Topic: The unravelling. A team, manager and fans shafted by transfer incompetence

[muyuu]

Top four teams are always losing their two top scorers every season, their keeper having a mare, and their defensive lynchpins getting injured, all at the same time, and still finishing in the top four.

That happens every season, yes?

Mignolet is not a top keeper and he never was. Top four teams usually have top keepers, our choice was to sign a midtable PL keeper while not even having a proper top veteran in the bench.

Top teams usually have plenty of scoring options so if, say, Aguero or Costa or Giroud or Van Persie get injured, which they ALL did, they have other options. Be it more strikers or attacking mids or wingers.

And in fact we got replacements for our scorers, they're just very inept signings that are no use for us.

We have a very thin squad so every injury is going to hurt us, like happens to smaller sides when they get important players injured.

[ahfolk79]

I'd agree performance wise but I think ever since the contract talks, or lack off, quickly followed by announcement of being LA bound, I think he's played well within himself.  Not necessarily deliberately, but maybe simply to a lack of motivation. 

But let's not forget the hangover he must have suffered after last season.  He probably still gets sweats thinking about that slip.  I think it prob affected him on England duty in the WC.  He probably felt like packing it all in after all that.  He done the next best thing - cleared off to LA.

A sad and totally undeserved end (opposition fans will disagree or take glee obviously, the more moderate would sympathise) to a fantastic career.

Maybe Carra had the right idea after all. It's such a pity because there is a real danger that this season will tarnish our memory of him (Gerrard).

[PhaseOfPlay]

Mignolet is not a top keeper and he never was. Top four teams usually have top keepers, our choice was to sign a midtable PL keeper while not even having a proper top veteran in the bench.

Top teams usually have plenty of scoring options so if, say, Aguero or Costa or Giroud or Van Persie get injured, which they ALL did, they have other options. Be it more strikers or attacking mids or wingers.

And in fact we got replacements for our scorers, they're just very inept signings that are no use for us.

We have a very thin squad so every injury is going to hurt us, like happens to smaller sides when they get important players injured.

None of that bears any relation to what I said. That's just you venting.

[muyuu]

None of that bears any relation to what I said. That's just you venting.

Huh? I'll reply piecewise then.

"Top four teams are always losing their two top scorers every season"
They don't rely on a single injury prone striker and if a star player leaves they replace him properly spending as much as necessary.

"their keeper having a mare"
He's not, he's just not very good. Again, our choice signing.

"and their defensive lynchpins getting injured, all at the same time, and still finishing in the top four."
Our squad is thin, and Lucas and Sakho are both very injury prone.


"That happens every season, yes?"
Short version: yes

[L666KOP]

Probably won't sit well with some on here, but I believe we're not good enough for how Brendan wants us to play.

Put him in the chair at City and they'd demolish the league.

[TSC]

Maybe Carra had the right idea after all. It's such a pity because there is a real danger that this season will tarnish our memory of him (Gerrard).

No, if Gerrard hadn't slipped last season and we won the league it would be Carra now wondering of what might have been.

Also unless you're only old enough to remember him say over the last 5 years there's no way you'd discount what he's given this club on the basis of a final poor season where he's more than likely sick at missing out on finally landing the big one.

[PhaseOfPlay]

Huh? I'll reply piecewise then.

"Top four teams are always losing their two top scorers every season"
They don't rely on a single injury prone striker and if a star player leaves they replace him properly spending as much as necessary

So add that to the perfect storm argument then, because it's quite clear our owners won't pay as much as necessary.

"their keeper having a mare"
He's not, he's just not very good. Again, our choice signing.

He's good enough to have more clean sheets than Joe Hart and David De Gea. It's just that most of them were in the second half of the season

"and their defensive lynchpins getting injured, all at the same time, and still finishing in the top four."
Our squad is thin, and Lucas and Sakho are both very injury prone.

Perfect storm again.


