The defence wasn't good enough last year. Made to look good by Reina, as I mentioned earlier.
Our attacking problems were not down to Steven Gerrard alone. Yes he didn't have his best year by any stretch but the serivce to him from the central pairing and the wide areas wasn't good enough. Simply because the players weren't (still aren't) good enough.
Stats are bollocks usually. Reina takes a goal kick, goes straight through to the opposing keeper and we've got a shot on target. So the number of shots doesn't really do much for me. What does is the fact that neither Mascherano or Lucas scored a Premiership goal. That by anybody's reasoning is a F***ing shocking fact. Your central midfielders not scoring is a disgrace. Central midfielders by the way not some bollock term you'll use to excuse them from not scoring.
I can study all those stats you want me to and rewatch every game from last year. Not only would I be suicidial but I'd also be reassured that neither Lucas or Mascherano offered us enough going forward. Two goals between them all season, none in the League, is enough for me to know they didn't offer enough going forward. No scapegoat, just simple facts from a lad with a footballing brain thanks.
It didn't stop us in 08/09 - like I said earlier. We think coming 2nd isn't stopping us these days. If you're happy with 2nd and believe that we wasn't stopped in doing so then great. Personally I'm slightly embarrassed to have a home coming for a side finishing 2nd.
Alonso's sale obviously played a role in us going from 2nd to 7th. As did Arbeloa's sale and Sami Hyypia's. They were replaced by players of a lesser quality. If you replace top quality with lesser, you're gonna get worse results. That's the secret to us going from 2nd to 7th.
If the League shouldn't be our bread and butter under Hicks and Gillett but instead Europe, why is Roy Hodgson being linched? He's had one transfer window to spend money - under Hicks and Gillett - and while the League isn't going well, he's unbeaten in Europe. By your reasoning, he should be up there with Paisley and Shankly. No, the League will always be our bread and butter. If we fail in it, then it's not good enough.
The defense was good enough for a title challenging team but not good enough to be champions, like I said it wasn't ideal but there were greater areas of concern. We had the 3rd least goals conceded and considering our fullbacks were one who "can't defend" and another who was 21 years old and thrown in the deep end it was a superb team effort. Agger and Carragher formed a formidable partnership and the big Greek fella and Skrtel were both quite good when called upon (that's a lie, Sotis was F***ing outstanding when called upon). Reina was absolutely amazing but make no mistakes, the defense was good, Reina's contribution made it very good.
You'd be correct in saying our attacking problems weren't entirely due to Steven Gerrard, but that was the primary reason. We all know he had a shocker by his standards (still 7 goals and 7 assists) but the nature of our system required more input from him which last season he didn't provide. Must reiterate, I'm not going to hold it against him because he's a gem and I love the fact that he's on our team and not theirs. Other contributing factors include the poor form of Kuyt (relative to previous seasons) and the criminal underuse of Benayoun.
Stats are bollocks unless they are being used to criticise Glen Johnson though. Stats aren't the be all and end all of determining something, but they're handy but prone to error and a number of other factors which can skew them wildly. For what little it's worth an end to end goal-kick from Reina isn't classified as a shot on target (I can actually dig up how many he did but I'd hazard a guess and say less than 5 comfortably as our game was based around possession and control whereas end to end goalkicks are a time-wasting measure ordinarily).
Again you use stats to disprove Lucas and Mascherano's worth to the team which is interesting for something which you only one paragraph earlier described as 'bollocks'. To apply your logic to the next sentence (ie. stats=load of bollocks) - That by anybody's reasoning is a F***ing shocking load of bollocks. This is where we agree. Lucas and Mascherano weren't in the team as goal scoring central midfielders, admittedly Lucas probably should've chipped in a little more but he was introduced to the team a little earlier than he should have been and for whatever reason he just didn't (Xabi himself only scored 4 in 08/09 so to expect more than that would've been ludicrous given the high regard Xabi was held in). You could argue that Xabi's role was to create and spray passes from the deep but roles and duties are only important if they suit your own agenda. As far as Xabi is concerned he's a deep-lying playmaker who did this and that but Lucas was a central midfielder who should be scoring.
