Tactics, philosophy, formation, etc...

Liverpool Football Club - General Discussion

Postby stmichael » Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:58 am

worcester_red wrote:if we carry on with our current sh!te play he will NOT be our manager next season.

i presume you were one of the ones complaining after we recently beat city on their own patch, keeping the first clean sheet by an away team there since november 2010 weren't you.

we've had two very poor performances against stoke and bolton ffs. you make it sound like we've been poor for a sustained period when in reality we've lost our two of our most important players in suarez and lucas and our captain has only just come back from injury. unfortunately we are not in a position whereby we can just replace players of that quality with players of equal quality.

do you seriously believe we'll continue to be as poor as we have been in the last two games for the remainder of the season?
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Postby 7_Kewell » Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:07 am

stmichael wrote:
worcester_red wrote:if we carry on with our current sh!te play he will NOT be our manager next season.

i presume you were one of the ones complaining after we recently beat city on their own patch, keeping the first clean sheet by an away team there since november 2010 weren't you.

we've had two very poor performances against stoke and bolton ffs. you make it sound like we've been poor for a sustained period when in reality we've lost our two of our most important players in suarez and lucas and our captain has only just come back from injury. unfortunately we are not in a position whereby we can just replace players of that quality with players of equal quality.

do you seriously believe we'll continue to be as poor as we have been in the last two games for the remainder of the season?

come on mate, you REALLY saying that our performance against Man City was awe inspiring? We played well for 45 mins and got a penailty...we then played with 10 men in defence like a lower league team. It wasn't good and we were saved my City's inability to convert their chances.

playing for a goal and then sitting back on mass in defence was Roy's way of playing and it sucked back then
Last edited by 7_Kewell on Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby devaney » Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:08 am

My gawd this is turgid stuff !!!
Net Spend Over The Last 5 Years 20/21 to 24/25  (10 years
are in brackets 15/16 to 24/25 )
LFC €300m (€420m)
Everton +€33m (€211m)
Arsenal €557m (€853m)
Spurs €571m (€684m)
Chelsea €945m (€1051m)
Man City €370m (€1038m)
Man United €687m (€1240m)
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Postby Kerry07 » Wed Jan 25, 2012 4:36 am

Kenny will be here next season so u can stop the speculating.

This summer is massive to say the least. He didn't get it right with the British signings, and the perception is he wanted to install a British spine in hoping for solidity (that Man U have had with Fletcher, Ferdinand, Carrick, and now Jones & Smalling) and then have technically flashy foreigners to supplement this - the cherry on top of a cake. It hasn't worked as the British players either dont fit/aint good enough, so he has to change this policy. The days of British dominated teams ala Tim Sherwood, Jason Wilcox and Stuart Ripley are over, these players would get eaten against their spanish equivalents. Unlilke back then (when a slightly past it Klinsmann was all the Premiership could attract), the league is far more advanced, and now brings in the best talent from around the world. Teams such as Wigan and Swansea play in a manner that the 1992/93 3rd place team Norwich could only dream of. Where would a team of Jeremy Goss, Ian Crook, Mark Robins, Ruel Fox finish in todays league? Charlie Adam is a similar level to these fellas; decent but way short of what is now required at the very top end.
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Postby kazza » Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:22 am

I don't really see too much difference between us now and us a few years ago. Different squad but still lacking in consistency. We can win against anyone and we pulled off some great victories, but not on a regular. The team still does not have a winning mentality.
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Postby Thommo's perm » Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:59 am

kazza wrote:I don't really see too much difference between us now and us a few years ago. Different squad but still lacking in consistency. We can win against anyone and we pulled off some great victories, but not on a regular. The team still does not have a winning mentality.

