Official Premier League 2010/11 thread

[therockbox]

letting Alonso and Mascherano go and a certain Señor Benitez have put Liverpool where they are at the moment.

Fucking hell :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:

The Skywashed are here.

But yeah, it's all about heart and passion, innit. The only things English football fans generally tend to understand. Fuck yer tactics and all that fancy foreign shite.

Edited January 13, 2011 by therockbox.

[brenchill]

Leeds had a better squad than the current Liverpool squad when they went down? Are you joking? The likes of Paul Robinson, Alan Smith, Jason Wilcox, Aaron Lennon, Seth Johnson and Dominic Matteo are hardly in the calibre of Reina, Torres, Gerrard, Carragher, Joe Cole, etc.

[Starvinho]

Goalkeepers

o 1 Paul Robinson

o 29 Danny Milosevic

Defenders

o Didier Domi

o Jose Vitor Roque Junior

o 2 Gary Kelly

o 3 Ian Harte

o 5 Lucas Radebe

o 6 Zoumana Camara

o 22 Michael Duberry

o 34 Frazer Richardson

o 36 Matthew Kilgallon

Midfielders

o Jermaine Pennant

o Salomon Olembe

o 4 Jody Morris

o 7 Nick Barmby

o 14 Stephen McPhail

o 16 Jason Wilcox

o 19 Eirik Bakke

o 20 Seth Johnson

o 21 Dominic Matteo

o 23 David Batty

o 28 Jamie McMaster

o 38 James Milner

Forwards

o Lamine Sakho

o Aaron Lennon

o Cyril Chapuis

o 8 Michael Bridges

o 9 Mark Viduka

o 17 Alan Smith

o 39 Simon Johnson

Pretty decent squad if you ask me. Granted Liverpool have a World Class quartet (Joe Cole was a bad signing), but the players in that Leeds squad I could pick 4 or 5 who would get into the Liverpool team right now.

[Hobo]

It doesn't matter if you lose playing defensive tactics or attacking tactics, the fact of the matter is the players are playing with no heart. Bad signings, letting Alonso and Mascherano go and a certain Señor Benitez have put Liverpool where they are at the moment. It certainly has nothing to do with Roy Hodgson, I feel sorry for the guy, he comes in with his own ideas and tactics and the players won't play for him, because they think they should be playing a different way. But I'm sorry, he's the gaffer so you play how he wants, I'd like see anyone have a similar sort of attitude at Manchester United, Fergie would bloody eat 'em for breakfast!

Wait so the whole reason Roy Hodgson failed is because of Rafa Benitez!!? That pesky Spanyard was sabotaging him from the Inter Milan training ground! Try again, you sound like every poorly informed football pundit in the world!

[Pesci]

Right, because Hodgson deserves no blame even though he's done much worse than Rafa ever did. It's all down to Benitez's European-calibre squad.

[Hobo]

Benitez is awful! I mean he got to two Champions League finals, and won one of them! He even almost won the Premier league, with Liverpool no less! He is at the center of all of Liverpool's problems, not the previous owners or their attempts to bleed the club dry!

[Colly]

We've done Leeds v Liverpool before, go back a few months for that one, although don't forget that team is the one on relegation, rather than the better one that had had to shed Bowyer, Woodgate etc etc as it was haemoraging (sic, probably) money. Leeds in the January of that year are comparable, as Robbie Fowler recently stated.

And Pesci, of course Hodgson deserves blame, but how do you define a European-calibre squad? That Liverpool team is not good enough to finish top 6 unless the manager has them playing to their absolute best, and a manager who's been in the job 4 months cannot produce that. Kennys got that same squad to play with, I'll be interested to see how the rest of the season goes.

[Starvinho]

Right, because Hodgson deserves no blame even though he's done much worse than Rafa ever did. It's all down to Benitez's European-calibre squad.

Hodgson does deserve alot of the blame yes, because his management skills were not good enough to get the players playing for him. But some of the blame has to go on Benetiz too for the squad he had assembled. Also blame goes on Hicks and Gilette who got the club so much in to debt that neither Benetiz or Hodgson could buy better players. It's taken alot of different people to put Liverpool where they are, and it's gonna take alot of people to get them out, I just don't agree that sacking the manager was one of those things.

