Topic: “The Road of Good Intentions Has Gone Dry as a Bone”*

[Mr Rossi]

Not a problem.

I would hope for the owners sake their new man now at least bats well for them on the logic bit. 

And for the good of the club and the health of the fans I hope so too mate.

[Harinder]

Cracking post E2K. It really is one of the best on here I've read since joining RAWK.

The word of the days gone by for me has been fungible. We, the fans, are seemingly viewed by the FSG echelons as fungible. The way they talk of the new world is indicative of even the manager to some extents being fungible. Ayre's statement on John and Tom not getting where they were without listening to others... maybe they should listen to the best practices of Human Capital Management where a good team needs a steady leadership?

[Mr Rossi]

OK, apologies if I was a tad over sensitive. 

No worries mate I understand how you feel. Try to keep calm and wait and see what happens now.

[fowlermagic]

Well said straight from the heart wrapped with more common sense than you saw from FSG this week. Feels like the corporate office and that says it all, dont know the stuff on the ground thus are making decisions that rips the heart out of us.

[John C]

it meant something those days....means next to fuckall now....to underline the point...the antithesis of LFC - Chelsea - will win the Champions League tonight...less than a week after their Northern counterparts lifted the League title.....if you have the dough you take the silverware.........football is fucked

This superb thread is going off track mate, but just take tonight's game in to consideration. The outcome tonight speaks volumes either way imo. (and I'm not being funny at you because I like your posts mate)
Chelsea lose and your point is void.
Chelsea win and it proves how management can galvanize a team and its about players not money - because they'll probably have won it without the £50m Torres and despite being practically out of the tournament.

[It's Jimmy Corkhill]

Outstanding OP. One of the best things I've ever read online.

[Pistolero]

This superb thread is going off track mate, but just take tonight's game in to consideration. The outcome tonight speaks volumes either way imo. (and I'm not being funny at you because I like your posts mate)
Chelsea lose and your point is void.
Chelsea win and it proves how management can galvanize a team and its about players not money - because they'll probably have won it without the £50m Torres and despite being practically out of the tournament.

I take your point John...........and apologies to the OP for taking the thread slightly off track...should be made a sticky and compulsory reading for all forumites

[geoffstrong]

Football has been fucked for years or have you only just realised that because Kenny has been sacked?

No we have known it for years that football is almost totally fucked up,  but Kenny was the last vestige that perhaps it wasn't totally fucked yet, and through him we still had some integrity and purpose, so we clung on to him like a life raft off the Titanic.

Can you blame us?

[Mr Rossi]

No we have known it for years that football is almost totally fucked up,  but Kenny was the last vestige that perhaps it wasn't totally fucked yet, and through him we still had some integrity and purpose, so we clung on to him like a life raft off the Titanic.

Can you blame us?

Not blaming anyone Geoff. I love Kenny and can understand the hurt, but the football I grew up loving died long before he came back.

[MushyP15]

One of the few scribes I take the time to read and as ever, you didn't disappoint. I'm really glad you mention Dave Whelan's quotes too as they left me with as much sadness as anything that's gone on in the last few days.

[chrisroberts21]

A great article and the last sentence sums up exactly how I'm feeling at this time.

Thanks Kenny for everything you've done for this great club. You have gone but you will never be forgotten.

YNWA

[redbyrdz]

Fantastic post.

Echo what others have said, it sums up the feelings of a generation. I'm a bit lost for words really.

[Gojedo]

Brilliant piece. Sometimes I feel the need to write something to express my thoughts on a lot of different things regarding the ups and downs of the last 2-3 years but reading posts like this, for me personally, takes away that need as articles like this one connects with how I feel and it makes reading a lot of these good pieces that are floating around really enjoyable. There are some real brilliant writers on RAWK and a lot of superb posts. Sitting down with a coffee and a couple of smokes and reading some of them can be a brilliant way to unwind and provoke a bit of thought.

[Red_Mist]

This is Kenny Dalglish. If he felt that he still had more to give, then I have to believe that he did because the man has never – NEVER – let us down before. Never.

