Two current Liverpudlian anniversaries dominate this week’s Anfield Wrap. The first is that Sunday October 8 marked the end of the second year of Jürgen Klopp as Liverpool manager. It’s arguable that right now Klopp finds himself under the most pressure he has been under at the club and that he has set his own standards at a time it will be toughest to reach them.
The second is that next Sunday (October 15) sees the seven-year anniversary of Fenway Sports Group’s acquiring of Liverpool. Theirs is a constant trade off in the debit and credit column and this is worked through not for the first time by The Anfield Wrap, hosted by Neil Atkinson and with Paul Senior, Adam Melia and Gareth Roberts.
Gareth also speaks to Tony Zeverona, chairman of Prescot Cables on Non-League Day about his role and the challenges facing clubs such as his.
Direct: The Anfield Wrap – Free Podcast: A Tale Of Two Anniversaries
Gareth for me completely boxed the first part of the show re-Klopp, said everything I would have but in a much more coherent way!!
Fair play to Paul for trying to understand why the owners do what they do but re- the ownership it is completely bonkers for me having made the investment they have that neither Henry or Werner live in the City or at the very least spend more than 50% of there time between Boston and Liverpool. Feel sure if they had of made that commitment there ownership would have worked out in a slightly more positive way because they would feel on a daily basis the all consuming passion of the people for the Club which resonates from the City around the world like no other , I say this as someone who lives around London and what Neil said about London Clubs is spot on, it just isn’t the same.
As ever great listern
Zzzzzz. Same show different day. Zzzzz
Picked the right show for free. Zzzzz
Well you can simply not listen to the podcasts.
Here here Joseph.
Koolhand21 – goto Anfield Index or even more specialist -Daytrippers.
Seriously, moaning about free content, grippez-vous.
Found myself agreeing with Paul Senior for once which was scary ;) Equally I have to agree with Gareth on the ‘if not FSG then who’ shout, I mean seriously all the FSGOUT people, who is out there that you’d have as owners? Because aside from that scary lady who runs a hedge fund there’s not exactly a queue of billionaires lining up is there.
FSG need to up their, or even start, communications game though it’s appalling. For a billion $ enterprise their PR is awful.
I also thought Paul was talking lots of sense.
On the “if not FSG then who?” shout, people need to bare in mind that any new ownership group would need to make the biggest ever investment in club football just to acquire LFC.
Sheikh Mansour bought City for £265m, less than FSG paid for LFC. Any new buyer would need to pay at least four times that,w and would then be in a position where the potential upside from the investment would be more limited. Fans would then expect them to somehow bankroll additional spending, despite the fact that FFP remains a thing, and limits it. (The only way we see that additional spending on the team is if LFC increase their revenue.)
Another thing people should consider when they call for new owners is who do they think gets to select the new owners? Not the fans that’s for sure. If FSG decided to sell they would invite bids and would select the one that gives them the best return, on the proviso it was from a bidder who would pass the Premier League’s the “fit and proper” ownership test. If we are lucky they might also apply some extra due diligence that prevent the club being sold to a bunch of dodgy leveraged buy out merchants, but that would be up to consciences of FSG.
Amanda Staveley doesn’t have the funds to buy a club, she isn’t close to being a billionaire. She might front up a deal for other investors, and there were rumours last year of her fronting a deal for China Everbright to acquire the club, but their CEO went on the record to say these rumours were complete nonsense.
Good show and a good panel in the sense that Paul surprised me with his positivity, Gareth probably was closest to me views and somewhere in middle and Adam surprised me that he wasn’t more negative so all in a good balance.
Klopp is doing ok. There is the white elephant in the room but then there may well be reasons for that. I’d guess they’d be – LFC have a strict budget. They don’t go over and into debt. That much we know. If the budget (remaining) was around the £150m mark then he may need £65 for VVD and say, £65 for Lemar. With the increased wages it would take to get them that could be his budget gone. £90m was too much for Lemar even if I know nothing about his ability and in an inflated market. Maybe Klopp thinks he can get them and wants them. I’ve made it clear I thought not replacing Klavan was folly but if he can’t spend £20m on a CH in today’s market then what’s the point. £5-£10m probably just gets Klavan again. Maybe Klopp is a very patient man and it gets him success in the long run. I always remember being desperate for a tacchini tracky top and was saving up. Then a bloke I knew came to my door selling one cheap. The arms unzipped at the top of the arms and the arms were missing. I spent my money on what in effect was a body warmer. I knew when I was buying it it was a mistake but did anyway. I never wore it and never actually got round to buying a proper one. I should have waited. Patience innit.
LFC are progressing still and if we get out the group and get top 4 then it can still be viewed as going forward because we’ve gone from a team to a squad. If we’re going forward then I’m ok. Top 4 is the benchmark for it. This is just a blip at the minute. It’s hardly been disastrous either. A win next week and probably next Tuesday and there’s a whole new complexion on things.
