Re: Liverpool FC
Postano: 23 jan 2012, 08:49
Postao/la fera
A lot of people are putting Liverpool’s run of poor form down to the signings made in 2011. While a lot of money was spent, it’s important to remember that several players who didn’t want to be at Liverpool FC anymore – some of them erstwhile idols – were sold in the process.
Some fans and pundits blame Kenny Dalglish for certain signings, others are gunning for Damien Comolli. But in this situation, both the manager and the Director of Football have agreed to all the deals, so it seems wrong to apportion blame to one or the other (or indeed credit on the transfers that have worked).
It’s also important to note that without Lucas Leiva and Luis Suarez – the Reds’ best players this season – the XI will be considerably weakened; add Gerrard’s obvious rustiness, and it’s been a struggle at times, as the early season flow has ebbed away. That said, the performance at Bolton was undeniably dreadful.
Criticism keeps coming back to the signings of Carroll, Downing, Adam and Henderson. As a quartet, for the money paid, they look rather uninspiring; perhaps they are just too British and unremarkable. There seems to have been a desire (beyond quota necessities) to go down a British route for the past 18 months.
Having analysed almost 2,000 Premier League signings since 1994, I can see no correlation between buying British (or players with Premier League experience) and a greater deal of hits than misses. You get successes and failures either way, but there are obviously more good players beyond these shores (a whole world of them) than within.
Indeed, if you look at Liverpool’s purchasing over the last 20 years, the majority of those bought from this league have failed to meet expectations.
The best buys – Hyypia, Torres, Reina, Alonso, Lucas, Babbel, Agger, Kuyt and Suarez – had no prior experience of our league (while Mascherano had just a handful of games) before arriving; beyond Hamann, and McAllister for those six weeks in 2001, I’m struggling to think of one Liverpool signing from the Premier League since its inception that can stand alongside those players. (Finnan was very good, albeit after a poor first year.) There have been quite a few decent ones, but few outstanding.
Having said that, two of the Reds best players this season – Enrique and Bellamy – had experience of our league, and were bargains due to contractual situations. But even they’ve been eclipsed by Suarez from the 2011 signings. Meanwhile, Hodgson’s one and only success out of six attempts in 2010 was Meireles, from Porto; Cole (on massive wages) and Konchesky flopped.
I agree that the quartet of ‘overpriced’ Brits signed in 2011 does underwhelm as a collection – even if it’s unfair to simply ignore the quartet of successes bought in the same period. Just as you wouldn’t say Dalglish and Comolli’s purchasing has been a complete success based purely on buying Suarez, Enrique, Bellamy and the quietly impressive Coates, you can’t write off their business by ignoring the deals they got right.
As bringing down the wage bill was part of the criteria, and Champions League football was not an incentive to offer, there were limitations in place, so it’s not been a case of cherry-picking the elite.
And that quartet is not beyond hope.
For me, Henderson – as one of those seen by many to be failing – has actually been increasingly impressive (albeit in an ‘unremarkable’ way, a la early Lucas), and I think he has a very bright future. He’s often looked lost on the right, when doing a job out there for the team, but has still had some bright moments out there. In the middle, he sees things early. He’s a fine first-time passer, and that’s quite rare in English midfielders, even if he does have the classic British ‘good engine’.
I’ve discussed Carroll at length in the past, but the longer it goes on, the more the doubts get cemented; the longer he fails, the greater the weight grows. The pressure of being a Liverpool player, as well as a record transfer, is not sitting easily on his broad shoulders.
He’s not even doing the things he’d proven good at earlier in his career; such as heading at goal. That tells me it’s largely a confidence issue, rather than a technical one. Things that were once routine and instinctive are now laboured and over-thought.
Crucially, he lacks the pace to be a menace in other areas, to compensate for those times when the goals aren’t going in. And though he’s worked hard in some recent games, whilst being isolated up front, I don’t like seeing the way he gives up in certain situations, and moans rather than chasing back. His general attitude doesn’t look the best, and maybe he has to mature as a person before he can mature as a player.
That said, he has superb shooting technique, particularly when he doesn’t have time to dwell on what to do (another sign of confidence issues).
There’s something there; more raw talent than he’s given credit for. But like players whose touch isn’t perfect, his can look awful when low on confidence. (Maybe the defining skill of great players is that their first touch remains, even when they’re struggling to score – or whatever it is they are in the side to do. Most players struggle to control the ball as well when in poor form, as the body becomes more rigid due to anxiety; there’s less of that perfect ‘give’ in the contact. Those very best players, you feel, could control the ball blindfolded, with their feet moored in hard-set cement.)
