I am literally referencing the accounts from the Pandemic, the reality of how it affected us and yet we still had room to maneuver we didn’t take despite Klopp being on record that he recommended we needed to.
It was not possible to know the extent of any room for manouevre at the time. Had we acted as you suggest we should have done we would not have qualified more for the CL than we did and we’d have less revenues now. So you appear to be advocating for the owners to have put us in a worse position now. Forgive me but that’s a fairly odd argument to make.
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You’re referencing the accounts, but only the actual monetary value outcomes, but not the potential long term financial effect on all FSG properties, not knowing how long the pandemic would last for, not knowing how long crowds would be absent for etc.
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You missed the bit where we could have won trophies that year? Isn’t that more important? And if I could predict this was the way the accounts would go back then I’m pretty sure the owners could. My stance on this hasn’t changed I’m not reacting to the new accounts the new accounts are confirming what I’ve been saying for over 18 months.
Are you trying to get me to feel sorry for FSG? During the pandemic their value has increased by 50%, they’ve received hundreds of millions buy in of Red Bird in exchange for 10% and they’ve found enough spare cash to buy a new sports team for around £600m. I think the potential long term financial effect on their properties was fine. But, again, wasn’t saying FSG needed to fund us (although they could have funded us anywhere up to and probably over £200m if they’d wanted to within FFP) but just allow us to pay our debts a bit slower even if that meant paying slightly more in interest per year or declare slightly worse profits/losses.
By this you can only mean the FA Cup or Champions League. New signings in January weren’t going to get us back into the League Cup we’d been kicked out of in October and they weren’t going to suddenly rescue our league form.
The FA Cup we got beat 3-2 by United at the end of January. I don’t remember the game but not exactly a ridiculous result in a competition we hadn’t won for 15 years.
For the Champions League we lost to Real Madrid in the Quarters. I’m not sure we have a divine right to win that tie but again I can’t remember how those games went.
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Probably because we haven’t sold anyone for £140m since then and had already built a squad capable of back to back CL finals and a league title win. Doesn’t take a genius to work out that spending will slow the longer a manager is in charge because they’ve built their team over a number of windows and now supplement it with select additions. The wholesale changes have been made.
By maximising potential you mean buying more players right? Because a bigger Anfield helps win trophies. Better training facilities help win trophies. A world leading data, nutrition and coaching team help win trophies. Just look at the credit given to the neuroscientists after the league cup win. Do these things not count? Is the only way to improve by buying players because Klopp has been on the record numerous times to say that is not his belief.
We won the CL, bought no one and then put together one of the greatest league campaigns in top flight history. Tell me honestly, we’re you bother one ounce that we didn’t win the League Cup or FA Cup that season. Or the season before when we picked up the Champions League? Of course not, none of us was.
You mean like Diaz? A player they sanctioned the move for earlier than planned because he was the one we wanted. We’re also able to do that because we were more prudent previously. Yes we paid back loans but that’s the thing with loans, at some point you have to pay them back. Whether that is early, as planned or some kind of extension, they will need to be paid and that will affect what is available to the club. As you say, the sooner you do it, the less dead money you pay on interest. Spend that on players then, then you don’t get to spend as much later on which will no doubt then be moaned about because they’ve paid off some of these loans so why don’t they just borrow more so we can buy another player or two.
Put it this way, we could have got Caleta-Carr the summer Lovren left. Would he have made the difference that season given we lost three other centre backs? Maybe, but would he alone have been enough to bridge the 17 point gap to City? And then we wouldn’t have got Konate last summer. Of the two, which increases your chances of winning stuff? Caleta-Carr maybe for that one season but over the next five years, it’s probably Konate which is why they did what they did. Short term pain, long term gain.
And this is what you continually fail to see. Everything is about now, now now and as a club we cannot think like that because we don’t have the money to get deals wrong, as Klopp continually points out. We have to get the right guys if we are to compete with City and Chelsea and that sometimes means waiting. They aren’t investing in all these data scientists to then chuck that competitive edge out the window by being impulsive. You know who does do that? Barcelona, and look at the mess they’re in.
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Well first it didn’t have to be recruitment in the winter it could have been in the summer. Second at the start of January we were top of the league and only 7 points behind by the end of the month. We’ve been further behind this season. And why couldn’t we have won the Champions League last year or the year before? We don’t have a divine right but we have the best manager and can field a starting 11 a match for anyone.
