefully we come across like that. We're clubs from working-class areas." There is a duty, he thinks, for Liverpool to contest the title race every season. "We don't want it to be how it was under Houllier, when we challenged once and then completely fell away. We want to be fighting for the title every single season. We might not win it, but we're there. That's the minimum. Not fighting for fourth. We can't have that. Everyone's got the belief now, thinking: 'We can do this.' I wouldn't feel fulfilled if we didn't win the league. There'd always be this thing nagging at me." England – the circus, the tribalism – no longer nags at him, and though he warms to the martinet Fabio Capello there is no hope of him returning to claim an international jersey. In his startlingly forthright autobiography, he called some England fans "clueless" and wrote of the "sinister edge" to international fixtures. "I got a bit of criticism for criticising the fans. But about a month later everyone criticised them for booing Ashley Cole. I think I was just the first one to say it. I was just asking: 'What is going on here?' Booing Owen Hargreaves or Peter Crouch on to the pitch, not off it. On to the pitch. I just think it's all club rivalries. With the small clubs maybe it's their chance to go to Europe and say: 'These ******** we're watching on Match of the Day are on a hundred grand a week, we're going to show them.' What happened to Steve McClaren in Andorra, we can't have that. Having said that, in tournaments England fans were the best. "I look at foreign football and I've always said to the lads: 'Imagine playing for him [Capello]. He just wins.' Wherever he goes, the team wins. He looks the part. He just looks the b*******. If you look at McClaren, he doesn't quite look the part. Not playing was the final nail. But to be totally honest it was my Liverpool career. It was me worrying again, thinking that when the other Liverpool centre-halves go away I'll still be here, and I'll be fresher. "Even as a kid, I've always said it: England was this thing in London. I was jumping round the room in '86 or 1990 when Lineker scored, but it was never that feeling you get in your stomach, like if Everton lost to Liverpool in an FA Cup final, thinking: 'Oh my God, how can I go on?'" His memoirs are a perfect gauge of his intelligence: "I read everyone's books and I always knew the way I wanted to do mine. If I'm reading a book by a footballer I don't want to read about games, how he scored or played well. People want to read what you thought, not what happened. "If you're going to do it, just do it, and stand or fall by your thoughts, your beliefs." He even gives you the perfect epitaph. Jamie Carragher on... Kaka... "If I were a Man City fan I'd rather buy four or five players for that money. I think Man City need to become a top-six club first. Maybe what Everton are now. If you read what Mark Hughes is trying to do, it looks like the right way. Maybe they're trying to jump too many levels at once. That's what football is: you want it now. You don't want to wait, do you?" His favourite Liverpool side... "The strongest team I've played in before this one is a team that didn't win anything – the 2002 side that finished second to Arsenal. It's all about winning trophies really. It doesn't matter whether this team's better than this or that one. If we don't win anything this year, people will say Rafa's best moment has been Istanbul – but that team wasn't that good." Life in the Merseyside pressure cooker... "Because you know everyone, you're permanently getting text messages from family and fans, and if you lose you feel you've let everyone down. You just see how it affects everyone. I was wondering, If I played for another club – I'd never want to do that – whether it would be a lot easier after a defeat. Aston Villa or Tottenham, say. If you didn't know everyone." Derby games... "Football's that big now and in your face with Sky and the press and everything: it all just gets brought up a level. Football's just got that big with everyone winding everyone else up the whole time. Take Sky Sports News. Everything's bang, bang, bang. I've been an Everton fan myself, and it winds you up when the other club's more successful and challenging for honours. I've been there, I know." |
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Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown, Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, And you'll never walk alone, You'll never walk alone, Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, And you'll never walk alone, You'll Never Walk Alone. | |
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| mkj1972 | Jan 25 2009, 10:59 AM Post #10 |
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Carra is a legend,just glad he is a Red now and not a Bitter Blue. |
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| Ste_Macca | Jan 25 2009, 11:03 AM Post #11 |
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I'm hungry. Where's the jam?
