Until people think we aren’t spending enough, at which point they start to expect FSG’s money to be Liverpool’s money…
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When FSG bought the club, we all breathed a sigh of relief as we were looking into the abyss under the previous owners. From day one, FSG said that their ownership model would be self-sustaining. Basically, grow the asset and increase the means of the club, and have the club live off those means. Their profit will be in the value of the asset when they sell up, or sell portions thereof to other shareholders.
The self sustaining ownership model is all reasonable enough.
Eventually, being the smart people they are, they got most things right at the club with manager, recruitment, analysis, etc. Infrastructure was upgraded for long term gain - stadium renewal, and training facilities. Revenue streams were also growing and life was looking pretty good.
Then two things happened along the way, that to my mind, raise legitimate questions about the ownership model.
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Covid. Big hit in income. Are the owners willing to invest more of their own money, besides Redbird, to capitalize on what we have going under Klopp? Doesn’t look likely. So I’m on board with the criticism that they aren’t the bravest of owners, but instead I would use words like steady, rather than eye catching.
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The second big thing that has happened has been the emergence of artificially inflated teams. They were around before FSG, but since they bought us, it has grown out of control. FFP was supposed to rein it in, but Man City skirted proper censure, then the rules were relaxed due to covid. Newcastle have now entered the fray and we will watch their emergence with all the disdain we now have for Man City. Chelsea aren’t exactly the same, but similar, in that they are artificially inflated too.
So, in light of this, what happens?
Well, we have to appreciate that we are not playing on a level playing field. In order for us to compete, we have to be closer to perfection at all levels of the club. I’m a bit gutted for Klopp, as in any other era, we would be truly dominant, but in this era, we are up there, winning some things, but not as much as the financially doped outfits. We will never forget winning the Prem and CL under Klopp, and we all hope there will be a couple more of that magnitude before he moves on.
Since the reality is an uneven playing field, what is the answer?
Several things come to mind. First, we might need to revise expectations on what we can realistically do. I’m like every other fan in that I love a good signing, and we do need some work right now, which I’m sure we be related to what happens with some key players signing new deals or not.
The other thing we can do (the owners actually) is sell up to other owners along the lines of if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them. This would give some excitement initially, with regard to signings and renewal and so on, but deep down many reds will know it’s wrong, and some would bin it off altogether instead of being owned by dodgy owners.
The other thing the owners might consider is what I think they already tried to do, albeit in a cack-handed way with terrible execution and PR. I saw the Super League as an attempt to try to level the playing field at the very top, while also exerting some collective authority over artificially inflated clubs to rein it in. As such, I was never up in arms about the concept, although it needed a lot of work, not least on the pyramid aspect, as having a closed group is wrong. The underlying issues that led to the idea of a Super League have not gone away, and I expect it to come back in some other guise.
Apart from that, I don’t know what the heck we can do.
Box clever and stay competitive, maybe even win some big trophies when a guy like Klopp comes along, but deep down know you are just off the pace due to artificial teams? (This is where we are).
Sell up and get our own sugar daddy? (Ugh)
Or implement something to change the structure of the game at the very top, to level the playing field? Has that opportunity gone? Will it come back in another guise?
FSG are pretty good. I’m happy enough with them. Any failing in our prospects is not so much theirs as it is the failing of the powers that be that have let artificially inflated teams distort the game at the very top.
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Some what ironic you are saying this, when you began the discussion using a blatantly wrong tweet to justify being negative about the owners.
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Great post RedOverTheWater.
Your point 2 is often overlooked but critical for FSG.
The failure of FFP and now letting in another Hydrocarbon cheater (likely to be even worse than the others when it comes to obeying the rules) is surely giving them pause. The endgame isn’t racking up large debts on the hope of an extra title, they want an asset that reliably gives a good ROI which may no longer be via the spending levels to win a title. I think without a superleague or equivalent we’ll see them get more fiscally conservative and I expect they will eschew big signings and may even prefer to cash in on the likes of Mo with the money used to take the squad in a direction towards youth with players bought with an eye to potential resale value. They may not sell us directly but I expect, if things continue as they are with more financial competition in the EPL and no superleague or equivalent, they will divest by diluting their holding.
