FSG - Time to give them some credit?

[Bellflower]

You answer your own question.

 

The top four berths require lots of cash to be spent on, and off, the field.

 

FSG's premise is that by outwitting the others, we can claim a top four berth by making smarter decisions, but not spending at their level .

 

That presupposes that we have the personnel at Board level to do that, and i don't think we do. It also requires luck, which is always a dangerous business assumption.

Family Fun Park. It's the future...................

[xerxes]

Family Fun Park. It's the future...................

 

Yes, that is about as good as it will get.

[JohnnyH]

I think if anything the ownership of FSG has shown how many people we have supporting us who seem to have an opinion on absolutely fucking everything, despite how clueless that opinion can seem to be in many cases.

 

They still harp back on the Jen Chang issue like it is some massive mistake that has set us back years. Well it wasn’t. FSG employed a journalist/Economist into a Directors role and his task was to run the communications part of the company. He did this without much noise for a while, but then screwed up in an investigation into a possible leak within the club. He went too far and it cost him his job. End of story. Ask anyone outside of Liverpool fans who Jen Chang is and they wouldn’t even remember. Chang fucked up and it cost him his job. Story over. Dragging this up over and over as some stick to beat FSG just looks daft.

 

The Suarez issue was another debacle in its handling by Ian Cotton. Although I was delighted at the time, the t-shirt thing was a total disaster and it set the agenda. We could have got Johnny Cochrane in from our side and we’d have lost as there was no way the FA were going to say there was no issue to answer and so be called soft on racism. What happened after that with the lack of handshake fucked everything up. Personally, I wasn’t all that surprised that FSG made the call that enough was enough and this had to end. We could have appealed and fought this in some other way, but what would have happened? Nothing other then it getting dragged out more and more and more. The only real solution was to kill it there and then.

 

On the football side, we spent money very badly over the last few years. The Andy Carroll deal could very well go down as the worst transfer in the history of association football when you take the wages and £35m cost of the player and what we are likely to get back for him. We were seen as an easy touch. We are changing that now and I think our refusal to be bent over in the Dempsey deal; the Sigurdsson deal and now the Ince deal has been great. Our hardball in the Coutinho deal by signing him for almost £2m less then another team had bid is very pleasing to see.

 

When I see fans say “for the sake of a couple of million” I cringe. A “couple of million” is more then Joe Allen’s yearly wage. It was more then Suarez’s yearly wage until recently. Turning our nose up at those types of figures are exactly what gets a club into the kind of position we found ourselves at the end of the H&G reign. Comments like that are just not part of the real world.

 

When FSG took over, they arrived with a manager drastically underperforming. Had they been able to then they’d have waited until the summer and replaced him then with whom they wanted then. But the fans were very restless and Hodgson was doing beyond bad so they sacked him with a huge pay off. The biggest payoff we’ve given any manager in our history. Kenny was brought in and massively backed. We can talk about net spend all we want, but the simple fact is they handed the man over £110m. An amount that you should expect Champions League football for. It didn’t go well. Yes, I’d have liked Kenny to have got another season and I was very angry at the time, but no one can argue they didn’t have the courage of their convictions in replacing him that summer. Again a big pay off, and then huge compensation to Swansea to get Rodgers.

 

The stadium issue is ticking along. Nowhere near as quick as we’d have liked, but now that they’ve settled on staying at Anfield, they are working away on buying up properties. The work has actually started. There is no actual “spade in the ground” yet because that part is actually miles down the line. They don’t just decide a massive refurbishment on a Monday and the builders arrive in on the Tuesday morning. The actual start of work is only one part of many elements that are currently being dealt with.

 

I then see daily condemnations of Ian Ayre when the simple facts are he is actually doing quite a decent job at the moment. He’s made some mistakes. He’s only human after all, but all in all he’s doing well. The vast majority of digs I’ve seen have just been pointless slurs that aren’t actually based in fact. I was even reading people on twitter last night saying how he’ll have the phone off again on transfer deadline day. Clearly confusing him with “Good football man” Rick Parry. And before people have a pop at twitter. Even the most extreme nonsense I see on that medium doesn’t compare to some of the shite I see here.

 

The above sounds like some big flag waving exercise for FSG, but it’s not. It’s in response to some of the rubbish (in my opinion) I am seeing about our current owners. I think they are doing a pretty good job as it stands. We had many people on here sniping about what date in the January the letter would arrive from Henry to explain that there is no value in this window and so we won’t be spending anything. Now that we are one of the biggest spenders so far, these little snipes are of course very quiet.

 

They have backed our managers.

They have massively increased commercial revenue.

There seems to be actual and real movement on the stadium issue at last.

 

Unless you want a Man City model then I’m not sure it’s fair to expect a whole lot more of them.

 

Of course, if you are going to constantly bring up old errors time and time again, then there is very little I or anyone else can do as the vast majority are always much happier wallowing in misery and negativity then positives. That’s human nature. But I am hopeful that more and more Liverpool fans will see those negativity comments for what they are. A bitterness at not spending like City, or a lack of understanding of the time this will take and the long term direction. I also think the battle to get rid of the last owners has seen lot of fans think they need to act like this all the time now. Almost like they want to be able to be the ones to say they told us that the owners were crap years ago. They seem to have forgotten very quickly all our wishes for owners that allow us spend what we earn while not wallowing in debt. I remember a comment on there about having £30m a season to spend as being the stuff of dreams. Well guess what? We’re doing that now, and more.

