Maybe not quite mid table, but you didnt win much in the way of trophies until Houllier and Rafa, when you got that treble of FA, UEFA and Lge Cup, then the CL and FA under Rafa. My point was, you went from the being Britains number 1 to being overtaken by United at the worst possible time. And if the Billionaire owners hadnt come in, Liverpool would surely have knicked at least 1 title during Rafa's reign. unlucky....
Evans came in at the start of the prem era, his main job was rebuilding what Souness had ruined, which he did, also winning the league cup in his first year. He put together the team including Mcmanaman, Redknapp, Fowler and Owen which Houllier inherited and went on to win trophies with. Was Souness to blame for our decline or was it the new billionaire owners coming into the game - or both? Or just poor timing on both fronts? We've never been a mid-table team in the prem era and in view of an impressive trophy haul seemingly all that's suffered [on paper anyway, not going into owner situations or anything else like that] is our total lack of league titles. But that's not unlucky, luck doesn't win the league. My point being really that your comment about us being the unluckiest team is wrong.
JB... there were no billionaires in the 90s. that 2004.... The fact is YEARS of decline occured at anfield off the pitch where we simply bought player with the allure of the top. by 1990 our team was aging rapidly. we had fat barnes, fat molby, grobs on the slide and make take, dalglish showing cracks and honestly I don't think we had any transition in place. Yeah souness did a terrible job but he walked into the moores pony show and really just continued the slide. Dalglish with repsect to the legend bought speedie and carter so was not exactly buidling the dynasty. I find that our continued decline was all about wasteful spending, off field amateurism and more than anything a total lack of willingness to get modern. it killed moores to spend 3.5mil on berger and it killed him to spend 12mil on the centenary stand. In short that gobshite ruin the club more than anyone.... he let the spend occur, put in cash but failed to fix the real issues. We bought well and badly, splashed cash with the bes tof them, evans ran a totally undisciplined ship... amazing considering who he learned from... houllier went about putting it right... rafa built an academy.. .they all had thier faults but delivered moments of clarity which should have defined out club. "this is what we want to be!" Moores every time failed to build on it. After that the story is shameful. Again look to David Moores. selling to a pair of clowns to indebted the club to the point of bankruptcy... honestly RBS did us no favours with FSG they don't have the cash to compete and were the only game in town. It saved us but it looks to me there is a fair chance the club will never recover to the glory of 25 years ago. Sustainability, low wages, young players... it might sustain top 10 for a while but its not going to push for 4th. and 4th is not what lfc was. hoping for 4th and then hoping for what 30mil in tv money all spent? when the others can spend it in one go and not blink... The thing i see is some other billionaire jumping into the english league and frankly where spurs are or should be our example of what a really clued in guy (levy) can do or arsenal are simply going to join us in nowhere's ville. It eventually going to be a lock on the top 4 just a question of where the next billionaire comes from. When every european league has a billionaire ruining it will there simply be a breakaway league and will uefa let them go?
Sorry mito that sentence - 'Was Souness to blame for our decline or was it the new billionaire owners coming into the game - or both? Or just poor timing on both fronts? ' is a bit ambiguous, I didn't mean they happened at the same time but were two separate reasons trying to explain our decline.
Personally, I believe getting rid of Rafa was the worst decision the club have made in modern history. Having Hicks and Gillette didn't help but Rafa could have still made it work despite working under horrible conditions. And then Purslow deciding to get Roy in to replace him. This ultimately ruined the club IMO. If only Rafa came in when FSG took over - they wanted a young manager with a plan and a vision. Rafa had that and did his best to implement that style at LFC at every level (the overhaul of the academy is the best evidence of this).
jimmy I am in two minds on that. 1. Rafa bought terribly, i mean terribly. the decisions didn't make sense close to the end. 2. Rafa was and is a far better player organizer and base tactician than anyone we'll have AND he put the academy in place In short i do not know if rafa would have picked the kids like rodgers did but then again rodgers had a freebie. I think though the way it went wrong at inter and he sat on the shelf put fsg off. I still maintain he was right to go for the terrible decisions he made but to appoint hodgson of all people was crazy. FSG don't seem too much better in consistency of decisions base don other motives than football. everything is about lowest cost not best.
I thought that sort of but really wanted to point to the fact that David moores shambolically handled both eras. He is more than anyone the guy to point at and say you ruined an institution. for shame.
Souness started the decline by smashing your famous bootroom to pieces & thus destroying the continuity that had brought you such great success. He deserved a knighthood for it The 2 Billionaire lead clubs also helped nudge your nose from the CL trough, but during the PL period you've spent as much as any of the rest, so you can't lay the blame at their door really. The prime issue has been that you've made some bloody awful player purchases over a prolonged period. You've spent serious amounts of cash & have gone backwards! Even when you were having a tough time of it (by your standards) under Souness, Dalglish etc, you were still winning pots, now you've only lifted 1 League cup in 7 years & you're about to enter the 4th season on the spin without CL football & the earnings that come with it.
