Liverpool FC Forum

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 8:58 pm**

I don't think there's a simple answer as to why we've declined since the late 80's.

The European ban obviously affected us, as the team we had then had the potential to win more European trophies. By the time English clubs were back in Europe, English football in general was in decline and English clubs were no match for Italian and Spanish teams. With the game in such a state, it was wide open for another club to stake a claim for dominance.

Unfortunately Ferguson managed to build a decent side at United and was able to get a foothold at the top of the English game. The crucial bit is that United's dominance luckily for them coincided with massive cash injections into English football from Sky and the start of the premiership. Combined with good commercial decisions by the United board, they were able to make themselves a financial force which Liverpool were never able to do at the height of their dominance.

Souness took us back a step, but I wouldn't heap that much blame on him personally. Evans for me should have won more trophies for having such a talented squad, whereas Houllier and now Benitez have had a very tough time as quite simply Wenger and Ferguson are bloody good managers with brilliant players at their disposal over the years. Like it or not, football in England is of a much higher standard now than when Liverpool were dominant in the 70's and 80's.

Now I believe the league is a psychological barrier and I think Paul Tomkins' recent article explaining this was very good. If we can manage to win the league once, then I believe we can easily win it more frequently, or at least be challenging more regularly.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 9:23 pm**

Not in any particular order.

1. Redeveloping the Kemlyn Road stand instead of investing in the squad at a critical time.
2. Hysel knocked the stuffing out of the club, management, players and fans. It still haunts me.
3. Loss of european income, lose of worldwide prestige, decline into domestic mediocrity without any Plan B.
4. Lack of management and discipline at all levels - Board, Manager (Evans) and players for basically 15 years after Hysel.
5. Terrible lack of business acumen compared to the marketing of ManUre.
6. Promoting players to manager to maintain continuity and not getting rid of them sooner (Kenny, Souness, Evans).
7. Allowing Houllier to buy too many clearly poor players from (mainly) France.
8. Not communicating better with the fanbase over all these years to work together to achieve success on and off the field and align expectations and practical possibilities.

In a nutshell:

Not being proactive enough commercially and not having the courage to make tough decisions in difficult times.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 9:31 pm**

The Americans, and Canadians obviously.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 9:40 pm**

Bamaga man wrote:The Americans, and Canadians obviously.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 9:58 pm**

Bamaga man wrote:The Americans, and Canadians obviously.

What the hell's that supposed to mean?

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:29 pm**

1- The signings of Graeme Souness.

2- Kenny Dalglish leaving.

3- The club not following Man Utd's lead in embracing commercialism.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:29 pm**

It's very interesting this thread, you are all giving a lot of points of a proccess I only watched in tv and press. I didn't enjoy your insight those years.

From my ignorance about the details, the impression I had is that the decline was more in the offices than in the pitch. The European ban was like some sort of black hole, and when Liverpool came out of it Football had changed a lot. It seemed that Liverpool was ruled by good people with good traditions but didn't make the jump Real Madrid or Barcelona or Manchester made to become not only a big club but also a big business. That, and the Bosman thing, with the foreign invasion took Liverpool in the wrong foot. That was a bit my impression from the outside. But it's you lot who know better.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:54 pm**

Everyone is probably right as there's a million different reasons. To advance another reason though, and putting aside for a second commercialism and the like, the really big signings of all time great Premiership players have eluded us. Had we have signed a Keane, a Vierra, an Henri a Cantona or a Ronaldo it might have been different. There are few secrets in football these days and my guess is we would have looked at all of the players mentioned, but for whatever reason we signed the Collymore's, the Diouf's and the Kuyt's. We might just have struck gold with Torres, it's too early to tell but the signs are certainly encouraging.

Most every team which wins the Premeirship has a couple of game breaking players at least, and for too long we've only posessed one or at the very most two at a time. The simple truth is that on the pitch the other clubs have improved more than us. In the case of Chelsea it has been through the chequebook and the development of siege mentality. In Arsenal's case it has been through probably the shrewdest purchaser of young talent we have seen in this country, and in the case of Man Utd it has been through good management, the chequebook and the siege mentality combined.

