MFletcher

Brendan nailed it with his Suarez comments but we, as a club, have made him look weak by then meekly accepting the ban rather than fighting it. We don't help ourselves sometimes.

I'm seething. There is no leadership whatsoever at this club. None. It's the blind leading the blind leading the blinder all over the place. Amateur piss artists without the first real idea what to do at a club like this. To accept - f***ing accept - a ten game ban justified with that report? We're f***ings mugs. Someone who was able to run the thing properly would have taken one look at it, taken it out of Luis' hands, hired a top class lawyer and driven a truck straight through the middle of it. We're a soft touch. They know that, so in order to appease media outrage and continue their own self-aggrandisement, they've scapegoated Luis by effectively citing this action as the single worst in-play incident in the history of sport in this country. It's just staggeringly incompetent from all concerned here.

The general direction of the club since 2008/09 is highly depressing. We've went from having a "spine" of Mascherano, Alonso, Gerrard and Torres to, well, not having Mascherano, Alonso, Gerrard and Torres. We've spent fortunes on over-priced English players who'll never really cut it. We've sacked a manager who kept his punching above our weight for years (we were ranked first in Europe over five seasons, for f*** sake). He was sacked by know-nothing w*****s who wanted to appease media c**** and because they thought they knew best. They appointed a 'yes' man, so genuinely inept that it's unbelievable he's now the England manager. We did the sensible thing and sacked him. We brought back Kenny, we signed Suarez, it looked more optimistic. Then we signed some proper s***, we sacked a genuine "legend" and replaced him with the manager of Swansea who has spent the entire season struggling to look like a Liverpool manager. To get from 2008/09 to here, we've changed managers three times at a cost of tens of millions and wound up with someone worse whilst we could have appointed Rafa instead. We've spent tens of millions and largely bought s***. We have owners who are more interested in protecting the brand than fighting the club's corner and a managing director who, for all intents and purposes, seems to be a) completely s*** at what he does b) completely s*** at what he does and c) completely s*** at what he does. If we don't contest the Suarez ban, I don't really know where I stand anymore. I'm just completely fed up. Watching what Dortmund are doing this year is both brilliant and eye-opening. Clever scouting, appointing a genuinely visionary manager. Great players picked up for small fees and improved with training and coaching. Not chucking £20M at Downing or £15M at Allen or £35M at Carroll. Four years ago we'd have looked at a player like Lewandowski and thought we had a chance of signing him. We're not even going to be in Europe next year. At all. Never mind going into the season thinking "quarter-final minimum". It's five years since we were last in a CL semi-final and I've really no idea if we'll ever get there again any time soon.

Looking at the cost of some of those players in the Dortmund team, we really are mugs if we go and spend anything substantial on someone like Ashley Williams.

He's being used as a convenient scapegoat to permit the FA to look tough. If he was English, there's not a f***ing hope it would be ten games. Compared to Terry's four game ban for racism and Thatcher's eight game ban for the Mendes challenge, Suarez would have been better laying Ivanovic out and taking the six game ban he'd probably have received. It's just a mental state of affairs, really. As a club, we need to defend the player professionally and forcefully because there are no grounds for a ten game ban.

We need to control the narrative of this immediately. Not criticising it means we'll have stories about not criticising it. Rodgers isn't dense. He'll have known something happened, he'll have known that there are TV cameras and it will have been picked up and he'll be asked about it. If he's walked into the press conference deliberately ignorant, he needs a slap. He won't have, meaning he needs to immediately condemn it, say it will be dealt with internally. We're then in control of the narrative and can make sure that whether we decide to do, we look as if we're in control and handling it. After last season's fiasco, I'd really rather avoid the rather transparent lack of direction and leadership that was displayed during that whole episode.

Let's not be naive here. Rodgers will know what has happened because someone else will have told him. We need to control the narrative regardless of whatever we ultimately decide we're going to do.

Might well be that his last ever touch for us was a goal. He'll almost certainly be banned for the rest of the season now.

