IN your job, who digs you out of trouble? Who do you expect to pull things round when you make a mistake or everyone is having a bad day? Someone who maybe even just makes a cup of tea at an appropriate time.
I hope you have that person in your work. I hope you have two or three of them. They help. They let you know that broadly speaking, we’ll be alright.
The footballing equivalent is the player who can produce a moment of magic. Who can do the improbable that leads to scoring or saving a goal. Which leads to people wondering — did he mean that? How did he do that?
It’s about looking around a dressing room before a ball has been kicked and knowing: it’s OK. He’s playing. I can see him in this room now. I will see him on the pitch later. Let’s get him on the ball.
All football teams at any level, in any form of the game, five-a-side, six-a-side, 11-a-side, European Cup Finals, need at least one or two players like this. They need to know who they are getting on the ball, who will keep it when they have to and make something happen when they can. Someone who can dig you out of trouble.
In two of their last three games Liverpool have won by one goal and we could have a “did he mean that?” conversation around Adam Lallana at Sunderland (he didn’t) and Joe Allen at Stoke (he did), yet neither player can be that player.
They aren’t good enough.
Both are good Premier League players, they can play at the level they are playing at. They can, at times, throw in a man-of-the-match performance, but they can’t be that player every week. They can’t relax a dressing room. They can’t be the person you expect to dig you out of trouble. Not enough moments of magic. Not enough goals.
Football teams, football squads, human lives if we must get all deep, don’t work without Lallanas and Allens.
You need the lads who come in and provide a platform, get other players playing. Do the spadework. Being fair, sometimes spadework alone can dig you out of trouble. But everything is better with a bit of magic. John Barnes magic. Luis Suarez magic. Robbie Fowler magic.
Lallana and Allen and others like them do football supporters heads in because of the money spent on them when there isn’t enough magic around them and they can’t generate enough of their own regularly enough.
This is understandable in one sense, but it is always worth remembering that it isn’t your money. And that unless you can invent a time machine, go back, convince those strong-minded individuals who wanted to buy them that they shouldn’t do so (“because I am from the future” isn’t likely to work) then the reality is they are Liverpool players now.
As ever, we are where we are.
So far Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool has been one without enough magic. Without enough goals. This leads to hugely frustrating performances like Liverpool against West Ham when they managed to sling in over 30 crosses and have over 20 shots and, other than two headers in the dying embers of the game, the only thing I remember about Liverpool’s attacking performance when in the ground is how implacable my rage was watching it; watching all four attacking players put those performances in.
They weren’t digging any one out of trouble. They weren’t helping their teammates. The rage was everywhere.
And this is what Liverpool need to recruit. This should always be the first question every window. Do we have enough magic? Do we have enough goals? Can we be better in both boxes?
It’s what is hardest to recruit, not least because it is impacted by luck. Some players suit some clubs at a key moment. Eric Cantona is a prime example. Had Manchester United not been Manchester United, had Alex Ferguson not been Alex Ferguson then he may well have been the frustrating individual he was in France, rather than the player he went on to become.
For whatever reason Stan Collymore never had the same impact at Liverpool. Nor did Fernando Morientes, nor Jari Litmanen.
Sometimes things will work. Sometimes, and more often, they won’t.
Paul Tomkins will tell you that 40 per cent of transfers “work”. Forty per cent. That isn’t a lot at all and there are a ton of unknowables. Do Liverpool need to be better at it? Yes. Is there an easy answer? I don’t think so. Many clubs across Europe play the numbers game, lash lads in. See what happens. There isn’t an onus on those sides to win titles.
After the West Ham game, me, Gareth Roberts, John Gibbons and Chris Maguire got into a room and shouted at each other (you can click play below and have a listen if you like).
Gareth wanted more proven experience yet we signed some of that in the summer. When Liverpool signed Philippe Coutinho, a 20-year-old from Inter Milan costing £8.5million, and Daniel Sturridge, a 23-year-old from Chelsea costing £12m, that made January 2013 the best window in a long time. And it didn’t fit that pattern. What he wants is magic, he wants quality and he’s seen Liverpool target young players and take gambles and they haven’t worked for one reason or another.
Some still might. But many haven’t.
And when you see Marko Grujic, a 19-year-old midfielder, signing then disappearing back off on loan, you can legitimately wonder how we can climb the mountain.
Yet I’m alright with Grujic. I’d like to see him play, but if we have to have a strategy, having a two-pronged attack of buying young lads and seeing what happens, combined with aiming at magic works for me. Aiming at magic and pace, taking the gambles on youngsters. Liverpool cannot only do part two, but if they do part one as well, it’s as good a plan as any.
