Liverpool FC

[kinboshi]

Can't see Lyon beating winning in Florence, especially as they've now qualified.  sigh.

Yeah, very doubtful, and it's not like we're a lock to beat Fiorentina at home right now either!

I'm at the game next week against Brum in the league.

Sure am confident about that one!

Hope it's better than the last one Dan

It couldn't be worse, could it?

[TightEnd]

Been reading this thread

A complete neutral, some affection for Liverpool (compared to the rest of the big few, for sure), but a football fan in general.


Leaving aside the why's and wherefore's of current results isn't the big failure of Benitez and management team the lack of success in addressing strength in depth and bringing young players through ready to step in when the big hitters go down?

I appreciate that Alonso is sold and cannot be adequately replaced because the finances of the club now are poor but the problem is longer term and systemic.

To illustrate I looked at the current first team squad and tried to identify those youngsters brought through the ranks who I would reckon could play and not demonstrably weaken the team when the first XI were unfit, as has often been the case this season with Gerrard and Torres.

I see occasional appearances for Plessis, Kelly and then what? I'll give you Insua as having "made it"

For Man U I see Welbeck, the Silvas, Maceda, Evans, Foster and others. 

For Arsenal, I could go on from Gibbs, Wilshere, merida..basically the league cup team

For Chelsea well not many actually, but lets press on :-)). Up to now they can pack their squad with 20+ star players


The young players for Man U and Arsenal have been brought to the club from a young age and are gradually introduced to the first team. Just don't tend to see that with Liverpool. Of course you do going back with Gerrard, Carragher, Fowler, Owen, Macmanaman but not since then

This goes back before Liverpool were short of £, the squad strength in depth is not strong enough. The youth system seems to bring through players regarded as not quite good enough for the first team....


Jack Hobbs

Neil Mellor

Stephen Warnock (with hindsight, he'd be at Liverpool still)

Richie Partridge

Jon Otsemobor

Zak Whitbread

etc


Does the same fate apply to Stephen Darby, Jay Spearing, Brouwer, Nemeth and the like?

and given the finances dictate that Liverpool cannot compete for top talent, are we at the start of a slow decline for Liverpool out of the upper echelons of the English game, at least until the owenship is stable enough to permit large scale investment?

[bolt pp]

what price you lot for the F.A cup? might be value, all you can win now so will probs play a really strong team throughout.

[kinboshi]

what price you lot for the F.A cup? might be value, all you can win now so will probs play a really strong team throughout.

Whatever it is I wouldn't back us

[The Camel]

what price you lot for the F.A cup? might be value, all you can win now so will probs play a really strong team throughout.

Have they got a "really strong team"?

I hadn't noticed.

[Blatch]

Best bet is Liverpool to win Europa League at moment

[The Baron]

Been reading this thread

A complete neutral, some affection for Liverpool (compared to the rest of the big few, for sure), but a football fan in general.


Leaving aside the why's and wherefore's of current results isn't the big failure of Benitez and management team the lack of success in addressing strength in depth and bringing young players through ready to step in when the big hitters go down?

I appreciate that Alonso is sold and cannot be adequately replaced because the finances of the club now are poor but the problem is longer term and systemic.

To illustrate I looked at the current first team squad and tried to identify those youngsters brought through the ranks who I would reckon could play and not demonstrably weaken the team when the first XI were unfit, as has often been the case this season with Gerrard and Torres.

I see occasional appearances for Plessis, Kelly and then what? I'll give you Insua as having "made it"

For Man U I see Welbeck, the Silvas, Maceda, Evans, Foster and others. 

For Arsenal, I could go on from Gibbs, Wilshere, merida..basically the league cup team

For Chelsea well not many actually, but lets press on :-)). Up to now they can pack their squad with 20+ star players


The young players for Man U and Arsenal have been brought to the club from a young age and are gradually introduced to the first team. Just don't tend to see that with Liverpool. Of course you do going back with Gerrard, Carragher, Fowler, Owen, Macmanaman but not since then

This goes back before Liverpool were short of £, the squad strength in depth is not strong enough. The youth system seems to bring through players regarded as not quite good enough for the first team....


