A Year on the Liverpool Offside: Starting Over, Settling In

By: Noel | December 28th, 2011

Liverpool ended 2010-11 in fantastic form, perhaps even convincing those most hopeful that with a tweak here and a winger there a legitimate run at the title wasn’t entirely beyond the realm of possibility. With summer signalling that Damien Comolli and Kenny Dalglish were more interested in rebuilding than refining, though, that hope faced up to growing fears about all the that could go wrong with a largely new starting eleven as the season began.

Those running the club had gambled heavily on proven Premier League talent, often paying well over the odds for British-trained players in particular on the theory that their premium investment would be paid back immediately, since the new arrivals wouldn’t need months to fully integrate themselves into a highly physical league in an unfamiliar country. Still, even considering that many of the players had experience in England, attempting to almost entirely rebuild the core of the squad in one summer when the players already on hand had just finished making a strong case that they deserved to be shown a bit of faith by the manager and owners seemed to many an example of trying far too hard to fix something that didn’t seem broken in the first place.

At least for those not eagerly preaching that questioning Liverpool’s manager in any way was tantamount to treason, that is. Every Liverpool fan may have wanted Dalglish to be right, but for many as the season approached it was equally difficult to completely dismiss the nagging sense that some of the summer’s moves were destined to make the club worse in at least the short and medium term at a time when success in the short and medium term—and with it the hope of returning to the Champions League—was the only thing that really mattered.

And if there were a lot of people nervous about the overhaul still taking place as August 13th and the opening match of the season kicked off, that first game didn’t do much to settle those nerves, as many of the new signings waltzed directly into the starting eleven to generally poor results. Aside from Jose Enrique, in fact, it was difficult to make any kind of case for the new arrivals starting based on their early performances. Though now that they in fact were at Liverpool and starting week in and week out, for some just how dearly the club had paid for supposedly Premier League proven talent to avoid just such a painful and extended settling in period quickly became buried beneath demands that real supporters had a duty to blindly support the new arrivals because—if one was feeling entirely optimistic—they just needed a run of starts and a bit of positive energy to find their form.

It was a theme that, sadly, became a major point of contention for fans across the first half of the 2011-12 season, with many of those who follow Liverpool insisting that an at times disappointing fall could have been—and in fact often was—predicted based on events during the summer, and that obviously better decisions could have have been made. In the meantime, the other half of those who follow Liverpool suggested that whether or not one agreed with the moves that brought Liverpool’s squad to where they were, making the best of the situation and supporting those in charge in the belief that they could get things right in the end was the only way forward.

With disagreements on the quality of players like Charlie Adam and Stewart Downing, not to mention conflicting beliefs as to the wisdom of paying over the odds for British talent in the first place, the narrative for the autumn of a squad and manager needing to prove themselves seemed set early on. The moment that cemented Liverpool’s immediate future, however, both when it came to the shape of the new Liverpool on the pitch as well as to the way in which fans would talk about events on the pitch for the next few months, came on the final day of the summer transfer window when Raul Meireles was shipped to Chelsea.

Suddenly, Liverpool hadn’t actually strengthened their midfield depth over the summer—they’d just swapped out a player who had been central to the previous season’s success and replaced him with inconsistency and unknowns. Unless, of course, they’d shipped off a soft player who didn’t want to be at Liverpool anyhow and wouldn’t have gotten much playing time with Charlie Adam in the squad and Steven Gerrard expected to return. Either way, though, and combined with the raw Jordan Henderson appearing to unseat Liverpool’s leading goal scorer from the previous season without having to earn his starting role while Stewart Downing tracked up and down the left side in front of Jose Enrique, it was a brand new Liverpool that would spend the next few months attempting to form some kind identity in a year when missing out on the Champions League yet again would mean the real risk of seeing the club become stuck in mid-table for years to come.

It wasn’t all that pretty at times. And with it still far from clear if many of the summer’s transfers—either incoming or outgoing, and no matter if one factors cost into the equation—were especially wise, for many those early doubts have only grown. Meanwhile, no matter one’s outlook in regards to the individual decisions, everybody continues to hope that this new Liverpool side and the many players who appear to still be seeking to fully settle after half a season will round into form before it’s too late.

