rgk_lfc

This is four hours before the game Post game scenes:

Yesterday, in India, Kerala defeated Bengal to win the Santosh trophy. Here is the winning moment. By the way only 25000 supporters, but impressive noise they generate. This took place in the Payyanad stadium. I love stadiums like this in India and other parts of the world. No electronic scoreboards or advertising tiles. No service stands, no food or drinks. Just football. You go there, watch football and then return. I hope it is ok to post such updates in this thread. I know football in India is of lower league standards, but in places like Bengal, Kerala, Goa - the passion for the game is unbelievable. Just like in Europe, there are some historical and social contexts to some of the rivalries. If there is interest, I will post those things here when the games are occurring.

We are signing a 18 year RB, Calvin Ramsay from Aberdeen. This is three signings with a similar profile - young and just made debut - we have made for summer - Ben Doak, Carvalho, Ramsay. It looks like we are either going for big money - Luis Diaz level or 16-20 year olds.

This is not me having a go at Everton tactics. I fully respect any team using any strategy allowed to win. But imagine if Everton were coached by a Spanish or European coach. Will there be a groundswell of support or looking the other way, like what is happening now. I remember in your first or second season back in the PL, you gave a masterclass of a defensive performance against City. You either won or draw. Solid, clean organized defensive performance - no dives, no cynical challenges, nothing of the sort. After that I remember Neville and his cohorts in the media howling at Rafa about how this was anti-football, unacceptable in the PL, etc.

Ancelotti has now won the Serie A, Bundesliga, Premier League, Ligue 1, and La Liga. I know he gets the top jobs, but that is one impressive record. No fuss, no spouting philosophy, just gets on the with the job, gets along with everyone and just wins.

Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, Owen - all loved a good dive. Carragher, Scholes, Kane, Neville, Shearer all used their reputation to get away with tackles other players wouldn't. All of them built up their "media darling" reputation and then embarked on pushing the boundaries. English media protecting their own - I get it. Problem with Gordon is that he has skipped the building a base for support among the media step and gone directly into the diving at every available opportunity.

I think he is a brilliant keeper when he is not in the "chest thumping pashun" mode. All of the best keepers nowadays - Allison, Ederson, Courtois, Neur - keep a low profile during the game, try to calm down when things are heated. Pickford is the opposite of that. Gets too involved in the banter and tries to win the war of words. Look at him for England. Southgate is like the perfect manager for him. Dials down the temperature. Emphasizes players to use their heads. In that environment, Pickford is brilliant. For everton, he reverts back to the "pashun" mode and then all the flaws crop up.

If you look at trophies and impact on football, Pep is definitely ahead. But let us say it is 2015 and Brendan Rodgers has just been fired at Liverpool. If I had the choice to pick a 1996 Wenger or a 2008 Pep, I would pick, 1996 Wenger every time. His achievements from 1997 to 2004 were off the scale on the budget he had- the transfers, the explosive style of football merging physicality and technique, etc. Yes, Pep has more trophies, but Wenger is the reason Arsenal have a brand new stadium

In terms of the impact on the game of football, no doubt about it. But whether it is correct or not, there will always be a working class "Did he really earn it" aspect to how managers are evaluated in football. He needs a "against all odds, how did he pull that off" managerial achievement on his CV - "Sir Alex at Aberdeen, Wenger at Arsenal, Rafa at Valencia and Istanbul, Klopp at Dortmund, Mourinho at Porto". Not that he needs that but until he has that, that will always be used against him by his detractors.

I think over the last six or seven years, Chelsea's success can be directly linked to Kante. If the manager gets Kante going they challenge for the PL and go deep in the CL. One of the most important, if not the most important, PL player in the last 10 years.

It would require two among three of Everton, Burnley, Watford to completely outperform their results from the first 30 games. In your case, I see it as two seasons - before Howe and Howe. It would require you to completely collapse on your performance in the Howe era. Even if Howe used the international break to rethink his philosophy and decides that rather than counterpressing and positioning, he should look upto a management veteran of 1000 games and copy that football style, you still would have enough to get over the line.

I know us fans generally tend to oscillate between extreme optimism and extreme pessimism, but I am finding it hard to believe that some of you think that there is a chance you will get relegated. I posted on this message board in the first week of February that if you defeat Everton (and you did), you will be safe. Every metric associated with your games was looking positive and increasing under Eddie Howe. Burnley had just lost 4 games in a row. Hadn't scored in over 250 minutes of football. They gifted two penalties to Everton and Everton still managed to lose. That Everton (7 losses in 9 games) is suddenly going to go on a run and overtake you in the points table? Add to that Eddie Howe is several orders of magnitude better manager than Frank Lampard. You will be higher than 40 points when the season ends. By the way, I don't think Everton is going down. They are still more than capable of getting points, particularly at home.

I might be wrong, But I think that might be the first honest response he has provided to such questions in the press conference.

