Liverpool Thread 2014/15

[IH8MUFC]

Re: The Red Lion Pub Team (Liverpool) Thread 2014/15

Question to Bluemooners (piss-take's aside for a moment):

After a team like ourselves or Spurs sell a Suarez or Bale, the mantra is that you go for quality over quantity. So far, so good. Now here's the question I've been wondering about.

Can a team like Liverpool even attract a quality player? We've been unable to do Costa and Sanchez recently.

Maybe we should've bought a 30-40M attacker and a 30-40M defensive all-action midfielder, but 1. Were any available at that price in this market? 2. Would they want to come? and 3. Could we have paid the wages?

I think the issue is not so much quality over the quantity. The issue is that the team has a shocking scouting system and our academy is not producing (it looked promising last season with Sterling, Flanagan and Suso). The transfer committee either needs to be fired or ownership/fans need to readjust expectations and be willing to tolerate seasons like this with the hope of challenging for Europe in seasons when the signings supposedly come to fruition.

Suarez was so good that you should have spent the vast majority of that £120 mil replacing him with just 1 or 2 players even if you had to go way over the odds regarding wages/signing on fees. Last summer was your chance, you blew it bigtime. I honestly feel you may not recover for a generation.

Well it's simple who can replace Suarez? Very few players...

Who can they afford?
Even with the Suarez money ffp is an enemy of even the 5 time European champions.

Who wants to play there?
let's face it when you look at who they have signed recently, they have basically signed out casts at top clubs (sturridge, kolo, balotelli, sakho, coutinho even Suarez because of the biting inincident) or big fish in a small pond (lallana, lovren, moreno, markovic, allen, henderson, can etc...)

Elite players I.e your established top players (bale, ronaldo, modric, costa, silva, aguero, Rodriguez, lavezzi, ibrahimovic, tevez, Sanchez et al) none of them want to go to the dippers. The dippers just finished above arsenal and Sanchez still chose arsenal above them.

Suarez couldn't get out of there quickly enough and Torres left as soon as a bigger better team came along as did Alonso.

They are not the "big" club they think they are. They're yesterdays news. In the present time they are a mid table team.

 

[IH8MUFC]

Re: The Red Lion Pub Team (Liverpool) Thread 2014/15

Question to Bluemooners (piss-take's aside for a moment):

After a team like ourselves or Spurs sell a Suarez or Bale, the mantra is that you go for quality over quantity. So far, so good. Now here's the question I've been wondering about.

Can a team like Liverpool even attract a quality player? We've been unable to do Costa and Sanchez recently.

Maybe we should've bought a 30-40M attacker and a 30-40M defensive all-action midfielder, but 1. Were any available at that price in this market? 2. Would they want to come? and 3. Could we have paid the wages?

I think the issue is not so much quality over the quantity. The issue is that the team has a shocking scouting system and our academy is not producing (it looked promising last season with Sterling, Flanagan and Suso). The transfer committee either needs to be fired or ownership/fans need to readjust expectations and be willing to tolerate seasons like this with the hope of challenging for Europe in seasons when the signings supposedly come to fruition.

Suarez was so good that you should have spent the vast majority of that £120 mil replacing him with just 1 or 2 players even if you had to go way over the odds regarding wages/signing on fees. Last summer was your chance, you blew it bigtime. I honestly feel you may not recover for a generation.

That's the conundrum. I'm wondering if that is even possible. The other part of the equation is the player wanting to come, but also probably we need better salesmanship from the owners, manager, commercial director and "transfer committee". The player wanting to come is tricky also because it can be an excuse to avoid big wage players. How hard did we really try and go after Sanchez? No one will ever really know.

Let's face it you wanted him. It made perfect sense. Barca want your player, you want theirs. Sanchez was probably the best replacement for Suarez you could have hoped for. He said no. La.

 

[everythingchangesbutblue]

Re: The Red Lion Pub Team (Liverpool) Thread 2014/15

Question to Bluemooners (piss-take's aside for a moment):

After a team like ourselves or Spurs sell a Suarez or Bale, the mantra is that you go for quality over quantity. So far, so good. Now here's the question I've been wondering about.

Can a team like Liverpool even attract a quality player? We've been unable to do Costa and Sanchez recently.

Maybe we should've bought a 30-40M attacker and a 30-40M defensive all-action midfielder, but 1. Were any available at that price in this market? 2. Would they want to come? and 3. Could we have paid the wages?

