What League Position Is Unacceptable

And we will be soon.

I hope and expect as much also because the path to greater gory lies in the league.

Top 4 is a minimum requirement whether we like it to be or not for financial stability, player recruitment and worldwide brand recognition.

The team that won the carling cup last year are now in the championship. It was our reserves tester when we had CL and europa will be next year for us aswell.

The League Cup was won in 2 of the 5 years we won the European Cup, and we got to the final in 2 of the other years. The year we won the double, Jan Molby beat the mancs on his own, while I was distraught when Jim put the ball in his own net to lose us the semi-final. The next year, Jim broke his leg at the neighbours, and Rushie scored a last-gasp winner. The following year, Aldo scored a last minute winner to beat Arsenal after a third replay.

I have some fabulous memories from the League Cup down the years, and regardless of our status in the game, I want us to go out and win it every year. I am happy Kenny agrees with me. The UEFA Cup is also a wonderful trophy to win that we have won 3 times, and I'll want to win it next year too.

What do I remember of finishing 4th? Houllier getting the sack. That's about it.

Right now, of course, it would be.........

No it wouldnt nor will it ever be.

Shame on the generation of Liverpool fans who see 4th as a good season.

Read it again and then pause and think...LIVERPOOL 4TH. Acceptable ha ha is it balls

Top 4 is a minimum requirement whether we like it to be or not for financial stability, player recruitment and worldwide brand recognition.

Worldwide brand recognition? Sounds like the sort of thing our american owners would come out with. I agree on the finishing 4th bit being a general minimum requirement but I'm pretty confident the LFC brand does not rely on it to be recognised worldwide.

Top 4 is a minimum requirement whether we like it to be or not for financial stability, player recruitment and worldwide brand recognition.

How does that work? Everton finished 4th in 2005, i don't think it did them any favors do you? No "worldwide brand recognization" for them. There 4th spot hardly helped them bring in any world class players or even good players. We as a football club don't need champions league football to appeal to players but what we do need is signs of progress and a cup double would be perfect.

The club is bound to be more attractive to potential new players if we've a shot at playing CL football than if it doesn't. You can obviously still sign some top players even if you aren't in it as Suarez/Enrique bear out, but it does strengthen our hand considerably. There's also the money you get for qualifying and progressing into the latter stages.

As for 'worldwide brand recognition', obviously that's an added benefit of playing in the CL; but only if we can monetise that brand awareness. That's one of the key commercial challenges we face, along with the other major clubs in Europe. Like them, LFC is as well known globally as some of the biggest corporations in the world, yet brings in a minute fraction of the revenue by comprison. Unfortunately if you're a bitter, none of these benefits really apply to small clubs.

Well we did in 2004/05. We also won the European Cup that year - was that season unacceptable?

Well the sentence that precedes the one I've quoted suggests you're not as happy as some. In fact in the very sentence before you claim you're unhappy with what we've achieved.

Furthermore, the League Cup isn't a second rate competition and anybody who thinks it is needs to sort themselves out. The League Cup is the only competition in England to be won four years on the trot by the same club. Do you know who did that? We did between 81 and 84. The League Cup is the only competition to of been involved in both of our trebles - 84 and 2001. The League Cup is the only piece of silverware to of been won this season - we won it. Our first trophy in six years, that's more important than any poxy F***ing fourth place finish or are you one these jolly come latelys who is only interested in Champions League football and everything else can go hang? One of those who isn't arsed if we come first, second, third or fourth just as long as we get in the Champions League. The type of fan that doesn't understand this club.

What's unacceptable for Liverpool Football Club is coming second. That's why we're the most successful club in English football because we don't accept second best. We didn't accept second best from the outset in the League Cup and won it for a record eighth time. Kenny won't be accepting second best.

All this bollocks of "we could finish as low as..." well so F***ing what. We could finish first. The likelihood is we're not going to but we could. You wanna talk about where we could end up, how about you put your F***ing arse in gear and realise we could finish higher than where we are rather than coming out with yet another doom and gloom thread about how fu**ed up we are.

