http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/liverpool/id/2862?cc=5901 Thoughts for those who around from those days?
I just want to say that I giggle every time I see the censors work their magic on S****horpe. In the 90's we wasted money. In the last decade we wasted money. £20+mill for Suarez is quite a fee (but not in perspective of things these days)... but most of the talent that we are relying on at the moment were quite cheap. Our current success is not so much down to money.
Of course in those days clubs were helped by some funding, but the disparity between the rich and the rest was a tiny fraction of what it is now. Clubs of that era did not buy up as many decent players as they could and leave them languishing on the bench, and they certainly couldn't afford ludicrous wages to compensate the players for what, imo, amounts to wasting their careers. The foreign contingent was virtually non-existent, and success was down to finding the right players to mould into a team, rather than buy the ready-made product from around the world.
Question then...... Playing in the CL as of late, we seem to see the English sides struggling a bit ( Had a purple patch from 04-09, since then only one or two here and there). They say that the British teams have trouble with the continental game. Why was it that in those days, mainly the 80's, maybe a bit of 90's British teams were doing maybe just as well, even with the archaic methods that many lambast these days? Was it the style was so different? The team culture and team unity? Poor standard from the other leagues? Think about how many times a United, Arsenal, Chelsea last year, Spurs, etc and how they always say the british teams struggle with the continental style and play...... but don't these teams have all of the continental managers? players? How can that be these days?
Good question. It's difficult to answer- we didn't see much of foreign teams except when they played against ours, and it's not easy to divide the truth from the perception. Foreign teams seemed to have a lot of flair but not so much organisation. I'll give it some thought, but watching the Reds play in Europe in the 70's and 80's, we just seemed to be that much better than most- and I don't remember trying to analyse why.
In the 50's and early 60's the Liverpool board had the reputation of being as tight as a drum - but as saint has indicated they were not alone in that. Shanks did change the spending pattern and that was continued by Paisley. In their purchases you will find a few club and/or league record buys but then they were producing the fame and the money at the same time. However if you look a little further you will also see that they occasionally spent big money on players like Alun Evans and Tony Hatley - they weren't infallible! It really wasn't until Clough spent £1 million on Trevor Francis that the BIG MONEY transfers really started.
Call me crazy, but I don't see English clubs as struggling on the European stage. On the contrary, we boss it when we WANT. How so? 6th place Chelsea and 5th place Liverpool winning the CL. Fulham reaching EL final. Chelsea winning CL, EL, and going to the Moscow final, all three while completely in turmoil with interim managers. A mediocre United winning the CL and going to two finals. And now, drab and stuffy Chelsea again, in the UCL semifinals... It's all a crapshoot. Add to it that continental c*ntish refs penalise us with their tw*tish decisions... The continent has Real, Barca, Atletico, Bayern, Borussia, Juve. The rest are teams that Swansea or Fulham can beat on a given day. BPL is a much tougher league.
I wouldn't say you were bankrolled in the 80's but Rafa Benitez's certainly sides were. The guy spent a fortune on mediocre players.
Mostly the spending in those days was based on success, the better you did the more money you generated to improve further. There was none of this astronomical input from outside the game that there is now- even in relative terms. Also, benefactors were often local people made good who wanted to give something to their childhood clubs. Of course that still goes on today, but we also have oil-rich billionaires looking around the world for a team to buy, one they have no association with- in order that their money will make them dominate that league. Presumably that makes them (the owners) feel big in some way, but it's no real achievement when your spending power just blows others out of the water. Of course it's not that simple, Roman's money still hasn't bought him the degree of success he craves which is why he keeps changing managers regardless of their success. At least the City Sheik seems to want his team to play good, attractive football.
i think its a load. why? to compare the 50s and 60s where a trasfer fee was paid for at the turnstiles to man city where the 300k per week wages and unlimited fee is bankrolled by oil money and fake retrospective sponsor deals is laughable. frankly its nonsense... even in the 80s a fee like say the first million pound player was paid out of revenue just plain nonsense... it is patently obvious that to say do a wimbledon today and rise from oh confernce to prem is hard but swansea did it... if they built a 60k stadium now and somehow survived til it was built and could fill it... well would ANYONE say they bought it?? no they would not
I did say in that 04-09 the English league had a real nice purple patch. **** even Middlesborough made the UEFA Cup final too! Just recently this has been brought up when you hear the commentators talk about the failures of the English teams in Europe as of late ( Chelsea aside THIS year). Oh and Swansea and Spurs got dumped out this year by Valencia and Benfica so to say those standard teams would wipe the floor doesn't hold.
