Pretty new round here, and I don't post too much, so not sure what my opinion will be of value, but I just thought I'd share a blog post from last May that I reread post transfer window which helped me get some perspective. http://swissramble.blogspot.in/2012/05/liverpool-keep-car-running.html It's a pretty extensive covering of our financial situation in recent years, and while it makes for depressing reading it eased my concerns that the club is being badly mismanaged (again) from guys at the top. I've come away feeling as though the events of the summer transfer window were largely necessary (excluding the Carroll debacle) to start the club moving in the right direction financially.
It's quite relevant to the current debates regarding our owners, even if it is a couple of months old.
Welcome MaturdayNight. Whilst SwissRambler's analysis is very comprehensive it is fairly useless as a true analysis of the effectiveness or otherwise of FSG's management of the club. The absolute best that can be yet be said is that they stopped the ship from sinking by their purchase and have set in train strategies to ensure financial wellbeing in the future. However, they have not yet brought about success on the pitch and there is as yet still no firm proposal for a new stadium or the refurbishment of Anfield (which was supposedly a condition of their purchase). I'm sorry to say that it will not be until 2015, at the earliest, that we will be able to make a true analysis of the fiancial effects of FSG's management.
Yeah, it tells you very little about FSG's effectiveness or otherwise, as we need a larger number of seasons for comparison. However I think it illustrates the struggles the club is facing financially (as of May last year 70% of our turnover was going on wages), which helps to rationalize the clubs dramatic shift in transfer policy. There are some positives though, the club's commercial revenue had increased by 25% since the takeover, and that was in May, before the inclusion of the Warrior kit deal and new sponsorships from this summer. I think the stadium issue is something that needs to be treated a little more tentatively. I remember the gaudy designs for Stanley Park that cost the club about £50m by the time they were scrapped. It seems as though FSG really want an unrealistically large naming rights deal before they give the go ahead to a new stadium, as they're probably reluctant to saddle the club with more loan debts. As long as they keep finding other ways to improve the clubs revenue streams I don't think the cautious approach is such a bad thing as long as they do it right when it comes to it.
"they currently lie in eighth place, which is far below the expectations of their fans." That's a simple assessment which presupposes that the expectation was realistic and that 8th was where we deserved to be. All of those are arguable. Once 4th was gone - and let's not forget 4th didn't get CL qualification either so it had to be 3rd - there was little point in the players risking injury for cosmetic results, not when there was a cup final approaching. We visibly tailed off once 4th was gone. But there was **** all difference between 4th and 17th apart from league money for final placings. This whole "Boohoo, we came 8th" whine is bogus. I don't ever remember either of the weasels speaking about expecting CL qualification. I do remember Tom Werner stood in the Wembley dressing room with the Carling Cup and said even if we hadn't won the cup they wanted to see progress. That was all. And they felt they'd certainly gotten progress. The author also puts Adam's £6.75m in with the usual crap about Downing and Henderson. This was at a time when he was put at the heart of Blackpool's silky passing football which every journo and her sister were spunking every article they could over. Fergie put his value at closer to £16m. Whether any of those players were a waste of money would only be evident after more than one season. Just like Lucas. And Skrtel. And Molby. And Ronaldo. But yet again that impatient short term assessment is presented as fact. FSG got the club and assets cheap. They didn't pay 22.5m for Torres but they sold him for £50m. Torres + Babel = Carroll + Suarez + loose change. That is not an investment, that's a profit. And after H&G's squad erosion some spending was needed but FSG did not invest £120m. Nowhere near it. And Kenny wasn't the one who signed the £35m cheque, he was just the guy who got the blame.