Taken piece-meal, any one of them is a problem. But they all happened.

Show me a similar number of problems at City, Chelsea, United or Arsenal this season. You can't, because it didn't happen. It happened to us. And yet we're still in 5th, with no natural goalscorers, an under-pressure manager, a fading legend, and three important but injury prone players.

[PhaseOfPlay]

"That happens every season, yes?"
Short version: yes

Altogether, to a top four team? Please do provide examples. We need to see how every season a top four team has:

Lost it's two top scorers
Lost three key players to injury
Lost an effective keeper for half a season
Bought a forward who didn't work out
And still made top four
And all of these things happen in the same season, to a single team

That's every season, now.

[muyuu]

So add that to the perfect storm argument then, because it's quite clear our owners won't pay as much as necessary.

How on Earth is that a coincidence or luck? I'm not blaming Rodgers, I don't know who is to blame, but it's not luck.

[RideTheWalrus]

Probably won't sit well with some on here, but I believe we're not good enough for how Brendan wants us to play.

Put him in the chair at City and they'd demolish the league.

But Swansea were good enough?

[GeneticRed]

Hi PoP. This is something that I can't get my head around. Have you ever seen anything like Gerrard's decline in another player? He has just fallen off a cliff this season, almost overnight. I think most of us expected continual gradual decline but nothing like this.

For me he was showing it last season too. It's just that we were a goal scoring machine and that papered over it. His lack of legs were a big factor in teams going thru us then.
And being captain of both club and country has just worn him down further and further.
The intensity of last season, how it ended for us and then immediately onto the World Cup it's no wonder its taken another nose dive now.
If he'd quit England after the last Euro's he'd prob still have more left. But we'll never know.
It's a real shame he hasn't been able to end on a high because his dedication has deserved it.

[L666KOP]

But Swansea were good enough?

I believe the better the team he manages, the better manager he'll appear to be.

He took Swansea as far as he could given their budget, and I reckon he's taken us as far last season.

[PhaseOfPlay]

How on Earth is that a coincidence or luck? I'm not blaming Rodgers, I don't know who is to blame, but it's not luck.

Are you deliberately being obtuse or are you not understanding that individually, each event is not luck per se, but altogether in one season there can be attributed a large dollop of bad luck? I'm genuinely finding it difficult to know if you're serious or not. It's not one thing, it's ALL of the things together that makes it bad luck

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_storm

A "perfect storm" is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically

[rickardinho1]

So add that to the perfect storm argument then, because it's quite clear our owners won't pay as much as necessary.

He's good enough to have more clean sheets than Joe Hart and David De Gea. It's just that most of them were in the second half of the season

Perfect storm again.


Taken piece-meal, any one of them is a problem. But they all happened.

Show me a similar number of problems at City, Chelsea, United or Arsenal this season. You can't, because it didn't happen. It happened to us. And yet we're still in 5th, with no natural goalscorers, an under-pressure manager, a fading legend, and three important but injury prone players.

Out problems were self-inflicted to a large degree though.

Everyone knew Sturridge was an injury waiting to happen. That Gerrard was 35. That Balotelli was immobile. That Borini was shite. That Lambert was "plan B".

Well-run clubs make their own luck by having contingencies. Chelsea didn't cry when Costa was injured. Arsenal are second despite having Giroud out for 3 months at the start and playing Sanogo as their main man. United didn't sit and cry about their problems, they went out and got enough attackers to score their way into the top 4 again. City have multiple options in every position.

It was clear in December that this team would struggle to get top 4 without a new striker, and yet NOTHING was done about it in January. That's not "bad luck", that's poor planning.

[muyuu]

Probably won't sit well with some on here, but I believe we're not good enough for how Brendan wants us to play.

Put him in the chair at City and they'd demolish the league.

Funny because we seemingly were better for him before he had the final say in the signings than we are now.

It's partly his team now.

[Skidder.]

