With all this is mind, I thought I’d spend the summer (which could be very depressing) picking out those Academy individuals I think might be best suited (in time) to making the step up to the first team ( … but all the while adding the caveat that careers go wrong for a number of reasons.)
In your letter published in The Times this morning you attempt to explain the process that led to the sale of Liverpool FC to Messrs Hicks and Gillett. This was welcome if not overdue. I would, however like to take issue with some of the statements made in that letter.
Following on from my post looking at Liverpool’s 2009/10 stats, I wanted to assess every season since we last won the league title in 1989/90 before comparing each respective season in terms of best overall points total, worst overall points total, best & worst home record and best & worst away record.
I was recently asked whose was bigger, Houllier’s or Benítez’s? (Net spend, I hasten to add.) As each has (to date) managed the club for six years, it seemed a fair time to ask, although the obvious problem is that Houllier started buying players 12 years ago, when transfer fees were a lot cheaper. And of course, his sales were likewise affected.
Goal Involvement is the method I devised to rate and rank contribution to goals that go beyond the final finish and the standard assist. I’ve been using it for a couple of seasons now, and this is the full set of results from the past campaign.
Now that the 2009/10 season is consigned to the history books, I thought I’d take a look at our results and performances from a statistical viewpoint. There has been a lot of talk about just how poor a season this has been, with some sections of the media labelling it as our worst showing since 1998/99. While this may be the case when viewed as league position only, the reality is not quite as cut and dried as that.
It’s been a tough old season, and one we will all want to forget as quickly as possible. But before wiping it from our minds, here is Part Two of my take on how the individual players fared, From Kyrgiakos to el Zhar.
When and if the day of reckoning finally comes and we play our last game at Anfield, if St Etienne is the one that most Kopites recall as the best atmosphere ever, then surely it will be 13th April 1988 they recall as the best performance in living memory.
Given the standard of contributors to, and posters on, The Tomkins Times, not to mention some of the ideas developed in discussions, I think it’s time to work on a ‘combined effort’ book, to pool the collective knowledge.
It’s been a tough old season, and one we will all want to forget as quickly as possible. But before wiping it from our minds, here is Part One of my take on how the individual players fared, From Agger to Johnson.
