Dear Mr Henry,
Firstly I would like to go on record and thank you with the utmost sincerity for rescuing the club from administration at the 11th hour a couple of years ago. I think I speak for Liverpool supporters from Breck Rd to Boston when I say we suffered greatly under the previous regime of Hicks and Gillett. They arrived with lots of big promises and failed to deliver the vast majority of them. This has taught us to be very wary of statements from owners and managers alike.
Kenny Dalglish is a Liverpool legend and although the performances in the league last season were not what anyone connected with Liverpool would have hoped for, he did steer the club to both the FA and Carling Cup finals, winning the latter. There were also signs that, in time, the league form would have improved as the team took on an attacking style of play and they dominated possession in many games. If we had added a proven, top class goal scorer we would probably have finished a lot higher up the table. The fact that the club still hasn’t added that player to the squad is obviously disappointing. If there is one type of player we need it is a natural goal scorer. You will therefore understand we are disappointed that this kind of player was not acquired in the transfer window before other players were allowed to leave.
It was a massive call to replace Kenny and an incredibly brave one. In Brendan Rodgers there’s no doubt that the club has a talented young manager. But the team has been dealt a tricky opening set of fixtures and the next two games against Sunderland (away) and Man Utd (at home) are extremely difficult. Supporters will recognise this but should we lose badly to United at home we will be incredibly unhappy. Losing to them at all is horrible for us fans but if we were humiliated it would be sickening.
The manager will inevitably need time to instil his beliefs and get the players to adapt to his style of play. And while there have been some encouraging signs already, it’s fair to say that yesterday’s performance against Arsenal was awful and, with all due respect to West Brom, a 3-0 defeat to a team of their stature is not good.
What’s worrying is that many of the problems at the club under previous managers, both on and off the field, are sill evident. Specifically we need iron out the following problems:
1. Transfers. I understand form a business point of view there are limits to what we can afford to pay when buying players. But in addition to not overpaying for players, we need to stop allowing players to leave for less money than they are worth. Allowing Charlie Adam to leave for almost half what we paid for him a year earlier is madness. Over the years we have repeatedly lost money when selling players including McMananman, Owen, Keane and Aquilani, to name a few.
2. A goal scorer. It’s fair to say that since Torres left we have failed to replace him with someone who will score 20 or 30 goals a season. Liverpool have been lucky enough to have some great natural goal scorers over the years such as Rush, Aldridge and Fowler. Whilst Borini looks like he has the potential to score lots of goals, he isn’t proven and the fact that we haven’t added this type of player when we have been desperately lacking one for the last two seasons doesn’t offer much encouragement.
3. Players getting in the box. This point is linked to the previous one. A natural goal scorer like Robbie Fowler would get into the positions that other players wouldn’t. These types of players have a knack of being in the right place at the right time. But scoring goals isn’t about one player getting into the box. When you watch successful teams attacking they have several players in there, looking to get on the end of the ball. Too often we only have one player in there which means any pass has to be perfect and it’s a lot easier for teams to defend against. This has been a weakness of ours for too long.
4. Closing players down. Again this is a problem that has existed for a while now. Our defenders don’t seem to close players down. Often they allow the opposition to run 20 yards from the half way line with the ball. It happened several times in yesterday’s match against Arsenal where players, notably Diaby, were invited to run at our defenders. This is surprising because Brendan Rodgers likes his players to press when they don’t have possession but our defenders are still doing it. This gives players the chance to shoot from inside the box, and even if they don’t score it often leads to penalties or corners. We shouldn’t be allowing the opposition to run at goal with the ball. It’s better to make a challenge further up the pitch rather than wait until players are inside our penalty area.
I hope this letter is taken in the manner with which it is meant. I believe both you and Tom Werner have the club’s best interests at heart and I don’t mean to insult you in any way. But when you bought Liverpool Football Club you said you wanted to hear what the fans were thinking and this is how I feel. I’m only writing this because I want the club be successful.
A life-long Liverpool supporter
ps dont sign Michael Owen that will only make things worse
Er, what could FSG and John Henry possibly do about points 3,4 and 5? Not like they can go into the dressing room and sketch it out on the drawing board… Remove those 3 points and we have a letter that’s worth reading.
Sorry but FSG will have no direct impact on points 3&4. This is a manager’s tactical approach as to why these things do or do not happen. And to be honest, the most important message I would relay to the owners is to give us fans regular updates on the stadium issue.
