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Vulnerable Liverpool are mediocre - and they know it

Discussion in 'Liverpool' started by Jimmy Squarefoot, May 19, 2015.

  1. Jimmy Squarefoot

    Jimmy Squarefoot Well-Known Member

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    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/clubs/liverpool/article4444751.ece

    Not since buying Liverpool in October 2010 has Fenway Sports Group (FSG) endured such a chastening 72 hours. On Saturday, supporters at Anfield reacted with derision to the suggestion that the club are heading in the right direction. Then yesterday there was a vicious double whammy as Michel Platini confirmed that the Financial Fair Play rules which attracted John W. Henry to purchase the club are to be relaxed and Raheem Sterling’s camp made it known that the winger wishes to leave.

    Liverpool are vulnerable right now. They are mediocre and everyone knows it. The reality is that those at the top end of the football industry have known it for some time, hence senior scouts from Manchester City and Chelsea becoming Anfield regulars this season in the knowledge that Liverpool’s best players are there for the taking in a way that they haven’t been for half a century.

    For all the opprobrium – some of it just, some of it not – that will inevitably be showered on Sterling and his representative, Aidy Ward, following yesterday’s events, the reality is that it is Liverpool’s weakness that allows players and agents to act in the way that they are. One of the club’s first and most important responsibilities is to make it a place that players find difficult to leave and it would be absurd to claim that is the case.

    With no Champions League football to offer, only one trophy (the League Cup) won in the past nine seasons, just three title challenges since 1991, a transfer policy that prioritises the future over the present and an inability to compete for top players, Liverpool are failing to keep their end of the bargain in terms of how a big club are supposed to behave. Expectations have been lowered, almost dumbed down, and if the supporters can recognise that so too can the players.

    Thus far, the strongest argument that Liverpool have been able to muster in their attempts to convince Sterling to remain at the club is that it is the best place for his development at this stage of his career; not that if he remains at Anfield he can fulfil his ambitions, that success is around the corner or that they will pay him as much as others are willing to. It is an argument rooted in weakness and lacking in conviction.

    It could also be argued that it is flawed given that Sterling, a creative player, has spent the past 12 months playing in a team without a forward. It is all well and good playing regular first-team football but doing so in a dysfunctional team that stymies your best qualities is hardly developmental.

    The reality is that Liverpool’s problems – their failure to finish in the top four, their struggle to hold on to their best players, the lack of supporters’ faith in the club’s direction and the pressure that is building on the Anfield hierarchy – are symptoms of the same cause: a flawed transfer strategy that it is causing untold damage. Signing potential rather than proven talent is undermining everything that Liverpool are supposed to stand for. It has reached the stage where one of their better young players is not prepared to hang around to see if their inferior young players will improve.

    For all the accusations that Sterling is going the wrong way about forcing a move (and many of these are wholly legitimate), Liverpool are at the mercy of the ambition of others because they are either unwilling or unable to match their rivals’ ambition. That situation is only likely to become more severe now that FFP is about to be watered down. As Henry himself conceded recently, without FFP it becomes “very difficult” for Liverpool to compete. The established football food chain, ordered according to owners’ wealth, leaves them exposed. Rival clubs, avaricious agents and even their own supporters know this only too well.

    FSG’s model is failing. Whether that is because it is fundamentally flawed or poorly executed is a moot point but what is not in question is that Liverpool’s entire football operation is in need of urgent evaluation. Until the things that are going wrong are put right, then Raheem Sterling won’t be the last to believe the grass is greener elsewhere, he’ll just be one of a number in an ever lengthening line who view Liverpool Football Club as a stepping stone rather than a final destination.
     
    #1
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  2. Red Hadron Collider

    Red Hadron Collider The Hammerhead

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    There you go then Jimmy. get a job with the Times. You can get paid for knocking them there <ok>
     
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  3. luvgonzo

    luvgonzo Pisshead

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    I think we had to start there though and as much as this season has been disappointing if we get the right players in this Summer then we'll have a good mix of youth and experience.

    Problem is like most I'm not so sure we'll get the right players in.
     
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  4. Jimmy Squarefoot

    Jimmy Squarefoot Well-Known Member

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    Lallana and Lovren were supposedly the 'experienced' players we needed...
     
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  5. So was Mario. Oh, and Sanchez too.
     
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  6. FedLadSonOfAnfield

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    How much exactly are FSG worth then?? <laugh>
     
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  7. luvgonzo

    luvgonzo Pisshead

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    And that's where the doubt about this Summer comes in, I don't mind Lallana and have hopes that he will improve but Lovren is poor and unless we get a partner in for him who can control him and talk to him as Fonte did he'll continue to be a liability.
     
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  8. Hash.

    Hash. pure daycent

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    Doesn't matter they've said from day one the club will be self sufficient. I.e they're not for pumping 5/6 hundred million in ala abramovich or sheikhy Stevens etc.
     
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  9. Jimmy Squarefoot

    Jimmy Squarefoot Well-Known Member

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    But this is the thing - we spent £25m on Lallana. If came as a squad player, then fair enough. But he didn't - he came to replace Luis Suarez. We cannot be spending £25m on a player who doesn't improve us.

    Rodgers really needs to understand that there is a line between decent players who can come into a squad, and elite level players that will push us beyond. Rodgers has a small club mentality IMO - further backed up by saying the Playoff Final was the biggest day of his career.
     