In 2017-2018, Spurs defeated us 4-1. That was a team with Salah, Coutinho, Firmino, Matip, Gomez, Can, Henderson, Milner. That squad was way ahead of where your squad is now in quality and tactics. That might have been the defeat that convinced Klopp to go bigger and purchase Van Dijk and Allison. Such defeats are expected when you are learning to play an expansive way. Also, Kane and Son are incredibly intelligent and incisive players who know how to exploit a high line. Add to that Conte's nous and the new signings.

I think he is the same type of manager as Rafa and Klopp in the sense that he is more suitable for a working class club than Madrid or PSG. He is still young for a manager and the work he did at Spurs was outstanding. His work at Southampton is also commendable. But agree with you that his body of work as of now is not of the same level of Klopp or Rafa.

His celebrity profile was out of whack with his footballer profile but he was a genuinely great footballer. He was a two or three trick pony but he did those three tricks at a level only few footballers in history could. He is one of the all-time PL greats as a right midfielder. Worked hard, helped his fullback in defense and give him an inch and he could put a cross on a dime for the strikers.

Depends on how you define overrated. If you are thinking overrated the top end of the pool, look at the Balon d'or winners around 1996 to 2002, one name stands out: Ronaldo, Zidane, Rivaldo, Figo, Owen, Ronaldo. Don't get me wrong, he was a brilliant striker for us and one of the most exciting 18 year old I have seen playing for us. But the Balon d'or? Especially since his single season goalscoring statistics have been comfortably eclipsed at LFC itself by Torres, Suarez, Salah and maybe Jota this season. At the other end, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain. I have seen him play for 4-5 years and I still have no clue what his best position is? Yet to see a game where he dominates and leaves the mark. He is a nice guy and puts out really good social media content. But other than that, not sure what the fuss , whatever little he had, is.

Salah deserves 400K-500K salary. No doubt about it. Problem is that we cant afford it. It is not as simple as why loose him for an extra 100-150K. A lot of our players have a clause where their salary is bumped up if their salary is lower than a percentage of the maximum wage. Such clauses are quite common nowadays. Also when it becomes time for Jota, Diaz, Van Dijk, Allison, TAA salary negotiation, they will start demanding 300-350K. It will become like Barca with Messi. Definitely Messi deserved the salary that Barcelona was paying him. Problem is that salary became the benchmark for negotiation for Suarez, Coutinho, Griezmann, etc. and Messi's salary started lifting the salaries of those around him until it became unsustainable. I maybe wrong here but I think a lot of Man United's high wages were driven by the crazy contract they handed out to De Gea and Alexis Sanchez. We maybe able to just afford Salah's salary but not the resulting inflation it will bring about.

I feel that the entire British footballing punditry system is horrible. I hate the stupid Carra, Neville banter; Keane, Souness hardman on TV persona; Redknapp's - I will repeat cliche's ad infinitum but I am polite persona. Compared to other sports I watch - NFL, cricket, tennis, NBA - there is nothing insightful which comes out of halftime and full time shows. Even the ones that are tolerable like Linekar are so poor in insightful content compared to other sports. For example, in cricket, they do banter but they also mix it up with so much insightful content. I remember Ricky Ponting deconstructing players techniques, feet not moving in coordination with the bat leading to gap between bat and leg of certain players. How bowlers use that to slowly nudge the batsman into leaving larger gaps by bowling four balls which seam outside followed by a fifth one which seam inside. That is just one instance. I have never seen anything close to that in 20 years of watching football commentary. I remember Sky once had Rafa on to talk about positioning of Klopp defenders. Carra and Neville were conducting the interview. Man Rafa's insights. It felt like someone from Mars had arrived and was talking about a new fusion technology. For the first time I remember Carra and Neville shutting up for three minutes straight as they knew they couldn't utter a sentence which even approached the depth of intelligence from which Rafa was talking. I don't require every pundit to be a champions league or premier league winner. Sometimes a player who coached and managed at the lower leagues or even a fan like Harsha Bogle can have genuine stuff to add. But the ability to express a basic level of insight into the game should be the starting point.

Outside of football, I have watched post game analysis in NFL, college football, NBA, cricket, and tennis in the last 20 years. I have never seen one pundit complain about players hairstyle or the way they looked in those games when the team lost badly. What is this obsession with hitting on players images by PFMs like Keane and Souness, I don't know? Feels like pandering to the lowest common denominator.

As a person who has spent a good proportion of his teenage and adult life hating Moyes's teams, I have to grudgingly admire him. I feel that categorizing him as a PFM is a bit of a disservice to him. I understand the varying degrees of PFMs. Moyes isn't Rafa or Howe like tactics obsessed but he does have a clear vision for playing and improving all aspects of the club. His methods have a ceiling but given time he is very effective at keeping clubs in that 5 to 8 range in a budget. Might be the best ever 5-8 ranked club premier league manager. His work at Everton goes under the radar a bit nowadays due to the United job but he did some genuinely good work there in improving all aspects of the club - way beyond the range of Allardyce, Pulis, and company. Coleman, Pienaar, Jagielka, Baines, Nigel Martyn, Lescott, Arteta, Cahill - all excellent footballers purchased on a budget. I feel like Moyes is a category by himself.

