Liverpool banter 248340

 

Use our rumours form to send us liverpool transfer rumours.



17 Sep 2024 20:53:00
What do we make of the players recently coming out and talking about fixture congestion?

Allisson spoke about it recently and Rodri has come out saying the players are "close to striking", which I imagine is hyperbole but it's still interesting to see the players speaking now.

Agree4 Disagree0

17 Sep 2024 23:00:07
Good. The clubs and national team FAs should support them.

I saw somewhere that players in top teams can play around 70 games a year. That’s crazy.

17 Sep 2024 23:36:59
Plenty of Wallet's will be crying also. Emlyn Hughes once played 65 competitive games in a season, internationals inc.

Spare a thought for our past Goalkeeper Tommy Lawrence he played on Good Friday away at Burnley and had 17 Stiches in his injured knee after the game, and had to play again the day after on the Easter Saturday, one day's rest then had to play another League game on the Easter Monday, three league games in four days was the norm over the Easter Period in them day's. But he was from an era of " Wooden Boats and Iron Men".

18 Sep 2024 01:42:06
I honestly understand players complaining about the number of matches they are being forced to play. Players will be expected to play upwards of 70 matches a season. Especially now, with the newly revamped 2025 FIFA Club World Cup starting on the 14th of June to the 13th of July. A brand new tournament designed for one main purpose, financial gain for a major federation at the expense of player welfare.

This is compounded with the frequent international breaks in the middle of club football, adding so many inconsequential matches that few actually care about. I mean, what is the point of the Nations League? I doubt any player or fan has gone to sleep at night dreaming about winning the prestigious, career defining., . Nations League?

I suspect UEFA and FIFA will be relieved to see a section of fans ignoring the players concerns, putting it down to a soft attitude, 'back in my day' mentality, I've seen a few spouting. Ignoring the fact that, the ones who benefit the most from these additional matches are UEFA and FIFA officials, no doubt reaping the benefit of more matches. Yet, I never see that mentioned.

The negativity always seem to be on the players, that they should consider it an honor to be a footballer, that they are lucky, ignoring the years of dedication, hard work and perseverance it takes to reach this level. Yet, high ranking officials get a free pass because they lack the profile, can remain anonymous and do zero work for far greater financial reward.

Just my two thoughts, saw quite a few remarks on Twitter, and it was honestly doing my head in.

18 Sep 2024 04:18:07
It is very tone deaf from players to suggest striking over their schedule - not only do they have access to the vest training facilities, nutritionists, doctors, chefs, coaches, but they are also idolized by millions as seemingly doing a job anybody would love to do. And they are being paid an absolute fortune to do it! I couldn’t earn what Rodri earns in a month if I worked for the rest of my life. If you want to talk about the impacts scheduling has on the quality of product then it’s a conversation worth having - does anybody want more mindless international breaks? - but I mean food banks are now ubuquitous, costs have soared above and beyond peoples salary increases, fans are being asking to pay more year on year in the ticket booth, the club shop, or on various TV and streaming platforms. I think some players live in such a bubble that they’re just completely out of touch with reality - maybe they should be forced to do some mandatory ‘real life’ work experience in a restaurant or a school or a hospital, and they’d realize just how unbelievably good they have it.

Do you want to kick a ball around for millions of pounds and retire in your 30’s? I sure would. Imagine having the gall to bemoan your situation because you’re asked to play two games of football in a week. There may well be a genuine argument to be made over scheduling, but multi-millionaires complaining about there work schedule just feels in really poor taste when a lot of regular people really are facing challenges in their life.

18 Sep 2024 06:25:47
Get rid of international football.

18 Sep 2024 07:27:49
People who are well paid should never feel tired or get injured.

18 Sep 2024 08:25:14
Would they take a pay cut to play less matches? I don't think so. Most of us would swap places with Rodri in a heart beat.

18 Sep 2024 09:36:27
If they were getting paid based on match appearances, they wouldn't be complaining about fixtures. As it is, they get paid ridiculous money whether they play a match, sit on the bench or get massages from the physios. There are real workers out there justifiably pushing for wage increases or better work conditions. The pampered PL players should be capable of playing 70 games a season (although much likely to be a lot less as players are rotated and teams go out of cup competitions) . Also, I hate to single him out but goalkeepers should probably be the last ones to complain about fixture congestion and physical burn-out.

18 Sep 2024 09:08:47
They get paid enough = no amount of money stops your body getting run down and getting sick. I'm surprised people still use this ridiculous stick.

Back in my day we played 600 games = yes maybe but we're they at the same pace level and intensity as today? No. So not really comparable.

Perhaps for most people an excuse to not spend time with their family is a positive but the number 1 complaint I've heard from players is they rarely see their kids, they never get to do things like watch their kids in the school play for the example. I know quite a few players who missed their relatives funerals because they were needed to play that evening.

They're human beings man, they're not robots. Then there's also the issue of excessive exercise ruins your joints so many of them also have bone and joint pain by the age of 30.

Finally if these players did decide to prioritise their health, by refusing to play and dropping their wages to match almost everyone would want them out the club because they're not 'committed'

18 Sep 2024 09:51:16
Klopp spoke spoke about fixture congestion a few days after he arrived at the club in Oct. of 2015 and games were no where near being as congested as they are now even tho at the time, the calendar was already congested. Right now, it is getting out of hand that even the players are starting to talk about it openly. Not sure what will change here cos all the footie administrators see are dollar signs hence, they are squeezing every our out of the calendar year to stick games in. Sad.