It's very heavily implied that we shouldn't worry about failing to qualify for Europe this year because it'll help us next year. There's a bit too much looking forward to unspecified brighter days with no guarantee that they're actually going to come. I don't for a second believe that being out of Europe completely is going to be beneficial in the short-term. There are less games, but then he was playing the kids in most of the group games and having a game of consequence in Europe in the spring is always going to engender a bit of a feelgood factor, even if it is in the somewhat secondary European competition. If you also consider that players on the continent will generally treat the UEFA Cup with a bit more reverence that we tend to in this country, it's clearly a loss in the terms of attracting a higher calibre of player in the summer. Ideally they'd say "it's Liverpool, they're massive, I'm going there", but we're not in that position at the minute and we don't have the weight of a world class manager's reputation to attract players either. Winning matches breeds a winning mentality. Going far in competitions enhances belief. Not qualifying for them and saying "don't worry about that" isn't good enough. The fact is that we're probably going to finish sixth and not qualify for Europe at all. That's a poor return and it hampers us in the wider scheme of things. I'm more annoyed by the meek exits from the domestic cup competitions. This is a year which has seen Swansea, Bradford and Wigan as three of the four finalists, so an opportunity was clearly there to go far in these competitions and we contrived to f*** it up with two really dreadful performances. I think that's somewhat more unforgivable than the inconsistent league form. We weren't in Europe last year, but we had two brilliant cup runs and went to Wembley three times.

Kenny favoured pass and move with Suarez up top last season, so I'm really not sure I buy the idea that what we're doing this year is so fundamentally different that it requires an extended time period for it to be drilled in to players. I could understand it if we'd spent the last two years throwing the ball long to Andy Carroll and buying s*** kickers. Trying to impose pass and move on them would be difficult. Ultimately we have a lot of players in the first XI who were here when Rafa was - Reina, Carragher, Johnson, Agger, Lucas, Gerrard. They would all have "built from the back" and tried to move the ball up the field quickly. Then the majority of the rest of the team were playing pass and move under Kenny. We're not reinventing the wheel with pass and move possession-based football. It's not that complex a system. I think this justification is a bit skewed, and I don't really buy it. I don't think Rodgers has really shown enough this year, but nor do I think there is sufficient appetite in the board room or in the fanbase to actually sack him on the back of it. He gets another year for me, but I would like him to stop trying to justify what is ultimately a poor season with s*** ("we're better off out of Europe for a run at fourth" being especially poor). The concern I have is that the "we need time" line assumes that all our players will want to stay. Suarez probably deserves to win POTY this year. Not only that, but he's the league's top goal scorer. And despite having him available for almost the whole season, we're still only seventh, we were out of all the cups early and we're not qualifying for Europe next year. We'll be lucky if we get another year out of him, and then what? Do we really trust Rodgers to spend £35M-odd from his sale properly? His transfer record thus far is poor, Coutinho aside, and I'm not sure I'd really trust him to spend the money. Much like I was terrified what Hodgson would do if he was allowed another window, although I accept that we're talking different levels of s*** there. Ultimately I don't think Rodgers has it in him to really do that much better. I hope I'm wrong (I shouldn't have to say that, but I'm pre-empting CarraLegend wandering in here with a snide comment), but it could start to turn against him by November if we start slowly and go out early in the league cup to a s*** team.

To be fair, he clearly prioritised the Champions League that year, so two less points than the previous year (our first season without Owen leading the line) wasn't as bad as it looked. And he got us to the League Cup final as well. Comparing it to Rafa's first season probably isn't the way to go about it like given it makes his look worse by comparison. It needs to be judged in absolute terms. Is 50 points after 33 games alongside two meek and one slightly-stirring-but-still-unsuccessful cup exits sufficient return for a first year after a forty million quid net spend? You can attempt to justify what is a somewhat mediocre season - trying to compare it to Rafa's first year in a "if it wasn't for the European Cup win it wasn't that good" probably isn't the way to go about doing so.

Then again, the best team he put together was in 2008/9 whenever Paco wasn't about and we were hammering teams left, right and centre in the last three months of the year.

