Topic: Why Liverpool never win the league.. but maybe will?

[Gnurglan]

Pretty much unfortunately.

We have the global fanbase.

We're about to get the stadium capacity.

We have the status.

If we had the money of City or PSG, then we would be a force to be reckoned with.

Money... are we so sure we'd be better with more money? Very few clubs have wasted as much money as us in recent years.

Take our most expensive signings. Can we say that the more we spend, the better players we get? Carroll, Downing, Lallana, Suarez, Torres, Lovren, Markovic, Keane, Moreno, Mascherano, Balotelli, Johnson, Sakho,... I think those are all 15M+. Cisse? Diouf? So thirteen players.

How many are or have been guaranteed first picks? I'm talking real core players that you want on the pitch every single game if possible.
I'd say Suarez, Torres, Mascherano, maybe Johnson (in his prime) and.... then we'll have to see. Even when we spend a great deal of money, our hit rate is average, at best.

Now let's list some more: Reina, Sami, Arbeloa, Finnan, Riise, Lucas, Garcia, Hamann, Gary Mac, Babbel, Coutinho, Crouch, Agger, Skrtel,... all cost less than 10M, in fairly recent times. At some point they were key players for us. I know we can talk inflation etc, but it doesn't appear to me we're getting more quality when we spend the most.

More money will allow us to make more mistakes (and let our squad grow even more). But that's a problem we can't address easily. So what we need to address is the number of mistakes we make. Remove a Carroll or Downing, a couple of this last summer's signings, the odd Borini/Aspas/Alberto and we'll have more than enough money to help improve the side.

[kcbworth]

I don't buy that we've not spent enough. We could've challenged this year but instead of buying ready made class we went for potential and moneyball signings.

Is it just me, or...

Did your first sentence say we spent enough?

But your second sentence say we didnt spend enough?

[gatcliffe]

Some very good post in topic, however very depressing reads too, because unless things change we are basically a club being around to win the odd cup final and can forget about the league. However, I still think if we were to spend wiser and who knows what we can achieve lets hope a lot more than the odd cup final.

[jason42]

We have been 1-2 or 3-4 players short of winning the title for many years now.
We have bought players who were awesome for their old team but have tanked badly for us.

If the premise stands that we cannot compete with the 'Big 3' then does it not also stand that we need to follow the Arsenal model and stick with Rodgers for a considerable number of years so that he can slowly mould, tweak, add, subtract and build a team that allows us a proper title challenge every few years? Otherwise we are faced with the same 'starting over' process that has significantly held us back. 

[kcbworth]

More money will allow us to make more mistakes (and let our squad grow even more). But that's a problem we can't address easily. So what we need to address is the number of mistakes we make. Remove a Carroll or Downing, a couple of this last summer's signings, the odd Borini/Aspas/Alberto and we'll have more than enough money to help improve the side.

I like the gist of your contribution to the thread Gnurglan, but basically what you are saying is:

* We have to play the same game as Chelsea/Man City/Man Utd (i.e. buy extremely expensive players) but
* We have less room for mistakes and
* Less room for injury/bad luck/said good players moving elsewhere but
* We currently make more mistakes than the other teams anyway

So in affect... we have to go from being far worse than them at something, to being better than them at it, with far less room to make mistakes than they have

Great lets do it!

[ANFIELDGATES]

unfortunately football is going the way of formula 1.the biggest teams get the best drivers and pour money to fix any problem,theres no level playing field.i would hate to think that we could be bought be a super rich oil baron who would buy the league.what about managerial skills been used to turn a group of players to into winners?seriously,anyone with a decent knowledge of the game could mount a challenge when you can just buy the best player in any position.man city spent 1 billion on players and to be honest are fairly abysmal when it comes to really dominating the league after such spending.thats what was most disapointing last season,the idea that we could win the prem with limited resources would have been a real shot in the arm for decent managers and their abilities.

[Durlmints]

I love the "Liverpool can't afford player x" line.

We could afford £20m on Lovren, £23m on Lallana, £20m on Markovic though. Two of which have seen more of the dugout than the pitch, and the other which probably should have seen more of the dugout than the pitch.

[LiamG]

IF we had kept suarez and sturridge was fit, with the additions in the summer (minus balotelli) Would we be just as strong to challenge for the league again? if yes, then surely we are only a "suarez" away from challenging again?

[GregCharrua]

I know it's difficult to get transfers right. But our hit rate isn't good enough if we want to compete. It's not even decent. And we can't expect to compete by having the same hit rate as the rest. We need to be better. That's extremely difficult, but so is winning the league. We need to get an edge somewhere, or we'll never win. Our use of money, let's just say there's room for improvement. 

Scouting should be fairly cheap, compared to buying the wrong player. Maybe our way then needs to be to go deeper than everybody else. Find out more about the player. We're not likely to be more successful with this summer's method. Buy 8-9 players, and then hope that 3-4 of them turn out great. We can't do that when we spend a lot. That's what the richest sides can do, but we can't. If we buy someone for 20M, he needs to be at least a guaranteed first team regular. Which isn't too much to ask.

