Dalglish is in. Hodgson has gone. And Liverpool, after a stuttering start, get on a run, sign Suarez and Carroll and Torres goes.
Expect some language obviously, but expect laughs. Upbeat laughs as Liverpool become Liverpool again…
What We Call History: 2010/11 – Part Three
Kenny Dalglish was a prophet when he said Fernando Torres was a thoroughbred who had been overplayed and run down, and that he feared for him. Torres crocked when he left, and the media have had a field day ever since. Nothing like a perceived fall to bring out reserves of malice and spite, seasoned with a fair dose of hypocritical moralising. Clear the club wanted rid but needed him to stay to ensure the sale went through. Ironic that he could have avoided the subsequent battering had he been hard-headed enough to leave in the summer.
Kenny telling Wenger to ‘Fuck Off’ with a wave of his hand, live on TV was one of my greatest football memories that. I’ve smiled all the way through this pod.
I’ve actually gone off to you tube to watch it again and he actually does a “Piss off man” and then an “Ah Fuck Off”
Still quality!! :)
Great show. It was great when Kenny came back, you felt that anything was possible. But Andy Carroll…..Andy Carroll…..Andy Carroll. Sadly he couldn’t keep his job after that. By far the worst piece of business ever undertaken by a Liverpool manager as we were never going to get a return on 35m and cos he was, and is, shite. Never a Liverpool player in a million years. What was he thinking? We’d just started playing ace pass and move again after so many months of turgid Hodgeball and he signed a player uniquely unsuited to the Liverpool style. I was, and remain appalled by the signing of the big carthorse.
Out of interest, did anyone ever get to the bottom of the signing? I seem to remember posters insisting he wasn’t a Kenny signing, but, given his style of play at Blackburn and his Newcastle connections, it sure felt like one.
Yea, he was a Kenny signing.
As was Downing when Camolli was telling Kenny he had a deal for Mata wrapped up & all he had to do was say the word. But Kenny chose Downing. Over Mata.
As a result Camolli got sacked for his lack of balls in standing up to Kenny. And despite it being difficult in telling Kenny he was very wrong, he deserved the sack for it. Sad thing is not much has changed at the club – too many people with no bollocks. Certain players, Rodgers, aspects of FSG (who I generally support) havent put their balls on the line enough.
And Hendo over Götze…..
I remember thinking that FSG had been swayed by the supporters. It was great that he’d saved our season and brought some sunshine back but the experiment should have lasted until the end of the season. The 3 year contract was madness.
I can’t quite get over how stupid some Liverpool fans are. As if a group of new owners would give a temporary manager £35m to spend. Seriously, what colour is the sky where you are? And if you honestly think LFC had any chance of landing Mata… go back to FM. Transfers happen in the REAL WORLD. You might want to try it sometime.
Comolli had full control of transfers – that’s what a DOF is. Kenny was temporary head coach and then head coach. I actually really like Comolli, but this was all him.
A coach with unsuitable players for his style of play foisted on him and unable to get a coherent team out of them. Sounds awfully familiar….
Seems there is a lot of rumour and counter-rumour. I’m hearing on this pod that we were apparently trying to get Torres to Chelsea in the summer of 2010 and planning for his exit all season until Jan 2011. I’m not pretending I’ve got a feckin’ clue who is right and who is wrong, but this is at odds with virtually everything else I’ve ever read on this subject. As late as Jan 28th 2011 we publicly rejected Torres’ transfer request. This could be a negotiating tactic for sure, but it follows the narrative of LFC being caught on the hop and having to spunk 35mill on Carroll as a last-minute replacement given the 48hrs warning of Torres’ desire to leave the club provided by his representatives. And Commoli is on record as saying they originally scouted Suarez with the idea he would play alongside Torres.
I actually think Commoli was badly done by. He was just about the most sought after director of football on the market when we snagged him. And I think he defends his position well in this piece from Feb:
http://metro.co.uk/2015/02/05/liverpool-owners-said-jordan-henderson-transfer-was-a-massive-mistake-claims-damien-commoli-5050763/
When you think of what the FSG professed recruitment philosophy is, dumping your DofF after 18months because some young players haven’t come up to scratch in their first season makes no sense whatsoever.
If you demand instant success, buy the finished product.
Fuck me. Imagine if the three of us agreed on something?
I seem to recall Commoli was subject to the ‘fraud’ word at the time. FSG have never really been clear enough about how transfers work: someone’s always going to be hung out to dry if there’s no accountability.
Haha.
I think your last comment nails it. Everything is so opaque that you can’t help but think that it is deliberately so.
The net net on Carroll/Torres is that we:
shelled out 35mill for Carroll
got 19mill back plus 50mill for Torres
I make that 34mill in the black with one place in your squad to fill (or one fewer assets on your balance sheet). In purely business terms, that’s more than okay.
Well that rather implies that we got Torres on a free. The reality is Carroll cost us the same as Balo: 16m and lots of wages. My issue is that whilst it was possible to imagine that Brendan could turn Balo around, he is a gifted player after all, Carroll’s value was never, ever going to appreciate. He was an appalling signing at just about every level: football, FSG, moneyball….
Well yeah, I see the point, but I guess the argument is that we got value for Torres. We paid about 20mill for Torres, and I would say we got that and some out of him during his time with us.
Whatever, the bottom line is that you cannot just take Carroll’s fee in isolation. We had two days to sign a C-F and had 50mill burning a hole in our pocket. Chelsea over-paid for Torres by at least 20mill and we over-paid for Carroll by something similar. Neither deal exists without the other.
As Dalglish always said, Carroll cost “minus-15mill”.
BTW, “A cavalcade of c**ts” is my favourite line ever from a TAW pod. I was listening while I mowed the lawn and nearly cut my right foot off.
The Carroll thing was so mental. I liked him for the player he was but that fee was the maddest ever. With him being injured as well it was like we hadn’t learned our lesson from Aquilani. With Suarez coming in to be Dalglish to Torres’ Rush people were foolishly getting on board with Suarez/Carroll as Keegan/Toshack. Was never going to happen. Like playing Jan Koller up with Messi or something bizarre.
I agree with Neil that it still impacts on how FSG approach transfers. It definitely influenced the type of players Kenny was looking at in the summer. Meireles did more than enough for another season as well. Would have been handy to be able to pull Henderson out for him when he was struggling and playing a lot of games for a young player in his first season.
Kenny just telling Wenger to piss off when he was fronted rather than being snide in press conferences like Ferguson and Mourinho is why he’s a great man rather than just a great manager. My head went a bit when Mike Girling brought the Suarez/Evra fiasco up early doors. For as long as they’re here, FSG will never do anything worse than the way they handled that (or more accurately, didn’t – at all) in allowing Kenny’s reputation to get mauled. Ayre’s voice was conspicuous by it’s absence during that shitstorm as well, although he had plenty to say about how little the cup competitions meant at the end of that season. Funny that.
The best podcast to date, and one of the reasons I’m subscribing. Loved that you lot felt the emotion of king Kenny’s return at the time . He was like the knight in shining armour back to place the club’s values front and centre again. Regardless of the arguments about his ability or otherwise to sign the right player, he made us proud again and deserved more from backup from the club than he got in the Suarez fiasco .