Kolo Toure

Liverpool were given no hope in their Champions League match against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernebeu especially given that they had lost heavily to the same opponents a week ago.

Kolo Toure has confirmed that he is set to stay at Liverpool in the coming campaign after rejecting the offer of joining Turkish club Trabzonspor. The former Arsenal and Manchester City defender is one of the experienced players in the squad. He has also lifted the league title with two different teams. Despite this, there have been transfer rumours linking Toure with a move away from Anfield. The 33-year-old came to Anfield only last summer on a free transfer from City. He almost became the first player to win the Premier league with three different teams, as Liverpool finished second.

The Leeds United squad would make its way to Italy for playing the pre season games without two of the prominent players i.e. Scott Wootton and Alex Mowatt. The manager of the team, David Hockaday, made that announcement yesterday.

The Whites are supposed to play a couple of matches in Italy.

Talking to the reporters a day before taking the flight to Italy, Hockaday said, “Almost, the entire squad is going to go except the two blokes who have minor fitness issues. I expect them to be alright in a few days’ time.”

Preparations for Ivory Coast’s upcoming match against Greece where it by the news that Yaya Touré and Kolo Toure have lost their younger brother Ibrahim Toure at the age of 28. Both the Touré brothers are influential to the Ivory Coast team, but this news has left the preparations in tatters. It is understood that Ibrahim was suffering from cancer for a few years. He was also a footballer, but played in lesser-known leagues. It was not known whether Kolo Toure and Yaya Touré will be departing the World Cup 2014 in order to participate in the final duties.

Kolo Toure failure to create history by becoming the first player to win the Premier league title with three different teams after his Liverpool lost out to Manchester City in this year’s competition. Toure went into the final game of the season against Newcastle with an opportunity to win the league title with Liverpool. He has already lifted the league title with Arsenal and Manchester city in the past. After having joined Liverpool only in the summer on a free transfer, the title would have been a crowning glory to the season.

Manchester City midfielder Yaya Touré has said that he is impressed by the regime of Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool.

The former Chelsea youth team manager has been able to get the team, which finished seventh in the league last season, to be in a position of winning the title with only five matches remaining. City will be the visitors to Anfield to take on Liverpool in a top of the table clash. Touré will be aware that City need to win the match in order to win the title. Even though they have two matches in hand, Liverpool have a four-point advantage.

Kolo Toure wore the Arsenal jersey for 6 years as he was signed back in 2002 with a fee of €150,000 after a short trial and ever since making his debut with the Premier League club, he was a consistent performer as he made over 25 appearances for Arsenal in every single season.
Former Arsenal player Ray Parlour has revealed what Kolo Toure made during his trial which convinced Arsene Wenger on signing the Ivorian midfielder and according to Parlour, the strategy that Kolo Toure had was to smash some of Arsenal’s key performers with tackles and challenges.

Kolo Touré has recently been the talking point amongst the Liverpool fans and with him scoring on both ends in the match against Fulham shows how fans can react when you are not doing well. Touré has not been in the best of forms lately and has two own goals next to his name, one with West Bromwich Albion which was an equalizer for West Brom and another was in the thriller against Fulham where he opened the scoring for Fulham in the midweek match.

Kolo Toure has said that Liverpool is still in with a chance to become the English top flight champion this season.

In their last league outing against Aston Villa the other day, the Reds couldn’t secure 3 points. The match ended in a 2-2 draw.

Liverpool had gone into that game with the expectations of a win, but, their start was not less than a disaster. With about 10 minutes remaining in the first half, they had gone down by 0-2 and an upset seemed to be on the cards, but, they lifted their game in time and managed to level the proceedings.

Luis Suarez recently signed a new long-term contract with Liverpool, but the threat of the Uruguayan leaving the club does not appear to have diminished. This is because of Liverpool's inability to finish in the top four for the last few seasons.

Defender Kolo Toure, who joined the club on a free transfer from Manchester City in the summer, says that their major hope of keeping Suarez rests in the ability to win a title. Liverpool are in with a shout to finish top of the table on Christmas Day due to the recent run of form.