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We don’t expect much from the mass media, but really, we should expect something beyond the moronic.
Andrew Collins wrote an excellent piece in Word magazine recently, about just how awful newspapers have become in the slut-fest for ratings. Some good journalists exist at newspapers, but some bad ones do, too, as well as their line managers obsessed with what they believe sells. Tits, bingo, sleaze and people famous for being famous, or having slept with someone famous.
The supposed neutrality of the media is what gets my goat. My allegiances are well known. I don’t try to hide them. And I don’t have agendas against certain managers or clubs.
For example, I’ve written positive things about David Moyes in my latest book (that he does a great job on his budget, although I felt his pals at the LMA gave him the Manager of the Year over the more deserving Roy Hodgson), but if I have a sly dig at Everton, it’s easy for their fans to think “well, he’s a Red” and therefore take it in context.
If I was doing so for the national media, I’d expect them to be bitterly disappointed. Therefore, I have no interest in doing that for the national media.
I am not pretending to be neutral, but I do try to present my serious research as fairly as possible.
For example, people say that I defend Benítez for the sake of it, but when writing Dynasty, I had to devise a fair way to compare Liverpool managers across all eras, as well as the teams and managers they were pitted against. The methods would reveal who did best, and it could have no bias towards those I liked.
It was an education, forcing to me to reassess my beliefs on a couple of managers in particular. It was written before Benítez’s best season (2008/09), but also before the current stumbles. Even so, it showed him to be up there with the best, having spent the least per-player (relatively speaking; various reasons for this are explained).
In some senses I ended up gaining a modicum of sympathy for Graeme Souness; sympathy that his recent outbursts make me sad about. I tried to be fair to him, but even then, he came out as useless in every which way I compared things. But I didn’t stick the boot in and be unnecessarily cruel.
The mess between 1991 and 1994 bears no resemblance to the current situation. Souness could field a team with an average of almost 50% of the transfer record; meaning by today’s standards, the average for each player in the XI would be £16m. Benítez has never got close to this; the only other Liverpool manager who did was Roy Evans.
Souness won 41% of his matches, compared with Benítez’s 57%. Souness had one good cup run, and even then he won the FA Cup facing only one top-division team; Benítez’s FA Cup, with Manchester United and Chelsea defeated along the way, was won against far better opposition, as was his Champions League success, while the two cup finals he lost were to AC Milan and Chelsea; hardly cannon fodder.
So for someone like Souness to imply that Benítez should be sacked is scandalous. He signed just one outright success, Rob Jones, and two or three players who had one, maybe two good seasons.
For those who haven’t read Dynasty, Souness spent the equivalent of £23m on Paul Stewart, £32.5m on Dean Saunders, £25m on Mark Wright, £25m on Neil Ruddock, £22m on Julian Dicks, £20m on Nigel Clough, £15.5m on Michael Thomas and £14m on Mark Walters.
(The record transfer fee is now roughly ten times what it was during Souness’ reign. Each of these totals is taken as a comparison of the transfer record at the time; in other words, as Dean Saunders set a new British record, he’s the equivalent of Robinho. At 52% of the record later in 1991, Michael Thomas’ fee can be taken at £15.5m by today’s terms.)
Yes, that’s how utterly useless Souness was.
(And I’ve not included his less-expensive flops, like Piechnik and Kozma, as I think too much is made of cheap punts that go wrong.)
But they have no shame, these pundits. No shame, and no self-awareness. At least Souness had the balls to manage; but at Liverpool he did it so ****************ing badly. So surely you’d slink off into the sunset and not utter a word?
I mean, has he yet to correct himself for saying a year ago that Yossi Benayoun is not good enough to play for Liverpool?
Some others simply defy understanding.
[For now, the following is for members only]
TOMKINS: CRITICISM IS EASY
Paul Tomkins 09 November 2009
My main problem as an observer of football and its media coverage is just how easy criticism is.
In light of this, it's hard to get facts across. I don't defend Benítez for the sake of it; there are ex-Liverpool managers (okay, probably only one) about whose time in charge I can find precious little positive to say.