Because what Liverpool have ended up with, however they have got there, is a base you can work from. Possibly not the best base. Liverpool’s squad is Liverpool’s squad. It is filled with players who are good, not great. Players who have one or two question marks hanging over them.
However, other than perhaps Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Real Madrid, this is the way of things. But give the players more focus and some magic they can believe in and they can grow into it. Give them a goalkeeper who will dig them out. A centre forward and wide man who will make something happen when you’ve got a side penned in or when you need to get out.
The reality is that at some point you’ve got to dance with the girl that brought you.
The idea of exchanging a squad for another squad with its risks and costs should make people at Liverpool throw their hands up in the air. Klopp wanted to manage these players and this club. He knew what he was getting into and he was rightly enthusiastically about it.
These are the players he has signed on to work with. That they will occasionally burn his head — and our heads — out is something we all have to learn to put up with to some degree. This is football. Burning the place down because they burn our heads out isn’t really a viable or perhaps even workable strategy.
But on the other hand, at some point you need to put two good windows together when you hunt down the magic you need. This should be the key focus of Liverpool’s recruitment strategy. I don’t care how old they are or what their profile is, whether they are mercurial like Cantona, expensive like Collymore, experienced like Litmanen, we need to make this the central focus.
And we need to acknowledge that it often won’t work:
That sometimes you buy Benteke and Firmino and you need to go at it again because neither has yet worked enough.
That if it was easy everyone would be doing it — that Manchester City have had maybe one clearly good window in four years, that Manchester United haven’t had one in three, that Chelsea have had only the one for a while as well; this shows that it isn’t easy, it really isn’t easy. And they have all the money in the world and have a goalkeeper boxed.
Sometimes the players you hope will be magical may prove to be mundane and that is OK and you cope and you keep playing football and you find a way in the meantime but that doesn’t mean the hunt for magic stops.
It can never stop.
Let that be the guiding light. The foundations, however cack-handedly, whatever the intentions were, are pretty much in place. They — including the manager — show that against Leicester City and against Stoke City. They — including the manager — show against Watford and against West Ham that they will need digging out.
They need help. They need to look around a dressing room and see him and see him and look at their manager and know, yep, today will be alright. Because footballers aren’t stupid. If they look around the dressing room and see that and think that, then yep, it probably will be.
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Pics: Propaganda-Photo–David Rawcliffe
I wish everything I read was written by you Neil. Cracking read once again.
Buy magic and goals should be the new LFC mantra
Good read that Neil
I’d say a bigger problem is the lack of leaders. I wouldn’t say that Roy Keane had the “magic” you are talking about, but he was capable of “taking a game by the scruff of the neck”. And that led others to follow. I don’t see any of our players capable of this at the moment – certainly against West Ham on Saturday.
I’m not one who will bash Rodgers, I think he tried his very best and he did a lot of good for this club. BUT, he left us without any leaders. Without any captains. And I can’t forgive him for that.
Good article Neil, but I’m surprised you didn’t focus on Arsenal at all. They seemed to get Ozil out of nowhere and then followed him up with Sanchez and Cech. That’s the kind of quality we need. Don’t want the Reds to be Arsenal, but we’ve been closest to them in terms of finance and position in recent years.
In footballing terms Neill you’ve just hit a rich vein of form!
I hate to post on here after a defeat because inevitably I’ll regret some of my fume, before last night I did post that I think this lot of lads are a bit windy (influenced a little by an article wrote by John Giles who I really respect) but seeing the way they went at it last night shows that they are more patchy/streaky than windy,
The players you are alluding too would make us more consistent and feared,
I really loved that comment from Brendan about the game starting in the tunnel but more acuratly it starts in the team meeting at the hotel, then the bus ride, then the changing room,
Looking around and knowing you are in the company of the right stuff is huge,
Even as a doe eyed kid you’re heart would sink if a few of the good lads couldn’t make it for whatever reason, you’d pretend it didn’t matter but deep down it bloody well did.
Sublime writing and a very true point made.
What’s also interesting is deciding which transfer buys are meant to be “magic” and which are meant to be “the other ones.”
Yes, spot on, Neil. I can’t help but dream what this solid, if not exceptional, supporting cast could do if they were pulling their boots on across the room from a Thierry Henry or a Fowler in their pomp. Two very different players with very different styles and temperaments but who exuded magic. They’re on the team sheet and you knew the other keeper would be picking the ball out of his net. You just knew.