Fucks sake I was brought up with the belief that when Liverpool find themselves hard up on the pitch, those off are more united as one than ever. They sing louder and prouder. They believe and inspire more than ever. But nah not anymore. That's not the message being put into the next generation of fan. Nah, the next generation fan is being fed the belief that when times are hard you just sit and sulk. You just sit there and think you've got a god given right to be handed things. And when things go wrong, blame some other f**ker.

Christ, I love this club as much as anybody. But there's too many Liverpool "fans" who I F***ing dispise. Somebody was talking the other day about me believing I'm a better fan than others. And I said well there are some who aren't "true" fans. This just goes to F***ing prove it. Winning trophies isn't enough anymore, not even for the possibly the greatest player, possibly the greatest manager and possibly the greatest human being ever to grace the turf of Anfield.

What's unacceptable? What's unacceptable is we've just won our first trophy in six years and we're still trying to find ways to get rid of Kenny Dalglish as our manager. That's unacceptable.

F**k it, I'm outta here. Can't bare soft cu*ts without a clue anymore. Need to go to kip before I launch this laptop in the direction of a wall.

Spot on DLS.

The English dictionary defines the word 'unacceptable' as 'not satisfactory'.

As far as I'm concerned anything other than 1st or when we fail to win a competition we enter then that is not satisfactory.

It seems some of you however have let your standards slip and consider qualification for a CL playoff game is now the definition of acceptability.  Shame on you.

Pretty much sums it up for me.

My apologise for copying the wrong phase. My iPad quoted the title of the article instead. But my point still stands, that John Henry stated that 4th was our target, before the season even started.

The owners might have had a target of 4th place financial reasons but Kenny and the players would have started the season aiming to win every game.

I'd like to think any professional footballer, especially one representing our club, would at the very least think winning every competition we enter is at least a possibility.

4th this season is hard but with the amount of money we spent we should be finishing no lower than 5th any lower and it's a bad season

Winning the Carling Cup was great. However, the Carling Cup is only the Carling Cup (aka the Mickey Mouse Cup!). I think a reality check is needed in terms of how far we have to go. In the days when we were winning the League Cup (Milk Cup etc) for fun, it was a sideshow to the more important tasks of European glory,the FA Cup and of course the League. Winning the Carling Cup is great only if it brings momentum to our domestic campaign: which it certainly has not!I can't say I'm looking forward to Thursday night football next season (I suppose at least I can get me lad cheap tickets in the group stages!), which is why I prefer finishing 4th spot to winning CC. Currently we are off the pace that Rafa set before he was sacked! KK needs another full season before we judge him properly. I'm as desperate to see him succeed as anyone. The league is the priority; the CC was a great day out, but its only the CC!!

4th this season is hard but with the amount of money we spent we should be finishing no lower than 5th any lower and it's a bad season

Even if we complete a cup double?

Winning the Carling Cup was great. However, the Carling Cup is only the Carling Cup (aka the Mickey Mouse Cup!). I think a reality check is needed in terms of how far we have to go. In the days when we were winning the League Cup (Milk Cup etc) for fun, it was a sideshow to the more important tasks of European glory,the FA Cup and of course the League. Winning the Carling Cup is great only if it brings momentum to our domestic campaign: which it certainly has not!I can't say I'm looking forward to Thursday night football next season (I suppose at least I can get me lad cheap tickets in the group stages!), which is why I prefer finishing 4th spot to winning CC. Currently we are off the pace that Rafa set before he was sacked! KK needs another full season before we judge him properly. I'm as desperate to see him succeed as anyone. The league is the priority; the CC was a great day out, but its only the CC!!

I see what your saying but it's all relative surely? The importance of the League Cup tends to rise or fall for the big clubs based on how they have been performing in other competitions. If your winning championships and European competitions then it tends to take a bit of a back seat but if you haven't won a trophy for 6 years then it's importance and prestige is magnified somewhat. When Evans Liverpool side won the trophy in 95 it was celebrated then in much the same way as this one has been. 

