The runners and riders…
TAW host Neil Atkinson and the lads discuss the fallout of the past week at Liverpool.
Did the club get it right?
Will they appoint the right man, and who do the lads think should succeed Kenny Dalglish?
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In reply to what was said about Frank de Boer. Him turning us down has nothing to do with Liverpool. He said very recently he wants to stay with Ajax for at least 10 years, he wants to build a dynasty there under the guidance of Cruijff. Ajax are going to offer him a contract for indefinitely this summer, and De Boer has already hinted at agreeing to it.
I’ve heard they’ve made an approach for his brother Rupert.
The public process that FSG have chosen to undertake is beginning to look desperate and getting embarrassing. Some of the names we’ve been linked with and FSG have approached have been very concerning. Is keeping a team in the Premier League, good enough credentials to manage LFC? Isn’t that why they appointed Hodgson. Martinez = Hodgson MkII
We need a manager who considers himself bigger than The Anfield legacy with the CV to back it up. ‘The Liverpool Way’ is well and truly dead. There’s no point in pretending otherwise anymore. Now it’s important to bring someone in who isn’t gasping in the clubs tradition. I think it’s time to move on and catch up.
Someone like Capello would bring us instant shape (modern European), destroy all hierarchy within club and have the authority to kick them into shape – bigger than the players, a positive disregard for sentiment.
LFC under Capello (or someone with a similar club record) is all of the sudden still a big club going through a temporary blip. We might still be able attract some top European players.
LFC under Martinez (or someone with similar CV) is a mediocre club hoping for the best. AVB is somewhere in between. The longer this goes on the more Rafa becomes ‘better the devil…’
While Martinez and the Hodge both come from ‘lesser’ clubs, the similarities between the two stop there really. Experience aside, there’s a decent case to be made for Martinez, it’s whether the club are willing to gamble (and it would be quite a big gamble) that all of his positives outweigh the obvious negative. If it were to be Martinez, with the fabled technical director & CEO above him, I think I’d be fairly happy, especially if someone like Pep Segura was the tech. director, even more so if the CEO was an experienced football man like Cruyff or Txiki.
That said, of the names so far in the public domain (who haven’t ruled themselves out), I like the sound of Villas-Boas most.
On Capello, from what I remember of his club management days, he tended to favour a very different style to what is already in place at Liverpool (more of a sit deep, diamond midfield with a ‘destroyer’ DM and AM between the lines). The other obvious notable with him is his age. I’d be surprised if we got him in after all the suggestions that FSG want to build something long term.
It can only be Rafa, and should he, on his sabbatical,have eaten just a little humble pie, could be allowed to piece together a team of back room staff that for the interim, could get us through the smog. No doubt he realises the position LFC are in and could educate FSG as to expectations versus payroll as you quite rightly point out. I sincerely believe Rafa would bleed for the club, and may come back from his tribulations in Milan with a less lofty attitude. Other than that , the opposite, go for a young turk, go nuts on the pitch, bring in the kids and let us all lighten up. I was never a huge fan of Rafa’s tactics, but who knows, he may surprise us.
It won’t be Rafa. FSG responded to the fans choice by appointing KK. They won’t do it again. Gambling on Martinez would be possibly be a losing gamble. At least AVB has won 2 domestic championships In Portugal and the Europa cup – a similar record to Rafa when he arrived.
I’ve got a hunch that this managerial search is all a smoke screen and we’ve already had are manager lined up for weeks maybe months ago. You look it from this point of view.
If FSG were to sack Kenny then appoint a new manager within a couple of days.Then there would be up roar from a majority of LFC fans at the treatment of Kenny and at the way they went behind his back already having a manager lined up.
I recin FSG are really clever people, They’ve approached the likes of martinez & rodgers which will p!ss liverpool fans off so much that they’d rather have a certain manager(He who lives on the Wirral) than inexperienced managers such as Rodgers or Martinez…WATCH THIS SPACE
I accept Peter H’s supposition that Rafa is persona non gratis with FSG. His thoughts on Martinez pacified me somewhat. May the footie gods look down on us.
