Liverpool FC Forum

[eds]

Next six months will be very interesting indeed.

We will need at least 150-200m to reinvest in our midfield and potentially another CB.

We know, Jurgen knows it, the media know it and FSG know it.

I can’t see Klopp sticking around another season if we get stooged yet again by the Scrooge McDuck yanks. If Klopp goes I’m afraid no amount of spreadsheets, million dollar profit reports, sustainability models or whatever other garbage has been argued in the past will be able to save the FSG acolytes in defending them.

[Reg]

I would still like to know what caused Mike Edwards and Ward to leave in quick succession.

[eds]

No midfield reinforcements this transfer window.

What a surprise FSG……….

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

I would still like to know what caused Mike Edwards and Ward to leave in quick succession.

Probably not enough transfer action at this club to keep them here.

[kazza]

Liverpool: How Jurgen Klopp's Reds have been hurt on the pitch by a 'brain drain' off it
Sky Sports News' senior reporter Melissa Reddy takes a look at the factors behind the scenes at Liverpool that are contributing to the Reds' slump; "There has been a steady 'brain drain,' categorising Liverpool not just as a team in transition but a club in one"


Melissa Reddy
Senior Reporter
Friday 3 February 2023 15:50, UK

With Liverpool lying ninth in the Premier League table and yet to win a top-flight game in 2023, Sky Sports News' senior reporter Melissa Reddy analyses how the departure of key figures has left them as a club in transition.

"We've created a situation where I can have all the best information from the best people."

It was approaching the German's third anniversary in charge of the club with no silverware to show for it with Liverpool beaten finalists in the 2016 League Cup and Europa League, plus the 2018 Champions League.

Klopp, though, was unruffled. He had unwavering belief that the right people and processes were in place off the pitch to ensure success would follow on it.

His zen was warranted. Liverpool would soon scale unprecedented heights, becoming the first British team to hold the European Cup, European Super Cup, Club World Cup and league titles simultaneously.



Along with Manchester City, they redesigned what is required to be crowned champions of England. On the continent, they were the team to avoid.

Liverpool did indeed have smarts off-pitch sparking their swagger on it; chiefly Klopp, FSG president Mike Gordon, and sporting director Michael Edwards.

Only the manager remains of the 'three wise men' and when analysing what has gone wrong at Anfield - the side have already lost six times in the league, are 10 points adrift of the top four, out of both domestic cup competitions, and are at odds with their identity - it helps to start at the top.

The Klopp-Edwards-Gordon trinity worked superbly in a professional as well as personal capacity. All vastly different characters, they were aligned by a collaborative, honest approach under a shared vision for what Liverpool should be and how to sustainably compete.

Klopp and Edwards would casually discuss prospective players, potential new staff, football infrastructure improvements and other significant matters over breakfast or lunch in the canteen at the training ground, before working through a more detailed analysis.

They would present their vision to Gordon, who provided the finances and whatever other support was necessary, like when he intervened to rehabilitate relations with Southampton in order to land Virgil van Dijk.

The partnership between Klopp, Edwards and Gordon was unassailable, promoting a sense of authority, surety and harmony to decision-making at Liverpool.

In November 2021, Edwards confirmed he would step down from his position following the end of his contract in June 2022 to spend some time away from the game.

This season, Gordon ceded his day-to-day running of the club in order to focus on Fenway Sports Group's bid for investment into - or the outright sale of - Liverpool.

Two of the three most important men in ensuring the club's success are no longer in situ, but that is just the upper layer of the story.

The disruption is deeper still. When the news of Edwards' exit was announced, Liverpool flagged "continuity and a well-managed transition period" in appointing Julian Ward as successor.

But he handed in his resignation in November, leaves at the end of the season, and will have only been in the post for a year.

Worryingly, Ian Graham, the esteemed director of research widely regarded as the best in the field, is also exiting Liverpool.

It has been said the pair "no longer feel empowered to do their jobs to the best of their ability."

On the eve of the season, club doctor Jim Moxon departed without explanation amid growing friction within the medical sphere between the physiotherapists and sports scientists.

