Where are we going as a club?

[Bootle Buck]

It's almost a year since Moores sold the club to Gillett and Hicks and although initially most of us were impressed it is seeming more and more likely that selkling to G&H may have been a mistake. There main interest seemed to be the development of the stadium and as we all know we have hit many snags there. They haven't been as generous as we may have expected in the transfer budget. Add to that the fact that we still seem to buy players in volume rather than quality.

 

IMO a club has to almost buy success these days with really only Blackburn Rovers and Chelsea snatching it from the Mancs or the A***. If G&H continue to be somewhat guarded with their checkbook as they have in recent months how realistically can Rafa ever expect to win the league. If we are going to have to wait for the extended revenue from the new stadium to buy top echelon players then we may be 10 years away from realistically challenging. Unless G&H can free up the cash to Rafa or bring in their own men and fund him correctly will we forever be 4th place finsishers?

 

In retrospect should we have held out for investors with deeper pockets and a true ambition to build a winning club rather than find stadium developers. I think G&H need to come forward and either dig deep or move on. Otherwise this club will become very divided and stagnant.

Edited January 12, 2008 by Bootle Buck

[Guest Si]

Stagnant is the right word i think.

 

The club appears to be standing still, despite the investment we seem to be going in totally the opposite direction everyone expected.

 

You are right about the investment, it does seem like we sold out to a stadium development team rather than a group of individuals that can make us a winning club.

 

Sold out for bricks and mortar after 120 years of history. f*** me.

[Maldini]

Moscow hopefully

[Benzo-13]

Stagnant is the right word i think.

 

The club appears to be standing still, despite the investment we seem to be going in totally the opposite direction everyone expected.

 

You are right about the investment, it does seem like we sold out to a stadium development team rather than a group of individuals that can make us a winning club.

 

Sold out for bricks and mortar after 120 years of history. f*** me.

 

Agree with that.

Those two just don't inspire confidence at all and its their fault and only their fault we're in this current negative media mess.

 

If they sacked Rafa, it'd take a lot to still support this club with them owning it.

Edited January 12, 2008 by Benzo-13

[Tyler]

we'll be ok.

things are always blackest before the dawn

 

too much uncertainty at the moment which is not helping but the new stadium is a pre-requisite to our success

 

without the new owners we would not have signed torres

 

too many players out of form, manager in denial, paco not replaced

bar has been raised by chelsea and now united

 

2 champions league finals in 3 years

we need to keep things in perspective

[psl]

Agree with that.

Those two just don't inspire confidence at all and its their fault and only their fault we're in this current negative media mess.

 

If they sacked Rafa, it'd take a lot to still support this club with them owning it.

 

Despite the fact Rafa was the one that went public?

[AJ The Red]

Its simple we dont have good enough players to sustain a season long title charge.

 

May sound stupid but Rafa has had to settle for second best a fair few times and

i think the fact that he did is biting him in the ass.We have a good core but the

rest arnt good enough for our club.with hindsight prehaps Rafa should have kicked

up a fuss about being backed at the time rather than buy

[Benzo-13]

Despite the fact Rafa was the one that went public?

 

Yes. Getting in the way of his management in any shape or form was wrong..

 

When has that EVER happened at this club?? Straight from Doug Ellis book of chairmanship that was.

[Guest RedLegend]

If G&H continue to be somewhat guarded with their checkbook as they have in recent months how realistically can Rafa ever expect to win the league.

 

They've hardly been that guarded. We made our record transfer under them and have just made our record transfer for a defender.

[psl]

Yes. Getting in the way of his management in any shape or form was wrong..

 

When has that EVER happened at this club?? Straight from Doug Ellis book of chairmanship that was.

 

Maybe it should have happened more? Wouldn't it have been better if someone had questioned Houllier's expenditure?

[Chewie]

here's my real fear...

 

we have been bought by two men from a culture in which the branding of a sport is more important than the domination of that sport by any one particular team - the drafting systems take care of that. There are periods of dominance but they are usually shorter and when players retire and the draft improvements in the weaker teams kick in there is a changing of the guard. But this doesn't actually matter as everyone still gets paid...what matters more is NBA, NHL etc and if you're in that loop there's no need to worry about actually winning....

