This season has been a strange one for me. I've been worried since the transfer window shut for three reasons 1.) I didn't feel the signings were good enough and the policy was bizarre 2.) We left MASSIVE gaps in the squad with the potential to come back and bite us and 3.) Other sides strengthened correctly and spent wisely.
For me the transfer policy was baffling, the end of last season was brilliant and it was so good to see kenny come in and do the opposite to the idiot in charge before and play to peoples strengths, the players looked confident, moved the ball quickly and we played fast atttacking football. The plan seemed to be to get back to basics and just get the ball down and play, alot of movement from the attackers, we moved forward as a team and dropped back as a team... then came this season. Were you a non liverpool fan looking from the outside in, simply being told the style of football played by the team last season after Kenny took over, then shown the list of summer signings you would believe the playstyle adopted was a complete and utter failure and tactics needed a drastic change. Our transition between Kennys return and the slammin shut of the window to me just screamed 'if it aint broke...'
The football we played in that initial period was great, i wasn't deluding myself into thinking we were playing the best football in the world but i was glad we were doing what was necessary, improving. To this day im baffled why we moved away from this and why we set a foundation just to knock it down in an instant. Was it the ONLY way for us to do well this season ? No. But in my opinion it was our best option. The team had a solid base and just needed the dead wood shipping out, some of the positions strengthened, and some good backups capable of pushing the first choice players in the position e.g. Kelly is our second choice RB but he's great at pushing Johnson for that first choice spot, im not saying he's Glens equal but he provides competition for the position, who wouldnt want this spread across the team. Obviously its not incredibly easy to do this across the whole team but bit by bit with wise spending its achievable to build a strong squad.
In terms of the positions i felt needed more back up in summer my main two concerns were another striker and another defensive minded CM. The main reasons were the attack didn't look strong enough without one of either a pacey striker or a poacher and the centre didn't look like it would hold up were something to happen to Lucas. The two were huge gaps in the side in my view but many did what they always do and shrugged it off as 'we'll find a way to cope if/when the problem rears its head' it was the usual bury your head and hope the problem doesn't arise which in football is just asking for trouble. All positions need cover and if they aren't covered it can be the difference between your season being exceptional and it imploding. The other thing was january, had we retified the problems then it wouldn't have been so bad but it just always looked
like we wouldn't spend to improve, obviously it depended on if we had money to spend but people just threw out excuses to go with whatever came from the club 'We may spend' was met with 'great we need changes' then as soon as it looked like we wouldn't all of a sudden some of those same people did a u-turn and we didn't need anything miraculously in a matter of days. Again it depends on the money available but to those who endlessly state how theres no value in the jan window... If you 'overspend' by a few million on a great player for a crucial position and it pushes you to a CL place, have you really overspent ?
That's obviously done now and we all know whats happened so far. I feel we failed ourselves in the window and i dont know exactly who was responsible, many seem to pin it solely on DC, a few blame kenny, some split it between the two and some blame the owners not backing the management. I have no idea what occured and i cant see it being revealed so i refuse to speculate, i dont understand when people talk asif they know for a fact who did what.
This season has had its ups and downs, the carling cup win was great for me, personally i didn't give a fuck about what anyone else had to say, we won a trophy after how many years without any ? And some laughed at us celebrating winning silverware. The FA cup run has also been great, another final in the same season is impressive and should we win that too i would be delighted. The league form has been worrying though, not just the actual league position but the way in which we ended up here, some of the effort from some of the players has been embarassing, i've seen some of them fail to do what i see done in sunday league week in week out and its infuriating, some of the tactics have been bad, at times we have persisted with things that clearly do not work and within these games by the time we make a change its too late. I cant help but feel alot of our problems could have been avoided with wiser spending and less stubbornness in the choices made across the season.
Some of our play has been great but the good goals and performances are too few and far between. We've had the same issues over and over and at times haven't helped ourselves. The treatment and use of some players has been baffling and has also contributed to our problems in my opinion. Kennys done some great things since coming back, great things, but i refuse to sit here and act asif he hasn't made some terrible choices too. He 100% needs to stay but he needs to make some changes aswell, some of the stubborn decisions to me have been wrong, i wont go into them unless someone specifically asks for my opinion which ones were wrong but to me at times some of the the choices in the matchday squads will have had the opposition breathing a sigh of relief.
Theres so much more to be said but to me it feels like we dont learn from our mistakes enough. Im tired of raising some of the same issues, its like banging my head against a brick wall. Personally i would go back to the plan of the latter half of the 2010/11 season, ship out some of the players who aren't doing enough, recoup some money and go after the players who compliment our best players playstyle, target technically efficient players and play with that high pressing style of the end of last season, bring in competitors for places to keep the first teamers on their toes and most importantly of all, learn from this seasons mistakes