One thing for sure is that whoever gets the gig and whatever we think, we have to give them a chance and get behind them if we are going to move it meaningfully. I don’t recall a Liverpool fanbase that bickered as much as this current one. Sign of the times, increased social media, Hicks and Gillet’s fault, FSG’s fault yadda yadda maybe….but it’s a new start either way so let’s get on board.
Somebody on the Podcast (I forget who sorry) made the point that they trust the owners are at least on the right page as they are happy with the list of names from which the new manager will *probably* come from – me too. In different ways and for different reasons I’d be happy with most of those mooted. The one thing they all share in common (aside from Rafa arguably, incidentally) is that their philosophies of football appear to be about playing attractive football a certain way. Surely that is promising.
Those that are extolling Rafa whilst knocking AVB for his allegedly poor man management skills should recall identical criticisms of Rafa. I’d be happy with Rafa but just think that (for the most part) it rarely works when people return to places they were once great. It would smack too much of Kenny and I just can’t see FSG going for it unless the other options ran nowhere. The other worry about AVB returning to the PL is the emotional scar of the shite time he had at Chelsea. On the flipside, mind, you would have to admire the bottle in returning and SURELY he would have learned some valuable lessons.
I think it was Peter on the Podcast who was bigging up (mediuming?) Martinez – I’d go with this too. With the fuck all fans + lack of investment, he was never likely to be battling it out halfway up the league. You can argue that Swansea and Norwich did it this season, but let’s see how they go on next year. Teams started to figure Swansea out towards the end of the season (aside from us, obviously!). I like how he handles the cameras, his sides do play nice football, and with the right person alongside him to shore up his perhaps defensive blind-spots then there is definitely something there.
Of the available managers Capello’s is surely the best CV. But the bloke didn’t learn English sufficiently well in 3 years – hence communication would surely be a major worry. He just doesn’t quite fit for me.
We aren’t getting Guardiola are we? If we want Champions’ League the season after next go for Rafa or Capello. If is isn’t the be-all, and end-all then let’s start again and get some young upstart with some different ideas.
Fuck it, AVB. And if it his him, let’s get behind him and his mental high defensive line.
The trouble with Martinez for me is this:
If he hadnt had that 9 game spurt at the end of the season would Peter be bigging up the fact that all the teams in the Wigan umbrella play the same. That’s all fine and well but it took him until those last games to change the system to a 3-4-3 for it to work. Why so long?.
I may be being harsh but he’s narrowly avoided relegation again. Each time by the skin of the teeth. No marked improvement, no rise up the table each year ( just by the odd 2-3 places) just a stoic last few weeks avoidance of the bottom 3.
Peter is correct to say that Martinez set up the system at Swansea that they employ today, although the system now is different to that which Martinez employed, chiefly in the fact that Swansea now defend. I know a lot of Swans fans ( being born 7 miles away) and believe me, while they acknowledge his part in wiping away the horror of the Kenny Jackett era, they are not hugely complimentary regards his time and what he left in place.
I can’t say I was hugely swayed by the Wigan did nothing because of their wage structure. I’d assume that said structure isnt too dissimilair to that of Norwich, Swansea et al. It’s a bit of a misnomer that for me.
Having said that I suspect that Martinez is a locked on cert for the job with 2 Spanish compatriots to be appointed in the roles above him. I think thats more likely than AVB. It is however filling me with nervousness!.
While we all love a good debate, the issue is a moot point.
The criticism of Martinez started the day the King left, and AVB has been subject of sustained personal attack from many quarters, even from Tony Evans. Anybody linked with the club in fact has had a constant barrage of criticism in one form or another.
Except for Rafa of course…
Which brings us to the point and the inevitable way that this scenario is going to play out.
Liverpool(in terms of on field performance) is a rebuilding project which will take years to be in a position to compete for the top 4, and if any of you want Liverpool to compete at the very top? Top 4 is the minimum requirement to get there.