This is the obvious flaw in the plan
When managers buy a player it is for different reasons, one of them being that the person is a "winner". We see players who have won trophies or leagues being bought by clubs to pass this attitude on to others. The concern is that with Downing, Henderson and Carroll what have they won? How can they inspire and be confident in their own ability if they have yet to win anything? Is it not too much to ask for them to come to a club with winning in its soul and expect them to be as effective as say, Gerrard or Carra?
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Postby Homebooby » Wed Jan 25, 2012 11:23 am

7_Kewell wrote:
Benny The Noon wrote:
7_Kewell wrote:
Benny The Noon wrote:Well that is all your going to give Kenny - one full season starting from the start of the season.

You're making this up as you go along.. :laugh:

Nothing to make up - Kenny wasn't installed as full time manager until the summer after doing a great job as caretaker from a negative starting position.

So this is Kenny's first full season for a crack at the CL spot - so your saying if he doesn't get it then be must go ? Yes ?

sorry..i forgot that in Benny Land Kenny's first 6 months didn't matter  :laugh:

Meanwhile, in the real world, Kenny will have been in charge of Liverpool for a year and a half by the summer and spent more than any other manager in that period of time. A top 4 goal/expectation/demand/hope/wish is not unreasonable as our owners have already shown.

Couple of questions:

Are you taking into account that player prices are more inflated than ever before. Do you have any mechanism at all to measure this in real terms?

Hypothetical question, if Kenny had only spent 50 mill on these players, would you be singing his praises here. I am curious as to whether you are judging the signings or price of the player as you seem to be mixing the 2 up and they are definitely 2 completely separate things. One is a subjective valuation of a player based on his importance to the current team, market demand for that particular players and the general market place, the other is slightly more tangible in relation to the team and the talent of the person in question.

Rather than focussing on his signings, can you just clarify whether you think that Kenny is the right person for the job as I think this is at the crux of all the arguments here. You are confusing things by attacking him and then saying you support him. This is confusing to most as you appear not to support him as your comments are more critical and less constructive than traditionally someone who does support the manager. If you don't, that's fine, but we need to move on from the rut we're in in this thread.

If you are in support of the manager, I would like to see you be a little more constructive in how you think Kenny can dig us out of the hole that we're in, rather than constantly slamming him. I think we're all in agreement in the support Kenny camp that we've some way to go. I think the general wish is to focus on how to build on where we are, rather than tear it up and start again

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Postby Ola Mr Benitez » Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:55 pm

worcester_red wrote:if we carry on with our current sh!te play he will NOT be our manager next season.

I thik people are getting a little confused with "bad play" and "bad results".

Since Kenny has taken over, apart from a handful of games our playing style has improved significantly.  Have a look at the stats this season.  We are pretty close to top of the league for possession, chances created and goals against which kind of points to us playing pretty well.

We desperately need a forward in the style of Rush, Fowler, Owen and dare I say it Torres who score a high percentage of chances they recieve.

If our chances converted was similar to Utd or City this season we would still be challenging as we have created shed loads in most games.
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Postby RedAnt » Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:02 pm

Ola Mr Benitez wrote:
worcester_red wrote:if we carry on with our current sh!te play he will NOT be our manager next season.

I thik people are getting a little confused with "bad play" and "bad results".

Since Kenny has taken over, apart from a handful of games our playing style has improved significantly.  Have a look at the stats this season.  We are pretty close to top of the league for possession, chances created and goals against which kind of points to us playing pretty well.

We desperately need a forward in the style of Rush, Fowler, Owen and dare I say it Torres who score a high percentage of chances they recieve.

If our chances converted was similar to Utd or City this season we would still be challenging as we have created a lt in most games.

Agreed. We're much better under Kenny and if we'd converted our chances, turned all those awful draws at Anfield into wins, we'd be challenging for the title now.

