Most culpable for Liverpool's fall from their 80s position to the point they're at now

I'd like to eschew the obvious and pick someone other than Souness, but it's Souness.

Would vote for "Manchester United".

Oi where's this come from?! Played well yesterday, think we might actually escape relegation now.

Winning a relegation six-pointer against Blackburn - happy days are here (well, there) again :-)

Souness. If Liverpool's peak period had lasted just a couple more years they'd have been in the driving seat when all the Premiership money came in. As it turned out, that was Man United, rest is history.

I'm probably in a minority of one but I view the last couple of decades as pretty successful ones to be honest. Not compared to Utd of course, but compared to pretty much anyone else. The huge glaring omission is obviously the League, but even in the last decade I think we've won everything else.

But will vote Souness,'cos well he's Souness, and despite any issues I might have with Carragher's form or lack thereof I did enjoy him throwing Souness under the bus last month when he disputed that Fergie knocked LFC "off their ******* perch" and instead contended that seeing as Liverpool didn't even finish runners up when Utd started their title run it was Souness who'd done the perch knocking not Fergie.

I was thinking about the bad blood between United and Liverpool, and wondering how long it's been around. I don't remember it from Liverpool's successful era (though I was just little then) but it's been almost constant throughout United's good spell - only a bit of picking on Wenger, and now City trying their best, has at all taken the focus away from it.

Is it more a Ferguson thing, that he's always looking for convenient enemies because that's how he works?

Thing is, you can't blame Souness without also blaming Sky-era economics. And that doesn't necessarily follow per se - Arsenal's team at the dawn of the Premiership era wasn't exactly setting the world alight and they did okay in the end. Liverpool were never canny or lucky enough to get a Ferguson/Wenger figure and unless you have that, a boatload of money, or both, you weren't going to win the Premiership, even in the 90s.

liverpool were the benchmark when he took over, and besides that they're the two big guns in their immediate area, with huge history attached. natural competitors.

it's souness, for the reasons matt said- falling from grace at exactly the wrong time, and the same happened spurs to an extent.

could make an argument for gillicks, but not for houllier nor rafa, both of whom held their own against the odds for a lot of their tenures.

it's pretty widely accepted the club was run really badly in the early 90s, it's not like there wasn't heaps of money there for liverpool to make. having said all that they did have a boatload of money in the 90s, fucking loads of it. it was just wasted.

Position they're at now though, it's definitely Hicks and Gillett, no question about it. Without them, they'd still be holding their own in Champions League contention.

i still think they'll get top 8, so i'm not sure how huge a jump that's been

Not so sure they will - they weren't exactly hanging on against Blackburn, but they weren't dominant either. Can see a long slog of middling results all the way to the end of the season at that rate. Which might still be good enough for top eight, but if so it'll say more about the quality of the league below the elite (again)

i still think they'll get top 8, so i'm not sure how huge a jump that's been

I think so too. If they play like they did yesterday and Torres continues to improve they'll be top eight by the time they've played play this lot:

Bolton away
Chelsea home
Wigan away
Stoke away
West Ham home

The middle of the league is so tight that if they beat 8th placed Bolton 3-0 (unlikely as it might seem) on Sunday they'll go above them!

Not so sure they will - they weren't exactly hanging on against Blackburn, but they weren't dominant either.

Even normally churlish Big Sam was saying Paul Robinson kept them in the game. They had 8 shots on target to Blackburn's 1.

Fair enough - I saw from 2-1 onwards. They were dominant for about five or ten minutes, but then I thought Blackburn had most of it, without actually creating too much

Bolton away
Chelsea home
Wigan away
Stoke away
West Ham home

Can see them dropping points in two, maybe three of those games.

Can see them dropping points in two, maybe three of those games.

So picking up 7-10 points from 5 games with 3 away from home? That's better than they've been doing and round about top 8 form. Sunderland are 7th with only three points more than Liverpool, having won the same number of games (two).

yeah there's actually no gap of any significance between Liverpool and the teams above them, it's just a question of how shit they are. didn't see yday's game but by all reports I've read seems they played pretty well. they were never going to be without nerves in the circumstances but hopefully there's some improvement on the way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/oct/08/liverpool.rangers

Was just reading the comments section here: do Pool-heads among ILFers know whether it's true that Souey's main two targets when he joined L'pool here Roy Keane and Alan Shearer, but Moores and Parry wouldn't sign the cash off, so instaed he bought Paul Stewart and Michael Thomas?

