So....
- Thread starter Janie
- Start date
Treebeard
Ranger of the North
Hillwood stated last week that no CL football will not be a problem. Really though, the league is so rubbish this year that the top 4 is still far from decided.
0-0 with 10 men, half the first team out and away from home. How shit are the Spuds. Gallas and Song were amazing today, looked like the Gallas of old.
Janie
Full Member
Not just the moneyside it's the club reputation - dropping out the top 4 would make it harder to keep the star players and attract new one. Probably worse for Arsenal in a way as to their credit they don't tend to pay over the top in either transfer fee and salary (to compensate for lack of Champs League). I'd prefer Arsenal to make the top 4 and Chelsea being the one that fails, Arsenal have been unlucky with injuries this season and a few of their 'stars' have underpreformed, Arshavin unfortunantly feels like a desperation purchase though.
Flight
Full Member
Wot Janie said.
RVP is down to the last 12 months of his contract and is surely off. I'll be very surprised if Cesc stays another year. Adebayor looks like he wishes he left last summer. Barcelona have said this last week they want all three.
You all laughed it off when I said it was time to replace Wenger, but it really is.
Actually that bit isn't true, mate. They pay enormous salaries. Its how they attract stars like Cesc. When people talk about how well Wenger has done financially, they don't include the massive salaries he pays to attract players. Arsenal pay over �20mill a year more in wages than LFC.
RVP is down to the last 12 months of his contract and is surely off. I'll be very surprised if Cesc stays another year. Adebayor looks like he wishes he left last summer. Barcelona have said this last week they want all three.
You all laughed it off when I said it was time to replace Wenger, but it really is.
Actually that bit isn't true, mate. They pay enormous salaries. Its how they attract stars like Cesc. When people talk about how well Wenger has done financially, they don't include the massive salaries he pays to attract players. Arsenal pay over �20mill a year more in wages than LFC.
Anubis
The Doggy Chimp
Maybe you can get Lucas on a free at the end of the season...
Flight
Full Member
No thanks
Just heard Scolari has left Chelsea (or been sacked).
Edit : Definatly Sacked.
Haha
To be fair, they had to move fast once Tony Adams became available.
Its not a manager they want, its a ringmaster.
I feel sorry for the real Chelsea fans who have followed them since well before Abramovich. It could easily be LFC or Arsenal next.
Janie
Full Member
Winning 2 Titles and a few cups over the course of 5 seasons is hardly anything to feel sorry about
I'm sure most Luton Fans would take that
Treebeard
Ranger of the North
I could write an essay on how ludicrous it would be to get rid of Wenger, or how players come and go at any club and life generally always goes on.
How teams have peaks and troughs (apart from the extreme rub of the green in the CL, Liverpool have been shit for 20 years ) and how the top 4 was never ever going to always be the same top 4.
How we lost Henry, Reyes, Campbell, Vieira, Cole, Pires etc all in the space of a very short time and still manage to compete while teams around us spend millions on players for fun and then sell them back at a loss or leave them rotting on the bench.
How the longterm is clearly the goal at the club with the new stadium and not just what happens in the next 2 or 3 seasons.
It'd be kind of pointless though, as a lot of the posts in this thread could have come straight from a SSN/The Sun newsfeed.
I think that we are better placed looking 5-10 years ahead than either Liverpool or Chelsea.
Liverpool, with a batty as a badger manager who still isn't likely to bring a PL title to Anfield this year (he won't get many more chances or better considering how average everyone else is). A dull, workmanlike squad who seem to be doing well because the rest of the top 4 are so poor and the boardroom backbiting.
Chelsea, with an aging team, a sugar daddy who appears to be getting bored or certainly less willing to throw money away and the stigma attached to managing the whole shambles.
How teams have peaks and troughs (apart from the extreme rub of the green in the CL, Liverpool have been shit for 20 years
) and how the top 4 was never ever going to always be the same top 4. How we lost Henry, Reyes, Campbell, Vieira, Cole, Pires etc all in the space of a very short time and still manage to compete while teams around us spend millions on players for fun and then sell them back at a loss or leave them rotting on the bench.
How the longterm is clearly the goal at the club with the new stadium and not just what happens in the next 2 or 3 seasons.
It'd be kind of pointless though, as a lot of the posts in this thread could have come straight from a SSN/The Sun newsfeed.
I think that we are better placed looking 5-10 years ahead than either Liverpool or Chelsea.
