Liverpool fans and supporters are conducting a post-mortem on their losing run and dismal Premier League standing which has seen them slip to eighth. Mal James gives his verdict on what needs to happen next.
Liverpool FC, with new owners and with new management at all levels went for a specific strategy this season.
The club had been falling behind for many years due to its previous cowboy owners. Its status as an international ‘brand’, so important for potential future earnings, was declining; and the failure to do anything about a new ground had meant its disadvantage in terms of match-day earnings was biting.
So, the club went for a quick-fix approach – spend all the available money on players with ‘potential’ who also had some experience in the Premiership. They would not need time to adapt, and the aim was immediate Champions League qualification.
It was a huge gamble, and it was a mistake. I suspect that if the new owners had been more experienced in running a football club, it isn’t an approach they would have adopted.
However, their lack of experience meant that they had to rely on advice from others that they, quite reasonably, would assume knew what they were talking about. Those others were a new Chief Executive, Ian Ayres; the Director of Football, Damien Comolli, and the new team manager, Kenny Dalglish.
Now, Ian Ayres had proved himself a capable Commercial Director, but it’s a huge step up to Chief Exec. The way that Dalglish was left to flounder over the Suarez racism affair, with the silence from the club being deafening, shows an alarming lack of leadership.
Turning to Comolli and Dalglish, there is a huge amount of ‘discussion’ (in other words, blood on the carpets argument) on the fan sites and local radio phone-ins about just who is responsible for the transfer strategy. The outlay of £83m on outrageously overpriced Carroll, Henderson, Downing and Adam is, by any stretch of the imagination, incompetence on a grand scale. When you consider the players Newcastle brought in using the money from Carroll…….
And, increasingly, the argument among the fans is about the team selection and tactics. If you select a player like Carroll, then there has to be a wide man who can provide the service for him. That role was what Downing was bought in to perform.
Yet, for much of the time he has been played on the right, where he cuts in and makes the team narrow, and has been spectacularly ineffective. In the recent game against Newcastle, Carroll started, but in a 4-3-3 formation, which results in little width. Downing was on the bench. When he was brought on, who did he replace? Carroll.
Liverpool fans are going to have to get used to some hard lessons. The club has come off the back of years of being badly run with insufficient investment.
Rafa Benitez actually kept Liverpool punching well above its weight, despite spending years shopping in the bargain basement. Yet he was loathed by many of the fans who now support the present manager. Does anyone really believe that if he’d had the money available, he’d have contemplated Carroll, Downing, Henderson or Adam?
There is no simple solution. Liverpool fans need to realise this. It is very doubtful that the sort of funds needed will be made available while the highly expensive dead weight is still at the club, and while any transfer decisions are in the hands of whoever bought this ‘fab four’.
So, the way forward for Liverpool has to be the hope that its youth system will deliver some quality.
It won’t be a quick fix. It will also take a willingness of the manager to be prepared to give players like Raheem Sterling a real chance before he decides to move on (why wasn’t he even on the bench against Newcastle?).
The irony is that, if the youth system does deliver, and it will take time, the credit for this lies with Rafa Benitez who established it as it now exists.
image: © james mughal
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