Liverpool FC Forum

[devaney]

Yes City bought poorly last summer - and the team suffered because of that. The manager lost the dressing room and the players didnt perform

Utd won because they had the quality required in the right area - scoring goals and stopping goals.

The season before that City won the title.

City have spent a lot of money taking a team from bottom half of the table to fly right past us and confirm themselves in the top 4 of the league - in fact top 2. They will once again challenge for the title this year because they have one of the best squads in the league.

Ability and quality wins titles - that's why the teams winning things are the teams spending the money to get the quality players into the team. That's not an opinion that's a fact and you only have to look at the title winners in recent years - even go back to Blackburn.

The best teams in terms of quality win.

Still unsure what the "self imposed golf sabbatical" has to do with the thread though ?

Good to see you have dismissed your previous weak excuses relating to Balotelli and Kompany. I'm glad we sorted that out.

I'm not dismissing the FACT that quality wins titles. What you seem unable to accept through your usual stubbornness is that City lost the title for a variety of reasons. Mancini didn't help. However the key reasons were attitude and determination and nothing to do with lack of quality.City scraped the title on goal difference the previous year after Tevez's self imposed golf sabbatical when he got upset at how he was treated over a substitution issue.http://mancunianmatters.co.uk/content/1 ... wasnt-carl His attitude is absolutely shite and they nearly lost the title as a result. Last season half the time they behaved like a bunch of prima donnas and simple expected to win when they turned up.Look at how they have performed in the CL. Simply buying quality players with ability does not win you titles and that is a FACT. There are far more ingredients to it than that. How many golfers in the world are there that play off +5 but never win a tournament?

[Benny The Noon]

What did I dismiss exactly ? Balotelli played for half the season - who did they buy to replace him ? No one

Kompany missed a quarter of the season - no one was bought to cover him

They had a poor window - there squad was all over the place. Unless you watched every City game how can you judge how the players attitude where in the game ? Unless you can point out examples of games where attitude lost them the game as opposed to just not playing well that day.

Buy the right quality players and the team will win the title

City won the title because their quality players performed when it matters - the manager then didnt build in that by improving the areas that needed to be improved and he then lost the dressing room , they came second , he got fired and now a new manager has arrived - recognised the issues and has spent far better this summer and will at the end of the season will be up there challenging for the title due to tactics , skill , ability and possibly a bit of luck. You can be as determined as you want but if you haven't got the ability you won't get far

Any golf analogy is irrelevant because its a single person sport.

[RedAnt]

I agree with Devaney. I'm sure you're deliberately evading the point, Benny.

To simplify it, take the best 11 players in the world and tell them to stand still on the pitch. A bunch of 7 year olds would beat them. Replace the 7 year olds with Cardiff City and Cardiff would win. Now take the 11 best players and for arguments sake, call them Man City. Tell them to start playing. Will they automatically beat Cardiff?

The level of activity and commitment can be set to zero by telling the players to stand still. How do you raise the level from zero to 100? Tell them to play!

How do we go from 100 to 1000? Pay them lots. Give them bonuses and incentives, train them, go on team bonding golf trips. There's a billion ways to influence the way a team plays. And there's another billion ways to influence the way each individual member plays. And as a result, there's a billion-billion potential outcomes.

Time and time again we see these apparently random results come up.

Money and big name players heavily increase your chances of success, but they guarantee nothing.

Commitment and passion heavily increase the chances of success, and guarantee that the human race will continue to play sports.

[Kenny Kan]

I agree with Devaney. I'm sure you're deliberately evading the point, Benny.

To simplify it, take the best 11 players in the world and tell them to stand still on the pitch. A bunch of 7 year olds would beat them. Replace the 7 year olds with Cardiff City and Cardiff would win. Now take the 11 best players and for arguments sake, call them Man City. Tell them to start playing. Will they automatically beat Cardiff?

The level of activity and commitment can be set to zero by telling the players to stand still. How do you raise the level from zero to 100? Tell them to play!

How do we go from 100 to 1000? Pay them lots. Give them bonuses and incentives, train them, go on team bonding golf trips. There's a billion ways to influence the way a team plays. And there's another billion ways to influence the way each individual member plays. And as a result, there's a billion-billion potential outcomes.

Time and time again we see these apparently random results come up.

Money and big name players heavily increase your chances of success, but they guarantee nothing.

Commitment and passion heavily increase the chances of success, and guarantee that the human race will continue to play sports.

Spot on.

[Benny The Noon]

I agree with Devaney. I'm sure you're deliberately evading the point, Benny.

To simplify it, take the best 11 players in the world and tell them to stand still on the pitch. A bunch of 7 year olds would beat them. Replace the 7 year olds with Cardiff City and Cardiff would win. Now take the 11 best players and for arguments sake, call them Man City. Tell them to start playing. Will they automatically beat Cardiff?

The level of activity and commitment can be set to zero by telling the players to stand still. How do you raise the level from zero to 100? Tell them to play!

How do we go from 100 to 1000? Pay them lots. Give them bonuses and incentives, train them, go on team bonding golf trips. There's a billion ways to influence the way a team plays. And there's another billion ways to influence the way each individual member plays. And as a result, there's a billion-billion potential outcomes.

Time and time again we see these apparently random results come up.

Money and big name players heavily increase your chances of success, but they guarantee nothing.

Commitment and passion heavily increase the chances of success, and guarantee that the human race will continue to play sports.