In 2020, Philipp Jacobsen vacated his post as head of performance. It was his duty to align the department and create a singular way of working but he found it near impossible.

There is large sentiment at the training complex that Andreas Kornmayer, head of fitness and conditioning and one of Klopp's most trusted figures, wields too much influence and is hard to work with.

The counter to that is the distance he has been able to extract from players in previous campaigns and the respect he commands.

The turnover in the medical department and beyond is, whichever way you slice it, high.

Liverpool have also seen some staff pinched that were part of a proven, watertight process like Harrison Kingston, who left to become director of performance analysis and framework for the Moroccan Football Federation, and Mark Leyland, who is currently first-team coach analyst at Newcastle.

There has been a steady "brain drain," categorising Liverpool not just as a team in transition but a club in one.

"There is a lot of focus on not refreshing the playing squad enough, which is correct but it is true behind the scenes too," said an employee.

"A lot of key people have left, some have gained too much power. There's less faith in the decisions now."

Is there still trust in the process?

In the Klopp era, Liverpool have preached the maxim that what you see on the pitch is a product of what goes on off it. Does an erosion of playing identity therefore also point to a break in process or a betrayal of it altogether?

When the decision-making was optimal - guided by clear parameters, influenced by data intelligence, and collectively bought in to - Liverpool floated between being the best or second best team in Europe.

They bought surgically, factoring in a player's age, scalable output, availability, propensity to carry out the demands of Klopp's style psychically and mentally.

Selling was elite - bettered only by Chelsea who had turned it into a profit-making machine under Roman Abramovich.

Forward planning was at such an advanced level and aligned that Liverpool's academy spent three months rigorously transforming Trent Alexander-Arnold into a right-back having mapped out that it was the closest route for him to crack into the first team.

The methodology worked to such a supreme state that it was copied across the continent. Then, it stopped or slumped or switched depending on who you listen to at Liverpool.

The current circumstances are predicated by a crucial period between 2019 to 2021. Before Liverpool lifted the Champions League in Madrid, after registering 97 points to finish just behind City in the top flight, they prioritised a policy of retention to keep their spine intact.

Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Jordan Henderson and Joe Gomez had inked extensions in 2018. Andy Robertson, Alexander-Arnold, Divock Origi, Joel Matip and James Milner would follow the next annum.

"The new contracts and keeping these boys here is a strong, strong signal for the outside world," Klopp would say. "It's a wonderful sign, to be honest. I like the fact that these boys are really at a good football age."

The strategy made sense at the time as the core of the team were, as the manager outlined, at the perfect stage in their careers to go further still. They were not stretched or spent and, importantly, there was the tactic to gradually refresh while keeping reserves for a certified game-changer.

But fast forward to June 2021 and Liverpool were still underscoring the retention is king line. The only players that had been added to the squad as regular starters at that point were Thiago and Diogo Jota, while Harvey Elliott was a promising kid with a high ceiling.

Ibrahima Konate was recruited a month later as the sole significant investment that summer.

Liverpool were already in a position where the spine had two more years of relentless football - at the highest intensity possible - in their legs and minds. The "good football age" was slowly being bypassed.

The club did not want to over commit with regards to contract length and a substantial increase in pay to older members of the squad, hence allowing Gini Wijnaldum to leave on a free.

However, Henderson, Fabinho, Alisson, Robertson and Van Dijk were tied into lucrative long-term deals that would require them to still perform full-throttle football on the wrong side of 30 after seasons of going all in.

Rewarding important players and protecting their values is a normal, healthy process but there was not complete agreement with the timing and the length of some of the renewals.

A big problem was the core not being sufficiently supplemented and the squad - plus wage bill - properly trimmed.

Fingers were pointed squarely at the Covid-depressed market, but clubs with tighter resources navigated incomings and outgoings better.

There had been the feeling that without the pandemic, one big sale would have funded weighty rejuvenation like Philippe Coutinho's £142m transfer to Barcelona had done.