I had that problem when writing Dynasty, which covers the last 50 years of Liverpool FC. I did point out some positive aspects of every manager's reign, and I listed extenuating circumstances for the travails each might have faced, where applicable.
However, no matter how I looked at things, I saw five excellent managers – Shankly, Paisley, ************an, Dalglish and Benítez – plus two very good ones, in Evans and Houllier, and one well adrift of the rest: Graeme Souness.
It's not always been possible for Liverpool to win trophies, or finish in the top two. But the good managers averaged a 50% win rate, and the top managers were up around the 60% mark.
Souness, who spent the most money (relatively speaking – I converted all fees over the 50 years to a common system to deal with football-based inflation), fared the worst, at around 40%.
(Incidentally, Shankly averaged only 52%. But he took over at the weakest point in the club's post-war history, meaning he would clearly make a slower start. He also acknowledged that he let his first great team stay together too long, as part of seven fallow seasons; something he atoned for by building a second great team, just before his departure.)
Since writing Dynasty, Benítez has actually increased his win percentage, due to last season's fantastic efforts, and Liverpool rose to be the #1 ranked team in Europe based on five years' worth of results.
So it is with this kind of context that I make my judgements. Six bad games, or even sixteen, don't define a manager; at least, they shouldn't.
Maybe it is the amount of research and analysis I put into projects such as Dynasty that help me see things more clearly than the vast majority of the media, who are so obviously not putting in that kind of effort.
And it's why I find so much criticism of the game's best managers (especially the foreign ones) so unjust. Because baseless criticism is just so easy.
Some examples:
Against Manchester United, Torres was removed at 1-0 and his replacement, N'Gog, scored the game-killer in injury time.
Away at Lyon, with the same situation (1-0 margin, star striker nursing an injury), the same change was made, albeit about seven minutes later in the game. This time the opposition scored a last-minute equaliser that should have been defended better by the men in position.
Some said that the Lyon centre-back, who played a part in the goal, only went forward at the end because Torres was not there.
Which is some statement, given that all losing teams send extra numbers forward in the final minute of a game in which they are one goal behind. What have they got to lose? United did the same at Anfield; Liverpool broke and sealed the victory as a result.
But if you have it in for a manager, you can criticise anything he does; you shape your agenda around any result, irrespective of the performance or the realities of his decision making.
For example, Torres stays on in Lyon and exacerbates the injury. Then Benítez is a fool for risking him.
Some have said that a defender should have been brought on instead of N'Gog. If that happens, and a 1-0 is secured: no comment on the substitution. Yet concede a goal with such a move, and you've been too negative.
Who can say for sure that an extra defender will have the desired effect and provide greater insurance? It can mean retreating and conceding ground; it's a risk with pros and cons. Who's to say that bringing on a striker will lead to more goals, or instead cause you to concede because everyone wasn't behind the ball?
There's no right and wrong way; at least not without hindsight to judge.
What I find remarkable in all the criticism of Benítez is that his previous record supposedly counts for nothing.
Stats, such as having won 1.93 league points per game as Liverpool manager – the exact same figure as Alex Ferguson in his 23 years at United – count for nothing because of a handful of defeats this season. Because of a few recent struggles, some geniuses out there think he should be sacked; no excuses.
Of course, by that token, Ferguson should have been sacked by United in the ‘80s; no excuses. Where would that have left them?
Wenger, after just eight wins in the first 22 league games of last season, should also have been sacked; no excuses. And yet look at Arsenal now. What good would that have done them? Seriously, can someone tell me? (And Wenger's league record is worse than Benítez's in the past few seasons.)
In 2003, Everton finished 7th under David Moyes. A year later, they finished 17th. Therefore, by the logic of Rafa's critics, he should have been sacked; no excuses. How can you drop ten places and expect to survive?
This season, critics said that Liverpool can lose more, but mustn't draw too many. But as soon as two defeats were reached, last season's incredibly low defeats tally was now being used as a tool to criticise.
