theunderstudy Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 I also may be a little confused but recently we've actually played quite well? Last Man City (W) Wigan (W) United (L) Fulham (D) Blackpool (D) Blackburn (W) Bolton (L) So from our last 7 league games (when we signed Bent) we've got 3 wins 2 draws and 2 defeats from 4 away games and 3 home games. So not too bad of late. In December we were shocking, no doubt about it, but since then we have improved. And to say our football doesn't work, we've scored 13 goals in that. Conceded 11 which isn't great, but from what you'd read on here you'd think we'd lost our last 7 games 4-0. Our football does have the ability to work, and once we cut out the silly set pieces, we will see a drastic improvement, that is up to Houllier to do. It dens't help that as of Saturday, we will have had 6 of our defenders injured or suspended in that period. (Clark out now, Young only just back, Dunne out, Cuellar out, Collins out, Baker supended.) Houllier does need to make this happen, and I am in the belief he will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Bent and Young both had off days against Bolton. If they hadn't we would have ripped Bolton to shreds. It's nearly always if, if, if...with Houllier, isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFC-Prideofbrum Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Young didn't even need to be on form, he just needed to stick a penalty away and we'd be a couple points of top 7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R.I.C.O. Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Should absolutely go at the end of the season if we scrape survival. He's not the man to take us forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Bent and Young both had off days against Bolton. If they hadn't we would have ripped Bolton to shreds. It's nearly always if, if, if...with Houllier, isn't it? And it was always if, if, if with MON as well. But again, you're looking into it to find an angle to criticise GH at any opportunity. Let's just say theoretically Youngs penalty had gone in, and Friedel had not made two disgraceful howlers against Fulham. We would then have won 5 of our last 7 league games which is title challengers form. As it is, two moments have cost us 4 points. Two moments of bad fortune/human error which Houllier cannot control has been the difference. Houllier has made some silly decisions tactically and has not got the best out of the players, but there is no doubt in my mind we've been slightly unlucky. The past year in fact. Losing the final, to MON walking out. Losing Milner being in the drop zone, then watching SHA luck their way to a trophy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyOne Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Apart from the fact that the players are passing it around more (but not necessarily getting anywhere or winning games) can anyone honestly say that we are a better team now than we were at the start of the season?All the opposition has to do is go to sleep in their own half when we're doing our pointless tapping in our own half, while Houllier just sits in the dugout like he wants to sleep as well and when the clock gets to 80 mins, the opposition wakes up, makes a run, gets the ball, we concede a setpiece and what do you know, they've scored and won. It's really that easy to expose Houllier's tactics. Bent and Young both had off days against Bolton. If they hadn't we would have ripped Bolton to shreds. Walker was fantastic, as was Albrighton. Robinson must be still rubbing his anus from the arse-raping he got off the two of them. The fact that Martin Petrov was uncharacteristically silent was telling. Our attacking and defending from open play are very good. our attackig and defending of set pieces are abysmal. If you think all we do is aimlessly tap the bal from side to side, you're clearly watching with a) closed eyes or a closed mind. I was kidding. We do play better football than our previous manager, but the results haven't been better. If we play just as well against Wolves and lose against them would you say the same thing? If the same thing was repeated in every single game and got us relegated, would you still defend Houllier and pin it all on the players? We're in this situation where we're too good to go down. But we're not too good to go down because of our defending against set pieces is probably the worst. It's not just the youngsters who have trouble with it, it's the senior defenders as well. It's funny they had no real trouble defending them under the previous manager. I would love to be proven wrong and Houllier to win at least 3 games, which is totally possible, but I really can't see it happening because his too lazy to sort out our defense against set pieces right now which strikes me his not good enough for the job as well as many other things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxy1 Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Can I ask why the people who still back Houllier think he can turn it around next season? Take a look at Harry Redknapp. He took over Spurs in December where they were bottom by some distance and drastically improved them to a top 8 finish. Next season he improved them even further and got them finishing top 4. This season they're even better. It's just that Man City are in a better position due to all the money they've spent. But yet they still have every chance finishing 4th or even 3rd on a good run and they've had serious injuries as well! Let's just say he clicked straight away as soon as he joined at Spurs. Now look at Houllier. His inherited a team that's finished 6th three times in a row, a team that's done better than Spurs over the two seasons apart from Harry's