Wages, our trouble here is we spread our resources. If we could be more focused, we'd have more cash to spend. Assaidi, Aspas, Alberto, Ilori. We should be able to get 10M for them. From that, we could give a player a two year contract and 100k/w. Or 50k/w over 4 years. That's a very good player, that we could have. Instead, it's money tied up.

Another way we could approach things, is by having more performanced based wages. Maybe we could have the best wages in the league, if we win the title, otherwise it's just average.

My point here is that there are numerous ways for us to get an edge.

Wages, wage structure, scouting, squad size, squad structure, the use of our Academy, type of players we sign,... those are things I can come up with at home in my sofa. Areas where Rodgers could get better support. If we could be better than our opponents in one or more of those areas, we'd be able to compete. Soon.

Generally, I think we're asking the wrong questions, or start at the wrong place. We say "we won't because, or it's difficult because..." and we should think more like "name 30 ways how we could improve". The answers can sometimes be very interesting. One such thing is when we start asking what's required to win the title. More money may not be as important as we think. We assume it's so, but is it? It's better to start off with how many games we need to win and how we could make that happen. Who do we have to beat? What type of players/squad do we need for that? Then ask how we can assemble that squad. And somewhere down the line, we'll have to see how much it would cost. When we start off comparing money on hand, we're putting ourselves in a losing position.

I agree with all your saying. But your pitting intangibles like improved scouting, getting the right player signed, not signing the wrong player and tying up wages, etc versus tangibles that Chelsea/Utd/City can offer which are huge fees (transfers and to agents), huge wages, guaranteed CL football and shot at the title each year. It's a big ask to get those intangibles all lined up. Certainly it isn't impossible. But neither is it a matter of the boardroom sitting down and saying: hey lets scout deeper and stop making these shit signings! I'm sure they analyzed everything in depth and in every angle before making those signings. We didn't just cross paths in the Tesco and decide he had a good face, lets sign him.

As for your Aspas/Ilori/etc criticism - its unfair. Those are all players with a lot of potential (at time of signing) which we were able to get for low fees and wages considering the upside. They were all gambles - but at 7m not at 30m and with wages around 20-30k not 60-80k. If one of them comes back and someday is a starter and real quality, it was a great move. As you see, we've also been able to offload them all on loan easily thanks to the low wages - right now those players are almost nonexistent on our books, and if we want to move them, we won't be losing much. Luis Alberto we paid 1 year wages, then loaned. We paid 7m to a 4 year deal (I think). At the end of the season he'll been our books for 3.5m. If we sell him for 5, we get a profit of 1.5m on the books - thats good business for the club. Even better, one of those players will come back and be in the squad and make difference for us.

I think FSG are trying to do everything that's been suggested by you from your sofa I just don't think its that easy. I'm not suggesting your so naive to think the club is being stupid because it wants to be stupid, of course. I just think you are dramatically underrating the difficulty of doing a Dortmund/Atletico regularly and always to be challenging.

As for my comment about us not being a big club - of course we are in terms of history trophies fan base and even revenues are good. But we aren't CL regulars. We're in constant flux. We are tough negotiators with wages - we want them to be earned before they get a big payday - all these things make us much less appealing than UTD, who forked out 60m plus god knows how much in agent fees for Di Maria and put him on what +100k a week. Not that Di Maria is a solution for us, mind, just an example of the sort of deal you will never see us make. Perhaps Toni Kroos is a better example - a wonderful player who would be amazing in our side, but with his wage demands near impossible, and with a RM/Barcelona/etc after him, he isn't coming to Liverpool either.

There are deals out there, not everyone is Toni Kroos. But we are in a tough spot as a 2nd tier club. Real quality lighting up their league in a 3rd or 2nd tier club will go past us to tier 1, or we'll have to go into a bidding war with the Dortmunds and Atleticos and bigger clubs to grab them. Or we'll have to go after the players who look quality but it isn't sure, who aren't dirt cheap but not killer expensive, and who will need some time to settle - which is what we've been doing albeit so far without any knock down successes.

Money is a real thing. The Chelsea/Utd/City triumvirate got in before FFP and built up their clubs with talent (and Chelsea did it at youth level too). UTD and City are in a less secure spot surely, with aging squads and all that, maybe their spending power will decrease and they'll fall away in the next few years as their valuable assets age and become worthless for selling/reinvesting. Chelsea however looks set up to be in a dominant position for years to come.

Someone posted on RAWK a time before, how Liverpool missed its chance to capitalize and build the club into a financial power house ten years ago or so, and we're only just doing it now. Well that's true I think, because as has been said we're no slouches with spending and we've got a huge history and incredible fan base as well, if we would have done as the others then and not been so unstable and chaotic within doors, who knows. But at least we're sorting out the house now. I'm confident we'll get a title in the next decade. There's a good plan in place, but there's going to be ups and downs. Its like trading, prices are all over but one hopes for a longer upward trend and you have to have the stomach to take the dips and the calmness to handle the spikes to play out the long view plan.

[kcbworth]

I love the "Liverpool can't afford player x" line.

We could afford £20m on Lovren, £23m on Lallana, £20m on Markovic though. Two of which have seen more of the dugout than the pitch, and the other which probably should have seen more of the dugout than the pitch.

I agree.

