The 2011/12 Gary Speed Memorial Thread

[DavidMarrio]

We may be mugs when it comes to buying people but even then we aren't that bad.

[MDK]

And I wouldn't have him at Orient. We've had enough criminals recently, thank you very much.

[Colly]

'Syrup' now available at Newcastle club shops

Having some.

[Gazz]

I noticed at the end of the Norwich game, Cisse appeared to be drinking strawberry milkshake. Those Senegalese sure do love their strawberries.

[Hobo]

An interesting article on KD and Liverpool:

Nothing in soccer ever happens soon enough. The impatience of fans – egged on by a media all too keen to start pontificating about “crisis clubs” - shouldn’t really come as a surprise, yet the criticism directed at Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool seems a new low in football’s culture of short-termism.

On Sunday, as the Kop, with scarves held aloft in the classic manner, celebrated reaching an FA Cup semi-final with a rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone, there didn’t seem too much wrong, a 3-0 win in the Merseyside derby and victory over Stoke having quelled the dissenters. But they exist and, while it may be the case that they are fewer in number among those who actually go to games than a scan of Twitter or a listen to the phone-ins would suggest, that is not a club’s only constituency any more.

There is even an argument that any other figure than Dalglish would have suffered far harsher criticism. That is almost certainly true. Roy Hodgson, who admittedly didn’t help himself with some clumsy public statements, was never given anything like the same consideration, but there is also a very good reason for it. Quite apart from what he achieved as a player at Liverpool, Dalglish has proved himself an excellent manager in the past, both in terms of trophies won and in the wider sense of respecting a club’s role in the community. He deserves patience.

But the point goes deeper than that. Almost all managers deserve patience. Dalglish inherited a mess, as Hodgson had before him. The reign of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, coming on the back of years of comparative underinvestment, had left an unbalanced squad. That takes time to put right, and not every decision taken in trying to change things will be the correct one. In Brian Clough’s first seasons at Derby County and at Nottingham Forest, he finished in the bottom half of the second flight. Within five years he had won the league with Derby; it took three with Forest. Alex Ferguson was in his seventh year at Manchester United when he won the league for the first time. Herbert Chapman was in his sixth at Arsenal. Don Revie just avoided relegation in his first season at Leeds; it took him three years even to be promoted.

There have been some poor performances from Liverpool this season, and it was abject in losing at Sunderland a week gone Saturday. But overall, as Gabriele Marcotti pointed out on Twitter – to the predictable howls of senseless abuse – Dalglish’s record in this spell as manager is a little better than that of his predecessors after 44 games:

Years Manager W D L Pts

1991-1994 Graeme Souness 18 14 12 68

1994-1998 Roy Evans 19 11 14 68

1998-2004 Gerard Houllier 18 9 17 63

2004-2010 Rafa Benitez 18 11 15 65

2011-present Kenny Dalglish 21 11 12 74

Those figures include Cup matches, so points values are notional, but that does not make them irrelevant as many of the Twitter complainers insisted they were. All the managers played Cup matches. Yes, Dalglish’s figures include a win over Exeter City, but then Hodgson’s include a draw against Northampton Town, Souness’ a defeat to Peterborough United. Has football really reached an age in which the league so dominates that the difference between finishing sixth and seventh matters more than success in the cups?

If Dalglish is guilty of being a romantic and placing greater store on the glory of silverware than on the accounting details of league placement then that, frankly, is a good thing – not just for Liverpool but for all of football. Having seen access to the upper echelons denied them by the advent of the Champions League and the culture of the rich getting richer, the majority of clubs have also been led into believing the trophies they do still have a chance of winning – the FA Cup and the Carling Cup – don’t matter any more. If Dalglish, or indeed David Moyes, who fielded a weakened Everton team in the derby to focus on the FA Cup quarterfinal against Sunderland, can change that perception, then more power to them. There are few things that highlight the lack of romance in the modern game so depressingly as pedestrian mid-table clubs fielding sub-strength teams in the cups.

There is one area in which criticism of Dalglish, or at least the present regime as a whole, does seem legitimate, and that is transfers. Of the five marquee players brought in under his leadership – Luis Suarez, Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing, Charlie Adam and Jordan Henderson – only Suarez has been a clear success on the pitch, and even that has been diminished to an extent by the controversies that have followed him (and, whatever the rights and wrongs of his dispute with Patrice Evra, there can be little doubt that Liverpool’s handling of the issue damaged their reputation).

Yet even the issue of transfers isn’t as clear-cut as many would make out. In January 2011, Liverpool offloaded Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel and replaced them with Suarez and Carroll while making a small profit. Unless his two goals against Leicester City on Sunday herald a Torres revival that unleashes a torrent of goals, that looks like pretty good business (perhaps two massively inflated fees don’t cancel, but if Newcastle were the big winners in the Torres-Carroll transactions and Chelsea the big losers, Liverpool at least came out fairly neutral). If Carroll can settle and put his knee injury fully behind him, he may yet be an excellent center forward. He may not, and perhaps a gamble of £35 million, even for a club that had just pulled in £50 million for Torres, on a player with only six months of good Premier League form is unjustifiable, but the possibility is still there.

