John Henry's open letter to fans
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I thought it was fairly well written and targeted.
I appreciated that he said past mistakes had been compounded by their own mistake as well because they have made a mess of certain things during their tenure so far.
As said already though, earnest or fake earnest statements aren't going to help us in the here and now.
Henry and FSG can win a lot more favour by getting things right rather than writing letters about what we've gotten wrong.
I appreciated that he said past mistakes had been compounded by their own mistake as well because they have made a mess of certain things during their tenure so far.
As said already though, earnest or fake earnest statements aren't going to help us in the here and now.
Henry and FSG can win a lot more favour by getting things right rather than writing letters about what we've gotten wrong.
They were lumbered with Roy and his fucking wank squad of players.
They made a massive mistake listening to the fans and appointing Kenny as manager and throwing out thier idea of young manager/young players at the whim of a man who had been out of the game for a decade (probably THE decade that the game changed the most from the one we used to know) and he along with a dof signed a pile of utter shit to go with Roys utter shit and the legacy of quality 'aging' players we had left after most of the GREAT ones had fucked off because of the previous shite regime.
This summer they didnt listen to the fans (who wanted every fucking sexy named Euro manager under The Lying Rag) and signed a young manager with promise. They didnt listen to the fans who wanted every fucking 20m player under The Lying Rag, they allowed their man to identify and purchase his targets (young and promising players) and allowed him to ship out 45m worth of investment for 5m quid.
They havnt thrown good money after bad and have still invested in Sahin, Allen, Borini and Assaidi for 32m.
They are correcting their own mistakes and its costing them a fucking fortune to do it.
The least we can do is give them a fucking chance to get it right.
Actually fuck that, they didnt sign Llorente and Alonso on deadline day SACK THE BOARD! SACK RODGERS!!
They made a massive mistake listening to the fans and appointing Kenny as manager and throwing out thier idea of young manager/young players at the whim of a man who had been out of the game for a decade (probably THE decade that the game changed the most from the one we used to know) and he along with a dof signed a pile of utter shit to go with Roys utter shit and the legacy of quality 'aging' players we had left after most of the GREAT ones had fucked off because of the previous shite regime.
This summer they didnt listen to the fans (who wanted every fucking sexy named Euro manager under The Lying Rag) and signed a young manager with promise. They didnt listen to the fans who wanted every fucking 20m player under The Lying Rag, they allowed their man to identify and purchase his targets (young and promising players) and allowed him to ship out 45m worth of investment for 5m quid.
They havnt thrown good money after bad and have still invested in Sahin, Allen, Borini and Assaidi for 32m.
They are correcting their own mistakes and its costing them a fucking fortune to do it.
The least we can do is give them a fucking chance to get it right.
Actually fuck that, they didnt sign Llorente and Alonso on deadline day SACK THE BOARD! SACK RODGERS!!
Lose three or four more matches on the trot and you can bet your house that it won't seem like the time to sit back and wait for year three or four of the glorious plan to arrive. Some problems need to be attended to in the here and now. Ask any fan whose team was slipping into the relegation zone in previous years. Sometimes you urgently need experience, and/or a proven goalscorer. It's not just limited to the top four.
Anyone with a bit of perspective knew this was going to be a work in progress. It's going to be months, not weeks, before we start to reap the benefits of the new philosophy.
No matter what the real reason behind it, this does have the effect that teams no we won't pay more than other teams simply cos we're Liverpool.
So in the long term it may well improve our negotiations dramatically.
In the short term it may well reduce our points tally equally as dramatically.
So in the long term it may well improve our negotiations dramatically.
In the short term it may well reduce our points tally equally as dramatically.
Tell that to Gary mac.
Of course it is, but that doesn't mean there should be apathy, resignation or apologies as a matter of routine. Rodgers doesn't think so, and he's not misguided for being angry about what happened in the transfer window.
It achieves exactly what it seeks to do that letter. Placate the supporters with carefully designed words to reassure them.
"I am as disappointed as anyone connected with Liverpool Football Club that we were unable to add further to our strike force"
Add further ? Further ? We didn't add at all, we depleted our strikeforce. A strike force that was woefully misfiring last season.
But a summer window which brought in three young, but significantly talented starters in Joe Allen, Nuri Sahin and Fabio Borini as well as two exciting young potential stars of the future - Samed Yesil and Oussama Assaidi - could hardly be deemed a failure as we build for the future.