Although, the comparison we're usually making isn't the £23m on Lallana vs £27m on Fabregas

It's the e.g. £80,000 p/week on Lallana vs the  £150,000 p/week for Fabregas

So the headline number is far far from the "what can we afford" number

[Shepnois]

While we cant compete with the top 3 big spenders the club could be ran a lot better. The scouting network and all the people involved in transfers needs to systematically taken a part and put back together in a much more efficient way. When money is tighter the margin for error is a whole lot less. We just can’t afford to waste money anymore. We need the best scouts, the best transfer negotiators, we need to create a model that other clubs would try copy. We need to get away from agents as much as possible. Many agents have strong links with clubs and basically flog their players to anyone who will listen. We need to target players ourselves and then deal with their agents when necessary. We have wasted so much money in recent times its beyond a parody at this stage. Resolving this glaring issue would at the very least having us competing and then you build from there.

[kcbworth]

While we cant compete with the top 3 big spenders the club could be ran a lot better. The scouting network and all the people involved in transfers needs to systematically taken a part and put back together in a much more efficient way. When money is tighter the margin for error is a whole lot less. We just can’t afford to waste money anymore. We need the best scouts, the best transfer negotiators, we need to create a model that other clubs would try copy. We need to get away from agents as much as possible. Many agents have strong links with clubs and basically flog their players to anyone who will listen. We need to target players ourselves and then deal with their agents when necessary. We have wasted so much money in recent times its beyond a parody at this stage. Resolving this glaring issue would at the very least having us competing and then you build from there.

How exactly does this differ from what FSG are already trying to do here?

[flipflan]

I'm a bit disappointed with the whole concept that we don't spend enough to challenge. It's as if we look for ways so we can't compete. Didn't we just compete last season? How about learning from it? I understand people try and find success factors, I just think we should have a different take on things. We need to ask ourselves what we need to do, to challenge. Given the constraints we have.

If we were able to compete last season, how did it happen? What can we learn? OK, we were out of Europe. Less games. At the same time, Suarez played in every league game he was available. 33 games. Now if we stay there, we have one observation. Our best players probably need to play almost every game. If we have a Luis Suarez, one of the very best players in the world, we need him to stay fit and we need him to play. I'd guess the same is true for our goalie, for a CB pairing and perhaps also one or two midfielders. So we'd need to have a core of say 5-6 players. That play 33+ games in the PL.

If we expand on that a little, what if these players all cost 20M each? That's what you pay for an estabilished international. So for half a dozen players, that's 120M. Invested in players that would have to perform almost every week. (Where the task is generally to beat the bottom half sides all the time. It's not to beat Bayern or Real every week.) Add 1-2 of those every summer and you can build a base for a title challenging side within a few years.

Then for the next argument that I return to. If we are to keep a core of 5-6 players, what about the rest? What about the squad? Go with the same concept. Less players, that are involved a lot. Fill up with young players from the Academy.

Yes, we'd be sensitive to injuries. But if we want to compete with the best, with those that have more resources, we can't compete with the same method they use. We can't fill a 25-man squad with 20M players on top wages. I don't think anyone can, but still. If we want to compete, we need to find a different way. With less money, we need to be more flexible. What we can't afford is to have five six players here and five six players there who may come good, if we only give them another season. Also, if we are to keep a smaller squad, we'll need to consider going for players who normally don't get injured. That is, go with the likes of Carra, Sami or Skrtel, but not the likes of Agger or Kewell.

As soon as we drop this "we need more money" and think in terms of what we have to do, we get a lot of answers. Suggested here is for example: smaller squad, core players that play almost every game, trust the Academy, offload fringe players asap, sign 1-2 core players every summer, sign players who don't normally suffer injuries.

And if we then review our model against that, what do we see? We keep a larger squad, we don't trust our Academy, we keep fringe players or loan them out season after season, we sign lots of players (and don't include them in our core),.... what's the conclusion? IMO we're going against the suggested 'formula'. Not just on one occasion, almost everything is the opposite of it. We don't give the manager or ourselves the right conditions to succeed.

That formula doesn't of course guarantee anything. Nothing does. But if we had gone with it and failed, say because we had suffered lots of injuries this season, we would know why we couldn't compete. We gambled on the small squad and had to rely on Academy players. Fine. We'd know. The irony in this, is that Man U, who have so much more money to spend (as we like to say), they are currently using Academy players in defence. While we have Lovren/Sakho, Lallana and Markovic on the bench, or not even included in our match day squad...

Awesome post and agree wholeheartedly

[flinner]

I think we have a good enough squad with potential but we need at least 4 World class players a Goal keeper, central defender, Striker and most important a replacement for Gerrard, we need an entire new spine to the team in which is gonna cost in the region of £100-£150 mil maybe more, whither Fsg would sanction that sort of money and wages remains to be seen because until we match the likes of Chelsea,City Etc we are nailed on for a title challenge every 6 or 7 years if were lucky.

[I am new]

I think we have a good enough squad with potential but we need at least 4 World class players a Goal keeper, central defender, Striker and most important a replacement for Gerrard, we need an entire new spine to the team in which is gonna cost in the region of £100-£150 mil maybe more, whither Fsg would sanction that sort of money and wages remains to be seen because until we match the likes of Chelsea,City Etc we are nailed on for a title challenge every 6 or 7 years if were lucky.