Jack Hobbs

Neil Mellor

Stephen Warnock (with hindsight, he'd be at Liverpool still)

Richie Partridge

Jon Otsemobor

Zak Whitbread

etc


Does the same fate apply to Stephen Darby, Jay Spearing, Brouwer, Nemeth and the like?

and given the finances dictate that Liverpool cannot compete for top talent, are we at the start of a slow decline for Liverpool out of the upper echelons of the English game, at least until the owenship is stable enough to permit large scale investment?

I agree with a lot of this post Tighty but I think you have to compare the Arsenal and Man U youth set ups to ours at the time Benitez took over.

Basically if you can, go back and read "Tomkins meets Benitez" from a page or two back which I posted - it has a bit more of an in depth look at the youth setup when Houllier left - and that will highlight that only ONE player from the youth set up under Houllier was deemed to be good enough (Warnock or Guthrie I'm guessing). Basically 50 changes were needed to bring us up to scratch in Benitez's opinion.

I think only now are you starting to see the fruits of Benitez's labour. Insua, N'gog, Nemeth, Ayala and most certainy Pacheco will more than likely have places in some form or other in the future.

Add to this the likes of Barragan, Gonzalez, Paletta, Leto, Casron who have been brought for a pittance and sold for over £15 million and you realise a slight method to the madness maybe....

For the record we were also intested in Diaby, Walcott, Ramsey, Fabio, Rafael but couldn't pay the prices Arsenal/Man U were willing to.

The real problem for Benitez is his record in the 0-£5m market for established players which is poor - Voronin, Kyriagkos etc not good enough. (But then other than Wenger whose isn't?) Again I can offer a flipside though, Sissoko, Nunez, Arbeloa, and in the 5-10m range Bellamy, Crouch, Alonso were all sold for a profit.

Anyway back on topic a little more... I am starting to get happier with some of the youth coming through a few years on and I hope it improves, as you point out it does need to, and considering the £16m net spend per season on average under Benitez (a pittance even compared to Spurs, Villa, City who are apparently not as big as us) I am fairly happy with the first XI too.

My one gripe would be to use the Ayalas and N'gogs of the squad and not bother with the likes of Kyriagkos and Voronin. I know Wenger would even when it means a 4-0 two leg defeat to Man U in the Champions League.

[The Baron]

Tomkins:

Lest some ex-stars forget, one of the oldest Liverpool FC adages is that 'form is temporary, class is permanent'. 
While average players can have good games, and top players have awful games, only the truly gifted achieve the greatest exploits; the things that are won, or awarded, after consistent excellence.
 
It's possible for the best to struggle. It happens all the time. However, it's virtually impossible for the worst to prosper, beyond a brief blazing.
 
Ask Ali Dai, the beyond-hopeless (at Premier League level) non-league player Graeme Souness gave a league outing to at Southampton, in probably the worst case of scouting known to the sport; all it took to sign and play him was the lie of him being a relative of George Weah.
 
(At this time I was also in non-league football. By the time I rang to say that I was Diego Maradona's second cousin once removed, the manager wasn't answering his calls.)
 

 


Average players and managers might have a run of moderate success, but it doesn't last, and it doesn't add up to much.
 
However, my take is that you do not win two La Liga titles, reach two European Cup finals (winning one), and land both the UEFA and FA Cup in an eight-year time-frame – and do so at non-dominant clubs (at the point you arrive) – if you are not special.
 
You also don't come agonisingly close to the league title with a points haul that puts many champions to shame, and do so with a wage bill that detailed economic research (in the book Soccernomics: Why England Lose, and in the Times' Fink Tank section) suggests such feats are all-but impossible, if you are not one of the very best in the business.
 
