You can buy my first e-book on Amazon in kindle format, it is called The Kopite View Season 2012-13, here is the link http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kopite-View-Season-2012-13-ebook/dp/B00BMW7JTA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1362780961&sr=1-1
The book consists of my match reports and articles from earlier in the season. If you like my blog, you will like my book. All the money is going to help Hillsborough Families.
A Selling Club
Liverpool are now finding themselves struggling to attract top players in the game but also struggling to hang onto their best players too. The latest transfer rumours regarding Suarez who is arguably Liverpool’s best player, is a major problem for the club, as his goals last season proved crucial in a mediocre mid-table League position finish for Liverpool.
Strikers like Suarez are irreplaceable and I fear Liverpool are resigned to the fact of losing him, but understandably they will want as much cash as possible for their star player. Big money for a player like Suarez can help Brendan Rodgers bring his own players in to shape Liverpool into the team that he wants, but he will have to find promising youngsters with outstanding potential, or players like Daniel Sturridge that want the chance to show prove themselves.
Many supporters and affiliates of Liverpool feel that Suarez should show loyalty to a club that has stood by him during some tough and controversial times at Liverpool. But loyalty is a word that is not regularly associated with the footballing vocabulary and Liverpool would be naïve to expect loyalty from a player who is from the other end of the world, and who has showed ambition throughout his career, and now Suarez looks to take another positive step in his career as he looks to display his talents at the highest level in the Champions League at a club that can provide that. Unfortunately for Liverpool, they can’t provide that next season and possibly not for the foreseeable future.
Not qualifying for the Champions League is a major problem for Liverpool and in recent years qualification for this elite competition has got tougher with the improving Tottenham Hotspur and the bankrolled Manchester City along with the usual suspects of Chelsea, Arsenal and current League Champions Manchester United. With only the top four earning entry into the Champions League Liverpool find themselves adrift of the teams mentioned.
It seems an awful long time ago since Liverpool were regular entrants into the Champions League, managing to win it in 2005 followed by another final 2 year later. Liverpool’s previous owners have not helped in Liverpool’s decline and the new owners have tried to steady the ship. But the loss of Rafa Benitez and the managerial revolving door in recent years has not helped along with the loss of world class players.
Liverpool lost players of world class calibre like Xabi Alonso, Mascherano and Fernando Torres which was always going to be detrimental to Liverpool’s team. Those players left because Liverpool couldn’t pay them the big money, but more importantly because Liverpool couldn’t offer them Champions League football as they found themselves in a team in decline. World class players are difficult to replace and Liverpool have struggled with inferior talent. Liverpool’s current owners FSG backed former manager Kenny Dalglish with money to build a team to challenge in the league, although most of the money was from the sale of Torres to Chelsea. But after allowing Dalglish to bring in many new players they impatiently sacked him after one full season after a disappointingly low position in the League, although he won the Carling Cup and lost in the FA Cup Final to Chelsea.
With trigger happy tactics the American owners were not going to give Dalglish time for his new signings to blossom under a second full season in charge. I still think it was a big mistake, but they have changed their attitude by employing the relatively inexperienced and young Brendan Rodgers to rebuild this massive club back to former glory. By cutting the wage bill, and not allowing for more money to be wasted like the Andy Carroll investment. FSG don’t seem to be giving Brendan Rodgers much money to spend unless he sells first to bring his own type of players to the club.
The sale of Torres to a rival club like Chelsea was a sore one to take for Liverpool as they have become a selling club in recent years with their top players being plucked from Liverpool’s grasp by the vultures of European football’s elite clubs. Now young players from the Rafa era like Lucas and Agger have matured into top players and this summer is a summer of worry for Brendan Rodgers as he tries to hang onto the nucleus of his team as the vultures circle once again.
Liverpool have shown vast signs of improvement after a difficult start to the season and Brendan Rodgers would look to hold onto his players as well as add to his squad which is very young and lacks experience.
The latest talk of star striker Luis Suarez wanting to leave Liverpool is another example of Liverpool as a selling club as the lure of Champions League football looks to be all too much for the Uruguayan, and if his departure materialises then that would result in another world class player exiting the Shankly Gates. Liverpool will no doubt look to get financially rewarded if he goes, but Liverpool will be unable to attract an equal as a replacement which will once again be detrimental to the team.
FSG have set their transfer sights on young promising talent who have a long shelf life and can be re-sold later on, but every team needs a mix of youth and experience to be a top side, alongside world class talent and Liverpool will continue to be a selling club until they bridge that gap to finish in the top four and the longer they are out of that elite group the more difficult it will become as players won’t come to Anfield just because they have a great history, it is the present that counts to these top players and they want to challenge for honours.
This summer is very important for Liverpool Football Club and the transfer activity that occurs will shape the new season for the Anfield club as they desperately try to break into the top four again.
The Kopite View 