The aim of the game is to score goals though and we ain't doing that! Will it come in time? I hope so.
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Postby worcester_red » Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:46 pm

stmichael wrote:
worcester_red wrote:if we carry on with our current sh!te play he will NOT be our manager next season.

i presume you were one of the ones complaining after we recently beat city on their own patch, keeping the first clean sheet by an away team there since november 2010 weren't you.

we've had two very poor performances against stoke and bolton ffs. you make it sound like we've been poor for a sustained period when in reality we've lost our two of our most important players in suarez and lucas and our captain has only just come back from injury. unfortunately we are not in a position whereby we can just replace players of that quality with players of equal quality.

do you seriously believe we'll continue to be as poor as we have been in the last two games for the remainder of the season?

Unless we sign a quality striker in the next few days I fear we will decline even further. We have a had a some great games this season and some of the football has been very encouraging but the lack of goals is a huge concern and lately we aren't even creating chances and to be fair the first half against Citeh was good the second was nerve racking.

BTW This season 4th place is wide open as Chelsea and Arsenal are both flaky, if we could get a goal scorer then it would be ours for sure but KK seems to be the only one with any faith in Carroll, that might be his downfall.
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Postby Benny The Noon » Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:58 pm

There have been many fathers to Liverpool’s failures this season. Ill fortune, untimely slip-ups, missed opportunities. The woodwork has repeatedly produced man-of-the-match performances, and opposing goalkeepers have been so inspired by the sight of the Reds that they have grown extra arms for the occasion. But this wasn’t the case at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday. Nope, Liverpool were beaten by Bolton, not because of cosmic forces, ley lines or rank bad luck, but because they were rubbish. Their supporters are right to be frustrated, they’re right to be angry. This kind of nonsense clearly isn’t good enough. But if anyone thinks that Kenny Dalglish should pay for these performances with his job, they’re way off the mark. Far from being the sole cause of their ineptitude, the Scotsman is their best hope of redemption.

The problem is Liverpool’s players and, yes, I’m very aware that Dalglish bought most of them. He signed off on Andy Carroll, the striker whose skin looks as clammy as cheese at the end of a picnic and who currently has all the zip of a car with a broken handbrake, trundling down a gentle slope. He bought Jordan Henderson who, as we’ve already discussed, is a Tom Clancy novel; good, but not great. He bought Charlie Adam, and if that man is 26 then his paper round must have been on Elm Street. And then, of course, he snapped up Stewart Downing, a winger who has, this season, boasted the cutting edge of a wet flannel. No wonder Liverpool fans are fuming.

Unfortunately, this is a club with so much support both in the UK and around the world that its lunatic fringe has become more of a lunatic side parting. There are many thousands whose howls for instant vicarious glory drown out the sensible, quieter voices, of which there are more. Don’t believe me? Scroll to the comments section now and I bet you that someone has read the first paragraph, snorted with rage and let fly with some abuse without even getting to the conciliatory bit. Yes, Dalglish has made mistakes, but his biggest one was certainly not in the transfer market.

I don’t care how much tinfoil you’ve got wrapped around your head, acknowledging that Patrice Evra was upset, apologising profusely and taking the John Mackie ‘eight-match ban with five suspended’ route would have been far wiser than starting a fight with the Football Association that the club couldn’t, and arguably shouldn’t, have been able to win. When the club’s official website appeared to imply Manchester United had made the whole thing up just to get Luis Suarez banned, it was proof that Dalglish’s poor judgement had created a misbegotten and self-destructive siege mentality at the club. You can say whatever you like about South Amercian cultural nuances, and who knows, you might find someone out there still willing to listen, but if Dalglish had thought his actions through, Suarez would have been in the starting line-up last weekend.

But that doesn’t mean that Dalglish should be sacked, either. While the argument that he has spent more than was sensible on his recruits holds water, the view that they are bad players unworthy of the shirt does not. I have seen Carroll tear up backlines like a toddler with the Sunday papers. I have seen Henderson play through-balls so ambitious that they applied for Cambridge and Oxford and refused to select back-up universities. I still maintain that Adam is actually 43 and works in an iffy garage underneath a railway arch, but as I recall he was on the six-man PFA shortlist last season. As for Downing, he has 32 England caps from three different managers and was a constant source of assists for Aston Villa. These are not bad players. These are good players playing badly.

