rgk_lfc

But a lot of these managers spent time discovering and fine-tuning their systems and then took on high-profile jobs in the premier league. Howe took over Bournemouth in 2008, coached in the PL for the first time in 2015, got fired, did a sabbatical at top clubs in Europe, and finally earned the Newcastle job 10-12 years after he stepped into management. Rafa started coaching Madrid youth teams in the mid to late 80s, spent a lot of time in the second division failing, then got the break with Valencia in the early 2000s. Klopp, spent like seven years with Mainz, the majority in the second division, experienced several missed promotions and a relegation before he joined Dortmund. Conte was the same. As a manager, you want to experience multiple cycles of failures and challenging situations to discover what tactics work and what don't, how to tweak your system and manage your players when things aren't going well. Gerrard and Lampard short-circuited this process due to their reputation and experienced their first challenging situation at Villa and Chelsea, which are directly in the limelight high-profile jobs with cut-throat competition. I agree Scotland might not have been that competitive, but it would have been better for him in the long term if stayed on for a couple more seasons and challenged himself in CL and Europa League. At the very least spent a couple more years in the championship before taking on a job like Villa. I guess the problem is now everyone wants to be Pep. Going from B team coach to winning every trophy in 3 years' time.

Rafa and Purslow don't see eye to eye. Purslow was responsible for firing Rafa and replacing him with Hodgson. Also, Purslow conducted a purge of Rafa's staff and scouts.

Purslow loves SG. I think he will give him as much time as needed. Purslow is a good CEO, maybe even a great CEO, if he sticks to the financial and admin side of things. The problem is he loves the limelight and loves being associated with traditional British football royalty. He was one of the reasons for pushing Rafa out of LFC, replacing him with Hodgson, removing Rafa's scouts and players, and replacing them with his own style of signings - Konchesky, Joe Cole, a contract extension for Carra. So even if things get really bad for Villa, I am sure Purslow will give him time. Whether SG gets Villa out of the hole using that time is another question.

When Gerrard took over Villa, I wanted only wanted one of the two extremes to happen. Gerrard is a super coach who takes Villa to European glory. Leaves no doubt in anyone's mind that he is a top-level manager. Or Gerrard stumbles so bad that Villa sacks him within a year. Even if he stumbles onto say 12th position with a squad like Villa, his mates in the media will paint it as the next great managerial achievement and start the PR campaign for him to take the LFC job post Klopp. Just like you all experienced with Bruce.

Shearer, Henry, Aguero, Kane, Salah, Rooney, Vardy, Drogba, Van Nistelrooy, Cole. To me, he is right in the middle of the top 10 with Torres, Fowler, and Wright just missing out. He is just a bit below the genuine elite - Shearer, Henry, Aguero, Kane. He normally stays out of everyone's top 10 list because at his peak, he lacked the global profile of Shearer or Henry, the charismatic goals, larger-than-life celebration, etc. But in terms of effectiveness and contribution, he stands up to everyone. Particularly in their later years, Shearer and Henry needed a system or other people's legs to carry them. But Vardy was one of the strikers who did not expect others to put in the graft for him, he did it. Rooney, I think was the other striker like that. So those players will always have lower goal returns but that should not make their contribution any less valuable.

Early days, but he looks like a cracking manager. Neutralized and frustrated us brilliantly at Anfield. Now playing a different approach against Villa. In general, attempts to play attacking and forward-thinking football without compromising too much on defense.

Not sure if there is a father, son who have made their mark on the PL like the Schmeichel's. Also makes me feel old. Grew up getting annoyed at the dad for his performances at United. Now the son is also leaving.

In general, yes. They do have a quality youth team. But these signings are not cheap. 20 for Carney, 15 for that goalkeeper, 3-4 million for each of those other players. We are talking close to 50 million for players who are not even going to be near the first team next year.

Nah, mate. He has been incredibly respectful to us fans during his tenure at LFC and post LFC. The portrait of him in his living room which is often used as a stick to beat him with - it was given to him by a disabled fan and he promised he will have that close with him. Very respectful and polite whenever fans reach out to him for such purpose. I would reserve the word pricks to folks like Bruce, Pardew and their ilk. Rodgers is not a bad person in general. Does have a bit of a high opinion of himself and his methods:). He has his flaws but I wouldn't go as far as describing him as a prick.

Not quite sure what is happening but they are aggressively pursuing youth transfers. Eddie Beach and Tyler Dibling from Southampton, Omari Hutchinson from Arsenal, Zak Sturge from Brighton, Slonina from MLS. Some of these are decent money transfers. Carney for 20 million, Slonina for 12-15 million.

It got really childish also the final year he was with us. Started addressing Michael Edwards as Eddie or something like that, a name which Edwards hated being called. The bizarre part is Rodgers is an excellent coach. His weakness is identifying players and scouting. If he had focused on coaching the players and tactics, and let Edwards do his job, he probably would have been in the job longer. Anyways, this has nothing to do with Maddison. Sorry for the thread hijack.

Interesting to learn that. He hated Michael Edwards at LFC. Used his media mates to ramp up the pressure against LFC transfer committee. Tried to get them replaced but FSG stood firm on that aspect. It got really weird his penultimate season when he started playing Edwards signings out of their position to make them look bad - Firmino at right wing, Emre Can at right back. I really rate Rodgers football acumen. But it is interesting to see that the same issues are continuing.

