Liverpool's fabled transfer committee is not the problem – just ask Southampton

[doddisalegend]

Saw this article and thought I'd share. Really aimed at Liverpool and their transfer policy but spends lots of time praising saints and Swansea so makes a for a nice read

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/11916075/Liverpools-fabled-transfer-committee-is-not-the-problem-just-ask-Southampton-or-Swansea.html

 

My favorite bit

 

The superiority of Southampton over Liverpool in recruitment has been regularly evident in several direct deals during the past 18 months

[david in sweden]

Liverpool like MU, MC and Chesea..who can virtually buy whoever they want and pay big salaries, it has to be down to the formation the manager favours when buying-in new faces.

I recall that some people criticised Strachan who never seemed to have a Plan B, and most of the time favoured only one system.

 

Nowadays there are teams who play 4-4-2...4-3-3, and now we even have 3-5-2 being used by some others.

Replacing a manager and hiring one who favours an alternative formation could be curtains for those players who are unable to adapt, or can't fit the pattern.

 

IMO Rodgers biggest mistake was signing too many young players and not having enough " old heads " left to help them to adapt / integrate into the team.

Losing; Carragher, Agger and Gerrard (amongst others) in a short space of years made it hard to find suitable replacements.

 

Saints' big question will be; WHO will become the next Jose Fonte when his playing days are fast slipping away.

Most of the others have been satisfactorily replaced, but he is the last of the " Big Six " players who played through L1 and up into the Prem.

 

We had the time to improve and everyone was pleased with our successes and gradual progress. Liverpool's Board will demand a CL place ...EVERY season.

 

Maybe our system works best because we have a manager who approves a list of " possibles " who fit the bill, and we buy who we know we can afford.

Edited 7 October, 2015 by david in sweden

[Wes Tender]

An interesting article and always instructive to read the comments of fans from the glory clubs. One of them thinks that it is all down to how good the club's scouts are, ignoring the bit where we also rely on the backroom team of 20 analysts who look at the attributes of players often years ahead of when we make a move for them. Another ponders whether technology analysis can possibly be superior to a top manager appraising a player, ignoring the possibility that the wider ranging analysis will take into account character and temperament and the importance of those players being capable of bonding well with their team mates. He then asks what the point of it all is when clubs like Swansea and particularly Southampton have to sell those star players.

 

Well, the evidence of the past few years of success by both clubs has proven that despite it always being the case that players will obviously wish to move to the glory clubs and substantially improve their wealth, nevertheless it is not the case that they are guaranteed to play as well as they did with the former teams. Neither is it the case that those players cannot be replaced with better players costing less money.

 

He then asks what those two clubs have won, ignoring Swansea's League Cup win a couple of seasons ago, which is later than Liverpool's last Cup in the same competition the year before. It is early days for us, but we are certainly capable of winning a Cup.

 

Another opinion by this poster asks what is the point of long term vision when the success ethos is based on short termism. Well, it is all very well for the glory clubs to rely on their income from their bigger stadium capacities and their millions of plastic fans around the World, but the rest like us and Swansea have to rely on the well developed long-term strategy to grow gradually and sustainably. What is clear though, is that clubs like us two and the likes of Crystal Palace are capable of producing teams of players capable of beating the top four on their day and that clubs like Liverpool and Spurs have declined from the forces that they once were and we are now breathing down their necks.

[VectisSaint]

IMO Rodgers biggest mistake was signing too many young players and not having enough " old heads " left to help them to adapt / integrate into the team.

Losing; Carragher, Agger and Gerrard (amongst others) in a short space of years made it hard to find suitable replacements.

Rodgers biggest problem was actually sticking with an aging, largely ineffective Gerrard and not having the ingenuity/foresight to replace him before he became a dinosaur, as well as not paying attention to the need for disciplined central midfield rather than a multitude of attackers.

Edited 7 October, 2015 by VectisSaint

[VectisSaint]

An interesting article and always instructive to read the comments of fans from the glory clubs.

