Liverpool owners 'underestimated how poor squad was' when buying club in 2010...

None of us will know what was going in his head or how he was being advised however it's fairly well known that he was a player who needed an arm round the shoulder, needed that love

When Kenny came in during Jan '11 Torres scored something like 3 in 3.. Certainly two at Wolves ( I think one in a defeat at Blackpool) but his head was turned and he wanted to go.. He hated Woy.. And never really gave Kenny a chance

It's hard to know if had he stayed and felt wanted that he couldn't have got to near his previous level ( even during the previous October? He got a couple of worldies under Hodgson against Chelsea ) but he went there ( regretted it for me) struggled and never felt that love that was all important to him

He is known to have said after Gerrards match a couple of years  back that not getting booed and having his song chanted at Anfield again allowed him to move on as he couldn't before. Getting booed there hurt him.

Should have thought of that when he handed in his transfer request.

He was past his best when he left here, due to his persistent injuries. He was the Spanish Sturridge by then really. Great on the pitch when he was actually on it, not much use though when he was in the treatment room, which was far more often, and his career dropped like a stone after he left.

Speaking of which, David Ngog scored that day. FSG probably thought he was going to be world class, even though he was never even Liverpool class. God knows where he is now.

And so in response to inheriting a poor squad, they made it even poorer. 

This is way over the top...the squad we have now is definitely better than what they inherited and after getting Klopp, I am sure they have taken a major step towardsa making it a million times better.

This is way over the top...the squad we have now is definitely better than what they inherited and after getting Klopp, I am sure they have taken a major step towardsa making it a million times better.

What?.... Not sure if serious .,,,,.

I suppose that reads better than
"Liverpool owners offloaded all the highest earners and then wondered how it went wrong."

Almost 6 years now mate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_pfnLybgCY

but they have overseen tremendous change that has the squad in the best position its been since needing to wipe the old players out and bring a new nucleus in.

most posts in this thread seem to be reading this very, very negatively. implying that it was wrong for FSG to make an assessment on Reina and Torres instantly - but they were right so i don't understand why people are pretending this was a bad call. Reina and Torres WERE past their prime when FSG arrived. Carragher, Gerrard, Agger, Johnson all were too. that's the tone of this piece - they simply thought our squad, our team, our club was perhaps still capable of 2007, 2009 feats but didn't have the deeper knowledge to realise those years were past this team and that nucleus.

i don't really understand the "6 years" talk. 6 years ago our squad was crap and ageing... now we are bursting with young talent and growing our own world class talents. i don't see how they have set us back. i have no idea how people can type "they inherited a poor squad and made it poorer" without admitting they're trolling. no owners in the world would have "come in and replaced mascherano, torres, alonso" like you see some people moaning about. you CAN'T "replace" those guys and it's not FSG's job to "replace" them, we have to build a new dynasty and stop thinking back to the past all the time. i don't think we have an ounce of patience in our collective LFC supporters DNA. i see the people FSG have hired doing a bang up job trying to give us a great new squad with age on their side. rodgers and comolli and whoever else gave us some good players - klopp will give us some good players - and again we will have a great squad. like we built over years and years last time. remember that? it didn't just happen out of nowhere so why do people moan and pretend it can somehow magically just click in one transfer window? it doesn't even click in 5 transfer windows.

i used to read so much wisdom and perspective on this forum, you people taught me how it all started with the 2001 UEFA cup, building the right squad and team to hit the Champions League later that decade. so i see this as a long term thing, why can't we enjoy watching the team get built like you did 10, 15 years ago... or maybe this was always the way, moaning about everything until it clicked and all of a sudden that day is absolute folklore??

but they have overseen tremendous change that has the squad in the best position its been since needing to wipe the old players out and bring a new nucleus in.

