Liverpool legend John Barnes insists that the reds style of play, while suited to European competition, is ineffective in the Premiership and that the reds best hope is to finish 4th.
The former reds winger is in Dubai ahead of a sports business conference and had this to say on the reds campaign:
“It is interesting how well they are doing in Europe and I suppose the way they play is better suited for Europe.”
“It is very difficult…what you want from any team is consistency and that is where they fall down because when they play well they do play well.
“Put is this way, look at the way Arsenal play — at their height — they are better than Chelsea, but they are not consistent and that is why Chelsea are the best team because they play consistently well and that is the key.”
“Okay, with Liverpool it is disappointing but I like Rafa Benitez and I think that everyone has to stick together. You can see the outcome of Manchester United supporting Alex Ferguson 16 years ago.
“I think football is too quick to judge — ‘this is not right, change the manager, change the players’.
“Liverpool are the fourth best team in the country and that is where I expect them to finish.
“I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon. The system of squad rotation worked when they won the European Cup but now it isn’t working. You have to support the manager in every decision he takes.
“While I may not be a fan of it because as a player we want to play every game, I cannot make a judgement on it. It is hard when you are not there Monday to Friday.
“Football fans, myself included, will say ‘you should do this, he should play’, but the manager is there Monday to Friday and he knows better than me — I back him all the way.”
Barnes also suggested the reds have lost their appeal in the football market.
“When players become available now it is hard for Liverpool to attract the best players in the world. They used to be able to get the best players and now they can’t — that’s a fact of life.
“When the best players become available, unfortunately they are going to choose Chelsea and Manchester United so it is going to be hard for any Liverpool manager.”
I pretty much agree with most of what Barnes said. Although I think the reason why we may not be able to get so-called superstar players is more down to our available transfer funds, and the clubs philosophy than a lack of prestige value. I think its all to easy to say were good in Europe but not in the league, but really you look at the players we’ve got, and they should have been good enough to get more points than we’ve got now. After reinforcements in summer we are still too reliant on Stevie. Gonzalez and Pennant are decent players, but can you imagine Chelsea or Man U going for them? I cant see us not getting top four, who else is there?
I think Johnny boy has been working for channel 5 too long listening to the likes of Pat Nevin and Joe Royle, who did they play for?
I tend to disagree on the, not suited to the Premier League. look at the run we had last season. After a normal rough start to the season we went on a tremendous run and ended up less than 10 points behind chelsea, amassing a tally that would have won the league a few years ago.
the difference now is that, our players just arnt performing. Stevei had near on 10 goals this time last year, garcia has been more wastefull than ever, Pepe hasnt been doing too good and our defence has been abismal, apart from Finnan.
Then take in to account that Aurelio, gonzalez, Kuyt, Pennant and Bellemy are either learning to play in the prem or learning to play with new players, and with Kewell out, who’s a big player for us when fit, and the fact that we’ve already played the (apart from us) top 5 teams in the league away from home, Id say we’re looking pritty. Yeah sure it could be better but look at it this way, we’ve had a terrible start to the season, have loads of new players who are struggling at the moment. we’re only 3 points of 3rd place, come January I can see the team and new players gelling better and us going on a run again. Come the end of the season we’ll walk in to the champions league again.
I mostly agree except with the last argument, I mean who are the best players? Arguably Latin, whether South American or European, for various reasons they don’t particularly thrive in the Premiership, nor do they really need to go there for economic reasons as Italy and Spain are easier to adapt to and have equally strong leagues. Historically, Liverpool has never really had foreign “stars”. I’d much rather we stuck to a model of youth development, good British players and talented foreigners from the smaller leagues who are better value for money and probably easier to manage.