People with a true understanding of the game only pay attention to long-term trends; in the short-term, anything can happen. (And lately, just about everything has happened.)
 
Do managers pass their sell-by date? Of course.
 
However, it doesn't happen within months of leading a club to its best league season in almost two decades. And in normally needs something dramatic to precipitate it, usually a personal crisis.
 
In 2006, several leading 'experts' on Manchester United felt that after three fallow years, Ferguson had 'lost it'. Alas for us, their board didn't agree. Damn them, too, for not sacking him after a pretty horrendous first four years in charge.
 
One rather eager emailer (oh how they appear to relish the Reds struggles) pointed out to me that this is Liverpool's worst run of results in 22 years. I felt obliged to reply that 22 years ago, Liverpool were rightly regarded as the best team in the land. So it was clear: bad things even happened to them.
 
In other words, he was actually proving my argument for me.
 
It could be argued that as Graeme Souness didn't have a run of games as bad as this, things were better; but overall, out of every 10Liverpool games he managed, Liverpool won approximately four, compared with Benítez's six (and the six of Dalglish and Paisley).
 
So short term trends and stats are one thing; the bigger picture is what counts.
 
Liverpool having an incredibly successful season (by modern standards), is far more revealing than a short-term regression. The problem is in not acknowledging last season for what it was, because of what happened decades ago; it's easy to say that second isn't good enough, but between 1991 and 2004, second would have been lovely.
 
(Also, it's funny how every criticism seems to centre on the number of games Liverpool have lost last season compared with this, when at the time, few people were praising that fact; instead they were saying that the Reds were drawing too many games. As I write, there's not been one single draw this season. Two or three draws, and there'd be no 'crisis')
 
What really disappoints me is ex-players making the kind of unhelpful comments in the media that they themselves detested when they were playing. I've read numerous comments from years ago when the very same players, now making a living being critical, spoke of their strong dislike for such types. Hypocrisy is lovely when it pays well.
 
Another point: league tables do in fact lie. Until game 38, when you've played everyone home and away, they are distorted by the quirks of the fixture list.
 
It is only the long-term picture – the whole season, or collections of seasons – that give a true picture. That's why, come April, the cream has usually risen to the top four.
 
Every season at this time this year there is a panic about one team or other. In the past, it's been Liverpool; last season it was Arsenal.
 
Arsenal are back on track now, but last year there were calls for Arsene Wenger's departure from numerous fans. (Less so the media, many of its members admitting a fondness for him that skews their fairness.)
 
Arsenal lost at home to some really average sides (something Liverpool have yet to do), and had a run where, out of 22 games, they won only eight.
 
Should Wenger, without a trophy dating back to a season before Liverpool's last, and with less league points on average than Benítez over the past four seasons, have been sacked? At the time I said No, that would be ludicrous. Because top managers can have temporary struggles. And they have to be viewed in context.
 
Is Wenger no longer matching his early feats because he's 'lost it', or because the landscape has changed? After all, managers usually get better with experience. So maybe it's the landscape?
 
(By the way, as I write, Manchester City's form over the last seven league games is worse than Liverpool's; yet I've not heard much talk of crisis there, despite £100m+ spent this summer, a £250m squad and a massive wage bill.)
 
What interests me is just how bad the form of very best Liverpool players and managers could sink. We all know how good they could be, but did we also forget how bad they could (temporarily) be?
 
With this in mind, I asked members of my site, The Tomkins Times, to suggest some of the spells their heroes had that, unfortunately, the men in question would rather were forgotten.
 
For instance, Kenny Dalglish, the undisputed King of Liverpool FC: a goalscorer and goal creator whose vision and finishing were a joy to behold. A bona fide genius.
 
Yet, in his absolute pomp, he went a mind-boggling 25 league games without a goal! (From 22 November 1980 until 17 October 1981; courtesy of Graeme Riley, author of the 'Soccerdata' statistics annuals.)
 
Was he therefore not good enough?
 
