Why are we so bad at handling player transitions?

We built a top level team, and asset stripped it between 2009 and today.
And now we are sh*te.
THats not exactly "player transition".

If I robbed someone's savings, they'd hardly be experiencing a "transition".

We built a top level team, and asset stripped it between 2009 and today.
And now we are sh*te.
THats not exactly "player transition".

If I robbed someone's savings, they'd hardly be experiencing a "transition".

Haha funny at first, then sad because it's true.

We built a top level team, and asset stripped it between 2009 and today.
And now we are sh*te.
THats not exactly "player transition".

If I robbed someone's savings, they'd hardly be experiencing a "transition".

If that's true how did we end up with the most expensive players we have ever had at the club and played some of our best football ever narrowly missing out on the title a few months ago?

Spurs bid 30 million for Andy Carroll which we ended up beating.
We learnt from that lesson to stick to a maximum value since we got our fingers badly burnt.

It seems relatively sensible to me.

Brendan badly wanted Willian but would it really have been worth blowing 40 million on him?

got badly burned by the Carroll transfer...

thats why i still resent him as a player...

EVERY transfer since, in my opinion, has been marked up according to that template... FSG are determined not to be done over again!

got badly burned by the Carroll transfer...

thats why i still resent him as a player...

EVERY transfer since, in my opinion, has been marked up according to that template... FSG are determined not to be done over again!

Mostly agree with this however I feel it's unfair to blame the player.

He was quite happy being the local hero at Newcastle and didn't want to leave. He wasn't responsible for his huge fee that their owners couldn't resist.

And why Kenny wanted to spend all that money on someone who plainly didn't want to be here is beyond me - he must have completely taken leave of his senses - which comes back to the original point about us handling transitions badly.

Mostly agree with this however I feel it's unfair to blame the player.

He was quite happy being the local hero at Newcastle and didn't want to leave. He wasn't responsible for his huge fee that their owners couldn't resist.

And why Kenny wanted to spend all that money on someone who plainly didn't want to be here is beyond me - he must have completely taken leave of his senses - which comes back to the original point about us handling transitions badly.

Oh don’t get me wrong... it’s a total irrational resentment... probably because im from west Ham and i get the piss ripped out me whenever he scores for the irons... 

Also on this point, didn’t Kenny get the nod from Shearer to sign Carroll?

got badly burned by the Carroll transfer...

thats why i still resent him as a player...

EVERY transfer since, in my opinion, has been marked up according to that template... FSG are determined not to be done over again!

Mostly agree with this however I feel it's unfair to blame the player.

He was quite happy being the local hero at Newcastle and didn't want to leave. He wasn't responsible for his huge fee that their owners couldn't resist.

And why Kenny wanted to spend all that money on someone who plainly didn't want to be here is beyond me - he must have completely taken leave of his senses - which comes back to the original point about us handling transitions badly.

I absolutely agree. I could see what Dalglish wanted to do and on paper, it looked really good. Suarez playing off Carroll and in the summer, Downing, Henderson and Adam (Scottish Alonso) to compliment Carroll. At least Dalglish's big transfers had connection to how he wanted to play as well as covering the key areas that needed to be covered, where as this summer's big spending seems to be the total opposite.

Oh don’t get me wrong... it’s a total irrational resentment... probably because im from west Ham and i get the piss ripped out me whenever he scores for the irons... 

Also on this point, didn’t Kenny get the nod from Shearer to sign Carroll?

Well, given how Shearer did in his management career he definitely took leave of his senses if he listened.

have you heard his "analysis" on match of the day? It's like listening to a five year old. He basically just goives a commentary of what's going on:

"He did well to beat his man there. Great shot. He just missed.Should've scored that one."

Recently he's taken to holding a pen whilst he's talking to look a bit more intellectual.

I think we let these players off too easily how many come here and go into semi retirement having signed the big contract which could net them anything upto £15mil or more.
We need hungry players who want success not a big bank balance and maybe in the modern game they aren't available anymore.

I think we let these players off too easily how many come here and go into semi retirement having signed the big contract which could net them anything upto £15mil or more.
We need hungry players who want success not a big bank balance and maybe in the modern game they aren't available anymore.

You mean, exceptional players that would improve our team but not demand world class fee and wages? If so, I absolutely agree. As much as I love watching world class players play, I would prefer us to buy the ones below and make them into world class players at the moment. I just feel, at this time, 2-3 hungry exceptional players would be more beneficial to the team than 1 world class player.

When we become more established and stable, then we should look into buying at least, 1 world class player  each summer

Also on this point, didn’t Kenny get the nod from Shearer to sign Carroll?

Quality goal scorer but his knowledge of the game and the ability of players is completely non-existent, taking advice from him would be like trying to use a chocolate teapot.