I'd done a fairly long response to this but the internets buggered up at work and I'm not typing it all via my phone
You've missed the point tobes. Superficially souness was the guy in charge and sold players but my point you missed was even dalglish, your hated rival, was doing the damage. I thought you would have loved that one... and it was moores who sat in 93 and failed to sack the guy for months and failed to right the wrongs.... frankly LFC in the 90s could easily have got back to the top with a few smart moves. The two billionaires are fine but you are right about prolonged stupidity in the market place.... again it goes back to moores. he was very stand offish, let whoever do whatever and i made a comparison to Levy at spurs. that guy is hands on and in control. they have a very low but highly effective net spend. Moores wanted someone else to go all the work but to be in control.... he'd let someone spend 8mil on collymore then bitch about 3.5mil for berger... as an example. I would contend however that goning backwards is relative. I would say we yoyo'd between crap and being competitive... 11mil on heskey was mad but it was part of 2001. 8mil on hamman by comparison was genius. 11mil on alonso v 20mil on aquilani. the list goes on and on. The fact is had city never happened lfc would be trying for 4th with spurs not arsenal. Levy beats us hands down right now, not city, not cheslea, not even arsenal who are just plodding along. I know with a high degree of belief that if spurs sell bale they will get top dollar AND spend it very wisely. They don't care one damn what paulinho thinks once he signed that contract. Us? we could splash the entire suarez potential fee on a mad one. In the end.... souness won one FA cup, evans won one league cup.... houller was competitve, benetiz won two cups and was competitive in the league. I'm sorry but that one league cup looks pretty shiny compared to your trophy cabinet cos I'll never be comparing good to bad using kenwirght or moyes as standards. I think despite spurs being trophyless for as long as us or arsenal I'll stick to looking at them.
Spot on with everything you've said there. We have yo-yo'd rather than gone backwards and how far do you go back as a marker to say whether we've gone backwards or not. Change of owners and managers has meant we've been in a permanent transition state, making it difficult to get a foothold never mind retain it. Poor owners, bad management, lots of money been wasted certainly .... but as I said earlier, other than lack of league titles our trophy haul isn't looking too shabby.
23 years clearly. if we judge by 1990 then we have gone backwards. 15 year back... finished 7th in league. sacked evans first year of houllier and joint manager debacle... another example of moores half assing it. 10 years back.. finished 5th in league. gave houllier ultimatum. he had won tereble in 2001, finished 3rd then 2nd then this 5th place. 5 years back... finished 2nd. G&H back the manager by selling robbie keane at a massive loos, buying aquilani with Alonso money and pocketing the rest. It is clear to me at least that over the past 5 years LFC have bottoms out with a sale process that clearly nearly put the club in administration. Funnily enough tobes didn't mention the one clear incontrovertible PHAKT here. we must have gone backwards cos everton finished above us in the table. In all those identified eras they never did that so we must be awful if that ****e is above us right
The fact that we've done it 2 years running without spending any money says all that needs to be said about your transfer policy in recent years, as you've spent a bleeding fortune by comparison I think those looking to excuse the relative failure in recent years (given the money spent) by labelling it as 'transition' are talkinh bollocks tbh, I think it's just those entrusted with the resources have simply failed to deliver what they should have done. Given your spending, to say that it's now 4 years since you had a sniff of the CL is merely crap, not 'transition'.
23 years of course, think the heat's getting to me Directly compare 1992/3 with last season = 59pts/6th, 61pts/7th .. is that progress or regression?
Can't argue with Tobes. We have been extremely wasteful and without a plan - Roy should never have taken over, and Kenny did a great job as interim manager but when entrusted with millions in his first full season, he failed to deliver. We now have a young manager with the right philosophy and style, and ultimately has a vision. Hopefully we will give him the time he needs.
We've been in a state of transition for a good few years now, whether that's viewed as an 'excuse' or some other name, makes no difference. It's simply a fact. We haven't won the league because we haven't been good enough - transition or no transition - one doesn't lead to the other! Everton have had the luxury of the 2nd longest serving manager and the benefits that brings helps to outweigh any amounts of money spent by rivals as has been proved.
Oh we have had a plan .... and another one .... and another one, that's been the problem, too many changes and with each one another plan. You've mentioned three major changes in your comment! If it wasn't for all the stop-starts we may have not spent so much money as each new manager put in place his very expensive team only to have it messed around with and yet another new philosophy installed. Yes I agree with you, very wasteful.
The funny part is that we have been very wasteful and downright dog ****e a lot of the time yet Everton have only managed to finish above us three times and all three were just above too