I think if we really tried we could get someone like Hummels, Solid centre back and the way Dortmund are doing, I could see him leave. However Rodgers has just signed Lovren so that is very unlikely.

[Shepnois]

How exactly does this differ from what FSG are already trying to do here?

It might be what they're trying to do but I've not seen any improvements in this area. We're still wasting money on players, most of the players we buy are well known to the average football fan and we pay more then they are worth. The scouts we have aren’t good enough. I heard recently some more were let go so its clear they weren’t up to the job. You just had to look at the bench last weekend to see our current transfer set up is not working. A big shake up is needed.

[Tobez]

snip

Excellent post mate, really puts a few things in perspective. Obviously it's hard for us as fans to accept it when players choose to go to other clubs over us (especially in a Sanchez to Arsenal type of situation) but you've made some terrific points about how hard it can be to attract the right sorts of players.

Another real problem is that hindsight is 20-20. A lot of people have made the point that other teams have seemingly found value, such as West Ham or Southampton; the problem is that there is no guarantee that those players would have performed as well had they come to Liverpool, or even that they'll keep up the form they're in right now. There have been plenty of players who have come to the PL and lit it up for 6 months before fading badly - Papiss Cissé, for example. Fundamentally I think this hints at a real problem, which is that people are so quick to make their judgements on a player, for better or worse. If Markovic for example comes on against Leicester and performs well, then has a few good appearances as a subsitute, people will be clamouring for him to be in the starting line-up. They won't necessarily be any more right than those who are writing him off now.

[thelinnen]

Is it just me, or...

Did your first sentence say we spent enough?

But your second sentence say we didnt spend enough?

We spent enough but we didn't spend it wisely.

[kcbworth]

We spent enough but we didn't spend it wisely.

So in your estimation: money spent on potential/moneyball signings = unwise spending?

Just trying to get on the same page.

It's just funny... because the whole premise of our strategy is "spending wisely" (you may call it moneyball) rather than just "spending big"

[thelinnen]

So in your estimation: money spent on potential/moneyball signings = unwise spending?

Just trying to get on the same page.

It's just funny... because the whole premise of our strategy is "spending wisely" (you may call it moneyball) rather than just "spending big"

We bought too many players who aren't ready to make a big contribution to the team. The others we bought are Lallana who is ready now, Lambert who is a backup striker and Lovren who looks awful. We would have been better off spending it on two or three top class players. That's the solution to the article.

[GregCharrua]

Excellent post mate, really puts a few things in perspective. Obviously it's hard for us as fans to accept it when players choose to go to other clubs over us (especially in a Sanchez to Arsenal type of situation) but you've made some terrific points about how hard it can be to attract the right sorts of players.

Another real problem is that hindsight is 20-20. A lot of people have made the point that other teams have seemingly found value, such as West Ham or Southampton; the problem is that there is no guarantee that those players would have performed as well had they come to Liverpool, or even that they'll keep up the form they're in right now. There have been plenty of players who have come to the PL and lit it up for 6 months before fading badly - Papiss Cissé, for example. Fundamentally I think this hints at a real problem, which is that people are so quick to make their judgements on a player, for better or worse. If Markovic for example comes on against Leicester and performs well, then has a few good appearances as a subsitute, people will be clamouring for him to be in the starting line-up. They won't necessarily be any more right than those who are writing him off now.

Thanks, and I agree. The list is long of players brought in that failed. Look at Spurs and you've got a dozen - Soldado was especially disappointing for them. Michu had a one off season. Cisse, Ba, Ben Arfa. Osvaldo. Javi Garcia. Salah. Paulinho. Podolski, Ozil, Benteke (after one good season), Kagawa, Buttner, Van Wolfswinkel, Adam Johnson, etc etc etc...

The list of players who dropped in, played very well and kept playing very well is so short ... yet we all seem to think Liverpool is the only team that fails to pick out the best. The reality is there's a high rate of failure (if failure = not being a star player). Many of the players I listed were wanted by RAWK members at some point, if they had come and performed to the same level, they'd be judged shit, and our staff would be idiots, etc.

It's just not as easy as setting aside 100-120m and signing a 5-6 player core and off you go. Building a team is extremely difficult even with loads and loads of money (as some have pointed out with Man City's billion-pound squad's under performance). We've done better than most if you put things into perspective and this summer's signings don't look so awful at all in context. The team as a unit needs to improve but that takes time and playing together and it will happen. Will that resulting squad be title challengers? Maybe. Probably though we can at least be favorites for fourth in the coming seasons, and hopefully make more good moves than bad ones and get a title challenge in occasionally in the years that follow.

[Gnurglan]

I like the gist of your contribution to the thread Gnurglan, but basically what you are saying is:

* We have to play the same game as Chelsea/Man City/Man Utd (i.e. buy extremely expensive players) but
* We have less room for mistakes and
* Less room for injury/bad luck/said good players moving elsewhere but
* We currently make more mistakes than the other teams anyway

So in affect... we have to go from being far worse than them at something, to being better than them at it, with far less room to make mistakes than they have

Great lets do it!

There's no doubt we make too many mistakes. And we make the wrong kind of mistakes too.

