Brilliant OP. Stupid football has rankled me, like many of you, from the moment I started watching the game. As a very young child, I was more exposed to Italian football than English games, so my consciousness of stupid football and its effects heightened the more I saw the inefficient, clunky and tactically inept variant of the game that seems to have always predominated in England. As others have mentioned in the thread, this is something that we might see borne out on the pitch, but is caused by a deeper underlying problem in the minds of players. Stupid people play stupid football. It's very difficult to coach them out of it (there are exceptions). Roy talked about 'craft' as being one of the qualities that sets apart the superior breed of footballer and he's quite right. One problem is that our national character, and specifically the cultural characteristics in our working classes (which produce the overwhelming majority of players), are not given to valuing craft. Rash decision-making, short-termism, outbursts of irrational behaviour all characterise the stupid footballer. But these are also the same characteristics that have led to the degradation of our society more broadly. They're the same characteristics that have led to Britain topping Europe's teen pregnancy rates in recent years.
The point is this. Liverpool Football Club exists for two reasons - firstly, to win things, but more importantly, as an example to the footballing world. We exist to lead. The idea of us pioneering pass-and-move as a successful approach and our keenness to say "We're not English, we're Scouse" comes from the same place. We're supposed to be outliers, that's our purpose. The style we play with on the pitch, the way we're managed and the ways we show our support are supposed to be different, to be exemplary. They're supposed to be tied together by an intelligence that is absent in the rest of the national character. Liverpool Football Club and the city more generally is supposed to be an island. That's why I'm heartened to see so many technically gifted players in the Academy and even more heartened by our desire to look around the world for players who fit that bill. The back end of last season was in many ways about picking up where Rafa left off. I was optimistic that the long-term philosophy that made us feared around Europe - to control the game, with talented players who are tactically aware and are selected for their superior decision-making, mental stability and general intelligence (Pepe, Dagger, Lucas, Xabi, Luis Garcia, Maxi, Aquilani, Torres) - would flourish with a new batch of additions as well as very talented home-grown lads who fit that philosophy. Like many others, I can't see the logic behind disturbing that idea. It's our philosophy. We taught the world to appreciate it and it seemed as if we were about to do so again. The Holy Trinity of an intelligent team, a fearsome crowd and a management team that looks after its own and keeps its problems in-house isn't just nostalgic, emotional guff. It's deeply pragmatic and ultimately, it comes down to craft. Ask any referee who's heard the roar of the Kop for a dubious handball shout in the box in the 92nd minute whether we've got craft. That "kwalitee" and "mentalitee, no?" were some of the words we heard most often in recent years is not accidental. Craft and intelligence have to be the foundations of our success.
In terms of practical solutions, there are some things we can do, but they all need to be part of a deepening of our own philosophy at every level inside the club. Sports psychiatrists may be able to help individuals with particular obstacles, but it's the strength of our brand internally which will show every player, every Academy recruit and every coach that we have a distinct way of doing things that characterises our conduct and decision-making on and off the pitch. We had an imposing global corporate brand long before any management guru came along with a self-help book. We've developed it in recent years, but it's our footballing decisions that have impeded us from making those ideal values come to life. Our induction process has to hammer home the simple ideas about decision-making mentioned in the OP (especially around awareness and space) and our scouting process has to be tighter in taking a player's personal background more seriously in weighting transfer decisions. Certain things are clear:
1. I despise cut-and-run decisions. They are fundamentally small-time. But when you screw up and make a bad trade, sometimes it just has to be done. This is most appropriate when we know a decision to have been wrong all along (see Podge). I'm talking about Charlie Adam. There's just no way anyone could be sober and put him in our first XI, let alone pin hopes of building it around him. I can't see a place for him in an intelligent team or squad. He epitomises the stupid footballer. Let go.
2. We need an urgent reassessment of those of our signings who don't fit the philosophy of mental stability, certitude, awareness and sound decision-making. Each one of them needs an action plan that highlights their core weaknesses and demands measurable improvements (these won't always be visible on graphs, but will be in-game) by the end of the season. They need to know they're being managed in two ways - being helped with any confidence problems or personal barriers to success, but also that there is a timeline for action if their decision-making in particular fails to improve. There's only so much stupidity that can be coached out. For some of them, this might mean losing their first XI places and for others, more serious measures.
3. It was clear that our scouting process in the recent past relied heavily on in-depth background checks and a necessity for certain conditions to be met in that regard. We need to raise this bar again, but also supplement it. Every player has a medical and I assume that before we make a decision on a player, there is some degree of psychological testing done too. We need to develop our own testing procedure specific to the club, with both paper and field exercises in decision-making, tactics and simulated pressure tests. Even if we don't use these as a dealbreaker, they would give us a picture of what needs to be done with individual players psychologically from their first day at the club.