Brendan Rodgers frosty over Rafael Benítez's warm Kop reception A predecessor's welcome at Anfield when Chelsea come to town will rankle a little with the Liverpool manager The DW Stadium, 2 March, and Liverpool are destroying Wigan Athletic with a hat-trick from Luis Suárez and a penetrating passing game that reflects the ideals of Brendan Rodgers. But the exhibition is not the only thing on the away end's mind. "Rafa, Rafael, Rafa, Rafael, Rafa, Rafael, Rafael Benítez," comes that old familiar sound. Three years on from his unceremonious exit and Benítez's standing at Anfield is not only secure but in many respects enhanced. An ulterior motive was of course at work at Wigan. Three days earlier, following an FA Cup fifth round win at Middlesbrough, Benítez had snapped at the Chelsea supporters who welcomed him to the club with outright hostility and a club hierarchy who had placed "interim" before his name. His Stamford Bridge days appeared even shorter than planned and Wigan provided opportunity for Liverpool to offer support at Chelsea's expense. Another chance arrives at Anfield on Sunday when Benítez makes his competitive return aiming to strengthen Chelsea's hold on Champions League qualification. It is unlikely to be passed up. Liverpool remember fondly the times he did the same with them. Benítez was not universally mourned when his six-year Liverpool reign ended in June 2010. Even staunch admirers grew weary of the infighting and transfer errors that unravelled five previous years of progress in his final season. When the Kop chants his name on Sunday it will not be a declaration of revolt against Rodgers, as was the case when it yearned for Kenny Dalglish to end the torment of Roy Hodgson. And as Fenway Sports Group demonstrated in the search for Dalglish's replacement last summer, when Benítez's credentials were given short shrift, the club's owners wanted a clean slate. "Rafael Benítez will deserve a great welcome," said Rodgers, who claims to be unperturbed at the support his predecessor may receive. "He won the European Cup here, which is a great achievement. There is no question he is a fantastic manager but I had confidence from the owners when I came in here that this process was going to take time. It wasn't going to be instant. And the owners have never wavered from that." But many supporters did want Benítez back last summer and the memories, however selective, have been enriched during Liverpool's drift to the margins. No European Cup-winning manager is forgotten but Benítez's reputation at Liverpool is down to more than just Istanbul in 2005 and an FA Cup triumph the following year. There were two Champions League finals in three years, a further semi-final and quarter-final appearance, both ending in defeat by Chelsea as the two clubs forged a rivalry that accounts for Benítez's problems now. Throw in victories in Barcelona, Real Madrid, a record points tally for a Liverpool manager in the Premier League era of 86 – enough for the title in most seasons – and the present falls into stark focus. Only in Benítez's last campaign did Liverpool fail to qualify for the Champions League and then a place in the final of the Europa League was missed by the fine margin of an away goal against Atlético Madrid. Last week Rodgers claimed Liverpool could benefit from being without European football next season, the argument being a developing squad would concentrate greater energies on a top four finish. It was a sobering reflection on where the expectations that Benítez raised at Liverpool now stand. Benítez has not been accepted at Chelsea for the reasons he remains so admired at Liverpool: he fought the team's corner, at any cost, whether against José Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson or the regime of the former owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. He kept Liverpool competitive while they took the club to the brink of administration and he was removed by the then managing director Christian Purslow to appease a few dissenting voices in the dressing room, and to present a less fractious club to prospective buyers. Hence the appointment of a safe pair of hands in Hodgson, a bewildering decision before the benefit of hindsight. Benítez was not replaced by a superior manager and Liverpool's slide accelerated to the point where Rodgers arrived with the brief of a major reconstruction job. It is doubtful Benítez would have reduced Liverpool's wage bill by roughly £20m without complaint, as Rodgers has had to do this season, but the Spaniard could also point to the £49m outlay on new players as greater than the transfer budget in his final three years at Anfield. And that's without going into net spend. Benítez was guarded about his Anfield return on Friday, mindful of the consternation he recently provoked in Rodgers following comments about wishing to return "home" one day. "I was clear," Benítez said. "My home is there [the Wirral]. My family is there. I cannot change the past. I'm really proud of the rivalry and all these things but it's very clear: my commitment is with Chelsea and I will use common sense and try to get three points. Afterwards, I will wish the best to Liverpool Football Club." Nor would he elaborate on whether he was a candidate for the Liverpool job last summer. "That's something I will not talk about because I don't want any misunderstanding." Rodgers clearly remains irked at what he perceives as the Spaniard manoeuvring for his job. "Managers are different," he said. "Some managers will speak about other jobs. Some won't. I won't speak about another manager in a position no matter how much I might want the job. It takes different types." The present Liverpool manager also made a pointed reference to the two very different clubs that he and Benítez inherited on their arrivals at Anfield. "It won't be strange [to hear the Kop singing Benítez's name] because the club has always been very respectful towards former players and managers," Rodgers said. "I'm sure Rafael Benítez will get a great reception. It is interesting. In the season he won the Champions League Liverpool finished on 58 points [in the Premier League] and outside the top four. Gérard Houllier had 60 the year before and arrived in fourth. Everyone knows the history of that season and winning the Champions League bought another season in there to move the club forward." http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/apr/19/brendan-rodgers-rafael-benitez

