RSM

Fucking Tory cunt!

I'd say that Patches has always shown flashes of brilliance and over the past year he's begun to show real consistency at reserve level and not to mention for the U19 Spanish national team. He's at the stage where he needs games to progress; the uproar is very much about Roy's singling out of him and creating an environment where players like Pacheco are not required.

Recently won the Golden Boot at the UEFA European Under-19. So i'd say he's up there at youth level, whether he'll develop into a world beater, who knows? Pacheco could reach those heights but not if he's not given the same opportunities as the likes of Owen, Gerrard, Fowler.

He's not an out an out goal scorer; so it's illogical to think he's going to be banging them in. Does he pretty much outshine every reserve player in the league? then the answer to that is yes. He has easily shown enough in the reserves to warrant a couple of games in the first team and not be treated the way he has. I just don’t understand you bleating on about Barca & Real. Especially as Barca were majorly pissed when we signed him in the fist instance. The whole Roy Vs Pacheco encapsulates what's fucking wrong with our manager. He could have played against West Ham with Gerrard & Merieles in the middle and him just behind Torres, instead Hodgson went with Poulsen. Perhaps even an appearance as a sub in the second half when we cruising at 3-0. It's the man's philosophy around football that is so disturbing; yet we have people on here (like Antynwa) who come on here and defend him while at the same time and even on the same threads criticise the style of play under Benitez; hypocrites.

He's being linked with those teams because he'll be going straight into their first teams. The likes of Barca and Madrid and everyone else who has big budgets don't need to sign a 19yr old to their already bloated superstar squads. It really isn't rocket science. He's one of the best youngsters in the world; no one is saying he's the finished article or that he should be playing every week; but he should be getting more games than he has.

Yes; blame Rafa. FFS.

Yes two players that were extremly talented and probably not developed in the right way by us the club and also perhaps their own attitude didn't help. Lets not make the same mistakes with Pacheco & Suso. Or Sterling & Silva for that matter.

John Welsh was never the same calibre as Pacheco.

Pacheco who is widely recognised as one of the best youngsters in the world yet Eccleston who is nowhere near that calibre is closer to the first team than him. Imagine how frustrated Pacheco must feel that Eccleston is getting games ahead of him? I think everyone needs to start to come to terms with the fact Pacheco will no longer be with us. Thanks Roy.

I would imagine he's on pretty decent money; given that we stole him from Barca for free. Either way if Roy see's him as surplus to requirements; then whatever he is being paid is too much.

Agreed. Players who would no doubt flourish under Wenger at Arsenal. Le Tallec Pongolle Pacheco

Pacheco faces Anfield exit after missed opportunity By Ian Herbert Thursday, 25 November 2010 Liverpool are ready to reduce their wage bill in January with Daniel Pacheco, the 19-year-old Spaniard considered one of the Barcelona academy's rising stars when he signed three years ago, among those manager Roy Hodgson may be prepared to lose. The failure to maintain academy players' development between 16 and 19 has been a recurrent theme at Liverpool in recent years and Pacheco has remained inconsistent. There is considerable interest in him from Spain – including Malaga and Espanyol – and Hodgson has made it clear that the striker missed a major opportunity to impress in Liverpool's Carling Cup defeat to Northampton Town in September. Hodgson said: "He featured in that unfortunate Northampton game and it's a fact of life that it was a great opportunity for those outside the first 13 or 14 to really show me, 'You should be thinking of me'." There is also uncertainty about the Anfield futures of defender Daniel Agger, whose calf injury continues to worry medical staff, and Ryan Babel, who claimed bizarrely on Twitter yesterday that assistant manager Sammy Lee had ordered him to stop practising during the Benitez era. Babel, whom Malaga are also tracking, wrote: "I wasn't allowed to train extra under our former manager, even when I wasn't involved. I even tried to train extra by doing it secretly, but the assistant manager came to tell me to stop." Dr Peter Brukner, Liverpool's head of sports science, said Agger's injury, sustained by a kick to the calf on international duty, had caused calcification to a blood clot. The Dane could be a target for a Bundesliga club. Pacheco faces Anfield exit after missed opportunity - Premier League, Football - The Independent Tony Barrett also mentions that Malaga, Real Sociedad & Espanyol are hoping to sign him. Apparently not the profile of player that Roy wants. Everything wrong with our Manager's philosphy encapsulated within this article. Why are we wasting time? It's not a about which manager is out there that is currently available, it's about NESV making the right manager available.

