Liverpool FC Forum

[hobbes]

I think it is time to admit the fact Houllier is not the right man for Liverpool. Thomson was doing a better job while Houllier was away. Everyone makes mistakes. But, Houllier made alot.Mistakes that the team cant afford. A huge sum of money was wasted on players like Diouf.  The team was doing well until Diouf & others came. We were the last one to lose a match in the previous primiership.  Every other team lost a game earlier than us. We were winning 7 in a row without losing one. No point being adamant and trying to justify wrong decisions. Houllier had a whole last season to make things right.Things that he himself made worse. Unlike Sir Alex, Houllier does not have the eye for talent. You can't simply buy players who made debut only once. Fine, when the player he bought could not perform along with the team, Houllier should rectify. He should not have used the match as a training ground trying to figure out what went wrong. Immediate rectification must be done.Every football pundit is commenting on our defeat and Criticising Houllier's move. Houllier is trying out his ideas. Each time Liverpool lose, not only the players are upset, but the fans all over the world are dissapointed and they are not dissapointed over the lost but because Houllier's experiment did not work out. Houllier easily ends his comment's by saying " we created alot of chances...,  I feel sorry for the players they worked very hard... we would have done better if we have done ..."
I think enough damaged has been caused in the past and I cant see any difference this season. We cant take anymore chances. Admit the fact. Houllier should be responsible enough to leave.

[azriahmad]

Hobbes, you were spot on about Houllier. He is clueless, he has destroyed Liverpool's passing game and he is solely responsible for turning Liverpool into a gutless and lost team on the pitch. Look at it, Liverpool can't string more then 3 good progressive passes, have no alternative ideas, are not creative when the going gets tough and are whimps at home. Look at how Chelsea outplayed Liverpool. Look at how easily Celtic beat Liverpool at Anfield.
Somebody in Liverpool please knock some sense into the board and get us Martin O' Neill. Even Harry Redknapp can do better. We need someone tactically astute and can be inspirational at the same time. O' Neill can get blood out of stone! Imagine what he can do with the talent pool within Liverpool (minus the duds like Cheyrou, Biscan, Diao and the 'king dud' Emile "no forst touch" Heskey of course!).
I am a long suffering fan in Malaysia. Otherwise, I would have organised a picket at Anfield to get Houllier out!
I agonise every time I watch Liverpool play, yet I tune in because I love the club to death.
I wish I can say that we should have more faith.... we've had it for 4 years too long with Houllier.

[gaz31]

dont worry liverpool fans gerrard houllier has a five year plan !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what a joke eh

[big al]

don't want to rain on everyones parade but did you ever stop to analyse the decline of the reds.  Daglish got blamed first, for what all the matches he won.  Then Souness that rubbish manager who transformed glasgow Rangers and now seems to be making blackburn into a club to be reckoned with.  Roy Evans came next got the blame for having to many spice boys.
Then came the revolution the return to the great days.  The creator of the five year plan.  Houllier!  Listen ask yourselves this what have all these guys got in common? Answer Derek Moores. He took over as chairman at the beginning of our decline.  He hired fired and allowed these people to ruin the club. Oh why can't we just go back in time to the good old days.  Looking for a replacement for Houllier. Lets set the criteria.  Scottish, Ex Miner, Greater motivator, Has played football at least once.  Knows tactics, Can spot a player by just looking at his knees, Would knock your head off for back lip, Loves football, cares nothing about his image, intelligent, genuine, loves the battle, but lives the war.  Plain talker, gives honest assessment, is an integral part of liverpool its club, its team, its people. But most important of all 'Will Never Walk alone'.

[azriahmad]

Hey Big Al, I am convinced that there is a good candidate for a new manager. The guy is managing a club in Scotland, or Glasgow to be more precise.
He has proven his abilities by getting average players to perform heroics beyond their normal abilities, can achieve a reasonable amount of success on a shoestring budget and is tactically astute.
This is in contrast to Houllier who is good at making good players into mediocre ones, can only achieve success with a huge slice of luck, blames everybody but himself and has the tactical knowledge of a turnip.
Should we stick to this bumbling Frenchman? His cluelessness reminds me of Inspector Cleuseau (I hope I spelt the name right) played by the late Peter Sellers.
Perhaps the Premier League should award points for attempts at goal, regardless of being on target or not. If that's the case, we'd be champions according to Houllier as he is always happy that "at least the players created many chances which could have won us the game if converted", utterred so many times during Liverpool's defeats, be it by more than a 2-goal margin.

