Liverpool FC Forum

The thing is it is far too easy to complain about the players bought and comparing our situation with other clubs without seeing the full picture. Every team has had successfull buys and failed buys. Chelsea and City as good as they are, have bought so many players over the last five years. Some have worked out and some have not. It is too simplistic to say we could have had this player or that player because they were success stories. Every window there are one or two bargains that become a hit so to single them out as the norm is unreasonable. It is too easy after the fact to say we could have had this player when he turns out to be a gem. Coutinho could as easily have become a flop as could Sturridge and of course you would have heard things like " an idiot could see he would never work out". Had Coutinho flopped people on here would have said he is too lightweight, a South American that will never handle the physicality of the prem or my favourite "championship player at best" but he came good.

To think of all the players that Chelsea for example have bought and sold off puts it into perspective. Its a gamble everytime you buy a player even the established names. Falcao cost 50 million but does he look good for the money? Di Maria looks good but for the price they paid? Ozil? Chelsea bought Eden hazard and his brother but only one of them worked out. To pick the one or two steals out of a transfer window and say we could have had them and why did we not buy them is laughable because frankly no one really knew. It is so easy after the fact to say it was obvious.

Clearly when you buy young players the risk is higher that they may not work out but even with established names there are no guarantees. All teams have had players that have not worked out and we are no different. The ratio of successful buys to flops is a constant theme that runs through all managers and ours is no different. I have no doubt that Rodgers has to follow a set of guidlines given to him by the owners ie buy young so they have a good sell on value so he has to do the best he can. He has made mistakes but so have ALL other managers. To hear him called a muppet and bag of sh1t is as laughable as the people saying it. Those fans will always be negative no matter the situation, they will always complain because that is how they are. The thing is all the complaining in the world will never affect anything, the thing will continue and run it's course regardless of what anyone says. I personally would rather put a positive spin on things even when things go pear shaped. Will it change anything? NO! Will it make me feel better? Err, YES!

It's being reported that Liverpool FC have released three of the club's scouts as part of an overhaul of their scouting network. Alan Harper, Mel Johnson and Mike McGlynn have all parted company with the club.

Well at least something is happening on this front. I suppose this was going to happen following a somewhat indifferent (it's the only way I can describe it) transfer window. Seems like they weren't providing the right information on players!!

Anyway, the Club better bring in top notch Scouts now, or perhaps the whole setup  could  be  taken apart with  a DOF (high profile off course) put in place  to attract/bring in better quality players for BR.

From what I've heard, the Owners, wanted a DOF from the start, but BR refused. BR made several promises about winning the EPL, trophies amongst other things. So the Owners decided to give BR the chance to prove himself without a DOF. If results go the same way as they have, it'll be interesting to see how this pans out. Also, it doesn't help that BR refuses help that he needs in other areas such as that for defense for instance. We need a defensive coach, but BR is not having it.

kazza » Mon Nov 03, 2014 6:21 pm wrote:The thing is it is far too easy to complain about the players bought and comparing our situation with other clubs without seeing the full picture. Every team has had successfull buys and failed buys. Chelsea and City as good as they are, have bought so many players over the last five years. Some have worked out and some have not. It is too simplistic to say we could have had this player or that player because they were success stories. Every window there are one or two bargains that become a hit so to single them out as the norm is unreasonable. It is too easy after the fact to say we could have had this player when he turns out to be a gem. Coutinho could as easily have become a flop as could Sturridge and of course you would have heard things like " an idiot could see he would never work out". Had Coutinho flopped people on here would have said he is too lightweight, a South American that will never handle the physicality of the prem or my favourite "championship player at best" but he came good.

To think of all the players that Chelsea for example have bought and sold off puts it into perspective. Its a gamble everytime you buy a player even the established names. Falcao cost 50 million but does he look good for the money? Di Maria looks good but for the price they paid? Ozil? Chelsea bought Eden hazard and his brother but only one of them worked out. To pick the one or two steals out of a transfer window and say we could have had them and why did we not buy them is laughable because frankly no one really knew. It is so easy after the fact to say it was obvious.

