clangers

Pretty much sums up my waffling, good post.

The fans played a significant role influencing RBS and in particular affecting G&H's ability to refinance. FSG didn't play a part in forcing G&H but stepped in as potential bidder and depending upon your viewpoint 'saved' the club or picked us up on the cheap, or both.

No clearly it isn't but it's hardly a recommendation for FSG to say the previous owners were even worse. The points made especially referring to the deeply misleading statement by Tom Werner are perfectly valid. It's also a relief to know that we aren't a big club anymore.

Let's not get too carried away, Parry's air of competence came from him having his phone switched off at critical moments. Parry was really not great at his job even though his successors have managed to be even worse. The lack of a decent managing director has been one of the significant factors in our decline and remains an issue to this day.

Let's not be too revisionist, we really weren't great last year especially after investing so much in the squad. The issue for Kenny was simply that the new recruits were spectacularly unsuccessful. Our playing style seemed to draw quite a few compliments as we'd appeared to go back to pass and move. The issues were an inability to put to the ball in the back of net and the lack of performance from the newcomers. You are right to say that up to around Christmas time we were not doing too badly, clearly the Suarez affair had a huge effect on the club and team. The wheels really came off after that. However getting rid of Kenny and Steve Clarke was an over reaction as far as I'm concerned something that seems to be an FSG trait looking at the Red Sox. An extra season seeing if Kenny could improve the situation and build upon the previous season would have been the more sensible option even if FSG had ultimately still wanted to bring Rodgers in. The reality is that under Kenny this season we wouldn't have done any worse than last season. It would also have given Rodgers an extra seasons experience with Swansea and allowed us to form a better evaluation of his capabilities. Rodgers backroom staff are not exactly inspiring either. It's a shame that FSG so easily discarded their intention to bring in a more experienced individual in a director of football role simply because our new manager was so set against it. It may well end up being a decision that both Rodgers and FSG regret. I would also have preferred LVG as manager if we were going to make a change despite being a well known mentalist.

NOVEMBER 17 Wigan Athletic (H) - W 2-1 24 Swansea City (A) - L 1-0 27 Tottenham (A) - L 3-0 DECEMBER 1 Southampton (H) W 2-0 8 West Ham (A) L 2-1 15 Aston Villa (H) W 1-0 22 Fulham (H) D 1-1 26 Stoke City (A) L 1-0 29 QPR (A) D 2-2 11 additional points or 21 after 20 games.

Klopp had a hell of a lot more experience with Mainz managing them for seven years before being shown the door, he'd already gained considerable Bundesliga experience under his belt. Mainz as a club during Klopp's time had a tiny attendance and had only been in existence again for a few years. Getting them into the Bundesliga and keeping them there for several years was a significant achievement in itself. If we're going to make a comparison between Rodgers and Klopp then effectively the analogy breaks down because of Klopps significantly greater experience of managing at the highest level prior to taking over Dortmund. Dortmund were taking a risk appointing Klopp and it paid off handsomely but they weren't appointing anywhere near as inexperienced manager as we've gone for.

Looks like the polling data isn't too far away for this election. It's still looking like a narrow win for Obama so unlike the cowardly experts not being prepared to call the election, I'm calling it an Obama win with around 290 votes so I don't have to stay up. If Obama wins Ohio and Florida it's definitely game over. I have mixed feelings about this, clearly and rationally Obama winning is the sane choice. However the disaster porn element of a Republican president always has a draw. I assume President Romney would have the US invading Iran, North Korea and Japan within a matter of months.

He'll be gone at the end of the season if he doesn't up his performance and get results which is after all what the philosophy of every manager should be. Looking at the way FSG operate I've little doubt an assessment will made. As for Rodgers philosophy, it's getting a little tiring, to date his greatest talent appears to be promoting his ideas to the media. At Reading he talked the talk, made far too many drastic changes, failed to deliver results and was gone within a few months. At the moment I'd suggest his performance is closer to Reading than Swansea. A Swansea side where the blueprint of their philosophy had already been laid down by the previous two managers. His philosophy appears to add up to little more than get his teams to play like the best team of the current generation? In which case it isn't original or indeed his philosophy. A successful managers philosophy should be to win. Given that he hasn't any track record of delivering at the highest level it's hardly surprising he's making great efforts to distract everyone with his philosophy and promises of riches tomorrow. I look at the sides above us with less resources, poorer quality players and no philosophy and wonder why they've managed to beat more than two of the worst sides in the league so far?

