Liverpool Football Club Thread

[Oh Danny Boy]

Tickets still available to if you want to go.

End them? He'll be in them!

..........................

Interesting on Benteke from Tony Barrett:

Tony Barrett: #Klopp didn't pursue #Benteke - one possible reason being the forward appearing unsuited to pressing and harassing. #LFC

Speculation of course, but lets hope we don't have an Andy Carrol Mk2 situation.

No.

I think we've already seen that Benteke is a far better player.

[Doomguy]

Very pleased. Not expecting over night miracles (I think liverpool have some ropey months ahead) but I reckon once he's wrapped his ahead around things it'll be really positive. Expect a strong finish. More hopeful for next season/ the future now.

[Plissken]

Haven't put this in the Liverpool thread, lest I be accused of trolling, but the way it captures the Liverpool support is spot on.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/jurgen-klopp-liverpool/

You know what the problem is? The problem is that Liverpool has no idea whether Liverpool is supposed to be fun. Jürgen Klopp, the club’s freshly unveiled new manager, is fun. Gegenpressing, the tiki-taka-on-MDMA playing style on whose groovy back he took Dortmund to consecutive Bundesliga championships in 2011 and 2012, is fun. The touchline repertoire of leaps, aerial punches, spins, and roundhouse kicks with which he air-guitars his teams to victory and rages against defeat is fun. His hipster glasses are fun. His nonchalance toward media scrutiny of his hair transplant — “I think the results are really cool, don’t you?” — is just totally super fun. But whether Klopp–grade fun can thrive at Liverpool, a club whose atmosphere has historically veered more toward tragic splendor than anything as trivial as pleasure — that’s the question.

The glory years of Liverpool were not fun years, in the main. Your Shankly–Paisley Reds were many wonderful things — a working-class grand opera, a footballing juggernaut, a kind of heavy-thighed insurgency against Thatcherism — but they were seldom really enjoyable; the stakes were always too high. You enjoyed a Liverpool match the way the French exiles in Casablanca enjoy “La Marseillaise” — sincerely, but for the movement more than the music. After the Hillsborough disaster, the club’s iconography became (understandably) even more serious. Liverpool became the secular-religious club of eternal flames and memorial verses and walking through the storm with your head held high, which is an identity you can only cultivate if you anticipate a steady supply of storms to walk through.

Even through the Rafa Benitez era, Liverpool’s notable successes tended to be Miracle-of-Istanbul-style apotheosis comebacks against impossible odds, occasions for St. Crispin’s Day halftime talks and the noble tears of Steven Gerrard. It was dramatic. It was intense. As a form of fan engagement, it was borderline ecstatic. But fun? The fans thanked Benitez by silkscreening his face onto enormous Che-inspired agitprop banners; that was the tone in which the Kop liked to operate.

[dogsout]

I've moved it in here, anyway. It's obviously not trolling.

[glb]

The Rafatollah was fun.

Can't disagree that a cloud has hung over the club since the improbable title challenge, but Klopp looks like he's got the charm and swagger to lift that cloud. Think the next few home games will be absolutely buzzing.

[smithstock]

For some strange reason, I hope Liverpool adopt this song as his chant:

"Klopp, Klopp, Where's The Klopp? Klopp, Klopp, Show Us The Klopp!"

Not a Liverpool fan myself but this appointment makes me feel like I should adopt them as my second team instead of Arsenal. (Boro fan).

[JamesTW]

Don't do it, it's no fun

[SMD]

Haven't put this in the Liverpool thread, lest I be accused of trolling, but the way it captures the Liverpool support is spot on.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/jurgen-klopp-liverpool/

Yep, pretty much. I've no idea why people are unable to just enjoy the season for what it is, there's got to be some sort of anxiety or disaster unfolding and no one encapsulated that more than Gerrard. One of the reasons I wasn't in favour of sacking Rodgers was because it was daft to expect a 42 year old manager not to make mistakes, when we hired him it was clear it was meant to be a man growing into the role and if anyone took umbrage with that then the fingers should've been pointed above the manager's head.

So Klopp is fun and we should have fun and frankly if you're still pissing and moaning after this then maybe football isn't for you?

[angel]

i dont think people minded brendans mistakes so much as his insulting ability to label fans stupid by calling even the worst performance "outstanding", and constantly referring to his 300 + million pound squad as a young and growing team.

[SMD]

Most managers do that, press conferences are dull and micromanaged thanks to years of the press tearing into people.

[Stig]

Just found SMD

If your happy and you know it, Klopp your hands.

If your happy and you know it, Klopp your hands.

If your happy and you know it and you really want to show it,

If your happy and you know it, Klopp your hands.

[Istanbul]

Liverpool bound...?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BAben_Neves

Ruben Neves.

[angel]

Most managers do that, press conferences are dull and micromanaged thanks to years of the press tearing into people.

not to the extent rodgers does, and im a sunderland fan, we had advocatt coming out after and being honest. pulis is honest, even martinez was way more straight up than rodgers was, it was insulting.

[Guest]

Luis Garcia was fun. <3

Suarez was really, really funny! We had a right old laugh over that.

Torres was fun when he went to Chelsea.

I'll just check my spreadsheet for other "fun moments".