Oh come on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So it's fine for everyone to just slack off and **** the rest of the season cos 4ths gone (even though mathematically it wasn't). We didn't know about 4th not being good enough until the last kick of the season (Drogba's penalty). To think it is ok for them to just not try cos 'whats the point' is quite ridiculous, I know you will try to protect Kenny as much as you can because you cannot let sleeping dogs lye but this is feeble at best. What about the fans turning up every week still, paying Kenny and the players wages to see half hearted effort because 'what's the point?'. If you think this is true and attitudes were like this then how can you defend KK? He should have been sacked 100% if you believe your sentence, no?
A bit unfair for me! None of us know and maybe never will know just how much each had responsiblity for that price. However it is certainly conceivable that Kenny picked the player and Comolli did the deal, also you have to remember that this deal was done very late in the day. Yes we probably expected an offer for Torres but am pretty sure Carrol was lined up very late in the day, so certainly possible!
Can't agree with the first part of what you said MFG. The players are paid to try and win every game they play - and at LFC we expect to win most games. It was hell watching us post January - the players and manager got it wrong, constantly and it hurt. It matters a lot to me that we finished 8th because it means I saw my team lose so many times.
Why would he? What sort of company would give one man full control over every last aspect of transfers? Kenny is guilty of giving Comolli a list of players, past that, no-one has evidence, one way or another, that Kenny was in any way involved in any other aspect of the transfer dealings. But it would have been woeful management in any field of industry to let one person pick a purchase and pay for it, especially at that level of fees. I think FSG would have rubber stamped every last deal, maybe because they are use to paying much more than that for Baseball players. Maybe Camolli was licking his lips, as he wasn't kicked back over any deal he put forward, and it is with Camolli that all blame must lie, as it is his job to link the manager and the board. He should have realised that the prices were way off the scale, and he shouldn't have even put them forward to the owners. He should have looked to get market value, rather than pissing money away, he should have had stand up, knock down drag out fights over valuation, rather than having the easy life and throwing away the clubs money.
I agree with that! Still baffles me why and how we got Carrol at that price? I know there was a possibility of a backlash at selling Torres but they had the one man in charge who could have appeased the fans in Kenny! To get an injured player in and panic buy when in reality we had very little to play for with a player who was only ever going to give us 8 or 9 games is utterly criminal. But surely the owners are not immune to blame in all this?
Lots of if this and what if that? We have moved on. The wrongs of the past are in the past. We need to back the current manager and team. Kenny Dalglish will always be a legend even if he did get some things wrong. We won a trophy last season and came close to a second, I wouldn't give up that ride for anything, but we now need to move on and hope that this new story will be a good one.
I think Bluffs point was Daglish clearly wanted Carroll, and probably went to FSG and whoever is responsible for handling transfers. Then told them to make it happen. The only club I can think of where the managers don't have a say in the transfers at the club is Chelsea.
No Bluffs point was clearly that Dalglish was perhaps at least partly responsible for the transfer fee paid. The distinction is not that the manager does not have a say, rather that the manager identifies the player and that others sort the deal out. This happens at City too and most notably in Serie A. Theres a huge difference between Kenny saying of his preferred replacement, I'd like Carrol than saying yes 35mil is a fair price!
I agree in principle, however moving on goes across the board, not just in those defending Kenny! There are many more on this board who continually use this transfer(and his overall dealings) to slate Kenny and to justify his sacking, when in reality some of his transfers were pretty good. Hendo was continually praised by most on here last season(not so much by me, to be honest), as was Enrique. Coates is a good signing with fantastic potential. Adam did a job very well in the 1st half of the season(until he bacame a scapegoat) and was sold for little more than we paid. Bellamy was one of our better players last season! Carrol was starting to show potential, so much so that many were dissappointed BR was wanting to get rid! Downing is the most dissappointing, yet he SHOULD have been the safest buy out of the lot! And if you believe the rumours he was second choice behind Young. Add the fact we were going for Jones and Kenny's signings were not bad at all! The crux is who sanctioned the fee's paid and thats why this debate will not go away! Some are wanting to rewrite history by pretending they were against most of the signings that they were praising for large parts of last season!
