Once the title was gone last season, we imploded and lost far too many in that lengthy bad spell, obviously with the massive injury list taking its toll too.
We regrouped to finish third, which was an amazing achievement, considering.
Had the prize been to finish ahead of Man Utd, even a depleted Liverpool would have done it. But our eyes were on the title, which didn’t happen, then we fell off, by a long way, but regrouped sufficiently to go again next season.
Man Utd have a lot of buying power, even if they are riddled with debt. As such, they have too many good players to not be a top four factor, but we are better than them and I am confident we will show it again this coming season.
One of my mates (QPR season ticket holder) has had a bet with me that United will finish above Liverpool next season.
I have already told him which bottle of cognac to order (I have to get him a bottle of whisky if lightning strikes twice and they miraculously finish above us again).
Not shocking for me that Sancho barely played at Euros. One of the most overrated players in all of world football.
What is surprising for me is the hype with Sancho. When players post numbers in BL or L1 it’s because they are “farmer leagues” (or whatever clown speak the kids use these days) and the question becomes can the player do it in PL.
I’m not doubting his potential but Jadon Sancho is hardly a world beater or even a consistent threat at this stage of his career. And good luck to the boy playing in a pressure cooker at United. If he goes 14 or 15 matchdays this year before scoring his first goal like he did last year, I fear for how badly their supporters will turn on him.
I will give him credit, he had a great Pokal run last season but unfortunately for him there is no Duisburg, Paderborn or Braunschweig sides to beat up in PL.
Just one of my questions. Saw Luke Shaw during the euros, he has a decent cross and free kick however the rest of his attributes are very mediocre anyway has anyone ever seen this fat head fatty defend/tackle other than sticking his fat bum in the way of the opposition player?
Been reading a number of different LFC books lately — particularly A Banquet Without Wine (fine to read it now that it’s not accurate anymore) and Carra’s autobiography. Both highlighted a number of mistakes we made in the 90s, and the more I read them, the more they seem similar to what United has done: chasing shiny objects with the idea that it could be “the thing” to make the difference, only for it to disappoint, as well as a general lack of innovation off the pitch (noodle companies don’t count). Of course, United still has more money than we do, so they’re not exactly analogous, but I would have thought they would have won a title within a few years of Fergie leaving. Long may it continue.
I always had concerns when we seemed to build a team around one player, Klopp seems to have changed that, yes we have some world class players but I’ve always felt we had a team with Liverpool under Klopp, something I’d suggest is probably why England aren’t losing to the likes of Iceland anymore.
Amount of managers who seem to buy players to solve issues they don’t have is slightly odd.
Well said. I recognize it’s very easy to sit here today with hindsight and pontificate about how X manager did this wrong and that, but it’s amazing how many transfer mistakes were made. By my count, some “final pieces of the jigsaw puzzle” over the years:
Collymore (that Evans thought he was preferable to Brazilian Ronaldo was questionable)
Diouf/Cheyrou/Diao (less said about that window the better)
Kewell
Morientes
Now obviously these are subjective judgments — not every player we bought in was expected to be a world-beater — and most were decent enough guys (Diouf and perhaps Collymore aside) but those were the ones that stuck out to me in terms of expectation vs. the levels they reached.
For United since Fergie, read:
Mata (nice guy, good player in his pomp, but going to United ruined his career)
Di Maria (think we lucked out as he is a good player but just never settled)
Shaw (good this season to be fair, but Robbo has better over the last 4 years and cost 1/4 of the money)
A fit Kewell was an exceptional player, it’s just a shame his body broke down when he reached us and basically never recovered. He only cost us about £5m as well, iirc?