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:lol: Sure does wind them up with Liverpool being successful. Stupid bitter knobs thumbs |
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| mkj1972 | Apr 4 2009, 09:54 AM Post #12 |
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JAMIE CARRAGHER TALKS TO THE INDEPENDENT The Independent 04 April 2009 Ahead of this afternoon's clash at Fulham, Jamie Carragher has been speaking to Sam Wallace from The Independent. Read this fascinating interview in full here. He has been resting over the last 13 days, he even ventured down to London to take in a couple of West End shows with his wife last week but this afternoon at 5.30pm, the hard work starts again. Eight Premier League games left. The home straight. And the chase is on for Liverpool to win the final medal missing from Jamie Carragher's glittering collection. When Carragher laces up his all-black boots at Craven Cottage this afternoon – he does not believe defenders should wear coloured boots – he will do so knowing that Liverpool have never been closer. Not since 1997 when James Lee Duncan Carragher first broke into Roy Evans' team have they been so close to ending that aching wait for a first title since 1990. One point and one game in hand separates them from leaders Manchester United; beat Fulham and they will be top tonight. There is no better man to take the temperature of Liverpool's remarkable late burst in the title race than Carragher, who has played every minute of every league game bar one this season. If Steven Gerrard is the heart of Liverpool football club, so the old wisdom goes, then Carragher is its soul. Albeit a restless soul, a man who admits that football took over his life to the extent that he once sought help from Steve McClaren's England team psychologist. But it is an obsession that has turned him into one of the most accomplished defenders in the world and it might yet bag him a Premier League medal. In his excellent autobiography Carra he admits that he thinks about winning the title "half a dozen times in an afternoon" so the obvious first question is how the hell has he managed to stay calm over the international break after Liverpool took six points out of United's lead last month? "It's hard dealing with your mindset because you don't want to get too excited but you think about it a lot," Carragher says. "You think about it yourself and you realise the impact on the people around you. "That's why me and Stevie ... we're not just doing it for ourselves. All these people in the city want the title so badly but they, well, they can't do that much about it. So you want to do it for other people. How can I explain? It's like this: you want your kids to have more than you, better than you. You'd give everything for them, and that's the way it feels sometimes with the fans and the League title. It's not really for you, you just want to give them something. You are desperate because you know how much people want to win. "If it happens it happens. I speak to Stevie about it and probably we talk about it too much and that brings pressure and a bit of anxiety. We are local lads and we will still be around here when we have finished playing. If we don't win it we will still have had decent careers that we can look back on. I read the other day that George Best never won the FA Cup. George Best was a much better player than I am but I have won two FA Cups. Look at the players who haven't won the Champions League. Ronaldo – and I mean the Brazilian Ronaldo – he was, he is, a fabulous player. If it doesn't happen we just have to accept it. We have a few more years to do it but it is something we would love to tick off. I am trying to get myself round to thinking like that so it will soften the blow [if Liverpool don't win the title]. When you are that type, when you are competitive you don't look at what you have done, you look at what you haven't done. There are a lot of people like that, it's probably what gets you to the top." Carragher is bursting with ideas and theories about the game, a deep thinker on football who has turned over every permutation, every argument in his own head before you even get there. Will it be any consolation to Liverpool, if they finish runners-up, that they have beaten United twice this season? "No, it's nice to beat them but that's a load of rubbish," he says. "If they win the League they are the best team." And the mind games between the two managers? "To be honest, I love it. I think it's brilliant. I think most Liverpool fans would respect him [Alex Ferguson], you don't have to like him but you have to respect him. As for the stuff between the managers, I think it's hilarious and I do watch it and I do read it and I try to put myself in their position and think, 'What would I say back if they said that?' It's great entertainment. Maybe it does have an effect, who knows? "Ferguson said something before we played Real Madrid and I thought it was clever because it was obvious why he was saying it. He said, 'Real Madrid have no chance of winning the European Cup', so obviously he wanted Real Madrid to try that little bit harder against us. Maybe we should say before they play Porto, 'Manchester United are already in the final', so that might push Porto on a bit more." As for Rafael Benitez's legions of foreign signings, what effect do the exchanges between the two managers have on them? "Half of them probably can't even read the paper. They won't be too bothered." In four days' time, Carragher will be walking out at Anfield for part five of the Liverpool v Chelsea odyssey in the Champions League. Naturally he played every minute of all eight ties against Chelsea over the previous four seasons and in his autobiography he was scathing about Chelsea's conduct before the 2005 semi-final. He cited the "historical and philosophical differences" between the two clubs and the "cocky interviews" and "idle boasts" of the Chelsea players. It was, in his eyes, "working-class fighters taking on the middle-class toffs". Four years on and Carragher has mellowed slightly. "Then [2005] it was