Liverpool: A model to emulate | Page 3 | Vital Football

Liverpool: A model to emulate

SmithAndJones said:
If Conte stays for 3-4 years I hope that our standing in Europe is such that all of the best managers in Europe want to join us. I'll settle for Pep after he finally wins the CL with City.
Click to expand...
IMO whenever you bring a new manager in it is always a risk, much better I would have thought to maintain a certain amount of continuity. I was under the impression that Mason was highly regarded at the club.
 
I just wish Muttley was at those board meetings when Poch came out of them and said there wasn’t any players in the world that could improve us .
From that statement and that moment . we imploded .
All the good work that had gone into the club / squad went out of the window .
players were run into the ground , Poch lost all his credibility, Levy went and sat in the quiet corner and everyone , everything regressed five years .
I’m not sure what went on then , what the thinking was ……… maybe we are coming out of it now .

Now that was Spursey !
 
Walthamstow wanderer said:
I just wish Muttley was at those board meetings when Poch came out of them and said there wasn’t any players in the world that could improve us .
From that statement and that moment . we imploded .
All the good work that had gone into the club / squad went out of the window .
players were run into the ground , Poch lost all his credibility, Levy went and sat in the quiet corner and everyone , everything regressed five years .
I’m not sure what went on then , what the thinking was ……… maybe we are coming out of it now .

Now that was Spursey !
Click to expand...

Did Poch ever say that though? Levy said that Poch said that in one of his comms. That is different. Poch should have belted the little twat for putting words in his mouth.

We all know the real reason. Levy and his recruitment team couldn't close the door on the targets Poch actually wanted, hence the narrative about not wanting any. There were some nice compliments from superb players we were interested in, but obviously couldn't land or wouldn't pay the money. Then there was the players we were linked with in the last week of the windows.

I'm so glad we changed that regime and brought in Fabio.
 
muttley said:
Did Poch ever say that though? Levy said that Poch said that in one of his comms. That is different. Poch should have belted the little twat for putting words in his mouth.

We all know the real reason. Levy and his recruitment team couldn't close the door on the targets Poch actually wanted, hence the narrative about not wanting any. There were some nice compliments from superb players we were interested in, but obviously couldn't land or wouldn't pay the money. Then there was the players we were linked with in the last week of the windows.

I'm so glad we changed that regime and brought in Fabio.
Click to expand...
Spurs have no regrets for not adding players this summer – Pochettino
Dejan Kalinic
2018-10-19
•
3 min read
Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino insisted he had no regrets over not making an off-season signing, saying he was unwilling to be drawn into adding players for the sake of it.
Spurs have won six of their opening eight Premier League games to sit fifth in the table, just two points adrift of Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool.
Their fine start to the campaign has come despite no additions in the off-season, which led to some criticism and questions over the strength of Spurs' squad.
But Pochettino said the club's lack of moves was the right decision, pointing to their good start to the season.
"We are always trying to improve our squad because football is dynamic," he told reporters.
"But if you cannot achieve what you need or want, [making signings] because you need to make happy people or act like all the clubs, I think that is not common sense.
"We showed that we do not care. If we don't need the players who are available to sign then why are we going to sign? That is the point.
"I was happy and am happy with the squad that I have, we have no regrets. When we started the season with three games that we won and we were top of the table people were talking in a different way, [saying] 'Oh how clever are Tottenham because they keep all the squad from last season'.
"After we lost some games [it] started to make a big impact in the perception. But I need to remind everyone that is our best start after eight games."
 
Walthamstow wanderer said:
Spurs have no regrets for not adding players this summer – Pochettino
Dejan Kalinic
2018-10-19
•
3 min read
Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino insisted he had no regrets over not making an off-season signing, saying he was unwilling to be drawn into adding players for the sake of it.
Spurs have won six of their opening eight Premier League games to sit fifth in the table, just two points adrift of Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool.
Their fine start to the campaign has come despite no additions in the off-season, which led to some criticism and questions over the strength of Spurs' squad.
But Pochettino said the club's lack of moves was the right decision, pointing to their good start to the season.
"We are always trying to improve our squad because football is dynamic," he told reporters.
"But if you cannot achieve what you need or want, [making signings] because you need to make happy people or act like all the clubs, I think that is not common sense.
"We showed that we do not care. If we don't need the players who are available to sign then why are we going to sign? That is the point.
"I was happy and am happy with the squad that I have, we have no regrets. When we started the season with three games that we won and we were top of the table people were talking in a different way, [saying] 'Oh how clever are Tottenham because they keep all the squad from last season'.
"After we lost some games [it] started to make a big impact in the perception. But I need to remind everyone that is our best start after eight games."
Click to expand...

