Oh dear.
Poll Dodge the brodge
- Thread starter Skullflower
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Simply put... It's bollocks.
Expectations after finishing second with scintillating football, should rightly be finish top 4,and play decent football
We've been average, borderline poor. Our defensive positioning hasn't improved in 3 years, and when we don't have a mercurial talent, we're found wanting
Expectations after finishing second with scintillating football, should rightly be finish top 4,and play decent football
We've been average, borderline poor. Our defensive positioning hasn't improved in 3 years, and when we don't have a mercurial talent, we're found wanting
Oh dear Because you realise your point was daft, or oh dear because you still think you're right?
Fabio makes a good point. We haven't just lacked a cutting edge in attack, we've lacked any verve or pace at all. How do you manage that with Sterling, Coutinho, Ibe, Lallana, and Markovic at your disposal?
We've been shit to watch pretty much all season.
We've been shit to watch pretty much all season.
The man responsible for Southamptons overperformance is now at Spurs.
And im not talking about Pocchetino
Fans don't get sacked. Owners don't sack themselves. The manager gets a raise or gets the sack.
You didn't think it was deliberately daft?
Yep. And I still stand by my reaction to the end of last season - for all of the great football we played, the way that team choked wasn't something to brush away. It boded ill for this season. There was a terrifying degree of cowardice in the team that collapsed at Palace - it had been glimpsed a few times before during two years under Rodgers, but that particular collapse was horrifying. It wasn't something that was ever going to disappear in the months that followed. This is a bunch of players, with only the odd exception, who crack under pressure. Losing Suarez was just one part of it. There will still be too many weak-minded players in there even if we confound expectations and sign one top striker.
You see, you're trying to understand the root cause of our problems rather than mindlessly blaming the manager.
We've had weak minded players, owners, managers since we last won the league.
It 'feels' like we have better owners than Moores and H&G so there's hope.
If you can confidently know how the owners, the transfer committee and the owners work then you can answer that.
It's not really a rottenness though is it? It's like you're suggesting there's almost something sinister going on, when in fact we're really just a club run by guys who don't understand the game, employing people around them who don't really understand the game, working with and identifying personnel based on stats rather than unquantifiable assets like aggression, passion and the will to win. That's the real root cause. And the fact that communication with the powers that be may as well be by telegram. We're a team of young players and soft touches, we need a spine and we need some people around all levels of the club that know what it's like to win, know what it's like to dig in and won't allow us to stand there shrugging on the pitch like it's someone else's fault. Milner and Carragher (as a coach) would be a start in that sense, but we need quality cutting edge players too.
I'm not absolving Rodgers of blame in that, but when we clearly *can* play effective attacking football with the right tools, it'd help if we started to support and supplement that. If he's being myopic about how we play, then the club are being equally so for not giving him a nudge or a shoulder barge in the right direction.
There's a lot to be said about our current players being weak minded. The other week when we played Chelsea and they started the game by kicking seven kinds of shite out of us and what did we do? We took it and took it and hoped the referee would help us out. Cowardly.
Past Succesful Liverpool teams wouldn't have stood for it. If a teammate was kicked unneccesarily within minutes the player who did it was put up the air by one of our players. The team stood together and that was one of the things the made us the best team in the country at the time. Each player could stand up for himself and dish it out if they had to. Chelsea have that now and have done for a few years. United had it in spades under Ferguson and collectively our players now are too soft. I hate seeing us top of the fair play league as to me that says pushovers.
And I'm not having it that some players don't have it in them. When Oscar went to Chelsea he was soft as shite but now he gets stuck in like the rest of them. He still a diver but that's more about gaining an advantage by getting someone booked than anything else.
This isn't about putting two footed tackles in or reckless challenges it's about not being cowed by the opposition and not letting them think your weak because when that happens you're finished.
For me this has to come from the Manager, the coaching staff and the senior players. Is there anyone amongst ours that you'd think twice about. Me neither.
