Under souness maybe yeah. And maybe the joint manager season.
For sure later under Hodgson.
United...1990s Liverpool re-enacted?
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For sure later under Hodgson.
To be fair, we are a pretty good example of how you can get pretty much every single important decision wrong. Structure, decisions, timing of decisions, personnel and recruitment, you could hardly point to a single decision that was unequivocally the correct one, short of hiring ETH.
It was very quiet on Monday.
We're not listening to Rangnick, but we could do with asking him his observations. Although I don't think Mercedes are flying this season either.
The first few months of the 10/11 season was the worst I’ve seen of Liverpool since I started supporting them in the late 90’s. Blackpool showed up to Anfield and beat us 2-1.
It’s not talked about much but the final few months of Dalglish’s reign in 2012 were terrible. Relegation form.
Yeah but that was over 20 years from your title before last. We are only a decade since our last and we are laying down for Brighton and Brentford. The speed of our descent has been astonishing.
I'd say you can certainly draw some parables with the arrogance that led to the malaise and the assumption that it would only be a matter of time before we regained our 'rightful' position as champions.
With the benefit of hindsight, I think SAFs last title win was the worst thing that could have happened because when SAF left we should have been looking at structural change and modernising the club. Instead that title victory seemed to kid many, including senior officials at the club, that all we needed was a steady pair of hands to continue sailing the ship in the same direction.
I think there are also similarities in the way that this newer group of less experienced players seem to shrink under the public scrutiny that comes with playing for a team that is expected to win every game, where two draws is a catastrophe and opponents raise their own game every week. Plus, the 'ghosts of the past' are present everywhere and the players cannot escape the likes of SAF watching them from the stands and ex-players like Keane, Scholes, Ferdinand and Neville hammering them on TV every week - again, very similar to Liverpool in the 90s
With the benefit of hindsight, I think SAFs last title win was the worst thing that could have happened because when SAF left we should have been looking at structural change and modernising the club. Instead that title victory seemed to kid many, including senior officials at the club, that all we needed was a steady pair of hands to continue sailing the ship in the same direction.
I think there are also similarities in the way that this newer group of less experienced players seem to shrink under the public scrutiny that comes with playing for a team that is expected to win every game, where two draws is a catastrophe and opponents raise their own game every week. Plus, the 'ghosts of the past' are present everywhere and the players cannot escape the likes of SAF watching them from the stands and ex-players like Keane, Scholes, Ferdinand and Neville hammering them on TV every week - again, very similar to Liverpool in the 90s
Not really, they won more and seemed to at least give a shit.
Also they kept their aura even if it was unwarranted, never gone into a pool game confident of a win even at our best while we've become a laughingly stock.
Also they kept their aura even if it was unwarranted, never gone into a pool game confident of a win even at our best while we've become a laughingly stock.
Thank you for writing that, lots of good points there.
I have a comment to make though to your concluding observation:
…But the one factor I will keep coming back to is that of the ‘spell has been broken’. In 1991 Liverpool stopped doing the things that made them the best. In 2013 United stopped doing the things that made them the best.
Could they have continued doing the things that made them best? As you note, the boot room pipeline eventually ran dry, and it's hard to see how anyone could maintain success with a model like that indefinitely. While internal recruitment has many advantages (above all that it allows a whole club to gel around a shared, well-understood and proven model of how to do things), it also has inherent shortcomings: The very same things breed resistance to change, and takes away the mechanisms you need to institutionally recognise the changes that you have to adapt to.
For United it comes down to one man, and no one lasts forever. I'm not sure you can really institutionalise most of the things that went into making his approach a success.
So all in all I think it makes a lot more sense to emphasise that Liverpool and United went into a dive not because they stopped doing the things that made them the best, but because they were unable to evolve from reliance on a model that wasn't permanently sustainable. And I think it needs to be recognised that a big part of the explanation for why they weren't is exactly those models. Once you've established the gospel that there's a Liverpool way of doing things and a United way of doing things and that's why we do this in this way, you've essentially closed your model off from criticism. Without criticism, there is no recognition of shortcomings. Without recognition of shortcomings, there is no innovation. Without innovation, there is no evolution. And without evolution, what you sooner or later get is failure.
In retrospect it seems incredible that anyone could have expected Moyes to succeed with that team, given that it was largely a mixture of stars on the verge of retirement or at least well past their prime, inadequate stopgaps and young players who weren't ready yet to make major contributions. It was so obviously a squad defined by years of neglected investment.
I wouldn't count on that looking at the current state of our finances...we're down to £50m in cash reserves having had as much as £350m 18-months ago.
