Unpopular Opinions (Association Football version)

[jod23]

Also John Barnes is another one who doesnt get as much plaudits as he should. The mid to late 80's he was unstoppable. Players player of the year, twice FWA footballer of the year. We won two league titles and two FA Cups. We were denied his talents in Europe as we were banned from Europe after the tragic events at Heysel.

Those late 80's Liverpool sides were some of our very best sides and we could have won one or two more european cups. He was an unbelievable player. After he hurt his ankle, he lost his pace and turned himself into an excellent CM. But those late 80's sides when he was out on a wing.

Sheer class.

Few exerts on Barnes...

Just before Barnes left Watford, manager Graham Taylor had departed to Aston Villa to be succeeded by Dave Bassett, who had resigned himself to losing Barnes to a bigger club. He offered Alex Ferguson the chance to sign Barnes for Manchester United, but Ferguson rejected the opportunity to sign Barnes as he still had faith in United's left winger Jesper Olsen. This was revealed in Ferguson's autobiography Managing My Life in 1999. Ferguson has since expressed regret at not signing Barnes.

Team mate Aldridge said in his autobiography that Bobby Robson had at the time claimed Barnes was as good as George Best at his peak with Manchester United 20 years earlier.

Team mate Peter Beardsley has since said Barnes at the end of the 1980s was "The best player I ever played with, bar none. For three or four years at the end of the ’80s, John was possibly the best player in the world."

A young Jamie Carragher was breaking through into the team towards the end of Barnes's career at Liverpool and said that despite Barnes supposedly being past his peak by then, in his 34th year, he was still the best player at the club. "Technically, he’s the best player I've ever trained or played with, he was great with both feet, they were both exactly the same. I'd say he's the best finisher I've ever played with (including Torres, Fowler, Owen). Barnes never used to blast his shots – they’d just get placed right in the corner. You speak with the players from those great Liverpool sides and ask them who the best player they played with was and they all say John Barnes"

 

[Cruyff14]

He bloody absolutely deserves to be there does Laudrup. One of the best playmakers of the last 20 years.

 

[Benno_900]

Best 20 that I have seen live

GK - Schmeichel, Buffon
RB - Irwin, Neville (spit)
CB - Ferdinand (spit), Puyol, Kompany,
LB - Cole (spit), Maldini
RM - Messi, Robben
CM - Silva, Scholes, Lampard, Yaya
LM - Ronaldo
FW - Shearer, Aguero, Henry, Etoo

Probably missed some out, and will probably have a completely different 20 if I did it tomorrow. Few unlucky ones, Vieira, Keane, Campbell, Dunne (yes Dunne so shut up), Van Horseface, Ronaldinho. Irwin in at RB cause he was bloody good there and I couldn't leave out Cole or Maldini.

GK - Joe Hart
RB - Bacary Sagna
CB - Sergio Ramos, Pepe
LB - Gabriel Heinze, Marcelo
RM - Gareth Bale, Raheem Sterling
CM - Yaya Toure, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Steven Gerrard, Javier Mascherano
LM - Cristiano Ronaldo, David Silva
FW - Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez, Luis Suarez, Sergio Aguero, Karim Benzema

And that's just from 3 games at the MCG.

 

[imadodgyumpire]

How about this for a unpopular opinion?

Liverpool will win at least one PL with Klopp?

Those late 80's Liverpool sides were some of our very best sides and we could have won one or two more european cups.

Denying Everton an opportunity during a peak period must somewhat make up for it?

 

[ADL9798]

Thought I'd shift this out of the match day thread - to the Tottenham supporters who hold the opinion that they are now a bigger club than Liverpool, or will be once you build your new stadium:

1. The new stadium will undoubtedly help you guys in terms of increasing your match day revenue. But then, Liverpool will receive the same boost in match day income for a far lower initial outlay with the Anfield redevelopment so I don't think that it is going to be the golden goose and the competitive advantage you're expecting. It's more the bare minimum required to keep up. Commercial revenue is where Tottenham need to make the most significant gains and that's going to be an exceptionally difficult gap to bridge given the huge disparity in the size of your global supporter base and the brand exposure that provides relative to the rest of the top 6.

2. You've taken the 4-5 most turbulent years in Liverpool's recent history - a time where we nearly entered administration, spent a year or 2 coming out of the mess left by our previous owners, and spent on players more inefficiently than I can remember at any point in my time watching the club (yet still managed to come within an inch of winning the title!) and declared it the norm to support your claims that Tottenham have overtaken Liverpool and have better prospects for the future.

It's an inherently flawed argument as you're essentially expecting Liverpool to continue to have off-field troubles and to be woefully inefficient in the way that they spend the ~50% revenue advantage they have over Tottenham for the foreseeable future. Every now and then the perfect storm comes together and you'll undoubtedly pip one of the CL places. Obviously when your rivals do have those dips and those opportunities come as they did for us in 2013/14 you have to take advantage of them, but as we've found chasing United, Chelsea & City over the years - by and large it's unreasonable to expect these clubs with such a significant resource advantage to consistently under utilize those resources. That's why closing that revenue gap is so crucial.