most posts in this thread seem to be reading this very, very negatively. implying that it was wrong for FSG to make an assessment on Reina and Torres instantly - but they were right so i don't understand why people are pretending this was a bad call. Reina and Torres WERE past their prime when FSG arrived. Carragher, Gerrard, Agger, Johnson all were too. that's the tone of this piece - they simply thought our squad, our team, our club was perhaps still capable of 2007, 2009 feats but didn't have the deeper knowledge to realise those years were past this team and that nucleus.

i don't really understand the "6 years" talk. 6 years ago our squad was crap and ageing... now we are bursting with young talent and growing our own world class talents. i don't see how they have set us back. i have no idea how people can type "they inherited a poor squad and made it poorer" without admitting they're trolling. no owners in the world would have "come in and replaced mascherano, torres, alonso" like you see some people moaning about. you CAN'T "replace" those guys and it's not FSG's job to "replace" them, we have to build a new dynasty and stop thinking back to the past all the time. i don't think we have an ounce of patience in our collective LFC supporters DNA. i see the people FSG have hired doing a bang up job trying to give us a great new squad with age on their side. rodgers and comolli and whoever else gave us some good players - klopp will give us some good players - and again we will have a great squad. like we built over years and years last time. remember that? it didn't just happen out of nowhere so why do people moan and pretend it can somehow magically just click in one transfer window? it doesn't even click in 5 transfer windows.

i used to read so much wisdom and perspective on this forum, you people taught me how it all started with the 2001 UEFA cup, building the right squad and team to hit the Champions League later that decade. so i see this as a long term thing, why can't we enjoy watching the team get built like you did 10, 15 years ago... or maybe this was always the way, moaning about everything until it clicked and all of a sudden that day is absolute folklore??

I am not sure what you have been smoking mate, but could I have some.

The squad we have after 6 years of their "bang up job of rebuilding" is 7th in the league on 44 points after 28 games while Leicester City sprinted past us as if we were stood still. Which given the fact that we have won one trophy in their time here, qualified for the CL once during their time here, have dropped from the top rated club in Europe to 55th behind Trabzonspor, Genk, Alkmaar and FC Metalist Kharkiv IT LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE.

Apart from our Suarez season we have never finished higher than 6th under FSG, have seen our best players leave and the money wasted on high priced gambles and "prospects".

As FSG have now admitted :-

'We were overconfident in assuming that many of the things that we had done in Boston at Fenway would translate naturally to the Premier League and they just didn't all translate.'

So we are now on our 4th manager under FSG and we have progressed from 6th in their first season in charge to 6th in their last while we stumble from transfer window to transfer window selling our best players and buying whoever the BIG CLUBS will let us.

I have supported Liverpool for 50 years... football did not start in 2001, others on this site have supported Liverpool since the 1950's! You do not win things by selling your best players if you can't or won't replace them with better.

We now have a world class manager and a second class squad, when we have a world class manager and a world class squad we may again be the top team in Europe and perhaps even win the F***ing league again.The sad fact is that most of our players weren't even F***ing born the last time we won the league. 

Until then we just live in hope and accept that CL is our only real priority, that money is the name of the game not titles and trophies and that if any of our players do become stars that we can't keep them as they want what we can't give them... success.

Time for a smoke



 


 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-ZSuAU03Bs

The Monster ...

Christ I've got the tissues out here...

I loved Fernando, gutted when he left. More gutted than when Luis left to be honest. Mainly because I knew Suarez would go at some point, he was so much better than the rest of that team, look at him now smashing them in at the biggest club in the world. Fernando belonged at Liverpool, he felt like one of us. Luis always felt like a loan player to me, destined to play at an elite level.

but they have overseen tremendous change that has the squad in the best position its been since needing to wipe the old players out and bring a new nucleus in.

most posts in this thread seem to be reading this very, very negatively. implying that it was wrong for FSG to make an assessment on Reina and Torres instantly - but they were right so i don't understand why people are pretending this was a bad call. Reina and Torres WERE past their prime when FSG arrived. Carragher, Gerrard, Agger, Johnson all were too. that's the tone of this piece - they simply thought our squad, our team, our club was perhaps still capable of 2007, 2009 feats but didn't have the deeper knowledge to realise those years were past this team and that nucleus.