[azriahmad]

I was quite amused to read that Houllier admitted that Liverpool is too dependent on the long ball game and actually said that it needs to be changed. Surprising because he is the one who is responsible for it.
After today's game at Villa, and commenting about the stalemate and the fact that Owen seem to be trying to single-handedly taking on the Villa defense to demonstrate that the long-ball game is indeed not the only approach, I bet Houllier will announce another 5 year plan to introduce a different approach...

[director]

The modern game has sped up to an enourmas degree in  the last ten years, unfortunately liverpool have become the slowest team in the premiership. Bar the out of sorts and lazy Michael Owen, the hard working but useless Heskey, we are very slow and have appauling bad movement, these are the real reasons we can't win the leafue. Every team in the league knows that the liverpool defence is uncapable of dealing with pace. We will never, I repeat NEVER win the premiership with this defence and no matter what positive spin  you put on any liverpool performance YOU and I know it. For those calling for Martin Oneill we need a little more than that we need the likes of Cappello, Hitzveld and co because as much as i would hate to admit it ALex Ferguson is by far the best manager in the premiership. Truth is not the confortable brother of failure but it is now time for it. We only have 2 world class players whereas other top eurpean tems have at least five. By the way Michael owen' England exploits do not count, i only care about LFC so he is not one of the two world calss players!!! 

[the_welsh_tex]

Ive just become a new member and reading other fans views confirm all my thoughts and views,i thought me and my mates were perhaps being a bit harsh,but i can clearly state that ive been absolutley spot on with what ive been talking about with the lads,there is an easy assesment i would like you all to think about for you to work out how we have fallen behind and not gone forward at all..........at present..how many liverpool players would you honestly think could get into either the man utd or arsenal team?,and then reverse the question,how many players from man utd or arsenal would get into the liverpool side,houllier does not get players to play to the best of their ability and i think that is the main problem,i have to say some of the signings he makes i dont understand how he makes his decision to say,"that player will be great for liverpool football club",because when players come to liverpool under houllier they seem to become worse players,again this is only my opinion,but it hurts to watch a game like the villa game today.

[azriahmad]

You'd get a Capello or a Hitzfield if you are a continental team playing in a continental league. But playing in the British league where the play is much more physical, you'd need a team leader who is experienced in the British game yet tactically astute enough to make some headway in Europe.
I agree that Ferguson is perhaps one of the best managers around, but it took him ages to get there. In the moders era with so much money at stake, even a good manager like Ferguson will not be given time as long as Houllier had to kick out the old bad habits and make a winning team.
I still think that in view of the nature of the English game, O'Neill is still the best candidate as he has demonstrated an ability to motivate average players to play out of their skin week in and week out and has been a shrewd judge of talent when it comes to buying players.

[its cold in the stands shadow]

shrewd judge of players? he built a team around heskey.
he does mould hard working sides but his style is too direct.
the focal points of his teams are always big target men.
i.e sutton, hartson, heskey.
i think the direct style will only take you so far as martin found out in the uefa cup final last year.
at the highest levels the best teams play attractive fluid football i.e madrid, man u, arsenal ect.
apart from the arsenal side of the early nineties no other team playing the direct style has done anything of note historically in the title race. the better teams find you out.
keegan for me, but toshack would do.

[azriahmad]

You may not totally agree, but O'Neill makes the best use of the players available to him, given the budget he has. Celtic has Larsson and Stilov plus that French guy who I can't remember (Agathe?) as players who are somewhat creative. Then he has grafters like Thopmson, Hartson and Sutton who in Premier League teams are just average. However, he has moulded them into players who play their hearts out and can also adapt to tactical changes. They may not pass as good as the Liverpool players, but they play effectively when they attack.
We were outplayed at Anfield and during the first half at Celtic. They even beat Juventus in the league phase with theit passionate and spirited play (that was in 2001).
We can't even hope to beat defensively weak teams like Barca. We were lucky to beat them in the UEFA cup in 2001 by the odd away goal. We can't even beat Galatasary who are not a strong team, can't beat Ajax who are young and inexperienced. Let's not start with other treams like Juve, Valencia, AC Milan, etc., not by the way Houllier plays.
Liverpool of today has no width, no penetrative play and no fighting spirit. Look at Leeds v Newcastle...
What I meant is that we should get someone who can take us forward. I believe O'Neill can.

