We're often told by opposition supporters that Luis Suarez was the reason we did so well in 2014. So surely then his departure is a key factor in us not doing so well. What's your excuse ?
Jurgen Klopp Sack Watch
- Thread starter Samid
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We're often told by opposition supporters that Luis Suarez was the reason we did so well in 2014. So surely then his departure is a key factor in us not doing so well. What's your excuse ?
We bought some shockers,
.Not sure I've ever seen anything quite like Birtles since,
.Seriously? SAF retired and everyone said RVP was the reason we won the league, who wasn't the same player since SAF retired. So SAF departure is the single biggest reason why we are not doing well. He won the league with Cleverley in the midfield, there isn't a manager who can win with not so good squads like SAF did.
So what you are saying is You got good money to replace the players left but ManUtd didn't. We signed replacements, just not as good.
Well I agree with that to some degree, however also with the exception that United have far stronger depth (look at the respective benches when both clubs had recently been decimated by injury - the ave. age of our bench 2 games ago was 19.2 yrs old).
If United win the EL it'll have been a better season for sure, I'd much rather qualify for the CL by winning the EL (still a major trophy) than finishing 3rd or 4th in the PL (even though I'll be very satisfied indeed with that if it happens). If they don't win the EL then a LC and EL semi or final and failing to qualify for the CL (if it happens) should be considered an unmitigated disaster considering that pre-season over 70% of the Caf thought United would win the title (as did the bookies) and with good reason considering the money spent and depth of the squad.
Well, yeah. We've talked about the LFC bench haven't we?
What can I say about the idea Utd were ever Title contenders? How on earth are we unbeaten for this long?
There's better balance & options in the squad at LFC, with like 10 fewer players.** We bring in 1 for another, but somehow there's no continuity, there's no sustaining of a penetrative pattern to the play apart from biff it at Zlatan & hope for the best. And we've had a decently organized defence protecting a very good GK which gives you the base to be balance of play superior to the weaker 13-14 clubs but not the easy penetration which gets you goals.
**after you've factored in fixtures / injuries, as they've panned out after the LFC January
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Are you even reading what you're typing?
@redman5 is having an absolute mare here.
What the feck is the obsession with net spend?
We make more money, so we spend more money? Surely we should be pointing to that as a positive.
Who cares that we've spent more than we've taken in in transfers compared to Liverpool. We've also taken in a lot more. I don't care if that's by selling players, sponsorship or selling fridge magnets in the megastore. We take in a lot more more than almost any other club in the world. It's money generated by the club and I'm glad we're spending it to try and improve the team. Why is revenue generated from selling players considered more important than other revenue streams?
Have we wasted money? Yes. Would I prefer us to be challenging for the league considering the money spent? Of course. Could I give a shit about net spend? Nope.
We make more money, so we spend more money? Surely we should be pointing to that as a positive.
Who cares that we've spent more than we've taken in in transfers compared to Liverpool. We've also taken in a lot more. I don't care if that's by selling players, sponsorship or selling fridge magnets in the megastore. We take in a lot more more than almost any other club in the world. It's money generated by the club and I'm glad we're spending it to try and improve the team. Why is revenue generated from selling players considered more important than other revenue streams?
Have we wasted money? Yes. Would I prefer us to be challenging for the league considering the money spent? Of course. Could I give a shit about net spend? Nope.
You obviously do. That's all that matters.
& your input ( all 4 lines) has been insightful, informative, & thought provoking.
It's blindingly obvious that Ferguson's retirement was going to affect the club. Having said that, a lot of Manchester United supporters felt that the money you have would help you still compete with the very best. One of Ferguson's strengths in the transfer market was in signing 'hungry' players with something to prove. I get the feeling now that playing for United has become something of a reward for certain players who tend to lose a lot a bit of the desire that got them there in the first place. It's something we've been guilty of on many occasions. So like I say, simply throwing money at the problem isn't always the answer.
I'd say that if we were in the situation of being able to pay £60 million for the likes of Di Maria & £89 million for Pogba, then you'd have a point. But the fact is we weren't in that situation therefore you don't have a point. Unless of course you believe that from 2013 onwards both our clubs have been on a level footing in terms of advantages & disadvantages i.e finances, losing key players.
We bought some shockers,
Not sure I've ever seen anything quite like Birtles since,
Yeah, you paid £1.25 million for him in 1980. To put that into perspective we paid £750,000 for John Aldridge 7 years later.
Fecking Amen.
Liverpool paid 35 Million for Carroll, it's not like you are not spending much money. It's just that Liverpool spend money on lot of players, Manutd spend big money on few players. That's been the case forever, at least in the last 20 years.