I dont agree with you livtor. english clubs have had a period of dominance but frankly right now we are muck and chelsea are crawling through playing anti football. its swings and roundabouts. right now... spain has 3 teams.. up from 2. germany has 2.. italy is in the toilet. i think 5/6 years ago is a log time in footbal so while we used to... we do not boss anything now. the issue i see is arrogance.. athletico is a great example of a club who took eruopa seriously and developed as a result and are now close to the double!!!!! is spurs didn't throw the competition constantly for 3 years... well who knows eh?
Just looking back to about that 2010 time frame and we know the problems with the CL with Chelsea having the odd run in that time with Di Canio. You look at the Europa and where the best of the rest are meant to sweep those away and nearly half the English teams don't get out of the group and most of the time get to the Quarters before going out to a Lazio, Basel, Zenit, Valencia, etc. Of course you had Chelsea win it one year since 2010 but we have not been prolific. The pitfalls of this are one to watch, you keep failing in these tournaments and eventually it will catch up. Italy is a prime example as they lost a CL spot to Germany as they were not competing well enough in these leagues while the German and Spanish leagues continue to do so.
very good point. if england keep sending tottenham to europa the we'll end up with 3 slots not 4. better to win the europa than to throw it to play for 4th and then fail anyway.
Well you can joke with Spurs but recently you have had the likes of Wigan and Stoke in there, never going to win with those! It is more of the likes of Spurs, Newcastle were in with a pretty decent team, just recently ( last year) CITY and UNITED were in it. Those teams have to do better than quarters. You can say they just didn't want to play it but I bet those players on the pitch that night wanted to. You can also not want to play in it but soon find yourself having to to avoid losing your European spots. Plus, is it next year the Europa winner gets in the CL? That would be big to make this competition a lot more competitive.
you are of course quite right yet it is their right to be in it. wigan especially given thier cup win. there are two related points i would like to make 1. prem teams are extremely guilty of basically devaluing our cup comps. we see villa manager fined for saying he could do without fa cup with other managers tut tut while then going out nd fielding total muck to get out of fa cup. we see 10 managers sacked in prem yet none for throwing the cup and really no change improves things. this all means all that matters is 17th and 4th and anything else doesn't so the likes of wigan, bradford, swansea et al swan through to finals that historically they would not get to. 2. prem teams like again say villa when they were decent, everton and spurs AND LFC field crap teams in the europa. now when you play league 1 opposition ok but when it gets to knockout and you change 8 players its plain wrong. again they see 4th as more important but igore the fact that unless they develop the squad to cope if they do get 4th chances are they will end up 6th or wrse as they can't cope. in short the fa need to step up and end team weakening and uefa need to punish clubs doing so too. i can tell you if uefa took points off weakened teams country coefficient then the fa would quickly step in and enforce the rules if we were in europa we might well field aspas and such muck until out of pointless group v league 1 muck but the minute it gets real you simply have to commit or get out and most get out. do we really think redknapp wasn't delighted going out atgroup stage with spurs... i think he was. the lesson has to be success breeds success and settling breeds complacency. athletico have gone from strength to strength and while the minnows tag relatively speaking earns them fans its this progression that impresses me.
Chelsea to an extent have made a good jump after focusing on the Europa, Sevilla a few years back were good in the league and Europa, Porto of course, etc. I agree. If I am in a competition, I want to win it, especially Euro ones as you can put the name out a bit and those players can see you a bit more.
the list of europa winners in the past ten years in interesting 2000-01 Liverpool 2001–02 Feyenoord 2002–03 Porto 2003–04 Valencia 2004–05 CSKA Moscow 2005–06 Sevilla 2006–07 Sevilla 2007–08 Zenit Saint Petersburg 2008–09 Shakhtar Donetsk 2009–10 Atlético Madrid 2010–11 Porto 2011–12 Atlético Madrid 2012–13 Chelsea some win it dropping out of chamions league but here is an interesting thing, i can see a lot of clubs who went on to big things after winning this. chelsea with respect are not that it would be better to say the cup winners cup many years ago would be thier big leap given thier resource but look at lfc winning cl, porto likewise, look at valencia giving us rafa... look at athetico's progress... for some its not been so good as they get picked clean by the big boys ( feyenoord sold a lot, seville lost ramos to spurs) I think its actually a bit of a scandal it took until chelsea bothered (or rafa did i should say) for an english club to go win this.... two scottish teams in final and fulham... its there for any developing side I for one hope everton get cl next year but if they don't... well i hope martinez goes and wins this
Next year probably the most likely representation in the Europa for England is: Arsenal, Spurs, and Manchester United. Mock United and Spurs this year all you like- but that's a pretty strong representation from England playing in the Europa- if the three of them take it seriously, it could be an English champion in 2015. Do winners of Europa get automatic Champions League qualification- or just automatic Europa qualification? If the auto get into Champions League- that puts extra pressure to get in top 3 next year... not just top 4.
Yes, I think they get a route into the CL qualifiers. However, this won't be at the expense of the team that finishes 4th in England.