Some Related Liverpool Posts:

Category: Miscellaneous, Premier League, Season Review

« Luis Suarez Banned For Newcastle Match | Home | Dalglish Fires Back at Carroll Critics, and Other Thursday Notes »

Suarez from the car park...

Isn't it actually the case that buying EPL experienced (it's not a buy British policy) has actually worked pretty well if the finest of margins has denied us 4th or even 3rd place?

What are Chelsea and Arsenal's excuses given they don't just buy EPL experience (and have Meireles)?

Isn't it feasible that Suarez can improve his finishing with a good season under his belt? I've always thought that this team's time was the run in to the end of the season, just through a natural team maturing process.

We might even have to buy a further finisher, but even so, if that's what it takes to make a significant difference [to our scoring] doesn't that make the project a pretty decent success?

Yes, there's a hole in this argument as realistically you generally need goals from a number of your midfielders but given the table, we don't need 10+ goals from each of 2 midfielders plus a lethal finisher to make the difference (actually that would probably put us top of the league). A firing Andy Carroll/A. N. Other would probably do it!

Whatever the opinion of our purchases and losses, we're just not that far off being as certain as you can be of a top 4 finish.
We're just not quite there yet.
Morris

Tomorrow the Barcodes come to pay us a visit. NUFC provides perhaps the most relevant and interesting comparison to LFC, this far into the season. Certainly spent less than us in the transfer market, certainly a lot less confident before the season started, has a weaker squad at least in terms of value, yet
1) they are punching above their weight
2) they seem to squeeze the best out of their players and tactics
3) their players always look extremely motivated and up for it
4) they play an attractive, attacking football which is a style you can support even if the results don't always go your way

Why aren't we getting the same from our players and management?
Suarez from the car park...

Ba has 14 goals. He was a free having failed a medical with Stoke.
That's it really.

Cabaye is a very decent midfielder, and Colocini really holds the defense together, though they do concede.

We're good on a counter attacking setup (away from home) which is not encouraging.
Luis Suarez Dentist

I suppose the main difference is that Newcastle got rid of their British players (Nolan, Carroll and Barton) and replaced them with cheap foreign alternatives (Cabaye, Ba, Marveaux)Whethers we have got rid of some foreign players (Mereilles, Torres, Aquilani) and replaced them with poor British players at great cost!The trick to doing well in the Premier League is having as few British players as possible (with the exception of the handfull of decent ones).
Geoff Twentyman

As fans, we've also got to add a dose of realism to our transfer expectations. Last year we desperately wanted a left-back and Coentrao was the biggest name, but we couldn't compete with most of the top European teams. Our best chance to recruit quality was back in 06 after the ECL success.
Even with our history, you throw Chelsea/City's money to Utd/Real and Barca's success to Inter/AC Milan's domestic dominance into the mix, hell - even Bayern are more attractive destinations to 'the next big thing' at this moment in time.If you take a look at that Ballon D'or list from last year, the two most highly rated players - Gotze and Hazard are exactly the players we need. The likelihood of landing them however are fairly slim. With the cream of Europe sniffing round them, why would they agree to join a project like LFC?Of course there are many reasons; but for today's footballer, instant success and money are paramount. Who cares if they don't play every week because they're competing for a starting spot with an established (probably world class) player?There are a plethora of names out there who's careers haven't hit the stratospheric heights expected of them largely due to this reason (and possible loss of hunger for the personal achievements possible in the game i.e to be a club legend).For this reason, plus the ones already mentioned (hitting the ground running, EPL experience, cultural etc) I cannot fault KD's strategy. He was thwarted with Young and Jones, but snapped up the others on the list. Have they underwhelmed - yes. Is there still time? - Certainly in the case of Henderson and Carroll there is.If we were top 4 and ECL quality - would Adam and Downing be quality squad players? Heck with Gerrard and Lucas, is Adam still a quality squad player with Henderson as 'one for the future' and Spearing being a perfect squad player i.e. local lad, loves the club, good enough for LFC squad and happy to be part of the dream! Did he make a mistake in letting Meireles go? I still say "hell yeah".Is the football we play the type of stuff I want to watch? - Yes.Are there elements that need fixing? Certainly. The skill set of the players was too good for Roy's approach, and it might be stating the obvious to say we need to add quality in two or three positions, but maybe the skill set of the players isn't good enough for KD's approach. We've captured a lot of young starlets, which is great, but if we don't sign someone clinical and someone with creative guile in the January window, then that will be the true test of KD's abilities til the end of the season.
Suarez from the car park...

yes. I have no doubt that there were players we would have liked to get but couldn't (other than Jones or Young) due to what you have outlined.