[hobbes]

Could anyone confirm a rumour i.e GH is going to be sacked? somebody wrote about it saying he/she read it  somewhere. Please let me know the site.

[charliecrook]

hi, i'm a devoted liverpool fan, arent we all. thats why we are here, right!!!
basically, i'm going to go against a lot of this houllier out talk. GH has done well so far at liverpool if you look at the whole picture. when he first came we where nowhere. remember when roy evans tried and failed. since GH, we have won some nice cups and then everyone thought that it was time for the next level. true, it probably was. however, i think we must consider the fact that not everybody can win the big prizes. there is only one prem, one fa cup, one champs cup etc. there is a very fine line between winning any of them. the point here is that with man utd, arsenal and now chelsea spending lots of money building fantastic teams the competition is vast nowadays (more than it used to be), financial pressures not making it any easier to catch up.

basically, when we should have progressed we didnt. last season we did have a lot of injuries with henchoz, hamman, gerrard was on and off!! however, it is obvious that GH made big mistakes. by not buying anelka and getting diouf instead was one. diouf is good and plays with heart but not 10 million for me. anelka is superb! when him and owen in the same team we where devastating at the end of that season.

other mistakes seem obvious to us as fans, CHEYROU, TROARE and BISCAN( 5 million, how?) are terrible players. HESKEY (11 million, JOKE!) was good at first but no other top team would have put up with his dispalys of the past 2 seasons. he has been aweful. i hate all the stuff about him 'tracking back and helping out'! well, thats all hes good at and anyway, i want a forward to score goals or set them up, not tackle back all the time. what does errikson see in him too!!!? madness. these mistakes are clear and i believe that

GH should swallow his pride and get rid of the dead wood.
if these players go, the other players will be so much more assured on the pitch i'm sure. you can see that they don't even want to pass to these players, never mind play with them. sometimes i wish that GH just sat in the stand with us for a few games, surely he would see the same problems.

despite the negatives. we are only 3 games into the new season. there are already signs that we are going to play more offensively eg. the spurs game. GH has got to be given this season to try and re-ignite his team. he deserves that for sure. i would be happy with champs league due to the brilliance of man u, arsenal and maybe chelsea and i think the team and GH would be too. i think we must be realistic!

remember, fergie was 7 years at utd before he won anything with while we where winning everything. the year before fergie won something he had the fans on his back too. does this situation ring any bells! that should mean that we win the league next season (the 7th year), mmmm, MAYBE!

LETS GIVE TEAM SUPPORT I RECKON. IT'S NOT FAIR ON GH HEALTH TO PUT TOO MUCH PRESSURE ON HIM. IF WE DO BADLY, HE WILL KNOW TO STEP DOWN IF NEED BE! come on liverpool!!!!!

[hobbes]

dear charliecrook..

I have nothing against GH. But what i think is he is just not suitable for us. Have u seen his profile? Check it out at the sites.  No doubt he controls the team. He should listen to the player. Alex listens to Keane. Keane mentions about Ronaldo. Alex bought him.

I think the team spirit is missing. You yourself admitted that they play for the sake of playing.

The tempo has ben changed. The new comers are facing difficulties to adjust themselves. GH should react prudently.

GH cannot or rather should not simply follow other Manager's footstep. Just because MU - Paul Scholes was played in different positions at times, he should not do the same on Kewell. He should let them play their best football. Of course all professional footballers must be able to play in every other positions. But when one is best at a position, GH should help sharpen his special skill. Let him play there. Otherwise if GH insits on playing him on a different position, try them during the traning not  on a match. As i said earlier, everybody makes mistakes. Even sir Alex had done plenty. But a Manager should be able to correct it.

I think you are giving to much credit to GH. GH did not save Liverpool from anywhere. Liverpool was already doing Okay. He tried some new strategy if i may use the word, but it just didnt work.

If a manager needs 7 yrs / even 5 yrs to show the difference, I dont think he is a good one.

[tomj]

i agree we should get someone in with a bit of knowledge