Your turning point?

[Dave Fishwick]

When he didn't know what the Conference League was. Arrogant piece of shit

[marbles]

4 hours ago, filbertway said:

@marbles @so1 

 

Come on admit it, this is one user with two accounts right?

 

Shame on me for seeing things differently than you.

I’ll do a better job of falling in line, boss.

 

[filbertway]

2 minutes ago, marbles said:

Shame on me for seeing things differently than you.

I’ll do a better job of falling in line, boss.

Haha you're welcome to feel how you like mate, I just found it interesting that 2 Rodgers sympathisers happened to be from the US

 

[lcfc278]

58 minutes ago, Dave Fishwick said:

When he didn't know what the Conference League was. Arrogant piece of shit

Imagine that. Your day job that you're paid £10m a year to do (makes me feel sick writing that) is being a football manager, your most basic responsibilities are to plan your season, the ins and outs of the league, cup competitions and as a rarity for a club like us, to be in Europe. Then claiming he knows nothing about the Europa Conference League that we would qualify for if we were to finish 3rd in the Europa League group.

 

Absolutely baffled me at the time. 

[marbles]

11 minutes ago, filbertway said:

Haha you're welcome to feel how you like mate, I just found it interesting that 2 Rodgers sympathisers happened to be from the US

 

okay, now that makes sense

 

 

[Ian S]

Roma away was when I finally snapped, kept trying to give him the benefit of the doubt before that as we had a crippling injury list and I thought let’s see what he does when everyone is fit. Well we had a virtually full strength team that night and it was totally pathetic, we didn’t even give it a go in the last 10 minutes just more of his mind numbing passing across the back rubbish when we needed to throw a centre half up top and just lump it.

Wouldn't have scored if we were still playing now.

[Trev39]

23 minutes ago, lcfc278 said:

Imagine that. Your day job that you're paid £10m a year to do (makes me feel sick writing that) is being a football manager, your most basic responsibilities are to plan your season, the ins and outs of the league, cup competitions and as a rarity for a club like us, to be in Europe. Then claiming he knows nothing about the Europa Conference League that we would qualify for if we were to finish 3rd in the Europa League group.

 

Absolutely baffled me at the time. 

In all fairness, may show he expected to qualify so was not thinking about other options. Was a stupid comment though.

[lcfc278]

1 minute ago, Trev39 said:

In all fairness, may show he expected to qualify so was not thinking about other options. Was a stupid comment though.

True, and we should have qualified from that group. But to come out in a press conference saying he doesn't know anything about it was just arrogant and ignorant. Even your average football fan would know about the competition so for a bloke on £10m a year I'd expect him to follow all aspects of the sport.

[Trev39]

5 minutes ago, lcfc278 said:

True, and we should have qualified from that group. But to come out in a press conference saying he doesn't know anything about it was just arrogant and ignorant. Even your average football fan would know about the competition so for a bloke on £10m a year I'd expect him to follow all aspects of the sport.

 I thought at the time it was hyperbole to basically say we shouldn’t be here for the size of team we are. Though now seeing his comments he might have been telling the truth 

[marbles]

5 hours ago, oadby.fox said:

I think you’re missing the point of what people are identifying with the two collapses in terms of trajectory.

 

In both seasons, our destiny was in our own hands and we just had to put away the teams at the bottom end of the table in order to achieve top four. Instead, we suffered embarrassing defeats. On your definition of bottling, the only teams that can ever bottle are the ones which are winning trophies every season. By that way of reasoning, Man U have been a top team for the past decade but have just bottled the premier league every year. A more accurate view would be that Man U declined following Fergie’s departure and spent many years in relative obscurity/turmoil - we no longer expected them to even achieve top four or win the league because they never put themselves in a position to look likely.
 

Where we can “expect” or reasonably hope to be is where we should be given 1. Our form and squad strength relative to others; 2. The form of other teams around us and their relative squad strength; 3. Our run of fixtures. Given how many days we spent in the top four across two seasons and the position other teams were in, it’s not insane to suggest that we could expect to finish in the top four. Doing so required nothing more than the form of a mid table side, instead we were treated to something more like relegation form in the close of both seasons. Spurs aren’t called bottlers because we expect them to win a title each year and they fail, it’s because they’ve put themselves in pole position so many times only to fall to pieces when it matters. Being in such a position brings with it the expectation that you’ve now got the advantage such that you should go onto achieve whatever you’re in position for. Whether or not we were once a league 1 side is irrelevant. 

 

 

Thanks for taking the time to explain, rather than simply discounting what I said

 

I do understand the differing views on what bottling is.  I get that you (and some others) believe that your current position/trajectory should dictate expectations.

That's just not how I see it.  I highlighted what I agree with, but I think there is more to take into consideration. 

What's the actual ability of the squad compared to those around it? 

Is the squad just riding a crest that will eventually and inevitably crash, or are they where their talent (as a team) says they should be?

Are the teams around them playing at or below their own potential?  Have they peaked yet?

 

Maybe its because I am use to the playoff system we use here in the US

Its not uncommon for a team to dominate the regular season, and then lose in the playoffs early - there are many reasons for this, with "bottling" not being one of them

-They gave it there all during the season and had nothing left for the post (in LCFC case, the final 10-12 games) 

-The playoffs are a different game, and they weren't built for it 

-Great teams step it up when something is on the line (again, the final 10-12 games)

 

I like to look at the team, and put into perspective a realistic opinion of where we SHOULD finish the season.