He's shit; the talent bit is a myth.

Here you go mate. Hazard a guess at Liverpool’s next big signing... - The French Connection - FourFourTwo

post a link next time? Fuck off you cunt.

Hazard a guess at Liverpool’s next big signing... Tuesday 23 November 2010 Serendipity is considered one of the top 10 hardest English words to translate, but it’s one that’s all too familiar to football scouts around the world. The annals of football history are littered with examples of one player being watched, often for the final time before a bid is about to be launched, only for another to dramatically steal the show and eclipse him. Roy Hodgson witnessed just such a moment on Sunday when he accompanied Liverpool scout Laurent Viaud to France for the second time in as many weeks. The pair were in Villeneuve-d-Ascq ostensibly to run the rule over Gervinho, Lille’s skilful Ivory Coast international striker, with whom they were strongly linked in the summer months. A product of Jean-Marc Guillou’s famous ASEC Abidjan youth academy, which saw nine of its graduates, including the Touré brothers, Salomon Kalou and Emmanuel Eboué all start for the Ivory Coast against Portugal at the World Cup in South Africa, Gervinho missed four goalscoring chances and was ultimately substituted by Ludovic Obraniak with 20 minutes remaining. But it wasn’t a wasted journey for Hodgson and Viaud, as they made a fortunate discovery while looking for something else entirely, getting to see one of the finest performances from a player in Europe this season. Eden Hazard was later given a nine in L’Équipe for his match-winning display against Monaco, a rating that is extremely rare and can be put into some perspective by the fact that only five players in history have received full marks from the paper’s ever-so-hard to please band of journalists. The 19-year-old set up Pierre-Alain Frau for Lille’s opener with a stunning mid-air Cruyff turn of an assist. And when Monaco equalised, it took yet more inspiration from Hazard to restore the home side's lead. Operating from his position on the right flank, the Belgium international played a quick one-two with Tulio De Melo then raced to the byline before pulling the ball back accurately for Obraniak, who slotted home the winner, making Lille the sixth team to top the table in France this season. “When Hazard plays at this level, he is untouchable. His talent is unique in Ligue 1,” wrote L’Équipe. Frau for one was in no position to disagree with that assessment and soon after the match he revealed to Orange Sport just how much his fellow teammates are in awe of the footballer already twice voted Ligue 1 Young Player of the Year. “Eden continues to be mind-blowing,” the veteran grinned. “Sometimes even on the pitch, we say: Wow!” Hodgson was giving nothing away. “There were a lot of good players on the pitch,” the 63-year-old dourly remarked on his way out of the ground. His peers within the French game found it a little harder to contain their emotions, though. Rolland Courbis, the former Marseille coach and a colourful personality both on and off the pitch, told RMC Sport: “At times it looks to me like Lionel Messi on the right-hand side… I said ‘at times’. He’ll get more consistent with the experience he acquires in the coming years.” Of course, it’s inconceivable that Hazard hasn’t been on Viaud’s radar and that of his boss, Liverpool’s newly appointed director of football strategy, Damien Comolli, for some considerable time. Tipped as one of the brightest young talents in European football even before making his Ligue 1 debut in 2007 aged just 16, Hazard has always been something of a prodigal talent. His father Thierry was a former professional footballer in the Belgian second division. But there was no pressure to follow in his footsteps. “We didn’t direct his education in a football sense,” Thierry told France Football in March. “He only started to play football at around four and a half or five-years-old in a club coached by his godfather. One should say that there is a pitch right next to our house! He took to it very quickly and from then onwards it was football, football, football. He broke everything inside and outside the house, trying to reproduce the moves he saw on TV like step overs or Zinedine Zidane’s roulettes.” In April, Zidane told Spanish paper Marca that he considers Hazard to be the “star of the future,” adding that: “I’d sign him for Real Madrid with my eyes closed.” So it would appear that all the time he spent copying Zizou’s roulettes has actually paid off. But Hazard hasn’t let the many compliments go to his head – far from it in fact - which will certainly be of interest to Comolli who told liverpoolfc.tv on November 15 that he’d had a long conversation with Kenny Dalglish about what it takes to be a Liverpool player, talking more about the “personal character [and] personality aspect” of the players than their talent alone. Hazard tormented Liverpool in last year's Europa League “He isn’t arrogant,” Marseille legend Franck Sauzée highlighted on Orange Sport. “He is humble in his comments. He mustn’t change.” The staff at Lille also offer up a glowing report of the player’s