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FSG did spend money under Dalglish and Rodgers.
Klopp was evidently given funds to sign a defender late in the window and it came on the back of Matip being injured.
Kabak who did come in was quoted as 20m during the window, Carr who was available or it was led to be available was on the run way apparently.
Thing is I think it’s both Klopp and FSG, they were willing to cut Coutinho loose a player who lost talking heads suggested would be a disaster. Liverpool will only buy the very best at their market price not the obscene amounts quoted or players who can improve over time.
It’s not like they didn’t spend 40m on a defender last summer, they brought the eventual mainstay of our defence for a number of years. Elliott if he returns as good as he was progressing is going be a long turn great player for us and Jota who I thought was expensive doesn’t look it so much anymore.
I’d be happy if we spent our entire budget on Jude Bellingham next summer as I think it’s all we really need at the moment but if we were to clear certain players out we may need more.
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Possibly already discussed in this thread, but a question I’ve always had regarding the proposed “super league” and Liverpool’s involvement: given the financial gulf, if you like, between Liverpool and the financially doping clubs of the world, would we realistically be able to compete in such a league, and why would we even want to compete in that league? I don’t know all the financial details of that league so I’m asking genuinely.
I think Mascot used the word “drawbridge” and it captures what I think would happen. The financially doped teams would want to be in the Super League, and they would pull up the drawbridge behind them to preserve their status.
So long as they are in, among the biggest names, they have achieved their aims.
The requirement of the other clubs would be that they didn’t financially cheat. Whatever the FFP or equivalent rules that would be established, I think the clubs would be able to come up with a system among themselves to ensure much better compliance than the governing bodies have managed to do.
It would come at pain of being booted out of the Super League, and so I could more easily see the artificial clubs complying.
All of the teams would be enormously wealthy, but the disparity in usable wealth would be less than now.
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The super league wasn’t going to have any of the ‘financial doping’ clubs. It was going to be a league of the clubs with massive fanbases that bring in the huge television audiences, that was not going to share the revenue stream with the Citehs and PSGs that bring minimal audience numbers.
The idea adjusted a little to include City, in part as a recognition that at this point they actually do have a much larger following. But it was no accident that Citeh were one of the first to bail out.
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Thanks @Arminius and @RedOverTheWater. Makes much more sense now.
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Not sure about the headline, as Scammell is leaving but LFC has not announced any replacement…so it should be “to be new hire”?
Are you sure you want to spend 30m on a single player?
We spent 40m last year, so why would it be 30m this?
Ok sorry, my attempt at joke fail
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That is actually his point. He is arguing against the line that we went without a CB because he was forced to choose and went with Thiago. Mascott is proposing the alternative, that we went without a CB because the man Klopp wanted long term was being earmarked for the following summer (either he was unavailable that summer or we felt he needed another year of development).
The interesting thing with Klopp’s tenure is he has at times stood firm over the player he wanted even if meant not strengthening in the present, but has also, repeatedly, been willing to move on the next on the list. It makes it difficult to read a situation like this, but I think Mascot’s argument is a decent one.
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I think its being oversold personally. I can see the logic kind of but don’t agree.
This isn’t like VvD or Keita, we didn’t HAVE to wait for Konate, if we’d wanted him and only him we could have triggered the clause. We didn’t have his commitment secured like we did when we sorted the Keita deal a year early or were forced to wait 6 months to complete the VvD deal. We could have waited only for him to go elsewhere.
My point was though that there is nothing to say, if we’d brought in a CB that Summer, we couldn’t have brought in another the Summer after. We can’t sit there and prothesize that we would definitely still want and need Konate a year later whilst definitely not needing another CB, after all we have currently got an extra in the form of Phillips and had a deal for at least one CB sorted last winter with Caleta-Car practically at the airport.
