I AM drenched and broadly speaking lost, trying to get back from Manchester after having discussed Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat to Manchester United live to a nation who would prefer it if I didn’t swear or blaspheme. Bar one shout of “God in heaven” (I became my dad when I was five) I did alright considering it could be the most frustrating football match I have ever seen.
BBC Sport in Manchester is what the future looks like. You could set a phenomenal sci-fi there. Everyone was very nice, you’ll be pleased to learn.
Everything about the game did my head in. The team selection (i.e. Jones and Lovren), Liverpool’s decision making after carrying it brilliantly, the missed chances, the saves, United not being very good at anything which doesn’t directly involve the goal, the shape and really, trust me, I could go on and when that is the case at a time when fundamentally amongst all this the need to form coherent sentences in overbearingly present when all you want to say is: “Fucknhgsfbruntingsmashtheprickstopshootingfuckingthinkfuckingthinkfuckbastard.”
BRAD JONES DOING MY HEAD IN (PROPAGANDA PHOTOS – DAVID RAWCLIFFE)
I’m cold and wet and have a headache which feels like it could become a nosebleed and am on a tram to god knows where surrounded by United supporters and I haven’t had a drink. I haven’t had a drink. This needs resolving urgently. As does the fact I am hungry having not eaten since breakfast. My plans have been slapdash at best. They haven’t been thorough. Some of the United supporters on the tram are playing each other the goals. This isn’t helping. Others are talking about how “oddly good” Liverpool were. “Oddly good.” Hmmm. Something. Anything? Nothing.
What do you say about this football match? On the tram thinking about its oddness. United had their third meaningful attack just after Liverpool had their third clear cut chance and after that passage of play which took place early in the second half Liverpool were still 2-0 down. But you know this. You know a goal has been given that shouldn’t have been. I could slaughter the linesman, but what would be the point? You know about the misses. You know about the fact that in the eighty yards between either area Liverpool were the better side, for seventy minutes at least. You know that Gerrard and Juan Mata were passengers, that Moreno broadly speaking couldn’t settle, that Henderson broadly speaking could. You know that too much of Liverpool’s decision making was poor but their carrying it through the middle third was excellent You know all this and this is why match reports are now defunct. You’ve seen the football match. You lived it. It presumably hurt, unless you are here rubbernecking.
The biggest fundamental issue with this game for Liverpool 2014/15 is the games it has followed. They took their chances, we didn’t, neither side good enough to challenge for honours, both sides should have too much in attack for most. United came into it with five wins. Liverpool unbeaten in five but never, not for a second, not a split second looking like a side which have too much for most in attack. Liverpool looked a completely different side today to the one whose first halves have been more leaden and blunt than unsharpened pencils. Yet they’ve emerged with a scoreline which tells you everything and nothing. The games this game has follows means its positives mean less, its negatives mean so much more. It being a return to something lost amongst the endless online white noise about a manager supposedly unwilling to change and compromise who has been actually changing and compromising himself out of relevance.
I find Manchester constantly difficult. I don’t know why this is. I can never nail its geography. This doesn’t make it a bad place, I never know where I am in South Liverpool either. These weaknesses are most definitely mine. I enjoy the tram, secretly, I enjoy listening to them talk as we talk about the game. They rate Sterling. Good. So they should.
ST PETER’S SQUARE. DRY!
Finally I’m at St Peter’s Square. I know where that is. I can see the Palace Theatre. I push on thinking about everything and nothing, think about what has brought us to this juncture. To this pickle. And what unpickles us. I’ve had the following article by Paul Tomkins in my head since I read it; you need to read that article because without it the remainder of this might not make all that much sense. As soon as I finished reading that article, I thought about what next, what’s gone, where’s the move, what do you do? Who do you get in touch with? Today’s result and performance throws it into greater focus for a variety of reasons. One is that it puts United ten points ahead of us in the race for a Champions League place. Secretly, I don’t really care about the race for a Champions League place. Just like I can’t be bothered with the league cup. Keep that to yourself.
But the main reason why that article is in my head as I get a Sainsbury’s meal deal is that today’s game is yet another example of the “be better in both boxes” theory and how that should impact upon your budget and your managerial decisions. Just be better in both boxes. If you are, then week in, week out in this league especially you’ll have to be a mess to not win. Manchester United weren’t a mess today, but they weren’t a million miles away from mess. Indeed, last season Liverpool were predominantly better in just one box, forget the other one. And it was mostly enough. It got them closer than anything had for twenty years.
On the train, just before my phone dies I reflect on the fact I have undergone a conversion on this and now I have the zeal of a convert. For years I was an advocate of the one nil. The two nil. The controlled win. Win the game in midfield and go from there. Grind your results out. Get grinding. That was the way to do it. That was the Liverpool Way. Because it was. When Brendan Rodgers arrived he spoke about Liverpool’s attacking football tradition and I thought, “Hang on a minute,” because what tradition? Yes, Liverpool have had a ton of sides who have attacked well but since we were winning European Cups we were very much about constantly reinventing pragmatism. Only really 87/88 and the Evans era stood against that.
My phone dies somewhere around Warrington and I read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Then I record the podcast, four men shouting at each other and laughing and raging because they are thirty something and would fucking love to win the league.
TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, NONSENSE
I continue this on a rainy Monday morning, trying to catalogue a ton of these thoughts, most of which are probably wrong. Last season, or rather Brendan Rodgers’s Liverpool since January 2013 changed my outlook, changed a lot of our outlooks. Pieces such as Paul’s excellent one which you had best have read if you are here, merely compound it. Yet the signs were there before then January 2013, for example, Alex Ferguson’s continual refusal to even attempt to buy an elite centre midfielder since Michael Carrick around 2006. When all conventional footballing logic said buy one he didn’t, resulting in him signing Van Persie in his final season and winning Manchester United their twentieth title. Better in both boxes. Since 2009 they rarely troubled Europe, bar getting to a Wembley final and getting embarrassed by an incredible Barcelona who took that lack of midfield quality and played them off the park, but, you know, twenty titles and that. A good thing, not a bad one.
The sort of noise made about Liverpool last season is that it was a freak season. Well, yes. Liverpool nearly won the league, surging from seventh to second, against all the odds, and went into the last game of it with a chance of winning the title for the first time in over twenty years. It would have to be a freak season with freak outcomes for us to win the title in the current situation. That’s the very point of Paul’s article. That’s the very point of last season. Liverpool either stumbled or decided (and I think decided) on a freakish way to rejig the game. Goals. Liverpool didn’t lose the league because they couldn’t defend, they nearly won it because they gambled it goals and they did so in a manner this league has very rarely seen.
There are two conversations about elite level football going on in this country. Or rather, there is one conversation with a second one, typified by Paul, trying to break through. The main one suggests Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Everton are all playing the same game. That they need constantly to all obey the same rules. Be strong, good at the back, good in possession, good out of possession. That you build, it takes time but you build and build and finally you break into the top four or into the title picture by playing the same game as everyone else.
The issue with that is that those who control the money get to rig the game. (Oh, when football imitates life…) They get to do conventional far better than anyone else can. And events, dear boy, events. Events knock the steady building off course. But that doesn’t matter within that main conversation which is ongoing, on 5Live and Talk Sport right now, on messageboards and in newspapers. You are measured against the conventional and of course the playing field is discussed as pretty much level.