Clearly when you buy young players the risk is higher that they may not work out but even with established names there are no guarantees. All teams have had players that have not worked out and we are no different. The ratio of successful buys to flops is a constant theme that runs through all managers and ours is no different. I have no doubt that Rodgers has to follow a set of guidlines given to him by the owners ie buy young so they have a good sell on value so he has to do the best he can. He has made mistakes but so have ALL other managers. To hear him called a muppet and bag of sh1t is as laughable as the people saying it. Those fans will always be negative no matter the situation, they will always complain because that is how they are. The thing is all the complaining in the world will never affect anything, the thing will continue and run it's course regardless of what anyone says. I personally would rather put a positive spin on things even when things go pear shaped. Will it change anything? NO! Will it make me feel better? Err, YES!

Sorry mate have to completely disagree.

In his time at Liverpool Rodgers has only brought in 2 players good enough to play in top sides across England let alone Europe. Coutinho and Sturridge.

Outside these two, here is the list of every single player he has brought in up until this season:

Fabio Borini Roma £10,400,000
Joe Allen Swansea City £15,000,000
Oussama Assaidi Heerenveen £3,000,000
Nuri Sahin Real Madrid On Loan
Samed Yesil Bayer Leverkusen £1,000,000
João Carlos Teixeira Sporting Lisbon £830,000
Luis Alberto Sevilla £6,800,000
Iago Aspas Celta Vigo £7,000,000
Simon Mignolet Sunderland £9,000,000
Kolo Touré Free Transfer Free
Aly Cissokho Valencia On Loan
Mamadou Sakho Paris St Germain £15,000,000
Tiago Ilori Sporting Lisbon £7,000,000
Victor Moses Chelsea On Loan

All of them flops and not good enough to improve us and / or move us forward.

I don't even want to look at the price tags and salaries we have spent on them, because it looks dire.

To add to that this season we could easily be adding Lambert (4m), Markovic (20m) and Balotelli (16m) to that list.

The jury is still out on Lallana, Can, Origi, Lovren, Manquillo and Moreno. But it doesn't look good either.

All in all mate, the argument that you raise that other clubs also have flops compared to our last 3 years of recruiting doesn't even come close to stacking up.

It doesn't come close because every season I see every team bring in at least one player that improves or consolidates their team. Rodgers signings are not only making us weaker, Balotelli, Mignolet, Any defender and Moreno are all massive down grades in what we had, this summer with the biggest budgets in our history we have failed to address all of our weaknesses… even the glaring ones.

We needed first team players, signed one that was ready, the return is so unacceptable it's unreal. We have signed no top bracket players what so ever, the only player we have in three windows that would be considered by top teams is Coutinho and he will soon be off if we continue the way we are unless he fails to reach his huge potential. For him to reach that potential he needs players the likes of Luis around him.

Obvious improvements on our squad and team move to often and we don't seem on the ball, if Falcao isn't interested why were we not in for Song? Not a top player, but a huge improvement on every midfield player we have, not as if He's a secret either, what's more is he's proven, you're telling us he picks west Ham over us because of London?

Song and Begovic would have massively improved our first team. Barry would have improved our squad on a free and allowed us to release other for funds… these things need looking at badly

Stu the Red » Thu Nov 06, 2014 10:32 am wrote:It doesn't come close because every season I see every team bring in at least one player that improves or consolidates their team. Rodgers signings are not only making us weaker, Balotelli, Mignolet, Any defender and Moreno are all massive down grades in what we had, this summer with the biggest budgets in our history we have failed to address all of our weaknesses… even the glaring ones.

We needed first team players, signed one that was ready, the return is so unacceptable it's unreal. We have signed no top bracket players what so ever, the only player we have in three windows that would be considered by top teams is Coutinho and he will soon be off if we continue the way we are unless he fails to reach his huge potential. For him to reach that potential he needs players the likes of Luis around him.

Obvious improvements on our squad and team move to often and we don't seem on the ball, if Falcao isn't interested why were we not in for Song? Not a top player, but a huge improvement on every midfield player we have, not as if He's a secret either, what's more is he's proven, you're telling us he picks west Ham over us because of London?

Song and Begovic would have massively improved our first team. Barry would have improved our squad on a free and allowed us to release other for funds… these things need looking at badly

Well a lot of that is just your opinion, I think Moreno is a significant upgrade on the likes of Enrique and Johnson and whilst Mingolet has been erratic he's no worse than Reina was at the end of his career here. For all his faults at least Mingolet can actually stop shots, some of the half hit efforts that Pepe was letting in (like Aguero's 30 yard bobbler against City at the Etihad) were a joke.
Where I do agree with you is that I thought back in the summer that we should have taken the Suarez money and brought in one top class player and personally i would have went for a midfielder to replace Gerrard, someone like a Barkley, Pogba or Draxler who we could have built the side around for the next decade would have been my preferred choice but unfortunately at that time Brendan was talking about Gerrard playing on until he is 40 as our quarterback so it looks like signing a direct replacement for Gerrard was never on the cards.

