The (near) past and future of Liverpool Football Club

FSG, owners of Liverpool FC, have a long-term vision for one of the most celebrated clubs in football history. The vision is to bring Liverpool back to the pinnacle of English and European football by building sustainable foundations for the future – which essentially means reinforcing the academy system to produce world-class players in the Liverpool way.

The model is not only the Liverpool of old but, perhaps more relevantly, Barcelona’s La Masia academy and the more recent emergence of Borussia Dortmund (the latter recently mentioned by Brendan Rodgers as a template for Liverpool).

No Liverpool fan worth his salt would argue with this long-term vision, which in reality predates the acquisition of the club by FSG. The man who put the foundations in place for the emergence of players like Sterling, Suso, Shelvey, Kelly, Robinson and Wisdom was Rafa Benitez. Rafa revolutionised the Liverpool youth setup by bringing in Rodolfo Borrell and Pep Segura (both of whom had worked previously in the Barcelona youth setup), Frank McParland and, perhaps equally importantly, Kenny Dalglish.

Borrell and Segura (with McParland) were hired to emulate the success of youth development at Barcelona, while the return of The King was a tentative attempt to bring to Liverpool the positive influence of former football giants along the lines of the Bayern Munich model.

At the same time, Benitez took a pragmatic approach to the shorter term development of the Liverpool squad, bringing in (and relinquishing) a host of players on an annual basis to keep Liverpool competitive throughout the rebuilding process. Much is made of Rafa’s spending and the debate over the success or failure of his transfer policy; however the cold ‘facts’ support his strategy.

Rafa’s net spend over six seasons was around £84 million (see for example http://lfcstats.co.uk/rafatransfers.html), of which £55 million alone was recouped through the sale of Fernando Torres a few months after Rafa’s departure. The returns on investment from Rafa’s policy were undeniable – with Liverpool winning the Champions League in 2005, competing in the final in 2007 and playing in the semi-final in 2008; ranking top of the heap in the European rankings; winning an FA Cup in 2006; and coming close to winning the EPL in 2008-9 (finishing agonisingly short as runners-up, with 10 wins in their last 11 games, a mere 4 points behind Manchester United).

Furthermore, Liverpool played “an attractive brand of attacking football” (Wikipedia) that resulted in handsome wins of 4-0 and 4-1 respectively over Real Madrid at the Bernabeu and Man United at Old Trafford.
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Interestingly enough, the last and least successful season under Rafa’s management saw a net influx of £10 million on the transfer front (as pointed out in the same article cited above, http://lfcstats.co.uk/rafatransfers.html), with the lack of sufficient investment in new players and Rafa’s failure to replace Xabi Alonso resulting in a lack of Champions League football for the first time in his managerial tenure.

Instead of giving the highly successful Spanish manager time to turn things round, the Liverpool hierarchy (in the dying days of the Hicks & Gillett regime) made the unfortunate decision to let Benitez go at the end of the 2009-10 season. Since Rafa’s departure, Liverpool have failed to qualify for Europe’s premier competition and (with the exception of one League Cup triumph and an FA Cup final under Dalglish) have been unable to regain the heights reached under Benitez. By the time Brendan Rodgers was chosen by FSG in the summer of 2012 to rejuvenate the team and return Liverpool to the Champions League, expectations had receded sharply from the Benitez days, whose target in each season was to win the EPL and / or the Champions League.

How has Rodgers fared in his first season at Liverpool? Informed observers such as Paul Tomkins have characterised results under Brendan Rodgers as a mixed bag (see, for example, http://tomkinstimes.com/2012/12/what-is-brendan-rodgers/ and http://tomkinstimes.com/2013/02/rodgers-is-great-rodgers-is-rubbish/), without offering a clear verdict on whether Rodgers has the potential to be a success at Liverpool in the medium to longer term.

Liverpool under Rodgers clearly have potential, with several brilliant displays of attacking football earning compliments from neutrals describing the team as the most attractive in the EPL. On the other hand, the tactics have lacked the sure touch of a Rafa Benitez and consistency has been missing all season, as defeats to teams in the bottom half o the table (Aston Villa, Stoke, Southampton) have marred Brendan’s record.

The killer instinct seems to be a crucial missing ingredient of Rodgers’ team, as Liverpool have failed to capitalise on dominance on the pitch to win games against Man United, Man City and Everton. Overall, performances suggest that Liverpool are on the path of recovery, with youngsters like Sterling, Suso and Wisdom becoming integral parts of the first team squad, smart acquisitions in the January transfer window (Coutinho, Sturridge) providing a sharper edge in attack, Suarez and Gerrard playing formidable football in most games, and players like Henderson, Enrique and Downing demonstrating the benefits of Brendan’s man management.
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