Skip to main content

Caution needed in analyses of Liverpool

I am not sure I agree with this analysis of Liverpool published in The Athletic over the weekned and I am not sure many Liverpool fans will either, but it is at least worth thinking about.

An extract states: 'In the long term, perhaps football has reached a point where it is impossible for any Liverpool owner to deliver what the fans want unless there is a bottomless pit of money and the club is run on terms that some of FSG’s fiercest critics claim to despise.

To consistently compete with Manchester City, Liverpool would have to essentially become City, the only club at the moment capable of threatening the theory that the Premier League is no longer possible to dominate (four titles in 10 seasons isn’t a bad start).

By comparison, Liverpool currently operate like a deluxe Sevilla: the system only works when they sell well. Success came because of the buys of Virgil van Dijk and Alisson but the funding was only in place for those deals because of the outrageous fee involved in the sale of Philippe Coutinho, as well as the overachievement of reaching the first of their most recent Champions League finals soon after.'

My comment would be that the Premier League is very competitive at the top level and Liverpool have been beset by injuries this season.  The 'individualistic fallacy' occurs when you try to generalise from a particular sequence of events.   I wasn't convinced last year that Liverpool were about to go on a series of title runs, but there is no reason why they shouldn't be in contention next season, particularly if fans come back in numbers.

RedBird, who own Toulouse FC, have acquired a 10 per cent stake in Liverpool's parent company Fenway Sports Group: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/redbird-capital-fsg-liverpool-mean-19928875

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance.  Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected.  “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.”  He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...
Post a Comment
Read more