It's easy to try the concept I suggest. Write down the best possible match day squad from today's players. Add two young defenders, two midfielders and two attackers. Throw in a third goalie as well. When you've done that, that's your squad. The rest of the senior players can go. And they should. Asap. That's everyone else (senior players), including those on loan. Once that's done, you look at the squad you have left. If you want to add a player, you sell one. You're free to add as many as you like from the Academy to your squad.

If you do that, you'll see what I mean. We could go this route and fairly fast. It's primarily about offloading players. With that out of the way, we'd be in better shape to compete, at least the way I see it. And we'd see just how important of a signing Lallana, Lovren or Balotelli would be. They'd have to be in the match day squad every game. That's the kind of standard we'd need. With our current method, we manage to hide or ignore what we need from them. But we call it squad depth.

Go with that method and we'd be more sensitive to injuries. There's no doubt about that. But here's the thing. Sturridge is out now. We have a large squad. We have players on loan everywhere. We've bought expensive players. And yet no-one is able to step in for Sturridge. So what gain is it to have the setup we have today? What benefits do we get? And if we don't gain anything, why do we have all those players?

[kcbworth]

There's no doubt we make too many mistakes. And we make the wrong kind of mistakes too.

It's easy to try the concept I suggest. Write down the best possible match day squad from today's players. Add two young defenders, two midfielders and two attackers. Throw in a third goalie as well. When you've done that, that's your squad. The rest of the senior players can go. And they should. Asap. That's everyone else (senior players), including those on loan. Once that's done, you look at the squad you have left. If you want to add a player, you sell one. You're free to add as many as you like from the Academy to your squad.

If you do that, you'll see what I mean. We could go this route and fairly fast. It's primarily about offloading players. With that out of the way, we'd be in better shape to compete, at least the way I see it. And we'd see just how important of a signing Lallana, Lovren or Balotelli would be. They'd have to be in the match day squad every game. That's the kind of standard we'd need. With our current method, we manage to hide or ignore what we need from them. But we call it squad depth.

Go with that method and we'd be more sensitive to injuries. There's no doubt about that. But here's the thing. Sturridge is out now. We have a large squad. We have players on loan everywhere. We've bought expensive players. And yet no-one is able to step in for Sturridge. So what gain is it to have the setup we have today? What benefits do we get? And if we don't gain anything, why do we have all those players?

Yep you're using an argument/suspicion that many of us have had over the years, particularly when arguing with Mancs... that irrespective of how deep the squad is, you can only field 11 players at any time.

So if you have a first 11 that's comparable or better - like we did in the days of Alonso/Gerrard/Hyppia/Carra/Reina/Torres/etc - then you are in with a great shot.

Somehow along the way we've been conditioned to believe we haven't won titles due to our lack of depth - and that led to a lot of people being excited that we've finally addressed this with the Suarez money over the summer - finally those pesky Mancs will stop laughing at us about how weak our "squad" is (even when we have a better first 11 anyway)

And let's face it, they must have a point, because I don't think they've had a first 11 as good as Alonso/Gerrard/Hyppia/Carra/Reina/Torres/etc in that same time period, yet they've picked up a number of leagues - in many cases due to their "depth"

I like you Gnurglan have never bought it and have felt that with slightly better luck we could have walked some leagues in that period.

But...

I don't think there was a deliberate desire to weaken the first 11 in order to strengthen the depth over the summer.

In fact, if Sturridge hadn't been injured, the club may still be able to point at

Sturridge-Balotelli-Coutinho-Sterling-Henderson-Gerrard-Lallana-Lovren-Sakho-Skrtel-Moreno-Johnson as a fairly strong core of first team players.

But for whatever reason we have been weakened, and it seems like the decision to promote Sturridge into Suarez' role and bring in a backup (Balotelli) has proven to be the wrong decision.

But I don't believe that was ever considered "weakening the first 11" and I don't believe that there was a conscious tradeoff of first team quality in order to build strength in depth - not holistically anyway.

[kevlumley]

Not to put a downer on it all but I think that 10 or so years from now we will all look back at that as the big missed opportunity.

As i did with Rafas second placed LFC team after the rant.

[kcbworth]

This would have been sufficient

As i did with Rafas second placed LFC team after the rant.

On a positive note, we had a "new missed opportunity" well within the 10 year timeframe, so it wasn't as bad as you were imagining

[kevlumley]

This would have been sufficient

On a positive note, we had a "new missed opportunity" well within the 10 year timeframe, so it wasn't as bad as you were imagining

They both hurt. Agree, after i posted, i wasn't sure i needed to add the rant bit, it was more a reminder of the season, than whether this contributed to not winning the league.

[killer-heels]

As i did with Rafas second placed LFC team after the rant.

Dont think that was a missed opportunity. Utd were a fantastic side and always generally ahead of us. Last season was without doubt the worst. Pretty sure Gerrard will never get over it.

[Gnurglan]

Yep you're using an argument/suspicion that many of us have had over the years, particularly when arguing with Mancs... that irrespective of how deep the squad is, you can only field 11 players at any time.

So if you have a first 11 that's comparable or better - like we did in the days of Alonso/Gerrard/Hyppia/Carra/Reina/Torres/etc - then you are in with a great shot.

