benno2

Excellent post. Interesting also that you imply with this that you start from the back first, which I think is true and the intelligent way of going about building a team. Everything springs from there. We've got a great goalkeeper, so the next area is the centre-half partnership. You're also right to point out that so many partnerships are greater than the sum of their parts, based on two players with complimentary skills, rather than requiring all the boxes ticked by both, which would of course be tremendously expensive. That's well worth mentioning in all this and something I missed out. This is where sabermetric type analyses can fall down, because part of what makes partnerships work can be intangible. I agree that none of our four current options tick enough of the necessary boxes going forward. I think you were a bit harsh on Carra though, even though I accept that he's on the decline and the hoofing really is a big issue. I'm bemused as to why Martin Kelly is only currently considered a full-back. I saw him a couple of times at centre-half for the reserves 2/3 years ago and thought he was a real prospect. I've asked this a couple of times here without ever having a reply, but does anyone know why this is? Have a couple of glaring weaknesses revealed themselves in his abilities there? He's tall enough, certainly good enough on the ball for the position, whereas I don't think he is quite for a full-back and he seemed to me to have very good positional sense. I thought he would by now be one to whom we look to find a compliment for the long-term, with Shawcross and Jones being excellent possible choices for that. I don't know much about Vertonghen or Luiz or Adil Rami or any of the others that get brought up. It will be crucial that we get this right though. If we could field a Skrtel / Agger partnership for a while, I'd think we could move further up the pitch as a team and concentrate initial recruitment efforts on the left-flank and striker positions. But we don't have that luxury. And I'd never really thought about the link between the type of defence and the need for an enforcer type of central midfielder. But I think you're probably right here. Utd have the right blend at centre-half that negates the need and so they can fill their midfield with skillful pass and move types. All-in-all this is quite a challenge for Comolli. I don't think you can get by without at least being proficient in the air, too many sides build their attacks around set-pieces in the Prem for this to be the case. In fact the last great side that got away with this was probably us with Hansen and Lawrenson. So I think your analysis is right. Very good post.

OK, Werner is obviously a smart guy and there may be reasons why this will succeed for us that I cannot see. But the way I see it, it doesn't make one jot of a difference what our world-wide profile is in this. Just because a game is played in Boston, or Dubai, or Melbourne, or Shanghai are people more likely to travel to see the game in any of those venues from Malaysia, Thailand or Norway or any other of our far-off stronglands than they are to Anfield? Of course they're not. When an NFL game goes to Wembley, are the people that turn up there because they're fans of one particular team, or because they like the game? As far as I'm aware, no one NFL franchise has yet been to London twice. So the game is being built up, not one franchise over another. Are the people that turn up to those events different every time? Of course they're not. Most were there for the first game, and the one after, and the one last week. This regardless of who was playing. And every time there's been a game there, there were different teams involved. Whether it's the Washington Redskins, the San Francisco 49ers, the New Orleans Saintsor whosoever it makes no difference. The fans turn out every time, repeat cutstomers regardless of who was playing. Read for this Chelsea, Liverpool, Aston Villa, West Ham Utd turning up to a far-flung city, the effect would be the same. We or Man Utd would likely attract a few more spectators, but not masses more than Man City, Arsenal or Chelsea would, just a bit more than Aston Villa or West Ham or whoever. As far as giving us an advantage with this is concerned, it would make sense to me if we played a 'home game' in Norway, but only if there was a stadium way above the capacity of Anfield. The Norwegian LFC public would be able to stand our ticket prices, which the Malaysian or Thai public would not by the way, because it's a novelty one-off and we have the fanbase there to ensure a sell-out. But the only way there would be a significant advantage to us is if there were an 80,000 or so seater stadium in Oslo to take advantage. But there isn't one, there's a 40,000 seater. Anfield is bigger and we sell that out game after game. Even if there were a huge increase in capacity, we'd be talking of a one-off bonus hit of £1-£2m per game. This is not going to make anything other than a trifling advantage to us. So why are top-end PL execs like Werner and Scudamore interested in this? Fair question right? I've no idea what Werner's view is, maybe he foresees LFC playing a game at the Patriots stadium in a couple of years time (there's little point taking it to Fenway, that's the same size as Anfield too) But from Scudamore's it's to shore up future TV revenue from overseas markets. Give a wider audience a series of one-off live hits of the PL 'product', then they're more likely to watch the rest of the season on tv. What happens to PL tv rights? They go into the PL pot divvied out to the range of members of the PL. So the West Broms and West Hams get as much benefit for any profits as we do. If this was such a great idea, why has no-one outside of Scudamore come out in favour of it? If Gill,or Abramovich, or Sheikh Mansour thought it was a great new way of making mountains of new money, then they'd be all over it. But they're not. Just the guy whose job it is to sell the league as a whole is in favour (and now a total newcomer), because it would highlight the league as a collective, not the individual clubs over one another. If as a result, the whole of the PL's leagues clubs prosper, then the advantage is over other European leagues. So the the PL can attract better players than those teams in other leagues. There's then a virtuous circle of all the best players play here. Except this would never happen either, because if it worked that well, then Real Madrid would play the odd game in New York too. Therefore the only advantage we'd gain over Milan, Barcelona and Bayern would be small unless the tv money that was secured by these marketing moves was huge. Even then, we'd have no significant avantage over Arsenal, Man City and Chelsea whatsoever, regardless how s*** their respective, worldwide fanbases are compared to ours.