It’s been two years since they have taken over and we seem to be going nowhere fast on this. Surely the costing and income revenues from both options would have been weighed up and a decision to stay or move made. Without this, I fear we will not compete.
Also, a subject wide of the mark, I would like to see the club, before kick off, award some of our armed forces heroes as they do in America. But that’s just my opinion.
Ian Ayre is the fault ..he left at 9pm where he should of sat his butt out till 11pm ..nice for your letter John Henry but i dont think you did that …this could be some one elses letter just to get ian ayre off the hook !! also you never said anything about andy carroll you never said about the 15m you stuck in the bank for that chelsea striker !! my next word is right yank fans find out if its true !! is REDSOX GOING BUST ? i heard there losing money and baseball players are leaving due to wage demands !
“my next word is right yank fans find out if its true !! is REDSOX GOING BUST ? i heard there losing money and baseball players are leaving due to wage demands !”
Not true. Earlier this year, Forbes ranked the Red Sox as the 3rd most valuable team in Major League Baseball, with the 7th highest profit in 2011.
The players who left earlier this summer didn’t do so of their own accord. Boston rid themselves of two of their worst contracts by packaging them with that of an admittedly great, but ultimately replaceable, player. It was a smart piece of business that freed up hundreds of millions of dollars for roster improvements.
An (imperfect) analogy using LFC might be:
Imagine if Torres were still at Anfield and we told Chelsea: yes, you can have him for 45 million…as long as you also buy Henderson and Downing at full price as part of the deal (only, in this example, we’d paid 30 million each for those two, not 20).
Totally agree that John W Henry can’t impact on points 3 and 4, just wanted to him to realise how hard it is to watch the team making the same mistakes. If those points somehow filtered through to the manager and coaching staff, great. YNWA
To be fair:
1> They can only be responsible for Adam. And we probably overpaid for him (As with Handerson. Downing and Carroll they took advice and it was wrong – which he admits).
2> You can’t fault their intent – they (over)paid for Carroll.
3 and 4 > That’s a management and not an owner issue.
I suspect they trusted Commelli and Kenny and sadly that trust was misplaced in terms of the investment made.
This time they trusted someone else who tried to be too canny – and failed.
The Yanks no nothing tactically about football so your wasting your time there mate.
The Boston Red Sox have gone from World champions to a laughing stock in 4 years, the reason is FSG.
Liverpool will no longer be the football power they strive to become again as long as FSG control the club.
Who should own the club and who could buy it is open to debate but Americans please no, what on earth do they know about the beautiful game.
As for Borini how can you pay 11m for that, as for Sahin seeing Abu Diaby run away from him was unbelievable he had the pace of a mobility scooter. Arsenal just played Liverpool off the pitch.
As for the manager, I said please not him at the time of the apppointment it is early days yet, but he has no plan B and his plan A isnt much cop either. What has he achieved at the highest echelons of the game sweet FA.
I do think that this side will struggle to reach the top half of the table, especially as Gerrard and Reina are no longer the great players they were.
I agree with the letter. Also sign Owen because he is a natural goal poacher and thats what we need. Do it and then we’ll feel happy once again and results will come running to us. An Indian Liverpool fan.
Why has the transfer policy of the last two years been the fault of john Henry?
He provided the money – it was wasted – the comment that we appear not to receive the proper value on transfers out makes the point, we overpaid in the first place, in the case of Adam by at least 50% more in the case of Henderson & Downing.
Carroll was overvalued by around 30m and was never of the quality we need – Aguero was 35m, Van Persie 25m.
And to mention Aquilani – he was bought injured for 20m never played – just sheer waste.
Who can blame Henry for saying we have to live within our means. Massive mismanagement for many years and now we pay for it.
PS Owen never again – he’s a Manc and enjoyed it as his constant tweets testify to.
A life long red.
FSG have spent net £50m since taking over, but have reduced wagebill by £30m per annum, so on the face of it good economics.
Unfortunately they need to look at themselves and admit they blew all the Torres and Babel monies by paying way over the top for Carrol, Adam, Henderson and Downing.
Some wet behind the ear trolls try to blame Dalglish for this, but the blame must lie firmly on FSG’s doorstep.
They appointed Comolli as Director of Football, responsible for transfer negotiations. KD said who he would like.. Comolli and FSG paid way over what they were worth.
James Pearce in the Echo on Saturday summed it up when he said when Steve Bruce was asked how much he would accept for Henderson he said he would like £6m…yet we paid £16m?!
