Who was responsible for the "demise" of Liverpool?

[aiyic]

It was the back-pass rule! ;-)

[Antynwa]

So it's Rafa's fault that Souness signed Paul Stewart!

Fucking thick Spanish cunt.

Sack him.

 

What?

 

We know what happened in the 90's, but that was in the 90's. Up until 2001 we looked as if we got back to our ways, then we went shit again under Houllier, won the CL with Rafa, finished 2nd and now we look incredibly shit.

 

No use looking at mistakes that happened nearly 20 years ago under Souness and the board.

 

You can't change the past.

[deadlash]

Demise???

 

You must be crazy, we've had more ups and downs than most clubs. Heysel was enough without Hillsborough...Rome, Wembley, Anfield, Dalgish, on the other hand...

 

We'll come through this. Believe.

[RedLiberation!]

firstly the club goes on - no demise I'm aware of - think w are ranked 3 in europe

 

.

 

Oh .. I better send a thankyou card to the dear and generous George and Tom.

Thankyou such wonderful people...

I think I'll dance in the streets too. We might get to the Europa Cup final.Or come 5th in the league

 

Aren't I lucky I can spend £130 to get a seat from the club in the Annie Road end.

 

PS for any village idiots, the above post is SARACASM.

[Delmar]

What?

 

We know what happened in the 90's, but that was in the 90's. Up until 2001 we looked as if we got back to our ways, then we went shit again under Houllier, won the CL with Rafa, finished 2nd and now we look incredibly shit.

 

No use looking at mistakes that happened nearly 20 years ago under Souness and the board.

 

You can't change the past.

 

Every reason to look, understand, and learn. Then make sure that these mistakes are not repeated.

[Trucker Paddy]

Moores, but if you ask Kevin Sampson he done nothing wrong, price of steel and all that.

[Dougie Do'ins]

Hillsborough. Simple as that. You can blame Moores, Souness, money and lack of commercial nous all you want, the fact is all our 'problems' can be traced back to that day. It ripped the heart and soul out of the club and fanbase, which we're still recovering from.

I think it had the opposite effect and actually swelled the fan base. People around the word who hadn't even heard of LFC or had no interest in football suddenly knew about LFC because of Hillsborough and Heysel. Even before the Furgie era Man U were already one of the biggest household names in world football. Why ? Munich and the Busby Babes.

 

Hillsborough, although only for a short time actually made the club realise that it's fans were more than just a money making machine. I'd even go as far as saying it helped the club in a strange sort of way, carry the guilt of Heysel. I'd say Heysel had a bigger detrimental effect on the club than Hillsborough but, ultimately the blood of the club is all over the hands of David Moores.

 

Don't worry Dave, Dougie hasn't forgotten about you. ;)

[Carlos Durninio]

The fanbase swelled because of the new legislation and rise in popularity of the game. I doubt Hillsborough even registered for most. For those that lived through it, and the club itself, there was a lot of soul searching, and still is.

 

The club survived two major footballing disasters, when lesser clubs would have gone under, so to pin the blame on indivuduals is pointless. Without Heysel or Hillsborough it's impossible to judge what direction the club would have gone in.

[Dougie Do'ins]

The fanbase swelled because of the new legislation and rise in popularity of the game. I doubt Hillsborough even registered for most. For those that lived through it, and the club itself, there was a lot of soul searching, and still is.

The club survived two major footballing disasters, when lesser clubs would have gone under, so to pin the blame on indivuduals is pointless. Without Heysel or Hillsborough it's impossible to judge what direction the club would have gone in.

There may have been some "soul searching" by the club at one time but, I can assure you it didn't last long.

[Carlos Durninio]

Be that as it may, the knock off effect of both disasters was tremendous and we lost our way. Yes, the leadership at the top was poor and there could have more forward thinking in terms of stadium and commercial revenue, which was a sticky subject for a lot of Reds who prided themselves on not selling out completely, but we should never underestimate the effect Hillsborough had on everyone - club and fans alilke. Personally, I lost the spark for a good 10 years and knew many others who felt the same.

