Kenneth Dalglish - is he the man? I have my doubts

[norwichlfc]

Kenny is the right man...if those 3 hit woodwork attempts had gone in i reckon it would have been about 7 or 8 nil. As it was they never did and you could see the "not our day" looks from the players.

 

Admittedly i hope it doesn't go tits up for Kenny as a true legend would be tainted with it and that is what we do not want. It has happened to players before with other clubs

[Jairzinho]

Jairzinho has been saying "don't panic" for months.

 

And very rarely seems to think anything is wrong at all.

 

Wake up.

 

Apart from in my last post in this thread you mean?

 

Clearly plenty of stuff is wrong with our team. I'm just not going to burst into tears after nine games.

[xerxes]

For a start this is a Kenny/Clarke team - Clarke's influence at Mellwood is enormous.

 

Secondly, this is down to expectations.The present team is set up to finish 5th/6th - exactly where we are at the moment.

[caracaracara]

We are only a top striker away from challenging for the league (well 2nd place after City).

 

Luis is a genius but a tad wasteful in front of goal. Dirk ain't going to deliver individual goals and Andy is either immobile / not getting the service (delete depending which side of the agrument you favour).

 

I don't expect us to be a threat to City by the turn of the year so why not try and get Tevez on loan for the rest of the season? Turn a blindd eye to his character afterall it is only for a short period. He would be right up for it to prove everybody wrong before he knobs off back to the americas.

 

We have a few from the Americas at the club so he might fancy a final few months.

[Mr T]

It's not really the football that has been played that is the problem, although it is a slight concern how poor we are in front of goal. What is the main concern for me is the signings that have been made and the transfer strategy overall.

 

The Andy Carroll signing is one of the worst pieces of business done in any league at any time in football. He was a textbook flavour of the month player and we chose to lash out £35M on him. That's just reckless and no amount of mental gymnastics can excuse or justify it.

 

We chose to bring in Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam for a lot of money and got no match winners but instead got rid of Meireles - a genuine match winner.

 

This strategy doesn't really make sense unless you buy the critique that the club was failing because it lacked a British core. Whether he can turn round such a catastrophic set of signings remains to be seen. Managers tend to live and die by their transfer record and Dalglish's in this period at the club is not looking too tasty.

[zigackly]

On the other hand, if you want to criticise him for those signings then you also need to credit him with Suarez, Enrique and Bellamy.

[Jairzinho]

On the other hand, if you want to criticise him for those signings then you also need to credit him with Suarez, Enrique and Bellamy.

 

Purslow signings.

[cmuller]

Whether he can turn round such a catastrophic set of signings remains to be seen. Managers tend to live and die by their transfer record and Dalglish's in this period at the club is not looking too tasty.

 

That's my feelings. If he is "the man" like the topic starter said he needs to do something not many managers ever do - admit his own mistakes (Carroll and all last summers signings bar Enrique), move them on getting what he can, abandon the idea of buying British and start again in terms of building a team.

[The Tott]

People are blinded by the fact it’s Kenny Dalglish. It’s beyond a joke that people get completely shot down for speaking out against him.

 

Don’t get me wrong he’s a complete, non-disputed legend. Always will be a legend, always will be loved by all Liverpool fans.

 

This hasn’t been a good start to the season; we could be trailing Tottenham by 5 points if they win their games in hand. Last season we actually lost 5 games under Dalglish, he wasn’t sensational he just improved on what a disastrous Hodgson reign.

 

Under Benitez we would never have lost 4-0 to Tottenham, Kenny was tactically outclassed by a manager whose tactic ability is non-existent.

 

Don’t come at me with all this net spend bulshit if Rafa had been given £125 million to spend on HIS own players, we’d of won the league. Kenny has had that and we’re still Europa League fodder.

 

I couldn’t believe at the time that the owners had been so weak that they bowed to public pressure and gave him a 2 year contract. Even though in 6 month tenure we didn’t do that well, we still lost 5 games to some god awful opposition.

 

The biggest mistake we made was spending £35million on Andy Carroll and then spending more money buying more shite players to “get the best out of the big lad” fuck off, he’s shit and playing around him will only make us shit.

 

Dalglish has spent so much money and we’re still a Luis Suarez injury away from being a distinctively average side. Some people need to wake up and realise that realistically we haven’t played well all season.