It's hardly a straight line from 1990 to here. Souness did seem to dismantle the winning structures at Anfield, leading to two or three seasons of mediocrity but it's not like they didn't recover and win things. By 1996/97 they were title contenders again.

I think the Kenny D resignation was something really unprecedented in LFC's post-1959 history (was Shanks going such a shock? I mean it was to the fans, but the succession was in place within the club) and you can probably blame Hillsboro for that.

xp tbf- you're talking about two british transfer records there

get back to work

bank holiday over here!

pwn3d - all meant for your own good of course

i gots my self control on it's ok

bloody irish bank holidays everywhere. (i am unemployed but envy the relaxed feeling of an earned day off)

the uk, so called "great" britain doesn't even deign to give its subjects a bank holiday between summer and christmas

Yeah but sometimes it's Half Term :D

fuck off with your 'unearned' tbh every day i show at work is gift to local authorities everywhere

cant find either cm4 nor fm2010 heart broken

lol at the fact souness is omitted from this list... while rafa is included
http://blog.sport.co.uk/Football/885/Top_Ten_Worst_managers_in_EPL_history.aspx

souness EPL?

rafa shouldnt be included in a premier league worst, lowest league finish was 7th ffs.

gross, ramos, hoddle should all be there. maybe g francis

p.sure blackburn and newcastle were in the EPL

he did well at blackburn!

santini in there is rubbish. he left after what a dozen games?

dowie, oh yeah for sure dowie.

Southampton as well, never forget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Dia

xpost

disappointed the Lombardo/Brolin dream team at Palace didn't make it

I voted Souness, but like Michael I remember the Kenny Dalglish resignation as a watershed moment when Liverpool for the first time in my life looked fallible. They'd lost big games before of course, but there was something about that which really stood out, coming so soon after the totally unprecedented and un-Liverpool 4-4. There was Hillsborough obviously, but Dalglish had also started to make some really ropey signings that Souness would take to the next level.

Didn't he resign immediately after the 4-4? I don't remember a big defeat. I do remember a 3-3 with Man Utd around that time too, which was so good it got its own TV special a couple of days later (never hear it mentioned now, right enough)

By big defeats, I mean those games that Liverpool had lost in the past that could have suggested a shift in the tectonic plates, like the Wimbledon FA Cup final and the Arsenal title-decider, but neither of which had the same impact as the Dalgish resignation.

And you're right I think, the 4-4 came shortly after the 3-3, all of which suggested something was happening, but we didn't know what it was. So there was these crazy results, the bad signings and the general feeling something was up, and then when he resigned it seemed like all our suspicions were confirmed.

The other watershed moment was Souness appearing on the front page of the Sun after his heart op. That was just so un-Liverpool for so many reasons.

I've had a similar feeling about United for most of the past decade.

Ha, never with Fergie there despite occasional wobbles.

could flip a coin between souness, rafa and americans. think buying robbie keane sealed it tho.

think not playing robbie keane sealed it

he was doing well for liverpool that season, let's not forget rafa didn't even play him at xmas when we were 6 up or something at newcastle, after keane scored twice in the preceding game. could have done with a few goals from him in january of that season.

If you mean "point they're at now" as in 18th, then it's Roy's fault.

was thinking that too

ah cmon

ok, have time to engage on that now.

if rafa were 18th now with the team that's there, nothing would be his fault, regardless of him having been the guy there building the squad of shite currently available to roy

while I think Roy's been judged too soon, he's got nothing on Christian Gross - the guy was a failure before the end of his first press conference

cared more than ramos tbf

Surprised not to see Walter Smith on that list of worst EPL managers. OK, Everton were a shambles when he arrived, but he had a phenomenal record in British domestic football and yet he and Archie Knox were just abject on M'side. I recall that first season - we lost 4-1 at Goodison to Man Utd early on and, as late as February, Everton still hadn't managed to score four at home in total.