 

Long term this could change, and they could end up being bad owners. But there’ll be no “I told you so” messages because as it stands, they are doing well so why don’t we try and get behind them for a bit and see where it leads us.

[Walton Park]

Fucking great post.

 

I was angry on transfer deadline day and had a pop at them but it was just purely frustration.

 

The site has become really bad lately as some people are like spoiled kids just wanting who they want in charge and they will do nothing else but have a pop constantly until they have who they want in charge or players they want in.

 

Just get behind the team.

 

I can see the club progressing. Its happening slower than we want but its happening and I am happy with that.

 

Avoid defeat Sunday and we have a great chance of pushing for a top 4/5 place. Our run in is a lot better than most.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I agree with Johnny. There are things I'd like to see done, but there are many things which I've said I wanted done which are now being done.

[captainharris]

I think if anything the ownership of FSG has shown how many people we have supporting us who seem to have an opinion on absolutely fucking everything, despite how clueless that opinion can seem to be in many cases.

 

They still harp back on the Jen Chang issue like it is some massive mistake that has set us back years. Well it wasn’t. FSG employed a journalist/Economist into a Directors role and his task was to run the communications part of the company. He did this without much noise for a while, but then screwed up in an investigation into a possible leak within the club. He went too far and it cost him his job. End of story. Ask anyone outside of Liverpool fans who Jen Chang is and they wouldn’t even remember. Chang fucked up and it cost him his job. Story over. Dragging this up over and over as some stick to beat FSG just looks daft.

 

The Suarez issue was another debacle in its handling by Ian Cotton. Although I was delighted at the time, the t-shirt thing was a total disaster and it set the agenda. We could have got Johnny Cochrane in from our side and we’d have lost as there was no way the FA were going to say there was no issue to answer and so be called soft on racism. What happened after that with the lack of handshake fucked everything up. Personally, I wasn’t all that surprised that FSG made the call that enough was enough and this had to end. We could have appealed and fought this in some other way, but what would have happened? Nothing other then it getting dragged out more and more and more. The only real solution was to kill it there and then.

 

On the football side, we spent money very badly over the last few years. The Andy Carroll deal could very well go down as the worst transfer in the history of association football when you take the wages and £35m cost of the player and what we are likely to get back for him. We were seen as an easy touch. We are changing that now and I think our refusal to be bent over in the Dempsey deal; the Sigurdsson deal and now the Ince deal has been great. Our hardball in the Coutinho deal by signing him for almost £2m less then another team had bid is very pleasing to see.

 

When I see fans say “for the sake of a couple of million” I cringe. A “couple of million” is more then Joe Allen’s yearly wage. It was more then Suarez’s yearly wage until recently. Turning our nose up at those types of figures are exactly what gets a club into the kind of position we found ourselves at the end of the H&G reign. Comments like that are just not part of the real world.

 

When FSG took over, they arrived with a manager drastically underperforming. Had they been able to then they’d have waited until the summer and replaced him then with whom they wanted then. But the fans were very restless and Hodgson was doing beyond bad so they sacked him with a huge pay off. The biggest payoff we’ve given any manager in our history. Kenny was brought in and massively backed. We can talk about net spend all we want, but the simple fact is they handed the man over £110m. An amount that you should expect Champions League football for. It didn’t go well. Yes, I’d have liked Kenny to have got another season and I was very angry at the time, but no one can argue they didn’t have the courage of their convictions in replacing him that summer. Again a big pay off, and then huge compensation to Swansea to get Rodgers.

 

The stadium issue is ticking along. Nowhere near as quick as we’d have liked, but now that they’ve settled on staying at Anfield, they are working away on buying up properties. The work has actually started. There is no actual “spade in the ground” yet because that part is actually miles down the line. They don’t just decide a massive refurbishment on a Monday and the builders arrive in on the Tuesday morning. The actual start of work is only one part of many elements that are currently being dealt with.

 

I then see daily condemnations of Ian Ayre when the simple facts are he is actually doing quite a decent job at the moment. He’s made some mistakes. He’s only human after all, but all in all he’s doing well. The vast majority of digs I’ve seen have just been pointless slurs that aren’t actually based in fact. I was even reading people on twitter last night saying how he’ll have the phone off again on transfer deadline day. Clearly confusing him with “Good football man” Rick Parry. And before people have a pop at twitter. Even the most extreme nonsense I see on that medium doesn’t compare to some of the shite I see here.

 

The above sounds like some big flag waving exercise for FSG, but it’s not. It’s in response to some of the rubbish (in my opinion) I am seeing about our current owners. I think they are doing a pretty good job as it stands. We had many people on here sniping about what date in the January the letter would arrive from Henry to explain that there is no value in this window and so we won’t be spending anything. Now that we are one of the biggest spenders so far, these little snipes are of course very quiet.

 

They have backed our managers.

They have massively increased commercial revenue.

There seems to be actual and real movement on the stadium issue at last.

 

Unless you want a Man City model then I’m not sure it’s fair to expect a whole lot more of them.