[Ramjet]

I'm sorry but I will stand by my (outsiders) assessment.

 

Who signed the players?

 

Who went for short term glory?

 

Who destroyed the Liverpool "culture"?

 

I still say (sadly) Dalglish.

 

Before his tenure (as an outsider) one of the reasons I had so much respect for your club was that it seemed to be unique.

 

You seemed to say to every player (Shanks et all) Join us and we will teach you how to play the game properly - and how to win!

 

Paisley seemed to carry on with the same ideal, as did Moran & Fagan.

 

Then the rules changed (Dalglish).

 

For me he is the man responsible for your "demise" - Nobody else!

 

Souness?

 

Great player (but a lousy manager) just caused the problems to be compounded by attempting to change too much, too soon.

 

While I strongly believe you are on a wind up I'll answer anyway.

 

No one person can be held responsible, more a culmination of people and more importantly events (Heysel and the ban prevented us signing top European talent and the obvious one in Hillsborough which had a negative effect on Kenny the manager but Kenny the human being grew immensely from it. He was able to recover in a managerial sense and proved it by lifting a Blackburn team to champions, albeit with a significant amount to spend.

 

Kenny did leave an aging team, but it does not take too long to lower the average age of a team replacing one or two players in the first team at a time and signing young players to come through, (its not necessary to try to do it all in one go either like Souness tried) If Dalglish had stayed around he would have done this, I have no doubt about that.

 

Its not wise coming on here and being so critical of someone who is close to a saint at this club. Imagine fans from another team went to your club and started giving grief to .....erh Niall Quinn or someone (I'm sorry I dont really know any icons from Sunderland, jeez I never thought I'd say icons and Sunderland in the one sentence, maybe yous could build a statue of the beachball or something).

[NathanKnight]

[TalkSilly]

Liverpool FC - LFC Transfer History – This Is Anfield

 

The Club’s relative decline is glaringly reflected in the transfer records of our managers. Dear old Bob had a decade of near perfect transfer activity, 90% of his signings made a significant contribution to the first team. Joe Fagan’s buys were nearly as good. Sadly it’s during Kenny’s tenure that the activity starts to get more patchy, Souness is a disaster, Evans not much better. Houllier far more misses than hits and we all know how ropey Benitez has been.

 

Since the bootroom era it’s been downhill most of the way in the transfer market. They used to say that Paisley, a trained physio, could predict the injuries players would be prone to just by watching them play. Add to that the man’s tactical genius and you can see that the Club had something incredibly special underpinning it for all the years he was there. Maybe it’s not that much of a surprise that we’ve struggled ever since.

[Jokerman]

I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if I'm repeating anything that others may have said previously. I think you have to look at the word 'demise' in this context. In a sense, we have had a few 'demises' since our last title win in 1990. However, I think in this sense we're looking at the 'demise' from us having the same kind of success that Manchester United have had over the last 16 seasons to having the same kind of success that Manchester United had over the 25 seasons previous to that. Of course Hillsborough and Heysel had a big effect on us (how could it not?) and Evans, Houllier, Moores, Gillett & Hicks, Parry et al all made mistakes (some much more detremental than others of course), but if you're analysing why we lost our 'dynasty', then you have to look at the root causes from the period when our dominance ended.

