I would say a club's ceiling is primarily dictated by its ownership model. Klopp managed to smash through the glass ceiling of FSG's sell-to-buy policy. However, that overachievement was always likely to be unsustainable. Look at the likes of City and Newcastle their ceiling has clearly been raised by their state-owned business model.
Watching the game yesterday I would say that Brighton's team currently has a higher ceiling than ours. They have a young hugely talented team with an average age of just over 25. They will also be getting a huge boost in revenues. Both in terms of an increase in TV revenues and more importantly a seismic change in profits from player trading.
Their last accounts were published in 2022. At that time they had made a combined player trading profit of £15m for the previous five seasons. Since then they have sold the likes of White, Burn, Cucarella, Maupay and Bissouma for around £175m. They also have a team full of saleable assets, one of the best recruitment teams on the planet and an owner prepared to invest in his business.
The likelihood is that we are facing a huge loss from not qualifying for the Champions League plus a glaring need to embark on a huge rebuilding program. We have an aging squad, especially in midfield, few saleable assets, a recruitment team that is falling apart and owners looking to sell.
As bizarre as it sounds until FSG sells then in the short term from a football perspective then Brighton may have a higher ceiling than us. I certainly wouldn't be confident in backing us to finish above them this season. Would you mate ?
I mean most of what you said is right, but surely it’s easier for Brighton to work the way they do?
They themselves like us are sell to buy. Problem is they sell there valuable assets.
We can’t do that unless we wanted to sell Salah, Alisson, VVD and Diaz to our rivals.
That’s the problem with FSG owning us. They’d be best of selling us and buying another European team, who’s ambitions isn’t to compete with the elite.