Downing started poorly, but was man of the match in the Carling Cup final and has looked in better form recently. Henderson is young and was probably overpriced at £16 million, but he is diligent and solid and his rapid improvement at Sunderland suggested a mind quick to learn.

Adam’s form has disintegrated of late, but he cost only £7.25 million. Lump him in with the similarly priced Jose Enrique (dependable at left back) and Sebastian Coates (highly promising at center back) and even that starts to look like reasonable business. Getting Craig Bellamy on a free transfer, meanwhile, was an excellent deal.

In fact rather than specifics, the bigger concern is the more general policy. It seems probable that Adam, Downing and Henderson were signed because they were the most readily available players in the list of the top-ten chance-creators in the Premier League last season. Moneyball principles, though, surely, are more complex than that. Football, not being comprised of discrete actions in the manner of baseball or cricket, has so far proved harder to analyze meaningfully with statistics. That’s not to say it can’t be – and it would be fascinating to see Liverpool try to develop a more sophisticated model – but we’re not there yet.

Again, patience is the key. But even urging that seems bizarre. Liverpool has won its first silverware since 2006. It’s in the semifinal of the FA Cup. This has not been a bad season by any standard, and considering what has gone before, it could end up being an excellent one. Increasingly, you listen to the moaners and think the issue is not with the clubs but with the general culture of wanting everything yesterday.

-Source

[Colly]

Presume the reason why there's two paragraphs on 'why the cups matter' is because Dalglish hasn't lost one yet? Stats!

[Hobo]

It seemed more to me to be highlighting the idea that clubs shouldn't necessarily sacrifice winning trophies in order to finish higher in the league, if they can win the cup they should go for it.

[Lineker]

So Blackburn are somehow six points clear of the dropzone as it stands with them leading Sunderland through a Junior Hoilett goal.

[GoGo Yubari]

2-0 now.

[Lineker]

Probably worth mentioning this:

Chelsea have parted company with midfielder Jacob Mellis after he admitted setting off a smoke grenade at the club's Cobham training ground.

Mellis, 21, was released after a "full and thorough" investigation into the incident, which took place on 2 March.

Team-mate Billy Clifford, 19, admitted bringing in the grenade and was fined.

Last February Ashley Cole avoided punishment after a police investigation when he accidentally shot a work experience student with an air rifle.

Another dubious incident at the Chelsea training ground occurred late last year when a knife was discovered by cleaning staff in a dressing room at the complex, although this was thought to have belonged to a building contractor on the site.

Mellis joined Chelsea from Sheffield United five years ago and made his debut in the Champions League win against Zilina in November 2010.

Clifford, 19, is a regular in Chelsea's reserves and signed a new four-year deal last summer.

He is thought to have acquired the item in question from a paintball expedition.

According to reports, the smoke grenade was set off in the reserve-team dressing room and trained fire marshals had to be brought in.

Players, officials and other staff from Chelsea's reserve, youth and academy teams ran from the building with hands covering their faces because of the thick smoke.

Owner Roman Abramovich was reportedly briefed about the incident, which set off fire alarms and triggered a full evacuation procedure.

Meanwhile Chelsea reserve goalkeeper Hilario has signed a one-year contract extension.

The 36-year-old Portuguese, who also signed a one-year extension last summer, joined the Blues from Nacional in 2006 and has made a total of 39 appearances, keeping 18 clean sheets.

One question - how the fuck does Hilario keep getting contracts!!?

[MJB]

Coaching role perhaps?

Other than that, no idea.

[Adam]

I honestly think there's a lot more to goalkeeper personnel than just "he's played shit every time he's come in so he should be released." Phil Brown was on our Late Kick Off last week and after they did a feature on the Barnsley keepers he stressed how influential a veteran keeper can be on the other stoppers. He signed 38 year old football league journeyman Tony Warner when Hull were in the Premier League and he said it added such an interesting and useful dynamic to keeper training with Myhill & Duke even though Warner wasn't a Premier League standard goalkeeper.

[Gazz]

Hilario also seems quite happy to sit on the bench or be third choice and play one game a season, a third choice keeper that doesn't piss and moan about lack of opportunities is quite an invaluable thing to have.

[R.W.]

Whoop whoop, Rovers til I Die!

No shots on target Sunderland, tut tut.

[9 to 5]

So Blackburn are somehow six points clear of the dropzone as it stands with them leading Sunderland through a Junior Hoilett goal.

Mainly because we were good and Sunderland were fucking shit.

[Colly]

Hilario also seems quite happy to sit on the bench or be third choice and play one game a season, a third choice keeper that doesn't piss and moan about lack of opportunities is quite an invaluable thing to have.

I'd quite happily be a third choice keeper, in fact third choice keeper in a World Cup squad would probably be my dream job.

[IAceI]

That was terrible last night. The players have rightly apologised to us for that performance. I'd feel like it was a wasted journey if it wasn't for the company I kept, but that was awful.

[Gazz]

Third best game of the season.

[MJB]

Yaya Toure's face when asked if he knew what 'squeaky bum time' meant

[Colly]

Weeky bam?

Edit: Saturn 5! I don't have any particular feelings towards City, but I always love what's on their PA system.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Colly