character. “He is an extra-terrestrial,” smiled Anne-Sophie Leuliette, who is responsible for teaching the club’s youngsters. “He hasn’t changed a lot since his arrival. He has remained very humble and kind, contrary to the others.” Hazard’s former mentor Dick Advocaat has raised questions about his apparent lack of charisma. But Lille’s academy director Jean-Michel Vandamme puts that down to Hazard possessing a diligence that is out of the ordinary. “Eden has a great intellectual honesty,” Vandamme told France Football. “We sometimes have a row about his progress at the academy. When we saw his parents to talk about it, his mother would ask him: ‘Is what Monsieur Vandamme says true’. He would never look for excuses when he didn’t do well on the pitch. He is a real competitor, not a cheat, nor a moaner, because you don’t hear him complaining when he gets fouled.” And yet Hazard’s inner resolve has been severely tested this season. Lille coach Rudi Garcia left him on the bench for three matches in a row between September 26 and October 17 after a start to the campaign that was only remarkable for its distinct mediocrity. “It was to allow him to breathe and to learn that his performances were insufficient,” Garcia said, explaining his controversial decision. The player who had drawn comparisons with Enzo Scifo when making his debut for Belgium aged 17 was now on the fringes of the national team. The leading light of a golden generation was left in the stands against Kazakhstan on October 8 and played just 10 minutes as a second half substitute against Austria a few days later. “I like Eden a lot,” Belgium manager Georges Leekens said. “But he must work more. For the moment he is in a haze at Lille where he is often on the bench. It’s up to him to work physically and mentally. I am not here to hand out gifts. I am here to motivate because Belgium needs a great Eden.” Unsurprisingly to Vandamme his pupil has managed to turn it around. The Belgian has lead Lille to the summit of Ligue 1 After all, Hazard has been directly or indirectly involved in seven of Lille’s last 11 goals. His insatiable run of form over the last month has provided the catalyst to his side’s season. They had been stuttering despite going unbeaten in their first seven matches in all competitions. Last year’s best attack in Ligue 1 - the one that had averaged nearly four goals a game between November 28 2009 and January 17 2010 - was struggling to catch fire. Lille scored just twice in their opening four matches. And when they did find the net four times in one game, it was misleading because it came against beleaguered Lens who were reduced to nine men. Immediately after that result Les Dogues lost to Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League and although they bounced back with a 1-0 victory over Auxerre, Moussa Sow readily admitted that his winning goal was offside. Back-to-back defeats to Lyon and Marseille were all too familiar given Lille’s poor record against France’s ‘big’ clubs, but a 2-2 draw away to Levski Sofia was the lowest ebb with Garcia calling the performance “catastrophic.” He joined the country in questioning the club’s ambition. Lille needed a spark and it came from Hazard. On November 7, he helped open the deadlock that was Brest’s defence, a watertight backline that hadn’t been breached in 832 minutes. Then he orchestrated a 5-2 demolition of Caen. Sunday’s sublime performance against Monaco, his best of the season so far, came just three days after a 500km trip to Voronezh where he made his comeback for Belgium, contributing to an unexpected 2-0 win signed by Romelu Lukaku. “In my opinion, he is back again,” Marc Wilmots said. “He is a lot better since the electric shock, which made him take a lot of things into consideration.” Asked to reveal what has changed, Hazard himself said: “Nothing. I keep working at training and I knew that I’d come back.” And if he can maintain this level of performance for the rest of the season in tandem with the likes of Adil Rami, Yohan Cabaye, Moussa Sow and Gervinho, Lille could well make a breakthrough and win Ligue 1 for the first time since 1954. Then it won’t just be Damien Comolli sending a fax to Lille president Michel Seydoux. Yet luring Hazard away from Villeneuve-d-Ascq won’t be easy. He has a contract until June 2014, which protects his value, but also more importantly it underlines his commitment to the club. “Eden has told us very interesting things,” Seydoux explained. “He wants to see the new ground [which is due to open in 2012] and we wish to see the new ground with Eden Hazard on the pitch.” Pundits such as Christophe Dugarry also feel that Lille’s presence away from the spotlight is good for his long-term development, citing Hatem Ben Arfa’s experiences at Marseille where the media pressure is immense. “It’s not bad for Lille and Hazard to stay a little longer in the shadows,” he wrote There is a sense, though, that sooner or later, he will have to move on. “Eden is a talent, but he can’t be eternally considered as such,” Advocaat said last week. “He must find new motivation. A new club for example.” Whether that new club is Liverpool remains to be seen.