Regardless of the "end result" of the process, it's quite clear from the process itself that they completely and fundamentally misunderstood "the way football works" and made themselves look stupid in the process. That the "end result" hasn't worked out too well either just adds fuel to the "they don't know what the f*** they're doing" fire. Which they don't. Even if they decided to sack Rodgers, I'm not sure you could trust them to actually appoint someone who wasn't equally as average.

"Hodgons's had two good seasons at Fulham, to be fair. I think he'd do alright, but I suspect, providing he doesn't f*** up and get the sack from Fulham, that he'll be the next England manager when Capello goes." At least I was right with the second part. It was quite easy to be nice about Hodgson in March 2010 because a) you didn't realise what a c*** he was b) we were talking hypothetically and no-one really thought we'd appoint him c) you didn't realise what a c*** he was. I suspect people were a lot more "you're having a laugh" whenever it became clear that he was actually going to get the job.

I was, and a part of that was the fear of what would happen if we binned him.

Of course they created a problem for themselves by completely ignoring him from the review process. He's a man who has two La Liga titles with a club outside the "big two", who has won two European trophies (including the "big one" with us), reached another final, put together a team that took as close to the title as we've been since 1990 and signed players like Mascherano, Alonso and Torres. His track record post 2009 is hardly stellar, but there's clearly enough to justify including him within the process. Especially when he lives in the city, was unemployed and hasn't exactly been shy about saying he'd like to come back. I'm not saying he should definitely have been appointed, but you can't ignore him and then have a two horse race between Roberto Martinez and Brendan Rodgers, whose combined CV wouldn't even come close to Rafa's one. And I stress again that I did not "expect" or "demand" that he be hired, but if you're interviewing ten different managers as part of some bizarre American-style recruitment drive you can't really ignore the elephant in the room that they didn't see fit to talk to the man who made us the best ranked team in Europe. The best ranked team in Europe, for f*** sake. Compared to what we have now, we're like a different club. He'd have had us able to defend consistently, at least.

It's the sort of thinking that sees managers like Gary Megson go to Lisbon in the last sixteen and play the reserves. It's small-time thinking. Not that I want to go with "We're Liverpool" as a catch-all justification for not settling for mediocrity given we haven't been great for the last four years, but that's really just not good enough.

FSG created a problem for themselves last year by basically ignoring Rafa during their "let's invite everyone in for a coffee" broad brush recruitment drive. It suggested that they really did believe that "we know best", so for them to go and appoint someone without any track record, whilst binning off the much-vaunted structure which we were supposed to have, only to find that we've moved sideways in the league and regressed completely in the other competitions is galling for them. They're not going to admit they were wrong, so Rodgers will be here next season. Kenny was never their man, so short of finishing fourth he was gone anyway. The fact that we've spent £40M since Rodgers came in, and have done f*** all, is what annoys me. To think what someone with genuine pedigree might have done with that money compared to the laugh a minute mediocrity of Borini and Allen. We're seventh at the minute. I think that's the limit of Rodgers' ability regardless of which club he manages. Whether you're Liverpool, Swansea or West Ham, Rodgers will always have you finishing around 7th to 12th.

The fact that we play "good, attractive football" isn't a reason in itself to persist with the current setup. The style of football is a means to an end. If we were s***ting our way to thirty-eight 1-0 wins a year I wouldn't remotely care. More leeway is given to managers who play "good, attractive football" even if they're never actually going to win anything. More focus needs to be on the end product that comes from it, and the results we've had have been far from good enough over the course of the season as a whole. I include all the cup competitions in this analysis also.

And on the back of £45M+ gross, it's just not a very good return at all.

Poor season, this. The summer can't really come quickly enough.

Felt we did very well overall. Couple of scary moments at the back, but they couldn't have complained if we'd scored four.

Allen actively harms the team when he plays. You get the impression Rodgers is playing him solely because he cost fifteen million quid and he doesn't want to admit it's not working. To do so would call into question buying him for such an extortionate fee in the first place. It's a big concern.

I said this a month ago, it's still happening and it's been happening all season.