 

The main candidate is obviously Souness, as many others have already stated. Souness inherited a title winning side that was top of the table (we may have slipped to second by the time he actually took charge, I can't remember, but in any case there would have only been one or two points in it) and packed with supremely talented players who had vast experience of winning titles at the highest level. The squad, the team, was ageing, but it was far from over the hill. Our side at that time needed tweaking, and devoping, rather than the complete overhaul that Souness decided to implement. Dalglish had already signed players like Hutchison and Redknapp from lower leagues in the old fashioned Liverpool tradition of grooming players so they can develop within the structure of the club and fit in seemlessly when the time came for them to be first team regulars, and the youth team was littered with promising talent that could play a part a couple of seasons down the line; the likes of McManaman, Fowler, Marsh etc. could all play a part in the development of a new team and a new squad. Souness' record in the transfer market was appaling though. He was hindered to an extent by the UEFA restrictions on foreign players, but that only applied to European competitions, he could have evolved a new team that could have met the restrictions, whilst in the interrim period, 'settled' for continued domestic dominance. That hinderance is also contradicted by a few of his decisions, such as letting players like Beardsley and McMahon leave too early, whilst swapping decent English squad players like Burrows and Marsh for below par foreign players such as Kozma and Bjornebye. And then of course there are the English players he did sign, for big money, who were mostly disastrous. Souness was an unmitigated failure as manager and he has to take most of the blame for the 'demise'.

 

Others played their part though. If Souness was the main protagonist then of course you have to look at who brought him in, Noel White. Not just White of course, but Chairmen who both proceeded and preceeded him made mistakes too, as did their respective Chief Executives. Peter Robinson and John Smith failed to take advantage of the clubs success on the pitch off the pitch, and whilst other clubs in the late 80s were making huge developments in the way they marketed themselves (particularly Manchester United and Tottenham), we stood still, even though we should have been the most marketable club in the country by some distance throughout the 80s. Not only did we not take proper advantage of our success off the pitch, the stadium itself was never developed properly, and though I do remember some issues about trying to expand the stadium at the time, or even trying to build a new stadium, it never came to fruition. In short, our failure to modernise properly off the pitch was as damaging in the long term as Souness' reign on it.

 

For me, there's no blame attached to Dalglish whatsoever. He did an exceptional job here. He took over in very difficult circumstances and with no experience, and in fact the team he inherited himself was in need of change. Everton were by far a better team in the summer of 1985, and we still hadn't replaced Souness at the heart of our midfield, other players were ageing and the side needed redeveloping. In retrospect, the double win in 1986 was extraordinary. We were probably a team in transition at the time, and to win the title in those circumstances, and then go on to beat Everton in the Cup Final certainly proved his credentials as a manager. He didn't fully get the side he wanted until the '87-'88 season, and we all know how good that side was. By the end of his reign some players needed replacing and we needed to bring in some fresh talent, but the extent to which this was needed has been overplayed in retrospect. We were still the best team by some way at the time Dalglish resigned. The cracks were there, but the building was nowhere near falling, to use a shit metaphor.

[stringvest]

I felt at the time that we lost our air of invincibility during Dalglish's reign as manager. Dalglish is a hero of mine, but I have always had that niggling feeling that the turn in our fortunes happened under him. I know it's not backed by the stats, it was and is a gut feeling, and it doesn't in my eyes diminish the respect and admiration I have for the man.

[ratcatcher]

I felt at the time that we lost our air of invincibility during Dalglish's reign as manager. Dalglish is a hero of mine, but I have always had that niggling feeling that the turn in our fortunes happened under him. I know it's not backed by the stats, it was and is a gut feeling, and it doesn't in my eyes diminish the respect and admiration I have for the man.

 

I think that's a bit unfair. Dalglish's record as manager is second to none. I think any trace of invincibility went under souness. I can remember the geordies singing 'you're not famous any more' when they beat us at Anfield. Then a few others started it as we slipped to our lowest position since promotion.

 

Dalglish wanted to spend big and bring in some new players but our then chairman noel white said no. Maybe the invincibility started to slip towards the end of his reign but Dalglish wasnt the reason.