The stadium needs knocking down and rebuilding, Carrington needs a revamp, the current squad needs major investment....and we're doing all this against the backdrop of trillionaires owning City and Newcastle and billionaires owning Chelsea and Arsenal. Even the middle-tier teams can spend £50m+ net each Summer and this is all before we even think about competing in Europe...
I find this "even when they were shit, they always put up a fight" shtick really doubtful and due more to recency bias (i.e. our 2 pitiful opening performances, which showed no fight at all). Did they really? I can't talk about the 90s period at all, but I remember some games under Woy where they were totally lacklustre, and showed no fight at all. Maybe that wasn't the case in this fabled 90s period, but I honestly find it hard to believe.
Not that it changes anything about our current sad state of affairs, though.
Not that it changes anything about our current sad state of affairs, though.
Yes, they did.
1990s Liverpool were, as much as I hate to admit it, more or less a good team. They had a few dodgy seasons under Souness. However, outside of that they were a good team. In 1996/97 they came very close to winning the league. It was effectively a four horse race that we won pretty late in the day. In the late 90s it was mostly us and Arsenal. However, Liverpool still had Owen and Fowler and were still very competitive.
Liverpool got properly crap about two decades into their wilderness years with Hodgson and the second coming of 'King' Kenny. However, 1990s Liverpool was a good team. Even the crazy jobshare, Evans and Houllier experiment season didn't end in total catastrophe for Liverpool. Whereas, with us, I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we finish anywhere between 5th and 15th.
Surely no worse that the last few under Solskjaer.
I think we've already fallen as far as you lot ever did. That said, 1 trophy (League cup) between 2006-2019 (13 years) is an almost forgotten fact by everyone except Liverpool fans.
Completely forgot Liverpool had two managers for a spell, absolutely bizarre
A really good assessment.
You’re right that - in hindsight - a nosedive was on the cards after the period of success. Uncontrollable factors overwhelming the club and leading to a downfall. The commonality between the two clubs in the respective eras is a complete blindness to the eras actually coming to an end. Like United in the past decade, Liverpool were a vibe that would just come good if enough money and wishful thinking was lashed onto the project. Actually strategy and clarity of thought were less central.
In the meantime well-run football clubs moved on and left the archaic monolith in its wake.
Should have been looking at this long before he left. I feel that’s the problem with the club - reactive thinking, no contingency planning, no clear vision, direction or proactive decision making.
When a business does that the gap in performance doubles: you end up not just falling behind your own standards but even further behind the clubs that are doing the right thing.
In the 90s what did Liverpool win, won the title in 90 and after that I only remember a league cup, they could have won more I genuinely can't remember though
FA Cup 92
League Cup 95
They also won a fa early into their decline but yeah that's that.
My memory is deceiving me , could have sworn they won a few more league cups here and there.
I remember being genuinely scared when your lot bought Stan Collymore.
Feels so much like Man Utd of the past decade. Searching for that one big name who is going to lead the team back to the promised land. Over relying on kids until their bodies break. For Michael Owen see Marcus Rashford.
United seem to have ignored every lesson that could have been learned from what happened to Liverpool, in order to retread the missteps or throw ourselves more deeply into them.
Tbh, I don't think Liverpool are the best club to compare with Utd in regard to the transition from one period to the next. Liverpool actually handled changes from one manager to the next relatively well up to Souness. The problem with Liverpool was that they didn't adapt quickly enough to the changes in football with the advent of the PL/then indulged themselves in the show business side of it; Spice Boys, Collymore as a saviour etc.
Utd post SAF have more parallels with Forest and Clough. In that, the manager had become the club and everything had been run on direct orders by him or by people he trusted and thought the same (Gill). Once SAF left, it was literally like cutting the head off of the organisation as any key decision was run via him in some shape or form. That consequently created a vacuum that is still sucking the Club further down. The only question for me was Forest's Rock bottom (although they started from a much lower base, even with their European Cups) was League 1. What is Utd's?
Utd post SAF have more parallels with Forest and Clough. In that, the manager had become the club and everything had been run on direct orders by him or by people he trusted and thought the same (Gill). Once SAF left, it was literally like cutting the head off of the organisation as any key decision was run via him in some shape or form. That consequently created a vacuum that is still sucking the Club further down. The only question for me was Forest's Rock bottom (although they started from a much lower base, even with their European Cups) was League 1. What is Utd's?
What we need to do, is stop pretending we’re a big club on the pitch. No doubt, we’re a huge club in general.
We need a complete reset.
Casemiro, if true, would be a 30yr old on a huge contract, who we’ll be stuck with in a few years.
We need to actually get a functioning scouting network, go out, find players, accept that we will have a few years of a thought out rebuild and work with younger, hungrier players.
The current model hasn’t worked on the pitch, so we need to get a good foundation before we start adding the top players
We need a complete reset.
