Ever since Tom Hicks and George Gillett arrived at Anfield Rafael Benitez has been forced into a trade-off in the transfer market. This season the effects are all too clear.
Since the arrival of our American owners at the club we have seen progressive improvement in our first team season after season, from the addition of Torres the summer after the arrived to challenging for the title in last seasons campaign everything has been up hill. The first eleven have certainly got stronger in those years, boasting a host of world-class players, all with international caps under their belt. This improvement in the starting eleven has shown in Europe as well, since our last final in 2007 our most disappointing end to a European campaign has come in the quarter-finals, something Liverpool fans could only dream of throughout the 90’s and early in this decade.
This season, however, has been a different matter altogether. An injury crippled team has put in a number of poor performances that have seen us knocked out of the European Cup and our title dreams crushed even before New Year has arrived. In times like this all anyone thinks about is where to allocate the blame. Are the players not trying hard enough? Is the manager not making the right decisions? Are the owners not supporting the manager enough? All these questions have been asked over recent weeks and in my opinion the majority of the blame has to be placed upon our owners shoulders.
Since the very start of our current owners tenure we’ve adopted a sell to buy policy, mainly due to the fact the club has to pay toward the interest payments on the loan currently placed on the clubs holding company. Over the last few years we’ve seen a number of quality squad players sold in order to finance the purchase of top-quality players for the starting eleven. A prime example of this is the sale of Bellamy in order to fund the Torres deal. Whilst we would all rather have Torres than the Welsh striker it would have been nice to have had him in the squad this season, but our financial restraints means that he had to make way in order to improve the quality of the starting eleven.
This has had to be done to bring in a host of first-team players, including Javier Mascherano, Robbie Keane and Glen Johnson. It’s a position that no other top four club has been forced into. When Alex Ferguson wants a player he feels will be essential if United want to meet their goals for the seasons he is given the funds, without the need to sell one or two squad players to finance the deal. Chelsea are in the same position. No major players had to make way for signings such as Anelka in recent years, meaning they have maintained a strong squad whilst improving their starting eleven.
Due to our need to sell in order to buy we’ve seen our squad become weaker season-on-season whilst our first team has improved. This means when we are hit by a host of injuries as we have been this season we don’t have the backup to cover for the injured first team players. Selling to buy a high-price player once every couple of seasons is acceptable and can be done without damaging strength in depth too much, but when you’re forced by the owners to sell in order to buy in every transfer window the squad will become weaker even if the first team is getting stronger.
It’s a bad trade-off for any manager, either sell quality squad players and have a strong first eleven or don’t sell and have an average squad and an average starting eleven. What does it all boil down to? A lack of funds given to the manager by the owners, that’s what has made Liverpool’s squad as weak as it is today and it will only get worse, no matter who is the manager, unless the owners inject some capital into the club now.
M. Owen
michael@empireofthekop.com
100% agreed Michael, top post.
YNWA
I have to say, you have conveyed your point here rather well.
Our lack of depth is the main reason as to why I believe we have done poorly this season, but I’ve really put much into why we have this poor depth, and you’ve certainly explained it with this sell to buy policy.
However, I don’t feel that the majority of the blame should be put onto the owners.
Personnally I feel its an equal share between the owners and Rafa. Especially as with any game I watch, i’m always left questioning every decision he does, usually regarding substitutes though (like giving aquilani 1 minute last week, always bringing riera off and bringing defenders on when we could do with an addition to midfield).
Another reason as to why I’d share the blame with Rafa is that some of his signings have been rather stupid, even with the funds. An example of this is Voronin, even though yes he was a free transfer, I still wouldnt of brought him in and not looked to bring another in aswell.
You know, blind conviction is only a good thing when what you firmly believe in is actually the right thing. And this unrepentant blind faith in Rafa is really not helping the club one bit.
Blaming the owners for lack of funds is all well and good, but the owners don’t make some of the tactical decisions and poor man-management gaffes that have plagued Liverpool this Season and have led to the exodus of some of our former players who wanted to stay but could not deal with Rafa’s methods. The owners do not make the decision to play error-prone players in bad form week-in and week-out for every single game whether or not they have good or bad games (I’m looking right at you Kuyt, Lucas and Insua). And the owners certainly don’t decide to play defensive cautious negative football against inferior opposition at Anfield. It’s Rafa that does all these things. Rafa and Rafa alone. And it is these decisions, along with his ill-advised buys in the transfer market, that have doomed Liverpool’s Season this year. Not the injuries (ManU and Chelsea have also played large swathes of this Season without some of their regular – and ManU especially can still beat weak opposition with their second rate squad if they have to), Not bad luck ( we had our fair share of good luck AND bad luck last season, just as other teams are having their own share of bad luck this season – there’s nothing special about Liverpool in this regard.) Nothing bit Rafa.
And until you guys stop making all these useless excuses for the guy, we’re never going to progress. Everybody, including the guy himself knows he’s a stubborn person (last Season’s rotation fiasco at the beginning of the Season, probably cost us the 4 points we could have gained to catch ManU for the title, but Rafa was to stubborn to stop it until January this year) – and the last thing you want to do with a stubborn individual is to constantly convince them or make them believe that they’re right, when they are actually wrong.
No, this Season is ALL on Rafa’s plate and no one else’s. The sooner we (and he) start accepting that, the better off we’ll be in starting the road back to recovery.
Teddy we are supporters, we support our team and our players.
That is the LIVERPOOL WAY
Nothing goes our way this season. Unimportant game but I hate losing. Good to see Aquilani and Pacheco. Young lad looked good.
Teddy, you make two points which are in many ways contradict each other. Firstly, you say Rafa is too stubborn in playing out of form players (he has to be, there’s no strength beyond his first choice players) yet you also blame his rotation policies last season for us not winning the league.
We didn’t lose the league because of rotation at the start of the season, clearly proven by the fact that going into Christmas we were top of the league. Our problem last season was that we didn’t break down teams we should have between January and March. The lack of attacking quality in midfield and a decent second striker can be given as the reason for that problem. Perhaps if the funds were available for an attacking minded Gareth Barry we would have got a lot more goals in those games and turned the draws into wins.
You use the words ‘blind faith’ which isn’t fair and slightly hypocritical. Regardless of what Rafa does you will make the case that he’s too negative and makes silly decisions, it doesn’t matter if he makes a collection of very good decisions you’re staunchly set in your opinion that Rafa is doing a bad job. On the other hand I can be critical of Rafa’s decisions, and he’s made mistakes this season which have cost us. However, my belief is that the majority of the blame needs to be placed on the owners as the funding was not in place in order to ensure he first team and the squad develop at a similar rate.