i don't really understand the "6 years" talk. 6 years ago our squad was crap and ageing... now we are bursting with young talent and growing our own world class talents. i don't see how they have set us back. i have no idea how people can type "they inherited a poor squad and made it poorer" without admitting they're trolling. no owners in the world would have "come in and replaced mascherano, torres, alonso" like you see some people moaning about. you CAN'T "replace" those guys and it's not FSG's job to "replace" them, we have to build a new dynasty and stop thinking back to the past all the time. i don't think we have an ounce of patience in our collective LFC supporters DNA. i see the people FSG have hired doing a bang up job trying to give us a great new squad with age on their side. rodgers and comolli and whoever else gave us some good players - klopp will give us some good players - and again we will have a great squad. like we built over years and years last time. remember that? it didn't just happen out of nowhere so why do people moan and pretend it can somehow magically just click in one transfer window? it doesn't even click in 5 transfer windows.

i used to read so much wisdom and perspective on this forum, you people taught me how it all started with the 2001 UEFA cup, building the right squad and team to hit the Champions League later that decade. so i see this as a long term thing, why can't we enjoy watching the team get built like you did 10, 15 years ago... or maybe this was always the way, moaning about everything until it clicked and all of a sudden that day is absolute folklore??

Are you sure its not you who is trolling?

I was always on the fence with FSG and didn't think they were half as bad as what people made out, to be honest I still don't, but we haven't progressed in any way since they've been here. If anything, we've gone backwards. As stated we have won one trophy in their six years and qualified for the champions league once. That is piss poor.

I disagree with you that some of our players were past their prime when FSG took over but whether that's true or not those type of players were never replaced anyway. Of course it is FSG's job to replace them. The players you mentioned were all leaders on high salaries. At the height of their game they were all world class players.  How many players in our squad right now would you label as a leader or world class?

FSG started off pretty well by sacking Roy but then showed an incredible amount of disrespect to one of this clubs biggest legends in Kenny. My personal feeling was that it was the right decision to bring in another manager but many of our support didn't. Despite being in agreement that we needed a new manager I was appalled at how they treated KK.

They showed a lack of ambition by signing Rodgers. Again, I've made my thoughts clear on Brendan on this forum and I like the man a lot, but at the end of the day he was the manager of Swansea and hadn't achieved anything in the game. Considering the size of this club, its rich history and the expectations our supporters demand that was a shocking appointment when you think about it.

Their lack of ambition continued under Brendan when we consistently signed 'big fish in a small pond' type players and massively overspent on them. Those players we signed were all flavour of the month at their clubs (that would all be lower than us in the league too - Newcastle, Southampton, Swansea, Sunderland, Villa and so on). Those players were usually very young too, under the age of 25. In fact, I think I've seen somewhere that the eldest player we've signed under FSG is Lallana at 26 yrs.

In the meantime we've seen players like Suarez, Torres, Sterling, Gerrard, Carragher, Reina leave the club. Our whole spine. Our whole experience. Our whole quality. Our leaders.

The good thing is that FSG have finally showed a bit of ambition and landed Klopp. Hopefully they will back him and realise the strategy of buying the best players from very average teams doesn't work. We need quality, experience and leaders.

If they continue with this strategy then I'm still not as worried because I trust Klopp will spend the money a lot more wisely than what Brendan did. I'm pretty sure he will find a couple of gems for us that we will buy for peanuts and they will go on to be world class stars.

The point of my post is that FSG have showed no ambition since being here and I don't think that can be disputed. Maybe they will start to show it now, but the last six years have been a waste or a gamble that certainly didn't pay off for them, or more importantly, us.

The owner's main job is to finance the club and hire the manager.

Since they've been here they have provided more finances than any other non CL-club and we have upgraded the manager with each appointment.

We last won the league around the same time as Everton did - the problems go way back before FSG however under their stewardship the last manager missed the league by a whisker.

