Some could be forgiven except for the prices paid.
was thinking about the prices. two elements to a player’s price.
- intrinsic value (is he actually worth that much, i am sure we have our proprietary own valuation methodology).
- value to the team (how much do we need this sort of player right now, again i am sure we have our own pricing model for this)
on both counts we paid way over the odds for Wirtz and especially Isak. IMO
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You put the down thumb on Slot but he won the title the year before.
My major down thumb would be the Guehi fuck up and not seeking an alternative winger after Jota sadly passed away (or trying to keep Diaz).
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Given the overall picture I am still going thumbs down.
And while I give him some credit for the title win, saying that “he won us the title” is something I have to disagree with.
This particular point has been discussed as nauseam. I see it as “he kept the already working Klopp-established structures and methods the same long enough for us to reap maximum benefits from them.
We know this season is a disaster, in a big part by him.
And a number of seeds for that were actually sown by him in the title winning season:
- the fitness drop off
- Unuse and indeed denigration of squad players
- Our tempo getting almost progressively slower, causing problems for us getting over the line.
So, given all that, yes I’d have to say he’s an overall thumbs down for me.
Hughes himself is a MASSIVE thumbs down. I don’t care what he did at Bournemouth, he has been disastrous for LFC
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Yeah I didn’t even get to those other decisions. Just for the ones I highlighted, he should have been already out the door.
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Given that Bournemouth have continued to operate with some degree of success after Hughes’ departure, his overall contribution there is also questionable as he was part of a wider setup.
As for his time at Liverpool, it does look bleak. Slot’s appointment has become a failure and the transformation of a title winning team to something incoherent with costly signings that don’t seem to fit in with the rest of the players looks really bad. The Guehi fiasco and the lack of foresight with the Diaz sale don’t help his case either. If he is indeed looking to offload Jones to bring in Dumfries, it will be the latest example of gross mismanagement, while his stubborn perseverance with Slot against all reason seems like a self-preserving move.
At this point, Hughes better hope for a miraculous recovery because it’s looking like he is just as a big problem as Slot if not bigger.
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I largely disagree with that. Appointing Slot as Klopp’s successor was obviously the right choice, as it brought us nr. 20. That should never be held against anyone, and Slot’s achievement in that regard should never be diminished. The problem with Slot is now. He doesn’t seem to be able to cope with the absolute shitstorm hitting the club since last summer. Hence the need imo to replace him now.
It’s also far too early to judge the incoming transfers. Isak and Wirtz could still turn out to be a major hits for us, despite of the high price paid for them. Frimpong could still become an extremely impactful player for us. His season was blighted by injuries, as for so many other players to be fair.
The problem with Hughes for me seems to be:
- Not an ever-present at the club and in the city: danger of being disconnected with what happens at the club, and the mood among the supporters.
- A strange passivity whenever bad things have happened, and there have been many in the last twelve months, starting with the clusterfuck during our title parade last year, then Jota’s death, and then multiple long-term injuries hitting us. I’d have wished for a bit more media presence and public empathy from him during these hard times, if only to relieve Slot from this thankless task. Maybe it’s my exposure to German football, but I see the SD’s role also as a public one, not only one behind closed doors.
- I see the dismantling of our champions squad last summer, and especially of our young, homegrown players being part of it, as a collective failure: Edwards / Hughes / Slot. Hughes must bear his part of it, as it helped leading to this clusterfuck of a season.
- I’m convinced that the club will shortly dispose of Slot. If not, Hughes better prepares a convincing speech in order to explain to the fans why he stays put. Otherwise, it will be another point held against him at a latter stage.
Edit: regarding the media presence of the SD; I could easily live with Hughes being the silent man in the background if someone else took a more public role in order to back Slot. When Peter Moore was the club’s CEO, he was a regular presence, explaining key club decisions to the fans. He was really good, and it helped Klopp immensely I think. Is it a haphazard that our most successful period happened during his tenure? I wouldn’t think so. We haven’t had a similar presence since he departed, and there has been a void in that regard since then.
