Thursday, February 28, 2013

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“The Culling of 5000 Badgers”

Posted: 27 Feb 2013 06:42 PM PST

Somewhere in West Gloucestershire and Sumerset a pilot program has been authorized to kill 70% of the badgers in each area.
"Environment Secretary Owen Paterson told farmers at the National Farmers’ Union conference in Birmingham that he was committed to making sure the pilots went ahead.
He said tackling bovine TB had cost the taxpayer £500 million in the past 10 years, and costs could reach £1 billion over the next decade if the disease was left unchecked.
He said that research in the UK had shown that culling badgers, which can transmit TB to cattle, could reduce the levels of the disease in herds, and that Britain had to learn from experience elsewhere that the tuberculosis could not effectively be curbed without tackling the problem in wildlife."

So what the fuck does that have to do with LFC??? …I hear you ask.
The Culling of 5000 Badgers would have been a great Album Title for an 80s Heavy Metal Band… but for an LFC Blog?
Maybe I just wanted an excuse to use the word "badgers" in a title?
Maybe "The Culling of 5000 Badgers" was just more interesting than any of the alternative titles I'd thought up?
Maybe… there is actually a parallel for LFC in there somewhere?

If it please the jury, your lordship, I would contend that we've been seeing a bit of the old Badger culling going on at Anfield over the last few years…

For "bovine TB" read "lack of success" and it has become a worrisome disease that LFC has responded to by culling: first owners, then executives, then managers and about 5000 players by last count…
… but in the case of LFC… I'd suggest it is the actual culling, rather than the perceived "lack of success" that has been the self-inflicted disease which has "cost the taxpayer (LFC) £500 million in the past 10 years"

Warning! History Lesson Alert!
One of the proposed titles for this blog (prior to stumbling across an excuse to use the word "badger" in a footy blog) was…
"The first rule of Italian Race Car Driving: What's behind you does not matter."
(anyone who can name that movie gets a cookie)

Some of you have taken umbridge to my "constantly staring into our past while ignoring the present" and probably quite like the first rule of Italian Race Driving.
…but as a part-time dabbler in History… and while that was one of my fave movies and sayings back when I was the teenage owner of a muscle car, (cookie hint) …I also know that the saying "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is so very, very often true.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
David Moores owned an LFC that carried a perfectly acceptable and manageable £70 million in debt…
… He sold LFC to A Pair of Cowboys…
…The sale price: £270million
Within 12 months… LFC was £350 million in debt.

… now if Moores had taken out a loan for £270…
… not only could he have paid for the construction of a new stadium…
… but that loan would be mostly paid off now…
… and with Rafa still at the helm, I'd argue we'd be considerably better off on the field as well. (certainly no worse off than Arsenal… the trophyless, Top 4 Benchmark?)

Instead… Moores culled himself. Then G&H culled Parry. Then Purslow culled Rafa. Then the Banks culled G&H. Then FSG culled Purslow… then Hodgson… then Kenny…
…and a list of players that ranged from world class to wide-arsed along the way.
…all to the tune of countless millions in defaults, in Architectural drawings, in severance packages, down the drain.
Thus endeth today's history lesson.

We have a worldwide fanbase and that makes it diverse…
…and as such, the opinions of fans, on any number of LFC topics, are equally diverse.
There used to be a standard though… a benchmark if you will… that established what was acceptable discussion and what was simply "crazy bastard on a sopbox".
I no longer see that "standard".
Take offense at that if you will… some will feel compelled to, some will leap to it just to disagree with me.
… but at the very least, that "standard" has been lowered.

When G&H flirted with Klinsman and the news leaked… fans marched on Anfield.
When their financial shenanigans were laid bare, it prompted a fan-based, multi-fronted campaign to oust them that was unprecedented in football.
I doubt that Would have happened at any other club…
I doubt it Could ever happen again at "ours".

Now that's not to say "all is lost"… on the contrary… its just to ask the question…
Who and/or what is Liverpool Football Club?
It's a complex question… that elicits a different response among those who've followed the club for 3-5 decades, let alone between those fans and those newer to the club.
(For those who've been around a good long while… do you still recognize your club?)