Anyone who thinks it's easy doesn't understand the scale of the problem.

The owner's main job is to finance the club and hire the manager.

Since they've been here they have provided more finances than any other non CL-club and we have upgraded the manager with each appointment.

We last won the league around the same time as Everton did - the problems go way back before FSG however under their stewardship the last manager missed the league by a whisker.

Anyone who thinks it's easy doesn't understand the scale of the problem.

Granted

However anyone who thinks that just providing money is the answer is naive, the policies they have put in place during their time have hindered us as well

The constant ripping up and starting again negates the overall spending

They aren't bad owners at all, but they think they are far cleverer than they are

Granted

However anyone who thinks that just providing money is the answer is naive, the policies they have put in place during their time have hindered us as well

The constant ripping up and starting again negates the overall spending

They aren't bad owners at all, but they think they are far cleverer than they are

Which manager do you think they should have persisted with?

Which manager do you think they should have persisted with?

None of them. Hodgson should've gone earlier, if anything, but I can understand why they waited having just taken over. King Kenny went at the right time. Did a magnificent job at steadying the ship, but the second half of his second season was appalling. Brendan left at the right time too. I was a big fan of his, but too many supporters had turned and it looked like he didn't trust his players. He'd also gone away from any sort of coherent plan of how we'd play going forward and had turned into someone who'd change tactics every match. He was also a victim of circumstance because if Klopp and Ancelotti hadn't been available at the time, he'd probably have been given more time. Delivered us one of the most fun seasons in our recent history and had us playing a brilliant style of football.

Which manager do you think they should have persisted with?

I wasn't really meaning managers specifically mate, more the chopping and changing of transfer blueprints.

But now you mention the managers it comes into it does it not?

If as you rightly say we can't outspend the teams above us and we need to be smarter then the 4 managers in 5-6 years, paying off their contracts and that of their staff, buying out In Rodgers case and paying the compensation to Swansea for him and his staff. The turnover of the squad for each of those managers ideas.. The pay offs of other staff brought in to match that specific transfer model that was the smartest at that current time like a DOF in Comolli..

It's a waste of the funds we have.

Buying for the future on gambles when we aren't sorted in the present, the waste of funds on the types like Alberto and Illori that could have been to improve the here and now.

There has been errors, yes they have provided money but the overriding plan has been changed numerous times in their short ownership that smacks of a lack of ultimate end goal and how the best to get there. They have admitted these  errors themselves.

I just hope for your and my and every other reds sake that at the 4th time of asking manager wise, and god knows how many transfer strategy wise that they have finally got it right

I suppose that reads better than
"Liverpool owners offloaded all the highest earners and then wondered how it went wrong."

Yeah... the truth doesn't come easy to this lot.

But, thanks to s@int here it is anyhow...

I am not sure what you have been smoking mate, but could I have some.

The squad we have after 6 years of their "bang up job of rebuilding" is 7th in the league on 44 points after 28 games while Leicester City sprinted past us as if we were stood still. Which given the fact that we have won one trophy in their time here, qualified for the CL once during their time here, have dropped from the top rated club in Europe to 55th behind Trabzonspor, Genk, Alkmaar and FC Metalist Kharkiv IT LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE.

Apart from our Suarez season we have never finished higher than 6th under FSG, have seen our best players leave and the money wasted on high priced gambles and "prospects".

As FSG have now admitted :-

So we are now on our 4th manager under FSG and we have progressed from 6th in their first season in charge to 6th in their last while we stumble from transfer window to transfer window selling our best players and buying whoever the BIG CLUBS will let us.

I have supported Liverpool for 50 years... football did not start in 2001, others on this site have supported Liverpool since the 1950's! You do not win things by selling your best players if you can't or won't replace them with better.

We now have a world class manager and a second class squad, when we have a world class manager and a world class squad we may again be the top team in Europe and perhaps even win the F***ing league again.The sad fact is that most of our players weren't even F***ing born the last time we won the league. 