I know it is unrelated - But does anyone remember the tin-hat theories lingering around about the nature of Balotelli's transfer to us? - Saying how he is essentially 'leased' and not owned as a player?

I thought it was bollocks myself, but I was just wondering about his resale value and what we, the transfer committee can expect to get for him?

[PhaseOfPlay]

Out problems were self-inflicted to a large degree though.

Everyone knew Sturridge was an injury waiting to happen. That Gerrard was 35. That Balotelli was immobile. That Borini was shite. That Lambert was "plan B".

Well-run clubs make their own luck by having contingencies. Chelsea didn't cry when Costa was injured. Arsenal are second despite having Giroud out for 3 months at the start and playing Sanogo as their main man. United didn't sit and cry about their problems, they went out and got enough attackers to score their way into the top 4 again. City have multiple options in every position.

It was clear in December that this team would struggle to get top 4 without a new striker, and yet NOTHING was done about it in January. That's not "bad luck", that's poor planning.

A 5-month injury though? Now turning into a 6-7 month one altogether?

Incidentally, I'm not saying "bad luck, nobody's to blame"

I'm saying "the whole season has been a shit storm of one bad thing happening after another".

[Giono]

It's much easier to explain your mechanics to one person than to 3, 4 or 5 people and have them all on the same page. With that many people, not only are they hearing their own version of what you are saying, they also have their own vision that they want to bring to the table. A single DoF is one voice and one pair of eyes (even if he is filtering other people's information before going to the manager). It's much easier for two people to agree to a vision than it is for 4 or 5. It's dealing with one set of questions rather than five or six.

It's like on here - you post a topic, and then you have to answer questions from 5-20 different people with differing views and different agendas. But if you have a single conversation with one poster (by PM, say), you get a lot more information across and back, more specifically, and you can iron out misunderstandings a hell of a lot quicker. Consensus is a lot easier to reach between two people, than 4 or 5, I think.

Agree 100%. Further, I think there is a risk that politics can develop where compromises are made for 1 player by a comittee member while he gets a bit of slack for another player that he likes. To be honest it looks like different members advocated for different players. It's just a guess, but for example maybe BR gave way on Ballotelli and Moreno so that he could get some slack to sign Lovren and Lallana? Maybe the compromises of a DoF + a head coach model would have a bit more clarity and possibly a bit less compromise overall?

[muyuu]

Are you deliberately being obtuse or are you not understanding that individually, each event is not luck per se, but altogether in one season there can be attributed a large dollop of bad luck? I'm genuinely finding it difficult to know if you're serious or not. It's not one thing, it's ALL of the things together that makes it bad luck

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_storm

It's not a "circumstance" when you set sail in broad reach right into the storm.

[Zoomers]

I believe the better the team he manages, the better manager he'll appear to be.

He took Swansea as far as he could given their budget, and I reckon he's taken us as far last season.

He had a decent amount of budget to spend. Don't kid yourself.

[rickardinho1]

A 5-month injury though? No turning into a 6-7 month one altogether?

As I said, a well-run club would have prepared or that eventuality as it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. In fact, given his injury record it should almost be expected that he'll only be fit half the time.

[PhaseOfPlay]

It's not a "circumstance" when you set sail in broad reach right into the storm.

Okay, so you're being obtuse. Fair enough.

[MolbyLovesGravlax]

All this, all this thousands of posts instills down to a simple question.
Is Rodgers the right man, to be able to take us from where we are right now (the past doesn't matter) to regular top 4, be semi competitive in Europe and be in the position to win domestic cups? Not that that is the end goal, but if he gets us there, then we can ask again if he is the guy to win us titles etc.
If he is the right man then let's fix our background stuff that is obviously broken and put every penny we can afford into getting us there, and quickly.
If he isn't, then wasting next season because we can't afford to sack him or whatever is nonsense. Next season has to be a positive one, it has, at the very least, got to reinstall hope for the future into the fans.
So that, after all the noise and countless opinions, is what Henry and Werner have to decide. Stick or twist.