I’ve no doubt that Carroll can be a lot better than he’s shown during a difficult first year, but it’s getting harder to see him living up to initial expectations, or matching the striker who improved rapidly in his final 18 months at Newcastle. I’ve noted it before, but the kind of striker he is – the big, strong target-man without blistering pace – tends to get better with age and experience (as he learns how to take up better positions, and uses his wiles to trick and bully defenders). But it may need a move to a smaller club, for a smaller fee, to enable him to relax back into his game. Right now, it seems that there’s no end in sight to his tension.
Stewart Downing is another concern. He’s always been a good player, but once there’s a £20m price tag, people expect a great one. He started brightly, but has faded to relative anonymity. That said, he has done part of his job to good effect.
The ex-Villa winger has created a whopping 41 chances in the league this season, yet has no assists. Numbers can never tell you how good chances are, but it’s often not been his fault that the person on the end of the pass or cross hasn’t converted it.
There’s also no doubt that he started very brightly before losing his confidence; Nigel Clough Syndrome, as it were. Downing looks a fine addition to the squad, but needs to take more responsibility in the final third. He seems to shoot when 30 yards out, when nothing is expected, but passes the buck, and the ball, when better placed.
Then there’s Charlie Adam. I admit that I’m struggling a bit with the Scot, although since Lucas’ injury (and the injury and suspensions suffered by Spearing) he’s not had a partner who does the dirty work, which hasn’t helped. (Gerrard is just not tactically alert enough.)
Adam has great long-range passing ability, and can be hard to stop when he runs with the ball, but just seems so stupid at times: daft shots from his own half, daft tackles where he fouls on purpose, and even his famed set-pieces have stopped beating the first man. (Another sign of confidence and pressure; Adam’s corners have turned into a waste, and Carroll’s headers rarely trouble keepers.)
That said, Adam, at the fee paid, isn’t a bad signing. He’s certainly an upgrade on Christian Poulsen – just less so on Meireles and Aquilani.
Success Rates
I’ve referred to it many times, but my theory is that 50% seems to be a decent success rate for transfers. The more you pay, the greater the odds of success; even if it’s still nowhere near guaranteed. But overall, you’ll do well to better 50% of signings being spot-on.
(For Liverpool, only Bob Paisley bettered it; he still signed flops, but had an incredible success rate. Shankly, Benítez and Dalglish MKI didn’t have the best strike rates, but when they got it right, they added brilliance on numerous occasions. Houllier only really succeeded when buying defensive players, whereas Roy Evans got the Reds playing good attacking football, but didn’t make one great signing of any kind. Souness not only bought badly on the whole, but little was recouped from his deals.)
To date, based on the performances of the big signings (over £10m), Dalglish/Comolli have probably fallen below the usual success rate for such purchases; but with the cheaper ones, they have a better than average success rate.
If you look at Manchester City’s rise to the top, it came via a rapid keep-and-discard policy. They paid £25m for Emmanuel Adebayor, and awarded him three times the wages Andy Carroll receives; and yet now he’s loaned to Spurs, to help them challenge at the top. City still pay most of his £12m a year wages.
Jo, for £19m, came and went. Robinho broke the transfer record, but failed to show any commitment. Lescott is now playing well, but looked iffy for quite a while at £22m. Milner also took a while to look the part. Jerome Boateng cost £11m, but came and went. Tal Ben-Haim didn’t do anything. Then there’s £17.5m Santa Cruz.
Savic, for £9m, has looked shaky, but he’s a young defender, and that happens. However, Samir Nasri – full of Premier League experience (and excellence) – has failed to settle after a £22m move. Eden Dzeko has had just a couple of prolific months amid a year of profligacy; he was crap, then he was sensational, and now he’s just ‘okay’.
Of course, City can afford to let dead wood float to the outer regions of their squad, and take large financial hits on flops. But it shows how they didn’t just sign Aguero, Balotelli, Kompany, Silva, Yaya Toure et al in one fell swoop, and they weren’t all instantly outstanding. City bought just as many failures over the past four years, but successful teams are built by retaining the best buys in each window and, further down the line, cutting losses on the worst. City did it quickly, but it still took about four years to build this team.
Spurs remain ahead of Liverpool because they have been building over the past four or five years. Some of Comolli’s initial ‘flops’ from his time there now undoubtedly key men; particularly Bale and Modric.