That remains to be seen. We've bought as well as we could be expected and for what appears to be much better value. Whether they can be deemed a success when we're hovering over the relegation zone, albeit only 3 games into the season, remains to be seen. The jury is still out on most of those players - thats not saying they wont be successful. There's a long way to go of course.
Nor should anyone minimise the importance of keeping our best players during this window. We successfully retained Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel and Luis Suarez
Did well of course to retain Skrtel and Suarez but were openly willing to sell Agger at what was deemed the right price.
No one should doubt our commitment to the club.
I do. I seriously doubt their commitment to the club but not their commitment to the margin. Saying that, the club does have to be run more financially responsibly.
The transfer policy was not about cutting costs. It was - and will be in the future - about getting maximum value for what is spent so that we can build quality and depth
Of course it was. Build quality ? Perhaps. Build depth ? Where ? Our squad is as thin as it's ever been, perhaps the thinnest ever.
We are still in the process of reversing the errors of previous regimes. It will not happen overnight. It has been compounded by our own mistakes in a difficult first two years of ownership. It has been a harsh education, but make no mistake, the club is healthier today than when we took over.
It's OK to call their errors an "education" but an education generally involves learning and I see no evidence of FSG learning from their mistakes, just repeating them in different ways. As for the clubs 'health' I'm assuming they mean financial health which is probably true - the balance book will likely look quite attractive. As for the teams health. I think it looks shite. Still.
Spending is not merely about buying talent. Our ambitions do not lie in cementing a mid-table place with expensive, short-term quick fixes that will only contribute for a couple of years. Our emphasis will be on developing our own players using the skills of an increasingly impressive coaching team. Much thought and investment already have gone into developing a self-sustaining pool of youngsters imbued in the club's traditions.
Really ? Everything they have done up to now appears to be tactical and reactive short term fixes. The only strategy I see is to reduce cost and drive better value for their spend - which is essentially another way of angling cost reduction. "Value" is a clever word to use. What value means to owners chiefly interested in profit and to supporters mainly interested in silverware are different things. Still no sign of a stadium I see. Even investment where long term return can be achieved isn't happening still. As for the youngsters, we're making average ground in that area.
That ethos is to win. No, ethos is to run as lean a business as possible and hope we can somehow win
We will invest to succeed. No, we will invest to become profitable. I don't blame them for that but do not confuse their success with what ours would be.
But we will not mortgage the future with risky spending. We've got no money
After almost two years at Anfield, we are close to having the system we need in place. What a load of shite. The owners don't even know what that system is which is completely obvious from the way they are chopping and changing the footballing and business structure of the club and the high human turnover we have in such roles.
We will build and grow from within, buy prudently and cleverly and never again waste resources on inflated transfer fees and unrealistic wages. Good !
We have no fear of spending and competing with the very best but we will not overpay for players. Translation: We cannot compete with top teams. It's not lack of desire. It's lack of capability.
We will never place this club in the precarious position that we found it in when we took over at Anfield. This club should never again run up debts that threaten its existence. Good to hear but was this not also one of the conditions of them buying the club ?
Most of all, we want to win. That ambition drives every decision. It is the Liverpool way. We can and will generate the revenues to achieve that aim. There will be short-term setbacks from time to time, but we believe we have the right people in place to bring more glory to Anfield. This is great to hear and what every fans want to hear. Unfortunately the only bit I believe in any of that is "we can and will generate revenue"
Finally, I can say with authority that our ownership is not about profit. Contrary to popular opinion, owners rarely get involved in sports in order to generate cash. They generally get involved with a club in order to compete and work for the benefit of their club. It's often difficult. In our case we work every day in order to generate revenues to improve the club. We have only one driving ambition at Liverpool and that is the quest to win the Premier League playing the kind of football our supporters want to see. That will only occur if we do absolutely the right things to build the club in a way that makes sense for supporters, for us and for those who will follow us. We will deliver what every long-term supporter of Liverpool Football Club aches for.
Personally, I'm going to wait and see on this one. At the moment, I don't believe it nor do I place any faith in the words of the Liverpool Board and execs. That's my opinion and not a conspiracy theory for those dim enough to think so .
"I am as disappointed as anyone connected with Liverpool Football Club that we were unable to add further to our strike force"
Add further ? Further ? We didn't add at all, we depleted our strikeforce. A strike force that was woefully misfiring last season.
But a summer window which brought in three young, but significantly talented starters in Joe Allen, Nuri Sahin and Fabio Borini as well as two exciting young potential stars of the future - Samed Yesil and Oussama Assaidi - could hardly be deemed a failure as we build for the future.