 

Of course, if you are going to constantly bring up old errors time and time again, then there is very little I or anyone else can do as the vast majority are always much happier wallowing in misery and negativity then positives. That’s human nature. But I am hopeful that more and more Liverpool fans will see those negativity comments for what they are. A bitterness at not spending like City, or a lack of understanding of the time this will take and the long term direction. I also think the battle to get rid of the last owners has seen lot of fans think they need to act like this all the time now. Almost like they want to be able to be the ones to say they told us that the owners were crap years ago. They seem to have forgotten very quickly all our wishes for owners that allow us spend what we earn while not wallowing in debt. I remember a comment on there about having £30m a season to spend as being the stuff of dreams. Well guess what? We’re doing that now, and more.

 

Long term this could change, and they could end up being bad owners. But there’ll be no “I told you so” messages because as it stands, they are doing well so why don’t we try and get behind them for a bit and see where it leads us.

 

wow, a reasoned and objective post. Not used to seeing these on here. Repped.

[Mark M]

I think if anything the ownership of FSG has shown how many people we have supporting us who seem to have an opinion on absolutely fucking everything, despite how clueless that opinion can seem to be in many cases.

 

They still harp back on the Jen Chang issue like it is some massive mistake that has set us back years. Well it wasn’t. FSG employed a journalist/Economist into a Directors role and his task was to run the communications part of the company. He did this without much noise for a while, but then screwed up in an investigation into a possible leak within the club. He went too far and it cost him his job. End of story. Ask anyone outside of Liverpool fans who Jen Chang is and they wouldn’t even remember. Chang fucked up and it cost him his job. Story over. Dragging this up over and over as some stick to beat FSG just looks daft.

 

The Suarez issue was another debacle in its handling by Ian Cotton. Although I was delighted at the time, the t-shirt thing was a total disaster and it set the agenda. We could have got Johnny Cochrane in from our side and we’d have lost as there was no way the FA were going to say there was no issue to answer and so be called soft on racism. What happened after that with the lack of handshake fucked everything up. Personally, I wasn’t all that surprised that FSG made the call that enough was enough and this had to end. We could have appealed and fought this in some other way, but what would have happened? Nothing other then it getting dragged out more and more and more. The only real solution was to kill it there and then.

 

On the football side, we spent money very badly over the last few years. The Andy Carroll deal could very well go down as the worst transfer in the history of association football when you take the wages and £35m cost of the player and what we are likely to get back for him. We were seen as an easy touch. We are changing that now and I think our refusal to be bent over in the Dempsey deal; the Sigurdsson deal and now the Ince deal has been great. Our hardball in the Coutinho deal by signing him for almost £2m less then another team had bid is very pleasing to see.

 

When I see fans say “for the sake of a couple of million” I cringe. A “couple of million” is more then Joe Allen’s yearly wage. It was more then Suarez’s yearly wage until recently. Turning our nose up at those types of figures are exactly what gets a club into the kind of position we found ourselves at the end of the H&G reign. Comments like that are just not part of the real world.

 

When FSG took over, they arrived with a manager drastically underperforming. Had they been able to then they’d have waited until the summer and replaced him then with whom they wanted then. But the fans were very restless and Hodgson was doing beyond bad so they sacked him with a huge pay off. The biggest payoff we’ve given any manager in our history. Kenny was brought in and massively backed. We can talk about net spend all we want, but the simple fact is they handed the man over £110m. An amount that you should expect Champions League football for. It didn’t go well. Yes, I’d have liked Kenny to have got another season and I was very angry at the time, but no one can argue they didn’t have the courage of their convictions in replacing him that summer. Again a big pay off, and then huge compensation to Swansea to get Rodgers.

 

The stadium issue is ticking along. Nowhere near as quick as we’d have liked, but now that they’ve settled on staying at Anfield, they are working away on buying up properties. The work has actually started. There is no actual “spade in the ground” yet because that part is actually miles down the line. They don’t just decide a massive refurbishment on a Monday and the builders arrive in on the Tuesday morning. The actual start of work is only one part of many elements that are currently being dealt with.

 

I then see daily condemnations of Ian Ayre when the simple facts are he is actually doing quite a decent job at the moment. He’s made some mistakes. He’s only human after all, but all in all he’s doing well. The vast majority of digs I’ve seen have just been pointless slurs that aren’t actually based in fact. I was even reading people on twitter last night saying how he’ll have the phone off again on transfer deadline day. Clearly confusing him with “Good football man” Rick Parry. And before people have a pop at twitter. Even the most extreme nonsense I see on that medium doesn’t compare to some of the shite I see here.

 

The above sounds like some big flag waving exercise for FSG, but it’s not. It’s in response to some of the rubbish (in my opinion) I am seeing about our current owners. I think they are doing a pretty good job as it stands. We had many people on here sniping about what date in the January the letter would arrive from Henry to explain that there is no value in this window and so we won’t be spending anything. Now that we are one of the biggest spenders so far, these little snipes are of course very quiet.

 

They have backed our managers.

They have massively increased commercial revenue.

There seems to be actual and real movement on the stadium issue at last.

 

Unless you want a Man City model then I’m not sure it’s fair to expect a whole lot more of them.

 

Of course, if you are going to constantly bring up old errors time and time again, then there is very little I or anyone else can do as the vast majority are always much happier wallowing in misery and negativity then positives. That’s human nature. But I am hopeful that more and more Liverpool fans will see those negativity comments for what they are. A bitterness at not spending like City, or a lack of understanding of the time this will take and the long term direction. I also think the battle to get rid of the last owners has seen lot of fans think they need to act like this all the time now. Almost like they want to be able to be the ones to say they told us that the owners were crap years ago. They seem to have forgotten very quickly all our wishes for owners that allow us spend what we earn while not wallowing in debt. I remember a comment on there about having £30m a season to spend as being the stuff of dreams. Well guess what? We’re doing that now, and more.