Martinez has a season like the King just had? Try to imagine the reaction of the fans, there will be chants for Kenny and Rafa by Christmas.
The same goes for AVB, though to a lesser extent.
The simple fact is that regardless of any of these managers ability or potential they will be slaughtered by sections of our support. And I don’t just mean the idiots who slaughter every manager and player who doesn’t meet their standards. Because the militant superfans want Rafa or they want Kenny and that’s ALL they will accept.
So whats going to happen is:
A. Martinez/AVB gets the job, they prioritise the league. League form is just like this season steady but not good enough. Rafas name is being sung at anfield by christmas and the superfans up their already existing campaign against the owners. Turmoil ensues.
B. Rafa gets the job, he prioritises the league because Rafa like no other LFC manager prioritised The Champions League and to a lesser extent the league above all other competitions. League form is just like this season steady but not good enough. Rafa does what Rafa has always done in the past and he holds press conferences to criticise the owners and it is yet again turmoil at LFC
Personally, unlike the superfan, I will support whichever man gets the job because for me the club is bigger than personalities.
Firstly, Rafa’s not coming back. We might not know much about what’s going on with FSG but we know enough to realise they’re not going down the route of fan appointed ex staff.
Obviously AVB and Martinez are the front runners and although I personally have a fair whack on AVB I’d prefer Martinez.
Everyone who has worked with AVB seems to think he’s a knob. At Chelsea that was the opinion from the cleaning lady upwards. Discipline is important at a club with such horrible personalities as they have but bringing players in on their day off just turns them against you. I doubt his personality could fit in to this new structure we expect to be implemented at Liverpool. I know he tried to change Chelsea for them to move forward and to suggest he was a failure there might be harsh but he’d come with a tarnished reputation.
My choice would be Martinez. I think the criticism of his possible appointment is harsh. One thing I’m very confident about is he’s no Roy Hodgson mark 2. Firstly, I think the lowered expectation among the fans could be key to him succeeding. Given a honeymoon period of 12 months without idiots calling for his head on Twitter everyday I think he could take us forward. Naturally, I have reservations too but I cling to the realisation that all good managers were inexperienced / unproven at some point in their career. His record at Swansea was very good and them being in the Premiership now is down to him as much as Brendan Rodgers, although Rodgers must certainly take a lot of that credit too. I think Martinez is a very good man manager and can get the best out of his players, I think he’s good with the press but most importantly I think he’s tactically astute. I don’t think he’s one of these managers whose only attribute is 10 men behind the ball.
I’ve noticed Capello’s name in the mix too. For me, this is exactly what I don’t want. I feel these low finishes in the league are the perfect chance to overhaul the club and modernise it. We hear a lot about putting a structure in place and a philosophy on the field, well I feel now is the time to at least attempt to implement that. Liverpool can get back in the top 4 fairly quickly but because of the size of the club I believe we can be great again. The decisions made this summer will make or break us but I’m prepared to get behind someone like Martinez (particularly based on the alternatives) and give it a go with an open mind. A fresh new chapter in our history.
Obviously, FSG may appoint someone form off the radar but with the names being put about I think we could do a lot worse than give Martinez a go.
I am somewhat surprised by all the calls to re-employ Rafa.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally appreciate everything he did for the club, including racking up a points tally which any other season would have won us the league (damn that ManUre). True we’ve not been anywhere near that since, but we need to also take into account a massive loss to the club which was directly his fault.
That loss being …. Xabi Alonso. His man management to me, left a lot to be desired and whilst he was tactically meticulous and very astute, I don’t want him back at the club, trying to re-claim full autonomy and in the process pi$$ing off Lucas or Luis. Back then, we couldn’t afford being without Alonso and we certainly can’t afford to be without the 2 previously mentioned players.
I say we continue to look, Martinez is too cloudy an option. On paper his results are no different to KDs, taken points off of most if not all of the “top 4”, but got continuously beaten by the “lesser clubs” and those around them until the tail end of the season when the team ran through brick walls for him. Question is, can he do this on a grander scale with bigger expectations? Fine we might not expect the league title within 2yrs, but we’ll be looking for a hell lot more than 8th and Europa next year.