This summer, Redknapp offloaded half of the misfiring strikers he’d bought (Keane and Crouch, who barely scored in the league last season), and appears to have invested more wisely this time around (although the aforementioned ‘borrowing’ of Adebayor suggests the loan ruling is a farce). Van der Vaart was a very good signing last season, but Steven Pienaar has disappeared without trace.
It’s clearly been a gradual process, though, and stability at the top, and Champions League qualification, has meant that they’ve held onto their best players. By comparison, Liverpool have been far more unsettled. By contrast, Liverpool are in transition.
Arsenal are also in transition; losing key men (Fabregas, Nasri), suffering injuries, and buying several new players in 2011. Oxlade-Chamberlain, costing £12m at just 18, looks a very good buy, although he’s only started one league game (his impact will be longer term). Mikel Arteta is another good buy, but even so, is Fabregas-Lite. However, the defending of Per Mertesacker and Andre Santos has been very poor in the games I’ve seen (as has the rookie Jenkinson, though at 19 he has an excuse), and Yossi Benayoun has barely featured. The Korean, Park Chu-Young, has made no impact whatsoever.
And Wenger is someone with an excellent transfer record.
Turnover
Bearing in mind my theory of a 50% strike rate on transfers, I’m always nervous when there’s a high turnover of players in a window. If you sell four good players, and buy four new players, you will almost certainly not end up with four successes; particularly so in the early period, when some acclimatisation may be necessary. For every good player you sell, you almost have to buy two to cover the odds of failure.
I think it’s fair to say that Liverpool needed to get rid of a fair few players in 2011. Some were on exorbitant wages, and some wanted out anyway; in many cases, it was players on exorbitant wages who wanted out. Plenty weren’t that young. Change was unavoidable.
So I hesitate before criticising the selling of these players, given the varying reasons behind the departures.
That said, Torres, Meireles, Aquilani, Babel and Cole (in terms of talent, if not application) were all experienced internationals with lots of ability. Would Liverpool be better off having kept them? If it was possible, then the short term, perhaps yes; even if, long term, these were not the future of the club.
Now, by contrast, it’s fair to say that Kyrgiakos’ time was up, and Poulsen’s time was up years ago. Degen had to be shown the door, as he’d probably not be able to find it himself. And Jovanovic never settled. Nabil El Zhar never lived up to early promise. And Insua, Ngog and Ayala were young and likely to have good careers, if not necessarily in the Liverpool first team (although I’m still not sure why Ayala wasn’t simply loaned to Norwich). These were the players that Liverpool didn’t particularly need.
Torres, Meireles, Aquilani and Babel, however, were players who, at the very least, were usually worthy of a place in Liverpool’s 18 man match-day squad. They weren’t perfect: Torres had grown moody, Meireles bottled tackles, Aquilani had injury issues and Babel could drive you mad.
But Torres was still fairly prolific for the Reds; Meireles was good enough for Chelsea to poach; Aquilani was cast off to the Italian champions; and Babel had raw pace and the ability to score a few goals, when he found his way in from a blind alley (and has since returned to the Dutch squad).
Were Carroll, Henderson, Adam and Downing likely to be better? Based on my theory, no.
To compare, the fees were almost identical; Liverpool spent approximately £75m on that new quartet, after raising roughly £73m. However, it’s only fair to note that the wages for the new players are considerably lower – several million pounds per year – and that the average age of the new quartet is more than two years younger.
In some ways it’s reminiscent of 2002. Houllier had recently got rid of (or lost the services of) Fowler, Barmby, Babbel, McAllister, Litmanen and Ziege, who had played varying roles in two impressive seasons, and to replace them, spent a lot of money on young French-based players, in Diouf, Cheyrou and Diao. Experience and quality was lost, with little gained in return. Even though a case can be made for offloading each of those sold – age, injuries, attitude, etc – on the whole it proved counterproductive.
In 2002, Liverpool wasted money in France, and a cry when up to buy from these shores; now people think the Reds are wasting money in England. Of course, whereas Diao, Cheyrou and Diouf left as flops, the current crop still have time to prove themselves. But it does show the perils of overhauling a squad.
In order to add three or four successes, Liverpool had to buy twice that number of players, to beat the law of averages. Upgrading on flops is easy; the worst you can do is end up with more-or-less what you had to start with. Replacing quality is much harder.