 

Long term this could change, and they could end up being bad owners. But there’ll be no “I told you so” messages because as it stands, they are doing well so why don’t we try and get behind them for a bit and see where it leads us.

top post. repped.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Fuck off you thick mule.

 

Out of order. Do one soft lad. You offer nothing to any debate on here. None whatsever.

 

I have to say I disagree with almost everything LFD says about our club, whether he discussing on or off the pitch stuff. However, he obviously cares about the club, and hes not usually offensive. And by being wrong he generates debate, so I'm going to stick up for him here.

 

Yeah me too. However I am waiting to neg him though. Not for this. Only I will know what I am negging him for and when. Sleep with one eye open LFD, one eye open son.

 

 

Appropriate for the high level of fuckwittery on here.

 

They need a song.

 

Heroes.

 

Whoah! Whoah! How about "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" by Faith No More?

 

I think if anything the ownership of FSG has shown how many people we have supporting us who seem to have an opinion on absolutely fucking everything, despite how clueless that opinion can seem to be in many cases.

 

And then you roll in with your opinion.

 

They still harp back on the Jen Chang issue like it is some massive mistake that has set us back years. Well it wasn’t. FSG employed a journalist/Economist into a Directors role and his task was to run the communications part of the company. He did this without much noise for a while, but then screwed up in an investigation into a possible leak within the club. He went too far and it cost him his job. End of story. Ask anyone outside of Liverpool fans who Jen Chang is and they wouldn’t even remember. Chang fucked up and it cost him his job. Story over. Dragging this up over and over as some stick to beat FSG just looks daft.

 

It is not daft Johnny, it is fucking ridiculous. Now if he was still here, then yes I could understand the constant bringing up of the issue. It has happened, been dealt with and the club has moved on. So should a lot of our fan base. But they won’t because they don’t want FSG here, which I will allude to later on.

 

The Suarez issue was another debacle in its handling by Ian Cotton. Although I was delighted at the time, the t-shirt thing was a total disaster and it set the agenda. We could have got Johnny Cochrane in from our side and we’d have lost as there was no way the FA were going to say there was no issue to answer and so be called soft on racism. What happened after that with the lack of handshake fucked everything up. Personally, I wasn’t all that surprised that FSG made the call that enough was enough and this had to end. We could have appealed and fought this in some other way, but what would have happened? Nothing other then it getting dragged out more and more and more. The only real solution was to kill it there and then.

 

I disagree slightly with you here, however I totally see where you are coming from. The T-Shirts were a show of support for one of their own and without going over the whole saga again I still think they players were right to do it. I would have liked to have appealed the decision as I still to this day feel Suarez got fucked over by the club and the FA. But it is old news and it has passed and Suarez and Evra have moved on. I understand the decision made by the board in the end, even though I disagree with how it was dealt with, I understand.

 

On the football side, we spent money very badly over the last few years. The Andy Carroll deal could very well go down as the worst transfer in the history of association football when you take the wages and £35m cost of the player and what we are likely to get back for him. We were seen as an easy touch. We are changing that now and I think our refusal to be bent over in the Dempsey deal; the Sigurdsson deal and now the Ince deal has been great. Our hardball in the Coutinho deal by signing him for almost £2m less then another team had bid is very pleasing to see.

 

I agree with this.

 

When I see fans say “for the sake of a couple of million” I cringe. A “couple of million” is more then Joe Allen’s yearly wage. It was more then Suarez’s yearly wage until recently. Turning our nose up at those types of figures are exactly what gets a club into the kind of position we found ourselves at the end of the H&G reign. Comments like that are just not part of the real world.

 

I think these comments really allude to something you say further down and relates to me wanting to allude as to why people don’t want FSG running our club.

 

When FSG took over, they arrived with a manager drastically underperforming. Had they been able to then they’d have waited until the summer and replaced him then with whom they wanted then. But the fans were very restless and Hodgson was doing beyond bad so they sacked him with a huge pay off. The biggest payoff we’ve given any manager in our history. Kenny was brought in and massively backed. We can talk about net spend all we want, but the simple fact is they handed the man over £110m. An amount that you should expect Champions League football for. It didn’t go well. Yes, I’d have liked Kenny to have got another season and I was very angry at the time, but no one can argue they didn’t have the courage of their convictions in replacing him that summer. Again a big pay off, and then huge compensation to Swansea to get Rodgers.

 

I agree again. What the hell is happening to me? I am agreeing with you.

 

The stadium issue is ticking along. Nowhere near as quick as we’d have liked, but now that they’ve settled on staying at Anfield, they are working away on buying up properties. The work has actually started. There is no actual “spade in the ground” yet because that part is actually miles down the line. They don’t just decide a massive refurbishment on a Monday and the builders arrive in on the Tuesday morning. The actual start of work is only one part of many elements that are currently being dealt with.

 

Impatience is what the is problem here.