We've never really got all the ingredients at the same time for whatever reason, and I'm talking through successive managers here not just the current one. I will say this which is entirely to Rafa's credit, I do think the current crop of players is probably the closest in terms of quality to being of a title winning vintage that I can remember. I make no apologies for repeating myself here, once we get a manager who doesn't consider it part of his job to find ways to change the team in every single match then we will go very close with THIS group of players, with very few additions.

With this team,

Reina
Finnan Carragher Agger Arbeloa
Gerrard Masherano Lucas Babel
Crouch Torres
we would go very very close IMHO to winning the Premiership. For Babel or Arbeloa you could argue the toss successfully for other options, and obviously some would prefer Alonso to Lucas (so would I if he could revisit form which is better than 75% of what he showed us in his first couple of seasons) but in essence if you play Gerrard on the right the thing starts to look balanced to me.

Sorry I'm veering off the threads intentions. I guess I'm making the point that the difference between success and failure is slight sometimes. We've just got it wrong too often in truth.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:06 pm**

I'd say complacency throughout the whole club. Years of success mae people complacent and taking things for granted, I have to admit that Ferguson doesnt allow this. We did not embrace the change in football, commercial and in style of play.

Souness and Houllier in their ways tried to change the club for the better and modernise things but will go down historically as failures. Evans tried to get the club back to the bootroom but the players were not of the same attitude and mentality to deliver the success.

Looking bac, for me the change came with the 3-3 draw against Man Utd, we were the better footballing team but their pace and fitness were light years ahead of us. They could not compete technically with Barnes and Molby but merely out ran them. From then we have been playing catch up while Man Utd and then Arsenal have taken the lead and maintained the lead ever since, Chelsea before Abramovich were making strides and after Abramovich, well he was just a huge catalyst for the club.

We need to stick with a policy and see it through or pray for a cash quick fix. The success of the past can be an albatross as it now means that if we dont win things then its a failure, but maybe we need to move sideways for a while before moving up

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:06 pm**

The reason we've "declined" is because it's impossible to stay at the very top for the rest of time. These things go in cycles. United were relegated in 74

now look at them. Every reason has truth behind why we are no longer top dogs in England, but it's simplely someone elses turn. I think the current Arsenal side could go and dominate English football for 5-10 years, and everyone will be asking the same questions about United. On the other hand it could be us who go and dominate because of the talent we have in our younger players (not meaning the youth side, I mean the young 1st team players) This side will be together for years and years, obviously with the odd player leaving i.e. Finnan/Hyypia and later on Carra. But the spine, could be with us right through until 2015. Reina, Skrtel, Agger, Mascheranho, Lucas, Torres, Babel.

So in conclusion there isn't one reason why we've declined. It's a combination of a hundred reasons.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:25 pm**

Everyone is probably right as there's a million different reasons. To advance another reason though, and putting aside for a second commercialism and the like, the really big signings of all time great Premiership players have eluded us. Had we have signed a Keane, a Vierra, an Henri a Cantona or a Ronaldo it might have been different. There are few secrets in football these days and my guess is we would have looked at all of the players mentioned, but for whatever reason we signed the Collymore's, the Diouf's and the Kuyt's. We might just have struck gold with Torres, it's too early to tell but the signs are certainly encouraging.

I agree mate we could have made some great signings. I think somewhere along the line we lost the foresight to make "the great gambles" and went for the supposedly "surefire" options instead.

I remember when we went for Keane, we had just signed Saunders (who hadn't settled well) and we offered them Saunders for Keane. Forest wanted cash, and Souness had spent all ours, so we missed out.

Ronaldo.... Thompson went over to watch him, said "he wasn't what we were looking for" (this was for a price of £7.5million)

Souness was offered Cantona for less than £1million and was also advised by Platini to sign him.

Rio Ferdinand was offered to Houllier for £12million but Houllier had to turn him down because that was our whole transfer budget for the season.

More recently we have Diego when he was at Santos. The battle seemed between us and Spurs for his signature, the price went up and we moved on.

Aguero, again we were in for him, the price went up and we moved on.

