wong_se said:
UEFA player are voted by a group of
football professional and committee.
They voted Owen but u may have different view.
Of course everyone hold their right of the own view..but UEFA opinion is more superior than others. Unless one show he is more knowledgable to understand
football more than UEFA committe..
In this case..I respect UEFA decision.
Yes. There will be supporters for Owen etc etc.. I just feel Owen do not deserve it, esp based on his form etc. As for UEFA, it's a huge organisation and highly political... Not all on committees are football experts. A lot of them are just Administrators... and rose up the ranks in their respective football associations. It's like saying that Sepp Blatter is a better judge on footballing ability than Franz Beckanbauer.
If you look at a lot of their decisions, they are treating football as a business more than anything. Hence, the tournaments like World Club Championship etc...
wong_se said:
On the houllier issuse there is no end of the arguement. Simply because the judgement base is very different. I am a bit more objective, and u are too extremely biased..(ie when Houllier won, it was becasue we are lucky. When Rafa won,..he simply da best. when Houllier trained up gerrard, nothing is credit. when Rafa train up biscan, he is da best).
U might find thousands of reason of other factors..such as ie..we finish 2nd because other teams are falling...etc..etc.
However, u may accept/deny thousands of reasons/excuse..but no one can deny the fact ie....the cup we won, the number of CL, etc..
To judge a manager..I weighted 90% judgement in no of trophies that he had won.... If not judged by number of trophies ..I might as well say that Ian
Rush is the best coach in the world.
I did not discredit his part for the 5 trophies. I am just stating the facts and how the 2 finals pans out. We are indeed lucky to win those finals and am i happy about it? Of course i am since i am a diehard football fans.
When we evaluate how a team perform, it's impt to think of other teams. We are not isolated.
When Houllier was in charge, isn;t it true that Man U and Arsenal are the dominant forces in EPL? hardly any other team can get to top 2 except for 1 year where we finish 2nd. And isn't it true that that's the year Man U was beset with injuries? Did we finish 2nd the following season? Similarly, this season, we finish 5th due mainly to our injuries and involvement in CL and Carling Cup etc as we are very thin in depth. We have to be objective. We cannot say we suffer because of injuries and say Man U will not underperform because Roy Keane and Solkjaer was injured. It's like taking out Gerrard and say Heskey at Houllier's reign and expecting Liverpool to finish 2nd?
Statistics don;t show such details. Stats does not show that we have tons of injuries. It does not show that we don't have Owen, our top scorer this year. All it shows is we are 5th.
I am not arguing abt results, cups or league positions. To me, the impt thing is how we perform relative to others.
During Houllier's team, it's mainly Arsenal and Man U, period. Liverpool, Chelsea and Newcastle can only fight for 3rd place. And of the 3 teams, Liverpool is deinitely the stronger team and hence should be at least 3 place each season. We almost did, as we only lose out to Chelsea on last match 2 seasons ago rem? If Chelsea was to lose that match, they would prob not be attractive to Roman already.... We actually have a part in that...
It is also true that CL places only for top2 and 3rd will have to qualify. fourth have no places until 2001? So if you compare with now. it's not comparing apple to apple as Rafa only need to finish top 4 to qualify whereas Houllier needs top 3? This is not subjective right?
As for whether gerrard is trained by Houllier or Biscan is trained by Rafa... We will never know to what extent. A lot of time, these players are already in their prime and not much can improve. It's more impt to bring out the best in them, which i think Houllier fails. In fact, Traore just said that Houllier did not treat the French players right... which is strange since he signs them. Did he groom players like Traore, La Tallec or Pongolle? These are the players that requires Grooming... Did he bring out the best of his signings? Biscan (regular in Croatia team), Smicer (regular in Czech team and french league champion with Lens), Baros (Euro'04 top scorer, one of the youngest regular in Czech team), Litmanen (best player from finland by a mile (hyypia doesn;t even come close)), Diouf (african player of the year and regular in Senegal), Anelka (top french striker), Cheyrou (just broke into french national team then), Kewell (best australian player by a mile again and top player for Leeds). These signings are all good signings and costs lots of money in some cases.
If you compare the quality of players he signed and spent with say Souness... you can really see my point.
Houllier managed to sign very good players and either don't utilise them properly, out of position (Biscan, Litmanen, Kewell) or simply cannot bring out the best in them (Anelka, Cheyrou, Smicer, Biscan and Baros).
In some cases, he actually ended a few international careers (including Cantona and Ginola if you rem abt his french national team debacle) such as Cheyrou, Litmanen etc.
What's remarkable is what happens after he left. After he left, Baros is Euro 2004 top scorer, Diarra , on loan, became a french national team regular? Diouf, on loan, helps bolton to their UEFA cup place. Traore, Biscan, Finnan and Carra all becomes better player, isn't it? All this is credited to his Grooming? I think not right?
Sure, Souness and Evans sucks... But if you rem correctly, they were not given so much transfer funds. Purse strings were loosen when Houllier came in. Liverpool was desperate, yes, desperate for success, that they employ foreign manager, as a joint manager then manager. Someone who fails to bring France to World Cup and ended Ginola, Papin and Cantona international careersand unproven. Sure, a lot of people also credited him for his work at the fountainbleu academy where henry, anelka, treseguet trains, but that is more on spotting talents.
Souness signs fringe players or obsure international players like Ronnie Rosenthal, Jason McAteer, Karme, Erik Meijer, Sean Dundee, Song, Bjonebye, Ruddock etc. His star players are actually those from the academy like Fowler, Macca, Rednapp and carra etc which all went on to play for Houllier.
So Houllier has better resources compared with Souness in terms of money and good players as the academy players all martured.