This is the line that just leapt out and made me realise why I'm so frustrated and angry. It's the thought of the "what if". The thought that getting the club back where we belong would've been so much sweeter with Kenny. It's pointless and painful to imagine now, but Anfield would've spontaneously combusted had we achieved success in the league with Dalglish. Look at the City game like you say. Oh yeah, it would be incredible whoever's in charge if we finally manage to bury the hoodoo one year...but to do it with Kenny...can you imagine!

And I think you're right. He did feel like he had more to give and that the team would come good. And who's to say it wouldn't after just one full season back? Well, the owners clearly.

Who's to say that with a couple of astute purchases this summer, a revitalised Andy Carrol up front (look how the big man got fitness and form back towards the end of the season BECAUSE Kenny had kept faith in him, playing for the manager), the magician that is Luis Suarez on the wing, Danny Agger & Martin Skrtel like rocks at the back, the fully fit beast of a player that is Lucas Leiva in the centre of the park, the confidence that a few early wins would give the likes of Henderson and Shelvey, a tiny bit more luck that sent shots inside the woodwork instead of rebounding back off them, and perhaps most importantly a unified set of supporters that are fully 100% behind the living legend at the helm. Who's to say that with all those things, he wouldn't have turned it round? He had a better chance than someone starting from scratch.

Still absolutely fuming 

[bepoq]

really a shockingly good bit of writing, and I really wish that one could be assured that Henry and his mates would read it. Perhaps one can tweet the link at him or the wife, who seems very nice, I don't know how these things work.

I suppose that I'd hope whoever comes in would be successful and that as soon as they have their own position solid, Kenny gets invited back to the board, though I'm grasping at straws here, I realise.

I keep asking people on here, (usually the foreign fans that, as E2k points out, are now as equally valued as time-served reds) why it is that they support Liverpool as opposed to some other club: Chelsea, Arsenal, City or even Barcelona or Madrid or Juventus (not Manchester united or Everton, of course, that's obvious). I ask them what it is they support if not the values established by Shankly, Paisley, Dalglish, (and perhaps in modern football, Benitez) or the city of Liverpool and environs, people and culture. If you take any of those away, what have you got left. A red shirt, a name, a badge, a number of temporary players who, no matter how they are treated, are likely to head off, and who care more for trophies than for immortality, which I can't get my head around and which I bet one Fernando Torres now has, far too late, begun to understand (someone, at the time Gerrard was flirting with Chelsea, wrote a fine piece on here asking who would he rather be,  Baresi or...? I can't even remember who the other nomark was). Maybe you've got a manager, though it appears that without reaching the top 4, he's not likely to stay around another year, even if fundamental to the fabric of the club (see two of our three most recent). Or ourselves? Good nights at Anfield ever rarer, songs ever more vanilla, support ever more contingent as E2K points out.

So what is left? What do you support? (serious question) For me, the red shirt and the badge are being emptied of all their cultural attachment, they are becoming even for many of us older fans who watched Kenny play (and could he play... what a fucking privilege that was) what I think they are for many new fans, what the academics call (sorry, I'm one of them gits myself) empty cultural signifiers, not longer attached to any meaning other than the generic premier league, modern consumption/spectator model based football where fans are fungible (nice one!) and no different from team to team, controlled (you will now listen to the premier league anthem, you will now sing your own anthem along to the PA, you will now listen while they sing their anthem along to the PA, you will now all sing the national anthem) and harvested (time for another replica shirt lads).

It was well put above, you know a lesser bond when you've experienced a greater one. I support Liverpool we all say. But what is it you support, and why?

[jillc]

This is the line that just leapt out and made me realise why I'm so frustrated and angry. It's the thought of the "what if". The thought that getting the club back where we belong would've been so much sweeter with Kenny. It's pointless and painful to imagine now, but Anfield would've spontaneously combusted had we achieved success in the league with Dalglish. Look at the City game like you say. Oh yeah, it would be incredible whoever's in charge if we finally manage to bury the hoodoo one year...but to do it with Kenny...can you imagine!

And I think you're right. He did feel like he had more to give and that the team would come good. And who's to say it wouldn't after just one full season back? Well, the owners clearly.

