I don’t think they will. I think that’s a wildly optimistic appraisal.
Transfer spending was significant down after a quarter of a season with empty stadiums, and an expectations fans we’re going to back in the autumn. You think that clubs are going to go mad after a year of no gate revenue?
Self sufficient is fine. But we are over cautious, we don’t spend till the money is in the bank. That leafs us to not spending what we could have hence profits that dwarf the next best by more than double. This isn’t a request for FSG to do City style splurging. This is a request to actually take a risk that we will have money in the bank that almost certainly will be there when we need it or soon because the club is making it.
That’s the financial year before, 2020/21. I am talking revenues for 2021/22 that look like they will be back to normal. Most clubs already run at a loss its clubs like us that MAY try to recover the losses of the previous year before being active that will suffer. Most clubs will take the loss on the chin and operate in the 2021/22 financial year with the revenues from that year like they normally would.
You mean not this summer coming, but the one after? 2022? Yeah, I think things might be recovering by then.
Although I don’t think most clubs run at a loss. I think most broadly try and break even. There aren’t that many where an owner is willing to bankroll endless losses.
Have you listened to the Anfield Wrap interview with Rory Smith? It’s subscriber content, but I think if you download the app you can get free tokens and access it.
Touches on a lot of this. Rory Smith feeling, based on talking to people in the game, is that it could be 2-3 years before we’re back to normal.
Finances don’t go on Calendar years. The summer coming up 2021 will be in the season 2021/22 accounts which are set to be normal.
All that we can infer from that table is that if we spend more money we could be better.
Or worse.
I really hate that phrase. To me speculation is akin to gambling, and we don’t need to do that. The club is run prudently and it has worked. We’re not struggling this season because of a lack of investing but because of a severe injury crisis on top of other factors. We have seen the likes of City and Utd in previous seasons suffer from losing just one key player.
It’s incredibly harsh language and an obvious exaggeration but that table shows us we’ve been experiencing the long con. All those years being told how close we were to being in trouble with FFP, tightening our belts, waiting season after season without a quality 4th attacker, without cover at LB, without sorting out the long term injuries at CB. Yet every year, despite costs to training facilities and stadium upgrades which don’t even count towards FFP, we came nowhere near close to being in trouble with FFP in those years. That period includes the only major spending during Klopps time here too so after the next two lots of accounts the 5 years in question will reflect even more poorly than that table does.
That’s more of a loss than I expected to see from the premier league, to be honest, but I still see this as the wrong hill to die on.
Firstly, let me be clear that when I say most clubs I’m talking about most clubs, not just looking at the Premier League. The premier league is 20 clubs from an eco-system of hundreds, that form what we can call the transfer market. The vast majority of those clubs have been hit by covid, few will have money to spend, and if we are talking about what kind of summer we can expect, thats important.
The Premier League is a bit of a loon pit, because clubs will go nuts trying to establish themselves in the division, because the owners believe that greater rewards will come from regular premier league participation, or when they come to flip the club it will be worth more as an established PL Club.
The outrageous figures next to Villa, Brighton and Fulham are demonstrative of clubs either looking to establish themselves in the league or preserve their status. They aren’t directly comparable with us.
We know there are bonkers clubs, like City, Chelsea, and quietly Everton. In Everton’s case they are trying to force their way into the top four.
There are also some covid losses in there. Half the figures go to 2020, and that will have whacked a lot of clubs for six.
However what I take from that table is that FSG are right to believe there is a better way to run a football club than throwing money at it. There is one club on that table that has won the European Cup during the timescale shown. FFS there are only two that have even reached a final - and they are both making a five year operating profit.
What has Arsenal’s £200m deficit got them? In fact Arsenal are a good case in point here. How much of that money is down to burnzing through three managers in that time? Let’s not get into the trap of criticising the club for being sensibly run and having a sound plan that delivers.
We’ll have to see what kind of figures come in for Liverpool for this season without any match day revenue, but I suspect they won’t be pretty. But I still think Klopp’s is the key figure here. The owners will back him when he needs backing, pandemic notwithstanding, but the choice not to buy is most likely his.
Sorry disagree. Klopp has had to make do with imperfect cover for years. What has tripped us up this year is we’ve had to rely on it. There’s no way with the fixture congestion and injuries to starters that the usual reliable 14/15 outfielders can see us through week in week out. We’ve needed to either rotate or run people into the ground. Those have either then ended up picking up injuries themselves or falling out of form because of it. But out of form Mane and Firmino are still better than Shaqiri and Origi. Matip when you need to rely on him for a run of games isn’t going to handle it physically. Our midfield is chocker block full numbers wise but we still can’t rest Thiago and Wijnaldum for long stretches of games because we’ve got CMs covering CB (a predictable and preventable situation outstanding for several seasons) and the CMs left can’t be trusted to get out of sickbay without twisting their ankle. The depth, the cover, in this squad has been an anchor weighing us down but we’ve been so amazing we’ve still achieved. Now we need it the quality and options just aren’t there.
So that table shows that every club to give accounts up to the end of last season made huge losses over 5 years, with the exception of Tottenham. Of the only other clubs who have made a profit in this period none of them include last season’s figures.
Also, a 5 year period that shows a profit at the end of it in no way refutes the fact that we’ve sailed close to the wind on FFP compliance (a rolling 3 year period) at any point, particularly early on.
This is turning into a deja vu conversation, but you, yet again, have jumped the conclusion that Klopp wanted to spend more money and FSG didn’t allow.
At some point, you are going to have to have the courage of your convictions and actually call out Klopp for the way he wants to work as a manager.
Cover has been imperfect in previous years, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t getting backing and it didn’t stop him addressing many of those issues on a temporary basis through the season to get us where we needed to be.
Despite the pandemic we still brought in that elusive 4th forward, a world class midfielder and a promising left back last summer. Quality wise we came into this season stronger than previous years. In January the club were prepared to spend another £30-40m to bring in a recognised CB but the selling club pulled out when they couldn’t get a replacement.
City struggled last season just by losing Laporte. what we have had to contend with has been much greater.
From what I remember reading last season, the expectation was that it was always going to be this summer that we would be looking to spend big - I think because we were moving into a new 3 year cycle. With Covid hitting I don’t know if that has changed planning there, but with having a net spend last season we could be prepped for something big.
I’d really like to see that table readjusted for points accumulated during the last five years.
It’s disingenuous to set a five year average profit/loss but juxtapose it with a table snapshot from one date in a single season, and a season which is throwing up some freak issues at that.
Based on the last five seasons we are top or second.
We have run at a loss once (just under £20m in 2015/16) in the last 6 years. I don’t see how. That is even including costs towards Academy, Stadium and training facilities (that all saw massive investment during those 6 years) that don’t count towards FFP.
Running at a loss isn’t the only way a club can breach FFP.
You’ve got absolutely no evidence that Klopp wouldn’t have wanted to improve the squad faster than he’s been able to. The only time he’s ever broke poker face on the matter was this winter. There’s a million miles between Klopp not wanting to work at a soulless corporate toy of an overgrown child at someone else’s whim like City and what is happening here. Nobody is calling for reckless, carefree spending. Just it’s disappointing that a club that makes some of the highest global revenues, with one of the largest Fab bases in the world, with one of the best talent developing managers ever, one of the best recruitment teams ever and achieving real success that is making huge money for its owners still isn’t actually able to spend what it earns till after its earned it. By which time it can’t, because its another accounting year.
Explain how else it can then for me.