Xabi Alonso never got forward and it wasn't a problem. Your use of the term central midfielder to describe Mascherano would actually indicate to the contrary of having a footballing brain. The brain is always acquiring new knowledge and information whereas you don't seem to be (but back in the good old days, we did things this way and it worked - no back in the good old days what we did was revolutionary and forward thinking for it's time, therefore it worked) and now we need to apply the same mantra to the ever changing and modern game of football.
You're misguided in believing that 'not stopping us' equates to us 'being all we can be' but you can't deny things were moving in the right direction, obviously not at the level we'd hoped but it was a fairly good indicator of things going well, not very well but certainly well. Never once did I say that I was happy with 2nd, I always want to win.
Our decline from 2nd to 7th can be attributed to one thing: less points relative to the rest of the competition and they just so happened to be from our away fixtures. If you honestly believe that the sale of Alonso, Hyypia and Arbeloa made us lose our confidence away from home to that extreme, more power to you but it would be naive in the extreme. Of course their departures contributed but 2 out of 3 were going to be no matter what (Arbeloa was going back to Spain, we did well to get in a quality replacement in Johnson and Hyypia was already 35 years old and Agger was really showing his quality, I think we all wish Sami would've been 30 forever).
The Alonso sale was one I agreed with given our current financial predicament, sad state of affairs but that was the reality of LFC under those two cu*ts. Replacing top quality players with weaker players isn't why we went from 7th to 2nd, football isn't played on paper. Why aren't Blackpool 20th? They have the least amount of quality players. Why didn't Barcelona win the CL last year, they had the best players? Not enough mention is given to the system, the philosophy and the tactics. Players are an very important part of it but not the be all and end all. Prime example is Mascherano vs Meireles, Mascherano is a better player but Meireles partners Lucas better so the weaker player is actually better for us in this instance. Football is a team game and you need to find the right dynamic for a team to work, anyone suggesting otherwise is simply wrong.
The league shouldn't have been our bread under butter under those cu*ts for financial reasons, it simply made no sense to give priority to winning the league over winning in Europe - it could be these days (as the financial rewards are no longer vital given that we're not haemorraging money on debt repayments) but it is entirely the prerogative of either our manager or our board.
Hodgson's being lynched for a number of different reasons ranging from not being in touch with the fans, serving up absolute sh*t on a stick football (even worse than our worst games under the previous regime) on a regular basis, being defeatist, deep throating Ferguson, the worst press conferences in the history of Liverpool, poor results, disrespecting previous Liverpool managers, failing to accept responsibility for when things go wrong, having man-management skills on par with Mike Bassett, alienating players, alienating fans, not carrying himself in dignified manner... I could go on but you get the point.
He did have one transfer window to "spend money" (under the previous regime, the term spending money doesn't really apply) and he had a shocker:
Konchesky for £3.5m? Maybe worth a punt.
Sending Insua out on loan and then paying £3.5m for Konchesky? Bad move but we all make mistakes.
Paying £3.5m + Kacaniklic and Della Valle for Konchesky? Absolutely F***ing horrible move (We refused a £4m + clauses offer from Fulham last year for LDV - That's valuing Konchesky at over £8m).
Poulsen for £5m? Paid too much for him.
Sending Aquilani out on loan? If the idea was to cut wages, why did we sign Joe Cole when his wages are more. If we didn't send Aquilani on loan, we didn't need Poulsen.
I don't know what reasoning you think I have. All I said was when we were being bled dry by those two dickheads, we should've prioritised going further in European competition than trying to build on 4th place to achieve 3rd (ie. if the options were 4th maybe 3rd and a CL final or 2nd maybe 1st and CL quarter final, take the 4th and CL final). Explain how he should be held in the same esteem as Paisley and Shankly because he's undefeated in Europe at the early stages of the Europa League.
Now that we appear to be on the right track and being run well, I'm in agreeance with you about the league being our bread and butter but in financial dire straights (which we were in) the opposite is true. Let's hope it never comes to that again.