That conversation, that convention, got its head kicked in last season.
And that should be the very point of Brendan Rodgers and, according to their own advance press, FSG. To be freaks.
Having been freakish there was a desire to revert to convention this summer. To do the balanced squad. To make the football more like everyone else’s. After all, the wisdom was, you can’t go on like that. There’s an issue in this here. No one wants to be the freaks. Brendan Rodgers wants to be an elite football manager like the other elite managers. You know the ones. Liverpool’s players don’t want the stress of being the freaks. Many of Liverpool’s supporters don’t want it either. They either grew up watching conventional dominance or Benitez and Houllier. Plus, understandably, the thing about freak seasons is that they are freakish.
However, I might be wrong. I often am. I’m probably outnumbered. Because the main question the discourse around the club and the summer business and last season begs, is what do we want Liverpool to do? What are we asking for? Not just us, but those running the club, the owners and the management down to Rodgers? What do we all want?
I understand people who don’t want to have lows and highs, who just want to turn up and expect Liverpool to be competitive and good and make sense every week. I understand the idea of trying to build progressively, conventionally. I understand that football is as much about days as it is about seasons. I understand that football teams can be very frustrating when they aren’t just doing the thing that you do. I understand that in the hyper-emotive world of being a footballer supporter in the twenty first century losing, taking gambles and losing, as Liverpool did against Manchester United (but didn’t against Sunderland) hurts. There is no escape from football. Not the game, there is always escape from the game, but from the talk about football. I mean, of course I know that. The BBC paid me money yesterday to be part of that problem. I have a podcast coming out today to be part of that problem. This very thing you are reading on this very website is part of that problem. So do one, Atkinson.
THE LEAGUE
I know what I want. I want to win the league. I want nothing else. I want every decision Liverpool Football Club take to be about winning the league. And unless there is a massive injection of money, then how does that happen? Only being getting into extremes. And that’s why I wouldn’t have Brendan Rodgers leave Liverpool in any but the most extreme circumstances. Not because he has shown he is the best manager in the world. But because he has shown he can do, create and deal in the extremes, it’s easy to put last season down to Suarez, but it’s Rodgers who has shown he can improve footballers – especially young footballers – markedly across the pitch (tactically it’s more accurate to put the improvement since January 2013 down to Daniel Sturridge anyway) and organise them to play in a way which leads to goals being scored in huge quantities. This is an extreme. This is rejigging the game. And it is only in the extreme and in the freakish where this football club will win the league unless something profound and structural changes. But Brendan Rodgers needs to commit to that. There’s no point being a conventional manager if you are Brendan Rodgers. Don’t worry about organising a defence. Don’t have an expensive defence. Just a really good goalkeeper and an attack. Commit to being Brendan Rodgers. And Liverpool need to commit to that, if that indeed is what they want.
If they, we, you, want fourth places, want slow builds, want five year plans (by the way, Arsenal are in year ten of their five year plan to crash the monied elite’s party) they maybe let’s have a talk about someone or something else. If you want F72 A35 and 74 points then, yep, this might not be the one. Whenever I ask for an opening question someone always goes “Would you take 84 points?” Funny these lads. Because the point of the question was always would you take a certain CL place or gamble on a title. I’d gamble on a title. By the end of the season all but four other of our regular contributors were taking the CL place. I’d gamble on the title and the only way the title comes is by being unconventional. The problem with being unconventional is you do so in a conventional universe. You get judged on conventional terms. So if it goes wrong then you have a situation.
As I say, I might be wrong. I am probably outnumbered.
And that’s why the United game and the enormous frustration is about when it is as much as the performance. Six weeks ago, it points the way. It’s unconventional. It’s a different approach. It backs its players and those players, in turn, show commitment and back its approach. They work for each other, they press, they beat men, they show pace. They just lack what you need in both boxes despite also lacking poor decision making. Now? Convention is coming for you. It wants its revenge.
Both boxes. If you are committed to Brendan Rodgers then you are committed to the idea of doing the unconventional, doing the attacking, whether Brendan Rodgers likes it or not. Therefore don’t spend 15 million pounds on a young left back when you have just achieved the freakish with Aly Cissokho and Jon Flanagan as your options. You’ve just demonstrated you don’t need that. Put the money in the penalty areas and especially the attacking one. This isn’t about Moreno’s level, it’s about what has been shown to work. Even if that’s what Brendan Rodgers wants, you shouldn’t give it to him. If he is your manager it is for your own good and for his.
It’s for his good and for Liverpool’s good because he’s been the best manager of a big club and developing and improving young players and getting them on the pitch in the last three years. The be better in both boxes approach makes sense because Rodgers has shown he can do midfields and full backs, to the point that the investment in the squad can be dominated by investment in goals (what doesn’t go on goals can go on goalkeepers). Scouting this isn’t hard. Buy proven centre forward talent with goals to their names and don’t worry about value. Forget value. I don’t care about value. I care about winning the league. Only winning the league.
I’m in a Sainsbury’s buying a meal deal. I’m talking to Bearded Genius. I’m watching a mediocre Manchester United beat Liverpool 3-0. I’m on a tram. I’m lost. I’m ringing Brockle asking her to plot me a course home. I’m soaking wet. I’m doing a podcast. I’m waking up on a Monday morning. And all I’m thinking is I want to win the league. I say it to myself absentmindedly. Just do that. I don’t care about anything else. Just win the league. Be better in both boxes.
We’ve come to a crossroads. If we’re going with unconventional we need to do it wholeheartedly, across all levels of the club. We need to commit to it as much as we can. If we’re going with steady building then commit to that. You know which I prefer. Which one do you want?
That was Ace! Unconventional for me
Fully agree, why did we have to ‘play by the rules’ and build a squad. I understand the reasons, but why us?
It’s almost impossible for us to beat City and Chelsea at their own game, the squad game that neil refers to. People couldn’t cope with our idea last season, head were gone before a ball was kicked. Go mental for 20 mins, game’s won.
Unfortunately Neil , I can’t see a world were this ever happens. The conventions and ways to win you elude to are here to stay.
Brendan and Liverpool should have stuck to what we did best. We were random, wrong… we were tricky!
Hi
Have you heard anything about Daniel sturridge returning to Man City this January,a colleague of mine overhead a conversation,that aguerro is out for longer than thought and sturridge is not champions league tied (on purpose)?
I’d say that is complete and utter bollocks, not that it really needs to be said
My mantra is always play to your strengths, ours is gung ho attack supported by…..little else. I never want to support a Mourinho style approach, yes it works in that mind numbing, cynical way that makes you hate the game despite privately admiring the success rate, but then he can afford to be like this given the resources at his disposal. Basically we are not in that group of clubs who can buy who they want and get the elite level coaches that they want i.e. Real, Barca, Bayern and to some extent United (Chelsea,PSG and City now belong to this group purely because of their financial clout) and therefore have a better than 50% chance of winning things every year, we are what we are so I agree with you Neil we should aim to surprise and play with a joie de vivre so at least the ride is fun – and believe me I know a lot of Bayern fans who spend 80% of the season bored to tears. I know this sounds defeatist but let’s get real, go for it and succeed or fail gloriously…it’s that or turn in to Tottenham….
