Have Liverpool played a blinder? Have they got the money and the players and the infrastructure to be the biggest club in the world?
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How Liverpool have positioned themselves to challenge Real Madrid
Now I’m going to start this by saying I was wrong about FSG. My original thoughts were that they came in and did an incredible job to steady the ship after the disaster era of Hicks and Gillette.
They intelligently adopted a data approach to running the club, appointed an incredible manager in Jurgen Klopp who brought great success, and they sustainably improved the training facilities, stadium and infrastructure. It’s a quick summation of what is in fact an extremely difficult set of tasks.
I probably should have been more appreciative of these facts, but being a fan and being greedy, I instead glossed quickly over those feats and moved immediately on to moaning about a perceived under investment in the squad.
The crux of my consternation was that when we had a 12-18 month period where we were the best team on the planet (May 2019 – January 2021, Champions League winners 2019, world club cup 2020, Prem 2020) we completely threw all of our good work away with pointless penny pinching.
Take January 2021, VVD and Gomez had just been crocked for the season and Joel Matip was mere moments away from joining them. We had sold Lovren at the start of the season and were left with precisely no one to play CB. Cue a shambolic window where we brought in Ben Davies and Ozan Kabak as a comedy duo.
Signed for peanuts, they would turn out to be utter dross and eventually dropped for the cult heroes Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips – a tall little boy and and a Cruyff-turning tug boat. Despite their best efforts, the season nose dived, we barely scraped Champs League and until this season we never quite scaled the same heights again.
For context, I had been brought up witnessing the Man Utd method – that once you had attained significant success you leveraged that success to attract and purchase the best players available, which itself continues a virtuous cycle of success and recruitment, which gradually reinforces itself to such a degree you are no longer a successful club, but a veritable monolith in the game and an institution that simply wins on a regular basis. Y
et when Liverpool attained Premiership and European Cup success after decades of hurt, they then bought a Championship journeyman and loaned some non-descript eastern European prospect when we needed proper reinforcement. I saw a short sightedness that only venture-capitalist Americans can offer. The writing was on the wall. They had attained the success, through canny transfer dealing and a legendary coach, but now they intended to shut up shop until a rich Middle Eastern prince decided he wanted to play Football Manager.
The subsequent transfer windows reinforced this idea in my mind, sometimes to a greater extent, sometimes to a lesser extent. I felt FSG were putting in the minimum transfer fund to maintain Champs League qualification, but would always fall short of City’s spending and, more recently, Arsenal’s, and as a result struggle to attract the talent to reasonably continue challenging.
I also had a nagging suspicion they might be taking money out of the club. FSG had stated they do not extract money through payment of dividends, a la the Glazers, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether they might be paying themselves a wage for ‘consultancy’. This is an inefficient means of remuneration, but would be easily obfuscated within the accounts, particularly within an organisation that has numerous employees paid millions of pounds.
But then I read ‘How to Win the Premier League.’ Within this tome, dedicated to Liverpool’s data driven revolution, it became clear that the budget was not some arbitrary figure handed down by American money men, but instead a complex equation of resources worked out like any other scientific endeavour. And those PhD physicists would not have been unaware of millions of pounds disappearing down a wage black hole. It also meant that FSG were not coming up with unnecessarily frugal budgets and expecting magic from their data department, but instead simply working within their means. Theirs was a simple approach – the club had to be sustainable. You can spread your butter any how you want, but you have a specific amount to spread, so spread cautiously.
However, there was still an issue I couldn’t work out, if Liverpool worked within their means, why had our spending remained stagnant as our income went up?
In the period during and after their success of 2019, Liverpool’s annual turnover ballooned and remained very high. In the 2 years between 2017 and 2019 the turnover increased 50% from just over €400m to just over €600m. We have continued to always be in the top 10 clubs for highest turnover (peaking at no. 3 two seasons ago), and yet we have spent the subsequent 5 years spending like a mid table prem outfit. It didn’t add up.
Of course Jurgen had been telling me the answer the whole time, I just didn’t hear it…
Every summer window since our last Premiership title I would eagerly await Jurgen’s end of season press conference for hints as to what we had planned for the summer. He almost always pooped immediately on my parade. “The best business we can do is keeping hold of our best players…”
It was always the same, an eagerness to promote the simple fact that players were willing to hang around instead of ditching us for our big spending rivals. Big woo. Except I rather missed the point. When a club like Liverpool goes from being top 4 hopefuls drifting between 8th – 4th, to Premiership and European champions, something happens. All those players who signed for your club from relegated clubs and mid table European or English clubs, suddenly realise they are some of the best players in the world. Salah, Firmino, Mane, Wijnaldum, Henderson, Fabinho, Trent, Robertson, VVD, Allison, they were all due either reasonable (VVD/Allison) or significant (everyone else) pay rises. You can only keep the best players in the world at your club if they are paid like some of the best players in the world.
All of that lovely extra turnover was immediately hoovered up by increases to wages and signing on fees. Just keeping the players was as much as Liverpool could do. There were players who left when their contract ended or were sold creating a transfer budget, but the big bucks were for the state owned and Oligarch operated clubs.