I think the issue is not so much quality over the quantity. The issue is that the team has a shocking scouting system and our academy is not producing (it looked promising last season with Sterling, Flanagan and Suso). The transfer committee either needs to be fired or ownership/fans need to readjust expectations and be willing to tolerate seasons like this with the hope of challenging for Europe in seasons when the signings supposedly come to fruition.

Suarez was so good that you should have spent the vast majority of that £120 mil replacing him with just 1 or 2 players even if you had to go way over the odds regarding wages/signing on fees. Last summer was your chance, you blew it bigtime. I honestly feel you may not recover for a generation.

Well it's simple who can replace Suarez? Very few players...

Who can they afford?
Even with the Suarez money ffp is an enemy of even the 5 time European champions.

Who wants to play there?
let's face it when you look at who they have signed recently, they have basically signed out casts at top clubs (sturridge, kolo, balotelli, sakho, coutinho even Suarez because of the biting inincident) or big fish in a small pond (lallana, lovren, moreno, markovic, allen, henderson, can etc...)

Elite players I.e your established top players (bale, ronaldo, modric, costa, silva, aguero, Rodriguez, lavezzi, ibrahimovic, tevez, Sanchez et al) none of them want to go to the dippers. The dippers just finished above arsenal and Sanchez still chose arsenal above them.

Suarez couldn't get out of there quickly enough and Torres left as soon as a bigger better team came along as did Alonso.

They are not the "big" club they think they are. They're yesterdays news. In the present time they are a mid table team.

I agree 100% with all your points but they should have tried to buy big by chucking money, it was there only chancee at keeping momentum, instead they pissed it up the wall.
As an aside its going to be piss funny reading rawk 2 years from now when ffp has crippled them and they all suddenly become against it, can't wait.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

Re: The Red Lion Pub Team (Liverpool) Thread 2014/15

Question to Bluemooners (piss-take's aside for a moment):

After a team like ourselves or Spurs sell a Suarez or Bale, the mantra is that you go for quality over quantity. So far, so good. Now here's the question I've been wondering about.

Can a team like Liverpool even attract a quality player at the top end of the market? We've been unable to do Costa and Sanchez recently.

Maybe we should've bought a 30-40M attacker and a 30-40M defensive all-action midfielder, but 1. Were any available at that price in this market? 2. Would they want to come? and 3. Could we have paid the wages?

I think the issue is not so much quality over the quantity. The issue is that the team has a shocking scouting system and our academy is not producing (it looked promising last season with Sterling, Flanagan and Suso). The transfer committee either needs to be fired or ownership/fans need to readjust expectations and be willing to tolerate seasons like this with the hope of challenging for Europe in seasons when the signings supposedly come to fruition.

look at who West Ham bought, look at who Southampton bought, and tell me you couldn't have done much better in the window.

 

[Loaded Man]

Re: The Red Lion Pub Team (Liverpool) Thread 2014/15

Can a team like Liverpool even attract a quality player at the top end of the market? We've been unable to do Costa and Sanchez recently.

Pay the money and they'll come.

If Liverpool had offered Sanchez 200k a week and Arsenal 100k he'd be at Liverpool now.

London may be a more attractive city than Liverpool (cue some hilarious 'where isn't' gag) but it's not like these players are going to end up living in Norris Green after they sign. The likes of Suarez and Torres both found homes within the city's suburbs, that were 'grand' enough to fit their requirements and I'm sure Sanchez could have done too - or commuted from Cheshire or somewhere if he really didn't fancy the city itself.

It's all about the money - anything else is a smokescreen.

Modern football isn't complicated.

 

[Bozzie]

Re: The Red Lion Pub Team (Liverpool) Thread 2014/15

Question to Bluemooners (piss-take's aside for a moment):

After a team like ourselves or Spurs sell a Suarez or Bale, the mantra is that you go for quality over quantity. So far, so good. Now here's the question I've been wondering about.

Can a team like Liverpool even attract a quality player at the top end of the market? We've been unable to do Costa and Sanchez recently.

Maybe we should've bought a 30-40M attacker and a 30-40M defensive all-action midfielder, but 1. Were any available at that price in this market? 2. Would they want to come? and 3. Could we have paid the wages?

I think the issue is not so much quality over the quantity. The issue is that the team has a shocking scouting system and our academy is not producing (it looked promising last season with Sterling, Flanagan and Suso). The transfer committee either needs to be fired or ownership/fans need to readjust expectations and be willing to tolerate seasons like this with the hope of challenging for Europe in seasons when the signings supposedly come to fruition.