AVB is an interesting proposition, simply on the grounds that no team will be as big a bunch of conceited d1ckheads as the one he last managed, so his “project” might be received a little more warmly by a team wanting to get back to where it belongs as opposed to a team with a massive sense of entitlement.
I think the thing going for both these managers is their PL experience which means they know what to expect. de Boer was an attractive option, I do like Brendan Rodgers, but in my opinion he’s only a few rungs up from Martinez, he has had a good while working with those players and their style of play is impressive but based on a lot of ground work put in over a number of years. Barca didn;’t start playing tiki taka overnight and neither would we! I tip my hat to him for the loyalty shown to Swansea (unless he didn’t fancy the pressure either).
Anyway, whoever the choice in the end, let’s get behind them and let’s hope FSG give them enough time to establish themselves and as a few of you guys are saying “modernise” the club and help them “keep up with the Jones'”. 30+ points off the top is not acceptable – YNWA
@ 20 minutes the debate about the structure of the club, its identity and the use of the word messianic (the messiah!) is comical.
Liverpool like their messianic managers? The last one was Rafa?
We need to look to the Borussia Dortmund, Ajax, Barcelona models. The back room staff (DOF, GM etc). What did Guardiola do before he got the Barca job. What did DeBoer do before he got the Ajax job. Klopp was kicking his heals in the lower German divisions before Dortmund. Pick the right man regardless of what he’s won! Just pick the right one. Just like the aforementioned clubs above. Clubs who went with their convictions and are now reaping the benefits.
What is it with looking to the past and never looking forward?
Rafa Benitez is not the answer (Pol pot). He had his time and he was shown to be a DOF wrecker in his time. MOVE ON!
What club pays £15m release clause. £13m wages and set a criteria to replace the older players and change the football style. 6 months sacked. That’s Chelsea. A club ran by the players. The man who should have been sacked should have been the man who hired AVB.
AVB and strangely Martinez for me.
AVB
All managers have to start somewhere so I wouldn’t be completely against the idea of a Martinez or a Rodgers, someone that comes from a small club. One thing that is clear is that the club needs to make changes at more than just a managerial level, but whatever changes are made, and whatever structures are put in place it’s imperative that we GET IT RIGHT. Let’s be honest, there’s no guarantees in this game so whichever direction the owners take… It’s still a risk. I’d have my doubts about any manager that comes in with the club being in the situation it finds itself, but you know what? I’ll be 100% behind whoever comes in
It was suggested on the podcast that we give a manager a shot one year, if it doesn’t work out, get another the next year and then another until we find the right one. That wasn’t the cleverest thing ever said on this podcast. After having had the fewest managers over the last few decades and proudly so, aren’t we on a slippery slope! The Liverpool way?
It appears to me that the fans have just bought into the idea of a Martinez or an AVB, purely out of the hope that one of these unknown geniuses would come to the rescue and restore us to where we rightfully belong. And hanging on to that glimmer of hope, we are happy to embrace huge risk and uncertainty.
Martinez, a guy whose biggest achievement is keeping a couple of teams afloat, is a front runner. Well, he’s Spanish you say? He surely must know what he’s doing then. By the way, Brendan Rogers said “Barca” twice, so lets give him an outside chance. Oh wait, he’s clever, knows he’ll never get it, so, shames us in public.
And AVB, eh? Remember how much abuse Rafa got for his supposedly poor man management skills? And now we’re all singing AVB’s name? If there is one manager who has a rude learning curve ahead of him in the area, it is him. Who bulldozes through a team of international players expecting everyone to fall in line? Sure, his tactics-speak and his scouting reports seem amazing. But genuis is seldom enough to succeed, not in a team game anyway. And boy did he stink the whole place up where he last went! Anyway, lets take a punt, we are not Chelsea, we are the good guys. Everything will be good. Sure.
And since when are we grooming and experimenting with managers, who would learn and probably, hopefully make the cut, while Liverpool football club bear the risk?