I don’t think Real Madrid fans or players were particularly enamoured by Mourinho’s shit on a stick either.
Awesome. I’m on board.
Juan Mata? A passenger?
guessing you haven’t yet seen replays of the RvP goal, where he sent your entire defence scuttling in the wrong direction with a single glance.
He may have made himself comfortable for much of the journey, but he knows when to stand up and drive the train.
Gerard on the other hand, fell asleep in the bog just after they passed Edge Hill.
That’s like making a kitten chase a reflection on the floor… It’s really not that difficult
Still don’t know what Lovren was doing. Nobody around him.. could have taken a touch… passes directly to Mata…
Really hope Rodgers is given the time to turn this around. It’s the one thing we don’t give any managers nowadays but given our buying strategy it’s exactly what BR needs.
Think Mignolet might have saved Rooney’s strike.. or dived in the right direction.
I sort of felt that way about Moyes for a time last year, but time to do what? turn things round or take the club down into the championship?
Face it, 9 months ago Rodgers had no ocean liner to turn round, it was all full steam ahead. The only thing he’s done is start to slam the anchors on. Can you afford to let him finish the job?
The United starting 11 you trounced in March was arguably stronger than the one that started yesterday. NONE of the LvG signings were available and he picked from the same (or weaker) pool as Moyes. The liverpool starting 11 again a lot of commonality with March, obviously ol’ donkey chops has gone, but THIS much weaker across the board? so quickly?
So what changed? Is Van Gaal now getting the best out of the same players who played so abysmally last season? or is Rodgers just doing the opposite? Or a lot of both?
Rodgers sold one of the best players in the world- OK he may not have had much choice, but he then spent much of the proceeds on 3 players who weren’t even the best at Southampton. You REALLY think he needs more time to finish the job?
Give him a 9 year contract i say.
This is a pretty depressing but not terrible viewpoint. Sturridge is also out so the entire strike force of last season is gone, but overall the side should be much better. I don’t believe it was all SAS last season, and Brendan has been afraid to deploy that tricky strategy from last year, but don’t kid yourself. Liverpool were the better team, they just couldn’t finish, and De Gea had a world class performance. I do believe that with Sturridge in that side yesterday, we win.
I appreciate you taking the time to console us on our website and all but if you swap De Gea for Jones that game finishes 3-0 to us. Not much Brendan can do about that until January, when we will hopefully sign a half decent keeper and striker.
Everyone is going either for Rodgers or the Transfer committee or both but I have thought that since the transfer committee has come in we have always been linked with decent deals they just haven’t gone through. Not sure who carries the can for that but the way that Ian Ayre likes to boast from time to time makes me think he has more than a bit to answer for.
There is an essential truth in what you say about our only possibility of winning the league short of FSG selling out to some bored sheikh. It would have to be an unconventional approach that paid off in spades to get us close. Copying what City and Chelsea do with less money means you finish behind both, even if you finish 3rd and 15pts ahead of fourth. But freakish performances demand freakish players, not just freakish tactics and formations, and we currently don’t possess sufficient quantities of them. We could buy them, of course, but it would take iron conkers for any manager to go to his board with a plan that amounted to: “we’re going to play batshit crazy football and see if it comes off”.
On the game, I don’t actually buy that we were worse in our own box than Utd were in theirs. They were all over the place at times and were singularly incapable of passing the ball backwards without gifting us at least a half-chance. I suppose factoring in De Gea alters the equation, but on a purely defensive measure they were worse than us.
Not finishing your chances is not bad luck per se, but at least some of our finishing – or attempted finishes – were at worst okay. The best keepers make saves with all parts of their body, but no keeper sets out with the intention of making saves with legs and feet. De Gea made at least 5 saves with trailing legs, knees and goodness knows what else yesterday. As I say, all good keepers do this, but the fact he had to make saves of this kind necessarily implies that the attempts by Sterling and Balotelli et al were not all grievous misses or examples of horrendous finishing. Jones is copping it for committing himself on a couple of occasions but once from Balotelli and once from Sterling De Gea has gone the wrong way and been saved by a trailing leg. Once more, that’s good keeping, but also laced with a degree of good fortune. These saves, together with the absurd non-offside decision amount to a non-trivial amount of bad luck for us yesterday.
Completing a fair and objective analysis means acknowledging where you lucked out as much as it does admitting where you screwed up.
The first goal is mostly Coutinho’s fault for not tracking Rooney (or rather giving up on tracking Rooney) and partially Lallana’s for failing to double-up on Valencia. Allen has Valencia squared up, Lallana is near enough to ensure he’s covering behind in classic doubling-up defensive style, but instead stands the other side of Valencia meaning if the winger can beat Allen, he’s in. And that’s exactly what happened. Point here is: it’s poor defending, but not by the defence.
The second goal is Moreno’s error. If you’re left-back and they score from someone creeping in behind at you at back post when you have no other distraction centrally, it’s your fault. Of course, 87 times out of 100 the goal is ruled offside and we’re not discussing it now…see above re the point about luck.
The third goal does include a poor clearance from Lovren, but we’re stretched and chasing the game and they break on a 3-on-3. We’re only in that situation because of what’s come before (where that includes missing a host of opportunities to not only be in the game, but to be leading it).
Defenders play better when the team is scoring goals. Defending when you score first in games, or when you otherwise have leads, is easier. It just is. I’m not just talking about the obvious – such as you won’t be caught on a 3-on-3 counter when you’re leading or drawing a game away at one of your main rivals with minutes to go – but just the added confidence that being in winning positions gives the team. Things were slightly different last year in that our defensive frailties were a direct function of our approach to attack, but generally speaking defenders are more relaxed and confident when the ball is going in at the other end.
In short, we’re not great defensively, but we’re better than we look currently due to everything else that is happening in the team, specifically the lack of goalpower. We didn’t lose yesterday because we couldn’t keep the ball out; we lost because we couldn’t get the ball in.
Was it Coutinhos job to track Rooney considering Coutinho was playing wide right, Rooney was their attacking midfielder and we had Gerrard and Allen playing centremid??!! Bit harsh on Coutinho I think, he could have done better but it shouldn’t have been him there in the first place.
Rooney was playing a deep midfield role in a 3-4-1-2. Considering Allen was covering the left flank against Valencia and Gerrard was deeper due to us being in a deep block at the time, it most defy was Coutinho’s responsibility to track a late runner through the middle.
If it was Young that scored then I’d say nobody fault but Coutinhos but it was Rooney, a centre mid. Where was our centremid??
Because Coutinho was there he should have done better but in our formation it wasn’t Coutinhos job to be there! That’s why I believe it’s harsh.
Thought Carra’s broadside was a bit harsh. Yes Coutinho should have tracked his runner, but Gerrard’s done that throughout his career with very little criticism from the pundits.
This Paul – Gerrard is in no mans land – he’s vaguely tracking the ball with no need to as there were 3 of our players – he was not aware of the huge amount of space he was leaving or any runners.
Not really having this Neil. I get what you are trying to say but it doesn’t matter if you have the best keeper in the world – with no protection in front we will still conceed goals. You can have the best striker in the world – if he doesn’t get the ball, whats the point? Yes totally agree with being better in both boxes, 100%, but the middle bit is just as important.
