Neil, Nick, Rob, Mike, Jim, Andy and Kristian are joined by Daniel Sandison and Stephanie Till as they reflect on a poor performance against Arsenal and the absolute clusterfuck that was transfer deadline day.
Direct link to PODCAST: AYRE WE GO AGAIN?
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Duff link for the direct feed chaps, think it needs the bit of code after ‘.m4a’ removed.
I won’t hold it against you, not after yesterday.
Is that fixed now mate?
yep fixed now, cheers :)
Sorry Rob, second goal was down to lazy tracking by Shelvey. As for Allen, he struggled in the DM role at Swansea when Britton was missing and most Swans fans I know can’t understand why we have Borini on the wing, they all say he plays best in the middle. BUt LFC do have a history with playing players in bonkers positions!
We have owners who spent TWO YEARS cleaning up an awful mess twenty years in the making and, as mentioned right here in AW, this season is really Year 0 where they can truly implement their vision for the club. Because last season was such a disaster at so many levels they had to act definitively much sooner than planned, accelerated by a year or even two. You make contingencies for deliverables, not strategies. Under normal circumstances there would be a much smoother transition, but it was painfully obvious that from communications to scouting to actual football dramatic and immediate changes were needed.
So I think the long term strategy was overrun by a calamitous season on and off the pitch resulting in the installation of completely new management at Melwood which inevitably led to the failure we saw at the end of the window. Communication in what are essentially new organizations almost always falls apart as windows of opportunity start to close.
I’d be willing to bet that it never happens again; the painful lesson has been learned. If it hadn’t, Mr. Henry would never have addressed the supporters at all.
What vision would that be? Changing their mind every six months as to what they want? Director of football, club legend, young manager, emulating strikerless Spain but without a midfield comprising Fabregas, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro… ?
To their credit, FSG have been extremely clear that they know nothing about football and after this particular window, I’m inclined to agree.
I think that the vision is fairly well expressed in Henry’s multiple statements on the matter – you should refer to them.
As to your scoffing at emulating a club like Barca, why not? Not the same style but I fail to see why a multiyear project to infuse the organization from first team all the way down through the academy system with a playing philosophy, a distinctly Liverpool brand of play, is viewed as a bad thing. It must come down to pure impatience. Your raising Barca is interesting because you act as though they never experienced any setbacks or mistakes in the formative years of their system, which is completely untrue. Their players didnt simply spring from the ground fully formed and realized in that brand of football, it took years of trial and error to build the institution we now see. Twenty, 25 years ago, that used to be us.
This was ONE transfer window, one where the last 48 hours completely overshadow some otherwise effective and necessary work. I tend to agree with this week’s panel that Ayre appears to be the fulcrum through which final deals were lost, but this doesn’t take away from the intentions of the owners to bring back good, youthful, attacking, lovely football in a style which is our own. Mistakes were made, they will be redressed, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. Patience is required, albeit a skeptical patience.
And just who was it who fought for a revamp of the academy in recent years? And where is Pep Segura now?
As to your “point”, I do not mention Barca, I mention Spain and their strikerless experiment this summer (though with two very proven strikers in Torres and Llorente on the bench). In contrast, my point was that there are no strikers on our bench. Plus we do not have that kind of midfield. See the difference?
And if the Barcelona’s blueprint has worked in recent years, despite at times acrimonious differences (say Cruyff with everyone), it’s because on a very basic level the club does not implement a new policy each year and is not afraid of paying what it takes to fill in the gaps in their production line when it needs to.
Finally, if you’ve ever actually watched Barcelona over the years, you might have noticed that they’re not exactly dogmatic about their approach. I’d say their current approach is at least as much about maximising the players they have (producing Xavi, Iniesta and Messi at the same time happens maybe once in several decades) than a strict adherence to a rigid 4-3-3 (bearing in mind that the Dutch 4-3-3 on which Cruyff was weaned is about as rigid as boiled spaghetti).
Joe Januszewski was the Lfc fan that worked for the Red Sox for 8 years prior to leaving for the Texas Rangers 10 weeks after FSG bought Lfc. Surprising that the only person at NESV with 20 years following Liverpool leaves so soon after the purchase having played a key role especially when he was the commercial director and had done such a good job with the Red Sox revenues. Makes you wonder why he left!!!
It seems Mr Henry & Co are not too popular in Boston at the moment either.
http://shipguy.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/an-open-letter-to-red-sox-management/
Isn’t clear to anyone that FSG bought a “franchise” an “asset” to sell at a profit?
They came in and bought the Club on the cheap in the belief that they could turn fortunes around and make a hundred million or two when they sold.
Do you all think that they were born on Scottie Road and walked to the match every Saturday?Do you think they have scrap-books full of clippings about Emlyn Hughes and Kevin Keegan? Do you think that they even knew how to find Liverpool on a map before they bought the Club?
Let’s get real here! The weekly bulletins extolling appeasement for their mistakes are becoming embarrassing.Explaining to us that they are only trying to do what’s good for us!