You mean, exceptional players that would improve our team but not demand world class fee and wages? If so, I absolutely agree. As much as I love watching world class players play, I would prefer us to buy the ones below and make them into world class players at the moment. I just feel, at this time, 2-3 hungry exceptional players would be more beneficial to the team than 1 world class player.

When we become more established and stable, then we should look into buying at least, 1 world class player  each summer

Agree with the first.Buying 1 WC player each summer?I hope you´re not serious,the day I see this club turn into a Real Madrid circus is the day I give up football.Sorry if you´re joking,I just can´t stand the thought of us turning into a Real Madrid,Man City,PSG type club.Total anti-football institutions.

And we just received a lump sum check of £75,000,000.

Name me a single time when we've beat an established club to a signing of a top quality player. Just once, in FSG's history here, other than Suarez.

They talk the talk "compete with anyone in world football" but when it comes to walking the walk, they come up short, time after time again.

Not to the usual suspects who start negative threads implying the fault is anyone's but NESV, FSG or JWH.
I

What I focus on about this subject is why we have not been able to reproduce the form of players in their past club to our own,when everything indicated they should have flourished.Carroll,Adam,Downing,Henderson,Lovren,Lallana,Lambert,Markovic,Moreno,Can...How did these players go from being solid performers at their clubs,to coming to Anfield and hopelessly devaluating their market price?

Now we have seen improvement from some of these players,but why only now?Why did it take Henderson 2 years to be a 6/10 player?What happened to "stonewall" Lovren?Why are we only now seeing glimpses of Lallana,Markovic and Can...in December?

I think it is down to 3 basic things.The state of the system the player enters,the state of the individual player,and the manipulation of that system.Basically,the form of the squad players,the form of the new player,and the strategy (formation,lineup...).

I 90% believe if we had put Rickie Lambert in last years Liverpool side we could have gotten usual goal scoring form from him,or near.Same goes for Carroll.Lallana would have had a blast,as Markovic.Look at the state of the system now...well you could put Falcao himself up there as our 9 and he would struggle.Given,last year´s system was set up for speed,but the consistency the players were showing and the flexibility in formations used,I think we could have set up to play for a slow 9 even.I might be wrong though,which brings me to point 2.Why buy a 9 if he won´t fit our system?How did we plan to setup Suarez with Carroll,Lambert with Sturridge (or alone as a 9)?

Buying a proven 2 digit goal scorer in Rickie,a natural 9,then putting an experiment in his place for 10 games is as clear an example of not handling the system well.Then putting that natural 9 into a frail,disjointed system lacking confidence is an example of number 1 (the Falcao example).This applies to other players that cannot be expected to replicate their best form when dependent on other players´ form.This, for me,does not apply for certain positions.A striker can never excel in a poor team,but a goalie or CB always has to answer,regardless of the performance of the other 10 players (remember Hennesey and Al-Habsi(who I always said we should have bought)flying to excellent season performances in teams that were ultimately relegated,getting machine-gun blasted by the combined strikeforce of the league).

That leaves us with number 2.What´s going on with Mignolet?What happened to last year´s Gerrard?Did someone body-snatch Lovren?Lallana,Can,Markovic,Moreno,Coutinho,Sterling,all new and old players who are if anything only picking up now,after half a season.This only leaves us with a psychological angle to it.You don´t lose it from one season to the next,you don´t go from being a starter in your club to warming the bench.Something is going on,inside...

So,in conclusion,we have to secure a solid foundation to ensure a smooth running system is in place,which means altering it (if it´s already working) with the less shock possible (as opposed to what Tottenham and we did,selling one player and buying .This in order to ensure harmony when introducing a new element,even if it´s not a like-for-like replacement.This can only be done with the correct handling of the system.If it ain´t broke don´t fix it,and if you need or want to change something,change small and slow (1,2,3 players,and not at once). This will hopefully aid with the state of the player coming in,a smooth transition.Again,had most of these players come into last year´s side at that moment in time,they would have most probably blended in nicely (again,introducing them gently and in the least possible numbers).

This does not account for cases such as Lovren´s I think (or Mignolet),although it can´t help to be surrounded by lack of confidence,but I think the lack of a smooth effective transition,for the most part/players,is down to not having a solid running system in place which is down to poor handling of the system.

Thanks for listening 

Spurs bid 30 million for Andy Carroll which we ended up beating.

We learnt from that lesson to stick to a maximum value since we got our fingers badly burnt.

It seems relatively sensible to me.

Brendan badly wanted Willian but would it really have been worth blowing 40 million on him?