[Guest]

Liverpool bound...?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BAben_Neves

Ruben Neves.

That'd be a mountain of a signing if you pull that off.

[dizogg]

You say we need 10 years or more but Rodgers came within a dodgy Toure back pass of the title in 2 seasons, and he's a guy we've decided is not good enough. No reason Klopp couldn't do it in 4 years. Not saying he will but it's definitely possible.

[JohnnyNolan]

No modern day manger is getting five years to deliver, never mind ten!

[glb]

Klopp has never managed outside Germany but is confident he will have no problem communicating with his players. “We will all have English lessons,” he said, before adding: “I was relieved after the first press conference. I have said some stupid things in my life. But never in English…

“Did I dream about becoming a Liverpool manager when I was a kid? No, I dreamed about playing for Stuttgart, and that didn’t work out. But I am totally humbled to be here. It is almost a bit bizarre: there have been so many good and successful German managers and yet no one has been here.”

Klopp, who faces Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane on Saturday in his first game in charge, also said that he had not planned the ‘Normal One’ quote that made the headlines after his first press conference. “No, I hadn’t thought about that at all,” he said. “I was asked and simply answered. Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut – but that is quite difficult at a press conference.”

To be honest, I don't even care about Saturday's result, just seeing him in the dugout, and a fresh start will be more important. Whatever this season now brings, it should at the very least be entertaining.

[Stig]

Liverpool bound...?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BAben_Neves

Ruben Neves.

Apparantly he wants Lewandowski too. I don't ever see it happening, especially with the form he's in but still, it's fun to see the links.

[JohnnyNolan]

I think (or hope) any reports linking us with players are insane, as I would think he'd want a few weeks with the squad to identify who he can work with and who he thinks aren't good enough.

Although I do expect us to be linked with just about anyone who's played in Germany by the press over the next few months.

[hmm]

It's 3 months until he can buy anyone so I can't imagine any links are more than speculation. (Are they ever?)

[Revival]

If a side has big money like Chelsea or Man City they can challenge within 4 years. For us, as at Man Utd in the 80s, we need to put our faith in a guy and let him steadily build over 10 years or more.

Didn't Rodgers spend more over the last three years than both Chelsea and Arsenal?

[JohnnyNolan]

Didn't Rodgers spend more over the last three years than both Chelsea and Arsenal?

Quite possibly on transfers, not wages, but they are in a position of building on a solid foundation. We weren't. Also a few Liverpool targets went to those clubs, notably Chelsea. And to be fair I think everyone has spent more money than Arsenal, much to their own supports dismay at times.

To overcome location and current status of not a certainty to be challenging for trophies/Champions League you need to pay over the odds, just as City and Chelsea did to break into the position they have held over recent years.

I'd agree we've done some terrible business in that time in the transfer market, but I personally think that's an issue that pre-dates Rodgers by a decade or two. Sadly in recent times any signs of putting out a team that could compete with a couple of key additions have been thrown out the window as we lose the key players and start again.

[Istanbul]

Didn't Rodgers spend more over the last three years than both Chelsea and Arsenal?

Chelsea FC £-16.11m £5.95m £-37.04m £-57.58m £-49.74m £-154.51m Manchester City £-94.66m £-44.82m £-73.01m £-12.36m £-46.45m £-271.28m Arsenal FC £-10.01m £-62.54m £-28.17m £9.91m £8.97m £-81.84m Manchester United £-26.21m £-101.99m £-53.31m £-42.92m £-29.20m £-253.63m Tottenham Hotspur £-315k £550k £4.91m £-3.83m £23.66m £24.98m Liverpool FC £-16.49m £-36.69m £-16.02m £-40.01m £-29.80m £-139.00m

Net spend. Last 5 years, from left to right, total in the far right. Of course, just transfer fees, not including the astronomical wages the likes of City, Chelsea and United offer.

Source: http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/fuenfjahresvergleich/wettbewerb/GB1

[Guest]

Net spend, the best thing ever.

[Rev]

There's relatively little correlation between high transfer fees and success, net spend might even be worse. Wages track success much more closely.

[V3zna]

Net spend, the best thing ever.

It's realistic. No point in criticising Rodgers / LFC for spending money that partially came from selling some high profile players. It's all well and good saying £300 million spent but approximately 1/2 of that was raised from sales. Better to spend it than sit on it.

[Oh Danny Boy]

I think that the biggest name players we bought in recent years has been Masch, Torres and Suarez. Neither of whom were the world beaters they became when they joined. We have always bought players who are more potential rather than the top tier finished article.

It would be nice for there to be an odd exception to the rule. If Arsenal can afford to bring in Sanchez and Ozil then why can't we?

[redbloodcell]

I think that the biggest name players we bought in recent years has been Masch, Torres and Suarez. Neither of whom were the world beaters they became when they joined. We have always bought players who are more potential rather than the top tier finished article.

It would be nice for there to be an odd exception to the rule. If Arsenal can afford to bring in Sanchez and Ozil then why can't we?

Arsenal make a buttload more money than Liverpool, that's why. £50m more last season, for example.

[Rev]

Because Arsenal have got a bigger stadium and they've been in the Champion's league for 16 years whilst being based in London. Also, Firmino (who definitely counts as a big signing) was basically the same price as Sanchez.