I don't blame BR for LFC issues. It's a poisoned chalice and has been since the downfall. Proud club that lost a bit and never recovered it. Man United are teetering at that cliff right now. They are fucking rubbish to watch every week. They have no penetration other than from the flanks and jagging the odd ugly goal. They are at the point where if they didn't have a lot of money, nobody of note would be going there. Juan Mata was killing it for Chelsea, the year before Mourinho came and then suddenly he goes to Man United and he looks sub standard, slow and not good enough. It feels as if there is a black hole around Man United where good players are just not working with the system they have.
Getting back LFC, they are doing the best they can with the calibre of player they can attract. Suarez artificially raised standards and quite honestly, I think sacking BR would be going backwards. Experience is needed to make the right calls for the club and it can't be done by just constantly churning away, hoping to win the lottery with the right combination of managers and players - it's been happening for decades, now. Selling Suarez, losing Sturridge and selling Sterling isn't BR's fault and they really can't hope to sign top shelf talent at the moment because their league position is just never quite consistent, enough - they need to develop it from mid high tier players that are unproven at absolute top level and they have to pay overs for the players to get them. Clyne is a good signing, as is Milner. I don't rate Lallalna in a big club, he doesn't have enough strength on the ball, Balotelli is a wash, Borini was actually very good for Sunderland but completely didn't work out for Liverpool. It was a bad idea to sign Ings, same as Lambert (I personally saw LFC in preseason game and over here in Australia and he looked well out of sorts with the position he was forced into), ings looked very lost not being able to be the out and out target man which they both are. I don't like Origi much, either.
They should have won the title, though. That was naive managerial tactics in still playing open and hard against a Chelsea team that turned up to do the intelligent, not the entertaining thing.
Mourinho just slightly overextended from entertaining arrogant asshole master tactician to dick in the last few weeks.
Oh, also, I believe Suarez's second bite was intentional and a calculated move to get out of LFC contact. There was no context. There wasn't a running battle, he just bit the guy. The mainstream seem to think he just went mad, whereas I give him a bit more credit than that.
BR couldn't do anything about Suarez, Sturridge and Sterling but damn sure could have signed better calibre of player or at least not overrule the committee when they tried to.
after the title contending season he agreed a new contract (rash from the owners) but part of that new contract was more say on transfers.
owners gave BR authority to buy players as 1st team regulars, transfer committee to sign players for the future and squad.
50mil of that Suarez straight down the drain and to Southampton.
Dortmund, Atletico, Porto, Sevilla and even Juve are great examples of shrewd recruitment. they could never attract the calibre of player the elite teams could either but more than prospered in the transfer market.
we could have signed Firmino that summer instead of Lallana, that was the idea but BR had final say on 1st team players, so a player who's had one decent season in the top flight his entire career was chosen ahead of one Bundesliga's best performers for at least 2 seasons, scoring more creating more and a blind man could have seen the difference in quality between the two.
but Lallana was PL proven and no settling in needed according to BR.
he later contradicted this by saying Lallana needed time to adjust.
Juve's midfield last season cost circa 10 mil
Pogba free from Utd
Pirlo free from AC
Vidal 10mil from Leverkusen
Tevez a free, Llorente a free and Morata 9mil
Sevilla,
Rakitic signed for a couple mil, sold for 18 mil 3 years later
Kondogbia was signed for 3 mil Euros, sold for 20 mil Euros 1 year later
Negredo was signed for 15 mil Euros, sold for 25 mil 3 years later
Alex Vidal signed for 3 mil, sold for circa 20 mil Euros 1 year later
Bacca signed for 7 mil euros, sold for 30 mil euros couple years later
Atletico,
Turan, Costa, Filipe Luis, Falcao all awesome, sold for huge profits.
Griezmann is now world class and 50mil buyout clause which will get activated sooner or later
Vietto just signed, he will be world class too.
we could have signed Griezmann and Vietto. after our 13/14 season and getting CL back we had some clout. not elite calibre players by any means but certainly better than Lallana, Lovren, Lambert
we still could have signed better or smarter rather than Benteke, Milner this season.
32.5 mil, would have been interesting to test Inter's resolve on Icardi.
judging by Kovacic sale (for FFP) they wouldn't have put up a fight, money talks, that 140k/week 5 year deal for Milner is circa 40mil with signing on fee, could have contributed to Icardi or Lacazette wages and enough left over for a good young DM like Matias Kranevitter who's Mascherano mkII
sacking Rodgers (i would have done it end of last season, not now. have to wait now due to investment) would have been good for the club because we could have had Klopp, regardless of what he said about sabbatical he would not have turned down LFC, no chance.
or Unai Emery who's worked magic with Sevilla and was great for Valencia before that, he flirted with West Ham so us we more than had a chance of convincing him!
these two are immense managers, able to attract a much higher calibre of player than BR.
won more than BR (which isn't hard since he's won nothing) have more experience than BR etc