Liverpool look to Plan B in case of failure


A potential £20 million dividend from Uefa has been lost and, for all the beating away of its significance as the Merseyside club increasingly rely on their enduring fame and esteem to attract players, another year outside the European elite is a damaging blow.

Not only will a large chunk of European transfer funds go somewhere other than Anfield for a third consecutive season, enticing players away from Champions League participating clubs becomes increasingly problematic the longer the club are outside the top tier.

The League Cup has saved the season and the FA Cup may elevate it to heroic status, but failure to finish in the top four has made attaining the goal of Champions League qualification next season even harder.

The answer, many anticipate, is for the owners, Fenway Sports Group, to provide another £50 million on seven new players this summer.

But anyone expecting such a response without revenue that has not been generated by player sales or commercial deals has not been paying enough attention to the model favoured by club owners FSG.

Principal owner John W. Henry and chairman Tom Werner could not have made their insistence on Liverpool being self-sufficient any clearer since they bought the club, which is why they coveted the top four so much.

They knew it would strengthen their hand in future player recruitment and also make sponsorship deals more attractive, especially as they continue to pursue naming rights for the increasingly elusive new stadium.

John W. Henry’s most recent statement underlined the pragmatism which pervades the ownership of the club.

“Tom and I were attending the European Club Association meetings,” said Henry.

“There are a number of critical issues such as Financial Fair Play and economic problems of clubs large and small that need to be addressed.

"Just as the countries of Europe need a sound financial landscape, so, too, does football as a sport.”

These are the not the words of a man who bought into English football because of an admiration for the economic hedonism of Sheikh Mansour and Roman Abramovich.

Manager Kenny Dalglish will have funds to strengthen the squad, but not as much as he would had he led a late surge into fourth.

Both he and director of football, Damien Comolli, are going to have to be at their most diligent and persuasive to find the bargains.

They should get their first installment of £6 million this weekend when Alberto Aquilani is scheduled to play his 25th game of the season for AC Milan.

In doing so, the Italian will trigger a sales clause in his agreement with the Serie A club, enabling Liverpool to offload him in a permanent deal in May.

Although Liverpool will have to accept a staggering £14 million loss on the 27-year-old - for whom Rafa Benitez paid £20 million in 2009 - Dalglish will still be grateful for every extra penny as he works out where the majority of his transfer kitty will come from.

Qualifying for the Europa League can also be worth around £6 million if a side makes decent progress, while there may be some profit if Lille decide to retain Joe Cole - another on-loan midfielder - in a permanent deal.

Either way, there will not be megabucks around for Dalglish to resolve lingering problems such as how to get his team’s chances to goal ratio moving in the right direction.

Dalglish’s own position has escaped major scrutiny, despite the distance between the pre-season Premier League target and the reality.

But while Chelsea were ravaged by internal division and had to replace their manager, the opposite is true at Anfield. The memories of the latter days of Benitez’s reign and Roy Hodgson’s brief tenure when just about every level of Liverpool Football Club was prone to squabbling remain fresh.

Dalglish’s restoration of a sense of camaraderie across the ranks is not underestimated when his broader contribution over 18 months is reviewed.

Although his appeal for assessments beyond Liverpool’s league position and points tally is vulnerable to mocking, for those debilitated by the years of discord that preceded him, it explains why there is so much internal support for him to have another go at the top four next season.

Where did you guys get the news about Adam out for the season? =.=

... how's dossena doing? Kinda realize it recently only

Sell Henderson and Adam at the end of the season, Aqualani to come back to Liverpool which i think wont probably happen and with the cash we have frm selling Henderson and Adam , can we get Cavani?

With budget constraint, Rafa had bought many world class players, Torres, Alonso, Mascherano and Reina.
Let's not forget our current players like Agger and Skrtel were signed by Rafa too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/...-Liverpool.html
http://www.empireofthekop.com/anfield/2009...rafael-benitez/

We got £50million from the sale of Fernando Torres, which is £30million pure profit.