If you want to go back to last season, what worked was a front 2 with Sterling behind playing central. Sunday must have been the 5th different formation we have played since Spurs – none have been the diamond that worked so well.
Play 2 recognised strikers, play Sterling central in behind. do it for 5 games on the bounce. Can’t be any worse than it is at the moment.
But the diamond hasn’t worked without Sturridge, and teams have all worked out how to get at Gerrard in the deeper lying role as well.
Always a good read, Neil. And boss podcast.
The thrust of your piece is that if you can defend a bit better, and score occasionally, you will win more football matches.
It’s a simple equation which has underpinned the world’s greatest football sides. And so it’s just indefensible that we didn’t address this in the Summer.
Funnily enough, we’re not far off being good again, there were plenty of moments where we dominated, but just lightweight up front as has been mentioned ad nauseam.
It’s just a worry that BR doesn’t quite have the answers. Lucas and Kolo instead of Allen and Lovren all day for me, and somehow find a place for Can. Markovic is going to be great, I have no doubt about that.
But Lovren is really poor, sad to say, and shows absolutely no signs of getting his confidence back. He also brings out the worst in Skrtl. And we are now desperate for a mobile young striker before Origi comes in. Oh, and a top-class goalie. (Jones cannot dive to his left, he assumes every striker is hitting it to his right so he might as well dive there in advance). With Mignolet and Lovren, we will win precisely nothing.
Rodgers doesn’t want the best lineup – he wants the lineup that he wants. What a player needs to be a Rodgers player is not clear: Sakho is not one. Reina was not one. Lucas is not one. Can seems not to be one. Borini used to be one but is not one. Allen IS one. Johnson IS one. And what manager tells a player he is dropped ‘indefinitely’?
“Indefinitely” sounds harsh, but it only means Rodgers hasn’t defined how long it is going to be.
If jones continues to have a mare, Mignolet will be back soon enough. If he doesn’t I suspect he could on the bench a long time, as we might (please) see another keeper coming in Jan.
Totally Agreed. We need to be unconventional. I don’t understand why Rodgers abandoned last season’s philosphy. If we play like we did against Man Utd, we will win more than we lose, and we won’t come across a world class keeper like that again. All we need are match winners, forget the midfield and defence, get a world class keeper and a world class striker and we will me moving up the league. I still back Rodgers to turn it round.
The players look disinterested come matchday, and have done all season. Makes you wonder just how rotten things are at the club.
Gotta agree on the mantra of “be better in both boxes!”
Problem is though who do we trust at the club to do that.
Under the current regime we have brought in Mignolet, Lovren, Kolo, Moreno, Ilori, Sakho, Manquillo to be better defensively in our box and to be better in their box we’ve brought in Sturridge, Borini, Balotelli, Lambert, Aspas, Yesil. Very very few of those players improve us in either box.
Had we had last season’s strikeforce we’d have won 6-3 yesterday, but we don’t and we lost 3 nil!
I’m all for us going with the unconventional, but Brendan has already moved away from this with his selections prior to yesterday. 4 CMs vs Basel for crying out loud! That’s my worry!
Talk of dressing room unrest etc, Gerrard’s contract, a pair of hapless GKs, Johnson starting every game regardless, the defence not being able to defend, Brendan tells us he knows the problems… but the solutions have not been forthcoming.
Brendan has to be a ballsy with his lineups as he is when questioned about his position as Liverpool Manager.
Play our best finisher Steven Gerrard up front – no defensive responsibility – just tell him to do what comes naturally! Let Sterling, Coutinho, Markovic, Lallana off the leash. Play Emre Can (period!) Use Moreno and Henderson as wing backs and play our 2 best CBs in Sakho and Toure! Play whichever GK you want!
Great article Neil
As a club we’ve always been mad we just never realized it. Shanks was mad but we embraced the madness, you play to your strength and try to solve your weakness, however, since your greatest strength can also cause your greatest weakness you just have to play to your strength and hope its good enough.
Last year we moved on, we no longer played crushing football we just went out to score more goals because we were good at it and we let in loads because we put more effort in to scoring and we have a dodgy keeper.
Yesterday the madness returned and we lost, but we could have scored 5 and if we had, united would not have scored 3. Under Rodgers we will concede goals but hopefully score more but for this to work we need proven goalscorers and a new goalie would help.
It is far from doom and gloom, we just need another world class strikers and we would scare the hell out of every team.
Crap in both boxes, I agree, they took their chances we didn’t, could of been 3-3. In our current state I liked the idea of the false 9.
We defended like we have for 3 years now, like chumps. The first goal was a catalogue of defensive errors from out wide, to not tracking back and Jones making it easy for Rooney by gambling and going early instead of setting himself as De Gae did for the 1 on 1 with Stirling and forcing the striker to think a bit more. 2nd goal complete joke. 3rd goal WFT, just comical defending.
For the me the basis of good Liverpool sides has been built from the back through the spine with flair up front and out wide. The idea that defending is an outdated idea is great if you happen to have Bale, Ronaldo, Suarez or Messi at your disposal.
Rodgers has some currency because of what we did last year, but we no longer have world class players up front. To have that idea with no threat up front is going to leave us where we are and probably going to top 50 plus goals against this season which is Hodgson form.
Let’s have a bit of perspective here about not being arsed about qualifying for CL, Europa League, League, FA Cup. If we lose in the league cup then staff at the club on zero hour contracts are going to start losing their jobs.
Is there staff at the club on zero hour contracts??!!
Shanks would be turning in his grave!
Exactly.
This is brilliant
Gerrard is a passenger and no longer our best or even second best option in any position. He should be an impact sub at best.
The manager’s selection made no sense whatsoever. He dropped Lucas and Toure when they should’ve been the first names on the team after recent performances. The first goal comes from nobody policing the area that comes natural to Lucas (apart from Allen getting megged).
The decision to bring Lovren back in was just indefensible (like our goal when he’s around). I’d love to hear the rationale.
And as for Jones… While everone was rightly critical of Mignolet recently there were very few suggesting Jones should come in, which says a lot about his abilities, ably demonstrated yesterday. To drop Mignolet ever for Jones, and perhaps especially after he did ok in his own way in the last couple of games was really unusual and really poor timing.
All that aside, I don’t believe we’re miles away from being a lot better. The effort yesterday was good and at least we pressed well mostly. Sturridge fit, an able understudy/partner, and a new goalkeeper goes a long way to improving us. Playing Lucas as our base in every important game, until we can improve the position, is another step in the right direction. Making Gerrard an impact sub from here on is another step. Let’s see Markovic start a few games instead.
Spot on.
Lovren put in a relatively competent performance against Basle, and Toure was coming back from a groin injury. The selection made sense from that point of view – just. Also in relation to Lucas, he is only 80% of the player he was pre injuries and has been playing a lot recently. Furthermore in a system with 3 centre halfs you shouldn’t need to be relying on a defensive mid to police that area of the pitch.
Completely agree with you about the Jones selection being a crazy decision.
And finally, Markovic should be our impact sub. Have him on the bench for every game and bring him on around 60 in his preferred position. Last season of 19 matches he started he only finished 9 and scored 2 goals. In the 7 matches where he came on, he scored 3 goals.