[Anubis]

He DID practically abolish the tried and trusted system of bringin quality players (often for affordable fees ala Lawrenson, Whelan, Rush etc) through the reserve system and then integrating them into the first team in favour of what? A mixture of the odd player (mainly defenders) brought through from the reserves and backed up by a number of marquee signings and a whole series of quick fix bought for the moment (and often old) signings to fill in the gaps that soon appeared in the team ala Speedie, Rosenthal etc - Yes he bought quality players in Houghton, Beardsley, Rush (for the 2nd time) and Aldridge as well as the phenomenon that was John Barnes but consider - noticed something about all his big signings yet? - Not one was a defender. I think even Kenny realised his error towards the end of his reign as he started to buy a load more younger players who were clearly going to be groomed in the reserves in the 'Liverpool Way' as they had been through the 1980's - players like Redknapp, Fowler, Hutchison, Tanner etc could have been the basis of a great title winning team in my opinion had Kenny stayed but then Hillsborough happened, Kenny lost his focus on winning and he abandoned the whole setup with a job not a quarter complete.

 

I disagree that Kenny would have lost sight of the Liverpool way of doing things. I don't think he would have been allowed to. People often forget that Paisley was at his side acting as mentor throughout his first season in charge - the very season he brought in Beardsley, Aldridge and Barnes. I doubt Paisley would have let him forget.

 

Kenny knew the team needed a shot in the arm with the emergence of Everton as rivals, especially with the Blueshite having won the title the season before. He knew there wasn't time to groom players in the reserves, and in my humble opinion he chose the players he brought in wisely.

[Anubis]

As for Liverpool FC's decline, I would personally trace it to the 1990 resignation of the best damn chairman any football club ever had, Sir John Smith. Next to Smith, Moores was the village idiot, and while he may have loved Liverpool he really didn't have the first clue how to run it.

[stringvest]

I think that's a bit unfair. Dalglish's record as manager is second to none. I think any trace of invincibility went under souness. I can remember the geordies singing 'you're not famous any more' when they beat us at Anfield. Then a few others started it as we slipped to our lowest position since promotion.

 

Dalglish wanted to spend big and bring in some new players but our then chairman noel white said no. Maybe the invincibility started to slip towards the end of his reign but Dalglish wasnt the reason.

 

No, I apologise for not being clearer, I didn't say that he was the reason - I said that I remember that's how I felt at the time, that the turning point was under his reign.

[Dicko]

I disagree that Kenny would have lost sight of the Liverpool way of doing things. I don't think he would have been allowed to. People often forget that Paisley was at his side acting as mentor throughout his first season in charge - the very season he brought in Beardsley, Aldridge and Barnes. I doubt Paisley would have let him forget.

 

Kenny knew the team needed a shot in the arm with the emergence of Everton as rivals, especially with the Blueshite having won the title the season before. He knew there wasn't time to groom players in the reserves, and in my humble opinion he chose the players he brought in wisely.

 

We won the double in Kenny's first season, Aldo didn't sign until Jan 87, Barnes, Beardsley & Houghton arrived in the summer at the start of Kenny's third season in charge.

 

Kenny had a very public falling out with Bob in 87 and basically shut him out for good.

[Anubis]

We won the double in Kenny's first season, Aldo didn't sign until Jan 87, Barnes, Beardsley & Houghton arrived in the summer at the start of Kenny's third season in charge.

 

Kenny had a very public falling out with Bob in 87 and basically shut him out for good.

Shit. You're right. Talk about a brain embolism. I've no idea why I brought the players in two seasons early. Old age!

 

My point about Paisley stands though. They may have had a public falling out but I doubt Paisley would have let Kenny forget the wthos of the club. And with Everton taking the title in 86-87 the reason for the shot in the arm is the same.

[Redshadow]

Oh for goodness sake Grady - HOW many times do I have to explain it? - I didn't say Dalglish was SOLELY responsible for our fall from the previous heights but what DID happen (and even you can't argue with this if you look at it objectively) is that certain areas that had kept us on top started to slip on his watch (Especially the reserves/replacments system into the first team which he did NOTHING to restore - instead buying in replacement players, the quality of some of the scouting/coaching staff - 2 of whom HE replaced, and the loss of European experience which to be fair he could do nothing about).