Who's to say that with a couple of astute purchases this summer, a revitalised Andy Carrol up front (look how the big man got fitness and form back towards the end of the season BECAUSE Kenny had kept faith in him, playing for the manager), the magician that is Luis Suarez on the wing, Danny Agger & Martin Skrtel like rocks at the back, the fully fit beast of a player that is Lucas Leiva in the centre of the park, the confidence that a few early wins would give the likes of Henderson and Shelvey, a tiny bit more luck that sent shots inside the woodwork instead of rebounding back off them, and perhaps most importantly a unified set of supporters that are fully 100% behind the living legend at the helm. Who's to say that with all those things, he wouldn't have turned it round? He had a better chance than someone starting from scratch.

Still absolutely fuming 

Totally agree with you there. The other thing that really grates with me is the club asked him to come back and help out, he didn't have to agree to do it, but he did as usual putting the club before himself. Then eighteen months later, he is forced to go to bloody Boston, and they sack him, just pathetic.

It's just a crying shame that in all likelihood it's probably the last time we will see Kenny in the manager's dugout at Anfield, and that is just incredibley sad and wrong.

[GODS LEFT BOOT]

Just before they got there, they were greeted by arguably the most legendary figure in the club’s history. Bill Shankly may have laid the foundations and Bob Paisley built a dynasty on them, but neither man became a legend as both a player and a manager before going on to lift an entire city in its darkest hour. Great men though they clearly were, this man is at least their equal and the very definition of what Liverpool Football Club has long considered itself to be – proud, passionate, hard-working, loyal and tough as nails. As Kenny Dalglish congratulated his players on their efforts in between applauding the supporters, his eyes began to well up with tears. In that moment, you knew all you ever needed to know about how much this club means to him – every bit as much as it means to the people in the stands, and then some. It said everything about him. It still does. And while we can argue about the results and performances produced during his 18 months or so in charge until the cows come home, only a fool would deny what this club lost with his departure last Wednesday. It cannot be defined. It cannot be replaced. It certainly cannot be bought. And before we move on to the next chapter in the club’s history, whatever that may bring, I think it’s only right to acknowledge that.


Perhaps it’s because, for the second time in three years, this club has willingly ripped its heart out of its chest, first with Rafa and now with Kenny. I honestly don’t know where we go from here, but for now all I can say to the man is thanks. At the very least, these past 18 months have been a blessing to me because they reminded me of how special Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish truly is. I was 11 when he resigned in 1991. I had no real idea of what he meant. He was the manager of the football club, that’s all. I was probably disappointed, but not nearly as gutted as I was when Peter Beardsley was sold to Everton a short time later or when John Aldridge had left for Spain in 1989. When you’re a kid, your heroes are players and Kenny was before my time on that score. Over the intervening years I’ve learned, but I had never felt it first-hand. Well now I have. As I’ve gotten older, I haven’t really had heroes anymore. Heroes are for children, aren’t they? Well, Kenny…he’s about as close as it gets. He once said that the club is “more important and bigger than any individual, no matter who has been through it previously and who will in the future. The club is the club. I will never forget that and anyone who does is being a wee bit stupid and irresponsible.”

Then, for the time being, consider me a wee bit stupid and irresponsible.

That City moment captured something real

Were about  the same age - I knew all about him because I got a video one Christmas 'Kenny Dalglish portrait of a natural footballer'  (worth looking on youtube for)
In it Best, Beckenbauer (?) Law and Jimmy Tarbuck basically say he was the best they had seen - and if Tarby was giving him the thumbs up that was good enough for me.

I cried when he left before - I was just  a kid and I kind of  thought Liverpool had finished because he wouldn't be there.
Now as a man I'm thinking the same thing again - and I'm also thinking that kid knew more that he realised.

[redend]

"He felt that he could turn it around. Do you know who this is? This is Kenny Dalglish. If he felt that he still had more to give, then I have to believe that he did because the man has never – NEVER – let us down before. Never"

Astonishing statement, problem is modern football has let him and us down, the Leviathan that is the champions league and what football has mutated into leaves a very very nasty taste in my mouth. Football was an escape and a  sense of belonging, a tribal passage of rites into a collective of fans aligned in a desire.

This "new" football is something I wish I could escape from.