Any suggestions what the FS in FSG stands for?
Answers on a postcard.
Standards Corrputed shirt is coming back out of the loft for the Man U match!
FSG and JW are not coaches or tacticians. so points 3 and 4 are useless to them.
Oh dear,
Poor old Yanks. Its not their fault that we dont have a goalgetter.
It must be the tea ladies fault. We all know that the Yanks want the club to be successful.
Fantastic. We can wait for young players to mature
BUt wait a second! The Yanks are concerned with sell on profit, and top players want to play for top clubs.
Bye bye Liverpool.-
See you in the championship
As this season is a complete disaster waiting to happen, I would rather give Adam Morgan, suso and pacheco a go in the first team, rather than Owen. Borini blatantly should play through the middle as he Appears to lack any skill or vision to create from the right. He is looking increasingly poor . However, he needs to adjust so patience with him. It’s these types of reasons which is why a seasoned, proven goalscorer was priority this summer. Play Suarez from the right! Morgan should be given an opportunity in the first team more now. Rafa revolutionised our youth system and brought borrell, segura, ayesterian, Valero in. Great staff. shame we lost segura though. Please bring back xavi Valero (gk coach) for reina’s sake! He needs confidence building at least. Anyhow, not happy but it will have to get worse before getting better due to the mess lfc have been out in since moores sold to h & g.
The idea is to start anew and the get better but these idiots and the new Manager have taken us back a minimum of 12 months, they could hardly have made worse decisions, madness, problem not enough goals answer get rid of Carroll Bellamy Maxi Eccleston all who score goals and replace all with one very average striker whos fee went straight to FSG Roma.
FSG you are now in charge of the books how can you moan about past owners when you did exactly the same gave us £120 million of investment and sales of players just to turn round and say the club can’t afford that type of spending! You are a hypercritic and contradict yourself!
We’ve got the players we’ve got. Let’s get on with it.
Against Arsenal we looked lethargic and the only Liverpool players who came out of it with any credit, for me, are Allen, Sterling and Shelvey — all young players. The team never got going until it was too late and hardly anything worked for us. Gerrard’s worth to the team is reducing with each game and Shelvey who has surely now earned a start will eventually be his replacement.
Bear in mind, as we develop our own players the significance of the transfer window will dwindle.
Basically Brendan Rodgers and FSG have done what AVB tried to do at Chelsea. Clear out the old guard, get a few young players in and then see what happens.
It shouldnt have happened.
YNWA
Liverpool must sign free tranfer
1) Michael Owen
2) Didier Drogba
3) Lucas Borrios
4) One Tackling Defensive Midfielder (Mamadou Sissokko)
5) Ibrahim Affeley
6) Sakho
.
.
Liverpool Must Play 3-4-3- Attacking Formation:
LINE-UP:
.
.
Reina
.
Sakho_Skrtel_Agger
.
.
Sissokko
.
Affelay_Gerrard_Sterling
.
Drogba_Owen_Suarez
Only Owen is free all the other players are at clubs, Drogba hasn’t been released.
Bit late for most of those players akash!
Wow I write this in view of the EOTK league table. 18th….not good reading.
This letter isn’t too bad, but the sentiments of others are right – it looks more directed at management rather than owners, who at least will have an influence so I suppose it’s relevant.
Signing Owen won’t make matters worse – he’s a proven goalscorer, with us and other clubs. His fitness is poor at times, but when he plays, he scores – simple. On a short contract or pay as you play contract he would be ideal and wouldn’t command ridiculous wages like some of the other options such as Drogba. I sincerely hope we capture something in the next two weeks – Rodgers has indicated something will happen during the international break so hopefully this will materialise.
It’s a shame they chose to get rid of Carroll before getting someone in, and Ayre didn’t help matters by publicly leaving early doors on transfer window close night.
I think the owners are decent – the very fact that they have written an open letter on the front page of our website to fans is a massive indication of improvement from our last owners. They’ve spent money, they’ve improved the commercial viability of LFC, they’ve stabalised the management and shown a very positive philosophy in regards to our football style AND our transfer policy (out with the old, in with the new). I agree that we could afford to hold out for better fees for our ‘wantaways’ at times, Owen, Keane and Adam being great examples, but underneath the transfer fee is always a significant wage bill which requires managing too; at times it’s better to ‘cut your losses’. Anyone that plays football manager will understand this! Plus, you have put out a two sided story – Torres and Alonso we got inflated fees for, plus we’ve frequently bought players at under-value such as Suarez, Skrtel, Torres, Mascherano to name a few. We won’t mention Babel, Aquilani, Keane or Carroll. . . .