Up until last season, Liverpool, we were told, must beat the big teams. It's okay beating little teams, but until the Reds can beat the likes of United and Chelsea regularly in the league, they will always be considered unworthy. Last season Liverpool did that; then it was the little teams they had to concentrate on beating.
(And let's face it, if you beat all the big teams, and all the little teams, and all the teams in between, you'd have the best team in history. No-one has ever done that.)
Be more attacking; Benítez's teams are too cautious, we were told. Then last season the Reds were the league's top scorers, and were until recently. But as soon as there's a few low-scoring games, the accusation returns; even though numerous attacking talents were injured.
Any other manager (who hasn't won the league since 2004) would be praised for getting to 86 points and finishing 2nd; in 2007/08, Arsene Wenger was praised to the hilt for the progress of his Arsenal side, which finished 3rd, with 83 points.
Until last season, Benítez was told he'd spent too much time buying squad players (even though the squad needed a complete overhaul), and should have spent more money on the first XI.
Now, with Liverpool having a strongest XI that I believe is as good as any team in England, the squad is too weak. Yet I don't see how he can do it all.
The group would be stronger if some excellent squad players wished to stay; but players like Crouch and Keane felt themselves to be too good for the bench. That's their call.
So, Rafa ‘shouldn't have sold Robbie Keane'. Yet as soon as Keane left in January, Liverpool's goals-per-game ratio virtually doubled. The Reds were top scorers again this season until a few weeks ago, but of course, with so many players out, something will always be missing.
It's easy to say that Crouch and Keane should be there now; less easy to explain how to keep them happy if Torres and Gerrard were fit every game.
Rafa ‘should never have sold Alonso', yet David Moyes was told he had to get rid of ‘want away' Lescott; he had no option.
If players want to move on, you can't force them to have a change of heart. Both managers made huge profits on players who had also served their Merseyside clubs so brilliantly, yet Moyes was ‘doing what was necessary', and Benítez was ‘an idiot'.
Moyes has also got a lot of sympathy of late for his injury crisis; Benítez has had pretty much zero compassion or understanding directed his way.
Liverpool, we hear, are a ‘two man' team. They were also a ‘two man team' last season, and that didn't include Alonso.
Yet four of the current squad (Torres, Gerrard, Mascherano and Reina) are in the current top 60 players in the world, as voted by an expert panel for FourFourTwo magazine. (And I still don't know how you can rack up 86 points when you're a two man team, and one of those men is only fit to start half the matches.)
Apparently Benítez does not buy good players. Yet of those current top 60 players in the world, four were signed for Liverpool by Benítez, and each has had their best years as a player under him. (Alonso is included – his reputation was obviously created at Anfield.) Pepe Reina is listed as the world's 3rd-best keeper, and Javier Mascherano is the world's best holding midfielder.
The average cost of those four ‘top 60' signings (Torres, Mascherano, Reina and Alonso) is £14m; not cheap, but still well below half of the British transfer record.
Now, Alex Ferguson has six signings in the top 60. However, two of those (Ferdinand and Ronaldo) were signed before 2004, and a third, Rooney, was signed that summer, before Benítez had barely warmed his seat or assessed his squad.
(Ronaldo, like Alonso, left England this summer, but as with Alonso, his reputation was gained here.)
More crucially, those six players cost United an average of £19m, and as it dates back further, cost even more in a ‘real' sense.
Apparently Benítez doesn't buy well under £10m, but Reina, Agger, Benayoun, Kuyt, Skrtel, Riera, Insua, Crouch, Garcia, Sissoko, Lucas, Aurelio and Arbeloa all cost less than that amount.
A year ago everyone was criticising Benítez for wasting money on Yossi Benayoun. Now those ‘experts' fail to acknowledge the canniness in paying just £5m for such a clever player.
Incredibly, signing Fernando Torres is now being redefined as a ‘no brainer', whereas at the time many doubts were voiced and eyebrows raised about a player who was not believed to be a prolific goalscorer, moving to a new country. So even that masterstroke gets downgraded to a decision a monkey could have made. Well, no wonder you can criticise a manager, if you're making it up as you go along.
These are the things that irritate me, and so many people I've spoken to, who have told me that they will stop buying newspapers as a result.