the situation with Stevie, he is our best player, and they just wanted to take him," he says. "That's what upset Liverpool people. I think they have changed it around a bit more now [at Chelsea]." Chelsea are certainly not as rich as they were in 2005? "Maybe that is the difference. They are trying to make a few friends with the football they are trying to play. We are not knocking what they have achieved. That team is still there, isn't it? They have the same players who got to the Champions League final. There is great respect for what they have achieved because we'd like to win a couple of League titles." Carragher has admitted that the Liverpool team that won the Champions League in 2005 was not, despite their success, the best team in Europe at the time. Instead that trophy was about the incredible story of that season and their chaotic journey to Istanbul and, ultimately the improbable victory over Milan. "It sounds strange but even when we lost in 2007 it felt like the manager had by then changed things around and brought his own players in and built a team," he says. "When we won in 2005 it was like a film, like an unbelievable story. "We all know that team wasn't great and I was in it so I am criticising myself as well. We weren't the best team in Europe. That's probably what made it even better. It was like a film where the underdog comes through. In 2007 it was different, in the group we finished above Chelsea. In 2005 we needed a last-minute goal from Stevie [against Olympiakos] to get us through." So if Liverpool win the Champions League this year do they have a more serious claim to be the best team in Europe? "It's difficult to say that is the best team in Europe because on any given day the top eight could probably beat each other. We are probably one of the best five or six teams in Europe and one of those who can win it. I always think it is hard to say that unless you win your domestic league that season, because even if you win the European Cup, someone has finished above you." Carragher has two years left on his contract, he has been an ever-present in the side this season yet he admits he can never relax. He flinches when I mention the one relatively insignificant game he has missed this season – the Carling Cup defeat to Spurs – and when it is pointed out that he has managed a remarkable run in the team he answers briskly, "I haven't missed a single day's training either." "I have that terror of someone taking my place," he says. "I'm terrified of missing one game. At the start of the season I thought, 'I've got a fight on my hands to keep my place'. [Daniel] Agger had come back from injury, [Martin] Skrtel had done well. To be honest I'm pretty proud of that record and playing every game. At the start of the season when I come back it's not like I think: 'I'll be playing in that first game'. I'm thinking, 'I don't know I'm in the team'. I know people might find that strange. "I know how I'm seen as a player, I'm seen as 'wholehearted'. 'He'll put his foot in', and stuff like that. I will do but it's not the real picture. I played for Liverpool aged 18, how many players do that? I have never been a [regular] sub for Liverpool. Since the age of 20 I have played every week for Liverpool. People say sometimes, 'Oh, he's versatile'. There have been players here who filled in for people. I never filled in for people. I played 50 games every season. It might be different positions but when everyone was fit I still played." Point taken. He is 31 years old now and it is still inconceivable to imagine a Liverpool team without No 23 directing things at the back. The international break has given him time to work on his Uefa "B" licence coaching qualification at the Liverpool Academy even though he is not certain he will move into management. He looks at those top managers "with the bags under their eyes", he thinks about having to move his two children to a new school in another part of the country and wonders whether he could justify it. For now there is one priority. "This is the best Liverpool team [Carragher has played in] but it doesn't matter. It's about what you win," he says. "If we win nothing then no one will remember this team even though we are probably 10 times better than the team that won the Champions League. When we won the treble in 2001, the team the year later was even better but we never won anything. It's all about what you win and the better your team is the more chance you have of winning, obviously. But people remember teams that win." Hodgson has other ideas... Liverpool's season may be developing considerable momentum, but they will not be taking victory for granted at Craven Cottage today following Fulham's defeat of Manchester United prior to the international break. Roy Hodgson (right) expects to field the same XI that defeated the champions 2-0 despite Mark Schwarzer and Clint Dempsey having only returned yesterday from matches in Sydney and Nashville respectively. He admitted the international break has made preparation difficult: "Liverpool have also had players away but unlike ours coming off back-to-back internationals, they are used to a run of big games because of their Champions League experience. I can only hope the memory of how my players felt after beating United will motivate them to reproduce that. Liverpool are the in-form side, their confidence must be enormously high after recent results. But those can also inspire our players to perform against them." My Other Life I've been down to London at the weekend to see the shows 'Billy Elliot' and 'Chicago' (below). Billy Elliot was a lot better. It's something different. Footballers used to go for a pint but I've got a wife and you try to do more things together. The musicals were all right actually, I didn't think I'd be the type to like them. It is good to find something to take your mind off football. But I still found time to watch the England games. |
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| Ste_Macca | Apr 10 2009, 08:06 PM Post #13 |
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I'm hungry. Where's the jam?