More frustrating however is the lack of speed and determination shown when going for players (especially since Parry took over) How many more players are we going to lose out on before we realise that procrastination, prolonged haggling and indecision may save a little money here and there , but loses you the key players that could have an important role in our future. The good players get snatched up by our rivals while Parry is thinking , while the bad ones that no-one else wants are still there waiting patiently for Rick to make his mind up.

Van der vart went for £3.5 million a couple of years ago, after we had been chasing him (so called ) for years.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:39 pm**

I dont think we cashed in on our sucess enough which would have enabled to maybe have more funds now.

Posted: **Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:44 am**

It's all in the mind!

I think there has been a malaise at the club much like with Man Utd before they overcame it. I think the psychological block theory is a good one and runs right thru a club. For instance we as fans are guilty/naive for thinking we 'deserve' to even be challenging for the title. This level of expectation is passed onto managers and players and will inevitably have a negative impact - afterall if the players are 'expected' to win the league then what is the motivation for them to actually do it? Where is the challenge? Therefore when things go a little awry as with a dodgy spell in october it is easy for them to get there heads down - the criticism escalates and it becomes a negative spiral of blame and lack of confidence.

I think the way to counteract this psychological block is to get in a charismatic manager - a la Shanks who would be able to talk even Kuyt into scoring! I therefore suggest that Jose M might be just the man. Clearly Rafa is about as motivational as a brick wall! Keep the game simple and inspre the players to want to do their best. Unfortunatley Rafa (as much as I would like him as e.g. an uncle!) fails on both counts.

Posted: **Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:07 am**

I watch LFC tv quite a bit you get some interesting points of view from ex players. Jan Molby blamed Souness for buying defensive defenders and letting go of players developed in the reserves. I think he meant that Liverpool were kinda like the Ajax of the english league in terms of defenders who played offensive football. I hope others here remember how our centre halves played would mke forward runs and cause bedlam. Watch hansen push forward was like watching the red sea open up in front of Moses. Agger has a touch of that about him. Molby also talked about consistency, something I posted in another thread last week. Shankly established a legacy in terms of the being a continuity of successive boot room managers and of players serving there time. Under Shankly and Paisley then Fagan and Daglish you had to prove yourself in the reserves. yes Liverpool always brought in good quality players but the scouting system was excellent and always seemed to get it right. We can blame successive managers but thats too easy. LFC scouting system is woeful compared to Man U and Arsenal. I dont count Chelsea they've just bought seasoned professionals. Wenger and Ferguson have developed world class players from youngsters. My main reason for supporing Rafa so much is based on what I have heard about the kids he's bought.

Posted: **Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:17 am**

god_bless_john_houlding wrote:The reason we've "declined" is because it's impossible to stay at the very top for the rest of time. These things go in cycles. United were relegated in 74 now look at them. Every reason has truth behind why we are no longer top dogs in England, but it's simplely someone elses turn. I think the current Arsenal side could go and dominate English football for 5-10 years, and everyone will be asking the same questions about United. On the other hand it could be us who go and dominate because of the talent we have in our younger players (not meaning the youth side, I mean the young 1st team players) This side will be together for years and years, obviously with the odd player leaving i.e. Finnan/Hyypia and later on Carra. But the spine, could be with us right through until 2015. Reina, Skrtel, Agger, Mascheranho, Lucas, Torres, Babel.

So in conclusion there isn't one reason why we've declined. It's a combination of a hundred reasons.

I agree, I'd just add that (IMO) the cycles of domination in English football will (continue to) be and have been shorter in recent years, than in previous years, because the league is becoming increasingly competitive.

You could argue either way that Manc's or Arsenal will go on to dominate the Premiership for years given the quality of their respective squads and the experience of their managers, but the reality is - it will probably fluctuate more now than in the past (i.e. I don't think you'll see a 10-15 year domination by one team in the foreseeable future). Chelsea will always be around about the top for as long as they're spending as they are, provided that they maintain stability throughout the club. We, as ever, will strive to win the league to the best of our ability and from a psychological point of view winning the league remains the promised land, whether we can match the level of quality of our rivals remains to be seen.

Liverpool FC Forum

Liverpool's decline - Who to blame - long term