Until then we just live in hope and accept that CL is our only real priority, that money is the name of the game not titles and trophies and that if any of our players do become stars that we can't keep them as they want what we can't give them... success.

Time for a smoke  

sh*t rolls downhill but the buck always stops at the F***ing top. 

Yeah... the truth doesn't come easy to this lot.

....and ignoring the obvious seems an accepted part of that practice.
Appointing Klopp to all intents and purposes would give the impression that a change in direction was under way; the woeful managerial decisions of the past 5 years by FSG could be negated by an acknowledged winner at the helm.

Being German and well respected by world class players of that country could give our man the edge in any bidding contests that could arise, to say nothing of the possibility of other top players putting pen to paper to play under a respected and highly motivated coach that Jürgen represents.

Amongst all the hypothesis of course the question of finances rules, no matter the esteem any potential signing has for a prospective coach their agent and financial advisers have the final word on the deal.

Nothing at all has changed with regard to JWH&Co and their financial priorities, there is the usual bollox about backing the manager which by now is totally meaningless.

Appointing Klopp gives the owners some respite until next season and is a lot more prudent than buying the players we are crying out for NOW.
Some would call it a master stroke while the comment below does put matters in perspective.     

sh*t rolls downhill but the buck always stops at the F***ing top. 

TBF, Torres and Reina were past their prime, well more specifically in Reina's case he had his head turned after his father claimed he was in talks to secure a move to Barca with an agreement already in place. Valdez didn't move and Reina was caught with his knickers round his ankles, coincided with this, his form certainly slumped. But no, re. Torres you missed nothing there, but prior to that you did.

If I am correct FSG bought LFC on or about the October 6, 2010,


I believe in our squad we had

Pepe Reina Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel, Jamie Carragher, Soirios Kyrgiakos, Fabio Aurelio, Glen Johnson*, Steven Gerrard, Lucas Leiva, Joe Cole*, Maxi Rodriguez, Milan Jovanovic $, Dirk Kuyt, Fernando Torres, Ryan  Babel $,
(But our squad then were beating most top teams in the EPL let along Europe)

NB * Players I did not rate
NB $ Players that proved to be disappointing

They (FSG) were quoted as saying… “'While we had a few top players like Steven Gerrard, other players like Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina were probably beyond their primes, and Javier Mascherano was not even on the team.”

Torres was 27 (out of form yes, but not past his prime of Chelsea would not have spent £50m for him) where as Pepe Reina was 29, hardly beyond their prime

There rest were getting there, so I would have to agree with their analysis as to the teams over all age,
 
But two points if I may

(1) If like FSG: are doing (The whole young with resalable value thing) you end up with one or two models….Man Utd class of 92…. You spend a lot of team honing those you players before they become good and start winning trophies on a regular basis

(2) The Arsenal Models you win the occasional League or FA Cup qualify for Europe regularly with out win it

A mixture is needed, Young and Old, but most of all Quality

FSG cleared our debts but never really gave us a great deal of money to renew the Squad, The Suarez money came mainly from the sale of Ryan Babel (we never really meet the asking price for Suarez before the sale of Babel) and the Torres money wasted on Carroll, Downing, Henderson and Adam…… That lies firmly at the feet of Kenny Dalglish

I remember warning that supporters should not expect FSG to ride in, clear the debt, and spend shed loads of money, said then that people need to read between the lines of what they were saying….

Maybe this is Jürgen Klopp’s master plan, show them (FSG) how bad this team is to get them to invest…. What was it Herr Klopp said? “I don’t need lots of money”

He will use the little that they give him, get rid of the dead wood, and bring in two to three quality signings a year, players that can do things his way

King Kenny went at the right time. Did a magnificent job at steadying the ship, but the second half of his second season was appalling.

So appalling that we won our first trophy in 6 years, won twice at Anfield South, and beat the neighbours in the league 3-0. Much of the campaign minus Suarez too.

They have "SACKED KENNY DALGLISH" on their record, an absolute no-no. There's no way back after that.