This is a pretty good resource: http://www.transferleague.co.uk/premiership-transfers/liverpool-transfers.html
But it doesn’t factor in any wage issues. I must admit, if we did our business in good time rather than last minute during transfer window deadline day, we’d significantly improve the likelihood of getting better prices for our outbounds and potentially paying better prices for the inbounds – I can’t help but feel the financial management and negotiation of the transfers is managed ‘moderately’ at best.
I would have liked to have seen Sturridge or Walcott come into the squad as I think they fit nicely into the transfer policy and could have been captured at decent prices given both of their respective circumstances, but we should now look at how they deal with the, as you rightly put ‘temporary problem’ and move forward. I’m encouraged by the fact that they’ve been open with communication and not been afraid to take a gamble on the squad for the sake of financial security i.e. Carroll out before a striker in, but the contingency needs to be in place so we will see how the next two weeks pan out!
Anyone for a new stadium?! ……
Its time most Liverpool fans took their blinkers off, King Kenny is the cause of most of this, his signings were terrible and fasly overpriced.
If we sold Downing and Henderson tomorrow (if anyone was daft enough to buy them) we’d get a fraction of what we paid.
FSG’s agenda is to reduce the wage bill, in doing so they are reducing the quality.
Couple this with a rookie Manager who doesnt seem to have a clue and I fear the worst.
Who gave Dalglish that money? Henry said we are paying for the problems of the previous owners so why did he okay KD spending spree? If we couldn’t afford it he shouldn’t okayed the spending!
Steve, As I said in reply ot an earlier post, “Some wet behind the ear trolls try to blame Dalglish for this, but the blame must lie firmly on FSG’s doorstep.
They appointed Comolli as Director of Football, responsible for transfer negotiations. KD said who he would like.. Comolli and FSG paid way over what they were worth.
James Pearce in the Echo on Saturday summed it up when he said when Steve Bruce was asked how much he would accept for Henderson he said he would like £6m…yet we paid £16m?!”
If this is true what you (Sib)are saying then why do people continue scapegoating on King Kenny?? Surely if this is the same mentality/thinking that the owners and the Board have, I foresee we have a very long way to go before our problems are resolved.
Lord have mercy on the Liverpool family!
Reina, Gerrard, Johnson, Sahin Suarez and Borini played very poorly against Arsenal. Reina should no more be our first choice goalkeeper. He is fat, less agile and error prone.
Who gives a toss who someone supports in the past. If Man U were daft enough to pay Owen the money he got then he is bound to support them.
if you believe all your newspapers then you are led to believe Owen was a boyhood Evertonian, however there is no proof of that, no statment by him that he was and the only connection was his father appeared for them twice in the late 60’s long before he was born.
Fowler was a boyhood blue attended his first Liverpool training session in a blue kit, Ian Rush was a blue too, and both became Liverpool legendary strikers.
All you should care about is can they come in and do a job which is at them moment scoring goals, whether your Owen, Drogba or El Sulk Annelka. However I draw the line on the other free agent striker still clubless, Emile Heskey prefer to see the tea lady up front to him.
Anyone remember when FSG took over from G&H …. stole the club from the previous owners and then promised the earth …. 2 years on(ish) … what we got … a hopeless team with a hopeless manager who will win …sweet FA …. to loan out Andy Carroll with no replacement lined up makes no sense … clueless penny pinching yanks … RIP Liverpool FC, a once proud and mighty club.
looks like liverpool are in deep s–t, i mean you,s bring in this so called top manager BR and he,s trying to play totally different to the style of play that brought you,s success for many years, he can,t speak to media without making himself look like a top clown, for eg it wa\s only last week the man said he,d be insane to let ac go out on loan , he changed his story everytime he was interviewed so if i was a poool fan then i would,nt believe a word that comes out of his mouth , plus last thing you want to do with your players is make them feel unwanted, he did just that with carrol and you could see it from the off,
FSG – Thanks for saving our club but now start looking to sell because clearly you are hopelessly out of your depth to the point of embarrasment – I suspect that you are looking for a seller – just dont ask a crazy price like the Glaziers. I f RED SOX are going bust then we really are in big trouble. In the meantime – FORGET OWEN – HE CHEATD ON US ONCE AND HALF THE KOP WILL NEVER FORGIVE HIM. If you can get him DROGBA IS TEN TIMES BETTER but why on earth did we buy the young American striker and Mexican and Portugese – WHERE THE HELL ARE THESE GUYS ?????????????????????????????????????