 

I then see daily condemnations of Ian Ayre when the simple facts are he is actually doing quite a decent job at the moment. He’s made some mistakes. He’s only human after all, but all in all he’s doing well. The vast majority of digs I’ve seen have just been pointless slurs that aren’t actually based in fact. I was even reading people on twitter last night saying how he’ll have the phone off again on transfer deadline day. Clearly confusing him with “Good football man” Rick Parry. And before people have a pop at twitter. Even the most extreme nonsense I see on that medium doesn’t compare to some of the shite I see here.

 

I don’t like Ayre a he comes a cross as a bit of a slime, but he is doing a decent job and I love how it winds xerxes up every single day. I am starting think xerxes is either Rick Parry himself or Cecil.

 

The above sounds like some big flag waving exercise for FSG, but it’s not. It’s in response to some of the rubbish (in my opinion) I am seeing about our current owners. I think they are doing a pretty good job as it stands. We had many people on here sniping about what date in the January the letter would arrive from Henry to explain that there is no value in this window and so we won’t be spending anything. Now that we are one of the biggest spenders so far, these little snipes are of course very quiet.

 

Agree again.

 

They have backed our managers.

They have massively increased commercial revenue.

There seems to be actual and real movement on the stadium issue at last.

 

Yes, agree again. Pass me the bucket.

 

Unless you want a Man City model then I’m not sure it’s fair to expect a whole lot more of them.

 

And here I believe to be the problem. There are too many people who will not admit that this is what they want. Money ploughed in left right and centre and buy our way to the top again. Fuck that off. Fuck it right off. Being at the top of the pile is all about hard work and having a vision and a plan that go hand in hand. I believe we have that, even though it is in it’s early stages, time will tell if it is the right vision, but what I believe to be the right vision is no longer suitable for the modern football era so I have to change and understand a little more than I had to in the past, I don’t agree with some of it but I get why those things happen.

 

Of course, if you are going to constantly bring up old errors time and time again, then there is very little I or anyone else can do as the vast majority are always much happier wallowing in misery and negativity then positives. That’s human nature. But I am hopeful that more and more Liverpool fans will see those negativity comments for what they are. A bitterness at not spending like City, or a lack of understanding of the time this will take and the long term direction. I also think the battle to get rid of the last owners has seen lot of fans think they need to act like this all the time now. Almost like they want to be able to be the ones to say they told us that the owners were crap years ago. They seem to have forgotten very quickly all our wishes for owners that allow us spend what we earn while not wallowing in debt. I remember a comment on there about having £30m a season to spend as being the stuff of dreams. Well guess what? We’re doing that now, and more.

 

I am off the doctors as there is far to much agreeing going on here.

 

Long term this could change, and they could end up being bad owners. But there’ll be no “I told you so” messages because as it stands, they are doing well so why don’t we try and get behind them for a bit and see where it leads us.

 

Ha! At last, there will be people who will come out and say “I told you so” or “I was right about….”

 

Good post Johnny and I am 95% in agreement with you.

 

They are not perfect but they are not as bad as a lot of people make out.

[JustTosh]

I think if anything the ownership of FSG has shown how many people we have supporting us who seem to have an opinion on absolutely fucking everything, despite how clueless that opinion can seem to be in many cases.

 

They still harp back on the Jen Chang issue like it is some massive mistake that has set us back years. Well it wasn’t. FSG employed a journalist/Economist into a Directors role and his task was to run the communications part of the company. He did this without much noise for a while, but then screwed up in an investigation into a possible leak within the club. He went too far and it cost him his job. End of story. Ask anyone outside of Liverpool fans who Jen Chang is and they wouldn’t even remember. Chang fucked up and it cost him his job. Story over. Dragging this up over and over as some stick to beat FSG just looks daft.

 

The Suarez issue was another debacle in its handling by Ian Cotton. Although I was delighted at the time, the t-shirt thing was a total disaster and it set the agenda. We could have got Johnny Cochrane in from our side and we’d have lost as there was no way the FA were going to say there was no issue to answer and so be called soft on racism. What happened after that with the lack of handshake fucked everything up. Personally, I wasn’t all that surprised that FSG made the call that enough was enough and this had to end. We could have appealed and fought this in some other way, but what would have happened? Nothing other then it getting dragged out more and more and more. The only real solution was to kill it there and then.

 

On the football side, we spent money very badly over the last few years. The Andy Carroll deal could very well go down as the worst transfer in the history of association football when you take the wages and £35m cost of the player and what we are likely to get back for him. We were seen as an easy touch. We are changing that now and I think our refusal to be bent over in the Dempsey deal; the Sigurdsson deal and now the Ince deal has been great. Our hardball in the Coutinho deal by signing him for almost £2m less then another team had bid is very pleasing to see.

 

When I see fans say “for the sake of a couple of million” I cringe. A “couple of million” is more then Joe Allen’s yearly wage. It was more then Suarez’s yearly wage until recently. Turning our nose up at those types of figures are exactly what gets a club into the kind of position we found ourselves at the end of the H&G reign. Comments like that are just not part of the real world.

 

When FSG took over, they arrived with a manager drastically underperforming. Had they been able to then they’d have waited until the summer and replaced him then with whom they wanted then. But the fans were very restless and Hodgson was doing beyond bad so they sacked him with a huge pay off. The biggest payoff we’ve given any manager in our history. Kenny was brought in and massively backed. We can talk about net spend all we want, but the simple fact is they handed the man over £110m. An amount that you should expect Champions League football for. It didn’t go well. Yes, I’d have liked Kenny to have got another season and I was very angry at the time, but no one can argue they didn’t have the courage of their convictions in replacing him that summer. Again a big pay off, and then huge compensation to Swansea to get Rodgers.

