Who Do You Blame/Who Are You Angry With?

[remy]

Lucky Pants situation rectified. Mrs Remy unaware of magical properties (how do you think I pulled her in the first place!).

I don't blame Mr Lambert, he is trying his best given the circumstances and quite frankly I hope he becomes our David Moyes as in longetivity with the club. We need stability and a new 5 year plan.

I do blame the unseen forces that seem to give teams like the petrol heads with several world class players a helping hand against weaker opposition.

It's depressing that here we are 3rd season in succession, struggling again, hoping there are shitter teams than us to take the bottom 3.  I hope Randy gives our manager the backing required and we shoot back up the table and become a force again and not a f***** joke.

[ExclDawg]

Lucky Pants situation rectified. Mrs Remy unaware of magical properties (how do you think I pulled her in the first place!)

Or maybe she is?  Why else would she want to get into your pants?

[BC54 VFC]

Rinder.

All that early success raised expectations too much.

That's a bit harsh.

I'd have though you'd have blamed Bobby Tambling for those 5 goals he scored against us in Sep '66!

[jamestownvilla]

he decision to sign Heskey - When we signed him we'd just won 8 away games in a row playing 4-3-3 and we were 8 points clear of Arsenal in 4th place.

We the changed the system to accommodate him and it all fell apart. Coupled with the Moscow team selection incident meant that the O'Neill/Lerner honeymoon period was over.

The lack of managerial stability since has set us back 10 years.
This

[tomd2103]

I personally think all this mess can be traced back to the end of the 2009/10 season.  In hindsight Randy and Faulkner should have dealt with the O'Neill issue at the end of that season and not let it drag over the summer and leave us in the position of having no manager just before the start of the new season.  We have been up against it since then and haven't really recovered.  The two manager appointments after O'Neill were poor and the squad has lost a lot of quality which hasn't really been replaced despite some new faces coming in.  Had O'Neill been moved on at the end of that season and been replaced with an able manager (it would have still been an attractive post at the point), we may have been able to avoid the mess we now find ourselves in.  Despite many complaints about lack of spending since O'Neill has left, we have still spent more than a number of clubs who currently sit higher in the table than us.   

 

I made a similar point yesterday and it proved controversial. I think Houllier was a dreadful appointment.

To be fair, a lot of my post was written with the benefit of hindsight and I think there probably would have been uproar if Lerner had sacked O'Neill at the end of the 2009/10 season. 

[hawkeye]

I personally think all this mess can be traced back to the end of the 2009/10 season.  In hindsight Randy and Faulkner should have dealt with the O'Neill issue at the end of that season and not let it drag over the summer and leave us in the position of having no manager just before the start of the new season.  We have been up against it since then and haven't really recovered.  The two manager appointments after O'Neill were poor and the squad has lost a lot of quality which hasn't really been replaced despite some new faces coming in.  Had O'Neill been moved on at the end of that season and been replaced with an able manager (it would have still been an attractive post at the point), we may have been able to avoid the mess we now find ourselves in.  Despite many complaints about lack of spending since O'Neill has left, we have still spent more than a number of clubs who currently sit higher in the table than us.   

 

I made a similar point yesterday and it proved controversial. I think Houllier was a dreadful appointment.

To be fair, a lot of my post was written with the benefit of hindsight and I think there probably would have been uproar if Lerner had sacked O'Neill at the end of the 2009/10 season. 

There were quite a few of us on here advocating that position.

[hawkeye]

In answer to the subject. You can only blame Lerner, he is responsible, it is his money, his decisions, his appointments.

[KevinGage]

Ronny Rosenthal.  His signing gave the Redscouse fresh impetus at the tail end of 89/90.

Had we won the league that season, we'd have dominated for the next 3-5 years.   No talk of this 'missing the boat,' caper.   We'd be on the boat, on deck, waving our collective dicks.  Leaving the Redscouse and the Mancs in our slipstream. 

And seeing as we hadn't missed the boat, there'd be no need for O'Dreary, O'Neill or any other false prophets. 

[LeeB]

Ronny Rosenthal.  His signing gave the Redscouse fresh impetus at the tail end of 89/90.

Had we won the league that season, we'd have dominated for the next 3-5 years.   No talk of this 'missing the boat,' caper.   We'd be on the boat, on deck, waving our collective dicks.  Leaving the Redscouse and the Mancs in our slipstream. 

And seeing as we hadn't missed the boat, there'd be no need for O'Dreary, O'Neill or any other false prophets. 

Don't Kevin, it's all still very raw for me.

[not3bad]

We tried the old policy of "speculate to accumulate" and we lost. Like Leeds.

MON must take a lot of the blame  because his second-wave of player purchses was very poor and his tactics didn't help. He was given the money to take us to the Champions League and he blew it.

From that point on Lerner at al have continued to do their splendid impression of a rabbit stuck in the glare of headlights.

Possibly the best short summary I've read.

[Irish villain]

I personally think all this mess can be traced back to the end of the 2009/10 season.  In hindsight Randy and Faulkner should have dealt with the O'Neill issue at the end of that season and not let it drag over the summer and leave us in the position of having no manager just before the start of the new season.  We have been up against it since then and haven't really recovered.  The two manager appointments after O'Neill were poor and the squad has lost a lot of quality which hasn't really been replaced despite some new faces coming in.  Had O'Neill been moved on at the end of that season and been replaced with an able manager (it would have still been an attractive post at the point), we may have been able to avoid the mess we now find ourselves in.  Despite many complaints about lack of spending since O'Neill has left, we have still spent more than a number of clubs who currently sit higher in the table than us.   