"Ahh..poor Scholsey, he just cannny tackle...hahahah."

He's a big unit and exactly the type of forward Mourinho wants for his direct tactics.

Needs an extra touch? have you seen him play at all?

The Only True Moneyball Strategy Available By royhendo - November 14 2010 It’s unlikely that those in football circles will know the name “Margaret Scott Brown”. In fact, it’s unlikely that many people outside of Margaret Scott Brown’s own circles will know the name “Margaret Scott Brown”. But having enjoyed ten minutes of her time last Saturday morning, I got the feeling that they should. People in general that is. And more specifically, people in football. Mrs Scott Brown is a music teacher. She works at Dundee High School. And you can be pretty certain that there are many other teachers like her throughout the country. People who exude dedication to their craft - who are deeply immersed in the technical and vocational aspects of their career. But what’s maybe underappreciated is how certain aspects of their expertise, if ‘bottled’ and transferred to other teaching and coaching disciplines, might provide the kind of ‘secret sauce’ that makes a crucial difference. The key to genuine competitive advantage. The chance encounter took place in central Dundee. I was walking with my wife and young twins when we encountered a school band, playing in the open air, and the sound was nothing short of breathtaking. And me being prone to unsolicited interrogation, I approached the lady who seemed to be responsible for the group, and, well, bugged her. It turned out that this group of kids had been in her and her colleagues’ charge since the age of 5. And while you’d expect that teachers spend most of their working lives engaged in crowd control and social work, it quickly emerged that something was different about this lady’s approach. We work from the top down, then bottom up Far from leaving things to chance and relying on the odd unexpected talent to emerge from the ranks, it seems things are far more calculated under the tutilege of this particular group. You could see it as simply an office to turn up at five days a week, reacting to events as they unfold. But it’s clear these people see things differently. They see themselves as managing a production line of talent, with each year bringing a new intake at grass roots level, and each year churning out a group of finished articles, ready to make their way in life as exceptional musicians, audio engineers, or some combination of the two. It seems they start out by setting a vision, with everything slotting into place from there. Mrs Scott Brown made it clear that they started out making sure they had a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve with the kids. After all, in their eyes, what they’re managing is a musical production line. Their ‘organisation’ has a clear and universally accepted mission. They know exactly the kind of musicians they want to produce, the mix of skills they want to equip each child with before they leave, and the values and character they want to instil along the way. Listening to her talk, you felt as if you were listening to a mission statement - a manifesto, in fact. And the one thing that kept springing to mind was the parallel with Barcelona’s youth system, housed at La Masia. With the vision clearly defined and all staff buying into it unreservedly, what comes next? Well, they work from the top down. With the clear picture of the general level they want to achieve with each kid, they set about putting the foundations in place, with general principles introduced at every phase of the child’s development, informed by factors you maybe wouldn’t expect in a school music department. “We start out by introducing the youngest kids to the idea of music with movement and rhythm”. The idea at this stage is to build in a love for the playful aspect of what they’re learning, without introducing too much of a technical nature. But that’s not to say young kids are held back from technical challenges. Some staff, in their own time, are training in what’s known as The Suzuki Method. This involves a long-term intensive training syllabus that’s akin to something from the martial arts tradition. Again, the aim is producing children with the highest level of ability, but baked into that aim is the ideal of building the right character within the children. The root belief of this approach? That all kids are capable of attaining the highest level. No kids are excluded at the outset - that flies in the face of their philosophy. The key tenets include: Immersing the children in the musical community generally Building a support structure with other children Experiencing and analysing the performance of the very best in their profession Avoidance of aptitude tests and ‘auditions’ in the learning phase - they ‘play’ Children learn by ear - only later do they learn to read sheet music Learning from as young an age as possible (with scaled down instruments