Barca and Real Madrid had been circling Mane and Salah but the latter plumped for Eden Hazard and both clubs stitched themselves in financial shambles.

Paris Saint-Germain, another monied suitor, were focused on different priorities, namely Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi.


There were no sizeable bids, but worse, hardship in shifting fringe players off the books.

Those years between 2019 and 2021 saw Liverpool stun on the pitch but set up a steady walk into the danger zone with eyes wide open. It has been exacerbated since.

The only established midfielder permanently bought by the club since August 2018 has been the pedigreed Thiago, whose injury issues were common knowledge, in September 2020.

Despite the department carrying other players prone to spells out like Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, tiring legs in James Milner and Henderson, as well as raw youngsters, it was repeatedly neglected.

This has been put down to waiting on the right players, the paramount one being Jude Bellingham.

As brilliant as the England international is, he is not enough and his future is not guaranteed with City and Real Madrid also invested in his signature.

Liverpool need intense surgery in midfield - at a period when silly money is at play - with Milner, Keita and Oxlade-Chamberlain out of contract while Fabinho and Henderson are hideously off form.

The centre of the park is being propped up by 18-year-old Stefan Bajcetic. How Arthur Melo, with his own archive of injury problems, was seen as a solution on loan is anyone's guess.

Up front, the club allowed Mane to chase a new challenge with Bayern Munich last summer and made Salah the highest-paid player in the club's history.

It had long been established that regenerating the front three that bulldozed Liverpool to success would prove enormously challenging.

Luis Diaz acclimatised excellently prior to his knee injury, while Darwin Nunes has been an agent of chaos.

The recruitment of Cody Gakpo is intriguing as he was not of interest last summer, when he was on the verge of joining Leeds on deadline day and counted as an alternative forward target for Manchester United.

The Netherlands international, who had a fine World Cup, has been sketched as a Firmino replacement but the Brazil international, 31, is close to agreeing a new deal in a move that can be filed as suboptimal along with designs of retaining Milner.

Multiple sources have credited Gakpo and Nunez as signings led by the coaching staff.

Over the past year, Liverpool have spent £180m on their attack in an expensive dynamic shift that they hope will supply long-term gain.


Most curious has been seeing Salah diverted away from his role as the main threat and isolated in wide areas with a severe reduction in shot volume.

Salah has not stopped being Salah, the system no longer allows him to be.

Having been the smart guys, some of Liverpool's decisions are proper head scratchers.

The team that went so close to a quadruple are unrecognisable. The defence has let in 25 goals - more than the entirety of 2018-19 campaign and one shy from last season's total.

An in-depth look at Liverpool's damning statistics shows their big chance conversation per game is their lowest ratio since 2015-16.

Physical and mental fatigue has played its part, but the scale of injury issues - particularly hamstring setbacks - is alarming.

Liverpool need to remedy the ills in the medical department and the "fires" that exist elsewhere between the coaching-performance-recruitment divisions.

The suggestions that Klopp and his assistant Pep Lijnders have absorbed greater power will not abate, but it is unequivocal the German retains the backing of the dressing room and staff.

Liverpool's next five fixtures
Wolves (A) - Saturday February 4, 3pm
Everton (H) - Monday February 13, 8pm - Live on Sky Sports
Newcastle (A) - Saturday February 18, 5.30pm - Live on Sky Sports
Real Madrid (H) - Tuesday February 21, 8pm
Crystal Palace (A) - Saturday February 25, 7.45pm - Live on Sky Sports

The absence of private and public briefings against him illustrate as much. Liverpool know how much is owed to Klopp, the obstacles that could not have been scaled without him, and the dreams that would have remained just that.

That the 55-year-old still has the stomach for and is fronting this fight amid all the upheaval at the club speaks volumes.

FSG are seeking investment or an outright buyer for Liverpool because the club cannot compete with state-powered teams nor the financial flamboyance of Chelsea.

Revenues are strong and they finished above United in the Deloitte Football Money League for the first time in the publication's 26-year history, but the ante has been upped in the arms race.

