KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Is it possible we now support a zombie club?

the wait is too much

we need him gone

Its not how much you spend but who you spend it on.

How problem is we spend way too much money on average players they realistically are half that value.

I would rather see one of the youngsters given a chance than a 15m average signing that doesn't contribute anything more than our reverse team would have.

[quote=Darren_1981How problem is we spend way too much money on average players they realistically are half that value.

I would rather see one of the youngsters given a chance than a 15m average signing that doesn't contribute anything more than our reverse team would have.[/quote]

The "average" players you speak of are all home grown, which implies their transfer fees were padded by 50% because it's a seller's market. So when you look at the 16m paid for Henderson, you have to understand that we paid that money for a 10-11m pound player. Now I'll accept that he's not even been 10m worth, but the fact that he's young (20) still counts in his favour, and his first season was never going to be his best.

I can see that when you say "given a chance" you mean "play the whole season". That is just about the worst thing one can do with 18 year old players.

The "average" players you speak of are all home grown, which implies their transfer fees were padded by 50% because it's a seller's market. So when you look at the 16m paid for Henderson, you have to understand that we paid that money for a 10-11m pound player. Now I'll accept that he's not even been 10m worth, but the fact that he's young (20) still counts in his favour, and his first season was never going to be his best.

I can see that when you say "given a chance" you mean "play the whole season". That is just about the worst thing one can do with 18 year old players. [/quote]

It might be agree to disagree moment here but why is playing an 18 year old all season a bad idea? if their good enough their young enough, i.e messi, ronaldo, owen, etc. Also remember these 18 year olds are playing and training every day aswell, they just play in reserve matches instead of premier league games. The only added extra is the pressure of 40k fans chanting their name (well hopefully in a postive manner if they're playing well)

We can agree to disagree, certainly.

Did Messi play 90% of the Barcelona games when he was 18? Did Owen for Liverpool? The problem is not when things are going well, but when things go less well. Henderson has been hung out to dry by his club's fans, and if you think that doesn't get in his head when he's playing you're terribly wrong. Flanagan is half the player he was less than a season ago. Wilshire has barely taken the field this season.

I have no problem with giving these guys "a chance", which is to say roughly 10 appearances in a season, perhaps a start or two if they seem to be able to take the pressure. But giving them a chance does not remove the need to sign a first pick player in that position, regardless of whether that player is average, and regardless of what he costs.

I've not actually responded to the OP in this thread.

I think it's easy to view a change in the stance of the owners regarding spending with reservations, easy to misinterpret their motives when one doesn't have the full picture. As a businessman myself, I can understand their desire to keep costs down while trying to maximize the return on their investment, particularly their assets. I can understand that they will try as much as possible to NOT spend their own money in order to "right the ship", so to speak. So from a purely business perspective, it's very important that maintaining the status quo does not cost more money unless it is abundantly clear that making no change will be detrimental to their investment.

Now obviously one must understand the business one is in before one can judge the effect of one's actions, so I think it's unfair to say that FSG have not learned something about football in their time in charge of Liverpool. They do not need to understand football tactics per se, but they do need a general grasp of things in order to judge whether on-field issues are due more to management or more to player deficiencies. When things are going well it's really easy to discover core issues, but with a club in transition (as Liverpool is while it tries to recover from Hicks and Gillet) then it becomes much more difficult to assess where the real issues lie and which people to trust.

FSG had every right to be disappointed with the loss in the FA Cup final, considering we had already missed the CL gravy train. But the result should have been less important than how we played - and that our best player sat the bench for an hour should have been a sign that we chose to handicap ourselves for such a crucial game. Results will come if one has the right people in place, and the only way to judge the people is to see how they perform. The FA Cup final and the subsequent game at Anfield against the same club would have shown more brightly than words the failure of the manager rather than the failure of the players.

Whether they are prepared to spend their own money to change the manager or whether they think a motivational speech will help him come right is for debate, but being businessmen I suspect they will lean toward the latter based upon the effect that Dalglish had on the club last season and that we do not have 10 000 empty seats at Anfield.

Wilshire has been out injured which is why he hasn't played.

It isn't down to a player's age if they can handle responsibility and pressure it is down to their individual personality. A player of 30 can still have a break down.

With Henderson i think a major issue is playing him in the wrong position of right wing.

whats a zombie club?? lol

It was mean't to mean that the club is in shell form e.g just ticking over for a year prior to either being sold or FSG enact major plans to take the club forward.

Oh right.