Not doin’ a Spurs

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By Alex Sloane (By @sloaneaw)

The big summer cliché this year is ‘Liverpool are doing a Spurs aren’t they’. You will most likely hear this from Spurs fans themselves but also fans of all other top 6 clubs looking for  something pessimistic to say about a club that has leaped frogged their own in the Premier League and are at last looking like challengers again.

This article goes through the reasons why Liverpool ARE NOT doing a Spurs this summer, so if you are (like me) bored of having this argument with people, just send them this link and say “read that and shut up”.

Let’s go back to May of this year when people were saying “fair enough you are back in the Champions League but you’re squad is too small to challenge in all competitions”. Skip forward to now and all you hear is how we now have too many players in the same positions. But if you look at the players we have; their ages, their roles, their current v potential ability you will see we are in a really good place to be competitive in all competitions.

Unlike Spurs we are not carrying out a massive overhaul of our first team, we are replacing one player, perhaps strengthening one or two other positions but on the whole adding depth to the squad. Suarez obviously leaves an empty space on the team sheet which needs filling but we also can’t deny that our defence let us down on occasions last year and a couple of new faces here would be positive. On the opening day of last season Spurs gave Premier League debuts to 4 new players; by the end of September 4 more players were involved in Premier League activity as well. That is 8 new players coming in during the opening stages of the season. First of all, they aren’t used to playing together, and secondly the team changed every week, how were they ever going to gain any consistency?

The next point is over the players themselves. None of Spurs’ signings had played in England before, it is a very different league to any other and a complete lack of experience isn’t great when you are depending on so much from the players. The senior players that Liverpool have signed and been linked with having experience of playing in England but also scoring goals here; Lallana, Lambert, Remy, Lovren and Rodriguez all proved it last year. The younger players have time to get used to life over here as there isn’t a rush for them to prove themselves; they were bought for the future. In Spurs’ defence Lamela is also one for the future and I’m sure he will do better this season.

Finally, I will go back to what I touched on at the start; we are set up well in all competitions. Spurs bought a mass of players and tried to shoehorn them into the team, it didn’t work. Other than Lamela they didn’t consider the future, just the present. The younger players that have come in and been rumoured, such as; Markovic, Gaitan and Origi will get exposure to the first team in the league but mostly play in cup competitions. Remy/ Rodriguez, Lambert, Can and Bertrand would provide much needed cover so 1st teamers don’t burn out. Lovren and Lallana are first teamers that will give us strength week in week out. Also, if rumours are to be believed and we do secure Reus or Shaqiri as a ‘marquee’ signing the season will again be a very optimistic one.

In summary, Liverpool hasn’t ‘done a Spurs’ because we have added depth to our team rather than overhaul our entire 1st team. We have brought young players in with the future in mind and squad players with challenging in all competitions in mind. But most importantly when Spurs lost Bale they had just finished 5th in the league and were looking to buy players to get them back in the Champions League. We have lost Suarez after scoring over 100 goals and finishing 2nd in the Premier League; we were not a one man team. We are buying players to win trophies and better our 2nd place finish to bring the title back to Anfield.