Liverpool FC Forum

To me I think the big danger we face is becoming another mid-to-late Wenger era Arsenal where they qualified for the CL year on year but didn’t threaten to win any of the major trophies. They essentially became stuck in a kind of footballing Sargasso Sea. It was great for their owners who probably look back on that period as a golden age, wasnt so great for their fans though.
I think if you offered our owners CL qualification for the next 10 to 15 years on the proviso we dont win anything I honestly think they’d bite your hand off, I think like Arsenal’s owners of that period they are more interested in money than chasing footballing glory.

UvS xR4GEx » Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:22 pm wrote:FSG are building on the stadium to generate more money for themselves in the long run. They are businessmen using the the Liverpool brand to make them loads of money.

They tried to trademark Liverpool but were rightfully denied. They tried to make a superleague they were denied. They tried charging ridiculous ticket prices and that turned against them.

Every thing they do is to make money ... we have everything in the club with a sponsor on it including the mens urinal.

What d'you expect them to do when Mo's asking for 440,000 a week? Where does the money come from?

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:42 pm wrote:I think if you offered our owners CL qualification for the next 10 to 15 years on the proviso we dont win anything I honestly think they’d bite your hand off, I think like Arsenal’s owners of that period they are more interested in money than chasing footballing glory.

Bayern Munich are the club who've made the most money from CL in it's modern format. Why, because they constantly qualify, they don't need to win it. The they've used those funds to build a squad that wins their league year after year... What comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Reg » Thu Jan 20, 2022 4:23 pm wrote:

UvS xR4GEx » Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:22 pm wrote:FSG are building on the stadium to generate more money for themselves in the long run. They are businessmen using the the Liverpool brand to make them loads of money.

They tried to trademark Liverpool but were rightfully denied. They tried to make a superleague they were denied. They tried charging ridiculous ticket prices and that turned against them.

Every thing they do is to make money ... we have everything in the club with a sponsor on it including the mens urinal.

What d'you expect them to do when Mo's asking for 440,000 a week? Where does the money come from?

It doesn't look like they'll end up paying it.. I think they'll cash in and buy someone half the price to replace him.

UvS…. Strange that you seem to criticise FSG for investing money in the business to make money ??

The ANFIELD ROAD end conversion is going to cost circa £60m. And that will take the total cost of ground capacity improvement and the training centre to approximately £200m since the arrival of FSG. That is a very impressive investment in our future regardless of what anybody considers their motives to be. Obviously it will increase the overall value of the business but isn’t that the same as any of us do an extension on our home and expecting more in the event of a sale. I for one I’m very impressed with this aspect of FSG’s tenure. Once this work is completed we will have a facility and that can match some of the best clubs in Europe. More importantly they have successfully managed to keep us in our ancestral home. Well done FSG.

Delighted to see a further sign of FSG’s commitment with the recent purchase of Luis Diaz without the prior sale of players to fund the purchase. Last time we purchased a Luis in January it worked out quite well, well apart from a few unsavoury instances   

Dev, here's an update on your transfer stats basis the last 10 seasons:

City have spent 1.7 BILLION Euros!

https://football-observatory.com/IMG/si ... /wp367/en/

Net                       Club                        Spend Income
-1075M€  Manchester United (ENG)      1545M€ 470M€
-984M€  Manchester City (ENG)      1699M€ 715M€
-583M€  Arsenal FC (ENG)              1029M€ 446M€
-429M€  Everton FC (ENG)                911M€ 482M€
-424M€  Aston Villa (ENG)                701M€ 277M€
-413M€  Chelsea FC (ENG)              1614M€ 1201M€
-374M€  West Ham United (ENG)        676M€ 302M€
-347M€  Liverpool FC (ENG)               1128M€ 781M€
-339M€  Newcastle United (ENG)        648M€ 309M€
-336M€  Tottenham Hotspur (ENG)      1013M€ 677M€
-292M€  Crystal Palace (ENG)               449M€       157M€
-275M€  Leicester City (ENG)                661M€ 386M€
-248M€  Brighton & Hove (ENG)        398M€ 150M€
-247M€  Wolverhampton FC (ENG)        482M€ 235M€
-181M€  Leeds United (ENG)                278M€ 97M€
-105M€  Burnley FC (ENG)                251M€ 146M€
-94M€  Watford FC (ENG)                363M€ 269M€
-61M€  Southampton FC (ENG)         592M€ 531M€
-4M€       Norwich City (ENG)                 260M€ 256M€
+43M€  Brentford FC (ENG)                 144M€ 187M€

I think that table just goes to show how important Jurgen is to us (and our business model), no effin way could an average manager or even a very good manager go toe to toe with the Guardiola’s and Tuchel’s of this world with a nett spend over a decade less than that of the likes of West Ham, Villa and Everton. Guardiola and Tuchel are very good managers themselves so to take them on with one hand essentially tied behind your back you need someone who isexceptional (which Jurgen is).
Problem is looking forward toward the future Jurgen Klopp’s don’t grow on tree’s, in fact these days there are probably more sugar daddy owners out there than exceptional managers.

