Not sure how you have come to that conclusion.
They have always said they want to win, they have sacked Dalglish (and previously Hodgson) because they weren't being successful.
They want success and if they get that they'll get maximum rewards, as financially they'll benefit most if we are at the top.
Winning is their main goal, they have always said that and I don't think we have seen anything to suggest otherwise. They have been ruthless to try and make that happen.
My thoughts exactly. I simply cannot fathom the number of times I've read "the owners simply want to make money." Let's be clear about a few things.
-- Henry and Werner have more money than they know what to do with.
-- If that wasn't enough for them, rest assured they could find lots of ways of making more that would be quicker, less risky, and involve a whole lot less effort than buying and running a Premier League football team (or, for that matter, a Major League Baseball team).
-- There's a bigger motivation for people like the FSG heads to own a big-time sports franchise than profit-taking:
winning. Making your club #1 in the land, the continent, or the world gives a thrill that piling another few million in the vault (on top of the other several hundred million they already have there) no longer can. Being atop the sporting world is a major boost of ego-gratification that trading bonds (or whatever) simply cannot provide. And there's more: not just the thrill of winning, but of having won because you yourself were able to outthink the opposition, to find a new system, a new paradigm that provides success where those who came before you had failed, is the sweetest feeling for the powerful and highly-competitive.
-- From the way FSG ran the Red Sox, it is clear that they made winning a top priority -- and, in fact, were able to take the Sox to the world championship within a little over a couple of years. In doing so, they cleared out the old management and brought in young leadership (their new General Manager -- the equivalent of a DoF -- was only 28 when he was hired) with innovative approaches, and worked many of the principles of sabermetric research (misunderstood and wrongly labeled as "Moneyball" far too often here...but that is a subject for another thread) in the decision-making process. The big thing to take away from this was that they achieved this championship -- which involved considerable cost in free-agent signings, restaffing, and so on -- with a franchise that was
already selling out games and had a rich cable network. (It also had a city -- hell, a six-state area -- of near-religiously-devoted, supporters who passed along the team's history, its past triumphs and more-recent tragedies, from father to son for almost a century. Sound familiar?) If Henry
et. al. had merely wanted to make money, they could have sat back, kept the Sox competitive on a lower budget, made the playoffs (but rarely gone beyond the first round) on a regular enough basis to keep fans satisfied, and raked in the cash. They didn't, and I see no reason to think that is their primary goal here.
-- What I do think is the primary goal of FSG is to build a new structure, a new way of doing business here, that can be shown to win out over the "old way" of doing business in the EPL. Whether they succeed or fail is yet unknown; if they fail, they will be understandably reviled for years to come. But, if they succeed?
-- Some have said, from what they perceive of FSG's plan, that the owners no longer believe "Liverpool FC exists to win trophies." I would say otherwise -- that they see their goal is for us to win
everything...and that includes the Premier League trophy, the UEFA Champions League trophy, and even the Club World Cup. But, to win the Champions League, you have to qualify for the Champions League. Hence the importance of finishing fourth. Yes, there's a financial reward for making the CL, but to assume that the payoff is the owners' sole interest is missing the point. Every one of the "top four" is able to use that extra reward to build its player strength, to make a deeper run in the CL, and to hopefully win it (and the EPL title, obviously, as well). This is investment that, otherwise, will have to come out of the owners' pockets -- and, more crucially, with the advent of FFP, might not be possible at all. It isn't so much that there's a reward for making CL, but that there's almost a penalty for
not making it. Thus, the prioritization of finishing in the top four -- not so much as a repudiation of "winning trophies," but as a means of being able to win more, and bigger, ones. Would LFC fans really be satisfied with merely winning the League Cup ever few years, and the FA Cup occasionally? How many League Cups would you trade for one Istanbul?
-- Of course, as the OP noted, change brings pain. Well, actually, it doesn't have to, but, in this case, it's the fact that change could only be implemented at the cost of one of the most beloved figures in LFC history. If it had been anyone other than Kenny at the helm; if they had brought in a Roberto Martinez or Luís André de Pina Cabral e Villas-Boas to succeed Hodgson back in January 2011, with similar results, would people really be devastated at his sacking? Would there be the feeling that "The Liverpool Way" had somehow been permanently destroyed?
-- Some with knowledge of both franchises run by FSG have drawn a parallel between the decision to sack Kenny and that of relieving manager Grady Little of his duties after his poor decision-making, in many people's eyes, cost the Red Sox the 2004 American League Championship Series. But there's another parallel that I think may hit closer to home: the departure of Nomar Garciaparra a year later. Garciaparra was both the biggest star on the Red Sox and had been a near-idol to New England sports fans for years. However, by 2004, he was getting on in years and had been sidetracked by injuries, but was still considered -- not least by himself -- to be the center of the team. When the 2004 Sox, built at great cost, stumbled out of the gate and were stuck well behind their archrival Yankees by mid-summer, FSG did the unthinkable: at the deadline, they traded Garciaparra for a trio of role-players who they thought might be important to shoring up weaknesses of the team. Reaction from the "Fenway faithful" and fans throughout New England was strongly negative; I remember many stories of parents reporting their children going to bed in tears that night because "No-mah" was gone. Many speculated that the trade was a cynical move to reduce salary on an underachieving team, or maybe even "waving the white flag" and accepting mediocrity for the next few years at least. But, in the weeks following the trade, something unexpected happened: the role-players, indeed, started playing surprisingly crucial parts in the club's performance (almost as if the owners and the GM had spotted previously-unnoticed crucial weakness in the team and worked to plug the holes), the team went on a hot streak lasting the rest of the season, and wound up winning Boston's first world championship in
eighty-six years. The anguish at the departure of Garciaparra was quickly forgotten. I'd say that the rationale of FSG is to build a winner, sentimentality be damned, because championships wipe away the bitterness of emotional losses. Might that be the case here? Be honest now: if LFC, under the new plan and new leadership, brings home a CL trophy and EPL championship in the next few years, if they keep LFC a power that's always among the elite in Europe and a threat to win the Premier League every season, are you going to nonetheless turn your back on the club because "it no longer follows The Liverpool Way?" Experience dictates that most will not.
The bottom line in this matter is that one can agree with the OP that this is a clash of "faiths," with every bit as much chance for becoming a flashpoint of anger as clashes of world religions can. However, let's be clear and realize that it's a clash between the "faith of tradition" versus the "faith of rationality," each having the same goal of making LFC the top club in England if not Europe, rather than a clash between a belief in sporting success versus a belief in financial success.