 

Last year we had our best spell when Kuyt, Raul, Suarez and Maxi were all running around each other but what does Kenny do? Sells one of the best midfielders in the league, loans out another great midfielder and decides that our best player of the back end of the season isn’t even good enough to make our bench.

 

We won’t finish 4th, and when we don’t then what, what do we do? A new manager comes in and WILL NOT like players like Carroll, Downing, Adam and a few others in the squad. Which means more money will be needed to buy some actual good players.

 

 

Wow. Just wow. Bile, 100% bile.

 

In every game we havent won in the league this year (barring the spurs game) we created enough clear cut chances to win them comfortably.

 

Sunderland - should have been out of sight at half time

Stoke - Battered them henderson and suarez misses spring to mind

Utd - Same story, creating chances not taking them

Norwich - Dont need to say anything really, missed countless easy chances, should have been on our way to administering a hiding at half time.

 

We're on course. Its still very early in Kenny's reign. And someone is gonna get a bumming very soon.

[Mr T]

On the other hand, if you want to criticise him for those signings then you also need to credit him with Suarez, Enrique and Bellamy.

 

Happy to give credit where appropriate. Enrique looks a decent signing and Bellamy a very good free transfer, shame he doesn't play more.

 

Is it consensus on here that Kenny was influential over the Suarez signing? If so, then I'd be happy to give credit over his signing.

 

Of course, those three players are about a third of the transfer value of the players I mentioned and so credit/criticism is weighted accordingly.

[silverlining]

For a start this is a Kenny/Clarke team - Clarke's influence at Mellwood is enormous.

 

Secondly, this is down to expectations.The present team is set up to finish 5th/6th - exactly where we are at the moment.

 

 

Yes, that's probably exactly how it was pitched to the owners.

 

"Let's spend 80m on Carroll, Henderson and Downing, and we'll put together a side to finish 5th or 6th. How does that sound?"

 

It sounds like something a retard would say.

 

I love how there's a gaggle of cretins who will attempt to justify all of our signings in any way possible.

 

"They've been bought to get fourth, then we'll buy better players when we're back in Europe""

 

"They've been bought to make sure we have a British core"

 

"They've been bought because nobody really good would come"

And my very own favourite:

 

"They've been bought because Kenny's trying to recreate his Blackburn/ Liverpool team that won the title"

 

We've bought horribly. And let's not pretend that Kenny hasn't got previous for fucking shit transfer dealings.

[zigackly]

Happy to give credit where appropriate. Enrique looks a decent signing and Bellamy a very good free transfer, shame he doesn't play more.

 

Is it consensus on here that Kenny was influential over the Suarez signing? If so, then I'd be happy to give credit over his signing.

 

Of course, those three players are about a third of the transfer value of the players I mentioned and so credit/criticism is weighted accordingly.

 

Why would it not be consensus, since every other signing is laid entirely at his door?

 

I would say Suarez is worth a lot more to the team than his proportion of our pure monetary outlay wouldn't you?

 

I also wonder when it became fashionable for Liverpool fans to write off players after less than half a season. Downing started off great and is now shit after a few below par games. Adam is shit one game and brilliant the next. No-one really knows what to make of Henderson in fairness. Carroll has been poor. Is that all we'll ever be able to say about those players though? I really doubt it. Finnan and Lucas were written off by many in their first season, as was Benayoun and I'm sure there were more.

 

Even the TLW gestalt consciousness gets the odd one wrong.

 

It might be boring, but I'll hold my judgement in reserve a little longer personally.

[Guest SpiderLucas]

We got twonked 4-1 against chelsea in 2005 under Rafa. At home.

 

Chelsea > Tottenham

Mourinho > Redknapp

 

........................

 

4-0 > 4-1

[zigackly]

SpiderLucas = frothing spastic.

 

The end.

[Guest SpiderLucas]

People are blinded by the fact it’s Kenny Dalglish. It’s beyond a joke that people get completely shot down for speaking out against him.

 

Don’t get me wrong he’s a complete, non-disputed legend. Always will be a legend, always will be loved by all Liverpool fans.

 

This hasn’t been a good start to the season; we could be trailing Tottenham by 5 points if they win their games in hand. Last season we actually lost 5 games under Dalglish, he wasn’t sensational he just improved on what a disastrous Hodgson reign.