[Pesci]

But that was in the past! His last season is entirely to blame, can't you see that qualifying for Europe and getting to the semis of the Europa League left Roy with a task on his hands just to keep us up?!

[therockbox]

Right, because Hodgson deserves no blame even though he's done much worse than Rafa ever did. It's all down to Benitez's European-calibre squad.

Hodgson does deserve alot of the blame yes, because his management skills were not good enough to get the players playing for him. But some of the blame has to go on Benetiz too for the squad he had assembled. Also blame goes on Hicks and Gilette who got the club so much in to debt that neither Benetiz or Hodgson could buy better players. It's taken alot of different people to put Liverpool where they are, and it's gonna take alot of people to get them out, I just don't agree that sacking the manager was one of those things.

In six months Hodgson led us to our worst half a season in half a century and a negative goal difference, four points from the relegation zone and five points off the bottom of the table. The squad Benitez left, despite underachieving massively last season, had the third best defensive record in 09/10, finished seven points off fourth and was challenging for a top four spot despite long term injuries to a number of first team players, including Torres, Gerrard, Riera, Benayoun, Johnson, Agger and Aurelio.

Do you really think Roy was suddenly going to turn it around? He should never have been given the job in the first place, let alone kept it for so long. It was apparent after the first month of the season that he was out of his depth.

[Starvinho]

It's just my opinion thats all, I believed that it Hodgson was given the time and money, he'd build his own squad of his players and Liverpool would have been back up there again. Takes time though.

[DavidMarrio]

I feel Roy only got the job because of the fascination of him being "A great English manager", the pundits and media loved Roy because he got Fulham the Europa League final and then those same pundits just blame it all on Rafa it just gets boring after awhile.

Roy's a good lower English team manager, certainly shouldn't have gotten the job. Around the time when we were going to appoint a manager after Rafa I would rather have had Pellegrini.

Theres too much deadwood in the team atm and looking at some of the squad players are either: Underperforming, just aren't good enough or just look like they dont give a shit. They just seem to crumble under pressure, overhit passes and have poor touches.

We used to have a spine in Reina, Carragher, Gerrard, Mascherano, Alonso, Torres which is now Reina, Carragher, Gerrard, Torres....Carragher is injured, Gerard was injured and now suspended, Reina has got a back four that lacks so much confidence and seems to lose positioning and Torres shows signs of the player he can be but lacks the support needed to create him the chances.

Players need to step up and we need to bring in some new faces as people like Konchesky, Poulsen etc aren't really good enough i'd rather us have had Insua and Aquilani. Hopefully we see sense and bring some people in but the team really need to step it up. They fought against Man.Utd which was a good start hopefully they bring that same fight against Everton, a win in the derby could be a massive confidence boost.

[therockbox]

But that opinion must be based on something, surely?

He's been in management for over three decades, can you name one club that he's built up? He did well at Fulham, but left a fairly old squad who, despite doing well in the Europa League, had an awful away record and relied entirely on their home form to keep them up.

[Pesci]

It's interesting how things go from 'this Liverpool squad is massively underachieving' in Rafa's last season, to 'qualifying for Europe would be an incredible achievement' as soon as Hodgson takes over. If it's always been your opinion that Rafa did well last season, fair enough, but the complete change of expectations and in evaluation of the squad's potential amongst most people is the most frustrating thing for me.

[therockbox]

It's interesting how things go from 'this Liverpool squad is massively underachieving' in Rafa's last season, to 'qualifying for Europe would be an incredible achievement' as soon as Hodgson takes over. If it's always been your opinion that Rafa did well last season, fair enough, but the complete change of expectations and in evaluation of the squad's potential amongst most people is the most frustrating thing for me.

'Neutrals' and pundits have gone out of their way to stop Roy from looking like a failure. They spent the majority of last seasons trying to claim that Benitez was the only thing wrong with Liverpool, and if they only had a nice, English manager who would cuddle them and 'let them play' we'd be fine - oh and isn't Roy doing a fantastic job in Europe with Fulham by the way, maybe he deserves a crack at a top job, eh?

[HailtotheYo]

Obviously, being an outsider I can't know and understand the full details.