Somehow along the way we've been conditioned to believe we haven't won titles due to our lack of depth - and that led to a lot of people being excited that we've finally addressed this with the Suarez money over the summer - finally those pesky Mancs will stop laughing at us about how weak our "squad" is (even when we have a better first 11 anyway)

And let's face it, they must have a point, because I don't think they've had a first 11 as good as Alonso/Gerrard/Hyppia/Carra/Reina/Torres/etc in that same time period, yet they've picked up a number of leagues - in many cases due to their "depth"

I like you Gnurglan have never bought it and have felt that with slightly better luck we could have walked some leagues in that period.

But...

I don't think there was a deliberate desire to weaken the first 11 in order to strengthen the depth over the summer.

In fact, if Sturridge hadn't been injured, the club may still be able to point at

Sturridge-Balotelli-Coutinho-Sterling-Henderson-Gerrard-Lallana-Lovren-Sakho-Skrtel-Moreno-Johnson as a fairly strong core of first team players.

But for whatever reason we have been weakened, and it seems like the decision to promote Sturridge into Suarez' role and bring in a backup (Balotelli) has proven to be the wrong decision.

But I don't believe that was ever considered "weakening the first 11" and I don't believe that there was a conscious tradeoff of first team quality in order to build strength in depth - not holistically anyway.

Of course we didn't intend to make the team weaker last summer. Our intentions were good. I backed and I still back most of them. I disagree with our approach to add players, but I think I understand why we went for the types of players we signed.

What I want us to do is try and find ways where we can compete and how it could be done.

If we think back at last season, which options did we have up front? Suarez and Sturridge. When both were fit, they both played. When one was out, the other one played on his own up front. It worked. If we move back a few years, we had Torres, Kuyt and Ngog as our options. Torres and Kuyt played all the time, let be Kuyt played down the flank. That worked well too. And then we have this season. All of a sudden, we have four strikers. Many would like us to add a fifth (Origi) as soon as possible. We need more options, they say. We need a deeper squad. And yet, it's when we've had less options that we've looked the best. Despite that, we think the solution is to change it.

The core you mentioned, I think it has the chance to be good. I'd like those players to step forward and show their qualities. That's what we need from them. And likewise, I think we could shape the squad in a way so it's obvious what their roles are.

to be honest, we could look to Man U. They've been really successful and I think we could do worse than learn a couple of things from them. They've relied on fairly average players. Brown, O'Shea, Fletcher, Anderson, Valencia,... those players have had rather important roles for them. This season they've used Blackett, McNair and Valencia in defence. Together. We on the other hand, have decided it's best to have Ilori and Wisdom play somewhere else. And again, if we look back in time, how have we solved things when we've been in trouble? At some point, we played Hobbs at CB. We've used Henderson, Mascherano and Sterling at RB. Robinson stepped in at LB. Flanagan, Kelly and Wisdom have done well. We have the odd occasion when things haven't worked. So be it. Generally, we've also managed to solve our problems, just like Utd do now. Even if we've had to play Academy players, or players out of position. So our solution is? Add more players. IMO, we could go with what works, not assume the worst. I think we're paying a very high price for the extra sense of security we get.

So not only do I believe we have reason to believe it would work. It's also an alternative way to how we can compete, despite having less money to spend.

[Halcyon Lissome]

Last season; in the first half (19 games) we had 36 points.

Right now, if we win our remaining 5 of the first half; we'll have 35 points. Our games are Sunderland (H), United (A), Arsenal (H), Burnley (A) and Swansea (H). Probably won't happen, but I guess it goes to show how early in the season it still is.

[LionheartCFC]

Basically the league hasn't been won by a team outside the top 3 in wage bill for nearly 20 years

Maybe that'll change this year 

[GregCharrua]

Last season; in the first half (19 games) we had 36 points.

Right now, if we win our remaining 5 of the first half; we'll have 35 points. Our games are Sunderland (H), United (A), Arsenal (H), Burnley (A) and Swansea (H). Probably won't happen, but I guess it goes to show how early in the season it still is.

Thatd be a 7 game run! But it does make it all hurt less... 

[Gnurglan]

I agree with all your saying. But your pitting intangibles like improved scouting, getting the right player signed, not signing the wrong player and tying up wages, etc versus tangibles that Chelsea/Utd/City can offer which are huge fees (transfers and to agents), huge wages, guaranteed CL football and shot at the title each year. It's a big ask to get those intangibles all lined up. Certainly it isn't impossible. But neither is it a matter of the boardroom sitting down and saying: hey lets scout deeper and stop making these shit signings! I'm sure they analyzed everything in depth and in every angle before making those signings. We didn't just cross paths in the Tesco and decide he had a good face, lets sign him.

As for your Aspas/Ilori/etc criticism - its unfair. Those are all players with a lot of potential (at time of signing) which we were able to get for low fees and wages considering the upside. They were all gambles - but at 7m not at 30m and with wages around 20-30k not 60-80k. If one of them comes back and someday is a starter and real quality, it was a great move. As you see, we've also been able to offload them all on loan easily thanks to the low wages - right now those players are almost nonexistent on our books, and if we want to move them, we won't be losing much. Luis Alberto we paid 1 year wages, then loaned. We paid 7m to a 4 year deal (I think). At the end of the season he'll been our books for 3.5m. If we sell him for 5, we get a profit of 1.5m on the books - thats good business for the club. Even better, one of those players will come back and be in the squad and make difference for us.

