9 Dec 2012

Accepting mediocrity: LFC not good enough to beat West Ham, apparently. Agree?

Liverpool face West Ham in the Premier League this afternoon in another game the club must surely win to have any chance of finishing in the top four this season. Luis Suarez may be missing, but on paper, the Reds have better quality players throughout the team. Despite this, Anfield legend Jan Molby insists that a draw would be a 'good result'.

In his column for the Liverpool Echo this week, Molby highlighted hammers captain Kevin Nolan as a 'threat', and claimed that West Ham have a team that can compete with 'any in the league'. He further added:

"A draw would probably be considered a good result for the Reds, especially given Suarez is not playing and goals from anywhere else in the team have been few"

Talk about massively lowering expectations (!) Since when did a draw against a *newly-promoted team* become a 'good result' for Liverpool? Irrespective of Suarez's absence, Liverpool should be beating teams like West Ham, and a draw should be seen as a failure, not as something to celebrate.

This kind of attitude allows players to relinquish responsibility for the result. Combine this with Rodgers constant overpraise of the team, and it arguably becomes a real problem.

For the sake of argument: Liverpool draw with West Ham today, and after the game, Rodgers comes out with usual 'we were outstanding! Terrific! Brilliant!' Schtick. Will that be an acceptable response to failing to beat a team that was playing in the Championship last season?

Liverpool fans are slowly being conditioned to accept mediocrity, and this needs to stop. In my view, victory over newly-promoted teams should be non-negotiable, and Rodgers should be hammering home that point to the players, not praising them for failure (as he has done all season).

It's not as if Liverpool need any more draws. The club has seven already this season - the joint highest in the league - and the 14 points dropped as a result have left the Reds languishing in 12th place.

Liverpool must beat West Ham. Anything other than that is a mediocre result, and is just not good enough (IMO).

Jaimie Kanwar


27 comments:

  1. West Ham is on form now. Good Luck for today.

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  2. Couldnt agree more, the fans of this gigantic club are gradually being blagged into accepting mid table mediocrity, we should be blowing teams like west ham away, iam trying to support BR but since his tenure all ive heard is praise for bum results & a lowering of the prestige of this fantastic club

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  3. "Liverpool must be beating WHU, anything other than that is mediocre" Well actually we should be in CL. Molby is seeing this practically. WHU have improved a lot, while we are finding goals scarce, and that too with Suarez out, not to mention an away game, its gonna be difficult and therefore I agree with him. I am against accepting mediocrity, and Molby told it'd be a good result, not an amazing top-of-the-world result, and seeing the situation of our club now, and since its difficult to get 3 points, I'd be happy with one than end up with nothing.

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  4. Maybe you miss the point Jamie. 'Newly promoted' does not neccessarily mean 'not very good'. Perhaps a team having beaten Chelsea 3-1 in their last league game deserve a little more respect. And when has BR praised the players for failure? Most fans can see what he is building, and the progress we are making. Perhaps you see something different, but I know whose opinion I value more.....

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  5. I've never been all that confident playing away against West Ham for some reason (even thought our record there isn't all that bad) and considering we aren't a force to be reckoned with these days, I can understand Molby lowering his expectations. We've always had high ambitions for the last two decades but we have rarely met those ambitions, not even close most of the time. Considering the so-called transition period we are in, maybe it is time to lower those ambitions to match the average-ness of this side. Yes, it eases the pressure but its not as if the other way of having high ambitions has worked consistently well in the last two decades. Gone are the days of where quite a few LFC fans used to say 'next year will be our year' and about time too, as apart from a couple of seasons, we've never really justified having such high ambitions. Our history alone isn't enough now. Ah well, maybe the conditioning is working on me eh but I'm not complaining as its what we are. Never know, it might conjure up some darkhorse/under-the-radar mentality. Hopeful thinking I know. Although I agree with you on the criticism of over-the-top nature of Rodger's praise of the side.

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  6. Miss the point? How? There is no point to miss:

    * LFC have spent £150m+ on the team over the last few years.

    * West Ham's entire team cost less than Andy Carroll

    * LFC have better players, more money and arguably a better manager.

    Even without Suarez, Liverpool should be beating West Ham. Also, newly-promoted might not mean 'not very good', but it definitely means 'not as good' as established Premier League teams like Liverpool.

    If they were as good, WH wouldn't have been in the Championship, would they?

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  7. Traditionally we have always struggled down there, even when we were winning League titles, so in that respect Molby is right.

    At least we don't get chased around the shitheap any more. My, how I pine for the old days.... !!

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  8. As with Hogdson and Dalglish when the teams expectations were reduced the FANS STOPPED GOING TO GAMES.
    Check the stats people, FSG,BR,Jan (sterling is not ready for the first team)molby, and other try the fans will stop coming.
    At that point the revenue will drift and then FSG will have to act do something.
    Please don't get me wrong I back FSG and BR, however they are trying to 'manage fans expectations' it will only harm themselves.