Ah cmon. Rafa didn't send them out to sit on their arses on the edge of the area and let Sunderland, Blackpool and Everton play right through them. Roy did. Equally, Roy must be given credit for changing his tactics for Blackburn.

Just looking at the final tables from the period - Everton a point or two from going down every year. It's as well they got Moyes when they did, who knows where they'd be now.

we'd never be in 18th with Rafa...as much as I feel he never quite motivated the players consistently, Rafa could have a team of zombies playing better than Roy has had this side play this season. yeah lol team of zombies would be more skilled etc...

rafa's repeated record of dire, negative performances and results against smaller teams doesn't make comparisons with roy all that illuminating

his repeated record of finishing in top ten does, haha, and largely under rafa you could at least expect us to win at home. i expect nothing now.

to win or at worst draw 0-0

hard to say where roy will finish until the end of the season. chances of winning the league under either exactly the same, chances of finishing in CL this year with that squad also the same.

Negative performances?

Birmingham last season we had 67% possession and 27 attempts at goal. We were unlucky to draw 2-2.
WBA this season we had 56% possession and 11 attempts. We were lucky (!) to win 1-0.

Burnley last season we had 27 attempts and won 4-0.
Blackpool this season we had 19 attempts and lost 2-1.

Sunderland last season we had 25 attempts and won 3-0.
This season we had 13 attempts and drew 2-2.

i dont get your point. roy's been unluckier then rafa? torres putting away fewer of his chances?

I voted Souness without even thinking because he was definitely the man who transformed Liverpool from conveyor-belt success to has-beens, but I'd have to agree with:

It's hardly a straight line from 1990 to here. Souness did seem to dismantle the winning structures at Anfield, leading to two or three seasons of mediocrity but it's not like they didn't recover and win things. By 1996/97 they were title contenders again.

...so logically and I'd also agree with:

Position they're at now though, it's definitely Hicks and Gillett, no question about it.

I'm not too sure about the Hillsborough fallout aspect. Viewed from the distance of 20 years, the disaster and subsequent end of Liverpool's domination seem close together, but at the time it didn't really feel like that. Liverpool were much stronger in the 89/90 season (the season after Hillsborough) than they had been the year before, and won the league fairly comfortably after Villa faded away.

Didn't he resign immediately after the 4-4? I don't remember a big defeat. I do remember a 3-3 with Man Utd around that time too, which was so good it got its own TV special a couple of days later (never hear it mentioned now, right enough)

Unless I've forgotten something, the 3-3 game was several years later and came under Souness. It was either late 93 or early 94 (during my Christmas break from university) and United went 3-0 up in the first 20 minutes before Liverpool pulled it back. There was another 3-3, but that was a few years earlier in the spring of 88. That was the best Liverpool team I can remember, walking their way to the title, 3-1 up at Anfield with United down to 10-men (I think Colin Gibson sent off?). Strachan got the equaliser in front of the Kop and celebrating by smoking an imaginary cigar.

I was thinking about the bad blood between United and Liverpool, and wondering how long it's been around. I don't remember it from Liverpool's successful era (though I was just little then) but it's been almost constant throughout United's good spell

It was definitely *very* bad in the 80s, and I think it was pretty bad in the 70s. Munich songs all the time, Shankly skeletons in response, the United team being CS-gassed as the arrived at Anfield in 85, I think that photo of the United supporter with the dart in his nose was taken at Anfield.

I'm thinking of 4 January 1994, it turns out xp - two goals for Nigel Clough as Liverpool came back from 3-0 down. I must've got the two confused, I remembered it being a comeback and totally against the odds, I just got my underdogs wrong. It's definitely the '94 one that got the TV special though - I was expecting something similar for the 4-3 Newcastle game the following season, didn't really get why the 3-3 was the bigger deal, but no doubt it was just that Sky didn't need the publicity by then.

Oof, that dart-in-the-nose picture spawned many a nightmare.

Clough put himself on as a sub for Derby reserves at the end of last season, twelve years after he retired.