Surely we'd gain no advantage over ManU, Arsenal, Chelsea etc. because if it were that successful, then they'd be doing it too.

Interesting, that surprises me. You're a season ticket holder right? I wonder how many more 'aren't that arsed'. Although I'm not sure what's that radical or new about European games.

A big one. But he will soon learn.

That's right. It's insane the amount of non-reds I've talked to that gave us no credit for signing him on the basis that he was certain to be a success. I ask them: 'So why were we the only serious bidders when it became clear he was prepared to leave then?' there's always either silence or total bulls*** that follows.

Maybe Mrs H isn't the only Linda he cleans?

I'm not sure s***ting on your most loyal fans i.e. your repeat paying customers is the vanguard of anything good.

Right again. And if it loses its integrity then its credibility comes next and that's when the game's bedrock starts to lose interest. Short-sighted gimmicks out!

And you most definitely can't take a game away from Anfield.

Good post and I like your thoughts. This strikes me as a bit cart before the horse though. The recruitment policy has to be subservient to the overall vision of where we want to be. We have to settle on a style of play which gives us the best chance of being successful and choose a recruitment policty, players (and coaches) from there. Is it easier to win at home and in Europe with tall, powerful players, with small, technical players, or does pace win over everything else etc., etc.? With the appointment of Comolli, we have to think from first principles. We want to be winners, so what styles of football have best enabled this? Rather than Arsenal as a model from a stylistic point of view, you'd have to say that on both the domestic and European stages the styles of Chelsea and Utd have been more successful. Or is it that Arsenal have been on the right track and with a twist (a dose more power perhaps) they could have been successful. For instance, if we want to play a high game, then that dictates that we need (much) quicker centre-halves, but also ones that aren't sucseptible aerially or we'll be too weak there. Is there a need for a midfield enforcer any more? I don't see very many at the top clubs anywhere. Positioning, athleticism and tactical nous have become more important perhaps. Maybe it's cheaper and more modern to have three Meireles / Defour / Lucas midfield all-rounder types rotating for two starting spots than blowing a large amount on one Mascherano for instance. It strikes me Utd currently do this. Arsenal might have been on the right track that young French African athletic types like Alex Song are a more cost-effective way of building a midfield but that you need two of that type, rather than just him to be successful and marry that with one less small, technical player. Recruiting smart from a financial point of view is one aspect of the moneyball theme. But half of the success of that ethos was the discovery of previously undervalued skills in putting a team together. Is this possible in football as well? I think this argument comes first and could make for some decent discussion.

Yes.

I'd be interested in that too. Some quick figures: cost of making a shirt: £5.00 overheads/ distribution: £3.00 average sale price worldwide: £35.00 adidas slice: £10.00 average retailer slice: £8.00 = LFC profit: £10.00 £5,000,000/£10 = 500,000 shirts sold solely because of Torres, none of which are replaced by whoever replaces him. It seems a bit of a stretch. It also assumes that with his declining output (which of course may change) + less exposure (no CL) that his shirts continue to sell at the same rate, this may easily have peaked and be declining. Of course, my guestimates on figures above may be wildly out. But forgive my scepticism on the 'Minimum £5m to £10m a year off pitch 'profit' says otherwise.' None of which would be replaceable with the transfer money used in whatever way. Does anyone have a better idea on what the per shirt profitability of merchandise sales to the club is? I also acknowledge that off-pitch profit is almost certainly derived from other revenues too, but I imagine that shirt sales forms the bulk of it.

Gerrard Meireles N'Gog

If he was rarely injured, there would be no question of this. But that isn't the case. At the moment though, there's a bit of a dearth of young, work-class centre forwards. Llorente might be one, but looks Madrid-bound. Plus we'd need to add, class and pace out wide to accommodate him. Maybe we'd have the money to do that. One of the principles of the Moneyball ethos is that if a player's saleable value is significantly above his actual current value, then you should look to sell. A lot depends on the medical outlook and also on Torres' happiness here. This could be a close one for NESV.

The pub one rivalled it I reckon.