That remains to be seen. We've bought as well as we could be expected and for what appears to be much better value. Whether they can be deemed a success when we're hovering over the relegation zone, albeit only 3 games into the season, remains to be seen. The jury is still out on most of those players - thats not saying they wont be successful. There's a long way to go of course.
Nor should anyone minimise the importance of keeping our best players during this window. We successfully retained Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel and Luis Suarez
Did well of course to retain Skrtel and Suarez but were openly willing to sell Agger at what was deemed the right price.
No one should doubt our commitment to the club.
I do. I seriously doubt their commitment to the club but not their commitment to the margin. Saying that, the club does have to be run more financially responsibly.
The transfer policy was not about cutting costs. It was - and will be in the future - about getting maximum value for what is spent so that we can build quality and depth
Of course it was. Build quality ? Perhaps. Build depth ? Where ? Our squad is as thin as it's ever been, perhaps the thinnest ever.
We are still in the process of reversing the errors of previous regimes. It will not happen overnight. It has been compounded by our own mistakes in a difficult first two years of ownership. It has been a harsh education, but make no mistake, the club is healthier today than when we took over.
It's OK to call their errors an "education" but an education generally involves learning and I see no evidence of FSG learning from their mistakes, just repeating them in different ways. As for the clubs 'health' I'm assuming they mean financial health which is probably true - the balance book will likely look quite attractive. As for the teams health. I think it looks shite. Still.
Spending is not merely about buying talent. Our ambitions do not lie in cementing a mid-table place with expensive, short-term quick fixes that will only contribute for a couple of years. Our emphasis will be on developing our own players using the skills of an increasingly impressive coaching team. Much thought and investment already have gone into developing a self-sustaining pool of youngsters imbued in the club's traditions.
Really ? Everything they have done up to now appears to be tactical and reactive short term fixes. The only strategy I see is to reduce cost and drive better value for their spend - which is essentially another way of angling cost reduction. "Value" is a clever word to use. What value means to owners chiefly interested in profit and to supporters mainly interested in silverware are different things. Still no sign of a stadium I see. Even investment where long term return can be achieved isn't happening still. As for the youngsters, we're making average ground in that area.
That ethos is to win. No, ethos is to run as lean a business as possible and hope we can somehow win
We will invest to succeed. No, we will invest to become profitable. I don't blame them for that but do not confuse their success with what ours would be.
But we will not mortgage the future with risky spending. We've got no money
After almost two years at Anfield, we are close to having the system we need in place. What a load of shite. The owners don't even know what that system is which is completely obvious from the way they are chopping and changing the footballing and business structure of the club and the high human turnover we have in such roles.
We will build and grow from within, buy prudently and cleverly and never again waste resources on inflated transfer fees and unrealistic wages. Good !
We have no fear of spending and competing with the very best but we will not overpay for players. Translation: We cannot compete with top teams. It's not lack of desire. It's lack of capability.
We will never place this club in the precarious position that we found it in when we took over at Anfield. This club should never again run up debts that threaten its existence. Good to hear but was this not also one of the conditions of them buying the club ?
Most of all, we want to win. That ambition drives every decision. It is the Liverpool way. We can and will generate the revenues to achieve that aim. There will be short-term setbacks from time to time, but we believe we have the right people in place to bring more glory to Anfield. This is great to hear and what every fans want to hear. Unfortunately the only bit I believe in any of that is "we can and will generate revenue"
Finally, I can say with authority that our ownership is not about profit. Contrary to popular opinion, owners rarely get involved in sports in order to generate cash. They generally get involved with a club in order to compete and work for the benefit of their club. It's often difficult. In our case we work every day in order to generate revenues to improve the club. We have only one driving ambition at Liverpool and that is the quest to win the Premier League playing the kind of football our supporters want to see. That will only occur if we do absolutely the right things to build the club in a way that makes sense for supporters, for us and for those who will follow us. We will deliver what every long-term supporter of Liverpool Football Club aches for.
Personally, I'm going to wait and see on this one. At the moment, I don't believe it nor do I place any faith in the words of the Liverpool Board and execs. That's my opinion and not a conspiracy theory for those dim enough to think so .
I'm not sure it will. If we look back at every regime from the early 1990s onwards, there's a strange pattern in which we've been outbid for most of our top targets, and then we've wildly overbid for the odd mediocre one we've got (there, of course, isolated exceptions). It seems what's missing is good judgement, rather than a simple general policy about pay ceilings and tough talking. From the days of Roy Keane and Ronaldo through to today, we've ummed and ahhed and been out bid when pursuing the really great prospects, and then weirdly caved in when pursuing the meh ones. It looks messy and irritatingly unscientific to the bods who gaze at the blueprints, but what we need most is good judgement.