Every club is guilty of criminal waste simply because they get the income from tv rights. Soton have spent 600 million... ffs...

Yes Reg I definitely need to update my figures !!

I think we have done brilliantly in the transfer market but maybe just a little bit too frugal in certain areas. Mind you having said that United and Everton have been useless given what they have spent which  clearly demonstrates that throwing money at the problem is not a guaranteed recipe for success.

Yes Reg I definitely need to update my figures !!

I think we have done brilliantly in the transfer market but maybe just a little bit too frugal in certain areas. Mind you having said that United and Everton have been useless given what they have spent which  clearly demonstrates that throwing money at the problem is not a guaranteed recipe for success.

I think what the table shows is that having the right structures and people in place is at least if not more important than the amounts of money you can allocate to transfers. Man Utd don’t have much to show for their spending while Real Madrid don’t even make the top 20 yet have multiple League and Champions League titles. Real Madrid sell well, but even they pale in comparison to Chelsea who have made £1.2bil in sales over the last decade. Being strategic and specific in the market is key to success rather than buying flavour of the month players and having a scattergun approach.

Interesting that 14 out of the 20 clubs are from the Premier League which shows why the likes of Real Madrid and Juventus refuse to let go of the ESL idea.

Liverpool make millions as £500m gap emerges between rivals
Liverpool have been smart in the transfer market in recent seasons with a £98m profit

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ByDave Powell
03:00, 12 FEB 2022
SPORT
Liverpool's transfer strategy in recent years has been both lauded and criticised.

For some their approach to recruitment through seeking value where others may have missed it thanks to statistical analysis is something that should be applauded at a time when heavy spend and strategy don't always go hand in hand.

For others it has been seen a sign of a perceived lack of ambition and investment into the club to the playing side of the club by owners Fenway Sports Group, something that threatens to leave them trailing the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea in the future.

Ultimately, the health of Liverpool as a football club on the pitch has been underpinned greatly by the health off it, and with the Reds one of only two Premier League clubs to have recorded an economic profit over the last five years - the other being Burnley - success has been delivered through the very clear FSG strategy, one that sees the Reds as one of very few top clubs that truly spend within their means.

A key aspect of that has been the success that the Reds have enjoyed through player recruitment and ensuring that money spent on players is done in a way doesn't see money head out of the door and fail to return in any meaningful way.

Figures presented by football finance expert Swiss Ramble have broken down outgoings of players over the past five years against what was paid to acquire their services in the first place.

Of those who have left the club in the last five years, a total of £234.1m was spent on their acquisitions, while the profit that has been returned on their sales comes in at £321.3m, with the profit coming out at £98.4m

Of course, much of that profit comes from the 2018 sale of Phillipe Coutinho to Barcelona for £142m, the Brazilian having initially signed for the Reds for £11.7m from Inter Milan in January of 2013. In the five years he was a Liverpool player he thrived and when he left Anfield the profit that was returned was £109.8m. The funds brought in from his sale allowed for the transformational signings of Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker.

Other big player profits came from academy product Rhian Brewster's £23.4m move to Sheffield United in 2020; Dominic Solanke's £19.1m switch to Bournemouth during the 2018/19 campaign; Harry Wilson's switch to Fulham last summer (£17.2m profit thanks to transfer fee and previous loan fees); Danny Ings' switch to Southampton in 2019 (£15.1m profit); Danny Ward's move to Leicester City (£12.5m profit); and Mamadou Sakho's switch to Crystal Palace (£10.4m profit).


Other players to have turned significant profits for Liverpool upon their departure have been Ki-Jana Hoever, Marko Grujic, Taiwon Awoniyi, Ryan Kent, Rafa Camacho, Kevin Stewart, Andre Wisdom, Ovie Ejaria, Kamil Grabara, Allan, Liam Millar and Herbie Kane.

Of the 37 players to have left the club in the last five years, 12 of them have been at a loss. That combined loss has come in at £159.5m. Much of that has been made up of players who have left the club on free transfers at the end of their contract, including Adam Lallana, Nathaniel Clyne, Lazar Markovic, Alberto Moreno, Emre Can and Gini Wijnaldum.

In contrast with some of their rivals, Chelsea's player trading during the same period has seen them make £198.6m profit on players, while Tottenham Hotspur made a loss of £51m; Manchester City made a loss of £131.8m; Arsenal a loss of £163m and Manchester United £192m.

Manchester City have won trophies through their losses on player spend, and their owners and fans would likely argue that has been a price worth paying.

But while Liverpool and Chelsea have both achieved silverware in the past five years, both of them getting their hands on a Champions League crown and Premier League title, Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur have little to show for their heavy losses when it comes to player trading. The gap between the trio and Liverpool standing at £504.4m.

