[article]It is as if time itself is enjoying a joke at Liverpool’s expense. As the debris was being cleared on the club’s worst defeat in 52 years, the tenth anniversary of the club’s Champions League ‘miracle’ in Istanbul was celebrated.
Brendan Rodgers may be inclined to nick an image from that night as he assesses his own situation. At full-time on Sunday, he must have felt like he was 3-0 down at half time to a side including Pirlo, Kaka, Maldini and Shevchenko.
Just like that momentous evening in the Ataturk, Rodgers must also believe a comeback is possible.
It was another day of introspection at Anfield – they seem to average one a week in modern times – but Liverpool remain adamant the upcoming internal review into the events of this season will not focus on Rodgers’ position.
“Not on the agenda,” is the official line on it.
Something may be about to change at the club – it really has to – but according to the club, not the manager, not the recruitment staff and not with the introduction of a director of football. One wonders what exactly the review will entail. The seating arrangements and ticket prices for next year’s club end-of-season awards, perhaps?
Steven Gerrard and Rafa Benitez lift the European Cup in 2005
There will be a degree of incredulity at the suggestion the status quo remains intact from those who witnessed the first-half humiliation in the Britannia Stadium. The cynical view is this is pure story management – an attempt to steer the focus away from any pre-determined desire to dismiss Rodgers.
He may be safe going into his assessment of the season, but will the sirens go off during the course of the conversation and the ground shift as he leaves the room?
That said, given Rodgers has already had a preliminary chat and his working relationship with Fenway Sports Group President Michael Gordon is strong, his “150 per cent” sureness can be understood.
If his conviction proves justified, attention will turn swiftly to Fenway Sports Group and Gordon himself. Without the hint of any inaugural address, he slipped into the FSG presidency at the start of the season. We must stop seeing John W Henry as the all-consuming influence on Anfield affairs. So long as Rodgers has the trust of Gordon, he is safe.
Brendan Rodgers faces a crunch meeting with FSG's representative
There is one caveat, however. Rodgers must still be aligned to the club’s ‘model’.
Herein lies the crux of the issue. It is all about ‘the model’ at Anfield, with the employees signing up to it. It is referred to so often one often wonders if Anfield has been ambushed by an offspring of the church of scientology, or if staff gather to worship before it like the black monolith in “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
There are numerous elements to ‘the model’, but the main one is about "being smart". "Smartness" defines everything, particularly in recruitment. Upon buying Liverpool five years ago it was suggested to John Henry that rather than spending £40 million on well-established, proven world-class international footballers, it might be wiser to find these players before they become world-class. That is when they are cheaper.
It is not known whether anyone shouted "Eureka!" when this idea was proposed. Certainly no one seems to have piped up that everyone else had been trying to do the same thing, with varying degrees of success, since the first transfer fee was dispatched by carrier pigeon. Nor has anyone pointed out that, in all probability, all the best young players are already owned by Chelsea and have been turfed out on loan across Europe.
More worryingly, it does not seem to have occurred to anyone that if you have £115 million to spend and opt to target younger, cheaper players instead of expensive world-class ones, you are electing to operate in the same transfer zone as mid-table rather than elite clubs. The risk of becoming a mid-table team is just as likely as that of plucking the bargain gems that escaped the attention of the established Champions League clubs. Liverpool’s performance at Stoke suggested that this team is heading only one way unless they sign five top-class players.
It rather feels like Liverpool have become a multi-million pound laboratory experiment, big on theory but light on success. Liverpool fans want ready-made winners. FSG want to create them.
That is why those casually dropping the names of Jürgen Klopp and Carlo Ancelotti into chatroom and social-media conversations are demanding FSG abandon everything they have been doing for the last five years.
The last three Liverpool managerial appointments came from Fulham (before FSG took over), the legends’ lounge and Swansea City.
If Rodgers does not mount the greatest Liverpool comeback since Turkey in 2005, the repercussions for his career will be grave. But regardless of what happens to him, it is Liverpool and their owners who must prove their way will revive the status of the club, or ensure that only the reminders of former glories are left for supporters to cling on to.
[/article]
This article just out from Bascombe in the Telegraph. I must have read half a dozen such pieces in the last couple of days from the usual LFC commentators. It seems the verdict is in: the 'model' is self-defeating and retrograde.
Personally I disagree, and there's loads more I could say in response to particular points. My basic feeling is that getting players at say under 23 opens up a higher pedigree of player than we could normally target; they're cheaper; you get more out of them; it's relatively easy to predict genuine class by the time a player's around 19-20. It's a model you can sustain indefinitely: as they age they gain experience, and younger investments gradually take over from retiring players, on something like a rolling 7-8 year cycle. The only additional measure required is probably going to be an initial supplement of older more experienced players: a kind of 'float' of experience.