 

The stadium issue is ticking along. Nowhere near as quick as we’d have liked, but now that they’ve settled on staying at Anfield, they are working away on buying up properties. The work has actually started. There is no actual “spade in the ground” yet because that part is actually miles down the line. They don’t just decide a massive refurbishment on a Monday and the builders arrive in on the Tuesday morning. The actual start of work is only one part of many elements that are currently being dealt with.

 

I then see daily condemnations of Ian Ayre when the simple facts are he is actually doing quite a decent job at the moment. He’s made some mistakes. He’s only human after all, but all in all he’s doing well. The vast majority of digs I’ve seen have just been pointless slurs that aren’t actually based in fact. I was even reading people on twitter last night saying how he’ll have the phone off again on transfer deadline day. Clearly confusing him with “Good football man” Rick Parry. And before people have a pop at twitter. Even the most extreme nonsense I see on that medium doesn’t compare to some of the shite I see here.

 

The above sounds like some big flag waving exercise for FSG, but it’s not. It’s in response to some of the rubbish (in my opinion) I am seeing about our current owners. I think they are doing a pretty good job as it stands. We had many people on here sniping about what date in the January the letter would arrive from Henry to explain that there is no value in this window and so we won’t be spending anything. Now that we are one of the biggest spenders so far, these little snipes are of course very quiet.

 

They have backed our managers.

They have massively increased commercial revenue.

There seems to be actual and real movement on the stadium issue at last.

 

Unless you want a Man City model then I’m not sure it’s fair to expect a whole lot more of them.

 

Of course, if you are going to constantly bring up old errors time and time again, then there is very little I or anyone else can do as the vast majority are always much happier wallowing in misery and negativity then positives. That’s human nature. But I am hopeful that more and more Liverpool fans will see those negativity comments for what they are. A bitterness at not spending like City, or a lack of understanding of the time this will take and the long term direction. I also think the battle to get rid of the last owners has seen lot of fans think they need to act like this all the time now. Almost like they want to be able to be the ones to say they told us that the owners were crap years ago. They seem to have forgotten very quickly all our wishes for owners that allow us spend what we earn while not wallowing in debt. I remember a comment on there about having £30m a season to spend as being the stuff of dreams. Well guess what? We’re doing that now, and more.

 

Long term this could change, and they could end up being bad owners. But there’ll be no “I told you so” messages because as it stands, they are doing well so why don’t we try and get behind them for a bit and see where it leads us.

 

This is the best post I've seen on here for ages.

 

When FSG came in as owners football was unfamilar territory to them. They inherited a mess and added to it with some bad decisions themselves. To me it looks like they've learned their lesson. The club is going in the right direction now. No more short term sollutions that will hurt us long term.

 

I've been waiting more than 20 years for another league title. I'm fully prepared to wait another 2 or 3 years watching us rebuilding brick by brick, stone by stone.

 

I'm not praising our owners as I too have learned my lesson. But at the moment I think they're doing well for us.

[Major Tom]

I don't think either FSG or Rodgers are the right people for the jobs they are in. They will both keep us at the level we are at now, upper mid table, however I worry even that won't last forever once Gerrard retires, and Suarez inevitably moves on.

 

It's ok saying we're building for the future, but what about the present?

The way we are going we will end up just becoming a selling club, some would argue we already are.

 

We need a big investment in players that can come in straight away and improve our team. Not players that can't get in Chelsea's team or Inter Milans team, but players clubs

don't want to sell.

 

Unfortunately this takes the sort of money we don't have, which means we will languish where we are for the foreseeable future, especially because we have a manager who seems to have no knowledge of European leagues. Even Newcastle and Swansea are making better recruitments than us, with smaller budgets!!

 

In my opinion we are just making the same mistakes all over again albeit on a smaller scale, and without risk of the club going under.

 

So, basically, a sugar-daddy.

[Markmywords]

It's absolutely about time we gave them credit, in fact the constant complaining and bad feeling towards them is tediously unjustified.

 

I also think having a 'Go fuck yourselves FSG' thread is a disgrace to an otherwise decent site and could do with being pulled.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

It's absolutely about time we gave them credit, in fact the constant complaining and bad feeling towards them is tediously unjustified.

 

I also think having a 'Go fuck yourselves FSG' thread is a disgrace to an otherwise decent site and could do with being pulled.

 

I agree with the first paragraph, but not so much the second. While I agree the thread title is not brilliant for non LFC fans to see, it is a true feeling how Neil G feels/felt at the time and it should stay

 

That is the beauty of this site; the freedom to speak freely, within reason of course, on all subjects relating to the club.

 

It's the high level of posters in that thread who don't know how to put across an opinion in a well constructed manner and can't debate without being offensive (even though the thread title could be deemed that) that cause the offence.

[Johnny Cougar]

Top post from Johnny H.

[Beno]

I think FSG are still holding out the hope that FFP will come in and work as it is meant to. If it does then LFC will be in a very healthy position as City, Chavs etc will no longer be able to splash the cash like they are doing. We will still be behind ManUre and Arsenal(if they ever get rid of Wegner), but in alot better position to challenge. I think they are pinning all their hopes and dreams on this, that is why we are buying young players, with potential, now in the belief that they will blossom into good 1st team players and we will only need to buy quality players to strenghten in the future, once FFP comes in.