When Huang came on the scene, the talk was of him buying the RBS debt. At the time he was lauded for being innovative in considering this ingenious approach to forcing H&G out, but was told to contact Barcap by RBS. There's some reason to believe he did this, then he flounced off saying the deal was dead. This, of course, made people think he was just a chancer solely after worldwide publicity. This is the line I personally believed at the time. The one niggling doubt there was that The Times had been duped and how was this so? Selling their paywall is one thing, but putting themselves in the position to be ridiculed was another. They would have tried to corroborate much of what they were being told. This said, they wouldn't be the first newspaper to fall for a big story. Later, it came out Huang wanted exclusivity in negotiations, something Broughton said was never going to be granted to anyone. Everything on the Chinese side goes quiet until after the deal with NESV is announced. Even then they are actually quiet, nothing is heard directly from any actual, potential Chinese bidder. There are a couple of reasons that make me believe they did try to go via the back door route of Mill Financial to get the club and that the 4 or 5 posters here insisting there was something in it aren't just falling for some bogus PR. One is along the lines of the Chinese gaining a foothold by acquiring debt. This is where they came into the story after all. That they should try a backdoor route after being re-buffed by RBS is consistent with their MO. Another is this Bamba guy. He went quiet after the initial Huang furore, but not before he had brought up the cryptic prospect of Gillett being f***ed financially, because there was this 'rocket that could be fired' that would cripple him. Bamba then re-appeared after a hiatus of about a month and predicted/stated that Hicks would have to work alone to rescue the ownership, because of the 'joint and several pact' he'd entered into with his partner. That Hicks was then seen to trawl the financial markets alone for debt capital to save his regime, made this look true. Then it came out late in the day that Gillett had indeed lost his shares to Mill Financial, so again Bamba had the credibility of being right on that score. Not just this, he also stated in a time when the internet s***storm around Purslow and Broughton was at its height, that they were doing the right thing behind the scenes and should be trusted. The whole thing was taking time because the path they had to tread through the whole financial and legal minefield was precarious and required great skill and dilligence to do properly. This was also borne out in the light of subsequent events. It is the very fact that this guy got so much right and that he was the one to break the Huang thing in the first place that makes me think he was indeed a true ITK at some level. That it turns out that the likes of DH, Mike, Hightown all know this guy makes me think that he was their source on this and/or that they had access to the same people. What doesn't quite add up is why the Chinese might have taken this circuitous route to trying to do the deal. But I have a feeling that will be down to them overthinking the whole thing. At the time of the revelations on the morning of the day the deal with NESV actually happened, I was prepared to believe this thing of the Chinese being involved on the Mill side of things, but that this was an unbelievably stupid way of going about it. Since though, I've come to think that if the Chinese were of the belief that Broughton, Purslow and Ayre could not be trusted and had a duty to push up the price as far as is possible through both legitimate and underhand tactics, in order to recover as much money for the then owners as possible, then this circuitous route was a way of avoiding that pitfall. Remember Huang's pronouncement of not being in this for the enrichment of the current owners? If they were wrong on this, then they were hardly alone in that. The home part of the board, it turned out, only had the club's interests at heart and were never patsies for Hicks. Had the Chinese gone through the official channels they would have been better off in hindsight they must now conclude. If they were outflanked at all, it was by the silence surrounding the bids from NESV and Lim right up to the point when they became public and it was revealed that NESV had been chosen and a deal signed, subject to the decision of the courts over the composition of the board. By then it was too late and the game was almost up. If until that point they believed there were no other bidders, which is entirely viable, given that there was never a whisper anywhere of either eventual, official bidder, it's possible they were waiting to play a game of brinkmanship with the RBS deadline to get the club as cheaply as possible (something like £75m for Gillett's share + £200m to pay off the banks). Hicks' legal game playing and delaying tactics gave them a last gasp chance to re-enter the fray by entering into a pact with Hicks himself. Ironic really, if I've got this right, because they chose the route they did to avoid being duped by him, now they were forced into being bedfellows. But it had got a whole lot more complicated and time and the legalities were against them and so they lost. And so what did they lose? Not just the opportunity to buy Liverpool FC. If all this is right, then the Chinese will never admit anything because they'll have lost £75m on the deal.. The only reason they acquired that debt was to get Gillet's share. The fact that this turned out to be worthless in the end, means that Gillett actually got out cheapest and Hicks and the Chinese would have been the losers. They will never be seen to admit that, so there will never be confirmation that they were behind Mill. There's a lot of supposition there, but that's my take on things.

That's been done before to be fair.

The agreement will still be with Liverpool FC though, so I can't see there being any outlet there.

He'd have trouble getting a work permit, surely. He's only played 7 times for Argentina.

The punishment is supposedly exclusion from UEFA competitions.

It was the Sunday Times.

Roque Santa Cruz