Andrew Collins wrote an excellent piece in Word magazine recently, about just how awful newspapers have become in the slut-fest for ratings. Some good journalists exist at newspapers, but some bad ones do, too, as well as their line managers obsessed with what they believe sells. Tits, bingo, sleaze and people famous for being famous, or having slept with someone famous.
The supposed neutrality of the media is what gets my goat. My allegiances are well known. I don’t try to hide them. And I don’t have agendas against certain managers or clubs.
For example, I’ve written positive things about David Moyes in my latest book (that he does a great job on his budget, although I felt his pals at the LMA gave him the Manager of the Year over the more deserving Roy Hodgson), but if I have a sly dig at Everton, it’s easy for their fans to think “well, he’s a Red” and therefore take it in context.
If I was doing so for the national media, I’d expect them to be bitterly disappointed. Therefore, I have no interest in doing that for the national media.
I am not pretending to be neutral, but I do try to present my serious research as fairly as possible.
For example, people say that I defend Benítez for the sake of it, but when writing Dynasty, I had to devise a fair way to compare Liverpool managers across all eras, as well as the teams and managers they were pitted against. The methods would reveal who did best, and it could have no bias towards those I liked.
It was an education, forcing to me to reassess my beliefs on a couple of managers in particular. It was written before Benítez’s best season (2008/09), but also before the current stumbles. Even so, it showed him to be up there with the best, having spent the least per-player (relatively speaking; various reasons for this are explained).
In some senses I ended up gaining a modicum of sympathy for Graeme Souness; sympathy that his recent outbursts make me sad about. I tried to be fair to him, but even then, he came out as useless in every which way I compared things. But I didn’t stick the boot in and be unnecessarily cruel.
The mess between 1991 and 1994 bears no resemblance to the current situation. Souness could field a team with an average of almost 50% of the transfer record; meaning by today’s standards, the average for each player in the XI would be £16m. Benítez has never got close to this; the only other Liverpool manager who did was Roy Evans.
Souness won 41% of his matches, compared with Benítez’s 57%. Souness had one good cup run, and even then he won the FA Cup facing only one top-division team; Benítez’s FA Cup, with Manchester United and Chelsea defeated along the way, was won against far better opposition, as was his Champions League success, while the two cup finals he lost were to AC Milan and Chelsea; hardly cannon fodder.
So for someone like Souness to imply that Benítez should be sacked is scandalous. He signed just one outright success, Rob Jones, and two or three players who had one, maybe two good seasons.
For those who haven’t read Dynasty, Souness spent the equivalent of £23m on Paul Stewart, £32.5m on Dean Saunders, £25m on Mark Wright, £25m on Neil Ruddock, £22m on Julian Dicks, £20m on Nigel Clough, £15.5m on Michael Thomas and £14m on Mark Walters.
(The record transfer fee is now roughly ten times what it was during Souness’ reign. Each of these totals is taken as a comparison of the transfer record at the time; in other words, as Dean Saunders set a new British record, he’s the equivalent of Robinho. At 52% of the record later in 1991, Michael Thomas’ fee can be taken at £15.5m by today’s terms.)
Yes, that’s how utterly useless Souness was.
(And I’ve not included his less-expensive flops, like Piechnik and Kozma, as I think too much is made of cheap punts that go wrong.)
But they have no shame, these pundits. No shame, and no self-awareness. At least Souness had the balls to manage; but at Liverpool he did it so ****************ing badly. So surely you’d slink off into the sunset and not utter a word?
I mean, has he yet to correct himself for saying a year ago that Yossi Benayoun is not good enough to play for Liverpool?
Some others simply defy understanding.
[For now, the following is for members only]
TOMKINS: CRITICISM IS EASY
Paul Tomkins 09 November 2009
My main problem as an observer of football and its media coverage is just how easy criticism is.
In light of this, it's hard to get facts across. I don't defend Benítez for the sake of it; there are ex-Liverpool managers (okay, probably only one) about whose time in charge I can find precious little positive to say.