I read a lot of comments around the web about Brendan Rodgers and his "new system of possession football".
There are those who pointed to the Zenit game and said, "there it is, that's what we're building towards".
… but that wasn't "death by football".
What we've been playing for about 2 months now, bares little resemblance to the footy we were playing in September and October.
StevieG is launching more Hollywood Balls in any given game lately, than Charlie Adam in a wet dream.

That's not a slam on Rodgers… just a call for those who feel the need to vehemently support him to do so honestly and fairly. (and likewise for his critics.)

Too many fans have already made up their minds about our current Manager.
I'm at a loss to understand fully where the evidence is to support such a decision…
… on either side of the fence.
We've seen his team against Zenit and Swansea, and even both games versus the current Champions, but we've also seen them against Aston Villa. We saw them at the start of the season, and we've seen them since the New Year.

It has been suggested that Brendan Rodgers is the New Shankly.
I don't think he is. I think Rafa was that…
…and given all that has occurred between his departure and Brendan's arrival…
I would suggest that "the next Shankly" is not even remotely what we need right now… …what we need right now… is the next Gerrard Houllier.
…and maybe Brendan Rodgers is (or can be) that?

"We are in a season of transition," we have been told.
That is what Houllier gave us… (although it was actually several seasons rather than one for the transition to take hold)
We have been a "team in transition" for a long time…
..from Evans team that won a Cup, to Houllier's team that won a Treble, to Rafa's team that went to 2 CL Finals, winning one, 2 CL Semi-Finals, a League Cup Final, an FA Cup Final…all in just 6 years…
…and since Rafa left… for 3 seasons we've been transitioning…
(maybe its been even longer than that?)
…It was clear to see what we were transitioning from and to between 2000 and 2008…
…so we didn't have to ask…
…But for a while now, when anyone has suggested a "season in transition" we should all have been immediately asking, "transition FROM WHAT… TO WHAT"?

The more recent culling of the squad to "balance the books" might very well have been necessary… but was the way we did it necessary?
And if it was necessary, one has to ask oneself if what the owners were looking to achieve with it in that time, is the same thing we fans were looking to achieve?

We've absolutely rid ourselves of high salary/low return players like Jovanovic and Cole and mediocre players like Poulsen and Konchesky…
… but we've also shed promising players like Meireles and Insua. (and that's without the experienced/and/or/class players we've lost recently)

We challenged for the title in 08/09 and by all rights we should have won it…
…even falling short, it should have been the stepping stone to the title…
… instead, since then, we have floundered in the league… finishing outside the "venerated Top 4" spots 3 years running… with a 4th most likely.
That seems weird when you stop to think about it. So much has happened since Rafa left, that it can't be only 4 years ago we had THAT team???

Archaeologists search for fossils and artifacts.
"Fossils" are the mineralized remains of plants and animals, whereas "artifacts" are man-made objects, such as stone tools, or pots.
BUT… the environmental setting in which these archaeological materials are found is called a "context".

The things we all find argument with… Downing is shit. Stevie is a legend. Jovanovic was a waste of space. Cole was a waste of money. Hodgson was an idiot. Rafa was a genius…
…these things are the "fossils" and "artifacts" of LFC discussion.
All that bollox that happened between Moores selling the club and now, (and yes… certainly there is plenty of context prior to that time also, like Parry's lack of marketing savvy.)… that was the "context".

… and its important to remember, or at the very least give fleeting thought to the context at play when forming any judgment of Brendan Rodgers, or where LFC currently is.

It is a context that must include the dire decisions of summer 2010… to fire Rafa, to hire Hodgson, to buy the likes of Konchesky and Cole.
…A stable and football-knowledgeable Anfield hierarchy would never have even remotely considered any one of those decisions… let alone all 4… at once!

We were sold Hodgson as the safe pair of hands that would stop the freefall.
Problem was… we weren't in anything even remotely like a freefall.
We'd stumbled slightly as a result of lack of investment to "take the next step".
Under Hodgson though, we immediately went into what was almost a catastrophic freefall, and it was in fact Kenny Dalglish that proved the "safe pair of hands" that not only arrested that freefall, but restored us to the "minus one" mark that we'd stumbled to in the final year of Rafa's tenure.

But the context for all of that was absolutely the boardroom farce that saw an all-in cage-match Battle Royale between G&H, their own MD, the Royal Bank of Scotland, John Henry …and some Chinese bloke who owned a pizza chain.

