KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum In defence of Rafa, Roy and Kenny

When will the blame get placed squarely upon the players? This is basically the same core of squad players the last 3 years, that gave up on rafa and finished 8th, got Roy fired by not trying and are now in danger of tarnishing Kenny's reputation with some fans. They get paid massive amounts of money to be average premiership players at best, even in Rafa's best years the team was constantly being bailed out by Stevie G's heroics and Torres in his prime. The back 8 plus the majority of midfielders are the same, yet we expect these players who have consistently underperformed over the lifetime of their contracts to be challenging for champions League football and the premiership title, get real!! It's time to put the blame squarely where it lies, on the players. If any of us are not able to perform our job at an acceptable level we get fired not our bosses!!!!!!

I see what you're saying but at the end of the day, the buck stops with the manager. He is responsible for the players that he picks, signs, coaches etc - that's just the way it is. Bosses do get fired for their staff's performances though - the difference, good bosses get rid of the bad rubbish where as kenny plays them week in week out. He's only got himself to blame.
On the Rafa side of things, how can you say that we got bailed out by gerrard/torres....? isn't it their job to win us games?

HAIL CAESAR!

Unfortunately you are right about the buck stopping with the manager, but will the next guy be able to make make Gerrard and carra younger, agger more durable, Johnson less dopey, etc... We're on our third manager in less than 3 years..

Perhaps if FSG had gone with their original plan and not sentiment by listening to the fans we wouldn't be looking at another manager already!!!

i think the buck stops with the manager because i think with a few tweaks we could be a pretty good team. those tweaks are IMO; play higher up the pitch, take most of gerrard's defensive responsibilities off of him, play him behind suarez, play downing exclusively on the left, restrict suarez's movement he wastes far too much energy on the wings, he should touch the ball less. but a higher percentage of his touches should be in around the box where he can hurt the opponents, try johnson on the right of midfield we might get a bit more width then.

That doesn't mean we are wrong to sack underperforming managers though. it just means we have made a couple of very poor appointments.
What is the alternative - to lower our expectations, stick our heads in the sand and wait patiently for kenny to win us the premier league?

+1. The players who played against Fulham were largely dreadful (except Carroll who had a decent game despite that), but that was not the best XI and therefore should be expected to struggle.
There are certainly times when the players don't stand up - Bolton away for instance - but this squad generally has enough about it to be higher up the table. The best XI could also be shaped differently, with a tactical tweak. Perhaps that tactical tweak won't be enough in the absence of Lucas, but it's clear we don't get the best out of the players we have (esp Gerrard, Suarez, Downing, Bellamy, Carroll), and that will always fall harder on the manager and his staff than the players.

or the championship

Maybe the alternative is to support the club until we win the premier league no matter who the manager is?