This will either prove brilliant foresight or hugely dissapointing, depending on FFP.

Personally I don't think EUFA have the balls to impose FFP as it stands so I'm prepared for huge dissapointment.

This is just my personal opinion and might a load of shite, but I think no matter what FSG do there will always be a sizeable percentage of fans who will slate them, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.

One thing is for sure tho', our finances were in a fucking mess when they took over and they had to try and do something to sort them out, which I think they have.

[JohnnyH]

I think FSG are still holding out the hope that FFP will come in and work as it is meant to. If it does then LFC will be in a very healthy position as City, Chavs etc will no longer be able to splash the cash like they are doing. We will still be behind ManUre and Arsenal(if they ever get rid of Wegner), but in alot better position to challenge. I think they are pinning all their hopes and dreams on this, that is why we are buying young players, with potential, now in the belief that they will blossom into good 1st team players and we will only need to buy quality players to strenghten in the future, once FFP comes in.

This will either prove brilliant foresight or hugely dissapointing, depending on FFP.

Personally I don't think EUFA have the balls to impose FFP as it stands so I'm prepared for huge dissapointment.

This is just my personal opinion and might a load of shite, but I think no matter what FSG do there will always be a sizeable percentage of fans who will slate them, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.

One thing is for sure tho', our finances were in a fucking mess when they took over and they had to try and do something to sort them out, which I think they have.

 

There’s no doubt about that. Some form of FFP coming in is vital to their business plan. Without it we will never be a self-reliant title challenger as Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd would blow us out of the water financially.

 

I think some level of FFP will happen. It simple has to. It just won’t be as strong as we’d like, but as long as it somewhat controls and limits spending, then that’s how we can get back challenging.

 

I’d say the owners will give it a few years to see if it has the necessary power to level the playing field. But if it’s constantly bypassed and circumvented by the Oil rich owners, then they’ll sell up I'd imagine. Would be hard to blame them.

[Beno]

Agree with your last para there Johnny. I think they are quite ambitious and actually honest people and I think if they realise that they cant make LFC challenge for titles then they will probably sell up, hopefully to someone who can.

[Whelan]

I think we need to have a monthly post by JohnnyH to set us right!

 

Although quite how he expects to gain respect without calling someone a cunt, or by insulting their opinion is beyond me! Clearly a bit of a hippy our JohnnyH.

[RobbieOR]

I think if anything the ownership of FSG has shown how many people we have supporting us who seem to have an opinion on absolutely fucking everything, despite how clueless that opinion can seem to be in many cases.

 

They still harp back on the Jen Chang issue like it is some massive mistake that has set us back years. Well it wasn’t. FSG employed a journalist/Economist into a Directors role and his task was to run the communications part of the company. He did this without much noise for a while, but then screwed up in an investigation into a possible leak within the club. He went too far and it cost him his job. End of story. Ask anyone outside of Liverpool fans who Jen Chang is and they wouldn’t even remember. Chang fucked up and it cost him his job. Story over. Dragging this up over and over as some stick to beat FSG just looks daft.

 

The Suarez issue was another debacle in its handling by Ian Cotton. Although I was delighted at the time, the t-shirt thing was a total disaster and it set the agenda. We could have got Johnny Cochrane in from our side and we’d have lost as there was no way the FA were going to say there was no issue to answer and so be called soft on racism. What happened after that with the lack of handshake fucked everything up. Personally, I wasn’t all that surprised that FSG made the call that enough was enough and this had to end. We could have appealed and fought this in some other way, but what would have happened? Nothing other then it getting dragged out more and more and more. The only real solution was to kill it there and then.

 

On the football side, we spent money very badly over the last few years. The Andy Carroll deal could very well go down as the worst transfer in the history of association football when you take the wages and £35m cost of the player and what we are likely to get back for him. We were seen as an easy touch. We are changing that now and I think our refusal to be bent over in the Dempsey deal; the Sigurdsson deal and now the Ince deal has been great. Our hardball in the Coutinho deal by signing him for almost £2m less then another team had bid is very pleasing to see.

 

When I see fans say “for the sake of a couple of million” I cringe. A “couple of million” is more then Joe Allen’s yearly wage. It was more then Suarez’s yearly wage until recently. Turning our nose up at those types of figures are exactly what gets a club into the kind of position we found ourselves at the end of the H&G reign. Comments like that are just not part of the real world.

 

When FSG took over, they arrived with a manager drastically underperforming. Had they been able to then they’d have waited until the summer and replaced him then with whom they wanted then. But the fans were very restless and Hodgson was doing beyond bad so they sacked him with a huge pay off. The biggest payoff we’ve given any manager in our history. Kenny was brought in and massively backed. We can talk about net spend all we want, but the simple fact is they handed the man over £110m. An amount that you should expect Champions League football for. It didn’t go well. Yes, I’d have liked Kenny to have got another season and I was very angry at the time, but no one can argue they didn’t have the courage of their convictions in replacing him that summer. Again a big pay off, and then huge compensation to Swansea to get Rodgers.