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Carra putting league first Defender ready for biggest league match of his career Jamie Carragher has described Liverpool's clash with Blackburn as the biggest league match of his career. The Reds face an uphill task if they are to progress to the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League after losing 3-1 at home to Chelsea in the first leg of their quarter-final tie. Carragher believes it is vital to bounce back against Blackburn on Saturday to stay in contention for the Premier League title, with Manchester United currently just one point clear at the top. Liverpool have not been in such a strong position at this stage of the season for many years and Carragher is desperate to pick up three more points. "The Blackburn game is the biggest league match of my career right now," said the veteran defender. "I'm not just saying that because of what happened against Chelsea, but the league has always been the priority of everyone at this club. "In the 13 years I have been involved in the first team, this will be the biggest league game I have been involved in, it really is that important. "If we win we can go top of the league with just six games to go, and if anyone had told us at the beginning of the season we would be in this position now, we would have been delighted. "This is a massive chance for everyone at the club and I am sure the fans will create a great atmosphere because they know what is at stake." sky news |
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| mkj1972 | Apr 10 2009, 09:19 PM Post #14 |
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Moderator
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Sure it will be a great atmosphere,just a shame it`s such a early kick off.Confident we will win as long as lucas is not in the 1st team,Masch should be back to replace him. |
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| Ste_Macca | Apr 11 2009, 12:18 AM Post #15 |
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I'm hungry. Where's the jam?
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Would be nice to have a great atmosphere for a league game. Don't get enough of them via the league games. Although i have a feeling Jamie Carragher is right, as it is such an important game, vital to get 3 points. The fans know this and will be right behind the Liverpool team. |
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| redman | Apr 11 2009, 12:22 AM Post #16 |
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The Pool
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Sounds like jamie carragher is giving the fans a hint about making sure we bring our singing voices for the league game. Being this close to a league title, i really think the fans will give as good as they can for this one. |
| Liverpool Football Club, My Team, My club, My Soul. Come On On You Mighty Liverpool. | |
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| Ste_Macca | Apr 13 2009, 10:01 AM Post #17 |
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I'm hungry. Where's the jam?
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Carragher's cross to Kuyt to set up N'gogs was briillant. Don't think i have seen Carragher cross the ball that good ever. |
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| booby | May 17 2009, 04:56 PM Post #18 |
Boobylicious
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Went a bit mad at the end or what! Hope they shook hands later after the game. |
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| mkj1972 | May 17 2009, 04:58 PM Post #19 |
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Moderator
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Think Carra might have shook his neck 
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| Brianna | Oct 16 2009, 02:55 PM Post #20 |
Another pint?
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Carragher: I will get back to my best Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher says he has no problem with criticism and is adamant his age has not contributed to his poor form this term. Carragher has slipped below his usual high standard for the Reds this term, prompting some to suggest the 31-year-old's career is in decline. There have been claims the former England international has lost a yard of pace and Carragher accepts his performances have not been up to scratch. However, the long-serving centre-half is confident he can recapture his best form for Rafa Benitez's side and is not troubled by the questions being raised over his future. "What will happen with me now is that every time I have a bad game, people will mention my age, whereas before it was just a case of me having a bad game," said Carragher. "I look after myself very well. It's just that when things aren't going well for you, nothing goes well. "The best thing to do is try not to analyse it too much. You only end up beating yourself up over it. You've got to have confidence in your own ability and that you'll get back. "I'm not playing well at the moment, I know that. It's up to me to turn that around. I've got the strength of character to put it right. "The reason I've been here so long is because I can deal with it and have the character to do that." He added: "I don't have a problem with being criticised in the press or on TV. Who knows what I'll be doing when I finish playing? That could be me talking about other players for all I know. "In a strange sort of way, it's a compliment if you're playing for a big club and suddenly you start getting criticised. It means you must have been doing something right in the first place. Plus if no-one mentions it, you know that nobody's bothered about it. "That's all part of being a Liverpool player. You have to have the character to deal with it." FoxSoccer.com |
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