Same Team As Last Year
By Prozac
Issue 68, Spring 2005
The Liverpool Way was quite successful for us wasn't it? Count up those trophies (even those European Super Cups!) – nice, weren't they? All those wonderful games and players. For me one of our strengths was having eleven quality players who knew each other inside out and who played for each other.
In the 1965 Cup Final Willie Stevenson knew that Gerry Byrne (broken collarbone or no broken collarbone) would be rampaging down the left. A quick pass, Byrne crosses, Hunt - One Nil!
Tommy Smith and Rowdy knew whose turn it was to chip up an opposing forward so the other could volley him. Toshack and Keegan were so good at understanding one another that Keegan's movement and tempo not to mention his alliteration on the football field inspired Tosh so much that the big Welshman showed his soft side by writing poetry. Even David Coleman got in on the act by his poetic commentary for our third v Newcastle in the 1974 final. King Kenny it is often said had eyes in his backside. He knew where Rushie would be and Rushie knew what open spaces to chase. Lawrenson and Hansen still have that telepathic understanding. You still see it today as both know when to take turns to wind us up. Football is a team game, pass and move, a simple game. Each Red s! hirt plays for and works for each other.
You see, that is my point. I feel since 1990 we have never had a team of eleven quality players who knew each other really well. Bob Paisley, the master, built three great teams but he always kept the spine of the previous great team intact and built around that. The young players would learn from the older players and a new team would soon be full to the brim with understanding and cohesion.
Yet all the experts today say the game has changed. The Liverpool Way would not work today, apparently. Joe Fagan said in 1984 that it is the same game and it will always be the same game. The basics are the same and always will be. Believe it or not but the game changed during the boot-room era too. We just adapted but still kept the Liverpool Way of teams and team players. 1963 saw catenaccio, 1966 saw wingless wonders, the 1970’s saw Cruyff's total football and Beckenbauer's attacking libero. The late 1980’s saw Milan's pressing game. We still dominated though despite the changing times and that is because The Liverpool Way - consisting of a team of eleven players playing as a close family knowing each other inside out - still applies today and will always a! pply whether it is on the football field or in an office.
Today the focus is too much on squads and not on the team. That was Houllier's downfall over the last two years or so. We had a big average to good squad but a poor disjointed team by our standards. Not much good bringing the likes of Igor Biscan on for Salif Diao. Shankly's teams, and no one ever mentions the word 'squad', would be the same week in week out. The story has it he stuck with the same players for too long - which is true to an extent - but that famous cup defeat in 1970 at Watford was in fact at the Quarter Finals stage. Hardly an embarrassment, especially after beating our bogey team Leicester City in the previous round. It was only six weeks after the Sandy Brown 3-0 Derby win at eventual Champions Everton.! It was also only eight months after Leeds won the league at Anfield with a then-record points tally, and we came 2nd. So maybe the great man didn't leave it too late to chop and change his team after all?
Paisley's teams would change very little either. I always loved the 1982/83 team picture. There are fourteen players in it! Fourteen! And Terry McDermott played three games and Steve Nicol played four that season. We played sixty games that season and as always our spine of Brucie, Neal, Kennedy, Lawrenson, Hansen, Souness, Dalglish and Rush missed only twenty-seven games between them in total. These eight players were ever present and what players they were - and it was just a matter of picking the other three places. The team virtually picked itself and it was like that for a good three years. In European Cup games you had to name a squad which was a headache for Bob or Joe Fagan - so any youth team player would find himself named in order to make up the numbers!
Phil Neal went nine years without missing a game. Brucie close on seven. Again the experts say the game is faster today with more chances of injuries but last season Sami Hyppia played the most games for us - a measly fifty one - in an era where the game may be faster but it is much cleaner with it being devoid of nasty tackles and bad pitches (and diets!). The players today are supposed to be fitter helped of course by the use of three substitutions. We used 26 players last season and you could name the good players on one hand. Surely it is difficult to get utmost cohesion by using that many players.