Wasn't the 3-3 Clough game one of the ones for which Grob came under suspicion? I recall him (inadvertently - Ed.) helping a wayward Giggs lob into the net.

i dont get your point. roy's been unluckier then rafa? torres putting away fewer of his chances?

Creating fewer opportunities to score and then wondering why we draw/lose, letting opposition create more, not taking game to opponents, not playing to strengths = Roy's tactics, hence 18th. How losing to Blackpool is Rafa's fault is beyond me.

a game in which ye had 19 attempts?

how it's roy's fault is beyond me

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

http://c0013533.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/x2_33b2e02

actually we've beaten bolton away loads more times than one.

Can't vote as there is no option for David Moores.

Was just reading the comments section here: do Pool-heads among ILFers know whether it's true that Souey's main two targets when he joined L'pool here Roy Keane and Alan Shearer, but Moores and Parry wouldn't sign the cash off, so instaed he bought Paul Stewart and Michael Thomas?

Parry wasn't even at the club when Souness was manager. It was all Moores' doing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/oct/08/liverpool.rangers
(an 'on second thoughts' article on Souness as manager, from a couple of years ago)

I like that, regretting my vote now. Well, not really come to think.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"the fans mentality"

i blame "the fans' mentality" myself. if you need to find one specific thing at fault for this it's definitely "the fans' mentality"

oh boy shearer and keane as two of the spice boys would have been hilar

if that team had keane they would have been unbelievable...

was the word you were looking for unsufferable?

(/yeah they would have been the nuts - still unsure they would have been able to knock off a utd with butt in the middle instead of keane even if lol butt)

Does Shearer at Liverpool in 93 stop

a) Fowler coming through the youth team
b) Owen " " " " "
c) Collymore going insane?

a) No
b) No
c) No

Keane at Liverpool is the more interesting one. He was quite drawn into the hard drinking culture at United in his early days and I'm wondering whether he'd have got sucked into the whole Spice Boy thing and blown his career, or whether he'd have had some kind of wake-up call and ended up bollocking every single one of his teammates and creating a massive rift in the dressing room. Either way, I'm not seeing as stellar a career there without Ferguson.

what if Shearer had replaced Ray Slijngaard in 2 Unlimited?

was there a similar drinking culture at liverpool? it's far less documented than man u, where there seems to have been a few bona fide alcos. i thought at liverpool it was more just twatting about...

what if Shearer had replaced Ray Slijngaard in 2 Unlimited?

The tragedy is we'll never know

Who were Keane's contemporaries? It took a good while for him to emerge at the outstanding midfielder of his generation. Who else might it've been?

batty? ince? er...carlton palmer?

The two young centre midfielders in CM1 who reliably become dominant are Keane and... Chris Bart-Williams.

Keane was hyped from day one tho surely, unlike keepcalmcarryon Gary Speed or whoever

Ince too. I'm struggling to pick out other combative types tbh.

Love football counterfactuals.

I think so too. If they play like they did yesterday and Torres continues to improve they'll be top eight by the time they've played play this lot:

Bolton away
Chelsea home
Wigan away
Stoke away
West Ham home

The middle of the league is so tight that if they beat 8th placed Bolton 3-0 (unlikely as it might seem) on Sunday they'll go above them!

― Tilting at Bushmills (onimo), Monday, 25 October 2010 13:55 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Only two games into those five and they're already 9th - only 2 points behind 5th placed Newcastle (and level with Tottenham - who haven't really come in for much stick thanks to the Bale vs Inter hype). The remaining three don't look quite as tricky as they did after the Everton game.

spurs' league position is far higher then performances merit, tbh

how is david moores not an option? i know it probably hurts him a shitload to see but he's as responsible as anyone. well him and the board as a whole for 1)appointing sourness 2)not making the most of the commercial potential of the club when sky came in 3)selling too late 4)selling to those evil bastards.

Chris Bart-Williams
Chris Bart-Williams
Chris Bart-Williams
Chris Bart-Williams
Chris Bart-Williams
Chris Bart-Williams
Chris Bart-Williams
Chris Bart-Williams

sorry I just had to do that