Liverpool, with a batty as a badger manager who still isn't likely to bring a PL title to Anfield this year (he won't get many more chances or better considering how average everyone else is). A dull, workmanlike squad who seem to be doing well because the rest of the top 4 are so poor and the boardroom backbiting.
Chelsea, with an aging team, a sugar daddy who appears to be getting bored or certainly less willing to throw money away and the stigma attached to managing the whole shambles.
Janie
Full Member
I like the fact Chelsea are being linked with the usual high profile managers who have never once managed in the Prem league - just like Scolari. I don't see why they don't just make a move to get Moyes, a cheaper option with proven Prem experience (and ever speaks the language!!) good at getting the best out of his players and a strong personality who won't take any rubbish from the whiners.
Ky
Stupid is as stupid does
I don't understand Wenger atm but I wouldn't get rid of him. His refusal to buy a good defensive central midfielder is baffling, as is his repeated refusal to buy another centre back. Yes, Arsenal haven't had a lot of luck with injuries but they have a short squad in some areas. They may well be rewarded for that by not qualifying for the CL and seeing certain players leave, although most of that is probably just ridiculous press speculation. No one knows, we'll have to wait and see. He certainly doesn't seem to have his eye fully on the ball at the moment though and can't seem to see what most fans can in terms of the frailities of the squad.
For once, I agree with Janie on the football. O'Neill or Moyes would be a better choice for Chelsea than some foreign import with no EPL experience.
For once, I agree with Janie on the football. O'Neill or Moyes would be a better choice for Chelsea than some foreign import with no EPL experience.
Janie
Full Member
Can't see O'Neil leaving Villa for Chelsea. He's putting together a great young (and mostly English) side at Villa and he's got a rich chairman who backs him and lets him get on with the job how he wants and is now challenging the top 4. Moyes is different Everton is a well run club punching above it's weight under Moyes as unfortunantly they can't compete finincially with the top teams at the minute, Chelsea would be a stepup.
Flight
Full Member
Is the rub of the green three semis and two finals in four years, or beating Juventus in the quarters, Chelsea in the semis and AC Milan in the final ?
To be serious for a moment - I'm presuming you are talking about what Rafa said about Ferguson - its pretty sad that its been presented as Rafa bottling it, instead of people seizing on the substance of what he said. Two top referees said this about it :
Former Premier League referee Graham Poll agrees that Sir Alex Ferguson receives lenient treatment from the Football Association.
Benitez claimed Ferguson does not get punished sufficiently for his sometimes outspoken criticism of match officials.
Poll enjoyed a good relationship with Ferguson during his time as a referee but believes the Scot does get preferential treatment from FA disciplinary chiefs.
"Rafa Benitez has articulated what referees have been thinking for years - that Sir Alex Ferguson can say what he wants about them and the FA will allow him to get away with it."
Winters said this :
MINDING YOUR OWN BUSINESS 13-1-09
The latest round of managerial mind games was played out by Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez on Friday.
I am sure that there was an element of tactics in the timing and content of his interview but the fact remains that no-one could argue with the truth of what he said.
Regular readers of my articles will know that I often refer back to the game between Manchester United and Portsmouth in last season's FA Cup. After this game, Fergie publically castigated both referee Martin Atkinson and refs' chief Keith Hackett after United lost 1-0 and Ronaldo had not won a penalty after he was fouled in the penalty area.
United fans would feel aggrieved but the rest of the football world probably thought of the many times that the "winker" had won penalties when perhaps he was not entitled to have done.
Some may say "Live by the sword, die by the sword", but as we know, managers have selective eyesight and memories over certain incidents. I actually agreed with Fergie's comments about Hackett but that did not make his castigation of both Hackett and Atkinson any more acceptable.
What happened next was typical of the authorities. Fergie and his assistant were charged and then everything went quiet, except that Atkinson was kept away from United for the rest of the season. This meant that he was effectively debarred from officiating the top games that his ability and status warranted.
I have often wondered whether this castigation of certain officials - as done by Mourinho, Wenger and Fergie over recent seasons - was actually more pre-meditated than just a post match rant due to the weakness of the authorities and the knowledge that any ref who may be involved in any FA case would be kept away from the side who had complained about them.
In effect, the big clubs were virtually selecting who would or would not ref their games.
After the outburst, unbelievably Fergie and Quirez both got off scot-free.
This season, Fergie has made a similar outburst against Mike Dean. Let's see how long he is kept away from United.
In local football, when I started off, if a club slagged off a ref and marked him as poor, the local authorities would send the ref back to the team asap, just to let clubs know who was running the game.
Is there any chance of that happening today - not a cat in hell!!