I think FSG are trying to do everything that's been suggested by you from your sofa I just don't think its that easy. I'm not suggesting your so naive to think the club is being stupid because it wants to be stupid, of course. I just think you are dramatically underrating the difficulty of doing a Dortmund/Atletico regularly and always to be challenging.

As for my comment about us not being a big club - of course we are in terms of history trophies fan base and even revenues are good. But we aren't CL regulars. We're in constant flux. We are tough negotiators with wages - we want them to be earned before they get a big payday - all these things make us much less appealing than UTD, who forked out 60m plus god knows how much in agent fees for Di Maria and put him on what +100k a week. Not that Di Maria is a solution for us, mind, just an example of the sort of deal you will never see us make. Perhaps Toni Kroos is a better example - a wonderful player who would be amazing in our side, but with his wage demands near impossible, and with a RM/Barcelona/etc after him, he isn't coming to Liverpool either.

There are deals out there, not everyone is Toni Kroos. But we are in a tough spot as a 2nd tier club. Real quality lighting up their league in a 3rd or 2nd tier club will go past us to tier 1, or we'll have to go into a bidding war with the Dortmunds and Atleticos and bigger clubs to grab them. Or we'll have to go after the players who look quality but it isn't sure, who aren't dirt cheap but not killer expensive, and who will need some time to settle - which is what we've been doing albeit so far without any knock down successes.

Money is a real thing. The Chelsea/Utd/City triumvirate got in before FFP and built up their clubs with talent (and Chelsea did it at youth level too). UTD and City are in a less secure spot surely, with aging squads and all that, maybe their spending power will decrease and they'll fall away in the next few years as their valuable assets age and become worthless for selling/reinvesting. Chelsea however looks set up to be in a dominant position for years to come.

Someone posted on RAWK a time before, how Liverpool missed its chance to capitalize and build the club into a financial power house ten years ago or so, and we're only just doing it now. Well that's true I think, because as has been said we're no slouches with spending and we've got a huge history and incredible fan base as well, if we would have done as the others then and not been so unstable and chaotic within doors, who knows. But at least we're sorting out the house now. I'm confident we'll get a title in the next decade. There's a good plan in place, but there's going to be ups and downs. Its like trading, prices are all over but one hopes for a longer upward trend and you have to have the stomach to take the dips and the calmness to handle the spikes to play out the long view plan.

What I tried to do, was mainly to list ways how we could compete. To show that it's about more than money. We could find areas to compete. And it's a good thing. There are ways. As we saw last season. We could do it again.

- Scouting is one thing where we could get an edge. I don't know what exactly we'd need to change. But if we were extremely good at it, it would give us an edge. Imagine if we were like Atletico Madrid. They've had or found Torres, Aguero, Falcao and Costa. That can't be all about luck.
And honestly, take a look at our recent signings. It's not like we're among the elite here. I mean, say you were to get 20M to spend in January. Task would be to get a first team regular. Do you think you could find one? Here's my idea. Give 20M in a signing on fee to Victor Valdes, to replace Mignolet. Bad idea? Maybe. But for 60M, we got a backup CB, a backup winger for the future and two backup strikers... That's our yardstick.

- The problem I have with Aspas/Assaidi/Alberto/Ilori etc is not that we've bought potential. I understand that. Sometimes you need to take a chance. No, the problem is that we've bought them, sent them on loan and then bought their replacements. If they were given away tomorrow, would anyone notice? Seriously? I don't think there's this plan for them. Unless that plan is to get them out of the way, so we have a reasonable squad size to work with. IMO those loans (and some more) should be off. And here's another area we could be sharper in. No excuses, just get the job done. That too can be difficult, but it needs to be done.

- Money is definitely a factor. Of course it is. But it's how we use our (supposed) lack of cash as an excuse that I'm against. We've got what we've got. Which is more than most others. More than almost everyone else. We waste a lot and complain that we don't have enough.

- I don't think we missed our chance ten years ago. The chance is always there.

- It is difficult to get an edge. Everyone is trying. But I'm also a bit tired of hearing how difficult it is. Because it's hardly any easier for Rodgers. It can't be all up to him. If we're looking for how to win the league, we'll have to be sharp. We'll have to be very, very good. Thus we'll have to find ways to improve. Everywhere. And we have lots of areas that could be addressed. That could be seen as a good thing too.

[Livo.85]

20 million to "upgrade" Agger to Lovren. Says it all regarding Liverpool's transfer policy.
The same happened with Reina & is continuing to happen with Johnson & Lucas.
It would of taken what 5 million more to sign Sanchez, maximum 10 million more.
Why gamble on a 20 million signing that has a 50% chance at best at being a success, even less  than that with a young Markovic type when you can add real quality for a little extra?
The fact that this club doesn't see this logic at management level means it is extremely unlikely we will see anything like last season.
 

[Twelfth Man]

Winston Reid is running down his contract. Worth a cheap punt.