[DangerScouse]

No acknowledgement by Rodgers that the committee has done absolutely deplorably for this season.

Unsurprisingly considering he is part of it. On the whole  though, our transfer business since FSG have taken over has been appalling. No idea what business Ayre has on that committee unless he's included because he negotiates deals? He certainly hasn't delivered in that respect

[muyuu]

As I said, a well-run club would have prepared or that eventuality as it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. In fact, given his injury record it should almost be expected that he'll only be fit half the time.

It was absolutely to be expected. Sakho, Lucas and Sturridge have spent more time in the physio table than on the pitch in their whole professional careers.

[rickardinho1]

Unsurprisingly considering he is part of it. On the whole  though, our transfer business since FSG have taken over has been appalling. No idea what business Ayre has on that committee unless he's included because he negotiates deals? He certainly hasn't delivered in that respect

Ayre has probably done enough commercial deals to be considered to have done a decent job by the owners though.

[PhaseOfPlay]

As I said, a well-run club would have prepared or that eventuality as it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. In fact, given his injury record it should almost be expected that he'll only be fit half the time.

Were we not looking at Sanchez? The fact that we didn't get him is surely not something to blame Rodgers on. And the fact that our scouts only proposed Balotelli, Remy and Eto'o as alternative is surely not down to Rodgers either.

I mean, we have been all around the block on this for months now, but can we all accept that the transfers thing is not as simple as saying "blame the manager"? And can we all accept that Rodgers is also partly to blame for this season, and everybody recognises that? And on top of all that, can we also all accept that everything else that happened on top of that just made everything else more difficult?

Rather than going around and around, are we not able to all just agree that the season is shite, and that we start a new one in July, with or without Rodgers, with or without top level goalscorers?

There's blame to be shared. But it's not all on Rodgers, it's not all on the Transfer Committee, it's not all on Steven Gerrard, it's not all on FSG, it's not all on Mario Balotelli.

But to deny that there also hasn't been a perfect storm of crap that has contributed to our poor league season is short-sighted.

[Miltonred]

Out problems were self-inflicted to a large degree though.

Everyone knew Sturridge was an injury waiting to happen. That Gerrard was 35. That Balotelli was immobile. That Borini was shite. That Lambert was "plan B".

Well-run clubs make their own luck by having contingencies. Chelsea didn't cry when Costa was injured. Arsenal are second despite having Giroud out for 3 months at the start and playing Sanogo as their main man. United didn't sit and cry about their problems, they went out and got enough attackers to score their way into the top 4 again. City have multiple options in every position.

It was clear in December that this team would struggle to get top 4 without a new striker, and yet NOTHING was done about it in January. That's not "bad luck", that's poor planning.

This.
Perfect storm my arse. We took a long look at the weather forecast, spotted a hurricane and set sail for it!

Gerrard is 35, he was going to drop off at one point, and you could see he was having issues already last season.
Balotelli was a project who had failed twice already at top teams.
Sturridge has a longer injury record than Darren Anderton.
Borini is crap and always has been.
33 year old Lambert was bought for nostaligic reasons and not to replace Suarez.
Every team has serious long term injuries - just look at all the top four clubs and they have ALL had dozens of weeks of lost play from top players. United had an entire first choice back four out for several weeks, and their two major signings up front stunk, while their go to guy RVP lost form dramatically, and is now injured.

None of this is unexpected or unpredictable, just desperate sounding excuses.

[MolbyLovesGravlax]

One thing that puzzled me. We have an expensive setup and tons of scouts, why don't we have targets to replace all our key players in every catagory from immediate expensive replacement to cheap option to youngsters who could develop into a similar player?
Is that too simplistic? I mean people at the time said Suarez was irreplaceable so we shouldn't even try, which was madness to me, and then we end up with the frontline we did. If Suarez was vital to how we play could we not have been tracking multiple players who brought at least goals, creativity and determination to the table?
Suarez is an extreme example because him leaving was always a possibility, but to me even someone like Henderson, who just signed a contract, should have a list of replacements because he is important to Rodgers and you never know what can happen.