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  10. redconn

    redconn Active Member

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    we're not a big enough club to attract elite players

    Rodgers went for elite players so his mentality is fine.

    The size and status of the club is ultimately the problem.
     
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  11. luvgonzo

    luvgonzo Pisshead

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    I don't think he was a direct replacement for Suarez but he was brought in to add quality to the side. The transfer fee was daft and we should have looked elsewhere, ability wise go back to his last season at Southampton and he was brilliant. I hope he can settle in and recreate that form, problem is it was his only season scoring so many so will he ever get that kind of run again?
    I'm not too down on Lallana he tries hard (maybe too hard) and I really hope that he'll be an asset in the future.

    Lovren again was very good in his last season but it's clear he needs a controller like Fonte alongside him, a calm charcter who talks and organises. The worry again is that it was just the one season and he's been poor in the past and we should have been well aware of that and understood what we were buying.

    All this points to Rodgers and or the fabled committe.

    Regardless of what happens with these two in the future we should not have been handing over that kind of money for them.
     
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    Last edited: May 19, 2015
  12. Sir_Red

    Sir_Red Well-Known Member

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    It's not the size of the club that's the issue at all, that's complete crap - I have to say. our stadium and fanbase are equal to/higher than even Chelsea, plus our history etc.

    It's that we:
    - Don't play in CL
    - Don't win trophies that count
    - Don't pay big wages
    - Are based in Liverpool not London
     
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  13. Jimmy Squarefoot

    Jimmy Squarefoot Well-Known Member

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    We have a small name manager that very few want to play for.
     
    #13
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  14. Archers Road

    Archers Road Urban Spaceman

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    You can keep them two. Lovren's a bit of a rusty banger but you might get some decent of mileage out of Lallana if you don't rip the engine out of him.

    We'll take Rickie Lambert back off your hands though. That was a bad deal all round.
     
    #14
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  15. redconn

    redconn Active Member

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    and less revenue than the top4
    smaller ground than 3 of them
    can't afford the same wages and budgets as all 4 under FFP
    less recent success
    lose top players far more frequently than all 4

    it's a long list. players may be thick but they're not that stupid. We're not a good prospect at the moment.

    If anything, Rodgers attacking style and recent top2 finish is probably the only thing we have going for us
     
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  16. astro

    astro Well-Known Member

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    It's amazing how people will slag off Rodgers for not outperforming more expensive squads when hit by an injury crisis
     
    #16
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  17. luvgonzo

    luvgonzo Pisshead

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    There's a big split in the supporters again that is clear and it needs sorting. Going to be a crazy Summer.
     
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  18. moreinjuredthanowen

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    My view is the term mediocrity is just a buzzword.

    Just as superpower which is saw in another article referring to LFC and how sterling is mad.

    The whole thing boils down to what did we do in the past to lead to here.

    1. John moores built the centenary stand in his time... at 12million pounds and whined about it.

    2. John moores signed the player of the 1996 euros for the czechs. Patrick berger. He whined about 3.6million fee.

    He spent next nearly 10 years "backing" managers but trying all the while to sell up.

    In the mean time other clubs built big stadiums and so forth.


    Did you know in 1990 Old trafford ended up with 44,000 capacity after converting to all seater?

    So when we were at our peak there was no gap. By 2000 the capacity was up to 68,000 and on 2007 it became 76000

    What have we done... we've whined, moaned and bleated about it... we are now in progress... what 25 years later about to go from 45k to 54k... and the anfield road end conversion is not even assured to get to 58k.

    What does this tell us?


    Same can be see at melwood, same can be said out at kirby. bits and peices, no grand strategy, no get up and go either.


    BUT.....

    Hang on...

    5th is not medicore. we cannot forget how bloody lucky we are to be so high up and have so much money to spend... we really don't know we are born really.

    Unfortunately such luck also lends itself to the half assed way we go about things.. we can buy whatever and get up and around 5th... its not hard when you have the cash.


    .........................................................

    what are our problems:

    1. Distant owners. Really not sure they are all that interested from afar or connected.

    2. CEO is a yes man. Ayra. I defend him cos he cares but he is not a guy with a vision or an obsessvie person who will drive a revolution through the club. He'll run it like he is running it. small time.

    3. Bad structures. The club has underage split from first team, has better coaches down in the reserves and u18s than at senior level.
     
    #18
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  19. johnsonsbaby

    johnsonsbaby Well-Known Member

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    Mediocre clubs aren't focussed on, referred to or bothered with [go look at Everton - no personal disrespect from me here] We're the number one talked about club, what does that tell you? We are still regarded as 'mattering' in the football world. We have problems, have had for a while, but we're still competing I mean 5th knocking on the door of CL after the season we've had or convinced ourselves we've had that's a feat in itself!
     
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  20. moreinjuredthanowen

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    If I were FSG:

    1. I would think ok... really... am I in this or am I not? Then I'd spend or not spend. They have tried in fairness to put some funding in place and support us but they want us to be self funding.

    2. I would seriously say ok.. we've ****ed around long enough Let hire someone in to run this show. Tom chairman? c'mon... lets get someone who's like a cortese or whoever who is utterly obsessive and while transform the whole show top to bottom and then back the ****er for 3 years. The whole thing top to bottom needs change.

    3. I would open the wallet and spend another 200mil cos if you don't you are ****ed but my approach would not be spread the wealth it would be targetted spend. IT has to be on wages its that simple. You have to take in 3/4 real players on big wages and frankly fill in the rest as best you can.
     
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