Where I want to be nitpicky, for the sake of good-natured discussion, is to be careful about “mercurial.” Suarez would probably be considered mercurial by most (Ok, all!) but his teammates all seemed to step up to be character witnesses when the rest of the world wanted him burned at the stake. In that respect, the men in the smoke-filled room who call themselves the transfer committee got it right. He had previous, but he brought absolute (black) magic to the team and was by all accounts a hard-working, brilliant teammate. Much of the same could be said for Cantona. On the other hand, Adebayor gave Arsenal, City and Spurs roughly a goal every other game – something we’d all take in a heartbeat – but his brand of mercurial put managers and teammates on edge and proved disruptive everywhere he landed.
I don’t pretend to know where the point of diminishing returns is in the mercurial to goals ratio, but I hope the people who are making the big decisions do.
Friday is the 5th anniversary of Hodgson’s sacking. FSG have been running our club for over 5 years. It is clear that they are not up to the job. We are back in ‘rip it up and start again’ territory.
No stadium that’s fit for purpose, no trophies, no progress and no strategy that makes any kind of sense. We are left hoping that Klopp can somehow defy gravity.
And your answer to this is ??
Rich Arabs ? Russian Oligarchs?
More monied Yanks ?
No guarantees anymore because TV money has levelled the playing the playing field so much,
For all the money that City, Chelsea & United have thrown at it nobody is dominating like decades past,
City have to a degree domestically but have been handed there arse regularly in Europe,
If you’re going to post constant negative thoughts at least follow up with what you think needs to be done,
Best of luck versus City.
”Best of luck versus City”.
Love it!
Always suspected that depressive gobshite, ”Lady in the Van” to be a bitter.
The posts are symptomatic of those ‘chosen’ to follow the People Club.
Btw how was it in the lower Gladyws tonight, LINV?? :))
Close. I’m in Auckland.
I imagine the Lower Gladyws was as it usually is. Lot’s of angry fat men with red faces and shaven heads, reluctantly cheering when Lukaku scored, wishing desperately that he looked more like Big Dunc.
“And your answer to this is ??”
Rip it up and start again.
Cross fingers.
Pray for a miracle.
Never a silver lining with you eh.
It’s relentless.
Reckon I’d give FSG 6.5 / 10. They’ve made errors, course they have. They’re human. And they know more about baseball than football. But they’ve got a lot right. They’ve been diligent (in the main) and all their decisions have had a logic even though the results may not have been as hoped at times. FFsakes they moved fast to get rid of the Hodge, and got The King in. Then moved quickly to get JK in. Else the Mancs or the Chelski would have him by now. But that’ll mean nothing to you. Just try and lighten up, would you?? We need some positivity in amongst all the moaning.
6.5/10 seems a bit harsh to me.
They got a job lot when they bought a club with Hodgson in charge, and the malaise that 4 years of Statler & Waldorf brought us had started to sink in deeply. Add a divided fan base (half still supported Rafa, but ALL hated Hodgson), a clearly crocked and depressed talisman (Torres), a club legend #8 that nearly everyone loved, but had taken the responsibility of the clubs success/failure on his shoulders (and was to spend nearly 12 months injured) – and the fact that 2013/14 happened, and nearly HAPPENED – within 3 1/2 years was remarkable.
They got Kenny (which really, did any of us believe it would be long term), found their new man and backed him (for better or worse, but hey – stability and youth, and we did get 13/14). They got BURNT in the transfer market early, and you could even argue they’ve been burnt many times since – but they got the absolute #1 target manager that fits their youth/development/build not buy philosophy.
I don’t want instant success bought from the infinite cheque book of some oligarch. Never been the LFC way. Nor do I want pre made, high profile galactico superstars brought in for redonkulous sums – never been the Liverpool way (maybe it’s paying redonkulous sums for potential superstars that we tend to do…) – but overall – they’ve stayed on mission.
I’d be more critical of certain players, gaffers – odd tactical strategies and freak injuries – than of the owners themselves. The stand expansion is happening soon (it’s a start, after 15+ years of nothing), they’ve shown more faith in their managerial picks than most fans ( for better or worse…) and backed their guy/s. And they got Klopp. The man they (and everyone else it seems) wanted from day one. Their transfer committee has bought as well (probably better?) than most if their chosen gaffers transfer picks
If I had to compare it to the dark days of 2010 – 8/10. With a promising future. And the soul of the club still intact – which wasn’t the case in the final days of The Muppet Show. Look at Leeds, hell look at Villa – pulling yourself off the canvas is never as impressive as landing a knockout blow, but sometimes it’s harder – especially if you’ve been getting the living tar belted out of you – and EVERY TIME, pulling yourself off that canvas is absolutely essential if you want to get swinging hits again. And while we’re probably missing more than we’re landing at this point in the match – the 5 year recovery job, the joy of 13/14 (and Kenny’s league cup – for me anyway), the patient pursuit of the right man (absolutely the right man) – they’ve done better than anyone, oligarchs excepted – could realistically expect.