Gerard cannot play the attackinh midfielder role anymore – one good game followed by 2 bad ones – play him at the back or in the Lucas role – All Anfield were saying this yesterday
king kenny was the cause of wining cups 1st full season 2 finals and next season build on that he is a winner 105m spent 75m brought in plastic fans do 1 or go to a game
p/s. You don’t need to visit a soothsayer to tell you that Liverpool will still be among the bottom-three at the end of October!!!!!!
Sib,
Excuse me for daring to criticise King Kenny !!! ……
Its blinkered people like you who are part of the problem,
Dalglish was a disaster last season, (yes last season NOT when he was a player) but you blame FSG, Comoli, Ayre and anyone else in firing range.
Dalglish called all the shots last season, he hardly played Carroll himself and wasted a fortune on rubbish.
Get real.
Listen pal, from a playing perspective KK made mistakes last year, no doubt about it. From playing Henderson on right, playing Carrol with no Downing and vice versa, etc… things were not perfect, and I am not saying they were. Neither am I arguing he should not have gone.
All I am saying is that he cant be blamed for what we paid for the players. That was down to Comoli and FSG apppointed him and gave him his remit including managing transfers, not Dalglish.
Blaming Dalglish for what we paid for players is just wrong on every level. If you cant control something how can you be responsible for it?
Good letter. I agree with the civilised posts above. The petulant conspiracy theorists can spew all they want but we are putting the pieces together of a disastrous year with Commoli. The biggest mistake fsg made was allowing Dalglish and Commoli to make all the decisions. They admit the error…now we rebuild. I appreciate FSG’s commitment to stability, even at the expense of immediate results. Tough to swallow but I’d much prefer our situation to the Mancs .5 billion pounds of debt. I care about the future as much as the present.
I think your missing the point is that FSG and Liverpool couldn’t afford the spending in the first place doesn’t matter who KD and DC signed the club didn’t have the money!You appreciate FSG’s commitment to stability? Yes after the horse has bolted!
Brendan talks too much he says one time he’s never gonna sell Charlie Adams yet he sold him he says one time it wud be a nutcase to allow Andy Caroll off on loan yet he loaned him he should learn how to talk in the media nd be wary of his words as it wud pose him being inconsistent and unrealible..He seems quite similar to the owners I remember when Tom Werner co-owner said its vital Liverpool get back in the top four this year yet they got a promising inexperienced manager that never managed a club of Liverpool stature other than being a youth coach at Chelsea in the past,if they really wanted a top four finish why didn’t they go for Louis Van Gal?Why didn’t they spend again this year as the money they spent last year yielded few results.As a top flight football club owner interested in winning trophies I soppose they should be interested in bankrolling top top players that would win them trophies rather than under-spending and moaning..Look at Man City(ever spending though not too much this season)Chelsea(always spending)Man U(spent more than us despite they already had top players)Arsenal(out spent us despite being spending shy)Tottenham(out spent us)..In my Assertions these are literally 6 top flight clubs that had out spent Liverpool yet Liverpool want to finish in top I soppose the owners need a kick in d backside and wake up to reality I just see them as loud mouths that does little but makes d loudest noises
Open letter to john Henry
Sky £60m
Stand Chartered £20m
Warrior £25m
Gate Receipts £50m
Merchandising, Thomas Cook, Indonesian Airlines, Chevrolet – how much – guesswork £15m minimum
Thats £170m income per annum.
We buy the shirts, buy the match tickets, pay the season tickets, buy the Sky Sports, so that our club LFC can buy the players it needs to be successful.
Where is the money going? This transfer window, if West Ham stay up thats £17m for Carroll, will result in a ZERO net spend, AND FSG have reduced the wage bill by £30m.
I wonder how much is going into FSG’s private pockets.
or the Redsox pockets?
Get the Standards Corrupted shirts ready for the Man U match!
Since the last media friendly sound bite to come from Boston, we have seen;
* FSG publicly vows its eagerness to resolve the stadium and revenue deficit issue through expansion of Anfield or a new stadium and naming rights for it, then get in touch with The Anfield Wrap to say that really it’s all fine actually and they might just do nothing instead. In fact, Mr Henry even goes as far as publicly suggesting significant ticket price increases, to minimise the need for pursuing the expansion project at all.
