Strong words from Bascombe

[PaulMcC]

I've barely read anything he's wrote in ages. Since he asked for Hicks and Gillett to be cut some slack probably.

 

Has this been his stance for a while?

 

Liverpool's latest disappointment at home to Wigan highlights Anfield's blindness to modern failings - Telegraph

 

I can't paste the full article. Someone else can if they want.

[satansmutt]

I despise Bascombe with a passion but a lot of that is true.

[Reacher]

He's fucking right and to many people make excuses for the club and Anfield has the same attitude.

 

There needs to be a massive reality check before we start to progress.

[Jairzinho]

A once grand ballroom that fell into disrepair, it was a location where ladies of a certain vintage relived their golden days, throwing on the lipstick for one more shot at rapture alongside a fresh generation. Every now and again they would strike lucky too, as visitors in awe of the sheer novelty value of the 'grab a granny nights’ succumbed to its particular charms.

 

In so many ways, Liverpool Football Club have something in common with the ladies of The Grafton.

 

They are like an old lush, sat in the corner telling the world how attractive and marvellous they are, utterly affronted when anyone blind to their natural beauty suggests otherwise. Friends, lovers and acquaintances nod enthusiastically each time the club attest to their own greatness, but neutrals and rivals think their better days have long since passed.

 

Every so often the reminders are more potent. A magical one-night stand in Europe, or (as this season’s Carling Cup final demonstrated) an occasional trophy, but the most serious threat to Liverpool’s enduring significance is not the criticism or pity of onlookers, it is their own lack of self-awareness.

 

Defeat at home to a bottom-three side such as Wigan Athletic is still looked upon at Anfield as a shock, a performance which belies form or tradition. Why?

 

Wigan have not lost to Liverpool for three years. They are one of 10 teams to have left Anfield this season enthused by their opponents’ inability to win at home. Shaun Maloney’s penalty and Gary Caldwell’s 64th-minute winner condemned Liverpool to their worst Anfield run since relegation in 1953.

 

In applauding his own side’s “historic” win, Wigan manager Roberto Martinez generously suggested Anfield remains a special, iconic football venue. That view is based increasingly on the place’s sense of the past. Liverpool might as well be playing in their museum.

 

Walk around Old Trafford, the Etihad Arena or the Emirates on matchday. Pause, soak in the scale of the view and keep convincing yourself Anfield does not look like the remnant of another era. One day you will wake up and those Malaysian fans you keep fluttering your eyelids at will be wearing City scarves.

 

Look at the league table for the last 22 years and ask how many genuine title challenges there have been. Two? Three perhaps?

 

Thoroughly examine why the club have fallen from their lofty perch. It is not because they have been pushed off by others, been victims of some bizarre FA or Sir Alex Ferguson-led conspiracy, been sidelined by high finance or have suffered two decades of bad luck.

 

It is because successive managers have wasted millions on inadequate players. Those still inaccurately perceived as their closest rivals (a 28-point gap to United is a loose definition of 'close’) have used their resources infinitely better. When a £35 million striker and a £20 million midfielder turn out to be appalling, the simplistic demand is for another cheque to be signed. Supporters work out the profits from sales, subtract the fees from purchases and use this an excuse for buying pap. It is desperately feeble.

 

The other option is another managerial change and the recycling of mitigating factors for 12 more months of rebuilding. That has not worked much, either.

 

Kenny Dalglish is destined to get one more chance next season regardless of the debate about whether he should.

 

Not because it has been a fantastic season (it clearly has not), not because the league table tells fibs (it does not) and not because his signings are good enough (they certainly are not).

 

He will get another season because there is no appetite to write him off after one trophy winning campaign, which could still end with the FA Cup.

 

When Rafael Benitez came seventh and Roy Hodgson flirted with a relegation scrap, you could call anyone at Liverpool and aside from a handful of sycophants, 90 per cent of employees from the board down to the secretaries did not just crave change, they lobbied for it.

 

The fundamental difference between then and now is the same enquiries provoke the opposite view. Dalglish is not just liked, or respected. He is adored and trusted. Liverpool were booed off on Saturday, but Dalglish’s name was still sung (although not as much as it was when he still a club ambassador).

 

For the club’s American owners, the challenge is brutal. Chief among them is convincing their fan base to share in a communal period of self-revelation.

 

“Slow and steady progress,” is their mantra. The emphasis is on slow.

 

They may also have to add the word 'agonising’. Expecting them to repair two decades of fierce cultural resistance to any view suggesting the Liverpool way is no longer the correct one will take courage and a willingness to flirt with unpopularity to do what they believe is essential and right.

 

“There’s a word we have been using for the last 12 months,” managing director Ian Ayre said last week.

 

“Unity.”

 

That is all well and good, but here is another one the club better get used to if they do not accept, confront and deal more urgently with the problem of their current place in English football. Irrelevance.