And to think that Benitez might not even be granted an interview. A manager with the experience of several champions league semi finals, and someone who beat free spending Barca and Madrid to the title twice is in the backyard. Deserves an interview? No? Okay.
My concern centres around our embracing of mediocracy, I think it’s a cultural thing, to lessen the blow of the barbs we get in there first – ‘lets face it we’re just desperados’ or ‘In the end we’re a mid table team at the moment’. I’m not using this in relation to the chosing of our manager (I don’t think we will get Guardiola, or should expect to, and there is potentially nothing wrong with going for someone with little experience at the sharp end),
I do though think the mindset of the fans is important for when the new manager is in place (and again not foolishly high, like it’s the league or we start singing for Kenny). In many ways we’re the most tenacious fans in the world, we haven’t won the league forn 22years, but at the start of every new season, every proper Liverpool fans, even if he doesn’t speak it allowed, believes somewhere we can win the league – as he should. The cumulation of that belief, across hundreds of thousands and million of people matters, and it is part of what makes us great; it matters because without that belief, we’re basically Aston Villa in red.
The truth is we’re not a medicre club, when Man U went 26yrs without winning the league, they were still Man U: AC, Juve & Inter, Barca, AJAX, Madrid, they’ve all had there down times, but they don’t lose their identity, their prestige – lets not forget who we are, we’re Liverpool football club. I also don’t want this mediocracy to rub off on the owners (though this is me just being neurotic, it will not happen cos thy’re are obviously massively motivated by, lets call it growth – and thank god they are), in that they start to think that it’s OK to take a few years to get back in the CL. Again, don’t get me wrong, we may very well not get into the CL next season, in which case we dust ourselves off and start to believe again – but we don’t start from that point of view (People are pretty familliar with science of acheivement from expectation and belief, so I want expand, but suffice to say greatness in sport is built on it).
Now to the manager, this appointment is an exercise in Risk assessment. AVB and Martinez for example both have differing, but quite large risks attached to them (and this is where perhaps an interview is appropriatte, to help the owners understand if there could be some mitigation in those risks), but both have strong upsides if it goes well. From an objective view point Rafa carries the least Risk, and here’s why;-
Benitez was competing with three other teams who were not only the best in the league, but the best in Europe (check Arsenal, Chelsea and Man U’s CL record between 2005 & 2010), he started as easily the weakest of the 4 (37 points behind Chelsea in 2005), over the next few years he got us 3rd, 3rd and 4th, culminating in a title bid in 08/9 missing out by just 4 points and placing well above Chelsea and Arsenal. That added to the fact that his European record was so good it got us to go into the 09/10 season and the number 1 ranked team in Europe. The Risk with Benitez is what happend next, but I know of no EPL manager that has managed a top team played out against such a back drop in my life time, so there is strong evidence for mitigation here.
It was claimed on the podcast that the owners think Benitez is something akin to the anti Christ, and this is why they aren’t intersted; I’m not convinced by that, I think FSG are in this to win and wouldn’t let personal issues interfere with that. I think the reason he’s being ignored was pointed to too when, I think Peter said that Benitez basically equated the league results in relation to the wage bill – this is the antithesis of the sabermetrics model, and I think this is why FSG haven’t looked at him – to me it’s a false economy (it’s not how much of the pie you get, it’s how big the pie becomes!)
Lastly I was slightly suade by this pretty damn astute analysis on AVB; for those of you that are on the edge of the cliff at the thought of him have a look at this http://katecohensoccer.wordpress.com…pool%E2%80%8F/
I met to say on the above re Benitez and Risk, the league might be more competitive now, with 6 teams competing for 4 spots, but the standard is significantly lower than 2005 – 2010 as evidenced by how poorly are top teams did on both European competitions (OK CFC won it but that had a lot to do with the bounce they got from the switch from AVB to RDM, we saw that effect in at the end of last season, everbody else did horribly); and by how well the promoted teams did. and it’s not just this season, the last two have been a definite decline comparatively. I think Benitez would do well against this crowd.