On the outside looking in though, it looks much like the college football coaching situation we see here all the time. Coach A at "Tradition Stacked U" had won in the past but was clearly falling behind the curve despite having plenty of talent to perform on the field. The players essentially quit on things and just go through the motions. Coach B comes in because he had had done a good job of building squads at lower levels and shown what he can do in building a little bit lesser squad at the top level. However, because he's now at "Tradition Stacked U" and after a season of underperforming he's shown the door because he wasn't the right man for the job. He's sold down the river despite the fact that he never had the chance to get his own squad together, and had to try and get already non-motivated players to now try and play for him.

[therockbox]

Given that three of his signings were Poulsen, Konchesky and BRAD FUCKING JONES, and his January targets included a £10m plus bid for Carlton Cole, I'm not sure 'Roy's squad' would have done much better.

Anyway, the justification for going with Roy over someone like Pellegrini (who wanted the job) was that he knew the league, and had a track record of improving players. In the press conference where he was unveiled both himself and Broughton said that his remit was to improve the players we had at the club, "evolution, not revolution" is the phrase he used.

He failed.

Edited January 13, 2011 by therockbox.

[Starvinho]

Obviously, being an outsider I can't know and understand the full details.

On the outside looking in though, it looks much like the college football coaching situation we see here all the time. Coach A at "Tradition Stacked U" had won in the past but was clearly falling behind the curve despite having plenty of talent to perform on the field. The players essentially quit on things and just go through the motions. Coach B comes in because he had had done a good job of building squads at lower levels and shown what he can do in building a little bit lesser squad at the top level. However, because he's now at "Tradition Stacked U" and after a season of underperforming he's shown the door because he wasn't the right man for the job. He's sold down the river despite the fact that he never had the chance to get his own squad together, and had to try and get already non-motivated players to now try and play for him.

That's pretty much what I was saying.

[Pesci]

On the outside looking in though, it looks much like the college football coaching situation we see here all the time. Coach A at "Tradition Stacked U" had won in the past but was clearly falling behind the curve despite having plenty of talent to perform on the field. The players essentially quit on things and just go through the motions. Coach B comes in because he had had done a good job of building squads at lower levels and shown what he can do in building a little bit lesser squad at the top level. However, because he's now at "Tradition Stacked U" and after a season of underperforming he's shown the door because he wasn't the right man for the job. He's sold down the river despite the fact that he never had the chance to get his own squad together, and had to try and get already non-motivated players to now try and play for him.

I think that's a good assessment, though I wouldn't say he was "sold down the river". There was little reason to be confident in his ability to turn things around and assemble a squad capable of doing better. I think sacking him and bringing in a new manager at the end of the season is a less risky strategy than letting him reshape the team in his image - a style of play that's already seen some of our more talented defenders ostracised and as TRB said, highlighted just about every weakness in the squad he's got at the moment. How much time does it take to reshape a squad full of players who absolutely don't work in your system? And yeah, motivating the players was kinda his key task.

Edited January 13, 2011 by Pesci

[Hobo]

Jordan, you were saying 'It's Benitez's fault Liverpool are underperforming this season' if you meant to say otherwise, your wording didn't indicate that fact.

What HTTK is saying is Liverpool are under performing because the players have given up. Which I can agree with. It's not Benitez's fault that happened. This is a squad that when hell for leather to win the league - but didn't get it done. I think that was a massive blow to the team. The lack of ability to bring in new players to improve on that second position finish, meaning that Alonso had to go and not be replaced. No other strikers but N'Gog really could be called on to replace Torres. That the left back and center back positions couldn't be strengthened. Coupled with Spurs and Man City improving their squads through investing a good chunk of money in players that made the competition. Liverpool suffered as a result. But Hodgson was never going to be the man to change that. Not if the best he can offer as a solution is settling for mid-table or lower.

Hodgson's signing were not going to improve Liverpool in any way. Insua out, Konchesky in (buying an older player and bombing out a younger player with potential to be better than him), Aquilani out (he spent a lot the first year at the club injured, but he created quite a few goals for Liverpool last season), Meireles in (decent signing except he has been played out of position) and Paulsen is essentially Mascherano-lite. He also re-signed the injury prone Aurellio.

The Aquilani loan move was the first thing that really flashed for me. Here you have a very good player being loaned out for no reason.