Oh!Do me a favour!They are here to make a profit and they will try and make us successful to try and achieve that.But;sincerity?Well it just doesn’t wash with me.
Not that many current owners of clubs are in for anything other than that.Maybe only Sheik Mansoor and Abromovicz can indulge their passions in that way.Maybe we should hope that Bill Gates turns out to have pictures of Emlyn Hughes and Kevin Keegan on his wall.But I doubt it.
So,it is what it is.And we have to put up with this stuff and carry on supporting the Team in the only way we know how;just encourage them and and hope that one day these shysters will go back to where they belong.
Till then…..”Come on You Reds!”.
you would rather the club went back into debt? Or do you just expect them to fund the club with their own money?
Just listened to this weeks podcast…. I feel a little better, thank you…., the Owen stuff was terrific!!… Rodgers has a fortnight to start thinking about how he will pull this round…. This is the job he gets paid handsomely for… Not convinced he has what it takes…
Fair play that John Henry has said “something” but he has also said nothing?
1) Mentioned the 3 signings (sahin is a loan deal?)
2) Everything is about the future eh what about NOW (RVP is a NOW signing and showed why, ok we can’t sign those players but where are our “NOW” signings to replace dirk/maxi/aqualani ? senior pros ? not 16 weeks but 16 years, balls!!! stadium 16 years yes, playing staff has to be recycled every 12-18mths whether your man city or stoke FACT.
There needs to be a balance between youngsters/prime players/experienced pros
3) we are the only team in europe banging on about FFP – not going to happen John, can you see Platini banning PSG from the champs lge or CITY or Chelsea?
4) contradiction – it WAS about cutting costs because you have? 23m off the wage bill ? were are the “Value for money” replacements?
quote – “We have no fear of spending and competing with the very best but we will not overpay for players”
carroll 35m/henderson 16m/downing 20m or dempsey 7m
so even if you get nothing for dempsey in 4 years 7m has gone 7m loss or depreciation of an asset in business terms.
carroll 35m into 17m at best over 50% loss 17m LOSS
downing value ? 7m? 13m Loss
they apparently tried to swap henderson so lets say it was a straight swap and be generous 7m = 9m loss
Thats a 40m loss on current net book value of assets, compared this to the 1m or 2m extra to get dempsey and the 7m over the contract, HE was our NOW signing .
Its not dempsey per-say but the dempsey example that bothers me. were is the logic and more importantly?
WHO IS MAKING THE DECISIONS ON WHAT IS OVERPAYMENT !!!
In what sense are we competing for the best players, were is the example of this?
I take the point we were in a mess form H&G, the price of the club also reflected that, I take the point they have cleaned up the financial stability issues.
but this blue print?, the business? the “project” plan, what is it? its not very clear?
financial strategy clear
commercial strategy clear
football game playing strategy/tactics/philosophy clear
football and non football related operational strategy ????
Is this last one the most important ? who is running the football club ? who is making the decisions ?
I don’t want to be all “show me all the answers i demand it because i pay my money” arsenal and Manu don’t tell their fans everything. but by hook or by crook these clubs appear to know what they are doing on the whole, even if they make mistakes or even if you don’t agree with every decision.
As a club, over the last 2yrs, we keep continuing to make high profile media mistakes, on and off the field.
Please make it stop!!
I believe Platini is saying the transition period for FFP has basically ended and it will have increased impact in the near future (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/aug/31/michel-platini-financial-fair-play?newsfeed=true).
Despite TAW mentioning following football and following “sports” are very different things, I would like to give an example from Australian Rules Football. They have a salary cap and a draft system that benefits bottom-placed teams, but more importantly fans are used to re-building phases in teams. If we write off this season, still aiming for Europa, but otherwise introducing new systems, new players and plenty of youth (I’m bloody excited to hear Jerome Sinclair is on par with Sterling) then this double-failure against Arsenal and against Tottenham in the transfer window is not that bad.
Yes, we are short on strikers, but the obsession over strikers in football from the grassroots to the highest level (bar Spain@Euro2012) is frankly embarrassing to the sport. Football writers like to frame games around the goal scorer as it gives them a big picture to splash with and an easy angle to the narrative of the game. An errant beachball can transform’s everyone’s opinion of an entire game and it is plain wrong. Goals are everything, of course, but the culture of striker worship makes it harder for anyone to score as the mental barriers start affecting performance. If everyone wants to emulate Barca perhaps they should note how muted they are when scoring. A goal for them is basically the final accurate pass in a series of passes for them. That approach can come undone occassionally and I’ve often yelled at the telly for them to be more direct in their UCL matches, but we can’t deny over time and with far less expenditure it works.
fwiw, I reckon they looked at the whole cost of the dempsey package and probably decided that at £10m-£12m or so it was acceptable but at over £15m+ it wasn’t – they would rather put that £15m towards a younger if more expensive recruit with more years to offer.
