The future of Houllier and McAllister?

[Greg N'Ash]

Ah but the failure to invest was down in large part down to MON being stubborn over cutting the wage bill with players that he had refused to play when the squad was on its knees last season. It all comes back to him eventually.

Sorry, Ozz, that just isn't true.

The General said at the time that MON had agreed to to the need to sell players, we made them available but in a depressed market we were unable to shift enough of them. He then appeared to want to buy his players regardless and was told no so he fucked off.

Since then we have sold a few so there was nothing wrong with them but by sticking to the policy dogmatically last summer we effectively gave up on the season.

So you think Randy should've paid out even more money on players then? Increasing the wage bill even more?

Yes, absolutely, how else were we going to keep pace with our competitors?

There was a decision to be made in August when we hadn't managed to sell players. Do business concerns take precedence and we stick with the policy or do football issues win and we sign the players? It's obvious which side came out on top.

Did you see our wage bill??? it couldn't carry on like that. we're not Man Citeh

[VillaZogmariner]

Ah but the failure to invest was down in large part down to MON being stubborn over cutting the wage bill with players that he had refused to play when the squad was on its knees last season. It all comes back to him eventually.

Sorry, Ozz, that just isn't true.

The General said at the time that MON had agreed to to the need to sell players, we made them available but in a depressed market we were unable to shift enough of them. He then appeared to want to buy his players regardless and was told no so he fucked off.

Since then we have sold a few so there was nothing wrong with them but by sticking to the policy dogmatically last summer we effectively gave up on the season.

So you think Randy should've paid out even more money on players then? Increasing the wage bill even more?

Yes, absolutely, how else were we going to keep pace with our competitors?

There was a decision to be made in August when we hadn't managed to sell players. Do business concerns take precedence and we stick with the policy or do football issues win and we sign the players? It's obvious which side came out on top.

And then again this summer if we couldn't get rid of the players we should do the same again?

Randy is not a bottomless pit of money, eventually the paying out of money and not bringing enough in to cover them costs will see us go the route of Portsmouth and Leeds.

[Chris Smith]

How much has it cost us in prize money by finishing as low down the table as this? How much less attractive are we to new sponsors? How harder us it for us to keep hold of our best players? How much has gate money dropped down to us being crap to watch?

[Mazrim]

MON is the main reason this club has been in turmoil this season. And turmoil is the main reason we have struggled.
I cant believe anybody thinks otherwise.

Far too simplistic.

MON was not to blame for the inept, insipid, toothless display last week, for example. We've got a lot of good players but too many times the whole does not equal the sum of the parts. That's down to the managers not making the most of what they have at their dspsal.

It's not too simplistic. O'Neill is the main reason the club was/is in turmoil. I can't believe that can be argued.

The inspid display last week is part due to McAllister being a poor manager and the team with too many gobshites that MON bought.
Obviously I'm not absolving the current management team of any blame. That would be silly.
But when I see people basically saying what's tantamount to "forget MON now, it's nothing to do with him..." its fucking bollocks.
It will take years possibly to rectify the damage he's done to this club.

For the record, I hope a completely new management team in the summer but not as much as I want rid of all the parasitic, gutless, unprofessional wasters that are draining our resources and mugging us off with substandard performances. Or are simply not good enough.

[Greg N'Ash]

we'd need to win the double and the CL to cover the wage bill in sponsership deals and prize money

[VillaZogmariner]

There is no way of knowing that.

But if MoN had stayed and signed Robbie Keane and McGeady (both of whom we were heavily linked with) as well as Ireland. And continued sticking with the same XI players week in week out, where do you think we'd have finished? Remember there would've been no goals from Bent to add in. Just from Gabby with his niggling injuries and the goal machines that are Carew, Heskey and Keane. 

[paul_e]

The thing with the comparative merits of the squad 'on paper' is that it doesn't take certain things into account.

Nothing there suggests Dunne came back from a summer off unfit and overweight.
Nothing there suggests Ireland was going to turn out to be as mad as a box of frogs.
Nothing there suggests Warnock was going to go into meltdown over being asked to live in the midlands.
I'll stop there but you get the point.

All of these problems existed before Houllier was around, coming into a club with a lot of issues like this with the season already underway and with a lot of fans who saw you named as manager and instantly thought 'ah fuck, don't want him'.

The reality is he came in to a very difficult job, made a couple of mistakes early on and had the worst injury crisis the club has seen for years to deal with which left us well in the relegation battle at the turn of the year.

He then brought in a striker we've been crying out for, a very good attacking full back and a midfielder who will turn out to be a great signing but needs to get used to the league.  Since then we've looked far from a relegation battler, have played some good stuff and had got ourselves into a position where we were looking up not down.  That this all fell apart when he got taken into hospital has left us hanging on a little again but there was enough shown in the period after signing bent and before he got sick to suggest he can get us up there challenging.

As for the wolves game, look at the defence we had in that game, I defy anyone to blame the manager for that situation, not a lot you can do with most of the defenders in the squad injured, suspended or looking poor at reserve team level.  Wigan was after he got sick so can lie at the feet of GM who I agree needs to be replaced.