 

Under Benitez we would never have lost 4-0 to Tottenham, Kenny was tactically outclassed by a manager whose tactic ability is non-existent.

 

Don’t come at me with all this net spend bulshit if Rafa had been given £125 million to spend on HIS own players, we’d of won the league. Kenny has had that and we’re still Europa League fodder.

 

I couldn’t believe at the time that the owners had been so weak that they bowed to public pressure and gave him a 2 year contract. Even though in 6 month tenure we didn’t do that well, we still lost 5 games to some god awful opposition.

 

The biggest mistake we made was spending £35million on Andy Carroll and then spending more money buying more shite players to “get the best out of the big lad” fuck off, he’s shit and playing around him will only make us shit.

 

Dalglish has spent so much money and we’re still a Luis Suarez injury away from being a distinctively average side. Some people need to wake up and realise that realistically we haven’t played well all season.

 

Last year we had our best spell when Kuyt, Raul, Suarez and Maxi were all running around each other but what does Kenny do? Sells one of the best midfielders in the league, loans out another great midfielder and decides that our best player of the back end of the season isn’t even good enough to make our bench.

 

We won’t finish 4th, and when we don’t then what, what do we do? A new manager comes in and WILL NOT like players like Carroll, Downing, Adam and a few others in the squad. Which means more money will be needed to buy some actual good players.

 

After getting back from football and re-reading this post, I realise what a complete bellend I’ve made myself look. Its 9 games into the season, not sure what the fuck I was thinking. :wallbutt:

[Jairzinho]

Not being a frothing spastic > Being a frothing spastic.

[goatboy59]

Home>away

 

11 men>9 men

 

Stop talking shit.

[MLB]

The only game we've deserved to lost this season is Spurs. We have deserved to win every other game. Things have taken more time to come together than many would have liked, but it's not like we are playing shit. Our problems are pretty obvious. We are not clinical enough in front of goal, and we have a tendency to concede from the one decent chance the opposition creates during a game. That is why we have drawn our last two games, and why other results this season (bar Spurs) have not gone our way.

[Mr T]

Why would it not be consensus, since every other signing is laid entirely at his door?

 

I would say Suarez is worth a lot more to the team than his proportion of our pure monetary outlay wouldn't you?

 

I also wonder when it became fashionable for Liverpool fans to write off players after half a season. Downing started off great and is now shit after a few below par games. Adam is shit one game and brilliant the next. No-one really knows what to make of Henderson in fairness. Carroll has been poor. Is that all we'll ever be able to say about those players though? I really doubt it. Finnan and Lucas were written off by many in their first season, as was Benayoun and I'm sure there were more.

 

Even the TLW gestalt consciousness gets the odd one wrong.

 

It might be boring, but I'll hold my judgement in reserve a little longer personally.

 

It's obvious why there are questions around Suarez - his transfer had been in the pipeline for ages so it would seem odd to credit Dalglish. But if the forum consensus is that Dalglish was influential then I'm happy to give credit.

 

As for the second point with regards to judging a player - it became fashionable when football turned from a small provincial game and morphed into an international monster where every man, child, woman and dog has an opinion. That's the way the world is I'm afraid, it's also pretty much how most people make decisions - they do it on the information given and continually update them as new information appears. There is even a fancy name for it - Bayesian decision theory.

 

You might withhold your judgement, fair enough. I'll keep doing what Roy Walker suggested, saying what I see. Andy Carroll is shit, like I said back in February.

[robbiefowler9]

Mainly that we're battering teams 1-1 or 0-1 rather than being scraping a draw. We'll start finding the net soon, but Kenny can't score the goal for us.

We have a team at the moment which makes as many chances as any team in the league, but we are poor at taking them and wobbly in defence.

 

Have to agree with this. It is of course frustrating that we aren't taking our chances, but the fact that we are creating a great multitude of clear chances in each game must be taken as a positive and an improvement upon Roy's spell. We definitely need to be more clinical, and with that will come confidence and we'll see a snowballing effect.

 

That said, the other side of the argument is of course relative:

 

Of course Kenny should be supported but to suggest he should be supported in every situation is nonsense. Dirk was poor yesterday and he should have been taken off on sixty, instead Kenny tooh of Downing on eighty and moved Dirk out wide. That was a bad decision, plain and simple.