When Dalglish took over from Roy Hodgson he inherited a club that was destined for a relegation battle. Their home defeat to Wolves in December 2010 was as grim a performance as anyone has seen since the darkest days of the Graeme Souness era. Dalglish saved the club, he lifted it up the table. He brought passing football and patient, intelligent play. He forged a defence that has conceded just 21 league goals all season, a record bettered only by Manchester City. In a season that was only ever going to be transitional, no matter what the side parting told you in the summer, Liverpool are just six points off the Champions League with 16 games to play. Those fans who are calling for Rafa Benitez’s return are backing a man who managed just one title challenge in six seasons over a man who won three actual titles in that time.

Ironically, Dalglish’s motivation for blindly backing Suarez is what makes him so valuable to Liverpool right now. He knows this club, he knows what makes it tick. He values loyalty, he fosters togetherness. He knows that this isn’t just a job, that it isn’t just another stop on the career path, but that with this great red shirt comes great responsibility. He just needs to let the players know it. He’s tried being nice, he’s tried backing them to the very limits of his credibility. Now it’s time to be nasty and perhaps the stinging public criticism he dished out at the weekend will send the message home. The players don’t seem to realise what a privilege it is to play for Liverpool. I can think of no better man to teach them than Dalglish.


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Postby RedAnt » Wed Jan 25, 2012 2:34 pm

Benny The Noon wrote:There have been many fathers to Liverpool’s failures this season. Ill fortune, untimely slip-ups, missed opportunities. The woodwork has repeatedly produced man-of-the-match performances, and opposing goalkeepers have been so inspired by the sight of the Reds that they have grown extra arms for the occasion. But this wasn’t the case at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday. Nope, Liverpool were beaten by Bolton, not because of cosmic forces, ley lines or rank bad luck, but because they were rubbish. Their supporters are right to be frustrated, they’re right to be angry. This kind of nonsense clearly isn’t good enough. But if anyone thinks that Kenny Dalglish should pay for these performances with his job, they’re way off the mark. Far from being the sole cause of their ineptitude, the Scotsman is their best hope of redemption.

The problem is Liverpool’s players and, yes, I’m very aware that Dalglish bought most of them. He signed off on Andy Carroll, the striker whose skin looks as clammy as cheese at the end of a picnic and who currently has all the zip of a car with a broken handbrake, trundling down a gentle slope. He bought Jordan Henderson who, as we’ve already discussed, is a Tom Clancy novel; good, but not great. He bought Charlie Adam, and if that man is 26 then his paper round must have been on Elm Street. And then, of course, he snapped up Stewart Downing, a winger who has, this season, boasted the cutting edge of a wet flannel. No wonder Liverpool fans are fuming.

Unfortunately, this is a club with so much support both in the UK and around the world that its lunatic fringe has become more of a lunatic side parting. There are many thousands whose howls for instant vicarious glory drown out the sensible, quieter voices, of which there are more. Don’t believe me? Scroll to the comments section now and I bet you that someone has read the first paragraph, snorted with rage and let fly with some abuse without even getting to the conciliatory bit. Yes, Dalglish has made mistakes, but his biggest one was certainly not in the transfer market.

I don’t care how much tinfoil you’ve got wrapped around your head, acknowledging that Patrice Evra was upset, apologising profusely and taking the John Mackie ‘eight-match ban with five suspended’ route would have been far wiser than starting a fight with the Football Association that the club couldn’t, and arguably shouldn’t, have been able to win. When the club’s official website appeared to imply Manchester United had made the whole thing up just to get Luis Suarez banned, it was proof that Dalglish’s poor judgement had created a misbegotten and self-destructive siege mentality at the club. You can say whatever you like about South Amercian cultural nuances, and who knows, you might find someone out there still willing to listen, but if Dalglish had thought his actions through, Suarez would have been in the starting line-up last weekend.