And it is for all those reasons, that I find it hard to compare LFC to Man United, Citeh, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, or even Everton… let alone teams in other countries.
I understand why people want to, I just don't see the comparisons as legit…
Those used to be the teams that compared themselves to LFC, but they aren't the teams we can compare ourselves to right now… maybe some day soon we can again, but not now or in most recent times…

We have always considered ourselves to be the most "unique" of clubs… but to a very large extent since 2005 for all we've done right, we made ourselves "unique" for All The Wrong Reasons.
… and our travails of the last 3-7 years more closely compare us to the likes of Portsmouth and Rangers, rather than any Top, or even Middle Prem Club.

So here we stand at yet another Crossroads.
Another season without silverware (coz you know, last season's silverware was only pewter ;) )
Likely to finish yet another season outside the top 4

We are Bill Murry in Japan, Lost in Transition, hoping that Brendan Rodgers looks good in pink knickers.
(you're never gonna get that image out of your heads, no matter how hard you try. Your welcome. :) )

But that's the thing about the "context" and where we've been…
The "transition" back into the Top 4 isn't going to take 1 season. It can't when we are constantly selling to buy.
Our squad just isn't big enough or strong enough… and the competition have a headstart.
We desperately need a quality left back.
We desperately need a big, strong midfielder (in spite of having about 97 midfielders)
We need another striker.
We need a quality center back.
We need… We need… We need…
We need a quality left-winger, and a quality right-winger.
We need… We need…
…We need to ADD all of those to what we currently have, and not bring them in as replacements for the selling of Skrtel, or Agger, or Pepe, or the retiring Carragher, or ….. heaven forbid the Beyern rumors are true…

… that is the "transition" we are in.
And before we start contemplating replacing Brendan Rodgers "coz 8th isn't good enough" we better spare a thought for the "context" of such a decision…
… that FSG will not bring in a manager of the sort of steel and nerve the position requires, a Special One, a Rafa, a "insert your fave name here"…
… the "context" of firing Brendan Rodgers one year into his contract is that in all likelihood his replacement would be "a 2nd tier" Manager…

We know what Brendan Rodgers HAS been capable of.
We do not yet "know" what he IS capable of.
Not yet.
But I'd suggest we give him time to show us…
…and that the Owners provide the proper context" for him to "achieve" it…
… or the alternative won't be another "season in transition", it will be a BADGER…
…err… no it won't be a badger of course, that's just silly :) and an obviously shameless and blatant attempt to use the word "badger" one more time before signing off…

…it might be yet another "season in the wilderness" though…

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Kopblog.com: The blog's dollocks!

Kopblog.com: The blog's dollocks!

Link to Kopblog - The blog's dollocks!

“Happy Smiling People, Holding Hands…”

Posted: 04 Feb 2013 05:26 PM PST

Given the recent discovery in Leicester, and the general accusation of my being a negative miserable cunt, I was gonna title this blog "Now Is The Winter of Our Discontent, Made Glorious Summer…blah, blah, blah…"

… but it seemed the calls for me to stop being such an unbelievably miserable bastard, who must also be a rasict twat if I can't clearly see how fuckin BOSS Danny Sturridge's cock is, never mind his obviously innate abilities on the dance floor…
… I felt compelled to just change my outlook, turn that frown upside down, and go with the above title…

Some people seem invested in taking what I write and insisting that I'm anti-FSG, anti-Brendan Rodgers, and even on occasion, anti-LFC.

To clear things up, let me categorically state something I've categorically stated before (not that it'll make a blind bit of difference to some people, but as a reminder to the rest of youz… )

I'm neither pro, nor anti FSG.
I don't really give a fuck about John Henry, or Warner or anyone else that might be part of their financial group.
I am not an "FSG Supporter" I am a Liverpool Supporter… and that's how it should be.
I haven't bought a new rope with which to hang them.
I have zero agenda either for, or against them.
I want them to do right by my club… PERIOD… and that's about as far as my thoughts on them take me.

As such, I think everything they've done since purchasing the club (and that includes the manner in which they bought us… be that "saving us from administration" or simply "capitalizing on a very undervalued investment with a very broad and strong International Brand with an untapped revenue potential" … depending on your point of view,) is up for discussion.
They are not here to carpetbag us like G&H were.
But neither are they lifelong reds that came to our rescue out of a deep-rooted love for LFC, with a heart-held desire to see LFC WIN at all costs.
… and in the long run, maybe that position between the two extremes, isn't such a bad thing?