Now, this realisation didn’t much improve my attitude toward our chances of success, but it at least made me feel a bit better. We were going to struggle to compete, but it had been achieved before with excellent coaching and recruitment, and I just had to hope it would happen again. And it did. 2 seasons ago we released or sold the entirety of our ageing but well paid midfield. Henderson, Thiago, Fab, Milner and Ox all left to be replaced by Endo, Gravenberch, Mac Allister and Szoboszlai. That upgrade, combined with sensible spending on Konate, Gakpo and Diaz and the leftover world class players of Allison, VVD and Salah allowed us to climb back up the hill to the hallowed land of the title.
I knew what happened next. Wages would balloon and the transfer budget would contract. Except instead of the expected sensible approach for a couple of FB’s at reasonable prices and a desperate hope we could punch above our weight, news broke of Liverpool’s plans on breaking the British transfer record to attract a world class talent. This was not in the script. This wasn’t what happened. Except, there was a difference between the success of 2019/20 and today, Liverpool are not the club of old…
During the previous round of success Liverpool utilised the revenue growth to invest in infrastructure. Unsurprisingly, this had an impact on transfer dealings, but most of the borrowing for these improvements was long term, meaning the short term impact was much reduced. However, the £50m training ground is long since finished and paid off and the second instalment of the stadium enlargement finished 18 months ago. Anfield now holds over 61,000 and much of that increase is high earning corporate and general sale tickets.
Ticket sales for 2024/2025 are projected to earn over £115m, a near £40m increase from 2019. Moreover, Liverpool have steadily increased their commercial dealings in the last 7/8 years, rising £36m in the last 12 months alone, up to £308m as of 2024. In 2017 it made up less than 10% of total income, now its over 50%.
Additionally, Liverpool’s 3 Champions League finals in 5 years were not just significant earners on the bottom line, but advertisements to the world for the quality, success and heritage of the club. Whilst the institution of Manchester United diminished, Liverpool rose to take its place. This is not to say Liverpool has overtaken Utd, but simply to say that those new territories that football has grown into in the last decade, have watched a successful Liverpool team and a mediocre Utd one. This equates to new fans and new revenues. City might be a financial behemoth, but domestically it still resides several places blow England’s top clubs in terms of support.
Previously, Liverpool were not able to carry the burden of a world-class squad whilst simultaneously being aggressive recruiters in the transfer market. Not without risking financial disaster or significant debt. However, that scenario has changed. and its come at a fortuitous moment.
Manchester City have already spent £200m in the last transfer window and I’m not sure their first team is better than Liverpool’s. Also they have 115 charges hanging over them. Plus Pep is winding down and there are no obvious candidates to take over who you would expect to have equal success.
Utd are at their lowest ebb in 50 years, and financially unable to spend wildly to quickly change their fortunes. Arsenal represent a bigger threat, with a world class squad at a good age and finances to improve.
However, I believe that FSG and Liverpool’s executives have realised they have a near unique opportunity. They have the structure and squad to challenge for European and domestic trophies, and the finances and PSR leverage to invest. If they get that investment right, which is a big if, then they might just be able to put together a squad that could start a dynasty. A dynasty that recruits from a position of strength, utilising its financial weight and historical pull to attract the best talent in the world.
The Premiership is the preeminent league, in the biggest sport in the world. If Liverpool can become the best and most successful club in that league, then they can become a club that could rival even the Real Madrids of this world, and at last I think they have the ambition and might to try….
Ed Ern
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Liverpool fans want applause for being normal now?
Howard Jones from Tuesday morning’s mailbox somehow thinks we should all write in to the mailbox and applaud Liverpool’s supporters for, eh, showing support to one of their players. Of course we’re not going to point that out, as that’s WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO as a supporter.
And it still took a telling off from Klopp for Liverpool’s supporters to actually support one of their own. Remember lads: You’ll Never Walk Alone. Unless you join another team. Racism we can tolerate, but fulfilling a contract is so far over the line, we simply have to boo you.
Kim Johannesen
…No, Howard Jones. We will not be praising Liverpool fans for not booing Trent Alex. We are minded of the old Chris Rock skit about how some folk expect to be praised for never having been to jail:
“Good! You ain’t s’posed to go to jail!”
You’re meant to applaud your own players. Even if they’re leaving. ESPECIALLY if they’re leaving, in fact. It’s called being a supporter. The fact you expect praise for not booing and jeering a departing player (again) is peak Liverpool fan! Congratulations, I guess?
Lee, not the Liverpool one (obviously)
Liverpool tragedy and other stuff…First- stunned, disheartened and saddened at the act of violence that injured so many on what should be a very happy occasion. From winning in a covid season — to this – Liverpool as a team and city – can’t catch a break. Not to mention Hillsborough and the abhorrent treatment by press, police and the government that ensued.
Nice touch from Everton, though, as always, in support of fellow Liverpudlians.