    Just a side swipe WHY DO ANY OF YOU TAKE ANYTHING THAT JAN MOLBY SAYS SERIOUSLY WHEN HE STATED ON ECHO THAT STERLING WAS NOT READY FOR THE 1ST TEAM ?

    Just because someone was a brilliant player for Liverpool and is a fan, it doesn't mean they have any credible record.

    Think about how many Ex red are pundits that were successful coaches and managers.
    The only one that I occasionally listen to is Hansen as regards Liverpool. Although last season he really peed me off with his refusal to be honest in public with his mate Dalglish.

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  9. No respect for westham, face it Liverpool ain't a force no more get over it, top for? Top ten just about lol

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  10. If we are being conditioned for mediocrity, its by results not punditry. The BR project is the long game over a number of seasons. Progress is slow, we only have one out and out goal threat who gets the day off and West Ham are riding the crest of a wave (brilliant win over Chelsea). That is why a draw would be a good result. But today is about getting to 10th, level on points with Norwich and West Ham. A 2 nil win will do it. That is best case scenario. Going into the Christmas period in the top half with this squad and limited goal threat would be an achievement. It also shows progress is happening and might even convince some of our January targets that it would be worth taking a punt on LFC.

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  11. West Ham, the club were in the Championship last season, not the current team.

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  12. Score Stevie. Please.

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  13. Im one of those whos praying for a draw today, of course would of loved to win but just cant see it from where we gonna score, not a single class striker in the squad and shelvey i heard will play up front, may God help my eyes, hes been missing sitters almost every week, cant see us scoring unless from a set piece so a draw is good enough for today and dont forget to thank rodgers and fsg for leaving us in this shape with no strikers while other clubs have 3-4 in their team.

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  14. Is Carroll is allowed to play today?

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  15. 100% Agree with you today JK... since when West Ham become unbeatable team and it's look like Kevin Nolan already become CR7.
    Anything less than 3 point should be unaccepatable BR!!!

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  16. We are experiencing a revolution. My expectations (results wise) are firmly focused on next season when hopefully a lot of the water carriers within our side will be moved on and replaced with technicians.

    We have had such a long succession of defensive coaches who had a preference for workmanlike type players. Houllier, Rafa, Hodgson and Kenny all seemed to prefer lung capacity to real quality. I believe this is about to change over the coming transfer windows. I can see BR getting it right but we must be patient.

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  17. Not at all. In nearly all our games we hd d dominated the play but a serious lack of goals had cost us many points. We just need that problem fixed ...

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  18. a draw will do anything else is a bonus my expectation levels have already reached rock bottom the only way is up

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  19. Awfully condescending and disrespectful article. And I sincerely hope it comes back to bite you when West Hams' confident, attacking championship level' side takes you to the sword like they did last week in the 2nd half against the CL champions. And you simply ain't that level and haven't been for the last 4 years or so. Time to move on and embrace mediocrity for the next few years. Once you fall out of the elite, you can't ride back in there. Can you think of any team that has?

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  20. Don't know what money spent has to do with it. In theory more money can buy you better players, but in our case it didn't. If a club does extremely good business and brilliant scouting, they'd be able to buy a first eleven as good or better than ours for what we've spent on Andy Carroll.

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  21. Liverpool normally get more than their fair share of the ball the game is really going to have to come down to some quality finishing if Liverpool are to win.

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  22. Downing to start, we will be lucky to come away with a point with that tool in the 1st team, GL lads (praying for 3 pts)

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  23. A loss or a draw today should be unacceptable, seeing people in green trousers and red jumpers should be too but walk onto any golf course and you'll see it.

    West Ham may be newly promoted, but that's because they were winning a lot of games and had the winning mentality instilled in them to do it. Add to that an improvement and strengthening of the squad and why shouldn't they believe they can do well? You see I think that's what WH must have at the moment, a lot of belief.

    I'd love to say we do too but I think our players/clubs belief is more focused on the future and not on the now. I think our position in the table points that out.

    Anyway, I hope we do go and stuff them today. Shelvey to get 2 and hopefully 1 for Gerrard. Come on you Redmen

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  24. History doesn't win games. Neither does what happens in training. Football is played on grass, not paper.
    BR better manager than Sam Alladyce? You're dreaming, big time.
    'Liverpool FC' is a club that should have the players to bury most of the opposition, but the harsh reality is that in 2012 it doesn't. That's why we have drawn 7 and lost 4 of the 15 we've played.

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  25. Little naive to think that Rodgers isn't critiquing his players behind closed doors. I'd imagine the public praise is just to present a strong positive narrative throughout the media. I'm sure the players are aware of that.

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  26. Then why bother with training, a manager and strategy? At PL level its more than just a bunch of boys kicking a ball about.

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  27. Molby can join Nicol and Lawreson. They only need one more for a game of cards.

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