But the club wanted chance creators and a stronger squad and we create lots of chances and have a squad to deal with injuries and the like.

1st step has to be considered a success. Now we have to deal with finishing, tougher perhaps but it's been a while since we dominated like we can do now.
Geoff Twentyman

& thanks for bothering to read it after disqus removed all the formatting!
DJ-Chutfield

Rebuilding was the wrong move from the word go. LFC pride is all well and good, but letting Meireles go simply because he asked was ridiculous. 'Arry held on to Modric, Rudolph held onto Berbatov, even plastic Chelski held onto to Drogba after he came out and said "I want to get the hell out of here, there is something broken with the club" (I might be paraphrasing). A group of players who dragged themselves from 12th to 6th in less than half a season deserved more respect than they got from The King, I must say, and Kenny should have tried much harder than he did to hold on to a player who was so instrumental to that march.

It's easy to say in hindsight that the "Buy British" policy wasn't the way to go. The logic behind it isn't exactly bullet-proof; I've never bought the idea that the English league is so superior to those on the continent that foreign players need ages to settle in. Suarez, Torres, van Nistelrooy, C. Ronaldo, Agger, Alonso, even Aquilani. Aqua's consecutive loan spells have been attributed to his failure to "settle in" to the Greatest League in the World, but that's a load of baloney. His debut against Arsenal was the most impressive debut of anyone I've seen in recent memory, British or otherwise... his class is unquestionable. Regardless, this path was chosen because The King realized that hitting the ground running from Matchday 1 was crucial to finishing fourth which was (and remains) the main priority of this season. Yeah, it hasn't exactly worked out that way, but the decision is defensible.

Having said all that, I still believe The King is the man to lead us forward. He bought in many British players, three of whom have hardly set our collective reproductive organs alight (Carroll, Adam and Downing). Henderson, however, has definite potential and looks a quality players when deployed in the middle. In addition to this, KK (and/or Comolli) do have an eye for foreign players too; his most impressive signing, in case we've all forgotten, was Suarez a decidedly non-British citizen. He also signed Coates and Enrique, players who are also in no way British. He has an eye for talent, the non-British players he's brought in have all managed to do exactly what the British duffers failed to (for my reproductive organs, anyway). I believe he is humble and intelligent enough to see what went right, what went wrong and adjust in the future.
purify_the_body

That's the key, isn't it? The extent to which Kenny and Comolli can recognize that their plan is not working out and add more players. I respect Kenny for backing his players in public, but behind closed doors there has to be some serious honest discussion about the lack of goals and how to fix it.

But I suspect you're wrong about Kenny's eye for talent, foreign or otherwise. The Suarez deal seemed in the works before he arrived, and his big signings all look like overpriced flops, while the cheap end-of-window singings are much better. I don't think Carroll was a panic buy -- Dalglish just is not very good at scouting. He should stick to what he does best: man management and being the face of the club.

To me the most telling thing was Kenny's quote about "quality is more important than depth" on the day announcing Downing, Henderson, Adam, and Doni signings for almost 50m pounds. Huh?

And I think the squad absolutely had to be rebuilt. Nobody would have argued on June 1st that players like Maxi and Spearing were the ones to put us on their backs and carry us to the CL, and there were so many garbage ones to clear out. They sound like old memories now, but Poulsen, N'Gog, Jovanovic, and Konchesky were on the books...ugh...

Our midfield was in such bad shape, on the edges especially, and the problem is just that the summer signings were supposed to fix that...but the players were not good enough to solve the problem, nor worth the money paid. That's all. So we are stuck with the same problem now.
Noel

Good points all, and I think I'm comfortable saying we (both the royal and the bloggity) still have faith in Dalglish being the one to take the club forward—but in retrospect, those opening 6-8 weeks of the season were more of an indictment than I thought at the time. And given that we were leading the "What the fuck are you doing selling Raul?!?!" brigade at the time, that we (and almost everybody) seemed to qualify Adam as being a decent signing if he was behind Gerrard and Meireles at CM, that Henderson was pretty clearly "one for the future" until he started every match to questionable (at best) results, and that our reaction to Downing's arrival was labeled damning with faint praise since it amounted to "taking the cost out of it he's at a position of need and doesn't completely suck"... yeah. Not so pretty. Like I said, still have hope, still think Dalglish is the man for the present, but a lot of the moves only look worse in retrospect—taken as a whole, they weren't exactly flowers and sunshine even at the time.