Reg/Eagle I have always used the following link (which is a bit slow) to produce my signature figures:

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/transfe ... n=0&plus=0

The discrepancies are substantial especially with regards to City and United. Begs the question who is right? Got to say I prefer your figures however for the sake of consistency I have used the figures produced by the transfermarket website. I know we all criticise City for simply buying trophies however one thing is for certain, money is not everything when you take a look at what United have achieved over the last 10 years and what they have spent.

FSG stance changes after Luis Diaz move has knock-on effect with $140m USA deal
Liverpool's addition of Luis Diaz might not be the only big signing that FSG have sanctioned already this year

ByDave Powell
19:30, 22 MAR 2022

On both sides of the Atlantic, Fenway Sports Group have had a lack of willingness to invest in the on-field product levelled at them at times.

The way that FSG operate Liverpool and the Boston Red Sox means that investment into infrastructure has long been the means to beef up revenue streams that, ultimately, creates greater revenues for the teams themselves to invest in their own success and operate self sustainably. For some it is a model to be lauded, with running sports teams as both profitable and successful businesses having been seen as an exercise in futility for some years, for others it places an emphasis on bottom line over trophies.

But without the bottom line being healthy there is little chance of trophies in such a model, where debt loading via banks or owner financing isn't on the agenda. FSG have managed to ride out the impact of the pandemic better than a lot, particularly at Liverpool, with the Reds' combined two-year Covid losses of £50.8m making up just 6.5 per cent of the overall losses incurred by the six English Premier League clubs that were agitating for the formation of a European Super League almost a year ago.


Last January's transfer window for the Reds was one that understandably drew much ire from Liverpool fans as a total lack of investment in an injury ravaged squad woefully out of form almost derailed their season entirely and threatened to leave them without Champions League football, something that has become of enormous importance to FSG and their stewardship of Liverpool in recent seasons. Were it not for some remarkable management from Jurgen Klopp and fringe players playing at the very limit of themselves then it could well have been a season that saw all the good work from 2019 and 2020 undone in a matter of months.

The pandemic created huge uncertainty across sports, especially with campaigns played behind closed doors, the lucrative broadcasting rights impacted and concerns over whether the passion would come back with the opening up of society. But in recent months there have been signs that impact of Covid upon FSG may not have been as bad as it could have been after green lighting big moves both in Liverpool and in Boston.

Success on the field leads to success off the field. That is something that goes round and round. The time for investment into making sure the chances of success have a greater chance seems to have arrived, something that was kick started with the £49m addition of Luis Diaz from FC Porto in January in a deal that already looks a snip and one that has coincided with Liverpool chasing titles on three fronts having already bagged one in the shape of the Carabao Cup.

Diaz is one for the present and the future, and where last January was about just getting by with the additions of Ben Davies and Ozan Kabak for a combined £3m outlay, the move for Diaz was sanctioned because Tottenham Hotspur showed their hand ahead of the summer and Liverpool knew they had to act. They had the ability to, of course, and making a payment of around £8m as soon as the ink was on the paper to Porto was a huge selling point as it allowed the Portuguese side to pay some pressing debts that were right on deadline. Liverpool knew this and they used it as leverage in the deal to sign a player who had been valued above £70m.

In Boston the view has been in recent times that it is Liverpool that have been greater beneficiaries of playing investment, a train of thought likely flipped for some on this side of the pond. Accusations of doing things as cheaply as possibly had been loud during a miserable 2020 season, that was cut short by Covid but where the Red Sox finished dead last in their division.


But World Series winners under FSG in 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018, the Red Sox rallied in 2021 against expectations and went close to making it to another World Series, beaten in the American League Championship Series over seven games by the Houston Astros. The Red Sox were expected to tank for another campaign having failed to add much before the 2021, with the decision to trade away fan favourite and star player Mookie Betts before the 2020 season still an issue that rankled for many fans in Boston.

But the past weekend in Boston has seen a change in mood, where some fans believe that there is now a renewed interest in winning trophies after the Red Sox were set to land the biggest free agent in the market and a Major League Baseball star in Trevor Story. The reported figure for landing Story is claimed to be around $140m over six years, making him one of Boston's biggest investments in recent years and one that has seen them shift from also rans to contenders for the 2022 season, which will get underway in April after a delayed start.

And Boston team manager Alex Cora, a Liverpool fan, gave a nod to what had happened with the Reds in January as a demonstration of a willingness to invest in success on both sides of the Atlantic in 2022.

Cora told assembled reporters: "We’re going to try to do everything possible to be better. Chaim (Bloom, Boston chief baseball officer) and the group is relentless. There are a lot of phone calls, a lot of talks, recruiting. We’re becoming good at that. We’ll see where it takes us. It’s been fun. It’s been different.

"The guys are involved too, which is great. We all know what they want. They want to keep getting better and have a shot at winning the World Series and the front office and ownership, they know it. They added Luis Diaz in Liverpool over there. He’s doing a good job. We can hopefully add a few guys and they can do the job here."

Reds fans will be hoping the change in step in recent months from FSG extends to finding a solution to the contract stand-off with Mohamed Salah, as well as continued investment when the summer transfer window comes around.