to fit the phsyique of small children) Insistence on the highest quality of coaching and the highest professional standards among coaches - but note - a degree is not required Constant return to the basic repertoire - even when the kid becomes more advanced (both individually and within groups) Encouragement of the right mentality and group solidarity between the kids. As well as bringing to mind footage and stories of the Barcelona Academy system, with the tight bonds between the children who attended there, the strong spiritual and Catalan ethos that pervades their work, the emphasis on working as a collective, and the refusal to judge children on first impressions or on perceived physical limitations (think Iniesta - think Messi), the approach this method promotes is the suspension of judgement. And it’s that which strikes chords when you consider the footballing buzzword at the moment. The word that’s been casually thrown about since the arrival of John Henry and NESV as the new owners of Liverpool Football Club. “Moneyball”. The Suzuki method’s founder, as stated in the Wikipedia entry for the method, “believed that teachers who test for musical aptitude before taking students, or teachers who look only for “talented” students, are limiting themselves to people who have already started their music education.” When you read reports on the early development of both Messi and Iniesta, it’s clear that without the suspension of judgement on their physical attributes, they might not have developed into the footballers they are - footballers that the whole world enjoy. By focussing on their creativity, vision, and technical qualities instead, Barcelona allowed themselves the space to benefit from the unexpected. Why judge a child before we know what they’re really capable of? Or how they’ll turn out physically, mentally and emotionally? “Babe Ruth was a fat piece of shit” Moneyball’s approach was to eschew accepted convention in an established sport and accept players like Jeremy “The Badger” Brown. Traditional scouting and assessments methods excluded people like him from the top levels of the game. The Scouting Director for the team who eventually drafted him, the Oakland A’s, said “It’s not a pretty body… This guy’s a great baseball player trapped in a bad body.” But then as one of his team mates later replied in a team talk: “Babe Ruth was a fat piece of shit”. Sure, Andres Iniesta was a little lad who pined for his parents every day he was away from them, but did his pale complexion and frail physique lead the staff at the club to doubt his chances of a future at the club? The response chimes with The Suzuki Method. Guardiola, having seen him himself while Iniesta was 14, commented “he reads the game better than me”. But then the things the coaching staff at Barca list ahead of other criteria are “how well does he read the game”, along with “does he have vision”. Iniesta comments on his tutilege at the club: ” “I play like I always did. At Barcelona you learn loads but it comes out in an improvised way… You learn to be sharper, cleverer… Small players learn to be intuitive, to anticipate, to protect the ball. A guy who weighs 90 kilos doesn’t move like one who weighs 60. In the playground I always played against much bigger kids and I always wanted the ball. Without it, I feel lost.” That differs from the qualities, we’re led to believe, that the English footballing establishment has come to value. It may now be something of a cliche, but the football we’re served up week upon week bears out its truth. Save for the occasional exception, either on a club-wide level or an individual level (where the talent is exceptional), first on the list tend to be the physical qualities. Can he dominate space? Is he powerful? Is he fast? Does he have stamina? Is he aggressive? And thus, instead of the beautiful game, we bake the opposite emphasis into the game’s very roots. And we don’t only do it at individual club level - we do it on an institutionalised basis through our coaching establishment. People like Trevor Brooking have fought long and hard to try and change these things. But they’re fighting against generations of accepted wisdom and convention. It’s a stubborn Ox to shift. Only the dead fish swim with the stream Given a background of endemic and rigid convention throughout the game, baked into its very grass roots at source, the creative strategist recognises fertile ground for the rule breaker. If someone can genuinely challenge the paradigm and make that alternative approach work, they’ll have stolen a march on their competitors that they’ll benefit from for a generation or more. Arguably that’s already the case with Arsenal, who under Wenger’s stewardship have implemented something like the kind of Academy approach seen at Barcelona - at least in terms of the footballing ethos at the club. But have they implemented it successfully? Does their system generate a production line of unusually shaped footballing