Ok so now we fire the scouts that brought us these fantastic fooking players. 

Not sure where the rage should be focused, on Rodgers or the owners. They trusted BR and he trusted his scouts. All that equals one big f*ck up that will set us back another few years. And in the mean time we desperately try to justify the signings and salvage any talent that may be left after being cherry picked by more ambitious clubs.

Haha... The current state of our squad is a sick joke going round in circles.... I thought we were making progress and now we look like we are lost in the woods again, without a clue what to do. The size and scope of the mistakes we are making are mind boggling. Many clubs would have financially imploded with our level of reckless gambling.

Note to fsg... Don't give Rodgers any more money, it's causing more harm than good!

Might as well get free transfers you would notice the fooking difference

Kenny was fired because of wasted transfer funds. I'm sure this is on everyones' minds at Anfield.

Reg » Thu Nov 06, 2014 12:10 pm wrote:Kenny was fired because of wasted transfer funds. I'm sure this is on everyones' minds at Anfield.

Kenny was fired because he never got us in to the top 4

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Thu Nov 06, 2014 11:06 am wrote:

Stu the Red » Thu Nov 06, 2014 10:32 am wrote:It doesn't come close because every season I see every team bring in at least one player that improves or consolidates their team. Rodgers signings are not only making us weaker, Balotelli, Mignolet, Any defender and Moreno are all massive down grades in what we had, this summer with the biggest budgets in our history we have failed to address all of our weaknesses… even the glaring ones.

We needed first team players, signed one that was ready, the return is so unacceptable it's unreal. We have signed no top bracket players what so ever, the only player we have in three windows that would be considered by top teams is Coutinho and he will soon be off if we continue the way we are unless he fails to reach his huge potential. For him to reach that potential he needs players the likes of Luis around him.

Obvious improvements on our squad and team move to often and we don't seem on the ball, if Falcao isn't interested why were we not in for Song? Not a top player, but a huge improvement on every midfield player we have, not as if He's a secret either, what's more is he's proven, you're telling us he picks west Ham over us because of London?

Song and Begovic would have massively improved our first team. Barry would have improved our squad on a free and allowed us to release other for funds… these things need looking at badly

Well a lot of that is just your opinion, I think Moreno is a significant upgrade on the likes of Enrique and Johnson and whilst Mingolet has been erratic he's no worse than Reina was at the end of his career here. For all his faults at least Mingolet can actually stop shots, some of the half hit efforts that Pepe was letting in (like Aguero's 30 yard bobbler against City at the Etihad) were a joke.
Where I do agree with you is that I thought back in the summer that we should have taken the Suarez money and brought in one top class player and personally i would have went for a midfielder to replace Gerrard, someone like a Barkley, Pogba or Draxler who we could have built the side around for the next decade would have been my preferred choice but unfortunately at that time Brendan was talking about Gerrard playing on until he is 40 as our quarterback so it looks like signing a direct replacement for Gerrard was never on the cards.

Is Moreno really an improvement on Enrique Yakka? At this stage I don't think we can be really as definitive as you are calling it.

Mignolet is a spud and the sooner we can replace him with a decent keeper the better. Reina made some howlers in his last 2 seasons but my word he was better with the ball at his feet and his throwing distribution was light years ahead of our current keeper. Both were weak at corners and cross ins, but I think Mig is getting far, far worse which can only mean bad news if we don't replace him soon.

Those are 2 examples you have given that Rodgers has brought in and unfortunately you seem to be clutching at straws as well. Face it mate, outside of Coutinho and Sturridge every single player brought in has been abysmally dire and we are nowhere near where we needed to be under Rodgers 3 years in.

I was actually advocating for us bringing in at least 2-3 recognised players that could solidify our starting XI over the summer. If we had brought in Sanchez and Fabregas (still both quiet young) we would be challenging for the title, make no mistake. The problem is that we have an inept recruiting department that has hidden behind excuse after excuse. I won't accept this bs that players prefer to play in London as has been bandied about by a lot on here and in the media, its simply unacceptable that we are one the biggest clubs in the world but have owners who are obsessed in returning profits over results, execs that simply aren't good enough (starting with Ian Ayre) and a manager that doesn't have the reputation or clout to identify or bring in any real quality. This is why we find ourselves in this situation right now. 