True. Things do take time but sometimes such things don't work at all.
T
the_khl
Guest
Good posts from Oncy and Del.
I agree with most of it too but it still has to be said that the missing striker in this window makes us look like headless chickens on the transfermarket no matter how much talent we've brought in elsewhere.
This Season was one we all looked well forward too but three games in we've somehow already been told that we really shouldn't have gotten our hopes up. Not so much because of the 1 point but more so because of the obvious gap in the squad. The sheer lack of options could make us struggle in the bottom half of the table for some time.
And if Suarez then gets injured..
I agree with most of it too but it still has to be said that the missing striker in this window makes us look like headless chickens on the transfermarket no matter how much talent we've brought in elsewhere.
This Season was one we all looked well forward too but three games in we've somehow already been told that we really shouldn't have gotten our hopes up. Not so much because of the 1 point but more so because of the obvious gap in the squad. The sheer lack of options could make us struggle in the bottom half of the table for some time.
And if Suarez then gets injured..
But wait, we're learning from our mistakes - one of those being we had a woefully inadequate strike force for the whole of last season.
We'd miss Suarez' goals for sure.
That's one of the few things that doesn't still have to be said. It's already been said over and over again.
If there's one statement that people should take notice of in this thread it's this.
T
the_khl
Guest
Point taken.
I've only said it like 4 times though. It normally takes about 7 times to get it out of the system history has learned me.
I don't actually think for a minute we'll get relegated. I think we'll probably finish about 12th though. Which is fine as expectations are low this year.
This reads like they got some seriously crazy emails over the last 48 hours and have gone into damage limitation
T
the_khl
Guest
Ha, I thought to myself during the Arsenal game that we'd probably end up 12th this Season.
*Off to the bookies.
Well, we've really not much choice have we ? Not so much twiddle our thumbs though rather than desperately hope Rodgers can pull together a few results out of the team he has at his disposal which is going to be difficult because the team is short of creativity. Not creative players though, we do have some - but they're not really performing and the midfield in particular, as pointed out, was very flat and all a bit negative yesterday.
Yup we don't have much choice. I dunno if it would make sense but I do wish that FSG would tell the fans it's plans for the club. The letter doesn't tell us what it intends to do to take the club forward. Or does everything have to be so secretive now that we are a business?
One other thing, every club is going to hold us to ransom since it is obvious we need a striker. Way to go, LFC.
One other thing, every club is going to hold us to ransom since it is obvious we need a striker. Way to go, LFC.
The nail screams in pain.
R
RedZeppelin III
Guest
but at the moment this idea of a young up and coming manager buying young talent is all just a nice theory and plan . There's no proof it's going to work here or that we have the right people to implement it . Rodgers , the owners , none of them have actually done this before with a football club of this size and expectations . So in a sense it's all a gamble and we have trust that they can do it . Fair enough, but people will need signs and proof that it's working or they will lose faith pretty quickly . Even the players to an extent need to buy into it and have confidence it is going to work.
So fair enough we'll give them all time but they need to show us results .
There needs to be a new commitment to the notion that we're all in this together. At the moment FSG parrot that phrase but the reality is, time and again, they've sat back and let people do as they wish and then 'reviewed' the situation and launched a wave of sackings. Rodgers would be forgiven for fearing that at some point later in the season Henry and Werner will once again 'review' the situation and scrap it all again. There needs to be a constant FSG presence at Anfield, with FSG's people working hand in hand with the management to get the club progressing. At the moment, rightly or wrongly, they give people the impression they withdraw and wait to react. If there'a plan everyone has to be responsible for it, from start to finish.
Agreed, the one thing they should have learned during the last 2 years is that they need a fotballing man in charge. Someone like David Dein and not Ian Ayre.
If we had a man like that in charge I dont think so many of our supporters would have so many questions about the direction of the club and the competense in key positions.
I dont think we'll finish 12th though, I'm guessing same as last year or thereabouts.
Need a win now like there is no tomorrow. Hate the international break.
If we had a man like that in charge I dont think so many of our supporters would have so many questions about the direction of the club and the competense in key positions.
I dont think we'll finish 12th though, I'm guessing same as last year or thereabouts.
Need a win now like there is no tomorrow. Hate the international break.
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