I think several factors fucked you up. Rodgers knew that numerically his squad was too small to cope with the demands of CL football and everything that involves so he needed to recruit numbers. Then when Suarez left, which surely couldn't have come as any surprise, he needed to recruit a top quality striker as well. Whichever club you are, top quality strikers are low in numbers and high in price and despite the protestations of the fans, Liverpools finances aren't that great. There is little difference between FSG and the Glazers, both are involved mainly for what they can take from the clubs not what they can put in. Most of the media went OTT about the football you played last season and about some of the players, suddenly kids like Sterling want 100k a week because The Star says he's worth 80 million, Sturridge is never behind the door when it comes to money and average players like Henderson/ Flanagan all think they're worth more than they are. I also believe that Rodgers banked on having twice as much to spend on a striker than the 16 million he actually spent. Sunderland had offered 14 million for Borini (no offence but that's 10 million too much) and Liverpool must have thought it was Christmas come early, Borini wouldn't go though and that denied you his fee and his wages.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Re: The Red Lion Pub Team (Liverpool) Thread 2014/15

Question to Bluemooners (piss-take's aside for a moment):

After a team like ourselves or Spurs sell a Suarez or Bale, the mantra is that you go for quality over quantity. So far, so good. Now here's the question I've been wondering about.

Can a team like Liverpool even attract a quality player at the top end of the market? We've been unable to do Costa and Sanchez recently.

Maybe we should've bought a 30-40M attacker and a 30-40M defensive all-action midfielder, but 1. Were any available at that price in this market? 2. Would they want to come? and 3. Could we have paid the wages?

I think the issue is not so much quality over the quantity. The issue is that the team has a shocking scouting system and our academy is not producing (it looked promising last season with Sterling, Flanagan and Suso). The transfer committee either needs to be fired or ownership/fans need to readjust expectations and be willing to tolerate seasons like this with the hope of challenging for Europe in seasons when the signings supposedly come to fruition.

As we showed between 2008 & 2011, you can attract top players if you're not in the top four but you have to offer them (a) silly money and (b) prospects of winning something. The first depends on your owners and the financial plans they have but I suspect they'll want to keep costs under control, particularly when you have to repay the 5-yr loan for the stand expansion when you might not have either the level of PL revenue you'll have from last year and the CL revenue from this year. The second depends on whether last season was one of over-achievement or this one is a bit of a blip you can put right.

Your chance was this summer but it looks like you blew it, either because you bought badly or because of your policy on fees and wages. Why Remy was unfit for you but fit for Chelsea is puzzling and I suspect something else happened to kybosh the deal and "medical reasons" was just an excuse. Chris Bascombe's article was scathing about how you do your transfer business, with this opaque committee. In theory it should highlight any issues with proposed targets but it just seems to have skated over them and there has to be a question mark over whether Rodgers actually knew what he was going to do with them. Fat Sam seems to have found some bargains, Pelle at Southampon was a good buy & Pardew always seems to unearth a decent player plus established players like Welbeck were available. Your absolute priority should have been staying in the top four and perhaps be prepared to sacrifice the CL in the short term. That would have meant getting four high-quality, experienced players rather than nine mediocre or downright poor ones.

The alternatives now seem to be spend big one more time and hope to grab a top four place off Arsenal or the rags or spend a few seasons getting back to basics, having a clear-out and getting a decent squad together under BR at an affordable cost.

 

[KentBlue]

Re: The Red Lion Pub Team (Liverpool) Thread 2014/15

In all sincerity, Brenda just isn't up to the job. Liverpool demand success on a regular basis, their fan base demands it, and the club's longevity relies on it. But it's quite apparent that Brenda cannot deliver it. He just seems to be making things up as he goes along. I mean, Skrtl was playing up front for a while last night...WTF! Every corner they defended they had pretty much all 11 in the box, nobody spare to make a run should they get a break.
Whether it's his man-management skills or just his lack of tactical knowledge, Brenda is not a top football manager, never will be.

Peller's gets my back up now and again with his decisions, but if I were a Dipper I'd feel suicidal with fucking visor forehead in charge.

 

[rushts]

Re: The Red Lion Pub Team (Liverpool) Thread 2014/15

#SOB

 

[Deleted member 13905]

Re: The Red Lion Pub Team (Liverpool) Thread 2014/15