Regarding FSG, we have to win something soon or the complexion changes there too. Yes, the club is stable, things are going well but there’s no trophies and that has to be the KPI. I often come across as Pro FSG on these comments but it’s not necessarily the case. My issue is with idiots who have no idea about running a business. I’m not even sure what investment means so I’m no better. The club spends what it generates (as do all clubs). There are clearly ways to cheat what a club generates but I’m not sure what ‘FSG haven’t invested’ even means. They manage our finances and say how much of it we can spend on this and that. So far under FSG it’s been all of it until Klopp arrived. I feel he hasn’t spent his budget. Agree we need communication about the Annie Road. I may even tweet Peter and ask him and if he doesn’t reply send sexually abusive tweets to Linda. I think that’s the route our fans take isn’t it? It was clear to me though, from an early date in their reign that they decided no communication was best and I’ll tell you why. Name anything the owners have said either good, bad or non descript that hasn’t been thrown back in their faces. Paul made a fair point about the main stand. So, under the circumstances they’ve done ok. If we don’t win trophies in the next 2 years (difficult or not) then it changes in my opinion.
Hi – nice discussion -really enjoyed it,
I am very much a glass half full person. ‘if we win our next
5 games we’ll be in the mix’. When was the last time we won 5 games in a
row? Our next five are:
ManU (H), Spurs (A), Hudders (H), West Ham (A), Saints (H).
In current form, we would draw manu,hudd,saints. Win away to West Ham,
draw at spurs. 7/15.
That leaves us on 19 pts from 12 games. ~1.6 pts/game.
I hope I am wrong. We really need to step up.
Well, the commenters on the whole are a lot smarter than the guys on the pod.
What the f*** is Gareth talking about? Is he stupid, deaf or just doesn’t read anything about Liverpool. In the last 6 months, they’ve said they’re not ready to make a decision on Anny road, but have moved Kirkby on through very concrete development stages in it’s process. You know, £50m worth of development. No communication? HELLO, EARTH CALLING ROBERTS, USE BOTH BRAIN CELLS, IT WORKS BETTER THAT WAY.
What club has the chief exec, or chairman or COO or sporting director constantly wittering away to the public? For English football, the manager has ALWAYS been the mouthpiece of the club in anything remotely like modern times, why? because it avoids mixed messages and unnecessary talk about non-football matters from folks who aren’t 100% focussed on the pitch cos they have an organisation to run. Especially the way liverpool fans want to send any message back with a dagger to the heart. That’s called being professional about it.
And why do other FSG members have to be here? 2 of their top guys are here permanently, Gordon and the commercial guy. Why would you want others constantly over sticking their oar into things. Those 2 guys are charged with overseeing the operation and are a constant.
I think the owners have been very consistent in their approach and communication, and constantly left football matters to football people. I think you seem to just want to moan. Quelle surprise!
I find these discussions bizarre, maybe you’re just playing to the gallery or you’re just not very smart.
Did you notice that in 4 years the owners both turned the club from a heavily loss making entity to break even AND had a bona fide title challenge with a bona fide title challenging team using a multitude of players that were bought under them WHILE the club was losing money?
The fact the team then got torn apart meant we lost 2 years (and went into registering a loss again following one year of profit from the suarez sale) – one where Rodgers floundered and Klopp’s first part season which wasn’t wasted but there was a limit to what he could have done arriving when he did. As it turned out the defence stopped it being a spectacular start but that shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone.
Under FSG we’ve got to several finals (is it 4?) and had a title challenge. Is it their “fault” we didn’t cross the line on any of them? And this is in a heavily financially doped football world where the 2 latest uber money additions literally have the funds of a nation state in Citeh and PSG. Yet we’re supposed to happily compete [and win] with them and an incredibly competent Spurs besides the usual suspects?
I don’t start off with being pro or anti owners like 99% of the fanbase, I just look at what has happened, what we’re trying to do and how we do stuff. It’s hardly a negative picture to anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together.
The landscape has just changed again with Mourinho spending larger than ever and PSG & Citeh simply fiddling the system and the Southampton’s of this world suddenly no longer having the need to sell players to raise money.
This may be very bad news for FSG/us (yes, it’s us not us and them) in that money no longer gets you a player unless you literally do what Citeh & PSG do with unlimited resources and generally for younger players – which is what the Chavs used to do and Utd are ready to do whenever necessary. Lukaku for £90m is a joke, but they can afford it.
If I have a complaint it’s possibly about Edwards – was the recruitment of our 1-6 position players massively down to him & his spreadsheets or just no better than we could have expected given we were operating while losing money.
Klopp is targeting the right first team players thank god because he inherited is a 7th/8th place defensive unit. If we get his players we’ll succeed, if we don’t then we won’t. It’s that simple. He’s done as much manipulation of the team as he can. Unfortunately the market just got a whole lot harder to operate.