Or that’s my take on it. Compare my headaches to five years ago – and it seems slightly remarkable. But not there yet.
I think it can be even harder again though, Neil. As in it can work both ways. e.g. Suarez looks round before a match in 2011 and sees Downing, Carroll and Adam while Maxi and Kuyt are left out and Gerrard is still injured. He goes out and tries to do it all on his own and frustrates everyone, himself more than anyone. Liverpool end up drawing at home to whoever.
I think that’s what has happened to Coutinho’s form recently where he’s just taking pot shots that aren’t on out of frustration whereas last year he had Sterling to look for. I think you wrote something about the problem of having Coutinho as your main man and not a goal scorer earlier in the season (i.e. Sturridge or someone we should have signed by now with the Suarez/Sterling money when Sturridge is injured) which was fairly spot on and intertwined with what you’ve written here.
I honestly believe two of Lallana, Firmino and Ibe alongside Coutinho behind a no 9 with pace, movement and finishing takes you to very, very near the top of this league with the standard being what it is (fucking Leicester have done it with two players that cost buttons). If Sturridge was fit more often than not in the last 18 months we’d probably have won a cup last season, finished top 4 and be in the title mix up this season.
..and BR will still be with us, and Walter lad would be a happier man. :)
jokes aside, I agree with you that we will be close to being world beaters with Phil is our main creative force supported by movement of two other Tenors and the natural instinct and movement of Sturridge ahead…
Great read Neil. On the point of buying players with the immediate loan back option is frustrating the hell out of me. For one thing, you sell a player, he’s ours, you don’t sell us the player, then fine do what you want with him. Grujic (and/or Origi) aren’t Ronaldo (BR) or Zidane in their pomp. I can appreciate we are going after young talent, but we shouldn’t be so scared of who we are that we keep executing these soft buys. For another thing, our players are dropping like flies and we need some G-damn bodies right now, simple as that. Shit, if things keep going the way the are, our next big signing will be PSG’s treatment tables… but we’ll probably loan them right back.
i am a new follower of this page.really love to read the articles and comments.
We have a little magician who i think is a top notch..he just need to hit a gym more often.
Mignolet has kept highest no. Of clean sheets in 2015.
Only lack of leadership is the main concern.
We can buy a world class player..but cant make him club captain in first season.
We need gerrard more than ever if not as player but may be assistant to jk to whom our younglings can look to as inspiration.
We are a better than good team..just need the driving force
Brilliant writing Neill.
Hmmm. This is a bizarre season for Liverpool. Probably our treatment table best 11 is now better than the best of the rest 11.
One way or another, with an endless streak of games coming up we will have to get reinforcements. Of course what happens then in a month’s time when Sturridge, Origi, Coutinho, Lovren, Sakho, Skrtyl, Henderson are hopefully back at work along with Rossiter, Flanno ? Where does the the team spirit go then with if we bring in a bunch of new players ? Mind you if we are winning then that question is answered I guess.
I see 2 (loan ?) deals myself, a central defender and a fast, decisive, moving centre forward who is not first pick somewhere at present.
We cannot control anything in life let alone the outcome of an 11 v 11 contest with so many possibilities but the the ingredient that having magic breeds is confidence and that means so much.
I look at Leicester, a bunch of nobodies plus Mahrez, Kante and Vardy … exactly … A plan, stability, a collective buy in and quality is supported till it shines. What you get is a result greater than the sum of it’s parts.
You could say Spurs are an all around up grade on Leicester and you can see where they are going.
We have vastly superior nobodies, certainly compared to Leicester, I wouldn’t trade Klopp for any other manager, but we don’t have stability, Klopp has not yet imprinted his plan and right now the result goes either side of the sum of it’s parts. But I reckon we are close, nail 2 ‘uns now and we could burst out of this muddle yet.
Oh, by the way, who are you buying Neill ?
great piece but does that mean our prospective new signings are;
paul daniels, tommy cooper, ali bongo, derren brown, david nixon and youngster dynamo
You can only see in others what you see or have in yourself. Rodgers never won anything as a player or manager so he could not there was no guts or winner’s attitude in the players he bought. Ferguson had it abundance and rarely got it wrong.
Fuck me, look at Everton ffs. How much have they got wrong lately?
Yep, spot on. And that’s why the winner we have as our boss, means it’s only a matter of time. Patience.