One downside of us missing out on top 4 if we do is that Liverpool will get in. However, I don't know what players they will be able to attract to strengthen them. Will they be strong enough to mount a challenge for the title and the Champions League? I highly doubt it.
Which is why you should have bigger goals than Liverpool and be a better team than Liverpool by now, but that's still not the case. Net spend isn't that important, I agree.
I know. Thank you. Go on, it's a lot of fun.
Of course we won't, but consistently getting back into the Champions League is what could attract the top bracket players after a few years. This is (hopefully) just a start, but you have to start somewhere. Buy two or three players who'll immediately improve our starting XI this summer plus a handful of squad options, then try to improve on this season by qualifying for the CL again and trying to challenge for a cup trophy. Rinse, repeat.
It's all about progress and a well oiled team isn't built overnight as United fans should know by now.
I get that but ye need to strengthen a lot or ye wont be back in the CL the season after next. We have dropped a lot of points this season but we should have buried the majority of teams had we converted our chances. I can't think of many games this season where Liverpool dropped points that they really should have won. Us and City will be a lot stronger next season. I'm not sure Liverpool will be able to attract the type of players to stay in the Champions League places.
Golly. Some post. Liverpool have dropped more points from winning positions than any other side in the league. So many examples of dropping silly points to lesser sides.
Palace two weeks ago and Bournemouth at the beginning of the season of the top of my head. Do United even have two games in which they took the lead but eventually lost?
"Us and City will be a lot stronger next season" is exactly the type of arguments I was reading after last season, so let's just see how that works out before you make statements like that...
And what exactly are "the type of players to stay in the Champions League"? It seems that you think they're established (world) class players, so no, we can't afford them. However, we can easily attract the type of players that will improve our squad enough to compete for top four again imo. Some of them (Matip) didn't even cost us a single penny last summer.
Yeah, but that's irrelevant to my point. Of course with the money available to us we should be performing much better, but including net spend in any chat about how a team is performing is irrelevant. We're in a position where we don't have to milk the last out of every outgoing transfer and can overspend on incoming transfers to ensure we get our man, despite our current position. So of course our net spend is going to be higher.
Seriously ?!?
I do agree with that, yes.
umm... Ronaldo?
You go on about net spend. No one cares. Despite yours being lower you have absolutely nothing to show for it and in the grand scheme of this season are one point better than United and have won nothing.
You then argue that Liverpool have had their best players to replace. Again so have United. It's a complete and utter non argument. You've been rebuilding since 1990 and are still no nearer your goal of winning a league title again. United have had a few seasons post Sir Alex Ferguson but have still picked up more silverwear than Liverpool in the past ten years, even surpassing them as England's most successful club.
In other words you're talking compete and utter nonsense.
I don't know why everyone is obsessed with net spend either.
It seems the little club's like to wear it as a badge of honour despite Leicester City achieving more for even less.
I wonder if it's like this around the rest of the world?
The real net spend is the one where you take all the club's income and subtract all its outgoings.
In that regard, united are pretty much the largest net gain club in world football.
Hence we can shop in a higher bracket than clubs like Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, Everton.
Chelsea and City have rich owners who subsidise them and can also shop in the higher bracket.
Of united, Chelsea and City I'd say only Chelsea have justified the money spent on players, and that's assuming they get a double this season.
The main thing for me is that all four of Jose's signings have been decent (Pogba and Mikhitarian) or excellent (Bailly and Zlatan). This is what makes me optimistic that this time further spending will lead to further improvements.
United are hard to beat but don't score enough.
Liverpool are easier to beat but score more goals.
Title winning sides have to be able to do both things in balance.
In that regard, united are pretty much the largest net gain club in world football.
Hence we can shop in a higher bracket than clubs like Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, Everton.
Chelsea and City have rich owners who subsidise them and can also shop in the higher bracket.
Of united, Chelsea and City I'd say only Chelsea have justified the money spent on players, and that's assuming they get a double this season.
The main thing for me is that all four of Jose's signings have been decent (Pogba and Mikhitarian) or excellent (Bailly and Zlatan). This is what makes me optimistic that this time further spending will lead to further improvements.
United are hard to beat but don't score enough.
Liverpool are easier to beat but score more goals.
Title winning sides have to be able to do both things in balance.
Liverpool fans brag about net spend then moan every summer that not enough was spent.
The net spend argument isn't an excuse for Liverpool's poor trophy haul over the past decade. It explains certain failings rather than excuses them. The club should have positioned itself to be spending more significantly in certain windows. The buy cheap, sell big model is largely flawed.
I guess it's legitimate to point to net spend when debating respective teams' failings and successes. For example, Burnley's achievement in staying up is remarkable based on their net spend. Likewise, Palace's tricky season is shocking given their spend last summer. So it is a point worth considering when weighing up relative success. If United spend record amounts of cash then the net spend angle will be used if success isn't achieved. If Klopp turns a profit and gets top 4 it's worthy of note. That's life.