Why does it have to be wholesale? Why do people constantly take things to extreme to try and make others look ridiculous on here? I’m actually talking about the recruitment we did actually end up doing. Predicted as needs by the fans and moves eventually (when able) made by Klopp so you can assume he agreed but had to wait. The accounts show he didn’t have to wait.
It can be all the above PLUS buying the best players. Which is what has happened just a lot slower than it could have.
Actually yes I’m extremely bothered that so far Klopp, one of the best managers we’ve had, so far has 1 CL, 1 PL and only one domestic cup. His legacy should be much stronger by now. Even if we win the quad this year its only what this guy and this squad deserve.
And I bet this years accounts in two years time will actually be phenomenal despite Diaz and Konate being bought.
We don’t know that was the case. Or that whoever we bought instead of Konate (if it really couldnt be Konate and couldnt be Konate plus another, both of which are actually guesswork) couldn’t have been just as good.
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So it all boils down to wanting to spend more money. Money we had borrowed and chose to pay back instead of spending it at the time and then paying it back later thus affecting our ability to spend now all in the hope of picking up an extra League Cup.
In Klopp’s own words he thought it would take us four years to win a title. Not THE title, A title. He’s done the two biggest ones going, a league cup and is looking likely he’ll do more before his time here comes to an end. He knew it would take time to get us competitive, let alone to the pinnacle. His legacy will be just fine.
Genuinely can’t believe anyone that has supported the club for more than five years would be disappointed at the success we’ve in that time. Comfortably the greatest time since the 80’s.
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And in a wholly more difficult competitive environment.
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No it boils down to meeting the needs the squad had when we needed and were able to giving Klopp more chances to win trophies.
It wouldn’t have impacted spending now. And it didn’t have to be that option anyway. We were well within our rights and abilities to simply declare a higher loss than the one we did well within FFP.
Plus possibility of retaining the League Title, having a chance at a pair of FA Cups, winning a CL or two… but yeah sure misrepresnt what I’m saying to make it seem like I’m being ridiculous.
And could have been better. The on the pitch side of things has been unnecessarily held back by the off pitch side of things. The accounts we were all led to believe would be financial armageddon have turned out to be anything but. They in fact show we’ve been paying off debts at a fast rate, kept our interest payments rock bottom, keeping the wage bills (which were supposedly where all our money was going) within a healthy margin, continued with the infrastructure work and FSG have become significantly richer.
You don’t need my help here.
You say it’s not about spending money on new players and then dismiss anything that isn’t that. You moan about the on field stuff being held back by finances because we’re paying back debt but then say having that debt wouldn’t affect our spending now.
You won’t come out and say it directly but everything you do say points towards you being annoyed that the owners don’t spend their own money on the shiny new players you want. Meanwhile the rest of us are pretty happy watching consistently one of the best sides in the world for the past four years bar an injury hit few months last season.
These times won’t last forever, I suggest you try and enjoy them.
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I’d like to propose a motion that AnfieldRdDreamer has to change his name to AnfieldRdMoaner.
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Don’t come here adding relevant context to the discussion. We could have won everything going if the pesky cheapskate owners had just bought all the players we have now five years ago instead you know.
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I think it is deeply regrettable that this sport is increasingly becoming about competing ownership entities rather than the clubs themselves. Strictly speaking, ARD is probably correct that FSG could have chosen to inject money into the club to move up the timeline on deals like Konaté and Díaz. But at the end of the day do we really want to live in a world where it’s FSG FC versus UAE FC versus KSA FC versus…?
This line of reasoning benefits massively from hindsight, which wasn’t available when these decisions were being made. However, I do think it’s a fair description that FSG are risk-averse and slow to make major decisions, but that they act decisively once a decision is made. What’s clear by now is that they will rarely if ever chase short-term outcomes to the possible detriment of long-term planning. How much extra money do you expend with the very real chance of coming away with no additional trophies? And, frankly, why develop the club apparatuses and infrastructure to the point of being the envy of the footballing world just to throw the principles and valuations out the window that got you to the pinnacle to begin with? Europe is littered with clubs that have overextended themselves trying to stay on top. Is that not an earnest cautionary tale?
IMO staying out of debt, minimizing interest payments, controlling wages, and investing in infrastructure should be seen as causes of our success, not restraints to it.
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It’s odd that we are doing this again!
Best to just stick with the initial sentence… FSG probably about the best owners we could have, but not without some mistakes.
Almost all fans are happy with them, and this season we have won one competition and going strong in the other three. We have weathered a covid storm, the stadium has grown, the training facilities are top notch, we have a world class manager, recruitment team and playing squad.
There’s a hell of a lot to like.
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yeah but…
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