* FSG Leave it until mid-April to terminate the employment of Damien Comolli, after he and Kenny preside over wasting around £80m of a £115m gross outlay on British players who are/were either technically deficient, or typically bought at around double market value. Crucially they then pursued the emsacsulation of public hero Kenny Dalglish and his backroom staff, who were beckoned to Boston, and sent packing with their tails between their legs, despite Kenny steadying a sinking ship after Roy Hodgson’s disasturous reign and winning a trophy in his first full season in charge. This was a decison that also did not and has not sat well with a significant proportion of the fans, even just viewed as a public relations exercise, however in not having a contingency plan already in place, these actions left us with no scouting setup over the early summer transfer window.
* FSG claim that they didn’t offer the manager’s job to Roberto Martínez when it was clear to all the world that they did. They then vow to put in place a continental-style management structure with a head coach working underneath a technical director (Segura) and a sporting director (supposedly, Louis van Gaal or similar), then abandon this at the insistence of a 39 year-old manager with one Premier League season at a newly promoted club behind him. This decision ultimately sees Segura leave, at more contractual expense to the club.
* FSG publicly state that LFC would be able to compete with any club in the world in the transfer market. They then proceed to instruct their newly appointed manager that players would have to be sold, before new ones could come in, primarily to reduce the club’s vast wage bill. They then refuse funding for Rodgers to bring in his first and primary target Sigurdsson, on the notion that his wage demands were too high. Rodgers then proceeds to lower the wage bill as instructed, and is allowed to specualte on the relatively low deal costings of Borini & Allen, but is ultimately forced to let one of three senior strikers at the club leave on loan 27 hours before the transfer deadline, on the promise of being able to sign an adequate replacement, before then being advised of FSG’s refusal to pay an extra £1 million to fund the transfer of Clint Dempsey, handing a longstanding target to a close rival. This measure has ultimately left us with just five senior forward players in the squad, supplemented by Adam Morgan and Raheem Stirling, two 18 + 17 year old players with 4 senior starts between them, until January at least.
Taking the above into account, I think I can be forgiven for not throwing back both my legs and polluting my britches in glee, at hearing what Mr Henry as to say… it would be naive business practice within the sports ownership industry not to tickle the consumer collective tummies once in a while. After the drama of Gillett & Hicks, it would take the most naive of fans, not to draw parralels between the last 3 months and the transfer window fiasco, and at any time under the tenure of those two afore mentioned snakes. There is a need for clear and distinctive action, to cast off this impression of ‘absentee landlord-ism’, that is threatening to ruin all the good work that has been done, to maximise the club’s revenue potential off the field. More specifically, a clear statement as to their intentions regarding the stadium, and a pledge of financial support for Rodgers in the upcoming January transfer window, would be a good first step in healing the concerns and doubts that are spreading like wildfire across a large proportion of the club’s supporters…. jft96, ynwa
Some great, fair points, but a very pessimistic evaluation of FSG. There is balance to be had here – they’ve stabalised the clubs finances, brought the club more in line with the FFP rules, improve the nationality make-up of the club to come more in line with home grown player rules. Yes, they don’t have a clue about football culture, Yes they are making some pretty piss poor mistakes, in some cases over promising and under-delivering, making some seemingly bold decisions as to management and player selection, but when you see past the short term problems we have, the long term outlook looks significantly better than 24 months ago (OK, it could scarcely be MUCH WORSE… ) – they’ve done a good job from a strategic point of view. Rodgers is 39 years old, Fergie was 46 when he took over Utd and could hardly be classed as ‘significantly experienced’ in terms of management. Wenger, 44 when he took Arsenal, again no significant management experience, particularly relating to English football. Mourinho – 37 when he started management with Benfica, >>39<< when he managed Porto. All of these managers had the same thing in common back then, as they still do today – they have a clear picture of the strategic style and direction that they want their management organisations to go in, namely – Fergie (youth system), Wenger (youth & shrewd spending to accumulate), Mouriniho (emphasis on solid defensive play, technical player acquisition and micro-man management). Rodgers was appointed because he has the same long term, strategic mind that FSG have and they are a good pair. I'm not saying they are exempt from error or have a gun with magic bullets in, but what I am saying is that we are in a good position and your analysis is one sided).