[Red Genius]

The premier league remind me of an early Marketing class i took perhaps 15 years ago now whilst doing my GNVQ in Business Studies. Where there was a correlation with companies revenue and how much they spent on advertising. Well in this instance its a correlation between particularly wages and position in the league, but this isn't news to us.... it was exhaustively explored particularly when Benitez was with ourselves, probably due to the new money yobs down in London and having a very obvious example of how money can directly propel you up the league (didn't work out so great for Leeds only a few years before Roman arrived however!)

The reality is, of course we don't have the resources of perhaps 4 other clubs in the league, we're competitive realistically with Arsenal. However, we've had a couple of brilliant opportunities in recent years to invest off the back of sales which thus far, we don't look as though we've taken advantage of, and these are the golden opportunities for a club like ourselves. When you are in receipt of £50m (Torres) or £75m (Suarez) those sorts of sums, along with our ordinary capital investment on a yearly basis, allows us then to compete temporarily with the bigger boys, in so far as we can slap down the funds on the table they can with regards to transfer fee, and we can juggle the budgets to accommodate wages that can also be competitive by allocating some of those monies into the wages pot.

We've had a couple cracks at this cherry, and so far money has not been the single most important factor in our success, it's been the success of the individuals we brought in. Which when assessed has been an inherent issue with our club for 2 decades or more.... how many times do we want to talk about having had the chance to sign Zidane, but chose not to, sign Ronaldo, but get bombed out by United.... have scouted Bale... and whoever but didn't commit. It's not whether we have the means, we have done - but its about timing and successfully delivering.

Our single biggest failure is acquiring the right talent at the right time. We seem inherently fantastic at avoiding some fantastic opportunities and finding some pretty average players in comparison. For every Diouf there was a missed Anelka, for every Pennant there was a missed Simao, Dani Alves was too much, yet we found £18m for Johnson... apparently we looked at Di Natale and opted for Carroll....we missed out on Sanchez, we scored Balotelli.

Now i don't wish to be disrespectful to any player who adorns the red shirt, but it seems to me as though we sorta know what we should be looking at, and bumble away around - and end up with a player whom realistically we wasn't our first choice. That is what has to be addressed in my opinion. If we're out to get a player, we have to close the deal, get it done nice and early and go at it like a bull in a china shop. The reality is the best team wins trophies and the best team ordinarily will adorn some bloody good players.

I think we wallow in too much self pity at times, we have enough resources to be competitive, of course we're not out in front but there is enough there to get at those above us, and when we get an opportunity as we did following the Torres or Suarez departure, we need to be fucking exquisite in our transfer strategy, we need to nip in the butt early when they are likely to leave and plan in advance - then target the replacements that the money coming in will allow us to do so (i.e top class players) and like chuck norris in an 80's flick, gun down every other fucker who stands in our way.

I think it's a mentality thing sometimes "oh no Chelsea are after them, better stand aside" IF we wanted, we could have afforded Fabregas this summer, don't care if he's on £250k a week, Suarez wasn't far off that anyway, and he left. So money was vacated for a player of that calibre.

Thats my two cents anyways! I think it's errors rather than capability that holds us back.

[Sudden Death Draft Loser]

I think we wallow in too much self pity at times

I think it's a mentality thing sometimes

Thats my two cents anyways! I think it's errors rather than capability that holds us back.

This. We constantly put ourselves down.

[kevlumley]

Last season; in the first half (19 games) we had 36 points.

Right now, if we win our remaining 5 of the first half; we'll have 35 points. Our games are Sunderland (H), United (A), Arsenal (H), Burnley (A) and Swansea (H). Probably won't happen, but I guess it goes to show how early in the season it still is.

I like this and the username

[plura]

I like this and the username

I sort of like it, but it also scares me. Thinking of the second half from last season, our start this season + the way we've played, lack of attacking threat. But fear can only do so much I guess or hope...

Faith but not blind one is in place.

[Mighty_Red]

If you look at our recent signings there are lots of reasons why we went for them, why it felt like the right decision at the time, and why they have not been a success so far.

Take a view over a period of years and it is obvious to see that as a club, regardless of the regime, we are generally poor at buying players. There needs to be some more investigation on why we have so many failures. Most of the players we buy have talent, so why can't they show that on the pitch? Are we supporting them the right way in terms of helping them settle both on and off the pitch? In can't always be the case that the player couldn't hack being at such a big club, otherwise it would simply prove that we are poor at assessing the mentality of a player.

Have we done everything to help Mario produce the goods? He was a moneyball signing, a big gamble knowing that he is a potential £25m-30m player but we knew we would have to do some serious work to help him to succeed.

Out of our summer signings it is still Lovren that has the most questions marks. At that price you expect a defender to be the real deal, esp when all the hype was that he would help organise the defence. The attacking players have had the misfortune to walk into a team where the established players have struggled themselves.

I still don't quite buy the financial aspect, we have spent enough over the years to do a lot better than we have. Our spend on agents is consistently high. We just have to execute better knowing that we don't have money to waste.

[Dree]

We have a decent amount of money, but stats show that wage bill is responsible for something like 92% of league position, something we aren't close to achieving with our wage structure. If we'd thrown 200k a week at Alonso perhaps he'd have stayed for example? We have become a selling club since in all honesty, and very few clubs of that ilk reinvest that wisely (Dortmund perhaps, Southampton at the moment and Lyon when they dominated French football). It'll take either a few years or seriously well paid players for us to get near the title again.