[ConnieLFC]

It's just a crying shame that in all likelihood it's probably the last time we will see Kenny in the manager's dugout at Anfield, and that is just incredibley sad and wrong.

Nevermind the dugout - it might very well be the last time we see him at Anfield at all, at least under this ownership.  That makes it 1000x worse.   

Still feel like I'm in a fog; stomach still feels like it's just been punched.  Even when you know people are basically ***holes and will do what they want with little regard for their fellow human beings, something can happen that still knocks you sideways in its thoroughly shameless audacity.  This was one of those "somethings", writ ginormously large and better yet, for mass public consumption.

Still completely disgusted.

[Black Bull Nova]

Thanks for that OP, brilliant writing that captures how I feel.

When Kenny came back, a lot moreso than when Hicks and Gillett were ousted, I felt like I had my club back. We had a connection with the past, with Shankly, Paisley, Fagan, Saunders, Smith, Robinson, Moran. I do believe that Roy Evans did a bit of that after Souness but nothing like what Kenny put back in. I have been concerned for his health since Christmas, he has seemed worn down by things but maybe that's because he getting on now and Ferguson has seemed like imminent death for 10 years now so maybe it's a Glasgow thing.

FSG, following on from Rafa bringing him back in, gave us Kenny back and then they took him away again. We have had a taste of what it is to be Liverpool again but the next decision will define this club because, with the exception of Benitez (and potentially people like Hypia in the future) there are no more connections with the past and even then those connections are with the recent past not the past of the Boot room.

I have always said this that Shankly did something special, along with the fans, and created a unique spirit. This has been battered and bruised since and including 1985, 1989, 1991, 2006, 2010, 2011 by events and decisions that have damaged this club. There is a resilience there but it lies just with the fans now because the people and the club are no longer connected. I look at Chelsea and see everything that we were being replaced by something that means nothing. Thank god for Man City this year because, despite their money, they have fans who I totally respect who stuck with them down to Div 3 (they hold the record for the biggest crowd ever, 84, 569, their average in div 3 was 28, 261, Chelsea on other hand dropped to 16k in the 2nd tier).

I say that because football has gone plastic and anything which connects me with the time before the premier league's artificiallity (however stunning that City game was last week) is welcome. It is something to do with retaining those things which have meaning and value, those things that bring genuine warmth to the heart and a feeling that there is some natural justice in the world, that right will defeat wrong. The opposite of seeing John Terry rewarded yesterday, the opposite of a Russian oligarch buying a club for fun and, ironically, winning the CL with the only manager he didn't actually choose himself. The difference between the way that Torres and Owen are felt about by LFC fans to that in which Suarez is regarded by Ajax fans or Alonso is regarded despite his leaving for a big fee because of the way they (and their agents) have conducted themselves after they have gone.

Football is dying slowly at the same time as soccer is being created, a soulless thing. Look at Dortmund crowds, look at the City Fans doing the Poznan, look at the atmosphere when we played City in the CC Semi's or Chelsea in 2005 and you can still see it in places. The only thing left from the past is the fans and what they carry from it, they need leadership at the club, be it from owners (seemingly unlikely now) or a manager who can connect and restore that spirit in the club. The Olympic torch that will pass by here in a couple of weeks is symbolic of keeping something alive, LFC is still alive but, after several strokes and heart attacks is now awaiting an electrical jolt again. One of these days it won't wake again, the voltage put through it last january was massive but the heart has stopped again and its getting harder and harder to get it going. It's over to FSG again, whoever they are, get this wrong and we are screwed.

[Peter McGurk]

It's over to FSG again, whoever they are, get this wrong and we are screwed.

Thanks for that but I think it’s later than you think. I think it’s gone. It’s in a box of beautiful memories. For me, my memories. They’ll go when I go.

So no more jolts and bangs and shocks and torches for the club. It’s dead. The club is dead. It is a morgue.

Fans are fans. I’m not talking about prawn sandwiches. I’m talking about the childish belief that good beats bad. That cheats don’t prosper. Even for Chelsea fans. Or Arsenal fans. City fans are 'good guys'. We like to think we’re unique (and we did a lot of things a whole lot better) but it’s a common bond. That said, I never found a Manc I could stand...