Too often we don't even turn up and this is a big reason why.
Past Succesful Liverpool teams wouldn't have stood for it. If a teammate was kicked unneccesarily within minutes the player who did it was put up the air by one of our players. The team stood together and that was one of the things the made us the best team in the country at the time. Each player could stand up for himself and dish it out if they had to. Chelsea have that now and have done for a few years. United had it in spades under Ferguson and collectively our players now are too soft. I hate seeing us top of the fair play league as to me that says pushovers.
And I'm not having it that some players don't have it in them. When Oscar went to Chelsea he was soft as shite but now he gets stuck in like the rest of them. He still a diver but that's more about gaining an advantage by getting someone booked than anything else.
This isn't about putting two footed tackles in or reckless challenges it's about not being cowed by the opposition and not letting them think your weak because when that happens you're finished.
For me this has to come from the Manager, the coaching staff and the senior players. Is there anyone amongst ours that you'd think twice about. Me neither.
Too often we don't even turn up and this is a big reason why.
We need a proper Chief Exec, a strong and experienced character. Then a DOF, and a new coach under him.
I think everything would fall into place pretty quickly under those circs.
I'm pretty perturbed by the apparent lack of interest in the whole thing from FSG, though. We're dangerously under managed.
I agree, though if we were talking about Rodgers learning the ropes with us (argue either way whether that should have even been allowed to be the case), how was he supposed to do that with an amateurish, unlearned setup around him? Why the fuck is Ian Ayre both CEO and a part of the transfer committee? What are his credentials for signings players? What are FSG credentials for appointing CEO's and other personnel at a Premiership Football club and European big name?
No, no, not sinister. Just deep-rooted incompetence and amateurism. That'll take a huge amount of work to reverse. A new spine is needed, on and off the pitch.
I'm a little disappointed this suggestion hasn't gathered more steam.
Re Rodgers: I'm not arguing that he should have been expected to do it. I don't care either way.
I can't quite understand how things have been allowed to drift like this, if I'm right in thinking that. Why do FSG seem to care so little that they can't put in place a proper administration. This is a huge and potentially very lucrative investment - how can they not care? If it's just incompetence, these are highly successful businessmen - how have they got here in the first place?
I'm baffled by it all.
... ... ?!
Depends how one would define "drift". My guess would be that the owners, having chosen people to fill certain roles, initially took a "light touch" approach and let them get on with it, which in principle I don't have a problem with, especially as the owners are new to (our kind of) football. The question is whether they should have intervened earlier to spiff things up. Most if not all of us would say they should have, so maybe their inexperience in football specifically accounts for their not doing so, because as you say they do have a track record.
Action definitely needs to be taken now though. Ayre should be the first to go, and the whole transfer committee fiasco should follow him out the door, whether or not Rodgers gets the boot as well. If he stays I'd be inclined to tell him we *will* be appointing a defensive coach. Then, if he walks, he walks.
I'd only feel happy about imposing a defensive coach on Rodgers if it was balanced by a new attacking coach.
FSG as sports franchise owners in US are a different league to Moores and H&G. No doubt about it. What they have done with the Red Sox is remarkable. They are dynamic, innovative on and off the field, and get things done.
How interested are they in us and how much they understand football or want to understand football is a whole new question. If Henry is truly interested in Liverpool and spends 4-6 months of the season here, we would look completely different. No doubt about it.
Their seeming reluctance to get stuck in & make changes seem to suggest a relatively short term plan, buying us at a low price, & selling for a profit having increased capacity & rode the wave of ever increasing tv rights money.
I've suspected this since they first took over, their close relationship to tv gives them an advantage in that they can judge perhaps more accurately then most when the market will hit it's peak in terms of revenue & cash in when it's unlikely to yield higher dividends in future.
I've suspected this since they first took over, their close relationship to tv gives them an advantage in that they can judge perhaps more accurately then most when the market will hit it's peak in terms of revenue & cash in when it's unlikely to yield higher dividends in future.
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