There are just a fucking joke run by a coown.
SO hoping that was meant to say ‘clown’.
I don’t normally write such football bollocks like this but after yesterday’s game there’s some points I feel need making. Under Rodgers reign he has signed 25 players totalling an estimated total of £212,000,000. For anyone saying FSG is the issue by not stumping up the cash, this is not the issue. Liverpool has spent an estimated £63mil on defenders and a goalkeeper. You would think this sort of investment, training facilities, scouting network and transfer committee we’d find a way to stop shipping 50+ goals a season, nope. Liverpool has spent £60mil on out and out strikers (not including your fancy CAMs like Coutinho and Lallana). This season we’re struggling to score goals or even muster up half-chances for that matter. Granted Sturridge is injured and Suarez is gone, but are these two things scenarios that have surprised us?
SPOT THE MONEYBALL
Liverpool has spent £98mil on midfielders, now when I say midfielders; we’re talking about players ranging from Emre Can to Lallana. I take the point these are completely different players with different skills, but for the sake of keeping this ‘article-rant-thing’ shorter let’s put them in the midfield bracket. £98mil pounds, £98 MILLION, half a Rickie Lambert short of £100 million. This is by no means a dig at the players, they don’t set their transfer fees. What worries me is this ‘moneyball’ philosophy we have, yet spending over £200 million. Where’s the moneyball? Where’s the £1mil signing for Bojan? Where’s the £2mil Michu? That’s where your moneyball is. Instead this moneyball philosophy has given us an excuse to sign average to good players at inflated prices. We’re trying to look clever in a free market of variables. It’s like saying you have a strategy to gambling on roulette…
WHERE HAS IT GONE WRONG?
Now the manager, oh B-Rod, where did it all go wrong? I’ll be honest, when Rodgers first came, I was in the Martinez camp, and worried Brendan only had a Plan A. But he turned me with his ‘Brendanisms’ and footballing philosophy. He turned me with his magical reds pumping out 6-3 wins every other weekend and nearly bringing that awfully tacky looking Premier League trophy to Anfield. It wasn’t to be, but boy were we close.
Now post-Suarez, Brodgers had a chance to step up and make his mark with his team and his signings with his philosophy. At his most vital moment as Liverpool Manager, he’s ultimately failed. This team lacks confidence and worst of all, it lacks an identity. What does a Liverpool goal look like now? A Glen Johnson torpedo through a crowd of Stoke players?
I don’t know the solutions to these problems, I don’t get paid to know. But some (lucky) people at the club do and it’s their time to act. Is it time to scrap the Transfer Committee? Yes, most probably. Is it time to some players the door? Maybe too soon to tell. Should Brendan Rodgers get the sack? Maybe that was his Plan B all along.
Am a Rodgers fan for the exact same reasons as you state, Brendan’s been caught in the crossroads of late, hearing disgruntled voices echoing in the stands off anfield, so he he’s tried to shut up shop so to speak, only this is against Brendan Rodgers way of thinking, this is against his footballing etho’s, and we’ve struggled because of this as you say “conventional approach”, I was pleased listening to Brendan’s pre-match comments yesterday saying it’s not what he’s about and we’re going back to being “unconventional”. It shows me the strength of Rodgers character as a manager to admit to us that he’s only interested in attacking teams and for me that was refreshing to hear. Let’s be unconventional, let’s be Brendan Rodgers Liverpool !!!!
#faithinrodgers
We could do with a passenger like Juan Mata at the moment: one goal, one assist.
It’s the Tarantino analogy: Jackie Brown was his ‘grown-up’ film. But we all prefer Pulp Fiction: that’s what makes him different.
What do we want? You ask. This is all getting a bit Mad Men.
Well it’s pretty straightforward isn’t it? Progress. Most supporters want to see their team strengthen each year. Brendan Rodgers and FSG were actually very lucky this year: most of our supporters, including myself, would have settled for a little regression. Top four would have done, because most of us understood that last season was a bit freakish, and that we’d lost our talisman, our one world class player. So this year was all about consolidation. It didn’t matter a great deal whether we achieved top four status by being more solid or scoring more goals, but following my previous statement through, I’d have preferred to see us improve defensively, because we couldn’t improve in the attacking third: we were that good last season. So I’d have settled for marginal improvements in the way we set up, because good managers analyse and address weaknesses, and a slight tailing off in the attacking third because Suarez is irreplaceable.
I’ve read Paul Tomkins’ article. It just makes me unhappy. I’d rather focus on the future. We finished second last season, we should be aiming for the top four this season and season by season improvement thereafter. I worry that if we fall out of the top four this season, it’ll be a long haul back. On a more positive note, Markovic might just be starting to show us why we spent 20m.
Well said Paul. We all woulda took 4th this yr and fewer goals. Don’t know many clubs who’s fans would actually accept regression but this regression is just unacceptable!
Yes, it was clown.
I hope those who have defended Rodgers and Gerrard are tired of doing so now. But I bet they won’t be as tired as I am of criticising them. I’ve gone beyond annoyed, hurt, disappointed and apoplectic. I feel drained. I can’t even rant anymore. I’ll give it a try.
Selecting Jones. What the fuck? Why now? Why not wait til Bournemouth, see how he goes then let him keep his place if he does ok? He’s awful isn’t he? Said in the summer he’s not good enough to ply his trade in League 2 and needed replacing. I mean, he’s really bad. Not in a Jose Enrique way. In a “how the fuck is he a pro” type of way. The fact Rodgers has allowed him to stay at the club for his 2 and a half years is yet another damning indictment of the manager.
It’s awful to say, but I have to – I don’t do filters – but Jones hasn’t been replaced due to a tragedy in his personal life. It seems the club have decided to give him a wage no matter what because of what he has gone through and because, by all accounts, he’s a top fella. That is the only possible reason because Jones, nice man as he may be, is a joke of a goalkeeper. Mignolet is appalling and he shouldn’t be at Liverpool either but at least you know he is at least twice as good as Jones.
A Houllier-esque replacing of goalie personnel is a necessity. Get rid of Achterberg as well – few have performed as disgracefully as he has.
Picking Lovren again. Lovren played like a cunt again. £20,000,000. There are no more words.
Skrtel needs to go as well. The common denominator. Always happy to do just enough, he’s come nowhere near to doing just enough in 18 months.
I said in September Moreno would develop into a world class full back with the right coaching and if we sorted ourselves out. If not he’d be Riise without the freekicks. He’s not got the coaching, we’ve plummeted new depths week on week and I long for a Riise without the freekicks.
Johnson injured, Toure exposed.
Hendo stuck on the right. Kenny all over again. Done ok actually but spend £120m in the summer and have Jordan Henderson playing right wing back at Old Trafford? Fuck away off.
Gerrard. Anonymous. Woefully nowhere. Didn’t do a thing on the ball. Didn’t do a thing off the ball. Set plays were awful. Rodgers plays him here, plays him there, plays him everyfuckingwhere. And he’s shit no matter what. But still Rodgers persists with his landlord. For months I’ve thought I wouldn’t mind if he left next summer. Now I actively want him to go.
Allen. In brutal form at the minute.