KD say team is tired!!! -.-|||

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Added on March 25, 2012, 1:51 amKD say team is tired!!! -.-|||

Bloody disgrace kenny. You're making a mockery of the club now. No player or manager is bigger than the club. It's time to go. Joke of the season, no champions league or europe still tired. TOTAL BS, DON"T TAKE US FANS AS FOOLS LA

It made perfect sense and the protracted nature of the subsequent full-time appointment of Kenny Dalglish suggests Fenway Sports Group were torn between the identity of their preferred candidate. John Henry, the owner, suggested as much in a subsequent interview in October 2011: "Initially our blueprint was for a younger manager".

He could have easily been talking about Villas-Boas. His appointment would have fallen in line with the philosophy of the Boston Red Sox, Henry's other sports team.

In 2002 Henry hired the 28-year-old Theo Epstein, making him the youngest general manager in the history of the Major League. Two years later he helped deliver the World Series to the city for the first time in 86 years. He added a second three years later.

Henry acknowledged he knew "virtually nothing about Liverpool Football Club nor EPL [English Premier League]" when he took ownership. So what better way to smooth the transition of the takeover of Liverpool than by employing the man etched so intrinsically into it's fabric.

Dalglish was a safe option, an appointment that would have received a ringing endorsement on the Kop. Villas-Boas would have been a risk.

“Getting beyond a joke. Say what you will about winning a cup, 5 losses in the league in 6 is just a joke.”


“We are a poor team full of sub standard players. Anything else is just denial. You get what you deserve in this league. Our form is now officially relegation standard since Christmas. This is not acceptable by any standard.Sort it out Kenny.


“All in all, it’s been pretty damn ridiculous now. A really striking thing was how quickly we lost control of the game after they scored the second goal. Where was the chemistry? Passes going awry and players being out of position. It was just sloppy.”



“Roy had a woeful time at Anfield, the lowest points in his tenure were home defeats to Wolves and Blackpool. This Wigan side i think (not based on today but generally) is worse than both those sides.”



“Newcastle next ? well, who cares anyway…”



“Odd that Skrtel aside our three best players are youngsters who are trying to get into the side, you can add Kelly to that list who has been brilliant until he got injured.”

I see the then Rafa managing with very very very limited resources. Rafa just did what he was given. For me, Liverpool down fall was entirely due to the H&G CON artist!
Till today Liverpool still suffering from the H&G disease!

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=249365.0
Total Players Bought: £228,976,000
Total Players Sold: £145,100,000

Total Net Spend: £83,876,000
Torres was the most expensive one at 20mil

£10.7m - Xabi Alonso: Massive success and sold for £30m+ in the summer when he wanted to leave
£6m - Luis Garcia: Massive success and sold to Atlético Madrid for £4m
£6m - Pepe Reina: In the top 3 or 4 keepers in the world now and still young. One of Rafa's best signings.
£5.6m - Momo Sissoko: Brilliant for a few years, had that eye injury and sold to Juventus when his form dipped for £8.2m. Replaced by Mascherano.
£7m - Peter Crouch: One signing I did question but proved to be a great bit of business. Turned him from a laughing stock into an international. Sold for £11m.
£5.8m - Daniel Agger: Blighted by injuries but potentially top class and great signing for the money.
£3.5m - El Hadji Diouf: The best £3.5m Rafa has ever recieved.
£6m - Craig Bellamy: Good signing and later sold for £7.5m to fund Torres deal.
£9m - Dirk Kuyt: Has his critics, but has been brilliant for the money. 15 goals last season from wide and vital to the way we play. Ultimate pro. Great signing.
£2.5m - Alvaro Arbeloa: Bargain signing, great service for a few years and sold for £3.5m when running his contract down.
Loan - Javier Mascherano: Rescued from West Ham, now one of the best defensive midfielders in the world and will probably be sold to Barca this summer for a massive profit. Paid £18.6m for him a year later at end of loan deal.
£5m - Lucas Leiva: Brazilian player of the year when signed. Could still go either way but a lot to prove.
£20.2m - Fernando Torres: Bargain of the century
£5m - Yossi Benayoun: Took a while to settle but now a key player. Superb signing and an absolute bargain.
£6.5m - Martin Skrtel: Been off form this season so far, but brilliant last year and a good signing for the money.
£18.6m - Javier Mascherano: Completion of loan deal
£17.5m – Glen Johnson: Big fee, but has been brilliant so far.