The difference with Willian was that he was an already established player with extensive Champions League experience behind him. Carroll had half a season behind him. Let's consider that for a moment. We spent £50 million on a player who had spent less than six months in top flight football. It was never the fee that was the problem, it was the decision making behind it. FSG would be completely correct in not going down the route of a high transfer fee for an unproven player again, it's what any sensible owner would do but there is no excuse not to spend big on established, experienced players where the money is available. With that decision FSG threw the baby out with the bath water.

No mate Chelsea spent 50 million on Torres. We spent 35 million on Carroll.

Since then we have made big money bids for Mkhitaryan, Willian and Sanchez so I don't think they have thrown the baby out with the bathwater - more a case of refusing to go above a value we have set for a player.

No mate Chelsea spent 50 million on Torres. We spent 35 million on Carroll.

Since then we have made big money bids for Mkhitaryan, Willian and Sanchez so I don't think they have thrown the baby out with the bathwater - more a case of refusing to go above a value we have set for a player.

You're right, it was £35 million. You're wrong, it's got nothing to do with over paying for a player. The Carroll bid was publicly explained by Henry. He said that the Torres sale would always be Carroll's fee plus £15 million and they kept Chelsea waiting while we negotiated with Newcastle. So we never over paid for a player because that player's fee was always built in to the sale of another. That was very good business practice.

You asked if Willian was worth £40 million. A player's value for money is determined by what they help us achieve. Would Willian be worth £40 million if we'd progressed from the Champions League group stages this year? Would Willian be worth £40 million if he'd been the difference between our being runners up and winning the title? Would Suarez had stayed, or Sanchez had joined because they saw we where showing ambition in the market, if we'd signed Willian? It's easy to sit there and point to him at Chelsea and judge he's not worth £40 million, not so easy to judge what effect he may have had on us.

It's not just loosing out on Willian either. I could accept your argument but for the fact that we refused to 'over pay' for Willian and so ended up with Aspas. I'm sorry but if you're coming up with a short list of players, how the hell do you have Willian and Aspas on the same list? The question I'm posing here is do we take any of that in to account in our evaluations of players because from the outside looking in, it would appear not.

You're right, it was £35 million. You're wrong, it's got nothing to do with over paying for a player. The Carroll bid was publicly explained by Henry. He said that the Torres sale would always be Carroll's fee plus £15 million and they kept Chelsea waiting while we negotiated with Newcastle. So we never over paid for a player because that player's fee was always built in to the sale of another. That was very good business practice.

You asked if Willian was worth £40 million. A player's value for money is determined by what they help us achieve. Would Willian be worth £40 million if we'd progressed from the Champions League group stages this year? Would Willian be worth £40 million if he'd been the difference between our being runners up and winning the title? Would Suarez had stayed, or Sanchez had joined because they saw we where showing ambition in the market, if we'd signed Willian? It's easy to sit there and point to him at Chelsea and judge he's not worth £40 million, not so easy to judge what effect he may have had on us.

It's not just loosing out on Willian either. I could accept your argument but for the fact that we refused to 'over pay' for Willian and so ended up with Aspas. I'm sorry but if you're coming up with a short list of players, how the hell do you have Willian and Aspas on the same list? The question I'm posing here is do we take any of that in to account in our evaluations of players because from the outside looking in, it would appear not.

But the point about the Carroll deal was that we beat off interest from Spurs (who bid 30 million) to land him - breaking the British transfer record on the way.

In answer to your question about Willian, we achieved Champion's League qualification without him so do you think it would have been worth spending the 40 million? Since he's hardly pulling up trees at Chelsea I'm not so sure. I certainly think Origi, Markovic and Can will add more to the squad than Willian for a similar outlay.

Willian and Aspas are on the same list for the same reason; both of them seemed to offer "value" because of teh circumstances of their contracts with their clubs. Aspas didn't work out but he had very good figures playing in La Liga and appeared to have the right attributes in that league. We bought Suarez, Coutinho and Sturridge on the same basis but even the best managers  have a 50% hit rate in the success of their transfers.

As I posted in the other thread we need to find a better way of ensuring that the transfers we bring in will perform well here. Apart from throwing more money at the problem few people have got any ideas about how to achieve that.

But the point about the Carroll deal was that we beat off interest from Spurs (who bid 30 million) to land him - breaking the British transfer record on the way.

In answer to your question about Willian, we achieved Champion's League qualification without him so do you think it would have been worth spending the 40 million? Since he's hardly pulling up trees at Chelsea I'm not so sure. I certainly think Origi, Markovic and Can will add more to the squad than Willian for a similar outlay.

Willian and Aspas are on the same list for the same reason; both of them seemed to offer "value" because of teh circumstances of their contracts with their clubs. Aspas didn't work out but he had very good figures playing in La Liga and appeared to have the right attributes in that league. We bought Suarez, Coutinho and Sturridge on the same basis but even the best managers  have a 50% hit rate in the success of their transfers.