[Ad@m]

Ah but the failure to invest was down in large part down to MON being stubborn over cutting the wage bill with players that he had refused to play when the squad was on its knees last season. It all comes back to him eventually.

Sorry, Ozz, that just isn't true.

The General said at the time that MON had agreed to to the need to sell players, we made them available but in a depressed market we were unable to shift enough of them. He then appeared to want to buy his players regardless and was told no so he fucked off.

Since then we have sold a few so there was nothing wrong with them but by sticking to the policy dogmatically last summer we effectively gave up on the season.

So you think Randy should've paid out even more money on players then? Increasing the wage bill even more?

Yes, absolutely, how else were we going to keep pace with our competitors?

There was a decision to be made in August when we hadn't managed to sell players. Do business concerns take precedence and we stick with the policy or do football issues win and we sign the players? It's obvious which side came out on top.

And I thought your cavalier attitude to debt and spending money you don't have was restricted to political threads!!

I hope you have a thorough understanding of bankruptcy laws because if you take this approach in your personal life you'll be making use of them.

[Greg N'Ash]

To be fair to chris, the club fostered this sort of feeling that we had a bottomless pit of money with talk of 30m players. My understanding was the board would back MON with signing players. The trouble they had with MON was he was buying too many players on 30k per week who never even featured in the 1st team

[Chris Smith]

There is no way of knowing that.

But if MoN had stayed and signed Robbie Keane and McGeady (both of whom we were heavily linked with) as well as Ireland. And continued sticking with the same XI players week in week out, where do you think we'd have finished? Remember there would've been no goals from Bent to add in. Just from Gabby with his niggling injuries and the goal machines that are Carew, Heskey and Keane.

Sixth, if he'd been allowed to sign the players he'd wanted and we wouldn't have lost to the Blues, Albion and Wolves all in the same season.

That's not my argument though, it's that we should have done better than we have. By keep harking back to MON walking out we are giving them excuses for a woeful performance on and off the pitch.

[Risso]

We're actually only 4 points off 8th.

We've heard that a lot this season.  "Only x amounts of points off xth [uninspiring] place".  We've never, ever looked like being comfortably top half, and more worrying is that with two games left, we're still only three points above the trapdoor.  It would take a ridiculous combination of results for us to go down, but the fact that it's still possible at this stage shows what an utter disaster Houllier has been.  the only good thing to come out of this season is that Lerner obviously decided that we needed Darren Bent to keep us up, so broke the bank to keep us up.  Hopefully a new, much better manager will reap the benefits of this.  If we'd been comfortably top 10 in January I really don't think we'd have gone for Bent.

[Ad@m]

We're actually only 4 points off 8th.

We've heard that a lot this season.  "Only x amounts of points off xth [uninspiring] place".  We've never, ever looked like being comfortably top half, and more worrying is that with two games left, we're still only three points above the trapdoor.  It would take a ridiculous combination of results for us to go down, but the fact that it's still possible at this stage shows what an utter disaster Houllier has been.  the only good thing to come out of this season is that Lerner obviously decided that we needed Darren Bent to keep us up, so broke the bank to keep us up.  Hopefully a new, much better manager will reap the benefits of this.  If we'd been comfortably top 10 in January I really don't think we'd have gone for Bent.

Absolutely.

Randy's put a shit load of money in to the club and can clearly do what the hell he likes as a result.  I just hope that he appreciates that not all decisions work out for the best and moves le Gaffeur on before things get any worse.

[Chris Smith]

I do find it amusing that some of the people who were last season saying that MON under performed given the players he'd been able to sign are now making excuses for the complete fuck up this time with largely the same group with an £18m striker added and Milner gone.

It hasn't been good enough.

[VillaZogmariner]

There is no way of knowing that.

But if MoN had stayed and signed Robbie Keane and McGeady (both of whom we were heavily linked with) as well as Ireland. And continued sticking with the same XI players week in week out, where do you think we'd have finished? Remember there would've been no goals from Bent to add in. Just from Gabby with his niggling injuries and the goal machines that are Carew, Heskey and Keane.

Sixth, if he'd been allowed to sign the players he'd wanted and we wouldn't have lost to the Blues, Albion and Wolves all in the same season.

That's not my argument though, it's that we should have done better than we have. By keep harking back to MON walking out we are giving them excuses for a woeful performance on and off the pitch.

There is no way of knowing that we'd have beaten Wolves, Albion and Blues though is there? And you think them players would be enough to finish above Spurs or Liverpool too? That would be like me saying that if we hadn't have had the injury crisis we did have that we'd be 8th now - there is no way of knowing for sure. We can guess, that is all.

The problems of this season all started last summer with MoN - there is no way of denying that.



H

[Risso]

I do find it amusing that some of the people who were last season saying that MON under performed given the players he'd been able to sign are now making excuses for the complete fuck up this time with largely the same group with an £18m striker added and Milner gone.

It hasn't been good enough.

Absolutely.  And in the same vein, some of O'Neill's staunchest supporters last season now apparently thinking that everything he did was shit is equally baffling.  (Not you Chris).