Liverpool FC Forum

bigmick wrote: Fecking typical, me being all serious, feverishly typing away and making myself late for work and in the meantime tyou lot have all got bored with it/me and started fecking about I swear im waste me time on here sometimes

       , ever considered letting some of your customers at the shop chip in with the odd comment Mick? I'm sure (while queuing ) they're all thinking  "what the f'uck, we don't mind waiting , he's writing another book "

Sabre wrote:2 years ago a friend gifted me a book because "I like english football". It was called "The Boss", and it was about Alex Ferguson. My friend didn't know I hate him, but I didn't tell her anything for courtesy.

Thing is, that I have read the book with the hope of learning something indirectly about Liverpool Football Club, and I did it.

Lesson a) Why Ferguson hates us.

At some point Ferguson praised our crowd highly. His hate against Liverpool came after a humilliating defeat in Anfield (4-0, 1980, European cup and because the attitude of Liverpool players when he was assistant of the Scottish national side, from the book

When Ferguson asked for advice on how to counter the threat of their Liverpool teammate Ian Rush, neither Kenny Dalglish nor Alan Hansen nor the midfielder Steve Nicol would say anything very helpful. This was in complete contrast to Arthur Albiston, who was happy to advise his fellow Scots on how to handle Manchester United colleague Mark Hugues.

When Stein and Ferguson raised the matter  later with Souness, Souness explained it was the Liverpool version of Omerta -- say nothing about anything

This is when he started to hate us, not related to the Rafa point I will make now, but I loved to read it

Lesson 2: Ferguson also received stick when in his fourth year he wasn't winning the premiership for Manchester United

Read, it's fun

One fan, Pete Molyneux, created a banner from a bed sheet, with the stark message "3 YEARS OF EXCUSES AND IT'S STILL ... TARA FERGIE"

As you can see in 1989 the "excuses" arguement also was wielded for most impatient united fans.  , 25 years wating were too much. A classic.

Like Rafa, Ferguson also had a legion of players and ex players giving opinions about his job

"It's becoming obvious he's not the man for United" said his former Aberdeen striker Joe Harper,  "the club and the job are too big for him". Brian Clough said that he himself should have been made United's manager years ago, while the former Liverpool captain Emlyn Hughes had already awarded Ferguson the OBE -- Out Before Easter

So you can conclude that Ferguson also had the Hansens and the Grays giving stick, and that not only Sabre fails blatantly in his predictions, great pundits and players also do

Lesson 3: Under these circunstances you have to be stubborn and belief in what you're doing

Ferguson said

"No, don't worry, I'll win the league, it will just take longer than I thought".

Our Rafa is also confident. The difference is that Ferguson didn't have a CL cup, another CL final, and a FA cup when he was asking for more time his fourth season. But we ask Rafa "is that enough?"

Well, Ferguson got away of dead man walking-esque articles, pundits that said he was out, and only had a FA cup to justify his work in 4 years:

United FA Cup run disguised the fact that their league results had barely improved in the second half of te 1989-1990 season. They had eleven league games without a win between November and February -- their worst run for eighteen years. though long term injuries to Robson and Webb hadn't helped. Their final league position, 13th, was United's lowest placing since relegation in 1974.

So he also had bliiiiiiips, a 13th position in the league (Rafa's never been that low), and injuries to cope with.

But they had the patience with him, with just an FA cup in 4 years.


Lesson 4: Same old arguements are used 20 years later

The world wasn't convinced that Ferguson could translate his FA cup triumph into inmediate league success. The reality was that Manchester United were still only a good cup-winning side, able to rise to the occasion in knockout ties, but unable to find the needed consistency to win the league

Nowadays we have the classic "We're only good in Europe and cups". Pretty much the same thing.

I cannot find the quotes right now in the book, but the reasons to explain all these, ironically were that Ferguson "changed the team too much", which was the closest thing to rotation they had those days

So reading all this about Ferguson, you have to ask yourself "are we patient enough?". The arch enemy board knew to be patient with Ferguson. He only needed time, and money, only when he started to buy the likes of Cantona, and products from the youth system like Giggs came into the first team he was able to win the premiership.

We're too impatient sometimes. It's obvious to me that Rafa is strenghtening little by little the squad (Mascherano, Torres), in very key positions. We just need he gets spot on the wing men. And he's been provided with the money to do this kind of signings only very recently.

Give him time, FFS, he's got more silverware than this envious - non forgiving red nosed cúnt.

ARE WE PATIENT ENOUGH?

A very good post Sabre, I've made similar points before but without the book quotes 

LFC2007 wrote:Quite clearly directed towards me - you should just say next time 

I did say so in the next post  No the "it's not just rotation" is starting to be used as a means of diminishing the importance of the question in my opinion and that's why I brought it up. We've gone from (not necessarily from yourself here) rotation "rafa-style' being definately the way to go, through "how dare a barman question a football professional" onto "it doesn't matter that much anyway".