I don't have a lot of info about the way you do transfers, but from afar, I am seeing a lot of similarity to the way we rebuilt in the Edwards Klopp era. I will not be surprised if the playbook is the same for the most part given that Howe and Edwards are very close friends. The big part of the principle was choosing the right profile players - who can develop and be good enough to contribute in the first 11 or squad in the later stages of the CL at the right price and the right wages. Bruno, Botman, Trippier, Pope - all fall within that category. I believe that young French striker whom you targeted but signed for PSG fall within that profile. As fans it can be frustrating as we want progress now. LFC did walk away from several deals when the purchasing clubs asking price was higher than what Edwards valued the player or when the players agent hiked up the wages. At the same time, if LFC transfer committee identified a player and the player is willing to come, they are willing to wait. Van Dijk, Konate, Keita were players whom the club chased over multiple transfer windows to get it done. With my limited to zero information about Newcastle transfers, extrapolating from how Edwards built the LFC squad, my best guess is that your transfer committee is trying their level best to sign several "Bruno, Botman" profile players at the right price and wage. By the way, it is also difficult to sign players with that profile just before the world cup as developing players who have guaranteed playing time at their current clubs generally don't want to take the risk of moving just before the world cup.

They have submitted a bid for the ox also.

I read somewhere, not 100% sure of the reliability of the source, that Delap was considered Sancho level talent. Not a bad strategy by Southampton, by the way. Targeting City and Chelsea youngsters.

Isn't this kid supposed to be super talented?

Exactly. I know he is getting old but he is one of the most important players in the PL over the last 5 to 8 years. When he is on song, his team - Leicester, Chelsea or France- win the big ones. The two major managerial failures for Chelsea - Lampard and Sarri - I would say the primary reason is their inability to use Kante. Magnificent footballer.

Vieira deserves a lot of credit for their style of play and approach last season. They were impressive. But I think the signings are more due to the structure the owners have put in. They had tried to move away from a traditional way of running things after Sam Allardyce but then De Boer ended up being a disaster. My understanding is that they appointed Hodgson as a manager but were changing the structure in the background focusing on talented youngsters in the championship and other clubs. Again not trying to put down Vieira's impact which was huge. But I highly doubt as the manager of NYCFC and Nice he was tracking players like Olise and Geuhi in the championship.

Palace have been making good moves in the last few years. Not sure if it is all about Viera. I think their owners are building a good setup like Leicester, Brighton, Liverpool, and Newcastle.

We sold Neco Williams for 16-17 million, Dominic Solanke and Rhian Brewster for over 20 million. Joe Gomez is now on a long term contract. If we are selling him, it wont be for anything less than 50 million.

It is relatively common for European managers to spend a week or two at other clubs when they don't have a job. Just to learn new tactics, ideas on coaching, fitness, scouting players etc. I remember Poch stating he spent a week with Rafa at Inter or at Madrid. Looks like Klopp spent time at Porto or Benfica between Dortmund and Liverpool jobs. He always speaks highly about the footballing culture in Portugal. Rafa has been very open about the time he spent at Milan and Bayern. I think once he was fired from Inter, he spent a week at Arsenal. Which might explain the Hayden signing. Some of the more modern British progressive coaches seem to be following suit.

Just wanted to share that Rafa has form for helping out former clubs in terms of sharing his opinion and scouting reports on players. Suarez was one of the players Rafa's team scouted and tracked. When we were thinking of signing him, our transfer committee did reach out to Rafa, according to folks in the know, and he did share a lot of information. Bascombe also mentioned it once I believe. Coutinho was another player with whom Liverpool consulted with Rafa. This was Damien Commoli, our first DOF under FSG on Rafa's role on the Coutinho transfer: "We didn't even know he was that good - it was difficult to watch him play because he was never playing at Inter. We knew about him, we knew he was good, but it was only when Rafa said he's going to be world-class. When somebody like Rafa says a thing about a player like this, you listen." Basically our scout reached out to Rafa on advice. He pretty much gave them all the information and background on Coutinho told LFC that you are going to regret it if you miss out on this transfer. Don't think of it as Rafa undermining Howe or Ashworth. Like Howe or Klopp or Ashworth or Julian Ward could just call Rafa up and ask for his opinion on players and he is the type to share all he knows. There is also the rumour that after your season in the championship, we reached out to Rafa regarding Lascelles. Rafa told us to stay the f*** away as he needs him. Out of respect to Rafa, we moved on to other targets. Again rumours only, not confirmed.

I am also surprised he is staying. But at the same time I am very happy. He is quality when fit. I am suspecting he might have a release clause which activates if he plays less than a certain amount of games or something like that. We had that with Origi.

Reminds me a bit of Ox - obviously talented, technically excellent, but hasn't really progressed last few years due to injuries and the same reasons you identified for Dele Alli.

I liked watching him play but I highly doubt he is regaining anything close to acceptable PL performances even under a manager who rates him. I think it is now close to 4 or 5 years when he displayed that form. In the PL, it is difficult to catch up when you have been "mentally and physically" away for so long. From the point of view of Newcastle taking a punt on him, I dont think it is worth it. You are far too professional of an outfit under Howe and Ashworth. If you are looking at an "attacking project" for Howe, I am sure there are far better young talents in Europe and the championship for Howe to invest his time on developing.