FORMER Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier is having a dig at Kenny Dalglish.According to him, Dalglish have to win the premiership to be a success at Liverpool-winning the cups are not enough. I think Houllier knows what he is talking about, he won three cups in one season. Rafa Benitez also won more than three cups during his tenure of office:Rafa also knows what supporters are craving for, we want the premiership than any thing else. Gerard Houllier and Rafa Bentitez are also close to winning the title during their tenure of offices, Kenny Dalglish needs to do better than them.
well, houllier won 3 cups in one year (i don't count super cup or charity shields, those are friendlies) he won antoher carling cup and got us barely into the cl. In the end it was barely scraping to 4th and buying really bad players that got houllier the push. he never ever made a title push in his tenure. houliier had hyppia, henchoz, carragher, hamman, gerrard, owen and others playing for him and crazily added cheyrou, diao (both why) and failed with diouf. I do think however he is speaking a little more about feeling aggreived to lose the job than anythign else. Kenny's nowhere near 4th, and won one cup. he's signed terrible players too.... however houliler didn't have two meag bucks clubs plus utd to compete with as our whole club has now and he also didn't have that bad a team day one as kenny did. All in all houllier might be right that you have to win the league to be the big success. BUT rafa won TWO trpohies, just two... CL and FA cup... not three and he went and made awful buys and bargain bukcet crazyness we all saw as crazy the day he did it... rafa hit CL most consistently but only had one title title
Don't think it was really a dig. Actually sounded more sympathetic. That he understood that as a manager you could win everything else but we the fans would not really count you as a success unless you won the league. He has a point taken over a managers whole career at us.
On this point Houllier is wrong. Yes, the Premiership title along with the CL are the 2 prizes LFC aspire to. However, Dalgliesh's tenure is dedicated to firstly putting us in a position to achieve either or both of those goals. IF, at the end of his term, Liverpool are in such a position then his tenure will have been a golden success. I'm sure that he would love to guide Liverpool to the title and win domestic cups but his focus must firstly be to build a squad that is not only capable of achieving those goals but also sustaining their development.
Players should be running through a brick wall to win the game, after all the flack kenny has taken, and for all he has done for the players, and for the man he is. They need to take a long hard look in the mirror.
Dave; I'm not remotely one of the Anti-Kenny Brigade but do you think that if Kenny lasts for arguments sake 5 years, and by the end adds an FA cup, Uefa cup and for the last 2 years has us competing in the champions league but fails to come close to winning the league he'll be considered any more success than the aforementioned two managers? Personally if his successor goes on to win the league with the team Kenny leaves him I would say yes but what will the majority see?
Frank, I honestly don't think that Kenny will go beyond his present contract. Unless that is he stays on until the right replacement can be found. I truly believe that he considers his role to be to put us back on the right track with a squad that is capable. Further, should he succeed in doing that then I believe that the owners would want a younger manager to take the role on.
agree with baz... if we look at houllier team in 2004. dudek finnan henchoz/carra hyppia risse Smicer Gerrard Hammann kewell owen heskey now look at the trash reserves, diouf, baros,murphy, diao, cheyrou, traore, biscan. I would humbly sumbit to mr houllier that he had the team to do it but FIALED to instill the required professionalism, urgency and demand week to week performances. The likes of keweel are symptomatic of the layabout attitude that has and does exist at our club. we finished 4th on 60 points a truckload behind arsenal who won it on 90 points. I can do the self same analysisof rafa last couple of years. Kenny has sold dross and got in better players BUT two of those players were awful buys (carroll and adam) and one other, downing, has underperformed form where he should be. We are if anything expecting a lot directly as a result of a great run form january to may under kenny last year that got us from relegation to sixth and these signings. I will only judge mr dalglish after 4 seasons and will not assume a cup or two mkaes him a success but neither will i jump to the conclusion that 7th is terrible and call for sackings afte rone year in which a cup was delivered..... the BIGGEST challenge to any LFC manager is to instill genuine discipline and demand perofrmances consistently. kenny stepped out after bolton and called the player son it. but i've not seen much improvement yet.