As I posted in the other thread we need to find a better way of ensuring that the transfers we bring in will perform well here. Apart from throwing more money at the problem few people have got any ideas about how to achieve that.

No mate, you're applying hindsight. You're saying he wouldn't have been worth us spending £40 million based upon what he's done for Chelsea so far but we prior to him arriving in England, we could only judge his potential fee based upon what he'd done abroad and on the basis of that, and given the way the market is, he probably was worth £40 million. The fact that where he to be playing for us the way he's played for the chavs, he'd be a £40 million flop is irrelevant from the perspective of pre-purchase.

I don't disagree with your general point of not over spending above your valuation, I'm simply questioning how FSG arrive at those valuations in the first place because what they seem to consider a player's value sometimes appears to be less than what others do. My issue isn't with our refusal to pay more than our valuation, my main concern is with our plan Bs which are so far apart from our plan As it makes you wonder if the same person is making them.

No mate, you're applying hindsight. You're saying he wouldn't have been worth us spending £40 million based upon what he's done for Chelsea so far but we prior to him arriving in England, we could only judge his potential fee based upon what he'd done abroad and on the basis of that, and given the way the market is, he probably was worth £40 million. The fact that where he to be playing for us the way he's played for the chavs, he'd be a £40 million flop is irrelevant from the perspective of pre-purchase.

I don't disagree with your general point of not over spending above your valuation, I'm simply questioning how FSG arrive at those valuations in the first place because what they seem to consider a player's value sometimes appears to be less than what others do. My issue isn't with our refusal to pay more than our valuation, my main concern is with our plan Bs which are so far apart from our plan As it makes you wonder if the same person is making them.

Actually I think we're saying the same thing.

As i posted in the other thread, we would be happy to pay 40 million pounds for a player if we knew his value was going to double whilst he was with us.

The question is then how we identify those players?

The difference between us and the petrodollar clubs is that they are rich enough not to have to worry too much about losing money on the contracts - hence Chelsea can afford to send Torres off to Milan and pay the last two years of his wages.

For a 40 million pound purchase to make sense to us though we need that player to come in and deliver 40 million pounds worth of value - ie we have to stick to a maximum perceived judgement of what the player ios actually to worth to us rather than how much he is going for on the market.

Would Willian have been worth 40 million? As you say perhaps he would - maybe we would have won the league, got through to the CL final this year and won a couple of domestic cups. But in all likelihood, we would have improved our play a little, still screwed up against Chelsea and Palace and failed to qualify for the last 16 in Europe - inwhich case he wouldn't have been worth the fee.

Question is how do we best identify what the team needs to improve then how to we identify the players that will fill that gap?

You mention petro-chemical clubs but City is an anomaly for the most part. If you look at the average signing by Chelsea, they aren't actually making anywhere near the amount of big money signings as people tend to think they are. What is interesting is the level of success they have in the bottom end of the market. Cech for £9 million has been a far more successful signing than Mingnolet for £9 million. Roben at £12 million was better than Aquilani at £17 million. In order to compete with Chelsea we don't necessarily need more money to spend, we simply need better eyes for talent.

It has nothing to do with "player transitions."  It has to do with 90% of the players we buy being absolute sh*te.

Funny how Suarez didn't need time to "settle in" or to "transition."  Why?  because he's a top class player and you can put him in any league in the world and he will hit the ground running.

Coutinho didn't need time to settle in.  Nor did Sturridge.  why?  because they're top players.

Even looking around at other clubs.  Sanchez hasn't needed time to "settle in" or "transition."  Nor has Costa.  Nor did Aguero.  Nor did Silva.  And so on and so f**king forth.  since someone will blame that on the sugar daddy club owners, take someone like Cabaye at Newcastle---he didn't need time to settle in either.  Because he was a top player.  (and bought for a bag of chips mind.  imagine that Borini cost us twice as much as Cabaye cost Newcastle.)

So.  Stop buying sh*te and you won't need to transition players.  Buy sh*te from mid-table clubs and you know exactly what will happen.

You mention petro-chemical clubs but City is an anomaly for the most part. If you look at the average signing by Chelsea, they aren't actually making anywhere near the amount of big money signings as people tend to think they are. What is interesting is the level of success they have in the bottom end of the market. Cech for £9 million has been a far more successful signing than Mingnolet for £9 million. Roben at £12 million was better than Aquilani at £17 million. In order to compete with Chelsea we don't necessarily need more money to spend, we simply need better eyes for talent.

Yep, again we are saying the same thing - it's about picking the right player not spending the most money.

Question is : how do we learn to pick the right players?