It’s possible that Al Fayed was never going to deal with us anyhow whatever we offered, but Fulham called our bluff and Spurs stepped in at the last.
My question is more about rodgers deciding that Borini was an important early signing but a striker wasn’t, given that was the most important thing that really hindered us last season.
Given that Borini just isn’t nearly ready to play centre forward [but might have to] I don’t get it and we certainly paid a premium for him.
FSG are making poor decisions no doubt about it – and that includes rodgers’ predictable playing style that has opened our strong defence to ridicule.
I can’t see how hodgson would have ever worked at lfc, he’s much too limited, but they’ve over reacted from last season where they should have moved kenny upstairs and put Clarke in charge and told him to solve the goal scoring with specific funds for 2 players for that purpose.
Under clarke our defence was strong and we created lots of chances just didn’t put it away. changing everything the way they have is high risk and will include a lot of mistakes, and the EPL punishes you like nothing else for that.
Losing Clarke is the worst thing we could have done since Rafa was inexplicably booted out by Purslow.
FSG have decided on a path now but there’s no saying what will happen if we’re fighting in the relegation zone – I reckon we’ll be fighting Villa for 15th.
Maybe it’s about time the supporters started to play their part in all this.
Some won’t like to hear that, some will keep baning on about not coughing up a few coppers for Clint bloody Dempsey or the Chav Sturridge, others will stoop so low to suggest we bring back Owen or even Drogba. Good God. So we told Fulham to sod off when they tried to charge more to us. Good..!! Clint bloody Dempsey.
West Brom was far from being a good start – but for those that watched the match, the scoreline didn’t tell the whole story.
Man City was great and but for a wild mistake by Skyrts we could have won.
Hearts – we did the job.
Arsenal could always have gone either way and when Gerrard has a day like that then we are always going to struggle. Lets have it straight – he was awful, everything he touched either bounced off or was given away.
But we all KNEW. We all said it was going to be difficult. We all said it was going to be tough.
Where the f&*K is our backbone..? The one thing that is consistently crap is the support. Outsung by the mancs. Outsung by Hearts (until Luis scored – then we did them for 60 seconds). Completely humiliated by the Gooners. We are all too busy thinking we can make better owners or do a better deal on deadline day that we have completely forgotten how to get Brendan to scan to a decent tune.
“One Brendan Rodgers, theres only one Brendan Rodgers”
Really..??? Smalltime we used to call it.
Our support is shi*e. Get a grip.
Yeah; let’s just stick our fingers in our ears, close our eyes and sing – that’s going to make it all better.
Fingers in ears..? Its not about that, its about this new internet age when we all think we know the inner workings of a football club and constantly want to point the finger of blame.
Most of the people stuck their fingers in their ears when we were getting totally screwed over by our previous owners. There was a few hundred marching down Walton Breck road whilst the rest took pictures. There was about 50 stood outside the main stand whilst one of the previous owners left via the back door. And most of the ground emptied on Rafas last game – never mind showing the fella a bit of support.
Support. We’ve forgot what it is.
Dempsey scored 23 goals last season, 17 in the league.
if I hear “FSG saved us” one more time, I will fucking swing for somebody!
Gentlemen – you should be ashamed of yourselves that not one of you named their favourite Roald Dahl book as “My Uncle Oswald”. Get yourselves a copy now it’s the most fantastic tale you can read.
Don’t know if this has been widely reported over there, but it seems FSG are casting the net fairly wide in the search for a new Chief Exec…
http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/gillon-mclachlan-knocks-back-position-with-epl-giant-liverpool/story-fndv7pj3-1226463132076
My fav part of the Podcast was the bit about Faith Fulcher! Jaysus, she is one no-nothing no-all!
Faith!
Whoops! Know-nothing know-all!
I noticed that too, Drew. A few forums ran with it at the time; it would’ve been an interesting match. AFL is a massive success for sure, although their movement into new regions has not been a proven success yet. Maybe we could poach someone from Collingwood (but not Eddie)? Great facilities, smart coaching and commercial deals, and now they’re implementing different jersies for different positions: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/pies-deal-on-jumpers-a-great-fit-20120904-25cev.html
Sorry if this has been mentioned earlier, but I’ve honestly never listened to a podcast before. Anyhow, heading out for a run and thought I’d listen to this, is it just to click one of the links from the iPhone?
Enjoyed the podcast but one little point I have to mention that you got wrong in the podcast, there is NO salary cap in baseball!
They’ve shedded the millions of dollars of salary in Boston to make way for new blood. Effectively it was like letting Suarez go to another club for 1 million on the basis that Joe Cole, Henderson and Downing would be packaged along with it, little intial recoup but money saved in wages an then be re-invested.
The key difference with baseball is that there are no real transfer fees, it is a player for payer type of market, and many more players will see their contracts run down and go into free agency because whilst contracts can be extended with better pay, an existing contract cannot be renegotiated for better pay.
I think this is where FSG are quite naive, there are a lot of subtle differences in the transfer market and player contracts that make football a more expensive and dynamic market for players.