Klopp has flipped the finger to logic before with the help of top thinkers and built a winning machine underpinned by effective strategy.

This season will bring much pain and there needs to be clever, comprehensive investment but Liverpool have to return to who and what they were: an example on and off the pitch

[Reg]

LFC squad since Aug 22 : 17 hamstring injuries …..

[UvS xR4GEx]

Sell up, get out!!!! We want ambition, we want our club back.

Everyone at the club looks broken.
Every FSG supporter can get out of the club with them.

[Penguins]

No, no, no.
FSG are fantastic owners!
They are playing 4 dimensional chess here and by not spending any money they're actually
doing the right thing...

Eh, no. Absolute garbage and has been absolute garbage since day 1. Got the club on the cheap and is looking for the big payout. Lucked out on Klopp and getting the Suarez and Countinho money. Without that we'd be in hell already....

[UvS xR4GEx]

I wouldn't be surprised if Klopp walked, he deserves better than this. FSG will make billions of profit no matter when they sell up. Why not take a risk, dip into their own pockets to compete. I'm sick of us balancing the books, it's not working anymore. The team is shot to bits.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

I think it's worth reminding ourselves that over the last 6 years we have won every trophy in the game, some genuinely big clubs like Spurs, Everton, Newcastle, Leeds etc etc haven't won a trophy in decades, yes we are going through a particularly bad run atm but we have got the best pound for pound manager in the game and when we get everyone back (Diaz, Jota etc) we have the foundations of a very good side.

[Penguins]

Hey, at least the owners are happy as the club had the highest profits in 2022....

[kazza]

I must say this is the worst I have ever seen us, before we replaced Houllier we were dire but scraping out draws, before Rafa left it was the same deal, even Roy had us showing more intensity. With Brendan we were conceding 3/4 goals a game but scoring similar. We are now getting thrashed by mid/bottom table clubs on a regular basis and there is no fight or pride in the team. I agree with Yakka that if we can get our injured players back we would be a far better side but what would be left by then, basically nothing to play for. All the Liverpool haters are having a field day and rightfully so, we have become a laughing stock. I’d rather play academy players that could get thrashed than our veterans as at least the kids will show passion. Hard to watch a team that doesn’t give a sh1t. Good supporters support through thick and thin, there has to be passion from the players though.

Going to be a hard season to swallow!

[redshade]

They happily take a lovely wage home each week, honestly sometimes you think some lads should be on £350 a week rather than 300k.

[Reg]

A complete farce both on and off the pitch. Someone has to be held accountable for this disaster.

We waited 30 years to win the league, we won the CL and then like a long wet fart we disappeared back into obscurity.  The fans deserve better.

[red till i die!!]

Klopp will be held accountable for all this in the end. Some fans are just pure stupid with the calling for his head because they have some belief that someone else could actually get that lot playing better. Not a chance because so many of them are well burnt out. Its like this imo, you either gut the side or change the manager.

Matip and Van Dijk are coming to the end of their careers and performances will naturally drop. Joe just isn't good enough and either is Nat. Konate still developing so at least 1 change needs to be happening here or else you need 3 the following season.

Hendo is so bad, won't get rid because of the quota but we should. Brings absolutely nothing to the table. Thiago gets away with a lot imo. Better than the rest but that's not saying a lot. Both of those can't be relied on. They need to get real giving milner another playing contract, coaching yes but not playing. Fab was never fast anyway but now he's snail like. That's the core of our midfield right there and we need to gut that. Elliot and Bajectic are promising but still a way to go so I'd go as fa's as to say we need 3 decent mids this summer. Replace Keita and 2 of the others because like the defence in if its not done now you need to do more the following year.

I'd be happy up front with what we have and certainly should give it another season. Nunez, Gakpo, Diaz, Jota, Salah and Carvalho on paper is as good as anyone can wish. Goals are a bit short atm and not sure individually any of them are clinical but they just need to click which hopefully will have happened by the start of next season.

FSG's approach has always been to ignore or push the issues down the line. Plenty say they are great at learning from their mistakes so we will see in the summer.