It is exactly what I said. In what you shared, Poch was absolutely talking about the impotence of the recruitment team to get him the players he wanted in this statement. They just offered him players who he didn't want and then tried to turn it on him when he refused more duds. Then they made it out to be that Poch didn't want any players. Such BS.

Conte would have just walked away and shone a massive light on that root cause. He wouldn't have tried to protect his chairman and recruitment team like Poch did. He wouldn't have said he as "happy" to protect his boss and colleagues. Poch was naive. He should have been more honest and hung them all out to dry.
 
muttley said:
Did Poch ever say that though? Levy said that Poch said that in one of his comms. That is different. Poch should have belted the little twat for putting words in his mouth.

We all know the real reason. Levy and his recruitment team couldn't close the door on the targets Poch actually wanted, hence the narrative about not wanting any. There were some nice compliments from superb players we were interested in, but obviously couldn't land or wouldn't pay the money. Then there was the players we were linked with in the last week of the windows.

I'm so glad we changed that regime and brought in Fabio.
Click to expand...
Glen Hoddle after the window said live on bt sport that the money was there but we decided not to use it.

It's hard to know as Poch was always so unclear with his choice of words in interviews. But the feeling I got was that Poch had extremely specific and high standards that he wanted in players. If he couldn't get that number 1 then he wanted to wait for the next window and backed himself to improve current players in training before going down the list of other options.

I do think it is a bit of both though. Poch refusing to budge on high standards and Levy unable to get the deal over the line. Poch unwilling to accept inferior players despite our budget compared to peers and Levy unwilling to push the boat out yet even for a manager who he had completely fallen for.

But then when Levy finally was willing to budge on the budget following the stadium opening, Pochs choice was the likes of lo Celso and Ndombele. Both of whom have made his theory of waiting for your top picks and say no to anything else look a bit silly
 
meee93 said:
Glen Hoddle after the window said live on bt sport that the money was there but we decided not to use it.

It's hard to know as Poch was always so unclear with his choice of words in interviews. But the feeling I got was that Poch had extremely specific and high standards that he wanted in players. If he couldn't get that number 1 then he wanted to wait for the next window and backed himself to improve current players in training before going down the list of other options.

I do think it is a bit of both though. Poch refusing to budge on high standards and Levy unable to get the deal over the line. Poch unwilling to accept inferior players despite our budget compared to peers and Levy unwilling to push the boat out yet even for a manager who he had completely fallen for.

But then when Levy finally was willing to budge on the budget following the stadium opening, Pochs choice was the likes of lo Celso and Ndombele. Both of whom have made his theory of waiting for your top picks and say no to anything else look a bit silly
Click to expand...

"There was money, but we couldn't sign the player we wanted" was just the recurring theme of every window though. It talked to the same problem that we couldn't land anyone and just seemed way too convenient especially when we had 2 years of record profits. It amounts to the same thing.

Poch was very vocal in his early days about not being able to settle his squad for pre-season and get off to a fast start. He called the club out for the late, late shows and the procrastinated transfer cycles. He was hitting his head against a brick wall.

As for Tanguy and Gio, it is not Poch's job to do the physical and mental assessments of these players. That due diligence process belongs with the recruitment team. It is also fair to say that they were way more likely to thrive in a Poch system, than the hoofball Jose played or the 3-4-3 counter that Conte plays. They became a wrong fit as soon as Poch left the building. Tanguy will just waste his entire career anyway. That kid is mentally flawed.

There is a sort of irony that the managers gets the blame for some of the acquisitions, but then some of the players get blamed where it is clearly the manager's disposition to treat them awfully. As you say, there is no single root cause, just some from column A and some from column B. I personally find it hard to blame Poch too much for the acquisitions as he was operating with negligible net spending until it was too late. Hence why I started this article at 2017.

I'm so glad Levy has stepped away from football ops. There's your biggest root cause.
 
muttley said:
"There was money, but we couldn't sign the player we wanted" was just the recurring theme of every window though. It talked to the same problem that we couldn't land anyone and just seemed way too convenient especially when we had 2 years of record profits. It amounts to the same thing.

Poch was very vocal in his early days about not being able to settle his squad for pre-season and get off to a fast start. He called the club out for the late, late shows and the procrastinated transfer cycles. He was hitting his head against a brick wall.