I think your assertion that anti-rotationers believe that without rafa style we would have at least challenged is more of an interesting point. This is closer to the truth if I'm honest certainly as far as I'm concerned. On reflection sensible selection alone may not have been enough, but ceertainly if it was allied to perhaps the selection of Crouch over Kuyt for the first half of the season if we were going to play 4-4-2 then yes, I think we would have challenged, perhaps Chelsea style without actually winning it.

I say without winning it because any team which has got a bloke playing for them who has scored thirty odd goals from the right wing or whatever the feck it is, has got to be a short price to win the thing.

bigmick wrote:The last recurring point is the rotation one. The blame not being solely at it's door, "ifithadn'thavebeenforrotation". I don't know where this has come from but it's in a similar category to "YOU CAN'T PLAY THE SAME TEAM IN EVERY SINGLE GAME FFS!". Nobody is saying you can (well with the possible exception of John)

bigmick wrote:As usual whenever the subject gets around to the manager and "progression", some posters get a bit umpty that anyone dare criticise. A couple of things are certainies in such a debate. Firstly the "do you go to the game" factor will crop up, secondly that before long someone will mention the fact that it took Ferguson a long time to win the Premiership, and thirdly the "we are only a couple of players short" argument will rear its head. I've noticed another one creeping in recently, this "I don't personally buy into the idea that our failure in the league can be solely laid at the door of rotation".

To answer them in order. I don't go to the game but we didn't boss the home match against Man Utd by a long shot. We huffed and puffed but it was men against boys,that is my opinion of course and everyone else is entitled to theirs.

Secondly, nobody can deny it took Ferguson a long time to win the Premiership. I am bound to say though that it didn't take him an age to mount a challenge. This is for me the crux of any debate regarding our so-called progression. We have never ever, not even for an instant mounted any sort of challenge for the Premiership whatsoever under Rafa. We can win European Cups (more on that later), we can go on extended winning runs in the Premiership, we can arguably "boss" games against the top teams, knock them out of FA Cups, Champions Leagues etc etc but we cannot get close enough to even mount a fleeting challenge in the league. It didn't take Ferguson seven years to mount a challenge, I hope it doesn't take Rafa that long either.

The "we are only a couple of players short" is an interesting one. Last season we were "only a twenty goals a season striker" short, as well as "only a bloke who can play down the left" short. Now we've certainly filled one of those berths if not quite the other, but we are still a country mile behind the leaders (and indeed the team which is challenging them, and since you're asking also the team which has fallen by the wayside over this last month). I don't dispute that signing top quality first team-players, not "options" or "possibilities" has to be the priority, but will we this time next season be talking about them needing that first season to adapt and "just watch them go next year". Will we perhaps be talking about the "slight mistake Rafa made in resting our new players after four games, THAT'S where we lost it". Hopefully not.

The last recurring point is the rotation one. The blame not being solely at it's door, "ifithadn'thavebeenforrotation". I don't know where this has come from but it's in a similar category to "YOU CAN'T PLAY THE SAME TEAM IN EVERY SINGLE GAME FFS!". Nobody is saying you can (well with the possible exception of John) and I'm not absolutely sure anybody is saying if it hadn't have been for rotation we would have won the league either. Another urban myth I'm afraid. Clearly we can still beat Pompey away even if Gerrard and Torres are "resting" on the bench, it's not the only reason we didn't win there, or indeed at home against Brirmingham ("But Torres started against Porto away and we didn't win there either" yes I know) but equally clearly, your chances of winning both games significantly increase if your best players are actually on the pitch. You don't fail to win JUST because of rotation, but I would venture that in those two circumstances it was a fairly major factor.

So how far have we progressed? Well clearly we are a much better team than the one which won the Champions League, and most probably at least the equal of the team that ran on through beaten horses to get within nine points of the Champions a couple of years back. If Man Utd win at Chelsea and effectively seal their League win, we may yet get the chance to do the same this season although within nine points might be stretching it a bit. Unlike many though, i think we are currently a fair way short of a league win, not just in the players (as our spine is indeed very good) but more pertinantly in the attitude, the ethos and the outlook of the team and manager.

Ditching at long last and once and for all the silliness of Rafa style is obviously (well obvious to me anyway) step one in allowing ourselves to mount a challenge. It maybe a coincidence that we've suddenly started to turn in results which would be Championship form over the last six weeks while we've settled on a formation and team, but then again maybe it isn't. It maybe a coincidence that in that period we had one awful performance, but we managed to instantly bounce back from it unlike our extended bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiips earlier in the season. Our consistency and our ability to go and get points at the grounds of the bigger teams maybe just coincidence, but then again maybe it isn't. My suspicion is that it isn't a coincidence, and please God we have finally, eventually learnt our lesson.

Step two (and I agree with the posters who have said so) is that we need a couple of top-class players. Yes to improve the first team, but also to cover for injuries. We've been lucky with injuries this season, with neither of our best players sustaining them. God only knows where we would be if our star striker had fecked off to play in the African Nations, or our goalkeeper had been out twice, our captain and central defensive lynchpin had been injured, etc etc. So we need to buy, buy well and big. Buy selectively, no more "options" and "possibilities".