Now to the mundane. Does Ten Hag going to Leverkusen create a mass exodus of players – or will be try to mess with old adversaries? Will he achieve greatness, much like McTominay at Napoli, or deep six their recent fortunes?
I see Cunha is near to signing for Utd. Why would any player decide to go there – even for a few quid more? Surely he is more widely wanted by a club that could offer a better future?
For those recent letters from Utd fans talking of a complete squad changeover, Utd aren’t going to be able to access the top tier players unless they continue to offer above average wages to average players. Champions League qualification has much wider ramifications than the money it brings in. It means dining at the top table when it comes to transfers.
That doesn’t mean all is lost, but it problem means a longer, slower, more thoughtful recovery to top level status – helped by more time to coach players during European game Weeks. Just don’t think Amorim is the right guy. At least not for the style typified by last Utd teams. And makes it so much harder should they decide to change coaches – as buying and training players for Amorim’s fixed style – likely means another wholesale discard in the future. Wonder if Neville is going to have Utd above Liverpool again for next season? Embarrassing last season prediction.
In the meantime, Liverpool, Arsenal, City and Chelsea will continue to strengthen. Liverpool looking to really go for it. Doesn’t bode well for a Utd who are tactically behind how many Premier League teams?
Paul McDevitt
The real Premier League tableA definitive, not at all subjective ranking of all the cubs seasons from best to worst, which is designed to end the tiresome debate once and for all (until next season).
Crystal Palace- A first ever major trophy win. Most successful season in club history. Enough said.
Liverpool- Winners of the league, which I think is the one that really matters the most (this means more).
Newcastle- Given the differences in expectations, finances and history of the two clubs I don’t think this is quite as special as Palace’s season, but a League Cup and CL qualification is not too shabby!
Tottenham- Trophies count, and the Europa is a pretty hefty one. Loses places for dreadful league performance.
Nottm Forest- Disappointing ending shouldn’t override the fact that they massively exceeded expectations in an enormously fun way, plus have a real chance of European silverware next year.
Aston Villa- CL qualification, plus surely Europa nailed on with Unai at the wheel. Lovely bits with Rashford, Ascencio et al must’ve been pretty fun too.
Everton- Being able to say goodbye to Goodison with a party rather than in the midst of a miserable relegation dogfight.
Chelsea- Objectives achieved, some stability finally brought in. Assumed conference league a nice bonus, but for a club of this size it doesn’t add much either way.
Brighton- Some enjoyable victories, Welbeck smiling, just a comfortable, cruisy season.
Arsenal- Disclaimer here, I’m a gooner so maybe biased. Failure to win anything or look remotely like challenging Liverpool was bad, but the CL run was a lot of fun so it wasn’t totally miserable the whole time. Winding everyone up by celebrating a 5-1 over City was also good.
Bournemouth- Of the mid table bunch, probably the team with the best highs during their spells of good form. Solid FA Cup run.
Fulham- Decent cup runs and decent league placement, but in the context of Forest and Palace this was a little ‘meh’.
Brentford- As with Fulham, but did worse in the cups. Threat of losing Mbeumo and possibly Frank maybe hanging over them this summer.
Wolves- Avoided a relegation fight fairly comfortably, and seem to have found a very good manager. Trajectory going upwards.
Man City- Did manage to qualify for the CL, but a series of dismal performances, embarrassing losses and general rubbishness from a team with such high standards means they can’t place any higher.
West Ham- Some green shoots with Potter in charge, but another season of backwards steps for the Hammers who are a miserable bunch at the best of times (fortunes always hiding).
Leicester- Winners of the tallest dwarf competition. Had some fun with saying goodbye to Vardy.
Man Utd- Yes, below one of the relegated sides. As F365 have mentioned, its almost not funny anymore. Almost.
Southampton- Gains a place by threatening to be the very worst team in PL history, but then clearing that bar by the lowest amount possible. Gallows humour is still humour, least they had something to celebrate.
Ipswich- if you’re going to be rubbish, be historically rubbish. Nothing positive coming to mind at all here so last place it is.
Dave, South Wales
READ: Man Utd and Spurs insulated from failure; Premier League needs its jeopardy back
Bladey Mick is confused
Congratulations to Bladey Mick for one of the most inconsistent football posts I have ever read. A fine reminder, if proof were needed, that football fans are never truly happy.
Mick is furious that VAR was used in the Sheffield United game to correctly disallow a goal, while also being angry that VAR was not used in the Villa game to overturn a refereeing error.
He opens by saying “Well done VAR once again for interfering and screwing up and costing two clubs a fortune.” But the truth is that VAR did not mess up at all. In game one, VAR correctly intervened. In game two, the referee made the mistake by blowing the whistle early, which meant VAR could not get involved. That is not a VAR error, it is a referee error.
I am no fan of VAR, but let us at least be fair and consistent. If anything, both of these incidents highlight the need for VAR, because in both cases the referees got it wrong. VAR helped in one, and could have helped in the other, had the referee waited to blow his whistle.
Mike, LFC, Dubai