minds that wow the footballing world? It’s open to debate. In Wilshere they clearly produced a gem. But beyond that, can we really say their output is of genuine world class quality? Some might say the nut has yet to be cracked in our domestic game. We do, however, have a successful precedent. Some clubs, most notably Liverpool, Manchester United and Celtic, ‘stand for’ a certain brand of football. People, at least of a certain generation, associate these clubs’ names with the style of football they tended to generate - and not on a one-off basis - in a period of dynastic succession - a footballing ‘production line’. Which leads us back to Mrs Scott Brown, and to her colleagues’ approach. Again, to quote The Suzuki Method: “Just as every child is expected to learn their native language, Suzuki expected every child to be able to learn to play music well when they were surrounded with a musical environment from infancy.” It’s this approach which informs their ‘coaching’. Everything in their syllabus aims, for each child: To build their musical capacity (attention, dexterity, awareness of others and their role in the collective, their sensory acuity, and so forth) To build the quality of their reference group (with competitiveness flowing from it in a positive way, rather than imposed by external examination) To tailor their specialism to their strengths (physical limitations, special aptitudes, preferences and interests) To build their character, attitude to constructive criticism, empathy and solidarity for others, and mental strength. With that approach baked in, the ‘coaches’ can take a step back as is their planned schedule and assess the group as a whole, both within single years and across years. They can think more creatively in terms of balance and blend. How the components might work together to produce something beautiful, and to challenge and encourage the children to develop their own ideas. In later years, as these qualities are reinforced and become automatic, the children are allowed to explore the more technical and creative aspects of their craft, with audio engineering facilities made available, and children encouraged (using Sybalius software) to arrange, compose and conduct pieces of their own, for performance both by individuals and by groups, from small bands to full-sized orchestral pieces performed in concert halls. It makes you wonder. “The biggest challenge is getting time with the children” If you’ve watched documentaries on the state of youth development in this country, such as the BBC’s recent “Can England Win The Next World Cup”, the message we repeatedly hear is that the coaches are hamstrung by the inability to ensure the right quality and quantity of time with their students. This is echoed by Mrs Scott Brown. She emphasised that the biggest challenge was getting time with the children, and when that time was available, ensuring the right quality and intensity of focus. Gary Lineker’s introduction to that program stated that “something is very wrong”. But again, this is open to debate. In cosmetic terms, all that’s needed are tweaks. We need to somehow ensure the syllabus is correct, that the right tone is set for the game from root to fruit and back again - the style of football this nation will stand for - and that time and intensity and the right standard of coaching stafff are put at the disposal of the available talent across the country. But to do that, while it sounds straightforward, takes the kind of planning and funding and unified acceptance that isn’t currently possible. Vested interests are entrenched enough that people are reluctant to make changes unless it’s absolutely necessary. People aren’t convinced that change is needed - and you can’t escape from prison until you realise you’re behind bars. So again, the creative strategist should, you’d think, see this as fertile ground for asserting a competitive advantage. Entrenched convention, and a reluctance to budge. In the context of looming financial doping regulations and stringent Academy catchment rules, the time is ripe for the creative strategic thinker to steal a march on their competition. But to do so would take insight, vision, commitment and determination to stick with the blueprint through good times and bad. We talk about Barcelona now as if the magic was down to some combination of clever transfer dealings (Ronaldinho et al), Rijkaard, and Guardiola. But the fact is their success is founded on their own youth system. Sure, they have an unfairly large catchment area when compared to your average Premier League club in the North West of England - there are only so many thousand kids available to these clubs, whereas Barca has a massively larger catchment at its disposal - but that’s no reason to be defeatist. The competing Academies tend to follow the tried and tested methods. Sure, they might bring in Sports Scientists and Nutritionists, and they might have DVD analysis and prozone. But do they genuinely