And if you want to compare those two aforementioned quartets, and find unfavourably on the new guys, you have to then look at the remainder: Suarez, Bellamy, Coates and Enrique versus Ngog, Jovanovic, Insua and Poulsen.
With the 2011 net spend around £35m, but with the wage bill slashed due to lack of Champions League income, it could be said that Liverpool haven’t really moved on (or regressed) that much; reshaping the squad, without getting into debt.
The Reds are on course for 60 points, which is still 12 more than the tally (pro rata) posted under Hodgson, but have also won away at Stoke, Chelsea and Manchester City in the cup; three undeniably fine results that have taken the Reds to the brink of their first final since 2007. That’s clearly some kind of progress.
Crucially, the average age of the squad has been significantly lowered, which suggests that improvement is possible, as individuals mature and as the players get to know one another better.
But of course, the risk is also that these young men never come of age, and end up as dead wood. Making mistakes is part and parcel of the transfer business; but big decisions may lie in who deserves an extended period of perseverance, and who represents losses to be swiftly cut.
Re: Liverpool FC
Postano: 23 jan 2012, 12:14
Postao/la Henderson
Nije nikad bio problem velikim ekipama baciti od 5 do 10 miliona eura ili funti na nekog igrača koji može nekad postati veliki igrač ili prosjek. Tako se SAF kockao sa Chicharitom i Bebeom, jedan uspio drugi nije. Wenger to često radi. Ništa ni Chelsi nije bolje prošao sa Sturidgom ili Oriolom, jedan je došao džabe drugi na posudbu a oba su uspjela.
Prema tome nije neka šteta ako se dovede Jelavić za nekih 5 ili 6 miliona koliko se spominje. On zna dati go i jak se u duelima a podjednako igra i nogom i glavom. Vidim čak je i dva gola dao makazicama.
No, ja ne bih volio da on dođe isključivo jer je balkanac. Nikad nisam volio vanevropske igrače zbog njihovog temperamenta ( jedan je Messi ) ili bezosjećajnosti za pripadnost nekom klubu ( jedan je Zanetti ) niti volim balkanske igrače zbog sindroma vruće glave ( jedan je Vidić, mada ni njemu crveni nije nepoznanica ).
Ali kad pogledam temu Edin Džeko, odmah mi naumpadne tema na nekom hrvatskom portalu ili možda ovom o Jelaviću. Da neko ulijeće ovdje na temu je li igra Jelavić, hoće li biti u prvoj postavi, šta King glumi ili možda i psovka uz to ... A, ne ne.
Mada opet, sa druge strane, bio je Jovanović pa nismo imali problema, ali gledajući Modrića i hvalospjeve i ostalo, mislim da bi i Jelavićeva tema bila kao i Džekina.
Sve ima svoje mane i prednosti, Jelavić nije loš za trećeg napadača ali ima Morgan, ima Raheem, ima Ngoo ...
Nego, sva nesreća koja nas prati u ligi okrenula se na sreću u kupovima. Težak raspored zbog gostovanja se vraća na lahak raspored zbog povreda, suspenzija i svakojakih odlazaka igrača u protivničkoj ekipi. City desetkovan u srijedu, idemo završiti taj posao. Potom ništa bolje ni United nije prošao. Ko zna, možda nam je suđeno da ipak uzmemo dva trofeja ove sezone
A onda naredne sezone napasti LP. Samo polahko i razumno. Long live the King.
Ne znam koliko ste upoznati, ali King se nije iz Boltona vratio sa ekipom niti je održao govor poslije utakmice u svlačionici. Bio je veoma ljut. Vidim da je danas dao sljedeću izjavu:
"I was annoyed and disappointed, more so about the attitude, the commitment and the approach to the game - that wasn't us." Nažalost, izgleda jedino on vjeruje u Liverpool, onaj kakv je bio i da još uvijek postoji ta ekipa. Možda se nije dovoljno opekao. Nema tu izjava popravićemo se ili slično, nego baš u kost i navijačima i igračima.
Lucas se vratio iz Brazila u Liverpool. Suarezu ostale još 3 utakmice suspenzije. To je to, na brzinu osnovne informacije.
Ne znam sto josh KK ceka sa prodajom Maxija i Kuyta,koliko god da se dobije para od njih dvojice,dobro je, i onda uzet' kvalitetno desno krilo.Ocito je da nam treba..
tuga brate ako budemo dovodili Jelavice i njemu slicne mi necemo vidjeti LP jos dugo dugo vremena 
