The Liverpool FC Thread VII

It's 'LOL' because I found it funny.

Also, so?

He was a former England captain that doesn't mean he would be a good coach. Same goes for pretty much all you said.
Alan Shearer should be an awesome coach by that standard, he tried his luck and it didn't really work out that well and he was better player and better tactical awareness.

Don't see what's so 'LOL' about it tbh.

Once you get passed that horrible Manc accent of his, it's clear that he's got very good tactical awareness, and as a former England captain he's got plenty of knowledge he can pass on to what will be a pretty inexperienced England squad, as has been evidenced by his stint on Sky Sports.

I just think people seem to think he's amazing because the standard of punditry in this country is embarrassing, In places like Italy and Spain his analysis is bog standard.

All the arguments to keep him seem to be centred around 'because he is Dalglish' which to me is the worst reason to keep him at the club.

I don't even think we are playing league winning football like has been discussed on TAW. You watch United/City/Chelsea/Arsenal and when those teams won the league over the last 15 years they won by every player knowing their jobs and every player trusting the manager that their instructions were the correct ones. Every player was mercilessly drilled as to their role and function at specific points in the match and the season.
Tbph we have played like where we are, a mid table team. We have just 'had a go' in almost every match and it has resulted in some absolute nonsense like Glen Johnson playing DM/CB in a weird back 5 against City

Have you any proof of this?

On the flipside, at the end of last season we saw some great football being played and we **** all over quite a few teams. But we had Meireles, Suarez, Kuyt, Lucas and Rodriguez on the pitch together throughout those games - intelligent players who I'd say suited the footballing style Dalglish wants to implement.

This is a really important point IMO. Some of the players in our squad right now are, for lack of a better phrase, football dumb. They have the talent to succeed but don't have the brains to do it. Henderson will get it as he matures, Downing is ****e all around, Adam always tries to do the best looking option and Carroll doesn't anticipate where the ball is going to go as well as he should.

Yep.

But I feel these are things which can be improved with the correct coaching. We can't sell all of Adam/Enrique/Carroll/Downing etc so we have to work with them and improve them. Dalglish doesn't seem to be the man to do that. Look at us under Rafa. Players like Crouch, Bellamy when he first came, Riera, Riise, Finnan etc weren't naturally fantastic footballers but Benitez ensured that they maximised their potential and they all proved to be very useful players for us. The same needs to be done with the current crop.

Its no golden samba.

I have an exacty copy of that trophy sitting on my desk currently.

??

You work for SC?

I agree. All the players did well because Rafa gave them each a role to do and then drilled it into them. They knew exactly what they needed to do on the pitch and what their roles were. I don't see that in our team right now.

No.

What if we sack Dalglish, bring someone in and he has an awful year next year? Do we sack him as well? Football managers need continuity to be able to impose their style and belief on the team. Did Ferguson get it right at Manchester United straight away? No, he had an awful season where he was within a game of being sacked.

Everyone knows our league form has been pathetic. Dalglish knows it as well, but he's not going to hang his players out to dry in the media.

The loss of Lucas has been massively underplayed. Prior to that, we were well within touching distance of 4th place. Since then, our points per game average has dropped by nearly an entire point. Our biggest problem is not Dalglish, it was not bringing in a short term cover for Lucas in January.

This is not to say Dalglish hasn't got a lot of things wrong. He has. Most notably the continued insistence of playing Carragher over Coates.

At the end of the day, we need to get out of this habit we seem to have inherited from the rest of England where one bad season = out on your arse.

Fair enough. I don't believe that that's an unreasonable point of view. I just think that the tolerance for this season has been because his name is Kenny Dalglish, and were it another manager, there would have been far more calls for his head.

Out of interest, were you saying the same thing about time when Roy Hodgson was manager?

The Anfield Wrap was a great listen and a must for any red out there.

In my opinion I didn't find that any of them gave a real valid reason for Kenny staying but I don't think this is because ''he is Kenny Dalglish, the soul of this football club, he deserves respect". It's because they don't know who can replace him. They don't know if we can get anybody better. They're not saying it but I know that's the one thing holding me back from being 100% for the ousting of Kenny. That, and he has got a good CV. One that had he been anybody else, we'd consider him out of our reach. An absolute legend of the game, a born winner. Appointing him made sense but this season has not made sense. I can't think of a reason to keep him other than we've played well consistently but honestly that's just because we've got good players. We like to think they all have less talent combined than Suarez has in one toe but generally, thinking objectively the likes of Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam are solid decent players capabale of good football. But we need more than that, that's why this 'but we've played well'' argument lacks substance. For me, Kenny is clearly a man who tells the players to go out and express themselves. This is obvious in the fact that we have no idea what our system is. They players are told just to do. I can't know this for sure but this is what I think. For a team that is largely assembled by above average players but not great players (considering all of our great players are either injury prone or unreliable like Suarez) it is nonsensical to assume that they are capable of doing anything more than they have done their whole lives. Be average. We are 8th because of that.

I don't know if Kenny is the man to take us forward. On the basis of this season alone, I don't think he is. On the basis of his CV he should have been, but he hasn't been. I'm of the opinion Niel Atkinson expressed, if Kenny were to be sacked I would have no qualms about that and I wouldn't be upset if he was kept either.

If you think about it in Gerard Houliers first season I think we finished seventh with 54 points and in Rafa Benetiz's first season we finished 5th on 58 points, won the CL and got the CC final. Winning the CL aside, imagine if we had sacked Rafa because of the poor league form and being a cup side? A year later we finished on 82 points and with an FA cup without any marquee signings. A few years later we were ranked number one in Europe. We put up our first real push for the league title in 19 years and almost did it. I'm just saying that a poor league record in your first season doesn't neccessarily mean the sack. This mentality is dangerous tbh. Do you see here, i've just talked myself out of sacking Kenny? Just like one of the lads said on TAW, one day I wake up and want him gone the next I wake up and want him to stay.

Also, sacking Kenny would set a precedent. From then on we have to sack every manager if they don't have a good first season. Do we really want to do that?

It's the way we spent so poorly in the summer that is the biggest worry but the sacking of DC is clearly a move to rectify that.

This is a really important point IMO. Some of the players in our squad right now are, for lack of a better phrase, football dumb. They have the talent to succeed but don't have the brains to do it. Henderson will get it as he matures, Downing is ****e all around, Adam always tries to do the best looking option and Carroll doesn't anticipate where the ball is going to go as well as he should.

5th is a bit different to 8th, especially bearing in mind this season has broken/equalled records for being terrible, and the champions league trophy is a bit different to the carling cup though isn't it?

Completely ignore the basic fact that they played in two completely different positions and are therefore not comparable. Shearer would be **** at right back, Neville **** up front.

58 points is hardly any better than 52 and would have had us seventh in this season anyway which is barely any different to 8th. There's just a lot more competition around now then there was then. The Champions League trophy is definitely better than the Carling Cup, i'm not a moron and that's not what I was even saying. I was pointing out that maybe when a new manager comes him, it takes him a while to get to grips with the league. Getting his team to where he wants it to be. Hence why they both seemed to excel in the cups but really, really struggled in the league.

I'm sure we broke records for being terrible in the league then too. We've just surpassed them haha

And on Mess's point that Kenny wouldn't step down unless he was pushed. You do know that that man loves this club as much as we do. I'm sure he wouldn't want to stay when he hasn't an iota how to fix it or there were better men out there and run us down into the ground even further. You do know he's left the club willingly before? And that was when nobody wanted him too.