I guess it's legitimate to point to net spend when debating respective teams' failings and successes. For example, Burnley's achievement in staying up is remarkable based on their net spend. Likewise, Palace's tricky season is shocking given their spend last summer. So it is a point worth considering when weighing up relative success. If United spend record amounts of cash then the net spend angle will be used if success isn't achieved. If Klopp turns a profit and gets top 4 it's worthy of note. That's life.
It's basic economics. An entity with less resources outperforming an entity with more resources is bound to draw credit. Not sure what people can't wrap their heads round.
No, net spend is flawed. Chelsea won league with positive net spend, does that mean they were financially restricted? No, they spent money before and selling players for profit now.
Similarly if we spend 300 Million this summer for 2017-18 season and nothing for 2018-19 season, does that mean our season is success if we finish in top 10 in 2018-19 season?
the whole outperforming bit
It's a chicken and egg argument. Liverpool fans constantly use net spend as a crutch for failure. It's basically what @redman5 has spent over a decade doing here, trying to justify Liverpool's failure as a football club.
Are Liverpool shit because you always lose your players? Or do you keep losing your players because you're shit? I don't think a club who can give donkey journeymen like Lovren over £100k a week will struggle to hold onto players, provided the club is ambitious and successful.
The trouble is the club has been completely mis-managed from top to bottom. Players like Suarez couldn't wait to get away because he realised he was playing under a fraud manager and at a club that was so poorly run, his chances of achieving anything were slim to none. He must have felt like a whale in a padddling pool.
You can keep complaining about money. Everyone knows it's only within the last couple of years that United overtook Liverpool in terms of spending across the PL era (please compare achievements). And if the argument was already struggling to fly, Leicester came along and added further spotlight to Liverpool's complete failure to even compete for the league, never mind win it. They blew the self-deception completely out of the water. The crutch is broken beyond repair.
Spurs have not won any trophies of late but from the outside they look like the much better run and more ambitious club, despite financial disadvantage. Taking a massive risk to build an entirely new big stadium and investing heavily in club infrastructure. Whereas Liverpool are fannying around extending a stand. Always the last to the party.
I'd hazard a guess that if Kane, Alli and Eriksen were at Liverpool they'd have already looked around them and decided to leave. Instead it looks like they'll stay at Spurs at least for the foreseeable. Because the club appears ambitious, they move quickly when needed, and they don't behave in a small time manner.
So nah, you're not shit because you lose players. You lose your players because you're shit.
Are Liverpool shit because you always lose your players? Or do you keep losing your players because you're shit? I don't think a club who can give donkey journeymen like Lovren over £100k a week will struggle to hold onto players, provided the club is ambitious and successful.
The trouble is the club has been completely mis-managed from top to bottom. Players like Suarez couldn't wait to get away because he realised he was playing under a fraud manager and at a club that was so poorly run, his chances of achieving anything were slim to none. He must have felt like a whale in a padddling pool.
You can keep complaining about money. Everyone knows it's only within the last couple of years that United overtook Liverpool in terms of spending across the PL era (please compare achievements). And if the argument was already struggling to fly, Leicester came along and added further spotlight to Liverpool's complete failure to even compete for the league, never mind win it. They blew the self-deception completely out of the water. The crutch is broken beyond repair.
Spurs have not won any trophies of late but from the outside they look like the much better run and more ambitious club, despite financial disadvantage. Taking a massive risk to build an entirely new big stadium and investing heavily in club infrastructure. Whereas Liverpool are fannying around extending a stand. Always the last to the party.
I'd hazard a guess that if Kane, Alli and Eriksen were at Liverpool they'd have already looked around them and decided to leave. Instead it looks like they'll stay at Spurs at least for the foreseeable. Because the club appears ambitious, they move quickly when needed, and they don't behave in a small time manner.
So nah, you're not shit because you lose players. You lose your players because you're shit.
I agree it's a tainted way of judging success, but it can't simply be banished from discussion. Like I said, Burnley staying up is impressive given their financial restrictions and net spend. That's a legitimate observation. It's also legitimate to point to huge spending and underperformance. Managers live and die on such criteria, and rightly so.
I think it can become an overly fraught debate when rivals engage in barroom accountancy to justify or vilify a team's performance.
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Like I said, Liverpool have spent more than 400 Million in last 5 years, it's completely different than say Burnley who haven't spend much.
IMO Liverpool excuses are lame saying net spend when they have spent more than 400 Million in last 5 years and the wages is more than 200 Million. This season you have done well but in previous seasons most season Liverpool under performed compared to their spend and wages.
Read my earlier comment, I haven't used net spend as an excuse.