[PhaseOfPlay]

This.
Perfect storm my arse. We took a long look at the weather forecast, spotted a hurricane and set sail for it!

Gerrard is 35, he was going to drop off at one point, and you could see he was having issues already last season.
Balotelli was a project who had failed twice already at top teams.
Sturridge has a longer injury record than Darren Anderton.
Borini is crap and always has been.
33 year old Lambert was bought for nostaligic reasons and not to replace Suarez.
Every team has serious long term injuries - just look at all the top four clubs and they have ALL had dozens of weeks of lost play from top players. United had an entire first choice back for out for several weeks.

None of this is unexpected or unpredictable, just desperate sounding excuses.

It's just talking football, Milton. Nothing more.

Question to everyone though.

Seeing as Sturridge being out for so long was so predictable.

Who here can quote a prediction from before the season started, that Sturridge would only play 12 games all season in the league?

[Twitter.com]

Ayre has probably done enough commercial deals to be considered to have done a decent job by the owners though.

[dumbo]

But to deny that there also hasn't been a perfect storm of crap that has contributed to our poor league season is short-sighted.

It's hard to blame the storm for getting wet, when you even didn't buy a raincoat...
AFAICT we don't really have a squad that can handle *any* injuries to first team players.

Personally, I think Rodgers has done a good job, but the transfer policy has let everyone down.  I've no idea how we fix the transfer policy/committee/whatever.

[Redman0151]

It's just talking football, Milton. Nothing more.

Question to everyone though.

Seeing as Sturridge being out for so long was so predictable.

Who here can quote a prediction from before the season started, that Sturridge would only play 12 games all season in the league?

I remember getting shouted at in the transfer forum last summer for saying we couldn't rely on Sturridge

[PhaseOfPlay]

I remember getting shouted at in the transfer forum last summer for saying we couldn't rely on Sturridge

Did you predict he would miss 26 league games?

[Mamadou]

I don't think anyone made a specific prediction on how many games he'd miss but it's hardly a secret the lad is injury prone.

yup.. a lot of people were saying the same thing,  and seems like a lot of people were right,  except the minority... its sad that minority is actually our board

[PhaseOfPlay]

I don't think anyone made a specific prediction on how many games he'd miss but it's hardly a secret the lad is injury prone.

But there's injury prone where you get niggles now and then that keep you out of maybe 1-2 games every 8 games or so.

Then there's being out for nearly an entire season.

[Red Genius]

The end result is 'a perfect storm' but the level of impact it had was entirely determined by lack of forethought and poor planning.

Every man and his dog was aware of the following;

Stevie's wasnt going to have bionic legs to replace his fading ones
Suarez was not certain to be a Liverpool player come the start of this season
Danny has always had injury concerns, irrespective of those...relying on him primarily is highly risky as is relying on any one player.

The rest is par for the course in terms of your average season, players get injured.

[Red Genius]

But there's injury prone where you get niggles now and then that keep you out of maybe 1-2 games every 8 games or so.

Then there's being out for nearly an entire season.

Im not even sure thats relevant, the real point is *when* he was inevitably out, what did we plan for in advance to replace him?

Answers on a postcard, and thats precisely why it isnt just 'bad luck'

[Chris~]

Im not even sure thats relevant, the real point is *when* he was inevitably out, what did we plan for in advance to replace him?

Answers on a postcard, and thats precisely why it isnt just 'bad luck'

We brought in strikers and targeted others. It's not like Rodgers was just left with Sturridge.

[Fiasco]

Going into a season gambling on the fitness of you main striker and hoping that the other 3 will perform to a level they've never reached is something that cannot be excused.