Just bring Rafa back, it was an obvious choice in the summer and remains so, we've basically brought in someone who has achieved less that George Burley.

I've got an unlimited BT Infinity account and so far it's been excellent, like many I was hugely nervous about what to expect from BT e.g crap unreliable service and capping. I tender to hammer the service with downloads and it's been great. I get about 62mb download and just over 20mb upload pretty consistently.

I don't give a shit what you think, sacking Rafa was a huge mistake you cock masters.

Yeah I thought we did a pretty fair example of pass and move numerous times last season just a shame Kenny didn't bring in players of sufficient quality. In fact the way Kenny had us playing for second half of the season before after taking over from Roy was really promising, he'd basically turned us into a more attack minded version of Rafa's side. It's a huge shame he just didn't keep that blueprint and bring in a couple of quality additions rather than tearing everything up and going for back to the 80's or rather circa Blackburn '96. Biggest concern with Rodgers as it was for Hodgson is the whole downgrading of expectations. I'm not suggesting we were great last season and clearly it wasn't good enough but neither were we a basket case. Just as in Rafa's last season being portrayed as an unmitigated disaster by Hodgson. We'll do well to finish anywhere near top half this season.

We're closing in on Swansea and that important 11th place, nearly job done.

Better 2nd half, we gave it a real go. We lack real quality beyond Suarez.

I agree but christ how depressing is that? I know very little about football tactics but watching us I'd say the first thing our manager needs to do from here is the old cliche applied to new managers, just make us difficult to beat and then think about building a platform.

What else do teams have to do? They know we leak goals and are largely toothless up front. If we were a promoted side you'd say we played pretty football but conceded goals easily and didn't carry a threat up front. How many have those have gone down over the years?

If that's actually true then it's a sign of just how a big a task Rodgers faces and he's going to use the media to defend his position. It's natural to round down expectations, which is something every manager we've had over the last twenty plus years have ended up doing. The exception being Roy who was lowering expectations from day one. I like Rodgers overall but it's a huge, huge task to expect a managerial novice let alone one with no big club experience to turn the situation around particularly now we have owners who are rightly or wrongly going for a self sustaining investment policy. In reality to get back into the top four within anything like a couple of years requires a large investment.

That isn't really fair, John Smith and Peter Robinson played a significant part developing us into the dominant force in English football, you may want to recall that only a couple of years prior to the Premiership Manchester United was being sold for only £20 million to Michael Knighton. Moores truly squandered our inheritance, he was in charge from 1991 - 2007. He failed to develop or invest in the club and by the time the penny dropped it was too late. The club was run on an astonishingly amateur basis e.g. marketing.

Not bad for any other side unfortunately Moores also took us from being the best club in England and Europe with a dominance the equal of the mancs to a club that didn't win the title in over twenty years.

That's the only consolation I'm clinging too is that at 71 he cannot go much longer and when finally gone, the manc empire with it debts and entire reliance on Ferguson goes with him.

That's a very positive spin on last season. You could equally say that we only won 4 out of our last 14 league games losing 11 of them despite spending well over a £100 million! Rodgers has faced the opposite very limited funding as a consequence of the disastrous spending over the previous couple of windows and an exodus of players as the club looks to dramatically cut the wage bill.

Agree with this, really surprised that people aren't impressed with Allen, he is indeed a cracking player, the quality is obvious to me. He's playing a defensive role in a very limited side at the moment. He's going to be a mainstay of our midfield alongside Lucas (if we can get him back to fitness). Borini hasn't really show us much, a strange buy it seems to me if funds are so limited and we're offloading players to then buy an unproven striker especially given our lack of firepower. I can see a lot of potential in Rodgers but we need to view him in exactly the same way we'd view a young player breaking into the side with a season or so's experience. Not ideal, personally I think we've gone for him a couple of seasons too early but he's here now so he needs backing, support and patience. The whole experiment is extremely brittle, my concern is that the wheels may completely come off at any time in the imminent future. I'd suggest at the moment we're a Luis Suarez injury away from being genuine relegation fodder.

Another bad day you mean? It's easier to count the good ones. Our manager has brought his Reading form with him.

Rodgers out! He's reduced us to being worse that his former team, any manager that can't get the best of out of a quality player like Cole must be pants.