Friday, October 31, 2008

Liverpool Co-Owner George Gillett Urges Stability As Sami Hyypia Expresses Title Belief


As Liverpool co-owner George Gillett was vowing that he would "let the club do the talking", Sami Hyypia was doing the same following the win over Portsmouth while in the same breath explaining why he feels they have never been better placed to take the title in his 10 seasons at Anfield.

While the manner of Wednesday's 1-0 win that keeps Rafael Benitez's team three points clear at the top of the Premier League will be seen as further evidence that they will not stay the course, Hyypia believes the fact that they came away with three points actually demonstrates that they can.

Liverpool toiled at Anfield, as they have all season, where they have been held to a goalless draw by Stoke and have had to come from behind to take the points against Middlesbrough, Manchester United and Wigan.

However, Hyypia feels that the only fact of importance is that with 10 games gone, Liverpool, who travel to Tottenham on Saturday, have dropped just four points from their 10 matches this season.

Despite maintaining a level of caution in the face of growing excitement that the wait for a first league title since 1990, Hyypia, 35, feels Liverpool now have the quality and the character to sustain the level of performance they have shown in the first quarter of the season.

"It's still early days so we will keep our feet on the ground and take it game by game, and just try to win every game," the defender said. "We are letting all the other people do the talking. We're not ones to go shouting about what we're going to do.

"The difference from the previous seasons I have been here is that in the summer we made some good signings that have settled very well straight away into the team. We also have a lot of competition for places, which is something we haven't maybe had as much in past seasons.

"I think this season maybe we are a bit stronger mentally too. You only have to look at the way in which we have won some games to see that. The result is always more important than how you play. At the beginning of the season there were some games in which we didn't perform brilliantly, but we got the result.

"If, come May, we are at the top of the league, then nobody will remember that we played bad football at the beginning of the season."

Gillett must wish he was in a similarly simple situation but the American, who refused to comment on the proposed sale of the club yesterday, has insisted that plans to build a new stadium on Stanley Park are still ongoing despite the delay in the start of building.

He said: "We put it off on a temporary basis and we continued to invest substantial money every month in both engineering, architecture, planning, approving and zoning."

Gillett has pledged he will continue with a policy of not destabilising things at Anfield with controversial public statements and added: "I think they are at a point now where they are allowing the boys to demonstrate their skill. And also to allow Rafael Benitez, who is one of the great coaches, to do his thing and we just want to leave it that way and we will operate behind the scenes and let the club do the talking."

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