Then he and the lads get onto the "shambles" that Jürgen inherited whilst ignoring the fact that he said many times that he very much liked the squad he inherited, and despite the fact he still hasn't replaced 4/5 of them and has offered many of them new contracts you have to wonder.
Then we've got the other fella telling us that we're improving against bus parkers (or at least we are if you're as intelligent as him and you know what to look for)...
No, I'm a bit more old school/boring as the Swabster pointed out. I still count "improvement" by whether or not you win the game or not, that is to say whether or not you score more goals than the other lot do. Then, when you add the points together (three for a win, one for a draw, none for a loss) you get to work out how well you've done relative to everyone else.
He's hardly going to come out right after he's been appointed as manager and say that the 40 odd players he inherited are sh*t, is he? You can't get rid off an entire squad over the course of 4-5 transfer windows and bring in 30 new players. He is still slowly getting rid off players and only a handful players he inherited back then will be part of the matchday squad next season.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Liverpool_F.C._season#First_teamThat's the squad he inherited, have a look at it and tell me that squad is not a 'shambles' (I wasn't even talking about the team alone, I was talking about the entire club). 37 players. Right now only 14 (not counting players on loan) are still at the club. That's 23 gone already over the course of two years (almost exactly two years now, isn't it?). Out of those 14, only Firmino, Coutinho, Lallana, Clyne and Henderson are nailed on starters this season. How many do you expect to be starters next season? He kept the ones he thought he could work with for the time being and most of these players are slowly being taken out of the starting eleven too.
Then with regards to us improving against the bus parkers, all you have to do is open your eyes, watch the game and look at the chances we create, no intelligence needed at all. It's not rocket-science. We are creating plenty of good chances, we're not finishing them. Last season we didn't create much at all. Is going from almost nothing to this, in terms of chances created, not an improvement? It isn't of course if you only measure improvement by "points gained".
But, just for you Mick, because you're a bit old school / boring and all that, we will measure our improvement against the bus parkers by your standards: 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss. Easy enough. We'll compare our results against the bus parkers this season to our results against the exact same fixtures last season.
'16-'17
Watford A (0-1) 3
Palace H (1-2)
Burnley H (2-1) 3
Leicester A (3-1)
7 points.
'17-'18
Watford A (3-3) 1
Palace H (1-0) 3
Burnley H (1-1) 1
Leicester A (2-3) 3
9 points.
Well look at that... We actually have two more points at this stage of the season having played the bus parkers compared to last season. So by your old school measurement: Is that... Improvement? Didn't include Newcastle as they weren't in the league last season, but the corresponding fixture as "first away game at newly promoted team" would be our 2-0 loss at Burnley, so there's another point. That's of course ridiculous, so I left that out.
Now before you come out and say "relative to others" to measure
our own improvement in these kind of games:
Watford fixture: Liverpool draw, City won
Palace fixture: Liverpool win, United win, City win
Burnley fixture: Liverpool draw, Spurs draw, Chelsea loss
Leicester fixture: Liverpool win, Arsenal win, United win
So... In that table, how are we doing "relative to others"? Not too bad by the looks of it?
Conte didn't take three seasons obviously. He took over a team which had finished 10th the previous season, completely changed their tactical approach 1/3 of the way through the season and won the league. Mourinho (now he DID inherit a shambles) isn't taking three seasons at Man Utd and has completely changed the way they play, nor is Guardiola at City and he too has totally altered their approach.
Conte inherited a squad that won the title the season prior to finishing 10th. The only reason they finished 10th that season was because the players stopped playing for Mourinho and wanted the f**ker gone. Conte added only 3 new starters and kept almost the entire title winning squad together. He did change the tactical approach, but he changed it to something he had been doing for years and years before that at both Juventus and Italy. He tried something new, he failed and he went back to what he knew.
Mourinho did indeed change the way they play and it cost them €350 million in just two seasons to change that way of play.
Guardiola has spent €463 million in just two seasons to change the squad. He didn't change the way he sees football, he used the same formation and setup at Bayern near the end of his time there. Nothing new, he just had to bring in the players he needed to play his system.
We have spent €170 million in the same time with Klopp still bringing in his own players. We don't have that kind of money to spend, we have to be more cautious in our approach and with our dealings in the transfermarket. Is it really that much of a surprise, looking at this, that it is taking him longer to build his team?