Amazing post. Also, want to add that there is a quiet revolution happening in the background in terms of youth development and coaching in England with a lot of emphasis on technique and skills. Look at the quality of youngsters being generated by Southampton, Everton, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, LFC, United, City as well as some of the lower league clubs like Fulham, Swansea, Brighton etc. (Apologies if I missed out on any). I feel like the fullbacks English clubs are generating who are all less than 23 years old are better than any other nations. In the attacking front, players like Foden, Sterling - they have so much skill and game intelligence, can play midfield, on the wing, upfront. I can easily see them play for Bayern, Barcelona - any club in Europe if they wanted to. Rice, Bellingham, Henderson, Kalvin Phillips - again not as impressive as some of the past English players(with the exception of Bellingham) but are definitely tactically more flexible and seem to have the ability to listen to managers tactics and execute them on the field. I remember being amazed by Woodgate and Ferdinand on the level of comfort they displayed in playing the ball when they first broke out. Now, the fifth choice central defender at LFC can do this at the San Siro: https://youtu.be/Ec8aVUKo3kY. I am not saying they will be as good as some of their counterparts in the past, but in most of the academies through England, central defenders are now being coached to be comfortable on the ball, occasionally dribble their way out trouble, and play good crossfield passes if the opportunities approach. Most fans and coaches want to see players with technique, skill and not just players who "get stuck in". I feel like a lot of this work which is happening in the background and the type of tactically and technically skilled players which are being generated means that PFM managers are becoming more and more irrelevant and opening the door for a new breed of managers.

In the 1990s and 2000, there was this German manager - Wolfgang Frank - who primarily operated in the Bundesliga second division. He was a big fan of Sacchi. Went and studied Sacchi's football and then spend time at Ajax and studied their total football principles. Bought those back to Germany and installed those principles at Mainz. First person to use video based evaluation of opposition and introduced zonal marking and counterpressing in Germany. Wolfgang Frank was the original German gegenpressing hipster manager. He had success at Mainz but was never able to cross the line - unable to get them promoted. His central defender at Mainz was Klopp. When Klopp was interviewing for the Mainz manager position, he said his goal was to go back to the principles of Wolfgang Frank. By every tangible metric, Wolfgang Frank was a failure at the highest level. Nothing of note in his CV, except losing a German cup final. At the same time, Klopp considers Wolfgang Frank to be one of the most important managers in German football and one of the greatest footballing minds. He states everything he applies in the field was learned from Wolfgang Frank. That Mainz school also generated Tuchel. Low and Ragnick also were inspired by the Frank school of coaching. Mangers like Bielsa, Wolfgang Frank - I wouldn't want them at the current LFC. But that does not mean we shouldn't admire them for what they did.

When you are evaluating Bielsa, you do need to look beyond the results. Yes, I wouldn't want him at LFC or would not recommend him to any top club, but that does not mean his contributions to football can be washed aside. Guardiola considers him to the most important manager in world football. "He is probably the person I admire the most in world football - as a manager and as a person," said Guardiola. "He is the most authentic manager in terms of how he conducts his teams. He is unique. Pochettino, Klopp - all rave about him. There is a big group of managers plying their trade in South, Central, and North America who considers him to be their most important person in terms of football development - Gallardo, Martino, Sampaoli. An entire generation of Argentinian footballers - Ayala, Simeone, Mascherano - all consider him to very influential in their football development. Yes, he has not been successful if you consider trophies and league positions in Europe. He does have some very serious flaws which come up again and again. But there definitely is something about his core philosophy, the way he encourages people to express themselves on the field which has inspired so many great and influential managers. It feels like more than often he is able to create something brilliant but flawed which can be improved by adding some pragmatism to achieve great success. Like for example, Chile's Copa America triumph , a big part of the success was attributed to the foundations laid down by Bielsa. Sampaoli, another Bielsa disciple, continued along the same lines but mixed the high press with defensive resoluteness and they had great success. Not trying to downplay Sampaoli or overplay Bielsa, but he does always leave something positive behind.

His passing has been unreal the last few years. I have never been consistently wrong about a player, like I have been with Harry Kane. First, I thought he was going to be a one season wonder. Then maybe two. Then I thought he is going to be a pure goalscorer and will not add anything else to the team. The way he has evolved his game is brilliant. Even in England's Euro, campaign he dropped deep and did significant damage with his passing. My memory might be wrong but I think Kane's pass released Trippier who crossed it to Shaw for the goal. Unbelievable player and easily top 3 or 5 in Europe.