on dave's point. this is well made as kenny is not young. he could go 7-8 years but equally i can see him bringing in the next man (or maybe thats clarke as he has ambitions) I have to say the english prem not only has two mega bucks 50mil spending clubs but also utd who are exmaples of the utter professionalism and drive i'm talking about... AND newcastle and spurs who have as big a ground and can have as good a steam as us.... all in all its a HUGE task to get to the point of the top 4 let alone a title tilt now.. even in 2004 that was not the case. I think this is a rebuild job and comolli is the guy whos director of paper clips who needs to stay and over see strategy, put the right long terms players in who we can sell on at no loss worst case (unlike the carroll disaster) so that when kenny is rpelace and the next guy wants a different type of player we can do that and move guys round. Having a situation where you rpelace 3 players is a lot better than having to replace 10.
I agree with Houllier. Most of the fans will not be happy until we win the premiership. It is great winning the Cups but the premiership is what us fans are craving for. We won't be truly successful until we won the league. I am not sure whether Kenny is trying to change that perception of success by the fans with his recent interviews but bearing in mind our history I cannot see it changing. However many cups we win Kenny's tenure will be judged a failure unless we perform in the league. Even if doesn't win a single other cup but win the league once, his management will be seen as a triumph.
carl... so why don't we savage our players for not showing the required effort week in and week out then? we want a prem but the reality is we seem to put up with players who we know full well can do better, we make heros out of mercenaries and such. I mean carragher is famous for leaking team sheets to his mates before cup games for betting purposes... why have high standards on one aspect (laudibly) and not hold players to those standards.... we sung rafa's name primarally cos the yanks were assholes but yet he bought in voronin, degen and others... terrible errors yet we sung his name time and again... There's a difference in my mind of viewing a guy over even 3 years and vieing a guy in his first full year, there's a difference in assessing a guys built team verses assessing a work in progress... in hsort houllier was found wanting, he was good, he made himself very ill for us and i thank him but he failed by making bad decisions and he should have elft once he got ill.... kenny has YET to fail something som pople should starting thinking about before the knee jerk stuff is spouted. he's also yet to suceed.
To be fair to Houllier, Gerrard and Carragher were young and had not reached their peak years (23 and 25 respectively when Houllier left). You also have to give him credit for buying Hyypia, Hamann and Henchoz. However, he also and the fortune of inheriting Jamie Redknapp and Robbie Fowler, plus Steve McManaman for a year too. Houllier delivered more trophies but struggled to get Champions League football (worth noting that only top three of the league qualified in the mojority of his reign), only gaining qualification twice in six seasons. Rafa inhertied Hyypia, Gerrard, Carragher, Dudek, Riise, Hamann, Cisse and Smicer, all important parts of the Champions League win. But he also added two key figures in alonso and Garcia. He qualified for the Champions League in all but one season (qualification in the first season was a bit dodgy but still gained) and made the final twice. He challenged for the league title too. Given the choice of Houllier's trophies against Rafa's, I'd opt for Rafa's purely because old big ears is in it.
Over the last 14 months LFC has been the club spending the megabucks. I think the future of LFC is in the academy. It's a club that inspires great loyalty (carra and gerrard for example) so more can be invested without the worry of players being poached. Liverpool need someone like Marcelo Biesla to come in and build something fresh and new. I'm not advocating an abandonment of past principles and the clubs history - but it can't be allowed to dictate decision making, look how much the landscape has changed in just 10 years - its more than 20 now since the glory days.
IMO we arent obsessed enough with the League If we were we more obsessed we prob would have won it in the last 22 yrs As Shanks said it proves your the best, it is head and shoulders more important than any other trophy we compete for, its not even close
There's not one Redman who is not obsessed with both the League and the CL. However to win either (or better both) we have to have a squad of players who are capable of doing just that. The improvement this season is the first stage of us doing just that.
True, the next stage is getting into the Champions League with sustaining that position as the third stage.