 

I think Xherdan has got the right balance regarding how we should support the manager. He's the club's number one legend and demands and deserves huge respect from every fan. However, I feel a few fans are somewhat over-compensating with a rather dogmatic stance, in that no one is allowed to question anything about Kenny. That's obviously a very small minority of fans, but it's there all the same.

 

He has of course made mistakes, as any fan can see but there are a few things that need to be considered. The most important factor to bear in mind is that this is very much a work in progress. A lot of players have been bought lately and understandably, it's going to take a significant amount of games and time for this squad to gel. It's also going to require some level of trial and error in terms of finding the right balance on a number of issues (who our best first 11 is, what formation we play, how to incorporate a Suarez/Carroll combination, how to get the best out of certain players).

 

There are fundamentals that need sorting. The defence needs to tighten up, we need to start taking our chances and we maybe need to press teams more.

 

I think the latter was very much evident yesterday. The defence is very deep and as such, Adam and Gerrard were having to come deep to receive the ball. Then when the ball was fed to Luis or Downing, they would skin a player only to find they had no support in the box, as the midfield was 40+ yards behind them.

 

I believe that Kenny and Clarke have enough experience, knowledge and ability to work on all these areas and provide solutions to our problems over the course of the season. I think we have enough in our locker to finish 4th this season but the main thing to bear in mind, as I have already said, is that this is very much the beginning of a process that will take time to develop and fully take shape.

[zigackly]

It's obvious why there are questions around Suarez - his transfer had been in the pipeline for ages so it would seem odd to credit Dalglish. But if the forum consensus is that Dalglish was influential then I'm happy to give credit.

 

I think the best way to see it is as they both have said; that they work as a team and both of them are heavily involved in all decisions. There's certainly been nothing to suggest that is not the case, and Comolli also bought some expensive British players at Spurs who did not work out.

 

What I mislike is all the bad being blamed on Dalglish whilst Comolli gets off scot free and is indeed credited with all the good.

 

That seems to be having your cake and eating it, but what do I know. Carroll had been "in the pipeline for ages" too, as had Downing and Adam if you want to talk about who we were scouting by the way, but the moves for all of them came under Dalglish, who also went over to watch Suarez personally before he was signed as far as I recall.

 

As for the second point with regards to judging a player - it became fashionable when football turned from a small provincial game and morphed into an international monster where every man, child, woman and dog has an opinion. That's the way the world is I'm afraid, it's also pretty much how most people make decisions - they do it on the information given and continually update them as new information appears. There is even a fancy name for it - Bayesian decision theory.

 

You speak as if that's a good thing or something to be proud of. I'd rather not flip-flop from week to week personally, so yes I will take my time to make judgements. I don't mean to be a superfan here, but that is coincidentally the way I was brought up to judge players in a red shirt. The game has changed you say? More's the pity.

[Code]

The only game we've deserved to lost this season is Spurs. We have deserved to win every other game. Things have taken more time to come together than many would have liked, but it's not like we are playing shit. Our problems are pretty obvious. We are not clinical enough in front of goal, and we have a tendency to concede from the one decent chance the opposition creates during a game. That is why we have drawn our last two games, and why other results this season (bar Spurs) have not gone our way.

 

Deserved?

 

What on earth has that got to do with anything?

 

We have not really played good football either apart from yesterday that I thought was good, the first half against Sunderland and the Bolton game, still we lost 4 points at home in those games.

[zigackly]

I remember before Dalglish was signed, some people questioned whether it was wise as his reputation would take a battering from our own support if things didn't go well for any period of time, and I never for one minute thought that would be the case as we look after our own.

 

Regrettably I was wrong. Seeing it happen is ALMOST enough for me to wish he had not returned, but I still hold out hope of egg on many faces.

Edited October 23, 2011 by zigackly

[N'Gog I Trust]

I don't think Kenny's tactics and substitutions are any good.

[Paco]

I remember before Dalglish was signed, some people questioned whether it was wise as his reputation would take a battering from our own support if things didn't go well for any period of time, and I never for one minute thought that would be the case as we look after our own.

 

Regrettably I was wrong.

 

legend or not nobody should be above criticism. if he gets results and his signings play well he'll get all the credit he deserves if not then questions have to be asked.