 

The stadium issue is ticking along. Nowhere near as quick as we’d have liked, but now that they’ve settled on staying at Anfield, they are working away on buying up properties. The work has actually started. There is no actual “spade in the ground” yet because that part is actually miles down the line. They don’t just decide a massive refurbishment on a Monday and the builders arrive in on the Tuesday morning. The actual start of work is only one part of many elements that are currently being dealt with.

 

I then see daily condemnations of Ian Ayre when the simple facts are he is actually doing quite a decent job at the moment. He’s made some mistakes. He’s only human after all, but all in all he’s doing well. The vast majority of digs I’ve seen have just been pointless slurs that aren’t actually based in fact. I was even reading people on twitter last night saying how he’ll have the phone off again on transfer deadline day. Clearly confusing him with “Good football man” Rick Parry. And before people have a pop at twitter. Even the most extreme nonsense I see on that medium doesn’t compare to some of the shite I see here.

 

The above sounds like some big flag waving exercise for FSG, but it’s not. It’s in response to some of the rubbish (in my opinion) I am seeing about our current owners. I think they are doing a pretty good job as it stands. We had many people on here sniping about what date in the January the letter would arrive from Henry to explain that there is no value in this window and so we won’t be spending anything. Now that we are one of the biggest spenders so far, these little snipes are of course very quiet.

 

They have backed our managers.

They have massively increased commercial revenue.

There seems to be actual and real movement on the stadium issue at last.

 

Unless you want a Man City model then I’m not sure it’s fair to expect a whole lot more of them.

 

Of course, if you are going to constantly bring up old errors time and time again, then there is very little I or anyone else can do as the vast majority are always much happier wallowing in misery and negativity then positives. That’s human nature. But I am hopeful that more and more Liverpool fans will see those negativity comments for what they are. A bitterness at not spending like City, or a lack of understanding of the time this will take and the long term direction. I also think the battle to get rid of the last owners has seen lot of fans think they need to act like this all the time now. Almost like they want to be able to be the ones to say they told us that the owners were crap years ago. They seem to have forgotten very quickly all our wishes for owners that allow us spend what we earn while not wallowing in debt. I remember a comment on there about having £30m a season to spend as being the stuff of dreams. Well guess what? We’re doing that now, and more.

 

Long term this could change, and they could end up being bad owners. But there’ll be no “I told you so” messages because as it stands, they are doing well so why don’t we try and get behind them for a bit and see where it leads us.

 

Great post.

[JohnnyH]

I think we need to have a monthly post by JohnnyH to set us right!

 

Although quite how he expects to gain respect without calling someone a cunt, or by insulting their opinion is beyond me! Clearly a bit of a hippy our JohnnyH.

 

This cunt knows the score.

[VladimirIlyich]

Johnny,fuck off you sensible cunt.

 

There is no place on here for highly reasoned and sensible debate.

 

Your kind will be the death of this club.

[xerxes]

I think if anything etc

 

 

Just because a post is long and reasonably expressed does not give it substance.

 

FSG are a credible, solvent, investment group who saved us and will run the club sensibly- and that is about it.

 

Picking up your points. LFC is financially, and by reputation, one of the top ten football clubs in the world. The criticism of Chang was that his experience was wholly insufficient to execute the massive PR role required. That responsibility falls on Ayre and FSG. His departure was an accident waiting to happen.

 

Blaming Cotton for the Suarez debacle misunderstands the Anfield hierarchy. Ayre was in charge, Ayre did not know what to do. Kenny, misguidedly, filled the vacuum, FSG then had to draw a line. It was Ayre’s inexperience which drove the Suarez debacle. That time bomb is waiting to go off again.

On transfers and wages, wisdom and value are preached, but chaos has reigned. KK appointed, sacked, paid off. Chang, appointed, sacked, paid off. Comolli, appointed, promoted, sacked, paid off. The biggest gross transfer spend in our history authorised to modest effect. Whether Countinho at £8.5m rather than Dempsey at £6.5m remains better value remains to be seen.

 

I then see daily condemnations of Ian Ayre when the simple facts are he is actually doing quite a decent job at the moment.

 

See above....................................................................

 

Arsenal and Man U are grossing over twice as much money per home game as us. Under FFP revenue counts, stadium expenditure does not. If FSG had authorised the new stadium we would be playing in it next season, or the season after. As it is, site acquisition, planning and construction make a half new, half old, stadium at least five years away, by which time the aforementioned two will have banked the best part of £300m more than us from stadium revenues alone.

 

You are right to point out that commercial revenues have lifted significantly, that is down to Ian Ayre, and that is the job he should be doing, not bumbling around as a trainee MD.

 

My major criticism of FSG is not that they know nothing about football ( they don’t), it is that they have failed to appoint people who do. No world class CEO, no Media/PR expert, no DOF, no non exec football experience on the board, and an inexperienced managerial appointment. I am less excited by that than you.

 

Now of course Rodgers may come good, it may also suit him to have a Board that don’t know too much. But is it really asking too much that a world class football club like ours should not have world class talent in key roles at the club?

[Johnny Cougar]

Just fuck off xerxes, you boring, shit at life cunt.

[Major Tom]

Just because a post is long and reasonably expressed does not give it substance.

 

 

Quite.

[TheHowieLama]

Exactly - shorten some of your shit up X.

 

And the next twig who quotes Johnny's whole post is getting negged.

[Tony Moanero]

They should let the manager sign who he wants, regardless of age.