 

But all the above factors combined alongside the utterly disastrous appointment of that useless prat Moores as Chairman with all the subsequent dithering (especially when sackings were required), his holding back transfer funds at the wrong time and of course the Americans arrival; Along with the arrogance pervading the club around the time of 1990 (i.e. We're the best - why try and improve OR stay ahead? Success will come naturally....won't it? which led to us not trying to improve commercially OR on the pitch) ALL of these factors together when combined with Dalglish's mistakes in not shoring up/reinforcing/continuing the practice of bringing in cheaper players, 'grounding' them in the reserves and THEN bringing them into the first team and his error in replacing the likes of Jeff Twentyman as scouting head and Chris Lawler as one of our main coaches - both of whom were doing VERY good jobs when they were removed - Those errors by Dalglish when combined with the arrogance, David Moores and the loss of the European 'experience' that had kept us ahead of the pack by a considerable distance, all those errors added together were enough to create a lethal cocktail that made our fall from prominence inevitable and now we're paying the price of not figuring out where we went wrong for nearly 2 decades.

 

As you say, Chelsea probably WILL get better and the 2 Manchester clubs WILL spend to keep up as well but that's no guarantee that it will work for them - look at the dogs dinner City are making of their season thus far (6 draws now is it?) and look at the best players United have had recently - Ronaldo, Beckham, Solksjaer, Giggs, Scholes) ALL came through their ranks as our best players did before the system was lost for us; All is not lost for us - we just need to be shrewd and learn from our OWN past when we were often outspent but NEVER outperformed - We NEED more than ever now to bring back our system of bringing most of our team through the reserves (which will then allow Rafa' to concentrate his spending on the areas we DO need to beef up - like our attack and defence).

 

I think Rafa' knows all I've said and may even agree - Else why has he TOTALLY rebuilt our youth and reserve teams recently and WHY do you think that the likes of Spearing, Kelly, Ayala and Ecclestone have ALL been brought into the first team recently - I think we might be entering a new period of austerity for Liverpool Football Club for the foreseeable future - but as United with their Golden Youth Team of the nineties AND as we with our reserve system of the Eighties showed in recent times - that doesn't necessarily mean it will be a period of austerity for trophies;

 

We just have to hope that what Rafa' DOES spend, he spends wisely and once the core of the team is sorted out (for now that means waiting for injuries to clear up) we'll be fine. But SO many of our recent woes could have been avoided if Dalglish or one of his lieutenants had had the foresight NOT to dismantle our reserve system OR to tinker with the coaching staff - we were fine as we were and shouldn't have been touched in those respects and maybe our success WOULD have lasted long into the nineties if that had happened - who knows?

 

One things for sure - we know now with hindsight that even the smallest changes at a club can have HUGE affects further down the line - We've found that out to our cost since 1990. Let's just hope it works in reverse now and the little changes that Rafa's making (along with the bigger ones) behind the scenes will benefit our club in the years to come - it's about time we had some good luck as heaven knows, things have been bad enough for us in many ways since around 1989 - It's about time the pendulum swung back our way and something tells me that soon, it will.................................................

[Catch22]

Kenny had never managed anywhere ever before.

To jump straight to the top job in the country was probably too quick although that was initially covered by Sir Bob being around to help.

However the mistakes he made were very small & not crucial in our demise.

 

Souness was an appaling manager & knocked us off our perch.

Evans was almost as bad as Souness & should never have been put in charge as he was too nice a bloke.

However that was partly balanced on the pitch by the luck of having a great set of kids coming thru.

 

The real damage was done off the pitch, most notably with the stadium.

 

Every year, the Mancs & Arse get over £60m extra revenue from their stadium.

That gap is twice the size of our gap to Tranmere!

 

Until that is addressed, our only realistic goal should be to stay in the game in terms of regular CL qualification (&decent performances in it)

 

I don't want a Citeh/Chavs sugardaddy so a competitive stadium is a must.