Coutinho. People say he’s a success. I’ve been guilty of it too. He’s named alongside Sturridge as one of only two transfers Rodgers’ has got right from 25. But he is remarkably inconsistent in his overall play. One thing is is consistent in is giving no end product when it matters. Time and again he gets into great positions only to shoot with the power of an 8 year old child and/or the accuracy of a election prediction from Karl Rove. He has nowhere near the amount of assists he should have either.
Lallana. Same shit. Neat. Tidy. Good feet. Couldn’t run the bath. £25m? Who else wanted him? For fuck sake.
Sterling. Wants the wages of a big time player. Fails regularly in big moments. Of course he’s quality but needs to start finding the net more, whether he’s 19 or 39. Has the club bent over a barrel. Going to have to give him what he wants.
Markovic. More promising signs. Starting to get a wee bit excited. Then Neil says in the pod this could be his Cheyrou fortnight. Immediately become more wary.
Balotelli. Teammates don’t like him. Not because of Mario the person but because of Mario the footballer. Like quite a few, he’s lost his head. Thick as fuck without on the ball discipline when things are going pear shaped, which has been quite a lot since his arrival. Needs to go.
Rodgers. Can see the idea behind tactics. More pace and movement. More threat. Should have done the same against Basel. But there was no need to go to 3-5-2, unless of course you just have to play Gerrard. Which he does. But bringing in Jones and Lovren is unforgivable. He has no trust in himself though he won’t admit it. He has no trust in his players. They have no trust in him. He’s making Moyes look a literal football genius.
I’d have loved to have been wrong about him. Would love to be sitting here laughing at what a tit I was to question his team selections and tactical nous and transfer dealings. Would love to be too embarrassed to post. But it’s not happened. It won’t happen.
In terms of points we’ll finish a lot closer to bottom than top. We’re not going to be top 6, never mind top 4. The best thing he ever done was hand control of everything over to Suarez. That’s his best management decision. To delegate power and responsibility to a genius. That genius has moved on and we’re left with a charlatan.
The squad is a mess. An unmitigated disaster. We’re so lopsided and imbalanced it’s mind boggling. People will say that’s because there are at least two different entities at the football club signing players. No. It’s down to Rodgers. He, as a manager, should have said I sign all the players or I walk. Take it or leave it. But nope. Too comfortable. Too happy to have an excuse. Too arrogant of his coaching ability. Neil says he can coach improvement from young players. Im not sure. Young players naturally improve. And has Rodgers coached any of these defenders, both young and old, to be better? Why can he not coach even an average defensive unit? He said after the 2-0 defeat at home to Chelsea that it was easy to defend.
And that’s another thing – how often does he put his foot in his mouth? I said before, if we’re winning I can overlook personality defects but when we’re not they become unbearable. He thinks he is something other than a football coach. All this talk about improving and educating players to become better men? Brendan, fuck off. You are a football coach. And not a great one. Nothing more. Who the fuck do you think you are to tell other adults you’ll make them better people. You reading this – you go to work on Monday morning and your immediate superior starts telling others he or she is going to make you a better person. What’s your reaction? More, does it not claw away at you when you hear him describe a 0-0 draw at home as “outstanding” – or when you hear him say he was happy with the performance in a 3-0 defeat to the team you hate the most while their manager says their performance needs improving on?
Neil, Brendan Rodgers does not do mad. He has never been unconventional, save for a 6 month spell when Luis Suarez demanded we played a certain way. He has always been about convention. About controlling possession. About death by football. There’s a reason for this and I agree with it. You can’t perform like we did last season and sustain success because the demands on the players energy is too great. You can’t play Saturday Wednesday Saturday (or Sunday Thursday Sunday) playing like we did from December to May last season. It might return next year though, who knows?
Here’s the reality. We’re back in the wilderness. We’ll be lucky to get back to the Champions League within 5 years unless an oil tycoon buys us. We won’t be able to attract any top players, let along world class ones. None of them want to work for a mid table team and none of them have heard of Brendan Rodgers let alone want to work for him. We’re fucked. There’s other things going on at the club that was mentioned in the pod that make our continuing fuckedness something we won’t get away from. Things like a shit structure. Things like no accountability at all. Things like yellow cowardly cunts at every level. Its depressing as fuck.
Pithy and accurate.
The Lovren point, I meant.
Not much to argue with there.
I still back Rodgers to come good. He is fighting fires all over the place and with very few training sessions to get it done. Steep learning curve for him but I he has shown enough potential to back him. End of the season and we will be in much better shape (although Europa league is a shit).
On the Jones, Lovren and to a lesser extent Gerrard selections (although you would struggle to drop Gerarrd against Man U) touche. Don’t understand them, with the exception that Toure probably needs a rest at his age. Hopefully Sakho comes back into the squad soon, we could really use him I think. Jones, I suppose he is better against the high ball and might come off his line better than Mignolet (but that isn’t difficult) but boy he can’t save a shot to save his life can he?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTJbsH6R_AA&sns=em
That’s all too real, but incomplete. No mention of us winning the possession.
Great article!
You have managed to summarize my thoughts of this hang-over of a season!
I read The Tomkins Times article a while back – http://tomkinstimes.com/2014/11/why-liverpool-never-win-the-league/
It is very depressing.
Watching the World Cup my wife (who usually can’t bring herself to watch ANY football) turned to me and said “Is that Luis Suarez?, I thought he played for Liverpool”.
It took a few attempts to explain the club/country thing, then out of a mouth babe, came the truth.
“So if a club has loads of money they can buy Luis Suarez and all the other top players, and win everything!”
I found it difficult to argue against, except to say that, on any given day, any team can beat any other team and it’s the skill of a manager to make that happen and the joy of the supporter when it does.
My point is, if you accept the TTT article, Liverpool effectively DID win the league last season, we beat arguably the richest club in world football.
We nearly won it literally, remember we played Man City away in December immediately followed by Chelsea away within 3 days, remember Sterling’s breakaway goal incorrectly ruled offside, (Lee Mason ref) remember Henderson being deliberately taken out of the game within 5 mins and E’to repeatedly attacking Suarez unpunished.
What I’d like is for Brendan to instil a sense of injustice, within himself and his team, WE WON THE LEAGUE BUT IT WAS TAKEN OFF US, we’ll win it back.
We need to toughen up and fight harder. The Man Utd game was the best I’ve seen us play in patches, we’ve nothing to lose, just attack from the whistle, like its the last 10 mins
i’m with neil 110%
we stumbled on a winning ‘unconventional’ formula last season when we missed out on our targets to the likes of chelsea. we should have known then that the best way to challenge the might of the obligarchs and oil barons was to keep the key ingredients of the team of youthful exuberance, hunger, and top talent (suarez) – led by the passionate and respectful Rodgers this looked to be the beggining of something extremely special. the summer should have seen the likes of ibe, suso, texeira, rossiter… etc all being prepared to continue the trend set by flanno and sterling, supplemented by a few top additions, maybe a goalie, defensive midfielder and another goal getter to cover for sturridge. for whatever reason we have ripped up the blueprint for success and gone back to the ‘conventional’ rule back that hasn’t worked for ANY club without spoilt riches this last quarter century.