I particularly enjoyed the poster that stated, presumably in all seriousness, that it is not the recruitment policy that is at fault but that the players are generally poor footballers. So the recruitment policy selects poor new players. If the LFC "fans" responding on that site were representative, then they will continue to have a major problem. I hope they are (as this will be to our benefit), but suspect that the club management of LFC have more understanding of what is needed. It may have taken them a while but they eventually realised that Brendan Rodgers was seriously lacking in the football management department.

[Professor]

Rodgers derogatory remarks about Southampton when his club signed three of our players was completely unnecessary and may have been an indication of a lack of judgement. On the other hand, Liverpool have not done badly under him, being in the upper levels of the Premier League throughout, although to be expected given the huge sums spent on players. The real problem is the expectations engendered by owners who are ploughing huge sums of money into clubs such as Liverpool, Man U, Man City, Chelsea, etc., but as more money gets around the rest of the Premier League the gap between the top and the rest is closing. Sacking the manager is the common response with Arsenal being about the only exception.

[The9]

Liverpool like MU, MC and Chesea..who can virtually buy whoever they want and pay big salaries, it has to be down to the formation the manager favours when buying-in new faces.

I recall that some people criticised Strachan who never seemed to have a Plan B, and most of the time favoured only one system.

 

Nowadays there are teams who play 4-4-2...4-3-3, and now we even have 3-5-2 being used by some others.

Replacing a manager and hiring one who favours an alternative formation could be curtains for those players who are unable to adapt, or can't fit the pattern.

 

IMO Rodgers biggest mistake was signing too many young players and not having enough " old heads " left to help them to adapt / integrate into the team.

Losing; Carragher, Agger and Gerrard (amongst others) in a short space of years made it hard to find suitable replacements.

 

Saints' big question will be; WHO will become the next Jose Fonte when his playing days are fast slipping away.

Most of the others have been satisfactorily replaced, but he is the last of the " Big Six " players who played through L1 and up into the Prem.

 

We had the time to improve and everyone was pleased with our successes and gradual progress. Liverpool's Board will demand a CL place ...EVERY season.

 

Maybe our system works best because we have a manager who approves a list of " possibles " who fit the bill, and we buy who we know we can afford.

 

Rodgers' biggest mistake was letting himself agree to a load of transfers that didn't give him any flexibility or depth to keep playing his preferred system. And then changing his preferred system all the time.

 

Does anyone still play 4-4-2?

[The9]

Rodgers biggest problem was actually sticking with an aging, largely ineffective Gerrard and not having the ingenuity/foresight to replace him before he became a dinosaur, as well as not paying attention to the need for disciplined central midfield before rather than a multitude of attackers.

 

Actively pandering to his retirement tour certainly didn't help.

[Mr Biscuits]

I've always argued that it is quite dangerous for a player to transfer because often players look good as part of a team. Only rarely do you get players where this does apply - Suarez is a perfect example of this. His talent means he will fit in to whatever regime or formation you have. Bighead Lovren is a perfect example of a player looking great AS A PART OF A TEAM and then getting found out when the team or system is changed.

People forget that Lovren looked good because of the players around him - he had Shaw, Fonte, Yoshida and Clyne to play with and he was sitting behind Wanyama and Schneiderlin, it meant he was able to shine. Look what happened when he wasn't playing with them.

 

The problem for Rodgers is that he traded for too long on the Suarez-Sturridge partnership (which was, let's admit, bloody good)

I'm willing to bet that if he could have kept that partnership the media would still be w*nking over him and telling everyone what an amazing manager he is.if it hadn't been for those two players I doubt he would have lasted a season.

[The9]

Is bizarre how they just blame a committee. In this day and and it would be irresponsible not to have a committee, you just have to make sure the manager plays his part in it. You can of course, have a bad committee, but Liverpool fans and pundits are just opting for the simplistic argument and will no doubt push for a manager in total control like it's the 80s, when they won stuff.

 

Up there with the deluded mentals at Newcastle who wanted Keegan back, and even after that the utterly mindblowing "Shearer in".

[naiser]

I thought the article seem to imply that Liverpool's fabled transfer comm IS the problem. We've got it right, they've not.

 

They'll do well to sign our transfer committee and our even more fabled black box super computer!