full season. From the moment Houllier joined he called us a 7th-12th team. Where on earth did that come from? If he said a 5th-8th team then fair enough. Why up to 12th? Anyway, how is it that his had much more time to prepare compared to Redknapp (September, not December) in a much, MUCH better position (8th with plenty of games, not 20th near half games left) that his managed to drag us all the way down to bottom 3 and now can't get us out of a relegation fight? Why is it that he can't get the results to progress back up even after splashing money on the Jan window? Why is it that were only 3 points away from relegation. That's outrageous. Thats because Spurs were in the opposite situation to us - hugely talented squad that were massively underperforming. We on the other hand had a fairly mediocre squad that were overperforming (to MON's credit although he cherry picked these hardworking physical, athletic players to fit a rather archaic system and football style). That said we clearly should be doing better than we are - however I still think we will finish in top half this season and the signs on the pitch are very promising for the future in my opinion. Houllier just needs to get more on the wavelength of the fans and get himself a PR manager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 And needs to sort out at set pieces! Badly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted March 10, 2011 VT Supporter Share Posted March 10, 2011 Just because one manager (or a few) have taken over clubs and immediately done well, doesn't mean all managers who take over clubs should be doing that. That's not an excuse for Houlllier, I'm just saying people can't say "Well Redknapp did well straight away at Cockspurs so why can't Houllier do it here?" Just like we can't say "Alex Ferguson did crap at United at first but look at him now!" Just because one person can do it doesn't suddenly mean everyone who doesn't do it is shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super-Villan Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 Just because one manager (or a few) have taken over clubs and immediately done well, doesn't mean all managers who take over clubs should be doing that. That's not an excuse for Houlllier, I'm just saying people can't say "Well Redknapp did well straight away at Cockspurs so why can't Houllier do it here?" Just like we can't say "Alex Ferguson did crap at United at first but look at him now!" Just because one person can do it doesn't suddenly mean everyone who doesn't do it is shit. I didn't expect him to take over the squad and have us motoring on up the league like Redknapp, I was just asking that he not do as badly as he has with the players he had available. That's not too much to ask, I promise you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbojames Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 Just because one manager (or a few) have taken over clubs and immediately done well, doesn't mean all managers who take over clubs should be doing that. That's not an excuse for Houlllier, I'm just saying people can't say "Well Redknapp did well straight away at Cockspurs so why can't Houllier do it here?" Just like we can't say "Alex Ferguson did crap at United at first but look at him now!" Just because one person can do it doesn't suddenly mean everyone who doesn't do it is shit. I think that its often about how patient the club and fans are, how much pressure they are on when they join etc. If we are willing to give him the time I'm sure he can be relatively successful, whether it takes us beyond where we were last season I'm not so sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PauloBarnesi Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 I also may be a little confused but recently we've actually played quite well? Last Man City (W) Wigan (W) United (L) Fulham (D) Blackpool (D) Blackburn (W) Bolton (L) So from our last 7 league games (when we signed Bent) we've got 3 wins My problem is that it really doesn’t matter how well we play or not. We have not picked up the points I would have hoped or expected; wins against Man City, Wigan, Fulham, Blackpool and Blackburn with a draw against Bolton (not unreasonable I think) would have given us 16 points, rather than 11. Drawing Fulham, Blackpool and losing at Bolton gave us 2 rather than 7 points. Come the end of the season this might be of some importance; playing good football in our position is kind of irrelevant. Houllier has to create the time for himself to get to the promised land of ‘good football’. At the moment we are hurtling down a runway, hoping that the runway is long enough to achieve a take off, and its getting hairy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maradona10 Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 I also may be a little confused but recently we've actually played quite well? Last Man City (W) Wigan (W) United (L) Fulham (D) Blackpool (D) Blackburn (W) Bolton (L) So from our last 7 league games (when we signed Bent) we've got 3 wins My problem is that it really doesn’t matter how well we play or not. We have not picked up the points I would have hoped or expected; wins against Man City, Wigan, Fulham, Blackpool and Blackburn with a draw against Bolton (not unreasonable I think) would have given us 16 points, rather than 11. Drawing Fulham, Blackpool and losing at Bolton gave us 2 rather than 7 points. Come the end of the season this might be of some importance; playing good football in our position is kind of irrelevant. Houllier has to create the time for himself to get to the promised land of ‘good football’. At the moment we are hurtling down a runway, hoping that the runway is long enough to achieve a take off, and its getting hairy. Great post