follow a footballing blueprint? One that’s founded on mutual trust and a commitment to accepting risk? To valuing the footballing brain ahead of the footballing brawn? You have to say they don’t. And that’s where the opportunity lies. Liverpool are in a unique position in this regard. One of the few remaining positives their fans can take from the last few years under the ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett was the recruitment by Rafa Benitez of two former senior and central staff of the Barcelona Academy set up. Pep Segura took on a directorial role. Rodolpho Borell took on a hands on coaching role with the oldest Academy groups. Their role was to implement a revised approach to the youth development work at the club. That bodes well, and the club, if it’s wise, will commit to that decision and build on it. Build on it to the extent that it echoes throughout every aspect of the club. Like Mrs Scott Brown’s Music Department, the Academy, and the club as a whole, needs a clear vision of what it stands for. With that in place, the scope opens up for creativity within those established guidelines. So a midfielder is a little heavy - haven’t Liverpool had a big lad do well in that position before? So the keeper is a little eccentric and won’t stick on his line - haven’t they already had a ‘character’ in that role before? With the clear vision in place, and the staff and boardroom’s collective buy-in to its tenets, it becomes possible to build a blend, and to accomodate the little ‘nuances’ in individuals’ make up. So each player isn’t the full finsihed article in all departments? So what? It’s the collective output that matters. It’s that approach that allows Barcelona’s players to trust those in their rank who are less technically gifted with the ball. Last season we saw carles Puyol in the inside left channel in a key home game deliver an incisive one-touch assist in a crunch game. The guy is no more gifted in technical terms than your average centre half. But they trust him with the ball, and he does the same. They have a collective approach - a solidarity - and it brings out more than the sum of their parts. Or it has done, and pretty consistently now for several years, generating some of the most entertaining and dramatic football any of us have ever seen. One only has to read “The Secret Diary of a Liverpool Scout” to understand that, until recently, the ‘footballing brains ahead of footballing brawn’ ethos was uppermost in the Liverpool scouting department’s minds. It’s that approach, and the suspension of judgement on the more ‘traditionally’ valued qualities that will yield the kind of value we need to find, both in the transfer market, and in our youth development. Coupled with that, we need to bake in a vision for the club that’s applied at all levels, from the youngest children to the senior squad to the tea lady. It’s only in that context, with everyone pulling in the same direction, that correct, congruent decisions will be made, and consistent value will be achieved. So you hope that those tasked with strategic decisions at the club bear these things in mind in the near future. It would be a solution that resonates with the club’s history and culture, with the expectations of its fans, and with the benefit of the game in this country. It would also provide the chance to establish genuine competitive advantage - the kind that only long-term commitment, planning, and investment can bring. Is it so hard to achieve? Well, yes. It takes vision, and peculiar skills. But one brief chat in a city street reveals that those skills exist within this country - you just have to be crafty to figure out who has them. Who churns out gifted kids on a regular basis? Whose work ‘fits’ with our way of doing things? Can we get them in and pick their brains? Can we have them review our plans and advise on potential pitfalls? It’s a thought. If we’re deprived of Mansour-style resource, we might as well think a little smarter than they do. www.royhendo.com

Roy please do the honorable thing and go. You're out of your depth and you know it.

Carra should focus on playing football for Liverpool Football Club.

He has the touch and technique to buy himself time. He's a very clever player and rarely gets caught in possession. Again you should be looking at what he can add to the team not what he doesn't do well, he brings superb distribution, can organise the play and has great vision to create chances. He deserved another season here to prove himself but Roy fucked him off without giving a second thought; probably because he was convinced that Joe Cole would suddenly justify the hype that has followed his entire career.

Michael Brown at Portsmouth not physical? It's obvious he needed game time to improve his fitness and confidence. He should be judged by what he brings to the team not the other way around. Either way was it stupid decision to Loan him out? Of course it was.

YouTube - Aquilani vs Portsmouth