Of course we knew we may have needed to sell suarez but why not replace him like for like, i.e. we should have been tough on barca and sanchez, or looked at cavani or even lavezzi or di maria…. etc players were out there contrary to what’s been said. the thruth of the matter is FSG have a different view on what success looks like….. the ‘arsenal model’. the financial blueprint that guarantees an increase in revenues but little success on the pitch. Arsenal have won 1 fa cup (last season) since their model was implemented and that was implemented on the back of invicible double wins and coming withing minutes of winning the european cup. maybe the media and so called experts should assess the regression of arsenal success in little over than 10 years than be fixated into trying to attack the likes of liverpool fc.
our club is lost right now, because it can’t alter the wrongs of the summer during the season. there is no quick fix. we need to stay behind brendan and what we stumbled on last year….. the ‘unconventional’ formula that blew teams and our minds away. we need to remind the club that we cannot compete with the chelsea’s and city’s of this world. barca have always been blown away by the wealth and pwer of real madrid, they looked for a different formula ‘the unconventional’ one of recruiting from within and supplementing it with star quality that had that hunger and team ethic desrving of the values of their club, i.e. henry, larson, eto, villa, masca, sanchez….. it’s no different to what we stumbled on last year.
i’m with brendan all the way but we must all be patient and supportive as we won’t get back to where we were last year until next season and only if the owners, manager and fans by in to the ‘unconventional’ again and stop assuming we can by ourselves back to the top with the small reserves we have.
I posted Link to Tompkins article on here 2/3 weeks ago, so I hope people took the time to absorb it.
I wanted Suarez money spent on Neuer, unrealistic but he’s probably bored there, that Swag he carries would of spread from the back right thru the team, Schimicle definitely won United some titles.
We used to have it with Pepe, when Xavi Valero was there anyway, changed after Achtenberg came in, for that reason I don’t like him and want to see changes to backroom staff, I wander if BR is taking on too much, letting his ego get in the way, Ferguson understood the importance of delegation, so did Roy castle ‘Delegation’s what You Need'(sorry;)
We could of had Rodolfo and Siguera still on board, lets get Pako back and Sami, if he leaves Brighton, not to coach but fucking play! or Stan Boardman, John Bishop cos its a bunch of comedians back there anyway…
Completely agree about the staff around Rodgers. He’s an inexperienced manager at a massive club so he needs to have experienced me round him, not the likes of Marsh and Pascoe.
I find it more than a coincidence that Reinas form plummeted after working with Acterberg and after 1 year so had Mignolets. Reina started from a higher peak though.
BR should send his No.2 out for the next month. Go to the mattresses, siege mentality. Let the results talk.
The problem with the idea of going for extremes and focusing all the resources in both boxes, is that it misses the point about much of what made us so great last year (and the 2nd half of the previous season as well). It wasn’t all about the goals. It was about relentless pressing, it was about speed of transition, it was about killer passes and then it was about a couple of great in form strikers.
If you want to be able to recreate that craziness across both Premiership and Champions League, spending all the money on a strikers won’t do it. At the end of last season we were bemoaning the lack of another Jordan Henderson as we ran out of legs. We were also bemoaning the lack of impact from the bench, the lack of plan B, the lack of leadership at the back, the fact that our two best left backs were our right backs, and that we didn’t have a Javier Mascherano. It looks like the recruitment team tried to do something about those concerns (except the Javier Mascherano bit), we just haven’t seen evidence from performances so far to suggest that they did a great job of it.
The encouraging thing about Sunday was that there were signs of a return to a lot of what worked well last year, pressing, movement, speed etc. Unfortunately no Sturridge or Suarez to apply the finishing touch. I was also encouraged by Balotelli’s performance. He looked a lot more like the type of player we need; more mobile, running on to through balls, rather than being static and getting caught offside all the time. If he can escape a ban he should play until Sturridge returns.
No closer to a sorting out the problems at the back sadly. There must be a way of getting both the defensive solidity we seem to get closest to with Lucas in the side, without sacrificing the attacking side of our game, but we certainly haven’t found it yet.
Lucas for Gerrard, Kolo for Lovren, Can for Allen, Balotelli for Coutinho.
Gerrard can’t/doesn’t press or track runners. That’s a real problem for our system.
Rodgers will never get rid of Gerrard, he lives in his house FFS!
That’s far too logical. ‘Woods and trees’ comes to mind. In my ‘jaundiced against Rodgers’ view, the end result of his tenure is obvious and the boil should be lanced sooner rather than later. He has been exposed as an imcompetent and, worse, a figure of ridicule. I think judicious use of the squad, imperfect as it is, could resurrect the season NOW, but the ckear evidence of the preceding clutch of games was thrown out of the window against United. Weaken your defence against a powerful attack?? Play one tiny ball-player as your sole attack against a dodgy defence?? Jesus wept. I have said it before – ANYBODY COULD HAVE MANAGED THE TEAM TO SUCCESS LAST SEASON.
For me the problems at the back are systemic. Until we employ a proper holding midfielder we are going to continue to leak stupid goals as players run at our defence freely. My personal choice Javi Martinez if he recovers well from his injury. Song could have possibly done a job there too but I’m
unsure about his positional discipline.
Song’s solid. Big Sam wouldn’t play him there if he has no discipline. I fear we’ve missed out on value, however. He was available for as little as 8m this summer. Cabaye could do a job: different type of holder but positionally sound and creative.
All this talk about the need for a match winner, finisher or some sort of catalyst. Your problem is more deep rooted than that.
I’m looking at the current Liverpool team and form and thinking, with the exception of Sterling (and discounting Sturridge through injury), not a single one of your players would press for a place at any other ‘big 5’ team. Not one. Looking at your bench for answers doesn’t lend much hope either.
Sterling is wonderful when playing with a decent frontline. And some team with just that will come knocking soon enough.
Are you counting yourselves in that “Top 5”? As I wouldn’t take anyone except De Gea, Di Maria, Rooney and Van Persie (for another year before he is too old). I wouldn’t actually take Van Persie or Rooney because I don’t like them but for the sake of argument. I would bet you Coutinho and Lallana would definitely press Mata for a spot and give Markovic another couple of months and he would be getting plenty of game time.
I’m sure Arsenal would use a few of the boys as well. Chelsea and City, well probably not many, but then again we both know that they are ridiculous clubs built of money stolen from downtrodden people.
As I said before, nice of you to give us advice and all but I don’t look at you guys and see a sustainable model that is going to take you back to the top any time soon. “Some club” is going to come in for your red-hot keeper soon and then watch all these results you have been picking up start to melt away.
Brilliant article. One of my favourite lines i have read in the last year:
‘Liverpool didn’t lose the league because they couldn’t defend, they nearly won it because they gambled it goals and they did so in a manner this league has very rarely seen.’
Sums up last season so well and explains why I am not completely frustrated with Rodgers. He had the vision to see this. He needs to do so again. However I do wonder if he ever truly saw this, or whether he just took a pragmatic decision at the time. Lets see if we buy another striker in January and find out.
One of your very best efforts, Neil. For sending my head west (in a good way… I guess) it’s up there with your 08/09 Arsenal 4-4 one. Although it might have something to do with how I’m still not over Sunday yet. That Tomkins article you’ve linked is really good as well but it’s message isn’t likely to improve anyone’s despair at where we are or more worryingly could be if we’re well off 4th by the end of the season.