and exactly how i see it. We keep going that the form has improved however we are sitting just two points off relegation and could end up in there after the next game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hercs Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 I like Houllier, I mean I don't want his babies or anything (it's a scientific impossibility for a start ... Unless we went the Elton John route I guess ... But I digress) he took over a club in shock and disarray really. He's obviously having to balance the books with all the loan deals going on (something MON allegedly could not bear to do). Still Houllier seems to have an eye for a player Bent is an obvious acquisition but Jean II Makoun looks quality, I think the players rallying against the new regime has damaged his cause and perhaps if in the first place the fans had accepted/ backed the new manager things could have bern different. It just seems at times EVERYTHING is Houllier's fault when there is a much bigger picture, he's a good manager and hopefully we will have the patience for him to prove that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super-Villan Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 perhaps if in the first place the fans had accepted/ backed the new manager things could have bern different. It just seems at times EVERYTHING is Houllier's fault when there is a much bigger picture, he's a good manager and hopefully we will have the patience for him to prove that. I think maybe now I've heard everything. This is a total rewriting of history. Broadly I think - myself included - people were in favour of Houllier coming, or at least prepared to give him a chance. I certainly was. It is his own actions that have brought him to this point, and to blame any of it on the fans not accepting him from the start is daft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savosleftboot Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 Personally Im giving him the preseason and summer window and then see how things bed down first half on next season. If we're not at least top 8 aproaching Christmas with the financial backing of two windows then his time will be surely up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hercs Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 You're kidding, half the fans were still pining for O'Neill and at Houllier's appointment I saw people genuinely saying they would've preferred Allardyce. Not just at his appointment though I mean running through the early season with bad form people were quick slight Houllier despite inevitable transitional problems and a blatant injury crisis. I'm not saying Houllier deserves immunity though I think he should be at least be given the summer and the beginning of next season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super-Villan Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 You're kidding, half the fans were still pining for O'Neill and at Houllier's appointment I saw people genuinely saying they would've preferred Allardyce. Not just at his appointment though I mean running through the early season with bad form people were quick slight Houllier despite inevitable transitional problems and a blatant injury crisis. I'm not saying Houllier deserves immunity though I think he should be at least be given the summer and the beginning of next season. Half the fans were not still pining for MON, that's a gross exaggeration. I was one of his bigger supporters, but there was no point pining for him after he'd gone. If other people wanted Fat Sam - and I can only think of one - that's up to them. Doesn't mean they wouldn't have supported Houllier had he done OK. I wasn't excited by the idea of Houllier, but I thought he was the best possible option. Since then I've criticised when I thought he's done something worth criticising. Sadly that has been quite often. What it really comes down to then is that I think he did badly even allowing for injury problems etc. The transitional problems weren't inevitable, by the way, as has been shown by managerial changes at other clubs. A good manager can still pull results together when faced with that kind of situation. I believe a good manager could certainly have put together significantly better results than Houllier has given his resources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maradona10 Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 You're kidding, half the fans were still pining for O'Neill and at Houllier's appointment I saw people genuinely saying they would've preferred Allardyce. Not just at his appointment though I mean running through the early season with bad form people were quick slight Houllier despite inevitable transitional problems and a blatant injury crisis. I'm not saying Houllier deserves immunity though I think he should be at least be given the summer and the beginning of next season. So if we're relegated, would you give the summer? And before anyone comes on and says we won't be just take a look at the league table because it isn't pretty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theunderstudy Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 You're kidding, half the fans were still pining for O'Neill and at Houllier's appointment I saw people genuinely saying they would've preferred Allardyce. Not just at his appointment though I mean running through the early season with bad form people were quick slight Houllier despite inevitable transitional problems and a blatant injury crisis. I'm not saying Houllier deserves immunity though I think he should be at least be given the summer and the beginning of next season. As do I. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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