Anything higher is great, anything lower is disappointing.  Maybe that's just me.  

For the record, I thought we would finish somewhere around 10th-12th - so yes, I am disappointed in how things are going.

 

Its funny, but there are a ton of similarities between the fans on here and Dallas Cowboy fans.

A win around here, means for a week I have to hear about how "this is their year".

A loss, and I have to hear how Jerry Jones should step down as owner (and GM), and the entire staff should be fired because they know nothing.

 

 

 

[oadby.fox]

4 hours ago, marbles said:

Thanks for taking the time to explain, rather than simply discounting what I said

 

I do understand the differing views on what bottling is.  I get that you (and some others) believe that your current position/trajectory should dictate expectations.

That's just not how I see it.  I highlighted what I agree with, but I think there is more to take into consideration. 

What's the actual ability of the squad compared to those around it? 

Is the squad just riding a crest that will eventually and inevitably crash, or are they where their talent (as a team) says they should be?

Are the teams around them playing at or below their own potential?  Have they peaked yet?

 

Maybe its because I am use to the playoff system we use here in the US

Its not uncommon for a team to dominate the regular season, and then lose in the playoffs early - there are many reasons for this, with "bottling" not being one of them

-They gave it there all during the season and had nothing left for the post (in LCFC case, the final 10-12 games) 

-The playoffs are a different game, and they weren't built for it 

-Great teams step it up when something is on the line (again, the final 10-12 games)

 

I like to look at the team, and put into perspective a realistic opinion of where we SHOULD finish the season.

Anything higher is great, anything lower is disappointing.  Maybe that's just me.  

For the record, I thought we would finish somewhere around 10th-12th - so yes, I am disappointed in how things are going.

 

Its funny, but there are a ton of similarities between the fans on here and Dallas Cowboy fans.

A win around here, means for a week I have to hear about how "this is their year".

A loss, and I have to hear how Jerry Jones should step down as owner (and GM), and the entire staff should be fired because they know nothing.

 

 

 

Thanks for your response.

 

The comparison to the play-off system is interesting, though I do think that there is a salient difference given the knock-out win or lose element. You can accept losing a single game in a pressurised situation, especially in the case of a marginal defeat or when the other team just outclasses you. But failing to pick up points in games that you would usually expect to get something from anyway and failing to do so in a dramatic or calamitous way just feels very much to me like bottling. The Bournemouth game, for instance, was a matter of mentality and managerial incompetence, and given our relative strength and form, we should’ve won that game and we were also in a position to do so. 
 

You’re right that in terms of the season’s objectives, a top five finish would’ve achieved the aim of finishing in the top six and we also have good reason to think that getting in to Europe was an objective set by the club. So in that sense, it’s good and it is a significant achievement which is why I said it’d be harsh to have sacked him at the end of either season. But I think that objectives can reasonably shift over the course of the season, especially if things are in touching distance and the teams around you have been poor all season. It’s not like we ended up finishing miles outside of the top four either, even Brendan said that it was in our own hands and we screwed it up. The 2-3 Spurs game for example was a match where you’d go into it happy for a point and you wouldn’t be incredibly mad with well fought loss. But once you’re 2-1 up with seconds to play, you can now reasonably expect to win the game. As in, if you don’t win with the position you’re in, then it would be fair to say that you’ve thrown it away. 
 

Something else to add is that Brendan came into a seemingly well run club with a good bill of player health and some absolute gems. As a slightly unrealistic hypothetical, if you were to go out and sell each of member the first eleven in 2020, I think that you could easily raise ~£330m, and many players were young with a lot of upside and potential to improve. A good manager would’ve improved those players further but even still, there was more than enough quality there to warrant an expectation of at least finishing in the top ten and this was partly why Puel was sacked. To my mind, an expectation of lower mid table isn’t fitting with the actual quality we have, the money we have spent both on recruitment (buying and not selling more valuable players) and facilities, and the money we pay the manager. Especially in a season like this one where so many clubs around us are consistently poor. Even newly promoted sides sit above us, so it’s not a case of not having the money or quality to compete at this level. 
 

I still believe that there is some quality still left in this side, just that it needs to be nurtured and well motivated. The fact that BR didn’t see the Southampton game as a “must win” kind of says it all for me. The problem here concerns the mentality of how the team approach these games and there’s enough evidence to believe that this is coming from the manager. My Liverpool supporting mate (who also has links inside the club) was saying the other day that he genuinely thinks that there’s something slightly off about the bloke and that he created such a toxic atmosphere within the club. I think something similar is happening here and letting him do it is criminal when we consider how it’s depreciating the value of our players. 

Edited 13 March 2023 by oadby.fox

[cruzFOX]

I think there is a light minute chance that it could turn in our favor again as to when and what game god only knows - that’s how unpredictable we are.

[Guest Fox99]

The Bournemouth home game was the one for me. In truth though, there have been many turning points throughout the season. All of these combined ultimately point towards relegation. 

Edited 8 May 2023 by AlexFT