No one has said anything about guarantee in anything mate.

Random results do come up - always will get teams playing above themselves beating the top teams but I'm talking about over the course of a whole season. The teams with the best players rise to the top over the season. Which was my original point - to win titles you need ability and quality in the squad and the manager to apply the correct tactics to get the players playing together over the course of a season.

[devaney]

What did I dismiss exactly ? Balotelli played for half the season - who did they buy to replace him ? No one

Kompany missed a quarter of the season - no one was bought to cover him

They had a poor window - there squad was all over the place. Unless you watched every City game how can you judge how the players attitude where in the game ? Unless you can point out examples of games where attitude lost them the game as opposed to just not playing well that day.

Buy the right quality players and the team will win the title

City won the title because their quality players performed when it matters - the manager then didnt build in that by improving the areas that needed to be improved and he then lost the dressing room , they came second , he got fired and now a new manager has arrived - recognised the issues and has spent far better this summer and will at the end of the season will be up there challenging for the title due to tactics , skill , ability and possibly a bit of luck. You can be as determined as you want but if you haven't got the ability you won't get far

Any golf analogy is irrelevant because its a single person sport.

Of course it is, how silly of me. Golf is a single person sport? You actually think the caddy has nothing to do with a players success. If you think that there is no link to determination and quality in terms of results then there is very little I can do to convince you.

edited by Woof in an attempt to keep this topic about football and not f'ucking golf !

[Benny The Noon]

edited by Woof

[Greavesie]

I agree with Devaney. I'm sure you're deliberately evading the point, Benny.

To simplify it, take the best 11 players in the world and tell them to stand still on the pitch. A bunch of 7 year olds would beat them. Replace the 7 year olds with Cardiff City and Cardiff would win. Now take the 11 best players and for arguments sake, call them Man City. Tell them to start playing. Will they automatically beat Cardiff?

The level of activity and commitment can be set to zero by telling the players to stand still. How do you raise the level from zero to 100? Tell them to play!

How do we go from 100 to 1000? Pay them lots. Give them bonuses and incentives, train them, go on team bonding golf trips. There's a billion ways to influence the way a team plays. And there's another billion ways to influence the way each individual member plays. And as a result, there's a billion-billion potential outcomes.

Time and time again we see these apparently random results come up.

Money and big name players heavily increase your chances of success, but they guarantee nothing.

Commitment and passion heavily increase the chances of success, and guarantee that the human race will continue to play sports.

Agree completely.

[metalhead]

Instead of bitching and moaning about the thread how about everyone try to counter stu's argument by placing intelligent points in the debate!

It's a good question, and I disagree with Stu when he says take the 3 players out we would get 16th! I think we have enough good players in the team (Sturridge, Enrique, Johnson, Lucas, Toure, Agger and Skrtel) to stay in the top 10 without Coutinho, Gerrard and Suarez.

[devaney]

Instead of bitching and moaning about the thread how about everyone try to counter stu's argument by placing intelligent points in the debate!

It's a good question, and I disagree with Stu when he says take the 3 players out we would get 16th! I think we have enough good players in the team (Sturridge, Enrique, Johnson, Lucas, Toure, Agger and Skrtel) to stay in the top 10 without Coutinho, Gerrard and Suarez.

Is it really a good question when he includes Suarez ? Our record without Luis for 16 games is : Won 12 LOST 2 DRAWN 2. Yes life would be tough in the same way as it would if any team lost their top players. However I struggled to take the question seriously when Stu suggested we would finish no better than 16th.

[metalhead]

I think Stu was a bith harsh with the 16th part, we are not as bad as he thinks we are! 

[RedAnt]

It's an entirely irrelevant question. I don't see any purpose to it. If I'm missing the point of it, please explain.

And whilst you're at it, where in the league do you think we'd finish if Lucas, Agger and Mingolet were lost in the jungle?

[Ben Patrick]

Seems to me the reason for the thread was to discuss squad strength. Which isn't a bad thing to discuss. Lets be honest our squad is nowhere near chelsea or citys and united arsenal and spurs is stronger as well. But for me if we lost our 3 best players I still think we would be top 8.

[tadhger09]

I think I know where the OP is coming from and to be fair we are no longer a team full of worldies anymore.

But to be fair to the lads we have they have shown huge potential and courage so far this campaign and as a supporter I cannot ask for anymore than they have given to  the cause to date.

What makes me feel  a bit better though is if you take the best 3 players out of any team anywhere around the world I think its inevitable its going significantly weaken them as a unit, I will say that without our very best we still have a decent back bone to our side and there are goals throughout the team.

There aren't too many times throughout the season where we will find ourselves without our top players so if and when it happens we do still have the calibre in the side to turn out results.

I expect a much better campaign this season because of this reason alone. Last season we had way too much inconsistency in the teams results and so far this season we have shown metal and conviction in the teams performances.

Bring it on, bring the fecker on. We are ready to do the business this season and put all doubters to bed. Bring it on.

[metalhead]

Seems to me the reason for the thread was to discuss squad strength. Which isn't a bad thing to discuss. Lets be honest our squad is nowhere near chelsea or citys and united arsenal and spurs is stronger as well. But for me if we lost our 3 best players I still think we would be top 8.

Most probably fair assessment mate, we have decent young players in our team, still 2 or 3 quality players short for a top 4 finish