 

for this read being at the top end of the premier league and a regular qualifier for the Champions league...you don't actually need to win these for the rewards financially to be great, especially if you have a loyal fan base that you can exploit because they will follow the club even if they were playing in the conference...its big stadium, big branding, big franchises exploiting the collective success of the premier and champions league that really matters. All you have to do is be along for the ride and roll in the reflective glory of other team's success. Without a draft system though you're relying on three things....

 

1. being big enough so that you can't be kept out out of the loop (we fit this mould)

2. having a decent manager to make us competitive (we have this) and periodically threatening success (cup runs, champs league qualification...)

3. having enough star names to keep the profile (we have this)

 

after that you've got to ask yoruself the hard question....why break the bank to finish first when finishing fourth gives you all of the above?

 

that's my fear...

 

Chewie

[Guest Si]

Maybe it should have happened more? Wouldn't it have been better if someone had questioned Houllier's expenditure?

 

Not publicly, it should be at boardroom level, internally.

[psl]

Not publicly, it should be at boardroom level, internally.

 

They didn't question anything publicly until Rafa went public did they?

[Benzo-13]

Maybe it should have happened more? Wouldn't it have been better if someone had questioned Houllier's expenditure?

 

Well it was thought that Essien was blocked but Houllier cut his own throat with the Diao, Diouf and Cheyrou debacle.

[Guest dKing]

"“May sound stupid but Rafa has had to settle for second best a fair few times"

 

No it doesn’t ,

in Rafa’s press conference for Scrotal he mentioned the lad being "value for money" as two of the other targets we where watching were 16mil euros(I think) and 20milion euros (for sure). It got me thinking before the lad kicks a ball , how good is he ? Decent or class . As class is what we need.

 

We have to be realistic we can't compete with the big spenders and have to look in the bargain basement , that might sound mad having spent a RECORD amount on a defender for us but 6 million pales into significance when for example you look at the other 15 teams in the last 16 of the CL. I’m sure the ones who have a realistic chance of winning it probably have defender which cost a lot more than 6 million .

 

This prompted me to write this question for Rick Parry who is on LFC TV soon .

I’m not good with writing so I hope it makes sense , it does in my head but ay be not on paper , so apologies .

 

Question,

 

'With the prospect of raising so much money to build the new stadium added to the fact we are already financially miles behind Chelsea(due to their current owner and financier) ,meaning we can only afford 'mid range ' players(Torres aside) in important positions so can't install the winning mentality we once had in league games (unlike Utd),together with the fact we don’t seem to be able to scout/attract young talent in the way Arsenal (Arsene Wenger) do.

 

Should we (as supporters of LFC) be less demanding in the foreseeable future and accept our lot of Rafa attempting to get us to whatever cup finals he can and qualify in 4th place for the following seasons Champions League ?

 

Should we be realistic and realise we haven't got the money to keep up with Chelsea and United in the premier and until Arsen Wenger retires will be the 4th team in England ?

[alias75]

The new owners have to understand fast that success on the pitch is the only way we'll be successful off it. There are already 3 or 4 new clubs that can match our current level of spending, if we stand still teams like Man City, Villa, Spurs, Everton, Portsmouth will overtake us and we'll be playing for 4th place.

 

Things are pretty grim at the moment but i hopefully that brings certain issues that are holding us back into the open and they're resolved.

 

A new stadium is vital if we want to compete with Man Utd but we also need a top team, Ferguson has been backed with around 70 million in the summer on top of what was already a title winning team, should we expect Rafa to compete with that?

 

Personally id take slow improvement over the next few seasons, so we dont drop behind those teams chasing 4th place, add 1 or 2 players that will really improve the first team, get rid of some of the dead weight and bring some younger players through. Once the stadium is ready we can close the gap, but for the short term it'll probably a case of trying to compete on an unequal footing yet again.

 

In a perfect world id have someone to buy out G+H someone thats able to give the manager 100 million for players.

[Nebraska Red]

[

Should we (as supporters of LFC) be less demanding in the foreseeable future and accept our lot of Rafa attempting to get us to whatever cup finals he can and qualify in 4th place for the following seasons Champions League ?

 

Should we be realistic and realise we haven't got the money to keep up with Chelsea and United in the premier and until Arsen Wenger retires will be the 4th team in England ?

 

 

I think many of the more realistic fans of this club do agree with this assessment, but hope and pray for something better.