As for Tanguy and Gio, it is not Poch's job to do the physical and mental assessments of these players. That due diligence process belongs with the recruitment team. It is also fair to say that they were way more likely to thrive in a Poch system, than the hoofball Jose played or the 3-4-3 counter that Conte plays. They became a wrong fit as soon as Poch left the building. Tanguy will just waste his entire career anyway. That kid is mentally flawed.

There is a sort of irony that the managers gets the blame for some of the acquisitions, but then some of the players get blamed where it is clearly the manager's disposition to treat them awfully. As you say, there is no single root cause, just some from column A and some from column B. I personally find it hard to blame Poch too much for the acquisitions as he was operating with negligible net spending until it was too late. Hence why I started this article at 2017.

I'm so glad Levy has stepped away from football ops. There's your biggest root cause.
Click to expand...
It is the “manager “ who loses his job though…..

Very very rarely does the manager stay on and the recruitment team get the tin tack .
 
meee93 said:
Glen Hoddle after the window said live on bt sport that the money was there but we decided not to use it.

It's hard to know as Poch was always so unclear with his choice of words in interviews. But the feeling I got was that Poch had extremely specific and high standards that he wanted in players. If he couldn't get that number 1 then he wanted to wait for the next window and backed himself to improve current players in training before going down the list of other options.

I do think it is a bit of both though. Poch refusing to budge on high standards and Levy unable to get the deal over the line. Poch unwilling to accept inferior players despite our budget compared to peers and Levy unwilling to push the boat out yet even for a manager who he had completely fallen for.

But then when Levy finally was willing to budge on the budget following the stadium opening, Pochs choice was the likes of lo Celso and Ndombele. Both of whom have made his theory of waiting for your top picks and say no to anything else look a bit silly
Click to expand...
I think that the big plus we have now is that we have both Paratici and Conte. both with proven track records, who seem to work well together, and who between them should be able to identify a wide range of potential options not all of whom will be secured, but there is real potential for a much improved success rate from signings than we have experienced in recent years. Poch always gave me the impression that he was a bit of a lone wolf as regards who he wanted, and those he had no interest in. His preferences always seemed to be players of potential rather than proven ability, who he believed would fit well with his preferred style of play. In hindsight he had very few successes in this regard whilst with us, and I don't think that it was all down to his not being supported in the market.
 
muttley said:
"There was money, but we couldn't sign the player we wanted" was just the recurring theme of every window though. It talked to the same problem that we couldn't land anyone and just seemed way too convenient especially when we had 2 years of record profits. It amounts to the same thing.

Poch was very vocal in his early days about not being able to settle his squad for pre-season and get off to a fast start. He called the club out for the late, late shows and the procrastinated transfer cycles. He was hitting his head against a brick wall.

As for Tanguy and Gio, it is not Poch's job to do the physical and mental assessments of these players. That due diligence process belongs with the recruitment team. It is also fair to say that they were way more likely to thrive in a Poch system, than the hoofball Jose played or the 3-4-3 counter that Conte plays. They became a wrong fit as soon as Poch left the building. Tanguy will just waste his entire career anyway. That kid is mentally flawed.

There is a sort of irony that the managers gets the blame for some of the acquisitions, but then some of the players get blamed where it is clearly the manager's disposition to treat them awfully. As you say, there is no single root cause, just some from column A and some from column B. I personally find it hard to blame Poch too much for. the acquisitions as he was operating with negligible net spending until it was too late. Hence why I started this article at 2017.

I'm so glad Levy has stepped away from football ops. There's your biggest root cause.
Click to expand...
I too am glad that he has stepped away from the football side of operations again, lets hope this time that it will last.

But for all his faults, Levy over the years has at least been able to bring bodies in up until that moment. We all know the issues with speed of completion and the repeated failures of our scouting departments. Hopefully Paratici is resolving that.

But we also know that the manager gets the final say and if Poch wasn't willing to be flexible with his targets and accept the 2nd or 3rd choice then he was cutting his nose off to spite his face. Every manager would like to get that top target but at the same time he has to be thinking of the budget of the club, us more than anyone else when building a stadium all whilst competing against the biggest clubs in the world. There had to be a bit of give both ways.

We weren't in the position as a club to say that is the player we want and then moving heaven and earth to get him. Pochs inability to work within that ultimately lead to his own downful working with a stale squad in decline.
 
meee93 said:
I too am glad that he has stepped away from the football side of operations again, lets hope this time that it will last.