The thing that really p'isses me off is that in the summer with a massive bag of cash in his mitts Rodgers actually said

We need to add some depth to the squad, but I will be looking for quality not quantity, I want to bring in 3 or 4 quality players

In the weeks that followed he signed NINE players only one of whom (Lallana) has shown anything approaching "quality"   

woof woof ! » Fri Nov 07, 2014 7:30 am wrote:The thing that really p'isses me off is that in the summer with a massive bag of cash in his mitts Rodgers actually said

We need to add some depth to the squad, but I will be looking for quality not quantity, I want to bring in 3 or 4 quality players

In the weeks that followed he signed NINE players only one of whom (Lallana) has shown anything approaching "quality"   :veryangry

He also said Liverpool would "categorically not sign Balotelli"

Now we are all stuck in the "he might come good" mode...

Yakka I don't quite see how you can say Moreno is anything like an improvement on Enrique to be honest, in fact I find it quite weird how people are still raving over a lad who contributes heavily to most goals we concede and a player who lacks composure and basic game intelligence.

To then compare the current flop in goal to Pepe is ridiculous, the current flop has made more mistakes in one and a quarter seasons than Reina did in five years. Reina made the odd howler but knew how to keep a clean sheet, the current one may be able to fool the brain dead fans with needless dives and dramatic ninja turtle flips when a simple catch would suffice but some of us are able to see through it.

If this club has any ambition what so ever, Cech or Begovic would be tasty. No doubt we wouldn't even put a feeler out for someone of Cechs quality

woof woof ! » Fri Nov 07, 2014 8:30 am wrote:The thing that really p'isses me off is that in the summer with a massive bag of cash in his mitts Rodgers actually said

We need to add some depth to the squad, but I will be looking for quality not quantity, I want to bring in 3 or 4 quality players

In the weeks that followed he signed NINE players only one of whom (Lallana) has shown anything approaching "quality"   :veryangry

He has been spouting stuff like that since he came through the door woof with very little if anything actually lining up with what he says. he also says that they do a lot of groundwork on players but yet seem's to draw up a complete new set of players each window.
Far far too much indecision from the man who imo is just a waffler and clearly out of his depth  Thats not even taking into account the pathetic excuses we have had to endure while he tries to justify himself.

I know FFP is a complex and confusing subject, so If anyone is interested, here is a a link to a quick(ish) read on FFP.

http://www.financialfairplay.co.uk/fina ... lained.php

At the start of the season, i really thought we'd be up there, yes I know there is time, but looking at the way things are going.................

The Club are now way outside of FFP rules, heavily in debt. If (and when) the Club gets investigated, it could mean any monies coming from CL may be withheld from the Club amongst many other things. Any rumour stating that we are interested in players and are looking to bring in a couple in January are way of the mark. There is no money to spend in January (including wages for new recruits), unless they sell first, and probably selling quite a few players (maybe even Academy players).  This is not good, as I really want the younger players from the academy to get their chance, but BR has shafted a lot of them. He has no balls or guts in trusting players from the academy. Yes, the Academy players may have little experience, but give them a chance. Instead, BR has frozen them out and decided spend, spend spend money bringing in players that are of similar age, with only a 'tad' bit more experience.  I just don't understand that. That is not my idea of people management, it's total lack of it, it's mis-management of players. A total re-evaluation of staff in key positions within the club needs to be looked at and sorted. If this means staff getting laid off, then so be it.

Also, one area that for some reason didn't even get looked at was the Goal Keeper. The Club desperately needed a quality keeper, but this was not addressed.

I think LFC are trying to offload Ballotelli, Sakho, Johnson and  Enrique. Btw, Johnson's contract ends at the end of the season.  From a strikers perspective, we have Lambert, Borini and Sturridge (when he comes back).  Divock Origi will not be brought back to Anfield in January unless off course the Owners are willing to take on further debt, which in turns takes the Club even further outside FFP rules.   which I very much doubt.  Having said that, even when Sturridge gets back, he won't solve the Clubs defensive frailties.

If we don't make the top 4 (CL football), then the Club stands to lose millions which it really can't afford.  One thing of note though is that John Henry et al met up with Rick Parry in the London and Middle East to meet investor's for increasing commercial revenue. I get the feeling they are possibly looking to selling naming rights of Anfield and the Stands.

Disgraceful.

Bet Markovic gets loaned out.

Simply not good enough