But, Their Record is there to be discussed…
…they've done some good things and made some good decisions…
… and they've done some not so good things, and made some very questionable decisions.
Maybe the problem arises simply because I think it is "THEIR job" to "get behind" and "support" all of US… not our job to "get behind" and "support them".
… and some seem to be suggesting the opposite… I dunno?

They have said they want to take LFC back to the top… and some of their actions seem to support that claim…
They have not said they want to do it in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years…
… and maybe that is where some of us part ways in our opinions of them, when judging some of their actions that do not seem to necessarily jive with those statements.

I feel some of their statements (and even actions since purchase) have been made as PR exercises to appease, and get us the fans on board with them and their regime… and to some extent, I can understand their need to do that, following on from the last lot…
… but really… some of their statements and actions have not (to date) really shown a dedicated adherence to making that happen…
…and some were simply ill-advised from the off. (the Nando-Carroll deal most notably.)

My making such a statement seems to prompt some people into suggesting I think they are the Devil incarnate, here to asset strip us … which is not only NOT even remotely what I'm suggesting… but is frankly a pretty stupid position to take.

They have purchased LFC… they own the club… and some day, be it a year from now, 10 years from now, whenever… they will sell LFC…
WE… ALL of US… we'll still be here.
So I'll watch what they say, and I'll watch what they do, and I'll judge them on both…
… We are Liverpool Football Club, not Fenway Sports Club.

I'm neither pro, nor anti Brendan Rodgers.
He is Liverpool manager and as such he has my support… but if you think that means his actions or statements can't be questioned, then we just think differently about our job as fans.
I am not calling for his head, never have done… in fact, I've said clearly and definitely more than once, that to do so is bang out of order… coz he simply hasn't been in the job long enough to make such a call or judgment.
But equally, I will not blindly support his every decision… that is as big a recipe for disaster as writing him off.
Again… Brendan Rodgers exists as LFC manager to serve US … not the other way around… and you know what… He himself has said as much.

Some people seem to have a problem with the notion of calling him a "mid-table manager".
I get it… it is a phrase that can be used as an insult.
But I've not used it as such.

Simply put… the best Premier League finish Brendan Rodgers ever had as a football manger was last year when he took Swansea to 11th place in the Premier League.
For a club of Swansea's stature that was a terrific accomplishment.
The previous season Brendan's Swansea finished 3rd in the Championship. They didn't win the title, they finished 3rd, gaining promotion to the Premier League via wins against Forrest and Reading in the play-offs.
Now I don't say that to diminish the accomplishment. Gaining promotion is hard, however you achieve it.
And for Brendan Rodgers, both achievements were terrific accomplishments.
…but I'm sorry, the highest he's ever finished is 11th…
…and he did it once…
… the greatest accomplishment on his CV to date is 11th place in the Premier League…
…so he IS by definition, a mid-table manager.

Now none of that is to say he can't achieve more than that, particularly at a bigger club like LFC.
Now none of that is to say he can't achieve more than that, particularly at a bigger club like LFC.
Now none of that is to say he can't achieve more than that, particularly at a bigger club like LFC.
(I've typed that 3 times, coz you just know someone is gonna try to twist that into "you're anti-Rodgers" :) )

I'm just trying to be objective here… as well as supportive.
Fact is, Gollum has finished higher in the Prem… and more often than once.
So has Steve fuckin Bruce and Tony fuckin Pulis.
I wouldn't want any of them at LFC, and rate Brendan's ability to eventually match and then supercede their "achievements"…
… but right now… just yet… he hasn't.

Now brace yerselves… :) …here comes the bit where I talk about Rafa and Kenny… probably coz I just can't help myself and am a broken record… stuck in a time warp, unable to look forward… but maybe, you know, its coz it might actually having some fuckin bearing on the subject.

People have accused me of some strange man-love for Kenny and Rafa.
Kenny has won league titles, as a player, as a manager, as both. (and a few cups too)
By definition, that makes Kenny a Top Manager.
Now yes, that was some time ago… but I see what he did in 18 months as "stopping the rot" that was the end of G&H's regime, and the CP/Hodgson debacle.
I see taking us from relegation spots to 8th, as a positive, and not falling below 10th, while taking 2 Cup runs and dealing with the January fallout, as "treading water" rather than failure or steps back.
I'm not blind to people's criticisms of his 2nd tenure… I just draw differing conclusions on where it suggested we were headed.