But that doesn’t mean that Dalglish should be sacked, either. While the argument that he has spent more than was sensible on his recruits holds water, the view that they are bad players unworthy of the shirt does not. I have seen Carroll tear up backlines like a toddler with the Sunday papers. I have seen Henderson play through-balls so ambitious that they applied for Cambridge and Oxford and refused to select back-up universities. I still maintain that Adam is actually 43 and works in an iffy garage underneath a railway arch, but as I recall he was on the six-man PFA shortlist last season. As for Downing, he has 32 England caps from three different managers and was a constant source of assists for Aston Villa. These are not bad players. These are good players playing badly.

When Dalglish took over from Roy Hodgson he inherited a club that was destined for a relegation battle. Their home defeat to Wolves in December 2010 was as grim a performance as anyone has seen since the darkest days of the Graeme Souness era. Dalglish saved the club, he lifted it up the table. He brought passing football and patient, intelligent play. He forged a defence that has conceded just 21 league goals all season, a record bettered only by Manchester City. In a season that was only ever going to be transitional, no matter what the side parting told you in the summer, Liverpool are just six points off the Champions League with 16 games to play. Those fans who are calling for Rafa Benitez’s return are backing a man who managed just one title challenge in six seasons over a man who won three actual titles in that time.

Ironically, Dalglish’s motivation for blindly backing Suarez is what makes him so valuable to Liverpool right now. He knows this club, he knows what makes it tick. He values loyalty, he fosters togetherness. He knows that this isn’t just a job, that it isn’t just another stop on the career path, but that with this great red shirt comes great responsibility. He just needs to let the players know it. He’s tried being nice, he’s tried backing them to the very limits of his credibility. Now it’s time to be nasty and perhaps the stinging public criticism he dished out at the weekend will send the message home. The players don’t seem to realise what a privilege it is to play for Liverpool. I can think of no better man to teach them than Dalglish.


http://www.lifesapitch.co.uk/opinion....f-glory

Good post. Well thought out, insightful and fair.  :)
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Postby Thommo's perm » Wed Jan 25, 2012 2:35 pm

Benny The Noon wrote:There have been many fathers to Liverpool’s failures this season. Ill fortune, untimely slip-ups, missed opportunities. The woodwork has repeatedly produced man-of-the-match performances, and opposing goalkeepers have been so inspired by the sight of the Reds that they have grown extra arms for the occasion. But this wasn’t the case at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday. Nope, Liverpool were beaten by Bolton, not because of cosmic forces, ley lines or rank bad luck, but because they were rubbish. Their supporters are right to be frustrated, they’re right to be angry. This kind of nonsense clearly isn’t good enough. But if anyone thinks that Kenny Dalglish should pay for these performances with his job, they’re way off the mark. Far from being the sole cause of their ineptitude, the Scotsman is their best hope of redemption.

The problem is Liverpool’s players and, yes, I’m very aware that Dalglish bought most of them. He signed off on Andy Carroll, the striker whose skin looks as clammy as cheese at the end of a picnic and who currently has all the zip of a car with a broken handbrake, trundling down a gentle slope. He bought Jordan Henderson who, as we’ve already discussed, is a Tom Clancy novel; good, but not great. He bought Charlie Adam, and if that man is 26 then his paper round must have been on Elm Street. And then, of course, he snapped up Stewart Downing, a winger who has, this season, boasted the cutting edge of a wet flannel. No wonder Liverpool fans are fuming.

Unfortunately, this is a club with so much support both in the UK and around the world that its lunatic fringe has become more of a lunatic side parting. There are many thousands whose howls for instant vicarious glory drown out the sensible, quieter voices, of which there are more. Don’t believe me? Scroll to the comments section now and I bet you that someone has read the first paragraph, snorted with rage and let fly with some abuse without even getting to the conciliatory bit. Yes, Dalglish has made mistakes, but his biggest one was certainly not in the transfer market.

