The short version would lean towards not entirely, but my opinion is yes
they are, but let’s go through the reasons for & against.
Now, the 1st reason for, is Carroll, Henderson & Downing. These guys did cost a staggering £75m or
thereabouts combined and in terms of end result there hasn't been much, yes
Downing was MOTM in the Carling Cup Final against Championship Cardiff City, but
let's move on before I digress too much. All 3 of these players some would say are NOT Liverpool
players and will do nothing but castigate their every move on the pitch during every second
of a game and yes I do admit they all need to do better, but, Henderson generally plays out of position in a packed
midfield, which some have asked, why sign him for £20m in the first place, but I’ll come back to that. Carroll,
in the same way as Henderson isn't really being utilized in the best way, sometimes as an impact sub,
& we're not getting enough crosses into him to use his aerial
prowess to its fullest, but sometimes the phrase 'when in Rome applies and as Vince
McMahon said on WWF Raw in 1998 to Stone Cold Steve Austin 'adaptation is key
in life' (Obligatory wrestling reference no.1) and that segues nicely into
Downing, who on a general basis needs to take a page out of WWE superstar The
Rock's play book and start beating 'jabroni's' on the wing (another obligatory
wrestling reference) to supply those crosses not just for Carroll, but Suarez
to with greater regularity. The money we paid for each of these guys, was inflated to
say the least, and I've often said that especially with Carroll we got raped on price, but
considering all 3 are English that was always going to be the case due to
Englishmen being technically inferior to most of their foreign counterparts,
but grossly superior (partly due to the 6 + 5 rule) when it comes to commanding
transfer fees & wages. Forgetting transfer fees for a minute these 3 men
haven't delivered, but whereas players always need a season (in my opinion) to
settle in, look at Drogba for Chelsea for instance or Ronaldo at Man United,
most people expected brilliance from these 3 men straight away, and I've said
on numerous occasions that this would be a building season after last years
salvage job where a cup would be nice as a bonus but 4th place should be the
focus.
Now, those 3 players the price wasn't their fault but at least with
Carroll & Hendo you can say they are young, 23 & 21 respectively (or
thereabouts) so they've got time to mature & develop and only a really special
breed of player such as a Lionel Messi can be a world class player at 24, so to
all the haters, i say give Carroll & Henderson time, and by time i don't
mean a year or 1 season, i mean potentially 3-4 years. Anyway, coming back to
the Kenny out brigade, for some reason even though Kenny has only been in
charge just over a year and bear in mind he's won a trophy, it may not be the
trophy we all want, but everyone starts from humble beginnings. As someone
mentioned on our Carling Cup Final video when we were on Wembley way (which can
be viewed here - http://youtu.be/VcN9-DQIblU
) Gerard Houllier started his trophy laden run in 2001 with the then
Worthington Cup Final win, also on penalties, against Division one side at the
time Birmingham City. This season we've still got the FA Cup to play for so we
could still end up with a cup double, which wouldn't be too bad, winning both
the cups we could, but if we do that, next season has to see a consistent
league push & more players stepping up to the plate.
2nd reason, In recent games against Wigan Athletic (the 2-1 defeat at
Anfield) & especially against QPR (the defeat at Loftus road) we've
stagnated and defended horribly at times (Da Gman @dagman84 , Gezzie Fizzle
@apparentlyrich & many of our Pitch Talk listeners will regularly hear me
castigating defenders on shows as i am an Amateur league defender myself for
IBIS FC www.ibisfc.co.uk
for more info on them), with the latter we dominated a game for 75 minutes but
came out losers (which was embarrassing to say the least considering we were
2-0 up!!! And the Wigan defeat rubbed it in even more!!!), and it is after the
final score the points get dished out to the winners, not at 75 minutes and as
I've said on many a pitch talk match update 'possession is nothing without
penetration', so instead of fiddling with the bra, we need to be moving those
panties to the side and aiming for penetration without mercy (and yes I am
ready for the #ssljaisawrongun hash tag to be trending on twitter courtesy of
my Pitch Talk co-hosts Da Gman @dagman84 on twitter & Gezzie Fizzle
@apparentlyrich on twitter) but the fact remains that penetration is the key to
success just like in a titty bar where money is the key to success.
Anyway, to
me the Kenny out brigade needs to take a chill pill, shut the f*ck up and stop
getting fished in to the media hype as the media would love to get another
manager sacked, like Simon Grayson at Leeds or Lee Clark at Huddersfield Town,
of Andre Villas-Boas at Chelsea (which i still think was a moron move) or Mick
McCarthy at Wolves, but remember boo boys, Rome wasn't built in a day and as
much as football is a short term sport for some, especially greedy owners such as
Roman Abramovic, remember, we are a club that built a dynasty, we are not short
term thinkers like Chelsea who now have succeeded Real Madrid in terms of a
revolving door of management where you pay millions of pounds to get a manager
out of a contract and then they get told like AVB did that 'we have a 3 year
plan for you' then a month later you get sacked after only being in charge for
8 months, we are a club that apart from Roy Hodgson (who had us in the
relegation zone just over a year ago) generally gives managers at least 3 years
to do what they need to do. Not everything falls into place straight away and
yes Kenny isn't perfect, some say he's misguided trying to build a British
looking core to the team, but i say, give a manager time to do what he needs to
do as a long-term project takes a lot of the worlds greatest commodity, and
remember this, mediocrity isn't excellence and time is what everyone wants more
of, but everyone is so unwilling to give it in this 'microwave' age where
yesterday is when everything is expected.
The Carling Cup was a start & could have been a springboard, but
remember, the players need to pick up the slack first, because like with
England's footballing underachievement, the manager & his tactics can only
do so much, then it's the players that have do go out there and do the job.
Passion, pride, pass & move, it's not the Liverpool groove (cos I'm not
singing), it's the Liverpool way, and instead of just ripping at our boyz, get
behind them, not like you’re in a club and trying to grind on a lady kind of
behind, but support them like a bra supports breasts, with positive
reinforcement things can get better and with penetration and a couple of better
players here and there (most notably on the wings for us) success isn't far away,
let the parasitic media say what they will say & look long term, instead of
short term like them & let the King do his ting!!!
Follow me on Twitter @sslja
I am One 3rd of Monday night Football Talk Show Pitch Talk who you can follow on twitter @pitchtalk
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