Is it any wonder that some refs are clearly afraid of upsetting the biggest clubs? It is their careers that are on the line.
Only the most senior officials are somewhat bullet proof as there is an obvious shortage of senior officials who can be given the games between the biggest sides.
Other refs who get the likes of United, Chelsea and Arsenal usually get them against lesser sides and I believe that on some occasions, they are subconsciously not making decisions against them as those decisions could cost them dearly.
This situation is not acceptable. We need stronger refs but that will only happen if they get support from the authorities.
The PGMOL that controls the professional refs is basically run by the clubs and their representatives. Many people - myself included - have found out that if you don't toe the party line, then you will face consequences.
I hope that Benitez's words hit a nerve and someone takes note and starts to realise that the credibility and integrity of the game is being questioned, not only by biased fans but by the participants as well. I am not holding my breath!!
Nobody gets away with it except Ferguson.
Anubis
The Doggy Chimp
What rafa said was corrct re Fregie, but he should have let the team do the talking and come out with it at the end of the season. All home teams (the big clubs moreso) get the odd decision, but Liverpool have had some shockers go against them over the last 2 seasons which balance out the bad ones which go their way.
Re luck, there was nothing lucky about Istanbul final - Milan let their guard down if the half time celebrations story is true. We got lucky against Roma with that penalty that wasn't. We've got lucky in the last 2 games with last minute wins, which are luck and nothing else no matter what team it is. Liverpool have let in their fair share of last minute goals also.
All in all unless you get Mike Riley week in week out, luck always (1 team an exception which will remain nameless...) balances out over the course of a season.
Re luck, there was nothing lucky about Istanbul final - Milan let their guard down if the half time celebrations story is true. We got lucky against Roma with that penalty that wasn't. We've got lucky in the last 2 games with last minute wins, which are luck and nothing else no matter what team it is. Liverpool have let in their fair share of last minute goals also.
All in all unless you get Mike Riley week in week out, luck always (1 team an exception which will remain nameless...) balances out over the course of a season.
Flight
Full Member
To be honest, I think the timing was more to do with getting Gerrard off the front pages of the tabloids for his fight in Southport. And it worked.
Treebeard
Ranger of the North
Wouldn't that be two finals and one semi unless you are also including the semi's when you reached the final? There are a few teams fans who would say that you had some very generous refereeing decisions in a fair few games.
I was talking more about his tactical decisions, the way players get bought year on year and just seem to become almost average over night and rot. The way Keane was treated for example. While Keane may not have been his purchase, you don't bite off your nose to spite your face. The way that Liverpool still don't really seem capable of winning a title even when those around them are not playing so great. I just think he is a pretty average PL manager.
Flight
Full Member
All this Keane stuff is the typical tabloid bollocks you criticized in your first post. Keane started 14 out of our first 17 games. He was abysmal, not just poor - abysmal.
The tabloid line is every time Keane scored he was dropped. That happened twice - once was against Newcastle, when Keane had just played 2 games in 5 days and needed a rest and the other was against Spurs, when he wasn't even on the bench and I believe it had been agreed between the clubs that he would not feature. As an aside, the Newcastle game he didn't play in was by far our best performance of the first half of the season.
What really did for Keane was two things :
i) he was thick as fuck in training and couldn't begin to grasp what the training staff were trying to teach him;
ii) the rest of the team ended up with no confidence in him and stopped looking for him as an option.
We did the right thing selling him now - we had Spurs over a barrel because of their relegation battle and the fact all their forwards are injured. We wouldn't have got half as much in the summer, but we ended up getting nearly all we paid for him back.
As for not being able to win a title - and the reason I believe in him as a manager - we still have a squad that is a lot worse than the Manc's, in a number of areas. We are punching above our weight. I think a lot of our own fans forget how poor our team was when Rafa took over. We were sliding into forever being an average mid table team. A squad full of crap players on long, lucrative contracts. Going 1-0 down was the end of the game for us - I think in all the time Houllier was here we came back from 1-0 once or maybe never. I can't think of once.
Our attacking was hoofing it up to Owen and hoping he fed off scraps. And don't forget when Rafa arrived Owen and Heskey left and Cisse had already been bought.
If we are being realistic about the state of our squad and our financial situation, I don't think there is a manager anywhere who could do as good a job with us as Rafa. I believe we would go backwards fast if Rafa were to leave or be sacked. Of course, I'm not blind to his shortcomings - I just think a lot of people are unrealistic about what we should be doing in the Prem based on the fact we are LFC so we should be winning things, without appreciating how much has had to be done and how far we have come.