As for Rafa… well he wasn't even a mid-table manager when he went to Valencia. They took a bigger gamble on him than I have suggested we took on BR.
But he proved himself THERE… and when he came to US… well given who he had to beat to win those Spanish titles… he was unquestionably a Top Manager.

There are those that love to point towards him and say, "if he was any good, why has he been mostly unemployed since he left us?"
… as though no teams have offered him the job…
… this just displays ignorance of reality… the man has been offered countless jobs and turned them down… he didn't need to work, so he was choosey about where he went.
(although his judgment of where to go, when he did make a choice, is certainly questionable, coz both Inter and Chelsea were "hidings to nothing" in their own different ways.)

Now Brendan Rodgers… by definition of his career so far, is a mid-table manager.
And it would even be fair to say, that given LFC's slips in the table over the past 3 seasons, LFC are, by that same criteria of definition, simply a mid-table team.
So maybe we actually are the perfect match?
…And he may very well prove himself as more than "a mid-table manager" this season… and in doing so, prove that he was a very good choice to replace Kenny Dalglish.
(the logic though, does not "prove" that Kenny would not have achieved a similar mark had we stayed with him.)

That's the thing about where we are right now….
In-spite of any shortcomings LFC has right now, be they the result of past-foolishness, FSG's mistakes, Brendan's mistakes, poor buys, whatever…
Liverpool Football Club currently sit quite comfortably in the league… upper mid-table, but capable of so, so much more.

It's not where most of us would want… … but as always, a bit of luck here and there, and we would be higher.
It's not a position that was even remotely acceptable 4 or 5 years ago.
And that's part of "the problem" … for us, for Brendan, for FSG…
If we are no longer a Top 4 team… then by what means and on what schedule are we planning on getting back there???
(It hasn’t clearly been stated, and hints of intentions have been mixed.)

4th seems a bridge too far…. But 4th is actually quite achievable.
We're hitting a bit of form.
We've just hired a striker who looks the biz (let me just decode that for some of youz so you don't have to get out your decoder rings and that magic marker that makes invisible ink visible again – Sturridge is shit and a waste of money.)
…and he really could make the difference for us… maybe…
Given the fixtures that are left…. And the fixtures that "our competition" have on their roster…
…. Put a good run together and 4th really is ON.
… but…
… well my blogs are like MTV Rap videos… you knew there had to be a "but" didn't you? (negative, glass-half empy cunt… just when we were popping corks and toasting each other)
… but…
…we'll have to face “lower” opposition with the same sort of swagger we faced Citeh this past weekend…
… (and if it wouldn't be asking too much, do it for the full 90 minutes, eh lads.)

Do that… and Brendan Rodgers can prove he is more than a mid-table manager.
Do that… and Brendan Rodgers can silence his doubters (well, you know,) and prove he was a good choice last summer… maybe even go some way to, (I wouldn't say prove, but at the very least,) fully justify the decision made by FSG last summer.

Maybe then… we'll be able to all hold hands, sing cumbayah, (or, you know, YNWA, since we actually do have our own song) and all be Happy, Smiling People…
… abask in the afterglow of "a successful" campaign…
… unified in the opinion that we have re-amassed at the bottom of the hill boys and are about to commence charging back up the fucker.
"Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house.
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums chang’d to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag’d war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front; And now,–instead of mounting barbed steeds. To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber… To the lascivious pleasing of a lute."
(a lute???? ;) Now that’s fuckin Cheery!)

… you know…
… until the transfer window opens and we can all start arguing about who's Shit, who's Ace, and how much money we should be spending, and what a cunt John Henry is…
… even though I haven't read a single opinion from any source even remotely suggesting such a thing. (though "There was always something, if you remember, in Willoughby's eyes at times which I did not like." … :) I'm getting literary as fuck on youz now.)

… but until that happens… have a read of Tomkins latest blog, a listen to the latest TAW episode (and the "Gray Area" blog) and a read of some of the latest offerings from the TIA lads…
… and realize that "definitive opinions" of where we are, and what we are, are a fool's game, as nothing is as yet "proven"…
… not even Sturridge's unbeatable, unplayable, amazing awesomeness! :)