Luis Suárez

[Neil Young]

poor Nige

[Fredo]

[Bender]

i ain't no biscuit ...last time i was a sausage now a biscuit....are you trying to say your hungry

[Pablo]

40 more long days left until the window SLAMS SHUT. I really think we'll still be talking about whether he's going to leave right up until deadline day.

Oh and sausages and biscuits. We'll still be talking about those too.

[Buzzo]

I think people have to understand exactly where the club has been going over the years

There was a time when we were the best run club in the country (if not Europe) we were innovators, ahead of the game

Then something happened.. whether that was the club thinking they didnt have to do anything more to stay ahead of the game or it was something else I dont know

Heysel caused the club to withdraw into its shell and become insular, essentially reinforcing the business beliefs and models that had gone before, this helped teams slowly close the gap. Hillsborough decimated the club of that there is no doubt, the club rightly perceived there was bigger concerns than football and business at that time and it took an age to recover. By which time teams like United etc.. had moved ahead businesswise and on the pitch. Moores was playing constant catch up with them, and then he made his fatal error of selling to Hicks & Gillett

They took us to the brink of oblivion as a business and I think FSG have been trying to turn it around since. Even if Hicks & Gillett hadnt happened it wouldnt be an easy job but it is doubly difficult following their shambles

I think FSG are doing ok in a difficult job, yeah I have some gripes and criticisms over some of the things they have done but the job is an enormous one. They arent damaging the club by any means but it is slow progress imo. I personally think it might be too big a job for FSG but time will tell on that score

Good post Lecter, pretty accurate summary of the state of play and how we have arrived here

[dizzycat]

I think people have to understand exactly where the club has been going over the years

There was a time when we were the best run club in the country (if not Europe) we were innovators, ahead of the game

Then something happened.. whether that was the club thinking they didnt have to do anything more to stay ahead of the game or it was something else I dont know

Heysel caused the club to withdraw into its shell and become insular, essentially reinforcing the business beliefs and models that had gone before, this helped teams slowly close the gap. Hillsborough decimated the club of that there is no doubt, the club rightly perceived there was bigger concerns than football and business at that time and it took an age to recover. By which time teams like United etc.. had moved ahead businesswise and on the pitch. Moores was playing constant catch up with them, and then he made his fatal error of selling to Hicks & Gillett

They took us to the brink of oblivion as a business and I think FSG have been trying to turn it around since. Even if Hicks & Gillett hadnt happened it wouldnt be an easy job but it is doubly difficult following their shambles

I think FSG are doing ok in a difficult job, yeah I have some gripes and criticisms over some of the things they have done but the job is an enormous one. They arent damaging the club by any means but it is slow progress imo. I personally think it might be too big a job for FSG but time will tell on that score

This is a great summary of where we're at. It's difficult to tell with FSG because they hold their cards quite tight. I was staggered (in a positive way) with the money that was spent on Carrol et al, but then with the debacle last summer my opinion shifted again. It's hard to tell, but I do think they have the clubs best interests at heart and want to progress in the right manner. I just don't think they are going to gamble in the transfer market anymore.

[Norbs]

Oh and for all Moores inactivity and ineptitude

He underwrote the share issue that enabled us to build the Centennary Stand (virtually paying it in full approx £17 million I think)

He sold 10% of the club to Granada and ploughed the proceeds (£30-odd million if I remember rightly) back into the playing squad

It should never be questioned where his heart lay

[Neil Young]

i ain't no biscuit ...last time i was a sausage now a biscuit....are you trying to say your hungry

You weren't Sausage. The two of you were the dream management pairing. And before you get ideas again, you were very much the junior partner, Sausage's assistant, not the other way round.

I would suggest you try to keep up but we all know that's unrealistic.

[Patricks_Berger]

It should never be questioned where his heart lay

It's just his brains that no one can find.

[Bender]

You weren't Sausage. The two of you were the dream management pairing. And before you get ideas again, you were very much the junior partner, Sausage's assistant, not the other way round.

I would suggest you try to keep up but we all know that's unrealistic.

your really weird .....

[Neil Young]

I think people have to understand exactly where the club has been going over the years

There was a time when we were the best run club in the country (if not Europe) we were innovators, ahead of the game

Then something happened.. whether that was the club thinking they didnt have to do anything more to stay ahead of the game or it was something else I dont know

Heysel caused the club to withdraw into its shell and become insular, essentially reinforcing the business beliefs and models that had gone before, this helped teams slowly close the gap. Hillsborough decimated the club of that there is no doubt, the club rightly perceived there was bigger concerns than football and business at that time and it took an age to recover. By which time teams like United etc.. had moved ahead businesswise and on the pitch. Moores was playing constant catch up with them, and then he made his fatal error of selling to Hicks & Gillett

They took us to the brink of oblivion as a business and I think FSG have been trying to turn it around since. Even if Hicks & Gillett hadnt happened it wouldnt be an easy job but it is doubly difficult following their shambles

I think FSG are doing ok in a difficult job, yeah I have some gripes and criticisms over some of the things they have done but the job is an enormous one. They arent damaging the club by any means but it is slow progress imo. I personally think it might be too big a job for FSG but time will tell on that score

I'd also time the decline to around Heysel but my emphasis would be different.