‘Since 2009 they rarely troubled Europe, bar getting to a Wembley final and getting embarrassed by an incredible Barcelona who took that lack of midfield quality and played them off the park, but, you know, twenty titles and that.’ Been saying something similar for the past 5 years. They got out-played by better midfields 3 times that season: once at Anfield against Alonso/Mascherano, once at Old Trafford against Lucas/Mascherano and once in a final against Iniesta/Xavi. Finished champions of England and runners up in Europe because Vidic and Ferdinand were at their zenith and they had Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez and Berbatov to pick from upfront. We were the polar opposite of that over the weekend – 2011/12 in front of goal and 2013/14 at the back. The perfect shitstorm for getting massively turned over by a poor United team.
I think it’s easy with hindsight to say we shouldn’t have squad-built with how the seasons gone but I would have probably done something similar if I was the club. After the Chelsea game where the league went, I think most would have had Lambert as the squad fella who’s a different option behind Suarez/Sturridge instead of Aspas and a left footed left back who attacks like Moreno and can put a ball in (Flanagan was getting so far and then having to turn back in). Then again we didn’t put together a complete squad when you look at the keepers; you’d have thought Rodgers would have been all over Vorm in the summer. In an ideal world we’d have put together a squad with potential as well as bringing in ready-to-go world class like Sanchez/Fabregas/Di Maria but that’s not what we’ve ever done. It’s the blanket theory you reference on the podcast from time to time.
Mcmanaman/Fowler/Owen(/nearly Gerrard)/Alonso/Mascherano/Torres/Suarez leave after becoming superstars and we never look close to replacing that quality like for like. I think it might have been Gutmann who has said similar on the show but people say how Liverpool fans shouldn’t still see themselves as one of the biggest teams but I wish we would for once convey being a top club in the transfer market. Arsenal have spent a decade developing then losing their best players rather than winning titles too, and both are closer to Southampton, Tottenham and Dortmund in strategy than the elite of Real, Barca, Bayern, Chelsea, City, etc. they’d like to think they can compete with.
Good article!
It got me wondering what it is I want. I quickly realised what I don’t want – this season. I’m hard to please, for example, when we won that treble under Houllier it wasn’t ‘the’ treble. When we won the Champions League it was one of the best nights ever but we weren’t actually champions were we, more cup winners. What I’m trying to say is I’m one of those cunts who’s never happy. I grew up thinking Liverpool winning everything was normal and as a result I’m not content with anything but Liverpool being the best. What’s happening now is this season is changing the narrative of last season, the greatest season I’ve ever known. The reason I loved it so much was because after everything we’d been through, to finally feel we were back and a force was better than anything. Winning in the past didn’t come to close to that feeling we had after the City game. When the whistle went I had tears in my eyes from the pride I felt. And that’s the key for me. I’m now looking back on last season with tinge of sadness. It wasn’t us back among the elite, we just poked our heads round the door and said hello as we were passing .
So, I think I’ve worked it out. For me, it’s only about us being consistently the best. It’s not even about enjoying the football. Yeah, Arsenal was unbelievable but I’m just as happy to win 1-0 after a poor performance if the 3 points are important. I tend to judge on my mood coming out the game. For example, Sunderland last season. I was fuckin ecstatic that night. It was the first or second time all the fans greeted the bus with all the flags and it felt like something was happening, then we held on. Football’s strongly tribal for me. Again, it’s a growing up in the 80’s thing. I live in a town equally split between Liverpool and Utd fans with some Everton and City. Football rivalry is a huge part of life. That’s how it is. If I go out at the weekend I want to be able to hold my head up. When I’ve got dickheads laughing at me every 2 minutes and winding me up about what a joke we are and I can’t even deny it then it hurts. I just want an easy life. Look, I want us to win the league too but it’s no good if that’s followed by an embarrassment. I think the only way we can achieve being the best is to start getting in the Champions League every year. Tomkins is right but there’s only one way to build towards that and it’s being in the top four every year. I want solid, not erratic. Definitely.
Agree with much of that Robin. Last season was the most fun I’ve had since the late 70s. The 80s were great but we got used to winning, used to being the best. We were spoiled. We expected to win and were surprised when we didn’t. I felt like a kid again last season, it was fucking great.
Unconventional will win you one off battles from time to time but conventional always wins the war.
Another barnstormer there Neil, you have taken post match reports to a new level and made them relevant again in the modern media age within which we live. Enough blowin smoke up your jacksie though.. The key to our progress or severe lack of it this season is our ability to attract quality and retain quality when we have honed it.
The list of players who have moved onto bigger and better things from us is now quite frightening, nobody used to do that, but sadly it is now commonplace. Unless we get a small Arabian state or billionaire to back us, as Tomkins points out we are basically fecked if we mistakenly believe we can be at the top table again.
We tried hard to get quality in the summer but he chose Arsenal instead, that type of quality is rare and only two or three of those guys come up for grabs each summer, if we couldn’t attract quality last summer after the season we had had were does that leave us in the future.
The board need to be working on just how they break down the quality issue.. Splash the cash on wages?, tap them up well in advance of their existing contract ending? Get compromising pictures of them or their family ? I don’t know the answer but until we crack that question we will remain second tier….
I love Robin’s post on here as well, that’s why me and my mates are grumpy old bastards, we just expect more because we once had a lot lot more…but it is all contextual, I have a mate who follows Stockport County, the minute we look good I hear from him, wishing us all the best ! Imagine following Stocport all your life,our quality issue is jack shit compared to what those lads have had to put up with. Suppose a few more of us should heed Mr Crimes advice and take up yoga.. It has certainly helped me chill when it comes to the shat we have been served this year!
Yeah agree mate. When a match finishes, the first thing on my mind is the match report on here yet, I wouldn’t dream of reading a match report on say, the Beeb or an online newspaper. I don’t need their perspective – I’ve just watched it so I know what happened. They offer nothing. I’d be quite happy to see all sports journalists lined up and shot. Like you, I don’t wanna blow smoke up Atkinson’s arse but I listened to 5 Live on iPlayer to see how he got on and my conclusion was people like Lawrenson should be worried. Their brand of punditry will die. On the one hand football fans are dickheads but on the other we’re now at a stage where we need more than what the old skool can offer. I like Neville and Carragher’s analysis and I think Neil could go a long way on the BBC. I don’t think Sky would use him though because of how badly he dresses.
Just a couple of things Caf. Football has changed over the last few years because of FFP. An oil rich arab (are we allowed to say arab’s who own oil companies are rich these days or is it stereotyping?) wouldn’t necessarily help Liverpool. Teams in the Champions League can only spend what they generate. My understanding is these billionaire owners can’t put their own money into a club anymore. When I look at both Chelsea and City generating more revenue than us then I’m naturally sceptical that they’re finding loop holes, but my point is, teams won’t be successful anymore on the back of finding a billionaire owner. The other thing is, we can’t just go out and splash the cash on wages. Apart from the fact we don’t have it, we can only spend 70% of our revenue on wages or wages can’t more than 70% of a club’s income. We’re too close to the limit as it is. I think people forget those