I don’t care how much tinfoil you’ve got wrapped around your head, acknowledging that Patrice Evra was upset, apologising profusely and taking the John Mackie ‘eight-match ban with five suspended’ route would have been far wiser than starting a fight with the Football Association that the club couldn’t, and arguably shouldn’t, have been able to win. When the club’s official website appeared to imply Manchester United had made the whole thing up just to get Luis Suarez banned, it was proof that Dalglish’s poor judgement had created a misbegotten and self-destructive siege mentality at the club. You can say whatever you like about South Amercian cultural nuances, and who knows, you might find someone out there still willing to listen, but if Dalglish had thought his actions through, Suarez would have been in the starting line-up last weekend.

But that doesn’t mean that Dalglish should be sacked, either. While the argument that he has spent more than was sensible on his recruits holds water, the view that they are bad players unworthy of the shirt does not. I have seen Carroll tear up backlines like a toddler with the Sunday papers. I have seen Henderson play through-balls so ambitious that they applied for Cambridge and Oxford and refused to select back-up universities. I still maintain that Adam is actually 43 and works in an iffy garage underneath a railway arch, but as I recall he was on the six-man PFA shortlist last season. As for Downing, he has 32 England caps from three different managers and was a constant source of assists for Aston Villa. These are not bad players. These are good players playing badly.

When Dalglish took over from Roy Hodgson he inherited a club that was destined for a relegation battle. Their home defeat to Wolves in December 2010 was as grim a performance as anyone has seen since the darkest days of the Graeme Souness era. Dalglish saved the club, he lifted it up the table. He brought passing football and patient, intelligent play. He forged a defence that has conceded just 21 league goals all season, a record bettered only by Manchester City. In a season that was only ever going to be transitional, no matter what the side parting told you in the summer, Liverpool are just six points off the Champions League with 16 games to play. Those fans who are calling for Rafa Benitez’s return are backing a man who managed just one title challenge in six seasons over a man who won three actual titles in that time.

Ironically, Dalglish’s motivation for blindly backing Suarez is what makes him so valuable to Liverpool right now. He knows this club, he knows what makes it tick. He values loyalty, he fosters togetherness. He knows that this isn’t just a job, that it isn’t just another stop on the career path, but that with this great red shirt comes great responsibility. He just needs to let the players know it. He’s tried being nice, he’s tried backing them to the very limits of his credibility. Now it’s time to be nasty and perhaps the stinging public criticism he dished out at the weekend will send the message home. The players don’t seem to realise what a privilege it is to play for Liverpool. I can think of no better man to teach them than Dalglish.


http://www.lifesapitch.co.uk/opinion....f-glory

Great post
KK needs to kick :censored: and people should support him and the club instead of just highlighting our problems
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Postby Ola Mr Benitez » Wed Jan 25, 2012 3:52 pm

Benny The Noon wrote:There have been many fathers to Liverpool’s failures this season. Ill fortune, untimely slip-ups, missed opportunities. The woodwork has repeatedly produced man-of-the-match performances, and opposing goalkeepers have been so inspired by the sight of the Reds that they have grown extra arms for the occasion. But this wasn’t the case at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday. Nope, Liverpool were beaten by Bolton, not because of cosmic forces, ley lines or rank bad luck, but because they were rubbish. Their supporters are right to be frustrated, they’re right to be angry. This kind of nonsense clearly isn’t good enough. But if anyone thinks that Kenny Dalglish should pay for these performances with his job, they’re way off the mark. Far from being the sole cause of their ineptitude, the Scotsman is their best hope of redemption.