A footballer is generally at his peak at the age of 28. Then, he supposedly has the experience of a 32 year old and the body of a 25 year old. Not like our lot, who sometimes seem like the other way round! The majority of teams that win Championships or World Cups are those where they have six or seven players around this age. The team is at its peak and its collective knowledge and fitness is unequalled. Germany were at their modern peak in 1990 when they won the World Cup and they had six players – their spine - all around the twenty eight years mark. France ditto in Euro 2000. Two of the greatest teams I have seen.
In my Reds supporting life the strongest team I saw was the now famous 1987/88 one before Lawrenson and Whelan got serious injuries in January 1988. What a team - Brucie - Lawrenson, Hansen, Gillespie, Nicol - Houghton, McMahon, Whelan, Barnes - Beardsley, Aldridge. The only weakness was Brucie getting bored which would often lead to a mistake thus giving the opponents a lifeline.
If this team wasn’t 1-0 up after ten minutes a slight panic would ensue inside Anfield such was their greatness. I had a mate of mine who use to leave work at 3.20 pm on a Saturday. On departing he would ask the front porter who had a radio 'One up?' 'Yep' came the reply more often than not. The youngest player on this team was Barnes approaching 25! Look at those names and just look at their collective experience of the English league. Knowledge and lessons from hundreds of games in English football – it all came to the fore in that season. Fifty games that year – eight players played 42 or more (even Gary Gillespie). Add the Lawrenson and Whelan injuries and the Houghton mid-season signing and you make up the eleven. Nicol, McMahon, Whelan, Gillespie, Beardsl! ey and Aldridge were all 28 or thereabouts. Houghton was turning 26. Brucie and Lawrenson were thirty and Hansen the oldest going on 33. So a team of eleven talented English league ready-mades at their peak playing as a collective unit – cue our second greatest ever team. Players who knew each other and knew English football inside out.
This is where I feel we are going wrong as a club and have been going wrong since 1990. We have gone away from our trust and tested methods by signing less talented players (obviously) but also signing the majority of our players who were not English league ready-mades - and putting them in the first team straight away. Now I am not jumping on the anti-Spanish bandwagon picked up by our insular media after our FA Cup exit. I said the same when Houllier was signing players from the French league or when Evans was signing players from the Norwegian league. Sign them if you must but blood them in English football in the reserves or out on loan - don't throw them into the first team straight away and expect good results. To be successful you need players to know wh! at playing for Liverpool FC is all about and to know what going to places like Burnley will be like. I really can't stand this 'one year to settle in' theory. Now you go and ask your boss in a new job for 'one year to perform poorly and still get paid top wages' and see what he/she says!
To sign a player and then for one year excuse his poor first team performances because he needs to find his feet is fraudulent. Why sign the player at all? And this attitude could be said to have cost Houllier his job. Of course there are exceptions - Kewell, McAteer and Heskey are three. Not complete wastes of money though. Who said Paul Stewart and Oyvind Leonhardsen? Okay, there are exceptions of course. Yet look at our best players since 1990 - who comes to mind? Fowler, Owen, McManaman, Carragher, McAllister, Henchoz, Hyypia, Barnes, Hamann - all bar Sami had a grounding in the Premiership before achieving their peak with us. I always had lots of time for John Scales and Mark Wright – injuries preventing a really good partnership there.
Who have been our worst ? The list is endless especially from the French League and so far Spain - Alonso and Morientes look quality but we will have to wait until next season to see better from them. Maybe next year Xabi will expect a tackle like that from Lampard.
We need to build a team - not a squad - find players who are not stars (Evans' downfall) but who have the talent as well as discipline (Houllier's downfall was he couldn't handle talent). A team that knows the ins and outs of English football and apply much-needed passion accordingly - passion the fans will identify more with. Eleven quality players. Too much emphasis is placed on a squad. Which is nonsense if like last season we only play fifty games and we take the domestic cups less seriously anyway. To me if you get the team right first the rest will follow.