The fans are still here but the club has gone. So that is all that’s left. The fans. But there’s one more connection on the brink. The link between young and old. It couldn’t have been clearer on here this week.

Us aul’ fellas can either walk away, mumble in our beards and wait and see what the new thing is - see if we can stomach it or not; or, whatever the club gets up to, we could offer some leadership. A bit of direction to the young, patronising as that sounds.

I had a lecture from my elder daughter yesterday. About ‘classical’ values and ‘post-modern’ self-delusion and post-rationalisation (she’s at University, bless) but essentially she was talking about sticking to what you believe in. So, there’s hope. This young/old thing is a two-way street. So, tweet if you must but make some noise while you’re doing it.

There aren’t no master classes on the Kop no more but we don’t have to put up with cheating. We don’t have to put up with diving and dishonesty and laziness and... all the other stuff that belongs to winning at whatever cost. We don't have to settle for fourth when there's a title to be won. Here to win trophies and be a source of pride to the supporters. That’s what the man said.

We don’t have to call a ‘lack of principles’ at the ground but we can encourage the right thing. Cheer for hard work. Praise decent behaviour. Never give up. No surrender. Do or die. Because right is right and wrong is wrong. And that’s what we’re there to celebrate. Together, because we all believe it.

All shockingly old-fashioned but if our club goes so far as to become the kind of club that lets Terry lift a trophy and not see the falsehood in it, or if we think that the club has done that already, then we can walk away and good luck to them. It’s not the club that was our club anyway. That's dead.

.

[fonzielfc]

That is a cracking OP E2K! probably the best I have read!

Timbo's OP made me smile. Yours almost made me cry...

[Peter McGurk]

Heads up re some of our overseas support from the aforementioned elder (she's in South Africa)

"that is really sad. i spoke to niv today about it cause she's a big liverpool fan and she said dalglish wasn't doing much for the team so best he left before he destroys his reputation for being a great player it's weird cause all those emails and stuff talk about 'the fans' which is totally different concept over here. i guess all my mates that support are kind of the problem like what you saying with selling tshirts and stuff cause they don't have the same patience liverpudlian liverpool supporters would have

oooh i see.. wow that's f*cking shit about terry"

She can type and she is educated but it's just she's under 30.

[Black Bull Nova]

There aren’t no master classes on the Kop no more but we don’t have to put up with cheating. We don’t have to put up with diving and dishonesty and laziness and... all the other stuff that belongs to winning at whatever cost. We don't have to settle for fourth when there's a title to be won. Here to win trophies and be a source of pride to the supporters. That’s what the man said.

We don’t have to call a ‘lack of principles’ at the ground but we can encourage the right thing. Cheer for hard work. Praise decent behaviour. Never give up. No surrender. Do or die. Because right is right and wrong is wrong. And that’s what we’re there to celebrate. Together, because we all believe it.

All shockingly old-fashioned but if our club goes so far as to become the kind of club that lets Terry lift a trophy and not see the falsehood in it, or if we think that the club has done that already, then we can walk away and good luck to them. It’s not the club that was our club anyway. That's dead.

.

I like this, I suppose the optimist in me is still breathing............just.

[Peter McGurk]

I like this, I suppose the optimist in me is still breathing............just.

It's the only thing I'm hanging on to.

.

[Roger Federer]

Trying to catch up with all that happened last week having been away, and just found this. Brilliant OP by one of the best writers on here. Should be read by more.

[Lemonjelli]