I had that problem when writing Dynasty, which covers the last 50 years of Liverpool FC. I did point out some positive aspects of every manager's reign, and I listed extenuating circumstances for the travails each might have faced, where applicable.
However, no matter how I looked at things, I saw five excellent managers – Shankly, Paisley, ************an, Dalglish and Benítez – plus two very good ones, in Evans and Houllier, and one well adrift of the rest: Graeme Souness.
It's not always been possible for Liverpool to win trophies, or finish in the top two. But the good managers averaged a 50% win rate, and the top managers were up around the 60% mark.
Souness, who spent the most money (relatively speaking – I converted all fees over the 50 years to a common system to deal with football-based inflation), fared the worst, at around 40%.
(Incidentally, Shankly averaged only 52%. But he took over at the weakest point in the club's post-war history, meaning he would clearly make a slower start. He also acknowledged that he let his first great team stay together too long, as part of seven fallow seasons; something he atoned for by building a second great team, just before his departure.)
Since writing Dynasty, Benítez has actually increased his win percentage, due to last season's fantastic efforts, and Liverpool rose to be the #1 ranked team in Europe based on five years' worth of results.
So it is with this kind of context that I make my judgements. Six bad games, or even sixteen, don't define a manager; at least, they shouldn't.
Maybe it is the amount of research and analysis I put into projects such as Dynasty that help me see things more clearly than the vast majority of the media, who are so obviously not putting in that kind of effort.
And it's why I find so much criticism of the game's best managers (especially the foreign ones) so unjust. Because baseless criticism is just so easy.
Some examples:
Against Manchester United, Torres was removed at 1-0 and his replacement, N'Gog, scored the game-killer in injury time.
Away at Lyon, with the same situation (1-0 margin, star striker nursing an injury), the same change was made, albeit about seven minutes later in the game. This time the opposition scored a last-minute equaliser that should have been defended better by the men in position.
Some said that the Lyon centre-back, who played a part in the goal, only went forward at the end because Torres was not there.
Which is some statement, given that all losing teams send extra numbers forward in the final minute of a game in which they are one goal behind. What have they got to lose? United did the same at Anfield; Liverpool broke and sealed the victory as a result.
But if you have it in for a manager, you can criticise anything he does; you shape your agenda around any result, irrespective of the performance or the realities of his decision making.
For example, Torres stays on in Lyon and exacerbates the injury. Then Benítez is a fool for risking him.
Some have said that a defender should have been brought on instead of N'Gog. If that happens, and a 1-0 is secured: no comment on the substitution. Yet concede a goal with such a move, and you've been too negative.
Who can say for sure that an extra defender will have the desired effect and provide greater insurance? It can mean retreating and conceding ground; it's a risk with pros and cons. Who's to say that bringing on a striker will lead to more goals, or instead cause you to concede because everyone wasn't behind the ball?
There's no right and wrong way; at least not without hindsight to judge.
What I find remarkable in all the criticism of Benítez is that his previous record supposedly counts for nothing.
Stats, such as having won 1.93 league points per game as Liverpool manager – the exact same figure as Alex Ferguson in his 23 years at United – count for nothing because of a handful of defeats this season. Because of a few recent struggles, some geniuses out there think he should be sacked; no excuses.
Of course, by that token, Ferguson should have been sacked by United in the ‘80s; no excuses. Where would that have left them?
Wenger, after just eight wins in the first 22 league games of last season, should also have been sacked; no excuses. And yet look at Arsenal now. What good would that have done them? Seriously, can someone tell me? (And Wenger's league record is worse than Benítez's in the past few seasons.)
In 2003, Everton finished 7th under David Moyes. A year later, they finished 17th. Therefore, by the logic of Rafa's critics, he should have been sacked; no excuses. How can you drop ten places and expect to survive?
This season, critics said that Liverpool can lose more, but mustn't draw too many. But as soon as two defeats were reached, last season's incredibly low defeats tally was now being used as a tool to criticise.
Up until last season, Liverpool, we were told, must beat the big teams. It's okay beating little teams, but until the Reds can beat the likes of United and Chelsea regularly in the league, they will always be considered unworthy. Last season Liverpool did that; then it was the little teams they had to concentrate on beating.
