The Political Economy of Football V2

With Liverpool securing the Premier League title considered to be just a matter of time, the Financial Times yesterday provided an in depth analysis of the factors underlying the club's success. According to the Pink 'Un, this was a case of the manager making a difference.  Jurgen Klopp came to Liverpool with a clear plan and when it hit obstacles he adjusted it.   After his pressing game tired players out and led to inconsistent results, he went for a style of possession football that conserved energy and protected players. There are lots of inefficiencies in football but FT sports correspondent Murhad Ahmed identifies two efficiencies at Anfield.   First, the team is ruthlessly efficient in the sense that it often wins matches by a single goal.   Second, according to football analyst Omar Chaudhari, 'Football is an efficient market, but there are inefficiencies in that good players will end up at bad teams occasionally.  If you know that, and no one else is ...

As a neutral in the Premier League I have been greatly impressed by the quality of Liverpool's play this season, the pace and the sheer audacity and skill of some of the goals. They just need to tighten up defensively. Their latest financial results look positive, although twelve months is in some respects an artificial reporting period and does not include recent signings: Record profit However, the key point is that they have the backing of the ownership group and will be able to make the signings they need in the summer. Some of the fundamentals in terms of revenue streams are looking good. It will take a few days to provide a more detailed analysis, but in the meantime I congratulate Jurgen Klopp. I find Anfield to be a particularly atmospheric ground and I always have in my thoughts what happened at Hillsborough and the way in which they were let down by the authorities.