Recently fourfourtwo.com attempted to create some hype by claiming that since taking over the Club in mid-October 2010, Fenway Sports Group had spent Stg 300 million to purchase the club and a further Stg 144 million on player purchases (when even the squirrels at Hyde Park know that our net spend on players is closer to Stg 35 million given the sale of Torres, Babel, Ngog and Mireilles….to mention a few). Nothing much wrong in that is there, except that the headline was ‘Liverpool spend Stg 7.5 million per point’!
The website also made an unlikely comparison with Man City claiming that even though Mansour spent a staggering Stg 1 billion (yep that’s a ‘B’ not an ‘M’) from September 2008 right up to the last summer transfer window, their cost per point was much lower than ours, way lower.
So let’s make some comparative arguments and considerations to see how this Professor of Mathematical Theory went about doing his homework:
– Man City apparently notched up 188 points in the interim. That’s 188 points in three full seasons plus the current one: a total of 121 games rendering 1.55 points per game. Since 15th October 2011, the Reds played 38 Premier League matches notching up 59 points and that too is 1.55 points per game. These are the stats that matter.
– The difference is that Mansour’s investment is spread over a 3.25 year period while the Fenway investment has only been in existence for 1 year! How can you compare 36 month period with a 12?
– I’m not much into City’s finances but with Mansour spending Stg 793 million on player purchases, can someone tell me: a) how much of this was recovered from players sales, b) how much of this is part of the ludicrous wages Man City have to pay players that are out on loan playing for other clubs?
– How can you not take into account the money recovered from player sales (such as the Stg 75 million recovered for the sale of the four players mentioned earlier), to then say that Man Utd’s owners have not spent a dime on player purchases as these have been ‘internally generated’? Was he referring to Cristiano Ronaldo’s Stg 90 million plus sale for example? Isn’t this being incoherent with your arguments?
Considering Mansour spent Stg 208 million in Sept 2008 for City, the Glazers Stg 790 million for Utd in May 2005 and Fenway Stg 300 million for Liverpool in 2011, one may judge for himself who’s money was best spent, because when you consider that City need at least another 20 years to overhaul Liverpool’s league tally, and perhaps a decade to overhaul European one. Then when you consider that the Glazers’ purchased Utd in 2005 Liverpool were still the most titled Club domestically, and still is internationally, then again: who got the best deal?
Fourfourtwo.com ended up with a sensationalistic yet improbable article with twisted facts and figures used in an artful way the sole purpose of creating awe! At the end of the day it was an unprofessional piece of writing which will not dent our faith in the new owners that in the space of one year have proven to be low-profile, cautious, and who have delivered much more than they promised.
Better luck next time fourfourtwo.com!
Good article mate I read that shit in the paper myself and thought it was a load of shit, especially because it had moyes down as the best points for pounds manager about. He may well be but he’s never won a fucking thing at neverton and never will
thats the thing that got me when i first read about this, when the comparison was with everton and when they were first bought…how is that a fair comparison. if your going to do that kind of conparison maybe you shpuld just look at this season, or from start of last season but dont count the cost of buying the club.
Don’t blame them, they can’t write beyond the scope of their thinking
ha!ha!..well said!
in fact it’s less than “players bought – players sold” because of the many high wages we’ll not pay for players who left the club (Jova, Poulsen, Mereiles, Torres (too), Cole (loan)).
In fact it’s less than 35M
Total rubbish this is!!!. It shows that people are jealous of Liverpool’s good responsible owners, we have a net spend of around £40m only but that gets brushed under the carpet. what will they pull out when we sort the stadium issue out soon???, will that be unfair if we get more money from that then???. Nobody wants to see Liverpool doing well at all, we will see more of this as financially we get even stronger by the week!!!!
Nobody mentions David Moyes’ record when he has spent big on players. That’s where he has made mistakes. Yakubu and Andy Johnson were expensive flops. He is doing ok at Everton but that doesn’t mean he will be a success at a bigger club.
The press are running out of things to slag us of with and put us down with.
We need to win the Premier League and ram back down twenty years of rubbish back down their throats.
JJ I agree with you 100%! The media in general had gotten so much used to rubbing anything in our face that they now cannot come to terms with the fact that we are financially healthy, well within the Fair Play rules regime, and constantly improving on the pitch as well. Just wait till the stadium plans are announced……!
Utter bollocks of an article. Its been done because there,s this obsession with heaping praise on trophyless moyes while having a sly dig at kenny and us.lets compare their records when talking about value for money,kenny…3 League titles,2fa cups a Double in there aswell and why not include his first spell? moyes..errrrm.are evertonians sitting there,seriously,thinking that they,re getting the best value for money in the league? Not even close
The money in top flight footie is vile now. That’s all clubs. As big a reds fan as i am I think money has ruined the game.
It was a different game in the 70’s and 80’s and I think sky has been the most damaging influence. I agree though that these stats seem ridiculous.
Some people lose their head when they find statistics and thus articles like those in the fourfourtwo.com are born.