[bouncebrigade]

So his point is essentially stop buying shite and give Kenny another season. Wow, enlightening.

[Kevin D]

Well, Carragher was played at RB in midweek and that type of thing doesn't go unanswered.

[Section_31]

I like Bascombe but I think that's bollocks.

 

They are like an old lush, sat in the corner telling the world how attractive and marvellous they are, utterly affronted when anyone blind to their natural beauty suggests otherwise. Friends, lovers and acquaintances nod enthusiastically each time the club attest to their own greatness, but neutrals and rivals think their better days have long since passed.

 

This could be said of our fans, but not the club itself IMO and certainly not the manager. I don't see or hear delusion from the manager or an expectation that we should be higher than we are or deserving of respect because of who we are, but I do hear it from our fans.

[redsoxs]

When Rafael Benitez came seventh and Roy Hodgson flirted with a relegation scrap, you could call anyone at Liverpool and aside from a handful of sycophants, 90 per cent of employees from the board down to the secretaries did not just crave change, they lobbied for it.

What utter rubbish, is was more like 50/50 call.

[stringvest]

I think it's an absolutely fair article. as usual.

[Guest the boy]

Bascombe is the lowest of the low. No substance to that article whatsoever.

[stringvest]

What utter rubbish, is was more like 50/50 call.

 

Irrelevant discussion now, but I suspect Bascombe was in a far better position to know than you were.

[FrenchEyeGlass]

What utter rubbish, is was more like 50/50 call.

 

What do you base that on?

 

Not being an arse, just interested as I'd like to know?

 

WRT the article. Read it last night, didn't realise it was Bascombe. A lot of it is true.

[stringvest]

Bascombe is the lowest of the low. No substance to that article whatsoever.

 

The lowest of the low? Isn't that Purslow, or Parry, or some other person who Rafa fell out with? Or is it everyone that Rafa fell out with? If it's all of them, strictly speaking you should call them the 'joint lowest of the low'.

[stringvest]

What do you base that on?

 

Not being an arse, just interested as I'd like to know?

 

blind prejudice, almost complete ignorance, coupled with an unhealthily large helping of denial.

[redsoxs]

Irrelevant discussion now, but I suspect Bascombe was in a far better position to know than you were.

 

Us fans aren't sycophants are we? I remember an Article "In six months, the Benitez era will seem like a golden age".... some laughed.

[tomyam scouse]

When a £35 million striker and a £20 million midfielder turn out to be appalling .... supporters work out the profits from sales, subtract the fees from purchases and use this an excuse for buying pap.

So he does read TLW.

[FrenchEyeGlass]

Us fans aren't sycophants are we? I remember an Article "In six months, the Benitez era will seem like a golden age".... some laughed.

 

I've cited that article so many times since we've dismissed him.

 

I remember how many on here called it absolute bullshit. Fanning was right. They were wrong.

[ritchie]

What utter rubbish, is was more like 50/50 call.

 

Pepe Reina's account in his book would take issue with that. Unless he's one of the sycophants Bascombe refers to.

[Kevin D]

Pepe Reina's account in his book would take issue with that. Unless he's one of the sycophants Bascombe refers to.

 

What did he say?

[Trucker Paddy]

 

I've cited that article so many times since we've dismissed him.

 

I remember how many on here called it absolute bullshit. Fanning was right. They were wrong.

 

This would be the fanning who's a lying cunt and had to make an apology in his paper to one of our players, prize cunt that bloke

2006 -2011 no trophies, 2012 1 up hopefully another to come, I'm enjoying the recent silverware

[FrenchEyeGlass]

This would be the fanning who's a lying cunt and had to make an apology in his paper to one of our players, prize cunt that bloke

2006 -2011 no trophies, 2012 1 up hopefully another to come, I'm enjoying the recent silverware

 

I couldn't give a fuck if it was Hitler and Saddams love child who wrote the article.

 

The words on the screen are right.

[ritchie]

What did he say?

 

Basically said it was like any other dressing room. Some players always liked the manager, some players didn't, others were ambivalent depending on whether they were in the team or not.

 

Said it was a myth that Rafa lost the dressing room.

[Trucker Paddy]

 

I couldn't give a fuck if it was Hitler and Saddams love child who wrote the article.

 

The words on the screen are right.

 

Yeah 4 trophy-less years outta 6 was golden, silly me

Edit : over the top

[WaltonRed]

Since when did we listen to him?

 

Sounds like a blue or manc wrote it, should be ashamed to call himself a red

[Kevin D]

Basically said it was like any other dressing room. Some players always liked the manager, some players didn't, others were ambivalent depending on whether they were in the team or not.

 

Said it was a myth that Rafa lost the dressing room.

 

Guess that explains why Trucker Paddy hates the book so much.