IF we only wanted Konate, and IF we were sure he would accept us and only us when we were ready to commit to him it actually proves my point though that we didn’t have the finances made available to complete the deal in the same summer as Thiago and waited a year to complete it. Keep in mind we paid off around £50m in an emergency cash reserve in that year that didn’t need paying off within the year it was taken out and that we really struggled with the CB situation and nearly missed out on CL football because of it. Something that would have cost us £50-100m in revenues.
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If this was the case then it does suggest money was available but there must have been a reason not to spend it.
Personally I reckon they gambled that three senior CBs would be fine with Fabinho as an emergency fourth option. No point spending whatever we had for the sake of it.
January comes around and we’re in a bad way at CB so Caleta-Car is the option that best fits cost and availability wise. It doesn’t happen though it’s down to Marseille rather than money. Short term options fill the gap but we know in the summer a long term target is needed.
That guy is Konate. Didn’t think it was worth triggering his clause the previous summer but now we’ve three long term injuries returning so there’s a stronger than the summer before. We have it sewn up before the window even opens because he was the one we really wanted and both timing and budget aligned to make it work.
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The timeline, based on Klopp quotes mostly, seems to have been;
1; He wanted a 4th CB to replace Lovren, he said so that Summer.
2; There was a lot of talk after the event (when they seem to get updated) that it was Thiago or a CB as we couldn’t sell certain other players such as Wilson and/or Shaqiri.
3; That winter he again said how he’d recommended we bring in a CB that winter (an action and a statement Klopp of all people would avoid making at all costs if possible) but it wasn’t his decision.
4; Matip then joins VvD and Gomez on the injury shelf and we make attempts to sign several CBs very late in the window including having a deal for Caleta-Car agreed but they couldn’t source an appropriate replacement. So nothing could be resolved in the time frame except the Kabak loan who we clearly weren’t sure of.
5; We then bought Konate, brilliant since coming and if you could draw up a blueprint of Klopps perfect CB it’d be him. But he had a release clause, if it HAD to be him why didn’t we trigger the clause the year before? We might not have been certain on him because of his injuries and/or the money may not have been made available.
For me the obvious answer is probably the right one here. The people who run the club, during the financial uncertainty of the pandemic, did not want to commit to more outgoing costs that Summer without it being covered at least partially by incoming costs of sales we failed to make. They gambled on Klopp being able to see us through (which in fairness to them he did even though everything went wrong) and only backed down and made the finances available when all senior CBs were injured.
If we had of brought in a CB that summer or that winter and we had still wanted Konate the following summer I believe we would have still bought him. Assuming he wasn’t the one bought the year before of course.
Were I disagree with the money men on this is buying that CB that Summer was much more important than paying off that credit facility earlier than needed to save a few million in interest. I’ve never had a few million so it’s much easier for me to say than do. But that few million in interest saved really could have cost us tens of millions in CL revenues if other teams hadn’t dropped the ball in their attempts to hold onto top 4.
It could have been a case of the clause only becoming active this summer. It could have been the player saying he felt another year developing before the move would be better. It could have been the family not wanting to move countries at the point in time.
There are plenty of reasons - not all of them are down to FSG not backing or supporting Klopp
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Or more likely, it wasn’t a case we could ONLY sign one CB and it had to be him or nobody. Backed up by the fact we had a bid accepted for a CB who plays on the other side to him.
I thought he was very chilled about the situation and talked about using Fabinho. I know I certainly thought we needed another one and was vocal about that.
Basically, we either didn’t have the money, didn’t feel the need was worth addressing then or the one we wanted wasn’t available at the time. May be even a combination of those but we’ll never really know. But if there was money for Caleta-Car in January then I’m guessing had Klopp really wanted to buy someone that summer and he was genuinely on our list at the time then we would have done so. When all the injuries occur, the goal posts move and so do priorities.
I for one think there might be longer term concerns for Gomez given the deal for Konate and how little we’ve seen of Gomez. He’s very much looking like fourth choice right now. That injury could well have increased the necessity for a higher priority target that perhaps we didn’t feel was the right one the summer before.
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