Then there's Fernando Torres' failure to score at Anfield last season until February, which was partly down to injury, but even so, a real quirk given that he has something like 34 goals in 35 appearances on the ground.
 
If we look only at that run – up to his 9th home game – we can say that he is not good in front of the home crowd, that the packed defences stifle him; look at his entire time at Liverpool, and the exact opposite is undeniably true. That's why the bigger picture is always the most important.
 
In the season before Liverpool won the league for the first time under Bill Shankly, the Reds had a spell of one win in nine league games. Bob Paisley had two runs of no win in seven games, and Joe Fagan had one such streak. Obviously none of these men were sacked. It would have been unthinkable.
 
Indeed, Shankly, having won two championships and the FA Cup in three seasons, then went seven years without winning a single trophy. Do we wish he was sacked in that time? Of course not. Times have changed, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's easier, particularly since the arrival of Abramovich in 2003.
 
Another post on my site, by Neil Dunkin, author of the excellent Anfield of Dreams, mentioned the 1985-86 campaign:
 
"The League seemed a lost cause, especially when Manchester United were 10 points ahead of the pack. But Everton overtook United to top the table, inflicting a 2-0 defeat on our lads at Anfield in March 1986.
 
"That night Hansen went to dinner with Dalglish and told him it was the worst Reds' team he'd played in. Eight weeks later, the worst Reds' team had taken maximum points from 11 of their last 12 League games and done the League and Cup double."
 
However, just as an individual player can struggle if not 100 per cent, then it stands to reason that a side missing six or seven first team players, as well as some of their understudies, will be no different from a player carrying a knock. That's not an excuse, that's a fact of football life.
 
Ferguson had that problem a few years ago when Paul Scholes, in his prime, missed the season; he cited it as a reason for their failure. Chelsea have struggled when missing John Terry, or last season, when lacking Didier Drogba and Michael Essien. A squad can never be limitless in its depth and quality; even the uber-squads we're now seeing.
 
So, class is permanent.
 
Alas, so is the criticism from people whose own achievements in the field are not even comparable. Or maybe I missed Tony Cascarino and Stan Collymore's coruscating careers in coaching and management?

[The Baron]

Written in anger by Tompkins but it pretty much sums up what I feel about the English press right now:

My main problem as an observer of football and its media coverage is just how easy criticism is.  
In light of this, it's hard to get facts across. I don't defend Benítez for the sake of it; there are ex-Liverpool managers (okay, probably only one) about whose time in charge I can find precious little positive to say.
  
I had that problem when writing Dynasty, which covers the last 50 years of Liverpool FC. I did point out some positive aspects of every manager's reign, and I listed extenuating circumstances for the travails each might have faced, where applicable.
  
However, no matter how I looked at things, I saw five excellent managers – Shankly, Paisley, Fagan, Dalglish and Benítez – plus two very good ones, in Evans and Houllier, and one well adrift of the rest: Graeme Souness.
  
It's not always been possible for Liverpool to win trophies, or finish in the top two. But the good managers averaged a 50% win rate, and the top managers were up around the 60% mark.
  
Souness, who spent the most money (relatively speaking – I converted all fees over the 50 years to a common system to deal with football-based inflation), fared the worst, at around 40%.
  
(Incidentally, Shankly averaged only 52%. But he took over at the weakest point in the club's post-war history, meaning he would clearly make a slower start. He also acknowledged that he let his first great team stay together too long, as part of seven fallow seasons; something he atoned for by building a second great team, just before his departure.)
  

 


Since writing Dynasty, Benítez has actually increased his win percentage, due to last season's fantastic efforts, and Liverpool rose to be the #1 ranked team in Europe based on five years' worth of results.
  
So it is with this kind of context that I make my judgements. Six bad games, or even sixteen, don't define a manager; at least, they shouldn't.
  
Maybe it is the amount of research and analysis I put into projects such as Dynasty that help me see things more clearly than the vast majority of the media, who are so obviously not putting in that kind of effort.
  
