To be fair the goalpost is being moved by both Al and keyop. It’s just the same arguments on repeat really.
Keyop// why should the top 1-5th team on consistent basis have one of the lowest net spends? Yeah sure it’s a gross over simplification but right now we do have a surplus of ageing players and the manager himself (who’s fiercely loyal) have gone out to the press to talk about the issue.
But you don’t agree with Jurgen?
However it is a shit situation as to compete we have to spend more but I’m not eager for that behaviour to arrive here too. Not the realisation that you probably will need a shitty owner to afford it.
Because it's not a true reflection of reality.
I couldn't care less where we are on a Forbes list, spending list, or any other list, provided we stay competitive and true to our values. There seems to be an obsession from some with the 'Top 20 spenders in Europe', or the 'Top 20 spenders in the Premier league'.
If you have a low net spend but are also winning trophies, developing infrastructure (that will benefit the club forever), paying good wages, bringing young players through, and yet still be able to buy players of the calibre of Diaz and Nunez, then I don't understand the continual reference to net spend (or who's spent more than us).
Last time I checked, we were competing for the Premier League and 3 cups - not for a place on some dick-swinging league table that doesn't take into account any context whatsoever (like wages, contracts, sponsorship, commercial revenue, infrastructure, debt, where the money's actually coming from, and all the other business basics). The only team we've been competing with for 5 seasons now is City - and they're cheating. In those 5 seasons we've missed out on the title by a point (twice), almost won the quadruple, been to 3 CL finals, won the title, won the CL, won the FA cup, and won the League cup.
We can speculate all we like about how an extra £50m player here or there would've made all the difference, but even that doesn't factor in a whole ton of other variables like our massive injury problems, players not delivering on the pitch (but still under contract), or refereeing decisions that robbed us of points (and possibly titles). Oh, plus the small fact that after spending over £1.5billion on players, City can just go out and pay Haaland £900,000 a week (whilst getting him for 'only' £51m). Any player that doesn't sign for us is very often viewed as
'The one that would've made the difference if only we'd spent more', yet you only have to look at signings like Keita (the perfect Klopp player and ready to become one of the best in Europe) to realise it's not that straightforward. Plus take a look at the list of the most expensive signings of all time, which clearly shows that big money signings are failures more often than not. Or simply look at Utd and Barca.
We're often compared to other clubs for our lack of spending, yet that's partly because we've done so well in getting players for free or via the academy (Milner, Matip, Trent and Jones), or very cheap (Robbo, Gomez, Tsimikas, Elliot, Carvalho), or loads of players in the £20-£40m bracket (Mo, Gini, Mane, Bobby, Thiago, Konate, Jota and Ox). We've then spent big when we needed to (£50m+) on Virgil, Alisson, Fabinho, Keita, Diaz and Nunez, plus we've consistently got great fees for players we sold. That is how we've built a squad in this apparent 'FFP' landscape - even though that landscape has proven to be a mirage. It's also the environment Jurgen has thrived in throughout his career, where his ability to make good players great is almost unrivaled, and coaching has been the difference maker. We were also doing it before Jurgen arrived with players like Suarez, Coutinho, Sturridge and Sterling, so it's an approach we've taken under more than one manager. It's so easy for people to say who we should and shouldn't have bought (and what we should and shouldn't have spent), but there's no guarantees in football (unless you're City and PSG, and even they can't win a CL after a decade of cheating).
The last 5-6 years have been amazing, and I simply cannot understand some the relentless criticism of the owners, scapegoating of players, whining about club/transfer decisions, and the seemingly endless comparisons to how much others spend. There are so many things to simply sit back and enjoy, and there is so much more that we've got right than we've got wrong.
Instead of people posting tables of who's spent the most (and using it as a stick to beat us with), one thing that might finally put the argument to bed (although I doubt it) would be a definitive table that looked at all the factors - revenue, wages, transfer spend, debt (including interest payments), infrastructure spend, average position in the league, and all the other factors that would give a truer representation of why clubs spend (or don't spend). For example - comparing us to clubs like Forest or Fulham is pointless, as promoted clubs often spend loads because they've had a sudden windfall, and need to compete in the new league and stay up. Comparing us to Utd is pointless as they've won nothing for years, wasted over a £billion on transfers and wages, are in massive debt and are all over the place. Comparing us to City is pointless as they're cheating. Comparing us to Chelsea is pointless because of Abramovic (and the recent £800m of restructured debt taken on by Boehly and Co). Even comparisons to Arsenal and Spurs are pretty pointless, as Arsenal are only spending now after winning virtually nothing for years due to the stadium debt hampering their transfer activity for over a decade. Spurs' net spend is less than ours anyway - and is likely to stay that way due to the £1billion shiny cheese factory they've built (complete with empty trophy room).
Even across Europe I can't think of many teams that have been as consistently good as us domestically or in the CL, whilst also following FFP, plus developing the stadium, building a new training ground, extending all the contracts for our best players, increasing wages, growing commercial revenues, and bringing young players though - all whilst keeping debt to an absolute minimum, never putting the club at risk, and competing against the biggest cheats in the history of the sport. Perhaps that's not enough of an achievement for some people - but it is for me, and I think the list of possible bad owners is far longer than the list of possible good ones.
Perhaps we could've spent another £200m on players and still have a stadium capacity of 45,000, instead of one that will be over 61,000 next season. Or still be at Melwood instead of a world class facility where the academy and first team are closer together. Or taken on £200m to £300m more debt for players and wages - like dozens of other clubs did throughout Europe between 2020 and 2022, to win absolutely nothing or almost go bankrupt.
What purpose do these spending comparisons actually serve anyway? What point is actually being made - regardless of whether we're 1st, 10th or 30th in the European spending league? Who cares if clubs like Utd, Palace, Everton, West Ham, Brighton, Wolves, Inter, Wolfsburg, RB Leipzig, Milan, Leeds, Villa, Chelsea, Napoli, Newcastle or Leicester had a higher net spend than us over the last 10 years? It's clearly a barometer of fuck all considering how little the majority of the top 30 spenders have won over that period, and the poor state that some of the clubs are in.
Even during the last 2-3 years (which is painted by some as the start of the LFC apocalypse in terms of spending), we've won the title, the CL, the FA cup, the League Cup, and we almost won the quadruple only 5 months ago. History shows that apart from the cheats, no club just keeps on spending, no club just keeps on winning (ok, maybe Bayern...), and no club gets it right all the time.
