My question to you is what factors contributed to your fall from League winners (pre premier league era) to 4th place contenders. Judging from what I know about your club i have narrowed this down to a few factors.
a) The decision to appoint from the bootroom until Houiller. Whilst this is commendable, did you overlook the type of manager, after Dalglish, that could have maintained your status.
b) The decision to sell to Hicks and Gillette, rather than DIC after success at the start of the Benitez era. This in my opinion held you back significantly. Benitez was about to make you competitive again, and whilst this was achieved briefly, selling to those Americans ensured that competing with the best could not be sustained.
c) The transfer business in seasons 08/09 & 09/10. Mainly discussing the Robbie Keane transfer in and out. ( I know Benitez didn't want him but he failed to give him a chance) Also Xabi Alonso's departure by the stage of the Summer 2009 you could nothing about, he wanted to leave. But was he the main reason for your drop from 2nd to 7th? If he had stayed where do you think you would have finished?
I think the most important factor in your decline was selling to the Americans. I believe that if you sold to DIC, Liverpool would have won the league at least once up to now.
What are your thoughts?
An analysis of Liverpool
posted on 7/10/11
Top post. I like one of the first posters saw the title and thought "here we go".
Brilliant analysis and pretty much exactly what I thought.
I'm too young to pinpoint from a personal perspective what went wrong from Kenny resigning to now. But what is no coincidence as Taggart says is that our poorest years are those of the Moores/Parry tenure (and latterly H&G).
Moores can cry his crocdile tears regarding the sale but ultimately he went for the bigger buck at the expense of the club.
Its impossible to say for certain whether Benitez could have taken us to the title under DIC, they have fallen apart in the recession as well so there is nothing to say they wouldnt have pulled the plug. But with different backing it would be interesting to see how he would have gone about replacing Alonso and Arbeloa.
I would have liked to have seen him managing under our current ownership, but as things stand Dalglish is doing a fine job, and as well as any realistic fan could have hoped for in my opinion. I rate Benitez as an excellent manager, however I'm not too certain that the likes of Kelly, Spearing and Flannagan would have been given quite so much game time under his management.
The less said about Hodgson the better. Those calling for Rafas head at the end of 2010 got exactly what they deserved when we appointed Hodgson in his place. It showed the job he was doing under extremely difficult circumstances and Hodgson was just not even in the same class of manager.
posted on 7/10/11
That is the first time I have given 5 stars to a Chelsea fan.
Why aren't the rest of them like you?!
posted on 7/10/11
wow
great article, great posts
I never expected this
posted on 7/10/11
Two main things for me. Souness' appointment. He tried to change things to quickly. Sold Houghton, Beardsley, McMahon and Staunton, when they didn't need to go. They weren't too old and had they still been in the squad when we started to bring youngsters like Fowler, Jones and McManaman through they would have provided the experience that team needed. The players he signed weren;'good enough. Paul Stewart, Clough, Di cks, Ruddock, just weren't good enough. We took some big steps backwards under Souness.
As much as I like Roy Evans he was too soft as a manager, and had we had a better/stronger manager at the time I believe that we had the same quality of youngsters as Man Utd did at the same time. For Man Ut'd's Neville, Scholes, Giggs, and Beckham, we had Jones, Redknapp, McManamanan and Fowler. Had these players been managed by someone like Fergie we would have been back up there again. So I think the Roy Evans appointment was a bit of a mistake although he did his best and we played some great football at the time.
Thos two things really stick out for me, because if we hadn;t falledn behind in those years, then we wouldn't have been playing catch up continuously under Houllier and Rafa.
H&G were obviously the biggest mistake ever, but we don't need to go into that again as we all know what happened.
posted on 7/10/11
Alonso
Arbeloa
Masch
Torres
Garcia
.... Riera was good until he attacked Pacheco
Agger
Kuyt
Arguably brilliant buys
posted on 7/10/11
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posted on 7/10/11
Pepe was the best buy of the lot!!!
posted on 7/10/11
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posted on 7/10/11
Great article,
For me it was the Sounes era.Loved the man as a player but there was something about his training methods that had more players out injured for longer.Did the same at Rangers and Newcastle.
Also losing Big Bob to alzeimers was a huge loss felt by everyone.The man was a legend and a gentleman and a confident to anyone at the club who needed advice.
Having the time and backup to implement a winning system,aka Fergie also helps.
5 stars from me.
posted on 8/10/11
nice post but wrong analysis:
Most Liverpool fans intially used to think that the sun shone out of the Moores ar.se.........i was one of the few that made peeps realise in my posts that the were so thick that they alone held Liverpool back.
The Moores held out for money but Rick Parry had to much influence over new owners.
Liverpool under Benitiez could have won the league with the Dubai group agreed, where you are wrong is: the american owners H&G dismantled Bienitez's backroom staff in the season we finished 7th
why?
they believed Benitiez had to much power in telling the fans what was really going on behind the scenes