And it's why I find so much criticism of the game's best managers (especially the foreign ones) so unjust. Because baseless criticism is just so easy.
  
Some examples:
  
Against Manchester United, Torres was removed at 1-0 and his replacement, N'Gog, scored the game-killer in injury time.
  
Away at Lyon, with the same situation (1-0 margin, star striker nursing an injury), the same change was made, albeit about seven minutes later in the game. This time the opposition scored a last-minute equaliser that should have been defended better by the men in position.
  
Some said that the Lyon centre-back, who played a part in the goal, only went forward at the end because Torres was not there.
  
Which is some statement, given that all losing teams send extra numbers forward in the final minute of a game in which they are one goal behind. What have they got to lose? United did the same at Anfield; Liverpool broke and sealed the victory as a result.
  
But if you have it in for a manager, you can criticise anything he does; you shape your agenda around any result, irrespective of the performance or the realities of his decision making.
  
For example, Torres stays on in Lyon and exacerbates the injury. Then Benítez is a fool for risking him.
  
Some have said that a defender should have been brought on instead of N'Gog. If that happens, and a 1-0 is secured: no comment on the substitution. Yet concede a goal with such a move, and you've been too negative.
  
Who can say for sure that an extra defender will have the desired effect and provide greater insurance? It can mean retreating and conceding ground; it's a risk with pros and cons. Who's to say that bringing on a striker will lead to more goals, or instead cause you to concede because everyone wasn't behind the ball?
  
There's no right and wrong way; at least not without hindsight to judge.
  
What I find remarkable in all the criticism of Benítez is that his previous record supposedly counts for nothing.
  
Stats, such as having won 1.93 league points per game as Liverpool manager – the exact same figure as Alex Ferguson in his 23 years at United – count for nothing because of a handful of defeats this season. Because of a few recent struggles, some geniuses out there think he should be sacked; no excuses.
  
Of course, by that token, Ferguson should have been sacked by United in the ‘80s; no excuses. Where would that have left them?
  
Wenger, after just eight wins in the first 22 league games of last season, should also have been sacked; no excuses. And yet look at Arsenal now. What good would that have done them? Seriously, can someone tell me? (And Wenger's league record is worse than Benítez's in the past few seasons.)
  
In 2003, Everton finished 7th under David Moyes. A year later, they finished 17th. Therefore, by the logic of Rafa's critics, he should have been sacked; no excuses. How can you drop ten places and expect to survive?
  
This season, critics said that Liverpool can lose more, but mustn't draw too many. But as soon as two defeats were reached, last season's incredibly low defeats tally was now being used as a tool to criticise.
  
Up until last season, Liverpool, we were told, must beat the big teams. It's okay beating little teams, but until the Reds can beat the likes of United and Chelsea regularly in the league, they will always be considered unworthy. Last season Liverpool did that; then it was the little teams they had to concentrate on beating.
  
(And let's face it, if you beat all the big teams, and all the little teams, and all the teams in between, you'd have the best team in history. No-one has ever done that.)
  
Be more attacking; Benítez's teams are too cautious, we were told. Then last season the Reds were the league's top scorers, and were until recently. But as soon as there's a few low-scoring games, the accusation returns; even though numerous attacking talents were injured.
  
Any other manager (who hasn't won the league since 2004) would be praised for getting to 86 points and finishing 2nd; in 2007/08, Arsene Wenger was praised to the hilt for the progress of his Arsenal side, which finished 3rd, with 83 points.
  
Until last season, Benítez was told he'd spent too much time buying squad players (even though the squad needed a complete overhaul), and should have spent more money on the first XI.
  
Now, with Liverpool having a strongest XI that I believe is as good as any team in England, the squad is too weak. Yet I don't see how he can do it all.
  
The group would be stronger if some excellent squad players wished to stay; but players like Crouch and Keane felt themselves to be too good for the bench. That's their call.
  