 

I made a similar point yesterday and it proved controversial. I think Houllier was a dreadful appointment.

To be fair, a lot of my post was written with the benefit of hindsight and I think there probably would have been uproar if Lerner had sacked O'Neill at the end of the 2009/10 season. 

I travelled over for the final game of 09/10 against Blackburn and the general feeling was MON would be gone as he had taken us as far as he could.

[not3bad]

I personally think all this mess can be traced back to the end of the 2009/10 season.  In hindsight Randy and Faulkner should have dealt with the O'Neill issue at the end of that season and not let it drag over the summer and leave us in the position of having no manager just before the start of the new season.  We have been up against it since then and haven't really recovered.  The two manager appointments after O'Neill were poor and the squad has lost a lot of quality which hasn't really been replaced despite some new faces coming in.  Had O'Neill been moved on at the end of that season and been replaced with an able manager (it would have still been an attractive post at the point), we may have been able to avoid the mess we now find ourselves in.  Despite many complaints about lack of spending since O'Neill has left, we have still spent more than a number of clubs who currently sit higher in the table than us.   

 

I made a similar point yesterday and it proved controversial. I think Houllier was a dreadful appointment.

To be fair, a lot of my post was written with the benefit of hindsight and I think there probably would have been uproar if Lerner had sacked O'Neill at the end of the 2009/10 season. 

I travelled over for the final game of 09/10 against Blackburn and the general feeling was MON would be gone as he had taken us as far as he could.

Think it may be a moot point.  Lerner had the benefit of the whole summer to choose a new manager the following year and look who we ended up with.

[eamonn]

I personally thought Houllier was actually an intelligent attempt at modernising the club that we were very unlucky as it went badly. Randy dug us out of that hole with money in January, after the debacle of the MON departure. I think GED getting ill totally threw the board,

You can't call that bad luck though.  It would be like signing Kieron Dyer and Jonathan Woodgate and Michael Owen and then claiming it's bad luck when they only play a handful of games.  If Randy hadn't foreseen that Houllier getting ill was a strong possibility then he's a fool.

But hadn't his heart scare been 7 years prior when we appointed him? And he'd had two or three decent seasons at Lyon in between. So yeah, there was the risk of him struggling with his health but I'm sure we would have made sure his medical gave a good indication that he was ok. Bad luck surely did come into it in that case.

[pauliewalnuts]

I personally think all this mess can be traced back to the end of the 2009/10 season.  In hindsight Randy and Faulkner should have dealt with the O'Neill issue at the end of that season and not let it drag over the summer and leave us in the position of having no manager just before the start of the new season.  We have been up against it since then and haven't really recovered.  The two manager appointments after O'Neill were poor and the squad has lost a lot of quality which hasn't really been replaced despite some new faces coming in.  Had O'Neill been moved on at the end of that season and been replaced with an able manager (it would have still been an attractive post at the point), we may have been able to avoid the mess we now find ourselves in.  Despite many complaints about lack of spending since O'Neill has left, we have still spent more than a number of clubs who currently sit higher in the table than us.   

 

I made a similar point yesterday and it proved controversial. I think Houllier was a dreadful appointment.

To be fair, a lot of my post was written with the benefit of hindsight and I think there probably would have been uproar if Lerner had sacked O'Neill at the end of the 2009/10 season. 

There were quite a few of us on here advocating that position.

I recall lots of us getting pissed on with O'Neill, but I can't remember many people wanting him sacked.

Slight tangent, but give the way the media treated us after he left - which was as if we'd sacked him in any case - can you imagine how worse it'd have been if we actually had sacked him?

[KevinGage]

I personally thought Houllier was actually an intelligent attempt at modernising the club that we were very unlucky as it went badly. Randy dug us out of that hole with money in January, after the debacle of the MON departure. I think GED getting ill totally threw the board,

You can't call that bad luck though.  It would be like signing Kieron Dyer and Jonathan Woodgate and Michael Owen and then claiming it's bad luck when they only play a handful of games.  If Randy hadn't foreseen that Houllier getting ill was a strong possibility then he's a fool.

But hadn't his heart scare been 7 years prior when we appointed him? And he'd had two or three decent seasons at Lyon in between. So yeah, there was the risk of him struggling with his health but I'm sure we would have made sure his medical gave a good indication that he was ok. Bad luck surely did come into it in that case.

The fact that he himself mentioned it during his first press conference ("I'm fit,  I'm healthy,") means it was an issue.   Some basic research shows that the average life expectancy after the heavy duty surgery he underwent in 2001   is 10-14 years. 

Some will live longer of course. 

Let's say we had been fighting it out towards the top of the table (as we all hoped - and probably had the squad to do) but lost a crucial game in the run-in.  That would have been pressure of a different kind.  Would he have been able to contend with that either? 

It might seem insensitive maybe, talking about a blokes life in such cold, cynical terms.   But you'd like to think that when multi million pound contracts are being signed more care and consideration (and research)  would be carried out.