That and also I'm still more than a little bitter about being called names by superfans because I had the nerve to say at the time that selling Meireles would come back to haunt the club.
Tony

Adam for Meireles. How many managers would have done that?
Suarez from the car park...

Generally it's not a great idea to bring in so many players at once. Typically, you add a couple of players at a time and they fit into a system you already have, improving it a bit at a time (ok I know Newcastle have done it but their expectations were far lower).

We clearly made a decision to make a pretty major revamp up front. 3 youngsters (expecting a lot more from Carroll clearly) plus Bellars, Adam, Downing and Enrique. Adam and Downing the two main seniors purchased to complement our midfield.

We're expecting this lot to put together a system rather than fit into an existing one which is tough to do. Yet for all the criticism and thrown away home points, they haven't done that badly as a collective.

Perhaps margins are fine, but there were points realistically there for the taking just from Wigan and Blackburn alone which would have put us 4th right now, let alone other draws that were certainly in the capacity of this team to convert to wins (that would put us up there fighting with Spurs for 3rd). That wouldn't seem likely if this lot were a bunch of toilet heads.

Isn't it actually the case that buying EPL experienced (it's not a buy British policy) has actually worked pretty well if the finest of margins has denied us 4th or even 3rd place?

What are Chelsea and Arsenal's excuses given they don't just buy EPL experience (and have Meireles)?

Isn't it feasible that Suarez can improve his finishing with a good season under his belt? I've always thought that this team's time was the run in to the end of the season, just through a natural team maturing process.

We might even have to buy a further finisher, but even so, if that's what it takes to make a significant difference [to our scoring] doesn't that make the project a pretty decent success?

Yes, there's a hole in this argument as realistically you generally need goals from a number of your midfielders but given the table, we don't need 10+ goals from each of 2 midfielders plus a lethal finisher to make the difference (actually that would probably put us top of the league). A firing Andy Carroll would probably do it!

Whatever the opinion of our purchases and losses, we're just not that far off being as certain as you can be of a top 4 finish. We're just not there yet.
purify_the_body

You talking in all of Scotland or just inside Glasgow? lol
Chan

In KD we are supposed to have a manager who is experience in this league and familiar with the Liverpool way, thus no learning curve at least for KD.
Who would have thought that he would go on to pay a record fee for a donkey with half a season in the top flight plus top money for a pair of mules. The midfielder who some says his free kicks alone is worth 10 mill can't even convert a penalty. I wondrer why A.F does not bid for Charlie in the first place.Worse of all KD sold a player who HAD proven himself and is now doing very well at Chelsea.

Yes the players should be blame, but KD should deserve the biggest flak of all. Forget about blaming the goal post, refs, the FA (of course there is an agenda against Suarez and LFC but that is another story), if we have the players to convert those chances and if KD had been better at strategies, we are competing for the title now let alone 4th.

A.F loses half his first team but notice their results lately? See the difference. Sack KD now while we still can salvage the season and more importantly, we do not lose further ground with the top teams. Forget about MU and City, teams like Spurs and Newcastle are ahead of us now.

Give us someone like AVB now, yes he makes mistakes but at least we know he to new to English game and he would learn fast. What is KD excuse for failing?
Luis Suarez Dentist

Sack Kenny Dalglish? Are you insane?

This man is Liverpool.

The buy British policy has been a disaster. As most of us suspected it would be.

But give the King a chance!

Hopefully the errors are quite apparent and an end to the buy British policy and hopefully a start to the sell British policy will lead to us climbing the table.
purify_the_body

Forgive Chan, he knows not what he says...
dragon

RAFA...
purify_the_body

F**king Adam.
Tony

It's not his fault that he plays in a club he doesn't belong.
purify_the_body

Too true.
Tony

The result has spoken.