And what of the Champions League? Well we're definately successful in that, and all of us enjoy the huge nights which go down in the clubs history. To get in it, you need to finsih in the top four. Under rafa if we discount the first season as it wasn't his team (even though he took the plaudits for winning the Champions League with it and rightly so) we have made the Champions League every year. I'm bound to say though that we ought to as well really. We're competing for fourth this season with a team who have a transfer budget which is probably about a quarter of ours, and who are frankly a very ordinary side so we really oght to be able to get in the thing every season. Then we go into a group situation where you can afford a couple fo dodgy results, but as long as you win a couple of Home games and pick up around nine or so points in six games against teams which finsihed in the top couple in Holland, Turkey, Greece, Portugal etc etc you go through to the knockout stage. All four of the English teams made it through this year, and so they should. You're then in the last sixteen, and you need to win three home/away aggregate games and a final in order to be successful. It's no coincidence that three of the four teams who made the semis last season are in there again this season. Chelsea just about always get there, we usually do and the mance do too. Arsenal made the final a couple of years back and the competition really is becoming a jamboree for the English clubs with the big squads and big money. To get to the semi we had to beat Inter, who lead a substandard Italian League and Arsenal, which was a good achievement. Chelsea had to overcome Fenerbace, Turkeys finest and Man Utd had to surpass Roma, a mid table Italian outfit. I know I'll get absolutely slaughtered for this, but it just doesn't compensate in my eyes anyway for continual abject failure in the league. Exciting yes, but this team and this manager need to win the league.

Next season I don't think we can win it, as we haven't got a platform. I think winning the league is a bit like climbing Everest, you've got to get your base camp set up, and then move on from there. What we absolutely must do though, is launch some sort of challenge. The players havew to be close enough to feel that pressure, that pressure that says you HAVE to get a result or you'll lose ground. that pressure that makes you throw men forward when it's 1-1 with ten minutes left, because you know nothing less than a win will do. Failure to mount any type of challenge, or a reversal into the depths of Rafa style and the time would be up for me.

that's a heck of a post, and most people will undoubtadly skip it. (wish I had now  )

But you're spot on with most of it Mick.

Not going the match doesn't cut much ice with me. I couldn't give a toss if you or don't because most armchair fans (sorry if that term offends you, but tough get the match then you lazy :laugh) know and care more about the club than the "day trippers" So it doesn't make a blind bit of difference if you go or not.

Those who say "it took Ferguson 7 years to win a title" well congratulations, you're right. Ferguson was also in danger of losing his job four years into his United career and it was only through a 1-0 win over Forest in the cup which kept him that job. I still don't see what Ferguson's seven years has to do with us. Am I to believe that we give Benitez seven years and then see if he's won us a league? Comparing our manager and our failures in the league to other club is nonesense. These same people who are saying "it took Ferguson SEVEN years" are the same people who called for Houllier's head SIX years into his reign. Interesting eh folks? Also another reason why the Ferguson debate doesn't wash with me because I could easily come back and say "it took Dalglish four years to win it with Blackburn" so I don't see the point in comparing our failures in the league to others.

The "we need a couple of players" arguement is beginning to tire me out. I've heard it for the last 15 years, and we're still those two players missing. The truth is we're more than two players away. We need consistancy, togetherness, belief and above all else a bit more passion. Money can't buy them. So we can go out and buy tom, dick and harry but that doesn't put us any closer if they don't have the consistancy to be good enough, the belief that they are good enough or the passion to play for this club.

I don't blame rotation alone. I don't think it's helped. But there are other factors that have stopped our challenge for the league. I still think we overrotate, rotate at the wrong time and rotate the wrong players but like I said there has been other factors that have caused us to still be a fair bit off the leaders, AGAIN

s@int wrote:The injury to Agger was a blow that I think we have struggled with but never recovered from, although after a shaky start Hyypia has done a splendid job of rolling back the years and playing very well, we have still missed Agger.

LFC2007 wrote:There isn't really an argument to be made against the fact that it took Ferguson 7 seasons to win the league (the dismissive 'it's not relevant' statement is as good as it gets for most - without actually explaining how and why it isn't relevant). It is of course absolutely relevant and those reasons have been elaborated upon numerous times.

god_bless_john_houlding wrote:

s@int wrote:The injury to Agger was a blow that I think we have struggled with but never recovered from, although after a shaky start Hyypia has done a splendid job of rolling back the years and playing very well, we have still missed Agger.

sorry saint mate, most of the post was top notch but this is no reason mate. Every club has injuries. United haven't had their captain all season, yet are walking away to another league title. Chelsea and Arsenal have injuries. I don't see the injury to Agger as an excuse for us not challenging. It's again fans trying to hide the fact that it's not in us as a squad to go on and win the league.

I think we have the players, and possibly even the manager to win the league, what we don't have is the mentality.