I don't think the decline was primarily to do with a change in the club's outlook or, in other words, its internal culture. What happened as a result of Heysel is that our players weren't exposed to top level European football almost year after year as they previously had been. The club had made money out of it and our players got better as a result of it. Both of those things gave us an edge - the money over everyone but Man United, and the level of play over pretty much everyone, especially Man United, because we were increasingly often in the European Cup and almost always going a long way into the competition. So the club could afford the best players who would then improve (or be got rid of).

The Heysel ban changed that. We survived for a few years as the dominant team but the gap was being eroded until the last hurrah of 1990.

If the club did become insular then it's because it missed the way football was going. The Premier League was a major factor of course but we were already in relative decline by then. The date of Heysel is significant for another reason though, and that may be related. Dalglish took over as manager. He made some great buys and some bad ones. But when you read his autobiography, insularity oozes out of it. In it he said he didn't want to go abroad as a player because he'd already moved to a "foreign country" (a comment followed by an unnecessary exclamation mark - he thought it was a joke but it was actually an insight into the narrowness of his vision). When I read that I had deep misgivings about him coming back.

And we all know what happened when he came back - buy British lads to get the dressing room banter going, etc. Not a recipe for success in the Nineties really, let alone twenty years later.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that Dalglish sparked the decline, although it's arguable his attitude to the footballing side may have intensified the weaknesses on the business side of the club. And fundamentally those weaknesses stem from the change in financial circumstances following Heysel.

In short, the culture - whether of a country, an institution or a community - is usually based on and shaped by the economic realities.

[Fredo]

Good post, doggie.

Didn't see it the way you see (the Dalglish bit) it but now you say it, brings a different context to things.

[kev776]

Difficult to disagree with the pooch.

[BigChief]

I put Neil's post through Google Translate and got a load of:

Woof, woof, woof, woof, scratch, woof, bark, etc.

All made sense after that.

[dom9]

I'd also time the decline to around Heysel but my emphasis would be different.

I don't think the decline was primarily to do with a change in the club's outlook or, in other words, its internal culture. What happened as a result of Heysel is that our players weren't exposed to top level European football almost year after year as they previously had been. The club had made money out of it and our players got better as a result of it. Both of those things gave us an edge - the money over everyone but Man United, and the level of play over pretty much everyone, especially Man United, because we were increasingly often in the European Cup and almost always going a long way into the competition. So the club could afford the best players who would then improve (or be got rid of).

The Heysel ban changed that. We survived for a few years as the dominant team but the gap was being eroded until the last hurrah of 1990.

If the club did become insular then it's because it missed the way football was going. The Premier League was a major factor of course but we were already in relative decline by then. The date of Heysel is significant for another reason though, and that may be related. Dalglish took over as manager. He made some great buys and some bad ones. But when you read his autobiography, insularity oozes out of it. In it he said he didn't want to go abroad as a player because he'd already moved to a "foreign country" (a comment followed by an unnecessary exclamation mark - he thought it was a joke but it was actually an insight into the narrowness of his vision). When I read that I had deep misgivings about him coming back.

And we all know what happened when he came back - buy British lads to get the dressing room banter going, etc. Not a recipe for success in the Nineties really, let alone twenty years later.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that Dalglish sparked the decline, although it's arguable his attitude to the footballing side may have intensified the weaknesses on the business side of the club. And fundamentally those weaknesses stem from the change in financial circumstances following Heysel.

In short, the culture - whether of a country, an institution or a community - is usually based on and shaped by the economic realities.

I think those are reasonable conclusions to draw, but I'm not sure I buy the Dalglish analysis in its entirity.

He may have been insular, but I think it's unfair to single him out for being so. In that era, we had about 4 English players abroad - Rush, Lineker, Hughes and Hately. Wilkins and Francis just prior. Which foreign players played in England? Well there was Mirandinha at Newcastle. High profile because he was Brazilian, not because he regularly played for Brazil. The first top flight non British manager didn't arrived in 1990 - Dr Josef Wengloss. Prior to him, it was almost unthinkable that the continent's managers and players would come to England. We didn't need them. That was arrogant the prevailing view.

Engllish football was the dominant force in European club football, and LFC was practically untouchable. When Dalglish arived, the style of football became even more expansive than that implemented previously, and the bar was raised for the standard of domestic football in this country. Rivals were regularly obliterated. Up until the early 90s. Where was the incentive to change the status quo?

So to even partly attribute the clubs subsequent ills to Dalglish's insularity is unfair imo. What changed was the premier league era and the club's inability to move with the times. In fact, the opposite could be said to be true. Both the club and us fans were determined to stick to their values and not 'sell out' as those greedy Mancunians had done so exuberantly. They were vulgar, we were smug. Until we started falling really badly behind.

As for the second Dalglish era, you're right. He was ultimately the wrong man in the wrong era. Brian Clough and George Graham would have fared little better.