Who's right? Is it a small time and defeatist approach? Or a potentially winning strategy?
Brendan Rodgers may be inclined to nick an image from that night as he assesses his own situation. At full-time on Sunday, he must have felt like he was 3-0 down at half time to a side including Pirlo, Kaka, Maldini and Shevchenko.
Just like that momentous evening in the Ataturk, Rodgers must also believe a comeback is possible.
It was another day of introspection at Anfield – they seem to average one a week in modern times – but Liverpool remain adamant the upcoming internal review into the events of this season will not focus on Rodgers’ position.
“Not on the agenda,” is the official line on it.
Something may be about to change at the club – it really has to – but according to the club, not the manager, not the recruitment staff and not with the introduction of a director of football. One wonders what exactly the review will entail. The seating arrangements and ticket prices for next year’s club end-of-season awards, perhaps?
Steven Gerrard and Rafa Benitez lift the European Cup in 2005
There will be a degree of incredulity at the suggestion the status quo remains intact from those who witnessed the first-half humiliation in the Britannia Stadium. The cynical view is this is pure story management – an attempt to steer the focus away from any pre-determined desire to dismiss Rodgers.
He may be safe going into his assessment of the season, but will the sirens go off during the course of the conversation and the ground shift as he leaves the room?
That said, given Rodgers has already had a preliminary chat and his working relationship with Fenway Sports Group President Michael Gordon is strong, his “150 per cent” sureness can be understood.
If his conviction proves justified, attention will turn swiftly to Fenway Sports Group and Gordon himself. Without the hint of any inaugural address, he slipped into the FSG presidency at the start of the season. We must stop seeing John W Henry as the all-consuming influence on Anfield affairs. So long as Rodgers has the trust of Gordon, he is safe.
Brendan Rodgers faces a crunch meeting with FSG's representative
There is one caveat, however. Rodgers must still be aligned to the club’s ‘model’.
Herein lies the crux of the issue. It is all about ‘the model’ at Anfield, with the employees signing up to it. It is referred to so often one often wonders if Anfield has been ambushed by an offspring of the church of scientology, or if staff gather to worship before it like the black monolith in “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
There are numerous elements to ‘the model’, but the main one is about "being smart". "Smartness" defines everything, particularly in recruitment. Upon buying Liverpool five years ago it was suggested to John Henry that rather than spending £40 million on well-established, proven world-class international footballers, it might be wiser to find these players before they become world-class. That is when they are cheaper.
It is not known whether anyone shouted "Eureka!" when this idea was proposed. Certainly no one seems to have piped up that everyone else had been trying to do the same thing, with varying degrees of success, since the first transfer fee was dispatched by carrier pigeon. Nor has anyone pointed out that, in all probability, all the best young players are already owned by Chelsea and have been turfed out on loan across Europe.
More worryingly, it does not seem to have occurred to anyone that if you have £115 million to spend and opt to target younger, cheaper players instead of expensive world-class ones, you are electing to operate in the same transfer zone as mid-table rather than elite clubs. The risk of becoming a mid-table team is just as likely as that of plucking the bargain gems that escaped the attention of the established Champions League clubs. Liverpool’s performance at Stoke suggested that this team is heading only one way unless they sign five top-class players.
It rather feels like Liverpool have become a multi-million pound laboratory experiment, big on theory but light on success. Liverpool fans want ready-made winners. FSG want to create them.
That is why those casually dropping the names of Jürgen Klopp and Carlo Ancelotti into chatroom and social-media conversations are demanding FSG abandon everything they have been doing for the last five years.
The last three Liverpool managerial appointments came from Fulham (before FSG took over), the legends’ lounge and Swansea City.
If Rodgers does not mount the greatest Liverpool comeback since Turkey in 2005, the repercussions for his career will be grave. But regardless of what happens to him, it is Liverpool and their owners who must prove their way will revive the status of the club, or ensure that only the reminders of former glories are left for supporters to cling on to.
[/article]
This article just out from Bascombe in the Telegraph. I must have read half a dozen such pieces in the last couple of days from the usual LFC commentators. It seems the verdict is in: the 'model' is self-defeating and retrograde.
Personally I disagree, and there's loads more I could say in response to particular points. My basic feeling is that getting players at say under 23 opens up a higher pedigree of player than we could normally target; they're cheaper; you get more out of them; it's relatively easy to predict genuine class by the time a player's around 19-20. It's a model you can sustain indefinitely: as they age they gain experience, and younger investments gradually take over from retiring players, on something like a rolling 7-8 year cycle. The only additional measure required is probably going to be an initial supplement of older more experienced players: a kind of 'float' of experience.
Who's right? Is it a small time and defeatist approach? Or a potentially winning strategy?
