As Liverpool’s contract impasse with their three biggest stars goes on, they’re playing the lottery with both player and fan loyalty…
THERE are times when Liverpool Football Club and I fall out of love.
To be honest, save for one occasion in 2018 when they did something wonderfully kind for me, it’s always been something of a one-sided affair. I’ve loved and admired them since the age of seven, they’ve sent me a scarf or a mug for signing up for a membership. Hardly a true love story.
But in the main I’ve always felt that we’re on the same page. There’s an understanding there despite the wall between us.
That’s changed a bit this season.
Get the violins out. Massively entitled whine incoming…
See, I’ve not been successful in a single ballot all season and have subsequently lost all my credits as a result.
Ten of them.
Two years ago, I had the full 19. I appreciate that this will be met with replies of ‘poor you’ and ‘haven’t you been to enough games as it is,’ and, of course, I have. I’ve been incredibly lucky. I’m not saying I’m any more deserving than anyone else, but…
There are currently 11,000 corporate and hospitality seats in the ground on match day. Eleven thousand. That’s 18 per cent of the full capacity.
These are seats well outside the usual price range. From what I can see of those that become available in the days leading up to a game, they tend to go for about 10 times the amount of a standard ground ticket. They’re not meant for me. They’re meant for one-off buyers. For bucket lists.
And it rankles. My decades of following The Reds home, away and abroad swept aside for the Big Conglomerate PLC’s staff party. For ‘we’ve got a box at Anfield, you really should come along one day,’ business invitation. There’s nothing I can do about that other than accept it, but it’s caused a rift in my heart.
That’s not all of it, though. I’m worried about August.
I wonder how darker this slow breakup will become if Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk’s contracts are allowed to expire without renewal – not because of a change in style or a new era, but because it’s become financially expedient for the club.
It’s March and the greatest centre back in the world along with the greatest striker/winger can already talk to other clubs.
If their demands aren’t met, the club will save as much as a million a week off the wages bill. Part of me thinks they’d quite like that idea. A much larger part considers such a strategy to be ridiculous.
If the three lads go, the club will have to spend a fortune on replacements who aren’t the greatest in the world. Maybe the thinking is to ‘spend less and make them the world’s best,’ I don’t know. That hardly ever happens.
I’d like to think that they’d never do anything like that, but it’s March, and agents can pick up a phone any time.
I’m not sure how I’d feel about a Liverpool who take such risks with success on the pitch. I get that finances are important and ‘we need to compete’ but why are we hanging around when two thirds of the lads are desperate to stay and fight for Liverpool? Why are we walking a tightrope? Why are we hoping that the lads will be patient?
Maybe I’m being too cynical. There’s a theory that two of the three contracts are done and they’re not announcing it in case it negatively reflects on the third. No one wants boos in a potential treble-winning season if Trent likes the look of Spain.
That may be the reason why we’ve not seen headlines of a ‘Virgil in Bayern talks’ nature. Mo Salah, in particular, has always been very vocal on the lack of contract talk and he’s gone quiet lately. As for Virgil, he hasn’t made so much of a squeak about his future.
All the same, I don’t like it. It breeds mistrust and I’ve enough of that about the owners as it is. It’s made me focus my adoration on the players and staff alone rather than the full entity of Liverpool Football Club.
Any wider relationship has suffered simply because I’m not rich enough to watch them play and, thanks to this, I’m not sure they know what they’re doing with generational talent.
This is going to be a season that will be talked about for years in the same way that 1986, 1988, 2001, 2005, 2014, 2019 and 2020 will be. I only hope the owners don’t gamble with what’s to come. Everyone loved 2014. No one was keen on 2015.
Oh, and the members’ sale for Southampton was today. I queued for two hours.
Go on. Guess.