(And let's face it, if you beat all the big teams, and all the little teams, and all the teams in between, you'd have the best team in history. No-one has ever done that.)
Be more attacking; Benítez's teams are too cautious, we were told. Then last season the Reds were the league's top scorers, and were until recently. But as soon as there's a few low-scoring games, the accusation returns; even though numerous attacking talents were injured.
Any other manager (who hasn't won the league since 2004) would be praised for getting to 86 points and finishing 2nd; in 2007/08, Arsene Wenger was praised to the hilt for the progress of his Arsenal side, which finished 3rd, with 83 points.
Until last season, Benítez was told he'd spent too much time buying squad players (even though the squad needed a complete overhaul), and should have spent more money on the first XI.
Now, with Liverpool having a strongest XI that I believe is as good as any team in England, the squad is too weak. Yet I don't see how he can do it all.
The group would be stronger if some excellent squad players wished to stay; but players like Crouch and Keane felt themselves to be too good for the bench. That's their call.
So, Rafa ‘shouldn't have sold Robbie Keane'. Yet as soon as Keane left in January, Liverpool's goals-per-game ratio virtually doubled. The Reds were top scorers again this season until a few weeks ago, but of course, with so many players out, something will always be missing.
It's easy to say that Crouch and Keane should be there now; less easy to explain how to keep them happy if Torres and Gerrard were fit every game.
Rafa ‘should never have sold Alonso', yet David Moyes was told he had to get rid of ‘want away' Lescott; he had no option.
If players want to move on, you can't force them to have a change of heart. Both managers made huge profits on players who had also served their Merseyside clubs so brilliantly, yet Moyes was ‘doing what was necessary', and Benítez was ‘an idiot'.
Moyes has also got a lot of sympathy of late for his injury crisis; Benítez has had pretty much zero compassion or understanding directed his way.
Liverpool, we hear, are a ‘two man' team. They were also a ‘two man team' last season, and that didn't include Alonso.
Yet four of the current squad (Torres, Gerrard, Mascherano and Reina) are in the current top 60 players in the world, as voted by an expert panel for FourFourTwo magazine. (And I still don't know how you can rack up 86 points when you're a two man team, and one of those men is only fit to start half the matches.)
Apparently Benítez does not buy good players. Yet of those current top 60 players in the world, four were signed for Liverpool by Benítez, and each has had their best years as a player under him. (Alonso is included – his reputation was obviously created at Anfield.) Pepe Reina is listed as the world's 3rd-best keeper, and Javier Mascherano is the world's best holding midfielder.
The average cost of those four ‘top 60' signings (Torres, Mascherano, Reina and Alonso) is £14m; not cheap, but still well below half of the British transfer record.
Now, Alex Ferguson has six signings in the top 60. However, two of those (Ferdinand and Ronaldo) were signed before 2004, and a third, Rooney, was signed that summer, before Benítez had barely warmed his seat or assessed his squad.
(Ronaldo, like Alonso, left England this summer, but as with Alonso, his reputation was gained here.)
More crucially, those six players cost United an average of £19m, and as it dates back further, cost even more in a ‘real' sense.
Apparently Benítez doesn't buy well under £10m, but Reina, Agger, Benayoun, Kuyt, Skrtel, Riera, Insua, Crouch, Garcia, Sissoko, Lucas, Aurelio and Arbeloa all cost less than that amount.
A year ago everyone was criticising Benítez for wasting money on Yossi Benayoun. Now those ‘experts' fail to acknowledge the canniness in paying just £5m for such a clever player.
Incredibly, signing Fernando Torres is now being redefined as a ‘no brainer', whereas at the time many doubts were voiced and eyebrows raised about a player who was not believed to be a prolific goalscorer, moving to a new country. So even that masterstroke gets downgraded to a decision a monkey could have made. Well, no wonder you can criticise a manager, if you're making it up as you go along.
These are the things that irritate me, and so many people I've spoken to, who have told me that they will stop buying newspapers as a result.