Casemiro, if true, would be a 30yr old on a huge contract, who we’ll be stuck with in a few years.
We need to actually get a functioning scouting network, go out, find players, accept that we will have a few years of a thought out rebuild and work with younger, hungrier players.
The current model hasn’t worked on the pitch, so we need to get a good foundation before we start adding the top players
Not sure the Clough comparison works. I agree they were both clubs led by messianic totems but the spell Clough had over English football was broken while he remained at the club. To the extent that he got them relegated in his final season.
Ferguson’s departure signalled the end of United’s era of success - just like the end of the boot room being Liverpool’s downfall in 1991. The magic was over. Obviously different circumstances but also familiar factors.
Thats what Gary Neville doesnt understand. He possess a sense of entitlement that I think the Man United hierarchy has. An assumption that just because you are 'Manchester United' that it will all work out. Football is much more competitive and even the teams down the table can spend big. Wolves just dropped another 35m on a midfielder. The league is more completive, players are more expensive & there is increased competition for good players.
What I dont understand is if your in a rebuild why chase players like Rabiot? He is the kind of player you need to avoid. Whats also worrying from a United perspective is Rabiot is low hanging fruit - a big name midfielder who on paper looks a good signing. But when you drill it down it would have been a poor signing. Is the reason you chased him because it was easy & there were no other identifiable targets? We did this with Willian and David Luiz, we thought they had a good year or two in them after they left Chelsea and we were wrong. Where's the scouting network that signed Ronaldo, Vidic, Evra ect all under the radar? This is a crossroads for United because you could 'do a Liverpool'. The signings made by Man United over the past 4 years have been pretty unremarkable.
It takes two windows. Because Arteta has done it at Arsenal. Two seasons ago I had no expectation but now Im really optimistic about 3rd and maybe even 2nd if Liverpool keep faltering. But Arteta actually did a rebuild, he got rid of PEA and Ozil, benched our record signing (Pepe) for the kids (ESR, Saka, Martinelli) and had two good back to back windows of recruitment aided by some high quality youngsters that I already mentioned.
Nothing about ETH reign suggests is rebuild is underway. I actually reckon he is terrified by tearing it all down and building it back up again. He seems to be persisting with the same core of players Rangick and Ole failed to get a tune out of. This isnt a rebuild. Its pretending the house isn't build on sand and thinking sprinkling shiny names like Rabiot on top will make a difference. If it was a proper genuine rebuild, Henderson would have replaced De Gea.
What I dont understand is if your in a rebuild why chase players like Rabiot? He is the kind of player you need to avoid. Whats also worrying from a United perspective is Rabiot is low hanging fruit - a big name midfielder who on paper looks a good signing. But when you drill it down it would have been a poor signing. Is the reason you chased him because it was easy & there were no other identifiable targets? We did this with Willian and David Luiz, we thought they had a good year or two in them after they left Chelsea and we were wrong. Where's the scouting network that signed Ronaldo, Vidic, Evra ect all under the radar? This is a crossroads for United because you could 'do a Liverpool'. The signings made by Man United over the past 4 years have been pretty unremarkable.
It takes two windows. Because Arteta has done it at Arsenal. Two seasons ago I had no expectation but now Im really optimistic about 3rd and maybe even 2nd if Liverpool keep faltering. But Arteta actually did a rebuild, he got rid of PEA and Ozil, benched our record signing (Pepe) for the kids (ESR, Saka, Martinelli) and had two good back to back windows of recruitment aided by some high quality youngsters that I already mentioned.
Nothing about ETH reign suggests is rebuild is underway. I actually reckon he is terrified by tearing it all down and building it back up again. He seems to be persisting with the same core of players Rangick and Ole failed to get a tune out of. This isnt a rebuild. Its pretending the house isn't build on sand and thinking sprinkling shiny names like Rabiot on top will make a difference. If it was a proper genuine rebuild, Henderson would have replaced De Gea.
Read the article. It says he studied the Ferguson years to understand how we kept coming back after setbacks and small declines.
Nice click bait.
With Clough it is slightly muddied by his alcoholism which was really affecting him by the 90's; for me Forest in the latter years under Clough were sort of living with Clough's ghost, rather than him in the full sense. Thus to some extent, when I said the above, it was more think of Clough up to the late 80's or maybe the 91 cup final.
For me, Liverpool never really seemed to get to the point where Utd have, since they always seemed to still have a semblance of who they are. The Hicks/Gillette era was probably the only time something similar to what is going on with Utd happened to your lot, but fortunately for you, you were able to get rid of them quickly. However, even then you still had the FSW for a lot of that time to guide you on the pitch or local boys like St Stevie Me and Jamie 'spitter' Carragher representing the club who had understanding of what the club means to the fans.