Fenway Sport Group came from American sport which is much more tightly regulated in terms of money & employees, wage caps, drafts, set leagues with no relegation etc. The format of sport is based on the owners making money, if the city that the team is in currently aren’t providing sufficient income, they simply move the franchise to a city that will provide the income. Transfer windows, unlimited budgets, genuine competition is all unknown to FSG and all American owners. The cancers provided the clearest example of the attitude of owners to money, FSG publically stated that without the controls on finances that FFP will provide they would never have considered buying the club.
I suspect the lack of understanding of the new challenges is the explanation behind FSG being unable to sell the project to their prospective managers. Numerous articles have been written and posts made regarding our relative standing in European football , despite our record in Europe & potential income, so what are FSG doing to demonstrate to the wider world that we are a team on the up?
How are they going to convince ambitious managers & players that we are the place to be for the post FFP world?
If 16 months was enough time to decide that KK was not the man to create momentum at LFC, what evidence is there that FSG are achieving what KK couldn’t? Simply improving on the abject commercial performances of previous owners is not enough.
When they are approaching managers they appear to be either incredibly naive by attempting to convince the manager in question to start burning bridges with their existing club for the possibility of managing LFC or simply unable to convince managers to come to LFC, despite the potentially huge increase in salary, is this simply down to a failure to adapt to the new challenges?
The more accepted procedure to procuring a new manager would be to sound out your favoured candidates & when you have a positive response you proceed with negotiations, this saves any potential embarrassment all round, but FSG have pushed what could have been simply generating publicity for the upcoming reality TV programme into a Greek tragedy almost designed to create an impression to the world that they are failing to come to terms with their new challenge. The reason behind this would appear to be an adherence to an American way of doing things which takes no account of the European way of doing things.
The grapevine within football will be humming to stories of how out of touch they are with the realities of European football they are & with this impression upper most in peoples minds they will start to recruit players.
The recruitment of players by a DoF of somekind is standard practice in continental Europe, so in itself it will not be unusual for recruitment to take place this way, however it is unusual for England & a decision to take on the traditions of English football could well create enough uncertainty with the potential players to mean that they are tempted to take up the offer of teams which are not undertaking a radical overhaul & all of the uncertainty that this would create.
What is needed is some action or undertaking to create the impression that there is a logic behind the actions, a clear understanding of the challenges ahead & a clear plan of how the club will enable all prospective employees achieve what they want in the game (wages will not be our selling point with top targets) , there are opportunities for FSG to create this impression. Will FSG take the chance to create a favourable impression in Europe or will they simply stick rigidly to the structures that worked so well in an environment alien to English football?
The employment of a strong personality with experience at the level of football we are looking to achieve would be a clear sign that LFC under FSG are moving towards the final stages of CL football, Martinez & Rodgers, regardless of how good they are will not win a battle for signatures when they are up against top class managers, especially if wages are not comparable with the opposition. This in part is the reason Mancini was brought in by Man City, players wanted to work with him & he was a clear sign of intent, PSG recruited Ancelloti & Malaga employed Pellegrino. If FSG want to create the impression that they understand what motivates the kind of ambitious young player they want they need to show these players they mean business & the cheapest way of going that would be to employ a manager who inspires confidence that success in Europe will be achievable by the potential players.

[SJL]

Amazing.  I've been thinking very much along the same lines as of late.  Most of what I wrote was just rambling, but I think this is important.

"Being in the top four has become like the Wizard of Oz. Who needs courage, brains and a heart when you can have Champions League revenue? Teams become so consumed with it, they lose focus of what they actually have in pursuit of it. Martin O'Neill did it by sending a reserve team to CSKA Moscow in the UEFA Cup, a tie Aston Villa had every chance of winning against a side that would go on to be champions. Harry Redknapp regularly shows a disdain for the Europa League, a line of thinking I've never really liked, given that both competitions count toward a coefficient and successive failures could one day leave England with only three Champions League places instead of four.

The league table doesn't lie, so we're told. I'll buy that. But there has to be a better way of measuring progression. In the last three seasons Arsenal have finished third, fourth and third. Are they any better off now than in 2010? In the same time frame Wigan have gone from sixteenth in the 2009/2010 season, finished the same place a year later and fifteenth this year. Both teams are fairly stagnant and yet have achieve their respective goals every year be it top four or survival. Perhaps the problem lies within ambition, in that if you try too hard and fail, you'll have a Leeds United on your hands. I'd like to think that even with all the derision that comes with platitudes about our history, we're not in the business of playing it safe with regard to our objectives.  I can't imagine a Liverpool Football Club that would be satisfied with qualification for the Champions League alone, forsaking trophies along the way in order to make sure the cheques are balanced.  Pete Wylie told me there's no heart as big as Liverpool.  I still believe that.  I only hope when this is all over John W. Henry doesn't turn Anfield into a bunch of tin men.  If that is the case, he'll need more than a wizard."

[flw]

What a great post .Thank you E2K