So, Rafa ‘shouldn't have sold Robbie Keane'. Yet as soon as Keane left in January, Liverpool's goals-per-game ratio virtually doubled. The Reds were top scorers again this season until a few weeks ago, but of course, with so many players out, something will always be missing.
  
It's easy to say that Crouch and Keane should be there now; less easy to explain how to keep them happy if Torres and Gerrard were fit every game.
  
Rafa ‘should never have sold Alonso', yet David Moyes was told he had to get rid of ‘want away' Lescott; he had no option.
  
If players want to move on, you can't force them to have a change of heart. Both managers made huge profits on players who had also served their Merseyside clubs so brilliantly, yet Moyes was ‘doing what was necessary', and Benítez was ‘an idiot'.
  
Moyes has also got a lot of sympathy of late for his injury crisis; Benítez has had pretty much zero compassion or understanding directed his way.
  
Liverpool, we hear, are a ‘two man' team. They were also a ‘two man team' last season, and that didn't include Alonso.
  
Yet four of the current squad (Torres, Gerrard, Mascherano and Reina) are in the current top 60 players in the world, as voted by an expert panel for FourFourTwo magazine. (And I still don't know how you can rack up 86 points when you're a two man team, and one of those men is only fit to start half the matches.)
  
Apparently Benítez does not buy good players. Yet of those current top 60 players in the world, four were signed for Liverpool by Benítez, and each has had their best years as a player under him. (Alonso is included – his reputation was obviously created at Anfield.) Pepe Reina is listed as the world's 3rd-best keeper, and Javier Mascherano is the world's best holding midfielder.
  
The average cost of those four ‘top 60' signings (Torres, Mascherano, Reina and Alonso) is £14m; not cheap, but still well below half of the British transfer record.
  
Now, Alex Ferguson has six signings in the top 60. However, two of those (Ferdinand and Ronaldo) were signed before 2004, and a third, Rooney, was signed that summer, before Benítez had barely warmed his seat or assessed his squad.
  
(Ronaldo, like Alonso, left England this summer, but as with Alonso, his reputation was gained here.)
  
More crucially, those six players cost United an average of £19m, and as it dates back further, cost even more in a ‘real' sense.
  
Apparently Benítez doesn't buy well under £10m, but Reina, Agger, Benayoun, Kuyt, Skrtel, Riera, Insua, Crouch, Garcia, Sissoko, Lucas, Aurelio and Arbeloa all cost less than that amount.
  
A year ago everyone was criticising Benítez for wasting money on Yossi Benayoun. Now those ‘experts' fail to acknowledge the canniness in paying just £5m for such a clever player.
  
Incredibly, signing Fernando Torres is now being redefined as a ‘no brainer', whereas at the time many doubts were voiced and eyebrows raised about a player who was not believed to be a prolific goalscorer, moving to a new country. So even that masterstroke gets downgraded to a decision a monkey could have made. Well, no wonder you can criticise a manager, if you're making it up as you go along.
  
These are the things that irritate me, and so many people I've spoken to, who have told me that they will stop buying newspapers as a result.
 

[The Baron]

In 2003, Everton finished 7th under David Moyes. A year later, they finished 17th. Therefore, by the logic of Rafa's critics, he should have been sacked; no excuses. How can you drop ten places and expect to survive?
  

Everton finished 4th the season after this too, to put icing on the point.

[sovietsong]

rafa's getting sacked in the morning?

[maldini32]

Fuck me

[Colchester Kev]

Fuck me

Birmingham are !

[booder]

Can't see Lyon beating winning in Florence, especially as they've now qualified.  sigh.

Yeah, very doubtful, and it's not like we're a lock to beat Fiorentina at home right now either!

I'm at the game next week against Brum in the league.

Sure am confident about that one!

Hope it's better than the last one Dan

It couldn't be worse, could it?

[chrisbruce]

I hope that dive earns him a long ban

Very very sad