At Utd, the malaise seems to be a lot more entrenched where it is difficult to actually say what Utd stand for other than as a money making operation for their owners.
I mean, players seem to have to be heavily worked on to be convinced to come/have mega money thrown at them, transfer strategy is incredibly disjointed with no seemingly logical plan to build a coherent system, there isn't any sort of playing style that has been consistently built with Utd's heritage in mind or with an understanding of who Utd are, the players don't have any meaningful connection to the fans and most of the time seem to want to avoid them, the stadium is crumbling, the training facilities are poor, the list goes on.
Looking at everything, the only time your lot got to this stage was maybe in the G&H era, however unlike Utd you had players and to a large degree (minus Woy) managers that were sympathetic to who Liverpool are.
I'm reading all this vitriol about the Glazers, who bought Utd in March 2003, but aren't they the PL's most successful owners ever? By a huge distance?
Of course, you could say it was all Ferguson, and despite the owners, but Ferguson himself doesn't have one single bad word to say about them. Surely you should follow the example of your most beloved manager over everyone else?
Of course, you could say Ferguson has a financial benefit to keep quiet. In which case it was Ferguson that was the root of all your problems back in 2013 and continues to be Utd's biggest problem now with his continued support for them (with his lack of uproar).
Of course, you could say it was all Ferguson, and despite the owners, but Ferguson himself doesn't have one single bad word to say about them. Surely you should follow the example of your most beloved manager over everyone else?
Of course, you could say Ferguson has a financial benefit to keep quiet. In which case it was Ferguson that was the root of all your problems back in 2013 and continues to be Utd's biggest problem now with his continued support for them (with his lack of uproar).
Yeah I think the manner of the defeats over the last 12 months is concerning for United. Even under Hodgson it was never 4-0 or 5-0 defeats, just far too many of them. You have far better players now that we did back then.
Yeah that wasn't a very good run but we were at least competitive in spells.
2007 - Champions League finalists.
2009 - Five points off a league title.
2012 - Two domestic cup finals, winning one.
2014 - Three points off a league title.
2016 - Two cup finals.
2018 - CL finalists.
2019 - Two points off of winning a title.
That kind of covered up the fact that we hadn't actually won anything substantial for a long time. Competing for the league or reaching a CL final makes you forget about everything else because all of your energy goes into believing that you're going to make it to the finishing line and win something big. That and the fact that Liverpool fans don't live in the same reality as everyone else.
United's problem is that since Fergie left, you haven't even competed for a title let alone won one. You haven't been particularly good in the CL either and for the most part the football hasn't been very enjoyable. That makes things seem far worse than they might actually be. Your league finishes aren't disastrous on paper even if you'd expect far better considering how much has been spent.
Im not sure this myth will ever go away in the eyes of rival fans. The amount spent is irrelevant to having success if you spend it so badly. Who is in charge of recruitment? Those appointed by the owners to do so.
Almost half of that spent is no longer at the club which tells a story in itself. I also recall that you spent nearly a billion before Klopp even arrived and it got you no where near the title.
So you’re telling us there’s no problem at all. Probably not in your eyes and you’re assumedly quite happy with how things are going.
The proof is in the pudding with the likes of Woodward/Murtough ultimately having appointed by these owners to recruit players for our team that have been a huge waste of money and being unsuccessful. They had no credentials for those roles but were elevated to carry those positions.
SAF didn’t speak out about them, but years of neglect have brought us to this position and his genius can no longer guide the club to relative success.
We will get to the point of that only with a change of ownership and it’s incredibly encouraging to hear the current noises around the club. That’s what gives me faith that rock bottom has either been achieved or is close to being so.
But surely you expected better from the money spent on players? Last summer you signed Varane, Ronaldo and Sancho into a squad that finished 2nd the previous season. Your expectation would’ve been improvement and a title challenge right?
You surely expected more from Pogba, Lukaku, Di Maria, Maguire, Martial etc?
That was my point. If a club spends big money then fans are entitled to expect results.
Nonsense. Anfield is an intense cauldron of football where every fan shouts like they're 10 men.
Yes you would have expected more from some of those based on their past performance. In hindsight we have hardly profiled any signings in a responsible way. We also haven't kept a manager for long enough to build the team in his vision/Woodward had the ultimate authority.
Last season we expected to be closer to top spot in terms of points than the previous year, some said they wanted us in a title race until April etc as a sign of progress.
A stadium of Peter Dinklages would be good.
We can’t post in the United forum or the match day forum so we need to know is there a storm coming on Monday that will affect the match? Did ownership splash cash on this latest transfer at this particular time to placate the supporters hoping they back off on Monday?
Nice try. Off you go now.
No honestly. 170m spent for just TWO Ajax players. Two names we didn't even know existed until this summer. 170m. Just like that.