Scottbot completely agree with you about it being relative. But when we won in 95 it was only 5 years since we won the league. It's a bit longer now! I don't think all the bollocks about us not being at Wembley for 16yrs helped with perspective though. Most so-called neutrals conveniently forgot we had done the Millenium Stadium a few times! I'm not advocating any sort of knee jerk reaction just that we maintain persepective which ensures that priorities (the League) are not distracted by anything else!

I see what your saying but it's all relative surely? The importance of the League Cup tends to rise or fall for the big clubs based on how they have been performing in other competitions. If your winning championships and European competitions then it tends to take a bit of a back seat but if you haven't won a trophy for 6 years then it's importance and prestige is magnified somewhat. When Evans Liverpool side won the trophy in 95 it was celebrated then in much the same way as this one has been.

That's a great point about the Carling Cup and what it means to different clubs at different times. For me personally, the recent win at Wembley meant a little bit more than the four consecutive wins in 81-84, even though I went to two of them and didn't go this year. It meant more to me because we are not as successful now as we were back then.

Even if we complete a cup double?

Yes even IF we complete a cup double, remember a few years ago playing Juventus, Barcelona, AC Milan, ect playing Stoke at home or even Cardiff ain't the same, not so speak of the prize money, or the attraction for the better players

That's a great point about the Carling Cup and what it means to different clubs at different times. For me personally, the recent win at Wembley meant a little bit more than the four consecutive wins in 81-84, even though I went to two of them and didn't go this year. It meant more to me because we are not as successful now as we were back then.

Yeah it's quite a funny competition in that respect. I mean think back to 2005 when we lost the final to Chelsea. It was heartbreaking to lose the final, particularly the way it happened but I can barely remember the run to that final (think I remember our ressies beating Spurs on pens). It didn't seem particularly important, we were having a stinker in the league, struggling in Europe and obviously we'd won the competition 2 years earlier under Ged and I doubt it would have got that much fanfare had we won that day.

Yes even IF we complete a cup double, remember a few years ago playing Juventus, Barcelona, AC Milan, ect playing Stoke at home or even Cardiff ain't the same, not so speak of the prize money, or the attraction for the better players

I see your point but disagree a cup double for me is far more rewarding then a 4th or 5th place finish.

Yeah it's quite a funny competition in that respect. I mean think back to 2005 when we lost the final to Chelsea. It was heartbreaking to lose the final, particularly the way it happened but I can barely remember the run to that final (think I remember our ressies beating Spurs on pens). It didn't seem particularly important, we were having a stinker in the league, struggling in Europe and obviously we'd won the competition 2 years earlier under Ged and I doubt it would have got that much fanfare had we won that day.

I cannot remember the run to the final, either. At the time we were reaching the business end of the Champions League which was occupying our thoughts. We had already played in 3 finals in Cardiff too. This time, this year, it was different because we were back at Wembley for the first time in 16 long years.

the path to greater gory lies in the league.

It certainly has been gory. 

This was always going to be a tough season simply by the amount of new players around, next season will be judgement time for Kenny and besides apart from the last 10 games we had done OK and we should have been much further along than we are at present, we have had dumb luck in an awful lot of games and if has it's said it evens itself out why have we not got at least a top four place because some of our play this season has been really good and lets not forget we have only had one window to put right all the damage and underfunding caused by H&G dam their names, one year in to a new team is not long so lets back Kenny and not keep giving him stick for what he is trying to do, he can be stiff necked now and then but we are not privy to the inner working going on behind the scene so for now I will give my backing and see where we are in about a year from now, we may have more of an idea then of where we are going.

We have to take 19 points from a possible 33 remaining just to equal last season points total.

2010/2011 - (6th) P38 W17 D7 L14 F59 A44 Pts58

Things need to turn and quickly but theres no better game than tomorrow against the Blueshite. Yes the cup win was great but for me we must improve on last seasons league record otherwise we are not progressing. Overall, its been disappointing and to be honest, I think we'll finish in the same posistion as last season but if we finish with an improved points tally and at least one cup win that will count as progress for me.

So much sh*te flying around this forum and generally at the moment so lets back the manager and players (although some of them need a good kick up the arse) and as Kenny says, count up our points at the end of the season and see where we are.

6th or below.