But for all his faults, Levy over the years has at least been able to bring bodies in up until that moment. We all know the issues with speed of completion and the repeated failures of our scouting departments. Hopefully Paratici is resolving that.

But we also know that the manager gets the final say and if Poch wasn't willing to be flexible with his targets and accept the 2nd or 3rd choice then he was cutting his nose off to spite his face. Every manager would like to get that top target but at the same time he has to be thinking of the budget of the club, us more than anyone else when building a stadium all whilst competing against the biggest clubs in the world. There had to be a bit of give both ways.

We weren't in the position as a club to say that is the player we want and then moving heaven and earth to get him. Pochs inability to work within that ultimately lead to his own downful working with a stale squad in decline.
Click to expand...
I think it was tough for Poch. Way ahead of schedule and against most people's expectations he established us as a top 3 club. He knew that to kick on, or even stay in that position, the club needed to recruit higher calibre players than they had been previously. Whether the money was there or not, that's what was required.
 
Gary Onedaysoon said:
I think it was tough for Poch. Way ahead of schedule and against most people's expectations he established us as a top 3 club. He knew that to kick on, or even stay in that position, the club needed to recruit higher calibre players than they had been previously. Whether the money was there or not, that's what was required.
Click to expand...
Gary your comment...way ahead of schedule was probably the "killer" point.
 
Gary Onedaysoon said:
I think it was tough for Poch. Way ahead of schedule and against most people's expectations he established us as a top 3 club. He knew that to kick on, or even stay in that position, the club needed to recruit higher calibre players than they had been previously. Whether the money was there or not, that's what was required.
Click to expand...
I disagree, at that time we needed to keep doing what we had done to get there. It was working well. Recruit some really promising young talent that were undervalued eslewhere and use their energy to boost us forward or atleast maintain that pace. Poch wanted to skip ahead when the foundations weren't quite set yet. He turned his back on the very methods that had made him successful
 
meee93 said:
I too am glad that he has stepped away from the football side of operations again, lets hope this time that it will last.

But for all his faults, Levy over the years has at least been able to bring bodies in up until that moment. We all know the issues with speed of completion and the repeated failures of our scouting departments. Hopefully Paratici is resolving that.

But we also know that the manager gets the final say and if Poch wasn't willing to be flexible with his targets and accept the 2nd or 3rd choice then he was cutting his nose off to spite his face. Every manager would like to get that top target but at the same time he has to be thinking of the budget of the club, us more than anyone else when building a stadium all whilst competing against the biggest clubs in the world. There had to be a bit of give both ways.

We weren't in the position as a club to say that is the player we want and then moving heaven and earth to get him. Pochs inability to work within that ultimately lead to his own downful working with a stale squad in decline.
Click to expand...

The downfall was also Levy's. It was all on his watch. He played a massive part in the decline from 86 pts to 60 pts from 2017 to 2021 because of his financial phasing over those critical years. He posted 2 years of incredible profits and just donated £30-40m to HMRC. Poch got him 3 years of incremental CL revenues including the CL final that weren't even in the financial forecast. He still ended up with minimal net spending until after the CL final. There was a massive implied "penny wise, pound foolish" stupidity about the running of the club.

As for Poch accepting 2nd or 3rd choices, it got to the point where that was all he was being offered until the year when he finally refused them. Just a year before he ended up with no AM's and was given Llorente for £15m. There does become a tipping point where you lose the plot when groundhog day just keeps coming over and over.

Thinking back to the summer of 2018, my biggest criticism was not loading up on youngsters when the senior pro's didn't materialise. We didn't even land the best young homegrown players such was the impotency of the recruitment team. We signed nobody. You couldn't make it up.
 
meee93 said:
I disagree, at that time we needed to keep doing what we had done to get there. It was working well. Recruit some really promising young talent that were undervalued eslewhere and use their energy to boost us forward or atleast maintain that pace. Poch wanted to skip ahead when the foundations weren't quite set yet. He turned his back on the very methods that had made him successful
Click to expand...
There's quite a difference between breaking into the top 3 from where we were and staying there and/or even improving, just relying on young talent alone. I can't think of another team that's used that strategy successfully, which isn't to say it hasn't happened, of course. I suppose it depends, as well, on what your definition of 'young' is in this context.

Do we even know for sure though that Poch had such a change of strategy? Or is just that he had had a bellyful of N'Jie's and Nkoudou's as a reward for his efforts?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.