The problem is Liverpool’s players and, yes, I’m very aware that Dalglish bought most of them. He signed off on Andy Carroll, the striker whose skin looks as clammy as cheese at the end of a picnic and who currently has all the zip of a car with a broken handbrake, trundling down a gentle slope. He bought Jordan Henderson who, as we’ve already discussed, is a Tom Clancy novel; good, but not great. He bought Charlie Adam, and if that man is 26 then his paper round must have been on Elm Street. And then, of course, he snapped up Stewart Downing, a winger who has, this season, boasted the cutting edge of a wet flannel. No wonder Liverpool fans are fuming.

Unfortunately, this is a club with so much support both in the UK and around the world that its lunatic fringe has become more of a lunatic side parting. There are many thousands whose howls for instant vicarious glory drown out the sensible, quieter voices, of which there are more. Don’t believe me? Scroll to the comments section now and I bet you that someone has read the first paragraph, snorted with rage and let fly with some abuse without even getting to the conciliatory bit. Yes, Dalglish has made mistakes, but his biggest one was certainly not in the transfer market.

I don’t care how much tinfoil you’ve got wrapped around your head, acknowledging that Patrice Evra was upset, apologising profusely and taking the John Mackie ‘eight-match ban with five suspended’ route would have been far wiser than starting a fight with the Football Association that the club couldn’t, and arguably shouldn’t, have been able to win. When the club’s official website appeared to imply Manchester United had made the whole thing up just to get Luis Suarez banned, it was proof that Dalglish’s poor judgement had created a misbegotten and self-destructive siege mentality at the club. You can say whatever you like about South Amercian cultural nuances, and who knows, you might find someone out there still willing to listen, but if Dalglish had thought his actions through, Suarez would have been in the starting line-up last weekend.

But that doesn’t mean that Dalglish should be sacked, either. While the argument that he has spent more than was sensible on his recruits holds water, the view that they are bad players unworthy of the shirt does not. I have seen Carroll tear up backlines like a toddler with the Sunday papers. I have seen Henderson play through-balls so ambitious that they applied for Cambridge and Oxford and refused to select back-up universities. I still maintain that Adam is actually 43 and works in an iffy garage underneath a railway arch, but as I recall he was on the six-man PFA shortlist last season. As for Downing, he has 32 England caps from three different managers and was a constant source of assists for Aston Villa. These are not bad players. These are good players playing badly.

When Dalglish took over from Roy Hodgson he inherited a club that was destined for a relegation battle. Their home defeat to Wolves in December 2010 was as grim a performance as anyone has seen since the darkest days of the Graeme Souness era. Dalglish saved the club, he lifted it up the table. He brought passing football and patient, intelligent play. He forged a defence that has conceded just 21 league goals all season, a record bettered only by Manchester City. In a season that was only ever going to be transitional, no matter what the side parting told you in the summer, Liverpool are just six points off the Champions League with 16 games to play. Those fans who are calling for Rafa Benitez’s return are backing a man who managed just one title challenge in six seasons over a man who won three actual titles in that time.

Ironically, Dalglish’s motivation for blindly backing Suarez is what makes him so valuable to Liverpool right now. He knows this club, he knows what makes it tick. He values loyalty, he fosters togetherness. He knows that this isn’t just a job, that it isn’t just another stop on the career path, but that with this great red shirt comes great responsibility. He just needs to let the players know it. He’s tried being nice, he’s tried backing them to the very limits of his credibility. Now it’s time to be nasty and perhaps the stinging public criticism he dished out at the weekend will send the message home. The players don’t seem to realise what a privilege it is to play for Liverpool. I can think of no better man to teach them than Dalglish.


http://www.lifesapitch.co.uk/opinion....f-glory

Good post


One question - is anyone really wanted Rafa back? I havent seen too much of that to be honest
Our job is simple, to support the club, not just parts of the club that are easy to support, but every one who plays a part, that includes ALL players.  We are stronger when we are all walking in the same direction. Walk On
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Postby Homebooby » Wed Jan 25, 2012 3:53 pm

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