Then you can focus on your squad and on your young players. Build and mould a team together. I think the nearest we have come to it in recent years was (surprise surprise) the Treble Year of 2001. For me this was our strongest team that season - Westerveld - Babbel, Hyypia, Henchoz, Carragher - Gerrard, Hamann, McAllister, Smicer - Owen, Heskey. Only Westerveld, Hyypia, Babbel and Smicer had no experience in English football when they arrived. Only Hyypia was a long-term success.
To strengthen this team and to make into a great team - Houllier needed to replace Westerveld, McAllister and Smicer (possibly Heskey later on). Babbel's illness was unfortunate of course and unforeseen. Houllier was close to a title team but he never did replace these players with English league ready-mades. In came the infamous trio of Cheyrou, Diao and Diouf and the rest is history. Riise has been a mixed bag, Dudek has never been the same after his first season. All players straight from foreign leagues.
The Premiership seasoned Anelka was ignored as was Duff. All our great teams have had a left sided winger. Duff could have followed Thompson, Heighway and Barnes. Kewell was very average for Leeds a good 18 months before we signed him.
The team Rafa has been left with after Owen's departure and Gerrard's imminent departure is threadbare. Can you honestly see Hyypia and Carragher as our long-term defensive pairing? Or Dudek/Kirkland/Carson as goalkeepers? This for me is our strongest team as a stop gap: Kirkland - Finnan, Hyypia, Carragher, Riise - Gerrard, Hamann, Alonso, Kewell - Baros, Morientes. Not bad as a stop gap team. I feel we need a proven experienced goalkeeper (I don't trust young goalkeepers - Turner, Andrews, Bosnich, Walker, James, Kirkland - all failed to fulfil potential), an experienced left back for Riise and a ready-made winger for Kewell. For me these two – despite good games - don't cut it often enough. Kewell is past his prime and Riise would be a quality reserve! . For me that should be the first stage and we need to be looking around now.
Second stage - well depends on our captain. His messing around is really disrupting our future planning. Can Rafa plan long-term with him or without him? The second stage should be a centre half with pace and a right midfield player. All our great teams had a hardworking non - spectacular right midfielder. I'm in the large minority who think we should never have sold Davey Thompson. He knows what the club and the league is all about and it seems laughable to say so - but have we ever replaced him without moving Gerrard wide right? Smicer, Murphy, Nunez, Finnan wide right, Baros wide right - give me Thommo any day. He could have followed Callaghan, Case and Houghton. And of course we really need a top class midfielder if Gerrard does decide to leave. This will be crucial.
Third stage - a quality striker if Cisse never recovers. It will all come together by adding one or two pieces to the jigsaw at a time but only if we buy the right players. Something we haven't done with any distinction over the last fifteen years. Football is still a simple game. Get eleven quality experienced Reds playing together as a team - all around the right ages - and the rest will come. It generally works that way. Ferguson despite the media hype about the Fledglings could not have built his dynasty without Bruce, Pallister, Irwin, Ince, Hughes, Cantona, Keane - all experienced players who learnt their trade with other top flight clubs before coming to Old Trafford.
Wenger built his on the famous back four and Seaman. So where do Chelsea fit in all of this I hear Daily Mail readers ask? Well it is early days to call it a Chelsea dynasty and it could still go belly-up next season. Yet look at their team - Terry, Lampard, Bridge, Duff, Cole all know what English football is about. The excellent Gallas learned from Marcel Desailly despite a rough start. That's half a team but I have to give Mourinho credit for gelling a team so quickly but long-term we will have to wait and see. We have tried to do the same but have failed.
We wrote the blueprint on how to dominate English and European football. So why not refer back to it? We should concentrate on building a team - eleven quality Reds who can play as a unit - a great team. After all, if we all have to sing 'You left a rather average big squad – before you went to heaven' doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
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