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I think Guehi was a fuck up, but in a different way than is commonly assumed. I think the popular story is we identified the CB we needed and played silly buggers too late into the window and got caught out. We then compounded that by not doing anything in the winter window.
There was enough reporting on this though that I think tells a different story. It was reported repeatedly that we genuinely believed we didnt NEED another CB. At the time that was largely ignored, interpreted as just playing the game in the press to make Palace think we weren’t desperate. But play it out and what followed was what you might expect if that were true. We offered a take it or leave it deal to palace because we were legitimately content to walk away. That story positions Guehi as a market opportunity who we liked and if we landed would put us in a better position to negotiate with Ibou and deal with any fall out from that not going well.
I think that is a story a lot of people refuse to believe because it’s hard to see how we could have assessed our CB options as poorly as that, but I think the whole sequence of events makes a lot more sense if you accept that was our position on our CB needs.
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I’m not sure if this is better or worse.
And don’t forget the Zubimendi fiasco as well.
This is an important point. I think someone (probably Hughes?) needs to be doing more here and we are looking like an increasingly rudderless operation. Next season could be dreadful if FSG don’t get a firm grip now.
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I generally think it is more excusable to have misjudged what your squad needs for the coming season (especially when that has a significant interaction with performance of the coach/manager) than it is to have identified needs and utilized stupid tactics in trying to land them that left you short. But with that said, this was one of the few times in this era I found myself concerned to the degree I disagreed with our seeming position on if we had enough at CB.
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Did we ever hear from Michael Edwards when he held the role? I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever heard that man speak and not once have I ever cared to.
Hughes’ job is football operations. We don’t need to hear him speak. We’ve a manager who talks about the football. We have an owner, a chairman and a president who can speak on club matters. If the manager stays or goes it’s not for Hughes to be giving interviews to tell fans what’s going on and why.
Anything you’d get from a Sporting Director would be better coming from one of those other people.
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Very well then. But in that case, someone has to step up and be counted.
Be counted in what way though?
I don’t really understand what people are expecting anyone from the club to say at this moment. If he’s staying they don’t need to announce that and if he’s going we’ll hear when it happens.
Everything else is just noise.
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In the way Peter Moore stood up and could be counted on. He didn’t hesitate to appear as a public figure for the club, stand before the media and takle some pressure off Klopp. As I already said: his tenure coincides with our most successful period under Klopp, and that for me, is no haphazard.
This was more a general remark from me, not specifically on the current issue.
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I wouldn’t say what happened on the pitch had that much to do with what Peter Moore did. Nor that he took pressure of Klopp. He didn’t go into football matters that much. We also had Corona near the end of his tenure, so there was something extra to talk about. His role isn’t comparable to the roles of Edwards and especially Hughes. His was comparable to Hogan’s.
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For me I think the problem is that Slot’s role, as head coach rather than manager, has had a reduction in responsibility and influence, but he remains the focus of public scrutiny and accountability.
Slot is being dragged over the coals for missing out on Guehi, spending £125m on Isak, spending £100m on Wirtz, selling Diaz, not replacing Diaz, letting contracts run down, selling Quansah, terminating Salah’s deal, letting Robbo go, and so on and so on.
People are frustrated and they want to focus their anger somewhere. And the natural place they’ll settle is the poor fucker who has to stand in front of the media twice a week answering questions on all the aforementioned subjects because he is the only person who ever does.
Hughes and Edwards run the transfer strategy, but they never speak. They are never held accountable and they are never expected to justify their decisions. I don’t think that’s OK in a structure where they hold far more of the decision making power than they would with a more traditional manager structure. It’s akin to using Slot as a human shield.
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https://x.com/i/status/2060121780237254947
https://x.com/i/status/2060121784255406114
Shambles and more shambles…
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