Since the 2020/21 season, this is the list of important non-footballing staff who have left Liverpool:
CEO: Peter Moore, Directors of Football: Michael Edwards and Julian Ward, Director of Research: Ian Graham, Head Doctor: Jim Moxon, Director of Partnerships: Jonathan Kane, Director of Loan Management: David Woodfine, Lead Analyst: Dom Price, Head of Fitness: Jack Ade and Head of Performance: Phil Jacobsen.
Our current sporting director Jörg Schmadtke is on a short-term trial contract and is working from his laptop in Ibiza.
This probably explains why the season starts in five days and Liverpool have signed two senior players while losing plenty in what was supposed to be the biggest rebuild in memory following the disaster of 2022/23.
Alexis Mac Allister and Dom Szoboszlai are good signings and the former especially has looked good in the summer friendlies, but the fact we haven’t signed a defensive midfielder to replace Jordan Henderson and Fabinho – both sold to Saudi Arabia – is mind-boggling.
Yesterday, it was revealed Liverpool had a third unsuccessful bid for Southampton’s 19-year-old anchorman Romeo Lavia.
Ben Jacobs says Liverpool have immediately come in with a fourth bid, but it’s all so amateur. We’ve had all summer to get this done. Jurgen Klopp has specifically said he wanted his new players in to get them acclimatised. And yet here we are…
Even Jamie Carragher turned on Liverpool owners FSG on Twitter last night, with Gary Neville following up by stating that the genius of Klopp has ‘shielded’ the Americans for years.
He’s spot on. Imagine where we’d be, spending what we spend, under a middle of the road manager. Erik ten Haag has been at Manchester United for one full season and has a higher net spend than Klopp, who arrived in 2015.
The man is working under ludicrously tight constraints and he should be applauded for doing so, but last season was so obviously evidence that he needs to be backed by the people whose reputation he’s saved.
Even if we go on to buy two new midfielders and two defenders (we won’t) before the end of the window, this whole thing has still been handled awfully.
Is Schmadtke really the right appointment? A friend of Klopp who won’t be here in a year’s time? It’s odd.
Are we waiting for developments in the market? Perhaps Real Madrid end up signing Kylian Mbappe, then need funds and we can take Aurelien Tchouameni off their hands. This hypothetical situation is beyond risky, especially considering the likes of Chelsea will no doubt come in and gazump any offer we make.
Why are we not in for Brighton’s Moises Caicedo? Yes, £80m-odd is a lot of money, but he’s arguably the best on the planet in his age-group at what he does, and we’ve just got a £52m payout for Hendo and Fabinho, two players who before the summer we surely planned on keeping and eventually watching leave for nothing.
It’s clear we took the money for both without a contingency plan. I was pleased to see Fabinho go, but only under the assumption someone else would arrive in his place.
Last night’s friendly against Darmstadt was worrying. Yes, the attackers are excellent, but the defensive setup has shown zero improvement whatsoever. It is so easy to score against us. Hit a hoofed ball forward and let your attacker run into the space we leave.
We’re going to have to score three or four goals to win matches. Maybe it’ll provide some fun, but it won’t win you anything.
And the biggest problem I have with this is that we’re wasting the best years of Mo Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Alisson’s careers. Those world-class legends won’t be around forever. In the next two seasons, we’ll have to replace them. How on earth can we be expected to do that under the current model?
It feels haphazard, unplanned and random. FSG are sleeping on us and their time to go passed a while back. Sell up. It’s gone on too long.