Tottenham are a great club but there's a bit of work to do off field before they'll go into each season as favourites for a CL place. If Liverpool spend their revenue advantage even remotely efficiently then all things being equal there's no excuse for them to not be finishing ahead of Spurs most seasons.

 

[Cooldude]

Now I don't wanna pick a fight or anything coz I have nothing against Spurs or anything but yeah there's been a load of noise about it and I'll give my 2 cent

Spurs will always be Spurs, they might have a good patch every now and again and their fans might endlessly talk themselves up, but they are just Spurs and they cannot escape the reality that they are only Spurs

 

[Cruyff14]

It's ridiculous to suggest a club (most clubs for that matter) - would become bigger than Liverpool (I mean, really, LiverpooL? Don't really like them but it's ludicrous to suggest they aren't a massive club), just because they're building a new stadium.

 

[Magma]

oh good, one of those saddo arguments #MASSIVE

 

[chef]

Yeah, I don't get why people care how big their club is or if others think that it's big or not.

 

[Magma]

Yeah, I don't get why people care how big their club is or if others think that it's big or not.

it's usually among those who are winning diddly squat

 

[BlueBen]

It's ridiculous to suggest a club (most clubs for that matter) - would become bigger than Liverpool (I mean, really, LiverpooL? Don't really like them but it's ludicrous to suggest they aren't a massive club), just because they're building a new stadium.

They are having a good little patch in their history at the moment, which is coinciding with a "down" period for teams like Liverpool, Manchester United and even Chelsea are struggling at the moment. So in a way, you can't really blame them for thinking that this presents them with an opportunity to strike; there's nothing wrong with having ambition.

They aren't big enough to truly compete, and deep down they know this, but credit to them for having a go.

 

[Cooldude]

We just need to unban Grandblue and have him predict Spurs for top 4 and it'll be it

 

[Zidane98]

We just need to unban Grandblue and have him predict Spurs for top 4 and it'll be it

Ironically they're playing West Ham tonight. I'd pay the mods to unban GB and get him to unleash on West Ham like last time

 

[go you pups]

There's no way Spurs will ever get the same fanfare or following as Liverpool, no way, if that is what the offended are referring to as being a "big club", currently though Spurs are the much better ran club on-field and off-field and their results over the last 6 seasons have reflected that except for one season out of the blue and will continue to reflect that imo.

Once the new stadium is in full force, player retention will improve you'd expect and greater salaries will be paid to better established talent, instead of having to rely on young talent on smaller wages all the time. Perhaps Spurs could go up another level and become a consistent CL team like what Arsenal have been since they moved to The Emirates.

We have played in Europe every season except 2009-10 since 2006, that's 9 out of the last 10 seasons in Europe including the last 6 where Liverpool has only finished ahead of us once in that time, that's pretty consistent imo and we have finished 4th not once, but twice (was only denied CL because of Chelsea winning it that year, when has that ever happened elsewhere? probably never).

 

[go you pups]

You lot are probably the ones who will always pen Liverpool in for 4th or 5th every year on the predictions ladder with Spurs either 6th or 7th

Problem is you're normally wrong........

 

[glenferry23]

We just need to unban Grandblue and have him predict Spurs for top 4 and it'll be it

His finest moment was surely the 'who will finish 4th?' thread. Which excluded Spurs as an option, inferring they would in fact finish in the top 3.

Miss that guy. He gave us so much to remember at least.

 

[Magma]

His finest moment was surely the 'who will finish 4th?' thread. Which excluded Spurs as an option, inferring they would in fact finish in the top 3.

Miss that guy. He gave us so much to remember at least.

like diseased dicks

 

[Zidane98]

You lot are probably the ones who will always pen Liverpool in for 4th or 5th every year on the predictions ladder with Spurs either 6th or 7th

Problem is you're normally wrong........

Thing is there's a big difference between finishing 4th & 5th. Between 5th & 6th is irrelevant. Spurs have finished above Liverpool and qualified for CL just once in history. And that when the club was in a legal stoush with owners who stopped spending anything on the club. That situation / opportunity for Spurs is never going to happen again (leveraged ownership of LFC is now forbidden).

 

[LukasTheGreat]

We just need to unban Grandblue and have him predict Spurs for top 4 and it'll be it

He's around. Make no mistake.

 

[go you pups]

He's around. Make no mistake.

Who is he lol?

Quite a few new Dog posters around

 

[Latro]

Who is he lol?

Quite a few new Dog posters around

Chef

 

[Zidane98]

Chef

That explains Chelsea's season then.

 

[Cooldude]

His finest moment was surely the 'who will finish 4th?' thread. Which excluded Spurs as an option, inferring they would in fact finish in the top 3.

Miss that guy. He gave us so much to remember at least.

I still like the West Ham one better, had a random GB style rant about West Ham then proceeded to lose 3-0 at home to them then lost the next couple, too, like a curse

 

[Zidane98]

I still like the West Ham one better, had a random GB style rant about West Ham then proceeded to lose 3-0 at home to them then lost the next couple, too, like a curse

Negredo was breathtaking. Slagged Negredo then scored about 18 in 25 games.

 

[chef]

Chef

Shhh!