As for those saying the players should not complain cos of how much they are paid, it is the market that sets what the players get paid. As long as there is demand for football and it's high enuff, the wages will be what they are regardless how many games they play so saying they should take a pay cut is a bit weird.

18 Sep 2024 10:59:52
Hello Nevada, So you would rather work down a "Coal Mine" than be a very well paid professional footballer, I think you will find you will be working alone.

Even though we got beat by Forest, I was absolutely "over the moon" that Arne never gave the proverbial excuse that the players were tired, as Sir Bob Paisley always said "never give players an excuse they can use against you, as if you say there tired they will perform so", that suggests that Arne and Sir Bob both sang from the same "Hymn Sheet".

It's games like Forest that Sir Bob often quoted " I keep reminding the players that when you're lost in a Fog, you must stick Together. Then you don't get Lost". "If there's a secret about Liverpool, that's it".

I will always use "Sir Bob Paisley" as besides being the most successful manager we had, he should have been Knighted for his War Time efforts alone, as he served in a Tank Regiment during WW2, co-incidentally Nevada when he left school, he was offered a career down the Mines or being an Apprentice Professional Footballer! he was turned down by Sunderland Football Club for being too Small in Height, the worst decision that they will ever make, he only got one other offer "thank god" that was LFC.

18 Sep 2024 11:22:17
Talk about going off subject. The original thread was about the amount of games players have to play nowadays, and whether it is excessive or not. Then we have a biography of Bob Paisley's life.

18 Sep 2024 11:40:44
Amazing that the powers that be can position players against fans, or rather fans against the players.

As much as we like to think of the beautiful game, its values etc. it is elite level sport with elite level professional athletes.

We don’t spend $1000s of dollars to go to games or sacrifice sleep to get up at 3am on a work day to watch an amateur team of plumbers.

Like anything, there has to be a breaking point and the players are screaming this loud and clear.

There’s an international comp every second year and you can bet that FIFA, UEFA etc will be finding a way to get another international comp for the year in between euros and World Cup.

70 games in one year if we consider they have maybe a 3-week period when they’re on holiday makes 70 games in roughly 47-48 weeks.

Meanwhile the expectation on these players, as evidenced by these forums, is that they are performing at peak level every second they’re on the pitch.

We need it to make sense and I think we’re stretching it too far.

18 Sep 2024 12:32:08
Clough talked about this a long time ago, he was way ahead of his time and should have been managing England back in the day.

18 Sep 2024 13:45:24
Honestly I agree with them - more and more fixtures added constantly.

The new Champions League format has loads more games, The Nations League? What is the point? Just keep the Euros and World Cup surely?

70 odd games a season is wild - include the training and what, they just never get a week or two off? Honestly doesn't matter what they are paid (that's a different argument tbh), it's simply too much and down to greed - the organisations behind these tournaments just want to make money, end of.

Also, no harm but I don't see how you can compare it to the 70s and 80s etc - yes, those players played some amount of games, but honestly, how many of them still played (and played regular and well) well into their 30s?

The science spoken about means that players look after themselves a lot more than they did but they are not machines - the fixtures are wild and, let's be honest, the 'powers that be' are not currently thinking about reducing the amount of fixtures, but rather how they can expand competitions to make even more money.

18 Sep 2024 15:38:21
I generally agree with the sentiment that players get paid a lot of money for what we as fans see as a dream living. However, the expectations on these players are obviously very large and at clubs like Liverpool and the top international teams fans are expecting consistent high performances day in day out, trophies at the end of every season, beating their rivals, whatever it may be and the reality is the amount of abuse players get in the media and online when they fail to achieve those goals is huge and vastly more than they used to. If I was a player I'd probably be saying "If you want me to perform at that level then you need to give the schedule that allows me to do so". I think an argument can be made that if we're going to continue to ask these players increase their workload then we need to expect drops in performances (which fans on the whole will never do) .

18 Sep 2024 15:43:11
It's not the number of games that's necessarily the problem as much as the sheer amount of travel. Games that were cup replays that were either hone and away have become post season tours. The extra league games have become club world cup games. What was the occasional pre season tour of a country is becoming back to back across 2 continents. Warm weather training camps in Qatar instead of home to work and back home. It's a lot, and it's not great for rest and recovery.

18 Sep 2024 15:44:04
Honestly comparing football in the 70's and 80's to nowadays is hilarious. Despite having some of the greatest players back then, not all of them would make it today when people used to smoke and drink a beer or two before the match, at halftime, hell even during the game! The game is for top athletes nowadays not like back then.

What they get paid is irrelevant to the argument, they are Human beings and not robots, they train 4-5 hours a day every single day and then add all the travel hours for away games and meaningless internationals, the matches themselves and the mental and physical stress of the games. You guys also act like all these players were born millionaires and know nothing about hardship when that couldn't be further from the truth. Half of these players grew up poor, poorer than you and me, but worked much harder than you could ever do to get where they are.

18 Sep 2024 16:03:52
It's the playing and the travelling.
Anyone who has done an extremely strenuous or full combat sport continuously will know the toll it takes on the body. You end up constantly nursing little injuries that never quite go away, strains on weight bearing joints, ligaments etc.
It's pretty easy to tell from the comments who has an idea of that and who the (literal) armchair experts are.
Trying to train on an injury is no fun, no matter how much you're being paid.

19 Sep 2024 20:42:44
007 - comparing it with coal mines is an unfair analogy.

My point was they're still people, just because they get paid more doesn't mean they suddenly become immune to sickness and mental health issues.

If coal miners were paid the same as footballers would you dismiss their complaints about black lung because they're paid well?





 

 

 
Log In or Register to post

User
Pass
Remember me

Forgot Pass  
 
Change Consent