 

Something has to change, and for me it is the attitude our players display on the pitch.

 

In so many games we play scared, afraid of losing and we look like we did today for 80 minutes, disjointed and second best when it came to scrapping for the ball.

 

Chewie's comment about settling for less than the best rings true when it comes to Amrican sports. To many of the owners over here, it's all about money and not necessarily winning trophies. There is so much revenue from TV and ticket sales that owners can make a nice profit. Some owners don't really care about ticket sales as they get so much TV money. They take the view that they can put out any kind of team and still get their cash.

 

Only time will tell if our owners are all about trophies or money.

[ricflairandy]

"“May sound stupid but Rafa has had to settle for second best a fair few times"

 

No it doesn’t ,

in Rafa’s press conference for Scrotal he mentioned the lad being "value for money" as two of the other targets we where watching were 16mil euros(I think) and 20milion euros (for sure). It got me thinking before the lad kicks a ball , how good is he ? Decent or class . As class is what we need.

 

We have to be realistic we can't compete with the big spenders and have to look in the bargain basement , that might sound mad having spent a RECORD amount on a defender for us but 6 million pales into significance when for example you look at the other 15 teams in the last 16 of the CL. I’m sure the ones who have a realistic chance of winning it probably have defender which cost a lot more than 6 million .

 

This prompted me to write this question for Rick Parry who is on LFC TV soon .

I’m not good with writing so I hope it makes sense , it does in my head but ay be not on paper , so apologies .

 

Question,

 

'With the prospect of raising so much money to build the new stadium added to the fact we are already financially miles behind Chelsea(due to their current owner and financier) ,meaning we can only afford 'mid range ' players(Torres aside) in important positions so can't install the winning mentality we once had in league games (unlike Utd),together with the fact we don’t seem to be able to scout/attract young talent in the way Arsenal (Arsene Wenger) do.

 

Should we (as supporters of LFC) be less demanding in the foreseeable future and accept our lot of Rafa attempting to get us to whatever cup finals he can and qualify in 4th place for the following seasons Champions League ?

 

Should we be realistic and realise we haven't got the money to keep up with Chelsea and United in the premier and until Arsen Wenger retires will be the 4th team in England ?

 

 

The arsene wenger whos won nothing in the last 3 years and finshed below us in the last 2?

[psl]

The arsene wenger whos won nothing in the last 3 years and finshed below us in the last 2?

 

He's won the double a couple of times too.

[Guest stevie73]

"“May sound stupid but Rafa has had to settle for second best a fair few times"

 

No it doesn’t ,

in Rafa’s press conference for Scrotal he mentioned the lad being "value for money" as two of the other targets we where watching were 16mil euros(I think) and 20milion euros (for sure). It got me thinking before the lad kicks a ball , how good is he ? Decent or class . As class is what we need.

 

We have to be realistic we can't compete with the big spenders and have to look in the bargain basement , that might sound mad having spent a RECORD amount on a defender for us but 6 million pales into significance when for example you look at the other 15 teams in the last 16 of the CL. I’m sure the ones who have a realistic chance of winning it probably have defender which cost a lot more than 6 million .

 

This prompted me to write this question for Rick Parry who is on LFC TV soon .

I’m not good with writing so I hope it makes sense , it does in my head but ay be not on paper , so apologies .

 

Question,

 

'With the prospect of raising so much money to build the new stadium added to the fact we are already financially miles behind Chelsea(due to their current owner and financier) ,meaning we can only afford 'mid range ' players(Torres aside) in important positions so can't install the winning mentality we once had in league games (unlike Utd),together with the fact we don’t seem to be able to scout/attract young talent in the way Arsenal (Arsene Wenger) do.

 

Should we (as supporters of LFC) be less demanding in the foreseeable future and accept our lot of Rafa attempting to get us to whatever cup finals he can and qualify in 4th place for the following seasons Champions League ?

 

Should we be realistic and realise we haven't got the money to keep up with Chelsea and United in the premier and until Arsen Wenger retires will be the 4th team in England ?

 

 

No chance whatsoever of coco being asked anything that will put him under pressure.

 

Complete waste of time.

[Guest dKing]

"No chance whatsoever of coco being asked anything that will put him under pressure.

 

Complete waste of time."

 

 

Totally agree with you , just had to anyway.